#;;shrouded-jed

[frank-a-mori-son]

Wrapping up my Ghostmyers take over with this image! Danny and Michael are going to enjoy some time off to just be with each other now - Thank you so much to everyone who sent an ask their way, they may still pop up from time to time, as I am def not done with them! Once again, thank you!

[kideternity]

I need to hunt J3d Mck@y for sport I've truly had enough of this man. Have you not ruined my life enough

[fistfuloflightning]

Hammond and Eider from Pfeos: A Voyage to Liberation

[youplaboum]

Shroud of Binding-Next part-

[optimist-pine]

When Skies Are Gray (Ch.1)

Summary: You cross paths with someone from your past on the worst day of your life (which is saying a lot).

Warnings: Typical TWD content! Injury, death, suggestions of SA, language, etc.

Word Count: 1,661

Era: Between seasons 3 & 4, before Rick stops going on runs

A/n: I convinced myself that Daryl Dixon and coffee shop AU could totally go together...

One mistake. Very likely your last one at that. However, judging by the look in the man's eye, you may have just enough time to squeeze in another before your life comes to a permanent close. A grand finale of utterly screwing up. Seems fitting.

    Despite everything, you don't actually desire the finality of death yet. The adrenaline surging through your bones reminds you that hope isn't completely gone until your body starts walking around, y'know, without your soul attached.

    Past the end of your revolver, the man's pistol aims back at you, a cruel, sordid smile crawling across his face as his gaze roams around your figure. "Came in here lookin' for somethin' to ease our appetites... Looks like we found ourselves some dessert instead." He sounds quite pleased with himself, and you can only imagine what terrible thoughts are filling his mind.

    You can't withhold the cold shiver that slips down your spine, cursing inwardly. Stupid. There were so many things you should've done differently to prevent this exact scenario from happening, but you'd gotten comfortable. 

    The small shop held the slightest promise of ammunition; that's the only reason you'd even risked investigating it with the encroaching threat of dusk at your heels. But you'd been sloppy in scoping the place out, and careless enough that when a cold hand grabbed you from behind you'd shot without a second thought.

     Now you're reaping the repercussions of your foolishness. The lump of a body lay bleeding on the dirty linoleum floor. And you stand trapped between two men with guns who have worse intentions than using them on you.

     "Dammit, man, she shot Jed!" The second man cries from behind you.

    The first man doesn't even spare a glance. "If he let some bitch shoot 'im, then he d'serves it." He spits

    "Duke, I dunno man." His boots shift nervously. "Let's just get tha' hell outta here." Please, please do your mind pleads.

    The man named Duke begins to saunter towards you slowly, toying with you. "My pal an' I here are gonna have a fun night courtesy of you, doll. Then, after, we'll kill ya." Your arms are beginning to feel the strain from holding out your own gun for so long. You readjust your grip, but what's the point? He's almost to you now. "How's that sound?" Your thoughts are swirling, there's no way you can escape without getting at least seriously injured. But if that's the only option besides giving up willingly... well, you'll take that chance. You have to.

    On the count of three... one... tw

    BLAM!

    You drop to the ground in a crouch, expecting the inevitable overwhelming pain of being shot to take over your body - but it never does. You lift your head to find Duke... dead. You whip around to see the other man with an arrow through his eye. Your gun's back out in an instant, aimed at a new target that emerges from behind a rusty shelf.

    The new man holds a crossbow, posture rigid and shoulders sturdy. A good portion of his face is blocked by the bow except for feathers of brunette hair shrouding a blue eye. 

    "Whoa, there." The sound of a hammer being cocked at your back sends a rush of fury through you. Was this some sort of sick joke? Held at gunpoint by two men, then being rescued only to be held at gunpoint again by two different men? If you were honest with yourself, it wasn't all that surprising though. As far as luck went you were permanently scraping the bottom of the barrel.

    The crossbow in front of you lowers suddenly. "Lav'nder?"

    Now that you can see both of them clearly those blue eyes look awfully familiar. "Dixon?"

    BLAM!

