#Tonal Union

[trevlad-sounds]

Saturday 16 December Mixtape 405 “Mind Flow EXCLUSIVE”

Multi Genre, Electroacoustic, Ambient, Electronic, Trevlad Sounds Tuesdays & Saturdays. Support the artists and labels. Don't forget to tip so future shows can bloom. https://linktr.ee/trevlad

Trevlad Sounds-Welcome in you wonderful listener 00:00

Der Elektrische Traum-Continuum Flow 00:31

silentwave-Voice calling me 06:31

6WX_O-Enter the waterfall 10:05

Thought Bubble-Devoider 12:16

Anenon-Moons Melt Milk Light 17:48

Pageant-Structure No (3) 19:42

Don Leisure, Amanda Whiting-Beyond The Midnight Sun 26:16

Sven Wunder-Lunar Distance 28:58

Drapizdat, Reather Weport-Pattern #5 32:23

Off Land-Skyquakes 35:13

The Central Office of Information-The Mental Cupboards Of My Mind 40:01

Pietro Zollo-April — part 3 42:01

Imrryr-1st 48:01

Robohands-Moments 51:33

Mary Lattimore, Roy Montgomery-Blender in a Blender 53:57

Wojciech Golczewski-Otherworld 1:00:02

Hello Meteor-Gravity Yellow 1:02:28

36-Ghostfields 1:06:37

worriedaboutsatan-Choppers 1:10:08

Apta-Submerge 1:11:04

Burial Grid-The Woman Buried Beneath the Candle 1:14:48

Coda Nautica-Sequence 1:17:53

KNOWER-Real Nice Moment 1:23:28

Survey Channel-Moss Tilt 1:27:32

Bruce Gall-Brainwashed 1:29:06

[gacougnol]

(via ▶> Fleeting Future | Akusmi)

"like orbital and the Penguin cafe jamming on Steve Reich"

[burlveneer-music]

Akusmi - Fleeting Future - “hallucinatory, genre-defying blend of minimalism, cosmic jazz and Fourth World influences” (insert Tom Hardy “That’s bait” GIF)

Akusmi is the new project moniker of French-born, London based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Pascal Bideau, who signs to the new Tonal Union imprint for the release of his album ‘Fleeting Future.’ With its hallucinatory, genre-defying blend of minimalism, cosmic jazz and Fourth World influences, and in its quest for optimism in the face of unknown and limitless possibility. ‘Fleeting Future’ stands apart as an inventive and inspirational debut.

The creation of the album’s richly colourful and multi-layered sound world was originally inspired by Bideau’s journey to Indonesia, where he immersed himself in traditional Gamelan and gong music. Many of the themes, motifs and melodies on ‘Fleeting Future’ seed from the ‘Slendro’ scale, one of the essential tuning systems used in Gamelan. However it is not musical scales, but scales as in the size or extent of things that most fascinates Bideau, specifically he explains; “the compelling way things dramatically change when you shift from any given scale to another.” ‘Fleeting Future’ will be the first release on the new London/Berlin based Tonal Union imprint, founded by Art director and curator Adam Heron. Akusmi - alto sax, bass guitar, gongs, piano, flutes, percussions, synths Ruth Velten - alto sax, soprano sax Daniel Brandt - drums, synths Florian Juncker - trombone Artwork by Sigrid Calon

[asksimonbelmont]

Hard question coming in: Do you actually want children? Or having one or more is just something you feel pressured to do, to keep the family's legacy and be sure someone will be there to fight Dracula in the future?

Another hard question: Did your parents actually wanted you?

If circumstances were different… if I was in a union with someone I loved, and not arranged with, and we were far from the burden of this lineage, then yes. I would want children.

But it is difficult to stomach bringing life into this world with the weight of circumstance thrust upon them. It is cruel—and I beg my future children’s forgiveness—and Selena’s, too, for shouldering this cruelty with me—but I cannot change the necessity of this fate. I cannot change God’s will for this family.

