#i am saying though that playing a fucking lead has historically been treated like a privilege.

[bluinary]

Waking up crying because after 2 years of grinding and understudying I was called back to play a real lead for a renowned director (me out of 3 girls total) and I lost the role to a girl who just auditioned here for the first time. The worst part is that I am also her understudy for the show before that!

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Was Napoleon a tyrant? I don't necessarily think he was: at least, I believe he was a better alternative to the absolute monarchs he was fighting. But there are those who disagree. What are your thoughts on the subject?

This is a can of worms to be sure.

I mean....how are we defining the word tyrant? All monarchs are tyrants to someone. Monarchy, by its very nature, is tyrannical in one way, shape, or form, no matter who is at its head. Even in the more neutered forms we see now days with the British. The Queen still exerts a ridiculous amount of power, all things considered.

Napoleon was no better or worse than any other monarch in Europe at that time. Indeed, better than some, worse than others. Because you know, he was human!

-

This got VERY long. SO LONG. Choice excerpts from below the cut:

"'Power was encroaching with large strides behind the words order and stability,' as Thibaudeau put it."

"(And I suspect he was concerned about seeming too eager for power/setting up a monarchical system. Fouche: You're about as subtle as a canon going off right next door. Napoleon: Hush.)"

"Theeeeeen the little bastard (affectionate) became Emperor."

"Napoleon Vs. Jeff Bezos: fight! fight! fight! (I'm putting my money on Napoleon.)"

--

tl;dr: a more or less benevolent emperor who had his faults and who was intimately aware, for better or worse, more than most monarchs, that the head is only tenuously attached to the body. (Skim to the bottom for my thoughts on the personal things i.e. how I interpret Napoleon's actions and brain)

But, more seriously, as with most absolute statements, I am opposed to calling him a tyrant because it is reductive and serves no purpose except to make broad sweeping political statements that I believe are far more about the person making the statement exemplifying their modern political, republican position (as in, actual republican-I-support-the-existence-of-republics not the gop) rather than expressing any sort of truth about the past. (wHaT iS tRuTh.)

For historical purposes, it can over-simplify the situation and lead to skewed interpretations of events because you're coming in with this word that has a lot of modern, 20th and 21st century baggage to it.

And, because these people are coming in with this big, bad word of tyrant as a label for Napoleon, it doesn't allow them to engage with the nuance and complexities of his reign.

Anyway.

Napoleon, as emperor, supported centralized power held in his own hands, with support from other governing bodies (senate, council of state etc.). However, Napoleon had a lot of influence in the structuring of these governing bodies and the subsequent appointments as a means to exert control over entities that would otherwise be able to act somewhat independent from him and impinge his power.

We see this consolidation of power beginning, obviously, under the consulate. 'Power was encroaching with large strides behind the words order and stability,' as Thibaudeau put it.

There was the whole theatre around the Tribunate offering to extend Napoleon's tenure as First Consul for another ten years as a means of thanks/showing gratitude for all he did for France (Fouche was like: fuck that, let's just make a statue of the guy). Napoleon played the part of Humble Servant of the Public and refused both statue and the ten year extension. (Very Julius Caesar: You all did see that on the Lupercal, I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?)

In actuality, though, he was pissed because he wanted it extended for life.

This resulted in the Council of State deciding "independently" (i.e. Napoleon wasn't present but he sure as hell influenced that Council session) to hold a plebiscite in order to ask The People two key questions: 'Should Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life?' and 'Should he have the right to designate his successor?'

Napoleon nixed the second question saying to Cambaceres, 'The testament of Louis XIV was not respected, so why should mine be? A dead man has nothing to say.' Which is to say, he knew people would vote for him to be Consul for life, but the prospect of him choosing a successor, a la the Roman Empire, and having that choice be without input from the people and respected upon his death? Less clear.

(And, I suspect he was concerned about seeming too eager for power/setting up a monarchical system.

Fouche: You're about as subtle as a canon going off right next door.

Napoleon: Hush.)

For the Plebiscite, there were around 3.56 million votes for Yes to the question of Napoleon as consul for life and only around 8,300 for No.

The turnout rate was 60% which is uhh...impressive! (To be fair, there was no real evidence of tampering with the vote. Unlike in subsequent Plebiscites, such as the results for Do We Make Him Emperor, which were absolutely doctored. But, considering the highest turnout ever seen in the French Revolution was around 30/35%, double that is certainly something.)

Lafayette was pissed with this. He kicked up a fuss in the Senate and wrote to Napoleon saying that his 'restorative dictatorship' had been well and fine for now but has Napoleon thought about restoring liberty? and that he was certain Napoleon, of all people, wouldn't want an 'arbitrary regime' to be installed!

Napoleon: Bold of you to assume that, Lafayette.

There were, at this time, some mumblings and grumblings about tyranny from the liberals and those still wanting to continue the experiment of the French Republic, to be sure. They increased as time went on and Napoleon's power continued to consolidate.

Theeeeeen the little bastard (affectionate) became Emperor.

Lafayette: WhAt Is tHiS??

Napoleon: Look into my face and tell me honestly that you are shocked.

--

His government, as Consul and as Emperor, was centralized and very top-down in how it operated. Little was done without Napoleon's input.

The seemingly democratic institutions that had propped him up into power were retained and Napoleon used them as a means to facilitate his rule. As noted earlier, Napoleon had a heavy hand in appointments and the processes in place to fill various offices. Nothing was really...independent of him and his influence.

Though, in terms of Image Building of Empire, Napoleon worked hard to try and maintain the façade of impartiality as emperor. That he was head of state, sure, but all state apparatuses operated independent of him.

(Why is Napoleon's hat so big? because it is full of lies supporting the imperial image making machine.)

That said, when it came to filling those offices, Napoleon focused on merit more than anything as he wanted his governing officials to be capable, hardworking and, above all else, loyal.

(A good quote from Napoleon in one of his more Eat the Rich moments of the consulate: 'One cannot treat wealth as a title of nobility. A rich man is often a layabout without merit. A rich merchant is often only so by virtue of the art of selling expensively or stealing.'

Napoleon Vs. Jeff Bezos: fight! fight! fight!

(I'm putting my money on Napoleon.) )

--

This is getting really long and I feel that I've not addressed anything in a useful manner, but am I going to stop? No.

--

Napoleon, himself, at least in 1803, did express some conflicted views about assuming an imperial title. To Roederer he said, 'So many great things have been achieved over the past three years under the title of consul. It should be kept.'

Cambaceres said to Napoleon that upon assuming an imperial title 'your position changes and places you at odds with yourself.' No longer are you merely a public servant, an upholder of the Republic's ideals. Now you are a man wearing a crown, trying to be the upholder of the Republic's ideals.

(nb: I feel that duality is something Napoleon never fully got a handle on. He would veer strongly into authoritarian monarch then have moments of Rousseau-ian Idealism.)

Napoleon was insistent that his rule be a parliamentary monarchy (keeping the governance framework implemented in the Constitution of Year VIII, if I am not mistaken. But don't quote me on that.) and that the French were not his subjects but his people.

So, the imperial government worked thus with the Legislative process divided between four bodies:

Council of State which would draw up legislative proposals,

Tribunate which could debate on legislation but not vote on it,

a legislative body which could vote on legislation but not discuss it, and

Senate which would consider whether the proposed legislation conformed to the Constitution.

The Senate and the Legislative body could, theoretically, curtail Napoleon’s freedom/power. However, considering the fact that he was involved in the appointment process of these offices, and the general rhythm of daily governance, how much power they were able to exert over him was limited.

(This is at his height! Of course, towards the end we see a shift in that. But that's largely tied up in his military defeats and the British banging the door knocker demanding to be let in. Also they brought with them some friends. You might have heard of them? Bourbons?)

The initial terms the Senate brought to Napoleon with their offer of accepting him as a hereditary monarch included, but weren't limited to:

liberty cannot be infringed

equality cannot be jeopardized

sovereignty of the people must be maintained

the laws of the nation are inviolable

all institutions were to be free from undue imperial influence (e.g. the press)

the nation should never be put into a position where it needs to behead the head of state. Again.

Napoleon was uh. Not best pleased with this and had a new version drafted up that included acknowledgement of the sovereignty of the people, but a lot of the other things (e.g. freedom of the press) were cut out.

Yet, Napoleon maintained certain parts of the French Revolution's values which were reflected more in the 1804 Code Napoleon and other legislative and legal pieces than in the initial terms of Senatorial acceptance of his imperial title.

Some of the things enshrined in the Code that were carry-over from the Revolution include, but aren't limited to, the abolition of feudalism, equality before the law, freedom of conscience (to practice their own religion), gave fixed title to those who had bought church and émigré lands during the 1790s, and the equality of taxation was maintained (tax those aristos and the church). Also, there was affirmation of the idea of careers being "open to talent" rather than an accident of birth (as touched on above).

The Freedom of Conscience clause in the Code was a further formalization of several Articles Napoleon amended onto the Concordat in 1802. The Articles guaranteed the principle of religious toleration and made the Protestant and Jewish churches similarly subject to state authority (alongside the Catholic).

These are just a brief summary of some of the more liberal/revolution-informed aspects of Napoleon's governing.

The non-liberal ones I believe we're all pretty familiar with: suppression of the free press, roll-back of rights for women (women are for babies!), reinstatement of slavery (which he later reversed circa 1810/12-ish), top-down Emperor-has-final-word approach to ruling (Napoleon was all about Authority From Above, Trust From Below) etc. etc.

At the end of this, I would say Napoleon's empire falls into that "benevolent monarch" situation. For a given value of "benevolent." As stated at the start, he was like most other monarchs in Europe at the time. Better than some, not as great about certain things as others.

--

Really, it all ties back to Order and Stability.

Napoleon's assent, and his approach to strong, centralized ruling, was a result of uncertainty and constant government change over ten years of revolution alongside the growing belief, by 1803, that a republic like the Romans or Greeks was not going to happen any time soon. Not without constant warfare and the forever looming threat of a Bourbon restoration.

In addition, Napoleon was doing imperial drag. (If that makes sense.) He was dialing the notch of Emperor up to 11 - being the most emperor of all emperors. So, state control was absolute because he couldn't show any signs of weakness - either in his own body, his familial body, or the body of state. The court protocols were intense and over-the-top at times because he had to prove he was not just a second son of a parvenu lawyer from the sticks. No! he was worthy of this pomp. He was worthy of imperial majesty. He was worthy of the crown and scepter.

Napoleon was not raised to be anything other than a military officer and a middle-class head of a family (would have been a MASTER at doing Sunday Dad Puttering About the House). When he dawned the mantel of power, particularly that of empire, he had to make it up as he went along. For such a self-conscious and proud man, this was difficult. He never wanted to misstep and be embarrassed - on a personal level, political or military.

At the same time, he was reared on Rousseau and Revolution so still had those values and ideals imbedded in him, and those fears and memories. Napoleon knew as well as any Frenchman that a monarch's head is easily removable should it become necessary. Therefore, he sometimes ran roughshod over the liberty to ensure security. For better or worse, that was the choice he made.

--

Napoleon was a flawed leader with a complex approach to governing that was focused on a centralization of power within him while, at the same time, trying to be the Successor of the Revolution, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Layers! Like an onion.

His approach as emperor really was within the realm of normal-for-the-times when compared to most other monarchs on the European stage in 1800. He also granted liberties to his people that were unheard of in other countries.

I feel like all my Napoleonic ramblings end with the same message: Dude was nuanced. Dude was complex. Dude did good things and bad things. Dude helped people and hurt people. Dude contained multitudes. Because he was simply human, at the end of the day.

--

ANNNNNNND we are done.

Gods bless all y'all who made it this far.

Have my favourite picture of Napoleon at Tuileries as a prize.

hmm that beautiful heavy, handed symbolism.

[popculturebuffet]

Mickey Mouse Birthday Shortstravaganza!

It’s Mickey and Minnie’s Birthday! It was 92 Years Ago Today everyone’s faviorite mouse came in on a tide of whistling, romance and animal abuse and swept into America’s hearts and wallets. Okay I am a day late on this, I had a busy day, but hey a belated celebratoin’s still good right? Right? Eh i’m doing it anyway.   Anyway since then he’s been one of animations most iconic characters, and while out of the classic power trio I vastly prefer donald and goofy, they still woudln’t be around without Disney’s big cheese and having not seen a ton of Mickey’s shorts, I felt I owed it to the big eared one to take a look at a bunch of his shorts for his birthday and see how I liked em. If your curious about my previous Donald Duck marathon, it’s CLICK THIS LINK.  Unlike last time all of these shorts are on Disney+ as more of Mickey’s library is on there and one or two of these were added recently, as Disney tends to add a few a month. I do wish there were more on there.. but unlike with say the handful of shows they haven’t put on there, i’m a bit more forgiving here. For one thing, YouTube has all the shorts available from various uploaders and DIsney hasn’t touched them despite Plus’ launch. Given like most companies Disney usually has their bots a cirlcing for their content, this has to be delebrate on there part and it’s a good gesture from the company. So while not in crisp HD like the Plus copies, or as easily avaliable, you can find any short that’s happened. So the shorts not all being up at once isn’t an issue like most of the shows that are absent on Plus. 

They also heavily need to cherry pick their library as some shorts simply haven’t aged well or have offensive stuff. With the exception of “The Beach Picnic”, which has a racist caricature of native americans via ants.. yes really, most of the shorts are fine to show kids, and have aged pretty well. And as my last marathon showed some shorts.. just haven’t. While not you know racist, seriously why is the Beach Picnic on there?, “Donald’s Penguin”, while utterly adorable at first, ends with Donald trying to murder a baby penguin with a shot gun. No amount of content warnings is going to get past one of their beloved icons pointing a shotgun at a baby. While Disney’s self conciousness can be silly, the splash edit and not putting the Darkwing Duck episode “Hot Spells” on plus for instance, this is one time when I can agree with them: if someone is curious about a paticuarlly offensive short or a propoganda one, youtube exists. But given Plus is trying to be all ages and dosen’t have censoring they have to be careful what they put on there, and I can respect that. I don’t think anyone’s crying a river over the fact that the goofy short where his reflection keeps saying “Hey Fat”, over and over while he struggles with his weight isn’t on Disney Plus and thankfully never will be. But seriously get rid of the “Beach Picnic”. It’s not a good short and you already have one batch of native american stereotypes with “Peter Pan”, I don’t think racist ants are the hill you want to die on disney.

So yeah, this time all of these are from Disney Plus, and since I watched them all at once, their in Watch order rather than chronological like last time. So with all that out of the way...

After the cut

1. Steamboat Willie (1928): It’s All Fun and Games Until Mickey Strangles an Innocent Duck Starting from the obvious source, Steamboat Willie was the start of Mickey’s career. And it’s.. okay. The animation is fantastic and the first half is pretty good: Theirs a pretty good gag with one of the cows. But the finale, with Mickey abusing various animals just isn’t that funny A LITTLE rattling of an animal for comedy is fine.. but the things Mickey does here are just sociopathic> And yes I know it was the 1920′s, but even in that lawless, racist, sexist time, they knew better than to strangle a duck, or, in the moment that puts it over the top, remove suckling pigs fromt heir mom and then play a pig’s teats like an insturment to make it squeal musically.. I assure you I did not make this up. That actually happens.  The pacing is also fairly slow at points, with some gags dragged out, though that can be chalked up to having no way to edit the damn thing, so that part I can forgive more.  What makes up for it, like I said, are some good jokes, and some gorgeous animation. Decades later and while clearly made a long time ago, it still looks vibrant and really pops even in black and white. It shows just how talented Disney was and how far the company could go with this medium.  One last thing to note is Mickey’s Early personality. While he’d retain trickster aspects at times, here he bounces between the loveable jolly mouse we’d come to know for the rest of his career who sometimes has a wild streak.. and a total asshole who strangles a duck. It’s just intresting to see such a diffrent side of him,  most of which would end up going to Donald over time. Overall the short is decent, not the best of Disney’s catalogue but worth a watch for the historical significance despite it’s shortcomings, pun unintended. 

2. Thru the Mirror (1936): That Was a Weird One This was easily my favorite of the bunch and as of now, my favorite Mickey Mouse Theatrical Short. Part of it is that it’s entirely bonkers; The film STARTS with Mickey , sound asleep, some how astral projecting as his soul, his spirit or whatever lead shis body and having been reading Alice Thorugh the Looking Glass, goes into a mirror world. But instead of encountring evil goatee mickey, he encounters a bunch of living objects and a bunch of fun set pieces for jokes ensue. He dances with playing cards, fights an army of them, has a sword fight with the king after dancing with the queen which.. no Mickey, bad mickey, your in a relationship and so is she. Bad Mouse bad. It is entirely fucking insane, even including a living nut cracker which.. words can’t.. look

They.. they had to know how this looked right? did the director have a ball busting fetish? I mean okay if he did, nothing wrong with that, but maybe don’t put it in your children’s cartoon.  That being said it does eat the shells which I find creative. And that’s what really makes this one pop. The creativity. Not a single minute is boring, every minute has something intresting going on, but without throwing too muchi n your face. It’s just a wonderful short and one that like Mr. Duck Steps out, i’ll be rewatching a LOTTTT. 

