#While looking for references of famous people from my region...

[ludoka]

I need someone to understand why I think Eduardo and his father's eyes look like this:

Because THIS is what their eyes look like when they smile or laugh:

His eyes are small and half slanted. They barely see when they smile 😂

[niteshade925]

April 20, Beijing, China, National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Part 2 - Dehua white porcelain exhibition/德化白瓷展 continued):

This was actually the very first piece I encountered at the entrance to the exhibition, a gigantic basket of flowers (probably over 1 meter tall and over 1 meter wide?), the entire thing made of porcelain.

And to reiterate, every part of every piece is porcelain. Though I will say that despite the ultra-realistic shape of the flower petals and leaves, the only detail that hinted at these flowers being made out of porcelain was that the painted colors weren't as vibrant as real flowers. That's it. If you don't examine it up close you really can't tell that it's all porcelain.

This is a good place to roughly introduce the technical side of Dehua white porcelain. The color of Dehua white porcelain mainly comes from the clay it uses, which is a special kaolin clay (gaolingtu/高岭土 in Chinese) found in Dehua. The clay mineral used naturally contains sericite and quartz, both of which are silica minerals and may have contibuted to the almost translucent look of the finished pieces; it also contains comparatively high amounts of potassium oxides, while the amount of iron oxides present is low. Due to the intricate designs of the pieces, the firing success rate may be very low. All those pieces involving super thin parts representing fabric or paper or flower petals? They may bring the success rate down to about 5%. Which means many of these pieces may be the 15th-20th try that finally survived firing. For people who are more interested in the chemistry of Dehua white porcelain, this paper goes into depth about it. There's also a great book in Chinese that goes into depth all about Dehua porcelain. (link goes to the first chapter only)

Continuing on, this is one of many Guanyin/观音 (Avalokiteśvara) statues at the exhibition, again with light clothing made out of porcelain:

More Guanyin statues in various classic depictions/forms, of which there are 33 total. This particular form is called Yulan Guanyin/鱼篮观音 (鱼篮 means fish basket), and comes from a legend where Guanyin transformed into a beautiful female fish vendor in order to guide mortals.

I believe the text here reads 持经观音 (Guanyin holding scripture)? The Guanyin here is holding a vase instead of a scroll though.

This is a classic depiction of Guanyin with a little bit of a modern-ish twist? Guanyin is often depicted with a vase of divine water, but here it forms a circle.

Despite some of the Guanyin statues having the amazing ceramic "clothing", this one remains my favorite, just because of the sense of space and serenity that this simple "frame" design creates:

And this very literal take on "thousand arm Guanyin" (千手观音). It's giving me that "biblically accurate angels" vibe:

Buddha floating atop.......idk what that is but the texture is amazing:

A fully painted statue of Guanyu/关羽. The gradient and detailed patterns on his robes is amazing:

Two identical (I think?) statues of the daomadan/刀马旦 (female commander archetype) character Mu Guiying/穆桂英 as she would appear in Chinese traditional opera, one painted and one unpainted. The word 巾帼英雄 in the title means "hero in women's headscarf", which is a term used exclusively in reference to female heroes. There's also the phrase "巾帼不让须眉", which roughly means "those in women's headscarves aren't inferior to those with beards and thick brows"

Porcelain depiction of Dunhuang's famous feitian/飞天 figures, in the classic pose of playing pipa in reverse (called 反弹琵琶). The clothing on this figure is made of porcelain, but this time also painted:

A porcelain statue of a couple in traditional Lhoba/Luoba/珞巴 clothing. The Lhoba/Luoba people are one of China's 55 少数民族 who mainly live in the south-eastern region of Tibet Autonomous Region, and as of 2019, it is the 少数民族 with the smallest population

A porcelain statue of a woman in traditional Miao/苗 clothing. I love how the artist recreated the traditional Miao silver crown in porcelain.

Painted porcelain bust of a woman wearing the Xunbu/蟳埔 "flower crown", named a zanhuawei/簪花围. The town of Xunbu in Fujian province is known for its tradition of zanhua/簪花, or wearing flowers in one’s hair.

Porcelain statue of a Buddhist monk wearing a zhiduo/直裰 (the robes on the inside) and a jiasha/袈裟 (काषाय/kasaya; the garment on the outside that drapes over the left shoulder). From its looks, one can tell that zhiduo originated from hanfu, but with some minor changes (sidenote, this is not the same as the zhiduo of Ming-era hanfu). Jiasha evolved from the clothing of Indian Buddhist monks, but there appears to be a lot of influence from Central Asia and ancient Greece as well (link goes to pdf; this article is in Chinese).

Some modern-themed pieces. Look at those dresses omg

A porcelain statue of Hua Mulan/花木兰, the character from traditional Chinese literature and opera that inspired the Disney character. I will say though this pose reminds me of someone else.......

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Synesthesia

Synesthesia - a remarkable sensation: It involves experiencing one sensory stimulus through the prism of a different stimulus.

In other words, different senses intersect such that one sense is associated with another—a sound, a shape, a color, a taste, or a smell.

Hearing music and seeing colors in your mind is an example of synesthesia.

So, too, is using colors to visualize specific numbers or letters of the alphabet.

Scientists do not fully understand synestesia. Some researchers believe it stems from a neurological condition, while others believe that the vast majority of synesthetic sensory perceptions come from learned behavior.

How to Use Synesthesia as a Literary Device

You can incorporate the use of synesthesia as a rhetorical device in your own writing. If you can blend two of the five senses—sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell—together in a phrase or a sentence, then you’ll be able to describe common forms of synesthetic perceptions. Here are some ways to do that:

Use colors to describe sounds. If you’re describing sad, sorrowful music, why not call it “blue”? If it’s perky, perhaps call it “pink.” If it’s dour, call it “black.” Or be like Oscar Wilde in An Ideal Husband and call it “mauve.”

Use temperature to describe sounds or images. Temperature-based synesthesia examples include “a scorching guitar solo,” “an icy gaze,” and “lukewarm wallpaper.”

Use sensory words to describe emotions. Take a cue from romantic poetry and use all five senses to describe the feelings of love and desire.

Include synesthetic characters in your narrative. Write a character who experiences synesthesia as they consume art. Describe that person listening to music and synesthetic sensation of colors that swoops over them as each note is sounded. Or reverse the effect, and have a character experience synesthesia by hearing music as they take in the wonders of a large painting on a museum wall.

Use synesthetic idioms already familiar to your audience. For instance, think about the phrase “bitter cold.” Bitterness is a taste sensation. Cold is, of course, a touch sensation. Combined, these two sensations form an idiomatic term that makes perfect sense to the English language ear.

Examples of Synesthesia in Literature

In literature, synesthesia refers to an author’s blending of human senses to describe an object. Phrases like a “loud dress” or a “chilly gaze” blend our sensory modalities. Novelists and poets who use synesthesia in literature include:

Dante in The Divine Comedy (1472): “Back to the region where the sun is silent.”

John Keats in "Ode to a Nightingale" (1819): “Tasting of Flora and the country green”

Robert Frost in “Fire and Ice” (1920): “From what I've tasted of desire”

William Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1605): “The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was.”

Oscar Wilde in Salomé (1891): “Thy voice was a censer that scattered strange perfumes, and when I looked on thee I heard a strange music.”

Examples of Famous Synesthetes

People who routinely experience a form of synesthesia are called synesthetes. Famous synesthetes include:

Duke Ellington: The iconic jazz composer experienced chromesthesia, a type of synesthesia where musical notes evoke colors.

Franz Liszt: Like Duke Ellington, the Romantic-era Hungarian composer experienced chromesthesia.

Vincent Van Gogh: Van Gogh experienced chromesthesia, which is believed to have influenced his painting.

Vladimir Nabokov: The great Russian-American novelist experienced grapheme-color synesthesia, where words—and particularly vowel sounds—evoke colors.

Arthur Rimbaud: Rimbaud, a French poet in the nineteenth century, experienced grapheme-color synesthesia.

Billie Eilish: Eilish is a contemporary pop star who experiences synesthesia when writing music with her brother Finneas, who is also a synesthete.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[esoteric-chaos]

What is Ancestor Work? Breaking it down and how to start + extra's

TW for death and sensitive topics in this post. Especially when we get into the category of ghosts. You have been warned. The appropriate tags have been placed below.

What is Ancestor work?

Ancestor work is venerating and working with well, you guessed it. Your ancestors. Why do we want to work with them though? Creating relationships with the known and forgotten dead can lead to many great things for yourself such as learning how to break generational curses and cycles. Creating these meaningful and loving relationships with those long since past has been one of the most heartwarming parts of my practice.

I find it is important for people of all ancestry to work with and honour their ancestors. There is much to heal and grow from. We learn through mistakes of the past and some of those mistakes we have to heal from for cycles to be broken.

Who are our Ancestors?

Just who are your ancestors though? According to Honouring Your Ancestors by Mallorie Vaudoise they are your Blood Ancestors, Lineage Ancestors, Affinity Ancestors, Saints, Spirit Guides, Ghosts or Related Spirits.

Blood Ancestors are exactly how they sound. They are the ancestors you find within your family tree that goes all the way back to the beginning of when humans first came around. This goes into the known dead who are ancestors we know of and can be traced back. These ancestors are easier to work with as we have a direct line to them. The unknown dead are unknown ancestors that we can't trace back. Perhaps we only have a name and know nothing about them or maybe we know they existed but have no information at all. This happens to be the case for most of us learning our family tree.

Lineage Ancestors are ancestors we gain through partnerships like marriage, adoption or even initiation such as in a closed society. Examples include religions like Wicca or any religion which needs initiation.

Affinity Ancestors are those who share your cultural identity or even something you are talented in. For example, you are fluent in the arts and you are an artist or musician. You may see a famous passed-on talented artist to venerate as an ancestor. As someone who's LGBTQ+, we can look throughout history and choose to honour and venerate famous LGBTQ+ figures in history as our ancestors as well. In times like this, it is important to venerate and honour these figures in life for strength and courage to move forward.

Saints are found in many cultures. A single example of a saint from a Christian and Catholic point of view is a Christian or Catholic who has passed on and performed miracles before or after death. Then they were elevated to sainthood by the church (This is all from a standpoint as my family comes from a Catholic and Lutheran background). There are also folk saints who are venerated in a specific region or location because of something that was done within that region. Then we have pop culture saints. Pop culture saints for example are people who have influenced or have done things for a group of people that we resonate with deeply. While they do not perform miracles they are venerated as significant to that group.

Spirit Guides are elevated ancestors who have decided to walk alongside us on our journey. They are not usually connected to us by blood or lineage, however, in some cases, they are. In many cultures, you see the concept of a "court". Which is a group of guides. I refer to my ancestors, guides and deities as my spiritual team personally as I am not involved in such cultures that use courts but still am among the belief that I have a group of close guides on my journey as do most others without encroaching on that culture's significance.

Ghosts as Mallorie Vaudoise in Honouring Your Ancestors I agree with their description of ghosts. Some spirits are burdened by the realities of what they went through during their living days. Some call it spiritual disease or they simply lack the power to aid. The spiritual disease of their burdens causes them to act irresponsibly. A lot like Mallorie Vaudoise I too was told ghosts still roam this plane due to unfinished business and they seek resolution through the living for now they feel powerless or they wish to still seek what they started. This can be a grey area for things like passing on murder victims, abusers, children, and relatives. When you are getting into spiritual work it is very important you have strong boundaries and protections. If you do not want to help a spirit move on since you do not identify as a working medium. Do NOT let them step on you. Assert your boundaries, banish and protect. It is not your responsibility to handle the business of otherworldly concerns just because you are a practitioner. If you would like to help a spirit move on, praying in their name to help ease them into the afterlife is a great way to do so to give them strength. May I repeat though, not your responsibility if that is not your focus point.

Related spirits such as land spirits, house spirits and non-human ancestors.

Land spirits are spirits which reside on the land you live on. They can be humans, plants or animals that were born, lived or passed on that land. Honouring the spirits of the land is very important. The land has gone through so much grief and colonization, rebuilding that relationship to take care of the land in turn they will take care of you.

House spirits are arguably land spirits. They reside on that very same land that you do. Proper acknowledgement of the house spirit itself (spiritual upkeep & physical cleaning) and the spirits that live within that old home. They can be from the materials that the foundation of that home is built on or other lesser-known entities. Try speaking to what's in your home. You'll be surprised by what you find.

Non-human ancestors. Through evolution, we have evolved from animals through a series of evolutions before that. So what makes you think we cannot have animal ancestors? Try doing some deep diving into evolution and doing some work with those animals or organisms. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Building your Ancestor Altar

Now that we have what an ancestor is out of the way. How do we build our altars and reach out?

Let's dive into how to make an altar space. We can add some simple tools such as fire, water, an altar cloth, pictures or representatives of ancestors like human skulls (please not real ones obviously), any holy images that bring personal power, offerings and methods of communication.

Fire aids in symbolism in prayer across cultures. If you cannot have real candles on your altar because your altar is within an unsafe place to do so, electric candles are excellent.

Water is said to represent the medium through which the spiritual energy passes. Have you ever felt really dehydrated after a spell, working or spiritual contact? So have I. You can only imagine how dehydrated your ancestors must feel. Leave them an offering of water and maybe even a snack in honour. Remember after veneration to hydrate and fuel yourself too.

Altar cloths are not just there to look pretty. They represent the hard work of our ancestors weiving and working with cloth over the years. Their beautiful craftsmanship is never forgotten. A simple piece of cloth on the altar is a great representation of all of their hard work.

Pictures or representations of our ancestors act as an anchor to connect with them. When I am working with the known dead I'll place photos of them and their names, birth dates and death dates along with a few notes on the back of their photo. With the unknown dead I'll use statues or skulls in place of them. My mother who recently passed is a good example of this. I placed her photos, and ashes, along with some things she may have liked on her little corner.

Holy images. Maybe your ancestors were religious and find comfort in religious imagery. Even incorporating your family's patron saint on the altar might bring them some joy. Do what feels right for you and them.

Offerings. Leaving them offerings such as water, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, and food. Anything you personally love especially as a sweet little treat. I find something you have a hard time parting with like that last piece of candy to be a great offering or that dish you're cooking that's been within the family for years.

Dedicated pendulum, tarot or any other method of communication so you can communicate with them efficiently.

What can I do with my Ancestor Altar? How to work it.

There are many ways you can work with your ancestor altar. You can use it as purely an act of prayer and veneration or you can use it as both for veneration and working.

Leaving oils, charms, bags and other spiritual items on the altar overnight to bless and give an extra kick or even some mundane items.

Incorporating them into a spell working for prosperity, blessings, healings, protections, etc.

Active working to break generational trauma and curses. Working through breaking cycles and helping them heal.

Turning to them for guidance and direction through divination from the tools in their space.

Aid in spiritually cleansing myself and my space from any negative influences.

How to reach out?

Reaching out there are many different methods. There are methods through prayer and divination for example. Many different people from different cultures and religions will have different ways of reaching out and praying. I never actively practiced any religion growing up so I adopted prayer through a folk catholic perspective from what my ancestors practiced and used my tarot deck as an adjacent. There's wrong way to pray. We pray from what feels right to us and from what is respectful.

Conclusion

There's no right or wrong way to work with your ancestors except for building a practice solely on gain. By gain, I mean getting them to do things for you. It is a relationship you are building. If that is not what you are seeking then ancestor veneration is not for you. It's the same for any relationship spiritual or not. Relationships freely flow between each other with mutual aid. Not everything is purely transactional. Keep things respectful and everything will be okay.

To close out I'm sure everyone is wondering "Do I have to work with my ancestors who did awful things?" the answer is no. We have to heal from and acknowledge what happened. Move forward with purpose and do the work but we absolutely do not have to go anywhere near them. Spirits are not all-knowing and not all have done the required work. I will echo a previous statement of mine. It is not your responsibility to handle the business of otherworldly concerns just because you are a practitioner.

If that person has not changed and grown in death. Move on and grow from the experience. While not everyone will agree with me I believe it is important to work with things when you are ready. A newer practitioner will not be prepared to work with such heavy energy. It will have to be worked with one day to heal but do not throw yourself in if you are not ready or maybe you just aren't equipped to do it and maybe it is someone else's journey in your lineage, not yours. Do not be hard on yourself if that is the case. Not everyone is built for that or ready. Be kind to yourself, that's what your ancestors want.

Extra's

Ancestor Oil

Need an oil for communication, veneration and one to work with your ancestors for all purpose? I got your back.

What you'll need

A clean and cleansed jar

Frankincense - helps in hardships, divine connection

Peppermint - money matters, underworld symbolism

Rosemary - protection, remembrance 

Rose - raising spiritual vibration, love, symbol of blood

Lavender - Grief, dream work, relaxing

Myrrh - Spirit communication, psychic power, grief

Allspice - Awaken ancestors, drawn in favour

Coconut carrier oil - Moon, emotions, divination, spirit

You can either do the folk method or the hot method. You can find my post on infused oils here to learn how to make infused spell oils. I suggest if you are an animist or someone who wants more power from your oils. Speak to the herbs kindly, treat them less like an ingredient and ask them respectfully for their aid and the purpose they'll have in your oil. Use intention. The same goes for the Coconut oil.

