my friend, (who touches massive amounts of grass, is completely social media -less, has never seen an anime in her life, has zero context for anything dr outside of my drawings) looking at me doodling kokichi for the Nth time this week:

"ah yes," points at kokichi "that's the autistic one."

It's too eaaaaaarly to be coming across Han Solo mpreg at work

oh btw if the new version of friends has even slightly different lyrics i will Actually kms fr fr. like ik the possibilities are low but still

Get the New Look Penstricken: Collected Stories!

Get the New Look Penstricken: Collected Stories! #KindleUnlimited #books #amreading #mustread #flashfic #flashfiction

If you haven’t already got a copy of Penstricken: Collected Stories, get yourself along to Amazon right now and bag yourself a copy of the brand new even prettier paperback edition! The stories are exactly the same, so if you already have the old one there is no need to buy the new one. The new one just looks a bit prettier, having repaired a few formatting issues that were bugging me. I have…

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Advanced Happy Valentine’s Day, bestie!! For your event, can I pls request Capitano #9, Pantalone #13, and Dottore #20?? I’ll let you decide if you want to attack me with sugar or spice (*´꒳`*)

💌Capitano + Prompt #9 ("When I am with you I am real." (x)

Some days, you find yourself reminiscing about your past. The time before you were brought to Snezhnaya. Those days felt no different from the fairytales you liked to immerse yourself in, at times unpleasant to remember, but ultimately, just a dream. A mere memory. And isn’t that a good thing? To leave your lonely past behind?

Unbeknownst to you, the Captain finds himself caught off-kilter in the precious idyllic moments that he shares with you. The rare light of your smile is warm, a ray of sunlight gently erasing any trace of the ever-present ice that permeated Snezhnaya. And isn’t that a good thing too? To be reminded of his own fallibility as a human, as a man with a cherished lover? No amount of prestige, no title, nor victory could hold as much weight as the simple joy of being able to return to your side.

You’re currently seated in his lap, reading a newly purchased anthology of classic Fontaine fairytales, artfully translated into Snezhnayan. Capitano has one arm around your waist, he has already reached the end of the page. He estimates that you’ll turn to the next one in a few more moments. Or you could just ask him to help you translate that difficult paragraph.

But he won’t overstep.

“...Poor girl,” you whisper, flipping the page and adjusting your hold on the book.

“Why do you say that?” Capitano asks,

“...Isn’t it obvious? She died, cold and hungry. It’s pitiful.” And in that response, there is a note of self-derision.

He can’t disagree with that observation. “That is how she appears to onlookers in the end.” Capitano’s free hand encompasses yours as he helps you hold up the book. “Though one cannot disregard her joy in her final moments, however fleeting it was.” 

Was it so wrong to linger in—no, to savor—this dreamlike reality?

You’re silent for a while, hand resting limply in his. Until he feels your fingertips skim the lines of his palm before loosely entangling with his. “I suppose one cannot.”

💌Pantalone + Prompt #13 ("If soulmates do exist, they’re not found, they’re made."(x) ++mild spice (of the body worship variety) if you squint

It should be a marker of praise, it should make you feel pleased to hear passersby and acquaintances and business associates praising you as the Regrator’s wife. 

And you do, you muster a gracious smile in response. Press yourself against Pantalone’s side and hope that the rest of your body language doesn’t give away the pinprick of nervousness that passes through you.

They sounded just like when you first got engaged. Devoid of well-wishes, a mere platitude.

Your husband is the epitome of grace and propriety, effortlessly redirecting the conversation to the hosts. Asking about their recent vacation and laughing politely at the same anecdotes they’ve rehashed for the third time. 

(Yours, in comparison, sounds weak, strained, fake.)

You feel the slightest reassuring squeeze against your hand. There’s a flicker of something gentle in Pantalone’s gaze as he glances over at you and that’s enough for you to recenter yourself.

It is in the safety of your home that you can let yourself breathe. Only in his touch do you find solace as his partner. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re completely bare in his company. When he lays his ungloved palms against your body, the buzz of your thoughts and the holes in your memories all fade away.

An amused smile quirks at Pantalone’s lips as he pulls away from the tender kiss you share. You apologize out of reflex.

His expression softens. “No, no need for that, my dear. I was merely… surprised with your sudden affection.”

“You… you’re not mad about a while ago?” 

Pantalone hushes you, stopping your self-admonishment. “The event is already over. You do not have to worry about it anymore.” The rough, callused skin of his hands sends a shiver through your frame. “Will you let me reward you?” he asks.

At your small nod, his touch drifts lower.

Yes, all that mattered was entrusting yourself to him.

💌Dottore + Prompt #20 ("They say we are asleep until we fall in love."(x)

Alongside the lantern’s light, there are fireflies dotting the landscape and edge of the water’s surface. Right in front of you is a Nilotpala Lotus in full bloom under the moonlight. This specimen isn’t as large as its neighbors, but there’s something in the gentle glow that it emits…

“You were supposed to return ten minutes ago.” A sharp voice calls from behind you.

“Gah!” In your surprise, your pencil drops into the water. Shame coating your expression, you turn to face Dottore. Whatever excuse you had prepared dies in your throat. 

“...Well?” He isn’t donning his Fatui mask. 

“I already completed my other objectives…” And you got a bit nostalgic on the way back to the lab. Which was half-true, surprisingly. Returning to the rainforests of Sumeru ended up becoming more pleasant than you expected.

“...Hm. I did not think you would be so keen on revisiting Nilotpala lotuses.” Dottore muses, somehow your sketchpad had transferred into his hands.