It is as you say: it is something I feel pressured to do.

But I will fight as long as there is breath in my body, so my family will never have to face hardship from this life. I vow to protect and care for my children.

…My parents did not do the same for me.

[machinedramon]

this is so far my reaction to this anime and I'm only an episode and a half in

[guiltyidealist]

Little guy(s) from an indie Czech game stimboard

x x x x x x x x x Banner

[soldier-poet-king]

Doing hot girl shit while bored at work today

(the bob the tomato christian socialism meme sent me down a rabbit hole)

[youremyheaven]

Astrology & Voice : A Quick Study

1. Prominent 3h placements can give you a very distinct voice

2. People who have a deeper/huskier voice often have Mercury aspecting Pluto. Ex: Miley Cyrus & Whitney Houston (both have mercury conjunct pluto)

3. Mercury in a water sign can give the native a very sultry voice. They probably sound a lil intimidating and their voices will always be slightly low pitched (Zoe Saldana, Lana Del Rey, Pamela Anderson, Adriana Lima, Gisele Bundchen)

if Mercury is in Cancer, the voice tends to be soft and calming to hear. Ex: Margot Robbie, Elsa Pataky, Kate Beckinsale etc

Mercury in Scorpio gives the native a certain, almost nasally twang to their voice, it's not exactly nasally but i cant think of a good way to describe it, its deeper and fuller sounding but there's a certain twang to it.

Ex: Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry, Julia Roberts, Madonna, Kris Jenner, Demi Moore, Gabrielle Union & Miley Cyrus

especially Miley & Demi have this very gravelly cigar smoking kinda voice

Mercury in Pisces gives a very intimidating, richer or fuller vocal timbre

Ex: Mariah Carey (her speaking voice), Sharon Stone, Liz Taylor, Alan Rickman, Lucy Lawless, Juliette Binoche, Fergie (her speaking voice)

4. Mercury in Fire signs gives a rather shrill voice, unless there are other aspects involved

Others may find their voice/talking irritating; they often have "vocal fry" esque tendencies

Mercury in Leo: Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz, Demi Lovato, Lindsay Lohan

Mercury in Sagittarius can give you either a very husky, sensuous voice or a very "loud" one, there's no in between

Ex: Scarlett Johansson, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Vanessa Paradis, Carla Bruni, Bjork etc

Mercury in Aries natives have a very tonal pitch, their voices have a very "radio announcer" quality, idk how to describe it 😭😭

Ex: Diana Ross, Jessica Chastain, Madison Beer, Carmen Electra, Jennifer Garner etc

5. Mercury in Earth signs

Mercury in Taurus also gives natives a very soulful, deep-ish husky voice. They're very sexy sounding

Ex: Gigi Hadid, Uma Thurman, Brooke Shields, Selena Quintanilla, Renee Zellwegger etc

Mercury in Virgo: these natives have a very "sing song-y" voice, they speak in a very rhythmic way and modulate their voice very well. if you listen to any of their interviews, they always speak like they're telling a story, if you know what I mean.

Ex: Madonna, Kylie Jenner, Hugh Grant, Monica Bellucci, Amy Winehouse, Salma Hayek, Dakota Johnson etc

Mercury in Capricorn gives natives a raspy voice, their voices tend to be very low pitched and some of them kind of sound like they have a perpetual cold

Ex: Taehyung, Zayn Malik, Shakira, Alex Turner, R Kelly, Alexa Demie

Sometimes however it can give the native a very "sugary girly" voice

Ex: Milla Jovovich, Taylor Swift, Zooey Deschanel, Ellen Degeneres

6. Mercury in Air signs

Mercury in Gemini natives are very verbose; they're articulate but they're very wordy; they also speak in a rather expressive manner; usually they're very well spoken

Ex: Angelina Jolie, Elizabeth Hurley, Helena Bonham Carter, Courteney Cox, Stevie Nicks, Cate Blanchett etc

Mercury in Libra natives often speak in a very expressive and animated way, its so cutee🥰

