#the children's encyclopaedia

[thefugitivesaint]

’The Procession of the Worlds’, ''The Children's Encyclopaedia'', Vol. 23, 1908 Source

[mellosdrawings]

I am regularly annoyed at AI generated art, but I think nothing compares to doing researches of traditional clothes and only finding sexualised AI stuff that is most definitely not traditional apparel.

[theinquisitxor]

January 2023 Reading Wrap-Up

I read a whopping 15 books this month, which is the most I think I've ever read in a month. That is partially due to novella audiobooks, as I could get through each one in 4-5 hours. But, looking at previous Januarys, I do tend to read the most during this month. Most noteworthy: After starting the Wayward Children series back in 2019, I made myself catch up to the most recent release!

1.In An Absent Dream (Wayward Children #4) by Seanan Mcguire. 4/5 stars. This is one of my favorites of the series, and I saw aspects of myself in Elizabeth. This novella also contains many things I enjoy- especially goblin markets and bargains. portal fantasy, audiobook, novella.

2.The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (trans. Lucia Graves) 4/5 stars. This may be the book that was on my physical tbr the longest. I got this book in high school and it followed me through college and now to my post-college life. I really enjoyed the immersiveness of this story; it makes me want to travel to Barcelona and retrace the footsteps of the characters. The story slowly built up to an explosive and cinematic ending, with twists and turns I did not see coming. I'm not 100% sure if I'm going to read the rest in the series though. historical fiction.

3.Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5) by Seanan Mcguire. 3/5 stars. This was not my favorite, and while I'm glad I got to see how Jack and Jill's story resolved, this book felt largely unnecessary. However it was cool that Seanan Mcguire narrated the audiobook herself. portal fantasy, audiobook, novella

4.Ninth House (Alex Stern #1) by Lehigh Bardugo. 5/5 stars. I reread this in anticipation for the release of book 2, and I enjoyed this even more than the first time. This series is one of my favorite works-in-progress. fantasy

5.Sofi and the Bone Song by Adrienne Tooley. 4/5 stars. This was a sweet, enjoyable, wintery read. I read this mainly because I am always on the hunt for books that feature music/musicians as main characters. This was definitely younger-ya, and featured a sapphic romance. I can forgive some of the faults of this book for how much I enjoyed it. young adult fantasy.

6.Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children #6) by Seanan Mcguire. 3/5 stars. I was expecting this book to be a favorite based off the setting/premise of the story, but I found it lacking in many ways. I related to Regan about girlhood and growing up, however I was left wanting more from the story. This one felt very underdeveloped. fantasy, novella, audiobook.

7.Where the Drowned Girls Go (Wayward Children #7) by Seanan Mcguire. 3.5/5 stars. I enjoyed this one more than the previous two, with the exploration of Cora and the introduction of the anthesis to Eleanor West's school. audiobook, fantasy, novella.

8. Hell Bent (Alex Stern #2) by Lehigh Bardugo. 5/5 stars. This was fantastic and I enjoyed it just as much as the first book. Lehigh is really good at writing these types of stories, and I hope I don't have to wait another 4 years for book 3! fantasy.

9.Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. 5/5 stars. This is a new favorite, and a wonderfully witty book about academics, faeries and folklore. This reminded me of HMC and Spinning Silver, and was just perfect. Cozy historical fantasy

10.The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1) by Holly Black. 3.5/5 stars. I reread this on audio in anticipation for The Stolen Heir. I wanted to reread the OG trilogy first, and the audiobook narrator was awesome, and this was a fun reread. I don't think I enjoyed this book quite as much as when I first read it, but I was also Jude's age and these books were much more my *thing* back then. Listening on audio was a great way to listen to the story without feeling like I had to be super dedicated to it. audiobook, Ya fantasy

11. The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) by Holly Black.5/5 stars. This book is definitely my favorite of the 3, and I find it so entertaining and fun to listen to. Jude is awesome in this book, and a lot of the other characters grow and get more fleshed out as well. audiobook, ya fantasy

12.World Without End (Kingsbridge 2) by Ken Follett. 4/5 stars: This is set in the same town, Kingsbridge, but set 200 years after the first book and following a new set of characters. These books are basically a middle ages soap opera, and I just find them so entertaining. historical fiction.

13.Lost in the Moment and Found (Wayward Children 8) by Seanan Mcguire, 4/5 stars. This is probably my favorite of the series other than book 1. I enjoyed the story behind this one a lot, and all the little easter eggs that come up from the rest of the series was so much fun. I can't believe I binge read this series, but now have to wait a year for the next! audiobook, fantasy, novella.

14.Women's Bookscapes in Early Modern Britain: Reading, Ownership and Circulation. This was my nonfiction for the month, and I had seen this book in the library and checked it out to myself. The subject was interesting to me, and I enjoyed reading through this collection of thirteen essays on the topic. Definitely very academic and dense however. non-fiction.

15.Gallant by V.E. Schwab, 2/5 stars. This one was a disapointement, and it felf underdeveloped and lackluster all around. After Addie LaRue also being a flop for me, my trust in VE Schwab is wavering :(

7 audiobooks, 8 physical books. 5 novellas, 10 novels. 12 fantasy, 2 historical fiction, 1 nonfiction. Average rating: 3.9

[monstrouscrew]

(another Alkaline related thought)

maybe this is the moment we stfu about the fact that an undiscovered element - if we talk about chemistry, yeah - is a transuranium one, and can be only synthesized in a particle accelerator. imagine the amounts of energy required to accelerate the atoms enough to turn into something unstable yet registered. the impact (hello "crashing course" in Mine and, as we listen to a lot of music, even Worlds Collide by Covenant). this metaphor doesn't fall short for sure.

the only question is who is setting this experiment. well, whoever.

[iizgonnaeeeeeeeeeatyou]

Ok so it went:

Ultramarine is a kind of blue paint,

which also known as cobalt,

which is a pigment made from a mineral also called lapis lazuli,

which is a "crystal",

often used by new age folk to represent wealth and divine inspiration,

because it was very expensive and was used to make a blue paint that historically was reserved for the very wealthy and was near exclusively used in church commissioned biblical art.

due to it's rich history, symbolism, vibrant colour, and fairly unique name, it is often used within works of fiction as either a revered object or as a character's name.

its really telling where you learned about lapis lazuli. put yours in the tags

[agatharkn3ss]

Agatha's info/rumours

I thought I'd pull together all the info we've been shown in ep.6 and add my interpretation to it. I still can't believe that Billy read these short bits and claimed he knew an "egregious" amount about Agatha.

