#literary conundrums

[palavrasdeputaria]

Just got home from watching The Woman King and it was amazing.

Two and a half hours of an emotional roller coaster, I cheered, I winced, I covered my face, I cried and so much more

Viola Davis is so damn impressive and her range is unreal. I kept thinking of her as Annalise Keating or as Rose Lee Maxon or as Ma Rainey and consistently being so blown away by her ability to just morph into her characters.

Wow, I mean everyone was so damn good and the styling! THE FIGHT SCENES! The intensity and softness. The bits of humor and delicate moments. I could go on and on. I want to watch it again.

Finally finished Gideon the Ninth, literally only got hooked in the last few chapters then the last line has me left in with a difficult decision to make. Legit, most of the book kind of bored me. Then it finished so damn strong and do I want to find a way to buy the second book so I can read Nona the Ninth that I have just sitting on a shelf? Do I just want to find a synopsis online and get the general idea of Harrow the Ninth then move onto the third book?

Do I just want to dive right into The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang and give up on Harrow all together? Somebody buy me all the books okay?

Today the internet also annoyed me greatly. Everything I opened was just drama about people who should be left well alone so I closed it all and just watched TV and worked.

Went out to see a movie with Amaya and Rachel instead, much better use of my time.

I'm feeling better, sort of, my stomach is feeling better. Not completely, but it's much less painful and I don't feel like I'm at risk of shitting myself constantly. Maybe this weird diet is working. I'm trying not to be too hopeful, I still have blood tests and possibly a colonoscopy to get through.

I just learned today that you get knocked out for a colonoscopy, which is going to be challenging. I wonder if I can pay an Uber driver to deal with me being not functional and get me home safely.

I worried a lot about you today, not sure why. I think maybe because it's getting cold and it's getting dark earlier. Perhaps it makes me more wary of the world in general.

I think I'm going to re listen to the Tensorate Series and contemplate my next literary move.

I hope you're okay. I miss talking to you today, I kept having moments where I wanted to hear your opinion. Hear one of your exquisite verbal onslaughts denouncing or lauding whatever thing spurred your passion. There is still just such a vast emptiness.

Anyways, here is the cover of The Genesis of Misery. I think you'd like it.

It looks fucking cool right? I also just realized that creature as four arms, I wonder if that will be explained or if it's just for coolness.

[amethysttribble]

There’s a certain kind of common post on this website that goes *yes, [story premise that is common and popular and might reasonably support a full plot] but what about [consequences of story premise that really only has vibes]*

And usually the OP is kind enough to expand on this thought, about what the consequences might be (but not always), but I come away from those posts thinking, “okay, and what else?”

And in my experience there isn’t an answer, the described ‘consequences ’ premise doesn’t get much farther than that text post. There’s no more meat on those bones. When I try to think of how one might make a full movie or novel out of that concept… it can be done, but it would take a great deal of skill to keep it engaging and not start to lag, because if you’re plot is entirely *long form dealing with aftermath of the far more kinetic thing* you’ve gotta be damn good to not bore people and make them want to see that way more interesting concept instead

Probably why this is such a common fandom thing, and less so in original work. Easy for 800 word one shot about pre existing plot and characters to grapple with feelings only, a lot harder with an original story and original characters to revolve only around ‘far more interesting story happening in the next room over’ (again, can be done, there’s a boom for this very thing is isekai rn, but to be done successfully? Harder.)

Which is why when you do see original media focusing on ‘the emotions and consequences of it all’ the premise is always DEEPLY mundane. Death. Abuse. Depression. War fits in here somewhere, but only partway. Original media would much rather talk about the fantastical time loop though- how can you make a story about the consequences of a time loop when you don’t know what the loop looked like?

And if you’re going to make a sequel… you better put that motherfucker back in a time loop

But anyway something something fandom something something the One-Shots something something the modern desire to experience catharsis over experiencing new things

[ftnerdy]

Friends Talking Nerdy Episode 326: Living Childfree

Welcome back to another exciting episode of “Friends Talking Nerdy” with your hosts, Professor Aubrey and Tim the Nerd! In this week’s episode, they dive deep into various topics, from the trials of Professor Aubrey’s first week of teaching to Tim’s cat conundrum and reflections on a classic TV show. Here’s what you can expect: Professor Aubrey’s Classroom Chronicles: Professor Aubrey kicks…

[sarahreesbrennan]

Are all the themes in “in other lands” supposed to be a commentary on something? Or do you just like writing sex scenes between minors, age gaps, and reverse misogyny?

Genuine question.

Ohhh, my dear anon, I don't believe this is a genuine question.

But it does bring up something I've been meaning to talk about. So I'll take the bait.

Firstly. Yes, my work contains a commentary on the world around us. I wonder what I could be doing with the child soldiers being sexually active in their teens (people hook up right after battles), and the age gap relationship ending in the younger one being too mature for the elder. What could I possibly have been attempting when I said 'how absurd gender roles are, when projected onto people we haven't been accustomed by our own society to see that way'? I wasn't being subtle, that's for sure.

Secondly. Yes I do enjoy writing! I think I should, it's my life's work. Am I titillated by my own writing, no - though I think it's fine to be. The sex scenes of In Other Lands aren't especially titillating, to be honest. It is interesting to me how often people sneer at women for writing romance and sex scenes, having 'book boyfriends,' insinuating women writers fancy their own characters. Women having too much immoral fun! Whereas men clearly write about sex for high literary purposes.