Ex: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Zendaya, Brigitte Bardot, Bella Hadid, Kate Winslet, Emma Stone, Gwen Stefani, Sophia Loren etc

Mercury in Aquarius: ive often noticed that these natives can sound a bit clueless or zoned out when they're speaking 🤭

Ex: Harry Styles, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston, Paris Hilton (in the 2000s at least)

[marvel-starwarsfangirl]

I rewatched the CW Bad Batch episodes and it feels so long ago since we saw the team whole. Not to mention the old armor since the boys recently stripped theirs. Their CW vibe was so goofy and sibling energy. Now, they're worn down and dead set on saving the most precious person in their life. The tonal shift is kinda shocking at times.

Hunter and Wrecker have become much more serious. They've grown and have suffered great losses. Comparing past and present feels like night and day. Hunter now comes with dad mode and is so determined to find Omega. Wrecker isn't as loud or impatient.

Crosshair is waaaay different. To be fair though, he's suffered so much both emotionally and physically. The snark still exists, but he's practically an open book when compared to his first appearance. He's so expressive and talkative now. The Empire broke him and then Omega swooped in to help. I started doing a character study for him because there is so much to talk about, but that's a post for another day.

Echo is also more serious. It hit me, but there is such cruel irony about his fate with the Techno Union. Echo's whole schtick was that he couldn't stop repeating orders. He wound up captured and was left in a state where he could only relay orders. That's pretty twisted.

Just some observations because of the tonal shift. TBB is so dark when compared to CW. That being said, I'm so grateful for both these shows and I love them.

[txttletale]

'utopia is a verb not a noun' isn't actually a bad sentiment i just hate how lancer fans use it to universally exculpate all the problems of lancer's tonal issues. like they will say ad infinitum 'ah, see, you have misunderstood, union isn't utopian, it's just striving to be but of course it's not there yet' -- when the stuff you're pointing out about the setting isn't even 'this isn't utopian' but 'this is blatantly incoherent' or 'this is actively nightmarish'. also one of the lancer guys gave an interview where he said that union using its state power to seize the assets of one of the three (!) megacorporation with legal representation and a private military that engages in human slavery would 'make things a hell of a lot worse' by 'disrupting intersetellar trade' which. lol. lmao

[amarguerite]

Kinda loving the labor union plotline in The Gilded Age, which is not something I expected to say about a show that in season one had a whole episode devoted to the British method of table setting. Some spoilery musings under the cut…

My one quibble at first was that they were shying away from the brutality of the early efforts to stop labor disputes but then I realized:

1) this is not a show whose tone jibes well with honest depictions of historical violence. Last week’s attempt to show the frequencies of lynchings in Gilded Age Alabama had a weird tonal whiplash, even for a Julian Fellows show. Probably better not to go down that path!

2) George Russell is possibly the one gilded age robber baron— as the show shows his character— who would decide at the last minute he can’t bring himself to fire on striking workers because:

a) his method of strong arming people into doing what he wants is to talk them into it and fling money at the problem. When those don’t work he flounders and has a rare moment of self-doubt. The fact that he has to resort to physical violence clearly has him questioning his abilities and feeling deeply wrong. He wants to make the world bow to him through the force of his rhetoric.

b) he’s extremely out of touch (why aren’t the union leader’s kids in school, and instead also working at the mill?? Could it be that you created a company town Mr. Russell??? Could it be the poverty???) but… he’s also a self-made man, so seeing the actual conditions of his workers might actually make him change his mind

c) he’s utterly devoted to his family, to the tune of paying millions for an opera house and essentially kidnapping the director of the opera just so his wife (who hates opera) can get the box she wants. Seeing that his big enemy has a wife he ALSO loves, and children he protects probably struck a chord and threw him. I do think the big turning point for George was seeing the labor union leader push his son physically behind him, to protect him

I also got a real kick of Patrick “That’s Why We Build the Wall” Pagebooming out in a deep bass that they must fire on the striking workers or the whole social order would collapse. Not sure why this man has become The Character Actor to represent the Evils of Capitalism, but he does a great job of it!

