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@elepaiolibrarian
sexy US babes we are all voting blue this november right? we’re all gonna vote. we’re gonna, right?? right????? tell me we’re all gonna vote blue so that i can sleep at night. tell me you’re gonna vote blue so that we can all continue to sleep at night and continue like, idk, living life.
Very necessary tags by @stirdrawsandreblaws
chekov’s cat: if you see a cat, it will probably be relevant later.
schroedinger’s gun: there’s no way to know if a gun is loaded or not until you physically inspect and check it yourself, so it’s safest to assume all guns are loaded.
#these are both excellent rules to live by#like#just in general
Murphy’s Theorem: Anything that can become a triangle, will become a triangle.
Pythagoras’s Law: Any attempt to calculate geometry will go wrong.
no idea if it's my hormones, what I've seen in the news lately, the weight of living the past few years, or just because it's Judi Dench...but this impromptu performance really made me cry for a good ten minutes, no kidding.
Today in niche genres of joke that I can never get enough of and will probably still be secretly thinking about four years later
"West Virginia" takes me out at the knees every damn time.
I just learned that the Russian word for “ladybug” translates to “God’s Little Cow”
It’s the same in Irish! bóín Dé!
in hebrew it’s “our rabbi moses’s cow”
Oh I love this news!!!!
Multiple cultures upon seeing a ladybug for the first time: “Who’s cow is this????”
Hat tip to @eloso and thank you!
Before the internet, librarians were the gatekeeper of knowledge. For your reading pleasure, the New York Public Library released a cache of queries and conundrums called in from the 1940s to the 1980s.
More... https://imgur.com/gallery/100MhvX
I am here to tell you, as a librarian who works at a reference desk in 2023, that we still get these kinds of questions.
listen I ended up regretting saying anything about this on my old blog because people will interpret literally any and every statement maliciously on this hellsite but I want to start like. a helpline for people who are like “hey I pretty much only read YA but I’m like 22 now and don’t relate to teenagers as much, it’s such a shame that there are no fun books written for adults :(” because boy HOWDY are there some fun books for adults
maybe I’ll start a big google doc or something one day but for now *deep breath*
The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - absolutely BUCKWILD romance with a dash of telekinesis; nonstop high society drama and misunderstanding from start to finish, happy ending guaranteed. STRONGLY recommend if you, like me, are a basic bitch who enjoys a bit of Pride and Prejudice.
Binti (Nnedi Okorafor) - a math prodigy runs away from Earth to become the first of her people to attend a prestigious university in space, but shit gets real when a crew of hostile jellyfish aliens attack her ship.
Chilling Effect (Valerie Valdes) - a spaceship captain and her crew take on a series of convoluted missions in order to rescue the captain’s sister, who’s been frozen and held for ransom.
The City of Brass (S.A. Chakraborty) - an 18th century conwoman and a mysterious djinn team up to go looking for a legendary hidden city.
The City We Became (N.K. Jemisin) - a scrappy bunch of Chosen Ones have to band together to defend New York City (which is very much alive) from a huge ass monster.
The Empress of Forever (Max Gladstone) - a lady supervillain gets blasted into space and meets an even bigger, planet-destroying evil space empress. literally WHAT is not to like?
The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - high fantasy royal drama about a woman making her way to power in the wake of a political marriage that left without friends or allies.
Escaping Exodus (Nicky Drayden) - a space-faring clan are creating their latest spaceship from the insides of a giant monster when absolutely everything goes to shit (as things are wont to do in science fiction stories).
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (Kai Cheng Thom) - a trans girl runs away to the big city, where she uses her martial arts skills to team up with other trans woman and form a vigilante gang to defend their own when police look the other way. a fascinating blend of poetry and prose and magical realism.
Finna (Nino Cipri) - two exes working at an IKEA have to team up to save a customer who disappeared through one of those interdimensional portals that all IKEAs have laying around. you know how it is.
Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) - come on, you’ve heard about this one. it’s the one with the lesbian space necromancers? yeah, that’s the one. you got it.
In the Vanishers’ Palace (Aliette de Bodard) - a Beauty and the Beast retelling based in science fiction and Vietnamese fantasy, featuring a young woman falling in love with a “beast” who’s actually a motherly dragon after becoming a tutor to the dragon’s two powerful children.
Jade City (Fonda Lee) - urban fantasy gang wars, pitting one magically enhanced family against rivals and a new drug that lets anyone mimic their abilities.
The Library of the Unwritten (A.J. Hackwith) - hell’s librarian gets sent on a quest to find a runaway soul.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Becky Chambers) - aka one of my favorite books ever, essentially slice of life science fiction following an interspecies crew of deep space truckers making the longest and most complicated delivery of their lives. very warm and fuzzy.
Mort (Terry Pratchett) - one of many MANY Discworld books, but a very good one to start with, following the adventures of a boy named Mort after he’s taken on as Death’s apprentice. you know, like the Grim Reaper? that Death.
River of Teeth (Sarah Gailey) - historical AU in which the United States imported and domesticated hippos in the Mississippi River; follows a crew of hippo-riding crooks and hooligans as they plan one heck of a caper.
Space Opera (Catherynne Valente) - a washed up rock star and his old bandmate get roped into performing in an intergalactic singing competition that will determine the fate of the entire planet Earth. full of aliens, attempted assassination, art, and emotional turmoil.
This Is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone) - time-travelling assassins from rival factions fall in love in a poetic and breathless story that spans centuries and reality.
Under the Pendulum Sun (Jeannette Ng) - fairyland is real, and Victorian England is sending missionaries. a woman and her brother attempt to bring the good word to the fair folk, but start to suspect the queen might just be screwing with their heads. PEAK gothic horror with a creepy fairy twist.
Witchmark (C.L. Polk) - a doctor and former soldier with magical powers of healing is trying to live a quiet life and avoid his controlling, aristocratic family’s plans for him, only to get tangled up in a massive political conspiracy when one of his patients mysterious dies. accompanying him in his investigation is a mysterious and gorgeous faerie man. romance ensues.
The First Sister by Linden A Lewis. Three protagonists and all of them queer, a fun space opera. It’s not out yet, but I can tell you it’s really, really good. I highly recommend
Gods of Jade and Shadow another Silvia Moreno-Garcia book. It takes place in 1920s Mexico and has Mayan gods. A fun breezy book.
Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep. If you like YA fantasy but want a little more swearing, violence and sex then this novel is for you.
The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle Jensen. This one I really enjoyed. If you like the winner’s curse then you’ll like this book.
Books I haven’t read but I’ve heard good things about
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson. This one isn’t out it but I believe it’s got a black protagonist.
Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri. An Indian inspired fantasy novel. I haven’t read this one but I’ve heard good things about it.
Rage of Dragons by Evan Winters. A black fantasy novel.
The Unspoken Name by AK Larkwood. I haven’t read it but I know it’s got a lesbian protagonist.
Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope. Just started this book but I believe it’s for adults.
Tiger’s Daughter by K Arsenault Rivera. Lesbian protagonists and it’s still on my tbr.
Dear Neil,
when are we going to see YOU🫵 doing the apology dance for the way you ended the season hmm?
I only apologise for things I'm sorry for having done.
And why should he be sorry? He's doing his job. :)
(Not that @neil-gaiman in any way needs me standing up for him. But this is what it's right to do for your friends... sometimes more when they don't need it than when they do.)
It's a storyteller's job to make their listeners feel things. And the things won't always be positive! Nor is this at all a new kind of behavior.
Sort of, oh, three and a half thousand-and-a-bit years ago, Homer (or the collective of poets and writers we now refer to under that name) tells us in the Odyssey how Odysseus, cast up after numerous disasters on the shores of the friendly and tech-savvy* Phaeacians, is thrown a big feast by his hosts. As was normal for such events, the city's greatest bard is brought in to sing in the guest's honor. Demodocus the bard, as it happens, sings tales of the Trojan War that leave Odysseus (not just once, but twice) hiding his face in his cloak to attempt to conceal that he's crying like a baby—not just over the awful things that happened, but his [often terrible] role in them during the war.)
What's noticeably missing from the "background voice" in these passages of the Odyssey is any sense that, in storytelling, it's bad to upset your story's listeners (either inside the narrative or outside it). It's assumed, by these oldest and consummate storytellers, that this is a completely normal part of the procedure. So old a tradition in Western drama, therefore, is violated at a newer storyteller's peril.
And here, as always, structure is everything. Tolkien (when discussing it) suggests that without the shared pain of the drama in a story's midsection, the eucatastrophe or "upward turn" that would make it all worthwhile at the end—or make it "earned", in modern idiom—would fail, leaving no one satisfied.
If at this point in Good Omens 2 (which we know to be a midsection leading to the material that Neil and Terry plotted out together), if we'd been left not giving a damn what happened with the two protagonists... then we'd know we were in big trouble.
As it is, plainly we're not. Neil, to the viewership's general anguish, has straightforwardly left us not knowing how the hell the Angel and the Demon are going to come out of this mess and find their way to the kind of place where we want them to be at the end.
And this is exactly as it should be. We're all writhing! (And I'm guessing most of us who also do this kind of work for a living are both applauding Neil and cussing him out. Jeeeeeeeeez you should have heard me the other night! ...But I know (at least in a general sense) what he's up to.) What's important is that Neil's not doing this because he hates us. He's doing it because he's serving that higher power, Story... which requires that for best effect, he drag us down deep before he boosts us up high.
So our job now is to embrace feeling the pain Neil's (and John's!) gone to the trouble to craft. The better and more completely we feel it, the more glorious it's gonna be when everything comes out into the light on the far side of the horrific heartrending crap that Neil and John are doubtless about to put us through the other side. And as usual, the Greeks had a word for it: katharsis. It is, essentially, what one needs to pass through to get one's emotional money's worth out of drama... and this team is clearly intent on us getting value for money. May take a while, circumstances being what they are: but I for one feel sure it'll be worth the wait. And I for one am also entirely willing to see what prestidigitation they enact in part 3. :)
...Now if everybody'll excuse me: I've got to go start another watchthrough... and then, in the morning, go put my own characters through some more crap. :)
*What Homer describes as unique to the Phaeacians is apparently some kind of telepathic bond between them and their ships that helps their craft sail where they ought to go. These days we'd be tempted to think of it as active GPS. The Phaeacians seem to have managed it without satellites... so you tell me what I should be calling it. ...But then again I've got my mind made up, so you might as well spare the effort. :)
Viking dresses by Savelyeva Ekaterina
Another visual demonstration that historical clothing wasn’t dingy and monochrome.
All of these colours can be obtained from vegetable dyes, producing different shades depending on what mordant (colour fixative - alum, different metal filings, different vinegars) was used. See here and here for examples.
BRING THIS FASHION BACK.
Not clothes, but this was a palette developed by the National Museum of Denmark based on paint residue from archaeological finds for the purpose of painting a reconstructed hall.
Apparently, they can tell from the chemical composition that the colours wouldn’t be mixed with black or white to mute them, but be used in their brightest form. Bright yellow and red was achieved with expensive dyes (orpiment and cinnabar) and was thus fashionable. (Source in Danish)
@athingofvikings
What is a man? An ecstatic little pile of pigments.
@neil-gaiman headcanons that Aziraphale has memorized the Winnie the Pooh books, so here’s an angel in the Hundred Acre Wood, being investigated by a few of the residents.
(Not entirely E.H. Shepard’s style because I got carried away, but this was a blast to draw.)
Oh, I love this!
Anyone else totally desensitized to the delta variant with a side of futility or is it just me. Im wearing my mask and stuff but the scale of the horror of it is just lost on me now
I heard "delta spreads as fast as smallpox" and felt nothing
Wrong pox, huh
This too will pass.
I can feel a lot of people getting really antsy for normality to return. For them to stop feeling like prisoners in their own homes. For them to be able to step outside and take a deep breath.
This fear is where a lot of anti vaxx rhetoric comes from. Fear and exhaustion. People are scared of what is going on and they are tired from shadowboxing an invisible foe that keeps ‘changing the rules’.
It’s a virus, viruses adapt, it is what they do.
We, too, adapt.
Humanity will survive regardless of our actions. However, MORE people will survive if we carry on with sensible precautions and stop thinking our personal comfort is the centre of the universe.
Masks are annoying, vaccines are a ballache, precautions and social distancing is isolating and goes against our nature. But we are intelligent and understand deep down that this is for the benefit of more people than just ourselves.
Read the facts but stop compulsively watching the news for hours every day. Take sensible precautions but don’t live in fear. Learn to take breaks from thinking/being involved in current events even if you have to MAKE time to do something else (I’m not joking, living in fear without any respite will do things to you.)
Misinformation about the vaccines, the virus, and it’s variants are rife. Started by people who have something to gain from confusing others (even if it is only amusement) and perpetuated by otherwise sensible people who are just as scared as everyone else.
We may feel helpless as individuals, but our actions are not futile.
I’m really not sure how to word this, but can you list me some fics with like... a gimmick? Or a trope? As the basis of the plot? That’s not the best way to word it because it doesn’t have to be gimmickey or tropey, but just... You know, a plot that’s interesting... that starts out with a situation... unusual circumstances?? Am I making any sense? Like I’ve read the stuff that’s easily tagged like spells, fake relationship, soul mates, ect, but just fun, different stuff like that?? Sorry...
First of all, I want to apologise for the super later reply to this ask. I found it sitting unanswered in our drafts. To make up for it, here is an extra long list of gimmicky, tropey fics that i absolutely love!...
i've found a way (a way to make you smile) by curtaincall (T)
Crowley worked in Sales. He had never intended to work in Sales. It had just sort of happened. One moment, there he’d been, a newly minted university graduate off to change the world, exquisitely useless Philosophy degree in hand, and now here he was, having sauntered vaguely downwards into a Hell that consisted mainly of cold-calling new customers and sucking up to existing ones. AU based on The Office.
A (not quite) tinder date by NohaIjiachi (M)
“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry—“ A man said, breathless, plopping himself down in the chair. He sounded like he ran a marathon. “Got held up at work— I couldn’t even check my phone! I’m so terribly sorry!”
Aziraphale would’ve beamed, at that. He would’ve immediately declared that it was no problem, these things happened, so no worries at all— Except the guy currently catching his breath in the chair in front of him was definitely not his missing date. That was unless he’d decided to shave his beard, make his hair grow magically, and dye it red.
“I—“ Aziraphale croaked, confused. The man tipped his chin down, glancing at Aziraphale above the rim of his darkened glasses with a surprising set of honey-coloured eyes, and winked at him. Aziraphale closed his mouth. “I— It’s quite alright. I’m glad you, huh— Could make it—“
Win a Date With Anthony J. Crowley! by Caedmon (E)
Crowley is a world-famous rock star who sells out arenas. His name is synonymous with 'rock-n-roll', and he thrives on the spotlight. When he agrees to raffle off a date with himself for charity, he's expecting to meet an overzealous fan that wants to wear his skin and very well might try to roofie him. What he's not expecting is to be instantly attracted to the quiet man with the unusual name who shows up for the date at the Ritz... and he's certainly not expecting for Aziraphale to have no clue who he is...
You’ve Got Kudos by curtaincall (M)
Aziraphale and Crowley both write fanfiction. As it happens, they both write Good Omens fanfiction.
Of course, neither of them would ever admit this to the other.
(A love story told primarily in AO3 comments)
The Best Laid Plans by hope_in_the_dark (T)
Ezra Fell has sworn off romance forever and is perfectly content with his books and his tea and his ugly wardrobe. At least, he is until a handsome stranger hits him with a car.
it’s a new craze by attheborder (T)
CROWLEY: I try not to make a habit of gratitude, but I must give our appreciation to everyone out there who’s been listening and subscribing to The Ineffable Plan. AZIRAPHALE: Ooh, yes, we’ve become quite popular, haven’t we? CROWLEY: Yeah, just hit number eight on the advice charts … No advertising at all. AZIRAPHALE: Mm. How … miraculous. CROWLEY: … Aziraphale. You did not.
***
Crowley and Aziraphale are very possibly the people least qualified, on the entire planet, to start up an advice podcast.
But what else is there to do when the world isn’t ending anytime soon, you’re technically on indefinite sabbatical from your lifelong careers, and you need a plausible excuse to spend more time with your best friend who you’re definitely not, absolutely not, maybe just a little, actually maybe overwhelmingly in love with?
happiness, more or less by TheKnittingJedi (M)
Renting a flat is all fun and games until you fall in love with the ghost haunting it.
