#art/history/literature recs also welcome!

[la-cocotte-de-paris]

yo has anyone got any reading/viewing/etc recs for psychoanalysis?

[hisdhampir]

"I Want to Explore...History!"

PART I OF THE "I'm Bored" SERIES

Hello everyone! And welcome to part I of the "I'm Bored" series I made in collaboration with @alvaconsumesmedia!

Below you will find a list of different historical content I personally recommend you research and consume if you find yourself bored and wanting to explore the world of history!

If you have any questions about this list, want more information about a person or event than is listed, or wish to make a recommendation as to what should be added, send me a message to my ask box!!

HISTORY TOPICS TO RESEARCH:

[LIST] The Sumerians, Reading Recs.・located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia, emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC were the Sumerians - the oldest recorded civilzation in the entire world....also they invented writing, literature, and beer, so you know they were fun.

The Sedlec Ossuary・also known as the Church of Bones, the Sedlec Ossuary, located in the Czech Republic, is one of the most unusual chapels you will ever see as it is decorated with the real bones of some 40,000 people.

The Great Molasses Flood of 1917・if an inescapable tsunami wave of molasses charging 35 miles per hour toward you seems impossible...you should have been there to see it in Boston in 1919.

The Mouse Utopia Experiments・if you ever wondered what the horrifying real story that inspired The Rats of NIMH was...well you've found it here.

Subtropolis・SubTropolis is a business complex located 150 feet underground in an artificial cave in the bluffs north of the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri made out of an old mine that was, at one time, supposed to be an amusement park.

The Dancing Plague of 1518・a plague that hit the town of Strasbourg in 1515 that caused as many as 400 people to dance until they died.

The Demonic Possessions of Loudun・The best-known case of possession in Western European history took place in the French town of Loudun at the Church of Saint Peter where no nun was safe from demon possession.

The Tower of Silence・A dakhma, also known as a Tower of Silence was a structure built by Zoroastrians made to store decomposing dead bodies to keep them away from the city as to avoid contamination of the soil.

The Game of Hounds and Jackals・a popular game played in 1805 by the Egyptians. A copy of the game can be found today in The Met.

The Bloody Bender Murders・in the 1870s the Bender family opened an Inn in Labette County in Kansas and began murdering people who came to visit.

ART HISTORY TOPICS TO RESEARCH:

The "Le génie du mal" and the "L’ange du mal"・the St. Paul Cathédrale de Liège in Belgium, once upon a time, hired two artists both to make statues of the Devil to place in their church and, unfortunately for the nuns of St. Paul Cathédrale de Liège they were done just a little too well.

Albert Kahn's Archive of The Planet・It was Kahn's dream to document the entire world via photography, from 1909 and 1931 his team dispatched to accomplish this goal. However, when the great depression hit his dreams were smashed.

HISTORICAL FIGURES TO RESEARCH:

Carvaggio・Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, known mononymously as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome, disliked by many during his time for his arrogance, his rebellious nature...oh yeah, and he was a murderer.

Violet Jessop・Violet Constance Jessop was an Irish-Argentine ocean liner stewardess and nurse in the early 20th century who managed to survive THREE shipwrecks in her time, including the titanic!

Kate Warne・Kate Warne was none other than the first female detective in the United States, who worked for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency - the same agency that inspired many of the original Sherlock novels.

Hatshepsut・Hatshepsut was the Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Thutmose II and, after his passing, was made the first ever Queen of Egypt...so why has no one ever heard of her?

Ching Shih・Zheng Yi Sao, also known as Shi Xianggu, Shek Yeung and Ching Shih, was the leader of the largest recorded pirate fleat to ever exist from 1801 to 1810 in China...also the pirate queen in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies was based on her...not really important but I think that's pretty cool.

Marie Vigoreaux・Marie Vigoreaux, was a French fortune teller and an active part of the famous Poison Affair of the 1670s.

Olga of Kiev・Olga was a regent of Kievan Rus' for her son Sviatoslav from 945 until 957 who is famously known for taking revenge on entire city by mass murdering them and then, after the deed was done, converted to Catholicism and becoming a patreon saint afterward...and, yes, she is still honored as a saint in Ukraine to this day

Wu Zetian・Wu Zetian, personal name Wu Zhao, was the first and only Empress of China, who ruled from 660 to 705 and she would do anything to ensure that she stayed in charge.

