#i may have read autobiography of red at a formative point in my writing development | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

srbachchan · 3 years

Text

DAY 4831

Jalsa, Mumbai May 20, 2021 Thu 9:14 PM

Birthday - Ef Gopi Sheth .. Ef Aish TVM .. Friday, May 21 .. our greetings and love on this special day .. be safe be well and be protected .. ❤️🌹

A dear friend sent me this article .. I thought it was a very good read and so thought of putting it here :

Write Tight

What is poetry? Etymology provides more questions than answers.

T. S. Eliot, who once famously called National Poetry Month the cruelest, was also one of many to point out the hopeless semantic tangles that ensue because “poetry” has two opposites. Poetry can be the lined stuff, often with rhymes, as opposed to sentences and paragraphs; poetry can also be the good stuff, as opposed to the plodding or simply informational. But if good prose can be poetic, a novel can be “pure poetry,” and poems can be prosaic, then it’s not clear what anyone is talking about, really. Or rather, it’s clear except to theorists trying to come up with definitions. Poetry is what’s thrilling, while a poem is that poor thing with eleven readers, eight of them members of the poet’s extended family.

Etymology doesn’t help—it only highlights that the apples and oranges here are how the thing is made and how it moves. Poetry is from the Greek poiein, “to make”: a poem is something made, or in English we would more naturally say crafted. Yet everyone agrees good prose is well crafted, too. Prose means, literally, “straightforward,” from the Latin prosa, proversus, “turned to face forward” (whereas verse is all wound up, twisty and snaky, “turned” in every direction except, apparently, forward). Yet we all know that poems can be clear and direct, too, especially when they’re songs.

Sidelining sonnets and quarantining quatrains in the poetry ghetto does produce a certain clarity. But of course it also creates problems when translating from languages that gerrymander poetry differently. In German, for example, writer is a word even more literal than the English “someone who writes”: it’s Schriftsteller, a put-down-on-paper-er (Schrift = “writing,” stellen = “to place, to put”). Autor is a word used a bit less often for pretty much the same thing, unlike in English, where there’s a difference: author expresses a professional and financial identity (there are no “unpublished authors,” unless maybe the manuscript is finished and the contract is signed), while a writer is someone pursuing an activity (published or not, paid or not, read or not).

And then there’s a Dichter, usually translated “poet” but meaning a creator of poetry in the grand sense. The verb dichten means “to write poetry, ” and a poem is a dichten-ed thing, a Gedicht, but dichten means more generally to write poetically and well. The good stuff. The writer as hero of the spirit. How do you say that in English? We don’t have heroes of the spirit.

At least not according to Grimm’s German Dictionary—the equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary, and started by those same Brothers Grimm who brought us “Little Red Riding Hood.” It gloats that dichten means “to create poetically, filled with a higher intelligence,” and that “the word does not exist in French and English: they work around it with s’adonner à la poésie, faire des vers; to compose a poem, to make verses, to versify.” The OED can fire back all it wants—pleading that dight had “an extraordinary sense-development” in Middle English from its original “senses of literary dictation and composition,” to become “one of the most widely used words in the language”—but its efforts are in vain. From that whole extraordinary range of meanings we use exactly none anymore.

“To understand the word,” Grimm’s poetically goes on, “we must go back to an earlier time …” Dichten originally meant to write something down so it could be read or sung, something that had already been worked out in the mind (from the Latin dictare, “to say, to dictate”). It swerved into meaning the mental working-out, too, the originating creative act. A sixteenth-century saying already plays on the same double meaning that causes ambiguity in English: “A good enough rhyme-smith, but hardly a poet” (Reimschmiede genug, aber wenig Dichter). But from there, the word left the confines of verse. In German, you can still call someone a poet in the grand sense without consigning him to the poetry ghetto.

So what is a Dichter in prose? I have caved on occasion and translated Dichter as “poet,” in cases where the character in question may or may not be a poet (e.g., Robert Walser’s story “Letter from a Poet to a Gentleman”), or happens to be a poet even if that’s not really the point. Goethe was a poet, so the title of his autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit, can be translated as it usually is, Poetry and Truth, even though the book is not particularly about verse as opposed to other forms. His topic is actually Imagination and Truth, but imagination set down on paper. To put it anachronistically: Creative Writing and the Truth.

