#translated by sarah moses

[cow-boy-caviar]

TENDER IS THE FLESH by AGUSTINA BAZTERRICA, translated by SARAH MOSES

This book is horrifying. It is grotesque; it is awesome in the biblical sense; it is the closest I’ve come to committing to veganism; it is the most realistic modern Pygmalion. There’s lots to unpack here.

Due to a virus that made animal meat deadly to consume, cannibalism is now legal, as in, agri-business now deals in human meat rather than cattle (although it’s illegal to call it “human meat,” it’s special meat). Our protagonist (not our hero), Marcos, runs a meat processing plant. He’s old enough to remember life before the Transition to eating humans, he sees the horror in what the world has become, but he can’t break out of the inertia that carries him along in this new world. He hates it, he certainly does, but in the way that all middle managers nominally hate their jobs. He won’t be breaking the mold any time soon, even though he knows the mold could break him if he slips up.

Everyone, from butchers and game hunters who directly profit off of it, to the youngest of children, to the aged and dying, live in a world that is so viscerally cruel and terrifying that it’s hard to imagine how they can sleep at night. But then I remember every single year the U.S. has existed, and how those atrocities barely register in the average American’s daily life, even when the atrocities are ongoing, and it makes too much sense. I know that this fictional world could so easily become real, not because I think there are a bunch of people gunning for The Most Dangerous Game, but because billionaire processed food companies could lobby for the case of anything, as long as they come out on top. Special Meat isn’t as far off as I want it to be, and I think most Americans are more susceptible to a silent slide into a new horrifying norm than their sense of individuality would have them believe.

At the halfway point of this novel, we get yet another angle: Marcos impregnates the “female” he was given as a gift. If he’s found to have “enjoyed” this “female” (and god do all the in-universe euphemisms make everything worse), she and the child will both be killed and sold at a devalued price. Marcos will suffer the same fate as his punishment if he’s caught. Remarkably, he’s careful. Remarkably, he isn’t caught. Remarkably, in a twist on the sexually-mature-yet-infantile, built-for-your-whims, born-sexy-yesterday trope, Marcos’ care for the woman (whom he dubs “Jasmine”) is not out of love or any sort of connection to her. He does not want to save her, or start a revolution, or even run away with her to a life of isolated bliss. He just wants the baby she’s carrying — maybe then he’ll finally heal after losing his own infant son not long before the book begins.

In this adaptation of the Pygmalion myth, the creation of Galatea isn’t the woman, but the child she bears. Marcos discards Jasmine immediately after she gives birth and provides him with everything he has been dreaming of: a son, a reunion with his estranged wife Cecilia, a family that is whole. He’s deluded himself, and the reader, into thinking he’s not like other omnivores. If he tried at all, he could have empathy, and we’d be reading a very different horror novel. Instead, he’s a very realistic manager of an agricultural business, who just wants what he wants and damn the moralizing. He’s every person who thinks they would have acted a certain way during the Civil Rights movement but can’t call out a coworker for saying sus shit about trans people. From the outside, it’s so easy to identify everything wrong with how Marcos and his world operates. From the inside, what horrible realities do we need to question (and change) in our own worlds?

[mortola]

positively transfixed by the decision to translate 'Cadáver exquisito' as 'Tender is the Flesh' because no the meaning is completely changed and yet the tone, the resonance, the words on the tongue, the weirdly gothic and surreal yet reverential insinuation, they are all the same

[whilereadingandwalking]

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses, is a sharp, disturbing book about the biopolitics of the regulation of bodies, and about the way that we can use language and fear to justify all kinds of atrocities. The basics: a near-future where a disease has swept through the world's animals, and the only meat on hand is human, so society paints a world with language. They don't eat "people," they eat "head," livestock raised to be eaten, no first-and-last-names. But Marcos, like so many others, can't adjust to this new reality, despite holding an important role at a local processing plant.

I was fascinated by the dark world built by Bazterrica. Marcos is a great protagonist in that he's immensely frustrating, constantly judging others for their consumption in this new world while actively contributing to it. That makes him perfect for this novel, which is all about the banality of evil and the way that it can become entrenched. I was annoyed by a twist about halfway through this novel, but satisfied by its conclusion. What happens when bodies are devalued? This book excellently outlines the power of language and prejudice to define a new world, even in a single generation, of the ability of violence to corrupt even the most resistant souls. And the quiet implications and maybes of the plot are terrifying.

Content warnings for racism, graphic violence, body horror, sexual assault/rape, suicidal ideation/mentions, animal cruelty/death.

