#everything arab from the language to the culture is villainized

[ladyyatexel]

You know what @jaewul yeah I have thought a few thoughts about this boy

So, I've only read the manga. This is like the opposite of everyone else's engagement with this franchise, which I think it has led to my frustration in some cases, but here are some things I think about regarding this dude.

It makes me kind of sad and more than slightly uncomfortable that the dominant fandom portrayal of him seems to be dumb, bratty, and slutty. :/ I wonder how much of this is anime and I particularly wonder how much of this is English dubbed anime. I love the crop top outfit but I think probably my asexuality prevents me from interpreting it as anything but a fashion choice.

It all just seems kind of unfair. The version of him I met was dedicated and focused and upon learning the truth was ready to take even more blame than he was due. His clarity about what he'd done and what it all meant I thought was really lovely. I think maybe other people like him in extreme villain mode, but I'm really interested in what we see when he realizes what he believes as right and correct wasn't. I'm interested in who he is when he's free of everything.

I think about how he should have vision problems as well as bone density problems given his upbringing.

I think about how some serious Arrangements in the background of everything post canon have had to have been made in order to keep him out of jail. That giant card game tournament was broadcast to thousands, maybe millions, of people. They always associate his face with a pretty real level of villainy (same with Ryou, for the same reasons). I wonder what parts of his future have been ruined by the fact that that whole thing was televised. I try to imagine what logical consequences can be extrapolated from the world setup we are given.

Logical consequences like wider world finding out that this trio of siblings was raised underground and taught to natively speak a dead language, very possibly with a passed down version of the accompaning culture. His family is an archaeological discovery. They have big implications for the Yu-Gi-Oh World version of Egyptology. (I might be writing a thing that includes this! You can't prove it either way~!)

On that note, I find it somewhat frustrating that even the author appears to have assigned him traits and things based on the culture that inhabits modern Egypt (though that's far more egregious feeling when it's Yugi's Pharaoh). He is not supposed to have been out in that culture, even if his family did so for the sake of finding other food or something. So it's weird that they named him in Arabic and not Egyptian.

I like his sun imagery a lot. The gold, the blonde hair, the desire to come out of the dark, the birthday hovering near the solstice, the Ra card, a first name that means "king." I'm weak against all of this, I think it's Great.

I love thinking about the things he didn't get to experience and thus the things that he will be absolutely enchanted with now that he is not underground or stuck living in a card game forgery Mafia. Get this boy on a roller coaster. Or even just a fucking escalator. Experience random parts of the world brand new right along with him.

He's clever and smart and speaks multiple languages but there are presumably massive gaps in his basic knowledge. Imagine talking to this guy and then finding out that he was never exposed to the concept of the theory of gravity. Who would have taught him that? And when? Probably no one ever. And you could go about normal life without ever talking about it or using it, but just imagine somebody casually mentioning it for some reason the way you do when somebody falls down or you talk about being on another planet (something that would also be News). "Oh you know, the gravity is different there." "... the what?" And he's there racking his brains through like the four languages that he knows and that word is just not coming up, he is drawing a blank.

Repeat this for Concepts like the speed of light, evolution, germs??, vaccines?

Ironically, he may have never seen animation.

Maybe he goes through a very long period in his life where he doesn't know who sincerely trusts him. Maybe he tries very very hard to be what he's supposed to be or to be good because he doesn't know what level of bad feelings might just birth a whole other mind he can't control. (This may also be part of the thing I might be making...)

I suffer from being very interested in the ways that these people's lives are affected before between and after the card game parts.

This is like. A dusting of my thoughts and feelings, haha, thank you for indulging me.

[dornish-queen]

Pedro Pascal: “I already took all my drugs very early. In middle age, a hangover is not an option ”

When he was approaching 40, he resigned himself to having sporadic papers that would allow him to pay the rent. But playing Oberyn Martell in 'Game of Thrones' changed his life and opened the doors of 'Narcos'. Since then it has not stopped. Now he's the villain from the blockbuster 'Wonder Woman 1984'

JUAN SANGUINO

THE ANGELS OCT 2, 2020 - 3:19 PM EDT

The first big opportunity of his career was presented in 2011, when he participated in the pilot episode of Wonder Woman for NBC, but the network discarded the series and Pedro Pascal returned to his main occupation: casting castings to play the criminal of the week in the Law and order of duty. “That cancellation was a disappointment, of course, I wanted to work. I did not care if it was something good or bad, I just wanted to work, "he recalls today from his home in Los Angeles during a virtual conversation with ICON. Now Pascal plays the villain of Wonder Woman 1984 , one of the blockbusters destined to return audiences to movie theaters .

How can you not believe in fate? The boy who broke his arm twice playing Indiana Jones has ended up becoming the favorite hero of the kids (the bounty hunter in The Mandalorian ), his parents (Agent Peña in Narcos ) and, well, everyone's. world (Oberyn Martell, The Red Viper, in Game of Thrones ). When Pedro was little, the good guys were always white and the bad guys were Russian, Arab or Latino. The Wonder Woman 1984 villain , however, is a white billionaire played by a Chilean.

“The film is set in the United States of the eighties, which were marked by capitalist greed. It was a tainted concept of evil. Stripped of humanity, but still absolutely attractive and alluring. People who dreamed of being rich and successful had to be salivated. It is true that at that time villains in the cinema projected a xenophobic image. Now the white man can finally be the bad guy, ”explains Pascal.

 Some already compare his character, Maxwell Lord, to Donald Trump because of that muck in this mud: Reagan's glorification of rogue moguls in America turned guys like Trump into aspirational role models and glamorous stars. “Trump was not the core of inspiration for my character, on our costume designer's board were Gordon Gekko [Michael Douglas on Wall Street ], American Psycho's Patrick Bateman and other suckers in expensive eighties suits. All those millionaires who hid despair, unbridled ambition and terrified masculinity ”, he clarifies. If Pedro Pascal sounds like a socialist infiltrated in Hollywood it is because that is exactly what he is.

“When Reagan was elected, many people around me were frustrated that the worst forms of capitalism were winning. In my home, with refugee and socialist parents, conservatism was not demonized but it did go against what was important to my family, ”he says. Pascal's father, José Balmaceda, was an Allende supporter doctor who saved the life of a priest wounded by Pinochet's militia .

The priest was later tortured and ended up confessing the name of his savior. When the police went to look for Balmaceda at the hospital where he worked, he took his wife and the newborn Pedro and jumped over the wall of the Venezuelan embassy in Santiago de Chile to request political asylum. That's why Pedro ended up growing up in San Antonio (Texas), in a socialist home but in Reagan's land. A Chilean with no memories of Chile who was called Peter in high school.

At the age of 20, Pascal was in Madrid working as a go-go and keeps good memories. Here she is wearing a Prada sweater. Photo: Danielle DeGrasse-Alston / Realization: Warren Alfie Baker

The Chilean-born but US-raised actor wears a Paul Smith sweater and suit. Photo: Danielle DeGrasse-Alston / Realization: Warren Alfie Baker

Pascal has never left the immigrant mentality behind. Even his father, who came to open a practice in California, always lived in terror that at any moment everything could vanish. “It doesn't matter who you are, how much you are working or how much you get paid. Deep down you always think that each job is the last one ”, confesses the actor. Maybe that's why he didn't dare move from his Red Hook, Brooklyn, hovel to a house more suitable for a Hollywood star until filming for Kingsman 2 and Narcos was over . Nor is it that he had spent more than an entire week at his house since, in 2014, Game of Thrones made him the guy most people would want to party with.

Pascal knew right away that Oberyn Martell, the Westerosi rockstar who always seemed willing to fight or fornicate with the same bravado, was going to change his life. “I had done a lot of castings for friends' plays, for copier factory ads or for very serious independent films that no one was going to see, while I watched how many characters that I had been about to play changed the lives of others. actors. And thanks to my experience and maturity, I recognized the potential of Oberyn. I understood who he was and who he could be ”, he presumes.

The actor found out about the audition when one of his acting students told him that he had taken the test but had been discarded because of his youth. Pedro snapped up and must have thought, “What would Oberyn do?” So he recorded a video on his phone and sent it to his good friend, actress Sarah Paulson . She passed it on to her good friend actress Amanda Peet and this one to her husband, David Benioff, one of the creators of Game of Thrones . The rest is the history of television and headaches: when he informed the Narcos producer that he was available to play Pablo Escobar's pursuing policeman, he accused him of making a spoiler for Game of Thrones: If Pascal had a free agenda, it is because Oberyn was going to lose his fight against La Montaña . He couldn't imagine, of course, in what way.

  Part of that electric, lively and hedonistic energy of Oberyn comes to Pascal from the summer (that of 1996) that he spent in Madrid, where in addition to studying he worked as a go-go in a disco. That stay was transformative because the actor realized that he had had to adapt his identity all his life with each new move, but in Madrid he felt effortlessly at home. “I was 20 years old and I liked it so much that I almost moved. My main language is English, I have an American accent and I can pass for white. But in my house there were many cultural differences with respect to the outside world and I remember that when I was 20 years old, when I came to Madrid, I felt very comfortable in my own skin in a way that I had never felt anywhere else. I guess I was not aware that I had spent my childhood and adolescence learning new ways of adapting, connecting, learning, and pulling. On the contrary, living in Madrid was organic and easy for me. I made friends right away and I felt supported, ”he recalls.

By the time he was 40 Pascal was resigned to being an actor with enough odd jobs to pay the rent. According to him, his aquiline nose was a bad nose by Hollywood standards. Far from being offended or frustrated by this typecasting, he was looking forward to it, if it translated into a new check. “It is very strange to develop a fantasy as a child, to have the opportunity to turn it into a hobby, then some studies and finally transform all that into a career. That is the bet. But my dream of becoming Leonardo DiCapriodied. He died dozens and dozens of times. So to move on he had to accept that, at best, he was going to be an actor with a job. That was already a triumph, "he says. "Also, I accepted that I was not qualified for anything else, I had no more skills: I had put all my time, my energy and my concentration in being an actor and the rest in living life and having fun."

That absence of vanity lives on today, even when he's been involved in large-scale projects for five years without stopping. After Game of ThronesHe has made eight films, of which seven are action blockbusters. The wave of fame came to him when he was no longer expecting it but when he was well prepared to ride it. Still, every workday is a surprise and she acknowledges that what amazes her most about Hollywood is the sheer physical stamina that people have. “Sometimes a project can look like building a city, with all the hours, all the work and all the energy it requires. Some people have better stamina and can get by with little sleep. That is an interesting contradiction: all the people creatively involved in a film have a special sensitivity and at the same time have developed a very tough skin and energy to go through the physical experience of shooting it, ”he admires.

 Then Pascal switches to Spanish (the language he uses to confess intimacies) and explains, in a few words, that he is old for this shit. “I thought I had all the energy in the world and now, in my 40s, I see that ... wow! There are times when I don't know if I will be able to reach the goal, because my energy is not at the necessary level. But I always take it forward ”, he guarantees. Maybe that's why people get so high in Hollywood. Pascal responds between laughter and again in Spanish.

“I already took all my drugs very early. It is something that is already too much in the past, and in middle age a hangover is not an option. No, no, no ”, she assures. What if the other hangover, that of the wave of fame, runs over you? “I was a good waiter. Not at first, because they fired me many times, but I ended up getting the hang of it, ”he jokes. If the Hollywood thing doesn't go well, you can always put drinks again. But for now Pedro Pascal is the personification that the American dream , although sometimes it takes a little longer to materialize, really exists. Even Ronald Reagan would be proud.

source

[nemo20-myparfumsmelllikegarlic]

Bernard Dowd personality because he lacks

When you first meet him:

Bernard is a very jersey man. He has a bit of an accent, likes to party and do stuff someone under 21 shouldn't, he is half italian/Irish - American half Moroccan/french, he has bleached blond hair and spends a very long time taking care of his capillary treasure (yes he did own more hair products than any girl he dated before). "He wears shirts that are too tight and unbuttoned 5 buttons too low to show off the chest that he spent hours and hours at the gym obtaining". He doesn't shave because he has italian and arab genes and Bernard has hair in places he didn't think was possible to. As expected he has contagious internalised homophobia.

Good parts:

There is alsow stuff about him wich his parents love so of course he hides it. He speaks multiple languages some of them useless. Bernard loves classical music, he played the viola in the school orchestra, not good enough for violin, but like somehow no-one knew he was in the school orchestra. Bernie, as he hates to be called, loves kids, not the wierd way although he dates a guy that canonically looks 12. I can see him working as a nanny in high school or doing voluntary work at an orphanage. He likes cooking and makes everything very tasty and very cute looking. And antiquities, he likes searching, collecting and trading them.

Bad parts:

He can come of as stupid, mostly in school as he is bad at science and probably dyslexic alsow a very lazy student. Even in classes he likes he would enjoy to do as little work as possible. The conspiracies of course, he probably gets them from the most schizo place on the Internet 4chan, as /pol/tards would call him an /r9k/ degenerate, a /x/ enjoyer and he probably alsow goes on /pol/ and just ignores the extremist stuff. I think it would be funny if he was most of the time somewhat correct about what he thinks batman will do, just missing one or two important parts of the plan. He is a joker and a bit of a bully. Mostly because he is very good at reading people and finding their weaker spots.

Possible jobs:

Teacher and working with kids 100%. A cool Latin, music or history Teacher to a kindergarten Teacher all would be a very interesting shift from his more bold personal life.

Alsow a child psychologist, he is already good at guessing how people are from the way they dress, mannerisms and their writing.

Him as a vigilante:

I am not sure, there are multiple ways I would like it but in none he is a hero.

1) A person obsessed with keeping the traditions and beliefs of Gotham as they were. A person that admires the old court of owols and thinks the way it is now is too corrupt for anyones good. An anti hero northing new about him.

2) I actually like this one the most. Bernard as not even a batfam villain but an Aqualad one. He is a Tresur Hunter and searching for precious stuff on wrecks. Usually interested in the ones that belongs to old Gotham religions and cultures as he likes to study them. So scuba diver but make it sexy u know for the girls and the boys💋.

[wizardhecker]

ollie’s book rec list

hey y’all i got libby this last year and its expanded my reading a bunch. I talked about what books I liked on twitter earlier but I wanted to move that over here. These books aren’t in order of preference, just when I read them. I’ll probably be updating this list throughout the year as well. 

Stuff I loved:

Gideon the Ninth- Tamsyn Muir: Probably my favorite book from this year, I’m eagerly awaiting for the sequel. WAs everything I wanted in a book, witty and clever. Lesbian necromancer and buff swordgirl end up taking part in a contest that entangles them in murder and mysteries. Its sci-fi but not hard sci-fi and sticks mostly to one planet. I’m witholding judgement on the ending until I read the second book because I have some conflicting feelings about it. Tags: F/F romance, bones, so many bones, Sci-fi, mystery

Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie: Told from the perspective of a ship AI that was once many different ancillaries. The story jumps back and forth between the present where she inhabits one body and the past to how that came to occur. It was super unique and engaging. I’ve seen this on a few lists for LGBT content which maybe there is in later books but that tag comes from the the ship AI being confused by gender since her language just uses “she/her” pronouns for everything. Therefor, yes technically any romances that occur are queer because every single character is referred to via she/her. I love language stuff like that though. Theres so many details that I was deeply fascinated by. Tags: sci fi, space politics, clones, unique perspective. 