Julie D'Aubigny・Julie d'Aubigny, better known as Mademoiselle Maupin or La Maupin, was a French opera singer....but what's more exciting is that she was a bisexual, cross-dressing, swords-woman, and murderer.

Alexander the Great・Alexander the Great was the king of Macedonia (336–323 bce), who overthrew the Persian empire, carried Macedonian arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms.

HOLLYWOOD HISTORY TO RESEARCH:

The Ava Gardner, Barbara Payton, Lana Turner Love Affair・known as the most scandalous love affair in Hollywood, Gardner, Payton, and Turner were secretly sleeping together for years....and Frank Sinatra was not happy about it.

NONFICTION HISTORICAL BOOKS TO READ:

[LIST] Medieval Religion, Reading Recs.・my list of reading recommendations to help you learn more about religion during the medieval ages.

ARTICLES TO READ:

"What Does God Smell Like?" by John Last・Unusual smells have been a distinguishing mark of holiness since the earliest days of Christian worship, so what is the smell of God?

That's all for history exploration! I hope that this helped you in curing your boredom! if you have any questions regarding anything discussed here or if you'd like to make a request to be added to the list, please send an ask to my ask box! I appreciate all comments and questions!

[garryblogs]

Hi, this is @gigarchomp, and welcome to yet another my sideblog!

This one is for reblogging any and all random nonsense that I like. Could be art, memes, sociopolitical commentary, anything under the sun. Probably nothing original here, but if there ever is, it'll be tagged appropriately (as #garry posts or #garry originals).

Speaking of which, I do have a tagging/sorting system here as well, just... nobody knows what it is. Not even me. Lmao. 99 times out of 100, I'm too lazy to even tag a post before I hit reblog but... welp. At worst, this is just my "likes" page. At best also, it's my "likes" page, but slightly more organized. (Update: Turns out that, since I haven't been tagging jack shit and reblogging some posts multiple times, it's actually less organized than my "likes" page. Yay for me.) Anyways. You can also find me on

@gigarchomp - main blog

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day! ♡

TAGGING SYSTEM

by [adjective]:

#cool tag

#funny tag

#pretty tag

#aesthetic tag

#relatable tag

#important tag

#interesting tag

#sociopolitical tag

#helpful tag

by post/media type:

#memes

#comics

#videos

#polls

#art

#quotes

#poetry

#references

#resources

by topic:

#news

#creativity

#art

#writing

#fandom

#pride

#adulting

#friends

#cats

#dogs

#zoology

#birds

#horses

#nature

#astronomy

#science

#history

#media literacy

#litcrit

#literature

#fiction

#scifi

#escapism

#tropes

#linguistics

#neurodivergence

#palestine

#india

#TIL

#on hope

#nice things

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by fandom:

#ffxiv

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#atla

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#pokemon

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by friend:

#ax tag

#sru tag

#johan tag

#avi tag

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#omkar tag

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#nishant tag

by pet:

#jade tag

#cindy tag

for ease of access:

#inspo

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#saved

#bookmarked

#book recs

#film recs

#show recs

#game recs

#music recs

#to do later

#to read

#to watch

#to play

#fav

#absolute fav

#!!!

#references

#resources

[thetransfemininereview]

Boy oh boy do I have some recs from transfemme authors for you 🩷

School by Isabel Pában Freed - an absolutely brilliant excoriation of elite liberal arts colleges in the US with breathtaking metamodern panache. Also the whole book emotionally hinges on someone named Johnny Motherfucking Soufflé

Otros valles by Jamie Berrout - Gorgeously articulated introspection at the TexMex border on the boundaries between folklore, death, discrimination, and hope.

Yemaya’s Daughters by Dane Figueroa Edidi - a sprawling post-modern epic told out of time from New York to Eden; about the Fall of a black trans priestess as she moves through history and beyond her own being

Not Like Before by Lily Seabrooke and Jacqueline Ramsden - A wonderful romance novel about an uptight trans professor who takes a celebrity back to their shared hometown for a documentary shoot and falls in love in the process

Welcome to Dorley Hall by Alyson Greaves (has a publisher now but was self-pub) - What begins as a harrowing tale of a closeted trans girl stumbling into a forced feminization cult unfurls into a dazzling multi-generational epic that deconstructs transfemininity.

99 Erics by Julia Serano - She might be most famous for writing transfeminist classic Whipping Girl, but her only novel is a riotously funny piece of absurdist literature about a woman who decides to sleep with 99 people named Eric and microblog about it.

