#well there is one author whose books are only available on there...

[six-of-ravens]

broke my "no black friday shopping" mandate BUT only to get T. Kingfisher books so. it doesn't really count does it.

[olderthannetfic]

Sending this to you specifically because I feel like you're the only normal brained person about this series.

I read Captive Prince a couple of years ago and liked it fine, as someone who doesn't have a strong preference for or against m/m and therefore isn't well-versed enough in its clichés to notice whether it reads like something full of cliché fanfic tropes. I really liked the use of language, some of the historical/political stuff, some of the ways that the characters are made complicated or unreliable.

The problem is, I've since coincidentally read most of the books that were Pacat's inspiration and. Well. Like 80-90% of the stuff in there has direct parallels in one of those. I'm not sure if there are more than three original thoughts in there.

I am not joking, if you read 1. The Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolò by Dorothy Dunnett; 2. The Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling and 3. The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, you will find that some of the scenes were ripped off beat for beat, many jokes were taken and just lazily reworded, a lot of the character beats and arcs are at best a mashup of 2 or maximum 3 things from those books with the serial numbers filed off really poorly. There's a scene where some characters discover a suicide victim whose structure and descriptions are completely ripped off from another series, except Pacat fails to see what made the original scene so impactful. A lot of the pretty use of language is also directly copied from those, including some really really specific descriptors. It's so blatant!

And I don't see how people are okay with this! I know people who are fans of several of these works and they're totally cool with it! And honestly if it were some rando's unpublished original project I'd be cool with it too, but as a published beloved worldwide phenomenon with rabid fans? C'mon.

And another thing is, all of the other series mentioned above are balls to the wall insane. She just... she just made it bland. She took off most of the edge and reshuffled the elements into a fairly straightforward MLM love story with some light kink thrown in. It's not a BAD series, but I feel like I'm disappointed that someone read all my favourite books and THAT was their takeaway?

--

I started reading, got to the name of the series and burst out laughing.

And, wow, you brought up something totally new that I hadn't thought about! I'm impressed. Genuinely. Usually, I rant about all the reasons I hate the series while debunking the standard anti talking points.

--

I've read the Vampire Chronicles, but that was in the 90s and I read Captive Prince in like 2016 or after. I had zero recollection of common points. I haven't read The Lymond Chronicles despite years of hurt/comfort fans bugging me to do so, and I think I got like a chapter into the Nightrunner series before getting distracted...

The reason I found Captive Prince annoying and derivative is that it also reads exactly like the original m/m that was available when it was first being written, most notably the work of P.L. Nunn who was extremely famous for horny fan art but who also wrote some original m/m fantasy novels. The scene where they finally bone reminds me heavily of the one from... uh... what's the P.L. Nunn one where the prince creeps on that archer dude and he gets raped because of course and then the prince has to be ~patient~ and it's peak boring 2000s rape recovery tropes?

The rape backstory is not only lifted from Fushigi Yuugi (the author's fandom at the time) but is shared with basically 100% of original m/m from that era. It's sometimes the uncle, sometimes the stepfather. One single time that I can think of, it was the foster brother, but mostly it's that "funny uncle" type. Unless it's gang rape from a bad Gundam Wing fic. That was also everywhere.

Once somebody told me the author had previously shipped Tamahome/Nakago, I realized that they'd taken what would be a kind of unusual anime ship and made it a thousand times more boring by dumbing down the scary, tall general with the tragic backstory into an uke-appropriate waif.

So I guess what I'm saying is that there may be some inspiration you aren't familiar with, but it's the same story as what you said above: this is the blander remix.

--

As for why people are okay with this... honestly, most of the people who really adore the series whom I've talked to point to how it encapsulates the exact tropes and tone they loved in anime fic circa 2000.

As a fellow weeb, I loathed the tone of said anime fic circa 2000 and could not wait for tastes to change, so Captive Prince is a hideous blast from an unlamented past for me.

I think most people who love the series aren't familiar with its inspirations. Those that are may have consumed them quite a while ago and don't realize quite how direct the parallels are. Or, for the inspirations that aren't overtly canon m/m, the lure of it being Exactly Right may overshadow other things.

(They also mostly haven't read 90s fantasy doorstops that actually contain political intrigue, tactics and strategy. Captive Prince is a piss poor entry into this genre and should be recced for m/m, not this other stuff people constantly think is in there. None of these characters can reason their way out of a paper bag.)

More than any of that, there's a lot of love left over from when the series was a serialized original story on Livejournal in an era when we had vanishingly few original m/m works, especially long ones in a fantasy alternate world.

I think that is what gets it a pass when a new m/m novel presented as "m/m romance" or posted on one of the webnovel sites would be mocked for unoriginality. Many Captive Prince fans aren't (or weren't when they read it) all that familiar with the smorgasbord of original m/m available today. Many are unfamiliar with anime fanfic circa 2000, so this feels adjacent to the fic they've read but a little fresher... instead of like the week-old sardine tin I found it to be.

[turbulentscrawl]

Happy Valentines!

A little thing for @athanasius-symposium-of-writings It's about time I return the favor and write something for you!! I'm sorry it's not longer, but I hope you like it all the same, friend!

The lights were dim. Remnants of your dinner were strewn about the coffee table, along with your half-empty wine glasses and the entirely empty wine bottle. Like-authored books lay strewn about the floor, laying open and dog-eared from excerpt readings. Bouquets of roses spotted the other available surfaces, and the distinct aroma of them mingled with the scent of spiced tobacco. The smoke of it still hung in the air, twisting tantalizing patterns all the way back to the man who held the pipe. The man whose knee your chin rested on, admiring from your seat on the soft rug.

Orpheus blew another stream of smoke into the air, idly ghosting his fingers along your hair line, almost petting. Your eyes met, and with the faintest of smirks his fingers shifted along your face, to your ear, and traced the sculpted shape of it.

“You look tired,” he mused. “Have the wine and reading made you drowsy?”

“Just relaxed,” you assured. “I’m plenty awake.” That was a bit of a lie. You were a bit tired—you were full, buzzed, and wooed, but you weren’t ready for the night to end. It was hard to get the undivided attention of a man like Orpheus for such a long period. You weren’t even sure how he’d managed to convince or bribe everyone in the manor to stay out of the smoke room tonight, but you wouldn’t dare complain. Your first proper Valentines in however many years into this eternity, and it was better than you could have ever hoped.

“Good. I have a few more things for us,” he said, and reached for the drawer of the table beside his leather chair. You watched him produce a decorative box, painted with textured oils. Edgar’s work, no doubt. He balanced it on his opposite knee, holding his pipe between his teeth, and flipped it open delicately. Arranged inside were six chocolate covered strawberries.

He looked them over with great consideration, plucked one from its paper with ungloved fingers, and then brought it delicately to your lips. His eyes held yours with an unspoken order for you to do the same, and so you opened your mouth a bit slowly from the treat while gazing into dark amber. A drop of red juice rolled down your chin and slipped into the white of his dress pants.

“Very good,” Orpheus whispered once you’d swallowed. Returning the favor, he bit from the strawberry as well, subtly licking at the marks left by your teeth in the red flesh, and then retuned the final bit of the fruit for you to finish. “Another?”

“Save them,” you said, licking your lips. The motion of your tongue was what finally broke his eyes from yours, if only for a split second. “We can make them last. What other ‘things’ do you have for us?” You had an idea already, and the way he smiled when you rubbed his shin further cemented it. A shiver slipped up your spine. He set the box of strawberries aside, then occupied his hand instead by capturing your jaw with a careful but firm vice.

Orpheus took one final drag from his pipe—looking all too angelic in the low light as he closes his eyes and breathes in fumes—and leaned forward to kiss your captive mouth. The sweet, spiced pipe smoke slipped through the little gaps of your melding lips, dancing tongues. It coiled up around your faces like a curtain, filled your nose, fogged your squinting peripheral vision. You managed to inhale a bit of it too, and the airy burn it left at the back of your throat, you decided, suited Orpheus’s intensity perfectly.

