#also i read that book recently it was pretty neat

[itsmoonpeaches]

On Medusa from the PJO TV Show: A Survivor and complicated antagonist

I'm not the only one obsessed with the version of Medusa and I know it.

She's beautiful, she's eerily calm, she says, "I am a survivor," and you feel that. She is the symbol for women out there who don't want to be bullied anymore, and more recently Medusa's head has become a symbol of women fighting back with the #MeToo movement.

But I'm not writing this to talk about Medusa as the Gorgon from the Greek mythos. I'm here to talk about how she was written in the PJO TV Show. So let's get into it, shall we?

Note that some ideas from this meta are expanded on from this Variety article where the writers of the show and Rick and Rebecca Riordan, speak about the changes they made from the book to show adaptation.

A victim of an abuse of power

In the Variety article, Rick says, “There are many versions from ancient times of what happened in that temple with Medusa and Poseidon and Athena. Who’s to blame? Who’s the abuser? What’s the real story? It’s fiction, but it certainly is important to acknowledge that there is abuse involved here. Abuse of power.”

Like in all Greek myths, there is never exactly one "correct" version of a story. In many, Medusa and Poseidon basically have a one-night stand. In some, they have a mutual affair. In others, it's Poseidon who seduces Medusa into Athena's temple, and in others still, Medusa is a victim of assault.

What most versions of the myths do have in common is the fact that Medusa and Poseidon had some sort of relationship that produced at least two children (Pegasus and Chrysaor). Most versions (both Greek and Roman) also depict her as a tragic figure and a beautiful maiden.

Athena is involved in earlier myths as the goddess who put her head onto the shield that averts the gaze of enemies. In later myths, she is the one who curses Medusa to transform into what we know of her today after Athena discovers her relationship with Poseidon on her sacred ground. Poseidon, of course, gets let off scot-free.

Depending on how you read into the myths, there could be a variety of different things happening here. So, I like what the show did. They made it vague enough that this is still middle-grade level like the books, but they also expanded on what the books couldn't because they are originally written from 12-year-old Percy's POV.

They basically keep nearly all aspects of the story and original myth possible. But in the end, Medusa is indeed a victim of abuse.

Her real curse is not that she is hideous and turns people who look into her eyes into stone, but that she is made invisible by the curse and she is not heard. Not one person can look her in the eye and live to tell the tale. She can't show her beauty, so she chooses to live with what she has. Even with a slanted hat covering half her face and eyes, you can tell she's statuesque (see what I did there?) and a beauty.

She chooses elegant clothes, pretty jewelry, a neat hairstyle, a hat that accents what you can see of her features, and red lipstick that makes you think she could be desirable.

But it doesn't change the fact that Poseidon had his way with her, told her he loved her, and then she was the only one left with the punishment for what happened between them. Athena cursed her out of anger.

Medusa revered Athena who is a virgin goddess, and of course, Athena would be upset when one of her devout followers is suddenly not a virgin too. Yet, Medusa mentioned earlier in her narrative in episode 3 that Athena never answered her prayers at all and never gave an indication that she was listening. So out of all the times she pays attention, it's to curse her for something she doesn't like?

Athena paid attention to Medusa when it was convenient to her and Poseidon left her when Medusa was no longer useful to him after she was cursed.

This version of Medusa is left to the wolves to defend herself and live with herself, a victim of abuse of power from multiple ends and from gods she thought she could trust.

Medusa and Sally Jackson

What I found the most interesting in episode 3 was the fact that Medusa sprinkles the seeds of doubt into Percy's mind that maybe the loving relationship he thought his mother had with Poseidon was not what actually happened.

In the Variety article, Rebecca Riordan says, that Percy has to think ‘What has my father done? Has he changed? How do I see myself in relationship to that?' while Rick says that “Percy can only judge his father by the wreckage he has left behind."

The fact of the matter is, Percy is 12. The book series is for a middle-grade audience, and the show is too. So people out there thinking "This could've been darker!" need to calm down and take a back seat. The books always did a good job of introducing deeper, darker topics to children. The show should stick to the same strategy to keep what made the original story so good.

But, what the show does here is make you think. If Poseidon could abandon Medusa like that, use her like that, then maybe Sally Jackson was abandoned and used too.

Her show story does a good job of connecting two women who had a relationship with the same god, connecting women who thought they could trust someone but were left to fend for themselves.

Look at where Sally Jackson is now at this point in the story. Not only was she forced to marry Gabe Ugliano to use his stench to protect her son who attracts monsters, but he is an abusive man both to her and to her son at least verbally. In the books, it's not suggested until the very end of The Lightning Thief that Gabe has been hitting her outside of Percy's POV. I've seen people forget that and immediately write off that Gabe wasn't "abusive enough". C'mon people. Just because Sally fights back verbally doesn't mean he wasn't still abusive in his actions in the first two episodes. Even if they decide not to suggest that he was also physically abusive to Sally, doesn't make him sneakily using her phone, demanding to ask why she has to use his car, and demanding for her to make food for him any less abusive.

Sally chose that life because the most important person in the world to her is her son, and even though Gabe is a total jerk, she convinced herself that she could take what he gave her because what he did to her was better than having her son being hunted and maimed by a bunch of Greek monsters because of who he is. To top it all off, now Hades stole her away into the Underworld.

Medusa, in a similar way, was left to fend for herself. She chose what was best for her, and lived in her new form because she could not change what had happened. She wants to save Sally too because she sees Percy as a boy whose mom was abused the same way she was.

Medusa's brilliant role as an antagonist

Now we're here, the main reason I wanted to write this giant thing. I saw a weird take on Twitter saying that Medusa in the show should not have been beheaded like she was in the books because then that negates her whole story and what she stood for.

Well, in my opinion, that is a shallow take on what the show's Medusa is trying to portray.

Medusa is an antagonist. In the myths, she is an antagonist. In the books, she is an antagonist. In the show, she is an antagonist. She gets in the way of Percy's path for his quest, she suggests that he doesn't need Annabeth and Grover, and that only she can save his mom with him.

In both the books and the show, there are hundreds of statues of people she had turned. Sure, some of them could've been attacking her, but there were a lot of people there who were victims too. I'm sure that screaming lady didn't mean to do something to Medusa, and Grover's Uncle Ferdinand? He was the only statue who appeared calm and collected and there was nothing to suggest that he was out to get her. He was only on his journey to find Pan.

Medusa has killed people, and innocent people at that. For thousands of years. And not just people she had to, and not a small amount. Then, she suggests that Percy let her kill his two friends who are children.

To her, Annabeth and Grover are dead weight because of their loyalty to the gods. Annabeth wants to be noticed by her mother. Grover wants to make sure the world doesn't end. I mean, they all don't want the world to end but I digress.

Medusa hates the gods. She wants to save a woman who is like her. She will protect that woman's child. But she will do anything and destroy anyone to get that end result.

A victim is still a victim even if they are a villain or an antagonist. Her methods don't make her any less of a victim of abuse. But that doesn't mean they are right.

So yes, when Percy runs away from her to keep his friends alive and she takes off her hat to stalk them around the room to turn them into stone, she does indeed need to be beheaded. There is literally no other way to defeat her. They can't look at her or they die. So they have to make her stop moving.

Unfortunately, a person like her with deep and complicated motivations would never change their mind when they feel they are betrayed. So, Percy did what he could to protect himself and his friends from dying.

Still, it's a poetic death as it is in the books. He mails her head to the gods and mentions Athena specifically for her punishment of Medusa. He's impertinent.

Medusa didn't deserve to be punished. But it's been millennia and she made her choices. The abusers did not get the punishment they deserved, but maybe now they will. Medusa's head in her (temporary) death, will be a testament to her victory, but also a testament to her downfall.

#pjo meta #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo tv show #pjo tv show spoilers #medusa #percy #annabeth chase #grover underwood #sally jackson #poseidon #meta

[butterflydm]

pulling out bits from recent cast interviews re: s3

Several sets of interviews came out today! wotseries.com has six (!); looper.com, decider.com, & collider.com all have one each.

(speculation and spoilers for s3 and for the books through TFoH)

In Ceara's wotseries interview, we get this little hint:

WotSeries: How far along in the books are you? Ceara: I wouldn’t want to say because I read up to where we are in the scripts, and I think that would give away too much.

This implies to me that s3 is going to go a bit beyond The Shadow Rising, at least in places, because it's no secret that TSR is going to be the spine of the season.