[saltminerising]

The tonal inconsistency in fr lore especially lately is kinda getting to me, personally... Honestly it really just kind of sucks. Like. Sandsurge lore is that they canonically disappeared from public society because they got. Unionized? That's the whole story. and. Aethers were gone for millennia because they just got. stuck in space. and were too silly for their jobs or whatever. Ok. Banescales were the victims of a literal genocide and all of the ones alive today were the eggs that were protected by the ancient banescales in their dying moments. Like. ?????. Dude. (the banescale lore story is the best one on the site no contest though tbh)

[nshtn]

NSHTN Personality Sheet! (aka Incendiary Dano Riddler, or Incendi)

Music Vibes to Match > Ambience: 3 Tonal Tracks without Lyrics SHE - DIGITAL AMBIENT DESIGNS - BOOT DBOKEY - ASMR TOPRE KEYBOARD [LEOPOLD FC660C 45g] MINDFULNESS ON MONDAYS - CALMING UNDERGROUND LAKE Negative: 5 Tracks with Lyrics and 'Negative' Themes KEYGEN CHURCH - NEL NOME DEL CODICE

MY LIFE WITH THE THRILL KILL KULT - THE DEVIL DOES DRUGS

AYESHA EROTICA - SYNTHETIC [Slowed + Reverb]

VIENNA TENG - THE HYMN OF ACXIOM

KASANE TETO COVER - AISHITE! AISHITE! AISHITE!

>>Footnotes:

|BUSDRIVER - EAT RICH

|AESOP ROCK - DOG AT THE DOOR

|LAURA LES - HAUNTED

Positive: 5 Tracks with Lyrics and 'Positive' Themes BUSDRIVER - NEW AQUARIUM

OR[G]Y - OPTICON

COMBICHRIST - THIS SHIT WILL F C U K YOU UP

GABEMTNZ - GLITCH IN YOUR HEART

KAYLA RAE - MAD?

>>Footnotes:

|POWERCYAN - DISCIPLES OF THE NIGHT

|DORIAN ELECTRA - DADDY LIKE!

|DUAL CORE - HOSTAGE DOWN

Favorite Foods > Three comfort, three healthy, three high class Comfort: - Poptarts - Pizza - Goldfish Healthy: - Carrots - Steamed Zucchini - Sweet Potato Fries High Class: - Salmon with Lump Crab - Hambone Pea Soup with Herbs - Herb-Roasted Multicolor Potatoes

Political affiliation, beliefs overview > How do these beliefs affect their daily life? General Far left anarchosocialist. Anti 'three letter associations'. Pseudoskeptic. Atheist. 'Positive' Strong believer in personal freedoms. Water and housing should be mandatory for all. Workers should unionize. All people deserve plenty of time off to handle their needs. Government is shackles. 'Negative' - get spicy A bit of a tech bro. Poses a legible threat to people with power. Anti-psychiatry with an unfair bias to doctors. Overly-positive outlook on deeply illicit substances (also uses them). Anti-theocratic, headache to people who are religious. Privacy paranoid.

Personality > What words describe them? Contemplative, intelligent, shy, hypomanic, paranoid, unstable, obsessive, hyper-empathetic, witty, cynical, touch-deprived.

Game Vibes > Five games that have their vibe NIGHTDIVE - SYSTEM SHOCK DRIZZLY BEAR - HACKMUD CREATURES LABS - CREATURES: DOCKING STATION FACEPUNCH - GARRY'S MOD CHUCKLEFISH - STARBOUND

Collage Vibes > Cite your sources! Square image board collage.

img: herbs | vines | latte | code 1 | code 2 | keys

tagging: @danosrosegarden @sweetums0kitty

[thiefnessman]

i think part of the reason the qsmp shit seemed so insane to me rn is the tonal whiplash from reading a bunch of like, vaguely-to-outright sexual posts about like robots and whatnot. to “professional union writes a callout post for a minecraft youtuber on twitter dot com and acts as if this is standard business practice”

[theblogwithoutfear]

Thoughts on the Ahmed run (spoilers)

I know we're only three issues in, but I thought I'd ramble about the current state of the union

My main complaint is the memory loss story--it's a little disappointing. I was hoping that arc would go further and have a lasting impact on Matt; but he remembers everything so fast. Within the first issue he was back in the suit, and it feels like he moved on so easily from the trauma of everything.

