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writingonjorvik · 4 months

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Ok but why is Pi bad but Mrs Holdsworth isn’t? And why are goblins bad? I know they’re antisemitic but I don’t understand why it’s only the one witch that’s bad then. Are witches antisemitic? /genq

I can do my best to answer this but I want to preface it heavily. I’m a gentile/not Jewish, so if there are Jewish folks who have spoken on this, you should talk to them first over what I have to say. Any research I have in this is because my book series has a dwarf as the MC (another commonly antisemitic fantasy race) and I have actively been doing my best to learn about these tropes by listening to Jewish folks in the topic to make sure I avoid promoting harmful content in my books, but that shouldn't replace talking to Jewish folks about it.

First, I want to say that none of these are just exclusively antisemitic. The problem lies in the common tropes used for them. Witches and dwarves are easier to talk about this on this point since they do have real world counterparts. Goblins get a little iffy, but you can write goblins that aren’t antisemitic, as vocalized by several Jewish members in the ttrpg community. It’s the how that’s the issue.

Let’s talk about witches for a second. We can’t just say witches are antisemitic because witchcraft is a living separate faith. Saying that you practice modern paganism doesn’t make you antisemitic, but there is an overlapped history there. Paganism just means “not Christian,” which means that the “old pagan tradition” included Judaism, and both what most people call “pagans” now a days and Jewish people were tried as pagans in ye olden days. And it’s also why there is a complicated history here to unpack.

Take the classic witch hat for example. There is a history of female brewsters using black pointed hats to help market their wares. There is also a history of the pointed hats being used to mark Jewish people in crowds. The combined purge of both groups actively blended the stereotypes because they were both tried for the same thing: witchcraft and satanic practices.

That doesn’t make witches antisemitic. What makes witches like Pi antisemitic is how they’re depicted. The rest of the tropes: evil magic, secret orders of practice, physical traits like beady eyes, hooked/prominent noses, and, the big one, green skin. Green skin was a trope used to other Jewish people consistently. One or two of these can be done without being antisemitic. People can be in secret orders or use shadow magic, but it’s the tandem use that’s the issue, the physical traits AND the practices that make is antisemitic.

That’s why too Mrs. Holdsworth isn’t. Sure, she’s in a coven, but she isn’t depicted with stereotyped physical traits of a Jewish person. Or why our Dark Riders aren’t antisemitic. They may use shadow magic, but they aren’t actively depicting these other traits. It’s the tandem use that’s the issue.

Similarly, let’s talk about dwarves. Dwarves often fall into antisemitic tropes. They’re greedy, they horde wealth, they’re isolationist. But they aren’t explicitly antisemitic as a race. The core problem here begins with Tolkien. Tolkien actually had a huge amount of respect for the Jewish people and researched Jewish diaspora that influenced how he wrote his dwarves. The dwarvish diaspora in Middle Earth reflects this. The problem is most fantasy writers saw Tolkien’s work, took the spark notes version of it, and didn’t explain these traits in setting, which fell into caricature as a result. They checked off the whole list without unpacking the why. Context matters here, and plays another part in what makes a depiction of a fantasy race antisemitic. Were these people hunted and now isolating to rebuild their culture? Is mining directly related to their primary trade as a nation? Is it one hat or are they multifaceted with a notable cultural practice?

This is where we get back to goblins. Goblins as a creature do predate their antisemitic tropes, but much like witches and dwarves, were blended in to centuries of antisemitism. Green skin, beady eyes, hooked noses, and greedy. Those are the issues with goblins. You don’t have to do all of them, the HP goblins don’t have green skin, but they do hit the rest of the list. The snow goblins hit all four of the big points here.

There was a Jewish creator I saw who had redrawn goblins to avoid the antisemitic tropes in D&D, which is where I’d first learned more about this. It’s been a while and I didn’t write down their name, so instead I’ll point out the goblins in the Hobbit. Largely, they’re little orcs, and pale from living under the mountains, but I’ve seen no claims they they’re antisemitic. Because the goblins in the Hobbit aren’t greedy, they don’t universally have hooked noses and green skin. They might have hordes but it’s more of a bandit horde than a wealth horde. They aren’t lingering near societies to hunt bad kids (notable Jewish people often couldn’t live in the cities and had camps near them), they lived in the mountains and are depicted like mountain bandits. Like Mrs. Holdsworth, they hit one or two tropes, but it’s not to that tandem use.

It can be done. But SSE didn’t. The caprans were in a similar boat as the Hobbit goblins, they hit a few tropes but their implementation fell closer to fae tropes. Beady eyes and hooked nosed. The conversion to the snow goblins though ticks all the boxes for them. It took a creature that could pass as goblin-like but not antisemitic and gave them all the traits that make goblins harmful in common depictions. Calling them goblins is arguably irrelevant to the problem. The term goblin can be used, and calling the snow goblins something else wouldn’t change the problems with them physically and the tropes they embody. The snow goblins need to be changed entirely because their characteristics represent a list of antisemitic tropes used in tandem, that the name goblin just amplifies. A different name wouldn’t change the greedy, green skinned creatures that they’re depicted as, and that’s the problem. And that’s why Pi needs to be changed too.

#star stable #star stable online #sso #starstableonline #starstable #woj analysis #ssoblr

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flowerslut · 1 month

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shamefully despite how easily i am influenced i have not made my way through your ao3 catalogue. where would be a good starting point? (licking kink not required but always appreciated)

wow thanks for giving me an excuse to make a compilation of my (shorter) twilight fics that I want more people to read!!!!! ok ok so all my best favorite ones (minus call of the night. we are pretending call of the night does not exist, okay? dont think about it. dont even look at it) are my mid-length ones. now, first and foremost: I am an angst writer, and boy do I love to whump on alice and jasper, so in no particular order, you should read these fun little jalice fics while you wait for me to update roots over the next few weeks/months

North Star

rated: M words: 20,336 chapters: one-shot summary: "He’s the Eye of the South. The god of war. Master of battle and oracle of death. He’s not just the most dangerous weapon the world has ever seen, but he’s a man in love. And combining those two just makes this so much worse. Jasper sees a girl in his head, and he's afraid of what comes next."

thoughts: okay i lied, they are in a particular order. or at least this one is. this is my favorite twilight fic I've written (I think) and I got dramatic as fuck with it. written for jalice week back in 2021, the prompt was "power/ability swap" and you get exactly that: jasper is the psychic, alice is the empath, everything else is the same... or is it? this is also notably the first fic I ever sent to someone (g, obviously) to look over/give corrections to, so that might be why it has fewer stupid grammatical/sentence structure issues than most of my other stuff (minus roots). content warning for physical abuse, implied sexual assault, and mild sexual content. (also on ff.net)

The Almost Quiet

rated: T words: 10,365 chapters: one-shot summary: "He wants to blame loneliness, but maybe this is what was meant for him all along. A long road that leads to a depressing end. Longing after a girl he doesn’t know whose mind is lost."

thoughts: the last line of this fic is my personal favorite one I've written in recently memory! anyways this is an all-human AU, (sort of). in 1920, alice and jasper meet as humans and jasper's job gets much harder after that. this one is far from the best on this list, but it's entertaining, angsty, and has a satisfying ending imo. content warning for forced institutionalization and ableist language. (also on ff.net)

Déjà-rêvé

rated: T words: 6,551 chapters: one-shot summary: "It's nothing Alice had ever seen. It was no vision, no dream. It was only a possibility that had haunted the back of her mind like a nightmare for as long as she'd known what was out there for her to fear. Jasper had never known about this fear until it became their reality."

thoughts: this is the shortest one on this list, and since you like roots, you'll probably like this. its vaguely similar in that it's a whumpy post-breaking dawn AU, but this is only a snippet of an aftermath in which alice loses her power. wrote it for secret santa 2022 and had a BLAST with it. (if you want more whumpy one-shots my ao3 is chock full of whumptober prompts)

No Friend of Mine

rated: T words: 15,199 chapters: one-shot summary: "He contemplates telling Peter about Alice’s visits, but something holds him back from doing it. Perhaps because it doesn’t feel like Alice whenever she’s lying on his bedroom floor, curled in an old blanket that’s too small for him but perfectly sized for her, utterly still and silent even while awake. A part of him feels like it would be a betrayal to reveal this side of her to someone even as close to him as Peter is. After all, Peter is his friend. And Alice is… well, not."

thoughts: I think this fic is severely underrated, but maybe that's because I literally came up with the concept and wrote it over the course of a day and a half or something insane like that, and I think that for a hastily written secret santa gift from 2020, it holds up sooo well. it's an all-human AU where alice is the weird new girl, and like always, jasper is in way over his head. all the cullens get a role, it has the 'fluffiest' moments, and its faaaantastic. content warning for child abuse.

The Hunted

rated: T words: 26,664 chapters: 11 summary: "It's not so wise if you try to run."

thoughts: this one is the most self-indulgent (with the most questionable characterization tbh) based on g's post from 2019 that says 'twilight, but when bella slips away from jasper and goes to the ballet studio to meet james, he isn’t there. he waited until everyone split up in the airport, and then went for alice instead. in the ensuing chaos, while everyone is freaking out, victoria grabs bella.' this is the only one on the list I might take a look at in the future to rewrite chunks of, but it's great fun your honor. ignore what anyone else tells you about the ending. but make sure to keep this short sequel/epilogue handy, for... reasons. (also on ff.net)

A Loyal Wife

rated: M words: 21,930 chapters: 5 summary: "Alice is only a Lady because she was forced to be one. She much rather preferred being untitled. Just a constant in this strange family of women. Girls both grown and not, betrothed to the man who protects and spoils them. Quickly the newborns realize that Alice is more weapon than wife, and that suits her just fine."

thoughts: last but certainly not least is my attempt at 'jalice enemies-to-lovers' that I wrote over the course of two days while on vacation. this story has everything: southern wars, a marriage cult, weird power dynamics, and [checks notes] trying to seduce your enemy mid-fight. this is another one of my favorites, and maybe the messiest (affectionate) as far as story content goes (of course, minus roots). content warnings for sexual assault/dubious consent.

#jalice #twilight fanfiction #alice cullen #jasper hale #no but seriously if you haven't read call of the night just hold off on it for now #the entire series is like half a million words rn but the beginning is SO POORLY DONE that i always wish I could make it like.#invisible to people on AO3 until I can fix it. that way I can CONTINUE the series #the fic/series as a whole is hashtag Good but you can just TELL the fist 20-50k was written by a high school kid. bc it was #thats on me for not editing well enough back in 2017/18

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birbs-in-space · 3 years

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so julie siege fancam anyone? (aka the siegenatural appreciation manifesto)

huge thanks to @transeurydice and @impalasgotoheaven for helping me out with this !!

#spn #julie siege #fancam #writer fancam #supernatural #my spn amvs #fuck it siegenatural thursday #say hello to 3 days of work and a homemade filter jigfdsjigdfjigfu #ok i KNOW that she's not one of the notable writers and she only wrote 6 eps but #consider the following: they're good eps #even if they're not all super notable haha but god she's so good for sam rights #and the way she writes sam and cas is hysterical #like hello ''the boy with the demon blood. i'm glad to see you've ceased your extracurricular activities''#and ''sam of course is an abomination''#and shit like dean's first prayer to cas #she's the underappreciated girlboss of the s4 s5 era #she also did a lot of story editing and co-produced on all of s5 !!#well #even if this doesn't really go anywhere at least i learned a lot from it ! and hopefully the people i did make it for enjoy it #unfortunately i love sinking an undue amount of time into unpopular topics lol #wait shit how did i forget ''it's funnier in enochian''#cultural reset lines !!!#my spn stuff

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365days365movies · 2 years

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Musical December I: Singin’ in the Rain (1952) - Review

Well...this movie is perfect.

I know, I KNOW, this is the lazy answer, it would seem. But I mean it...this is an amazing film, and I genuinely can’t find any flaws with it. Like, seriously. I’m making this post as a formality, but there’s very little for me to say here. It’s an excellent musical, it’s an excellent film, it’s just excellent.

But OK, I’ll do a breakdown, I promise. It’s a good opportunity to test something out. See, given the fact that I’m covering musicals at the moment, it’s a good chance to change up the review scheme just a little bit. Here’re the changes:

Cast and Acting: Still basically the same, but singing talent and ability will now be included in the criteria for judgement.

Plot and Writing: This is in reference to the overarching plot, the use of music within the plot, and the writing during the spoken portions. Songwriting will be covered elsewhere.

Directing, Cinematography, and Choreography: Just what it looks like; we’re adding choreography to this category.

Production Design and Editing: We’re folding these together this time around. Why? Well...

The Songbook: Yeah, this has to be its own category, since we’re talking about musicals. Obviously, a proper songbook is also a part of writing and choreography, but this category is focused upon the quality of the songs in and of themselves. So, the songbook gets its own category.