You can sub any of these, however. Try to keep within the theme of the ingredients. Some of these are herbal allies so they will work differently for me than you. Do what feels right.

Blessings!

[necromantictales]

Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I got to update as I was very busy with work cosplay and preparing for my first trip to Japan ever aaaaa

I am extremely excited! I am going with my wife and we will be attending a doujinshi convention, like, with real doujinshi artists! I hope to buy many doujinshi!

in case we meet some nice people I wanted to make a little illustration for a card, depicting where we come from. As we live in a town in the area where the brothers Grimm picked up their famous fairytales, I decided to make a "Red Riding Hood” themed illustration. Actually "Red Riding Hood" in itself is a mistranslation because the original name "Rotkäppchen" means "Red little Cap" and most likely referred to traditional clothing from the Schwalm-Eder region that I put on Geto here. Traditional German clothing varies very strongly by region - most people only know the Bavarian variants, so the traditional Rotkäppchen dress looks super weird even to people from Germany themselves. Tbh I kinda like it though and I think it would suit Geto. I think Gojo would be the type to dress up as someone’s grandma so he is the wolf in this picture hah.

[rainbowchewynuggets]

IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE

I've been grinding away at this for months. I can't wait for people to see it. This project turned out to have a lot of gears behind it, so check out the artist statement below!

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

I love this song. The first time I heard it, I already began picturing a story where a woman stumbled upon a gathering of birds in the forest and became so enthralled by their song that she partied with them until she became a bird, herself. It turns out that isn’t too far off from the singer, Yma Sumac’s, first experiences learning to sing. She would imitate the animals near her home in the hills of the Andes mountains as a very young kid, developing a vocal range that would make her famous later on.

From there, I fell into a montage of research on her life and the Peruvian festival music that defined her early career, as well as the complicated story of the exotica music she became most known for in the United States. I followed that up with a month-long dive into northwest Peruvian culture, mythology, ornithology, flora, and topographical studies. Then, I blacked out somewhere during the drawing phase, and now I’m here.

While I really value what I’ve learned while doing this project, I think it’s important to note that I did it all as an amateur researcher and a foreigner to the subject. I decided it would be a little conceited to try to make a totally accurate depiction of a traditional Peruvian festival, so I instead focused on referencing the regional variation of these traditions. Costumes and music have their own specific designs and textures depending on the area, and dances and festivities reflect local history. Yet, it all shares the same themes of celebrating prosperity and surviving hardship. Common motifs and characters reflect a shared heritage and cultural identity that coexists with individuality. It’s all just very cool to me.

So I asked myself, what if these birds had their own version of these traditions? What would a bird sing a folk song about? What would be new and cool to Yma, but still familiar enough that she could join in? (I got lucky, since Peruvian festival culture is already very reverent of birds and feather patterns.)

What I ended up with pulled a lot from the Carnaval de Cajamarca, which originated in the next town over from Yma’s childhood home of Ichocán. It also references these dances, among others:

Huaylarsh - Los Emplumados - Marinera - Tondero - White Dance / Los Chunchos

It’s also important to know that I took a lot of creative liberties with my research to pull the story together. I hope I haven’t used any elements in a harmful or insensitive way–and if I have, I’d like to know so that I can apologize. (I also missed out on some cool stuff, like the White Dance always having shaker beads on the legs.) I highly encourage you to have a look at some of the sources I did, and to look further if you’re interested. I found it all very enlightening, and I hope you will too.

Yma’s wikipedia, which seems like a mostly accurate overview based on other sources

Her official website, curated by a fan and friend

A segment on NPR about her musical career

The interview I got the opening from

The ornithology archive that saved my ass

I’d like to work on uploading all the frames as an image reel somewhere so they can be looked at individually. Might take a while, though.

Thanks for watching!

(To those using a screen reader, the video description follows this message. I'd like to apologize for putting the description as the last thing on the post. Not only is it extremely long, but this seemed to be the rare instance where the description would benefit from the context of the post's commentary before being read itself. I wrote and formatted this description in a way that I hoped would apply to aid various disabilities that impede enjoying music videos, and I am very interested in getting feedback.)

DESCRIPTION

[The following is presented as an animatic (a series of still images edited into a video) set to music. The art is drawn with condensed yet fuzzy pastel-like linework and full color. The song used is “Chuncho” by Yma Sumac. The song was composed to imitate the various sounds of tropical birds and animals. It has no lyrics, at least in a traditional sense. I, the describer, have tried my best to translate the especially abstract nature of this song into language that can be interpreted through text. Please use the best of your imagination to fill in the rest. An audio description will always refer to the visual description that follows it.

Audio: A male interviewer asks, “Since you are referred to the bird who became a woman in your native Peru, Ms. Sumac, may we hear your exotic voice?”

Visuals: A title card appears with gold lettering on a black background. It reads one word: Chuncho. The word is depicted as if it were carved into a flat surface with loose individual strokes.

Audio: A woman answers, “I will try to imitate the birds, as I did in my earliest years in the mountains of Peru.”

Visuals: Credits appear, also in gold text: Sung by Yma Sumac (Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chàvarri del Castillo. Drawn by Carlie Hughes (rainbowchewynuggets).

Audio: The music begins with the steady four-note strumming of a guitar, which will continue throughout the song. Then, it is accompanied by low ragged notes from a heavy woodwind instrument.

Visuals: A green cicada flicks its wings as it rests on a plant with jagged leaves and a little white flower growing from the middle. Beetles of green, red, and yellow crawl around on trees and ferns among puffy yellow blooms. Yellow humpback beetles huddle together on a cold stone surface as mothlike butterflies cling to hanging purple-grey moss in the background. A cluster of butterflies of black, green, blue, orange, purple, and red flare their wings along stems and vines. A line of spiny cocoons hang from a vine leading up the center of the group.

Audio: A vocalist, the same woman as before, begins to sing in vocables. Her first notes are short, round, and bubbly, like the chirping of a small bird. The lilt of a flute follows.

(“B-bm, bui-bui-buiii…”)

Visuals: A small village sits on the side of a forested and scrub-covered mountain at night. Buildings twinkle with yellow and blue window light through the darkness. At the edge of the forest, a tall lean woman appears with warm orange skin, long black hair, a simple green dress cinched at the waist with blue trim on the neck, hem, wrist, and waist, and a powder blue shawl tied at the chest. She sneaks away from the village into the temperate tropical forest, glancing back to make sure hasn’t been followed. She grows more at ease as she leaves the buildings behind and strides between bushes, deeper into the trees. She passes a flowering plant with orange petals. Its bulbs are held aloft on long, long stems.

Audio: The vocalist sings in elongated threads of notes, wavering in a minor key in a mischievous way.

(“Whu, hu-uuuu…”)

Visuals: The woman grazes her fingers along a bush with little black berries and white spiky flowers. Her hand passes up and down with the shape of the bush, like the rise and fall of an ocean wave. She walks uphill, past pink clover and increasingly frequent stones.

Audio: The vocalist clicks and rolls her tongue with her notes, like drops of water splashing across stones.

(“Dlu, dlu-dlu-dlu-dlu-buiii…”)

Visuals: A voice suddenly gets her attention. The voice passes by as a green line with wide wave forms. The woman follows it. She passes through a stone forest–dense moss-covered rock formations that reach up toward the sky. The ground below is streaked with snake trails. The line of song is now yellow. It leads her forward along a trail through the rocks. She climbs a more precarious formation of boulders, through dense shrubbery and a dramatic rocky landscape. As the voice shifts redder, her colors shift pinker. Even the environment’s colors are shifting to pinks and blues. She climbs a hill, past tall spindly trees and a nearly vertical mountainside. The pink line of song leads her still upward.

Audio: The vocalist belts out the deep throaty call of a tropical bird trying to be heard far and wide. The notes increase in frequency, then widen into a whoop that softens to a murmur. The flute follows her with a few short forceful notes.

(“Ah, bya bya bya-bya-bya-bya-bya-byaaa, whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-wi, wa-wa-wa wiii…”)

Visuals: When the woman reaches the top of the hill, a light shines up at her from the other side, returning her original colors. Below, she sees a gathering of human-sized bird people celebrating on a leafy platform. They’re dancing in different sized circles around a tree at the center. Rainbow colored ribbons of different lengths have been tied to the branches of the tree and hang down to form the silhouette of a condor. More ribbons and colorful bulbs hang from the leaves above. The line of song (now light blue) travels in a circle around the tree trunk. The camera zooms in, revealing details of the birds and their costumes. The birds are pigeons, hawks, cuckoos, seedbirds, and corvids. They’re all dressed in colorful hats, vests, slacks, and dresses with patterns that reflect those of their feathers. A circle of spotted woodpeckers closest to the trunk wear purple gowns and party hats. The party’s singing expands the blue circle of light. A wider circle of yellow, green, and white birds sit and watch the celebration from the edges of the platform. As a line of bright manakin birds zip by with their hands clasped together, the woman approaches from a nearby branch. She’s enticed by the party and joins the dance, clasping hands with a green parrot and leading the line with a broad smile on her face.

Audio: The vocalist makes a quick sudden series of escalating notes, then makes a hard sound with her teeth and returns to a low whoop. The flute echoes her.

(Ba-bana-baba-cht!,  waw waw waw waw waw waw waw wiii…”)

Visuals: The birds switch to individual dances. A short red woodpecker and a tan long-necked bird with ribbons in her hair dance and sing together, their lines of song intertwining. The woman and three pigeons in red and black dresses stomp their heels in a quartet dance. She follows their steps flawlessly, familiar with the type of dance. When they begin to sing and whistle, she joins them–though her voice isn’t as strong as theirs and her line of song is thin and brittle.

Audio: The vocalist makes a low growl, at first imperceptible, that grows to a steady rumble. The flute follows.

(“Rhhh��, rhh, rhh rhhh…”)

Visuals: Then, the lights darken and redden. The woman stops to notice all the other birds heading to the back of the platform. They climb and flutter up to sit in fruit-bearing branches that grow just beyond. The woman finds herself a spot and picks a piece of fruit to eat. She takes a bite as a show begins. A band of various birds wearing ponchos and cloth hats sit down by the show platform. They play their instruments (flute, guitars and a drum) and count in the performance.

Audio: The vocalist makes more short bubbly chirps. They grow higher in small strings of notes until the phrase ends with a low long note.

(“Bom-bom, t-bom-bom-bom, mbom-bom wiii…”)

Visuals: Five owls appear, bathed in magenta spotlight before the center tree trunk. All of them have their yellow-spotted wings wrapped to mostly cover their black and gold-trimmed dresses. The four owls on the sides are short and red, while the one in the center is tall and bright purple. As all five begin to sing a golden song, they operatically open their wings and extend their feathers. As the light darkens to violet, the black and gold patterns in the folds of their wings leap out as if exposed to blacklight. They extend their arms upward and then double over to kneel on the stage, fully splaying their wings in a dramatic display. The woman watching is transfixed.

Audio: The vocalist rolls a noise from the back of her throat. Once, twice, three times–before hitching the roll up and down and letting it trail off. The flute makes a low hollow arc of a note.

(“Ghhh, ghhh, ghh gh-gh-gheee…”)

Visuals: Cut to the next performance. Two teams of blackbirds with long waving feathers compete, standing on each other’s shoulders to form two pyramids. The one at the top of each team lunges forward to try to strike the other with a long stick, propelled by their team. Their feathers glow with yellow light from above. The team on the left—with orange vests and red sashes—strikes first, only nearly missing. They gloat as the lime vest and green sash team on the right recoils and protests. Then, it’s the green team’s turn to take a confident lunge, forcing the red to frantically pull back in time to dodge. On the next strike, the red team buries the stick in the top of the enemy pyramid (actually tucked under the green leader’s arm). The victim feigns a mortal wound, and the entire team flies away. The red team poses, victorious. The red leader gets down to the floor to greet the widow of the green team, wearing a green dress. She peers at him from behind a silky black wing. As soon as he lands, she whacks him over the head with her own concealed stick. He is surprised. She is unamused.

Audio: The vocalist lets out a ghostly wail that wavers wildly like an eerie wind, higher and higher. A shaker instrument rumbles beneath her voice.

(“Woaaa… woaaa… woaa–”)

Visuals: Next, it’s dark. Three colorful birds in masks and costumes tread the air at an angle on the left side of the screen against a blue and green background. There’s a yellow spiky one, representing lightning. A blue round-feathered one, representing rain. And a spade-feathered green one, representing trees. Long beaded threads tied to their wings and tails wave and tangle across the screen as a group of five hummingbirds in shades of red struggle to survive the “storm” raging around them. The colored ribbons of the central tree are muted and flutter with the power of the wind. Two other birds hug the trunk, nearly out of sight. There’s a prop on the floor to the right made to look like a stone alcove, where more hummingbirds are hiding. The storm bringer birds beat their wings hard, casting the strings of lightning, water, and leaf shaped beads in huge chaotic waves. The five hummingbirds in vests and dresses wince and tumble against the wind, flying together in a tight circle. The threads crisscross behind them, an overwhelming force on the tiny birds’ scale. A red line of song floats up to reach them, guiding them down to the nest.

Audio: When her wail is at its highest, the vocalist pushes it further into the voice of a shrill songbird. The note hangs high in the air, then takes a few steps down and up. The segment ends with the sudden interjection of the low round voice–as if in surprise–and a trailing mumble.

(“Haaa, aa-aa aa-aa aa-aa, hoa? Ah, bw-huh…”)

Visuals: Those in the stone nest finish singing and reunite with the others, pulling them down to safety. A blackbird hiding behind the trunk spreads its wings, sitting on the shoulders of a brown woodpecker. The blackbird’s vest and wingspan are covered in yellow, signaling the coming of daylight. The storm birds retreat and sit still on a nearby branch. The wind is suddenly gone.

Audio: The guitar plays alone.

Visuals: After the stage performances, the audience members move back to the platform. They’re gathered off to the far left side of the central tree trunk, standing in a circle around a single figure. The light of the gathering area is deep plum-purple in far off areas and warm dull pink over the crowd. The empty space around the single dancer is salmon red, and the figure herself is blue.

Audio: The vocalist perfectly mimics the sound of a flutter, of delicate waving in the wind.

(“W-w-w-w-w-w-w”)

Visuals: The camera zooms in on her hand as it flits a pink handkerchief in the air.

Audio: The vocalist belts a pair of bold staunch vocables. The second note is held for several seconds before fading out.

(“Kyen, kyen…”)

Visuals: The camera pulls back to reveal the rest of her. She’s a blue eagle with wings that grade from red at the arms to pink to blue at the wingtips in a wavy pattern. Her smiling beak is bright pink. Her dress is royal blue with reddish-pink trimmed ruffles on the hem of the skirt, waist frill, neck frill, and the flower decoration on the side of her head. She stands with the hem of her dress in one hand and the handkerchief extended in the other in an open invitation to dance. A pale pink spotlight frames her head and shoulders against the darkness, and a dark pink line of song passes behind her. Her partner, an eagle of the same coloration with a blue vest and pants, pink shirt, pale orange sash, a blue hat in one hand, and a pink hanky of his own raised in the other, is calling to her. He puts his hands behind his back and takes high steps toward her. When the two are close, they turn and walk parallel to each other in a slow circle. The male’s back is to his partner. He looks at her over his shoulder with a smile and abruptly splays his feathers to be cute. There’s a layer of pink under his outer coat. She grins, entertained.

Audio: The vocalist repeats the two vocables, twisting the end of the second up into a high wavering trill that eventually soothes and disappears.

(“Kyen, kye–eee, ee, eee, ee…”)

Visuals: The two turn to face each other, circling tighter and tighter in unified song until they’re face to face, looking deep into each other’s eyes. With another turn, they’ve passed by each other and out of sight.

Audio: The vocalist makes a whisper, a ghost of the two vocables. Then, a few quick whistles, barely loud enough to hear.

(“Hyo, hyo”)

Visuals: The woman, who has been captivated by the dance, suddenly notices that the crowd has dispersed around her. Partners are walking off in all directions, leaving her alone. The dance is over.

Audio: The guitar picks up, getting faster and louder for a bit.

Visuals: The woman walks alone in the blue night air along a tangle of tree branches that form a pathway. She walks with her hands behind her back, her face looking preoccupied and a little disappointed. Bushels of soft leaves pass by in the background.

Audio: A high, light pleasant note from the vocalist overtakes the guitar. It grows until it fills the soundscape.

(“Aaa…”)

Visuals: An orange song reaches her from the direction she came, and she stops. When she turns, she sees a blue swift standing on the branch path, far behind her in an opening in the trees. The underside of his feathers is dingy orange, and he’s wearing a black vest, white pants, a rusty red sash around his waist, a bright green kerchief around his neck, and an orange rectangular accessory tied around his neck like a necklace. His face is obscured by a white hat with an orange band. He bows low with a hand on the hat. The hat comes off, revealing inviting eyes and a smiling orange beak. The woman grins and accepts the invitation with determination.

