#book rundown | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

torpublishinggroup · 9 months

Text

5 Literary Encounters with Legendary Beings

by a cat

Many mortal constructs began as stories, we say, confident in spite of our unwillingness to invest the research hours necessary to prove such a thesis. Why else would we tell time?

Anyway, having thus established the relevance of myth within our lives, let’s talk about something more fun than the ticking of the clock. Let’s talk about vampires, werewolves, and other myth-folk* by running down some awesome books within whose pages they reside.

Check it out!

Wolfsong by TJ Klune

Werewolves are for kissing. Don’t believe us? Let the gay lycans of TJ Klune’s Green Creek series melt your heart, and then achingly break it. These books are about a pack of werewolves, yes, but it’s important to remember that many mythical beings are people too: Given to all the messy yearning, loving, and hurting that comes with being alive.

Masters of Death by Olivie Blake

Vampires kind of have an image problem, unhelped by numerous depictions of bloody splatterfests and exploitative aristocratic legacies. Now who better to act on an image problem than a real estate agent? Viola Marek might be a vamp but she’s also got houses to sell. Unfortunately, one of them is very inconveniently haunted, and this is the inciting incident in Masters of Death by Olivie Blake—a story about (among other things) how immortality doesn’t actually spare the indignities, gifts, and difficulties of life. It just gives you more time to experience them.

Ebony Gate by Julia Vee & Ken Bebelle

And the next entry in our rundown of legendary entities is an urban fantasy full of assassins and dragon magic in San Francisco. Here’s a partial list of the mythical beings encountered within this thrilling debut:

a guardian foo lion

a shinigami in a business suit

a cat yokai

a LOT of ghosts

Spring’s Arcana by Lilith Saintcrow

The mythical and magical entities that populate our stories often embody aspects of our mortal lives. From this oblique angle, we as narrative-enthusiasts can sneak up on emotional and abstract truths otherwise inaccessible. But our lives change, and so do our stories, and Spring’s Arcana by Lilith Saintcrow is an excellent candidate to demonstrate this phenomenon. Nat Drozdova’s mother is sick, and she must cross an America full of modern divinities (the God of Money, Law and Order, the King of Thieves, etc.) in order to procure a stolen relic for a winter goddess in a skyscraper office who has the power to save her ailing mother.

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

“Toadling was, more or less, lucky. She was not harvested by the flesh-smiths nor devoured by redcaps, nor raised in the retinue of a great lord of Faerie. Instead she was thrown to the greenteeth, the slimy swamp-dwelling spirits who devour unwary swimmers. Boy-children they eat, always. Girl-children they eat, mostly. But occasionally their numbers will fall, or one of them will be seized with some murky maternal instinct, and they will raise a child instead.”

This snippet comes from the beginning of T. Kingfisher’s twisted fable, and already we are blessed with a dearth of fae folk. If you like mythical beings in fiction, pick this one up as soon as you can!

━━ ˖°˖ ☾☆☽ ˖°˖ ━━━━━━━

*Tor Blog-cat’s Note: Diligent readers may note that the introduction to this book roundup seems to imply the veracity of werewolves, vampires, and other beings of legend. While this question certainly lays beyond the scope of the Tor Publishing Group to answer, we do heartily encourage all readers to show kindness to any vamps, wolves, etc. that might or might not exist <3

#tor books #thornhedge #t. kingfisher #tj klune #wolfsong #spring's arcana #lilith saintcrow #ebony gate #julia vee #ken bebelle #masters of death #olivie blake #book list #tbr #booklr #book rundown

23 notes · View notes

lgbtpopcult · 4 months

Text

LGBTPOPCULT BEST OF 2023 AWARDS 🏆

Best film, drama

The Color Purple

Best film, comedy

Bottoms

Best animated film

Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine's Day Special

Best TV Series, drama

Monarch Legacy of Monsters

Best TV Series, comedy

Lucky My Love

Best animated TV series

Harley Quinn the Animated Series

Best International Series

wtFOCK

youtube

Best Reality Show

Love Allways

youtube

Best variety show or comedy special

Wanda Sykes, I'm an entertainer

youtube

Best Video Game

Little Goody Two Shoes

Best Novel

The Fiancee Farce

Best Comic book title or graphic novel

Poison Ivy

youtube

Best Song

Not My Fault, Renee Rapp

youtube

Best Music Album

REVERSA - Carol Biazin

Best Online Content Creator

Eden Morrissey

115 notes · View notes

hometownangels · 3 days

Text

need white people watching monkey man to please turn on their brains!! thx

#because taro mentioned something i feel very strongly about!!!#the film isnt here to give u a rundown of indian politics and all you can open a book just dont look to dev patel as your teacher

11 notes · View notes

lancrewizzard · 24 days

Note

Uhhh context for the vampire tragedy pls??