The Raven Tower - Ann Leckie: Similar to her other book above, she plays with storytelling and narrator perspective. This is from the perspective a god who is a giant rock and switches between past and present. It was a bit slow at first, as it is a rock telling the story, but its well worth it and the ending was so fulfilling. I REALLY enjoyed the world building, everything felt neatly crafted as piece by piece the machine comes together and turns slowly. The protagonist human is also explicitely trans. Tags: politics, fantasy, god wars, trans protagonist.

Swordspoint - Ellen Kushner: An older book, but focuses around the politics of a city where swordsmen fromt he lower city are hired to fight for the aristocrats in the higher city. Follows the best swordsman and his [insufferable] scholar boyfriend, but switches perspectives a lot. Its fun, I might reread it. Tags: heavy politics, aristocrat bullshit, M/M romance, swordfighting!

Kings of the Wild - Nicholas Eames: This book read Very much like someone’s first classic D&D campaign, for better or for worse. I Loved it because the heart, passion, and sincerety put into it was so palpable and it feels like a campaign where everyone comes in with goofy joke characters and then midway through they get Really into it and suddenly everyone’s crying because that joke backstory they made has implications. Its about a bunch of retired legendary old men adventurers who get called back for one more job - to rescue the leader’s daughter. Tags: Sad old men, good fathers, fantasy, gay wizard, tabletop inspired.

Bloody Rose - Nicholas Eames: The sequel to the previous book (though it could be read alone). It really goes into more depth and analyzes some of the previous worldbuilding more, pulling apart some of the problems in the world that were swept away previously. I liked it slightly less but its still very good. It follows a bard joining up with an adventuring band to fight a...dragon? Maybe. Tags: F/F romance, are monsters people, necromancy, dragons, fantasy.

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker: A newly made golem woman and a Djinn who was trapped for thousands of years both in up in New York City in 1900, and their paths eventually intertwine. Really amazing perspective of Jewish and Arab immigrant communities and cultures in NYC. Switches point of view through many characters in the communities who come in and out of their lives. Tags: Supernatural beings, urban fantasy, historical.

The Monster of Elendhaven - Jennifer Giesbrecht: Very short book I read in one sitting about terrible evil men doing terrible evil things. One of them is unkillable, the other one is sorcerer and theyre tied together through a dark fate to destroy the world. I was deeply into the mythology and the way everything wove together. You know I’m a sucker for weird god stuff and I was provided for. Uhh trigger warning for a lot of stuff here, graphic violence, sexual assault, etc. Tags: Evil stuff, magic, dark mythology and folklore, capitalism, revenge plots.

The Black God’s Drums - P. Djeli Clark: Another short one read in one sitting, set in an alternate post-civil war setting New Orleans where a girl has a Goddess of storms living inside her. Tags: alternate history, bi protagonist, gods and goddesses. 

The Claidi Journals - Tanith Lee: So this was a reread of a kind of obscure series I read when I was a kid and I immensely enjoyed. Caveat that it is a young-adult series but it was such a fascinating and vibrant blend of fantasy magic and sci-fi, there’s little blend between the magic and technology of the realm. It’s about terrible families doing terrible things and the women who got accidentally caught up in it. It also has one of the most interesting women characters I’ve ever read who doesn’t even appear much in the books but whose legacy impacts every character. Tags: Science fantasy, aristocrat bullshit, bad moms, hetero but chill. 

Mixed Feelings:

Uprooted - Naomi Novik: Reclusive wizard who holds an evil forest at bay takes on an apprentice girl who gets entangled in further politics of the nation. I got Really into the worldbuilding, plot, and writing of this book and it hooked me pulling me along. However I have a major frustration with it that really prevents me from putting it in the “loved” category. If I could edit out about 20 lines I’d have found it perfect. I know other folks who disagree with me though so I’ll still recomend it. Tags: wizards, nature magic, politics, grumpy tower wizard, unfortunately heterosexual.

Of Fire and Stars - Audrey Coulthurst: Lesbian princesses and arranged marriages uh oh. Ones a ranger jock the others a sorcerer. Its fine and cute, I wasn’t really happy with the antagonist reveal at the end though. Tags: Aristocrat bullshit, politics, F/F romance, arranged marriage angst, forbidden magic.

Wayward Son - Rainbow Rowell: I really enjoyed the first book of this series and found it a delightfully self-indulgent transparent Harry Potter derivation. That sort of falls apart in the second book where having to build off something that worked as a one-off just doesn’t extend to a more filled out story and left me feeling unsatisfied. But, once again, the world building is delightful and I’m charmed by the magic system and a British person’s opinion of America. Tags: M/M romance, magic, America!, roadtrip, vampires

The Last Sun - K.D. Edwards: Modern fantasy tarot inspired world building. The main character is the last remnant of the “Sun” house that was ripped apart in a terrible way. He has PTSD and is hired to find a missing man, along the way uncovering a deeper conspiracy involving his house and past. It was fine, its a good book. I just wasn’t into it that much. Also massive trigger warnings for sexual assault, torture, etc. Tags: M/M romance, mystery, gritty, magic. 

Vicious - V.E. Schwab: I enjoyed it and it was a short quick read, but for some reason I’ve never been able to get into V.E. Schwab much. Not sure why. Man with power over pain is released from prison and seeks vengeance on his former friend who put him there - who is now a superhero, and adopts a young girl necromancer in the process. Tags: villains, everyone is evil, superpowers, modern, necromancy, unwilling father figure

The City Stained Red - Sam Sykes: I really just started skimming while reading this one tbh. Trash man swordfighter and his disfunctional adventuring party trying to collect their payment in a terrible city. It felt like someone’s D&D campaign but in the worst way where everyone is an edgelord dark backstory. I honestly didn’t like a single character. But, that’s fine it just wasn’t for me. I see this get put on lists for having a bi-character. Which I guess technically but I wasn’t a huge fan of how that became relevant. Tags: tabletop inspired but insecure about it, gritty, terrible city, terrible people, bi protagonist

[kiriti2009]

Dear America: Preserve These Things For The Love Of God

They say that in Europe our things are tiny and that in America your things are super-sized, and that’s a dangerous statement, prone to error when referring to anything other than the size of our Coca-Colas.

Any further debate could lead to a conflict of unprecedented proportions and distract us from the real issue: Here in Europe we are jealous of a lot of what you have in the United States of America. In particular, three things: God, liberty and civil society. In the social democratic Europe we live in, these three pillars have all but disappeared like the sun setting at the dusk of a civilization. In their stead we are left with secularism, conditional freedom and an all-encompassing state that demands money from us day and night in the form of taxes, while all we can do is shrug our shoulders, pay up and say, as did Bartleby: “I’d prefer no to.”

I write these lines, sit in a German alehouse “Cervecería Alemana” in Plaza Santa Ana in Madrid, an old cafe in which the dazzling Ava Gardner whittled away hours when she was living in Madrid, and in which Hemingway often sought refuge in good beer and beautiful people common to so many other bars in Europe. Midway through the 20th century another celebrated writer would also sit here. The Spaniard, Enrique Jardiel Poncela, was a successful comedian that, just over 30, relocated to the United States to write scripts for Fox studios.

He had such a penchant for tucking himself away in a bar in Madrid to write, that they had to build his office in Hollywood to resemble one, for him to be inspired. Jardiel hated the Hollywood vibe and on returning to Spain said that Americans were like “big kids,” although I’m not sure that’s actually a criticism. He also wrote that if a European wanted to understand America, he would have to buy, on arrival there, a “Bible, an automobile and a corkscrew.”

The corkscrew bit troubles me, even though these were the ’30s. By the way, his epitaph read: “If you want everyone to praise you, die.” When he did die, before his corpse had grown cold, everyone did praise him. And immediately afterward, not having ever displayed any political affiliation, everyone forgot about him. If there is anything this brilliant Spanish comedian got right, it was to be free, gaining himself enmity from both left and right. The European press has never been made for freedom, which is nothing other than the ability to say and do whatever you want and the strength to shoulder the consequences.

A student reaches for an inflated globe during a “Fridays for Future” protest for urgent climate action on May 24, 2019 in Muenster, northwestern Germany.

We envy almost everything about the press in America, from its independence from the government to the bravery shown by many of its greatest journalists, often opting for honor in harakiri — in ink — when the cause is a worthy one; sometimes it’s a sad collective suicide, like when they try to portray Nancy Pelosi as a rising star in the practice of origami. But even a despicable silver-screen villain like Walter Matthau from “The Front Page” captivates us, because in his madness we find an apt description of the wild press that was needed to create the brilliant myth of pressrooms littered by whisky filled flasks, and incredibly unstable individuals trying to keep the government at bay. 

Half the things that opinion-makers in the States would make the secular public in secular Europe shake in their boots and cross themselves, and that’s another thing that you got right: It’s important to call an imbecile an imbecile if you don’t you run the risk of confusing the public. And nothing describes the average European: confused and stunned. We’re not even well-manipulated à la Soviet, because even though the left wing tries whenever it can, the European center-right works ceaselessly toward that postmodern sickness called appeasement.

The outcome is that the right wing receives the brunt of the insults, the left being better liars, and nobody can freely say whatever they want in a newspaper without first reading carefully the European Single Thought Law. There are 70 million Twitter users just waiting to write your column, coming close to choking on their own bile as they spit insults at you, while your own contribution to social unrest is safely censored. If you’re right wing, they’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.

To disagree, to think freely, to stand out, is to dig your own grave in modern Europe. There is a very European bias toward the bureaucratic structuring of private initiatives that becomes truly exasperating. Even in love.

Maybe because of liberty, the United States helps people become millionaires while Europe hinders them. Sometimes quite embarrassingly so. Just one example. Spain’s new social communist government has threatened to cripple rich people with taxes. As a result, an exodus to Portugal has begun. What does this government do? Rectify? No. They threaten with consequences against those leaving. This is all we could expect from a government whose vice president criticizes and insults the owner of Inditex, my brilliant fellow countryman Amancio Ortega, for having donated expensive, latest generation cancer treatment machines, to Spanish hospitals. According to Spanish Vice President Pablo Iglesias, the Spanish public health service doesn’t need “handouts” from the rich. Maybe he’s right. But the Spanish cancer patients sure do. Some people just keep proving Jardiel Poncelaright again when he said: “Those that don’t dare to be intelligent, become politicians.” There are exceptions, but they’re not in Pedro Sánchez’s government.

Spanish far-left Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias gives a speech during the first day of the parliamentary investiture debate to vote through a prime minister, at the Spanish Congress (Las Cortes) on July 22, 2019, in Madrid.

As a rule, the States’ civil society is healthier than the European because it’s careful not to devote itself to mass ideological prostitution. I said “mass,” I’m not here to naively canonise the whole country, ignoring that you’ve had presidents whose main virtue was knowing how to dance salsa. But even then it’s different. Your genuinely democratic culture — impossible to export– makes it easy to get rid of cretins that manage to reach office.

In Europe, the more independent civic leaders raise their voices and lead all they can, but only until they’re gobbled up by one party or another. Then they become accommodated and their voices become muddled. That might very well be the problem: this very European obsession with security, be it employment, unemployment, social life, housing or relationships. Everything has to be as secure and predictable as German engineering, which is why there exists a certain disdain for the American dream. If America can be reduced to a hamburger, part of the European elite can be reduced to the unassembled pieces of a wardrobe from Ikea; if they ever manage to get it together, in an armed conflict, you’ll find me on the hamburger’s side.

Somehow mobility and meritocracy muddy the social democrat dream, which as with communism, needs poor and hungry to survive. Sometimes I wonder why modern Europeans are so enthusiastic about living when most of their state tutored, predictable and bureaucratic lives are a bore. Obviously Mediterranean Europe is the exception; boredom is impossible there.

All of this has a tragic consequence. The lack of a sense of humor extends like a plague throughout the continent. Europe has lost its sense of humor and that’s it’s drama. You only need see that safety warnings printed on any appliance produced in the European Union to understand how total safety and security is an illness. You can’t take your job so seriously. If you sell phone batteries, don’t place a warning on them, in 10 different languages, asking the buyer not to nibble on it. Don’t make a fool of yourself in 10 different languages. The legal cobweb covering the Old Continent making you do it is no excuse. Exporting illegal batteries is better than looking like a world-class idiot all over the world.

But Europe takes itself too seriously. Everything is regulated in its pocket-sized nations. Everything is vital. Everything is serious. Everything is exceedingly dull. Americans can joke and laugh about filling some dictator full of holes without tearing their hair out and crying, which is exactly what the French, Belgian or the Danes do. The Dutch aren’t laughing so loud this week because some genius in the government has decided it would be a good idea to legalize an anti–old people pill. Suddenly, Dutch progressive OAPs, that have been smoking spliffs since their teens, feel less enthusiastic about death-dealing because they’ve realized that in this year’s Halloween parties they will be the dead.

Incidentally, proof of Europe’s idiotization is that, given a choice as to what we import from the United States, instead of choosing liberty, wealth or the size of the damn ice in our drinks, we chose Halloween, which we would gladly send back to you in a box with its corresponding bow and a thank-you note “always thinking of you.”

Something else we envy. When a policeman shoots down a dangerous terrorist, you all ask how the policeman is and swell with pride over his heroism. In Europe though, public opinion and the media react differently:

Couldn’t he have spared the man’s life?

Was it proportional?

Did he read him his rights?

He wasn’t gunned down for wearing explosives and six machetes, he was murdered for being an Arab.

The same happens with military ops. If no one botches it, America will still rally behind their military when they are deployed, even if there has been political dissent. These small shows of unison that upstage the differences, around basic issues, are what make a nation great. Small things can be huge.

Maybe because Americans don’t believe that the state will save them, and much less guarantee them everlasting life within the foreseeable future, they still choose to trust in God. And that’s understandable. When one sees Bernie Sanders and thinks, if an electoral catastrophe were to occur, that one’s life would be in his hands, it’s a huge relief to know you always have God to save you.

What’s more, God is present daily in the lives of men that, as with any civilization, want to transcend their own arrogance. Which is why, when a politician finishes speaking with a “God bless America!” no one is surprised or shocked. It even sounds good, magnificent, glorious. On the other hand, in Europe, if one finishes his speech with a “God bless Sweden!” or “God bless Denmark!” it just doesn’t work. It’s almost like saying “God bless the International Monetary Fund!” It doesn’t even sound good. What’s more you’ll instantly see people rise from their seats and call out:

Why do you say “God”? I’m an atheist. It’s offensive.

Why do you say “God” and not Goddess? Chauvinist! It’s offensive.

Why do you say “God” and not Mother Nature? I identify as a rabbit. Ethnocentrist! It’s offensive.

In the end you just give up, leave God out of it, but reference Satan because you want to send the whole world to hell. But then, once more, another uproar, like a cat fight on Twitter: Christianocentric! Islamophobe. Allah is great. It’s offensive. That’s when you decide to put an end to the event and hang yourself in a toilet stall. That’s how things are in Europe.

Of course, Europe also has the History, it’s still at the origin of our civilization, illustrious ruins, Spanish literature, British humor, Houllebecq and Swedish women. But it also has its fair share of disappointments. France was supposed to be fun. All of my damned bohemians burned Paris down between opium dens, poetry and whisky. It was all just an illusion. These days their grandchildren don’t go out at night, they only read the state’s Official Bulletin and instead of alcohol, they down copious amounts of ecological tea in vegan tea shops where they extract the tea by caressing the leaves.

