#baltasar short

[dillydedalus]

WIT 2024: read + WIT 2024 acquired (physical only, i read & bought a bunch more)

some stats books read: 16 og languages: catalan (3x), croatian, danish, french (3x), greenlandic, japanese (2x), russian, spanish (4x) female translators: 16 books i read (* marks stand-outs)

living pictures, polina barskova, tr. from the russian by catherine ciepiela

butter, asako yuzuki, tr. from the japanese by ursula gräfe / english tr. by polly barton, same title

gesang für die verlorenen, hemley boum, tr. from the french by gudrun & otto honke (no english translation so far)

*grieving: dispatches of a wounded country, cristina rivera garza, tr. from the spanish by sarah booker

*jawbone, mónica ojeda, tr. from the spanish by sarah booker again

*tríptic: permafrost / ***boulder / mammoth, eva baltasar, tr. from the catalan by julia sanches, READ BOULDER READ BOULDER READ BOULDER

days in the caucasus, banine, tr. from the french by anne thompson-ahmadova

my work, olga ravn, translated from the danish by sophia hersi smith

das tal der blumen, niviaq korneliussen, tr. from greenlandic to danish by the author as far as i can tell, tr. from danish to german by franziska hüther (no english translation)

diary of a void, emi yagi, tr. from the japanese by david boyd & lucy north

unser teil der nacht, mariana enríquez, tr. from the spanish by inka marter & silke kleemann (english translation: our share of the night, tr. by megan mcdowell)

so reich wie der könig, abigaïl assor, tr. from the french by nicola denis (english translation: as rich as the king, tr. by natasha lehrer)

fox, dubravka ugrešić, tr. from the croatian by ellen elias-bursać & david williams

the house of spirits, isabel allende, tr. from the spanish by magda bogin

[steelycunt]

hiiiii…. do you have any book recommendations? i think we have similar taste :)

hi! yeah! i definitely have some recs, although they’ll all be books i’ve talked about on here before so they probably won’t be very new for anyone who’s been following me for a while 😭 not sure what you’re after specifically but this is just everything i’ve enjoyed! anything with as asterisk is a special favourite : ^ )

books ive read this year:

(fiction)

boulder* - eva baltasar: very short read but baltasar’s prose is 2 die for! second in a trilogy but im pretty sure they can all be read as standalones. also nice to see fiction that treats lesbians as seriously as piles and piles of arty litfic treat gay men rather than the clipart cover of two women with a title like ‘Jemima Mulligan Is So Done 🤣’ that comes up when you search lesbian fiction now.

all quiet on the western front* (+ the way back/the road back) - erich maria remarque: only classic im going to mention (i could talk about james baldwin all day) but this is my favourite book i’ve read this year! and my only five star fiction read so far this year. absolutely heartbreaking!! and if you enjoy it i would say it’s worth reading the sequel, the way back.

hangman - maya binyam: read this recently and honestly think it’s quite a marmite book i think you’ll either enjoy the absurdity of it or find it deeply irritating almost straight away but. i thought it was wonderfully disorientating + not too long that the style started to grate on me + an great postcolonial work

we need to talk about kevin* - lionel shriver: such a terrifyingly good book omg. prose is a bit dense which at least i found a bit daunting at first but it’s soo intricate and absorbing and horrific.

penance* (+ boy parts) - eliza clark: was honestly a bit surprised to like this as much as i did my expectations were pretty low but i thought it was a genuinely excellent depiction of modern teenagers + the way they use social media (i have never seen it done so well) + the intricacies of the dynamics between young girls against the backdrop of ‘true’ crime. if you like it you’ll probably also enjoy boy parts so i recommend that too!

antarctica + walk the blue fields - claire keegan: keegan is imo one of the best storytellers writing today and these two short story collections by her were wonderful this year! my favourite of her work is foster but since there are multiple stories in these collections id say they’re the best place to start!

my work - olga ravn: quite experimental in terms of style there’s a lot of prose spliced with prose which i wasn’t sure would be for me (im an idiot) but i thought it was a really fascinating look at motherhood + creation + post-partum depression!