“Hey—those aren’t finished!” And even as you protest, your superior easily dodges your attempts to grab it back. “They’re just some useless doodles!”

At that, Dottore lightly taps the back of your sketchpad against the top of your head. “I will be the judge of that, my dear assistant.”

This felt no different from the all-nighters you used to spend with Zandik. Trailing after him like a dog as he marked your notes, inevitably submitting to the call of the night and letting him hear out your worries, and of course, the brief moment of complete lucidity, fatigue siphoned from your bones, feeling like you were the sole inhabitants of the world.

“Your attention to detail is exquisite,” he remarks in a soft voice, lightly tracing the lines of your sketch with a finger, careful not to smudge the graphite.

Your annoyance wanes, leaving warmth in its absence. “Thanks…” You glance back at the blossom, small but humming with light. An insignificant, inconsequential part of nature, yet utterly free and alive.

You’ve never been more glad to bear witness.

a/n: AHIHI HAPPY VALENTINES DAY BESTIE!! i hope i did the darlings and the fatchooey harbingers justice with dis meager writing, augh... u jus had to pick the prompts that were most free to interpret 🥴🥴 (thus i have chosen to attack with sugar and spice HA!)

I don't often feel small. But on the days I do, I look for things that remind me I'm not alone, and that I'm not small, and that no one else is either.

DC Comics has a wonderful tribute to Rachel Pollack in the Pride anthology from 2023, where I got to hear different anecdotes and thoughts on her work and her character. I've never heard of this woman before. But as I finished my reading on this section of the collection with newfound appreciation, I went back to the first person that spoke of her personally (because for someone to write so beautifully and paced leaves an impression i wanted to revist right after my visited interest in this woman was quenched), and I was caught on seeing your name.

Thank you for talking about your experiences with a woman that clearly shared so many stories and carried so many more. It let me learn something with everyone's little window into her life, and yours was especially heartwarming.

I have looked up to you ever since I watched your Masterclass. A little silly, to listen to someone I had never gotten to read. But I'm changing that now lately. It's good to be changing it.

I want to write comics someday. There's times I think I won't get to. But it's important to remind ourselves there's all types of people writing these stories of justice and change. That I can dream to write, and we can dream to dream, and it's special to know there's creators like you and Rachel Pollack and Josh Trujillo and so many more out there that think so too.

Thank you for doing that step to remember others. And thank you for writing so much to care about.

Rachel was a special person, and I'm so glad her life inspired you.

Beatles Reading List (Introductory)

Hi guys. So I saw a post floating around asking about "where to start" with the Beatles and how to find out more about them. Moeexyz's recommendation on it was to read fanfiction and this alarmed me a bit. Fanfiction just isn't a good source to get information about the band for one simple reason: fanfic authors change stuff for dramatic purposes all the time. It's just not a great way to get more information about them because fanfiction by necessity shifts things around for the sake of storytelling.

That Beatles iceberg is nice but the only way you're going to get a good picture of the Beatles is by doing a lot of reading of published sources. That's right. You're in for a lot of homework.

In an effort to combat misinformation, I asked the McLennon discord server to help me put together a rough list of introductory level books for Beatle fans that want to learn more about the band. These books are either a) read by me or b) read by someone I trust and I have included her quotes about the books she liked. I'll have color commentary talking about what they are and why they should be read. I do not consider this post finished! My server is constantly reading and discussing (we're looking at podcasts right now because they're the ones doing interviews with Liverpool citizens who were peers of the Beatles!) and they're being very gracious by contributing to this list. That means that this post may be updated in the future as I read more! If you want to keep up with updates then give my blog a follow, I'll post every time I update this list.

Some of these books are available on Archive.org but others can be gotten through your local library or through piracy. If you buy something, buy it used. Never pay more than $20 for a Beatle book.

The Whole Story

Anthology This is the documentary made by the band after John Lennon's death in 1980. It is both a documentary as well as a book (essentially a script of the documentary) which makes it very accessible. This is the version of the story that the band wanted to put out and includes interviews with Paul, George, and Ringo. They cover their beginning to their end. Anthology can be found on archive.org if you want to read it: https://archive.org/details/beatlesanthology0000unse_y2k8 The episodes are also available on Archive.org. If you search for "Beatles Anthology" and select "movies" option to search for videos then you will find it there. It's worth the watch and is all around the best introduction to the Beatles.

The Beatles - Hunter Davies This is the only sanctioned biography of the band. It's written in older language since it is contemporary to the 1960s but it's still very readable and a good intro. It is part of the media image that the band wanted to present at the time so you should make sure to think about what you are reading, who is saying what, and contemplate why he is saying it. It it still a great resource.

150 Glimpses of the Beatles - Craig Brown This is a short book that describes 150 anecdotes about the Beatles and what it was like to experience them. I recommend this because it demonstrates what a unique and personal experience the Beatles are while also demonstrating their global reach and how they became the most famous rock band in the world. It's a short read but a good one and there are many charming and thought provoking anecdotes in it. The story of the Beatles is just as much about their fans as it is about the band and you cannot understand one without looking at the other.

Books About Each Beatle

This particular section is a bit of a minefield. Many books written about the Beatles are of questionable veracity or just out and out wrong. (I can think of two that were written as blatant cash grabs and filled with libel that someone should have been sued over.) My recommendations on this may change so please check back from time to time! John Lennon

The John Lennon Letters - John Lennon, edited by Hunter Davies Primary source documents of the various letters and missives John wrote through his life. This may be the most important book on the list because it shows us who John really is: just another ordinary guy like us, trying to get through life. Also gives insight into his mindset as the decades pressed on.