I’ve Got a Time Bomb by Sybil Lamb - In the OPPOSITE direction from Dorley, this one originally had an indie publisher, but is now self-pubbed by Lamb. This book is a radical destabilization of conventional language and prose, framing a warped Amerika against one trans woman’s doomed struggle to survive.

Finding Home by M.K. Bengtson - This is the second book in a duology, and I wrote an article about its prequel; there’s an article coming about this one too, so I won’t spoil it, but the ending vividly captured my spirit. Start with the prequel though.

Sex and the Single Transsexual by Pamela Hayes - A wonderful mid-aughts romance novel about a black trans woman’s search for love that provides some enormously insightful commentary into the dynamics of black queerness at the time.

Those are my absolute favorites, but I also have compiled this Masterlist which has my thoughts on dozens of other self-published novels by transfemmes (the sheet has a “publisher” column so they’re easy to find)

PEOPLE OF WRITEBLR and beyond: What are some of your favorite self published novels??

Hello please help me add to the megastructure that is my TBR and also shout out our beautiful genius self-published authors by telling me about your favorite self published books! Any genre, any language, any availability, and as many as you like, I want to hear about them!!!

[therealvinelle]

In Norway, what books are classic? Could you recommend some books that you had to read because of school or books that was written by a Norwegian author and you enjoyed it?

Sure!

Hope you don't mind that I put the titles in the original Norwegian, it's because I didn't want to look up every single official translation.

Anything by Amalie Skram is great, she was a 19th century realist writer and a hardcore feminist. Many of her works are biographical. Specifically, I will recommend her Hellemyrsfolket series, Forraadt, Hieronymus, and Lucie.

Henrik Ibsen is famous, and it's for a reason. His plays are great and way ahead of their time, he's one of the great playwrights in history. Vildanden, Peer Gynt, and En folkefiende (which inspired Jaws! Same themes, only replace "sharks" with "bad drinking water") are my recs for him.

Ludvig Holberg, Denmark insists he's theirs but he was born in Norway so sucks to be them. Erasmus Montanus is my big rec for Holberg, as it's about Rasmus Berg (Berg means Hill), a village boy who returns from college and has now become An Educated Man, thereby changing his name to the more intellectual-sounding Erasmus Montanus. It's a comedy making relentless fun of the educated elite.

Alexander Kielland, another realist writer. The short story Karen is beautiful, and the novel Gift is a delightful critique of the late 19th century Norwegian school system. It's so bad that our main character dies from Latin studies.

Knut Hamsun won the Nobel prize in literature and proceeded to give it to Adolf Hitler as a gift, because he was a nazi. He welcomed the occupation, and was a terrible person in general. If you struggle to separate the art from the artist, don't read Hamsun. If you don't struggle, then the man is infuriatingly good at writing. His prose is just out of this world, and it makes me so mad. Start with Sult, and when you're done hallucinating you can thank me.

Sigrid Unset also won the Nobel prize in literature, and unlike Hamsun she was firmly opposed to the nazis. She won the prize for her Kristin Lavransdatter series, which is historical fiction about a woman living in medieval Norway. Big recommend.

Selma Lagerlöf, not Norwegian but damn good. Another Nobel laureate. I recommend Jerusalem.

H.C. Andersen in case you haven't read him, he's Danish but SO GOOD.

Dag Solstad, I never read him but I intend to, he seems like he'll be right up my alley.

Gerd Nyqvist, I've only read the one novel by her but I liked it very much, it was very Agatha Christie-esque. Avdøde ønsket ikke blomster.

Jostein Gaarder, he's... an interesting guy, and I'll put it this way, if he'd been an English-speaking author he would have been picked up by HBO or Netflix by now. Kabalmysteriet comes to mind.

[adhd-academia]

intro stuff

notes from @lighthouse-x-kraken

senior in undergrad

double majoring in philosophy & history of science/math, double minoring in classical studies & comparative literature (it’s complicated)

wanna be a school counselor when i grow up <3

be kind & exercise humility or dni

also i do post mild nsfw sometimes, always tagged & usually art but pls blacklist #nsfw if u don’t want that.

i tag common triggers but feel free to ask me to tag anything you wanna filter idgaf

ed blogs are welcome to follow but please dni cuz i don’t want those recs on my dash or my followers dash :)

help me with tuition 📚❤️

[thespacebetweenworlds]

idk if you’ll care about this but your thing about the whole “fiction is just fiction” and “fiction doesn’t affect reality” argument is actually not true at all because let’s just say for example: having lgbt, poc, disability rep in books or media isn’t all that important because it doesn’t affect reality.... when it does? it makes a HUGE impact on people. but yes I see where you’re coming from and as a person who hates incest with a passion, I don’t think u guys deserve these threats AT ALL.

