The Hand Of Guidance // Blind Devotion

Cabeswater

Updated Liveship Trader designs for the end of Ship of Destiny 🩵

🧍book ask. 2 + 6 + 20 :^)

2. top 5 books of all time

ok i’m going with non-childrens lit novels 🤨 so

the tombs of atuan (ursula leguin)

annihilation (jeff vandermeer)

east of eden (john steinbeck)

royal assassin (robin hobb)

parable of the sower (octavia butler)

6. read this month

the golden compass (philip pullman)

powers (ursula leguin)

20. what i look for in a book

for getting into a book, i want “disappearing” prose that doesn’t distract me from the scene with unnatural rhythm or silly word choice, dialogue that’s either naturalist or theatrical but NOT forced to set up stupid lil quips, place descriptions that take me away, a feeling of promise that smth will happen.

for remembering & loving it after i’m done reading—a striking turn & sudden illumination towards the end of the book about what it all meant (even if the answer is “nothing” or “we don’t get to know”), a main character who got to be selfish, magnetic, and cunning, a world that felt wider & deeper than what was seen in this story, an ending that satisfied. doesn’t have to be uplifting or unpredictable as long as i hear the door click shut behind me on my way out yk.

im rereading the fifth season w gf and recalling my love for these characters. rly wanted to lean into alabaster and essun’s age… i love themb. 

May my followers forgive me for making them see these pictures for the fourth time.

What r Joyce’s thoughts on the rangers (also hi love ur poasts and J is sooo fun)

hi ! you’re so kind !! here we go.

herald. dumbass kid. joyce is nice to his face, playing into his dream narrative of a kindly, washed-up-but-still-got-it sidestep who trains him and even teases that she might get back into the hero game … while destroying his self-confidence on purpose. she pities & despises him, seeing him as a poster boy for letting the agencies & corporations that own heroes do whatever they want with you, willingly and happily, til you die or your parts are wearing out too fast to be worth the replacement cost. she’s not interested in seeing more complexity in him.

short term, breaking down herald is just the most efficient way to break down the rangers as a team, embarrass them on tv, make the public question why they’re reliant on such fallible heroes so blackout can give answers. long term, if her “training” takes herald out of the hero game now while he’s young and undamaged, before she unveils the system of abuse & vice behind it, well. she thinks he’ll come to thank her for the favor.

argent. threat, but not too hard to neutralize. joyce successfully plays the harmless therapist to plant false memories & the damocles sword. blackout comes out of their book 1 fights unscathed & not flagged as a telepath, their book 2 fight just dinged up. joyce is curious about argent’s motives, her apparent attraction to blackout, the source of her powers, her dynamic with the other rangers, but not enough to ever chase the rabbit while she’s on a mission, so she knows almost nothing about her.

chen. one of a very few ppl joyce shows some of her real personality to—mainly, the pissy part. they can’t help snipping at each other like a couple of mean old queens whenever they’re in a room. but it leaves them both tired, and sad, because even though they don’t see eye to eye at least they see each other, more than they do with many other people. which is why he’s the only one with any suspicion she might be blackout (25%). he’d be the second person she told about being a re-gene, if she was sure he wouldn’t kill her.

ortega. jesus christ, what doesn’t joyce think about ortega? sidestep loved him. she’s remembered as his sidekick. she resents that, deeply, because it implies that as soon as she got away from her creators she immediately poured herself into someone else’s shape instead of molding her own identity, and she thinks that might be true. joyce still loves him. she hit him with a car. she crashed a car with him in it. she likes how he looks with blood on his face. she hates to see him hurt.

she flirted with him as her puppet, josie, a younger woman who looks like sidestep, or maybe her daughter, while also flirting with him as herself. she turned him down when he asked joyce to the gala, accepted as josie, only to stop in front of the sidestep exhibit and throw a hissy fit about how “she” saw him talking with an older woman, and should she be worried? then as joyce demanded to know if him going out with josie was trading in for the younger model. only when she was confident he liked her real body more did she have josie break things off, pretending to be scared of his powers as a parting kick in the ribs for “making” her doubt. he hadn’t done anything.

she slept with him. she showed him her tattoos. she smacked him. she kissed him again. she cut her hair back to how she wore it when she was sidestep. she misses his mom.

she’s in on his hollow ground investigation, uncertain yet whether to help him or tangle up all his red strings while he’s distracted. she’s testing him, encouraging him to share his conspiracy theories, trying to see if he’s jaded or desperate enough to partner with blackout in exposing the truth. she wants him to be. she wants to be honest with him and she wants his sharp, suspicious mind. but she doesn’t want to see him brought low enough to get on her level, because she fell in love with an idealist. he calls her joy. it’s so. 🤌

well thanks for asking

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