Aravo Celta

so, knowing all that, I'm jumping in to this novel thinking oh hell yeah we get an Alan Quartermane type adventure but all the glamour is taken off.

The author spends the first I am not shitting you remotely at all one quarter of the book assuring us the protagonist is super woke so please don't be mad at me on twitter.

The story is a first person narrative written by the protaganist as they lay in a Tibetan prison dying of supernatural boggins disease. He is racing against time to get down the story of the deadly threat to the world that waits in the ancient ruins or whatever.

and the first quarter of that written narrative is assuring us all that actually his dad was an aristocrat that married for love and is a wife guy, they are both deeply embarassed by their nobility and his father actually lives in a second home that's a little cottage instead of their sprawling manse. His family are from the woke anti slavery christian denomination but also don't worry they don't actually believe in god because that's stupid and fake. Also, even though the protaganist is gay and in a sexual relationship with HIS BONDED MANSERVANT WHOS ENTIRE FAMILY WORKS HIS ANCESTRAL PLANTATION don't worry because the manservant is older and is also the top in the relationship so there's no power imbalance and also they do consent checks. it is 1900. the year 1900. in britain. Also the protaganists dad is Aro-Ace and only had an heir with his lovematch as a matter of expectation. and the boyfriend manservants dad is homophobic but also he's a rotten drunk and abusive so do not worry there are no moral complications there of maybe an otherwise good person for the time period failing his son. OH! And the protagonist gets into classics at Oxford but finds greek and roman stuff boring, and gives a little "I've had enough HISstory it's time for HERstory!" type speech about how it's time for the east to be respected as much if not more in the world of classics than the western canon. Which, fair enough but turn of the century aristocrat is likely not doing this. and finally, he has a whole anti british empire spiel. And like, all that to say, again, a horror novel. You could just make him bad! Hell, you don't even have to make him a particular bastard and put a real fine point on it. But this insistence that everything has to be some great deconstruction or commentary to prove the authors moral character is just so lame. Like, just playing shit straight is more interesting, let the reader draw their conclusions themselves. You can make your historical person of means very charming and romantic and still have all the fucked nobility class system shit going on.

but god. whatever it is that makes people make posts like the one you've drowned up there.

things fall apart and there’s anarchy everywhere; falcons fly freely and can’t be compelled.

Dimming the tide there is blood in the water and everywhere customs of innocence drowned.

Held by the worst is a fervent intensity; lacking conviction the best run aground.

Surely there must be some kind of apocalypse; surely epiphany must be at hand!

Visions unbidden from Spiritus Mundi of something awakening out on the sand:

Head of a man with a leonine frame and a pitiless gaze that’s as blank as the sun;

sleep became nightmare by passage of centuries long before eons of slumber were done.

Higgledy piggledy, beast of antiquity, imminent, just as the prophecies warn,

While I'm working on a new painting, here's a behind-the-scenes look at the making of my painting "Ya'll Know Me".