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thesiltverses · 1 year ago

Note

I don’t know who types up the ask answers on this blog but to whoever’s reading this: how do you all feel about being alive and sentient? What keeps you going, what purpose propels you through this chaotic void? What do you think (or hope) waits for you after your inevitable end? What do you think constitutes a life well lived?

I'm going to answer this in the most wayward and stupidly overlong manner possible, because the previous ask had me thinking about puppets, and I was already mid-way through writing up a book recommendation that's semi-relevant to your questions.

Everyone (but especially people who've enjoyed The Silt Verses and all the folks on Tumblr who loved Piranesi by Susanna Clarke) ought to seek out Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban.

Riddley Walker is a wild and woolly story set in post-apocalyptic Kent, where human society has (d)evolved into a Bronze Age collective of hunter-gatherer settlements. Dogs, apparently blaming us for our crimes against the world, have become our predators, hunting us through the trees. Labourers kill themselves unearthing ancient machinery that they cannot possibly understand.

A travelling crowd of thugs led by a Pry Mincer collect taxes and attempt to impose themselves upon those around them with a puppet-show - the closest possible approximation of a TV show - that tells a mangled story of the world's destruction, featuring a Prometheus-esque hero called Eusa who is tempted by the Clevver One into creating the atomic bomb.

Riddley himself, a twelve-year-old folk hero in-the-making surrounded by strange portents, ends up sowing the seeds of rebellion and change by becoming a conduit for the anti-tutelary anarchic madness (one apparently buried in our collective unconscious) of Punch 'n' Judy.

It's a book in love with twisted reinterpretation, the subjectivity of interpretation, buried or forbidden truths coming back to light (the opening quote is a curious allegory about reinvention and cyclical change from the extra-canonical Gospel of Thomas, which is a good joke and mission statement on a couple levels at once) and human beings somehow stumbling into forms of wisdom or insight through clumsy and nonsensical attempts to make sense of a world that is simply beyond them.

It rocks.

The book starts like this:

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and clattert his teef and made his rush and there we wer then. Him on 1 end of the spear kicking his life out and me on the other end watching him dy. I said, 'Your tern now my tern later.'

Riddley's devolved language - a trick which has been nicked/homaged by many other works, most notably Cloud Atlas and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome - is a masterwork choice which may seem offputting or overwhelming at first, but which has its own brutal poetry and cadence to it, and ultimately which makes us slow down as readers and unpick the wit, puns, double-meanings and playful themes buried in line after line.

(Even those first five sentences get us thinking about cyclical change, ritual and myth in opposition to the dissatisfactions of reality, and 'tern' to paradoxically indicate a rebellious change in direction but also an obedient acceptance of inevitable death.)

In one of my favourite passages in literature and a statement of thought that means a lot to me, Riddley has been smoking post-coital weed with Lorna, a 'tel-woman', who unexpectedly declares her belief in a kind of irrational, monstrous Logos that lives in us, wears us like clothes, and drives us onwards for its own purpose:

'You know Riddley theres some thing in us it dont have no name.' I said, 'What thing is that?' She said, 'Its some kynd of thing it aint us but yet its in us. Its lookin out thru our eye hoals...it aint you nor it dont even know your name. Its in us lorn and loan and shelterin how it can.' 'Tremmering it is and feart. It puts us on like we put on our cloes. Some times we dont fit. Some times it cant fynd the arm hoals and it tears us a part. I dont think I took all that much noatis of it when I ben yung. Now Im old I noatise it mor. It dont realy like to put me on no mor. Every morning I can feal how its tiret of me and readying to throw me a way. Iwl tel you some thing Riddley and keap this in memberment. What ever it is we dont come naturel to it.' I said, 'Lorna I dont know what you mean.' She said, 'We aint a naturel part of it. We dint begin when it begun we dint begin where it begun. It ben here befor us nor I dont know what we are to it. May be weare jus only sickness and a feaver to it or boyls on the arse of it I dont know. Now lissen what Im going to tel you Riddley. It thinks us but it dont think like us. It dont think the way we think. Plus like I said befor its afeart.' I said, 'Whats it afeart of?' She said, 'Its afeart of being beartht.'

While Hoban is, I think, deeply humanistic to his bones and even something of a wayward optimist, the notion of human beings as helpless and ignorant vessels, individual carriers - puppets, if you like - for an unknowable and awful inhuman power-in-potentia and life-drive that lacks a true shape or intent beyond its own continued survival (even when that means destroying us or visiting us with agonising atrophy in the process) conjures up the pessimism of Thomas Ligotti, another big influence on our work and a dude who was really into his marionettes-as-metaphor.