(non-fiction)

dont actually have a ton of non-fiction books 2 mention just adding this category in to recommend empire of pain* - patrick radden keefe as a book i finished recently and one of if not the best non-fiction book ive ever read. just so incredibly interesting i can’t stress enough

some quickfire books i read last year/year before!

duck feet - ely percy

juno loves legs - karl geary

archive of alternate endings* - lindsey drager

shuggie bain* + young mungo* - douglas stuart

my brilliant friend* - elena ferrante

the secret history + the goldfinch - donna tartt

mr loverman - bernadine evaristo (SAINT LUCIA MENTIONED 🇱🇨)

the marriage portrait - maggie o’farrell

the passion - jeanette winterson

[bts-trans]

231105 RM's Instagram Story

Response

…myself feel like someone else. Especially when people say stuff like "be more mysterious", or "if you want to be respected, don't get too close". I do that kind of stuff because it's just who I am as a person, I have no need to make things look good. I've been through a lot of pain and felt loss and suffered and shed tears. Having experienced all that, the attempts to filter myself, my efforts to become someone else - it all seems so insignificant and unnecessary. My life is too short for me to try and suppress everything. I feel like I should just feel everything I feel and live happily. Relationships with people cause disharmony? distrust? discomfort? Well those are also feelings I feel and are all a part of my life. If I have something to say, I just end up saying it. I'm bragging? Maybe, so what? Let's do that too, let's just go ahead, if nobody in the world bragged, why would that word exist, why would it mean what it does? I'm no Hong Gil-dong* - pride, envy, greed, anger are all part of life, of being a person. If it has a name, it's not something to be treated as evil, but something we should just face head on and accept. Whether it's about me or someone else, all of it makes my life richer. Just like there are no stories without conflict. When I think about things that way, it feels like I've lived my whole life until now touching things with mittens on. I'm happier now that I've taken them off. Books are great, but you're not a book, you're not someone else, and you're definitely not David, made of stone. I hope you can just become you.

(T/N: *The protagonist of the very famous story 'Hong Gildong jeon', written during the Joseon dysnasty. Hong Gil-dong is a Robin Hood-like character who stands against social hierarchies and steals from the rich to give to the poor. Overcoming his low birth status to become a hero and a king, he is seen as invincible, righteous figure.

2. The picture is a screenshot of a comment on this YouTube video. The video is an audiobook of the Korean translation of 'Oraculo Manual y Arte De Prudencia', or 'The Art of Worldly Wisdom' by Baltasar Gracián. 🔗https://youtu.be/Qkt4phMoCP4?si=txGX1C00ND9nHgda)

Trans cr; Aditi @ bts-trans © TAKE OUT WITH FULL CREDITS

[no-passaran]

Hi! Don't feel obligated to answer, but I've been learning catalan & I'd love to read some novels originally written in catalan, but i'm having a bit of a hard time finding ones that aren't 'classics'. Any recs? (I usually like literary stuff, like, authors irritatingly showing their skill, i eat that shit up, but anything contemporary or psychological or fantasy or anything will absolutely do :,) )

Oop sorry, I hadn't seen the message until now.

You won't have difficulty about this because Catalan literature is very lively and there's lots of great books coming out very often. Catalan literature has been praised around the world for having such vitality and quality, considering that it's a relatively small language community.

Personally the first recommendation that came to mind is Manuel de Pedrolo but idk if you're considering that a classic? He's relatively recent but many 20th century authors have become classics. His Mecanoscrit del segon origen is definitely considered a classic even though it's only from 1974, but I don't think the other ones are usually. Anyway, I really like his sci-fi short stories book Trajecte final, and my dad has spent years obsessed with his theatre play Homes i no. Talking about theatre scrips, I have a really soft spot for La cançó de les balances by Josep Maria Carandell ❤️.

I'm not usually one to read many short stories books but I also recommend Albert Sánchez Piñol's Homenatge als caiguts (stories of about 2 pages long and usually funny, very entertaining to read).

For a completely different vibe of short stories, I also thought El Cafè de la Granota by Jesús Moncada was excellent, the characterization and events feel like hearing your grandparents telling stories of when they were young. I still haven't read his most famous novel Camí de sirga though, honestly I don't know what I'm waiting for lol.

Canto jo i la muntanya balla by Irene Solà has also been very popular in the past few years and she definitely shows off her literary prose. I found it very lovely and I recommend it for when you want something more experimental. It's a book where each chapter is narrated by someone or something different (a shepherd, the rain, a witch who was killed centuries ago, a deer, a dog...) and it's very well written, it has also won some international awards.

And listen for some reason I still haven't read them myself (I plan to change that soon) but the best contemporary author is probably Jaume Cabré. I've only heard the highest praise for his Les veus del Pamano, and other of his books like Jo confesso. I'm planning to finally read Les veus del Pamano this summer and I'm very excited for it.

Another one I've heard lots of praise for and which I'm excited to read (hopefully soon) is Les històries naturals by Joan Perucho. I wasn't going to include books I haven't read besides Cabré (because, let's face it, with a question like this one must include Jaume Cabré) but since you asked for literary fantasy I think you might like it. It's about a knight/botanist who looks for one of Jaume I's knights who is a vampire.

Others that I've had recommended but haven't had time to read yet: Junil a la terra dels bàrbars by Joan Lluís-Lluís, Nicolau by Antoni Veciana, Guilleries by Ferran Garcia, and lots of people have loved Eva Baltasar's Permagel, Boulder and Mamut though it doesn't seem like my style they seem interesting.

