Jerry's House of Ass Beating

SO. I got my copy of Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush finally, and I have powered through it. If you're not familiar, this book is the sequel to He Used Thought As A Wife, both of them being by Tim Key, with design by Emily Juniper (the one in the UK). The first book is about the first London lockdown and the beginnings of the coronavirus outbreak; the second one is about the third London lockdown. The main character is a fictionalized version of the author, and the books are made up of poems and script-format dialogues with other people. They are extremely hard to explain, but they were hands down my favorite books this year.

He Used Thought As A Wife is (finally) widely available, but right now the only place you can get Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush is the "Utter" & Press website, as it doesn't go into full release until February.

Get you these books. I promise to you they are extremely good.

Anyway I'm so bursting with feels and opinions that I wrote them all down. This post does in fact spoil both books, but here we are. ( Read more... )

I wrote a tutorial that some people around these parts might enjoy! It's on the tumblr and I don't want to recode it, so here it is: how to make an AO3 series into one single EPUB with Sigil.

Hurrah for EPUB!

Today is an important day, flist.

Today is the day I read Fifty Shades of Grey.

I will, you understand, be liveblogging this process in this entry. I will give you the same caveats as my co-conspirator coffeesuperhero:

Things I cannot promise you:

+ that I will be funny
+ that I will be sorry for doing this
+ that you will enjoy this in any way

Things I can promise you:

+ I will definitely think I'm funny
+ I will drink a lot
+ I will finish this book (ETA: It is already clear I am going to go into liver failure before this happens.)

Finally, don't try this at home, kids. (I'm guessing that's going to be a general theme for the book, by the way.)

I am presently on my first few sips of beer (it was going to be cheap shitty beer, but they were having a craft beer sale for no apparent reason, so Fat Tire will be my solace) and the Acknowledgements (I am already giving them the side-eye), so check back periodically.

Here we go.

( Fifty Shades of Drinking )

And that is, officially, as much as I can take of this book.

Along the way, we racked up
6 facepalms
15 instances of head-ereader interaction
1 instance of head-beer interaction
4 cans of Fat Tire
1 Agent Coulson
half a bag of Doritos
exactly 100 pages

Time to Pack It Up, ladies and smizmars. Thank you, and good night.

Good news, everyone! Meet Franziska!

( Ereaders and you )

1. Re: the book dilemma: I forgot I had bought Soon I Will Be Invincible, which, while still pretty serious, was just what the doctor ordered. I've only read the first four chapters (no spoilers plz), but it's quite good so far.

2. ( A meme what I stole from toft )

So, I was out shopping with shadowen, and we were wandering in the first of several bookstores that we went to in her time here.

I was, of course, in the sci-fi/fantasy section, looking for things that might be interesting or hilarious to read, when I stumbled upon this:



And I thought to myself, "Self, this looks like it might be fun to read. George Takei and Robert Asprin are made of win. I think we should buy it" ( What does this have to do with anything? )

1. You know what starts the day off right? Weir/Caldwell dubcon.

2. I am finally reading Kushiel's Dart, because I am late to the party as usual. I wasn't sure I was going to like it, because I really don't like fantasy, but I'm devouring it. It pleases me. In locations.

(I am not spoiled for this book. I will cry if you say anything about anything that happens past the first two hundred pages.)

2a. Can I express to you how much I want to write a fusion where John is the worst anguissette ever?

He's brought up by Valerian, obvs, but pretty early on they're all, "What the fuck is even wrong with you," because John is about as docile and yielding as he is blonde, and so his marque gets passed around the houses like some kinky game of White Elephant, until he's, like, clearly too old to be hanging around, sitting around eating bon-bons and playing the lyre for the kids all day. But they can't just put his shit on the lawn, because HE IS PRESTIGIOUS OKAY and plus his father is like, "ALL SALES ARE FINAL, BITCH."

And then Rodney, like, wins him in a card game (that one of the Dowaynes has rigged, obvs). And he's all, "OH GOD OH GOD WHAT DO I DO WITH IT, OH GOD" and he manfully resists John's advances, because he is Not Into That, despite what you might have heard. And he won't let John have any clients, because he's all, "ARE YOU ON DRUGS, THOSE PEOPLE ARE SCARY" and John is like, "Are you missing a step with this whole anguissette thing?"

So John's so bored and horny that he has to resort to ambushing Rodney with blowjobs and breaking his stuff, until Rodney finally gives in, and it turns out, of course, that Rodney is really, really Into That. And then Rodney's so guilty that he gives John enough money to get his marque (because Rodney is incredibly wealthy new money, obvs) and he's all "LEAVE ME TO MY ANGST" and John gets his marque but he just, like, won't leave Rodney's house. He's just sitting on Rodney's couch eating cheetoes, all, "Hell no, you break it, you bought it," until Rodney finally capitulates to the force of their epic, dysfunctional love.

This idea's a fucking goldmine.