#published 2006

[lunaticbookblog]

Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

This is just turning into a year of Sanderson while I try to catch up on the entire Cosmere before Stormlight 5 is released.

Mistborn book 1 is basically Oceans Eleven meets My Fair Lady but with magic via heavy metal poisoning.

Generally I don’t like to compare books to each other outside of a series, but I’m sort of making a slight exception in this case because the Stormlight Archive is set in the same general universe/Cosmere.

Overall, it was a struggle to get into this book. I likely wouldn’t have continued the series after reading this one, except I’m curious about the magic systems, and it dropped enough hints that the rest of the series has greater-Cosmere lore information. The pacing of this book felt odd. And I had gotten used to the character building style of Stormlight Archive - where I was invested in each character as a person very early, so much so that even during the slow portions, the characters themselves were dragging me through because I need to know what happens to them. Here, while I liked the characters well enough, I never felt hugely invested in either Kelsier or Vin’s stories as individuals. The characters I was most curious about or who I enjoyed the most were characters that felt somewhat under utilized (such as Ham & Breeze). However, Sazed did feel like he was getting a decent set up for more development in the series.

On positive notes, the mystery built up around the Lord Ruler was well done, the character Reen was very effectively utilized, and the general plot was engaging enough. Always here for a heist.

“Plots behind plots, plans beyond plans. There was always another secret.”

[russia-libertaire]

"The shroud of darkness from which we spent several Soviet decades trying to free ourselves is enveloping us again. Even more stories are heard of the FSB using torture to fabricate cases to suit its ideological needs, implicating the courts and the prosecutor's office as its accomplices. This is now the rule rather than the exception. We can no longer pretend that it is a random occurrence. The implication is that our Constitution is on its deathbed, in spite of all the guarantees intended to safeguard it, and the FSB is in charge of the funeral arrangements."

Putin's Russia, by Anna Politkovskaya

[cryptocollectibles]

Witchblade 9 Issue Lot (1997-2006) by Top Cow / Image Comics

Written and drawn by various.

[rikoandtako]

Dream of Absolutions - Silver The Hedgehog 🦔◽⬜ Honing what I've learnt from my traditional artworks recently, here is a more digital piece! Links: https://rikoandtako.carrd.co Support my work: https://patreon.com/RikoandTako

[feralchaton]

“What art does is to coax us away from the mechanical and toward the miraculous. The so-called uselessness of art is a clue to its transforming power. Art is not part of the machine. Art asks us to think differently, see differently, hear differently, and ultimately to act differently, which is why art has moral force.”

— Jeanette Winterson (Winterson, 2006)

[anniflamma]

Reading some poetry by Rumi that he wrote to/about Shams… Remember, guys! All that gay stuff is just metaphors!

"I became his flute and started crying when his lips touched me. I was blindly searching for his hand while all the while he was holding mine."

Like I said… It's just a metaphor for friendship!

[rated-rko]

WWE superstars John Cena and Randy Orton on their pre-match rituals (wwe.com - July 20, 2006)

[laurelnose]

here’s a speculative idea that has me in a HEADLOCK. first, infectious cancers are a thing: clonal cancers which can be transmitted from individual to individual without the aid of an infectious agent like a virus. best known are the canine venereal tumor and the Tasmanian devil facial tumors, both of which spread through direct contact with mucosal tissue. in the case of dogs, fucking, and in the case of Tasmanian devils, biting the shit out of each other’s faces. a handful more exist in clams, and the clam cancer cells are known to be able to survive in seawater and spread without direct contact.

modern bony fishes (teleosts) evolved in and still mostly live in seawater; they’re entirely covered in mucosal tissues, their skin having no layer of dead epithelial cells on top; and many species live in groups and engage in cannibalism. the major histocompatibility complex is what mediates tissue/allograft rejection. It’s possible that the ancestral condition of hugely diversified MHC class I alleles in teleosts is because an elevated risk of transmissible cancers exerted a selection pressure that’s just absent in mammals.

we’ve never found a transmissible cancer in teleosts so this remains fully hypothetical (but have we looked? I do not know) but god damn is it cool. bony fishes might have rearranged their whole fucking immune systems against the threat of infectious cancers. I really do need to reread Xenogenesis sooo bad

[fallen-gabrielle]

Ok, because Yaiba will probably gain popularity thanks to the remake of the anime, I wanna share that really neat hint/cameo/Easter egg from the 24th volume of Yaiba, during the Nobunaga Oda tournament arc.

