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batmanisagatewaydrug · 4 months

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reading update: DECEMBER 2023

what's up gamers!!!! 2023 is over, and before I can make a post reflecting on every book I read I need to talk specifically about what I was reading in December. I was lucky enough to end the year coming out of a pretty dire depressive fug, and I celebrated by going buckwild reading as much as possible and placing so many holds at the local library that I will, probably, come to regret any day now. such is the price of being in love with life again, I guess!

let's talk about it!!!

what I read:

Buffalo is the New Buffalo (Chelsea Vowel, 2022) - a collection of Métis speculative fiction short stories. Vowel's stories didn't always quite land for me, feeling as if they would benefit from another round or two of revisions and a bit of elaboration, but even when they fell a little flat the concepts were promising. I especially adored the story "Michif Man," in which a mid-twentieth century Métis man is gored by a radioactive buffalo and develops strange powers that he uses to defend his community, told through the fascinating framing device of a 21st century scholar's speech making a case for Michif Man's existence. I also really liked the closing story, "Unsettled," which felt like really cool old school sci-fi: five clashing characters alone burdened with the responsibility of tending to the rest of humanity frozen in stasis, with each character serving as a mouthpiece for a vastly different perspective and set of values about their Indigenous identity. hit or miss collection for me, but the hits hit much harder than the misses missed.

The Bandit Queens (Parini Schroff, 2023) - this book was genuinely so so hard to put down!!! the story follows a group of women in a small Indian village as they decide to start solving problems by murdering their husbands, turning to Geeta - whose widely believed to have killed her own husband years ago - for advice. the only problem is that Geeta didn't kill him, he just walked out on her. and now she's caught in a RAPIDLY tangling web of murder, blackmail, and hidden motives among women she's never let herself get close to. it's a dark comedy, to be sure, but also surprisingly heartfelt, exploring the countless factors - gender, class, caste, religion, motherhood, beauty - that keep Geeta and the other women apart as well as the forces powerful enough to pull them together. it's a book about the power of friendship and also the power of going ape shit.

Small Game (Blair Braverman, 2022) - a VERY different book from Bandit Queens on every level, but equally hard to put down! Braverman is something of a professional wilderness survivor, and decided to write a story about a similarly experienced young woman, Mara, signing up for a survival-themed reality show where everything goes wrong. one day the camera crew simply fails to show up, and everything shifts when the contestants are forced to shift from surviving for show to actually fighting for their lives. a book that's gross and tender in equal amounts; Braverman is a very good storyteller and I'm strongly looking forward to anything else she puts out.

Are You My Mother? (Alison Bechdel, 2012) - a gorgeously drawn and terrifyingly vulnerable graphic memoir. a spectacularly brave endeavor; while I would never discount the tremendous artistry of Bechdel's more well-known Fun Home, I cannot imagine the terror of writing something like this about my mother when she's still alive to read it. absolutely ruinous if you yourself have any remotely complicated feelings about your mother, I will tell you that much!!!!

The Heart Principle (Helen Hoang, 2021) - Helen Hoang is so good that I didn't even count this as my romance novel of the month; this was just a book that I sincerely wanted to read. apparently quite a few reviewers on goodreads whined about how this shouldn't qualify as a romance novel because it's too sad, to which I say those people are fucking wieners. Heart Principle gets heavy, sure, with protagonist Anna navigating the sudden illness and death of her elderly father, but at the same time she's finding happiness and new ways to be herself and having the best sex of her life with resident hottie Quan, who's been a gem of a supporting character in this series since Kiss Quotient. it gets sad as hell, for sure, but it's also a mature, touching, and sexy story of two people developing a bond that encourages them both to embrace life and grow together. also, hi, Anna finding out she's autistic is SUCH a source of joy and eventual self confidence for her and it's SO nice to read.

Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (ed. Jordan Peele, 2023) - listen. it's a very good short story collection, filled to the bursting with some of the best writers in the game. there are very few stinkers in the bunch, which is really impressive for a collection with so many stories. but. it very seldom felt properly... scary? spooky, creepy, mysterious, supernatural, sure. but I want to be scared!!!! fuck me up!!! Us got under my skin and scared me in a way that I still think about years later, and I was expecting something similar from an anthology edited by Jordan Peele. so on that note I would actually really strongly recommend this is you like being a little spooked but not terrified!

Kiss Her Once for Me (Alison Cochrun, 2022) - this one was the romance novel of the month, voted on by my patrons, and incidentally my patrons should go to prison. listen. this book sucks shit. god, this protagonist sucks. I know the point of this kind of story is for characters to start in a place where they're flawed and you want to see them improve as people, but Ellie is just so endlessly whiny that I don't want to see her improve, I want her to shut the fuck up and stop using her anxiety as an excuse to be wildly unpleasant to everyone else. the chemistry between the main characters was what I call the "because I said so" variety, by which I mean there was no chemistry despite the narrative insisting repeatedly that there definitely was. (incidentally, Ellie had way better chemistry with the man she was fake engaged to, meaning I was actually really rooting for the hetero option for once.) also Cochrun is apparently a huge swiftie and referenced Taylor Swift a truly unwell amount of times in this book. dismal all around.

Mammoths at the Gates (Nghi Vo, 2023) - Nghi Vo can do absolutely no wrong and is one of the authors whose new releases I will ALWAYS be showing up for. Mammoths at the Gates is the latest in the Singing Hills Cycle of novellas, and sees the cleric Chih leaving their quest for stories in order to return home to Singing Hills Abbey after years on the road. they're excited to be home, but nothing is as peaceful as they'd have hoped: an old friend has been promoted, straining their relationship, and a beloved mentor has died, creating a complication when their family come to lay claim to the body. it's a book about death in the best way, by which I mean it's very much a book about life, and I read it all in one delightful morning racing to the gentle shock of the ending.

what am I reading now?

God: A Biography (Jack Miles, 1995) - this is a book rec I scooped from Oh No Ross and Carrie and it is. such a weird reading experience, but I'm enjoying it! this God dude is nuts!

Masters of Death (Olivie Blake, 2018) - I'm not very far into this book yet, and I can't decide if the prose is fun or annoying. maybe both!

what's next: a list of books I have on hold

Patternmaster (Octavia Butler)

Laziness Does Not Exist (Devon Price)

Piñata (Leopoldo Gout)

#bookblr #reading updates

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astoundingbeyondbelief · 4 months

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Kaiju Week in Review (December 17-23, 2023)

Episode 7 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters laid down significant Monsterverse lore, showing the moment Monarch finally revealed itself to the public (under hilarious circumstances) and how the organization's partnership with Apex Cybernetics began. I did not find May's long-awaited backstory super compelling, to be honest, I think because the proto-Apex company was so thinly sketched. And that Frost-Vark better not be dead. :(

An incredible three Godzilla comics released last week: DC/Legendary's Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #3 and IDW's Godzilla: War for Humanity #3 and Godzilla Rivals: Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon. The crossover lit a certain section of the Internet on fire with the revelation that Godzilla did, in fact, kill Superman the previous issue. Writer Brian Buccellato chalked it up to Godzilla's atomic breath having "a radioactive signature similar to [K]ryptonite," which as handwaves go is pretty good. Behemoth and Scylla had moments to shine as well, and the issue ended with Lex Luthor discovering a Mechagodzilla eye. Glad Godzilla won't be the only Toho character in the comic; that would've been a bit lame.