And with that...

Check out Parts One and Two for the Recap!

Review

Cast and Acting: 10/10

God, I love these guys. Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and Debbie Reynolds are, individually and together, some of the most enjoyable and charming protagonists I’ve ever seen in a musical. I genuinely love seeing them interact whenever on screen, and in any combination of the three characters. They’re genuinely perfect in terms of their interpersonal chemistry, and just a genuine delight.

And obviously, they’re not the only notable actors in the film. Millard Mitchell shines in the latter half of the film, Cyd Charisse ekes mystique in the “Broadway Montage” sequence, and Jean Hagen...holy shit, Jean Hagen. Jean Hagen is a funny and despicable villain in this movie, and I grew to love her squeaky-ass voice (which is not her real voice, of course). She’s a horrible and petty person, but I had a lot of fun watching her. I had no problems with anyone at any point, seriously.

Plot and Writing: 10/10

The plot is fantastic, and well-done. But the writing! OH, THE WRITING! For a musical film, for a member of a genre with no obligation to use spoken words to get plot and story across, the writing in this movie has no business being as funny as it is! Not only do actors like O’Connor, Kelly, and Hagen say them with such perfect timing and grace, but writers Adolph Green and Betty Comden just genuinely wrote a funny-ass movie! God, some of the lines in this movie are amazing. Any interaction between Hagen and Kelly is bound to be funny in it pure acridity. And O’Connor is just constantly funny. Just...fuck, I love this movie.

Directing, Cinematography, and Choreography: 10/10

THIS MOVIE HAS NO BUSINESS LOOKING THIS GOOD. From Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s amazing direction and choreography, all the way to Harold Rosson and his cinematography, the look of this movie is stellar from bottom to top. And I do mean how the film is shot and composed, to be clear. Not only are there some downright gorgeous shots, but the way that the musical numbers and dances are filmed is masterful. That is, of course, on top of the already masterful dance numbers. I will gush about Kelly and O’Connor until the day I die, and about the Cocteau-esque ballet sequence far after that point. It’s stellar. And that still isn’t including the next category!

Production Design and Editing: 10/10

Y;know, I considered giving this one a 9/10, purely on Adrienne Fazan and her editing. That’s because of the Broadway sequence, because I’d roginally thought that it was too long. But honestly, real fucking talk? It’s still a beautiful and flawless sequence! It drags a little, but I wouldn’t skip it at all! And if I were showing this film to anybody for the first time, I’d laud this entire sequence! The production design is stellar throughout the movie, but this sequence is particularly spectacular on that front. So, yeah, even the thing I like the least about the film is STILL too good for me to take a point off. Production and art design are fucking flawless.

The Songbook: 10/10

...WELL? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME, IT’S SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, FOR CHRISSAKES

Yeah, it’s perfect! The songbook, for literally being cobbled together from older songs and movies, is executed absolutely perfectly. It’s so utterly flawless, that the songs aren’t associated with any other musical but this one! It’s a jukebox musical that broke the fucking jukebox! And during these sections, by the way, I’ll be going into my favorite song of the musical. And for this one, that’s a nearly impossible question. “Singin’ in the Rain” is obviously a timeless classic. I’m a huge sucker for “Good Mornin'” as well, and both “Fit as a Fiddle (And Ready for Love)” and “Moses Supposes” are fun as hell. But I said this was a nearly impossible question.

Holy shit, do I love this song, and this scene.

This is, without a doubt, my favorite song in the film. Not only is the song memorable and a lot of fun, but Donald O’Connor’s vocal and physical performance will never leave me. It’s genuinely one of my favorite sequences in any film, and I love it more than I could possibly express. God...God, I love this movie.

Yeah. 100%. Genuinely one of my top favorites.

Which, yeah, is crazy for the first musical of the month. How in the hell am I gonna top this? Understand, this movie is amazing. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend watching it at least once. I’m gonna watch it far more than that. This is one of those movies that, if it’s on, I’m watching it. It’s just unabashedly joyous and happy, and I can’t resist movies like that. Has no business being this good, but it is.

It’s moments like this that I wonder if I’m exaggerating. Maybe the emotions from the film are still lingering, and maybe time will temper my judgement. But I genuinely don’t think so. Just in case, I’ll go into the next one. Gonna be another film from the ‘50s, another film from the long list of musicals I should’ve seen by now, and another musical prominently starring a ghost singer. And finally...it’s a film that I am a little scared to watch.

Next: The King and I (1956), dir. Walter Lang

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joneswuzhere · 3 years

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hello join me in thinking about some books and authors that are, or might be, part of s5′s intertextuality

5.10 in particular offered specific shout outs, and also u know i’m always wondering what might be ahead so i have some ideas on that:

- first, as mentioned in a previous ask post, i know i wasn’t alone in keeping an eye out for 5.10 parallels to the lost weekend (1945) the film that gave episode 1.10 its name and several themes - or to the 1944 book by charles r jackson which the film is based on

- s5 has not been shy about revisiting earlier seasons, especially s1. altho i feel that 1.10′s parallels to the lost weekend centered characters other than jughead (mostly betty), a 1.10-5.10 connection involving jughead and themes from jackson’s story (addiction, writers block, self reflection) seemed v possible if not inevitable

- but like,, , for a hot minute after the ep, i was really stumped on understanding how anything from the book or film could apply, even tho the pieces were almost all there

- jackson’s protagonist don birnam goes thru and comes out the other side of a harrowing days-long drinking binge that could be compared to jughead’s one-night hallucinogenic writing retreat

- but jughead is struggling primarily with traumatic memories, not addiction and self control like birnam. and tho drinking activates birnam’s creativity, it paralyzes his writing as he gets lost in fantasies; he’s never published anything. jughead’s drug trip recreates circumstances that already helped him write one successful book. even the rat that startles him mid-high doesn’t line up with birnam’s withdrawal vision of a dying mouse, symbolic of his horror at his own self-destruction thru alcohol

- and maybe the most visible discordance: in the film there’s a romantic motif around a typewriter. first it’s an object of shame; birnam’s failure to write, tied up with his drinking, makes him flee his relationship. he tries to pawn the typewriter for booze money and finally a gun when shooting himself feels easier than getting sober. but with the help of relentless encouragement from girlfriend helen, he quits drinking, commits to her, and focuses on typing out the story he’s dreamt of writing. rd goes so far to avoid setting any comparable scenario that jughead has brought a wholeass printer into the bunker so there can still be a physical manuscript to cover in blood by the end, even without his own typewriter. the subtle detail of his laptop bg image is a little less noticeable than his avoidance of betty’s gift

- tabitha might be closer to a parallel than jughead is, but she’s still no helen. both refuse to take advantage of the inebriated men in their care, but birnam takes advantage of helen, financially and emotionally. jughead refused a loan from the tate family and now has resolved to deal with his shit before he considers a relationship with tabitha. instead of helen’s relentless and unwelcomed attempts to get birnam sober, tabitha reluctantly agrees to help jughead trip safely bondage escape notwithstanding. she even helps him get the drugs.

- whatever potentials exist for parallels to jackson’s story, they were not explored for this episode. ok so why tf am i even talking about this? what was there instead?

- i have arrived at the point

- s5 has been revisiting s1, not directly but with a twist. and jughead’s agent samm pansky is back. u may recall, pansky is named for sam lansky

- jughead’s trip-thru-trauma is a story device tapped straight from lansky’s book ‘broken people’

- lansky is like if a millenial john rechy wrote extremely LA-flavored meta but just about himself no jk very like a modern successor to charles r jackson. both play with the boundary between memoir and fiction. lansky is gay; jackson wrote his lost weekend counterpart as closeted and remained closeted himself until only a few years before his death. both write with emotional clarity and self-scrutiny on the experiences of addiction, sobriety, and the surrounding issues of shame and self worth

- i feel like a fool bc after this ep i had been thinking about de quincey and his early writings on addiction (c.1800s), but i failed to carry the thought in the other direction, to contemporary writers in the genre, to make this connection sooner

- lansky’s second book, broken people, follows narrator ‘sam’, mid-20s, super depressed, hastled by his agent to write a decent follow-up to his first book, but too busy struggling with his self-worth and baggage from several past relationships. desperate, he takes up an offer to visit a new age shaman who promises to fix everything wrong with him in a matter of days. not to over simplify it but he literally spends a weekend doing psychedelics and hallucinating about his exes. jughead took note

- unless u want me to hurl myself into yet another dissertation about queer jughead, i think his parallel to sam - who, unlike jughead, has considerable financial privilege and whose anxieties center on body dysmorphia, hiv scares, and his own self-centeredness - pretty much ends there

- But,, the gist of the book could not be more harmonius with a major theme shared by the 2 films that inform the actual hallucination part of jughead’s bunker scene: mentally reframing past relationships to get closure + confronting trauma head-on in order to move forward

- so that’s neat. what other book and author stuff was in 5.10?

- stephen king and raymond carver get name dropped. i’m passingly familiar with them both but u bet i just skimmed their wiki bios in case anything relevant jumped out

- like jughead, carver was a student (later a lecturer) at the iowa writers workshop. also the son of an alcoholic and one himself

- i recall carver’s ‘what we talk about when we talk about love’ is what jughead was reading in 2.14 ‘the hills have eyes’ after he finds out about the first time betty kissed archie (at that time he does not respond as would any of carver’s characters)

- this collection of carver stories deals especially with infidelity, failings of communication, and the complexities and destructiveness of love. to unashamedly quote the resource that is course hero, ‘carver renders love as an experience that is inherently violent bc it produces psychic and emotional wounds.’ very fun to wonder about the significance of this collection within the s2 episode and in jughead’s thoughts. and maybe now in the context of the s5 state of relationships. or, at least, the state of jughead’s writing as seen by his agent

- anyway pansky doesn’t want carver, he wants stephen king

- i have too much to say about gerald’s game in 5.10, that’s getting its own post someday soon

- lol wait king’s wife is named tabitha uhhh king’s wiki reminded me of his childhood experience that possibly inspired his short story ‘the body’ (+1986 movie ‘stand by me’) when he ‘apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train tho he has no memory of the event’

- no mention of that in this rd episode but memories of a train could be interesting to consider with the imagery that intrudes on jughead’s hallucination. i still feel like it was a truck but the lights and sounds he experiences may be a train

- ok now we’re in the speculation part of today’s segment

- if jughead’s traumatic memory involves trains, then it’s possible this plot will take influence from la bête humaine <- this 1938 movie is based on the 1890 novel by french writer émile zola. this story deals with alcoholism and possessive jealousy in relationships, sometimes leading to murder. huh, kind of like carver. zola def comes down on the nature side of the nature-vs-nuture bad seed question (tho i should say he approaches this with great or maybe just v french compassion). also i can’t tell if this is me reaching but, something about la bête humaine reminds me of king’s ‘secret window’ which we’ve observed to be at least a style influence on jughead post time jump

- but wow a late-19th century french writer would be a random thing to drop into this season, right? then again zola also wrote about miners, which we’ve learned are an important part of this town’s history + whatever hiram is up to this time. and most notably, zola wrote ‘j’accuse...!’ an open letter in defense of a soldier falsely accused and unlawfully jailed for treason: alfred dreyfus. archie’s recent army trouble comes to mind.

- since the introduction of old man dreyfuss (plausibly Just a nod to close encounters actor richard dreyfuss, but also when is anything in this show Just one thing) i’ve been wondering if these little things could add up to a season-long reference to zola’s writings. but i had doubts and didn’t want to speak on it too soon bc, u know, it’s weird but is it weird enough for riverdale??

- however,,,

- (come on, u knew where i was going with this)

- a24′s film zola just came out. absolutely no relation to the french writer, it’s not based on a book but an insane and explicit twitter thread by aziah ‘zola’ wells about stripping and? human trafficking?? this feels ripe for rd even outside the potentials here for the lonely highway/missing girls plot.

- that would add up to a combination of homage that feels natural to this show

- anyway pls understand i’m just having fun speculating, most of this is based on nothing more concrete than the torturous mental tendril ras has hooked into my skull pls let go ras pls let go

#accompanying image has no meaningful organization it's just there to make me look insane. enjoy #riverdale speculation #filmref #but books #adhd has me like. this is Not the post i've been trying to write for weeks but my brain gave me no choice

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rayofspades · 3 years

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How to Write a Horror Story: The Magnus Archives

This post is kinda weird since most tumblr fandom content is based on the assumption that Everyone Has Seen The Thing, but since this is a transcript of a video essay, it’s more broad.

I might link the video in a reblog since, you know, tumblr doesn’t like links.

Anyways, here’s the post:

Hello Jon, apologies for the decep-

I’ve seen a lot of mystery shows in my day, and some supernatural shows, and the common thread between them is that they kind of...fall apart as they go on.

