#Historical Dead Ladies Club

[pomeraniandancer]

There's a part of me that wonders if the Dead Ladies Club of ASOIAF might (intentionally or unintentionally) also work as a deconstruction of the Dead Ladies Club either IRL, or in fiction.

The average and median life span of women historically, and in many parts of the world today, is pretty brutal. The most dangerous period is of course the child birthing years, which in IRL is honestly an even more brutal and dangerous thing than is portrayed in ASOIAF. If you survive that period (a massive "if"), then chances are you'll live a reasonably long life, but that was assuming you survived both childhood (a remarkable feat in its own right) *and* childbirth.

If you managed to survive both of those things, then yeah, chances are you were going to live a decently long life because you've already proven that you're a fucking indestructible bitch. No wonder Olenna Tyrell is so kickass.

It just makes me ponder the possibility that the Dead Ladies Club is a reflection, and potentially a literary deconstruction of the risks and dangers posed to women's lives regardless of their class or station, and by extension a reflection of their absence from historical records.

I realize this runs the risk of giving GRRM more credit than he deserves, but I'm also pondering over the potential depths to be plumbed in exploring this subject in a literary way more broadly, not just in terms of how GRRM might intentionally or unintentionally be doing so.

which member of the dead ladies club would you have loved to have seen throughout the asoiaf series?

I don't know and have no means to know. Which is the criticism. These characters have no role in the story but to be dead. We don't know who they were or what they wanted. There's almost no trace of them in the narrative to tell us who they were and who they could have been. There's little for me to be interested in, no handle for me to get on their characters.

And they are disproportionately female.

[goodnightmemes]

AGATHA ALL ALONG SENTENCE STARTERS

❛ You don't seem like yourself. ❜

❛ If you wanna be in control, you can be. ❜

❛ Is this really how you see yourself? ❜

❛ Do you remember why you hate me? ❜

❛ The things that you're roasting me for are the things that make me dangerous. ❜

❛ How long have I been here? ❜

❛ Call me "nosy," I'll cut out your tongue. ❜

❛ Can you put on some clothes? 'Cause you... 'Cause you're naked. ❜

❛ Do you remember pain? It kind of tickles, doesn't it? ❜

❛ Maybe I can't kill you, but I can make you wish you were dead. ❜

❛ I am not the only one that wants to see you dead. ❜

❛ Ugh! It really warms the heart. ❜

❛ You don't have a heart. ❜

❛ Be sure to tell the vengeance-seekers I said hi. ❜

❛ That's why I saved you from the spell you were under. ❜

❛ Wherever you are, a coven there shall be. ❜

❛ I feel really optimistic about this. ❜

❛ So you're a bit of a kook. Every witch has their process. ❜

❛ Witches like you are the reason people think we poison apples, and steal children, and eat babies. ❜

❛ Don't you miss the glory days? ❜

❛ The path you're currently on leads nowhere. ❜

❛ Hey! Where do you keep your jade eggs? I'm fresh out of marbles, and my pelvic floor is all over the place. ❜

❛ I haven't seen you since I made a really pointed effort to never run into you again.❜

❛ Historically, we as a group don't do well in courtrooms. ❜

❛ People like you are dangerous. ❜

❛ Are there any real witches in the house? ❜

❛ What a team of rejects. ❜

❛ This is just a really, really, really horrible party. ❜

❛ It's giving "middle-aged second chance at love" vibes and I'm here for it. ❜

❛ Okay, so a witch is really just another name for a bad girl, is that right? ❜

❛ I'm not saying that I wanna join the club or anything, but I would drink the blood of a virgin if it would smooth out some of these wrinkles. ❜

❛ So the hallucinations seem chill. ❜

❛ I can't protect you! ❜

❛ I do not wanna die here. This is not where I die. ❜

❛ They can take your power, but they can't take your knowledge. ❜

❛ I didn't think you had it in you. ❜

❛ We were supposed to look out for each other, but we didn't. That was our fatal mistake. ❜

❛ I wish we could go home. ❜

❛ People can't be replaced. ❜

❛ Are we in trouble? Like, more than we were ten minutes ago? ❜

❛ Honestly, I don't know how to feel. Do I hate her? Or do I want her phone number? ❜

❛ I'm feeling impatient. I'm feeling like I wanna cause some damage. ❜

❛ Once vengeance is loosed, you can't reel it back in. ❜

❛ The only way to end a curse is to face it. ❜

❛ Sad is better than angry. ❜

❛ You don't have to know a person's name to know who they are. ❜

❛ Are you really defending a noted serial killer, you creepy lurker? ❜

❛ The moral of the story, kids, is always finish what you started. Also, mercy is overrated. ❜

❛ Who better to commune with the dead than someone who's put so many in the grave? ❜

❛ I mean, or we could just slit her throat. ❜

❛ But we were getting along, weren't we? We were clicking. There was unity. ❜

❛ She's possessed! For real this time! ❜

❛ I hate ghosts. ❜

❛ Why do you hate me still?❜

❛ You were born evil. ❜

❛ Please take me with you. ❜

❛ She was protecting you. But you don't deserve it. ❜

❛ I couldn't... I couldn't control it. ❜

❛ Death comes for us all. ❜

❛ You're so much like your mother. ❜

❛ We love you more than we could ever hope to communicate in human words. ❜

❛ You don't need to be a psychic to see that you're a good egg. ❜

❛ Enjoy the now, baby. It's the only thing that's certain. ❜

❛ Nothing in my life has felt normal until I met you. ❜

❛ I want you to know the real me. ❜

❛ You're so adorably trusting. ❜

❛ Word to the wise, don't go sniffing around there. ❜

❛ You seriously don't know what kind of crazy that lady eats for breakfast. ❜

❛ I panicked, so I ran. ❜

❛ Could we, like, maybe not, with the physical violence? ❜

❛ Power doesn't interest me. ❜

❛ Yeah. Well, what you did was ehhh … but life goes on. Yours, anyway. ❜

❛ I mean, I've killed...uh...my share. But you don't see it holding me back. ❜

❛ Don't you dare feel guilty about your talent. You survived. ❜

❛ So you broke the rules. Big deal. That's what kept you alive. That's what makes you special. ❜

❛ I don't need you anymore. I don't know if I ever did. ❜

❛ If you really wanna finish this together, just know that I do not trust you. At all. ❜

❛ You'll get a nosebleed trying that hard to read my mind. ❜

❛ Hey, you want straight answers, ask a straight lady. ❜

❛ Tell me what more I should see, when I look at you. ❜

❛ You know, we really hated each other from the beginning. But now...I love you, guys. ❜

❛ I'm a forgotten woman. ❜

❛ Death comes for us all. It is what we all have in common. ❜

❛ I can see all the pieces falling into place. The gaps are filling in. ❜

❛ I'm telling you now because soon I'm not going to remember any of this. ❜

❛ I hope you'll join me. ❜

❛ I needed you. My coven. ❜

❛ What can I say? I like the bad boys. ❜

❛ I loved being a witch. ❜

❛ That's it? That's all the... That's all the time I get? ❜

❛ This can't be the end. It has to be the beginning. ❜

❛ I watch you. Just as closely as you watch everyone else. ❜

❛ No one in history has had special treatment like you. ❜

❛ You gave me nothing. You took. ❜

❛ Why do you let them believe those things about you, hmm? ❜

❛ What fresh horrors await us! ❜

❛ You seem relaxed. Usually at this point you're either complaining loudly or freaking out loudly. ❜

❛ It's nice. That feeling when your body knows it's safe. ❜

❛ Sometimes...boys die. ❜

❛ Congratulations, my love! I'm sorry I didn't have a ribbon for you to run through. ❜

❛ Why don't you want me? ❜

❛ Power looks good on you. ❜

❛ You do this and I will hate you forever. ❜

❛ Please let him live. Please, my love! ❜

❛ If you want to survive, get used to this feeling. ❜

❛ I cannot protect you from what's coming. ❜

❛ I saw you die. ❜

❛ And now, I'm a ghost. Can you dig it? ❜

❛ By the way, I did not sacrifice myself for you. I took a calculated risk. ❜

❛ You're making fun of me. This is just one of your tricks. ❜

❛ You have something of mine. I know you took it. ❜

❛ Why are you still here? Why won't you just die? ❜

❛ I'm sure he would forgive you for... whatever you did. ❜

❛ We could make a good team. You and me. ❜

[bookcub]

Chappell Roan Book Rec

like many other, I am currently obsessed with The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess so here are a few book recs based on the songs!!

(you can message me for questions about content warnings!)

Femininomon

A Guest in the House by E. M. Carroll (horror graphic novel)

What happens when you marry a mediocre liar and there's a ghost you are definitely attracted to in the house (that might be his dead wife)?