Godzilla: War for Humanity remaining a thrilling read, and the Super MOGUERA debuting in this issue is not to be missed. Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon starts with a content warning for depiction and discussion of attempted suicide, which certainly surprised me. It's another strong issue, neither callous nor didactic, and told so efficiently there's plenty of room for the titular bout (which sometimes has felt like an afterthought in Rivals stories). Also, Jet Jaguar talks—something Toho forbade in a comic earlier this year, for whatever reason. Anyway, he's exactly the 'bot you would expect him to be. Hope IDW can keep him chattering in the future.

You've probably seen my flurry of posts already, but it bears repeating: The Boulet Brothers' Dragula, a drag reality competition found on Shudder, aired a kaiju episode. Reality TV isn't my bag, but I thoroughly enjoyed the competitors' kaiju-inspired costumes and performances. I also kept ping-ponging between awe that Americans are just expected to know what a kaiju is now and yelling at the hosts for, say, not naming any kaiju outside of Toho's Big Five.

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Hot on the heels of the black-and-white re-release of Shin Godzilla comes Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, which has to be the best title one of these things has gotten. As with Shin, this is no mere filter; each shot in the film was regraded, with director Takashi Yamazaki striving for "a style that looked like it was taken by masters of monochrome photography." It opens in Japan on January 12; no word yet on whether it will play in any other country.

Godzilla will follow in the steps of pop culture fixtures like The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars with Godzilla: The Official Cookbook by Kayce Baker, due from Titan Books on September 10. (You can tell it's official because he's actually on the cover.) 60 recipes lie within. It's a given that I'm going to buy something Godzilla-related that's this silly; I just have to pick up another cookbook first so it won't be the first one I ever own.

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I was surprised to realize that McDonald's has never done anything Godzilla-related; far less prolific fast-food chains have worked with the monster, from White Castle to Carl's Jr. The first salvo in the campaign was pretty underwhelming—BE@ABRICK figures that can only be won via lottery, with an entirely plain Godzilla. That replica MogeGoji suit looked great in the ad, at least. Tokusatsu is being kept alive in the Godzilla franchise through some truly odd means. The follow-up ad/promo was a lot better, but that's a matter for next week's post.

This is at least kaiju-adjacent—James Wan's long-gestating The Call of Cthulhu movie seems to finally be going somewhere, as revealed in roundabout fashion by a Deadline article. I thought the 2005 silent version was just fine, but presumably this will be produced by his company Atomic Monster, which is long overdue for an actual giant monster movie.

#kaiju week in review #monarch legacy of monsters #godzilla #dragula #comics #idw #kaiju

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sins-and-wins-with-vix · 7 months

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Everything Right/Wrong with Ninjago “Rebooted” E2: The Art of the Silent Fist

Disclaimers: Show owned by LEGO. This is not a professional review/critique - it’s mainly intended for comedy!

Make sure to reblog, comment, and like, and tell me your thoughts!

- Theme ✅

- How convenient for the animators that Wu’s memories are all in third person ❌

- “No robots…” Lloyd forgets that Zane isn’t dead… yet. ❌

- Where did Nya get a green suit for Lloyd? ❌

- “There’s a reason [Wu’s] lived as long as he has.” Yeah, because he’s part of nearly every mythical, immortal creature in the book. There’s so many different forms of magical DNA in this guy that, frankly, I’m surprised he isn’t radioactive ❌

- “You guys go ahead. I will stay back and watch [the blades].” Wow, they didn’t even try to argue with him, huh? The DISRESPECT ❌

- Wait, why does Nya like Cole? We saw that the two were assigned as a perfect match, but we never saw hints of Nya actually liking him and now we’re supposed to believe she’s suddenly in love with both of them? What?? ❌

- “But Cole… Cole is not Jay (positive)…” OOOHHHHHHHHH🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

- Seriously though, this is such an awful line considering Jay is her canon love interest. And don’t say they didn’t know Jaya was gonna be canon because I do not believe there was a second they were actually going to make Cole and Nya a thing ❌

- I’m not even gonna sin them for tweaking Garmadon’s design from the end of last season because this one is objectively better ✅

- “Check out the new Sensei… lookin sharp!” Jay is a Garmadon simp confirmed and I really don’t know if that’s a sin or not anymore

- “SILENCE” *WHACK* Ohoh, I’m gonna like him, aren’t I? ✅

- How did Zane not notice the blades being stolen from in front of him? He clearly wasn’t sleeping, and Pixal later even says she wasn’t built for stealth ❌

- “Pixal? What are you doing?” “Discontinuing an old droid!” D*mn ✅

- Was that even a Pixal scream? It sounded a lot like Nya ❌

- “How about we take her apart to find out!” Jeez Kai calm down. Imagine what the others would say if he wanted to dismember a human ❌

- “Relax, not a weapon!” Then why didn’t they just bring them inside in the first place?!?! ❌

- “These nindroids are so much fas-“ Give me perfectly timed cuts for 400 Alex ✅

- “wouldn’t that mean shutting down Pixal too?” “Don’t tell Zane!” The ninja don’t even seem to consider Pixal as a living entity. They only even take her into account as a reference to Zane, nothing else. You can’t convince me they would be this chill about taking out the power if a human’s life was on the line. Basically what I’m saying is the ninja are racist ❌

- “We are all different, but I do not feel so different around you…”⬇️ ✅

- “Ever since we left I’ve been worried about [the students].” “Oh, Dareth’s looking after them.” Was that supposed to ease Cole’s worries cuz I’m pretty sure it made them worse ❌

- “Ya know, Cole, you don’t get the credit you deserve. You always put others ahead of yourself! I know the other ninja get all the attention but I just want you to know, you’re a good guy.” This is literally just the writers trying to convince us to care about Cole at a point in which such a small amount of the fandom actually did. I love Cole, I always have, but I think anyone who was in the fandom prior to the Wildbrain era can attest to how ignored he was as a character. This went off on a small rant so to clarify, I’m not sinning this because of how underrated Cole used to be (personally I think that’s more the fandom at the time’s fault than the show itself). I’m sinning this because it felt awkward and forced ❌

- “Don’t tell Jay.” Why? There was nothing inherently romantic about that line, or this situation in general, so what is there to not tell Jay? ❌

- “This is where all of Ninjago gets its power.” Zane mansplains something that even Dareth should be able to determine Pixal already knows ❌

- “I will call you Mindroid!” *angry mindroid noises* Worry not, Mindroid. One day we will join together and seek vengeance against all those who mock us with labels like “fun-sized” and “vertically challenged.” We are living versions of the pocket knife - cleverly concealed until the final moments in which we are revealed to deliver the killing blow.

