#anna's flight of fantasy

[paopubell]

coming out of a fic haitus with a cute soroku fic

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fantasy Books Bracket: Round 2

Book summaries below:

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

1883. Thaniel Steepleton returns home to his tiny London apartment to find a gold pocket watch on his pillow. Six months later, the mysterious timepiece saves his life, drawing him away from a blast that destroys Scotland Yard. At last, he goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori, a kind, lonely immigrant from Japan. Although Mori seems harmless, a chain of unexplainable events soon suggests he must be hiding something. When Grace Carrow, an Oxford physicist, unwittingly interferes, Thaniel is torn between opposing loyalties. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is a sweeping, atmospheric narrative that takes the reader on an unexpected journey through Victorian London, Japan as its civil war crumbles long-standing traditions, and beyond. Blending historical events with dazzling flights of fancy, it opens doors to a strange and magical past. Fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, science fiction, adult

The Marble Queen, written by Anna Kopp, illustrated by Gabrielle Kari

Princess Amelia’s kingdom, Marion, is in shambles after months of their trade routes being ravaged by pirates, and now the only seemingly option left is for her to save it through a marriage alliance. When she gets an exorbitant offer from the royalty of Iliad—a country shrouded in mystery—Amelia accepts without question and leaves her home to begin a new life. But she lands on Iliad’s shores to find that her betrothed isn't the country’s prince, but the recently coronated Queen Salira. ​ Shocked, Amelia tries to make sense of her situation and her confused heart: Salira has awakened strange new feelings inside her, but something dark hides behind the Queen's sorrowful eyes. Amelia must fight the demons of her own anxiety disorder before she can tackle her wife's, all while war looms on the horizon. Graphic novel, young adult, fantasy, romance, secondary world

[haggishlyhagging]

It has taken me a surprisingly long time to appreciate the degree of misunderstanding within this magnet for fantasy, this image of a heroine with superpowers—as witches are portrayed in all dominant cultural productions going. Half a lifetime to understand that, before becoming a spark to the imagination or a badge of honor, the word "witch" had been the very worst seal of shame, the false charge which caused the torture and death of tens of thousands of women. The witch-hunts that took place in Europe, principally during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, occupy a strange place in the collective consciousness. Witch trials were based on wild accusations of night-time flights to reach sabbath meetings, of pacts and copulation with the Devil—which seem to have dragged witches with them into the sphere of the unreal, tearing them away from their genuine historical roots. To our eyes, when we come across her these days, the first known representation of a woman flying on a broomstick, in the margin of Martin Le Franc's manuscript Le Champion des dames (The Champion of Women, 1441-2), appears unserious, facetious even, as though she might have swooped straight out of a Tim Burton film or from the credits to Bewitched, or even been intended as a Halloween decoration. And yet, at the time the drawing was made—around 1440–she heralded centuries of suffering. On the invention of the witches sabbath, historian Guy Bechtel says: "This great ideological poem has been responsible for many murders." As for the sexual dimension of the torture the accused suffered, the truth of this seems to have been dissolved into Sadean imagery and the troubling emotions that provokes.

In 2016, Bruges' Sint-Janshospitaal museum devoted an exhibition to "Bruegel's Witches," the Flemish master being among the first painters to take up this theme. On one panel, he listed the names of dozens of the city's women who were burned as witches in the public square. "Many of Bruges' inhabitants still bear these surnames and, before visiting the exhibition, they had no idea they could have an ancestor accused of witchcraft," the museum's director commented in the documentary Dans le sillage des sorcières de Bruegel. This was said with a smile, as if the fact of finding in your family tree an innocent woman murdered on grounds of delusional allegations were a cute little anecdote for dinner-party gossip. And it begs the question: which other mass crime, even one long past, is it possible to speak of like this—with a smile?

By wiping out entire families, by inducing a reign of terror and by pitilessly repressing certain behaviors and practices that had come to be seen as unacceptable, the witch-hunts contributed to shaping the world we live in now. Had they not occurred, we would probably be living in very different societies. They tell us much about choices that were made, about paths that were preferred and those that were condemned. Yet we refuse to confront them directly. Even when we do accept the truth about this period of history, we go on finding ways to keep our distance from it. For example, we often make the mistake of considering the witch-hunts part of the Middle Ages, which is generally considered a regressive and obscurantist period, nothing to do with us now—yet the most extensive witch-hunts occurred during the Renaissance: they began around 1400 and had become a major phenomenon by 1560. Executions were still taking place at the end of the eighteenth century—for example, that of Anna Göldi, who was beheaded at Glarus, in Switzerland, in 1782. As Guy Bechtel writes, the witch "was a victim of the Moderns, not the Ancients."

