#hagseed

[thatstudyblrontea]

Wishful thinking is very strong – you don't see it coming, because you don't want to see it coming.

— Margaret Atwood

[pussypopstiel]

I stand with my cancelled wife (the joke is they’re both my wives)

[rudestmechanical]

i want to read at least one book a day for the rest of november so i can read just christmassy / winter-y books in december. let’s do this lads

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 4.5/5

Book Blurb:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ava Reid comes a “masterful reimagining” (Publishers Weekly) of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s most famous villainess, giving her a voice, a past, and a power that transforms the story men have written for her.

“Lady Macbeth doesn’t retell Shakespeare so much as slice cleanly through it, revealing what was hidden beneath. I couldn't look away.”—Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of Starling House The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men. The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed. The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive. 

But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world. 

She does not know this yet. But she will.

Review:

A new take on Macbeth... but the story is about Lady Macbeth and her journey as witch, bride, and villain. Ever since she was born she has been called witch, daughter of hagseeds... and the bastard child. Known for her unearthly beauty, said to entice and capture men, and for her mysterious gifts.... now she has been sold off to marriage in a strange land to a Scottish brute who is known for being a warrior and relentless both in the field and when it comes to the marriage bed. The Lady knows that his court is hostile and that to survive she must use all her cleverness... but every move will cost her and she must keep her witchcraft hidden if she wants to survive. But she can only endure so much before she snaps... and with a husband who is as brutish as he is ambitious, a court who is out for her, and the only solace she finds is in a rival prince who is somehow more monstrous yet kinder than her own husband.... the Lady must find a way to free herself before it is too late and she finds herself on the end of her husband's obsession with witches and prophecy... and find herself his newest victim. I have always enjoyed the Macbeth story and this was such a unique twist and take and I absolutely adored it. I loved that Ava Reid gave a voice to Lady Macbeth, I loved that she made her so much more. This was a really delightful read and the ending just felt perfect. I gritted my teeth while reading this book and felt the anger and vengeance that Lady Macbeth had been stewing in, I loved her endurance and strength. This is just a gorgeous take on a classic and one I would absolutely recommend for fans of the original or of anyone who enjoys female rage stories because rage she did and righteously so.

Release Date: August 13,2024

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Del Rey for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[stewy]

hagseed by shivussy on ao3 you will always be famous

[madtomedgar]

Books Read in July:

All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism: I had tried to read this book and bounced off it a few times for personal reasons that had nothing to do with the content of the book, because someone who knew I was getting annoyed about being treated like the Disabled Person who Talked About Disability Things because I was Disabled gave it to me because we'd recently had a conversation about my Autism situation, and it was in a gift-giving situation where the other people getting presents got like. Books about skills and history and other intellectual stuff, and I got. The Disabled Book about Disability for the Disabled Person. Which turned me off of it for a while. I also have mild personal beef with one of the editors. I'm glad I finally made myself read it. There are a couple of good essays in it. Unfortunately, like all anthologies, it's very hit or miss, and this one, sadly, was more miss for me. Part of it, I think, is that the vast majority of the essays focused on the contributors' bad experiences growing up and in school with social alienation and peer and adult harassment. There's definitely a time and a place for these kinds of narratives! It's important to shine a light on the unique experiences that autistic children of color have, and the unique struggles they face. However, a lot of these essays felt more like I was reading someone's therapy journal or tumblr post than like. An essay in a published anthology, and, because the focus was so heavy on the growing up/school experience, I felt like I didn't get any real sense of the lives, joys, struggles, frustrations, etc of Autistic adults of color, beyond the few who talked about being mothers of also-autistic children. And personally, I'm so tired of all the focus being on the pre-22 experience and existence! Also, I understand the logic behind the like... everyone welcome, come as you are approach that a lot of disability justice types have adopted in terms of contributions for published works and public shows, but I disagree with it. I think the lack of editorial eye, rigor, and curation makes us look childish, sloppy, and less-than, and in doing so creates a shanda fur di goyim. And like. Idk. Maybe that's reactionary of me? But the other Autism anthology I've read, Loud Hands, had, I thought, a wonderful balance between scholarly articles, very well written personal essays, more lay confessional type things, and pieces that wouldn't be considered for other types of publications, but nevertheless in context were moving, insightful, and delightful. Like I said, there were a couple good essays, and I think if I'd read it when I was a good deal younger I would have gotten more out of it, but overall, not the book I was hoping for.