The Making of John Lennon - Francis Kenny This is a very vital and heartbreaking read for people who want more insight into John. John Lennon is the most famous Beatle but he is also the one who's image is the most obscured and distorted. Francis Kenny is a Liverpool native who puts John in his proper context. To quote my server friend who read this one: Kenny, himself a Liverpudlian, takes into account how life in Liverpool in the first half of the 20th century shaped not only John but everyone he knew and his entire family. Mimi and Julia get a good critical view, and Uncle George gets his moment in the sun. He also lays out how class divides affected the Stanleys and then how Mimi took it out on John and Julia. He quotes a 1880s travel guide of London that said Liverpool was called "the New York of Europe," because of its economy and place on the ocean, and like in the Gilded Age New York that was happening concurrently across the ocean, Liverpool had pockets of wealth and splendor surrounded by poverty and rough living. Definitely a pro-read and a great insight into the culture and time John lived in. It does not fall into the pitfalls of hero worshipping John but Francis Kenny still treats John with sympathy and respect, hard qualities to come by when it comes to the cashgrabs written about John and his family.

John - Cynthia Lennon John's first wife, Cynthia, wrote two autobiographies about herself and John. This is one of them. It's a tough read in many places but a good one. Hers is a voice that doesn't shy away from John's flaws and actions but she also takes care to tell us why she and so many other people love him and remain loyal to him.

Paul McCartney

Many Years From Now - Barry Miles This is Paul's only sanctioned biography. It is formatted as a quasi-interview with Paul where there are interruptions of regular prose in each chapter. There are eyebrow raising moments where you can tell Paul is not quite telling the truth but it's important to read and identify these moments since Paul's habit of embroidering the truth is important to know and understand. Nonetheless it is still a lot more honest than I was expecting when I read it.

Paul McCartney: A Life - Peter Ames Carlin Probably the best Paul McCartney biography on the market. Peter Ames Carlin also did a similarly great bio of Paul Simon for people who are into that. To quote my friend Betty who read it: Paul gets to be a whole person here: the preternaturally talented boy wonder, the guy casting around for meaning, the less than attractive moments and qualities described without getting preachy or turning to [Paul Derangement Syndrome]. Carlin treats him with dignity instead of something to be gawked at and gossiped about. His (many) sources are cited at the end of the book. What I really appreciated was the ideas he put forth that I've only seen on Tumblr and not in Serious Official Biographies, which says to me he's writing as a fan and scholar and not a journalist trying to fill column inches.

George Harrison

I Me Mine - George Harrison Make sure to get the extended edition! George Harrison in his own words. There's a lot to say about this biography but it won't make much sense without context so I just encourage you to read it. George Harrison was, in my opinion, the best Beatle.

George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door - Graeme Thomson A good no bullshit biography about George Harrison. This covers his life as the material musician and the man seeking the divine. Graeme worked very hard to be respectful of George and his life, did extensive interviews with George's wife Olivia. Such a pro-read and definitely the best George biography written to date.

Ringo Starr

Photograph - Ringo Starr Ringo has stated that this book is his autobiography. In a few bumpers on the Beatles Sirius XM channel Ringo says that he doesn't want to write a biography like the others did but he was happy with putting this photobook together and essentially writing a bio through the captions. This is the closest that we will get for a biography for him as of right now. In time that may change but this is your best option. Piracy is the way to go when it comes to getting a copy of this, iirc it was a limited run and getting a physical copy might be very expensive these days.

Brian Epstein

A Cellarful of Noise - Brian Epstein/Derek Taylor This autobiography was ghostwritten by Brian's assistant Derek Taylor. It's not a tell-all but Brian talks about his youth and how he met the Beatles, including giving his own personal (and accurate) insights into each band member.

Conclusion

There are many, many books about the Beatles. Almost all of them offer something but most are about very niche periods in the Beatles history. When it comes to understanding the band I tried to put together a list where you can get an overview of the band and then read materials that either come straight from the Beatle in question or are not as biased as the competition. I am a McLennon shipper but for a post like this I did my best to recommend books that don't have that kind of bias in them so this is a list you can send to non-shipper friends haha.

In another post I will put together a history book list in the order of their timeline as a band, starting from the Quarrymen and on to the present. There is a LOT of ground to cover in a historical arrangement and it will take a while to compile. Please check back here regularly or give me a follow: whenever I update this post or make a new list, I'll make sure to post about it.

My plan is to make a website with all of this information that anyone can reference but it will take a long long time to make such a thing so put a pin in that one.

Poetry for ALL

Some personal anecdotes and a plea follow...

As quite a few of you know, I’ve been engaged in disability awareness and rights campaigning and other work since sometime in the 90s, so when I was given an opportunity to support and host an event dedicated to making performance poetry as accessible as possible in 2018, I jumped on it.

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Poetry for All is the brainchild (and heartchild, and soulchild) of Rose Drew, who I first met through one of Richard Tyrone Jones’s Utter events in London. She’s an extraordinary writer and performer, and a powerhouse of an events host and organiser. Within about 30 seconds of watching her on stage, I knew I wanted to be like her when I grew up as an artist. When she got in touch three years later to ask if I’d like to help out with what turned out to be the inaugural event, I threw myself into providing as much support as possible with enthusiastic abandon, and we pulled together a line-up which included the extraordinary performers Raymond Antrobus and DL Williams (“DeafFirefly”), both of whom I’d performed with before and was keen to see again. 

