I'm Ellie—Eldritch is long for Ellie. I was born in 1991, so I'm over 30. I identify as nonbinary and go by she or they pronouns with no preference between the two. I'm a panromantic asexual, and I'm married to another panromantic asexual. I'm debilitatingly chronically ill, so I'm a full-time wheelchair user. I'm neurodivergent. I'm white, German-Irish-American. Think that's all you need to know about me specifically.
I will not be reblogging political posts or anything similar as this is just a place to talk about the books I'm reading (although those will get political), so here's where I stand:
• Pro-LGBTQIA+, Anti-TERF
• Pro-Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate, Land Back, Criminal Justice Reform, etc.
• Pro-Choice, as in it's none of my business to tell you what to do with your body but also as in separation of Church and State
• Pro-Anything that'll make people's lives better, like vaccination, independence, societal reforms, bodily autonomy, etc.
• Pro-Conservation, climate change mitigation, etc.
• Pro-Rematriation/repatriation of land, museum holdings, etc.
If it's inconsequential, I probably don't have an opinion on it, and actively strive to not get overwhelmed with having opinions on things that don't matter or that which I have no influence on. Even if it's something important that's not listed above, I probably will not be talking about it on this Tumblr unless it's in relation to a book I've read.
Tags and extra blog info
Now, for some general housekeeping, I suppose, for the blog. The tag "from the desk of e.m. fledermaus" will be used for not-specifically-about-a-book-I'm-reading posts. The tag "from the shelf of e.m. fledermaus" will be used for personal text posts about books I've personally read. The tag "evb reads"* followed by the present year will be used to easily find things later on.
Whenever I post quotes, the source will be mentioned in the post as well as tagged, however, unless I'm reading from a physical book, I will not be mentioning the page the quote comes from since digital is tricky for that. I post A LOT of Discworld quotes and comic/manga panels. If something is particularly spoilery, I try to tag for that, but I'm not gonna be 100% about it. Soz. Also, for quotes, like I mentioned above, debilitatingly chronically ill which means brainfog—any typos are completely unintentional and I actually will NOT be offended if you point them out so I can fix them!
Icon
Icon is art done by a friend of my bat Vesper.
Think that about covers it. Thanks, and enjoy your stay (consider checking out my main blog, which is mostly random fandom shit).
Footnotes**
*EvB Reads years: 2025, 2026
**I'm a Discworld fan, of course there are footnotes
† I used to do a monthly recap, but my reading style has changed drastically since I started this Tumblr, so I'm no longer doing that.
So I actually haven't forgotten about posting those Colour of Magic quotes, it's just that my soap has taken over my life at the moment 🤣 Like. It's so bad I haven't even started reading my next book. I'll be getting to it soon, though, promise.
There was, for example the theory that A'Tuin had come from nowhere and would continue at a uniform crawl, or steady gait, into nowhere, for all time. This theory was popular among academics.
An alternative, favored by those of a religious persuasion, was that A'Tuin was crawling from the Birthplace to the Time of Mating, as were all the stars in the sky which were, obviously, also carried by giant turtles. When they arrived they would briefly and passionately mate, for the first and only time, and from that fiery union new turtles would be born to carry a new pattern of worlds. This was known as the Big Bang hypothesis.
“Any other advice?” said Vimes, gloomily.
“Just be yourself,” said Sweeper. “See it through. There’ll come a time when you’ll look back and see how it all made sense.”
“Really?”
“I wouldn’t lie. It’ll be a perfect moment. Believe me.”
...
This was a perfect moment. Not even Reg, fussing around smoothing down earth and patting turf into place, could detract from it. There’ll come a time when it’ll all be clear, Sweeper had said. A perfect moment.
The occupants of these graves had died for something. In the sunset glow, in the rising of the moon, in the taste of the cigar, in the warmth that comes from sheer exhaustion, Vimes saw it.
Reg had a hunted look. He made a dive for safety. “Well, at least we can agree on Truth, Freedom, and Justice, yes?”
There was a chorus of nods. Everyone wanted those. They didn’t cost anything.
A match flared in the dark, and they turned to see Vimes light a cigar.
“You’d like Freedom, Truth, and Justice, wouldn’t you, Comrade Sergeant?” said Reg encouragingly.
“I’d like a hard-boiled egg,” said Vimes, shaking the match out.
There was some nervous laughter, but Reg looked offended.
“In the circumstances, Sergeant, I think we should set our sights a little higher—”
“Well, yes, we could,” said Vimes, coming down the steps. He glanced at the sheets of paper in front of Reg. The man cared. He really did. And he was serious. He really was. “But…well, Reg, tomorrow the sun will come up again, and I’m pretty sure that whatever happens we won’t have found Freedom, and there won’t be a whole lot of Justice, and I’m damn sure we won’t have found Truth. But it’s just possible that I might get a hard-boiled egg."
