The Ramblings Of A Creature Of Hobbit

Book in a series: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62226126-the-last-devil-to-die
Multiple POVs: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/136276174-the-search-party
Female author: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210795013-here-one-moment
Friendship: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196764063-the-day-after-the-party
Name in the title: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/197627190-the-reappearance-of-rachel-price
YA: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/174163045-the-dare
Biography/memoir: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211163702-kingmaker
Scifi/fantasy: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36630924-here-and-now-and-then
Book from TBR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28016509-the-girl-before

Substitution list:
*Author you've never read before
*Book older then you are
*Fairy Tale or Fairy Tale Retelling
*Graphic novel or Comic - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213477761-fate
*Pet or Animal Companion
*A main character over the age of 30
*Under 100 Pages - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63945326-the-gift
*Romance Plot or Sub-plot
*Translated https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61448964-g-kungen
*Humour
*Non- fiction
*With a Blue Cover - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62792245-five-bad-deeds
*Horror or Paranormal
*Colour in the Title
*Seasonal Read
*Book made into a film or tv series
*Historical (fiction or non-fiction)
*Number in title
*Female author
*Three word title - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37819454-three-days-missing
*Craft, Hobby or Cookbook
*Written by an author from your state or country
*Animal on the cover
*Disability or Mental health
*Read a book from the year you were born
*Mythology
*Title begins with first letter of your name
*Dystopian
*Book mentioned in another book
*Diverse reads
*One word title
*Award Winning/Bestseller
*Disabled Author
*Non-western Setting - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63247547-last-resort
*Set in your state/country
*Title is at Least Five Words Long
*indigenous author
*Has illustrations (but not a comic or graphic novel) - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62715477-fire-and-blood
*Set at a school/university
*No sex/romance
*Re-read

My Goodreads is here, feel free to follow: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/46625765?ref=nav_profile_l

Combination of not having done much ramble in a couple of weeks and also the fact that Yellowjackets has now returned and I'm conscious of the fact that yellowjackets_fans needs a spoiler policy in the info made me think of the subject for ramble, and it's spoilers.

After what period of time do people think spoilers are fair game? Something I came across once in a Supernatural group on Facebook was where someone had posted something about Season 8, and someone had got annoyed with them about that because they hadn't got that far yet so for them, that was a spoiler. While I can't remember exactly when this was, it was years after Season 8 had aired, so a lot of people were saying things about how it was ridiculous to expect no spoilers to be posted for something that had aired years ago, and if they were daft enough to read a group knowing they were years behind, that was on them. And okay, that one was fair enough, but what would be an acceptable period to make sure all spoilers are behind a cut? Some go for a week, does that sound reasonable?

Something that may make a difference is whether something is airing weekly, or whether it drops all at once (so those who choose to binge it all on Day 1 get ahead of those who only have time/prefer to watch one at a time). I particularly remember it coming up with You, although it'll have happened with others for sure, where conversations were going along the lines of:

Poster 1: "I can't believe X is dead!"
Poster 2: "I can't believe you just spoiled it, I'm not there yet!"
Poster 1: "It's your own fault for reading the group when you're not caught up, just mute it, fool!"

Thing is, it's not quite as simple as just muting it, fool. I've definitely had it where one of my shows has aired in the US when it's the middle of the night in my UK time zone, and I've got up in the morning to find my phone has decided to give me a Google News alert about "Legends of Tomorrow Just Killed Off *character who was actually improved by being a ghost*". Seriously, phone, can't you just stick to the usual guff you send me about big snowstorms that never actually come, train delays in Sydney and some MPs who've never spoken in Parliament...in Kenya? (all examples of real rubbish my phone thinks I want alerts about).

Something I do think is dickish is posting spoilers for something that hasn't actually aired yet. When season 3 of From was airing, there was a fuss over some eejits having posted spoilers on Reddit for the last few episodes of the season, before they'd aired. I made the conscious choice to avoid them at the time, so I don't know for certain now how much of it was actually legit (I caught a quick glimpse of one thing, but thought at the time that what I did see looked like gibberish that could have been created if someone asked ChatGPT how the season was going to end. One thing it claimed was going to happen with one particular character didn't end up coming to pass, so I think that one was just rubbish.)