Likewise, we tend to explain the persecutions as a religious fanaticism led by perverted inquisitors. Yet, the Inquisition, which was above all concerned with heretics, made very little attempt to discover witches; the vast majority of condemnations for witchcraft took place in the civil courts. The secular court judges revealed themselves to be "more cruel and more fanatical than Rome" when it came to witchcraft. Besides, this distinction is only moderately useful in a world where there was no belief system beyond the religious. Even among the few who spoke out against the persecutions such as the Dutch physician Johann Weyer, who, in 1563, condemned the "bloodbath of innocents"—none doubted the existence of the Devil. As for the Protestants, despite their reputation as the greater rationalists, they hunted down witches with the same ardour as the Catholics. The return to literalist readings of the Bible, championed by the Reformation, did not favor clemency—quite the contrary. In Geneva, under Calvin, thirty-five "witches" were executed in accordance with one line from the Book of Exodus: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exodus 22:18). The intolerant climate of the time, the bloody orgies of the religious wars—3,000 Protestants were killed in Paris on St. Bartholomew's Day, 1572–only boosted the cruelty of both camps toward witches.

Truth be told, it is precisely because the witch-hunts speak to us of our own time that we have excellent reasons not to face up to them. Venturing down this path means confronting the most wretched aspects of humanity. The witch-hunts demonstrate, first, the stubborn tendency of all societies to find a scapegoat for their misfortunes and to lock themselves into a spiral of irrationality, cut off from all reasonable challenge, until the accumulation of hate-filled discourse and obsessional hostility justify a turn to physical violence, perceived as the legitimate defense of a beleaguered society. In Françoise d'Eaubonne's words, the witch-hunts demonstrate our capacity to “trigger a massacre by following the logic of a lunatic.” The demonization of women as witches had much in common with anti-Semitism. Terms such as witches "sabbath" and their "synagogue" were used; like Jews, witches were suspected of conspiring to destroy Christianity and both groups were depicted with hooked noses. In 1618, a court clerk, whiling away the longueurs of a witch trial in the Colmar region, drew the accused in the margin of his report: he showed her with a traditional Jewish hairstyle, "with pendants, trimmed with stars of David."

Often, far from being the work of an uncouth, poorly educated community, the choice of scapegoat came from on high, from the educated classes. The origin of the witch myth coincides closely with that—in 1454–of the printing press, which plays a crucial role in it. Bechtel describes a "media campaign" which "utilized all the period's information vectors": "books for those who could read, sermons for the rest; for all, great quantities of visual representations." The work of two inquisitors, Heinrich Kramer (or Henricus Institor) from Alsace and Jakob Sprenger from Basel, the Malleus Maleficarum was published in 1487 and has been compared to Hitler's Mein Kampf. Reprinted upward of fifteen times, it sold around 30,000 copies throughout Europe during the great witch-hunts. "Throughout this age of fire, in all the trials, the judges relied on it. They would ask the questions in the Malleus and the replies they heard came equally from the Malleus." Enough to put paid to our idealized visions of the first uses of the printing press! By giving credence to the notion of an imminent threat that demanded the application of exceptional measures, the Malleus Maleficarum sustained a collective delusion. Its success inspired other demonologists, who became a veritable gold mine for publishers. The authors of these contemporary books—such as the French philosopher Jean Bodin—whose writings read like the ravings of madmen, were in fact scholars and men of great reputation, Bechtel emphasizes: "What a contrast with the credulity and the brutality demonstrated by every one of them in their demonological reports."

-Mona Chollet, In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women are Still on Trial

[sweetsmellosuccess]

Love Lies Bleeding

Dir. Rose Glass

In Rose Glass’ version of the American Southwest, light pollution is non-existent. Instead, the inky blackness of the night sky is pockmarked perfectly with glittering points of distant stars and planets. It’s a beautiful, unspoiled tableau, standing in marked contrast to the all the griminess of the humans back on terra firma, their hopelessly complicated and messy interweavings casting a pall on those things within the Earth’s gravitational pull. 

It’s that sort of pull that draws feckless gym manager, Lou (Kristin Stewart), to vagabond bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian), new to the small New Mexico town more or less run by corrupt gun runner Lou Sr. (Ed Harris, sporting a low ring of long hair that makes him look like comic book store owner), who also happens to be Lou’s estranged father. 

Lou and Jackie bond very quickly  —  Lou’s pronounced queerness offering precious few options beyond the mewling propositions of fellow gym-worker Daisy (Anna Baryshnikov), whose teeth are rutted with yellow stains  — and very adroitly (the sex scenes between them are less about nudity and more about explicit context), just in time for other complications to set upon them. Jackie was in town only as a waystation for her eventual trip up to Vegas for a huge body-building competition, but she quickly gets pulled into Lou’s wobbly orbit, as her sister, Beth (Jena Malone), deals with the horrendous abuse heaped upon her by her husband, JJ (Dave Franco, with an applause worthy mullet). 

When JJ finally goes too far, and lands his wife in the hospital with facial injuries, Lou’s fury translates to Jackie’s now-steroid-addled sense of justice, which she goes to enact on JJ’s leering visage. Now embroiled in the aftermath of her vengeance, Lou and Jackie have to navigate the tricky pathways around, and eventually to Lou’s father’s mansion ensconced up in the hills. 

