#also I love vonnegut

[bxriles]

A lot of creators in bookish spaces (ones who I really respect and share similar tastes with) keep talking about how amazing The Locked Tomb series is and I want to try it, but then I hear it’s sci-fi and I’m just immediately put off.

I don’t really fuck with the genre too much, but I want to give this series a chance, especially after seeing what people have to say about it. But then I’m afraid it’s going to be SUPER HEAVY sci-fi, and that would nottttt be a good time for me.

So my question for the masses is this: is it worth trying out The Locked Tomb series if you’re not a huge sci-fi fan? And be honest lmao. If you think it’s super heavy on the sci-fi elements and that it might be off-putting to someone like me, let me know! But if you think it’s worth pushing through, I want to know that too!

PS - I know the books are confusing as hell and difficult to follow at times, but I’ve already read Malazan Book of the Fallen, so that doesn’t scare me. If anything, that’s a point in TLT’s favor.

[blessyouhawkeye]

there is truly nothing better than a writer with a distinct Voice. i love reading a story and knowing that no one else in the world could have written it because no one else has the Voice that so throughly suits the narrative and it's characters. writers with a distinct Voice i am eating your words

[saturdaynightghostclub]

Seattle Diaries Vol. II:

Friends from all over WA organized a “Welcome Home” potluck for me and I definitely cried

Making new friends in my program, being brave and joining clubs, etc!

Taking public transport soooo much. Haven’t touched my car in a week.

Started regular barre classes which I thought I would hate but I’m actually obsessed

Went fishing a bunch! Haven’t done that since I was a kid and definitely not in the ocean so super fun, love to touch slimy things

Meal prepping, wow who is she

Begging literally anyone to hire me but also it’s kind of okay for the time being

Trying lots of new foods and reading lots of new books and petting lots of street cats!

[dykeofmisfortune]

guys so uhhh i met this girl who loves both bruce springsteen and my own private idaho, and she loves literature and wants to be a writer. what the fuck do i DO i've never met anyone so similar to who i am in my soul. guys what the hell

[saintbuffy]

got some new books at the library today 😈 hehehe

[supercantaloupe]

i'm so giddy honestly. it's not my first time having class (that's basically just show and tell with fun shit from the collections) at the library of congress but it is my first time having my prof be a librarian there and my first time getting to see the staff areas and special collections storage. and we were looking at some of the little mermaid documents the prof had pulled from the ashman papers for us to see and i had asked if they had stuff from god bless you mr rosewater cause i love that show and he said i think so but i'm not sure, which, fair enough it's a big collection in a massive fucking library and it's a fairly obscure show. but then when we were going through the special collections stacks and putting away the items we'd been looking at HE PULLED OUT THE BOX FROM THE ASHMAN PAPERS FULL OF ROSEWATER DOCUMENTS FOR ME TO LOOK AT!!!!!

[istherewifiinhell]

I hope to be able to communicate. An emotional vibe

[Mirage 28, Story: Stephen Murphy, Pencils, Inks and Letters: Jim Lawson (as far as i can tell and so says the wiki). 1 page each by Eastman and Rich Veitch, not included]

[The style for this issue has a softer painterly look to the duoshade. All panels are horizontal across the width of the page.]

[ID from alt: Two panels, Leo leaning over to look at Raph, who's in profile and glaring slightly downwards. He asks "Care to talk about it?". Close on Raph's face, still not looking at Leo, he says "No." END ID]

ID from alt: 3 Panels. Casey leans over, gripping bridge trusses on either side of himself, asks "Hey bro', What's going down?" Raph's feet dangling over the edge of the bridge, its shadow cast on the water below. Raph says "The River... I suppose..." Close on Casey as he looks down skeptically "Um, Yeah. -- Hey, talk to me Raph. Really talk to me."