What about Spain? My country is another matter. Spaniards are only Europeans during work hours. From six in the afternoon onward — Brussels time — we stop being European and we do whatever we feel like until 8 a.m. the next day. This makes other Europeans feel awkward when they come to do business here. They would much prefer to see a hoard of fools following one another mindlessly through the streets like Lemmings, that strange video game from the ’80s. I mean they would rather be in Berlin than Madrid. We don’t do it because we love partying, but to safeguard the essence of ancient Europe, when Romans would commit the seven deadly sins all together, leave work mid-afternoon for a siesta and always found an excuse for a toast (not the bread one). Our sacred duty as Spaniards is to keep these worthy traditions alive, whatever Brussels says.

It’s not that Europe is a bad idea, just the same as the — oh so different — United States isn’t either. Europe, and I mean the European Union, is a place where we can sit down and talk instead of being gunned down and invaded. It has its benefits, especially in what concerns public spending on weapons. But neither Americans nor Europeans can permit themselves to be complacent. Europe needs to recover its identity or Brexit will be just the beginning, and America needs to keep an eye on what’s happening over here, because no one’s immune to a plague of stupid people corrupting the power. Although I suspect that in the end, whatever happens in the future, here in Europe, we’ll always be jealous of the size of your missiles, Reagan’s politics, Scarlett Johansson’s beauty, George Clooney’s elegance and having a president who tweets all in caps.

[alschain]

I honestly can't post more random shit on twitter so here's where I'll store my garbage brain reading magi comic

- I SHIP TOTO AND MORGIANA how dare you sink my ship with only like 2 chapters

- finally reached them plot beyond anime adaptation and first thing we learn, someone need to water spray Alibaba's horny ass

- Yunan and Sinbad bicker back and forth...? Must be exes (nod) also Yunan you fucking twink

- but he's an intellectual twink I approve

- kou empire being a commentary on ancient china (even china today) and it's ideology of unification by not accepting diversity but promoting a single culture language and customs that are it's own is not a critique of communism rather colonialism....thank you

- maybe it's too quick to judge but good grief I hate people like koumei the most :( being able to rationalize and institutionalize violation of human rights is a lot scarier than any crazy loony. And it honestly is some 1984 shit going on here

- oh.............................

- Ithnan is a gay baby

- so the story of alma toran, shares the same core idea of Jesus Christ Superstar (jokes aside the discussion of power and divinity is really fucking beautiful

- It is incredibly distracting however that in a magical world deeply rooted in Arabic culture, people have names like Solomon or Sheba or Ugo that the ultimate villain is just called, David. Like some guy from work

- final chapter of the arc looping back to aladdin wishing to be friend with ugo....It's fucking poetic, it's fucking beautiful. The whole alma toran story obviously isn't telling us that Solomon's will is just good, or that he did everything right. Just like he once did, aladdin is now questioning the world's principal and all acting from the base desire of happiness. I don't think my sleep deprived mind grasped or made sense of everything going on here but damn, this is good shit

- I read shonen to feel good about myself and the world because they get cool powers and unconditional friends and most importantly through trial and error they actually win. But damn is it suffocating to read magi (but in a good way), nihilism, existentialism, philosophies I contemplate all day every day being presented in such a way is really, idk, making me sad, just like the real world

- Hakuryuu and Judar's fight against Arba is so fucking good..............and my god all these motherfuckers from Kou are scary. But I just want to hug these two sad boys, which is not saying that I think their thinking is rights or makes sense it's just...you can't blame them, and bitch I relate. Being unable to escape a loop of hate and anger for so long and so much that you internalized it to become something much worse.......and that makes you doubt even more about yourself and the people around you. Which is why therapy is important, at least for me lol.

- SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THIS FUCKING FIGHT????? WHY??????????? WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS TO EACH OTHER IT'S SO MISERABLE I CANT-

- Aladdin's expression.......INSTANT TEARS

- he's so pure I'm crying

- Sinbad you actual SON OF A BITCH

- SINBADDDD WHAT THE FUCK YOU ARE WHO?????? And putting Sinbad' adventures in his younger days into perspective it's just fucking tragic, if you have to be a piece of shit fine but what about the good people and their good intentions..............

- FUCK I knew one of them is going to die out of the fucking blue and I know I said I hated koumei but, FUCK

- jfc it's so............miserable....................

- human justice change, and as long as we are able to question it, the world would be a better place, and we are able to move forward, to have meaning. I want to hug Hakuryuu until he can't breath.

- oh no kougyoku.......come here that's right Sinbad is a piece of shit

- wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait WHAT

- she..!!! he......!!!!!!! Can she do it to literally anyone furthermore does, does like Ja'far know about......him???!?!????!?!!!????

- damn the opening chapter of the final arc is so beautifully done it's fucking art.

- To think that I was so obsessed with Yunan when I was like 13 first watching Magi anime...he's actually just a sad twink

- they got cars???? They got phones????? They got fucking planes??????? I've only ever seen fantasy + technology as in steampunk but this shit, it's purely magical, and it makes sense holy shit

- the gags in Magi are one of the greatest I swear they are so random

- this is...genius, it's not a conflict of communism and capitalism but rather the culture rooted in Eastern and Western civilizations and the different difficulties they face stepping into this new world.......these two economic system aren't inherently eastern and western either, it's just, cultures, and the conflict created thus.

- and Alibaba are you our socialism icon??

- no wait wtf alibaba WHAT fucking plan is this that's not how, that's not how it works. To introduce a concept previously foreign to the population is not to domesticated it like that...? It suggests that....people can't change, culture can't change, Idk it's kinda worrying. But I do understand, as a temporary measure :/

- ALIBABA. YOU. GREAT. HUMAN. BEING.

- fuck capitalism and monopoly fuck you Sinbad

- this is the scariest shit I've ever seen good grief arba can you not

- I'm going to say it while I still can without being creepy since technically I'm still a teen? Aladdin how is he hot af now

- now that I think more about it Hakuryuu's redemption happens so naturally, it makes me so happy to see the struggle for truth and happiness is achieved through one's reflection, coming to terms with mistakes. Again this shit is fucking beautiful.

- Alibaba Keanu Reeves Saluja ("no, you're amazing"

- YUNANNNNNNNNN NOOOOOOOO

- I fucking love Yunan I just really like this character ever since the first time I watched magi for some strange reason and NOW NOOOOOOOO WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BOY

- Hakuryuu could be in a infomercial about insects repellant by now things would be much easier if you know his arms could stop getting bit/stung by snake/scorpion

- "can I have an Apple now Mr driver" ALADDIN YOU BIG FLIRT I WILL DIE WITH THIS SHIP and damn his change is even more oblivious put next to Alibaba

- crybaby Hakuryuu.....they all changed but hasn't at the same time I'm crying

- is Hakuryuu me?????????? Crying all night after getting wasted

- two minutes after I said I'll die with the ship....the ship died, bye everybody

- just kidding Alibaba and Mor as so sweet it's just I really ship Aladdin and alibaba....I get more and more estranged feeling as I keep reading because it's not silly, feel-good adventures anymore, "少年漫" 里面的 "少年感" 被渐渐冲淡了因为真实世界比魔法对决宏大多了. I mean, it doesn't seem real that Alibaba and Mor are getting married, I still see them as hot headed companions that are teens going for their dreams against a whole unkind world, it just doesn't seem real. But not in remotely any bad way, it's me who hasn't grown up, I guess.

- that said you guys can really just start with, a relationship? Ya know???? "Lets become husband and wife" I can't take this it's too fast lmao

- NO STOP PUTTING ALADDIN AND KOUGYOKU TOGETHER I DONT LIKE IT (they are both lovely people I just don't like it#!!!!!!! They had zero chemistry#!!#!!#!!!!!!!! It's weird!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I refuse everyone's getting fucking married!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- stop.......being..........so.............full of yourself, sinbad

- what, the, fuck, is, going, on

- what

- the

- fuck

-Sinbad

[benevolenceunbroken]

{MITCHELL HOPE; PANSEXUAL; CISMALE} —» Introducing BENJAMIN LAGARDE, the 19 year old descendant of BELLE & ADAM from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Rumour is that HE has ONE TWIN SISTER. It’s been speculated that HE is a FRESHMAN at AURADON UNIVERSITY. Word is that HE is ALTRUISTIC but HE can also be CAPRICIOUS.

CHAPTER 1: CHILDHOOD

born 5 minutes before his twin sister

raised to be king— life filled with etiquette, dancing, politics, etc. lessons, along with basic studies of each known auradonian language (french, mandarin, arabic, etc.)

was a wild child— loud, obnoxious, bossy, spoiled, always getting into trouble, climbing places he shouldn’t climb, acting ‘strong & powerful’ like his dad, telling others that he can do whatever he wants since he’s prince & old enough

disliked the idea of ruling when it came to having a lot of lessons & had a minor jealousy over his sister having lots of play time. but he did enjoy the idea of being ‘king’ aka telling people what to do

always injured due to climbing places he shouldn’t climb & getting into fights

pretty much his father before & if the enchantress never knocked on her door

valued his dad’s opinion way too much & believed everything his father says cause he’s king & powerful so he must know what the truth is ((far too starstruck with his dad; valued his dad’s praises))

probably believed that the isle was a good idea

probably believed that everyone in the isle was mean and deserved to be jailed

CHAPTER 2: ADOLESCENT YEARS

tames a lot as he grows up, more so when puberty occurred & one of his side effects is unlocking the beast inside him

his rowdiness combined with his ‘inner beast’ often got items destroyed & has almost injured his mother once

disliking the idea of hurting his mother, he’s trained into controlling his ‘wild side’ aka his troublesome personality. calming him down to the ben known today, pacifistic, diplomatic, kind, polite, princely, etc. ben

his love for books began during these years, which lead to him thinking independently & having a set of opinion that isn’t his fathers. 

begins to believe that there are those in the isle who don’t deserve their sentence

believes that his father made multiple mistakes by creating the isle

starts several plans into fixing his father’s mistakes

has started getting yen sid to tell him about the life in the isle when his visions of mal appeared. this visions sped up his plan of freeing the isle kids.

asked yen sid on who mal’s closest companions were— which is why he picked the rotten four

descendants 1 happened: him getting ready to be king, testing out his plan of slowly bringing isle kids to auradon, getting a love potion, being crowned king

descendants 2 happened: being king, going to the isle to get back mal, captured by the sea trio, cotillion, love potion’d by uma, true love’s kiss with mal

CHAPTER 3: CURRENT LIFE

with evie helping him as an advisor, ben’s plan on bringing the isle kids to auradon sped up. & the burden of messing up due to bringing someone too villainous to be let out in auradon eased since he has the rotten four by his side, along with memories of how life in the isle was

struggling with his personal mission, the complaints he’s getting about it, every kingdom he has to watch over, school, etc.

tired boy with barely enough sleep. after 2 years of being king, with no official queen to help him with his burden, he’s almost the male version of sleeping beauty, falling asleep anywhere and everywhere

trying his best & forever worried that his best is not good enough. wondering if he should really be ruling all the kingdoms when its filled with multiple cultures that he could never truly relate to (aka thinking of a state system where there’s mayors & a president watching over them)

currently a history major with minor on economics, actually still undecided on the course he wants to take since he believes he needs to take something more useful as a king but history is what he loves & taking a more difficult course would pain him with his busy schedule

[terranoctis]

willow

After some casual catching up on work this afternoon, I took some time to myself to do things I enjoy. Oddly enough, this enjoyment consisted of educating myself on the most random array of subjects. I spent time reading a slew of news articles, watching documentaries, learning history, and consuming Shakespeare. I like to learn things of varying topics because it helps me think about how I want to shape the world I’m writing. History and enjoying stories of different mediums informs me, and makes me reflect on how I want to understand the world. In general, I simply want to understand things more because there are a myriad of topics I still have much to learn about. 

One of the first things I took a dedicated interest in today was the politics of Lebanon and how it culminated in part from the Lebanon Civil War. This was a result of the recent events in Beirut. Similar to why I chose to start learning Arabic a few years ago, I wanted to understand more about the culture and history of the Middle East. How did the Lebanese government become this entity that had done its people so wrong, according to everything I had been reading this past week? My delve into history today was that same feeling I had a few years ago. I specifically remember the Yemeni-Syrian humanitarian crisis of 2015 because it was around the exact time I decided to learn Arabic and took time to educate myself on that situation.   

Just like when I learned the Arabic language, and in part, introduced myself to Middle Eastern culture, I felt there were many things put into perspective once I took the time to learn. Learning about the Middle East puts into perspective sometimes how tailored the education and news cycle we get in the US is towards a Western perspective. When I was talking to my friend yesterday, he wasn’t even all that aware of how the negligence of the Lebanese government lead to Beirut’s explosion. I might not have either if I hadn’t recently started regularly reading news from foreign correspondents. The whole week has been terrible from news articles I’ve been reading, and it makes me hurt for all the people who live in Lebanon. My Arabic professor was from Beirut, and to witness her city, that she so lovingly described to us, be destroyed... I can’t fathom at all how she’s feeling now. Was she there? Is her family okay? I don’t know and that thought scares me too. There isn’t anything I can do to make anything better, but I want to understand, because it’s only when we learn history that we collectively understand as humans and be better where possible. 

It is an understatement to state that Lebanon’s recent history in the past fifty years or so is fractured and fraught with factions. My understanding is still minimal and I’ll likely have to read significantly more on the Middle East to even comprehend its complexities. Moreover, as all history goes, it’s not possible to learn about one country without understanding how the politics of another country affected it. The Lebanese civil war is a testament to that in how Palestine, Israel, and Syria played their parts. It was much bloodshed though, from my research into it. In this part of the world, our bloodshed and factional discord almost seems incomparable to what Lebanon has lived through. I wouldn’t wish that history on any nation, let alone any city like Beirut that was a battleground for warring factions. 

But I digress. I could go on about history for awhile if I wanted to. This blog is more for my collection of thoughts. Take my thoughts with a grain of salt as I still have much to learn, and I confess to being more ignorant than I wish to be in such topics. Nonetheless, the Lebanon Civil War made me think quite a bit about how I also wanted to write war as well, considering the backdrop of one of my stories exists during a civil war. 

I went on to watch a documentary on the Fyre festival. After some heavy history reading and documentary-watching, it seemed only appropriate to learn about something more seemingly inane. I had only tangentially learned about the music festival previously from the people I grew up with and their knowledge of it on social media. To learn about the entirety of the situation more in-depth though explained to me more about how tragic and terrible the whole festival was. The insanity that occurred because those in charge weren’t willing to own up and take responsibility for it was immense. It’s sad to see how people will take others for advantage, and it’s sad how a group of people can be driven to a point of no return because they are in way over their heads. It’s a different history to learn, and one that should be learned due to the way the online world and social media can drive an idea or break it. We live in a world now that thrives in some part by appearances online--and in the same breath, shuts something down online by mob mentality. It’s a different kind of history to learn, but something very fitting for this modern day and age. The advent of online networking and marketing, along with the appeal of social media has changed the world entirely... and this disaster of a festival is one of its textbook cases on how good and bad social media can be for one concept.

From there, I ended up watching a stage production of Othello put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Othello is one of the more widely read plays by Shakespeare that I have not ever once read, so I thought it would be interesting to experience it as a stage production first rather than in text first, as I have experienced most of his other plays. The production itself is quite a fascinating take on a Shakespearean play. Having not read the text, but understanding Shakespeare themes, the production cast both Othello and Iago as black men. This definitely lead to some race discussions and tensions that may not have been relevant with different casting... and I loved that it did that, particularly in conjunction with Cassio’s role as a white lieutenant. 