Idk, I think it makes his sacrifice from Zdarsky's run feel a bit meaningless.

However, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, and wait for a while to see how it goes.

I'm loving Matt as a priest at the group home. It feels a little bit like a nod to the Netflix show, with Sister Maggie and the orphanage. Maybe I'm just reading into that, idk. I realize a lot of people hate when the comics start taking things from the show--but I don't mind in this case. Plus, seeing Matt interact with kids is always a win for me

And the religious overtones/dark imagery? The moral complexity of his head vs. his heart? The duality of what he does in the day vs. the night? Love it. give me more.

I do miss lawyer Matt, though. It's been a hot minute since we've seen that, and I'm really hoping Ahmed will take Matt back to his roots at some point.

I'm torn on the artwork. There are some BEAUTIFUL panels (this one is one of my favorites) and the coloring is so vivid and dynamic. And Matt is hella attractive in this run so far, so that's a big plus

but also, there's something a little too... like... shiny? About everything? Things look polished almost, in a way that's a little weird. Sometimes the faces don't feel very defined.

I also think there's less weight in the artwork. The movement is a lot less dynamic and fluid than the last run. Everything feels a little like it's floating, the punches don't carry much weight, and it just makes everything feel... lower stakes, I guess.

I don't know, I'm a big Checchetto fan, and his artwork felt really solid and grounded. So maybe I'm just still adjusting--I'll give Kuder some time before I really make a judgement call.

Because again, there's still some really beautiful and dynamic things here. He's doing neat things with panel placement/shape, which breaks up the page nicely and has cool effects on the pacing

I've also got mixed feelings about the tonal change thus far. Maybe this is a hot take, but I'm not into quippy Daredevil. I think he functions best as a character when he's really serious. He's usually got a gravitas that really informs the way he conducts himself. The quips in the latest issue take away from that, at least in my opinion.

Then again, Mark Waid made it work really well. Ahmed could very well be trying to do something similar. Again, it's something I'll reserve judgement on. I'm not against a lighthearted Matt, per se. I just think the darkness makes the storytelling so much more compelling and grounded (which is the reason I think people are also tired of the quippy humor in the MCU lately).

I hope the goofiness isn't going to be a long-term thing, but I feel okay about it for the time being. Especially since it's only every so often (at least so far). The run overall still feels fairly gritty and grounded.

I'm intrigued to see where he's going to take Elektra as the Woman Without Fear. I was pleasantly surprised by that arc in the Zdarsky run (wasn't much of an Elektra fan until recently, tbh) and I'm curious to see what's next for her. We haven't seen as much of her as I'd like so far, but hopefully that will change.

All that being said, I'm actually really enjoying this run so far. I'm not enjoying it quite as much as Zdarsky, but I still think it's really excellent. Ahmed's doing some interesting things with the character, and I'm really excited to see where he takes it.

Anyway, I'm curious to know if anyone else has thoughts on the run thus far. Opinions? Thoughts? Vehement disagreements?