We get more from Daniel:

WotSeries: How about any movement towards developing the relationship between Lan and Nynaeve in season three? Daniel: Season three, yes, it’s more of a build season for those two. There are some really great scenes, some stuff we’re really happy with. We do get to see some intimate stuff, not sexual stuff necessarily. So, some moments with them. But with Lan and Nynaeve, it’s this working toward what the book readers know it’s going to be. It all depends on how much time we get, how many seasons we get to do this thing. That’s a relationship that I’m really excited about and I love working with Zoë.

So, again, yeah, that really does make me feel like we're going to get one or two episodes at the start of the season where the whole crew is together and bonding. In the books, Lan and Nynaeve basically don't see each other at all between splitting up at the beginning of TSR and then eight million years later in ACoS. I do think that we might also get a reunion of at least some of the characters at the end of s3, though.

In Donal's interview:

Dónal: Well, I have big faith in Mat. I’m pretty confident in him. Regarding chatting to women.

This makes me wonder if we're getting Melindhra introduced next season. Because, uh, Mat has not really had a lot of success so far. I mean, apart from the very first episode.

Dónal: Well, there’s loads that you can look forward to in season 3. I mean, we’ve got much of it. I feel like I’ve filmed a good stretch of it, and I’ve really enjoyed the material and the new arc. This arc that I go on this season. And I think you can just expect things to be… there’s more moments with the characters to kind of learn about them in more quiet, subtle ways, more revealing ways. And I think it’s probably common knowledge that Mat does change his clothes between 2 and 3. You know, like really, we would have to ask questions and get concerned if he didn’t. I feel like I could tell you that. And I’m excited, man. I’m very happy to be wearing what I’m wearing.

Not that this should be shocking to anyone, lol, but Mat will have an arc next season! Dónal does a good job of not saying anything here though, lol. We WOULD have to be concerned if he hadn't changed clothes, yes, lol. I am excited to hear that Mat is getting some good character moments next season.

Ceara also shared this with us in the collider interview:

My script is always annotated with little quotes from the books, which I really love.

That's amazing! I think this is the first time anyone has mentioned it? That's a really neat way of giving the actors context for their lines.

We all knew that Elayne & Nynaeve would get a big story together in s3 but we get that confirmed:

We see Elayne bump into certain characters this season, but obviously, this cast is huge and growing all the time. I'm sure you cannot go into too many spoilers about Season 3, but for Ceara the actor, which characters are you really excited for Elayne to get to have more screen time with? COVENEY: I'm really excited to continue the journey that Zoë and I have started with Nynaeve and Elayne. I'm really excited to see where that goes because they've had such a rough start and were thrown into such extreme situations. So yeah, if the fans lovingly call it the Detective Agency, I'm excited to see if the business is thriving.

Natasha had two interviews that I've seen, one with decider and one with looper.

There's nothing for s3 in the decider interview that I could see, but from looper we get:

But it's not just about the evil deeds; it's also about the politics. When you come into Season 3 — without giving anything away — it opens up the mind to this more vulnerable side of Lanfear and where she's coming from. The relationship with Rand — there are scenes in Series 2 [where] you get little glimpses and nuggets of that, that there is a vulnerability there, or more reasons rather than just being dark and evil. Circling back to a previous comment, you said Lanfear knows what she wants. As Natasha, what do you think Lanfear wants? The goal in the whole realm of the world is, if I put it like … Beyoncé and Jay-Z. She wants to be the king and queen. What she wants is the Dragon and her to be together, have their kingdom, make some good choices. That's her main goal, and to shoo away anybody else that gets in the way of that.

So it sounds like we might be getting Lanfear's Big Offer (we could challenge the Creator) to Rand in s3, which would make sense.

#wot s3 speculation #wot speculation #wot #wheel of time #wot on prime #wot s2 spoilers #wot 2x8 spoilers #wot book spoilers #the fires of heaven

[that-ghost-pal]

My TAU Bookbinding Frenzy

So I’ve gotten really really into bookbinding recently (well, sort of, I’ll explain in a second), and I keep forgetting to share what I’ve been doing, So allow me to rectify that.

BEHOLD!! The Six (6) TAU fics I have bound and printed!

(This ended up being really long so, more details under the cut)

This printing journey actually started months ago, some time last year when I printed these three, No Rest for the Automotive by Feneris, So you Want to be a Demonologist by Dementor_ssc, and the first six oneshots (collated into one) from the Bentley Farkas and Friends series by @skia-oura.

For these three I used the Hardcover Case Bound Book tutorial by Sea Lemon alongside other related tutorials by her. Her videos were very useful throughout all of this so I highly recommend checking out her channel if you’re interested in doing all this yourself. I also initially used a tutorial on tumblr to get the formatting looking nice, but that has since been lost to the aether, so for most of them I just mucked around on Word until I thought they looked nice and professional. I did also use Jess Less’ tutorial on binding fanfiction specifically to help with figuring out how to print these books.

For my very first attempt at binding I wanted to start with something small, that would let me get a feel for the techniques without risking wasting a whole bunch of materials by making some kind of mistake so I chose No Rest for the Automotive by Feneris as it’s one of my favourite shorter fics.

For the cover I used some coloured card that I stitched to the binding, which I’m sure I would have used a tutorial for, but this was done a while ago and I’m not sure which it would have been. This ended up with 28 pages, including an appendix with the author notes at the end, which I did for all of these.

The second book I printed was So You Want to be a Demonologist by Dementor_ssc, because of course it was. It was one of the first fics I read for this AU and I feel fairly confident in saying it’s the most popular in the fandom (and rightfully so, it’s incredible). @gnomewithalaptop also printed it, which was very cool to see, (and she had a significantly cooler cover than my copy but ah well).

Following Sea Lemon’s tutorial I got as far as glueing the spine together getting a complete text block (I think that’s the right term, idk I can’t be bothered checking haha) and making a haphazard attempt at making the hard cover, but that involved a lot of glue, and waiting for glue to dry, which sadly absolutely ruined my motivation to properly finish this project. But even still I now have a physical copy of one of my favourite fics, and it might not have a pretty cover but I still think it’s neat. This ended up having 191 pages :)

I ran out of image space so check out the reblogs for the rest of it!

#Transcendence au #TAU #Book binding #fanbinding #fic binding #no rest for the automotive #so you want to be a demonologist #bentley barkas and friends #reincarnation blues

[calliemity]

hey! did you know there were a few songs that were written as possible additions to the movie version of little shop of horrors? lets talk about them!!

first and foremost, im getting all this information from a wonderful book called "Attack of the Monster Musical: A Cultural History of Little Shop of Horrors" written by Adam Abraham. its the best book ever written ever, if youre interested in the details of lsoh's creation, from the early inspirations to the most recent revival, this is the book you wanna read! again, my source is this book, please check it out of you can!!

okay, so heres the list of songs written specifically for the movie, some of them you might know already! also im not counting the cut songs from the stage musical, maybe ill talk about those another time. ill include song/lyric links if applicable!

Thundercrash: this song was a prototype to Some Fun now, and was meant to replace "Ya Never Know" and "Closed for Renovation". the name comes from a lyric in the original version of both songs, Ya Never Know ("and with a thunder-crash"). i cant find anything else on this song aside from the book, which gives us only 1 verse: "Seymour, the shnook / His life was the worst / Oh what a bore dirt poor is / Now take a look / His luck has reversed"

Some Fun Now: this one is used in the movie! youre definitely familiar with it lmao

Bad: first version of a final villain song for audrey II. this one's probably the most well-known, since it was featured on the 2003 broadway cast album as part of the cut songs. it's the only one included that wasnt cut from the orignal show!

Bad Like Me: the second version of a final villain song for audrey II. much less well known than Bad, this one includes musical motifs that ended up transferring over to the final version of the song! its also just a very neat song imo, probably my favorite out of these

Mean Green Mother From Outerspace: the final version of audrey II's villain song, which was obviously used! there's nothing to explain here, everyone knows this song lol

Your Day Begins Tonight: a song written for the final credits of the movie. sung by the urchins, its unclear if this song came before or after the other end credit song. not much is known aside from lyrics, apparently!

Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon: another song considered for the final credits. this one actually got a howard ashman demo, and its also been covered by debbie gravitte and was performed by the cast of the recent off broadway revival! its gotten a good amount of attention!

this is all i have im pretty sure! hopefully you thought this was cool :] if i missed anything let me know!!!!!

#lsoh #little shop of horrors #audrey ii #little shop of horrors 1986

[kitausuret]

would you be willing to recommend me some venom comic runs? i'm a comics guy generally but i've never read venom. recently watched the movie and it was baller.

Hey there friend! So, Venom is coming up on 35 years as of 2023 (wow!) so you have a lot of options. There's pretty much something for everyone out there, but given that you liked the movie, I can probably point you in the right direction...