Okay, I will try. The vampire tragedy in question is the game series Legacy of Kain. It has a fantastic overarching story about fate and free will, and is the best constructed time travel narrative I've ever encountered. It's also pretty old and large chunks of it are bad to play.

The very basic bare bones plot is that a nobleman called Kain gets turned into a vampire and sent off on a quest to save the land of Nosgoth by restoring these magical pillars that are tied to the health of the land, fisher kingdom style, by killing the mages tied to each pillar. Then instead of the heroic sacrifice he should have made, he said "sod this, I'm going to become the vampiric emperor of the world."

A millennium later, his eldest son Raziel gets killed over Kain's ego, comes back as an angry little blue guy, and goes on a quest to kick Kain's head in. This leads to him chasing Kain far into Nosgoth's past, learning that he's supposedly a prophecised hero of a lost vampire culture, making an enemy of God (who is a dick) and breaking many many things, including the fabric of timespace and also my heart.

It is convoluted. It is messy. It is almost impossible to summarise succinctly and coherently. It is not whatever the fuck this lunatic described.

And as an aside, Soul Reaver has exactly one female character and she's dead. Super dead. She's a ghost and has one story relevant cutscene, plus a few optional lines directing the player to the next destination. I love the hell out of the series, but it is by no stretch a feminist narrative.

#hello anon i am sorry this is not very coherent #come back if you want a full rundown and powerpoint presentation on the legacy of kain #there is a reason i have a sideblog for that particular obsession #but in the same way that discworld works best as books because the narrative voice is such a big part of the appeal #lok works as games because you the player are not only experiencing the story with the characters but also #you're directly responsible for driving them towards their inevitable fates.#free will and fate within the confines of ps1-2 video game constraints. it's an incredible work of art. and often a chore to play #asks

7 notes · View notes

alsofullofflies · 10 months

Text

Since loving James Lance as Trent Crimm I’ve been scouring his work on IMDB and as far as being type cast, apparently in the early 2000s all casting directors really looked at him and thought ‘yes, this man is a slut’ 😭

(Context: ‘Teachers’ season 3 and ‘Absolute Power’)

30 notes · View notes

koravelliumavast · 1 year

Text

Successfully might’ve just intimidated someone by being too neurodivergent about stormlight

#in my defense he did ask for more about stormlight #what I don’t think he was expecting was a rundown of how the books set up #and a loose description of the plot and the characters it follows #but I didn’t even say anything about darkeyes and lighteyes or spren or the Rosharian ecology or Vorinism #or much about the crab people or anything about the knights radiant or anything about the shardblades or the highstorms.#and I STILL had four different huge blocks of text

25 notes · View notes

patroqlus · 2 months

Text

i finished my call down the hawk reread!! now im off to read mister impossible for the first time 🙈

#lil rundown on my reading history specifically with this series that absolutely no one cares about but #i read the first 3 books of trc in Jan 2015 waited for trk in 2016 and read it right when it came out #around 2017/18 i kinda just stopped reading all together i was focused on school #when cdth came out in 2019 I hadn’t read any books for quite some time but i read this and i really enjoyed it #more than i thought I would at the time #flash forward to 2023 I hadn’t read a book since cdth in 2019 😭 god it’s bad I know #so I made it a challenge for myself in 2023 alli you will read ONE book ONE you can do it #well december rolls around I have yet to read a book LIKE GIRL #so I was like you are not gonna fail this badly that’s so embarrassing so i decided to read the foxhole court #enjoyed it so much #it reminded me of how bad i loved trc and how much i missed it #so now i have reread the entire trc series and as you can see just finished rereading cdth #now im going into the unknown WEEEE #i will get back to aftg series after i finished the dreamer trilogy i swear!!#i just can’t leave this world for another again until I’ve seen it through to the end finally #ANYWAY MY GOD #alli.txt

2 notes · View notes

autismkendall · 3 months

Text

today's library rundown!

returning:

big swiss by jen beagin (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)

picking up:

slewfoot by brom

are you my mother? by alison bechdel (my queen)

#library rundown #books

2 notes · View notes

clemencetaught · 1 year

Text

HOT ( not really ) TAKE i've been thinking about:

i love the hu*nger ga*mes as much as the next person and the characters are very well written....that being said bc there's such a large cast and the main plot revolves around a few characters, sometimes i feel like it doesn't leave a lot of space for ocs to carve their own significant spaces esp within the plot when there are already canon characters ( whose portrayals are amazing, keep doing that ) who do so....so i was thinking-

what if instead of sticking to the canon....we just make our own version of the hun*ger g*ames universe...? like the canon characters don't exist so it lets ocs take their spots and we can see how they and the plot might differ and flourish?? AND THEN WHAT IF a bunch of blogs got involved so it would be interconnected?? it wouldn't even have to be clo*sed rp group but that's just me rambling bc it would be my DREAM to have a interconnected thg verse again :'D