I can’t say it’s my favorite Shakespeare play, but I do think it’s one of the most sympathetic and well-written takes from Shakespeare on the female experience in a poor relationship. This may have been in part to how Desdemona and Emilia were acted, but there is something chilling about how Othello goes into a rage over his jealousy. The women are left to the mercy of this rage and to the mercy of all these men’s jealousies and manipulations concocted around them. Even the third woman in this play who is made a farce of with Cassio is sympathetic, because we witness Cassio seeing her as nothing more than someone to pass his time with. Cassio is quick to degrade her verbally when she becomes jealous. Emilia is manipulated by Iago as his wife to steal Desdemona's glove. Othello is known as a noble man and we see this up until he’s manipulated into a corner. 

But even Othello’s noble character doesn’t excuse his rage towards Desdemona in the privacy of their own home. It shows a man at his worst being a violent and jealous man--and an abusive significant other. For all that Iago is the manipulator, it also paints Othello as a man who can justify murder and more because he believes he was wronged. It’s power and abusive privilege at its worst in someone who is supposed to be a noble man, regardless of misunderstandings. As a woman watching the play, it was less about Iago’s manipulations for me, though he is a fascinating character. This play was the progression of a loving husband like Othello becoming an aggressor to Desdemona. It was about Iago killing his wife Emilia because she didn’t serve his purposes. 

It was also haunting to me that the only happy or peaceful moment the women have in the second half of the play is alone with one another, in the privacy of a bath, singing a willow song about a woman who was in love and whose love was lost in her significant other. It is a sad moment that foreshadows Desdemona’s death, but softly, also one of the happier moments the women have in the play with just the two of them together. There’s a kinship there that I don’t think I’ve quite seen in other Shakespeare plays between two women and how they recognize they’ve both been at the mercy of men, and their loves. They’ve been scorned as the woman in the Willow song. Just as Emilia helped her husband, and Desdemona loved her husband wholeheartedly, they’re just singing willow, willow, willow... Emilia’s monologue during this scene, which gives credence to how powerful women’s feelings can be in spite of how their husbands fail to recognize it, was probably my favorite monologue in the entire play. And the way it contrasts with Desdemona’s dejected rejection of that concept because of her sadness towards her husband makes it one of my favorite scenes in the entire play.

Othello is titled after the main character, and it is an apt portrait of a man who is driven to a jealous rage. But as it paints him, it also paints what and Iago have done to everyone around them. Iago may be the Machiavellian villain, but I think Othello is a villain in his own right as well. The people who suffer the worst fates are the women in this. It’s definitely a Shakespearean tragedy, and I’m not surprised necessarily in how that played out. Yet, there’s a lot to read into from how the stage production presented these characters and the unstated elements that aren’t verbalized outright. Somehow Othello seems relevant when you think about it through the lens of how some abusive relationships come into existence and in light of how quick people may be to slander women when you believe ill of them. In that regard, in its depiction of women and relationships, this play may be one of my favorite to analyze in regards to the topic of women in Shakespeare’s plays. 

In other words, I’m still a lit nerd. 

I went on quite a dive today into topics that interested me. I suppose it’s a cultured dive. It makes me happy though and I’ve drawn some ideas for things I’ve already been writing. Writing this out also helped me formulate my thoughts more. It’s my dream to read and educate myself more as I please, and it’s nice to just have a whole day to do that between errands. I love that. I love just learning what I want to learn about in the context of the world around me. It brought me back to days when I would spend reading Shakespeare for fun and set myself to reading specific authors like Virginia Woolf, Mark Twain, or Ursula Le Guin. Or reading mythology from different cultures. Maybe a part of me misses being in school, but I also know that I like just educating myself as I please. Things like this also make me a better writer.

I suppose I’m an old soul. I just like stories...and history is a story in itself. 

[tonyaaaagh]

Airbender

There are cartoons that openly embrace international, cultural and religious

         'Avatar: the last air bender' is a Nickelodeon cartoon which draws upon influences from all over the globe to create an alternate cartoon world. Visually it is similar to the popular Japanese cartoon style Anime and has obvious Hayuimi Mikazki (Studio influences of Japanese values education, tradition environmental sustainability and responsibility.

           The 99 started out as a comic and The 99 includes everything you'd expect from in a super hero cartoon, good guys, bad guys, superhuman powers and an intriguing back-story. From the off it embraces key aspects from many religions as well as eastern and western cultures. The heroes and villains are spread across the globe each bringing with them their own cultural identity. This is transnational cinema, for a global audience, at a new high. The 99 offers role models of superheroes born of Middle East history and carry values shared by the entire world". It is currently available in Arabic, English and 6 other languages.

         "straddling the cultural divide between East and West" (Fattah. 2006)

         In 2010 The heroes and heroines of the 99 have partnered with DC Comic's Justice League of America, truly juxtaposing eastern and western superheroes and uniting them through fighting evil.

         The 99 comic is printed, available for download and a animated C.G.I. cartoon. The Animated cartoon has been aired in Asia, Europe, North America and Africa.

         An unavoidable critique of The 99 is that many Muslims are discouraged from any forms physical representation (drawings of the human form)

[global-news-station]

From Netflix to Hitler, protesters are tapping pop culture and history as they vent their anger against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new citizenship law — and with deft use of India’s beloved acronyms.

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) eases naturalisation for persecuted religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, but not if they are Muslim.

Critics fear it is the precursor to a National Register of Citizens (NRC) that many among India’s often undocumented 200 million Muslims is aimed primarily of making them stateless.

Modi’s government denies this and says the law is a humanitarian move, but it has sparked two weeks of protests that at times have been violent. At least 27 people have been killed.

“NRC is Coming” reads one placard, co-opting the “Winter is Coming” slogan of the smash-hit fantasy series “Game of Thrones”, with Modi’s black and white mugshot in the background.

Also Read: ‘A clear plan for a Muslim genocide in India’

Others inspired by the same fantasy series include “Winter is coming for Modi and Shah”, referring to Home Minister Amit Shah, and “Modi – you are making Cersei look good”, a nod to a “Game of Thrones” villain.

“Netflix and raise hell”, says another, in a spin on the expression “Netflix and chill”.

“Stop trying to make NRC happen!” meanwhile rips off a popular line in Lindsay Lohan movie “Mean Girls”.

– ‘Die like Hitler’ –

Anjali Singh, clutching an “Error 404, Hindu nation not found” placard, said that Modi and his government had  become more aggressive in moving forward with their Hindu agenda.

“So our messaging has also got more explicit and direct,” Singh told AFP.

Slogans like “Long Live the Revolution”, a popular chant of India’s independence struggle against British, echo at many demos, with a rhyming chant of “If you act like Hitler, you will die like Hitler”.

Caricatures of Modi and Shah wearing Nazi uniform and posters of Hitler holding a baby-sized Modi aloft have become a staple as videos and pictures that are viral on social media, as well as of graffiti.

“Everything that happens offline ends up online and we have to have a global appeal in our messaging,” Kiran Malhotra, a student protester in New Delhi, explained to AFP.

Also Read: ‘Wake up before RSS commits genocide of Muslims,’ PM Imran forewarns

“Someone sitting in the US or Europe will not understand the change in India’s citizenship law but comparing Modi with Hitler simplifies it,” Malhotra said, her placard depicting a cartoon Modi with a swastika armband.

Many protesters are also rehashing Indian TV jingles from the 1980s to give a nostalgic touch to the protests, while others are using tambourine beats to sing “Down with Modi” or recite the preamble of India’s constitution.

Other favourites include a Hindi version of US civil rights anthem “We shall overcome”, as well as revolutionary Urdu poems.

“The messaging has to be more explicit and direct now,” Ira Sen, a protester told AFP.

Her poster features independence icon Mahatma Gandhi holding his “My experiments with Truth” autobiography alongside Modi cradling what the drawing depicts as his version, “My experiments with lies”.

– Homs to Hyderabad –

Many people are demonstrating for the first time, drawing inspiration from protests in Hong Kong, Chile, the Arab Spring and against US President Donald Trump’s travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority countries.

“People power can bring change. Democracy and constitution will win, despots will be thrown out,” Meenkshi Roy, an interior designer told AFP, holding a placard “Caesar will go… Rome stays”.

Other placards are topical (“PM 2.0 is worse than PM2.5”, a reference to a measure of pollution in India‘s smog-choked cities) and witty (“I have seen smarter cabinets at IKEA”).

“There is more youthful but aggressive language in slogans and placards. Some of the placards are downright offensive, some mocking and many other are sarcastic,” Steve Rocha, an activist, told AFP.

“This protest has everything –- graphics, words, music, poetry and rage.”

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[astyle-alex]

It's a beautiful example of how YA based in a non-Western cultural background should be constructed, and there are definitely aspects of it that I deeply enjoyed, but I had a hard time truly falling under its spell. I think that is mostly a product of the environment where I was reading it, and the fact that I was required to read it in order to facilitate a book club event at work...

And that secondary fact worked against it two-fold, being that it's the first required reading of a novel I've had in almost a decade, and second that I disagree strongly with the concept of a national book club that categorically must be supported by all levels of employee as dictated by Corporate... I think it boosts sales for this title in a way that is unfair and rather undue, considering that I'd way rather Promote something like Wicked Fox, which I enjoyed more and feel is not getting enough attention...

Anywho:

The main thing I want to draw attention to regarding this story is how the 'foreign' words were naturalized. The characters using the words don't see them as foreign so they are treated as standard language, with the translation provided for those in the audience who may not be familiar with the terms being secondary thoughts and italicized as existing partly outside the narrative. Wicked Fox did this too, but We Hunt the Flame had a lot more Arabic base words than any other story I can think off off the top of my head-- and, to make it even better, it didn't translate all of them; it simply let us gain an understanding of their usage via context. It even commented briefly on the variations in certain terms due to the abundance of truly distinct dialects.

So, linguistically, I think this is one of the best books I've read in a while. It's certainly the most reasonable argument for #OwnVoices fiction. I've disliked the #OwnVoices trend for a while now, not because I don't agree with the concept, but because the concept didn't include what legitimately felt like #OwnVoices material. The stories that came out, pitched to picky and pretentious teens as being #OwnVoices didn't feel any more culturally rooted than the white-author-in-a-new-cultural-playground did. And I was pissed at how bad #OwnVoices stories were getting published, and how they were getting picked up by publishers over good stories with Totally-Unrelated-But-Still-Respectful-Voices.

Yes, it's the age old race issue of forced integration. It's overall going to be a good thing, but it started off poorly and I am allowed to be irked by that.

On the other hand, the story itself was interesting. I dunno... I just didn't love it... It was a good old road trip story, and a fun little camp out of interesting folk who didn't initially get along... but it just felt a little meh to me.

I also didn't wholly understand the setting... And the impetus of needing the five Caliphates to be under one sultan... Because that map is inverted, from what I was thinking as I read. The world is arranged around the island of Sharr, and the Arz blocks the people off from the Barrensea around the Sharr... So other than the fact that the Arz is eating away at the land, it doesn't seem like getting to the Barrensea is really necessary. Espcially as it looks like the map extends outward in every other direction in a way that makes the joining of the five Caliphates... largely useless. And the five mini-kingdoms are arranged oddly, considering they're all part of the same super-nation... and the arrangement makes the sultan's palace exist at an exceptionally awkward point for it to rule over the five relevant Caliphates... It really just doesn't seem sensible.

If the country were an island and the five Caliphates were crammed onto it, with the Barrensea stretching out all around them, for basically ever with no other land being reachable by any of the presumably thousands of search parties that have gone out looking, then maybe the organization of the culture would make sense... the Arz could still have popped up in the middle of the continent, and Sharr could still be an island, possibly a magical moving island, and everything else could stay exactly the same... It could make the story a lot easier to swallow. Because I'm pretty sure that's one of the reasons I had trouble getting into it, I just couldn't figure out why any of this was at all necessary.

There was also a lot of deus ex machina involvement, literally, with the Silver Witch being the primary reason anything really got successfully accomplished. And beyond that, I've never really been one to support a plot that hinged on the 'Great and Inevitable Darkness' as the only real bad guy... Like people are awful on their own, thank you very much, they aren't all innocents being poisoned by the great deceiver.... If you wanna make me feel bad for a villain, I'm just gonna need more than blatant demonic possession to be convinced to care at all.

So yeah, I have a lot of issues with this story. But it IS a good read. And it's got very entertaining characters, even if the way their stories unfold feels rather mechanical at times. And we don't really learn Kifah's story at all... Presumably, it'll be more relevant in Book 2, and therefore will come up more directly and unavoidably, but still, it felt odd to learn SO MUCH that didn't seem to matter about the others and nothing about her...

Again, though, it's a good read. Not great, but fun, and the linguistics are lovely.

I'd only really recommend it if you're dying for another Arabian tale after finishing the Rebel of the Sands series. It's appropriate for ages 14 & up, though honestly you could go lower, there's nothing too gruesome or too raunchy or at all druggie or anything. It's just kinda boring for the 10 - 14 year old crew.

[originaldetectivesheep]

Year in Review - Books I Read In 2017

Last year I only read about a hundred of other people's works, so I was able to note everything.  This year....was not like that.  By more committed Gutenberg-grinding, I increased that number by a factor of three.  These are the highlights, excerpted notes on stuff that I found particularly good, or relevant, or interesting.

Robert Wallace - The Tycoon of Crime Another Phantom adventure, though this one holds back the appearance of the great detective a little and actually sets up a few tricks that aren't immediately obvious.  Most are, though, and this is not a great mystery, but it's a competent enough pulp, well-flavored with brutality and gore that's almost heartrending in the modern day -- because it's a callback to the trenches of the Western Front, where bad-luck wounds, dismemberment, and poison gas were just everyday facts of life.  That look in passing into the world of the men who wrote this stuff and were looking for it in their reading is the main attraction of this nowadays, but if you're looking to read a Phantom story, this is probably the pick of the litter.

Edgar Rice Burroughs - Apache Devil There are a few pulled punches in this, but not a lot, and in addition to a gripping narrative this story also packs a lot of good craft and a more united plot than it seems at first glance.  It's interesting from the modern perspective to see Burroughs so sympathetic to the Apache in the context of his vigorous racism against "savages" from other places; some of this may be closer exposure to Native American culture and thus the greater willingness to credit them as human beings, and some of it may be him pitching to his audience, where American natives were crushed, nearly extinct, and eulogizable, while black people were making the Great Migration out of the south and creating economic anxiety.  Either way, this is a pretty good book and not as garbage in its politics as Burroughs frequently is.

Abraham Merritt - Seven Steps To Satan Merritt's Eastern lore is well-worked into this tale, and more importantly he does a good job of keeping the reader on their toes, guessing what of this Satan's tricks are magic and what are just that, tricks.  The intersection of magic, illusion, manipulation, and hypnotism is a neat contrast to the usual suspicions of occultism, and the effect is really neat in keeping this Indiana Jones adventure full of darkness and mystery.  Harry is a little too obvious a plot jackknife, but you have to get to a resolution somehow, and he doesn't stick out too much in this world of super-minds and super-drugs.  Merritt has better stuff, but this is pretty good even so.

