#irish mythology kinda ish

[ceo-draiochta]

Fuck Yeats for bad information, fuck Yeats for being weird af to countess markievicz and her daughter, fuck Yeats for being a massive hypocrite about independence but by god that man could write a poem. The Second Coming?? Sailing to Byzantium? The song of wandering Aengus? The Stolen Child?? The Lake Isle of Inishfree?? All masterpieces. Still think about quotes from these all the time.

[necrotic-nightshade]

Now that I’ve managed to turn my focus back to The Reanimated cast, I can FINALLY show you people the guy I’ve been working on for like over a year now that he’s got an actual design!!!

This is Lacrimosa. They’re a banshee and the troupe’s pianist, tasked with providing music for performances. Due to an... incident (which I’ll likely detail later), they’ve become extremely closed off from the other members of the troupe and are just generally really fucking miserable all the time now.

Aaand some misc. trivia stuff below the ‘read more’ :]

I kinda forgot while making him that banshees are supposed to be all-female in mythology so uh fuck it he’s trans!

Wears a mask (as seen in the artwork) to hide the scars on his face from crying, since, in-universe, banshees have corrosive tears.

Unlike Maestro or Abhorson, their mask is just a normal mask that doesn’t emote at all.

Coat was given to him be someone very important. Sadly, they’re long gone now...

In terms of a voice claim for them, they sound kinda like Stanley from The Mandela Catalogue but maybe with a slight Irish accent?

Paint job and kinstugi-ish stuff on their mask was done at some point by Masque.

Character theme is “Life Eternal” by Ghost.

Has a lot of pent-up emotions. Mainly a lot of frustration.

There’s a lot more but this just the stuff I feel like sharing about him for the time being :>

[bookwyrminspiration]

(Ophelia) want you to know that I pronounced Carlisle “Car-leese-lay” for the majority of my twilight reading experience because I had zero clue how that was meant to be said ((only stopped when saw the movie and saw how they said it))

Ophelia!! Helloo!! That is certainly an interesting pronunciation. It's been long enough that I don't remember whether I first read the name or if I heard it out loud first, but if I'd read it first I think I would've been a Car-liz-ul kinda person.

Got a little distracted, apparently the name is of English origin (although one site also claims Scottish), referencing an ancient city (alternate spelling carlyle?) in Cumbria. Though it apparently used to be a Roman city by the name of Luguvalium, and there's a Roman fort in the area. Archaeologists have dated some of the ruins and placed it in the 70s AD, and call it "pre-agricolan", and I don't know what that means. I think it's referring to the reign of a roman statesman by the name of Agricola? However there's also a guy named Mikael Agricola, who was a clerical Finnish man in the 1500s and the "father of literary Finnish." OH! Got it, the correct Agricola for this topic is Gnaeus Julius Agricola, who was a general who lived from 40-90 AD ish! That makes much more sense for the time period. Also seeing mention of him as a governor? But anyway, apparently the name changed from Luguvalium to Carlisle because after Luguvalium was abandoned with the decline of the Roman empire, Celts renamed it to Caer Luel (which means "castle of Luel" or "fortified place of Luel"). Which then brings forward the question of who Luel was. I'm finding that apparently that name is in reference to a mythological figure? Known among the Welsh as Llew Llaw Gyffes, among the Irish as Lúgh Samildánach, and in Gaul as Lugus. His mythology is one of being "all-skilled", and there's a tale of him joining a court via possessing several skills (historian, harpist, sorceror, smith, etc.) simultaneously. So the name was originally Caer Luel, which was transformed into Carlel, and then into Carlisle. And now a hot immortal vampire doctor has the name!

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole, but I was curious! I hope you're taking care of yourself!

