#and continue with using almost exclusively the book characterizations

[moomin-happiness]

Seeing the 90s anime version of moominpappa's adventures suddenly makes so many fanfiction details make sense.

[haggishlyhagging]

The images of woman as object, not as active agent or creative autonomous subject, ensure that women remain on the outside, that women's voices are not heard. As history describes the doings of men, as fine art is the art created by men, as literature is writing produced by men, and as classical music is that composed by men, so the science, the news, the art, the literature, the music of today is that produced by men. The patriarchs are adamant that this should be so. The conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham, pronounced, “There are no women composers, never have been, and never will be.” John Ruskin confidently declared “No woman can paint.” And Swinburne claimed that, “When it comes to science we find women are simply nowhere. The feminine mind is quite unscientific.” Virginia Woolf's ponderings on the (im)possibility of ‘Shakespeare's sister’ who might have wanted to write, characterize the position of women in the creative sphere. As Tillie Olsen illustrates, in her now classic text, Silences, woman's voice has been absent from the world's creative arena for centuries. Unfortunately, it seems as if it still is.

But why are women so silent in the scientific, professional or creative spheres of life? The traditional reductionist argument, rehearsed earlier, is that women are somehow unable to think, to paint, or to write because of affinity with nature and lack of intellect. Or is it rather that we are not allowed to, through the systematic exclusion of women's work in the public sphere, or through the maintenance of women's work in the home the maintaining of women as servers, as the 'angel in the house', rather than as active creators of artistic discourse? Is it that women are producing creative material, but it is being systematically ignored? For there are many who profit from the reification of the male creator and the simultaneous reduction of women's creativity to the sphere of childbirth, as this extract from a misogynistic male critic illustrates:

A few years back I read a neo-feminist's approving review of another neo-feminist's book. The reviewer said that she agreed with the author that for a woman, a career is more creative than being a mother. That puzzled me: without having given much thought to it, I had assumed that about the closest the human race can get to creation is when a woman bears a child, nurtures him, and cares for him [sic]. (Himmelfarb, 1967: 59; my emphasis)

If women can believe that childbirth is unsurpassable as a creative act, perhaps they will put down their pens and their paints, cease thinking and continue breeding. Is it a coincidence that the male pronoun is used to refer to the product of female creativity? Is it as creative to produce a female child? Or is this yet another comment produced without having given much thought to it?

The reason for women's absence on the world stage of creativity is not biological inferiority, nor an absence of desire to create beyond the realms of the family. The real reasons for the silence are not very difficult to discern; nor are the effects. Take the case of art, as many feminist scholars recently have, rewriting the history of art through a feminist prism. Our Old Masters and masterpieces - the art which fetches astronomical prices, elevating the artist to an almost godlike status, his creativity seen to be drawn from some higher power - are all the work of men. The history of art is peopled with men, not women. The male artist is the hero; the female artist is invisible. The woman is present only as the object of the artist's gaze, to be consumed, to be frozen and framed, to be possessed. Feminist analysis has identified the way in which women's voices and women as active agents have been suppressed; the way in which women are destined 'to be spoken' (in Lacanian terms) rather than to speak. It is the same process that silences talent, as recent texts on the 'forgotten' women artists, scientists, or authors has shown. It is produced by a systematic suppression - a systematic oppression - achieved by promoting and validating the work of men whilst ignoring, or denying the existence of, the work of women.

Whilst women writers from Aphra Behn to Mary Wollstonecraft have been rediscovered by feminist literary scholars and feminist publishers, many others have not. Many women never had the time or opportunity to publish - and their voices will never be heard. Many women remain silent, following in the painful footsteps of our foremothers who never have the time or legitimacy for reflection and creation. It is moving to consider how many brilliant voices have not been heard, how many brilliant careers have been thwarted. As Olive Schreiner reflected:

What has humanity not lost by suppression and subjection? We have a Shakespeare; but what of the possible Shakespeares we might have had who passed their life from youth upward brewing currant wine and making pastries for fat country squires to eat, with no glimpse of freedom of the life and action necessary even to poach on deer in the green forests; stifled out without one line written, simply because of being the weaker sex, life gave no room for action and grasp on life?

In addition to marginalizing women, and ensuring that we cannot find a voice with which to declare our anger, our desperation, or our fears, the images can be seen to have a more invidious function in that they objectify women. They ensure that we have few role models to turn to for inspiration. We expect to be confined and constricted. We expect to serve men. Is it any wonder that we despair, that we cry out, that we are mad? And if the woman herself was not treated as mad for daring to be creative, she may have been driven so by the restrictions upon her. It is an insidious double bind: women who do attempt to create may be vilified for their talent, and for their temerity in daring to speak out. Whether a woman's creativity is an expression of inner conflict and turmoil, or merely a desire for self-expression, it is in danger of becoming the tool which condemns, a centuries-old process, as Virginia Woolf eloquently shows:

.. any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at. For it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty. (Woolf, 1928: 48)

The feminist martyrs, diagnosed as mad, 'treated' by patriarchal experts, and (often) destroyed by their own hands, have fuelled arguments that madness is protest, an expression of thwarted creativity. And within a culture which refuses to recognize women's creativity (except in the area of motherhood) it is argued that its frustration leads to madness. Phyllis Chesler opens her book, Women and madness, with a testimonial to four such women, Elizabeth Packard, Ellen West, Zelda Fitzgerald and Sylvia Plath. In her description of their madness as 'an expression of female powerlessness and an unsuccessful attempt to reject and overcome this state', Chesler argues that the experiences of these women symbolize the oppression of women's power, women's creativity - an oppression with fatal consequences (Chesler, 1972: 16). Her argument - that the inability of these women to express themselves, their silencing by men, has led to their madness and their suicide - has obviously struck a chord in the hearts and minds of many women. Their icons and heroines are women like Sylvia Plath, women seen as victims of the individual men who thwarted their intellect, as well as victims of a society which sees women, not as active subjects, but as objects. When we read Plath's words, ‘Dying/Is an art, like everything else./I do it exceptionally well,’ a chill hand clutches the heart: although many would like to emulate her creativity, they fear the fate that befell her. We must, however, be careful not to glorify these women, raising them to the status of martyrs, for, as Tillie Olsen demonstrates, suicide is rare among creative women. What is undoubtedly more common is the slow creeping frustration, the inability to think, to breathe, to work at anything other than the daily grind. For women's creativity is not frustrated only by the structural barriers provided by the male-dominated academies and universities, and the male publishing houses, but also by the lack of time. For if male writers such as Hardy, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Joseph Conrad can share this experience described by Conrad, how must it be for the woman whose main task is the care of her children, her husband, her home?

I sit down religiously each morning, I sit down for eight hours, and the sitting down is all. In the course of that working day of eight hours I write three sentences which I erase before leaving the table in despair.

It is no coincidence that 'in our century as in the last, until very recently, all distinguished achievement has come from childless women' (Olsen, 1978: 31). How many women can find time to await the visit of the muse in moments snatched between children and housework? It is a wonder that Jane Austen managed to write - hiding her papers under a blotter in her parsonage drawing room - by snatching a few lines, a few thoughts, when the scarce moments of solitude were upon her. How many others must have given up, despairing, angry and defeated?

Even those women who manage to ward off the angel in the house, and can find a room of their own, may be remembered chiefly for aspects of their personal lives, their work forgotten, and their creativity reduced to voyeuristic intrusions on their sexuality. As French says:

Whether a woman had a sex life, what sort of sex life it was, whether she married, whether she was a good wife or a good mother, are questions that often dominate critical assessment of female artists, writers and thinkers. (French, 1985: 97)

The critics who pore over men's work with an academic glee, hardly noticing their personal lives, seem unnaturally interested in the woman creator's personal habits and especially in her sexuality. This allows the creative woman to be presented as unbalanced, unnatural, and certainly not representative of women. Thus, 'Harriet Martineau is portrayed as a crank, Christabel Pankhurst as a prude, Aphra Behn as a whore, Mary Wollstonecraft as promiscuous' (Spender, 1982: 31). Sylvia Plath, one of the foremost creative women of the late twentieth century, has been similarly treated. Biographers, commentators and critics seem more interested in her adolescent sexuality, her relationships with men during her college years, and her marriage, than with her work.

That a woman who produced brilliant poetry could also be sexual is seen to be a peculiarity. That she killed herself allows her to be seen as mad, and thus as not a normal woman. This over-concern with her sexuality and sanity detracts from her work, and is an insult to this gifted poet, and to others who might follow her. The message to women is clear - dabble with the muse, attempt to enter the male world of learning, of thinking, of creativity, and you may pay the highest price.

-Jane Ussher, Women’s Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness?

[mischief-lies-and-stories]

Since this is my first post on this blog, I figured I’d layout some basic information about who I am as a fan and what this blog will be about. This will be a pinned post. (If I can figure out how to do that. I’ve been a Tumblr vet of 13 or 14 years, well before pinned posts were a thing. And if there’s one thing tumblrinas are, it’s stubborn as all hell and resistant to change. So I’ve never made a pinned post before.) I’m sorry it’s so long; I’m a rambler. But let’s jump into it. 

My basic, core text for my Loki fan-hood, my Gospel of Loki religion, if you will, at least in the comics and what I’m always trying to assimilate into the MCU and any other comics that I read is Loki: Agent of Asgard by Al Ewing, which started its run in 2013. That’s probably where I get most of my theories and headcanons and how I characterize Loki. So if you’re confused about something I’m stating as a fact, it’s probably because it’s something I got from Agent of Asgard, especially when I’m talking about Loki as a comic book character rather than in the MCU. Regardless of who wrote the comic that I’m talking about or if what I’m referencing was even in AoA at all, I’m probably stacking it against how Loki is characterized in that comic run. Though I will try to state that that’s where I’m getting that theory or assumption about Loki. 

Regardless of what source, even if I’m talking about the mythological Norse deity, it doesn’t matter, Loki is genderfluid (in my definition of the term as a genderfluid person, not the MCU’s definition of the term and in some cases not even the comics’ definition of the term) and either bisexual or pansexual. I usually say pan, but people are saying bi in terms of the MCU. The thing is, I don’t think we ever really get an explicit statement about one or the other for him. What we do get in the comics is him saying that on Asgard, there are sexual acts, not sexual identities. So he doesn’t even see himself as having a sexual identity, it’s just who he’s attracted to at any given time. So really it could go either way. Additionally, I tend to use he/him or they/them pronouns when talking about Loki unless I’m specifically referencing a moment in the comics (or one of my fics) when Loki is a woman, just because most of the time in anything (movies, tv shows, novels, comics) Loki seems to be presenting as a man. (He’s also said in the comics that any pronouns are fine whenever.)

I ship Loki with a lot of characters, both MCU and characters as yet exclusive to comics or Marvel-commissioned novels. However, I tend to ship him with a lot more guys than women. I do also ship him with one little known genderfluid character (I’ll probably talk about them in another post and why I ship them with him). This doesn’t mean I’m against him being with a girl. I just think that he has this running habit both in the comics and as we’ve seen a little bit on the show (and Mackenzi Lee’s Where Mischief Lies), where he chooses women who turn on him almost immediately. And I’m tired of it. Maybe I’ll get into that a little more in a later post (they say, continuing to make promises they likely can’t keep), about the juxtaposition between the men that I ship him with or that he canonically gets with for a little while and how they treat him versus the women that he is--because of the heteronormative world we live in--more often canonically together with, and how they tend to treat him. 

Which leads me to state, I am a Sylki anti. I’m sorry to those of you who may ship that (assuming there’s anyone who’s going to be looking at this blog). I won’t tag any of my hate, but it may come up in searches sometimes, when you aren’t searching the tag but mentions of the word, so sorry, I can’t control that. I’m not a selfcest shipper in general (with the small exception of Moon Knight, but that’s a conversation for a blog I’m not going to make). I’m not a Sylvie hater, though. I just hate the ship. I love Sylvie and would die for her and she’s perfect and can do no wrong, except for that one time she kissed Loki. Also I absolutely do think that Loki would fuck himself in a heartbeat, I just don’t want to see it and I don’t ship it. I probably won’t talk about it too much, unless I’m ranting about the show being so no-homo that they created selfcest. But again, I will never tag my hate; I’m not looking for a fight and that shit’s just petty. Don’t do it, guys.

So this blog itself will be a variety of things: rank lists, essays because I have a lot to say about this character (and right now I’ve been forcing my best friend to deal with all my feelings), photos and descriptions of my collection (because I recently put it all together in its own spot and I have a lot of shit and it just keeps growing because I cannot help myself), plugs for my Loki fics (I’m very nervous about going online and saying “I wrote this, please read it” but then I go on AO3 like “Why is nobody reading this? :(((” so this is the place I’m going to try to do that sometimes), as well as anything else Loki related that I feel like talking about. I might reblog some things I find elsewhere, but it’s not likely, at least not at the beginning. I’ll also do my best to source anything that isn’t mine. 

[aboutanancientenquiry]

A review of the book of Emma Bridges“Imagining Xerxes” by Pr. John Dillery (with discussion of Herodotus’ portrayal of the Great King)

“BOOK REVIEWS 

Emma Bridges, Imagining Xerxes: Ancient Perspectives on a Persian King. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. 2015. Pp. 256. Cloth (ISBN 978-1-4725-1) $112.00.

This volume, a revised doctoral thesis from the University of Durham (UK), appears in a series entitled “Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception.” A blurb at the front of the book explains that each contribution in the series “will explore the appropriation, reconceptualization and recontextualization of various aspects of the Graeco-Roman world and its culture, looking at the impact of the ancient world on modernity.” Emma Bridges most certainly discusses the appropriation and reworking of the image of Xerxes in antiquity, as her title suggests; there is really only one chapter at the end (the Epilogue) that takes up the impact of the Persian king in the modern world. 

Hence, this is basically a book about the handling of the figure of Xerxes in the ancient world. It begins with a chapter on Aeschylus’ Persians and Timotheus’ identically titled work. Then follows one on Herodotus. Chapter 3 takes us in a different direction, being a brief discussion of Persian views of Xerxes, primarily in art and in monumental inscriptions. Chapter 4 returns us to the Greek world with a treatment of Xerxes in fourth-century texts, chiefly Attic oratory. Chapter 5 looks at Xerxes in what we might loosely style later “prose romances”: historians (Ctesias, Ephorus/ Diodorus), the Greek novel (Chariton), Philostratus’ Imagines, and the biblical Book of Esther. Chapter 6 takes up Xerxes in a similarly broad range of authors: Latin poets (Propertius, Juvenal) and prose writers (Nepos, Seneca), Greek imperial prose writers (Pausanias, Plutarch), and Josephus. I think it is evident from this survey of the book’s main discussions that Bridges has taken on an ambitious and wide-ranging set of materials. I think she is particularly to be commended for her decision to treat texts that do not come from Graeco-Roman writers. Each chapter begins with a reflection inspired by an illustration (drawn by Asa Taulbut), some based on ancient art, but many adapted from modern era images. Chapter 3 contains two photographs of Achaemenid monumental art (a bit light and grainy, but still useful). Bridges has supplied almost all the translations of Greek and Roman texts; the Persian texts come from Kuhrt’s corpus of sources (Routledge 2007).

If I have read her book correctly, Bridges essentially argues that, with notable exceptions, the image of Xerxes underwent a considerable rhetorical flattening over time: while Herodotus managed to produce a fairly nuanced portrait of the king, later authors make him a two-dimensional representative either of barbarian savagery or turpitude combined with softness and passivity. The exceptions to these characterizations are (not surprisingly) Persian views, where continuity with the past is stressed (especially with Darius), and those that we get of the king from Jewish sources: Esther and Josephus. 

