#The original covers for these books are also phenomenal so I really just had to hype myself up that I could make my own lovely versions | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ladyinbooks · 6 months

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Ok, so a little while I reblogged the work of the phenomenally talented @dashka12, who had created the most stunning binding of Icarus, Burning. It is seriously gorgeous, and if you haven't seen @dashka12's original post, go and shout some well deserved praise on it now, because oh my word is the binding fantastic.

Afterwards, Dashka got in touch and very kindly offered to send me a copy as well. The binding arrived yesterday evening (and no, I am not going to be normal about this now, so you're warned).

OH. MY. GOSH.

So, firstly I had a meltdown and a little cry when I opened the parcel (it really is stunning - I'm not exaggerating, it's stunning).

The richness of the cover, the gold leaf and the wonderful, dreamlike galactic interior. I said it to @dashka12 - it feels so very Samiel to me somehow. Dashka's combined that sci-fi feel with something that is far more mythological, and created utter beauty. (And I forgot to take a picture of the mask on the back cover, but IT'S PERFECT.)

But then:

I realised that not only was there a copy of IB, there was also another wrapped parcel that had been sent as well. I initially assumed perhaps IB had been split into two volumes, but... no. I'll give you a clue what the other parcel was:

YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING, RIGHT?!

Look at it. Look. It's sheer and total and wondrous perfection.

There is something so very, very Hess about this binding, and @dashka12 has captured it beautifully. That heavenly, stunning angelic exterior; the demonic interior leaf pages. The beautiful gilded pages and the biblical feel of the whole binding - I just. I can't. I don't have words to describe it, or do it proper justice, because I'm actually speechless with how much I love it. All I can say is it's been twenty-four hours, and I still can't stop looking at it (or IB, either).

Look, I'm going to be completely honest: when I saw what @dashka12 had created I really did cry. For someone to create such beautiful work - such art - from something I wrote, means so much to me. To be able to hold books - actual books - that sprang from my fics honestly just blew me away. For the first time, something I'd written felt oddly real, in a way I can't really explain (possibly my olde schoole brain still equates physical books with being a Genuine Author somehow).

So thank you, @dashka12. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Your creativity and your talent are phenomenal; your kindness even more so. You've given me something priceless with these, and I can never thank you enough.

(And yes, both books are now sitting in pride of place on my bookshelf - right next to my 18th C. copy of the Iliad. Take that, Homer - you only wish you looked this good.)

#lady's phenomenal readers #Icarus Burning #Path to Paradise

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vex-cti · 1 month

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[LONGPOST] I just finished... Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

I wanna write down all my thoughts before I delve into more in-depth online opinions. I'm writing this on the same day as having done the last two chapters of the game, so I may have not had time to process the story completely. However, I've been playing this game for the entire month and I got a lot to say. Obvious spoilers ahead, but I'll still try to keep some things vague enough.

Okay Square Enix, you win, I'll use photo mode

Graphics in video games are like how attractive a dessert looks, it doesn't dictate how it will taste, but it makes you want to try it. Rebirth feels like one of those games that is finally showing what the PS5 is capable of, with environments extremely rich in detail, superb lightning that's both colorful and conveys the right emotion for each scene, this is the prettiest Final Fantasy has ever looked, even compared to 16 which had some optimization issues and dull lightning in some areas, specially towards endgame. No single location in Rebirth feels half-baked, what used to be single screens and flat textures in the original have been completely re-imagined to have their own identity. I will talk about more about the open environments when I talk about gameplay and exploration.

Reliving the moments: Going above and beyond

The cutscene direction for this game is absolutely phenomenal, I love that they have amped up the campiness of the original 7, while also being faithful to the serious and emotional moments. What shines even more in Remake is the excellent writing when it comes to the characters, their performances are full of charisma, and it made it clear to me why the cast of seven ended up becoming so iconic to gaming as a whole. Every scene with these characters interacting, no matter if it was the dullest of sidequests, made everything entertaining. But the best part of Rebirth, like its predecessor, it's when it brings back the iconic moments we all wanted to see. The Junon Parade, Costa del Sol, Red XIII and Cosmo Canyon, Barret and Corel, and many more of these moments have barely altered from how they happened originally, reliving these moments feels like watching a high production TV Series based on a book you loved as a kid. If you love the original FFVII but have no intentions of playing the remake due to how things change, I at least recommend you look up the scenes that do stay faithful.

Some things left me wanting

Still, Rebirth only covers up to the end of Disc 1 section of the story, and has some blatant teases from trailers and the game itself that left me wanting. The Planet's weapons are mentioned and different versions appear, but there's no Diamond or Ruby weapon superboss yet. Both Cid and Vincent make their debuts near the final chapters, but are not playable for now, which left me a little disappointed. And this lets me segway perfectly into the other best part of Rebirth...

Can I just say I love the portraits in this game? Love me some PNGs

When I first played Part 1 of the Remake saga, I felt like I had no idea of what I was doing with the combat, I found the action-hybrid system too complicated and visually cluttered I felt like I was brute forcing every fight and not really enjoying myself. I finished the game and didn't come back to it until early this year where I decided to do Hard Mode for the Platinum, and this time I had a way better time, now understanding the combat system and each fight better. It makes for a flashy, semi tactical game with very visceral and satisfying animations, powers, character building thanks to materia, the importance of positioning, blocking, switching aggro, it felt like the realization of what games like FF12 and 13 aimed to be.

So imagine my surprise when Rebirth made it even better. Fundamentals are still the same, new skills were to be expected, but my favorite new addition are synergy skills. Not only do you get special commands you can perform with your partners in the party with extremely satisfying animations, you also have synergy real time action commands which reward you for being more reactive and agressive, now adding perfect blocks and counters, now every time you play with a different team composition you're gonna feel the difference of having Barret or Red or Yuffie as your partner, as you get access to different skills.

They also help you build ATB for characters not actively controlled at any given time, which is an excellent quality of life improvement. My only nitpick is that despite the menus allowing you to have 3 different party compositions and even allowing you to set the leader for each, Cloud is mandatory. Cloud is of course good at everything, so it's not the worst thing, but it does suck that I can't play as a team of Barret, Red, and Yuffie at any time in the open world. Though you can do that at virtual combat challenges or the colliseum. This feels like an oversight.

Fortunately, this meant I was playing around different characters all the time, because they're all great, and it feels super satisfying to set the right materia for each one according to what you envision them to be and complement their abbilities. Some are obvious: give Yuffie the steal materia, give Aerith healing materia. But who gets to be the mage, the debuffer, the buffer, the tank, that's up to you. I found Red XIII + Darkside materia works extremely well thanks to his Reaper Claw abbility and his health regeneration, sort of like a bestial Dark Knight, great crowd control and support all around. Cait Sith takes some work to get used to, and requires lots of setup, but his luck based gameplay can have some serious benefits, I'm sure he will come in handy in hard mode. Yuffie plays almost identically to her DLC, and she is excellent for handling boss fights with multiple parts or different weaknesses.