Some of the resources I consulted if you're curious:

A History of Carlisle - Local Histories

Carlisle (Luguvalium) Roman Fort

Mikael Agricola (the wrong Agricola)

Gnaeus Julius Agricola (the right Agricola)

Luel

[dillydedalus]

january reading

why was this january at least 3 months long

unequal affections, lara s. ormiston (audio) this is jane austen fanfiction about an alternate version of the story where lizzy does accept darcy’s first proposal - their ensuing engagement, which (because lizzy doesn’t go off about how she feels about darc in this one) is full of unspoken conflicts and tensions & hella awks. the initial premise needed some suspension of disbelief but once i got over that i found it super enjoyable, pretty believable in terms of character interactions and interiority (darcy is a dick), funny & sweet. i don’t think i will necessarily start getting into JAFF now (tho goodreads rly thinks i should), but this was just. nice. wholesome. also now i want to reread p&p..... 3/5

lincoln in the bardo, george saunders (uni) ya know what i really liked this. this is about abraham lincoln mourning his young son willie during the civil war, not exactly a topic i’m particularly (at all) interested in, but the execution is so cool - it’s told partly thru fragments from historical records, books, letters (both real and imagined) and partly thru the voices of the many ghosts stuck in a kind of limbo in the graveyard, who are trying to get willie to move on, while they themselves desperately try to stay in limbo, bitter about what went wrong in their lives and in denial about their state. & it’s done really well, the polyphony and contradiction of the historical record (one chapter has a bunch of quotes about how ugly lincoln was & then the last is like ‘idk i thought he was kinda handsome’), and the ghosts are so sad & bitter & desperate & hopeful. 4/5

the steppe & other stories, anton chekhov (tr. from russian) bunch of short stories from 1880-1890s russia. to be honest, i found most of them pretty boring, although ‘the duel’ is pretty good, an interesting look at how sticking too closely to your worldview/ideology/morality will probably either make you a useless disaster person or a eugenicist douchebag. some of the other stories were okay as well, but overall: 2/5, i’mma stick with his plays

perfectly preventable deaths, deirdre sullivan  teenage ocd witch book! this is a pretty good YA witchy horror book about twins who move into their new stepdad’s castle (yeah he has a castle) in a weird irish village where girls have been going missing for decades. creepy magical-ish things start happening (of course) & our narrator isn’t sure whether her sister’s new age-inappropriate boyfriend is just creepy, or creepy. i love the concept of ocd witchery & the atmosphere is really good as well, but the pacing is off, with slow build-up & a climax that happens way too quickly. also like can someone please say the word ocd it’s not gonna kill ya. 3/5

the priory of the orange tree, samantha shannon gonna be controversial here & say... yeah this should have been a duology. give the world some room to breathe, give the characters some room to breathe (give me another book w/ a cover this spectacular). anyway, this is a bigass book about eastern vs western dragon lore, a holy queendom (go sabran of inys!!), dragonriders, lesbian sword mages, how religion & historiography marginalises women, and magical trees. & like, okay, i wrote a lil thing right after finishing it about how i had some quibbles with it but enjoyed it overall but you know what? the more i think about it/let it sit the more complaints i have and the more annoyed/disappointed i get. 1) i liked all the characters fine, but none of them feel like they have any depth - i feel like i could sum all of the main characters up in like 3-4 words, and while i was rooting for ead/sabran, even this, the most central relationship of the book felt... surface-level. like, there were some big emotional moments but generally all i felt was like ‘good for her’ or ‘that sucks i guess’, 2) this world & its mythology is very much inspired by eastern vs western dragonlore so i understand the need to ground the fantasy world with real-world parallels but the extent to which some of the countries are literally just fantasy versions of real countries was... frustrating? irritating?? this is especially grating as, while inys is very clearly fantasy!britain, there is a lot of cool world-building (religion, aristocracy, history/myth) to make it more than that, while fantasy!japan and fantasy!china are literally just ... ‘what if japan but with dragons’. i did like fantasy!netherlands because at least you don’t see that a lot. 3) so much of the plot is just people travelling to different locations to get and transport different items but most of the travelling is cut short by some magical animal/being turning up and just transporting them in a cutscene.. 4) considering that this is all about dragonlore the dragons sure aren’t as important in the end as the three macguffins of power. 5) i loved so much about kalyba but not where it led, that said i want a kalyba-hawthorn-nurtha backstory.   okay that’s it for now but like. idk. this had a lot of potential but the execution was just severely flawed. 2/5 