Any remaining thoughts scrambled after that; Orpheus slipped down from his chair, graceful as a swan, and joined you on the rug, where you could roll together in a sea of his words.

[nohoperadio]

I'm gonna have a crack at @perdvivly's ask meme what I got tagged in now... let's go!!

1. What virtue do you most often see in other people that you feel comparatively deficient in?

A less brave question asker might have built up to the heavy shit and put the lighthearted questions first, I respect it. Okay part of what's tricky here is that to answer this properly I'd have to make some judgment calls about which of my deficiencies are rightly attributed to genuine lack of virtue vs to something like disability, and that's a scary distinction to look at too closely. So my instinct is to avoid any territory close to that border, but the actual true answer probably is close to the border--the below is probably something of a cop-out is what I'm saying.

Here's something I've only relatively recently started conceptualizing as a virtue: the desire and ability to share the enjoyment of the things you're passionate about with other people. The books and music and etc I like, I tend to be content to enjoy them by myself in the corner, whereas for other people experiencing these things alongside others and talking about them and stuff is a large part of the point. This latter tendency is most obvious in what gets called fandom but there are lots of other expressions of it, some more casual/normie, but I don't really do any of it very much. And I used to think this difference was just "people care about different things, whatever" but lately I'm leaning more towards thinking that the more communal approach is just straight-up superior; it looks like some important, richer varieties of experience are available over that way, and I now regret that I didn't try to move myself further in that direction when I was younger.

2. Show us an object in your daily life that you have an emotional attachment to - tell us a little bit about it if you want! (a favourite mug perhaps? socks with a cute pattern? dealers choice)

Mugs (plural) probably is the best answer to this, but I've already tackled that at great length here. What else... well, my main bookmark, given to me by a friend and depicting a scholar I respect very much, has lasted an impressively long time im humble o:

3. If you could choose, what level of fame would you want? How many people would you want to recognise you?

Impossible to imagine strangers randomly approaching me in the street to start conversations being anything other than nightmarish, so the ceiling has to be below that. I guess there's different types of fame that presumably make for very different experiences, a famous actor probably gets a rawer deal than an equivalently famous author, and the type of famous author whose demographic is such that self-promoting on instagram and twitter is part of the job description surely has a worse life than one who doesn't have to do that.

Someone who knows more about the culture than me could probably say exactly what kind of thing you should be famous for to minmax getting all the pleasant-feeling respect and financial rewards while preserving privacy and minimizing unpleasant public obligations, but I'm not sure what the answer is. However this comic still pops into my head occasionally after all this time and it might be a better answer than any of these words:

4. Where do you feel language is least adequate to capture, communicate, or express your experience?

Actually I don't often get the feeling that my difficulties in expressing myself are related to the limitations of language, I tend to run into more mundane constraints before that one becomes an issue, like my embarrassment around talking about myself or my not being in tune with my own mental life or the fact that my brain is very small. I think generally if something's too subtle to put into words it's too subtle for me to think clearly about/have anything worth saying about in the first place.

I guess my other possible answer to this would be "all of my experience of life in its entirety" which is also true in a way.

5. If you had to come up with a question with the following criteria:

a) it should disuade knee-jerk reaction answers (i.e. it shouldn't be something people are likely to have spent a lot of time considering before)

b) it shouldn't be too specialised (the audience should be general, don't ask about people's top 3 byzantine spice merchants opperating between 754AD-816AD)

c) it shouldn't be needlessly emotionally charged or divisive

d) it should be a question you expect people to have lots of varied opinions about

What would your question be?

Yeah no it's hard, you've done well. My first thought with criteria A (which I think is the hardest one to cover) is to make the question require describing somebody else's perspective on something, because that way even if the answerer has their own knee-jerk opinion about the thing they'd be forced to suspend that in their answer. Maybe something like this would work:

Think of a topic that somebody close to you has very different feelings about from your own--it can be the smallest, most trivial matter of taste or something weightier if you like--what do you think is the relevant difference between you and this person that explains your different takes on that topic?

I would hope that if this question were in an ask meme like this people would tend to focus on fun and/or lighthearted differences but maybe it would turn people's brains towards bitter conflicts, I'm not sure. Anyway I'm glad question 5 doesn't end with "...and what is your answer to that question?" because it looks difficult to me!

---

This was fun imo, some of the questions were more intimidating than is the norm for these things but what's wrong with a little spice you know, I recommend it, thank you @perdvivly for erecting this jungle gym of the soul. I'm following the same coward's strat as last time of picking people sort-of-randomly by tagging the last three mutuals to show up in my notifications, this time excluding the three I tagged last time, so that gives @fregolious, @abodywithorgans and @wellmetmat. I'd like to hear from you! If the random method somehow gave people I didn't want to hear from I would have had no qualms about fudging it until I got people I liked, so don't let that put you off! But also, again, any mutuals who feel like doing this and claiming that I tagged them should do so, because in spirit I have, you understand.

[avelera]

I once thought having a character walk the reader through their reasoning in a story (that I wrote) was a little bit like cheating. There is a lot of writing advice out there that warns against being too blunt, too "on the nose", or too baldly stating what's going on.

But a remarkable thing happened recently in a story I wrote, when I had one character spell out his reasoning for what might have been an unpopular decision: all the commenters appreciated his perspective and agreed, what else could he have done with the facts available to him?

This was in interesting contrast to other decisions I had characters make in the same story, where I did not walk the audience through how this other character arrived to this conclusion. I left it incumbent on the readers to piece together the character's perspective based on the evidence I believed I'd put on the page. A lot of writing advice out there tells you it's redundant to depict a character and then walk the reader through their reasoning for how they make a major decision. But the comments I got in that instance were mostly people annoyed at the character! They got angry with him, or called him stupid, or deplored his choices. A few commenters noted that they could understand his reasoning, but they were still mad about it.

Now, it could be an apples to oranges comparison, I don't want to get bogged down in explaining the character decisions or the stories they were set in, but in both instances, I liked to think that I, as the writer, had put a similar amount of thought into both decisions made by these two separate characters. I knew in both instances that these separate decisions were going to be unpopular from a reader satisfaction perspective, because they prolonged the conflict of the narrative.

I have a few theories for why the audience feedback indicated that they preferred the decision where the character walked them through his reasoning first, and while I don't have a conclusive answer, I think some of it might be valuable for other writers.

To begin, there are only so many hours in the day. We tend to write for a reader we assume will be as attentive to reading and remembering every detail as we are when we write it, but most people (intentionally or not) tend to skim a bit when reading.

Taking a moment to pause and say, "These are all the decision-relevant details, and how this character sees them, and why they're making this choice, " so long as it is in a context that makes sense (in this case, explaining himself to a confidante) allows the reader to relax a bit and not have to play guessing games with which information is relevant, or have to think back too hard on why the character is making this decision, if for example the reader took a break from reading.

Remember, when it comes to a reader recalling which details are relevant to a character's decision, not all writers are Agatha Christie constructing air-tight mysteries (and I'm sure some pedant somewhere could point out to me places where even she is not). Even the best writers include details that don't matter in their story, and readers have to work to discern what's going to matter in the end. Taking a moment to confirm which details were relevant and which were red herrings or simply extraneous and possibly misinterpreted by a reader does, in fact, give satisfaction to a reader.

A lot of those writing advice books are from, "Writers writing for other writers." One of the most valuable aspects for me when it comes to writing fanfic is seeing how my readers' brains work through comments, a privilege not afforded to many published authors until well after the book is complete. A lot of fanfic readers are much less attentive to details than I think a professional editor or publisher or literary critic would be. And when those are the only people giving writing advice, ie, people whose literal lives and jobs are dedicated to reading, you miss out on the perspective of people who read only for enjoyment.

Because yes, a literary critic probably is tired of having the character's motivations spelled out for them. As are other writers, most likely. But your average reader might be distantly aware of advanced techniques insofar as they improve a story, but mostly, they're concerned with their own enjoyment.