Exploring will either be fun or tedious, depends on who you ask

I feel like the other primary component of the gameplay, which is the exploration and traversal, will be a bit more divisive. It takes tropes from standard open world games like towers, points of interest, fast travel, loot locations, hunts, there is nothing new or original about it. However, that doesn't mean it can't be fun. Completing areas feels like I'm playing a collect-a-thon akin to Sonic Frontiers, where while it may not be the most exciting thing in the world, it is very relaxing for me, as I take in the sights and look for ways to get to new areas and find the next rare fiend. What I enjoy about the world design is that areas are not large, but are very packed and designed in such a way where you can't get everywhere by just looking at markers on the map, sometimes you do have to look for clues on the environment to get to where you need to, meaning you're looking at where you're going more than your tracker, which is great, but you still get the benefits of one. So it's a nice compromise, not as open ended as BoTW or Elden Ring, but not as braindead as a Ubisoft game. However, completing these areas can take a while, and if you're like me and plan to do all of them, don't be surprised when each area can take you up to 10 hours if you want to do everything.

"No seriously Cloud, I'm still waiting!" -Sephiroth, 100 hours into your game file

If you remember FF16 (I love that game too btw), you might remember how universally hated the sidequests were, not so much for their stories, but for their large amount and lack of variety. It seems like Rebirth is an active effort to avoid those same mistakes. Most sidequests in this game has you doing something different, have an entertaining story or character development attached to them, or even have you doing something dumb like bringing chickens back to their sweet innocent mother, or following an Ex Shinra employee in some brutal gold saucer challenges. I won't say every sidequest is a winner, at the end of the day, they're still busywork, and never will a game make you feel good saying "Congratulations on your progress, you have unlocked even more sidequests to do!". Still, I have to commend them, they do not bombard you with them, you can do a few at a time and be good for the next area, and the rewards allow your party to access more skills.

They have some of the most fun music too

The sidequest also introduce an excuse to have you do more of the minigames and take on their harder difficulties. And BOY did they add soooo many minigames, I could not believe I was encountering a new one what feels like every hour. There's something both horrifying and admirable about the devs commitment to bring back the spirit of a ps1 classic in this way. Have you noticed that triple AAA games basicly don't do minigames anymore? Yea fishing games are still around I guess, but Rebirth is not ashamed to harken to those videogamey roots and sheer goofiness. Red football, Fort Condor (love the reinterpretation), Super Dolphin Sunshine, and so many more. Enjoy youself with these minigames, and pick your least favorites too because there will be at least one that will make you want to break your controller. Contenders for me are Glide de Chocobo for it's terrible camera, and Gears & Gambits for having an overwhelming amount of Gambits for such a simple minigame (even FF12 had you start with a small amount). Still, there is more bad than good here. What I was not expecting was a brand new card game, akin to Triple Triad in 8 and 14: Queen's Blood.

*Insert Yugioh abridged reference here*

Not only did I not expect a new card game 2 hours into the game, I did not expect it to be so good, and have me thinking about different deck builds, deck synergy, strategies, and ways to one up your opponent with some smart plays. Queen's Blood is an extremely fun time sink and nice break from all the combat and normal exploration. It can be overwhelming at first, and having so many different cards with effects each is a hassle I've seen many not even wanting to bother with, finding some of its rules to be too confusing. I will say that if you're not constantly updating your deck with better cards you won't be making much progress, but you also won't know what cards are better if you don't play enough to get what your objective is, so it's best to start getting into it the sooner you start the game. Do make sure you take note of some of the later puzzles and challenges, as they can teach you strategies to make comebacks on hard duels.Screw the survival challenges, though.

But the journey isn't quite the same, after all

Perhaps the stuff I have the least things to say about, are the new elements to the story, which are more prevalent during the beginning and ending sequences of the game. I was honestly intrigued at the start, the tension and anxiety felt in this unknown timeline Zack has walked into, and the mystery surrounding the true fate of our protagonists, as it shows you bits and pieces of more information the further you progress, I was curious to where things were going. Unfortunately, the ending provided even more questions than answers, and I still feel like it's not as emotionally impactful as perhaps it intends to be, maybe due to the lack of clear information. I understand it wants to keep itself vague with the idea of multiple timelines and universes colliding, or what Sephirot's actual plan is. But it does make things like the Whispers feel even more pointless than when they showed up in Remake, but at least their presence has been reduced, as expected. Areas where changes to the story were most effective were when they were not pointed out to be a product of a split timeline, like the conclusion to the Junon festival, or the Gongaga reactor sections.

But of course, what most people were more curious about, was how was the ending going to change, we all knew it was going to be different no matter what. And while I feel like these convoluted elements do take off some of the emotion of the original scene, there is one element which does seem to align these new events with the emotions of the original: Cloud himself. For he experiences the events of the ending differently from the rest, and it's left unclear how reliable is his perspective. Add Sephiroth's manipulation of Cloud's emotions and he becomes this genuinely creepy and ruthless shell of himself. This new problem does not completely go away by the end, as Cloud is not fully aware of it yet. But with how the new version of the ending has unfolded, it left me with these feeling of doubt and... hollowness, confusion, not sure if to be sad, or hopeful. Which I feel is exactly how Cloud feels as well, as his human nature is questioned.

Despite thinking a faithful story remake would have been more satisfying, I can't deny these new events had me thinking about the story of FInal Fantasy 7 in ways I could connect emotionally to it even more. Perhaps, what this game truly achieved for me, is remind me just how much I love this franchise, for its extremely creative worlds and creatures, to its unique stories and unforgettable characters. Rebirth is a celebration of Final Fantasy, a joy to look and play, to relive and to guess. It's got one more part to prove if these changes to the narrative were really worth it, nonetheless. And honestly, I hope they don't keep relying on vagueness as much.

But when they are not being vague, I promise you, every moment, old or new, will feel exciting.

#final fantasy vii #ff7 rebirth #ff7 rebirth review #review #iranted #now when someone asks me what i thought about the game i can just copy paste this #no but wait then they would find my blog #i did not think this throuuuuuuuugh #i wonder if babyboi will want to ever do a final fantasy marathon with me hmmm i got so much to say about all games #i should also mention the towns in this game are WONDERFUL #and the gold saucer date had me internally sobbing

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the-eclectic-wonderer · 6 months

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Tag someone you want to know AND/OR some of your besties.

I was tagged by @valentinaonthemoon, my sweetest mutual! Thank you!

Favourite colour: warm shades of yellow (think gold yellow or sunglow yellow).

Last song: Dreams by The Cranberries (thank you, Derry Girls!)

Last movie: Anastasia (1997). My brother mentioned he'd never seen it, and I simply had to show it to him. It's as magical as i remember. The last new movie (as in, not a rewatch) I watched was Asteroid City by Wes Anderson, which left such an impression on me I still rant about it regularly with the friend I saw it with. It was an incredible experience!

