#modern dante and beatrice

[harritudur]

insp.

[god-mouths]

Scott pilgrim is a modern retelling of Dante’s Inferno, and I want to talk about it

Hi . Brought this up very briefly a while ago but i rewatched spto with friends last night and got my gears turning. I don’t usually make posts like this but It’s been on my mind and I want to share. Here we goooo. Under read more becwuse I wish not to disturb my beloved friends with a long post

First off, let’s start with theeeee obvious.

Say hello to our Dante and Beatrice.

I don’t think I need to go into this first one much, but Scott and Dante are of course the heroes(term used lightly. Scott is not a good person and honestly neither was fuckinh Dante of all people) of their respective tales, going through hell and back to win over this ethereal, “too good to be true” heavenly dream girl. Scott even dies to get her in the end, like Dante venturing down into the depths of hell, dying and then ascending to get to Beatrice. If I wanted to really stretch it I could say the dreamscape is a sort of purgatory but I don’t think there’s enough evidence for that one.

Next,

Our Virgil. What’s up, Wallace.

In the comics Wallace acts as a sort of guide to Scott. We end up seeing him less as the comic progresses, which I find lines up with Virgil having to part ways with Dante before he enters heaven. Not much to say otherwise admittedly. Love you though buddy

Now for the symbolism of hell. Since there are nine circles of hell, it obviously can’t match up one to one with the exes unless we add some of scott’s relationships to the mix, which both doesn’t make sense, causes this analysis to get stupider than it already is, and leaves some characters left over that already don’t fit in to these parallels.

Luckily, however, there are The Seven Deadly Sins. Going to be going in sin order rather than ex order here

Firstly,

MATTHEW PATEL - PRIDE

- the first boyfriend and the first sin very conveniently line up, which threw me off track because I thought the exes would go in the order of the sins. Enyways

- in the movies, comics, and shows, he is insanely flashy with how he presents himself. It’s the entrance, the dances, the expressive clothing (“that guy’s dressed as a pirate” “pirates are in this year!”, modifying Gideon’s suit to fit his color palette, the outfit he wore while kicking gideon’s ass). The theatre kid in him essentially

- taking the lead in the musical Knives and Stephen presented him with— they knew how to cater to him, because he views himself as the coolest bitch on the planet. Which honestly he kind of is but don’t tell him this

- so headstrong in his pride that he fucks up. Repeatedly. First to get killed, too cocky, spends all of gideons money “I’ve lost billions!”

- believes he’s entitled to Ramona as soon as he wins the fight against Scott

GIDEON- GREED

- I don’t feel like I have to explain this one but I will because I enjoy him greatly

- CEO, billionaire. Money money money mr rich

- literally “owns” or tries to excersize ownership Ramona in the comics and movie as if she belongs to him— with the glow, or with the chip implanted into her neck with his logo on it.

- has all of his past girlfriends cryogenically frozen. All for him none for anyone else. They should only love meeeeee.

- wants everything for himself in excess. Women, fame, money. Almost considered pride for him also but greed is more fitting

KEN AND KYLE- ENVY AND LUST

- holy shit this image has five pixels so sorry about that I’m on my phone and Google images sucks

- anyways of course they’re sharing sins

- not much to say here as they don’t show up much, and it’s easy to make the argument of envy or lust for ANY of the seven exes. These two were the hardest to figure out. Not as sure on Envy, but can definetly advocate for lust— playing around with women, thinking they were playing around with Ramona.

TODD- GLUTTONY

- this one was the easiest one for me. Like come on

- breaks vegan edge in the comics, movie, (vegan police), and show (Wallace breakup event 2 dead 5 injured)

- his whole persona revolves around food. Of course gluttony doesn’t always mean food but here it most definetly equates. Even when he’s vegan he always makes it a talking point of how superior he is to others because of this fact, only for it to blow up in his face when his enjoyment of non vegan food catches up to him.

ROXY- WRATH

- a very angry girl to be sure. Takes her emotions out using violence, attacking Ramona the first time she sees her, even though she is going out of the order of the league and supposed to be attacking Scott (although I guess that point is moot because they all think he’s dead at that point)

- “I’m bi-furious” line from the movie deserves a shout out here I think

- (completely justified) Unending rage against Ramona in the show, and scott in the comics and movies. She is PISSED.

Lastly,

LUCAS LEE- SLOTH

- also one of the easiest ones. Could have made an argument for pride (tries to prove he can land a sick ollie so hard that he dies) or greed (movie star who lives in huge mansion), but sloth ultimately fit the bill the best.

- even before we get into his reoccurring theme of “whatever” in the show, it’s pretty evident in the comics and movie that he doesn’t care enough to extend effort. He tells Scott he’ll leave him alone and say his ass got kicked if Scott gave him a twenty dollar bill, sends his stunt doubles to fight Scott in his stead.

- onto the show, he lets his stardom slip out of his fingers with his attitude, not even caring to read or memorize the script anymore (“is that why half the lines in your last film were ‘Let’s Party’?” “I uhh, read the title.” Etc). Just spends all his time messing around and skateboarding. The title of his episode is literally “Whatever”. He doesn’t give enough of a shit to care. Which. Respect I guess

Extra; the exes ARE referred to as “the seven deadly chumps” in the show.

In conclusion;

[xiyouyanyi]

Welcome!

@ryin-silverfish here, also known as "That person who talks a lot about FSYY and fox spirits".

This is my little LMK AU sideblog, which started off as a bunch of disjointed background notes for my fanfics, but developed into its own gigantic thing over time.

I've said elsewhere that, despite LMK (and many other JTTW adjacent works) lifting certain tidbits wholesale from FSYY——like Nezha's backstory or the Golden Dragon Shears, neither the show nor the fanworks really go into the implications of a FSYY/JTTW combined universe.

(For one, Zhao Gongming's three sisters, the Sanxiao, showing up to kick Jin and Yin's butts for stealing and breaking their treasure would be very satisfying, and also hella badass.)

Well, be the change you want, they said. 

So here it is: Journey of the Gods, aka "LMK, but FSYY is also canon and an extremely influential historical event".

Inspired by @digitaldoeslmk 's By the Book AU.

What even is FSYY?

"Ancient China's bloodiest bureaucracy recruitment program, kickstarted by a king who simped too hard for the creator goddess of humanity and the fox girl she sent to end his dynasty."

"I'll write my own God-Demon novel, with blackjacks and fox hookers and no Buddhist allegories!" ——Xu Zhonglin/Lu Xixing/Li Yunxiang

Okay, jokes aside: Investiture of the Gods(Fengshen Yanyi) is the other big "God-Demon Novel" of the Ming dynasty, written after JTTW. It's about the toppling of the Shang dynasty and its tyrannical King Zhou by King Wu of Zhou——but with more Daoism, immortals and demons helping out both sides, and ten billion magical formations and treasures. 

