#leaf.tmi

I'm begging people to read The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap. For the love of god I need someone to talk to about this book because it's making me insane!

Selling points:

Very fun, morbid dark academia/gothic adventure-mystery-coming of age featuring grave robbing, romance and murder most foul

Historical fiction! Set in 1828 Edinburgh during the Burke & Hare murders. Many of the characters were real people who lived (and died) through those events - with missing information creatively filled in to entwine them with the plot

well researched, to the point where when I was looking for more information on the events presented (as one does when The Neurodivergence ignites) I just kept running into stuff that was already in the book

super immersive

Queer coming-of-age story without being a Queer Coming Of Age™️ story. Very sweet and complicated love story between two morally complex men of science

Very nice balance of tone; for all that it's a very funny book, it doesn't take away from the serious parts.

Characters are likable while retaining their complexity

Nye is peak weird girl rep despite not even being a girl. Nobody is doing it like him. I stand and respect a fellow collector of bugs and bones and dead bits.

James Willoughby is my favorite narrator ever, everyone else can go home <3

doesn't shy away from the gruesomeness of historical medicine or the moral complexities and often pretty awful shortcomings that led to the discoveries made in the period

nevertheless doesn't undersell just how fucking cool science and medicine are and how big of leaps in progress were being made!

Comes with a fun little book club question section <3 idk I just like books that have that

I gotta stress how much this book appeals to the little gothy nerd inside me. I checked it out from the library, read it, screamed, immediately made my baby sibling read it (as I must with all things dark and age-appropriate) and ordered myself a personal copy that WILL be worn out from rereading in a year's time

Seriously the last book that rearranged my brain chemistry like this was Funeral Songs For Dying Girls (<- STILL not over it btw; rereading soon)

Idk man all I can say is this scratched an itch I didn't know I had, and I 100% recommend it if you're interested at all in this period of history, you've ever wondered "what if Victor Frankenstein was gay?", you enjoyed that one episode of Good Omens, and/or listen to Lore podcast.

1 - it will give me something to talk about with my birdwatcher papaw

2 - it will give me more awareness of my surroundings and the ecosystem going on around me and

First up, the Goosebumps glow-in-the-dark and MCR patches I got from @vampcorestore back in January

Then we got these two that I made over last November:

+ My Ouija board that DEFINITELY isn't missing a letter! Along with a piece of spare webbing I thought looked cool, and my charm chain

And here's the two patches I've managed to actually embroider! Jet's hook swords, and the yellowjackets symbol on heliotrope ;)

So. Kiss Me You Animal by Burn The Ballroom, right? No? For the unfamiliar, it's a fun sexy lil rock song about being into some freak shit with a girl who's also into some freak shit. Or so it seems on the surface - however, if you look at the lyrics a little deeper, you'll find there's a much more sinister meaning. What is that meaning? Brave yourself...

I believe - and have ample evidence to PROVE - that Kiss Me You Animal is about the twisted romance between a man...and the Immortal Snail. For the uninitiated, Immortal Snail, also known as the Snail Assassin, refers to a hypothetical scenario in which a person is given millions of dollars and made immortal in exchange for being hunted down by a snail with a fatal touch for the rest of their existence.

But Leaf, you may be asking. Why the ever-loving fuck would you think the song is about that? Patience, dear reader. I am about to reveal all. By the end of it, you will wholeheartedly agree with my hypothesis.

Let's start with this very simple lyric from the first pre-chorus:

[ID: a Genius Lyrics screenshot - "Silver, crystal, carousel, your effervescent touch". End ID]

Now. Effervescent isn't a word you hear often in this day and age - Merriam-Webster defines it as 1: having the property of forming bubbles : marked by or producing effervescence / 2: marked by or expressing an appealingly lively quality. However, there's one more usage that, for me, immediately springs to mind:

(tumblr user cockmcstuffins)

But Leaf, I hear you cry. That's hardly proof! Anything can be effervescent if you try hard enough! To that, dear reader, I say phooey. I have AMPLE proof, I said, and I shall reveal it!

[ID: Genius Lyrics screenshot - "Lines of salt around your bed, smile sick and smile kind". End ID]

Now, pop culture perception might lead you to believe this is a reference to the superstition that lines of salt can entrap or harm a demon, and that this line is inferring the song's subject is demonic in some way - indeed, the Genius Lyrics annotation suggests the same. However, there's one other creature that's not so fond of salt:

The humble snail. In fact, pouring salt on a snail can kill it. It would be a fairly effective deterrent - or, in this case, a containment device.

But Leaf! you wail. That's only proof that the song is about A snail. That doesn't mean it's THE Snail! And to that, I present my final evidence:

[ID: Genius Lyrics screenshot - "Kiss me, you animal, I need to take you in real slow 'Cause dying on your lips is how I wanna go". End ID]

If THAT doesn't just scream "I want this animal to kiss me so I can die when it touches me", I don't know what does. Frankly, I feel interpreting this song any other way is simply a waste of time.

But Leaf, you whimper. Surely at least one of these pieces of evidence - either the Effervescent post or the Immortal Snail problem - is predated by Kiss Me You Animal. The timeline simply doesn't add up!

To that I say: read 'em and weep.

Immortal Snail:

Saw A Snail, Effervescent:

And finally, Kiss Me You Animal:

In conclusion,

But no

In *just the last week* I've

By hand, caught a lizard (small, orange) that ran through the door after me when I went inside the bank