As usual, biased towards Agathario, because I think they are heavily implying Agatha's connection to Death (I mean yes, the writers could just be trying to explain why the internet would be so invested in her identity, but still)

First of all - "333 partial results for Agatha Harkness Ancient Witch". I love yet another allusion to how Agatha is linked with number 3, making her the actual harbinger of doom (I explain this here).

It's interesting that the related questions are all about the immortality of the witches:

Are witches immortal?

Do real witches ever die?

How do you kill a witch?

How old is the oldest witch?

If we didn't have other super-old witches in the show, it would make me wonder if Agatha didn't make some sort of pact with Death (Rio), where she provides "bodies" to her in exchange for her long life. But as it is, we have Lilia as 450+ years old and Jen is also older than a century, but you don't see them trying to kill people (I think).

The very first search result is quite fun:

"The Macabre Wiki – a comprehensive encyclopaedia of all things that only come out after dark. Created by two blood witched from Salem"

No matter what, I will forever believe this is Agatha and Rio's page. (for reasons explained here)

The rest of the search results are not as exciting:

Witchy Resource – Ancient witches and ancient warlocks are not well documented traditionally and usually for good reason…

Witches and Aging – Apparently, witches are able to chose how they age and present themselves to humans. Some withes choose to stop again at a certain point staying roughly 30 years old visually for literally hundreds of years.

Dreadit – Salem Witch Trials – Recently I’ve been researching a ton on the SWT and not many people know this but there are reports of witches that actually survived burning and drowning

The Art of the Ancients – Learn about the secret art of witchcraft and the witches that have [...]

So this suggests Agatha specifically chose her look and age. Neat. Quite empowering really.

Also, another suggestion that some witches can be immortal and survive burning and drowning. I wonder if we will see this in the show - Agatha and Rio having absolute blast at mocking people who were trying to torture/kill Agatha, only to realise she wasn't feeling any pain, she would just raise and shout "Surprise witches!".

Then we go onto the Salem Witch Trials page. This pretty much confirms what we already know about them. I immediately clocked how all the handles only have green or purple colours... Coincidence? I've not tried to decipher the names, but if anyone has any suggestions, let me know!

witchygirlblack: Did any witches survive the Salem witch trials? Are they still alive? Where are they? Witches can live for hundreds of years, so the ones that survived the trials might still be out there [] witchkraft dreadit, you must know of some?

4thlevelwarlock: The Salemites, Evanora Harkness’s coven, were prominent in the area. I’ve heard rumours [...]the young children from the coven escaped

SamSamwitch: @4thlevelwarlock look familiar? [Agatha image link]

BoftheEast: be careful posting about her just saying

Then Billy takes the photo through reverse image search. I know these are tiny, inconsequential details but I still love them:

"Looky" sounds like a little nod to Lilia's "kooky"

The letters “o” have moons inside of them.

Each letter has different colour that seems to align with the witches – light blue (Jan - water trial?), purple (Agatha - spirit), yellow (Lilia - air), dark blue (Billy?), orange (Alice – fire)

This search then leads to a number of events that Agatha has been spotted at. Rather than pull out the quotes, I'm going to put the events in a chronological order and add relevant background info:

Salem Witch Trials (1692-1693) - this was a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. More than 200 people were accused. It was the deadliest witch hunt in the history of colonial North America. This is the time where Agatha's mother and her coven try to "punish" her for using "the darkest of magic". Her fingers weren't black, so she's unlikely to have had Darkhold back then. (btw the script for this suggests Agatha was 18 at the time, so she was born ~1675, making her ~351 years old in 2026)

The Eastern Seaboard - Although we don't know the exact dates, there are "unconfirmed reports of Agatha traveling the Eastern Seaboard". This could relate to various areas but this is likely just referring to the US East Coast. The Thirteen Colonies, which formed the United States in 1776 were located on this coast, playing an important role in the development of the United States.

The sinking of the Titanic (1912) - the British ocean liner sank as a result of striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, US. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, approximately 1,500 died. Agatha is listed as one of the survivors

The Hindenburg disaster (1937) - a German commercial passenger airship caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on its journey from Frankfurt, Germany. The accident caused 35 fatalities among the 97 people on board, and an additional fatality on the ground. The publicity shattered public confidence in the giant, passenger-carrying rigid airship and marked the abrupt end of the airship era. Again, Agatha is spotted as a woman who "survived the explosion then disappeared"

"Jolene" (1972-1973) - The headline states "Does this 1972 Surveillance photo of Dolly Parton show the real Jolene?" and Jac Schaeffer confirmed that yes, Agatha = Jolene. So I had some fun with this, because why not?! I wondered what Agatha's play would've been here. Is she truly after Dolly's "man" - if so, in what way? Or is she after Dolly herself? Note that although the article says 1972, later on we also see statement that Agatha was last seen in Nashville Tennessee, 1973. Now - that year in Nashville, Dolly not only recorded "Jolene" in May, but a month later she also recorded "I will always love you" - a song that is widely understood to be a goodbye song to her business partner because she decided to pursue solo career. In my head this is all a result of Agatha's influence, who showed Dolly her real power.

On that note, I don't think we would be far off assuming that as Agatha kept Dolly (or her man) her company, she would've actually come across Lorna Wu herself? We know it was similar time, because "The Ballad of the Witches Road" record was made in 1978. Alice mentions how she got her tattoo in Colorado as her mum was playing at the Red Rocks amphitheatre. Dolly Parton also performed at the Red Rocks in 1972 (the same year as the camera footage), so Agatha could've been there...

Finally, we get to the "brujapedia" - the encyclopaedia of witches. It's fun to speculate who could be running this page - the whole theme is black and white, with red highlights. There is also an image of a raven - as I discussed it before, it is a symbol of bridging the world of life and death. So it would be fun if it was Death herself maintaining it, as she would be the only one who would truly know who the real witches were. Also it would be a cool census of who is still remaining for her to "collect" their dues.

Another good spot from @chaotic-homoromantic is that "bruja" is a Spanish word for "witch", giving us another hint to Rio.

I couldn't really find any info on any other names other than the top one. Abigail Adams was a founder of the US, wife of John Adams, the second US president and mother of John Quincy Adams, the 6th US president. I'd like to think witches had some input back then.