Hagseed, Margaret Atwood: A very fun book! The narrative voice was just the right side of cynically arch. It's maybe the first like. "Non-Theater People (or self-conscious theater-people) Write About Theater" book that I didn't feel was making fun of theater and like. Grotesquely exaggerating things on purpose to make theater look ridiculous. It captured the puffed-up silly self-importance of Serious Theater Types while also understanding that they really are brilliant artists, and that brilliant artistry sometimes means doing out-there things that don't always pan out. So that was nice. I thought it worked very well as a story based on the Tempest. My only criticisms are that, at times, I thought the commitment of sticking to the plot of Tempest hemmed it in a little, and that, while I know she said she did a lot of research, I question Atwood's cynicism and assumptions around the inmates' condoning of Caliban's attempted rape of Miranda. In my experience with an admittedly narrow subset of the types of guys who wind up in minimum and medium security prisons, there's a Type who is very attached to a like. Working-class chivalry that justifies his particular brand of misogyny by vocally condemning things like violent rape and wife-beating. So that rang, as I said, a little cynical. Otherwise, incredibly fun read.

Memorial, Bryan Washington: Not a bad book, and I'd be interested to read his short stories, but not for me. I thought he very effectively captured an inured depression that thinks of itself as merely clear-eyed incredibly well. I loved the way Houston felt like a character in its own right. I thought it was an unsentimental and quietly heartbreaking portrait of what happens in the aftermath of a family breaking apart, and of a kind of cold, cynical, detached mode of pre-emptively cutting oneself off from emotions, experiences, and connections that can develop in environments that alternate between cold repression and explosive violence. I also thought it did a good job of portraying a couple who are mostly together anymore out of habit and fear of abandonment/loneliness/being unmoored, but who have different levels of understanding around this, and I liked the way it ended for Mike and Ben. That felt organic, earned, and satisfyingly unresolved. What didn't work for me was the extreme sparseness of the prose. The author avoided adverbs, adjectives, and interiority to an extent that I found disorienting and confusing. Reading the conversations between characters in person felt no different than reading their conversations over text. Because of this, I found it hard to understand the reactions they had to each other. I would be reading a conversaton as closed and hostile, and then everyone would start laughing companionably, or I'd think the conversation was a happy, kind of joking one, and then someone burst into rage or tears. It was kind of like when I meet a new person and haven't developed a baseline for their body language, moods, facial expressions, tones, etc, and so I am never quite sure what they're feeling in a conversation, but taken to such an extreme. I found this style compelling in Yiyun Li's Where Reasons End because of the conceit of that book, but it didn't work for me in this one. Often there would be a conversation of "he said '[neutral sounding] words,' i said '[neutral sounding] words.' we both understood that what we'd said was a step too far. i left to get away from that nastiness." And like. I don't get what happened! Maybe I am stupid, maybe Houston-southern is like. More advanced than Western NC or Eastern VA southern. But it was like they were speaking in a code I didn't have the information to crack. I don't think that makes the book bad, but it does make it not for me.

My Journey to Appalachia: A Year at the Folk School, Ellie Lambert Wilson: So I am not reviewing this like usual because my reason for reading this is I know Ellie Wilson. I would go to singing and dancing nights at the Folk School as a little kid. It was kind of cool getting to read the history of where I grew up and people I know, or people I know's grandparents. Is it like. A great memoir with wonderful insight into the Human Condition? Absolutely not. But I did enjoy seeing old pictures of Keith House and reading about the great-aunt of the neighbor I got a Beagle puppy from when I was a kid.

