The Lich Queen Muses

tyleroakley: ENDGAME. FEELINGS.

Wed, 22 May 2013 23:09:00 -0400

tyleroakley:

ENDGAME.

FEELINGS.

-bobella-: I like that “sweet summer child” is pretty much the equivalent of “bless your heart” in...

Wed, 22 May 2013 21:54:35 -0400

-bobella-:

I like that “sweet summer child” is pretty much the equivalent of “bless your heart” in Westeros.

Yes! I use it all the time, and the awesome thing is that it translates, even to people who aren’t familiar with the series.

WE WILL DO ALL OF THESE THINGS. I am just still not in the...

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:15:06 -0400

WE WILL DO ALL OF THESE THINGS.

I am just still not in the yelling-to-someone-about-things stage. We will get there, though.

Things I am realizing: I am still angry. Things I am deciding: Whether to tell the person I’m...

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:02:21 -0400

Things I am realizing:

I am still angry.

Things I am deciding:

Whether to tell the person I’m angry with about it, despite the fact that it won’t actually make a difference to anything except me releasing that anger; or to, instead, whenever that person’s name pops up, keep doing what I have been: Take a deep breath. Think about the fact that I am actually happier now. Remember that, despite the fact that what this person did was pretty fucking awful, yelling at them is not going to make it less so. Or at least not much. Remember that the less time you waste on shitty people, the better.

I may still end up yelling.

malapropsbookstore: jeremybdavis: Inspiration found in a...

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:27:16 -0400

malapropsbookstore:

jeremybdavis:

Inspiration found in a bookstore.

A wonderful life philosophy.

1. Reblogging this as a reminder; and 2. I love when people I follow/am tumblr friends with reblog the things I post to the Malaprop’s tumblr.

So I have been intending to have a concentration in General Literature for a while...

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:01:08 -0400

But now that the time has come to seriously start taking steps toward preparing for/declaring a major, I think that I am going to do the stupid thing that I am passionate about instead.

I love analyzing and studying literature, but the thing that I want to get better at, the craft I really want to improve, is creative writing.

So. I’m going to take the prerequisite courses this fall, if I can, and when the time comes (which will likely be in the spring semester), unless something changes drastically or I am deemed not good enough for the program, I am going to declare a Creative Writing major.

Let’s face it: right now I am not going to be applying for a Library Science program, and even if I did a lit major would be nice but not necessary. And lord knows I’m not going to seek employment with my lit major.

So. It’s time to make a decision, and I’m going to take the plunge.

So there is this guy that I met at a party a few months back. We hit it off, he asked from my...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:44:28 -0400

So there is this guy that I met at a party a few months back. We hit it off, he asked from my number, but then I didn’t hear from him. Since at the time I was just starting to get involved with someone else, I didn’t really think anything of it. Just as that short-lived thing that was starting back then was imploding, I ran into this guy again at a bar. He came up and seemed super excited to see me, said we should hang out soon, and then I never heard anything. So I ran into him a couple of nights ago and he came up to me again and said hi, and mentioned that he had texted me asking if I was there. At which point a realization dawned on me, and I asked, “What number do you have for me?” My number was one digit off in his phone, and he had apparently been texting me and not getting any responses, and was still miraculously super nice and friendly and not awkward every time we ran into each other.

The point of this story is that he just asked me to get a drink with him tonight, and while I would actually kind like to spend more time with him and see if there is any long-term chemistry there, the thought of a one-on-one first date scenario kind of breaks me out in hives/makes me feel like vomiting and I don’t want to do it. Also I’m not sure that I want to date at all right now, for various reasons, including the fact that I am an introvert and I have so much going on already at the moment and I don’t know that I’m up for that kind of emotional exertion? Like the last time I did it was because I didn’t feel horrible at the thought of it, but that happens like once in a million years and starting out with new people is fucking HARD.

If I had some friends that were “coincidentally” already hanging out tonight and could invite him along in a low-pressure situation, that would be ideal.

burntsomesouffles: About three things I was absolutely...

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:15:53 -0400

burntsomesouffles:

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Hannibal was a cannibal. Second, there was a part of him - and I didn’t know how potent that part might be - that hungered for my flesh. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

I just went back to my book after far longer than I'd like to admit.

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:27:20 -0400

Dusk was falling. A hut on chicken legs finally struggled to a stop on the castle lawn.

“We’re late,” grumbled Tisiphone.

“I just hope we haven’t missed all the fun,” said Alecto, and she grinned. If the Golden King had seen that grin, there is a chance he would have surrendered on the spot.

