#it and its sequel The Harrowing are my new obsession

[owlwinter8]

I made a fanbind of the incredible Anastasis by @chthonion!! This fic series is truly something special, and even on my first read I knew that I wanted to bind it. This was also my first bookbind where I fully felt like I knew what I was doing, and I'm incredibly proud of how it came out!!

Art inspo: Stellar Corona by eradelphic and Through Window Up by Ninhol Cover/back/spine art has been uploaded here! <3 EDIT: Typeset has been added to the google drive with author permission as well!

[porridgefeast]

an undetermined number of people you’d like to know more

I did away with the “nine” because I’m not tagging anybody anyway. I was tagged by my dear @emotionallychargedtowel.

last song i listened to

The last song I know I listened to is this cover of the Karate song “Gasoline,” which I really love and find cathartic. Pelican is an instrumental band and as such they don’t have a singer, so they enlisted this guy Chris Hansen from a band called Pinebender. He does a great job—his voice isn’t completely unlike that of Karate singer Geoff Farina, but he has a different, very affecting yell-y quality that really pays off when the song reaches its climax. And it’s a very climactic song / version of the song.

currently watching

Uncharacteristically, I don’t have one main thing I’m currently watching. I should soon. I just finished watching Not Me for the second time. I’m partway through the new miniseries of Justified. Like many people, I watched the first episode of Only Friends earlier today. Already a lot going on there! And this evening I thought I’d take a look at Gay Ok Bangkok per @waitmyturtles and I guess I got sucked in because I made it all the way through the show’s first season. Oh, and Jun & Jun.

currently reading

I’m near the beginning of Harrow the Ninth, which I’m finally picking up. I read Gideon the Ninth ages ago but I felt like I needed to reread it before I attempted the sequel. I got a new ebook copy of that one & read it on my July trip to Washington. I had bought a hard copy of Harrow in June when my colleague had an event for the release of her first novel; I wasn’t going to buy her book because I already had a copy by then, but I made sure to buy one book every time I went to one of her events. Another book event was my excuse to buy a copy of The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz, which I’ve wanted for years. I guess I’m also reading that, just very very slowly and not from beginning to end.

current obsessions

I often have at least one cooking obsession but the insane heat where I live has made that hard to keep up. At a certain point, food is barely interesting. Closest thing I've got now is tofu scramble.

Making cold-brewed tea in the fridge.

Fermentation, as per my reading material. I want to try doing water kefir soon.

I've wanted to make a scarf like Kaito's (below) from Zenkaiger since I saw it, maybe 1 1/2 to 2 years ago. ("Like" as in stitch pattern, though I'd probably also do stripes.) It just looks really soft. I have yarn brain at the moment because I'm scheming about yarn for this and a knitting project.

Probably my biggest current fascination (of a non-media-related variety) is mending things and practicing mending. My bestie is an avid thrifter who wears clothes to pieces, so I have a near-endless source of mendable items to practice upon.

Organizing, if something can be both an obsession and a source of dread.

[halfdeadfriedrice]

2022 Books in Review!

Some half-dead fried reflections about how my annual 100 books challenge went! With recs (a few)! Behind a cut because it's self-indulgently wordy.

This year I read:

32 manga

7 non-manga comics and graphic novels

11 audiobooks

2ish short stories (i'm SORRY i was SHORT this year and also I wanted to track them)

Which makes it 49 novel (-length, I am also counting the single prose biography here, - 39) /novellas and assorted (12) /poetry books (2) /short story (collections mostly - 5)

Things rec'd to me: 4-ish things! (one of the manga series counts)

I tried: 23 new authors!

Which does mean that traditional(ish) novel-length scifi/fantasy edged tied with graphic formats, except a bunch of them were audiobooks, so the majority (on this slightly wonky pie chart) of pages in front of my eyes this year were illustrated! Honestly a lot of this year was spent video gaming, and also; I didn't find a lot of books I liked!

My favorite books of the year: A lot of my favorite stuff this year were sequels I'd been awaiting!

The Oleander Sword - Tasha Suri Sequel to "The Jasmine Throne," it's some pragmatic, powerful, incredibly devoted queer ladies doing coups, seizing power, murdering their brothers, etc. Middle book in series, maybe I knew a bit more about how this one would go than The Jasmine Throne, which was absolutely ruthless, but I loved where it went as a sequel and I long for the third.

Into the Riverlands - Nghi Vo Technically the third in a series (The Singing Hills Cycle) about a wandering priest who collects stories for an archive - all sorts of stories, everyone's stories - but it stands alone, and it has the martial story flavor that unfortunately all the shonen anime and wuxia stories have given me a preference for. I like knight-errants and wandering samurai and People Who Punch For the Good Of Others, what can I say.

Only a Monster - Vanessa Lem Recommended in the back of CS Pacat's Dark Rise, a book I wanted to like more than I did and am hopeful about its sequel, Vanessa Lem's "Only A Monster" (first in its series?) is DOING enemies to lovers it is DOING it dark and scary and fun. Time travel but it's killing people? Can you save the people you love, and at what cost to the world? 10/10 would thrill again.

Nona the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir Third in the Locked Tomb series; it's a puzzle box unfolding, and while I love Nona, who is a perfect baby, and am obsessed with the Cam/Pal/Pyrrha dynamic, and of course the prose is wonderful and funny and scary, I am chomping at the bit for Alecto. I think, much like Gideon, which needed Harrow for me to start recommending it to people, but probably remains my favorite book in the series, I await Nona's echo. But also genuinely one of my favorite reads this year.

Undercover and Princess Floralinda and the Forty Flight Tower by Tamysn Muir Floralinda's a reread but Undercover is new; without reservation (I mean, unless you don't like dark things and a bit of gore) I recommend Muir's novellas, which are queer and loving exercises in genre and funny as hell

Flyaway - Kathleen Jennings A fairy tale sort of story, but one set in and pulling from Australian mythos; small town drama and generations of families issues and questions about personhood and all the fun things you can do with a myth. The beginning is confined - push on.

The Golden Enclaves - Naomi Novik I slipped and fell and am currently reading a slightly-more-than-mediocre HP longfic and it is making me crave a Scholomance reread, which has definitely been marketed as an HP read-instead but like, lets its characters experience challenges and narrative threats (also, the Golden Enclaves is an INCREDIBLY satisfying ending for a series. talk about sticking the landing. waow. also also, has a pragmatic manipulative ice queen playing a major role. i have a type and it's clever people who can more accurately be called 'a huge bitch'.)

Gonna throw Sas Milledge's "Mamo" in here, because the art is incredible and the story is sweet.

Manga I read:

Full Metal Alchemist - I finished this early in the year (it was my push to finish my challenge last year) early this year - I hadn't ever read it, it was a treat to see what all the fuss was about. It's genuinely such a good series, with complex moral/ethical questions and good suspense and humor.

Dungeon Meshi - Read this on slow days in the office and also while I had covid! It's a cooking manga - a party of adventurers needs to rescue one of their dead party members, and the only way to stay strong enough in the dungeon (and, they're broke, so the only way they can afford to delve) is to start cooking and eating what they see! The story is like, fine. The recipes and the focus on fictional beast cooking is the real treat here. There's also a cat girl later, which always makes me happy.

xxxHolic Rei - I figured out how to set up a manga reader on a borrowed ipad and finally finished out the xxxHolic series with its semi-sequel, Rei. I loved Rei - I like reading CLAMP stories but one of their stock main characters usually get to turn from "harassed and shouty" to "cool and mysterious" during the like, last 3 volumes, and so some more time with Cool Watanuki - this makes me feel like a jerk surely there's a better way to phrase this; Watanuki missing the No Homo character trait - whatever, it was good to see him, and it was good to get some good retconning and pursuit of a happier ending. Also, beautiful. CLAMP is always beautiful.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles - inter-reads with xxxHolic, but the library didn't have all of them, so my initial reading of Holic mised a lot of references. This is good though, because Tsubasa is Incredibly Referential to all of CLAMP's other series, which by now I have at least a passing familiarity with. I just started this one, I'll see if I keep it up. I do feel like I'm finally in a place to appreciate it!

Boys Run The Riot - High schoolers trying to invent their own fashion brand - it's half fashion and half queer coming of age for our transman main character, as he makes friends and figures out how he can live in the world (and make his fashionable mark in it).

Also some yaoi, you know.

Books I will talk shit about (is this a real category? what are you doing. Look I don't finish a lot of books I don't like so there's definitely more in my "DNR" list but these I pressed through):

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires Strange and Stubborn Endurance Hands of the Emperor

[magnetarmadda]

3, 10, 20?

Oooh! I answered another ask with 3 and 20, but because those questions had SO MANY answers for me, I’m gonna do it again!!

3. What were your top five books of the year?

I made a List for the other ask and for this, I just went to the ones that hurt me to cut from that lol

1. The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Pham Que Mai

2. Harrow the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir

3. The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison

4. For the Throne by Hannah F. Whitten

5. Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

10. What was your favorite new release of the year?

Aaaaah, this one is hard too!! I think I read more new releases this year than I usually do, so there’s so many to choose from

I’m gonna give a book that hasn’t made its way to one of my “top five” lists yet lol. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers just, it straight up healed me and I am a better person for having read it

20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

As I said earlier, I answered this question once, but I anticipate book releases so much, I have a separate calendar I put them into in my phone lol. So there were *many* I couldn’t wait to read

I really love Alexis Hall and the way he writes stories, especially love stories. So I was super looking forward to Husband Material, sequel to Boyfriend Material (I am obsessed with it still), but it fell a bit flat for me. No spoilers, but while I appreciated the ending, I felt there could’ve been a better way to get that same point across that didn’t feel so…idk, inauthentic to me? I’ve ruminated on this a bit, and while I liked the book overall, the ending has made it so I probably won’t reread that particular book

[blouisparadise]

Here are some amazing bottom Louis fics that were posted or completed during the month of October. We hope you enjoy this list. Happy reading!

1) You Control Me (Even If Its Just Tonight) | Explicit | 1591 words

Louis rides Harry and thinks he's in control.

