#honestly it's 1921 here | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shoggothkisses · 1 year

Text

Lore Rant: Lovecraft References

I don't really think this post is super important to Genshin lore as a whole, so please consider this list as some self-indulgent trivia that I've been itching to share.

For a little bit of context (in case anyone here hasn't heard of Lovecraft): H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a New England author who created the "universe" his contemporaries refer to as the Cthulhu Mythos, and the "founder" of the weird fiction genre. A lover of cosmic and gothic horror, he was ultimately a racist, messed up, and yet deeply interesting little man. (My infodumps about him as a person will be contained to other venues.)

At least as far back as Inazuma, there have been easter-egg style references to his work hidden in text and achievements. Here are some of the ones I've found.

The Golden Wolflord / "Whisperer in Darkness" Achievement

The Whisperer in Darkness achievement can be obtained by completing the Golden Wolflord boss fight in co-op mode. The actual "Whisperer in Darkness" is a 1930 novella by Lovecraft, wherein a man in a tiny Vermont farmhouse is terrorized by extraterrestrial entities. The entities, however, have nothing to do with wolves (they're actually these flying pseudo-insectoid dragons from Pluto who can preserve the human consciousness in a jar. Which...might have more to do with Sumeru than the Rifthounds, now that I'm saying it.)

In mentioning the Golden Wolflord, it's worth bringing up a more overt Lovecraftian reference regarding Rifthounds in general - specifically their ability to pass in and out of Teyvat by "dissolving space." Frank Belknap Long expounded upon a concept Lovecraft began in his short story "The Hound" (1922) when he wrote "The Hounds of Tindalos" in 1929. The titular Hounds are dog-like creatures who live in the corners of space and can use any angular meeting between two points as an entrance into our world. They are also, much like Rifthounds, capable of draining the life out of their prey (although the Tindalos variety do this in a much...goopier way).

The Unsealed Parchment / "Call of the Nameless City"

The Unsealed Parchment item can be obtained in several different ways, including through the Aranara quest line, and triggers a mini-quest in and around Devantaka Mountain in Sumeru. Once you've triggered the third part of this quest, these words appear on the parchment:

But those eternal beings can never perish, Until death has become the end of death.

I remember reading this and finding it very familiar - and it became even more so when I found out somebody had translated the text on the actual quest item:

That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.

This is a oft-quoted couplet that Lovecraft first penned in his story "The Nameless City" (1921; also where the name of the quest achievement comes from) - a short piece where a man finds an ancient (still occupied) civilization of reptilian creatures under the Arabian desert - but is better known for its appearance in "The Call of Cthulhu" (1928). The couplet is attributed to the "mad Syrian poet" Abdul al-Hazred (nonsense name) in the Kitab al-Azif (or just "Al-Azif"), also known as the Necronomicon. Genshin's "nameless city" refers to Gurabad, which is also called a "city of brass;" Lovecraft makes references to a brass door that bars the way to where said reptilians reside.

The Sands of Al-Azif

This section of the Desert of Hadramaveth, as mentioned in the previous point, is a reference to Lovecraft's fictional "Al-Azif." Like the name of its author, "Al-Azif" means absolutely nothing in Arabic. However, Lovecraft alleges within his piece "History of the Necronomicon" that it refers to the "demonic" sounds insects make at night. Notably, this is the area of the desert where the Setekh Wenut dwells - even though worms are not technically insects. (Honestly, the jury is still out on whether the Wenut are supposed to be worms, fish, or serpents...oh well.) The "Al-Azif"'s author, Abdul al-Hazred, has likely inspired the numerous Sumeru academics who (like him) lose their minds while wandering through the desert, while the Necronomicon itself can be seen as an inspiration for the various pieces of "forbidden knowledge" that can be found in books and texts across Teyvat.

"The Greenery Out of Space" Achievement

This achievement that became available after Fontaine opened in 4.0, unlocked by defeating the Dendro Hypostasis in Co-Op mode. Lovecraft's story "The Colour Out of Space" (1927) deals with a Massachusetts family dealing with the consequences of a meteorite crash-landing on their farm. What begins as a boom in the size of their crops turns into a blight that takes the form of an unidentifiable "colour" the likes of which no human has ever seen; the color infects the plants and the water, eventually causing the family to mutate. The story was adapted into a movie starring Nic Cage in 2019, if it sounds like your sort of thing.

While this only barely has anything in common with the Dendro Hypostasis, Genshin lorecrafters have discussed how the color magenta has been consistently used to represent Forbidden Knowledge - a substance (or energy) known to be extraterrestrial in origin (Nibelung the Dragon King got it from...somewhere to be utilized in the war against the Primordial One). Magenta is often considered a color that "isn't real" - the tl;dr being that out brain combines the lowest and highest wavelengths in the visible light spectrum (red and purple) into a "new" color that doesn't actually exist on the spectrum of visible light. It isn't completely accurate to say it's not real, but you can see how it could be easily utilized by storytellers to represent something ~beyond human comprehension~. In fact, magenta is used to represent the horrifying "colour" in said Nicholas Cage movie.

These are some of the more overt references to Lovecraft that can be found in Genshin thus far. Since HYV apparently has a track record for name-dropping Lovecraftian stories and entities into their games, I have no doubt we'll be seeing more as time goes on. (Personally, I'd really love to get a King in Yellow reference while we're in Fontaine, considering He has ties to the theatre and France. But that's just me.)

If there are any I've missed, feel free to send an ask and I'll add it to the list!

#genshin impact #genshin lore #genshin spoilers #lore rants #topic: horror

8 notes · View notes

maccdadddyy · 11 months

Text

So! Today I'd like to address a very important issue at the forefront of all your minds: the Morton Salt girl. She's a real elephant in the room, right? You were totally sat at your computer today thinking 'I wish someone would talk about the Morton Salt Girl.'

Well, wish no longer because here I am

What the fuck is the Morton Salt Girl

I won't lie to you, I actually didn't know what the Morton Salt Girl was two hours ago either. Basically, it's something I read an article about this morning, was transfixed by, did some more research on, decided was the most interesting poetic coolest thing ever, and then will have forgotten about by lunch. This is something that happens to me with alarming frequency.

The Morton Salt Company is like the salt company in the United States. It's been around since 1848, originally just selling salt but now manufacturing it also. At first just playing the table salt game, they've since grown their empire to include industrial sales like road and highway use.

In the early 20th century, table salt used to clump when it was rainy outside. This is because of loads of sciencey reasons that I don't care about, basically all you need to know is that if it was rainy or humid outside, salt would clump, and therefore wouldn't come out of the shaker. Try your best to keep your cool while imagining such a dystopia.

Morton Salt got some science geeks to do some sciencing (or that's the gist or it anyway, I'm not quite sure of their specific process) that made salt not do that anymore. So, when it was raining outside Morton's salt wouldn't clump, it would pour through the shaker.

To celebrate this victory over salt-clumpiness Morton launched a new ad campaign with the slogan (and this is fucking genius) "When it rains, it pours" Yeah, I know, that slaps. I love that so much.

Along with this new slogan came a new logo... the Morton Salt Girl. A young girl in a downpour, carrying an umbrella in one hand and a bag of salt in the other. The salt is flowing from the bag despite the rain, something only Morton salt would do.

None of this is what this post is about. Let's get on to the actual post.

Rating the Morton Salt Girl

Since 1917 there have been seven iterations of the Morton Salt Girl and I have opinions about every single one. I'm going to give them all a rating out of ten based on just pure vibes man, just vibes, and then rank them from best to worst.

Here are all the Morton Salt girls, for reference. This post would be pretty shit if I didn't include an image of all the Morton Salt girls.

1914 - 8/10

I honestly love this one. The OG, The classic, she is the Morton Salt Girl. She's such a bizarre ugly little troll thing and it's so vintage. She really looks like an authentic grubby little kid. If it was 1914 you could imagine this grubby cheeky little girl stood outside holding a bag of salt and spilling it everywhere, that's so totally something she would do. The way the salt is just falling STRAIGHT down, I love. It's not overly whimsical like some of the others, it really looks like this stupid lil kid is spilling the salt, and she's totally unaware it's happening, and her mother is going to be so mad. I strongly dislike the umbrella handle, though. Just a bad umbrella handle and I don't need to explain that take at all.

1921 - 4/10

For me, this misses the mark. I hate her smile, why is she staring at me like that. Fuck off you little creep. I do really like that they've made her dress more dynamic and added that bit of movement, that's nice. That's actually great, damn, and I'd say the dynamic movement in her dress is probably the best out of all of them, but I'm still not bumping her up past a four. Originally she was going to score higher, because I thought those were wellies, but I'm actually not sure they are? The left foot looks like a welly (which would be amazing - she would look so much better with wellies) but the right foot looks more like a shoe with high socks, which makes more sense because that's what all the others have. Not sure. I hate her hair, it looks awkward and fucked up. I'm okay with the salt. Whatever. Next.

1933- 7/10

Now, this Morton Salt Girl is a little cutie! She's basically the same as 1921 but just prettier, way way nicer to look at. I think her bow is adorable, her dress is also incredibly adorable, and the umbrella handle is a real improvement. Her legs are definitely my favourite, she looks like she's taking a big swinging enthusiastic step, which is how I walk through the rain at my absolute cutest. The others seem more like they're posing for a photograph. I also like that her legs are kind of chubby. After 1914, she's the one who feels the most like an actual little girl. I don't really like the shading on top of her umbrella, and I'm not a huge fan of the whimsical way the salt is spilling, but she's a solid contender for the top spot, she's great.

1941 - 6/10

Okay, so this one is pretty cute, but she evokes something culturally that I just don't like. She looks too perfect and pretty and Southern USA. She remind me of child beauty pageants and it just puts me off? I really like her little yellow socks, they're adorable, and the colour scheme off this one is a big reason for why I like it. This is definitely just personal preference but I also think she looks too happy? Like girl, your salt is spilling. Why are you over the moon about it. The Morton Salt Girl should tell a story, I should feel something for her. This one doesn't look like a girl, it looks like a logo. And I hate that.

1956 - 3/10

They just took the 41 Salt Girl and made it worse. This is the exact same design but objectively worse in like five ways. Why have they got rid of the blue? Why is she holding the umbrella at such an awkward and terrible angle? Stop smiling at me, I hate you. I definitely think the lack of blue here is a bit of a travesty and the previous model looked so much better with the blue under the umbrella. The one saving grace here is those adorable yellow socks, I really like them. But at the same time it makes me wish she was wearing yellow wellies because that would be off the charts. I would love the Morton Salt Girl to be wearing little yellow wellies.

I've come back to this one to add that the salt looks AWFUL here. Those ugly looking DOTS. Why?? It looks so bad. No thanks. I don't want to put that on my chips.

1968 - 8/10

I like this a lot. They've got rid of her cheesy grin, which I really like. There's a poetic melancholy to this salt girl, as there should be. Rain is so melancholic and bitter sweet, standing in the rain evokes a lot of emotions and I feel like this Salt Girl is properly displaying those emotions. I really like that there's still some shading here, it reminds me of the earliest mascots with it's vintage feel and really gives her an edge over the 2014 salt girl, whose lack of detail makes her seem more corporate. I will say that, for me, that dress is a little bit short. It didn't need to be that short. But yeah, she's great. She's really filling the role, she's definitely the most emotive. The decision to go with a lighter blue for the inside of the umbrella is a good one, I think it modernised and moved forward the colour scheme without destroying it. The yellow handle is a fabulous touch also. The salt here is great - that looks like salt. Good salt. I love the way it's spilling.