trust exercise, susan choi this was super hyped, especially for a game-changing twist of some kind, but has a rather low rating on goodreads (3.18!) so y’all know i was intrigued. i’m not going to give away the twist because it is genuinely really cool if not really all that original, but this is a really clever & cool book about theatre kids, teenage dramatics, constructing your own narrative and what that excludes, elides, changes, and most of all consent & abuse (some very triggering depictions of sex/sexual abuse here). i really liked this, and am considering buying a copy so i can reread it. 4/5

soldiers of salamis, javier cercas (tr. from spanish by anne mclean) very meta novel about a writer called javier cercas writing a book (tentatively called soldiers of salamis) about a (real) falangist poet who escaped a mass execution & survived in the forest for a while with a group of republican deserters. ‘cercas’ researches, speculates, despairs, talks to roberto bolano (who compliments his previous books lol), and finally tracks down the man who he believes/imagines/hopes to be the soldier who let said fascist poet go, leading him to consider who really should be remembered & written about. made me think about that one poem about reading ezra pount that ends w/ a veteran saying ‘if i knew a fascist was a great poet, i’d shoot him anyway.’ interesting book altho i far prefer his book anatomy of a moment, one of the weirdest & most fascinating nonfic books i’ve read. 3/5

the stopping places, damian le bas (audio) damian le bas comes from a settled british romani family and, feeling somewhat unsure about his place in & connection to the community, he decided to go on a roadtrip through britain (+france) in a van to seek out the atchin tans or stopping places, starting with the ones his great-grandmother remembers from her childhood before the family became settled. he combines the travelogue with insights into romani culture(s) (mainly british) and history, as well as his own family history. it’s really interesting & engaging (the history&culture more so than the travelogue) and le bas narrates the audiobook himself & sounds like a cool dude. 3.5/5

confessions of a bookseller, shaun bythell  bythell records a year of working as a second-hand bookseller, with an entry for every day. he talks about the impact of amazon, rude & weird customers (but also nice customers), his weird staff, and some of the books he’s reading. the look into bookselling in the age of amazon is pretty interesting but much of this is banal & repetitive, & if it wasn’t the perfect thing to read in little bits while at work i probably would have dnf’d it. 2/5

giacomo joyce, james..... joyce  super short story by my man jamesy joyce that never made it out of manuscript (literal). not much to say about this - it’s interesting to see jj play around with themes while still working on portrait & thinking bout ulysses & the prose is nice, but the whole english tutor feels attracted to his student is a bit... eh. 3/5

[gryndboxstudios]

Ghost Ship Review

by Matthew Arce-Phillips

First things first, what the actual fuck?!? The movie didn’t really make a lot of sense, but I think that’s a good thing? Try and hear me out. This movie’s first scene is both amazing a stupid at the same time. I’m gonna spoil this scene because I don’t think director understood how height or angles works. And also because the movie came out in 2002 and if you haven’t seen it yet then you probably aren’t gonna watch it. Unless my words persuade you, then that would be awesome! Anyways, the first scene attempts to give us or first glimpse of how scary this movie is gonna get, spoiler, it doesn’t get much scarier than this. In a nutshell this is what happens.. We see a little girl playing with some toy, bored topside of the boat and then someone who is assumed to be the captain, asks her to dance with everyone else. There’s at least 30 people dancing on what looks like a tiny dance floor on top of the ship “Antonia Graza” and everyone is having a grand ‘ole time. Next we see a mysterious hand pull some kind of lever that then begins to reel in a metal wire that so happens to enclosing the dance floor. The tension of the wire finally breaks and, BAM the wire slices everyone on the dance floor in half! The scene is both fills with gore and suspense. At first all the dancers are shocked and no one reacts, but of course how could they? Then, one by one their bodies begin to spilt in half horizontally and we see the true chaos of the trap. Intestines, limbs, and blood fill every inch of the floor! There’s even people trying to put themselves back together! It’s a truly imaginative sight to see and I give whoever came up with that idea huge props. But then we see the little girl completely unscathed by the incident, but the captain that was dancing with her was somehow cut by the wire directly between his mouth and cheeks and we watch the top portion of his head slide off with ease. Now, I’ve watched this scene 5 times over and over, paused, then play, zoomed in, and got figure out how this little girl survived and the captain lost his head and not his body! I looked at all the other bisected bodies that surrounded them and saw no heads decapitated anywhere! I get it, she needed to be able to walk away for plot or whatever, but how are you gonna tell me that they both were in the middle of the dance floor and didn’t get cut in half?? And then to show the captain being the only one to literally loose his head??? I’m not good at math, but none of that shit adds up. 

