i'm getting really into short story collections at the moment, i think my ADHD brain likes them because they require less focus, i can easily read one or two stories in a sitting, put it down when my brain starts to wander, and come back to it again later to read a few more. it's really improved how many books i can get through.
i've read all of these except for Vampires Never Get Old (and i'm only partway through Salt Slow but loving it so far), and would highly recommend any of these. Jackalope Wives probably has my favourite stories, but two of the ones in Rain Hare made me absolutely bawl my eyes out, so i guess they would be my top picks.
and if anyone has any recommendations of their own let me know! as you can probably tell from the list, i like horror, fantasy, historical fiction, and queer stuff.
in memory of David Barker
if only we could have gone together to the low tide
we would have walked that hard mile
hand in hand—your hand that
great heft that still
contains your love.
We would have stayed where
waves perfected their art
and a thousand points of light
glittered like a constellation.
You would have told me this was the place
where any glass could be a jewel.
You would have told me—gently
when we reached the shock of water
you would keep going.
We would have left no footprints,
no trace of us but
given enough faith we would have
found ourselves, awash
at the silver blue keen
that dares to be touched.
There would have been time.
I could have allowed the tide’s certainty
to pass through me as new knowledge.
I would have welcomed the night,
how you didn’t fear it
though it seemed so vast.
I would have been able to bear it,
father, that unticking
of your heart and
the sea’s warm breath,
how it smelled so sweetly of
freshly dug earth.
— Anna Barker, featured in Typehouse Issue 27 (source)
Anna Helen Crofts: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, this is a little story that me and howard wrote together
Barker: you and howard? how'd that happen?
HP Lovecraft: oh we've been looking for a project to do together for a while
Edward Lee: bro you hanging with anna helen crofts now?
Lovecraft: yeah
Lee: bro
Lee: sonia greene, winifred jackson, hazel heald
Lee: how are you pulling all this quality tail?
Lovecraft: i don't know, i'm just being myself
Lee:
Lee: bro that doesn't make any sense
Crofts: ok so this story is about a woman who reads a poetry book
Crofts: and she has a dream that the gods themselves appear to her
Crofts: and they're all 'babe, we got some great news for you'
Crofts: you're so hot that you're gonna fuck some inspiration into the world's greatest poet
Crofts: the gods are all 'check it out'
Crofts: 'you know Dante Alighieri? William Shakespeare? John Milton?'
Crofts: 'morons!'
Crofts: 'the guy you're gonna fuck is SO much better'
Angela Carter: a woman's just there to be a muse for a great man, huh?
Carter: why can't a woman be a poet herself, I ask you?
Crofts: no angela you don't understand
Crofts: this chick is SO hot
Carter: that doesn't figure into it
Patricia Highsmith: naw i think it does
Crofts: me and howard wrote this story together
Barker: oh did you now?
Poe: clive
Barker: i can tell, cuz it's definitely got all the usual hallmarks of a howard story
Poe: clive
Barker: i bet howard really contributed a lot
Poe: clive
Crofts: wouldn't that be great to be a muse
Crofts: a poet looks at you, he's all 'this chick is SO hot'
Crofts: 'i can't NOT write the world's greatest poem'
Crofts: if you think about it, howard
Crofts: that's kinda like you and me, don't you think?
Lovecraft: yeah i guess
Crofts: something wrong, howard?
Lovecraft: no
Lovecraft: no it's nothing
Lovecraft: its just
Lovecraft: that isn't really the direction i thought our collaboration would take
Crofts: what's wrong with it?
Lovecraft: it's just kinda mushy
Crofts: ok howard well next time we'll write what you want to write
Crofts: in fact, here
Crofts: why don't you use my beauty as inspiration
Crofts: i'll be your muse
Barker: ah ha ha
Barker: oh honey
Barker: oh sweetie
Barker: have you read any of howard's stories?
Crofts: write me, howard, write me like one of your squid girls
Lovecraft: [sweats] ok um so
Lovecraft: [sweats] so in this story there's this girl, ok
Crofts: what's she like
Lovecraft: indescribable
Crofts:
Barker: ah aha ha
Barker: nice save
A celebration of closing night for Cast 13 of the Oasis of the Seas. They ended their run last night, 23 July 2023.
Issy Moore as Victoria, Roberto Facchin as Alonzo, Olivia Swain as Sillabub, Ashlyn Fenn as Tantomile, Luke Stone as Coricopat, Lewis Rimmer as Plato and Macavity, Sam Bateson as Mistoffelees, Anna Sofia McGuire as Rumpleteazer, Lance Barker as Mungojerrie, and Logan Mortier as Munkustrap.