Audio: The vocalist draws long high vocables that resemble a wail. They trail off with a low note.

(“Whoa whoaaa…”)

Visuals: She and the swift untie the fabric around their necks and step toward each other as the line of song forms a ring above them. The woman holds the ends of the shawl in her hands and her hands at her hips with the body of the shawl hanging behind her waist. The bird holds his kerchief out in one hand with the hat in the other, held behind his back. He takes measured winding steps along the branches. The woman mirrors his steps, then pushes off of the main path and lands on an outcropping branch.

Audio: The vocalist’s song wavers back up and demurely bobs up and down, intertwined with tweeting from the flute.

(“Hoa…  ohee…”)

Visuals: Her voice, seafoam green and a little stronger than before, trails behind her. She darts back onto the main branch and ducks behind the bird, then circles around to face him, the two only a few feet apart. They exchange steps pushing the other forward and back and flicking their garments in time with their movements. The woman’s voice grows stronger, nearly matching his. The bird quickly catches up as she moves backward, dancing beside her. The two dancers then leap from the main branch and fall down into the rocky forest below, passing by grassy plateaus and vines creeping through stone. Their song follows all the way down. They leap across boulders in the moonlight, side by side. The swift suddenly stops and folds his kerchief around the center of the shawl, hitching the two together. 

Audio: The vocalist belts a complex series of syllables that mimic the heavy majestic cawing of a large bird or hawk. The flute makes itself known a little as the voice fades out.

(“Hlau-lau-lau hau-au-wau-wa-wiii…”)

Visuals: The woman, at the receiving end of the momentum, is swung wide and lets out a vibrant complex line of song that could match any bird’s. The two pull closer to each other and end their song on a low steady note. Then, they bow to each other as the camera pulls back. They’re standing on a rock that rises above a basin of  water among huge formations of rock. Pairs of birds dance all around them in the shallows.

Audio: The guitar takes over for a bit.

Visuals: The camera cuts to an upward view of a varied group of birds sitting in branches, staring downward with interest. The light from the moon coming down through a break in the trees above is now cool green. The light coming up from where the birds are looking is orange-red. 

Audio: The vocalist lets out the aggressive growling of a cat.

(“U-wau, wau-wau-wau-wau”)

Visuals: Below, the woman is dancing in a line with three reddish woodpeckers in a greenish clearing in the trees. They wear intricately detailed dresses in different combinations of bright green, yellow, red, and black with geometric and floral embroidery. The dresses are cinched at the waist with a piece of fabric covered in colored bands. Their heads are covered in scarves with the same colors and patterns. They sing and step aggressively toward the left of the screen. At the other side of the clearing, a line of four red and white faced woodpeckers with green beaks and wings face right. They wear bright green hats, kerchiefs, and sashes, yellow and black striped vests, and dark red pants with yellow tassels at the ankles. Their black shoes tap against the ground as they make quick little dance steps and flutter yellow handkerchiefs. They hold onto the brims of their hats and then lean down with a flourish of their arms, exposing the red crests of their heads sticking up underneath. The dance then changes formation. The girls dance in a line to the left as the boys step in a line to the right. 

Audio: The growl hushes down to a wavering whisper, like wings beating in the dark.

(“Tchwahh-cwah-cwah-cwah-cwah-cwah-cwah-cwah…”)

Visuals: Out on a cliff by a waterfall, the scene is bathed in cyan. The line of dancers–alternating male, female, male, female–do a hopping dance from partners on the left to those on the right and back again as they move along the cliff, passing behind the waterfall as it disappears into the greenery in the foreground.

Audio: The guitar asserts itself again.

Visuals: Everything is suddenly red. A guitarist in a blue poncho and a red neck sash frets the neck of a guitar with a brown feathered hand. Rainbow ribbons are tied to the headstock. A deep orange song emanates from the strings.

Audio: The vocalist quickly accompanies the guitar with a harmonized version of the growl that revs up climatically, taking steps up the scale until it’s at its absolute height.

(“U-wa-wa ee-ee eh-oh! Oh-oh-oh-ohh!”)

Visuals: A congress of the partygoing birds stand in lines facing each other, all wearing blue outfits with red kerchiefs with rainbow tassels on them. The group jumps up and down in unison as part of a dance. The party breaks into smaller dances, and the woman dances by herself. She’s wearing a green skirt and flowy purple top with red underskirt, waist cinch, and scarf. Rainbow tassels are attached to the overskirt, and they swish with her movements. Beside her are a hawk woman and a pair of long billed bird men dancing in a circle with their ankles locked. A pair of red birds with white streaks on their wings suddenly hoist the woman into the air, as other birds are hoisted in the distance. As she’s held aloft, she sings and spreads her arms, revealing more tassels on her top, resembling wings. Her song is immense and beautiful. The camera focuses on one of the hoisted birds in the background, who has executed a handstand with the person who threw them. The blackbird’s feathers are all sorts of bright colors. The song passes by behind him. The excitement of the party disguises the presence of a looming pair of yellow slitted eyes peering out from a dark spot between the leaves nearby. A trio of purple pigeons dancing in a line with twigs and colored strings in their hands dip and weave together. The one in front balks, noticing the threat at last.

Audio: The high energy of the music suddenly cuts out. The shrill call of a small bird climbs up out of the silence.

(“Eee…”)

Visuals: A striped short legged pampas cat pounces into the center of the dance field. It misses the birds, but the illusion is shattered. The bird people are just birds again. They fly in a frenzy up through the trees to the safety of the early morning sky. The hilltop erupts with silhouettes of wings.

Audio: When the small bird’s call is at its highest, it tumbles back down and transforms into a low disquieting wail. The guitar re-enters.

(“Ee-ee-ee-ah-ahh ahh oohhh…”)

Visuals: The pampas cat has retreated into the dim tawny forest. It stands on a bent tree branch among bushes and hanging moss and stares into the camera with glowing yellow pupils. A tiny rodent scurries by and into a bush. The cat notices and darts after it. Nearby, dozens of bats hang from the underside of a rock formation that extends over a field of berry bushes. Their sleepy heads are tucked into their folded wings. A straggler flaps up to join the rest as the sun continues to rise. Elsewhere, a hive with wasp-like insects resting on the outside hangs over a rock. Sunlight gleams over the scene from a break in the trees in the background. A large brown mouse climbs up on the rock, backlit by the sun. It grabs a wasp in its teeth and leaves before the rest of the hive can wake up.

Audio: The vocalist makes a low steady murmur. A couple shakes from the shaker instrument follow.

(“Hoo…”)

Visuals: A colony of green and brown frogs with purple eye ridges, yellow faces, and orange bellies are asleep on dewy ridges of rock. A green cicada hangs out on a leaf off to the top left corner. The mouse jumps down through their resting spot, waking them all up. The frogs croak a green song as the cicada hangs on for dear life on the swinging leaf. The wind moans through the crevices of another stone forest. The little flowering shrubs that grow on the rocks bristle in the breeze. A variety of green, yellow, and blue lizards poke their heads out of the rocks, into the morning light.

Audio: The vocalist repeats the murmur. The flute follows this time.

(“Hoo…”)

Visuals: The camera pulls back to view the entire rock formation. The still rising sun shines only on the top half of right-facing stones. Long spindly tree trunks grow from the top left, out of sight. Long grass waves on the ground below. An alpaca-like vicuña raises its head from the long grass, facing the light. In the branches of the trees above, various birds perch facing left.

Audio: The vocalist makes a mysterious sound that begins as a harsh sound between her teeth and ends as a whisper. It echoes in the background.

(“Chwah-ah…”)

Visuals: The camera turns back to the village. Golden light casts diagonally across the brown roofs and tan buildings. The silhouette of a small bird flies toward the center of town.

Audio: The vocalist makes the sound again, then pulls the whisper up into a harsh repeated rasp from the back of her throat.

(“Chwah-ah qwah-qw-qw-qw-qw-qwah-qwah-qwah”)

Visuals: Down in between the one-story houses, the bird flutters down. Long shadows lay across a passage leading toward a door on the side of a building. We see the shadow of the woman land in the soft dirt path where the bird’s would have. She heads toward the door at a walking pace.

Audio: The call returns to a whisper. The vocalist clicks her throat in a short series of hollow sounds, nearly like the creaking of wood.

(“Qwk-qwk-qwk-qwk-qwk, qwk qwk qwk qwk”)

Visuals: As she opens the door to enter the purple interior light of the house, we see that she’s back in her green dress, but now her shawl is red. The sun glints in her hair. Before she goes inside, she looks back and winks at the camera with a smile. Then, she slowly pulls the door behind her until it’s shut.

Audio: The vocalist lets out her breath entirely as the accompanying music trickles into silence.

(“Haaa…”)

Visuals: The screen is black for a few seconds.

Audio: The high whistling call of a green manakin can be heard over the rustling of forest trees. The call’s tone is raised at the end, like it’s asking a question.

(“Twee?… Twee?… Twee?… Twee?”)

Visuals: The end card appears. Yellow and green lettering and a border lay on a black background. The text reads: Yma Sumac. Peruvian soprano and composer. October 13th 1922 until November 1st 2008. Biographical and reference info in description. Chuncho, 1953. Written by Moises Vivanco. Capitol Records, Universal Music Publishing Group. Carlie Hughes. Tumblr @rainbowchewynuggets. www.carliehughes.com. End ID]

INDEX

[paperandsong]

Les Trois Hommes de Pierre

From Légendes rustiques, illustrated by Maurice Sand, written by George Sand, 1858

Original French at Project Gutenberg

English translation:

It is said that certain individuals of this stupid species shout to late-night passers-by: “You’d like to have arms? You’d like to have arms?” If one is foolish enough to answer “Yes,” they go on to demand: “Then give us your legs!” And since they have the power of casting spells, one must then stay there with them for just as long as they please. One clever fellow, withdrawing in fear, thought to say to them instead: “Take my legs, if you’d like; for they are dead.” -- They could not respond to this, and the man was able to escape their spell.

-       Maurice Sand.

In the Indre region, bordering the river Creuse, the very look of Nature changes; the valleys nestle downwards, the plateaus rise, the vegetation shoots upwards, the waters rush, and the steep embankments bristle with rocks. While traditions and legends are more rare in this picturesque region than they are in the plains, they are also generally sad; and, except for what pertains to Gargantua, I did not find within them that background of Berry-style humour which so often mixes irony with the terrors of the fantastical world.

As I have referenced Gargantua, I must now ask anyone knowledgeable about this matter whether, before the publication of the Book (for this is how, I believe, people referred to that singular, great, and wild literary success of Rabelais during their time), there was not also some popular legend of Gargantua in the provinces which the great satirist might have seized upon, just as Goethe did the legend of Faust and Molière the legend of the Commander’s Statue. Was the phrase the Book used by Rabelais’ contemporary admirers exclusively in order to express their great admiration? Might it not also indicate that a distinction was to be drawn between his brilliant poem and some more obscure legend? The ogres Perrault brought back into fashion are those very same giants whom the knights slaughtered in the Middle Ages. Would Gargantua not be of the same family as them, and would his name not have been noticed by the author of Pantagruel right alongside those other once-famous characters who are now long forgotten for having only existed as the late-night tales of our ancestors? 

In Berry, where no historical traditions have remained in the collective memory of the peasant except as vague myths, we were more than surprised to still encounter there a very precise sort of local recollection of Gargantua quite separate from Rabelais’ poem, although in the same vein. At Montlevic, for example, a small isolated knoll in the plain was formed by the foot of Gargantua. Whilst lost in these clay-rich lands of ours, the giant shook his hoof here, and left a hill in that spot.

And on the Creuse, in the outskirts of Berry, Gargantua was once found [9] astride that vast and magnificent ravine where the river rushes between the bell towers of Pin and Ceaulmont, planting himself in their steep cliff sides. A small boat full of monks drew up to pass between the giant’s legs. Believing it was a trout darting away, he bent down, plucked up the ship in two fingers, and swallowed it whole, finding the monks big and fat but rejecting the boat itself, complaining about the fishbone. 

Anyone who tells you such stories has certainly never read the Book, nor did their ancestors even know of its existence. The name of Rabelais is just as unknown to them as those of Pantagruel and Panurge. Brother Jean des Entomeures, so renowned for his character and for his use of speech, did not achieve widespread popularity amongst them either. These fictional personalities are the work of the poet, but I would still believe that Gargantua is the work of the people and that, like all great artists, Rabelais took his subject matter where he found it.

The superstitions within the villages and cottages of the Creuse region in lower Berry do acknowledge the giants, who, by contrast, occupy little place in the chronicles of the high country. This high country is wide-open and rolling; the low country, which is steep and ravined, is rooted in the same rock which serves as a buttress for the escarpments of the land. Its strangely-shaped stony cliffs of mica and schist might easily resemble gigantic figures, and this fact must be far from laughable to any fisherman who goes out in bad faith to lift their colleagues’ traps at night. It is not the merry Gargantua who appears to him: it is the three men of stone, whom in the daytime he would call the monk’s rocks, and whom he had seen standing motionless alongside the clear water’s edge, without fear.

One night Chauvat, coming back from the low country mill, saw them move, coming down from their huge pedestal and walking along the shore, gesticulating; oh but what horrible gestures, what a terrifying parade they made! They seemed to have neither feet nor legs, and yet they moved faster than the waters of the Creuse, and the pebbles they crushed cried out under their weight. He fled to his house and barricaded himself inside as best he could; but the men of stone had followed him, and as he was an unbeliever who didn’t think of giving himself up to God, the smallest of these colossi leaned his elbow on the gable of the house, flattening it like a pat of butter.

The terrified Chauvat then fled to his barn; but the second of the stone men put his hand on it, splitting it into four as though it were an old Huguenot in the land of Bazaiges.

Chauvat had enough time to save himself, and he sought refuge on the great lock which cuts the river diagonally from one side to the other. There, he believed himself saved; but the three men of stone took this path to return to their usual place on the other bank, and he found himself forced either to stay there or to throw himself into the river, which is very deep on either side of the lock; to run faster than the giants was out of the question.

He made himself very small, not daring to breathe, crouching down on the ground and hoping that those wicked boulders would not see him there. The first passed by; then came the second, who also passed by. Chauvat began to breathe again. Finally there came the third, who was the largest and heaviest by far, and who tried to pass by along with the others. But the road was slippery and the stone man slipped.

Fortunately, Chauvat finally remembered his baptism and made the sign of the cross, asking for the assistance of Heaven. The man of stone stumbled yet did not fall, otherwise the poor fisherman would have been crushed like an eggshell.

The returned are, in this same part of Berry, very frequent guests. Few houses here are not haunted by some soul in pain. That rushing river Creuse, which runs black and rapid in certain deep spots where it flows without any impediment, carries along the plaintive spirits of people who have met their deaths beneath its waves. At night, we hear heartbreaking cries; these are the drowned, who wail and ask for prayers. Elsewhere, it foams and rumbles against the rocks; there, one hears the imprecations of those who are unpardonably damned.

The term le retournant (the returned) carries a similar meaning to revenant. However, some old women will tell you that the souls of those lost to suicide  (those who intentionally drowned) are condemned to the eternal task of tumbling over the large stones that clutter the torrential riverbed. In the middle of a certain waterfall in the Creuse, one of these dark rocks looks so much like a capsized boat that you could easily be fooled from afar. It is an overturned stone: we assure you that it is white on its underside, and also that it was brought there from a long way away by the returned.

These legends undoubtedly hearken back to the tragic memories of disasters caused by the river’s sudden and terrible floods. In 1845, a great deluge of rain swelled the tributaries of the river such that the Creuse, which was itself already a formidable torrent in this region, rose by what is said to be more than one hundred feet, pulling an entire recently-felled forest into its shores. Upon reaching the only bridge in the countryside, this travelling forest stopped for two hours, jammed between the two steep riverbanks, and this mass was subsequently compounded by other masses of roofs, boats, barriers, and general debris of every other kind, and fearless children travelled from one riverbank to the other on dry feet atop this floating mountain above the raging waves. All of a sudden the mountain burst forwards, carrying the bridge that had held it back, and sweeping away everything in its path: houses, herds, crops, and passers-by.

Yet even the memory of this disaster was not enough to fully populate the banks and islets of the terrible river with its sorrowful souls. There is also a faint legend of a clash between salt smugglers and salt-tax collectors, during the time when titled and bourgeois men were moving mules laden with contraband salt along the steep valley paths. The official history of Berry says nothing about this battle. The old peasants heard this story told by their fathers, who got it from their grandfathers. Many people perished there, they say, and were thrown from the rocks into the Creuse. That’s why we hear, on bad nights, unfamiliar voices who cry out over and over again: Salt! Salt! At this cry, all the mules in nearby pastures will run away with their ears down and their tails between their legs, as if the Devil is after them.