2) Save a Horse | Explicit | 2400 words

Louis goes to a rodeo with Liam, and gets a lot more than he bargained for. Featuring bull rider Harry, obnoxious t-shirts, and one hell of a night.

3) El Comienzo De Una Vida | Teen & Up | 2779 words

Note: There is no smut in this fic, but it contains omega Louis, so we’ve included it in this monthly roundup. This fic is the second part of a series. 

After being bartered to Harry to save his kingdom, Louis is on his way to the Alpha's homeland and he would very much like him to stop being so cautious and just kiss him, god damn it!

4) A Treat For You And A Treat For Me | Explicit | 3416 words

Louis blushed at Harry’s flirty tone. “You’re just saying that to get in my pants.” He giggled, half joking. “But thank you. I’m glad you like it.”

“Not just to get in your pants, baby. I’m being honest. You’re always cute. Are you wearing mascara?” He asked, licking over his lips. Louis in makeup always did something to Harry. He loved it.

Louis nodded, leaning forward. “I am. Do you like it? I’m also wearing some cute Halloween panties under my costume.. if you wanna see them later?” He murmured, letting his lips touch Harry’s lightly before pulling away, a tiny smile on his lips.

Harry’s mouth opened a bit, but no words came out. Instead Louis was lifted up and carried in Harry’s arms, up the stairs. “Later? I wanna see them now.” He whispered into Louis’ ear, hot breath sending shivers down Louis’ body. “Missed you so much since last time.”

5) A Kiss For Then, A Kiss For Now (And A Million More) | Mature | 6073 words

Note: There is no smut in this fic, but it contains omega Louis, so we’ve included it in this monthly roundup. This is the sequel to this fic. 

A collection of moments from Petal's life with her mummy, the stinky alpha and their new baby boy.

6) Terror At Our Door | Explicit | 6201 words

A hurt man comes to Harry's home on Halloween, bringing in a world of mystery that Styles didn't want at all.

What a shame that feelings are involved too.

7) Fight Me Breathless | Mature | 7596 words

Louis Tomlinson has no idea why he’s in a London hospital for asthma, but enter Harry Styles, his doctor, who he definitely doesn’t think is hot, and he’s left wondering if asthma is why he can’t seem to breathe properly with his doctor around.

8) This Ain't Red Wine | Explicit | 9054 words

It’s not until he gets a whiff of the contents of his glass that Louis realizes his grave mistake.

That’s not red wine.

It’s blood.

It’s probably not the most rational, but his first thought is what people are going to think when they discover his body. On the list of stupidest ways for a human to die, accidentally turning up to a Vampire party has to be pretty high up there.

9) Colder Weather | Explicit | 15132 words

Note: Please remember to check tags for any trigger warnings.

Louis doesn’t know what comes over him. “Please H-Harry, take me,” Louis looks back at the farmhouse, swallowing once as his skittish eyes fall onto the master bedroom window, “Take me with you, please.”

Harry’s scent flares, the tinged anger so noticeable that Louis draws back out of the alpha’s space.

“Is he hittin’ on you?”

Louis’ right hand rests briefly against the bruise forming rapidly over the right side of his rib cage, the darkness of the night hiding the movement. “No.”

10) Those Who From The Pit Of Hell, Roam To Seek Their Prey On Earth | Explicit | 17636 words

1889. Louis Tomlinson is a student at the prestigious Harrow School for Boys, nurturing his passion for forensic medicine under the care of a particularly mysterious and dark teacher, Harry Styles, who has set his main focus on a series of gruesome murders, all of them reflecting the year 1888, when Jack the Ripper went rampant in the poor streets of Whitechapel.

11) The Shining Distraction That Makes Me Fly Home | General Audiances | 19397 words

Note: There is no smut in this fic, but it contains omega Louis, so we’ve included it in this monthly roundup.

An omega Louis and an alpha Harry find themselves in a forced marriage that gives Louis the freedom he desires in exchange for Harry being chained up a bit more.

12) Welcome to The Rivalry | Mature | 19671 words

“Welcome home!” Niall yelled, clapping his hands in excitement. “Isn’t it great?”

Louis looked between Niall and the house, unsure how to respond.

“I don’t understand,” Louis finally managed to say. “Aren’t we a little old to be living so close to campus?”

Niall scoffed. “You’re only twenty-four for fuck’s sake. There is still plenty of partying left for us to do. What better place than one street over from where a car was set on fire after the Michigan game last year?”

“Is there proof of that? Did the car have Michigan plates or something? Is there a photo I can send in a DM to Wolfie?”

As if on cue, a Twitter notification popped up on Louis’ Apple watch. He had tweeted again.

13) Welcome to the Bottom of the World | Not Rated | 20859 words

Louis is an American musher/expedition guide, Harry is a scientist from England. They meet in the middle of Antarctica, what could go wrong?

14) Reach The Heavens Own Blue | Explicit | 21070  words

He steps up to the plate, eyes glazing over as he watches Harry chew sunflower seeds, his jaw moving obnoxiously and exaggeratedly. His eyes drag down Harry’s body, settling on his large bulge, accentuated in those sinful pinstripe pants. The lines cut across it just right, curving where he’s thickest. Louis wants to crawl across the dirt on his knees and just take what Harry gives him.

Louis shuts his eyes for a moment, opening them to find Harry staring at him with a smug expression. He fucking knows. Louis gets into position and waits for the pitch. He swings when Harry throws, missing the ball just barely. Strike one.

15) Terror Of Surrender | Explicit | 31566 words

Harry instructs them to step into Crescent Lunge, stopping when he gets to Louis to adjust his hips. “I think you can bend a little more.” He helps Louis deepen the stretch, his hands tight on his hips. “Good boy.”

Louis gasps quietly, his eyes snapping to Harry’s, his heart pounding in his chest. Harry’s eyes drop to his lips, his hands smoothing down Louis’ stretched thighs, then he’s turning and walking to the front of the class.

16) Eyes Off You | Explicit | 39396 words

A Charlie’s Angels inspired fic where Louis is the brains, Harry is the charm, Liam is the muscle, and Niall drives the getaway car - and Zayn is there, too. sometimes.

17) Puncture | Mature | 43383 words

Note; This fic has mentions of BH.

An alternate universe where Harry bites Louis and hates the taste of his blood but is still obsessed with him anyway.

18) Your Touch Shouldn't Make Me Feel Like This | Explicit | 48883 words

Uni AU in which Alpha Harry has been in love with his omega friend for the longest time and one motorbike trip to the countryside with Louis made him realize that he could no longer hold back his feelings.

19) Just A Flicker In The Dark | Explicit | 57191 words

Harry Styles is his case partner. High and mighty, annoyingly smug Harry Styles who’s known him for years and has fucking seen him naked for fuck’s sake.

He glances at Venus who’s blinking up at him with curious eyes, no doubt sensing the agitation sparking in his magic.

“This is not happening,” Louis says loudly. “This is not fucking happening. I am going to kill Liam, oh my god.” He doesn’t even know if Liam is responsible for this but it feels like something he’d do to drive Louis absolutely insane - exes don’t just show up to your assigned haunted house out of nowhere. “Fucking fuck!”

He nearly jumps when Harry knocks again, his muffled voice carrying through the wood. “I can hear you, you know,” he drawls, sounding frustratingly amused.

Louis exhales, resisting the urge to scream.

20) Wild Thing | Mature | 65962 words

Harry doesn’t think love is for him, until Louis shows him just how wild love is.

21) Three Days in February | Explicit | 187642 words

Louis is cursed after a night out with the lads and the five have just three days to figure out what happened and how to break it before Harry and Louis both lose their sanity and maybe something more. Louis can hear everything Harry thinks and Harry isn’t sure he can keep his feelings for Louis a secret from his own mind.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

You can find other monthly roundup fic rec lists here.

[smalleststories]

Queer Books: A (long) List

Ever noticed that queer book recs tend to be the same ten books? This is my one-woman effort to change that! Please feel free to scream into my inbox about any of these.

Books are sorted by genre.

Fantasy

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir | wlw | Harrow has the opportunity to become an immortal companion of the Emperor, but only if she and her reluctant partner Gideon can discover what is killing off other pairs.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune | mlm | Linus is a caseworker for a program that regulates the treatment of magical orphans. He's sent to an island where the most mysterious children are kept under the care of an equally mysterious headmaster. Linus has a month to decide if this orphanage should stay open.

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow | wlw | Three sisters accidentally bring powerful magic back to America just in time for the suffrage movement! Now they have to deal with the fallout as well as the events of their past that separated them.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon | wlw and mlm | Paths cross and cross again as Ead tries to protect a queen while maintaining her cover, Tané trains for the honor of riding a dragon, Niclays hopes to create an elixir of life, and Loth is sent far from his home to a dangerous country.

Silver in the Wood/Drowned Country by Emily Tesh | mlm | Tobias has been living contentedly in Greenhollow Wood for a very long time, but when a curious folklorist comes to his door, he must revisit the events of his past that caused him to become tied to the forest. Note: Both books are novellas, so I recommend getting both at one time.

Starless by Jacqueline Carey | queer | Khai has been trained as a living weapon to protect the princess he is connected to, but that job might be much more dangerous as the pieces of a prophecy begin to fall into place.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern | mlm | Zachary Ezra Rawlins discovers a book with a story from his life, and follows it and several mysterious people into a world designed for readers and artists that's reaching the end of its life.

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune | mlm | Wallace wasn't the world's greatest person in life, but in death that starts to change. Unfortunately, he's been sticking around the tea shop of the dead a bit too long, and now has a week to sort out his feelings, especially the ones for the man tasked with guiding the dead to the next life.

Witchmark by C. L. Polk | mlm | A man dies in front of Dr. Miles Singer, but not before exposing him as a witch to Tristan Hunter. Hunter promises to keep the secret as long as Singer helps him figure out who wanted the dead man killed. Note: the sequels have a wlw couple and a nonbinary character who uses neopronouns, but I'm not doing entries to avoid spoilers.