Relevant lyric: Stuck in the suburbs, you're folding his laundry/Got what you wanted so stop feeling sorry

Bonus Rec: Romancing the Inventor by Gail Carriger (adult steampunk romance)

Red Wine Supernova

Satisfaction Guaranteed by Karelia Stenz-Waters (adult romance)

Imagine inheriting a sex toy shop with a enchanting stranger who you feel incredibly connected to. . .

Relevant lyric: I heard you like magic/I got a wand and a rabbit

Bonus Rec: Sunstone by Stjepan Šejić (adult romance graphic novel)

After Midnight

Ash by Malinda Lo (YA fantasy)

I had to choose a queer Cinderella for this one, especially one whose mother warns her away from the forest at night.

Relevant lyric: This is what I wanted, this is what I like/I've been a good, good girl for a long time now

Bonus Rec: A Restless Truth by Freya Marske (adult historical fantasy, sequel)

Coffee

The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec (adult fantasy)

When your ex is the trickster god Loki and you have prophetic futures, you know you can never just have coffee.

Relevant lyric: Here come the excuses that fuel the illusions/But I'd rather feel something than nothing at all,

Bonus Rec: Seven Days in June by Tia Williams (adult contemporary)

Casual

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi (adult gothic)

Remember that toxic homoerotic best friend you had a child? Who believed in magic and was also the most manipulative person you've ever met? It never was a casual relationship, was it?

Relevant lyric: Hate that I let this drag on so long, you can go to hell

Bonus Rec: Ben and Beatriz by Katalina Gamarra (adult romance)

Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl

A Spindle Splintered/A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow (adult fantasy)

Entering the fairy tale multiverse always leads to the strangest (and funnest) relationships (platonic and romantic) of your life.

Relevant lyrics: We're leaving the planet and you can't come

Bonus Rec: Cash Degado is Living the Dream by Tehlor Kay Mejia (adult contemporary)

HOT TO GO!

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz (graphic novel)

What if I dressed up as a count to inherit my father's fortune and you were a princess and we both liked grilled cheese???

Relevant lyric: I could be the one, or your new addiction/ It's all in my head but I want non-fiction

Bonus Rec: Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert

My Kink is Karma

Mrs. Martin's Incomparable Adventure by Courtney Milan (adult historical romance)

She said, let's destroy my terrible nephew's life, and how could you say no to such a romantic proposal?

Relevant lyric: Wishing you the best, in the worst way

Bonus Rec: Girl Serpent Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust (YA fantasy)

Picture You

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall (adult historical romance)

Oops, I faked my death and reinvented myself and you were way more distraught than I thought you would be. . .

Relevant lyric: Do you picture me like I picture you?/Am I in the frame from your point of view?

Kaleidoscope

The Scapegracers by H. A. Clarke (YA urban fantasy)

What if we formed a coven and what if we were all a little in love with each other?

Relevant lyric: And love is a kaleidoscope/How it works we'll never know

Bonus Rec: The Girls I've Been by Tess Sharpe (YA thriller)

Pink Pony Club

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang (graphic novel)

He was a drag queen, she was a seamstress, can I make it anymore obvious?

Relevant Lyric: And I heard that there's a special place/Where boys and girls can all be queens every single day

Bonus Rec: Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo (YA historical)

Naked in Manhattan

Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail by Ashley Herring Blake (adult romance)

Isn't it romantic, designing a house with someone with your entirely opposite tastes?

Relevant lyric: Boys suck and girls I've never tried

Bonus Rec: Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust (YA fantasy)

California

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers (adult contemporary)

If a PhD can't save you, maybe a drunken marriage in Vegas can?

Relevant lyric: Cause I was never told that I wasn't gonna get/The things I want the most

Guilty Pleasure

Something to Talk About by Meryl Wilsner (adult romance)

Fake dating your boss? 0/10 recommended. . . right?

Relevant lyric: I want this like a cigarette/Can we drag it out and never quit?

Bonus Rec: That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming (adult fantasy romance)

Bonus:

Good Luck, Babe

Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni (adult contemporary)

Relevant lyric: You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling

Ophelia After All by Racquel Marie (YA contemporary)

[dwellordream]

Best Reads of 2024

this year i read 300 books. which i think is impressive but not as impressive as it sounds bc many of these books were very short, easy reads meant to be like, stuff you read at the airport or sitting by the pool on vacation. so it's not like i was tackling the harvard classics. i also read extremely fast; it only takes me about an hour to do 300 pages unless it's a super dense complex text. that said, here is a list of all the books i read this year that i would rate 4 stars or higher, separated by genre: Fantasy/Magical Realism: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett Highfire by Eoin Colfer Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi Chlorine by Jade Song The Passion by Jeanette Winterson The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter Realistic Fiction: We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride & Jo Piazza Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent Only Child by Rhiannon Navin Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper Prima Facie by Suzie Miller Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg Piglet by Lottie Hazell The List by Yomi Adegoke A Winter's Rime by Carol Dunbar The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas

Mystery/Thriller: Queenpin by Megan Abbott Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley The Guest by Emma Cline Advika and the Hollywood Wives by Kirthana Ramisetti Kala by Colin Walsh Descent by Tim Johnston Wahala by Nikki May When We Were Bright and Beautiful by Jillian Medoff We Could Be Beautiful by Swan Huntley Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll Nothing Can Hurt You by Nicola Maye Goldberg Fruit of the Dead by Rachel Lyon The Lagos Wife by Vanessa Walters Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson Yes, Daddy by Jonathan Parks-Ramage Cape Fear by John D. MacDonald Sea Wife by Amity Gaige Last Seen Wearing by Hilary Waugh The Black Cabinet by Patricia Wentworth Historical Fiction: Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen Gilded Mountain by Kate Manning All You Have to Do is Call by Kerri Maher Cruel Beautiful World by Caroline Leavitt Payback by Mary Gordon A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley The Affairs of the Falcons by Melissa Rivero Longbourn by Jo Baker The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson Go to Hell Ole Miss by Jeff Barry The Divorcees by Rowan Beaird Consequences by Penelope Lively Iron Curtain: A Love Story by Vesna Goldsworthy Homestead by Melinda Moustakis Not Our Kind by Kitty Zeldis Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell Teddy by Emily Dunlay Science Fiction: Prophet Song by Paul Lynch Aesthetica by Allie Rowbottom Fever by Deon Meyer The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones Land of Milk and Honey by C. Pam Zhang Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet Briefly Very Beautiful by Roz Dineen

Romance: Everything’s Fine by Cecilia Rabess Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler Meant to Be Mine by Hannah Orenstein When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson American Royalty by Tracey Livesay The One by Julie Argy The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin Queen of Urban Prophecy by Aya de Léon That Dangerous Energy by Aya de Léon The Dove in the Belly by Jim Grimsley Fatima Tate Takes the Cake by Khadija VanBrakle Faro’s Daughter by Georgette Heyer Horror: Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka Cujo by Stephen King Night Watching by Tracy Sierra The Garden by Clare Beams The House of Ashes by Stuart Neville The Suicide Motor Club by Christopher Buehlman True Crime: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote Columbine by Dave Cullen Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio by Derf Backderf Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou While Idaho Slept: The Hunt for Answers in the Murders of Four College Students by J. Reuben Appelman The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age by Michael Wolraich Fatal Vision by Joe McGinniss Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope

History: Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel The Burning Blue: The Untold Story of Christa McAuliffe and Nasa’s Challenger Disaster by Kevin Cook The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House by Sally Bedell Smith As Long as We Both Shall Love: The White Wedding in Postwar America by Karen M. Dunak Babysitter: An American History by Miriam Forman-Brunell Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin All She Lost: The Explosion in Lebanon, the Collapse of a Nation and the Women who Survive by Dalal Mawad Psychology: Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker The Anxious Generation: How The Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff Misdiagnosed: One Woman’s Tour of -And Escape From- Healthcareland by Jody Berger Stolen Child: A Mother’s Journey to Rescue Her Son from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Laurie Gough Zig-Zag Boy: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood by Tanya Frank I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy Us, After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide by Rachel Zimmerman Everything Is Fine: A Memoir by Vince Granata Juliet the Maniac by Juliet Escoria

Memoir: Upstairs At The White House by J.B. West A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival by Kelly Sundberg This Boy We Made: A Memoir of Motherhood, Genetics, and Facing the Unknown by Taylor Harris I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell Fragile Beginnings: Discoveries and Triumphs in the Newborn ICU by Adam Wolfberg The Longest Race: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike’s Elite Running Team by Kara Goucher and Mary Pilon Remedies for Sorrow: An Extraordinary Child, a Secret Kept from Pregnant Women, and a Mother’s Pursuit of the Truth by Megan Nix Brazen: My Unorthodox Journey from Long Sleeves to Lingerie by Julia Haart Minding the Manor: The Memoir of a 1930s English Kitchen Maid by Mollie Moran Love in the Blitz: The War Letters of Eileen Alexander to Gershon Ellenbogan by Eileen Alexander Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story by Lis Smith The Apology by Eve Ensler Wild Game: My Mother, Her Secret, and Me by Adrienne Brodeur One Way Back: A Memoir by Christine Blasey Ford Biography: The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty by Susan Page Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson by Rebecca Boggs Roberts King: A Life by Jonathan Eig Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams by Louisa Thomas American Girls: One Woman’s Journey into the Islamic State and Her Sister’s Fight to Bring Her Home by Jessica Roy Susan, Linda, Nina, and Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR by Lisa Napoli

Gender: Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement by Andi Zeisler All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership by Darcy Lockman Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks Enslaved Women in America: From Colonial Times to Emancipation by Emily West You’ll Do: A History of Marrying for Reasons Other Than Love by Marcia A. Zug The Red Menace: How Lipstick Changed the Face of American History by Ilise S. Carter Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian Faderman

[fancyfeathers]

Okay I was scrolling through one of my favorite blogs, @yandere-wishes, and reading through their posts about ballet in yandere content and then I saw their posts about a certain William James Moriarty and then it clicked…

He would have a ballerina darling.

