#pathless-wood

Yes, this is a very famous show in Catalonia. "Merlí" is the 1st series (and better in my opinion) and "Merlí: Sapere Aude" is the spin-off sequel. Merlí has been one of the most popular fiction shows in Catalan TV of the last decade, especially among teenagers and young adults.

It's a show made by Catalonia's public TV channel (TV3), so it's not a foreigner's exoticizing view like in movies like the Cheetah Girls or most foreign movies/shows set here that usually only base themselves on Spanish stereotypes. I wouldn't say it's a distorted view of life, only that it's more gossip-worthy. It's distorted in the same way that any high school drama from the USA is a distorted view of life in the USA: it's a drama show, not a documentary, so people watch it for the drama. The main reason I'd say it's not realistic is beacause teenagers (in Merlí) and most young adults (in Merlí: Sapere Aude) don't get laid nearly as much in real life lol. Later in the show they went over the top on the sex scenes, though there aren't any more than in any average USA/English-language high school show. For the rest, it's quite accurate.

I wouldn't recommend watching Merlí: Sapere Aude before watching the original series Merlí. I think the original is on Amazon Prime and on Topic (depending on what country you're watching it from). It's also on TV3 a la carta for free but it doesn't have English subtitles there.

Ship Ask Meme

1. Name a ship that feels like home.

Bitterblue/Giddon from the Graceling Realms series by Kristin Cashore! It reminds me of this quote from Anne of Avonlea:

Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps. . . perhaps. . .love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.

It just makes me happy and content and has since I read the book where they first become best friends. That book came out nine years ago, and I reread it recently (to prepare for a new book in the series) and all my cozy feelings about the ship haven’t palled at all.

10. Name a ship that is funny.

Answered here!

21. Name your favorite ship from a book.

Okay, well, I have read Anna Smaill’s The Chimes twice since last October and I still haven’t stopped thinking about the main pairing, Simon/Lucien, so I’m gonna have to go with them at the moment.

It’s kind of a miracle I’m even talking about them because they’re in a novel with tropes  I normally avoid – 1) a dystopian world and 2) where the government rules over the people via memory loss (transmitted through music). I have a major squick for anything involving memory loss and I generally find  dystopias depressing, but I think the reason I loved this book is because it’s also a grown up fairy tale where our heroes are making off to set the world to rights by bringing back stories and memory. Without giving too much away, it’s also a fairy tale the of Farmboy who leaves on a heroic Quest and falls for the Prince who’s ran away from the tower – and I loved their relationship a LOT.

The book is in Simon’s (the Farmboy character) POV and I enjoyed how I could kind of see him fall in love bit by bit just based on his narration that’s like:

“I look at his fierce, hooded, unseeing eyes. Lucien springs fully formed out of the Thames. Lucien emerges clean and pale, untouched by Chimes. Lucien leads us with his miracle hearing under the city…”

And how it’s extra poignant because Lucien’s partially sighted and has to rely on sounds and body memory to get around and lead people, and Simon finds his physicality beautiful (which: words like beauty or attraction are never really said, I believe, but you just know it based on the words chosen, and that’s an authorial skill that I like!) And I love how a huge draw for Lucien is the way Simon can determinedly build words and memory together despite the music!memoryloss erasing them every day, which is some neat meta in itself – Simon is narrating this story, to you the reader, in first person POV, and his ability to do so is one reason Lucien falls for him? Idk, that’s how I interpreted it.

It’s also just a really tender and loving friends-to-lovers romance. I love that the author said she didn’t quite realize she was writing a slow burn friends-to-lovers at first and it just happened.

And yeah, like it tends to go in dystopias, their ultimate goal is to take down the government and bring memory and the sense of linear time back and without spoiling anything, both of them realize they have key roles  – Chosen One type roles (though the actual identity of *a* Chosen One is pretty debatable) that make it unclear whether they’ll actually survive setting the word to rights.

But Simon and Lucien approach it like: Okay, but for as long as we can, let’s have our love – we both know full well we could die saving our world and we are fine with dying for a good cause, but right now, in this moment, let’s have our love.” Which is another thing I was SUPER INTO. I basically…don’t often see love stories where both halves equally understand that for their significant other, the greater good has to first, but they love them even more for putting it first?

ALSO SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

OK so the first time I saw this post, it was clearly under your name and I was like, "Aw, she likes her students." But the second time, I didn't recognize it as yours and I got this vivid mental image of some dark red clumps of menstrual blood and a twelve-year-old being surprisingly enthusiastic about them.

Yay for acquiring one’s language of inheritance.

A majority of my high school crushes were named Mark or Marc. It was strange.

Followed you!

Awesome! I have TWO followers now.

6: Which book was the last one youreally, really loved?

 The Archived byVictoria Schwab

I’d had it in my TBR for over a year. The tagline said‘Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves’ so I thought it would be aboutMackenzie, the main character, keeping a library of the deceased’s memories orsomething? Just some cool world-building in general, because that’s what I’dcome to expect from the author.

Well! I got that, but I did not expect:

-an actual murder mystery, set in an old gothic hotel withgargoyles on the roof and blood-spatters on the floor and everything. It wasall so deliciously creepy.

-‘the dead’ to be echoes of their old selves wanderingaround in a dark and maze-like plane of existence, and the heroine has tocontain them, and by contain them, I mean use Buffy-esque moves on them so shecan lay them to rest in the Archive (which WAS a sort-of library!)

-this painful, real explorationof a grieving family, and how the loss they have suffered has made it easierfor Mackenzie to lead her double life.

- to have a heroine who was shut-off and hurting butinsanely vulnerable, and an exploration of exactly how much thedouble-life  isolates her. I found herkind of prickly at first and couldn’t quite connect with her, but by the end, Iloved Mackenzie like whoa.

-and finally, the main guy character, Wesley. Who disposesof walking shells of people and wears black eyeliner…and does it all whilebeing the most cheerful, exhuberant person ever.

-like, I am SO open to hard-edged girl/sunny guy ships butit has to be done in the right way —it has to respect the girl, for one:it has to have the guy be teasing but sweet and understanding of why she’s thatway. And it has to give her a sense of humor too, or else it wouldn’t work forme. And this is exactly how that ship went! And I loved it.

-it has a sequel (I’m ordering it as soon as I can!), but Idon’t know if the publication house will allow the author more books. Which isa damn shame because I would devour so many more books about this world andespecially the two main characters. 3