Now, there’s a whole section on our new website about the history of the events where you can read the facts, but I want to say here that, personally, that first event in March 2018 (coincidentally on my birthday!) was an absolute eye-opener – seeing how poetry events could expand and develop the ideal of accessibility in ways I hadn’t considered. It was also extremely inspirational as I realised that, well, I was allowed to write about my disabilities. Seeing and hearing artist after artist sharing so much and so eloquently unlocked something in me that I didn’t even know I’d been repressing:

I’m allowed to be an openly disabled poet. I’m allowed to express my neurodivergence. I can tell my truth. 😱🤯

Bit of a culture-shock, but I owe so much to the poets and to Rose (and to Dave Wycherley, BSL interpreter extraordinaire – that’s a hard and physically/ mentally taxing job as it is, but to do that with poetry? on the fly?! breathtaking...) for helping me get to that starting point, knocking down the walls of my own internalised ableism.

So, apart from a paean to self-expression and why representation and finding tribe matters, and a screed of gratitude for new friends made and old friendships strengthened through the course of these events, why am I writing this? What’s with the hashtag? “Plea...?”

Well, so far, since you ask, all of our events have had local funding in York, where they’ve taken place exclusively so far. Rose applied for Arts Council England funding for this and next year for a tour comprising several venues and a host more disabled artists and BSL interpreters from various parts of the UK (all getting paid properly!), but we found out last week that we’d not got the money. Any of it. So our forthcoming event on 24th November in the gorgeous National Centre for Early Music is in jeopardy and, since the thought of Rose (herself a disabled artist on low wages) having to pay for this out of her own pocket was not to be supported, I threw myself at a plan of creating a (somewhat last-minute) Crowdfunder, so that we can at least pay for the venue, the artists’ and interpreters’ fees, the travel and accommodation expenses of those of us coming from out of town, and the costs of producing merchandise to sell. We’ll be producing an anthology in print and ebook form, as a joint publication between indie publishers Stairwell Books and Allographic Press. And, if we exceed our funding goal, there’ll be video and audio available of the event to boot!

We’ve created a frankly very exciting range of pledge rewards for people wanting to support us (all the way from £1 and £2 options, since money is tight, especially for disabled folk, right now, to more chunky ones like private mentoring, workshops, and a publishing package), and we’ve got three weeks(!) to raise our £1,500 to cover the shortfall from ticket and merch sales. Eeep! So, if you’re able to and would like to help us, we’d be ever so grateful. The campaign is here:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/poetry-for-all-2023-fundraiser

And if you have absolutely no funds to share with us at all, we’d be incredibly grateful if you shared on social media, with friends, on blogs, all of that!

Thanks for reading all this, and have a great day!

hi there !! i’m currently studying ancient history at a level and i Need books on the julio-claudian dynasty because it’s slowly consuming my life in a way that none of my other history interests have. do you have any recommendations? thank you so much !!

Hello! I hope you like biographies!

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar and the Roman People by Robert Morstein-Marx, 2021 - might as well be named "Everything you thought you knew about Caesar was wrong." It's a bit dense, but its discussion of analyzing sources is very useful for other Julio-Claudians as well.

A Companion to Julius Caesar, anthology, edited by Miriam Griffin, 2009.

I haven't read Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy (2006), but a lot of people have suggested it to me.

Augustus

Augustus by Anthony Everitt, 2006

Augustus by Adrian Goldsworthy, 2014

Tiberius

Tiberius by Robin Seager, 2005

Tiberius by David Shotter, 2004

Haven't read any books about Caligula, Claudius or Nero, but the most recent biographies are:

Caligula by Aloys Winterling, 2011

Claudius by Barbara Levick, 1990

Nero: Matricide, Music and Murder in Imperial Rome by Anthony Everitt, 2022

In general, look for books that have been published more recently, and which cite their sources often. The scholarship on these dudes has changed a lot in the past 50 years, and "pop history" books are often out of date.

Not always accurate, but fun:

Suetonius' Twelve Caesars - our main classical source, full of insane anecdotes, but also like 30% bullshit.

I, Claudius by Robert Graves - historical novel for people who think Suetonius wasn't wild enough.

Augustus by John Williams - an epistolary novel about the life of Augustus. Gave me a lot of feelings.

Paging @the-little-fox-in-the-box and @theromaboo in case they have additional recommendations!

media roundup jan 2024

hey whats up!!! its me again!!! happy valentines day :3 finally caught up to patch. and by patch i mean "talking about things that i remember reading." finally got around to reading/playing a bunch of things that were really hyped up!! that ive been really looking forward to :3 yippee also, one of my new years resolutions was to play all of umineko? which according to most people ive seen, does in fact take An Entire Year due to being 1. fully voice acted 2. a little over 1 million words. so uh, please look forward to that.

books:

camp damascus by chuck tingle: horror ya. a girl on the cusp of adulthood belongs to a strict and isolated christian sect, living in the town with the us' most famous conversion camp. things get weird quickly.um ok i was really hyped about this! its the first chuck tingle thing that ive actually read (lol) but ive been following his stuff for a while. its an interesting look into what its like to be uh, really christian and also (SPOILERS) gay, but the whole time i was like man i wish i was playing [we know the devil]. which is a really good game please play wktd :3 there were some really cool and chilling body horror parts!! which i liked a lot!! but overall it was more inspiring (?) than scary, which wasnt really what i was looking for personally

the way spring arrives and other stories: translated chinese scifi/fantasy anthology, written and translated by a team of women + nb writers. really solid!!! took me a while to get through, but theres such a wonderful variety of stories here--some are creepy, some are heartwarming, some are silly, some are elegant. i particularly enjoyed some of the essays about translation itself, as well as the titular stories and A Brief History of Beinakan Disasters as Told in a Sinitic Language. definitely check it out!!