Glass, whose previous debut feature, Saint Maud, was a marvel of psychological complexity and restraint, has fully embraced the pulpy nature of the material (from a script penned by Glass and Weronika Tofilska), a kind of modern noir, set against a backdrop of queerness (reminiscent, ever so slightly, of the Warchowski’s Bound), and studded with some of Glass’s more enigmatic, lyric visual totems (close ups of giant insects, frequent cutaways to glowing red portraits of some of the principles haunting the drug-addled mind of Jackie). 

There is also a visceral component to Glass’s vision: In one early scene, a fully-clothed Lou, lying on her stomach on a ragged couch, masterbates, as her cat slips between her slightly raised feet to nosh on some microwaved leftovers still on their plastic tray; in another, Lou, who smokes like a Harry Dean Stanton character, uses the smoke in her lungs as a kind of wispy sexual prop. Everything feels grubby and vaguely soiled, the endless detritus  —  from plastic food trays, to empty glass Steroid vials, to the forlorn emotional longing of characters whose lives are little to no consequence to anyone else  —  of human existence crowded around the characters miens like loose particles of ore around a magnet. 

The problem is, grotty isn’t a personality: Too many of Glass’s characters, including Lou and Jackie, are flattened out stand-ins for noir tropes: Both have mysterious backgrounds of violence, but are never illuminated beyond the immediate needs of the plot, which holds precious few surprises, beyond Glass’s more adventurous flights of lyric fancy (a scene near the end plays out as fantasy-fulfillment in a way that is particularly jarring). In some ways, the character’s domiciles  —  Lou’s cluttered apartment, the sweat-soaked gym where they meet  — are more articulated than the characters themselves. 

As such, as much as Stewart and O’Brian lean into their roles, we really don’t know enough about them to be moved by their relationship, one way or the other. Without caring about them, the film loses a lot of steam, so that by the climactic showdown between Lou and her father, the stakes feel far too minimal to make an impact. Other than fulfilling the basic tenets of narrative closure, there isn’t a lot of flame to the film’s ubiquitous cigarette smoke. 

[storyowls]

Questions for Anna

7) Vice-Versa! If your OC is in the modern day, what fantasy class would they be? Would they be a different race?

10) How does your OC handle their mental health? Do they take care of themselves?

22) Fight or Flight? Are they a lover or a fighter?

23) Is your OC reliable? Can I call them up at two in the morning if I have a flat tire?

7) Vice-Versa! If your OC is in the modern day, what fantasy class would they be? Would they be a different race? Bard probably, and probably the same race.

10) How does your OC handle their mental health? Do they take care of themselves? "What can a therapist do that screaming for 20 minutes in my car can't?" The answer is bad

22) Fight or Flight? Are they a lover or a fighter? This woman owns a gun and has been taught how to engage in melee; that opponent is now on the other water polo team and she's not letting them pass if she can help it.

23) Is your OC reliable? Can I call them up at two in the morning if I have a flat tire? Depends a lot on who it is. There's three lists; "I'll be there ASAP", "Yeah, I'll be there, (but I'm wondering why you're asking me of all people)", and "I'm only going to help your ass if it benefits me or I'm told to. Don't depend on me for shit otherwise."

[rebeccathornewrites]

Buckle up for a story of inspiration.

At 18, I told myself I wasn’t allowed to get a tattoo until I published a book. I proceeded to spend a literal decade working my ass off. I got a job as a flight attendant to pay the bills, and wrote in every spare second.

My first book was purchased by a publisher and released in 2021, but the process... didn’t feel as fantastic as I’d hoped. A low advance, less support than I wanted, in a genre I wasn’t super passionate about... everything about it felt like a consolation prize.

I thought about my tattoo. But it didn’t feel like I’d earned it. Not yet.

Last year, when I was basically homeless (stuff in storage, bouncing between friends’ houses), I decided to try self-publishing. I targeted a new genre, wrote like hell, and published my first cozy fantasy in September 2022.

Years of hard work paid off, and the book exploded.

After so many years toiling away at a dream, wondering if it’d ever be more... I’m thrilled to say I’m officially a full-time author, part-time flight attendant.

So, say hello to Quill, the dragon of my dreams. He’s a mischievous little fellow who represents everything I’ve spent a lifetime working towards.

(Dragon pose by Anna. Tattoo art and image by Sol!)

[aevyk-ing]

Rambling about the Ghibli movies I’ve seen Part 2

Read part 1 here.

11. Tales of Earthsea

This one was... weird? Just boring? I really liked the designs for the mosaics and the city, but the rest needed a lot of work. I was intrigued about the main character and found myself thinking how the books are probably better. I had some problems with the character designs and the story was all over the place. 