Let's go to him now for his opinion on the thing that lives beneath our skin. Thomas?

Through the prophylactic of self-deception, we keep hidden what we do not want to let into our heads, as if we will betray to ourselves a secret too terrible to know… …(that the universe is) a play with no plot and no players that were anything more than portions of a master drive of purposeless self-mutilation. Everything tears away at everything else forever. Nothing knows of its embroilment in a festival of massacres… Nothing can know what is going on.

Curiously, both Ligotti and Riddley Walker have appeared in the music of dark folk band Current 93, whose track In The Heart Of The Wood And What I Found There directly homages the novel and ends with the repeated words,

"All shall be well," she said But not for me

These words, in turn, hearken back to Kafka's* famous reported conversation with Max Brod:

'We are,' he said, 'nihilistic thoughts, suicidal thoughts that rise in God's head.' This reminded me of the worldview of the gnostic: God as an evil demiurge, the world as his original sin. 'Oh no', he said, 'our world is only a bad, fretful whim of God, a bad day.' 'So was there - outside of this world that we know - hope?' He smiled: 'Oh, hope - there is plenty. Infinite hope, just not for us."

So, we walk on.

We carry this thing that's riding on our backs, endlessly bonded to it, feeling its weight more and more with every passing day, unable to turn to look at it. Buried truths come briefly to life, and are hidden from us again. Perhaps they weren't truths at all. We couldn't stand to look the truth directly in the eyes in any case.

If there is hope, it's for the thing that looks out from our eyeholes, which thinks us but cannot think like us. We'll never get to where we're going, and the thing will never be born. There's no hope for it. Perhaps we don't want it to win anyway. It's nothing, and the key to everything.

The Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas says:

'When you see your own likeness, you rejoice. But when you see the visions that formed you and existed before you, which do not perish and which do not become visible - how much then will you be able to bear?'

Kafka, writing to his father, begins by expressing the inexpressibility of his own divine terror:

You asked me why I am afraid of you. I did not know how to answer - partly because of my fear, partly because an explanation would require more than I could make coherent in speech…even in writing, the magnitude of the causes exceeds my memory and my understanding.

Kafka concludes that while he cannot ever truly explain himself, and that the accusations in his letter are neat subjectivities that fail to account for the messiness of reality, perhaps 'something that in my opinion so closely resembles the truth…might comfort us both a little and make it easier for us to live and die.'**

It doesn't bring comfort to Kafka, whose diarised remarks both before and after the 1919 letter make it clear that he views his relationship with the things (people) that birthed him as an endless entrapment that prevents him from attaining any kind of self-actualisation or even comfort, since he cannot escape their influence or remember a time before them:

I was defeated by Father as a small boy and have been prevented since by pride from leaving the battleground, despite enduring defeat over and over again.

It's as if I wasn't fully born yet...as if I was dissolubly bound to these repulsive things (my parents).*** The bond is still attached to my feet, preventing them from walking, from escaping the original formless mush. That's how it is sometimes.

Samuel Beckett returns again and again (aptly) to this pursuit of a state of true humanity and final understanding that is at once fled and unrecoverable, yet to be born, never to be born, never-existed, endlessly to be pursued, pointless to pursue. From the astonishing end sequence of The Unnameable:

alone alone, the others are gone, they have been stilled, their voices stilled, their listening stilled, one by one, at each new-com- ing, another will come, I won’t be the last. I’ll be with the others. I’ll be as gone, in the silence, it won’t be I, it’s not I, I’m not there yet. I’ll go there now. I’ll try and go there now, no use trying, I wait for my turn, my turn to go there, my turn to talk there, my turn to listen there, my turn to wait there for my turn to go, to be as gone, it’s unending, it will be unending, gone where,where do you go from there, you must go somewhere else, wait somewhere else, for your turn to go again

I’m not the first, I won’t be the first, it will best me in the end, it has bested better than me, it will tell me what to do, in order to rise, move, act like a body endowed with despair, that’s how I reason, that’s how I hear myself reasoning, all lies, it’s not me they’re calling, not me they’re talking about, it’s not yet my turn, it’s someone else’s turn, that’s why I can’t stir, that’s why I don’t feel a body on me, I’m not suffering enough yet, it’s not yet my turn, not suffering enough to be able to stir, to have a body, complete with head, to be able to understand, to have eyes to light the way

From Thomas' Jesus:

When you make the two one, and you make the inside as the outside and the outside as the inside and the above as the below, and if male and female become a single unity which lacks 'masculine' and 'feminine' action, when you grow eyes where eyes should be and hands where hands should be and feet where feet should stand and the true image in its proper place, then shall you enter heaven.