Science Fiction

One Last Stop by Casey McQuinston | wlw, trans, mlm | August moved to Brooklyn to distance herself from her mom's obsessive search for August's uncle, only to get swept up in a new mystery surrounding the girl from the 70s who is stuck on the subway. Note: Honestly I don't know if this would be better under Fantasy, but it kinda fits both places.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone | wlw | Red and Blue are on either side of a war to secure their futures until Blue writes a letter to Red and opens a conversation.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez | wlw, mlm, ace | Long after the Earth becomes uninhabitable, ships like Nia Imani's travel through the Pocket, trading distance for time as the rest of the world ages past them. Nia's ship becomes an asset when she needs to hide a boy with unusual potential from the government-business of her world.

Realistic/Historical Fiction

Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis | wlw | Being gay in Uruguay during the 70s is dangerous. Despite this, five queer women band together and buy a beach house. This house becomes the center of their lives over the decades that follow.

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers | wlw | A night in Las Vegas leads to Grace marrying a mystery girl. Now she needs to figure out how her wife fits into her world.

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave | wlw | A storm kills almost all of the men on Maren's little Norwegian island. The women learn to survive, but a rift forms when a new governor and his young wife come to live there. Note: read the warnings on this one.

Anthologies

A People's Future of the United States by multiple authors | just... yes | A collection of short stories imagining America's future and the people living in it.

I update this list any time I finish a new book, so keep an eye on it for new titles. If you have a rec for me please send it in!

[miskatonicaquarium]

Weird Fiction/Cosmic Horror Recommends

In a time of general uncertainty and anxiety, one thing that is certain is that weird fiction/cosmic horror has got your back. If you like to combat your growing sense of existential dread by reading about other people’s growing sense of existential dread, this is a list for you. Where texts and shows are available online, I have included links. Where they are not, I have included links to where they are available to buy.

Books

Agents of Dreamland – Caitlin R Kiernan

Government agents, ritual murders, a doomsday cult and a glitch in NASA’s interplanetary probe all feature in this deeply frightening and deftly written novella that takes classic Lovecraftian tropes and expands on them with mesmerising skill.

Wanderers – Chuck Wendig

When a sleepwalking epidemic hits America, those affected head towards a destination known only to themselves. Desperate to keep their loved ones safe, ‘shepherds’ follow the growing group to protect them on their journey. This is an incredibly rewarding read stuffed full of complex characters, apocalyptic horror and a long hard look at human nature.

Winter Tide – Ruthanna Emrys

After the government raid on Innsmouth, Aphra and Caleb Marsh are the only inhabitants of the town to survive the desert internment camps. When confidential, dangerous magic is stolen from Miskatonic University, the FBI are forced to turn to the last of the Marsh’s for help. An evocative and sympathetic novel that takes the antagonists of Lovecraft’s works and paints them in a new light.

The Fisherman – John Langan

This is considered to be a modern classic of the genre and for good reason. It’s best to go into this one as blind as possible so I’ll just leave you with this little quote: "I know Dutchman's Creek runs deep, much deeper than it could or should, and I don't like to think what it's full of."

Carter and Lovecraft – Jonathan L. Howard

A homicide detective turned Private Investigator finds himself embroiled with the last known descendant of H.P Lovecraft, Emily Lovecraft. When deaths that have an eerie resemblance to the writing of Emily’s ancestor begin to plague the area, the investigator finds himself drawn into a world he thought didn’t exist beyond fiction.

Rosewater – Tade Thompson

The first in an award-winning trilogy that blends science fiction into the weird in near future Nigeria. When an alien biodome manifests in the landscape, a select group of people in the surrounding area begin developing psychic abilities. A winding, disturbing tale with an original setting, voice and characters; this is the perfect read for those looking for a fresh take on the genre.  

North American Lake Monsters: Stories – Nathan Ballingrud

I am hugely obsessed with this – Ballingrud uses tropes and characters we are all familiar with and uses them to tell stories that shed light on the plight of rural, poverty-stricken America. He is a masterful author with a true gift for atmospheric writing (‘Late summer pressed onto this small Mississippi coastal town like the heel of a boot. The heat was an act of violence.’) and this collection will appeal to fans of Ligotti and Barron as well as those who are unfamiliar with the genre.

The Ballad of Black Tom – Victor LaValle

This is essentially a retelling of Lovecraft’s The Horror at Red Hook (but without the blatant racism, hooray!). A slow burn, cosmic horror noir featuring a who’s who of the Cthulhu Mythos, for those interested in the genre who do not get on with Lovecraft’s writing or the man himself, this is an excellent way to get all the good stuff without the bad.

Anthologies

A Lonely and Curious Country: Tales from the land of Lovecraft

Seventeen stories about Lovecraftian horrors in the most unusual of places. Lots of these work as mini-sequels to Lovecraft’s original stories so this is a good companion for those familiar with his work.

Lovecraft Unbound

As I’ve said before, Ellen Datlow is a powerhouse of anthology editing. Featuring a great spread of familiar mythos faces and more thematic takes on the genre, Lovecraft Unbound is one of the best collections out there.

Book of Cthulhu

There are a couple of these! All feature some of the best contemporary authors writing weird fiction. Quality of individual stories sometimes varies in Lovecraftian anthologies but that is not the case here. The first is particularly good as it also contains stories from older, more obscure writers who are hard to get in print.

Shadows of Carcosa

Twelve short stories that feature everything from the land of carcosa to the traditionally Lovecraftian setting of the cursed hills of New England. All of these are shorts written by classic writers such as Poe, Stoker, Bierce, Chambers and Blackwood.

Lovecraft’s Monsters

Another collection edited by Datlow. This one is particularly fun as it features illustrations, as well as a story by Neil Gaiman. Lovecraft’s Monsters is amongst my favourite of the anthologies as it is based solely around the creatures that crawl and squirm through the mythos. It’s also available as an audiobook!

Children of Lovecraft

Fourteen short stories including authors like Stephen Graham Jones, Orrin Grey, Caitlin R. Kiernan and Livia Llewellyn. Full of body horror, dread, surrealism and one of the best opening sentences to any short story.

She Walks in Shadows

A monumental, fascinating collection comprised of exclusively female authors. Offering a long overdue look at and development of the female aspects of the mythos, this collection gives a voice to the previously unheard. For those looking for a diverse, original and often deeply disturbing reading experience, this is your anthology.

Available online for free

The Lovecraft Ezine has a great archive here of all its previous issues

Weird Fiction Review is an excellent resource for online fiction – both excerpts from books and stand-alone short stories.

The Online Books page has direct links to the issues of Weird Tales magazine published between 1923 – 192. 

TOR.COM is an amazing resource for all kinds of science fiction and fantasy shorts. This is a link specifically to Lovecraftian fiction. There’s also lots of interesting things to read under the tag cosmic horror here.

Graphic Novels

Fatale - Sex, violence, cults, cosmic horror, imaginative period settings and gorgeous artwork. Fatale is one of the best comics set in the mythos out there.

Locke and Key - Many of you will be familiar with Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s hugely popular (and now televised) series focused on a house above a portal to the plains of Leng.

Harrow County - Creepy, rural-based, folk horror series centred on a young woman who finds herself to be joined to the forest and the land in ways she could never have imagined.

The Squidder - A postapocalyptic Lovecraftian mess, I have included this because it is worth buying for the artwork alone. Ben Templesmith is an acquired taste but an incredibly talented illustrator whose work is uniquely suited to the mythos.

I have talked about these several times before but it is always worth checking out I.N.J Culbard’s graphic novel adaptations of Lovecraft’s stories, as well as the two anthologies that were released several years ago.

*** 

Films – Cosmic Horror

I have linked to the trailers for each of these, some are classics you will know, some are new. 

The Colour out of Space 

Die Fabre

The Dunwich Horror

The Endless

Event Horizon

The Void

Europa Report

Black Mountain Side 

Films – Folk Horror

The Ritual

They Remain

The White Reindeer

Night of the Demon 

Apostle

More generally, some good online resources for old/weird/out of print books are

Project Gutenberg – an online library of over 60,000 books in the public domain

Internet Archive – a great resource for obscure books (particularly historical)

Europeana – items from Europe’s galleries, museums, libraries and archives

Digital Public Library of America – similar to Europeana, but for America

Classic Literature – lots of 19th century gothic goodness in particular, but great for all the classics too!

And when it all gets too much and you feel like being your own creeping dread,  Here is a link to a fun game where you can be the rats in the walls. 

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 133: Dewey Wins

“But...I’m hurt.”

I started reviewing the Week of Sardonyx in late 2017. It was slow going thanks to grad school and student teaching and licensing tests and my job (boy do I not miss those days), but I’d clawed my way through Cry for Help in October and Keystone Motel on the first Sunday of November. In those reviews, I wrote at length about how this was the most devastating arc of the series, a massive argument spanning multiple episodes with no easy answers.

Then the Friday after my Keystone Motel post was uploaded, Cartoon Network dropped the Breakup Arc on us all at once, and I had to make some edits.

There’s no official name for the span of episodes between Dewey Wins and Kevin Party, but considering it features not one but two breakups, with only one reconciliation by the end, I think my nickname is apt. Just under a fifth of Season 5 is devoted to six consecutive episodes designed to make us miserable, and on top of being an outstanding sequel to the Week of Sardonyx, it’s the best precursor we’ve got to adolescent trials of Steven Universe Future. 

The Week of Sardonyx is strengthened by numerous previous episodes where Pearl does bad things without consequence, making it something of a shock when her actions are finally addressed. In a similar way, we’ve been taught from Log Date 7 15 2 and Kindergarten Kid and The New Crystal Gems that emotionally draining arcs are followed by cooldown episodes, and Dewey Wins sounds like the name of a fun adventure with our goofy mayor. There’s no situation where the Breakup Arc would be a pleasant affair, but the pattern adds an extra layer of angst as our anticipated relief period ends up more stressful than the arc we needed relief from.

But not every big arc gets a cooldown. Our very first, ending with Jailbreak, is followed by one of the Breakup Arc’s major prequels: Full Disclosure, an episode about missed phone calls and the importance of keeping friends in the loop regarding space adventures. The ghosted party is flipped, as Connie now refuses to talk to Steven, and watching his struggle gives an even greater appreciation for Connie’s own turmoil (not just from Full Disclosure, but Steven’s reckless self-sacrifice).