I need you to bear with me on this one, but I know a lot about ballet and the history of it because I am a ballerina. Historically, especially around the time Moriarty the Patriot takes place, ballerinas were also female entertainment after performances. Opera houses and theaters were essentially gentlemen’s clubs after performances, men of the higher classes would visit these girls and young ladies, who were basically living off of pennies, and in exchange for their time and sometimes their bodies the girls would receive gifts like just enough money to pay for rent, better point shoes that would only last a few weeks at most, better clothing that they wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise. Even if they didn’t want to this is what they needed to do in order to survive and even parents of these woman made them do it.

So just imagine all three brothers go to the ballet together to perhaps look into the owner of the theater due to rumors of abuse of their employees. After the show when they go backstage they hear the sound of yelling and following it to see a frightened young lady who looks like she is about to cry being scolded by the ballet mistress. She apparently messed up during the performance and while she did it was for a reason. She tries to explain to the instructor why she was so tired during the performance but the older lady won’t hear any of it, only telling her to wipe away her pathetic tears so she go out onto the floor like the other girls to “mingle” with the guests, since she was just expressing how she needed new shoes. The girl sighs as her superior walks off and she goes off to one of the vanities to freshen up and as she is reapplying her makeup and wiping away her tears, Williams sees what she was crying about…

He spots finger shaped bruises on her wrists along with more bruises just barely hiding under her costume.

She looks like she is about to break down crying again as she cries to readjusts her makeup and hair in the mirror, knowing that it is only going to end up being ruined again by the end of the night. That’s when a larger hand grabs the brush from her own hand, that was trembling so badly that she almost dropped it. She looks in the reflection of the mirror to see a handsome man behind her with blond hair and scarlet eyes. He smiles at her ever so kindly as he begins to help her brush through her hair…

“Now why do you stain you face with such tears? What is wrong, my dear?”

And she cracks, telling this near stranger everything, what she has to do to earn her living, what people do to her, she cries as quietly as she can so no one can hear her as she tells him how she just it wants it all to stop. He smiles at her as he tries her hair up with the ribbon she had in it before during the performance and simply tells her…

“Then your wish is my command.”

He gives her money so that she doesn’t have to perform any unsavory activities with the people here tonight and she can just go home to get a good night’s rest. She doesn’t get his name as she nods and runs off to get changed and while she is out of sight, William asks one of his brothers to follow her home so she gets back safely while he goes to speak with a few of the others that are there that night, not to get her address because he already knows it, an apartment in a poorer area of the city. He also knows that her mother forced her into this and then kicked her out when she told her that she didn’t want to do it anymore, he knows that her father is dead, he knows that she only continues this job because she has no where else to go and if she looses it because an incident happened to the owners of the theater that ended in their untimely deaths then she would have no source of income.

She would come home in tears when she lost her job, both in relief and sadness, and be told by her landlord that a young gentleman was here to see her, with a mention that rent was due by the end of the week that she had no way to pay for. So she goes up to her apartment to see that same gentleman from that night sitting in her apartment, smiling at her…

After all she is going to need some place to live once she can’t pay rent anymore.

[charsimsalot]

READ THE ANCIENT ARCHIVES: ENTRY 17

I didn’t meet Grim at Club Eternity as I’d hoped, but I did meet someone else! Someones else actually; I shouldn’t let the excitement of meeting Esther Gomes induce me to forget the odd and very notable meeting I had with Kai Aether.

I met Kai while waiting for my Plasma Jane. I was very glad to find they serve them at Club Eternity — more on that later! Kai is a ghost who resides over in Whispering Glen with his husband and son. However, despite coming out to Club Eternity that evening with its mostly ghost clientele, despite being a ghost himself, he claimed not to believe in ghosts and not to “want them around even if they do exist.”

Oh dear. There are vampires who, after being non-consensually turned, take some time to accept the reality of their new occult identity. This can happen even if their new master or some other vampire informs them of the facts. Of course, there is only so long a vampire can go on like that. A fledgling needs plasma. Vlad has taken it upon himself to call new turns on the phone, welcome them to community, and send them plasma packs. Apparently, he senses new turns with his “ancient plasma senses.” Lilith says he only does it because knows how to make himself an appealing port in a storm.

Kai was none too happy when I said I was in Ravenwood on behalf of the Occult Historical Society and in Mourningvale on a quest to meet Grim. He said he knew none of that nonsense was real and reacted as though I was trying to trick him. No tricks, I told him, just the pursuit and sharing of knowledge! Then the bartender served up my Plasma Jane. He frowned at it and made his excuses to leave. I wished him a good night. He shook his head and wished me one too. I hope he has had a good night! I hope he can work through his supernatural scepticism soon. I can understand it, but it does no good. Best to make the best of one’s situation and make from this a new and better situation.

And oh, I did have a good night! Not long after Kai left, Esther came over and asked — rather meaningfully I hoped — if the seat beside me was taken. I looked back and saw xem, glowing at the edges, electric-green. I was already very glad the seat beside me wasn’t taken and I only got gladder as the night progressed.

Xie introduced xirself, and I realised who xie was, Zelmira’s mother’s sibling and the Ghost Host of the Order of Lenore. Xie hadn’t realised who I was before I introduced myself either. I told xem that xir nibling had mentioned xir, and xie said that Zelmira’s parents used to be dead too! Tziporah, Esther’s sister, resurrected herself with ambrosia, and her brother-in-law was reborn at somewhere called the Baleful Bog, in Mourningvale. Esther said xie will help me investigate the Baleful Bog further when I am not so busy with quests for Zelmira and Nyon! I’ve heard of ambrosia resurrection from Caleb, he’s on the Ambrosia Society mailing list and says he’d love to cook it himself and would love to know the taste of it, if only he were sure that it wouldn’t bring him back to life after all the work that he’s put into developing his vampire powers. He’s almost certain it wouldn’t but he says he can’t risk it — even though he’s really tempted. Lilith says she’s almost certain he’s not stupid enough to try.

Esther said Zelmira had mentioned that I had taken on some quests for them and Nyon, intending to put together a deck of Lady Ravendancer Goth’s cards. Esther thinks very highly of Lady Ravendancer, and said they go way, way, way back, and that even though the Order of Lenore has dwindled to four members these days, it’s something that there are people who still care. I told xem yes, that’s why I was in Mourningvale, in the hopes of happening upon Grim. It turns out Esther and xir best friend Zuleika work as Reapers! Still, Nyon entrusted the gnome to me. I need to be the one to pass it on.

I was a little hesitant after my conversation with Kai to explain my work with the Occult History Society, but this hesitance turned out to be entirely unwarranted. Esther did not accuse me of taking xem for a fool and in fact was very excited to hear more. I was a little worried too, what with how close xie is to Lady Ravendancer, what with how far back they go, that my being a vampire would not be well received. It’s not something I hide. It’s usually received just fine, by all except werewolves I mean, but well, Zelmira had had their concerns about my meeting Lady Ravendancer. I really needn’t have worried about Esther. Xie knew already from Zelmira that I am a vampire, and that I too go way, way, way back.

Xie doesn’t know that I was not a vampire the whole time. No-one here knows. I haven’t known anyone here very long at all. Still, we talked for hours. It sounds to me like Esther enjoys being a ghost, which doesn’t exactly match up with the Book of Life Zelmira said their mother wants to write for xem. I didn’t ask. It might have been too personal for now.

We talked about my research into the occult history of Ravenwood so far. Esther said xie really admires my efforts for the Occult Historical Society and said xie would be glad to teach me more about ghosts and Ravenwood. We talked about Esther’s long-time interest in ghosts, even back when xie was still living, and xir post-mortem interest in ghost history.

“Just because I lived through centuries of history — afterlived, for much of it — doesn’t mean I know it all,” xie said. “There was ghost history before I died, and of course I don’t know all the ghost history I was around at the same time as either. I want to know it all better, you know?”