Currently watching: The Golden Girls! I'm having such a blast - it's hilarious, the girls have amazing chemistry and interactions, and its treatment of 'charged' themes (regarding eg sexuality, gender identity, poverty, race, having/not having children etc) holds up surprisingly well for a show that was made between 1985 and 1992. It's easy to see why it's so well-liked. I'm also watching season 2 of Loki, and enjoying it very much! I haven't really posted anything about it yet because I'm watching with family, and we're quite behind schedule. So no spoilers, please!

Other stuff I watched this year: Oh, dear. I don't remember all of them, but let's see... I rewatched Steven Universe, Steven Universe Future and Brooklyn Nine-Nine in the first few months of the year, but I don't remember watching anything new in particular (although I remember playing a lot of videogames - that's probably why). I caught up with the new season of the lovely Only Murders In The Building just in time to theorize about the last four episodes or so (and this season was so so so good, I think it's become my favourite!), and I watched S2 of Our Flag Means Death as it aired (I still haven't recovered from the ending of Ep. 3, good heavens). A dear friend recommended Derry Girls to me a couple of weeks back; I finished it just a few days ago and loved it to bits. It completely broke my heart and put it back together in such a gentle, caring way - instant favourite. And then, of course, although I haven't talked about it all that much, I've also watched Good Omens, season 2. And then rewatched Season 1. And then rewatched both in Italian, to check out the translation. And then rewatched them both in English, because I missed the original voices. I might have a bit of a problem.

Shows I dropped this year/didn’t finish: I don't recall anything specific this year, but the last season and a half of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel has been hanging above my head for a while. I reached a point in the story where the second-hand embarrassment was so intense I couldn't bear to keep watching, and it's been haunting me ever since. I'd love to get back into it, eventually, when I find the courage.

Currently reading: The Blackwater series, by Michael McDowell. I'm not usually a fan of horror, but the cover art captured my attention, and before I knew it the story had captivated me completely. I'm also re-reading and annotating A Girl's Story (which is a horrible translation of the original title, Mémoire de fille) by Annie Ernaux for my book club. It's a poignant, thought-provoking work, and a truly deserved Nobel prize winner.

Currently listening to: Mr. Hozier decided to drop his new album at precisely the right time to twist the knife into my Good Omens heartbreak, and so it was inevitable I'd end up listening to his stuff a whole lot. Jokes aside, Unreal Unearth is phenomenal and has made me cry a lot of tears so far. Then we have some sparse stuff (Glenn Miller, Queen, Kate Bush) and some rock - mostly Greta van Fleet (Starcatcher) and Voyager (Colours in the Sun and Fearless in Love). The most recent addition to the roster is the new album by Rebecca Sugar, Spiral Bound (Good Morning Afternoon has quickly become a new favourite of mine).

Currently working on: a couple of WIP fanfics, planning for Christmas gifts.

Current obsession: Listen. Listen. If you follow me, you know. You know what my current obsession is. Good Omens has filled my every waking thought since July 28th, 2023 and I have made it everyone's problem for months. (I'm not sorry about it, by the way. i did warn you all.) At this point, I'm guessing this new obsession will sustain me at least until season 3 drops.

This was really fun, thank you @valentinaonthemoon! I honestly can't choose someone to tag, so - if you got this far and would like to tell the world about your interests, please consider this your official invite. And tag me if you do it! Enjoy!

#personal

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ace-reviews · 1 year

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Anime Review: Trigun Stampede

Originally, when this series won the poll to see which of this season's anime I would review, I was planning to rewatch the 1998 anime in order to better discuss the differences between the two series, since I've never watched the movie or read the manga or seen any of the other adaptations that may or may not exist. I ultimately didn't because I have super important video games to play, but it's probably fine. I'm sure there are plenty of comparisons between the two just a Google search away if that's what you're interested in.

I watched several disconnected episodes of Trigun in high school and watched the whole series a few years ago, in the background while I played some video game or another. Basically, while I definitely enjoy and have fond memories of it, I've never had the deep and abiding love of the series that a lot of other millennial weebs have.

I didn't retain much about the plot or the history of the characters, but I remembered that Vash is a plant (though not the kind I originally thought of) who likes love, peace, and donuts; Meryl and Milly were trying to keeping him from causing more property damage; Wolfwood dies; and Knives is yandere. That's about it. Even so, I was put off by some of the seemingly arbitrary changes made for Stampede--mostly the decision to replace Milly with a middle aged alcoholic named after an actor and the introduction of Vash and Knives' backstory in the first episode.

I left the first episode feeling largely ambivalent toward the whole thing, and when the second episode was out I was busy watching other premiers so I didn't bother with it. Then I got caught up with the third episode and was blown the fuck away.

Knives has always ever been "Vash's yandere brother" to me. I remember little about him from the '98 series except that he exists and was the bad guy. When he was introduced in the first episode of Stampede playing piano while draped in that weird blobby shroud thing, I found it a bit silly. Like, "ooooh look at him he's so scawy lmao". Then he showed up in episode three and was fucking terrifying.

The highest point of the series is the episode detailing Wolfwood's backstory, which is presented in a charming picture book style that looks very nice and contrasts nicely with the really dark shit being covered. If I wanted to, I could also write a separate essay just talking about how Knives is the best character and how he was totally right all along (some of the shit he gets up to in the last couple episodes crosses over into 'what the fuck dude' territory, but he is supposed to be the bad guy so it's fine).

The environmental messaging is a bit hamfisted, but considering the current state of the climate I think we're far past the need for subtlety--if anything, we should probably start looking into beating people 'round the head with actual hammers instead of merely metaphorical ones lest this series become based on a future true story.

Ultimately, though, Trigun Stampede is fucking phenomenal. I'm not going to say 'you owe it to yourself!!' to give it a second chance if you bounced off the first episode because the only things you owe yourself are food, water, sunshine, and love, but I doubt you'd regret giving it another go.

#trigun stampede #anime review #winter 2023

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rj-anderson · 2 years

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Hello hello!

A very good morning/afternoon/evening/time zone to you! I hope this message finds you in good health and you are doing well, especially with the whole [gestures to the world], y’know. But more to the point!

I’ve been doing a little cleaning lately, and found my copies of the Faery Rebels trilogy again — and also promptly re-read them all in about three days and completely forgot about continuing to clean. It’s been an absolute age since I’ve last read them, but they’re still so wonderful, and the magic (pun slightly intended) is still there. I’m about half-way through Swift as of this ask, and am still very much hooked onto each and every word.

I’m 21 now, and it’s been a good 12/13 years since I first started reading your stories (just about when Knife first released, I think!) They’ve brought me great comfort and intrigue then, and they bring just as much comfort and intrigue now. I mean it with my whole heart and soul when I say these books are like the Oak to my being Knife. I’m older now, different from who and what I once was, but this home has always been there for me and it is so near and dear I will always cherish it and love it in whatever ways I can.