spark joy by marie kondo: an appendix of sorts to marie kondos super big book the life changing magic of tidying up, with a couple more practical tips and some anecdotes. ok to get kinda personal, konmari stuff appeals to me bc i grew up surrounded by detritus. from where i sit in my childhood bedroom, i can see a stack of floppy disks, old checkbooks, and a copy of The Lost Treasures of Infocom--a game from 1991. almost none of it is ever touched. so the idea of having a space full of only joyful things is really appealing.. honestly i think the best bit of advice from the book was that if you have things that are necessary but dont necessarily elicit joy (eg screwdrivers, coffee makers, whatever) that you try and take a bit to appreciate/praise those items and what they do for you? and they may become more beloved :3 anyways probably not worth reading unless youre already into the whole konmari thing

ninefox gambit by yoon ha lee: space opera. kel cheris, a freshly promoted general, has been sent to suppress a rebellion lodged in a fortress. but her greatest enemy is also her greatest asset: the implanted consciousness of the prodigy traitor-general, shuos jedao. famous for winning impossible battles--and infamous for killing his entire fleet. its kind of in a trio of "lesbian sff about empires and stuff" with machineries of empire and traitor baru cormorant. well for one i really liked it. i do have a lot of hours in um games like civ 5 and starcraft but i usually dont like Reading books about military stuff. this is obstacle number 1. obstacle number 2 is that ninefox gambit has some really intricate worldbuilding, and unlike some other lesbian bodysharing scifi novels out there, our protagonist is not a newcomer. you dont get the assist of getting to learn about the world as the same time as her. but the thing is that ninefox gambit makes you Want to pick apart everything thats going on and get into it, and once you have a good idea of all the factions and stereotypes and tensions, etc it feels really rewarding :3 and the world is grounded in how you get to see what feels like every single level of this one infiltration/siege, from the general at the top to the infantry at the bottom even to the servant robots who clean! yay robots :3 when youre jumping to someone completely different, doing something totally unrelated, its pretty easy for that to be… super jarring? (hi sanderson) but it was not that <3 although it took a bit for me to get it, i also liked the intermittent correspondence that we get to see from the enemy side as well. how humanizing! it also balances a large cast of characters very well. characters with bit parts still feel memorable to the extent they need to be? idk how to say that correctly. obviously between cheris and jedao, jedao has the upper hand conversationally pretty much always but they have a good dynamic and its cool to see her strengths come through in other ways i think one of its strengths/weaknesses is that its very focused on this One siege in One point in time. i would love to hear about the anden in the sequels for example. also like does everyone have to be in a section or are there real (non conquered) civilians. how do yall grow food. also yeah sorry democracy beign the ultimate heresy made me laugh ninefox gambit is kind of a tricky read; its probably not a good idea to try reading without a stretch of uninterrupted time + brain energy but i liked it 👍 i thought it was good 👍

raven strategem by yoon ha lee: sequel to ninefox gambit! yoon ha lees ability to balance lots of different povs works really well for this book :3 it really ratchets up the tension! i also really liked seeing all of the exotics lol (magic wepaons that do crazy stuff). unfortunately the tension didnt pay off in a way that was really satisfying to me personally, however.. it didnt really help that i didnt like one of the main pov characters (brezan.) the first book is still worth reading though as a standalone!

comics/manga:

mitsuya sensei no keikakuteiki na edzuke: m/m series about a cooking writer (older man) and his editor. ok i talked about this last time but im a big fan of romance with older people in it. the baggage comes preattached!! also the protag in this kinda looks really similar to shinji from kamen rider ryuki?? has some Extremely Delicious looking food art, as well as some really nice like. food + desire + eroticism type thing going on. (i started reading it bc tumblr user stella obstinaterixatrix was talking about it as an example of non explicit eroticism!) yay i love food manga :]

sonna me de mitekure: aka look at me with those eyes. m/m romcom that parodies a lot of common BL tropes (overbearing prince of the school falls in love with some rando!) but also has a lot of heart :3 definitely only worth reading if youre like. already sort of in the soup of romance manga though lol

ouji-chan no sukina hito: suuuper cute f/f oneshot about baby prince idolization

catch you catch me: another cute f/f oneshot :3

botticelli drawings exhibit: ok i just thought this was neat. it was an exhibit about some of the preliminary sketches that were made for some of botticellis famous pieces (he was a famous painter during the florentine renaissance in italy) i like how you got to learn more about how the Workshop Style worked like how a lot of paintings were actually made by lots and lots of apprentices.. also how botticelli apparently got really into this one super duper intense monk type guy and started making some kinda weird shit

movies/tv shows:

pokemon concierge: lighthearted family show about a stressed office lady who quits her job to work at a pokemon hotel. super cute!! very short!! you can watch it with your parents or kids or whatever its really not that deep but the stop motion was just soooo cute. slightly concerning in like idk the level of 'escapism from office culture' but you know how it is

dear ex: slice of life/drama? taiwanese movie. after his father's sudden death, song chengxi and his mother meet his fathers hidden male lover. dudee this movie is so fucking pretty and so sad. i almost cried and blew up and died. all 3 main parts of the cast are such good actors and the way it does grief and like the seamless sliding between memory and the present AUGH. so good

sousou no frieren anime: also known as frieren of the funerals! a slice of life/fantasy anime about what happens after you save the world. frieren is a long-lived elf who saved the world with her companions--but many decades afterwards, she still wanders the world the same as ever. bro this show is so freaking gorgeous and well made. it really makes me wish going outside was real. has a really nice sense of melancholy too.. its just a really solid adaptation :3