Tom's Jesus makes a particularly Gnostic habit of both insisting that the hidden will be revealed and demonstrating the impossibility of attaining a state where the hidden ever can be revealed. Contrary to C.S. Lewis, we will never have faces with which to gaze upon the lost divine and the mysteries that shaped us, and crucially, as Christ puts it, we would not be able to bear the sight of ourselves if we did.

We will never become the thing that's riding on our backs.

Jesus again:

The disciples ask Jesus, 'Tell us how our end shall be.' Jesus says, 'Have you found the beginning yet, you who ask after the end? For at the place where the beginning is, there shall be the end.'

The Unnameable:

I’ll recognise it, in the end I’ll recognise it, the story of the silence that he never left, that I should never have left, that I may never find again, that I may find again, then it will be he, it will be I, it will be the place, the silence, the end, the beginning, the beginning again, how can I say it, that’s all words, they’re all I have, and not many of them, the words fail, the voice fails, so be it

The final passage of The Unnameable, which often is hilariously shorn and misinterpreted as an inspirational quote about how if you don't succeed, try again:

all words, there’s nothing else, you must go on, that’s all I know, they’re going to stop, I know that well, I can feel it, they’re going to abandon me, it will be the silence, for a moment, a good few moments, or it will be mine, the lasting one, that didn’t last, that still lasts, it will be I, you must go on, I can't go on, you must go on. I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know. I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on. I’ll go on. †

We bear this thing that's riding on our backs. We'll never get to where we're going, and the thing will never be born. If it was born, it'd be too terrible for us to bear. There's nothing riding on our backs.

It will never speak us into being.

We keep on calling out into the silence, we keep trying to explain or understand the thing that's riding on our backs, searching for a way to birth it before we die. Our words about the thing are crucial, and they're meaningless, and they're all we have, and they're nothing at all. We cannot name it and we cannot express it, but we cannot stop trying, and we will keep turning back to our words about the thing, obsessing over them, tearing them to pieces, putting them back together.

I'm fumbling at something I can't think or say, but fumbling is all we're capable of. There could be beauty and meaning and comfort in the fumbling, but it's also vain, and foolish, and pointless, and we're lying to ourselves about the beauty and the meaning and the comfort, and we're indulging ourselves pointlessly by going on and on about the pointlessness of it. Nothing can know what's going on. We will never get close enough to understand without being destroyed.

Thomas' Jesus again, warning those who seek to reveal what's hidden:

He who is near me is near the fire.

Riddley Walker, reflecting on the Punch puppet's inexplicable desire to cook and eat his own child:

Whyis Punch crookit? Why wil he al ways kill the baby if he can? Parbly I wont ever know its jus on me to think on it.

If you got to the end of this, congratulations: but the above is honestly the most appropriate patchwork of what I believe, what propels me, what I feel.

As for what comes after life, I think it's fairly straightforwardly a nothingness we are tragically incapable of fully knowing or accepting - it's Beckett's unimaginable and unattainable silence, a silence that his characters' voices keep on shattering even as they cry out for it.

-Jon‡

*I can't remember if Kafka makes prominent reference to Czech puppets in his work, which is interesting in its own right given the thematic relevance (the protagonist in The Hunger Artist is perhaps a kind of self-directing puppet show?).

However, Gustav Meyrink - who some unsourced Google quotes suggest was pals with Czech puppeteer Richard Teschner - did write a strange little story, The Man On The Bottle, about an audience watching a 'marionette show' who are too wrapped up in performances and masks to interpret the reality that they're actually watching a human being suffocate to death.

**Thomas Ligotti: "Something had happened. They did not know what it was, but they did know it as that which should not be.

Something would have to be done if they were to live with that which should not be.

This would not (be enough); it would only be the best they could do."

***Beckett's Malone Dies actually kicks off with a related sentiment:" I am in my mother’s room. It’s I who live there now. I don’t know how I got there...In any case I have her room. I sleep in her bed. I piss and shit in her pot. I have taken her place. I must resemble her more and more."

† I don't necessarily align myself in humour with Ligotti on a lot of this stuff but I imagine he would recognise both Beckett's writing and Kafka's frustrations re explaining the causes of his hatred for his father as sublimation: finding artistic and philosophical ways of sketching the inexpressible horror and uncertainty of our existence in order to reckon with it at a remove without destroying ourselves. A higher form of self-deception, but self-deception nevertheless.

‡Muna's more of an anarcho-nihilist, I think.

#long fucking post just to say 'i don't know'

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creativia10 · 2 years ago

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Also, I am open to beta reading for other fandoms now. So far, they would be the ones in my prompt guidelines. If you want a beta reader for a different fandom, I would need enough context to be able to understand what I'm reading and help you out. I have now been a beta reader for someone since initially posting this. Someone wanted a beta reader not familiar with Fire Emblem to look over their wip.

