#Book Writing Services in India

[intellects1-linkup]

Book Writing Services | Intellects

Explore our expert Book Writing Services at Intellects Linkup. Our skilled writers craft compelling and engaging books for your unique vision. Trust us for top-notch Book Writing Services.

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How to Become a Book Editor

Ever wonder who crafts the novels we read into well-crafted works of art? That’s what editors of books do! They are essential to the publishing industry because they make sure that every book is readable, interesting, and free of errors. A career as a book editor can be ideal for you if you have an eye for detail and are passionate about reading. Now let’s explore the procedures you must follow in order to work as a book editor.

Understand the Role of a Book Editor

A book editor is responsible for reviewing and improving manuscripts. They work closely with authors to enhance the structure, content, and language of a book.

Their goal is to make the text more readable and engaging for the target audience. This involves correcting grammatical errors, ensuring consistency, and sometimes even restructuring parts of the manuscript.

Different Types of Book Editors

Developmental Editors

Developmental editors focus on the big picture of a manuscript, helping authors shape their stories and structure. They work on plot development, character arcs, pacing, and overall coherence.

Unlike other types of editors, developmental editors often engage with authors early in the writing process. Their goal is to ensure the book’s content is engaging and logically organized, making it a crucial step for any aspiring book editor aiming to master the craft.

Copy Editors

In the book editing process, copy editors are quite important. They make sure that the style and tone are consistent while concentrating on fixing spelling, grammatical, and punctuation mistakes.

Their meticulous attention to detail results in a polished and polished copy that is easier to read and understand. Copy editors improve the book’s overall quality and reader appeal by attending to these details. Learning the craft of copy editing is frequently the first step towards becoming a competent book editor.

Proofreaders

Proofreaders are a crucial type of book editor. Their primary role is to review the final draft of a manuscript for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and formatting errors.

Unlike other editors, proofreaders focus on the surface-level details to ensure the book is polished and error-free before publication. This meticulous attention to detail helps maintain the book’s professional quality and readability, making proofreaders an essential part of the book editing process....Continue reading

[bloggismagency]

How Can SEO Content Be Lucrative for Online Business?

Many people wonder if writing articles for websites or blogs can be lucrative for online business owners. It is no doubt that writing informative articles that can be republished on many websites can be a good source of income. But how profitable can it be? How much will the website or blog owner be able to earn from writing this content? Here are some tips that might give some insights into this question.

But before we delve into the “how’s” of the growth-oriented nature of SEO-driven content, let us first understand what exactly it entails –

Internet marketing, as we all know, is the discipline of leveraging digital marketing platforms to draw in, cultivate, and keep a consumer base. Search engine optimization, social media, web design, and email marketing are frequently used in internet marketing to create leads and establish a brand. The two main objectives of Internet marketing are lead generation and brand building. The technique of raising a website’s ranking in a web search result is called search engine optimization, or SEO.

Search engine optimization, to put it simply, is the practise of enhancing the amount of traffic and sales that come your way by making web pages, websites, and online content show higher in the search results. SEO has developed into a sophisticated area over the past ten years with a wide range of methods, approaches, and tools. To attract as much organic traffic from the search engines as possible, however, is the core objective of SEO for any website and piece of online content. In this post, I’ll go over some of the most popular advantages of using effective SEO techniques and methods for your business.

Sharing Information Always Helps

If you think that people do not read articles posted on websites and blogs, you are mistaken. In fact, this is not the case. There are many people who like to visit blogs and websites. This means that there are many people out there who are looking for information on the latest news. You can use this as your opportunity to share information related to your blog or website.

Higher Rankings on SERPs

SEO content is indeed the key to your online success. It helps you achieve a high ranking on search engines such as Google and other search engines. This means that you will be visible on the search engine results page called SERP. The more visibility you have on search engines, the more traffic you will get, and that means more sales! How cool is that!

Better Digital Visibility

SEO content improves the visibility of your site. With SEO content, you have a greater chance to get a higher ranking and to get better placement on search engines. This means that your chances to become successful will be greater. And you can definitely use this to your advantage. In this way, you get more potential customers visiting your site. That is how powerful content marketing really is. And that is why SEO is so important for your website.

Backlinks & Republished Content Increase Popularity

If you want to know how SEO content can be lucrative for online business owners, you need to learn how to get links. These links will be used by other websites or blogs to post your article. In return, these other websites or blogs will also use your link to post content on their websites or blogs. This will create backlinks for you. Your content will be republished on the internet, and this means that your popularity will get increased in no time. Backlinks are important for SEO. If you have too many backlinks, the search engines will think that you are a popular website or blog. Therefore, Google will rank you accordingly. As an outcome, people searching for information on your topic will find you easily.

Connects with Potential Clients

You will definitely find SEO content useful when you are trying to improve your business. You can also use SEO content to promote your business and to attract more potential customers to your website. You will certainly find that SEO content is very helpful in getting your business popularized. And if you want to make your online business more popularized, you should definitely consider keyword-centric content. The search engines love content that is fresh. So, if you optimize your content for the search engines, you will be guaranteed success with your website or blog.

Expands Your Network & Lets You Make Money

You can earn money with your own website or blog. By adding valuable content regularly, you can get more backlinks. This will improve your search engine rankings. It can help you build a strong and extensive network of contacts. If you know how to market, you can even invite them to become your affiliates. Through this, you will gain more profit and popularity in the online market. Through this, you will not only be able to make more money online but strengthen your network as well.

Makes the Most Out of Your Marketing Efforts

And finally, keyword-oriented content can make your marketing successful because it is the main factor that will determine whether your SEO efforts will be effective or not. There exist many techniques that you can use when it comes to SEO content. All of these techniques will be very helpful for you when you want to get more exposure and increase your business profits. If you intend your marketing efforts to be more effective, then it is very important that you consider the various SEO techniques.

Creates Good Business Reputation Online

When looking for tips on how SEO content can be lucrative for online businesses, you should remember that quality content is still far more important than quantity. Make sure to submit your articles to top-ranking directories. This will allow you to have more backlinks and can drive more targeted traffic towards your site. As long as you are providing high-quality content, you will surely build a good reputation online. Keep in mind that there are many websites and article directories, so you have to choose ones that will truly benefit you.

Why Do You Need SEO Content Writing Experts to Maximize the Benefits?