At the end of the story, almost everyone who died in battle were deified and became the 365 gods of the Celestial Bureaucracy, thus "Investiture of the Gods". 

Here is a link to the only full English translation of FSYY, by Gui Zhizhong.

Here is my overview of FSYY's grand overarching conflict, a.k.a. "Why are all the Daoist immortals fighting?" 

Compared to JTTW, it's a lot more formulaic and suffers from a massive character count inflation problem, but also extremely influential in Chinese folk religion, to the point of some modern temples, like Qingyang Palace, basically worshiping characters from the novel! Like, the western equivalent would be a church worshiping Dante and Beatrice from the Divine Comedy.

(Similarly, it is to orthodox Daoism what the Divine Comedy is to medieval Christian theology, and should not be treated as actual religious scriptures.)

Okay, FSYY happened in the LMK universe. So What?

Well, first, it will really do wonders to fill up that eerily empty Celestial Realm we see in the Spider Queen special, and the Celestial Bureaucracy will no longer consist of a grand total of five people.

Secondly, it can solve some major show-not-tell problems and actually give legitimacy to the grievances of the LMK Brotherhood + Havoc in Heaven, as well as fleshing out the Celestial Realm.

Third, so many cool magical treasures.

Fourth, LBD gets an origin story, with a twist.

Fifth, I delight in quality angst and horror, and FSYY had some seriously messed-up stuff and implications.

Sixth, Celestial Bureaucracy office politics.

Seventh, Nezha kicking asses and winning fights like he should.

Eighth, crazy Xianxia shit, as you’d expect from the great-granddaddy of modern Xianxia genre.

Ninth, infodumps about Chinese mythos and history trivias.

Tenth, Underworld lore.

...As you can probably tell, this is mostly just me nerding out and writing walls of texts. I'm not a very good artist and can't do Lego style, but will probably doodle some symbol/character designs for funsies.

I also derive most of my enjoyment from writing fix-its and worldbuilding, not shipping characters. Like, I love exploring individual characters through relationships, but just ain't a fan of romance.

There will be a lot of OCs, but unless otherwise specified, all of them will be based on actual characters from FSYY and JTTW, with a few folk gods sprinkled in for funsies.

With that taken care of: good luck and happy reading!

[hamliet]

The Best Modern Romeo + Juliet

...is a subplot in The Wizards of Waverly Place. Yeah, the Disney show. I said it. In a time where Florida's taking Romeo and Juliet out of schools, we need this.

It's the only adaptation I've seen in modern day that has Juliet's personality right--her feisty, dreamy, and determined self. I was watching the whole thing going:

Juliet is strong! And smart! And funny! and Romeo is adorable and adorkable and sappy but sincere! The plot might seem obvious--a feud between vampires and wizards--but it turns out to be so much more mundane. The families hate each other because their sandwich rivals are business rivals.

Of course, in the end Justin and Juliet's love for one another enables the Russos and van Heusens to lay down their wands and put away their fangs. The way in which this happens, though, is very funnily told.

But the references and commitment to Romeo and Juliet continue even after the original subplot episodes! In fact, the story ends up almost told in reverse, which is amusing.

See, first Juliet gets trapped with Justin in a museum when the sun starts to rise. Since she'll crisp up if that happens, Justin directs her to allow herself to be controlled by the mummy, since he can take her out of the museum before she broils. He promises to come back for her. Except, after Juliet agrees and leaves with the mummy, Alex arrives to save the day. tl;dr, if Justin had waited a moment, Juliet would not have had to go with the mummy. This is a clear reference to both Romeo and Juliet's flaws in the original play (although, can you call it a flaw when they're both at great risk of dying because their city streets are basically a war zone), and also to the fact that if Romeo had just waited five more minutes before drinking the poison, Juliet would have woken up and they would have escaped.

In the original play, Juliet is encased in her family tomb. Where does the mummy take Wizards!Juliet? His tomb, where he encases her in stone. Justin eventually rescues her with Alex and Mason's help, only for things to then go very wrong, but hey, romance always stumbles in Act 2.

While Juliet is off looking her real age of like, over a thousand years old, Justin tries to move on with varying success. The one he most obvious falls for is Rosie... a reference to Romeo's first love interest, Rosaline.

In the play, Rosaline does not exist to show that Romeo is actually flaky, as cynical modern interpretations assert. Instead, Rosaline exists to be the stereotype of a passive woman. She's a direct parody of Petrarch's Laura, or Dante's Beatrice--both women whom they literally deify as spiritual guides in their poems, but in Petrarch's case he never even spoke to Laura (yeah. yeah.) and Dante never made a move on Beatrice. But their literary works hold this up as holy, because a woman who has sex? Even in matrimony? Less desirable. Less holy. The point of Romeo and Juliet is that Juliet is very human and never "less" because she marries and has sex with Romeo.

Romeo's poetry for Rosaline is deliberately cringey and uses the worst cliches of Shakespeare's time. You're supposed to groan. But Romeo's sonnet at the end of Act 1 is created with Juliet. She's literally saying a couplet, and then he says one, and so on. The poetry when Romeo speaks to and of Juliet was, in Shakespeare's day, incredibly original and stunning. In other words you're supposed to see Rosaline as Romeo being in love with love, and Juliet as the fruition of this.

Anyways. Back to Wizards. Rosie is an angel. Rosaline in the play swears herself to perpetual virginity in a holy vow (but is not a nun, so yes, Shakespeare is pointing at this like "u sure girl?"). Justin's love for Rosie is an infatuation, not real love as it is with Juliet. She's able to quickly manipulate him into bargaining with the devil to destroy the entire world because Rosie became a fallen angel. However, Rosie eventually realizes she loves Justin, truly, and that helps convince her to save Justin from himself and to move back to heaven, where she'll be his guardian angel.

Even though it's told in reverse, this entire arc references the main theme of Romeo and Juliet as a play: being human is good, and love redeems and saves the world. Even though Romeo and Juliet die, their love saves Verona. Rosie's love for Justin might not be requited, but because of it she helps Alex save the world. That she fell from heaven and found love makes her a better guardian angel in the end, not a worse one.

In the end, Juliet reunites with Justin after she's been brainwashed by said devil character, Gorog, which calls back both to the Mummy's mind control and to Justin's and Rosie's story. When Justin, Alex, and Max defeat Gorog, the spell breaks. Juliet expresses horror at what she's done and begs for forgiveness--only to find out that Justin doesn't want her to beg for it. She doesn't need to. She's there, and that's all that matters.