Obviously, this is a generalization and I haven’t seen every mystery show or every paranormal show, but it’s a pretty common problem.

At this point in pop culture criticism, it’s basically common knowledge that these shows fall apart due to a lack of planning. If a mystery series is making shit up as it goes along while trying to surprise the audience, it’s going to stop making sense at some point. And if an episodic paranormal show is constantly trying to up the stakes, eventually it’s going to become absolutely ridiculous and stretch the audience’s suspension of disbelief past a breaking point.

Other people have already talked about this stuff to death, but today I want to talk about a paranormal mystery show that actually succeeds at what it set out to do.

The Magnus Archives is a podcast written by Jonny Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newall. It ran from 2016 to 2021 and it’s...really really good. It’s an episodic horror story, taking place at the fictional Magnus Institute where the head archivist reads various statements about people’s encounters with supernatural entities. It’s got it all; scary stories, mystery, an overarching plot, office comedy, office romance, office tragedy, a villain that’s making straight men everywhere question their sexuality, and an overall really solid structure.

If you listen to the Q+As put out by the writer and director, you’ll hear them talk about how they planned the series from the beginning, setting up the layout for each season. Some things were definitely changed throughout the actual writing process; that’s just inevitable and necessary when you’re working on a long running show, but in a general sense, they knew where they were going. But, writing a good story doesn’t just involve knowing where you’re going; it’s about executing whatever plan you have effectively. And I think the execution of The Magnus Archives is pretty brilliant, so I want to talk about it.

And for the record, I said “brilliant,” not “perfect.” I do have a lot of criticisms of this show, and I’m definitely going to talk about those too, because honestly? Even the problems with this show are interesting in their own right.

Ok, let’s go.

Oh, spoilers by the way. For the whole plot. Whole thing.

Part 1: Horror and Mystery

Ok, so The Magnus Archives has two separate plots going on: the episodic stories that can be listened to individually, and the underlying meta plot. The former is where most of the mystery storytelling takes place, and it’s a really engaging mystery. It’s starts off slow, and almost undetectable at first. The main character, Jon, also known as The Archivist, is just reading out old scary stories that people have delivered to the Magnus Institute. Stuff like; a college student sees a ghostly inhuman figure asking for a cigarette, a woman’s fiancé dies and she finds herself trapped in an empty graveyard, there’s this goth kid who apparently murdered his mother and then skinned her? But she’s kind of still alive? What the f*ck? Hope we never see that kid again. Also, this “Jurgen Lietner” guy wrote a bunch of cursed books and Jon knows about this? Are more books gonna come up? And then you’re like, wait is the goth kid who killed that burn victim the same goth kid who killed his mom like 8 episodes ago? Holy shit the family of that girl’s dead fiancé FUNDS THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE? Did this famous youtuber meet one of the missing people from episode one? The goth kid is back and he’s looking for Leitner books? The name “Michael” has come up like 6 times? Are they all the same guy? I just—who the f*ck is Jurgen Leitner?

So yeah, as you can see, a lot of these stories connect in cool ways, and I’ve only mentioned like, 0.2 percent of all of those connections. Furthermore, these stories are told out of chronological order, and sometimes the same scenario appears in more than one statement, told from different perspectives. This asymmetrical storytelling and odd doling out of information creates a mystery that’s really interesting. It also makes for a great re-listen, since you can retroactively see what elements were set up before you even realized that they were going to come back.

The audio format contributes to this too; you can’t just see that the table from episode three matches the pattern on the box in episode eight. You have to pick up on clues that were mentioned and pay attention to what people are describing, and it’s highly rewarding when the pieces all start to fit together.

There is a bit of a downside to this though. Technically The Magnus Archives is a horror story first and a mystery second, and these two elements can mesh in weird ways.

The horror is element is really strong. Each story is completely different, sometimes focusing on psychological horror, body horror, or supernatural versions of more primal fears like heights, darkness, enclosed spaces, etc. Basically, if you’re afraid of anything, there will be at least one episode of The Magnus Archives that gets under your skin.

Jonny Sims can really sell his stories through both his writing and acting. He plays Jon, by the way, and plagiarized his own birth certificate for the character name. (For future reference, Jonny is the actor, Jon is the character). Overall, he’s really good at writing prose, and each narrator has a very distinct voice even though the large majority of the stories are being read by one character/actor.

Obviously not every episode is a bull’s eye. Sometimes it’s due to the subjectivity when it comes to what you as an audience member are scared of, and occasionally it’s just weird writing decisions. I’m thinking specifically of episode 21 where the line “the sky ate him” is said, and it is the worst line in the entire show. The whole goddamn show. That’s it. That’s the number one worst line.

But still, overall, the horror storytelling is incredibly solid, and some episodes even gave me brand new fears, like the unholy isolation of being in space, or the concept that someone you love could be replaced by someone completely different without you noticing.

But here’s the thing;

A lot of good horror is based on the absence of explanation. Most of the episodes that gave me the most visceral reactions of genuine terror come from the first two seasons, because that’s when the audience has the least amount of information.

For example, in episode two, a really terrifying coffin is introduced. It’s creepy, it reacts very strangely to water for some reason, and appears to compel people to try opening it. By the end of the episode, the audience never finds out what’s in that coffin and that is a good thing. That is a huge part of what made that episode so unnerving.

And then a few seasons later, we do find out what’s in the coffin, and to be fair the answer is both very creative and very scary, but it also takes a lot of the punch out of episode two.

No matter how f*cked up your thing is, it’s not going to compare to whatever the audience can conjure up in their own mind after such a creepy set up. This problem isn’t just stuck in this one scenario either; there are a lot of early episodes that, while still good, seem a lot less creepy in hindsight after you learn more about the scenario.

I don’t think it’s bad writing, but I do think it’s a double-edged sword. Jonny Sims even mentions this sort of issue in the first Q+A.

But yeah, to sum up; the narration is good, the ideas are creative, and seeing the mystery unfurl itself is deeply compelling. And for the record, the mystery elements aren’t of the Sherlock Holmes variety. It’s less about finding out who did the thing, and more about discovering how all of these individual points are intricately connected, pulling on each other as they move. Woven together like a... oh shit what’s the word? Gah, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Ah, whatever, I’m sure it’s not like a running motif or anything.

Part 2: Stakes

One of the main reasons I stopped watching Supernatural is that it devolves into complete f*cking nonsense. At the end of season five, the boys literally defeat the devil, and then the show...keeps going? Which would be fine. It’s also, largely, an episodic show, so if they have more creative ideas, they could definitely keep going with it. In fact, there are some post season five episodes that I thought were pretty good. But as they kept trying to outdo themselves with Bigger Bads, it got kind of difficult to suspend my disbelief. And the final nail in the coffin for me was the end of season nine, when Crowly basically points out to the audience that the main characters keep dying and coming back to life, so there are no stakes. The most-badest bad guy can always be defeated because some new Thing can just come out of left-field, and dying isn’t even on the table as a threat since people have tons of ways of coming back to life.

The Magnus Archives, while being a show based in the supernatural, notably doesn’t bring anyone back to life, even though some very beloved characters die. I say “notably,” because in the season three Q+A, Jonny even says, “We make a point not to bring people back from the dead in Magnus, I know it sometimes feels like that, but we are very careful to never actually resurrect anyone.”

Upon listening to this I said “oh my god, these guys are the only writers left who at least kind of know what they’re doing.”

Also, as far as plot progression goes, The Magnus Archives is lowkey structurally perfect in the way the threats escalate in the underlying plot; both in terms of destruction and power and in terms of emotional consequences. Season one starts off with one major threat that’s dealt with by the end of the season, season two reveals the main villain, season three lays out the grander forces at play, season four ends the world, and season five is about un-ending the world. The difference between season one and season five is vast, but how we got there makes perfect sense.

As for the emotional stakes, let’s talk about themes and characters.

Part 3: Themes and Characters

At the very end of season two, it’s revealed that the supernatural happenings in the Magnus universe are the result of entities far beyond our understanding. Since their existence is so fundamentally different from what we can comprehend, they interact with the world through cursed items, creatures, and humans who have dedicated themselves to an entity.

A lot of people read this as a metaphor for late-stage capitalism, and I am one of those people. A bunch of faceless entities exploiting humans through means of dehumanization and causing people to suffer because it feeds them seems like an appropriate metaphor.

While we’re on this topic, I do want to talk about Elias, since he’s the main villain of the entire series and also one of my favorite villains of all time. The Magnus Archives is a series that deals with a lot of moral questions and has a lot of characters who do morally questionable things, so one might assume that the villain of said series is, you know, morally ambiguous and sympathetic to some extent despite being “the bad guy.”

Nope! No stops, full bastard. It’s great.

He falls under what I’ve deemed the “unbeatable boss” archetype. He just doesn’t tolerate insubordination or resistance, and that combined with his lack of empathy means that anyone who crosses him is either killed or brought to heel. His power set is cool too. On the surface the ability to see out of any eye and read minds sounds useful, but not deal breaking, but the way he uses that power to manipulate people and anticipate threats...yeah, it makes him kind of impossible to beat.

He’s just...so evil and he loves being evil and every single f*cking thing he does pisses me off and makes me want to kill him. It’s. Great.

Anyways, I think Elias’s role as the central antagonist is what makes the capitalist reading so common. He’s the head of the institute, he’s wealthy, he’s powerful, and he dehumanizes people in ways that are both brutal and chillingly indifferent. He seems like an appropriate stand in through that lens.

I also love how voice actor Ben Meredith plays him like’s he’s trying to seduce the audience.

With all of that said, I wouldn’t call this the critique of capitalism a direct allegory or anything; in much looser terms, this could be a metaphor for any power structure that exploits humans. Organized religion or cults might be even more on the nose, considering there’s a lot of mentions of rituals and worship within the show.

But if we boil it down to its barest aspects and focus on the avatar characters, The Magnus Archives is a series about people becoming monsters. Or, at the very least, becoming worse versions of themselves. That can mean a lot of things to different people in a metaphorical sense; the tense relationship between desperation and morality, the eagerness to please at the cost of one’s own mental health, the psychological traumas that lead people down dark paths, and how personal choices can still be dictated and manipulated by outside influences. It’s kind of heavy stuff, but put into a digestible package through the show’s abstractions.

Well, for the most part.

There’s some debate as to whether or not Daisy’s arc was handled tastefully. While her demise and Basira’s character arc were clearly meant to condemn police brutality and the deeply corrupt system that allows it to foster, it’s still a weird subject to discuss in such a fantastical context, and there is a strange sympathy for the devil angle that can get kind of uncomfortable for some listeners.

Okay, stepping back from that for a bit, let’s talk about Jon and how he fits into this whole “people becoming corrupted” thing.

Jon has one of my favourite brands of character arc, which is one based in deterioration alongside growth. The most obvious way this takes form is his departure from humanity as his relationship with the Eye drives him to psychologically harm others, and he finds himself sympathizing more and more with the people he was afraid of, stating in episode 152 that anyone listening to his recordings might compare him to the other avatars that have had their minds and morals twisted.

Over the course of the series, he is repeatedly traumatized and the show makes a point that he is being both physically and emotionally scarred. These happenings are what drive his motivation for revenge in season five, and he even states that revenge is making him a worse person. As a character he’s constantly berating himself and his own monstrousness, much to Martin’s dismay.

That’s why the finale destroys me in the best way. Upon seeing that Jon has betrayed him and basically given himself over to the Eye, Martin asks “how much of you is even left?” And when Jon tries to reassure him that he’s still himself, Martin’s response is “how would you even know?” This cuts through me every time. Up until this point, Martin had consistently stood up for Jon and Jon’s humanity, even in the face of Tim’s doubt, Basira’s mistrust, Elias being cryptic, and Jon’s own self-hatred. This is the ultimate breaking point, the point where even Martin, the love of Jon’s life, doesn’t really recognize him. It’s brutal. Because at the end of the day, Jon is still himself; he’s a deeply broken person trying to make the right decisions.

We’ll come back to the finale later, but for now I want to talk about the romance.

Jon’s emotional growth throughout the series is largely tied into Martin. Martin’s the first person that Jon really opens up to, and this later grows into trust which then turns into a genuine emotional connection. On the flip side, Martin’s growth in season four is largely tied into Jon. Martin starts season four basically waiting to die, but Jon’s return gives him a reason to keep living, and he’s later able to recognize his own value outside of the pure utility of ‘you need to set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.’ Both of them give each other reason to push onward despite everything becoming more and more hopeless.

It’s a good romance. I wish the two had had a few more scenes together before the culmination, but it is built up over the course of four seasons and comes together in an utterly fantastic confession.