Given the choice, I'd rather it was a choice I made for myself whether I get spoiled or not. The majority of the time, it's going to be a no, and I'd rather wait to see the episodes for myself. (Stems from when I was four, and I was so excited about my advent calendar that I opened half my windows in November. Then when it got to the actual dates in December and I'd already seen the pictures, the disappointment was such that it put me off any ideas of ever hunting for Christmas and birthday presents, and this has carried on through to me choosing not to seek out spoilers for my shows as well. I can even remember one time reading someone's theory for Lost about how Locke's storyline with his father was going to end, and they were close enough to what actually happened that it almost felt like a disappointment because I knew - even though that was no one's fault. Someone guessed what was going to happen before the episode aired, they guessed right, it was one of those things. The time when someone put "We will remember you, X" actually on a cut for some icons right after the episode aired and that was how I found out X had been killed off? That was just dickish.

I think the one time I've really made an exception to that was the time loads of my shows came back from hiatus at the same time and that happened to be when I was going to Vienna for a week with family, I knew I wouldn't be able to watch anything that week due to lack of time (and as it turned out, shit wifi as well) so on that occasion I was okay with it.

Book in a series: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62226126-the-last-devil-to-die
Multiple POVs: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/136276174-the-search-party
Female author: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210795013-here-one-moment
Friendship: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196764063-the-day-after-the-party

Substitution list:
*Author you've never read before
*Book older then you are
*Fairy Tale or Fairy Tale Retelling
*Graphic novel or Comic
*Pet or Animal Companion
*A main character over the age of 30
*Under 100 Pages - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63945326-the-gift
*Romance Plot or Sub-plot
*Translated
*Humour
*Non- fiction
*With a Blue Cover
*Horror or Paranormal
*Colour in the Title
*Seasonal Read
*Book made into a film or tv series
*Historical (fiction or non-fiction)
*Number in title
*Female author
*Three word title
*Craft, Hobby or Cookbook
*Written by an author from your state or country
*Animal on the cover
*Disability or Mental health
*Read a book from the year you were born
*Mythology
*Title begins with first letter of your name
*Dystopian
*Book mentioned in another book
*Diverse reads
*One word title
*Award Winning/Bestseller
*Disabled Author
*Non-western Setting
*Set in your state/country
*Title is at Least Five Words Long
*indigenous author
*Has illustrations (but not a comic or graphic novel) - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62715477-fire-and-blood
*Set at a school/university
*No sex/romance
*Re-read

Challenge #14

In your own space, create your own fandom challenge.

I challenge you to try something new. Maybe that's a fandom you haven't written in/made art for before, maybe if you usually write try making some graphics, or vice versa, maybe try a new character you haven't tried before (even if it's a character you don't actually like that much - they have their own stories to tell as well!) Maybe check out that new show, or author, you've been thinking about for a while but not got round to it yet. As long as it's new to you, anything goes.

Any, any, a suitcase of memories (From, Victor)

As Victor takes one last look at his suitcase before preparing to bury it one last time, he thinks back to the first time he buried it, when it contained mementoes of the people who had been there at the same time as his mother, as Eloise, as Christopher.

The curse trapping them all in town was broken now, and most people have taken the opportunity to return to their lives; for Victor, having been stuck there since 1978, there was nothing out there for him; he couldn’t see how he could adjust to the outside world as the others had described it, so he had made the decision to remain,

Now his suitcase contains mementoes of a new group of people; the drone that Randall had been going to give to his nephew for his birthday, Ethan’s Cromenockle book, Jade’s T shirt with cats on, Sara and Nathan’s old ceramic ornament, Tabitha’s bracelet.



The Vampire Diaries universe, any, the Merge (Caroline, Josie, Lizzie)

It’s Lizzie and Josie’s 22nd birthday; Caroline smiles to herself as she sits with Lizzie listening to her talking to Josie on Facetime about their plans, Lizzie having dinner with MG, Josie having just come back from a date with Penelope Park, who she’d reconnected with after arriving in Belgium (to Lizzie’s disapproval at first, although Lizzie and Penelope are making more effort with each other now).

