elri

it’s hopepunk. it’s“we have hurt each other and will again but that’s no excuse not to try”. it’s“if the world is not good then explain me, and my kindness, and my determination to carry it on”. it’s“there’s some good in this world, mr frodo, and it’s worth fightin’ for.”
messy, persistent and alive

and FUNDAMENTALLY:
the nature of there *being a future at all* is a legacy in and of itself - the legacy of the times you got it right, just enough. not perfect, but enough that there was a tomorrow. and then again. and then again. every mistake has been outweighed, just enough, by the making right

i think it’s part of why this sticks with me. the titan stays; the summary reminder of what people’s mistakes cost - the death of the whale shark, of kai, of the people who die in the cleaven attack, of the crew of the wayfarer - it’s all persistent. having a future means living with the past
aaaaaa

how much of our fervour for What Is Right gets driven by a sense of collective punishment, an inability to extricate policing from our psyche? if i die leftistly enough, if i kill enough of the 1%, if enough blood spills and my name is written in it enough times, was i ever wrong to begin with?

after finishing tideborn i look at the world and go “how many people seeking either to die for The Revolution, or a bloody coup that will Punish The Bad People So Good Prevails, are really seeking escape or absolution from their own complicity in the systems of the past & present?”
god, this duology

20 minutes later and i just stabbed myself in the tit in case you’re wondering how it’s going

tell you what, beadwork becomes even more therapeutic when you’re not stabbing yourself constantly

"Save what can be saved. Let go of what cannot. Love, love, love, love, *love*.
Live. The future is the only apology you can offer the past, and the only forgiveness you can grant the present."

An astounding review. Thank you for letting me know I'm not just shouting into the void.

thank YOU for writing them, for believing enough that those of us who are out there listening would be there to read it ❤️
very rarely am i so bowled over by books but i can’t put into words the impact these have had on me. pride of place on my bookshelves and enthusiastically recommended to everyone

ALSO also thinking about the hand by anabelle dinda and how much it applies to mira, nami and cordelia
just. augh. i would edit them to this song if i could because HOLY SHIT

oh, the ENDING. sorry my found family is healing from what happened and what could have been. there’s a baby. no we’re not saddling it with the names of the past, but making it a promise to the future
there’s a FUTURE
in such a dire world today, a world where that’s POSSIBLE means everything to me

i could talk about these books forEVER
the way the two titans we’ve seen are a whale shark and a manta ray, two inoffensive giants?
nami’s love interest change from a manipulative liar to someone who never flinches from Objective Truth?
mira’s developing political relationships & skills?
CORDELIA???

A white hand holding a book, Tideborn by Eliza Chan. A half-ruined Easy Asian city lies at the bottom of the cover, pink, surrounded by corals and dark blue waves. Two leaping dolphins and a pair of sirens playing stringed instruments, flank a half-dragon woman in flowing white and teal robes emerging from a clam shell. The cover is flanked by two dark green leviathans, one crocodile-headed and one horse-headed. The background is a pearlescent orb with a nautilus-like spiral on it.

A Discord message. It reads: 15: *Tideborn* by Eliza Chan (2025). Oh, *god*. The sequel to *Fathomfolk* which I read this time last year. In the aftermath of that book's earth-shaking climax, we get into a complex web of politics, where everyone is wrong and some people, sometimes, are right. I cannot get over this duology. How stunningly written, how complexly and deftly woven. Three powerful, incredible female POV characters in half-siren Mira, water dragon princess Nami, and sea witch Cordelia. A story of race, class and gender, how these facets intersect and compound, how rage begets rage begets destruction. How do you grieve? How do you forgive? How do you move forwards? Who lives and who dies? When the truth is too terrible to face, too vast and wretched to unpack, where do you start? Because, as this book says, you must start. Save what can be saved. Let go of what cannot. Love, love, love, love, *love*. Live. The future is the only apology you can offer the past, and the only forgiveness you can grant the present. This duology is one of the most powerful, beautiful and radical voices I've ever read in fiction on race, class and oppression, and the conversation of what the hell we *do* to try and make things right. If you can, read them. I cannot recommend this enough.