Okay, even besides the Romeo and Juliet arc, The Wizards of Waverly Place is pretty good for a kid's show. It's got very clever moments, and it's clearly a satire that pokes fun at Harry Potter, Twilight, Beauty and the Beast (Alex and Mason), Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, The Mummy, Night at the Museum, Back to the Future, and more. But you can tell the writers are doing this because they love the original stories, not out of mean-spirited cynicism. It's self-aware without breaking the suspension of disbelief for viewers.

Said suspension of disbelief mostly comes from the characters, who are very well done and have good arcs. Alex and Justin's relationship is at the heart of the series, which fits because the main theme is family. Although Alex at first seems like a slacker on her way to delinquency and Justin's the model student, they are actually far more alike inside than they are different.

Both Alex and Justin know that because of the wizard competition, they only have a limited amount of time to prove themselves. Alex's philosophy is essentially "let's eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die/lose our wizard powers," while Justin's is "study study study and be perfect and never lose the power!" But at the heart of both is fear of a coming loss--not just of their power, but of their relationship.

They know one of them will lose powers to the other, and the foundation of their relationship especially in the earlier seasons is helping each other out with magic. It's through untangling Alex's magic-brewed disasters that Justin shows he loves Alex, and it's through asking Justin for help that the normally proud Alex shows that she loves and trusts Justin. You might call it their love language. Without it, can they still even be close?

The ending was perfect because it inverses what you'd expect. Alex goes back to help Justin, knowing that this means she won't win. Justin admits that he messed up and did not actually win, giving up his power because Alex was the rightful winner. And as a result, they are both rewarded: Alex keeps her powers, and Justin also gets to keep them via Professor Crumbs appointing Justin his successor. (Max's story was always more human-world centered, so him getting the subway shop and not his powers fit well for him, too.)

Speaking of Professor Crumbs, I liked how he and other characters like Harper (especially) and Zeke explored the family theme beyond just the Russos. Harper essentially got adopted by Alex's parents because her own parents suck, and Professor Crumbs clearly views both Justin and Alex as his proteges with a fatherly affection. Family can be blood, but it can also be made. So it was fitting that each sibling got a piece of family legacy: Alex as the Family Wizard (extended blood family), Max as the subway shop owner (human parents), and Justin as the next Professor of Magic (found family).

So yeah. If you're looking for a feel good show, this is a good one to check out!

[cookinguptales]

So my relisten of Malevolent continues, and my followers know that I’ve been rambling a lot about the connections between s2 of Malevolent and Dante’s Inferno.

Put simply, I believe that Arthur and John are trapped in Dis when they’re in the Dreamlands, which is the area comprising the last four circles of Hell in Dante’s cosmology. There are simply far too many similarities for it to be anything but purposeful.

I’ve started writing this post several times, but it’s hard. There is just so much to talk about that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Initially I thought I’d just go over the dozens of parallels and allusions that I caught while listening before making separate posts with more nuanced discussion of each circle and its implications for Arthur and John, but…

I think, actually, what’s more important to start with is whether it really is Dis at all.

I’m fully convinced that Arthur is exploring Dante’s Hell, but that doesn’t mean that it actually physically is Dante’s Hell. I’m not saying that Dante was describing the Dreamlands in this universe, necessarily. I think what’s more likely, the more I think about it, is that The King in Yellow used Arthur’s conceptualizations of Hell as received from Dante to create the Hell for him that Arthur believed he deserved.

Like… we know that the KIY is familiar with human writers like Shakespeare. I really don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that he knows Dante, too, and can feel that knowledge there in Arthur’s mind as well.

Arthur doesn’t specifically talk about Dante, which is a bit odd for a character who canonically loves poetry as much he does. He never says, “hey, this is weird, this is definitely Dante!” like I did when I was listening to it. But both John and Arthur make some odd statements, Easter eggs almost, that seem to refer to details from the poem.

Things like John saying there might be ice at the bottom of the pit. Things like Arthur bringing up the Minotaur for no real reason. It does feel like, at least subconsciously, this information exists in both of them the same way John subconsciously absorbed information about Arthur’s modern world.

I don’t think that Arthur realizes that the KIY has created a Hell from his memories for him to traverse, purposely creating a narrative of penitence and redemption to make Arthur let go of his guilt, but I think the whole thing is working on him all the same.

I won’t go into too much detail about a lot of my ideas in this post (there’s genuinely just too much for one post) but I think that Arthur needs a Virgil and a Beatrice. He needs to confront his sins and experience the punishments assigned to them. He needs to work through his past and make sense of the guilt he feels.

The King knows that, and he takes advantage of it.

It almost works, too. There are times when Arthur almost gives in and accepts some form of divine forgiveness, so to speak. But due to his own stubbornness, lack of faith, and perhaps some outside influence, he does manage to refuse that temptation and eventually escape the Inferno.

As for the outside influence, I think… I mean, I’ll talk about Kayne and Dante’s Caina more later, but I think that… I don’t think that Kayne was supposed to be a part of the KIY’s Inferno. He think he actually invaded the dream and put his own spin on it, which is partially why the KIY ended up losing control of the situation.

That said, I do think that Kayne was well aware of what was being built and delighted in playing with the themes he found there. I think he was like “hey, crazy how there’s a portion of Dante’s Hell in the lake of ice called Caina that is specifically designed to punish humans who killed their own family members” and decided to use that to his own benefit.

That is in fact a large part of why I believe that the Dreamlands are not fixed in their shape, nor are they actually literally a Dis that Arthur must traverse. Because Kayne was able to use the frame for his own purposes and change it. He was not a permanent part of it, but an interloper who could come and go and who purposefully chose a location and name that would suit the themes. That seems to imply that this is a fiction that outsiders are not beholden to, but can play with as they please -- not an actual physical and immutable space.

There’s also this line in E18… 

I’d argue that what Arthur is experiencing is all a dream that the KIY created specifically for Arthur, specifically to try and manipulate him, and that the Dreamlands are not fully fixed. It’s not just his hallucinations in the garden that are the King manipulating his surroundings to drive him to madness; it is everything that he and John experienced from the moment they entered the Dreamlands. It was all designed to resemble a Hell that Arthur would recognize and respond to emotionally.

Noel/Charlie also mentioned the way the Dreamlands appeared to change constantly as the KIY tried to manipulate him, which really feels like the nail in the coffin here. I don’t think the KIY controls every aspect of the Dreamlands, but I do think he can at least control how certain parts of it manifest to those who are trapped within it — and that’s what he’s done to both Noel and Arthur.

So all that, along with the fact that Kayne does not seem to be a permanent fixture in the dream but continues to ape its themes for… fun, I guess, makes me think that Arthur is not literally traversing Dis, but is instead descending through a version of it that the KIY is using to fuck with his concepts of faith, morality, penitence, and guilt.

(And I think meanwhile, John is just genuinely confused.)