As we can see, this is slightly before Sōshi Okita’s first appearance, but more importantly, ‘H. HATTOR’ is obviously Heiji Hattori 😏 which is peculiar because the manga Yaiba ended before Aoyama started Detective Conan, ans even then, Heiji only appears in volume 10 of DC.

Or the French publisher changed the name in this version to reference Hattori since DC was well established when they made Yaiba in France. Which is weirder because Yaiba was published by Soleil Manga and the rest of the DC verse os published by Kana 🤔

[kommabortsig]

Rosemaling.jpg

[oh2e]

It’s frustrating wanting to chat about how the book you just read (from 2023) is practically identical to another book you read by the same author (from 2006) but when you’re three times the age of the intended audience people just tell you that’s what you get for reading books aimed at 8 year olds and refuse to critically engage.

[machtwehr]

i can't help but think that the most romantic organ Nigel could accidentally pull out of Alex would be the liver, not the heart. moreover, Nigel, with his precision, can do it. the liver is the most important gland of the body, without it you cannot live long; on the other hand, this organ is damn beautiful, but is easily mechanically injured. moreover, the liver is the hottest organ.

the opportunity to touch the warmest place in a person seems like a very romantic opportunity

the greater element of the forbidden and secret will take over the act of eating the liver. this, although usually part of a negative context, in a romantic light can be perceived as an act of deep connection between two people, in which the secret plays an important role. but this is already very dark romanticism.

[frasiest]

27 cuddy/stacy fics helloooooooo lesbians

[things-ford-pines-missed]

Things Ford Missed #73: The Twilight Saga.

yeah. he missed a lot.

also, while we’re here:

Thing Ford Missed #74: The First Four Twilight Movies.

(at least he gets to see breaking dawn part two with everyone!)

[elibean]

is black butler STILL being written!????????

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

BEHOLD THE FACES, FADS, FIGURES, & FEMME FATALES OF THE AMERICAN DARK AGE OF COMICS!

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on "The Dark Age: Grim Great & Gimmicky Post-Modern Comics," a pop culture retrospective by Mark Voger. Originally published in 2006, it was republished on May 17, 2024 by TwoMorrows Publishing.

MINI-OVERVIEW: "Do you remember "The Dark Knight Returns" and "Watchmen"? The “polybagged premium” craze? The death of Superman? Renegade superheroes Spawn, Pitt, Bloodshot and Cyberforce? When vigilantes spilled blood by the gallon — and those were the good guys? If you love the comic books of the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s, read all about the sometimes glorious, sometimes gory era of comics known as THE DARK AGE (168-page trade paperback; $19.95)!

Featuring interviews with Dark Age greats Todd McFarlane (Spawn), Dave Gibbons (Watchmen), Jim Lee (X-Men), Kevin Smith (Clerks), Alex Ross (Kingdom Come), Mike Mignola (Hellboy), Erik Larsen (Savage Dragon), J. O’Barr (The Crow), David Lapham (Stray Bullets), Joe Quesada (Daredevil), Mike Allred (Madman), Dennis O’Neil (Batman: Knightfall) and others! With a color section spotlighting highlights — and lowlights – of THE DARK AGE! Written by Mark Voger, with photos by Kathy Vogelsong."

-- TWOMORROWS PUBLISHING, c. spring 2024

Sources: https://issuu.com/twomorrows/docs/darkageonline & https://markvoger.com/the-dark-age-grim-great-gimmicky-post-modern-comics-2006-twomorrows-publishing.