Although, we've lost the frilly socks! This is deeply upsetting to me as I loved the frilly socks. Almost as much as I would've loved wellies.

2014 - 7/10

I don't have a whole lot to say about this one, I'd consider her just a modernisation of the 1969 model but more boring. I think her hair is great, and I like that she's looking down. The dress is flowing perfectly but again I think it's just a bit too short for me. Her shoes are an improvement on the last one, they've very cute. The choice to have the rain bouncing off the umbrella is absolute genius and I love it. It makes my heart hurt for the lack of umbrella-rain-bouncing in the 1933 salt girl. The handle as well is perfect and the brolly looks sophisticated overall. I think the complete abandonment of the original colour is a real shame, but overall I really like this Morton Salt Girl. She does a lot in terms of the same melancholy look that 1968 had and I can understand why someone would like her more.

FINAL RANKING

Number One................ 1914. You just can't beat the OG, but it was close!

Number Two................. 1968 incredible showstopping amazing fabulous.

Number Three.............. 2014

Number Four................ 1933

Number Five................. 1941

Number Six................... 1921

Number Seven............. 1956

I don't care if this doesn't match with the 1-10 ratings I gave them. This is my blog, fuck you. I'm the boss here. Yeah. whatever

- M 🍄

4 notes · View notes

operation-priority · 7 months

Text

Tankiste Loadout Display

Shown here is the Great War French Tank Crewman loadout displayed in its entirety. This display photo includes both regulation items as well as common items a Veteran tankiste would reasonably have within the time frame of 1918. With the completion of this writeup I hope you have gained newfound knowledge and respect for the soldiers of the Artillerie Spéciale who did not have the privilege we have to wear their uniform in a purely educational and peaceful capacity. While reenacting does not give us the attached, constant, and profound social impact necessary to truly understand the citizen soldier's feelings of the time, what we can do as preservers of history is get as close as possible to this feeling through authenticity. Part of this is, of course, performed through understanding the history of their uniform and the 'why' behind its appearance. It is especially important in regards to the AS as their uniform would be developed at the frontline by the soldiers themselves. Thus, wearing the uniform as a reenactor provides greater insight into why the soldiers modified their kit more than any time period photo could. By far the best part of the hobby is reading a memoir or account of a tankiste complaining about a certain aspect of the uniform, and wearing the uniform and agreeing with their complaint 100 years later.

It honestly feels very cathartic to be at a stopping point in this impression that I feel is sufficient enough to both respect and teach the history of the AS with others. This kit is the product of years of pure research, long nights translating French documents, the stress of historical auctions, trial and error, dumb luck, consultation with experts in the field, and general all around effort in finding the right things to acquire. As a reenactor who specializes in the French tank corps of the Great War, I am glad to have shared this interest with you. Well until next time!

♠ ♥ ♦ ♣

I believe it would be appropriate to end this deep dive into AS history with the words of General Estienne and his thoughts on the American Tank Corps from the May 1921 letter:

"General Estienne (who organized the Tank-Corps) Inspector of the Tank-Corps 4 bis Boulevard des Invalides. Paris 26th - May 1921 -

"Madamoiselle; I am much pleased to give you my view as a soldier of what we owe to the American help. Without this help, I don't believe Marichal Foch would have been able to effect the wonderful manoeuvre by which, in 4 months, he forced the enemy to a capitulation, unequalled since that of Carthage. From a personal point of view, as commander of an artillery attack in Lorraine, I have witnessed the action of the American Tank Corps together with our little Renault Tanks. Having witnessed their incomparable bravery, I am grateful for a renewed opportunity to express the affectionate admiration which the French Tank-Corps conceived on the Battle-Field for their American comrades continuing this same feeling in time of peace. With the expression of my respect, I am, Mademoiselle, etc. -"

#history #tanks #renault ft #technology #world war one #reenactor #uniforms #reenacting #reenactment #reenactors

4 notes · View notes

stories-of-the-nrm · 10 months

Text

The RWS 75th Anniversary - 0 to 2

Narrator: It was night time on the Island of Sodor. The island had just celebrated the North Western Railway's 100th anniversary. Edward has worked on the railway since the day it was established. All of the other engines at Tidmouth Sheds wanted to hear the story of how the railway was established and how Edward came to the Island. (Fade to Tidmouth Sheds). Thomas: Hey Edward, do you remember how the NWR was created? Edward: Yes Thomas, I do. We helped build it. I was only bought about a year after you were. Percy: Really, I didn't know that. James: Oh yes, Edward's been on the island for so long that his paintwork has become rusty and dull. Everyone: James! Gordon: Honestly James, making fun of Edward has become too old of a joke. Henry: You don't understand, James. Edward has been working on Sodor long enough to have known the founder of the Railway and Sir Topham Hatt's grandfather. Edward: Actually Henry, the first Sir Topham Hatt became the railway's controller in 1923. Jack(sitting on Henry's buffers): But, didn't the original Sir Topham Hatt bring you to the island, Edward? Edward: Yes, he did. Even though he wasn't the very first controller, Sir Topham Hatt Sr. was the Chief Mechanical Engineer and made the agreement with the Furness Railway to have me help create the railway. Thomas: So you weren't originally bought by Sir Topham Hatt? I always thought you came here and you were bought in 1921. Edward: Well Thomas, I think it's best if I start at the beginning. (Fade to black). Edward: I was nothing. I had no life. I was just a pile of metal. I had no memory, no face, no emotion. Nothing. Until one day in 1896 when I had my fire lit for the first time. I had life. Everything came to me all at once. My life, face, emotions, everything. Except my name.

(We see Edward come to life, getting painted blue, and working on the Furness Railway. We then cut to the present day). Percy: You mean you weren't called Edward back then? Edward: They don’t really name ordinary objects in those days so I had no name. They did call me one thing though: 0. I was merely just a prototype for later designs. I didn’t complain as we engines weren’t made to complain.

(Cut back to the past and have an Edward working on the Furness Railway montage). Edward: So I spent the next 20 years or so working as the number 0. Until the Great War. Since I was the oldest, the manager kept me locked in a shed because the railway needed faster and stronger engines. The other older engines were kept in the sheds too until they were sold. Until then, they would say that no one would want to buy me as I was nothing but old iron, and I had gray wheels.

Gordon: Well that explains why you seemed so upset by our teasing. Thomas: No one wants to be teased, Gordon. Edward: Anyway ... (Fade to Edward in the shed with very little light). Edward: It was like that for months as one by one the other engines were sold to other railways. It got to the point where all I could say was either nothing or 0. I kept track of the days by looking at the light that came in through the cracks in the door.

Jack: Whoa, I had no idea that any of that happened. Edward: Well, this is the first time I ever told this to anyone. Percy: Does it get better, Edward? Edward: Well Percy, ... (Fade to the past). Edward: About a month later after everyone had left, I heard a man outside the shed say he was looking for an engine. I wanted to believe that he would buy me but I noticed that my paintwork had started to rust and turn to gray. My wheels really were gray. I was nothing. I was 0.

James: Oh Edward, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. Edward: I know you didn't, but it still doesn't change what happened. Henry: So what happened, Edward? Edward: When I heard everyone chattering ... (Fade to the workers opening the shed). Edward: They opened the shed door and I was surprised that the man in a suit and black top hat actually wanted to buy me. I told him that I didn’t have a name nor a number. Then he asked me how I worked. I said that I was a good worker and that I always did as I was told like a proper engine.

Gordon: But didn't you say that the first Sir Topham Hatt didn't buy you? Edward: That's what I initially thought until he explained everything. (Fade to the first Sir Topham Hatt talking to Edward). Edward: The man in the top hat quickly changed my predicament. He introduced himself as Sir Topham Hatt. He asked me if I wanted to work for him and that I was a very polite engine. Jack: Why would Sir Topham Hatt be on another railway? (Flashback to the first Sir Topham Hatt speaking with the first chairman while Edward's speaking). Edward: He said that the Furness Railway was networking with other railways to build themselves up. The Great War meant that all railways had to be working in full production. Since Sir Topham Hatt was working with the first chairman of this railway, he needed to make deals with other railways to borrow some engines in order to finish building the NWR. Thomas: So you were given back to the Furness Railway just to rot? Edward: Yes Thomas. Sir Topham Hatt realized my situation and decided to give me a chance to work on the NWR after it was finished. So I accepted his offer. Since the Furness Railway didn't want anything to do with me they let Sir Topham take me for nothing under the condition that I be scrapped if I wasn't a really useful engine. (Fade to Edward getting repainted and working on the Island of Sodor). Edward: Once I got a new coat of paint the first chairman came to see me. Even though I was an older engine he thought I would be really useful so he gave me an actual name. Edward. I asked him why he gave me that name. He told me that Sir Topham Hatt told him how I was an honest and polite engine. It reminded him of his father as he was known as being a very polite and honest man. I felt so surprised that I almost burst into tears. Henry: That was so sweet of him. Gordon: Indeed. In spite of my poor treatment of you Edward, I always considered you to be a dignified engine that always showed an impressive amount of poise. Edward: Why thank you, Gordon. James: So who else was on the island when you showed up? Edward: I wondered the same thing James. (Fade to Edward after the NWR was completed).

Edward: Once the railway was completed, the chairman and Sir Topham Hatt decided to make me a permanent engine on the NWR. I asked them about my number. Sir Topham Hatt explained to me that the chairman decided to number his engines based on when they join his railway. The only other engine at the time that helped me build the railway was Glynn. Thomas was in the works at the time, so he wasn't given a number yet. Gordon: Is that why you are the #2 engine? Edward: Yes, Gordon. (Flashback to Edward getting his number painted on his tender). Edward: Since Glynn joined the railway first he got to be the #1 engine while I was going to be his number 2 engine. From that day forth I was known as Edward the blue engine also known as STH’s No. 2 engine. I went from 0 to 2.

(Everyone cheered).

Thomas: That was a great story, Edward.

Edward: Why thank you, Thomas. I'm glad that you were able to step up after Glynn was withdrawn.

(It was now night time).

Narrator: The sun had set and all of the engines at Tidmouth Sheds became very tired. One by one they all fell asleep, except Edward, who just looked up at the stars.

Edward(to himself): I can't believe it's been 100 years. I hope the next 100 years will be just as fun.

(He closed his eyes and fell asleep).

Narrator: And as Edward slept, he dreamed about the future. Even though he would later have to leave Tidmouth Sheds and have a lighter workload, he would always be Edward Sir Topham Hatt's No. 2 engine. He was no longer nothing anymore. Edward will always be a really useful engine.

#ttte edward #75th rws anniversary #rws fanfiction

6 notes · View notes

shugar0cone · 8 months

Text

This is an OC intro/fan fiction

Please note that I have never posted somthing like this on here, so a lot of these controls/buttons are kinda unknown for me. Also you can tell where my hands started to cramp BC I’m on phone but I Perfur computer over this.