I have a lot more to talk about, from all the specific allusions to ideas about psychopompery to the repeated allusions to being separated from one’s body to guilt/salvation to… well, I just have a lot to say. lmao

I’m about to be very pretentious about all this, and I apologize in advance lmao. Next post I'll talk in more depth about the living forest, the burning sands, the lake of ice, the malebolge (evil pouches/pits), and many, many, many more allusions to Dante's Inferno.

[monggay]

my @mcytblraufest gift for @whoretimeswithscar! an over the garden wall au with mcyt characters! if youre unfamiliar, over the garden wall is a cartoon starring two brothers, wirt and greg, who find themselves lost in a place called the unknown and try to find their way around home, meeting many people including someone called the woodsman and a talking bluebird named beatrice.

starring: wilbur as wirt, the older brother; tommy as greg, the younger brother; grian as beatrice, the bluebird but as a parrot, + other cast and stuff under the cut! cause i made a BUNCH for this apparently.

charlie slimecicle as jason funderberker the frog! he's basically the brothers' pet frog, and he gets a musical number in one of the episodes!

AND a bunch of screenshot redraws from the opening sequence (on youtube, also dont watch after the title card at abt 45 secs in if you dont want spoilers from the end)

although i think the next stuff do have some spoilers for some characters

characters in order: charlie, grian, joe (and cleo in the painting), stress, and gem!

and then bad as the woodsman, dream as the beast, and then skeppy!

okay really going into spoiler territory here for the characters:

wilbur and tommy are wearing lmanburg/or just revolution uniforms in general as halloween costumes! wilburs are too short on him, and tommys are too big. tommys wearing red rainboots cause he doesnt have fancy ones like wilbur already had.

charlies just a slimy frog with glasses. no one knows how they stay there, there's no tape or anything. also he has. teeth. no reason at all tbh, and he also doesnt speak yet like in canon aside from the musical numbers.

grian as beatrice! i mean, he does seem like the type to get his family cursed because of shenanigans.

joe hills as quincy endicott and zombie cleo as margueritte grey! i really like this idea hehe. the premise of endicotts episode is that hes an eccentric lonely rich guy with a huuuge mansion who thinks is haunted, or that he might just really be going mad. turns out that his mansion was just so huge that he didnt realize that it was two mansions joined together, and that the resident of the other mansion, margueritte grey, was the ghost he thought he was seeing, and also thought he was a ghost. so like shenanigans with joe and cleo lmao.

stress as auntie whispers and gem as lorna! lorna is a young sick girl who lives with auntie whispers, but turns out her sickness was an evil spirit possessing here and forcing her to devour people, she didnt know tho i think and thought auntie was evil and forcing her to do chores. auntie whispers was like a really creepy evil looking old woman but turns out she was nice, just evil and creepy looking.

bad as the woodsman and skeppy as the woodsmans daughter! and dream as the beast. the beast was this.. idk he was the beast. an evil spirit taking children lost in the woods? the woodsmans daughter had gotten lost in the woods and the beast told the woodsman that the lantern contained his daughters soul, and he had to keep it lit of else his daughter was dead forever by chopping edelwood trees and turning them to oil as fuel. and then turns out the beast was just tricking him

also! the unknown is like, im pretty sure is supposed to be the afterlife? or like limbo, or as u had mentioned in your request notes, dantes inferno! when you mentioned dantes inferno, and limbo, and cool imagery, otgw was the first thing that came to my mind! i had just watched this one video essay about otgw being a modern retelling of dantes inferno before i recieved your request lol. cause wirt and greg were supposed to be drowning while they were in the unknown i think.

also!! for the first drawing, the scene is like, not rly anything specific for the show, i just thought it looked cool. and i somehow had the idea to. make it a painting. again. against all previous experiences of paintings being absolute slogs to finish. they almost always just reach the point of i dont even want to look at this anymore its good enough, but im really love how this one came out!

i had a few other au ideas i was thinking of before i did this one, i didnt manage to do them mostly bc it was always like. wayyy out of my artistic skills and also i didnt know how to make them make sense or execute them well enough.

previous ideas included: some sort of adventure story/comic/chose your own adventure/small rpg/point and click adventure/idk of limbo and exploring people's limbo, such as wilbur in the train station, schlatt in the gym, tommy in a void, grian in the middle of 3rd life and last life, etc. and the vibes i was looking for like victorian impossible mansion with shifting rooms or smth and also these kinds of stuff like a small pixel art point and click exploring of limbos

and also an ibong adarna au (????) its a filipino story of a prince journeying to capture the legendary bird, ibong adarna, to cure his sick father, and he had two older brothers who also failed bc they werent kind to a beggar in the street who turned out to be a sorcerer(?). basically, wilbur, techno, and tommy as the princes, with tommy as the youngest who succeeded bc he was kind, charlie as the ermitanyo/beggar?? and grian as the bird?

ANYWAYS thats all very sorry for the literal freaking wall of rambling text here much apologies for the lateness and hope you enjoy it!!

[kkglinka]

After I made the post about the name references, some fans pointed out that there was a connection with Dante's Divine Comedy as well. Super duper cliff notes version: the dead poet virgil guides dante's self-insert through the levels of hell, demonstrating various sins and their punishments, until they reach satan. From there, three saints appear, and beatrice leads dante up through purgatory and delivers him into paradise.

In this allusion, Ava is Dante, the sinner of lapsed faith. Virgil is played by Vincent, who steadily leads her astray due to his own sin of worshipping false gods. He took someone hedonistically enjoying life and helped turn her into a killer, before leading her down into the catacombs until they reached the single dark chamber where Adriel resided.

Now, two levels up from satan's chamber is where sodomites are punished. This is how severe a sin homosexual behavior is. Notice that conservative forms of christianity do not recognize queerness as a state of being, but only as a voluntary, deviant action. This includes thinking gay stuff, because catholicism includes thought crime. Whereas modern concepts of queerness recognize it as a state of being, so that denying any expression, is tantamount to denying the self entirely. It's slow motion self-destruction.

It's as the gang prepares to infiltrate the vatican that we see Beatrice start orienting toward Ava instead of her religion. Why? Because this is when Ava begins to inspire Beatrice to believe in herself, and her self is queer. This is where she also begins to veer away from self-destruction, because that's what being the OCS's perfect soldier entails.

So they reach satan's vestibule (nine levels of hell, plus this, makes ten), blow it open, and literally climb back up to leave. Now, in Inferno, the three saints Dante meets are Mary (Magdalene), Lucy (blinded for her faith), and Beatrice (a real woman dante was into, but doubling as the saint). Two of these are obvious matches, and Lucy is Lilith...who was later blinded by (misguided) faith, as in, Adriel burned her eyes out. All three characters are present for the tomb opening, but only Beatrice escorts Ava up into the mountains of switzerland.

