#rfg reads

[random-french-girl]

I was tagged by @gohandinhand to post my Top 5 Books of 2024 a million years ago and completely forgot about it but here we are, in no particular order:

L'Art de Perdre, by Alice Zeniter (The Art of Losing is the English title). A novel about the Algerian decolonization war, and three generations of Algerian immigration, the grandfather, the father, the daughter, and their complex connection to Algeria and to France. It is sooooooo good, one of my favorite books I read ever. Beautiful writing, thoughtful research, bittersweet and uncompromising and gorgeously crafted story.

Kindred, by Octavia Butler. I mean. What is there to say about Kindred that hasn't been said before, and better than I could. I read it in two days, could not put it down, and the story stayed with me for a long time afterward. I probably will be thinking about it forever. Truly a classic for a reason.

Dreamsnake, by Vonda McIntyre. Something about this weird little scifi novel just compels me so much. A woman healer traveling a harsh planet with her medicinal snakes is such a simple plot, but. Incredibly interesting writing on gender, care, abuse, community. Reading this felt like discovering a hidden gem.

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates. I'm so glad I finally read this. What an incredible writer, I get the comparison to Baldwin - so smart, so vulnerable. Truly felt like an indispensable perspective to read if you live in the United States.

Le Gout de l'Immortalite, Catherine Dufour (The Taste of Immortality, but I'm not sure it's been translated in English). Maybe the best contemporary scifi I've read recently. Incredible characters, incredible worldbuilding, incredibly interesting politically.

tagging: @housewarningparty @powerbottomblake @riotbrrrd @sebrone @imaginejolls

[appleciders]

9 books i want to read in 2025, tagged by @grubbygrrrl!! thanks meera <3

i kind of cheated bc i'm already reading palo alto and tale for the time being, but i like both of them a lot so i hope i finish them!! como agua para chocolate is something i've been meaning to read since like, middle school, so i hope i finally take a crack at it. i need to get back on the reading in spanish train (the last couple i've cheated and audiobooked, which is not a cheating way to engage with a story but isn't helping my reading ability get back up to speed lol) and i want to ease into it. i love le guin, so the dispossesed i've also been meaning to read forever. heard so many good things about murderbot, too. and thank you to @explosionshark and @random-french-girl for some of these recs from your eoy posts, they sounded really cool!!

tagging you guys (briana and rfg) as well as @lukore @sshepardcommander @kchzndrvh @lesbianmarrow @dykerory @dykeydays @suchacomet @appleseedofdiscord @gohandinhand @masculinepeacock @little-alien-duck @mulchbird @fiddleabout @talaricula @dwarnian

[key-to-the-truth]

whyd you send me that ask, key

growls

transforms into scary horror

grhhhrg,h,,,g,r,h,rg,h,rfg,h,r,h,g, 🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺

me reading that

[thewafflewhat]

tagged by @random-french-girl to post 5 songs on repeat

i’m actually not much of a song repeater person unless the hyperfixation takes hold like the songs in bold since i’m more of an album repeater person so... i cheated a little bit and basically picked songs that i wanted to talk about instead lmao

- this hell - rina sawayama: banger about being unapologetically queer in the face of “christian” homophobia and it’s shoni coded from shelby’s pov yes it is plus she also has a line about how shit the paparazzi are and it’s like... did she lie tho

- cate’s brother - maisie peters: a song she wrote as a joke that had an incredible release schedule. she got the first verse stuck in our heads, then she added the chorus, then she teased the full song at one of her concerts like the unhinged swiftie she is before finally releasing the full song and making it chart basically based on fan promo alone. has been described as “teenage dirtbag for the gays”

- hot - seventeen: i’ve been streaming this one since it’s the title track from their newest album. took a couple of listens to really grow on me but when i liked it, i LOVED it. plus it’s giving gay cowboy vibes

- 45 - bleachers: this one isn’t as recent but it’s a great song. the sadness and nostalgia and longing for a relationship that’s already over, all contained within the metaphor of a 45 record and i still love this version with my whole heart plus this song (and its album counterpart) leatin coded i said what i said