… I have to say from my experience of women and men's writing, I haven't found that to be true.

I’m not in this to have an internet argument. Mostly people use bad faith takes to poke at others from the other side of a screen for kicks. But I do know some truly internalise the attitude that writing certain things is wrong, that anyone who makes mistakes must be shunned as impure, and that is a deeply Victorian and restrictive attitude that guarantees unhappiness.

I've become increasingly troubled by the very binary and extreme ways of thinking I see arising on the internet. They come naturally from people being in echo chambers, becoming hostile to differing opinions, and the age-old conundrum of wanting to be good, fearing you aren't, and making the futile effort to be free of sin. It makes me think of Tennyson, who when travelling through Ireland at the time of the Great Famine, said nobody should talk about the 'Irish distress' to him and insisted the window shades of his carriage be shut as he went from castle to castle. So he wouldn't see the bodies. But that didn't make the bodies cease to be.

In Les Mis, Victor Hugo explores why someone might steal, what that means about them and their circumstances, and who they might be - and explores why someone else is made terribly unhappy, and endangers others, through their own too rigid adherence to judgement and condemnation without pity. The story understands both Jean Valjean the thief and Javert the policeman. Javert’s way of thinking is the one that inevitably leads to tragedy.

Depiction isn't endorsement. Depiction is discussion.

Many of my loved ones have had widely varying relationships to and experience of sex (including 'none'). They've felt all different types of ways about it. If writing about them is not permissible, I close them out. I'd much rather a dialogue be open than closed.

I do understand the urge to write what seems right to others. I've been brain-poisoned that way myself. I used to worry so much about my female characters doing the wrong things, because then they'd be justly hated! Then I noted which of my writer friends had people love their female characters the most - and it was the one who wrote their female characters as screwing up massively, making rash and sometimes wrong decisions. Who wrote them as people. Because that's what people do. That's what feels true to readers.

I want my characters to feel true to readers. I want my characters to react in messy ways to imperfect situations. I love fantasy, I love wild action and I love deep thought, and I want to engage. That's what In Other Lands is about. That's even more what Long Live Evil is about. That sexy lady who sashays in to have sexy sex with the hero - what is her deal? Someone who tricks and lies to others - why are they doing that, how did they get so skilled at it? What makes one person cruelly judgemental, and another ignore all boundaries? What makes Carmen Maria Machado describe ‘fictional queer villains’ as ‘by far the most interesting characters’? What irritates people about women having a great time? What attracts us to power, to fiction, and to transgression?

I don’t know the answers to all those questions, but I know I want to explore them. And I know one more thing.

If the moral thing to do is shut people out and shut people up? Count me among the villains.

[donnapalude]

not the first to say it but i think some care should be taken in untangling the implications of claudia's 14yo body for claudeleine.

in 105 claudia first exposes the conundrum of her sexuality by telling louis and lestat:

what human would want me? perverts? like the uncle at the roomin' house who used to watch me pee? or little boys? and years from now...still little boys?

the thought that plagues claudia is that her body is so sexually undesireable that she will never be able to experience love, sex, and companionship. the situation has some similarities with that of other people that are sexually marginalised by society. but it also presents unique concerns that i don't think should be flattened through excessive comparison. the specific issue caused by being an adult in a child's body is that it inevitably condemns claudia to either be with adults attracted to children or to be an adult that commits sexual acts towards children. according to some, madeleine presents a solution to this by simply "seeing the adult in claudia". which i am sure she does. but that has nothing to do with being able to feel sexual attraction towards the body of a pubescent girl. which is what their relationship implies.

there are a couple of posts that propose using disabilities as a frame of reference for claudia's story and i think there are some interesting points made on other issues she faces. but i am not sure the analogy is fitting with regard to sexual attraction. disabled adults have adult bodies. the fact that society at large tends to consider them unattractive stems from ableist beauty standards. the argument that madeleine could "learn" to be attracted to claudia's body through a process that resembles a deconstruction of those beauty standards is both inaccurate and fairly offensive to people with disabilities. disabled bodies are not a pathological or amoral object of desire. to find them sexually appealing is both possible and benign and it requires only to avoid harmful preconceptions. being attracted to children's bodies is a pathological sexual inclination. as far as i am aware scientific evidence goes against the idea it can be "learned" or "unlearned". and even if it was hypotetically possible, "learning" it would just leave you with an adult that is now capable of feeling sexual attraction towards a child. ETA: not all cases of singular attraction for underage people are fully pathologisable if there is no larger pattern. which does not mean they are immediately justifiable, i am making a technical distinction between a sexual inclination where children are the exclusive/primary object of attraction and situations where that attraction is isolated. but to unlearn ableist beauty standards means to unlearn false correlations between disability and sex in a way that permanently removes them. to work your brain around being attracted to someone that looks like a child means working against the true correlation between children's bodies and availability to sex. which leaves some room for nuance when that correlation does not hold true in a specific case but we can't say the correlation itself is something harmful that needs to be deconstructed. the full comparison to other disabilities remains best avoided in my opinion.

