archiveofliterature

[archiveofliterature]

the way ramy "why did they take the smut out of my arabian nights" mirza would be the no1 fan of this column

I reread Babel

And now I have brainrot over the idea of Robin reading about Greek mythology for Ancient Greek class as a teen, and then writing (really f*cking tame but still) homoerotic AchillesXPatroclus fanfiction, and Lovell FINDING it and being like, Robin, this is not the past tense for this verb... 🤨 And Robin being like U-huh 👀👀

And then maybe when he gets older he posts biweekly stories in some student run Oxford paper under a pseudonym, and the stoires are written entirely in ancient Greek or Latin so only the babblers can read it. And the students are EATING it, meanwhile Lovell and Playfair are like, We should put a stop to this. But then we need to explain to the paper that they've been publishing smut. And Chakravati is like, You gotta admit it's pretty good quality, no?

[archiveofliterature]

yet another reason why queer romance in media that is very subtle or more queer-coding than actual explicit rep is so much more compelling than the wealth of straight stories that are out there is bc I think a lot of romance writers forget that you have to like. show not tell. and imply things. and if you hustle things along and put two characters together for the sake of it instead of really working to build their relationship and show how well they work with each other it's not really going to be as interesting to people. and for some reason, a staggering amount of people do not know how to write romance properly so you get a very bland forced dynamic that either feels like an afterthought (he's a boy and she's a girl, hey they could be together because that's what happens!) or the only thing that matters about their characters (see her? she's the Love Interest. that is all she's there for)

however if you're being censored and you literally can't make your characters say "I love you" or kiss or maybe even hold hands you're going to have to come up with more creative ways to tell your audience that they're in love and that usually results in the most poetic beautiful stuff you've ever seen that's SO much more interesting than two characters who make eye contact and go into the slow-mo rose petals scene that's basically screaming at you "hey look at these two. they're in love. you're supposed to be invested in their relationship now. do you get it?" eye contact held for slightly too long in an emotional scene is more compelling. a hand very lightly touching their back is WAY more compelling.

and might I add this is not even impossible to achieve with uncensored straight romances at all like Pride & Prejudice is wildly popular for this exact reason. how many times have I seen people going insane over the hand flex scene. they didn't even kiss in that movie unless you count the extended ending. and everyone loves it. because it's done RIGHT.

tldr; romance is hard to write and you have to put in the effort if you want people to care about your ship. now go forth and imply something

QUICK EDIT TO ADD ALSO when things are more subtle that gives people more space to interpret the dynamic as whatever they want. something might be subtle because that's all they're allowed to show, but something might be subtle because that literally what it's supposed to be. as an aroace person I personally see a LOT of queerplatonic vibes from more subtly played relationships and it's so incredibly exciting and heartwarming for me. and that's a whole new realm of relationship that I think should also be given more attention

[archiveofliterature]

Some more Robin and Ramy 🩶

[archiveofliterature]

remmick and the vampires present a false dichotomy

Hogwood (the man who sold the twins the mill) and the KKK are very obviously bad, they are outright malicious bigotry, they use the n-word and plan to lynch the moore's and their community, they are so blatantly racist and hateful it's unavoidably obvious

remmick and the vampires however say that they believe in equality, say that they want to create a community, and yet remmick's goal throught the movie is to both metaphorically and literally steal sammie's ability for his own goal of reconnecting with his irish ancestors, a white man wants to harm a young and upcoming black man and use talents for his own goals without giving any regard to said black man's autonomy or agency

when sammie sings 'I lied to you' in the juke joint and calls forth the spirits from the past and future, it's a blend of cultures; west african, east asian, native american, and african american song and dance blend together across time and space to tell the stories of blues; where it takes its inspiration from, the music genres it then inspired, the complex history of black american culture and its intersections with other peoples of colour in the USA

when remmick and the vampires kill and turn the people in the juke joint, and then perform rocky road to dublin, only remmick's irish culture is on display, there is no influence from the black and asian people he has forcibly assimilated into his song, it's juxtaposition with the earlier scene is blatant, remmick is more than happy to assimilate people of colour into his 'community' of 'equals', and yet its only whiteness that is celebrated, that is normative

remmick claims that he's doing people a favour by turning them immortal, conviently ignoring that he literally has to suck the life out of them to do so, trapping their spirits on earth, he claims that he's the good guy, that the KKK were gonna come and lynch everyone at the joint in the morning anyways, conviently ignoring that he's doing the exact same thing; a white man leading a mob to kill a bunch of black people

in the final confrontation with sammie remmick repeatedly dunks him into the river, a forceful baptism. both the celtic irish and enslaved west africans had their religions suppressed and destroyed by colonialsm, had christianity forced upon them by the british empire, and in that scene we see remmick repeating that cycle, using christianity to inflict harm, and sammie reclaiming christianity, despite all the complex emotions he has arround it, as many colonised peoples have and still do, when he recites the lord's prayer

remmick and the vampires are no less racist than hogwood and the KKK, are no less predatory or evil, they're just less blantant about their bigotry, they represent the system, the normalised white supremacy that is seeped into the very foundation of culture in america, the point isnt that remmick would call any of the black characters in the movie the n-word, i dont think he would, the point is that his exploitation and desacration and inserting-himself-into-when-he-wasn't-invited of the juke joint is a microcosm of what white people have done to black american arts and culture since ever since there have been black and white people in america, and even before that

theres a reason vultures are shown early on in this movie

[archiveofliterature]

[archiveofliterature]

you ever think ramy hated the idea of robin killing himself bc he wanted to make sure they could see each other again in heaven

[archiveofliterature]

there is something poetic in me getting to meet rf kuang during her katabasis tour in CAMBRIDGE

[archiveofliterature]

“robin had the absurd impulse to place his hand against ramy’s cheek” oh how i wish gay people were real

[archiveofliterature]

I don't think I ever fully realized that in many ways, The Odyssey is a tragedy until I listened to Epic. Because he survives and he manages to get home and see his family again, so it doesn't really strike as a tragedy.

But then there is Epic going, "but look at all he lost to get there, all the people that died for him to get home. Don't forget that the man you met at the start of the musical is not the one that makes it home. He dies in "Monster.""

[archiveofliterature]

I used to hate the word faggot but now I realize that it's probably one of the only things that the gay community has left that isn't being sanitized, shined, and sold back to us at a premium by deceitful ass companies who claim to like us but then vote for policies that kill us. you're not gonna see a bank in a pride parade with banners that say "we love faggots" but you sure as hell will see a gay person saying "I love being a faggot" it feels so more real.

and I want it to stay controversial too because if a bank ever feels like they have the right to say "haha faggot right guys? 😏🏳️‍🌈" we should be able to publicly execute their ceo

[archiveofliterature]

ramyrobin.....

[archiveofliterature]

it was not on wheat...

[archiveofliterature]

I think Ramy is finding it hard to concentrate guys 🤭

[archiveofliterature]

mum read babel and says that ramy and robin are gay as shit

[archiveofliterature]

i legitimately cannot hear the nickname pakhi (পাখি) anymore without thinking about how ramy, a bengali indian, nicknamed robin "birdie" like rebecca what the actual fuck

[archiveofliterature]

no because the layers in the ballroom scene is smth that should be studied in english lit and creative writing classes. that page in the book is going to start looking like one of my carol ann duffy poem sheets from my year 11 english class i'm so fr

[archiveofliterature]

idk man, sometimes a sentence in the narrative isn't for the reader but for the character to actively recognise smth and for them to use that to move forward. if you felt like it was obvious from the showing text, although that doesn't necessarily mean the character themself understood what it meant, then congrats i guess?