I don't know if any of my followers wants to share some more in the comments/reblogs, but I'd be interested to hear them too 👀

[labyrinth-guy]

i did a lot of reading this past year, which is remarkable because i spent a lot of time submerged in a grad school writing sample deep dive/spiral, and found a lot of books i really enjoyed

some superlatives, pictured above:

favorite read of 2024: Greasepaint by Hannah Levene (about a butch jewish socialist dyke piano player's union)

most enjoyable nonfiction i have ever read: Park Cruising by Marcus McCann

best haunted house book/book i wish i wrote: Brat by Gabriel Smith

best fiction book about covid lockdown i have read yet: Back in the Land of the Living by Eva Crocker

best trans novel that reads like memoir: Some Strange Music Draws Me In by Griffin Hansbury (bonus points for wmass nostalgia)

favorite unhinged young queer woman moves to the woods alone during an identity crisis (in translation): Mammoth by Eva Baltasar

best grad school reading/your new favorite under-appreciated land artist: Nancy Holt Inside/Outside ed. Lisa Le Feuvre

thanks @insaneclownpussi for the tag and for often listening to me describe weird books i'm reading

some honorable mentions/not pictured:

best fucked up little short story collections: Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, She is Haunted by Paige Clark

best queer horror: cuckoo by Gretchen-Felker Martin, Diavola by Jennifer Thorne, Model Home by Rivers Solomon

best queer roadtrip book/book that makes you feel like making art maybe is worth it: Housemates by Emma Copley Isenberg

most playful approach to genre: My Lesbian Novel by Renee Gladman (thank you to @northwindow 's substack for finally making me go track down a copy)

i have two reading goals for next year (unrelated to total quantity because ideally i will be starting grad school... fingers crossed). i would like to read more non-fiction than fiction, and i would like to write down/keep track of my thoughts about what i read with more consistency.

to start the year, i am currently reading: Still Life by Katherine Packert Burke and Women by Chloe Caldwell

[garnetcapricorn]

I was not expecting this major book hangover after reading Rabble: End Game. (spoilers ahead if u care)

the Villainous Things series is so fucking fun-- I wasn't ready to leave! even though there were hints of future mpreg, I would deal with and probably enjoy it anyway because that's my 2nd fav couple (Baltasar/Zion)

My FIRST favorite is a combo (possible polycule?👀) of Andre/Theo/Gabriel plus Micah/Ziggy. The Gabriel/Micah flirting and makeout scene was to die for! Would've loved to see them go further...

also I totally agree with Theo: twincest would be hot af. And then Gabe was all "he makes it sound so good" so it's basically 2 vs 1 and I can so see Dre caving to his subs ⚔️

also also the reconciliation scene with Theo & Ziggy was actually really touching 🥺 I think Theo should get a bonding experience with his offspring (Ziggy & Simon) and I KNOW it would be bloody🔪 because they're all psycho murder bbs (affectionate). They should get to take down the next big bad.

Simon/Wolfgang is my 3rd fav couple I guess. I really liked that Wolfy was SEVERELY touch starved when they met. that whole situation was so angsty and so hot when they finally got physical.

back to Balty/Zion: very into their giant- lizard- form- primal- mating thing. Baltasar has a cock pocket in lacertus form but Zion does not, which is why I got all the mpreg vibes. like B is an omega. which tbh it's always hot when omegas go into heat.

least fav couples are Xander/Butch and Violentia/Kai. I'm not much of a daddy kink fan. I'm even less of a mommy kink fan. and all the other couples have way better (imo) powers/ dynamics/ tropes.

oh! and bonus couple Luca/Erich: there's only short intro excerpts about them but I'm betting I'll rank them at least tied with Baltasar/Zion. because Luca is demisexual apparently (sweet sweet representation) and an alien (stellarian like Theo and Ziggy) AND was instantly obsessed with Erich after hearing his DJ-ing which perfectly matched his stellarian native language (I think Ziggy described it in his book like "classical music on electric guitar" "symphonic" and Micah had to create a special little instrument to mimic the resonance). so Luca was caught way tf off guard when a normal human was able to resonate like him.

