🏴‍☠ Home Thread for Flesh&Blood ⛵

:anchor: Welcome to the book club for the first volume of Flesh&Blood! :drum:

flesh&blood

BL Book Club Home

:jp: Natively page: FLESH & BLOOD 1 | L36
:kr: Natively page: FLESH & BLOOD 플래쉬 & 블러드 1 | L36??

Google vocab spreadsheet: ~ FLESH & BLOOD ~ Volume 1 ~ Vocab list - Google Sheets
Feel free to contribute!

Club Schedule

Week Date # of Pages Ends on Page Ends on % Ending Line
1 May 6 21 26 8% 海斗達は口々に叫びながら、全速力で走っていった。
2 May 13 18 44 14% (end of chapter)
3 May 20 26 69 21% (end of chapter)
4 May 27 21 90 30% 少年が低く呻き、瞼を震わせた。
5 June 3 18 108 35% (end of chapter)
6 June 10 25 133 44% (end of chapter)
7 June 17 24 158 52% 「…善良なる我らが女王陛下に害をなさそうとした卑劣漢に過ぎません」
8 June 24 21 179 59% (end of chapter)
9 July 1 21 201 66% 感激というほどではないが、やはり誉められるのは嬉しいものだ。
10 July 8 20 221 73% (end of chapter)
11 July 15 18 240 80% 「今回もすんでのところで逃げ果せましたしね」
12 July 22 20 260 85% (end of chapter)
13 July 29 20 280 92% (end of chapter)
14 August 5 17 (or 25 w/ the bonus story) 297 100% (end of book)

Discussion Guidelines

  • Spoilers should always be hidden using spoiler blur.
  • When discussing a specific section, please mention where you are in the book, ideally by chapter so people reading different versions have a clear point of reference.
  • Feel free to read ahead if it’s exciting, but please refrain from spoiling ahead of the appropriate week.
  • If you have a question about grammar, vocab, cultural things, etc - ask! That’s a welcome part of the discussion too, and other readers will be happy to help.
Will you be reading along when the club starts on May 6?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Maybe
  • I’ll be reading, but at my own pace
0 voters
What type of media will you be consuming the book as?
  • Physical
  • eBook
0 voters
What language will you be reading the book in?
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Both
0 voters

Historical Figures, Events and Places

This book mentions a lot of real historical figures and events. Here are some informational resources on them. (Please be aware that if you want to go in 100% blind, these lists will contain some spoilers for you)

(For wiki edits) Please add Chapter, Page, if possible, when something is mentioned in the story.

Historical Figures

Álvaro de Bazán, Marquis of Santa Cruz (Ch 7, p. 249) Wikipedia article
Anne Boleyn (Ch 7, p. 230) Wikipedia article
Elizabeth I Wikipedia article
Francis Drake (Ch 6, p 189; many times before also) Wikipedia article
Francis Walsingham (Ch 5, p. 153) Wikipedia article
Henry VIII (Ch 6, p. 198) Wikipedia article
John Hawkins (Ch 3, p. 102): Britannica article
Judas Iscariote (Ch 6, p. 203) Wikipedia article
Marco Polo (Ch 3, p. 68) YouTube documentary clip (Japan a country of gold)
Mary Stuart Wikipedia article
Nicholas Hilliard (Ch 4, p. 126) Wikipedia article (painter)
Philip II (Ch 5, p. 161) Wikipedia article
Thomas Cavendish (Ch 5, p 136) Wikipedia article
Walter Raleigh (Ch 5, p. 136) Wikipedia article (the image on Wikipedia shows him in a painting with the pearl-earring)

Places

Buckland Abbey (Ch 6, p. 191) Wikipedia article; Travel Blog (also has a bit about Drake’s drum as mentioned in Ch 1 & 2); wiki-article on Richard Grenville
Cádiz (Ch 7, p. 252) Wikipedia article
El Escorial (Ch. 9, p. 289) Wikipedia article
Land’s End Wikipedia article
Medina-Sidonia (Ch 9, p. 291) Wikipedia article
La Rochelle (Ch 5, p. 163) Wikipedia article
Plymouth Wikipedia article
Plymouth Hoe (Ch 3, p. 98) Wikipedia article

Historical Events etc

Battle of Lepanto Wikipedia article (they used a very different name for this in the book - please add it here if you encounter it)
Spanish Armada (Ch 8, p. 268) Wikipedia article

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image

Sus Among GIF - Sus Among Us GIFs

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Re: schedule - thanks to @nikoru of about two years ago, I’ve pulled the Bookwalker percentages they provided then; please note that, as always, digital percentages are iffy and are provided here merely as a point of reference.

Chapter BookWalker % Page Numbers (Phys) # of Pages (Phys)
Chapter 1 0% 5 40
Chapter 2 15% 45 25
Chapter 3 23% 70 39
Chapter 4 35% 109 25
Chapter 5 43% 134 46
Chapter 6 59% 180 42
Chapter 7 72% 222 39
Chapter 8 85% 261 21
Chapter 9 91% 282 11
予感 95% -not present- 8
あとがき 98% 294

As you can see, there’s a bonus short story, 予感, only present in the digital version of F&B. It’ll be wrapped into the final week, and those who want to read it can. Note that it’s not story-important to read through it.

Which leads to pacing: the chapters have weird page numbers, so while we can do 1 chapter/week, they’re not incredibly even.