These are a few of the aspects of why you should learn how SEO content can be lucrative for online business owners. An apt way to learn these things is through constant practice and by taking things one at a time. Learn it by trial and error so that you will be able to reap rich benefits in no time. You can start with writing SEO-friendly content.

Content does matter, especially in today’s competitive world where internet marketing is essential. This is the reason why you should be very particular with your keyword research and optimization. Always keep in head that these tools will only be helpful if you know how to use them to the fullest. You should always try to keep in mind that search engine optimization is not easy, and you will require lots of time & lots of effort in order to succeed in it. In order for you to achieve this, you need to learn from SEO experts who have years of experience in this field. By seeking the help of such professionals, you can optimize your website in a much better way.

The first thing that you require to do before you start working on your SEO content is to make sure that you have lots of keywords that will be very effective for your business. You do not want to choose a random set of keywords. You want to choose the most relevant keywords and make sure that they are present in your content. These keywords should match what you are offering, and they should also be in the right context.

Once you are through with this process, then you can start working on your SEO content. This is when the actual work begins & you will have to spend a lot of time optimizing your content. You will have to write and proofread your articles so that the content is unique and is not plagiarized by other websites. You should also spend some time on your website. You will have to make the site as SEO-friendly as possible.

To do all this effectively, only an experienced SEO writer can help who knows all the nooks and crannies of this world and offers you the best of services.

The Final Say

You have to remember that your online business is first and foremost important, so you require to invest your time & effort in it. It is important that you have the necessary skills to make your business thrive and succeed online. If you are not yet up for this task, it is advisable that you get a professional to do it for you. However, the great thing is that there are a lot of well-versed and experienced writing agencies who can do the same for you at a reasonable rate.

Therefore, have lots of fun and enjoy every bit of the SEO content you create!

[marxism-transgenderism]

Reading academic histories of settler colonialism is often infuriating because so many scholars at best only pay lip service to the anti colonial movements that do most of the heavy lifting in theorizing settler colonialism.

Most simply cite Patrick Wolfe's 1999 book Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology as the origin of the term. Others take it back even further, noting Marx and Engels use of the term "the colonies proper" to distinguish settler colonies from colonies like India. Lorenzo Veracini, the current leading scholar on settler colonialism, cites the first instance of the term in Donald Denoon's 1983 book Settler Capitalism.

Yet the same year that Denoon published his book, the activist J. Sakai was writing a book that would come to be called Settlers for his comrades in the Black Liberation Army, which opens with: "The key to understanding Amerika is to see that it was a chain of European settler colonies that expanded into a settler empire."

Rather than citing Denoon or any other scholar, Sakai attributes his understanding of settler colonialism principally to his Palestinian comrades who shared their understanding of Israeli settler colonialism with him. Indeed, we can even see in documents by groups like the PFLP like the Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine, Israel is regularly referred to as a "colonial-settler state."

There are plenty of other examples of revolutionary groups doing to legwork of theorizing settler colonialism long before any academic wrote a thesis on it. Yet within academia there is this chronic refusal to acknowledge non-academic work. Indeed it's no surprise most of these academics are settlers themselves or are white Europeans.

Thus, it becomes clear that's its not merely enough to learn about settler colonialism. No amount of book reading or thesis writing will end genocide, and indeed many of those authors and scholars can go there whole careers without ever working with or acknowledging those on the ground struggling against settler colonial states. As always, decolonization is not a metaphor. It is not simply a scholarly journal or academic handbook. It is a determination to completely upend the current order based on displacement and genocide, and academia will never be the vanguard of such a struggle.

[stephdrawsjohnlock]

Fandom Trumps Hate 2024!

Looking for a scene drawn for your story? A piece to help inspire you to write a fic? A new icon? How about covers for your story with full print-ready Graphic Design service? Maybe a pinup, or some trading cards (up to 10)?? Maybe a gift for someone, or just your vision of a character(s) (up to 3 character sheets) for your AU?

Well, that’s just some of the stuff I’m willing to offer for this year’s @fandomtrumpshate​​ Charity Event! FTH is a WONDERFUL community project that supports amazing non-profits through donations for fanworks via  this wonderful annual event!

I am participating for my fifth year by offering 2 fanarts for y’all in either the BBC Sherlock or Good Omens fandoms, starting at 20$ for the non-profit of your choice!

Here are some past FTH pieces I’ve done, if you’re interested in seeing the scope of the work you would be getting from me:

2020:

GO - :FTH 2020 – Lagniappe for Big_Edies_Sun_Hat:

GO - :FTH 2020 BONUS – Réveillon for Big_Edies_Sun_Hat:

2021

SH - :This Year: (FTH #1 for @discordantwords​​)

SH - :Burlesque Johnlock: (FTH #2 for @ohlooktheresabee​)

2022

SH – :A Quiet Moment: (FTH #1 for @totallysilvergirl)

SH – :Against the Wall: (FTH #2 for @anarfea)

2023

SH – :Let Me Come to You: (FTH #1 for  ShakespearelovedLadyMacbeth)

SH – :Couch Cuddle: (FTH #2 for @discordantwords)

SH – :More Every Minute: (FTH #3 for @totallysilvergirl)

And of course, you can browse all my art to see my range:

@stephdrawsjohnlock​​

stephdrawsfanart on Instagram

@stephratte​​ (Primary Multifandom Art ​Blog)

stephratte on deviantART

I will draw any ship from any of the above fandoms. All my work is done as a hi-res 3000x3000 print-ready piece in Procreate. Traditional media (markers, India ink, and pencils) is also available if you prefer, done on illustration or marker paper at the paper’s size, with the option of acquiring the original if you choose. I will also do it at a requested size if you have a preferred format for something specific (like a book cover or a comic panel). Feel free to DM me if you have any questions.

The browsing begins on Feb. 26, and the bidding opens on March 1! I hope I once again get a chance to do a couple fantastic pieces for y’all!! I love doing this so much, so keep an eye out for my info post soon once it’s official!

[hero-israel]

Here's the thing about this narrative that Palestinian resistance no matter what form is acceptable. Jewkilling cannot exist in a bubble. It cannot be politically neutral. 1000 years of European (and Arab) antisemitism culminating in genocide have ruined that. Sorry to Palestinian activists but that's just how it works. You can't murder a Jew without it being a tragedy, without it contributing to the continued global oppression of Jewish people.