Thank you for not thinking I should die a violent death. And thank you for this ask! I love being asked things. And to respond to your point, that fiction does affect reality, with the example of how representation is pretty awesome: that’s a freaking good point you have there, that I agree with - partially.

This Essay is titled: Fiction and Reality and How the everloving Fuck do they interact and what by nathan wesninski’s underpants does that have to do with fandom discourse?

So, beyond the read more you’ll have a compilation of my thoughts on it (that didn’t take several hours to write and edit). I’ll talk about:

1. Definition Of Fiction, Definition Of Reality

2. (How) Does Fiction Affect Reality?

3. Representation In Fiction

4. Who Judges Fanfic?

5. ”this content is problematic,” says you. ”please don’t mention power dynamics,” replies I

6. Censorship

7. A Brief History Of Why Fanfic Is Awesome

8. Links to stuff that might interest you

I’m just gonna. Quickly do that part in radioactive with the deep breath.

To start this, I want to clarify that in the response I made to transneiljosten’s post, I never explicitly said “fiction doesn’t affect reality” or “fiction is just fiction.”

What I did say is this: “Incest in fiction is just that: incest in fiction. It’s. not. real.” And: “I believe everyone should be allowed to write/create what they want - as long as it doesn’t hurt people in real life.”

But yes, the phrases “fiction is just fiction” and “fiction is not reality” have been used often when discussing freedom to write fanfic and when defending content another might call immoral. Not many people have elaborated beyond that, and to be fair - it’s a super big fucking field of study with so many subjective ways to look at it that it’s difficult to put into words.

But I’m gonna go and explain what people mean with those two phrases anyway.

Disclaimer: Remember how I called this a super big fucking field of study? I am no linguist and I have not studied literature. All my knowledge comes from years in fandom and internet research of the topics I personally found interesting. I may be wrong about things I say here, and I am always learning, so feel free to message me. I try my best to discuss controversial topics thoughtfully, respectfully, considerately and carefully, but I am only human and do not know everything. You are welcome to join the discussion.

1. Definition Of Fiction, Definition Of Reality

Going to https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/ to properly look this up:

Reality: The state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.

Fiction: Literature in the form of prose, especially novels, that describes imaginary events and people.

So I say I don’t study literature (I really don’t) but just a few weeks ago I was in a lecture on the absolute basics of literature science, where I learned this dope sentence:

Die Wirklichkeit in der Kunst ist nur eine auf die außerkünstlerische Wirklichkeit verweisende Wirklichkeit.

Which is German, yes I know. Basically we have the starting point that literature is art, so it’s: "the reality in art is only a reality that refers to the reality outside of art" or, in other words, fiction is only ever fiction and not reality, no matter how close they may seem to be.

In summary, what we can say for sure: Fiction does not equal Reality. They are not the same. Fiction exists because Reality exists.

2. (How) Does Fiction Affect Reality?

Reality affects fiction. But does Fiction affect Reality?

Allow me to quote tumblr user shinelikethunder, who put it very nicely:

“Fiction affects people. And people affect reality.”

Tumblr user muchymozzarella made an important addition (and the blog is really pretty) so to read the post, klick on this link: https://muchymozzarella.tumblr.com/post/167137950299/fiction-is-not-responsible-for-reality

If you read the above post, further reading that might interest you are texts by Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer on Free Will. But that wouldn’t be fandom anymore, so like, find philosophy books in your local library and talk to you friends about it.

3. Representation In Fiction

But let’s come back to your question, dear anon: “... the whole “fiction is just fiction” and “fiction doesn’t affect reality” argument is actually not true at all because let’s just say for example: having lgbt, poc, disability rep in books or media isn’t all that important because it doesn’t affect reality.... when it does? it makes a HUGE impact on people.”

You have a great point. Representation in books matters. (If you rec me some nice wlw books I’ll love you forever, there are not enough.)

I am, however, gonna quote my friend of mine, who says it better than I ever could:

“There is a difference between media affecting behaviour and representation in media. Like, violent video games don't actually make you violent. Watching gay cinema isn't going to turn you to the lgbt side unless there was already a disposition there.