Also interesting is how Agatha's surname is misspelled - it has two Ks. I wonder why that is - no way it's a mistake, seeing how much detail they've put into this. Maybe it's a subtle suggestion that this information came straight from Agatha herself or as a joke from someone who knows her, since she's known for using wrong words. (or it could just be a suggestion that all of the other names on this list are also misspelled, explaining why we can't find any info on them)

Then we get to some info about her - most of which I already collated into the timeline above. There is also a vague mention of Nicky: "Agatha Harkness. Son. Name unkown, rumours [...]"

But there are also some other bits - hilariously referred to as "FUN" facts:

Fun Facts:

Murdered her entire coven

Possesses succubus powers

Nick name is “witch killer!”

Only known survivor of The Witches Road

Folklore references: It is said certain children’s book make reference to Agatha [...]

Funny how the nickname absolutely includes the exclamation mark. I feel like maybe Jen was the one who submitted this info.

As for the children's book - I feel like it wouldn't be just a single story but more like the Grimm's Fairy Tales. Following Lilia's comment, Agatha probably was the template they used for "evil witches" - poisoning apples and stealing kids and eating children. It's not something she would deny anyway.

Now, the Succubus comment is interesting. In lore they are generally depicted as a sexual being - "a female demon or supernatural entity in folklores who appears in dreams to seduce men, usually through sexual activity."

But I think in Agatha's case, things are different. Yes, she has the charisma and can probably seduce people quite easily (I mean, she probably seduced Death, didn't she?). But I don't think that's like a magical power. In fact, if it was, it think it would be really unfair to Agatha, erasing the fact that her character had to build and evolve around her experiences and the fact that she had to survive - "in a way that few do". So I think this "fun fact" could be partially coming from someone's snarky comment (Dolly Parton's?), who just wanted to take away Agatha's agency. Or fell for Agatha and then blamed it on her "powers" rather than admitting their own gullibility. Just like women over the centuries were accused of witchcraft and casting curses if things simply didn't go the way someone wanted.

Plus the way she goes about getting her magic from people is absolutely not seductive. She simply finds a way to annoy the heck out of the target!

But of course, that's not all there is to it, because on the other hand Agatha has her syphoning ability - now that could also be described as the "succubus powers" referred to above. In DnD succubus attacks using a "Deadly kiss", basically draining the essence of life and I feel like this is quite a good description:

"The kiss of a succubus is an echo of the emptiness that is the fiend’s longing for a corrupted soul. Likewise, the recipient of the fiend’s kiss gains no satisfaction from it, experiencing only pain and the profound emptiness that the fiend imparts. The kiss is nothing short of an attack, usually delivered as a final farewell before the fiend escapes."

In that magic/soul sucking way, she would have more parallels to Death, explaining their connection. More so, if Agatha can't control her powers - because Death does not really have much control either, she just has to do her job when the time comes.

[appleinducedsleep]

I suppose most children fall in love with faeries at some point, but my fascination was never about magic or the granting of wishes. The Folk were of another world, with its own rules and customs-and to a child who always felt ill-suited to her own world, the lure was irresistible.

Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

[communistkenobi]

something I’ve been thinking about is like, the internet is this magical system of technologies, never before seen in human history, and one of its capabilities is to answer virtually any question you ask of it. Which is not even remotely a novel observation obviously lol. But I’m thinking about this in the context of a point that Adorno & Horkheimer made (in The Culture Industry I think?) about the radio: that to expedience the radio, to live in a social context where there is this vast incomprehensible system of technological infrastructure that you do not understand or control, and which allows you, a mere peasant, to listen to news broadcasts, music, and advertisements, is effectively like listening to the voice of god. Like the average person’s relationship to modern telecommunications is so mystifying, incomprehensible, and abstract that we experience technologies like the radio as an all-powerful, indestructible authority, and this (obviously) shapes our relationship to the information that is shared through it. People make jokes on here about how transmission towers are angels, but like tbh that is essentially how we experience them - vast, incomprehensible, highly dangerous objects whose impact on our lives are at once all-consuming and unknowable. We do not just turn on the radio and listen to the news, we tune into what the voice of god has to say today - right now he’s selling toilet cleanser!

and all that to say, I always find something a bit incomplete about discussions about wilful ignorance online - that we live in an age of mass information and yet people still seem as ignorant as feudal peasants, or whatever. Nobody googles things, nobody tries to branch out and experience new kinds of art, nobody educates themselves on important topics they don’t understand. and like this frustration is very real and well taken, I feel it frequently, but what I’m grappling with is whether this is the correct framing - that maybe “why don’t people just google things” is the wrong question to ask, because I tend to find the explanations offered unsatisfactory. Like specifically I’m thinking of discussions on here that are about like, “anti-intellectualism”, kids these days are so ignorant even though they grew up with the internet, reading comprehension is piss poor, and so on. Recently I’ve seen a lot of weirdly moral-panicky posts about children not knowing how to type on computers because back in my day we were forced to learn how to touch-type by age 8 even though we couldn’t look up any tutorials on YouTube to help us, etc etc. And like I just do not buy that people are individually choosing to be ignorant, that people are “getting dumber,” and that this state of getting dumber is inversely related to the amount of information we have access to (which makes “getting dumber” even more dumb). An unstated assumption that goes into a lot of these “anti-intellectualism” discussions is that “information” is this universal object that has a standardised enlightening effect on the people who interact with it - that the only reason to have an ignorant, sheltered, or ill-formed opinion on something is because you have individually chosen not to Look At Information that will cure you of your ignorance. And so going back to the god radio thing, having regular access to the google search bar is not just having access to an encyclopaedia or dictionary - it is like having a direct line of communication to god, this authority that can answer any question you ask of it. But it’s not just one answer, it’s many answers, more answers than you could ever possibly read through. Google reports the number of hits it returns for whatever you type in - you will regularly get millions of answers to your question. And these answers are embedded with advertisements, just as radio news broadcasts are. Like if god is selling you toilet cleanser while telling you the number for a suicide hotline or news about what’s happening in the world, how do you psychologically deal with that, how is your relationship to capital-I Information shaped by this relationship?