Bridges is very good at bringing out how elaborate previews of Xerxes in Aeschylus’ Persae help to establish the image of the defeated Xerxes before we actually see him. Though first characterized as all powerful, Atossa’s nightmare vision of her son, the contrast with Darius that is brought about through the appearance of his father’s ghost, and the messenger’s report of Salamis prepare us for the image of Xerxes as a defeated king. When he finally does appear, Bridges lays great stress on Xerxes’ appearance as it is registered in his clothes: the king in rags. A quick glance at Garvie on the Persae showed me that this emphasis on clothing is not a new insight; furthermore, the much anticipated arrival of Agamemnon in the Agamemnon seems to me to parallel quite closely the delayed arrival of Xerxes, but this is not mentioned, though other parallels between the two kings are (29 n. 51). Indeed, since Bridges’ focus is so exclusively on Xerxes, there is a narrowing that seems to lead her to miss significant topics. Garvie points out how important clothing is in general throughout the play, not just Xerxes’ rags. How many kings were presented in rags before the production of the Persae? Was Xerxes the first so portrayed, or one of the first, and if so, how does he relate to later figures (I am thinking of the Euripidean Telephus)? In Atossa’s dream, Xerxes harnesses both Persia and Greece under the yoke, thereby symbolizing his attempt “to subjugate Hellas and join it to Asia” (19). Doesn’t this put Persia and Greece on a par, and Xerxes the liege-lord of both, as though a third party, and not the ruler of one of the places to start with? That strikes me as an important detail. On the whole though, Bridges does a good job of setting up important themes to which she returns later: the ruler who should be powerful, but who turns out to be a passive observer and a victim of events. 

Bridges makes two strong, interrelated claims at the start of her chapter on Herodotus and Xerxes (45): Herodotus gives us “our most detailed insight into the character and actions of Xerxes,” and this treatment constitutes the most “thorough” of any Persian. I think that she is correct in the first claim, but I wonder about the second: the presentation of Cyrus the Great is pretty detailed, as is that of Cambyses, though both are on a smaller scale; and Darius is roughly comparable, I think, garnering a lot of Herodotus’ interest in Books 3-6. For the most part I accept her evaluation of Herodotus’ portrait: while no doubt a violent and brutal man, Xerxes can also be strangely insightful, and thus not simply a cartoonishly wicked figure. However, I think that in her effort to appreciate the “gray-areas” of Herodotus’ presentation, she sometimes makes arguments that verge on special pleading. Thus while it is perhaps technically true that Pythius is not being scrupulously reciprocal in his relations with Xerxes, I do not think that his requests rise to the level of a violation of xenia (50), and even if they did, does his behavior make Xerxes’ cutting in half of Pythius’ son OK? I don’t think so: it is still the action of a man who is capable of extreme violence and who can change his attitude toward a subordinate in a flash (cf. Cambyses and the son of Prexaspes). Bridges makes a very good point in connection with the final view we get of Xerxes in Herodotus: that the episode with Masistes and his wife establishes topics that will be important later in the novelistic treatment of the king (erotic intrigue, harem politics). 

Constraints of space force me to notice just a few points in the remainder. Bridges is good on the fourth-century Athenian response to Xerxes: yet more selective and less subtle, and with a focus on a few key elements. While convincing, Bridges might have observed that this flattening basically was occurring with much of the remembered past at this period, even for local Athenian history. Real affinities are detected between Esther and treatments of Xerxes in the Greek novel. At Rome, Xerxes is even more a static picture. I had a small problem with Bridges’ take on Propertius 2.1.17-26: since the recusatio there includes mention of Remus and Carthage, how can the passage be advocating Roman military success over Greek, when two of the dismissed topics are Roman? I very much liked the discussions of Lucullus and Caligula as Xerxes-like, as well as the problem Plutarch saw in Greek treatments of Xerxes: portraits of him could begin to sound too much like attacks on the Roman emperors. 

NECJ 43.3 

John Dillery 

University of Virginia”

Source: https://crossworks.holycross.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1146&context=necj

Pr. John Dillery

[tittytania]

Finding ChristBorg: A TED talk about what happened during the Coldharbour Compact.

Reposted from my tes reddit bc I want to see what y’all think.

I can't tell if I'm a genius, completely insane, or if I'm just late to the lore-party. Time to find out I guess. TL;DR at the bottom.

So it has never been explained what Sotha Sil did during the Coldharbour Compact to convince the daedric princes to not manifest on Nirn without an intermediary, and it probably never will be since the mystery of it all is far too cool. But that doesn't mean I can't read into it like literature and look for meaning in the other texts I can compare it to.

To start, Vivec is based off of the Shakta variation of the half female/half male Ardhanarishvara, where the gold-skinned female half is the right side. Both Vivec and Ardhanarishvara represent unity and duality, and looking at some images of Ardhanarishvara, it's kinda hard to argue that Vivec wasn't based off of them. Kirkbride even confirmed that Ardhanarishvara was the inspiration for Vivec in an AMA. Now, Vivec is part of the god trio the Almsivi Tribunal, along with Almalexia and Sotha Sil. Shiva, who Ardhanarishvara is the avatar of, is also part of a god trio, called the Trimurti in Hinduism. So it would make sense if the other members of the tribunal are also based off of one member of a real world religious triad. I have a shaky idea of who Almalexia could be, but my theory for her god-inspiration is nowhere near as solid as my theory for Sotha Sil, who I believe is based on Jesus Christ.

To start, their characterizations have multiple similarities. Both are one branch of a god-triad, with Sotha Sil as part of the Tribunal, and Jesus as The Son in the Holy Trinity. Both serve as a teacher, with Jesus being referred to as Teacher several times in the Bible, and Sotha Sil giving lessons on magic and Mysticism to the Psijic Monks. Also, both are characterized as wise, patient, and celibate. They both talk about moral and philosophical concepts with their followers, neither Jesus nor Sotha Sil are shown as having a temper or raising their voices, and neither of them are shown with a spouse or partner. Sotha Sil is specifically shown as not caring about the Night Mother's attempts to sexually manipulate him in book seven of 2920, The Last Year of the First Era. Now I know that 2920 is considered a work of historical fiction in-universe, but I don't think that matters in this situation since I'm approaching this as a person reading a text, not as a person living inside the lore world.

In terms of specific scenes that connect Sotha Sil and Jesus, the first I will mention is that they both use a makeshift whip to beat intruding wrongdoers and drive them away, while yelling about fathers. In the Truth in Sequence vol. 8 book, it says that "[t]hrough His will alone, Mighty Seht wound the veins (of metal ore) into god-bronze whips, and lashed the Prince pitilessly," saying "[b]ehold the wrath of lost Ald Sotha! Know death at my hands, false-son of a false-father!" In the Bible, Jesus found people doing sales in a place of worship, and then He "made a whip of cords, (and) He drove them all out of the temple," saying “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” (John 2 15-16).

Also, Jesus had close friends and followers who were called his apostles, and Sotha Sil has his own Clockwork Apostles. Sil's apostles reside in the Clockwork Basilica, and while basilica isn't an exclusively Christian term, it is frequently used to describe a type of church architecture, and is a term the pope uses to recognize distinguished churches.

Another similarity that I found was in the plot of Morrowind, where Sotha Sil's death was caused at the hands of Almalexia, who was someone he had once loved and trusted, much like with Jesus and Judas.

The most notable life similarity as it relates to the Coldharbour Compact is that both leave the earthly world in order to make a deal for the benefit of the souls on earth, and then return to the earthly world. This parallel is given extra weight with the descriptions of the scene in the book 2920, The Last Year of the First Era. Sotha Sil returns from Coldharbour by way of someone "rolling aside the great boulder that blocked the entrance to the Dreaming Cavern. This sounds a lot like the scene in the bible of the discovery that Jesus had risen from the dead, where "an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door" (Matthew 28:2). In addition, Jesus said "after He is killed, He will rise [on] the third day," (Matthew 17:23) and after Sotha Sil returned from Coldharbour, he "felt he had been away for months, years, but only a few days had transpired." Perhaps it had been 3?

In addition to the life and behavior similarities, there are similarities in dress. In the 2920 book, Sotha Sil is always described as wearing a white robe or cloak. In ESO, Sotha Sil is shown as barefoot, and wearing a blue sash over his long white robe. In medieval and renaissance art, Jesus is most always depicted as barefoot, and is frequently shown with a blue cloth over his shoulder. In most resurrection art, as well as in almost all 20th/21st century art, Jesus is depicted as dressed in white. While Jesus usually isn't usually shown wearing both the blue sash and the white robe at once like Sotha Sil is, I found one modern interpretation of Jesus that does dress him this way, and several depictions of him in Chinese art that also portray him like this.

I'm feeling almost conspiratorial here, but these similarities are far too many for me to think it's accidental, and therefore I have to think that all of this is meant to suggest that Sotha Sil serves a Christ-figure role in his story, i.e. in sacrificing own life like Jesus did in order to make his deal in the Coldharbour Compact. However I don't think Sil's sacrifice was quite so simple. After he is asked what he offered the Daedra in return for the deal, he states: "The deals we make with Daedra... [s]hould not be discussed with the innocent." This implies that in contrast to the Christ mythos, Sil's sacrifice was not blameless; he did not come out of the deal with his hands clean.

So, a Christ-like sacrifice that isn't quite as pure and selfless as it is in Christianity. What could that be?

My theory is that in order to make the Coldharbour Compact, he sold the lives of Vivec and Almalexia along with his own. Perhaps he told the princes that he knew the tribunal's godhood would end, and in exchange for their cooperation he promised not to tell the other tribunes or make any attempt to prevent his and his companions' demise. (After all, as far as I know he made the mechanical heart for keeping his city functional, not for recreating the divinity the heart of Lorkhan provided.) Or, maybe he offered to do something to assist in bringing the Tribunal down, and losing Sunder and Keening, the tools that helped them maintain their divinity, was intentional on his part. Sil deliberately sacrificing his own life appears to be reflected in Azura's statement after his death. She said "he shed his mortality long ago, and I am certain his death was no small relief to him." Of course she'd know that he let go of his life ages ago if he had willingly sold it to her. Of course she would be certain that he found his death to be a relief, if she'd heard him say so himself when he was explaining why a god would ever offer such a deal.

It would also make sense with Sotha Sil's character, since he allegedly loved the people on Nirn more than Almalexia or Vivec did, and the destruction of Gilverdale could have definitely been a traumatic enough reminder of the destruction of Ald Sotha for him to do something dramatic to prevent it ever happening again. And guilt over sacrificing his friends could have definitely been a contributing factor to the worsening self-isolation and intense depression in his later life. It would also be a definite explanation for why he apparently never met another soul in the 10 years between losing the tools and his death. Not only had he become extremely disillusioned with the imperfections of the world, he had now finalized the deal he made so long ago, and saw no point in continuing to interact with a deeply flawed world he was essentially finished with.

However, I do see some issues with this and how it would work in-universe. Namely the fact that Hermaeus Mora's seekers said the prince received something from every individual on Nirn as part of the deal, which is quite different from what I'm suggesting. A different deal for each prince would also explain why Sil was able to include Clavicus Vile and Mephala in the compact at a much later date. There would be no reason for Vile and Mephala to submit to a collective deal whose terms had already been decided. So if he offered the tribunal's lives as part of the deal, he would have needed to offer other things as well. But for me the most significant in-universe issue I struggled with was that using his death as a bargaining tool would create a massive problem for his ability to enforce the deal in the future. This could explain why both Molag Bal and Mehrunes Dagon manifested on Nirn after Sotha Sil's death, but since I think they were summoned by qualified mortals that could have been a loophole. Either way, making a deal that is meant to last forever by promising something that can never be taken back in the case of a breach of contract seems extremely short-sighted for someone who claims to be cursed with certainty. Especially considering how many of the princes there were known to be cheats and liars.

Unless, that is, you believe this theory I read about the reason why Sil was completely silent as he was killed. My original belief was that he was silent because he'd seen it coming long ago, and knew that nothing he could have said would have changed Almalexia's mind. And while that would be in character for him, now I'm starting to think that it was because he had already uploaded his consciousness elsewhere. This would fit in with the Christ-figure parallels, due to the Christian belief that Jesus is risen from the dead and very much alive. While Jesus returned to life at the same time he emerged from the cave, the completion of Sotha Sil's death sacrifice didn't happen until long after his return via the cave. While I have found no explicit evidence that he's still around, when you find his body in Morrowind he is shown hanging, with his arms outstretched at his sides, in a sort of crucifixion pose. And after the crucifixion comes the resurrection. Perhaps Sotha Sil is still around somewhere in the gears of his city, and he promised the princes he'd never be present or have any influence on Nirn so long as they kept up their end of the deal. Additionally, the 37th sermon of Vivec mentions Sotha Sil as holding "his swollen belly," carrying "[his] daughter." While Vivec's sermons are hardly ever literal, Kirkbride's comments suggest that maybe Vivec was being somewhat literal in this instance. Regarding this concept art, Kirkbride said "note the cosmic baby growing inside Sotha Sil. While Sotha Sil is dead as we saw in the add-on pack “Tribunal”, the child survived." Perhaps one of Sotha Sil's many body modifications made him able to carry and birth a child, and then he created a daughter through self-cloning or some other method that allows him to have enough influence to enforce the compact.

TL;DR - Sotha Sil has a lot of similarities with Jesus, so he's a Christ figure and therefore his sacrifice in the Coldharbour Compact was himself, and Almalexia and Vivec too, and that also means that he may still be around.

Anyways, thanks for reading and sorry if this sounds like I'm putting red strings on a wall as my application essay to the r/SothaSimps fan club. Also, lmk if I'm missing anything obvious. For me right now Reading Lore On The Bedroom Floor is a bit more manageable than playing the games, and there may be something I've just completely looked over.

[aboveallarescuer]

In the end Dany won against the WoT fans. But it was very noticable that a significant part of them used run-of-the-mill trash takes known from the ASOIAF book scene to attack Dany (when they didn't just use the show finale to slander).You know, the type of ASOIAF nerds who proudly claim S8 is the expectable endgame for her book character, too. And in fact, that is what many also tweeted all the time, they moved from that scene to TWOT. The shitty takes infiltrate other fandoms, too, sigh.

Since I got this ask and I’m feeling petty right now, here are some observations from these polls:

As Rob pointed out in another post, before Moraine competed against Dany, she had received a lot less votes (which indicates that, in this recent poll, a lot of people were now focused on voting against Dany rather than for Moraine), namely ~1464-1465 votes (60,5% of 2421 votes) in a poll against against Harry Potter. Now, to be sure, that Moraine won against Harry Potter shows that she too has a loyal fanbase, so there were a number of people voting for her that may have simply preferred her over Dany (though there was certainly some overlap between her fans and Dany haters and also some people that don’t know Moraine and voted for her to defeat Dany too). And Dany’s previous poll hadn’t received as many votes either (she won against Black Panther with 63.8% of 3163 votes, i.e. ~2017 votes), so things are understandably getting heated now that we’re getting to the end. 

Even with these factors in mind, though, I still think it’s pretty telling that the poll Dany was in received 25054 votes, while the other three polls only received from 8110 to 12037 votes. And since Dany won with 54.9% of these 25054 votes, this means that she received ~13754-13755 votes (more than the total number of votes from all of the other three polls! Go, Dany stans!) and that Moraine got ~11299-11300 votes. While I’m glad that Dany’s fanbase is strong and faithful, it’s safe to say that her haters are almost as loud, because they could have also filled their own poll with that number of votes (and yes, as I acknowledged, some people know and prefer Moraine, which is fine on its own, but her votes were certainly bolstered by Dany haters, who were in the comments calling Dany “inbred Hitler”, “inbred targaryen bitch”, “war criminal”, a less positive “representation of womanhood” in comparison to Moraine and other nonsensical insults that I won’t bother to look at). Dany’s haters really were that eager to see her lose.

In the future, Dany is going to compete against Mulder and Scully. They received ~6680-6681 votes (55% of 12037 votes) in a poll against Spider-Man. I’m curious to see how much their number of votes will grow now that they’re going against the Mother of Dragons. Some of their fans will rush in to support them at this stage, that’s for sure, but a lot of people exclusively hate Dany (or hate her more than they like the two FBI agents) and will try to help as well. It blows my mind that Dany’s haters are as devoted to her as her fans.