    A blinding pain floods through your right shoulder so quickly that you collapse, sharp waves of heat blooming and spreading and taking over your whole body. You can see your gun lying in the dust and dirt. Huh, you hadn't realized you'd dropped it. You study the weapon as the daylight dims; the sun must not be wasting any time in its descent this evening. You think someone is talking but their voice is fading, the pain is numbing, the darkness is turning to black. There's never been a colder place than the floor of this cursed little shop.

    One last stop before heading back home. An old hole-in-the-wall gun store on the off chance they'll find anything to help replenish the resources depleted in the fight against the Governor. 

    What little promise the place does have dissipates the moment a solitary gunshot rings through the air; all senses immediately on the alert. It isn't hard to discern the situation, the lead man's intentions are unmistakable. And so, they do what they've had to do too many times before.

    But when the woman turns around, what he sees takes him a minute to process. You. He knows you. The word sounds stupid, but it escapes him nonetheless. Then again, maybe not completely stupid because you do remember him.

    BLAM!

    "Dammit!" Daryl shouts, unleashing his arrow into the skull of the third man. The man they'd mistakenly presumed was already dead. He rushes to your side, inspecting the wound. Clean through the shoulder. Good. He removes his vest and sheds his long-sleeved shirt, tying it around your shoulder, holding pressure. By the time he manages to bring himself to look you in the eye, you're already out of it.

    Rick rifles around the men's belongings, gathering up their weapons and anything else that's useful. "You know her?" He asks, skeptical, with that particular cock of his head.

    Daryl nods. "M'yeah. I did." He replies softly. You looked so different now; ragged, weary... alone. But still, he would recognize you anywhere. "C'mon, we gotta get 'er back to Hershel and Dr. S."

    Rick's checking out your belongings now, snatching your gun off the floor to inspect it. "D'you trust her?" He asks.

    Daryl hefts you up into his arms - it's easier than it should be. "She's a good one." An understatement.

    "Heh, yeah." Rick chuckles, holding your gun out for him to inspect. "Cylinder's empty. Held off four men with a gun that wasn't even loaded." He gives Daryl a nod. "Let's get 'er home."

    Daryl sits with your head in his lap, the rest of your body carefully draped across the backseat of the truck, hair spilling haphazardly across his pant legs. His fingertips hover nervously above your face, the overwhelming urge to physically reassure himself that you're really here growing by the second. He's terrified though. Why? Jus' do it. Rough fingers ever so gently brush dirty locks behind your ear, revealing sun-worn skin gone pale.

    It's like he can't look long enough or hard enough at your face to make it feel true. To make you feel real. Are you? Out of anyone who could've found their way here from his past... Out of all the deadbeats and scumbags he would be unsurprised to find thriving in the lawlessness...

    It was you.

    The town had one lonely cafe, which was unfortunately sandwiched smack dab between the tattoo parlor and the pub - aka, Merle's playground. Once Merle had left for the military and then landed himself in prison, Daryl had kept to the same old routine more out of habit than desire. 

    He was on his way to the tattoo parlor late that afternoon - he can't remember why he was using the front entrance because he almost always went in through the back - but that day he had to walk past the happy little cafe to get there...

    It's a warm spring day, the air beginning to fill with the scent of flowers instead of just dirt and cold. Which also means that people are sitting out front of the little coffee joint straining to soak up the last rays of sunshine. The shop windows are open to let in the fresh air, making the place seem noisier than usual.

    "Lavender latte!" A barista shouts around the clamor from inside.

    The screech of metal on cement to his left as a girl pushes out her chair. Just as he's about to walk past, he hears the scuff of a foot against the sidewalk and suddenly she's falling toward him. He reaches up to brace himself and stabilize her shoulders as her palms thud against his chest.

    She pulls back, quick as a whip, eyes huge as pink begins to sprout on her cheeks. "I'm so sorry!" She blurts, gaze flickering around. It's weird, but he can't help but notice that she smells good, like really good. Flowers and citrus and earth, real things, not just some overpowering canned perfume like he's used to being around at the bar. She's cute too, feminine but not girly or gaudy, hair wind-whipped, hands and feet with remnants of dirt like she's been outside working. The pages of a paperback flutter in the breeze on the table behind her, the stem of a flower peeking out the bottom of the book.

