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u/victoria-1304

r/victoria3 r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide r/mariokart r/fantasyromance r/throneofglassseries r/skyrim
▲ 19 r/throneofglassseries

I am NERVOUS😭

New ACOTAR books and new blurbs and I am so nervous for what/if SJM will do with the characters in TOG. I know Aelin is the Queen Who Walked Between Worlds and all that but my girl needs space and rest🥲 I don’t want any trouble near her.

(CC3 spoilers):

>!With Lidia and her kids, it’s heavily implied that whatever happened in TOG happened thousands of years before TOG, right? But does that matter? The crossover between CC and ACOTAR seems to not have involved any time travel, like when Amren says they haven’t heard Bryce’s language in ten thousand years which is also when the Asteri arrived in CC (it’s been a while since I read the books so I may be off). Shouldn’t that mean that if there is a crossover, then everyone in TOG will be safe?!<>!🥹!<

(ACOTAR3 spoilers):

>!I’ve also seen the theory that Bryaxis is Kaltain, which is a very compelling theory, but if that’s the only crossover then that would be kind of lacking. But I’m not sure how else SJM could do a crossover without punching a hole into "Kingsflame was blooming."!<

Idk!! I’m conflicted. On the one hand, a crossover would be cool, but mostly I just want everyone in TOG to live in peace🥹😆 Especially Aelin, Rowan, Manon, and everyone else who went through hell to give them that peace. Does anyone else feel both excited asf about the prospect of a crossover but also nervous as all hell for what might happen to the TOG characters?

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u/victoria-1304 — 3 days ago
▲ 20 r/throneofglassseries

How often do you guys reread?

I read the series a year ago and then I had to force myself to read something else because I just didn’t want to leave this world yet. Then I reread it in January, far sooner than I’d anticipated, which sated me for a while but all of a sudden I’m wanting to reread it again. I’ve been in such a reading slump for the past few months and I just miss how much TOG sucks me in. I was originally planning to reread it after ACOTAR 6, but I don’t think I can wait, and I just feel kind of nuts for wanting to read it three times in one year💀 Like I told one of my friends, with full sincerity and grief, that I miss Aelin so much😭 I knew I was always going to read it at least once a year, but I’ve been surprised by how often I get the urge to reread.

So how often do you guys reread it?💜

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u/victoria-1304 — 19 days ago
▲ 5 r/TheGirlSurvivalGuide

Perfume just refuses to stick to my skin and I’m kind of going insane

I’ve tried different kinds of perfume. I’ve tried different amounts of perfume. I’ve tried putting vaseline on my pulse points in an effort to make it stick. I’ve tried using perfume on all kinds of places on my body, including my hair. I’ve tried spraying it at different distances, all the way from right up against my skin to a foot away from it. And even when I use like fifteen sprays of the stuff, my friends tell me they can only smell it when they’re almost shoving their nose into my neck. And even then it only lasts an hour or two before the smell goes away.

Am I just cursed with skin that hates perfume? Or is there something I can do to just make the damn thing stay?

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u/victoria-1304 — 21 days ago
▲ 5 r/victoria3

new to the game. how am I supposed to fulfill this agreement, and why did my nation stop fulfilling them anyway?

u/victoria-1304 — 2 months ago
▲ 424 r/mariokart

My friend and I decided to try the gold kombo for fun and it’s safe to say it took some getting used to😭😭

u/victoria-1304 — 2 months ago
▲ 31 r/throneofglassseries

Our experience with Embers of Memory, the Throne of Glass card game🫶

Hi, this post contains spoilers for the books, including Kingdom of Ash, as the game is intended to be played when you've read the entire series.

So, a friend and I finally got around to playing the card game and it was fun! I'll go into more detail in a bit, but TLDR: We both agreed that it's an 8/10. It's clearly made by someone who knows what they're doing in terms of game design, and they're also clearly very knowledgeable about the series. It really does feel like you're actually in Aelin's head when playing. We found that the rules and terminology were often vague and unclear, and we had several moments where we realized we'd been playing the game wrong. I think clearer rules would've easily added another point and made it 9/10. But if you love the series then it's definitely worth picking up, especially if you like card games and cooperative games.

So, the long version: One player is Fenrys and the other is Aelin. The central mechanic are the cards, which Fenrys can add to Aelin's "Mind" in certain overlapping positions, and then Aelin can use those same cards to strengthen her "Resolve." Do this enough times and you've survived the day. Survive three days and you've completed the chapter. The next chapter will then add more story progression, as well as add more rules that make the game harder while also giving you the tools to deal with the new challenges.

The biggest praise I could give for the game is that they did a great job of making it really feel like Aelin's mind. All the cards have different characters from her life on them and as you add them to the Mind, it quickly becomes an overlapping and oftentimes confusing mess that you have to sort through. You can also "Split" the mind by taking a card that divides the mind into two sections. Then you have to choose which section to discard. Then there are demons (Maeve, Cairn, Erawan, the King, and Arobynn) who can take cards away from you and corrupt them if you're not careful, but if you gather seven cards in the Mind of the same suit (colour) on top of each other, you banish the demon with that suit by creating a "Memory." The Memory also helps Aelin because she can then reveal information that Fenrys otherwise wouldn't know.