in other words, a sexual relationship between madeleine and claudia necessarily entails that madeleine looks at a pubescent body and feels genuine sexual desire for it. and this either because she felt that attraction from the beginning or because (through a literary fiction) she becomes able to develop it. i understand the moral implications are blurred here because claudia is mentally an adult and no harm would come to her from sexual contact. but it is still an uncomfortable thought and i think it would be fair to let it be uncomfortable instead of presenting a moral equivalence with attraction to disabled people.

i've seen one comparison that seems more adequate, which is that of some cases of hormonal deficiency where puberty is completely halted so that the person actually has the body of a child. i freely admit i am not well-read enough on the topic and not enough of an expert in the general subject to comfortably explain how this works. therefore, i will just be rebutting the arguments made by some posts based on their own statements, if anyone wants to chip in with more detailed information please do. but taking those posts at face value, what we are discussing are adults with bodies that are prepubescent. if that is the case, it feels fair to point out that this specific situation would not present the same implications as other disabilities with regard to sexual desire. for the reasons explained above, i really don't think that the inability to feel attraction for a body that is objectively childlike can be so freely boiled down to only ableism. and conversely that the ability to be attracted to it should be acritically celebrated without leaving space to at least consider more unsavoury options. (again, i accept criticism on this stance, maybe there is something i am missing)

what also strikes me as concerning, is that i have seen several posts dismissing the general inference that there could be hebephilic implications in claudeleine, by claiming that madeleine's attraction can without a doubt be justified either (i) because some 14yos have bodies similar to adults or (ii) by a deconstruction of beauty standards that unfairly penalise adult women looking extremely young. i think these arguments, if made acritically and framed as an inevitability, come worringly close to apologism. the idea that some people (especially girls) develop "early" or that they are easily mistaken for a particularly "youngish" adult and that this confusion absolves sexual approaches towards them, is a well-known justification used by child predators. human appearance varies wildly, i am not saying it's impossible that some individuals can look a lot older or a lot younger. i am just bothered by the clear desire to frame this conclusion as the only one possible, because it betrays a need to sanitise a ship at the expense of wider social implications that stem from making these assumptions and also at the expense of what the text is telling us.

textually everyone in the show, including madeleine, has no doubt that claudia is a child as soon as they see her basically. and such an emphasis is put on this being an incredible obstacle for her sexual life that i think we must read her appearance in-universe as something that would be extremely off-putting for adults in a sexual context. some suspension of disbelief is needed given delainey's actual age. but i don't think there would be much of a point in presenting this issue as so thematically relevant if it could be solved by saying "she could easily pass as a 21yo" or "it's ok, i have seen many grown women looking exactly like that". more importantly, it does not get solved this way. claudia and madeleine have a discussion where claudia's body is clearly identified by both as actually pubescent. madeleine explictly sees that body as that of a young adolescent. there is nothing that tells us that madeleine arrives at being attracted to that body through any angle of rielaboration about women sometimes looking younger etc. there is also nothing that confirms without a doubt that her attraction started after discovering claudia's real age. the assumption that there must be an alternative rationalisation is just refusing to stare at the fact that she may simply like the body of young people. she also has a possible history of it: while her exact age is ambiguous, she is clearly a fully adult woman and she had a prior relationship with a 19yo soldier.

i understand this may be off-putting to some and i don't exactly mind discussions that try to explore different interpretations generally speaking (although the blanket comparison to disabilities really does not work for me on this topic). i am also not trying to single out specific authors of specific posts because frankly i don't know their entire blogging history and i have no idea if they have tackled all of this in the past. but, as a general consideration, i find it a bit worrying that the entire fandom has collectively and immediately jumped to all the possible explanations in the world to justify the depiction of a character canonically attracted to at least two people having the body of teenagers. this spasmodic attempt to flee any implication of hebephilia at all costs, without even discussing it (afaik), does not sit well with me. it points to a tendency to simply decide to ignore unpleasant facts when they don't fit a desired outcome, which, in this case, is to have an unproblematic lesbian ship. i just wish these considerations could become part of the discussion in a way they currently aren't.

(and btw, i still like claudeleine regardless, i am not clutching my pearls with this post. i am ok with these themes being explored in a fictional setting etc etc. just so i don't get reblogs from people saying this ship is disgusting)

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading updates: august 2024

the good news is that I did a lot of reading this month, the bad news is that honestly? I think that my birthday month has had the biggest percentage of literary letdowns, duds, and outright bullshit than any other month of this year so far.

but at least there's plenty to talk about, so let's get going!

Unlearning Shame: How We Can Reject Self-Blame Culture and Reclaim Our Power (Devon Price, 2024) - uh oh gamers, we're starting on a doozy! I've enjoyed both of Price's previous books very much, but with Unlearning Shame I couldn't help but feel like I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I wasn't getting what I had signed on for. the issue, I think, could be corrected by an adjustment to the title, which seems to be promising a very broad tackling of the concept of shame and is therefore making some pretty big promises. in reality, the book is much more narrowly focused than that, interested primarily in the shame that arises in the activism-minded when they feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of awful things in the world and their perceived inability to do anything about it. fairly early on Price introduces an apparently relatable anecdote about himself and a friend having mutual breakdowns in a grocery store because they were both so paralyzed by the conundrum of trying to buy the most ethical groceries possible, and I realized this book was maybe not really for me or my particular experiences with shame. I think this book will be really helpful for a lot of people for sure, would love to pass it on to a lot of my freshmen, but overall it did not live up to the expectations I brought to the party.