3. Mickey’s Rival (1936): Mortimer: The Original Bro From the same year we have disappointment. Having grown up with the disney classic House of Mouse, I was a huge fan of Mortimer. So when I first saw this, I was happy to see where he came from.. then justifably blocked it out of my mind till this review. While I love mortimer, I love Mickey having a sleazy rival and one diffrent than Pete who has different goals and tactics than the big guy. But his debut just has him as an obnoxious snickering bro.. which to be fair is who he is, but without the venre of charm his later version would have.  Mortimer just spends the short being a pranking douche, and blatantly hitting on Minnie in front of Mickey while their on a date. Which even in an open relationship is a no no, so he has no leg to stand on.. metaphorically. He also walks weird in this one because, and this is true, he’s carying 9 volt batteries in his pants. Yes really. That’s the level of Douche we’re dealing with. Someone so up their own ass they carry batteries int heir pocket instead of money or a mask or children’s trading cards like a normal person or a me.  What makes it frustrating is Minnie just swoons over the guy. And not like “Awww he’s so funny”, I mean romantically then has the gaul to say “your just jealous” when Mickey is understandably fuming over the jackass who swooped in, pranked him, is hitting on his girlfriend in front of him by teasing a bull, and in general is just the worst. Yes.. yes he is. Justifably. Jealousy is an ugly emotion but there’s a line between some dude bro like Mortimer getting mad your friends with someone you could be in a relationship with, boy, girl, neither, both, whatever your into, and Mickey getting mad his girlfriend is chuckling all over her ex who agian, crashed their date and treated him like garbage and is very transparently hitting on her in the middle of it.  It’s also just not a very funny short, outside of the bit pictured and tha’ts more for the sheer aburdity of Mortimer elctifying his pant for a really dumb gag about stealing people’s pants button. He’s very lucky we didn’t see Mickey’s Epic Mickey is what i’m saying. But given he’s a frat bro, the 1930′s version granted but a bro nonetheless,  he’d probably find that hilarious until he noticed the sheer size and scope.  Overall a forgetable, frustrating short. The one bright spot is mickey and mortimer’s cars which have faces and stuff and look neat.. otherwise it was just a waste of my time and the only good thing it did was bringing Mortimer into our lives. And that ain’t nothing. 

4. Mickey Down Under (1948): ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

This is a quick one.. because this one was a vacum. I mean I can at least say for Mickey’s Rival it’s interesting.. i’ts not good but it’s interesting. this is just.. Mickey farts around with a boomerang with his dog and then pisses off an ostrich. There’s not really a lot of consequence or intrest is what i’m saying. I can’t even find a good opening to make a letterkenny joke. No one got close to fucking an ostrich here. It’s telling by the fact theirs no gif’s of this one that no one cares and it baffles me this is one of the ones Disney chose to gussy up for D+ release. But still no donald messing around with a robot? 

5. The Band Concert (1935): That’s More Like It.  Okay scooting back a year we have the band concert. This is my third time watching this one and it’s a delight. Like the last one I don’t have a ton to say.. but it’s more because this one is just so good rather than because it wasted my time. It’s got a fun concept and the breakout performance from my boy donald duck as he constantly fucks with the band’s performance by either getting in their faces or hilariously pulling Flute’s out of thin heir. I miss that gimmick for donald, his love of pulling objects out of the either via magic and shenanigans. They should bring it back. Also his shenanigans remind me of opus and that’s never a bad thing. 

Also Horace takes off his shirt. For the Ladies. A Classic for good reason. 

6. On Ice (1935): Donald is a Bastard Man Another great one from the same year. This time around we have what i’ve come to call a Mickey and the Gang Messaround. This is back when Donald and Goofy were supporting characters, so generally each of the big three do something, usually coming together for the climax.  In this case Mickey tries to help Minnie with her skating, with him adorably following her around with a pillow before showing off for her, just really sweet stuff. Goofy’s bit is hilariously dumb, as fitting my boy, as he feeds fish tobaco to get them to spit into a spitoon, and tries to club them, with predictable results. While not the most enivrionmentally friendly just the sheer oddness, the fact it sort of works minus him actually clubbing them, and one of hte fish smacking him in the face all make it work.  The only bit that reallyd osen’t is Donald and pluto... it was present a bit before but here illustrates why I really dread Pluto based shorts. While I don’t hate the dog, he’s a dog I love dogs, most of the gags in his old shorts, and even up to mouseworks are him either being blamed for shit that’s not his fault, a pet peve of mine, or being tourtured in some way...

But dosen’t work at all now. He puts the poor dog on skates and then laughs at him and even sings a song mocking the poor dog, before justifably nearly ending up going over a watterfall, then ending up clubbed in the head. Good. I love donald but good god is he unsympathetic here.. and for some reason they teamed the two up again for more shorts! Why. It’s why I don’t get why Pluto was the star of his own shorts: if this is all they had.. why do it? Was the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s equilvent of a micheal bay audience really that into dog abuse?  So yeah otherwise a good short but that segment drags it down. not Donald’s best work. 

7. Clock Cleaners(1937): This is a Great One Not much to say on this one. It’s pretty good, has some fun set pieces, and some great jokes from all three characters. Mickey deals with a seagull, donald effs with a main spring and Goofy fights some statues. All good clean fun. My lack of brevity is more because I don’t have any jokes rather than this genuinely being bad. It’s pretty good. 

8.. Mickey and the Seal(1948): More Pluto Torture Porn! 

This one’s more of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it is really cute, as a young seal ends up going home with mickey after he visits the zoo to feed them fish. On the other hand.. it’s mostly Pluto chasing after the seal, Mickey being kind of a dick to pluto and not getting he clearly saw SOMETHING in his house, and then teasing him at the end despite him having been right. That being said the ending, with the seal brining back all it’s buddies to mickey’s house, is fricking amazing. ALso the seals in this unvierse who aren’t antrho can speak. That.. that raises a lot of questions I don’t think disney can answer. 

9. Ye Olden Days (1933): Jaunty Dueling Music Now this.. this was a fun one. Mickey and Minnie head to Medivil times, proving that the current shorts tendency to jaunt to various settings isn’t a new thing, and it’ sjust a much of a fun change up here as it was there. Mickey, a wondering minstral, ends up trying to rescue Minnie after her father throws her in a dungeon for not wanting to marry Prince Dippy Dog, who hopes she can learn to love him. I can’t tell if he’s genuine or a dick here. But it’s fun, especially the part where, after Minnie declares she loves mickey which.. it’s been a few hours slow down, they decide on a duel and thus sing some ragtime, 1930′s getting ready for duel music that’s just catchy. if X Of Swords ever gets a movie, I want to use this song. Just.. really good stuff. A fun short with some great gag,s a great concept, and my boy goofy as the villian. What’s not to like? Alright one more. 

10. MIckey’s BIrthday Party (1942): Big Chicken Breasts We end on another all together now, Mickey and the Gang Messaround that was a great note to end on. I did watch another short, Pluto’s Birthday party.. but it was both more of a Pluto short and more Pluto torture nonsense, so yeah, skipping that one, as I ended up one short of my 12 goal because I can’t count, apparently. So Mickey gets 10, but this one’s a good note to go out on. 

Minnie throws a suprise party for mickey which almost turns into a live sex celebration as Mickey clearly is a wee bit horny going in. But it turns into a fun dance party, with Donald throwing out razzes like a good buddy, Goofy making a cake, and some fun gags with a piano they all bought him. It’s a really good short. That’s the problem with Mickey Shorts and doing all D+ ones: There just isn’t the weirdly offensive stuff to talk about there is. He’s not a bad character, but there’s a reason in every short that features all three, Donald and Goofy easily outshine him. Mickey’s not a bad character, but when not in trickster mode, there just isn’t a lot for him to do. It’s why the comics reinvented him, much like they did for donald, into a plucky detective/reporter who reguarly sovles crimes. He’s not bad, and as seen with Ye Olden Days and Thru the Miror, his blank slateness cna be put to good effect and house of mouse gave him more of a personality, but here he’s just the bland good guy to Donald’s loveable scmap and goofy’s loveable dumbass. It’s an issue comedy has to this day: having a lead whose just.. not as intresting as the rest of the ensemble.  There is weirdness to note, as Donald dances with Clara Cluck> That’s not the weird part, he and daisy took a while to be etched in stone. The weird parts are 1. Donald wearing a sombrero and smoking a cigar, and 2. Clara’s MASSIVE boobs.. yes really. Clara Cuck has giant breasts. Like actual boobs that sway around while she dances with donald. it’s.. bizzare. Not terrible, who doesn’t like big chicken boobs but just.. really really weird to see ina  Disney cartoon.But yeah it’s jus ta fun note to end on. 

And that was MIckey’s Birthday special. I enjoyed it even if I had less to say than I thought. If you liked this review, you can comission your own for five bucks, just hit up my pms or my discord , avaliable on request. You can check out my ohter disney reviews in the disney tab on my blog and until next time, ther’es always another rainbow. 

[secretlyatargaryen]

I promised I’d write about this, and I really do think Tyrion/Lemore is an underrated relationship. And usually when people talk about it they only talk about Tyrion being a fuckboy, and he is, but he’s no worse than the way Jaime treats Brienne through much of ASOS. I think a lot of people use this subplot as merely more evidence for Tyrion’s downward spiral, but what’s really interesting about Lemore is the way she challenges Tyrion when he’s in that dark place of self-loathing and dissociation from others, especially with regards to women.

At the beginning of ADWD, Tyrion is in a place where he is incredibly cynical about love, and no longer interested in the idea of sex, even. He purposefully scares Illyrio’s slave because he wants her to hate him, to see him as disgusting, even though he is not interested in having sex with her. This is framed in stark contrast to the illusion he had previously paid for with sex-workers, in which he wanted to avoid, and feared, “the look” that he describes seeing in reaction to his disability. This is, of course, all linked to his trauma over Tysha, not only the fear of rejection but the sexual trauma of being forced to witness and participate in her rape, which also makes Tyrion a victim of sexual abuse and rape. What Tywin did, essentially, was take a consensual loving experience that Tyrion found comfort in and make it something ugly and disgusting. This makes Tyrion both compelled to re-experience what he had with Tysha by seeking out sex-workers and makes him feel that there is no way he could experience real love. When he learns the truth about Tysha, the coping mechanism of seeking out sex-workers becomes no longer satisfying, and the only thing Tyrion is left with is ugliness and self-blame.

I’d also argue that another major sexual trauma leading up to ADWD is his marriage to Sansa. Tyrion has brief fantasies that he can play a chivalrous romantic when he is married to her, but of course he knows that this isn’t possible. This is, in no way, Sansa’s fault, but being forced into a marriage with her is deeply sexually humiliating. Again, not because she rejected him, but because she is in no position to accept him. Tyrion becomes increasingly withdrawn from relationships, which is shown in his interactions with Sansa and even Shae, who he is less and less satisfied with and more insecure around than ever after his marriage. His sexual shame increases to the point where he can’t bear undressing in front of Sansa, the idealized, innocent maiden. Even the scene where he has sex with Shae among the dragon skulls and afterwards spends several uncomfortable moments searching for his clothes in the dark demonstrates Tyrion’s sexual repression and shame, in contrast to the way Shae treats it as a game.

"Shae . . ." He reached, but she spun and slipped free.

"You have to catch me." Her voice came from his left. "M'lord must have played monsters and maidens when he was little."

"Are you calling me a monster?"

"No more than I'm a maiden." She was behind him, her steps soft against the floor. "You need to catch me all the same."

He did, finally, but only because she let herself be caught. By the time she slipped into his arms, he was flushed and out of breath from stumbling into dragon skulls. 

[...]

After, as they lay entwined amongst the dragon skulls, he rested his head against her, inhaling the smooth clean smell of her hair. "We should go back," he said reluctantly. "It must be near dawn. Sansa will be waking."

"You should give her dreamwine," Shae said, "like Lady Tanda does with Lollys. A cup before she goes to sleep, and we could fuck in bed beside her without her waking." She giggled. "Maybe we should, some night. Would m'lord like that?" Her hand found his shoulder, and began to knead the muscles there. "Your neck is hard as stone. What troubles you?"

Tyrion could not see his fingers in front of his face, but he ticked his woes off on them all the same. "My wife. My sister. My nephew. My father. The Tyrells." He had to move to his other hand. "Varys. Pycelle. Littlefinger. The Red Viper of Dorne." He had come to his last finger. "The face that stares back out of the water when I wash."

Shae kissed his maimed scarred nose. "A brave face. A kind and good face. I wish I could see it now."

"Better you than me." Tyrion sat. "We have a long day before us, both of us. You shouldn't have blown out that taper. How are we to find our clothing?"

She laughed. "Maybe we'll have to go naked."

And if we're seen, my lord father will hang you.

Sexual shame is a big part of Tyrion’s narrative, something that has been drilled into him by Tywin. Shae’s carefree nature is put into contrast with the limitations and insecurities Tyrion experiences over his disabled body, both with regard to Sansa and Shae, and his insecurity about being seen naked once the sun comes up.

Interestingly, Tyrion’s insecurity about being seen naked is not present in A Game of Thrones, where he pretty casually walks out of his tent on the Green Fork without putting on clothes and pees outside while having a conversation with Bronn. I used to assume this was because he does not feel sexual shame at Bronn seeing him naked, as he is not sexually attracted to Bronn. Or that it’s just one of those things where Martin had not yet established his characters wholly, and just used this moment to show the casual nudity that is part of the “historical” feel he is going for in his novels. But also it could be that Tyrion’s sexual shame has increased from AGOT to ASOS, due to the events that transpire. By ADWD, Tyrion is afraid to take off his clothes to even bathe, and that’s one of our first introductions to Lemore.

I need to bathe. His boy's clothes stank, and so did he. The others bathed in the river, but thus far he had not joined them. Some of the turtles he'd seen in the shallows looked big enough to bite him in half. Bonesnappers, Duck called them. Besides, he did not want Lemore to see him naked.

Tyrion’s insecurity over his body is centered on Lemore, who he is attracted to, and Lemore is also juxtaposed in contrast to Tyrion’s sexual repression, as she bathes in the river every morning, and does not seem to care who watches her. Indeed, she is aware of Tyrion watching her and openly teases him about it.

"Good morrow, Hugor." Septa Lemore had emerged in her white robes, cinched at the waist with a woven belt of seven colors. Her hair flowed loose about her shoulders. "How did you sleep?"

"Fitfully, good lady. I dreamed of you again." A waking dream. He could not sleep, so he had eased a hand between his legs and imagined the septa atop him, breasts bouncing.

"A wicked dream, no doubt. You are a wicked man. Will you pray with me and ask forgiveness for your sins?"

Only if we pray in the fashion of the Summer Isles. "No, but do give the Maiden a long, sweet kiss for me."

Laughing, the septa walked to the prow of the boat. It was her custom to bathe in the river every morning. "Plainly, this boat was not named for you," Tyrion called as she disrobed.

"The Mother and the Father made us in their image, Hugor. We should glory in our bodies, for they are the work of gods."

The gods must have been drunk when they got to me. The dwarf watched Lemore slip into the water. The sight always made him hard. There was something wonderfully wicked about the thought of peeling the septa out of those chaste white robes and spreading her legs. Innocence despoiled, he thought … though Lemore was not near as innocent as she appeared. She had stretch marks on her belly that could only have come from childbirth.

Tyrion’s open about lusting after Lemore, and doesn’t try to hide it, and in fact seems to want Lemore to know it.

Tyrion’s being openly lecherous, in the way that echoes his behavior when he is playing up the way people see him, as the depraved dwarf. But it seems to be a performance that hides his own insecurity and trauma. He openly stares at her as she is bathing but won’t join in himself. The way he feels about her reads like he’s dissociating, especially in the observations he doesn’t say aloud. He seems like he’s trying to gross her out the way he does to the slave at Illyrio’s, but her response is to give as good as she gets, something which Tyrion seems not to expect, and he constantly deflects any positive things she says about him.

Like, she’s totally flirting with him, and he seems completely unaware of it, even while he fantasizes about her topping him.

When Lemore climbed back onto the deck, Tyrion savored the sight of water trickling between her breasts, her smooth skin glowing golden in the morning light. She was past forty, more handsome than pretty, but still easy on the eye. Being randy is the next best thing to being drunk, he decided. It made him feel as if he was still alive. "Did you see the turtle, Hugor?" the septa asked him, wringing water from her hair. "The big ridgeback?”

"I missed the ridgeback." I was watching the naked woman.

"I am sad for you." Lemore slipped her robe over her head. "I know you only rise so early in hopes of seeing turtles."

"I like to watch the sun come up as well." It was like watching a maiden rising naked from her bath. Some might be prettier than others, but every one was full of promise. "The turtles have their charms, I will allow. Nothing delights me so much as the sight of a nice pair of shapely … shells."