Not a large chance. He had, after all, done much to get what he wanted. People often feel, foolishly, that they are trapped on their course once they have gone so far.

But perhaps the king did not feel at all. It is easier that way, more satisfying to picture Alecto slicing him open with her long, curved knife if he is remorseless, soulless.

Yes, let us say that he did not feel at all, and never had; he has never loved, never lost, never longed for anything that he did not receive. There. When he dies, we can rejoice without guilt.

But where were we? Oh, yes. The Furies were rushing into the castle, planning the king’s demise. Let us leave them there, shall we? There are more important events to tend to. Just now, Cara is facing the king.

And now I’m rediscovering how fun it is and I am super excited to start writing on a regular basis again. I’m going to go in early to take advantage of the deck at work, I think, and start scribbling some new material.

productiveslacker: remember when Rabbit made a decorative and...

Wed, 15 May 2013 01:05:57 -0400

productiveslacker:

remember when Rabbit made a decorative and functional wall piece out of Pooh’s ass?

I do. THIS SHOW THOUGH.

Exciting!

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:22:10 -0400

Exciting!

Jay Gatsby was black: an explanation

Tue, 14 May 2013 08:55:43 -0400

tofuboots:

pollums:

So let me explain this theory for those of you who haven’t heard it before already.

The Great Gatsby is a story of a man that makes his fortune bootlegging and throws countless magnificent parties all in hopes of attracting the attention of his old flame Daisy.

But it’s really a story about insurmountable class barriers. Daisy will never be with Gatsby, no matter how much she claims to love him. No matter how hard Gatsby tries, he will always be stuck on West Egg, only able to admire the ‘green light’ of upper class american romanticism from afar.

Themes of insurmountable class barriers permeate the entire novel right from some of the famous opening lines:

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

And so here’s the theory:

Jay Gatsby was black, passing for white (“High yellow”)

Lower class vs upper class. Old money vs new money. East Egg vs West Egg. White vs black. Don’t believe me?

Early in the novel, Daisy’s beau Tom goes on a full fledged rant about the oncoming threat of the rise of the black race in society

Another reference to race is made when Nick and Gatsby pass by a limo driven by a white chauffeur with “three modish negroes”

Numerous references are made to Gatsby’s notably dark skintone in comparison to Daisy’s lighter skintone

“I would have accepted without question the information that Gatsby sprang from the swamps of Louisiana or from the lower East Side of New York. That was comprehensible. But young men didn’t— at least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn’t— drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound.”

Not only was the insurmountable barrier between him and Daisy one of class and upbringing, but also one of race.

What we take for granted as Gatsby’s whiteness is actually a omission of detail rather than a specific indicator that he was white.

From the article Was Gatsby Black?

Thompson adds, “When I ask people what basis there is for Gatsby being white, I get silence. I have asked students, colleagues. They don’t know. They cannot give me any evidence to back up the speculation. And why haven’t people made this argument so far?”

Of course as with any theory or reading of a classic text, there’s room for disagreement:

Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J. Bruccoli has one answer. “Because it’s mishigas! If Fitzgerald wanted to write about blacks, it wouldn’t have taken 75 years to figure it out. If that’s what Fitzgerald wanted, he would have made it perfectly clear in April 1925. Great works of literature are not fodder for guessing games. This kind of thing is bad for literature, bad for Fitzgerald, bad for ‘The Great Gatsby’ and bad for students who get exposed to this kind of guessing game.”

But why shouldn’t we play a guessing game with it? We don’t have Fitzgerald around to verify any of these details so why not have a bit of fun with the text? It’s a very modern reading of the text and it makes it not only more relatable but more heartbreaking.

Everyone has their own reasons why they can’t be with their own Daisy.

Why shouldn’t Gatsby be black? And why can’t he really be with Daisy?

In this discussion about whether or not Beethoven was black, the point is made:

Another tight question along these lines: Was Jay Gatsby black? Again, it’s probably not literally the case (as Fitzgerald intended it) –- but what’s much more interesting is everyone’s utter inability to take it seriously as a legitimate reading of the text, which it is.

As an English major, I just came.

While I have trouble placing enough faith in Fitzgerald to think this was his intention (if you look at his other books, dude was racist), I love this reading. I’m of the author-is-dead camp (figuratively, not just literally, in this case) anyway. Once the book gets out into the world, it belongs to the reader. Any interpretation or new insight that a reader can get from the text is legit, especially if that interpretation makes The Great Gatsby much better than it was when solely belonging to Fitzgerald.

Photo

Tue, 14 May 2013 08:44:27 -0400

Audio

Mon, 13 May 2013 23:57:48 -0400

Best way to spend the last few minutes before work.