Warnings: (Oc x cannon) (mention of death) (mention of a miscarried) (mentions of death, gore, cannibalisim) ( mentioned of sexism)

-story below cut-

I remeber it like it was yesterday and not well god damn how old am I? I had to question myself on this a lot I’ve been down here for the longest of time, it felt like I was forgetting life and only remembering death. Well the year was 1910, I was 10 at the time. Ya see we had a land up in New Orleans it’s been passed down from gen to gen, me being a woman (and the time period it was in) I couldn’t inherit this land. My father Henry Trix and his wife (my mom) Mary trix tried to have a boy but nearly every time my mom had a miscarriage, or the child died on birth. When anything like this happened mom and dad got sad for a few days. My dad used to Pat my head telling me “it’s al’ight hun it ain’t yo’ fault.” His acscent was strong. My mother who is a French women hid her accent well. One day I brought home a coon skull fully intact, my dad was horrified but my mom said “c'est parfait!” And made some butifull art with em, you could tell she was happy when the French came out in her. One day it all went down hill my mom caught pneumonia and back then there was no coming out of it. My dad and I sat by her in her final days. As days rose I became more responsible for our land, I hunted, fed our chickens, horses and mule. I was quite the shot dad used to tell me. I could hit a bullseye a mile away!

When summer ended that year I went back to school I was quite intelligent the only thing I could not get down was the sewing classes. I used to prick my finger all the time and for being a straight shot I had some shaky hands when it came to that. One day while out on lunch I sat on the grass trying to sew. I’m assuming somone saw me struggling. That’s when I met this boy he was quite interesting he was smart and charismatic I’m supprised I never talked to him. He asked me if I needed help, I’m which I said “how could you do it, you’re just a boy?” My dad always got frustrated with the needle saying “MEN SHOULD NOT SEW!” We ended up going to a tailor that day. “Oh well my mother showed me how.” He sat by me takeing the needle and cloth out of my hand. “You don’t need to be forceful about it glide your way through take your time.” Id watch his hands it was effortless for him. “My you must be one good shot if your hands are that steady.” I say. “Yes I killed a buck with my dad last week!” I sat and listened to him till lunch ended. I later learned that his name was Alastor, I have heard of him all teachers expressed how courteous he was and how smart. Needless to say we’ve been friends ever since that day.

1920, I was a 20 year only single woman I worked all days to keep our land afloat, had to sell our horses and our chicken was killed by hawks but hey I still have my mule who was now probably 14. My dad passed away from the flu when I was 18, urging me to get a husband but I did not listen. I constantly received threats from the bank and/or cults saying “if you are not married within 30 days your land will be confiscated, no woman should work like this and is not responsible enough for this. “ I ignored. Al and I had a tight bond everyday after his job he’ll come to my home and be with me saying. “A lady should not be out here alone who knows what’s lerking.” Yeah we had the occasional bear and wild cat but honestly nothing a warning shot can’t fix. “Al I know it’s just, I don’t wanna marry but I do? I don’t know it’s complicated.” I say sitting down the tea that I made.

1921: Alastor and I began a relationship, like a lover kind of relationship. I don’t know how this manifested but one day he brought me flowers and asked me out, I loved Al for awhile but never expressed it really, I always thought it was a friendly feeling. I was wrong. We’d go on small dates and sometimes I would just hang out in alastors studio looking through skripts and hearing his voice. He never had days off really. He had is own apartment which ya think a celeb like him would have somthing bigger but nope. We’d read together and he’ll rant about the human mind and how just a simple smile can intimidate somone under some circumstances. Hell I never knew how much inlove with him I was.

1922: I’ve been begging Alastor to come live with me. I never realized how dark it was out there not how creppy it’s gotten especially since that Louisiana killer. He obliged but only at 1 deal, if I marry him never leave Him. The leave him part was kinda creepy he said it oddly but I said yes and made him move in as quickly as possible. Alastor was happy to have none public hunting grounds his words where “meat just taste better.” Which I agree the meat he’s been bringing home off of the couple bucks he got have been good abit chewed but good. I never understood how Alastor found good bucks that don’t taste as gamey but hey who am I to judge.

Jan 1923: sooo figured out the meat I was eating was human, and my husband is the killer but I love him. I helped him in his kills he refused for me to help get the meat off the bones saying “my, what about your dress we don’t need red on it.” I’m pretty sure it’s because my job is more messy than his. We only killed bad people though not innocents! Jhon hulkey used to beat his wife and cheat on her. I lured him out to the bar for Alastor to stick a knife in his throat, I shot maybe 1 or 12 folks but honestly I can’t remeber.

1933: stock market crashed so did my husband, one night as we where barrying a body: to fatty to eat. I was in the hole makeing sure it was deep enough so hounds or wild cats won’t sniff them up. I heard a hun being shot I thought it was Alastor but I was wrong. His thoughts and blood was on my face I did not know what to do except to get in our car and get to the hospital or police station

1934: a year has passed since my husbands death, I still killed only because I wanted his image to be good. I caught the eyes of a cult who killed widowed or unmarried woman, I guess being a celebrity’s wife makes a big target on your back. Anyways I was kidnapped from my own home drugged pretty much to only end up in a cage with men surrounding me in a fox mask and on horses. I was coverd in a white robe I was scared in that moment. When the cage was opened I went into the hill tops holding to live, maybe if I wasn’t barefoot it wouldn’t hurt as bad. These men I knew what these where when the horn blu. They where the fox hunters captured foxes and killed them for fun. I had gotten away for an hour until I heard a hind it latched onto my leg. A tall men on his devilish horse pointed his riffle at me then…

It went red.

A/N: WELL HOPED YA LIKE THIS! Sorry I usually write this on google docs so a lot of grammar mistakes and I did this on phone, I’m sorry if it’s corney and I know Al is OOC with the marriage shit but why not ya know. Honestly she is only in hell because of him but does she love him… yep death dose not due them part. Anyways bye bye!!

1 note · View note

heleneplays · 2 years

Text

PLEASE its been months since i requested this and like. you sending it then almost immediately and me keeping it in here. as a treat.

BUT RN IM JUST LIKE. INCREDIBLY WEEPY ABT IT,,,, so posting it as part of ur TUMBLR REBIRTH <3

so!!! @jamesshawgames thank u once again for indulging me and sending this 🥺✨ literally so awesome and sweet of you and i count myself lucky lmao <3333

ANYWAYS the thing under read more :)

You asked for ROs looking after a sick MC. So here's the first three!

---

Sick MC scenarios, Part 1!

***

"Here, drink this. It always cheers me up when I'm feeling poorly."

Rémy bustles over to the bed with something clutched in his right hand. He thrusts it under your nose.

"Wine? I feel like death and you're going to make me drink wine?"

"Non. I am not giving you mere wine. I am giving you a 1921 Chateau la Gaffeliere. If this doesn't cure you, nothing will!"

The smell of the alcohol makes you gag. Rémy immediately snatches his hand away.

"Helene, I love you, and I am not a violent man. But I am warning you, if you throw up on this jacket I will suffocate you with a pillow."

***

"Are you feeling better yet?"

You sigh. "No, Dominique. It's only ten minutes since you last asked."

They kick their feet restlessly. "You know what will make you feel better? Activity! Lying in that bed all day is no good for you. How about--hear me out--how about we nip outside and just do some really, really easy and relaxing robbery?"

"What are you talking about? I can barely stand up!"

"You know that pawnbroker's on the corner? Well, I was having a look at the lock on their back door the other day, and it's really easy. We could just slip in the back and we'll be home before you know it. It'll be great fun. You'd get some fresh air. You wouldn't even have to climb up the wall or anything."

"Please! I feel like I'm dying here!"

They sigh. "You've been dying for two whole days now. I'm bored!"

"Do you want to go and rob something?" you ask, a little frustrated. "You do, don't you? Why don't you go and do that? I'll be OK for a little while. Go ahead, have some fun."

They spring to their feet, beaming widely, and kiss you on the forehead.

"Thanks Helene! You're the best! I'll be sure to shoplift you some paracetamol on the way home!"

***

"Here you go, Helene," chirps Esme, approaching the bed with a glass in her hand. "This is my old governess Mrs. Strickland's miracle cure. She always used to give me this as a child. It always made me feel better."

You peer skeptically into the glass. "Is that a raw egg in there?"

"Yes! She always put a raw egg in. I think, anyway. Honestly, I can't quite remember the exact recipe, so there's been a little bit of improvisation. Raw egg, sugar, chilli powder, honey and just a tiny little splash of whisky."

You turn up your nose as she brings it up to your mouth.

"A splash of whisky? It smells more like there's half a bottle in there!"

"Yes, there is," chirps Esme brightly. "It was a splash of whisky when I was a child. But you're a grown-up, so I compensated. Now come on, drink up!"

"Are you sure this is safe to drink? You've made it before?"

She purses her lips and shakes her head. "Not exactly. I didn't actually have to make it when I was a child. We had servants to do that. But I watched them make it sometimes. I'm pretty sure I got it right." She thinks for a second. "Oh no, wait, I did make it once! When Harriet got sick on her eleventh birthday!"

"And did it cure her?"

"Um, not exactly. We had to take her to the hospital, as I recall."

You look at her for a few seconds. Silently, she moves the glass away from your mouth.

"Yes. Perhaps not."

***

More to follow!

#submission #relics of the lost age #relics series #relics series my beloved #PLS IM SO EMO ABOUT IT #relics mc #helene spillane #rémy fournier #dominique the amazonian #dominique thibault #esme fairfield #esme fairfield my beloved #fanfic #other people's fic #a+++ content #gift for lee

7 notes · View notes

kimyoonmiauthor · 2 years

Text

“But conflict and problem can be different, you misunderstand conflict. All stories need a problem.”

Is that what Lit profs are teaching you? ‘cause ummm... that is load grade A retconning there. Those are Lit profs that are scared that their knowledge might be *gasp* wrong, which it is. I’ve covered this multiple times and even found the origins of the conflict narrative.

Seriously, I think they need to do some studying of Writing Advice Books and Writing Theory itself before making such assertions. Honestly, it’s poor study of literature, from my POV, but I understand why the assumption was made. So let’s get into it.

Academics basically functions like this

You have a summer, usually, to read a bunch of books, but you don’t have time to read those books, so what do you do? You find other people who have read those books and find their takes on those books. The thing is that Writing Advice books, as I’ve griped over and over and over are traditionally poorly sourced. So if you find one, and read it, but only part of it, its’s really difficult to back trace where the ideas came from. But you have say, 3-4 months.

This leads to copy errors and so often the fallacies continue, until someone comes along and challenges the entirety of the copy errors (There is a great paper, for example, which I linked in the master post about Short Story Advice manuals and the origin of Writing Advice manuals started with short stories--if you’re thinking that’s after Poe, that is correct.)

So is it your teacher’s fault they listened to professors who couldn’t back trace and read all of say, Freytag and find out that he was really racist, ethnicist, etc? No. It isn’t. But the blind worship of him is. Because reading him took me with free time to spare a week because frankly he’s an asshole. (There is no milder way to put it.) He’s not a genius, BTW, because he didn’t publish that much. Nor is he lauded for those works in Germany because honestly, genocide and Germany no longer mix.

So basically people were picking and choosing without citation. Which is where I say, !@#$ Cite your works kids, it makes the academics happy. It’s not all about plagiarism. It’s also because people don’t want to call you ut for being an a-hole later and doubting your motives.

So forgive your teachers and take it from me that Writing theory is very poorly cited. And it took me forever and a day to figure out what I’m about to lay down. (And yes, I’m still working on connecting it.)

