#it's tamsyn's world we're just living in it

[lady-harrowhark]

I’m so confused by the 9 months before and 10 months before chapters. Am I misunderstanding that in chapter one of HTN they’re on the Erebos and haven’t been to the Mithreaum yet and we haven’t met other lyctors but in 19 which is meant to be a whole month before that they’re AT the mithreaum and we DO know the other lyctors..

Am I missing something

i don't think you are! i'm inclined to believe it's a typo/mistake that got overlooked, but also given The Way These Books Are, i also wouldn't be entirely surprised if there was some Fuckery going on relating to that.

it wouldn't be the first time there was a numbering/timing typo - for example, the version of As Yet Unsent that Reactor (previously tor.com) put on their website has Judith stating that Camilla told her Gideon was "no older than seventeen" whereas in the paperback copies of htn it's "no older than eighteen." the paperback's eighteen matches what we know of Gideon's age, so i'm pretty content to say that one's an oopsie.

if the nine months/ten months thing isn't a typo, i don't think we have the full information to be able to make any sense of it yet anyway. i'm just living my life as if it's a mistake, but also occasionally shooting some suspicious glances at it.

[asexualbookbird]

I didn't complete my 24 in 2024 list, but that's okay. I read a lot of short books and that's okay. I tried something new and wrote a small blurb in a draft after finishing it, instead of cobbling together feelings from what I remembered throughout the month, and I liked that a lot. I'll continue to do that, it made this a lot easier. Officially gave up on Ga'Hoole, and don't feel guilty about it. There are better books in the world and I will find them. That is a threat.

The Screaming Stair Case by Jonathan Stroud ⭐⭐½ - I want to watch the tv show, and I always feel weird doing that before reading the book. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't another Jackaby. I will not delete my blog over it, but it was. Not great. Fine. Fun at times. Would be more fun if the author didn't hate fat people so much. A pet peeve of mine is when the main character is a girl but the series is named after the main boy in her life. Icky. Not the worst, but I'm not sure I want to continue the series. The audio narrator was Delightful.

The Shattering by Kathryn Lasky ⭐⭐ - GaHoole book five. I know I said at the start of the year I'd read what I owned, but I'm no longer having fun so this will be the last for me. I'd rather be reading Animorphs. The owls can't save it for me, I'm sorry. Still counting it towards my yearly list though.

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons ⭐- by Peter S Beagle This was trying to be a T Kingfisher novel but couldn't figure out the right balance between humor and devastation and how it fits into a small amount of words. It tried to be a Terry Pratchett novel but couldn't figure out what satire was. Disappointing considering I was hyped for it when it was announced. Dragons eventually showed up, but it was too late for them to save it.

A Psalm for the Wildbuilt by Becky Chambers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - reread for book club! Still adore it! This time around I was able to pinpoint WHY I adored it! It's because I too feel Aimless and Without A Purpose. So. Ouchie. It's also helping me figure out what I want out of a "cosy" novel (or novella). Internal personal conflict! I would still do anything for Mosscap.

A Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - reread for book club! Once again, Becky Chambers has flayed me open and picked apart my soul! Reading Monk & Robot is like sitting down and being given a cup of tea while I cry my heart out.

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - "Is this what it means to lose someone? The pain never goes away, it just gets buried?" I think this ending hit me hard for different reasons than most people are going wild for. It was Fine. Not mad I read it, but don't see myself ever wanting to reread it. I like the idea of the library as a living thing and a character itself, but there were a few plot points that just seemed to be brushed aside.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - I needed a safe tragedy I knew the end of and this did it. First time I actually shed tears over these words, but I needed it. It was fun to see and note the pieces that were laid out for later books, and I wonder, knowing some teasers we've gotten for Alecto, what TMuir means by Gideon wishing she could marry her sword.....

I don't have 2025 reading goals at this moment. Maybe that will change. It will probably change. I mean, there's the Usual, read the books I own, dangit, but that seems so. Boring. Typical. Everyone's doing that. Let me be ~Different~. I have a few fiber arts projects I'd like to do and finish, and I'd like to finish the sewing projects I started if only so I can pack all that up and put it away for a while. We're still hoping to move, so paring down my book collection is still an ongoing endeavor, and I do have a couple of art pieces I'd at the very least like to get sketched out. I want 2025 to be slow. I want 2025 to be quiet. I want 2025 to be kind. That's all I ask of it. Be kind.

[ryttu3k]

Okay, going through Tumblr's year in review posts for 2024! Let's see how things I like did!

Top 24 of 2024: The big hyperfixation of the year, Baldur's Gate 3 came in number 6! Also posted stuff for Doctor Who for the most recent season, in at 20. I believe since this is from October, it also includes last year's specials?