dungeon meshi/delicious in dungeon anime: cooking/slice of life/adventure anime set in a dnd-like setting that digs into a lot of fantasy worldbuilding. mainly about: can you eat the monsters!!!! i finished the manga a couple months ago so i was really hyped (and a little bit nervous) about this anime but studio trigger is doing a really good job!! its just a really good show ok please watch it

marry my dead body: straight police guy gets ghost-married to a dead man, and then is tasked with solving his murder. um ok so i watched this bc i misread neils text and thought it was by the same director as dear ex. spoilers this is very much not true lmfao its more lighthearted with a side of feelings about death and stuff. very silly! i think the gulf of expectation was so wide that i couldnt enjoy it that much.. also cops. why. some of the jokes didnt really hit for me esp the whole like ahhhh slag straight guy doesnt understand anything type thing? but its like not a bad light movie

percy jackson and the olympians: remake of the first percy jackson book. yeah this was fine i watched it with my mom while playing solitaire the whole time. the actors are very charming and the show is solid, but i think it really deserved to be like. a 20-episode series with 20 minute episodes, or something like that. like its oestensibly for kids but its Really trying to make that nostalgia cash grab so it exists in a slightly uncomfortable middle (writing is very basic and friendship-y which isnt necessarily bad but its not like That Deep, but also who is making a kids show 40 MINUTES LONG). anyways i think a longer pacing like that would have given more time for filler and replicating the road-trippy vibe that the original books had. its still solid though!

games:

umineko episode 1: its the classic murder mystery setup: a wealthy man on his deathbed still hasnt resolved the issue of his inheritance. he, his hateful children, and their own children are cut off from the world on a remote island. but the man still has unsettled debts….and something is deeply wrong on the island of rokkenjima 🤯ok umineko is infamous for 1. having fans who wont shut up about it 2. something something metatextual? 3. a very high bar for entry, featuring near-required modding, several hours of expository setup, and the fact that. well. its a visual novel. that aside, i enjoyed the first episode way more than i thought i would :3 the uroshimiya family is so rich and alive and shitty it felt like i was watching succession again lmfao. battler is a very endearing (if slightly stupid) main character, and there are some really strong characters laid down that make you excited to get into All That in the future. plus, once i got to the murder part it was genuinely so hair-raising? theres some phenomenal voice acting.. the scene with maria was so memorable i thought i was going to dream about it. also i loooove beatrice <3 anyways i would recommend but its not for the faint of heart. 99% of umineko-ers stop reading right before the love lets them see it, and so on.

off game: wow im so happy to have finally beat off. i mean. hey whats up. off is a weird, abstract game about a 4th-wall breaking "Batter" whos self proclaimed goal is to purify the world. its often viewed as a spiritual predecessor to games like undertale :3 …actually, i played off a long time ago and then got stuck/intimidated by the very last set of puzzles so i Just Now gave up on actually finishing and just watched a letsplay lol. honestly one thing that ive figured out over time is that actually?? im really not that much of a fan of pokemon-style rpgs like this 0_0 i mean, the gameplay is just. not that fun? and the typical random encounter type thing is just not that nice. i think this is something that a lot of jrpgs/rpgs have figured out recently, but off is an older game without those QOL improvements lol. (also random encounter is easier to code probably) anyways!! the writing in off is so compelling…its so weird in a way that invites you to pick apart that weirdness, but also makes you feel like some mysteries might remain unresolved forever. its a video game that actually Has Writing In It. its one of those (free!) indie classics thats definitely worth checking out. also i love drawing the judge and valerie. weird cats for the win ok now im just going to talk about my theories about the game. so we know that the only real humans in the world are sugar, zacharie and the baby. however, the queen and the batter are parental figures for the baby. the wardens of each of the levels were created for the baby as it (in the absence of its parents?) longed for companionship, but they warped over time. whats healthy becomes sick and whats sickening becomes necessary etc. possibly mimicking how the baby, sick and alone in the hospital, also warped over time? becoming warped caricaturizes the babys creations and makes them cruel and so the batter becomes the ultimate heroic figure, who purges whats evil and rotten. but if it lives where i live then i guess the whole world has to go?? well idk

music:

take my hand by zerobaseone: ok whenever i listen to this imlike this is one of gods perfect songs. the production is like chefs kiss and theres just some really beautiful sounds in here? its so warmly dreamy and delicate feeling.. just like first loves… or whatever lmfao the fluttering hook-y thing at the beginning is just too good i ended up looking up a bunch of the producers. also big pop is nice bc you can tell they mixed it so it sounds good in a car OR in headphones lmfao

1,000,000 by nine inch nails: i forgot what genre nin is supposed to be ok this song came up when i was playing hifi rush (rhythm based action game!! so cool so stylish) and me and neil were like NINE INCH NAILS?! it was like that one comic you know. anyways i like this song its very adrenaline feeling. i looked up the real lyrics recently but to ME its about trying to escape emptiness thru adrenaline and danger and sex and stuff :P not that i do that but its still a fun song!! yippee

dark red by steve lacy: ok i found this song bc of a tumblr post i did not know he was the "i wish i knew" guy lmfao. honestly if people only knew like a 5 second songbite from my works id be so mad. but anyways its progressive rnb apparently? i just like this song :3 when you are kind of pathetic but basically chill with it but what if.

anyways if youre reading this: hi!!! ive been spending a lot of time recently doing the hard fisher quests in final fantasy 14. guys never do beast of brewers beacon ok the school year is just starting up but having to wake up early is kind of doing a number on me…… other than that i actually totally have my shit together! yay :3 if you read to the end (or even skimmed) thanks <3

Though most of us have only seen the posters, Edward Hopper's paintings have become icons of 20th-century American life. But what are they like in reality?