For example, a lot of writing advice says to avoid exposition so many critics would in theory advise against including the initial Star Wars crawl where they set the scene of the story. They might say it's redundant and the story itself should explain all of those details within the context of a scene. But your average viewer doesn't mind and indeed, is in favor of this quick, clear dose of exposition to orient them in the story and tell them what's going on. Most audiences would rather have a little extra exposition, rather than be actively confused.

In many cases, many stories favorably credited for being, "subtle" or leaving a great deal to the reader's interpretation, are actually doing so less than one would think. Going back, one might notice that many elements of the story are spelled out clearly, even some obvious ones, so that the mysteries that remain are heightened and there's no distraction from extraneous details being misinterpreted by the reader. People are only focused on solving the mysteries the authors meant them to solve.

Obviously, being, "too on the nose" in your story can be dull and irritating or seen as amateurish. And ultimately, the best thing you can do to combat this is bring on a beta reader and empower them to cut passages that are too repetitive or obvious.

And, speaking for myself, this advice might not be relevant to you because I'm currently working on clarity in my own prose, in conveying the story I want to tell, to the point where I'm largely eschewing "read between the lines" moments or story beats based on the reader piecing together the unspoken. I'm leaning towards speaking everything and leaving only one or two threads lying around to be picked up by attentive readers, but very few of those are make-or-break for understanding my story. Perhaps at a certain point I'll loop back around in favor of poetic implication and subtlety and my current work will look amateurish to me by comparison :)

[joyfulapostate]

Hi!!

It's very late where I am so this may not be as put together as id like it, however i dont want to forget (like i have the past four times already), but anyways.

I've been noticing a few contradictions in the bible, specifically in the new testament?

For example, just one out of the few that have been bothering me recently (months), Matthew 17:20, and Luke 17:6 both mention something along the lines of "if you have even a mustard seed of faith, if you command x to do whatever it may be, x will do it, because you had faith. However, what about James 1:5-7?

And another one:

Most believers (that I've met at least), say that if you accept Christ, you can't ever back out of it, once you accept him you can't go back on that decision and hes always with you. However, what about Revelation 3:14-17 I believe 0? I've brought it up to my mother and my (multiple) youth pastors (through the years) multiple times but I just get the same things related over and over and nothing actually explained.

Anyways I was just curious on your thoughts about that, I think it's interesting that there would even be question about it, given how often I'm told "the Bible is crystal clear, all you need to do is read it" when reading it frequently leaves me with way more questions than what I started with.

I used to believe that the Christian god guided the hands of the people who wrote the Bible as well as the hands of those who transcribed and translated it. But that belief did not stand up to the inconsistencies in the text. I used my faith to patch the holes, but it eventually spread too thin. It became impossible for me to perpetuate the illusion that the Bible was an inerrant work of a god. So what was it, then? I was at a loss.

Then I started reading Bart D. Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus. It gave me a lot of context about how the Bible came to be, including who changed it along the way and why. I recommend looking into Ehrman’s vast body of work. He is a biblical scholar and also an ex-Christian. He has several other books and a podcast also called Misquoting Jesus which is available on YouTube. His work really shows how the Bible is a collection of ancient writings from many authors with different intentions, which explains why it’s so inconsistent not only in theology but also in tone. It is such a relief to put down the task of trying to make the Bible make sense, especially when everyone is screaming at you that “it’s crystal clear” because it’s just not! It’s a complicated ancient text whose original is lost to time and has been copied and translated for thousands of years. With that in mind, it makes sense that you feel this way. Thanks for sending this in! I wish you the best of luck, I know this is a hard thing to contend with.

[quakeroc]

HEY TUMBLR WHAT'S POPPING I'M ERIN LEE

i'm a published transfem furry author whose newest project, a Patreon serial named STAR//CROSSED, just started its run TODAY!

it's going to be an indefinitely-running series of short stories that act as small chapters, updated monthly! the first one, Prologue 1, just dropped today, and is available for you to read immediately!

STAR//CROSSED takes place in the 2060s, after an alien species, the Pael (pronounced Pah-eel) stumbled upon Earth and revolutionized the entirety of Terran society. Everything changed overnight, from economics to culture to religion. Terrankind was thrown into turmoil, and while eventually things stabilized, and at a far higher standard than previously, the growing pains continue.

In order to further integrate the two societies, some Pael are going to Earth, and some Terrans are going to join the Pael in cooperatives on other planets. Though there may be an undercurrent of tension riding behind every single interaction, it's hoped that in pairing the two peoples together, everyone's natural personalities can lead to greater things in the future.

Funnily enough, Pael are only about a centimeter tall. Makes it all a lot harder - or more fun, depending on your perspective.

Here you can see some concept art of the four main characters below! Red Haehn the maned wolf, Baz Hohera the rabbit, and both Zhelv Meyaat and Pev Ul the Pael!

all concept art by @cath0degaytube !!

baz hohera belongs to @vespidazed !!

if you sub now, you'll be supporting me for less than a twitch.tv subscription, as well as giving me more money per payment! not only that, but you'll have over a YEAR's worth of other short stories in both the Verrillon Times and EXTIRPATION series! further, there will be other things uploaded in time, such as side stories and eventually another serial once i've cleared EXTIRPATION and the final Verrillon Times!

consider tossing me a fiver if you're 18 or above, get access to a bunch of writing both soft and loving and hardcore and dramatic, and i hope to see you around! ^_^ thanks for reading, and you can check out the prologue for STAR//CROSSED at the link!!

and if you'd like a totally free look at some of my games writing (albeit a bit old!!), or buy a digital copy of my book SLIME TIME, you can check out my itch.io at the link below!

[oswlld]

oswlld's monthly wrap up: february

note: i am trying something a bit different this year, so bear with me as i figure out how i want to format this. i wanted to spend more time sharing what i consume, beyond what i rb, and put my thoughts in one place. these posts are okay to rb

--

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid [started 02/04, finished 02/13] I recall an article calling out TJR as one of many authors that are pro-israel and haven’t seen anything that disputes the claim. I don’t have much to contribute to the conversation anyways, so I’ll pass on leaving a review. — After Dark, Haruki Murakami [started 02/06, finished 02/21] What I admire about what Murakami accomplished with After Dark was achieving the right level of simplicity to bring out the tense undertones in the magical realism. I also really enjoyed being invited to float with the story, almost breaking a fourth wall and interacting with the spaces. 4⭐️ in storygraph. — When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamín Labatut [started 02/24, still in prog] I am only about 50 pages in and I am already ill. Too early to form an opinion, thus I’ll offer a snippet of the book description: “A fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining. When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction.” Feels very timely reading this at the same time as watching Three-Body and then Oppenheimer in the next week or so.

High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America, Netflix [started: 02/02, finished 02/07] WOW!! Wowowowowow. Wow. This needs to be a mandatory watch, even though we are at the end of Black History Month. It’s a well curated journey through the slave era to present day, from shores of Africa to all areas of the US. It’s so empowering and inspiring. Don’t wait until June or next year, please educate yourselves and open your heart to this show. — African Folktales Reimagined, Netflix [started 02/02, finished 02/08] I heard about this show through an article posted on Short of the Week last year and immediately put it on my watchlist. What a wonderful choice of directors for this series. Such strong visionaries and visuals. My favorites out of the six stories were Enmity Djinn and MaMlambo. MaMlambo still has a chokehold on me. MAJOR trigger warnings for this series is under the cut. — Three-Body, Viki (also avail on YT) [started 02/19, paused on 02/26] Trigger warnings for this series is also under the cut. With that said, I have a very personal connection with Three-Body Problem, both the novel and the physics problem, so taking this show on has been my entire world. When it comes to tackling my watchlist, shows that have a substantial number of eps/seasons gets split into chunks, so that I can tackle them over a number of months. For this series, I divided the 30-epsiode series into three ten-episode parts that will take me from February to June. I’ll post an official review when I finish over the summer, but for now I will say I very much enjoy having my brain turn into goo after every ep. What an explosive first outing. I will be resuming this show in April for eps 11-20, where I’ll be reunited with my beloved war criminal.

