#read along

[sonatine]

Fran Lebowitz on writing

[tbcanary]

birds of gay, a compilation.

[theeclecticlibrary]

[asgoodeasgold]

Shadow of Night Read Along Ch21

‘No offense taken, Goody Alsop. But if you take this matter to your elders, Diana’s identity will be known across London.’ Matthew stood. ‘I can’t allow that.’

‘Every witch in the city has already heard about your wife. News travels quickly here, no small thanks to your friend Christopher Marlowe,’ Goody Alsop said, craning her neck to meet his eyes. ‘Sit down, Master Roydon. My old bones no longer bend that way.’

To my surprise, Matthew sat.

Matthew is throwing his cranky weight around with the subtelty of a bulldozer but Goody Alsop is having none of it. She is the boss. You show him Goody.

📷 Sky/Bad Wolf A Discovery of Witches (2021) s2:02 my edits

[nowaftgtrash]

You can't tell me Andrew wasn't pissed about Jean wrecking their dorm room

[strawbsstuff]

New episode of Let’s Talk About Book! Currently reading Mistborn: The Final Empire. This episode we get Smeevca learning hints about Kandra and a bit of Feruchemy. Kelsier goes to see the army, Vin confronts Elend about Skaa woman and the evils of the nobility. We also get some guest barks from Tilly and Dexter 🐾

[sengokuthegouda]

This sequence is phenomenal. So well done from every single aspect. The direction, writing, art, coloring, and emotional beats are all flawless.

[brainrotallthewaydown1312]

I just finished the creeping shadow for the first time and holy shit.

major spoiler warnings under the cut

I had already been told about Penelope being Marissa and was fully aware of it going into this. that was on me for waiting so long between reading the hollow boy and the creeping shadow. but the way skull dropped that at the end was absolutely iconic. just like he always is. I love him so much.

also Kipps is my tiny child. am I about his age? yes. but I have adopted him he is tiny and needs protecting. I also love him.

I also have FEELINGS about George storming in and losing his mind when he thought they died. and about how his bad aim was made an asset in his fury. I want to give him a hug he had a rough go this book.

and further feelings about the progression of holly and Lucy's relationship. and holly in general. I love her so much.

and while I'm at it Lucy and skull being casual roomies at the start was amazing. I still think Lucy was stupid and wrong for leaving, but I absolutely loved their dynamic there. and the amount of Skull™ lines is amazing. I want to make some sort of art that is just skull quotes. I seriously love him so much. I will be stealing his gender in the night when he is least prepared.

I also feel like Lucy did the most growth in this book. I still have my gripes with her and she is still my least favorite of them, but she is getting better. i do have several things I wish I would have been able to see from other perspectives but that's what I have ao3 for.

I've had several things from the empty grave spoiled for me, but between my deep love for these characters, my investment in the delivery of the story, and the president that the creeping shadow set for spoiled details still having payoff in this series, I am so hyped to read the next one tomorrow. it will be bittersweet to be done with the series, but I take comfort knowing that my autism will not be releasing me from this series for a long time. I really do love these characters and their stories.

and I have been hit with a fresh wave of unending fury that Netflix cut their adaptation off before it really picked up. I would give my left leg to see holly on screen or Kipps with his goggles or skull's full appearance on the other side or Lucy straight up killing Steve rotwell or the ghost that impersonated Lockwood at the end of thb or the entire poltergeist sequence before that or-

[madame-ellunas-moonlit-readings]

May 8 - Foul Bauble Of Man's Vanity

Re Dracula/Dracula Daily

So, I got distracted and now I'm behind by about a week. So be it, I'll catch up. Starting with this one.

Serious props to the voice actors here. Jonathon's stressed venting over being trapped and in danger, and Dracula's fervent rant over his people's history were excellent. I was drawn right in. They really set the tension and the tone. There were no skipped bits this round, so just a reaction to the podcast today. And a little definitions bit at the bottom for the words I had to google.

Jonathon has stopped turning his back on his ill feelings and the numerous red flags, grateful even for his older descriptive journal entries to refer upon and determined to keep clear record onwards. I guess not seeing someone in the mirror and getting choked out would be too much for anyone to hide from. That and his destructive tendencies.