12. Only Yesterday

A little too long, dragging in the middle, but really cute. I loved the way it depicted the country life, the softness of the scenes in the past and the fantasy bits. I also have the feeling I should live somewhere else since I was little (I love nature and forests) and I’ve been remembering a lot of stuff (well, that’s a side effect of going to therapy, I guess). Anyway, I enjoyed the little story and the way some moments were animated and I wasn’t expecting to hear castanets in a Ghibli movie. 

13. Porco Rosso

Em... this one was pretty, but the story was weird. The scenery, music and flight scenes are really good. I was interested in the transformation part, but then it started saying things like: “Sorry only women are going to build the plane.” and then making a 17 years-old fell in love with a 36 years-old. Yikes. Just yikes. Then the ending is rushed. Started out good, ended up... meh.

14. When Marnie Was There

I really liked this one. The story got me hooked, I related a lot to the main character and everything was so beautiful (just look at that house!). It can be a little confusing sometimes, especially during the middle part, but once it starts explaining things... oh, boy. My only complain is that I only knew it was the story about two girls and, once Anna started blushing I started shipping them... SPOILER it didn’t end up well. 

15. The Wind Rises

So beautiful... and also sad. Miyazaki sure loves aeroplanes and that sort of stuff, huh? But I can’t complain: his flying sequences are always amazing. I also really liked the cinematography in this one, there’s a lot of interesting angles and uses of animation. It can also be funny sometimes (I still think that German guy ate a decorative plant) and I’m glad it didn’t dwell too much in the sad parts, even though I would have liked to see a little more after Nahoko leaves and before the dream sequence. Talking about dream sequences, that’s yet another thing Miyazaki excels at. BTW, I was ready for the sad ending, but still got me. 

16. The Cat Returns

Utterly bizarre at the beginning, took an interesting turn midway where it reminded me of morning cartoons. It’s a cute story, although I’d have preferred something a little deeper or more nuanced. But it’s nice. Not the best one but fine enough for spending some free time. And yes, I’m well aware this one was made for small kids (maybe it’s the only one so far). Also, didn’t like how they teased out that Haru and the Baron are in a relationship. I still ship him with the other cat statue from A Whisper of the Heart, thank you.

17. Grave of the Fireflies

There are some movies you can just watch once... but even though, you’re glad you watched them. This movie was a ride and I was getting ready mentally to watch it, thinking that I could never find the perfect moment. However, something happened that hurt my soul so I was at the right place. It was painful, with exquisite music, but it hurt a lot. Just like Life is Beautiful... I won’t be rewatching soon... but I’ll thank it for what it is.

18. The Boy and the Heron

Proof that we still need fairytales! Have to say it was strange to go from the last movie to the beginning of this one because SPOILERS, I immediately knew what was going on. I loved the take on trauma and mixing past and present in a fantasy world that also looked an awful lot like a limbo (thanks, Over the Garden Wall). Overall, while it reminded me of other stories, it had enough heart and stuff going on to keep you hooked. You can tell it’s the result of a lifetime telling stories and my only complain is the creepiness. It was the least thing I liked from Chihiro and while I get why it has to be done, it doesn’t make it less disturbing. 

19. Tale of Princess Kaguya

(disgruntled noises) I loved the first part. Cute animation, interesting style and adorable characters. I was having such a great time. Cut to the palace bit and the escape after the party and the story starts dragging on and totally changes genres. It went from fluffy and uplifting to depressing and sad. Why? Just why? If I had seen this movie when I was a kid, I would have never wanted to watch it again. Sigh. 

[pricemarshfield]

people i want to know better

i was tagged by @wetcatspellcaster, ty for the tag!! :)

1. Favorite Ships

tav/raphael (BG3) (they can make each other worse)

tav/astarion (BG3) (i genuinely am just so soft for them)

fig/ayda (D20: Fantasy High) (my all-time beloveds, ayda is everything to me)

caitlyn/jinx (arcane/league of legends) (narrative foils on opposite sides of a fight Always get to me, and also they can make each other worse)

lae'zel/wyll (BG3) (one day i will finish one of my wips for them, because they truly are SO good. dragon age au for them especially has me climbing the walls lately, not that i've been able to move my brain from raphtav to work on it lmao)

2. First Ship

i've been in fandom in some capacity since i was like. 8. so i honestly don't remember. realistically speaking it was something from sonny with a chance or some other disney channel show, but the first pairing i actually remember being driven to Create for in some capacity was azula/katara, not that i posted that anywhere or still have it. i support women's wrongs!

3. Last Song

hyperprism by edgard varèse, which i believeee i found on kevin vanord's lae'zel playlist? i like it a lot, it's on my current favorites mix

4. Last Movie

fly me to the moon! i'd had a rough day at work the other week and wanted to see Anything, Literally Anything in theaters and this one had anna garcia of make some noise fame on it. it was cute! i liked it

5. Currently Reading

i impulse-bought the dragon age novels last month and have been ever-so-slowly making my way through them! imo the masked empire has been the best so far, but i'm enjoying what i've read of last flight!