Beyond the stories themselves, I, of course, must send all my love and appreciation to the one behind them all. Much of how and what I write now has been influenced by your own writing and ideas, especially since re-reading everything. You were (and are) a phenomenal inspiration to my own creativity. Ironically enough, however, I’ve spent a very long time agonising over how to write this ask.

I think I’ve rattled on long enough, and though it’s not quite an unpayable debt in it’s original context, I do owe a lot of what I make now to you.

So, thank you! 💙

- 🕊 (Much love from Britain)

This is so kind and complimentary that I feel almost shy about reposting it! But since you sent it anonymously it's the only way I can reply, plus it gives me the chance to share some (hopefully) exciting news about an upcoming release, so I hope my Tumblr followers will indulge me. Anyway, thank you very much for this lovely letter -- it means the world to hear that long-time readers are still enjoying the books even now they're grown up, and that up-and-coming writers like yourself have found them an inspiration. Encouraging notes like this are the reason I worked so hard to write and get Torch published a couple years ago, despite the seven-year gap between it and the previous book of the trilogy -- I knew that even though the readers of Swift and Nomad had grown up in the interim, many of them were still longing for a proper wrap-up to Ivy and Martin's story and would read it regardless of what age was printed on the cover. Which is also why -- and here comes the announcement -- I'm going to be self-publishing a collection of short stories (well, one of them is technically a novella and another is a novelette, but I trust nobody objects to them being a little longer!), set in the world of Knife and Swift but with slightly more grown-up sensibilities. Not "adult" in the explicit sense, I hasten to add, but featuring older characters and dealing with some more mature themes that I couldn't really dig into over the course of the main series. I'm just doing the final pass of edits and haven't fixed a firm release date yet, but I'm aiming to make Tales From the Oakenwyld available in e-book format (and perhaps paperback, if there's enough interest?) by the end of 2022.

I'll be announcing the release date and sharing the cover in a few weeks, so if you're curious to know things like how Thorn ended up as we find her in Torch, the never-before-told backstories of Rob and Martin, and what exactly Paul did tell his parents about Knife (the story of which is already available as a bonus for new subscribers!) I invite you to sign up for my Very Occasional Newsletter!

Thanks again for taking the time to write to me, and not agonizing yourself right out of doing it (as a chronic overthinker myself, I know how these things can go). Your words came at just the right time to encourage me today, and I really appreciate it!

#replies #anonymous #my books #my writing #Tales From the Oakenwyld #Faery Rebels #the Flight and Flame trilogy #No Ordinary Fairy Tale #Enclave Publishing

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artsy-dreamer · 2 years

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Ok, story time

So recently, I was shopping on the Target website, and I made a PHENOMENAL find…

This tea party book I had when I was a kid??

I absolutely ADORED this book, read it over and over again until the pages came loose from the cover, and my grandma and I had a bunch of tea parties together and we made all kinds of things from the book 🥺 Very good memories… I hadn’t read it in years since I lost my copy, but I never forgot all the good times I had with this book

So obviously, I wasn’t gonna pass up the opportunity to buy it… I thought it was maybe out of print or something, but no?? It was just?? Available to buy on Target dot com??

And then it got here, and I just?? Oh my gosh?? My CHILDHOOD???? 🥺🥺

We made these!!

We made them with flower stickers 😊 I remember that tea party being not as much fun as the others cuz there were bees, lol

And we made these!!

My grandma’s had the colors of her favorite team 😊

And we made these!!

Though we changed the recipe a bit- left out the butter and the pecans, specifically used cinnamon raisin bread iirc, and strawberry cream cheese! They were super good 😋 The flavors complement each other really well

And we also made this 👀

We made it with apple cider mix instead cuz I didn’t like tea… so much sugary goodness, lol :p And it was really good! While I still don’t really like tea by itself, I do like it mixed with other drinks (pomegranate lemonade, and of course boba) so maybe I actually would like this if it was made with actual tea… might have to try that sometime 🤔

It was really fun being able to relive my childhood… I’d love to make some of this stuff again 😊

But there was one thing that really threw me for a loop…

The recipe for flute cookies

Must be some sort of weird Mandela effect going on, because I specifically remember the recipe saying that Lorna Doone shortbread cookies would be the right shape… in fact, I specifically remember it being how I learned about the existence of Lorna Doone cookies in the first place, and I don’t remember even seeing them in person until years after I read the book

Maybe this is a newer edition and that part of the recipe was removed, since those cookies don’t come in flute shapes anymore? But I looked at the back of the book, and nope, this is the original edition

And what’s even weirder, Lorna Doone cookies have been around since the 20s, and they’ve NEVER come in flute shapes…

also apparently they’re not actual shortbread cuz they don’t contain butter, and there was some kind of lawsuit about it?? So that was interesting to learn, lol

So where on earth did this elaborate false memory come from?? It had to originate from somewhere… maybe there was a different recipe from an American Girl book or magazine, I really enjoyed those at that age 🤔 It’s just so weird… also why did I never realize until I got this new copy that you’re probably supposed to use this kind of cookie, lol

like it literally never occurred to me XD

So that was a really fun trip down memory lane… with an unexpected mystery twist 👀 Seriously, it’s such a lovely book

#emilie barnes #let’s have a tea party #food #recipe #childhood #long post #i don’t think I’ve ever had lorna doone cookies actually 🤔#walkers is probably better anyway XD #if you want the real shortbread experience lol

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therealitycollective · 2 years

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How to Shatter Your Own Atheism (if you so choose)

I remember seeing a drawing of Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. They're sitting next to each other on a wooden bench. And one of them says to the other "I've seen some weird shit." The other one says "Me too."

And I can also say "Me too." On drugs and off drugs.

One time in college a friend of mine gave me a copy of "Autobiography of Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda. I read of all the myriad miracles spoken of in this book and said to myself: "That's all well and good but how do i know he's not just making it up?"

I turned the book over in my hands and stared at the picture of him on the front cover, staring directly into his eyes. No sooner had I started gazing into his eyes than did his face start changing into the faces of other people. One after the other. A Japanese grandmother, a young black African child, a soldier with canvas green hat, an indigenous woman of immense physical beauty. One face after the other. On and and on.

So that was a turning point for me. It was the first time i realized there was more to life than meets the eye without the use of psychedelic substances.

But I can't recommend doing something similar to you if you're atheistic but curious. I can't promise that just by your asking for a miraculous affirmation that you will receive it. That's surely not the way of things. The magick in this world doesn't bend to our will so easily.

What I would recommend, though, is this: Read "Be Here Now" and/or "Be Love Now" by Baba Ram Dass. Ram Dass was a Harvard professor (originally named who started experimenting with LSD and mushrooms and his wild experiments eventually got him fired from Harvard. Then he reflected on the fact that every time i took LSD he would just come right back down to normal waking consciousness.