Sometimes, though, “poet” risks being downright misleading. A twentieth-century German writer named Uwe Johnson, known as the Dichter der beiden Deutschlands (the Dichter of both East and West Germany), wrote only prose. Call him the “poet of both Germanies” and people will think he’s a poet. He is more like “the voice of divided Germany,” or even “the bard,” despite being neither a songwriter nor Shakespeare. In English, we can get the grandeur (voice) or the job (writer, author, novelist), but not both.

There are cognates of dichten, from the same Latin dictare, but they never took on the same soaring spirit in English, at least since the demise of dight. Very much on the contrary. Our closest cognate, indite, “to put into words, write, compose, give literary form to,” was more or less completely swamped by what was once the same word, indict, “to write up charges, bring legal action against.” (Probably under interference from indicare, “to indicate, give evidence against”; and indicere, “to declare publicly,” compare Italian indicere, “to denounce.”) To translate Dichter as “inditer” won’t do. Even our least sarcastic Dichter is sarcastic about that: “Perhaps my best moments I never jot down; when they come I cannot afford to break the charm by inditing memoranda”—Walt Whitman.

Coincidentally, dicht in German also means “tight,” as in watertight or airtight (from Old Norse þéttr, apparently completely unrelated etymologically to dictare), and the verb dichten is also “to seal, caulk, make impermeable,” as well as “to make more dense or compact.” Ezra Pound played on the pun in his second most well-known slogan for what poetry does (after “Make it new”): dichten = condensare. An imagist manifesto in twenty characters: to write poetry is to condense and supercharge language. (Pound attributed the equation to the poet Basil Bunting “fumbling about with a German–Italian dictionary”; actually, Bunting knew what he was doing, and wasn’t exactly fumbling. Pound = condescendere.)

This may not be a less ambiguous definition of poetry, but it is a good challenge for the Dichters in our midst, in poetry or prose. Don’t just make it new: make it tight.

with admiration for the ones that read and feel read ..❤️

Amitabh Bachchan

101 notes · View notes

gameofdrarry · 3 years

Text

Wizards Hearts Recs: Angst

Wizards Hearts was a four-month-long Drarry reading fest. Players were given a playing deck of 52 tropes, and were asked to find 52 different fics to read and comment on to fill their decks. To prevent the same few fics from being read, fics were restricted to only being used for the game three times before being considered ineligible for further points. The tropes and submissions list can be found here.

Check out the masterlist of fics for this trope below the cut!