We know something’s wrong from the moment we see her, in a way that’s different from Greg and the Gems’ wide-eyed concern. Her discomfort manifests just as it did in Mindful Education: a downcast expression and curt demeanor made more apparent by Steven’s cheery chattiness. But because she’s the only one of them that has truly taken the lessons of that episode to heart, she soon expresses her feelings outright (after a brutal “Of course I’m happy to see you”—Grace Rolek only needs one scene to be the episode’s MVP). Her complaints are all valid: this is not the first time she’s been left on Earth, and her sense that Steven isn’t taking her seriously is confirmed when he can’t even take her seriously within the conversation. She’s as direct as she can be, but when Steven refuses to acknowledge her pain, her anger takes over and she shuts him out. Lion’s side-eye is icing on the cake.

My biggest issue with Dewey Wins, however, is Steven. I’m torn, because it’s easy to justify his behavior throughout the episode as a result of recent trauma and the relief at surviving such a harrowing experience (and, later, the same sleeplessness that made him snap in Rose’s Room and Warp Tour). It makes sense that his martyr complex is intensified by his experience with Lars, that he falls back on helping others at the cost of his own well-being on instinct. But his flippant dismissal of Connie’s emotions still feels off, especially because it comes with a heretofore unseen swagger about his own heroism. She pours her heart out, making it clear that she wants to keep being Jam Buds but he’s making it really difficult, but every word goes right over his head. This is a version of Steven that somehow doesn’t get that “hurt” can refer to emotions instead of physical damage.

Throughout the episode, but particularly in this opening scene, Steven feels exaggerated for the sake of honing Connie’s argument. Perhaps it’s necessary, considering how easy it is in first viewing to see his sacrifice as noble rather than selfish; we need to see a more extreme version of his behavior to understand that going it alone was a bad move, or else Connie’s arguments seem small against the scale of the stakes. It’s further complicated by the fact that Steven’s sacrifice was noble, even if it was selfish at the same time. This isn’t a case where Steven is fully right or fully wrong, so it’s bound to be confusing to hear that his traditionally heroic move wasn’t as great as he (or we) first thought.

So yeah, I get why Steven is acting this way for the sake of the show. And, again, I can find reasons to explain his sudden emotional idiocy, making it leagues better than a true Annoying Steven episode. But it still comes across as clumsy to me; I can see the wheels turning to move the plot along in a way that’s normally hidden better on this show. His final monologue where he realizes that Connie felt the way he feels about Dewey abandoning the race feels like something from another show, a show that’s way more on-the-nose than Steven Universe is at its best. It was probably the right move, because as much as I can’t stand it when media is patronizing to young audiences, this lesson is complex enough that it’s worth a little clunkiness to ensure that the message gets through to smaller viewers. But compared to the elegance of our recent space adventure, Dewey Wins sacrifices polish for clarity when we usually get both.

But enough about what doesn’t work for me, because so much of this episode works for me. Even if his behavior feels forced, Steven provides seamless in-universe exposition recapping his space adventure. His follow-up conversation with Sadie has the same kind of douchey detachment that he shows Connie, but in a way that’s far more consistent with his character: dismissing Connie’s emotions is out of left field for him, but it makes plenty of sense that he’d see Lars as “okay” despite being trapped in space, considering the alternative was a very real death. And, of course, there’s the matter of the episode’s actual hero.

Nanefua Pizza has been my everything since Beach Party, and it’s thrilling to see her gain more prominence in the tail end of the series. Her beef with Mayor Dewey has been running since Political Power, the Dewey episode that established all the flaws that drive him out of office in Dewey Wins. Then, she responded by rallying rioters to tip over his truck, but now she takes a more civic-minded approach to effect real change. Still, she’s driven by the same anger at Dewey, and can only become a true force for good when she gains a new appreciation for his struggles.

While the correlation between Dewey and Steven is obvious well before Steven straight-up says there’s a correlation (a moment that’s made easier to swallow when Dewey points out he has no context for Steven’s friend troubles), the general conflict between Nanefua and Bill(iam) is a more fascinating study on blame. At first, both candidates believe in the power of blame, with Nanefua laying all the city’s troubles on Dewey’s inaction and Dewey arguing that taking the heat is his greatest strength: in his mind, there’s not much he can actually do about the cosmic misfortunes that befall Beach City, but giving its citizens somebody to blame gives them a sense of control that’s necessary in a chaotic world. And both of these viewpoints can be found in Steven’s self-image.

Steven, like Nanefua, is quick to lay blame when anything goes wrong. But Steven, like Dewey, sees the absorption of blame as a virtue. So he loops between those two positions, looking for someone to blame at the drop of a hat and only finding himself. The ensuing guilt make him want to fix the problems of others to atone, rather than focus on the underlying cause of his own issues, and if that sounds familiar it’s because Steven Universe Future is entirely about how important it is to break this loop.

But obsessing over fixing things is also how Pearl tries to solve her argument with Garnet in the Week of Sardonyx: she focuses on finding Peridot instead of doing anything about her own actions until she has no choice but to talk things out. And, as I said back in my Friend Ship post, it evokes something Pearl once said about humans (which it turns out applies to Gems): 

“They want to blame all the world's problems on some single enemy they can fight, instead of a complex network of interrelated forces beyond anyone's control.”

When was this said? In Keep Beach City Weird, in regards to Ronaldo. The same Ronaldo who poured gas on the fire in Full Disclosure by presenting the idea that heroes are aloof and keep their friends at a distance. So in a way, the Breakup Arc can be chalked up to ignoring the good Ronaldo lesson but taking the bad Ronaldo lesson to heart. But more on him in Gemcation.

Steven’s turmoil lends a somber edge to Nanefua’s powerful change of heart, where she rejects her past choice to blame Dewey. She apologizes for her own part in pointing fingers, because blame is a lousy substitute for getting things done, and forgives him for not being perfect. She pitches the act of helping as a community effort, rather than something that any one person must do alone; she remembers that the lyrics are “we can be strong in the real way.” She’s giving Steven all of the answers well before Steven Universe Future shows how much his guilt loop will continue to plague him, but he isn’t ready to listen yet, and leaves the debate dejected instead of empowered. (Considering Jenny’s appeal to taking breaks during trying times in Joy Ride, and an adventure with Kiki about not spreading yourself too thin on behalf of others in Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service, this is the third time a Pizza woman’s fantastic advice has gone ignored by our hero.)

Even Dewey seems better off than Steven, accepting defeat by acknowledging that Nanefua would make a better mayor. And he’s right! She sets up actual services to account for alien threats, services that end up changing the universe in a way Dewey’s brand of keeping the peace never could. He may need a new job (Sadie foreshadows both his fate and her own imminent career change in one fell swoop), but there’s a sense of calm as he passes the torch after a full episode of Joel Hodgson’s hammy anxiety.

I appreciate that Dewey is allowed some points in his favor even as he flubs his way out of office. Yes, he should be more thoughtful and attentive: his vow to find a new donut shop kid when presented with news that Lars is trapped in space is even broader than Steven’s reaction to Connie’s pain, but the mayor has always ridiculous so I don’t mind at all. Yes, he should try and do something to address the concerns of his citizens beyond saying everything will be fine. But it’s not lost on the show that it isn’t easy running a town that’s a lightning rod for alien encounters, so Dewey remains sympathetic even if his ineptitude must be addressed. After all, if he’s gonna stand in for Steven in a metaphor that’s clear enough to be monologued about, it’s important to point out that it’s okay when you fail against impossible odds. Neither Dewey nor Steven can do everything on their own, no matter how much power they wield.

Steven might skip a few crucial lessons of Dewey Wins, but he at least learns one. Perhaps in an earlier season, that would be enough to mend fences with Connie. But time makes you bolder, children get older, and she’s getting older too. She’s been more than patient with being treated like an afterthought, so the moment she’s had enough is bound to be a big one. Thus, we end with a cliffhanger, one that pulls Steven into the same landslide that’s surely consuming the rest of the town after his kidnapping. The Barrigas are missing a son, and Sadie’s missing a romantic friend. Bill Dewey is no longer Mayor Dewey, and Nanefua has a whole new set of obstacles to face. Greg and the Gems have their son back, but his kidnapping was traumatic for them as well, and Connie gets that trauma on top of her stated complaints. And Steven had learned two lessons instead of one: it’s important to take your friends seriously, and timing is everything.

It’s gonna be a rough week.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

I do like it, really. But Steven’s behavior takes it down a few notches, regardless of my ability to find ways to explain it. Great episodes don’t require the audience to seek ways to justify a character’s weird behavior. There’s more good than bad here, but I’d be lying if I said I loved Dewey Wins.

Top Twenty-Five

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Steven’s Dream

When It Rains

The Good Lars

Lars’s Head

Catch and Release

Chille Tid

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

That Will Be All

The New Crystal Gems

Storm in the Room

Room for Ruby

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

Doug Out

Are You My Dad?

I Am My Mom

Stuck Together

The Trial

Off Colors

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Rocknaldo

Dewey Wins

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

Tiger Philanthropist

No Thanks!

     6. Horror Club      5. Fusion Cuisine      4. House Guest      3. Onion Gang      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

(No official promo art for most of the Breakup Arc, given the way they were released, but I can’t be too mad when we get brilliance like this from ajora.)

[irisbleufic]

Happy 2020! Can I tag you to do that 2019 Fic Year in Review thing?

Happy New Year to you, too!  Sure thing.  I can’t remember the last time I did one of these; since 2019 is the end of a decade, it feels fitting.  Here goes…

14 February 2019: After spending 14 of my 15 years (2020 marks the start of my 16th year) in Good Omens fandom working on it, I finally finished and posted the 75th and final installment of Crown of Thorns [The Walls, the Wainscot, and the Mouse] ’Verse.  LiveJournal was still the fandom’s primary posting hub when I posted the first-ever installment, A Better Place, on 1 October 2005.  The series didn’t get its second installment (The Walls, the Wainscot, and the Mouse) until 2010, but work on the series from that point forward was pretty much constant.  2012 saw a higher number of CoT updates than any year previous; that was also the year I transferred it to AO3.

