So I Wanted To Ask You A Bit More About Bunny And Ralph And Their ‘domestic Ménage’!  I Find It

james is actually just gonna wander around with Cordelia's glove and mourn over it for at least 1/3 of chain of thorns lol 😭

After I read the scene where Laurie recognises a bit of Andrew in an old photograph of Ralph, I went back to re-read (again) the part where Laurie meets Andrew for the first time because I was absolutely convinced there must be something in how he's described that clues you into Laurie making an unconscious connection to Ralph...only thing I came away with is that Laurie really likes blonds 😭

lost in the citadel by lil nas x is the perfect song for alastair and charles, i mean there are lines like:

"I remember when I met you, thought the universe sent you, thought you were someone I could vent to, so I hit your line, what you getting into?"

"I need time to get up and get off the floor, I need time to realize that I can't be yours, I need time to give up just like before, I love it how you know I'd only come right back for more."

"Why I thought it was forever? I only see you maybe never.

Why I thought we'd be together, when you treat it like whatever?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, my love is fallin' down, playing the victim when all my envisionings come slowly tumbling down, putting me back on the ground."

i just feel like it describes how Alastair feels at certain points

Frank Wilbert Stokes

maybe it's time for Thomas to stop ‘waiting for Alastair to look back’ and start going after him

why couldn't it just be that jem saw Jessie get belial's marks stripped off of him and that's what he was talking about when he told Emma about it

“Goodnight and great love to you. We see the same stars.”

— George Mallory, from a letter to his wife Ruth during the 1921 Everest Reconnaissance Expedition (via archaeologicals)

The way it was talked about before the book came out made me think there was going to be more of Elias and his interactions/relationship with Alastair and Sona. I mean, there must've been a scene where they each first interacted with him alone. Idk, it felt really meh to just have a total of about 3 scenes wherein Elias was either being weird, drunk or just horrible and then he dies. Like, "here hate him for being bad before I kill him." I think the whole thing should've been explored more, idk.

We also get one line that suggests he doesn't want to have the new baby, which is another thing that was hinted at a bunch and which I thought would actually be talked about openly at some point and explored, not just tucked away in a rant before he dies and never really formally addressed. And I might be misremembering, but weren't Alastair and Cordelia going to have secret and important meetings about him or something? There was one scene where they talked after dinner but that's it? And Sona was so sure he'd changed and needed to be given another chance - - why?

I realize the writing must be based around whatever drives the plot, so such scenes would seem add-on but that only calls into question why Alastair isn't so much more important to the plot 😤 smh,,,, I just think there could've been a lot more Carstairs scenes in the book that would've helped in understanding each of the Carstairs characters.

"I would whisper to some shadow made of moonlight, "Am I beautiful? It is for you alone. Say that you love me, for without you I cannot live." It was true, at least, that youth cannot live without hope."

-- The Persian Boy, Mary Renault