ID from alt: Three panels. Raph in profile, gazes down somberly, he says "Can't. You wouldn't understand. You're... You're human. You can't possible understand. Wide to all three of them, Casey has shuffled closer, one hand still on the truss. He says "Say what? I'm what? You can kiss off, Pal." Leo on the other side leans back a bit. "The what about me Raph? Why won't you tell me?". Close on Raph, annoyed now. "You're crowding me Leo, you're both crowding me. -- Don't crowd me." END

^gets sick every time i look at this one (HIGHEST OF COMPLIMENT)

ID from alt: Two panels. Close on April's hand. Holding a small turtle in its shell. Caption box "No... not this time, baby." Raph in the foreground, still upset. April and the other turtles sit along the bridge, all apart from Raph. April still holding the turtle, looks over to him. Caption box "When the hell will he simply accept all that's happened to him?" END

Second caption box references April's line in the 3 issue Raph got de-mutated arc. Which he spent the most time being looked after by her.

ID from alt: Two panels. Raph sitting with his back to his brothers, looking down and upset again. Wider shot shows everyone on a raft, the other turtles sitting and Casey pushing raft along at one end, Raph facing the rear, tense, observing the water. April sits between them, not facing either direction, observing Raph. END

ID from alt: Two panels, nighttime. The group sits around a camp fire, Casey standing to tell a story "-Like so much red white and blue Alpo. See, man, there was this..." Raph stands facing into the dark. Caption box: Raphael stood apart from the rest of us..." Wide of the landscape, moon reflecting on water, surrounded by trees and distant mountains. Caption box: "... And stared intently across the moonlit water." END

ID from alt: April and Raph trying to move an unconscious being, mostly humanoid with amphibious features, their three bodies lit against complete blackness. Raph holds her under the shoulders and says "You take her feet, I'll get her head." April kneels to hold her ankles and says "Thanks, Raph." END

ID from alt: Intricately detailed depiction of one of the aquatic beings while still in the egg, curled with its still developing limbs and large eyes. Caption boxes: I am conceived anew -- And as I grow -- I watch my people wither. END

ID from alt: Wide scene lit by the camp fire. April kneels with the beings head in her lap. Four more of the species approach her and the body. Casey stands back closer to the fire, and the turtles, even further back, towards the shore line. Caption box: They've lost her. END

ID from alt: 1. Two panels. Caption box: ... The only four of their species.... The turtles stand in line, Don, Mike, Leo and Raph, looking over the water, and the four remaining beings heads sink below the water. Caption box. "... just like-" The beings completely unseen now. Raph turns his head, looks behind them.

2. Two panels. Dramatic close up on Raph, looking back. The hint of pupil in the normally white eyes adds to the expressions intensity. Close on April meeting his gaze. Eyes wide with shock. She says a quite "-Omigod". END

ah. i was just gonna tag rant about this its getting way too long. oop

As i said earlier. this was ANOTHER ISSUE that was adapted into 03 during the Leo angst era. so they swapped Raph for Leo.

(NOT MAD ABT IT. i could go on a very long talk abt raph leo interchangeability and every time they've done that in adaptation, and why so many of the raph leo conflicts are about them being so so similar.

and how they are the person the other gets/gets them. and loss of that understanding due to separation or injury causes the blow ups.)

ANYWAY

03 didnt have the events that happened to raph that are referenced here anyway. those being. Raph almost being killed in a drive to solo kill the shredder (which... Leo Does btw) but more importantly admitting to Leo that he feels he has no control, that he cant think through his emotions.

And, again as mentioned, the de-mutation. It took him from weakened, to childlike, too deteriorating illness, until he's a particularly emotive large turtle, and then even less so to a normal smaller and smaller one. And this was caused by a very powerful being that thought he'd be happier that way, after feeling all the guys bask in the water, and be in awe of real baby turtles.

So these are the things he can't talk to Leo or Casey about. And this comic issue is one thats in the mode of "something written by april" like journal entries. And it wouldnt be clear cause i removed the CONTEXT lol. but that is her seeing a vision, from this dying being, of her [the being's] life and history, and its like. not pretty! not good things happening to the extincting amphibious humanoids.