Ships: F for the lack of Bloodweave, which I was almost certain would place. The only BG3 content was Astarion/Tav at 40 (a rise of 48 positions) and Durgetash at 67. I did reblog some of the latter. Spirk came in at 33, reblogged a little. Griddlehark dropped two places to 42, we'll call that steady. Without a that-year release, poor Zelink dropped 33 places to 45. Korrasami clings on with its nails at 100 even.

TV shows and TV characters: Doctor Who rose eleven places to a very respectable 4, and... yeah that's all. For characters, the Fifteenth Doctor came in at 44, followed by the Tenth Doctor at 51 and Donna at 55 and Fourteen at 57. Ruby debuted at 76, and even Rose showed up at 83 despite not appearing in anything.

Movies and movie characters: Lord of the Rings made it to the top five, rising four places to 3! Goncharov dropped 27 places to 30th, which is still hilarious considering. Everything. Three Star Wars movies placed - Revenge of the Sith at 50, Rogue One at 84, and A New Hope at 98. The Lost Boys dropped 12 places to 88. For characters, Anakin was way at the pointy end with number 3, presumably thanks to Ahsoka. Luke was at 12, Leia at 29, Padme at 31. Darth Maul showed up at 60, Han at 64, Yoda at 90, and Cassian at 95. A solid eleven characters from Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit showed up too.

Celebs: David Tennant rose two spots took the top place! Ncuti Gatwa rose 84 places to hit 8, Catherine Tate hit 36, and Millie Gibson hit 73. Gillian Anderson hit 92, and Jodie Whittaker dropped 13 spots and just clung on to the top 100.

Books: "This list is brought to you by Tor Publishing Group, which you’re probably familiar with, given that this is tumblr dot com." Yeah... yeah. Locked Tomb dropped to 4, alas. Please, Tamsyn... Alecto release date... please... Dracula dropped 4 spots to remain in the top ten at 9. Animorphs dropped thirteen spots, but still picked up 36. Only a top 50 here, pensive emoji.

The only anime/manga I watched or read was Mononoke, and that was too recent for these lists. Ditto characters. For the Dungeon Meshi enjoyers on my dash, six of the top ten characters are from it.

Video games: OKAY NOW WE'RE TALKING. BALDUR'S GATE 3 NUMBER ONE. Take that, Genshin :D TS4 remained steady at 12. Tears of the Kingdom came in at 30, Breath of the Wild at 35, Echoes of Wisdom at 65, Twilight Princess at 87, and Ocarina of Time at 97. Flight Rising dropped a single spot to 41. Interestingly, TS3 rounded it out at 100!

Video game characters: "Honestly? We brought this list back out of our own need to know whether Astarion or Gale would come out on top." So many BG3s <3 Astarion did indeed hit number 1, Gale at 5, Shadowheart at 6, Karlach 8, Lae'zel 9, Wyll at 12, Halsin at 16, Tav at 19, Gortash at 47, Minthara at 55, and Durge at 67. For Zelda characters, Link was at 18 and Zelda at 56.

Web series: Dracula Daily dropped to 21, Re: Dracula to 38. Still solid results, considering this is the third year of Dracula Daily and a second year for Re: Dracula!

Web celebs: It was definitely Hatsune Miku's year. It's Miku's world, we just live in it. There's a bunch of TTRPG people here (will we ever get a new season of NY by Night? Uncertain), lots of Vocaloids, and Fucking Chocolate Guy at 39.

Musical acts: Hozier came in at 18, which is fine because I have not stopped listening to Too Sweet. Queen came in 28th, Pink Floyd at 94.

The 'Blrs: I think the only one I actively participated in was Simblr? Came in at 9th. Like I wrote but didn't consider myself part of Writers On Tumblr, etc. Some interesting ones here, will check some of them out later, I think!

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

Ok, your post about the Celtic burial with the adorably-repaired Greek lion cauldron came across my dash, and I just have to ask - is your URL on this blog an intentional Guy Kay reference? And if so, do you have good Guy Kay blogs recs? He’s my favorite author of all time and I feel like he’s desperately underrepresented on my dash.

Yes, it absolutely is! And the short answer is, alas, I do not know any good GGK blogs.

Beyond this Dark House is my favourite poem, found when I was living in Calgary, breaking my heart. There was a boy I'd once driven from Edmonton to Saskatoon in four hours flat just to see who didn't love me enough, or in the way I wanted, and also I wasn't ready to be loved, which was its own kind of tragedy.

So it caught me with its prairie soul, the knowledge of the richness of life and also that things die out here and take a long long time to fade, all

The shortest night wheels past this window, stars dropping behind the trees.

Somewhere there are bonfires for St John, somewhere fires for the summer king.