    "Are you okay?" She asks, eyes focused surely on his now, irises deep and unwavering and... Idiot. He's staring and he hasn't said a thing and you're waiting for a response.

    "M'fine." He says with a grunt, crossing his arms. He almost tells you off for being so clumsy but the barista shouts again:

    "Lavender latte!"

    She brushes her hair behind her ear as if it's a nervous habit. "Oh, okay. That's good... I'd better go get that." She laughs, the corners of her lips just barely pulling up. She starts to walk away but then quickly turns back around. "Thank you!" A full smile this time, and then she disappears behind the door.

    He shakes his head. Entertaining thoughts about a girl like that is ridiculous. At least, that's what he tells the rapid drumming of his heart. Shut up.

[scvrmqueen]

Oooooo your requests are open <: I was wondering, how do you think Danny would react to another killer going after reader? Like, in a scenario where another killer has reader cornered?

Hi @mamamemequeen, thank you so much for your request! I love this idea! I hope this is okay!  ♡ 

┊ 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓 ⠀ཾ༵࿇ ˼ — Headcanons & one-shot.

┊ 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆(𝐒) ⠀ཾ༵࿇ ˼ — Danny Johnson x reader.

┊ 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 ⠀ཾ༵࿇ ˼ — Blood, gore, stalking, Danny being Danny

Danny is possessive - when he chooses a victim, he is all in.

This man literally spends weeks stalking you. That's weeks of hiding in the shadows learning your routine, taking detailed notes of the layout of your apartment, and crafting the perfect demise.

Not to mention, his sleep schedule is decimated thanks to you. Every waking hour that he isn't running around playing 'Jed Olsen' he's watching you. His pretty little muse.

So, you can imagine that he isn't pleased to find another killer taking up your time. I mean, what are the chances? He's almost a little jealous.

Danny may be calculated when it comes to the hunt, but he is a petulant child when his plans are altered.

Anyone who tries to hurt you has a major death wish. Danny won't let some amateur take what's his.

After all, you're his obsession.

The night had devolved into a fit of madness quicker than you could comprehend. One moment you were leaving work, the humid Florida air clinging to your skin. The next, you were pressed against the rough brick of a secluded alley - a steel blade digging into your neck. Rancid breath enveloped your senses, a demented chuckle escaping the lips hovering above your own.

"No one's gonna hear you scream," the man said, his free hand gliding up the exposed flesh of your thigh. Tears stained your flushed cheeks with the realization of your impending demise. The knife parted from your neck, and you squeezed your eyes shut as he raised it high above you, prepared to feel it slice through your flesh.

But the killing blow never came.

Something warm and wet splattered against your face, your eyes flying open in shock. The man's lifeless gaze greeted you, a knife protruding straight through his neck. The blade was ripped away, his corpse tossed away by the firm grasp of your savior.

Perhaps savior was too generous.

Standing before you was a figure shrouded in black, his face concealed by a theatric white mask. A strained gasp escaped your lips as you recalled the headline in the morning paper depicting the same plastic scream.

"Ghost face," you whispered in disbelief. What were the chances that you escaped the clutches of one demented psychopath only to be thrown to another?

"Very good, bunny," he commended with a mocking lilt. You recognized that alluring voice from the phone calls you had received earlier in the week. "You look so pretty covered in blood."

He stepped forward, his lithe figure towering above you as you attempted to press yourself further against the wall. You whimpered as he leaned down, his knife staining the curves of your jaw crimson.

"You're going to kill me," your voice trembled. Though intended as a question, you were far too aware of the Ghost Face's reputation to suspect an alterative outcome.

"Oh, of course I'm going to kill you doll face," the blade rested under your chin, forcing you to gaze into the black abyss encompassing his eyes. "But not yet. See, our fun has only just started. I just had to make sure no one else took what was mine."