- “Stupid technology!” Kai said, to the glass case ❌

- “oh who cares about probability!” this is character development… I have absolutely no idea where it came from or how Pixal developed but it sure is there ❌

- How unlucky was Pix that she just happened to land on the ONE laser we’ve seen throughout this entire episode? ❌

- *Mindroid breaks into office* “Great! Now they come in fun-sized!” ✅

- “This is no time for a lesson, Kai!” Actually, the climax generally is the time for the lesson, Jay

- The nindroids might have Storm Trooper aim but that doesn’t make it okay for the ninja to dodge in the worst possible way just to show off ❌

- Lloyd - beloved Green Bean - you’re supposed to cup the water in your hands, sweetie… not just stick your whole face in the pond like you’re bobbing for apples… ❌

- “This is why I took an oath of peace!” Why? So you and your son could get mauled by a giant, robotic dragon?? ❌

- Mindroid dies, and although killing him is 100% sinnable by death, this is actually a sin because he appears unscathed later on multiple times ❌

- Why does it take so long for Pixal to lose power? ❌

- “Your mission was important. I was not. I am to assist; I assisted.” The show never acknowledges how tragic this scene is. Well, it does, but only with Pixane, not Pixal as her own character. We constantly get to see glimpses of Pixal’s insecurities, but rarely see them built on or developed. ❌

- The only source of power for ALL of Ninjago is operated by this one tower and no one thought that was a bad idea ❌

- “We are compatible?” “Yes, yes we are.” ✅

- Look, Pixane is my favorite canon ship, but I still hate the way it happened. It was rushed, under-developed, and just didn’t feel right. ❌

- But also, Pixal only has feelings for Zane once it’s obvious that he feels that way about her so… recipromantic Pixal canon? ✅

Sentence: Mindroid coming for your kneecaps

#ninjago sins/wins #Ninjago #lloyd garmadon #ninjago cole #ninjago jay #ninjago kai #ninjago nya #ninjago zane #ninjago pixal

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doccywhomst · 3 months

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BELTEMPEST REVIEW (EDA #17)

a pretty (bad) book. 1.5/10 for doing my boy dirty.

i don’t usually rate anything this low, but many confounding negative variables really fouled up the plot and characters for me. if you read more, beware: there will be excerpts and major spoilers.

here’s my general perspective: this is the dr who christian sonic the hedgehog fanfiction. it has so many buckwild scenes (like the doctor building a forcefield device that protects a spaceship that crashed on an island from a huge tsunami, and subsequently surfing the tsunami literally to the white house oval office window and having a conversation with the president), and the plot is one giant jesus metaphor that starts nowhere and goes nowhere! so if that’s your thing, you’ll love it.

however…. imo, the doctor is extremely obnoxious in this one. like in war of the daleks, he goes on long pretentious rants, talks in riddles, the quips are trash, and he occasionally feels more like seven (probably bc jim mortimore wrote 4 VNAs - it really surprised me how bad this book was, i’d never have guessed that jim also wrote “the natural history of fear” audio). here’s an example:

he’s like this from the very first scene (p.14):

i know the doctor is kind of a clown sometimes but this dude is a whole court jester, with bells on. it’s too much for me. he talks in amusing little circles, which might be interesting as a one-off in a much better novel, but becomes a dragging constant in this one. i also hate how he constantly talks down to people like a smartass caricature.

here’s some dialogue that i did enjoy, because it felt shockingly substantial (almost out of place), and expands on a scene from scarlet empress:

that was on page 93. the only part i really liked.

the plot orbits around the turbulent sun Bel as it begins to expand, scorching and destroying many of its 22 inhabited planets. ever since the peoples of Bellannia II, IV, XIII, etc. developed space travel, they’ve been dumping their radioactive and toxic waste onto a dead little world, which falls into the sun; little did the Bellannians know, a giant alien embryo was incubating in Bel’s warmth, and their pollution threatens to kill it. dun-dun-dun!

it’s kill the moon. it’s just 249-page kill the moon, but now with a melodramatic Rapture subplot.

right…. okay. just read this:

she ate 💅✨

anyway. millions if not billions of Bellannians are killed as the sun consumes or breaks apart their planets, and some of them turn to a traditional religion that encourages suicide (achieving an “Endless State” through eating poisoned wafers), but many of them are Actually Saved™️ by a little guy you might have heard of called…… Saketh.

the plot was kinda convoluted but essentially he was burned to death but came back, and now anyone who consumes his flesh will live forever (from what i gather, they die but they’re in suspended animation purgatorycore? and they’ll be brought back to life later? but the book ends abruptly and doesn’t explain much.)

i obviously hated it. i really wanted to try to like it, but i couldn’t take it seriously. jim mortimore’s style feels purpley and theatrical, but instead of erring on the side of camp, it feels like it’s meant to be genuine religious/political commentary. it’s serious like how christian sonic fanart is serious. maybe i’m just not the right audience.

the intro might be one of the most interesting sections, given how personal and anthropological it feels: it tells two versions of the deaths of two brothers, who are among the last of their people. it was pretty good, i liked it. but not really the rest.

so yeah. overall, 1.5/10. this is in my bottom three worst EDAs so far. it’s a pretty harsh rating but i’m generous when my appreciation is earned :/

#it was wacky as all hell from start to finish #also he REALLY pushed the idea that sam wants kids which didn’t really feel consistent w her character. didn’t like that #doctor who #eighth doctor #sam jones #edas #undescribed

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gkt-tummyaches · 7 months

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hobbie hcs

i cant remember what ive already said and what i havent, but there might be a few repeats; just hobbie hcs dump cus i need a break from concept designing </333

blossom

periodic table bucket list. she's slowly trying to get her hands on most elements on the periodic table, just to have bragging rights. yes she is going to find a way to safely store poisonous and radioactive elements, thank you.

pottery ! she hates it. she's awful at it. she's determined to get really good at it and attends the classes only because she hates them.

fencing. maybe the only hobby she actually enjoys.

buttercup

kickboxing as an anger management sport. keeps it solo, doesn't do it competitively.

cooking. likes experimenting with bigger and bolder projects, and likes indirectly caring for people through it.

origami. started as a patience practice + now mindlessly makes figures when she's bored.

bubbles

acting, technically ? she likes to audition for roles in up-coming productions in high school, and then out in townsville's local theater club. isn't sure she actually likes it, but she's successful.

coloring books. really liked it as a kid but lacks the inspiration as she gets older, coloring books are a nice and therapeutic without the pressure.

fashion design. she is awful at it. like god awful. high fashion experimentation meets whatever garbage she pulled out of the dumpster. but she likes doing it, so…

boomer

BEETLE FIGHTING. enough said.

gimmicks. juggling, yo-yo tricks, little card tricks and 'magic', etc. goofy little things to use as an ice breaker.

learning fictional languages. started with impersonations; his damnation was a wookie impression, that led into a downward spiral. so far he's got down simlish (the sims) and dovahzul (skyrim).

brick

none. he's boring as hell.

