vivacias
reading blog
279 posts
Latest Posts by vivacias
hate when people think the only archetype possible for a male sidekick to a female protagonist is a soft boi and/or himbo. like the implication there is that the only reason a man would ever defer to a woman’s authority is if he was a bumbling idiot. love male supporting characters who are smart and strong and confident and can step up when necessary but still kind and humble enough to let someone else take the lead most of the time
THE MOONLIT KNIGHT, my first book in the ELEGY OF AN EMPIRE series, is coming out 1st July 2025!
The Lady of Ruby was a beautiful dream from which Sir Gawain never wanted to wake. King Arthur's famous nephew, Sir Gawain of Orkney, Knight of the Round Table, is known by many names: Hawk of May, Dawnbreaker, Maiden's Knight. With great acclaim comes even greater expectation. When a challenge from Persian knight Sir Gromer Somer Joure draws Gawain east of the Mediterranean Sea, a new confrontation arises from Gromer's outspoken sister. The Knight of Maidens' reputation could be his undoing. Zoroastrian widow Osti Mahtab, granddaughter of Iran's revolutionary Mobed Mazdak, detests violence. And the men who make names for themselves through it. While long resigned to her devout life within the Old City's walls, she would sooner die than admit her little brother's challenger to the inner sanctum uncontested. Yet by forestalling this game of blows betwixt paladins, has Mahtab inadvertently entered the fray herself? In this retelling of The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, Persian mythology clashes and mingles with Arthurian to create a new and exciting tale of romance, self-discovery, and fantasy. The Moonlit Knight marks the first installment of the Elegy of An Empire epic that promises to entice old and new fans of the legends for years to come.
Pre-order your copy today in print or as an ebook!
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords
Apple Books
Kobo
or your local bookshop or library!
A big thank you to @mortiscausa for this beautiful cover. Go show her some love!
uihhhm waiter. theres a challenging theme in my soup
my best tip for anyone trying to get back into reading is to remember that you can read books to avoid other responsibilities in ur life and it can become a vice if you play your cards right
STOP this is the feminism checkpoint. you have to comment something you like about a flawed female character. or explode
i've always wanted to visit the beautiful city of chicago because i love their citation style
It's wild how "women are reading frivolous and immoral novels that are rotting their brains" is such an evergreen moral panic. You'd think we'd have figured this one out by now.
Here's remade masterpost of free and full shakespeare adaptations! Thanks @william-shakespeare-official for this excellent post. Unfortunately, a lot of the links in it are broken, so I thought I'd make an updated version (also I just wanted to organize things a bit more)
Anthony and Cleopatra: ~ Josette Simon, Antony Byrne & Ben Allen - 2017
As You Like It: ~ At Wolfe Park - 2013 ~ Kenneth Brannagh's - 2006
Coriolanus: ~ NYET Alumni - 2016 ~ Tom Hiddleston - 2014 ~ Ralph Fiennes - 2011
Cymbelline: ~ Michael Almereyda's - 2014
Hamlet: ~ David Tennant - 2009 ~ Ethan Hawke & Diane Venora - 2000 ~ Kenneth Branagh's - 1989 ~ BCC's Part One & Two - 1990 ~ Broadway - 1964 ~ Christopher Plummer - 1964 ~ Laurence Olivier's - 1948
Henry IV: ~ BBC's Part One & Two - 1989 ~ The Brussel's Shakespeare Society's - 2017
Henry V: ~ The BBC's - 1990 ~ Laurence Olivier's - 1944
Julius Caesar: ~ Phyllida Lloyd's - 2019 ~ The BBC's - 1979 ~ John Gielgud - 1970
King Lear: ~ The RSC's - 2008 ~ Laurence Olivier - 1983 ~ The BBC's - 1975 ~ James Earl Jones - 1974 ~ Orson Wells - 1953
Love's Labour's Lost: ~ Calvin University - 2016
Macbeth: ~ Antoni Cimolino & Shelagh O'Brien's - 2017 ~ Ian McKellen & Judi Dench - 1969 ~ Sean Connery - 1961
Measure for Measure: ~ Hugo Weaving - 2019 ~ The BBC's - 1990
The Merchant of Venice: ~ Al Pacino - 2004 ~ Trevor Nunn & Chris Hunt - 2001 ~ The BBC's - 1980 ~ Lawrence Olivier - 1973
The Merry Wives of Windsor: ~ The Royal Shakespeare Company's - 1982
A Midsummer Night's Dream: ~ Oliver Chris & Gwendoline Christie - 2019 ~ City of Columbus's - 2018 ~ The Globe's - 2013 ~ The BBC's - 1988 ~ Lindsay Duncan & Alex Jennings - 1986