Over the Moon, Netflix [watched on 2/10, DNF] So unfortunate that I started this and could not finish. I hope to get back into it in May, so I can talk about how beautiful it is. Gotta do it for Glen Keane. — Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang, Netflix [watched on 2/11] I…. I think I am going to let this quote from the film speak for me: “In the 60’s, when American astronauts landed on the moon, that was really good news, even in China. But I was sad because I thought I would never make it to space myself. But later on, I realized that art could be my space-time tunnel connecting me to the universe. If there was an opportunity, I would like to make a ladder into the clouds. But the purpose of this ladder wouldn’t be for me to go to space, it would be to encourage a back-and-forth, a dialogue.” I MEANN!!!! Yes, I did go into this film already aware of some of his works but I didn’t really know a lot about him. What I admired most was his joy and child-like wonder when he’s interacting with his art. I loved witnessing him act like he’s 7 yrs old again, especially in that air balloon scene. There’s also a moment when he’s become complacent in his projects, settling on the bare minimum to get a job done. When the art of creating is stripped of the art, what is left of Cai is very clear to the viewer: he is frustrated, he feels suffocated, he’s used. Alternately, towards the end of the film, he brings it back with “Yes, a lot of artists do things that are too commercial. It lacks some compulsive and sincere emotion that should exist in all art. Collaborating with [unknown artists] will always remind me of the pleasure I felt and my original purpose for doing art.” (Fascinating to compare his turmoil with the govt whilst working with Netflix.) All in all, this film did a great job telling a story about the magic in enduring passion projects over time. In this case, his Sky Ladder being a fourth attempt at a impossibly large scale dream project. I feel like my thoughts are all over the place with this film, but I’m still finding new things that really speak to me as an artist. — Your Name Engraved Herein, Netflix [watched on 2/18] I thought I had this gifset on my blog but it turns out I may have just DM’d @forcebook about this and didn’t rb, but anyways I saw this and thought hey this has the potential to ruin me lemme put it on my watchlist. And now over a year later, I finally got around to it. Well… it’s exactly what I ordered, it definitely ruined me. I mean, when they come at me with “Maybe more people would understand me in hell. Make it easy for me and help me go to hell,” what else am I supposed to be but ruined. I want a sequel, I need their reset.

There are more to add to the movies category, due to Oscar season, but I’ll save them for a separate post, with all my thoughts on the films/shorts I was able to catch, for Oscar weekend.

Ella Sings Gershwin, Ella Fitzgerald with Ellis Larkins at the piano [first time listening] One hobby I picked up during the pandemic was growing my vinyl collection. I found this vinyl in 2022 with the intention of finding more from this era/genre. Not much movement since then, since vinyl purchases only happens once or twice a year. Suffice to say, I am so happy that the quality is still in tact and it makes me want to get back into vinyls soon. Current top 3: My One and Only (What Am I Gonna Do), But Not For Me, and Soon — Wicked [relistening] One thing you need to understand about me is that Wicked was my first musical hyperfixation. I used to spend summers on the train to the city to catch the raffle drawings and when my name was picked, it would be the best $25 well spent to be seated front row. And when I was not in the city, the CD would be on repeat in the car on my long drives going to and from home and college. My introduction to YT was watching all of the bootleg clips of every casting. All the Eden Espenozas and Stephanie J Blocks and Kerry Ellis’. All the Kendra Kassenbaums, Megan Hiltys, and Annaleigh Ashfords. And yes, all the Aaron Tveits don’t look at me. I’ve seen almost all facets of this show enough times to start frankenstein-ing together my version of Wicked. All this to say that my love for this show remained dormant for over a decade, until the movie trailer for part one came out. And then *SPLASH* I immediately jump in head first into a slime tutorial just like that. Long ago, I watched Kara Lindsay’s broadway vlogs without having seen her Galinda and now I can say I have seen the light, she’s just as immaculate as I imagined she’d be.

Welcome to Night Vale [recurring/catching up] I typically catch up on this podcast seasonally, since I find that this show is more enjoyable when I binge it. This time around, I have fallen more behind and needed to catch up on 11 episodes. My favorite eps: A Car Crash on Buellton Avenue (Ep 232), Sister Cities: Vermillion Falls (Ep 239), and He is Holding a Knife (Ep 240). I will admit that there was a period of time, maybe four or five years ago, when I dropped the show for reasons I cannot recall now but I am glad that I stuck around.

And now here are some tw to keep in mind:

AFRICAN FOLKTALES trigger warnings: domestic violence/abuse, child abuse, attempt(s) of suicide, drowning, and miscarriage.

THREE-BODY trigger warnings: The plot centers around solving the mystery behind scientists committing suicide on an international scale. Scenes ranging from allusions, thoughts of suicide, to moderate depictions of suicide.

[cassandralie]

Question: if the Book of Life can erase someone so that they never existed in the first place, how would anyone know that this happened?

Nobody would remember the erased person, and therefore wouldn't know that person had been erased.

If someone has the Book of Life, how could they prove that erasing someone is a true threat and not a bluff? Because if they carry out the threat, then the person they erased never existed and no one can remember them.

They cannot erase someone to set an example and scare others because the others will not remember the person being erased.

As an angel, Crowley didn't take the Book of Life seriously. He used it as a joke to scare the Cherubs.

Millennia later, Beelzebub and Michael both view the Book of Life as a real and serious threat.

So what happened?

The Book of Life obviously wasn't an option when Holy Water and Hellfire failed to kill Crowley and Aziraphale, or else Heaven and Hell would have used it when Holy Water and Hellfire failed to kill Crowley and Aziraphale.

So whatever happened must have happened recently, long after the trails and when destroying Aziraphale and Crowley was no longer a priority because Heaven and Hell had moved on to bigger things, the Second Coming.

Something to make Michael and Beelzebub believe in the power of the Book of Life to erase someone from ever existing.

Something to make Michael believe the Supreme Archangel (Duty Officer) has authorization to use it.

but authorization from who?

Not God, as Neil said in an ask that God doesn't talk to anyone and does not affect the plots of S1&S2.

Not the Metatron, because the Metatron says Michael doesn't have the authority to use the Book of Life to erase Aziraphale.

So who gave Michael authorization to use it? Well, some biblical sources state Jesus holds the Book of Life.

Jesus having returned to Heaven between seasons would explain why the Book of Life was suddenly available in S2 after not being mentioned in S1. And explain why the Archangels and the Metatron were now working on bringing about Second Coming.

Jesus having already returned would also allow for the scene where Jesus descends to earth on an airplane, accompanied by angels with secret service earpeices.

And Jesus, as the Son of God, would be someone an Archangel would trust to give authorization to use the Book of Life. And whose word an Archangel would trust if he said that the Book of Life can truly erase people from ever existing. (That wouldn't necessarily explain why Beelzebub would believe it, unless Jesus appeared to them as well.)

Could the Metatron have said Michael didn't have authorization to use the Book of Life because only Jesus and God are allowed to?

Could there be at least one person immune to the Book of Life? Perhaps Saraqael who recognized Crowley and Metatron, and might be able to recall people who were erased when no one else can? Thereby providing confirmation that the Book of Life did erase someone.

When the name 'Saraqael' is conflated with 'Zerachiel' rather than Sariel, then it means "God Has Remembered"

This is less of a theory and more of a series of questions. Does any one have any ideas?

[kpchrs]

What do you think Caroline thinks of Nathan?

Ah, it's Anon again.

Tsk tsk tsk.

What, you mean Caroline Prescott: Sean Prescott's wife, Nathan's and Kristine's mum, the lady who only got mentioned thrice by OTHER PEOPLE in emails and a letter, the lady whose face and hair colour we don't even know?

HOW SHOULD I KNOW?

Okay, that's all, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk,

Kris

...Hehe, just joking. I'll work on what we have on canon. I have to over-overanalyse things tho.

So as I have said, what we know about Caroline is only mentioned in emails and a letter: Kristine's, Sean's, and Dr Jacobi's.

Kristine's email to Nathan:

"And yes, mother told me that you've been in trouble and father has been on your ass..."