(soap making business.)

(candle-making, also.)

butch

taking the piss out of b-rated horror movies with friends. genuinely writes up reviews about them and posts them anonymously.

writes in a diary, secretly. all kinds of stuff in it; ranges from actual accounts of his month, or snippets of poetry or plot ideas. doesn't do it everyday.

bass guitar, one of the few instruments he still regularly plays.

brute

body disposal idk

debt collecting

knife collection. also knife commission. makes her own knives.

brat

streaming/blogging, etc. part of her side-job but also just something to enjoy doing; started up small and as a joke with friends, and eventually amassed a following.

robot fighting rings. has yet to lose a round, loves the challenge it gives her to work on her building skills. robotics is still a newer interest.

drawing ! makes a lot of her own schematics and concept designs, got into it for her own merch and online personas too. refuses to go directly into making commissions, however.

berserk

skateboarding, roller-skating, etc. she fucking SUCKS at it. no improvement in sight. tries to impress people/give them tips, only for them to end up picking it up better than she does. has broken both her ankles and skateboards many times.

scrapbooking ! in an absolutely not creepy obsessive way whatsoever. it's not like she ,,, collects locks of hair, or anything.

furby collection. likes upcycling them into those weird long snakes.

#hcs #headcanons #ppg #rrb #ppnkg #wow... everyones so creative !! /s

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a-skirmish-of-wit-and-lit · 11 months

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Book Review: Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

Forgive me for starting with a physics pun about a physicist romance, but this was Big Bang-ing cute!

While Hazelwood does serve up a couple familiar tropes from her previous STEM works, she subverts them in fresh and entertaining ways, making it so she's able to strike a delicate balance between navigating academic politics, fake dating shenanigans, and rivals falling in love. There's something about that combination - and the manner in which it's applied here - which gives the story moments of real gravity as well as moments of quirky acceleration.

Like I said, it's a good balance. Makes for a fun, tender, science-filled escape which pins a theoretical physicist against an experimental physicist in more ways than one...😏

The premise is simple yet catching: Elsie Hannaway is a woman who's living a double life. To most, she's an adjunct professor hoping to land tenure somewhere so she can finally afford health insurance, which she needs as a Type 1 diabetic. To others, thanks to her people pleasing expertise, she's a freelancing fake girlfriend who chameleons her personality into whatever a client wants or needs, a job she takes to make extra money so she can pay her bills. (Academia ain't paying much, folks!)

Things start to look up when she gets an interview at MIT for her dream job.

However, as to be expected, things don't run smoothly. Elsie faces an obstacle. A big, tall, muscle-y one named Jack Smith, who not only happens to be an experimentalist who has undermined theorists everywhere, but is also the older brother of her favorite client. Ruh-roh!

Lets just say it makes for quite the nuclear fission!

Anyway, what starts out between them as rivalry, as academic sabotage, soon devolves into something more atomic and quantum, with Jack being able to pierce through to the nucleus of who Elsie is and becoming someone who can give her a safe space to be her authentic self. In a similar vein, she helps him to take accountability for some of his past actions and behaviors, which is long overdue. It makes for a lovely give and take. Not to mention lots of dynamism in terms of growth, characterization, and plot.

As a couple, Jack and Elsie were adorable. I liked how they were a grounding influence for one another as well as an impetus for positive change at times. They kept the smiles coming and those electrons firing! My only complaint is I found some of the steamy scenes between them to be awkward. However, that may be more a matter of preference than anything because I had a similar sentiment when I read The Love Hypothesis.

On the whole, though: RADIOACTIVE WITH CUTENESS!

A big thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC in exchange for my review.

4/5 stars

**Follow me on Goodreads

#ashlee bree's book reviews #love theoretically #ali hazelwood #contemporary #contemporary romance #romance #chick lit #recs: ashlee approved!#read january 2023 #coming june 2023 #bookblr #booklr #book reviews

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sunnydaleherald · 5 months

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The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Sunday, December 3rd

DOYLE: So that's it then? That's your exciting plan for this evening? A book? ANGEL: I get enough excitement. DOYLE: Yeah - of the evil-fighting variety. How about a little off-duty fun? ANGEL: Such as? DOYLE: (pushes Angel's feet off the desk and sits down on the edge) Two beautiful words: Sports Bar! Angel gives him a look, turns his chair so he can put his feet back up on the other corner of the desk and goes back to reading his book. DOYLE: Come on! You know they have Trivia games on the Internet now? You can challenge against drunks around the world.

~~The Bachelor Party~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Two Steps Back by a2zmom (Buffy/Angel, E)

The Perfidious Spell by Anonymous (Buffy/Willow, M)

Merry Month of Magnus Presents... Santa Baby! by all_choseny (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Do You Trust Me? by Grief Counseling (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Your Opinion Wasn’t In the Recipe by honeygirl51885 (Buffy/Spike, G)

[Chaptered Fiction]

Blood and Chaos, Chapter 66 by Aetheron, quote_Amy_unquote (Sannah_banana) (Amy, M)

With Arms Wide Open, Chapter 19 by jaybird023 (Buffy/Giles, E)

The Scoobies, Chapter 8 by heckate (Ensemble, T)

Lyin Eyes, Chapter 6 by ValMccall797 (Buffy/Angel, E)

Moments that Make You: The Hero and The Princess, Chapter 100 by myheadsgonenumb (Cordelia/Doyle, T)

Gemini, Chapter 4 by BuildMeUpButtercup_x (Buffy/Angel, M)

Eurotrip, Chapter 9 (complete!) by RavenLove12 (Buffy/Spike, M)

Strings, Chapter 13 by aliceinwonderbra (Buffy/Faith, E)

Her Old Fashioned Boy, Chapter 17 by Bobbie23 (Giles/Jenny, T)

Breaking Broken Hearts, Chapter 6 by Jess_Ann_Perreault (Jenny/OC, T)

is it over now? Chapter 5 (complete!) by ripslayer (Buffy/Faith, G)

Every Rose, Chapter 5 by sunalso (Buffy/Spike, E)

Agency Has It's Price, Chapter 2 by desicat (Buffy/Spike, M)

Advent Calendiles, Chapter 3 by HAL1500 (Giles/Jenny, G)

Love Bites, Chapter 1 by cawthraven (Buffy/Spike, E)

Disease, Chapter 1 by guin_ramble (Buffy/Giles, E)

Crash and Burn, Chapter 26 by NautiBitz (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Bound, Chapter 54 by RavenLove12 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

New Normal, Chapter 28 by holetoledo (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only)

Dead End Plots, Chapter 25 (complete!) by Melme1325 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Not Just a Boy and a Girl (It's Just the End of the World), Chapter 2 by noctilucent (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Home Sweet Home, Chapter 5 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, PG)

Agency Has It's Price, Chapter 2 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, R)

The joining of souls, Chapter 6 by delfine (Buffy, Lord of the Rings crossover, FR13)