Much Ado About Nothing: ~ Shakespeare in the Park - 2019 ~ Kenneth Branagh - 1993 ~ The BBC's - 1984
Othello: ~ The BBC's Part One & Two - 1990
Richard II: ~ David Tennant - 2013 ~ Deborah Warner's - 1997 ~ The BBC's - 1978
Richard III: ~ Ian McKellen - 1995 ~ Laurence Olivier - 1955
Romeo and Juliet: ~ Simon Godwin's - 2021 ~ The BBC's - 1988 ~ Laurence Harvey & Susan Shentall - 1954
The Taming of the Shrew: ~ Ontario production? ~ American Conservatory Theater - 1976 ~ Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor - 1967 ~ Mary Pickford & Samuel Taylor - 1929
The Tempest: ~ Gregory Doran's - 2017 ~ The BBC's - 1988
Timon of Athens: ~ Barry Avrich's - 2024
Troilus and Cressida: ~ Audio Production ~ This one I found on youtube? - 2016
Titus Andronicus: ~ Anthony Hopkins - 1999
Twelfth night: ~ Texas Shakespeare Festival's - 2015 ~ Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright & Ralph Richardson - 1970
Two Gentlemen of Verona: ~ Katherine Steweart's - 2018 ~ The BBC's
The Winter's Tale: ~ Antony Sher - 1999 (Warning: they don't have a bear...)
Bonuses:
Time Loop Hamlet! (A personal fav of mine)
Rock Opera Hamlet???
Shakespeare animated tales
The Complete Works Of Shakespeare Abridged comedy
From the original post:
A Midwinter's Tale, about a man trying to make Hamlet.
Russian Hamlet here
Here's Scotland, PA, the 2001 modern Hamlet retelling.
Rave Macbeth for anyone interested is here.
This one is the Taming of the Shrew modern retelling.
The french Romeo & Juliet musical with English subtitles is here!
Here's the 1948 one,
the Orson Wells Othello movie with Portuguese subtitles there
A Lego adaptation of Othello here.
Here's commentary on David Tennant's Richard II
A man and his bunker - the first page of the self-insert framing story I drew for my next book (link to the pre-launch campaign below).
(I spent an obscene amount of time researching late soviet armored vehicle turrets for that cutaway, hours i will never get back)
But the bunker returns, later in the book - if you survive reading the main book, this is the intro to the back-matter...
The mighty tome this will be printed in will be launching TUESDAY on kickstarter - follow along here, and be first in line!
I love him (fitz). No one does it like him (ruining relationships he craves and cherishes with his entire being)
and i think its corny to act as if this type of post is intended to be a positivity post or a living rec list. it isn’t. thats a lovely & constructive way to use the notes, but the post is negative. the post is a call to examine racist behavior, not an invitation to talk about yourself as the specialest exception, or a request for book recs & positivity. so for you to then see anyone, including OP, in the replies being even a little harsh on the erasure & implicit bias that is the subject of the post itself, and get upset bc that kind of negativity isn’t copacetic w the wholesome, conversation-ending spin u want to put on the post? is corny.
it’s also cuckoo crazy for cocoa puffs how any time there’s a sardonic “name one [member of an under-represented group]” post, 100,000 tumblrinas will triumphantly Name One as if that actually addresses the complaint or exonerates them from the culture that generated it. you’re NOT passing!
The Night of Baba Yaga
Akira Otani (Author), Sam Bett (Translator)
A fierce mixed-race fighter develops a powerful attachment to the yakuza princess she’s been forced to protect in this explosive queer thriller: Kill Bill meets The Handmaiden meets Thelma and Louise.
Tokyo, 1979. Yoriko Shindo, a workhorse of a woman who has been an outcast her whole life, is kidnapped and dragged to the lair of the Naiki-kai, a branch of the yakuza. After she savagely fends off a throng of henchmen in an attempt to escape, Shindo is only permitted to live under one condition: that she will become the bodyguard and driver for Shoko Naiki, the obsessively sheltered daughter of the gang’s boss.
Eighteen-year-old Shoko, pretty and silent as a doll, has no friends, wears strangely old-fashioned clothes, and is naive in all matters of life. Originally disdaining her ward, Shindo soon finds herself far more invested in Shoko’s wellbeing than she ever expected. But every man around them is bloodthirsty and trigger-happy. Shindo doubts she and Shoko will survive much longer if nothing changes. Could there ever be a different life for two women like them?