A Separate Peace (John Knowles, 1959) - so I wanted to reread this because someone on here sent me an ask about, I don't know, my favorite required high school reading or whatever, and I said it was A Separate Peace but then I realized it's been over a decade since I read the book and I had to go see if it still actually held up. and god, does it EVER. this is such a brutal and heartbreaking novel, beginning in the last carefree summer that best friends and roommates Gene and Finny will experience before their final year at their boys' private school and their seemingly inevitable draft into WW2. although Gene is seethingly jealous of Finny's seemingly effortless charisma, popularity, confidence, and athletic prowess, the two boys are also inseparable - until a tragic injury changes the course of Finny's life forever. this book is a mess of unspoken pain, from the looming end of innocence on a global scale to the intimate ache of loving your best friend so, so much and having no healthy way to express it because you're a repressed little rich boy in the 1940s.

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea (Rita Chang-Eppig, 2023) - Chang-Eppig's debut novel follows the career of Chinese pirate Shek Yeung, also known as Zheng Yi Sao, immediately following the death of her husband, fearsome pirate Sheng Yi. you've probably seen a post or two about her floating around on this very hellsite, calling her a pirate queen and accompanied by this image:

Chang-Eppig isn't interested in portraying Shek Yeung as any kind of heroine or feminist icon; over and over again it's acknowledged that she's simply a woman who has survived massive hardships and will do whatever she needs to do to survive. manipulation? spying? extortion? torture? murder? you name it, she's done it, and she does not feel remorse. while the novel wasn't a knockout for me either in terms of plot or prose, it's nice to see an entry into the trend of "retelling" stories from history and mythology centered on women that isn't determined to justify every step a maligned woman ever made. Shek Yeung is what she is, and her story makes for a gritty, bloody adventure.

Victim (Andrew Boryga, 2024) - this book is pure sleazeball fun; if you've ever wondered what I consider a romp, this is it. Victim follows our manipulative king Javi Perez as he builds a writing career for himself by turning in one essay after another about racial discrimination that he never really experienced, inventing stories of hardship caused by racism and poverty from his college application essay to his school newspaper to the story that finally brings the whole lie crashing down when he stretches the truth too far. the novel is written like Javi's apology in the wake of getting #canceled, and while I do sometimes feel that this premise makes some of the writing seem a bit implausible (why would you admit that!!!) it's a fun setup for a scandal that would have been a bloodbath on the twitter of old. come get your mess!!!

Bad Girls (Camila Sosa Villada, trans. Kit Maude, 2022) - this is my first time reading Sosa Villada's work but OH BOY, do I need to seek out more. this is a skinty little novel following a dramatized account of the travesti (or transgender) women who live and sell sex in Córdoba, Argentina. the women build an unsteady but beautiful and magic-infused family under the protection of the ancient Auntie Encarna. the protagonist (who is named Camila Sosa Villada, no relation I'm sure) watches as her unconventional family grows, changes, and frays over time, struggling to find ways to stay afloat in a world that see them as disposable. Sosa Villada's turns of phrase are brilliant and searing, and she weaves fantastical elements so nimbly into her narrative that it's utterly believable to see women becoming animals and courting headless men in the streets of a modern city. strongly recommend for fans of Kai Cheng Thom's Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars.

Talkin' Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism (Aileen Morteon-Robinson, 2000) - this book serves as a scathing literature review indicting Australia's white women anthropologists and feminist scholars for the ways in which they've dehumanized and discredited Aboriginal women, stripping them of the right to be authorities of their own experiences and barring them from a white-centered feminist movement. Moreton-Robinson's account is excellent, contrasting the wok of white women academics with the accounts of Aboriginal women to reveal exactly how massive the disparities in understanding are. as a USAmerican previously aware of Australia's colonial history but unfamiliar with the specifics, it was jarring to discover exactly how similar the mechanism of colonial violence are between my country and Australia, with countless genocidal parallels to be drawn. one particular highlight of the book comes via my purchase of a 20th anniversary edition, which includes a new post-script by Moreton-Robinson in which she dissects and responds to various criticisms of the book at its time of release, taking several critics to task for the belittling tone they used to describe her work and the tools white feminists use to absolve themselves of blame in the face of critique from women of color. fascinating and thorough articulation of Moreton-Robinson's point, and deservedly blistering. I love when academics call each other out by name.

The End of Love: Racism, Sexism, and the Death of Romance (Sabrina Strings, 2024) - so the thing about this book is that there are really good PARTS. Strings is still an excellent historical writer, and I found a lot to appreciate in, for instance, the segments on the history of Black American pimp culture and the analysis of Playboy and Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl. the more personal segments, where Strings contorts herself to fit her own failed relationships into the narrative she's building, are decidedly less consistent in their quality, with some feeling like they would have been better off staying between Strings and her therapist. there's a long and convoluted digression about Sex and the City, and a strange anecdote towards the end in which String recounts a phone call with a friend's college-aged son who, String believes, was masturbating during the call. a yucky experience, to be certain, but I'm not sure it justifies Strings filing a police report against the youth and his mother, who she accuses of having groomed her on the son's behalf. she also casually drops in the same chapter that she considers herself pansexual because she's attracted to trans men in addition to cis men? idk man!!! this book was so uneven that I found myself genuinely questioning whether Strings' first book, Fearing the Black Body, is actually as excellent as I remember it being. I'm pretty sure it is, but god it sucks to get shaken so hard that you have to wonder!