[starmanleo]

Stranger of Paradise: A Character Exploration Part 3: Winds of Darkness

SOP has gotten to its first anniversary (way past that.)

Yells were yelled.

Elves were saved.

Light was returned to the land.

And anyone who is a fan of this series must now depend on the Opera Omnia for more character dialogue. Please OO, add them all. I need to see the group chibi fist bump.

But that is not the point of today. Today we are here to talk about the last 3 main characters of the Warriors of Light (Or Warriors of Calamity/Chaos, depending on what you like.)

Sophia

Sophia is the last Member of Jack's merry band of Warriors is the one making up the Wind Fiend, Tiamat. To those unfamiliar, it was that big dragon lady that you fought at the start of the series which confused a lot of players due to their familiarity with FF1's fiends.

While Sophia's main history outside of being Tiamat and being another Stranger taken by the Darkness is unfortunately shrouded in that darkness, we can at least look at her actual personality.

Sophia can be described as a grey jewel and someone whose wit cuts deeper than her magic (that's the part that burns you.) As soon as she joins the party, she comes with that air of professionalism and sense of class that you would sooner expect from royalty than someone who was found in the body of a dragon-hydra wearing her Friday dancing best. Yet with that, she is a member of the team that at times seems more committed to the cause than any of them. While her sense of class hides that for the most part, only second to Jack is she in her quest to kill chaos and bring peace to Cornelia.

Sophia (Headcannon, Assumptions, and Thoughts.)

Sophia in my perfect view of her, is what Jack is if he could find the proper thoughts to express his will. Her want to kill chaos is on par with the others and I think that if you were in some sort of debate on if these people weren't just a group of monster slaying weirdos trying to fist fight the embodiment of Trickle Down Economics, she would be the one that would get you signing up for their newsletter.

Sophia in this sense (of pure assumption mind you) is the steel and reinforcer for the group. Each of them has some sort of emotional weakness that leaves them awash against the ultimate goal of killing Chaos. Ash and his fear of failure, Jed and his fear of losing his purpose, and Neon's self-sacrifice to become the thing that the people could truly look towards as their hope in blood.

Sophia holds the group's focus and ensures that they follow through.

I'd like to also think of her as top of her class in whichever dystopian training academy the Strangers go to, but that's more fanfic territory than anything. She certainly has the self-discipline for it. I think that's the curse of a series of amnesiacs. All your answers were gone in the wind years ago.

[msclaritea]

Steven Berkoff says Benedict Cumberbatch for Bond | Evening Standard

Steven Berkoff says Benedict Cumberbatch for Bond

Berkoff was among actors Bill Nighy and Rafe Spall at Timothy Spall's art show

Prada - Arrivals - Milan Fashion Week - Womenswear Spring/Summer 2024

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

Who will play the next James Bond? The hunt for the next 007 is shrouded in secrecy and speculation. At Timothy Spall's art preview last night, we asked iconic playwright and theatre director Steven Berkoff, who once played a Bond villain, his ideal successor for the role.

Timothy Spall 'Winter Sun' Exhibition - Private View

TIMOTHY SPALL

JED CULLEN/DAVE BENETT/GETTY IMAGES

“You need somebody who has brilliance and articulation and a great voice. And I thought the ideal person would be Benedict Cumberbatch because he looks good, he’s very strong, he’s physical and he has an amazing voice," Berkoff said. Why is the voice so important? "If you don’t have a good voice then that doesn’t work. A great voice can dominate a film." The other upside? "If you have a great voice you don’t have to do so many stunts," Berkoff said..."

HOLY DRAWERS, BATMAN!

Benedict was not even at the Spall exhibition and they were over there talking about him. Superb!

Up to him if he wants to go for Bond, though. I see the pros and cons. Can't say I'm crazy about the idea but hey, since the Academy Awards is so hellbent on being a representative of shady practices, Ben might as well play another icon. I've also seen online trolls suggesting this for years, but never anyone as big as Berkoff.