Some last scenes of backstage fun.
Grace Crugnale as Cassandra, Roberto Facchin as Alonzo, Ashlyn Fenn as Tantomile, Jack Duff as Skimbleshanks, Anna Sofia McGuire as Rumpleteazer, Bennett Ryan as Tumblebrutus, Phoebe Charles as Demeter, Ellie Monkley as Babygriz, Taila Halford as Jellylorum, Emily Ormiston as Bombalurina, Emma Brynn Cooper as Jennyanydots, Logan Mortier as Munkustrap, Lewis Rimmer as Plato and Macavity, Issy Moore as Victoria, and Luke Stone as Coricopat.
A tradition of handoffs to the new cast.
Issy Moore as Victoria with Charlotte Liddle, Taila Halford as Jellylorum with Jackey Good, Olivia Swain as Sillabub with Gabriela Rodriguez, Logan Mortier as Munkustrap with Ben Reynolds, Sam Bateson as Mistoffelees with Daniel Chesnut, Jack Duff as Skimbleshanks with Thomas Alsop, Lewis Rimmer as Plato with Joshua Clayton, Bennett Ryan as Tumblebrutus with Matthew Tratch, and Emily Ormiston as Bombalurina and Charlotte Reavey.
It was a lot of fun participating in the @bunnies-in-the-archives event! Here's the art for my fic, "A Conversation Off Tape," which is an episode 149 coda.
Summary: After his argument with Georgie, the last thing Martin expects is a text from Melanie inviting him out to drinks with the two of them. Against his better judgement, he accepts.
[Image description: Melanie, Martin, and Georgie sit around a small table. Melanie is sipping a blue drink with a flat expression. Martin’s gaze is cast downward, with one finger touching his cheek in a thoughtful or nervous manner. Georgie rests her elbow on the table and holds her head in her hand with an exasperated expression. Melanie is portrayed as a thin British Chinese person with blue eye-shadow and grey painted fingernails. Melanie’s hair is an undercut, with the top portion dyed blue. Melanie is wearing a grey blouse with butterfly sleeves, dark corduroy pants, and a necklace in the shape of a butterfly or a moth. Melanie has a nose stud, a ring piercing in eir eyebrow, and a silver stud and three cartilage piercings in eir ear. Martin is a fat Polish Vietnamese man with freckled skin and dark brown hair streaked with grey. He is wearing a grey t-shirt and grey square-framed glasses. Georgie is portrayed as a fat Black woman with dark brown skin and shoulder-length locs. She is wearing a pale blue long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans. Her nails are painted silver and she has silver eye-shadow. She has a nose stud, a ring piercing in her eyebrow, and a silver stud piercing in her ear. End Description.]
I saw this meme on It’s All About Books and thought, I like this!! So, I decided to do it once a month also. Many thanks to Yvonne for initially posting this!!
This post is what it says: Places I travel to in books each month. Books are lovely and take you to places you would never get to. This will be the last post where I include fantasy. Starting in May, it will be real-life (or set in…
Generation Loss // dogs! by Danez Smith // Sister Cities by Hop Along // here's the life i've always dreamed of by Anna Haifisch // Laika by Sarah Doyle // Dog Gospel by Brian Barker // muttnik by tumblr user fateology
So, you know how there are multiple realities in TMA?
Like how they send the fears into more dimensions at the end of the podcast, and Anya Villette being from another universe?
What if, like how Anna Wilett is the 'original' version of Anya Villette, there are other versions of TMA characters in The Magnus Protocol.
What brought this to my mind was hoping that Melanie King might make a return. Imagine: There's a mention of some ghost-hunting lady with an almost familiar name; Marilyn Prince.
Maybe other characters could be mentioned too, like Georgie Barker, or Basira and Daisy, but with different names. Who knows!
Feel free to add your own 'alternate universe' names for TMA characters. Also feel free to write fics with this concept. Maybe TMA universe people meeting their TMAGP counterparts. Go wild! (please let me know if there are any fics with that concept though, it sounds fun)
Hi, love your blog, no pressure do you have any sex sociology etc related books or movies you recommended? Sorry if silly question!
not a silly question at all!! i love to read about this stuff & am always happy to talk about it :) i am however not very experienced with film so other than Bound being on my to-watch list since forever i don’t have any recommendations in that area
all of these recs are definitely at different points along a spectrum of how much i ascribe to or agree with; i avoid language of “safe, sane, & consensual,” for example, because i disagree with the requirement for safety and the positioning of sanity as synonymous with not doing harm. a lot of kink writing falls into the habit of trying to justify itself to normative society through language of health, which i find both useless & offensive lol. as far as content notes it’s also worth mentioning that many if not all of these works discuss stigma & trauma, including hate crimes, rape, and incest.