The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures (Phoebe Gloeckner, 2002) - another book that I had to read for class, years ago! I read Diary of a Teenage Girl in one of my gender and women's studies classes in my undergrad, for a class with a title along the lines of Girlhood Stories in Fiction and Film. Gloeckner's novel (though heavily informed by her own life, she insists that it's a work of fiction) sees its young protagonist, Minnie, navigating a great deal of sex, alcohol, drugs in 1970s San Francisco. I started thinking about the book because I was listening to a trio of episodes of You're Wrong About in which Carmen Maria Machado guests to talk about the pervasive sham that is Go Ask Alice (great series, check it out) and I started thinking about Diary, which is so much less preachy and didactic and is, you know, actually drawn from a real teenage girl's diary, unlike Go Ask Alice, and lacking Alice's preachy didacticism. as a diary based on a real diary this book is largely lacking in any particular plot (the most consistent through line is Minnie's ongoing and tumultuous sexual relationship with her mother's 35 year old boyfriend), but if that's not a turn off then you'll find yourself rooting for Minnie to find her way all the way to the uncertain but ultimately optimistic conclusion.

One and Done (Frederick Smith, 2024) - okay, so. this is a romance novel that I picked up because I saw a review talking about how it's an incredibly realistic depiction of working at a university. now that's obviously an insane thing to look for in a romance novel, but I like romances, ESPECIALLY gay romances, and I work at a university, so I figured sure, I'll bite. spoiler alert: it's not great. I posted some examples of the prose here, and even if the two protagonists talked like actual human beings it wouldn't make up for the stale-ass plot or devastating lack of chemistry they have going for them. more like One and Glad to Be Done With This Book That Isn't Very Good, am I right, ladies?

Seduced (Virginia Henley, 1994) - guys, I'm gonna be so fucking real with you. this is the most batshit novel I've ever read, period, let alone the most batshit romance novel. this book was the winner of a poll I ran on patreon last month in which my wicked patreonites got to nominate romance novels of their choosing for my next reading project and voted amongst themselves to crown a winner, and against all odds and my own light attempts to sway the voters, Seduced won it all. this book has everything: a historical setting, a bold young lady disguising herself as her own brother, wildly unchecked orientalism, a murderous cousin, high society scandal, and some of the most torturous sex scenes I've ever encountered in my life. truly this write-up cannot do justice to what I have experienced; I've already promised by patreonites that I'll have to do a little youtube live in order to fully express the extent of my dissatisfaction.

and that was the month of August, babey!!!

[openworldadventurer]

How can we balance player agency and authorial control in games? And how that challenge speaks to a fundamental postmodern literary theory.

[see-arcane]

Lucy Undying came out a few days ago and

"It's a feminist retelling, giving Lucy the agency she so lacked in Dracula."

I am putting feminist retellings on the top shelf unit we all consider if sometimes lack of agency of a character in a story was the point

In fairness, I get the 'why' behind stuff like this.

Lucy's story is painful. It is scary and tragic and ends cruelly for her, just like so many tales of female victims before and after her. Though her death(s) have a real narrative and an emotional point, whereas your average damsel is nothing but an extra pound of meat for the grinder to help add more woe to Hero Man's story. It hurts more with her.

She stands apart from the common fridged woman by being someone we know, someone loved, someone killed and remade into a bloodstained caricature of herself to be her attacker's eternal slave. Ending her existence in that second iteration is mercy, practicality, and the setting of the stakes for Mina when Dracula targets her. If the monster doesn't kill you, the heroes will put you down for becoming a monster too. Which itself ripples out into new moral conundrums when we see how staunchly Jonathan refuses to risk destroying Mina in any form; making us question in turn whether there really was hope for Lucy the Bloofer Lady--who had killed no one yet!--if only Van Helsing and the Suitor Squad had tried another angle. It makes you chew on the implications.

So, I get it. We all want to save the character we love and who got crushed underfoot by the plot.

The problem comes in when to do that literary rescue, you completely obliterate everything about that character which makes them themselves and not Generic Strong Spunky Female #1897. And the book's summary doesn't give me much hope for this not being the case.

Her name was written in the pages of someone else’s story: Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula’s first victims. But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula’s clutches—and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants. Her undead life takes an unexpected turn in twenty-first-century London, when she meets another woman, Iris, who is also yearning to break free from her past. Iris’s family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and they’ll do anything to stay in power. Lucy has long believed she would never love again. Yet she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris while Iris is equally mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by outside forces. Iris’s mother won’t let go of her without a fight, and Lucy’s past still has fangs: Dracula is on the prowl once more. Lucy Westenra has been a tragically murdered teen, a lonesome adventurer, and a fearsome hunter, but happiness has always eluded her. Can she find the strength to destroy Dracula once and for all, or will her heart once again be her undoing?