It feels as if you've always known them, the paintings of Edward Hopper. America seems unimaginable without them. Lone souls, empty sidewalks, baking brownstones, raking sunlight, the drug store at four in the morning, usherettes, clerks, the solitary salesman, hotel rooms on sluggish afternoons, heat sizzling outside, misery shut up indoors. People and places and the human condition: this is the genius (or cheap music) of Edward Hopper as everyone knows it.

Or is it? The flash of recognition, so crucial to each painting, is easily confused with familiarity. Unless you have travelled to America the chances are you may never have seen a Hopper in reality. There is only one in Britain (in a very private collection) and there hasn't been a show here in almost a generation. Even if you've seen a few originals, and survived the shock of finding them more rough-hewn and awkward than reproductions imply, and infinitely stronger, this retrospective at Tate Modern may amaze. It is a revelation in so many ways.

Reproduction shrivels Hopper. It turns his paintings into illustrations. Which, in turn, abets all the old clichés about his works: that they are theatrical tableaux, or film stills, for which you write the script, that they are enigmas waiting to be solved. Or that there is a narrative to each painting, a backstory to each loner, that can somehow be deduced from the details of clothes, props, mise en scène: a mystery fit for Hammett or Chandler.

People who write about Hopper like to float theories. The stenographer who longs to comfort her unhappily married boss in Office at Night. The once hopeful out-of-towner waiting for the bus back home in Automat. You could make a story out of any of his pictures, runs the line (a whole anthology exists, in fact, filled with just that). But I'm not sure his art needs or demands such interpretations. 'I hope it will not tell any obvious anecdotes,' fretted Hopper, with foresight, 'since none are intended.'

Take a work such as Sunday (1926). Condensed on a page, it would seem to show nothing more than a clerk in his shirtsleeves sitting on a deserted sidewalk nursing one elbow. Behind him is a shop front, before him the blank street. It seems to be morning. Perhaps he never went to bed or is forced to work Sundays; who knows? The man is a model, not a narrative.

What strikes is the painting itself, so drab in reproduction, so magical face to face. The way Hopper's sunlight pours through the window, scouring the emptiness of the shop - is there a more vacant room anywhere in art? The ambient distance it measures between the man and the world around him. The beautiful colour harmonies between shutter, boardwalk, blinds and street that shut him out, their subtlety contrasting with his brusque shirt, the only white in the picture. Everything isolates him, the lone worker, lost in thought, stark in the careless sunshine.

There are no trash cans, no signs, not even a spent butt in this image. It is pared to the bare epiphany. Elimination, rearrangement, cropping, distancing, angle: it's usual to think of Hopper in terms of cinematography. But as an editor he is on a par with Degas, and no sort of standard realist, representing the view with dogged fidelity. As Degas wrote, 'One reproduces only that which is necessary.'

Hopper studied Degas on one of the three trips he made to Paris in his youth; but the rest of his file is pretty thin. Born in 1882, the son of a dry goods salesman in Nyack, New York, he was a sometime illustrator and part-time painter who stopped painting for almost 10 years and didn't find form until his forties. Taciturn, frugal, gallingly self-contained from his wife's point of view, he lived in the same cold-water apartment in Manhattan from his marriage at 41 until his death in 1967. She was his only model.

Flipping through a book of Hopper's pictures might give the sense of lives snapped, scenes glimpsed, from the street or the El. But it would be wrong to think of him simply skimming images of strangers through windows as he rides the subway by night. Of course he caught what we catch - the freeze-frame behind glass, people who are outsiders to one another, seen from outside - but this is both more and less than he shows.

A great Hopper, in the paint, is all stillness, silence, solidity. Not the stillness of Vermeer, of stopped yet reverberating time, but a stillness all of his own: the hiatus, the lapse, the longueur, the moment between significant moments. A man staring out of the window while a girl sleeps beside him. A woman seated in the dead light of a theatre during intermission, blank as the safety curtain.

You don't hear the waves of Cape Cod in Hopper's seascapes or the cicadas in his landscapes. There are no crowds or sirens in his cities. All is silence; the mind turned in on itself, thinking, or not quite thinking, the only action. How implausible it would be to enter a Hopper and hear actual sound.

And the clock strikes 13 in any painting where motion is represented - such as the hopeless attempt at the nanny's fluttering headdress in New York Pavements. Hopper's pictures are not movies; the best of them have monumental solidity. In the architecture - his absolute gift, to make buildings as poignant and fascinating as people, if not more so; in the sunlight, pressing against houses, carpeting floors; even in the skies. Hopper's clouds never scud.

The cumulus hangs paralysed above Manhattan in Williamsburg Bridge (1928). I thought the painting would make me think of A Streetcar Named Desire - apartments rocked by incessant traffic - but it doesn't. It fairly scintillates with silence. Brownstones blaze against the pale sky: heavy stone, bright heat. Windows blink, or frown, or shutter against the light. At one of them, way up high, a trademark figure sits on the sill, on the threshold between within and without, dreaming, looking out, observing the world. Like a painter: Hopper's surrogate.

Except that this would be totally anomalous. Hopper never forces himself upon his art. There is no sense of his personality - aside, perhaps, from a steady empathy with the subjects - and any sign of his presence immediately deactivates the drama.