[thrashkink-coven]

Hi all,

Welcome to the last part of my 2024 altar tour! 4/4

What a year it has been! I have learned so much and made so many new friends! My altar has always been a reflection of my psyche, seeing it’s beauty reminds me of the beauty that exists within me. :)

So this is my final little work space where I do pendulum magick and tarot readings. There is a devotional mug to Lord Lucifer which I use for our morning coffee chats. There is also Lucifer’s devotional dragon statue, as well as the dual scrying mirror for him and Faviel.

There is a normal mirror and a statue of a pharaoh’s tomb. The board which the flowers and offerings are placed on dawns Faviel’s sigil and candle. To Faviel I have offered a palm stone, flowers, an acorn, smoky quartz, some black earrings, and some grubs.

Beside him is my pendulum in a selenite charging bowl along with my pendulum mat.

The black and white image you see was a piece of art I made for Archangel Jophiel after he gifted me a vision a year or so ago. I use it whenever I’m reaching out to him.

Beneath my altar is some space for storage where I keep my larger cauldron, mortar and pestle, larger candles, etc. There is also my stand where I keep my broom, fire poker, and shovel. My witch broom is wrapped in a protective seal. I use it to sweep ash from my prayer mat.

And finally, here are a few of the books I have in my collection that have greatly greatly aided me in my craft. Remember to do your research my dears!

The Arbatel of Magick- First English edition 1633, new edition 2013, edited by Earl Marwick

Healing with Form, Energy, and Light- Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Gods and Goddesses- Hallam, Elizabeth

The Lesser Key of Solomon- S.L MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley

The Dictionary of Alchemy- Diana Fernando

The Art of Angels- Howard Loxton

Backland’s Book of Spirit Communications- Raymond Buckland

Transcendental Magick- Éliphas Lévi

The Greater Key of Solomon- S.L MacGregor Mathers

A History of God- Karen Armstrong

A Dictionary of Angels, Including Fallen Angels- Gustav Davidson

Making Talismans- Nick Farrell

The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses- Johann Scheibel

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim- Scott Alan Roberts

Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft- Raymond Buckland

Candle Burning Rituals- Raymond Buckland

The Complete Book of Black Magick and Witchcraft

Green Witchcraft, Folk Magick, Fairy Lore & Herb Craft- Ann Moura

The Book of Forbidden Knowledge, Black Magick, Superstition, Charms and Divination- First Edition 1910s Johnson Smith & co. New Edition 2016 edited by Earl Marwick

Three Books of Occult Philosophy- Henry Cornelius Agrippa

and of course, The Holy Bible- New Living Translation.

I have many other books in my collection on tarot and astrology in my living room, but these are the books that have had the greatest impact on my craft. Here are a few of those other ones:

Love Potions- Tatania Hardie

The Book of Destinies- Jane Struthers

The Crystal Bible 2- Judy Hall

The Tarot Bible- Sarah Barlett

The Wicca Bible- Ann Marie Gallagher

Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs- Scott Cunningham

Magic and Medicine of Plants- Reader’s Digest

The Power of Birthdays Stars and Numbers- Saffi Crawford and Geraldine Sullivan

The Witches’ Goddess- Janet and Stewart Farrar

The Witches’ God- Janet and Stewart Farrar

•••

I wanted to end this tour off with my reading material because I want to emphasize how important it is to understand that “magick” is not just “stuff”.

I really enjoy all of my magical tools and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having and wanting pretty things or an aesthetically pleasing altar. In fact I believe aesthetic and care are acts of love in themselves. Don’t ever let someone shame you for wanting to decorate and indulge in the aesthetics of your craft.

But please do remember that our greatest magical tool is our minds, our senses, and our experiences- our brains. Remember to read read read lots of material from many different sources. Contemplate honestly on everything you read, hear and experience. Do not take everything you believe today as a fact, do not box yourself in to anything. (Maybe that’s the Luciferian in me speaking lol)

Learn how to do magick alone, without any tools. My magick is not my stuff, although my stuff greatly aids me in my magick. Does that make sense?

Thank you so much for reading! I look forward to growing and learning so much more this year! :)

Blessed be!

[crushcandles]

@likecastle tagged me to share 9 books I'm excited to read this year! Many of these are from this Polygon list, where they are speaking my language.

Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler, both out of a desire to read more Butler, but also based on @candybarrnerd going nuts over the sequel.