Now, if the name here was different? If this was, I don't know, 'Lorelei Wilder' thwarting her monstrous master 'Count Lord Duke Dracattackula,' that'd be fine. But the fact that it's trying to convince me that the central character is Lucy Westenra, the girl we know through others' words and her own as a human, and through the lens of others' witness accounts as an apparently merrily content monster as the distorted Bloofer Lady, makes me fear the worst: That our girl's been girlbossed out of recognition.

I won't pass immediate judgment. Maybe it's a hidden gem. Maybe a century's worth of character development has altered Bloofer Lucy into this form believably and the author hasn't just retroactively taken an eraser to everything she was pre and post-vampirism in order to make Standard Rebellious Hero Girl (now with public domain name!). I'll cross my fingers for it.

But I won't hold my breath.

[spacemiyy]

The Fall by Albert Camus

Famous for his existential philosophy, novelist Albert Camus explores the nuances of human morality in "The Fall." Published in 1956, this reflective work continues to be a moving examination of guilt, accountability, and the essence of being. "The Fall" is narrated by Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a former Parisian lawyer who, through his monologue, draws readers into a disturbing confession. The story is set amid Amsterdam's smoky pubs and misty canals. Clamence reveals layers of moral dishonesty and compromise as he tells his life narrative. The central theme of Camus's book is responsibility. The transformation of Clamence from an accomplished advocate to a dejected and ethically bankrupt individual highlights the vulnerability of human virtue. Camus challenges human authenticity and the propensity to rationalize dubious behavior through Clamence's experiences and reflections.

The conflict over ethical obligations is among the novel's main topics. Readers are prompted to consider their own ethical bounds by Clamence's story. Camus challenges us to address the universal conundrum of human culpability as Clamence struggles with the consequences of his previous decisions. Furthermore, "The Fall" highlights Camus' philosophical investigation into the absurdity of life. Clamence's pessimistic outlook is similar to Camus's claim that there is no intrinsic meaning to existence and that people must navigate an aimless universe. As a literary mirror, "The Fall" challenges us to consider our moral compass. In his typically clear style, Camus challenges readers to face up to harsh realities about society conventions and human nature. Camus urges us to face the shadows that linger in each of our own souls through Clamence's confession.

To sum up, "The Fall" is a timeless reflection on the complexities of morality in humans. It is because of Camus's skill at telling stories and his deep understanding of philosophy that this book still has an impact on readers today. It invites us to look down into the depths of our own moral beliefs, which eventually leads to reflection and introspection.

[srbachchan]

DAY 5467

Jalsa, Mumbai                Feb 2/3,  2023                Thu/Fri  6:13 AM, the thought began at 4:22 AM ..

🪔 .. February 03 .. birthday of Ef Omnia from Egypt 🇪🇬 .. Ef Ashir Javed Mattoo from Bristol England 🇬🇧 .. and Ef ND Paatil : Nandkeshore DATTATREYA Paatil from Nasik .. Saadar Pranaam 🙏🏻 .. and love from DATTATRAYA Vakhariya 😄 .. Yo!

the time is timeless .. it reacts in the envious task of venturing out into the realm of , what is often described as slumber, but shakes it up often enough to bring the wakening to life ..

yes the delayed customary night sleep was delayed to about 2 ish am .. and remained subdued till the disturbed rests , until it awakened repeatedly and brought me in this condition to the ..

 Blogmaestre Centre of Communicational Institute ..

It is a trifle odd to be in such conditional conditions , and often becoming the butt of great anger from the extended members of the E on why the disturbed sleep and why the late hours of the keep .. 

For which there has never been adequate answers .. and so one plods along regardless ..

Breathe well they say .. breathe the purity of the breath .. the airways to life they say and beyond .. 

Really .. ?

It is attempted .. it is regulatory .. and the hope is that in such regular form it shall sustain the immediate gravity of the occasion .. but never does, so we set ourselves to remorse and seat the seat on the regular seat for the writing and devote a few hours on it .. on the job .. on the communication of writing ..

Writing the fresh new format of the CHATgpt .. or whatever the dickens it is addressed as : the Chat Generated Pre-Trained Transformer .. 

No .. not this missive .. this has not been generated from an AI conundrum .. the only conundrum it harbours is the cerebrum .. and do note the intellectual usage of the ‘drum’ in its literary format than the one that percussionists deploy in the rear of each conundrumic presentation of the Live presentables ..  

It is obsessive .. it is demanding .. it is in activational acts of an hoped act .. but fails forever .. for falling short of any enterprise is a demeaned situation that provides the skill of a genius to put across words deeds and actions - the new work mode of the generational change that one observes with fortitude ..

THE MIND of THOUGHT .. 

Thought has decided to have worked beyond limits and has, with immense reluctance, given in to its ALTERNATE form of INTELLIGENCE  ..

We recuperate now in the glory of mindless thought .. because it no longer belongs to us .. a defeat that shall reverberate in its chimes from roof tops for uninterrupted time , in the time defined define of the future .. for time too has lost its nomenclature ..

rest my dears .. it is the dawn of another ..

Amitabh Bachchan

[drivestraight]

kitty conundrum is genuinely a literary masterpiece btw.

thank you ❤️❤️❤️

[i-fucked-your-milkshake]

One of the dopest literary stories of all time concerns the publication and distribution of Ulysses I’m not even a little bit joking.