For there are weak paintings, even in a tremendous show like this. When the buildings become flimsy, for example, or the colour is ostentatiously over-keyed. When the woman turns into a glib dollybird, when the figures get clumsier and more caricatural in later years. When he repeats himself: all those people gazing off-stage, into another world, another life. When even the light houses face off into the distance, eyes averted. Hopper can be just too plangent.

Which feels fatal, along with everything else that limits the emotional complexity of his art, makes it seem 'expressive' of loneliness, sorrow and so forth. Such as the presence of more than one figure. Two and the scene becomes a dialogue, however mute or fractured; three and all sorts of too-obvious anecdotes present themselves, especially in the film noir works of the Forties. Even one person looking directly out of the frame, or just with a directional gaze, and the spell, the reverie, is broken.

A masterpiece such as Early Sunday Morning hasn't a single figure in it (Hopper judiciously deleted the hint of a face at a window). But it's one of the richest works he ever painted. The dawn light casting immense shadows down the long avenue, peopled only by a hydrant and a barber's pole; the intense colour of the brick facades; the many windows, with their separate characters; the hint of menace in the tall building edging into the picture. It's not portentous, like de Chirico City; it is the world seen anew as surpassingly strange and beautiful.

And crucial to its effect is the curious absence of Hopper. You see where he might have stood to make sketches but there's no sense of his watching presence; no directing of focus, attention. The corollary is also the case - that your own viewpoint is somehow vacant as well. Nobody is looking at this street, nobody is looking back: and how much more so with his paintings of people. That pensive woman in the third floor apartment? You don't think for one moment that Hopper has a ladder propped at her window; rather it's a kind of floating observation: so real, and yet like a dream.

'One was aware,' wrote a friend, 'of a slight displacement in his experience of his own person ... as when we are strange to ourselves, and become objects of our own contemplation.' That quality is crucial to the power of Hopper's art, as to the minds of his men and women. They are absorbed, abstracted, almost hypnotically disengaged from the world around them: and Hopper's gift goes outwards too. After a while you become one with them, rapt, still, solitary in your absorption as the people in these spellbinding pictures.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

I LOVE WORDS! WORDS DONT LOVE ME BACK!! </3

i’ve read the mmu books twice now and i’m currently re-reading them for the third time and taking note of any gay moment or moment where someone is neurodivergent! ( When i re-read them for the second time i noted down every character description )

And i just wanted to say thank you! i’m autistic and i LOVE these books!! i am also queer and i love the rep in this book, i relate to both daisy and hazel and see myself in them both, when i first started reading them i wasn’t expecting any kind of gay rep let alone neurodivergence’s, and yet there’s so much of both! Thank you so much for writing these books, i’m so excited to read the ones to come!

p.s: i’m just wondering because i love all these characters, will we ever see another cream buns and crime like book full of more short stories? such as daisy and hazel getting george and lavinia back! because i would be so interested in more little anecdotes from side characters!

Thank you thank you!! I’m so glad they mean so much to you, that’s wonderful to hear.

Funnily enough I did not know I was ND while I was writing the MMU series but now I look back and the moments are everywhere!

We don’t have concrete plans at the moment but I assume that yes, at some point there will be another short story anthology. I just need to write some more short stories first!

✨top books of 2023✨

Father of Lies, Brian Evenson (psychological horror centering on a mormon religious leader. if you like books that make you feel gross and bad, this one’s for you)

Any Other City, Hazel Jane Plante (fictional memoir of a trans musician. the book is split between her life right before she comes out, and then decades later when she’s an established musician)

Try, Dennis Cooper (imagine if salo, or the 120 days of sodom was a high school romance. that's basically this book)

The Feminist and the Sex Offender, Judith Levine & Erica R. Meiners (fairly in-depth discussion of non-carceral responses to sexual violence. you can read an overview and my thoughts here)

Anything That Moves, Jamie Stewart (autobiography/memoir of xiu xiu founding member, mostly featuring wild sex anecdotes. i loved this)

Assata: An Autobiography, Assata Shakur (imo a must read if you're interested in prison abolition & the history of (black-led) resistance to police brutality in the US)

The New Topping Book, Dossie Easton & Janet W. Hardy (topping & dominance tips from the authors who brought you the ethical slut!! i wouldn't say there was anything *brand new* that i hadn't considered in this book before, but it phrased things and connected them in ways i wouldn't necessarily have thought of. have been reading various polyam-adj books and this one was probably my favorite)

Hit Parade of Tears, Izumi Suzuki (anthology of 70s sci-fi stories translated from Japanese and published for the first time in English this year. one in particularly was a stand-out for me, but they are all worth reading!!)

Mama Black Widow, Iceberg Slim (fictionalized memoir of a black drag queen who grew up in Chicago in the 40s and 50s. not sure how to talk about this one without trivializing the topic, so i'll say that it's pretty heavy, but if you're interested in gay and/or chicago history you should definitely check it out)

not sure who of my mutuals reads enough to do their own but if you wanna, please tag me so i can see your recommendations!! :33

Inspired by this post of kink reading recommendations:

I read Service on the Spectrum, an anthology of interviews edited by Joshua Tenpenny.

The information on autism and suitable accommodations is in the form of anecdotes specific to each person's relationship. To the extent that I gleaned transferable advice from it, they are things I already do.

The information on kink is in the same format. While there are some fun ideas/examples presented, the topic is better covered in the previous post's list.

Most of the relationships detailed have only 1 autistic participant. But props for including at least a couple aut4aut relationships.

Mystic Adventures - Anecdote Anthologies

Mystic Adventures - Anecdote Anthologies Issue - 003 "Brothers"