I can't wait to listen to Rabble when it comes out on Audible✨️✨️😇😍🤩😁 Micah's VA is incredibly fun and energetic and amazing

[rattlinbog]

Books Read in 2023

(loved!, enjoyed, okay, did not care for)

January

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

The Hidden Palace (The Golem and the Jinni #2) by Helene Wecker

Ruthless Tide: The Heroes and Villains of the Johnstown Flood, America’s Astonishing Gilded Age Disaster by Al Roker

The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

February

Grendel by John Gardner

Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death, and Art by Rebecca Wragg Sykes

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Winters

March

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

The World We Make (Great Cities #2) by N.K. Jemisin 

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey 

Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

April

Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art by Lewis Hyde

Daisy Miller by Henry James

Washington Square by Henry James

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu 

The Heartsong of Charging Elk by James Welch

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

May

The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell 

Orlando by Virginia Woolf (reread)

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg 

Beneficence by Meredith Hall

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Ramadan Ramsey by Louis Edwards

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li 

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende

June

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang

Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah 

The Crocodile Bride by Ashleigh Bell Pedersen 

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende 

What the Fireflies Knew by Kai Harris

The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier 

The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America by John Demos

Tales of Burning Love (Love Medicine #5) by Louise Erdrich

July

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (Love Medicine #6) by Louise Erdrich

Four Souls (Love Medicine #7) by Louise Erdrich 

In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado 

Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman 

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

The Color Purple by Alice Walker 

At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier 

The Second Greatest Disappointment: Honeymooning and Tourism at Niagara Falls by Karen Dubinsky 

These Ghosts are Family by Maisy Card

Songs for the Flames: Stories by Juan Gabriel Vasquez

August

Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road by Kate Harris

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

New to Liberty by DeMisty D. Bellinger

Cove by Cynan Jones 

Being Esther by Miriam Karmel

Boulder by Eva Baltasar

The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk

September

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson 

Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit

We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland by Fintan O’Toole

October

Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman

The Changeling by Victor LaValle

Don’t Fear the Reaper (The Indian Lake Trilogy #2) by Stephen Graham Jones

Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley 

The Children on the Hill by Jennifer McMahon

November

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin 

Fen, Bog, and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis by Annie Proulx

Natural History: Stories by Andrea Barrett

December

Lessons by Ian McEwan

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (reread)

A Vintage Christmas: A Collection of Classic Stories and Poems

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

[southernmermaidsgrotto]

Let's talk about San Baltasar, the Wise King, Saint of Afroargentines.

I think it's extremely interesting how one of the biggest afrodiasporic cults native to Argentina is that of El Santo Negro (the Black Saint) St. Balthazar, the Wise King. Other syncretic saint cults make mention to african deities or saints with titles such as "The Queen of Rivers" or "The Queen of the Sea", making the deities involved easily identifiable, but this cult in particular is one of the most widespread across the black population of Argentina and yet the most elusive in regards to who may be behind the mask. At least, until you pay attention to the details.

The Church first introduced the cult of Catholic Figures and Saints such as San Baltasar (King Balthazar) or San Benito de Palermo (St. Benedict of Palermo, the Moor) as a way to control the enslaved population politically and culturally. Although their goal was to dissipate african religions and install catholicism among them instead, they underestimated black argentines: after much effort, the church allowed the enslaved faithful to organize socially and politically and perform dances, drumming and singing for the saints of their formed Cofradía (similar to a congregation, but including social and political structures within it, naming a king and queen or a president and other culturally and politically significant roles). Thanks to the passing down of african culture and customs through these organized societies and the syncretism within them, we can proudly say the church failed in their attempts. The african spirits are very much still an integral part of afroargentines' lives. Today, although it has spread across the country and beyond, the center of this cult is in it's origin, the capital city of Corrientes, Argentina, in a neighborhood called Cambá Cuá.

The cult to San Baltasar is clearly african in origin, although with indigenous (guaraní) influences, such as calling the saint Santo Cambá/Kambá (Black in guaraní language), calling his statues Cambára'angá (guaraní for Black Figure), and some dancers dressing up as indigenous figures like el pombero, among other things. Thus, it is an afroindigenous cult, developing amongst mixed descendants of african enslaved peoples and guaraní natives. The cult is also a local expression of the most african of customs: ancestral veneration. The festivities honor not only the Saint himself, but all the black ancestors before us who are present in pictures at the altar, and answer to the call of the drums. The color red, that covers the saint and adorns his followers, is the color of warriors and protection in African Traditional Religions. He's offered food and drink (such as wine and traditionally made sangría), and most importantly dance and drums. He is invoked and honored, along with the ancestors, through drumming and dancing, through La llamada a San Baltasar and Saludos de Tambores a los Santos Cambá (Calling Saint Balthazar and Drum Salutations to the Black Saints).

His festivities, held in Corrientes around Epiphany, from January 1st to the 6th, include dancing afroargentinean rhythms such as diverse forms of candombe and samba. Particularly, he was traditionally honored with a dance called bambula, a form of ring dance where women move in short and slow steps, barely lifting their feet, while men jump in the air, and where one singer sings a phrase that is then repeated or answered by the others present. This kind of dance is native to Congo and Angola, and widely practiced by enslaved people and their descendants in the Southern United States, the Caribbean, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. The music used to this day to petition favors, to invoke his spirit into his image and even dispel or call thunderstorms or other natural phenomena, is called charanda and includes drums, guitars and triangles. Just like in other afrodiasporic devotional and resistance dances, these dances involve Kings and Queens of the dance, a hierarchy of drummers including those called Master drummers, and a hierarchy of the drums themselves as Chico, Repique and Piano.