And all that said, that's just if Hamas and others only targeted soldiers and police (or at least tried as best they could). The IRA didn't go out of its way to purposefully target noncombatants. Why? Probably because there isn't thousands of years of history of English people being seen as subhuman, there isn't thousands of years of anglophobic propaganda showing English people as twisted monsters preying on children and secretly undermining Irish society. The Irish national movement was not born because English refugees returned to their historical homeland and challenged the notion of Irish Supremacy. It was a pragmatic liberation movement. Resist military occupation, undermine military infrastructure designed to oppress the people. The descendants of English and Scottish settlers would even be allowed to stay if they had won. Imagine that.

These things are all tied up in each other. I'm against police brutality, I'm against the escalation and the militarization and the mistreatment of Arabs in Israel and in Judea & Samaria and Gaza and Golan and everywhere. But killing Jews can never be righteous. Sorry to anyone who feels that way but it can't. Antizionists NEED to understand that. Jews will always feel defensive and ready themselves for retaliation because of history, because of that context. Jews keep saying "prove to us a post zionist society where we all share the land won't be antisemitic" and their concerns are completely brushed off.

There's no empathy at all. A little girl can be stabbed to death and antizionists celebrate because she was a "settler," and that brave Palestinian man was defending his indigenous homeland, by targeting the weakest of his enemies. And since Israel has mandatory military service the antizionist can surmise that no Jews are Innocent. An Israeli Jew cannot be a noncombatant. They have to, otherwise the only other explanation for why Jewkilling is acceptable to them, or even feels good to them, is that they hate Jews. And as of right now, the optics are still against that. I have a sinking feeling the optics won't be against them much longer. I inherently don't trust a "liberation" movement that's all too eager to make murdering Jewish civilians praxis. I'm sick of the internet falling for this bullshit.

One of the best asks I have ever received. Thank you for sharing it and I agree with every word.

The entire progressive intersectional social-justice frame has failed Jews (or, alternately, has succeeded in excluding them), due to being intellectually colonized by a clearly fascist ideology of incessantly hating the Jew as a poisonous alien. Try to get an online activist to critically deconstruct the social assumptions they were raised with about Jews in their Muslim, Christian, or very slightly post-Christian society... it won't go well. Funny how Jews have lived in India and China for thousands of years yet you will look in vain for examples of bitter bloodthirsty kill-your-nextdoor-neighbor antisemitism in those societies. That's because the origin, the core, of Chinese and Indian societies was not "We're the people who are better than Jews."

From a review of Richard Landes' new book "Can the Whole World Be Wrong?":

[During the Second Intifada] Israelis were described at the time as the new Nazis. But the malice that was unleashed was even worse. As Landes writes, “It was mostly about being freed from a sense of obligation to the Jews, a chance to take up again the Jew-baiting so long denied Europeans by a politically correct post-Holocaust sobriety.” Landes quotes a poisonous comment made by a member of the House of Lords and reported in the Spectator, “Well, the Jews have been asking for it, and now, thank God, we can say what we think at last.” During that time, I was told something horrifyingly similar to my [=the reviewer's] face.

Your example of Irish nationalists not going out of their way to murder British children is a good one. The oft-reached comparisons between Palestine and South Africa are frivolous for many reasons as I have explained here before, and the ANC advocating and normalizing a vision of enduring racial diversity and equality is high on the list of reasons (made possible because black African identity is not predicated on a thousand-year history of hating and oppressing whites). The case of Rhodesia is even more instructive. Robert Mugabe - ROBERT MUGABE! - pleaded with the whites to stay, to live as equals, as brothers, and work together in building a better society in Zimbabwe. Ian Smith, last white PM of Rhodesia, agreed with him and stayed in Zimbabwe. If a so-called "liberation" movement is more openly dedicated to straight-up exterminating their enemies than Robert Mugabe ever was, maybe, just maybe, it shouldn't be described as "liberation" at all.

[audible-smiles]

So, I think I may have accidentally found the worst book ever written by a human being.

I don't know if you guys have ever heard of Savitri Devi; she was a Hitler stan who moved from Greece to India, got really excited about "Aryan" racial mythology, changed her name, and tried to fuse Nazism with Hinduism. A lot of her ideology is patently absurd (e.g. Hitler is an avatar of Vishnu), but none of it is funny because she spent her entire life actively trying to build a coalition of the most violently racist people you can imagine. Hindutva paramilitary groups, American neo-Nazis, early ecofascists; you name them, she probably went to their meetings and wrote propaganda for them.

So, knowing this, it makes one feel particularly deranged to learn that she also wrote fiction about- and from the POV of- her many cats.

The book in question is called Long-Whiskers and the Two-Legged Goddess, or The True Story of a "most objectionable Nazi" and half-a-dozen Cats.

Published in 1965, this text features a protagonist named "Heliodora", who Devi admits in the introduction is just her lightly fictionalized self-insert. In the beginning Heliodora heroically rescues a stray kitten and its mother, but then the narrative grinds to a halt to explain the weird racial theories that brought her to India, before it picks right back up with the cat fancying. Here is an excerpt that may convey a little of how jarring these transitions can be:

"An unexpected thought crossed Heliodora’s mind, like a flash of lightning: “Had I gone to Europe in 1939, or even in 1940, 1 should not have had this lovely creature, nor, in fact, any of these cats to which I have given a home. They probably all would have been dead, by now — would have died of misery, in some gutter, without love, poor beautiful felines!” And a strange question followed that thought: “Was it for them that I was fated to remain here?” She knew the thought was a nonsensical one and the question too. For of what account was the life and happiness of any creatures, nay, of any human beings, including her own, compared with the Service of the Aryan Reich and of the Cause of truth?