And yeah, the scene with Martin and Jon in the Lonely is cheesy as hell, but it is the highest quality of cheese. These are some gourmet nachos.

Umm, also kind of stating the obvious here, but it’s also pretty cool that the main character in this horror story falls in love with another man. You don’t see that a lot, and it’s cool that no one even makes a big deal out of it. It’s just a normal romance, but with two guys. It’s nice.

So, they go to Scottland, they hang out, they’re in love, Jonalias starts the apocalypse through Jon, the world ends, and season five starts!

...Let’s talk about season five!

Part 4: Season 5

At the very start of this post, I said that supernatural mysteries tend to get worse as they go along, and I am deeply sad to report that I don’t think that The Magnus Archives is an exception. It just goes downhill in a very different way than its ilk.

And, so we’re clear, I don’t think season five totally tanks or becomes unlistenable, it’s just, in my opinion, notably worse than the rest of the show.

As discussed earlier, it doesn’t fall apart due to a lack of planning; everything still makes sense, but the presentation has changed drastically. The episodic statements are no longer scary stories, but more like slam poems about the various hellscapes that Jon and Martin are trekking through. Honestly if these were published in a book of slam poetry, I would probably think they slapped pretty hard. I genuinely believe that Jonny Sims is a good writer, but as a podcast a lot of these statements just made me zone out. There’s at least four that I don’t even slightly remember. Myself and many others have noted that they just...aren’t scary, unless there’s a specific episode that really gets under your skin due to a certain fear or phobia.

To quote my friend, “it’s harder to feel a solid impact when the setting is literally divorced from reality. People would either go numb or insane to the point where their fears become unrelatable.”

And, to be honest, I think that this same surreal odyssey set up could have worked with a slight shift in narration. Two stand out episodes for me were “Strung Out” and “Wonderland.” Both of them show the tormented target actively trying to resist and interact with their tormenter, instead of just trying to escape or live through their situation. “Strung Out” is also more of character study; you learn about Francis’s life before the apocalypse through their interaction with the Web hellscape. Meanwhile “Wonderland” is just...f*cked, and you get to see Jon take the perspective of first-person Bad Guy throughout the whole thing, which is its own level of disturbing.

But the majority of episodes feel so abstract that I kind of forget the people trapped in them are supposed to be characters and not just concepts, so it’s harder to feel their dread and pain.

But I’m still here for the metaplot, the drama, and the romance. And when that’s good, it’s great! I think the final handful of episodes are really solid in that regard.

Buuuuuuut...

A decent chunk of season five is dedicated to the “kill bill” plot. Jon discovers he has the power to smite people, and while at first, he’s embarrassed about this, since he actively enjoyed killing Not!Sasha, Martin is super into it! He’s encouraging Jon to murder people.

This is actually the set up for a really good arc. As Jon gets more and more into his own avenging angel persona, Martin could get more and more disturbed by it so by the time they get to London, Martin could be really upset that Jon is so willing to wreak his own divine justice by killing or torturing all of the avatars.

And this does kind of happen. We do reach this end state, and it makes for a good final conflict, but the way we got here was borderline nonsense. Thematic gibberish, if you will.

Throughout the journey, Martin is clearly motived by a sense of justice; these people are bad, and so they should die. Whereas Jon is clearly more motivated by revenge; he only goes after the avatars that hurt him personally. At one point, Jon admits that maybe all of this killing isn’t making anything better, but just making him worse. Martin apologizes for egging him on, Jon absolves him by saying he started it, and then Martin’s like “I’ll keep my apology then.” This is the second worst line in the entire series, right after “the sky ate him.” And it’s close.

But it kind of feels like we’re back at square one. Jon is back to being ashamed of killing and Martin is still keen on his justice stance, but now just less pushy about it. The arc is basically half resolved at this point.

But then it doesn’t matter, because Jon kills Helen anyway. So, Jon’s back on his revenge/justice thing. Then what was the point of his earlier revelation? Why have that if it’s not going to matter and the conflict that was escalating still culminates with Jon leaning into the avenging angel stuff, and Martin being disturbed by it? It just makes both of them look like huge hypocrites! I f*cking hate it when they’re in the tunnels and Martin says “you weren’t meant to enjoy it this much,” regarding Jon’s smiting. Where did this come from?! Why didn’t you say this earlier? Third worst line in the series.

And yeah, I’ll say it; the boys fight too much in this season. I loved their romance up to season five, and their cute moments and more lowkey serious discussions are still good in this season, but God, they fight so much. And I’m not saying couples can’t have fights or tension, that’s just realistic and also stories need conflict to be interesting. Jonny Sims is on the record saying that balancing a healthy romance with the stress of a literal apocalypse was a priority, and I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s well balanced. I’m just saying that sometimes it feels like they don’t even like each other and it really started to grate on me.

Maybe it would have been better if the beginning of this season was dedicated to charming romance at first, so we as an audience could better appreciate how strong their love is and how it’s truly being tested. But obviously that was never on the table—

ALEX NO.

So, yeah, I have a lot of problems with season. I think it’s the worst one by far, even though there is a lot of it I still enjoy, including the ending.

As I mentioned before, the moment where Martin confronts Jon in the panopticon absolutely kills me, and Jon’s reaction kills me even harder. Throughout the season, Jon had largely been motivated by revenge, martyrdom, and the subconscious call of the Eye, and all three of those factors led him to his position as the pupil. He’s getting revenge against the powers, sacrificing his humanity to get rid of the Fears, and taking his place as wearer of the watcher’s crown. But all of this gets thrown out the window when he realizes that Martin is going to die. And not only is Martin going to die, Martin is going to die specifically because he loves Jon and refuses to leave Jon alone to die horribly. Martin had always been an underlying motivation for Jon, his “reason” as stated in episode 167, but now love as a motivator has come to the forefront, and Jon can no longer go through with his plan because of it. But at this point in the series, they’re both utterly doomed, and Jon concludes that the only possible chance they have of surviving, however unlikely, would be to sever the pupil of the eye, technically killing Jon, but maybe, just maybe, allowing them to escape with the Fears. Whether that’s meant to be literal or more ethereal is left unclear. Hell, maybe Jon’s just making it up completely and creating his own potential happy ending. It’s a pretty potent ending in emotional terms; Jon has to release the Fears and Martin has to kill Jon, and those are the two things they were dead set on not doing.

The Web, arguably the real main antagonist, basically won, and their manipulation of Jon worked. The destruction spread, and there is kind of a bleak underlying tone to that.

But at least this ending has some semblance of hope to it. I’m not saying that releasing the Fears was objectively the correct moral decision; the entire point of the dilemma is that there was no objectively correct moral decision. But, while Jon’s solution does have merit, it was also the most hopeless. I think dramatically, any one of the choices on the table could have worked if the writing was well executed, but thematically this one seemed like the perfect combination of grim and optimistic. Like, all of the evils that plague humanity can’t just be defeated forever and things could get worse, but maybe not. Maybe everything works out...

So yeah, The Magnus Archives...is a podcast. And it’s a really good podcast. Great, even. I can complain about season five all I want, but regardless of how that worked out, you can tell throughout the entire show that the people working on it were trying to tell a genuinely excellent story.

It’s good. Go listen to it. Even though I spoiled the entire thing and if you’re still here, you’ve probably already listened to it. Listen to it again.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood

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xkandy · 4 years

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Psycho Pass - timeline and why you shouldn’t hate on S3 that much

I’ve been following Psycho Pass ever since the original run of Season 1 back in 2012. I’d like to make you and everyone who disliked S3 understand some things. Hope I structure this well, here goes.

Obviously there will be some spoilers.

First let’s take a look at the releases in the PP universe so far. We have:

Season 1

Season 2

Movie

Sinners of The System 1,2,3 (2 being a prequel)

Season 3

First Inspector

Before I write anything I’m going to stop you and say that nothing tops Season 1. So there,now that we have that out of the way let’s continue.

Season 1

Takes place in late 2112-2113

Central characters are Akane and Kogami and let’s face it, for many Kogami is the one who carried the show, even if some consider him to be a “generic edgy” protagonist I think he’s pretty solid as a character at this point.

Akane has had MAJOR character development throughout the whole season and I’ll never forget how upset some people were that she was a noob. That was the whole point, she is a newbie and a model citizen who trusts the system, her character evolution revolves around coming to the realization that the system is flawed.

Makishima as a villain was phenomenal and not because quoting from books , but because his motives and reasoning were clearly established and he made both protagonists question themselves and the system.

Season 1 is written by Gen Urobuchi , the following seasons (except the movie) are not written by him.

Season 2

Takes place in 2114.

A trainwreck, don’t even want to go here. The disappointment was huge.

I found Mika to be extremely annoying and unbearable with 0 character growth. The only highlights for this season for me were Gino and Akane.

Onwards.

The Movie

Takes place 3 years after the events of Season 1, in 2116.

Nothing of major impact happens but if you love the old cast , namely Gino, Akane, Kogami you’ll enjoy this and I have a feeling this is what they were betting on and wanted to see: the public reaction to the old cast.

The interaction between Akane and Kogami is the highlight (another one being Gino vs Kogami).

It’s clear as day that Akane evolved as a character and Kogami is questioning his past, so let’s say some minor character development.

Sinners of the System

If you enjoy the universe and aren’t too attached to the main cast you will like these, although case 3 is about Kogami so I’m sure it’s the one most people will like.

Case 1 has some minor Mika character development (she still sucks imho)

Case 2 is a prequel that sets up some details about the storyline that will be the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Case 3 is the one you’ll want to watch if you want to see S3/First Inspector as it revolves around Kogami and him coming to terms with his thoughts when he is asked by a young girl to train her as he sees in her a version of himself and where this will lead (girl seeks revenge) .

His story arc regarding Sasayama’s death, revenge, Makishima is complete, it ends here as he decides to head back to Japan.

This triggers the potential for the future series/movies in the Psycho Pass universe to deal with the (possible) unresolved storyline of dealing with Akane once he gets back to Japan, because he will have to face her at one point.

So after Case 3 Kogami is already a complete character , there is no strong conflict or drive for him as the one which had driven the plot of season 1.

We already know everything about him.

Let me jump back to Gino for a brief moment, his first arc concluded when his father died and he became an enforcer, his current arc might be related to what I’ll get to in a second.

Season 3

Alright so here we are,a new season nobody was expecting and 2 new protagonists we expected even less.

Taking place in 2120 , 8 years after the events of Season 1 it follows Arata and Kei in their own CID adventures.

The tone of the series is vastly different from both S1 and S2, most notably :

it feels like those friendly buddy cop TV shows

the violence is greatly reduced, no more “shock value”

the side characters aren’t invested into, they’re just there for being there and plot devices (they’re alright, the new enforcers get some characterization but it’s not season 1 level)

Arata’s “skill” - if you think about it as high level empathy it’s gonna feel less dumb

Being new protagonists, the writers had to make sure we get to like them by offering us details about their past and what drives their motives, I’d say they did an ok job at that.

There’s no room for comparison to Akane and Kogami, those 2 are already established characters who have resolved story arcs and suffered changes.

Keep in mind Akane is 28 now and Kogami is 36, whereas the new protagonists are in their early 20s. They have time for character evolution, it’s easier to write new characters into the universe than deal with established ones such as Akane and Kogami.

Also, we see Kou visiting Akane while she’s in jail, her not being surprised means this may have happened before, which leads to further questions in the storylines that will definitely be explored in the new PP installments to follow:

Details on the incident which caused her to be in jail

What happened when Kogami returned to Japan and how the Sibyl system dealt with this

Kou reuniting with Ginoza, since both work for the hot blonde now

etc, you get the idea

First Inspector

It’s actually not that bad, I’m not going to spoil anything (well...not everything) but I suggest giving it a chance. If you don’t want to watch S3 just read about it and watch this, the most important things to take are from episode 3′s last scenes

Akane is released AS AN ENFORCER by Sibyl and will help Mika

Kogami is sent to get her, there will definitely be a recap between these two

Arata and Kei both have secrets regarding the case they worked on, not gonna spoil anything

Yayoi is alive, and will live with Shion. Just puttin this out there since they’re everyone’s favorite lesbians

Mika is still shit.

Gino is still based as fuck

Also, there is a post credits scene with Akane saying something along the lines of “ let’s talk about the incident that got me jailed “ . This was only in the theatrical release so you can bet your ass we’re getting more PP in the future.

Thoughts

Lastly, what everyone needs to understand is that S1 made PsychoPass become a franchise. A franchise revolves around different characters in the same universe, sometimes the focus is on the OGs , but sometimes it isn’t.

I would like to note here that Gen Urobuchi is responsible for Season 1 (you know, the dude who wrote Madoka and other stuff like that...) and he did a great job writing a compelling story. Did he want PP to turn into a franchise? This I do not know and I have a feeling this might explain his absence from the later installments of the series.