We then get two months of Ava essentially learning to be a better person through greater restraint, basic life skills, healthy communication, etc. That would be the first parts of purgatory, after which Ava experiences greater demands on her altruism and sense of duty. Which culminates in Beatrice delivering her through the gates of...something. (It's noteworthy that the ArqTech logo resembles a trident or pitchfork).

But here's the thing, the entire time Ava is becoming a more balanced person, she leads Beatrice into breaking one vow after another. We got the ten commandments, of which Beatrice breaks roughly eight (it depends on how the list is delineated). She covets Ava when she believes Michael has her interest, she cooperates with Ava's deceptions, she steals to obey OCS orders, she killed when it wasn't necessary, she ultimately rebels against her parents' expectations, takes the lord's name in vain*, denies the existence of god, and sets Ava as her center of belief. Add whatever vows the OCS has as a religious order, such as chastity, humility, obedience, refraining from drink, etc. Which, like... *Waves a hand* She drinks, parties, gains enough pride to challenge authority, before reciprocating a kiss. In short, Beatrice goes down like a set of bowling pins.

*Taking in vain refers to vanity, not futility. So, referencing god or piousness to make yourself look good in front of others. But, it's a common take that it refers to stuff like, "god damnit, oh my god, etc".

Then Beatrice witnesses the symbolic destruction of her entire faith, as a system. Reya, who is called a god, uses what look like demons, to tear apart an alien who styled himself a god and prophet. Ava already pointed out that Jesus was likely the same type of alien, to everyone's discomfort at the time. That her religion was all a pack of fabrications with a tiny core of truth, written by men to benefit those in power. Beatrice would have internalized that she would be condemned to hell unless she bowed and scraped enough to earn god's forgiveness...and none of that self-flagellation had been necessary.

Beatrice must have understand that, when she looked at Reya, she was looking at what her religion named god. Yet, after all of her alleged sins, Reya smiled back in benevolence, without judgment. Ava, the walking definition of sinful irreverence, was readily accepted into Reya's realm. Beatrice finally escapes her prison, where she had expected to live a short, brutal life, possibly ending in damnation regardless of her best efforts. She walks away smiling because she and Lilith are the only ones who faced god and lived.

[futuroprimordial]

Sophia and the Dragon

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

*

"Sophia is a spontaneous image produced by the individual or collective psyche when the soul, longing for understanding and clarity, is awakened from the dull slumber of consumer consciousness and obedience to social and institutional conditioning. When the longing of the soul responds to the call of aliveness of the soul of the world, the process of personal initiation and cultural change is triggered.

This "dull slumber" has been described countless times through the ages by sages, poets, visionary philosophers, and seers as a kind of death, sleep, hell (Dante), a cave (Plato), Ialdabaoth (gnosticism), or as the sublunary realm of images. This condition is depicted in cultures around the world as a dragon who guards a jewel; sometimes as a crocodile, Typhon (Egypt), or other reptile. The jewel is the place where we connect to the power of wisdom: when we speak from this condition of conscience and consciousness, it rouses the dragon.

To reclaim the jewel of our own conscious aliveness is to encounter the dragon and engage in a life-death struggle. To prevent being overcome by isolation, scapegoating, exclusion, and ridicule requires us to activate wisdom: the faculty of clear perception or discernment. We must free our intelligence from its slavery to gathering and manipulating information and disengage it from the presuppositions of the cultural myths which keep it bound to unexamined habits. This consists of the entirety of what has gone before in the form of language, beliefs, dogma, and all of the social conditioning that we obey without questioning.

The encounter is accomplished through the form of inquiry that seeks to understand what lies underneath and outside the parameters of marketplace/ consumer consciousness, that looks at the underbelly, questions the presuppositions of the current myths, be they religious or scientific and strives to free itself from slavery to social and institutional norms. This path pits the individual against the mass mind--the emotional glue that binds large numbers of people to prejudice, to past tropes, to the habits of conditioning and past behavior--good and evil--that I call the dragon. This struggle has also been variously named and described in the literature as purgatory (Dante), the rational realm on the divided line of Plato, the "Great Work" of alchemy.

The successful outcome of this struggle has been the focus of spiritual philosophy and yogic practices around the world and is the fulfillment of the soul's longing. This is the heavenly Sophia, the anima mundi or soul of the world, Perfect Nature, the paradise where Beatrice awaits Dante, the celestial form of the zodiac, the inerratic or realm of fixed stars of Plato. The vital soul has reclaimed itself from the past and no longer alone and fixated and bound to its conditioning is instead situated between the dragon on one side and Sophia on the other. The vital soul no longer is in danger of being swallowed and used by the dragon. Instead, that Old Master of the Sublunary realm--the dragon--now serves the soul who has freed itself from slavery. The sage is one who has gained control of the power of life, who uses the dragon in service to the soul of the world. Sophia and her companion of power, the dragon, are reunited in service to the unfolding intelligence of the universe through the agency of the human psyche.

Kathleen Damiani,Sophia and the Dragon: A Modern Alchemy of Personal and Collective Initiation

***

Guan Yin riding the Dragon

[forfamily]

the famiglia.

dario zeppeli. 81. 6'2". likes cat naps in the sun, a strong coffee, and his wife's smile. dislikes slackers, pickles, and modern architecture. former don of the zeppeli family; still commands great respect. not as scary as you think he is once you get to know him. hamon user.

beatrice zeppeli. 79. 5'5". likes afternoon tea, playing the piano, and the opera. dislikes messiness, unnecessary violence, and sour foods. the wife of dario; some claim she was the true power behind the scenes during her husband's reign. a kind, strong woman. a master sharp shooter.

dante zeppeli. 39. 6'2". likes dogs, sleeping, and when the day is relatively stress-free ( it is, in fact, never stress-free). dislikes fucking paperwork, incompetence, and when someone takes a romantic interest in his cousin. the son of dario's younger sister, giada. the current underboss and the one bianca trusts the most in the world (next to her grandparents). hamon user.

vincent galilei. 60. 6'3". dario's consigliere, now bianca's. knows the law inside out and backward (in italy and other countries). cool under pressure. manages all of zeppeli's legal financial interests. stand user.

tommaso "tommy" granita. 24. 5'11". enjoys chess and mathematics. capo of chiaia. rumored to be related to the zeppeli's consigliere but nothing is confirmed. hamon user.

tira "titi" misu. 23. 5'5". capo of san ferdinando. likes collecting earrings. enjoys tea at the end of a long day. originally worked at one of zeppeli's brothels; intervened during an assassination attempt while the don was visiting nd saved bianca's life. stand user.

giotto "toto" panetone. 29. 5'10". collects keyboards. capo of arenella and the intelligence squad. the watchers and gatherers. this squad knows things before the government does and knows things the government wishes they didn't. stand user.