It is all. Fucking. Like This. There are grim descriptions of feline suffering contrasted with long, ecstatic descriptions of her cats learning to trust the only nice human in the world (her). There are passages on the virtue of vegetarianism and the evils of (especially Kosher) slaughterhouses. She thinks it's a great idea to do medical experiments on criminals rather than animals! She thinks kids who throw rocks at cats should have their hands cut off! She starts chapters with direct quotes from Mein Kampf! When her favorite cat runs away she writes the (fully imaginary) story of his adventures on the streets, including him having cat sex. Here is the cat sex:

"The coquettish she-cat jumped up and ran away, only to stop again some twenty yards further and again to roll in the grass, calling for love, — and again to ran away as soon as the lover was about to take her. At last, however, — after many an unsuccessful leap and further and further galloping in the moonshine, Long- whiskers overcame her faked resistance and possessed her. He forgot himself, and she — his black silky panther — forgot herself. Their individualities ceased for a while to exist, and in him, the eternal He-Cat, Creator and Lord of everything, and in her, the co-eternal, sphinx-like, dark Feline Mother, Lady of all Life, once more mingled their opposite polarities and took consciousness of their double Godhead, as they had been doing for millions and millions of years. And once more the divine spark — the Creative Lightning — flashed through their furry bodies, and the daily miracle took place: there was life in the female’s womb."

Sooooo......anyway...........the lost cat finds its way back to her, but has caught feline distemper and dies in her arms, but then he is REINCARNATED IN ENGLAND, as a kitten in a decent (white) home where his family loves him. Heliodora is coincidentally going back to Europe at this time (she lists her religion as "national socialist" on the travel paperwork), which means we get pages and pages of her obsessing over every 'misstep' in the war, and Germany's tragic loss, but more importantly, she meets a random cat and he is (unknown to her), the reincarnation of her beloved Long-whiskers, the Cat Who Fucked. She sees that he's well-fed and happy and is like "I finally understand why Hitler was so nice to the British; they treat cats well so I guess they're Aryan too". I am not making any of this up:

“They have poured streams of fire over Germany; betrayed their own race; identified themselves with its worst enemies ...”

“Prrr, prrr, prrr,” purred back the cat; “that is because they had been (as they are still being) misled, deceived. But one day they shall wake up from their delusion, tum against their bad shepherds, and help the people of their own blood to build up a new Europe — the very Europe of your dreams, in which we creatures will all be happy — for they are good people at heart; good people like Aryans generally are, taken as a whole. Prrr, prrr, prrr . . . The proof of it is that they have taken such good care of me! Prrrrrrrrr . . .”

This version of her cat grows old and dies. Meanwhile, Heliodora is arrested and imprisoned for distributing Nazi propaganda. When she gets out, she meets the reincarnation of a different cat she had left behind in India. (All of her cats want to find her again after death because they love her so very much.) In between her banal, mundane descriptions of caring for this new cat, she describes her various arrests, interrogations, and brief periods of imprisonment. And then she moves, gives that cat away and gets another fucking cat. It is at this point where I completely lose track of which cat is meant to be the reincarnation of which other cat; this woman goes through cats like potato chips. She says she doesn't even love them as individuals, but as one piece of "the intangible Essence of Catdom", so I guess it doesn't fucking matter whether I know their names or not.

This woman's primary thesis is "human suffering doesn't matter, only animal suffering matters" and she beats it into the ground. Her secondary thesis is that national socialism is the one true religion and will save the world. Not only is this a deeply self-obsessed, morally incoherent, grotesque piece of writing, it is also boring as hell. It's half stories about how people who are mean to animals all deserve to get murdered, and half a travelogue where the protagonist goes on screeds about race-mixing every time she visits a new city. While you're reading it you feel as if time has stopped, and you will be stuck reading this terrible book for the rest of your life. All she knows how to do is repeat her two ideas over and over again. Honestly, it reads like heavy-handed satire of a very specific type of white woman. Heliodora wears golden swastika earrings.

I'm exhausted. Never read this book.

[kaze-no-yurei]

We are now faced with a massive propaganda alleging Hindu persecution of Buddhism. Let us study one example: the story of alleged Hindu persecution of Buddhism by Pushyamitra, a general in the service of the declining Maurya dynasty, who founded the Sunga dynasty after a coup détat. This story provides the standard secularist refutation of the myth that Hinduism has always been tolerant.

The Marxist historian Gargi Chakravartty writes:

"Another myth has been meticulously promoted with regard to the tolerance of the Hindu rulers. Let us go back to the end of second century B.C. Divyavadana, in a text of about the second-third century A.D., depicts Pushyamitra Shunga as a great persecutor of Buddhists. In a crusading march with a huge army he destroyed stupas, burnt monasteries and killed monks. This stretched up to Shakala, i.e. modern Sialkot, where he announced a reward of 100 gold coins to the person who would bring the head of a Buddhist monk. Even if this is an exaggeration, the acute hostility and tensions between Pushyamitra and the monks cannot be denied."

We need not comment on Chakravartty's misreading of Divyavadana as a person's name rather than a book title. Remark the bias in the assumption that the supposedly undeniable conflict between the king and the monks proves the kings intolerance; for what had been their own contribution to the conflict? There is no good reason why the Buddhist monks should, by contrast, be assumed to be blameless when they came in conflict with a king.

The story is in fact given in two near contemporaneous (2nd century A.D.) Buddhist histories, the Asokavadana and the Divyavadana, the two narratives are almost verbatim the same and very obviously have a common origin. This non-contemporary story (which surfaces more than three centuries after the alleged facts) about Pushyamitra's offering money for the heads of Buddhist monks is rendered improbable by external evidence: the well-attested historical fact that he allowed and patronized the construction of monasteries and Buddhist universities in his domains, as well as the still extant stupa of Sanchi. After Ashoka's lavish sponsorship of Buddhism, it is perfectly possible that Buddhist institutions fell on slightly harder times under the Sungas, but persecution is quite another matter. The famous historian of Buddhism Etienne Lamotte has observed: To judge from the documents, Pushyamitra must be acquitted through lack of proof.

In consulting the source texts a significant literary fact is noticed which has not been seen mentioned in the scholarly literature (e.g. Lamotte, just quoted), and which must put on record. First of all, a look at the critical edition of the Asokavadana (Illustrious Acts of Ashoka) tells a story of its own concerning the idealization of Buddhism in modern India.

This is how Sujit Kumar Mukhopadhyaya, the editor of the Asokavadana, relates this work's testimony about Ashoka doing to a rival sect that very thing of which Pushyamitra is accused later on:

"At that time, an incident occurred which greatly enraged the king. A follower of the Nirgrantha (Mahavira) painted a picture, showing Buddha prostrating himself at the feet of the Nirgrantha. Ashoka ordered all the Ajivikas of Pundravardhana (North Bengal) to be killed. In one day, eighteen thousand Ajivikas lost their lives. A similar kind of incident took place in the town of Pataliputra. A man who painted such a picture was burnt alive with his family. It was announced that whoever would bring to the king the head of a Nirgrantha would be rewarded with a dinara (a gold coin). As a result of this, thousands of Nirgranthas lost their lives. Only when Vitashoka, Ashoka's favourite Arhat (an enlightened monk, a Theravada-Buddhist saint), was mistaken for a Nirgrantha and killed by a man desirous of the reward, did Ashoka revoke the order."