25 February 2019: I finished and posted the last chapter of my third Good Omens collaborative fic ’verse with @procrastinatingbookworm, Turn In Your Arms.  We couldn’t believe there was no Good Omens fusion with Tam Lin, so we went for it.  Given our first collaboration in 2018 was a Good Omens fusion with Groundhog Day (Game Over, Insert Coin), that wasn’t a stretch.

27 February 2019: @aspiringjedi and I posted the first of our two Good Omens meta-essays, Making An Effort: Queer (Trans) Masculinity in the Ethereal & Occult Beings of Good Omens.  Yes, it’s 1,990 words due to the novel’s publication year.  When you’re just under 2,000 words anyway, why not?

28 February 2019: @procrastinatingbookworm and I followed up Turn In Your Arms with a brief sequel, Burn After Reading.  All of our collaborations to date have ended up as multi-story mini ’verses.

25 March - 20 April 2019: I went about as livid over Gotham’s Season 5 as I did over Season 3 and wrote Darkroom to address how dirty the show did Bruce and Jeremiah.  I had a stand-alone Season 4 fix-it story (focusing on Oswald and Edward, like most of my other Gotham work) called Triage from 2018 that had never quite felt like it was meant to be a stand-alone.  Triage and Darkroom became the first two installments of a series called Playing for Keeps, to which I added another 6 stories by April 20th.  Darkroom somehow got more traffic than any of my other Gotham pieces since When You Find It, Run over in DDO ’Verse (although those two stories are keystone pieces in much larger series, they can both be read as stand-alones).

4 April 2019: In the midst of working on the aforementioned, @aspiringjedi posted our second Good Omens meta-essay, Southern Pansies: Subversive (Trans) Masculinity in the Ethereal & Occult Beings of Good Omens.

8 May 2019: Brief blip back into Pacific Rim fic!  I posted a missing Anthology correspondence/inset ficlet called L’amour, c’est comme la guerre.  For anyone who ever wanted more of the email correspondence in Anthology’s final chapter, this fills in some gaps you didn’t know were there.

16 May 2019: Thanks to some behind-the-scenes persuasion from several really tenacious Gotham readers who didn’t want me to abandon it / shut down DDO ’Verse, I completed The Knights’ Tour after almost a year on hiatus from it.  This turned out to light a fresh fuse on DDO, because TTK didn’t end up being the final story in the series like I had once planned.

18 May 2019: The only His Dark Materials fic I’ve ever written, also a Gotham fusion, got a belated new final chapter.  Gold Dust is sort of an alternate take on DDO ’Verse, one in which Dust and daemons are present.

23 May 2019: I posted what I thought would be a stand-alone Gotham story called The Meaning of This City.  It manages to be a marginally less dark and complicated take on the Bruce-and-Jeremiah situation (than Darkroom over in PfK ’Verse, that is) without sacrificing some of the most difficult features of what they need to overcome.  More on why this didn’t remain a stand-alone in a bit.

6 June 2019: Good Omens requests came around, one of which led me to follow the Imagine Hastur Ficlets (which themselves exist thanks to the accidental prompts at @imaginehastur) interlude in CoT with The Imagine Hastur Epilogue.  This was a sort of neat in-narrative way to deal with having gradually come out about my biological (inter)sex and (nonbinary) gender identity over the 14 years I worked on CoT. 

15 June - 1 July 2019: I posted another Good Omens collaboration-set with @procrastinatingbookworm called Have Faith at the series-title level.  The two stories in it, You Bloody Snake and Enough of a Bastard, focus almost entirely on Hastur and Ligur.  Seeing Aziraphale and Crowley through different (and less favorable) eyes was a weird pleasure; seeing people indignantly realize they were enjoying fic about Hastur and Ligur was even more of one!

15 August 2019: @verumx persuaded me to watch Jamie Marks Is Dead with her and @one-eyed-bossman, and then implored me to fix it.  Using Our Words is the stand-alone that resulted, which is no shock given I can’t resist ghost stories.  It’s unique among this year’s stories in that it may be the only genuine stand-alone aside from the Gotham piece called Gold Dust.

17 August 2019: After an experimental in-character snail mail letter-writing exchange that lasted about 6 weeks, @verumx and I transcribed the letters and framed them in a piece of collaborative Gotham fic, We Were All Forgiven.  Since about late April, I had been getting progressively sicker and sicker (didn’t know yet that I had cancer).  Keeping busy as things got worse helped at least in the psychological sense, but by mid-August my exhaustion and difficulty eating were hitting their peak.  I was hiding it from everyone except my partner.

1 September 2019: Returning to two stories I’d written for Batman: Europa, I created a series umbrella called Once Is Not Enough and explicitly placed London (Letting Go) and Five Love Affairs under it as companion pieces.  Between Thursday Friday of this particular week, I experienced an increasingly more frightening set of symptoms that landed me in the ER and got a sequence of diagnostic tests finally rolling.

22 October 2019: After receiving a diagnosis of colon cancer on 10/1/19 and starting medical leave Monday of Halloween Week, I decided to complete the sequel to The Meaning of This City, which was a Gotham piece I’d left hanging mid-progress for weeks.  The Maze of Your Ingenuity was hard for me to complete due to constant blood tests, CT scans, and outpatient procedures in the lead-up to my Thanksgiving Week major inpatient surgery, but I did it.

23 September - 11 December 2019: My longest Gotham fic ’verse (Delicate, Dangerous, Obsessed, a.k.a. DDO), having refused to die even once The Knights’ Tour was complete, got an entirely new ending stretch of stories focusing on, of all people, Jerome Valeska and Five (514A).  They were the only two characters from canon who I had mentioned and/or shown briefly in passing earlier in DDO, but whose arcs from canon (and onward into my fic) I had done nothing to wrap up.  Challengers, Thicker Than Blood, Take This Waltz (It’s Yours Now), Finally Fair (In Love and War), and What We’re For (And What We Want) may, collectively, be the best writing I did during the entirety of 2019 (unless you count what I wrote in February to finish CoT).  The experience of terrifying, unexplained illness and harrowing treatment was entirely too timely to one of my two protagonists in this set of stories.  They were worth their weight not just in distraction, but also in catharsis.  Five survived, and so did I.

[mossflowermouse]

Second ‘When Christ and His Saints Slept’ reaction post (part one here), covering chapters 11 to 20 aka the bit where I start shipping actual historical figures for the first time ever (other than Wars of the Roses-era people, but that’s different because they were actually married and it wasn’t a ship ship in the same way these are. Anyway.)

Chapters XI and XII:

Annora and Ranulf still love each other :) and they found a loophole so they can get married when Maude's queen! I really should've remembered about that plight-troth. Now a bit worried about all the ways this could go wrong, not least because I'm aware Maude doesn't become queen, but that was really sweet and I'm glad they're happy and things have been resolved (ish)

UGH, GEOFFREY. He's being awful about Maude and Henry's overhearing :(

Between the odd mentions of her here and what little I know about her historically, I'm so excited for when Eleanor of Aquitaine shows up!

Whoops, Chester. Genuine anger and a lack of mercy from Stephen may be a rare thing, but I have a feeling this has crossed the line.

I like it when Maude has interactions with people she likes and trusts - her brothers, Adeliza, and now Brien. It's good.

...okay I might be starting to ship this. 

Oh dear I'm definitely shipping this. It's impossible and a mess and they both (Maude especially) seem like they'd rather be swallowed by the earth than actually admit to feelings, but it's so sweet and they trust each other so much and must have such a long shared history? Help?

And also lbr this is just That One Dynamic that absolutely kills me in every piece of media. The mutual trust, the quiet but unbreakable loyalty, the circumstances making things so difficult for them? This is absolutely my thing.

This might be the first time I've actually shipped people who existed. Like, there were some good moments in TSiS but all with people who were actually couples in real life. But with this, I don't know many of the specifics, I have no idea what happens to Brien and only know slightly more about Maude. This is strange.

AAAAAHH. Maude you can't do this to my heart. You just can't.

Chapter XIII:

I like Robert.

Hmmm. Looking at both sides' chances in this battle, and knowing Stephen gets captured at some point during the Anarchy, I have a feeling I know how this will end.

Why does it feel like the awful déjà vu of this part was intentional. This is making me have Bosworth-related emotions all over again.

Okay, wow, that was all quite a lot to take in. Chester's plan was good, and I'm grateful that he saved Robert; wasn't expecting William of Ypres of all people to flee*; Stephen's determination is also making me remember Bosworth in TSiS; I liked the bit with him and Robert and Ranulf at the end.

Chapters XIV and XV:

Aww, family (Maud and Robert and Ranulf) 

Maude :')

Matilda just found out about Stephen :(

Maude's going to have trouble winning over the people. London's apparently still loyal to Stephen, and their favour was often an advantage in struggles like this war (looking at you, Edward IV)

I'm feeling more sorry for Constance with every scene she's in or mentioned. Things just keep getting worse for her.

William de Ypres just showed up; Matilda is (understandably) furious about the Battle of Lincoln and letting him know it. 

Alliance time! This is one of the things I was vaguely aware of before starting the book, and the anticipation of it has been a lot of fun. Also, I like how honest he’s being here - he made a choice, realised/decided it was the wrong one, and is making no excuses, instead being clear that he wants to try and make things right. The contrast with, say, Bishop Henry’s total lack of self-awareness (or maybe it’s wilful ignorance?) about his moral bankruptcy is wonderful.

Chapters XVI and XVII:

My ship! They're interacting!

HAND. KISSES. My weakness. I know they're the norm and not necessarily romantic at this time but still. 

I am deceased. This ship has killed me and they've only had two direct conversations.

Bishop Henry is possibly about to switch sides. Again. I ought to keep track of who’s betrayed both sides the most times (probably him right now).

It's been four months since Matilda joined forces with William de Ypres to try and save Stephen, I wonder what they've been up to? (They haven’t been mentioned in the novel since then)

Everything about this:

and then THIS:

I love this conversation for so many reasons. Most of which involve Maude and Brien because apparently now I’ve dedicated my life to being emotional about them.

Matilda!!! It’s been too long.

Okay, so based on Northumberland's thoughts:

hmmm, new ship?

they're using nicknames they're being familiar this feels like a Big Deal for people in their position at that time. It’s certainly a level of informality that very few others have in the book so far.