Josie and Penelope are supposed to be arriving the next day for a birthday party Hope’s organising for both twins; Jed and Ben are coming back for it, Elena and Damon, Bonnie, Kaleb, MG, Wade, Finch and Cleo will be there.

As Lizzie starts talking about the people who can’t be there to celebrate with them, Rafael, Landon and Ethan, Caroline thinks all over again about how lucky they are that this event can actually take place with both twins without being marred by the Merge; being a vampire wasn’t necessarily what she would have hoped for Lizzie, but it meant that she still got to keep both girls, that they’d have many more birthdays past their 22nd, and the Merge would never have to take place.



any, any, you say the whole world's ending it already did (Dark, Magnus)

As recently as a week earlier, Magnus would have laughed off any stories about the supposed apocalypse that was meant to be happening in Winden. Yet faced with this man, apparently an older version of his childhood friend Jonas, saying he’s there to save them from it, and knowing that time travel exists, at this point he can believe anything.

As Magnus thinks back over the last year and how the world as he had always known it had been turned upside down, his father and younger brother missing (trapped in the past, he now knows, where he can never see them again) and his mother largely absent, he wonders why he should fear this apocalypse when the world as he had known it had ended months ago for him.



Any fandom, any canon character/any of your OCs, firsts and lasts (Dark, Bartosz/Silja)

The first time Bartosz meets Silja, he doesn’t know who she is; at this point he thinks she really is from 1890, completely separate from the insanity that is the time travel, Sic Mundus, his former best friend Jonas who’s just full of shit, and that she could represent a fresh start for him.

He thinks the last time he sees her is the day she dies giving birth to Agnes; the real last time he sees her is the first time she sees him, when she arrives as a six year old child, recognisable by the scar on her face, accompanied by Hannah, her mother.

Realising that Silja was part of the time travel loop after all, Hannah’s daughter, Jonas’s sister, Bartosz finds himself questioning their whole relationship; did Silja know who he was all along even as he had avoided all talk of the 2000s, had their whole relationship been a plan by Adam that she was complicit in, had she ever loved him at all?


any, any, I know I could have loved you / But you would not let me (Dark, Hannah/Michael)

“I could have loved you,” Hannah thinks as she sits by Michael’s grave, “but you never let me get to know you properly”. Months later, when the older version of their son explained Michael’s time travel history to her, Hannah understood why her husband had never been able to open up, knew she wouldn’t have believed him even if he had tried, but wondered if there could have been any way of them forming a closer connection.

“I could have loved you,” Michael had thought, “but I saw the way you always looked at Ulrich – my father – when you thought no one was looking, and I saw other people noticing, and I knew I would never be anything but second best to you.”


yellowjackets, any f/f, no death will tear us apart (Taissa/Van)

She’d only just reunited with Van; how was Taissa supposed to react to the fact that any reunion could only ever be brief due to Van’s cancer diagnosis, to the fact that Van had told her that they couldn’t even try?

Taissa had gone into politics to get things done, to make a change, now she was finding herself with something she couldn’t do anything about; but she wasn’t going to give up, she was determined that she’d be there for Van every step of the way.

Then Van came to her, said the doctors couldn’t understand it but she seemed to be in remission, and Taissa thought of Lottie’s comments about how the wilderness had wanted something; she still wasn’t sure how far she could believe that, but she had her miracle, nothing needed to tear her and Van apart after all.



Any, any, the antagonist time travels back to the start (Lost, Esau the smokey git)

Jacob won’t recognise him if he does happen to see him, neither will that woman who dared to call herself his mother; he’s wearing the face of John Locke, still yet to be born, not the face they would be familiar with.

If he’s correct, he’s landed in the days immediately before his village was burned by his so-called mother, in the days when he was making his plans to leave the island; it’s now or never for him to do what he has to do.

If he kills her now, before she has chance to thwart his plans to leave the island, then she and Jacob won’t be able to succeed in trapping him here, the last two thousand years of his life will never have happened, he’ll get to go home.



Any fandom, any characters, reverse amnesia: everyone else forgets you. (Lost, Kate)

With no one remembering who she is, Kate’s no longer a wanted woman; in the eyes of the world, Wayne Janssen’s death was caused by a genuine accidental gas explosion, and they’re not looking for anyone else in connection with it.