📜 remember me by hupsoonheng Rated: Teen and Up Words: 31082 Tags: Amnesia, Temporary Amnesia, Obliviation, Established Relationship, Established Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Legilimency, Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Reformed Draco Malfoy, POV Draco Malfoy, Good Draco Malfoy, Gardens & Gardening, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, POV Harry Potter Summary: On a chilly day in October, Draco kisses Harry goodbye before he goes on yet another dangerous, undercover mission with the Aurors. And then Harry doesn't come back. Only Draco believes that Harry isn't dead, and pours himself into finding his husband despite his friends' pleas to move on and grieve properly. What he finds at the end of that work, though, is not at all what he wanted. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 you've got the antidote for me by Kandakicksass Rated: Mature Words: 20730 Tags: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Soul Bond, Red String of Fate, Heavy Angst, Terminal Illnesses, Major Illness, Angst with a Happy Ending Summary: When Harry Potter unintentionally severs their soulbond before it can fully form, Draco Malfoy resigns himself to a slow death and decides not to burden Harry with a soulmate he's made it very clear he doesn't want. He's never been selfless before, but for Harry, he can try. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Every Breath You Take by hephaestiions Rated: Mature Words: 19252 Tags: Major Character Death, Death (Harry Potter), Suicide, Child Death, Miscommunication, Angst, Angst and Tragedy Summary: It starts and ends with Death. Scorpius was just caught in between. Like always. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Between Myth and Man by slytherco Rated: Explicit Words: 16242 Tags: Veritaserum, Truth Serum, Mundane, London, Falling In Love, Lies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, This whole story is just Draco angsting really, Sexual Content, keeping secrets, Smoking, Bad Weather, References to Drugs, Making Out, One (1) Scared Little Sparrow, And also lots of texting Summary: Draco, lost and a little broken, navigates post-war reality convinced that people like him should not be allowed to make their own choices. To solve the problem of his self-sabotaging tendencies, he starts taking a few drops of Veritaserum every morning. A story about the complexity of choices, repressed desires that come to the surface when we least expect them, and the utter hopelessness of truths built on a foundation of lies. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Three Boxes and a Scrapbook by dracogotgame Rated: Mature Words: 30493 Tags: mention of divorce, flangst, Bill is a bro Summary: One year after being accidentally bonded to each other, Harry and Draco are free to move on with their lives. But perhaps, what they needed was here all along. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Intertwined by bluefay Rated: Explicit Words: 25086 Tags: Memory Loss, Memory Alteration, Accidental Bonding, Magic Gone Wrong, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Malfoy Manor, Self-Harm, Dark Mark (Harry Potter), Serious Injuries, But they're not very graphic so don't fret!, Self-Hatred, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationship, Sort Of, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Hate Sex, Childhood Trauma ,Flashbacks, St Mungo's Hospital, Sharing a Bed, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Time, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020 Summary: On May 3rd, 1998, Draco Malfoy wakes up with no memory of Voldemort, the war, or Harry Potter, his supposed boyfriend. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 I Am Not Who I Became by mab_di Rated: Explicit Words: 93189 Tags: H/D Fan Fair 2019, Secondary Theme: Travel Fair, Secondary Theme: Book Fair, Commercial Fisherman Draco Malfoy, Failed Writer Harry Potter, Depressed Harry Potter, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Muscular Draco Malfoy, Recluse Harry Potter, Angst, Smut, Drama & Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Wandless Magic, Boats and Ships, Finland (Country), Fishing, Redemption, School Reunion, Minor Draco Malfoy/Original Male Character(s), Anal Sex, Rough Sex, Sex Magic, Suicidal Thoughts, Near Death Experiences, Magical Theory, POV Alternating Summary: Draco left England after the trials and has travelled the world meeting wizards and Muggles from different cultures and with vastly different relationships to magic, each other, and the natural world. Now he's a fisherman in Finland on commercial vessels. Harry has been struggling since the war and has become a recluse while trying to write his autobiography. An invitation to the Hogwarts class of 1998's 15th reunion isn't welcomed by either of them, but neither could predict how the night, and their reunion, will upend their lives. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 When I Put My Eyes On You by Zzzara Rated: Explicit Words: 31160 Tags: Blindness, Blind Character, Blind Harry Potter, Disability, Physical Disability, Disabled Character, Slow Burn, Falling In Love, Love, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, Dorks in Love, Friendship/Love, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Requited Unrequited Love, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Amortentia, Potions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt, Emotions, Emotional, Emotional Roller Coaster, Pining, Pining Harry Potter, Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Developing Friendships, Romantic Friendship, Best Friends, Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter Friendship, POV Harry Potter, Patronus, Spells & Enchantments, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Jealousy, Jealous Harry Potter, Male Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Spin the Bottle, Halloween, Party, Party Games, Mistletoe, Kissing, Surprise Kissing, Boys Kissing, Rough Kissing, Drunken Kissing, Gentle Kissing, Boys In Love, Drinking, Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, First Time, Explicit Sexual Content, Sex, Gay Sex, Hand Jobs, Emotional Sex, Awkward First Times, Sleeping Together, Literal Sleeping Together, Dancing, Showers, Masturbation in Shower, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Resolved Sexual Tension, Dreams, Fantasizing, Desire, Self-Esteem Issues, Substance Abuse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, Lights Camera Drarry 2020, Lights Camera Drarry, LCDrarry, LCD - Freeform, The Way he looks, film inspired, Self-Prompt, Healing Summary: When a hero defeats a villain, there's supposed to be a happily-ever-after... but when did anything ever happen to Harry Potter the way it was supposed to? Having sacrificed himself to the greater good, Harry is left alone in the darkness, blindly groping for the shreds of the life he knew. When the enemies meet, how is the story supposed to go, once they learn there's more to it than the eye can see? A story of pain, hope and things we discover, once we stop looking for them with our eyes. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 You open always (petal by petal) by birdsofshore Rated: Explicit Words: 65214 Tags: Post War, Rent Boy!Draco, Down-And-Out!Draco, Grimmauld Place, House magic, Portraits, First Times, Antagonism, Hurt/Comfort, Coming Out, Pining, Angst, UST, Kissing, Frotting, Blow Jobs, Rimming, Intergluteal Sex, Anal Sex, Homophobic Slurs And Attitudes, Internalised Homophobia, Derogatory Attitudes To Sex Workers, Some Mentions Of Sadistic Violence, Brief Thoughts Of Sexual Activity With A Sleeping Partner, Rough Sex, Brief Mention Of Harry With A Woman (Past Relationship), Mentions Of Dubious Consent In Connection With Sex Work, Community: hd_erised, Inexperienced Harry, Top Harry Potter, House Elves, Masturbation Summary: Harry’s not the kind of person who pays for sex. He really isn’t. Until he is. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Solder by Oakstone730 Rated: Explicit Words: 34547 Tags: potion/alcohol addiction, Recovery, Nipple Play, Rimming, Dirty Talk, Angst, PiningUST, Reconciliation, LoveForgiveness, Cursebreaker!Draco, Artist!Harry Summary: Seven years ago, Harry disappeared out of Draco and Scorpius's life without a trace after Harry's addictions destroyed his and Draco's marriage. Now, Harry’s back, and Draco wants to believe he’s changed. But Harry isn’t the only one haunted by the past. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Three Months, Eleven Days and Nine Hours by sassy_cissa Rated: Teen and Up Words: sassy_cissa Tags: H/D Food Fair 2018, Angst, Romance, Paroled Draco Malfoy, Rebuilding Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy/, Harry Potter Friendship, Down and Out Draco Malfoy, Food Forager Draco Malfoy, Soup Kitchens, Happy Ending, Post-Hogwarts, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hungry Draco Malfoy Summary: Broke and living in a one room hovel in Knockturn Alley, Draco hunts in rubbish bins for food. Nothing could be more humiliating, right? Unless you're Draco Malfoy... ❤️ Read on AO3