[xycuro-illuminati]

Jed Mckay... When I find you for what you did to Shroud,, WHEN I FIND YOU-

[insidious-journalist]

"Danny Johnson alias Jed Oelsen, Ghostface, master of the shroud stealth ability, journalist and killer in service of the Entity." Krampus spoke, his dark vibrating voice echoing through the hallways of the RPD. Huffing and loud snorts came from the horned face, ears twitching slightly.

His hooves made a loud, clacking sound as he walked forward, snowflakes landing in his paths as the cold stare of goat eyes met the mask.

Danny really should find a better place to relax.

He froze up at the main desk, slowly bringing his gaze to the left as the soft clacks of hooves made their way towards him. He couldn't recognize the voice, not well anyways. Closest he could imagine as to who this could be was the Nemesis, but even then, it could barely speak. And then Krampus made his appearance and Danny hesitantly scooted back away in his chair, hand on his knife.

This thing knew who he was, not much of a surprise sure but it sounded so oddly confident and accusatory that it made him a little twitchy. As much as he was an absolute menace to survivors and even some killers, there wasn't much he could do against those with supernatural strength and ability. Steadying him, Danny acknowledged the other.

"Who's here to give me such a great introduction if I may ask?"

[meta-squash]

Squash’s Book Roundup of 2022

This year I read 68 books. My original goal was to match what I read in 2019, which was 60, but I surpassed it with quite a bit of time to spare.

Books Read In 2022:

-The Man Who Would Be King and other stories by Rudyard Kipling -Futz by Rochelle Owens -The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht -Funeral Rites by Jean Genet -The Grip of It by Jac Jemc -Jules et Jim by Henri-Pierre Roche -Hashish, Wine, Opium by Charles Baudelaire and Theophile Gautier -The Blacks: a clown show by Jean Genet -One, No One, One Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello -Cain’s Book by Alexander Trocchi -The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren -Three-Line Novels (Illustrated) by Felix Feneon, Illustrated by Joanna Neborsky -Black Box Thrillers: Four Novels (They Shoot Horses Don’t They, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, No Pockets in a Shroud, I Should Have Stayed Home) by Horace McCoy -The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas by Gustave Flaubert -The Chairs by Eugene Ionesco -Illusions by Richard Bach -Mole People by Jennifer Toth -The Rainbow Stories by William T Vollmann -Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse -Equus by Peter Shaffer (reread) -Ghosty Men by Franz Lidz -A Happy Death by Albert Camus -Six Miles to Roadside Business by Michael Doane -Envy by Yury Olesha -The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West -Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche -The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by Margalit Fox -The Cat Inside by William S Burroughs -Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry -Camino Real by Tennessee Williams (reread) -The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg -The Quick & The Dead by Joy Williams -Comemadre by Roque Larraquy -The Zoo Story by Edward Albee -The Bridge by Hart Crane -A Likely Lad by Peter Doherty -The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel -The Law In Shambles by Thomas Geoghegan -The Anti-Christ by Friedrich Nietzche -The Maids and Deathwatch by Jean Genet -Intimate Journals by Charles Baudelaire -The Screens by Jean Genet -Inferno by Dante Alighieri (reread) -The Quarry by Friedrich Durrenmatt -A Season In Hell by Arthur Rimbaud (reread) -Destruction Was My Beatrice: Dada and the Unmaking of the Twentieth Century by Jed Rasula -Pere Ubu by Alfred Jarry -Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath by Anne Stevenson -Loot by Joe Orton -Julia And The Bazooka and other stories by Anna Kavan -The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda by Ishmael Reed -If You Were There: Missing People and the Marks They Leave Behind by Francisco Garcia -Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters -Indelicacy by Amina Cain -Withdrawn Traces by Sara Hawys Roberts (an unfortunate but necessary reread) -Sarah by JT LeRoy (reread) -How Lucky by Will Leitch -Gyo by Junji Ito (reread) -Joe Gould’s Teeth by Jill Lepore -Saint Glinglin by Raymond Queneau -Bakkai by Anne Carson -Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers -McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh -Moby Dick by Herman Melville -The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector -In the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (reread from childhood) -Chicago: City on the Make by Nelson Algren -The Medium is the Massage by Malcolm McLuhan