James Joyce wrote Ulysses while living in Paris where he, and other modernist authors, hung out in a bookstore called Shakespeare and Company, founded by a woman named Sylvia Beach. The thing you gotta understand about this store and Sylvia is that this was The Place and she was That Bitch. If you were a writer and you came to Paris? You showed up. You bought a book. You talked with Sylvia. It was requisite. The result of this is that she was friends with all the modernists.

Joyce was kinda always perpetually fuckin broke and tended to overspend when he had money so he never had money for long. He was pretty broke at this time and was lamenting the fact that he couldn’t find a publisher to Sylvia. Sylvia was a big fan of Joyce’s work and also a good friend. She hated seeing him broke and was like “you know what my guy? Fuck it. I’ll publish your novel.”

So Joyce gets his book published and has some coin in his pocket and he’s happy. Sylvia has stepped up her career and she’s happy. Only problem? America is passing all sorts of obscenity laws about this time and the wretched moralists in charge have Heard About this book and will absolutely be destroying any copies that make it to port. Making matters worse is that there are hundreds of pre-orders that need to be fulfilled and she can’t do it without the books being confiscated and destroyed.

So Sylvia is lamenting this conundrum to her other good writer friend, Ernest Hemingway, who thinks for a minute and says “Sylvia, gimme a couple days and let me see what I can do.” What else do you say to Hemingway but “sure thing, Ernest.”

Couple days go by and Big Ern comes back to the store with a slip of paper. He hands that slip of paper to Sylvia and she sees it has a phone number. Hemingway tells her to call that number and tell who picks up that Ernest sent her.

There’s not a soul on earth who can resist that prompt and Sylvia, being both only human and also desperate to distribute this book she sunk money she couldn’t really afford into publishing, calls the number. Guy picks up. Asks a few questions about boxes and shipping addresses. Gives her an address in Canada and tells her to include the shipping invoices for the American addresses. Hangs up the phone.

So now a shit load of boxes containing James Joyce’s Ulysses are on their way to Canada. The address? Some fuckin apartment. Owned by This Guy. And everyday this guy takes a few books from the boxes, wraps them up and addresses them, tapes them to his body, and takes the ferry across the lake to the US where he casually slips them into the post boxes and goes on about his day.

Authorities are pretty baffled about how the book is being distributed but no one says a word about until Sylvia Beach spends roughly a page on it in her memoirs, “Shakespeare and Company.”

This was, I think, a few years before Hemingway had to look at F. Scott Fitzgerald’s dick and assure him it was a good size after Zelda told him he had a small cock during an argument…..but that’s another story.

[divinecomedyproductions]

Fandom Woes: Why people are writing AUs and the scam of “being original”

Many objections I have noticed of reimagined AUs(such as RWBY) is how "they don't resemble the property" and should be "their own thing", and the movie Across The Spider-Verse with the whole Spider-Men AUs and the criticism of multiverses in general.

Speaking from personal experience, there's a reason why they don't make their own thing. It's often because literary snobs have set these people up into a conundrum.

If you make a reimagined AU, they go out of their way to lecture "this does not resemble this thing anymore, make it its own thing."

And if you tweak it, the character and world designs, the names, anything to make it its own thing...

The snobs use greedy reductionism/nothing buttery to reduce it down to the inspirations and influences, especially when it came from a place of distaste and disagreement, and call it "derivative" and "butthurt thinly veiled fan fiction." and tell you to use different source material and "learn to be more original."

The snobs won't let you win.

So if you just keep trying to be “original” and you let these people define what that entails, your just letting others manipulate your creativity and your just dancing around for them like a monkey

You make an reimagined AU, its no longer "recognizable" and you get criticized

You make it its own thing, the inspirations, influences, and motives are pointed out and deemed "derivative" so you also get criticized

You're going to get criticized either way, so you might as well make a choice and stick with it.

And what's more infuriating is these sophists are guilty of hypocrisy

Let me give a personal example with the success of Kamen America, a superheroine I've come to love

She was created as an active disagreement how Captain Marvel was handled, combined with other elements such as Sailor Moon and various Tokusatsu

Once she gained popularity along with her Kamen Corps, many starting bashing her as a "porno captain marvel rip-off" because the creators dared to actively disagree with how a concept was handled, and I was lectured for my concept being "hostile" to RWBY which was born out my disagreement and distaste how its characters and ideas were handled

Yet these very people would be supporting the Evil Superman concept like Homelander and other characters of The Boys

and the Anti-Narnian His Dark Materials Trilogy, the former written by a guy who hates superheroes, and the latter a staunch atheist who can't stand CS Lewis and Christianity

Both who have said things about both subjects that are the textbook definition of "hostile" and yet nobody bats an eye.

Because its not wrong when "the right people" do it towards "the wrong things"

And the excuse they snobs say because these make the concepts objectively "more interesting" backed up with a whole "we-know-better-than-you" attitude which is leading me to hate that word "interesting"

The "Right People" can do whatever they want, but us "Wrong People" gotta follow all these rules and only have what the "Right People" tell us what we can have, how we create, and what we enjoy.

Then they turn around and lecture you about being "entitled" when the only thing your often guilty of being "entitled" to is your opinions and feelings, which last time I checked, people are entitled to.