A Very Summers Winter, Chapter 3 by VeroNyxK84 (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Spuffy's Little Helper, Chapter 3 by Alyot (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Slay Bells Ringing, Chapter 3 by all_choseny (Buffy/Spike, PG)

Crash and Burn, Chapters 15-19 (complete!) by NautiBitz (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Artwork: New Banner Art #9 — For my latest artwork by veronyxk84 (Spike, worksafe)

Artwork: He’s the One by VeroNyxK84 (Spike, worksafe)

Crafts: Summers house miniature by jfreisler

Game art: I made Sunnydale [in Animal Crossing] by Outrageous_Ad_2888

Artwork: Angel on top of the tree! by CoffeeMilkLvr

Artwork: Spike and Buffy by rattbyte (worksafe)

Gifset: Anya - Self Less by koriand3r

Video: Top 10 fandoms for crossovers on fanfiction.net by bakanokiwami

Fanvid: Back From the Dead - Buffy the Vampire Slayer by TheMillennialSlayer (Buffy-focused)

Fanvid: Buffy: The Lucid Dream Acid Trip Fiasco - Part III: We Are On Drugs by MyLoveableCrayon

Fanvid: Buffy the Vampire Slayer // Radioactive by Alexis Wechta

[Reviews & Recaps]

Video: How to FINISH a Story! Loki Season 2 vs. Buffy Season 7 (MINOR Spoilers) by Examining Kubrick Craven Halloween

Video: Buffy Cazavampiros Parte II: Y Con Ella El Mundo Cambió Para Siempre by Hoyganóelcine

Podcast: Buffy s3 at 25: Homecoming by Slayerfest 98

[Recs]

Music rec: Buffy intro sampled by Dreamcatcher by RobRob1992

[Fandom Discussions]

Why did we not get a spin off of SID THE DEMON HUNTER by eggheadsguidetorunning

just finished watching buffy for the third time, and i am SUCH a dawn summers defender by eleven-promises

Who had a worse childhood of these choices [Xander or Wesley]? by jdpm1991

Does anyone actually like [AtS] season 5? by Gothamstreetcat

Why is Angel (the character) unpopular? by Brilliant_Cucumber81

Sensible shoes? by By-Torandsnowdog

Slayers are strongers than vamps…sooooooo by TheEbolaArrow

Which episode did a better job at including a new character into the core group of these choices [Family or Fredless]? by jdpm1991

The worst acting on Buffy? by JeSuisLaCockamouse

Spike was a massive creep in season 5 by Eagles56

do you feel like all potentials becoming slayers make buffy and faith and their premise not special? by jogaforacont

How does vampire turning work? by amazingmacs

confusion [How can anyone just be a witch?] by michaelkudra

Which character do you think would’ve been a great big bad if they made another season? I say D’hofryn by grkpektis

Do you think Charisma C. would have been a fine buffy? by BlueFlameWar

The Body by Left-Star2240

I love how warm & empathetic Professor Lillian is to Buffy in "Tough Love" by KneeHighMischief

Rewatching Angel and the loss of Kate Lockley really impacts the show by oranginag

Who do you think was the best singer in the show? by george123890yang

Why was Dawn in junior high? by Tuxedo_Mark

How long was Spike in a wheelchair and did he eat that puppy that Dru brought him? by aeryn1227

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

#buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #angel the series #ats

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yeoldemothmemes · 9 months

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KrimsonRogue vs Bad Books Sentence Starters 16

Taken from a couple of different videos of him reviewing terrible books Some lines have been modified for better use in RP. Content warnings.

"Help, I'm being invaded by a cuddle monster" "Good job taking out that horrible book" "You are the human version of an infected boil" "This is not going through radioactive oil, this is a dinner invite" "If the guy who wrote The Room is more self aware than you are, put down the pen and never write again" "Most day time soap operas are better written than this" "This makes everything look so much worse in hindsight" "Why did you think letting me miss class would make things better?" "No thoughts, only fluff" "You can go downstairs and mom can give you a treat" "Please accept BLANK as a token of my affection" "It's always about you and your plans" "This is not a small case of assault" "Those aren't nightmares, those are night terrors" "The fact that you've been through all that, and still have the strength to smile and try and make someone else's day better is incredible" "Consider the bridge between you and me effectively burned" "I'm not upset at you, you didn't know my backstory" "I am still on page 2" "Who proofread this?" "I like food" "Who uses their middle name when introducing themselves?" "The red flags are flashing so much they could be mistaken for the lights of a fire engine. "I collect books. As I'm sure you've noticed" "That worked?" "Suit up, bitch" "His defining trait is his pants" "I'm sorry, but no."

#youtuber based sentence starters #rp sentence starters #sentence rp meme #roleplay sentence starters #roleplay sentence meme #krimsonrogue vs bad books starters #rp meme

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bookgeekgrrl · 2 months

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My media this week (4-10 Feb 2024)

youtube

top 5 personal HO fave - he was he was super thrilled to be there, had a great time, lost his mind a little & flexed (literally). Incredible.

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

😊 Throuple Honey (Brent Archer) - short, sweet & simple with lots of domestic details

🥰 "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole" (Isabel J. Kim) - love a skillful response to the classic original story. I just kept saying 'wow. wow.'

😍😍😍 Reread the entirety of Rachel Reid's Game Changers series. I just love them all SO MUCH!!!! 😍😍😍

Game Changer (Game Changers #1) [Scott & Kip]

Merry Christmas Scott & Kip (Game Changers #1.5)

Heated Rivalry (Game Changers #2) [Shane & Ilya] {here's a really great review of this book, which is THEEEE GREATEST rivals-to-lovers story ever!}

My Dinner with Hayden: A Heated Rivalry Short Story (Game Changers #2.5)

Tough Guy (Game Changers #3) [Ryan & Fabian]

Common Goal (Game Changers #4) [Eric & Kyle]

Role Model (Game Changers #5) [Troy & Harris]

The Long Game (Game Changers #6) [Shane & Ilya, Part 2]

🥰 The Supersoldier's Amnesiac Groom (casspeach) - 48K, very canon divergent arranged marriage AU - reread for Stucky Book Club

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

A Word on Words | NPT: Starter Villain - John Scalzi

Hot Ones - Tony Hawk

Hot Ones - Sterling K. Brown

Hot Ones - Mark Ruffalo

Hot Ones - John Oliver

Hot Ones - Barry Keoghan

Hazbin Hotel - s1, e2

D20: Fantasy High: Junior Year - "Mall Madness" (s21, e5)

D20: Adventuring Party - "Can I Offer You a Nice Shrimp in This Trying Time?" (s16, e5)

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Desert Island Discs - Graham Nash, musician

⭐ Up First - The Sunday Story: Tiny Desk, Big Stage

⭐ What Next: TBD - Streaming Is Cable Now

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Taquile Island

Short Wave - Wolves Are Thriving In The Radioactive Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