So the lack of control, emotional and LITERAL, over his fate, his body, his being his mind? The things he cant tell his human best friend or his leader and brother. She goes through something impossible, she has no control, she fails at saving this being. And she sees it. And they see each other. And their is not a fix it at the end of that. She doesn't tell anyone else why she gets spooked. Everyone is just standing around each other in the moment, where its all not okay.

[ltwharfy]

I have today off work to celebrate the anniversary of the airing of "bob Actually"!

[cptnbeefheart]

reading vonnegut again i missed his voice :]

[jonathanbyersphd]

Respectfully, I just know Jonathan Byers is an English Lit hoe. Like have you seen him? He's one choice away from giving you an in-depth analysis of The Grapes of Wrath at all times.

[heartslobbf]

me realising i love slaughterhouse-five so much bc its just. such a disabled narrative. about the dehumanisation of disabled people, the disbelieving, the denial of our realities. radical in its assertion that diagnoses are there for abled people's comfort, that health and truth are social constructs and aaaaaa. aaaaaaa. i hate you 'lets diagnose this fictional character' fuckers i hate you 'therapist reacts' channels. by disregarding and 'explaining away' the fantastical elements of slaughterhouse-five you are asserting the normative bullshit that dehumanises disabled people!!!! fuck!!1 this is everything!!!!! i cannae believe how goddamn ableist so much criticism of this book is but also yes i can because oh my god people are ableist. anyway if you can access it read '"spastic in time": time and disability in kurt vonnegut's slaughterhouse-five' by adam barrows because its a banger article that helped me articulate better a LOT of my feelings about this novel. also hehehehehe guess who found some wider reading to help with his writing on disability in rgu (a la the meta and surrealism of it all) :)

[winchestersickness]

Dean's characterization in canon is so weird because you're really telling me that he doesn't know who HP Lovecraft is? Him?? Be serious? And his excuse is "I was too busy having sex with women" like he didn't quote Star Trek, out of everything, three episodes earlier??

[leftoversludge]

bro i literally have homework for other classes i don’t have tiiimmeee to be filling my brain with all this ghost lore !!!!!!! i mean its already done, i already know everything about them now but like… i have a seven page essay i need to write….

[themilfking]

Great quote. Id show this to any artist whose activism begins/ends with wearing a red pin to the Oscars.

Doesn't however change the fact that public opinion undermined the US's position in Vietnam.

A study authorized by the Trilateral Commission in 1975 to examine the "governability" of American democracy found that "the most notable new source of national power in 1970, as compared to 1950, was the national media," suggesting also that there was "considerable evidence to suggest that the development of television journalism contributed to the undermining of governmental authority." - source

BTW this may be a great activism strategy. take large amounts of perishables sold by Israeli/Israel-supporting companies and abandon or dispose of them so they have to be thrown out. hopefully, the stores will have to stop selling products of those companies.

EDIT: zionists mad about this one lmao

[illdowhatiwantthanks]

Emily Prentiss x Reader Headcanons

Mostly SFW, but a few lil spicy ones throughout (below the line).

Chews on pens/pencils when she's anxious or deep in thought and it's inexplicably hot.

Has a glass of very nice, very expensive red wine every night.

Fluent in Arabic, French, Spanish, and Italian. Passable in Russian.

Seems quiet and mysterious at first but is actually just a huge dork.

Breaks down crying every time before starting her period and will say, "I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm so emotional today," and you're like... "Babe, don't you start tomorrow?"

Usually a no-strings-attached-sex kind of person, mostly because relationships are hard with her job. You're the exception.

Will fold like a wet napkin for nice chocolate.

Notorious for ghosting lol. Sometimes even used a fake name. A bad habit from her undercover days.

Not subtle at all when coming on to you. Pretty much asked you for a date out of the blue.

Loves that you can talk about the deep, dark stuff, but can also make her laugh like no one else.

If for any reason you wake up in the night–stomachache, nightmare, scary storm–she is up with you. She'll claim she can't sleep either, but really she just wants to hold you and make sure you get back to sleep okay.

Watches you breathe at night. She finds it deeply comforting.

Takes you once a year to her grandfather’s cottage in the French Alps, where she spent a lot of time growing up.