People read and write immorality constantly, and even when it's shone in a good light it's usually expected that we as human beings know right from wrong, know fiction from reality. Humanity has explored the happy shiny purity of the universe and the horrific grittiness since... Well probably forever, for a variety of reasons. And in recent years the way we consume media has intensified drastically. Our consumption is interactive, our interaction is globally influenced and sometimes that is good, but we've also given ourselves the right to witch-hunt without a lot of information, or because things don't go as you planned. Real people are always more important than fictional people.

Stand up for representation. Stand up for good representation. But if you're smart enough to understand morality in reality, that isn't going to suddenly go away if you read some incest fics... And hey if you do suddenly want to kiss your brother, that's something for you to deal with and it isn't fan fiction's fault.”

Representation in books matters. Why does it matter? Because the real world is so much more diverse than popular media might make you think. Fight against the patriarchy, not against random people on the internet.

4. Who Judges Fanfic?

Fanfic is written by fans. It’s also written for fans, but more than that, it’s written by fans. I’m not gonna say only teenage girls write fanfiction, because that’s not true. Fans write fanfiction. And everyone can be a fan.

Ozhawkauthor said:

“You are not paying for fanworks content, and you have no rights to it other than to choose to consume it, or not consume it. If you do choose to consume it, do not then attack the creator if it wasn’t to your taste. That’s the height of bad manners.

Be courteous in fandom. It makes the whole experience better for all of us.”

So why are “antis” suddenly here, declaring this ship and those characters off limits and to be hated on?

Specifically, what the fuck are fans that attack or judge other fans on?

To quote shinelikethunder (again): “Fiction needn’t be educational and fiction doesn’t always have clear-cut endorsements of who’s in the right. But the discussion that happens around fiction can include both.”

But to answer the question above: Who Judges Fanfic? Not. You.

5. ”this content is problematic,” says you. ”please don’t mention power dynamics,” replies I

Hypothetical situation:

I write a fanfic. My protagonist is Riko Moriyama, who is, in canon, a sadistic asshole that is so morally black that his own brother, Ichirou, who is also morally black, kills him in the end. It doesn’t matter what I write, or who I ship him with, in this hypothetical situation.

You appear, you read the fic or you don’t read the fic. You say: “This content is problematic.”

I quiver. I know you don’t like Riko Moriyama. I know you don’t approve of my shipping choice. “Please don’t mention power dynamics,” I reply.

“This relationship is toxic,” you say. “There are unhealthy power dynamics at play.”

And like, fuck, I know? I wrote it.

Obviously. Obviously I could reply with that ancient, age old phrase “Don’t Like Don’t Read.”

But I already made a similar post about that.

6. Censorship

I’m writing this post to fight against censorship in fandom. (The day I am typing this up on was the day I went to a demonstration against articles 11 and 17, earlier 13, in the copyright reform in the EU, and to protest for a free internet.)

Censorship.

What does that even mean? The Oxford English Dictionary says:

Censorship: The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.

Here’s the wikipedia article.

In my opinion, every person, regardless of whether or not they call themselves “anti” who tells someone else that their fanfic is disgusting and wrong and should be deleted, based on subjective ideas of moral, is trying to enforce censorship. So don’t. Don’t do that.

“But,” you might say. “Riko is not a good person.”

And you know what? You’re absolutely right. He’s not. Neither is any of the Foxes.

And this is why none of the antis make sense. In one post, they condemn Roland - a perfectly normal minor character, and in the next post they call Andrew Minyard their soft angel child. Y’all. Not to hate on Andrew Minyard, but he literally drugged Neil? Even though he’s so big on consent, he drugged Neil?

So by saying this and that are problematic and should not be written and the people who do write it should be blocked, you’re kinda hypocritical. Because the All For The Game trilogy is one fucked up piece of media by itself.

And have you ever read a book?

Most books have characters that aren’t completely morally white or morally black, events that aren’t always sunshine, butterflies and rainbows.

And you know what else? That’s a good thing. Because the world isn’t like that either. And more often than not literature addresses topics critically.

Remember The Hunger Games? Exactly.

7. A Brief History Of Why Fanfic Is Awesome

In the beginnings of fanfic and fandom as we know it, slash was illegal in the USA. Fanfiction.net was made in like 1998, and during the first few years when fanfic got more attention with the rise of the internet, restrictions were made.