I like how he takes the time to feel gratitude for the rosary and the woman who gifted it, wondering on the manner in which it works. Also the little tangent, 'now I can't shave! how annoying!'. Coping skills 101.

He's not just kept older fears to heart but has started actively looking into things as well. Thanks to that he knows that there are no servants, only himself and Dracula, that the man hasn't consumed anything and that there's no way out. All the doors are locked and his window just leads to a precipice ending in rivers, chasms and forests, all easily seen from the castle. It's no wonder the poor man ran about the place in a panic.

Jonathon is taking care with his interactions with Count Dracula too, planning ahead, how to react, how to behave, what to, what not say. He's even gone with so bold a move as to dig out personal information from the man himself. And wasn't that interesting.

Count Dracula fell for it, hook line and sinker. He fell into a fervent rant over the histories, follies and glories of his blood, his people, his land. He ranted on wars and battles, dismissed more pacifist and communal behaviours, which showed a lot into his personality, his priorities and his attitude towards others. He even clued Jonathon in on who he is was, when he came from, his role in the past, when he went on about his achievement against the Turks.

Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! what good are peasants without a leader?

Overall, it was a stellar success on Jonathon's part. It could even make for a historical record there. What a thing for a historian to get their hands on.

Jonathon has a point though. This, like with the other nights, didn't end til morn. He compared it the beginning of the "Arabian Nights" or the ghost of Hamlet's father, ending at cockcrow. Not very comforting comparisons.

It was an interesting chapter. Very informative. Love the building stress, the increasing urgency and the worldbuilding.

My little definitions page, in the order they came up. Almost all are directly copy pasted, with some hyperlinks for clarification sake.

Diffuse: lacking clarity or conciseness, verbose, wordy, longwinded

Prosaic: without interest, imagination, and excitement, prose lacking poetic terms and verbosity

Demoniac: possessed or influenced by a demon

Boyar: a high ranking member of Russian aristocracy, serving under the prince

Szekelys: Székely people are ancient Hungarians, living in Transylvania in Székelyföld (Szeklerland), situated in Romania

Ugric: Ugrians or Ugors were the ancestors of the Hungarians of Central Europe, and the Khanty and Mansi people of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug of Russia.

Scythia: or Scythica was the region of Eastern Europe corresponding to the Pontic steppe. The Scythians were an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people.

Attila: Attila the Hun was the leader of the Hunnic Empire from 434 to 453. Attila the Hun is used as a figure for an extremely vicious fighter or cruel person, especially in political contexts.

Magyar: The Magyars were horsemen from the Pontic-Caspian steppe. Their people make up the majority of the Hungarians.

Lombard: a Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. They originated from Scandinavia.

Avar: a nomadic equestrian people from central Asia who built up an empire in the area between the Adriatic and the Baltic seas from the 6th century.

Bulgar: The Bulgars were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region during the 7th century.

Arpad: Árpád was the head of the confederation of the Magyar tribes at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. He was a ruler of what we now call Hungary.

Honfoglalas: the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin

Cassova: or Kosovo. Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo is a landlocked partially recognised state in Southeast Europe, lying in the centre of the Balkans.

Wallach: the people of Wallachia, now Romania

Voivode: a local ruler, governor or military commander, especially the semi-independent rulers of Transylvania, Wallachia, or Moldova before c1700.

Mohács: is a town in Baranya County, Hungary, on the right bank of the Danube. The Battle of Mohács was fought on 29 August 1526 near Mohács.

Hapsburgs: aka the House of Austria. One of the most prominent and important dynasties in European history.

Romanoffs: or the Romanovs. The Russian imperial family in control from 1613 to 1917. Famous for the murder of the Romanov family wherein Princess Anastasia went missing, presumed dead.

[estherwordnerd]

Officially live blogging my first time reading The Iliad (Emily Wilson's translation) because why not? Started 17/1/24.

*ahem*

This is such a childish argument but the creativity of the insults has got me thinking. Like yeah, i'd probably be offended too if someone called me 'dog-face' or 'cannibal king'.