It sounds like Kristine contacts Caroline regularly. Seeing that there is no complaint about Caroline in the rest of the email, I think she still has at least a decent relationship with Caroline. That means, she still has interests in her kids. Thank goodness. Since the rest of the email is about Sean and has no complaint about Caroline, I'm guessing it's Sean who is the "only" problem here.

We don't see the severity of Sean's abuse, but if that can make Kristine, a seemingly great older sister, run away; knowingly leaving an obviously beloved little brother alone in this kind of environment, I think we can imagine it.

Sean's email to Nathan:

"Nate, I know this has been a stressful week and your mother and I are here to talk if need be. Just make an appointment anytime. Your mother wants Doctor Bill to come out after his book tour but for now let's stick to your prescriptions."

I know he's a businessman, but an appointment? To your own kid? Okay, asshole. Does Caroline need to be booked in the appointment too? Is she also in the business? It sounds like Caroline is involved with Nathan's treatment at least. I don't really know what subtext to make out from the first part of the last sentence, if any. But, I guess, she at least can give opinions to Sean, normally. Maybe.

Dr Jacobi's letter to Sean:

"You have ignored my requests for a consultation with you and your wife so I have to assume you are no longer interested in my services. Regardless, I care about Nathan and I believe he needs serious help."

Dr Jacobi only talks to Sean here. He's like the top authority in the family, I get it, but it's like Sean is the only parent available. The doc seems very desperate because he believes it's dangerous to not help Nathan as soon as possible. If it were me, I would try to contact Caroline directly as well. Does he try? Is he able to? Does Caroline listen?

Dr Jacobi is Nathan's previous psychiatrist who "fires" him because of the lack of family cooperation. The doc wants to work on it seriously, he sees problems in Sean's parenting that are largely Nathan's stressor.

Since the doc is denied repetitively and so decided to terminate Nathan's therapy, I assume Sean searches for another psychiatrist who is not that "fussy" with Nathan's treatment. So maybe...this Dr Bill...is not a good psychiatrist. I mean, if he is really based on Dr Phil, that just confirms that he's a bad, unethical one.

Has Caroline ever taken THE INITIATIVE to TALK to Nathan directly? I don't know. Canon gives us nothing. And see this: in Kristine's email, it really sounds like lecturing Nathan was a regular thing she did when she was still at home. An older sibling lecturing a younger sibling is not rare. I did that too to my lil bro, my big bro did that too to us sometimes. But something tells me that the one who tells him to stand up to Sean is only Kristine, never Caroline. Just an intuition.

This is like searching for cookie crumbs on the floor but see this about Victoria talking about Nathan:

"Yes, he takes serious meds but that's not his fault. His family treats him like a total freak, just because he has little meltdowns."

Throughout the game, they establish that Sean is the menacing, terrifying, asshole figure. But Victoria interestingly generalises with "family" which means it can include Kristine too (but I refuse to believe so hehe), but most importantly it can also include Caroline as well. Using Victoria's words, Caroline might treat him like a "freak" because of his mental illness.

Btw, this is very obvious because duh, but what we know about Caroline is filtered from another person's point of view. Delving into her possible mind is hard. Kristine might hear a passive and neutral, "Nathan isn't doing what's expected of him and Sean isn't happy" from Caroline and Kristine with her already anti-Sean mind paraphrased it very strongly and made it sound like Caroline is more opinionated. I think various kinds of characterisation are possible here. But, in general, I can think of two?

The cold mum. Distant. Or at least not openly affectionate.

The "Team Sean Prescott" mum. "Your dad is right, Nathan", "your dad says that for your own good, Nathan", "you need to do as he said, Nathan", "it's just the way he is", "he did that not to hurt you, Nathan", etc.

Okay, she can be both.

Whatever characterisation in the list she has, if she lets Sean be his abusive self and does no intervention, that sounds like a bystander parent to me. Maybe she is a Sean-minded person and that's why she lets it be. Maybe she lets Sean be in charge of Nathan's education because "let me, Caroline, Nathan must learn about the Prescott legacy from me", so she is just a yes woman. Maybe she knows Sean's treatment is wrong, but she's afraid to oppose him for a reason. Dunno. Anything is possible.

Bystander parents confuse the kid, btw. It complicates their feelings on the trauma and the parent, because "I'm angry at my abusive dad but I'm also angry at my mum for never protecting me. But she never treats me like Dad did, am I allowed to get hurt because of her inaction?" The bystander effect hurts the abuse victim too, but I digress since we are on the topic of Caroline's thoughts on Nathan, not his thoughts on her.

TLDR; I think Caroline cares about Nathan and his well-being to some degree, despite the possibility of thinking that his mental illness is a burden on the family. There's no canon information of her communicating with him directly, because, well, canon gives us nothing. From the zero complaints Kristine has of her, she might not treat Nathan like Sean does, but she might enable Sean's treatment of him thus making her a bystander parent.

Well, in the end, this is just a theory, a game theory. Nathan never talks about his mum, so I really don't know what she's like. He is especially hung up on his dad, pushing him to search for validation from a father figure in the form of Jefferson.

Caroline is a blank slate. Any interpretation or effort to fill in the blanks fanfic authors do for her (dead, not biological mum, assumingly in a mental hospital, emotionally unavailable, neglectful, physically and verbally abusive, abused turned abuser, mentally ill, having Nathan as a mirror of herself thus can't face him at all, etc.), the possibility is endless, and I enjoy all I have read.

Okay, that's all from a Nathan-biased person.

Thank you for the ask,

Kris

[quornesha]

Prophecy And Symbolism of Eastern Grass Owl

The Following Channel is from higher powers, Divine, the ancestral plane and is prophetic through Quornesha S. Lemon|

Whether the Eastern Grass Owl appears in dreams, visions, waking life or synchronicities, it is a sign and message that you’re safe, protected and guarded by divine forces that help battle lower frequencies on your behalf. A traitor will be exposed and the authorities of the spirit will see the truth. You are more powerful than you were before. Your confidence is on another level, as well as your love. Your thoughts are highly regarded and you confuse your enemies. The prosperity of the wicked will come to you. Divine will alchemize all that opposes you and put blessings into your hand instead of what the enemy desires.

You are a force to be reckoned with and you walk so gracefully that the only thing/being that can humble you is God/Divine. You can rest assured that the next chapter of your life is that of being unbothered, unhindered and unstoppable. Not only do your ancestors trust and love you. but other people’s ancestors love you as well. You honor people that you have never met before. Your heart is golden.

This message isn't, obviously resonant with all whose paths it crosses, as perhaps you may encounter someone of this vernacular, mastery or skill. Therefore, it is a sign from the universe that you're meant to work with such a person. What was once a threat will subside. Pay attention to an increase in your finances or salary. You are watched over by higher powers. You are loved in many realms and some of these very realms fear to try you in a malevolent way.

To Go against you is to go against God/Divine. You are about to, if you have not already are about to be gifted with sight to commune with forces beyond the control of the ordinary and you will have authority over it all. You will have a grace and favor over your life. Dead goals and dreams will be resurrected. New passions will arise. It’s time you live in a paradise of your own. Your instincts will begin to be right on the money. Pinpoint even. A shift has occurred that no one can undo. NO power in heaven/hell can nullify.

Need further clarity or your own queries answered? Book your own reading as my schedule is full and I do not guarantee a reply on social media regarding this post.

If this is not you, then it is time to get clear to rejoin your tribe or the rest of the world of infinite beings. It's time to bring your light to the forefront. However, if you aren't able to invoke, heal or otherwise on your own, call on the assistance of shamans, healers, intuitive people, etc. to assist you. This synchronicity can possibly have specific meanings for you, it's time to get insight. 

The Gift that Quornesha Has can never be duplicated, She is a Shaman, Writer, Healer,  And Teacher with incredible prophetic/healing gifts. Please do not infringe upon her rights as the author. You are not permitted to reuse, nor are you to sale as you wish. This information has been made available to you for the purpose of introduction and demonstration. All rights reserved. If you'd like to use this in a magazine, online publication, or other, please ask for permission first. Legal actions will be taken if you proceed to impose. Be blessed, bless others and be at peace on your journey. What you do is coming back on you. Make sure that it is good, and all is well within you, through you and around you.  The source sees all and knows what you think it does not. 