Much like tumblr in december 2018, except worse, fanfiction.net purged explicit content. Livejournal, the journaling platform where lots of fandom stuff happened before tumblr, is known for strikethrough, a big, unannounced deletion of fannish content. Because of those purges and restrictions, ao3 was originally made. I’m not trying to paint ao3 as the heroes that saved fandom, well I kinda am, and they are doing great things so that fanfiction can exist and remain accessible.

I think fiction is not just fiction. But fiction is just fiction in the sense that it doesn’t have any direct influence on the real world. We are all allowed to write whatever we want.

Disclaimer: We are all allowed to write whatever we want, except when we call for violence towards others in real life. Further disclaimer: Calling for violence towards others is illegal. Hate speech is illegal. Violent threats are illegal. Promotion of self-harm is illegal. Death threats are illegal.

To come back to fandom: Shipping or not shipping something has nothing to do with morals. Hating on people who ship “unhealthy power dynamics/problematic ships” does not give you the moral high ground. It makes you an asshole. For the love of Riko’s stinky socks, use the blocking feature.

My friend iknowwhoyouaredamianos said: “Hating people irl, lashing out against them, that's the real cruelty. That's so much worse than writing about something fictional.”

If you hate on real people, there is no trigger warning. You can’t don’t-like-don’t-read hate. It will affect that person’s life negatively, whether you intend to do so or not. Don’t be assholes, dears.

Thank you to my friend, and to iknowwhoyouaredamianos for letting me quote you and joining the discussion; and to foxsoulcourt for so many reasons.

Who knew that writing over 2000 words on fandom would be fun?

Dear anon, I hope I answered your question.

I’m gonna conclude this post with the Three Laws of Fandom:

I. Don’t Like; Don’t Read.

II. Your Kink Is Not My Kink.

III. Ship And Let Ship.

8. Links To Stuff That Might Be Of Interest

If you read all of the above and still feel like you don’t understand, have this awesome post by destinationtoast: How to not like fictional things (and not be a dick about it)

Podcasts on fandom culture by fansplaining:

Episode 84: Purity Culture

Episode 85: Age and Fandom

Episode 86: The Money Question

Episode 87: What we discourse about when we discourse about the discourse

Fandom positivity posts I reblogged (because y’all need it):

short post on staying positive in fandom

when discourse gets too stressful

important advice especially for those of you younger than 15 (but also older)

Tumblr user freedom-of-fanfic is writing lots of essays on lots of fandom things, here are some those more or less directly relate to this:

On criticising: Free to write whatever, free to criticise whatever?

A post on Fiction & Reality that answers a question very similar to the one I answered,

and Why fanworks are such a convenient social scrapegoat (kinda a socioeconomical discussion of USA-centric fandom)

There is also a very extensive FAQ by freedom-of-fanfic, with lots of very important writings on fandom culture on tumblr.

Unrelated, but if you’re interested in more of fandom, fanfic, and statistics of both:

http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/stats

Interesting stuff on Fanlore: Purity Culture in Fandom, AO3 & Censorship, The Advantages of Fan Fiction as an Art Form.

An article on the free speech debate in fandom

Dreamwidth’s Diversity Statement, and Ao3’s Diversity Statement

A cool (and unrelated) thing: Femslash can save the world if we let it

Happy reading, and I hope you learned something.

[cbk1000]

Jenn Recommends: Historical Fiction II

Welcome to another blog post in which I tell you what to read, and you just sit and passively do it because I have excellent taste in literature and also I’m kind of a bully. Check this tag for more recommendations.

Today we revisit historical fiction, because it’s one of my favourite genres and I have lots of suggestions, all of which you should definitely take to heart. My first list of historical fiction recs (which can be found here if you’re curious) was all gay, all the time; this list is slightly more heterosexual, although not much, because here be lesbians.

If You Like: Dickensian lesbians (and really, who doesn’t?)

Read: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

I’m going to lift the summary from Goodreads, because it’s faster, and I’m lazy:  Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves—fingersmiths—for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home. One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum. With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.

This novel really hearkens back to ye old days of sensation fiction when literary thrillers were a bit slower, a little more cumbersome; they wanted more patience from the reader, who watches all the little threads get teased out bit by excruciating bit. There’s a sinister undercurrent you feel pulling at you till about the halfway point of the novel, when everything is suddenly upended and you sit up in bed screaming, “BRUH!!” because your stupid ass did NOT SEE THAT COMING EVEN A LITTLE BIT.