Oh, I know! Of course, I know! Esther said xie wants to feel like “the most knowledgeable ghostie” xie can be. I can relate ever so much to that! Esther did say xie’s partially motivated by spite. Xie said xie doesn’t want Waylon to be able to lord knowing more about ghosts over xem. That’s… well, it isn’t my motivation, spite I mean, but I think I understand it. It works for Lilith; she’s always becoming a more and more formidable sparring opponent. I can well relate to having my frustrations with Waylon.

We both had to really focus to hear each other over the club’s music. We were trying to have the kind of conversations you have in an archive perhaps, not a nightclub. I had to watch Esther’s shimmering lips closely. We had to lean closer and closer. When we’d both finished our first drinks, xie offered to buy me my next, and it tasted all the better for it.

Esther said she was curious about the taste. I told xem that unfortunately only vampires could digest plasma fruit, I’d only ever known it to make everyone else sick. I told xem Morgyn insisted on trying it despite Caleb’s warnings because they just had to know what it tasted like and had ended the night throwing up in the bar’s toilets, with Caleb looking after them and being good enough to only tell them once that he told them this would happen. I told Esther that Wolfgang set his mind on trying “just a little” because “there are some things you cannot understand without experiencing them yourself” and he wanted to understand vampires better. I didn’t see the point in this because, with him being a werewolf, I had no idea if it would even taste the same, and certainly I doubted it would be as satisfying, but he tried “just a little” anyway and was more than “just a little” sick in a nearby bush. At least he didn’t throw the whole glass back like Morgyn had.

“You've got some gutsy friends,” Esther chuckled.

“Spilling-their-gutsy friends,” I said. Xir assessment was very correcct and I couldn’t help but laugh fondly.

Xie asked how I knew ghosts couldn’t drink it, after all, we’re both dead. I had to say I didn’t know. Well, xie said with twinkling eyes and a pink glow flushing quickly from xir heart through all that electric green, as ghost researchers, perhaps this is the sort of the thing we’d better find out — if I didn’t mind xem trying my drink, that is. So, I watched xem watch me as I took another sip, and pushed the glass that small distance between us, and xie lifted it aloft and met my eyes over the top of it.

“To knowing us better,” Esther said, not shouted over the music, but said with surety, leant in close enough for me to hear.

Then xie placed xir lips where mine had been and drank. Oh, my heart was beating so fast. It was a good thing xie had bought me that second Plasma Jane to make up for it! Xie licked xir lips and was clearly telling the truth when xie said xie liked the kick of it.

Still, Morgyn and Wolfgang liked the taste too. They just didn’t like how it tasted coming back up.

I told Esther xie would need my number to report back on xir findings, and xie told me, “Smart thinking!” and took it with a gleam in xir eyes. Soon afterwards, xie shook my hand, xirs magnolia pink and thrillingly cool in mine, and said xie looked forward to learning more with me. I watched xir float away through the rainbow of ghosts on the dance floor.

I await a response. For all that Esther was willing to risk the Plasma Jane disagreeing with xem, I hope xie will text me back tomorrow to say xie’s been none the worse for it. Xie’s right! Maybe it will work out better for xem as a ghost than it did for Morgyn or Wolfgang!

I think I will call Caleb with the good news of our encounter. If I were still living in Forgotten Hollow, we’d probably already be debriefing together over whatever baked goods he’d made in the last couple of days. Or maybe I’d be telling all to Elle. We have a long history of talking about romance with each other. Well, it was only her romance initially, with Dillin. I didn’t have any of my own and of course I don’t really remember those conversations, but after I was turned I continued to be the person she went to for this kind of talk, and I had romances of my own to speak of, and then Dillin became someone whose name she cursed, and ever since things soured between her and Dillin she has been very insistent that I know my worth in my relationships, and that just because a relationship has been long doesn’t mean I should settle in it if that means compromising on who I am and what I deserve.

I haven’t called Elle since I moved to Ravenwood. I don’t really want to call her tonight. I wonder what she thinks of me, leaving it so long without a word about what I’ve been doing? It’s just… she does not fully approve of what I’m doing here, researching for the Occult Historical Society, moving away to do it. I don’t want to listen to her tell me I shouldn’t. I even feel a little like I don’t want to listen to her in general, right now. Oh, what kind of thinking is this? What good is it? Soon. I’ll call her soon.

Oh! Just received a text from Esther: “Research findings are thus: ghosts cannot digest plasma fruit either. Sigh! It was so sweet. Well, the more we know the better, and either way I get to be in these detailed notes of yours.”

And xie signed the message with two kisses!

start ❘ prev ❘ next

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I've been so excited for entry! I've had a great time playing Inna and Esther together. Maybe Inna's particular kind of cheerful and Esther's particular kind of macabre will go together well?

I may have credited this in an earlier post but I'll do it again! It's such a good idea! The specific idea that Elle DeVampiro and Dillin Derito are going through a messy divorce originated with @dead-lights and she goes into detail about it in this post.

[bunniisms]

Amity is the absolute world to me, and it's funny cause she doesn't feel sorry at all for being an all-watching, consuming insect monster (I mean, maybe she's sorry for herself, but non-apologetic as a whole). like she has a beef with a friend of mine's vampire character - they run vampire speak easy's and try to move the population around and facilitate underground human-cattle esc blood networks and keep the vamps going to avoid getting noticed by the big dogs like Hellsing.

But Amity's the bitch that keeps getting them busted - and they call her a traitor - she has to live off of the living just like them, so why side with them. And she finds it funny, stupid, stupid vampires to imagine there's some fictional familial network connecting them. This isn't how life works, nor how the world works. SHE'D eat them all alive if not for the fact that their dead flesh is useless to her swarm. Her loyalty is only to hers and her own

Peace was never on the table for Lady Pestilence. She's a corrupter, a rotter, her voice infiltrating and infesting far before you notice how endemic she's become. How many of their men became HER men? Do they want to tally and count? Games like these feed into the Sadism inherent in the Jorōgumo. She's just a little wicked

(ALSO FUN HISTORIC CONTEXT, the word Pestilence started seeing use in Old English and is a borrowed word from Old French, and it essentially translates to 'The morally corrupting/rotting/general moral entropy' because Medieval Europeans viewed the plague as a moral failing (because, for much of human history, morality and disease and faith were allllll interconnected and viewed as one singular thing) )

As a tangent, though, how this impacts Amity and the dynamics she forms with her informants is interesting - especially around the artificial vampire issue. Cause, Amity, as wicked and scrupleless a minx as she is, even with her heart at its coldest, does hold fondness and respect for her informants, and while manipulative, she does want to honour her end of the agreement made with them in exchange for their information. It's not her desire to treat them as tools or disposable, though ultimately, her actions do cross this boundary frequently.

But the reason for this, honestly? Lies in the fact Amity KNOWS an unfortunate truth, a LOT of her informants from these underground clubs and rings aren't there by choice - they're not the rich kid lovers or the Luke and Jan sort.

They're more like Helena. They are people in positions without power who had choices made for them without their consent by people abusing power over them, and currently, they're just as much trapped as the people they have to feed off. And, while Amity leverages their desire to get out for information she can't always gather herself, she doesn't WANT to abandon them to their fate or let their service be returned with betrayal and murder. Think of what that would do for her reputation! (she says, while truthfully caring less about that fact than about the memory in the back of her mind of these people relying on her so rawly, presenting their wounds at her feet and asking 'help me,')

So, when it comes to the matter of 'dealing' with them, Amity leans more on the side of hope and dreams and personally champions ( read as. pushes) Integra and the Round Table to probe further into the chips and learn to reverse them - if only because she wants to see a lot of her informants be able to be unshackled from their ailment (or at least reduced to a human condition to face punishment). Which Integra bawks at the logistics of, but Amity compares it to victims trapped under rubble by a tsunami.

YES, their condition is worsening, and they're losing humanity. Yes, it would be labour intensive to free them to the point some could argue it's a waste of time because 'what if they're too far gone, they'll die eventually anyways, ' but she argues any efforts to save and salvage souls are worthwhile, if only to honour the hope Hellsing gave them.

This being said, Amity KNOWS the likelihood of being able to reverse, or at least disable, the artificial effects is next to nil. After all, how many can boast that they've raised the dead? But Amity's doesn't want to leave that book, or it's potential untracked. But either way, dead or alive, she won't lose sleep. She's served her role*.

(*Amity is entirely ethically on board with putting them down if there's no other choice, and she knows that it's just the hope- if they CAN do something and make them half-artificial-vamp-half-human like Mina, or just fully revert 'em, that's the dream but if not she doesn't think it hurts to try.)