Diane doesn’t know who she is when Kate sees her in the hospital, she seems confused but at least she isn’t yelling for help; Kate’ll take that, it’s not as if she and Diane have had a close mother-daughter relationship for years anyway.

What’s harder is when she bumps into Jack, or Hurley or Sayid, who had been the most important people in her life for those few months, and now they don’t even know who she is.



any, any, deleted comment (Yellowjackets, Taissa)

Taissa always tried to ignore it when she got deleted comments on her official campaign social media pages; probably they were trolls, or Bathurst supporters, just leaving insults or nonsense which her campaign team were deleting before she saw them. And after the incidents where Bathurst had dropped hints about cannibalism during the time Taissa had spent out there in the wilderness post-plane crash, she was glad of it; those kinds of comments weren’t anything she wanted to see.

She tries not to wonder if any of the comments could have been left by Van, wanting to reach out to her, wish her luck and then thinking better of it and deleting her comments; Van’s part of her past now, Taissa’s married to Simone now, she knows she shouldn’t be thinking about her even as part of her wishes that at least one of those comments had come from Van.



any, any a parrot, a donkey, a dog, a bone / some of us never had a home / and if we did we left it long ago / and didn't know we were loved (Bodies, Elias)

Elias Mannix had never really felt he had a home; abandoned by his biological parents, raised by an adoptive family who knew it was only temporary, they may have claimed they wanted Elias to fulfil his destiny, but this had never made him feel loved; his mantra in 2053 may have been “know you are loved”, but he knew nothing of the kind.

In the 1890s, he was accepted into society, with the Harker name and the backing of the real Julian Harker’s mother, yet he always knew deep down that there was nothing real here; he knew he was not loved by Lady Agatha Harker.

In the moment now where Sarah Mannix finally accepted Elias as her son, as she embraced him his final thought before being erased from existence was that he was loved after all, maybe even had been long ago although he had never known it.



any, any, begging for death (Dark, Ulrich)

It had been the visit from Hannah in late 1987 that had done it, taunting him about the fact that she was carrying Egon Tiedemann’s child as though that was going to mean anything to him; it had been over thirty years now, Hannah had been nothing to Ulrich for a long time.

It had been Katharina he had hoped would walk through the door, ever since that day when she had come back to him, promised she would come back and help him get out of there, get Mikkel, get them both back home; something had to have happened to her, Katharina was not like Hannah, it would not have been like her to leave him trapped on this ward that had been his home since he’d first got stuck in 1953.

The future with Katharina was gone, he was never going to get the chance to see Mikkel again, or Magnus, or Martha, and Hannah’s visit had only served to remind him of all that was lost to him; Ulrich had come to the conclusion that death could only bring him relief from the pain.



Riverdale | Alice Cooper/FP Jones | prom night

As Alice walked into the prom, she briefly caught FP’s eye before he turned away and made a big point of talking to Fred and Mary. Fred and FP’s band were supporting the main band at the prom; even if Alice had been FP’s date, she wouldn’t have got to spend as much time with him as she would have liked, but at least Mary was good company, the two of them could have hung out while they waited for their dates.

Instead, Alice is going with Hal, she knows she’ll have his undivided attention tonight, yet as she pretends to laugh at his stupid joke, she looks over his shoulder at FP again and thinks that even with the limited amount of time he’d have been able to spend with her, she’d still have had a better time with him as her date.

Challenge #10

In your own space, talk about one of your fandom firsts. This could be your first fandom, your first fandom friend, the first fanwork you created, the first fanwork you interacted with... The options are endless!


My first ever fic was written for Lost, the first fandom to ever get me thinking that I could play an active role in it, the first to get me wanting to fill in the missing pieces, the first to give me an OTP (for those who don't know me, that is Sayid/Desmond), the first character to be Dead To Me (says she who has just written that same person - make that smoke thing - for the 3 sentence fiacthon). If you do know me, you won't be surprised to hear that the first fic I attempted was about the less often written characters (it was one about the family members of the crash survivors and their first Christmas following the crash).

Challenge #8

In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for a beloved character, relationship or fandom.