The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork was standing looking out of the window when they entered. The room was otherwise deserted.
“Ah, Vimes,” he said without turning around. “I thought you might be late. In the circumstances, I dismissed the committee. They were sorry, as indeed was I, sorry to hear about Stronginthearm. No doubt you have been writing the official letter.”
Vimes flashed a questioning expression at Carrot, who rolled his eyes and shrugged. Vetinari found out things very quickly.
“Yes, that’s right,” said Vimes.
“And on such a beautiful day as this, too,” said Vetinari. “Although there’s a storm heading our way, I see.” He turned. He had a sprig of lilac pinned to his robe.
The three stood in silence. They were not, on the whole, men with a vocabulary designed for times like this. After a while, though, Nobby felt moved to speak.
“He gave me a spoon once,” he said to the air in general.
“Yeah, I know,” said Colon.
“My dad pinched it off me when he come out of prison, but it was my spoon,” said Nobby persistently. “That means a lot to a kid, your own spoon.”
“Come to that, he was the first person to make me a sergeant,” said Colon. “Got busted again, of course, but I knew I could do it again then. He was a good copper.”
“He bought a pie off me, first week I was starting out,” said Dibbler. “Ate it all. Didn’t spit out anything.” There was more silence.
Up against one wall, lilac trees were growing. That is, at some point in the past a lilac had been planted there, and had given rise, as lilac will, to hundreds of whippy suckers, so that what had once been one stem was now a thicket. Every branch was covered in pale mauve blooms.
The graves were still just visible in the tangled vegetation. In front of them stood Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork’s least successful businessman, with a sprig of lilac in his hat.
He caught sight of the watchmen and nodded to them. They nodded back. All three stood looking down at the seven graves. Only one had been maintained. The marble headstone on that one was shiny and moss-free, the turf was clipped, the stone border was sparkling.
Moss had grown over the wooden markers of the other six, but it had been scraped off the central one, revealing the name:
John Keel
And carved underneath, by someone who had taken some pains, was:
How Do They Rise Up
A huge wreath of lilac flowers, bound with purple ribbon, had been placed on the grave. On top of it, tied around with another piece of purple ribbon, was an egg.
“Mrs. Palm and Mrs. Battye and some of the girls were up here earlier,” said Dibbler. “And, of course, Madam always makes sure there’s the egg.”
In the crowded main office of the Pseudopolis Yard Watch House, Sergeant Colon absentmindedly adjusted the sprig of lilac that he’d stuck into his helmet like a plume.
...
Tucked behind his [Nobby's] ear, in the place usually reserved for his cigarette, was another wilting lilac flower.
...
After the door had shut one of the watchmen looked up from the desk where he’d been wrestling with a report and the effort of writing down, as policemen do, what ought to have happened.
“Sarge?”
“Yes, Corporal Ping?”
“Why’re some of you wearing purple flowers, Sarge?”
There was a subtle change in the atmosphere, a suction of sound caused by many pairs of ears listening intently. All the officers in the room had stopped writing.
“I mean, I saw you and Reg and Nobby wearing ’em this time last year, and I wondered if we were all supposed to…” Ping faltered. Sergeant Colon’s normally amiable eyes had narrowed and the message they were sending was: you’re on thin ice, lad, and it’s starting to creak…
“I mean, my landlady’s got a garden and I could easily go and cut a—” Ping went on in an uncharacteristic attempt at suicide.
“You’d wear the lilac today, would you?” said Colon quietly.
“I just meant that if you wanted me to I could go and—”
“Were you there?” said Colon, getting to his feet so fast that his chair fell over.
“Steady, Fred,” murmured Nobby.
“I didn’t mean…” Ping began. “I mean…was I where, Sarge?”
Colon leaned on the desk, bringing his round red face an inch away from Ping’s nose.
“If you don’t know where there was, you weren’t there,” he said in the same quiet voice.
He stood up straight again.
“Now me an’ Nobby has got a job to do,” he said. “At ease, Ping. We are going out.”
“Er…”
This was not being a good day for Corporal Ping.
“Yes?” said Colon.
“Er…standing orders, Sarge…you’re the ranking officer, you see, and I’m orderly officer for the day, I wouldn’t ask otherwise but…if you’re going out, Sarge, you’ve got to tell me where you’re going. Just in case anyone has to contact you, see? I got to write it down in the book. In pen and everything,” he added.
“You know what day it is, Ping?” said Colon.
“Er…25th of May, Sarge.”
