#A Gathering of Old Men

[1000-year-old-virgin]

Books I’ve Read In 2022

This year I read the average amount of books I usually do. I was so touched to read my first book with a LGBTQ+ protagonist. It's embarrassing that it took my library so long to provide access to characters/books connected to the LGBTQ+ community.

But yeah this year was amazing for inclusivity. Most of the books had main characters from the Black community and the LGBTQ+ community.

1. Ariah - B. R. Sanders

A touching LGBTQ+ fantasy that reflects our real life society issues and fantastical issues while displaying a collection of identities.

2. Black Leopard, Red Wolf - Marlon James

This is an amazing Afrocentric fantasy book. Never before have I read a fantasy that focused on Africa instead of the typical European medieval setting with a LGBTQ+ protagonist.

It's written well but a lot of parts were tough to read because they were so disturbing but if you have the guts to read past those parts then its an amazing read that I couldn't put down.

3. Hollow Kingdom - Kira Jane Buxton

Fun! Couldn't put this book down. Love reading books with animal protagonist.

4. The Good Luck Girls - Charlotte Nicole Davis

Thrilling fantasy book with a Black female lead and LGBTQ+ representation.

5. Under the Pendulum Sun : a novel of the Fae - Jeannette Ng

6. Into the Drowning Deep - Mira Grant

A Tense horror/Sci-Fi book with a LGBTQ+ lead protagonist. I also appreciate the X-Men references that are peppered throughout the book.

7. A Gathering of Old Men - Ernest J. Gaines

A book similar to "To Kill A Mocking Bird" that brought out so many emotions. Mostly of rage and deep sadness. Excellent book but definitely hard to read sometimes. I loved it so much though and I'm actually planning on watching the movie now.

8. Lord of the White Hell, Book 1 - Ginn Hale

Another LGBTQ+ lead book in the fantasy genre that takes place at an academy. Loved this book and I'm so excited to read part 2.

9. X-men Chaos Engine: Doctor Doom

10. X-men Chaos Engine: Magneto

11. X-men Chaos Engine: Red Skull

Steven A. Roman

Psylocke is the main character in this trilogy! Nuff said! Plus, they're one of the best X-Men books I've ever read. I must confess this is my second round of reading them and I don't usually read books more than once in my life.

[spotaus]

If I have energy I want to draw out some designs for an au I'm spontaneously writing.

(Medieval times, there's a Prophecy. Nightmare rules over this kingdom and is supposed to complete this prophecy, he refuses to because it would harm the people. Dream was sent away and banished by Night because he was dis-illusioned into thinking the prophecy was a Good Thing abd what he was raised to complete. Night collected his Knights (Killer, Dust, Horror, and Cross most recently) and trains them and tells them the truth of the prophecy. They're loyal to him. One day the magic of the prophesy (Apple Magic) leaves Nightmare unexpectedly, returning him to the state he was in before he accepted the mantle. This puts a target on his back and gives Dream a huge advantage in maybe making a comeback. The Knight's decide that their King (newly a young lad and variably scared and frightened) must be protected and they run the kingdom as he normally would, while also ensuring he survives and that the prophecy can't be completed.)

[purpleskelet0n]

HELLO TUMBLR! LIFE AND SCHOOL HAS BEEN KICKING MY ASS BUT THINGS HAVE BEEN GOING GREAT RECENTLY but most importantly...

EVERYONE!!! MEET MAPES! OR MS.MAPLE!

We adopted her just yesterday and she's already come out of her shell so much, went from the laundry room to being right beside me as I type this! she's 13 weeks old and is a total sweetheart.

the creation of Adam, 1519...

[starwarmth]

We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss Havisham still had Estella’s arm drawn through her own, and still clutched Estella’s hand in hers, when Estella gradually began to detach herself. She had shown a proud impatience more than once before, and had rather endured that fierce affection than accepted or returned it.

“What!” said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, “are you tired of me?”

“Only a little tired of myself,” replied Estella, disengaging her arm, and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking down at the fire.

“Speak the truth, you ingrate!” cried Miss Havisham, passionately striking her stick upon the floor; “you are tired of me.”

Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down at the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a self-possessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was almost cruel.

“You stock and stone!” exclaimed Miss Havisham. “You cold, cold heart!”

“What?” said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her eyes; “do you reproach me for being cold? You?”

“Are you not?” was the fierce retort.

“You should know,” said Estella. “I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me.”

“O, look at her, look at her!” cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; “Look at her, so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!”

“At least I was no party to the compact,” said Estella, “for if I could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But what would you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to you. What would you have?”

“Love,” replied the other.

“You have it.”

“I have not,” said Miss Havisham.

“Mother by adoption,” retorted Estella, never departing from the easy grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other did, never yielding either to anger or tenderness, “Mother by adoption, I have said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All that you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I have nothing. And if you ask me to give you what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities.”