Typically, Mukhopadhyaya refuses to believe his eyes at this demythologization of the secular emperor Ashoka:

"This is one of the best chapters of the text. The subject, the style, the composition, everything here is remarkable. In every shloka there is a poetic touch.( ... ) But the great defect is also to be noticed. Here too Ashoka is described as dreadfully cruel. If the central figure of this story were not a historic personage as great and well-known as Ashoka, we would have nothing to say. To say that Ashoka, whose devotion to all religious sects is unique in the history of humanity (as is well-known through his edicts) persecuted the Jains or the Ajivikas is simply absurd. And why speak of Ashoka alone? There was no Buddhist king anywhere in India who persecuted the Jains or the Ajivikas or any other sect."

Contrary to Mukhopadhyayas confident assertion, there are a few attested cases of Buddhist-Jain conflict. The Mahavamsa says that the Buddhist king Vattagamini in Sri Lanka destroyed a Jain vihara. In the Shravana-Belgola epitaph of Mallishena, the Jain teacher Akalanka says that after a successful debate with Buddhists, he broke a Buddha statue with his own foot. The same (rare, but not non-existent) phenomenon of Buddhist fanaticism can be found outside India: the introduction of Buddhism in Tibet and Mongolia is associated with a forceful suppression of the native Shamanism. In recent decades in Sri Lanka, Buddhist monks have been instrumental in desecrating and demolishing Hindu temples. None of this proves that Buddhist doctrine incites its followers to persecution of non-Buddhists, but neither should anything human be considered alien to Buddhist human beings.

[itsjaywalkers]

hi my sweet lil buttercup laurie 💕 i have an odd question for you and i need to dig into ur brain and it is a lil nsfw but when it comes to jegulus, how would you see them if one of them worked as a phone sex operator? like who would be the person to make the call and who would be on the other end? like what are your headcanons on this and do you think they'd meet each other irl etc?

hi india my darling angel <333 sorry i didn't reply yesterday, i spent the morning getting tattooed with my sister AND THEN the afternoon and the evening at work.. but i'm finally here and ready to give u anything u want <3

i could see them both being the phone sex operator and viceversa, it all depends on the situation and how u decide to write/portray them!! however, i have a harder time picturing reg calling a sex line, unless it's like . for a bet . and i don't see him agreeing easily to a bet like that yk??

so to me, it'd be reg being a phone sex operator!! probably doing it either to earn some extra cash after he's been disinherited and doing odd jobs OR desperate for money and not wanting to rely on his brother/friends!! i think he was . very awkward at first and had no idea of how to do it, so he had to research/practise a lot and regrettably . ask barty for help, which would result on barty making fun of him until the end of times while also using it as an excuse for them to start hooking up again. but it's okay bc barty does give him really good advice in between it all

after he becomes more comfortable and gets the hang of it, i feel like reg would reply to calls while he's doing other shit around his flat or in his room yk?? he's sporting the most deadpan expression known to mankind while he fake moans in some stranger's ear and reorganises his books. he's unaffected and doesn't really care, this is just his job and he's only focused on doing it well enough to earn money

james would call at some point!! it can be either as a joke, bc of a bet, or even bc he's been broken up with recently and in a bit of a dry spell and just . trying something new bc he saw a leaflet for it or bc someone recommended it. i think he'd be nervous and be awkward during the first call but in a very charming way, and reg would find it endearing + he'd be quite into james' voice (which is the thing that would call his attention in the first place)

i doubt anything would actually happen during the first call!! they'd just talk and tease and banter, until reg realises their time's up and he hasn't given james the services he advertises for. he apologises profusely, offers another try, but james assures him it's completely fine and pays him anyway

next time james calls, it's with the attention to just . speak to reg again . bc he had a lot of fun and he's already a bit obsessed with his accent and how witty he turned out to be, but when reg realises who it is, he's on a Mission to do his fucking job and keep this man from getting him sidetracked

james is little confused about why reg's attitude changed all of a sudden, but after pushing slightly and getting no results, he supposes that he might as well get off to this yk?? it's the reason why he called in the first place, after all

reg starts doing what he always does, waiting for james to get all hot and bothered, except james realises quickly that what reg is saying is very . robotic and script-like and . generic . so it's not doing much for him. he mentions it, they start bickering, which turns into fighting, until reg snaps and retorts with something along the lines of . as if u could do it better etc etc

as u can imagine, james takes it personally

i won't get into a lot of detail, bc this ask is already ridiculously long, but they do end up having phone sex AND getting off. james kinda takes the reins and manages to coax reg out of his shell + finds out about what turns him on along the way. reg finally gets to let go and enjoy this whole phone sex thing and james gets what he was looking for (and more, bc he never expected it to be so into it or find it so hot)

the rest of their calls would go on a similar fashion, even if james is always the one calling and reg always begins their calls trying to . retain control and do his fucking job

and i like to think they'd meet irl at some point??? they move in similar circles, they have sirius in common etc etc. even in a situation in which reg and sirius are completely estranged, sirius could end up reaching during the story, or they find out they live in the same neighbourhood. or, well, as a bartylily stan, i could also see both friend groups coming together (sort of) bc barty and lily start seeing each other. i also think they'd recognise each other by voice alone and have a breakdown about it. i think reg would notice immediately bc of his kink with james' voice and i think james would take a bit longer and be so chill while reg is losing his mind (only on the inside tho). and then reg would say something, like an specific word or . turn of phrase and it'd click for james!! he'd be ecstatic and trying to get reg alone bc this is like . his dream scenario while reg runs away from him lmao

[emjee]

Extremely random question but I love to ask librarians this: what have u read recently that’s stuck out? Do u have any book recs for 2023?

And I, a librarian, love being asked this!! Here are my favorite books from this year:

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen - actually picked this one up because of an excellent rec post here on tumblr. It’s loosely based on The Goose Girl fairy tale so I pitch it as “it’s a beautiful day in fantasy Germany and you are a horrible goose girl.” The sequel also came out this year and is every bit as good.