“And you know what that means, Ping?”
“Er…”
“It means,” said Nobby, “that anyone important enough to ask where we’re going—”
“—knows where we’ve gone,” said Fred Colon.
The door slammed behind them.
The scent rolled over him.
He looked up.
Overhead, a lilac tree was in bloom.
He stared.
Damn! Damn! Damn! Every year he forgot. Well, no. He never forgot. He just put the memories away, like old silverware that you didn’t want to tarnish. And every year they came back, sharp and sparkling, and stabbed him in the heart. And today, of all days…
He reached up, and his hand trembled as he grasped a bloom and gently broke the stem. He sniffed at it. He stood for a moment, staring at nothing. And then he carried the sprig of lilac carefully back up to his dressing room.
I was feverishly scrolling through this blog looking for things I swear I had posted without remembering that actually I had written them up last year and scheduled them specifically 🤣🤣🤣 Oh boy. Anyway. You know what day it almost is (or is, depending on where you are), you can guess exactly what I was looking for...
Finished The Colour of Magic last night, and I'm caught up on my soap (as far as recent airings, anyway), so probably tomorrow will start quote uploads during the afternoon while my wife is at work. We'll see what I feel up to. You wouldn't think it would take a lot of energy, but having to make sure of typos and formatting and everything means a lot of concentration and my illnesses affect my cognitive skills, so ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌
This blog is gonna seem even more like a Discworld blog than it already does 🤣💀 Oh boy.
Reading through Colour of Magic (very slowly, I'll admit), and got to the part where the narration is talking about how grimoires are disposed of, and I don't think I ever noted before how similar to nuclear waste it all is. Obviously with the residual magic from the Magic Wars and then stuff happening in Sourcery you can easily make those jumps, but I don't think I ever put it together for the grimoires themselves. I mean, listen to this, right?
After the first Age of Magic the disposal of grimoires began to become a severe problem on the Discworld. A spell is still a spell even when imprisoned temporarily in parchment and ink. It has potency. This is not a problem while the book's owner still lives, but on his death the spell book becomes a source of uncontrolled power that cannot easily be defused.
In short, spell books leak magic. Various solutions have been tried. Countries near the Rim simply loaded down the books of dead mages with leaden pentalphas and threw them over the Edge. Near the Hub less satisfactory alternatives were available. Inserting the offending books in canisters of negatively polarized octiron and sinking them in the fathomless depths of the sea was one (burial in deep caves on land was earlier ruled out after some districts complained of walking trees and five headed cats) but before long the magic seeped out and eventually fishermen complained of shoals of invisible fish or psychic clams.
A temporary solution was the construction, in various centers of magical lore, of large rooms made of denatured octiron, which is impervious to most forms of magic. Here the more critical grimoires could be stored until their potency had attenuated.
And, also obviously, it's on purpose, you're supposed to make that connection, I just don't think my brain ever pinged it as strongly as it just did. I could very clearly see in my mind the books being treated like fuel rods in cooling tanks or radioactive waste barrels deposited on the ocean floor.
Alright y'all, here's a general plan. Posting more for myself than anyone else, but who caaares, it's my blog, all the posts are for me anyway.
I'm going to have a FUCKTON of quotes to be uploading as I'm working through all the books (so much of Pratchett is quotable) so I'm going to dedicate Saturdays to that work, BUT I need to catch up on my soap first, which means I'll be using Saturdays for that until I'm caught up. Hopefully (🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻) this week is relatively calm and I can catch up quickly (2½ weeks of a daily show backs up very, very fast, especially when you can only watch MAX 3 hours of stuff a day), but we'll just see. Anyway. Once I'm uploading quotes, they'll be queued to post 3 a day. I don't care to use a queue tag, I don't think it matters for long-term cataloging since the majority of things will end up being queued anyway.
I'll largely keep the same format from last year—indent for quote, title at the bottom. I'm reading everything digitally, so no page numbers since that's highly inaccurate, I think. I'll probably end up adding a tag for the specific book so I can find things on the blog more easily, because it's gonna devolve into the majority of the posts on the blog being under the Discworld Quotes tag, and I'd like to have a better search system for myself down the line. I'll probably go back through the old quotes and add book-specific tags to them for that purpose.
I'm going to try not to transcribe entire books, and I'll also try not to post duplicate quotes since I'm rereading things I just added quotes for last year, but no promises.
I anticipate I should be able to start on this not this week but maybe next (so April 18th), but again, we'll just see. Either way, there's gonna be a deluge of The Colour of Magic quotes coming very soon! How soon is just up in the air a bit, since shit keeps cropping up and interfering with my plans and free time.
All I care about is everything.
I like to lie down and look up at the stars,
even when there are none.