i have a prior list on my disability blog with recs about sex & disability, i highly recommend checking out my favorites from there! Emma Sheppard’s work in particular was life-changing for me. many of these were accumulated through her sources as well as from @gatheringbones ‘s excerpts
in no particular order:
sociology
Playing on the Edge: Sadomasochism, Risk, and Intimacy by Staci Newmahr
Safe, Sane and Consensual: Contemporary Perspectives on Sadomasochism, edited Darren Langdridge & Meg Barker
Sex and Disability, edited Robert McRuer & Anna Mollow
The Sexual Politics of Disability: Untold Desires by Tom Shakespeare, Kath Gillespie-Sells, & Dominic Davies
Unbreaking Our Hearts: Cultures of Un/Desirability and the Transformative Potential of Queercrip Porn by Loree Erickson (dissertation)
Dungeon Intimacies: The Poetics of Transsexual Sadomasochism by Susan Stryker (article)
Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex by Pat (now Patrick) Califia
Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, edited Mark Thompson
The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure, edited Tristan Taormino, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Constance Penley, and Mireille Miller-Young
Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent by Katherine Angel
practicality
The New Topping Book by Dossie Easton & Janet W. Hardy
The New Bottoming Book by Dossie Easton & Janet W. Hardy
The Lesbian S/M Safety Manual, edited Pat (now Patrick) Califia
Fucking Trans Women by Mira Bellwether (zine)
sex writing
S/HE by Minnie Bruce Pratt
Skin by Dorothy Allison
Lover by Bertha Harris
Trans/Love: Radical Sex, Love, and Relationships Beyond the Gender Binary, edited Morty Diamond
Alias: Spectra [She has several aliases however, as MI6 agent she must maintain anonymity about her true identity]
Rank: Agent
Age: 28(in 2022)
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Native Language: English
OtherLanguague(s): Italian, Russian, Ukrainian(A little bit), German, Spanish, Arab, French, Japanese
Date of birth: November 17 1994
Birthplace: Birmingham, England
Eye color: Olive green
Hair color: Raven black [But in the past she has had different hair colors such as blond, green, red, and blue. And she has also had them shaved]
Height: 5’3’’/1.60 cm
Body type: Lean
Bloody type: 0 negative
Faceclaim: Margaret Qualley
Relationship/Family
Grandmother: Helen Park
Mother: Anna Park
Father: Andrew Mason(deceased)
Love interest: Simon ”Ghost” Riley
Best friends: Chloe Valentine, John “Soap” Mactavish; Kyle “Gaz” Garrick
Friends: John Price; Alyssa Price (@alypink ,wife of John), Kate Laswell, Alejandro Vargas, Rodolfo Parra, Reggie [Another OC, inspired by Wrench from Watch Dogs] Valerie "Gorgon" Watson (@onehornedbeast OC) Maya “Pip” van Rijn(@justasmolbard OC)
Other: Alex Keller, Farah Karim, Yuri Volkov
Pet:Mr Orange, a orange cat that her and Simon adopted
Affiliations
Task Force 141
Captain John Price
Lieutenant Simon ”Ghost” Riley
Sergeant John ”Soap” Mactavish
Sergeant Kyle ”Gaz” Garrick
Lieutenant Maya “Pip” van Rijn(@justasmolbard OC)
Mexican Special Forces
Colonel Alejandro Vargas
Sergeant Major Rodolfo Parra
Special Officer Alyssa Martinez Price(@alypink )
SASR(Australian Special Air Service Regiment)
Valerie "Gorgon" Watson(@onehornedbeast)
MI6
Helen Park
Agent Reggie
Anna Park
CIA
Station Chief Kate Laswell
Operation Alex Keller
ULF
Commander Farah Ahmed Karim
Personality and Traits
Introvert: She is not very disposed to the social life, preferring a good glass of wine in front of the fireplace in her home rather than the hectic life as a social butterfly, however doing her job as a secret agent she is very good at being able to hide her character, becoming the most social person in this world and using her manipulative techniques to get to the goal.
International Relations ability: Having a degree in international relations Eden was always sent by MI6 to a variety of places around the world to negotiate, interrogate, and even kill enemies who threatened the British government despite being very young, thanks in part to the help of her grandmother Helen, who instructed her on how to become the perfect agent.