Wait they just mentioned a Thomas Becket. Is he that Thomas Becket? I know his feud was with Henry II, whose reign begins in about fourteen years, so it's possible.

I love every mention of the chronicles. It's really cool having the regular narration of the novel interspersed with little pieces of old accounts.

I also love the little moments like Ypres here and his quiet admiration of/confidence in Matilda.

Chapter XVIII:

Not content to just leave me to deal with my feelings from the last few pages, the chapter opens with this:

Immediately following that last part, we now switch to Matilda’s thoughts about de Ypres? He’s trying to hide his exhaustion and she’s not having it? Literally standing over him to make sure he eats? Fond??? Yup, I'm definitely invested in it now. These relationships will be the death of me.

Stephen listing Ypres as one of the people who he could never expect to help Matilda :')

And he's just found out about their alliance!

The guard saying "No one knows how your lady won him over" before being cut off is just really funny. I'm just picturing all of England in total confusion about how Matilda managed to get this cynical, battle-scarred mercenary's unwavering loyalty after Stephen couldn't manage the same. Just. The entire country, collectively looking at this alliance and going '???'

"I had my own miracle all along. I'd married her!" Stephen you cinnamon roll you're completely right

Maude and Brien Maude and Brien Maude and Brien Maude and Brien Maude and Brien Maude and Brien

:DDDD

...I have become hopelessly obsessed. This book has two ships that are my favourite dynamic. Two. This is turning into Code Geass all over again.

(The dynamic is "mutual trust, admiration and respect; if there are romantic feelings, they might be ambiguous and possibly not acted on for any one of a number of reasons, most of which can be summed up as ‘external circumstances getting in the way’; absolute loyalty through thick and thin; help each other grow and get through difficulty; one or both is probably also a little scarred by the world". Bonus points if they have a long history, or any period of time spent together that’s not fully described in canon and can therefore be speculated about.)

 Chapter XX (and some reflections on XIX):

The thing about recognising Matilda’s habits:

made me think immediately of this post

Hell yeah teaming up to get Chester to leave. 

Ypres just internally being like “oh god I’m actually caring about someone’s emotional wellbeing what is this what do I do”: 

(also “the one man she trusted not to lie to her” is sweet but it’s also kind of upsetting that Matilda’s surrounded by allies and yet knows she can’t fully trust most of them)

my heart???

Some of my favourite ships are the ones where I don’t even know if I see it as platonic or romantic, just that these people have such deep affection and trust for each other and it’s wonderful. This is absolutely one of those ships.

I’ve not written anything about the destruction(s) of Winchester, mainly because this book is once again difficult to put down, but suffice to say that it’s pretty harrowing. Seeing things from the perspectives of Maude and Matilda, who haven’t witnessed this side of the war up close before and are feeling responsible for everything awful that’s happening, as well as Ranulf, who’s similarly horrified and hasn’t seen this kind of destruction before, possibly makes it even worse. Also I love the occasional scenes from the point of view of ordinary citizens – it really makes the wider effects of this civil war between cousins sink in. This may have begun as a personal tragedy for Maude, Stephen and their loved ones, but it’s become a catastrophe affecting so many more people across England, Normandy, Anjou…the fact that the narrative brings in the thoughts of people from all across society in recognition of this is one of the things that makes this book so good imo.

Okay, so I’m getting very attached to quite a lot of these people and it’s occurred a few times that I don’t actually know the dates of death for anyone except Stephen. But because this is history and also the first book in a trilogy spanning many decades and the characters are (as far as I know) not immortal, they’re all going to die at some point. I just don’t know when. There is no way to be prepared for the sadness that this book and its sequels will bring.

OH NO RANULF

At this point he should really just stop trying to break into nunneries. As Gilbert mentioned, it never seems to go well.

Wait, if they’re specifying not to kill Ranulf does that mean everyone else who was with him was killed? FEAR

Okay good there are more survivors

That fire was awful. Although I’m going to keep in mind that Gilbert and Marshal are only dead according to the people outside the church – the narration moved away from them when Marshal lost his eye, so there’s still hope (albeit not much). Also, this really showed both sides of de Ypres – he’s managed to be merciful and ruthless in the same paragraph.

Ancel!

And Ranulf is free, but with a hefty dose of survivor’s guilt.

Awww, Maude’s really openly relieved he’s safe. Robert too.

Gilbert’s alive too! I’d suspected but wasn’t sure. Glad for him and Ranulf that they’ve got each other back.

 *I’d known that he’d abandoned a battle at some point before allying with Matilda, but had thought that referred to his feud with Robert during the Normandy campaign, which was briefly mentioned earlier, so this came as a surprise.

[la-leto]

The new full-length Blade Runner 2049 trailer is here, and it more than hints at an unassailably cool sequel to its 1982 predecessor. But aside from a ton of intense cinematography and synthesizer-heavy music that harkens back to the original, there's a focus on Jared Leto's character, who appears to be the creator of androids — or Replicants as they're known in this world.

Based on his interaction with a new Replicant, and his all-knowing demeanor in the trailer, it's likely he's the sequel's version of Dr. Eldon Tyrell from the original Blade Runner, aka its villain. And he already has some pretty harrowing one-liners:

"Every civilization was built on the back of a disposable workforce."

Aside from the evil undertones in Leto's performance, there are several things the trailer unspools about the exciting-looking film.

1. Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard plays a major role.

The sequel's story takes place 30 years after the original film's events. LAPD Officer K, played by Ryan Gosling, goes on a hunt for Deckard in order to learn more about a "long-buried secret" that could destroy what remains of the world. When K finds him, the trailer makes it clear that's just the beginning of their relationship. It is, however, still unclear whether or not the film will answer the age-old question fans have been asking for over 30 years since the first film came out: Is Deckard himself a replicant?

2. The sequel is whole-heartedly embracing the tone of the original 1982 film.

From the orange-hazed cityscapes, to the cold, futuristic projections to the simplistic, robotic-sounding score, Blade Runner 2049 is doing everything it can to capture the feel of the original. The sequel's director, Denis Villeneuve, is a diehard Blade Runner fan, so it was likely of utmost importance to him to do right by the sequel — no easy task.

"It's the first time that I had to take the universe of someone else and to make it my own," Villeneuve told Deadline. "It's very challenging, the biggest artistic challenge I've had in my life probably."

Based on his work on films like Arrival and Sicario, not to mention the prowess of his veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins, odds are it will be pretty spectacular, at least visually.

3. There's a ton of star power behind it.

It's still unclear what characters most of them will play, but there are a number of big-name actors attached to this sequel, many of whom appear in the trailer. Aside from Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford and Jared Leto, Blade Runner 2049 boasts Robin Wright, Dave Bautista, Halt and Catch Fire's Mackenzie Davis and Edward James Olmos, who will be reprising his role of Gaff from the original.

4. Ryan Gosling's character K may be a Replicant.

This is hinted at heavily in the final scene of the trailer between K and Joi, who's played by Ana de Armas. Joi's character isn't clearly defined yet, but based on the trailer, she's likely K's love interest and very possibly a Replicant herself.

"I always told you, you're special," Joi tells K. "Your story isn't over yet. There's still a page left," she continues while he stands over literal torn out pages in a large book. So even if Deckard's true identity is revealed in the sequel, Blade Runner fans may have a new character's origin over which to obsess.

via Mic.com // 5/8/17

[mrmichaelchadler]

Matt Fagerholm's Top Ten Films of 2018

For dutiful film critics preparing to mark their ballots, the final months of the year are nothing less than a cinematic avalanche. Studios do everything in their power to entice us into viewing their most prized work prior to our voting deadlines and “best of” lists. There’s no way any single person can watch and fully digest every single movie that comes out in a given year, but boy do the most devoted cinephiles give it their all, consuming multiple pictures after work hours or early in the morning. 

You can’t merely enjoy movies to pull off such a feat, you must be obsessed with them and believe deeply in their importance. It’s not just a job or a hobby, it is one of the great purposes of my life to champion an art form that possesses the power of strengthening our connection with one another. In such divided and toxic times, the humanizing beam of a film projector is more vital and revitalizing than ever. And in many recent cases cited below, it reminded me of why I fell in love with visual storytelling in the first place.

10. “Mary Poppins Returns”

In an era where Disney appears hellbent on churning out pointless yet highly profitable shot-for-shot remakes of their animated classics, the very notion of producing a sequel to the studio’s all-time greatest picture sounds like a surefire recipe for disaster. Yet what “Chicago” director Rob Marshall has achieved here will stand as a definitive example of how to honor a masterpiece. There is no attempt made to equal or improve upon Robert Stevenson’s 1964 marvel—after all, how does one top perfection? Yet with a running time clocking in just nine minutes shy of its predecessor, this buoyantly old school musical captures the innocence, whimsy and wonderment of “Mary Poppins” while offering its own spirited take on the material. 

Emily Blunt is well-aware that she does not possess the indelible screen persona, let alone the pipes, of Julie Andrews, yet her balance of warmth and sardonic wit is impeccable for the title role, as is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s vibrance and Cockney-by-way-of-Neptune accent in the Bert-like role of lamplighter Jack. A team of veteran animators were brought out of retirement to create the film’s glorious hand-drawn sequence, while the “Hairspray” duo of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman penned nine original songs echoing the Sherman Brothers’ signature vaudevillian style. Worth the price of admission alone is the ever-ageless Dick Van Dyke, playing the son of the banker he brilliantly brought to life incognito in the first film. Marshall clearly drew upon his childhood memories of seeing “Mary Poppins” on the big screen, and this labor of love is sure to delight fans and newcomers alike. It certainly brought out the child in me. 

9. “Life and Nothing More” 

Winner of Film Independent’s John Cassavetes Award during last year’s Spirit Awards ceremony, Antonio Méndez Esparza’s arresting film aims to capture nothing more than the relentless flow of “life itself.” The director used his script merely as a blueprint, enabling each scene to be formed organically in the moment, while guided by the experiences of his nonprofessional actors (who share the first names of their characters). Spirit Award nominee Regina Williams delivers one of the year’s best performances as a waitress struggling to provide for her troubled son (Andrew Bleechington), and baby daughter in Leon Country, Florida. I’ve watched Esparza’s film twice now, and its greatness reveals itself even more upon second viewing, upending the biases we may have developed about certain characters. 