Conflict, from Percy Lubbock Craft of Fiction 1921

BTW, later attributed wrongly to Shakespeare, Aristotle, Brecht and a bunch of straight guys (Lubbock was gay, and came out much later, but tried to appear straight passing.)

I should note I pulled a lot of teeth tracking down this book and triangulating it. I read through the Aristotle to the 19th century, couldn’t find it, read through the 1940′s, couldn’t find it, took a few blind stabs, couldn’t find it, and then guessed after World War I, and using those previous points finally found it with the type of argument you expect from someone making a pioneering argument.

Complete text to check my work is here: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18961/pg18961-images.html

“What is the story? There is first of all a succession of phases in the lives of certain generations; youth that passes out into maturity, fortunes that meet and clash and re-form, hopes that flourish and wane and reappear in other lives, age that sinks and hands on the torch to youth again—such is the substance of the drama. The book, I take it, begins to grow out of the thought of the processional march of the generations, always changing, always renewed; its figures are sought and chosen for the clarity with which the drama is embodied in them.“

Because I had an extreme amount of time, I actually looked for reasons he might have thought this way. He’s described mostly as a reluctant modernist. He was gay, as I cited, but not out. He did write this after WWI, and if you remember, the world was basically in chaos then. People thought the world was ending. There was a massive world war. War was no longer “fun” as LM Montgomery put it (Rilla of Ingleside covers this--BTW, still one of my favorite, if not my favorite WWI account books.). People saw the cost of war. There was also a big plague of 1918 prior. People were staring at a ton of sudden industrial flurry too. And so, by 1921, of course the world looks like a bunch of conflict. Of course people think things need to change.

But the question is in what direction?

Modernists

The Modernists, unlike what was taught to me, already had a start long before 1921. It wasn’t all in reaction to WWI. Some of it was people getting tired of the endless wars and making commentary on social conditions of industrialization. Édouard Manet is credited with starting the art version of it. And on the writing side, Gertrude Stein is mostly credited with the start, but you can see roots in other 19th century writers, such as John Ruskin George Elliot, etc. (She didn’t take it from nowhere.)

Yes, yes, some of the ideology was Marxism, though not formalized until later, but some of it was asking questions which were viewed as highly offensive. (I kinda of think Waldemar Januszczak's documentary series probably does the best job to lay down the principles for you in ways my art profs would approve of. I could cite snobby books for you, but Waldemar is fun to watch.)

If you want to look at the early modernists, and paintings like the Gleaners, it’s all questions about industrialization and its effects. The Modernists are by definition, anti-structuralist because industrialization feels like a lot of constraint, and the WWI part is a “See, I told you moment.” Modernists are also popular outside of Europe because of the destruction colonialism and imperialism has done to the rest of the world. (Also, not usually covered by Lit professors). Because Modernism questions industrialization and power structures, it’s not particularly popular with the elite beyond knowing of its existence, but it is popular with people who feel oppressed by those systems: Gays, Lesbians, Women, People of Color, etc.

Modernists embraced the flurry of activity from lower classes and the invitation to literature from the Rotary Printing Press.

But then you had...

The Structuralists

These are basically the opposite end of the Modernists--how do you make Capitalism work for you? Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) is usually credited for the start of Structuralism and Functionalism. (BTW, neither of which should be taught to you in the social sciences as anything more than long debunked, but so seductive to think about. I’ve covered over and over though how the writing community loves to hang onto theories from other fields that have long been debunked.) So you should be thinking Levi-Strauss, Durkheim, and a bunch of French Philosophers.

In this corner, you have Freytag (Germany needs to exterminate all of the Polish people and anyone outside of Germany is backwards and not worth your time because English Lit has gone down the drain compared to German Lit. And Freytag is the greatest writer of all time--greater than Shakespeare, even though he’s written far less plays. --;; This is basically the summary of his book.)

Structuralism is sexy because it says there is a formula to life: You just have to find it. And if you find the formula to control, manipulate, and put everyone into tiny little boxes, then you can beat the entire system, and in fact, help build the system.

Say like Michel Foucault did by sexually assaulting a bunch of boys��https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/french-philosopher-michel-foucault-abused-boys-in-tunisia-6t5sj7jvw and had philosophy about the Panopticon, also scarring a bunch of French boys and girls at the same time. Or his theories about the mental health wards, which to my mind, made them worse, but you are free to disagree by reading his essays, which, to be clear, he made harder to access on purpose so he could sound like a rich academic. (I’m not a fan. And no, it’s not because he’s gay, but because his ideas went to scar generations of people and sexual assaulters being worshipped isn’t my favorite thing in the world.)

Levi-Strauss is mostly a dick, but I do like his essay on the Raw and the Cooked philosophy that was is not culture is often seen as “Nature” (Only works pretty much for Europe, because these French guys never really ventured outside of France). And anything in between is seen as Taboo good or Taboo Bad, but it’s an exercise in patience reading his work, because he tries to sound more academic, again, also because he’s pro-imperialism in a lot of ways and sounds absolutely racist.

But if there was a formula to control people and social structures, it might also work for books, and this is the side that your Lit Profs are usually taught as “Commercial” and “correct” writing, even superseding the actual philosophies of the Modernists, even if the Modernists, over and over objected to the Structuralists. You have both EM Forster and Virginia Woolf hating the fact that Percy Lubbock is breaking away from Modernism.

Likewise the Structuralists hated the Modernists--the amount of hate towards Gertrude Stein is high, which starts with Rowe, and continues with Lajos Egri and she gets snubbed by Syd Field when he boasts about knowing Modernist artists, and skips her over.

In the writing theory corner, the structuralists came late as theorists, So you’re looking at Roland Barthes, somewhat Bertolt Brecht, etc. Mostly the structuralists like to call on the powers of Shakespeare and Aristotle retcon them hard. It’s a tradition, you see, because Freytag started it. It’s a false call to authority (which BTW, people don’t understand the fallacy for). Because Shakespeare never said anything about his own writing. And most of the time it’s a decontextualization and misunderstanding of Aristotle (Whom I carefully cited on his ideas one by one.)

Honestly, though Barthes was writing in the 1960′s, and was only translated sometime probably in the 1980′s, (My loose theory is that the US wasn’t interested in Structuralism in the 1960′s, but the backlash in the 1980′s fit very well with the ideals. See Satanic Panic) by the 1980′s, in the US, Structuralism, as an idea in Sociology, Anthropology and History was losing a foothold (Along with the Great Man theory, which fed into the idea of Character-Driven v. Plot-driven. Both based in Imperialism, BTW.)

But as I said, the writing community loves, loves to hang on to old ideas and so, it gained steam and played well with the other writing advice books, which publishers had carefully selected to be, and I wish I was kidding, mostly White cishet abled men. Women got to publish in the 1980′s, sure about theory, but not quite in that section of the bookstore, so most of the writing advice is located either in academic texts out of the public eye, i.e. inaccessible, or in Memoirs, which people won’t read unless they are interested in the author.

This means, in the public eye, who aren’t questioning this, the Structuralists have won.

But what does that have to do with Conflict v. Problem?

Since conflict was invented in 1921, by structuralist/Modernist Percy Lubbock, whom again, needs to get more credit for his actual work (and preferably read in tandem with Forster and Woolf when examining writing theory), he actually did mean it to be conflict. Because that’s the word he uses over and over again. He did not mean problem. He meant it as the central driver of the story: Story Driver. This was his intention, which is picked up later by Rowe (no credit. !@#$ I have so many curse words for Rowe’s plagiarism. He was a university professor who got Shakespeare and Aristotle wrong and was called on it by Lajos Egri, dammit.), and mainly Syd Field, who popularized the Three Act (though it got away from him in the 1970′s-1980′s. I’m still working out how).

This was doubled down by Brecht (1898- 1956), because the “proper” model is that the climax is the main character’s lowest point. The discourse is that it “Makes the story interesting” But Brecht’s first assertion was that it would show what the character was truly made of. If you notice the dates, he lived through a ton of trauma. SO of course he’s going to think that. I should note he hated Aristotle. (Aristotle got the credit later for his ideas. --;; It’s not completely wrong on one hand to make them join together, but the motivation for both is very, very different.)

Brecht absolutely, and positively did mean conflict. I mean look, he lived through 2 world wars, several other wars, a pandemic, and of course he’s going to think that conflict could show the worth of a person. What do you think? But unlike Aristotle who is using it as negative reinforcement, Brecht is viewing it as a way to uplift, because what? The person gets out of the conflict.

If you don’t believe me, then let’s look at Romance as an example (Note that most Romance authors know this is not a healthy relationship.) You have introduction, cutemeet (Inciting incident), and the climax is what? Let’s say it together: The couple breaks up. This is following the Brecht model. The conclusion is that the characters get back together.

Is this healthy? No. Do people encourage you to do it in real life? Hell no. In fact therapists say if you are in a cycle of doing this, it’s unhealthy and to find better conflict resolution.

Action movies? What’s the worst fear for the main character? Let’s make it become true.

Horror movies: Highest anxiety is met by making the worst become true.

This was the accepted formula.

Saying it was always problem, is retconning Literary history without the text support, in which case, you shouldn’t do that, and often Lit profs lecture heavily against it.

Then why does my teacher say problem?

Honestly, the education system is poor. Your professor/teacher should be teaching Shakespeare like the Historians do and talking about Morality. As they put it bluntly: Honor the Monarchy, or get your head chopped off.

They should be talking Emotionality with the Gothic writers and John Locke.

They should be talking about Discovery.

About Naturalism, and all of the ideas that flooded the 19th century, but the truth is they weren’t really taught those things, and working from one formula, hearing someone talk about “But not every story has conflict” it’s hard to switch ideologies when it’s rooted that hard into your psyche.

So then, you start with, “Well, if not conflict, then problem.” Because the later thought is, if there is no problem then will not be interesting.

But let’s challenge that thought.

Is human motivation purely conflict? This is the question the Modernists actually rose, if you bother to look at them.

Do humans not also cooperate?

Gleaners, again. Art. But it asks a lot of questions about human cooperation.

I mean if you’ve watched reality TV shows and read the comments on Youtube, the same comment pops up over and over--they are sick of the conflict in reality TV shows and applaud the cooperation narrative and rat on the US for being terrible and manufacturing such things, even going so far as saying the judges are better when they aren’t doing that and comparing regionalities of shows with each other. Even “It’s Me or the Dog” has taken down most of the These are terrible owners” aspects of the show, because people like compassion too.

People actively complain when they feel like the conflict is created by the producers. Do humans not have points of fascinating discovery about the world and themselves?

This is where the Futurists and the eventual Speculative Fiction roots actually come from. The exploration of this question.

Do humans not have systems by which they need to teach the next generation how to live?

What are Children’s books for? But generally, a lot of folktales, either cautionary or not are talking along this line. Apache stories, BTW, from my looking at own voices talk about their stories say that their stories also teach parents and adults too. Because they design it so it means different things at different stages of your life.

Do humans not have questions about morality?

I mean the whole of Star Trek, if you think about it. Star Wars? Rashomon? Should that morality enforce the given powers or challenge it? (And you can see why Privileged Elitists hate this one. OMG, you’re challenging the structuralists powers.) Adam Bede? Most of George Elliot’s writing.

Might be unintentional, but Tolkien had a ton of morality in his work. And you have to be kidding me if you seriously think CS Lewis can’t be examined through this lens. He put Jesus. Figurative Jesus and bragged about it in his novels for children. And he tried to get Tolkien to embrace Christianity too. (Which drove Tolkien up the wall sometimes... since Tolkien was pro-Science they had quite the up and down friendship.)