Eileen, Otessa Moshfegh: I love that there now exists a corollary of Dostoyevsky's Underground Man but this time it's a nasty little rat girl. A lot of the narrator's neuroses around her body were pretty familiar to me, as were her neuroses around the conviction that she was Uniquely Evil when she was just like. Depressed, miserable, and undernourished, and outwardly was just a vaguely off-putting but perfectly normal and straight-laced person. I loved the twists. I loved the way the author blended repulsion with sympathy, for the main character, for her horrible alcoholic father, and for the mother of the juvenile inmate. I wouldn't say I enjoyed how gross the book was, but I did appreciate it, especially the way the narrator's repulsion and obsession with sex led to her describing all body functions and all little indignities of the flesh in this half-grotesque, quasi-erotic way. I very much enjoyed this book but it is very much not for everyone.

The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood: Frustrating. The poetry and more experimental or theatrical prose sections dealing with the 12 maids hanged by Odysseus and Telemachus were fantastic. However, the Penelope sections were not my cup of tea. I find her decision to use the conceit of Penelope telling this story from Hades after having been dead for a couple thousand years, as a way to allow her a narrative voice most comparable to an embittered, cynical, middle aged, upper-middle-class suburban wife who didn't divorce her cheating husband but really should have, boring and lazy. I don't think we gain anything by remaking Penelope in Carmela Soprano's image. I also didn't appreciate how the author used this conceit to make Penelope relatably cynical and arch about things from ancient sources that modern readers find slightly ridiculous, like the feasting and the focus on material treasure. I found the choice to imply that the adventures described in the Odyssey were fish stories, and a convenient cover for the wayward husband whoring and drinking his way across the Aegean, obnoxious. I tend to find people who pick some atrocity out of the corner of a well-worn myth or legend and demand that it be given its due, not glossed or excused or swept aside to focus on "important" things, compelling and interesting. So I very much liked her doing that with the 12 hanged maids, a footnote, and an atrocity. I don't care for it when people try to make a mythical or legendary woman "more" "interesting" by deciding that she "must" have "secretly" had "something more" going on. And in this case I found that drive on the author's part to be in unproductive tension with the demands that the maids be acknowledged as full human beings with just as much right to exist and speak as Odysseus, and therefore just as necessary to mourn.

Company of Moths, Michael Palmer: I loved it, but I have nothing intelligent to say about it. Wish I was better at reading poetry, though.

[jeennieluv]

i just realised i've been imagining tony from hagseed as the master from dr who and that's so funny. like this man's name is tony!! and he would overthrow the theatre and become a minister

[comfycel]

i am not pro or against the shiv pregnancy arc as long as it makes sense in the long run but also one of my friend's wrote an amazing study of shiv + motherhood that y'all should check out fr

[edotfightme]

Adrift in the Snow

This was a writing assignment I completed based on the story of the Ragvindr Brothers from Genshin Impact. It focuses on Diluc's time in Sneznhaya on his quest for vengeance. The entire story was also based around a quote from the Margaret Atwood book, Hagseed. Said quote is mentioned at the start.

Each character is renamed, so here is the guide: Diluc Ragvindr = Adustio Fenix Crepus Ragvindr = Calidus Fenix Kaeya Alberich = Jurian Niminul Albedo Kreideprinze = Consano Niminul Il Dottore = Il Dottore Sneznhaya = Zamoroz Mondstat = Donmun

Theme warning:

Talk of genocide

Mentions of Kaebedo (don't like, don't read)

Il Dottore (He's creepy in this)

Stalking

Unhealthy Obsessions

Mentioned burning someone alive

Mentioned bone breaking

Blood

Again, Dottore. He's creepy to Diluc here.

You've been warned.