The corollary to “we live in an age of mass information” is “we live in an age of mass misinformation,” but they both show up as answers on google (again, not a novel observation). but in the face of that how do you not simply stop asking questions? & of course this decision to stop asking questions is given form and substance by social circumstance, it reinforces systemic privileges and violences, and so this decision is not one free from consequence, and in many cases it is not an innocent decision. a white person deciding not to read the news because it’s too hard to figure out what is happening/too frightening/etc has the consequence of reinforcing the white supremacist outlook that is foundational to the social context of white people because they’re not reading anything that challenges that outlook. ignorance has many social contexts and many of them are violent. etc. like the consequence of “why does nobody google anything” is just a continuation of the status quo, just with this supposedly glaring and easy fix to it (simply google it). but that just leads us back to a discourse of individual choice, of people individually choosing not to “google shit.” it is a deeply individual fix to a systematic social problem. and so maybe the question is not, why doesn’t anyone google shit, but rather, why is the primary delivery system of knowledge a god that sells you toilet cleanser 

[viadescioism]

Kwanzaa:

Kwanzaa, an annual holiday celebrated primarily in the United States from December 26 to January 1, emphasizes the importance of pan-African family and social values. It was devised in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, Inspired by Africa’s harvest celebrations, he decided to develop a nonreligious holiday that would stress the importance of family and community while giving African Americans an opportunity to explore their African identities. Kwanzaa arose from the black nationalist movement of the 1960s and was created to help African Americans reconnect with their African cultural and historical heritage. The holiday honors African American people, their struggles in the United States, their heritage, and their culture. Kwanzaa's practices and symbolism are deeply rooted in African traditions and emphasize community, family, and cultural pride. It's a time for reflection, celebration, and the nurturing of cultural identity within the African American community.

Kwanzaa is a blend of various African cultures, reflecting the experience of many African Americans who cannot trace their exact origins; thus, it is not specific to any one African culture or region. The inclusiveness of Kwanzaa allows for a broader celebration of African heritage and identity.

Karenga created Kwanzaa during the aftermath of the Watts riots as a non-Christian, specifically African-American, holiday. His goal was to give black people an alternative to Christmas and an opportunity to celebrate themselves and their history, rather than imitating the practices of the dominant society. The name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase "matunda ya kwanza," meaning "first fruits," and is based on African harvest festival traditions from various parts of West and Southeast Africa. The holiday was first celebrated in 1966.

Each day of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the seven principles (Nguzo Saba), which are central values of African culture that contribute to building and reinforcing community among African Americans. These principles include Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity), and Imani (Faith). Each family celebrates Kwanzaa in its own way, but Celebrations often include songs, dances, African drums, storytelling, poetry readings, and a large traditional meal. The holiday concludes with a communal feast called Karamu, usually held on the sixth day​​​​.

Kwanzaa is more than just a celebration; it's a spiritual journey to heal, explore, and learn from African heritage. The holiday emphasizes the importance of community and the role of children, who are considered seed bearers of cultural values and practices for the next generation. Kwanzaa is not just a holiday; it's a period of introspection and celebration of African-American identity and culture, allowing for a deeper understanding and appreciation of ancestral roots. This celebration is a testament to the resilience and enduring spirit of the African-American community.

"Kwanzaa," Encyclopaedia Britannica, last modified December 23, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kwanzaa.

"Kwanzaa - Meaning, Candles & Principles," HISTORY, accessed December 25, 2023, https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/kwanzaa-history.

"Kwanzaa," Wikipedia, last modified December 25, 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwanzaa.

"Kwanzaa," National Museum of African American History and Culture, accessed December 25, 2023, https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/kwanzaa.

"The First Kwanzaa," HISTORY.com, accessed December 25, 2023, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-first-kwanzaa.

My Daily Kwanzaa, blog, accessed December 25, 2023, https://mydailykwanzaa.wordpress.com.

Maulana Karenga, Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture (Los Angeles, CA: University of Sankore Press, 1998), ISBN 0-943412-21-8.

"Kente Cloth," African Journey, Project Exploration, accessed December 25, 2023, https://projectexploration.org.

Expert Village, "Kwanzaa Traditions & Customs: Kwanzaa Symbols," YouTube video, accessed December 25, 2023, [Link to the specific YouTube video]. (Note: The exact URL for the YouTube video is needed for a complete citation).

"Official Kwanzaa Website," accessed December 25, 2023, https://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/index.html.

Michelle, Lavanda. "Let's Talk Kwanzaa: Unwrapping the Good Vibes." Lavanda Michelle, December 13, 2023. https://lavandamichelle.com/2023/12/13/lets-talk-kwanzaa-unwrapping-the-good-vibes/.

[haggishlyhagging]

“The popular concept of the primitive family group, complete with domineering father, cowed and submissive mother, and tumbling human cubs littering the cave-home floor, has been completely discredited; yet it remains the image of ‘caveman’ life as portrayed in the widely disseminated media of comic strip and television serial today.

The fact is that the earliest human family consisted of a woman and her children. ‘The patriarchal family was entirely unknown,’ writes Lewis Henry Morgan. ‘It was not until after recorded civilization commenced that it became established.’ Fatherhood and the idea of permanent mating were very late comers in human history. So late, as a matter of fact, is the idea of paternity that the word for father does not even exist in the original Indo-European language, as the philologist Roland Kent points out.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1964 edition) says that where no word existed in the ancient Indo-European language for any concept or object, it may be accepted as a truism that that concept or object was unknown to the Indo-Europeans. And since this original language did not break up into the classical and modern languages that have descended from it, according to Kent, until about 3000 B.C., it seems obvious that fatherhood was unknown even as recently as five thousand years ago.”

-Elizabeth Gould Davis, The First Sex

[thefugitivesaint]

Thomas Maybank (1869-1929), ''The Children's Encyclopaedia'', Vol. 1, 1908 Source

[macrolit]

NYT's Notable Books of 2023

Each year, we pore over thousands of new books, seeking out the best novels, memoirs, biographies, poetry collections, stories and more. Here are the standouts, selected by the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

AFTER SAPPHO by Selby Wynn Schwartz

Inspired by Sappho’s work, Schwartz’s debut novel offers an alternate history of creativity at the turn of the 20th century, one that centers queer women artists, writers and intellectuals who refused to accept society’s boundaries.

ALL THE SINNERS BLEED by S.A. Cosby

In his earlier thrillers, Cosby worked the outlaw side of the crime genre. In his new one — about a Black sheriff in a rural Southern town, searching for a serial killer who tortures Black children — he’s written a crackling good police procedural.

THE BEE STING by Paul Murray

In Murray’s boisterous tragicomic novel, a once wealthy Irish family struggles with both the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash and their own inner demons.

BIOGRAPHY OF X by Catherine Lacey

Lacey rewrites 20th-century U.S. history through the audacious fictional life story of X, a polarizing female performance artist who made her way from the South to New York City’s downtown art scene.

BIRNAM WOOD by Eleanor Catton

In this action-packed novel from a Booker Prize winner, a collective of activist gardeners crosses paths with a billionaire doomsday prepper on land they each want for different purposes.