Kissing Carrion by Gemma Files. In 2024, I had a lot of fun with anthologies and short stories, and I'm looking forward to keeping that momentum up in 2025.

Corrupted Vessels by Briar Ripley Page. I must have picked this up off a different list – I don't know anything about it, but it sounds interesting!

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. Both @candybarrnerd and I lost our minds over The Only Good Indians and I am READY for the story of "a Lutheran priest transcribing the life of a vampire member of the Blackfeet tribe, hell-bent on revenge after the death of 217 tribe members."

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker. I read the blurb for this on the Polygon list and am ready to be fucked up by it.

The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica (translated by Sarah Moses). Tender is the Flesh by the same author made me want to chew my own hand off – it was so grim and compelling. I hope this is similarly harsh.

The Lamb by Lucy Rose. You put meat on the cover of something and you can count me in.

Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation by Susan J. Napier. From my understanding, this is a bit out of date, but I heard someone on a podcast read a selection from it about Spirited Away and thought it sounded up my academic alley.

Semi-open slot for some undecided as of yet Junji Ito work(s). I've only really looked at Junji Ito stuff, never really engaged with it, because frankly, it makes me feel unwell. But I'm a brave toaster now! I can take it!

As a bonus, here's a book I wouldn't say I'm excited to read this year, but I'm gonna anyway: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I'm part of a casual three-way book (adaptation) club, and this was the latest selection. Not that excited to read it, but excited to examine the adaptation with some pals.

I'm clearly currently deep in my horror bag, but would love to see what anyone and everyone is reading. Not sure who's doing a lot of bookreading in 2025, so random pulls: @littlestsnicket @kuwdora @candybarrnerd @zambonirider @major-trouble. No pressure except for @candybarrnerd!

[lilylizard]

books I've finished in 2024:

Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

Severance by Ling Ma

The Old Place by Bobby Finger

The Murder of Roger Akroyd by Agatha Christie

Tender Is The Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses

Swamp Story by Dave Barry

The Forgotten Girls by Sara Blaedel, translated by Signe Rød Golly

The Martian by Andy Weir

Later by Stephen King

Desperation by Stephen King

Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Misery by Stephen King

Desert Blues by Bill Albert

[gepgep2]

HB: Well, there are Yahwehs—just as I say there are seven versions at least of Jesus or Jesus Christ, or Jesus and Jesus Christ, in the Greek New Testament, there are innumerable versions of God in Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, but the one who interests me and always has and always will, is the original one, the first Straha, traditionally called J or the Yahwist, probably written as early as the reign of Solomon, 3,000 years ago, in which most certainly he is as I say a stern imp, up to a lot of mischief, something of a trickster God—human all too human: he's always walking around on the ground; he isn't flying up in the air—he's walking around on the ground in order to make personal, you know, sort of on the job inspections of how things are going. He closes the door of the ark—of Noah's ark with his own hands; he even more memorably buries Moses in an unmarked grave, with his own hands; he is very fond of picnics; thus at Mamre he sits beneath the terapim trees because he always likes to be in the shade rather than the sun, thus he walks we are told in Eden in the cool of the day, at Mamre, with two of the Elohim who are his angels he sits beneath the terapim trees, and he has a sumptuous rather full-scale luncheon prepared by Sarah—roast veal and whey and freshly baked sort-of cakes. And how is one to put it—he on Sinai, on the side of Sinai, he sits there and shares a meal with 73 elders of Israel. They stare at him and he stares at them and that's it. He doesn't say a word and they don't say a word, but there he is. And according to Kabbalistic tradition, from the Merkavah thing on, he's enormous, he is I say the King Kong of deities, he is of enormous size.

LQ: What leads you to think of this God as more than an exceptional fiction?

HB: Well, his metaphysical density, his ferocious and vivid personality, his intensely human traits—I gather you're not going to eat that so I'm going to put it back in there—

LQ: One more bite.