The first time around, I tended to view events from Andrew’s perspective because that was how they were framed by the camera. His refusal to trust his mother’s boyfriend (Robert Williams) is understandable, since his own dad’s incarceration has given him little reason to trust father figures, though his methods of ousting him from the house are no different from that of the white family who attempt to kick the boy out of their affluent park, even as he poses no threat to them. All of the film’s major conflicts arise from a stubborn reluctance of its characters to communicate with one another. The poignant final shot suggests that our estrangement can be mended the moment we choose to lock eyes and listen to each other, allowing our voices to rise above the deafening cries of our presumptions. 

8. “The Tale”

When Lady Gaga appeared on Stephen Colbert’s late night show this past October, she delivered a stirring defense of Christine Blasey Ford, the psychologist who charged Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault prior to his confirmation as a Supreme Court justice. “If someone is assaulted or experiences trauma, there is scientific proof that the brain changes,” noted Gaga. “It takes the trauma and puts it in a box, files it away and shuts it so that we can survive the pain.” It may take years for that box to be reopened, as evidenced by multiple survivors of the abuse administered by Olympics doctor Larry Nassar. Taped testimonials delivered by these women and girls during his trial, and subsequently uploaded on YouTube, were humbling in their bravery. The same can be said of this blistering narrative memoir from documentarian Jennifer Fox, who revisits an episode from her youth that she had kept buried for decades. 

While interviewing rape victims for her latest project, Jennifer (Laura Dern) is triggered into remembering the intimate relationship she developed with the running coach (Jason Ritter) and instructor (Elizabeth Debicki) at a horse-riding camp when she was only a little girl (played with heartbreaking innocence by Isabelle Nélisse, sister of “Monsieur Lazhar” star Sophie Nélisse). Rather than accompany Dern’s scenes with routine flashbacks, Fox finds ingenious ways of having the heroine enter her own past, interrogating the occupants of her memories as if they were the subjects of her latest documentary. Dern’s late “Rambling Rose” co-star John Heard gave one of his final performances as the older version of Ritter, who is publicly shamed in a sequence that registers as a rallying cry of the #MeToo movement.

7. “Custody”

There was no horror film in 2018 that tested my nerves quite like this Hitchcockian nightmare from Xavier Legrand, an incredibly gifted first-time feature director from France. Billed as a domestic drama, I was prepared for something more akin to Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation,” as a divorced couple, Antoine (Denis Ménochet) and Miriam (Léa Drucker), battle in court over the custody of their young son, Julien (Thomas Gioria, in one of the most astonishing debut performances I’ve ever seen). At first, my sympathies leaned toward the father, whose foiled bids to connect with Julien are relatable—until his face hardens and he begins to show his true colors. Ménochet slyly straddles the line between frustrated sad sack and frightening monster, causing us to feel as perpetually on edge as Julien, never certain of his next move. 

In every tremulous motion and agonized glance, Gioria conveys the volatile atmosphere of white-knuckled fear his father maintained at home. Merely being in Antoine’s presence is enough to give Julien PTSD, and when he attempts to make a run for it, he quickly realizes there is only so far he can go. In a superb instance of juxtaposition, Legrand cuts from Julien’s older sister (Mathilde Auneveux) belting out “Proud Mary” at a birthday party to the violence that threatens to erupt between Antoine and Miriam in the parking lot. Then we arrive at a climatic sequence on par with the finale of Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” as Legrand’s Oscar-worthy sound designers create a harrowing sense of impending doom with the subtlest of repetitions. Only at the final fade out will you allow yourself to take a breath. 

6. “Leave No Trace” 

A list of the year’s greatest achievements in acting wouldn’t be complete without Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie’s extraordinary lead performance in Debra Granik’s quietly shattering drama. Having already won over New Zealand audiences with her endearing web series, “Lucy Lewis Can’t Lose,” here McKenzie goes toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose with the sublime Ben Foster, and proves to be every bit his equal. Foster’s character of Will has the same first name as the role that the actor played in Oren Moverman’s equally great war-themed film, “The Messenger,” about an injured soldier assigned to inform families that their enlisted loved one has passed. The man Foster embodied in that film was named after one of the soldiers he met during his research, so it’s only appropriate that the Will he portrays in Granik’s film is also a veteran haunted by ghosts from the past. 

The picture is deeply effective in part because none of Will’s demons are ever spelled out in an expositional monologue. So much can be gleaned simply through his behavior, such as how he winces at the sound of propeller. Choosing to raise his daughter, Tom (McKenzie), in the wilderness of Portland, Will has carved out a manageable life for himself. The strength of the bond between him and Tom endures until the modern world comes crashing upon them, forcing the pair to reevaluate what direction they want to take in life, and whether it will be the same one. McKenzie never overplays a single note of her character’s journey, remaining strong for her dad even while fighting back tears. It’s the restraint of her work that left me with a lump in my throat.

5. “Muppet Guys Talking” 

For lifelong Muppet fans, Frank Oz’s euphoric documentary has been the gift that keeps on giving. It premiered exclusively online this past March, enabling the legendary Muppeteer-turned-director to connect directly with viewers, while providing those who sign up for a membership with enough deleted scenes to fill a separate feature. Taken altogether, this footage paints an invaluable portrait of Jim Henson’s genius, in terms of both his visionary creations and his knack for being “a harvester of people.” Oz (Miss Piggy, Grover, Fozzie Bear) joins four of his fellow “Muppet guys”—Dave Goelz (The Great Gonzo), Fran Brill (Prairie Dawn), Bill Barretta (Pepé the King Prawn) and the late Jerry Nelson (Count von Count)—for a lively chat about the process of puppeteering and the painstaking effort that must be expended in order to achieve the most fleeting yet crucial nuance. It’s fascinating to watch the performers break down the origins of their iconic characters, and how they were inspired by aspects of their own lives. 

Yet what makes the film truly great is the way in which Oz and his wife, executive producer Victoria Labalme, resurrect the humanistic spirit of Henson, enabling his worldview to reach beyond the barriers of show business and prove utterly universal in its relevance. Acknowledging that the Muppets’ signature style is less than polished, Oz keeps the picture loose and alive, refusing to conceal the cameramen scrambling to capture their subjects’ unscripted banter. The performers and audiences that Henson brought together through his artistry are his everlasting symphony, and this onscreen quintet is enduring proof of that. And if you like 1981’s “The Great Muppet Caper” now, just wait till you get a load of the behind-the-scenes stories. It’s one of the most mind-boggling feats in cinema.

4. “First Reformed”

With this richly disquieting film—his finest since 1985’s “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters”—Paul Schrader proves himself to be a master of “slow cinema,” and like the tortoise, he has outpaced every impatient hare in his path. Moviegoers unfamiliar with this term may assume that it promises little more than a dull slog, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything, this genre’s contemplative nature proves to be far more transfixing than films so breathless to entertain that they forget to earn our investment. The austere filmmakers that Schrader pays homage to throughout the picture—notably Robert Bresson and Carl Dreyer—are interested in withholding certain elements, refusing to utilize techniques that viewers have come to expect, such as a quick editing pace or varied coverage like over-the-shoulder shots.

Alexander Dynan lenses the film in the same compressed aspect radio as Paweł Pawlikowski’s “Ida”—1.37:1—limiting the camera movement almost entirely to scenes that jump from the temporal plane to the cosmic realm, escaping the bonds of reality. Whereas Schrader’s “Taxi Driver” followed a disillusioned veteran whose plans to wreak havoc on a world he believes to be diseased are foiled by the plight of a 12-year-old prostitute, “First Reformed” is about a disillusioned military chaplain-turned-pastor whose plans to wreak havoc on a world he believes to be diseased are disrupted by the plight of a pregnant woman named Mary. Ethan Hawke delivers the performance of his career as Toller, a clergyman with self-righteous convictions fueled primarily by his personal demons. Like Dietrich Brüggemann’s “Stations of the Cross” (a 2014 German masterwork that Schrader and I both revere), this movie is a rebuke to the fallacy that self-destruction is tantamount to spiritual transcendence.

3. “Roma”

No director makes my jaw drop quite like Alfonso Cuarón. His latest movie left me so stunned that I remained pinned to my seat throughout the entirety of the credits, which end with the Buddhist chant, “Shantih Shantih Shantih.” This invocation of peace—in body, speech and mind—was memorably repeated in Cuarón’s “Children of Men,” a 2006 thriller that horrifyingly foreshadowed the current refugee crisis. That film contained two extended sequences of continuous movement—one set in a car under siege, the other on war-torn streets—that are among the most spellbinding triumphs of cinematography, choreography and effects in the history of cinema. Cuarón’s new film culminates with a bravura set piece on par with those others, yet that’s only one aspect of its greatness. 

Like “Children of Men” and “First Reformed,” this deeply personal tour de force assesses the challenge of bringing new life into a chaotic world. It is also a black-and-white valentine to the Mexico of Cuarón’s childhood and the maid who nurtured him, embodied by Cleo (newcomer Yalitza Aparicio). As she finds her own life paralleling that of the middle-class woman she works for, Cleo begins to feel increasingly conflicted about her own future, as well as that of her unborn baby. Having learned a wealth of techniques from his regular DP, three-time Oscar-winner Emmanuel Lubezki, Cuarón takes charge of the camerawork this time around, and his eye for composition (albeit less restless) is every bit as audacious. A pair of visual motifs involving water and airplanes resurface in endlessly provocative ways, while two prolonged scenes—viewed from static angles—blur the action in the background, marrying two moments of inevitable heartache. I have rarely heard an audience react so audibly to the art of mise-en-scène as when I saw this film with a sold-out crowd during the opening night of its theatrical run in Chicago. If you see only one movie on the big screen this holiday season, make it this one.