BLACKOUTS by Justin Torres

This lyrical, genre-defying novel — winner of the 2023 National Book Award — explores what it means to be erased and how to persist after being wiped away.

BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN by Jessica Knoll

In her third and most assured novel, Knoll shifts readers’ attention away from a notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy, and onto the lives — and deaths — of the women he killed. Perhaps for the first time in fiction, Knoll pooh-poohs Bundy's much ballyhooed intelligence, celebrating the promise and perspicacity of his victims instead.

CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

This satire — in which prison inmates duel on TV for a chance at freedom — makes readers complicit with the bloodthirsty fans sitting ringside. The fight scenes are so well written they demonstrate how easy it might be to accept a world this sick.

THE COVENANT OF WATER by Abraham Verghese

Verghese’s first novel since “Cutting for Stone” follows generations of a family across 77 years in southwestern India as they contend with political strife and other troubles — capped by a shocking discovery made by the matriarch’s granddaughter, a doctor.

CROOK MANIFESTO by Colson Whitehead

Returning to the world of his novel “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead again uses a crime story to illuminate a singular neighborhood at a tipping point — here, Harlem in the 1970s.

THE DELUGE by Stephen Markley

Markley’s second novel confronts the scale and gravity of climate change, tracking a cadre of scientists and activists from the gathering storm of the Obama years to the super-typhoons of future decades. Immersive and ambitious, the book shows the range of its author’s gifts: polyphonic narration, silken sentences and elaborate world-building.

EASTBOUND by Maylis de Kerangal

In de Kerangal’s brief, lyrical novel, translated by Jessica Moore, a young Russian soldier on a trans-Siberian train decides to desert and turns to a civilian passenger, a Frenchwoman, for help.

EMILY WILDE’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by Heather Fawcett

The world-building in this tale of a woman documenting a new kind of faerie is exquisite, and the characters are just as textured and richly drawn. This is the kind of folkloric fantasy that remembers the old, blood-ribboned source material about sacrifices and stolen children, but adds a modern gloss.

ENTER GHOST by Isabella Hammad

In Hammad’s second novel, a British Palestinian actor returns to her hometown in Israel to recover from a breakup and spend time with her family. Instead, she’s talked into joining a staging of “Hamlet” in the West Bank, where she has a political awakening.

FORBIDDEN NOTEBOOK by Alba de Céspedes

A best-selling novelist and prominent anti-Fascist in her native Italy, de Céspedes has lately fallen into unjust obscurity. Translated by Ann Goldstein, this elegant novel from the 1950s tells the story of a married mother, Valeria, whose life is transformed when she begins keeping a secret diary.

THE FRAUD by Zadie Smith

Based on a celebrated 19th-century trial in which the defendant was accused of impersonating a nobleman, Smith’s novel offers a vast panoply of London and the English countryside, and successfully locates the social controversies of an era in a handful of characters.

FROM FROM by Monica Youn

In her fourth book of verse, a svelte, intrepid foray into American racism, Youn turns a knowing eye on society’s love-hate relationship with what it sees as the “other.”

A GUEST IN THE HOUSE by Emily Carroll

After a lonely young woman marries a mild-mannered widower and moves into his home, she begins to wonder how his first wife actually died. This graphic novel alternates between black-and-white and overwhelming colors as it explores the mundane and the horrific.

THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE by James McBride

McBride’s latest, an intimate, big-hearted tale of community, opens with a human skeleton found in a well in the 1970s, and then flashes back to the past, to the ’20s and ’30s, to explore the town’s Black, Jewish and immigrant history.

HELLO BEAUTIFUL by Ann Napolitano

In her radiant fourth novel, Napolitano puts a fresh spin on the classic tale of four sisters and the man who joins their family. Take “Little Women,” move it to modern-day Chicago, add more intrigue, lots of basketball and a different kind of boy next door and you’ve got the bones of this thoroughly original story.

A HISTORY OF BURNING by Janika Oza

This remarkable debut novel tells the story of an extended Indo-Ugandan family that is displaced, settled and displaced again.

HOLLY by Stephen King

The scrappy private detective Holly Gibney (who appeared in “The Outsider” and several other novels) returns, this time taking on a missing-persons case that — in typical King fashion — unfolds into a tale of Dickensian proportions.

A HOUSE FOR ALICE by Diana Evans

This polyphonic novel traces one family’s reckoning after the patriarch dies in a fire, as his widow, a Nigerian immigrant, considers returning to her home country and the entire family re-examines the circumstances of their lives.

THE ILIAD by Homer

Emily Wilson’s propulsive new translation of the “Iliad” is buoyant and expressive; she wants this version to be read aloud, and it would certainly be fun to perform.

INK BLOOD SISTER SCRIBE by Emma Törzs

The sisters in Törzs's delightful debut have been raised to protect a collection of magic books that allow their keepers to do incredible things. Their story accelerates like a fugue, ably conducted to a tender conclusion.

KAIROS by Jenny Erpenbeck

This tale of a torrid, yearslong relationship between a young woman and a much older married man — translated from the German by Michael Hofmann — is both profound and moving.

KANTIKA by Elizabeth Graver

Inspired by the life of Graver’s maternal grandmother, this exquisitely imagined family saga spans cultures and continents as it traces the migrations of a Sephardic Jewish girl from turn-of-the-20th-century Constantinople to Barcelona, Havana and, finally, Queens, N.Y.

LAND OF MILK AND HONEY by C Pam Zhang

Zhang’s lush, keenly intelligent novel follows a chef who’s hired to cook for an “elite research community” in the Italian Alps, in a not-so-distant future where industrial-agricultural experiments in America’s heartland have blanketed the globe in a crop-smothering smog.

LONE WOMEN by Victor LaValle

The year is 1915, and the narrator of LaValle’s horror-tinged western has arrived in Montana to cultivate an unforgiving homestead. She’s looking for a fresh start as a single Black woman in a sparsely populated state, but the locked trunk she has in stow holds a terrifying secret.

MONICA by Daniel Clowes

In Clowes’s luminous new work, the titular character, abandoned by her mother as a child, endures a life of calamities before resolving to learn about her origins and track down her parents.

THE MOST SECRET MEMORY OF MEN by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

Based on a true story and translated by Lara Vergnaud, Sarr’s novel — about a Senegalese writer brought low by a plagiarism scandal — asks sharp questions about the state of African literature in the West.