Regardless of this confusing as hell scene, the movie the picks up 40 years later and introduces us to the “Arctic Warrior” crew, a sea salvaging team in the middle of hauling some rust bucket of a boat to port. Murphy the capitan, Epps the first mate, Greer the guy who steers the boat, Santos our Hispanic mechanic with a love of low riders, and finally Dodge and Munder the two handy men of the crew pretty much. The movie tries to emphasize how truly great this crew is at doing their job by making the boat they’re pulling start sinking and quickly fix the hole as if it was second nature to them. Alright, cool, we got it. But another weird thing, I couldn’t tell if the captain had a Irish accent or not. His name was Murphy, kinda Irish, but he talked so low in most of the scenes it just sounded like he was trying hard to make the accent but couldn’t really pull it off.  Finally we get some story as to what the movie is gonna be about. Some scrawny looking guy named Jack Ferriman approaches the crew as they’re drinking, enjoying themselves and explains that he found an unknown ship out in the Bering Sea and convinces them to find the boat, bring it back to port, and get rich. Simple enough right? After sometime the crew finds the ship and realize it’s the “Anontia Graza”! The ship from the beginning of the movie, who would’ve expected that! After some exploring around the ship one of the crew members falls through the floor and everyone scrambled to pull him up! The girl that’s barely hanging on to his dumbass sees a little girl in the background and freaks out. From here on out she sees the girl in different areas of the boat and the movie kinda shifts into a thriller of sorts. Like I mentioned before, the movie isn’t really scary. Like, at all. There’s a bit more gore-ish parts here and there, but nothing that screams BOO to your face. As they explore the boat a little more things start getting bad for the crew. They realize the cruise ship needs some repairs before bring it to port and the tug boat they arrived in needs repairs as well. Epps falls into an empty pool, hits her head at the bottom and somehow manages to spill a tiny bit of blood from the 6 foot drop. But does not have a concussion at all... oh ok. The blood is then sucked into some bullet holes and I’m assuming this awakens the spirits? At least that’s way it seems. Because from here the other ghost start acting on the crew. After a few scares Epps and Ferriman find a vault full of golden bricks which they all think this is their ticket to easy street, so they all say fuck it a decide to take the gold home instead of the boat. Semi good choice. We see Santos and Greer making some progress on repairing the boat as the other prepare to move the gold from boat to boat. But, just as Santos has finally fixed the problem, some ghost or what have you opens a gas valve dispensing it in the air. As Greer turns the key the boat fucking explodes destroying the boat, killing Santos, and stranding the remaining crew to the “Antonia Graza”. I’m gonna give a quick rundown of events only because the ending gets bad then good then bad again. So, Murphy who was a recovering alcoholic runs to the captains quarters to snag a drink while the rest of the crew argues on what to do next. Obviously, fix the boat and try to make it home. Greer come with the idea to make a raft with is just fucking stupid. Dodge is mad at Ferriman for showing them the boat, Munder doesn’t seem to care about anything but the money, and Epps is just trying to keep everyone together. In the captains quarters Murphy sees the dead captain and finds some photos showing how the gold got on board of the cruise ship in the first place... along with a picture showing a mysterious man that freaks out Murphy. Greer gets seduced by an Italian singer ghost that tricks him into plunging down an elevator shaft and lands onto some broken rebar. Murphy racing to find the crew starts to hallucinate images of the new crispy Santos and believes Epps is trying to kill him. Ferriman knocks out Murphy and they all put him in some tube thingy waiting for him to sober up.  