Sarcasm: If there is one thing Eden specializes in it is finding sarcasm in situations even where it is the last thing a person might think of (ask Ghost during their mission in Russia just to give an example)
Camouflage: Being a spy Eden is capable depending on the situation that requires her to perfectly disguise herself in the role during the mission.
Profession and Skills
Profession Background and Main Skill: Bachelor's degree in international relations, with a master's degree in languages
Current Profession: Secret agent specializing in international negotiation for SIS, currently stationed in England. Other affiliations include the British government/MI6/CIA/Task Force 141
Clothing Style: Dark Academia; Grunge, Femme Fatale
Favorite book: The Hellbound Heart-Clive Barker
Favorite Color: Red
Favorite drink: Argiano Brunello di Montalcino red wine, strawberry margarita, Pepsi, Monster
Favorite food: ramen, pizza, lasagna, carbonara
Favorite song: Cherry Waves - Deftones
FUN FACTS
•She studied in Italy under the false name of Selene Mastroianni until she finished high school linguistics (in Italy it ends around age 18) because her grandmother Helen being a 'secret agent' wanted her to study away from England.
•When she was sixteen she decided to shave her head to zero because she thought it was cool and played in a punk band.
•Her first tattoo, a small flower on her groin, was done when she was 17 illegally by a tattoo artist friend of hers.
•Eden has a scar on her belly, at the level of her uterus caused during a mission in South America
•Eden listens to various genres of music but the ones she likes best are grunge, punk, black metal, shoegaze and gothic.
Every weekend when there is visitation day at the nursing home for the elderly where Grandma Helen lives Eden happened to find Simon there playing chess with her grandmother and drinking some excellent black tea.
Eden tends to burn easily in the sun; in fact, one of the things she does in her routine is to put on sunscreen, even in the winter because her skin is so delicate that it quickly turns red.
Other habits Eden has are to bite her lips often, walk back and forth in tense situations, and carry a stress ball to avoid going into outburst.
Background Story/Biography
Eden was born in Birmingham in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Soon after her birth her father Andrew and mother Anna moved to Bexley to be closer to Eden's grandmother, the legendary Helen Park. There Eden spends the early part of her childhood, although her mother began to bear a grudge against her and treat her badly.
Since she was little, Eden has always wanted to discover the world, also thanks to the passionate stories of her father Andrew, a well-known English poet and professor. However, one evening, while they were all in bed apart from her grandmother Helen, on a business trip a fire broke out in their residence due to her mother, who had now fallen into the abyss of alcohol after being fired from MI6 which cost the life of her father. From that moment on, Eden's resentment towards her mother grew even more and without a chance for forgiveness, their destructive relationship led Eden's grandmother to ask for custody of her granddaughter.
When she turned 14, her grandmother Helen had her enrolled in a well-known linguistic high school in Rome, where she met her best friend Chloe Valentine. Those years were full of rebellion for her but also of so much freedom that then made her mature as a person.
At 18 she returned to England where, with great commitment, she managed to obtain a bachelor degree in international relations resulting in a master's degree in languages at the University of Oxford at the age of 26 and at the same time began training in MI6, despite her grandmother being against it.
In a short time, Eden managed to make a name for herself within the famous English spy agency, being nicknamed Spectra because she left no trace of herself in her missions.
One day, in January 2019 her grandmother Helen ordered her to investigate a group of Russian ultranationalists with the collaboration of Kate Laswell, Station Chief of the CIA and Herschel Shepherd, general of the US Navy. After that mission, Helen would retire, after many years of work within MI6.
With the orders received Eden reached Russia, where she managed to intercept through some informants that there is a known chemical gas compound that could be launched in Urzikistan. The mission was also in collaboration with the SAS, which had sent its best man: Lieutenant Simon "Ghost" Riley. The information should have been extorted from a well-known former Specnaz who ran a club in the city of St. Petersburg. The two together managed to infiltrate the club, posing as a couple there to have fun and capture the target after a very violent scuffle with his henchmen , after hours and hours Eden and Ghost managed to get information about the cargo. With the available information Eden is reached by Alex Keller, who manages to intercept the compound but he is attacked by a group of unknown enemies.She will come to discover that the cargo had been transported to a different area and that Kulikov had been used as a red herring to allow the enemy to hide the material and take time.
Between Modern Warfare I and Modern Warfare II
Eden was sent to Verbansk in late March 2019 to investigate a threat from a Russian ultra-nationalist group whose leader was Vladimir Makarov together with Ghost. The two, recovering information, managed to intercept a coded message in which they spoke of a terrorist attack within the next few days.