[libertyreads]

Book Review #4 of 2024--

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. Rating: 4 stars.

Read from January 17th to 20th.

Before I get into the review, a quick thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers over at Del Rey Books for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Tainted Cup is a Holmes and Watson-esque novel that follows investigator Ana Dolabra--a detective whose eccentricities are matched only by her brilliance--and her assistant, Dinios Kol who are called to work a case after a high imperial officer is killed when a tree erupts from his body. As they follow the clues, Dolabra and Kol just might uncover a darker secret than this poisoning. The Tainted Cup comes out on February 6th and is available for pre-order now.

I had such a fun time with this one. I'm a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan girl so I was worried that picking this one up would set off a chain reaction of disappointment. But the way this story unfolds in this fantastical world and the way the mystery gets laid out for the reader makes it so much more fun and accessible to the reader. In most of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle I've read over the years, there would be leaps in logic that were too difficult to follow unless you had very specific, detailed knowledge. And, while Ana does had a little bit of that going on, the author managed to find a way to keep the reader invested and to keep the reader's suspension of disbelief going. The world building and the pace of the story worked really well for me. There was a small section at the beginning where it felt like you were just thrown into the story, but given the fantastical world and how short that feeling lasted I'm going to say that part was still a thumbs up from me.

The characters are probably what I think could have used the most work. We do get some of the Holmes and Watson-esque interactions between our investigator and her assistant but I felt like we could have gone further with it. I still feel like I know so little about Ana. Maybe that's a choice the author made because of her being a representation of Sherlock Holmes. But I just wanted more from her. I also spent a lot of the book thinking there would be some dark reveal about Dinios but it never went in that direction. And I kind of wish it had. He's a little too squeaky clean for me. But know that's coming from a girl whose favor characters are all morally grey.

Overall, this was a fun and engaging read that I think fans of Sherlock Holmes can enjoy while acknowledging that it's separate from the original stories. It always felt like the plot was pushing me to read more and more which made it a faster read than I was expecting.

[literaticat]

Hi Jennifer,

When an editor says they’re presenting a book at “sales conference,” what does that mean and how high stakes is it?

Thanks for answering all of our questions!

Bearing in mind I have never BEEN to a sales conference, and it may differ by publisher, and I'm sure there are nuances, etc etc -- here's the basics:

Large publishers have teams of sales reps. These reps may focus on certain accounts and/or regions; for example, there may be a person or group whose job it is to take care of B&N or Amazon as a whole, there are reps for indie bookstores in New England, the South-East, the West Coast, etc etc, who visit all the bookstore buyers in their region. There will be a School and Library sales team that attends all the conferences and has relationships with educators and librarians across the country. You get the picture?

When a rep meets with a buyer, around 6-8 months before the books will go on sale, they are going through the catalogue for the season under discussion. The rep may have already marked up the catalogue (this author is local to you! this author's books sell well in a neighboring town, but you have never brought their books in, you should try it!) -- and the buyer may have marked up the catalogue with their initial thoughts (we love this author! we need a dozen of this book! these kinds of books have never done well for us, we might skip this one.) Then the two will go through the whole thing and compare notes, and the rep will talk the books up and give them extra info. (I saw this one, it is SO GORGEOUS, you need more copies. This guy is going on a media blitz, will a dozen be enough? OMG, the editor talked about this book and it made me cry, you need to read this one! This one will be GREAT on a Summer Reading table!) etc etc. You know, the sales person is SELLING things, the buyer is BUYING them.

So you can see, it is quite important for each of the sales reps to have, not only a grasp of what each of their accounts specializes in, their needs, the neighborhood demographics, etc, (which might vary quite a bit from store to store even within the same region) -- but ALSO, they need a good handle on all the books in the catalogue. Though I am confident they do read a lot, it would likely be impossible for them to read every single book, that's potentially hundreds of books per season, they are one person. But they DO need to be able to talk about all of them.

THAT'S WHERE SALES CONFERENCE COMES IN!

During sales conference, I have no idea what they get up to exactly -- (Team building exercises? Icebreaker questions? Cocktails on the beach?) -- but I do know that PART of it is, the editors from each imprint pitch their coming season's list to the sales teams. They will share the cover, and tip sheets or art or excerpts from the book (or ARCS or F&Gs if they are available) -- they'll explain why they are passionate about each book, what the comps are for the book, all the accolades the book or author has received, anything that might make the book stand out.

How high-stakes is it? IDK about "high stakes" -- that makes it sound like they are defusing bombs or something, it's not THAT high stakes. But, I mean, it's IMPORTANT! You definitely want the sales team to be out there hustling for your book, and for them to have any and all info they might need in order to sell more copies. :-)

[anzheshyphae]

Book Rec: Little Mushroom 🍄

Do you love scifi and especially dystopian or post-apocalyptic settings? Are you a fan of unique worldbuilding or non-human characters? Do you enjoy reading about morally grey characters or LGBT characters? Or maybe you're a fan of star-crossed lovers or even enemies-to-lovers?

Try Little Mushroom! It's an award-winning dystopian scifi novel by the Chinese scifi and fantasy author Shisi. While the author is also known for her other novels, Little Mushroom is currently the only one that has been translated into English.

The official synopsis:

“Until the day humanity falls.”

In the year 2020, Earth’s magnetic poles disappeared and humankind was nearly wiped out by cosmic radiation. Within the span of a hundred years, living creatures began to mutate and devour each other while the remaining humans, numbering in the tens of thousands, struggled bitterly in their man-made bases.

In the Abyss, home to the mutated xenogenics, there lived a sentient little mushroom. Because it had been nourished by the blood and flesh of the deceased human An Ze, not only did it take on a similar-looking human form, but a similar name as well: An Zhe.

An Zhe is determined to go to the human base to search for his spore, which had been harvested by humans. Once there, however, he faces the omnipresent risk of discovery and certain death as he tries to keep his non-human nature hidden from the Judges, whose responsibility is to inspect for and eliminate xenogenics like himself. And of all the Judges, Colonel Lu Feng is the most perceptive and merciless—as soon as he determines that someone is a xenogenic, he will execute that person on the spot.

But An Zhe's mutation goes undetected by Lu Feng's eyes, and so a tale of humans and xenogenics unfolds…

Where to read?

The story is divided into two volumes, available in both ebook and print format. The ebook version is very affordable and you can start reading immediately:

Volume 1: Judgment Day ($7.99)

Volume 2: Revelations ($7.99)

Or if you prefer physical books, you can order those here:

Volume 1: Judgment Day ($19.99)

Volume 2: Revelations ($19.99)

The print edition is also available through several retailers.

If you have any questions about the novel, feel free to message me! It's one of my favorites and I love talking about it!

[occasionaltirades]

Excerpts and Summaries of “From the Heart of Hell: Manuscripts of a Sonderkommando Prisoner“

Dear reader, I write these words in the moments of my greatest despair. I do not know, I do not believe that I will live to read these lines again, ‘after the storm’… It may be that this, these very lines I am writing, will be the only witnesses to what was my life. But I will be happy if my writings reach you, free citizen of the world. Perhaps a spark of my inner fire will ignite in you, and you will fulfill at least a part of our life’s desire: you shall avenge, avenge our deaths!

_______

Four years ago, I read an article. It was titled, “Becoming Anne Frank”, by Dara Horn, and appeared in the November 2018 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine, which is a fantastic publication that I highly recommend. You can find it in any library and subscriptions are very affordable. The older issues and articles (including the aforementioned) are also typically available online. Most people are familiar with Anne Frank and her diary, which was published by her surviving father and has been translated into 70 languages and sold more than 30 million copies. However, this post will not be about Anne Frank, because this article piqued my interest with the following paragraph:

The line most often quoted from Frank’s diary— “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart”—is often called “inspiring,” by which we mean that it flatters us. It makes us feel forgiven for those lapses of our civilization that allow for piles of murdered girls—and if those words came from a murdered girl, well, then, we must be absolved, because they must be true.