Stella Benson - This Is The End I had a limited selection of Benson's stuff, but this is definitely the choice of the batch.  As smart and observant as ever, and with nearly as flawless and perfect a flow of language and an eye for metaphor as in Living Alone, she also turns all of this around into a punishing, apocalyptic hammer of emotional weight and import at the turn and through on to the devastating finish.  I'd been reading up on the Somme and Verdun campaigns, which would have been the backdrop offstage for this, so this may have hit me harder than others, but it's hard to see how that ending, and Benson's poetry woven in around her prose, could fail to have the same effect regardless of circumstances.

Walter S. Cramp - Psyche For real, I nearly miscopied this author's name as "Crap" when writing this out.  This one is BAD, folks.  You can introduce your characters with a physical description if you like, though it does get kind of fan-ficcy, but do not attach a goddamn alignment readout to it.  The descriptions suck, the deliberate archaisms in dialogue suck -- do not write 'thou' unless you are going to use 'you' elsewhere to show correct tu/vous formulations in older English -- the staging and plotting sucks, and Cra(m)p can't be bothered to keep a consistent tense.  This is an awful book and should have been pulped a hundred years ago rather than continuing to waste people's time and electrons down to the present.

J. A. Buck - Sargasso of Lost Safaris Everything you need to know about this insistently self-footbulleting series can be found from the episode here, where in the middle of a taut thriller about bad whites and educated natives double-crossing each other, the protagonists fight the world's worst-described dinosaur for pagecount.  No explanation, they just needed another 500 words between two chapters and so they roll on the random monster table and get a fucking Baryonix or whatever.  The 'girl Tarzan' trope is at the outer edges of reality, and Tarzan did a lot of Lost World garbage too, but too much of this is too true to life to fuck itself over by throwing in dinosaurs like it aint a thing.  Fuck this stupid shit.

Wilhelm Walloth - Empress Octavia "Death was to stalk over it like a Phoenician dyer, when he crushes purple snails upon a white woollen cloak till the dark juices trickle down investing the snowy vesture with a crimson splendor."  When you write this sentence, stop.  Just stop.  I have bad habits like this too, but nothing, even a translation from German, is a justification for throwing out a sentence like that, especially in a second paragraph.  Stop.  No. Beyond this, this is yet another Ben-Hur wannabe that is in love with its research and can't decide what fucking tense it's in.  If you are interested in Rome, read Gibbon or Tacitus, or Suetonius or Caesar himself; if you want literature, stay the FUCK away from the Bibliotheca Romana.  The plot takes directions that only a German can and would go in, in its period, but this boldness alone is not enough to excuse the poor composition and overall aimlessness.

Stephen Crane - Maggie: A Girl of the Streets I'm sure this was revolutionary when it came out, but at this distance, it feels like parody or melodrama - a lot of which is coming from the dialect, which is even more intolerable in the present than it was when this was written.  This isn't even hard dialect, and there's no need for it to be consistently phonetic rather than, like, just describing people's accents.  You look at "The Playboy of the Western World" and what that doesn't do with forcing pronunciations, and then you look back at this, and you see rapidly which one does a better job of conveying the lifestyles of the deprived and limited.  I know this is supposed to be heartbreaking, but it's completely outclassed and replaced, for modern audiences, by The Jungle, which more people need to re-read and actually understand as a labor story rather than a USDA tract.  Anything, literally anything, else you can get out of Stephen Crane is going to be better than this.

John Peter Drummond - Tigress of Twanbi Seriously, this story would be greatly improved by getting the Tarzan shit out of it.  If it was Hurree Das, picaresque Indian doctor versus Julebba the Arab Amazon with their countervailing motivations and the local allies who ended up in the crossfire of her domination war in the African bush and his attempts to stop it or at least get out with a whole skin, this tale would be significantly improved in addition to completely unidentifiable for the white audience it had to be sold to at the time of publication.  So it goes.  Drummond's side characters are significantly better than his leads or his plots, and should have held out for a trade to Stan Weinbaum or P.P. Sheehan for a case of beer plus a player to be named later rather than having to submit to this dreck.

Robert Eustace - The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings Playing like a series of Eustace's Madame Sara stories -- there's definitely something to peel the onion on there, where every villain is a mysterious older Latin woman -- the plot here moves by the usual bumps of caper and medical/forensic detection, with seldom an attachment from one episode to the next.  The individual stories are entertaining, but this is a collection, not a novel, and going from front to back is like binging a TV series in novella form.  The individual tricks range from lame and overdone to Holmesian superclass, but this would be so much better if there was an actual whole narrative rather than this point to point.

Augusta Groner - The Pocket Diary Found In The Snow If I had gotten to this before Three Pretenders, I definitely would have thrown in a shoutout callback to Joe Mueller somewhere; Groner's Austrian detective is a more modern Holmes in a Vienna at the end of its rope, and in addition to the neat characters and relatable scene dressing, the mystery here is pretty good and the inevitable howdoneit epilogue is actually interesting rather than tiresome, which is always a potential stumbling block in this sort of caper.  Most of Groner's work that I have is pretty short, but at least I'll have the possibility of re-reading her in the original German later.

Anonymous for The Wizard - Six-Gun Gorilla It's easy to see why nobody, so far, has come forward to claim this clunky Western with a hilarious concept played absolutely straight.  This is a Madonna's-doctor's-dog exercise in crank-turnery written in Scotland by Brits who have never been to the high desert, for an audience that needs to be told that bandits aren't particularly interested in mining.  As a craft exercise, there's some merit to it: anyone can write a gorilla-revenge story in Africa, or a Western manhunt, but when an editor comes to you and says "so there's this gorilla and he's a badass gunfighter, write a story to fit these illustrations and make it not suck", that's when you really have to stretch your creative muscles.  There are signs that this was a house name product or a collab rather than one author, and more insistent signs that it was a joke played on the readership to see how long they'd put up with it.  It's almost magic realist in its combination of brutality and absurdity -- who the hell knows what British schoolboys thought of it in 1939.

Robert W. Chambers - The Slayer of Souls Probably not the inspiration for that song that was on like every compilation in Rock Hard and Metal Hammer in summer 2005, this Chambers joint is either pitched perfectly for the Trumpist present -- did you know that Muslims, socialists, Chinese people, unionists, and anarchists are all actually the same, and all actually parts of a gigantic Satanist conspiracy? oh wow such deep state many alex jones -- or an incoherent stew of staunch J. Edgar Hoover fanboyism that can't keep its own geography straight, which is actually kind of the same thing so never mind.  This is exactly the sort of story that George Orwell was so hot about in "Boys' Weeklies": good, craft-wise, and definitely gripping, but utterly complicit in a way and to a degree that almost becomes self-parody.  If you can stop laughing at it, it's got the good action and aggressively-expansive world-setting of good rano-esque anime; if you can't, Chambers has better short stories and have you heard of this guy called Abraham Merrit?

Stendahl - The Red and the Black It is maybe over-egging it a little to call this a 'perfect' novel, but it is closer to that perfection than it is to any other reasonable descriptor.  The society of the Bourbon restoration may be lost to us, but the characters stand the test of time, and Stendahl moves them in time with the plot -- the way that their actions are only tenuously liked to their outcomes is a triumph of realism -- with the hand of a master.  I like Stendahl's Italian stuff too, but France in his own time is his best course, and this is his best work.

Sylvanus Cobb - Ben Hamed What's really striking about this sword and sandal mellerdrammer is how relatively non-racist it is, and how easily it accepts Muslims as real people and mostly normal.  There's a bunch of orientalism, sure, but while the Giant Negro sidekick occasionally comes off servile, he's also smart, experienced, and independent, and takes, for his characterization, an appropriately central role in shepherding the star-crossed lovers to the end of their tale.  This could easily get a banging Arab-directed film adaptation today with very few changes -- and that's not just about how good it is as entertainment, but also about how far Cobb was ahead of the curve in 1863.

Talbot Mundy - C. I. D. Another inter-war Indian thriller, this excellent spy novel pits a wide range of the native-state establishment -- corrupt priests, a venal rajah, the incompetent British Resident, a motley gang of profiteers -- against the genius and initiative of Mundy's great hope for India, the always effective, never moral Chullunder Gose.  As expected, the top agent of the Confidential Investigations Division masterfully controls the whole chessboard, pitting the various enemy forces against each other and subverting each in turn before throwing in his reserves -- Hawkes, back in a smaller role as British India yields to British-Indian cooperation, and the obligatory American, a pre-MSF doctor who starts the book looking for a Chekhov's tiger hunt.  Thing is, this is fiction, and so it's Mundy who's really keeping all these balls in the air and weaving the skein of the story into an incredibly awesome whole.  If you have problems with Kipling and Haggard, start getting into Mundy from here. A neat thing that will not go unnoticed by other pulp deep-divers is the shots-fired bit introducing the Resident's library, which is noted to feature the works of Edgar Wallace.  Whether to make a point in the story -- "every colonial section chief, no matter how actually bad, secretly thinks of himself as Sanders", which I've used in my own stuff -- or to start beef -- "people read Wallace and think he knows about the colonies, but he has actually just been to the track and his apartment and needs to stfu before idiots making policy off his 'exceptionally stupid member of the Navy League circa 1910' worldview hurt somebody" -- this is definitely a callout, and definitely intentional.

Gordon MacReagh - The Witch-Casting I'm reading these Kingi Bwana stories in order, and it is getting suspiciously clear that as long as he put in a bit of African-kicking at the start, he was free to get as smart and real as he liked later in the story -- and the amount of kicking was something that there were subtle efforts to reduce.  This one starts off with Kaffa getting the brunt of it, but almost immediately turns around on that point as King and a larger collection of nonwhite friends-as-much-as-trusties do a witch-hunt unlike any witch-hunt you'd expect from '30s pulp, with a similarly sharp turn on African traditional religion that's nearly as out of place.  MacReagh cannot completely escape his own prejudices or the expectations of his time, but this one gets as close to the event horizon as any of his stuff.

Titus Petronius Arbiter - The Satyricon The modern age has ground a lot of the obscenity off this one, which for many years was mostly famous, infamous and/or banned for its central plots of man-on-man sex; in 2017, it takes more than boyfucking to shock people.  This is probably for the better; with the false atmosphere of licentiousness cut out of it, this is as it was at the beginning, a spicy story of Roman idiots having hilarious misadventures that, by subtle exaggeration, hold the follies and fads of their time up to ridicule.  It is longer than it needs to be, and some of the jokes are poorly preserved, and this translation is contaminated by unnecessary footnotes and inclusion bodies of later forgers' porn that's been stapled in over the centuries, but it's still a good, true look at Rome as it actually was at the height of the empire, without the hagiography of a historian or the religio-political axe-grinding of the Christians.  Probably worth the struggle.

Willa Cather - April Twilights I was collecting Cather from her papers at the University of Nebraska, and had to read this in the process of reformatting it; poetry does not well survive HTML->ASCII transitions.  The deep and dark and bleak is strong here; through the classical allusions, the callbacks to Provencal troubadours, across the American landscape, the same refrain runs: "I am old and decrepit and not emotionally capable of loving other people".  So, relatable.  The widespread criticism of Cather, that she can't get herself out of traditional modes even when this is to her disadvantage, is held up by her poetry as well; there's more than a few places here where you've got to frown at a bodgingly conventional rhyme or metaphor that someone more open to modernity would almost have had to have done better.  But there are, even still parts where that traditionalism works well, and is effective; it's worth reading out for those, even at all that.

H.P. Lovecraft and others - Twenty-Nine Collaborative Stories Most of what we now recognize as the Cthulhu Mythos -- and definitely any kind of idea of Lovecraft's stuff as a coherent whole or linked world-system -- comes out of these stories as much as his own.  On his own, Lovecraft moved to the beat of his own drum and followed his ideas where they went; here, he helps friends and fans plug their fanfic into what becomes a shared universe.  The stories are not all great; Hazel Heal put up some classics here but also some stinkers, and most of Robert Barlow's contributions, especially as they range into sci-fi, are kind of eh.  Zealia Bishop, though, does yeoman service as Lovecraft's official trans-Mississippian correspondent, and Adolphe de Castro's top-class works settle Lovecraftian mysticism in real foreign lands.  It's worth getting through these: there's good stuff in here, and you also get the sense and feel of how Lovecraft actively built his 'school' -- and ensured that he was the one to influence the direction of weird fiction for years to come.

William Hope Hodgson - The House on the Borderland A true classic, this is potentially the very most black metal horror novel ever written.  The brutality of the swine creatures, the remote devastation of the time-blasted cosmos, the liminality of dreams and reality; Teitanblood and Xasthur and Inquisition hope and fail to convey this sense of unholy immensity, of uncaring timeless evil.  Hodgson hits some heights in his shorter stories, but here, he hits it absolutely out of the park.  Completely essential.

Suetonius - The Life of Claudius Claudius comes off in this one like I've observed German colonial rule as remembered in most places other than Africa: "not worse than necessary".  Suetonius doesn't miss the caprices of a guy who almost certainly was on the spectrum, and had other distinguishing impairments, but also faithfully records a lot of good works and good ideas, with less wastage and idiocy than the likes of his surrounding emperors.  The translator's appendix, as expected, freaks out about the results of Claudius' expedition to Britain, and continues to vainly expect the Roman people to want to get rid of effective and oppressive imperial rule to get back to the ineffective oppression of the senatorial republic.  How someone who translates Latin can be ignorant of "senatores boni viri, senatus mala bestia" and what that actually means in the context of government is beyond me.

Julius Caesar - De Bello Civili This is in three parts, double-text, and when I can understand what places are being talked about (still not 100%, even after all of this, on where the heck in Italy Brundusium is), it flows well and is as clear in its language as anything else of Caesar's.  Even the structure is well-laid: in book 1, Caesar starts the war, and wins a big victory in Spain; in book 2, one of his generals gets disastered in Africa; and in book 3, the epic conclusion and final battles.  Though this is still ultimately a public relations exercise, Caesar doesn't step back from his own disasters, and gives full credit to his foes: this does tend to make him look better when he beats them up, and it is curious how nothing is ever directly his fault, and how most reverses go to troops losing their head and acting without orders, which would be out of character for his faithful super-army if it didn't keep happening.  As always, Caesar leans on logistics; his focus on the relative supply situations in Spain and in Thessaly is the key to success, and a dead giveaway that this was written or at least dictated by the commander himself, and not by some biographer who wouldn't've had that experience in keeping an army fed and watered in the field.

Katherine Mansfield - Something Childish and Other Stories What's really cool in this collection of earlier Mansfield is that you get to see her evolve through the War: she's already mature, and really good, in the New Zealand and Continental tales that precede it, but after the title story (dated to 1914, with a collapse-out at the end that is a KILLER allegory for that August, even if unintended), you really start to see how the nervous stress of total war wears on a population engaged, how the greater position of women in society transforms her and her work, and leads her on towards self-discovery.  The later and more experimental stories are, in general, slightly better, but this is all good material -- and there's a hell of a sting in the tail at the end.

Henry W. Herbert - The Roman Traitor In his introduction Herbert mentions a friend who encouraged him to finish this book, without which it would never have been released.  This friend should be dug up and beaten soundly with rocks, because this rehash of the Catilline conspiracy is utterly unnecessary as a novel or as antiquarianism, and Herbert is an awful, awful writer whose torture of language and narrative structure would shame a Nero.  The day you write the phrase "bad conclave" is the day your editor should throw you through a door.  This isn't the worst book in the Bib. Romanica, but it may be the very most badly written.  Just read the actual history from Sallust and forget this stupid garbage.