Re: people claiming that S8 is the expectable endgame for her book character, this infuriates me too (and partly (only partly) explains why so many think the nasty things they’re saying about Dany are acceptable). When it comes to the show, a lot of Dany fans already presented compelling evidence that the show writers changed the ending at the last minute merely for shock value. When it comes to the books, a lot of Dany fans already explained with detailed evidence that Dany’s characterization is more nuanced than having “two” sides (a “peaceful” one and a “violent” one), but people hold on to that narrative because they judge her most controversial moments by modern standards that the other characters aren’t held to. A lot of Dany fans already explained that her war for the Iron Throne isn’t any more morally problematic than Northern independence, but these people refuse to listen. A lot of Dany fans (including feminist women of color) already explained why Dany isn’t a white savior and why her campaign in Slaver’s Bay isn’t imperialistic, but rather a morally righteous war, but these people refuse to listen. A lot of Dany fans already showed, with lots of quotes, how book!Dany is compassionate, intelligent, self-critical, humble and way too lenient (which shows that she was made to fall in the show for reasons that were entirely made up), but these people still think that she’s arrogant, entitled, brash, violent, excessively driven by prophecies, dumb, etc (nevermind that GRRM wrote Dany as a foil to Cersei). A lot of Dany fans already provided the evidence making it clear that she is AA/PTWP/SWMTW, but they pretend it isn’t there. I could go on and on when it comes to all the misconceptions that Dany fans have already replied to that make it impossible for show!Dany’s ending to be the same (even the general points) as book!Dany’s, but these people don’t care. They’re lazy douchebags who already made up their minds about Dany and will continue to bash her and write literal hundreds of pages about how she’s just like Donald Trump because they take pleasure in doing so. Even so, yeah, it makes me angry that they’re so dedicated to their hatred that they’ve influenced how people from other fandoms view her. It makes me angry that the common view of Dany is so far off from her book canon characterization.

[oosteven-universe]

Snow Angels Season Two #3

Snow Angels Season Two #3 ComiXology Originals 2021 Written by Jeff Lemire Illustrated by Jock Lettered by Steve Wands    I have to say that this is one of the most interesting, intriguing and uniquely told stories in comics right now.  We don’t see a whole lot of words and yet the story is able to come across in ways that are superbly easy to follow along to.  The girls found human survivors and yet these folks have betrayed them while the man in the suit has once again found them, is trying to kill them and retrieve the disk that their father gave them.      I don’t know where all the bullets this dude is using are coming from but he’s got a great wrist launching gun and he’s also got an exceptional amount of gadgetry in that suit as well.  With so few humans that we’ve seen you’d think they’d have been a lot nice to the girls and welcome them to their community but these aren’t good people so when we see what happens to them here I am definitely not in the least bit bothered.  The old woman in particular is a real piece of work and whatever she has coming to her she most assuredly deserves.    I am a huge fan of the way that this is being told.  The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well.  The character development that we see through the dialogue, the character interaction, how they behave as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter do wondrous things for making them into people we know or can relate to, empathise with as well.  The pacing is superb and as it takes through the pages revealing more and more of the story we are frozen in place as the story moves through the pages.    I am a huge fan of the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen.  I love the layers within the story that we see here and how they manage to add so much wonderful depth, dimension and complexity to the story.  As the girls stumble their way through all the things their father told them about you can almost feel the hope swell up within them.  How everything works together to create the story's ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.    The interiors here are so completely and utterly fabulous to behold.  The linework we see is fantastic and how the varying weights and techniques we see being utilised to create the detail work throughout the book does a marvellous job in bringing the story to life.  While this is a frozen tundra and there aren’t really any buildings, how Jock manages to use the snow and various shades of blues and whites to create a wintery look is phenomenal.  How we see the composition of the panels being utilised to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is great to see.  The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling.  I love that Jock is able to illustrate and colour the work himself.  The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is gorgeously rendered. ​    It is books like this that showcase just how far we’ve come in the industry.  This is a digital content series and it’s exclusive to ComiXology and it showcases why you can have the best of physical and digital and enjoy both just as equally.  Here’s hoping that this is going to be collected as a trade at some point though because it’s just too damn good not to be.  There is some of the strongest writing and interesting characterization alongside these stupendous interiors which bring to life one hell of a story.

[lizabethstucker]

The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe edited by Josh Pachter

Subtitled: Parodies and Pastiches Featuring the Great Detective of West 35th Street

I loved this collection of stories, with only a few exceptions. Overall, I would give it 4.5 out of 5.

Introductions: Trouble in Triplicate

“At Wolfe’s Door” by Otto Penzler ~ about the characters.

“A Family Affair” by Rebecca Stout Bradbury ~ Rex Stout’s daughter provides a peek at the author.

“Plot It Yourself” by Josh Pachter ~ how the collection came to be.

Pastiches (Respectful imitations of the original works)

“The Red Orchid” by Thomas Narcejac

Translated from French, the story was written in 1947. The first English publication wasn’t until 1961. A young woman comes to hire Wolfe to discover who is trying to kill her uncle, a man who claims to have developed a red orchid. More creepy than respectful, especially how Archie hits on the female client. Too offensive for me. DNF

“Chapter 8 from ‘Murder in Pastiche’” by Marion Mainwaining

Published in 1955, this novel can also be found under the title of “Nine Detectives All at Sea”. A notorious gossip columnist is murdered during a sea cruise across the Atlantic. There are nine famous detectives on the ship as passengers. Trajan Beare, aka Nero Wolfe, is the focus of this particular chapter. It is hard to judge the whole book based on just one chapter. However, the characterization should be noted as being extremely close to the original source material. A nice read. No rating as it is just an excerpt.

“The Archie Hunters” by Jon L. Breen

Written in 1968, but never published until now. A cross of Nero Wolfe and Mike Hammer. Mock Himmler beats the crap out of anyone he encounters, particularly if they disagree with him or do something he doesn’t like. After beating up a news seller for carrying a “commie” magazine, Mock discovers an ad in the back requesting a private investigator for a missing person case. The ad, placed by Nero Wolfe, leads Mock to presume the missing person is Archie Goodwin. I’ve never been a fan of Mike Hammer nor his creator, Mickey Spillane, finding both of them to be disgusting in their love of violence, misogyny, and attitudes in general. I did enjoy this story nonetheless. 4 out of 5

“The Frightened Man” by O. X. Rusett

Gave up early on this anagram-stuffed story, even to the author’s name. More annoying than clever or cute. DNF

“Chapter 1 from ‘Murder in E Minor’” by Robert Goldsborough

I read the whole book when it was first published and, frankly, wasn’t too impressed. I do know that Goldsborough was selected by the Stout Estate to be the official author of the novels and I have read a few of his more recent books. I may try and reread it sometime down the road to see if my opinion has changed. No rating as it is only one chapter.

“The Purloined Platypus” by Marvin Kaye

While Goldsborough has the exclusive novel rights, Kaye asked to write short stories and was given the Estate’s permission as long as no novels were ever written. Benjamin Moultrie, president and board chairman of the Museum of the Strange, Odd and Peculiar, wants to hire Wolfe to investigate a robbery at the museum. As I wasn’t reading the magazines such as Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock, I missed reading any of these stories. Which is quite a tragedy. Excellent portrayals of not only the characters, but the case itself. 4 out of 5.

Parodies (Exaggerated imitations intended to poke fun at the source material)

“The House on 35th Street” by Frank Littler

Originally appeared in The Saturday Review in 1966. Little is known about the author, despite Pachter’s research attempts. A crowd is assembled in the Brownstone in a murder case, wanting to see some of the detective’s famous actions and quirks. There is an undercurrent of a very personal nature, especially at the end. 3.5 out of 5

“The Sidekick Case” by Patrick Butler

Another entry from The Saturday Review, this time in 1968, and another case of little information on the author. Wolfe objects to Archie being called a “sidekick” in a listing of the latest book. Cute. 3.5 out of 5

“The Case of the Disposable Jalopy” by Mack Reynolds

America has turned into an illiterate welfare state, Wolfe and Archie are old and sometimes forgetful, and things are beyond tight financially. Reynolds uses the last names of some of the biggest authors in Science Fiction in the story. These men want to hire Wolfe for a case of sabotage and the disappearance of a key developer. What a weird world Reynolds has built. As to the updates on the normal cast of characters in the series? Well, I never liked Orrie anyway. 4 out of 5

“As Dark as Christmas Gets” by Lawrence Block

An unpublished manuscript written by Cornell Woolrich is stolen during a Christmas party. The owner hires Wolfe wannabe Leo Haig and his Goodwin substitute, Chip Harrison, to recover it. I’ve come across stories in this series before and loved them, both for the obvious affection for the source material as well as the excellent characterization. 4.5 out of 5

“Who’s Afraid of Nero Wolfe?” by Loren D. Estleman

Arnie Woodbine, currently on parole, was fired from his last job for gambling on company time. He needs a job and finds an ad looking for an assistant sharp of wit. He finds himself hired by Claudius Lyon, a corpulent man with delusions of being Nero Wolfe. Arnie is hired as his Archie. Now all they need is a case. Since Lyon doesn’t have a private detective license and Arnie’s felony record prevents him from ever getting one, they would not be able to charge for their services. No problem as Lyon is actually quite wealthy. Their first case is regarding a poetry award that carries with it a $10,000 prize. One winner doesn’t appear to actually exist. Seriously one of the best sendups that I’ve ever read! This was a delight to read and deserved more stories. 4.5 out of 5.

“Julius Katz and the Case of Exploding Wine” by Dave Zeltserman

A friend of Julius’ that has a champion bulldog and heads a dog food company comes to see Julius with the dog in tow, asking for help to find someone to prevent Brutus from being kidnapped. He also asks that Julius find his murderer if he’s killed. Sure enough, the man is killed. Julius had agreed to investigate, but only after he gave the police a week to solve it themselves. Just as the week is up, an adversary calls to warn Julius that there is a bomb in his house, contained in a box of wine. Julius allows almost everyone to believe he is dead after the townhouse is completely destroyed from top to bottom. I absolutely loved this sorta tribute to Rex Stout. I’m particularly intrigued by Archie, an AI who is installed in Julius’ tie pin. That alone has me eyeing the book collections, but to be honest, this is a damn fine mystery. Julius is definitely not Nero Wolfe, at least in size, athleticism (martial arts), and loving women (a former womanizer who now has a regular girlfriend). He definitely is in the aspects of intelligence, laziness, and cutting Archie out of the loop. His collecting focus is wine rather than orchids, but both can be very expensive hobbies. 4.5 out of 5.

“The Possibly Last Case of Tiberius Dingo” by Michael Bracken

Age and diet are catching up to Tiberius Dingo’s body, but his mind and deductive reasoning is still as sharp as ever. His long-time assistant, Jughead Badloss, brings a client he dances with at the Senior Center, a woman who is certain she is being stalked. Family ties and age-old secrets are ripped out into the open before the case is done, for their client and for Jughead himself. The names are a little lame, but the story made up for it. 3.5 out of 5.

Potpourri

“The Woman Who Read Rex Stout” by William Brittain

Gertrude Jellison was the fat lady at a carnival sideshow, an intelligent woman whose extreme weight, over 500 pounds, kept her from her dream job of teaching psychology. Her partner, Robert Kirby, is the thin man, barely weighing seventy-five pounds. As a stunt, the carnival boss gave her Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books to read during the shows. Surprisingly enough, Gert loved them and continued reading. She never expected to use what she learned to solve a murder, but sadly a newer member of the troup, a beautiful woman named Lili who was like a daughter to Gert, is murdered and the older woman knows she can solve the crime. This is a character that I could seriously have loved to read more about. A good little mystery as well, even if I quickly realized who the murderer would turn out to be. 3.5 out of 5.

“Sam Buried Caesar” by Josh Pachter

Police inspector Griffen had eleven children, each of whom was named after a famous fictional detective. Nero, just eleven years old, had set up his own detective agency, aided by his best friend and neighbor Artie Goodman. Their latest client, Sam, came to them after his dog, Caesar, was hit and killed by an out-of-state driver. Not wanting the poor animal to be left coldly abandoned on the street, he buried the dog in an empty lot. Coming back a short time later to get Caesar’s collar, the body is missing. He hires Nero and Artie to find the killer and recover the body. Sad and cute and inventive, but how Artie puts up with Nero will always be a mystery. 3.5 out of 5.

“Chapter 24 from Rasputin’s Revenge” by John Lescroart

The basic premise is that Nero Wolfe is the son of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. I’ve not read this particular book, but it appears to be the last chapter in which Archie and Wolfe, going under his original name, are in Russia, appeared to have come up against Gregori Rasputin (although the author has it as Gregory), and was helped by Holmes and Dr. Watson after they were wanted for murder. I’m not going to rate it as I don’t consider it fair to rate a novel based on just one chapter.

“A scene from Might as Well Be Dead” by Joseph Goodrich

Adaptation of the story into a play. Once again, not rated.

“The Damned Doorbell Rang” by Robert Lopresti

When their fourteen granddaughter came to visit in a snit because her parents won’t allow her to go with friends to a concert in New York City, Eve and Jack decide to tell her about why they left the City. When they were younger, they had a brownstone in the City. Their neighbors were definitely different, all men living there. Jack didn’t much like any of them and keeps disparaging Eve’s stories about what they saw while living there. But Eve tells a tale of how she saved the men’s lives. Too many close calls are the reason that they moved to New Jersey. How could I not love this outsider’s look at Nero Wolfe? 3.5 out of 5.

[mortuarybees]

Exclusively For People Made Feral By “You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

The kind of fanfiction I enjoy is the kind which requires me to take a decompression breather every paragraph or so because I’m repressed and tenderness is physically painful. i want there to be yearning and pining and brooding and ultimately, intimacy: fics which embody the mortifying ordeal of being known, as well as the reward of being loved in the end. So here are the fics I’ve read that satisfy this requirement, or in some cases are just extremely tender, in no particular order, with a quote that made me absolutely wild, as well as a few things that aren’t fic

another soul to cling to by strawberry_bee/my best friend @femmeaziraphale​

Crowley is born a run of the mill angel. There is only one catch though. He is given a prophecy by God to be the first and only angel to fall in love. That's clearly off the table when he falls from Heaven though, right? // in progress and the only in-progress fic on the list but it is Too Good and also i have a direct line to the author and they will finish it

“Do you promise to stay still if I turn out the lights?” Aziraphale asked.

“The dark is a demon’s favorite place to be,” Crowley joked, feeling the urge to make light of the situation. He rather felt like he was being taken on a jaunty little date, human skulls included just to woo a demon in the right sort of way.

“Quiet, foul fiend,” Aziraphale said, snapping his fingers again. They dove into darkness, and before Crowley could find some sort of clever quip, he felt Aziraphale’s arms about his waist. His brain turned to mush, the only thing he could think of being ‘oh, so this is love’ before he felt Aziraphale’s lips brush gently against the edge of his mouth.

“Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale murmured, before pulling away. Crowley reached out blindly, coming up with nothing. He turned to the entrance, spotting the outline of Aziraphale as he ascended. Crowley leaned against a wall, hand resting against the forehead of a skull.

get religion quick (cause you’re looking divine) by brinnanza:

So it was fine. Even if Crowley couldn’t love him, he clearly liked him well enough, and that was almost the same thing.

It no doubt would have continued to be fine, or at least fine-adjacent, were it not for a narrowly averted apocalypse and several bottles of a really quite nice Riesling Aziraphale had found in the back room of his newly restored bookshop.

“I love you, do you see? Not for work. I’m - I suppose you could say I’m in love with you, to use a human phrase.”

Crowley went very still. Aziraphale withdrew his hands and folded them primly in his lap, moving back to their more customary distance. “It’s quite alright that you don’t love me,” he hurried to add. “It doesn’t change anything. I just wanted you to know in case... Well, anything could still happen with our superiors, you know? Neither side is probably very pleased with us at the moment.”