How do we want to pace the book?
  • ~20 pgs/week
  • ~30 pgs/week
  • 1 chapter/week
  • Something else (please comment what)
0 voters
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Aaaagh. Thanks for the catch!

Edit: there. Now a much more reasonable three levels lower.

@biblio: I reformatted a poll in the OP; feel free to re-vote.

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New week, new poke: please vote on participation and book pacing if you have not already!

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So, after some struggle I was finally able to buy the ebook :joy:
I really really want to read the book and participate in the book club. I think it is the book that is the longest on my wish to read list on natively. But 1) unfortunately I think it is still a few levels above my level, leading to 2) that even 20 pages per week will probably be too many for me. (Also considering that I am currently moving, which is stealing all my time, AND I definitely join too many book clubs for the little free time I have currently lol :smiling_face_with_tear:).
I guess this all will result in me reading the book, but at a much slower pace. And after finishing the pages of a book club week, I will read all your comments :laughing:

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That’s perfectly all right! I hope you do post in the threads even after the fact; I’d love to hear your thoughts as you read through!

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I amended my book pacing vote, because, while I’d prefer a chapter per week, I am fine with any other pacing as well. Not like I won’t participate just because the pacing is off. I might skip a week or so and play catch up, though. :smiling_face:

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As the ~20 pg/week schedule is currently winning, I’ll post a schedule for that later today when I have access to my physical copy, as I’ll need to cut some chapters in half. I’ll leave the poll open though for whoever hasn’t voted yet.

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All right; barring any last-minute changes, this will be our schedule for the next 14 weeks:

Week Date # of Pages Ends on Page Ending Line
1 May 6 21 26 海斗達は口々に叫びながら、全速力で走っていった。
2 May 13 18 44 (end of chapter)
3 May 20 26 69 (end of chapter)
4 May 27 21 90 少年が低く呻き、瞼を震わせた。
5 June 3 18 108 (end of chapter)
6 June 10 25 133 (end of chapter)
7 June 17 24 158 「…善良なら我らが女王陛下に害をなさそうとした卑劣漢に過ぎません」
8 June 24 21 179 (end of chapter)
9 July 1 21 201 感激というほどではないが、やはり誉められるのは嬉しいものだ。
10 July 8 20 221 (end of chapter)
11 July 15 18 240 「今回もすんでのところで逃げ果せましたしね」
12 July 22 20 260 (end of chapter)
13 July 29 20 280 (end of chapter)
14 August 5 17 (or 25 w/ the bonus story) 297 (end of book)

Hmmm. This actually worked out fairly well with around 20 pages per week. There are a few bumps here and there, but nothing too wild.

@pyororon It’ll be good for me to re-read the book, I have to say. I was going along looking for decent halfway points, and I some of these conversations I don’t remember in the slightest. Like ウォード talking with Geoffrey on the Gloria.

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Thanks for setting up the schedule! I’m reading on the Kindle, so I added the Kindle ebook percentages. There was also one small typo in the ending line for week 7, so I updated that too.

Week Date # of Pages Ends on Page Ends on % Ending Line
1 May 6 21 26 8% 海斗達は口々に叫びながら、全速力で走っていった。
2 May 13 18 44 14% (end of chapter)
3 May 20 26 69 21% (end of chapter)
4 May 27 21 90 30% 少年が低く呻き、瞼を震わせた。
5 June 3 18 108 35% (end of chapter)
6 June 10 25 133 44% (end of chapter)
7 June 17 24 158 52% 「…善良な我らが女王陛下に害をなさそうとした卑劣漢に過ぎません」
8 June 24 21 179 59% (end of chapter)
9 July 1 21 201 66% 感激というほどではないが、やはり誉められるのは嬉しいものだ。
10 July 8 20 221 73% (end of chapter)
11 July 15 18 240 80% 「今回もすんでのところで逃げ果せましたしね」
12 July 22 20 260 85% (end of chapter)
13 July 29 20 280 92% (end of chapter)
14 August 5 17 (or 25 w/ the bonus story) 297 100% (end of book)
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Thank you! I’ll update the OP!

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A lot of the details like that are vague to me now too. It’ll be interesting to see if there are any points that stand out more now with knowledge of how things are going to go later.

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And we’re off! I can’t wait to read with everyone! :smiley:

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Week 2 is here~ We’ll be finishing off the first chapter this week:

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Week 3 is up! We’re reading a full chapter this week:

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I’m not sure if anyone else is interested, but I started making a map of all of the places mentioned in the book, with filters by chapter. :world_map:

I have a general key that may change in the future:

  • Default blue pin: place that is mentioned but was not visited in the chapter
  • Green camera icon: place that has been visited in the chapter
  • Red question mark icon: place that may or may not exist, that I’ve mapped to something that seems like it could be correct based on context

Please be warned that I’m not sure how the link will open (filtered to the first chapter or with all chapters open), so there may be an initial risk of spoilers. I opened from another browser, and it looks like it sets the filter to the first chapter, but better safe than sorry.

If I missed anything or anyone else wants edit privileges, please let me know.

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Have you been spying on me? :open_mouth: I’ve been setting up something super similar! But yours is a lot nicer. :sweat_smile:

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Week 4 is heeeere~ Wait awaits our hero? :eyes:

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Please join us for week 5 here:

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