Gustave Flaubert - Salammbo This takes a while to really get its feet under it and show where it's going, but once it does, look out.  Flaubert masterfully captures the brutality of warfare and the color of the ancient world, and his language is superbly translated; you put this next to the staid English garbage in the rest of the Bib. Romanica and you wonder why most of them even bothered.  The turn at the end hits like a ton of bricks, especially if you like me don't know anything about Carthaginian history and don't know what's coming -- but it's also the only possible ending for this captivating chronicle of horror, misery and nightmare.  Just excellent.

Willa Cather - My Antonia A deeply drawn narrative of love, growth, and the midwestern plains, this book is more enhanced than anything else by Cather's commitment to its place and time: childhood is always a lost world forever, but the place that Jim and Antonia grow up through is thoroughly lost a hundred years and more on, but it survives in these pages down to the dirt on the floors and the chaff under the characters' collars.  After the narrator goes to Omaha, the tale weakens a little, and the end, for modern audiences, is probably a little under-tuned, but this is Cather's flagship novel for a reason, and definitely rewards the time spent reading it.

Margaret Atwood - Negotiating With the Dead This is another lecture series like the Forster above, but coming from different source, moving in different ways, and much more about Atwood herself and the roots of her writing in the Canadian landscape and literary scene that shaped her.  There is a lot about writing as a living thing in this book, and very little about it as a process: it's kind of a synthesis-antithesis-conclusion out of Forster and Bickham, more perceptive than either and leaving Welty, poor soul so far from the modern perspective, in the absolute dust.  It may be a question of eras, or just one of sympathies -- an adequately intelligent writer of speculative fiction is going to necessarily fall in with Atwood's ideas about doing something meaningful that also keeps the lights on -- but this book, out of all of the four in this mini-course, hit the most home and told me the most about what I do that I didn't already know.  It doesn't have the coherent, lecturized feel of the Forster, but at times there are just the most amazing insights, and the craziest images out of that crazy time that was the middle 20th century, and with how good it was I'm fairly ashamed to not have read any other Atwood before it, which makes me just an awful person.  At least I'm in a damn library and probably can fix that now.

Willa Cather - The Bohemian Girl A novella that should probably better and more widely reputed than it is, this one is mostly a meditation on love, maturity, and switching horses in midstream, but Cather, like no one else, manages to defend both the dour, hard prairie homestead and the need to escape from it.  This is her "zwey seele wohnen, ach, in meinen Brust", and it's kind of a thing all through her fiction, but in here it's especially well developed, with a coda that unlike a lot of her other ones actually works.

Talbot Mundy - The Marriage of Meldrum Strange Sales figures or editorial comment must have highlighted the "big team" problems in the last book, because this one cuts it down to the essentials: Ommony and Gose and Ramsden for muscle and some minor characters.  The plot is a good and twisty romance, keeping everything real, and it is just magic to watch Ommony work calm while Gose spits science like a Bollywood comedian, yin and yang combining to catch everyone in every trap.  A rare gem after several misfires.

Talbot Mundy - Old Ugly-Face One of Mundy's real best, this is an epic navigation of the human heart, against the majestic Himalayas....played by psychics battling to ensure the succession of the Dalai Lama.  Mundy gon Mundy, but the love triangle here is perfect and the environments are astounding -- a must read.

D. W. O'Brien - Blitzkrieg in the Past There's a chapter in this one called "Tank Versus Dinosaur", and that's about the shape of it.  You could also say "Sergeant Rock goes to Pellucidar" and not miss by much; a M3 Grant and crew ends up in a fantasy cavemen-and-dinosaurs past and has some adventures while talking '40s smack, and then romps their way home.  What's cool about it for authors is how O'Brien writes around his dinosaur: there is no description at all of the beast or its species or attributes.  It is big, and makes angry noises, because the author could not be assed to take the time out to do research while writing this story.  And yet it works, unless you're reading really close; let this be a lesson for anyone who can't finish their research up exactly correct on deadline.

Talbot Mundy - The Ivory Trail A lot of this raw, brutal epic of survival in the east-African backcountry is probably from life; Mundy tried this life and failed at it before he became a writer, and the asides and incidental scenes can only be from bitter experience.  Others might expect a purer adventure -- you'd get one from MacReagh on these materials -- but Mundy has the essential truth of colonialism: there are no secrets, mere survival is hideously tough, and everyone else in the game is more brutal and better equipped.  Conrad might have had the literary chops and adventurousness to end this differently, but even he who fared into the Heart of Darkness didn't have the stomach to write a middle passage like Mundy does here with his heroes in German prison.

Talbot Mundy - Guns of the Gods This Yasmini adventure makes itself a prequel, of her youth and how she got into the position of wealth and information mastery that sets up her later career.  The plot is tight if less convoluted than some that I've been reading lately, and the incidents woven through the intrigue and the treasure hunt are fantastic.  On a deeper level, the real judgment and sensitivity in the negotiation of east and west by Tess and Yasmini makes up for the stray Americans happening into the heart of the tale, and in a real way this is Mundy's most openly and solidly anti-Raj, pro-Home Rule adventure yet.  For both an excellent story and what's probably a local maximum in wokeness, this comes highly recommended.

Thorne Smith - Rain In The Doorway A kind of Alice in Jazz Age NYC, this is a ridiculous madcap adventure that loses little in the passage of time and not much at all in the way it winds back down to reality.  Smart and stupid and sexy in all the best ways, this kind of hilarity is pretty much Smith's best stock in trade, and this particular book is one of the better examples.

Thorne Smith - Turnabout The least hair of maturity creeps into Smith's writing here, as one of his interminable boozing Lost Generation miscouples actually gets in a family way as well as into an inexplicable supernatural adventure.  The very very familiar central trick is well executed, and Tim's advancing pregnancy provides a nice frame to hang the rest of the events off of.  The end is a little pat with the reinsertion of the Dutch uncle, but you live and deal.  This is one of Smith's better, and a good occasion to round out the end of the string.

Wilkie Collins - Armadale Collins makes up for his bad start with this absolute beast of a romance, bound up with mysticism rather than being an encyclopedia, but still turned out with real and vital if slightly implausible people.  The consistent mystery of the vision unites the book, but the way that the various Armadales react to that vision, its interpretations, and each other, is solid and real.  It is an immense read that demanded like six hours of flight time, but it is definitely rewarding, and worth the bother of pounding through the huge narrative.

Wilkie Collins - No Name There is a tangled tale and a half in this one, a desperate adventure of roguery in the name of revenge that keeps getting tangled up with coincidence as much as fate or intent.  The links may be a little creaky, but this is a huge, smart, intensely twisting drama with a lead for the ages in Magdalen, and an adversary worthy of her steel in Lecomt.  The end is a little formula and takes a little long to wind down, but this is an artifact of the time and the expected conventions, and it inhibits the power of this novel but little.  Good good stuff.

Talbot Mundy - The Thrilling Adventures of Dick Anthony of Arran "For a few days Cairo swallowed Dick."  NO.  Shut it.  Shut up.  Be mature.  Tuned to a compositional level somewhere between Sexton Blake and Lovecraft's middle-school works, this is not good or well-written Mundy, and there are research holes in it that might have been stabbed through with a claymore.  In places, his later quality pokes through, but in the main this is a stolid imitation of part Kipling, part John Buchan by a writer who does not have enough name weight to force publishers to his way of thinking rather than the reverse.  This leftover should have stayed left over and buried.

These were excerpted from the full writeups of the complete chronological list below, which accounts for frequent hanging references.  The pure volume of this list indicates why I didn't copy the whole of the writeup blocks into this entry.