Septa Lemore laughed. Like everyone else aboard the Shy Maid, she had her secrets. She was welcome to them. I do not want to know her, I only want to fuck her. She knew it too. As she hung her septa's crystal about her neck, to nestle in the cleft between her breasts, she teased him with a smile.

Good lord, y’all. Tyrion’s silently like “when will this milf sit on my face” and Lemore is like “let’s have a sexually charged conversation about turtles” and Tyrion’s like “I have no idea how to deal with this scenario but I think I like it?”

He also says that he doesn’t want to know her, which...feels like when Tyrion always lies to himself. Again, he’s trying to inhabit the role of the sexually deviant dwarf without getting attached, but does he really not want to know her? Tyrion repeatedly says throughout ADWD that he doesn’t want love from anyone anymore, but that’s the biggest lie of all.

"You have a gift for making men smile," Septa Lemore told Tyrion as he was drying off his toes. "You should thank the Father Above. He gives gifts to all his children."

"He does," he agreed pleasantly. And when I die, please let them bury with me a crossbow, so I can thank the Father Above for his gifts the same way I thanked the father below.

Again he deflects when Lemore compliments him, which is...what Tyrion does in all his relationships. But he does admit that he enjoys spending time with her, and spends a good amount of time trying to figure her out, for someone who says he doesn’t want to know her.

His doublet was divided down the middle; the left side was purple velvet with bronze studs; the right, yellow wool embroidered in green floral patterns. His breeches were similarly split; the right leg was solid green, the left leg striped in red and white. One of Illyrio's chests had been packed with a child's clothing, musty but well made. Septa Lemore had slit each garment apart, then sewn them back together, joining half of this to half of that to fashion a crude motley. Griff had even insisted that Tyrion help with the cutting and sewing. No doubt he meant for it to be humbling, but Tyrion enjoyed the needlework. Lemore was always pleasant company, despite her penchant for scolding him whenever he said something rude about the gods. 

And Lemore seems to enjoy Tyrion’s presence, and openly banters with him throughout this section of the book, challenging his nihilism, sexual repression, and self-loathing. She’s also the one who cares for him after he is nearly drowned in the stonemen attack.

He was on the Shy Maid, Tyrion saw, under a scratchy blanket that smelled of vinegar. The Sorrows are behind us. It was just a dream I dreamed as I was drowning. "Why do I stink of vinegar?"

"Lemore has been washing you with it. Some say it helps prevent the greyscale. I am inclined to doubt that, but there was no harm in trying. It was Lemore who forced the water from your lungs after Griff had pulled you up. You were as cold as ice, and your lips were blue. Yandry said we ought to throw you back, but the lad forbade it."

[...]

Lemore emerged on deck with the prince in tow. When she saw Tyrion, she rushed across the deck to hug him. "The Mother is merciful. We have prayed for you, Hugor.

"You did, at least. "I won't hold that against you."

I think it scares Tyrion that Lemore cares about him, because he still deeply believes that he is unlovable, and Lemore directly challenges that. But he contradicts his own declaration that he doesn’t want to know her. In fact, he’s intensely interested in knowing who she really is.

Lemore had changed out of her septa's robes into garb more befitting the wife or daughter of a prosperous merchant. Tyrion watched her closely. He had sniffed out the truth beneath the dyed blue hair of Griff and Young Griff easily enough, and Yandry and Ysilla seemed to be no more than they claimed to be, whilst Duck was somewhat less. Lemore, though … Who is she, really? Why is she here? Not for gold, I'd judge. What is this prince to her? Was she ever a true septa?

In short, Lemore is an older, experienced woman who not only seems to care for Tyrion, she is openly sexual and is able to go toe to toe with him both intellectually and sexually. Also, like, there are so many different kinky possibilities here. I need fic of this like, yesterday.

[clairehazelb]

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR OF THE TENTH CUBE

And by Editor I mean, Claire Hazel,

(whom you may know as C.M. Hazel)

Writing my first historical fiction novel was a task of love, but a great endeavor nonetheless.

When we do things we love. we love the things we do. The Tenth Cube was, in essence, my love for romance and history poured onto pages of combined plotlines and historical facts. Coupled with science and a good dose of ritz, it blossomed like a garden flower into the novel it became. I felt, finally, like a writer the moment I wrote “The End.”

Writers, like professionals of other art forms, just are. Mostly, it occurred to me long ago,  we can become it, like the second you write the last sentence of that novel, or publish your book, like there is a glorified ending to calling yourself a member of the elite group of artists who pine at the sight of a lonely blank page.

Or so I felt. 

I read years ago -and my apologies to the person who wrote it for I sincerely do not recall the author- that ‘the moment you call yourself what you esteem yourself to be, is the moment you become it’. Therefore, if you want to be a writer, you call yourself a writer and let others deliberate on whether you are apt to be or not.

I practiced my skill of saying I was a writer in front of a mirror or while waiting for traffic to move in the lane ahead of mine. I yelled it out the window for good measure. “Move the fuck out of the way. I am a writer and can write this into my book!”

The moment somebody asked me and I said it out loud, I embodied it with pride, like the day I stepped with character shoes onto a stage felt for the actress in me. It burgeoned out of me like it was supposed to forever, waiting to be discovered. I beamed with the wine-laced fever of the evening.

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  It was a pivotal moment in my history, redefining where I ended up with my work. I went on a search for myself and found my writing voice. The days were growing longer with the dawn of my ideas and entries, so I had to make use of what I was inspired to do.

Despite my assertion, that I was a writer and not a poser, fear of criticism stalled me. I faced it like stage fright, but it was a sinister face at the end of my journal telling me it was not good enough. Nothing could come out of my penned notes and rhythmic pentameters.

I read about imposter syndrome around the time, looking for ways to face my fears. As it turns out, it can apply to anyone in any career, but it is a disorder that affects writers especially so, the idea that you aren’t good enough is prevalent amongst the inked-fingered-wordsmiths in my profession.

When I finished the Tenth Cube, everything changed.  While editing, I thought about a piece I had never published which explored the elements of fear. From that entry into my journal, came the text I eventually entered into my novel. I felt it appropriate for my second published book and first historical fiction novel. Aspiring writers are usually the best readers and learn best while to reading other writers’ works, taking what they can to heart. Here is part of the text in my book.

  A WRITING INDULGENCE

When I first started writing The Cube (as I lovingly call this novel), I typed without direction and wrote about many topics. I posted most of it on an old website, I would not even dare call a blog at this point. I eventually learned to hold hands with my muse in a better way and supplied my artistic knowledge with my other artistic experience. But, it inevitably always led me toward the same reason for not embarking onto a manuscript fully. Fear.

  My head swam with thoughts and reasons why I would fail miserably at my task. I just knew.

I know everything in stories has already been said and done.

I know I’m not alone when it comes to storytelling and interesting facts about life and circumstance. I know the very principle of storytelling relies on the fact that the narrative is good and characters are interesting. And, then again, I don’t know anything at all.

I personally see the story better in my head than how it reflects on writing.

  Despite knowing and fear, stories ultimately lead you where you need to go. And for sake of argument,

Yes, I believe it’s possible to be a good storyteller, despite everything having been done already.

Rarely am I ever afraid, even rarest is my admission to the fear, but it scares me a little still because nothing has ever worked in my mind better than my stories.

I’ve failed so miserably at so many things it’s hard to start this again. I do not fear telling you this though. I write for a while and the fear disappears. I want to be the bearer of good news for new writers or those having an urge to quit like I have so many times before. Bear with me on this.

The phrase ‘It started with a notebook I once wrote’ jumped into my head a while ago. I wrote a poem about it because of the many notebooks later it took me to create the first personal entry into a public medium. I’d written about theater plays and Language Education with a technical point of view, but storytelling, like acting in stories which came to life through my fingers, became the part of me I most enjoyed writing.

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About eight years ago, I wrote a story –also based on a weird dream- and I went from there. I haven’t really stopped writing since. So, maybe that’s my beginning for this. I’ve scattered ideas and unfinished stories everywhere. My own pending as ever, the satire runneth over my brimming mind, for lack of better understanding sets perfectly in here. But, to make things simple, I will advise you to keep trying new and trying for more.

“Delia became my headstrong voice for writing. Though it was my second novel finished, she paced my thoughts in a way no other story had, and I was hooked to her charms. Delia Donovan became my daily dose of the [her-story] I so hated as a young girl and delight so in my adult years. Instead of writing columns of advice for women as I had planned, I went toward writing about strong, intelligent, resourceful, frightened yet capable women with the same principle in mind.” Claire Hazel

Delia will hopefully continue to inspire stories – I am in research and writing the second novel. There will likely be a third as well.

Aspiring writer and authors, the gist of what I mean in this.

It took me X years to develop the voice I needed to write this book.

It took me lll to research and write the full novel, with periods of off and on to dream and work on other projects.

It has taken me lV between trying to publish on my own and finding a publisher.

  The Tenth Cube became an enduring project because it has a life worth living, I have said that before I think. Most writers live in this world where stories cannot go untold. Therefore my dear thirtysomething-writer who hasn’t started yet, if you are like I was, find the outlet to do so and share the story that has a life worth living.

Take the time to write and sit with confidence to edit. And please, share with me that hard-pressed jewel when you like.

A big box with recycled paper packing and a mug of coffee with enough supply for reading will be the most delicious treat a grown girl could ever get.

  What are then, these so-called Elements

By ways of telling you of the best technique I have used to move my stories and find the hidden information in my characters I need to shape their persona, we will use the What if? technique. What ifs are a way to create possibility. When you have doubts, there are endless What ifs going around in your head like a merry-go-round of incertitude. In essence, The Elements of said turntable of fear could be considered the following:

What if I can’t write like the rest of the authors I read?

This could fall within the impostor syndrome I wrote about before. You are not an impostor of your own game, you feel like a writer, believe it with confidence. It does not mean you have to be like other writers, successful or not.

Writing may or may not take time. For the present me, it is a matter of sitting to the type or jot down notes. But as I mentioned, it took many years to develop a voice I found pleasing and suitable, according to my desired writing style. I guess what is important is that

you don’t imitate but emulate those you love AT FIRST to develop your own voice

write about what you like and not what people like, the audience will find you and relate better

study the greats and accommodate your needs through your learning styles and experiences

nobody is alike and we are all connected, so find what works for your personal style without judging yourself or thinking you will be compared

What if there are things I don’t know or need to include in my novel I know absolutely nothing about?

Researching novels doesn’t have to be grueling work. Annote as you write (for pantsers) or outline the novel as you want it to be (plotter). Your writing style can help or hinder you. So, read carefully,

Research as needed before and fully after finishing your manuscript

Too much research can create difficulty for you and/or your reader, who is probably not in need to sit through, say, a history class instead of understanding through the plot movement

Too little research shows lack of pulchritude and disrespect to your readers, or make you sound nonchalant and ignorant.

Rule of thumb? Be aware, show knowledge, but don’t over inform.

What if I get stuck in my writing process?

Find inspiration wherever you look or take time to be still and OBSERVE

Nature, life, family, etc, show us and teach us. Use its lessons to show you the way, so do not just look and see, WATCH AND LEARN

Don’t overwhelm yourself or stick to a plotline if you feel stuck. Take a break to refresh your ideas and they will hit you when you least expect it, I promise you! An exercise that works for me is jumping the part where I am stuck and either mind mapping or planning the ending first then backtracking to the difficult area

Talk to your characters. they tell you lies at times but help you find the way. Listen carefully!

What if they do not help me publish?

Many writers are still sitting on the sideline of genius, gems of witing prose at their fingertips. Sadly, most give up writing because of this. I have quarried and continue to quarry publishers without much success, but I keep pressing on.

I self-published my first two books with great difficulty and many years of work, but they paid off in a way nothing else has. Take your chances with self-publishing. (I will soon open a platform for other writers to send me manuscripts to publish as an editor. News on this later!)

What if I don’t have time to write?

Write where ever you are able to create a strong writing muscle. Keep pen and pads where ever you can or use phones and tablets, recording apps, and /or your digital cameras

Take every chance you get to exercise the need to write, be it a post-it note or a short phrase inside a journal, a Tweet or a love note, make those words count in your favor

What if I do not feel like I can write my novel (yet)?

Use blogs, submit to magazines, write articles or content, keep journals, or write your family’s newsletter.

Contact your local papers or ask if anybody needs a content writer in your school or local businesses

Start with simpler texts, like magazine entries and restaurant menus

Keep writing your way into the published author you want to be without thinking that you have to have a published book in your hands before you can call your self a writer. There are hundreds of professions where writing is a need and many forms of writing are included in this. Comic book writers, for exa

  Comic book writers, for example, are storytellers, too. It is a matter of how you see your writing come to life to show others your stories. Find where your style fits best and show your best work.

My final writing indulgence was to tell other writers that there are ways, time, and chances to do what you love and ways to do it. The biggest problem most people face is fear, but fear can come with a face, a price tag, a backseat without a window, or an empty stomach and children on your hip.

We may fear different things which hinder our jump into the life we want. Discovering the fear we face is the first step toward the freedom from it. The next is up to you.

  With love,

Claire.

Lovely writer and content creator, take a moment to create your own purpose, and formulate a plan to write your way into the content you like to read. Start by creating your own space and sharing with others the gift of your writing wisdom, comedic genius, romantic side, laughing tales of your youth, or the recipes and secrets your grandmother gave you to keep.

You will get a cool credit for those plugins that make your place shine and sparkle.

It is easy and fast to start. Tell me about it on your way back to my content and happy writing!

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Before the Tenth Cube. I typed without direction and wrote about many topics. With time and practice, I learned to hold hands with my muse, but fear held me back. Learn how to understand it and push past it. A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR OF THE TENTH CUBE And by Editor I mean, Claire Hazel,

[mariantoina]

thoughts on t*sp

look. at first i told myself that i wasn’t gonna watch this show, and then the very next day it got leaked so i was like “you know what? im gonna watch it anyway!” and thats the worst decision that ive ever made in my life because this show was... bad. could it have been worse? definitely, given the fact that it was an emma frost show based on a philippa gregory book. but this was still terrible enough for me to type this post up, so here we go!

i can guarantee you that you’ll have a more fun time reading this post than you will watching TSP. this is under a read more because.. whew.. theres a lot.

THE CASTING

first and foremost: the actress playing KOA cannot act. she’s really pretty, granted, but her acting was genuinely terrible. like.. i cringed almost every time there was a scene terrible. not only was her spanish accent bad but she felt so.. stiff, i guess would be a good word, whenever she said something. and that didn’t do anything to help the fact that she has a bad case of ScarJo Fever™ (if you don’t know what that is: it’s when an actor/actress only makes the same three facial expressions) people need to stop hiring actresses and actors just because they’re attractive and actually make sure that they can act. at this point, i am Begging!

the actor playing harry was actually good though, at least in my opinion. he did his best with what he was given and i really admire that! you can tell that he was putting a lot of effort into it, even though the way that they wrote him was really out of character for that period of his life (see: this post)

h7′s actor was good in the scenes that he was in, but the way that they treated h7 was so.. weird? they didn’t make him as creepy as i thought that they were going to when i first found out they were making an adaptation of TCP, but there was still this lowkey creepy vibe that he had going on.. i honestly dont know how to explain it, but it was there. also he slapped the shit out of harry in a scene??? that was messy as HELL

the actress for margaret beaufort was good, but there were some scenes that just had me like.. oh? on god? (most notably the death scene, but i’ll get into that hot mess later) you could tell that she was trying hard, even if they made MB’s character arc terrible.

the actors that played lina and her love interest were amazing, though. they worked with what they had and i really liked what they did with them even though the writing was shit. the scene with their wedding was adorable and really well acted!

angus imrie (arthur) was good, too! but the wig that they gave him? atrocious. i’m going to see it in my nightmares. georgie henley was really good in the scenes that we saw her in as meg tudor, but most of the scenes she was in weren’t that good and that’s wack :’)

i don’t know the name of the actress that played juana of castile in the episode she was in, but i liked her acting, too.. even though the writing for her was kind of cringy.

before i end this section i should let it be known that i was more attached to juana, meg and arthur in the few episodes they were in than i was to KOA during the entire show. it’s so tragic like. how are you going to cast a lead actress that cant act?? Hello???

before i get into the issues with the writing and creative direction i have with the show, i just wanna say: the pacing of the show was terrible and really, really difficult to follow. the entirety of the second episode, which followed from their KOA/arthur marriage to arthur’s death, probably had the worst pacing. it felt like only a few weeks had passed in the show’s time, when it was supposed to be what? six months? and there was so indication of a timeskip between episode 6 and episode 7, even though juana was still in england at the end of episode 6 and h7 died about 10 minutes into episode 7? it’s so tragic.

okay, moving on!