It posits that part of the popularity of the book is that it predates the time when Anne’s family was presumably sold out, and by people who probably received a reward of approximately $1.40 per Jew. It continues:

Readers know that the author was a victim of genocide, but that does not mean they are reading a work about genocide. If that were her subject, it is unlikely that those writings would have been universally embraced.

The article mentions other writers, but the one that has compelled me is Zalmen Gradowski. He was a writer that they correctly bet I had never heard of, and whose work I was luckily able to obtain, but only by ordering it from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, paying for postage from Poland, and hoping it wouldn’t get lost in a lengthy transit. A far cry from a trip to a bookstore or library, where you could hopefully still easily procure a copy of one of the books that many of us may be familiar with from our time in school. In addition to the quotations at the top, Gradowski wrote the following:

This is the real reason why I write – that my condemned life may attain some meaning, that my hellish days and hopeless tomorrows may find some purpose in the future.

Having read these words, I wished to share with you some of what he wrote so that they may reach more people. So that his words may be immortalized in more minds. So that you too can bear some witness to what he says is, “merely a small part of the hell of Birkenau-Auschwitz. It is for you to imagine the reality[…]” “[so] that you will be able to form an image of how the children of our people perished.”

First, let me warn you that the following will not be pleasant. Zalmen Gradowski was forced to work in the Sonderkommando, made to escort prisoners and process bodies. He did not survive, dying in a courageous but unsuccessful prisoner revolt. He wrote on what he could and buried his writings in cans in the camp. His writings were retrieved by a surviving friend, but were damaged, and there are gaps in the text where parts were lost or unreadable. As such, most of what follows will be direct quotations, but may include some guessed words on the part of the compiler or myself. In some places [--] will denote a gap in the text. In parts where I have chosen to skip forward, the ellipses will also be in brackets. This is another reason I wished to post this; the book can be as physically difficult to read as it is emotionally, and I want people to be able to experience at least some of it. For both his sake, and for all our sake in this new year. If you’re interested in that Smithsonian article, here is a link:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/becoming-anne-frank-180970542/

___________________ Zalmen spent just shy of two years in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. He and his family had been considering emigrating to Palestine before war broke out, but after the outbreak of war, Poland was quickly occupied and he, his wife, parents, and two brothers and three sisters were all trapped. During the initial occupation, Zalmen did what he could to help his fellow Jews as the head of the medical and health department of the ghetto's Judenrat ("self-administrating" groups coercively formed by the Nazis to administer the closed-off Jewish populations). He continued to try and help as a member of a health group when they were initially moved to a transit camp where they were held without electricity or heating, and epidemics naturally raged. On December 8, 1942, they were moved to Birkenau where the SS carried out a selection wherein his wife, his mother, sisters, as well as his father and a brother-in-law were immediately murdered. Due to his physical condition, he was selected as a member of the Sonderkommando on December 9, in order to replace the 400 Sonderkommando that had been murdered that same day in the gas chamber of Crematorium I. Being a member of this group allowed him (and others) some ability to smuggle goods such as food to other prisoners, and to bribe guards with personal effects left behind by those murdered in order to lessen the suffering of those guarded. It is, however, also the reason he bore witness to so much hell and was able to record it for us. He worried that the world would not believe what was happening in camps like Auschwitz. That it would be dismissed as "horror propaganda" (which is precisely what the German state claimed it to be). He provides the following reason for his writing:

I write so that at least a tiny fraction of the truth may reach the world[...] This is the only goal; this is the sole purpose of my life. I live here with the thought, with the hope that my writings may reach you, and that at least a part of what I and all of us still alive here strive for, the final will of the murdered sisters and brothers of my people, may be realized in this life. ___________________ Come here to me, you free citizen of the world, who have had the good fortune not to know the rule of the cruel [--] two legged beasts, and I will tell you by what sophisticated, sadistic methods they have murdered millions of human beings from the defenceless, suffering Jewish people, protected by none. [...] If you do not return from your journey, it will be because your human heart was too weak to bear the strain of the gruesome, bestial deeds which your eyes beheld. [...] For you will have fled the world of men to seek comfort among the wildest, most savage beasts, rather than live among cultured demons.

From a section on transport to the concentration camp:

See, my friend, how they march in line as if turned to stone. No weeping, not a cry from a child is heard. Do you know why? Because all weeping by a child is stifled by a blow, both to the mother and the child. Such was the order given by the young wild animals [(Nazi guards)], such was their will. Their bestial instincts have been given free rein, and they are looking only for victims to sate their murderous souls, thirsting for warm Jewish blood. This mass of human beings must comply with their dreadful orders, since their lives are in their hands and their bodies could at any moment be corpses lying in red rivers of blood, with no one to bring them to eternal rest. See, my friend, how the mothers hug their children to stifle their weeping. They tuck their little heads under their shawls, so that the sobbing of the baby, freezing to death, will not be heard.

Here you see a woman standing with a baby in her arms. Her husband is standing next to her. They are staring out at the world passing by them, and instinctively keep glancing down at their lovely little baby. They are plagued by deep anxiety. They are still young, full of life, and the world they see through the windows is calling to them. They have someone to live for, someone to be there for, someone to work and labour for. They have just brought their first child into the world, and thereby woven themselves into the web of eternity, become partners in the building and development of the world. And at their very first steps in the world, they have been stopped and told to leave, to depart from the place they had begun to build their nest.

It is not themselves that they are thinking about. [...] For them, the child is the greatest happiness, the greatest comfort, the shared ideal of their lives. But for those cruel criminals, it is a useless plaything, without value or the right to exist.

After the train from the transport camp has begun moving. Remember that the camps were claimed to be "work camps":

The sound of the whistle rouses the people from their rigid immobility. The train has wrenched itself from [--] of death and is moving on. Mothers kiss their children, women their husbands. Tears of joy are flowing. Everyone has revived and drawn new breath. Hope for new life begins to form. [...] The belief is strengthening that all the rumours are false, all the terrible prophesies are baseless, built upon a single incident, dreadful in itself but not of a mass character.

The adults, who are suffering no less than the children, console themselves with the thought that the authorities will surely provide them with food and water at the next station. They will not deport a people intended as a labour force and let them die of hunger and thirst.

We get off the train. Now, my friend, see what happens. See who has come to welcome us. Soldiers in helmets, with large whips in their hands and big angry dogs at their sides. These are the open arms waiting to receive us [--]. No one understands why there is such a heavy guard. Why such a threatening reception? Why? What are we, that armed forces and wild dogs are needed to deal with us. We have come here to work, calm and peaceful people. So why all these precautions? Wait, and you will understand.

After being sorted into groups, apparently by age, sex, and prior occupation for the pretense of work. Zalmen himself was selected as one of the able-bodied:

The stronger ones, the small group supposedly selected as the best labour force, comfort themselves that transporting the women and children, and the weak and old men, in trucks is a mark of [humanitarian] feeling. Perhaps the authorities wish to spare them the burden of a march on foot after such an exhausting journey.

[...] They came with their wives and children, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, and now they are all alone, without anyone. [...] They were together everywhere. Left the ghetto together, marched from the camp together, travelled on the locked train together. And now, at their final destination, when they have at least reached the dreadful and frightening point of culmination, they have been separated.

After arriving and being tattooed with an identification number:

From that moment on, you have lost your identity. You are no longer the man who once existed. Today you are a meaningless, worthless, walking number. [--] A hundred such numbers are created and taken to their new homes. [...] We stumble across the clayey ground and reach our new graves in fear and exhaustion. We have scarcely the time to look at our new home and breathe its air, when we are clubbed over the heads. Split skulls and battered faces are pouring with blood. Such is the welcome extended to the new arrivals. We are confused and shocked. [...] They explain briefly that this is the [bouquet] welcoming them to life in the camp.

Who knows how those vile criminals, to whatever species they belong, are now treating his weak, sick mother and dear, beloved sister? Who knows in what grave his father and brother have fallen, and how they are being treated? All stand helpless, anxious, despairing, alone, suffering and broken.