Do we lack emotions? What separates us from animals? Are humans robots?

Every robot story ever. But the fundamental of this is always what separates us from being terrible people?

But is the greatest part of humanity its ability to remember?

Regret stories are often like this. Not a surprise that Foucault hated Confession Stories since they operated on memory and regret. If you view What Dreams May come through memory, the story transforms.

And the thing is that stories are flexible enough to encompass all of these. There may be some we don’t know or have lost along the way. They can drive the story forwards. There’s stories there the events are selected around themes or tone as well.

Backfire Effect and why call it a problem?

But the actual problem is that when you’re taught one way, and suddenly challenged there is another way, you think everyone hates your way, but that’s not what’s happening and you’re shown alternatives, so you often have what would be called “selection bias” and “correlation bias”. You might be challenged like I just demonstrated that Brecht and Lubbock were wrong. There isn’t one way and we shouldn’t be boiling stories down that way, so you need to preserve your base belief (This, folks, is called the Backfire effect).

Of course every story has a problem, even when faced with child stories like: I saw a dog. The dog licked me. I liked it. The dog was fun.

If you were to try for correlation and selective bias it would look like this.:

The problem clear is that there is a dog, see... and and...uhhh, the inciting incident is that the dog licked the kid. And see.. the climax is that the kid liked it. OK, it doesn’t fit the Brechtian model, but see that’s tension, right there. And the “Denouement” is that the kid found the dog is fun. The other tactic is to state: This is not a story. Look, the kid doesn’t face any problems. It’s not that interesting. Sure it has a narrative set of events that are strung together by a central theme, but is it a story? (And then loose canon, no.) But will the kid themselves call it a story? Probably. Are you going to tell a little kid to their face that it doesn’t pass academic rigor, therefore it’s not a story? If you say yes, I’m going to ask what is wrong with you?

BTW, Japanese would call that a story that fits Kishotenketsu. The I saw a dog is the introduction. The “The dog licked me” is development. The “I liked it” is the emotional height/twist and a discovery. The result is “the dog was fun.”

But if you want to see it, without looking at the paratext, you’ll always find what you’re looking for, but this is super true if you don’t read the entire text. (Say Bible Thumpers who don’t read the entire passage before waxing on and on, until you contextualize it for them.)

And so, they need to put it down to “Problem”. They see the story of Spirited Away, which is about self discovery and memory as boiling down to problem. But I’d beg, beg people who watched the movie this way to go back, read up on Kishotenketsu, and look specifically for where the memory and discovery parts are and pause and think which model works best? Is there really a problem? Chihiro doesn’t remember everything that happens by the end of the movie. Her problem of moving to a new town isn’t solved like it would be in a Syd Field formula. How she approaches it, also isn’t solved. But there is some core to the movie that grabs your emotions: And that is discovery of memory and questions of how it works. If you watch it this way, then the movie opens up a lot more. (Also, makes me cry more because I’m less invested in feeling anxious or expecting depression.)

And this is where I say, that saying there is more than conflict or problems isn’t a threat to Conflict as a Story Driver. I loved Wandavision for using Discovery and Conflict as the story drivers.

Conclusion

Percy Lubbock’s original treaties was hated for being too reductive: I side with Woolf and Forster on this one. But I also side on Percy Lubbock’s side that it’s good to have academic discourse and tools to talk about the academic discourse. Selden Whitcomb, BTW, demonstrates this very, very well in Study of a Novel (1887). He goes over several novel types in his PoV and looks at the macro and microcosm of the novel. So it’s not saying that the conflict narrative is never true. It’s saying that maybe add more tools to your toolbox and refine your toolbox so you can sort like Selden Whitcomb did. I mean he managed to delineate between braided essays, the main plot, the plot chain, and examine different novel types enough to impress Esenwein, a school teacher and then have Kenneth Rowe plagiarize from both of them. (Still cursing Rowe. You seriously thought you wouldn’t be caught?) If academia can do that and teach signs and reasons, then wouldn’t we achieve Lubbock’s goals better than he imagined?

Knowing about different story structures and ways of doing things helped me to read Aristotle better. I understood where the error about 3 act began because I understood I was originally reading the text wrong. The main points are at the end, because of the QED model. You give lines of evidence, and then the main thesis is at the end. And this is an error a lot of people make when reading Greek texts. But thinking about that, don’t you want to reread the texts in that light and have better discourse? Because the Five Paragraph essay wasn’t invented until the 19th century where the thesis and topic sentence is near the beginning. It’s also saying that humanity is far, far richer than inducing depression and anxiety in people like the Functionalists and Structuralists wanted for people. Sometimes, we want that as storytellers, yes--but why not explore the awesome breath of humanity itself and give yourself more options to explore it when one is writing story? This is what I beg of you and your teachers. Think of humanity as better than only creating problems and conflict. Some of the other stuff are humanities’ greatest weapons and ponders the nature of humanity a lot deeper than saying that humans are all conflict or cooperation (via the 1980′s docs on chimps v. bonobos. They do both, BTW.)? So why not take that journey?

#Story Structure #BUT PEOPLE CONFUSE CONFLICT WITH PROBLEM #conflict #selection bias #cooralation bias #backfire effect #the problem with academics is

5 notes · View notes

kathleenkatmary · 20 hours

Text

Silent Short Sunday Mornings: 9/22/2024 Ratings, Reviews, and Rankings

Check out my ratings, reviews, and rankings for all of the movies I’ve watched for Silent Shorts Sunday Mornings so far at my letterboxd.

Click the title of each short to watch on Youtube.

01. Manhatta (1921): 5/5

A remarkable documentary short about Manhattan. It takes some of Walt Whitman's writings about the city and translates his words into images, using intertitle cards to include the writings, which taken all together creates a movie that really captures the feeling and the spirit of Manhattan: it's giant buildings, the ship-filled water that surrounds it, the people bustling through its streets. It presents Manhattan as almost a living, breathing organism unto itself, and it feels like everything is framed with a certain awe and even reverence for what a city like this really is, and what a marvel it is that it exists. I think it's a great piece of filmmaking, but especially so when you put it into the context of the time that it was made, when cities like Manhattan had seen such a rapid change over the previous 50 years or so.

Cities like this really stood as an emblem for the massive cultural and technological changes that were happening at the turn of the century, and that's something that Manhatta captures in a way I haven't seen with any other 'travelogue' (though that's not remotely what this is) shorts, as much as I love them. I think the closest one has come is In and Through China: China in the present day, but I feel like that was trying to capture something a bit different about its location.

02. Across Brooklyn Bridge (1899): 4/5

Not gonna lie, the first person POV of this makes it feel like I'm watching a cutscene from a videogame. That's not a bad thing. I think it's kind of cool that so early on the technology and medium of film was being used to create this sort of first person view of a site so many would never get to see otherwise.

And it really is tremendous. As someone who has a pretty significant fear of bridges, when I was in NYC 15 years ago I adamantly refused to walk the Brooklyn bridge. It's not necessarily something I'd say I regret, as I recognize that my very real phobia is not something that I can just overcome through sheer force of will, and as such any attempt for me to walk across the bridge would have been agonizing, for me and my grandma, who I was there with. But having something like this, that allows me to see a first person view not just of the bridge, but the bridge as it was 110 years before I visited NYC, is pretty damn special.

03. The Tramps and the Mattress Makers (1906): 3.5/5

What a fun and pleasant surprise! Most of what Melies is remembered for are his fantastical effects heavy shorts, and that certainly makes up the bulk of his shorts that I've watched. So I always enjoy it when I find a short from him that deviates from that, and The Tramp and the Mattress Makers does so in a big way. Honestly, if I didn't know it was a Melies film going in I probably would never have guessed it.

Rather than having very visible, bombastic effects here, Melies instead uses effects very sparingly, and when they are used it's really quite subtle. There's actually something of a narrative here, and it actually ends up being a pretty effective comedy, which is probably not something most people think of when they think Melies. I really like that this movie is just kind of about the chaos, however contained it ends up being, caused by one drunk guy's bad decision. It's simple, but effective, which is a lot more than can be said for a lot of attempts at comedy from this era.

04. Little Red Riding Hood (1922): 3.5/5

What a fun early animated short from Walt Disney, part of his Laugh-o-Grams series which, I believe (I could be wrong) he animated before starting his company. I think there's a lot that's of interest in this short. While modernized re-tellings of classic stories is extremely common to the point of being considered sort of played out by many these days, it wasn't nearly as common in 1922. So it's really fun to see Little Red Riding Hood modernized, and the things that were tweaked in the story to make it fit that modernization.

One of the reasons I like early silent animation so much is that, so often, it feels like the animators and storytellers really did realize the potential for the medium to do things that simply would not be possible in live action film, or just in real life in general. And as such they just let their imaginations loose and came up with so many kooky ideas, even if it doesn't make total sense or necessarily serve a narrative purpose. Little Red Riding Hood is filled with that kind of stuff. The cat skeet shooting with the woman's baking in the beginning, the wolf man being able to shrink his car down and keep it in his coat, etc. It's just a lot of a fun, even if it's not the most narratively amazing thing in the world.

05. Old London Street Scenes (1903): 3.5/5

Anyone whose read even a little bit of my reviews for Silent Short Sunday Mornings probably knows that if here's a short that's just a non-narrative collection of scenes from a place in time, I'm going to watch it and I'm going to enjoy it. Old London Street Scenes is no exception.

It's different than a lot of other shorts of this type I've watched in that it doesn't really feel like a travelogue. While some major London landmarks/tourist spots are features, the focus seems to be far less on presenting these sites in a tourist friendly way, and far more on the traffic in the streets around these places, the people bustling through the city, living their lives. London was a pretty fascinating city at the turn of the century, and it really does feel like the point of this short was to capture a little bit of what that time, with all of its rapid changes, was like there.

06. Motor Pirates (1906): 3/5

Motor Pirates is pretty damn weird. There's some serious tonal whiplash happening, as it's hard to tell if it was actually meant to be comedic or if it's just the wild design of the bad guys' armored car that makes some of the things happening seem funny.

But it is hard to tell, because there are some scenes that are pretty effectively bleak. The opening sequence which ends with several dead or unconscious bodies of people who have been shot by the thieves scattered around the scene and a small child being the one to discover them and have to fetch the police carries a real chilling bleakness, even with the presence of the silly looking car earlier in the scene. And even the shootout that precedes this moment is well choreographed, enough so that it feel rather suspenseful. I also think some moments during the subsequent chases (because this is, above all, an early car chase film) are filmed in such a way as to feel kind of exciting.

But then... there's that car. And its wild design. Which, even with how silly it looks, I don't think necessarily tips thing into comedic. But there are things the car does, like open up its front to basically eat a policeman, that do feel really funny, even if I can't tell if it was intentional. Which all just means that there's some serious tonal issues here. Either it was meant to be funny and the opening sequence is then just seriously out of place, of it wasn't meant to be funny and they misjudged how ridiculous their car design and the things they had it doing would look. So either way, it's a big tonal misstep.

And that's a shame, because there are a lot of things about this that work really well. It just doesn't all come together in the end.