6. Currently Watching

i've been trying to catch up to a variety of dropout shows, mainly make some noise (where i'm only a couple episodes back) and dimension 20 (on which i am So far behind). i also started total forgiveness last night, which i haven't seen before!

7. Currently Craving

if my kitchen wasn't so tiny and bad, nothing in the world could stop me from making chocolate chip cookies right now. they sound So good. i've been thinking about it all morning and afternoon </3

tagging @wretcheddthing, @elliewilliams, @atrueneutral, @pouralaura, @goldfyshie927, @prettyaveragewhiteshark , @butchboromir , @bravestworriers , and anyone else who'd like to :)

[bak3r]

‘What’s the Plan?’ Presentation #2

Other Points of Inspiration: Theatre plays, video games, animations and films that helped inspire my brief.

Ubu Roi: Ubu Roi is a play by French writer Alfred Jarry. The production's single public performance baffled and offended audiences with its unruliness and obscenity. Considered to be a wild, bizarre and comic play, significant for the way it overturns cultural rules, norms and conventions, it is seen by 20th- and 21st-century scholars to have opened the door for what became known as modernism in the 20th century, and as a precursor to Dadaism, Surrealism and the Theatre of the Absurd.

Rimo Cocaron: An off-beat game where players zoom in camera style on items and then suggest them to the participants in a game. For example, the family enjoy a hot-pot and you can suggest adding soy sauce to the mother or reminding the father the heat from the hot-pot burner is intense and getting him to open the window to let the cat out. It's hard to explain, but a great concept.

Katamari Damacy: The player controls a diminutive character named the Prince as he rolls around an adhesive ball called a "katamari" to collect increasingly larger objects, ranging from coins to pencils to buildings, in order to build stars as ordered by his father, the King of All Cosmos.

The Flying Lunar Clipper - The film depicts a group of anthropomorphic fruits and other creatures who win a contest for a ticket on the first flight of a newly found Martin M-130 flying boat named the Flying Luna Clipper. Departing from Honolulu, they embark on a journey across the Pacific Ocean and watch short films on a 200-inch screen during the trip.

Juliet of the Spirits - Fellini’s first full length colour feature is also a homage to his wife, Giulietta Masina. She plays the title role of a repressed bourgeois housewife liberated by a pervasive and sensual spirit world. Fellini’s self-styled ‘adult fairy tale’ is a kaleidoscope of visual wonders complimented by a truly delightful Nino Rota score.

Three Examples of Myself as Queen - Anna Biller casts herself as a melancholic Arabian ruler, a queen bee presiding over a cotton-candy pink hive, and a 1960s teenybopper princess in this retro-fantastic feminist anthem - a colourful musical fantasy inspired by old Hollywood musicals.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure - a deconstruction of the genre, set in the dreams of a child. Gather love, and save the souls of the innocent beings killed by "the hero".

The Seven Colors: Legend of PSY - This CD-ROM is an adventure game software designed based on the world of the pop music group PSY•S, and can be enjoyed by the people of all generations. Enjoy the adventurous heart-searching journey in PSY•S City full of poetry, graphic and music.

Yoshino’s Barber Shop - Yoshino is a respected barber who ensures that every young boy in her village has the same bowl-shaped haircut. When a boy with dyed hair arrives from Tokyo and refuses to conform to the town's haircut, he sparks a rebellion against Yoshino and village tradition - inciting a proverbial tug-of-war between tradition and new ideas.

[magic-is-something-we-create]

Writer Education Tag

THANK YOU @ashen-crest FOR THE TAG NOW I HAVE REASON TO SHARE A BUNCH OF THE WEIRD THINGS IVE HAD TO RESEARCH <3<3<3

Rules: Writers often have to research some pretty out-there stuff for our wips. What are some weird, unusual, or oddly specific things you’ve had to learn about or look into?