If you compare him to Xangó...

He carries a double-headed axe. He's often depicted wearing a crown. His colors are, surprisingly, also white and red, with gold accents. Also a King and a warrior, also associated with thunderstorms and fire, drums and dance. His followers also wear white and red beaded collares. Ringing any bells...?

Now, I am not saying they are the same Spirit, but there is an undeniable resemblance. You come to your own conclusions. It's kind of obvious that this afrodiasporic cult stems from either (a) a hidden, veiled cult to the orisha(s) or (b) a syncretic cult to african deities (not only orishas but maybe other african spirits too). There is, after all, strong ties not only to Yorubaland but also to Dahomey, Kongo, etc. Just in this instance, the spirit may resemble an orisha but the rhythms and dance are from kongo, so there is much more to it than just one or the other. There is a culture of resistance born from the union of Nations through music, faith and tradition.

Sources:

None of the images here belong to me: San Baltazar and festivities [1,2,3,4-6] and Xangó [1]

Festividad de San Baltasar : performances artístico-religiosas de la cofradía de la ciudad de Corrientes, by Cavalieri, Ana Belén, Universidad Nacional del Nordeste. Facultad de Artes, Diseño y Ciencias de la Cultura, 2018. Available for download at [Link]

San Baltazar, Historias de Corrientes at [Link]

The bamboula Lineage at [Link]

The Orishas, Indiana University at [Link]

[malfattore]

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER. ( REPOST DO NOT REBLOG ! )

○  NAME: Erin // Xy.

○  PRONOUNS: he/him

○   PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: Discord or Tumblr, either or is completely fine. I reply to both the same, tho im slow.

○    NAME OF MUSE(S): Malfatto, William de Saint-Prix, Nightstalker Joe, wow i’m really going down the basic names now, I roleplayed artorias and pate from dks but not anymore. I also muse Verulo and a small amount of Illario from acb but on the side, and more so Verulo. He’s a bit of an older muse that I did nothing with besides throw comments in for (still do, since im not sure who he fits with)

○    EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG (MONTHS/YEARS?): 10 years, off and on? Could be more tbh I’ve lost count I feel old

○    PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED: for rp, I mostly use Discord but Tumblr is nice too, when it’s functional lol

○   BEST EXPERIENCE: In General? Musing with people and creating a deep and expansive world around what little canon information we even received from Ubisoft — as well as Personal, @ardentfew @larosafatale @templarlanz @officialcahin (also w/ ur bitch ass (affectionately) baltasar) you guys have added so much to my musings and experiences to define Mal as he continues to age as my oldest muse at like 10 years now? I genuinely appreciate it wholeheartedly. These are probably my best experiences over this whole blog’s lifespan. Also I have to throw in @vilestblood, you always made me feel so welcome and appreciated as a newcomer, it really did make the whole experience for me, and while i’m over here for now, I hope you know how often i still appreciate you. I hope I can repay all of you somehow.

○    RP PET PEEVES / DEALBREAKERS: Treating my muse(s) like he’s either a sex object/disrespecting my boundaries on his sexuality, a Villain to exclusively to fit your narrative/headcanons, or automatically assuming I condone the actions of my muse just bc I am expanding on his emotions or more positive traits. as well as just seeing him as a shipping objective — Besides the fact that I am not interested in shipping Malfatto out as he is single-ship to one character and i’m more interested in defining his friendships than another spouse.

○    FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT: I’m a whore for angst but i’m more of a hurt-comfort kind of guy tbh, I don’t mind the pain of loss and complete defeat and hopelessness, i adore depressing themes but I do want a comforting concept to end off on. I love fluff within plot and smut is the same, I don’t particularly want just baseless smut for the sake of smut (tho it can be interesting sometimes) but if it fits well, it legit makes my heart skip djdjjhdj

○    PLOTS OR MEMES: I love memes on tumblr so much, esp as an icebreaker, but I love plotting things out more extensively so I can learn more about your characters and where they can interact more personally.

○    LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: Both but I prefer longer if the short we are talking about is like one liners. Unless we are in a very fast paced setting like discord chat, one liners make me lose muse pretty quick.

○    BEST TIME TO WRITE: Anytime I can get some quiet, I admittedly cannot write in a noisy setting. My brain is too panicked with stuff going on that I can’t zone in.