“It’s taken a while, but revenge is a dish best eaten cold, he reminds himself” – Felix (Hagseed)

----<>----

Dramatis Perfonae

Adustio Fenix {A young nobleman’s son and dishonoured knight, on a quest for revenge}

Jurian Niminul/Fenix {A young gentlemen and captain of Donmun’s calvary}

Calidus Fenix {The deceased father of Adustio and Jurian Fenix. A nobleman with many secrets}

Consano Niminul {The kind-hearted spouse of Jurian Fenix and a renowned scholar, known for his study of alchemy}

Il Dottore {A twisted doctor who performs sick experiments on innocent victims, bringing death and destruction where he treads. Murders of crows follow him in droves}

Zamoroz {The country of ice and snow}

Donmun {The country of wind and wine}

----<>----

When one talks about the kingdom of Zamoroz, the first feature they bring up is the snow. The kingdom of eternal winter is known throughout the nine lands for the cold winds and fierce weather that drives most away. In the southernmost parts of Zamoroz, travellers must bundle up extensively to survive a trip to the market. In the north, the part of the land where the sun no longer rises, even that would not be enough to survive a minute.

However, when one is blessed with a god’s eye they can last that bit longer. They are powerful like that, god’s eyes. Creations gifted by divine beings to mortals, able to enhance the strength of even a meagre farm boy to that of a knight. On the other hand, there was a creation of humans that no mortal dared to even whisper its name. A creation of shadows and malice, eating away at the soul of the beholder in exchange for this very same power. A devil’s soul. And it is with that, that wholly cursed item, that Adustio survived.

[ENTER ADUSTIO]

The man, barely in his twenties, trudged through the ever-thickening snow. His clothing was weighed heavy by the blizzard raging around him, but he only had eyes for the distant settlement he knew to be his goal. The haunting cries of crows and carrion feeders sung a song of death and decay as they watched the weary and tired red head. Crimson eyes occasionally glanced down at the weapon concealed on his glove, the life sustaining soul of the demon that both gave and took in equal measure. Three long years of strife and torment, of torture and despair, have led to this moment. The fire in his soul burned bright as he glared ahead.

Adustio was a man of commitment, having dedicated himself to the knighthood of his homeland long before his journey had taken place. Blessed with an eye from the god of flames, he had thrived happily alongside his father. But of course, that was not fated to last. Three years ago had seen him on his eighteenth, watching his father die because of his failure. Watching his brother, his dearest little brother, turn traitor against him. The demon on his glove was his only lead to the source of the tragedy and following its whispers had finally led him here.

----<>----

----<>----

The bright lights of the northern town drew him in like a moth to a flame. The men at the gate welcomed him easily, bright smiles on their treacherous faces. As if they weren’t harbouring a monster. He got a few odd looks at the crest on his cloak, but none of the fools mentioned it. It would have been poetic if they had. Then they would know the importance as they burned to death at the flames of his phoenix.

The cheerful chatter of the townsfolk filled Adustio’s ears as he made his way through the town. He watched each face carefully, waiting for his target to reveal himself. That evil, vile man. He knew that he was here, all his carefully gathered sources stated it so. Adustio was so distracted by his revenge that he failed to notice the guards approaching his position.

“Halt.”

He froze, staring at them – or more accurately, their insignias – the ones that marked them as the personal military of his target. So, the villain was here all along then.

“Sir, we have been ordered by our commander to take you into custody. Do not resist.” The stocky soldier stated, a hand passively resting on his sword. Adustio ignored the concerned murmurs of the townsfolk in favour on focusing on his enemies.

“Doctor Balan.” Adustio muttered, moving his devil’s soul higher. The soldiers tensed as they locked eyes with his enraged crimson ones. “Do you know him?” All he received was silence, so instead he said a name he hadn’t in years. “How about Calidus, does that name ring any bell inside any of your useless souls?”

Weapons were drawn, solidifying his resolve. These soldiers, this whole town! They were all involved in his father’s death! And for that, they must all pay!

It was not hard for him. He has had three years to get used to it. Once the soldiers were down, the rest were next. His great sword spun and twirled as he darted across the snowy ground. He was brutal and elegant with his work. A craft forged and sharpened over three years.