In a heavily damaged passage, Zalmen describes the daily march to work, and every man's eyes looking to the barbed wire of the women's camp. Searching for a relative, wife, sister, child. That maybe a ray of hope still glimmers. "You cannot make yourself believe that they have gone forever."

Outside our block too, a dead number is lying. We approach and have a look. Only this morning he was at work and now he lies motionless. No one cares. No one even sighs. Poor man, if you were with your parents now, their child, what commotion would surround you! Your mother would be lying beside you, weeping and sobbing. Your father would be pacing back and forth, unable to sit still, crying like a baby. Your brothers and sisters would be sitting around you, weeping bitterly and grieving for you. Your friends and [--] would come, and each would [--] the house would be full of sorrow [--] carried away by the terrible misfortune. [--] brothers and sisters [--] like stones in the camp. And when a stone sinks [--] no great misfortune. Grief has [--] them [--].

Zalmen writes about how some individuals still carried out the weekly prayers and songs of praise for God, and the struggle many felt on the topic of faith. As with everything else, he wrote much more, but here is an excerpt regarding the disillusioned bitterly watching the ever-faithful pray and sing, while in their daily lives they watched one tragedy and atrocity after the other:

[They] could inspire no feeling of gratitude, nor move us to sing praises to the Creator of the Universe who had allowed a barbarian nation to murder and annihilate millions of innocent people, men, women and children whose only crime was having been born Jewish; for recognizing the omnipotence of that same G-d to whom they now prayed for having brought monotheism to humanity. And because of this they have now become victims. And they should keep singing his praises? What for? To sing a song of praise before this sea of their own blood? To pray to him who refuses to hear the cries and screams of innocent children?

A recurring theme, but one for which there are no "succinct" passages is that of the despair of separation. The breaking up of families and not knowing the fate of loved ones. The despair of mothers who would have gladly died in their children's stead, but knowing that "the devil wants her too, along with her child, as a sacrifice". It is difficult to convey the sorrow in these pages. Gradowski saw the mass graves, the bodies, and the cremations. The hell of the Sonderkommando was bearing witness to it and knowing the fate that awaited them. It did afford them some capacity to help ease the suffering of fellow prisoners, but also meant quite literally processing the murdered. In a series of chapters close to the end, Zalmen describes the work they were forced to do. Watching as truckloads of women and children were brought to the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. They were stripped and forced to stand naked, waiting for "gates of hell to open and give them free passage to the grave.". He describes girls reunited with their mothers kissing and rejoicing at their reunion despite the knowledge that they will soon be leading them to death. He describes the pain of seeing all these people, full of life, who will "in a few hours, be frozen in death. Their mouths will be silent forever. The sparkling eyes, the bewitching charm, will stare fixedly in one direction - searching through dead eternity".

He laments how this multitude will soon be bodies lying in the mud. Their teeth ripped out for metals, rings and jewelry removed. The pale bodies who were just moments earlier their kin will be dragged across the cement and thrown "like a foul carcass" onto elevators to the crematoria. Within minutes hundreds of lives are reduced to ash. Soon, all of these lives will be confined to wheelbarrows, destined to be dumped into unmarked graves.

No trace will be left of those who stand here now; all these people who once filled entire cities, who once had a place in the world, will be effaced, torn out by the roots as if they had never been born.

Sickeningly, he mentions that on this occasion, representatives of the Nazi party had come for the day's "celebration". High-ranking officers whose faces they had never seen in the 16 months he'd been imprisoned coming to watch these women marched into the gas chambers. At this point in 1944, Germany was losing their war. Somehow this slaughter of innocents was supposed to convince them that this was the real battle, and that this extermination was what mattered as their soldiers fell on all fronts.

Further groups are herded into the gas chambers, more than two thousand people, and he describes how soldiers coldly and calmly dumped the poison in through "eyes" at the top of the chamber and walked away "Proud, brave and content, having accomplished the great task for their nation, their fatherland. They have come one step closer to victory".

Finally, Zalmen describes how, after the gas had been administered, they were to open the doors of these great tombs, from which would blow a "wave of atrocious death". The only sound was a barely audible trickling of fluids flowing from bodies. In a "vast, naked sea", body parts protruded, and heads appeared as if floating in this abyss. They are to pull apart these bodies, that are "twisted into each other like a ball of yarn, as if the devil has deliberately played a diabolical game with them before their death and set them in this pose".

Two frozen eyes stare at you, as if to ask: what will you do with me, brother? More than once you recognize an acquaintance with whom you had spent time before he entered the grave.

At the end, he describes the burning.

The hellish fire extends its flames like open arms and snatched up the corpses like precious treasure. The hair catches fire first. The skin swells up in blisters that burst within a few seconds. The hands and feet start to writhe-the veins tighten and move the limbs. Now the entire corpse ignites, the skin has burst, the fat flows, and you hear the sizzle of burning fire.[...] The head burns the longest. Small blue flames flicker in its sockets-the eyes are consumed with the brain deep down and in the mouth the tongue still burns. The entire process lasts twenty minutes - and a body, a world is reduced to ashes.

In one final letter in September of 1944, Zalmen Gradowski described the location of some of the ash pits, and how much had been dumped into the river. He told the finder where to find his other writings. He died less than one month later, probably on October 7, 1944, in a Sonderkommando revolt after almost two years in the camps. Auschwitz-Birkenau would be liberated by the Red Army three and a half months later, on January 27, 1945.

One message that rings through everything is of the barbarism to which people will resort, looking to blame others for a problem. Complex explanations for ills are ignored entirely in favor of a scapegoat. Further, to paraphrase Gradowski, the greater the civilization, the greater its barbarism. It was an organized, efficient society which gave rise to this atrocity, and it is within organized and "civilized" societies that we see an ever-increasing number of people downplaying or denying them. Societies wherein we have more and more people subscribing brazenly to the ideology of the perpetrators. Please, read and learn as much as you can. Humans are uniquely able to learn, almost directly, from those who came before us. Take in their memory and their lessons and carry them into the future.

[meret118]

There are hundreds of nonfiction and fiction books that show us what poverty looks like—Charles Dickens immediately comes to mind, as does Barbara Kingsolver’s excellent Dickens adaptation, Demon Copperhead (scroll down for our review). Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond, who won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for his last book, Evicted, and whose own family struggled financially during his Arizona childhood, chose instead to focus on why: Why is poverty—especially deep poverty, a ghastly state of existence for 1 in 18 Americans—so stubbornly persistent? In this enlightening and well-argued book, Desmond examines the reasons Americans face destitution at rates so much higher than, for example, Europeans. He also offers solutions and calls upon not only policymakers but everyday people of privilege to acknowledge our complicity—indeed, to remake ourselves as “poverty abolitionists.” We have the resources to eliminate this scourge, this national embarrassment, Desmond writes. It’s surprisingly cheap, and we know what has to be done. We need only to summon the heart and the will. —Michael Mechanic

After reading this fascinating book, I can no longer countenance people talking about how America is turning into a surveillance state. Too late, I’ll say. Privacy was dead and buried ages ago. Funk, a talented magazine journalist, chronicles how the late Hank Asher—brilliant, obsessive, and volatile—pioneered the business of harvesting every available scrap of information about every American back in the early 1990s. These snippets, including court and DMV records, residence addresses, data about our travels, families, relationships, professional pursuits, money owed, consumption habits, social interactions, and more, resided in far-flung public and private databases. Asher’s innovation was to gain access to these disparate troves and merge them into a single, high-speed storage-and-retrieval system that knew more about us than we knew about ourselves. To win over high-level clients, including law enforcement brass who presumed their information was sacrosanct, he only had to run the person’s name through his system. The universe of data services he unleashed, now peddled by firms like LexisNexis, Equifax, and Cambridge Analytica, can be put to good uses—like improving health outcomes and nabbing child abductors—but also deeply problematic ones. Readers will learn how Asher’s work likely cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000, and how police and immigration authorities used his products to seize and deport otherwise law-abiding immigrants with American-born children. This deeply reported book is required reading for people who want to comprehend American culture and where it’s headed. —Michael Mechanic

From Mother Jones