I like how this is translated, I can just hear the sarcasm and venom in Odysseus' voice and all these arguing among themselves really shows the toll nine years of war has taken on everyone.

I know Hector calling Paris pretty is meant to be taunting and emasculating but the phrasing made me laugh at first.

There is no heterosexual explanation for this, Helen. Which i know is mainly because heterosexuality didn't exist as a defined concept or label but... therefore it's not incorrect to read this as gay right?

You're telling me Aphrodite almost ended this whole ten year war without anyone else dying just by taking Paris out of the fight at the right moment + making him horny and now Hera and Athena want to start it up again?? Come on guys even Zeus was ready to move on.

Hardly anyone in this family is supporting Aphrodite and it's making me unexpectedly defensive. She was protecting her son, Athena!

R.I.P Sarpedon. I got kinda attached to him and Pelagon and now i know I am not prepared for what happens to Achilles and Patroclus. Send help.

Nothing quite like reading a very old poem and realising we ARE the people in the future who they knew would still be telling and listening to this story. Just like people were before us and probably will long after us.

On the one hand Hector should really have listened to Andromache but on the other hand I am not immune to him taking off his helmet to hug his baby. God.

[bellasbookclub]

BBC Read Along - A Long, Fatal Love Chase by Louise May Alcott

What time is it? Time for a sexy priest 🥵💦

This month's read along is Chapter 12 - Behind The Grating on the American March 13th and the Aussie Thursday 14th of March!

How does the read-along work?

Jump onto the Bella's Book Club Discord

Just here to listen? Go to our voice channels (at the bottom of channel list with a speaker icon🔊)

Connect your audio (we suggest joining muted by clicking on the mute button)

4. Want to take a turn reading? Let the mods know in the #read-along-chat channel before you click on over to the voice channels and join in the chin wagging!

5. Reader turns are usually approx. 10 minutes each (mods will keep track and ping you at the 1 minute mark.) Read along from your own copy or keep track via our livestream of the text.

Have fun!

[sonatine]

Ten years!!!! They hadn't seen each other in TEN YEARS

[tbcanary]

absolutely obsessed with helena trying to find a date night outfit that fits with the mask. (bop1999 #68)

[leareadsheresy]

Fulgrim (the book, and not the other book also called Fulgrim but with a subtitle)

This post contains spoilers for Fulgrim, by Graham McNeill, originally published as a novel on (as nearly as I can tell) July 2nd, 2007. It does not contain spoilers for Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix by Josh Reynolds, published in October 2017.

Fulgrim is the story of Fulgrim, the Palatine Phoenix, Primarch of the Emperor's Children Legion of Space Marines, and his fall to Chaos during the leadup to and events surrounding the initial steps of Horus's rebellion in the Istvaan system as told in Galaxy in Flames. Like Flight of the Eisenstein, it starts by covering events significantly earlier than Horus Rising, beginning with the the Emperor's Children prosecuting a war of extermination against an alien race called the Laer.

Here's a plot summary:

The Emperor's Children exctinctify a species of sneople called the Laer and steal a magic sword from their central temple; the temple is very clearly (to the reader) dedicated to Slaanesh, one of the four big Chaos gods, the one that's all about sensation and excess and has become less and less about sex over time as GW realizes that gets in the way of parents leaving their kids at GW stores. Fulgrim takes the sword as a trophy; it starts talking to him but because he doesn't know what Chaos is he just assumes it's intrusive thoughts. Also the artists and documentarians ("remembrancers") who travel with the fleet go down to document the glorious conquest etc. and when they go to the big Slaanesh temple they all get obsessed with pursuing sensation and excess, kicking off a B-plot that'll be important later. Also also, the Emperor's Children's chief apothecary, Fabius, gets inspired by the Laer to invent cool new combat drugs and enhancement surgeries, which he sells Fulgrim on with the help of Fulgrim's evil sword intrusive thoughts.