Modern Warfare II
The relationship between Eden and Ghost during this period is full of ups and downs, especially when Eden learns that Ghost has been sent by Sheperd and Laswell on a mission to Al Mazrah working with the Shadow Company. Eden does not trust Commander Graves and warns Ghost of the danger of the mission, but her grandmother persuades her by saying that they have a common goal: to stop Hassan Zyani, heir to General Ghorbrani who may pose a threat to the entire world.
I'm not very good at creating bios but I hope it was done well😭, it took me a whole day to make it and I hope you like it
Anna Biller: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of bluebeard's castle
Mary Shelley: sup fuckers?
Shelley: you telling a gothic story here?
Biller: it's not gothic, it just uses classic story telling elements of gothic
Biller: it's its own original thing
Shelley: oh yeah yeah i'll be the judge of that
Shelley: seein' as i invented gothic and all
Biller: it's not gothic, it just uses classic-
Biller: it's not like angela's bluebeard story
Biller: very different
Biller: but let me explain angela's story in detail
Biller: blow by blow
Biller: for pages
Biller: this woman goes to a spooky secluded manor
Biller: like daphne du maurier's rebecca
Biller: with a brooding aristocratic husband
Biller: like Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights!
Biller: and she has a sweet heavenly voice
Biller: like urkel!
Biller: this part of my story is a reference to Jane Eyre
Biller: you guys might not have heard of it, its pretty obscure
Biller: don't worry, i'll just grind the story to a halt so that i can describe jane eyre
Biller: and this bit is a reference to dracula
Barker: oh my god its like gothic ernest kline
Poe: clive, be nice
Biller: anyway eventually she kinda just putters around until her brooding husband poisons her
Biller: and there was nothing she could do to avoid it
Biller: real girl boss hours
Shelley: what, she just gets poisoned?
Shelley: couldn't be me
Shelley: if i was there, i would have shivved that bastard but good
Biller: UM no actually
Biller: that wouldn't work!
Biller: there's a whole concluding chapter about how stupid you, the reader, are for thinking she escape
Shelley: rip to her but i'm different
Biller: so what do you think?
Mary Shelley: i like the bit where you just repeated angela's version
Poe: clive
Poe: no wait i mean
Poe: mary
Angela Carter: no no i can see why she might like that part
Biller: the important thing about my work is to know that women and men should stay in their lanes and follow the strict rules of their gender
Patricia Highsmith: poison's a broad's thing
Biller: excuse me?!
Highsmith: that's how a dame does a murder
Highsmith: a real man does a murder with his hands
Biller:
Highsmith: or a boat oar
Highsmith: see, my ripley-
Biller: oh god again with the ripley
Biller: always with your OC patricia! we're all tired of hearing about your OC!
Shelley: no patricia's right, killing a guy with a boat oar is cool
Shelley: poison's sissy shit
Shelley: i like how ripley does all those murders
Shelley: fucker's got style
Highsmith: that's what i've been saying!
Anna Biller: see, Bluebeard's castle is all about how men are men (evil) and women are women (stupid)
Biller: as opposed to the love witch, which was about how men are men (stupid) and women are women (evil)
Three weeks and only ten shows remain for Cast 13 of the Oasis of the Seas, with the start of another week at the office yesterday (05 July 2023), and some fun today.
We only have so much more time with Issy Moore as Victoria and Taila Halford as Jellylorum.
Taila joined by Phoebe Charles as Demeter, Emma Brynn Cooper as Jennyanydots, and Emily Ormiston as Bombalurina.
Anna Sofia McGuire as Rumpleteazer and Lance Barker as Mungojerrie move into the new week.
The whole Cast gets an updated family photo.
Cory Betts as Pouncival and Sam Bateson as Mistoffelees hang around together.
Luke Stone as Coricopat with his favourite hallway.
Emily Ormiston's golden hair makes its rounds again, just another day at the office for CATS!
Georgie Barker from @itserimi (iownthecrestivewrites)’s fic https://archiveofourown.org/works/41527473 for the Rusty Quill Big Bang hosted by @pilesofnonsense
[Image Description: Georgina Barker, lying on her stomach in bed, holding her phone and looking upward with a thoughtful expression. Georgie is a fat Black woman with dark brown skin, brown eyes, and an Afro. She is wearing a peach-colored short-sleeved blouse. The bedsheets and background are both neutral colors. End ID]
Here is what I read, posted, won, received, and bought in April.
As always, let me know if you have read any of these books and (if you did) what you thought of them.
Books I Read:
Books Reviewed:
The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa M. Matlin—review here
The Trail of Lost Hearts by Tracey Garvis Graves—review here
Off the Air by Christina Estes—review here
Sincerely, The Duke by Amelia…