The rest of the crew then begin to fix up boat, starting with patching a giant hole in the side then pump out the water the has flooded the lower half of the boat. Epps finds Greer then the ghost girl from earlier leads her back to the little girls room and explains what really happened that night. And it’s a bunch of bullshit that’s what happened! Pretty much, some of the crew start poisoning passengers, murdering them with guns in an attempt to steal the gold. It’s a bunch of back stabbing as the crew eventually turn on themselves leaving just the Italian singer who we find out was manipulated by........ JACK FUCKING FERRIMAN!!!!! Get it? Ferriman? Ferry man? I’ll explain in a bit. Anywho, Epps runs to free Murphy who has now drowned in the tube thingy, but somehow he carried that picture with him and it’s reviled the picture is of Ferriman. She scrambled to warn the rest of the crew that Ferriman is some ghost or something but is stopped by him. He doesn’t know she knows just yet. Oh yeah, Munder dies getting sucked up into a gear and gets torn to pieces. Dodge is put in charge of watching Ferriman, Ferriman tried to escape, Dodge shoots him. Epps finds Munder’s corpse by the water pump. Now it’s finally shown that Epps knows Ferriman was on the ship 40 years ago and asks for an explanation. Now here is one of my biggest problems with the movie and why I felt the need to explain everything fucking thing in this movie. Jack explains that he works someone “downstairs” and that he collects souls to make them happy. This is his job because he has lived a life full of sin. Pfft, who hasn’t buddy. Now is where I explain the Ferriman shit. In Greek Mythology Charon is the Ferry man that carries newly dead souls across the Rivers styx. But, In Jacks explanation he makes it seems like he works for Satan himself. Seriously, what the fuck? How are they gonna try to combine two different religions and expect everyone to except that? I just could t believe it when I heard it. That explanation was just terrible... After this, Epps defeats Ferriman, the souls are freed, and she drifts out into open sea only to be picked up by another cruise liner. Back on shore she’s loaded up into an ambulance and she watches the crew of a cruise ship load luggage on board and among the crew members is fucking Jack Ferriman in the flesh. Of course, the circle continues. I know it seems like I’m complaining a lot but I actually did enjoy this movie. It wasn’t super terrible but not super good either. When looking into this movie I read that originally the movie was going to be a physiological thriller called Chimera, but for reasons unknown the script underwent tons of rewrites and became Ghost Ship. I remember hearing about his movie when I was a kid and thinking it was dumb, but of course only because I was too scared to actually watch it. Now that I think back to it I’m glad I never watched it. I probably would shit myself in the first 30 minutes. Oh yeah, I hated scary movies as a kid. It’s definitely a movie that has not aged well at all. The cgi and backdrops are pretty bad looking. But when you see the open waters it’s beautiful, that I don’t mind. Personally I’d probably watch this movie one more time if I ever needed time to kill or was just bored. It held my attention the first time really well, but I’m not sure about a second. I give Ghost Ship 6 bacon and cheese Whataburgers outta 10. I ate one while watching the movie and I also ate while writing this review.