Then the Emperor's Children fight a fleet of divergent humans called the Diasporex who have some aliens working with them; during this they meet up with the Iron Hands Legion and their Primarch Ferrus Manus who has literal iron hands on his flagship the Fist of Iron. The book talks about how Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus are bestest of best friends who each wield a weapon forged by the other, so Ferrus Manus has a big hammer made by Fulgrim and Fulgrim has a flaming sword made by Ferrus Manus. The Emperor's Children and Iron Hands wipe out the Diasporex. During this campaign, Fabius's combat drugs get widely adopted by the Legion and they start being less about pursuing perfection and more about pursuing combat highs.

Then the Emperor's Children explore a region of space where lots of ships disappear and find a lot of unsettled paradise worlds, and are approached by a space elf named Eldrad Ulthran who warns Fulgrim that Horus is going to turn traitor. Fulgrim's evil sword intrusive thoughts tell him this is a lie and Eldrad needs to die so they fight. Fulgrim kills an Avatar of Khaine and then gets mad and goes around virus-bombing all the unsettled paradise worlds they found.

Then Fulgrim takes the fleet to meet with Horus and is like "You're not planning to turn traitor, are you?" and Horus is like "So what if I am?" and the evil sword Fulgrim's intrusive thoughts go "Horus is awesome, if he does turn traitor you should totes follow him" and Fulgrim thinks "That seems reasonable" and says "I suppose if you were going to turn traitor I'd side with you" and Horus goes "Well, I am turning traitor."

Fulgrim then goes off to try to convince his BFF Ferrus Manus to join with Horus while the majority of the Emperor's Children stay behind and do the Istvaan III Atrocity, as told in Galaxy in Flames and the middle part of Flight of the Eisenstein. It does not go well, Ferrus Manus is like "I could never betray the Emperor, you're not my brother" and they fight, and then Fulgrim goes "You'll always be my brother" and wins the fight but doesn't kill him, hoping they can reconcile later. Fulgrim does have his fleet blast the shit out of the Iron Hands fleet, though.

Fulgrim then returns to the Istvaan system and, by Horus's order, spends a couple of months fortifying Istvaan V for a followup operation, during which time elsewhere a very angry Ferrus Manus and his Iron Hands (and also his iron hands), along with the Raven Guard and Salamanders, get ready to serve as the first wave of an assault on Istvaan V, to be followed up by a second wave consisting of the Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Word Bearers, and Iron Warriors. Just as they finish fortifying the planet, the Emperor's Children attend a musical concert called the Maravaglia put on by those Slaanesh-crazed remembrancer artists, which ends up being one of those King in Yellow dealios where the play performs them, a bunch of demons are summoned, everyone in the audience goes crazy and sexmurders each other (well, all the non-space-marines, anyway), and Noise Marines get invented, though later on when 30k gets its own game the 30k-era Noise Marines will be called Kakaphoni.

Finally, the Iron Hands, Salamanders, and Raven Guard launch their assault on Istvaan V, followed by the Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Word Bearers, and Iron Warriors who land behind them and then open fire on the first three because it turns out those second four are also secret traitors. Ferrus Manus is on the planet charging towards Fulgrim to have a duel when he sees this, gets extra mad, and they fight again. Fulgrim really doesn't want to kill Ferrus Manus but his intrusive thoughts goad him into it, and as soon as he cuts off Ferrus Manus's head he realizes that his intrusive thoughts have actually been the demon sword all along and that he's damned himself, at which point it starts laughing at him. He tries to stab himself, but it's like "No, you shouldn't risk doing that, because who knows what agonies of regret your spirit will suffer after death; you should let me give you oblivion instead" and then Fulgrim in his moment of despair accedes to this, at which point the demon in the sword just possesses him and shoves his consciousness into the back of his mind to watch and scream forever as the demon pilots his body around for the rest of the Heresy. The end!

So Graham McNeill seems to be improving. In part this seems to be him developing as a writer and in part it's that he's just... writing fewer arguments. There are a few arguments in the book and they are just as stupid as every argument he wrote into False Gods and "The Kaban Project," but they take up less space. I... don't know if it's good? It clarified an order of events for me, and it continues to hammer home the theme that Chaos works quickly and destructively, like it's not subtle at all, you start out going "There's no harm in touching this sword" and then you're cutting off people's faces and stapling them to your knees in no time flat, and in the meantime murdering anyone who isn't inclined to degrade as fast as you.