HB: Go ahead, go ahead. He is . . . he is a . . . the reason why I keep invoking Shakespearean characters like King Lear, who is I think Shakespeare's version of Yahweh, or Hamlet, who has a very complex relation I think to Mark's Jesus, is that Yahweh, Mark's Jesus, Hamlet, King Lear, Falstaff, Cleopatra, Iago—they are all more real than you are, whoever you are, and yes, they are fictions, but if they're fictions, what are we? Since they are livelier than we are, exceed us in energy and in dynamism, as Yahweh does also. [...] he's quite a fiction, he's very persuasive and as I keep saying in the book I wish he would go away. I don't like him. I don't feel anybody can like him. His famous definition when Moses asks him his name—his famous self-definition is ehyeh asher ehyeh, translated by William Tyndale as "I am that I am" and that's kept in the Authorized Version of the English Bible. The Hebrew "ehyeh asher ehyeh" actually means "I will be, I will be;" "I will be that I will be," or to make it into better English "I will be present wherever and whenever I choose to be present," but I say throughout the book that also means "And I will be absent wherever and whenever I choose to be absent." And he is very distinguished by his absences, it seems to me. But if he is just a literary character—well first of all I don't recognize any distinction between literary and human characters; I mean I'm notorious for that, and why not be notorious for that—it seems to me that the sacred Bloomstaff, as I call him, is at least as real as old Bloom—Sir John Falstaff, of course. But not even kidding, I mean what can you say about the Yahweh of the J writer? He is endlessly memorable, he is endlessly unreliable. [Pause.] But he gets inside you. I repeat I would like him to go away, but he doesn't seem to go away.

LQ: Why doesn't he go away?

HB: Well, because I'm pretty sure he is our equivalent—I mean, our equivalent for him now is what our Uncle Siggy Freud called "reality testing" and the Reality Principle. Freud says that reality testing means that you have to "make friends with the necessity of dying."

LQ: So he's the name of everything that opposes our will.

HB: Yeah, he is . . . [...] But since I don't think there's any distinction whatsoever between sacred and secular texts, there's only great writing and bad writing (or good writing in between I suppose or fair writing) then it's natural to speak of—in fact, remember what Blake says; he says religion is just choosing forms of worship from poetic tales, and then he adds—this is The Marriage of Heaven and Hell — "Thus men forgot that all Deities reside in the human breast." But that doesn't mean that they don't reside there.

[tricornonthecob]

I snuggled a pony so hard today

LK 111: Postmaster of Ceremonies Benji Franx

(pt1)(pt2)(pt3)(pt4)(pt5)

oooh its one of the S/J flavored episodes today

background art appreciation moment

That is... alot of letters. Holy shit. Surely she missed one or two days. I wonder how much mundane stuff was in between all the "By the way I'm committing treason and am on battlefields and also going a bajillion places unchaperoned with a B O Y my age."

I wonder where the budget went for this episode.

Translation: for the love of christ please stop going to battlefields

There it is I've been looking for this shot so I could do a redraw, also THERE IT IS proof they turned her into a blonde. Either that or she's supposed to be powdered up in this but they usually do white or gray when they're showing powder.

also awww Sarah has the same rebellious hair swoosh.

Anyway I am HERE and RAVENOUS for Phillips content.

This scene keeps happening, y'all sure you wanna keep sending Henri out to pick up the mail.

The gays were having a moment, Henri

James Hiller would 100% have a tiktok where he did shit like flip water bottles upright in increasingly implausible and precarious scenarios.

What is it about being a homo sapiens that when we get bored we try to toss things into other things. 11/10 pastime for the ages.

Moses is the momdad who tells you to go clean your room when you mistakenly complain aloud that you're bored.

Henri that's a felony.

...ok fine, an almost-felony.

hehehaha GAYAE?

Ok but next time I have to read a fucking Captcha I'm getting James to do it.

I mean by now its pretty obvious by their complete lack of surprise such a missive would be addressed to them that the Gazette is a front for a spy agency.

Do you trust your sauce, James?

James, this is why you're not the best field agent.

He's been trying to reach her about her horse's extended warranty.

Henri's the best agent in this outfit. Some respect is due, James!

"Fuck off, James."

Wow someone finally went to check in on Fort Pitt.

James Hiller is the person who clicks the fucking link in the sus email and takes down the whole office.

Take it from the dual-classed Artist/IT Professional. Learn to see the signs of a suspicious email and Don't Fucking Download That Attachment/Clink That Link!

[accidentalspaceexplorer]

September Monthly Recap:

Life is complicated right now - I have a big deadline coming up and I'm extremely stressed about it! That also meant I wasn't reading much because I was too busy working. So I was resigned to September being a sad month for reading but then I went on a work trip, and over the course of the four days I read 6.5 books! And when I got home I ended up reading another 8 because I started a series that turned out to be incredibly compelling and addictive. So ultimately not a bad September lol. My favorite books were all the Kate Daniels books I read - are they perfect? no. did they absolutely hit the spot? why yes, yes they did.