If you can get your hands on trades (or even just use them as a guide for your favorite Digital Comics Avenue) that's gonna be your best bet. The Epic Collections (link to Wikipedia) are really comprehensive. The chart even has them in order! Handy!

If you don't want to be flipping between fifty different Spider-Man series, though, you can definitely start with some of the Venom-titled books! I've tried to pick ones that don't require a whole lot of backreading.

So, easy starting point is going to be Venom: Lethal Protector (1993) #1-6. I strongly recommend reading Amazing Spider-Man #373-375 first if you can, since #375 is the first appearance of Anne Weying. LP is to this day one of my favorite series, and it has some of the best Venom and Spider-Man moments. All are written by David Michelinie, and pencils are by Mark Bagley or Ron Lim.

If you like Anne Weying, Venom: Sinner Takes All and Venom: Along Came a Spider are the two miniseries that feature her the most. Both are written by Larry Hama. The latter has art that is... kinda rough in my opinion, but if you can look past it, they're both neat. The other thing to keep in mind is that with ACAS is that it does take place in the middle of Spider-Man Clone Saga (well.. after Ben Reilly has taken up the mantle) so it's not as new reader friendly but it IS fun. I like when Anne whacks Ben.

Are these comics good? Eh... "Sinner" is probably the stronger story of the two, but when you like Anne, you can't be too picky about what you get, unfortunately!

I also absolutely have to recommend the Planet of the Symbiotes event, which immediately follows Venom: Separation Anxiety (one of my personal favorite series). I recommend "Separation" First and then just checking out a collection of the PotS event, like this one here (link to readcomicsonline). Otherwise you have to sort out which Super Specials to read and it's annoying and dumb. The nice thing about PotS is that it's an excellent story by Michelinie with.. hmm.. let's say inconsistent art, but it's very fun and even if you're a little lost by the Clone Saga stuff, don't worry about it!! You'll be fine.

And finally, if you're looking for something a little more wacky, you can't go wrong with Venom: The Madness (W: Ann Nocenti, A: K. Jones) and Venom: Carnage Unleashed (W: Hama, A: Wildman, Nichols)! They are both very 90s off-the-wall insane and just like. Absolutely bonkers-nuts. The Madness also has the distinction of introducing Eddie (and Venom's!) first love interest since Anne. Mwah! 😘

If you'd like more modern recommendations, or if you're willing to check out other hosts, I'd be happy to provide those as well! But this should be a good starting point for some fun books. Happy reading, and if any other Venomaniacs have recommendations, feel free to add on!

#venom #reading guides #comic reading guides #eddie brock #carnage #spiderman #kita talks comics #asked and answered #also sorry not recommending anything past the 90s because i've been feeling particularly grumpy about modern venom as of late lmao

[flyingbooks42]

I have Things to say about the relationship and contrasts and similarities between Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio and Collodi's original version. I've seen a comparison to the 1940 film, but not to Collodi's book, even though it very clearly draws on and responds to the original Collodi version much more than to the Disney version. It's too late to write an entire essay, but here are my unpolished thoughts:

-Collodi wrote Pinocchio when Italy was recently unified and how it was meant to teach children to be good and obedient, while Del Toro's Pinocchio is set during WWII in Fascist Italy when nationalism and obedience are in overdrive and how this is used to demonstrate how obedience is not necessarily a good thing, and in fact is often harmful.

-Related: Pinocchio and Candlewick having to go to a fascist training camp instead of trying to go to Toyland - Del Toro's version arguing that the threat to children is fascism and fascist ideas and blind obedience, not playfulness and disobedience.

-In the Collodi version, Pinocchio becomes a real boy because of becoming obedient and following the rules, while in the Del Toro version he becomes a "real boy" not by changing to be more like others either in form or in behavior but rather by breaking the rules in order to save his father.

-Adding on to that, in the Collodi version, Pinocchio becomes a "boy like all the others" by changing to follow the expectations set on him, while in the Del Toro version, he learns that he doesn't need to be like somebody else - he can be loved for who he is

-Overall, Collodi version: follow the rules, be the person who you are expected to be. Del Toro version: break the rules when it is right to do so, be who you are and you shouldn't change to fit others' expectations of who you're supposed to be.

-There are also a bunch of easter eggs, like the coffin-bearers being rabbits

I could say more but it's late and anyways it's been a few years since I read Collodi's Pinocchio, so I'd probably need to reread it in order to do an actual essay on this, but anyways I found the ways in which Guillermo Del Toro's version basically directly responds to the Collodi version pretty neat and interesting. Maybe I'll write more on this sometime.

#pinocchio #pinocchio 2022 #gdt pinocchio #del toro pinocchio #guillermo del toro's pinocchio

[miku-meeku]

Ooop you had a Voltage phase~~ Now you gotta spill the games you played👀👀

i thought these ones were kinda neat compared to the other games

also is it really playing if i dont even have money to buy the stories so i just kept reading the prologue over and over again

i mean, i did manage to read some free ones they gave out (and i think i read some stories on yt before)

anws, i won 300 coins for drawing this thing before and won 3rd place lawl (but now i lost the coins cuz voltage inc sux for making ur account get restricted if ur not active for a year smh)

kota is my favorite if its not obvious from my very very OLD POST from when my tumblr used to be a garbage can

my kidself is kringe (did you know kota is voiced by natsuki hanae kyaa)

also theres this game that i used to be obsessed with playing from voltage too (but they shut it down so that makes me...i hate voltage inc bro)

bro i just realised now they shut it down a few weeks after i got into dol, thats nice ig

anws enough of that sobbing from voltage inc being shit like usual, guess my favorite liar character

did you know mf has the same bday as kota

listen chat, i just think hes really neat-

JUST LOOK AT THIS OLD 2019 ART HAHAHAHAHAHA

MY SHIP NAME FOR HIM AND MIKU WAS MIZUSA HELPPP IM KRINGINGGGG

omg now i suddenly remembered, my last art of azu was from 2021 and it was this drawing w childe

if its really not obvious during my liar phase, i was pretty obsessed with azu, i love azu sm (i would scurry thru my old books for liar arts of me and azu kyaa but id rather not cuz it was kinda kringe and id rather not die of embarrassment)

.....maybe just a lil bit..... (bro this was from 2017 good lord)

ight i yap too much, i was gonna start yapping how i had ocs for every single voltage inc game i "played"

you only get these three cuz im gonna be here all day if i blabber about everyone

my forged wedding, seduced in the sleepless city, dreamy days in west tokyo

for some reason, i have a lot of aoi doodles tho

ft other voltage inc ocs who are the same age as her (17 year old mfs)

and here u get old uncover the truth mc (aka miku, literally me) from 2021

to her recent drip in 2023

its just adult miku basically

ight im done fr this time, i yap too much

#asks #very sane meeku behaviour #voltage inc #as much as i hate voltage inc... #...i do admit i was in them phases as a kid bro... #still am sadly #its nice to finally ramble abt voltage inc to someone tho since i had no one to ramble these things to cuz #no one plays voltage inc honestly dies

[systematicallycapricious]

I'm a bit late to the party, but I recently got the first volume of the English P4U2 manga!

I am absolutely geeking out over comparing the Jap, Eng, and fan-Eng versions, so if anyone has any pages or panels they want to see side-by-side across the three, let me know and I'll make a post for you! I can't do the entirety of the book of course, but I can do a few pages at least.

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(Below the cut is my initial opinion on the quality of the translation work, some comparisons between various details of the Jap volume and the Eng volume, and some more manga page side-by-sides.)

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As for my impression of the translation work so far... To me, it feels like the translator was trying to preserve more of the original Japanese language/culture than Eng-P4AU chose to? Not in every instance though, as there's definitely cases where vernacular translations are utilized instead of literal. But where more literal translations are favored, the wording can feel a little awkward or OOC in English.

Even still, it's a pretty cohesive reading experience, in my opinion.

Also, they translated "Plume of Dusk" correctly, which is a relief. I was worried that some of the technical lore terms might get bungled by literal translations, lol. Conversely, while I'm glad that they didn't preserve Jap-Teddie's "-kuma" habit, and happy that they included a few bear puns in accordance to Eng-Teddie's speech habits, I do lament the low quantity and diversity of bear puns in Teddie's speech overall. Maybe there just wasn't a lot of good places for those in this volume though, so I'll have to see going forth.

Oh- and I noticed that some of the background signs and text got translations as well, which I think is really neat. (I don't read enough manga to know if that's just a standard feature of manga translations though, lol.)

Granted, this is just my first-read first impression, and I don't know enough Japanese to know if some lines may be translated less accurately or not. Plus, I tend to be on the lenient side when judging the quality of creative works. So please refer to other opinions as well if you're trying to decide the quality of the translation for yourself!