07. Call for Mr. Caveman (1919): 2.5/5

Call for Mr. Caveman is a really good example of how important intertitle cards can be when used in interesting and creative ways. While there are comedic bits here and there throughout the short's 10 minutes, the primary source of humor for the whole of the runtime is the juxtaposition of what we're seeing in the action - a bunch of cavemen - and what we're getting from the intertitle cards, which describe the characters and action in very modern terms and language. I think today it would basically be the equivalent of the caveman character talking with modern day language and slang and such, sort of like the Flintstones. But I think there's something particularly effective about getting that juxtaposition through the intertitle cards.

It is a bit that starts to lose its effectiveness as the runtime drags on, though. And that's a problem because for most of that runtime I don't think that many of the comedic bits that happen within the action really work. It's not until the very end, where the filmmakers just went off the rails, that I think any of the action-based humor really starts to work. The ending is actually quite dark and macabre, but in a way that I think does manage to be quite funny. I wish the short had been that dark throughout. It would have been a lot funnier, especially when paired with the intertitle cards

08. Nice and Friendly (1922): 2.5/5

Nice and Friendly is something of an oddity, as it was made as a wedding gift for Lord and Lady Mountbatten, who also star in it, and as such was never meant for commercial release. It really was just meant to be a silly home movie that some friends made as a wedding gift. So yeah, really, when it comes down to it, it's not actually fair to compare it to movies that were made with commercial release in mind. I am of course going to review it rank it among the other movies I watch for Silent Sunday mornings, but with the understanding that in reality what I'm doing is in a lot of ways the equivalent to reviewing, rating, and ranking the dumb silly skits my friends and I made and filmed when we were in high school among more professionally produced stuff.

The first half of this is pretty dull and flat. The Mountbattens, despite their attractiveness, have pretty much zero screen presence and meet pretty much everything that happens to them with a stunning lack of emotion. It's not until Chaplin shows up about halfway through that things get kind of fun to watch, and when I think the fact that this was meant to be a silly home movie meant just for this group of friends actually works to its benefits. Because the stuff that starts happening as Chaplin's Tramps is getting the bad guys out of the house is just so silly and ridiculous and even nonsensical that it's actually pretty funny.

I also really liked the intertitle cards throughout. They're written in a sort of whimsically poetic way that I think does a lot for the tone and atmosphere. They help to keep it all light and breezy, and add a little enjoyable substance to the first part of the short, which is really flat otherwise.

So yeah, looking at Nice and Friendly as a film, it's got some good things going for it but is plagued by how flat that first half is and how completely lacking in screen charisma its leads are. But as something that was just made among friends and never intended for commercial release, it's sweet and silly and I'm sure they all had a good time making it.

09. Katchem Kate (1912): 2/5

I love the premise of this - Mabel Normand as a lady detective going undercover as a dude to infiltrate and stop a group of bombers - but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Now, admittedly, there were clearly intertitle cards missing from the version I watched, so it's possible those missing cards added some more clarity to the narrative. As such, I don't want to hold the parts that were harder to follow too much against this short.

But this is a very early Keystone short, made in the same year (1912) that the studio was founded. And it shows. I don't think that Keystone really figured out how to make their comedies, and particularly these sorts of 'suspense' comedies, work until at least the next year. A lot of their shorts from 1912 and even 1913 have a lot of the same problems: pacing that's too slow, amusing premises that aren't used to their best potential, and difficulty in really understanding how to sustain comedy and humor throughout even a short runtime. Those problems are all on display here, which is such a shame because the premise is gold.

10. Won by a Fish (1912): 1.5/5

I've seen at least a few silent comedy shorts like this by this point, where someone (or someones) plays a a trick that seems to be presented as rather light and silly but that really just seem downright meanspirited and cruel. I kind of get a kick out of it, out of how awful these people are to each other, but it does make me wonder what was going on in the 1900s/1910s.

The whole plot here really is the joke. Dad doesn't like daughter's boyfriend because the boyfriend teases Dad about his inability to catch a fish (which just seem a shitty thing in the first place, so I guess it's unsurprising that he's come up with such a mean trick), daughter and boyfriend play a trick to make him think he's caught a huge fish when he hasn't, and then reveal what they did after Dad's made a big deal about his catch to everyone else. I think the issue with this whole thing for me is that it just doesn't really work as a 'comedy'. The whole thing is more like an amusing anecdote someone would tell you in one or two sentences, but stretched over a 10 minute runtime. The only thing that's slightly amusing is the premise. There's nothing in the actual action that's funny at all. Which is a problem because this is very clearly a comedy. And even if it wasn't a comedy it still wouldn't work because very little of substance actually happens as a result of the prank. It's like Mack Sennett was just like "hey, that would be a funny prank to pull on someone", and then figured that as such it would be a funny movie. Which I feel like misunderstands both pranks AND movies.

#my movie stuff #lists #silent film #silent cinema #silent movies #silent shorts #classic film #classic movies

1 note · View note

stresshyperdeath · 7 months

Text

I completely forgot to do it on President's Day, but here in PR we celebrate Día de los Próceres Puertorriqueños (Day of Illustrious Puertoricans, you best be not using Google Translate

So lemme tell you briefly about a pretty important guy, Pedro Albizu Campos

He was a Puertorican who went to Harvard Law School and had to deal with the institution not quite, well... He graduated in 1921, I don't think I need to spell out that Harvard did some racist shit and delayed his final exams to mess him up on graduating on time.

Now, the real big thing is that he was in the PR Nationalist Party (the people that wanted independence) and the Nationalist party... lets just say they had weapons and were using them here in PR. (If you know a bit of history, PR Nationalists also shot Congressmen at the House of Representatives, though that deserves a seperate post)

Now, Pedro Albizu Campos did get arrested and basically lived out his life in prison, and died shortly after release. Thing is, you know what the US Govt. did to him in jail? They irradiated him and poisoned him.

So, we have this person who fought for indepence here in PR, and was arrested and poisoned. And I have honestly never seen his story told outside of Puerto Rico. Honestly, I don't see our history told up in the states in general

1 note · View note

baenxietydad · 1 year

Text

Biography of Bae Tae-il

Massive biography about Mu-yeol Bae's badass father that is important to nobody but me, but honestly his father explains A LOT about him

Word count: 4082

Mini-playlist for the Bae Tae-il Vibes TM: here

Triggers: nothing is described in detail but topics mentioned are - War (Korean War), colonialism (Japanese occupation of Korea), death, implied torture, murder is mentioned, child loss mentioned, a suicide attempt is mentioned but not described

Scout talent fairy Bae Tae-il was born March 27th, 1917, in a pixie hollow in what is modern day Pyongyang, North Korea. His biological parents were healing-talent fairy Bae Ha-jong (b. 1877), scout-talent fairy Ryu Soon-hee of Pyongyang (b.1883). There was a third fairy in their Promise union, and she was a storytelling-talent named Han Rak-hui (b.1892). Tae-il is the oldest child of this promise union, with twin younger brothers Bae Do-jae and Bae Gyu-ha born in 1921.

In 1917 there were three pixie hollows in or around Pyongyang. Fairies of the Pyongyang hollows were largely integrated into human society; and in fact since the Japanese annexation of Korea, a large number of pixies were involved in the Independence Movement, first as writers, then as human Koreans took up arms so too did some pixies. Japanese officials believed pixies to be an exceptional threat to Japanese imperial rule so pixie hollows all over Korea were hunted down and destroyed. When Bae Tae-il was twelve, in 1929, his home hollow was destroyed by the Japanese military police, along with one of the two other Pyongyang hollows. Surviving pixies all crammed into the remaining Pyongyang hollow. The 1929 attack on his birth hollow led his father to follow the footsteps of other fairies who joined the humans’ resistance movement against the Japanese Imperial forces, using his healing talent to provide medical care to the resistance.

In 1931, the cell Bae Ha-jong was working with had a mole and the barn they were meeting in was stormed, everyone was arrested. The imperial police insisted Bae Ha-jong died of natural causes in prison three months later. Every pixie knew that wasn’t true. Healing talents his age do not simply die.

Filled with a righteous rage, Tae-il wanted to fight back even at the age of fourteen. He began writing pro-Korean Independence speeches and giving them in the middle of the hollow. They were very bad speeches, parts lifted straight from pro-independence posters he came across in Pyongyang, but fiery. Many pixies told him to shut up, as they “didn’t get involved in human affairs,” but Tae-il idolized the pixies (mainly other Scout talents) he saw getting involved in anti-colonial activism when he ventured into human Pyongyang. Fairies weren’t a people hellbent on fighting, no, but his home hollow had been destroyed, his father killed, and his people — both pixies and Koreans — subjugated by the Japanese colonial government. Hell yeah, he was angry! And yeah, he wanted to fight the occupiers who had no respect for his land and its people. To the fairies who chose to get involved, they believed that the humans’ oppression compounded their own oppression, and that liberation could only be achieved with each others’ help. Such fairies, Tae-il and his father included, would argue that it was more immoral to allow the occupiers to kill and subjugate them without resistance, than to fight back. If killing one colonizing solider saved twenty lives, then it was killing twenty people to not kill one.

By 1933, when he was sixteen, Tae-il had joined the pro-independence movement in earnest, brought into the fold by another pixie, a man in his early fifties hailing from Kaesong named Park Sang-il. Most of the pixies involved in the independence movement identified as communists, anarchists, or anarcho-communists, including Bae Tae-il and Park Sang-il, as pixie society is structured in a manner that humans would describe as communistic. (Pixies do not typically subscribe to human political philosophies, but when they ARE exposed to them, they lean leftist – so communists, anarchists, annarcho-communists, socialists – because those philosophies are basically humans trying to create a society similar to what fairies have). Communists and anarchists, especially, were harshly targeted by the colonizers for imprisonment, torture, and outright murder. The harshness of Japanese colonial rule served to further popularize the Korean Independence Movement, even among fairies. Between 1933 and 1945, more fairies joined the struggle than ever before, fueled by continued attacks on the sovereignty of their pixie hollows, pixies living or working in human cities being kidnapped to be taken to Japan as forced laborers for the war effort along with human Koreans once WWII broke out, and other injustices and indignities.

In 1934, after Tae-il participated in a successful plot to blow up an imperial police station, he was involved in another plot to assassinate several military officers. The plot was foiled, a whistleblower exposed everyone in their group. Tae-il made the decision to flee Pyongyang with his comrades to join other Koreans engaging in armed resistance in Manchuria alongside Chinese communists, as he was now a known agitator and was in danger if he stayed in Pyongyang. He was seventeen years old when he left for Manchuria. Tae-il fought with guerilla armies made up of Koreans and Chinese, eventually picking up some of the Mandarian and Manchu languages, along with the Japanese and Korean he already spoke. The Korean fighters at this time served a dual purpose - general resistance against the Japanese, and support troops for the Maoists in the Chinese Civil War, but those who never left Manchuria like Bae Tae-il were primarily there to fight colonial encroachment. Some human fighters distrusted the fairies at first, especially the foreign fairies, but their comrades eventually grew to trust them.

During his time in Manchuria, Tae-il was trained as a sniper, sent to take out specific targets.

