Fanmix: I'm a Resonant Body (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy - Gemma Doyle)
Fandom: The Gemma Doyle Trilogy
Subject: Gemma Doyle
Title: I'm a Resonant Body
About: this is a character study of Gemma Doyle, a girl with magical powers that can enter a world between life and death, and how she changes in a progress of a year from a lonely girl who blames herself for her mother's suicide and her father's subsequent laudanum and opium addiction to a strong woman who lived through lost love and heartache, who finds friendship in unlikely places, who binds the power of an entire world to herself and uses it in a positive and negative way, who fights evil beyong her magination with allies she'd never thought she had.
Notes: I had this super long post typed up which explained every single song choice and all the books, but livejournal decided to delete/not auto-save it, so...yeah, couldn't be bothered to type it all up again. Sorry. Layout isn't as snazzy as it was in the previous post either :/ I used a picture of Karen Gillan as Gemma.
ABOUT | After a fight with her mother in a busy street in Bombay, Gemma Doyle runs away and is hit with a vision that shows her mother committing suicide with a knife while a man they just met shortly before is killed by a black spirit when he tried to protect her. Sent off to boarding school in London, Gemma meets fellow students Felicity, Ann and Pippa who become friends against their will, but soon can't be seperated anymore. Through the diary of a former student - who turned out to be Gemma's mother - and her art teacher Ms Moore, the girls learn about the Realms, a magical world between life and death where the powerful witches from the Order help spirits crossing and keep the borders to our world protect from evil spirits. When two of them, Mary Dowd and Sarah Rees-Toome (Circe), betray them, the founder of the Spence Academy for Young Lady - and the High Priestess of the Order - sacrifises her life to the evil spirits (Soul Trackers) of the Winterlands to save their lives. Sarah, Mary and the school's founder, Euginia Spence, are presumed dead in a fire in the East Wing of Spence, but Sarah and Mary both start new lives under different names, while Mrs Spence was taken to the Winterlands. Gemma takes her friends into the Realms and the world of magic frees them from ourworldy boundaries. At the end of book one, Gemma destroys one of the sources of magic in the Realms when her mother's spirit gets corrupted by one of Circe's henchmen and tries to kill her and her friends. Her friend Pippa decides to stay in the Realms which leads to the death in our world. But instead of crossing over to the other side of the river, she's too afraid and slowly turns into a corrupted spirit, not good/not fully evil either which weighs heavy on Gemma's consciousness. In book two Gemma's protector Kartik, who she falls in love with throughout the trilogy, has to kill her in the name of the Rakshana, a secret brotherhood that used to protect the Order but now want the Realm's powers for themselves. She is told to bind the freed magic to "Eastern Star" in the Temple, a sacred place hidden inside the Realms. Instead she ends up binding the world's entire magic to herself after a fight with Circe who reveals herself at the end of book 2. She promises to form alliances with the Realm's creatures that helped her to find the Temple. In book 3, however, Gemma wants to keep the magic for herself and her friends (who she shares it with, including the dead ones like Pippa who turns crazy and power hungry and eventually is killed), and the longer she keeps it in herself, the more selfish and spiteful she gets, and it's slowly corrupting her soul. She has visions concerning the Tree of Souls, that real villian of the books that wants Gemma to be sacrifised to her so she can rule over the Realms and our world. The only person she trusts is Circe who guides her in her quest and tells her to explore the darkest corners in her soul, so when she meets with the inhabitant of the Tree of Souls she will know how to choose. Eventually she decides to fight for her loved ones, and during the big battle in the Winterlands, Gemma suffers a fatal wound. She must decide if she wants to join her sisters or if she comes back to life to finish what she's started. Kartik stands between her and the tree when it tries to kill her, absorbes her magic and because of that, sacrifises himself to the Tree of Soul which saves everyone's life. Gemma gives back her remaining powers to everyone and everything in the Realms; creatures, humans, the land itself, and promises that there will be new alliances forged. In the end, Gemma decides to go to New York to study and live as a free woman, Felicity moves to Paris with her young cousin and mother, and Ann becomes an actress. Kartik lives on in the lands of the Realms and visits Gemma in her dreams, waiting for her return to him after she lived a full and happy life.
01. Resonant Body | Maggie Rogers
Gemma + her new powers
I'm a resonant body
trace it along my skin
in the freckles and old scars
and the lines I have hid.