So he set out to India with some acid and asked myriad mystics and yogis what they thought about LSD. Eventually he met a man named Neem Karoli Baba, who is also known as Maharaji.

The first night that Ram Dass arrived at Maharaji's ashram Maharaji said to Ram Dass, "Here, come sit by me."

Ram Dass sat down.

Maharaji: "You were out under the stars last night. You were thinking of your mother."

Ram Dass: "Yes."

Maharaji: "She died very recently."

Ram Dass: "Yes."

Maharaji: "She got very big in the stomach before she died."

Ram Dass: "Uhm..... yes."

Maharaji: "Spleen... she died of spleen."

All of this was true. Ram Dass's head spun as he sought for "rational" explanation but found none. Then he broke down into tears. He felt like he had come home.

Ram Dass spent the rest of his life sharing miracle stories about his guru. There really is no incentive for him to lie. And if you follow him you can know how genuine he is and how authentically he lived his life.

Be Here Now is a phenomenal book that catalogs many other stories about this Guru. And if you graduate from that book with gained faith then i highly recommend "Miracle of Love" which was compiled by Ram Dass. This book contains an endless stream of stories about Neem Karoli from countless devotees. No conspiracy is that big.

I understand why people are skeptical about spirit realms... but they're real. Very real.

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words-writ-in-starlight · 4 years

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where's the essay op

Okay so bayonets. I don't know why I ever pretend that I want to talk about anything but military history and battlefield medicine. I checked all my sources in the waiting room of a doctor's office so you're just going to have to trust me because they are Gone. I’m pretty sure this can all be found on a few Wiki dives, though.

First of all, to recap, let me clarify a common misconception. The triangular bayonet was NOT outlawed in the 1949 Geneva Convention, nor any future revisions—as it was originally a musket weapon, it was fading out of use by World War II and the subsequent Convention. However, you'll notice that I opted to use to word "violates" rather than "were banned by," which is a fine semantical hair to split and, I suppose, debatable. Most bayonets were not explicitly banned in the GC, in that there is not an article in the GC saying you can't use them. However there IS an article in the GC, adopted from the earlier 1899 Hague Regulations, stating that it is prohibited to "employ weapons...of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering" (originally part of Article 23 of the HR, now Article 35 of the GC, expanded in 1977). Personally, as someone who knows a lot about how a lot of weapons impact the human body, I think that is a more expansive statement than most people would expect, and should be treated accordingly. Regrettably I do not work for the UN.

Point is, triangular blades specifically are known to cause wounds that are difficult to heal, highly prone to infection, and extremely likely to never fully recover, while also having a relatively low mortality rate. This is because the axes of a triangular wound, which is shaped sort of like a Y, make it very hard to stitch closed, and very easy for any "twisting" of the blade to create a large hole with ragged edges that's functionally impossible to stitch closed. As an added bonus, because of the way scar tissue forms, it's possible for one "line" of a triangular wound to pull open other parts of the puncture while the scar tissue forms and pulls on the skin. Even by standards in the 1700s, triangular bayonet wounds were phenomenally likely to infect and consistently difficult to repair, and modern medicine has made only limited improvements on that situation. As such, cases have been made that certain types of bayonet/triangular blades in general are therefore in violation of this article, despite not being explicitly banned.

(Side note: yes, the American military violates the GC on the regular. The American police violate the GC. I am excruciatingly aware. The GC is interesting reading generally, but especially if you're an American and you ever feel like being appalled for a few hours.)

Anyway, with that covered again, let's actually talk about the development of triangular bayonets, which might've been out of use by the time of the GC but DEFINITELY violated that article in a big way for a good two centuries prior and are also a fascinating insight into the fact that humanity, as a whole, is really determined to do things in the dumbest way possible.

The first thing you have to understand about bayonets is that they were originally invented as a way to integrate pikes with guns, not knives or even swords. When arquebuses and muskets were first invented, you were lucky to get a rate of fire around one round per minute, and you still had to protect your army while they were reloading their clunky black powder guns. Therefore, most infantries between like...the invention of the gun and the late 1600s were comprised of soldiers equipped with muskets, and also soldiers equipped with pikes (a type of spear). The idea of a bayonet was "what if we put a pike and a musket TOGETHER and then we could give everyone THAT and have way more guns in our army because we don't need pikemen anymore." Which makes sense when you think about it.

What makes less sense is that the initial effort at bayonets was something called a plug bayonet. You'll never fucking guess what these geniuses (first record is Chinese infantry around-abouts 1600, popular use of plug bayonets recorded in Europe around the 1630s) figured out for their first try at a bayonet. Here's a hint! There's not a lot of places on a gun where you can "plug in" a sword.

Obviously plug bayonets did not exactly catch on as a fantastic solution, because these guns were either a gun OR a short spear and neither was especially good at their jobs. A bunch of battles hinged on this problem. Which brings us to the end of the 1600s, when English forces in Scotland got absolutely obliterated by a bunch of Highlanders in 1689 because the English were so busy trying to fix their bayonets that the Highlanders literally just charged them, fired one volley, and cut them down with swords and axes. The English took that one very personally (which, you know what, fair, it was a humiliating defeat, especially since the Highlanders had been using that tactic very successfully for a while) and started developing better bayonets.

This is where we get to socket bayonets, AKA what you would probably recognize as a bayonet from a period TV series or a museum. Socket bayonets have a metal sleeve that gets attached around the barrel of a gun (in this case a musket), so that you can still theoretically use the damn gun while it's attached. There were problems with the development of socket bayonets (notably, it took a while to figure out how to keep them from falling off the gun during battle), but overall they worked much better and armies started getting rid of pikemen. This was also when bayonets were shortened to a little over a foot, which isn't really important but made them much easier to maneuver. Socket bayonets were the European order of the day by the early 1700s, and mostly came in three flavors: single edge (like a knife), double edge (like a sword), and spike (like a...spike). There were pros and cons to all of these (single edge wasn't great for stabbing, spike was ONLY good for stabbing, and double edge was kind of okay at stabbing and kind of okay at slashing), but most importantly, both single and double edged bayonets were fragile. The heads of polearms were shaped on patterns other than "sword on a stick" for a reason, and it's because "sword on a stick" is not very sturdy.

Triangular bayonets were the solution to this problem. Triangular bayonets are basically a single piece of metal creased long-ways, with both edges sharpened and the top fluted to form a third edge at the crease. This makes a much more resilient weapon than a flat blade, because a twisting motion doesn’t risk snapping the blade in the middle. It also means that now you have three edges, and human nature is to figure “more knife better.”