-- Turkish Reflex bows (construction materials, draw weights, differences from recurves, use in combat, how they're drawn (using the thumb instead of the forefingers) and also dips into variants from other cultures like iirc Mongolian archery) (Related fun fact: I've tried out archery a few times just to get an idea for how it feels!!) -- A Lot of weird animals for creature/fantasy race designs (Gharials, cowtail stingrays, phantom jellyfish, oarfish, orchid mantises, bronze parotia birds of paradise, gyr cattle, etc. etc. etc.) -- Legal terms for things like "this dude is standing in for someone who isn't here" and "knowing about a first degree murder before the fact and not stopping it" (pro tempore and accessory to [crime], respectively) which prompted deep dives into niche lawyer things of which only like 2% stuck in my brain -- Sign language!! And Language-Assisted Signs, because those are different a lot of the time and I wanted to know How and Why to portray Ash and Ice respectfully (Another related fun fact: half of my ASL research has been for use outside of writing, too, because I have Deaf family members. Also, I learned the ASL alphabet when I was 9 and that's come in clutch.) -- Speed of travel for different types of age-of-sail ships, and how to calculate that for a fantasy world where the routes are up to you and not currents of wind and water alike -- Altitude sickness/the Bends -- Ocular autohemmorrhaging (aka squirting blood out your eyes as a defense mechanism. lizards do this a lot) (this was for dragons) -- Differences in symptom presentation between Multiple Sclerosis and Transverse Myelitis (I determined that Lorelei has Multiple Sclerosis) -- Necrosis (Don't look this one up if you have a weak stomach) -- How bog bodies happen and work -- Rabies -- Different forms of paddle boats historically used for swampy navigation -- Traditional Chinese junk rigging, and how it was used in Sampan ships -- Gyroscopes and how they work/what they do/specifically the one in the plane that flew a telescope and had to keep it steady but the name of which ive forgotten -- Many Illegal Kinds Of Knives (did you know certain kinds of switchblades are illegal almost everywhere?? i didn't until semi recently. theyre some of the sexy ones too </3) -- How wing shape affects flight ability in birds -- How owl wings, specifically, are so Quiet (its the feather construction. i still dont quite get it but im tryin) -- Afrofuturistic architecture/the Afrofuturism movement as a whole -- Dancing swords/sabers with a specific focus on their grips and lack of hand guards, and the forms people used when fighting with them -- An Unreasonable amount of sewing techniques which I am now trying to make excuses for annie to reference. -- Fresco painting techniques (ended up not relevant) -- Marble sculpting techniques -- And of course a ton of research into PTSD, traumatic memory loss, OCD, the Autism + ADHD spectra (so i dont just copy-paste myself on everyone), Schizophrenia, etc. etc. for better/kinder portrayals

That is. By Far not an exhaustive list but yeah <3 i enjoy research and talking about the weird shit i learn solely through the hodgepodge of information axes i follow on the regular

I'll tag: @vacantgodling, @space-cadead, @sleepyowlwrites, @athena-anna-rose, and @comicgoblinart!! As always, absolutely 0 pressure to play if you dont want to, and this doubles as an open tag if you do!!

[paopubell]

Kairi (after dropping an entire cake): FUCK

Riku: We really need to work on your swearing

Kairi: Why? I think I'm pretty good at it

[booksyarntea]

Help me, Booklr, you're my only hope!

Updated 5/10/23: I found yet another small stack and added it to the list.

These are all the BOTM books I own. The intent when I signed up for BOTM back in 2020 was to try and read out of my usual comfort zone of Urban Fantasy (and the occasional fantasy book). My success with this challenge has been minimal — I started a couple of these books but ultimately didn't finish them. It wasn't because the books were boring, however. I was enjoying the couple I started, but I just ended up falling out-of-the-mood to read them.

The biggest problem I'm facing is just where to start with this massive (and ever growing) stack. Every single one of these books sounds amazing and interesting to read, but... I don't where to start! So I'm turning to you, members of Booklr, to help me choose which of these books to read next! These are stacked in no particular order, but for anyone that's having difficulty with images loading or can't see the images, here is a list for you:

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo*

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross

Outlawed by Anna North

A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight

The Only Survivors by Megan Miranda

The Dating Plan by Sara Desai

Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

Like A Sister by Kellye Garrett

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

The Verifiers by Jane Pek

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

The Survivors by Jane Harper

Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

The Family Game by Catherine Steadman

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

Breathless by Amy McCulloch

Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance by Ruth Emmie Lang

The London Séance Society by Sarah Penner

The Wilderwomen by Ruth Emmie Lang

Darling Girl by Liz Michalski

The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz

The Last Word by Taylor Adams

The Last Flight by Julie Clark

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Half Sick of Shadows by Laura Sebastian

*This copy of Ninth House is not a BOTM book, I included it in the stack because it's the first in a series.

[kjcamilli]

The Mark of the Dragonfly

  Jaleigh Johnson

During one of the deadly meteors storms that are par for the course for the land of Solace, Piper finds an injured girl with only the vaguest ideas of who she is or where she came from amidst the wreck of a caravan. She quickly finds out that the girl, Anna, has someone looking for her, but he doesn’t seem friendly. The two girls sneak onto the 401, a famed steam engine that runs across the land, in order to try and get Anna back to her home, which she’s sure is the capital. The man chases them throughout, but the clever crew of the 401 manage to outthink him–most of the time at least. The book culminates in a daring rescue that teaches readers the importance of asking for help and of knowing when it’s best to rely on fighting instead of flight–contrary to Anna’s repeated mantra. Throughout the story they have to grapple with learning that people aren’t always what you think they are, even when the person is yourself. Jaleigh Johnson weaves a wonderful story about mystery, adventure, found family, and finding yourself complete with complex world-building that draws the reader into the story. The setting and different species of the world are brought up so casually that it feels natural, without leaving the reader confused about what’s happening in the world or what the setting is. Even Piper’s discovery of her own magic feels authentic and understandable, and the reveal that Anna isn’t quite human seems to fit in with what the reader already knows about her. The characters have to grapple with confusing emotions and situations that they aren’t prepared for, with elements that could appeal to readers who are grappling with loss or with feeling like they don’t belong. The reader will encounter an interesting cast of characters throughout their journey, with Piper who’s stubborn and angry at the world, Anna who manages to be both extremely smart and naive while maintaining a steady optimism despite how unlucky she seems. The crew of the 401 shows an even more motley crew with Jayne Steel, the no-nonsense conductor with a soft spot for trouble makers, Trimble, the fire-proof fireman with a penchant for explosives, and Gee, the angry but well-meaning security chief who Piper finds herself liking more and more. Middle-grade readers who love fantasy, mystery, or adventure will surely find something to love about this book.