I get what they were going for when they added the rule that you can't talk to each other, but I also think it's too much of an ask lol. Like, both he and I were trying to understand the rules as we played, and we often had to call each other out on mistakes, and it was really difficult to just avoid saying things like, "If you put that card there I can do XYZ with it" or whatever. It's a cooperative game and it felt really weird not to talk. That said, we did make sure to hide information that Fenrys isn't supposed to know (Aelin's Resolve cards) and it made it interesting at times.

Speaking of rules: Holy fuck they were hard to understand. On the first day we played this, we sat there for nine hours going through the seven chapters and desperately trying to understand the rules. It felt as though for every one minute of actual gameplay, we spent five minutes trying to understand rules. It didn't help that every time we finished a chapter, new rules were added. Some of them were easier to understand than the others, but then some of them were very difficult to understand.

When we were at like chapter 6 we realized we'd misunderstood two very important rules. One of them was because we were dumb, but the other was because the game used the words "Chapter" and "Game" synonymously (as in: "This card will remain out of use for the rest of the Chapter/Game.") We realized eventually that the cards we'd discarded in chapter 2 were supposed to come back in chapter 3, not be out of the game entirely until the end of the last chapter. If the game had just said "Chapter" and not "Game" then we wouldn't have made that mistake. Some of this is on us for sure, but really, clearer terminology can only help. We played several games over the course of three days and then on day three realized there was yet another rule we'd misunderstood because of a combination of unclear terminology and us just being dumb. It was frustrating. There is a glossary that we should have studied more closely, but even then, a lot of this could've been avoided with clearer terminology.

On the contrary, the new rules that get added to the game as you play give it a real sense of progression and scaling. As the demons get stronger, you get more tools to deal with them. As Aelin's Resolve weakens and becomes more difficult to maintain, you get abilities that really help you out. By the time you get to chapter 7, you're faced with a massive challenge at the very end that is practically only possible if you intentionally let the demons steal and taint Memory cards, only to then banish them later and use them to help Aelin break free. At the start, you're surviving and maintaining Aelin's Resolve, but by the end, you're strong enough to where you can break free. Frankly, it feels really fucking good. There are also optional challenges at the end that give the game some replay value and make it more difficult once you've mastered the basegame. And as someone who's a completionist in video games, it was really nice to have some goals and challenges to complete lol.

We really enjoyed the game overall, despite the flaws. The biggest issue is the lack of clarity in a lot of the rules, as well as how overwhelming they can be. It makes the game drag on for longer than it needs to, and it's not very fun to continuously have the feel of learning a new game over and over again. But by the time you know what you're doing, the game feels great. It's actually really challenging, especially by the end and with the extra challenges, and we'd often run into situations where we'd be forced to for example give demons some cards, otherwise we'd just lose.

And yeah, there are lots of ways to lose. If Fenrys runs out of cards, you lose. If the Mind runs out of cards, you lose. If Fenrys is unable to add cards to the Mind, you lose. If you don't have enough cards to start a day, you lose. And as the game goes on, new chapters introduce new ways you can lose the game. Losing a game, in-universe, means Aelin's mind breaks and she tells Maeve where the Wyrdkeys are, so it was honestly such a gut punch the few times we managed to lose the game lol.

And oh my god, the art style?? The cards are gorgeous, and I'm so happy they included some cards that just have the art on them. I'm legit going to frame them and use them for decoration. They are so beautiful.

Overall, it's easily worth it to play. Like I said, the way the game really makes you feel as though you're in Aelin's head and trying to help her escape her own demons is palpable. It feels really good to play, and it's properly challenging, too. The fact that you play as different characters also makes it easy to switch roles and give it another go. I would recommend it. Just don't be like us when it comes to the rules haha. Take your time and make sure you really understand a rule before moving on 💀

u/victoria-1304 — 3 months ago
▲ 118 r/throneofglassseries

From the top of a Norwegian mountain🇳🇴⛰️ Feeling so much like Terrasen🥹💚🦌

All that’s missing is the blooming Kingsflame across the fields and forests, but at least we found a stag😍🦌

u/victoria-1304 — 3 months ago
▲ 18 r/fantasyromance

What is it with Danielle L. Jensen and putting her characters in prisons? {The Bridge Kingdom series by Danielle L. Jensen}

Spoilers for all of {The Bridge Kingdom series by Danielle L. Jensen} ahead. And yes I know this is long but I finished this book today and I need to scream my thoughts somewhere so I can move on with my life. I have a lot of issues with this book, but I think this should be enough to get my point across.

Like, okay to start with we have Aren. He gets captured off-page at the end of book 1 and is then a prisoner for a large part of book 2. Lara rescues him, and then on their journey south, she gets captured by some townspeople. Not for long, but it's worth mentioning. Then they go home and save Ithicana.