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Fun fact: the Eng version was printed bigger than the Jap version (at least for the Jap volumes I have; no clue if they printed those at multiple sizes).

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Also something cool about the Eng version is that it comes with the same color illustrations as the Jap version had, just sized-up. The exclusive edition also comes with a bonus fold-out poster of the original volume cover!

The end-of-volume artist/editor comic was included as well! I'm personally very glad to finally know what this comic says. My respect for Rokuro-san and Sakamaguro-san (the fish) as creatives has grown even further.

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Here's a few other page comparisons too because I found them interesting. xP

(If you wanna see the fan-Eng in higher quality than the screengrabs I used, you can find it on Mangadex [here].)

#P4AU/P4U2 manga #Persona 4 Arena Ultimax #Sho Minazuki #Yu Narukami #(Honestly I kinda got used to reading slightly-OOC Persona content via fan creations -) #(- and fan-translations of other Jap Persona content; so the translation choices don't affect me all that much lol) #(Though Sho's “loser trash” makes me cackle because it's such an awkward way to translate “ゴミ”) #(Especially "Now to set up some fun surprises for you Investi-loser trash-Team goons.” lmao) #(Also still waiting to see how Labrys's dialect is handled; as well as the 皆月・ミナヅキ name difference) #(I've heard things about both already so that's going to be interesting lol) #P4AU #P4U2 #Persona 4 The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold #ペルソナ4 ジ・アルティマックス ウルトラス―プレックスホールド

[cartograffiti]

February '24 reading diary

I finished 19 books in February, which sounded like a mistake until I realized I read most of them as audiobooks while doing manual tasks. It's always nice when my ears are on my side (says someone with a hearing disorder).

I like poetry, but I don't read enough to feel knowledgeable about it. I've been trying to read a bit from various countries, and after I enjoyed the Pablo Neruda collection so much in January, I went on to read three other poetry books.

Khalil Gibran's The Prophet is one of those works that I've seen quoted out of context so much that I was shocked to discover I didn't actually know what it's about. It's a series of prose poetry fables with a linking plot in which the titular prophet converses with the people of a city he is departing about different aspects of life. A lot of it is really beautiful and thought-provoking, and I thought it was great. It's become a popular source of quotes for weddings and inspirational goods, but I was surprised and moved to find it's also a text about multi-faith unity; Gibran was Lebanese, and Lebanon had and has striking diversity of religions.

I also really enjoyed The Poetess Counts to 100 and Bows Out, a collection by the important Venezuelan poet Ana Enriqueta Terán. I find her wordplay unusual and her subjects interesting, and even in translation, I found her work to give a powerful sense of humor and hopefulness, and a gift for creating a scene.

I did not enjoy Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey. Kaur is one of the most famous living poets, and I had read so much praise and disdain for her work that I wanted to form my own opinion. There are turns of phrase I really liked, and it is laid out in an interesting way that means some related poems could be read either distinctly or as sections of a longer thought, which I found neat. But I found myself so grumpy the more I read of it that I ended up also reading a lot about Kaur and other people's analysis of her work, trying to contextualize why I bounced so hard off it. Many critics wrote about trying to separate her style from her content, and chose to praise just one or the other, but I am critical of both. Her style lacks personality that would tell me it was her work as opposed to any other poet's, and her content is full of basic, played-out sentiments of popular feminism and bathetic viral posts. Being reminded of "take me to a museum and then make out with me," "but they said not to touch the masterpieces," is not what I'd hoped for out of this. I do think it's a good thing and a strength of Kaur's that she is able to speak to so many people's common experiences through her clarity and intimate tone; it's a shame it didn't click with me. And unlike several professional opinions I read, I think she's completely entitled to write poetry that is not all self-revealing confessional pieces; that should not be something we demand of any art form. But it's a shame some of her verses suggest that certain kinds of shame and violence are a collective and integral part of womanhood and South Asian identity. She's only a little older than I am, and we were both students when she wrote these. I wonder whether her recent work is more sophisticated. I'm not motivated to find out.

The title of the Kaur book reminded me of some enthusiastic praise I'd read for Mary Robinette Kowal's Regency fantasy romance Shades of Milk and Honey, and I found that disappointing, too. I almost liked it; there's some great bits about making art with magic, and it's a good little world. The most interesting character doesn't get enough page time, a lot of secondary characters feel like flat loans from Austen, and the late-book resolution was forced and rushed.

In the Emelan group read, we finished! We read Melting Stones, an Evvy-centered book that I really enjoyed until it became repetitive in the second half, and feel pretty mild about, and The Will of the Empress, reuniting all the original kids as older teens, which I thought was just great. Pierce in top form, and one of the best of this setting.

Lois McMaster Bujold has a new Penric & Desdemona novella out that I haven't been able to borrow yet, but in the meantime I discovered there was one I missed. Penric is a physician mage devoted to an unusual god, which means he's benignly possessed by his demon friend Desdemona, and they have adventures and solve mysteries. This one was Knot of Shadows, about a puzzling corpse and curses. Great fun. Don't start here.

In the land of romance, I've been really enjoying Mimi Matthews's Belles of London series, about a friend group of interesting Victorian horse girls, so I read The Lily of Ludgate Hill as soon as I could. These are no-sex but sexy books with a lot of skill. I've been easily invested in each couple so far, the friends are well integrated into each other's lives even after resolving their own storylines, and their new beaus are introduced smoothly. More than that, there is a lot of consideration for the social issues and new ideas of the period. My favorite is still the first, but Anne and Felix have a strong second chance romance backstory and they're fun to see squabble and cooperate.

More romance: I finished another Gail Carriger novella, this time Defy or Defend. Dimity Plumleigh-Teignmott in the Finishing School series was only learning to be a spy because her evil genius parents wanted it. Her actual dream was to marry a nice politician of not too much importance and be a domestic goddess and social power. Now an adult working for the government, her professional partner is also her perfect man, and she hopes he'll admit to mutual feelings while they're on a mission to rescue a vampire hive from dangerous disintegration. It's very much a Cold Comfort Farm or The Grand Sophy plot of a cheerful girl solving everyone's problems, which is perfect for Dimity: I love her and I love this premise. Felix's internal conflict is a bit of a nonentity, but I don't care, he's too busy adoring Dimity and taking the trans vampire to buy new clothes.

And the last romance for the month, The Companion by E.E. Ottoman. An extraordinarily efficient novella about Madeline, a writer whose spirit has been crushed by trying to break into the industry in NYC in the 1940s. A friend arranges for her to go stay with Victor, a successful author lonely in a too-big inherited house upstate. She is quickly attracted to both him and his artist neighbor Audrey, and they adore her. All three are trans, and the core of the plot is Madeline navigating these new relationships while settling into the unfamiliar safety and encouragement offered to her. In Madeline's POV, Ottoman very much treats the poly triangle as two distinct romances and a third observed at a close distance, which means doing about 2.5 times the work of most. I went wild for the execution, which felt like magic. You do have to like reading about people trying to write and cooking, which fortunately I do. Highly recommended.

A very different book about a writer that I was impressed with this month is Malice by Higashino Keigo. In translation, this is the "first" of a longer detective series that I can't remember where I heard about. That was to my advantage, because I wasn't primed for the premise, alternating between the deductions of Detective Kaga and witness statements. It quickly becomes apparent who did it, fitting best into the why-dunnit class, and using my expectations as a mystery fan against me. Higashino does not idly use an author as one of the POV characters; his profession creates a surprise that taught me something about how writing works mechanically. Very cool.

Also a book about books: Sunyi Dean's The Book Eaters. My oldest friend and I both listened to this as the audiobook wonderfully read by Katie Erich, and we both complained that the interview in the bonus material killed a little of the mystery for us. Despite that, we loved the main character, Devon, and it's full of interesting ideas. It's about a group of families who eat information instead of food. It's about...fairy tales and it has a unique form of dragon and vampire myths and a slow-burn escape from Christian cults. It's about figuring out you're gay when you're already a parent. It's weird and fascinating and upsetting. I think Dean made very smart choices about when to reveal information through flashbacks, and I think Dean sometimes over-explains things to the reader in the narration that would have been stronger if I was left to interpret them myself. L and I both think we'd be interested in another Sunyi Dean book, but not a sequel to this one. It is a complete concept.

I feel that way about Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi, too. This one is a fantasy heist with lots of backstory starring Shigidi, who is a kind of minor nightmare god, and Nnemoa, who is a kind of succubus. They have gone freelance, breaking from the corporation of Orisha and taking their own jobs through the living and spirit worlds. I particularly like Nnemoa's backstory chapters and the heist, but Aleister Crowley is involved for some reason and much less repulsive than in real life, and I was disappointed the heist is a pretty brief element. I'd like to read another Talabi book, though, and this was the first adult book I've read that features the orishas of the Yoruba religion which have been a welcome part of several recent YA fantasy books.

