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henryandalex · 7 years

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***Can you believe we have to go through a 3 month hiatus until we get new episodes again? What to do on Mondays from now on? Well, I know it is not the same but how about reading some amazing Malec fics? Because there simply can’t be enough Malec love out there and somehow it makes the wait to see these two back on our screens a bit more bearable if you ask me.

Anyway, I hope you gonna enjoy this 4th edition as much as the previous ones. Again, a huge thank you to everyone who left notes and/or told me how much they enjoyed these recs. It’s very much appreciated, so yes, if you want me to continue doing this, let me know, okay? Have fun reading!***

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

KISS WITH A FIST by @clockworkswans [ M | AU | 225k | WIP | Kiss With A Fist universe #1 ]

When agent Alec Lightwood is given his first kill hit, he doesn’t expect much trouble. Of course, he also doesn’t expect it to be a cheerful assassin who lands him in a whole load of trouble. Enter Magnus Bane: an assassin turned thief who reluctantly teams up with Alec - and The Clave - after he pisses off a very important and powerful crime boss, Valentine Morgenstern. In a world of violence and unjust laws, can the two put aside their differences and work together? Aka: in which Alec is sent to kill Magnus, doesn’t, and then really wishes he had. (but not really).

WILD LIFE by @crazyellephantrambles [ not rated | AU | 69k | complete ]

Alec Lightwood likes to go on road trips. He doesn't pick up hitchhikers. But the one time he does, it's Magnus. He's in for an adventure or maybe even fall in love.

ANYTHING by @baneismyexistence [ M | 36.2k | complete | Anything verse #1 ]

Magnus would do anything for Alec, and Alec doesn't know what to do with that.

EVERYTHING by @baneismyexistence [ M | 70k | complete | Anything verse #2 ]

With Valentine still at large, a crisis threatens to split the Shadow World in two, testing the loyalties of everyone on both sides of the line. But choosing between duty and honor, family and love is never easy, especially when war is on the horizon.

AND YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MINE TOO by @magicandarchery [ E | AU | 10.4k | WIP ]

New graduates and best friends Magnus and Alec have both graduated from the University of Idris with top honors. Graduation and family expectations, however, carved out two very different paths for their lives.

Making the age-old promise on graduation night to get married if they were still single by thirty had been an easy agreement to make. There was no chance it would, or even could, ever possibly happen. It simply wasn't legal.

When Magnus coincidentally re-enters Alec's life eight years later, each are confronted with the unsettled reality of their lives, and the rekindling of long-buried feelings for the other. They decide to reinstate the promise they had made as motivation to get back into the dating scene.

But can they push aside their own feelings for each other as they go on this journey of finding true love?

Or: the "Single by 30" Malec AU that nobody asked for.

STAR WARS: A SEARCH FOR JUSTICE by @sweetillusionketz [ M | AU | 9.8k | WIP ]

After the MORTAL WAR that wiped out the JEDI ORDER and the reconstruction of THE CLAVE to govern the galaxy, military force, THE CIRCLE, has been monitoring planets for any trace of remaining intergalactic terrorism and obliterating possible threats under the name of peace. Each strike leaves death and destruction behind.

Former Senator, General Luke Garroway, leads the DOWNWORLDER RESISTANCE, a counterpoint to the Circle, in hope of finding enough evidence of abuse of power to dismantle the organisation and restore real peace and justice to the galaxy.

In order to do so, Luke has sent Izzy Lightwood, his most daring pilot, and the mysterious Magnus Bane to search for survivors of the last attack…

FANTASY by @theonetruenorth [ E | PWP | 3.5k | complete | Shadowhunters Headcanons #20 ]

“Mhmm,” Magnus hummed as they broke apart and he rocked his hips minutely, the slight movement enough to make them both shiver. “This is getting dangerously close to one of my fantasies, so maybe we should stop, if you don’t want this to go any further.”

“What fantasy?” Alec murmured, craning his neck up again to brush his lips against Magnus’ but the warlock teasingly moved just out of reach.

“Well,” Magnus started, looking at Alec through half-closed eyes and with a hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, “I have never had sex inside the Institute.”

BLUE EXTRAVAGANCE by Hobbit69 [ E | AU | 27.8k | complete | Blue Steel Series #5 ]

When Detective Alexander Lightwood-Bane is called to the site of a bizarre murder, he doesn't expect to recognize the victim, but that's exactly what happens. Alec met the wealthy entrepreneur at an event with his husband, the flamboyant and enormously wealthy Magnus Lightwood-Bane. When a second victim is found, Alec and his partner, Jace Herondale, realize that their killer has a "type." Unfortunately, Magnus just so happens to fit that type.