Being a Beta Reader?

So, I'm considering offering to be a beta reader, for fanfiction. At the moment, it would probably be for Sanders Sides. Does anyone have any tips for doing this or know anyone who would be interested in having one for their works?

I can include more info.

#update #fanfic related #sanders sides #beta reader #netflix wednesday #wylde flowers #thomas sanders #fanders #the owl house

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junkshop-disco · 2 years ago

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Couple of people asked me to share some pics I have on file of the kind of place Thomas Barrow might've grown up that I have saved from when I was writing A Matter of Time. So here they are.

Before we dive in I'm just going to apologise they're all unsourced. I basically screen grab what's relevant to the fic, make a few notes about how I want to use it, and move on. I take notes like a scatty writer; my archivist friends are crying rn. But if there's something you want to know more about, just drop me a comment--I might be able to remember more or point you in the right direction.

Let's start with some background. This is from a write-up on a contemporary report into housing in the North, which confirmed for me that the kinds of places I was imagining as likely locations for where Thomas might've been born as a working class person were broadly on the money. The show gives us little to go on for an exact location, but I was guessing somewhere in the Greater Manchester region. I went with Greater Manchester rather than Manchester itself based mostly on the accent Rob uses in the show and a couple of lines from Baxter about Thomas's dad/background and, of course, that Thomas ends up in service.

These places also imo tie nicely into Thomas's father being a clockmaker, as the Industrial Revolution led to a clock making industry (tied to the need for accurate time keeping mechanisms in factories etc) in Greater Manchester, specifically in places like Salford, Stockport, Bolton and Wigan. There was a huge growth in public clocks in those new factory towns and a demand for cheaper watches, and there were over 3500 clockmakers in the city at the end of the 19th C.. Manchester itself was instrumental in scientific research into time keeping thanks to the Townley Group so there's a strong history of working class clockmaking there (as opposed to the more artisan kind).

And this is about slum patching, with some contextual detail from the 1860s about the kinds of housing and housing issues generally facing working class people.

These pics are both Chorlton, which is a suburb on the outskirts of Manchester from between 1900 and 1920. It's smog not fog, just in case that's not obvious.

These are I think from the Angel Meadows area and show the kinds of housing, in particular the back-to-back terraces I imagine Thomas and Baxter were familiar with and hung about around (which people may be familiar with from shows like Coronation Street). They're designed for factory workers and communities that popped up to serve those kinds of textile industries that put Manchester on the map during the Industrial Revolution.

And these are Salford, which is a borough within Greater Manchester. The second one is dated 1900 so gives a flavour of where young Thomas might've grown up.

Deansgate Lock in Manchester itself. This shows the canal, which was phenomenally important to the textile industry. Also: vibes.

And these are some general shots of villages/housing in Greater Manchester and Manchester itself, including factory workers from a cotton mill.

When I was writing the fic, I discovered a place called Kersal Moor when I was looking for green spaces around the Salford area that Thomas might've gone shooting or walking or something. The first is a painting called View of Manchester from Kersal Moor by William Wylde from 1857 and the second is now, with some poetry that mentions it and conveyed the atmosphere of the place.

I loved the painting because it really shows what Manchester was like from the outskirts and how it got the nickname Cottonopolis. I really liked the idea of Thomas not being from the heart of the city but seeing it from a slight distance, this huge throbbing, smokey industrial beast of a place, and then deciding that wasn't for him and eventually ending up in the relative calm and quiet of Downton but still finding York boring compared to what he's used to.

This is a working class house in Worksop, Nottinghamshire that was essentially frozen in time in the 1920s (I think 1924), which I used for reference for the Ellis house and the kind of fixtures and fittings working class people might have, although obviously being mindful that York and Worksop have different kinds of housing.

And since I've mentioned York, here's what I have for the Ellis's house and contemporary York, a general pic of the town, the Shambles, and a typical town house in the vague area I placed Richard's parents.

I didn't do as much research on Richard's background since the fic is not from his pov so there was limited need for it, but I think it's clear from the few pics it was quite different.

Anyway, that concludes our whistlestop tour of Greater Manchester at the turn of the 19th Century, as seen through the lens of my incredible fic notes archive.

#downton abbey #thomas barrow #barris #richard ellis #if you think this is a mess #you should see the ones on clocks and lube

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bergeronprocess · 1 year ago

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The men of Wylde Flowers power rankings

Keep in mind I'm still in spring, so I might learn more things about these guys that moves them up or down later. But for now:

1. ANGUS. Omg I wish romancing him was an option (Francis is very sweet though). He's perfect. He's a baker, he makes puns, he's part Scottish. Sigh...