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb - This one was actually my pick for Best Book of My Year at work. It’s incredible. An angel and a demon who are study partners leave their shtetl to go find a local girl who immigrated to America and hasn’t been heard from since. It’s gorgeous.

Ask a Historian by Greg Jenner - I love Greg Jenner and his podcast You’re Dead to Me and I listened to the audiobook of this one, which was wonderful.

If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio - the very very rare internet darling that I felt lived up to the hype. Insufferable theatre students at conservatory do a murder. Lots of Shakespeare.

The Chalice of the Gods by Rick Riordan - Not only did he write a new Percy book, but it had the audacity to be good???

A Lady’s Guide to Scandal by Sophie Irwin - One of the best romance novels I read this year. I haven’t swooned that hard over a heterosexual pairing in a traditionally published book since I don’t know how long.

A Rome of One’s Own by Emma Southon - a history of Rome in 21 women. I love Emma Southon—she’s funny and rigorous and so insightful. And she makes me care about the Romans, who I generally hate.

The Secret Service of Tea and Treason by India Holton - I love the entire Dangerous Damsels series and this one was no exception. The balance of humor and deep emotion is my favorite thing about these books.

These are just the highlights of a long list—I also read a lot of children’s lit for work, lots more nonfiction, and things like scriptural commentary and saints’ biographies. Thank you for this question!

[intellects1-linkup]

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[ltwilliammowett]

A writing slope, bearing the name plate of ‘Mr Millard / Master / R.N.’, fitted with recessed brass handles, early 19th century

George Millard (1792-1870) was under twenty years old when he qualified by examination to receive the Navy Board’s warrant in 1811. Born in Blackfriars, London, his first posting was as Acting Mate of the 18-gun sloop H.M.S. Dasher before joining the 32-gun H.M.S. Sir Francis Drake which was built at Bombay for the East India Company and purchased by the Royal Navy in 1805.

As Master of a fifth-rate frigate of some 250 souls, Millard would have been a considerable figure aboard ship. He would have been the best paid officer after the captain and would have had a large cabin in the gunroom, as well as a smaller day cabin next to the captain's cabin on the quarterdeck for charts and navigation equipment.

His responsibilities were heavy and included navigating the ship, supervision of the midshipmen and mates in taking noon sightings of the sun, maintenance of the ship’s compass, upkeep of the official ship’s log, and pilotage.

He was responsible for the ship’s anchors, the security and issue of beers and spirits and stowage of the ship, especially where this effected her trim and sailing qualities. Much of the above entailed providing himself ‘with such charts, nautical books and instruments as are necessary for astronomical observations and all other purposes of navigation’.

In terms of rank Millard was ‘with but after the lieutenants’ though his pay in a fifth-rate was equal to theirs. With no clear path to the becoming a Master his social status was ambiguous. He may have been at sea since boyhood in the merchant service or to have clawed his way up from the lower deck.

He could also have been a volunteer and midshipman who despaired of a career without patronage. As the senior Warrant Officer he was granted privileges of the wardroom that in larger ships were extended to the Purser, Surgeon and Chaplain. To be posted aboard a fifth-rate ship such as the Sir Francis Drake, however, was considered an attractive appointment owing to her manoeuvrability, firepower and the chance of prizes.

He remained in the Royal Navy serving successively serving as Master in Medway, Tees, Conqueror, Hyperion, Blanche, Canopus, and Royal Sovereign in 1837.

With the end of the classic age of sail, wardroom warrant officers were given commissioned status in 1843. He retired in 1846 with rank of Commander and resided latterly at Warwick Square, Peckham Rye on the outskirts of London. Millard's interesting life ends 1870.

[canmom]

booksbooksbooks{1} - clones, parrots, and high stakes poetry

one of the things I wanna do in the wake of worldcon is read more sff books and write about them. in that spirit, going to try and catch up on writing about some books, starting with...

Clone, Priya Sarukkai Chabria

This is a book that is maybe decently well known in India, but I'm not sure it's caught a lot of attention in the West. Which is a shame, because it's an absolute banger of a book.

It's tricky to know where to begin with Clone. You could approach it as a dystopian science fiction story, in which a clone in a hypocritical and cruel society stops taking her memory-suppressing drugs and starts channeling the past life of a controversial poet. Or, you could view that as a frame story and the real substance as something more like a short story anthology: a long slice through history from unlikely angles, coloured in shades of cruelty and religion. Of course, it's both those things.

Clone has been cooking for a while, it seems; an older version was published way back in 2009 as Generation Fourteen. I'm not sure the differences between that version and the version I read.

The story follows Clone 14/54/G, mostly just referred to by the title Clone by characters. She belongs to a society calling itself the Global Community, rigidly stratified and populated by various engineered posthumans: the abundant Clones, the dumb and violent Superior Zombies, the poetic Firehearts and so on. Almost all of them are essentially disposable slaves to the ultra-privileged Originals, from whom each generation of Clones is derived.

As such, the book is full of interesting contortions of language used to dress up this cruel, repressive society in a positive light. Capital letters ('The Drug', 'The Celebrations') and euphemisms abound. Clones aren't killed, they are 'withdrawn' after their 'actuality' runs out - there is another different word for each other category of being. Their lives are heavily regimented, both work and what passes for free time. It's always ready to proffer an explanation for a certain practice: here's why it's a good thing the flamethrowers use regular napalm. Make sure to thank the person punishing you.

Of all the various species of posthuman we encounter, besides the clone, the ones the story most seems to enjoy writing are the Fireharts - all named after elements of poetry like 'Quatrain' and 'Stanza', they are mercurial, energetic bug creatures who exist to obey a poetic function (and of course they're hooked on drugs and as controlled as every other element of the society). The rest of the society seems to view them with an attitude of mild exasperation, but as strange as the Firehearts are to our protagonist, they are some of the only genuine connections she's able to form across the book. But they are very much captive creatures: whatever liberal ideology they espouse, they are no more separate from this dystopia than the clones.