THE NEW NATURALS by Gabriel Bump

In Bump’s engrossing new novel, a young Black couple, mourning the loss of their newborn daughter and disillusioned with the world, start a utopian society — but tensions both internal and external soon threaten their dreams.

NORTH WOODS by Daniel Mason

Mason’s novel looks at the occupants of a single house in Massachusetts over several centuries, from colonial times to present day. An apple farmer, an abolitionist, a wealthy manufacturer: The book follows these lives and many others, with detours into natural history and crime reportage.

NOT EVEN THE DEAD by Juan Gómez Bárcena

An ex-conquistador in Spanish-ruled, 16th-century Mexico is asked to hunt down an Indigenous prophet in this novel by a leading writer in Spain, splendidly translated by Katie Whittemore. The epic search stretches across much of the continent and, as the author bends time and history, lasts centuries.

THE NURSERY by Szilvia Molnar

“I used to be a translator and now I am a milk bar.” So begins Molnar’s brilliant novel about a new mother falling apart within the four walls of her apartment.

OUR SHARE OF NIGHT by Mariana Enriquez

This dazzling, epic narrative, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, is a bewitching brew of mystery and myth, peopled by mediums who can summon “the Darkness” for a secret society of wealthy occultists seeking to preserve consciousness after death.

PINEAPPLE STREET by Jenny Jackson

Jackson’s smart, dishy debut novel embeds readers in an upper-crust Brooklyn Heights family — its real estate, its secrets, its just-like-you-and-me problems. Does money buy happiness? “Pineapple Street” asks a better question: Does it buy honesty?

THE REFORMATORY by Tananarive Due

Due’s latest — about a Black boy, Robert, who is wrongfully sentenced to a fictionalized version of Florida’s infamous and brutal Dozier School — is both an incisive examination of the lingering traumas of racism and a gripping, ghost-filled horror novel. “The novel’s extended, layered denouement is so heart-smashingly good, it made me late for work,” Randy Boyagoda wrote in his review. “I couldn’t stop reading.”

THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS by Vajra Chandrasekera

Trained to kill by his mother and able to see demons, the protagonist of Chandrasekera’s stunning and lyrical novel flees his destiny as an assassin and winds up in a politically volatile metropolis.

SAME BED DIFFERENT DREAMS by Ed Park

Double agents, sinister corporations, slasher films, U.F.O.s — Park’s long-awaited second novel is packed to the gills with creative elements that enliven his acerbic, comedic and lyrical odyssey into Korean history and American paranoia.

TAKE WHAT YOU NEED by Idra Novey

This elegant novel resonates with implication beyond the taut contours of its central story line. In Novey’s deft hands, the complex relationship between a young woman and her former stepmother hints at the manifold divisions within America itself.

THIS OTHER EDEN by Paul Harding

In his latest novel, inspired by the true story of a devastating 1912 eviction in Maine that displaced an entire mixed-race fishing community, Harding turns that history into a lyrical tale about the fictional Apple Island on the cusp of destruction.

TOM LAKE by Ann Patchett

Locked down on the family’s northern Michigan cherry orchard, three sisters and their mother, a former actress whose long-ago summer fling went on to become a movie star, reflect on love and regret in Patchett’s quiet and reassuring Chekhovian novel.

THE UNSETTLED by Ayana Mathis

This novel follows three generations across time and place: a young mother trying to create a home for herself and her son in 1980s Philadelphia, and her mother, who is trying to save their Alabama hometown from white supremacists seeking to displace her from her land.

VICTORY CITY by Salman Rushdie

Rushdie’s new novel recounts the long life of Pampa Kampana, who creates an empire from magic seeds in 14th-century India. Her world is one of peace, where men and women are equal and all faiths welcome, but the story Rushdie tells is of a state that forever fails to live up to its ideals.

WE COULD BE SO GOOD by Cat Sebastian

This queer midcentury romance — about reporters who meet at work, become friends, move in together and fall in love — lingers on small, everyday acts like bringing home flowers with the groceries, things that loom large because they’re how we connect with others.

WESTERN LANE by Chetna Maroo

In this polished and disciplined debut novel, an 11-year-old Jain girl in London who has just lost her mother turns her attention to the game of squash — which in Maroo’s graceful telling becomes a way into the girl’s grief.

WITNESS by Jamel Brinkley

Set in Brooklyn, and featuring animal rescue workers, florists, volunteers, ghosts and UPS workers, Brinkley’s new collection meditates on what it means to see and be seen.

Y/N by Esther Yi

In this weird and wondrous novel, a bored young woman in thrall to a boy band buys a one-way ticket to Seoul.

YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang

Kuang’s first foray outside of the fantasy genre is a breezy and propulsive tale about a white woman who achieves tremendous literary success by stealing a manuscript from a recently deceased Asian friend and passing it off as her own.

[hannahssimblr]

For a brief period last year, I had this thing about wasps. Miss O’Reilly spurred the whole thing on after poring over my sketchbooks with me. She made some offhand comment about how nice it would be to see some animals too, amongst the endless scrawl of human arms and legs and feet and heads on every inch of every page, because it would expand my anatomical knowledge. This had never occurred to me.

So across town to the zoo I went. Where, through the spring and the earliest days of summer I would draw gorillas in their glass enclosures, giraffes, sloths, red pandas, while parents and children looked over my shoulder at my work, ogling as though I too was part of an exhibition. 

I returned that August, late, in that last week before school starts when the sun still warms you, but the wind carries autumn with it. By then, the leaves had lost that vibrant green and hung tired from branches, curled and russet at the edges. It was wasp season, when they emerge, as though from nowhere, angry, confused, in a ferocious pursuit of sugar. 

One landed on my sketchbook, near the thumb that held the page, and I resisted the tingle of fear in my body, the urge to swat him away. Instead I watched him, and then I drew him, his alien eyes and hairy body, papery wings and the abstract black and yellow stripes like caution tape wound around his horntail. I feared wasps - I think. One had never stung me and had no reference for the pain, but coincidentally, I had read about them in an insect encyclopaedia from the school library. I’d learned about their sad Augusts, when their purpose had been fulfilled, and their queens cast them out of the nest to die. 

That wasp, eating the ice cream fingerprint from my page, was no different. Here he was, addicted to sugar, drunk, perhaps, from the fermenting fruits he had managed to find. If I swatted him away, could I really blame him if, in his desperation and pain, he attacked me? He really was just another creature fulfilling his purpose, adapting to the new environment in which he had been thrown. 

“Oh, God!” Michelle cried, and whacked him with her zoo map. His insides left a stain on the paper, and I turned to her, outraged. “Why did you do that?”