Movies by Matt is the newest part of GBStudios’ team, looking to provide entertaining and informational reviews on all our favorite movies. You can follow @movies_matt and Gryndbox Studios on Twitter!

[victoria-writes-sometimes]

OC Tag Game

tagged by @the-knights-are-not-dead!

Rules: Share your inspiration for your characters’ names and tag some other writers!

Tbh, I’m horrible at naming characters, so when I first came up with the characters I turned to all kinds of random name generators to get ideas. I ended up falling in love with more randomly generated names than I wanted to XD

Iania: Generated on springhole.net with either the Latinish or Greek-ish name generators. For her, I wanted a name that perhaps a Greek goddess may have.

Caella Merax: Caella was a nickname of one of my friends in high school, except spelled “Caela” (short for Micaela). I added an extra L because why not! Merax, though, comes as a reference to the dragon Meraxes from the lore of A Song of Ice and Fire. It was a bit unintentional at first because “Merax” just kind of popped into my head one day, but it ended up being really fitting since House Merax is a house of dragonriders.

Garya Koshlath: I completely came up with Garya’s name (though there may have been a TINY bit of me that was thinking of Arya Stark from ASOIAF at the time). Koshlath, I can’t really remember where that came from. I wanted her last name to be strange, even for the world of Bloodlines, and this somehow came forth. It stuck, of course, because “Garya Koshlath” just rolls right off the tongue, eh? XD

Aedraia Rowwen: Aedraia’s first name was, like Iania’s, also randomly generated on springhole.net. I had already conceived the idea of the city-state of Aether (which Aedraia’s family rules) and I liked the idea that the Rowwens have names that traditionally start with “Ae” or incorporate “ae” in their names somewhere for their city. Rowwen comes from “Rowan,” obviously, and my tennis doubles partner from middle to high school had that last name. I changed the spelling up a little and yeah.

Noegaia: Also generated on springhole.net XD oops, I may rely on random generators a little too much. Much like Iania, I wanted something almost god-like for Noegaia’s name, and considering it has “Gaia” in it, well, I think I succeeded in this find XD

Rhosso Nhovo: Rhosso’s first name just kinda popped into my head one day. Nhovo came about when I was just kinda talking out loud and mashing different sounds together lol.

Morrigan Nhovo: Originally, Morrigan’s first name was “Maeryse,” but when Morrigan became a more prominent character I needed to give her something stronger. I have a friend named “Morgan” and I saw a video of an instrumental track someone composed and it was named “Morrigan,” so I went with it. Morrigan is also a powerful name in Celaryan culture during the era of the Nhovos’ reign because all the Morrigans have shaped Celaryan culture in important ways. Not to go into it too much, but the most recent Morrigan also won an important war that helped secure the Nhovos’ hold on the Lesponi. In Irish mythology, the Morrígan is a figure commonly associated with war and fate and typically manifests as a crow. Interestingly, the Morrígan is also known as the “great queen,” “phantom queen,” or “queen of phantoms.” In reverse order, these names may or may not coincide with the legacies of the three Morrigans who once ruled Celarya ;) Funny how a non-POV character has the most effort put into her name XD

Andor Jornos: I wanted a “real world” sounding name in here, so Andrew was turned into Andor and Jones became Jornos. Andor’s ancestry leads back to the most “real world” culture of my world, so it made sense that his first and last names were variations of names we find in our world.

Whoever wants to do this, go ahead!! I know that tags aren’t sometimes popping up in people’s notifications, so it’s easier to just let people do it if they want :) Tag me if you do and hopefully I see it!!

[gendryw4ters-blog]

☝ 🚬 🍷💉 ✏️ ✂️😒🔥👃💭💘 🎥 📺 ✏🙈👟💃📱🍭???

oh my gosh this is so many im!! thank you so much youre so sweet aah?! i’ll stick em under a readmore for length!! (but i’ll try not to ramble too much cause im terrible for ranting and raving about all sorts of stuff ahah) 

☝ - How tall are you? 5′7″ish or there abouts🚬 - Do you Smoke? nah🍷 - Do you Drink? occasionally ye💉 - Have Tattoos? not yet!!✏️ - Want any tattoos? yes!! im actually pretty set on this alt j one ive had designed for a long time, i just need time and money and to settle on a position (cause arms might not be good for teaching but also i want to be able to show it off ya feel??)✂️ - Got any Piercings? no! cause im scared to lmao😒 - Biggest pet peeve? PEOPLE WHO CAN’T CLOSE DOORS🔥 - Something spicy you like? mulled spice candles at christmas (i literally have the most bland and boring taste in food ever okay im not a spicy gal)👃 You hate the smell of …. doritos!! to the extent that i sometimes have to leave the room if someone opens a bag of ‘em!! which is definitely not inconvenient or awkward at all!💭 - Favorite foods? pizza, pasta, garlic bread, toast, most egg things (told you i was bland af)💘 - Top 5 celebrity crushes? changes a lot but! as it stands rn:

joe dempsie

cillian murphy

dan from bastille

PEGGY LIPTON WHAT A BABE OH MY GOD

sherilyn fenn (also! a babe)