The Sporkful - Undercover Dining With NY Times Restaurant Critic Pete Wells

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang - The Top 10 Places We Would Love To Visit

Pop Culture Happy Hour - 2024 Grammys Recap

Vibe Check - Hey, Sis: featuring Audie Cornish

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Moynaq

Shedunnit - The Green Penguin

Vibe Check - Hell Has Flooded

⭐ It's Been a Minute - Sam Reich on revamping the game show - and Dropout's success as a small streamer

Ologies with Alie Ward - Theoretical & Creative Ecology (SCIENCE & ECOPOETRY) with Madhur Anand

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Welcome Home

Short Wave - After 20 Years, This Scientist Uncovered The Physics Behind The Spiral Pass

99% Invisible #569 - Between the Blocks

Switched on Pop - Brittany Howard's Chaos Theory (with Brittany Howard)

⭐ Song Exploder - Green Day "Basket Case"

The Assignment with Audie Cornish - Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce: Cultural Supernova

⭐ Throughline - The Scent of History

⭐ The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Kam Wah Chung & Co. Museum

Alt.Latino - The greatest Boleros of all-time

The Sporkful - Deep Dish With Sohla And Ham: Tacos Al Pastor

Today, Explained - When one (airplane) door opens …

Dear Prudence - Is My Work Husband Keeping Me A Secret From His Wife? Help!

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Lisa Frankenstein And What's Making Us Happy

Endless Thread - Recess Therapy's Julian Shapiro-Barnum is skeptical of kids becoming social media stars

⭐ Strong Songs - "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel

Today, Explained - Why Taylor left TikTok

Short Wave - Clownfish Might Be Counting Their Potential Enemies' Stripes

You're Dead to Me - Simón Bolívar

Consider This from NPR - What Makes A Football Movie Great?

It's Been a Minute - A Super Bowl in 'new Vegas'; plus, the inverted purity of the Stanley Cup

Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me! - Lena Waithe

Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Putting the Awe in Audio

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

The Very Best Of Buddy Holly And The Crickets

My Mix #5 [Simon & Garfunkel, Carpenters, John Denver]

Presenting KISS

Presenting Black Sabbath

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sacrificethemtothesquid · 9 months

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Okay, so I read a NYT review of Oppenheimer that recommended this book as related reading. I love science and I'm always drawn to the darker side of history, so I checked it out, and OH MY GOD THIS WAS SO GOOD. The e-book is 1500 pages and I devoured it in a week.

Cut for brevity:

Chemistry was my favorite class in high school, and I loved the chem I took in college. Unfortunately, my brain isn't well-wired for math, so Physics 101 knocked me on my ass and calculus kicked me while I was down. (Had I not been in the middle of an eating disorder with untreated bipolar, I might have gotten farther, but c'est la vie.) Even so, I still love science and engineering.

Oppenheimer was really enjoyable. I wish there had been more emphasis on the technical/engineering side, a la Apollo 13 or Hidden Figures, but it was a biopic, not a documentary, so I guess I'm okay with that. The Strauss hearing reminded me very much of a West Wing episode, and could easily be (and maybe should have been) a movie of its own. There were, in fact, actual live non-naked women involved in the real Manhattan Project, something the movie seems to have conveniently forgotten. (Along with the VFX crew, apparently. Not a good look.) But overall, it was good and I would definitely see it again.

This book, though. It's a history of the making of the atomic bomb, and it starts in the early 1900s detailing (and my god, I do mean detailing) chemists and physicists' attempts to define the atomic structure. It's pleasantly written, mixing interviews, declassified documents, diaries, etc into prose that feels more like a novel than nonfiction. It balances the lab-based chemistry (taking rocks and running them through various complicated chemical solutions until you get pure radioactive elements) with math-based theoretical work, as well as the scientists' philosophical discussions regarding the things they were doing. There's history - I had a vague sense that Germany might have had a bomb program, but I was way off about how advanced it was, and Japan had a program too??? And it's not just about the nuclear work itself: it goes into depth (again, very in depth) about the immediate politics surrounding not only nuclear research, but the larger societal context of the research. It very purposefully includes all the horrible things the US did in the first half of the 20th century, as well as all the horrible things everyone else was doing, and the profound, willful ignorance and cruelty of the people involved. It gets graphic. Every trigger warning you can think of that involves war definitely applies, especially in the last chapter, which presents many, many interviews from survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When we were in Japan last year, we paid our respects at the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, and it was especially chilling to read the American government/military's attempts to justify what they did.

Anyway, you should read it. It's not light reading by any stretch of the imagination, but I promise it's worth it.

#oppenheimer #the making of the atomic bomb #tw war

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denimbex1986 · 7 months

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'Made for an estimated, fairly astronomical, $180 million, the high-impact biopic has grossed almost one billion dollars globally, at least partially propelled by its unlikely provenance as one-half of the Barbenheimer theatrical dynamic duo. But now that the dust has cleared, discerning spectators are better able to detect creeping critical fallout amid all the ticker-tape praise. How much of Oppenheimer’s figures is a factual biography of legendary U.S. physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer, and how much is sneaky, bio-hazardous radioactive waste dropped on an unsuspecting public?

Oppenheimer: From Book to Screen

To opine that Oppenheimer takes liberties with the massive (800-plus pages) 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning American Prometheus biography by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin is a little like saying Nolan’s dark, ponderous Batman reboots toe the same line as TV’s spoofy, goofy 1960s Batman series. To start with, Nolan’s non-fiction source is a meticulous, sometimes laborious, molecular-level chronicle of the titanic rise and fall of Oppenheimer, whose brilliant leadership of the U.S. Manhattan Project from 1943 to 1945 led to the development of the first atomic bomb—and with it, the quick, horrific end to the Allied campaign against Japan in World War II.

Nolan, however, characteristically declares war on any and all logical timelines from the opening shot. It’s a film that not only plays fast with the facts but shakes and splinters Oppenheimer’s uber-complicated life and times into thousands of jigsaw-puzzle pieces, jerking the spectator to and fro and across time and place from the 1920s to the 1950s. Postulate last year’s Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once, but set in a physics lab, not a laundromat.

If Oppenheimer was the main man who smashed and weaponized the atom, Nolan mashes Oppenheimer the movie into a galaxy of fissile bits; however kinetic, together their staying power is less than the sum of the parts. He seems to take Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous managerial mantra (Move fast and break things) literally, and like the Facebook mastermind, never stops long enough to pick up—or add up—the pieces.

Given the barrage of kaleidoscopic images, including nebulous visual fireworks, audiences haven’t time to do much figuring either. What might have been presented as a weighty, deliberate three-hour dramatization of a pivotal scientific, military, and political chapter in 20th-century history (and prelude to the U.S.-USSR Cold War arms race) instead takes flight as a slick, tricked-up, even sensationalized Hollywood biopic. It’s a perpetual motion movie machine, but one that might have been powered by magic mushrooms, not enriched uranium.