THE CREATIVE DIRECTION

look. i get that it’s a show and of course there’s going to be historical license but... GOD this show went above and beyond.

there’s so much i want to say here, but the most important one that i have an issue with is the shit that they did with lina’s character. erasing the fact that she was a slave owned by ferdinand and isabella and then later given to KOA was absolutely terrible. and then not only did they do that AND make her KOA’s most loyal lady-in-waiting, but they erased the fact that she was forced to convert to christianity, forced to stop using her birth name and instead having to use the name of her new owner in the name of #StrongFemaleFriendships. disgusting!

EF: lina is KOA’s most faithful servant and they have a strong female friendship!! hashtag woke!! hashtag feminism!! my black ass:

honestly it gets even worse because KOA and lina’s “central female friendship” was barely even there. lina had more scenes with rosa, one of KOA’s other ladies-in-waiting, than she did with KOA. not to mention that KOA was manipulative to lina and kept saying stuff like “you owe me service” or stuff along those lines? it was so shitty. lina sweetie im so sorry that this ugly ass bitch would even try you

the next big thing that i had a problem with was the fact that they aged up harry, when in reality he was about 11 years old when KOA first came to england. like, i can’t really go that much into it because even thinking about the fact that they aged him up to make him Arthur’s Hotter, All-Around-Better Brother™ when he was fucking 11 makes me kinda sick but. ughh it was terrible.

not to mention the fact that they villainized margaret beaufort because of course they did. apparently you cant be a middle aged woman without being villainized?? especially not in an emma frost show. but the way that they villainized her was so ugly. and the fact that they attributed shit like edmund dudley’s execution to her when it happened an entire year after she died? Hello????

the way that she just took over and declared herself regent when h7 was in mourning for elizabeth of york and kicked KOA out of the palace + the way she tried to threaten margaret pole & lina into revealing that KOA wasn’t a virgin.. shgkhhgsfhgkshjbjsjb that shit was so fucking messy its like they tried to make her a fusion of mother gothel from tangled and ursula from the little mermaid

the way that they made EoY dislike KOA was so weird? and the way that both her and margaret beaufort assaulted her by kissing and groping her respectively was weird and definitely uncalled for.

this is a minor one in the gist of some of the other things but why did they make EoY’s last daughter a stillborn child? someone correct me if i’m wrong, but didn’t she live for about a week before she died? but then again, i remember that she named their daughter after KOA, so they probably did that to avoid the fact because they made EoY hate her. messy

arthur’s wig counts as a creative decision right? well whoever gave him that wig needs to be fired. PERIOD

arthur’s wig:

me:

whoever did meg tudor’s costumes also needs to be fired tbfh they were so bad. what did she ever do to yall

THE WRITING

i guess that writing can go into the creative direction category as well, but there were so many problems with the writing that it deserves its own category

KOA was so terrible in this. between her manipulating harry and lina, and the fact that she kept defending the fact that isabella abused juana because “our mother was a queen, a warrior” was ugly! “tO bE qUeEn oF eNgLaNd iS mY dEsTiNy” girl if you don’t shut ya mouth catching these hands is gonna be your destiny

they also made KOA put all of her faith in the fact that she was related to queens? like, every time juana said she couldn’t do something because her husband + ferdinand are assholes, or every time isabella was brought up she kept being like “but you’re/she’s a queen!” it was irritating

all of the predictions about the great matter/KOA not being able to give harry a son were weird. i would have been fine if it had only been like.. one time, because sometimes foreshadowing can be good, but it was brought up every 5 seconds and at the most random times. like when EoY was literally dying in childbirth?? Hello????? god are you there??

AND THE FACT THAT EOY STRAIGHT UP WENT TO HELL AND SAW HER BROTHER GETTING EXECUTED THEN CAME BACK. HELLO??

then when margaret beaufort was about to die and she saw ghosts? and jasper tudor showed up to take her to hell i guess? honestly i didnt know what the fuck was going on but that shit was so fucking messy and wild. i have to laugh

also: i mentioned this earlier but all of those scenes where harry was ranting and raging.. EF really saw the name “henry viii” and floored it with that huh

they also dumbed harry down imho.. Wack!

juana seducing harry was a hot ass mess in its own right, but honestly? juana and harry had more chemistry in that one minute scene than KOA and harry had in the entire show

we were not even 10 minutes into the pilot and they were already trying to portray isabella as a #WokeFeministQueen. how, you might ask? why, by showing her leading a group of men to kill black muslims for their faith, of course! didn’t you know that being racist and islamophobic is hip and feminist when you’re a queen?

like i get that its from KOA’s point of view but in the opening monologue of the pilot they mentioned that isabella overthrew the moors like it was a #Feminist thing to do and not a part of her orchestrating massacres and contributing to genocide? @ EF: on GOD??

tbh? shocked that KKKristopher KKKolonizer wasn’t mentioned in a positive light based on how much they tried to glorify isabella. like what catholic monarchs stan was allowed to work on this show with EF and P. Gregory?? hello????

i’m totally fine with the whole plot point about katherine lying about her virginity, since we’ll probably never know the truth about whether or not she and arthur consummated their marriage, but it was poorly executed in both the writing and in CH’s acting. i could tell that she was lying and so did.. almost everyone, really.

the scene where they were about to.. i guess lynch lina’s love interest for “stealing” made me really uncomfortable. i dont even know how to explain it

h7′s death scene.... this is all i have to say about it

margaret beaufort ordering the execution of edmund dudley was shitty for a lot of reasons but honestly him screaming “fuck you all to hell” was hilarious

the ending scene of episode 7 where they were in the chapel and henry asked KOA if she was still a virgin was bad writing and CH’s acting made it even worse. cant even lie convincingly smh

margaret pole’s plotline was so confusing.. i barely knew wtf was going on with her the entire show? it all felt so rushed and forced. it was weird

EoY and h7 had some cute scenes together though. and that was like.. one of the shows only real redeeming qualities

that’s about it for this post about TSP! my overall rating for it is a 0.5/10. it was super shitty, but i liked arthur, juana and meg tudor so it gets a 0.5 instead of a plain 0. and apparently theres one episode left too.. DREADING it. anyways: emma frost absolutely failed in her goal to be like “its not all about anne boleyn!” because if anything this show made me think about how claire foy and natalie dormer were both robbed of awards so.. if reading this post gave you hives? go watch wolf hall or the tudors for their great performances!

thanks for reading! :)

[rayinberkeley]

Here we go again, or, why I’m starting to hate liberals too

I remember 2015 so fondly. I was actually asking the question, what is a left wing version of McCarthyism, because I insisted there was no such thing. I said liberals weren’t like that. I said that I feared the most moderate Republican way more than I’d ever fear any extreme liberal. 

Boy did 2016 open my fucking eyes. An election season where I favored Bernie Sanders, but was excited about Hillary as well, ended in bloodshed, lost friends, tons of hurt feelings, and a country in shreds. Thanks to liberals. Not entirely, but they were the ones who delivered the hardest, harshest blows.

And since I’d always said McCarthyism was, basically, modern day witch-accusing, leading to witch-hunting, that’s exactly what we got. They wanted Bernie so badly that they latched on to decades of rightwing accusations designed to make people suspicious of the Clintons. And Russia swallowed them up.

This election season is going to be so much better, right? It’s going to be the one where Bernie-or-Bust liberals who rage-hated Hillary so much that they masturbated to visions of her roasted on a stake are going to have learned their lesson, right? 

Nope. Not one apology from them. They think WE need to learn. For example:

I give this example because it’s what started the whole shebang wherein I kicked a fucking hornet’s nest. And I’m not sorry. Fuck these people. Watch them pile up on a woman who stands up to this asshole: 

They started accusing her of being Islamophobic! For fucking what?!?!?!

And nobody can explain why this is about him being fucking Arabic! Who needs to. Apparently just throwing the accusation is enough for them now. They accuse, you’re just wrong forever because they said so. Sounds just like how witch trials go, doesn’t it?

They piled onto her pretty badly, as you can see. Why??? What the holy fuck did Mangy say that was even fucking close to wrong? It’s a woman defending a woman to this ridiculous man, who had just been clicking on more fucking Russian clickbait, designed to make morons like him act fucking insane.  But she’s the one attacked, for no fucking reason other than they want to be offended and they want to also say Hillary needs to shut up and go away.

But it’s when this woman, who I think just used her own ladyness in the most despicable way possible, stepped in.....

....that I fucking tossed my inner bitch in and lost my shit, because god dammit I’m getting sick of liberal fuckers now:

Well, you can imagine. She RT’ed this crying victim about how I’m “mansplaining” at her, and well, the hate just rolled on in because zOMG!!!! a cis-male white guy dared to say something at her!!! Bring out the smelling salts because we gots us a MAN being all wordy and shit! Like her lady parts magically made it okay for her to stand up for misogyny! 

I felt a little like Jack from Will & Grace. I wanted to say, “Oh honey, I am not like the other men in your life. I ......will slap you!” Cuz this bitch needed a verbal slapping. Not that she’ll get any lesson out of it. No, you can’t hear any sense when you’re screaming, OMG WHITE MAN IS MAKING ME CRY!!!!

And of course her hate-bubble-wrap army she’s wrapped up in protected her from any sense too. Apparently an angry gay man is new to these “liberals.” They were all super offended that I suggested Russia told her what to think (while they’re all right here, right now, reacting to Russian clickbait). 

But the fucking fact is, ya did, bitch. Ya did let Russia trick you. They tricked your over-reacting, labia-flapping twat-for-brain, easily into hating one woman more than you gave a fuck about your country. You shared bullshit, and you helped with the venomous campaign against her, when we had a fucking NAZI running on the other end.

And what’s worse, the Russia-gate denials that flew at me from these people were as knee-jerk as climate denial from a Republican. They still think Russia didn’t do this, and they still think Hillary stole the election from poor pooooor pooooooor Bernie! And that he would’ve won and he has always been perfect in every way!

I don’t give a fuck if you’re tired of hearing about Russia. It fucking happened. It’s a matter of cold hard fact that they played your ass. They’re doing it right here. Right now. And you’re falling for it even at this very fucking moment, and they still deny it?

And if you don’t like me throwing my inner woman into the mix, using it for the authority that she thinks her flapping vagina supposedly gives her, well fucking touch shit. I must have an inner woman, since you all said we were just voting with our vaginas. Remember that? 

You all kept saying we were brainwashed by the DNC and the corporate media, just because we didn’t feel the need to nail her to a piece of wood and burn her at the stake for not being abso-fuckin-lootely liberal pure, as though some fucking how any of you are. 

It couldn’t possibly be that we knew she would be a better president than what we got, or even that we knew she’d be better than Bernie. Of course not. You all just kept bringing up stupid shit from Hillary and then saying you couldn’t trust her. @_@ I just can’t trust her I just can’t trust her I just can’t trust her @_@....... we remember you fucking sheep running around, being the zombie horde of irrational hate. We remember it fucking well. You just can’t stand being treated like this back, can you? Because you’re specially entitled to treat everyone else like shit without any return.

Well guess what. Bernie........ I just can’t trust him. He fails your own fucking purity test.....  he just stomps about issues but can’t explain any of them. Whose staff is remarkably lacking women and minorities, and who profits from poisoning Sierra Blanca and tells them to fuck off about it, which may be why he hasn’t produced his taxes, and to add to that suspicion, the Tad Devine connection and the failure to vote against Russian sanctions!

You were all rabid and angry and evil and vicious about it, and I have yet to hear one fucking apology from one single fucking one of you. You’ll never get one from me. Fuck you, woman. Let me fag-splain this shit to you since you seem too fucking stupid to understand.

Fuck you, fuck her, fuck the entire fucking thing you’re fucking doing, fuck James fucking Zogby, and fuck the liberals ready to tantrum their way into our country going straight into the next Holocaust. Thanks to you we’ve already seen them let Puerto Ricans die, rip families apart, create CONCENTRATION CAMPS, and you tell us WE need to learn? What did you change? How are you being any different than last time? Because it’s cold hard fact, YOU GOT US HERE. And I have 17 motherfucking intelligence agencies saying YOU are the ones Russians could count on to react to their propaganda. Hillary supporters DID NOT.

I have my man-vagina, so I can say this. After all, white woman, you’ll be fine, but historically, it’ll be Nazis pushing those minorities and gays (like me) into fucking ovens. But you know, you care so fucking much more than we do, right?

You know, because you’re so much liberaller-than-thou or something. With a big, low-hanging, flapping bunch of fucking meat curtains and shit.

All we did in 2016 is not want to burn a woman at the stake. That was our unforgivable crime for which you all flipped the fuck out on us. We weren’t the ones saying she was perfect in every way. That was Berners about Bernie. You all said he has always done everything perfectly werfectly righty tighty, and always been for the people weople! So it’s totally fine to throw dollar bills at Hillary’s vehicle and call her a whore.

Get your shit together. There is no arguing with it. Your lady parts don’t give you magical rights to tell women to shut up, especially when they’re standing up for a woman against a man saying that some fucking how, it’s Hillary that hasn’t learned anything. Really? 

Fuck you. And let me throw in, fuck you, you fucking cunt. I no longer give a shit that you’re offended. I hope you are. You just made me hate liberals, and that took a LOT to make happen.

[nothing-personal-my-dear]

Spartacus: Vengeance Rewatch - Episode 1: Fugitivus

Sex Scene: All of them. They went to a whorehouse.

“Cock”: 4

“Cunt”: 2

“Kill Them All”: 0 (I wonder if this is said at all in S2 or 3)

“Fucking Gaul”: 3

Slow motion Face Punch:0

Episode Name Dropped by: Aurelia

Memorable Death:  Aurelia

Favourite Line: “We must stand as one, or fall divided.”

- This is the greatest way they could have introduced the new Spartacus actor. It was amazing.

- Spartacus facing down that horse is beautiful.

- AGRON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- DONAR!! =]

- He’s still throwing his bloody sword.

- I love that Donar has this axe thing, it’s awesome and sets him apart from the other gladiators.

- This beginning fight scene is so well done.

- Agron oh gosh. He’s so angry, so crazed by his grief. Everyone is so wary of him, but like he lost his brother. My poor baby.

-  “I believe the man dead.” – the moment I fell in love with Donar and his bromance with Agron.

- I can always rely on Agron to say “cock”

-  Spartacus has never really been a savage until right now when he carves a message into a dead guy’s chest. Seriously, wtf. 

- I’m so in love with Agron’s necklace.

- Ha! Rome, it looks like it’s still being built. That’s hilarious.

- Pompey mention!

- What is with all those masks?! How fucking creepy.

- “Where youth plummets, maturity may soar.”

- As someone who hasn’t ever paid any interest in wars, all this undoubtedly historically accurate war talk is super boring.

- Everyone under the sun is named Marcus

- Varinius!! BAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh man, seriously. Just, Brett Tucker is an Aussie actor that has been in basically everything! I can’t take him seriously.

- AND HE FUCKING SAID MONGRELS!

- Seriously this triangle between Ilithyia, Varinius, and Glaber is basically the entire subplot of S2.

- The one thing I get super bored of in Spartacus is men and their egos.

- Mira is literally in the sewers and she’s still a queen.

- Oh hey, the Veteran!

- The kid that says “I will kill many Romans” looks like Tyler Lockwood from Vampire Diaries.

- You can actually see Mira’s face fall when Aurelia comes into view. Like she knows that when Aurelia is around Spartacus can see no one else. It’s not a romantic thing, it’s a Varro thing.

- Agron and Donar bromance, I love it. Almost makes up for Duro’s death, almost.

- The Gauls are mostly comprised of New Zealanders – just an observation.

- I sometimes can’t believe that the gladiators treat the house slaves so poorly and sometimes don’t seem to give a fuck about any slaves still in chains.

- “Rabbits” - I still don’t understand this.

-  Oh, Acer.

-  Yessss Mira!!!!!

- Oh the showdown between the Gauls and the rest of the slaves is so intense and beautifully done.

- I really like that even with the new actor they still put all the same scars on him. Good job.

- Oh gosh. Mira loves Spartacus so much…..and S2 Spartacus clearly cares for her way more than he did in S1, but still. She deserves better.

- “I have proven troublesome to kill.”

- Gah, the thing with Spartacus in S2 is he cares more about killing Romans than protecting the other slaves. At least Mira and even Agron are there to pick up the slack.

- “I hear you wish to command my men.” – when I first heard this I thought it very antagonistic, like the fractions were splitting apart. But it’s more of Spartacus being the head honcho, and Crixus being a General that leads his own fraction but still reports to Spartacus. Warfare is not my thing but I’m learning.

- Yeah, because a curtain is going to give you so much privacy. Everyone can still hear you guys.

- “Did his blood bear fruit?”

- Trebius! Ah!

- Arena games!!! Oh how I miss you!

- Seppia really freaking frustrates me. She is so childish and has no idea the kinds of games she’s playing. She’s a fool.

- Seppius and Seppia are fucking right? That’s what they’re implying? A whole bunch of incest? I wanna hate it but I can see it.

- I don’t understand how the gladiator fights could be boring? Or how Batiatus’ gladiators could have made it more entertaining? You’re still watching two dudes kill each other.