#out of mercy ( ooc. )#am i saying u should join me in this???#....yes. it would be fun we wouldn't even have to stick to the canon either :3 #also if you don't know about the h*unger g*ames #i can give u a basic rundown of what the world*building looks like #and what the general plot was too #personally i've found you don't need to necessarily read all the books/watch all the movies to get the premise #like think....post apocalyptic dystopia tyranny #where the 12 districts have to send one male and one female to the hunger games #which is a duel to the death #also they have to be between 12 and 17- 24 go in and only one comes out alive #oh and it's treated like a sporting event- real f* up

15 notes · View notes

fideidefenswhore · 1 year

Quote

Monarchs consulted Mariano the Younger on matters of European importance, such as Henry VIII's divorce case. Although the cautious Venetian government forbade the Paduan professors to respond publicly to Henry's request for judicial opinions, Mariano did so anyway. He argued that the Pope had lacked the authority to grant the dispensation permitting Henry to marry his brother's widow.

The Universities of the Italian Renaissance (2004)

#profs are so messy.#but no fr...#you could absolutely write a thriller about the GM set in italy #i got this impression from catherine fletcher's book too #political. psychological. take your pick #just read a rundown of the scholars and theologians and the skullduggery...the drams...#the papal nuncion threatened the university of vicenza; obtained the signatures in favor of henry viii and burned them??#one of henry's supporters was assasinated ???#all this is sort of contextualizing anne believing nicholas hawkins had been poisoned...#the great matter files #*in vicenza ; no university there.#i think the venetian council was held there. anyway. i might post that quote too

10 notes · View notes

itfitsitshipsart · 1 year

Note

🎶 I'm a sucker for song analysis!

Alright! I'll actually write for two characters cause I can and shall explain. So buckle up cause this is a LONG one!~

🎶 Select a piece of music to relate to your ship. What themes or ideas about your ships does this piece of music share or highlight?

The song i shall pick today for analysis is Someone Like You - by Aurelio Voltaire. His music is amazing and I highly recommend listening to some of his stuff if you haven't.

youtube

So, before I start rambling on, I have to say that, if I'm made it clear or not, I can't help but love angst when it comes to my fiction, and even in the happy parts I like that somber undertone. There's always something there. And because of this, I have a lot of songs that I can use for many different boys of mine. And while in some ways I'm beating on a dead horse, so to speak, the somber is as different as it is the same, and I suppose that's from the importance of backstories and the like.

SO, I'm going to describe the song in relation to Raven first (I guess these are more essays on characters and relations, with the music to direct and supplement) , because he's the main man and I have things to say, but I'll afterwards also describe the song as it relates to Weiss because he's an obsession right now, and when I was trying to pick music this stuff came to me (the ideas for plot are turning in my head~).

As usual, there'd by spoilers but... well, there's a warning XD

But, without further ado...

Raven

'I was lost. I was shattered I was lonely. I was blue In my world full of shadows Covered in cobwebs Draped in gloom'

To say Raven is a broken character would be an understatement. He went through hell and back and suffered with depression before the events of the game even started (a depression that still lingered even after the game, as these things do. He had no magical 'all better now' moment). As a young man, he had no direction in his life, being a 'problem child' to his father and elder sibling. He didn't know what or who he was supposed to be. But through events he first took as humiliating, he found friends and direction through joining the knights, and more specifically a group of knight led by a woman named Casey. She steered him into a path he was happy with, and he felt like he belonged and was doing things right.

Until he lost her, and all the friends he made, from a horrible war. The only survivor in his entire group, he lost everything, and everyone. There was nothing for him, and he told himself that he died right there with them. That he was a walking corpse and a puppet to be used by his superiors. And he was like this for almost 10 years, before meeting my S/I, taking the name Schwann Oltorain and then Raven as well.

'And then, something happened You just came waltzing in Like a warm summer breeze And spring bloomed again And I caught myself smiling For the first time since I don't know when'

When My S/I first met him, It was a small start for a gradual change. He didn't feel happy and better immediately, but there was a warmth to her, something genuine and gentle that soothed him. And he did find himself smiling a few times. Sure, he smiled before during those years, but they weren't genuine. They didn't count, they were smiles to merely placate others. But with my S/I, he felt the few joyous sparks. And even when it was uncomfortable, and he distanced himself, she gently would go to him and wait for him. It was love he hadn't felt in years, since Casey and his old comrades...

'Because of you, because of you How long I've waited for someone like you Say it's true, tell me it's you All my world needed To see it through was you'

I'd be lying to say she was all he needed, as the friends he made along his journey through the game were a major help for his depression, identity crisis, and guilt. But he still needed her. And she needed him, and wanted it so much to be him.