It was in Manchuria that Tae-il met another teenage fighter, fellow seventeen-year-old named Chou Shunhua, a garden-talent pixie who had also taken up arms to defend her home from Imperial Japan. Shunhua’s family were “town fairies” from the Liaodong Peninsula, fairies who lived in human towns and cities vs. in pixie hollows. As a result, she was educated in human schools and spoke fluent Mandarin, Manchu, and due to the presence of the ethnic Korean and Russian minorities in that region, had a working knowledge of Korean and Russian. Shunhua was in charge of helping the Korean fighters integrate with the local fighters since she could speak more of the language than most other Chinese fighters. By mid-1937, it was obvious that Shunhua and Tae-il had feelings for each other but considering they were constantly engaged in guerilla warfare, it wasn’t exactly a great time to tell your crush you’ve got a crush on them.

In 1940, Tae-il decided it was time to return to Korea and fight in and for his own country again, now that he’d gained experience fighting in China. In a scene fit for a period drama about revolutionary fighters, Shunhua came running after him with nothing but what she could fit in a backpack, and tearfully threw her arms around him, announcing that if he was going to leave for Korea then so was she. Tae-il froze and stared at her, feeling like he knew what this meant but still unsure, until Shunhua rolled her eyes and said, “Do I have to tell you to kiss me?” and Tae-il kissed her until she finally pulled away and reminded him that they should keep walking. They traveled to Pyongyang and Tae-il was reunited with his family for the first time in six years. In his absence, his brothers had also taken up the revolutionary mantle and his mothers had become involved in helping hide and transport revolutionary fugitives.

By the end of WWII, Bae Tae-il, Chou Shunhua, and his mothers and brothers had left Pyongyang and ended up in Seoul, as Tae-il and his brothers’ revolutionary actions made it too dangerous to remain in Pyongyang. In the years following WWII, when the Korean Peninsula was split into Soviet and American occupation zones, the Baes were living in the South. They wanted to return to the North and reunite with cousins and comrades, but the 38th parallel quickly became difficult to pass through and they remained in the South. Between WWII and the Korean War, Shunhua gave birth to her and Tae-il’s two children; daughter, Bae Bong-cha in 1946, and son Bae Hyun-ki in 1949.

During the inter-war years, Shunhua and the three Bae brothers were all four arrested at least once for organizing the community along leftist lines by the oppressive US-backed regime in the South. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the Bae family was living in Seoul. Like many Koreans, when the North Korean military marched through, they remained in their home. The Southern regime propped up by the US was not popular at the time, and communists, anarchists, and many non-leftists alike generally viewed a united Korean government as preferable to a divided Korea and the right-wing dictatorship in the South at the time. It wasn’t until the US military swept through Seoul that the Baes fled. For a more in depth picture on what this time period was like, I recommend Season 3 of the podcast Blowback, which focuses on the Korean War for that season.

By the end of the Korean War in 1953, Bae Tae-il had lost Shunhua and their children to three separate wartime incidents. Devastated, Tae-il sank into deep despair for a period of time, following his mothers and brothers to Daegu, where they eventually settled in the pixie hollow on Biseulsan (Mount Biseul), along with several other displaced pixie families. Like every pixie hollow the Biseulsan Hollow’s population had been decimated by the war so the refugees were beyond welcome. An estimated 42% of Korea’s pre-WWII fairy population had either died or fled to China or elsewhere mostly in Asia 1953 – or, 21 out of every 50 fairies were no longer there. This may be a slight overestimation, as population numbers of fairies are often undercounted, however, leaders in fairy rights activism claim it isn’t an extreme overestimation. It is estimated that 90% of pixies were either temporarily or permanently displaced from their home Hollows.

In 1967, Bae Tae-il first met Kim Sae-ron, a pixie dust talent fairy born and raised in the Daegu Hollow to a family who’d called the Biseulsan Hollow home since at least the 1500s. He’d saved her from a swooping hawk, scolding her for getting distracted and flying so close to one which is probably not how you should talk to someone who almost got eaten by a hawk, but like, you do you! They argued back and forth, before he rolled his eyes and hissed “You’re so stubborn!” and she snapped “We have something in common, finally!” and they both started laughing before parting ways.

At the following June full moon dance, Sae-ron sought him out. She fluttered up behind him and dropped a honeysuckle flower crown on his head.

“Dance with me, Scout Talent Bae.” Sae-ron demanded. “No thanks.” He said, sitting on top of a mushroom. Sae-ron pouted at him. “Oppa! You have to. I gave you a flower crown, it’s rude to say no.” Tae-il sighed and agreed – he was only a man after all, she played the oppa card. One dance turned into them sneaking off away from the crowd to talk more easily. She stared up at him and eventually quietly said, “You know a lot of pixies think you’re scary.” Tae-il chuckled. “That’s because I am scary Sae-ron.” “No,” Sae-ron said. “You’re not.” Tae-il was silent a long moment before he gestured back to the Circle. “You should join your friends, Dust-talent Kim.” “Why? I’m having a good time talking to you.” “I have early duty tomorrow morning,” Tae-il lied. “Then walk me home now.” Sae-ron countered, and he did.

Tae-il purposely avoided her for a couple days, startled by her and her calmness around him when most other fairies were at least a little bit afraid of him, as what he did during the occupation period wasn’t exactly a secret. At the time, fairies viewed such actions as righteous but in the years since the occupation ended, fairies’ usual pacifism led them to sometimes view their battle-worn fairies with fear, as if they might be inherently violent, somehow less fairy-like. Someone like Sae-ron and as young as her (24 at the time, when Tae-il was 50) had no business befriending him. That was evident when she sat across from him in the Circle at mealtime one day, and immediately people began to whisper.

“You’re avoiding me.” Sae-ron accused him.

“Am I?” Tae-il responded, not looking at her.

“I thought we had a nice time at the dance.”

“We did.”

“Then why won’t you talk to me after? Did I do something wrong?”

Tae-il set his utensils down and finally looked up at her. “No.”

“Then why?”

“You shouldn’t stick around me.” Tae-il said plainly.

Sae-ron laughed and rolled her eyes. “What are you going to do, blow me up like that police station?” Referring to an act it was known in the Hollow that Tae-il had participated in. “Please, you seriously need to calm down. Stop being so moody.” She picked up her chopsticks and piled from kimchi onto Tae-il’s rice. “You need energy, don’t you have night duty tonight?”

Tae-il sat there, absolutely dumbstruck, as Sae-ron quietly ate across from him. He stopped avoiding her after that meal.

In 1970, Sae-ron was the first to confess her feelings for him. Tae-il rejected her at first, telling her to “not say anything crazy like you like me ever again, I hate rejecting people I’d rather be rejected.”

She stared him down and quietly asked, “Am I not pretty enough?”

“What? No, you’re beautiful. And kind, and funny, and young, and you see the world and people in such a wonderful way. I’m none of these things. Do better, Kim Sae-ron.”

Sae-ron rolled her eyes, her go-to move when Tae-il was being dramatic. “Yah, oppa. What’s this self-sacrificing concept? What are you afraid of? We’ve been sleeping together for three years, and not just during the full moon parties. You clearly like me too. Why won’t you just officially court me?“

“Sae-ron-”

“So I’m good enough to sleep with but not good enough to Promise?”

Tae-il was silent, horrified she’d even think that he would think that, but that was the wrong response because she stormed away.

It was after dinner two nights later when she was flying home that Tae-il called out to her from a tree. Sae-ron wanted to tell him to fuck off but she flit over to him anyway. She glared at him and gestured to him for him to talk.

“You get one shot, Bae Tae-il.”

“You deserve someone better. I’m not right for you, I’m an angry, war-ravaged mess of a person who shouldn’t have the privilege of you. I’ve been selfish, letting myself get close to you. Sleeping with you. Spending all this time with you.” Tae-il shook his head. “I should have stopped a long time ago.”

Sae-ron glared at him. “Wrong answer.” She turned to fly away, but what he said next stopped her.

“You asked me what I’m afraid of.”

She turned around, slowly. “You’ll tell me?”

“I was Promised. Before the war, I was Promised to a fairy from Manchuria. She was Chinese, I met her when I took up arms in China during the Occupation period.”

“Yes, everyone knows you were Promised before.” Sae-ron said gently. “Most of the refugee fairies come with stories.”

“I lost her during the war, our two children too.”

Sae-ron nodded, her expression growing gentler. “I know that too. That must have been a difficult thing to go through and continue to go through.”

Tae-il did not respond directly to that. “Sae-ron I can’t– I can’t do that again.”

“Oppa. The war is over.”

“There was no peace treaty.”

Sae-ron, a Hollow pixie through and through, had no idea what a peace treaty was. She did not say this. “Even so, where’s the bombs, Tae-il? The napalm being dropped on the forests our Hollows are in? It’s been almost twenty years, I’m not going anywhere unless you push me away right now.”

Tae-il shook his head. “I thought it was over when the Japanese lost the world war. But it wasn’t. It will never be completely over, the humans tore our land in half and could start something up again and we’ll all suffer for it, again. You deserve someone without the baggage I have and without the rage and spite that motivate me.”

“I want you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“But I do.”

“You deserve–”

“Stop telling me what I deserve.”

Tae-il was silent for a long moment, staring at Sae-ron with a calm expression as he tried to read hers. “What if I don’t think I’m ready yet? To accept– to accept the risk again.”

Sae-ron inhaled and exhaled through nose slowly, not looking away from him for a second. “That depends. Do you want to be?”

“What?”

“Do you want to be ready to commit to doing life with me?”

“Well, I – yes. I do, I do want you.”

“But you’re afraid to Promise to me because you’re worried about something happening to me, I understand.” Sae-ron thought aloud, repeating the main points of their conversation back to him. “I’m willing to wait a little longer to Promise. We’re Courting now, officially.”

Tae-il blinked at her, taken aback by her decisiveness. Did she not hear him?

“Court me, I don’t mind waiting to Promise,” she repeated. “But Court me with that intention. If in two more years you aren’t ready, I’ll cut my losses and you’ll have to accept I was the best thing you almost had, Scout-talent Bae.”

In 1972, during the annual Promising ceremony, Bae Tae-il and Kim Sae-ron promised. At the time, Sae-ron was neutral on the idea of children and Tae-il was adamantly against it, still torn up over losing his son and daughter during the war, so they didn’t think that would be a conversation again. Until Sae-ron’s brother had his first child in 1975 and she looked at her little niece and felt a longing she hadn’t before when seeing other children. She kept it to herself at first, not wanting to bring anything painful up to her Promised, until her younger sister had her first child in 1977. As she looked at her nephew she only felt jealousy.

After months of sitting with it, she finally brought it up, telling Tae-il in no uncertain terms that she wanted children. It took some convincing but by mid-1977 he agreed that they could try and see if it would happen. A part of him hoped that perhaps Sae-ron wasn’t able to have children and as 1977 slowly grew into 1980 and she wasn’t pregnant yet, maybe she couldn’t. Tae-il knew he was horrible for wishing infertility on his wife when it was clearly what she wanted; but wasn’t it better if her own body denied her children than if he did?

In early October of 1980, Sae-ron found out she was pregnant and as she and the Healing-talent smiled at each other, Tae-il only felt ice cold, frightened. Still. He’d agreed to this and he would not make his wife feel any need to hide her joy so he swallowed his fear and hoped that her joy would be enough to fix whatever was wrong in his head that he couldn’t feel excitement for his child.

Mu-yeol was born just ahead of his May 1st due date, on April 26th, 1981, with colorful butterfly-like wings that were more similar to his mother’s than to his Scout-talent’s wings that blended well into the forest. Sae-ron, less than a year later, asked to try for another baby so that Mu-yeol could have a sibling to grow up with. Tae-il reluctantly agreed and in 1983 their daughter, Su-mi, was born.