Waters is really good at this; her evocation of Victorian England is excellent, and transports you in a way that only the best historical fiction can manage. The narrative unfolds slowly in the first half, building upon itself with a sense of heightening doom that a faster pace could never achieve. As the reader, you’re in on the con (or are you?), and you know what’s going to happen, how it’s all going to end, where the burgeoning relationship between the two girls is painfully trundling along to--except you don’t. Waters pulls the rug out from under your feet, and she doesn’t just do it once, which is why I’m reluctant to say too much about the plot. AND--she does it all in really lovely prose that’s reminiscent of the time period she’s working in; I never really felt a modern hand guiding me. I could have been reading any piece of 19th century literature; the seams between the 21st century and the 19th are never visible, never jarring. If you, like me, are a slut for ornate Gothic literature, and/or you want your historical lesbians and you want them now, give this a try.

If You Like: Watching an oblivious pre-WWI Edwardian society hurtling to its inevitable doom through the eyes of a fucked-up family whose matriarch loses herself in the magic of her own fairytales instead of actually paying attention to the flesh and blood children they are based upon

Read: The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt  

From Goodreads:  When Olive Wellwood’s oldest son discovers a runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of the new Victoria and Albert Museum—a talented working-class boy who could be a character out of one of Olive’s magical tales—she takes him into the storybook world of her family and friends. But the joyful bacchanals Olive hosts at her rambling country house—and the separate, private books she writes for each of her seven children—conceal more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. As these lives—of adults and children alike—unfold, lies are revealed, hearts are broken, and the damaging truth about the Wellwoods slowly emerges. But their personal struggles, their hidden desires, will soon be eclipsed by far greater forces, as the tides turn across Europe and a golden era comes to an end.

It actually took me about a month or so to read this book--not because I kept putting it down and then begrudgingly picking it back up again, but rather because I purposefully wanted to draw it out. The language, the atmosphere--it was all just something I needed to savour. This is a slow, thoughtful book that focuses rather minutely on the dramas of one family and the people who become entangled with it; it will not be for everyone (which is a caveat attached to every book, but I feel this one in particular requires the warning). This is a book about the creative process and the myriad escape hatches it offers us from the real world, sometimes to our own detriment. It is a book about WWI even though the actual war inhabits only the last quarter of the book. It is a book about the options of women in a time when society was still debating whether or not they should be considered full-fledged people. 

This is one of those books that sort of just crawled inside me and stayed; I didn’t want to leave it. I think part of my reluctance came in not wanting to reach the end, knowing WWI was bearing down on these characters, knowing many of them wouldn’t make it, because that’s what the war did to an entire generation: it erased it. I knew it was going to erase whole swathes of the story I had spent hours devoting myself to. I knew for so many of the characters there wasn’t going to be a tidy ending, and there wasn’t; they just stopped, abruptly. You follow generations of the family and in the end feel cheated, not through any failing of the author, but through the cruel and arbitrary machinations of history and the things it has perpetuated against the human race through our own blind stupidity (I’m still upset about WWI, ok??? please don’t touch me).

There was magic in this book, in Olive’s fairytales, in the puppet shows of a family friend: but it’s magic that the matriarch in particular is using to encapsulate herself. It’s not a childlike reverence for things we forget about as we age; it’s a hiding. It’s a sort of disappearance into ourselves and our storytelling because we can’t bring ourselves to look at the material world in all its varying shades of shit and wonder.

Anyway, I had feelings, ok?

If You Like: Italian people, anatomically impressive statues, and erotic descriptions of marble (seriously, I think my dude Michelangelo might have put his penis in a block or two of it)

Read: The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone 

This is a biographical novel of Michelangelo which begins when he is thirteen and still in the very beginning throes of his artistic talents. Stone apparently read through Michelangelo’s entire personal correspondence (and patiently waited years for it all to be translated) and also moved to Italy to write this, so that’s dedication, and the least you can do to repay it is sit through the sometimes vaguely uncomfortable descriptions of Michelangelo’s artwork and his sexual tension with it.

While this doesn’t have the literary merits of the previous recommendations, it’s meticulous historical fiction; Stone painstakingly recreated Michelangelo and his work. It’s an interesting peek into a niche section of art history and also covers part of the turbulent Renaissance period and the powerful politics at play which snare the hapless Michelangelo when all he wants to do is sculpt (and probably wank to) realistic marble people, goddammit. It’s entirely believable as a biography (though it is, in fact, fiction).