2. Thomas. When my friend told me there's no romance route for him, I was mad as hell. He would just be perfect to like soften up over time and fall for. Dreamy. We could talk shit about Marty.

3. Damon. The game is trying to put us together lol we had one conversation where Lina was ragging him for being single and I chose the answer that was like "Aw Lina, let him be" and that conversation eventually led to like "Maybe we can go out sometime?" But nothing further yet. He just seems like a good guy overall.

4. Kai. All those surfing injury stories are gnarly but he does have cool stuff in his shop.

5. Francis. Nice guy, very cosmopolitan, talented at his job. Please go to sleep sometimes, Francis. Maybe I can make you a sleeping potion. Please sleep.

6. Parker. Just seems like a friendly fella. He has that good spatial reasoning - he has to for his job - and I like that. Has his hands full with the twins. He just had me get him some tulips for his anniversary and that was really sweet.

7. Bruno. The fact that his stand is called Soft and Son's but Otto doesn't want anything to do with it is so sad. Okay so maybe he has a drinking problem but nobody's perfect.

8. Shelby. I'm not put off by the "weird guy living in the woods" thing and he has some smart stuff to say. He alluded to some of his relatives having been killed in the Holocaust and that broke my heart.

9. Getting hit by a bus

10. Cameron. I'm from the south. I've seen lots of these charismatic smooth-talking religious hucksters. I don't trust Cameron one dang bit.

11. Otto. Totally fake ass politician trying to get the votes from an electorate of, what, twelve? I don't trust him either. Trying to spread all that "be afraid of your neighbors" Nextdoor crap. I just know he's gonna try to go all Crucible on the coven if he finds out anyone's identities. (I am trying to be friendly to Vanessa though - she told me the story of her friend Amy and I just felt sad for her.)

12. Marty. This man is the feds or something. We've had like 3 interactions and every one has me going 🤨. The fact he was clearly lying about his last name and almost tripped on it. The weird hesitation to tell me he used to be a consultant. Calling me a "girl farmer" like sir I am a grown woman. When I first learned that a rancher was coming, I thought oh nice maybe another romantic prospect. But even if a romance route was available for this guy, I would absolutely not take it.

Maybe next time I play through, I should pick "Claire" when Hazel asks me about my former fiance's name and then pursue Amira because she was coming on HARD to me 😳

I should power rank the women later too lol

#wylde flowers

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bermudianabroad · 11 months ago

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2023 Reading Roundup

Everything what I read in 2023

I read a whole bunch.

Heartily Recommend Visceral Bleh Reread *Audiobook*

Fiction

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (where is the fucking humidity in your swamp, Delia??)

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

Lot by Bryan Washington

Mr. Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas

Trust by Hernan Diaz

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantell (but everyone is called Thomas)

Verity by Colleen Hoover (awful but wacky and hilariously awful)

Katalin Street by Magda Szabo

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Animorphs #24 The Suspicion by KA Applegate (a trip)

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

The Island of Forgetting by Jasmine Sealy

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

The Trio by Johanna Hedman

At the Bottom of the River by Jamaica Kincaid

The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge

Silence by Shusaku Endo

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

Babel by RF Kuang (was so disappointed by this one)

The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld

Island by Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen

The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles by Giorgio Bassani

Must I Go by Yiyun Li

The 1,000 Year Old Boy by Ross Welford

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel

Memphis by Tara M Stringfellow

The Whirlpool by Jane Urquhart

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

A Country of Eternal Light by Paul Dalgarno

Yellowface by RF Kuang

The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani

The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

Game Misconduct by Ari Baran

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (sorry Naomi :/ )

The Foot of the Cherry Tree by Ali Parker

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Matrix by Lauren Groff

The Twilight World by Werner Herzog

Wild by Kristen Hannah

*The Fraud by Zadie Smith*

The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai

The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

This Other Eden by Paul Harding

The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham (weirdly, one of the best depictions of a marriage I’ve read)

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abdulhawa

North Woods by Daniel Mason

Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

Animorphs: The Hork-Bajir Chronicles by KA Applegate

Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri

Animorphs #13 The Change by KA Applegate

Animorphs #14 The Unknown by KA Applegate

Animorphs #20 The Discovery by KA Applegate (snuck in two more under the wire… #20 is when shit REALLY kicks off. From there it gets darker and darker).