[sapphicbookclub]

Author Spotlight: Lee Swanson

In a follow up to our previous club read, No Man Is Her Master, the Sapphic Book Club is excited to participate in another virtual book tour for Lee Swanson. This time, we're celebrating the release of the last book in the series, She Serves the Realm. Check out the full article below to hear more about lesbians in the Middle Ages, the No Man Is Her Master series, and stay tuned to Goodreads for club member reviews.

In my historical fiction series, No Man is Her Master, the novel’s protagonist and the married Lady Cecily Baldewyne engage in a torrid illicit romance. What makes their love affair doubly dangerous is that the recipient of Lady Cecily’s affection, Christina Kohl, is another woman who leads her life in the male guise of her supposedly-dead brother, Frederick. In the soon-to-be-released fourth novel in the series, She Serves the Realm, Lady Cecily learns her husband is dead and she is at last free to wed her beloved. Consequently, according to 14th century English law, Cecily is no longer guilty of adultery. But, if the authorities discover the truth of Christina’s gender, would they punish the two lovers for the crime of homosexuality instead? Probably not. First, medieval society largely viewed sex as a penetrative act aimed at procreation. Consequently, by this interpretation sex between women was impossible because, if it was sex, one of the participants must be a man and what they were doing then did not fall under the definition of an unnatural act. Is the fact Christina and Cecily engage in lovemaking an unusual act for lesbians of the Middle Ages? Apparently not. Etienne de Fougeres, the chaplain of King Henry II of England, authored a satirical poem in 1170, Le Livre des Manières, alluding to women’s desire for sex within their own gender: These ladies have made up a game: with two bits of nonsense they make nothing; they bang coffin against coffin, without a poker stir up their fire. They don’t play at “poke in the paunch,” but join shield to shield without a lance. They have no concern for a beam in their scales, nor a handle in their mold. Out of water they fish for turbot and they have no need for a rod. They don’t bother with a pestle in their mortar nor a fulcrum for their see-saw.

Then did lesbians in the Middle Ages feel free to pleasure themselves and each other sexually without fear of legal repercussions? Seemingly so, as there are only about a dozen recorded instances of civil or ecclesiastical trials of women associated with the practice. Of these, most of the accused had ignored one of the key elements in the definition of the punishable crime of sodomy. In one of the extremely few cases prosecuted against a woman, the German imperial court sentenced Katherina Hetzeldorfer from the Rhineland town of Speyer to death in 1477 for wanting to “have her manly way” with women, some of whom testify against her. Upon examination, the defendant admitted that she used a piece of wood held between her legs and had constructed a wooden device covered with leather and stuffed with cotton to penetrate her partners. Although obviously still incapable of procreation, the good burghers of Speyer consider her acts sufficiently heinous to drown Katherina in the Rhine River for her crime. Christina hides the secret of her true gender well, as revealing herself as a woman would ruin her standing as a Hanseatic merchant and clearly perturb King Edward II who had seen fit to knight her. It’s reassuring to know what she and Cecily share in their bedchamber will probably not be the potential cause of their demise.

Lee Swanson is author of the No Man Is Her Master sapphic historical novel quadrilogy. The series concluded with She Serves the Realm, which released June 11, 2024.

[tailsbeth-writes]

🍍🍓🍒🍊🥝🍇 for the fruit ask game!

🍍 What kind of AUs do you like? Are there any AUs you hate or just generally have beef with?

I've not written a ton of AUs myself but I like reading vampire or paranormal AUs, historical/royal AUs & sex club/work AUs (the dynamics are fascinating in relation to character building). I don't have anything I hate, I don't tend to read kidfic very often but I think that reflects on me being afraid to grow up (lol I'm 31) than anything else 😂

🍓 What’s a fic you’ve written you feel is underrated?

I could speak (or just let my body explain) - the third installment of Bigender Alex AU and also my first collaboration. I reread it a lot myself cause I love it. 

🍒 What’s your favorite character dynamic to write? (Can be romantic or platonic, specific or general!)

I love sibling banter, I'm an only child so I think I live vicariously through it 😂 I also love a grumpy/sunshine combo (romantic/platonic), I've working on some potential Dead Boy Detectives fics with a lot of this. 

🍊 Who’s a character you don’t write for that often, but keep meaning to write for more? (They’re so interesting! But maybe you have trouble pinning them down, or keep getting distracted by another blorbo…)

I have so many ideas for Beatrice (RWRB). And in general all the characters in other fandoms that aren't RWRB 😅

🥝 What’s your favorite trope/AO3 tag to write?

Probably canon-conpliant if I'm honest. Even when I was writing fanfic years ago for Skam etc, I stuck with canon mostly. I like getting to explore the internal vibes of characters once the dust has settled. I also like a bit of angst or hurt/comfort, while I explore darker topics on occasion, I don't leave the fic without resolution or support.

🍇 Is there a particular scene/episode/book/etc that you want to just write a million fics about, over and over? Which one?

I mean I feel like the 33 RWRB fics speak for themselves 😂 but I do have plans for Bridgerton, Dead Boy Detectives & My Lady Jane fics, especially now I have a little more free time (I say this but this year has just been so busy! Honestly so rude, people don't think to look at my writing schedule when they plan their life events)

Send me a fic writer fruit ask 💌

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: july 2023

I don't have a cool and witty opening for this one. I read a fuck of a lot of books this month and I want to tell you about them LET'S GO

Black Water Sister (Zen Cho, 2021) - Black Water Sister has a very fun premise: a closeted lesbian and unemployed recent graduate moves back to Malaysia with her parents and is already having a bad enough time when she starts hearing the voice of her dead grandmother, who turns out to have been deeply involved in supernatural organized crime. our hapless protagonist becomes a medium against her will, and has to navigate to world of Malaysian spirits and superstition to lay her grandma to rest. unfortunately the actual style of the story wasn't more me; although definitely adult fiction, the prose is breezy in a way I affiliate strongly with YA, which is not to my personal taste but is still so hashtag valid. if you're one of the countless people trying to make that jump from YA to adult fiction and you like queer urban fantasy then Black Water Sister might be a great fit for you, although I should provide a warning for a pretty surprisingly graphic near-rape in the book's climax that really took me by surprise in a story that's otherwise pretty zany in its violence.

The Bride Test (Helen Hoang, 2019) - I think I said last month that Alexis Hall's A Lady for a Duke was the best so far of the romance-novel-every-month scheme I'm trying to pull off this year. the Bride Test has pretty swiftly displaced it; have I finally discovered the really good romance novels? (worry not; I know what I'm reading for August and my hopes are. low.) our two protagonists, Mỹ/Esme (her chosen American/English name) and Khai, are both genuinely charming and are pretty strong characters independent of each other, which cannot be said for A Lot of romance protags. despite the absolute insanity of how they met (yes, Khai's mother went to Vietnam and offered, uneducated a poor single mother a tourist visa in exchange for trying to seduce her autistic son. yes, that's shady. don't think about it too hard) and Esme waiting until WAY too late in the game to reveal the existence of HER LIVING HUMAN CHILD, I liked this book a lot. it's silly and heartfelt and I had fun; what else do you need? 5/5 eggplant emojis.

Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin, 1956) - there's probably nothing I can say about Giovanni's Room that I could say that someone smarter and gayer hasn't already said, but god. it really is breathtaking. I so often see this book talked about as a gay tragedy, and honestly that feels like almost too glib of a description. it's a really meticulous dissection of white male masculinity and the claustrophobic constraints there of, and our narrator's claustrophobic fear of divesting himself from the power that he's entitled to by virtue of being a white American man perceived as a heterosexual. this man would rather live in repressed misery for his entire life than risk being like those effeminate faggots at the gay club, but spoiler alert! being miserable doesn't make you better than your fellow fags; it just means you're miserable AND a fag. sharp and painful and so so so smart. also I'm going to summon @zaricats because I was supposed to tell you what I thought about this book. oops!

Lone Women (Victor LaValle, 2023) - okay so listen. did I just say Black Water Sister wasn't really for me because of the simplistic prose? yes. did I really enjoy the very sparse, straightforward style of Lone Women? also yes. leave me alone, I contain contradictions. anyway, Lone Women is a ripping piece of historical fiction spliced with supernatural secrets, based on LaValle's research into 19th century Black women homesteaders who made their lives in Montana. LaValle opens on a scene of irresistible intrigue - Adelaide Henry, lone woman, sets out for Montana with a mysteriously heavy trunk after burning down her family's California farm with her parents' mutilated corpses inside. and boy, does it escalate from there! it's a story about isolation and community and the people who are failed by so-called close knit small towns, and the ways in which vulnerable people band together to protect one another. it also makes the compelling point that maybe, just maybe, the real monsters were your local transphobe and her husband's lynch mob all along.

