Vixenoire > Recent Status Updates

They defeat the Beast in Ember’s tomb via Alice’s sacrifice into a niffin. Q is brought to a centaur retreat and healed - now sporting a wooden arm. Jane Chatwin reveals she is the Watcherwoman and exploited them to win the war with the Beast (Martin). Q focuses on relearning magic and becomes powerful before leaving the retreat.

Fillory is in war. They are trying to gather clues and quests. Time moves differently. Mysteries of Fillory include is the Watcherwoman real? What of the god rams? Who is the bull?

Penny appears with a magic button that takes them to the Neitherlands. A plane between planes. He tells them of his study and that Fillory is real. Q cheats on Alice with Janet and Eliot. Relationships fail. The overall gloominess and depression is becoming monotonous now. They go to Fillory.

They travel to Brakebills South as geese for their intense lessons. Janet tells a story of a girl who disfigured her face and a boy with a crush who tried to save her - it was Alice’s brother who turned niffin (pure magic entity). They graduate and have a demon put into their backs for protection. They live in NYC now.

Penny, a punk, failed his exam to be rushed to second year and fights Quentin. The fight confused me. Penny kind of confuses me. If I remember right he is some kind of psychic.

Quentin discovers a dead body, the paramedic sends him to Brakebills where he passes a magic entrance exam, he studies hard and gets put into second year, he makes friends with Eliot and Alice, Alice’s brother died at Brakebills and wasn’t invited to the school, Alice and Quentin are places with Physical magic as their discipline.

Book 7 is so much better than the movies. I loved reading about the Hallows and how everything is starting to come together.

At Fleur and Bill’s wedding Luna’s dad walks in wearing what I know it as the symbol for the deathly hallows. Krum says to Harry this is the sign of Grindelwald, a dark wizard Dumbledore defeated. Grindelwald was never mentioned in the movies, not until Fantastic Beasts came out. So it’s interesting to read about him now. I never read HP 7, so this is all new to me.

“Wriggling round, he cried, ‘Stupefy!’ and a red bolt of light shot from his own wand…” I thought Harry couldn’t do magic because he had the Trace on him and the Ministry would arrest him.

A hurricane tears through the area but the aunt’s house remains in tact. The aunt is found alive. The DNA of the skeleton matches the aunt. Mysterious. I am not sure where the story will go.

Madeline became a witch hermit after talking to a ghost during childhood. The mysterious door leads to a cellar. Burnt remains belong to aunt Madeline. The town nearby hates witches. A visiting historian helps Phaedra (Fade).

“”In their stories, your aunt is powerful,” he says. “And dangerous.” “Really?” “Really. People are afraid of her.” “Why are people afraid of her?” “Because she is the Witch of Willow Sound.””

“”[…] Do not let anyone set a foot inside your aunt’s house. Not. A. Foot.” The connection dies before I can ask her why.”

“Chickadees swoop and dee-dee-dee past my head as I pry burrs from my bootlaces. My soles grind into the soft red humus of the forest floor, releasing whiffs of cedar needles.” So wonderfully descriptive. Maybe crazy to say considering the prologue and premise… but this is cozy.

The prologue is very strong - an old woman burning a body. Almost like a ritual, she pries it from the tree she nailed it to and feeds the remaining flesh to the forest animals. So far enjoying the writing style, and I can appreciate this is a Canadian novel set in Nova Scotia. I see it was inspired by real East Coast witch traditions.

If you have a busy schedule you don’t know how to manage your time. You should outsource tasks and let go of the rest. What horrible advice. While I am sure the first part is true for some, being busy isn’t always a skill issue. Better advice might be to consider priorities, set boundaries, and learn how to allocate energy.

Some of the sections feel like the blame is put on the reader because they “didn’t show up”. So horrible. If this wasn’t a recommendation I would put this in DNF.

More advice of “just let it go, move past it, accept it, and just do the thing”. This is such vague and bad advice. The sections are called “how to resolve this” but it just sounds like an instagram post about having motivation to change.

I don’t like this book. The section on perfectionism could have been so helpful for me personally and it isn’t. “Just do it. Just write. Just do that thing.” Is so unhelpful it is insane. Not liking the super vague advice and no personal experience from the writer.

The greatest act of self love is to no longer accept a life you are unhappy with. I can relate to that. I changed the way I ate because I was no longer happy with my health and appearance. And it worked to an extent. I feel like there are a whole lot of words - at least they are true statements - but not a lot of concrete and clear advice so far.

Recommended by my psychologist. What is my mountain? I think it’s a few things - anxiety, discontent, feeling of failure, and my struggle with self-worth and relationships.

Snape killing Dumbledore was written as if it didn’t pain him. Harry gave his friends his luck potion, which kept them alive during the battle. This wasn’t a thing in the movie.

Harry and Dumbledore venture into the cave where Voldemort took kids (to bully) during his tenure at the orphanage. This location wasn’t explained in the movie.

Memories of a house elf explain how Voldemort collected the Hufflepuff cup and Slytherin locket. In the movie it is unclear why Harry hunts for the cup. Or any of the horcruxes. Although at this point in the book we don’t know what a horcrux is yet.

Harry’s crush on Ginny was really spontaneous and never explained. And kind of pointless. It’s like Rowling has never loved another.

Dumbledore shows Harry Slughorn’s tampered memory of Voldemort at school. In the movie the word horcrux is muffled, but here they hear “horcrux” and only Slughorn’s response was changed. I prefer how the movie handled this memory.

The story of the Gaunts - Voldemort’s grandfather and mother (and uncle). His mother enchanted his father and fled her house when grandfather and uncle were sent to Azkaban. They had heirlooms from Slytherin, which Dumbledore now possesses. Harry’s first private lesson is this.

Tonks revives Harry on the train. In the movie it is Luna.

Harry was made Quidditch captain and Hermione said it puts him on the same level as prefects, so he can use their bathroom and everything. Yet on the train he doesn’t join them in the prefect car? Why would that be an exclusion?

Snape’s unbreakable vow. Dumbledore tells Harry they will have private lessons. The Minister visits the muggle Minister. Dark times. Malfoy is getting the vanishing cabinet restored.