15: Tideborn by @elizachanwrites.bsky.social. Another year, another tsunami of emotion and profound transformative writing from Eliza Chan’s Drowned World duology. To help me I’ve put my summary for my friends’ Discord server here too, but GOD. You are capable of learning. You are capable of change.

gang i am having a ROUGH fucking time
i have read three books in close succession (two back to back, the third with one book between) that touch on a very specific trigger of mine
all three are using this thing in different and interesting ways that enhance the story
however. oof ouch my heart rate

Gary Lineker: "This is the mistake the BBC makes. The BBC tries to appease the people that hate the BBC, rather than worrying about the people that love the BBC."

today is an angry and complicated day of feelings
i had to email a lovely guy from gaza today, saying the uni can’t take him for admission. no education-as-rescue. i don’t even know if he’s still alive.
meanwhile, thugs from the country murdering his entire culture descended on my city tonight.

can’t stop thinking about hopecore new york now
street party closing out blasting dog days are over
mamdani in a club - still in his suit - up with the DJ playing empire state of mind while the crowd raises the roof
idk man maybe i believe in it. godspeed NYC. here’s to more of this, everywhere

A Journalist Asked Why Israel Isn’t Paying to Rebuild Gaza. It Cost Him His Job. Italy’s Nova news agency confirmed it let reporter Gabriele Nunziati go for asking a European official about Israel at a press conference.

“You’ve been repeating several times that Russia should pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine. Do you believe that Israel should pay for the reconstruction of Gaza since they have destroyed almost all its civilian infrastructure?”

Normal People Don’t Want This Shit is running away with the vote tonight

apologies to everyone on my street who heard me yell “oh you fucking CUNT” at the top of my lungs (someone drove through a puddle without even slightly slowing down and splashed me in the FACE)

wuvs you

MASSIVE win today (colleagues were talking about what books they’re reading and when i said what i’m on the biggest reader on the team said “you always seem to be reading such interesting books elri”
GOOD GRADE IN BOOKS

this was exactly my feeling about it, even when i first read it. then i got older and learned how colleges at oxford or durham worked and assumed it was meant to be more like that?
but literally houses never mattered my entire school life

A portion of every dollar spent on Harry Potter merchandise goes to anti-transgender campaigns.

it’s a wide variety of things: unsafe experiences with fellow crew members, no-fault scenarios that nevertheless need navigating from various angles, ballgowning boundaries, and more
part of me hates having to come in to new larpers and fearmonger at them, but i refuse to let them learn the hard way

it’s a workshop i run every year. define terms like bleed & ballgowning, discuss boundaries & personal responsibility, then hand out scenarios for them to apply what they’ve learned in groups
they feed back to the room
i then pull the rug that every single scenario is a real life experience i’ve had

my favourite/least favourite time of year today
sat down as many new recruits to the uni larp society as possible and give them a crash course on bleed & emotional regulation to try and make them safer larpers
i never know if it works or if it’s enough, but i stay adamant on introducing it early on

AND BOOK TWO HERE WE GOOOOOOOOO

A white hand holding a book, ‘Foxfire, Wolfskin’ by Sharon Blackie. The cover is black, with an entwined silhouette of a wolf made of dark smoke, and a fox made of orange flame.

14: Foxfire, Wolfskin by Sharon Blackie. Mixed feelings on this one as I’m a habitual hater of “modern feminist retellings”, but some beautiful evocative writing and strong characterisation in here nonetheless!

before critique badly written/dodgy erotica books that are all the rage atm (hello “romantasy” boom), i always go and watch @foldablehuman.bsky.social’s 50 shades videos (especially the first one)
you are not immune to your actually insightful takes being rooted in, or sliding into, misogyny