Witch King by Martha Wells: 4.5/5

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros: 4.75/5

The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei: 4.25/5

The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi: 3.5/5

Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson: 3/5

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett: 4.5/5

Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews: 4.5/5

Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews: 4.5/5

An Illusion of Thieves by Cate Glass: 4/5

A Witch's Guide to Fake Dating a Demon by Sarah Hawley: 4.75/5

Ink by Elizabeth Hunter: 4.5/5

Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews: 4.75/5

Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews: 5/5

Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews: 5/5

Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews: 5/5

Magic Breaks by Ilona Andrews: 5/5

Magic Shifts by Ilona Andrews: 5/5

Magic Binds by Ilona Andrews: 5/5

Magic Triumphs by Ilona Andrews: 5/5

Goals beneath the cut (I totally wrecked my completed vs. started series whoops):

23 in 2023: 15 [+0]

Read 100 books: 156/100 [+19]

Translated works: 4 [+0]

Physical TBR: 14 [+4]

Top of TBR: 7 [+2]

Books in Spanish: 0

Read 40% AOC: 22.8% [-1.1%]

Discworld Books: 3 [+0]

Series: 29 started vs. 29 caught up/finished [+7/+4]

Storygraph recs: 2 | avg. 3.25/5 [+0]

Indigenous authors: 2 [+1]

[npdclaraoswald]

book recs game: 14, 32, 106, 132, or 134?

14. a book that made you trip on literary acid

I'm gonna be honest, I don't know what this means

32. your favourite nonfiction

I'm so bad at picking favorites, but I'm gonna go with Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation by Eli Clare- it's an essay collection about fighting for disability justice, queer rights, environmentalism, classism, land back movements, and how they all intersect.

106. a book that made you squeamish

Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica translated by Sarah Moses my beloved!!! It's so good but do NOT read if you're squeamish! It's set in a world where a virus spread through all livestock making eating animal meat impossible, and rather than transitioning into societal vegetarianism, they started cornering off sections of the human population to raise as livestock. It's an extreme version of the dehumanization present under late stage capitalism and how we're all turned into products. Fantastic read, but absolutely look up trigger warnings before picking it up

132. who is your favorite person to go to for book recs?

I don't really have any irl people who read a lot, but my favorite bookish influencer is Perpetual Pages on YouTube

134. unreccomend any book you like

First time I'm picking a comic book for one of these answers, but fuck Daredevil: Guardian Devil by Kevin Smith! I loved Kevin Smith's Green Arrow, so I was so excited for this one! Then it's all just out of character, ableist horseshit! And a huge example of fridging on top, but I at least knew about that bit going in

[knowledge-lost]

Book 1 of #WITMonth: Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazterrica (translated by Sarah Moses) It seems I love horror short story collections from Argentina, so I was disappointed that this wasn’t better. The first few stories and the last was great but the rest left me wanting so much more.

[flaviathebibliophile]

Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories by Agustina Bazterrica (ARC Review)

Title: Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird Author: Agustina Bazterrica Translator: Sarah Moses Type: Fiction Genre: Adult, Horror, Short Stories Publisher: Scribner Published: June 20, 2023 A complimentary physical copy of this book was kindly provided by Simon & Schuster Canada in exchange for an honest review. From celebrated author Agustina Bazterrica, this collection of nineteen brutal, darkly…

[macbetha]

1, 4, 7, 10, 17 and 25!

Hello! Thank you for asking and I’m sorry the spacing is so jacked up in my answers. Appreciate you! 🌸

One: What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

I care so much about the font I write in. I don’t prefer straight fonts like arial; I want a little curve to them. I actually love writing in the font used for the Twilight Saga! It’s called Zephyr. A bit whimsical and very pretty.

Four: What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

Halcyon. Lavender. Carousel. Summoned.

Seven: What is your deepest joy about writing?

Hm. I love most everything about it, even when I’m stumped it’s still a fun sort of challenge. Just off the top of my head, one of the best feelings is when my readers catch a clue I’ve slipped in. Even better when they theorize. I love love love it. Even though I do try to be specific about what I’m trying to get at, I love interpretation and learning about a reader specifically by what they think some certain symbolism could mean!

Ten: Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

Yesss. Trigger Warning for this answer: Cannibalism / body horror.

I read Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica a while back and hooooly. Here’s an online summary:

Tender is the Flesh is a dystopian novel by Argentine author Agustina Bazterrica. The novel was originally published in Spanish in 2017 and translated by Sarah Moses into English in 2020. Tender is the Flesh portrays a society in which a virus has contaminated all animal meat.