And don’t get me wrong, as a weapon of war, the triangular bayonet was a great one. It was introduced in the 1710s and then got used regularly to maim and terrify through the start of the 1900s. In fact, the triangular bayonet worked so well that it only began to get phased out of use when the style of war itself started to change dramatically during the World Wars. When warfare was focused on pitched battle (your old school “two armies enter, one army leaves” kind of warfare), the emphasis of a bayonet was on extending the reach of a gun. A bayonet lets a soldier have a weapon for closer range combat, where a gun—especially a long gun like a musket—is not as effective. So when you had two armies on the field and a bayonet was first and foremost a way to keep the enemy at least gun-length away, longer bayonets were better.

But World War I was the advent of trench warfare, which was a terrible idea and also meant that a long weapon, like a gun with an extra foot and a half of sword on top, was much, MUCH harder to work with. Either fighting took place in no man’s land, where you probably weren’t going to get close enough to use a bayonet anyway, or in a trench, where a weapon as long as you were tall was just impossible to work with.

(If you know anything about WWI, you’re probably asking me about bayonet charges right now, specifically the concept of “going over the top.” Contrary to every media representation of WWI ever, “going over the top” of a trench faded out of use pretty quickly. It was a type of bayonet charge where the soldiers in ONE trench fixed their bayonets and tried to charge no man’s land in an effort to reach the OTHER trench, but it was basically never effective because no man’s land was often heavily trapped and strafed with gunfire and mortar shells. Also, it was the kind of battle tactic that military history books talk about with phrases like “total annihilation of whole attacking battalions,” so that’s the kind of mortality rate we’re talking about here. The Battle of the Somme featured a good number of bayonet charges by the British, for context, so people learned and started using other tactics.)

So, since bayonets were only useful in trenches, suddenly everyone was scrambling to shorten bayonets and guns so that their soldiers could get ANYTHING DONE. And THEN soldiers started admitting that they were literally taking their bayonets off their guns and using them as knives instead, because for trench fighting that was way more useful, and so everyone just decided fuck it, let’s just make bayonet-knives, which is why WWI weapons with bayonets usually look, very literally, like someone duct taped a short knife to the front of a gun. This was the start of the decline of the triangular bayonet, a full two hundred years after it hit the battlefield, which is a frankly spectacular run for any weapon since the invention of the gun. Triangular bayonets held on, here and there, through part of WWII, but they were almost entirely gone by the time of the Geneva Convention being ratified in 1949. However, spike or knife bayonets are still issued to many armies as a weapon of last resort to this day, although they aren’t often used in actual attacks. Now we have bigger, worse weapons for actual attacks.

TL;DR, the development of bayonets went like this:

“What if we put a pike ON a gun? …oh wait, you still want to use the gun? Sucks to be you, I guess.”

“What if we put a sword on the gun instead? Then we could put it somewhere where we can still use the gun! Good luck keeping it on there, though.”

“What if we actually made something designed to get put on a gun and stab people effectively? Like, what if we designed something with that purpose in mind? Perhaps?” SMASH CUT TWO CENTURIES

“Well if you’re just gonna take your bayonet off and stab someone with it anyway, can we just go back to giving you knives, then?”

And now you’re caught up on all the dubiously successful ways we’ve tried to mutilate people with a knife-gun.

#military history #medical history #sort of...?#bayonets #honestly i have no idea what this would be classified as. i just had a really good time reading about bayonets in a waiting room.#Y'ALL WANTED TO KNOW SO HERE IS MY ESSAY #IT IS VERY LONG YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELVES I'M NOT SORRY #incidentally i HATE the fact that plug bayonets were a thing. what a terrible solution to a problem. what the hell.#'we went to all this trouble to make a gun that won't blow us up (much) so now we're gonna put a knife in the end'#i would love to talk to the guy who came up with that and ask politely what the hell decided them on this #as opposed to SAY FOR EXAMPLE A SOCKET BAYONET #WHICH IS NOT THAT MUCH MORE ADVANCED A CONCEPT #it does bear mentioning that bayonets weren't often major killers in war!#...because you were much more likely to be maimed and/or die later of infection than die outright on the field from a bayonet wound #so take from that what you will #a queue we will keep and our honor someday avenge #anonymous #asked and answered

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marmarparadoxa · 4 years

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Hange Zoë - understanding and inquisitiveness

I want to dedicate this post to an Hange character analysis and I think that the one above is one the first yet one the most representative moments in which we get to know Hange.

This is set in chapter 25, and it shows us an Eren’s memory of the month that he has spent with Levi squad, prior to the mission in which they encounter the Female Titan. During this period, Hange, assisted by Levi, sets out to start experimenting on Eren and his titan transformations. As opposed to the others’ concern and reluctance to experiment, we see her firmly stating the importance of doing it. “If there’s something we don’t know, we should find out. It’s absolutely worth putting our lives on the line.” I think that it is one of the greatest quotes from SNK and one of the most representative of the spirit of the Survey Corps. Up to this moment, we have seen a lot of soldiers willing to give their lives and dedicate their hearts in order to reconquer humanity’s freedom. In order to do that, they are ready to kill the bulk of titans, risking their lives out of the walls. However, none of them has appeared to be interested in understanding who and what actually the enemy is. They just continue to slicing titans napes. And then there’s Hange. Contrary to the other members of the Survey Corps, her focus is not restricted to kill the titans. She tries to look at things from a different point of view. She tries to really understand the nature of the enemy, and the truth about their world, she doesn’t think that just slicing titans napes is enough. She tries to understand what they are actually facing, because she understands that this way is their best chance to succeed and to win the battle against the titans. When no one else does, she put all of her efforts to gain the necessary knowledge, even if at first sight these efforts don’t seem to bring an immediate result, even if the other SC soldiers don’t support her and don’t understand the importance of this (except of course for Erwin, Moblit and Levi). I think that just this is so admirable. She is the one who really tries to augment their knowledge, even just a little bit, in order to improve their situation.

Hange’s ability to analyze things and her scientific way of thinking

Hange is able to look into what stands in front of her, and she analyzes it like no one else can. She notices that, considering their size, titans couldn’t stand and move like they do. She points out how Eren titan’s body came up from nothing, and she formulates hypothesis about that. She conducts various experiments on the titans they manage to capture, even dangerous ones, even others when she actually tortures them, but still (!) empathizes with them, as shown by her suffering expression in inflicting them so much pain.

However, she does all of it, because all of the knowledge they can gain from those methodically conducted experiments could bring them a little bit closer toward the discovery of the truth about the titans, and, extensively, the truth about this world. She has really a scientific way a thinking: she gathers facts and data, she makes hypothesis and tries to elaborate theories that can scientifically, rationally explain those data, and then she always elaborates new experiments, always furthering their understanding of things, always gathering new data. All of the little observations that she has made, all the theories and possible explanations with which she came out, then, lead her to wonder about the nature of their reality. She has questioned the nature of their phenomenal understanding of the world, she hypothesizes that the true nature of things could be something ontologically different from what they experience and think to know about the world.