He wrote a complete story in 22 episodes which could have been left at that but seeing how well received the first season was it spawned a franchise.

What I want to say is please give Arata and Kei a chance (S3 protags) . They’re not that bad and they help the franchise stay alive as it seems they were pretty well received in Japan. Would you rather Mika be the main character again?! HELL NO

Now I love the main trio - Akane,Kou,Gino - as much as everyone but at this point they’re so high level it’d be hard to write a series just about them. Make one wrong move and the fanbase will hate you.

Also, this one is for all you Kogami x Akane shippers, I view their relationship as professional only but I’ll be damned if I didn’t scream at those 2 short scenes these 2 had in S3 and FI .Can’t wait to see the interactions between grown up Akane and seasoned peace-of-mind Kogami.

If you’re still here thanks for reading my rant, hope I made sense.

edited to add some stuff

#psychopass #psycho pass #psycho pass sinners of the system #psycho pass season 3 #psycho pass s3 #psycho pass spoilers #anime #rant #akane tsunemori #kogami shinya #ginoza nobuchika #mika shimotsuki #shion karanomori #anime rewatch

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drsilverfish · 4 years

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Game of the Gods - 15x08 Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven

Hey fellow-travellers,

Well done to everyone who speculated Rowena would be the new Queen of Hell!

I’ve just watched the ep. I’m late catching up (and as usual, haven’t jumped into your posts yet, to avoid spoilers) because, here in the UK, we had a very bad, not good, general election result this morning and I’ve been completely sucker punched by it all day.

Anyhoo, Bucklemming did OK with this one. I mean, it doesn’t, perhaps, have quite all the intricate layers of some of our better writers, but hey, it’s got all the moving parts, including the return of Jungian Self and Shadow-Self metaphor in spades (and a healthy, hopeful integrated version at that, as Adam and Michael!Adam get along and share control of consciousness and the vessel). It also contains plenty of pregnant subtext between Dean and Cas, including <drumroll> a mooted return to Purgatory together where, remember, “It felt pure” (in subtext - between them) and Dean prayed to Cas every night.

But, leaving those elements to one side for now, I thought I’d talk first about this shot of Cas, praying to Michael with a chessboard prominently in shot:

Which, in the context of the story, reminded me of this:

“In their dwellings at peace they played at tables

Of gold no lack did the gods then know”

That’s a quote is from the Poetic Edda, a medieval manuscript containing Old Norse poems, which tells something of pagan Norse mythology.

The quote is about a golden age of the Gods, which comes into being after Ragnarok, the terrible end of the world battle between the Gods and the Giants. In this “end times” battle (as you know) many Gods die and the world is destroyed. However, a new world is born out of the old one, and the surviving Gods are at peace, playing an old Germanic board game, a bit like chess, in Heaven in a new Golden Age.

This cyclical narrative, where apocalypse leads to renewal, is also present in the Bible in the famous passage in Revelations 21:

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (King James Bible)

Chuck has declared, in 14x20 Moriah, “Welcome to the End!” (aka he has declared Ragnarok) and we see him with a chess board in 14x04 Atomic Monsters:

He is, of course, trying to manipulate his “favourite story”, Sam and Dean Winchester, like chess pieces on a board. However, Cas, as we’ve all observed, seems to be outside Chuck’s favoured misery dude-bro plot - a murder-suicide, in which one Winchester kills the other and then themselves. So, the image of Cas with the chessboard in 15x08 tells us that Cas, too (like Chuck) has power over the “chess board”, aka the Game of the Gods.

Indeed, if my Edda quote proves fruitful, the narrative is telling us that, after this great battle with God (in which some of our heroes may die, at least temporarily) there will be a renewal. Perhaps this is the “Paradise” Jack promised Cas from the womb.

I mentioned that there was a reference in 15x06 Golden Time to Vonnegut’s novel Breakfast of Champions (Dean, grief-eating cereal as a result of his break-up with Cas, refers to it as “breakfast of champions” at the start of the episode) in this post here:

https://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/189338866109/me-every-relevant-point-now-forever-onwards-for

Dean and Chuck, of course, we know are both Vonnegut fans, thanks to their exchange about Vonnegut in 4x18 The Monster at the End of this Book - very meta, as Chuck, like Vonnegut, likes to insert a character version of himself (Chuck Shurley) into his stories.

Breakfast of Champions provides a guide for the possible renewal-after-Ragnarok ending of SPN, because in that novel, the writer is persuaded to let go of the control of his characters - to grant them freedom aka true free will.

Vonnegut also wrote a short story, called “All the King’s Horses” (1951) about a deadly game of chess between a captured US Army Colonel and his guerilla-fighter leader captor (set during the Cold War).

The captor, Pi Ying, orders that whenever the Colonel, Kelly, loses a chess piece, one of the men captured with him will be executed. That sounds a lot like Chuck, right? Playing a deadly game of chess with his Winchester Gospels’ protagonists and killing those they love for sport in the game, just as he threatens the lives of Jodie, Donna and Eileen in 15x08 (NB: notice he’s trying to erase the feminine from the narrative again!!!).

Eventually, the Colonel, in Vonnegut’s story, realises he can only win the chess game if he sacrifices one of his knights on the board, but these are being “played” by his sons (also captured with him). Just before Pi Ying kills Kelly’s kid, he is himself murdered by his guerilla-fighter girlfriend, who has been watching the cruel chess game along with him (she then kills herself). One of Pi Ying’s men takes over the game, but Kelly wins and so the remaining hostages are freed.

A deadly chess game, the (almost) sacrifice of a son... sounds like Castiel;s son Jack’s sacrifice by Chuck in 14x20 Moriah, right? And presages Jack’s re-entry into the “game”.

We have seen Cas pictured with chess boards before, notably in 8x08 Hunter Heroici:

And, given the numerical symmetry - 15x08/ 8x08 (which season 14 established as a definite “thing” - calling back previous episodes numerically, Ouroboros style) I think this call-back is deliberate.

In Hunter Heroici, the psychokinetic resident of retirement home Sunset Fields, Fred Jones, is being manipulated, in his vulnerable state, by one of the doctors to use his powers to alter reality so the doc and his accomplice can pull off a series of thefts (e.g. creating cartoon holes for escape purposes).

Someone powerful enough to alter reality? That becomes a metaphor for Chuck, in this call-back (which, also reminds us of Chip Harrington in 14x15 Peace of Mind).

Cas eventually brings peace to Fred Jones, by mind-stripping him of his powers so he can’t hurt anyone else (at his request) and then staying with him to play music in his mind for a while in the retirement home.

This episode, 8x08, is also right in the middle of the narrative in which Castiel himself is being manipulated by Naomi, and the Winchesters (at this point) don’t know it yet. More manipulation of reality by dubious powers of Heaven parallels!

All this ties in quite nicely with Donatello’s attempt to find a clue in the Demon Tablet to being able to lock up Chuck, and which AU!Michael, apparently, gives Team Free Will a spell for at the end of 15x08.

Castiel, master-tactician that he is (never forget the chess game he played with the angels using Biggersons restaurants in quantum super-position in 8x21 The Great Escapist) has a significant part to play in this final chess game with God himself. He’s a powerful player on the board, and a tactician with influence over the board, precisely because Chuck continually discounts him.

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our-kendrick · 4 years

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Anna Kendrick Puts Her Characters, Her Career—and Herself—Under the Microscope

The actor turns inward to reflect. But don’t worry, she’s laughing along the way.

Read here, or below.

Anna Kendrick has an idea. “Every character should do a scene with her mother at the beginning of a shoot,” she suggests. Her theory is that this type of interior work could function as a sort of controlled breakthrough in therapy—but instead of your own lifetime’s worth of baggage, it’s your character’s.

The notion occurred to her during production on her new HBO Max series Love Life (debuting May 27), on which Hope Davis portrays her mom. “I learned so much about my character during that episode; you go back to your own childhood stuff,” she says. And though she hadn’t previously considered it in such explicit terms, to hear Kendrick talk about her acting is to realize she’s actually been putting her roles under the proverbial microscope for years.

“Why does that person behave that way? Why do some people see the world in a different way?” she muses, chatting by telephone from her home in Los Angeles, where she’s been quarantining since mid-March. “And that’s the kind of driving curiosity that, hopefully, makes me effective at my job.”

Of course, having been acting professionally since adolescence, Kendrick knows that what initially lured her to the trade was a good deal less existential. “It would be really insane for me to suggest that finding truth in a person’s psychology interested me at that age,” she says, with just a little bite. “It was more that I knew plays like Annie and Gypsy meant that I could get on a stage and wear a costume, and people had to pay attention to me. My goals were more streamlined: I wanted to sing really loud and be onstage.”

Streamlined, indeed. Kendrick starred in the 1998 Broadway premiere of High Society, for which she earned a Tony nomination at the ripe age of 12, making her one of the youngest performers in history to earn the distinction. Not long after, as it so often does, Los Angeles came knocking. And, as it so often does, it quickly proved less glamorous than advertised.

“I don’t really know what to say about it other than it sucked. It was hard,” Kendrick says of her early days navigating the “business” side of the business. “Every now and then, I’m walking around in L.A. and I notice some back alley, weird entrance, and remember I used to go around to that entrance because they didn’t want you coming in the front entrance if you were there to audition. It’s a very degrading process to be holding your sides and have some bored receptionist say, ‘Can you use this back entrance?’ And then, obviously, the image of walking into a room and there are 20 girls who look exactly like you.”

Though she hardly recalls the period with rose-hued fondness, it was a necessary steppingstone to becoming the Anna Kendrick we know today, the singular one who is known as much for her turns onscreen as her quips on Twitter. (She even wrote a book of nonfiction essays, Scrappy Little Nobody, that went on to become a New York Times best-seller.) As it happens, learning to unleash the persona inside the person—to embrace rather than smother whatever nonconformity exists within—was a critical turning point in her approach to both acting and auditioning; one which, believe it or not, came courtesy of a certain vampire franchise.

“I remember auditioning for the family in Twilight and running into a friend of mine and both of us being like, ‘Why are we here?’ ” Kendrick recalls. “ ‘[The role] is the bitchy mean girl, they’re going to hire some leggy blonde, because that’s the part.’ I thought, OK, I’ll just go in and do something dumb, because I’m not going to get the job anyway. Hopefully, the casting director will remember me as being funny, and they’ll bring me back in for something else. It’s such a hideous cliché, but I just had to realize the only times I got a job were when there was something I could do that nobody else could do.”

To again lift that turn of phrase right off the therapist’s couch, it wasn’t just a career breakthrough, but a psychological one. That isn’t to say it suddenly unlocked the secret to enduring Hollywood success, but it did help secure the actor’s first Oscar nomination.

The story—well-documented in the history book of Kendrick’s life by now—goes that the writer-director Jason Reitman already had her in mind when she came in to audition for his new feature Up in the Air. The role was a co-lead opposite George Clooney. She got it, obviously, but as the greener of the two actors, how did she step on set and believe, I have a right to be here?

“Um, I didn’t,” she says with a terse laugh. “George was such an angel, and would say things like, ‘Are you nervous? Got to get nervous for your first day’—and that is complete bullshit. He absolutely does not [get nervous], but I believed it at the time, and that’s what I needed to hear: that I had permission to be nervous. Because it’s one thing to be nervous, and it’s another to be pretending you’re not.”

Now, Kendrick is herself a formidable leading lady, having starred most notably in all three Pitch Perfect movies; the series has to date made more than $500 million worldwide and solidified Kendrick as a capital-N Name. In a position quite different from the one she was in about a decade ago, today she tries to practice the same on-set empathy that has been shown to her.

“No, I’m an absolute monster,” she says with just a split-second pause before answering in earnest. “I mean, you try to adjust to your various co-workers. Obviously, there are people who you realize really thrive when it feels spontaneous, and it would be better if we weren’t word-perfect. And then, for other people, it’s those early takes that are really magical and you want to make sure it’s as on-book as it can be.” As for her ideal scene partner, when given a preference, Kendrick does have one in mind.

#Anna Kendrick #Backstage #Interview #2020

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pellicano-sanguino · 4 years

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Finland’s most famous graveyard must be Hietaniemi Cemetery. Many famous people are buried there, including presidents. And a whole bunch of artists. They have a separate area for them, the “artist’s hill.” But one famous artist didn’t get to be buried there among other great painters, sculptors and writers.

Helene Schjerfbeck.

One of the most famous Finnish artists wasn’t buried in the artist’s hill. She did get a grave in another part of Hietaniemi Cemetery, though. And that grave? Until very recently, was left unattended, growing weeds. It was only because there’s a movie coming out about Schjerfbeck that someone pointed out the sorry state of her grave. Everyone excited about the movie was making great speeches how her art being so loved internationally brought Finns national pride, and someone wrote an angry comment in the newspaper, pointing that it’s disrespectful for politicians and art patrons to claim they love and appreciate her work while her grave grows nettles and we can’t be bothered to pay for the caring of her grave from public sources.