- I haven’t even watch Star Wars but Oenomaus in that cloak gives me Jedi vibes.

- That guy in the alley gives me Pirates of The Caribbean vibes.

-  On one hand whenever I see Oenomaus I’m like “Don’t hurt this precious baby.” But then again “Hell yes baby you kick their asses!”

- Holy shit!!!!!!!!!!! Arm bone through the skin!!!!!!! Shit! Knife through the eye!!!!! Ah! Right through the jaw!!!!! Oenomaus is such a badass!

- Aurelia talking about how much she wants to go back to Janis. Well, you shouldn’t have left him in the first place! Her pride was as foolish as any man’s.

- “That lopsided grin. Eye’s promising mischief. I’ve seen in many times, upon his father.” –seriously my shipper heart. Spartacus loved Varro, it’s canon.

- “I fell to love the crooked bend of Varro's lips long before the man himself.” “As did I.” – IT’S MOTHERFLIPPING CANON I TELL YOU.

- I mean Spartacus can be a kind man when he wants to. He’s just very single minded.

- Gotta give their art department props. Having a fake pregnant woman be naked, and it look real….like damn, they deserve a pat on the back.

- I am loving Ilithyia’s purple gown thing though, wowzah.

- Marcus Crassus mention again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- “She was a fucking bitch” – I find that fucking hilarious.

- Agron said bleat! Goat reference! My shipper heart!

- Wow, Spartacus said “whores” somehow that’s more shocking than anything else on this show.

- I love Agron’s loyalty to Spartacus but I wish Spartacus would see it too. In this season and the next he kind of treats Agron like crap.

- “You had me at whores.” – I love Donar.

- “Avoid unnecessary risk.” Sparty, baby, do you realise who you talking to?!

- Loving the idea of Mira, Donar, and Agron planning behind Spartacus’ back. These are the people who want to protect the other slaves, not spend every day covered in Roman blood.

- “As are all things, in pursuit of a woman.” Gotta love the salty gay trope. Agron pulls it off swimmingly.

- “I will tell Janis of you. Of the man who loved his father above all others.” CANON. I really didn’t ship Spartacus and Varro this much the first time around.

- “I gave my word. Blood and Honour. It yet speaks to the man.” as said in S1.

- Gladiators in hoods is everything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Woman with a massive dildo fucking a dude. Yep.

- Oh! I think this is the first penis shots we’ve had in a while.

- Guy on Guy sex. Well then. So much gay sex in this series, it’s glorious.

- The four guys throwing the girl around makes me super fucking uncomfortable, especially when you can hear her. She is so not enjoying this.

- Another memorable death = dude jerking off and just as he’s about to finish, gets a sword through his throat.

- It’s gotta suck so bad for all these guys that are dying with their dicks out. Especially that guy that got a sword right between the legs. Ouch.

- Never noticed but there’s a very very large woman in the whorehouse and a skinny guy on all fours in front of her. I’m so curious about what’s happening there.

- How many innocent body slaves died in this attack???

- Poor boy with cum all over his face.

- Trebius is so fucking disgusting. Peeing all over that girl.

- I get that this girl is probably horrendously traumatized but she really have to go and kill the only lead they had to Naevia.

- AGRON KICKING THE SHIT OUTTA TREBIUS COS HE SOLD HIM AND DURO TO BATIATUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahh my heart!

- I seriously hate Spartacus in this scene and it kind of tainted him for me. He’s telling Agron that he can’t kill Trebius as revenge for Duro, BUT THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT SPARTACUS IS DOING WITH GLABER! He’s such a fucking hypocrite!

- Crixus sticking his hand inside Trebius’ gut is so gross.

-  I get that Glaber is angry at Ilithyia but she clearly has some PTSD that is triggered by that house and he’s forcing her to stay there. Not cool.

- OVER THE CLIFF!! Yes Ilithyia!

- There’s no logical reason for that mask to be there, except to provoke memories.

- Flashback penis.

-  I never noticed but Ilithyia has a really big mouth.

- I honestly thought the figure was gonna be Spartacus, I was so surprised to see Lucretia.

- Lucretia being out of her freaking mind is magical. All the props to the actress.

- “What fragments her shattered mind yet holds.”

- Seriously, the male ego.

- Old woman slave = headcanon that she ran the whole Battiatus household. Also, that young boy slave is super attractive, how has Agron not noticed this?!?

- “Grab your fucking cock.” – oh wait, maybe he has! Ha!

- Foreshadow of Agron not thinking house/body salves are worth much. Ahhhhhhh how wrong he shall be ;)

- “We knew this day would come” SPARTACUS YOU MADE THIS DAY COME, YOU WROTE A FUCKING MESSAGE! Gah!

- Angry little lost boy. Agron is my fave if you can’t already tell.

-  “That is no longer my title.” – poor baby.

- “There is but one place for an animal without honour.”

- Singleminded Spartacus is one of my least faves.

- I love how they take Lucretia way back to the drought, to before Spartacus killed Theokoles.

- I really love how in this show they show woman with pubic hair, COS IT’S FUCKING NATURAL and women shouldn’t have to shave because society tells them to.

- “Smashed upon the cliffs.” – foreshadowing!

- Argh! This leaning back shit women do during sex scenes on tv annoys the hell outta me. That move is done purely for the male viewers. For the women doing it, it’s really fucking awkward.

-  “You bark as a dominus.” “Sheep stand idle if not prodded by snapping jaw.” – I love Agron and Donar moments.

- “Let us compare teeth and have answer.” – they are basically talking about comparing dick sizes right?????

- Lucretia with dark hair and wearing a purple dress. Goddess.

- “Do not shed fucking tear.”

- Fucking love that Lucretia is the one to spot Spartacus.

- Seppius rolling his eyes at Glaber. Me too, bro, me too.

- Ah the foreshadow of Glaber and Seppia. Yuck.

- The rebels coming to Spartacus’ aid. I love their loyalty.

- Seriously Donar and his axe.

- Agron picking up Aurelia and throwing her over his shoulder. It’s hilarious because she is so freaking tiny compared to him, and also cos he’s super gay and doesn’t understand females at all.

- Lucretia and Crixus seeing each other again is super powerful.

- MIRA with a “fucking Gauls.” Did not see that coming.

-  “Do any of us hold fucking worth to you?”

- Mira’s little rant to Spartacus is all well and good, but did she have to be mean to Agron.

- The Spartacus and Crixus bromance is strong in S2.

- VENGEANCE NAME DROP.

- Agron looks so little, so small and young. My baby.

- I still fucking hate Aurelia.

- I do love that Agron was willing to go and fight Glaber because of Aurelia, someone he didn’t even seem to like at all.Baby’s got a heart.

- THE BEGINNING OF THE REBEL ARMY!!!!!!!!!!!YAAAAAS!

[eldritchsurveys]

1036.

5k Survey LXXVI

3901. What is the most annoying tv ad? >> Implying that they aren’t all annoying? 3902. If you died, how would you hope others would remember you? >> I’m not concerned about that right now. I’m still on “are people even going to care?”, so. 3903. Name 2 questions that you will most likely never say 'no' to: >> This reminds me of how Sparrow and I have “body snatcher” questions -- like, questions you’d ask if you’re suspicious that the other person has been possessed or replaced by a lookalike impostor or whatever. And one of hers for me is “do you want Red Robin?” because I never say no to Red Robin, lmao. 3904. What is the softest part of your body? >> I don’t know, man. My organs??? 3905. What family do you want to see in place of the Osbournes when they finally stop doing their show? >> ---

3906. If you could pick 3 bands to go on tour together who would they be? >> I don’t care. We can’t go to concerts right now anyway. 3907. What is a main differance between western and eastern philospohy? >> Location. 3908. Would you be fooled by Joe/Josephine Millionaire? >> Who? 3909. Do you believe Michael Jackson does innoprpriate things at his Neverland Ranch? Like what? >> I don’t care. I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care. When he died the first thing I thought was, “oh, good, then I won’t have to hear about this shit anymore”. That’s how much I do not care. 3910. What do you think of gov. Ryan who cleared out Illinois' death row? >> This means nothing to me. 3911. Would you want a $500 gift certificate to: Kmart or Target? Target. Kmart doesn’t even exist in this area anymore. Macy's or Hot Topic? Macy’s. As much as I nostalgically love Hot Topic, let’s be real -- the clothing quality is shit, not to mention that they really don’t sell the same shit I used to love about them anymore. Border's Books or Spencer Gifts? oh, I miss Borders! :’( Victoria's Secret or Frederick's of Hollywood? I don’t wear lingerie, so I guess you’ll be giving that Frederick’s gift certificate to Sparrow. 3912. What do you think of this website: www.blackpeopleloveus.com/ >> Oh, that’s hilarious. I’m glad I actually went to see what it was, considering I’m usually lazy about that on surveys, lol. 3913. Man vs Elephant. A zookeeper was treating a constipated elephant. He gave her too much laxitive. Suddenly everything exploded out onto the zookeeper. He was knocked to the ground where he hit his head on a rock and got knocked out. There he suffocated under a pile of elephant dung. True story. Is it a funy story? If yes, what is funny about it? Why is it so taboo to laugh at death? >> I can see the humour in it -- I love ridiculous death stories -- but the concept is too gross for me to think about. And it’s taboo to laugh at death because people often feel like if you laugh at something you can’t also take it seriously when need be -- which isn’t true at all, in my experience. I laugh at death jokes and funny death stories without fail, but if someone told me someone they loved just died in [insert ridiculous way here] I’m not going to fucking laugh in their face about it. (People are welcome to laugh if I die in a ridiculous way, though. I’d probably do it on purpose just to add some levity to the situation.) 3914. What are your favorite five things from this list: alternate realities, animals, astronomy, birds, camus, cats, cheap trick, cocaine, cooking, costumes, dancing, elvis, gambling, greta garbo, james dean, jeff buckley, joy division, marilyn monroe, mixed drinks, moody blues, morrissey, mozart, my bloody valentine, orbital, pizza, playing flute, prince, radiohead, rummy 500, scrabble, table tennis, talk talk, van morrison, writing >> Alternate realities, astronomy, dancing, James Dean, Joy Division. Also mixed drinks. Preferably while listening to Joy Division and looking at the stars. 3915. Do you have to read lots to be able to write well? >> I think it helps. 3916. Vanilla ice. Everyone loved him, suddenly everyone hated him. What was the deal?? >> I’m sure there was a story, but I certainly don’t care enough to know it. 3917. If you could kick one person out of the grammies who would it be (Avril, Eminem, etc)? >> --- 3918. Studies have revealed that when sending out a resume a person has a 50% higher chance of getting a responce if their name is white sounding than if it is black sounding. What do you think about this? Why do companies respond this way? >> I don’t know what these “studies” are, whether they actually existed, or whether they were even reputable (or repeatable...), but in the case that that does happen, it wouldn’t surprise me. Like, racism is a real thing that has real repercussions, lmao. We been knew. 3919. Should Big Fat Greek Wedding really be a Big Fat Greek sitcom? >> I don’t know??? 3920. What are you addicted to? >> Nothing. 3921. What fascinates you? >> A lot of things. 3922. What is fascinating about you? >> I’m not sure. 3923. Personality wise, is anything the same for all human beings and if so, what? >> I don’t know, and I wouldn’t dare to speculate. 3924. What kind of a contest woud you have a shot at winning? >> I’m not sure. 3925. You see a dirty punk kid who had a giant cowboy hat on who is rolling his own cigarettes. Your impression? >> “hah, check out Mini Odin over here”, probably. 3926. What would you never want to have more than 2 of? >> Ears??? I don’t know, dude. 3927. Is there a movie you just could not finish watching? What and why? >> Yeah, there’s quite a few movies like that. Beyond the Black Rainbow was one. It was just too fucking esoteric for me. 3928. Is there anyone that you love and want to be around for no explainable reason? >> Well, I mean, there’s a reason... it’s because Can Calah is wonderful and makes me feel good to be around. 3929. Would you go to times square for new years? >> Fuck no. I used to live like a 15-minute walk from Times Square and I still wouldn’t go on NYE. That is literal pure hell and I really don’t know why people do that to themselves. Watching it on TV at home with people you like (or even just by yourself/with your dog) and some snacks and a bottle of champagne is the true ideal. 3930. Do you think that there are to many signs blocking up the scenery? >> Like... street signs??? Is this a reference to something 3931. Did video really kill the radio star? >> *shrug* 3932. What was your favorite atari game? >> I’ve never played Atari. 3933. what is your favorite neon color? >> Neon green. 3934. Do you get depressed eveytime it rains? If yes, why? >> No, although a rainy day may exacerbate an already gloomy mood (I am absolutely solar-powered). 3935. 'The more you admit that all your actions are robotic, the less robotic you are.' What does Tim leary mean by this? Do you agree or disagree and why? How much of your actions do you admit are robotic? >> I personally don’t know what the fuck he’s on about, but all those “LSD gurus” said some weird shit like that on a regular basis. It was part of their charm, I guess (and definitely fit in with all the counterculture stuff going on in that era). 3936. Are we not men? >> Well, I’m not. I’m a spider. 3937. Is it easy to be you? Would being someone else make it any easier? >> It is very much not easy to be me. Being me is often so exhausting and energy-consuming that I can’t do anything else some days. I don’t know what it is like to be anyone else, though, so I can’t comment on that. I’m doing my best with what I’ve got. 3938. Why are sex religion and politics such taboo subjects? >> Because people usually have very strong, deep-set beliefs and opinions about those things, which can lead to strife if everyone in the room is not in agreement. 3939. Is there really a differance between republicans and democrats? >> Yes. Otherwise the divide wouldn’t exist in the first place. I would allow that the differences are changeable (as the foundational policies of both parties have shifted over time), but they still exist either way. 3940. Imagine someone has a great personality, sense or humor, family and job. they also really really like you a lot. Would you consider dating them if they: were fat? limped? were a midget? had hiv? were paralized in one arm? had a glass eye? had only 6 months to live?

3941. What makes you experiance nostalgia? >> I mean, a lot of things. 3942. What do you remember about these historical figures: Woodrow Wilson? Hellen Keller? Christopher Columbus? 3943. Out of the above three figures, one is a huge racist, one is a socialist and one is a slave trader. Can you guess which is which? Racist: socialist: slave trader: 3944. Betcha they didn't tell you that in american history. Wilson, Keller and Columbus are painted as heros, impossibly good, ideal people. Why are so many things ommitted from and lied about in american history text books? >> *sigh* 3945. Do you drink super caffinated energy drinks? >> I don’t drink energy drinks, and I avoid caffeine levels higher than that which is in a cup of black tea. 3946. eminem or moby? >> Eminem. 3947. spongebob or the animanicas? >> I’ve never seen the Animaniacs, but I don’t much care for Spongebob, so I guess I’d watch Animaniacs if I had to choose. 3948. Why do people rush to grow up only to wish they were a child again? >> Social pressure, and then disillusionment. *shrug* My best guess. That’s not the experience I had/am having, so I can’t speak from experience. 3949. Why do people sacrifice their health to obtain money and then use the money to restore their health? >> Because capitalism is hell. 3950. Jetsons or Flintstones? >> I don’t have a preference. They kind of strike me as the same show just set in wildly opposite time periods, lol.

[countdownto65]

Empathy for Self

What is the nemesis of shame? Empathy.

What is the root of most of your shame? Attention seeking, codependentcy and sexual misconduct.

Empathy. You were the oldest in the family fighting for parental attention against two babies.

You hit puberty early. This was a 2 fold problem. You started getting attention furthering the tight shirts but in turn Everyone in 4th grade started calling you a ho. You had never even kissed a boy. You were not a ho and kids are fucking mean.

But you know who else’s attention you got by having boobs, dressing in body suits and seeking attention at 11 years old? A fucking pedophile. While your behavior made you an easy target, NO ONE DESERVES TO BE SEXUALLY EXPLOITED AT 12, 13, 14, OR 15 YEARS OLD. Did you fuckin get that? No matter what your actions it was not your fault they targeted you. Even if you agreed to it at 13, 14, 15 you can leave that self blame right here bc that was their bad NOT YOURS. This is where you learned sex = attention, power, control. They would buy you stuff, get you high and drunk, make you feel like the best person they know all (not explicitly stated) for sexual behavior. I learned a skewed view on relationships and appropriate sexual behavior in adult married behavior. I learned to emotionally detach from sex. I learned to over ride the “this shit ain’t right” feeling you get in your chest when you are uncomfortable in a situation. All of these things are what set your boundaries and your very left field view of what kind of attention makes you feel worthwild. This was not your fault and sometimes life has shitty things happen that effect our outlook forever.