Akira Otani’s English-language debut moves boldly through time and across gender, stretching the definitions and possibilities of each concept. Rendered in a gorgeous translation by International Booker–shortlisted Sam Bett, this lean, mean thriller proves that bonds forged in fire are unbreakable.
(Affiliate link above)
the response that gets me is “well i don’t read.” okay. not everybody enjoys reading. but your thought process doesn’t have to stop there! let’s think laterally and apply this question to a form of media you to enjoy and engage with regularly. can you name a black woman who is a…
tv/movie creative?
podcaster?
youtuber?
music artist?
stage actress?
visual artist?
dancer?
there are many many subcategories within each of these, including specialities, genres, and professions, and i promise you there is a black woman doing amazing stuff in every one. maybe even several!
these broad categories, especially tv/movies and music, will have their own big five. if you can name them, try going deeper by naming one in a specific genre you enjoy. how about a genre that a friend of yours enjoys? a genre you want to engage with more than you currently are? talking to people In Real Life and having goals or plans for the media you want to enjoy are also (alongside google) useful tools for combatting passive/unconscious bias.
this is literally such a quality critical thinking skills addition to the original post
You aren’t seriously jealous of yourself…
…are you?
-
Oh Secret Crush/Puppet Dating Ortega route, we’re really in it now, aren’t we?
the raven king was a rly fun book, genuinely scary in moments and had excellent beats for blue gansey ronan & adam, im so glad i finally read this series to the end 13 YEARS after starting it as a kid, but every time i think of a character who vanished from act 3 with zero follow-up or even a passing mention in the epilogue i take another half star away. where are my sweetie peas. artemus maura calla seondeok helen declan gwenllian mr gray laumonier i said where the FUCK are my FUCKING sweetie pees
it’s also cuckoo crazy for cocoa puffs how any time there’s a sardonic “name one [member of an under-represented group]” post, 100,000 tumblrinas will triumphantly Name One as if that actually addresses the complaint or exonerates them from the culture that generated it. you’re NOT passing!
simply not having heard of something isn’t like a personal moral failing that u need to get defensive about. but also, an intellectual comfort zone in which Black women’s work is never recommended to you & you never seek it out—that isn’t cultivated in a cultural vacuum. its not innocent. and if you’ve been through school i guarantee you’ve had Black women’s work assigned to you before so like what gives
hello fellow non-Black tumblr users. welcome to my saw trap. if you'd like to leave, please name one (1) Black woman author who is not Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Octavia Butler, or N.K. Jemisin. bonus points if she's published a book in the last five years.
I'm pathologically fearful of sharing art I do for work online anymore but this just simply means to much for me not to commemorate it so I'm taking advantage of my surge of courage this morning.
Anyway here's some cover art I made for the 10 year Anniversary editions of the Raven Cycle for Owlcrate
secret calls in the phone/sewing/cat room (chapter 4 of bllb u will always be famous to me)
THE WARDEN
Cover art I did for 'The Warden' written by Daniel M. Ford and published by Tor Books. This is the first book in the swords and sorcery series following Aelis De Lenti, recently graduated necromancer, assigned to her first job as Warden of Lone Pine, a remote village on the farthest border of the kingdom where she meets her elf companion Maurenia, a mercenary that she may or may not be crushing on. This was an interesting job because I didn't have detailed visual assets of the characters, so I had to read the book and compile all the descriptions of them to piece together what they look like. With a short sword and wand for casting ward magic and necromancy, I read Aelis as INT/DEX. I figured she's not 100% magic so she should still have armor, but lighter armor, so I landed on a gambeson and cloak. And with a rapier and crossbow I read Maurenia as STR/DEX. Her description said classy studded leather armor, so I gave her the full pauldron, bracer, grieves ensemble. This was a fun one. Thanks to AD Esther Kim!
THE ADVOCATE
Cover art I did for 'The Advocate' written by Daniel M. Ford, and published by Tor Books. This is the third book in the swords and sorcery series following Aelis De Lenti. Aelis returns home to Lascenise to clear the name of her mentor, accused of murder, and unravel a conspiracy of wizards and assassins. With no one she can trust Aelis enlists the help of old friend Miralla and old enemy Amadin. I didn't get to this one either but this time around I got very detailed descriptions to work off of. They are all at a dinner party where a fight breaks out, hence the formal wear. Aelis' motif is skulls and daggers, and Miralla's stars and eyes. Miralla is a diviner which is why her eyes are glowing white as she guides the other two. Amadin's main stand out comments were 'arrogant enough to fight with a glass of wine in his hand' and 'very punchable face' lol Other than that everyone's looks are pretty straight forward, verbatim as described. Thanks once again to AD Esther Kim!