Some organisation took taking care of Schjerfbeck’s grave as their responsibility. But it was still very disturbing to me how a female artist was treated so differently, even in death.

The reason I’m writing this is because I went to see Portrait of a Lady on Fire recently. The movie left me an emotional wreck, it touched me on such a basic, almost subconscious level that I’m not sure I’m able to write anything coherent about my feelings. But I will try. Though I think this is a movie one must see for oneself, nothing I say about it will be able to describe the experience properly.

This post contains spoilers for the movie.

The movie is set in 1770 France. A time when female artists were forbidden from painting men, but allowed to paint portraits of women. The protagonist Marianne is one such exceptional lady who had a father open minded enough to allow her an artist’s career instead of choosing from the remaining three options.

The remaining options? Convent, marriage or suicide.

The plot revolves around a woman, Heloise, who chose convent, but has that choice forcibly taken away from her after her sister chose suicide over arranged marriage and the family now needs to go for plan B and sell their second daughter to some man she has never met. Her mother needs a portrait of her to use as a selling tool, showing it to the man she intends to make her marry. Heloise resists and refuses to pose for an artist. So her mother hires Marianne, who is to pretend to be someone hired for keeping Heloise company, but secretly she is painting her portrait.

I admit I don’t often enjoy watching movies. It’s just not my medium of choice. But then again, most of the movies I’ve seen are Hollywood stuff or pretentious artsy films, and both of those can be too much for someone as sensitive as I am. I can’t handle violence or unnecessary sex scenes. Also, the vast majority of movies are stories made by men, about men, for men. Even the women in movies are seen through the eyes of men.

But this movie is made by women, about women, for women.

The absence of man’s eyes is notable in small details. How there are no important male characters in this movie, men only show up in the very beginning and end and even then they are just background extras. The fact that we don’t get sex scenes (a male director could never resist doing that when handling a story about lesbians). The fact that both leading ladies look rather plain, ordinary women instead of your typical Hollywood barbie-dolls. The last time I saw a woman in a movie with unshaved armpits was back in highschool when during Swedish lesson we watched some Swedish flick that had a loudly feminist character who made a point of not shaving.

There’s a scene where a woman goes to an old lady to get an abortion done. If this scene was done by a man, if it had been filmed in Hollywood, they would have made her scream in pain and showed the blood and discharge and feasted on every gruesome detail of the procedure. But the scene is calm, peaceful and intimately respectful. We don’t need to see any details. Focusing on what’s going on between her legs is unnecessary, seeing her face trying to keep calm but breaking into silent, suffocated cries is enough.

Women suffer silently. We have all been taught to grin and bear it, the harder it hurts, the harder you must smile.

The movie isn’t gloomy and depressing. The unpleasant truths jab at your heart without you noticing. Because they let the story speak for itself. No one needs to point out the unfairness of women’s fate in a world ruled by men. The doomed romance between Marianne and Heloise speaks loud enough. Their knowledge that once the portrait is finished, it’s all over. Heloise’s family home is situated on an island with steep cliffs around its shores and surrounded by the restless, ice cold waters of the sea. It’s all very symbolic. There is no escape.

The story builds slowly, patiently. I shouldn’t constantly compare this to Hollywood movies, but in an American movie you could never have this few spoken lines and take this long before the romance buds. Marianne knows she only has few days to finish the portrait, but she and Heloise don’t rush anything and live like they had all the time in the world. They are powerless to do anything to the fate looming ahead and instead spend their last days together without worrying about it. But the viewer is constantly aware of what is going to happen in the end. The tension builds, invisible hands are placed on my throat and slowly tighten their grip. When the last scene begins, I feel so choked by catharsis that I have to breathe through parted lips. I was happy for the movie theater’s darkness, so that neither of my friends sitting beside me could see the tears flowing down my cheek. Women suffer silently, I have been taught to hide my tears and be ashamed if they are discovered.

My friends gave me a ride back home and we talked about the movie. Tigel mentioned that she’d probably have to search the net for fix-it-fics to help her deal with her feelings. I responded that I probably have to call my mother and thank her for letting me choose my own fate and loving me just as I am.

I had to make a phone call like that once before. It was when I was reading Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall. At first I didn’t even like the book, or the main character. But slowly I began to notice similarities between myself and Stephen. They felt so familiar, so much more personal than any of the things het characters in other books did or said. I became frighteningly aware that this book wasn’t just about one specific person, it was about my people. I knew that the story wouldn’t have a happy ending (with a name like Well of Loneliness, what do you expect?) but I couldn’t stop reading. I felt as if I had a responsibility to read on, that I owed it to my past fellow lesbians. Stephen was a fictional character, but she was made to speak for us, to speak for the unfairness of a homosexual’s fate in a world ruled by heteros. For the silent suffering of women who were rejected by society.

When I got to the part where Stephen’s mother tells her that she wished she had never been born, I had to stop. The pain became unbearable. I had to put the book away and call my mother, seeking relief from the invisible hands choking me. I don’t remember that call very well, because I was an emotional mess during it. I remember telling her over and over again that I don’t take for granted the fact that she loves me despite knowing I’m a lesbian. That I am painfully aware that many have not been as fortunate as me. Even today, even in modern, civilized countries like Finland, there are countless gays and lesbians who are rejected by their parents. When you’re homosexual, being loved by your parent isn’t a default, it’s a matter of luck. I have been so very, very lucky.

Both the Well of Loneliness and Portrait of a Lady on Fire have touched me by making me aware of the history of my people. While some parts of our history is celebrated (all the great artists and other historic figures who were one of us), there’s the heavy weight of knowledge about our oppression, how in order for lesbians to live happily ever after in the past they had to be sneaky and so very, very lucky. Not all lesbians were Anne Listers, whose family was ok with not pressuring her to marry. I feel pain thinking how many women there must have been who were forced to suffer just like Stephen, just like Heloise.

Another reason why our history lies heavy on my mind is because so much of it is lost, hidden, denied and shamed because of heteros. They burned Sappho’s poems. Fire also claimed the love letters men sent to Philippe, brother of Ludwig XIV. While gay men were sentenced openly, lesbianism wasn’t even spoken out loud, out of fear that women couldn’t commit such a sin if they were unaware of its existence. Oscar Wilde was sentenced to prison and died in France, his legacy to the art of writing unappreciated by his countrymen. How many of our graves grew nettles, because we were the dirty secret that everyone wanted to forget? How many of us had uncared graves because the only thing lesser than a woman is a woman who refuses to center her life around a man?

Now I’m going to voice an unpopular opinion that’s probably going to give me hatemail but I’m going to voice it anyway. I don’t like it when people posthumously push trans identity to people who did not identify as trans in life. There’s no way around it, I find it disrespectful. The reason I’m mentioning this is, that despite not liking it, I completely understand why they do it. Trans folks long for a history. They want their own Sapphos and Oscar Wildes. They want great historic characters to look up to and think “We have always been here and despite the world being against us, we could achieve great things.” The weight of lesbian and gay history can be a painful burden, but it will also give us comfort, knowing that people like us have always been and will always be there, that even when heteros made attempts to silence us or wipe us out of existence, we clung to the surviving parts of our history and treasured them. We will never know what the full poem behind the fragment “Someone will remember us/I say/even in another time” was like, but even so those words are precious to us. I do not blame trans folks for wishing for a history, even small fragments to reach through time and give them comfort.

In case I will receive hatemail for this, I will make an announcement. I have no obligation to react to any message, comment or reblog sent my way. This is my blog, my house, my personal space. I decide who is invited in and who is not. If someone tries to contact me and I see they want to debate, before even reading what they’ve written to me, I will check their blog. A quick glance will usually be enough to reveal if the person in question is capable of intelligent and mature conversation or if engaging in debate with them will just be playing chess with a pigeon (the pigeon will knock the pawns over, bite your nose, shit on the board and then fly to boast to its fellow pigeons how well it won you in a game of chess). If I deem you a pigeon chess player, you will be ignored. I have no time to waste on useless debate. All terfhunters will be ignored as well, I do not wish to interact with the likes of them. However, just like not all gender criticals are radical feminists, not all trans folks are terfhunters. I am willing to speak with people I disagree with, but I will be choosing who I wish to speak with and who I won’t. If I see that you can’t behave, you are not welcome here.

#portrait of a lady on fire #lesbian #feminism

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ansu-gurleht · 5 years

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sermon ten, annotated

ok, i’m skipping some sermons. at some point, i’ll cover every sermon, including the ones i skipped, and i’ll have a masterpost for them. as for now, let’s talk about sermon ten.

You have discovered the tenth Sermon of Vivec, which was hidden in the words that came in the aftermath to the Hortator.

the lessons often have related series of sermons sprinkled throughout. this series, began in sermon six, takes the form of vivec advising nerevar.

The evoker shall raise his left hand empty and open, to indicate he needs no weapons of his own.

to evoke is to call forward, or summon - so the evoker summons forth his friends and foes. the evoker may also be one who seeks power, usually divine.

it’s very worth noting the inspiration that [writer-of-these-sermons-who-is-not-to-be-named] draws upon for a lot of the symbolism throughout is based on western occult practices of the 19th and 20th centuries. most notably, the ideas are heavily influenced by practices such as thelema.

simply put, in these kinds of magical practices, the right hand is associated with positive qualities, whereas the left hand is associated with negative ones. the right hand is creation, purity; the left hand is destruction, chaos.

in the context of this sermon being advice given by vivec to nerevar, it stands to reason the “evoker” refers to the hortator. with his “left hand empty and open” he shows “he needs no weapon of his own.” note, however, that in sermon seven, the egg vivec wrote GHARTOK PADHOME, the hand that wields change like a weapon, on both of his hands. hortator needs no weapon because his hands are his weapon; his hands are change, and that is enough.

The coming forth is always hidden, so the evoker is always invisible or, better, in the skin of his enemies.

the evoker calls forward, so “the coming forth” is done by those he summons. they will be hidden, but so will the evoker, either “invisible, or, better, in the skin of his enemies.” the latter is a reference to the legend of boethiah wearing trinimac’s skin to denounce the old ways and encourage the velothi movement.

'The eyelid of the kingdom shall fill thiry [sic] and six folios, but the eye shall read the world.'

the thirty and six folios are these lessons, of course. as for the eyelid and the eye, we will return to this later in this sermon.

By this the Hortator needs me to understand. The sword is an impatient signature. Write no contacts on the dead. Vivec says unto the Hortator remember the words of Boet-hi-ah:

the previous quote (’The eyelid of the kingdom....’) is what the hortator needs vivec in order to understand. another instance of vivec downplaying nerevar’s intelligence and agency.

the sword being “an impatient signature” means that violence can show your hand too quickly. have patience before making yourself known, and signing your signature upon the deeds. come forth with empty hands.

uesp usually adds [sic] when there’s a typo. as for the “contacts on the dead” line, i think there is also a typo. the only evidence i have for this is that “contracts on the dead” fits better with what i’m saying.

anyways, the point is that you put your signature on a contract. violence is an impatient signature, one that shows your hand too soon, so it’s likewise unwise to try to force the dead to comply with your demands. did i say unwise? i meant impossible, unless you’re a necromancer.

if you’re patient, and hide your sword behind open hands, you may end up getting a better deal than defeating your enemies. maybe you find a way to “hold your friends close, enemies closer.” case in point, the chimer-dwemer alliance against the nords.

anyways, we’re primed for the next paragraph, which is “the words of Boet-hi-ah:”

We pledge ourselves to you, the Frame-maker, the Scarab: a world for us to love you in, a cloak of dirth [sic] to cherish.

the “Frame-maker” and “Scarab” is lorkhan, who boethiah has always had a major crush on. boe claims that the true purpose of the mundus project was to elevate lorkhan via recursive reflection, worship that comes around on itself and self-amplifies. it’s not without its struggles, though: it’s “a cloak of dirt” after all.

Betrayed by your ancestors when you were not even looking. Hoary Magnus and his ventured opinions cannot sway the understated, a trick worthy of the always satisfied.

and those struggles ultimately derive from the other et’ada losing faith in him and his project. their lost faith became bitterness which became betrayal. when lorkhan was on the cusp of his greatest victory, “when [he was] not even looking,” he was turned upon viciously.

“hoary magnus” refers to the god of magic, who is also the sun. despite the betrayal of the vast majority of the et’ada, led by magnus and auri-el, magnus’s “ventured opinions cannot sway the understated,” meaning his mutiny didn’t convince the few who still clung fast to lorkhan’s vision. for those faithful, it was the best “trick” he could try to cast doubt on the mundus project - nothing short of such manipulation could have possibly swayed “the always satisfied,” those who are so sure of their ambitions that nothing could discourage them.