~Superlatives And Thoughts~

Fiction books read: 48 Non-fiction books read: 20

Favorite book: This is so hard! I almost want to three-way tie it between Under The Volcano, The Quick & The Dead, and The Man With The Golden Arm, but I’m not going to. I think my favorite is Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry. It’s an absolutely beautiful book with such intense descriptions. The way that it illustrates the vastly different emotional and mental states of its three main characters reminded me of another favorite, Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey. Lowry is amazing at leaving narrative breadcrumbs, letting the reader find their way through the emotional tangle he’s recording. The way he writes the erratic, confused, crumbling inner monologue of the main character as he grows more and more ill was my favorite part.

Least favorite book: I’d say Withdrawn Traces, but it’s a reread, so I think I’ll have to go with Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. I dedicated a whole long post to it already, so I’ll just say that the concept of the book is great. I loved the whole idea of it. But the execution was awful. It’s like the exact opposite of Under The Volcano. The characters didn’t feel like real people, which would have been fine if the book was one written in that kind of surreal or artistic style where characters aren’t expected to speak like everyday people. But the narrative style as well as much of the dialogue was attempting realism, so the lack of realistic humanity of the characters was a big problem. The book didn’t ever give the reader the benefit of the doubt regarding their ability to infer or empathize or figure things out for themselves. Every character’s emotion and reaction was fully explained as it happened, rather than leaving the reader some breathing space to watch characters act or talk and slowly understand what’s going on between them. Points for unique idea and queer literature about actual adults, but massive deduction for the poor execution.

Unexpected/surprising book: The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by Margalit Fox. This is the first book about archaeology I’ve ever read. I picked it up as I was shelving at work, read the inner flap to make sure it was going to the right spot, and then ended up reading the whole thing. It was a fascinating look at the decades-long attempt to crack the ancient Linear B script, the challenges faced by people who tried and the various theories about its origin and what kind of a language/script it was. The book was really engaging, the author was clearly very passionate and emotional about her subjects and it made the whole thing both fascinating and fun to read. And I learned a bunch of new things about history and linguistics and archaeology!

Most fun book: How Lucky by Will Leitch. It was literally just a Fun Book. The main character is a quadriplegic man who witnesses what he thinks is a kidnapping. Because he a wheelchair user and also can’t talk except through typing with one hand, his attempts to figure out and relay to police what he’s seen are hindered, even with the help of his aid and his best friend. But he’s determined to find out what happened and save the victim of the kidnapping. It’s just a fun book, an adventure, the narrative voice is energetic and good-natured and it doesn’t go deeply into symbolism or philosophy or anything.

Book that taught me the most: Destruction Was My Beatrice by Jed Rasula. This book probably isn’t for everyone, but I love Dadaism, so this book was absolutely for me. I had a basic knowledge of the Dadaist art movement before, but I learned so much, and gained a few new favorite artists as well as a lot of general knowledge about the Dada movement and its offshoots and members and context and all sorts of cool stuff.

Most interesting/thought provoking book: Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I annotated my copy like crazy. I never had to read it in school, but I had a blast finally reading it now. There’s just so much going on in it, symbolically and narratively. I think I almost consider it the first Modernist novel, because it felt more Modernist than Romantic to me. I had to do so much googling while reading it because there are so many obscure biblical references that are clear symbolism, and my bible knowledge is severely lacking. This book gave me a lot of thoughts about narrative and the construction of the story, the mechanic of a narrator that’s not supposed to be omniscient but still kind of is, and so many other things. I really love Moby Dick, and I kind of already want to reread it.