(bonus picture because I'm obsessed with the priest vigilante look)

[wildwren]

Some incomplete and perhaps incoherent thoughts on class, race, personhood and women’s sexuality; Tom Jones (2023) in conversation with Fielding’s text

Warning: spoilers for The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling and Tom Jones (2023)

I’ve been thinking about the changes to Sophia’s story and how they both serve to add dimension to her character and to engage with existing themes of the text in complex ways. In Fielding’s text, Sophia is the white English-born daughter of Squire Western and the offspring of a “legitimate” (but very unhappy) marriage. In the 2023 adaptation, she is Squire Western’s granddaughter, born in Jamaica as the offspring of a non-consensual union between her white slaver father (Squire Western’s son) and her Black mother Beneba. She, like Tom, is a bastard, but she has been legitimized, given her father’s name, and declared sole heiress of her family’s fortune. 

These changes don’t make Sophia’s storyline easier to witness — her arc is essentially about violence and the erasure of women’s wills by society, and they now include a racialized component as well. Sophia and Honour experience racial prejudice and harassment while fleeing to London, and Sophia’s entrapment and abuse by Lady Bellaston involves racialized as well as sexual violence, as Lady Bellaston quite literally tries to whitewash her. To make these moments land, the adaptation has endeavored to strike a tonal balance by giving the narrative voice of the story to Sophia herself, consistently framing the action through her gaze, and allowing appropriate space and gravitas for the injustice of her imprisonment and assault. They’ve also explored the text’s existing themes of class, personhood, and women’s sexuality within this new context. 

In as much as it is possible to attribute prescient thematic points to the sort of madness Fielding was writing, there is an ongoing critique throughout the text about the artificial construction of personhood based on class, and particularly the relationship between class and women’s sexuality. Even in the novel, both Tom and Sophia are subject to conditional personhood — Tom due to his status as a low-born bastard, and Sophia due to her status as a woman. But this parallel takes on new meaning in the adaptation. Sophia’s new backstory means that now both lovers have been “rescued” from the conditions of their birth by benefactors to whom they owe their gratitude: Sophia to the grandfather who brought her across the ocean, Tom to his adopted father Squire Allworthy, who raised Tom as his son but never as his heir. Of course, both Tom and Sophia are betrayed by these benefactors as soon as they fail to meet the requirements of their conditional personhood. I appreciate how this adaptation brings attention to Allworthy’s hypocrisy as well as Squire Western’s, as it makes the parallel more coherent. It’s because of this conditional personhood that Tom and Sophia are even able to fall in love in the first place — all those intimate hours together are only allowed because Squire Western doesn’t fundamentally see either of them as full people capable of their own wills.

Tom is marked from birth as less than a full person, by nature of his association with his “ruined” mother (a teenaged serving girl presumably impregnated by her middle-class master). His “base” nature is further reinforced by his continued association with other “ruined” women. His status as a gentleman (or lack thereof) is fundamental to his identity and entirely outside of his control. Whether by the manipulations of Mr. Blifil or the willful bias of others such of Allworthy, Tom’s actions are consistently interpreted in the worst possible light, cyclically upholding the assumption that he’s not a “proper” gentleman after all. 

Of course, Tom still gets away with quite a lot (he is a handsome white man after all!), no more so than at the story’s finale, when he himself is legitimatized and all is forgiven, doubly proving Fielding’s point. If it feels contrived that Squire Western should immediately and inexorably reverse his opinion on Tom as a match for Sophia, it’s because it is contrived. Squire Western’s refusal of Tom never had anything to do with his personality, charm, sentiment towards Sophia, or personal honor, but merely his lack of sufficient legal personhood to match Sophia’s. It’s a frustrating feature of the story that in order to deliver Tom and Sophia to a happy ending, Fielding must in the end uphold the very systems he spent much of the novel’s breadth critiquing. However, I do believe it’s meant to land with some irony. And there are some nice touches to Fielding’s execution of the twist — for instance, that Tom’s legitimacy comes from his relationship with his mother, not his father, who in fact does not matter at all. 