As the story continues, they discover a lot of things. The walls are made up of giant titans with their endured skin. Hange, together with Armin, is the one who actually hypothesizes it, and also comes to verify it, picking up a shard of the hardened skin of the Female Titan, having noticed that it is not evaporating, and a fragment of the walls, and analyzing them in order to compare them with a microscope, up to discover that they have the same physical structure.

Then, they discover the true nature of titans, their human nature, and again Hange is the one who realizes that: putting together what they know about the situation and Ragako village, she comes up with that and makes the harsh, astonishing conclusion. However, I think that this has come not totally as a novelty for Hanji. What makes me think this is, first of all, her approach to titans during her experiments. She gives them a name, and she talks with them (not only for experimental purposes). She cries and screams when she conducts pain experiments on them. It is like Hange, without even realizing it (or maybe being fully aware of what she was doing?) has always treated them as they were conscious creatures. And of course she knows that at least one titan has shown sign of intelligence, namely speaking intelligible words and showing sign of remorse for having killed a human, as we see in the Ilse’s Notebook OVA. And then the quote about the difference between what we see and what actually exists. It is possible that Hange may have sensed that titans are not the mindless creatures came up from nothing that they seem, that they could be something really different.

I was also astonished by her sharpness when she suggests what is actually inside titans napes, how she is immediately able to link the human origin of titans with their weak point and explain that so well.

There are many other times in which her insights, or better hypothesis, have informed the SC how to resolve seemingly obscure situations, as for example when she suggested to Erwin and the rest of the SC that Reiner and Bertholdt, escaped with Eren and Ymir, had probably reached the nearest Titan forest in order to rest, or when she hypothesized that, given the strange and suspicious story of the Reiss chapel, kidnapped Eren and Historia might have been conducted there, so Levi gives the order of heading to the chapel, trusting Hange’s judgement.

Also, she is the one who, having rediscovered the technology which has been hidden till then by the the First Interior Squad, devised new weapons that significantly improve the survival chance and power of attack of the SC, namely the “Executioner from Hell” and the “Thunder Spear”, suggesting that she has also notable engineering creativity.

Hence, there are a lot of things and victories of the Survey Corps that wouldn’t have been possible without the bright contribute of Hange’s intellect and intuitions. Her ability to analyze and make deductions from the data they have, applied to battle and titan issues have lead them to resolve complex situations many times. She is indeed the character with the highest score in intelligence in the SNK universe (together with Zeke), with a 11/10 (source Attack on Titan guidebook):

Her infinite curiosity and love of knowledge

For the sake of humanity, in order to reconquer the freedom that they have lost, she has always devoted herself to apply her bright mind to the SC cause. However, what I really love about her is her genuine curiosity and inquisitiveness in understanding what she sees and in discover new things about the world that she shows in every moment of her life, above what is needed in terms of battle strategies and titan issues. She is so curious and amazed by every discovery that she could make.

She’s in love with the process of discovering new things.

In the Smartpass interview, she said that, if humanity will be finally liberated from titans, she would like to research vegetation outside the walls, or study about humanity’s past.

In the SNK Short story The Library That’s Covered In Dust, while the other soldiers are resting, we see her merrily searching through the books of the library of the old castle where the SC soldiers are taking shelter from the rain, and then starting wondering, expressing her thoughts to Levi, about those ancient manuscripts written in letters they can’t read, and how they suggest the existence of an extinct civilization. It amuses me that, while the other soldiers are just taking rest during the mission, Hange instead is all caught up in searching books and making speculations about what they may contain and extinct civilizations.

Another precious moment is when they finally arrive at the sea. I just love how, at the very first encounter with the ocean, Hange’s just being Hange: she notices sea cucumbers in the water and, despite the concerned Levi’s warning, she grabs them, because she just can’t help herself xD:

Then, about one year later, for the first time the SC encounters Marleyans, and also gets to know Yelena and Onyankopon. Hence Onyankopon, in order to prepare them to build a port for the arrive of other Marleyans, and improve Paradis technology, which has remained backward due to their isolation from the rest of the world, starts to explain what a port and all of the other things are, and this is Hange’s reaction:

She immediately realizes what a port is and how they can use it, even before Onyankopon has time to say it. +

She is just so amazed for all the new things that they are learning. Despite the burden of being the new commander and all the responsibilities that come with that, she still manages to get excited and her enthusiasm is so precious. Of course, she knows how important it is for them, the Paradis people, to know the outside world, if they want to start a communication with it and be prepared for any outcome it may have (and we know how things went...).

She truly acknowledges the importance of understanding things, and how it is not possible to live in this world if one doesn’t try to comprehend it, a way of thinking that the Survey Corps has always embodied, but also if people don’t allow others to know and understand who they are:

I think that Hange’s way of thinking truly represent, in her special way, what the spirit of the Survey Corps has always been about: to research, explore the outside world and gain knowledge, try to understand things (and let others understand you). This is what, eventually, will make you free in this world.

(This post wasn’t meant to be a comprehensive analysis, I had rather focused on Hange’s intellect and on her curious, bright, rational, scientific yet full of empathy and intuition approach to the world. I think that this is one of her most distinctive traits, and one of the reasons why I love her so much).

Bonus:

Happy Hange greeting a car (she’s such a cutie ^^)

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pemberlaey · 2 years

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end of the year reading survey

I was tagged by @bloody-wonder (thanks!!)

How many books did you read? Did you meet your goal?

I read 45 books this year! My original goal was 40 but I passed it so I made it 45 but I’ll have read 46 by the time the year ends!

Most read genre?

Classic lit with fantasy as a close second!

Longest and shortest books you read.

Longest was Order of the Phoenix (I did a HP reread to cope with the stress of grad school lol) and the shortest was The Rape of Lucrece

Favorite book published in 2021?

I actually didn’t read any books published in 2021

Favorite debut book in 2021?

My favorite debut book I read in 2021 was The Night Circus by Erin Morganstern. Truly one of the best books I’ve ever read.

Favorite book not published this year?

I’m going to have to go with The Night Circus again. Hands down my favorite book I read this year that wasn’t a reread

A book that lived up to the hype.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Two of my friends recommended it to me and I’ve seen it hyped up online and it was so good

A book that did NOT live up to the hype.

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer :/ I had a feeling I was gonna hate it and I was right. I’m definitely not a scifi girl. To be fair I didn’t read it by choice it was assigned by my theory professor but I really did not like it

Book that felt like the biggest accomplishment.

idk if I’d call this an accomplishment per say but I finally read Wuthering Heights this year and it was phenomenal! I was also in a Shakespeare class this semester so I read a Shakespeare Play every Friday for the whole semester which was so fun.

Favorite character.

I’m assuming this means out of the characters I met this year and not of all time given the nature of these questions so definitely Anne from Persuasion, Celia from The Night Circus and Addie from The Invisible Life of Addie Larue

Least favorite character.