Grew up Catholic. She’s not religious anymore, but sometimes she still likes to listen to old hymns and chants, like they had at the mass she and her mom attended in Italy.

Opens every door for you always. In fact, she’ll be hurt if you don’t let her open the door.

An incredibly good listener. She loves hearing about your day, no matter how mundane it was, because her days are usually filled with the darkest, most horrific things.

Has two tattoos. (1) On her ankle. A word from the Qur’an (لِّتَسۡكُنُوۡۤ) that roughly translates to “that you may find tranquility.” She got it in Italy when she started to realize she liked girls, because girls were the only people in whom she ever found tranquility. (2) On her hip. A small asterisk a la Kurt Vonnegut.

Insanely protective. She will not let anyone touch you, say anything to you, even look at you with nefarious intentions.

Has a little note on her phone where she writes down your favorite things–takeout, flowers, ice cream flavors, the brand of tampons you use–so she'll always remember.

“Call me when you get there.” Has to know where you are at all times. You gave up arguing and just constantly have your phone location shared with her. It’d be suffocating except that, given her job, it makes sense.

Loves that you are so independent. She’s watched too many BAU relationships fall apart because their partner was frustrated with the demanding BAU work schedule. You don’t really mind. Of course, you miss her, but you also really like your alone time, so things balance out nicely.

Puzzle fiend. There’s almost always a puzzle going on the coffee table.

Queen of leaving people on read. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that texts usually fall by the wayside when she’s in the field.

Secretly loves it so much when you brag about her. She’ll act all embarrassed about it, but it means a lot that you’re proud of her.

A hipster in the sense that if something is popular, she automatically decides she doesn’t like it. You make fun of her a lot for this.

Falls in love with you every time she notices one of your little gestures–having a second go-bag packed and ready at all times, doing the laundry, packing little granola bars in her purse because you know she forgets to stop for lunch, returning books to the library for her, etc.

Incredibly stubborn. Thankfully, you are, too, so you’re well-matched. On the downside, sometimes it takes forever to make a decision because neither of you are willing to back down.

Swears like a sailor when she’s not at work.

Kind of quiet with other people, but will talk with you late into the night, until you fall asleep. You love that you get to fall asleep to her voice.

Touches you like you’re made of gold, like you were made to be cherished and held on to.

Cheek/nose/forehead kisses. all. the. time.

Kisses you good morning and good night, every time, no matter when she gets home or when she leaves.

You would never guess it, but she lives for gossip. She doesn’t want to be part of the drama, but she sure as hell wants to know about it.

Drives her wild (in bed and out) that you are 100% hers. It is not in your nature to cheat, you are wholly devoted to your person, and she is over the moon that she’s that person.

Acts like a top, is a top.

Can drink coffee at midnight and be conked out twenty minutes later.

After a particularly hard case, she’ll come home and want to just hold you really tight against her chest, sometimes for an hour or more. You always let her.

Big spoon, always. She likes to feel like she’s keeping you safe.

Favorite food is the sweet potato burrito from Muchas Gracias, but they only have them at lunch and she is never in DC at lunchtime, so sometimes you go buy her one and pack it for her for lunch the next day. It makes her day every time.

Honestly it’s a struggle when you have to get up before her because she has you in a ninja death grip that is almost impossible to get out of.

Her feet are always cold, so she has a huge collection of fuzzy socks.

Movie buff. Has a giant checklist of all the Oscar noms during awards season, and you watch one almost every night she’s home.

Loves to shower with you. You will get clean, but you’ll get fucked first.

A wizard with a wand (iykwim).

She still gets butterflies when you hold hands.

[volkswagonblues]

Oh my god yes Kurt Vonnegut!!

Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time or, what was on Daniel Molloy’s bookshelf in 1973?

Inspired by @volkswagonblues’ and @islandbetweeenrivers’ reading list of texts providing historical and cultural context for Daniel Molloy as journalist in the 1970s and 80s

This is, pretty much in its entirety (bar one or two references throughout the show and its extant material), assumptions I’ve made about the character. But, also: it’s my blog so I can do what I want. Dating works is somewhat inconsistent, as I opted for the date a piece was published in a collection or translation rather than when it first appeared in print if it seemed more realistic to have been acquired in that format.