Other thoughts/Books I want to mention but don’t have superlatives for: Funeral Rites was the best book by Jean Genet, which I was not expecting compared to how much I loved his other works. It would be hard for me to describe exactly why I liked this one so much to people who don’t know his style and his weird literary tics, because it really is a compounding of all those weird passions and ideals and personal symbols he had, but I really loved it. Reading The Grip Of It by Jac Jemc taught me that House Of Leaves has ruined me for any other horror novel that is specifically environmental. It wasn’t a bad book, just nothing can surpass House Of Leaves for horror novels about buildings. The Man With The Golden Arm by Nelson Algren was absolutely beautiful. I went in expecting a Maltese Falcon-type noir and instead I got a novel that was basically poetry about characters who were flawed and fucked up and sad but totally lovable. Plus it takes place only a few blocks from my workplace! The Rainbow Stories by William T Vollmann was amazing and I totally love his style. I think out of all the stories in that book my favorite was probably The Blue Yonder, the piece about the murderer with a sort of split personality. Scintillant Orange with all its biblical references and weird modernization of bible stories was a blast too. The Quick & The Dead by Joy Williams was amazing and one of my favorites this year. It’s sort of surreal, a deliberately weird novel about three weird girls without mothers. I loved the way Williams plays with her characters like a cat with a mouse, introducing them just to mess with them and then tossing them away -- but always with some sort of odd symbolic intent. All the adult characters talk and act more like teens and all the teenage characters talk and act like adults. It’s a really interesting exploration of the ways to process grief and change and growing up, all with the weirdest characters. Joe Gould’s Teeth was an amazing book, totally fascinating. One of our regulars at work suggested it to me, and he was totally right in saying it was a really cool book. It’s a biography of Joe Gould, a New York author who was acquaintances with EE Cummings and Ezra Pound, among others, who said he was writing an “oral history of our time.” Lepore investigates his life, the (non)existence of said oral history, and Gould’s obsession with a Harlem artist that affected his views of race, culture, and what he said he wanted to write. McGlue by Ottessa Moshfegh was so good, although I only read it because 3 out of my other 5 coworkers had read it and they convinced me to. I had read a bunch of negative reviews of Moshfegh’s other book, so I went in a bit skeptical, but I ended up really enjoying McGlue. The whole time I read it, it did feel a bit like I was reading Les Miserables fanfiction, partly from the literary style and partly just from the traits of the main character. But I did really enjoy it, and the ending was really lovely. In terms of literature that’s extremely unique in style, The Hour Of The Star by Clarice Lispector is probably top of the list this year. Her writing is amazing and so bizarre. It’s almost childlike but also so observant and philosophical, and the intellectual and metaphorical leaps she makes are so fascinating. I read her short piece The Egg And The Chicken a few months ago at the urging of my coworker, and thought it was so cool, and this little novel continues in that same vein of bizarre, charming, half-philosophical and half-mundane (but also totally not mundane at all) musings.

I'm still in the middle of reading The Commitments by Roddy Doyle (my lunch break book) and The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, but I'm not going to finish either by the end of the year, so I'm leaving them off the official list.

[frank-a-mori-son]

Do either of you cook? If so do you cook for each other? It sounds like Micheal is a disaster when is comes to food.

"We do not need to eat in the Fog, however, every now and then it's a nice little thing for me to do... Especially since Michael has had a very limited food experience growing up" "As for the realm question, I do have my own little hidey-hole... However I suppose I do spend more and more of my time here with him.... Married couple would be taking it too far though"

[kideternity]

Marvel writers stop being ableist about the shroud for five seconds (IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGE)

[amukmuk]

Unused

Thrantovember Day Twenty-Four: Silks become a Shroud

It is by some miracle that they ended up here, Lysatra. The planet rests just at the edge of the galaxy at the cusp of Ascendancy space and, thankfully, only a few jumps away from where they were marooned.

Which is how Jed Vanto found them. There is a small town in the armpit of nowhere that relies on Vanto Family Shipping to receive medical equipment. Upon seeing the few survivors of the Chimaera , he stopped and offered them a ride.

Seeing Jed Vanto for the first time, however, felt like climbing a flight of stairs and thinking there is one more when one has already reached the top. He looks just like Eli, or atleast, how Thrawn has always imagined him now—skin warmed from the sun, eyes framed in wrinkles, the faintest amount of gray at his temples.

And when he spoke it had taken everything in Thrawn’s power to keep his feet under him.

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