So, the inciting incident: 14/54/G, our eponymous Clone, ends up 'mutating', starting with dreams of past times - glimpses of the stories that will be told in full later in the book. Many of these stories are from the perspective of animals: a dog thought to have divination powers in the service of a prehistoric warlord at the foot of the Himalayas; a devoutly religious fish with a condescending attitude swimming in the Ganges flood waters; a lesbian parrot deeply infatuated with its owner one of the wives of a monarch Khan-Sahib (a title used in British India, though I am not sure of the time period of this story). Others are humans in mostly dire situations: a soldier awaiting execution, a low-ranking acolyte of a hidden Buddhist monastery complex; a mother of a boy killed in battle for the sake of Emperor Ashoka.

These stories - eventually dubbed 'the Visitations' - vary impressively in tone and style. What is the unifying theme? The blurb declares 'compassion and memory in the midst of all that is grotesque', and that's not a terrible start, but I think it leaves out a lot. Many of the characters in the stories are defined by devotion, often to people who do not reciprocate it, or view them as toys at best. The parrot's story is equally the story of 'My Love', life in the court, the affair she has - and also of casual, indifferent cruelty, such as when the parrot's tongue is peeled to make her sing prettier on Khan-Sahib's suggestion. (I assume this is an actual historical practice...)

Sarukkai Chabria has a fantastic command of narrative voice, which works extremely well when she's sketching the contours of living through all these different partial perspectives. I am reminded, strongly, of the different stories in Rachel Pollack's novel Unquenchable Fire, and what Pollack had to say about suffering and ecstasy. The story of Dhammapada, the 'flying monk', is a great example of how the stories immerse you in the worldviews of each character: full of earnest passion, we can read a bit between the lines to learn a bit about the harshness of the monastery and the power structures within it, but at the same time it's difficult not to be pulled in to share that same fascination with life. The arrogant fish, who believes it has solely seen through the illusion and understood the world and casts disdain on its fellow fish, is another fantastically entertaining character.

As good as these stories are, the dystopian setting is also a pretty fascinating creation. It's a society defined by weird calcified hypocrisies. Anyone is free to access information, but doing so may call suspicion down on you, which could be lethal. 'Free-Time' is ritualised and timed down to the minute. It assigns her a cyborg dog to monitor her, but the dog is so affected by the ambient violence of the gladitorial games that it tears itself to pieces; the Clone is helpless to stop this but still punished, a recurring pattern. It's a well observed depiction of the caprice of such a system of power.

The final arc of Clone sees 14/54/G imprisoned in luxurious but harshly controlled circumstances as various factions within the Global Community try to pry out the final poem of her original, the subversive poet 'Aa-aa'. She's caught up in a somewhat convoluted power game: 'Leader', an Original who turns out to be related to Aa-aa, wishes to take this opportunity to stage a rebellion; all, however, hinges on the Clone sufficiently recreating the life of Aa-aa to be able to conjure up her final words.

As with all affairs of the "Global Community", their approach is haphazard, almost cargo-cult attitude towards the way humans work. As soon as they give up on one approach, like putting her in Aa-aa's quarters and trying to get her to roleplay as the Original, they switch to another, like drugging her. At one point our protagonist is taken on a trip to see the horrible conditions at a factory that had a severe effect on Aa-aa, but there's a Guide Clone and a Superior Zombie along for the ride to make sure she reacts in the proper way. The tension builds and builds, as our protagonist desperately struggles to think of something to say to demonstrate her usefulness, or support the rebellion, and somehow survive.

The ending when it comes is quite abrupt, and I feel like this is the only part (aside from biological quibbles) where I felt like I didn't quite get it anymore. Spoilers, then:

Unable to divine what Aa-aa was going to say, the Clone ends up making an appeal to common humanity in front of all of the Originals at The Celebrations. It felt like an odd moment to me, because the entire book up to that point seemed to be demolishing the idea that anyone has ever given a shit about common humanity. To be fair, the words don't seem to have much effect on anyone else either: the Clone manages to escape with her life in the chaos of the palace drama within a few pages, but there is little sign that her words will have much effect beyond the immediate disruption.

So what's it all about? We have this unsparing cross-section through all types of human cruelty; we've seen all sorts of people contemplating the nature of existence through religion and interpersonal devotion; in the present we've seen a privileged intellectual become aware of the horrors of her society and minutely observed the hypocritical ways she reacts, which have become calcified into a ritual designed to extract one final missing piece of information from a disposable being. For all the strange turns her life takes, the Clone almost never has any power; she's tossed around on the wake of events that preceded her. But the forces acting on her are in their own way painfully ignorant and stupid.

We can read parallels to all sorts of societies. Given the very specifically Indian references in this book, we could think of British India, or equally the modern fascism of Modi's government - but I think it would be too reductive to read it as being about just one specific political regime when it takes this especially broad view.

I feel like part of the reason the Clone's statement feels like it falls short is that there is no way to sum up everything we've seen. It's too broad and too full of contradictions. Individual stories have overt themes: the arrogance of the intellectual fish, the freedom of political power to be capricious in the mother's address to Emperor Ashoka, and so on and so on - and many of these ideas have reflection in the present-day story. But any attempt to just turn them all into one pithy statement feels doomed to be pat.

Perhaps it is because I finished the game around the same time, but I am kind of reminded of the stories of NieR Reincarnation, which takes a similar anthology approach to the follies and tragedies of human history. In that case, the preservation of the archive taken as a whole is the subject of the story; here the stories all belong to one person's body of work, and we are witnessing a mad effort to try to find where they all point, with the futility of this project all concentrated on our Clone.

I kind of wonder what ending could have worked better than 'I am human, I claim my birthright' as the Clone's final statement - after spending the whole story dismantling the construct of the human, inviting us to inhabit animals and clones and so on, it feels off to reaffirm 'we are all human' as the basis of a path out. And, to be fair it's not quite her final statement - she goes away carrying memories of those who died, contemplating the 'cocoons' of memories, carrying a child (biological), and contemplating perhaps one day continuing to write down the Visitations. The final words of the story return to the death-witnessing dog Trichaisma, as Trichaisma's owner, the warlord Vrikama, finally dies. It ends in a dog's prayer. That's pretty cool!

I don't know that I have a final definitive reading of all that happens in Clone. That's exactly what makes it compelling! It's a book that doesn't pull its punches and is content to face ambiguity. That's good shit.