“Did I never give her love!” cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to me. “Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at all times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me mad, let her call me mad!”

“Why should I call you mad,” returned Estella, “I, of all people? Does any one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as well as I do? Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half as well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on the little stool that is even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up into your face, when your face was strange and frightened me!”

“Soon forgotten!” moaned Miss Havisham. “Times soon forgotten!”

“No, not forgotten,” retorted Estella. “Not forgotten, but treasured up in my memory. When have you found me false to your teaching? When have you found me unmindful of your lessons? When have you found me giving admission here,” she touched her bosom with her hand, “to anything that you excluded? Be just to me.”

“So proud, so proud!” moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her grey hair with both her hands.

“Who taught me to be proud?” returned Estella. “Who praised me when I learnt my lesson?”

“So hard, so hard!” moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action.

“Who taught me to be hard?” returned Estella. “Who praised me when I learnt my lesson?”

“But to be proud and hard to me!” Miss Havisham quite shrieked, as she stretched out her arms. “Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud and hard to me!”

Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, but was not otherwise disturbed; when the moment was past, she looked down at the fire again.

“I cannot think,” said Estella, raising her eyes after a silence “why you should be so unreasonable when I come to see you after a separation. I have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. I have never been unfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never shown any weakness that I can charge myself with.”

“Would it be weakness to return my love?” exclaimed Miss Havisham. “But yes, yes, she would call it so!”

“I begin to think,” said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment of calm wonder, “that I almost understand how this comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she had never once seen your face—if you had done that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry?”

Miss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat making a low moaning, and swaying herself on her chair, but gave no answer.

“Or,” said Estella, ”—which is a nearer case—if you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her;—if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry?”

Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not see her face), but still made no answer.

“So,” said Estella, “I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”

Great Expectations, ch. 38

[larphis]

Continued listening to WTNV to distract myself and I gotta say I always knew that I was emotionally fragile but I didn‘t know that I was „almost cried over a fictional gay wedding in a podcast"-emotionally fragile.

[zukkaoru]

i can't get over fukuchi referring to aya as "one of jouno's men" like.. what. jouno has one friend (who he pretends he hates) and three coworkers (who he only likes on certain days) and doesn't talk to anyone else besides criminals he's psychologically tormenting. where are these "men" jouno supposedly has. tell me fukuchi. you think he has people bowing to his every whim, apart from tecchou? you think he has people besides tecchou who like him? don't get me wrong, i adore jouno. but he isn't a likable person. he hates people. he's extremely antisocial. he only depends on himself - that's the whole reason he fails in his fight against fukuchi. the only army he'd ever command would be one someone else gave him reign over. where would he be getting these men from. in four days, no less. why does fukuchi seem to think he's formed an entire coup. how long has jouno been working under you? how long have you known him? yeah maybe next time pay more attention to the people right next to you who could become your enemies instead of being jealous fukuzawa chose parenthood over being your war bf.

[criticalrolo]

Justice For Way Cooler Mentors Killed Off For Narrative Convenience

[tenrose]

Not my cat flirting with every pet sitters I get him during my vacations lmao

[windydrawallday]

... Did I ever show [Specthor] 's human design here? Exception for the art trade illustration by my buddy Skully, that I need to print on my journal now that I remember

[wanderingmausoleum]

getting the make another sideblog itch again…this time for writing/OC and history-related topics, because my special interest in the world wars (particularly WW1 atm) has returned with a vengeance and i have ideas for stuff i want to write set in that period…what say you, dear readers

[1000-year-old-virgin]

'"Like now they trying to get rid of all proof that black people ever farmed this land with plows and mules—like if they had nothing from the starten but motor machines. Sure, one day they will get rid of the proof that we ever was, but they ain't go'n do it while I'm still here. Mama and Papa worked too hard in these fields. They mama and they papa worked to hard in these same fields. They mama and they papa people worked too hard, too hard to have that tractor just come in that graveyard and destroy all proof that they ever was."'

Johnny Paul - Chapter 9: Joseph Seaberry—a.k.a. "Rufe", pg. 92

Gaines, Ernest J. A Gathering of Old Men. 1st edition, Knopf, 1983.

[wolfkitty42]

what do you MEAN “haven’t seen a silent movie” buddy bucko get your hats on because we are watching speedy and you WILL enjoy it

[pan3m]

might put plutarch on here . btw

[tenacityreturns]

not kidding my ability to write for kagami WILL NEVER DIE he's always just THERE

[skinks]

it’s so fucking repugnant to overhear men talking amongst themselves like why do I have to be near or around any of them in public. or ever. shut your sick pig mouths maybe

[mishkakagehishka]

Me when i dream of lil Mika but it's another nightmare