I’ve found the archives of Rolling Stone and Playboy have been helpful in piecing together a who’s who of literary life in the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially for a intellectually precocious teen from suburban Modesto, CA transplanted into the centre of countercultural life in Haight-Ashbury.

From what I can gather, being born in ‘53 means Daniel was just a year shy of being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, an experience that would have profoundly effected his peers just a year or two older than him. Throughout his teenage years, he’s got the spectre of the possibility of being drafted hanging over his head. It reminds me of pop-inspirational phrases like “you only live once,” which really puts his risk-taking, thrill-seeking behaviour into the perspective of yeah, this is someone who is trying to live life to the fullest every second of every day because the possibility of being drafted means that he might not make it past twenty. (Unfortunately! Louis & Armand also mean he might not make it past twenty either xoxoxo)

However, crucially, he did narrowly miss the draft, and despite that it would be horrible, I think there’s an acute sense of having missed out on this profoundly altering experience as well. Moving to Haight-Ashbury, he’s six years late to the Summer of Love ‘67, and the rose-tinted image of hippies, peace, and love is replaced by the grittiness of speedfreaks and serial killing (the Zodiac Killer being active throughout 1969, when Daniel would have been sixteen). He’s made it to San Francisco just a few years after its golden era, and i think this makes him even more determined to live, more determined to chase living life in order to make up for that, yknow?

i think the themes that he’s drawn to when reading are:

new journalism, and particularly when the journalist-as-rockstar persona is inserted into said reporting

the provocative, bacchanalian pursuit of pleasure, whether it be sex, drugs, or rock ‘n’ roll — and often sex mixed with violence in a way that is neither straightforward nor legible

travelogues and adventure stories that reflect his restlessness, particularly which let him romanticise far away places with thriving literary scenes like Paris and New York

a general aura of repressed queerness and crises of american masculinity (Capote, Tennessee Williams, Ginsburg, Hemingway)

war narratives as a vehicle for cold war/red scare anxieties

Without further ado, the actual book list:

Periodicals

Playboy magazine. People have long joked about reading Playboy for the articles, but it is the one piece of literature teenage Daniel is in-universe confirmed to have readily accessible, so I’m running with “Danny actually does read it for the articles, though” (and anyways, it’s Diana Ross’ Rolling Stones cover issue from Feb 1 1973 that he jerks off to). In 1973 alone, Playboy featured interviews with playwright Tennessee Williams; Huey Newton (co-founder of the Black Panther Party); news anchor and journalism’s elder statesman Walter Cronkite; science fiction novelist Kurt Vonnegut; and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Vietnam war correspondent David Halberstam. Other Playboy interviews of possible interest: Fidel Castro, Orson Welles, Michael Caine (1967); Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, sexologists William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, Paul Newman (1968); Martin Luther King Jr., Marshall McLuhan, Allen Ginsberg (1969). Also of note: between 1969 and 1971, Playboy was publishing faked letters to the editor that eventually developed into the Illuminati conspiracy theories.

In terms of reporting from major national newspapers in circulation, significant stories that come to mind are the New York Times publication of the Pentagon Papers (1971) and Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s Watergate investigations for the Washington Post (1972-73). It’s harder to gauge the circulation of underground newspapers like the Berkeley Barb (CA) and the Village Voice (NY) but its entirely likely that a resourceful and enterprising young reader with a point of view in Modesto, CA could get their hands on a copy.

Prose, Fiction & Nonfiction

The Little Red Book by Mao Zedong. At Berkeley, The Black Panthers would raise money by selling copies bought in bulk at markup to students. Absolutely makes sense that daniel would acquire (and actually read) a copy. Growing up in the wake of McCarthyism/Red Scare nonsense def makes me think he would see flirtations with communism as provocative and cool/edgy, but never back that flirtation up with follow-through.