I am almost nothing but thoughts and water.
I find mirrors unbearably off-putting.
My children find them droll.
Do you feel that too?
My left hand feels like a cataclysmic storm.
I will never tire of looking at my wife.
Her smile is like a constant sonar beep
in the depths of my chest.
I hear rain even when it's sunny out.
Have you ever squinted at the ocean
so the sky and the water blend until
you don't know where one ends and the other begins?
I'm doing that right now with you.
Okay. So, as you all know from recent posts, I'm trying to decide what Discworld stuff I'm going to read this year, and I just keep coming back to "why don't you just reread all of it?? What's stopping you? Who's gonna even care??" Every.single.time I try to make a decision it's the thought that pops up. And it's very true. There's no reason I can't just reread everything, even Pyramids, which I didn't particularly like as much as everything else. My only real goal for the year was to read Demon Slayer, which is now done, and the secondary goal of reading all the extra stuff is also done (based on what I have access to), and the other stuff I'd written down in my reading goals in my planner was just leftover stuff from last year that I never got around to because Varney took 91 days, but it's not anything I feel especially compelled to do. So. I think that's what I'm gonna end up doing. It's been 6 years (almost to the day, I'm a month late) since I read everything, in order; I think we're due for a full reread by now.
Bit late to start on it with the hopes that I'll finish it before next year with the way my pace has been, it took me ~9 months last time and I'm reading significantly more slowly right now, but whooo caaares. My only plan for next year right now is to reread all of Naruto (I've abandoned the idea to read all of Goosebumps until I'm feeling not burnt out), and that shouldn't take very long (I think I did it in a month the first time, but I'll bank on it taking at least 3 and at most 6 this time because of burnout and bullshit always seeming to crop up), so it wouldn't matter if it spilled over into next year, really.
Hmmm hmm. I think I've talked myself into it. We'll see what I decide in the morning. Hmmm. I think I'm gonna do it, though. Maybe I'll take a break around September 22nd through Halloween for a Halloween Read like I did last time, but I also might not. Who knows!? Certainly not me, nothing is planned this year and that's rough for me trying to make decisions. I guess we'll all find out together!
Gonna do it. I'm not doing a specific Halloween Read this year I don't think, I'm just throwing in the other books I had in my goals where I think they kind of go with the theming of the Discworld books. Phantom of the Opera will go before Maskerade; Greta Hellsing books and the annotated Carmilla go after Carpe Jugulum; I, Robot goes after Feet of Clay. I might change my mind, it'll feel weird not doing a dedicated Halloween Read since I've been doing it for a billion years, but that's what I'm deciding right now.
We start tomorrow. Hooray! There are some of these that I haven't reread since I finished the whole series in 2020, so I'm really looking forward to revisiting them! And this way, I end up finishing my Death and Witches rereads I started last year but never got to finish. This also means that there's gonna be A METRIC FUCKTON of quotes added to this blog. Oh boy. I'm sure that's going to make some people very, very happy.
Okay. So, as you all know from recent posts, I'm trying to decide what Discworld stuff I'm going to read this year, and I just keep coming back to "why don't you just reread all of it?? What's stopping you? Who's gonna even care??" Every.single.time I try to make a decision it's the thought that pops up. And it's very true. There's no reason I can't just reread everything, even Pyramids, which I didn't particularly like as much as everything else. My only real goal for the year was to read Demon Slayer, which is now done, and the secondary goal of reading all the extra stuff is also done (based on what I have access to), and the other stuff I'd written down in my reading goals in my planner was just leftover stuff from last year that I never got around to because Varney took 91 days, but it's not anything I feel especially compelled to do. So. I think that's what I'm gonna end up doing. It's been 6 years (almost to the day, I'm a month late) since I read everything, in order; I think we're due for a full reread by now.
Bit late to start on it with the hopes that I'll finish it before next year with the way my pace has been, it took me ~9 months last time and I'm reading significantly more slowly right now, but whooo caaares. My only plan for next year right now is to reread all of Naruto (I've abandoned the idea to read all of Goosebumps until I'm feeling not burnt out), and that shouldn't take very long (I think I did it in a month the first time, but I'll bank on it taking at least 3 and at most 6 this time because of burnout and bullshit always seeming to crop up), so it wouldn't matter if it spilled over into next year, really.
Hmmm hmm. I think I've talked myself into it. We'll see what I decide in the morning. Hmmm. I think I'm gonna do it, though. Maybe I'll take a break around September 22nd through Halloween for a Halloween Read like I did last time, but I also might not. Who knows!? Certainly not me, nothing is planned this year and that's rough for me trying to make decisions. I guess we'll all find out together!
