Yes, I've finished the first Ciaphas Cain novel. And now I'm going to talk about it!

Ciaphas Cain is one of the most beloved series and characters in 40k. And it's not hard to see why. The very concept of Cain, a cowardly comissar celebrated as a hero across the Imperium despite being out to do little more than save his own hide, is intriguing. And unlike his clear inspiration (Flashman, for the record), Cain is genuinely likeable: He tends to do the right thing in the end, even if it's for the wrong reasons. With plenty of entertaining mishaps, side comments to camera (the books are framed as his (top secret) memoirs), and a general sense of humor that nicely contrasts the grim darkness of the setting which is still undeniably there.

Of equal importance to Cain is all the footnotes (in quantities that almost put Pratchett to shame), in-universe annotations from his Inquisitor acquaintance, Amberly Vail. Vail and Cain have a good chemistry even in simple writing, but when they're both actually interacting in the story it's even better: they're each as cunning and manipulative as the other, and both of them know it.

So the character dynamics are really good (the rest of the characters, even the bit ones that really don't have much personality, are quite memorable). The plot of this first outing is fairly solid as well—it's set on an imperial world contested by the Tau, on the verge of civil war between pro-Tau and anti-Tau factions, and more focused on intrigue and uncovering sinister conspiracies than outright fighting (in fact, all-out fighting is what's trying to be avoided), with a bit of The Dirty Dozen thrown in for good measure. It held my attention pretty well, and was fairly engaging.

The one place the book fell down a bit was the prose, which... isn't great. It's not awful or anything (aside from a few deliberately-bad in character sections), but it's serviceable at best. And it could have used a bit of improvement in a few places.

But on the whole, yeah. I had a lot of fun with this one.

It's called Sky: Children of the Light.

Sky's a mobile MMO, but it's an actually good one. There's no combat, but there's a ton of beautiful places to explore and puzzles to solve with friends. Really wholesome and low-key, and free!

... I don't really know what to say about it. Just check it out, it's very, very much worth playing. Turn up the volume and clear your schedule.

This is, apparently, "Doctorin' the TARDIS" by KLF. It's more or less a remix of the Doctor Who theme and a stadium chant, and in the video, an old black-and-white runs over a square, cardboard Dalek. I have no explanation, but it's amusing!

For entertainment, I'm currently watching the final season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power on Netflix, which is AMAZING, and if you haven't seen She-Ra yet, you should put it on your list. Every single main character is well developed and sympathetic and makes you care about what happens to them. Every. Single. One. Plus, hella strong female leads, normalizing non-hetero relationships, a variety of skin tones and body shapes, and there's a character who uses "they/them" pronouns who shows up in season... three? ... and it's just good, you guys.

I've also been catching up on Arrow, which is fine for brain candy. Season four is rough, but I'm past it now, and season five is okay. Will probably move on to the rest of the Arrowverse eventually, because I want to have all the context for the musical crossover whenever I get to that. >.>

I'm reading a book called The Genocidal Healer by James White. Came across it in a used book store, and with a title like that I couldn't not pick it up to see what it was about. So far, I'm enjoying it a lot! The alleged genocide is not the main plot, as you might expect; it's basically a pre-credits cold open. Our non-human protagonist, Lioren, is an amazing medic who was sent to help cure a plague that was killing a newly discovered race. Unfortunately, in Lioren's zeal to solve the problem, he rushed into administering the cure too quickly, and this indirectly resulted in a whole lot of the race killing each other. (It's complicated.) Lioren, absolutely destroyed with guilt, wants to be executed for his crime, but everyone else is like "Sorry, but we're a civilized intergalactic federation and we don't actually have the death penalty. How about you go intern for Sector General's Psychology Department under the supervision of the best possible doctor instead? Hopefully you will learn to live with yourself and we won't waste your brilliant mind. Win-win!"

I've since come to find out it's part of a whole series of medical sci-fi books set in Sector General, an enormous multispecies hospital out on the galactic rim. The author's philosophy is nonviolent and non-xenophobic. There's really alien aliens everywhere. Apparently Earth-humans are one of the only races that consider nudity and sexuality taboo (more on how this is handled as I come across it). Do I even have to tell you how much this appeals to my interests?

Seconding the rec for If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device! The latest episode was... pretty much as manic and entertaining as they all are? I don't even know how to explain. {X D

Oh, BTW, Thoth! Phobos tells me there is an actual character in one of the 40k books by the name of Thoth! ... He's a servitor scribe who works for Iskandar Khayon, and was given that name by Khayon. I'd say Agent Thoth wears it better. ^_^ The book in question is The Talon of Horus, if you're interested. Haven't yet read it myself, but I'll get there! More Thousand Sons stuff is always good.

~Neshomeh

I've been really into two things during this period of... lots of free time: painting and Japanese movies. I've been planning to make a Dreamwidth post about my favorite underrated gems of Japanese cinema, but there's one that just begs to be introduced to y'all.

Legend of the Eight Samurai is an 80's Japanese fantasy movie/hot mess that's an absolute nonsensical, hysterical delight from beginning to end. It's the movie adaptation of an epic serial I haven't heard much of, but I love this thing with my entire heart. Nothing in this movie makes any damn sense. The story is about a princess trying to defeat an evil clan with the aid of magical dog warriors (not a single samurai in this, by the way, although I blame the English title for that one) - and that's just the way it starts. Events that have absolutely nothing to do with each other happen all the time, people react to things in the weirdest ways (what to do if you find out you're the villain's son? Start playing a magic flute!) the villains' henchmen teleport all over the place because they always appear literally out of nowhere; there are flying snakes, giant centipede monsters, magical balls (please... for the love of... just call them spheres), bubbling lakes of blood, people turning into stone for no reason whatsoever, a Gustave Klimt painting in the background of a fight scene (don't ask, because I don't know), an intensely awkward love scene, Hiroyuki Sanada in black leather and fishnet (jusy try to take him seriously after this one), and the whole thing is scored with the most ungodly cheesy American synthrock ballads. I swear I'm not making up that last part. It's amazing. I beg y'all to watch it, just make sure you get the subbed version and not the English dub.

...Is She-Ra and the Princesses of Power on Netflix. I binged the first four seasons back in February and the fifth and final season came out on May 15. It's got all sorts of great representation and manages to realistically address some heavy topics while remaining safe for kids (it's a Y-7 show), even though there are some scenes that make you wonder if the censors were paying attention.

The series finale is utterly amazing and satisfying and has actually launched a minor fanfic explosion as the fans explore aspects of Season 5 and what comes next for the characters.

The only negative is that some corners of the fandom can be pretty toxic if you don't share their opinion of certain characters.

...that I'm absolutely obsessed with Castlevania now. To the point I've written 80k words of fanfic for it in less than three weeks and am absolutely not letting up.

If you don't mind animated gore and sex and lots of angst, absolutely do go check it out—it's a very dark show but has a ton of amazing snark and I cannot express how much I love this dumb thing. It's only three (very short :( ) seasons so far, but a fourth has since been renewed and there's a rough estimate of release by summer/fall of next year.

It's all hand animated and gorgeously so. If you like anime with the rougher feel of frame by frame animation, at least, it's worth checking out if you don't mind the gore. XD

This is my 30th day in the PPC, and there’s just so much stuff that reading PPC stories is the only thing I’ve really been doing (Other than eating, sleeping, etc). I just finished reading the Blackout story and man, it was good. There are so many stories I still have to read...

Yes, if you’re wondering, I’m plugging PPC stories in the PPC board.