Of course, Sophia’s arc is also very much about the relationship between personhood, class, and sexuality. She has the status of personhood by virtue of her wealth, but keeping it is dependent on her consenting to marry within her own class. Her sexuality is so constrained and controlled that her desire for Tom is described by Aunt Western as “monstrous inclinations” and is at one point compared by Squire Western to beastiality. To marry Tom would mean relinquishing her own claim to personhood, a fate so unthinkable that neither Sophia nor Tom ever seriously consider it beyond a few passionate outbursts. When Sophia flees Somersetshire, she is not running to elope with Tom, only to buy herself more time to make Squire Western see sense and hold off her marriage to Blifil. 

There’s a certain aspect of this drama that is a bit hard to buy, especially for modern readers. Sophia is an heiress — she’ll inherit her own wealth. She’s in love with Tom, who is one of her father’s dearest friends. Why can’t everyone be happy? Aside from the reasons stated above and the constraints on Sophia’s sexuality that exist already in the text, the adaptation has added additional context. As a Black heiress, Sophia’s status as a legal person in English society is already so fragile that Squire Western and Aunt Western feel justified in acting to preserve that personhood by any means possible — namely, by securing her marriage within her class against her will. In the show’s first episode, Squire Western says to his sister: “My girl is beautiful and she is rich. Who cares if she be Black and a bastard too?” to which Aunt Western replies, “Good lord, Brother. The world may care rather a lot.” The fact that this personhood does not include the right to consent is already explored in the novel, but the adaptation includes the arc of Sophia grappling with the knowledge and grief that her mother died while enslaved. 

The relationship between Sophia and Squire Western is one of my least favorite parts of the novel, but the changes to Sophia’s backstory add some additional context and complexity, and some careful tonal choices go a long way. It makes sense, after all, that Sophia would feel some devotion for her doting grandfather, her last family member not bound by lived experience to her memories of Jamaica and her slaver father. At the same time, the adaptation never minimizes the fact that Squire Western still sees Sophia as a form of property — the granddaughter he brought across the ocean at great expense, the last living reminder of his slaver son. In some ways, they’ve made him less awful — he’s certainly less explosively violent than he is in the novel, wherein he hits Sophia, verbally abuses her to a much more intense degree, and regularly threatens her with death. But the implicit violence of his banal small-mindedness is not erased. 

Aside from the issue of Sophia’s forced marriage, which is cut-and-dry violence, their relationship seems to evoke some of the painful and complex dynamics that can arise from interracial adoption. Squire Western declares himself to love and cherish his perfect, beautiful Sophie, and Sophia has an honest experience of feeling loved by him, but ultimately, he doesn’t really understand her experience or her pain, and he makes no effort to. 

Just as Tom’s happy ending must uphold the very systems that have oppressed him, so too must Sophia’s. In the novel’s finale, Squire Western does not receive any comeuppance for his role in the drama, despite acting as much a villain to the lovers as Lady Bellaston and Mr. Blifil, both of whom receive their just desserts. Within the context of the story, there is no ending for Sophia wherein she disowns Squire Western and lives out her days as an independently wealthy woman. Her happy ending can only exist when her will and Squire Western’s will align, which is made possible by the novel’s final twist. In the end, Sophia must live with the complexity of her relationship with Squire Western, not overcome it. I’ll let you decide how you feel about the adaptation's handling of that. I’m still not sure how I do. 

I can never get to the end of this story without wanting to write fic about it, specifically about Sophia’s trauma, and how that might impact her relationship with Jones and with Squire Western going forward. I wrote fic about it when I finished the book and I’m writing fic about it now in the context of the show’s canon and characters. In some ways, the ending leaves more questions for me than it leaves neat conclusions. Whether that’s a strength of the story or a weakness is, I suppose, a matter of taste. The adaptation put a lot of love into rendering Sophia’s arc and illustrating her experience in this 18th-century world. It centered her voice and her gaze as much as possible, and it gave the spotlight to Sophie Wilde’s performance, which is the ultimate heart of their story. For all of those reasons, I appreciate it as an example of race-conscious historical drama and as an adaptation engaged in post-colonial dialogue with the English literary “canon.” 

Whether it ultimately succeeded in giving Sophia all the justice she deserved, I’ll leave to voices other than my own.