I dunno, it's decent for what it is. It's not aggravating the way his earlier works were. I liked it, I guess? This is not high literature.

There are some peculiarities, four of which stick out to me.

First, uh... there's a bit where some remembrancers are talking about how they wish they could go down to the surface of Laeran more freely to document the Emperor's Children victory, but are being prevented from doing so because there's "still resistance" on the surface, and then in the very next paragraph they mention that the Laer have been rendered extinct. So... did the sneople have vassal species? Robot drones? It'd have been nice to hear about them if so but I guess not.

Second... the decision to have Ferrus Manus know about Horus and Fulgrim's treachery seems to cheapen the events of Flight of the Eisenstein a bit. Like the whole thing with the Eisenstein is supposed to be that it's the last, desperate hope of the loyalists doing an Odyssey to get news of the Horus Heresy back to Terra in time to counterattack, which tragically results in the Istvaan V Dropsite Massacre when Horus turns out to be one step ahead of them, but here it kind of comes across as that all would have happened even if the Eisenstein hadn't escaped. Dramatically it's an odd choice. I might have written it so that Ferrus Manus comes out of that first fight convinced that Fulgrim is a traitor but not knowing Horus is or something, that feels to me like it would have worked better.

Third, and this is specific to me: At some point during the book Fulgrim is introduced to the work of ancient Terran poet Cornelius Blayke, who is clearly just William Blake, and starts quoting him. Like he has him say "He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence." And that works well for the book... but I've played Devil May Cry 5. Anybody else who's played DMC5 will understand the effect this might have -- and indeed does have -- on certain dramatic moments.

Fourth, this is less important but I think very funny... okay, so the book establishes that Ferrus Manus and Fulgrim, when they first met, had a crafting competition -- Fulgrim made a big hammer and Ferrus Manus made a flaming sword. At the end of it, each of them proclaimed the other the victor, and they swapped weapons and that's why they became BFFs. And during the first fight, they're fighting with the weapons they made each other, so Fulgrim's got the sword and Ferrus Manus has the hammer. Fulgrim breaks the sword and then takes the hammer when he wins and leaves, and later Ferrus Manus fixed the sword. So when they fight again on Istvaan V at the end of the book, Ferrus Manus has the flaming sword and Fulgrim's got the Laer blade, but when he sees that Ferrus Manus intends to fight him with the flaming sword he made, Fulgrim stows the Laer blade and spends most of the fight using the hammer, so it's an inversion of the previous fight, with each using the weapon the other used last time, the ones they made themselves instead of the ones they gave each other. It's honestly pretty neat!

GW sells minis of these two characters, and they're meant to serve together as a diorama of the fight on Istvaan V as well as serving as minis to use in games of Horus Heresy. Fulgrim's got the Laer blade, which, fair, that was what he was using at the end of the fight, but Ferrus Manus has the hammer, because he's a hammer guy and his game rules are for fighting with a hammer. And I get it, if you're making a Ferrus Manus mini he'd better be wielding his big hammer! But if you put the two of them together as a diorama that means Ferrus Manus is wielding the weapon that his opponent was wielding in the fight that it's a diorama of. I am choosing to interpret this as symbolic of the way the Horus Heresy's status as a commercial product will forever be in tension with the artistic aspirations of the people who work on it.

[asgoodeasgold]

Shadow of Night Read Along Ch15

"I had never imagined that Old St Paul’s would be so big. I gave myself another pinch. I had been administering them since spotting the Tower (it, too, looked enormous without skyscrapers all around) and London Bridge (which functioned as a suspended shopping mall). Many sights and sounds had impressed me since our arrival in the past, but nothing had taken my breath away like my first glimpses of London."

Matthew and Diana are back in England, strutting their stuff in Blackfriars wearing doilies and doing touristy things.

And before they set off, Matthew gave Disna's attire a seal of approval now that she is no longer wearing his dead sister's (but not dead yet 🤯) old clothes.

📷 Sky/Bad Wolf A Discovery of Witches (2021) s2:01 my edits

[nowaftgtrash]

Neil's perspective: Andrew is so strong and beautiful

Jean: