ask me about my fish monster

she | 21 | byronic hero except nice read my writing @deadhorsepress

[falseficus]

in an effort to free the users of this site from the constant squabbling, I have appointed myself supreme arbiter of Tumblr. instead of discoursing you will all now present your issues to me, and I will decide what is right. and that is how it will be

[falseficus]

EMERGENCY ORDINANCE 1.0: effective immediately, all tumblr users are now forbidden to discourse about gender, feminism, or lesbianism without also submitting a written reflection on the work of Talia Bhatt, demonstrating satisfactory understanding. a supplementary book report on Stone Butch Blues is not required but will be viewed in a favorable light

[toastyglow]

"it's inscrutable" maybe to you it is. I scrute it all the time

[i-give-you-a-fish]

You get a Milkfish

Chanos chanos

[fish-identifier]

i scrute the milkfish

[falseficus]

Literary Fantasy Dykeslop

taking the genre seriously and thereby hating on it

I’ll cite for example A Long Time Dead, by far the worst book I tried to read last year. It has reviewers on goodreads calling it “beautiful in prose,” “lush and romantic,” and “descriptively rich and inviting while using the Victorian vernacular […] an epic gothic tale that takes its time to unfold.” It misuses the word “limpid” in the first paragraph.

[deadhorsepress]

I’ve often wondered what the point is of a positive book review. Negative ones are easy. I read this book so you don’t have to, and now I’ll tell you how and why it went wrong. I’ve written some of these. They’re entertaining for both the reader and the author, and they can also be educational. I’ll admit that some of my first engagement with literary criticism outside of school was in watching long YouTube video essays enumerating the flaws of books I’d never read, movies I’d never watched, and videogames I had no intention to play.

And, eventually, I incorporated a lot of the ideas I discovered there into my own creative work. Peeling back the skin of a particularly bad story and pointing out all the flaws is a great way to teach someone how stories work. Eventually, this no longer suffices as creative education, and the student has to start looking for good examples to emulate, rather than bad examples to avoid (A Black Fox Running is one of those brain-stretching good examples).

However, once you actually start recommending a book, telling someone to actually seek it out rather than to avoid it, the question of spoilers comes into play. Now, this is a tricky subject, and I think my opinion on it differs from the mainstream one. Many people covet the unspoiled experience of a story, and I understand that. However, there have been multiple times in my life where the only reason I approached a story in the first place was because I stumbled upon a massive spoiler and thought hey, that sounds awesome, I’ll check it out! (this was the case with my favorite show, Black Sails, and one of my favorite books, Monstrous Regiment). Often, it’s knowing that there will be a big payoff to come that keeps me engaged with a work. It also helps to keep my attention when someone has already highlighted certain strengths of the book to me before I read — for instance, “the prose-style emphasizes the role of the environment in a really interesting way” or “I’m obsessed with this character.” That way, I know it’s worth continuing to invest my time and attention (I’ve been burned many times before).

Additionally, I think the best stories are able to hold up to multiple readings — ie, that they have more to offer as a whole even when the reader knows the linear events of the plot. Essentially, spoilers aren’t a major concern for me unless they make me think things are going to turn out shittily on a craft level, in which case I’m less likely to open the book at all.

All this to say — if discussing the events of an awesome book in depth might intrigue you enough to read it, then read my new review of A Black Fox Running! This weird, gothic ecofiction is a fever dream you won’t want to wake up from.

[falseficus]

i literally just released a seed of harmony onto the wind. not as if you care

[deadhorsepress]

This Goth Fox Predicted the Atom Bomb

Meditations on "A Black Fox Running" and how to engage with books.

[hillhouseeleanor]

I know the “Vane called Flint gay for living in a house” thing is funny but I think in all seriousness Vane was calling Flint a class traitor for living in a house which is in some ways much funnier

[dykeselfcest]

I understand the urge to comment on recent trends in which people seem to want increasingly sanitized media compared to the recent past, but when you say things like "people used to just shrug and move on when there were books and movies that made them uncomfortable" it's like...well. actually people used to convict artists of obscenity in a court of law.

[falseficus]

a fire ant gave me rabies

[deadhorsepress]

The Spectre of White Heathcliff

Having read the book, it’s completely baffling now to see otherwise-good analyses of Wuthering Heights continue to assert that Heathcliff could be white. I mean, I respect ambiguity, and I respect coming at a character from different angles, but… he simply isn’t. He’s not. The book repeatedly slaps you in the face with the fact that he’s not. Indeed, I was quite shocked by how unambiguous Heathcliff’s nonwhiteness is. For example:

In his introductory scene, he’s described as a “dark-skinned gipsy.”

When he is first brought into the Earnshaw family after Mr. Earnshaw picks him up off the street, the man says of him, “it’s as dark almost as if it came from the devil,” and it’s noted that he doesn’t speak English, but instead “some gibberish that nobody could understand.”

Speculating about Heathcliff’s origins, Nelly, a servant and the narrator for the majority of the book, says to him, “Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen.” Later, another character identifies him as “a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway.”

Heathcliff himself contrasts his appearance to that of Edgar Linton, saying, “I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be! […] In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton’s great blue eyes and even forehead. I do—and that won’t help me to them.”

One of the things that alienates Heathcliff from his son, Linton (names in this book are complicated), is the boy’s lack of resemblance to him (paleness). When Heathcliff sees that he has offended Linton, he says, “Now, don’t wince and colour up! Though it is something to see you have not white blood.”

There are many other examples — Heathcliff’s dark coloring, black eyes, and black hair are constantly referenced, and he’s described as a “gipsy” many times.

The most striking instance in the book relating to Heathcliff’s race, though, is his introduction to the Lintons. In this scene, he and Cathy, still children, are watching the Linton children through a window. When they hear them laughing, the Lintons let their dog out of the house, and it bites Cathy. Heathcliff follows as a servant carries her into the house. The servant instantly assumes he is a thief: “’And there’s a lad here,’ he added, making a clutch at me, ‘who looks an out-and-outer! […] Hold your tongue, you foul-mouthed thief, you! you shall go to the gallows for this. Mr. Linton, sir, don’t lay by your gun.’” Mr. Linton, a magistrate, goes on to say, “Don’t be afraid, it is but a boy—yet the villain scowls so plainly in his face; would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts as well as features?” (emphasis mine), and his daughter, Isabella, says, “Frightful thing! Put him in the cellar, papa. He’s exactly like the son of the fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant.”

They do not know who Heathcliff is, or whose family he comes from, or that he was found as an orphan. These comments are based solely upon their first impression. Sure, he and Cathy were spying — but the Lintons’ instant leap to assumptions of criminality and threats of hanging, which they themselves tie explicitly to Heathcliff’s appearance, makes it clear, especially in context of previous descriptions of Heathcliff, that this interaction is colored by his, well, color.

I want to emphasize this again: Would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts as well as features?

Heathcliff’s race is not incidental, not a passing detail, nor an isolated point of intrigue. It is central to his character, central to his interactions, and central to the thematic underpinnings of the book. The prejudice Heathcliff faces actively transforms him from the stoic, inoffensive boy Mr. Earnshaw brought home to the violent, vengeful patriarch who dominates later years. There is no other word for what Heathcliff faces but racialization; removing the idea of race from all of the above excerpts, and from Heathcliff’s character arc, render them nonsensical. He is othered, scorned, and abused on the basis of his skin color. This is text.

(read the rest of this essay on Substack)

[deadhorsepress]

The Castle Doctrine is a Pretty Good Metaphor

What does it mean to say, "a man's home is his castle?"

Individualism has convinced Americans that what they need is to be a king. But a thousand years of medieval history stand testament to exactly why that’s a wish for your worst enemy, not yourself.

[pnwnativeplants]

[deadhorsepress]

The Forgotten Jewish Holiday

The Alexandrian Purim: the festival of 3 Maccabees (part 1)

3 Maccabees is a relatively unknown work of scripture. Most accept that its main purpose is to endorse a festival celebrated by Egyptian Jews, and it was likely read at this festival annually. A name, sadly, does not survive for this festival.

In a time when the bedrock is growing unstable, it has become necessary to revisit the story we tell ourselves about our past.

[bijoumikhawal]

S'uda is july 14th-21st and this year, the first day falls on Rosh Chodesh

[falseficus]

qi is very important to cats

[honorculture]

[falseficus]

when the houseparty's already hopping and you hit them with the seedless table grapes

[falseficus]

haven’t got all that far into it yet but I feel like in the long interim after iwtv s2 people went down whole rabbitholes of how they thought s3 would be bad and now they’re confirmation-biasing themselves into thinking they’re watching an entirely different show when it is in fact, simply, just two years later in their lives