An adaptation of the 2005 romcom Just Like Heaven.
on the same page by Chekhov (E)
Aziraphale Z. Fell is a rising star of the spiritual literary genre - the next Eat Pray Love guy - and his version of Chicken Soup For the Christian Soul is flying off the shelves. It's not that he's not grateful, but it's one thing to enjoy a career in writing and another completely to be pigeonholed into a specific genre, so much so that you are almost forbidden from writing anything else. So yes, maybe he has a bit of a secret. An outlet for his less... appropriate urges. And yes, if his typical readership got word of the sort of paragraphs he could put out on a particularly inspired night, they might suffer some form of heart attack typical for their age. But all of that is well hidden, and there is absolutely no way anyone would ever find out about his Arrangement with A.J. Crowley - the most debaucherous romantic fiction author of the decade. That is... until they have to pretend to be married to each other.
The Whole Damn World Seemed Upside Down by WyvernQuill (M)
"I just wish things were different," Crowley says... and the universe happily obliges.
Stuck - perhaps forever - in a reality in which Shadwell is the first Wiccan MP, Pepper's only aspiration in life is to be a dutiful wife to someone, and his beloved Bentley is a rusty VW bus, Crowley is slowly learning that "different" doesn't necessarily mean better...
But how long can he bear to live* in a world where Aziraphale hates him?
*Not that he has any other option. The Death of this world can't see blood...
The Annual Tadfield Cheese-Rolling Festival by summerofspock (T)
Disgruntled newscaster Anthony Crowley is forced to cover the annual Tadfield Cheese Rolling Festival...again. Only this year he's accompanied by a new producer who he can't seem to get his mind off of even though he's swiftly realizing he has far bigger problems. Namely, the fact that the Tadfield Cheese Rolling Festival refuses to end.
- Mod D
I’ve read and enjoyed about half of these and look forward to reading the rest!
Sarah: *I’m* the Goblin Queen, bitches - you go wave your fans somewhere else.
(From Labyrinth: The Ultimate Visual History)
The Labyrinth commentaries are an Absolute Fucking Delight, seriously - from Goblins of the Labyrinth to the deluxe edition DVDs, they are replete with balls-out nerdery from Froud/Henson/Lucas, over-the-top teenage delight from Jennifer Connely who, at 14, got to SLOW DANCE WITH DAVID BOWIE!!!!!!!!!…and, wonder of wonders, sheer fucking dorkiness in the person of aforementioned rock god.
Like…
-He kept stumbling on the stairs in the ballroom scene. Jennifer keeps laughing at him because, oh my fuck, you’re David Bowie, aged 40something, Rock God Supreme, stupidly beautiful, actually trained in all this shit….and my adolescent ass remembers these stairs are here, but you don’t?!?!???????/
- The script originally called for Jareth and Sarah to kiss, but David Bowie straight up refused because Jennifer Connely was a minor and he was a grown-ass adult.
- Henson wanted a famous musician to play the Goblin King and had debated casting Michael Jackson, until David Bowie came over and…hopped up onto the table, and, with a wicked gleam in his eye, pulled a bone flute out of his pocket, hopped up onto the table, and, crouching thereon, played it at him and Henson was like “that is the Goblin King right there”
- Jennifer was apparently an absolute dream to work with and they didn’t realise how dangerous some of the stunts she acted were until they saw an actual teenager, say, going down the shaft of hands
- David Bowie was TERRIFIED OF HEIGHTS. During the Diamond Dogs tour in the 1970s, he got stuck on an elevating chair on stage, and later, in the 80s, during Glass Spider, he had an elevated prop fucking PRECIPITATELY DESCEND under him. Nonetheless, he did a lot of the Escher Room stuff himself - not all of it, some of it is a stunt guy, but damn, for a dude with acrophobia, doing ANY of it is impressive.
- Basically Jennifer Connely and David Bowie are/were fantastic to work with, and Jim Henson, who decided of his own free will to work with a baby, a teenager, numerous chickens, and a neurotic musician, was a madman. A magnificent madman, but a madman nonetheless.
Reblogging for this glorious comment. Thanks @tyrannousstars!
@setepenre-set
Okay, I NEEEEEED to see those.
The bone flute was actually made for David Bowie by Jim Henson and Brian Froud, which they gave to him when they went to ask if he’d be interested in the role. But he did then hope up on the table and totally get into character with it.
So y’all know who the choreographer for this film was, right?
(She went by her first, rather than middle, name back then)
This is fantastic.
you ever catch a glimpse of a cloud passing in front of a full moon and you’re suddenly a highwayman in an 18th century ghost story who just left a tavern on a chilly october night to ride horseback through the woods till you reach the next town over
I like when the road turns into a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor.