Black Disability Politics (Sami Schalk, 2022) - what a cool book! Schalk's argument begins with the idea that Black disability politics are distinct from predominantly white mainstream disability politics, and are therefore often overlooked in conversation, activism, and academia. Schalk analyzes the historical work of the Black Panthers and the National Black Women's Health Project to showcase what she describes as Black disability politics in action. in Schalk's conception, Black disability politics take a much more holistic approach to disability, conceptualizing as just one form (and, frequently, as a result of) of oppression tangled up with a myriad of others that cannot be meaningfully addressed when they're treated as separate issues. the book concludes in interviews with contemporary Black disability activists and organizers that shed light on ways in which the wider movement is often unwelcoming to folks of color, and an exhortation from Schalk for readers to continue the conversation well beyond the confines of the book. in a killer show of praxis, the entire book has been made available to read in PDF form, and I strongly recommend giving it a look!

The River of Silver (S.A. Chakraborty, 2022) - mentally I am kicking myself a little for waiting so long to read this continuation of my beloved Daevabad trilogy, because it did take me a minute to get back into the swing and mythology of the world and that did make me feel unpleasantly like I wasn't appreciating these character-focused short stories as much as I could be. but even having said that - man! fuck I love the world of Daevabad, and I adore these characters so much. getting to see them again, even briefly, was a delight, and I am once again congratulating Nahri and Ali on being the invention of heterosexual romance. (also, on a related note, but I ADORE the way Chakraborty writes her characters having crushes. they crush SO hard and it's very sweet. these books are such big drama all the way down.)

Men We Reaped (Jesmyn Ward, 2013) - an absolute powerhouse of a memoir, and devastating the whole way down. in Men We Reaped Ward attempts to make sense of a series of tragedies that befell her community when five young Black men - beginning with Ward's younger brother - died between 2000 and 2004. the word 'unflinching' is hopelessly played out, but it's difficult to figure out how to describe the head-on way Ward explores each young man's life and ultimate end and her own upbringing. the men in Ward's history - her brother, the friends she lost, her father and other male relatives - are never idealized; their demons, miseries, infidelities, addictions, and violence are placed on full display. but Ward is also insistent on displaying these men with dignity, compassion, empathy; showing them at their best and, most importantly, as men who were loved and deserved better than the violence that poverty and racism wrought on them. it's a furious memoir, one that will leave you mourning too.

Nimona (ND Stevenson, 2015) - did I only read this so I can make more informed complaints if/when I end up watching the netflix movie with my wife? YES. but listen, it wasn't JUST petty hater behavior. Nimona is just really good, and I think I got a lot more out of it this time around that I did when I first read it years ago. this comic is wild and unfettered and so spectacularly weird; I wish more things felt the way Nimona does. I also with more things starred small girls begging to kill cops and stage a violent overthrow of the government, that rules hard. also man I love Ballister, he's SUCH a good protagonist. he's curmudgeonly, he's deeply principled, he's held a grudge for years, he's paternal, he's even gay. what a guy!

[mermaidsirennikita]

Any stalking historical romance you would recommend?

A Rose at Midnight by Anne Stuart. He doesn't stalk her at first, but he DOES after she poisons him with the intent to murder him (justified) and it doesn't really let up from there. Very dark, check your TWs.

Duke of Sin by Elizabeth Hoyt. Obviously. Valentine lives in his walls spying on Bridget for like. Months. Duke of Pleasure has some heroine-on-hero stalking with Alf acting as like a vigilante and watching the Duke of Kyle. Duke of Desire has some stalking as well. All of these are on the darker side, so check your TWs.

I just finished (and loved) The Gentleman Who Loved Me by Grace Callaway. The hero is 14 years older than the heroine and knew her when she was a kid--she was very much a little sister to him, she doesn't remember him because again, she was very young. Years later, when she's an adult, he comes across her again and begins keeping a look out for her, paying off people spreading gossip about her, threatening people who want to do her wrong, following her.... NORMAL BIG BRO STUFF.

Lady Charlotte's and The Seductive Spymaster by Grace Callaway. Charlie thinks her husband's long dead, but he's very much alive and has recently started following her around and fucking up her attempts to move on (after like OVER A DECADE). Very funny, and weeeeeirdly hot.

Beyond Scandal and Desire by Lorraine Heath. It's LIGHT here, but I do think that Mick Trewlove following Aslyn around as part of his Revenge Plot (and also staring out his window broodingly while rubbing a strand of pearls she lost in a bet at his club, which he immediately took from the winner) comes off as pretty stalkerish.

Rules for a Proper Governess by Jennifer Ashley. More heroine on hero stalking! The heroine is from the gutter and becomes obsessed with the stern lawyer hero, following him around all over town.

Melissa and The Vicar by S.M. LaViolette. Magnus hunts Melissa down like a DOG when she leaves him. And it takes him weeks and he doesn't sleep well during that time so he looks like SHIT and is completely deranged. I. Love. It.

In Which Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of Restraint by Alexandra Vasti. Some light heroine on hero stalking from afar. The heroine draws the hero in some of her personal porn, which is, as we know, one of my favorite things.

Tempt Me at Twilight by Lisa Kleypas. Lmao Harry most definitely stalks Poppy everywhere and basically ruins her life to force her to marry him. Kinda king shit tbh.

Shadowheart by Laura Kinsale. GLORIOUS STALKERY. Allegreto does some mastermind.mp3 shit to get Elena in his clutches, only to realize.... she's kind of A LOT.

The Duke Who Knew Too Much by Grace Callaway. Again, some heroine on hero stalking, I think. Emma is stalking her hero to prove that he committed a murder because she saw him doing thing against his mistress's will before she died! And he has to explain what CNC is to her. Bless.

I would also say that Pippa and The Prince of Secrets has a good deal of stalkery vibes? Cull is Keeping His Eye on Pippa because she's getting into trouble and he's now like, the leader of a bunch of CHILD THIEVES LMAO. A lot of Grace's books have stalkery elements, tbh, and fortunately I do love that.

The Lady Hellion by Joanna Shupe has a heroine who dresses as a man to go fight for justice at night, and a hero who's all "NOW WAIT ONE GODDAMN MINUTE" and starts stalking her as a result. It's all fun and games until you're following some broad around through brothels at night, boys.

Never Seduce a Duke by Vivienne Lorret has a hero who becomes obsessed with the heroine and follows her on a wild goose chase across Europe because he's convinced that she stole his special secret demented Arthurian cookbook. She.... just thinks he likes her, lmao.

[qbdatabase]

Welcome, readers and writers! The theme this month is Lawless Librarians–or any other historian, archivist, book binder, or secret romance novel enthusiast 🤠 📚 👀

Full list of titles, authors, and blurbs below the cut!

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

YA Sci-Fi Dystopia; fat black demisexual female MC with anxiety goes on a road trip with an alien to save her illegal books

*The Perks of Loving a Wallflower by Erica Ridley

Adult Historical Romance; nonbinary grifter teams up with a demisexual High Society lady to rescue a priceless manuscript and decode a military cipher

The Binding by Bridget Collins

Adult Fantasy / Historical; a gay book binder who seals painful memories in the pages of his books falls in love with a Lord seeking his services

Meet Cute Club by Jack Harbon

Adult Romance; a black man with anxiety running a romance book club can’t afford to turn down new members–even his obnoxious bookstore rival

*Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman

Adult Paranormal; a Jewish vampire archivist falls in love with the genderfluid widow donating new papers, but strange things start happening within the collection …

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Robinson

YA Fantasy; a library warden guarding against magical grimoire-beasts must team up with a hated bisexual sorcerer when a monstrous book is accidentally set free

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Adult Fantasy; an autistic mermaid must serve as the Historian for her people, the descendents of slaves tossed from ships–but instead she flees to the surface, forming a bond with a human woman

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Adult Fantasy; a gay man discovers an ancient library hidden beneath the surface of the earth …

The Library of the Unwritten by A. J. Hackwith

Adult Fantasy; a pansexual woman serving as the Head Librarian in Hell must track down a Hero who has escaped from his book in search of his Author

*Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace

Adult Fantasy / Sci-Fi; an aro-ace woman fights to remain the Archivist of ghosts in post-apocalyptic world, until she discovers one that can talk …

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Adult Western; a pansexual woman stows away in the Librarian’s book wagon to escape marriage

*titles with an asterisk have been featured as a Daily Book on my wordpress blog, and the link leads to that post

[whimsicaldragonette]

Blog Tour & Arc Review: The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman

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Publication Date: May 30, 2023

Welcome to the Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies book tour with Berkley Publishing Group. (This blog tour post is also posted on my Wordpress book review blog Whimsical Dragonette.)