[librarycards]

As it assumes the form of nonverbal knowing, of a thinking outside of language, what begins as a seemingly scientific, because denotative, act, in spite—or perhaps because—of its ambition to discern and record (thought) objectively, ends up rejoining the literary and artistic forces of modernity to become an exercise in esotericism, in which objectivity seems indistinguishable from solipsism, from the arcaneness of intransitive (because self-referential) speech. Offering the semblance of positivity and universality, the graphs and diagrams are simultaneously cryptic and enigmatic, their readily visible forms impenetrable even to sophisticated readers, who are typically at a loss as to what they mean without detailed explanations, without a careful reconsideration of the words.'' The coexistence of such polarities of meaning making suggests that diagrammatic denotation—or, more precisely, the diagram as denotation—needs to be rethought as an epistemic conundrum, one in which the ongoing modernist sense of a crisis of language continues to play itself out in the form of a collective fantasy. This is the fantasy that language is somehow disposable, that if we could simply find a way to get to the bottom of things—geometrically, algebraically, statistically, or however—we ought to be able to arrive at that utopian, evicted state of not needing language altogether. Beyond the dots, the lines, the curves, the circles, the squares, the numbers, and other figures on the page, there persist a wish and a demand that bestow on diagrammatic denotation the import of something excessive, something obscene. To put it differently, when graphs and diagrams are used in theoretical writings in the literary humanities and interpretative social sciences, they serve in effect as little theaters where the unresolved relationship between words and things repeatedly stages itself as a spectacle, calling attention to what Franco Moretti calls a “total heterogeneity of problem and solution.”'* Side by side with the words, the diagrams appear as something like a language, albeit one that dreams of being without language; something like writing, albeit one that dreams of doing without writing. In their proximity to words, the graphs and diagrams yearn, as though with a kind of mimetic desire, to take language’s place, to usurp writing’s hold on abstraction by becoming the preferred native informants of thought.

Rey Chow, A Face Drawn in Sand: Humanistic Inquiry and Foucault in the Present [emphasis added]

[jamboreeofsurprises]

Hello! Could you please recommend some retro anime(s)? What are your favorite ones?

Hi!! Sorry for my late response. Everyone has a different definition of "retro" but I'll just take it to mean pre-21st century.

urusei yatsura (1981): never was there an anime so uncategorizable yet so accessible. it's a blend of slapstick comedy, sci-fi, japanese mythology and romance involving the unlucky life of a teenage boy, his classmates, and the aliens that come to their town (who are mostly beautiful women). for all its silliness, a more sophisticated comedy than one might expect.

the rose of versailles (1979): regardless of your interest levels in historical fiction, the rose of versailles is compelling and subversive. it follows the fictitious bodyguard of marie antoinette, lady oscar (a woman raised as a man so she could join the royal guard), her childhood best friend andré grandier, and the queen's lover hans axel von fersen and the way destiny binds them together and tears them apart. it's also about class struggle and revolution. both a great read and a great watch to this day.

akage no anne (1979): this is an anime series adaptation of anne of green gables done by isao takahata (later of studio ghibli fame). even if you've never read the book, which it adapts with remarkable accuracy and grace, it's one of the best-directed anime i've ever seen. you will really feel like a part of avonlea with how much thoughtful time we spend getting to know its locals and scenic places. i miss watching it every morning with my breakfast.

candy candy (1976): this is a bit harder to find especially because due to a copyright conundrum there are no official dvd releases of this show, even in japan (also i admittedly have only finished the manga and watched ~40 episodes of the anime). definitely informed by early 20th century western literary works like anne of green gables^, little women, etc, we follow a tomboyish orphan and the gutsy optimism that carries her though life in the face of grand tragedies. you'll be gripping your handkerchief, trust me it's worth it to find a crappy taped-from-tv copy.

chibi maruko-chan (1990): this anime is ongoing in a separate iteration, but i've only really watched the 1990 series, and it's terrific. it's very episodic and slice of life in nature so you can watch however much you want. loosely based on author sakura momoko's childhood in the 70's, maruko is one of the most comically realistic children i've ever seen in fiction, and the show is thoroughly entertaining, sometimes laugh out loud funny and sincerely heartwarming for anyone of any age.

[hellsvestibule]

Also I do feel like being “naturally talented” at something you never meaningfully academically pursued is its own conundrum bc I wouldn’t even place my literary analysis or writing skills at “average” based on what professors would tell me in classroom settings, which is that I was good enough to persue it professionally, and the reason I chose visual art was to push myself into getting better at a skill I found a lot more difficult. (Neither of my talents was ever gonna get me a real job I knew that at the time sigh)

But then where does that leave my “literarily gifted” ass off when reading and writing, I guess. I don’t have rights to speak as an academic but it’s similar to visual art where at a certain point if you do it enough it’s sort of irrelevant whether or not you’re professionally trained, and a lot of people will tell you the skills you’re taught in school might not even mean anything till you finally realize how to apply them years down the line.

So I also don’t want to be self depreciating to the point it’s counterproductive and read as begging for compliments either. I just miss situations where further education and enthusiasm is encouraged but doesn’t seem to carry this metaphorical guillotine of “if your opinion is wrong or too personal or naive, you are spreading MISINFORMATION on the Internet” like come on give me room to just be, a person who is sort of ok at something.