🎥 - Top 5 favorite movies? oh my god this is super difficult okay and also changes all the time but i guess right now it’d be:

mr nobody

guardians of the galaxy vol 2

arrival (fun fact! it’s the only film ive ever seen that i would rate as being 10/10 in my entire life)

kong skull island for the green gas scene if nothing else

hmmm……….. alien

📺 - Top 5 favorite TV shows? also difficult but right now (and excluding BoB cause that’s a given) it’s:

twin peaks

peaky blinders

letterkenny

game of thrones… maybe

this is england (ESPECIALLY ‘90. but all of them including the film are incredible)

✏ - Random fact about yourself. uhhh i guess! my name is rooted in irish mythology maybe (not my name personally but yknow) and Niamh was a fairy queen in Tir na nOg and that’s pretty neat

🙈 - What makes you shy? im actually a lot less shy than i used to be! but that’s both a blessing and a curse. i take more chances and get more rejections and that’s! something i just gotta work through. i guess the only thing that still does make me shy is not having a single clue how im going to be received?? like often if im going to approach someone i have a vague idea of how well my approaching is going to go down but if i have no idea then the whole thing becomes a lot more OH GOD WHAT AM I DOING

💃 - Can you dance? debatable

👟 - Favorite shoe(s) to wear? i love!! my docs!! that i stole from my dad!!

📱 - What kinda phone do you have? an iphone! with a cracked screen! classic iphone user problems

🍭 - Favorite Candy? cookies! if they count??

thanks again for this omg!! i hope youre having a great daaay!

[idowhatimust-archived]

Sooo mun, i've seen you talk about a ton of the blogs you have or used to have or whatever, so can you list all the blogs you have/used to have? Maybe URLs too if you remeber them??

((  ??????? Oh jesus, Anon, okay?? I mean, fuckin’ buckle up ‘cause there’s a lot.

I’ll be going in as close to chronological order as I can, though it might get a little mussed… ))

Used to Play:

Bar.nab.y Bro.oks Jr. from Tige.r & Bu.nny

Several fanbot OCs for the SPG fandom, including:- LAUREN, an introverted artist with a love for music [a.k.a. babby’s first and only self-insert]- C# [C-Sharp], a jazz pianist/singer who busks for money- Conall, a kinda werewolf-ish mechanic with a love for Irish dance who runs on Guiness- Anya [????], a Russian-built spy whose memory was almost totally wiped when she was bought by a US engineer- Puck, a satyr-like deliveryboy with a penchant for [harmless] mischief

Oxford Ogden Bogeyman, an OC take on the Boogeyman concept

Samebito, an OC from Japanese mythology [basically a shark merman]

Shadowman, a mute OC who’s a shadow given form/life by a lonely young girl with a powerful imagination

Kris, a homeless agender teen OC trying to raise money to go back to school

Jake, an artist OC using sweaters, stuffed animals, etc. as coping mechanisms to deal with witnessing the double murder of his parents

Lee Bishop, a repairman/woodcarver OC of ½ Shoshone descent with a solar-powered motorbike

Chrysanthos Michelakakis, a busboy OC quietly fond of wearing feminine clothes and suffering from trauma-induced erectile dysfunction [result of being shamed/pressured by his abusive uncle]

Angel, a by-commission bodyguard OC who was the last experiment [and son] of Victor Frankenstein

Derya Sadik, a callboy OC trying for a college degree in fashion design/marketing

Post-film!AU Nath.an Wall.ace from Re.po! the Gen.etic Op.era

Nux from Mad M.ax: Fury Ro.ad

Vlad Dracula III from C.C. Humphreys’ Vlad: the Last Confession

Brother Petr.os Ors.ini from Tr.inity Blo.od

Post-Seine!AU Ja.vert from Le.s Miser.abl.es

Kote.tsu T. Ka.burag.i from Ti.ger & B.un.ny

Go.odnig.ht Ro.biche.ax from Magn.ificent S.even [2016]