“It might have stung you!” 

And things escalated, as they normally did, to an argument by the elephant enclosure. She erupted in front of a family of four and asked me when I became such a fucking vegetarian about wasps. We didn’t speak a word to one another on the bus home, and then, come September, we forgot about wasps for another year. 

A wasp lands on my arm. I feel it first, the weird little legs tickling my skin. Someone splashed cider on me in the Foo Fighters’ mosh pit. That’s what he’s looking for. For the first time in a year, I think about wasps again, while the rest of my friends plan their next move. He shouldn’t be out at night. He must be confused. Maybe he’s about to die. 

“Oh! Gosh! You’ve a wasp on your arm!” Claire waves her hand about me and the wasp makes a drowsy departure and swoops toward the overflowing bins by the barriers. 

Several seconds pass before it occurs to me to react. “Yeah.” 

As the others head towards the bar, she and Shane hang back, peering at me with that wary concern, as though there’ve sensed something deeply unhinged about me. “Are you okay?” She says gently. “You look like you got a bit of a knock there in the mosh pit.”

“No, it was fine. It felt good to kind of shove everyone around.” It’s true. I wasn’t thinking in there where I was thrashing to The Pretender, but I know how I must look. She eyes the collar of my t-shirt, stretched completely out of shape from where some beast of a man grabbed me to fling me out of his path like a rag doll. it was violent, but it felt good, like something that I needed.

“Look,” Shane scratches his head, “The lads there, they were talking about going to that rave at midnight. They wanted to grab some shots first, but like, if you don’t want to go, and you’d rather go back to the tent or something, that’d be okay.”

Claire nods. “We could even go with you, right? I wouldn’t mind just hanging out and taking it easy if you wanted company.”

Do I really seem that bad? I shake my head. “No, it’s fine. I’ll just do what everyone else is doing.”

They pause, and I press the issue. “Do I seem like I won’t be able for it?”

“Not that.” Shane says. “You just seem a bit wrecked.”

“I’ll survive another concert.”

“Yeah, I’m not saying you won’t, like.”

“Right then.”

They exchange a look, and I sigh. “I don’t know what you think is wrong with me, but I’m not drinking, I’m not on drugs,” I lean down to show them my pupils, which I realise too late is quite a manic, on-drugs thing to do, but I don’t know how else to prove my sobriety. “It’s just been a day, okay? I’m just… it’s been odd.”

“We can talk about it if you like,” Claire says, in that very kind, Claire way, but I shake my head. 

“Let’s not bother. Come on, we’ll just go to that rave thing and dance, yeah? Then I’ll go back to the tent and we can take it easy.”

“Okay, if you say so,” she says, and with her arms around herself against the midnight chill, she and Shane march past me, towards the big top of the marquee across the bottle-littered fields. 

Beginning // Prev // Next

[eyebrightatmidnight]

The Irish Mythological Cycle

Lebor Gabála Érenn - Book of Invasions

Cath Maige Tuired - Battle of Moytura Aided chloinne Tuireann - The Fate of the Children of Tuireann

Aided Chloinne Lir - The Fate of the Children of Lir

Tuan mac Cairill's Story to Finnen of Moville - Tuan mac Cairill's Story to Finnen of Moville The Colloquy between Fintan and the Hawk of Achill The Voyage of Bran

The Tale of Etain

The Taking of the Sid The Dream of Oengus

The Tale of Mongan

The Settling of the Manor of Tara Candlelit Tales: Irish Mythology Podcast

Myth, legend & romance : an encyclopaedia of the Irish folk tradition The sacred isle : belief and religion in pre-Christian Ireland

The Celts : a history

Irish superstitions Historic Ireland : 5,000 years of Ireland's heritage

The world of the Druids

Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend

[good-old-gossip]

I am among the 33 percent of Palestinians in Gaza who are not refugees and whose family’s roots in the city extend back a few hundred years.

My family was historically split between the adjacent El-Tuffah and Shujaiya neighbourhoods - two of Gaza’s ancient and historic areas outside the core Old City - which allowed me to spend a lot of time in that area. But seeing this war unfolding, I am concerned that new and later generations of Palestinian children may not get to experience the older parts of the city as I did.

Still, just as we rebuilt the Great Omari Mosque after its destruction in 1917, we will rise from under the rubble and rebuild it once more. Israel can demolish our mosques, churches and streets, yet our spirit remains unbreakable.

Even if the occupier forbids us from rebuilding our city, I will write a poem for every restaurant, a novel for every neighbourhood, and an encyclopaedia for every town.

Israel might have destroyed every corner of Gaza, but it will never erase those corners of our memories.

✍️ Opinion by Mohammed Mourtaja

[dorianbrightmusic]

Some Kitakami Sibling Headcanons

These are things I wanna expand on more in fanfic (some of these ideas are gonna get thrown into Festival for False Heroes eventually), but wanted to post in the meantime. TW for discussion of domestic violence/child neglect and abuse.

He and Carmine were born in Mitsralton City, two and a half years apart from each other, and lived there till Carmine was 7 and Kieran almost 5. 

Their parents didn’t exactly have the most stable marriage to begin with. They were both very good trainers, and had a chemistry built on that, but also tended to fight, sometimes violently. They weren’t bad people, but they brought out the worst in each other, and disagreed over how to raise the children, both of whom had substantial issues:

Baby Carmine had a temper, and learned to get attention from watching her parents fight. She broke plenty of porcelain plates even in infancy, and the property damage only got worse from there, as she physically couldn’t control herself when she was distressed. 

Baby Kieran was withdrawn, worryingly so, and didn’t speak or respond to his name. For a few months, the family thought he was deaf – then he heard his first thunderstorm, and the cacophony made him cry. 

The siblings’ mother, Michie, was determined that both kids needed some kind of intervention. Their father, who later became notorious under the pseudonym Colress, was certain that they would be fine in their own time, without external help. Michie won enough that both kids got an autism diagnosis and recommendations for behavioural therapy. Colress won enough that neither kid got to attend said behavioural therapy before he left.

As the kids got older, Carmine got rowdier, and Kieran stayed quiet. Colress knew his son could read and understand language, and parented him by giving him books and encyclopaedias to read that were well beyond any small child’s reading level. Colress liked Kieran, but never had the gumption to really be a father to him. Michie tried to calm Carmine down, but to no avail. She loved her daughter, but didn’t know how to deal with her, so, horribly, forced her to ride out her increasingly frequent meltdowns on her own. Both Carmine and Kieran were much worse off for the way their parents utterly failed to connect with them, and in different ways, they’ve both become terrified of being left alone for it. But Kieran learned to cope by withdrawing into fantasy and mythology, as Colress taught him to, while Carmine learned to drive others away before they could abandon her. They grew equally good at isolating themselves, in different ways, for fear of being isolated.