(I’m also gonna assume this means least fav character from a book I read this year) Either Mrs. Appleyard from Picnic at Hanging Rock or Bobbi from Conversations with Friends. Also ik this doesn’t count b/c it was a reread but Mr. Rochester can choke

Most shocking book/moment.

Definitely the ending of Addie Larue! I won’t elaborate b/c spoilers!

Favorite couple/OTP.

Celia and Marco from The Night Circus and Anne and Captain Wentworth from Persuasion <3

The best written book you read this year.

Probably The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

Book that you pushed the most people to read in 2021.

I got my sisters into Much Ado About Nothing this year which was fun!

Favorite book cover of the year.

Obsessed with the cover on the special edition of If We Were Villains that came out this year. Truly an impulse purchase that I do not regret!

Favorite book adaptation.

I loved the Shadow and Bone tv show so much can’t wait for season 2! I also can’t wait to see the new Macbeth movie I heard its incredible

What book made you cry the most?

I ugly cried during The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I also got very emo during the HP reread

What book made you laugh the most?

Red White & Royal Blue! Truly one of the funniest books I’ve ever read

A new favorite author you discovered this year.

Jess Kidd! Things in Jars was so good I gotta read more of her stuff

Favorite book you re-read this year.

I reread my fav book (Pride and Prejudice) every summer and I reread If We Were Villains when I got my new copy and that is also one of my favs

What is the best non-fiction book you read this year?

Not really a nonfiction girl but I did just get a biography of Jane Austen for the holidays that looks great!

I’m tagging @spanish-leatherr @theelastword @partialto @adjoining @moscardo and anyone who wants to do it!

#answers #literature #friends tag

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lost-art-of-world-domination · 3 years

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When and how did you get into these books? Also, so nice to see such a positive voice in the fandom!

Ooh this is a fun one.

Don’t want to reveal my age, but I first discovered this series in the gap between the releases of Mortal Coil and Death Bringer. I was fairly young, and my brother had been given the first one as a gift. As anyone who knows me can attest, I love Skeletons, so I was immediately enamoured by the cover. After he was done I immediately binged the book, and fell in love. Then my brother and I purchased the next 4, at the time believing it was only a 5 book series. They were the paperback versions, and the reverse of each showed the 5 books that currently made up the series, so I naturally assumed that was the entire collection.

Anyway, my brother began reading Playing with Fire, but I couldn’t wait to consume more of this world, so I read Faceless Ones and, still waiting for my brother, read about half of Dark Days before finally being able to take Playing with Fire. I then reread Dark Days from the beginning. This is probably why Playing with Fire has always ranked lower in my mind, because a lot of the twists were ruined on first read. (I will add, however, that I truly appreciated it when rereading the entire series and not worrying about spoilers).

When I say I could not put these books down, I mean it. I even garnered a bit of a reputation in my school because I was always carrying at least one of the books with me for the entire time Phase One was coming out. I had never had a book series so completely absorb me before, and haven’t since, although I am a massive reader in general. Anyway, I read and adored Mortal Coil, but then thought that was it. So much left unresolved! I was chomping at the bit for another, but resigned myself to the unsatisfying but still enjoyable ending.

Then, on an unrelated visit to a bookshop, I saw a poster advertising Death Bringer’s release date. Words cannot capture my excitement. It was my first hardback Skukduggery, and remains my second-favourite in the entire series. The story was just phenomenal and a huge part was just the sheer joy of discovering that no, it was not over. It was just such a brilliant book and I still recall the excitement when getting it. Probably finished it in about a day. After that it was a yearly wait for my favourite series, and I loved every one. Kingdom of the Wicked, while still amazing, didn’t reach the heights of Death Bringer, but Last Stand is Dead Men blew me away completely. That is my favourite one. Just so many reasons why really. End of the World, Maleficent Seven, and Armageddon Outta Here are all near and dear to my heart too. Dying of the Light was a genuinely emotional book for me, not just because of the story, but also that it really was the end. I grew up with these books, and I was about the age Stephanie was in the first one when I finished Dying of the Light. I have had several people mention how much of these books they see in me, from the humour to the dialogue, and it just makes me so happy.

Discovering Resurrection was like reuniting with an old friend. I’d accepted that they were gone and had moved on, despite my fondness for them never fading. I discovered Resurrection on the shelves completely by chance, while shopping for something else. No poster or waiting this time (although it was in the same book shop where I learned about Death Bringer, funnily enough). I immediately bought it and had it finished by the end of the day. Resurrection still had a lot of everything I loved about the series, but it also matured. It really was like seeing someone you’ve spent years apart from. We were both different people, but the connection was still there.

Also because I had no prior knowledge I thought resurrection was a one-off, so all the open plot threads really confused me until I discovered Phase Two and began counting down to book 11. This means that the upcoming end of Phase Two will mark the fourth time the Skulduggery Pleasant series has ended for me. It’s fine though because, as a comic book fan, I am no stranger to frequent deaths and returns.

I think one of the reasons I’ve not been as harsh on Phase Two as some others is that I really respect Phase Two’s desire to be different, and I think everything new that has been added shows that the series is still growing, maintaining that sense that it’s growing alongside me, maturing as I do. I have enjoyed the Phase Two books more with each release, and think each of them can stand proudly with Phase One, especially the last three.

I realise I’ve rambled and gone beyond the original question of how I discovered the books, but that’s what this series does to me! I can talk about it for ages and I still love it so much, even while recognising how it has changed. I don’t follow Landy’s personal goings-on, so I can’t speak to him as a person, although again I know others in the fandom have their issues. Despite that, I think he is a phenomenal writer and that is why I have tried so hard to be positive in this fandom. I’m generally a rather optimistic person, so to discover a fandom for my favourite book series and find it all so sour and unhappy did not sit right with me. By no means am I trying to disrespect other SP blogs, and you’re entitled to your opinions, as well as the right to disagree with mine. But personally, I love each and every Skulduggery Book, and it means a lot that people appreciate my opinions on them.

Loving all these asks! Sorry this one is so long, I kind of went on a tangent. Thanks to everyone who’s responded to my positivity with their own , and I really appreciate the chance to discuss the Skeleton Detective! Would love to hear everyone else’s thoughts. Whether you agree or not, the more alive this fandom is, the better! Again, thanks for the ask :).

#skulduggery pleasant #valkyrie cain #asks #positivity #phase one #phase two #long post #this really got out of hand #keep the asks coming!#playing with fire #mortal coil #death bringer #kingdom of the wicked #last stand of dead men #the dying of the light #resurrection #comic books #dead or alive #skulduggery

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goodomensficrecommendations · 4 years

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What are your all time favorite fics?

I’ve been thinking about this for far too long but I think (for now) I have an answer (maybe).

Which stories do you come back to over and over again? Think of when reading others? Made you immediately look up the author and read all their other work?

In no particular order, here are mine! Please share yours!

1. A Memory of Eden

by ImprobableDreams900 ( @improbabledreams900 )