Poetry

Black Cat Bone by John Burnside

Women of the Harlen Renaissance (Anthology) by Various

The Analog Sea Review no. 4 by Various

The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

Non-Fiction

Besieged: Life Under Fire on a Sarajevo Street by Barbara Demick

Atlas of Abandoned Places by Oliver Smith

Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Wanderers: A History of Women Walking by Kerri Andrews

City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth Century London by Vic Gatrell

The Lazarus Heist: From Hollywood to High Finance by Geoff White (fully available as a podcast)

The Entangling Net: Alaska’s Commercial Fishing Women Tell Their Stories by Leslie Leyland Fields (very niche but fascinating. Transcribed interviews)

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir by Lamya H.

Freedom by Margaret Atwood (just excerpts from novels repackaged)

*Born a Crime by Trevor Noah* (Noah’s narration is superb)

The Slavic Myths by Noah Charney and Svetlana Slapšak (was expecting stories, but it was mostly academic essays)

Manga, Comics, Graphic Novels

Safe Area Goražde by Joe Sacco

The Way of the House-Husband, vol. 1 by Kousuke Oono

SAGA vol. 1-6 by Fiona Staples and Brian K Vaughan

Top of the Top:

Born a Crime was probably my favourite non ficition, and most of that probably is due to Trevor Noah's narration skills. It was very entertaining and heartfelt.

Less uplifting but just as gripping in a different way was Empire of Pain. Excellent book that went deep into the why and what and hows of Purdue Pharma. Anger inducing.

Lazarus Heist is great and available as a podcast. The book is more or less the podcast word for word.

Fictionwise: I read Trust at the start of the year and it was a bit soon to declare as favourite of the year, but it's stil made the final cut. Just very imaginative and intriguing. Just my kind of MetaFiction. Clever without being cleverclever.

Demon Copperhead I read right off the back of Empire of Pain so maybe that coloured my experience. I've not read any Dickens so loads of references no doubt flew past me, but the language was acrobatic and zingy. I loved it.

Wrapped up the year on a high with North Woods. That was so unexpected and entertaining. Again with the playful language, memorable characters and a unique approach to tying all the various stories together. One that sticks in the mind and makes the writer in me wonder how I can replicate his style (with my own personal twist of course.)

#a whole bunch of books #reading roundup #Still one day to go but i don't think i'm going to finish anything else #year in books #2023 in books

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libraryleopard · 1 year ago

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October reads

= reread

Saint Juniper’s Folly by Alex Crespo

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay

Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote

Always the Almost by Edward Underhill

Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey

Real Queer America: LGBT Stories From Red States by Samantha Allen

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll*

And Don’t Look Back by Rebecca Barrow

A Trans Man Walks Into a Gay Bar by Harry Nicholas

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian

A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll

The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas

The September House by Carissa Orlando

Deephaven by Ethan M. Aldridge

Firebird by Sunmi

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand*

Moby Dyke by Krista Burton

The Scratch Daughters by H.A. Clarke

An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera

The Winter Knight by Jes Battis

The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist by Sophie Gonzales

The Devouring Wolf by Natalie C. Parker

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

Against Heaven by Kemi Alabi

Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd

Water and Salt by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

Your New Feeling is the Artifact of a Bygone Era by Chad Bennett

#yeah i read a LOT this month #lots of poetry!#i really need to catch up on my bullet point reviews oops #hopefully in november #2023 reads #lulu speaks #books

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magic-and-sadness · 1 year ago

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why is @dr-wylde a gilf: the explanation

So first off! The g.

Bro is old. Hes a wrinkly old man. Well not exactly but sure enough, hes big! Also hes canonically a grandfather. If i recall, he had a son, thomas i think? Who had a daughter. This one's pretty easy. Theres a physical description somewhere but im not in the mood to find it

Moving on, the ilf. Now i as an individual would not like to do the silly with him just had to establish that.

Yeah he has some pretty desirable stuff i'd say. Nothing i'm too attracted to but people tend to like it.

Dude is TALL so that's that. I'm taller though

Ok back to wylde, jojo character lookin ass. And of course the monsterfrickers exist, and he's definitrly not incredibly human

I could go on but my hand hurt i hope this proved something

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siennamillerstyle · 1 year ago

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GOAT Library Cardigan

Thomas Wylde Bag

| January 2006 |

#sienna miller #siennamiller #bag #knitwear #candid #2006 #goat #thomaswylde

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indigenous-character-tournament · 2 years ago

Note

i figured i should specify for Thomas Lightfoot: in canon he talks about "the tribe" though it's never specified which one. like if you befriend him he'll sometimes talk about how he wishes he could take time off from tending his farm because he misses the tribe back home, but he also needs to make sure the farm is doing well because he put his whole life into it, etc. and how even though they moved away, his mother made sure to teach him all their customs. so it is canon, it's just kind of vague. but i thought he was a nice guy (if understandably wary of newcomers) and more people should play Wylde Flowers so im submitting him :)

i only put the tribe question honestly just so i can include that in the polls once they release. i do know sometimes its not specified but they are still modt definitely Indigenous so no worries there

if im not wrong thomas lightfoot has received 3 nominations in case you wanted to know!