Crowley stared at him over the rim of his sunglasses, looking rather stricken, and he was making an odd, creaky sound like a strong wind through a poorly-sealed window. The mostly-empty wine bottle he’d been holding slipped out of his loose grasp and clattered to the floor, wine drops spattering on the hardwood. “Aziraphale,” he said finally, voice ragged, “what the fuck are you talking about.”

a home at the beginning of the world by stereobone (explicit)

"Oh," Aziraphale says. "I think Crowley might have moved in with me." // okayokayokay there’s Meaningful Interior Decorating and a couch metaphor and like the fact that they actually goddamn brought That Quote into it...unacceptable

"My dear boy," Aziraphale says. "You could have said something."

"But we never do that," Crowley says.

He's back to worrying at the fabric of his trousers.

"Besides," he says. "Didn't want to go too fast for you."

Aziraphale feels something swell in his chest, and it feels all encompassing. Like love and heartbreak at the same time. Like being back at the Eastern Gate watching Crowley slither up to him for the first time, question everything while Aziraphale himself was trying not to. He's spent so long, too long, telling himself he could never be ready for this. He reaches out and grabs Crowley's hand, stops him from worrying at his trousers any further.

the nuances of ‘together’ by mirawonderfulstar

Everybody in the whole world can tell Aziraphale and Crowley are a couple. Everyone except, apparently, Crowley.

“Oh, don’t look like that, my dear.” Aziraphale said airily. “I don’t mind sharing.”

“It’s—that’s not the bloody point.” Crowley exclaimed, his feelings from the last week finally coming to a head. “Why do people keep assuming we’re together and why do you keep letting them?”

Aziraphale froze, a forkful of chocolate cake halfway to his mouth. He looked like he’d just been slapped. He was focuing very hard on a spot over Crowley's shoulder and his eyes seemed rather wet. Crowley felt a panic begin to slither up his throat, constricting his breathing. He wanted very much to say something, anything at all to make Aziraphale stop looking like that, but he had no idea what.

a culmination of miracles by prettydizzeed

Crowley has chronic pain, and six thousand years later explains that to Aziraphale. I adore the small intimacy of Aziraphale asking him to print him articles about it so he can better understand, and their characterizations, and it seems so much like an exchange from the book I’ll likely have difficulty remembering it isn’t canon in the future, which I’m fine with.

“I don’t read books,” Crowley corrects. “The occasional article, well, maybe.” He figures he’s going to need to extend as many olive branches as he can find, so he adds, “Some of them help. Sometimes quite a lot, actually.”

“Could you—would you print some for me?” Aziraphale asks. “I’d like to understand better.”

“Yeah,” Crowley says, looking at him as long as he can bear. “I’ll do that.”

the hour/the spot/the look/the words by planethunter

Crowley watches Pride and Prejudice (2005) and it spurs a realisation. // fuck guys it’s literally about the hands and perfectly captures like nothing else does the feeling of watching Pride and Prejudice (2005)

One of his hands rests over the other, the tips of his fingers cold. He watches as Darcy takes Elizabeth's hand, gentle, like handling a bird, their fingers curling over each other's. He mimics the gesture with his own hands, brushing his fingers over one another. Slowly, slowly closing them to a grasp. Opening them again, brushing his knuckles with his thumb. He continues, back, and forward, watching with mild fascination. The sensation relaxes him, like a trance, and he only feels some sensation building inside him when it had risen so high that he had to sigh to release it. Now his hands lie still, holding each other limply. He releases them, letting his fingers brush past each other on the way. When he looks up, the television had cut to adverts. 

covet by mirawonderfulstar

pining aziraphale and an amazing confession scene that i absolutely adore.

Aziraphale, little good though it did him, wanted desperately. He wanted with an urgency that scared him. He wanted wine, and cocoa, and the occasional tea. He wanted gravlax with dill sauce, and Pappardelle Bolognese, and those awful little iced biscuits they had at Tesco at Christmastime. He wanted dinners at the Ritz and long walks in the park and late nights in the back room of his shop. He wanted Crowley. Fervently, achingly, he wanted Crowley.

a city wall and a trampoline by kafkian

5 times Crowley knows he’s in love with Aziraphale + 1 time he knows the reverse.

Crowley has a system in place for dealing with moments like these. He developed it sometime in the fifth century, when it became clear that the thoughts and feelings the angel inspired in him weren’t going to go away, and neither was the cast iron certainty that they were largely unreturned. The angel loves him, of course, but only in the slightly absentminded, mandated way he loves all other living things. Crowley has long since made his peace with this. It just stings a bit sometimes, like taking a sip of tea so hot it burns the roof of your mouth. (Not that Crowley himself has had this experience. He has gathered from the mental exclamations of many, many humans, however, that such a mishap brings forth a similar sense of aching hurt, betrayal and a wistfulness that things might be different.)

The best Crowley can do is just let himself feel it – let the love go through him, unnatural and sticky though it may be, always trying to glue itself to the inside of his veins – and wait for it to come out the other side. Sometimes it even works.

such surpassing brightness by handful_of_silence

The revelation that Aziraphale might have been in love with him for thousands of years is surprising. The fact that literal books have been written on the subject comes as even more of a shock.

Crowley had always assumed – perhaps disingenuously – that Aziraphale was like most other angels. Capable of grand expressions of love when it came to humanity, but generally avoidant of the topic personally. A love for all things, a love for Crowley even, but the love of a kind, well-meaning relative who sends birthday cards on the wrong day and with a fiver inside with a note to buy something nice like you're still at primary school. Love but distant, separate, and impersonal.

But now, at least according to the rumours, Aziraphale had spent most of the medieval ages playing wingman to a bunch of queer martyrs and church-folk. Which meant that there must be something there, a comprehension of love beyond his angel-standard, over-arching love for mankind. That Aziraphale could, and apparently did, pick favourites.

That he could, just possibly, feel love himself. On an individual level.

listen (he’s already told you five times) by darcylindbergh

Not everything Crowley says is said out loud. Aziraphale doesn't always hear him at first, but he's learning to stop being surprised. // love!!! languages!!

He wonders what Crowley can feel through this touch. He wonders if Crowley can feel him back.

“I’ve never felt anything like you,” he finally says, looking up to meet Crowley’s eyes. They’re wide, awaiting judgment: something in them is terribly resigned, but when Crowley tries to draw his hand back, Aziraphale doesn’t let him go. Instead he steps in closer and says, at nearly a whisper so as not to startle, “What I mean is, you’re beautiful.”

There is a pause, and then Crowley says, soft with surprise, “Oh.”

Aziraphale kisses him.

tell me all the ways by tinsnip

One little speck of sentiment: was it so much to ask? // crowley struggles to tell Aziraphale how he feels out loud; he finds a way around it. pairs well with the fic above, I think.

“I’m not smitten, angel. I wouldn’t say smitten.”

“Oh?” He’d looked at Crowley’s hand in his, looked back up. “And what would you say?”

Suddenly a change in Crowley’s posture, a tilt of his head; there was the sideways smile. “I’d say I lust after you, angel. I covet you. I idolize you. But... smitten? I mean, honestly.” And Crowley had shrugged, as if that had been that.

For some reason, this morning, that hadn’t been enough.

“And?”

“And... and what?” Crowley had looked a bit desperate.

Aziraphale’s mouth had tasted like tea and toast. “And you love me.”

penance by blissymbolics (explicit)

It’ll happen, Crowley tells himself. This time, it’ll finally happen. // it’s porn with feelings, crowley has a praise kink, just read the tags if you’re interested

Maybe being deprived of his right to come was a necessary component of being a demon. It was permanent, chronic proof of his disobedience. But fuck, God already gave him his snake eyes and revoked his retirement benefits. Messing with his dick was just foul play. It probably violated the Geneva Convention.

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, he began to think that maybe it’d be best to just accept his lot and call it quits. It’s obviously never going to happen. So why keep torturing himself?

Or at least, that’s how he felt before Aziraphale. Before a certain day in the year of our Lord, 2019. Before he felt a shift in the solar system, and knew that they were now spinning together as one gravitational unit. They shared the same space. The same time. And on one occasion, the same bodies.

Also, I wrote a fic: all i need, darling, is a life in your shape

it’s about repressed aziraphale and pining and it was inspired by strawberry blond by mitski.

Not Fics But Fuck, Man

Meta: why is aziraphale so gay? by dictionarywrites on ao3: a very extensive meta exploring how aziraphale canonically presents himself as a gay man, and why exactly he does that.

this crowley space meta and this crowley space meta really fcking did me in

the unadulterated yearning in this mitski-inspired art by @poladraws i think about it at least once a day and it is. A Lot

this from eden fan video on youtube

this two part amnesia post by @thealogie like i don’t even fcking like amnesia fic but like. “this discovery and several other little reactions of yours have led me to believe that the Other Me, that is the Me that has all his memories, has let standards slide and is not doting on you as he should be. are you cared for? do i need to kick my own butt?” oh my goddddd

@mulderswatch made a spotify playlist titled angels dined at the ritz hat makes me personally suffer every single time i hear it. he began it with predatory wasp of the palisades (”touching his back with my hand, i kiss him / i see the wasp on the length of my arm”) and ended it with strawberry blond by mitski (”can you hear the bumblebees swarm? / watching your arm / i love it when you look my way”) his  m i n d

The best anon in the world asked me for my mitski a/c song associations and here it is

[feliciamontagues]

My Ranking of Every Hercule Flambeau Episode (S01-S08)

There are some spoilers for S7 and S8, but they are fairly vague and pretty much the sort of thing that you might see on the official press release. So not true spoilers as such. Also this is totally subjective and the result of my own personal biases. It’s also behind the cut because it’s looooonnng. 

8. The Two Deaths of Hercule Flambeau (s06e10)--

So, this episode is *fine*. It’s hardly the worst episode of the show, but it’s easily the weakest of the Flamby eps, despite their being a few isolated moments I enjoy. (Hercule getting a long overdue bedroom scene for one :P)

My main gripe is with this episode is the uneven way Lisandra Flambeau is written. The script seems to flip-flop over whether we are supposed to find her sympathetic or not.  On one hand,  many scenes imply that she genuinely loves Hercule despite them having a shotgun marriage after only a few days of knowing each other. On the other hand, she does not hesitate for a minute before poisoning an innocent (Fr. B) for no other reason than to hurt Flamby, which makes her lose a lot of sympathy points.

And as a result, it seems to make Flambeau seem like more of arse than normal for betraying her, while somehow also absolving him of responsibility for doing so, because she turns around and does *THAT.*

And ngl, it does make me a little uncomfortable that while the character of Lisandra (as an Italian) is possibly not meant to be interpreted as a POC, the actress portraying her definitely is. (Sara Martins is of Afro-Portuguese descent).  Which makes the uneven characterization (and underwritten-ness) seem even more glaring, especially  when compared to that of the other (white) women in Flambeau’s life (his first love Rebecca and his daughter Marianne, arguably Lady Felicia as well). It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth even if  in all likelihood, the part wasn’t written with Sara Martins in mind.

I think a much more interesting approach to Lisandra would be to have intending to betray Flambeau all along. Maybe she had her own agenda for seducing Flamby, meanwhile he thinks he’s the one using her for his plan. Maybe she does develop some feelings for him along the way, but it only makes her hesitate for a moment before going ahead with her original plan. That way, she keeps her agency and isn’t reduced to the “woman scorned” stereotype while also leaving the writers free to ship Flamby with others in the future without seemingly endorsing guilt-free adultery .

Other random note: I can’t take  parts of this episode seriously because the “Crown of Lombardy” is very obviously Guinevere’s crown from BBC Merlin with no attempt to alter or disguise it. 

7. The Daughter of Autolycus (s04e05)--

Not gonna lie, I am not really a fan of “character has long lost relative that we’ve never heard of until now” plots. And that goes double when said long-lost relative is a child or sibling. As such my low ranking of this episode is partly due to unconscious personal biases against that trope.

That being said, if we had to get a long-lost relative that we’ve never heard of until now plot, I’m so glad we got Marianne--even if it takes her another episode to really live up to her potential. 

I have to knock off a few more points for Nero Hound as a villain. For one thing, he was played by Nancy Carroll’s real-life hubby, but they didn’t let let him interact with Lady F at all. Such a *waste.*  Also Nero Hound is far too similar a name to Nero Wolfe, and I’ve definitely confused them on more than one occasion). He’s also rather generic in my opinion, even compared to some of Flambeau’s other “generic mobster” rivals/associates like the ones in S8.

However, there are some moments in this episode I genuinely like--particularly the theft “imagine spot” and Flambeau’s bishop disguise in general. Plus, the scenes where Flambeau and Marianne appear together are excellent, as are the hints that Marianne will become a redemptive trigger in Flambeau’s life.

6. The Judgement of Man (s03e10)--

Again, the low ranking of this one may be due to personal biases.  In this case, I’m still low-key bitter--five years later-- at the BBC marketing department for baiting me with the idea of Flambeau actually interacting with the rest of the squad (esp romantic tiems with Lady F)  and then giving me the absolute minimum of Felicia/Flambeau flirting and no Flambeau/Sid and Flambeau/Mrs. M interaction.

But there are other reasons why this is in my bottom 3 Flambeau episodes. 

Honestly, I feel like an equally compelling episode about the Vatican’s complicity in Nazi art theft could’ve been made without having to insert Flambeau in it. I mean I suppose it does make sense to have the art thief character  in the art episode, but still I feel like both Flambeau backstory and important historical lesson about Nazis, the Church, and Jewish art suffer from being crammed into the same episode. 

That being said, Mrs. McCarthy’s duchess disguise in this episode cleared my skin, watered my crops, etc, which is why I’ve ranked it higher than the previous two. 

5. The Folly of Jephthah (s08e05)

It loses a few points because I got very exited about the idea of Marianne becoming Bunty’s thief gf cool new friend, and yet in the episode itself, they only shared one scene and didn’t really interact much in it. That being said, I did like like that Bunty and Mrs. M had a bigger role in this episode than the squad usually gets in Flambeau episodes. 

Overall, I feel this episode works a lot better than most of the other “backstory-heavy” Flambeau episodes, because we’ve already gotten the Marianne-related exposition out of the way and can focus more on allowing her character, Flambeau’s and their relationship with each other to develop.

I’m also a bit smug in that I predicted (or at least hoped for) this exact character arc for Marianne within a few weeks of “The Daughter of Autocylus” airing and that my hopes came to fruition so beautifully.

It doesn’t particularly impact the ranking too much, but I do feel like this episode deserves a special shout out, because it has established a (hopefully-continuing!) pattern of Father Brown calling Flamby  almost exclusively by his first name, which is a major significant step in their bromance and deserves recognition as such. 

4. The Blue Cross (s01e10)--

As someone who was first exposed to Father Brown through reading the stories for a college course, I always find it especially interesting to look at the episodes that were adapted from Chesterton. 

This episode is neither the most faithful book-to-show adaptation (which is probably “The Three Tools of Death”) nor is it the best (imo “The Sign of the Broken Sword’) , but it is arguably the most significant. “The Blue Cross” was the first ever Fr. Brown story and is probably the most well-known. It’s also the first real look we get at the character of Flambeau, who (in the stories and arguably the show as well) is probably the closest thing we get to a clear character arc.

The show keeps some of the important elements of the short  story: Flambeau’s clergyman disguise, the switching of the packages. But it also has the challenging task of upping the relatively low stakes of the story, as well as introducing a major recurring character that resembles his book counterpart but remains distinct enough to justify the fairly different direction show canon is taking him. 

The show does this reasonably well--if not particularly imaginatively. I do enjoy some of the touches (I’ve written an entire meta before about Flamby’s reading material on the train and how it relates to his character)--particularly the show’s choice to have Flambeau fixated on religious art specifically (RIP for Flambeau’s Dairy Company though. It will always live in my heart).