In this same region, the belief in the great serpent reawakens from time to time. We don’t mind the thousands of rock-dwelling vipers, which are said to have never harmed anyone; but this serpent, which is forty feet in length and has a head like that of a man, is the one that concerns us. It is probably the same one who ate three prisoners in the Châteaubrun tower dungeon in ancient times. He has shown himself several times since then, and last year, in 1857, the whole countryside was in turmoil because a shepherdess saw him in a bush. More than fifty hunters went out on foot looking for him; but, as usual, he could not be found.

George SAND

[aishangotome]

Personal Branch (Gu Shiye): #2 Battle of Influence (影响力比拼) Part 1 | Beyond The World 世界之外

I stood on a strange yet tidy street. The mission information for this time had already appeared before me.

Battle of Influence - Rank A Instance Mission You and two other players will be transported to the same city. Within one year, the player with the highest public influence will be the victor of this competition. Players will not know each other's identities before meeting, but upon meeting, they will be able to identify each other as players. During the mission, interference with opponents is allowed, but causing direct or indirect physical harm is prohibited. Note: "Public influence" here specifically refers to the ability to impact public opinion, public value judgments, and other aspects of the general populace. Please choose your identity from the following four options (first come, first served): -Relative of a powerful figure -Relative of a newspaper magnate -Businessman on the verge of bankruptcy -A moderately famous actor

Just as I was considering, the first and fourth options grayed out one after the other. Daring not hesitate any longer, I immediately chose the second option.

Communication methods in this world were limited, and newspapers were the primary source of information for most people.

If I could control a print media platform, it would naturally be beneficial in guiding public opinion.

Being related to the newspaper industry should offer some advantages, however small.

Under this identity, I was the distant cousin of the Jiang family, who owned Chenjiang News.

My "mother" was the niece of the old matriarch of Chenjiang News, the only bloodline of her older brother. Over twenty years ago, she married a businessman in another region.

Later, the businessman passed away, and my "mother" also fell seriously ill.

On her deathbed, worried about her daughter being alone and helpless, she told me to go to Luoning to seek refuge with her aunt, who was the old matriarch of the Jiang family and Chenjiang News.

The point in time when I entered this identity was right after successfully being recognized and moving into the Jiang family.

Although the Jiang family had some savings, they weren't considered wealthy. Moreover, as a relative from a small town, the assistance I could expect to receive was very limited.

The comforting thing was that I recognized the mission city.

It was a city I had heard people mention during a previous mission, the most prosperous city in North Continent—Luoning.

Cicadas buzzed incessantly outside the window, and the wind rustling through the treetops made a soft, whispering sound.

At the podium, the teacher was writing the most fashionable poems on the blackboard.

In the classroom, some of the young female students were attentively looking at the board, while others had their heads lowered, whispering quietly to each other.

After all, it was the last class of the day. Young people were restless, the same in any world.

I used my book to shield myself, contemplating my mission this time.

I was already living with the Jiang family. Initially, I was a bit worried about whether I could fit in, but I gradually discovered that they were actually very kind to me.

For example, they prepared my clothing and belongings and used their connections to get me into Luoning University, the best institution of higher learning in the North Continent.

In addition, they hired music, etiquette, and foreign language teachers to tutor me at home.

However, when I suggested wanting to intern for the newspaper, they did not agree.

Therefore, I didn't yet have a clear idea of how to further advance my mission.

It seemed I needed to gather more information.

The school bell rang, and the teacher gestured to everyone before leaving. The female students in the classroom immediately became lively.

As a transfer student, I wasn't yet familiar with them. I quietly packed my books amidst the chattering discussions and walked towards the school gate alone.

Luoning had a well-developed infrastructure in terms of municipal transportation and other aspects, which was extremely rare in these chaotic times. I usually took the tram back to the Jiang family.

The Jiang family's residence was a three-story building on Huai'an Road.

Because Madam Wang needed peace and quiet to recuperate, she lived alone in a courtyard in the distant suburbs. The guest room on the west side of the second floor was the bedroom that President Jiang and his wife had specifically prepared for me.

When I arrived home, no one else was back yet. After greeting the servants, I returned to my room.

The mission this time was to gain public opinion influence.

My current influence was still in the single digits. Until I could come up with a perfect solution, I could only keep gathering relevant information.

Based on my recent observations of newspaper content, I noticed that three types of news received the most attention:

Important news concerning the current global political and economic situation, entertainment news from the performing arts and literary circles, and gossip and anecdotes about celebrities in the aforementioned two circles.

Presumably, the players who chose to be a confidante of a powerful figure and a moderately famous actor could easily gain attention through these news categories.

With popularity, it would naturally be easier to wield public influence.

However, I hadn't met them yet, and I didn't know their identities...

Just as I was racking my brains, there was a knock on the door.

Servant: Miss Y/N, Madam is back and has asked for you to come downstairs.

I followed the servant to the living room on the first floor.

Everyone from the Jiang family had returned. The father and son were sitting to the side, reading newspapers, while Madam Jiang and Miss Jiang were chatting on the central sofa.

Seeing me come downstairs, Madam Jiang smiled gently and beckoned me over.

Mrs. Jiang: Y/N, come, sit here.

Mrs. Jiang: Has school been busy lately? You just transferred, are you able to keep up?

Me: It's not too busy, and I can keep up.

Mrs. Jiang: If there's anything you're not used to, just ask your cousin Shuying.

Mrs. Jiang: Shuying is also studying at Luoning University. She was sent to visit a university in West Continent before and just returned a few days ago. You can go to school together later.

Me: Okay.

After saying a few more things, Madam Jiang suddenly looked at me with a loving expression.

Mrs. Jiang: Y/N, you're at that age now. Your stepmother used to be unkind, and no one arranged things for you.

Mrs. Jiang: We know that young people nowadays value freedom of love, so we won't use the old ways to control you. But you should also consider matters of lifelong importance.

No, I'm just here to do a mission, and it's only for a year. Regardless of whether the mission is successful or not, I will leave.

Madam Jiang naturally couldn't hear my thoughts. Seeing that I wasn't speaking, she glanced towards the father and son as if signaling something.

Mrs. Jiang: How about this? Your cousin knows some young people whose families work for the Luoning government.

Mrs. Jiang: When you have a break from school, let your cousin take you out to have fun and meet them.

Mrs. Jiang: It doesn't matter if you don't like them, just treat it as making friends.

Mrs. Jiang: I think tomorrow is a good day, and you have a day off. Why not go tomorrow?

Me: .....

I was naturally unwilling.

But my current identity was equivalent to living under someone else's roof. To outsiders, Madam Jiang's actions would be seen as "for my own good."

Helplessly, I could only agree.

-

The next day, I started going to and from school with my cousin Jiang Shuying. Occasionally, I also accepted invitations from my cousin Jiang Shuguang to go out and meet those "talented young men."

After socializing for a few days, I gradually understood.

The "talented young men" the Jiang family introduced to me could actually be described as "ugly and misshapen."

There were hardly any young and capable individuals. Instead, there were many spoiled second-generation heirs who liked to eat, drink, and have fun. There was even someone who was divorced due to infidelity and wanted to remarry.

But upon closer examination of their backgrounds, it wasn't difficult to find a common point.

These "talented young men" themselves or their families held positions in Luochuan's power structure that were beneficial to the development of the newspaper industry.

In this way, many things made sense.

The Jiang family was kind to me, this suddenly appearing cousin, but this kindness came at a price. They hoped I could secure a beneficial marriage alliance for them.

Their "kindness" was more of a "packaging" of me.

Things like interning at the newspaper would make some conservative families think I wasn't "well-behaved" enough.

Even if it could improve my own abilities and experience, if it wasn't conducive to my "packaging," they wouldn't allow me to do it.

So, they didn't care if I took a liking to anyone. They would only choose the person among those who took a liking to me who was most beneficial to them and package it as an excellent marriage.

So, as things stood.

The identity of the Jiang family relative not only couldn't help me complete my mission, but would also impose many restrictions on my actions.

I had to come up with another plan myself.

-

This day, Jiang Shuying and I had just stepped into the house.

We saw Madam Jiang sitting in the living room with a cup of tea, smiling at us with the others.

Mrs. Jiang: You've come back just in time. I have good news to tell you.

Mrs. Jiang: Old Madam Gu is holding a birthday banquet next month. Thanks to Director Wei, we also received an invitation.

Mrs. Jiang: Old Madam's birthday banquet will be attended by all the prominent figures in Luoning, whether from the political, business, or military circles.

Mrs. Jiang: You must dress appropriately and buy a new outfit or two during this time.

Jiang Shuying obediently agreed. Madam Jiang turned to look at me.

Mrs. Jiang: That young Master Ji you met with your cousin last time has asked about you several times since then. If you see him at the banquet, be sure to greet him properly.

Me: Mm, I understand.

-

After returning to my room, I quickly put this matter out of my mind.

Mission time was limited. Fortunately, Madam Jiang's words today gave me a general idea.

Although the Jiang family wouldn't let me get involved with their Chenjiang News, my chosen approach of gaining public influence by controlling a print media platform should be viable.

If I couldn't get into the Jiang family's Chenjiang News, I could try to start my own small newspaper and build it up from scratch.

But before that, I needed to consolidate the information I had recently gathered about the Luoning news industry.

-

Overall, the Luoning news industry included both large newspapers like Chenjiang Daily, which had a wide readership and published formal content distributed throughout almost all of North Continent.

There were also some third-rate small newspapers that only circulated in Luoning and the surrounding areas.

Currently, I couldn't get much help from the Jiang family. If I planned to make a breakthrough in the media industry, I had to control my own platform.

After screening, I quickly locked onto my target—a third-rate small newspaper called "Luochuan Talk."

It was published by Luochuan News and had a history of over thirty years, leaving an impression on many Luoning residents.

However, in recent years, it had been declining, only publishing absurd, fabricated anecdotes and gossip, and was on the verge of going out of business.

Under my identity setting, my family had originally been in business and had some savings.

I gave most of the assets I brought from home to the Jiang family for daily expenses, keeping only a small portion for myself.

But the money I kept was barely enough for me to implement my plan.

To carry out the plan, I entrusted an intermediary to acquire Luochuan News.

The contract stipulated that the down payment would only be ten percent of the acquisition price, followed by thirty percent every quarter for four quarters, with three percent of each quarterly payment going towards interest.

The ten percent down payment was because that was the only cash I could currently take out.

But signing this contract also meant that I had left myself no way out.

The first issue of my newspaper had to be a "headline blockbuster"—it could only succeed and not fail.

Otherwise, if I couldn't repay the money for buying the newspaper, I could face lawsuits and even imprisonment, completely losing my freedom, making it even more impossible to complete the mission.

Because the overall offer was much higher than the current value of the newspaper, the original owner agreed to sell very readily.

After everything was ready, I began to plan my newspaper's business strategy.

I decided to rename "Luochuan Talk" to "New Luochuan Talk" and launch it as a new publication.

Under the current circumstances, it was clear that the first issue of the new publication needed to feature a "headline" that could "explode" in popularity.

Only in this way could "New Luochuan Talk," as a new publication without any foundation, quickly attract attention and boost sales.

Only then could my newspaper escape its current predicament and gain a foothold.

The front-page headlines of other newspapers were nothing more than news in four categories: politics, economics, entertainment, and academia.

Although I didn't have advantages in these four areas, I could take a different approach.

Generally speaking, associating with celebrities was a relatively reliable way to create events that easily attracted public attention.

And in Luoning, the most attention-grabbing thing was undoubtedly the Gu family's affairs, especially the person I knew—Gu Shiye.

I made a special effort to observe.

Large media outlets like Chenjiang Daily naturally dared not fabricate news, but occasionally, third-rate small newspapers would concoct some gossip about the Gu family's peripheral members, and they wouldn't be held accountable.

However, the news they fabricated was also about the Gu family's distant relatives. I had never actually seen any newspaper dare to publish unofficial content related to Gu Shiye.

But... Gu Shiye was so busy, he probably wouldn't even notice these things.

Although doing so was really unethical, in order to complete the mission, I had to wrong Gu Shiye first.

Fabricating a news story related to Gu Shiye was the easiest way I could think of to create a "headline" in Luoning right now.

If there's a chance later... I will apologize to him.

Five days later, "New Luochuan Talk," with me as the new behind-the-scenes owner, officially released its first new issue.

The new edition had a total of four pages. The main page was titled "Chats and Tales," and the three sub-pages were "Future Visions," "Overseas Customs," and "Unsolved Mysteries."

On the front page headline was a memoir narrated by a "Miss Y/N" and penned by the newspaper's editor.

In a serialized format, it chronicled a relationship between Miss Y/N and a young, handsome, high-ranking, and powerful Mr. Gu in Luoning City.

The first issue opened with an explosive flashback.

It directly stated that Mr. Gu had taken advantage of Miss Y/N and then abandoned her, leaving her behind after they had already pledged their lives to each other, returning to Luoning alone.

Miss Y/N had been waiting bitterly, recalling in the long nights the scene from many years ago when she encountered an injured Mr. Gu outside her home in Lankou and brought him back to nurse him...

Perhaps the people here had never seen such a plot before, and "Mr. Gu" subtly had a real-life prototype. The release of "New Luochuan Talk" received a tremendous response.

For three consecutive weeks after the release of the first new issue, sales continued to rise, and each new issue sold out immediately.

The newspaper's revenue soared. In just one month, I had earned back thirty percent of the acquisition price.

On the streets, the number of times people discussed "New Luochuan Talk" clearly increased, and my public influence was steadily rising.

Even in school, I began to hear discussions about "New Luochuan Talk."

Although "New Luochuan Talk" did indeed become a hit as I had hoped, even exceeding my expectations, I felt a faint sense of unease—

There was a growing feeling that things were gradually spiraling out of control.

Because I was busy with the newspaper, I used the excuse of participating in club activities with classmates and returned home quite late every day.

Unexpectedly, when I returned to the Jiang family this day, I found that Madam Jiang and the others were actually waiting for me in the living room.

Mrs. Jiang: My child, what have you been so busy with lately, coming back so late every day?

Me: It's still the same as before, some... school club matters.

Mrs. Jiang: It's good to participate more in school activities, but as a girl, don't let your heart wander too much.

Mrs. Jiang: Tomorrow is Old Madam Gu's birthday banquet. Don't go out again. Prepare yourself properly at home earlier.

Me: Mm, I understand.

Compared to my previous resistance, I was now quite eager to go to the birthday banquet. After all, it was a rare opportunity, and it would be great if I could gather some material to write an exclusive story.

-

The next day was Old Madam Gu's birthday banquet.

When I got ready and went downstairs, no one was in the living room yet.

The Jiang father and son arrived after a while, and Madam Jiang and Miss Jiang came down about half an hour later.

They were wearing brand-new, fashionable dresses and light veils on their heads, looking as if they had carefully dressed up.

President Jiang: Since everyone is here, let's go.

The birthday banquet was held at the East Mountain Villa. The group traveled in two cars. President Jiang and Madam Jiang were in the first car, while I was in the second car with the Jiang siblings.

Jiang Shuying: Brother, Old Madam Gu's birthday banquet, why isn't it being held at the Gu Mansion?

Jiang Shuguang: In recent years, Old Madam Gu has been living in the villa in the East Mountain area. Usually, only Commander Gu resides at the Gu Mansion. So, this birthday banquet is being held at the East Mountain Villa.

Jiang Shuying: Oh. By the way, Brother, have you read the memoir of that Miss Yi on the front page of "New Luochuan Talk"? My classmates are all saying that the Mr. Gu written about in there is Commander Gu.

Jiang Shuguang: Don't always read such absurd things.

Jiang Shuying: But the father of one of my classmates works in the Luoning government and usually gets to see Commander Gu. She said her father said that the Commander Gu written about in there looks very much like the real person.

Jiang Shuying: If they hadn't really lived together, relying only on imagination and fiction, it wouldn't be possible to write it so realistically.

Jiang Shuying: Brother, do you know anyone from Luochuan News? Do you know any inside information?

Jiang Shuguang: You should focus more on how to behave at today's banquet.

Jiang Shuguang: All the leading figures from various circles will be attending Old Madam Gu's birthday banquet. Commander Gu will probably come in person. You need to find a way to leave a good impression on the guests.

Jiang Shuying pouted, and the siblings stopped talking.

It was quite a distance from Huai'an Road to East Mountain. For some reason, the roads were particularly congested today. It took over an hour for the car to stop in front of the East Mountain Villa.

I glanced towards the hall from afar. It was already packed with guests and bustling with activity.

As soon as we entered the banquet hall, President Jiang and his son started chatting with acquaintances. Madam Jiang stood in place, looking around, when a look of pleasant surprise suddenly appeared in her eyes.

Mrs. Jiang: Isn't that Madam Wei over there?

Mrs. Jiang: Shuying, come with me to greet Madam Wei.

Mrs. Jiang: Y/N, you wait here for a moment and don't wander off, lest you accidentally offend someone important.

Me: Okay.