#ict asks

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wankerwatch · 9 days ago

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Lords Vote

On: Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Gascoigne moved amendment 1, before clause 1, to insert the new clause Purpose: improvement of passenger railway services. The House divided:

Ayes: 187 (67.9% Con, 22.5% LD, 4.3% XB, 3.2% , 0.5% Green, 0.5% UUP, 0.5% DUP, 0.5% PC) Noes: 132 (90.2% Lab, 9.1% XB, 0.8% ) Absent: ~510

Likely Referenced Bill: Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Description: A Bill to make provision for passenger railway services to be provided by public sector companies instead of by means of franchises.

Originating house: Commons Current house: Lords Bill Stage: Report stage

Individual Votes:

Ayes

Conservative (127 votes)

Ahmad of Wimbledon, L. Anelay of St Johns, B. Arbuthnot of Edrom, L. Arran, E. Ashcombe, L. Attlee, E. Balfe, L. Bellamy, L. Bellingham, L. Berridge, B. Blackwood of North Oxford, B. Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist, B. Booth-Smith, L. Borwick, L. Bourne of Aberystwyth, L. Brady of Altrincham, L. Brady, B. Caine, L. Caithness, E. Camoys, L. Camrose, V. Clarke of Nottingham, L. Courtown, E. Crathorne, L. Cumberlege, B. Davies of Gower, L. De Mauley, L. Dobbs, L. Dundee, E. Effingham, E. Elliott of Mickle Fell, L. Evans of Bowes Park, B. Evans of Rainow, L. Fall, B. Fookes, B. Foster of Oxton, B. Fraser of Craigmaddie, B. Fuller, L. Garnier, L. Gascoigne, L. Geddes, L. Goldie, B. Goodman of Wycombe, L. Grayling, L. Hamilton of Epsom, L. Hannan of Kingsclere, L. Harlech, L. Hayward, L. Helic, B. Herbert of South Downs, L. Hodgson of Abinger, B. Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, L. Holmes of Richmond, L. Hooper, B. Horam, L. Howell of Guildford, L. Hunt of Wirral, L. Jackson of Peterborough, L. James of Blackheath, L. Jamieson, L. Jenkin of Kennington, B. Jopling, L. Kirkhope of Harrogate, L. Lamont of Lerwick, L. Lansley, L. Lea of Lymm, B. Leicester, E. Leigh of Hurley, L. Lexden, L. Lilley, L. Lucas, L. Magan of Castletown, L. Mancroft, L. Manzoor, B. Markham, L. May of Maidenhead, B. McColl of Dulwich, L. McInnes of Kilwinning, L. McLoughlin, L. Morris of Bolton, B. Moylan, L. Moynihan of Chelsea, L. Murray of Blidworth, L. Naseby, L. Neville-Jones, B. Neville-Rolfe, B. Newlove, B. Nicholson of Winterbourne, B. Noakes, B. Northbrook, L. Norton of Louth, L. Owen of Alderley Edge, B. Parkinson of Whitley Bay, L. Penn, B. Pidding, B. Polak, L. Porter of Fulwood, B. Porter of Spalding, L. Reay, L. Redfern, B. Roberts of Belgravia, L. Roborough, L. Sanderson of Welton, B. Sandhurst, L. Sater, B. Scott of Bybrook, B. Shackleton of Belgravia, B. Sharma, L. Sharpe of Epsom, L. Shinkwin, L. Stedman-Scott, B. Stowell of Beeston, B. Sugg, B. Taylor of Holbeach, L. Trefgarne, L. Trenchard, V. True, L. Vaizey of Didcot, L. Vere of Norbiton, B. Verma, B. Waldegrave of North Hill, L. Wei, L. Williams of Trafford, B. Wrottesley, L. Wyld, B. Young of Cookham, L. Younger of Leckie, V.