02. Strawberry Fiels Forever (Beatles Cover) | Bristol
Gemma, Felicity, Ann, Pippa + The Realms
This is torturous
Electricity between both of us
And this is dangerous
'cause I want you so much
But I hate your guts
I hate you
03. Open Your Eyes | Andrew Belle
Gemma + her mother
She'll be a star now
I will follow her lead
She'll be a scar now
I will still let her bleed
04. I Used To Dream | Broken Records
Gemma's guilt over Pippa's fate
Do you believe in reinvention
Sometimes do you wish you could watch it burn?
Your life you've built and the things you own
How I dreamt of her again last night
And how I could put the past to right
05. Alone on the Rope | Noel Gallagher's HFB
Gemma + father
I won't let your fight
Get lost in the fog
I won't let your dreams
Run away in the dark
I still recall the way you are
And that look in your eye
06. Pressing Flowers | The Civil Wars
Gemma + Circe
Meet me in the garden where the weeds grow tall
Down by the gate
I got a secret that I might tell
It'll give me away
07. Season Song | Blue States
Gemma + the girls
We are holding off the year
And now our season is here
All the balances are clear
Now that our time is here
In our perfect present tense
Through our white rose tinted lips
When the words have all been spent
08. Bones | MS MR
Gemma + Felicity/Pippa
Dig up her bones, but leave her soul alone
Lost in the pages of self made cages
Life slips away and the ghost come to play
These are hard times
These are hard times
For dreamers
And love-lost believers
09. Reach For Me | Krysta Rodriguez
Gemma/Kartik
I could fall in love with you
I could fall in love
In my dreams your dreams come true
Say you'll dream of us
...
Would you reach for me
I could wait for you
Would you reach for me
10. Dog Days Are Over | Florence + The Machine
Gemma + everyone
Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive
11. Four Seasons in One Day | Crowded House
Gemma + after the fight
Doesn't pay to make predictions
Sleeping on an unmade bed
Finding out wherever there is comfort there is pain
Only one step away
Like four seasons in one day
Blood dries up
Like rain, like rain
12. Old Pine | Ben Howard
Gemma + the girls + future
We grow, grow, steady as the morning
We grow, grow, older still
We grow, grow, happy as a new dawn
We grow, grow, older still
We grow, grow, steady as the flowers
We grow, grow, older still
We grow, grow, happy as a new dawn
We grow, grow, older still
{ listen on 8tracks }
like and/or reblog on tumblr
Subject: Gemma Doyle
Title: I'm a Resonant Body
About: this is a character study of Gemma Doyle, a girl with magical powers that can enter a world between life and death, and how she changes in a progress of a year from a lonely girl who blames herself for her mother's suicide and her father's subsequent laudanum and opium addiction to a strong woman who lived through lost love and heartache, who finds friendship in unlikely places, who binds the power of an entire world to herself and uses it in a positive and negative way, who fights evil beyong her magination with allies she'd never thought she had.
Notes: I had this super long post typed up which explained every single song choice and all the books, but livejournal decided to delete/not auto-save it, so...yeah, couldn't be bothered to type it all up again. Sorry. Layout isn't as snazzy as it was in the previous post either :/ I used a picture of Karen Gillan as Gemma.
ABOUT | After a fight with her mother in a busy street in Bombay, Gemma Doyle runs away and is hit with a vision that shows her mother committing suicide with a knife while a man they just met shortly before is killed by a black spirit when he tried to protect her. Sent off to boarding school in London, Gemma meets fellow students Felicity, Ann and Pippa who become friends against their will, but soon can't be seperated anymore. Through the diary of a former student - who turned out to be Gemma's mother - and her art teacher Ms Moore, the girls learn about the Realms, a magical world between life and death where the powerful witches from the Order help spirits crossing and keep the borders to our world protect from evil spirits. When two of them, Mary Dowd and Sarah Rees-Toome (Circe), betray them, the founder of the Spence Academy for Young Lady - and the High Priestess of the Order - sacrifises her life to the evil spirits (Soul Trackers) of the Winterlands to save their lives. Sarah, Mary and the school's founder, Euginia Spence, are presumed dead in a fire in the East Wing of Spence, but Sarah and Mary both start new lives under different names, while Mrs Spence was taken to the Winterlands. Gemma takes her friends into the Realms and the world of magic frees them from ourworldy boundaries. At the end of book one, Gemma destroys one of the sources of magic in the Realms when her mother's spirit gets corrupted by one of Circe's henchmen and tries to kill her and her friends. Her friend Pippa decides to stay in the Realms which leads to the death