Okay I have things I should be seeing to but I couldn't help myself. In case you, like me, have not read all of these stories and would like to be amongst the lucky 10,000 today:
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers*
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson**
The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe
The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs
The Most Dangerous Game by Richard O'Connell
The Nameless City by HP Lovecraft
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K LeGuin
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
Honorable Mention from the comments/reblogs:
All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
*note: this is actually a collection of short stories and clocks in at about 72k words
**Originally published in the New Yorker in 1948; interestingly, the New Yorker still has this story archived on their website BEHIND A PAYWALL. CAN YOU IMAGINE.
My favorite Tolkien illustrations by Cor Blok in no particular order:
Bilbo and Gollum. Bilbo is the moon for some reason which is cool i guess
Smeagol and Deagol. I love the seaweed in the background, great attention to detail
Frodo serving Robin Hood-realness at his and Bilbo’s birthday party. Literally iconic
Isildur taking the ring from Sauron. Its great but I would like to see more of Sauron than just his hand, because I think he has the potential to look really cool
Pippin jumping into the bath at Crickhollow… no comment
Bilbo gives the Mithril coat to Frodo. Great poses, very stiff and awkward. I like it.
The fellowship. This one is a classic.
Gandalf and the balrog. Amazing
Boromir trying to take the ring from Frodo. I love the way he reaches for his sword, it looks very natural
Merry and Pippin and Treebeard. I like his legs and the fact that it looks like he’s wearing shorts.
Love every single one of these eggs. No yeah of course it's still okay to write your vampire story or whatever, even if a thousand people have done it before you. Your art will still be uniquely yours and people will find something fresh in your perspective. Paint your egg.
as AI becomes more and more prominent, this kind of sourcing pictures and art seems more and more important – maybe that is the true gift of AI, that we source the art we share, because attaching the artist’s name should have been important all along
THAT FIRST SITE IS EVERY WRITER’S DREAM DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I’VE TRIED WRITING SOMETHING AND THOUGHT GOD DAMN IS THERE A SPECIFIC WORD FOR WHAT I’M USING TWO SENTENCES TO DESCRIBE AND JUST GETTING A BUNCH OF SHIT GOOGLE RESULTS
Alicent and Criston have every right to be together.
I’ve read a lot of posts regarding their non-existent hypocrisy and I’d like to clear some things up.
First and foremost, stop using Alicent’s “Where is duty, where is sacrifice?” line against her or Nyra’s outrageous “Exhausting, wasn’t it?” speech because you think you’re eating when you’re, in fact, starving. Alicent has done her duty and sacrificed herself. It’s the only thing she’s been doing for the past 20 years. She gave the man she was forced to marry four children and she took care of him despite all the shit he put her through. She has lived all her life based on her principles and now her husband is gone. She mourned him, she buried him, it’s been more than 10 days since his death (confirmed that E1 S2 takes place 10 days after Lucerys’ death) and she is finally fucking free. She deserves a sliver of comfort. Alicent is the only one in this series that’s been faithful and dutiful to a T, yet look where that got her. If someone has the right to break the law a little bit, it’s definitely her.
That being said, I don’t know when it was decided that Alicent is a pious saint that can do no wrong, but I need to remind y’all that following a religion does not magically prevent you from sinning. Is she committing fornication? Obviously. However, you are all under this impression that this is hypocritical on her behalf because she berated Rhaenyra for it when they were younger, without considering that her anger was justified for a myriad of other reasons, such as (but not limited to): 1) the fact that Rhaenyra’s freedom to marry whomever she pleased was a privilege granted to her thanks to Alicent’s efforts, who supported her even if Rhaenyra hated her, yet her friend casually threw that away, 2) the fact that Rhaenyra lied to her by swearing on her morher’s grave and never even mentioned Criston, 3) the fact that Rhaenyra had the guts to call her “sister” while lying to her face, 4) the fact that her lies resulted in Otto getting fired since Rhaenyra misled Alicent so that she speaks to Viserys in favour of her friend and betraying her own father by siding against him (a decision she wouldn’t have made if she knew the truth), leaving her completely alone and friendless at court, even if he was right all along and finally 5) the fact that Rhaenyra is the most sought after bachelorette in the whole world and by having sex she undermines herself (Rhaenyra knows this well, hence why she denies these accusations) and literally endangers herself, because had she been married to any other man but Laenor and had this man found out his wife and future queen is not a virgin, imagine the fucking horrors she could have been subjected to. Like, I hate to break it to you, but a 40-year-old widow, who’s had four kids and has completed her duty to the point where she is actually no longer needed and could leave the palace to go live the rest of her life in peace somewhere else and no one would notice her absence (literally though, she has birthed heirs, her husband is dead, her son is a grown adult king, her job is done there), having sex, is not the same as an 18-year-old princess and future heir in her prime, whose purity is linked to her worth, getting caught drunk in a brothel, hooking up with her uncle and losing her virginity to her guard, all in one night. Viserys himself was outraged. There’s lows and then there’s lows, y’all.
By the way, the crazy assumptions that Alicent has been cheating on Viserys with Criston for a while now need to stop. When Olivia Cooke said that they had filmed a messy sex scene with Fabien Frankel in a recent interview, she never said this was for S1 of HOTD. I don’t know where y’all got that from, but even if it was true, that scene has been scrapped so it is not canon. And don’t make me laugh about Daeron, a dragon rider who canonically has Valyrian features, potentially having brown hair. You’re all so blinded by your hatred for Alicent that you want her to be a lying hypocrite in order to make yourselves feel better about Rhaenyra’s mishaps, that you don’t get that the whole point of her and Criston getting physical is that she is a tortured woman who is finally able to break free, not that she has been a hypocrite all along. You’re heavily misunderstanding her arc.