In book 3, Zarrah is captured by Keris's brother and is then a prisoner for most of this book. Both she and Aren are in King Silas's palace which is supposedly impossible to escape from. But then they escape with the help of Lara and Keris. But then she's captured again at the end of the book, placed on Devil's Island which is supposedly impossible to escape from, and Keris has to rescue her again in book 4. Then they go home and kick her aunt to the curb. Already it feels like an overused trope, but I was able to put it aside since I love Zarrah, and I was enraptured by her and Keris’s story.

It's in book 6 that things truly go off the rails. While on the run towards Amarid, Ahnna and James get captured, then they escape, then they get captured again. They're placed in a prison called the Furnace which is supposedly impossible to escape from. Then they mange to escape and barely make it back to Ithicana in time to warn Aren and the others not to eat the poisoned food. Then they come up with a ridiculous plan to save Ithicana and when it immediately falls apart, Ahnna sneaks off north to Harendell, then soon after gets captured and almost gets executed. At the same time, James is also captured by Alexandra and is also seconds from death when he's saved.

Then to top it all off, both of them get captured one last time by Lestara on her ship.

Like what the hell did James and Ahnna do to make the author put them through this💀 Because that's what this feels like. It doesn't feel like there was any need to put Ahnna and James through all this. For some reason, the author wanted them in the Furnace so that's where they were put. But in reality, what the hell was even the point of it all? Had James stopped trying to kill her earlier and had they slipped away to Ithicana instead of going to Amarid, what really would've changed? Not much, honestly. As it is, it feels like pointless filler for the sake of drama.

It also feels like the author had to constantly one-up herself with the stakes. Aren was under watch, but he was still close to Ithicana and could find allies in the palace who could go where he could not. So then when Zarrah is imprisoned, she has to be put on a cannibal island that isn't even on the map. But she's rescued by Keris, so when James and Ahnna get captured, they get literally sealed into stone boxes while the world thinks they're dead. Each time the main characters get captured, the stakes have to be higher for whatever reason.

Like I could accept Aren and Zarrah breaking free, but come on. Ahnna made a fucking bomb in that little box? Using nothing but the meager rations and soap she got from the guards? I can accept Ithicanian ingenuity, but that is so silly.

And it's not just them either. Zarrah, apparently not having proven herself enough by escaping from two inescapable prisons already, is imprisoned with Keris in the Sky Palace, which is, you guessed it, supposedly impossible to escape from. I just wanted to shake the author and tell her enough's enough. This all just feels like her not knowing how to create effective stakes and story and so she's just falling back on putting her characters in prison.

On top of that, it also became silly that they kept them alive. After these characters managed to escape so often, why didn't Alexandra just kill them? I don't get it. The bad guys in this series keep suffering because they for some reason just can't bring themselves to kill the good guys when they have them in their grasp. And when they do try to kill them, they always manage to escape just in time. It was frustrating and repetitive, and when the author managed to squeeze in yet another moment like this at the very end of the book, I was just rolling my eyes and groaning. Because that's what happens when you show that there are next to zero consequences to them being captured: There are no stakes anymore when they’re in their enemy’s hands.

I wanted to like this book, but really, what was the point of books 5 and 6? They didn't need to exist. The only real character development we see is from Aren and Ahnna, the former accepting that Ahnna can't just be the king's sister and the latter forgiving Lara. It's nice, sure, but there was no reason this couldn't have happened in book 4, or even a novella. Like seriously, what is the point of the story books 5 and 6 are trying to tell?

It all feels like a repeat of things we've already seen. Arranged marriage, a kingdom of deceit where the walls have eyes and ears, a smart and capable prince next to a brash and insecure one, Ithicana under threat of destruction, a conniving spy master, fucking Lestara doing shit again, and it's just...These two books feel like they exist only because Ahnna "needed" her story, which frankly, I don't think she did. She's an amazing side character, but she is just not a good main character at all. It doesn't help that there is zero setup for this book in the rest of the series. It feels like a last minute addition, not like Zarrah and Keris.

To top it all off, I was frustrated that Ahnna stayed in Harendell. I get that she didn't want to live in Aren's shadow, and I get that they needed to be there for Oliver's sake. But Ahnna was born to be on Ithicana. Her true love is the smell of the ocean around her and her soldiers at her back. If I was in her shoes, I could never bring myself to return to a country that tried to kill me over and over again and treated me this way. It felt like an unnatural conclusion to her story in my opinion. And it's all just when she's made up with Lara and Aren. Right after mending their relationship, she has to leave for her husband's kingdom. Ugh.

I really loved the other books in this series, especially books 3 and 4. Zarrah is amazing and I love her to death. Same with Lara and Aren. But James and Ahnna...I always liked Ahnna, but I just can't bring myself to really care about James? Might be a me thing, but idk. I rated this book 2/5 which really sucks since I rated books 1-4 5/5🙃 I had some good times at least, but good lord I wish this series ended after book 4.

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u/victoria-1304 — 3 months ago
▲ 17 r/mariokart

Managed this snipe against my friend🥹 I’ll never be able to recreate this high😆

u/victoria-1304 — 4 months ago