IT’S TIME TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY, BROTHER DEAREST by @themagnusbane [ E | AU | 83.4k | complete ]

Magnus Bane is a famous stripper, used to pretty boys falling in love with him after one dance. The feeling is hardly ever mutual. But when he meets the freshly turned twenty-one year old Alec lightwood, he can’t take his eyes off him, and they find themselves in love quicker than they expected.

WE CAN SOLVE THIS TOGETHER by @softshumjr [ E | AU | 58.9k | WIP ]

Alec and Magnus have been friends since high school. They both love each other but are afraid to say anything because they believe the other one doesn't feel the same way and it'll ruin their friendship.

Alec and Jace are working on an overdose case and are stuck. Can Magnus be the one to help them solve the case?

UNKISS ME by @sweetillusionketz [ G | AU | 11.3k | complete ]

Magnus Bane loved New York. I mean, what other city in the world held Christmas raves?

He especially loved it when he managed to convince Ragnor and Catarina to join him. Spending time with your chosen family during the holidays was the best thing in the world.

The only thing that could make it even better, however, would be getting to know that very attractive stranger that just wouldn't take his eyes off Magnus. Tall, dark and handsome was just what Magnus wanted to end his amazing night.

All he needed was an opportunity and it came, in the form of a well-placed mistletoe.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, DOCTOR LIGHTWOOD by @softdaddario [ T | AU | 3.1k | complete ]

Magnus Bane agreed to volunteer at a children's hospital on Christmas Eve, wanting to help make sure the kids got the most wonderful evening. Turned out the kids weren't the only one who were gonna have a merry Christmas, Magnus realised when he met the young Doctor Lightwood during his time at the hospital.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, ALEXANDER by @slaymemakoto [ E | PWP | 1.8k | complete ]

A one shot in which Alec gets the living daylights fucked out of him and Magnus is sure that everyone in the building is aware of exactly what Christmas Eve activities the pair are indulging in.

JUST WHAT I NEED by @alyxhavok [ T | 3.6k | complete ]

Magnus has a surprise for Alec, and the rest of his family...

YOU PROTECTED ME by @everydayisonfire [ E | PWP | 3k | complete ]

Post Winter-finale. Inspired by this:

"anyways magnus totally had alec’s omamori with him that’s how he managed to be safe"

IT’S CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT, AND SOMETHING EVIL’S LURKING IN THE DARK by @lightwoodlesbians [ G | AU | 1.8k | complete ]

or, the ’i sneaked into this huge house party for some free alcohol but you asked me how i knew the host and the first excuse i could think of was that i'm dating their sibling, so i basically just lied to you about going out with you’ au

LET’S PLAY by @laurenkmyers [ E | 2.5k | complete ]

Malec's first date gets sexy. Expect semi-public pool table sex.

IF YOU CAN’T FIND THE ONE BEING HUSTLED IN THE POOL HALL... by @quitemagicalbane [ G | 328 | complete ]

"Make the shot then." "Okay." "Okay." "Okay." "Okay, so make it."

THUNDER’S GETTING LOUDER by @spanglepup [ E | 6.4k | complete | The Boundless Saga #3 ]

For once in his life, Alec decides to take something for himself. He forgets that everything comes with a cost.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PANCAKES by @lecrit [ T | 2.2k | complete ]

Based on the prompt: “I would like a cute Alec and Magnus day in where they cuddle and talk a bit about the future and a second scene where it’s the future and they have their two sons”

WAKE ME GENTLY by @ithilien-writes [ E | 1.7k | complete ]

Magnus rarely (if ever) wakes before Alec, but this time he has... intentions.

FIRST TIME ALEC TOPS by @theonetruenorth [ E | 1.9k | complete | Shadowhunters Headcanons #9 ]

Somehow, they end up with Alec flat on his back and Magnus straddling him, his hands cradling Alec’s jaw while his tongue explores the nephilim’s mouth. It’s a slow, lazy, and unhurried kiss. The kind of kiss that says ‘there isn’t anywhere else I would rather be right now’ and ‘I want to explore every inch of your body’ and ‘I love you’.

CHAIN YOU UP by WholockedHunter [ E | 3.6k | complete ]

Magnus and Alec are having some kinky sex ...