Unfortunately in the adaptation, loses a few points for not really using the show-original characters particularly effectively. It loses still more for Flambeau’s characterization in this episode . He comes across as much more  serious and menacing in this episode than in all the others. It works okay when we consider this as a standalone episode but provides some glaring Early Installment Weirdness when we compare it to other episodes. 

3. The Penitent Man (s05e15)--

So as the rest of this list  will testify, I have strong preference for the “fun” Flambeau episodes over the more series ones. This is the exception that proves the rule--the  serious, cerebral, melancholy episode that simply “works” for me in the way that some of the others have not.

A lot of it is due to the more-intense-than-usual Flambeau character focus that goes into this. Sure, we’ve met his (presumably ex-by-now) wife, his daughter, and his first love by this point, but all of those episodes focused primarily on Flambeau as an extension of the relationships with others. (”The Judgement of Man”  in particular is far more Rebecca’s story than Hercule’s.)

Whereas this episode is very definitively focused on Flambeau himself and allows more nuanced exploration of two of the most defining facets of Flambeau’s character:  (1) his fascination with religion--and spiritual salvation in particular--  as  something he seems to resist and crave in near equal measure  (2) his almost masochistic streak of recklessness.

Even though Flambeau’s supposed “piety” is revealed to be all part of his heist plan, there are strong hints that his desire for redemption and atonement are at least somewhat genuine, even if he is not  ready to pursue them just yet. 

Off topic, but a few random things of note in this episode: this episode all-but-confirms bi!Flambeau, wet!Flambeau at the end is extremely relevant to my interests, Father Brown attempts to smuggle Flamby a lock pick from the beginning and has the audacity to say “ I only use it when I get locked out of the presbytery.”

Also, it has this iconic exchange:

Goodfellow: What is that awful smell?

Father Brown (covered in sewage): It’s me

2. The Honorable Thief (S07e10)-- So nearly all of the Flambeau-centered episodes from S3 on  have been a little preoccupied with filling in some of the gaps in Flambeau’s backstory, which is *fine*, but honestly, I feel like in doing so, they’ve really lost sight of why we fell in love with the character in the first place. 

 He’s vibrant and clever and funny and over-the-top. But most importantly, Flambeau is a lot of fun. Therefore, it follows that episodes that feature him should be a lot of fun too. 

And well... they are all fun in some way,  but they aren’t as fun as they really could be. John Light is insanely charismatic, but charisma can only go so far when the episode in question is a downer.

Fortunately, this episode is the furthest thing from a downer imaginable. It’s absolutely delightful from start to finish. The plot is serious enough to keep things engaging, but also light enough to keep us from getting too distracted by angst. 

I’m also incredibly biased in favor of this episode, because it finally gave me the Felicia/Flambeau ship tease I’d been passionately hoping for (if not really expecting to get after “The Judgement of Man” disappointed me). But it was so much and so good, and I wasn’t ready for it.

In a broader sense though, this episode really delivered with Flambeau/squad interaction in general--which was a key component that has been missing from most of the other episodes. And the Father Brown & Flambeau interactions were also has heartwarming and funny as they always are.

If I have one tiny little gripe with the episode, it’s that Daniel is not Sid. He has enough broad similarities with Sid that I can’t help but wonder if the episode was originally written with Sid and then hastily re-written when Alex Price couldn’t return. That being said, he was a likable enough guest character in his own right, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him again.

1.  The Mysteries of the Rosary (S02e05)-- Perfection. Not only is this THE definitive Flambeau episode, but is also one of the best episodes of the show overall. It has everything: the birth of bearded Flamby, bromantic road trips, a treasure hunt, great guest turns from Anton Lesser and Sylvestra Le Touzel.

I think part of the reason this episode resonates so strongly with me is that it’s really the first proper sense that we get of Show!Flambeau as a character. Sure we officially met him in “The Blue Cross,” but considering he didn’t show up until halfway through the episode and was in disguise for most of it, we didn’t really get much of a sense of who he is.

This episode changes all that and sets Flambeau up as the character we will know and love for the rest of the series--charming, urbane, funny, passionate, a carefree carpe diem exterior masking (or overcompensating for?) a sense of uncertainty and conflictedness.

Somewhat off topic, but as great an episode as this is for Flambeau’s character, it is nearly as wonderful for both Sid and Father Brown’s characters. We get to see Sid’s  ease with Father Brown, the casual camraderie that the two of them have--as well as Sid’s protectiveness (and jealousy) when Flambeau decides to gatecrash their bromantic road trip. 

Honestly, there are so many things that are great about this episode that I don’t think I could possibly list them--but one little detail that really struck my the last time I watched was that the first proper glimpse we see of Flambeau in this episode (we see him in shadow in a flashback before) involves him  saving Father Brown’s life.  Whereas the last proper glimpse we see of Flambeau is after Father Brown has saved Flambeau’s life.  Thematic reversals. Cinematic parallels. We love to see it. 

[ronbegleyformayor]

So this is going to be a long post—your question gets to the larger topic that is episode 100. Also to anyone reading this I would appreciate if you took a minute or two to read the whole thing—I purposefully waited a while to respond to this so my response would come across as measured as possible.

So anyone plugged into queer theory and media has probably heard of the term “bury your gays”. It’s a trope that goes at least as far back as lesbian pulp fiction novels from the early 20th century, and for a number of reasons that I’m not remotely qualified to comment on the trope has persisted into modern media. As the name implies, bury your gays is the implicit belief that for a story about gay people to end correctly, usually one or both members of a gay couple are killed before the it ends. Whether intentional or not, the trope is rooted in the idea that gay couples are not supposed to be together, that queer love is a temporary fantasy that must be righted by the end of the story. A weird kind of offshoot of this is the causing of gay characters to suffer through loneliness or separation from a partner, and it comes from the underlying idea that gay=alone. Frequently this manifests in queer characters feeling that they have to choose between family and friends and the “"gay lifestyle”“ when in reality those two things frequently are not mutually exclusive. A subset of this trope is featuring a gay character (or frequently the partner of a more-established gay character) as possessed by some form of “evil” to emphasize which side of the temptation is “correct” and which isn’t.

I’m guessing you can see what I’m teeing up here, so I’ll just add as a caveat that most writers (especially straight writers) do not necessarily agree with the homophobia behind these tropes, nor is it (usually) their intent to perpetuate negative stereotypes about gay people. That being said the legacy of this trope is alive in a lot of media, and intentional or not: gay people suffering is entrenched in how we think about writing them.

Now to be extra clear, I’m not (necessarily) saying this is what King Falls is doing. So far the writing of queer themes and homophobia has been nuanced and has avoided a lot of the pitfalls that have come to be expected, but I would also be lying if I didn’t say episode 100 didn’t rub me the wrong way, and for a couple of specific reasons, too.

For me what that boils down to is characterization and timing.

Let’s talk about characterization first.

Just think about this for a second: what do you know about Jack Wright? No really, can you name anything beyond the bare minimum of characteristics? He’s a journalist and radio host, has a belief in the paranormal, and loves Sammy. He has a sister and a fiancé, has black hair and brown eyes, and plays rugby. I can’t think of a single other concrete fact we’ve learned about him specifically, and being generous like less than half of the things on that list don’t directly have to do with Sammy. Now we could extrapolate bits of his personality based on the two very short clips we’ve ever heard of him and from what’s implied by Sammy and Lily, but that’s also kind of the point: everything we know about Jack Wright is almost exclusively based off his sister and his fiancé, both of whom are anything but unbiased. Did you notice how Lily trashed Sammy and Jack’s radio show in the first King Falls Chronicles but then went on to call Jack smart and prolific in his field like five minutes later? It’s a(n understandable) level of cognitive dissonance for someone who was going through the difficult process of grieving. Both Sammy and Lily are biased sources of information because both care very deeply for Jack. On it’s own that really isn’t a problem—in fact I would say it’s an opportunity for an interesting bit of narrative contrast between the perception of Jack and the reality of when we actually get to meet him.

That at least was my opinion.

Instead we have this ”“dark”“ version of Jack, a lover just out of reach who’s trying to tempt Sammy into leaving his family and friends for the “freedom” of the void. This is a situation that, if I’m being honest, has some homophobic tinges, and hearing the dialogue played out the way it was kind of made my stomach turn (and not in the fun, scared-to-death at 3AM way I’m used to).

Now please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t think this is what the writers were intending, nor do I think that there is anything necessarily wrong with having a normally good character occupy a “bad guy” role. When done correctly it can be interesting and compelling, and help tease out different aspects of a character or relationship dynamic. The issue isn’t that we’re seeing a “bad” version of Jack, the issue is that a. the specific wording of his interaction made my homophobia alarm bells go off, and more critically b. this “bad” version of of Jack is the only true version of him we know. Having him in a “bad” role outside his norm would be interesting if we actually had a real-time, in-person Jack with which to compare him. We might have a constructed idea of who he is from descriptions of biased sources close to him or tapes that are probably a decade old, but we only need to hear from this ”“shadow”“ Jack two more times and it’ll be more times than we’ve heard even recordings of the real Jack.

Emily, for example, had a baseline character established before her abduction. We got to know her as a character before she went missing, so when we eventually saw her as a different version of herself, we had a baseline understanding of how she typically acts in a situation, which is something we just don’t have with Jack.

Also, do you notice how Jack never directly spoke to Lily? He talked about her, but never to her, and can we take a moment to appreciate the gravity of that moment? Jack (or whatever was controlling him) had the opportunity to lure one of the four members of the "named” in the prophecy in the book, and instead of choosing his sister, the person he has known for his entire life and the only flesh and blood family with whom he’s in contact, and he chose to lure Sammy instead, to make Sammy choose between a gay relationship and the support system he’s built up.

Can you understand why this kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth? It feels a little like the “love the sinner” (Jack), hate the sin (being “bad”, trying to make Sammy have to decide between romance and a family), and that’s an adage that queer people tend to get tired of really quickly.

Again, because I really don’t want to be misunderstood, I don’t think this is what the writers intended; in fact I’m guessing the thought probably never even crossed their minds. But at the end of the day that’s kind of the point: if you’re going to make a show that subverts homophobic tropes (which I will readily say that they have done up until this point), you have to make sure not to accidentally fall into any of them yourself.

This leads me into my other issue with the episode: the timing.

My opinion toward the show right now would be considerably less harsh if this was not the last episode before a hiatus. I’m not saying the show can’t take breaks, but ending after this episode specifically? We are left with a very specific image of who Jack is, and exactly what kind of influence he has on Sammy. We’re left with the impression that Sammy has to choose between his found family and a gay relationship, and just to put icing on the cake we’re being told there is going to be another hiatus, prolonging the suffering of a character who has been through quite a lot already.

If this wasn’t the episode before a hiatus, I wouldn’t be as unhappy because we would have more immediate reactions to what had happened. We would have the four of them discussing it in detail. Maybe we even would have gotten a chance to hear Sammy himself say that this wasn’t Jack, and even get to hear more detail from him about who Jack is, if not what we heard. Maybe we would have actually gotten to see them get a step closer to getting Jack back instead of now knowing that the void has been opened, and we have to wait for another few months to see if the gay characters will ever get something even resembling a happy ending.

But we didn’t get any of that. Instead we got a cold, empty laugh that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since.

This isn’t to say that the show is headed in a bad direction. I think because this was not the intent that there is still plenty potential for things to stay on the rails. But what it looks like from here is that we are just continuing to prolong the suffering of the gay couple that sits at the emotional heart of the show’s main plotline. I’m just getting to a point where I’m starting to lose faith that we will see anything but it.

also huge thanks to @calebmichaels and @deputytroy. a lot of these points were the distillation of conversations between us, and if you think that I made a particularly interesting point at all in this post, it was probably their idea, not mine.

[dweemeister]

Movie Odyssey Retrospective

Bambi (1942)

In the early 1920s, Austrian Felix Salten began working on his best-known novel. Salten, a prominent Jewish author, was an avid outdoorsman who closely observed the habits of wildlife in the Viennese countryside. His experiences led him to write Bambi, a Life in the Woods, which became a bestseller in Europe. It was a bestseller in the United States, too, but Salten’s work had somehow been recategorized as a children’s book when exported across the Atlantic. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) producer Sidney Franklin (1942’s Mrs. Miniver, 1942’s Random Harvest) purchased the film rights, but he experimented and failed to find a satisfactory way to adapt Salten’s novel. Frustrated, Franklin handed the reins to Walt Disney. While Disney took on this new project, the Nazi Party banned Salten’s novel – claiming it to be, “a political allegory of the treatment of Jews in Germany.”

Salten, who soon fled for neutral Switzerland (never to return home to annexed Austria), may have inserted some such allegories, but that is not his novel’s primary intention. In one of the novel’s most memorable passages not present in the Disney adaptation, Bambi’s father shows his son a poacher’s corpse – another human has shot this poacher. In realizing humanity’s fragility and its sameness to the animals of the forest, a frightened Bambi, while examining the poacher’s body, declares, “‘There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.’” Salten’s novel and the 1942 Disney adaptation directed by David Hand are about the inevitability and universality of death – subject matter not exclusive to children.

Bambi was slated to be the second animated feature by Walt Disney Productions (now Walt Disney Animation Studios). Due to production delays, narrative confusion, aesthetic difficulties, and especially the Disney animators’ strike of 1941, it is the fifth and last entry of the studio’s Golden Age. Whether because of or despite these delays, Bambi seems an outlier in the Disney animated canon. It bears scant artistic resemblance to any of its predecessors or successors. To the bewilderment of viewers who believe that a great movie requires plot, Bambi dispenses of such notions. If conflict appears, it is resolved immediately – with one continuous exception. As Walt Disney insisted on the animation being as realistic as possible while retaining anthropomorphic qualities, the True-Life Adventures series (1948-1960; fourteen innovative nature documentaries that continue to influence the subgenre’s narrative and visual grammar) remains Bambi’s closest cousin in the studio’s filmography. Bambi – wildly innovative, underappreciated upon release and today – completes a consecutive run of five animated features for a Golden Age. Rarely matched today are the standards set by those five films.

This film is a coming-of-age tale; more specifically, it is about a male fawn’s experiences and observations on the natural life cycle. It begins with Bambi’s birth and concludes as Bambi inherits his father’s role as Great Prince of the Forest. This animated Bambi is less pedantic than Salten’s book, which focuses on Bambi’s survival lessons from the other woodland creatures. Instead, story director Perce Pearce (1940’s Fantasia, 1943’s Victory Through Air Power) and screenwriter Larry Morey (primarily a lyricist; 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) adopt a free-flowing episodic structure where Bambi lives life innocently, with violence puncturing through the idyll rather than being omnipresent. We see him befriend the rabbit Thumper and skunk Flower, learn to observe his surroundings before grazing in the open meadow, and play in the snow and on the ice come his first winter. There are comic misunderstandings and warnings about men, neither of which dominate the film.

Bambi also takes time, for a minute or a few, to avert its concentration from its protagonist to other animals. In a less disciplined film, these decisions might undermine the film’s goals – in this case, to portray nature as faithfully as possible within the bounds of a loose narrative. But each of these scenes focused away from Bambi either strengthen Bambi’s characterization, the liveliness of the forest, or the film’s messaging.

A handful of scenes including the elderly Friend Owl introduce us to Bambi and his mother as well as those adolescent, animalistic romantic tinglings he calls “twitterpation”. Friend Owl moves the film forward in ways that abided by the censors at the time, as well as introducing concepts to Bambi and friends in just enough time that is necessary. The most graphic moment during the first scene featuring the hunters (who are never depicted, aurally or visually) does not concern Bambi and his mother, but a few nameless pheasants. Covered in shadow by the long grasses, one of these pheasants speaks of the impending danger, and the audience hears the terror in her tremulous voice. Flying out of the underbrush in a desperate attempt to flee, she is shot by the hunters, and drops to the ground. The frame shows the pheasant’s corpse, but does not linger. This is the only depiction of a dead animal in the film – contrary to the recollections of many viewers. For younger and older viewers alike, this scene emphatically communicates the dangers that Bambi’s mother has warned about, priming the audience for what is to come, and doing so without sensation.