2. “Minding the Gap”

In the monumental 52-year legacy of Chicago’s production company Kartemquin Films, none of its documentaries have impacted me on as personal a level as this astonishing debut feature from Bing Liu. While filming his longtime friends Keire and Zack as they took part in their cherished hobby of performing bruising stunts on their skateboards, Liu began to see a potential film materialize as he held the camera on their faces. “This place eats away at you,” says Keire of their hometown, Rockford, Illinois. He relishes the fleeting sense of control he sustains while skating, until he wipes out. Sure, the hobby may hurt him on occasion, but so did his dad, and he still loves the old man, though it’s telling that Keire finds catharsis in stomping on his boards until they splinter. 

The fact that all three men are victims of domestic abuse is alarming but also quite commonplace in a town where nearly half the population is paid below the minimum wage, and where the residue of violence clings to the interior of houses that were meant to comfort and protect. “I saw myself in your story,” Liu explains to Keire, who likens the experience of making the movie to “free therapy.” As the filmmaker struggles to come to terms with the wounds inflicted by his own upbringing, he starts to see echoes of his abuser in the increasingly unsettling behavior of Zack. When Liu films his mother and simultaneously confronts her about the abandonment he felt as a kid, he keeps a separate camera fixed on his face, drawing attention to his own inability to break free from the pain of his past. Assisted by co-editor Joshua Altman, Liu weaves these stories together, forming a seamless tapestry of anguish and catharsis that culminates in an extended montage so deftly executed, it left me in awe.

1. “Eighth Grade”

As a bullied student in eighth grade, what I desired more than anything was to become a director of films that would make kids like me feel less alone. Now, with his first foray into filmmaking, Bo Burnham has made the movie I’ve spent nearly two decades hoping would one day exist. The film’s heroine, Kayla, is a lonesome soul bereft of an extracurricular outlet. Though her graduation from junior high is only one week away, every second in that soul-crushing environment feels like an eternity. So she turns to the world that didn’t exist when I was her age, the one that beckons to her from the cool glow of her laptop and phone. Burnham, who first garnered a global audience via his comedic YouTube videos, honors his protagonist by refusing to play her feelings for laughs. As portrayed by 15-year-old Elsie Fisher, Kayla emerges as one of the most compelling and vividly realized movie characters I’ve ever encountered. My heart broke every time the camera lingered on her face—untouched by an artificial Hollywood sheen—as she struggled to contain her embarrassment behind an expression of optimism. 

The screenplay by Burnham doesn’t have an ounce of condescension, and the laughter that it generates—which is plentiful—arises out of recognition rather than ridicule. These are the years where attentive parenting is utterly essential, and Kayla is fortunate enough to have a father, Mark (Josh Hamilton), who may exasperate her with his persistent prying, but has a limitless reservoir of empathy and understanding. When Mark’s words finally register for Kayla during a lovely sequence set around a campfire, they affirm her sense of belonging in the world. As he tells his daughter, “You make me brave,” I couldn’t help agreeing with him. There is nothing braver than a middle schooler who dares to be human. What makes “Eighth Grade” the best film of 2018 is the way it makes Kayla’s anxiety resonate on a level that transcends all age, race, gender, nationality and culture. With petulant bullies elected to our highest offices, and technology breeding an addiction to constant approval, it goes without saying that our world has currently succumbed to an eighth grade mentality. You no longer have to be 13 in order to feel trapped in junior high. 

from All Content https://ift.tt/2BbIrWp

[arnoldjaime13]

Blog Tour- SHADOWS OF ATLANTIS: SYMBOSIS by @ShadowsAtlantis With An Excerpt & #Giveaway! @RockstarBkTours

 I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the SHADOWS OF ATLANTIS: SYMBOSIS by Mara Powers Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

  About The Book:

Title: SHADOWS OF ATLANTIS: SYMBOSIS

Author: Mara Powers

Pub. Date: December 20, 2020

Publisher: Three of Diamonds Publishing, LLC

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Pages: 468

Find it:  Goodreads, Amazon

Read for FREE with a Kindle Unlimited Membership!

The memory of Brigitte’s upbringing in the Dreamclans slowly fades away as she succumbs to the lavish lifestyle of her new home. Caught in the grip of The Madness epidemic, she descends into an elixir-fueled haze. It’s the only way to silence the judgmental voices in her head. Outside the gilded walls, a looming storm encircles the city, trapping its inhabitants as they remain blind to the treachery within. Meanwhile, D’Vinid is reluctantly caught up in the unstoppable currents of fate. A harrowing encounter with the murderous Shadowmancers launches him on a perilous journey, while Symbiosis with his new soul-crystal reveals clues to the corruption of the Crystal Grid. All paths lead back into the forbidden arms of Brigitte. Is their union a beacon of hope? Or will it unleash the Shadows of Atlantis? In this eagerly anticipated sequel to Shadows of Atlantis: Awakening, Symbiosis follows the horrifying psychological descent of a falling civilization. Utopia is dying - but how can they stop what they can’t even see? 

What readers are saying about the SHADOWS OF ATALANTIS Series:

"Had me turning the pages obsessively from the very beginning." Readers Favorite 5-Star Review.

"I have a real interest in mythology after studying it in college. I had high hopes for the first in Mara Powers's fantasy saga and I was not disappointed." -Bookish Picks 5-Star Review

"Mysterious., alluring and so engaging, it draws you in from the very first chapter and takes you on a fast-paced journey of discovery and danger, right up to its unpredictable conclusion." -Kickass Reads 5-Star Review

  Grab book 1 SHADOWS OF ATLANTIS NOW!

  Excerpt:

“Your king will visit you soon,” he whispered. “He asked me to prepare you.”

He smoothed aromatic oil on his hands and gently rubbed it on her skin. She was unable to control the urges his touch inspired. The feel and smell of the oil kicked her senses into overload. She moaned. His hands sent electric shocks through her body. She arched her back, sinking into the arousal, hoping beyond hope that he would escalate the pleasure. When she reached a peak, he left the room. Her mind was muddled beyond measure. Floating in a state of suspended ecstasy, she had the presence of mind to pull on a robe before stumbling into the main parlor.

There she found Stixxus pacing. His grumbling demeanor pulled a blanket of tension over the room.

“Stixxus.” Brigitte moved closer, stumbling in the sensual fog. She stared at the ripple of his muscles. Desire consumed her until she reached to touch his skin. He grabbed her hand. “Your Majesty.

Please,” he begged.

Breathless, she collapsed into his arms, running her lips on his bare bicep. The salt of his skin ignited her passion even further.

“Please. Take me.” She pressed her body against his.

He pushed her to arm’s length. Having seen the mixologist leave her room, he knew she had been drugged with the aphrodisiacs.

Such was the way of things in Atlantis. “Your Majesty, the Fury League has defected from the king’s order. This means I am no longer under the order of the trident. I must report to the Warrior Sect.”

Brigitte creased her brow. The haze of desire, though overwhelming, began to dissipate. The meaning of his words sank in.

Stixxus watched her eyes for signs of understanding. “The king is accused of lying and deceiving the people. The Warrior Sect is unable to break the codes of honor.” He gazed on her pleadingly. “I don’t wish to leave here.” He squirmed, stealing a look at the shape of her body through the thin robe she wore, contemplating her pleas.

“Then don’t leave. Perhaps it will work itself out.” She forced herself to walk toward the balcony overlooking the private sanctuary below. “My brother has not yet returned. You and Alondriss are all I have.” She turned to face him. “I am not the king. Perhaps my order is still legitimate.”

He was stunned by her regal beauty. There was no way he could refuse her. Sighing, he sank to one knee. “Forgive me, my queen. I will obey your wishes. I will inform my league-master that I wil stay with you as a mercenary.”

A shadow fell over the entry foyer, and they both turned their attention to the intruder.

“You have a good point, my queen.” The voice of King Kyliron sent a chil across the room. “Perhaps the furies will listen to your order.” He joined her on the balcony, waving toward Stixxus. “I would like to be alone with my mate now,” he brushed a chilling glare over the warrior.

Stixxus did not bow. He merely planted his feet firmly on the ground, hands folded behind his back, eyes fixed on Brigitte. “I answer to the queen alone.” The warrior’s gravel voice creaked darkly.

Kyliron raised an eyebrow. “You do inspire the people,” he leaned closer to Brigitte, inhaling the intoxicating aroma of the oil on her skin. “The furies may have shunned my rule, but you are still my queen.”

The arousal turned to pain. She had to have one of them if not both. With a gulp, she gestured to the warrior. “Stixxus, please retire to the corridor as sentry.”

  About Mara:

Mara Powers is a rebel of the written word who has tackled the monumental task of recreating Atlantis. When she was 16 in Fort Collins, Colorado, she began visiting the library in search of things she couldn't learn in school. Her goal was to re-define her religion. She studied theology voraciously until she discovered the concept of reincarnation though Hinduism. It was the answer to a lifelong existential crisis that had plagued her for many sleepless nights. The study of reincarnation led her to the channel Edgar Cayce. In his many books, she found his past life readings of lifetimes spent in Atlantis. This was the beginning of a lifelong quest to unravel the secrets of this mystery. She has spent upwards of 30 years exploring the labyrinth of ancient civilizations. Her decision to turn it all into a high concept, visionary fantasy series stems from her study of the esoteric depiction of Atlantis. With the other half of her research rooted in the secular, it was the best way to illustrate both aspects of this fascinating legend. Her work is the legacy of the legend.

Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Pinterest | Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub

  Giveaway Details:

1 lucky winner will receive an audiobook download from Audible, International.

3 lucky winners will receive physical copies of SHADOWS OF ATLANTIS & SHADOWS OF ATLANTIS: SYMBOSIS, US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

12/21/2020

Two Chicks on Books

Excerpt

12/22/2020

Rockstar Book Tours

Excerpt

12/23/2020

Jaime's World

Excerpt

12/24/2020

JaimeRockstarBookTours

Instagram Post

Week Two:

12/28/2020

BookHounds YA

Excerpt

12/29/2020

BookHounds YA

Instagram Post

12/30/2020

Day Leitao

Excerpt

12/31/2020

Books A-Brewin'

Excerpt/Instagram Post

1/1/2021

Adrienne Woods Books and Reviews

Excerpt

Week Three:

1/4/2021

Three gals and plenty of books

Excerpt

TBA

Week Four:

TBA

Week Five:

TBA