The Hell’s Angels, a Strange and Terrible Saga (1966) by Hunter S. Thompson. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the Hells Angels had a sizeable presence in San Francisco and Oakland — from what I can find they lived dead centre of Haight-Ashbury up until ‘69 if not later. As a teenager in Modesto, Daniel would have been geographically quite close (if not actually in attendance at) the 1969 Altamont Festival Rolling Stones performance where a teenage concertgoer was stabbed to death by a member of the Hells Angels.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in ‘72 (serialized in Rolling Stone magazine) by Hunter S. Thompson. The quintessential text to understand ‘73 Daniel, imo. Fuck Nixon, Fuck Reagan, fuck the National Guard killing student protestors. Thompson’s other works include “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved“ (with illustrations by Ralph Steadman) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The New Journalism: An Anthology (1973) edited by Tom Wolfe. In addition to excerpts of Hunter S. Thompson’s work already discussed above, the anthology collects In Cold Blood (1965) by Truman Capote, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) by Joan Didion, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) by Tom Wolfe, and Armies of the Night (1968) by Norman Mailer. I won’t do justice to summarizing the New Journalism here, but it’s def important.

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut. The quintessential Daniel Molloy fiction novel, to me. Exploration of post-traumatic stress disorder through an encounter with time travelling science fiction aliens. Takes on a new resonance for Daniel when he’s dealing with his own ptsd post-1973. Vonnegut’s other works include Cat’s Cradle (1963) and Breakfast of Champions (1973). On the subject of Cold War anxieties, there’s Catch-22 (1961) by Joseph Heller. I don’t have much to say about it as I’ve not read it yet, but it feels like the kind of thing teenage Daniel living in Schrödinger's draft call-up would take to. Maybe also John Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) and The Looking Glass War (1965), the latter particularly for the palpable air of repressed homoeroticism and WWII nostalgia/Cold War anxiety.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (published posthumously in 1964). Daniel absolutely spent his teenage years romanticising being an expat America writer in the Paris literary scene. Substance use, war, and crises of masculinity throughout. In addition to Hemingway’s reporting on the Spanish Civil War (1937-1938), other works include novels The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).

George Orwell: Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), Burmese Days (1934), Homage to Catalonia (1938), Animal Farm (1945), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949); and essays ”Books v. Cigarettes“ (1946), ”Decline of the English Murder” (1946), “Politics and the English Language” (1946), and “Why I Write” (1946). I think Orwell’s nonfiction writing would appeal to Daniel more than his fiction, especially when at the right age to romanticize the poverty-tourism of Down and Out. Also bonus points for Paris.

On the Road (1957), The Dharma Bums (1958), and The Subterraneans (1958) by Jack Kerouac. In particular, The Subterraneans is based on Kerouac’s interracial relationship with an African American woman in the 1960s. He’d also probably read Naked Lunch (1959) by fellow Beat poet William S. Burroughs.

Lolita (1955) by Vladimir Nabokov, both for its salacious notoriety and its unreliable narration. Like myself, Daniel feels like the kind of teenager who would read Lolita at sixteen as a provocation in a conservative environment, but come away genuinely enjoying it.

Poetry, Drama, Misc

Howl and Other Poems (1956) by Allen Ginsberg, particularly the edition published locally by San Francisco’s City Lights Books Pocket Poets series.

A series of miscellaneous titles I’d group together as “Daniel Actually Did the Assigned Reading in High School English Class” — The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (“Get off that bench, brother”), Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and “The Second Coming” by W. B. Yeats. Most significantly, I imagine high school is where he’d be exposed to the work of American playwrights Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. The Glass Menagerie (1944), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) by Tennessee Williams. In the context of his relationship with Louis, I think it’s fun to imagine he’s familiar with/attracted to the Southern Gothic by way of Tennessee Williams (again with the crises of masculinity, the spectre of war, the repressed sexuality). Williams and Death of a Salesman (1949) by Arthur Miller, present the life Daniel could have had ie. the alcoholic husband, housewife vacuuming on Valium, etc.

If there’s anything else anyone thinks I’ve missed, feel free to hit me with a reply or a dm or an @ or whatnot. stay freaky & support yr local library x