Synopsis:

A high society amateur detective at the heart of Regency London uses her wits and invisibility as an ‘old maid’ to protect other women in a new and fiercely feminist historical mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Alison Goodman. Lady Augusta Colebrook, “Gus,” is determinedly unmarried, bored by society life, and tired of being dismissed at the age of forty-two. She and her twin sister, Julia, who is grieving her dead betrothed, need a distraction. One soon presents to rescue their friend’s goddaughter, Caroline, from her violent husband.   The sisters set out to Caroline’s country estate with a plan, but their carriage is accosted by a highwayman. In the scuffle, Gus accidentally shoots and injures the ruffian, only to discover he is Lord Evan Belford, an acquaintance from their past who was charged with murder and exiled to Australia twenty years ago. What follows is a high adventure full of danger, clever improvisation, heart-racing near misses, and a little help from a revived and rather charming Lord Evan. Back in London, Gus can’t stop thinking about her unlikely (not to mention handsome) comrade-in-arms. She is convinced Lord Evan was falsely accused of murder, and she is going to prove it. She persuades Julia to join her in a quest to help Lord Evan, and others in need—society be damned! And so begins the beguiling secret life and adventures of the Colebrook twins.

Author Bio:

Alison Goodman is the New York Times bestselling author of Eon and Eona and The Dark Days Club series. Learn more online at www.alisongoodman.com.au/

Author photo credit: Tania Jovanovic

My Rating: ★★★★★

*My Review, Favorite Quotes, and Non-Exclusive Excerpt below the cut.

My Review:

This was utterly delightful. I love a good regency adventure, especially with a feminist bent and a woman who defies societal norms to solve crimes and right wrongs. What I did not realize I was missing, however, was for said society-norm-defying-women to be a pair of 42-year-old spinster sisters. It was delicious. I was immediately struck, upon starting, with how familiar the storytelling felt and how appropriate it seemed for someone setting out to solve mysteries. It reminds me of the Sherlock Holmes stories with the first-person narration of Dr. Watson. In this case we have the first-person narration of Lady Augusta Colebrook, using a similar dry and slightly amused tone. It also reminds me of the narration of the Enola Holmes novels (which are likely based on those about Sherlock). I like that the mysteries Lady Augusta elects to solve and the crimes she seeks to address all involve women being wronged, from the initial retrieval of a packet of incriminating letters to the final adventure of rescuing the inhabitants of a brutal madhouse. Each is a step farther along the path and take her a step away from the 'neither seen nor heard' proper lady her brother wishes to force her to be. Her relationship with her sister was wonderful (despite the less-than-likely entire conversations held entirely in gestures -- alongside the multi-sentence exchanges those gestures are purported to represent). Lady Julia is suffering from breast cancer (a disease which killed their mother and aunt) and is much more concerned with propriety than her sister, but she gamely shows up for Gus again and again, lending her skills to their rescue attempts and occasionally threatening the villains at gunpoint. The love and trust between the sisters really shines. The disgraced Lord Evan - escaped convict, horse thief, and charming rogue - makes a wonderful partner in crime for Gus and it quickly becomes clear that he is her perfect match. I loved seeing them work together from the beginning and how their schemes grew more complicated each time but often relied on standing together and winging it moment to moment. The villains in this are truly villainous and the misogyny and brutality against women of all ages and statuses are hard to stomach. From brothel to madhouse, the many, many ways that men have invented to be cruel to women are on display. It is hard to read in places and each encounter stokes Gus' (and the reader's) righteous fury. Things worked out just a little too easily in some of the later more complicated schemes, but never enough that it took me out of the story. I'm glad that Julia gets a love interest by the end and doesn't have to sink back into mourning for her deceased fiance forever, and greatly enjoyed how that happened and how Julia seems much more in control of the situation. I can't wait for more of Gus and Julia and Lord Evan and Kent. It's clear by the end of this that their story is only beginning which makes me very happy what with how much I enjoyed this one. *Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for providing an early copy for review.

Favorite Quotes:

“Is he truly senseless? Can we be sure?” It occurred to me that I had been checking people’s vitals far too often in the past few hours.

---

“So, finis,” I said as the front door closed. “Not at all,” Julia said. “He will be back.” “What makes you think that?” She smiled. “Because he did not need to come this time.”

Non-Exclusive Excerpt:

"We should have worn half boots," I said. "I can feel every pebble through my slippers." "One cannot wear half boots with full dress," Julia said firmly. "Even in circumstances of duress." I stifled a smile. My sister's sense of style and occasion was always impeccable, and rather too easy to poke. Julia glanced sideways at me. "Oh, very funny. Next you'll be suggesting we wear unmentionables." "If only we could," I said. "Breeches would be far more convenient than silk gowns." "How would you know?" Julia demanded. "Heavens, Gus, you haven't actually donned Father's clothing, have you?" She knew I had kept some of our father's clothes after his death; he and I had been much the same height and wiry build. By all rights, the clothes belonged to our brother on his succession to the title-as all our father's property did-but I had taken them, anyway. A connection to him and a memento mori of sorts. "Of course not. I am only surmising." Julia settled back against my arm. "To even try them would be ghoulish." She nudged me gently and angled her sweet smile up at me. "Even so, you would look rather dashing in, say, a hussars uniform. You have the commanding height for it, and the gold trim would match your hair." I snorted. Julia was, as ever, being too loyal. My brown hair did not even approach gold-in fact, it now had streaks of silver-and my five foot nine inches had so far in my life proved to be more awkward than commanding. She, on the other hand, had been blessed with the Colebrook chestnut hair, as yet untouched by age, and stood at a more dainty five foot two inches. When we were children I had once cried because we were not identical. Our father had taken me aside and told me that he found such duplications unsettling and he was well satisfied with his two mismatched girls. He had been a good father and a better man. Yet in the eyes of society, his sordid death atop a rookery whore five years ago had become the sum of him. It had nearly tainted my sister and me, too, for I had recklessly gone to the hovel to retrieve my father-I could not bear to think of his body gawped at by the masses, or as a source of their sport. As fate would have it, I was seen at the brothel. An unmarried woman of breeding should not even know about such places, let alone debase herself by entering one and speaking to the inhabitants. I became the latest on-dit and it was only the staunch support of our most influential friends that silenced the scandalmongers and returned us to the invitation lists. A small group of middlings-the women with shawls clasped over dimity gowns and the men in belcher neckerchiefs and sober wools-clustered around a singer at the side of the path. The woman's plaintive ballad turned Julia's head as we passed. "'The Fairy Song,'" she said. "One of Robert's favorites." I quickened our pace past the memory; fate seemed to be conspiring against me. We attracted a few glances as we walked toward the gloomy entrance to the Dark Walk, mainly from women on the arms of their spouses, their thoughts in the tight pinch of their mouths. "Maybe we should have brought Samuel and Albert," Julia whispered. She had seen the matronly judgment too. "Charlotte does not want our footmen knowing her business," I said. "Besides, we are not quivering girls in our first season. We do not need to be chaperoned all the time." "Do you remember the code we girls made up to warn each other about the men in our circle?" Julia asked. "The code based on these gardens." "Vaguely." I searched my memory. "Let me see: a Grand Walk was a pompous bore, a Supper Box was a fortune hunter . . ." "And a Dark Walk was the reddest of red flags," Julia said. "Totally untrustworthy, never be alone with him. It was based on all those awful attacks that happened in the Dark Walk at the time. Do you recall?" I did-respectable young girls pulled off the path and assaulted in the worst way. "That was more than twenty years ago, my dear. We are women of forty-two now, well able to look after ourselves." "That is not what Duffy would say."

Indeed, our brother, the Earl of Duffield, would be horrified to know we had gone to Vauxhall Gardens on our own, let alone braved the lewd reputation of the Dark Walk. "Duffy would have us forever hunched over embroidery or taking tea with every mama who saw her daughter as the new Lady Duffield." "True," Julia said, "but you are so vehement only because you know this is beyond the pale. Not to mention dangerous." I did not meet her eye. My sister knew me too well. "Well, we are here, anyway," I said, indicating the Dark Walk to our right. Huge gnarly oaks lined either side of the path, their overhanging branches almost meeting in the middle to make a shadowy tunnel of foliage. One lamp lit the entrance but I could see no other light farther along the path. Nor any other person. "It lives up to its name," Julia said. We both considered its impenetrable depths. "Should we do as Duffy would want and turn back?" I asked. "I'd rather wear dimity to the opera," Julia said and pulled me onward. I knew my sister just as well as she knew me.

---

Excerpted from The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman Copyright © 2023 by Alison Goodman. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

[sometimesrosy]

Do you want to share some titles of your historical romance?

Some of the books I love? Sure. I'll try. I'm not great with names and titles (they start blending together imo), but these historical romances often go in series anyway.

So lets say you saw Bridgerton and loved it and wanted more. Definitely read Julia Quinn. I thought the first season was a good adaptation of The Duke and I, but there was no reason to add that awful sister-love triangle. The book was funnier, more romantic and less soapy. Although the casting is amazing. I like all eight of the books but the third (which they are skipping out of order for some reason) is actually my least favorite. Cinderella story but just a bit boring imo.