So, I was well impressed with Clone. I definitely feel like I'd love to see more recognition of this book in Western SFF fandom (I don't wanna say English-language, because it seems like a lot of the newspapers that covered it are in English). I feel like I'm only scratching the surface here, and I lack the cultural background to appreciate some of the historical or religious allusions, which I'd love to see elaborated on!

I definitely wanna read more Indian SFF! Next on the docket on that front is Kaiyeki by Vaishnavi Patel. Hopefully it will take me fewer months to get around to writing about this one ^^'

[imakemywings]

Sapphic Film Recs

So you read some books, now you want to watch some movies. Not all of these center F/F relationships, but they all include F/F or WLW characters. (Note: Mind your trigger warnings if you decide to watch any of these.)

Atomic Blonde (2017) - Lorraine is a British spy sent into Berlin right at the end of the Cold War to retrieve a list of agents that is at risk of falling into Soviet hands. While there, she makes contact with the French agent, Delphine.

Badhaai Do (2022) - A lesbian gym teacher and a gay cop in India decide to get married to get their families off their backs. Hijinks ensue.

Black Swan (2010) - Nina is an ambitious, competitive young ballerina who is cast as the swan queen in Swan Lake, but the pressure of the position starts to get to her.

Breathe (Respire) (2014) - A French film centering on the deeply charged relationship between two teenage girls and its violent ups and downs.

Carol (2015) - The classic sapphic Christmas film, isn’t it? In the 1950s, directionless young Therese encounters Carol, a stylish, wealthy woman in the middle of divorcing her husband.

Elisa and Marcela (Elisa y Marcela) (2019) - Based on a true story about a Spanish woman who created a male identity for herself to marry her girlfriend.

Fingersmith (2005) - The two-part miniseries based on the book by Sarah Waters. It tracks very closely with the novel! Susan Tinder sets out to befriend and rob wealthy heiress Maude--but gets more than she planned for when she starts falling for her mark.

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) - The movie eschews the explicit romance between the two main characters present in the book, but the love between them still shines through. An elderly woman relates to her younger visitor stories about Idgie and Ruth, a couple of women in love in 1920s Alabama.

Genius Loci (2020) - A trippy short film about Reine, a struggling young woman who has a discombobulating night out in her city.

The Half of It (2020) - Here’s your teenage drama film, drawing from Cyrano de Bergerac. Ellie agrees to help a boy in her school write love letters to his female crush--who happens to also be Ellie’s crush. 

The Handmaiden (2017) - Basically an AU of Fingersmith, this time the story takes place in WWII-era Korea and Japan. Young thief Sookhee enters the service of Lady Hideko as a handmaiden with the intent of robbing her of her fortune--but things get complicated when Sookhee develops feelings for Hideko.

Pariah (2011) - A gay Brooklyn teenager struggles with understanding her identity in an unwelcoming household and fights to grow into her true self.

Pistachio (2021) - A short animated film about having a crush on a straight friend and being bisexual. (Available here on Youtube)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) - Marianne is a portraitist called to paint Heloise before her upcoming wedding. While Marianne tries to get close to Heloise in order to capture her essence, she finds herself falling in love.

Princess Cyd (2017) - Teenage Cyd takes the opportunity to spend several weeks over the summer with her novelist aunt, Miranda. Over the course of the summer, Cyd discovers a lot of new things about the world and herself.

Rafiki (2018) - Two daughters of rival politicians fall in love, but struggle with the attitudes of their community in Nairobi.

[fatehbaz]

Oz Rock bands were big in Brazil in the 1990s. Australian surfers know its breaks. [...] [I]n the past decade [2005-2015] Brazil has had the second fastest rate of migration to Australia [...].

Australia’s connection with Brazil began in 1787 with the First Fleet voyage. This was thanks to the port of Rio’s location in the South Atlantic and a centuries-long British-Portuguese alliance – unique among European powers in the Age of Empires. The First Fleet had three layovers on its relatively cautious eight month voyage from Britain: a week in the Spanish colony of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, a month at Rio in the Portuguese colony of Brazil and a month at the Dutch East India Company’s Cape colony in South Africa. Fleet commander Arthur Phillip had not intended to rest and resupply at Rio but sailing conditions made it prudent to do so. And Phillip’s former service in the Portuguese navy ensured a cordial welcome from Rio’s colonial authorities.  

At this time, as Bruno Carvalho writes in Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro (2013), Rio enjoyed rising status within the Portuguese Empire. In 1763 it had been named the new capital of Brazil. In 1808 Portuguese royals fled to Rio to escape Napoleon and remained there at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. As a consequence, Rio could boast of being the only American city to serve as a centre of European power.

One First Fleet official lamented how little the British knew of Rio. This came to be addressed, as Luciana Martins notes in A Bay to be Dreamed Of: British Visions of Rio de Janeiro (2006), as increasing numbers of British visitors ventured there during the 19th century. Visitors included New South Wales Governor Lachlan Macquarie, and later Charles Darwin – along with thousands of convict and free migrants on board ships calling at the port of Rio.

Writing in Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective (2005), Emma Christopher observed that in Australian history books, travel from Britain to Australia seemed to have been “covered as if in the blink of an eye”.

This inspired her to write of the “watery non-places” of the journey not as voids, but rather as places where much transnational history was lived [...].

[J]ournals by intending Australian colonists such as Macquarie’s wife Elizabeth allow glimpses of colonial Rio through colonial Australian eyes. Elizabeth Macquarie assessed Rio with keen intelligence and, more challengingly – as Jane McDermid has argued in recent research on histories of the British abroad – a callously casual racism.

First Fleet journals tell us that, in 1787, convicts confined to ship at Rio witnessed enslaved West Africans rowing Portuguese fruit sellers around the anchored Fleet transports in decoratively festooned boats.

Convicts overheard and exchanged stories from officials permitted shore leave: stories of the songs of captive West Africans awaiting sale at the port marketplace; of colourful Portuguese Catholic institutions and festivities that were exotic to straight-laced British Protestants. Stories of being forbidden, on pain of death, to venture to hinterland jewel mines. Onshore at Rio, colonial migrants bound for Australia befriended Portuguese colonists, despite the language barrier. They purchased curios. They passed judgement – glowing and harsh – on the people of the Portuguese colony, its natural and built environment, just as Brazilians in turn scrutinised them.

---

Text by: Julie McIntyre. “I Go to Rio: Australia’s forgotten history with Brazil.” The Conversation. 16 September 2015. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]