One I'm really into at the moment is From, about a town that traps anyone who happens to arrive there (this usually happens after seeing a fallen tree in the road). It's a horror (the characters are also faced with creatures that are kind of like vampires who come out at night, their origin story is mentioned in season 3 although there's going to be more to it I'm sure), a good cast - I first became aware of the show via its leading man Harold Perrineau (Michael from Lost) and went on to recognise August from Once Upon a Time and then Professor Shane from Vampire Diaries (even if I did spend the first episode looking at that guy and thinking "I know you, why do I know you?"). There's family dynamics to explore (Boyd and Ellis's initial estrangement and the story behind that), the hope of possibly finding a way out versus those who are reconciled to their fate. And for anyone worried about the idea of another Lost (this comparison has been made, and yes there are similarities) we are starting to get answers now!

Challenge #7

In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a wishlist of sorts.

My One True Crossover pairing is Rumple from Once Upon a Time and Rowena from Supernatural, so any kind of fic or art for them would be great.

I still love the idea of an iZombie fic where Liv is on romance writer brain right after solving the Zombie High murder case, starts writing Zombie High slash fiction and Ravi has to read it.

Anything post-S2 of The Wilds, which was cancelled way before its time.

CAT icons.

Anything Sayid/Desmond from Lost.

Anything at all from Dark, From or Yellowjackets.

Challenge #5

Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom.

Well, there's meeting all you guys of course!

Seriously though, fandom has given me that outlet to ramble and speculate on about what's coming up next in my shows, to get recommendations for other media, to get to know people who like the same stuff as I do (when everyone around me is talking about who's going to get evicted from Reality TV Show X, which is of no interest to me, I have this outlet where I can talk about stuff I like to people who'll know what I'm talking about.

One post I read touched on researching things for fandom, and that's definitely been one I've done (German Christmas traditions were possibly of more interest to me than 2004's World Series - some of you can probably guess what that one related to! Or possibly both if you know me well enough to know which fandoms I'm absolutely obsessed with right now)

And fandom kept me going during the pandemic when everything else was going to shit and I didn't see my family for over a year (that's the worst of being scattered across Craphole Island aka the UK).

Challenge #3

In your own space, talk about a fannish opinion you hold that has changed over time.


Despite society's insistence otherwise, the beliefs and opinions that we hold about things change over time. We thought it was important that we reflect that (and perhaps laugh at our previously ill-considered opinions) with this challenge.



I've been wracking my brains trying to think of something to answer this with, and then as I was typing out bits of a fanfic about the character in my icon, it came to me.

If you know me well, you will know that I will try writing any character at least once, and try to write as many characters as I can, but at one time, I used to avoid those characters I didn't like. As per my fandom history post, my Lost writing began life around writing Michael out after he shot Ana Lucia and Libby. (As far as that goes, I did mellow on Michael as time went on, he's no longer my hated character - come on down, Mr. Smokey McSmokeFace/What's His Face Bastard/The Dickhead in Black - so I guess that's a fannish opinion that changed over time too). And after a certain episode of Lost season 6 which I don't particularly want to rewatch, I did vow never to write Smokey McSmokeface again.

But over time, I realised that even if the character isn't exactly my favourite, (same applies to pairings), they still have story to tell and I can still do that for them. Let's take Dark, one of my current favourites. Hannah, the character in my icon, does some shitty things, a lot of which arise out of her obsession with Ulrich, but she's still got her story to tell.

Another one I could mention was Fringe. For anyone not familiar with the show, there was a character called Astrid, and a running gag with another character, Walter, repeatedly getting her name wrong, calling her things like Asterix, Asteroid, Asterisk. I found it particularly irritating when he used Astro, as that was my unviersity ex-boyfriend's nickname (he studied astrophysics, and he had the same first name as one of his friends, so that friendship group used to call both those guys nicknames to distinguish the two). But I'd just roll my eyes, grit my teeth, know that he wasn't calling her that at me and she'd probably be Asterisk the next episode. What I wasn't factoring in was how the actress, Jasika Nicole, felt about it until she spoke out about it five years ago. John Noble's apologised for it, although she's never blamed him - he was just doing what he had to with the scripts he was given. But reading about how Jasika Nicole didn't find that set a safe space puts a whole new perspective on the scripts.