Mrs. Jiang: Oh, right. Young Master Ji is also here today. You young people should interact more. Once Young Master Ji arrives, go and chat with him more.

This Young Master Ji was usually ignorant and incompetent, often relying on his family's influence to bully men and women outside.

Jiang Shuguang had introduced me to him twice, but I really didn't get along with this Young Master Ji.

However, to appease Madam Jiang, I agreed.

Me: I understand.

I stood alone in a corner of the venue, feeling somewhat out of place.

The environment was unfamiliar, and there was no one I knew well enough to talk to.

To make matters worse, I saw the Young Master Ji whom Madam Jiang had instructed me to "greet properly" also appear in the venue.

I vaguely remembered that his father was a certain director in the Luoning government, precisely the kind of person the Jiang family desperately needed to win over.

No wonder Madam Jiang was so eager for me to build a good relationship with him and had specifically brought me to the banquet.

Not wanting to run into him, I simply turned around and walked towards the courtyard outside the venue, wanting to go out for a stroll and get some fresh air.

-

On the second-floor landing of the banquet hall, Secretary-General Xu and several other dignitaries were cautiously accompanying a man downstairs.

Although they were usually prominent figures with great power in Luoning.

The young man currently standing beside him was the true behind-the-scenes controller of the entire Luochuan region.

So, they couldn't afford to be careless.

Secretary-General Xu: This time, a total of three ships will be decommissioned from the Ice Sea Fleet. It is expected that the armaments of the Third Fleet can all be updated by the end of the year...

Suddenly, he noticed that the man's attention was no longer on him. The man was looking towards the venue, as if he had noticed something.

Secretary-General Xu: Commander Gu, you...?

Gu Shiye: Wait a moment.

The man, however, ignored him and strode towards the venue.

Secretary-General Xu hurriedly looked in the direction of the banquet hall. The hall was a scene of vibrant splendor, and he couldn't immediately discern who the man's target was.

Seeing that Gu Shiye was already almost downstairs, Secretary-General Xu patted his bald head and quickly followed.

The other three officials exchanged glances and then also hurried down.

-

I glanced back and saw that Young Master Ji had clearly seen me. He was staring at me as he pushed his way through the crowd towards me.

I quickly pretended not to see him and quickened my pace.

Unexpectedly, I had only taken a couple of steps outside when someone grabbed me.

I thought it was Young Master Ji and quickly struggled forcefully, but I soon realized it wasn't him—

The hand was long and strong, gripping my wrist firmly through my sleeve.

I turned my head and met a familiar pair of clear, cold black eyes.

It was Gu Shiye.

Although I had anticipated possibly seeing Gu Shiye at an event like tonight's, I figured with so many people at the banquet, he wouldn't notice me.

I would probably only be able to catch a distant glimpse of him, like most people, across the entire venue and over many heads.

But I hadn't expected him to appear in front of me so suddenly, catching me off guard.

Perhaps because of "Miss Y/N's Memoir," I felt somewhat guilty seeing him now.

He released my hand but still stood before me, not moving an inch.

He was wearing his military uniform with a greatcoat draped over his shoulders and black military boots on his feet.

Standing before me, his tall figure completely enveloped me.

Me: Gu...

Gu Shiye: Where did you go?

Gu Shiye: That day on the Ice Sea, I went looking for you, but you had disappeared again.

Me: I... had some things to take care of.

Me: I didn't expect... you would look for me.

And there wasn't time to say goodbye.

The deeper reason was that on the Ice Sea, I hadn't yet experienced those years in Lankou City.

Nor did I know that there were so many entanglements between the man before me and myself.

Gu Shiye: Mm.

He didn't pursue the question further, but lowered his head, his dark eyes pressing down as he looked at me.

Gu Shiye: When did you return to Luoning?

Me: Not long ago.

Gu Shiye: What are you doing now? Do you have a place to live?

Me: I'm studying at Luoning University, staying temporarily at a relative's house.

Gu Shiye: Mm.

The scene fell silent again for a moment. The early autumn wind carried the fragrance of unknown flowers.

I remembered that day I thought if I had the chance to see Gu Shiye, I would apologize to him.

But now that the real person was standing in front of me, I didn't dare tell him the "bad things" I had done.

I could only pray that he would never find out.

Gu Shiye: Your younger sister is being taken care of by Aunt Cui. She's doing well. Now that you're back, you might as well go see her.

Gu Shiye: Never mind. Tell me your current address, and I'll have Aunt Cui visit you.

Me: It's 45 Huai'an Road... Can you remember that?

Gu Shiye: I remember.

This courtyard wasn't far from the banquet hall, but with Gu Shiye standing in front of me, he blocked most of the view from inside.

Also, because he was here, no one dared to approach for a while.

I saw several middle-aged men not far behind Gu Shiye looking hesitant and not daring to come over, guessing they probably had something to discuss with him.

Me: Gu Shiye, it looks like someone is looking for you.

Gu Shiye: They're fine.

Gu Shiye lowered his eyes slightly, looking at me calmly.

Gu Shiye: If you're not in a hurry, walk with me for a bit.

Me: Okay.

The East Mountain Villa had a large area, with a private garden that occupied about half of a mountain in the back.

Gu Shiye led the way, and I followed beside him.

He rarely spoke, but if he noticed I wasn't keeping up, he would subtly slow down his pace.

We walked deeper into the garden, gradually moving away from the hustle and bustle near the banquet hall. The air around us became fresher.

I couldn't help but take a couple of deep breaths, and my tense nerves gradually relaxed.

Gu Shiye: Do you like it here?

Me: Yeah.

Gu Shiye: You can come here often in the future.

Me: Okay.

I secretly sized up the man beside me.

It had been four or five years since I met him in Lankou City, and two or three years since our encounter on the Boreas.

Over these years, he had held power in Luoning, and with the passage of time, his aura and authority had only grown stronger.

The slight hint of youthfulness that could occasionally be glimpsed back in Lankou had completely vanished by now.

Gu Shiye suddenly turned his face to look at me.

Gu Shiye: How have you been these past few years?

Me: Fine.

Fine, indeed.

For me, being able to continue living, and even meet him again, without disappearing in those instance games, was of course "fine."

His gaze was deep as he looked at me, his eyes flickering slightly, but in the end, he didn't say anything, only responded with a sound.

Gu Shiye: Mm.

It was quiet all around. Moonlight spilled onto the ground, casting long shadows of Gu Shiye and me behind us.

I suddenly realized that, unknowingly, I had walked quite a distance with Gu Shiye.

I stopped and tugged on Gu Shiye's coat sleeve.

Me: Commander Gu....

Gu Shiye: What did you call me?

I honestly corrected myself.

Me: Si Ge.

His expression remained as impassive as ever, but at this moment, I felt the corners of his lips relax slightly, as if he were satisfied.

Gu Shiye: Mm, what is it?

Me: I need to go back. My relatives are still inside.

Me: If I go back too late, it'll be hard to explain to them if they find out.

Gu Shiye: You came with your relatives?

Me: Yes.

The man lowered his head, his dark eyes fixed on me. After a long moment, he responded softly.

Gu Shiye: Mm.

Gu Shiye: Let's go back then.

We returned along the same path.

The moonlight was gentle, illuminating the way ahead.

I looked at the man's stern profile beside me, and my heart also became peaceful and quiet.

Should I say something to Gu Shiye?

Me: Si Ge, how have you been in recent years?

Gu Shiye: Just the same as always.

Gu Shiye: Fought a few battles, and usually just handle official duties.

Me: What do you do in your free time?

Gu Shiye: Read the newspaper, or go for a walk on the outskirts of Luozhou alone.

It was still the time between late summer and early autumn, and cicadas occasionally chirped in the garden. But the night breeze was gentle and quiet.

Gu Shiye and I walked forward side by side, and I could clearly hear the sound of the plants brushing against his coat.

-

We finally walked back to the courtyard outside the banquet hall.

I stopped, and Gu Shiye stood in front of me, looking down at me slightly.

Gu Shiye: If you need anything... come find me.

Me: Okay.

He nodded and raised his hand to touch the brim of his hat.

Gu Shiye: Go inside.

Me: Si Ge, then I'll go.

I turned to say goodbye to him and walked towards the banquet hall from the other side of the courtyard.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Gu Shiye still standing in the courtyard, his figure straight and tall, watching me walk into the door.

In the courtyard.

Secretary-General Xu quietly approached from behind, just as Gu Shiye turned around.

Gu Shiye: What is it?

Secretary-General Xu: It seems Old Madam has come out. She's looking for you.

Gu Shiye: Mm.

Secretary-General Xu: Commander Gu, that young lady just now was...?

Gu Shiye: She's my...

The man suddenly stopped halfway through his sentence, turning his head to give Secretary-General Xu a faint glance.

Gu Shiye: ...Continue talking about the armament updates.

-

The Jiang family members were clearly in high spirits tonight, after all, the opportunity to attend such a banquet was very rare for them.

It wasn't until the banquet was about to end that they reluctantly left the villa, and therefore, they didn't notice that I was absent from the banquet hall for the entire evening.

Back at the villa on Huai'an Road, the Jiang family's excitement still hadn't faded.

President Jiang: It's a pity that Commander Gu didn't say anything. He only sat with Old Madam Gu for a while and then left. I didn't even get a good look at him.

Jiang Shuguang: Commander Gu has always been low-key and doesn't really like these kinds of events. It's to be expected.

President Jiang: If we could ever get in with the Gu family, that would be a real step up.

Mrs. Jiang: Alright, you. You're just daydreaming.

Although her tone was one of regret and disappointment, their expressions didn't seem to genuinely reflect those feelings.

After all, they hadn't really hoped to get in with the Gu family so easily.

President Jiang didn't take it to heart and continued to smile cheerfully.

President Jiang: There's plenty of time in the future. There will always be opportunities.

After President Jiang chatted with Madam Jiang for a while about the Jiang family's bright future, he went upstairs to rest.

It was then that Madam Jiang noticed me, who had been sitting quietly to the side.

Mrs. Jiang: Y/N, where did you go tonight?

Mrs. Jiang: Young Master Ji said he wanted to talk to you, but he couldn't find you.

Me: There were too many people in the venue. I felt a bit stifled, so I went out to get some air.

Madam Jiang muttered something under her breath.

Mrs. Jiang: You're really something. You don't know how to seize opportunities at such a rare event.

Mrs. Jiang: Oh well, I'll have Shuguang arrange for you to go out and have fun with them another day.

Perhaps it was because my attitude was sincere, or perhaps she was genuinely in a good mood, but Madam Jiang didn't scold me too much. She just offered a few words of advice and then went upstairs to rest.

-

The following day was Monday, and I went back to school as usual.

Near the end of the school day, a classmate called out to me at the classroom door.

Classmate: Y/N, someone is looking for you outside.

The classmate, after calling out to me, looked at me with a hint of curiosity.

Someone is looking for me? Could something have happened at the newspaper?

And who else would come looking for me?

I walked out of the classroom door and unexpectedly saw Gu Shiye leaning against the corridor window, waiting for me.

He was wearing a black casual outfit with an overcoat and the standard black military boots.

He wasn't wearing his uniform, and he didn't like to appear in public media. There were only a few blurry black and white profile photos of him in the newspapers.

Therefore, no one recognized him for a moment.

However, such a young and handsome man coming to the school to look for someone was still a rare occurrence, attracting a lot of attention.

But the students at this time were mostly reserved, so they only looked and whispered quietly, not daring to approach.

I walked towards Gu Shiye, and he raised his eyes to look at me.

His gaze was as deep and cold as ever, only softening slightly when it met mine.

I stopped in front of him and, feeling the attention of others around us, lowered my voice.

Me: Why did you come?

Gu Shiye lowered his eyes.

Gu Shiye: I didn't think things through properly the other day.

Gu Shiye: Since you're staying at a relative's house now, it's probably inconvenient for Aunt Cui to visit you abruptly.

Gu Shiye: If you're free today, I'll take you to see Aunt Cui.

Gu Shiye could be described as truly being occupied with a myriad of affairs every day. The fact that he took the time to personally pick me up to see my younger sister showed a rare consideration, so how could I not be free?

Me: I'm free.

Gu Shiye: Mm.

Gu Shiye: Go pack your things. I'll wait for you here.

Me: Okay.

I turned to go back to the classroom to pack my things, but after thinking for a moment, I couldn't help but turn back and whisper a thank you.

Me: Si Ge, thank you.

I saw Gu Shiye's expression soften slightly for a moment.

Gu Shiye: Mm.

-

After I came out of the classroom with my bag, Gu Shiye directly reached out and took the bag from my hands.

Gu Shiye: Let's go.

We followed him out of the teaching building. Outside the building's entrance, he paused slightly, waiting for me to catch up.

Gu Shiye: There's no rush.

Gu Shiye: It's still early. Aunt Cui usually isn't back yet.

Gu Shiye: I haven't been to Luoning University much. Will you show me around?

Me: Oh, okay.

Although I was a bit puzzled. Wasn't Aunt Cui already retired? Why wouldn't she be home at this hour?

-

It was early autumn, and some of the trees on both sides of the campus were still green, while others had yellowed leaves.

Gu Shiye and I strolled side by side through the campus, past the school buildings, with the autumn sunlight filtering through the trees and falling on us.

Gu Shiye: When you were on the Boreas, why did you seem like you didn't recognize me?

I hesitated, unsure how to explain.

Could I say, because the "me" at that time truly didn't recognize you?

When we met on the Boreas, it was my first time meeting him, but for Gu Shiye, it was a reunion.

Later, when I took on the Su family-related mission and returned to this world again, I went to an even earlier timeline, meeting a younger Gu Shiye.

At that time, it was a reunion for him, but my first meeting with him.

But I couldn't say any of these explanations to him.

Me: I had just recovered from an illness at that time. My memory wasn't very clear, and I didn't remember many things from the past.

Me: But I'm fine now.

Me: I remember everything that happened in Lankou City.

Gu Shiye: Mm.

As before, even though my past experiences and many of my explanations had inconsistencies that couldn't be explained by common sense, Gu Shiye didn't pursue them further.

He suddenly took off his coat and handed it to me.

Gu Shiye: It's getting windy.

Gu Shiye: You're dressed thinly.

I was taken aback when I received the coat, and it took me a moment to realize I should put it on.

His coat was too big for me, almost enveloping my entire body.

Me: Thank you.

I thanked him softly, and Gu Shiye lowered his head and adjusted my collar.

Gu Shiye: You're welcome.

He rarely added anything extra, but this time he did.

Gu Shiye: You and I don't need to thank each other.

Luoning University had a large campus. We walked around for about an hour until it was almost dusk before we left the school gate.

Gu Shiye's car was parked on a street outside the side gate of the school.

There were two cars, both low-key black, but with Luoning military license plates.

The driver and an adjutant waiting outside were both stunned when they saw us come out.

The other adjutant, Lu Quan, whom I had met before, remained calm.

I belatedly realized that their reaction was because of the coat I was wearing.

Gu Shiye opened the door and shielded me as I got into the back seat of the first car.

The car started and drove smoothly on the road, with Lu Quan and the other adjutant's car following behind us.

It quickly became completely dark, and the orange streetlights on both sides of the road lit up.

The dappled light and shadows through the car window were reflected on Gu Shiye's profile, making me suddenly remember the snow in Lankou that year.

Me: Gu Shiye.

Gu Shiye: What is it?

He turned his head to look at me, his cold, dark eyes completely hidden in the shadows.

Me: When does it snow in Luoning?

Gu Shiye: It's hard to say.

Gu Shiye: In early years, it might snow in October. In late years, it won't snow until close to the end of the year.

Gu Shiye: Do you want to see snow?

Me: Yes.

Gu Shiye: The snow scene on Cangrong Mountain in western Luoning is a wonder. I'll take you to see it when it snows.

Me: Okay.

The car finally stopped in front of an ordinary two-story building on Shengfu Road.

Aunt Cui was already waiting at the door. When she saw us arrive, she hurriedly welcomed us in.

Aunt Cui: Madam, are you cold? It's gotten colder outside today. You should wear more.

Then she saw the coat I was wearing, smiled gently, and said nothing more.

I then realized that I had been wearing this coat the whole way, and I quickly took it off to return it to Gu Shiye, who then handed it to the adjutant standing nearby to hang up.

A scent of cooked food wafted to my nose.

In the living room, Aunt Cui had already prepared a table full of dishes. From a quick glance, they were all cooked according to the tastes of Gu Shiye and me back in Lankou.

Compared to Aunt Cui's delight at seeing us, Liu Yuanyuan seemed a bit reserved when she saw Gu Shiye and me, only greeting us politely.

She was already a teenage girl.

It was clear that Aunt Cui had taken good care of her. Her gaze towards Aunt Cui was full of the trust between family members, but she seemed a bit distant towards me, her older sister.

Perhaps because the "Y/N" identity had always been studying abroad in the setting, with little time to spend with her, leaving no impression.

But this was also good.