petrarca "pet" affogato. 25. 6'. capo of vomero. a true playboy and lady's man who enjoys collecting perfume. he and leo have beef, much to bianca's dismay. hamon user.

donatello "dona" ricotti. 31. 5'11". capo of pianura and search and recovery. when there seems to be no hope or the government fails to find a missing (or stolen) loved one, sometimes one needs those who can move where the police cannot or aren't willing to. often partners with the intelligence squad. stand user.

michelangelo "mich" pomodori. 28. 6'1". a self-proclaimed foodie. capo of soccavo and the demolition squad. the heavy hitters, when brawn is needed above everything else... or a good distraction. stand user.

raphael "raph" scacci. 30. 6' capo of Bagnoli and the assassination squad. a group who moves in the shadows of napoli. once bianca issues a hit, the target is already dead; it's just a matter of when they stop breathing. stand user.

leonardo "leo" panello. 34. 6'2". capo of fuorigrotta. enjoys fast cars and going for long rides when he can; he also enjoys building model cars. has a low tolerance for bullshit. may or may not have a thing for the boss and dislikes when petrarca (attempts) to flirt with bianca. hamon user.

[natsuyuki-w]

Serenitea Shop | Bubble tea 

Ayato Kamisato x f!reader

italiano

Modern AU

Serenitea shop >

Per arrivare all'Inazuma High dovevo attraversare un quartiere Japan Town di Teyvat. Sembrava qualcuno avesse cancellato un pezzo di città originale per essere sostituita da un angolo di Kiyoto. La via era costellata da edifici di legno dai larghi tetti spioventi, combini, ramen Shop, izakaya e tanti altri luoghi d'intrattenimento tipici. Anche la popolazione era principalmente formata da immigrati o persone di origine del sol levante. Ed uno in particolare fra i ragazzi che ogni mattina vedevo sfrecciando per quelle strade. Come Dante alla sua Beatrice ammiravo da lontano professando il mio amore ad ogni occasione immaginabile. A differenza del poeta non dai suoi scritti ma ben più fastidiosi monologhi infiniti ai miei amici.

Alto e giovane, indossava completi eleganti, ma che riconducevano alle sue origini asiatiche. Il suo delicato e bellissimo viso sosteneva uno sguardo intelligente e onorevole. Ciò che lo rendeva però così accattivante ai miei occhi, erano quei setosi capelli celesti che smorzavano quell'aria da imprenditore autoritario e lo rendevano armonioso nel contesto in cui, rigorosamente ogni giorno, lo incrociavo. Il boba shop all'angolo. Il mio povero cuore sfarfallava ad ogni mio passaggio nella speranza che un giorno mi notasse e fermasse per due chiacchiere, magari un bubbletea, magari un uscita,... I film mentali galoppavano con un principe azzurro come lui ad occuparli. E quella mattina, la fortuna decise di sorridermi, o meglio, deridermi.

Ormai gli abitudinari mi conoscevano, gli adulti salutavano gentili e i bambini, a cui lasciavo sempre due brioche avanzate al bar e giocavo insieme al mio ritorno, mi rincorrevano scherzosamente ridendo e vociando di restare. Se normalmente si limitavano alle parole, in quella occasione Kujirai, uno dei più spavaldi, decise di voler testare le mie capacità acrobatiche. - Al volo! - urlò, e un pallone da spiaggia arrivò sopra la mia testa.Lo ripassai senza problemi, era comunque leggero, il tiro facile e il mollare la mano dal manubrio non era certo un problema. Qualche giorno prima, i nuovi arrivati del quartiere, una banda di motociclisti che si faceva chiamare Arataki Gang. Aveva deciso di fare un gioco di fuochi, petardi e quant'altro per fare divertire i monelli. Questo aveva causato l'inevitabile danneggiamento alle strade.

Ma torniamo a me sulla bicicletta, carretto bar e prova di giocoleria. In un attimo di giramento d'occhi, la ruota davanti si incastrò violentemente in una buca e mi ritrovai baracca e burattini con il culo a terra e la dignità schiacciata da esso. I bambini fermarono subito le grida e risate per correre preoccupatissimi. - Signorina lasci che la aiuti. - E tutto il resto si fermò.

Quando alzai lo sguardo, vidi che quella voce soave apparteneva proprio al principe azzurro del boba shop. - La r-ringrazio - risposi senza fiato e di tutta risposta sfoggiò un sorriso gentile sbloccando il seconda stadio di imbarazzo: faccia paonazza. Con la sua presa ferma mi rimise in piedi con cautela. - Dovevo immaginare sarebbe capitato, le sue abilità al volante sono ammirevoli ma a quelle velocità i rischi sono inevitabili. - - Eh sì immagino di essere stata troppo spavalda- risposi timidamente, una mano dietro la nuca. -Aspetti un attimo, ma lei come sa...- le mie parole sospese nel registrare cosa la sua affermazione implicasse. - Pardon, sembra che sia stato scoperto con le mani nel sacco. D'altronde pensavo di avere il consenso visto il tuo interesse nel controllare il mio passaggio.- e un sorrisino lievemente diabolico adornò il suo viso d'angelo.

- Er... Ecco, vedi,... Io non intendevo.... Però, cioè, non mi aspettavo notassi... me. - "Mi scioglierò dalla vergogna e sprofonderò nel tombino. Almeno non dovrò mai più rinfacciarmi con questa persona." Era il mio viaggio mentale del disastroso momento. - Mi permetta - Mi aiutò a raccogliere tutto e raddrizzare il carretto. Con la mia preoccupazione ora focalizzata su quel problema iniziai a controllare tutto il contenuto. Fortunatamente tutto sembrava più o meno intero. - Grazie mille per la mano,... Ehr, aiuto, signor...?- - Kamisato Ayato é un piacere, posso chiederle il suo? - "Risuona stranamente famigliare..." mi ritrovai per qualche secondo a rimuginare e rendendomi conto di non aver ancora risposto gli dissi timidamente il mio nome.

- Io,...volevo ringraziarla e...vuole magari qualcosa?- offrii indicando il carretto ora sistemato. - Mmm. Volentieri, è molto gentile da parte sua ma non la voglio fermare dalle sue faccende.- pensò portandosi una mano al mento. - Ho sentito parlare bene della vostra Tearoom, penso che passerò questo weekend. Posticipiamo la sua gentile offerta, è d'accordo?- - Sì sì mi farebbe piacere rivederla... VOLEVO DIRE - troppo tardi, il sorriso sbilenco del ragazzo era già tornato al suo posto. - Beh, se è questo che desidera... - prese il suo smartphone dalla tasca e con un movimento fluido me lo porse sistemandosi dietro di me, una mano sulla spalla sinistra e il suo volto alla mia destra per osservare cosa scrivessi. Con mani tremanti, digitai il mio contatto, gli porsi nuovamente il cellulare e lui come si era posizionato si allontanò lasciandomi come un cerbiatto al voglio della strada.- A presto! - salutò andando per la sua strada, ed improvvisamente incapace di parlare, salutai con uno stupido gesto della mano.