So it’s basically hive-mind cannibalism. That’s the only meat in the world not contaminated. Certain people are born specifically for the purpose of being eaten and they use meat processing plants once intended for cattle. The main character works around these plants.

The whole novel is very jarring but there’s one scene where you see one of these humans for eating in detail. I skimmed it since it was so awful but in short, an adult woman was being used specifically for “breeding” (horrible) and her arms and legs were cut off since the plant had no “reason” for her to have them. The scene really showed how detached society was about the whole thing.

I heard the story is being adapted for television and I might watch it but I haven’t picked up the book again after finishing it. The writing was great and the book was very impactful, and I hope it really is being adapted because the author proceeded with the idea fantastically, but whoo that book spooked me good.

As for my own writing haunting me, I’ve only read the first chapter of EWOATT a few times since I published it. Not even three full times, I don’t think.

Seventeen: Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

It’s Haikyuu. Fantasy but Medieval Fantasy? Not modern and not in our world. Very inspired by Avatar: the Last Airbender and the political games of Game of Thrones.

It’s also ABO / omegaverse. It’s a huge project so I’m not sure what won’t make it into the story, but there’s different courting methods depending on each nation in the story. So with the nature-focused nation, an alpha would hunt and present an omega with furs to show commitment / interest. Blankets, vests, that sort of thing. The language of flowers is also common knowledge and everyone gives flowers for certain reasons.

In the ocean-focused nation, you would hunt specific marine creatures to show interest. If the creature had bones, you’d bring them to an artisan and they’d make things like figurines, combs, more delicate and fanciful presents.

I’ve had a ball with coming up with stuff like that! I love the different interpretations of omegaverse and exploring how it might work in a specific environment.

Twenty-five: What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?

I’ll go with canon inspirations first. For Free!, Haruka canonically looks away from a person when he’s flustered in conversation. Sousuke closes his eyes a lot in general and looks down frequently. Kisumi is generally laid-back but there’s a few times in season three when he appears quite alert and serious in conversations. He’s a good friend!! Nao smiles like he knows how the world will end, we all know this.

In EWOATT, I didn’t mention enough that Haruka’s knees hurt all the time. Nao is just as romantic as Natsuya even if he teases him about it. Remember Nao knows pretty much every sonnet mentioned by Natsuya! 💖

And I can never mention enough that Natsuya absolutely swept Nao off his feet from the start. Nao loooves him. Down bad, friends 💗

Also in EWOATT, Haruka and Nii are cousins via their mothers but they don’t know it.

If I wrote Coral and Bone now, I’d have the sirens sing more and would come up with my own lyrics.

In Haikyuu, someone mentioned on Twitter (I can’t find the tweet, forgive me) Kuroo often cradles his head in hand in conversations and they said this could hint at a lot about his character. I absolutely agree and this has really made me consider his character differently when writing him for the new story! The Haikyuu Twitter community is great about character studies and using canon examples for them.

Thank you for asking~! 🍄🍓

[blogtaculous]

My 20 book covers in 20 days, summarized:

Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem

Last of the Amazons by Steven Pressfield

King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (translated by Sarah Moses)

Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

Armageddon by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

Lost Letters of Medieval Life edited and translated by Martha Carlin and David Crouch

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr

Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity by Robert P. Jones

The Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers by Richard Moe

Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

Hero of the Underground: A Memoir by Jason Peter

[poetaijones]

Tender Is the Flesh is a dystopian Splatterpunk novel by Argentinean author Agustina Bazterrica. The novel was originally published in Spanish in 2017 and translated by Sarah Moses into English in 2020. Tender Is the Flesh portrays a society in which a virus has contaminated all animal meat. 

[eldr1tchcrypt]

19 Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazterrica

I love the lighting lol. I started this on the 16th of August and finished it on the same day, and I gave it 5 stars. ( translated by Sarah Moses ) It’s a whole bunch of short stories about different things and themes, like some really gross ones, strange and weird ones, ones that made me quite sad, ones that actually kinda scared me and ones with a take on real life . A few of my favourite are, Candy Pink, Anita and Happiness, Earth, Teicher vs. Nietzsche, The Continuous Equality of the Circumference and Architecture. There’s a lot i know but there all so good!! These are just the ones I really like, I was gonna say another but I figured that’d be too much lol. Fun fact, when I was at Waterstones and carrying this around, one of the employees came out of the staff only room, saw it in my hand and just quickly tapped it and said “That one’s great” and then walked away. That all happened in like two and a half seconds. Anyway, I’m done yapping, it’s good. Read it.