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water is not the Zen Cho book I thought it was when I checked it out, but I'm glad to have read it. It's a wuxia novella about a nun and some bandits involved in rebellion, told with a lot of humor and thoughtfulness about the role of holy objects through the POV of a trans bandit with his own history with the nun's order. I love Cho's style!

That was a one-sitting project audiobook, as was a full-cast play recording of The Importance of Being Earnest. This is a sensational play that I had put off reading because I thought it had probably been overhyped. It hadn't. This is the source of a lot of Oscar Wilde's best quotes, and it's a jewel of drawing-room comedy and dialogue that operates on multiple levels of significance. I'm glad I happened to listen to actors doing it, which I wasn't expecting when I tapped on the first audiobook that came up.

More old books: I found an Agatha Christie mystery I didn't like! How sad! This was The Big Four, a series of spy short stories starring Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings, compiled together into a loose novel. The effect is somewhat disjointed, and not every story shows her ingenuity. It's full of 20th century political paranoia of conspiracies and spies, with anti-Asian racism and antisemitic tropes I can often count on Christie to avoid or subvert.

And Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse, which is a very strange and influential work of literary fiction about a man who believes--not to minimize it by putting it this way--that he has a secret wolf-self inside him, much like certain middle schoolers of my acquaintance. The edition I listened to opens with a letter from Hesse in which he remarks that this book is frequently misunderstood, which I will admit put my back up. Maybe there's stuff in your book you didn't intend, Herman! I enjoyed its vagueness, I adored the complexity embodied by Harry Haller's friend/alter-ego/mother/girlfriend/boyfriend Hermine, and I got a lot out of reading literary analysis that gave me better context for the transmigration of souls and Jungian theory. It also suffers from didactic passages, racism and antisemitism, and dogmatism about artistic quality. Very worth reading, difficult to say whether I "liked" the book.

Carrying on with Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond books, I went straight from GK into Queens' Play, which I loved every moment of. It's easier to read than the first book, as she pulled back on stylized spellings and puzzling quotations, without losing any sparkle or punch. It's sooo fun. It's sooo distressing. Spies! Plots! Assassins! Disguises! Escapes! Messy bisexuals! I told my Lymond friends this book was funnier, but that feels like the wrong word for some of the things that happen in it. Giggling and kicking my feet and crying.

And a book I am very solidly neutral on: The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros, full of vibrant personality and a great premise, but the plot gets in its own way in complexity and the pacing was a real struggle for my taste. The core cast is really strongly varied Jewish immigrant characters in Chicago in the 1890s, some teens have been murdered, there's a dybbuk, and gay kissing. I think I would have enjoyed it more when I was a teen; some YA takes me that way.

#This February fit a lot of February into it #reading diary #bookblr

[mdr-reikas]

Hello there! You've been tagged! You don't have to do anything if you don't want to, but if you'd like, list 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! Learn to know your mutuals and followers! 💖💖💖

omg hi! Thank you for the tag!!!

So the first thing I like is baking. I haven't been doing it a lot lately, but I really like baking, especially like decorating and shit (just not with fondant bc that's gross). Made a nice strawberry biscuit roll a few days back, 10/10 highly recommend.

Secondly I like reading. I'm currently rereading frankenstein and I'm having so much fun with it tbh. I also have a bunch of other books I'm currently reading, but if anyone here like thriller/horror I really recommend Sebastian Fitzek! He's German author whose works I've been really enjoying lately. If you need a starting point, I'm currently reading "Der Inasse" (no idea what the english title is, im sure y'all can find it), it's pretty neat so far.

Third thing is video games in general. I have many games that I have made amazing memories with, that I replay atleast once a year. I started playing Ghost of Tsushima recently, and it's pretty good so far, feels a lot like an assassins creed game. I'm also a big fan of animal crossing (new leaf ONLY), until dawn (choice based horror game), Final Fantasy, Persona 5, Farcry (3,4,5 specifically) and also a few call of duty games.

fourth I like sea creatures. I really fucking love sea creatures. I always have on day of the week booked for watching some random shit quality sea documentary, they're really interesting. Same goes for spiders, I really love spider. I've actually been taking care of this cute house spider in my room, like I'll just catch flies sometimes and give them to the little spidey.

fifth, I'm kinda running out of ideas here, but naruto tbh? I don't like the show as much as I when I was younger, but I do still watch it when i'm in a bad mood. It's like to a point where I know most of the episodes and can just start whereever, it doesn't require my attention for me to understand what's happening. It's definitely my main comfort shot (with Marble Hornets as a close second), and I also really enjoy buying bootleg naruto merch. Found this low quality shit naruto calender for 2024, I've already started noting appointments in there.

Once again, thank you sooo much for the ask and thanks for giving me an excuse to ramble! I love talking about random crap as y'all know :)

#asks #thank youuuu :) #and to any other asks currently waiting HOLD ON #I'LL GET TO YOU SOON I SWEAR #I'M ON IT RIGHT NOW

[runwayrunway]

No. 38 - SriLankan Airlines (Air Lanka)

Thank you to anon for requesting SriLankan Airlines! This was a lot more interesting of an airline to talk about than I expected.

To begin with, take a look at that logo. I love that. The stylized bird looks fantastic and the typeface really matches it well. This is good.

But I will talk more about the logo in a bit. Let's talk about the planes they fly.

A gay plane has...taken off?

And in the process reflect on planes of years past.

An old plane has also taken off.

SriLankan Airlines, which was known as Air Lanka from its establishment in 1979 until 1998, is the second flag carrier of Sri Lanka. It was launched after the demise of former flag carrier Air Ceylon as a fully government-owned company. Though it was briefly partially privatised, it is now re-nationalised. There are apparently plans to potentially re-privatise it, but we will see. They're very recently announced and tentative.

Based on the wording of anon's ask, I get the sense they want me to specifically talk about Air Lanka, and to be totally honest I think I would be doing the airline a huge disservice if I didn't.

I can't read Sinhalese or Tamil, which impacts my ability to really fully understand the apparently quite eventful history of the airline. There are a few op-eds in English written for Sri Lankan publications, but as I'm not the intended audience I would need to research a lot of context before I could really understand much of it. It's a shame, because I am now curious about this.

Thankfully images transcend language, so I can understand how its livery has developed over time. Well, 'developed' is sort of a strong word. They had one livery, and then they had another. They really don't like to switch up their liveries every ten years how many airlines do, and I actually really respect that. Don't get rid of something good if you don't need to.

But was it good?

I never really thought about the landing gear on the L-1011. It feels like it's located so far back. Is it similar to the Trident's sideways gear to leave space for its massive electronics bay that it used to autoland? Also, that's not that many wheels for a plane that big.

This livery looks sort of standard for something invented in 1979, but it has hidden depths. Even just in terms of its broader design I prefer it to a lot of 70s cheatline liveries. The way it loops down to envelop the tail is nice and the smaller line outlining the main block of color feels almost anachronistic in the sense that it's quite a modern choice. Somehow the two lines on the nose make it look distinctly beaklike, which I think is neat. The wordmark is...acceptable, though unfortunately it seems to only be in English. They primarily used TriStars, which is quite discerning of them. But what's that thing on the tail?

I like the modern logo but I prefer this one far and away. It's really pleasing to look at and looks graceful despite its sharpness. Just very nicely designed. I think, if a good modern designer was given this logo, they could design a truly fantastic livery incorporating it.

Actually, although it undeniably looks like a peacock, it's got a bit less immediately visible of a meaning. Aviation is actually a pretty big part of Sri Lankan folklore, and according to the airline itself that peacock is actually the Dandu Monara, a flying machine flown by the legendary king of Sri Lanka Ravana in the Sinhalese version of the Ramayana. This is incredibly cool. Apparently, flying machines in a broader sense are a common feature of Sri Lankan folklore, and they are generally described as being wooden peacocks. I'm genuinely quite sad that I can't find very much about this in English, except for this article by an American researcher, so if anyone knows of any books in English on the subject please let me know.

It's a very elegant execution of the concept. It's easy to buy this blocky, geometric peacock as a machine, without it losing the ability to be recognized as a bird.

