#I recommend the Homophilia one first

[archivistsrock]

Hi darling!!! How are you?? Hope you’re having a lovely day! I was wondering if you’d possibly have download links to the past few podcasts Matt’s done (Larry flick and the Sirius one and the other which I can’t remember but where Matt talked about kit not liking the press attention) please please!!

Hi! I believe he’s been on four podcasts/radio shows the last few weeks. I’ve linked to downloads for the SiriusXM ones, and I linked to the page where you can listen to the other one.

I’ve been playing around with transcription software, and I’m going to try to provide transcripts for the radio interviews for people who have trouble understanding or who have hearing impairments. It’s still a lot of work even with helpful software, though -- so don’t rush me! I link to the 2 transcriptions I’ve done below, as well. They’re not perfect, but they’re better than nothing!

Let me know if any of my links are bad.

Homophilia podcast: Can be listened to here:  https://www.earwolf.com/episode/matt-bomer-2/

Transcript for the Homophilia podcast:http://www.mediafire.com/file/m5ted0qj38u2yqt/2019-05-30_Homophilia_Bomer.pdf/file

Stand Up! With Pete Dominick:  http://www.mediafire.com/file/o7schf38bdw72v2/StandUpWithPeteDominick-2019-06-06.mp3/file

The Michaelangelo Signorile Show: http://www.mediafire.com/file/51ntoa7lfvdr5ct/MichaelangeloSignorileShow-2019-06-06.mp3/file

In Depth with Larry Flick: http://www.mediafire.com/file/s7ub9abw9o76mep/2019-06-10_LarryFlick_MattBomer.mp3/file

Transcript for Larry Flick: http://www.mediafire.com/file/1d2ytytevw556q2/2019-06-10_LarryFlick_MattBomer.pdf/file

[lucy-vanpelt]

I read your commune fic without knowing anything about the pod or anyone in it (let me tell you learning that the Ronan being referred to was Ronan F was absolutely WILD) and then proceeded to read uh. Every fic on ao3 and start listening to the pod - so like, thanks, first of all, but also do you have any recommendations for like, primers, or just content you think is good that I should listen to/read? Thanks! X

scream OMG anon, honestly i commend you for immediately diving into the deep end, 87k is a lot to read if you aren’t familiar with the characters! but truly WELCOME TO THIS FANDOM i hope you enjoy your stay here :’) i’d say the most comprehensive primer for the fandom is this one by @undeployed (they also made a quick and dirty timeline before that). there’s also a primer for ronan/lovett! (password: rolo) @bradleyswhitford also recently wrote up a nice summary of the dynamics of the main three guys (lovett, jon, tommy), but you’ll have to be on a desktop computer to look at it because the post is dash-locked.

tbh when i first joined the fandom i basically went to as many unlocked tumblrs that i knew posted podsa content as i could and went back through a ton of people’s tags and screamed about posts with the couple of friends that cared (and even some that did not, lol). it’s harder now because a lot of people’s blogs are dash-locked and it’s difficult to browse by tags on those; my podsa tag is by no means comprehensive but it’s a good collection of content that made me laugh or feel feelings or both, so hopefully it’ll help you get a better idea of who’s who and what to expect from these people.

as for specific stuff to listen to or read, for jon favs i’d absolutely listen to this longform interview from 2016 and more recently his appearance on dax shepard’s podcast to get a better sense of the type of person he is; the former in particular provides some good insight on his ~youth~ (there’s some great tidbits about his piano playing days and running track in high school, being a shy ass kid growing up, etc). for lovett, i’d 100000% recommend his appearance on the moment with brian koppelman from 2014, SO many nuggets in there (the story of how he got hired by jon! also just a great snapshot into that long drifting period of time between the white house and crooked media), and more recently his appearances on the homophilia podcast and the axe files. his episode of how did this get made is also extremely happy-making. tommy’s a little harder because he hasn’t actually done many podcasts where he actually has to talk about who he is as a person (smh, tom), but if you haven’t gotten there yet, his episode of keep it is extremely good. also definitely go check out his dogstagram. he’s the worst, i love him.

SORRY I KNOW THIS IS A LOT LMAO but if you’re going through the pods that’s honestly the easiest vehicle to get to know these bozos and all the assorted other characters in the crooked media universe and fall in love with their dumb dynamics ;_; and ofc all the people in this fandom are pretty good about answering questions and such, so def let us know if you have any more of them! GODSPEED, ANON :*

[rhetoricandlogic]

The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

(reviewed by me)

review under a cut because @logarithmicpanda hasn’t finished yet.

This is going to be a long post because I have a lot to say about this book - I buddy-read this with @logarithmicpanda (sort of, I finished before they started - but since we didn’t want a schedule ...).

Pros:

Economic punk is always a definite “YES”. To see a book described as “fantasy” which has neither (quasi)-mythical creatures nor magic, is a definite thumbs-up. A little in the vein of Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartett, only better.

An accountant heroine, savant, mathematician bent on bringing down efficiency with even more efficiency.

The theme of betrayal - and the capability of one single protagonist to execute all on herself - on so many levels (family, self, other, sex, religion, power) isn’t only a really important topic, it’s also enormously relevant in current times.

Conquest by culture instead of perpetual war.

Holding up fascistic philosophy for farther inspection and dismemberment - always a topic that is both: polarizing and absolutely necessary. We need to discuss topics as race, eugenics, institutionalized homophobia and their representation under an oppressive regime, leading to questioning said (and thereby, really every) regime.

Our accountant heroine is a lesbian, which isn’t only strictly forbidden (like all other homophilia) - it’s severely punished with castration/circumcision in the first place, but more likely death. Baru evades all sexuality completely.

I’m a bit divided on the topic of religion. The Maskerade forbids it, of course. Baru herself has no clearly definied opinion and the only priestess of any relevance we get to see is ... a traitor

which practically throws me into the 

Cons:

starting again with the priestess. I accept the author’s portrait of religion in general, but then, for me (as an agnostic) this is no big deal. But to learn that religion itself is only another instrument to subdue the conquered people could be a serious problem for a religious reader.

The dialogues in general. There’s a great number of non-sequiturs - if you even get to know who’s speaking to whom.

As for the conquest by culture and/or the betrayal theme: both of them have been done (at the same time) and in a far better way by K. J. Parker. Read the Engineers Trilogy. Highly recommended. Also, there’s wit in Parker which here, there’s a definite lack of.

A lot of metaphors and telling instead of showing are going on throughout the whole novel.

A couple of doubtable plots: no Empire in their right mind sets an inexperienced, 18 year old girl to be the fiscal head of a conquered country.

How come, an inexperienced mathematical genius suddenly qualifies as a general over a host of 20.000 and all the grizzled leaders of the past decades of battles let her have her will?

So yeah, this qualifies as both: an exceptional read, highly enjoyable and also something to seriously doubt; not counting the innumerable disruptions because in some of the cryptic dialogues you have no idea what’s going on and why and to whom.