It leads directly to a scene that has become a sort of childhood rite of passage. The death of Bambi’s mother in a later scene has traumatized multiple generations of viewers – intrepid, timeless cinema. As Bambi and his mother are grazing on early Spring grass in the meadow, the latter senses movement and pokes her head up, turning her head realistically as if on a swivel. Her eyes are wide, unnerving. She looks straight at the audience; this would be the stuff of fourth wall-breaking comedy in any other context, but here it is almost inquisitive. Bambi is one of the few Disney canonical films in which what is happening off-screen is equally (if not more) important than what the audience is seeing – something most evident here. The film stubbornly fixes its perspective on the deer and the snow-blanketed backgrounds that emphasize how exposed they are. They flee. There is no cover as the editing becomes more frantic, closing in on the deer’s terrified faces as they rush back to the thicket. A shot rings out. The film’s score – a constant presence throughout Bambi until now – decrescendos from broadening string lines to a chorus vocalizing pianissimo (mimicking the wind-blown snow drifts), and disappears completely when the Great Prince of the Forest appears.

The Great Prince is obscured by the falling snow.

“Your mother can’t be with you anymore.”

Silence. Stillness.

Bambi sheds but a single tear. He walks away with his father and, mirroring his deceased mother, looks towards the audience – this time, not in accusation or inquiry, but faint hope. Cynical viewers label this scene as anticlimactic due to Bambi’s lack of expression. But the filmmaking preceding it – a combination of the editing by Thomas Scott (1939’s Beau Geste, 1948’s So Dear to My Heart); the compositional decisions by composers Frank Churchill (Snow White, 1941’s Dumbo) and Edward H. Plumb (1944’s The Three Caballeros); the attentive character animation by artists too numerous to single out here; and the moody lighting and brushstroke textures to the backgrounds set by Tyrus Wong (1956’s Giant, 1969’s The Wild Bunch) – helps justify Bambi’s reaction. Some of the most important, at times traumatic, moments in life are silent and still. There is just enough pathos here without being anticlimactic or maudlin, or to be patronizing towards young viewers.

And yet the next scene shows Bambi grown up, in the middle of Spring, at play. There is no allusion to the tragedy on-screen a few minutes prior. The filmmakers are not minimizing Bambi’s trauma or nature’s violence, but saying that life nevertheless continues. There is growth, the acceptance of grown-up responsibilities, romance, love, child-rearing. Stags – like Bambi and the Great Prince – mate with does, but do not participate in the lives of their fawns. Unlike other Disney films where animals assume greater anthropomorphized qualities (1967’s The Jungle Book, 2016’s Zootopia), Bambi’s naturalistic approach contradicts any application of human norms and values onto its animals.

For years, this meant struggling to animate wildlife – especially deer. Rendering deer in appealing ways is difficult, due to the shape of their face and the positioning of their eyes on either side of the face. In the end, the animators went with character designer Marc Davis’ (Davis also led the character design of Thumper, Flower, and Cruella de Vil from 1961’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians) outlines: maintaining realistic deer anatomy, but exaggerating the face with a shorter snout and larger eyes. The Great Prince’s antlers proved most infuriating due to the intricate perspectives in animating them. When the animators resolved that they could not animate antlers from scratch, a plaster mold of deer antlers were made and was Rotoscoped (projecting live-action film onto an image for an animator to trace it) the film’s animation cels.

But the most remarkable contribution to Bambi comes from Tyrus Wong. Wong, a Chinese-born American artist, established the look of Bambi’s painterly backgrounds. Based on landscape paintings from the Song dynasty (960-1279; a Chinese historical period when landscape painting was in vogue), Wong’s concept art caught the eye of colleague Maurice “Jake” Day. Day, a photographer, illustrator, and naturalist, spent weeks in Vermont and Maine, sketching and photographing deer and the woods surrounding them. His sketches, however, were deemed too “busy”. By comparison, Wong’s concept art – using pastels and watercolors – is impressionistic, deeply atmospheric. Disney, impressed by Wong’s work, appointed him to be lead production illustrator, and instructed the other background animators to take inspiration from Wong’s concept art. Wong’s lush backgrounds have graceful dimension (a hallmark of Song dynasty landscapes), seemingly extending the forest beyond the frame. A brushstroke implies dimensions to the forest unseen. Wong’s sense of lighting – whether soaking in sun-bathed greens or foreboding black-and-white, blues, or reds – helps Bambi smoothen otherwise abrupt tonal shifts.

Nevertheless, history downplayed Wong’s enormous contribution to one of the greatest animated films ever made. The studio fired Wong shortly after Bambi’s completion as collateral damage from the aftermath of the Disney animators’ strike – by the terms of the agreement with the strikers, Disney recognized the animators’ union but would lay off a union-approved equal ratio of strikers and non-strikers. Wong later found work as a Hallmark greeting card designer and a production illustrator for Warner Bros. Retiring in 1968, Wong was contacted by Disney to serve as a sketch artist for Mulan (1998) – Wong declined, stating that animated films were no longer a part of his life. Only within the last decade has Wong, who passed away in December 2016 at 106 years old, received due recognition for his contributions that his on-screen credit does not reveal.

Perhaps inspired by his meetings and collaboration with conductor Leopold Stokowski and music critic Deems Taylor for Fantasia, Walt insisted on a film score to be present across Bambi’s runtime. Composers Frank Churchill and Ed Plumb take inspiration from the Silly Symphony shorts made prior to Snow White – Bambi’s score and soundtrack occasionally blends with the sound mix and it liberally uses “Mickey Mousing” (the synchronization of music with actions, most notably footsteps, on-screen). With the writing team periodically revising Bambi, Churchill and Plumb waited until the final structure of the story was set before composing the music. Transcripts from the Disney Archives also reveal an emboldened Walt – again, perhaps inspired by his experiences from Fantasia – to insert his own preferences in how the music should sound. Walt, a man who once professed that he, “[didn’t] know beans about music,” was more musically articulate than he had been before Fantasia, and was unusually influential in the film’s orchestration. In the end, the Churchill and Plumb score is largely framed by the opening credits number, “Love is a Song”.

Love is a song that never ends. Life may be swift and fleeting. Hope may die, yet love's beautiful music Comes each day like the dawn.

In a few short stanzas, the composers begin a score that falls silent only two times: when Bambi’s mother mentions “man was in the forest and when the Great Prince of the Forest appears shrouded in snow. If one did not already associate it with the actions of the film’s characters, Bambi’s fully-orchestrated score sounds like a lengthy, motif-filled tone poem that can be heard in a concert hall. Listen to the string harmonies supporting the “Love is a Song”-vocalizing chorus during “Sleep Morning in the Woods/The Young Prince/Learning to Walk” beginning from 4:19-5:20. That sort of harmonic density would not be out of place in a late Romantic-era concert hall. Occasionally, that tone poem of a score gives way for the limited musical soundtrack like “Little April Shower” – the film’s best song, and one where instruments and vocalizing humans serve to simulate the sound of rain and wind. Bambi contains some of the tenderest music, reflecting the film’s thematic content, in the Disney canon.

Upon release, many critics and audiences found Bambi a step backward for Disney, caring not that the studio’s namesake and its animators agonized over its realism. Disney had upended the moviegoing world’s expectations with Snow White and spawned competing studios looking to replicate that alchemy. But in doing so, the studio also coded audience and critic expectations that animated film should only be fantastical. To strive for realistic animation to reflect nature was, “boring” and “entirely unpleasant” – for these critics (who say nothing about how animation can guide emotion), animated fantasy was innovative because it bent reality in ways live-action cannot portray. Echoing the most vehement criticisms hurled towards Fantasia, Bambi’s then-contemporary naysayers implied that even attempting to animate nature realistically and ignoring fantasy would be a pretentious exercise. In columns and tabloids, the American media also devolved into a mud-slinging debate over whether Bambi – because of its off-screen portrayal of humanity – defamed hunters.

By similarly contradictory logic, animated film in 1942 was mostly perceived as children’s entertainment – an attitude that has been dominant ever since, and one that yours truly tries to discredit with exasperating frequency. With no other rival animation studios attempting anything as ambitious as a Fantasia or Bambi, gag-heavy short films from Disney and its competitors contributed to these widely-held views. With World War II underway, the dissonance of expectations would only escalate. American moviegoers, though wishing to escape from the terrible headlines emerging from Europe, North Africa, and Asia, believed animated films too juvenile for their attention. Bambi – a dramatic film intended for children and adults – faltered under the burden of these wartime contradictions. It would not make back its production costs during its initial run.

This commercial failure, on the heels of the animators’ strike, cast a shadow over Disney’s Burbank studio and on Walt himself. Walt would never publicly admit this, but he believed he had been too focused on animated features. So much of his creative soul and experimental mind had been dedicated to the Golden Age films, but at what cost? The critical and commercial triumphs of Snow White and Dumbo were offset by Pinocchio’s (1940) budgetary overruns and the headline-grabbing negativity (by music and film critics) that financially drowned Fantasia and Bambi. Internal divisions that led to the animators’ strike nearly destroyed the studio; heavy borrowing from Bank of America resulted in runaway debt. Walt – spiritually and physically – would not be present for the rounds of layoffs (mandated by the agreement with the striking animators) that almost halved the studio’s staff after Bambi’s release. He accepted a long-standing offer from the Office for Inter-American Affairs to embark on a goodwill tour of South America to help improve relations with Latin American nations (as well as collect ideas for future animated films).

Bambi remains a sterling example of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ artistic daring. The film pushes realistic animation as far as the technology of its time can. It does so not only for the sake of visual realism, but to reinforce the profound emotions it has evoked for decades. The film’s tragic dimensions are legendary, oft-parodied; yet this does not (and should not) define it. Almost eighty years since its debut, Bambi’s reputation continues to be mired in the contradictions that first greeted its release. There are some who still believe that animated cinema, by its nature, is specifically for children. And by an extension of that thought, some believe tragedy has no place in animated cinema. What a limited view of art that is, an underestimation of humanity’s capacity for understanding.

Bambi concludes the Golden Age of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Since its departure from theaters, moviegoers have rarely been treated to animated cinema of equal or greater maturity – let alone from Disney itself. The artistic cavalcade of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942) resulted in five consecutive films resembling nothing like the other, but all united in ferocious innovation. The central figure of this Golden Age, Walt Disney, was personally involved in each of these works; the end of this so-called Golden Age comes as he stops dedicating himself so completely to the studio’s animated features. In their own ways, each film helped define what animated cinema can be and who it is for. That debate remains fluid, one where the principal interlocutors learn from or disregard the lessons of this Golden Age.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

This is the seventeenth Movie Odyssey Retrospective. Movie Odyssey Retrospectives are reviews on films I had seen in their entirety before this blog’s creation or films I failed to give a full-length write-up to following the blog’s creation. Previous Retrospectives include The Wizard of Oz (1939), Mary Poppins (1964), and Oliver! (1968).

[bbq-hawks-wings]

So I took a personality test to day and got the result of an Architect (INTJ) and for some reason Hawks just came to mind so I wondered, based on the Myers-Briggs classification what personality would he have? Also just out of curiosity, and you don't have to answer, but what would yours be? (I took the quiz on the website 16personalities)

Fantastic question, anon! Last I took the test a few years ago I was an INFP (The Mediator) myself which I think still largely applies. It can be easy to mistype yourself, let alone someone else, so I’m going to use evidence from the manga as much as possible and go through the individual traits one by one to see what I can find. I considered taking the test myself in character, but realized especially with how long the test is it could be easy to either overthink it or hyper-fixate on consciously or unconsciously preconceived traits, so I decided an evidence-based approach would be more accurate.

An important thing to know about Meyers-Briggs personality types is that they’re not all-encompassing, exclusive, or immutable. Some people have a tendency to make ill-informed preconceptions about people or treat it like a horoscope. This is the wrong way to apply a Meyers-Briggs personality type. They are insights to the instinctual way people are likely to act and perform and are only a tool to aid in things like working in a team, putting them on a path to personal success, and exercising emotional intelligence when interacting with them. Many people may still display a different “type” in different settings so I’ll be as cognizant of that as possible as I go through.

So with that, let’s get started!

Extroverted [E] or Introverted [I]?

This is a fantastic example of how preconceived notions  can completely mess up a characterization of someone as well as someone displaying a different type from what they might naturally display. Hawks is great with people, can work a crowd, and is a people-pleaser through and through. To many others, he would be a dead ringer for an extroverted. However:

In his own ideal world, Hawks has time to himself, to spend alone at home, doing whatever he wants freely. If he was an extrovert this dream might be a little more geared towards still being a top hero, but he’s said in so many words he wishes he was a little further down the ladder.

At this point I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up that a false dichotomy of introvert/extrovert has developed over the years. Humans require interaction with other humans to stay healthy and they also require alone time. Too much or too little of either will give them problems over time. It’s a tad frustrating to me that this personality test requires an either/or answer since I thoroughly believe that Hawks enjoys human company and would naturally seek it out in his ideal scenario, just in greater moderation than he does now (which would make him more of an ambivert); but given the fact that at this point in time he seeks more opportunities for solitude, I’m going to answer that he lands, somewhat surprisingly in the Introverted category.

Observant [S] or Intuitive [N]?

This one is also tricky at first, but a deeper dive into their definitions gives us a pretty solid answer, I think. According to the website: 

“These traits describe what people are more likely to do with the information gathered from the world around them. Intuitive personality types rely on imagining the past and future potential of what they see. Those with the Observant style are more interested in observable facts and more straightforward outcomes. They prefer to avoid layering too much interpretation on what they see.“

So does Hawks take a complicated, theoretical approach to information he’s exposed to, or does he call it like he sees it? Does he act in the here and now, or is he more bigger picture?

While he’s actively working toward a definitive goal, he has a tendency to only focus on the information in front of him as it happens. Dabi’s going to release a super powered Nomu? Better get the best hero around to fight it. Need to infiltrate the League of Villains? Just hammer away at getting Dabi to trust him and open the door for him.

He tends to look at the road in front of him to figure out if he should go left or right, but doesn’t always seem to realize he could be being taken for a ride. In his section of the new character book, his relationship with Dabi is described as “they are using each other” (note the present continuous tense) meaning that Dabi is stringing along the number two hero for his own purposes, but Hawks seems to have no idea of it. Just his altercation with Dabi at the warehouse after High End is proof he’s too trusting of the information he’s given at face value.

He may have contingencies (such as holding onto the one feather), but they do not span very far and wide into the future depending on any way things go. It’s always, “If plan A doesn’t work, go to plan B” and never a step or two ahead of that or a consideration of other possible outcomes. Did he have a plan in case High End actually killed Endeavor? Based on his reaction, I don’t think he really thought that was a possibility even though in the end it almost happened and left him with a permanent scar.

This, to me, puts him safely in the Observant category.

Thinking [T] or Feeling [F]?

Hey, this one is actually easy! Hawks is incredibly intelligent, but he is far from rational. A good litmus test for this is to see how someone reacts to failure. A thinking individual will view an undesirable outcome as useful data for the future and possibly just a result of things beyond their control, but a feeling person will view the same as proof of inadequacy that needs to be remedied through personal improvement.

He consistently reacts to situations emotionally first. Even when Tokoyami really proved himself during his internship, it was an emotional response that changed his attitude towards training him and the next generation.

Even Endeavor describes him as,

Hawks has always been emotionally expressive, responsive, and driven. In his interactions with others, he displays a huge amount of emotional intelligence - you can see it in the way he ever so slightly adjusts his interactions with others based on the response to him and the outcome he’s looking for. He pauses for just a second to get a cool selfie perfect for a girl’s social media timeline, he’s polite and considerate carrying a little old lady’s bags up the stairs for her, and he appeals to a little boy’s sense of style and flair when asked to sign his bag. The way he and others feel at any given moment is almost paramount to him.