So it sure was easy to sleep with boyfriends, I mean you “loved” them, they were always older, sex was something that didn’t come from everybody so with my sexual skills I learned from the pedophiles I was the best gf a 16 year old could have. And bc I could so easily separate sex from emotion (as a conditioned response to molestation) and it was a way to get boys I liked to notice me, I gave it up easily. Not necessarily sex, but sexual acts. It was one way I felt power and control. Boys treated me special on the surface bc I was pretty with tight clothes…but I failed to realize the power was momentary at the cost of respect. Both self respect and respect of everyone else. This was when my first experience with the fuck and run type of dude came in. The first time I cared. After that I didn’t at least I told myself I didn't but This was when I began codependency. They didn’t always fuck and run. I was good at getting boys to stick around for a while. I was a serial dater. I had to have a significant other to feel worth so I had too many boyfriends. Always one on hand one on the backburner. This was you reaching out for real connection, something you felt had been missing both with your parents, your abusers and your random sexual encounters. When I had a bf I was faithful. I know that sounds fucked up bc I just said I had a backburner but I was never sleeping with this other guy. I just friend zoned him knowing he liked me so I could establish my safety net. So one day at 17 Ieft home, went to a house party, hooked up with the guy who’s house it was (Matt) and that was the start of my first adult relationship. I loved him from the bottom of my toes but he often cheated on me and I never left him for it. It was at this time that I severed my relationship with my abusers. I was old enough to at least have an inkling something wasn’t right, plus now I considered it cheating and I didn’t cheat on him. He started selling drugs. We both got into cocaine. It was easy bc I dated the dopeman.

Then he went to prison. I continued the relationship with him but continued to date/sleep with men while he was away. This was when I caught an std and began stripping on weekends. This is still caused by poor boundaries and a skewed idea of sex and power… Set in motion by sexual abuse. By now I had slowed way down on cocaine but had a huge weed and alcohol habit. I worked at a catholic preschool during the week but stripped to pay for my substances on Sat nights. This set off a little bit of the uncomfortable double life feeling but I pushed it down. I also hustled people for substances. Although I never slept with anyone for money or drugs. But I def made them think I might so they would get me high. Never felt bad either bc if your a dude willing to be got you deserved to get hustled…that was my mindset. I also saw stripping as a hustle. Hustle to me means fuck with a lame walk with a limp. I mean if your gonna be thirsty I’ll take your money. This is probably when I acquired my mindset that most dudes were creeps and out to get me. I realize now that by appearing easy I was literally attracting creeps but at the time I enjoyed the attention and the feeling of superiority and has a huge sample of men to confirm my bias.

Every now and then though I got tricked out of my hard exterior and caught feelings. This is my deep emotional need for connection, to feel worth while. This is where I met my daughters father. He was a giant red flag but problem with bad boundaries and emotional regulation is if I liked you I would ignore red flags and become overly obsessed with you. This has continued to be a problem throughout adulthood.

Anyways I dated Tony until He went to prison, then Matt got out of prison until we broke up, then Tony got out of prison and we has Olivia. Then Tony went back to prison and I met Jason, I left Jason when Tony got out of prison but when Tony and I broke up I went back to Jason and we had Leah. Are you seeing the boomerang effect of codependentcy and back burner relationships. One stable relationship was not enough.

I wanted Jason to be different. To be a family but unfortunately Jason turned out to be very abusive mentally, physically and emotionally. He was an alcoholic and a mean one. But for some reason I loved him and let him stomp on me over and over. He took my confidence. He took my pride. He took my soul. I tried to break up with him 30 times he would say no and just wouldn’t leave. I was faithful to him until I moved out into subsidised housing. But even then I didn’t have multiple men just one man that to this day I love. This guy put up with being #2 for 2 years on and off. Maybe he knew I loved him, maybe he knew that I was stuck with Jason, maybe he knew I needed to feel wanted and worthy. During this I felt guilty and shameful. I eventually bought a house and moved Jason in. That is when this other guy got a new gf and left me alone. It was like mourning a breakup that I couldn’t tell anyone. Eventually I legally evicted Jason and this left me with a self worth and connection black hole.

I acted out for a minute on my usual single m.o.. Then an old friend from middle school came in. He was different then others in that he was genuinely nice and cared for my well being. Unfortunately he also came with a huge dose of depression leading to at the time an inability to keep a job or help with housework. But I stayed with him on and off for the next few years bc I loved him for his emotional support and that he made me feel worthy. Plus it was safe. As a woman in her 30s, I am at the point that if I’m in a relationship I don’t cheat or scope out new guys or have a backburner. It kept me emotionally reeled in. But bc of my trust issues, bc of my lack of feeling worthy, bc of my resentment for him watching me struggle, and bc of my need for excitement or passion (see drama) I couldn’t be with him forever. Even after he got better and held a job and helped my brain short circuits and told me that our lack of connection was insurmountable. I broke his heart and he did nothing wrong. I am just still searching for that lasting “in love” connection that I am not sure exists. I harbor huge guilt here. Both for his feelings and for what could be wrong with me that I left what I said I wanted. That maybe my brain will never let me really love. My only empathy here is that I am working on my shit and all I can do is that.

Every time in my adult life when I have been unhappy in a relationship I’ve left instead of fixing. I have searched out attention through suggestive facebook posts or selfies or sexting. I have been emotionally raw towards men. I had a shitty attitude toward relationships. Anytime that I was single or had freedom I either had a fuck buddy that I didn’t feel anything for or sometimes I would make a strong connection and go all in. I would rush it sexually (again not necessarily full sex but messing around for sure) and more times then not I get played. Within 2 weeks after they no longer answer my texts or calls. This is the shit adult shame is built from. How can you be so blind and stupid? Why can’t you be stable and happy? But here is where I need an empathy piece. Your sexuality was already not healthy then Jason stripped you of any self worth. He often told you no one could ever love me bc I was such a low down terrible person, a piece of shit mother, a whore. Six years of that and you begin to believe it. So if a man comes along and sells you a dream of being loveable its hard not to want with all your heart to believe them. And sexuality is my only tool I know for reeling them in. But when things get too serious I start getting scared of being broken or having to work on things that historically haven’t worked or old scars become obsessions.

I am at a point in my life now that I want to change but Tbh I don’t know how. I want to regain respect for myself and I would like to change peoples opinion of me or better yet not care. This has sent me into a major mental health crisis. I want to know how to reel it in and gain respect while still being true to myself. I still yearn for spark, sex and connection but I want to do it healthily. I want to take the emotional polarization and shame out of sex. Instead of not caring at all or being a crazy obsessive smothering weirdo and throwing myself at someone then feeling like an idiot for falling so hard. So maybe dates in public, counting actions over words and putting time in between the spark and the sex.

I am still struggling with what to do about social media. I mean I need to chill on the provocative selfies, attention seeking posts, and entertaining anyone that messages me… but I still like to be noticed. I want to post selfies and I think dirty memes are funny. Anyway this is long. I am still figuring shit out. And I can’t just look at empathy without taking inventory of what I could have done differently. But this post is empathy and it did help take off a small piece of that shame.

(*when I say act out sexually I don't mean I've had hundreds of partners but rather I have been quick to sexually experiment but I have also developed a "stop point". Don't get it too twisted.)

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

for the quiet night in ask: how did Grima make his way into your heart? And why do you ship him with Eomer? I've been meaning to inquire about this for long hehe (also I love your theme! think this is the first time I see it)

I am so sorry, you’re getting an ESSAY. 

I’ve been wanting to talk about my Grima feels FOR SO LONG. 

HE SNAKED HIS WAY INTO MY HEART. 

Um, tl;dr I have a soft spot for the bad guys who clearly have a complicated history with those they are opposing and I think Eomer/Grima have a fun opposites-attract dynamic and I love a good redemption story. 

I don’t touch on literacy and Grima in this because that’s strictly the films and it’s worthy of it’s own post entirely. 

-

I’m trying to think best how to break this all out, because it gets a bit long and rambly. I’m using both book and films for this, as a note. Since I tend to mash up different aspects of those Grima’s in my head, give the guy some eyebrows, and call it a day. 

So, first off, his history. Now, we don’t really have anything to go on in canon here. All we know, in both book and film, is that Grima “was once a man of Rohan” (ROTK). In the book, Gandalf says: “This here, is a snake. To slay it [Grima] would be just. But it was not always as it is now. Once it was a man, and it did you service in its fashion.” 

Grima evidently has served Rohan for some years at this point. We know that Theoden’s enchantment/possession began three years prior to TTT. In the books there is no possession. Theoden’s enchantment relies on the powers of words and their suggestions. Something Tolkien was well aware of carrying great weight and import in Anglo-Saxon culture. You tell a man he is old and infirm, he will become old and infirm. 

I understand why Jackson went the possession route - explaining Anglo-Saxon engagement with galdorcraeft/witchcraft and the power of words etc. and how that influenced the development of Rohan in the span of like 7 minutes of screen time wasn’t happening. Possession works for the same purpose, but in a language the modern audience is familiar with - especially in visual mediums. Grima is circa 40 when TTT happens, same age as Boromir for reference. So, let’s say he’s been an advisor for 10/12 years at this point. He has therefore been a good servant of the king longer than he’s been a traitor. 

Hence, the outreach. And, in Brad Dourif’s wonderful acting, Grima’s clear desire to go home to his king. In the book it’s more subtle. Grima chucks the palantir out the window at Orthanc and it’s stated that he wasn’t sure who he was aiming for, Saruman or Gandalf, because he couldn’t decide who he hated more. 

Honestly? Legit. I would also hate the guy who reduced me to “it” pronouns. But maybe that’s my gender identity stuff playing up ;) 

(Granted, in the full quote Gandalf reverts back to “he”, for context. And I’ve said this before, in another post, that it makes sense for Gandalf and as a writer, I agree with Tolkien’s decisions for that scene.)

Now, for some speculation. Not that I haven’t spilled a tonne already. MORE SPECULATION. This time bringing you long term effects of bullying and never having loving relationships modelled for you! Because LOTR, at the end of the day, is all about trauma and how maybe not to deal with it. 

So - motives. 

We know Saruman’s motives. Indeed, he tells them to us in FOTRK: “[to] have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see” and to achieve “the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends.”

Great. Super straight forward. And from the man’s own mouth. 

Grima’s though, always come to us second hand. In the books it’s Gandalf telling us (Gandalf can mind read, so yes, maybe he is accurate). In the films, it’s Eomer guestimating. 

But Grima never actually tells us, himself, what his motives are. 

(a quick aside: if some dude is shoving me up against a pole and threatening me, and I hear someone walking by, of course I’m going to look over at them and it by no means indicates my desire to shag that person. Now, of course, we know from other scenes this is the case. I’m just saying. It’s natural to look over at the person walking by while you’re being jumped by the Third Marshal of the Mark who is twice your size. anyway.) 

So what are his driving forces for treason? What made him go to this point of no return then keep going even when people offered him a way back. 

It is important to note that his treason required him to forswear his oath to his liege lord. I don’t know how to convey what a big deal that would have been, in modern terms. But it would have been huge. Forswearing/reneging on oaths was a massive cultural taboo in Anglo-saxon [AS] England (and general, early medieval Europe). 

And, as Rohan is based on AS England (I forget if Tolkien was cagey about this. He was sometimes a dumb shit and coy about things so was like “noooo it’s not STRICTLY AS England….but it’s clearly AS England with more horses and a light dusting of vikings and the Danelaw”), we can assume it carried as much weight for them as it did for the historical people. 

(Indeed, it’s implied, if not directly stated, in the text what a big deal oath breaking is. Don’t say “oath breaking” too loud or the Silmarillion fandom will come out of the woodwork)

The big takeaway: BIG DEAL TO FORSWEAR YOUR OATH. 

And he did it! Which is why I don’t buy the “it was because of Eowyn and like some nice jewels.” You don’t betray your country, you don’t forswear your oath to your king, simply because you’re hot on the king’s niece and Saruman might give you a raise. 

And, as a liege man to Theoden, he was part of Theoden’s household so would have eaten, worked with, lived with everyone else in the household (Eomer, until he becomes Third Marshal; Eowyn; Hama; Theoden’s guards etc.) 

So, you live with these people, eat with them, drink with them, spend all your time with them, for circa 10 years then you do a bunk and betray them? Something happened. I suspect it was years and years of things happening. 

Overall, I think it to be a combination of things. As is usually the case for these sorts of crimes. In this case, a nice mix of fear, desperation, greed, resentment, anger and desire. 

Fear/Desperation: So, to Grima’s mind the world is ending. Why wouldn’t he think this? Hell, even the Wisest and the Fairest (i.e. wizards & elves) think it’s ending. Why wouldn’t this poor bloke from some small country nearby to Mordor not think it an existential threat to an unimaginable degree? 

Grima is sat here in Rohan looking at Mordor going "oh fuck" then who are the leaders left? Denethor (slightly bonkers) and Theoden (past his prime and lacklustre, like his father and grandfather). 

This is not a man with a strong moral fiber. Or...any moral fiber, let’s be real. He does not have the fortitude to stick it out through hopeless situations. And it would have been hopeless to his eyes. And those around him (see: Eomer’s do not trust to hope… Sure Saruman was a problem, but he wasn’t just talking about the white wizard).  

Gandalf’s plan, which none of these people were ever wholly aware of, was a goddamn Hail Mary pass and it worked. Barely, but it did. NO ONE had reason to believe it would, though. And those are people in the know. Not someone like Grima who has no fucking clue what Gandalf et al is up to. He sees Gandalf then like … Nazgul torture him on the planes of Rohan (Unfinished Tales). He sees Gandalf then bad things happen. 

Lathspell indeed. 

Greed & Desire: I don’t think I need to go into these ones too much. They’re pretty self explanatory. Grima and Black Phillip hung out and the goat asked Grima if he wanted to live deliciously and Grima, like any normal person, said: um, yes please? Also, Eowyn was around being badass, beautiful and untouchable. 

Resentment/Anger: Alright, more probing in the dark. I suspect, for one reason or another (and these reasons would vary depending if you’re looking at books or movies), he was someone who was always treated as other/differently, teased, picked on, isolated, overlooked, doesn’t measure up to Rohan’s military ideal of masculinity. All of which creates an underlying resentment issue.

And nothing festers quite like resentment. 

On top of that, I also suspect he was always told he was a snake/untrustworthy/not worthy etc. and if you're told something enough, and you don't have anything or anyone else telling you the opposite, there is a strong chance you become that thing.

It's a chicken and egg: the face you wear to the world tells the world how to treat you; the world tells you what you are and that is how you shape your face.

THEN you add in Saruman. Who is clearly, in the text, abusive. Which, if there were any inferiority/bullied etc. issues that are informing Grima’s actions, Saruman is just going to amplify it. 

“You are a traitor because you’re a snake, and you’re a snake because you’re spineless, weak, nothing more than a creature that crawls on its stomach on the ground. Snakes are bad, evil things. Which is all you’ve ever been. Barely deserving of the good treatment I give you etc.” <-- all of which is basically a summary of what Saruman has been saying to him for a few years at this point (in the book, it’s only tangentially implied in the movies). 

So Grima sort of morphed himself into what he believed himself to be, fuelled by that perversity resentment causes: Oh you think I’m a snake? I’ll be the best goddamn most poisonous snake you ever did see. Just watch me. 

He is trapped in this situation. A hutch to trammel some wild thing in. 

Which leads me to an interesting point that I think gets lost sometimes: Narratively, he and Eowyn are similar in what they are experiencing. Isolation, being overlooked, misunderstood/misrepresented, don't fit into societal roles and expectations etc. They just go in very different directions in how they respond to it.

I think that's why, in the film, it was smart to have her give pause and listen to him because what he's saying resonates. He is, in some ways, speaking as much for himself as her. But then, of course, he's also just trying to shit disturb and make mischief so of course, at the end of the day, any sympathy he is attempting to convey is laced with poison.

I do wonder, too, if he's the first person to see her fear and her frustrations and acknowledges them out loud. Which is powerful. To have someone see you. Damn shame it's Grima. Still, Eowyn (in the film) paused and listened for a reason.

-

A brief aside on my idle, ill founded thoughts on gender and Rohan: 

One of the reasons I think Eowyn and Grima go in diverging directions, is that Eowyn is performing masculinity, in her society's accepted interpretation of it. Masculinity, in Middle Earth, is clearly the norm. And in Rohan, it’s a very particular iteration of military-focused masculinity that is idealized (you can bet, men who killed like 10 orcs were awarded places in court above Grima who served as advisor for like ten years but hasn’t killed an orc ever).

Eowyn’s desire to live/perform this more masculine ideal caters to the subconscious thing of “Masculinity is Natural Neutral Ideal” so of course you would want to be more like A Man. Whereas Grima is the opposite, not performing masculinity according to Rohan's accepted view of it.

And gods, in Anglo-Saxon culture (therefore, Rohan’s, most likely. I see no evidence to the contrary) is that a difficult position to find yourself in. Back in AS England, being called argr, unmanly, or to be accused of ergri, unmanliness, was one of the worst insults you could throw at a man (indeed, some laws said you could kill a man in retaliation for calling you such things). I would bet my shirt that people used such insults about Grima in this world. Which is all kinds of messed up.