Tae-il was not a neglectful father – he changed their cloth when it was dirty, he’d hold one baby while Sae-ron fed the other, he encouraged them as the learned to walk and fly…but you could even ask Mu-yeol and Su-mi that it wasn’t until they were around 7 and 5 and their mother was pregnant with their twin brothers that their father took a deep interest in them and really spent a lot of time with them, held them just to hold them and not only to console them, and engaged with their pretend games. As adults, they’d come to understand that it wasn’t until they were older than his first children ever got to be that he could really trust that these children were going to stick around, that no bombs, no bullets, no chemicals dropped from American planes would take them away.

Most Hollows, historically, encourage families to have no more than two children to conserve resources. However couples may be asked if they’d be willing to have a third child if their Talents are desirable or rare; or, if in the case of Hollows all over Korea, when their populations had been decimated, couples were encouraged to have more children to supply enough fairies to run their society. This is why five years after Su-mi was born, Tae-il and Sae-ron had their twin boys, Won-shik and Jun-ha in 1988. Around 1990 is when Hollows in Korea were satisfied enough with how their populations bounced back that they again began to encourage, ideally, no more than two children unless your second pregnancy was twins or triplets or your Hollow’s Queen has asked you to consider it.

Tae-il, who had previously been heavily involved in the human world, raised his children to fear it. The human world only hurt him, only took from him, only used him and cast him aside when he wasn’t useful anymore. He wanted his children spared from all of it. Tae-il could only teach them, however, not make their minds up for them as his oldest son soon proved.

In 1999, Tae-il and Sae-ron’s oldest child, Mu-yeol, Promised to Song So-yeon the daughter of Kang Kyung-ok and Song Young-chul. So-yeon came from a family of fast-flying fairies who educated their daughters, So-yeon and fire-talent oddball Soon-ja, at human schools as well as in the Hollow. Kang Kyung-ok was one of the first fairies to pass the South Korean bar exam– although she disliked Mu-yeol for being uneducated and not a fast-flying fairy, Mu-yeol respected her and even admired her for her accomplishments, and Tae-il couldn’t help but respect her as well. Tae-il absolutely loved his daughter-in-law and doted on her. Song So-yeon was immediately accepted by the Bae family as theirs. Mu-yeol moved to Seoul to support his Promised through her university education. From what he said, Mu-yeol loved human Seoul, and Tae-il was equal parts afraid for him and glad he was having a good experience with humans.

In 2003, Tae-il’s first grandchild was born, Mu-yeol and So-yeon’s son Nam-min. He adored him and doted on him whenever his parents brought him back to Daegu to meet their family, and when he traveled to Seoul first to meet him immediately after his birth. In March of 2006, Mu-yeol and So-yeon announced that they were expecting their second child. And in May that same year So-yeon was murdered, Mu-yeol almost, and his son and grandson returned to the Daegu Hollow.

Tae-il’s heart weighed heavy in his chest as he watched his oldest child suffer the same loss he had once endured; he thought he would have helpful words to offer, but found he didn’t. What could he possibly say to take any of that pain away? Maybe, he thought a couple months later, he should’ve tried harder. Maybe, he thought, as Jun-ha tearfully recounted pulling his older brother from the river he’d attempted to drown himself in, he could’ve said something to prevent him from going that far.

It wasn’t long before Kang Kyung-ok got word of what Mu-yeol had tried to do. Fancying herself a better choice to raise Nam-min than his own father or his paternal side of the family, she threatened Mu-yeol in front of Tae-il that she would take his son from him. Sure, pixie’s didn’t have custody court like humans did, but there was a way she could’ve taken little Nam-min. If she went to the Queen and argued her case that the child was better off with her, the Queen could order Nam-min be placed with his maternal grandparents. Pixies do not disobey their queen. So Mu-yeol ran abroad with little Nam-min, and absolutely broke Tae-il’s heart, but he understood his son and why he had to leave.

Part of Tae-il never forgave himself for letting him run, but most of him knew that staying might have actually killed him.

So he watches Nam-min grow in photographs shown to him by Won-shik, and occasionally speaks to Mu-yeol on the phone when Su-mi and Jun-ha hand one to him, and pretends that he really believes his son is doing as well as he wanted him to think when he finally got to visit him in England a few winters ago.

#&&...hc

0 notes

runnning-outof-time · 2 years

Text

After All this Time | Tommy Shelby & Daughter!Reader

Request: yes by anonymous

Pairing: Tommy Shelby & daughter!reader

Summary: Sometimes there's no forgetting what's been done in the past.

Warnings: broken family/father-daughter relationship

Word Count: 1297

A/N: this one was shorter than usual, but I still feel like the content of it speaks volumes. What needed to be said within it was said and, in a way, it was honestly reflective for me to write. Enjoy! :)

I’D LOVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK! - YOUR COMMENTS & REBLOGS HELP ME WRITE!

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future stories like this one!

(Y/N) (Y/L/N) lived nearly her entire life without knowing her father. Her mother gave birth to her in 1921, just over nine months after the night that she met Tommy Shelby.

The then gangster and budding businessman was looking for someone to fill the void caused inside of him by a woman who left him for America. (Y/N)'s mother filled that void and entered into a relationship with him. (Y/N) barely knew her father though.

She was young and didn't know much of what was going on around her. She did remember the look on her mother's face when Tommy told her that he was leaving her though...leaving both her and their daughter because the woman that had previously gone away was now back and ready to throw herself into his arms.

And so (Y/N) grew up without a father. She used her mother's maiden name because the Shelby name wasn't allowed in their household. (Y/N) didn't know otherwise...her mother changed it back the day after he left, which happened when (Y/N) was just over a year old.

When she asked about her father, (Y/N)'s mother only told her that he left because he was enamored by the life of luxury that was starting to surround him and that they didn't fit into it.

And then one day nearly thirteen years later, he showed up on her doorstep. "Hello, sir, can I help you?" (Y/N) asked, initially not knowing who this man was.

"Yes...is this Farrah (Y/L/N)'s house?" he asked. (Y/N) nodded her head before telling him that she'd go and get her mother. "No," he stopped her, making her turn around again. "I came here because I wanted to speak to you. You're (Y/N), correct?"

"I am," (Y/N) nodded her head, becoming concerned about this man's motives.

"I'm your father, (Y/N)," he told her, making the young girl's jaw drop.

"No...no, you're not," she immediately stammered out in disbelief, blinking a few times, wondering if he would disappear when she stopped. But he didn't. He was still very clearly in front of her.

"I am, love," he insisted, nodding his head slowly in hopes that he'd catch on.

"Where have you been all these years?" (Y/N) asked, her voice raw and deliberate. Her words ripped Tommy's heart right from his chest.

"I...I've been busy," he stammered out, a pathetic response, really, but it was all he could muster.

"Too busy to come and see your own daughter?" the girl's voice still held that raw tone. It made Tommy think back to the time that he and his brothers told Ada that they were going off to fight. (Y/N) sounded the exact same way.

"I..." he tried to respond, but the words died in his throat.

That didn't bother (Y/N) though, because she had something thought up already. "My mum said it was because we didn't fit into the life of luxury that you were mapping out for yourself."

"That's not true," Tommy shook his head, a frown forming on his face. Why would her mother say something of the sort?

"Then why did you leave? Huh?" (Y/N) raised her eyebrows as she posed her question, "and why have you come back here all of a sudden?"

Tommy still didn't know how to respond to her first question, because he couldn't quite remember where his head was at back then. He just remembered Grace coming back into his picture and he was blinded by the hope of a life with her. Somewhere along the way, (Y/N) and her mum fell to the wayside...the passion died away. So he didn't comment on her first question. Instead, he answered her second one. "I wanted to come see you...to come make amends," he told her, a look of hope flooding his features.

(Y/N) took a moment to process his words. Her brain was running at a mile a minute and she was trying hard not to let the pain that had built up over these several years cloud over her judgement. But it was so hard not to. In the end, she didn’t. “It’s too late for that,” she finally told him, choking back her tears as she spoke. “It’s too late for you to come make amends after you’ve essentially ignored me for the majority of my life. I don’t even know you...I didn’t recognize you when I opened the door. How does that make you feel?...”

“Terrible,” Tommy cut in, his response coming out in a low voice.

“How do you think that makes me feel? My mum and I needed you over these years, and you haven’t cared so much as to send a letter or a call. I’ve got nothing from you, and now you want to show up here and make amends? After all of this time?” (Y/N) paused for a moment and tried to control her breathing, with each word she uttered, her heart rate was climbing, and with that came shorter breaths. She also wanted to make sure that she spoke clearly when she uttered her next statement. “What makes you think that you have the right to just waltz back into my life after all of the pain you’ve caused?” her eyes were wide and she was now expecting an answer from him.

Tommy opened his mouth and closed it a few times, trying to think of words that were worthy enough of responding to the dire monologue that she’d just hit him with. “I...I don’t have the right. I was just hoping that there’d be a chance; a chance that I could get to know you,” he finally said. (Y/N) had to fight back the snort from leaving her lips.

“Well, I’d stop hoping for something that’s never going to happen. I learned that the hard way when I spent thirteen years of my life without a father; wondering just who my dad was. And now you’re here, standing in front of me, and I want nothing to do with you,” her words were like knives to Tommy’s heart, and he took them without pushback. She was justified in saying them. She was allowed to feel this pain; to express it. “I don’t even know your name, and you know what...I don’t want to ever know it. In fact, I don’t want to see you again, ok?” she insisted, her eyes now welling up with tears. This wasn’t what she expected meeting her father to be like, but this was what felt right to her. She’d lived her life this long without him...she didn’t need him for the rest of it.

“Ok,” Tommy responded in a dejected manner, nodding his head before he dropped his gaze to the ground.

“I’d like you to leave now. And please don’t ever come around here again,” she gave him one more demand, which Tommy nodded his head in response to.

“Goodbye, (Y/N),” he said in a voice just above a whisper. The girl said nothing in response and instead shut the door to her house. Letting out a long sigh, she wiped the tears that had fallen down her cheeks and composed herself before walking back into the sitting room.

“Who was at the door, sweetie?” her mother asked once she noticed that her daughter had entered the room.

“No one...just some salesman,” she brushed her mother’s question off before she sat down on the couch and closed her eyes.

It is better if he isn’t in your life, she kept telling herself. After repeating that statement three times, she was ok with it.

Tagged: @alreadybroken-ts @mgcllovdrms @the-anxious-youth @cloudofdisney @look-at-the-soul @golden-hoax @elenavampire21 @peaky-cillian @mrsalwayswrite @julkaamazing @evita-shelby @lilyrachelcassidy @notyour-valentine @easilyobessedbutflighty @shelbydelrey @december16-1991 @onlydeadcells @peakyswritings @just-a-blackhole @watercolorskyy @strayrockette @peakyduchesss @alexxavicry @captivatedbycillianmurphy @yummycastiel @dark-academia-slut @tommystargirl @stevie75 @lyarr24 @signorellisantichrist @zablife @sunsetmourners @anotherblinder @midnightmagpiemama @cillmequick

MASTERLIST

#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby x daughter!reader #tommy shelby x y/n #tommy shelby imagine #peaky blinders #peaky blinders x reader #peaky blinders x y/n #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic

1K notes · View notes