The red, meanwhile, is taken from the Sri Lankan flag. I would honestly love to see a livery for this airline that's on a base of yellow with these gorgeous secondary blue-green, orange, and the absolutely stunning burgundy shade used on the largest square. I think it's very unfortunate that Air Lanka chose a redder shade, because I think the warm hues of the flag are both uncommon in combination and very, very harmonious with each other. Normally I would find four distinct colors a bit busy for a livery trying to be on the simpler side, but with the yellow as a base, the burgundy making up most of the design, and the other two colors used for accent something truly great could be created.

The red they chose, while a more conventional pick that I feel is a bit of a let-down relative to what they could have done, is still a very nice vivid red. The logo is well-positioned on the tailfin, the entire design looks clean, and especially for the time this was thoughtfully designed and well executed.

I'm giving Air Lanka (1979-1998) a C+.

That grade, though, is for the livery. If I were just talking about the logo by itself, this would be one of my favorites I've covered so far.

And then in 1998 something happened.

Remember Air Lanka? This is them now. Feel old yet?

Just kidding. They only owned 40% of Air Lanka. In 1998 Air Lanka was partially privatised and Emirates purchased a minority state. One of the first things they did was completely rebrand the airline.

Well, it's certainly more modern. It is...very very white, and it looks...very much like the Emirates livery. Different colors for the text, different literal logo, but otherwise much is the same. The placement of the text, of the logos on the engines, and of the design on the tail - a sort of swoop from the tip of the fin to the fuselage body.

I think I prefer the old logo. While the new one does incorporate the rest of the flag, which I like, it distinctly feels alive. It feels like a bird. Normally I would like that, but given the inspiration of a wooden flying machine it feels a bit harder to recognize. The original logo was just...really really fantastic.

That said, the way it looks like the peacock is climbing up the tail, and the way it flows onto the main body, is nice.

I'm not sure how I feel about the blue underbelly on some of their planes. I mean, I'm kind of a fan of just telling everyone on the ground to visit Sri Lanka, but the blue feels very strange. If it were up to me I would have just done something which occupied more of the plane for a primary design, so it didn't feel like the wings and tail have a wholly different color scheme from the wordmark and underbelly, but that's how it feels.

It also feels...distinctly Emirates-y in a way I don't like. I actually think Emirates's execution of this particular concept is uninspiring but acceptable, but I just don't like the amount of resemblance here. It isn't exactly Continental and Copa, but it's far from KLM and Air France either.

These planes are mostly all white. Whether or not that's jarring or not really depends on the angle, and I think more often than not it looks okay. Nothing here bothers me, but I feel disappointed. Maybe my visions for how fantastic a livery based on the Sri Lankan flag and the Dandu Monara emblem could be were a bit unrealistic, with how airlines are, but it's a shame to see traces of Emirates in an airline that hasn't even associated with Emirates for over a decade now (it was renationalised in 2008). This is not fantastic, but this is not bad. It is not Lufthansesque, and if I saw this in 1998 I think I would actually be slightly nicer to it. But it's also mostly white, doesn't do anything spectacular, and passes up so much unique potential which could have made it one of my favorites.

I'm giving SriLankan Airlines a C.

I did debate taking that down to a C-, but I ultimately don't even think I can say I dislike this. I just wish it was more. I hope, whatever its future is, somebody commits to making SriLankan Airlines the legendary flying machine it has always had the potential to be.

#tarmac fashion week #grade: c #grade: c+ #era: 1980s #era: 1990s #era: 2000s #era: 2010s #era: 2020s #region: south asia #region: sri lanka #srilankan airlines #air lanka #flag carriers #double sunrise #requests #retired liveries

[donnerpartyofone]

When I read the Marie Kondo book, I was struck by her remark that people who cannot keep their dwellings tidy have often lacked a strong sense of ownership in their lives, of their own places and possessions. This made perfect sense to me; I mean to some degree she's talking about people whose parents always cleaned up after them, which is certainly not my case, but it's definitely true that I have never had a well-developed sense of anything being mine. Even when I was little I was intensely aware that all material things were just breaking down and slipping through my fingers, and maybe I shouldn't get too attached to anything because the heartbreak would kill me. Also I never felt like a real authority in my own life, as if my only importance was relative to other people (specifically, whether I was annoying or inconveniencing or even disgusting someone like, say, my mother). Also the world simply seemed overwhelming and like a place where I would never have authorial power of any kind.

Keeping my room clean was a relentless and unresolved problem until I finally left home for college. In college (a place I really didn't belong) I was neat to the degree that I didn't want to offend my roommates, although I sometimes had roommates who were just as depressed and disorganized as I was, then I was really out of hand. When things got seriously bad for me mentally, I took a semester off in Portland, Maine. There I kept my room like a monk's cell, sweeping the floor every day, making my bed, and generally showing a lot of respect for my surroundings. I loved Portland and although I didn't live alone, it often felt like I did, and I also didn't have any real friends, which may have given me a rare feeling of sovereignty that resulted in my increased organization and cleanliness. When my family visited, they expressed so much astonishment at the state of things that it made me feel embarrassed and angry. It's not great to be told so emphatically that no one can even imagine you taking care of anything, and that it seems like some sort of absurd miracle when you do.

I was pretty messy again when I moved to New York City. Renting crummy apartments all the time doesn't really inspire feelings of respectful stewardship, although I did vacillate between extreme disorder and urgent cleaning episodes. I had never imagined myself in NYC, but I didn't know what else to do with myself besides move in with my dad for a while and try to figure things out. At least I hadn't gone home to my grimy, weird upstate home town, somewhere I never quite belonged; of course I'm marked deeply by the place just because I grew up there, but even among friends I could never really be myself without people assuming I was "just kidding" or something. Some people were very upset that I drifted off on my own, even years later, which I could find complimentary, but the message I got was that I must have thought I was too good for the town and everyone in it and so I went to "live my dreams" in the big city, which is really not a fair or accurate description of what happened to me at all. I never developed a feeling of patriotism for my home, and I also never felt patriotic about New York City; it was just easier for me to be there, at least in some dimensions.

A guy I'll call my ex-boyfriend for convenience, even though it's not a very good description of the relationship (one of my best friends in high school who I tried, disastrously, to date during college before we inevitably drifted apart), was always passionate about our home. I think when you have had a reasonably happy childhood and your teenage years were an exciting daily adventure, then it's easy to love where you grew up. I recently saw a Facebook post from him describing a big civic event (festival? with maybe a political angle?) with the most profound affection for all of the townsfolk, it was beautiful to see the place through his eyes for a moment even though I never experienced what he felt the whole time I lived there. On the other hand, I still keep in touch with one like-minded friend from high school, and although she also moved away she often sends me news items from our home about, like, bullies we used to know who became local politicians and are now in hot water for corruption, or like the major crisis that struck when a gigantic murder of crows came to roost and painted the entire town in bird shit for months on end (I actually don't even know whether this is over or not). Now THAT'S the place I know.

One day I was saying something to my father about my chronic sense of placelessness, and he said, "I know, you'd probably be happy just living in a bucket." I had repeated this to the ex-boyfriend, and he laughed out loud and made a physical gesture that suggested me coiled up in the bottom of a bucket like a snake, glaring up defensively. STAY OUT OF MY BUCKET! I just remembered this and repeated it to my husband, who also laughed out loud at the accuracy of this assessment. It's nice to feel understood, to know that multiple generations of men in my life automatically understand my bucket-dwelling quality.

My husband also moved to the city after school, and he is immensely proud of his many years in Brooklyn. He has a big map of the borough covering one thigh. He knows lots of different neighborhoods well, votes religiously, respects the older generations of our neighbors, cares what happens to the people here. I admire his depth of feeling, even though I can only relate to the part about respecting your surroundings and the people who were there first. The only time I was struck with a powerful sense of belonging was when we moved in together on the border of Red Hook, and began to explore that neighborhood. Red Hook is unusual because it is inaccessible by subway, which is surely part of why it has such a distinct personality. It's basically a tough, gritty little port town, shady and overgrown, with an extremely diverse population that intermingles working class families with rugged artist types. The first time I ever saw it, I was taking a bus at night to some other unfamiliar part of town, and I could see into the open doors of bars and restaurants on the main drag; it looked so beautiful to me, like some forgotten little burgh somewhere that could not possibly have been part of Brooklyn. I probably knew right then, more than a decade ago, that I wanted to live there. When my husband and I moved in next door (around ten years ago in April), I'll never forget the first day we decided to explore the place. We found ourselves sitting in a bar converted from an old bait shop (I once saw someone reach into the mouth of a mounted bass and pull out a cigarette; he explained that it was like a take-a-penny leave-a-penny community thing, and "You never know what brand you're gonna get!") that was covered from floor to ceiling in taxidermy and obscene tchotchkes. I remember sitting by the window staring out at the dusty main drag and passively thinking, "I'm home. I belong here." We eventually had our wedding reception there, having been given brilliant advice on where to have it by the owner of that same bar.