Va.squ.ez from Magnif.icent Sev.en [2016]

Currently Playing:

Ha.nzo Sh.imad.a from Ove.rwatch [ @idowhatimust ]

R.yuji Sak.amoto from Pe.rsona 5 [ @beneaththeblackflag ]

Iosif Volkov, a tattoo artist OC of Tlingit-Russian descent who works on-call at a steel factory [ @solderandink ]

and a couple others but those are just for the partners I started them for

[folatefangirl]

Review: The Serpent’s Shadow

So I just finished my first book of 2018, which incidentally was my first foray into reading Mercedes Lackey with a copy of The Serpent’s Shadow that happened to be lying around the house I’m currently at. On the surface, it seemed like something right up my alley: 1) a medically-inclined main character, 2) diverse characters and relationships, and 3) set in a historical time period I personally find interesting (WWI or thereabouts). But after reading it, I think I might need to read something else by Mercedes Lackey to get a more objective read on her as an author. 

This book is hella old, but a general warning for spoilers below, y’all. 

Stuff I Liked:

The medical aspect of the book seemed to be well-researched and pretty accurate to the time period, at least as far as I could tell, and I think that was my favorite part of the whole reading experience. 

The writing was enjoyable and fun to read, though Lackey seems to really like exclamation points. She also used a lot of em dashes, but I was cool with it since she only started favoring it when the pacing in the story needed to pick up so it was a useful stylistic choice, I think.

The main characters were good people, almost too good for my tastes (which I’ll go into more detail in the next section) and I thought the development of a biracial relationship set in a contentious time period for the UK was an interesting touch.

I like that the magic system has rules and that there are limitations set on it, which is something I still don’t see enough fantasy authors doing.

It did try to touch on at least some of the reasons why anti-colonialists were doing certain things. 

I need more of the Scottish Selkie village like burning because, wow, that would make for an awesome modern-ish Celtic mythology story. 

Stuff I Didn’t Like:

The characters are good people and very progressive for the time period. While I love that, to a certain extent it seemed like a lot of posturing? As in, they would do or think certain Progressive Woke Stuff™ and it just went on and on and on... Until I wanted to yell at them, “Okay, I get it. X = good, Y = bad! Now could we please get on with the story?!”

Per Shivani, I’m glad the book showed her hurt and anger over the colonization of India, but the story basically made it out to be a revenge story with Shivani losing her morals in order to attack the British and didn’t really expand upon the nature of colonization? As in, Dr. Progressive Maya didn’t add her own perspective on it all that much, even though you’d think she’d have a lot to say, being mixed-race and a daughter of both the colonizer and the colonized. 

Addendum: Shivani was just the Bad Murder Queen while the Indian immigrants who served Maya were all good and didn’t seem to have much to say about colonization, either. Then the latter third of the book was all “Oh no, we must protect the British Isle from India’s revenge” without really addressing why Shivani wants that revenge so badly? I mean, Maya is innocent, sure, but Shivani was murdering those men who abused her nation for reasons she considered pretty damn important. By neglecting to address this, it just seems like a wasted opportunity tbh.

I had a lot of Feelings about how Kali was portrayed in this book. I know that authors can take artistic license, etc. etc., but it was just so blatantly off that I couldn’t get over it. Fortunately, there was something towards the end that improved this, but I can’t help but think any readers who are unfamiliar with Hinduism will get the wrong impression of Kali? 

The accented dialogue, while kinda adding some characterization, got unreadable at times. Plus, the fact that it was mostly applied to impoverished Londoners or Irish characters made me side-eye it? Idk, I just wasn’t a big fan. 

This is just a nitpick, but WTF was up with that suffragette subplot? I don’t really understand what it was trying to add at all. If I read more of the books (which I don’t plan to), I might try to see if the ones later in the series address the problematic parts of the suffragette movement or why exactly it was plopped into this story, except to show that the characters are oh-so-progressive. Idk, I like morally good characters, but not when an author anvil drops their Goody Goodness on my head at the expense of telling the story. 

TL;DR: The best I can say about this book is that it was okay. Not great, just okay.