-

Now, my interest in him is my general love for a good redemption arc for the most hopeless of characters. It’s why I struggle to call Boromir’s arc, when he’s written as living, a redemption arc. Because I don’t know he has much to redeem himself for. In his own mind, sure, yes, but externally? Not in my view, at least. He has things he’s done wrong and needs to make amends for. But that’s different from redemption.

Grima, on the other hand, is one whose walk-back from evil would be a full on redemption arc. And I like it because he’s not nice, he’s not pleasant. He will never be nice or pleasant or cheerful. But learning how to love and be a good person doesn’t require niceness. 

Saruman could be plenty nice. Sauron could be plenty nice. Look what they turned out to be.

And in my writing, I do hope I’m treading that line between creating an understanding of who Grima is without Kylo-Ren-ing him. Or, woobiefying him, as the old parlance was. That’s the line I’m really aiming for. I want people to not hate him. I want them to understand him. Oh, still condemn him, still judge him, disagree with him, acknowledge and know he did bad things and isn’t a nice person. But the end game is to add some understanding and nuance.

Shades of grey.

Also I’m a sucker for challenging redemptions.

--

Why Eomer/Grima? 

Because I am an agent of chaos. 

More seriously, I was never overly taken with the Grima/Eowyn approach, personally, which is obviously popular (um...within the Grima world), and closer to canon. There are some beautifully written fics and art out there for the two of them, so if you’re into that. The creators in that nook of fandom are top notch.

I always liked the drastic opposite of Grima and Eomer. As I noted above, Grima and Eowyn are two sides of the same coin. Both bitter and resentful and trapped. And that’s a lot of fun to play with, and i get it. But for me, I love a good strong contrast of personalities in my pairings. (If that uh … isn’t readily apparent.)

I think both Eomer and Grima would have a lot to teach each other and in some really interesting ways that neither would expect. I can see both getting under each other’s skin in that way where you’re sort of always thinking about them.

Grima is also someone who has had very little love in his life (I suspect he wants it, he just doesn’t know how to give or receive it). Eomer is someone who has lost a lot of people (parents, quasi-uncle for a few years there. I think it’s why he’s so controlling over Eowyn. Didn’t want to lose her). And I think there’s something in there where they could help each other grow. But I’m a sucker for some beauty to be there, in the end. Some hope.

Mostly, though, I think it boils down to their dynamic and the angst potential. Eomer is this brash, forthright, fiery third marshal of the mark who may or may not think things through. Big of heart, dumb of ass. Then there’s Grima who is quiet and reserved, cynical, critical, always has a plan or five, gets by via his wits etc. Lots of fun potential there. 

[alasdaircannon-blog]

How Much Would You Pay For Privacy?

Words by Alasdair Cannon

This is the bizarre question I have found myself pondering as of late. The question is bizarre because, well, one would assume that we have some inalienable right to privacy in a democratic nation. Right? Simply asking this question surely indicates a fundamental failure of governance, of regulation, or the market. Conversely, one might conclude that the notion of privacy has been plunged into a kind of Coasean nightmare, where our ability to be free from invasion is subject to bargaining, to the market logic of efficient distribution, to the skyscraping (campusing? If we’re gonna speak in the language of the companies in question) power differential between the individual and corporations in modern economies. One may be correct in either instance, too, which leads us to something of a truism: it is never easy when we must negotiate something we have perennially taken for granted, or when we must value what we believed to be invaluable (and not because it could not be measured, either).

In any event, the question is certainly a new one - or at least it probably isn’t something that people 30 years ago were overly concerned with. Why would they be? You (or the government) would have to be active, to the point where it was comparatively a non-issue, in telling (or collecting) your entire demographic and psychometric profile, and the history of your activities and movements, and all your wants, desires, preferences and interests. One couldn’t tacitly or incidentally just reveal all of this. Hell, even if you were utterly dedicated to revealing all these measures of your individuality to the world, even if you were possessed by a data-point exhibitionism of the most pathological kind, and you perversely wanted everybody to know you fundamentally, information-wise, you would still have a hard time of it. Data simply could not be collected comprehensively or efficiently enough to ground even individual concern over being so thoroughly revealed.

Today, however, we can and do give our whole selves away with a single click. And we do it in a manner that suggests an equilibrium solution: we value our privacy exactly in proportion to whatever it is the company stands to offer us.

Here’s an article from the Guardian that can help you freak out over that point.

No doubt, it is a question that I ask in light of recent events: yes, I specifically mean Cambridge Analytica, whose databases include ‘four to five thousand’ data points on every adult in the United States; whose platform relies on mass psychographic analysis of vast swathes of people as a means of generating a predictive model of personality for individuals and groups; whose product was employed in the most recent US election of Donald Trump, and in the primary campaign for Ted Cruz. (Watch this video to get a little taste: the man seems really quite proud of his product, and he really does give you a good salesman’s spiel about all the amazing things they know.) The public consciousness is properly fretting, perhaps for the first time ever, over the true influence of social media. We have been building to this for years of course – talk of shady contractual provisions and fake news being the breaking point for the outpouring of our collective anxieties.

I share a lot of sympathy for these emotions. The rise of social media and ICT as an overwhelming force for individual identity is something I have wondered about in increasingly panicked tones over the years, my internal intonation creeping ever closer to ‘paranoid-hysteric’, to that of a bug-eyed, frothing conspiratorialist, all fervour, dual-wielding copies of Huxley and Orwell, with Foucault buried somewhere in their coat pockets. No, I don’t own Discipline and Punish, but I certainly wasn’t far from this point. Indeed, there has been something of a positive correlate between the frequency of my tech-anxiety and ‘distance stumbled down garden path’: though mitigated to some extent by the countervailing forces of ‘kinda getting used to it’, ‘are you surprised by this?’, ‘who cares?’, and ‘there’s nothing you can do about it’, it has increased, absolutely. Crucially, I do not believe I am unjustified in feeling this way: recall, well, what I said a couple of paragraphs ago.

From when I first listened to OK Computer through to April 2018, the fear has escalated. Some discontinuous leaps were made: discovering the Google Beacon, for example, a nifty device that will be just, oh, everywhere in certain developed economies, which interacts with your smartphone as you move through public spaces, transmitting and presenting data constantly, an activity directed at unifying your subjective motives into one glorious vector of consumption. On a corollary note, here’s another good one: that day I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen for five years, and an hour later, Instagram lets me know I can follow them: now that’s convenience. Mutual benefit off the charts. There was also the day I realised (that is, I read what former Facebook developers had to say about their own platform) that, given we do not pay for Facebook or Google, that we were in fact, their products.  That was a knock-your-hair back kind of moment for sure.

Before the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the object of my concern was the advertising revenues of Facebook and Google. Check out these graphs of their lifetime advertising revenue, for example. Between them, they grossed $135bn in ad revenue in 2017 alone. Facebook boasts 2.2 billion users, and though I lack an exact statistic, I believe we can safely assume Google likely has a similar number of unique users. If we assume the groups overlap entirely, then this puts the ad revenue per user at roughly $68 per user. To be safe, if we instead calculate the ad revenue per person alive today, it comes out at $18.50. So, the real number is probably somewhere in between – and given the past performance of these companies, don’t be surprised if it keeps growing. Their net profit per user is more modest than this: search engines and social media platforms aren’t cheap to run, after all. They also do provide an undeniably valuable service, and so these figures are justified, economically speaking. Crucially, though, the entire foundation of their revenue base rests upon the willingness of the consumer to simply give away something that is, evidently, extraordinarily valuable to these companies: their life in data. Irrespective of the value they add via their database and network effects, or the advertising services they sell, or the entertainment and utility they provide for free, these companies are wholly reliant on our initial, unwitting consent to donate to them our time and information.

And for what reward? What mutual do we derive for sacrificing our privacy at the altar of the internet, for slapping our knowable selves down on the counter? Their products of course; platforms that are today extraordinarily popular, and not only because they are useful and powerful. In the words of Sean Parker, early investor in Facebook, their design motive was couched in exploiting addiction and vulnerability: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible,’ he says. (Google is not complicit in this regard – it seems pretty hard to give a dopamine hit from a search bar, after all. Their product actually is that useful. It does, however, have a couple of implications for freedom of information and control of opinion – a topic for another time, maybe). Their bottom line relies on the maximum exploitation of the consumer at the lowest cost possible – an historic market relation that encourages continuous and absolute loyalty of the consumer to your product. And what better than the inelastic demand created by suckering the user into a state of addiction? As Thomas Pynchon writes in Gravity’s Rainbow: ‘The classic hustle is still famous for the cold purity of its execution’. Addiction, indeed, creates an ‘inelastic demand for that shit.’ It is a profoundly simple arrangement, based upon simple economics and human fallibility, reductive enough to a symbolically dichotomous relationship – despite its cynicism and denial of human good. Any degree of observation can confirm that both the consumer and the corporate giants have become entwined in an archetypal relationship, with each side of the historic dichotomy played unflinchingly: the naïve fool who, unware of the value of what they possess, is unknowingly exploited by the powerful. And in a fashion that righteously emboldens the cry of ‘abuse’, they have treated us with the disrespect a tyrant affords to the vulnerable.

Facebook’s Ad Revenue Worldwide from 2009 – 2017, in millions of dollars

Ahem. Well, if it wasn’t already self-evident, essentially, what I am saying is that these companies are no longer fucking around, socioeconomically speaking. When combined with the fact that our vulnerability and our proclivity for addiction is their product, this becomes problematic, to say the least. This therefore brings me to my point: I ask my initial question on whether we should pay for privacy in the broadest possible terms, for my concern fundamentally lies in relation to the growing dominance of the sociocultural forces constituted by social media, by search engines, by algorithmic targeting, by gargantuan psychometric databases, and by utterly pervasive online and mobile advertising. We are the known, the manipulated: the consumed and the consumer. Queue images of the snake eating itself, or perhaps more fitting for a late capitalist society, that weird rumour about Marilyn Manson and his rib surgery.

Clearly, Google and Facebook value the contents of our privacy quite dearly, and it is this fact which tacitly establishes the value of privacy in our economy. Giving it away for free, or for any amount equal to the perceived value of the product on offer is clearly foolish: to do so, unmediated by regulation or subjective concern and awareness can only serve to reinforce the pre-existing paradigm of our exploitation and disempowerment. Choosing to maintain this relationship would only attests to our indifference; to the absolute normalisation of the invasion and harvesting of our privacy; the colonisation of our mental space via the wonderful corporate algorithm; phenomena which all testify in unison to the powerlessness felt by the average consumer in a social media market controlled by some of the most advanced and powerful entities in human history. Maintaining this relationship is to welcome its logical conclusion, the inevitable and absolute extreme of personalised advertising: a utopia of prior-decidedness, of subjugated contingency. Is that a life lived in bad faith or good faith? It’s an authentic you, imposed upon you externally: a Sartrean knot if there ever was one.

Of course, the big one has only just arrived, the paradigm shifter par excellence as I would hope – the Watergate for the Zuck, if you will. Time will tell whether this brings about meaningful reform in the digital sphere. Given how long they have staggered untrammelled over the landscape of technological societies, how focused and efficient they have become in their practices of exploitation, I am not necessarily optimistic. Unless, of course, we learn from these companies, and come to realise the unmistakeable value of knowing ourselves: a condition that is inseparable from power over our own lives.

SEE MORE

http://adage.com/article/digital/sean-parker-worries-facebook-rotting-children-s-brains/311238/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/09/facebook-sean-parker-vulnerability-brain-psychology/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-revenue-of-google/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/271258/facebooks-advertising-revenue-worldwide/

[ma-at-thought]

Story-Time With Ma’at

White Supremacists and Nazi Bingo

I actually had to sit here for a minute and stare at this title. I’ve written about a lot of things on Tumblr, but even just a few months ago, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be writing a current events piece on fucking Nazis. Given the content, this will be a long time-traveling story-time.

Let us go back in time, to my innocent years fresh out of high school.

There I sit, at the computer. It’s not my computer of course, but it’s the first home computer I ever had access to. Ah, how I remember those buzzes and pwings that heralded incoming internet connection. I scroll through the chat rooms that have been created that day on Prodigy, and I stumble across one for white supremacists. Curious creature that I am, I go in.

It was really boring. I can’t honestly remember what was being discussed in there. It certainly wasn’t anything relating to white supremacy. It was just people who happened to be white supremacists chatting about whatever was happening on the news, or talking about a TV show, or sharing stories about their lives. I was very baffled; by the chat name, I should have been bathed in vitriol about the more colorful people in the country. But nope, just people talking like ordinary people.

I finally get curious enough to send a private message to one of them. I pick the most articulate one, and open the conversation stating that I am not a white supremacists, but want to understand what was going on with such a thing. I even tell him that I’m half Hispanic, a lie to see if he changes how he speaks with me.

Spoilers: It didn’t change how he spoke to me. I ask him how my mixed race would influence his behavior, and he tells me that he wouldn’t marry or have a child with me. That’s it. I ask him about concepts like ethnic cleansing and he is disdainful of the very idea. All he cares about in relation to other races is that his bloodline be “pure”, and there is no reason to do any harm to anyone over it. It was his choice to not marry or have a child with someone non-white, you see, but he has no problems working with or interacting with any people of color. I find that to be very weird (and a potential start for a modern Romeo / Juliette story,) but not harmful or violent like historical Nazis or the KKK is. I thank him for his time, he wishes me well, and that was it.

Let us go further back, to my 8th grade year.

Schindler’s List is released. My 8th grade class has a field trip to go and see the movie for educational reasons, and we’d spend the next two days in history and religion (Catholic school) classes discussing it.

That movie is awesome. In the sense that it fills you with awe. Do you know how hard it is to keep a bus full of 8th graders quiet? Well, on the trip back to school, it is easy as pie, because literally nobody says a word. Complete silence. And if you’ve seen the movie, you understand why. If you haven’t seen the movie, I strongly recommend it. It isn’t something people want to see, but it is something people need to see.

And we’re solemnly lined up, still shrouded in quiet, to file into our class room when it came time for the 6th and 7th grade classes to switch rooms. They knew we’d been going to see the movie, and some want to ask us questions. Most of them are hushed, like we were, wanting to know what happened, wanting to be told about this masterpiece of sorrow. But one boy comes up to me, grinning like an idiot. He flat-out asks me “How many boobies did you see?!”

I don’t even think. I punch that kid in the face hard enough to send him staggering backwards. I didn’t even know why I did that, and when the principal asks me, I just repeat what he’d said. And when I tell her what prompted the punch, she looks appalled. An act that would normally come with a three day suspension was instead recorded with a single note of the act, because most of the education staff was utterly horrified that anybody would even think such a thing. 

About a week later, we are all gathered in the auditorium for announcements. Parents are invited to this meeting as well. As it turns out, there is a planned KKK march coming up, and the school staff wants to discuss options for us. Our school is on the route, and while we don’t have many kids of color, everyone is still very concerned about this, and what our few non-white students would experience if the KKK happened to come by during recess. 

In the end, it is decided that the safest thing to do is to close the school that day. The teachers ask our parents to not show up to this “parade” either; they feel that the best way to show these hooded assholes they aren’t accepted was to have them marching down completely empty streets with no one to yell at. Most of the public schools take our lead and cancel school that day too. Some people joke (in that somewhat non-humorous, mildly disturbed way) that school is cancelled on account of ‘heavy snow’.

We spend our day at home researching the KKK and the Nazis, so we will all have class discussions on the matter the next day. And as far as I know, those paraders really did march to nearly-empty streets.

And one last trip further back in time. I am right around seven years old.

Her name is Ruth. She and her husband are friends of my grandparents, and came over to our house (my grandparents raised me) to play Bridge every couple of weeks. I’ve known her for most of my life, and years before had been given an explanation for why her arm was crippled. I understood what Polio was. She’d been very sick when she was young, and was lucky she didn’t die because of it. 

So here all these old folks were, waiting for the fourth couple to show up so they could play a card game I do not understand to this day. I'm sitting on the couch with Ruth; I'm not allowed to hang out in the room once the game started, but my grandparents are just fine with me socializing before it begins.

I don’t know.. maybe I just never saw Ruth wearing short sleeves before. She usually wore long-sleeved blouses and sweaters, but today she’s wearing a short-sleeved white shirt beneath her jacket, and she’s taken the jacket off. We’re chatting, because she’s a very cool adult who is all about socializing with kids, and then I see her tattoo. I’m shocked, because tattoos were strange, and mostly on younger folks. I reach out and touch the blue numbers on her inner forearm and ask why she got them.

The whole room goes silent, which is enough to make me shy away; I thought I’d done something wrong. All eyes are on this couch. But apparently, Ruth is prepared for this question. And so that day, I learned about Nazi concentration camps, and how Jews were rounded up and labeled with a numbered tattoo. I learned how she got Polio in the first place. The Bridge game was put off for about an hour, as these adults talked to me about this dark time in history, let me ask questions, and tried to help me understand these events well beyond what history classes taught seven year old kids.

And now, we come back to the present.