I know that part of the reason I like it so much is that it does actually remind me of my home town, which is extremely perverse of me. The grit, the pleasant shabbiness, the mix of blue collar stoicism and starving artist-ness. It's all so familiar, and sometimes you can become attached to things that are familiar even if they are not connected originally to happiness. They're part of what you know, what you're an expert of, what made you into yourself. I would never move back home (I just told my husband that if I had to for some dire reason I would immediately turn into a scary witch on the outskirts of town), I don't think it was a "great place to grow up" based on my own experience, but now that I have the distance I appreciate it in some way, a way I can only call "perverse". Apparently it has begun to turn into a chic, arty getaway for NYC expats, and every time I run into someone in the city who explains to me how "cool" the place is, I want to turn inside out. It's untrue! Becoming "cool" to those people is the least cool thing that could possibly happen to it! Suddenly I want to rush to its defense and shout down all these accusations of boho hepness. If you think that town is "cool" you're wrong, and you don't belong there, and you should STAY THE FUCK OUT. (I mean don't actually stay out, I'm sure you're great for the local economy, but you're still WRONG)

Anyway. Finally Red Hook is about to become my home for-real. Ever since we signed the lease, it has been calling to me, I want to go there every day even though I don't have anything to do and I'll soon be there all the time. I think I'll live pretty differently once I'm there, with my newfound feeling of ownership. Now I just have to figure out where I can get one of the bumper stickers that we saw the first time we visited, at the famous key lime pie place that was covered in signs and stickers featuring ornery slogans such as:

WELCOME TO RED HOOK

YOU MADE IT. NOW--GIT!

[agardenandlibrary]

an update to this post about my reading spreadsheet!

It's been 2 years-ish since I made the spreadsheet. When I started, I only had a couple of years of data. But I eventually went back and added everything back to 2015, which is when I started to track my reading (that may also be around the time that I started this blog)(yep, just checked, my first post was April 21, 2015, and April 2015 is when my reading tracking took off. I backdated a few things to Feb. 2015, but the most reliable data I'd say is from April 2015 on)

Columns now include:

episode #, date episode aired, date read, Title, Author, m/f author, poc, nationality, series, genre, comment, year published, decade published, page count.

I want to rethink the "comment" column, maybe? I don't find a star-rating system useful, but I don't find a one-word comment very useful either.

And I just added a "Recommend" page! Still figuring out what information I want in here, but here's the idea so far:

Title, author, genre, and why I'd recommend it.

I'm thinking of adding back in a column for whether it's a series or not, since I personally find that to be useful information.

I also have separate sheets in the spreadsheet for each year! When I have time, it's fun to go and build charts to see trends across the years.

Charts under the cut:

So I can see in 2015 half of the books I read were young adult (31 out of 62):

but in 2023, mostly I read Fantasy & science fiction, and only 14 of the 72 books I read were YA:

(I read 1 western in 2023! It was The Pits by Katy L. Wood)

in 2015 I mostly read recently published books, vs 2023 where I am INCHING TOWARD half books published since 2010 and half books published before 2010. (I started tracking decades in addition to years because it gives me a wider view. trying to build a chart with just years gives you SO MANY PIECES OF PIE, which I found overwhelming and unhelpful)

That's neat, I actually didn't realize how close I was to doing that! Even though it's still heavily skewed to newer books, I'm pretty happy with the spread! Especially when I can see how heavily weighted it was back when I started tracking.

Overall, I really enjoy the spreadsheet and maintaining thereof. If you don't want to bother building your own, just use StoryGraph and use their charts!

(if you made it this far, as a reward, you can find a blank template here. If you already track your reading somewhere, it may be easiest to download an excel file from there and just copy the information over and fill in what other information you want. that's what I did!)

#cara reads 2024 #cara reads #reading spreadsheet

[gasha40k]

I’ve been reading a lot of 40k fiction in between painting recently, and I’ve gotten a good bit of progress done on both. I’ll start with a little reading update.

Horus Rising

False Gods

Galaxy in Flames

Flight of the Eisenstein

Fulgrim

First Heretic

Know No Fear

Butcher’s Nails

Betrayer

Wrath of Khârn

Khârn: Eightfold Path

I finished Betrayer just a couple days ago, and holy shit. What an incredible book. I am a strong Khârn stan (Argel Tal, too) and I am more convinced than ever that I’m a World Eaters gamer.

I plan to read the three (or four) Unremembered Empire books before I loop back to A Thousand Sons to read the “main” Heresy storyline through to Slaves to Darkness, and eventually Siege of Terra. But for now, I’m making a little detour through all of the books that Khârn takes center stage for, so that I can satiate the hyperfixation and figure out what he’s up to in the 42nd Millennium. I also plan to finish most of the World Eaters books, as that was the whole reason that I started reading the Heresy in the first place.

Betrayer is by far my favorite Warhammer novel. Fulgrim was my top for a while—I may be a closeted Emperor’s Children enjoyer, don’t tell Blood Daddy—but man. Betrayer blew it out of the fucking water. What an incredible ending to an incredible trilogy. My biggest takeaways were as follows: nobody fucking likes Angron, and Khârn is my favorite guy ever. Enough gushing, though. Time for painting stuff.

The second Ultramarine I’ve ever painted, weirdly enough. My first Ultramarine was my first model, so my second being a keychain-corpse for a new army is weirdly sentimental

Since we’re on the topic of Khorne, I finished up the torso of my old school Daemon Prince. I’m exceptionally proud of this! I think the shading and blending is maybe some of my best, most advanced painting yet, and I pulled out just about every technique that I know for this thing. I even did a little drybrushing on the Necron skull. Here’s to hoping I can maintain this level of quality across the other pieces of this mini once I get some more primer.

Getting some good use out of my technicals, and finally utilizing my skull box

Still on Khorne, here’s some more progress on those Bloodletters from last post. They’re just about done, complete with horn blending and everything. I’m planning on doing flaming blades for them, but I’ll have to buy some more paints before I tackle that. I’ve got a handful more of primed and based Bloodletters, so they’ll probably be my backup easy paint for a while. The bases are simple and easy to make, but decently visually effective, which I think is good and fitting for such a massed unit.

Next up, I decided to give highlighting a go with one of my newer Thunderbearers, since I’m trying to boost my painting technique all around. This is definitely my best highlighting work yet, certainly leagues ahead of my first try from last year. I think he looks pretty clean!

I’m also experimenting with new photography backgrounds since I got kinda sick of having pasta or hamster cage cleaner or whatever the fuck in the background of my poorly lit update pictures. Think I may have stumbled upon a good method for backgrounds.

I love you, empty white void

Last but certainly not least, I finished up the first bike for my lone Outrider Squad. I’m really happy with him, as well. The hardest part of painting these dudes is definitely base painting. They just have a lot of ground to cover with your brush so they absolutely devour paint, but it’s cool cause I finally finished him up after like, actual months of sitting half-painted in my vehicles box. I’m a particular fan of the little white lens glare in the top left of his eye. I just think it’s neat.

This unit is gonna be mad satisfying to finish, and I can’t wait to get more work done. In the meantime, I’m chugging away at my first 5-man Berzerker squad, including their bases, which are gonna be pretty unique. They’re like, black mountainous rocks littered with skulls and blood-stained snow. Alongside that, I’ve also been stripping my Custodes, so I’ll have a bit of an update about that next time, too.