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:56:56 -0400

Best way to spend the last few minutes before work.

Photo

Sun, 12 May 2013 14:44:42 -0400

Photo

Sun, 12 May 2013 14:34:34 -0400

If anyone wants to read a thing I wrote, I could use some serious critique.

Sun, 12 May 2013 00:41:00 -0400

The prompt: ”Write a piece of original fiction in which a character finds something he or she has no intention of returning.”

I just have a rough draft, but it’s meant to be submitted tomorrow so if anyone wants to tell me what works for them and what doesn’t that’d be cool and would help me narrow the focus of my editing tomorrow.

Under the cut, etc.

It was an accident, really. She would tell herself that, over and over, chanting it like a sacred mantra.

There was no light down there, but she could see it, shimmering in the darkness like the scales of a fish in the moonlight. It was tucked in her pocket when they pulled her out. She could feel it through the fabric of her jeans: slightly cold, refusing to be warmed by her skin.

She was lucky, they told her. She squinted at the sunlight and said nothing. Not to be deterred from their descriptions of her brutal demise, they continued: the hole was deep; she shouldn’t have survived the fall. She was lucky that she didn’t break every bone in her body. She was lucky that someone saw her hurtle into the darkness. It must have looked almost like a magic trick to them: one moment she was there, and the next there was only dead air.

It was an accident. It was an accident. It was an accident.

She was mostly unscathed; they had no choice but to let her go home. They were concerned by the slightly vacant expression of her eyes, but mostly they wanted them turned somewhere else.

She rode in the back of a car that smelled of stale french fries and sweat. The young officer driving it admonished her to rest; she did not look at him as she exited the car.

It was an accident. It was an accident. It was an accident.

Lucky. She could hear the screams reverberating off the walls – just before that thick silence.

She hadn’t meant to; she had managed to resist for so long. So long. But that silence, that darkness. Like slowly suffocating underneath a wool blanket. She couldn’t bear it anymore.

It was an accident.

She looked around the apartment. It was small, cozy. Brightly colored. Practically wallpapered with books. She wandered over to read some of the titles, tracing her finger absently along their spines. These were hers.

It was an accident.

She heard the screams again. Of course it was worse for the girl. She had been in that darkness for a millennia; she had adjusted. But the girl. She was injured, senseless. She knew there was something. They always knew. But she had no chance to adjust to being so deep underground.

It was an accident.

She tried to pull away, to hide, even after all that time, but the sharp scent of blood was overwhelming. Life. Light.

It was an accident.

She was reformed. She would just take a little. Just enough so that she could taste the smell of green grass and the feeling of a first kiss. Not much at all.

It was an accident.

The girl was weaker than she thought. It only took a moment – freshly snipped daisies in water, almost a bit of sunlight, but not quite – and it was over. Silent again. And there it was at her feet: small, shimmering, frozen.

She slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled it out. This is what her life had looked like. It was beautiful. So much potential.

“You’re lucky you survived.” She thought about how weak the girl was; by the time they got there, she might have already been gone. The life she had taken probably would have ended there, in that dark pit.

And now it had a chance to bloom.

She set the orb on the mantelpiece. She hoped the girl had kept a journal.

“That seems sort of harmless but then it kind of gets a little...

Fri, 10 May 2013 15:23:18 -0400

“That seems sort of harmless but then it kind of gets a little darker and sort of accuses these young pop artists of being part of this cycle where girls read magazines, feel terrible about themselves ‘cause its says “you should be skinnier, you should be prettier”. They feel terrible, and then these pop stars tell them that they’re perfect and that they’re beautiful and they buy the songs and then the popstar’s on the cover of the magazine so they buy a magazine again and it’s sort of this vicious cycle and I sort of implied he’s working for Satan or whatever.”

Living by Greenlife is both good and bad.

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:00:59 -0400

It’s good because I can buy food as I need it, thereby avoiding letting things languish and spoil in the fridge, and also because if I realize I’ve run out of milk and it’s 7AM and I just want cereal goddamnit I can just walk over to the grocery store and be back in five minutes munching on my raisin bran.

It’s bad because they have a glorious bake case filled with things that angels sing about, and if you, say, realize you forgot to get tortilla chips for your black bean soup and decided to pop over to the store to get some, the bake case is waiting there for you. Beckoning you. Whispering, “Please, throw all your money at me. You won’t regret it.”

And that fucking bake case is right. This is the most delicious, perfectly balanced between crunchy and chewy ginger molasses cookie I’ve ever eaten. You win, bake case. You win.