Bonus: Michelangelo’s poetry, which was not a thing I even knew about prior to reading this book.

[lucifers-trash-stash]

Get to Know Me

I was tagged by the wonderful @hannibalssweaters & @squid-from-mirkwood, thank you lovelies :D I’m sorry it took so long for me to get to lol

How tall are you?: 5′5″

What color and style is your hair?: Mousey brown, with long, thick hair and curls.

What color are your eyes: Hazel.

Do you wear glasses?: Yup, all the time. I’ve never gotten contacts because my face looks so plain without them.

Do you wear braces?: Never have needed them.

What is your fashion/sense of style?: Mostly black graphic t-shirts of my favorite shows/movies/bands, hoodies/flannel shirts, and jeans.

Do you have a sibling?: A younger sister, @welcome-to-my-trash :P We have a trash theme going on in the family, you see lol

What kind of student were you?: I try to get stuff done ahead of time, like readings, but I still end up doing a lot of homework and essays the morning of.

What were your favorite subjects?: I love my English courses, Literature and Creative Writing. I’m also enjoying my film courses, art class, and history classes.

What’s your favorite TV shows?: Oh boy I’ve got a lot. The Walking Dead, Parks & Rec, Futurama, Bojack Horseman, Sons of Anarchy, Hannibal, Arrested Development, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Bob’s Burgers, Orange is the New Black, Malcolm in the Middle, My Name is Earl, Raising Hope, The Office, Portlandia, Freaks and Geeks, a whole bunch of anime and other shows I’m probably forgetting.

Favorite Books?: Far too many to list, but I’ll try. The Graveyard Book (Gaiman), A Series of Unfortunate Events (Snicket), Harry Potter (Rowling), Watchmen (Moore), Scott Pilgrim (O’Malley), A Wrinkle in Time (L’Engle), To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee), On Writing (King), The Hellbound Heart (Barker), and Silence of the Lambs (Harris).

Favorite pastimes?: Writing, reading, drawing, hanging out with friends, watching movies, daydreaming, procrastinating, making crafts, working on cosplay, playing video games, analyzing and discussing films and movies with anyone who will listen, and finding & listening to new music.

Regrets?: Plenty, though I try to shove them in the back of my mind. A recent one was that I almost got to see Ghost on tour but they moved the date around and I had work the next morning and I didn’t want to be out too late. I wish I could have said fuck it and went anyways. My friend still likes to remind me about it :/

What is your dream job?: I’d love to be a full time writer and artist. It would be so cool to try to make a film too, because I often think of my stories as films in my brain. Mostly I don’t need to have a super exciting life, just as long as I could comfortably pursue my creative passions.

Do you want to get married?: Possibly. But that’s so far into the future that I can’t even imagine it right now.

Do you want kids?: I’m still not fully sure. Possibly one, but again that’s so far in the future that I wouldn’t even know what I’d want then.

How many countries have you visited?: Just one. Canada. My dad’s side of the family lives in Quebec so we go there at least annually.

Tagging in case you’re interested: @superprincesspea @daintyunicorn @opheliadawnwalker3 @vizhi0n @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash @embracetheapocalypsewithme

[fahye]

call for book recs

I KNOW, I KNOW, I whine endlessly about how long and unwieldy my to-read list is already, BUT: this is a very specific request!

my parents & I are going to northern italy for a couple of weeks in may, and as preparation mum & I are doing evening classes in renaissance art history; I’ve been to southern and central italy already, and I loved all the art I saw there, but my background knowledge was slim.

anyway this course is shaping up great but our charming italian instructor is perhaps assuming a higher level of art vocab than I, a lifelong science and literature nerd, possess. it’s a miracle I have somehow absorbed the words ‘chiaroscuro’ and ‘trompe l’oeil’ from the cultural aether before now.

so: does art history side of tumblr have any readable/accessible books, non-fiction preferred but fiction also very welcome, that they would recommend? 

italian renaissance focus obviously preferred, but I am really enjoying this novel approach of actually knowing things about context and composition instead of just standing in front of anselm kiefer paintings for hours feeling rapt and stirred and wordless, or waving my hands around while trying to explain why I love magritte and bacon so much. so I am happy to be told about your favourite book about ANYTHING TO DO WITH ART HISTORY.