Robert Barr - The Sword Maker E. Rice Burroughs - Land of Terror E. Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Leopard Men L. Winifred Faraday (tr) - Tain bo Cuailnge Robert Barr - The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont Richard Rhodes - The Making of the Atomic Bomb Robert Wallace - Death Flight Richard Rhodes - Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb Richard Rhodes - Twilight of the Bombs Robert Wallace - Empire of Terror Robert Wallace - Fangs of Murder Robert Wallace - The Sinister Dr. Wong Mary Cagle - Let's Speak English! Robert Wallace - The Tycoon of Crime Stella Benson - Kwan-yin William H. Ainsworth - The Spectre Bride Robert Eustace - The Face of the Abbot Robert Eustace - The Blood-Red Cross Robert Eustace - Madam Sara Robert Eustace - Followed Robert Eustace - The Secret of Emu Plain Arthur Conan Doyle - The Uncharted Coast Edgar Rice Burroughs - Apache Devil Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan and the Tarzan Twins Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan the Invincible William W. Astor - The Last of the Tenth Legion Edgar Rice Burroughs - Tarzan the Magnificent Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Bandit of Hell's Bend Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Cave Girl Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Deputy Sheriff of Comanche County Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Efficiency Expert Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Girl From Farris' Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Girl From Hollywood Stella Benson - Living Alone Stella Benson - The Desert Islander Victor Appleton - Tom Swift and his Giant Telescope Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Lad and the Lion Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Man-Eater Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Moon Men Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Outlaw of Torn Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Rider Edgar Rice Burroughs - The War Chief Abraham Merritt - Burn, Witch, Burn! Abraham Merritt - Creep, Shadow! Abraham Merritt - Seven Steps To Satan Abraham Merritt - The Dwellers in the Mirage Abraham Merritt - The Face in the Abyss Abraham Merritt - The Last Poet and the Robots Edward Spencer Beesly - Catiline, Clodius, and Tiberius Malcolm Jameson - Collected Stories Fantasy Magazine - The Challenge From Beyond The Strand - As Far As They Had Got J. M. Synge - The Playboy of the Western World Abdullah/Brand/Means/Sheehan - The Ten-Foot Chain Stella Benson - This Is The End Stella Benson - Twenty Emily Beesly - Stories From the History of Rome Hugh Allingham - Captain Cuellar's Adventures in Connaught and Ulster, A.D. 1588 James DeMille - The Martyr of the Catacombs Sallust - Bellum Catalinae Edmond Rostand - Cyrano de Bergerac "Captain Adam Seaborn" - Symzonia, A Voyage of Discovery R.E.H. Dyer - Raiders of the Sarhad Walter S. Cramp - Psyche H.P. Lovecraft - From Beyond Robert F. Pennell - Ancient Rome Garrett Putnam Serviss - Edison's Conquest of Mars Irving Batcheller - Charge It Irving Batcheller - Vergillius Duffield Osborne - The Lion's Brood Dale Carnegie - How to Win Friends and Influence People J. A. Buck - The Slave Brand of Sleman bin Ali J. A. Buck - Killers' Kraal J. A. Buck - Sargasso of Lost Safaris J. A. Buck - Sword of Gimshai Wilhelm Walloth - Empress Octavia Stephen Crane - The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky Stephen Crane - The Blue Hotel Stephen Crane - The Open Boat Stephen Crane - Maggie: A Girl of the Streets Stephen Crane - The Monster and More Stendahl - Armance Victor Appleton II - Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung Victor Appleton II - Tom Swift and the Visitor From Planet X Robert Curtis - Edgar Wallace Each Way John Peter Drummond - Bride of the Serpent God John Peter Drummond - The Nirvana of the Seven Voodoos John Peter Drummond - Tigress of Twanbi Robert Eustace - The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings Augusta Groner - The Pocket Diary Found In The Snow Augusta Groner - The Case of the Registered Letter Augusta Groner - The Case of the Lamp That Went Out Augusta Groner - The Case of the Golden Bullet Augusta Groner - The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study Anonymous for The Wizard - Six-Gun Gorilla Walter Horatio Pater - Marius the Epicurean John Russel Russell - Adventures in the Moon and Other Worlds Answers Magazine - Sexton Blake J. U. Giesy with Junius B. Smith - The Occult Detector J. U. Giesy with Junius B. Smith - The Significance of the High "D" J. U. Giesy with Junius B. Smith - The House of Invisible Bondage Stendahl - The Abbess of Castro and Others John Aylscough - Faustula John Aylscough - Mariquita Robert W. Chambers - The Maker of Moons and Other Stories Robert W. Chambers - The Slayer of Souls Edith Nesbit - My School Days Edith Nesbit - Re-collected  (self re-collection) Edith Nesbit - The Magic World Edith Nesbit - Wet Magic Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Planet of Doubt Stanley G. Weinbaum - Smothered Seas Stanley G. Weinbaum - Graph Stanley G. Weinbaum - Flight on Titan Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Red Peri Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Black Flame Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Dark Other Stanley G. Weinbaum - The New Adam Gordon MacReagh - re-collected shorter stories  (self re-collection) Stendahl - The Charterhouse of Parma Stendahl - The Red and the Black Sylvanus Cobb - Atholbane Sylvanus Cobb - Ben Hamed Sylvanus Cobb - Ivan the Serf Sylvanus Cobb - Bianca Sylvanus Cobb - Orion the Gold-Beater Sylvanus Cobb - The Gunmaker of Moscow Sylvanus Cobb - The Knight of Leon Sylvanus Cobb - The Smuggler's Ward Talbot Mundy - Black Light Talbot Mundy - Burberton and Ali Beg Talbot Mundy - C. I. D. Talbot Mundy - Caesar Dies Talbot Mundy - For the Salt Which He Had Eaten Talbot Mundy - From Hell, Hull, and Halifax Talbot Mundy - Full Moon J. U. Giesy - Palos of the Dog Star Pack J. U. Giesy with Junius B. Smith - The Wistaria Scarf J. U. Giesy with Junius B. Smith - The Purple Light Gordon MacReagh - The Slave Runner Gordon MacReagh - The Ebony Juju Gordon MacReagh - The Lost End of Nowhere Gordon MacReagh - Quill Gold Gordon MacReagh - Unprofitable Ivory Gordon MacReagh - The Witch-Casting Gordon MacReagh - Strangers of the Amulet Gordon MacReagh - The Ivory Killers Gordon MacReagh - Black Drums Talking Walter Moers - The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear Gordon MacReagh - Wardens of the Big Game Gordon MacReagh - Raiders of Abyssinia Gordon MacReagh - A Man to Kill Gordon MacReagh - Slaves For Ethiopia Gordon MacReagh - Strong As Gorillas Gordon MacReagh - Blood and Steel Gordon MacReagh - White Waters and Black Cardinal Newman - Callista J. U. Giesy with Junius B. Smith - The Master Mind Titus Petronius Arbiter - The Satyricon Talbot Mundy - Her Reputation Giancarlo Livraghi - The Power of Stupidity Willa Cather - April Twilights H.P. Lovecraft and others - Twenty-Nine Collaborative Stories J. U. Giesy with Junius B. Smith - Rubies of Doom Abraham Merritt - The Moon Pool Abraham Merritt - The Metal Monster Abraham Merritt - The Ship of Ishtar John G. Lockhart - Valerius William Hope Hodgson - Carnacki, Supernatural Detective and Others William Hope Hodgson - Carnacki the Ghost Finder William Hope Hodgson - The House on the Borderland Suetonius - The Life of Julius Caesar Suetonius - The Life of Augustus Caesar Suetonius - The Life of Tiberius Caesar Suetonius - The Life of Caligula Suetonius - The Life of Claudius Suetonius - The Life of Nero Suetonius - The Life of Galba Suetonius - The Life of Otho Suetonius - The Life of Vitellus Suetonius - The Life of Vespasian Suetonius - The Life of Titus Suetonius - The Life of Domitian The Lock and Key Library - Classic Mystery and Detective Stories - Old Time English Hume Nisbet - The Demon Spell b/w The Vampire Maid Hume Nisbet - The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom Hume Nisbet - The Swampers E. Hoffman Price - The Girl From Samarcand Flavius Philostratus - The Life of Apollonius H. P. Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness H. P. Lovecraft - Selected Essays including Supernatural Horror in Literature H. P. Lovecraft - The Case of Charles Dexter Ward H. P. Lovecraft - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and Others H. P. Lovecraft - The Dream Cycle H. P. Lovecraft - The Dunwich Horror H. P. Lovecraft - The Shadow Out of Time H. P. Lovecraft - The Shadow Over Innsmouth H. P. Lovecraft - The Whisperer in Darkness H. P. Lovecraft - His Earliest Writings H. P. Lovecraft - Poems and Fragments  (self re-collection) H. P. Lovecraft - The Cthulhu Mythos  (self re-collection) H. P. Lovecraft - Tales of Monstrosity  (self re-collection) H. P. Lovecraft - Tales of the Crypt  (self re-collection) H. P. Lovecraft - Tales of Paganism  (self re-collection) Edward Bulwer-Lytton - The Last Days of Pompeii Gavin Menzies - 1421: The Year China Discovered America Ernst Eckstein - Quintus Claudius Julius Caesar - The African Wars Julius Caesar - The Alexandrine War Julius Caesar - De Bello Civili Julius Caesar - The Hispanic War Talbot Mundy - Cock o' the North Julius Caesar - The Gallic Wars Katherine Mansfield - Bliss and Other Stories Katherine Mansfield - In A German Pension Katherine Mansfield - Something Childish and Other Stories Katherine Mansfield - The Garden Party and Other Stories John W. Graham - Nearea Andy Adams - A Texas Matchmaker Andy Adams - Cattle Brands Andy Adams - Reed Anthony, Cowman Andy Adams - The Log of a Cowboy Andy Adams - Wells Brothers Charles Kingsley - Hypatia Francis Stevens - Claimed! Francis Stevens - Nightmare! Francis Stevens - Serapion Francis Stevens - The Heads of Cerberus Francis Stevens - The Rest of the Stories  (self re-collection) Talbot Mundy - Hira Singh Henry W. Herbert - The Roman Traitor Robert Howard - Tales of Breckenridge Elkins Robert Howard - Tales of El Borak Robert Howard - Tales of the West Robert Howard - Swords of the Red Brotherhood Robert Howard - The Black Stranger Robert Howard - The Pike Bearfield Stories Robert Howard - The Exploits of Buckner Jeopardy Grimes Robert Howard - Weird Poetry  (self re-collection) Robert Howard - Collected Juvenilia Robert Howard - The Spicy Adventures of Wild Bill Clanton  (self re-collection) Robert Howard - Tales of the Weird West  (self re-collection) Robert Howard - The Treasure of Shaibar Khan Robert Howard - Red Blades of Black Cathay Robert Howard - The Isle of Pirates' Doom Robert Howard - Dig Me No Grave Robert Howard - The Garden of Fear Robert Howard - The God in the Bowl Virgil - The Aneid Gustave Flaubert - Herodias Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary Talbot Mundy - Hookum Hai Gustave Flaubert - Salammbo Willa Cather - Alexander's Bridge Willa Cather - My Antonia Eudora Welty - On Writing E.M. Forster - Aspects of the Novel Jack M. Bickham - The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them) Margaret Atwood - Negotiating With the Dead Arthur Conan Doyle - Fairies Photographed Arthur Conan Doyle - Great Britain and the Next War Willa Cather - My Autobiography, by S. S. McClure Willa Cather - O Pioneers! Willa Cather - One of Ours Willa Cather - The Song of the Lark Heinrich Brode - Tippu Tib Willa Cather - The Troll Garden Willa Cather - Youth and the Bright Medusa Willa Cather - The Bohemian Girl Willa Cather - The Affair at Grover Station Willa Cather - The Count of Crow's Nest Willa Cather - The Shortest Stories  (self re-collection) Willa Cather - Tales ABC  (self re-collection) Willa Cather - Tales DEF  (self re-collection) Willa Cather - Tales G-K-O  (self re-collection) Willa Cather - Tales PRST  (self re-collection) Willa Cather - Stories W  (self re-collection) Henryk Sienkiewicz - Quo Vadis Charles Darwin - The Voyage of the Beagle Sinclair Lewis - Babbitt Talbot Mundy - Jimgrim and Allah's Peace Talbot Mundy - East and West Talbot Mundy - The Iblis at Ludd Talbot Mundy - The Seventeen Thieves of El-Khalil Talbot Mundy - The Lion of Petra Talbot Mundy - The Woman Ayisha Talbot Mundy - The Last Trooper Talbot Mundy - The King in Check Talbot Mundy - A Secret Society Talbot Mundy - Moses and Mrs. Aintree Talbot Mundy - The Mystery of Khufu's Tomb Talbot Mundy - Jungle Jest Talbot Mundy - The Nine Unknown Talbot Mundy - The Marriage of Meldrum Strange Talbot Mundy - The Hundred Days Talbot Mundy - OM: The Secret of Ahbor Valley Talbot Mundy - The Devil's Guard Talbot Mundy - Jimgrim, King of the World Talbot Mundy - Machassan Ah Talbot Mundy - Oakes Respects An Adversary Talbot Mundy - Old Ugly-Face Talbot Mundy - Payable to Bearer Talbot Mundy - Poems and Dicta Talbot Mundy - Rung Ho! Talbot Mundy - Selected Stories Gordon MacReagh - Projection From Epsilon Leroy Yerxa - Back from the Crypt  (self re-collection) Garrett P. Serviss - A Columbus of Space Garrett P. Serviss - The Moon Metal Garrett P. Serviss - The Second Deluge Garrett P. Serviss - The Sky Pirate Sinclair Lewis - Arrowsmith Robert Buchanan - Camlan and the Shadow of the Sword Robert Buchanan - God and the Man Henry R. Schoolcraft - To the Sources of the Mississippi River D. W. O'Brien - Squadron of the Damned D. W. O'Brien - Blitzkrieg in the Past D. W. O'Brien - The Floating Robot D. W. O'Brien - Gone In 20 Kilobytes  (self re-collection) D. W. O'Brien - Lost in Space  (self re-collection) D. W. O'Brien - Ghosts of War  (self re-collection) William Ware - Aurelian William Ware - Zenobia J. S. Fletcher - The Stories  (self re-collection) J. S. Fletcher - Perris of the Cherry-Trees J. S. Fletcher - The Middle Temple Murder J. S. Fletcher - The Paradise Mystery J. S. Fletcher - The Safety Pin Francis H. Atkins - The Short Stories  (self re-collection) M. P. Shiel - In Short  (self re-collection) Francis H. Atkins - A Studio Mystery Francis H. Atkins - The Black Opal Talbot Mundy - The Eye of Zeitoon Talbot Mundy - The Ivory Trail Talbot Mundy - The Man From Poonch Talbot Mundy - The Middle Way Talbot Mundy - The Red Flame of Erinpura Talbot Mundy - The Thunder Dragon Gate Talbot Mundy - Tros of Samothrace Talbot Mundy - Queen Cleopatra Talbot Mundy - Purple Pirate Talbot Mundy - A Soldier and a Gentleman Talbot Mundy - Winds of the World Talbot Mundy - King of the Khyber Rifles Talbot Mundy - Guns of the Gods Talbot Mundy - Caves of Terror Thorne Smith - Biltmore Oswald: The Diary of a Hapless Recruit Thorne Smith - Biltmore Oswald: Very Much At Sea Thorne Smith - Birthday Present Thorne Smith - Did She Fall? Thorne Smith - Dream's End Thorne Smith - Haunts and By-Paths Thorne Smith - Rain In The Doorway Thorne Smith - Skin and Bones Thorne Smith - The Bishop's Jaegers Thorne Smith - The Glorious Pool Thorne Smith - The Night Life of the Gods Thorne Smith - The Stray Lamb Thorne Smith - The Jovial Ghosts: The Misadventures of Topper Thorne Smith - Topper Takes A Trip Thorne Smith - Turnabout Thorne Smith - Yonder's Henry Wilkie Collins - Antonina Wilkie Collins - Armadale Wilkie Collins - I Say No Wilkie Collins - Miss or Mrs Wilkie Collins - My Lady's Money Wilkie Collins - No Name Wilkie Collins - The Haunted Hotel Wilkie Collins - The Law and the Lady Leroy Yerxa - Death Rides At Night D. W. O'Brien - Flight From Farisha Gordon MacReagh - Out of Africa  (self re-collection) Peter Cheyney - Quick Draws  (self re-collection) Talbot Mundy - The Thrilling Adventures of Dick Anthony of Arran D. W. O'Brien - The Last Analysis M. P. Shiel - Children of the Wind Edgar Wallace - 1925: The Story of a Fatal Peace M. P. Shiel - Prince Zaleski Edgar Wallace - A Case For Angel, Esquire M. P. Shiel - Shapes in the Fire Edgar Wallace - A Deed of Gift M. P. Shiel - The Evil That Men Do Edgar Wallace - A Debt Discharged M. P. Shiel - The Last Miracle Edgar Wallace - A Dream M. P. Shiel - The Lord of the Sea Edgar Wallace - A Raid on a Gambling Hell

[swipestream]

SENSOR SWEEP: Tedious Dice Rolling, Indulgent Spaces, Mary Sue Agitprop Vectors, and Required Reading

Comics (The Last Redoubt) WHY REBEL, AND NOT THE STRIPES — “Like it or not, a flag that was to some a symbol of states that fought to preserve a system that included slavery, and is associated purely with that by some, is to many, including some blacks who’s forefathers fought for the south, a symbol of gallantry, bravery, and resolve in the face of fire and fury, wrack and ruin. Of doing what is perceived, rightly or wrongly in the test of time, as right instead of what is popular. Of not backing down. That flag flew over WW2, in Korea, and in Vietnam.”

D&D (Ultanya) Twenty Questions with Rose Estes — “No, I never played the game. I was drawn by the stories but had little to absolutely no interest in all of the dice rolling which seemed tedious and worse, interrupted the flow of the narrative. I realize this is heresy, but so be it. Few things in my life have had as major an influence on my life and creating the person I am than reading, so, despite my lack of formal training, I am first and foremost, a storyteller and that was always the impetus behind the books.”

Traveller (Tales to Astound) The Expectations of a Traveller Referee at the Start of the Hobby — “The fact remains in countless cases judgments have to be made on the part of the Referee in any RPG. Now, there are two paths here: One is to encourage people to become better Referees through advice and practice. The other is to take the responsibilities of being a capable Referee away from Referees and shift those responsibilities to the text of the roleplaying game itself. For the most part the hobby followed the second path. The rules and text changed (and have continued to change) to move the Referee away from being the impartial arbiter of actions and situations during play and into the role of applying rules from the rulebook. And this has become the default assumption of the RPG hobby.”

D&D (Playing at the World) D&D In the News (1976): Fazzle on the Ryth — “Although Duffy does not spell ‘orc’ as we would, you would be hard-pressed to find an earlier mainstream press mention of displacer beasts or umber hulks. Many early journalists had trouble comprehending the D&D game, but Duffy fares pretty well, especially in how he faithfully relates that the original published system was really just guidelines. As he summarizes, ‘Essentially, what you get is a rule book, and the players wing it from there — modifying rules and adapting as they go along.'”

RPGs (Walker’s Retreat) How To RPG: This Is How It’s Done — “This is how it’s done, folks. You don’t dictate a narrative. You don’t run a railroad. You don’t sit there and react to events. You have to be pro-active as a player, and as the Game Master you have to be Crom- unyielding and uncaring, favoring none and letting fate play out as it will. Death of a PC isn’t anything to cry about; shrug it off, get a fresh sheet, and get on with rerolling a new guy. When players earn their wins, let them have and enjoy them; villains and monsters are there to be slain and looted, not mourned or complained about. Let the survivors tell the tales; the play is the thing at the table- not any pre-determined events or outcomes.”

Pulp Revolution (Bibliorati) HINDI PULP—VIMAL! — “Known as the father of Hindi pulp crime fiction, Surender Mohan Pathak has written close to 300 novels, including 60+ standalone thrillers, 120+ adventures of crime reporter Sunil, 22+ investigations of the Philosopher Detective Sudhir, and 42 of his anti-hero Vimal crime thrillers. While working a full-time job in Delhi with Indian Telephone Industries, Pathak began his writing career in the early 1960s translating Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels and the works of James Hadley Chase into the Hindi language. His first original story, The Man 57 Years Old, was published in 1959, followed by his first full length novel, featuring his crime reporter series character Sunil, in 1963.”

Fake D&D in the News (The New Yorker) The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons & Dragons — “A decade ago, when developers attempted to bring Dungeons & Dragons into the twenty-first century by stuffing it with rules so that it might better resemble a video game, the glue of the game, the narrative aspect that drew so many in, melted away. Players hacked monsters to death, picked up treasure, collected experience points, and coolly moved through preset challenges. The plotters of the game’s fifth edition seemed to remember that D. & D.’s strength lay in creating indulgent spaces (get lost in your gnomish identity, quest or don’t, spend time flirting in the tavern) and opposing whatever modes of human industry prevailed among the broader public. D. & D. now has vastly simpler rules than those found in an iTunes terms-and-conditions agreement.”

Comics (PJ Media) Prominent Conservative Artists Blacklisted Because of Involvement with Alt*Hero Comics Series — “The fact that a comics publisher, of any political stripe, would refuse to utilize the work of an accomplished illustrator like Timothy Lim simply because he worked with someone else they don’t like is absurd, but more importantly, it is proof that they are less interested in producing quality content than they are in pursuing approval from social justice warriors.”

Information is the Death of Narrative (Lewis Pulsipher) Video Games as a Vehicle of Imagination — “Games through the ages have let people make their own stories, with no pretension of telling them a story (that’s what novels, plays, films are for). This is what the video game industry often loses sight of: games are enjoyable because of what you DO, not because of what you see or hear. Technology is not necessary to good games….”

The Pulps (Paul Lucas) Weird Tales’ female readership — “In the early 1940s, Weird Tales decided to start up a fan organisation called the Weird Tales Club, and they listed the new members in their letter column, The Eyrie…. I’ve looked at all the other issues for the initial run (1923 to 1954) and this is the only list of members that I can find. Check out the breakdown by sex. There are 60 new members of the Weird Tales Club, but going by names, at least 16 of these were women. That’s 27%. If we take Avis to be a woman’s name (the infallible internet says it is), and Eleanot as a misspelling for Eleanor, that makes 18 women, or 30%.”

RPGs (Walker’s Retreat) Time to Sift Out the Wanna-Be Henchmen — “The reason that proper play went away is because of two major threads. The first is that the founding generation and cohort worked off a set of assumptions that turned out to not be as obvious as they thought. The second is that the succeeding cohorts, especially once videogames took off and became the primary gaming medium, acculturated to a very passive paradigm of gameplay for no more nefarious a reason than because videogames work best that way.”

Publishing (The Federalist) How Never-Satisfied Social Justice Mobs Are Ruining YA Book Publishing — “If publishing houses want to see their trends turn positive, they need to look at what independent authors are doing to gain market share. Thinking outside the box and creating something different from what others are doing in the field is what defines great literary works, not repeating the same thing because it’s the only safe space allowed for an author to write.”