○    ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): I always joke around and say that he’s the kinnie so Honestly, yes? it sounds awful to relate to the serial killing doctor, who also tortures random civilians, guards, and sex workers BUT that aside, I understand his impulsivity and I understand his traumas, at least on a semi-adjacent level. We like similar things and find comfort in the same settings, though i did not expect to build him like this. I’m enough like him that I can somewhat? understand where he is coming from mentally when he does stupid impulsive shit that eventually gets his dumbass floored while also being very aware that his reactions and opinions are not something I would even consider. He’s fun he’s like the little devil on my shoulder telling me to act on impulse and commit arson when i have anxiety even over looking like i’m shoplifting

TAGGED BY: No-one. I stole this from general tags.

TAGGING: @larosafatale @ardentfew yea idk who else is active anymore, steal it

[cammotea]

Accumulate Skills

There is much to be known, life is short, and life is not life without knowledge.

—Baltasar Gracián

Your main goal in the Apprenticeship Phase must be to learn and accumulate as many real-life skills as possible, particularly in areas that personally excite and stimulate you. If, later in life, your career path changes or your skills are less relevant, you will know how to adapt, adjusting the skills you have and knowing how to learn more. Mastery was once an arduous process because the necessary information to attain skills was not something that was shared. If your interest was in the sciences your only hope was to be in the right social class that would allow you to attend the only universities that trained scientists. Now, with the internet, these walls around information have been shattered. You must take supreme advantage of the opportunities the internet now offers for accumulating skills, through various online resources.

Robert Greene

[letsreadlotsoffanfic]

Little Black Classics Box Set, pt 1

Not "fanfic", but… I came across the "Little Black Classics Box Set" published by Penguin Random House recently, and the list of books looked great! $140 for 80 books is also fantastic, even when they're mostly novellas. A lot of it looked like stuff I wanted to read.

It was also all mostly in the public domain, too. So I figured that I could just find most of it on gutenberg or another archive, legally and for free!

Below the cut is the list of books in the collection, as well as where to find them online:

A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees by Kenko - Excerpt from "Tsurezuregusa" (Essays in Idleness). Original Japanese English translation (labelled "The Miscellany of a Japanese Priest: Being a Translation of Tsure-Zure Gusa")

A Hippo Banquet by Mary Kingsley - Excerpt from "Travels in West Africa"

A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift - Gutenberg

A Pair of Silk Stockings by Kate Chopin - Excerpt from "The Awakening"

A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert - Excerpt from "Trois Contes" (Three tales/three short works). Original French English Translation

A Slip Under the Microscope by H G Wells - Excerpt from "30 Strange Stories"

Anthem For Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen - Poem. Collection

Antigone by Sophocles - English collection of Sophocles plays. Gutenberg has a few other translations of this

Aphorisms on Love and Hate by Friedrich Nietzsche - Excerpt from "Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits". Original German English Translation

As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins - Poem. Collection

Caligula by Suetonius - English translation Good site for original Latin and a French translation

Circe and the Cyclops by Homer - Excerpt from the Odyssey. English translation. Good site to read original Greek

Circles of Hell by Dante - Excerpt from the Divine Comedy. Original Italian. English translation

Come Close by Sappho - I could not track down all the translations, since some are more recently uncovered than public domain limits. Here are some. And here's a good site for the original Greek

Femme Fatale by Guy de Maupassant - Selected short stories. Original French English translation

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti - Poem. Collection

Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov - Original Russian Collected English translation

How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher's Dog by Johann Peter Hebel - Original German

How Much Land Does A Man Need? By Leo Tolstoy - Short story. Original Russian English collection with other stories

How to Use Your Enemies by Baltasar Gracián - Excerpts from the Pocket Oracle. Original Spanish English translation

How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing by Michel de Montaigne - Excerpts from his essays. Original French is in 4 volumes on Gutenberg. Vol 1 Complete English translation

I Hate and I Love by Catullus - Poem in collection Original Latin

Il Duro by D. H. Lawrence - Excerpts from Twilight in Italy.

It Was Snowing Butterflies by Charles Darwin - Excerpts from The Voyage of the Beagle

Jason and Medea by Apollonius of Rhodes - Excerpts from the Argonautica. English translation Original Greek

Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands by Ivan Turgenev - Excerpt from A Sportsman's Sketches. Original Russian English translation

Leonardo da Vinci by Giorgio Vasari - Excerpt from volume 4 of Vasari's "Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects." Original Italian English translation

Lips too Chilled by Matsuo Basho - Selection of some of Basho's haikus. Original Japanese collection. I couldn't find any "complete collection" in English, but the external links on Basho's wikipedia page have a large number of them

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime by Oscar Wilde

Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield - Excerpt from The Garden Party and Other Stories

Mrs Rosie and the Priest by Giovanni Boccaccio - Excerpt from The Decameron Original Italian English translation

My Dearest Father by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Some of the letters Mozart wrote. Original German scans English translation

O Cruel Alexis by Virgil - Poem from the Bucolics and Eclogues of Virgil. English Translation Original Latin

Of Street Piemen by Henry Mayhew - Excerpts from London Labour and the London Poor. There are four volumes of this on Gutenberg. Vol 1

Olalla by Robert Louis Stevenson - One of Stevenson's short stories. Collection

On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts by Thomas De Quincey - Collection of essays.