Barbenheimer

Nevertheless, Oppenheimer is a triumph of sorts, though chiefly in the areas of hype, hoopla, and amazingly lucky timing. First in the equation is the name recognition and box-office draw of Nolan, probably the most bankable director of his generation, whose hits have ranged from serious non-fiction like Dunkirk to sci-fi fantasy like Inception. Then there’s the coincidental, but heaven-sent summer 2023 theatrical run in a post-Covid world where a long-suffering public was feverishly desperate to get off the couch. Lastly was its love-at-first-sight, blind-date pairing with the Barbie blockbuster, an X-factor opening weekend alchemy that got multiplied countless times into box-office gold.

Surprisingly, the lack of a major marquee star (like Leonardo DiCaprio or even Christian Bale) in the title role didn’t abort Oppenheimer’s blast-off. To play Oppie, Nolan opted for the Irish actor Cillian Murphy. Emily Blunt plays Oppenheimer’s volatile wife Kitty, Gary Oldman stars as all-American (to a fault) President Harry Truman, and Ken Branaugh plays the pioneering Danish physicist Niels Bohr.

Skeptical critics may well question Nolan’s top-heavy U.K. roster, particularly Murphy, whose main acting modus operandi as Oppie is either a) wide-eyed focus and astonishment, or b) wide-eyed shock and regret. He’s abetted in his impersonation by Nolan’s hyperactive camera, which is nearly a constant close-up, in-your-face companion to the leads, so much so it chews up more scenery than does Robert Downey Jr. Jettisoning his Iron Man superhero armor, Downey dons a tie and goes gray to play Lewis Strauss, a petty, two-faced Wall Street political insider who is a catalyst in blowing up Oppenheimer’s postwar standing as America’s leading scientist-hero.

Fission and Frisson

While Nolan whiplashes the audience back and forth through the years, he’s loathe to label the times or places, treating them as if they were state secrets. The result is a dizzying centrifugal swirl of shots and scenes, some in color, some black-and-white, drawing on Oppenheimer’s heady college days in Europe and his first faculty job at the University of California-Berkeley and on to his date with destiny as director, founder, and philosopher-king of the WWII Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. Why the black-and-white? It likely has something to do with Nolan’s film noir framing of the tale, which contrasts Oppie’s bright early decades leading up to the development of the bomb with the shadowy post-war era of the McCarthyist anti-communist witch hunts.

By the late 1940s and early 1950s, much had changed in U.S. foreign and domestic politics, and many on the left were persecuted, prosecuted, or simply silenced. Oppenheimer, once the celebrated scientist and renaissance man who helped win the war (while still subject to debate, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs dropped in August 1945 did likely save millions of lives by averting the Allied land invasion of Japan), is stripped of his cherished top-secret security clearance. For many observers and colleagues, Oppenheimer was never the same afterward. He wasn’t exactly a beaten man, but he was effectively muted, defused, and disarmed. He became head of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., where he would spend the rest of his days in a near-monastic retreat.

Down in Flames

American Prometheus paints a portrait of Oppenheimer as a complicated, contradictory intellectual giant, both ambitious and genteel, shrewd and childishly reckless. Nolan, however, thinks, almost literally, in black and white. Ultimately a neo-Hollywood genre director, he’s always on the hunt for villains, and if he can’t find one or two to blame he will invent them. History reveals that Strauss indeed smuggled in loads of ammunition in the right-wing scheme to take down Oppenheimer, but it’s simplistic and plain wrong to let the other bad actors walk. Among them is the FBI’s autocratic director J. Edgar Hoover, whose G-men began illegally bugging Oppenheimer’s homes and phones in the early 1940s.

There’s also the back-stabbing, malicious physicist Edward Teller, who got cold revenge on his former Los Alamos padrone by testifying Oppie was an unstable security risk—all because he nixed Teller’s pet project to create the “super,” aka H-bomb. There’s even the feckless President Dwight Eisenhower, who did nothing to save Oppenheimer from the humiliating Atomic Energy Commission’s 1954 inquisition ordeal or its damning verdict.

However spotty with the facts, Nolan’s filmic inquiry into the shameful case of J. Robert Oppenheimer really misses the mark when it comes to Oppie’s star-crossed romance with Jean Tatlock who is played by Florence Pugh. Evidently seeing the need to add the sizzle of sex to his film equation, Nolan treats the audience to not one but three gratuitous (and weird) nude scenes.

Hit and Miss Delivery

Historical films necessarily condense, crop, and simplify, but Nolan cuts corners so many times he should be awarded the Ignoble Prize for Ignoring History. It’s not nitpicking to criticize how he turns Albert Einstein into a fatherly Yoda figure for Oppenheimer when in fact the two men weren’t particularly close even though Einstein was in residence at the prestigious New Jersey think tank during Oppenheimer’s tenure.

Their differences stemmed from Einstein’s unbending disbelief in the basic, uncanny tenets of modern quantum mechanics, e.g., that light can be both particle and wave. Nolan dreams up key scenes involving the two of them, one that expands to critical mass in Strauss’ mind as the rationale for his vendetta against Oppenheimer.

If the movie leans on a blitzkrieg of commercial formulaics to lighten up its heavy-duty subject matter, ironically its best moments are when Nolan falls back on old-school textbook filmmaking. While several of the leads fall under Nolan’s command to emote in a blustery, “Look at me, I’m Oscar-positive!” way (Blame Blunt here, with Downey Jr.), Matt Damon has the courage to act admirably at ease instead of acting out. As the brusque Army general who drafts Oppenheimer to assemble and lead the A-bomb dream team, Damon doesn’t quite nail the steely, hard-ass gravitas the role demands, but he deserves a medal for conspicuously cool reserve under fire.

Another exception to Nolan’s showy melodramatics is Oscar winner (Churchill) Gary Oldman. Never known to be camera-shy, Oldman refreshingly underplays his cameo as the folksy, small-minded President Truman, whose victorious handshake welcome to Oppenheimer slowly turns into a virtual slap in the face.

The Trinity Test Scene in Oppenheimer

Audiences may also want to see Oppenheimer for the chilling bravura sequence that culminates in the July 1945 Trinity A-bomb test in the New Mexico desert. Nolan marshals his cast, preps the sets and pyrotechnics, cues the unearthly sights and sounds, and counts down to the blinding mini-apocalypse that changed human history forever. Pondering only the science, theory, and engineering, the product of $2 billion then (around $25 billion today) yet only a few years of round-the-clock work by a team of the best and brightest young Western scientists, the entire endeavor was a magnificent, manifestly diabolical achievement. To date, in nearly 80 years since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki cataclysms, humanity and the planet have been spared the doomsday death and destruction such weapons were born and made to deliver. But for how long?'

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wearethekat · 8 months

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June Book Reviews: Into The Broken Lands by Tanya Huff

Picked this one up because I've enjoyed Tanya Huff's science fiction novels in the past and I was interested to see what she'd do with a fantasy novel. Unprepared heir presumptive Ryan has been sent into the broken lands, a mage-stricken magical wasteland, in order to retrieve the symbol of rule that will cement his position. Unfortunately, his team is small, the broken lands' death rate very high, and his success rests solely in the hands of getting the support of a sentient "weapon."