The eerie calls of the crows sung a choir boy’s chorus of bloodshed and violence. The bonfires of revenge burned bright around the town as the crescendo of screams and cries sung their own melody of despair. Adustio’s path of destruction and devastation lead him around the town. Not a man, woman, nor child were safe from his gaze. Despite the cacophony of misery, the only thing the red-haired avenger could hear was the encouragement of the stone on his glove. The poisoned whispers fed the flames of his wrath. This was no longer a man. Men don’t do what he did.

----<>----

----<>----

A paper letter drifted softly to the ground, and Adustio picked it up with shaking fingers. Tears welled in the corner of his eyes as he recognized his little brother’s handwriting. Jurian had always been far too neat, though the flourishes were new.

My dearest brother, Adustio. You have yet to return the letters I send to Zamoroz, though that does not surprise me. You have never been one to speak to the ones you hate. However, despite our conflict the night of father’s death, I wish to send you a request. Donmun has been alive ever since the kind Consano Niminul asked for my hand in marriage. We will be married come the third winter of your absence. I pray for your safety every day, but today I send the gods my prayer for your swift return. I end every letter with this request, but I implore you this. Answer my question, either in person or over ink and paper. How have you faired in our years apart, I am most curious. Your lovely brother, Jurian Feniks.

He stared at the swirling handwriting, wondering if it was the blood loss that made it hard to read. Dottore laughed, low and menacing, as he plucked it from the man and tucked it safely back into his vest. “Oh, how I wish you were able to see your own face. I have never seen such an exquisite concoction of despair and regret. Mourning a man who still lives, how exciting. Truly, you are my favourite plaything, dear Adustio.”

Adustio only knelt in the snow, the horrible memory of the night it all went wrong playing in his mind like a demented note. The whispers of the devil’s eye moving a flaming blade against his brother. Blood and mud coated the ground, blue hair splayed out. A periwinkle eye, staring at him with terror as he bore down on him. Words long forgotten flew like arrows. But there was a sound he knew well, always in the background of his dreams and delusions. The screams as flesh sizzled and burned. Shakily, he looked around as the massacre he caused. In every dead soul, he saw his little brother.

“This is not what father wanted.” He whispered, horrified at his own actions.

Dottore knelt down, looking the son of Calidus Feniks in the eyes. Distantly, Adustio analysed the twisted man’s face behind the mask. If it were anyone else, he would have a kind face. But it had been marred by the horrible cruelty of a criminal.

“Now tell me, my dearest Adustio. You are happy to call me a monster, and I will not deny that I am. But now I have a question for you.” Sinister cerulean eyes stared deep into his soul. Adustio couldn’t help but wonder if Il Dottore ever was human. Maybe once, a long time ago.

“When does a man become a monster?”

----<>----

----<>----

Glossary of Terms:

Adustio: A latin word meaning inflammation, kindling, rubbing, burn, sun.

Fenix: Another, older method to spelling Pheonix

Calidus: A latin word meaning hot, warm, brisk, prompt, impetuous, fiery.

Jurian: Derived from the latin word Injuria, meaning wrong, injury, injustice, oppression, hurt, harm.

Consano: A latin word meaning heal, remedy, restore, satiate.

Niminul: Derived from the latin word Animulus, meaning heart, soul.

Zamaroz: Derived from the Russian word замороженный (zamorozhennyy) meaning frozen, blocked, and frappe)

Donmun: Derived from the latin word Domum, meaning ‘to the house’, home, at home, homeward, homewards.

Il Dottore: A character from commedia dell’arte, though twisted into a more sinister version in this gothic story. On panels 17-20, there are swarms of text covering the majority of the page. The text reads “save us”, “help us”, “You did this to us”, and “repent”. This is an artistic device and not meant to be read in any form.

----<>----

If you made it this far, thank you for reading my work! Please give me some indication you saw this, I put lots of work into this.

[kenboys]

Anyway read hagseed by shivussy on ao3 cause i will never be the same

[rhetoricandlogic]

Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

Review byNicole Brinkley

August 13, 2024

Sometime during the bleak 11th century, 17-year-old Roscille’s father sends her away to marry Macbeth, the fact that she does not wish to leave the land of her birth inconsequential to father’s need for allies. The large, brutish Thane looks “born right from the land of Glammis itself, right out of the earth,” and Roscille senses no warmth from him—only deep, unending cruelty.