- Come mai in ritardo questa mattina? - balzò immediatamente Gorou appena sistemata. - Ciao carissima. - salutò Kokomi a manina con il ragazzo. Dopodichè arrivò Thoma defilato con a seguito la sua amica dai capelli azzurri. - Oh ciao! Ero preoccupato ti fossi persa, come stai? - - È sempre un piacere averti fra noi. - sorrise timidamente Ayaka. - Awww ragazzi mi stavate aspettando? - esclamai toccata. - Eh beh Il caffè delle macchinette fa schifo. - disse baldanzoso Heizou. - Okay scusa per aver osato pensare fosse per la mia compagnia. - sbuffai scherzosamente.

- Allora? - richiese impaziente il primo arrivato. - Uuuh adesso vi racconto ditemi cosa volete che nel frattempo, devo fare cassa.- - È caduta. - disse con certezza l'intuitivo Heizou. - Sì ma lasciami narrare però! - mi lamentai. - Era palese - disse indicando il carico e bici graffiati e il mio stato un po' malconcio. - Ti sei fatta male? - si raddrizzò inpanicato il più alto del gruppo. - Inerme, e comunque devo dire,... Non tutti i mali vengono per nuocere. - dissi con fare sognante, il volto di Ayato stampato nella mia memoria. - Racconta non tenerci sulle spine. -ridacchiò la fidanzata di Gorou.

- ...Dalle maniere proprio educate, mi ha aiutata a tirare sul il casino che avevo combinato. Poi quando rideva lo faceva non per prendermi per il culo. Poi che voce gentile,... un principe vi dico! - arrivai al punto del mio salvataggio. - Ha persino i capelli azzurri. - il mio piccolo pubblico ascoltava attento e nominato il peculiare colore Ayaka si strozzò con il suo caffè shakerato. Thoma accorse subito in soccorso tamburellando la schiena dell'amica. - Archons del cielo, tutto bene? Magari e qualcuno che conosci? - le chiesi preoccupata. - Mmm descrivi un po' meglio questo questo principe azzurro, magari mi viene in mente qualcuno.- sorrise Heizou sotto i baffi distogliendo la mia attenzione da un Ayaka scioccata. - Beh e alto più o meno quanto Thoma, ha questi occhi a mandorla di un blu violaceo che... Wow, poi i suoi capelli lisci sembrano di seta azzurra, li lega sempre in una coda laterale. Poi vabbé ha tipo un viso perfetto,...-

Heizou aveva ottenuto il suo intrattenimento, più la descrizione andava avanti, più la povera figlia minore della famiglia Kamisato diventava nervosa e imbarazzata. Il suo migliore amico la consolava, appoggiando una mano di conforto sulla spalla. - Hahaha, mi è capitato innumerevoli volte di incamminarmi in conversazioni sul mio conto, ma mai di questa natura e tanta passione. - sentii una voce alle mie spalle, la stessa indimenticabile voce di poco prima. - Cosa ci fai qui Ayato?- chiese Thoma. - Sono venuti a prendere la mia cara sorellina - si avvicinò ad Ayaka il soggetto dei miei discorsi sognanti.

... Mortificata, e per nascondere l'immenso imbarazzo sul mio volto, mi abbassai di colpo in un profondo inchino. - Scusatemi scusatemi scusatemi! Vi ho sicuramente messo in una situazione di disagio enorme. - pregai il loro perdono. Ciò che ricevetti come risposta fu però nuovamente una risata. - Per niente! Senti posso darti del tu? - mi chiese cortesemente posando la sua grande mano sul mio braccio. Annuii ripetutamente. - Per fare chiarezza, è una prima volta molto gradita, soprattutto dal momento in cui viene da te. - mi disse terminando con un sussurro nel mio orecchio. - Ci vediamo sabato, non vedo l'ora. - e con totale nonchalance si allontanò trascinandosi un Ayaka dal cuore in frantumi.

[theclassicalpoetess]

hiii ^-^ i just wanted to know, whats your opinion on dante as a person? as a poet theres no doubt, but who do you think he is as a person with humanitarian qualities?

also because no one says these things anymore (which is just irrational, why wouldnt you bombard someone with homeric epithets???) and because i honestly am in love with this blog,,, your smile resembles a moons crescent, and your luminance is just as iridescent.

yes i saw that post, and yes im on caffeine =D thanks!

Aww, thank you for your question and love.

And thank you for the spams of likes.

Man, what can I say about Dante.

He would be a very wise individual, someone strict on studying the humanities and science, and always would be referring back to Antiquity. He would be the one speak things the way they are, (no sugar coating, no anything). And be the one everyone goes to for advice, such as love, relationships or poetry.

A dreamer, analysts and visionary, His intelligence and philosophies would drive him to places that we have not gone (one of them, a Christian Hell). I can imagine Him spending all night, reading the Aeniad by Virgil, analysing ancient poetry (and His own), reflecting on His religion and its teachings, whilst dreaming about Beatrice and the power of divine love has on people like Himself and the relationship with (his) God.

In a way, he would be very different from 21st century. He would be an old soul, traveling through a modern world. He would always be in his head, thinking and wondering about his philosophies and study.

I have always seen him as a teacher and a father figure of my poetry and learning. Without having picked up His epic and learning more about him and his life, I wouldn’t have this great interest in studying ancient poetry. And because of that, it has help me significantly in improving my writing and poetry, and so I as grateful that He had existed, and always will exist.

❤️🌙✨

(Not my photo, from Pinterest)

A might flame followth a tiny spark - Dante

[generalecapodiurano]

one of the most beautiful things about studying literature is learning that the world and the stories that were narrated over the centuries were full of incredible, amazing losers

we all have this traditional concept of ancient heroes as... some mystical unmatched people that were always so cool and strong and we could never catch up to their glory, and I mean, they’re all super cool, but they were also so human!! and so fucking PATHETIC!!

the first time Telemachus stand up against his mother’s suitors he literally burst into tears and throw the scepter on the floor because of the anger!! and he’s not made fun of because of his crying. greek heroes actually cried all the time, Achilles, Odysseus, all of them!

Lancelot was like... the coolest, the strongest, the best knight of the fellowship of Arthur, and also the biggest simp of all times?? He would have literally done ANYTHING Guinevere told him to do. He humiliated himself over and over again for her!! He would let himself being beaten up because she asked him to do so! And speaking of knights, Perceval was such a silly little mess. He literally has to ask 2 simple questions but he gets anxious because his old masters told him “you ask too much questions” so he stay silent and fucks everything up because of this. 