- gold forever - the wanted: a song from their 2nd album originally released as a charity single in the uk back in 2011 that has so much more meaning now after the passing of one of the band members earlier this year due to brain cancer. the fans got the song to number 1 on itunes in the uk and kept it there for at least a week, and the rest of the band members created a special acoustic version of it to play at his memorial service. they then went on to re-release this version in his memory with all proceeds going directly to ‘the brain tumour charity’ here in the uk and bringing the song full circle as a charity single <3

[honourable mention to darling - seventeen which is much more my usual style of song than hot but got pre-released back in april so it’s not on repeat as much anymore. it’s also leatin coded and when they finally smooch in s3 i’m gonna learn how to make a fanedit just so i can edit their kiss over the “kiss me baby” part i speak that into existence i’ve planted that seed and i will see the harvest]

tagging: @echoes-of-realities @lesbiangracehanson @thisisnotourparadise @ladyarduenna and anyone else who happens to scroll past this and wants to expose™ themselves

[werewolfpunani]

idk man, it's that bisexuals are accused of passing hiv onto straight ppl. not gays and lesbians.

[cornerstorebitch]

bruh i respect u so much but why are you arguing with worship the X. p sure most of rfgr has clocked her as toppdyke's newest blog

TD and i were actually mutuals for many years believe it or not LOL

[radfem-gossip]

Aww man, ibf, in the marvel movie ask where does it say you’re bad or even dumb? I was just dunking on your taste because it cracks me up when you’re judgmental about other people’s taste while liking algorithmic media. But I do apologize, after reading thru rfg a bit it seems like you’re kind of a punching bag for the community and I have no idea why. That sucks. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry people bag on you for inconsequential stuff.

.

[raging-violets]

Averey Moore during the Invasion! crossover.

Here comes my love for the character, Nate! 😁 I had to re-read the summaries and re-watch parts of this to remember what some of my ideas were. But now I have more!

[ Send one of my OCs + A Canon scene ]

-First of all, she and Nate will totally nerd out over this piece of alien history. It's not a side you see often from her because she knows through experience (and a few drunken episodes) that people don't particularly care about a word waterfall in regards to historical events. Though, she will give bits and pieces of info whenever an occasion asks for the comparison

-(This is also helping me figure out how I want to incorporate part of LoT's season 2 plotline into The Flash's main plot, or just write a side story with Averey on the Waverider, so that being said): While Barry is stuck facing everyone finding out about his alterations to the timeline, Averey holds back on telling Barry about her run-ins with the Reverse-Flash while working with the Legends

-Averey and Cisco's relationship is pretty serious at this point, though Cisco's anger and standoff-ishness towards Barry puts her in the middle of the two. Honesty has always been an important part their relationship, no matter how hard the topic they do talk about everything, and she knows he'll turn this attitude onto her whenever she finally stops dodging his "I know there's something you're not telling me" comments. Because at one point, he vibed her.

-Because of her abilities, she remembers all the timelines "she's" ever experienced so things start to trip out for her

-Adding in another bout of potential experimentation on the Dominator, after her stint in Belle Reve, it leads to a tipping point where A: She finally divulges what she did while working for Belle Reve/The Royal Flush Gang and B: Shows a ruthless side to her that's been (or rather will be as I haven't written it fully yet) building to this point. (Haven't fully decided on when I'll have the Belle Reve/RFG part happen, I just plan on having a whole chapter based around it)

-Averey talks to Professor Stein about Lily, and wants his perspective of suddenly recognizing he's a father to a know adult daughter to get Henry's perspective.

-When Barry and Oliver wind down for the night at a bar, Oliver finally agrees to let Averey be part of their "There is no Underground Fight Club" Fight Club

God knows by the time I actually get to writing this I'll have even more ideas.