It's so late. For this, for everything, for being still awake beside a window

And then the lines I took for my blog:

Beyond this dark house a train is running away into the night plain. We've all had dreams break fantasies we shaped.

I dragged the boy I was in love with and a few other friends to GGK's book tour pit stop in Calgary, where I was savagely disappointed by how badly he read a sample of Ysabel. Displayed no talent for vocal performance at all. Read almost as if he didn't know how the sentences would end, in a bad way. But you know what, we're human. Everyone's allowed to have flaws.

So the answer about GGK blogs is... I don't seek them out, and don't particularly want to be fannish about them on Tumblr. Some books are like that; some I want to shout about like I've been doing about Tamsyn Muir's Nona the Ninth on @with-my-murder-flute for the last two weeks, and some I just want to take back to my secret cave and devour them where other people can't see.

I love The Fionavar Tapestry with my entire soul, but not my entire brain, and that's uncomfortable. It's a discomfort I'm especially not up to addressing on Tumblr, because like... I don't love how tied he is to a paradigm of queerness being weighed down by heteronormativity, so that queerness is salacious and risqué or just societally sidelined and we don't address the pain that causes because everyone just takes that for granted. But I also think in some senses it's a more accurate reflection of the past than modern queer-positive fantasy, and it's important and useful to keep around reminders of what the world before gay liberation was like. I will candidly admit that I don't actually want to praise him unconditionally and hold him up as an author I would recommend to everybody. He's problematic, you know? I think a lot of his books are him trying to approach a concept, and only capturing it in wisps, and that's especially true when he tries to write about sex and gender relations.

But, the thought of sitting through Tumblr discourse about how he's homophobic and bad gay representation/not homophobic at all and very important and validating actually? Gag me with a spoon. I hate doing that about media I'm enthused with but have no personal stake in, so doing it with something I love so intimately, with pieces of my soul poured into the honeycomb of its matrix, would be torture. When I was fourteen, The Summer Tree convinced me that I'd have a life outside the depression that was crushing me like a stone. It showed me how to imagine a future for myself. I really don't want that tangled up in Tumblr wrangles.

Oh, I do have a fic rec: the late legionseagle wrote The Road Goes Ever On and On, a non-Ysabel-compliant story about a Toronto cop who can't get past the old cold missing persons case of Jennifer Lowell.

And several times a winter, especially when the icicles start to melt, I look up and chant to myself,

Too much of Greece can sear the soul. I am a northern man. Where I come from the sky is wide and far away and March is mired in snow.

[thelockedtomb]

all these theory posts about how alecto is the RB of Earth made me think about how John's name is John GAIUS. The Lyctors traditionally take on a last name that is the first name of their cavalier. John's cavalier was Alecto, and his last name is "gaius" a.k.a. "GAIA" a.k.a. literally "earth," a.k.a. maybe all of tamsyn's plot twists are wordplay based and we're just fools living in her world. sorry if this has already been said but I realized it while rereading htn the other day and I feel like my third eye was blown open

Yesss, oh, a thousand times yes! It’s infuriatingly wonderful and maddeningly satisfying how these details are blatantly scattered EVERYwhere. Reading TLT is a slow-burn game of trying to follow the ball underneath shuffling cups. I feel like a starry-eyed volunteer in a magic show: “How did I not see that sleight of hand? And is that lovely lady coming back or did we seriously kill her? Also, you can’t seriously expect me to believe that you’re gonna- Oh my god, that really just happened.”

[silverjetsystm]

📚

Send "📚” and I will flip to a random page in a book and use the first line of dialogue I see as a starter.

“Maybe it's that I find the idea comforting…that thousands of years after you're gone…is when you really live. That your echo is louder than your voice is.” ― Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth

Moon Knight was rarely chipper these nights. Professional, courteous, a level head. However, he projected an aura akin to the dark side of the moon. Unknowable. Old friends saw through it. One of the reasons he was still wearing his full vestments, nursing a glass of vodka instead of a hot drink.

Blood stained his gloved and gauntlet covered hands; the cloak remained spotless, seeming to glow and twist in the breeze.

"How long do witches live?" he asked his scarlet-dressed friend. Wanda wasn't a standard witch; Marc wasn't a standard Moon Knight. Rather than melancholy, he seemed reflective. "Us Fists of Khonshu live as long as we're needed. Apparently." He laughed, breath floating away in his breeze. "I learn as I go." Chapped lips take a sip, harsh winter wind stinging bare jaw.

"I like to think we aren't forgotten. Me, you. There'll be stories of us passed down to kids and down to their kids. Good stories, where we save people. Not just the world, or the universe. One life. That's all we need sometimes. Maybe it's that I find the idea comforting…that thousands of years after you're gone…is when you really live. That your echo is louder than your voice is."