Michie would often call her parents to express her frustration. When Yukito and Hideko caught wind of the fact she and Colress had been fighting physically as well as verbally over this, and realised how horrendously the kids were being treated, they were furious. They were mortified that their grandchildren would be growing up somewhere so precipitously lonely. A year later, when Colress walked out on the family, Hideko and Yukito flew to Unova to collect the kids, wanting to give them a better home life than Michie, in her stranded and desperate state, could provide. 

Kieran was extremely late to talk – he said his first words maybe a week before Colress walked out. While he understood Galarian, he didn’t get much opportunity to practise speaking it before he and Carmine moved to Kitakami. As such, he, unlike Carmine, had to effectively relearn his mother tongue for his first semester at Blueberry, and it’s left him with a light accent, which he later worked to rid himself of during his breakdown. He never quite managed to eradicate it, and it frustrates him to be proficient, rather than fluent, in his mother tongue.

Carmine and Kieran did tend to fight physically when they were younger – they learned to do so by copying their parents. Yukito and Hideko eventually managed to teach them not to, but while the siblings love each other, by god, their fights are acrimonious. Carmine and Kieran haven’t hit each other in at least 3 years, but that’s barely a starting point.

Kieran has a special interest in mythology generally, and knows every different variation on Kitakamian folklore possible. Moreover, he’s scarily aware of the complexities of broader Johtohnian legends, and can pull a twenty-minute infodump on Celebi out of thin air on cue. Asking him about anything relating to old Hisuian creation myths, or the Pearl and Diamond clans’ different deities, will produce a similar deluge of information. Even Unovan mythology fascinates him immensely, and he’s terrifyingly knowledgeable where Kyurem’s concerned. Ogerpon’s tale was always his favourite, though as it’s the one he’d escape into when he felt unseen. 

Part of why Amarys and Carmine get on is that Amarys, despite her need to economise time, is incredibly patient with Carmine. The result is that when Carmine had one of her sporadic meltdowns and lost control of her actions, when Amarys witnessed it, she didn’t question it or scold her, but took her somewhere quiet, and waited it out with her. Carmine feels incredibly grateful to Amarys for that, and as such, she doesn’t feel she needs to be defensive around her so much as she does around others. 

Carmine always has a huge supply of snacks hidden in her room, and she insists on sharing them with Amarys. She tried to share them with Kieran during his breakdown, but he refused to touch them, which was a sign of something being very, very wrong.

Carmine gets surprisingly homesick when she’s at Blueberry, and has been known to call her grandparents at 3am Unova time because she needs company, and doesn’t know where else to reach out. Occasionally, if she still feels awful, or if she feels she can’t call them for whatever reason, she’ll go to Amarys’ room and just sit with her, maybe making conversation, maybe just being there, proving she isn’t alone.

During his breakdown, Kieran tended to train in the Canyon Biome when he couldn’t sleep. Juliana once found him there at 1 in the morning, as she gets horrid insomnia, and tends to explore her surroundings so she can escape the dread of watching the ceiling. While Kieran ostensibly hated her at this point, as this was prior to the championship match, he reluctantly let her roll out a picnic table and make him a sandwich. He scarcely ate any of it, but he appreciated her company, not that he’d be caught dead admitting as much. (He insisted on cleaning up and walking her back to the dorms. Ostensibly, he still hated her, but…)

Carmine and Kieran use their grandfather’s surname in most things, but legally, their surname is Achroma. 

Their mother is still in their life here and there – she meets up with the two of them, and is proud of them both for making it this far, but Carmine remembers how poorly her mother understood her, and tends to get oddly quiet around her nowadays, hoping she’ll approve slightly more now. Kieran gets on horribly with his mother, in that she clearly neither likes him nor understands him, and he feels downright betrayed by her.

Their father is mostly absent, but has, on a couple of occasions, randomly sent books and gadgets to BB Academy, with these books and gadgets all dedicated To Carmine/Kieran – keep working hard!. He knows they’re enrolled there, which means he’s gone out of the way to find that out. The siblings know, vaguely, that he’s out there. Carmine is outwardly resentful of his absence, but secretly wishes she could meet him. Kieran’s bitter, but curious about his father.

Carmine got the mobile phone in the family in part because Kieran tends to hog the home desktop back in Mossui. As of second year, Kieran’s grandparents have yielded and given him a phone, too, so that if he starts to break down again (God forbid), they can contact him directly, instead of having to go through Carmine/the school. He does have an Instagram, and he refuses to accept Carmine’s follow request. 

When Kieran went back to Blueberry after his breakdown, he noticed that the notorious Colress of Team Plasma had a bit of an internet paper trail. Late at night, Kieran would follow this paper trail, working out over the course of weeks that Colress may well be one Mr. Achroma. This prompted mixed feelings, for while Kieran was terrified of his potential to go mad in the pursuit of power again, he couldn’t help but think that his dad, deadbeat and thrice-convicted criminal that he was, was at least a little bit cool.

On a forum where Colress was still periodically active, Kieran managed to reach out and politely ask about his research on strength. He did this half out of genuine curiosity about how to get better as a trainer, half as a way of screaming into the void – are you out there, Dad, and can you hear me?

Unbelievably, Colress responded. Since he’d been able to tell that the message was sent by a kid or teen, but a smart kid or teen who’d clearly actually read his work and gone to the trouble of finding him, he felt impressed enough not to be worried. (To be fair, Colress is incredibly laissez-faire about most things except his research.) As a result, they now correspond periodically. So far, Kieran’s let slip that he’s at Blueberry Academy, and that he’s a second-year, as well as mentioning once that he’s from Kitakami. He does not know whether Colress has connected the dots, but every day, he hopes he will, somehow, and that if/when he does, he’ll show that he still cares (if he ever did at all. And how Kieran hopes Colress did, indeed, care).

Carmine knows about this correspondence. She’s scolded Kieran for it, but she also insists on staying updated on what’s going on. 

Someday, Kieran wants to battle in the PWT. When he gets to that point, he’ll register himself as Kieran Colress, and won’t tell a soul (except Juliana or Amarys) why he’d dare draw his stage name from a notorious amoral scientist.