This was a book with a lot of interesting concepts (LOVE to see a radioactive wizard waste) but I'm not sure it pulled them off well. The book is written so that the current timeline is interspersed with flashbacks to the last heir who retrieved the item from the wastes. Normally, flashbacks are constructed in order to slowly reveal shocking secrets or how exactly the protagonist got into the mess we were dropped into the middle of or other plot-vital information. Here, we just hear about some guys doing the same fetch quest our guys are doing. Which is frustrating, since the plotline is very basic (walk in, fight monsters, fetch object, walk out). The entire past plotline, a third to half the book, could have been cut with no loss. In fact, it should have.

A book that had glints of interesting moments but was otherwise a slog. Definitely one of those books where you wonder where the editor was.

#my book reviews #june book reviews #tanya huff #into the broken lands

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horsesarecreatures · 2 years

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Book review: The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

The is a work of nonfiction that tells the story of women who worked at two radium dial plants in the early 1900s painting the watches. The first plant was located in Orange, NJ, and the second plant was located in Ottawa, Illinois. During World War One, this was one of the most prestigious jobs women could get. They were paid three times the average factory floor worker, and were ranked in the top 5% of female wage earners, often taking home more than their husbands. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it was known among scientists that radium was dangerous, the mass public was not aware, and since it was used to combat cancer cells, radium was even promoted to the women as healthful.

Because the radium-laced paint they used for the watches often dried on the brushes, the women were instructed to “lip point” by putting the brush in the mouths to shape the brush and remove old paint. The founders of the companies knew perfectly well that this was dangerous, but encouraged the practice because it wasted less paint than dipping the brushes in water or using pens instead.

The women who worked at the plants started falling ill at various rates. Because it had opened first, the workers from the US Radium Corporation in Orange were the first victims. Since radium operates similarly to calcium by settling in the bones, the first symptoms the women had were usually teeth falling out. The spots where the teeth fell out never healed and became open, infected sores. More teeth would fall out, and then the women's jaws would then disintegrate. Other bones started deteriorating, and some women also developed bone sarcomas. They all died agonizing deaths eventually. In the beginning, the doctors and dentists involved had no idea what was going on, for they had never heard of radium poisoning. With the amount of young women from the same plant dying, however, eventually they pieced together that the mystery illnesses were related to the women's occupation.

I’ve read a lot of books about industrial poisoning, and this was truly one of the most egregious cases. The companies fired women who started showing symptoms to prevent the other workers from catching on. They never helped pay their medical bills. The Ottawa company’s doctor got rid of a corpse before the family’s doctor could do an autopsy on it. Once the Ottowa company got wind of the lawsuits that were happening in NJ, they had their company doctor examine all the women. The doctor found that over 50% of them were radioactive, but the girls were never given the test results and were told they were healthy. The companies never did anything to prevent lip pointing. The Orange company hired a fake doctor to publish reports that radium was beneficial. The crimes go on and on.

After years of litigation, lawyers in both Orange and Ottawa were able to get justice, but for many of the women it was too late. However, the press their cases received did eventually lead to stricter laws regarding safety precautions around radium being passed, just in time for World War II when the demand for it skyrocketed again.

This book was extremely well researched. Emotionally it was very hard to read, however. The book took a very personal look into the lives of all the women and their families, and photographs of many were included. Additionally, the town I grew up in is extremely close to Orange, NJ, and also has a superfund fund site from radium. Radium breaks down into radon, which is a known cause of lung cancer. I tested my father’s house 3 times for radon. All three times it was below the EPA’s cutoff level, but once it was borderline with the World Health Organizations stricter cutoff. Can't help but wonder if radon was a cause of his death. Going after modern day companies similar to the US Radium Corp is my career goal in becoming an environmental lawyer, though who the hell knows if there will be any broken environmental regulations left by the time the Supreme Court is done disemboweling the EPA.

#book #non-fiction #the radium girls #kate moore #bookblr #book review

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scotianostra · 2 years

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3rd September 1918 saw the death of author and pioneering woman doctor, Margaret Todd.

For a woman who accomplished so much Margaret Todd is still relatively unknown by most people in her native Scotland. Born Margaret Georgina Todd on 23rd April 1859 in Kilrenny, a wee village just north of Anstruther on the East Neuk of Fife. Todd was educated in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Berlin.

A Glaswegian schoolteacher, in 1886 Todd became one of the first students at the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women after hearing that the Scottish Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons had opened their exams to women. She took eight years to complete the four-year course because, using the pseudonym Graham Travers, during her studies she wrote a novel, Mona Maclean, Medical Student. This was described by Punch magazine as “a novel with a purpose — no recommendation for a novel, more especially when the purpose selected is that of demonstrating the indispensability of women-doctors”.

After graduating in 1894 she took her MD in Brussels and was appointed Assistant Medical Officer at Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children but retired after five years.Her first book having been exceptionally well received and into further editions, she published Fellow Travellers and Kirsty O’ The Mill Toun in 1896, followed by Windyhaugh in 1898, always using her male pen name, although by 1896 reviewers were calling her “Miss Travers”. By 1906 even her publishers added “Margaret Todd, MD” in parentheses after her pseudonym. In addition to six novels she wrote short stories for magazines.

Despite their nineteen-year age difference, Todd was the romantic partner of Dr Sophia Jex-Blake, founder of Dr Todd’s university and place of employment. Upon Jex-Blake’s retirement in 1899, they moved to Windydene, in Rotherfield, where she wrote further two novels. When her partner died she wrote, under own name, The Life of Dr Sophia Jex-Blake, a book described as ‘almost too laboriously minute for the general reader’.

Margaret Todd’s other claim to fame results from circumstances that are rather elusive. It seems she was a family friend of the chemist Frederick Soddy. At some point he described to her his work on radioactive elements that have more than one atomic mass, although the chemical properties are identical and they share the same place in the periodic table. He was apparently having trouble coming up with a satisfactory name. It is said that Margaret told him he needed a good Greek term: perhaps, she suggested, he should try “isotope” from the Green for “same place”. Frederick Soddy went on to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1921, and has a (small) crater on the Moon named after him. He would doubtless have achieved these honours using a different name for the subject of his work, but it is good that the long-standing assumption that he coined the work “isotope” has been corrected in recent years.

Margaret Todd died at the age of 59, just three months after her biography on her partner Sophia Jex-Blake was published. According to one source, she died by suicide; her Times obituary states only that she died in a nursing home in London. After her death, a scholarship was created in her name at the LSMW. She left £3,000 in her will (equivalent to £279,000 in 2019) to be used to promote the advancement of women in medicine.

Read more on Doctor Margaret Todd here https://conscicom.web.ox.ac.uk/article/margaret-todd-1859-1918-medical-woman-and-author

#Scotland #scottish #strong woman #pioneer #doctor #history

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