Pulp Revolution (Kairos) The Fire Rises — “Note to J.J. Abrams and Larry Kasdan: it’s possible to write an action girl who can swing a burning hurt stick and read minds without making her an insufferable Mary Sue agitprop vector. It’s not a violation of some SFF blasphemy law to show female characters having vulnerabilities, making mistakes, and even plagued with besetting vices that sometimes gravely imperil herself and others.”

RPGs (The Mixed GM) Gamma World 1E… Why Did They Make A Second Edition? — “Because there are no classes, when you gain enough XP to level up, instead of gaining a class ability, you roll on a chart to see what you get (such as +1 to an attribute or +1 to hit). There is something freeing about the random rolls for almost everything. In other systems, if your character is garbage, it is your fault that you did not properly optimize your ‘character build’. However, in this game, if your character is awful, it is the dice. It isn’t your fault. But, through clever play, you can overcome the limitations of your character.”

RPGs (The Last Redoubt) Gamma World — “I will say this – Jeffro plays in a very open-table friendly way, as I’ve also described. The campaign centers around the town. There’s always an excuse for someone new to pop in. Unlike Traveller campaigns that move around, the small time scale to find things and go places provides more of an excuse as to why someone isn’t available for one foray but is the next.”

Television (SuperversiveSF) The STD that will Never go Viral — “When Michael returns, she leaves med bay to storm the bridge, demanding that it’s the Klingons, therefore we must attack them now. Because that’s how first contact protocols work (In this timeline, no one has talked to a Klingon in 100 years. Vulcans just shoot first, and never ask questions. Yes, really.) In order to get the Klingons to decloak, Michael says “Target them!!!” Upon further study, the massive space station is really … a glorified tomb, covered in coffins. And she had them target it. Because all anthropologists want to blow up culture.”

History (Hyperallergic) The Rise and Fall of the Viking “Allah” Textile — “The truth is, the Viking textile from Birka has no Arabic on it at all. Evidence for contact between the Vikings and the Islamic world is abundant and uncontested, but this particular textile fragment cannot be counted among that evidence. What the rapid rise and fall of this story reveals is perhaps more telling about this particular moment in our accelerated media world than it is about Vikings and Muslims.”

Pulp Revolution (Wasteland and Sky) The Revolution is Here! — “I sat down, wrote it up, edited it, and submitted it, all in a few hours. I wanted to embody the pulp spirit with every aspect of submission, and, thankfully, it was accepted! Other than a few line and clarification edits, this story is largely the same as it was when I put it through at pulp speed.”

Movies (Benjamin Cheah Kai Wai) Thor: Ragnarok and the Rejection of Myth — “Thor: Ragnarok acknowledges no morals and celebrates no virtues, it elevates no gods and eschews the epic, it sacrifices the mythic in exchange for lame winks at the audience. If this is the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I want no more of it.”

Movies (Tor.com) The Exorcist TV Series Subverts Its Own Troubled Franchise — “Mannnn are women ever evil in the Exorcist movies. Or, should I say, adult female sexuality is evil and dangerous to society. Actually, scratch that—any sexuality is dangerous. The ads for The Exorcist, and much of the criticism around it, focus on the idea that it’s about an outside evil attacking purity and innocence, in the form of a demon targeting a young, sweet-natured girl. But when you look at the development of the book and film, it becomes apparent that a deep discomfort with gender and sex were coded into it from the beginning.”

Appendix N (Black Gate) In Search of a new Weird Tales: An Interview with Joseph Goodman, Howard Andrew Jones, and the Talking Skull! — “In the 1982 edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide, the creator included an obscure bibliography. It was Appendix N, the 14th appendix in the book, where he listed the works of fiction that inspired him to create D&D. That list has since become notorious. It is now a de facto ‘required reading list’ for diehard fans of the game. Well, I read every book on the list over the course of many years, and it piqued my interest in vintage fantasy novels. The list includes names like Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Jack Vance, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Abraham Merritt, Jack Williamson, Manly Wade Wellman, and others. What do these authors have in common? They got their start in pulp fantasy magazines from the early 20th century.”

SENSOR SWEEP: Tedious Dice Rolling, Indulgent Spaces, Mary Sue Agitprop Vectors, and Required Reading published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi

[tragicbooks]

Setting the record straight on what it's really like to host a refugee family.

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Last October, in response to the worldwide refugee crisis and general encouragement from my church, my family and I signed on as volunteers with the Refugee Services of Texas. We were assigned to furnish an apartment for a refugee family of four, pick them up at the airport, bring them to their new home, provide them their first meal, and stay in contact with them.

These are 10 things I learned from the experience so far.

1. Helping people is rarely glamorous.

It’s very easy to imagine a romanticized meeting at the airport, something you’d see in a movie. The family walks out into the reception area. They see us holding our "Welcome to Texas!" sign and smile brightly. We shake hands. Then embrace. Everyone’s eyes are misty.

But the truth is they trudged through the security doors. They were tired, hungry, and confused. They were concerned about their little boys wandering off and didn’t know where their luggage would be. Their English is about as good as my Arabic. Which is to say, not. Our drive to their apartment was mostly silent due to the language barrier, jet lag, and the general awkwardness of being in a car with complete strangers.

2. Helping people is rarely convenient.

It’s nice to be helpful. Charitable. Magnanimous, even. It’s another thing to give up a couple of perfectly good weekends to spend sweating in an apartment where the air conditioning hasn’t been turned on, assembling book shelves and bed frames with Allen wrenches and hex keys.

It’s not the Peace Corps, but it’s also not writing a check to charity and getting a feel-good bumper sticker in return.

3. Most Americans can’t begin imagine what most refugees have been through.

A Syrian family waits after being escorted into the harbor by the Greek Coastguard, who found them drifting offshore in June 2015. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.

The family we were assigned to help was coming from Syria. Actually, they were coming from a Jordanian refugee camp, where they’d been living for two years. Two years. In a tent.

Originally, they're from Homs, Syria. I’d never heard of this city, so I googled it. Homs is a 4,000-year-old city that until recently had a population of more than half a million and was a major industrial center. In 2011, it became a stronghold of the opposition forces in the country’s civil war. Homs was under siege for three years. It has since been almost completely destroyed, with thousands dead. The population is a third of what it was a decade ago. This is the equivalent of Austin, Memphis, Baltimore, or Charlotte being reduced to rubble, the population decimated by our own military.

I found myself asking, "Where would you go? Where could you take your children?"

4. Most Americans are incredibly generous.

The Refugee Service of Texas gave us a list of what this family would need upon arrival. It included everything from mattresses and chairs to cleaning supplies and deodorant. My wife created a registry at Walmart, and we posted it on Facebook. Within a day, 80% of the items were purchased by generous friends from across the United States and even a handful from overseas. By the end of the week, everything had been purchased, and friends were asking if they could continue to make donations in other ways. Most are good people who want to help. They just need to know how.

Our front room, loaded with donations from generous friends around the world. Photo via Greg Christensen.

5. Most Americans don’t know the difference between refugees and immigrants.

In our current political climate, refugees and immigrants are frequently confused or lumped together for expediency. More often, both are simply labeled "foreigners." And not in a good way.

Here’s a simple truth to keep in mind: Immigrants come to this country of their own accord hoping to make a better life for themselves. Refugees flee from their homelands to any country that will take them because their lives are in danger for religious or political reasons. An immigrant hopes to move into your home. A refugee shows up on your doorstep bleeding.

6. Technology is amazing.

Although the wife and mother of the family is fairly conversant in English, her husband and I communicate with Google Translate. I type in an English sentence, the app renders it in Arabic, and I show him my screen. He types in something in Arabic, it’s rendered in English, and he shows his screen to me. It’s very "Star Trek."

7. This is about their kids.

The father, admittedly, would return to Syria if he could. It’s his home. It’s his culture. His people. But he knows his family has nothing to return to, and he knows his children can thrive in the United States. He’s willing to make that sacrifice for them.

8. This is about my kids.

My children helped assemble furniture in their apartment. They were there when the family arrived bleary-eyed and hungry at the airport. My kids have seen their gratitude and sensed their anxiety. Most importantly, my kids know what it’s like to extend a hand to another human being in need.

9. The refugee crisis is real.

A refugee family walks through a field toward the Greek-Macedonia border. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.

Today, we tend to equate refugees with Syria because of the civil war — because we’re told ISIS will exploit the refugee camps. But leave theory and politics aside for a second, and consider the fact that there are persecuted Christians in the Democratic Republic of Congo currently seeking refuge. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees from countries nowhere near the seven listed on the president’s current travel ban. While many refugees come from Afghanistan and Somalia, there are also refugees from places like Vietnam, Eritrea, and China who are tired, poor, and yearning to breathe free.

10. Fear and ignorance breed apathy and inaction.

After posting updates on Facebook about our refugee family, I’ve received comments about the need for our country to be safe, for our borders to be secure. I don’t argue that, but these are stock answers. I’ve perceived a swelling refugee villainization birthed from understandings that are over-simplistic at best and ignorant of facts at worst.

When we can rationalize not helping others because of a platitude, it gives us permission to do nothing. When we hastily claim we are for safety, we should ask ourselves if we aren’t really saying we are in favor of not leaving our comfort zones and doing the hard work of being useful.

Refugees are human beings. Treating them as such is a necessity.

Syrian refugees have their portrait taken in the basement of a community center in Hamburg, Germany, where they are living. Photo by Astrid Riecken/Getty Images.

When we took the family to their new apartment, they had friends waiting for them. They were other families they’d known from the Jordanian refugee camp where they’d spent the past two years. They were former denizens of a crippled and shattered city. The women kissed each other. The men kissed hugged each other before kneeling to hug the kids. We got to see their children literally jump for joy.

We didn’t understand their language, but we understood a little better what it meant for people to have hope.

This story first appeared on Medium and is reprinted here with permission.

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[socialviralnews]

Setting the record straight on what it's really like to host a refugee family.

<br>

Last October, in response to the worldwide refugee crisis and general encouragement from my church, my family and I signed on as volunteers with the Refugee Services of Texas. We were assigned to furnish an apartment for a refugee family of four, pick them up at the airport, bring them to their new home, provide them their first meal, and stay in contact with them.

These are 10 things I learned from the experience so far.

1. Helping people is rarely glamorous.

It’s very easy to imagine a romanticized meeting at the airport, something you’d see in a movie. The family walks out into the reception area. They see us holding our "Welcome to Texas!" sign and smile brightly. We shake hands. Then embrace. Everyone’s eyes are misty.

But the truth is they trudged through the security doors. They were tired, hungry, and confused. They were concerned about their little boys wandering off and didn’t know where their luggage would be. Their English is about as good as my Arabic. Which is to say, not. Our drive to their apartment was mostly silent due to the language barrier, jet lag, and the general awkwardness of being in a car with complete strangers.

2. Helping people is rarely convenient.

It’s nice to be helpful. Charitable. Magnanimous, even. It’s another thing to give up a couple of perfectly good weekends to spend sweating in an apartment where the air conditioning hasn’t been turned on, assembling book shelves and bed frames with Allen wrenches and hex keys.

It’s not the Peace Corps, but it’s also not writing a check to charity and getting a feel-good bumper sticker in return.

3. Most Americans can’t begin imagine what most refugees have been through.

A Syrian family waits after being escorted into the harbor by the Greek Coastguard, who found them drifting offshore in June 2015. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.

The family we were assigned to help was coming from Syria. Actually, they were coming from a Jordanian refugee camp, where they’d been living for two years. Two years. In a tent.

Originally, they're from Homs, Syria. I’d never heard of this city, so I googled it. Homs is a 4,000-year-old city that until recently had a population of more than half a million and was a major industrial center. In 2011, it became a stronghold of the opposition forces in the country’s civil war. Homs was under siege for three years. It has since been almost completely destroyed, with thousands dead. The population is a third of what it was a decade ago. This is the equivalent of Austin, Memphis, Baltimore, or Charlotte being reduced to rubble, the population decimated by our own military.

I found myself asking, "Where would you go? Where could you take your children?"

4. Most Americans are incredibly generous.

The Refugee Service of Texas gave us a list of what this family would need upon arrival. It included everything from mattresses and chairs to cleaning supplies and deodorant. My wife created a registry at Walmart, and we posted it on Facebook. Within a day, 80% of the items were purchased by generous friends from across the United States and even a handful from overseas. By the end of the week, everything had been purchased, and friends were asking if they could continue to make donations in other ways. Most are good people who want to help. They just need to know how.

Our front room, loaded with donations from generous friends around the world. Photo via Greg Christensen.

5. Most Americans don’t know the difference between refugees and immigrants.

In our current political climate, refugees and immigrants are frequently confused or lumped together for expediency. More often, both are simply labeled "foreigners." And not in a good way.

Here’s a simple truth to keep in mind: Immigrants come to this country of their own accord hoping to make a better life for themselves. Refugees flee from their homelands to any country that will take them because their lives are in danger for religious or political reasons. An immigrant hopes to move into your home. A refugee shows up on your doorstep bleeding.

6. Technology is amazing.

Although the wife and mother of the family is fairly conversant in English, her husband and I communicate with Google Translate. I type in an English sentence, the app renders it in Arabic, and I show him my screen. He types in something in Arabic, it’s rendered in English, and he shows his screen to me. It’s very "Star Trek."

7. This is about their kids.

The father, admittedly, would return to Syria if he could. It’s his home. It’s his culture. His people. But he knows his family has nothing to return to, and he knows his children can thrive in the United States. He’s willing to make that sacrifice for them.

8. This is about my kids.

My children helped assemble furniture in their apartment. They were there when the family arrived bleary-eyed and hungry at the airport. My kids have seen their gratitude and sensed their anxiety. Most importantly, my kids know what it’s like to extend a hand to another human being in need.

9. The refugee crisis is real.

A refugee family walks through a field toward the Greek-Macedonia border. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.

Today, we tend to equate refugees with Syria because of the civil war — because we’re told ISIS will exploit the refugee camps. But leave theory and politics aside for a second, and consider the fact that there are persecuted Christians in the Democratic Republic of Congo currently seeking refuge. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees from countries nowhere near the seven listed on the president’s current travel ban. While many refugees come from Afghanistan and Somalia, there are also refugees from places like Vietnam, Eritrea, and China who are tired, poor, and yearning to breathe free.

10. Fear and ignorance breed apathy and inaction.

After posting updates on Facebook about our refugee family, I’ve received comments about the need for our country to be safe, for our borders to be secure. I don’t argue that, but these are stock answers. I’ve perceived a swelling refugee villainization birthed from understandings that are over-simplistic at best and ignorant of facts at worst.

When we can rationalize not helping others because of a platitude, it gives us permission to do nothing. When we hastily claim we are for safety, we should ask ourselves if we aren’t really saying we are in favor of not leaving our comfort zones and doing the hard work of being useful.

Refugees are human beings. Treating them as such is a necessity.

Syrian refugees have their portrait taken in the basement of a community center in Hamburg, Germany, where they are living. Photo by Astrid Riecken/Getty Images.

When we took the family to their new apartment, they had friends waiting for them. They were other families they’d known from the Jordanian refugee camp where they’d spent the past two years. They were former denizens of a crippled and shattered city. The women kissed each other. The men kissed hugged each other before kneeling to hug the kids. We got to see their children literally jump for joy.

We didn’t understand their language, but we understood a little better what it meant for people to have hope.

This story first appeared on Medium and is reprinted here with permission.

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