Macbeth wants to marry Roscille for one reason: her magic. Roscille wears a veil at all times to hide her eyes, which can compel mortal men to do as she wishes. That power, combined with the witches Macbeth keeps chained beneath his castle, can help him fulfill the numerous prophecies about him and improve his political position. But Roscille does not wish to be his partner nor share his marital bed, to “submit herself to him like all the world’s women have before,” and as she fearfully starts to try and pull the strings of power, it sets off a chain of events that could both destroy the few people she cares about and force her to join the witches in the cold and the dark.

Author Ava Reid (Juniper and Thorn, The Wolf and the Woodsman) seems unconcerned with exploring the original themes and dynamics of the Scottish play. Instead, Macbeth is used as set dressing for a story about a young girl wed into terrible circumstances, a decision that will please fans of historical-inspired horror more than it will Shakespeare aficionados. Roscille’s main goal is to manipulate her way out of sharing Macbeth’s marital bed; unlike her theatrical counterpart, she is not concerned with power outside of how it keeps her safe. Despite the signs of distress and uncertainty Macbeth shows early on, any nuances in the Thane’s character vanish as he becomes a leader consumed by foolish and cruel ambition, a misandrist caricature that feels vaguely anti-Scottish and eradicates any moral complexity in Reid’s retelling.

Reid’s attention to stark, dark historical details combined with Roscille’s constant fear and anxiety (“her mind writhes with possibilities, like maggots in rotten meat”) gives Lady Macbeth an unearthly, nightmarish quality. Fans of the romance in Reid’s previous works will not find it here. Though Roscille does get a few moments of reprieve in her conversations with a spindly yet protective hagseed prince—”hagseed” meaning the son of a witch, and thus immune to Roscille’s eyes—Lady Macbeth is a horror novel about survival. Roscille has heard stories about sexual assault, spends the entire book fearing it and ultimately endures being raped by her husband as well as threats and physical abuse from men she once considered manipulable allies. Roscille feels herself going mad, though mileage may vary on whether readers find this ever-present danger thematically appropriate or wearying. Only in the last few chapters, as Roscille begins to understand her power, does retribution both magical and personal arrive.

Readers seeking stories of abuse survivors finally conquering their abuser and fans of grimdark historical fantasy will find Lady Macbeth elegantly written and right up their alley.

[pussypopstiel]

Just another day where I think abt Hagseed by shivussy on ao3

[thatstudyblrontea]

Margaret Atwood // Hag-Seed

[hag-seeds]

Helloooooo.... calling out to the ether. 

Official first post of a burgeoning craft/ folk art blog. 

Excited to experience the Tumblr nostalgia. 

[fangirlshandbag]

Sorry @streamedshakespeare, I know I’m a little late to the party given #TheTempest was last week, but I’ll get caught up. I promise. @therealmargaretatwood #hagseed #canlit #booksyouneedtoread #shakespeare #whenartimitatesartimitateslife (at Nanaimo, British Columbia) https://www.instagram.com/p/CCrs_iDJPJu/?igshid=1he9wqgb4e4tf

[juliadorsett13]

The Hag-Seed has such an insane plot for revenge that’s 12 years in the making and a great internal monologue that drew me in and kept the pacing fast all the way up to the ketamine-mushroom “immersion theatre” Felix forces upon the men he’s getting revenge on! I’ve never read the Tempest so I’m probably not getting as much out of this book as I could but @therealmargaretatwood put a synopsis at the end that helped see the parallels in her story. There’s still a lot of the play in the book because the main character is directing the Tempest at a Canadian prison with the inmates as the cast. I enjoyed seeing the inmates learning/acting/interpreting the play and how the inmates round out the characters at the end, as you would in class, giving interpretations and their feelings of the roles they’ve played. Definitely recommend if you like a good Shakespearean revenge story! #hagseed #tempest #margaretatwood #shakespeare https://www.instagram.com/p/ChnP80ovdd7/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=