BIBLIO: 2014, Random House, Ages 10 to 13, $8.99.

REVIEWER: Katherine Camilli

FORMAT: Middle Reader 

ISBN: 978-0-385-37615-0

[wri0thesley]

do you have like. a filk playlist. because i'd never heard of the genre before you mentioned it, but LOVED both the horsetamer's daughter and dawson's christian, but have been hit-or-missing it through the spotify filk mix playlist

OH ANON . . . thank you for giving me the chance to talk more about filk.

so the thing about filk is, a LOT - and i mean a LOT - of filk is from ye olde convention days, and exists only in tapes sold on ebay and passed around at cons and inherited by bemused children (did you know peter s beagle, writer of the last unicorn, was a filker? now u do). there is a fair amount on spotify, but a lot of it is only modern stuff which i personally find has a kind of different feel to old filk music? (although i do really love vixy and tony's stuff too, i think both of their albums are on spotify, they did the dawson's christian cover i linked and it's probably my favourite version! see also for stuff i love from them: anna, the girl that's never been, missing part). both of the two filk spotify playlists i have saved (filk sampler and just filk) also suffer a bit from. self referential stuff. like, there's stuff from roundworm on both of them which isn't going to make sense if you've never heard the song they're parodying. it's a weird little mesh of a genre!

how i actually got into filk is mostly downloading out of print albums from this reddit link and then finding artists/writers i vibed with the sound of and looking for more of their work! sometimes when i loved an album so much i'd also buy the books etc it was based on just to understand it even more! anyway, my personal favourite albums from the above:

finity's end (based on cj cherryh's alliance union universe, made me seek out and buy a shedload of the books, which i would also recommend. i'm not generally a 'hard sci-fi' person but i really really clicked with these).

carmen miranda's ghost (the first filk album i listened to because i wanted to know more about dawson's christian after it came up in my spotify shuffle. more sci-fi/space stuff)

julia ecklar's horse-tamer's daughter (i mean. that makes sense. but i'm a big fan of a LOT of the album; especially threes, laughter from the lock and the eponymous)

these ones aren't on the list but most of them are on youtube, i really really love a lot of the mercedes lackey written filk albums. lots of them go along with her books (oathbreakers, shadow stalker, and lovers, lore and loss are my favourite of those - but some of them are standalone, like freedom flight and fantasy, which i also love. you can find them here!)

honestly sometimes i just find it fun to look through the list of pegasus winners (the filk awards) and choose them at random too. it's a really, really interesting genre with a super interesting history! i originally stumbled across it listening to spotify mixes for songs for oc playlists because i mostly listen to musical theatre which can make it hard to apply songs to other characters; naturally, i fell for a genre that makes that even harder.

[thaoworra]

The 2024 Elgin Award nominees are in, with 11 chapbooks and 32 full-length collections of speculative poems nominated by the 400+ members of the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (est. 1978). These are eligible works that were published in 2022 and 2023.

Speculative poetry is typically considered verse with some element of speculation in the narrow sense—usually science fiction, fantasy, or horror, though some include straight science. SFPA’s founder, Suzette Haden Elgin, shared her thoughts on sf poetry in the aptly titled “About Science Fiction Poetry.”

A big thanks goes to this year’s chair, Felicia Martinez, for coordinating all of these candidates, who emerged from 23 presses across the globe. This will be the eleventh year these awards have been conferred, and the final winners will be announced in the fall.

CHAPBOOKS (11 CHAPBOOKS NOMINATED)

Beautiful Malady • Ennis Rook Bashe • (Interstellar Flight Press, 2023)

A Belief in Cosmic Dailiness • Angela Acosta • (Red Ogre Review, 2023)

The Book of Sleep • Herb Kauderer (Written Image, 2023)

Chapel of Celluloid/Capela de Celulóide • Wade German • (Raphus Press, 2023)

Maurs Maundering • Denise Dumars • (Space Cowboy Books, 2023)

The Owl Kingdom • Rebecca Marjesdatter (Crumb Fairy Press, 2023)

Shelf Life • F.J. Bergmann • (Space Cowboy Books, 2023)

The Telepathy Machine • Jean-Paul L. Garnier (Space Cowboy Books, 2023)

Unicorn Death Moon • Zachary Cahill • (Red Ogre Review, 2023)

