Book-ish blog

Best Outfit - Round 1 Match 93

Best Outfit - Round 1 Match 97

Best Outfit - Round 1 Match 101

Best Outfit - Round 1 Match 109

Neuvostoliitto Avaruutta Tutkimassa / Russians in Space (Evgeny Riabchikov), Tammi 1974. Artist unknown.

Murder in the Cathedral (T. S. Eliot), Faber & Faber 2020. Artist unknown.

Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.

You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.

When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.

A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)

Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)

The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.

Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.

These events are almost always open bar. They're not trying to make their money back on alcohol. They want you to drink and eat and donate generously.

If there are cocktails, there will be at most two on offer, pre-made in large tubs. You cannot order a different version, it is what it is.

There are two types of events: cocktail style or seated. The first includes roaming hors d'oeuvres or a fancy buffet with tiny plates called a grazing station. For a long night, the roaming food will get a little bigger throughout the evening and have a 'main' at some point based around a protein.

A seated event will usually be more structured and may include multiple courses. Silver service is not in vogue anymore. You are likely to get either alternating meals brought to you like at a wedding, or served banquet style. A good caterer can get a plate to everyone in a 300 person event in about three minutes.

Drunk people are the same no matter how expensive their suits. They still laugh too loud, spill their drinks and slip on the dance floor. They are usually less embarrassed about doing coke in the bathrooms.

A full scale event that starts at 6pm will have staff arriving at noon to begin setup. Earlier if there's a light show or pyrotechnics. Typically venues don't just have 30 tables and three hundred chairs lying around, let alone table cloths, chair covers, etc. It's all rented and brought in on the day. Bands and DJs will be running audio tests in the background throughout.

Most heritage buildings that host these things, like museums and manor houses, aren't really designed for them. They might put down mats so you're not walking in stilettos over two hundred year old wooden floors, the kitchens are weirdly far away, and there are not enough taps. There is never anywhere for staff to sit, so if you open the wrong door you might find half a dozen waiters sitting on upturned milk crates in a room full of million dollar paintings, eating the left over bread.

Really old buildings don't have enough bathrooms, which means the staff will be sharing with the guests.

Clean up starts the second the event ends, if not sooner. Unattended glasses will start to disappear first, then table decorations. When the timer ticks over, the lights come back on and exhausted staff strip the tables, pack up dirty glasses and unopened wine bottles and have to Tetris it all into the back of a van. The venue is booked for that day only, so everything has to be gone before anyone can go home. A large event that finishes at midnight might take until 3am to be cleared away.

"You have everything you need for the 11am meeting"

"Except you," whispered Danglard.

"How do you know?"

"When you care about something, I get information."

"Danglard sent me a quote about that," said Adamsberg, "he sends me those all the time."

Commissioner Adamsberg sent Danglard some photos of the place [...]

House of Leaves (Mark Z. Danielewski), Doubleday 2000. Cover by Mark Pennington.

Once an Eagle (Anton Myrer), HarperCollins 2000. Cover by Wendell Minor.

The Drowned Woods (Emily Lloyd-Jones), ‎Little, Brown 2022. Cover by Wan Visu.

Sem despedidas / 작별하지 않는다 (Han Kang), Todavia 2025. Cover by Marcelo Delamanha.

Best Outfit - Round 1 Match 90

ROUND 1 — Match 257 of 276

Kaz Brekker (Six of Crows)