[whitmore]

Since we now have more information about Gambler, do you think we might see a hint of Becky Sharp (Hazard) or maybe her cousin Steven who took on the title Gambler? In the comics they were the Gambler’s grandchildren but if one does show up they could be his kid

honestly not to be a fake fan but i never remembered becky sharpe or her cousin or even the gambler before the series (even though i DEFINITELY read comics w her in AND watched that ep of the flash w her in) bc they just really did not make an impact in my brain. i mean sure they could turn up ? idk i am not the manifester of stargirl appearances (except maybe kinda given my jakeem and “yolanda isn’t meta” predictions but w/e) but i mean if they did it might not be this season that we see them explicitly in costume bc stargirl seems to be setting up a lot of characters rn without us seeing them actually in costume (jakeem, artemis) or just name dropping characters without giving them any backstory (shade, sam kurtis) so i wouldn’t be surprised if that happened to becky & steven

i mean. i thought steven was her brother but i could be wrong anyway if they decide to do a royal flush gang arc with sam kurtis steven could show up then bc if i remember rightly steven had something to do with rfg right? idk

[random-french-girl]

I'm reading Montaillou right now, by Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, a well known historical/anthropological work by a well known french historian, about a mountain village and its inhabitants in France in the 14th century and it is fascinating, it's so well written and really delves into the daily life and beliefs and feelings of ordinary people of the middle ages and I genuinely love it

however

MY GOD i wish a feminist had written this book. some passages on women, sexuality and/or violence are just. painfully, horribly misogynistic. to say nothing of the homophobia of it all.

[appleciders]

nine books in two months is so impressive! would love to hear you talk about a few if you have thoughts to share :)

thank u!!! tbf three of them have been murderbot books so they have been really short, but i'm having so much fun with those. i know i'm very late to the party on them but they've definitely been a highlight. can't wait for the 4th to be freed up on libby. (but i'm also very grateful they're making me wait, because otherwise they'd be over too soon and the anticipation makes it that much more fun)

besides them, my fave books so far have probably been dreamsnake by vonda mcintyre (thanks rfg!) and tale for the time being by ruth ozeki (thanks meera!). dreamsnake makes me want to get sucked down the 70s scifi rabbit hole - before rfg recced it, i'd never heard of mcintyre, which seems now like a real bummer. i need to read more of her and her/butler/leguin's contemporaries. i really enjoyed both the snake-medicine worldbuilding and the way she handled interpersonal relationships! in the last few chapters i was like damn she doesn't have very long to wrap this up, but she pulled it off and i really like the way the ending knit the themes together.

a tale for the time being was the type of book that rang me like a bell at parts. the first couple pages of the diary style narration gave me pause, but once i realized how nao's story would play against and through ruth's story i was sucked in. (i thought the author self insert was funny, too. a good blurring.) the writing was full of lines that i liked pausing and sitting with, and she struck the right balance of heaviness and matter of factness. great book for a girl who loves a footnote! and nao having grown up in sunnyvale was fun (bay area mentioned <3). i'm already excited to come back to it in a few years and see what new things i find and what i'll rediscover

i just finished stay true by hua hsu, a memoir which deals with coming of age and grieving a friend. i feel a muddled mix of things about it, which i guess is the idea. i probably should have spaced it out a few more days to let it breathe. hsu's great at details. his relationship with his father especially he captures wonderfully. i love his account of growing up in the bay (once again <3) and he captures well his wrestling with assimilation and the layers he sifts through wrt race and culture. but, i don't know - though we're in many ways very different i think we process grief and guilt and the fear of forgetting pretty similarly, which was uncomfortable sometimes, because he's not exactly pulling punches as far as self-awareness goes. he pens down the looping, obsessive, fear of letting go of a single memory, guilt-warped, loving thing. left me with my chest tight - which i guess isn't a bad thing.

and i finally read como agua para chocolate, which was good fun! it's a classic for a reason, even if personally i really didn't fuck with the ending. her writing is beautifully evocative and i liked the recipe-narrative blend more than i expected - honestly how much i liked it in general surprised me with how central romance was to everything (not my typical vibe, i'll admit). also hadn't read magical realism in a while and really enjoyed wetting my whistle on it again. and reassuring to know i'm still literate - i'm excited to keep going

[starswornoaths]

🌹?