CAN’T TAKE MY EYES OFF OF YOU by @deepbutdazzlingdarkness [ E | PWP | 2.1k | complete | The Thirst Is Real #3 ]

If Magnus were more alert, he probably would’ve recognized the obvious signs of someone being in the loft: the boots by the front door, the leather jacket laying on the couch, the empty wine glass sitting on his drink cart, but as it is, he doesn’t notice anything off until he’s standing right in front of his bedroom door and realizes the light is on.

I NEED YOU SO MUCH CLOSER by @deepbutdazzlingdarkness [ E | 5.2k | complete | The Thirst Is Real #4 ]

Work has been keeping Alec and Magnus apart for a couple of weeks and once they finally see each other again, Alec can barely control himself.

AKA the first time they have sex at the Institute. Also the first time they say "I love you".

DANCE IN THE DARK by @deepbutdazzlingdarkness [ E | 2.7k | complete | The Thirst Is Real #5 ]

After a particularly hard day at work, Magnus helps Alec relieve some tension.

NO PLACE FOR A HERO by @one100suns [ M | 20.4k | complete | Battle Scars #3 ]

For Magnus and Alec, navigating their relationship is hard enough without outside forces trying to tear them a part. Quite literally in some cases.

PRESSED UP AGAINST YOU, EVERYTHING IS OKAY by @matsdaddario [ E | 3.6k | complete | Lovely Firsts #2 ]

It’s new, this feeling like even though everything is falling apart that this part of his world makes sense. He likes it, wants to keep it.

“Hi,” he breathes. Magnus stands in front of him, and Alec can’t help himself, doesn’t want to stop himself, from leaning down that little bit to capture Magnus’s mouth with his own.

I SEE FIRE by @lecrit [ M | AU | 12.1k | complete ]

There was one simple and unique rule about being friends with Magnus and Alec: never, ever, no matter the circumstances, not even if you were drunk as an armada of skunks, engage into a debate about pop culture with either of them, and especially not the both of them.

TRUST ME by @sweetillusionketz [ T | AU | 18.5k | complete ]

Magnus Bane has a problem with that arrogant brat that keeps showing his face to every important street race in the city. Damn Jace Lightwood and his annoying habit of winning even though he's just a stupid high school boy. That's insulting.

Fuck Jace. But more importantly, fuck his sweet looking older brother, who just happen to not have the slightest idea of who Magnus is. If everything goes according to plan, Magnus will have put Jace back to his insignificant place and gotten lucky with a gorgeous oblivious guy.

Perfect plan is perfect. Nothing could go wrong.

#malec #malec fanfic #malec fic rec #fic rec #shadowhunters #fanfic #this took me again so long again #so please let me know if you like this and i should continue #also you'll get 30 fic recs #is that enough for the hiatus?#lol #well maybe if you want i will make on in like 2 months again before 2b starts #we'll see #until then...enjoy these and have fun reading pumpkins #(and if you have recs yourself or you have written a fic...my inbox is always open for that)#otp: look what i have waiting for me

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danvanzandt · 7 years

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The Production of Space in Renaissance Florence

This essay will attempt to read the coded urban landscape of Renaissance-era Florence through the critical lens of French Marxist Henri Lefebvre’s theory of ‘le droit a la ville’ (“the right to the city”), as a means of understanding the inherently political production of civic and public space. Lefebvre’s book “La Production de l’Espace” (“The Production of Space”), investigated the gap between the concrete “real space” of everyday life, and the abstract “mental space” of philosophy, as well as making the proposition that all space is social space and the product of cultural hegemony. The Florentine urban landscape underwent significant redevelopment during the fifteenth century, and this architectural and civic reconstruction of space can serve as a keyhole into the construction of Florentine identities, and furthermore their contouring socio-economic structures. This paper will specifically investigate how the Medici family used both the production of urban space as well as the ideology of civic humanism as physical and mental tools of hegemonic control.

The Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s town hall, has been renamed four different times, in itself a strong testament to the semiotic power of architecture and space. Built in 1299, the originally titled ‘Palazzo della Signoria’ overlooks the Piazza della Signoria, Florence’s political hub. In May of 1540, Cosimo I de’ Medici decided to move his residence from the Medici Palazzo to the Palazzo della Signoria, a direct signifier of his domain over Florence, where he would keep his dominion until in 1549 when Cosimo I’s wife, Eleonora di Toledo, would purchase the Palazzo Pitti from a descendent of the fifteenth century Florentine banker and friend of Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Medici, Luca Pitti. Upon purchasing it, Cosimo and Eleonora had Giorgio Vasari design and construct additions that more than doubled the place. He then proceeded to rename the Palazzo della Signoria, his former residence, the “Palazzo Vecchio”, Italian for “the old palace.” Then later in 1560, fourteen years after razing the area between the River Arno and the Palazzo della Signoria, Cosimo I would have the Galleria degli Uffizi built, also by Vasari, in the name of civic humanism, serving as the office space of the Florentine magistrate, while dually housing the prestigious Medici art collection on its piano nobile. And in 1565, continuing in his patronage of Giorgio Vasari, he would have him construct an almost kilometer long corridor connecting his residence at the Palazzo Pitti up north across the Arno via the Ponte Vecchio, over through the Uffizi, to his old residence at the Palazzo Vecchio, forming a proverbial constellation of architectural signifiers. Residents and businesses were both forced to vacate in order to make space for the construction of what was to be known as the Vasari Corridor. The Corridor served as a spatial signifier of a social order controlled by the Medici Dynasty. The illustration below details how the serpentine hall winds its way spatially across the heart of the city tearing through former homes and businesses so as to provide Cosimo with the privacy of travel he desired, while also tracing back temporally through multiple centuries of Florentine architecture. Historic buildings and public institutions became but various pit stops on Cosimo’s private skywalk.

[1]

Illustration of the Vasari Corridor

Architecture and the urban space with which it occupies acts as a point of convergence for culture, politics, and social life. It is the concrete signifier of its respective culture’s abstract ideologies and circumscribing systems, and in turn it too becomes an arm of said systems. Cities and buildings are the hieroglyphic signs of the cultures and social orders of which they are products of. As Sharon T. Strocchia writes in Theaters of Everyday Life, “the question of what persons or groups controlled the public stages of the city figured prominently in the discourse of power throughout the republic and into the grand-ducal period. The competing uses to which urban spaces were put made streets, alleyways, and squares important arenas in which to display and negotiate power relationships among individuals, families, factions, corporate groups, and public authority (Strocchia, 61).” In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre deconstructs urban space through the Marxist approach of historical materialism, interrogating the social relations of production and seeking to expose the hegemonic control inherent in all public space. Where Marx sought to expose the social relations concealed in commodities, Lefebvre reveals how “the space of a social order is hidden within the order of space” and makes the argument that because spatial realities are directly representational of social realities, it follows then that all space is social space. By revealing space as “the substrate of mendacious signs and meanings”, Lefebvre politicizes the illusively neutral or default appearing physical space as complicit in the hegemonic social order within which it was produced. And out of this politicization of space came Lefebvre’s slogan “the right to the city”, which contemporary Marxist geographer David Harvey defines as “more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization”[2]—if the city shapes everyone’s life and identity equally, everyone in turn should have an equal right to shape the city. The question becomes: what ideologies were producing the civic space that in turn produced the identities of Florentine citizens, and furthermore, to what degree was the production of civic space in fifteenth century Florence democratically controlled?

However, when looking at Florence through Lefebvre’s lens it is also pertinent we keep in mind the predetermined biases of his system’s logic, primarily its tendency like all systems to flatten the world to a neutral, homogenous object for analysis, without any nuance for historical and cultural variations. That is to say Lefebvre’s system is designed to treat the socio-economic landscape of twentieth century France in the exact same way as twenty-first century America, and fifteenth and sixteenth century Florence. It is a ‘one size fits all’ microscope for analyzing urban space. So while it is a helpful tool for understanding how the urban space of Renaissance-era Florence operates as a tool of control, it is also an inherently imperfect projection of theory onto history. Patricia Emison writes: “to impose the issues of today on the past is to reverse the proper flow, it is our studies of an alien place and time which ought to offer insights about the potential for change in our status quo (Emison, 344).” Though it is in my opinion that to suggest any sense of “proper flow” is to assert one point in time as the proper fixed point from which to view history, as opposed to viewing both the object of analysis, Renaissance-era Florence, as in a shared conversation with its mutual subject of analysis, Lefebvre’s critical system and the point in history in which it is situated, in which neither takes priority over the other.