This is a trait I don’t see changing in his character over time unlike some of the others. He’s clearly a Feeling type.

Judging [J] or Prospective [P]?

This one I also think is easy to figure out. Basically, does he prefer a set, methodical schedule or is he a more spontaneous, spur of the moment person?

Yeah, this is Hawks we’re talking about. He’s shockingly adaptable and almost seems to fall into routine for the sake of others instead of his own sanity. Most of his decisions are made on the fly, and he’s known to improvise.

He’s more than capable of planning ahead, but prefers to operate as the wind blows which makes him a solid Prospective type.

Assertive [-A] or Turbulent [-T]?

For funsies, I just want to pop in and check in on this last trait since it’s here. Basically, all it asks is his confidence level and response to stress. I’ve more or less answered this earlier, but when encountering a situation potentially way over his head, he may outwardly display confidence and roll with the punches (his _S_P traits at work) but when it comes to results, especially failure, perfection and personal excellence are all that matter. I feel very confident classifying him as a Turbulent personality.

Final Results

So with that we get a final Meyers-Briggs personality type of ISFP-T which according to 16 Personalities is the Adventurer type personality.

“Adventurer personalities are true artists, but not necessarily in the typical sense where they’re out painting happy little trees. Often enough though, they are perfectly capable of this. Rather, it’s that they use aesthetics, design and even their choices and actions to push the limits of social convention. Adventurers enjoy upsetting traditional expectations with experiments in beauty and behavior – chances are, they’ve expressed more than once the phrase “Don’t box me in!” Adventurers live in a colorful, sensual world, inspired by connections with people and ideas. These personalities take joy in reinterpreting these connections, reinventing and experimenting with both themselves and new perspectives. No other type explores and experiments in this way more. This creates a sense of spontaneity, making Adventurers seem unpredictable, even to their close friends and loved ones. Despite all this, Adventurers are definitely Introverts, surprising their friends further when they step out of the spotlight to be by themselves to recharge. Just because they are alone though, doesn’t mean people with the Adventurer personality type sit idle – they take this time for introspection, assessing their principles. Rather than dwelling on the past or the future, Adventurers think about who they are. They return from their cloister, transformed.Adventurers live to find ways to push their passions. Riskier behaviors like gambling and extreme sports are more common with this personality type than with others. Fortunately their attunement to the moment and their environment allows them to do better than most. Adventurers also enjoy connecting with others, and have a certain irresistible charm.”

It feels like a pretty accurate assessment of his personality, so I think I did a good job. This was a lot of fun, and I feel like I’ve even gotten to know him a little better! Thanks for sending in the question, anon, I really enjoyed it!

And if you’re curious about Meyers-Briggs personality types or want to take the assessment yourself, go check out 16personalities[.]com!

[juleswolverton-hyde]

The Sword and Shield (BC x Reader)

Genre: Fluff, Idol AU, Quarantine fiction

Pairing: Bangchan x Reader

Warnings: Innuendos, nerdy Pokémon talk.

Summary: Every warrior needs a sword and shield to defend themselves against enemies. However, two nerds take up weapons in a vastly different fight. 

Masterlist

Credits for the banner art go to Satzzz Art.

Life between the sheets does not always have to be characterized by Sensuality because there is more to be found among the pillows and blankets. It is amiable comfort, dozing off together to the sunrays streaming in through the light bedroom curtains or listening to music while sharing earbuds to kill the boredom of quarantine by means of occupying oneself with whatever is at hand. After all, it is yet unknown for how long the global population is forbidden to leave their homes safe for retrieving necessities at the supermarket or drugstore.

A blessing in disguise, however, is being able to spend the period of restriction with a bunch of lively lads which includes the lover of little more than a year. The moment it became known countries were hauling in their own residents a foolhardy decision was made to remain in South-Korea and leave the life in the place of origin behind for a while. The choice did not sit well with Chan at first, not too subtly asking to reconsider it though soon finding a secret delight in finally being able to wake up every day in the same bed.

No thousands of kilometres distance.

No time to be taken away by management and time zone differences.

The pandemic has at least given us this.

A taste of life as a real couple.

 Just before IKEA closed as well, the lovable human kangaroo insisted on going there for the last shopping spree so personal taste could be added to the bedroom that would be shared. The well-meant idea was rejected at first, saying it was not needed and that the interior was fine as it was. However, once bleached locks have set their mind to something, it is barely possible to change the focus of determination and thus the private shared space has been decorated with a few candles alongside a new bookcase to house whichever books were already taken from home as well as a few pieces of art and a collection of postcards that have been pinned on a metal grate.

Our perfect little nest.

A haven of comfort for songs and nerdy thoughts.

‘Hey, babygirl.’ The mattress dips as the human koala joins the small kingdom in the sheets of sweatpants and loose tops that are somehow still deemed charming. Even the surface beneath the minimal layer of makeup is apparently preferred by the strong arm wrapping around the waist as platinum locks rest on the head and watch the screen held between hands. ‘What’re you playing?’

‘Pokémon Sword. It’s really good thus far and- Oh my god, it’s so cute!’ In an instance, the screen is lifted to show the six adorable balls clad in armor, a new creature which is called a Falinks. ‘Look at these little buddies!’

A wide smile breaks out on plush lips, wavy locks shaking in closed-eyed amusement before looking up again with the wonder of a new discovery. ‘So that’s why you’ve been kicking the air or screaming something is cute. I didn’t know you were a Pokémon fan?’

‘I have been since I was little, but it’s not something I tell others about.’ The true meaning of the grin no longer passes under the radar, igniting an ember of shame for harbouring a geeky side when it comes to the Japanese creatures. ‘Yes, I know, I am a mega nerd. Bite me.’

The jaw clenched in timidity relaxes when slender fingers tickle the sides as a big nose presses into the side of the neck to nuzzle it. The comment was not meant to provoke although the lowered voice suggests otherwise as it speaks against skin, teeth even cheekily nibbling. ‘Watch your words, Y/N, or I just might.’

However, the sensuous attitude fades as fast as it appeared as irises the colour of pure chocolate wander back to the device. ‘Can I see your Pokémon?’

Because the girl in the sheets is not the only trainer beneath the roof. 

‘Sure.’ With the same nonchalance that denies the suggestiveness from a second ago, the index of the creatures which are currently being trained is opened. The current team consists of a Corviknight, Obstagoon, Thievul, Drapion, Boltund and Cinderace. ‘I’m currently training these though I mostly specialize in Dark Types.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ To get more comfortable, Chan slouches further down the bed to rest more properly on a beloved narrow shoulder. Nevertheless, the all-knowing grin from before remains plastered onto plush lips. ‘I suppose you’re also interested in training Ghost and Psychic types as well?’

‘I’m an open book, aren’t I?’

‘Just a little bit.’ The teasing is made up for with a chaste peck on the nose followed by one on the forehead. Just the way it is preferred and done whenever apologizing for something or to simply gain a smile. Withal, now, judging by the twinkle in mischievous eyes, it is definitely to say sorry in advance for what is to come. ‘Can you guess what my type is?’

‘Me?’

The witty response evokes the bubbly boyish laughter that has been loved ever since the first time it was heard. ‘You’re not wrong.’

‘Okay, okay, let me think.’ The scanning for clues on the face results in nothing except a brighter devilish glimmer in a loving look. Henceforth, the answer will have to based on personality and all the little things that have been discovered since being in a relationship and now prematurely living together. ‘Electric? Although, no, wait. Fire. Something tells me you at least have a Growlith or had but it has transformed into Arcanine. Then again, judging by that splendid performance of the theme song in your VLive, I’d also wager you have a Pikachu. However, you’re very sporty so maybe you specialize in Fighting types?’

‘You’re on the right track. The answer is somewhere in there.’ Instead of one mocking eyebrow, two rise in a failed attempt to exaggerate coyness while looking cool. ‘Or is it?’

‘Very helpful, Chris.’ Sarcastically disregarding the useless remark and lopsided smirk, the former ramble is composed into a somewhat solid answer. Anywhere close to the truth is better than nothing. ‘You’re a Fire trainer who is also interested in Fighting types.’

‘Almost. I’m a Dragon trainer who always starts out as a Fire trainer. I am, however, also interested in Fighting types too. I do have an Arcanine and Pikachu is an exception to the rule because it’s Pikachu. Every trainer should have one.’

‘I have one too, but it doesn’t have a name since it’s a female and I only name my male Pokémon.’

Focus shifts back to the screen, Chan reading the names of the amiable creatures that form the company on the journey to becoming the best. It started as a fun idea and the names matched fairly well. ‘So I’ve noticed. Are you associating everyone in the industry with a Pokémon?’

But nothing ever runs smoothly. 

‘I’m trying, but it’s bloody hard at times. I made Jackson a Pidove. Don’t laugh! I don’t know why I did it, but his name was the first to pop up when I caught it. Baekhyun is an Applin. Wait, he’s transformed already so now he’s a Flapple. Han is a Greedent because, let’s be honest, he’s a squirrel. Changbin, well, Bin is a Corviknight. I gave his full name to a Rufflet. Minho is a Sneasel, Felix a Thievul and I have yet to decide on the rest of the boys.’

‘Which one would be me?’ Judging by the suggestive tone of curious eyes and barely noticeable pout, there is the clear hope of a comparison with an awesome creature. The tightened grip on the hips betrays it too, blatantly so. Almost forcing the unknown comparison to one’s personal preference. 

‘Without a doubt, you are Zacian, the giant warrior wolf with a sword in its mouth.’ A deep sigh cannot be helped at the thought of the game’s challenge which does absolutely not allow for failure. ‘The legendary Pokémon of the Galar region. Dammit, Channie! Why do you have to be so elusive and exclusive?’

‘Because I’m an amazing catch.’ The cheek is turned by slender fingers, compelling lips to join in a playful giggly kiss which is broken up by a smug remark. ‘And warriors are not so easily bound to a master. You told me even Beowulf reluctantly helped a king, only to settle his father’s debt. 

‘Although,’ the train of thought is easily altered by hooking a digit under the silver necklace that was given as a birthday present, pulling the tease in yet holding off from melting into another kiss by backing away to continue the battle of wits and enjoy the small adorable whine of disagreement, ‘with the right trainer, I suppose I could make a deal.’

‘I plan on winning all gym badges and make myself worthy of the wolf.’

‘You will still have to win in that final fight. Until then, think you can take me on?’ Brows furrow in a suddenly hard-fought battle for concentrated control. Funnily contradicting oneself, the domestic koala shifts positions to hover over the coy soul who was able to tame the beast beneath the roof, faces inches apart and the Switch tucked in the small space between bodies.  

Which becomes noticeably narrower when transforming Innocence into Sensuality by creating the image of what might be given after testing out the waters of victory and win in a Pokémon battle. ‘I have more than enough times in this bed.’

To make up for the victory and erase any negative unspoken feelings. 

Though the soft growling suggests impatience, unwilling to be kept on a leash any longer. ‘Don’t change the subject. You’re fighting unfairly.’

‘Am I?’ The device is put aside on the bedside table, ankles hooking behind the waist to coax a hard shape into the warmth between the thighs as hands rest on broad shoulders. A much-appreciated action evidently, breath taken away by the friction between two concealed forms of wanting and nails digging into the skin beneath the comfy black printed fleece vest.

And the chest now making escape entirely impossible, hearts racing in harmony. ‘Yes. You’re distracting me.’

‘Says the person who’s distracting me from gaining those badges.’ Enough coherency lingers to remain cheeky. Bashful enough to lean in and utter a final double-sided statement of defiance. ‘I bet I can easily best you.’

But two can play that game, apparently. 

‘I think you’re wrong, babygirl. Or do I need to remind you of how good I am?’

‘Grab your Switch and bring it on.’ The challenge is accepted with a scoff which clearly started having different expectations in regards to the order of events. Fortunately, a sweet quick peck cures most of the shallow grumpiness as Chris is dismissed from the sheets. ‘And give me all you’ve got.’

‘Oh, I will. I always do.’

As became apparent in the few battles between teams.

The wolfish actions that followed unspoken hard feelings unhappy with the outcomes of the fights.

And a broken headboard in the morning.

[jackie-talks-about-starkid]

The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals (Rewatch #11, 11/20/2020)

YouTube publish date: December 23, 2018

Number of views on date of rewatch: 4, 394, 741

Original Performance Run: October 11 - November 4, 2018 at the Matrix Theater in Los Angeles

Ticket price: General Admission - $37, Priority - $69      Digital Ticket: $15      Rush Ticket via TodayTix: $18

Director: Nick Lang

Music and Lyrics: Jeff Blim

Book: Matt Lang and Nick Lang

Cast album price and availability: $9.99 on iTunes      Release date: December 23, 2018

Parody or original: original content, slightly inspired by Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Funding: $127,792 by 3,419 backers via Kickstarter (x)      Original Goal: $60,000

Main cast and characters

Paul - John Matteson

Emma - Lauren Lopez

Ted - Joey Richter

Charlotte - Jamie Lyn Beatty

Bill - Corey Dorris

Professor Hidgens - Robert Manion

Sam/General McNamara - Jeff Blim

Alice/Greenpeace Girl - Mariah Rose Faith

Musical numbers

     Act I

“The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals” Characters: Ensemble “ La Dee Dah Dah Day” Characters: Ensemble “What Do You Want, Paul?” Characters: Mr. Davidson and Paul “Cup of Roasted Coffee” Characters: Nora, Zoey, and Emma “Cup of Poisoned Coffee” Characters: Nora, Zoey, Hot Chocolate Boy, and Ensemble “Show Me Your Hands” Characters: Sam, Police Woman, Police Man “You Tied Up My Heart” Characters: Sam and Charlotte “Join Us (And Die)” Characters: Charlotte and Sam

     Act II

“Not Your Seed” Characters: Alice and friends “Show Stoppin’ Number” Characters: Professor Hidgens “America Is Great Again” Characters: General McNamara and Ensemble “Let Him Come” Characters: Ensemble “Let It Out” Characters: Paul and Ensemble “Inevitable” Characters: Paul, Ensemble, and Emma

Notable Notes:

The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals won 12 2019 BroadwayWorld Los Angeles Awards (x)

Best Musical - Local

Choreography - Local: James Tolbert

Costume Design - Local: June Saito

Director of a Musical - Local: Nick Lang

Featured Actor in a Musical - Local: Robert Manion (Joey Richter and Corey Dorris were the other two nominees in this category)

Featured Actress in a Musical - Local: Jaime Lyn Beatty (Mariah Rose Faith was also nominated)

Leading Actor in a Musical - Local: Jon Matteson

Leading Actress in a Musical - Local: Lauren Lopez

Lighting Design - Local: Sarah Petty

Musical Director - Local: Matt Dahan

Scenic Design - Local: Corey Lubowich

Sound Design - Local: Ilana Elroi and Brian Rosenthal

Cultural Context: 2018

The #MeToo movement originated by Tarana Burke gains international popularity on social media

The revival of Queer Eye premiers on Netflix

Beyoncé headlines Coachella (#Beychella), becoming the first black woman to do so for the music festival

Megan Markle marries Prince Harry

Avengers: Infinity War opens in theaters on April 27th

Content Analysis:

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals has the most original concept of a musical I can think of for any piece of musical theatre, on Broadway or off. It is a musical that is focused on Paul, a guy who, believe it or not, doesn't like musicals, but due to a mysterious zombie-like infection brought to his town, Hatchetfield, finds himself stuck in an apocalyptic scenario in which anyone can be infected by a hive-mind that forces anyone it infects to behave as if they were in a musical. Because of this, the only people who actually perform musical numbers in the show are those around Paul who are infected with this musical disease, which makes each musical performance all the more dramatic, as well as allows for the acting of the main characters to be much more at the center of attention than they would normally be if the characters were expected to sing out their feelings as if the audience were watching them develop through the lens of a traditional musical.