I wasn't originally a person from this world. I shouldn't have too many ties. I was already very happy that I could come back for this mission and see that Aunt Cui and Liu Yuanyuan were doing well.

After we finished eating, Aunt Cui saw Gu Shiye and me off at the door.

Gu Shiye drove me back.

When we left, he once again handed me his coat.

Gu Shiye: Put it on.

Once we were in the car, he kept his eyes closed to rest. I assumed he must be extremely busy during the day, so I didn't disturb him. But then he suddenly spoke.

Gu Shiye: What are your plans for the future?

Me: Hm?

Gu Shiye opened his eyes, his dark gaze turning to me, but it was impossible to discern his emotions.

Gu Shiye: You've returned from studying abroad and are continuing your studies at Luoning University. Do you plan to stay in Luoning in the future?

Me: I'll stay here for the time being.

Gu Shiye: Mm.

I would definitely stay in Luoning until this mission was completed.

But after the mission ended, the system would inevitably arrange for this identity to go "offline" again.

The black car drove smoothly through the night, soon turning onto Huai'an Road.

I asked Gu Shiye to stop one intersection away from the Jiang family residence.

Me: Let's stop here.

Me: It might be difficult to explain if my current relatives see us.

Gu Shiye: Mm.

I folded the coat that had been covering me and placed it on the seat. I wanted to thank him, but that word of thanks felt too inadequate.

And I didn't know how else to thank him.

Oh, right, I could withdraw that "Miss Y/N's Memoir" report.

Although that really wouldn't be much of a thank you...

Me: Si Ge, then I'll be going.

Gu Shiye: Mm.

I opened the car door.

.

.

.

.

.

Part 2

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[foxes-that-run]

Walking in the wind

Harry Styles has a gift for answering a question and not answering it at all at once. In the Made in the A.M track by track he said WITW was inspired by Paul Simon’s song Graceland.

I love how Harry's solo work draws modern inspiration from his diverse music tastes and he encourages his fans to broaden their tastes. Hindsight being 20/20 you can see where he went with his debut in that short video and this song.

When Simon wrote Graceland he and Carrie Fisher were divorcing and his relationship with Art Garfunkel was bitter. Simon said Graceland was a metaphor for the journey to mend a broken heart. Much like 2015 Harry who had broken up with Taylor and was on tour as One Direction ended. Simon also went to Africa to make this album, much like Harry went to South America for debut.

Timeline

Made on the AM was written in Japan in February 2015. Harry talked being able to just write 'good songs' because it wouldn’t be toured which made space for a song like this. WITW was probably written between February and May 2015. Harry and Taylor had been close at the end of 2014, it was over on or by his 21st birthday 2 February 2015. His smile when he saw her at the start (0:29) of BBMAs showed no animosity, but it’s unlikely WITW was written after the BBMAs in May (Woman). He also started looking even sadder live then.

To rolling stone Julian Bunetta said:

“That title was born in Japan. Just the title of it and the idea of it. Everyone’s different experiences of what they’re going through, whether it’s this or that, I’d like to think that these songs can apply to more than just [one instance].”

Lyrics

[Verse 1: Harry] A week ago, you said to me "Do you believe I'll never be too far?" If you're lost, just look for me You'll find me in the region of the summer stars The fact that we can sit right here and say goodbye Means we've already won A necessity for apologies between you and me Baby, there is none

The relaxed and happy tone depicts their romantic friendship that continues. I think they genuinely cared for each other, are nice people who both prioritised their careers. To me, “the fact we can say goodbye means we’ve already won” shows that mutual respect for each other.

To me “Do you believe I’ll never be too far” is agreeing to be apart while they focus on being massively famous and together in the future.

In the context of their later work about being end game, the 1, sushi is about having only a piece of your persons life, in as it was and golden he sings about it being time or feel her taking over.

Harry does not have anyone that would never be too far in a literal sense, and although at that time he was always with 1D they have spoken in interviews that year of that not being good.

[Pre-Chorus: Niall] Ah-ooh, we had some good times, didn't we? Ah-ooh, we had some good tricks up our sleeve Ah-ooh, goodbyes are bittersweet But it's not the end, I'll see your face again

Taylor has a similar lyric in The 1 “But we were something, don't you think so? / Roaring 20s, / tossing pennies in the pool / And if my wishes came true / It would've been you” this is about appreciating the relationship.

[Chorus: All] And you will find me Yeah, you will find me In places that we've never been For reasons we don't understand Walking in the wind Walking in the wind

Where their earlier work on Red and other 1D albums sung about always wanting to be together and coping in their career by Made in the AM and Reputation onwards they started singing about being connected but apart, on faith they’d come back together.

[Verse 2: Louis] Yesterday, I went out To celebrate the birthday of a friend But as we raised our glasses up to make a toast I realised you were missing

This may be referring to the friends birthday where they both were. Harry’s 21st birthday was 2 weeks later but Lily and Taylor were in Nashville. In Hunger he sang about making her cry on his birthday, if it was for Debut the 1 year to 2 timeframe line up for that. (Hunger also sings of “your stuff” as in music, doesn’t taste the same, as in Two Ghosts)

Later on 27 February he posted the overgrown winding wheel and she started dating CH.

[Bridge: Harry] And I know we'll be alright, child Just close your eyes and see I'll be by your side Any time you're needing me Oh, yeah

The bridge is similar to Fine Line, which also ends on “we’ll be alright” in Fine line he’s reflecting on being friends with someone he’s in love with. Here he is asking his muse to have faith that although they are not together he’s there for her. Also Sign of the Times "Just stop your crying / It'll be alright"

I just wanna love you leak

In September 2023 a leaked song, I just wanna love you referenced WITW with “A week ago you said to me: "We've started running out of time" / Crying over memories that we lost and cannot be found / Why don't we stop talking now? / (I just wanna love you)” which to me, in the sound and this lyric is the sequel to WITW, he’s saying it’s time. It also refers to Late night talking, and The 1 and Question…? Where they explore friendship with someone they love, in WITW they seem to agree to leave a live unresolved, on Harry’s House and Midnights they are contemplating that unresolved love.

[oqmemphis]

For the benefit (?) of my non-UK followers, I want to give some updates about our election next week, just to serve as a nice reminder that other countries also have completely fucking stupid politics.

The first thing to know is that there is absolutely no tension or jeopardy whatsoever. Every poll for at least the last eighteen months has predicted the same result, which is that the governing Conservative Party - which has been in power for 14 years and has spent that time doing nothing but cutting public services while becoming embroiled in increasingly corrupt and absurd scandals - will be utterly obliterated. They have 344 seats out of Parliament's 650, and they will be very lucky to keep hold of a third of those. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's outdoor speech in which he called the election for July 4th (while being drowned by the rain and drowned out by a man with a loudspeaker blasting 90's rock) may as well have been a resignation statement. This is a man most famous for losing his initial premiership bid to a lettuce. He will be remembered either not at all or exclusively as a failure, and his party is trapped in a years-long death spiral. I will be deferring discussion of the Conservative election campaign for later, for reasons that will become clear.

Just for reference, this is what the opinion polls have looked like since the last general election.

The heir presumptive to 10 Downing Street is Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, who defies description within the bounds of language by means of having nothing whatsoever to describe. He is an abject non-entity with no distinguishing qualities; a vague and noncommittal centrist; someone whose self-described campaign strategy is likened to carrying a Ming vase across a room. Be safe and slow. Make no sudden movements. His party is expected to win at least 400 seats.

Down at the bottom of the chart are the smaller parties. One of Britain's bizarre idiosyncrasies is that we have at least seven political parties, and a first-past-the-post political system that cannot support more than two. These smaller parties usually win anywhere up to a few dozen seats in regions with particularly strong support, but they have no hope whatsoever of ending up as the governing party. Labour has promised to fix this rather unhelpful state of affairs by implementing a proportional representation system, which I'm sure they will definitely be eager to do after winning control of two-thirds of Parliament with just 41% of the vote.

Let us begin with the Liberal Democrats. A decade ago, the Lib Dems were a fairly large centrist party that gave the Conservatives control of a Parliament with no overall majority. Since Labour's lurch middleward under Starmer, they have repositioned themselves as the UK's leading progressive party. They are led by a man named Ed Davey, who has not spent the last month campaigning so much as taking a nation-spanning holiday occasionally interrupted by the arrival of a single bemused camera operator. In the last four weeks, Mr. Davey has taken a painting class in Yorkshire, fallen off a paddleboard in the Lake District, toppled a giant Jenga tower in Hampshire, and photobombed a riverside Conservative campaign stop by by slowly rowing a boat adorned with orange signs across the back of shot. The Lib Dems are expected to go from 15 seats to well over 50, and there's a small chance they even win more seats than the Conservatives. I hope Ed's having fun.

There is also the Green Party, which exists in a permanent state of self-contradiction. They have one member of Parliament and two party leaders; these are three different people. They want to expand renewable energy while banning nuclear power. They are considered one of the UK's major parties, despite the fact that winning a total of three seats next week would be considered an unfathomably excellent result for them. I do not know what their campaign so far has involved, and I do not care enough to check.

The turquoise line on the chart, currently rising with worrying speed, is the Reform Party. While Labour is siphoning votes from the more moderate side of the Conservative Party, Reform is attempting to scavenge from its far-right/fascist wing. They are led by Nigel Farage. If you do not know who Nigel Farage is, I envy you. His rhetoric is more than a little Trumpian, but I can't immediately think of any politicians anywhere else who share his exact vibe of "the grumpiest racist at the local pub is standing for election".

Plain-spoken and British through and through, Big Nige initially said he was going to ignore the UK election to focus on the American one instead, before U-turning two weeks later to announce he would be standing for Parliament. Nigel has had seven unsuccessful candidacies before; he is depressingly likely to be eighth time lucky. This is because he is standing in one of the most firmly right-wing and anti-immigrant districts in the country, and yet another unique selling point of the British system is that you do not have to live even remotely close to the constituency you represent. I'm sure his choice to stand here of all places represents his extreme confidence in his own popularity. Big Nige will not be the prime minister, but if he were, I assume his first policy after getting rid of all the foreigners would be to deport the concept of irony.

Nigel's electoral strategy is the same as virtually everyone else's, which is to steal votes from the Conservatives. This is extremely easy, because the Conservatives have run one of the most catastrophic and floundering campaigns in political history. Rishi Sunak puts Joe Biden's "walking gaffe machine" moniker to shame. To illustrate the point: one of the Discord servers I'm in has a thread entitled "Just the Tories being Clowns". Recent highlights include:

Thousands of campaign leaflets for the party chairman were sent to the wrong constituency

The deputy chairman went campaigning with a convicted heroin dealer

All of their candidates were invited to a video call with senior party members; the time listed on the invitation was one hour later than the actual scheduled start time, so nobody turned up

Their very first advert featured the UK's flag proudly flying upside-down

Five of their candidates are being investigated by the Gambling Commission for betting on the date of the election the day before it was announced; one of them is married to the party's campaign director

They sent campaign emails to small businesses which look a lot like official communications from government departments; the legality of this is unclear

Another campaign email ended with the words "Sent from my iPhone"

A candidate posted a photo of himself holding the keys to a local house to prove he lived in the constituency where he was standing; the house was in fact an AirBnB

The official photo for one candidate's campaign launch showed less than twenty people, one of whom was a cardboard cutout of Margaret Thatcher

Sunak posted on Facebook an image of a fake quote attributed to an AI image of Margaret Thatcher (there is somehow still a cult of personality around this fucking woman)

Sunak delivered an entire speech with his back to the press cameras

Sunak left the D-Day anniversary commemmorations early to go film an interview that wouldn't air for another week, enabling Keir Starmer to get a photo op with all the world leaders he left behind in Normandy

Sunak announced a policy to reintroduce national service for 18-year-olds, which is the same thing as military conscription, except the military part is not mandatory and you can just do a month of unpaid work instead, and it's not clear that that's mandatory either, except that not doing it might deny you access to your bank account; approximately nobody likes this policy, and even fewer understand it

My current working theory is that this is Rishi's revenge tour against the party that refused to elect him until the lettuce went rotten, before he resigns from Parliament, gets the fuck out of the country he destroyed and takes a comfy consulting job in Los Angeles.

Welcome to democracy in the land of post-Brexit. It's a wild new world out here, where people scream all day about a reality that doesn't and won't ever exist, and a man with a bin on his head is trying to unseat the prime minister. Don't ask about Scotland and Wales, and for the love of god don't ask about Northern Ireland - they might all be independent in a decade anyway, depending on how things go. All hail First Lord Sir Keir, that his bland neutrality might translate into a policy that involves doing anything whatsoever.

[yanderefairyangel]

Recently I was overcome by a surge of Shakespeare brainrot which i didn't felt for quite some years (mainly blame it on the fact we had to study Hamlet which is MY FAV PLAY EVER) but it was mostly Romeo and Juliet (RomiJuri) brainrot (my second fav play ever) and subjecting me and my mutual to YA retellings of Romeo and Juliet and I kinda need to vent

So retellings as far as I know don't have a strong rule nor rules at all.

Back then retellings mainly consisted in remploying a narrative schema as seen per how fairy tales works and Romeo and Juliet are one of the many takes on an archetypal take called the Star-crossed lovers (obviously named after the play)

There are different tales about lovers meeting a tragic fate in very region of the world, Grece (Pyrame and Thisbe), middle east (Leila and Al Majnun) even China (the Butterfly lovers) and RomiJuri itself is one of the tale born of thse narrative schema being resused

See Shakespare was actually writing one of his most famous tragedy as a retelling/adaptation of a poem by Arthur Brooke called the Tragical history of Romeus and Juliet, which is itself the result of the translation by Wiliam Painter in his Palace of Pleasure of a short story written by italian writter Matteo Bandello, Romeo e Giulietta, itself inspired by Historia novellamente ritrovata di due giovani amanti by Luigi Da porto which is itself inspired Masuccio Salernitano's Mariotto e Giannoza etc

Suffice to say that Shakespeare's own most famous play is itself the result of a long game of retelling

For my memoir I had to read Nicole beaumont's Poetics of tale, essay on the oral tradition of tales in which she makes a point about how some versions of fairy tales have become so iconic that modern rewriting held these version as the "canonical" one or mostly refers this one when retelling/reimagining/adapting etc. (she takes the example of Perrault's take on BlueBeard as being the new paradigm defining the tale despite it being vastly different from the source he used)

While Romeo and Juliet isn't a fairy tale it defintely relies on a similar tradition when it comes to the usage of the narrative schema and how people mainly turn to the Shakesperian retelling of this archetypal tale when offering a new version, I have seen few stories that takes inspiration from others versions of the tale (I stress it few doesn't mean "never" after all I grew up watching an adaptation of the Butterfly lovers and was still able to connect the dots with Romeo and Juliet, I can still name adaptation of Pyramus and Thisbe, here I am mostly refering to other Romeo and Juliet stories just as Bandello, Da Porto, Brooke or even Lope de Vega)

So the fact we are still retelling this story ourselves even after all this time isn't that much of a surprise but a lot of these retellings were disappointing honestly

And look, I am not what I would call a purist when it comes to retellings

To give you an idea, one of my favorite movies ever is La foile des Grandeurs by Gérard Oury, a very loose adaptation of Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas, yet despite the notable difference in tone and a lot of aspects, I still love this movie and even prefer it over the source material play (sorry Tortor) for reason I could spend the day listing

And when it comes to Romeo and Juliet, I am not picky either : I actually like Romeo x Juliet, Kishuku gakkō no Juliet and Sirius no densetsu aka an adaptation that puts a whole sci fi cosmic twist with Juliet having a Zorro persona where Romijuri ends up living happy, a modern retelling set in a fictional japan where RomiJuri ends up living happy and a story that only uses the narrative schema putting insane mythological twist but ends up tragically

Heck I even kinda digged in Quinnrose's Romeo vs Juliet and it's a literal otome game putting a vampire vs vampire hunter twist

Even more recent examples, me and my friend we are both hyped by AstralShift's new game which is a Divine Comedy retelling where Dante is a girl !!