Problematic because: "He’s a gang lieutenant whos built the “Dirtyhands” name on making people believe there’s nothing he won’t do. He breaks Geels’ wrist during the parley at the Exchange, has Big Bolliger shot and left bleeding for betraying the Dregs, threatens Geels’ girlfriend Elise to force the Black Tips down, and generally rules through fear. Ketterdam is brutal, but Kaz is extremely good at using it. After Oomen helps ambush the crew and Inej is badly hurt, Kaz cuts Oomen’s eye and then gouges it out, to the point that even Wylan is retching, then throws him overboard after getting what he wants. It’s partly rage over Inej, yes, but it’s also Kaz sending a message - hurt his people, betray the job, challenge Dirtyhands, and he’ll make the punishment memorable. He kidnaps Alys Van Eck, Jan Van Eck’s pregnant young wife, to trade for Inej. He uses Wylan as leverage from the start because Wylan’s connection to Van Eck makes him useful. He runs cons around the auction, manipulates the Merchant Council, and destroys Pekka Rollins by making him believe his little son has been buried alive. The child is safe, but Kaz wants Pekka to feel the terror anyway, because Kaz’s revenge isn’t just about winning it’s about making Pekka understand helplessness in the most personal way possible. He has an extremely sympathetic reason for becoming what he is - Pekka scammed him and Jordie, Jordie died, Kaz survived the Reaper’s Barge by using his brother’s body to stay afloat - but the trauma made him controlled, vengeful, and creative about hurting people back. He can buy Inej’s freedom and still send her into dangerous work. He can love his crew and still lie to them constantly. He can be a victim of Ketterdam and still become one of the people who makes Ketterdam terrifying." Propaganda: 1. "I love him. Obviously. He’s clever, dramatic, disabled, traumatised, stylish in that very severe little Barrel way, and every scene with him feels sharper because he’s already planning three betrayals. He is a gang lieutenant who keeps teenagers in his orbit, sends Inej into life-threatening jobs, withholds plans from his own crew constantly, and reacts to being hurt by becoming a calculated nightmare. I don’t want Kaz softened into harmless book boyfriend material. I want the version who buys Inej her freedom and also threatens a child to destroy his enemy. I want the version who can be painfully gentle in one paragraph and then do something so cold you remember why grown men in the Barrel are scared of him." 2. "Kaz is actually a very likable character. Somehow, his morally gray acts are endearing and his joyful moments (of which he has few) are even more so. He's witty, he's a genius, he's got a hell of a self-preservation instinct, yet he's still impulsive, he's traumatized, he's tragic, and he's a child, yet he refuses to be pitied. He's deeply broken as a character, to the point that I think that he's not going to ever fully heal, and he's like a marred, broken up pig carcass that was reanimated halfway through being cooked and wreaked havoc amongst the chefs. He is the fury of the people, he is the anger of the peasants reanimated to take revenge against the upper class, but he is still human. He loves, he pities, and he desires, however much he tries to suppress it. And I think that the way he shows his humanity while it being extremely clear what a monstrous existence he is, is extremely fascinating. I'm not one that finds his kind, softer aspects as fascinating as his rougher ones, but he does have those. Like how he had started this entire thing, the murder, the hurt, the crime, it was all for the wrong that he faced as a child, the love for his brother that was ruined for him, and he keeps his cards close to his chest and the things he cares about closer to his heart."

vs. Pencil (Battle for Dream Island)

Problematic because: "Obsessively trying to become friends with her old friends (some of whom consciously cut her off due to her toxicity) and it got so bad she almost destroyed the entire timeline and ended the world. she ended up pushing her abuser off a building and making a deal with the metaphorical devil to go back in time" Propaganda: "IN HER DEFENSE SHE WAS TRAPPED IN AN ALGEBRA CLASS WITH NO BREAKS (no summers no lunches not even to go home every night) FOR 6 YEARS . SHE HAD TO DO ALGEBRA FOR 6 YEARS STRAIGHT. 6 REAL LIFE YEARS. I REMEMBER WATCHING HER GET PUT IN THERE IN 3RD GRADE AND I WATCHED HER GET RELEASED AS A FRESHMAN IN HIGHSCHOOL. WOULD YOU WISH THAT ON ANYONE. WOULD YOU. WOULD YOU??? She was ALSO having her ptsd (gained from alegbra) constantly being triggered 24/7 after her release so she’d be easier to manipulate . She’s constantly wanting to go back to before all this, back with all her friends, she wants to go back so badly it’s tearing her apart from the inside"

ROUND 1 — Match 259 of 276

Michael (The Good Place)

Problematic because: "He's a demon whose entire job is torturing dead humans. He lies to Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason, isolates them from the truth, designs situations around their specific insecurities, and lets them think they’re ruining heaven when the whole thing was built to make them suffer, in order to make them torture each other emotionally. He also repeatedly wipes their memories and starts over whenever the plan fails. They don’t get to keep their growth, relationships, or discoveries unless it benefits the experiment. He treats Janet as a tool for the neighbourhood for a long time too, even though she clearly develops as a person over the series." Propaganda: "Genuinely one of the funniest redemption arcs on TV. He starts out as this smug demon architect who thinks he’s invented the cleverest torture method in history, and then these four disaster humans ruin his entire worldview by being annoying and kind and unpredictable. He should be scary, and sometimes he is, but he’s also so deeply pathetic once things stop going his way. Like, yes, he is a demon. Yes, he spent who knows how long designing suffering. Yes, he erased their memories over and over because he couldn’t stand losing. But then he starts caring, and it’s not instant or clean or dignified at all. He lies badly. He panics. He tries to understand friendship like it’s a weird human hobby he can study from a manual. He goes from “I created your personalised hell” to “please let me be in the group project” and somehow it works. He’s terrible. He’s trying. He has committed metaphysical crimes and also wants a birthday party. Perfect character."

vs. Fordola rem Lupis (Final Fantasy XIV)

Problematic because: "She collaborated with the forces that conquered her nation in return for privileges, rising far in their ranks by epitomising the kind of callous violence they rewarded. She's totally bought in, callously ordering the deaths of even her own subordinates to keep her position." Propaganda: "She's a victim and a perpetrator. It's pretty clearly sketched in why she ended up collaborating - selfishness and care for those very closest to her, and a feedback loop of resentment at the people around her who rejected her for that. She remains less than accepted by her overlords, too, as she's not quite one of them. It neither lets her off entirely nor paints her as Simply Evil, and it lets her survive the overthrow of her rulers and have to reckon with the anger of the people she betrayed. In all I find her a compellingly human portrait of someone making abominable choices for flawed reasons."