Central to the idea of civic space’s symbiotic relationship to the mental space of its paternal culture, in the context of Quattrocento Florence, is German-American art historian Hans Baron’s concept of civic humanism, also known as ‘classical republicanism’. Civic humanism was an ideological product of Florence’s conflict with the monarchical Milanese, propagated by the humanist historian Leonardo Bruni, which claimed that Florence’s form of government was inherently better than Milan’s simply due to its derivation from Roman and Greek antiquity. It was an ideology that espoused living the vita activa politica, and suggested that knowledge and philosophy were only useful if they were of direct public service.[3] In 1955 Hans Baron published his book The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism & Tyranny, in which he depicted a Florence whose citizens were encouraged “to achieve cultural greatness through devotion to ideas of patriotism, popular government, and public service.” He claims that in the face of the powerful Milanese, Florentines were forced to reflect and reaffirm the values of republican democracy that they were fighting for. But Baron’s theory of civic humanism as a unifying ideology for a republic of engaged citizens was met with immediate critique by scholars such as John Najemy who argued that civic humanism was rather “a new civic myth” by which Florentine humanists like Leonardo Bruni framed the former ideas of guild republicanism into a new ethos that prized virtuous service to the common good, more specifically, the common good as defined by patrician statesmen. Najemy claims the communal era of guild republicanism was supplanted by the new oligarchic republicanism toted by Bruni and the other Florentine humanists, a philosophy of “dutiful passivity” whereby the citizens who were once granted public office by the established rights of their class, now only received office for ‘personal virtue’. Other scholars have taken this reappraisal a step further and suggested that civic humanism was “used to justify and legitimate Medici power”[4], a critique of Baron’s initial assessment which found civic humanism in direct opposition to the Medici dynasty.

Civic humanism became the ideological rock upon which Cosimo il Vecchio would further Medici control of the Florentine urban space. Italian humanists like Bruni and Vespasiano da Bisticci, both friends of Cosimo[5], commended his architectural patronage as a form of public service. In his biography of him, Vespasiano praised Cosimo for spending nearly 200,000 gold florins on redevelopment, as it provided jobs and boosted the economy.[6] His contributions to the Florentine civic space included his patronage of Brunelleschi for the rebuilding of the chapel and sacristy of San Lorenzo, as well as funding both a convent and founding the first public library in Florence at San Marco. In 1441 the friars of San Marco, in accordance with the sixteen trustees of Niccolo Niccoli’s manuscript collection of which the library was comprised, finalized their plan to begin constructing the library, which would be both entirely funded and upkept by Cosimo. Only the sixteen trustees were allowed to remove documents (as this is the twilight of the pre-Gutenberg era) from the library or allow access to others.[7] While actual access to the library was in reality oligarchic, the academic products and accomplishments brought via its information were to be shared collectively as Florentine accomplishments, another myth of civic humanism perpetuated by the ruling class.

Sharon T. Strocchia writes in “Theaters of Everyday Life” how Florentine civic space was specifically manipulated as a tool of power by the ruling class as early as the fourteenth century and up through the sixteenth, stating that:

“although Piazza della Signoria and the cathedral square could be experienced by all classes through the encounters and exchanges of everyday life, in general these spaces were off-limits to the enactment of private, domestic rites. In other words, the commune protected its central, significant spaces as one of its instruments of authority. Similarly, only the commune had sufficient authority to undertake the kind of massive interventions that dramatically resized the city’s signature footprint…the spatial order of the city at any moment was thus the result of a complex calculus that held in tension the competing claims of community and hierarchy, politics and aesthetics, practical functions and ritual needs. (Strocchia, 61).”

It’s a sentiment that echoes Lefebvre’s notion of architecture as “the substrate of mendacious signs”. To suggest metaphorically that the urban space of Renaissance-era Florence could be read as a tex, vis-à-vis Lefebvre’s spatial semiotics, is to imply the Medici family as one of, if not the, primary ‘author’, spanning across multiple centuries. From Cosimo il Vecchio’s patronage of the Duomo, Palazzo Medici (seen by many as the archetypal Florentine Palazzo), and Florence’s first ‘public’ library in the fifteenth century up through Cosimo I’s construction of the Vasari Corridor in the sixteenth century, it appears the urban space of Florence was treated as a tabula rasa by the Medici, for which to build their empire on. While proponents of civic humanism may argue the Medici family’s patronage spurred on the Florentine economy and provided jobs for many, it is evident that this is simply a myth used to disguise a furthering of the hierarchical model that treats the right to the city as not something to be collectively shared, but to be bought.

[1] www.florencetown.com

[2] David Harvey, The Right to the City

[3] Field

[4] Mark Jurdevic, Civic Humanism and the Rise of the Medici

[5] Gary Ianziti, Leonardo Bruni, the Medici, and the Florentine Histories

[6] Vespasiano da Bisticci The Life of Cosimo I de Medici

[7] Allie Terry-Fritsch, Florentine Convent as Practiced Place: Cosimo de’ Medici, Fra Angelico, and the Public Library at San Marco

#Henri Lefebvre #david harvey #florence #renaissance #italy #medici #cosimo medici #giorgio vasari #urban planning #redevelopment #art history

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