'What is this feeling that's got my heart reeling I'm scaling the walls and I'm pacing the floor I know this desire that's loaded with fire 'Cause it's a fire that's burned me before And I don't know if I have the power to try The last time I did left me battered and bruised I felt my heart die, I've got nothing inside Well, then I guess I've got nothing to lose'

Raven struggled with his feelings for a long time, falling in love with her, and then pushing her away for a while. And while he was her first love, he had fallen in love before. And that woman was Casey, long ago. But it was unrequited, as she loved another and not him as such. But he loved her and held those feelings silently in his heart, and did his best to protect her, if not for himself, then for her and the man she loved. But Casey died, saving him of all people, and even in her sacrifice, he in essence... died.

'I felt my heart die, I've got nothing inside'

This would be the line in the entire thing I'd say describes Raven early on, both figuratively and literally. When he died with his friends, after Casey tried to give him more time with her sacrifice, he was pierced clear through his heart, it being destroyed, and only through magic technology was he resuscitated when he would have rather died with his friends. This was, at the center of it, what left him empty and feeling more corpse than man.

But... through new friends and love, he realized he was someone worth living and loving, and he had everything to still live for.

'I will tear the blinds and let all this light Wash out the hurt and lies I went through I will wave goodbye to sobbing in the night I'm gonna let my life start anew Because of you, because of you'

It wasn't a night and day change. He still struggles with the guilt, and the emptiness, but he works through and despite it, thank in part to my S/I. With her, he starts living again.

Did any of that make sense? Hopefully! Did it properly answer the thing? Also hopefully! Now the next one!

Weiss

'I was lost. I was shattered I was lonely. I was blue In my world full of shadows Covered in cobwebs Draped in gloom'

Before digging into the lyrics, I have to make a note on the vocals. The moments with the soft echos, whispery and soft, I immediately was reminded of Weiss's magic. His magic through written and spoken word, that one hears growing more powerful as Shades are defeated.

Both Weiss and my S/I were lonely individuals, though my S/I felt it more than he. She kept mostly to herself, and didn't feel like she quite belonged with the other people. Meanwhile Weiss's loneliness he stopped feeling. After being Grimoire Weiss for a thousand years, he had forgotten his past, and only knew what he was then. A tome of knowledge and power. But there was little he did, waiting for the purpose of his creation, and he collected dust and slipped in and out of consciousness. Both lived in a world haunted by physical shadows, Shades, but those were merely part of life.

'And then, something happened You just came waltzing in Like a warm summer breeze And spring bloomed again And I caught myself smiling For the first time since I don't know when'

My S/I found him by chance, or perhaps fate, who could say. And it was not long until a connection was made, and it grew between the two. They felt things they didn't know or understand, but were hungry to learn more about, and they felt a joy and love for one another.

'Because of you, because of you How long I've waited for someone like you Say it's true, tell me it's you All my world needed To see it through was you'

Neither were actively waiting for each other, as far as they knew. But it was one of the things that, once it started, then they learned how badly they needed it, and needed each other.

Perhaps this part better suits their relationship, centuries later, or perhaps not. Anyways, either of them really felt this way to another before. Perhaps Weiss did ages past, but if he did, it was no longer known to him.

'I will tear the blinds and let all this light Wash out the hurt and lies I went through I will wave goodbye to sobbing in the night I'm gonna let my life start anew Because of you, because of you'

Weiss, according to an old song, was portrayed as one of two books, and the one to heal and save everyone, and rid the world of darkness. Fitting, though the nature of how he was to save humanity was... not as my S/I or the others thought. Since she and everyone else were (spoilers) not human, but vessels made for human souls that he would help move to them, at the expense of the people who came into existence.

Weiss was willing at the time to turn away from his duty, what he was made for, purely from the knowledge that if he did what he was made to eventually to her, she would be lost. And that enough was too much for him.

Because of you, because of you How long I've waited for someone like you Say it's true, tell me it's you All my world needed To see it through was you How long I've waited for someone like you Say it's true, tell me it's you 'Cause you just came waltzing in from out of the blue Please say, it's you

I add the final refrain, because like the words repeating themselves, is like their feelings for one another growing anew after centuries. Fate, and choices good or bad, tore them apart. Weiss lost his memories of her, and she clung to her memories of him and fell into a cursed sleep, to wait for him.

And he found her again, and even though he did not fully remember, he once again fell in love with her.

Woo, I wrote a lot! Maybe too much? XD It felt like the right amount tho. Thanks if you made it this far! I had a lot of fun.

#answered ask #answered asks #I guess this gives you the rundown of my S/I and Weiss's story huh? XD #and Raven of course I can talk all day about him and his story #seriously if anyone wants me to rant further please tell me to!#all my heart ❤#book's lover ✨✒

6 notes · View notes