hello humanity nice to meet you. i am non-threatening come into my notes pspspsp
I have a side blog problem ✨
EU-posting @unstaerker
Charlie Bone Universe: @children-of-the-red-queen
Tolkien stuff: @1-small-world
& some other less relevant/active ones, ask away!
@halogenwarrior A sales pitch to you & anyone else reading this lmfao.
In short:
Children of the Red King (also called Charlie Bone) is a fantasy series aimed at middle schoolers that follows the titular Charlie as he gets into misadventures such as looking for a stolen baby, helping his time traveled relative, and trying to stop an ancient evil sorcerer from taking over the city, and more. Most of the cast has a unique power (called endowments) that helps or hinders Charlie along the way, from boosting electricity to hypnotism to conjuring ghosts with spears. There's a heavy focus on family as well, from Charlie's missing father to his quarreling relatives to the ancient and powerful magician-king almost everyone is descended from. There's very little romance, but not zero romance.
I'm not going to say it's the greatest of all middle school magic books ever, but I do think they're pretty good and worth looking into (add me at K_0809 on Discord for help getting digital versions of the books). If you like reading about preteens with magic powers who go to a gloomy school and get wrapped up in saving other characters from the villains, definitely give it a read!
Unless you're averse to stories where animals are injured (no animal death that I can remember offhand though), then due to an event in book 1 you'll want to exercise caution. There's also a 10 year boy who is blatantly neglected by his parents. As far as more direct harm to children, there's a line in book one about a child getting hit and references to a girl that might have maybe been killed and left behind a tattered cape. Otherwise, the villains prefer to hide children away, leave them for dead, throw them through time, trap them in paintings, and the like. It's a series for children, and nothing is very explicit, so most people should be ok to read the books.
In long (I start rambling so no offense taken if you stop reading here lmfao):
Ok so as far as my tags go:
#obligated to mention Children Of The Red King#is it a book for middle schoolers? yes#but does it have a 12 y/o half mermaid who's constantly attempting murder and is emotionally unwell and has a tragic backstory and#is under a curse to kill his father? yes#it also has a stolen hypnotized baby and a guy who turns into a beast every night and a long haired vaguely goth hypnotist#the hypnotist and the beast boy are even toxic friendship. yaoi if you're enlightened
Sadly, the incredibly awesome ocean boy does not show up until book 6. BUT. We get the black-clad hypnotist and his beloathed pet beast-guy from the very first book.
The hypnotist is Manfred Bloor, and he's a student (staff after he turns 19) at Bloor's Academy, which is arguably where the characters spend most of their time. Yes, his family owns the academy, and yes, they live there full time. Manfred is a bratty, tantrum throwing, petty little bitch, and I say this with affection.
The beast guy is Asa Pike. He and Manfred are NOT friends. Manfred is NOT shy about the contempt he holds for Asa. Even so, Asa obeys Manfred and often does dirty work for the Bloor family, like spying, chasing children, and generally haunting the castle ruins behind the Academy. He's a silly guy :3
As for their relationship... don't listen to me, listen to these Actual For Real Canon Quotes I'm Taking From The EPubs:
(note that the epubs did something to the punctuation and sometimes the spelling, and the physical books are written better than this)
Shipping them is something you do because you love angst and suffering and mutual misery. "Toxic yaoi" and it's because of [redacted spoilers but trust me that things get soooo bad between them].
As for ships in the vein of characters who like each other, we have canon romance Paton/Julia, a slowburn between an antisocial bookworm and a kindhearted bookseller. They have a bit of a rough start, but quickly become a couple to root for.
Speaking of Paton, he's a great character. He hates going outside in the daylight. He's forever writing a book. He used to keep his head down, but during the series he grows into a brave man who helps the good side. He kills someone (intentional) and burns down their house (not as intentional, but it's not like he feels bad either). Very cool guy.
I do think what I love most about the series is that there's a lot of characters who have cool powers and use them to do cool things. Storm guy literally blows other children into the air and out of the scene. Spirit Summoner guy summons ancient ghosts with spears. Ocean guy is constantly trying to drown people. Bird girl invents a new type of bird to turn into. These kids are great.
A lot of personalities are also just. fun. There's a flamboyant theater kid. Storm guy has wind around him that reacts to his moods. The moon influences how much of an asshole the half-mermaid is. There's creepy twins. There's an evil 6 year old. There's two grandmas that can't stand each other.
There's also a few different locations in the series that are cool. There's the gloomy school I mentioned earlier. There's a castle made of mirrors (they go there one (1) time). There's the crumbling ruins of a (different) castle. There's a cafe that only serves animals (humans may accompany their pets, but the cafe is FOR the pets). There's a gloomy land found inside a painting. There's a street called Darkly Wynd with three number 13s at the end where evil old sisters live. There's a bookshop.
As far as the hypnotized stolen baby... That's actually the main plot of the first book. Charlie learns about a girl whose father sold her years ago and searches for her so she can be reunited with her aunt.
Is the series perfect? No. But it's a fun read and I do recommend it a lot.
Also this post by @children-of-the-red-queen. I feel like this post is a very good argument for reading the books
like nothing can be underrated anymore. it HAS to be a success. cartoons have to either be spongebob level successes with immediate marketing or they're shelved a season or two in.
Movies have such inflated budgets that they NEED to break a billion in the box office just to make back what they cost. Anything less than a blockbuster smash is turned into a tax write-off.
a single triple A video game can destroy an entire studio if it doesn't meet expectations, which are already lofty enough as it is.
and everything has to appeal to the widest demographic possible, which can mean sterilizing anything creative about the work so it becomes as palatable as possible.
someone made a terrible youtube video searching for the source of this dog picture like it's lost media and he on-screen scrolls by a live tumblr link to this post before claiming i deleted my account, pulling up a wayback machine archived page, and then lying about contacting my ex boyfriend for more information
hate when I rb a post that i think is just good but it turns out it's vaguing like fifteen other posts and now it looks like I've take a Stance even though I just woke up and haven't even been born yet truly
If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earthquake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.
The best part of getting older is aging out of the demographic that gets killed in horror movies. I am now the age of the kooky local at the gas station who warns the band of college kids not to go to Camp Murderblood
