valiantarcher

[valiantarcher]

nothing will ever be funnier than that bit in agents of shield where coulson says "get ready for a large file transfer" and then shoves an entire filing cabinet out of a 4th story window

#Ehehe #That was a great moment #Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

[valiantarcher]

Book sales are all fun and games until you have to find space for all the new books.

#Ladies (and any gentlemen) I have undone almost all my hard work clearing books off the to-read shelves #This isn't a surprising or even particularly sad turn of events but a little bittersweet I guess #Better keep reading

[valiantarcher]

Ball Gown

Driscoll (United States)

c.1900

Gift of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, 1976

The MET (Accession Number: 1976.134.14a, b)

#I wish there were some close-ups of the trimmings because I can't quite tell what they are but they seem pretty #The tulle over the gold is very nice though #fashion

[valiantarcher]

yellow silk evening dress with oak leaf design

c.1902

House of Worth

Fashion Museum of Bath

#fashion

[valiantarcher]

Book prompts: A book with an illustrated cover; a book published more than a hundred years ago; a book with an emotion word in the title

For a book with an illustrated cover, I reread Snow & Rose by Emily Winfield Martin. I remember enjoying this on my first read and, overall, it held up pretty well to a reread. The illustrations are still lovely, as is the writing, but I found myself wondering 'is that a moral or is the author just creating nuanced characters?' a few times. I think this'll be sticking around at least for now.

For a book published more than a hundred years ago, I read The Grey Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang. This one was originally published in 1900 and has a pretty mixed bag of folk and fairy tales, both in origin and enjoyment. But a number of the tales were new to me or were at least new variants and I think some of them would be prime candidates for the February Inklings Challenge (or I just really liked them and would be curious to see them undergo that treatment).

For a book with an emotion word in the title, I read The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. This one was simultaneously easy and hard: easy because it was the only book with an emotion in the title, but hard because it was a longer book with my own mixed emotions on it. The villain in this one is particularly despicable and there is some (somewhat) unexpected villainy on others' parts, but on the flip side there's also unexpected mercy and goodness. Not my favourite of his works by any stretch, but some good scenes for that.

#Thank you! #fictionadventurer #Book List 2024 #If anyone is curious I can provide a list of the fairy tales and a link...

[valiantarcher]

the mystery retirees try to book a room at a motel in their old hometown for their big annual in-person reunion, but the concierge regretfully tells them they're not taking anyone in right now due to strange happenings bothering the manager. said manager thinks the place is ... haunted.

looks like we've got a mystery on our hands, gang!

#Oh what fun! #Scooby Doo #Yay! Fan Art!

[valiantarcher]

WIP of Penelope with her forever-unfinished shroud.

#ooh nice #Penelope #The Odyssey #Yay! Fan Art!

[valiantarcher]

Shout out to that one bluegrass album: i'm not sure i'd like you any more now that i'm an adult, but i'm sure hearing one of your songs would send me right back to grade school.

I've wanted to do this poll for a while. Why? I have no idea, but here it is so maybe my brain will shut up about it.

Songs underneath the cut.

^ Not really my style at first, but then you hit that fourth verse (terminology?) and wow!

^ This one hurts.

My favorite from the album from the beginning, though as a kid i misheard the line "salvation army band" as "salvation oughta be banned" and didn't understand why my mom was listening to it.

^ I didn't have a distinct memory of this one until i was adding it to my Spotify playlist. When i heard it again, i had to replay it at least once.

#signal boost #Seems like some of you all might have an opinion

[valiantarcher]

The Chronicles of Narnia BBC 1988-1990

#The Chronicles of Narnia

[valiantarcher]

Ramandu’s Daughter and Caspian in the BBC’s version of Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (2/2)

[Ramandu’s Daughter and Caspian stand together as he speaks. The two share a look before looking away shyly. They stand together and listen. She smiles at him as he speaks to the others. Caspian smiles happily and looks up. A hazy clip of the future is shown in which Ramandu presides over the marriage of his daughter and Caspian.]

#The Chronicles of Narnia #The Voyage of the Dawn Treader #I've been informed the actress who played Ramandu's Daughter also played Fiona in Burn Notice #Which I have not seen but have enough awareness of to go o_O

[valiantarcher]

Tagged by @lady-merian - these are really boring answers, but thank you!