Liberal Democrat (42 votes)

Addington, L. Alderdice, L. Barker, B. Beith, L. Benjamin, B. Bowles of Berkhamsted, B. Brinton, B. Bruce of Bennachie, L. Burt of Solihull, B. Clement-Jones, L. Featherstone, B. Foster of Bath, L. Fox, L. German, L. Hamwee, B. Humphreys, B. Hussein-Ece, B. Janke, B. Kramer, B. Ludford, B. Marks of Henley-on-Thames, L. Newby, L. Oates, L. Palmer of Childs Hill, L. Pidgeon, B. Pinnock, B. Randerson, B. Rennard, L. Russell, E. Scriven, L. Sheehan, B. Smith of Newnham, B. Stoneham of Droxford, L. Storey, L. Teverson, L. Thomas of Gresford, L. Thomas of Winchester, B. Thornhill, B. Thurso, V. Wallace of Saltaire, L. Walmsley, B. Wrigglesworth, L.

Crossbench (8 votes)

Alton of Liverpool, L. Bilimoria, L. Chartres, L. Craigavon, V. Finlay of Llandaff, B. Freyberg, L. O'Loan, B. Somerset, D.

Non-affiliated (6 votes)

Altmann, B. Ashton of Hyde, L. Fox of Buckley, B. Morgan of Cotes, B. Paddick, L. Warsi, B.

Green Party (1 vote)

Bennett of Manor Castle, B.

Ulster Unionist Party (1 vote)

Elliott of Ballinamallard, L.

Democratic Unionist Party (1 vote)

Dodds of Duncairn, L.

Plaid Cymru (1 vote)

Smith of Llanfaes, B.

Noes

Labour (119 votes)

Adams of Craigielea, B. Alli, L. Anderson of Swansea, L. Armstrong of Hill Top, B. Ashton of Upholland, B. Bach, L. Bakewell, B. Bassam of Brighton, L. Beamish, L. Berkeley, L. Blackstone, B. Blake of Leeds, B. Blower, B. Blunkett, L. Boateng, L. Bradley, L. Browne of Ladyton, L. Bryan of Partick, B. Campbell-Savours, L. Carter of Coles, L. Chakrabarti, B. Chandos, V. Chapman of Darlington, B. Coaker, L. Crawley, B. Davies of Brixton, L. Donaghy, B. Drake, B. Dubs, L. Eatwell, L. Evans of Watford, L. Falconer of Thoroton, L. Faulkner of Worcester, L. Foulkes of Cumnock, L. Gale, B. Giddens, L. Glasman, L. Golding, B. Goldsmith, L. Griffiths of Burry Port, L. Hannett of Everton, L. Hanson of Flint, L. Harris of Haringey, L. Haskel, L. Hayman of Ullock, B. Hayter of Kentish Town, B. Hazarika, B. Healy of Primrose Hill, B. Hendy of Richmond Hill, L. Hendy, L. Hermer, L. Hodge of Barking, B. Howarth of Newport, L. Hughes of Stretford, B. Hunt of Kings Heath, L. Jones of Whitchurch, B. Jones, L. Jordan, L. Keeley, B. Kennedy of Cradley, B. Kennedy of Southwark, L. Kinnock, L. Knight of Weymouth, L. Lawrence of Clarendon, B. Lennie, L. Leong, L. Liddell of Coatdyke, B. Liddle, L. Lister of Burtersett, B. Livermore, L. Mandelson, L. McConnell of Glenscorrodale, L. McIntosh of Hudnall, B. McNicol of West Kilbride, L. Merron, B. Morgan of Drefelin, B. Morris of Yardley, B. Murphy of Torfaen, L. Nye, B. O'Grady of Upper Holloway, B. Pitkeathley, B. Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. Prentis of Leeds, L. Prosser, B. Ramsey of Wall Heath, B. Rebuck, B. Reid of Cardowan, L. Rowlands, L. Sahota, L. Sawyer, L. Shamash, L. Sikka, L. Smith of Basildon, B. Smith of Cluny, B. Smith of Malvern, B. Snape, L. Spellar, L. Stansgate, V. Stevenson of Balmacara, L. Thornton, B. Timpson, L. Touhig, L. Tunnicliffe, L. Turnberg, L. Twycross, B. Vallance of Balham, L. Warwick of Undercliffe, B. Watson of Invergowrie, L. Watson of Wyre Forest, L. Watts, L. Wheeler, B. Whitaker, B. Whitty, L. Wilcox of Newport, B. Winston, L. Winterton of Doncaster, B. Wood of Anfield, L. Woodley, L. Young of Old Scone, B.

Crossbench (12 votes)

Aberdare, L. Bull, B. Clancarty, E. Hayman, B. Hogan-Howe, L. Jay of Ewelme, L. Laming, L. Meston, L. Ravensdale, L. Rees of Ludlow, L. Vaux of Harrowden, L. Wheatcroft, B.

Non-affiliated (1 vote)

Patel of Bradford, L.

#uk gov #uk politics #uk parliament #politics #vote #wankerwatch

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