On the Beach at Night Alone by Walt Whitman - Poem. Collection

Remember, Body… by C. P. Cavafy - Poem. Greek and English collection

Sindbad the Sailor - From "Arabian Nights"/"The Thousand and One Nights" Original Arabic English translations (One) (Two)

Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Excerpts and essays. Wolfgang von Goethe was very prolific, you may be best off just looking at his author page on Gutenberg

Socrates' Defence by Plato - excerpts from Apology. English translation Original Greek

Speaking of Siva - selection of Virasaiva vacanas (religious verses). I cannot find the original kannada or english translation collection of these outside of this book: The ones that do have one of these poems cite A. K. Ramanujan, who translated and annotated this. This is "the" source. You can borrow it from the Internet Archive's library. Please message me if you find a good alternative source for this!

The Atheist's Mass by Honoré de Balzac - Short story. Original French part of a collection English translation

The Beautiful Cassandra by Jane Austen - Excerpts from Austen's youth

The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels - Original German English translation

The Dhammapada - English translation. Older manuscripts are in a few different versions, mostly Sanskrit/Pali, but this is a good site to read it on

The Dolphins, the Whales and the Gudgeon by Aesop - Selection of Aesop's fables. English translation Greek, Latin, French, and Spanish

The Eve of St Agnes by John Keats - Poem. Collection

The Fall of Icarus by Ovid - from the Metamorphoses. English translation Original latin

The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James

The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows by Rudyard Kipling - Short story. Collection

The Great Fire of London by Samuel Pepys - Excerpt from his diary. Gutenberg Annotated online

The Great Winglebury Duel by Charles Dickens - Short story. Collection

The Life of a Stupid Man by Ryunosuke Akutagawa - From 羅生門 (Rashomon). Original Japanese. I cannot find an English translation available free & legal online.

The Madness of Cambyses by Herodotus - Excerpt from the History of Herodotus. English translation Original Greek

The Maldive Shark by Herman Melville - Poem. Collection

The Meek One by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Also translated as "A Gentle Creature." Original Russian English translation

The Night is Darkening Round Me by Emily Brontë - Poem collection

The Nightingales are Drunk by Hafez - Poem. Original Persian English translation

The Nose by Nikolay Gogol - Short story. Original Russian English translation

The Old Man of the Moon by Shen Fu - Excerpt from "Six Records of a Floating Life". Original Chinese. I cannot find a free & legal English translation online, but you can borrow the Internet Archive's copy

The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell - Short story. Collection

The Reckoning by Edith Wharton - Short story. Collection

The Robber Bridegroom - One of Grimm's collected fairy tales.

The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue - Author unknown, this is one of the sagas of Icelanders. Text with modern icelandic spelling English translation

[dillydedalus]

women in translation month wrap-up

here's what i read this witmonth, faves marked with *

das verbotene notizbuch, alba de céspedes (translated from the italian by verena from koskull, english translation: forbidden notebook, by ann goldstein)

salomés zorn, simone atangana bekono (translated from the dutch by ira wilhelm, no english translation yet)

witches, brenda lozano (translated from the spanish by heather cleary)

*three summers, margarita liberaki (translated from the greek by karen van dyck)

breasts and eggs, mieko kawakami (translated from the japanese by sam bett & david boyd)

im park der prächtigen schwestern, camila sosa villada (translated from the spanish by svenja becker, english translation: bad girls, by kit maude)

*boulder, eva baltasar (translated from the catalan by julia sanches): READ BOULDER BY EVA BALTASAR

sweet days of discipline, fleur jaeggy (translated from the italian by tim parks)

the wandering, intan paramaditha (translated from the indonesian by stephen j. epstein)

my pen is the wing of a bird, anthology of short stories by afghan women, translated from dari & pashto

all your children, scattered, beata umbyeyi mairesse (translated from the french by alison anderson)

*waking lions, ayelet gundar-goshen (translated from the hebrew by sondra silverston)

*the lover, marguerite duras (translated from the french by barbara bray)

*trieste, daša drndić (translated from the croatian by ellen elias-bursać)

evil flowers, gunnhild øyehaug (translated from the norwegian by kari dickson)