Finally, when it comes to my good man Criston, y’all have lost it completely. No, Alicent is not raping him, unless he tells her to stop and she closes the door behind her like Rhaenyra did that is. No, Criston did not lie about how important his honour is to him. There’s a whole article on how Clare Kilner, the director of E4 S1, decided that Cole removing his armour slowly was necessary because it symbolises his inner conflict and uncertainty over breaking his vow: should he soil his cloak for the sake of the woman he loves? And he does soil it, because he thinks she loves him back. But that honourable man dies the day Rhaenyra tells him that he’ll never be anything more than a side piece to her. This man stops giving a flying fuck about his honour, oath, position and life. He is trying to kill himself. And you know what stops him? Alicent. Alicent is the only thing between him and death, the only person to show him kindness and understanding, to pull him up from the lowest point in his life. I don’t think you heard Alicent in E7 S1: “No, you’re sworn to me!”. Y’all. His life is hers. He doesn’t care about Rhaenyra, his job, Viserys, anyone else at this point. Only Alicent exists in his mind, Fabien himself has said time and time again that his loyalty to her is unwavering. He only exists for Alicent’s sake. He’s who you wish Daemon was. Crying that “Criston is a bad knight and a liar because he broke his chastity oath yet again!” is so pointless because that knight has been dead since Rhaenyra’s marriage to Laenor. What does an oath mean when you find out the people you swore it to have betrayed you? Why should he keep his promise to the people who abused him?
night falls upon Himring Fortress | Blood Was Our Inheritance: TRSB 2024 collaboration with @tilion-writes !
From the waters of Alqualondë to the ruins of Tol Himling, the Oath pulls and pushes, waxes and wanes: binds the sons of Fëanor together, and just as fiercely drives them apart—until they are nothing but a song on the wind, and a singer by the shore.
[Or: Maglor loses his brothers, one by one.]
Perhaps the world of 2044 will be as different from ours as 1979 now seems from our present time. But let us also echo this wish into the future— may they have peace and happiness.
The Big Damn List Of Stuff They Said You Didn't Know
Listen to this episode from Cocktails & Capitalism on Spotify. Continuing the story of Palestine, Leeh outlines the Great Arab Revolt and th
What will the maps of Palestine and Israel look like if Israel illegally annexes the Jordan Valley on July 1?
Five free eBooks on the colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine
Here we have collated our free ebooks, reading lists and ongoing publishing on the Verso Blog. These resources challenge much of the zionist
Pluto Books Free Palestine Reading List 30-50% off
LGBT Activist Scott Long's Google Drive of Palestine Freedom Struggle Resources
(includes some of the reading material recced below)
The Cambridge UCU and Pal Society Resources List
List of Academic and Literary Books Compiled by Dr. Kiran Grewal
Academic Books (many available in Goldsmiths library)
Rosemary Sayigh (2007) The Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, Bloomsbury
Ilan Pappé (2002)(ed) The Israel/Palestine Question, Routledge
(2006) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, OneWorld Publications
(2011) The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel, Yale University Press
(2015) The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge, Verso Books
(2017) The Biggest Prison on earth: A history of the Occupied territories, OneWorld Publications
(2022) A History of Modern Palestine, Cambridge University Press
Rashid Khalidi (2020) The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, MacMillan
Andrew Ross (2019) Stone Men: the Palestinians who Built Israel, Verso Books
Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir (2012) The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine, Stanford University Press.
Ariella Azoulay (2011) From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950, Pluto Press
Jeff Halper (2010) An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel, Pluto Press
(2015) War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification
(2021) Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State, Pluto Press
Anthony Loewenstein (2023) The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the Technology of Occupation around the World (CURRENTLY FREE TO DOWNLOAD ON VERSO)
Noura Erakat (2019) Justice for some: law and the question of Palestine, Stanford University Press
Neve Gordon (2008) Israel’s Occupation, University of California Press
Joseph Massad (2006) The persistence of the Palestinian question: essays on Zionism and the Palestinians, Routledge Edward Said (1979) The Question of Palestine, Random House
Memoirs, Novels & Poetry:
Voices from Gaza - Insaniyyat (The Society of Palestinian Anthropologists)
Letters From Gaza • Protean Magazine
Raja Shehadeh (2008) Palestinian Walks: forays into a Vanishing Landscape, Profile Books
Ghada Karmi (2009) In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story, Verso Books
Mourid Barghouti (2005) I saw Ramallah, Bloomsbury
Izzeldin Abuelaish (2011) I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, Bloomsbury
Cate Malek and Mateo Hoke (eds)(2015) Palestine Speaks: Narrative of Life under Occupation, Verso Books
The Works of Mahmoud Darwish
Human Rights Reports & Documents
Information on current International Court of Justice case on ‘Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem’
UN Commission of Inquiry Report 2022
UN Special Rapporteur Report on Apartheid 2022
Amnesty International Report on Apartheid 2022
Human Rights Watch Report on Apartheid 2021
Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ 2009 (‘The Goldstone Report’)
Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, International Court of Justice, 9 July 2004
baratheonpilled
jacobvanloon
discoholicmusic
theartofmadeline
stormborns
tangentwithtanner
izzy806
titsay
yousharknotpass
germansingergirl
romaincrisis