Last read: Space Boy, Volume 1 by Stephen McCranie.

Current read: The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens.

Next read: If I can kick my reading in gear, the light, fun library book. If I can't, whatever library book in the impending wave has the closest due date and is the easiest to get into.

Leaving an open tag for anyone who sees this and wants to do it! :)

#Lady-Merian #asks

[valiantarcher]

Evening Dress

Girolamo Giuseffi

1912-1914

Indianapolis Museum of Art

#fashion

[valiantarcher]

@novelmonger, I had a false start for the oldest book with The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter (struggled through the first 35 or so pages and then found out it was abridged and gave it up), but settled on The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley (the copy I was reading was published in 1917). It was, uh, an interesting ride. Sometimes it was a fairy story, sometimes it seemed like pictures of Christian truths, sometimes it was a natural history reader, sometimes it was about logic, sometimes it seemed to be supporting evolutionary theory and sometimes pointing out the holes in it, and then sometimes it hits you upside the head with the views of the time and place it was written.

For the newest book, Jack le téméraire: Dans les griffes du jarden maléfique by Ben Hatke was published in 2019 (the original work in English was published in 2016). I used my French dictionary frequently and backchecked most pages against the English after I'd worked through the French, but it was a fun challenge. I particularly enjoyed seeing how the text was translated and there are a few more significant changes that I'm rather curious about (the addition of a subtitle for one!).

#Thank you! #novelmonger #Book List 2024

[valiantarcher]

Maybe the problem with Christian fiction is that it's non-denominational. People are just "Christian", with no effort put into showing what practicing that religion looks like for them specifically. No indication that there are other Christians who could have different beliefs. No wrestling with differing ideas and the struggle of how one should live out their Christian faith. And that makes it unrealistic and unrelatable.

#I don't think this is necessarily the totality of the problem BUT it is a significant portion of it #Which is why it's been so refreshing when authors actually tackle some of these issues #(And this is one thing Dare did well and I loved it for that) #books

[valiantarcher]

A book told from multiple characters' POVs?

The books on my shelves were not as accommodating as I would've liked for this prompt, but I finally settled on Mossflower by Brian Jacques as it does reflect different characters' views to tell the story. Mossflower was one of my favourites of the Redwall series growing up and I was happy to find it held up well to my memories. I also had a fun surprise when the Hares showed up and something clicked that I had missed when I was younger: their turn of phrase and speech patterns remind me some of Wodehouse characters - lots of "oh, I say"s and "..., what?" and "jolly good" and such.

#Thank you! #isfjmel-pleg #2024 Book List

[valiantarcher]

@sailforvalinor, while I didn't check every single book on the shelves for dedications, I was pretty confident in choosing Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. This was a reread and because it's the second in the series, I had to reread the first book as well (which was also on the shelf - as is the third book, so it'll hopefully end up being three books for one prompt!). I found myself not enjoying the first book quite as much as I'd remembered, so I was delighted to enjoy the second book probably as much as I did the first read around.

#Thank you! #sailforvalinor #2024 Book List

[valiantarcher]

Tagged by @novelmonger - thank you! Rules: Shuffle your repeat playlist 10 times and tag 10 people. (Meaning, list the first 10 different songs that come up as a result of hitting shuffle.)

Unfortunately for all parties, I do not have a repeat playlist nor a means of aggregating my most frequently played songs in one place. I tried to fake it by creating a partial playlist of songs and albums I've been listening to a lot recently in a music player and shuffling it, but it did a horrible job of it. I finally resorted to taking the first few songs off of it that were not by the same artists, adding in some songs on the list by other artists, and lastly handpicking a couple of songs that have been repeated a lot lately.

Nathan's Song by Michael Card

Never Look Away by Vienna Teng

Song for a Carpenter by Dan Fogelberg

Tam Lin by Coyote Run

Heirloom by Sleeping at Last

Hand in Your Hand by Bohinta

Blame by Mat Kearney

20 Years by The Civil Wars

Tae the Weaver's Gin Ye Go by Andy M. Stewart and Manus Lunny

The Word I Couldn't Keep from the Nancy Drew: Sea of Darkness soundtrack

Leaving an open tag for anyone who feels like doing this.

#Thanks! #novelmonger #asks #Sorry it didn't turn out very well but this is mostly more representative anyhow I suppose