Texting You by ununquadius Rated: Teen and Up Words: 6005 Tags: Major Character Death, text fic, draco is dead, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, or maybe hurt/no comfort, Everyday Life, Pets, Asexual Harry Potter, Indian Harry Potter, one penis drawing, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Loneliness, Drinking, Terminal Illnesses, blink and you missed them suicidal thoughts Summary: After Draco's death, Harry can't let go so he keeps texting their private chat, updating him on his life and rambling about everything and anything until it almost feels like there's a possibility that, one day, a reply will come. Read on AO3

📜 Wake Up In The Night by p1013 Rated: Explicit Words: 10483 Tags: Angst with a Happy Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, Face-Fucking, Public Sex, Blow Jobs, Versatile Draco Malfoy, Versatile Harry Potter, Anal Sex, Rimming, Anal Fingering, Dirty Talk, Facials, 69 (Sex Position), Coming Untouched, Love Confessions, Curses, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Drinking, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, POV Draco Malfoy, Voyeurism, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020, Emotional Manipulation Summary: In the days after the War ended, there were a great many things that were changed or changing, a great many things that somehow slipped beneath the notice of Ministry officials and healers from St. Mungo's and Aurors that were tasked with capturing fleeing Death Eaters. It was, after all, the end of the War, and much like war itself, the clean up was heartbreaking. Lives had been lost. The world as they knew it had been changed irrevocably. In the grand scheme of things, there were more important things to worry about than Draco Malfoy's sudden, inexplicable inability to feel love. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Coated in Rust and Blood by crazyparakiss Rated: Mature Words: 2429 Tags: Mpreg, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy, Break Up, Post-Break Up, Angst, Violent Sex, Self-Hatred, Grief/Mourning, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020 Summary: No one escapes the nightmares. That’s what his headshrinker tells Harry every time he tries to unpack the baggage he was handed from infancy. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Here Without You by gracerene Rated: Explicit Words: 26869 Tags: Post-Hogwarts, War, Canon-Typical Violence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Death, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Background Het, Non-Linear Narrative, Flashbacks, Epistolary, Love Letters, Dirty Letters, An Ode to Draco's Bum, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Top Harry Potter, Implied Switching, Auror Harry Potter, Healer Draco Malfoy, Explosions, Harry Potter & Parvati Patil Friendship, Loneliness, Denial, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020 Summary: It's been seven years since the end of the Second Wizarding War with Voldemort, and a new Dark Lady has taken over in nearby Ireland. Harry feels compelled to volunteer to fight on the front lines, but war is never safe, and Harry has a lot—including his blissfully happy relationship with Draco—to lose. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Orion in the Sky by space_wingding Rated: Explicit Words: 30709 Tags: Bookshop Owner Draco Malfoy, Coffee, Village life, Slow Burn, Pining, Denial, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, Jigsaw Puzzles, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Post-Hogwarts, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Harry Potter, Fatal Curse, Serious Injuries, Suicidal Thoughts, Hospitalization, Death, Character Death, Unhappy Ending, St Mungo's Hospital, Grief, mentions of anal sex, Chronic or Terminal Illness, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020 Summary: Draco Malfoy owns a bookshop in the Lake District. He’s also cursed. Enter: Harry Potter. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Forgot to remember you by Andithiel Rated: Mature Words: 1753 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Auror Partners, Magical Accidents, Memory Loss, Partial Memory Loss, Getting Together, DreamsPining, Light Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drarropoly 2.0 - A Drarry Game/Fest, Rated M for language, There's not any real stuff going on Summary: Harry was hit with a spell that made him forget the week before he was hurt. Most of his memories have come back, but he has a niggling suspicion that he did something wrong. Why else would his Auror partner (and the object of his desires) go from friendly to hostile? ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 On the Last Day by trishjames Rated: Explicit Words: 53481 Tags: Mystery, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Unreliable Narrator, Drama, Dramatic Irony, Flashbacks, Non-Linear Flashbacks, Memory Loss, Horror Elements, Suicidal Ideation, Depression, Occlumency (Harry Potter), Occlumency as a Coping Mechanism, Panic Attacks, Discussion and Depiction of Mini Seizures, mention of overdoses, Revenge, Repression, Science, Neurology & Neuroscience, Neurological damage, Medicine, Potions, Original Characters - Freeform, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Somewhat Bond!Fic, Strong Friendships, Strong Women, Maternal love, Department of Mysteries, Unspeakables (Harry Potter), The Love Chamber, The Death Chamber, Death Potion, Amortentia, The Veil, Near Death Experiences, Souls, Major character death - Freeform, Death, forced drugging, Mind Control (Imperio), Murder, Vomit, Medical Procedures, Consent, Amoral Behaviour, Unethical Behaviour, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Possession, Ghost Sex, True Love Conquers All, ghost!harry, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Auror Harry Potter, Unspeakable/Scientist Hermione Granger, Unspeakable/Scientist Draco Malfoy, H/D Hurt!Fest 2020, Psst...angst with a happy ending.. Summary: Draco is still mourning the recent loss of his mother when the Wizarding World is struck with the tragic news of Harry Potter’s untimely death. It’s just his luck that Potter not only comes back as a ghost, but seems intent on haunting Draco as he’s the only one that can see him. It’s a race against time to retrace the last few days of Potter’s life in order to find his body before he’s lost to the living or spiritual realm forever. On their journey, they’ll uncover secrets, betrayals, and a horrific truth that will disrupt both the living and the dead. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Poland | A Faint Glow of Hope by EvAEleanor Rated: Mature Words: 6123 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Summer Solstice, Solstice, Curses, Unspeakable Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Ron Weasley, Healer Hermione Granger, Herbology Professor Neville Longbottom, Angst, Flowers, Slavic mythology, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Mythology References. Folklore, poland - Freeform, POV Draco Malfoy, Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, Community: Seven Shades of Drarry Summary: On Draco’s 25th birthday, somebody attempts to curse him, but Harry Potter jumps between them and is hit instead, with unexpected consequences. Potter is running out of time, and they both embark on a race against time to find the only cure that could save Harry. Little do they know they will need to face a myriad of magical creatures and their own feelings on the way. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Grounds for Divorce by Tepre Rated: Explicit Words: 122217 Tags: Slow Burn, Pining, UST, Anal Sex, brief but all the same enthusiastic rimming, One (1) lemon tree, Accidental Bonding, And I mean like U! S! T!, Jealousy, Deals with Trauma, They both top at some point, ron is a good friend, Draco is a Good Cook, Dubious Consent due to the Accidental Bonding, The actual SLOWEST burn, Hurt/Comfort, Have I mentioned UST? Cannot overstate this it's like A LOT, First there's frottage, And then there's more sex, Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, and just a lot of sex, sex on a bed, sex in the shower, sex on the floor, Sex on a settee, In other news they go to Egypt, Teddy is a Small Bean, There is one (1) cat, and one (1) happy ending Summary: Malfoy finds a coin. Harry finds a letter. A story about histories, a story about families. A story about a lemon tree somewhere in Upper Egypt. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 At Evening's End by manixzen Rated: Explicit Words: 31055 Tags: Pre-Relationship, Angst, Azkaban, Hurt/Comfort, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Slow Burn, Post-Hogwarts, Friendship, Past Child Abuse, Enemies to Friends, Auror Harry Potter, Inmate Draco Malfoy, Prison, Auror Ron Weasley Summary: When the dementors are removed from Azkaban, a compromise has to be made for the prison to remain secure and wizard-kind to feel safe. Harry and Ron find themselves assigned to a rotation as guards during their first year as Junior Aurors as a part of the new system. Harry finds his values challenged in the harsh environment, but an unexpected friendship may carry him through this difficult year. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 all you ever did was wreck me by SailorChibi Rated: Mature Words: 10807 Tags: Post-Hogwarts, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, draco has PTSD, Harry has PTSDN, ightmares, Animagus, Harry is an animagus, prison break - Freeform, Touch-Starved, affection starved, Fear of Death, fear of touch, touch repulsed, Trauma, Aftermath of Torture, harry doesn't want anyone else to die, harry is very angry at the world, Protective Harry, harry had to grow up too soon, Possessive Harry, harry wants to protect draco, house arrest, Ministry of Magic, ministry of magic has gone power hungry, Fear of Magic, draco is scared of magic, it's been used for too much evil, Draco Malfoy Feels, Sad Draco Malfoy, Protective Draco Malfoy, Sharing a Bed, platonically sharing a bed, First Kiss, Hugging, Cuddling, Platonic Cuddling, Harry Potter is a Good Friend, death is scary, Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Endingh, appyish ending, might be a little bittersweet, but it will be ok I swear Summary: After the war, the Ministry decides to make a clean go of it and sentences all Death Eaters to death. After a year spent imprisoned beneath the Ministry, with his mother safely in France, his father dead and only the Aurors who hate him for "company", Draco is waiting for his time to die. Harry gets to him first. ❤️ Read on AO3