A short season of towers, a rundown absolution, and what is this, what is this but fire under your eyelid?

“a short season of towers” refers to the history of nirn. the towers are physical spires with metaphysical implications, things that hold up reality and its tenets (or those imposed by their architects and rulers) like tentpoles.

absolution means forgiveness, but a “rundown absolution” is a forgiveness in a sad state, of very poor quality. lorkhan forgives his kin for their betrayal, but it is bitter forgiveness, for only lorkhan truly understands the scope of what was lost. “a short season of towers” could have been something much, much greater.

and, in case we didn’t already understand how boethiah feels about lorkhan, she tells us that even the majesty of what has been created is “but fire under your eyelid?”

but there’s more to this eyelid thing. remember that line i skipped over earlier?

'The eyelid of the kingdom shall fill thiry [sic] and six folios, but the eye shall read the world.'

the eyelid is what you see when your eyes are closed, when you are asleep. the sleeping may read these sermons, but they’re nothing “but fire under your eyelid” - to be awake, with your eyes open, you can read the world itself. note the sleeping/awake dichotomy, which should be familiar if you’ve played the main quest of morrowind, and discovered the sleeping, dreaming house dagoth.

Shift ye in your skin, I say to the Trinimac-eaters. Pitch your voices into the color of bruise.

the “Trinimac-eaters” of course refers to boethiah and her faithful. the dunmer have not only distinct skin from their altmer cousins, but distinct accents as well (except in oblivion, but ... yeah). in morrowind they have the classic chain-smoker voice, and skyrim gives them sort of a scottish(?) accent. (i don’t know what eso does, forgive me.) “the color of bruise” refers to the blue-grey skin of the dunmer, so they “pitch [their] voices” into the same shade.

Divide ye like your enemies, in Houses, and lay your laws in set sequence from the center, again like the enemy Corners of the house of Troubles, and see yourself thence as timber, or mud-slats, or sheets of resin. Then do not divide, for yet is the stride of SITHISIT quicker than the rush of enemies, and He will sunder the whole for the sake of a shingle.

to become stronger, the chimer must divide into Houses, each a unique facet of velothi culture, each an important cog in the machine. they may be divided “like your enemies,” but these smaller units strengthen the whole, which vivec (or boethiah i guess) likens to the materials you build a house with. a house is built with timber and mud-slats, just as a House is built of its members; and because of these smaller strengths, chimer society as a whole is made stronger - the Houses become the timbers of a people.

SITHISIT, another name for padomay, primordial chaos and entropy, will ruin the strongest societies, and leave them vulnerable. so instead, cut up your society into manageable chunks, as Houses. the Houses are in conflict with one another, which strengthens them - and their collective strength becomes the strength of the nation. so at the cost of a unified culture, you “sunder the whole for the sake of a shingle.”

For we go different, and in thunder. SITHISIT is the start of all true Houses, built against statis [sic] and lazy slaves. Turn from your predilections, broken like false maps. Move and move like this. Quicken against false fathers, mothers left in corners weeping for glass and rain. Stasis asks merely for nothing, for itself, which is nothing, as you were in the eight everlasting imperfections.

through SITHISIT, the chimer are made different from the altmer. the Houses of the chimer are stronger than the clans of altmer, whose anuic bent prefers stasis, the absence of change - they are “lazy slaves” in deference to auri-el and his ilk. the chimer abandon these anuic “predilections, broken like false maps” - this adherence to stasis is a road leading to nowhere.

“move and move like this,” like fa-nuit-hen, the demiprince who taught the egg vivec in sermon one. the daedra are the ones who know the true path. the aedra are “false fathers,” parents who neglect their duty to allow their children to grow. the “mothers left in corners” might refer to the anticipations, who are almost always depicted as female (with a few occasional exceptions in boethiah). as for why they weep “for glass and rain,” i’m not sure.

stasis asks for nothing and itself, which boethiah says are the same. after all, stasis only holds as much value as it can be compared to. if all were static, nothing who hold any value at all. thus, it is empty. “the eight everlasting imperfections” are the eight divines (talos didn’t exist yet), who are the embodiments of stasis.

Vivec says unto the Hortator remember the words of Vivec.

okay, there’s a verse here where every other line is this line. so i’ll just quote the verse with all those cut out.

UNDERSTAND THAT SITHISIT STILL TRAVELS IN A PHOSPHORESCENT MIRROR OF THE SKY DROWNED AND SMILING INTERMITTENT HOPES ENOUGH TO ANSWER ALL THE THINGS NOT YET QUERIED

“SITHISIT STILL TRAVELS,” a reminder that it is fleeting and always shifting. the “PHOSPHORESCENT MIRROR OF THE SKY” is the mundus, which was meant to reflect lorkhan over and over again until he surpassed the entirety of the aurbis. although, betrayed, “DROWNED,” lorkhan (who is the purest avatar of SITHISIT) is also “SMILING,” for despite his failure, there is yet enough hope that everything will be alright.

as always,

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.

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theyearoftheking · 4 years

Text

Book 1: Carrie

I wish I could write you a melody so plain

That would save you, dear lady, from going insane

That would ease you and cool you and cease the pain

Of your useless and pointless knowledge...

-Bob Dylan

I first read Carrie seven years ago as part of the Rory Gilmore reading challenge (sense a trend yet?). Despite reading a handful of books in the challenge, I quickly gave up because the prospect of reading Finnegan’s Wake was just too much. Even as an English major, I just can’t stomach Joyce. But I digress, and promise to stick with this challenge until the bitter end. Besides, I have a blog. I’m obviously big time now.

Carrie was first published in 1974 and the overriding theme for me was relevance. What’s old is new again, human beings never really learn lessons and bullying is a tale as old as time. Let’s do a deep-ish dive, shall we?

The book opens with a pretty embarrassing scene set inside high school hell: the girl’s locker room. Carrie is showering after gym class, and gets her period for the first time, blood streaming down her legs. She’s scared as hell,and has no idea what’s happening, because she was raised by an evangelical crazy woman. Her classmates lose their shit, begin throwing menstrual products at her, and yelling, “plug it up!”

So cringy.

But on the bright side, this didn’t happen during the age of social media. This would have made Snapchat, Insta, TikTok, or whatever social media thing the kids are into. But you could still see it happening in 2020. Hell is other people, particularly high school girls of a certain bitchy persuasion.

After this humiliating moment, Carrie heads home to lick her wounds, and wonder why her mother, Margaret, never talked to her about menstruation. Her mother informs her, “And God made Eve from the rib of Adam...Get up, woman. Let us get in and pray. Let’s us pray to Jesus for our woman-weak, wicked, sinning souls...”

At this moment, my blood ran cold. This statement should sound like the ramblings of a crazy person. But instead it reminded me of another matriarch...

Yeah. Michelle Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting, and Counting On fame. Michelle with her crazy eyes and crunchy perm, who believes women shouldn’t be cutting their hair, wearing pants, or bikinis, or any article of clothing that might entice men to think wicked thoughts; because apparently women do nothing but illicit sinful thoughts in men. It would be funny, if it wasn’t for the legions of fans and multiple babies she and her evangelical brood keep popping out on their living room couches with alarming frequency. We won’t even get into the whole, “covering up the fact her son molested several of her daughters and brushed it under the rug, because... Jesus”.

Shudder.

After Carrie’s locker room situation, the school administrators try to punish several of the girls responsible for the tampons/pads attack. One of the ringleaders, Chris Hargensen is a right little bitch, and sends daddy into the principal’s office to plead on her behalf so she won’t miss prom. He and the principal get chippy with each other, and Mr. Hargensen says, “I don’t intend... to sit here and listen to a tissue of half-truths or your standard schoolmaster lecture, Mr. Grayle. I know my daughter well enough...”

This whole interaction between Mr. Hargensen and Principal Grayle cracked me up. Millennials (of which I am not) get a bad wrap for not being held accountable for anything. They are stereotyped as special snowflakes who need participation trophies, and their parents make excuses for all their bad behaviors.

Bro.

Tale as old as time. Need I remind you this book was published in 1974?

Ok, Boomer?

The story progresses with Sue Snell, one of the ringleaders of the Plug It Up debacle feeling guilty for her actions, and convincing her boyfriend, Tommy Ross to ask Carrie to prom. Tommy loves Sue, and agrees to do it. Carrie sews herself a crushed velvet prom dress, her mom repeatedly calls her a slut, and Carrie ends up looking beautiful. I imagine it much like Rachel Leigh Cook’s “startling” transformation in She’s All That.

Tommy and Carrie go to prom, and he realizes she’s actually kinda pretty, which makes her worthy of his respect. The crushed velvet dress gets all the compliments, and the night doesn’t start out as a total disaster. Well, bitchy Chris Hargensen isn’t having it. She convinces Billy Nolan, her greaser boyfriend, to pull off some kind of spectacular prank at prom to put Carrie in her place and remind her of her station.

Billy and his crew of greasers go to a local farm, kill two pigs, and collect the blood. Later on at prom when Carrie and Tommy are announced king and queen, Chris pulls the cord rigged to the buckets of pig blood, and douses them both. Carrie loses her shit, and uses her telekinetic powers (did I forget to mention that’s a thing she has?) to blow up the school, kill her classmates and destroy the lovely town of Chamberlain, Maine. After prom, she walks home, where Michelle Duggar, Mama White is waiting with a knife, and stabs Carrie in the chest. Carrie uses her powers to slow Michelle Duggar Mama White’s heart down, until she’s dead. Then (with the knife still stuck in her chest), Carrie heads back into town to finish her reign of terror and kill Chris and Billy. Then she dies.

And they all lived happily ever after. Well, Sue Snell kind of does, since she’s one of the only ones to make it out alive. No good deed goes unpunished, am I right?

A few notable, funny moments...

1. Early on in the novel, a reference is made to a letter Michelle Duggar Mama White wrote to a friend in Kenosha, Wisconsin. How did Steve decide on Kenosha? Such a strange city in Wisconsin to choose... Did he look at a map and randomly pick a city? Had he made a stop at the Mars Cheese Castle once and it left an impression? Did he throw a dart at a map of Wisconsin? Does he know Kenosha doesn’t have an especially high evangelical population? So many questions. As a Sconnie Cheesehead Homer, I’ll be keeping a Wisconsin Mentions tally throughout the challenge.

2. At one point in the novel, a fictitious scientific article compares the genetic-recessive characteristics of telekinesis to hemophilia. Hemophilia is referred to as, “King’s Evil”, I couldn’t help with wonder if Steve threw this fact in here just to use the term, “King’s Evil”. Random observation

I enjoyed re-reading Carrie, and still find it relevant and timely. And I think it speaks to King’s talent as a writer that he’s able to create a character like Carrie, who blows up a whole damn town and kills almost everyone, and you still feel sorry for her. She’s not quite a villain, but she’s not far off.

In summation:

Total King Wisconsin Mentions: 1

Dark Tower References: 0

Book Grade: B+

Now, time for Salem’s Lot. It’s been on my to-be-read list for quite a while, and I’m looking forward to diving into it. Be patient, it’s 700 pages, compared to Carrie’s 290.

I should mention, I’m reading all of these books in actual BOOK form, no e-books. I find when I use my Kindle, I get distracted by marathon games of Candy Crush, and lose focus. But with an actual book? No candy to be crushed, no FB messages to check, no cute dog pictures to upload.

Speaking of dogs, Steve has Molly, The Thing of Evil. I have Biscuit Beast the Beagle.

You can see her handiwork here on a bookmark a friend was nice enough to bring back from The Stanley.

Beagles... to know them is to love them.

Until next time- long days and pleasant nights, readers!

Rebecca

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path-of-my-childhood · 4 years

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Taylor Swift is the artist of the decade

By: Courteney Larocca for Insider Date: December 16th 2019

Not only has Swift been putting out No. 1 hit after No. 1 hit this decade, but her music has latched onto its listeners in deeply intimate ways. The singer has also been actively using her platform as a successful artist to shed light on injustices within the music industry to ensure a younger generation of musicians can thrive in an environment that cares about their work, as opposed to commodifies it.

Taylor Swift knows that if you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room. Oddly enough, Swift usually is the smartest person in any room.

While the casual observer may see Swift as nothing more than a pop star, she's one of the few people who has actively been making her industry - and the lives of her fans - better in irreversible and notable ways throughout the decade.

Swift was barely 20 years old when she became the youngest artist to ever win album of the year at the Grammy Awards on January 31, 2010, for her sophomore album, "Fearless." While the album came out in late 2008, it set Swift up to become an international phenomenon over the course of the 2010s; it even landed at No. 98 on this decade's overall Billboard Hot 200 list.