So clearly my issue isn't liberties taken by adaptations imo if you want to put spin on a story you are free to do so but a concept is only as good if there is little effort in execution and it just crumbles

I don't want writers to feel like they are limited in the possibilities they can pull linked to a certain tell when they want to retell but imo there needs to be some justification to using a source material as inspiration no matter how loose the adaptation is and I think you still need to be somewhat talented of a writer to put certains things off

But honestly most YA takes I have seen on RomiJuri just fall flats because while they might offer something conceptually interesting they do nothing interesting with it or worse they just feel like they are completely missing the point of the original play

See, I think that just because you pull some twist, it doesn't necessarily translate into your own interpretation or take away from the play. For example, does the fact Romeo and Juliet made Romeo Montague into a vampire oresama bookworm means they thought at any given moment Romeo of the play was a vampire ? No

However, most YA novels feels like they are translating of a direct reading of the play which is very irony poisoned and feel like they are reading through one of those meme I despise with all my soul (looking at you the "It's not a love story, it's a relationship bla bla bla" take)

And those kinda ruined interesting concepts to me

For examples, they are obsessed with telling Rosaline's story which is interesting on paper, after all we know little of her and what might have happened to her during the play

Rosaline is a glaring hole, she is little characterized and few is none about her (for example, reading these retellings where Tybalt is portrayed as her cousin made me realize that in reality it wasn't really explicit what type of cousin she is to Juliet because i always thought she was Tybalt's sister or something for no other fault than my own lol) heck we don't even know what her exact relationship with Romeo is (we know he was in an unrequired love with her which she never reciprocated because of her desire to stay chaste but we have 0 information about whether or not Romeo actually went and tried to woo her to begin with or not because as far as I am aware both interpretation can be argued over) so she basically makes a perfect character for a retelling cause she is easy to model as you desire it and she can bring some unique material to the old love story

The problems is the lack of originality in every single one of them, you can find a lot of recurring elements that just makes every single one of these so samey : super girlboss mary sure Rosaline, Romeo is either an idiot or a villain for some reason, shoving my girl Juliet aside, whatever happens to Mercutio, Benvolio Paris and even Tybalt they can either not appear at all or serve as a love interest for Rosaline, but for some reason these retellings love to do it with Benvolio (and i don't like it, literaly each time Benvolio is used in some purposeful way in these retellings it's just to serve as a replacement for Romeo, a consoling price grrr)

I have pondered upon why exactly do people obsess on having Rosie as a protag and frankly, the only way I explain it is what I call a "Watsnonian revenge on a doylist injustice"

Because see Rosaline in the play isn't a character, she is merely the catalyst for Romeo's meeting with Juliet and thus she "isnt given a voice" and "is treated like a plot device" because "she just exist so that Romeo, that swine, can love another woman!" which feels unfair to these writers

Granted they might invoke a lot of the surface level takes about it not being love but lust, hyperfocusing on Juliet's age or Romeo moving on too quickly from Rosaline, but imo THIS is the real reason mainly because of how a lot of these retellings reads as with featuring Rosaline like she is your typical YA heroine who is everything and not like the others girls, who gets wronged by the swine Romeo and this silly little girl Juliet but it's all right because she finds a new man who is perfect and so miuch better than stupid Romeo and she gets everything she deserves because she is soooo much better and deserves soooo much better than stupid Romeo and her romance is REAL true love, the REAL deal while the stupidity of Romeo and Juliet's relationship is exposed to the whole world and yadi yada ugggh

But the problem is that because they follow this specific schema and tropes and plto beats not only are they are all identical to each other but also they are in complete cognitive dissonance

In reality you aren't told Rosaline's story unlike what these claims, they fail to give her a voice unlike what these claims

Rosaline's story would be what ? An intepretation on what her vows of chastity is, maybe a dialogue between her and Romeo where she firmly rejects him, maybe explaining whether or not she actually went to the Capulet party and what happened there from her pov, her remarking Romeo didn't come to see today (if he ever went to see her at all to begin with), shrugging shoulder, going back to usual buisness, hearing of Tybalt's death and mourning over him with occasional swearing to Romeo, back to usual buisness, hearing of Juliet's death, mourning her, going back to usual buisness and uncovering the whole story with the rest of Verona when everythin'g's over

Obviously this means decentering from RomiJuri but that's what a story about Rosaline should be because Rosaline has no horse in this race, she has no reason to be involved with these two's love stories

But these retellings aren't really interested in Rosaline as a character, in reality they just use her as plot device/protagonist to be shoehorned in the traditional plot and thus breaking the original premise in order to retell the story

In short those aren't really Rosaline retelling as much as they are RomiJuri retellings using Rosaline as the focaliser

Again it would be fine if it wasn't just endlessly the same rendition of Rosaline presented to us... like for a character who has so little shared about her outside of her being pretty, a type of fierce beauty who isn't interested in love, you would see some interesting takes especially given how much renditions of Romeo and Juliet can feel unique depending on the adaptation's choices but no, NO

It's always the old same shtick of a "strong independant woman who need no man and is perfect at everything" with occasional hobby changing (Lisa Fielder's Rosaline wanted to become a healer while the Rosaline of the 2022's movie wanted to be a cartographer) and different love interest (often Benvolio because he is Romeo 2, Paris, sometimes Mercutio or Tybalt depending on the mood or even a made up one) and nothing else, no real flaws, no real struggles nothing

So as a result it just becomes boring to follow her as a protagonist because she is just this ideal person who can do no wrong and baaaaa

And of course it's all in the context of a love story that is completely derided like RomiJuri just gets the worst fate possible

O Romeo Romeo, wherefore are you like this Romeo ??? What have they done to my boy, the hate he receive and character assasination is insane

There is a pattern of people insisting on breaking the premise of Rosalie rejecting Romeo in favor of "Romeo and Rosaline were dating but he fell in love with Juliet and threw her away in favor of her cousin because men bad" even tho it doesn't really make sense anymore.

In the play Romeo got rejected by Rosaline and was so sad he was in a state of lovesickness and all mopey and sad, that's because his friends were worried about him (cause he usually isn't like this) that they suggested going to the party in order to help him change his spirit and even find someone who will love him back because what's the point in crying over someone who will never love you back and you know it ? Better move on. What's crazy is that Romeo originally goes "ok i will go but just to see her" but when they are on their way he literaly changes his mind because his guts tells him not to, he has to be FORCED to go there and once he is there he just stays by a corner and doesn't participate in the party (as seen per Juliet saying he didn't even dance)

In the previous version Rosaline's role is even more minor but it still follows the same principle : Romeo falls in love with her, it doesn't go well. According to Bandello, he fell in love and courted her for 2 years without success which made him feel so bad he wanted to leave the country to forget about her but he stayed upon insistance of his friends and they dragged him to all the parties held by the italians noble of the city in hope to find a new love, which means Romeo saw many beautfiul ladies but still couldn't move on until he went to the Capulet party and met Juliet. Brooke also follows this events.

The main difference between Shakespeare's version and Bandello (who got it from Da Porto) and Brooke is the time. In the previous version Romeo was mourning this unrequired love for a moment and tried going at different parties before falling for Juliet, in the play tho, we are introduced to his woe and a few scenes later he falls for Juliet

I suppose it feels more sudden that said given how the play comments Romeo had this behavior for a while through both Benvolio and Friar Lawrence's cues, it seems obvious Romeo was like this before the play but only revealed the reason of his present state in act 1 scene 1 it's not as immediate as many or even I myself like to joke about

In the previous version it seems that Romeo was more affected by it or at least trying but in the play this is questionable and his love for Rosaline feels more like an infatuation that one mistakes for love because they aren't that experienced with it which is crucial in contrast to his love for Juliet who is meant to feel authentic in contrast

Honestly, conceptually it could work if it was in reality centered around Romeo's character growth or if spiteful Rosaline (because that's how she is often portrayed as a reaction to that) would play an antagonistic role in discovering this relationship but softens when she comes to realize Romeo didn't really love her but he is genuinely in love with Juliet and happier but like... they don't do that. The Movie Rosaline made me hope it would go like this but they had to ruin it with the joke ending where Romeo and Juliet are stuck on a boat and realize they have nothing in common (this ending was what made me soldifiy my opinion on this movie as being a parody by the by if you have read the play and payed close attention you know they aren't like that)

The same could be said about Fielder's Rosaline's story and its ending that just feels like a slap on the face where she is trading the tragic yet meaningful death of the lovers for a failed doubel suicide where Rosaline saves Romeo but fails to save Juliet for dumb reasons and Romeo realizes he didn't truly love Juliet but merely felt lust towards her...

Ok but like not only does it makes the reconciliation between the Capulet and Montague makes no sense because it was precisely the loss of their beloved children that made the two families realize the extent of pain their feud caused because they got directly affected in the most gut wretching way possible (in learning they ruined the life of their two kids) but also ???? like for a feminist novel that had gripes with how young Juliet was to the point it was being very preachy about condemning it, it sure had little qualms letting an innocent 13 year old in love dying just to present the other half of the couple and their relationship in a bad light !!

But also while you can call Romeo's love for Rosaline fickle i failed to see how it can be extended to Juliet ??? if anything the differences between how he talks about the two and the everything would hightlight that Romeo had faced character growth where he is ready to be in a committed relationship with Juliet whereas Rosaline was merely a love of youth and I think it's normal ? Romeo is a teenager he has the right to experience such feelings, it's not as though he actually hurt Rosaline since she rejected him (and love) anyway, just because it didn't worked with Rosaline means that he will be like this with Juliet and I think it's very obvious when you pay close attention

Just to give one example on the top of my head, the balcony scene begins with Romeo having at least 3 cute agressions as he witnesses Juliet

But honestly this is only when we get luck because Romeo can face worse

Like this novel called Fair Rosaline, I have been complaining non stop to my friend about how it misses the point of everything in the play.

Look... Antagonist Romeo is conceptually interesting, really and it just sounds hot ok ? But the problem with Romeo Montague is that he isn't made to work as one, he lack fundamentally every good characteristics that makes an antagonist, he isn't protrayed as ambitious nor calculating, he is a gentle well behaved youth whose biggest flaws would be he can let feelings get the better of him (this is a surface level summary of his character heh if I begin to talk about him I won't stop) so to adapt his personality to a more antagonistic one it would require a lot of work but you could present a very charismatic and unique antagonistic

Unfortunately this novel doesn't do that instead it turns Romeo into a 30 groomer whose trapping young girls for a whole ring involving every men in Verone expect those closely related to Rosaline, who in this novel, doesn't want to become a nun and lost her mother and is 15/16 but becomes Romeo's "victim"

And by that I mean that she crossdressed to go to a party held by the Montague and let herself easily seduced because a few sweets nothings later she was in his bed

...honestly this moment felt less like "manipulator" and more like "woman dumb"

And I was also greatly bothered by the authors claims that Romeo in the play could be 30, that he was never portrayed as a teenager until modern days, that he was just into young girls and that he was a groomer and etc.

And no like... Romeo's age is indeed not specified but that's because Shakespeare didn't felt the need to ?? I am greatly bothered by how everyone focuses on Romeo's age but not the other characters when they aslo don't have one ? Also how is Romeo being portrayed as a teenager only modern ? What is a modern acception is the idea that Romeo is specifically 17 which seems to come from the Zeffirelli version but if you look at Romeo and Juliet paintings, he is portrayed as a teenager and some adaptatations of R&J of the 19th century have him played by a women which I am assuming means he felt like a young boy in people's mind (from what I recall women were usually cast to play as young characters) and I have read my fair share of RomiJuri's essays, not even actual scholars would agree because they all consider Romeo to be a teenager

Moreover, in the previous sources (which the author mentionned herself to talk about Juliet being older) this is disproven : Brooke's Juliet is 16 but so is Romeo who is also described as not having had a beard growing up on his chin yet. As for Da Porto and Bandello, their Romeo is 20 but their Juliet is 18-19

So why exactly would Shakespare look at this pattern of Romeo and Juliet being very close in age to the point the age gap and go "ok gonna make my Juliet 13 and my Romeo... hum... how about 30?"

Wouln't it make more sense he both aged them down to the same age ?

It certainly isn't a modern conception honestly, if Juliet is the minimum legal age to be married (13) why can't Romeo also be that age (14) ?

In the end of the day his specific age will never be known but a lot of Romeo's behavior only make sense if viewed him as a teen a 30 year old wouldn't behave like that imo but anyways

"he just likes young girl " is so weird to say and so is play boy Romeo in general like, the guy only love 2 girls, that being Rosaline and Juliet in every version with earlier sources highlighting that Romeo isn't falling in love with the beautiful women he met at the parties he went but even then he ever dated, married and killed himself for one girl that being Juliet

It's very hard to establish a pattern based on 2 girls not to mention that Rosaline being 15-16 is something made up, we don't know her age and scholars usually views her as being older than Romeo for 3 reasons : 1) the Bandello and Da porto version mentionning his love for Rosaline lasted 2 years, he is 20 at the begining of the story or about 20, implying he fell in love when he was 18 and he Brooke version making him fall in love with her at age 16 2) because Rosaline checks every checkbox of the checklists of the typical Petrachan muse who is often portrayed as a woman older than the poet in love to the point it kinda became a topos (for instance in Les Illusions Perdues by Balzac features the poet, Lucien in love with a woman older than him) 3) the comparison between the sonnets dedicated to Rosaline and those dedicated to Juliet, to the point they believe Shakespeare could have written these at different period of his life, regardless textually everything supports the reading that Romeo is just not really experienced with love, he though his infatuation was real love but he had to meet Juliet to realize what was the real deal

There are more I could point I am sure but I also have a problem with how Solomon claims Romeo is taking advantage of the girl's vunerabilities, fills them with empty promises and ressorts to violence like...are we really talking about the same character ?

Regarding him taking advantage of vulnerable girls... he doesn't. Really. Firstly because Rosaline's vulnerabilities are all made up for the sake of Fair Rosaline's plot but don't exist in the play (Rosaline is said to have made vow of staying chaste which would be implying she is a nun but out of her own volition and not against he will unlike in the novel and again she doesn't return Romeo's love at any point) and also because even then he doesnt ? like it's Rosaline who went to the party because the author couldn't come up with a better excuse for them to meet than just using the ball which was how Romeo met Juliet... be serious

As for Juliet she isn't vulnerable when she meets him, she is just passive ? For context, Romeo meets her at a ball the Capulet held so that Paris, a suitor, could court Juliet. Juliet earlier said she wasn't interested but still accepted to try for her parents but as of now she has no real reason to feel pressured ? Also this is missing how Romeo and Juliet's relationship works because Romeo approached her in anon threatening way by using metaphors and was being courtly and respectuous, Juliet could have just ignored him or pretend to not understand the metaphors and he would have probably went away becoming all mopey again, this doesn't happen, instead she goes along and even expends on his metaphor, clearly she is just as interested in him as he is in her and this intereaction is like... essential ? It's what is setting up a lot of motifs in the play and their entire dynamic ?

Romeo also doesn't make any empty promises. If it's refering to Rosaline again, he never was in a relationship with her because she rejected him off the bat so like he literaly never made her any promises... as for Juliet sorry but he is shown constantly respecting his promises to her, like he tells her he would marry her and he does

As for violence ??? The only times Romeo goes into violent modes are when 1) Mercutio dies and he feels remorseful and like he must avenge his friend 2) when he kills Paris in self defense ... that's it. And that' s not even counting the Da Porto, Bandello and Brooke version where Romeo kills Tybalt in act of self defense when he was trying to protect both the people of his house and of Juliet by preventing them from fighting. Romeo isn't a violent person, the Nurse herself say he is as "gentle as a lamb", the only time he is shown to be violent is when he is pushed to emotional limits

And to be honest, even if we put aside the character assasination of Romeo, the Romeo presented by Solomon doesn't feel threatening but stupid (seriously for some reason the Romeo who seduces young girl and throw them away as soon as he is bored doesn't do that with Juliet and instead marries her ?? and that's not even to present Juliet as being more clever that she doesn't fall for the trap unlike all the others girl including our heroine, no that's feeling more like a child throwing a tantrum) which honestly is bad... like really bad it feels like a lazy way to make a character a predator while forgetting to make them actually behave like one so as a result this Romeo feels flat as an antagonist

And it's not helped that he is so one dimensional which is a disservice to Romeo's complexity in the play but also very bad because this isn't really helping the cause ? Like can we stop treating grave subject such as trafficking so lightly and making people behave the one involved are one dimension cartoons villains instead of dangerous individuals ????

And obviously no Romeo and Juliet isn't about how no adult is there to protect poor baby Juliet from big bad Romeo but oh well

What annoys me is that it could have worked if 1) instead of being the actual Romeo and Juliet, it was completely different characters and the antagonist was making the girl believes their relationship was like Romeo and Juliet's when it was in reality not but it was just to manipulate them 2) It was a little red riding hood retelling because LRRH is literaly about that ... oh wait someone already wrote that book (Neil Nehaus Big bad wolf, read it when I was in middle school) 3)It was Paris instead of Romeo, you know, the actual walking red flag in the play

Like it's kinda like Lady Macbeth where I felt that if instead of being a retelling of Shakespeare but rather of Perrault the whole idea would have worked a lot better

And as much as Romeo being turned into a villain or a play boy makes me shiver because it's feeling a lot like diabolization for the sake of it sometimes it can work like Goodbye my Juliet is a webtoon where Romeo is a first presented as a brat and play boy but as we learn more about him we come to realize he is like this because of his father pressuring him with toxic masculinity and as the story progresses he shows developpement so even if he isn't like his Shakespearian counter part he is at least a rounded character

Also needless to say that these adaptations don't do Juliet any justice : one has Rosaline want to marry her to Paris to help him cover for the fact he is interested in men so dooming her to be forevever with someone she doesn't love, the other has her die so her husband can express he didn't genuinely love her and the last one is so infantalized I am wondering if the writer knows how actual 13 year old behaves (seriosly she plays with dolls ??? most girl I knew at that age had dropped the dolls at age 11 !!)