#angst #drarry #drarry recs #game of drarry #wizards hearts #wh masterlist

13 notes · View notes

bananaofswifts · 4 years

Text

The album anticipates questions surrounding the singer’s genre bona fides and leans into each contradiction.

By Jonathan Keefe

4,5 STARTS

ountry and roots music are too often used as shorthand for “serious” artistry, a notion steeped in matters of race and rockist authenticity fetishes. The implication that pop music is an inherently lesser art form has been the focus of the discourse around albums by Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, and Miley Cyrus in recent years. Taylor Swift’s Folklore has already been subject to similar—and perhaps similarly misguided—scrutiny. That Swift has enlisted Aaron Dessner of the highly regarded indie-rock band the National as both a songwriting and producing partner—in addition to her frequent pop collaborator Jack Antonoff—and has embraced a grayscale, rustic visual aesthetic for the project has led many to declare the album a credibility maneuver or act of rebranding.

What makes Folklore such a compelling album, then, are the countless ways in which Swift, the savviest and most acutely self-conscious artist of her generation, anticipates questions surrounding her genre bona fides and leans into each apparent contradiction. She invites this degree of “What does it mean?” discursive handwringing because, on some level, it frees her to make the music she wants to make at any given moment. Folklore is neither a culmination of Swift’s career to date nor a pivot in a new direction. She’s doing exactly what she’s always done: offering a collection of incisive, often provocative songs that incorporate authentic, first-person details and leaving others to argue over specific genre signifiers.

Song for song, Folklore finds Swift at a new peak in her command of language. While tracks like “Cardigan” and “Invisible Strings” hinge on protracted metaphors, “Mad Woman” and “Peace” are blunt and plainspoken. In every instance, what’s noteworthy is Swift’s precision in communicating her exact intent. “I can change everything about me to fit in,” she sighs on “Mirrorball,” a sentiment that’s emblematic of her ability to bait autobiographical readings while also actively subverting them. If she’s offering a comment on her own desire to keep up with next-gen pop stars like Billie Eilish, then the obvious follow-up question is why nothing on Folklore sounds like a viable Top 40 single. Swift’s answer comes in the song’s final stanza, a marvel of vulnerability: “I’m still trying everything/To keep you looking at me.”

In other words, Swift’s at a point in her career where she knows chart success is incidental to broad cultural impact, and she has the cachet to sacrifice the former for the sake of the latter. “All Too Well,” from 2012’s Red, has rightfully become one of her signature songs despite not ever having been released as a single, and that same fate seems likely for many of the tracks here. Every song on Folklore boasts at least one couplet or stanza that’s simply extraordinary for its command of language, narrative voice, empathy, or some combination thereof.

The standout “Seven” first presents itself as a wistful remembrance of childhood before revealing the complexities of what we lose as we age: “Picture me in the weeds/Before I learned civility/I used to scream ferociously/Whenever I wanted.” The song also presents a queer text within Swift’s songwriting for the first time, which broadens the narrative voices she’s employed over the course of her career. “Illicit Affairs” builds to what seems like it will be one of the singer’s trademark middle-eight tone shifts, only to end abruptly without resolving into another chorus, enhancing the sense of finality in her dressing-down of a former lover. Rather than pulling her punches by repeating a catchy refrain or hook, she lets some of her bitterest lines linger, and it’s one of the album’s most impactful moments. Later, she sings from the POV of the rejected party on “This Is Me Trying” to devastating effect: “You told me all of my cages were mental/So I got wasted like all my potential.” The track finds Swift giving credence to the other person’s view of her, making for an even more believable narrator.

Swift’s early albums were hamstrung by her insistence that hers was the only story to be told—that, essentially, she was the protagonist in everyone else’s autobiography, and not just in her own. Folklore’s shifting perspectives—an homage to heiress Rebekah Harkness on “The Last Great American Dynasty,” the queer through line in the love triangle of “Cardigan,” “August,” and “Betty”—highlight how Swift’s widening worldview has deepened her skills as a songwriter. And even if none of these tracks sound like a “hit,” “Invisible String” and “This Is Me Trying” still demonstrate Swift’s masterful grasp of song structure. Her use of repetition throughout the album is particularly effective: “The 1” invokes both “the greatest films of all time” and “the greatest loves of all time” as sources of regret, while each stanza on “Invisible String” begins with a line that uses passive voice to create a narrative remove.

That Swift employs her long-established songwriting tropes in novel ways is truly the most significant development on Folklore, rather than her choices of collaborators or whether the album scans as pop or alternative or electro-folk. She’s mined this type of melancholy tone before, but never for the full length of an album and certainly never with such a range of perspectives. It isn’t the weight of the subject matter alone that makes the album feel so vital—it’s the exemplary caliber of her writing. She may sing of wasted potential, but Folklore finds Swift living up to all of the praise she earned for her songwriting earlier in career.

#taylor swift #review #folklore

21 notes · View notes