The strong book and emphasis on the characterization of the small main ensemble highlights the incredibly strong performances by the actors. The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals is an interesting work in StarKid's repertoire in that the characters represented onstage are the most 'normal' characters the audience has seen in a StarKid universe. By now, the Starkid audience is used to seeing either parodies of well-known works, such as Harry Potter or the DC comic universe, inventive imaginings of other universes or periods of time, such as Starship or Firebringer. Yet, this production emphasizes the kind of characters and settings one sees in everyday life rather than the characters one sees in a sci-fi novel or fantasy world. The characters are played to represent a specific type of character often seen in media, and specifically mimic horror movie tropes with a comedic twist. For example, Professor Hidgens represents the off-kilter scholarly type, Paul is the everyday man dragged into the evil schemes of an unknown being's plot, Emma is the relatable final girl, etc. Yet, these character types and what they represent mirror the kind of everyday people we see in reality. Sure, they are written and played with comedic intent but their lives and place in the plot are human enough that the audience does not need to make the make-believe leap of connecting with non-human or glorified human characters-these people ARE human. Emma is an intelligent woman whose adventurous life turned into one full of grief for her sister and finds herself stuck in a terrible job in the hometown she tried so hard to get away from. Paul is a simple man playing the reluctant hero, but whose heart and genuine care for the people he is close to reminds us of the best of humanity when our society is constantly filled with examples of our worst behaviors. Bill just wants a relationship with the daughter he's drifting away from, Charlotte just wants her husband to love her, and Ted is there because, let's be honest here, we all know a Ted.

The characters also happen to be played by actors the audience would not expect to play that specific character type. For example, Joey Richter is known for playing lovable, funny, and relatable characters in StarKid's works, yet in The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals, he plays the most morally repugnant yet incredibly hilarious characters in the show and he plays that part so well and so convincingly that it's hard to believe he's actually playing against his type. Jaime Lyn Beatty, like other StarKid works, performs a strong, comedic character type as she always does, yet her performance as Charlotte has the most dynamic internal life of any character the StarKid audience has seen her play.

The most notable performance comes from Jon Matteson who plays Paul. His role as the protagonist, who is onstage nearly the entire, time holds the piece and the universe of the story together so perfectly. His dry delivery and incredible comedic timing work so well for the character that it feels as though you can go up to Matteson right after the finale and expect to talk to Paul himself because he embodies the role so well. Matteson’s performance feels so natural and honest that it's heartbreaking, even for the most fanatic musical theatre nerd, to watch him realize that he's fallen victim to the Apotheosis and turns into the thing he hates the most-a musical theatre character.

A horror-comedy musical is a hard thing to pull off, especially on a budget that was almost entirely crowdfunded, and even harder to execute successfully, which is why the only few commercial horror-musical comedy staples I can think of at the moment art Little Shop of Horrors, Sweeney Todd, and to a certain extent, Heathers. Yet the consistent hard work that goes into creating a StarKid musical and the unique environment that process produces makes anything seem possible and destined for success. The level of creativity going into this production company and the work they create as a team is something that just cannot be done with traditional musical theatre as seen on Broadway because of such large overhead and emphasis on creating a profit rather than creating art. There have been and will continue to be many different creative teams making unique musicals for the general public, but taking into account global accessibility for all demographics and concept originally, The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals proves StarKid continues to take the lead and doesn’t need the exclusion of any demographic in order to do so.

P.S. Happy Black Friday! Don’t forget to get in line to buy your Wiggly dolls ;)

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Shadow Over Seventh Heaven Review, Part I: Last Night I Dreamt I Went to Maljardin Again

Once, April Tennant had been the greatest screen star of all. Even now that this stunning creature was gone, the victim of a hideous accident, her name still cast a magic glow. And nowhere was her haunting spell more alive than within her great walled estate of San Rafael.

It was here that April had lived in her storybook marriage with famed actor Richard Morgan. It was here that her memory was worshipped still. And it was here that lovely young Jenny Summers came as Richard Morgan's new bride--to discover the terror behind the tinsel in this place transformed from a paradise of the living to a hell of the undead.... (inside front cover)

Welcome, fellow Strangers and all others who happen upon this post. This week, I have decided to begin a new series exploring the Gothic novels written by co-creator and first headwriter of Strange Paradise, Ian Martin, under the pen name Joen Arliss. Mostly, the purpose of this series will be to compare the plot and characters of Strange Paradise and those of his novels and what that may indicate about his original intentions for the overarching story of the soap opera.

I got the idea to start this series while writing my review of Episode 26, after the contents of an article referenced in one of the scenes reminded me of the events in this book. On his now-defunct website Maljardin.com, Curt Ladnier covered some of the similarities between “Here Goes the Bride,” the CBS Radio Mystery Theater drama from which this book was adapted, and Strange Paradise, but I wanted to dive deeper and do one of my characteristic overanalyses. So fly with me to the grand southwestern estate of San Rafael and together let’s explore Shadow Over Seventh Heaven--and let me warn you, there will be spoilers for the entire Maljardin arc of SP.

As noted above, Shadow Over Seventh Heaven is an adaptation of a radio drama that Martin wrote for CBS Radio Mystery Theater. CBSRMT is, perhaps unquestionably, Ian Martin’s most famous work. Created by Himan Brown in 1974 and running for 1,399 nightly episodes, Martin wrote a total of 243 (including many adaptations of literary classics) and acted in 255, typically in supporting roles. He continued writing and acting on the series all the way until his death in 1981 at the age of 69. Given my tendency to procrastinate, which sometimes makes it difficult to write just one episode review a week even when I’m not busy, I envy him for being such a prolific writer. I suspect that all the soap scripts he wrote got him into the habit, and he just couldn’t break it.

Even more extraordinary is that he wrote and published five novels during the same period that he worked on CBSRMT. His first was Nightmare’s Nest (1979), an adaptation of the CBSRMT play “The Deathly White Man” (and not the other drama, also by him, of the same name), which is his answer to Jane Eyre and which also has some interesting connections with SP which I plan to explore in another review series. Next came this novel, and then Beloved Victim (1981), adapted from “A Lady Never Loses Her Head,” which I don’t recall having anything noteworthy in common with SP, but I may need to re-read it to make sure. He also wrote two mystery novels, The Shark Bait Affair and The Ladykiller Affair, for the Zebra Mystery Puzzler series, but those are both very rare now and I haven’t yet read either, so I can’t say anything about them. The book Mystery Women: An Encyclopedia of Leading Women Characters in Mystery Fiction does, however, provide some information on their protagonist, Kate Graham, along with short plot summaries. As someone with two trunk novels from the last decade and about fifty pages of a third--which I mostly stopped working on after I started this blog--I also envy him for this. How on Earth did he find the time?

But I digress. Like that of “Here Goes the Bride,” the plot of Shadow Over Seventh Heaven draws heavy inspiration from Daphne du Maurier’s famous Gothic romance Rebecca, but with some major differences in plot and characterization. The novel fleshes out the radio drama some more, adding additional details and plot twists that aren’t present in the original play, which arguably make it more interesting. One gets the impression that he had a lot of story in mind while he penned the original drama, but knew he could only squeeze so much into a 45-minute radio play and so had to leave many of the most interesting details out.

But that’s enough background information. Let’s begin our analysis and see what Ian Martin’s later work can tell us about his original intentions for Strange Paradise.

Introduction

The face is lovely, matchless....

Opening like some gigantic and exotic flower as the camera zooms in...

It fills the screen, flawless, enticing....

The lower lip glistens, pulled away from those perfect teeth, trembling ever so slightly, promising undreamed-of delights for the man brave enough to taste its forbidden fruit....

The skin glows with an inner light....

The eyes beyond the thick fringe of dark eyelashes shimmer with the deep violet of a tropical night....

The pitiless exposé of the camera is defeated, no matter how close it probes in close-up....

This is beauty without blemish....

This is everyman's dream woman--sex symbol of the nation, and most of the world....

This is April Tennant!

Strange to think of her dead, for on the screen she is captured forever in all her vibrancy and stunning beauty....

Impossible to think of her lying, mangled and bleeding on the rocks, while the hungry sea licks out as if to possess her.

Incredible to think of her cold and in the grave. Which she has been for twelve months--or this story never would have begun (p. 5).

The first page of the novel introduces us to April Tennant, this novel’s Rebecca and also its Erica Desmond. Like Rebecca, she is the first wife of the protagonist’s love interest, whose tragic death will cast a shadow over her former estate. Like Erica, she was a famous actress--probably more so than Erica ever was--but the cause of her death is not the same as the alleged cause of Erica’s. In Episode 5 of Strange Paradise, Erica’s grieving husband Jean Paul claims that she died of eclampsia while pregnant with their son, although evidence uncovered by other characters in later episodes leads them to contest that claim. Instead, April’s death resembles that of Huaco, the wife of Jean Paul’s ancestor Jacques Eloi des Mondes who died when she fell from a cliff on Maljardin, Jacques’ island estate.

In this introduction, we also see what will become a theme of the novel: gaze. Not just the male gaze--the obvious POV of the introduction--but, more generally, the viewing of April Tennant almost exclusively through the eyes of other characters, both male and female. We never learn much about her inner life, even as we learn those of Jenny (our protagonist), Richard, and others. April is largely a mystery, a larger-than-life figure of ideal beauty who, in the eyes of the public, is more a legend than she is flesh and blood. It’s the same mystique that surrounds celebrities in real life that often makes other people forget that they, too, are human--if, indeed, that’s what April was. Or is there more to it? I guess we’ll have to find it.

Chapter 1

The first chapter begins with a detailed description of San Rafael--and by detailed, I mean that Ian Martin spends one and a half pages describing its wall, followed by two on the mansion itself. I won’t type out too many passages from this book for copyright reasons--for, unlike Strange Paradise, this book is still under copyright--but I will include some highlights. The wall surrounding the castle “was thick enough at the bottom to withstand any tremor of the California earth...topped by a corona of jagged broken glass and it ran for a mile and three-quarters in a great semicircle away from the rocky Pacific coast and back to it again” (p. 6). On its gate,

The ironwork swept and swirled in great balanced curlicues, and the frame was heavy and studded. The studs held great sheets of blackened steel, heavy enough to withstand a battering ram, blocking any vision of the grounds the wall concealed. And the vertical members of the scrollwork reared high above the frame of the door and the top of the wall in a bristling array of spikes, sharp as swords, arched forward to further discourage any hardy trespasser who might try to climb their height (pp. 6-7).

In case you haven’t already figured it out, Martin loved his purple prose. If you don’t like Byzantine descriptions of architecture, ironwork, clothing, or anything else, you probably shouldn’t read this book or any of Martin’s other novels. (Nightmare’s Nest is far purpler, however, than this one. There’s an entire chapter in there devoted to describing the protagonist’s lush Edwardian finery.) Fortunately for me, I love this kind of thing and will gladly devour description after description of gates covered in iron curlicues. My literary tastes tend toward “more is more” and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

We learn that San Rafael is a reconstruction of an old Spanish mission, commissioned by April and built in part by Richard himself, “who personally took charge of putting in all the glass that fronted on the sea.” The gardens that surround it give it “a riot of color--bougainvillea, hibiscus, passionflowers, trumpet vines--all enhanced and set off against the majesty of rows of carefully spaced Italian cedar, or Lombardy poplar” (pp. 7-8).

Despite all this radiant beauty--and as one might expect for reconstructed ruins from the era of Spanish colonialism--the estate is believed to be cursed, at least by “the superstitious peons who built the walls” (p. 9).  (That’s what the book uncharitably describes the Mexican builders--some parts of this book haven’t aged well, as you will see.) Two men died while rebuilding it, followed by April herself around a decade later.

Surprisingly, we learn at the end of this chapter that Richard Morgan’s background differs from that of Jean Paul Desmond. An actor himself, he “was king of the theater, and of East Coast entertainment. Their marriage was a royal one, and it vaulted both of them to new and undreamed-of heights of popularity” (pp. 9-10). It was this popularity that drove them to wall themselves in at San Rafael and use the police and guard dogs to keep rabid fans and paparazzi away--which, ultimately, didn’t work and only led to “a new wave of interest and snooping” (p. 10).

Chapter 2

Here we meet Richard’s sister Lisa, who is...well...quite an interesting character. She’s a beautiful woman with short hair, a deep voice, and--most importantly--an unusual, creepy level of attachment to her brother.

Cersei Lannister Lisa Morgan.

Lisa has just received a phone call from the Philippines where her brother is. The call has left her “literally stunned” (p. 11), which means that the modern slang meaning of “literally” dates back 30+ years longer than I thought. Surprisingly, she isn’t drinking wine to calm her nerves like Cersei above, but that’s her loss.

As she gazes at the ocean to the west, her housekeeper, Conchita Aguilar,  enters. Chita (as she is usually called) has not just worked as April’s housekeeper for most of her life, but also "she and her husband, Juan, had quite literally brought up April” (p. 13); as a result, she is fiercely loyal to the family of her deceased mistress. Here is a portrait of her:

Looking at the tiny woman with her bright button eyes, the black Indian hair swept stiffly away from her face, parted in the middle and tidily put away in a tight bun low on the back of her neck, Lisa was surprised at the sudden urge to go and take this familiar person in her arms--or better still have Chita take her in hers.[...]Chita might be tiny, but she was all steel and whipcord (p. 13).

Sound familiar?

Yes, Chita bears a resemblance to our beloved Raxl. They even have a similar background, for Raxl, too, comes from a people indigenous to Mexico, according to Episode 23.  Like Raxl, Chita is very old and has a mysterious magnetism that draws some people to her (which, in Raxl’s case, includes me). There are some minor differences--Chita doesn’t worship the Great Serpent, she uses gratuitous Spanish instead of gratuitous French, she has a living husband and grandson--but they are, in most ways, the same character. It’s clear that Ian Martin didn’t want to part with Raxl, and I don’t blame him one bit.

Also, for whatever reason, he was oddly insistent on both of them having a specific hairstyle. If you read the original script for the show’s pilot, you will see that he was almost as specific about Raxl’s hairstyle, mentioning “her hair tightly drawn over her ears to a small bun,” but less detailed about those of the other characters. Just an odd detail that probably bears little significance, but that I noticed.

Lisa tells Chita that Richard is on his way home with a new wife, a young, very wealthy orphan named Jenny Summers whom he met in the Philippines. This angers the ancient housekeeper, who argues that Jenny can never come to San Rafael

Because there is no place for her here--en la casa de La Señora! Everything here is hers--she still lives here, and will always live here. Her perfume is in every room, her pictures are everywhere, every ornament and ashtray and book I keep just the way she last touched it. There is no room for any other wife here! Oh, she will feel it, she will know it, because La Señora would never permit another woman to take her place (p. 16)!

Lisa insists that, despite the risk that Jenny won’t want to live on the estate and despite her equal displeasure about the situation, Chita keep an open mind regarding her and try not to be such a Mrs. Danvers about the situation. (OK, so she doesn’t actually say the last part; that’s just my paraphrase.) She also tries to pressure Chita into helping her take down the mementos of April at Richard’s orders, which she objects to, both for sentimental reasons and because they don’t have time to have the enormous fresco of April that adorns the former chapel. (Symbolism!)

“It was a breathless and yet terrible beauty. For any woman who stood next to it had to be eclipsed” (p. 20).

Yes, you read that right: they rededicated the mission’s former chapel to the silver screen sex goddess April Tennant. After their wedding, Richard had a giant fresco of her painted there in place of its former altar. This is a clear indication that one or more of the people in this household worship April, whether literally or figuratively. More than that, the portrait glows like that of THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES, and seems, like Jacques’ portrait, to be alive, the living essence of a dead person. “Most haunting of all was the feeling that this was the woman--that she could not have died, that any moment she would step off the wall, and her silver laughter would fill the house again (p. 20).”

I’m sorry, Jacques. ;)

Coming up next: Jenny arrives at San Rafael and tries to adjust to living on an estate where almost everyone but Richard acts like they hate her.

{ Next: Part II -> }