:D

Also this draft is just titled, “There was Only. One. Book.” so like. Make of that what you will asjkfl;gufhjihl;rfg

““I’m glad I ran into you,” Serella said, distracted with rummaging through her pack. “It saves me the trouble of having to bribe your lift attendant with sweets.”

“You must needs bribe him to see me?” Aymeric asked ponderously.

“Oh, I needn’t, but he’s less like to grumble about my turning in reports late when he knows I have cookies.” She replied. “Aha!” Her hand emerged from the yawning chasm that was her pack clutching a leather bound book. “I found this and thought of you!”

When she presented the book to him, Aymeric couldn’t hide his surprise, even as he accepted it, dumbfounded. He recognized the author on the cover— one of his favorite mystery novelists.

“You remembered?” He asked before he could stop himself.

“Of course! You recommended her first series to me, and I couldn’t stop reading them!” He looked up to see her bright grin. “And when I found out she wrote a new one, I knew I had to buy a copy and share it!””

[radfem-gossip-reborn]

Mods why DO you allow males here? Especially bagel man. He forces his opinions into every fucking post

Cause this blog was created for fun when everything was locked down in quarantine.

Since the og rfg seemed inactive at the time, we thought it would be fun to create our own take on it but we decided to allow more people to interact, which includes GC males.

This blog was never meant to be taken too serious, it is a public blog with anonymous submissions and you can never be sure who is submitting.

It’s not great to have an echo chamber and sometimes reading cold takes is useful.

x

[grimoiresontape]

Marching On

Hello folks, happy March. I hope this first sixth of 2020 has been as good to you as it could be. I am mostly delighted about the arrival my new book, An Excellent Booke of the Arte of Magicke, a collaboration with my friend and colleague Phil Legard on a sixteenth-century grimoire and scrying record of conjuring spirits, receiving magical texts, and learning from dead magicians. It was published by Scarlet Imprint and they have done a characteristically amazing job. I've recently been on a couple podcasts talking about it to Gordon White of Rune Soup, Cooper Wilhelm of Witchhassle, and Alexander Eth of Glitch Bottle. I am so pleased for this material to be getting into the hands and practices of magical practitioners.

In brief, March sees me returning to Salem, Massachusetts to discuss sorcerous tattooing and fire magic, as well as popping over to the UK to talk devils and the dead and see pals at a symposium dedicated to a black magic saint, before scuttling over to New Orleans for a whole necromancy conference. Life eh.

So, firstly, I will be speaking on Sorcery for Tattoos on Thursday 5th March at Witch City Ink. This is the re-scheduled class from January - anyone who bought tickets to that should have already been emailed to remind you your tickets are still valid! I'm looking forward to discussing aspects of sorcerous tattooing and other workings and ideas of embodied image magics with this community of magical practitioners, artists, and enthusiasts.

Then, on Saturday 7th March, I begin a very exciting collaboration with The Cauldron Black to deliver the first instalment of my new five-part webinar series, Advanced Elemental Magic for Beginners. This series will be running once a month, webcasting and recorded in front a live witch-shop audience at The Cauldron Black. Folks can come to the live recording or they can purchase tickets to watch online and receive the recording. I'm excited to be combining my love of travelling to deliver talks, with getting this material out to a wider audience who might not be able to get to the Witch City.

I'm very pleased that this month affords the opportunity to return to the chalky shores of Albion, both to see family and get some sorcery cooking. On Thursday 19th March I will be teaming up with my Radio Free Golgotha co-host Jesse Hathway Diaz to deliver some short papers on spiritwork and folk necromancy at Treadwell's Books for A Night With the Spirits. My paper, 'Turbulent Spirits: Devils and the Dead in Early Modern Necromancy', will examine folkloric devils, grimoire demons, and spirits who disguise themselves as the dearly departed dead; while in his talk, 'Hallowed Bones, Restless Dead: Saint Necromancy in Iberia and the New World', Jesse will be looking at the necromancy embedded within saint veneration and sorcery. It's always great to speak at Treadwell's, and I'm especially happy to effectively be bringing an RFG roadshow to London!