in our world. But instead of crossing over to the other side of the river, she's too afraid and slowly turns into a corrupted spirit, not good/not fully evil either which weighs heavy on Gemma's consciousness. In book two Gemma's protector Kartik, who she falls in love with throughout the trilogy, has to kill her in the name of the Rakshana, a secret brotherhood that used to protect the Order but now want the Realm's powers for themselves. She is told to bind the freed magic to "Eastern Star" in the Temple, a sacred place hidden inside the Realms. Instead she ends up binding the world's entire magic to herself after a fight with Circe who reveals herself at the end of book 2. She promises to form alliances with the Realm's creatures that helped her to find the Temple. In book 3, however, Gemma wants to keep the magic for herself and her friends (who she shares it with, including the dead ones like Pippa who turns crazy and power hungry and eventually is killed), and the longer she keeps it in herself, the more selfish and spiteful she gets, and it's slowly corrupting her soul. She has visions concerning the Tree of Souls, that real villian of the books that wants Gemma to be sacrifised to her so she can rule over the Realms and our world. The only person she trusts is Circe who guides her in her quest and tells her to explore the darkest corners in her soul, so when she meets with the inhabitant of the Tree of Souls she will know how to choose. Eventually she decides to fight for her loved ones, and during the big battle in the Winterlands, Gemma suffers a fatal wound. She must decide if she wants to join her sisters or if she comes back to life to finish what she's started. Kartik stands between her and the tree when it tries to kill her, absorbes her magic and because of that, sacrifises himself to the Tree of Soul which saves everyone's life. Gemma gives back her remaining powers to everyone and everything in the Realms; creatures, humans, the land itself, and promises that there will be new alliances forged. In the end, Gemma decides to go to New York to study and live as a free woman, Felicity moves to Paris with her young cousin and mother, and Ann becomes an actress. Kartik lives on in the lands of the Realms and visits Gemma in her dreams, waiting for her return to him after she lived a full and happy life.
01. Resonant Body | Maggie Rogers
Gemma + her new powers
I'm a resonant body
trace it along my skin
in the freckles and old scars
and the lines I have hid.
02. Strawberry Fiels Forever (Beatles Cover) | Bristol
Gemma, Felicity, Ann, Pippa + The Realms
This is torturous
Electricity between both of us
And this is dangerous
'cause I want you so much
But I hate your guts
I hate you
03. Open Your Eyes | Andrew Belle
Gemma + her mother
She'll be a star now
I will follow her lead
She'll be a scar now
I will still let her bleed
04. I Used To Dream | Broken Records
Gemma's guilt over Pippa's fate
Do you believe in reinvention
Sometimes do you wish you could watch it burn?
Your life you've built and the things you own
How I dreamt of her again last night
And how I could put the past to right
05. Alone on the Rope | Noel Gallagher's HFB
Gemma + father
I won't let your fight
Get lost in the fog
I won't let your dreams
Run away in the dark
I still recall the way you are
And that look in your eye
06. Pressing Flowers | The Civil Wars
Gemma + Circe
Meet me in the garden where the weeds grow tall
Down by the gate
I got a secret that I might tell
It'll give me away
07. Season Song | Blue States
Gemma + the girls
We are holding off the year
And now our season is here
All the balances are clear
Now that our time is here
In our perfect present tense
Through our white rose tinted lips
When the words have all been spent
08. Bones | MS MR
Gemma + Felicity/Pippa
Dig up her bones, but leave her soul alone
Lost in the pages of self made cages
Life slips away and the ghost come to play
These are hard times
These are hard times
For dreamers
And love-lost believers
09. Reach For Me | Krysta Rodriguez
Gemma/Kartik
I could fall in love with you
I could fall in love
In my dreams your dreams come true
Say you'll dream of us
...
Would you reach for me
I could wait for you
Would you reach for me
10. Dog Days Are Over | Florence + The Machine
Gemma + everyone
Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive
11. Four Seasons in One Day | Crowded House
Gemma + after the fight
Doesn't pay to make predictions
Sleeping on an unmade bed
Finding out wherever there is comfort there is pain
Only one step away
Like four seasons in one day
Blood dries up
Like rain, like rain
12. Old Pine | Ben Howard
Gemma + the girls + future
We grow, grow, steady as the morning
We grow, grow, older still
We grow, grow, happy as a new dawn
We grow, grow, older still
We grow, grow, steady as the flowers
We grow, grow, older still
We grow, grow, happy as a new dawn
We grow, grow, older still
{ listen on 8tracks }
like and/or reblog on tumblr