Her early success made sense - audiences love a wunderkind, plus there was something so incredibly relatable about a teenager telling her crush, "you belong with me."

But for me, and other fans of Swift, it was more than that. She was someone we could see ourselves in as we navigated our own lives and romances. And with the release of "Speak Now," in late 2010, Swift proved she wasn't capable of just reinventing optimistic love stories, she had a complete grasp on heartbreak and pain, too.

Swift demonstrated her songwriting prowess early on, and her music only continued to get stronger all the way through her 2019 album, 'Lover'

"Speak Now" is an entirely self-written album that charted on the Billboard Hot 200 for 137 weeks, which was not only a huge middle finger to critics who claimed Swift didn't write her own music, but also proof she was one of the most promising songwriters of her generation.

Arming herself with lyrics like "I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe," and "The lingering question kept me up / Two a.m., who do you love?" Swift created a bulletproof foundation for a career built around her uncanny ability to pinpoint crucial moments of intimacy and turn them into universal anthems of heartbreak, love, and loss that became soundtracks to real fans' lives.

Obviously, the stellar music never stopped coming. With 2012 came "Red," an album that's aged so gracefully that it's landed on numerous best albums of the 2010s lists.

Swift dropped her pop masterpiece, "1989," in 2014 - an album that boasts her biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit to date, "Shake It Off," which stayed on the chart for 50 consecutive weeks. "1989" also earned Swift another album of the year win at the Grammys, making her the first woman to ever be honored with that award twice.

Swift continued her career growth with "Reputation" in 2017, which helped her break The Rolling Stones' record for highest-grossing US tour in history by earning a whopping $266.1 million. Then, capping off the decade came 2019's "Lover," an album that showcased all of Swift's immense musical talents, but stands out in her catalog as the first album that she outright owns - a triumph that goes far beyond the music itself.

It's important to note, though, that there is no singular album that can easily be delegated as the "fan favorite," largely because each album is so special within Swift's discography. If you picked seven different fans off the street, they could very easily all have a different answer to the question, "What is your favorite Taylor Swift album?"

Even critics can't fully answer that question. While "Red" is known for being critically beloved (and is my own personal favorite), Billboard had six of its writers argue for one of her first six studio albums as being her best. Also, when I ranked Swift's best and worst songs for Insider earlier this year, songs from every single one of her albums made the "best" list.

One of the reasons Swift's fans constantly latched onto her music this decade - leading to her chart-topping dominance - was because her lyrics always felt so personal, yet relatable at the same time.

Take "All Too Well," for instance. It was a deep cut tucked cleverly away at track No. 5 on "Red." It was never released as a single, but this mighty pop-rock ballad became the sort of musical zenith most artists only dream about writing.

Hearing Swift weave in intimate details about listening to her ill-fated lover's mother tell stories about his childhood or leaving her scarf at his sister's house might seem too specific to reach a larger audience outside of her piano room, but it's exactly that candor that makes Swift's best songs feel so ubiquitous.

Swift's relatability proved crucial in 2017 when it came to her impacts on societal shifts outside of the music industry

Two months before the New York Times exposé of Harvey Weinstein was published, Swift stood up in a Denver courthouse against an ex-radio DJ who groped her at a 2013 meet-and-greet and then had the gall to sue her for damages after he was fired from his job.

The phrases from her testimony, "I'm critical of your client sticking his hand under my skirt and grabbing my a--," and "I'm not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault," will forever be ingrained in Swift's fans' minds alongside the lyrics she wrote in her high school diaries.

After she won her symbolic $1, which she sought out for "anyone who feels silenced by a sexual assault," The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, or RAINN, told ABC that its national hotline saw a 35% increase in calls over the weekend following her testimony.

"Seeing someone that they respect, that they identify with [state they've been assaulted], has a big impact," RAINN's president Scott Berkowitz told ABC News at the time.

It's easy to look at a statistic and not think about the people behind it, but I can say that for myself, Swift played a pivotal role in how I viewed my own sexual assault.

Even before her fearless testimony, I turned to her 2010 ballad, "Dear John," for validation that I wasn't the only woman who ever counted her footsteps, praying the floor won't fall through again while dating a man with a "sick need to take love away." I later found solace in "Clean," the atmospheric "1989" closer that promises its listener that they'll one day be able to finally breathe after a roller-coaster relationship.

There's no doubt in my mind that I'm not the only one who saw their own pain reflected in Swift's lyrics, allowing them to grieve. After all, she wouldn't have become the artist with the highest-ever amount of American Music Awards, which is a fully fan-voted show, if her music was just OK.

Swift has also made strides at bettering the music industry for her fellow artists as well as herself

I won't rehash the recent legal woes brought on by Scott Borchetta selling Swift's former label Big Machine Records - and thus, all of Swift's catalog up through 2017's "Reputation" - to Scooter Braun (because who needs Big Machine anyway?). I will say that Swift fighting to own her art, and by proximity her fight for all artists to own their art, is just one example of the work she's done this decade to protect artists' rights.

You may remember that she got endlessly dragged for taking her music off Spotify or writing a letter to Apple condemning its policy of not paying artists during a three-month free trial period of Apple Music. But underneath all of the misogynistic, "she's only out for money" criticisms spat at her, you'll find she did those things to bring light to issues within her industry that hurt up-and-coming artists who don't have the millions of dollars that Swift has. Within less than 24 hours, Swift received a direct response to her open letter to Apple, saying the company had decided to reverse its decision.

When Swift chose to leave Big Machine behind in 2018, she didn't just leave for the sake of leaving. She instead negotiated a deal with Universal Music Group that not only granted her the rights to everything she would create under the label but also included a clause in her contract stipulating that "any sale of [UMG's] Spotify shares result in a distribution of money to their artists, non-recoupable."

She also said the label had agreed to this "at what they believe will be much better terms than paid out previously by other major labels."

That means that with her contract, Swift made sure other favorite artists of this decade, like Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Kanye West, will benefit from the revenue their art brings in. The same goes for lesser-known and newer artists signed to the label.

Even other artists have given credit to Swift for the way she changed the way we consume pop music

It's hard to imagine today's pop stars like Ariana Grande would be able to name-check their former lovers in songs like "Thank U, Next," and have them be the successful hits we know today if Swift hadn't previously crafted breakup songs like 2010's "Dear John" and 2014's "Style" that made it clear who the tracks were about - John Mayer and Harry Styles - right there in the titles.

Halsey, another artist who rose to prominence this decade, has even lionized Swift as one of her songwriting heroes, notably for her smart bridges.

"The bridge [of a song] is a fortune cookie. It pulls the whole thing together, it's the punchline, it's one of the most important parts of a song. Ask Taylor Swift, she writes the best ones in history," Halsey said in a November 2019 interview with Capital FM.

Anyone who's listened to "Out of the Woods," "Don't Blame Me," or "Lover" knows this to be true.

Swift deserves to be the artist of the decade because her music validated women while she simultaneously fought for a younger generation to make new music in a better environment

It took 13 years for Swift to come out with a track contemplating the misogynist double standards she's had to face as a woman in the music industry, and it's easy to agree with her sentiment: If Swift were a man, then she would, no doubt, be "The Man."

But while she maybe would have faced fewer obstacles and overtly sexist criticisms throughout her career if she were a man, she may not have touched as many women's lives with her music.

Being someone who has idolized Swift since I was 11 years old, I can say that the reason she matters is because not only does she produce beautifully-worded tracks that resonate with fans on extremely personal levels, but she also wants to make the world a better, fairer place - one music contract, open letter, and song lyric at a time.

And that's something that should never be shaken off.

#taylor swift #artist of the decade #insider #article #about taylor #2010s #all the eras

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ducavalentinos · 5 years

Note

Why don't you like Sarah Dunant's novels about the Borgias? Being as you are a Borgia expert/fan, I'd like to know your opinions on this 2 novels, 2 novels which were hugely popular some years ago and have been praised by some Borgia historians.

Ok, so I just want to start this by saying that I haven’t read the second volume and given what @margarettudor told me about it, it doesn’t sound like something I’d want to read tbh. So this is gonna be only about the first volume: Blood&Beauty.I mean, it’s not suprising that these novels were hugely popular and praised by Borgia historians anon, given that Dunant backs their narratives about the Borgia family. Especially about Lucrezia. Dunant clearly sees Lucrezia like most, if not all Borgia historians do. It’s something that plagues Borgia historiography if you ask me. The flawed idea that the only way to rehabilitate Lucrezia’s terrible reputation, is to deny any association with the “crimes” of her family. To press hard that she was just a victim, and she never did anything wrong, ever. If Cesare and Rodrigo are usually the epitome of bad traits, Lucrezia is the epitome of good traits. Which not only is just as dehumanizing as portraying her as evil, but completely ignores the times she was living in and how she was raised, it also doesn’t match with the little evidence we have about her.She was not the poisoner of the Renaissance, (although according to a letter of Giulia Farnese, she was quite good and passionate about chemistry.) But she certainly wasn’t a passive victim either. She received the same education her brothers did, she spoke 5 languages, she had that well known Borgia allure that she deliberately used to her and her family’s advantage, and she definitely had the same mind for politics and diplomacy they had. Rodrigo and Cesare seemed to have trusted her the most with their political affairs. And then shockingly she also shared with them familiar flaws such as: callousness, shallowness, and selfishness.So coming back to Dunant’s book, to see her portraying Lucrezia as this sweet innocent girl, who is incredibly gullible and easily shocked by any imorality lool, who just wants to love and be loved, but her family, most notably her creepy, cruel brother keeps getting in the way is absurd quite honestly. Lucrezia wouldn’t have survived as long as she did if she was truly like that. And then how Dunant presents Cesare and Lucrezia’s relationship as one-sided, as Cesare being the one who is obsessed with his sister is unreal. And that has nothing to do with my shipper feelings for them. I don’t need them to be incestuous on every piece of media, especially considering they were not like that in real life.I do need however, that their relationship be a close and honest one, with mutual feelings and trust because that was pretty much the case. It is a hopeless task to keep trying to separate Lucrezia from her brother and his scheming. If there is one thing that is clear about the Borgias, is Lucrezia’s extreme closeness and loyalty towards her brother and vice-versa, and how that remained true until the very end. No matter what happened. It poses as a big obstacle for Borgia historians who are keen on the St.Lucrezia narrative and it puzzles them too, (which can be quite amusing when you read it ngl) but it is what it is. Lucrezia adored her brother, and he adored her, their complicity was such that it seems even Rodrigo was occasionally bothered by it. By all accounts they were each other’s favorite sibling, possibly because they understood each other best and had similarity in character. We don’t see that same closeness between her and Juan for example. But apart from the Lucrezia’s business, Dunant’s characterizations of the Borgia family as a whole felt dull to me. They are essentially pinned down into tropes? or the same ol’ stereotypes if you will, you have: Rodrigo, the likeable, ambitious schemer, Cesare, the-sometimes-charming-but-mostly unlikeable, dark and heartless scheamer, and then you have Lucrezia, sweet innocent lamb who’s just a pawn. There is no complexity, no depth with these characters, and mind you the whole Italian Renaissance was a complex period, full of grey areas, which it’s one of the things I love about it. You have these people who had no problem slaughtering their way to the top, even if it included their own family members, but who were also big patrons of the arts and humanities. The Malatesta family is a good example of that. Also the Baglioni to an extent. So I needed that complexity and that grey area, and it wasn’t delivered imo. It’s that simplistic portrayal of the family. After a while, it gets tiring.Those are the reasons why I’m in the opposite side of liking this book I guess. And it’s not to say is utter trash, because it isn’t. Dunant is a good writer, she has a way with words. I think that’s also why her novels were so well-received, and there are worst Borgia fiction out there. In the end I think it’s a matter of personal taste and how you perceive the Borgia family. I respect Dunant’s view, (although I find it dishonest and presumptuous how she says what she wrote is as close to real life as possible.) But my view on the family is a different one, I don’t believe neither one of them were good people™. But that doesn’t mean they were evil. Far from it. All three of them had qualities and flaws, all three of them were capable of good and bad things, and that’s what gets lost more often than not in both fiction and history. They were better/different at some things, and no worst than their contemporaries at other things. That’s what I try to find wherever I read fiction about them: balance, complexity, humanity. It is a hard task to be sure lol, but sometimes I get lucky. I hope this bible of an answer makes sense for you anon and I hope you read this before tumblr goes down lol, any other questions, feel free to ask! :))

#anon ask #ask answered #borgia thoughts #house borgia #lucrezia borgia #lucrecia borgia #cesare borgia #césar borgia #rodrigo borgia #i really tried to be as succinct as articulate as possible #but you know #maybe i failed?#lool #anyways

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