#warhammer 40k #miniatures #painting #book club #adeptus astartes #chaos #thunderbearers #world eaters #khorne daemons

[national-hockey-lesbian]

Hi!! I think the team edit series is such a cool idea and im happy to provide anything you need for the islanders as far as vibes goes!! sorry if you didn’t want a thesis but you might be getting one haha

so i’m a pretty new to the isles as far as actually being invested but my family has been into them forever so i think i have a pretty good grasp of them!

the core of our team is our vets, the 30 somethings that make up the backbone of our team and seem like they’ve been playing together for ages, and honestly some of them have. like the identity line: matt martin, casey cizikas, and cal clutterbuck; i think it’s frankly adorable that their line has a nickname. and we have a lot of guys that have been on the isles for 3,4 years+ that are just good solid guys that seem to get along real well and that most fans absolutely love (read: loosing anyone in the off season will kill me)

we also have our newer hot shots, most notably of course matt barzal who is just crazy talented, especially with someone close to his level to bounce off of. then there’s wahlstrom who’s been on ir all season, and our newest acquisition hudson fasching who’s been pretty killer with all the other guys out

i feel like a big part of our narrative is being the under dogs. like a lot of people will write us off or shit on us for like no good reason? like recently for example we’ve got a ton of beef with paul bissonnette for calling us boring (including our color commentator/isles alum butch goring dusting off twitter to shit on him lmao) meanwhile we were playing pretty incredible, at the very least interesting, hockey fighting for our playoff spot.

a lot of it too is us coming just short of the big stuff. like loosing the ecf two years in a row to the lightning in some absolutely epic brawls. and then coming just shy of the playoffs last season absolutely sucked. i’m not speaking on this season cause i don’t wanna jinx it but.. yeah

i would definitely consider us in the doomed by the narrative category. between last year’s season killing covid debacle and the amount of injuries this season. lots of our heavy hitters and instrumental players out 10, 15, 20 games. the timing of the barzal injury just after getting horvat from the canucks was… rough. (and there are definitely ppl better than me that could wax poetic about the narratives of the beauvillier trade but personally i like him on the nucks better). i feel like the whole 3rd period isles contribute to the underdog thing too, i dont remember the stat but we outscored in our 3rd period like crazy this season, especially when we’ve been trailing.

also if it helps at all they had an interview where they asked all the guys their favorite books. by the answers it seems like half of them can’t read lmao, but if you can find any substance in there i think it’d be neat! obviously you don’t have to use anything but if you want to look here’s the link! x

sorry this is probably like way too much info but i hope it helps :)) uh tldr; we’ve got a good group of mostly older players, no all stars really but we make so. we’re good but not quite good enough to take it home, and definitely doomed by the narrative

— @ilya-sorokin

i hope you know this was like 99% of the inspiration for the islanders edit, so i owe you my life🫶

#ask #behind the scenes

[kimbap-r0ll]

Hii! May I have a fic for chrollo 🍮? One where reader is extremely disappointed to found out what Chrollo did to those poor Kurta kids. Reader is on full on raging yet he'd just brush it off, smth like "So? They're already dead anyway. I don't think you'd hate me either." Yes angst!

Oof this is good, thank you for the ask! Yes it did come out super angsty!

Chrollo x Kurta!reader : Brush it Off

Chrollo was everything to you. The moment you two met it seemed as though you had fallen in love at first sight. He was cute when you saw him that day in the museum, seemingly lost in thought over an artifact. You decided to go up and stand near him, but you were too afraid to say anything. The two of you had been standing in the same place for what felt like an eternity and you finally decided to give up on ever asking the handsome man how you wanted to talk to him about the museum until he looked at you with a smile.

"You seem to like this piece as much as I do," you froze up when you heard him. Spinning yourself around back to him, you looked at him with a surprised face.

"Ah, well, yes I do think that the work i-is, pretty neat," you scolded yourself for sounding so petty. You didn't think you sounded cool at all!

"Even if that is the case, I wonder if you have any other objectives, you were standing here for a long time and not many people do that. Did you want to talk to me about something?"

He could read you like a book. The two of you ended up spending three hours together in the museum, sharing things about yourselves while also admiring the artworks. He was also the one that suggested the two of you go for a coffee run together. It was what felt like heaven to you.

Things became even better when you really started liking him. He was even the one that confessed his feelings to you, and of course you said yes when he asked if the two of you could be in a relationship. How could you not? He was the only one that protected you from people that tried to harass you in the streets, and he seemed to understand you better than you knew yourself. It became even more apparent when you revealed to him your origins.

"Do you have a family by any chance? I would love to meet them," you ask him while the two of you were in your apartment. He paused while looking through your bookshelf, you had welcomed him to borrow any books that he wanted. Turning around. he gave you a weak smile.

"I don't have any, rather, I have always lived with people that I consider 'family' but it doesn't fit the standard definition of one," he responded. Ah, so the two of you were similar.

"I see," you shifted your gaze down. "I'm sort of like that too, since I'm, well, I'm a Kurta."

You didn't notice him furrow his eyebrows when you said this. "I was out in the world doing work when the incident around my clan happened. I never got to say goodbye to my family, I never saw my friends celebrate their birthday there either," you added on, looking out the window. "I wonder if they're angry at me for being the survivor, almost everyone died in the incident except me," you said. Of course, this was not true. Chrollo met someone recently that was a Kurta survivor as well. But instead of showing his true colors right away, he decided to play a bit more.

"I'm sorry that happened to you," his voice was soft, he was walking towards you. Brushing some hair out of your face, he saw that your eyes were glazed over with tears brimming. "I'm not sure what the best way for me to help you is, but I want you to know that you aren't alone. You have me, and I'll always be by your side."

Ah, where did that chivalrous man disappear to? The moment the two of you were hugging and kissing the next it seemed like the two of you were enemies. It happened after you ran into a bounty hunter, one who explained to you what the Phantom Troupe did and such. You weren't sure why the hunter was telling you all of this, but then he grabbed your shoulders and looked desperately at you.

"Man, do you even know how much fucking money is on their heads?!" He shook you.

"Stop, you're scaring me!" you pleaded with the man, but he kept rambling on.

"They're going to get me set for life! I'm gonna be richer than the mayor of Yorknew if I even kill two of 'em! I know you know one of them, so just lead me to the guy will ya?!"

"I don't know anyone from the troupe! S-someone help!" you looked around, but the two of you were in a quiet alleyway in the city. You were trapped. You didn't know nen either, but your eyes started to turn red. Thinking your emotions were overflowing, you squeezed your eyes shut so the hunter wouldn't know.

"TELL ME WHERE THE HEAD IS AND THAT'LL BE IT! DON'T TELL ME I HAVE TO KILL YOU AS WELL FOR BEING AN ACCOMPLICE YOU PIECE OF-"

Suddenly you heard something and a splatter of liquid across your face. Slowly opening your eyes, you looked up to see a single pen stabbed into the hunter's head. Blood trickled down your face as the man slipped and fell, his eyes still open in shock. What made you scream however wasn't the fact that the hunter was dead, it was the fact that someone you knew had killed him.

"C-Chrollo, what's going on?" you muttered. He looked unfazed however, simply giving you the same smile he did back at the museum.

"You were running late for our trip to the market today, I was worried and it seems my intuition was correct," he was so calm.

"H-how could you kill someone though! More importantly, are you, are you part of the Phantom Troupe?" you asked him, now your voice was rising. He turned to you after kicking the man's head to the side with his foot.

"Yes, I happen to be the leader as well."

"S-so, you were the one that was behind the death of my clan as well," you stumbled back, too shocked by the news. How could he not be ashamed that he did such a thing?! "Y-you said you cared for me, you even told me that the Kurta did nothing wrong yet YOU KILLED THEM!"

"Ah, you're so naive, y/n, you should learn how to read people better," suddenly the Chrollo you knew disappeared. His eyes were cold, but he kept smiling. You wanted to punch him, scream at him for what he did to your life, but all you could do was let tears well up in your eyes.

"Darling, don't cry, you know I don't like seeing you-"

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME YOU MONSTER!" you shouted, turning away from him. A horrible sob came out of your throat and you buried your face in your hands. Chrollo still watched you, now slightly amused.

"You called me 'sweetheart' yesterday, but now it's changed to 'monster.' You can be quite indecisive you know," he commented. "Besides, the Kurta was buried with their village, they are not with us anymore," he walked slowly towards you, almost like you were some prey and he was a lion.

"You trusted me so much, you sang love to me every night, I don't think that would change for some creatures, right?"

"Are you saying I'm one of those 'creatures' then?" you looked up at him, he was directly above you.

"Perhaps, but I'm not out to get your eyes and sell them yet," he was so direct with his words. "I want to still stand by you, I'm sure you have no one else to turn to either way."

He was right. He was always right. You wanted to tell him you had your brothers and sisters, your best friends from Lukso Province, but no one was there behind you. You were all alone, the sole survivor of the Kurta clan (at least to your knowledge). Sighing in defeat, you let Chrollo wrap his arms around you. He shushed your weeping, whispering sweet nothings to calm you down.

The day went on as if the event never happened. Instead of going to the market, the two of you settled to stay indoors. He was reading on your couch as always, and you were making some food. You looked at the pan, it was a mix of ingredients you were familiar with. The dish was a favorite of yours when you were younger, one that your mother had always made.

"Remember to share it with those that care for you and those that you love," your mother said while patting your head. You nodded and watched as she showed how to prepare the dish.

"'People that care about me' huh," you mumbled to yourself. "How ironic."

#hxh #hunter x hunter #hxh x reader #hxh imagines #hxh scenarios #hxh kurta #hxh chrollo #hxh chrollo x reader #hxh chrollo lucilfer #chrollo #chrollo x reader #angst #gn!reader #hxh phantom troupe #phantom troupe x reader