Then later that weekend I am attending the Saint Cyprian Symposium, where I am excited to see some good friends, as well as hopefully meet some penpals for the first time, and of course enjoy some fascinating lectures and discussion on the Good Sorcerer Saint of nigromancers and grimoirists.

Then at the end of the month it's back across the seas to glorious New Orleans for the International Necromancy Consortium's first conference, at which I will be speaking on early modern European traditions and practices of necromancy: especially around dream incubation, graveyard etiquette, and ritual tools. I am very pleased to be spoiled for necromantic convocations this month, and INC's inaugural 2020 event promises to be a marvellous collection of practitioners sharing information and perspectives.

As a result of this travel, my schedule for readings and coaching is a little more fraught than usual, but I am taking limited bookings if you would like to reach out. Likewise, I will be out-of-office and unable to take on certain talismanic projects by mid-March, so if you're considering commissioning something, really do reach out now!

I hope the shift from the dancing Fishes of Pisces to the emboldened Ram of Aries does you well, and I hope to see you on the road perhaps. To marching onwards!

[jade-lop]

It seemed RFG was canon now…. Though thinking about it too much was giving me a headache.

Onore Zi-O!

Fuwa’s mind was in sync with both his son and daughter.

Oh looked, Horobi finally killed a human on-screen.

But where did that random AIMS soldier came from? I thought Amatsu kept the place secret. Did Izu inform Fuwa about the hideout after Subaru and Oyakata were done with the place? No wonder Fuwa went to Hiden office and informed Aruto about Horobi’s escape.

I read a post once that lamented the lack of male caretakers in the day-care centres (?) because men were afraid of being accused as paedophile for hanging around with children. I guessed Father-type humagear was created to fill that space.

I loved the fact that Horobi was just a regular, factory-made humagear. He was literally nobody to nightmare.

Horobi was literally created to be a father, but had a love and hate relationship with his programming. Instead of answer, this revelation only led to more questions about Horobi’s past...

Jin knowing about Horobi’s past made sense. Horobi always answered Jin’s questions, and Jin was bound to be curious of Horobi’s past.

What was odd was Jin knowing about Soreo creating Ark’s countermeasures. How did he know that?

Like Horobi, Soreo was a Father-type humagear (which made him and Horobi brothers!), but why was he so good at programming? Creating Drivers and keys had nothing to do with child-rearing.

I assumed it was an extension of Soreo’s love for Aruto. Protecting the world mean protecting his son... this meant, the event in episode 24 was the second time Ark got bested by the power of platonic love.

And both times the catalyst was none other than Aruto himself.

Still disliked Jin’s new look, but thankfully, he still retained his kindness.

When Jin controlled Doctor Bot, was Jin simply emulating Doctor Bot’s personality or was that actually Jin clowning around?

What was this building meant?

If Jin had no intention of going through with Ark’s plan, then why he let Horobi reconnected with the Ark?

I have a feeling Jin was going to shake or outright destroyed the triangle.

I expected the Trilobites to revert back into humagears, but it seemed, the humagears used in this episode was nothing more than a blank drone without personalities, so they just got destroyed.

[wahbegan]

All right fine no more jokes you want me to be honest i threw in with you lot because you prioritize rape and abuse the most and those are the two main things i give a shit about because of my own personal experience and technically i guess i COULD try signing up with the MRAs with the whole oh ho ho a woman raped and abused me angle but they are absolutely the most petulant fuckheads on Earth and have a much higher rate of being predatory than you do. So yeah i refuse to go away even when i read too many RFG submissions and start losing my faith in you because as a victim and someone who has gotten repatedly taken advantage of sexually, you lot are the ones who have my best interest in mind the most even though i’m not a woman, happy?