In this particular present, Nazis are still relevant. Two days ago, I discovered that a few people I was friends with on Facebook had Nazi inclinations. At first, I thought they were posting pro-Nazi political cartoons to mock them, but as it turned out, I was wrong. I kept trying to discuss the matter with them, mostly because I was desperately hoping that I was incorrect in starting to think they were Nazis, but it wound up being like a game of Nazi Bingo. 

They call the Nazi symbol the NSDAP flag. They believe that banning immigrants is the first step to making America better, and don’t think it should stop there because people of color are making trouble. They treat the Nazi Party as though it was a worthwhile and acceptable political platform. They talk about how no violence or imprisonment or lists would be necessary if there wasn’t so much active resistance to their ideals. They’re white. BINGO!

In truth, though, I do see a problem with what’s going on today, from “the good guys”, and that’s the over-liberal usage of the term “Nazi”. Not all white people are Nazis. Not all Republicans are Nazis. Not all who voted for the Mad Mango are Nazis. Not even all white supremacists are Nazis (though all Nazis are white supremacists. It’s sort of a prerequisite.)

Political parties do not equate to Nazis. (Unless it’s the Nazi party, which I half expect to show up on ballots in some places.) I know quite a few Republicans who are horrified by what’s going on. Even ultra-conservatives are outright comparing Bannon to Nazis. You don’t get much more right-wing than Glenn Beck, for example, and he’s declared Bannon to be similar to the Nazi propagandist Goebbels. My grandparents were Republican and if they were alive today they’d be absolutely livid about our current government. 

As for the Outrageous Orange, many people did vote for him because they liked some of what he had to say, and were certain that there was no way he could enforce the rest. You can recognize those guys now; they’re wide-eyed and shaken, regretting their vote. And believe me, I understand the “I told you so” urge. But let’s not label them as Nazis. They’re horrified, and they Do Not Want what is happening; many want to try and stop it. They don’t want four years of this.They don’t even want four months of this. They could help ensure that we don’t have to deal with that, but if we keep calling them Nazis, it’s going to drive them away. They didn’t understand before the vote, but they absolutely understand now.

I support punching Nazis. I’d like to do it myself, but there aren’t any in my immediate vicinity. There have been some political comments going around about how anybody can be labeled as a Nazi to excuse violent behaviors toward them. Those comments are correct; I’ve been seeing little hints of that here and there, and we can’t let that keep happening. Anybody who supports ethnic cleansing, be it through deportation, denials to immigrants, or violence, qualifies for Nazi-hood, and therefore punching. Anybody *coughBannoncough* who insists on being prepared for a religious war and tries to ‘rally the Christian soldiers’ against Islam (or really, any religion or skin color) qualifies for Nazi-hood, and therefore punching. But just being Republican, or voting for the Crazy Carrot, aren’t enough to qualify as punchable Nazis. 

Violence isn’t the answer, not when it’s applied in a blanket manner over whole groups because of the actions of some members. Call your Senators; you can look them up here. Call your House Representatives; you can look them up here. All of us should have learned from history, but it is rapidly becoming apparent that our Cheeto-In-Chief and his Cabinet of Horrors are ignoring history entirely. Tell the government officials that represent you in House and Senate that this is wrong, and ask them what they plan on doing about it.

[coreytravelogue]

Leipzig, Germany - September 9, 2019

The rain that was supposed to come in Berlin came when I left for Leipzig. I guess I can’t complain because if I was to chose when it would happen it would happen here.

So here I am laid up in my Airbnb room unsure if I can download movies I already own because downloading movies is illegal in Germany but I do not know what the rules are with stream in gif that is the same as downloading here. This is something I will ask my host tomorrow on top of why she needs my passport number.

Not going to complain though I need a day to just lay on th bed which I am doing now, I may as well finish my Berlin story and conclude it with the short of rainy day I have had in Leipzig.

So Sunday was my last technical day in Berlin and it began with me nearly getting run down by a cyclist. Technically it was my fault, see in Germany bike paths run either on the street or on the sidewalk via red pavement or something to signify its their lane. I had just crossed the street and got on th other side. I realized I was in the bike lane and decided to move off when a cyclist nearly barrels into me. Thankfully he wasn’t going to fast and only ran over my foot. No injuries not harm but it was a wake up call that day. Only museum I went to was the spy museum which wound up being a bit of a waste of my time. It could have been more worth it if I had my girlfriend with me because there were lots of games and photo opportunities but being a solo act I didn’t want to ask anyone to let me do my James Bond pose or hold my shit while I walked through lasers in a lazer trap game. It is a museum more for kids than for adults honestly.

After that Missy invite me to join her and her daughter going to th Reschtag or the German Parliament. I said. Yes but when I got ther I could not locate them. After two hours of walking around there I left only to find out they were there too and we missed each other.

I decided to end my time in Berlin by trying to have Berlin craft beer. My first stop was a place called the Lemke Brewery. Basically Berlin’s touristy craft brew pub but despite that the burger and the beers I had were excellent. There was hope yet it seemed. I decided to go to th next closest brewery I could find which was apparently The Clown Hostel Brewery but for some odd reason it was closed when I got there despite music going on behind closed doors. Given it was getting late and I didn’t want to stay out let and get truly shit faced I decided since I d isn’t get to hang out with my hosts instead I should buy some liquor for them and hang with them tonight.

By the time I got to my station I decided to take a walk to find a worth while liquor store when I discovered a brewpub that was around where I was staying all along, a nerd one at that. It made me feel pretty stupid honestly but that is common now. Berlin came up again for me offering more craft beer than I have had since I had left. The Castle’s beer wasn’t to scream home about but it was ok.

By the time I got home everyone was asleep so I followed suit.

I am torn with Berlin, I don’t know if I need to come back anytime soon even though this visit I accomplished little in seeing everything and experiencing what I wanted to out of it but th thing is I am a different person now than I was back when I was there last. Last time I was there I wanted to party, I wanted to get laid and find something worth while. Now I just wanted craft beer, statues to Jayne hat and to get the gist of the city. Both times I feel like I utterly failed but either way I feel like I am done with Berlin. It is a party city as well as a tourist trap, neither interest me at this point in my life. I have spent enough time in that place.

Look why don’t we just give Berlin CC for their transit and things to do because Berlin has both in spades. I do not know if there is another city I have encountered where the options are so much it can be dizzying at times. Transit is such in Berlin to where I am shocked that people outside of taxis still drive in Berlin, I mean why even bother? While the transit system requires some time to figure out but once you can wrap your head around it you will soon realize there are few places one cannot access through transit either by bus, tram, bike or train here. As for things to do I feel like one week would be enough tog eat through all the museums, all the partying one could have and all the landmarks this city has, this city just has so much for so many different kinds of people that again it is hard not give them a full grade.

Food is a iffy one because they have their own dishy like thing in the aberliner which is basically just curried sausage on stuff, almost no better than poutine. With that said I found just about every style of food out there here. I didn’t try all of them or most of them but I know there are there. That is enough for 2/3 C on the Corey scale.

The vibe was for the most part good, people here are used to tourists so they dealt with me and were fine with me but I didn’t get the friendliness here like I did last time. I think people are just tired of so many tourists at this point so I can’t blame them but either 2/3 C would be fair too. This city welcomes tourists as its its main bread w inner I would imagine but I feel as though the city would prefer something else at times.

Lastly is beer, you know I have tried to the Berliner Wiesse and the Pilsner that this city holds as I am and neither I could care for. That being said the craft beer scene is growing in this city and stronger than anywhere I have been yet. Some places make good stuff, others not so much but Germany makes the best beer in the world pound for pound so I think they will figure out sometime soon. The quality is there I just don’t think the got the other stuff yet. So I will this 2/3 as well to make easier for me to add up and because this city has a strong beer culture that matches up with hthe options if gives.

That leaves Berlin with CCCC1/3 on the Corey Scale which seems more than fair for Berlin.

Which leads me to to today, I arrived in Leipzig to rain, lots of it. Think the one who runs this Airbnb wasn’t going to be here to greet me I took a chance and checked in early using th kid’s she hid away in a lock box on the premesis. It is nice to have my own private room, private bed and not have to worry about curtousy though I still need to show it since I am staying with the host but the different between her and the others is I am paying for my room.

After putting my shit away I decided to put on my rain gear for the first time ever. I bought this rain gear more than 10 years ago but never ore it till now. I got many strange looks but I didn’t care, I was dry while most were soaked. Well I was dry outside of my side pouch which I hope drys for tomorrow.

Leipzig is not as big as Berlin obviously, smaller than Düsseldorf as well but not by much. It is probably the most modern looking of places I have been to. I mean it still has its historical looking buildings but for the most part it feels very modern, clean and almost posh in a way like it is ready for tourists if they come but they are not quite ready yet. It is shame the rain is ruining my chances to see what his city can do but better here than in the last places. It won’t ruin my time here though because I came here knowing full well what I wanted to do before I got here. Why Leipzig?

It’s easy beer was the reason, as if you were not surprised. When I returned from Europe 5 years ago I wanted to try more of the German beer I had a taste of but I did not know where to start. The craft beer industry didn’t super nova just yet but it was growing. What I did find out was a place called Driftwood Brewery did make alt-bier and they were the ones doing so so I had to try it. Looking back and drinking alt-bier again Driftwood did get it fairly accurate but they also had another kind of German beer I didn’t try, it was called Gose. Gose is basically a salt wheat beer though I feel like it resembles sour beers more than it resembles wheat beers but I will leave you to decide that. I had the Gose and I enjoyed it so when I found out that it came from Leipzig I immediately put the city on my list of places I wanted to go so I would have a Gose from its source because if Vancouver can make it good it must be awesome in its home country.

When I locked down Leipzig as a place I would be seeing I looked for things to do to find out the city was a hotbed for classical music. While you won’t find me playing classical music much on my iPad or iPhone I have always had a interest in classical music. I have often played it when I require concentration I or relaxation, usually when doing homework or when I am doing my hockey draft. I am not going to act like I know anything about classical music I just know I like Beethoven, Chopin and Bach which is like saying I like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and David Bowie, you are not like to find many who will say they hate those composers.

I did try to make the best of the day, I did accomplish finding one record store yet like most record stores I have found only really sell used records, I got the tourist nick knacks and I found a cheap thing to eat in two bags of bread rolls for less than two bucks. I know I should find something more nutritious than that but when the dollar for your country sucks and your winding down on the budget you have for your trip you need to cut costs some where and 0.75 euro for a bag of bread rolls to me suits me find for food so I will get two of them. I will try and treat myself more but even eating wraps and having decent food is so damn costly here I don’t know how people get by here I mean 1.30 euro for a black pen, a black fucking pen! That is around two bucks here and back home I am sure I can get a whole set for 5-10 if I tried.

So here I am finishing off this blog drinking Hefeweizen beers I couldn’t have in Canada and loving it. I wish I could get this particular hefe brand in Canada but the closest I could maybe get it is in the USA. It’s too late to do anything here as stuff is closed, I am too tired and everything I got is soaked plus I need to sleep. The rest of the night I think is going to be spent plotting how I can Jayne hat everything in the next two days and get taste of true German Gose beer. But mainly I just want to sleep in, just want to actually relax and rest for once as I have been walking none stop outside of sleep for the past week and half. It’s time for relaxation and I am hoping this quiet ton of Leipzig can give it to me.

Shazbot nanu nanu

[coreytravelogue]

Berlin, Germany - September 9, 2019

I think I hit a wall here in Berlin, and not the Berlin Wall of sorts. I was already feeling fairly fatigued after Luxembourg City but I thought the fun had in Düsseldorf would have re energized me a little bit but it wasn’t till I got to Berlin that I realized that I needed a break from my break.

The train ride to Berlin was smooth, absolutely no problems during the trip. As I was approaching Berlin just like how I felt in Düsseldorf I thought it would be smooth sailing and that I should be able to navigate through it easily but as many times before this vacation I know close to jack shit.

Berlin Hbf looked unchanged which was fine with me, it still looks like an advanced version of a train station compared to every other station I have ever been to where every station I have been to is a historical site as well as train HUB Berlin Hbf is a modern day train station in every sense of the word. Almost looks like the chase scene at the near end of Labyrinth with David Bowie and Jennifer Connollywith so many stairs going up and down everywhere on multiple floors. Not just local transi trains run through it but regional and international ones too. It truly is an impressive train station.

As soon as I arrived I immediately went to the top floor where most of the transit trans run through to get my day passes. 5 years ago I was able to get a 1-3 day pass that that I can use. Apparently that can’t be done anymore, just day passes which I found to be irritating and in that I feel like I immediately hit a wall or started to. Once I figured that shit out I found the tram I needed to take and headed straight to Missy’s place.

Missy was my host in Glasgow, well I should say Saltcoats but I say Glasgow. The train to Glasgow from Saltcoats is about an hour. I wound up staying with her for nearly a week, not on purpose. I originally stayed with her for 3 to 4 days I can’t remember then I was going to spend a weekend in Inverness but due to fuck ups on my end I nearly got stranded in Edinburgh if not for her helping me out. When I found out she moved in Berlin and I was planning my Europe tour it was a given that I would ask if she could let me stay with her and her family once again as we have kept generally in touch with each other over the years. Also I don’t feel like I got all of Berlin that I wanted. I could even say now that I have spent a combined total of little over a week here I still feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of Berlin. Berlin is the kind of place where it’s impossible to be bored in as a tourist or I would even say as a person living there as well.

Once I met up with Missy I dropped my shit off and set off to get started as I knew time was short and I thought that this would be the only good weather day I would have as Maria warned me of rain over the week. I hit up Tiergarten knowing there were statues there. Sadly all the statues were too tall to hat and after two hours of walking around I felt like I wasted my time which again angered me. What also angered me was trying to get around from Alexanderplatz which is sort of the main tourist hub of the city. I couldn’t wrap my head around the the U trains, S trains, M trans and the buses, this isn’t even counting the RE trains either. The transit map I had only shown trains, not trams and the maps I saw around provided little help in showing me where the S trains were but by the end I realized the differences between each kind of train/tram.

S trains are above ground, comparable to the sky trains in Vancouver, the U trains are the underground subway trains. M trams are self explanatory as well as the trains.

After giving up on Tiergarten I decided to get off at a place I thought would have a fountain of statues that I saw once but didn’t Jayne hat for some reason. I wound up being incorrect again but unlike the rest of my incorrect decisions this stop lead me to basically a treated trove of statues. Normally if I can hit five statues in one location then I would be more than happy as most places I have found have 1-3. Like Düsseldorf Berlin has no shortage of statues, just got to know where two look for them since the internet won’t provide you with much help. Suffice to say at near end of my first day Berlin came up for me in helping me make my quota. For the first time since the night Inarrived I also went to sleep sober.

Saturday was a very long day, I went to two museums I had been to before and remember enjoying; the film museum and the national history museum for Germany. The film museum had not changed at all, if it did it only had minor changes. Regardless I spent four hours in the museum making sure I got everything I could out of it. By the time it came time for the national museum I was already museumed out. The German History Museum is quite a big museum and goes into great detail about close to the entire history of agermany. From the beginning till the fall of the Berlin Wall but nothing for the 90s and all which I find very disappointing. That being said Berlin haas so many fucking museums it’s rather insane, so much that there is a area called museum island that is nearly all museums and art galleries. I believe there is one museum that covers Germany in the 90s and museums for other modern stuff but after the national museum I was done for the day and ready to try Berlin beer.

Searching for beer in Europe has proven to be a difficult task. In North American it’s quite easy to locate and track breweries, where to find them and what they have but not so much here. You really got to dig hard and even then you are bound to hit dead ends and I had little time to do digging. I decided on Berliner Republik, I heard that it was a great place for craft beer but I inevitably was show wrong but it wasn’t entirely a lost cause. The bar had a gimmick called the beer stock exchange where after 5 pm the prices for beer fluctuate every few minutes. I didn’t play it much but I found it to be an interesting gimmick. However the place barely had any local beer. They did however provide flights but they would not tell you what it is or provide a list which angered me again. I really feel like Europe/Germany is unable to fully grasp the craft brewery scene yet. They seem like they are trying but they are not quite there yet or they are just taking their sweet time.

Luckily untapped is a excellent tool for beer finding and after checking in a beer it made me aware of a micro brewery a couple blocks away that I could try and so I did. They didn’t provide flights though which seemed again really stupid but I tried three beer and decided my limit was hit for the night or at least for now.

By the time I got back to Missy’s place I met her daughter whom was a little girl when I first saw her now nearly doubled in size and twice as energetic. I showed her the Jayne hats and where they have been while I had a special beer I had waiting till then to have. On my way back Friday night I went into a grocery store for some orange juice when I noticed a beer I hadn’t seen in five years. It was the beer that got me into German Hefeweizens; stortebecker beer. It wasn’t as great as I remembered it but my tastes have refined over the years.i am soon to arrive in Leipzig and my wifi will cut out so I will leave this to be concluded when I get a wifi connection again.

Shazbot nanu nannu