*empty wardrobes, maria judite de carvalho (translated from the portuguese by margaret jull costa)

die tochter, kim hye-jin (translated from the korean by lee ki-hyang, english translation: concerning my daughter, by jamie chang)

still reading:

the books of jacob, olga tokarczuk (translated from the polish by jennifer croft

mister n, najwa barakat (translated from the arabic by luke leafgren)

[steelycunt]

any advice/book recs for getting out of a slump

hi!! i am currently also in a reading slump and have been for the last few months starting back at uni aha but in terms for getting out of one id recommend starting with short, easy reads. the point of reading obviously is not to just say youve finished a ton of books but i think that the sense of completion that comes when you finish a book can help get you back into reading and obviously its quicker + easier to get that with a small book rather than to try and get back into reading with a really heavy dense read where theres no end in sight and youre much more likely to give up...so yah! short easy reads id say stuff that makes you happy maybe guilty pleasurish reads..and then once youve got through a few it might feel less draining to start a longer one. as for specific recs here are some books under 200 pages that i love:

anything by claire keegan! specifically small things like these, foster, walk the blue fields and antarctica (two short story collections).

bonjour tristesse by francoise sagan.

boulder by eva baltasar.

franny and zooey by jd salinger.

we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson.

giovanni's room + if beale street could talk by james baldwin.

the passion by jeanette winterson.

panenka by ronan hession.

the archive of alternate endings by lindsey drager.

kick the latch by kathryn scanlan.

a single man by christopher isherwood.

swimming in the dark by tomasz jedrowski.

all quiet on the western front by erich maria remarque (just over 200 technically but i love it so bad...)

hope you find something you love bab!

[oddygaul]

The Resort

I followed Andy Siara here. With how much I love Palm Springs I guess I shouldn’t be surprised how much I enjoyed this in the end, but to be fair, that synopsis sure wouldn’t have drawn me in without that baked-in goodwill.

Still, love me a good mystery, and The Resort was well-paced and engrossing. It started off a bit slow, but honestly that made it more compelling - the show going from “eh, I guess I’ll give it a second episode” to “okay that was kinda wild let’s get one more” to “yo what the fuck is going on I am INVESTED” was a fun ride.

There was definitely a weird vibe for the first episode or two. It almost felt like an isekai, but for people who are super into true crime podcasts: two Americans, already imposing on an unfamiliar culture by being tourists at a fancy luxury resort, start sticking their noses into everyone’s business and wander around the city drunk finding ‘clues’? It’s funny at times, but a little obnoxious, too - I found myself hoping they’d be punished by the narrative for how stupid they were about the whole thing. That doesn’t really happen, but at least Baltasar absolutely lays into them for their shoddy fucking detective work when they all finally link up.

“If this was a horror movie, my aunties would be like, ‘don’t go down that hallway’! Haha. (beat) This is real dumb though.”

Baltasar fucking rules, by the way - easily the show’s standout character. Episode 4, where he lays out his past and his time at the Oceana Vista, is one of those Peak TV Episodes that’s compelling enough to stand on its own as a short story, context be damned. Even beyond that, his character is just so unique; I love how he’s always asking questions. Not the obvious, TV show detective questions, either - it almost feels like he’s actively speculating alongside the audience, analyzing facts as they come in and floating theory after theory, the same way we all are while watching.

I’m so happy Ben Sinclair is out here doing things, too! I suppose it’s my fault for not taking the time to look up his filmography since High Maintenance, but I jumped when I saw his name in the writing credits and was stoked to see him in a major role here.

The Resort ends with a bit of a whimper. While the show at large devotes as much attention to its character arcs & themes as it does to the ever-expanding mysteries and lore of the world, the finale really only satisfyingly resolves the former, leaving the latter a touch less explored than I’d have liked. Still, the ending does allow the show’s main theme to shine through strong: while it’s easy to get stuck in the past and spend our time obsessing over memories and what could have been, you’re ultimately just taking time away from what your life could be in the present.

[smunconservadors]

El Tiempo 

Baltasar Santos Montejo Gears up for Presidency with Massive Support 

20 January 1950 

BALTAZAR RETURNS!!! The face of the Liberal party and former popular president, Senor Baltazar Santos Montejo has announced his candidacy for presidency with support from the Liberal party, the following is a short excerpt of his otherwise 15 minute speech he made on the city of Boyaca regarding his candidacy "When I finished my term as president of our motherland after leading it through the storm of the Second World War, I thought I could retire in peace, and watch the sunset on the beaches of Bogota in peace, I was wrong. A greater fire is approaching, threatening to swallow up our entire nation, a darker time than that of the 1000 days war is approaching, and I cannot stand idly by while it ravages our nation" Rumors from eyewitnesses says that what looks like some well-known Conservative generals in civilian clothing is seen whispering with Senor Baltazar afterwards, is the Conservative fracturing and joining Baltazar?