And frankly this is a bad look because claiming to defend a character you do not understand because of what their portrayal reflects of your vision of them is really not a good look

See the problem is that if you misunderstand Romeo, you misunderstand his relationship with Juliet and if you misunderstand his relationship with Juliet, you misunderstand Juliet and vice versa cause they are two sides of the same coins

And even then I can quote some Rosaline retellings (looking at you Go away Romeo) that still presents a Juliet more interesting to follow than the perfect flawless girlboss Rosaline despite the fact that these authors throw her on the side because she "killed herself for a man" or "is 13", even tho it's doing great disservice to a character who is shown to be complex, mature, growing thanks to her relationship, both capable of being sweet and cold and determined in her love for Romeo to go through extremes lenght

Frankly this is my problem with these retellings.

A lot of time the hatred for Romeo and Juliet reads like people are mad they aren't perfect and flawless instead of appreciating their flaws for the fact they are what makes them into complex characters, what elevates them from being simply personas to feeling like actual human beings

However this goes directly against the principle of wish fufillement that we are meant to get from YA. YA relies a lot on idealization of female characters and male protagonist but that doesn't work with stuff like Shakepsare's play where every character is a complex flawed human being

And this is bound to create cognitive dissonance because of the idealization of others characters as oppose to characters made to be fully fleshed out and this also creates this weirder cognitive dissonance of wanting to criticize RomiJuri's love by... playing into tropes it falls into

Let me explain

Romeo and Juliet's relationship is constantly portrayed as not being so great because they are either portrayed as having nothing in common past the first moments, as being just lust or demonized with Romeo being a manipulator etc

Meanwhile, the perfect FL Rosaline has her perfect romance with the perfect ML...

make it make sense ?

How can you tear down RomIJuri's relationship for being unrealistic using overtly cynical arguments while also portraying a type of unrealistic romance that comes from how idealistic it is ?

That's not mentioning how every trope or rather topos criticized that is the fundation of RomiJuri (love at first sight, flirting, etc) is also present for these like believe it or not but every single work of fiction features what we call a "scène de vue", a first meeting involving a type of attraction between our lead and while some such as Aragon in Adrien have tried to subvert it, that still is a type of love at first sight and in a genre of idealization where the narrator or focalizer is musing on how handsome the ML is, I am afraid you are no better than Romeo fawning over Juliet, really

I could go even more in depth in all this really but it's more of a vent than a proper analysis and again I have nothing against YA but that's how novels in this category have turned into and frankly I wouldn't care if they didn't tried to use "feminist retelling" as a buzzword while presenting retellings that are poorely done both as standalone and as adaptations and even feels sexist mainly because of how they treat Juliet in favor of Rosaline like stripping her of her complexity to make her a love rival or a damsel in distress

And again, I do believe people should be free to retell the story as they want after all I don't recall anyone booing Shakespeare for making RomiJuri's relationship shorter, developping Mercutio making his role in the play different than the previous sources or having Romeo die before Juliet wakes up unlike Da Porto and Bandello where he is awake long enough to tell Juliet to live even without him cause he loves her but the thing is before you criticize a change you kinda have to analyze why these changes where made, what do they create etc.

And in those adaptations it feels not only samey but doesn't seem to understand the play as seen per a lot of elements

[azira-fucking-phale]

ong hiiiiiiii do u have a first name u use for quint?? :3 love getting to hear ppls thoughts on The Guy

Okay okay okay I have been Ruminating on this ask because I realized I genuinely don't have a first name for him. To me he is Quint. Like he is sooo fundamentally Quint to be. Quint Quintleston, if you will, but also I think some of the commonly accepted names like Bartholomew and Sam are pretty neat.

But.

Butttt I don't think they're RIGHT y'know?? It's hard to explain, but I have this very specific idea of how Quint grew up in New England that those names just feel Wrong. Bartholomew is a bit too British, and Sam is a bit too uninspired (sorry Sam enjoyers that was the only way I could describe my thoughts about it).

He grew up along the coast of Massachusetts, obviously, I can't imagine him growing up anywhere else, and was one of the older (but not oldest) siblings of his family. From my experience, New Englanders hate weird names. Not explicitly, but they always veer to the realm of safety and pick whatever's at the top of the list in 'most popular baby names.' That's just how it is-- the region is very traditional and conservative (not necessarily politically, but morally). So I would not be surprised if Quint had a very very boring and common name.

If we're going off Quint being the same age as Robert Shaw when he appeared in the film, then let's say he was born in '35, so the most popular names then (at least according to Wikipedia I didn't feel like looking at actual statistics) was James, Robert, John, Thomas, Donald, etc. I don't think he has those names specifically, but I think he had one that is SIMILAR to those names. A la ye olde blandness style. Obviously that list doesn't account for geographic location but oh well.

But this is the thing with New Englanders, specifically ones who are lower class: they will typically resort to these names because they are Biblical, and while not as religious as some other regions in the U.S., rural New England tends to be very Christian, and you’ll encounter more churches than actual people. I sort of believe Quint grew up in a semi-religious household. Not outlandishly so, but what I call “New England Christian levels,” where you say grace before dinner and go to church on Sundays. Definitely think he’s estranged from his family now and non-practicing, but now I’m getting off topic.

I think we've also got to consider coastal regions and families of fishermen and sailors and the idea of passing names on generationally from father to son, and my GOD do you get some cool names. Some regionally famous captains from where I'm from have some of my favorite first names, Ephraim, Reuben, Lewis, etc. I imagine Quint's family being involved in coastal work as an inherited job throughout the family, so it would make sense if they retained some of these naming conventions. I wouldn’t be surprised if Quint was named after a sea-faring forefather as part of carrying on the family name, and because I think he’s estranged from his family, it would make sense in the movie why he’s never referred to as anything other than Quint: he’s rejecting an aspect of his family and embracing a kind of ‘new identity’ for himself. Out of personal bias, I kind of vibe with this option more so because I grew up in a coastal fishing community and think some of the family names are cool as shit, but that's just me.

So there's kind of two alternatives for what Quint's first name COULD be in my mind: boring boring bland typical New England, or Olde Traditional Captain

Also I should say because Tumblr reading comprehension is so ass: when I say 'New England does x' "New England is y' I AM SPEAKING FROM PPERRSONALLLL EXPERIENCEEEEE (as in, I AM A LOW CLASS NEW ENGLANDER LEAVE ME ALONE) different areas within the region are VERY different from one another. Like I could talk about the coastal vs northern social differences for so long and that's just for the state where I live

[aitapokemon]

AITA for trading away a Pokemon that was being mean to mine?

Let me explain. I don't want to use my name, so for now I'll refer to myself as V (15M). I was with 3 people, two of which are my friends, who I'll call Non(16F) and Cas(14F) and one of which is my current partner, who I'll call Ven (16M). We live in Paldea, and we're students at Uva, a famous academy there. All 4 of us were given permission to go to an out-of-bounds area by the region's professor. You know, full of strong Pokemon, dangerous, only opened up when necessary, the whole ordeal. We were on our way to a building in said out-of-bounds area when a Pokemon that looked like mine blocked our way. My Pokemon is a Cyclizar who had lost its ability to battle due to an accident and now can only be used as a ride Pokemon. The Cyclizar that had approached us was visibly stronger than any of our Pokemon and was looking at mine, meaning that they probably knew eachother or had at least met. At first, Non thought they were family/friends, so she thought that they missed each other. My Cyclizar was clearly afraid of the other, backing away from it. All four of us had a mutual agreement that this Cyclizar was threatening mine.

After some complications we had later on, I found the previously mentioned Cyclizar and caught it. It did have a trainer before, but they passed away several years ago. I took care of the Cyclizar for a while-fed it, played with it, it a bath, had a picnic with it-and then I traded it away to a stranger. I really didn't want my Pokemon, essentially my best friend, be worried that it was going to get hurt.

So, AITA? for more info please contact me at @uva-academy-vio. thanks

[flyingmenace]

Alright everyone, I am here to bring you something you neither need, neither want: a fairly detailed ram (stolen from Reddit) about proofs of Putin being in love with Zelenskyy.

- First Putin accepted to meet him for talks about the occupied regions, even if it would've been illogical, knowing that Volodymyr stands his ground. Furthermore Putin knew that in the past he refused a horrendous amount of money from Yanukovych (Putin's man) to shut up and let the channel he was the general director at generate russian propaganda without his Studio interfering. Not to talk that Putin is known to be watching Zelenskyy's comedy show, even though it contained anti-russian narratives, allowing him to also catch a glimpse at Zelensky's stubborn personality. So, what was the meeting for, if Putin ready knew how it would go?

- During the meeting in Paris (9 December 2019) Putin, who always acted like he is superior to "a clown who became president", struggled to even look at him during the parts of it the public has access to. Putin even avoided looking at Zelenskyy when he was right in front of him. This doesn't add up to his "macho" public image amd he clearly wasn't scared, so why was he shy?

- Later, during the pandemic, when Zelenskyy posted (2 March 2021) one of his videos to be an example to people by taking the vaccine, the leading "journalists" of Russia, the ones that are always perfectly in line with everything that comes out of Kremlin, begun openly (on National TV) describe how handsome and hot Zelenskyy is. This is not to deem as a coincidence, since this has been only done by them in regards to Putin himself and a few other russians. And it was a first one, since they had talked about Zelenskyy's physique before the very meeting in Paris, questioning why did he shave his chest and laughing at him for trying to look tough. Something changed in between those two moments and they begun to openly drool over videos of Volodymyr.

- In the month before the invasion of Ukraine, Putin made a reference to one of Zelenskyy's sketches from his show dated to 2016. Vladimir used a well known "Like it or not, bear with it my beauty" phrase, but him commenting on it a few days later during the press-conference with the president of Kazakhstan and saying it wasn't personal makes it pretty clear it was. After all the sketch from 2016 refers to Ukraine as a beauty and tells that that's the reason why Putin wants her so bad. In short: Vladimir either retained the memory of this thing for so long, or recently re-watched it, both of which make wonder why?

- After invading Ukraine Putin begun to act particularly suspicious. Why did he suddenly give the order to fine and throw in jail people who openly admit they thing that Zelenskyy is physically attractive? Just like in that one famous instance of the old lady. Didn't he let his main "journalists" say how majestic his enemy is till a few weeks earlier? 

Also the duality of Putin's words begun. He looks so confident on the recorded speeches when he calls Zelenskyy a "drugged/neo-nazi/clown/puppet of the west/disgrace for jews", making sure to never say his last name. But on videos taken in moments which no one should be recording Vladimir is suddenly so different. He begins to act shyer, to say Zelenskyy's last name, to talk about him with respect (personal favourite is the time he referred to Volodymyr with the russian word that stands both for 'mister' and 'master' while waiting for Erdogan 16 September 2022) and even said that he is cool and a FINE MAN.

- Lukashenko, one of Putin's besties and his closest ally, openly refers to Zelenskyy as "Volodya", even while talking about him to russian main "journalists", just like in that one interview from 14 June 2023. So it is safe to assume that he uses the same name while talking with Putin about Zelenskyy, because Vladimir would certainly force his closest ally to not refer to their worst enemy like that. But Putin let's it slide and that is strange to acknowledge.

I know this is not true, but I needfamfics about them.

[revekkachong]

Week 12: Crowdsourcing in Times of Crisis

Alright, let's discuss crowdsourcing in times of catastrophe, which is one of the internet's most unexpectedly wholesome topics. You know how a Twitter thread or a Google Sheet can come to your rescue when things are a complete mess? It's like witnessing humanity hit the "unify" button.

Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) in the Philippines is among the most famous instances. Volunteers from around the globe mapped impacted regions in real time using digital tools like OpenStreetMap while official efforts took longer. Emergency services relied on civilians, not first responders, to help them determine where to go (Meier, 2015).

Then there is Ukraine 2022, where citizens shared supplies, real-time updates, and even the locations of shelters via Twitter and Telegram. Coordination of survival was more important than merely exchanging information. The same is true of COVID-19 mutual aid groups, where individuals banded together on Instagram and WhatsApp to provide complete strangers with food, medication, or simply emotional support. insane. and fantastic.

The way crowdsourcing twists the narrative of authority is what fascinates me. The public becomes the infrastructure rather than waiting for institutions. "Community is the real emergency response team" (Ghosh, 2020) is being energised by it.

However, the truth is that it isn't flawless. For volunteers, there is always a chance of inaccurate information, platform overload, or even burnout. Additionally, if your Wi-Fi is down or you don't understand the "technological language," you may be excluded (Munro, 2013). For this reason, accessibility and digital literacy must keep up with our fervour.

In my opinion? It is optimistic. It demonstrates that people are innately inclined to support one another, even in the most chaotic and terrifying situations. These days, we have new tools like spreadsheets, hashtags, and satellite maps, and we're learning how to utilise them for good.

Therefore, avoid scrolling past crowdsourced documents the next time you see them circulating amid a tragedy. Perhaps the most human thing on your feed is that.

References:

-Ghosh, D. (2020). Crowdsourcing during crises: Harnessing the power of digital volunteerism. Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, 2(2), 12–22. https://doi.org/10.7227/JHA.026

-Meier, P. (2015). Digital humanitarians: How big data is changing the face of humanitarian response. CRC Press.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331273896_Digital_Humanitarians_How_Big_Data_Is_Changing_the_Face_of_Humanitarian_Response

-Munro, R. (2013). Crowdsourcing and the crisis-affected community: Lessons learned and looking forward from Mission 4636. Information Retrieval, 16(2), 210–266. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10791-012-9203-2

[dougthetraveler]

Exploring the Differences: Local Cuisine vs. Chain Restaurants in Travel

Dohwan Kim

Full Sail University

Exploring the Differences: Local Cuisine vs. Chain Restaurants in Travel

Dohwan Kim

I believe there are no people who don’t like traveling. Traveling gave us new experiences and cultures. However, the thing that always gives the biggest impression for me and makes my travel special is the food. Chain restaurants provide a certain level of taste that you can expect. But local food, whether it tastes good or not, gives us something new. I think traveling is about trying new experiences and doing things we normally can’t do. So it makes us challenge ourselves by eating local food. I will also share many other great reasons to enjoy local food.

Local food can help us understand the traditions and culture of a region. “Traditional food is an integral part of cultural identity. The food itself and the associated preparation techniques and social customs serve as a reminder of the past and provide a connection to historic and cultural roots”(SLO Food Bank n.d. Para 4 ). When travelers look up or research local food, we can also learn about the culture. Street food at a travel destination is often made by using a country's own way of cooking practice allowing for a new taste experience. By choosing local food travelers can learn about the culture, tradition, and stories about specific food and make it a valuable experience.

While you eat at local restaurants you can support their businesses, streets, and small stores. Eating at famous chain restaurants like McDonald's or Burger King, which are found all over the world doesn't have the same positive impact on the local economy as exploring and trying local food. Choosing to eat local food not only benefits the local community but also makes them develop. “Unlike chain restaurants, local restaurants keep money in the community as they often source ingredients from nearby farms and vendors, pay local taxes, and invest in their community. According to a study by American Express, for every dollar spent at a local restaurant, 70 cents stays within the community. When more people choose to dine locally, everyone benefits as these businesses also help create jobs”(Thurmont Kountry Kitchen n.d. Para 2 ). These economic supports help to create a food culture that travelers can enjoy.

Some people say that chain restaurants give comfort and a certain level of taste, like for those people who have allergies. “For many people, chain restaurants served as the primary dining option simply because they were the most accessible”(Fox Sports Radio New Jersey n.d. Para 9). Yes it's true that chain restaurants have a certain level of taste and are quick and simple. Most of the people go and trust chain restaurants because of this reason. Most of the local restaurants can’t get these efforts like chain restaurants. 

In conclusion, I believe that the most important reason for traveling is to experience and embrace new things. New experiences can help people grow up and it's also very enjoyable. One of the greatest experiences, in my opinion, is the food. Local food helps us understand the culture and traditions of a country and develop the local community. While chain restaurants give comfort and familiar flavors they can’t give the strength of local food. By eating local food, travelers can create new special memories and connect with the culture of that country. Therefore, I believe that enjoying local food is the best way to travel.

References

SLO Food Bank. (n.d.). Food as culture. SLO Food Bank. https://www.slofoodbank.org/food-as-culture/#:~:text=Traditional%20Food%20and%20Local%20Cuisine,to%20historic%20and%20cultural%20roots.

Thurmont Kountry Kitchen. (n.d.). The benefits of supporting local restaurants. Thurmont Kountry Kitchen. https://thurmontkountrykitchen.com/the-benefits-of-supporting-local-restaurants/#:~:text=Help%20Boosts%20The%20Local%20Economy&text=According%20to%20a%20study%20by,businesses%20also%20help%20create%20jobs.

Fox Sports Radio New Jersey. (n.d.). Reasons why people love chain restaurants. Fox Sports Radio New Jersey. https://foxsportsradionewjersey.com/listicle/reasons-why-people-love-chain-restaurants/#