Vampire Ventures • LindaAnn LoSchiavo • (Alien Buddha Press, 2023)

Worm Sonnets • Amelia Gorman • (Quarter Press, 2023)

FULL-LENGTH BOOKS (32 BOOKS NOMINATED)

39 Triolets • Anna Cates • (Cyberwit Press, 2023)

Black Observatory: Poems • Christopher Brean Murray (Milkweed Editions, 2023)

The Black Ship • David Clink (Aeolus House Press, 2023)

Bleeding Rainbows and Other Broken Spectrums • Maxwell I. Gold • (Hex Publishers, 2023)

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head • Warsan Shire • (Penguin Random House, 2022)

The Border Simulator: Poems • Gabriel Dozal (Author), Natasha Tiniacos (Translator) • (One World, 2023)

Bounded By Eternity • Deborah L. Davitt (self-published, 2022)

Bramah’s Quest • Renée Sarojini Saklikar (Harbour Publishing, 2023)

Cast From Darkness • Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo • (Mind’s Eye Publications, 2023)

Doubt & Circuitry • T.D. Walker (Southern Arizona Press, 2023)

Dreamscapes and Dark Corners • Melissa Ridley Elmes • (Alien Buddha Press, 2023)

From Voyages Unreturning • Deborah L. Davitt • (Aqueduct Press, 2023)

The Full Moon Whaling Chronicles • Jason Guriel • (Biblioasis, 2023)

Grab • Kendra Preston Leonard • (Red Ogre Review, 2023)

How to Navigate Our Universe • Mary Soon Lee • (Self Published, 2023)

Hydra Medusa • Brandon Shimoda • (Nightboat Books, 2023)

I Dreamed a World • Colleen Anderson (LVP Publications, 2022)

Let the Dead In • Saida Agostini (Alan Squire Publishing, 2022)

The Lore of Inscrutable Dreams • Colleen Anderson (Yuriko Publishing, 2023)

Moonlight and Monsters • Lauren Scharhag • (Gnashing Teeth Publishing, 2023)

Neon Lights and Plane Tickets • Eli Alemán • (Self-Published, 2023)

Night Life: A Folk Horror Poetry Collection • Alba Sarria • (Monstrous Love Lounge Press, 2023)

Numinous Stones • Holly Lyn Walrath • (Aqueduct Press, 2023)

On the Subject of Blackberries • Stephanie Wytovich (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2023)

The Quiet Ways I Destroy You • Jessica McHugh • (Apokrupha Press, 2023)

Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair • Marisca Pichette • (Android Press, 2023)

The Second Stop is Jupiter • upfromsomedirt • (Wayne State University Press, 2023)

Selected Poems 1965-2020 • Michael Butterworth • (Space Cowboy Books, 2023)

Sifting the Ashes • Michael Bailey and Marge Simon • (Crystal Lake, 2022)

Soft Apocalypse • Leah Nieboer • (University of Georgia Press, 2023)

The Spellbook of Fruit and Flowers • Christine Butterworth-McDermott (Fomite Press, 2023)

Star Tent: A Triptych • Amie Whittemore (Tolsun Books, 2023)

Tombstones: Selected Horror Poems • G.O. Clark • (Weird House Press, 2022)

NOMINATIONS PER PRESS: (23 PRESSES)

Aeolus House Press: 1

Alien Buddha Press: 2

Android Press: 1

Apokrupha Press: 1

Aqueduct Press: 2

Biblioasis: 1

Crumb Fairy Press: 1

Crystal Lake: 1

Cyberwit Press: 1

Fomite Press: 1

Gnashing Teeth Publishing: 1

Harbour Publishing: 1

Hex Publishers: 1

Interstellar Flight Press: 1

Alan Squire Publishing: 1

LVP Publications: 1

Milkweed Editions: 1

Mind’s Eye Publications: 1

Monstrous Love Lounge Press: 1

Nightboat Books: 1

One World: 1

Penguin Random House: 1

Quarter Press: 1

Raphus Press: 1

Raw Dog Screaming Press: 1

Self-Published: 3

Southern Arizona Press: 1

Space Cowboy Books: 4

Red Ogre Review: 3

Tolsun Books: 1

University of Georgia Press: 1

Wayne State University Press: 1

Weird House Press: 1

Written Image: 1

Yuriko Publishing: 1

[lakelandg]

SUN 'n FUN Day 3 is Here

HIGHLIGHTS TODAY! Victories Arsenal -10:00 AM – Commemorative Air Force – Tora! Tora! Tora!THE HANGAR –10:00 a.m. – Before and Beyond the Niihau Zero – Syd Jones & KT Budde-Jones11:00 a.m. – Fantasy of Flight – Kermit Weeks5:00 p.m. – Polaris Dawn – Jared Isaacman, Scott Poteet, Anna Menon, Sara Gillis6:00 p.m. – Ghost Squadron – Jared Isaacman, John “Slick” Baum, Sean “Stroker” Gustafson7:00…