My first reintroduction to Historical (I read A Rose in Winter by Kathleen E Woodiwiss as comfort reading when I was a teen. It's old fashioned by our standards) was Lisa Kleypas, particularly the Wallflower series (Devil in Winter is famous [maybe infamous]) The Hathaways, and the Ravenels, which is still going. They all share characters and a universe but the Ravenels is the next generation.

Tessa Dare is more of a romcom vibe and her books tend to be a little lighter. Spindle Cove is about a little resort village full of spinsters, bluestockings and scandalized ladies. (A Week to be Wicked is on everyone's favorite list.) Also Girl Meets Duke and Castles Ever After series. Tessa hasn't put out a book since the quarantine so we're still waiting for the next Girl Meets Duke.

Courtney Milan is also a favorite. She's half Chinese and an ex lawyer and famously shut down the Romance Writers Association for racism the month before the quarantine. She's very active on twitter. I loved the Brother's Sinister (especially Countess Conspiracy and Suffragette Scandal) and... oh look I haven't read the other series but I did read two other books.The Devil Comes Courting, set in China with a Chinese engineer heroine and The Duke Who Didn't, with a half Chinese duke and a Chinese woman living in a little village full of immigrants.

Oh. Right now my historical romance book club is doing a season of Cat Sebastian, who mostly writes queer romances. Not mostly. She writes queer romances. Even her m/f pairings are queer. Bisexual, non binary, asexual, etc. A good portion of them are MLM and some are WLW. One of my favorites so far was Unmasked by the Marquess, where a house maid dresses as her charge's dead brother so she can get her a good marriage and ooops. Falls in love with the pan marquess.

You know. I could literally go on and on with this. So let me just end with some authors. I'll mark if they're on kindle unlimited so you can try them out without $$$)

Lorraine Heath

Elisa Braden (kindle unlimited)

SM LaViolette aka Minerva Spencer (kindle unlimited)

Eloisa James

Beverly Jenkins (Ms. Bev, she writes Black american stories)

Joanna Shupe (she mostly write Gilded Age american stories set in NYC)

Mary Balogh (not quite as spicy, lots of trauma healing, welsh)

Stacy Reid (kindle unlimited and hit or miss for me but I loved her latest The Wolf and the Wildflower [tarzan H+h who dresses as a man to be a psychiatrist it's bonkers]) Stacy is black but her characters are mainly white.

Sarah MacLean

Kerrigan Byrne (kindle unlimited)

I hope that helps. :)

[hydralisk98]

Why we celebrate Halloween / Samhain like a silly parade of costumes and candy trickery

Hey fellow nerts, guess what time it is?

It’s "Helluva Boss" talkshow time on here, the thing you were awaiting for by far it seems. Sorry for the delays.

Anyway, you may need some context here:

I commissioned a Etsy email letter impersonating Stolas (real or fake correlation, at this point I don’t care.) to provide some comfort reading to myself, my family, my friends and you online observers over my passions.

And from said letter he asked a interesting question worth researching over. About the why / how we came to celebrate this Holiday like a silly pride parade with candies & costumes.

So here I am diving into such a response out of my genuine curiosity and care of all free-will gifted sapients. (not kidding over that monster club attitude)

As for most things we humans did and do in this reality, it comes down to historical traditions, games/questions and the overall social & playful core vibe of Homo Sapiens Sapiens as a species. (for most of such anyway, and no the constant is not that directly "Love" you hopeful romantics, that will be worth talking about another day...)

Turns out if I am to add to Halloween with insight from the contemporary relevance of such celebrations in the last century or so, it is a twisted way (derived from Celtic Samhain and other iron age traditions) from our ancestors to celebrate the dead, deter nefarious Hell's entities (or rather agents as I like to call each individual with free will and a sole body) from making Faustian / Mephistophelian bargains / pacts (you are doing fine enough Stolas, not everybody here are worth catering to...) or animistic tricking to encourage the respect of social etiquette guidelines (which is also worth pointing that it serves some axial age safety purposes too and ain't exclusively a anti-demons matter).

And as far as why I still decide myself to attempt disguising myself into the custom dark academia studious demon lady dress-up of my very own for this year's edition of Halloween? Well, first the Helluva Boss YouTube cartoon show trend obviously, the last few generations of young adults (mostly Gen Z but could apply to Millenials and the generation in between both to which I belong) overall tinkering alot with cultural prejudices as to celebrate pride in novel ways due to how radically right-wing and Wilsonistic-ally Fascist the status quo in the West became as of the last decade to fail at discourage deviation amongst more matters... But also because I do like to show my sympathies to other sapient phenotypes and make advantage of mundane plane's life on my very own terms (but not insulting others ofc) as well as the spiritual autistic transfeminine human I am.

Hopefully you all get a better glimpse at the human biases we have and to Stolas specifically I hope that is a enjoyable read with pertinent trivia information about this reality's human culture.

As for Octavia, I will be happy to provide her the safe-space she needs as we both learn and exercice the esoteric arts in a relatively remote rural environment. Caring is sharing and I am sure a constructive relationship is best for all parties involved here, no matter what specific reality we inhabit. Also applies for whoever polite enough to respect that mutual agreement.

The actual letter written from Etsy store indie seller "LettersFromTheWeb" at ( https://www.etsy.com/ca-fr/shop/LettersFromTheWeb ) if you are wondering:

Until we meet (again? Maybe in the flesh and bones perhaps?), farewell to you all and hoping that things get better for all of us.

[betteryetblog]

8 Female-authored summer reads!

The summer is when I do most of my reading, lounging on the beach with an ice-cold lemonade. Doesn't that sound so good right about now? Get that summer feeling with my 8 summer reading picks by female authors!

The Better Yet Blog is a growing catalogue of articles where you can better your closet, beauty, body, mind, and life. Follow our blog to never miss a post! It's not about becoming perfect, its about becoming better yet.

Click "keep reading" below to check out my TBR (to be read) list!

The Summer book by Tove Jansson

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson is full of humor and wisdom. It follows a summer trip between an artist grandma and her six-year-old granddaughter. On an island in the gulf of Finland they learn each others fears, whims, and yearnings. This story is the perfect heart-warming tale!

Endless Summer by Elin Hilderbrand

When I am looking for a quick read, I love to check out short story collections. The best part of them is that you can get through one or two, even three, stories in one sitting. Endless Summer is the perfect book for long-time fans and new readers as she revisits some of her most beloved characters! One such story is “The Tailgate” which revisits the story of Hilderbrand’s book The Matchmaker.

Playing with Matches by Hannah Orenstein

If you liked The Matchmaker, you need to check out Playing with Matches by Hannah Orenstein. This is the book I am currently reading, and I’m about 65% of the way through. This story is a perfect balance of eccentric clients and main character Sasha’s rollercoaster personal life. I must say, I am loving this book so far!

Gilt by Jamie Brenner

Gilt by Jamie Brenner is next up on my TBR - as I wait for it on hold at my library. In the same realm of Succession, Gilt follows the story of three sisters divided by the family diamond business. After a decade, main character Gemma is the only granddaughter and also a jewelry designer. She is working toward success for herself and the legacy of her mother who passed away. This book is perfect for lovers of family drama, with a little glitz!

Silenced in Sequins by Debra Sennefelder

Silenced in Sequins is part of a series by Debra Sennefelder, but can also be read as a stand alone. This book follows Kelly Quinn as she transforms her grandmother’s old consignment store into a hot spot for fashion lovers around town. She receives a dress that becomes the center of a public riff between two Long Island Ladies tv-show stars, when one of them ends up dead! It seems that only Kelly can get to the bottom of this and save the reputation of her store.

Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

Lovers of historical fiction must check out Fatal Inheritance, set in 1930, by Rachel Rhys. Eve, in her loveless marriage, receives a letter one day of an inheritance from a wealthy stranger. She travels to the French Rivera to the villa left just for her, but discovers a group of people that will do anything to take it from her. Before things become sinister, she needs to uncover the mystery of the letter and the person who sent it.

Going Dark by Melissa de la Cruz

Told through social media posts, diary entries, and firsthand accounts, Going Dark is a 2023 release by Melissa de la Cruz. The reader goes through the mysterious disappearance of influencer Amelia Ashley. When Ashley failed to show up her boyfriend left their romantic Rome vacation without her. Meanwhile, a hacker is untangling her social media web. Then, the reader learns of another girl who went missing two years prior - could this be a coincidence? Going Dark is the perfect read for fans of true crime to put their detective skills to use.

The Club by Ellery Lloyd

The Club written Collette Lyons, alongside her husband Paul Viltos. Island Home is a newly-launching and exclusive retreat for celebrities and a-listers. The invite list is sure to bring a group of “beautiful people with their own ugly secrets.” Yet, before the party even gets started, tensions rise between Island Home employees. The Club is a thriller sure to leave you on the edge of your seat - or edge of your beach chair.

Now that you know what I'm reading this summer, I would love to hear what is on your TBR list and which one of these you are going to check out. Learn more about them by clicking the links above!