Dante Alighieri, probably the biggest italian author ever, wrote a book about his love for Beatrice and described how one time he saw her and got so nervous he had to run to his own room with his heart beating fast like any modern young adult book teenager protagonist would do 

they’re all so silly!! and so cool anyway!! humans have always been the same and that’s so beautiful. you can read all these classical book and be like “omg he’s so me” much more than you would think 

I just think that’s neat yk 

[burntcopper]

Theatre list 2022

Best of Enemies (Young Vic)* Nutcracker (St Petersburg ballet) Street Scene (Kurt Weill) (Teatro Real Madrid) Private Lives (Hall for Cornwall) Verdi's Rigoletto: On the Lake (Bregenz Festival) Carmen (Sydney Harbour) The Dante Project (Royal Ballet) Madame Butterfly (Sydney Harbour) Groan-ups (Hall for Cornwall) Kiss Me Kate (BBC Proms) Aida (Sydney Harbour) Ludovico Einaudi : The Elements Around the World in 80 Days (Rain or Shine) The Collaboration (Young Vic)* Cyrano de Bergerac (Harold Pinter)* Bill Bailey Larks in Transit (ROH) Everybody's Talking About Jamie (Hall for Cornwall) The Play What I Wrote (Birmingham Rep) Rumplestiltskin (Ballet Lorent) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre henry iv part 1 (rsc 2014) Macbeth (Globe) Bonnie and Clyde (Arts Theatre)* Much Ado About Nothing (globe)* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Hall for Cornwall) (2nd half) Wine Night (Lona Theatre, AMATA) HMS Pinafore (ENO) Oklahoma (Young Vic) Magic Goes Wrong (Hall for Cornwall)* Kate Rusby (Hall for Cornwall) La Bayadere (Royal Balllet) Ladies of Letters (Hall for Cornwall)* Rough Girls (Lyric Belfast) The Recruiting Officer (Rain or Shine) Much Ado (National Theatre)* Much Ado (Blewbury) The Tempest (Globe)* Prisoner C33 Jack Absolute Flies Again (National Theatre)* I, Joan (Globe) The Tempest (Globe) Much Ado About Nothing (globe)* Six (Hall for Cornwall)* Richard iii (rsc) Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (Hall for Cornwall)* The Seagull (Harold Pinter) Wuthering Heights (Bristol Old Vic) Nutcracker! (Bourne) White Christmas (Hall for Cornwall) Sleeping Beauty (Bourne) (Theatre Royal Plymouth) Gods of the Game (Grange Park Opera) Treasure Island (Hall for Cornwall) Henry V (Globe)* Hex (National Theatre) A Christmas Carol:  A Ghost Story (Nottingham Playhouse) As You Like It (sohoplace)*

Best 12

Best of Enemies (Young Vic)* The Collaboration (Young Vic)* Cyrano de Bergerac (Harold Pinter)* Bonnie and Clyde (Arts Theatre)* Much Ado About Nothing (globe)* Much Ado (National Theatre)* The Tempest (Globe)* Jack Absolute Flies Again (National Theatre)* Six (Hall for Cornwall)* Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (Hall for Cornwall)* Henry V (Globe)* As You Like It (sohoplace)*

Best of Enemies : Hi we're going to examine ego and the birth of modern media and political commentary and identity and ... yes that is Andy Warhol, everyone else at the party is trying to ignore him too.

The Collaboration: Art! Reawakening artistic impulses!  Connection with the world! Tunes!  Paul Bettany!

Cyrano de Bergerac: Words, desire, the power of words, rap battles, being a dick because you can, falling for people, depth of emotion, James McAvoy's thighs (my view for the first ten minutes) and Christian and Cyrano falling for each other as well and MY HEART.

Bonnie and Clyde: We're gonna heist and we're going for fame and tomorrow doesn't exist.

Much Ado (Globe): It's Italy post-war.  We're all horny as hell, everyone is beautiful, the coppers are trying to kill us laughing via shenanigans, will you please get out of my shrubbery, and ladsladslads is it gay to wrestle your mates this much?

Much Ado (NT) : Setting:  Grand Budapest Hotel. Challenge:  ice cream toppings and pec popping. Glam as fuck. *mwah*. (not as good as Globe, Beatrice and Benedick were more weirdos who band together than banter, but achingly glam)

The Tempest (Globe): The Island is the spanish riviera, everyone is Brits who think they're better than the natives, Prospero's in a yellow budgie smuggler and it turns out this is actually a comedy, Lionesses win so they have to re-jig the Three Lions lyrics mid-run in glorious fashion and Prospero is absolutely a fuckhead slavemaster.

Jack Absolute Flies Again: WW2 farce! malapropisms delivered so perfectly you nearly kill the audience!  ukeleles!

Six: The ushers will dance and you can't stop us.  And yes everyone's favourites are the Annes.  Sorry not Sorry.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo:  The boys are back, they're en pointe and they're glorious.

Henry V (Globe): Henry goes full psychopath to the point that Jude Law's been left in the dust in scary Hals and I didn't think I'd ever say *that*.  When the usual comedic bits leave a hole in your soul.

As You Like It (sohoplace): Sorry, hearing actors.  Rose Ayling-Ellis has put a cherry on top of why Celia should be played by a deaf actor. (see Globe and Nadia Nadarajah) Entire cast flirting with the pianist should be encouraged.  Also: Alfie Enoch needs to go full ham more often. New best stage direction as provided by the subtitles; *pianist improvises frantically*

'Fuck off, keep fucking off, and fuck off again, you’re boring and tiresome and self-involved and why the fuck should I care about you?’ Award:

Aside from all the classical opera (I keep trying.  I fail.  This is just not a genre I can handle.  Decent tunes on occasion, lots of plodding pageantry and singing at people rather than advancing the plot. Though Gods of the Game was pretty decent by virtue of the fact that it kept employing opera tunes footie fans use but for adverts and the chorus of fans. Toreador as the jingle tune for a burger advert the lead is doing?  NICE.) Wuthering Heights.  Quite brilliant staging, and I thought it would be the Emma Rice-ness turning me off in this but no, it was the Bronte.  I literally just want to yell 'fucking leave, don't come back' at everyone.  The Emma Rice twiddly dance and music numbers were actually pretty good.

[stonewallsposts]

May 2024 Reading

 

This has been a VERY tough month for reading. The three books that took the majority of the time during the month: Canzoniere, Fascist Doctrine, and Proust, have been books I haven't enjoyed a ton, and consequently taken me a lot more time than usual. Where I read 11 books last month, I've gotten through only 4 total this month. Where I'm normally excited to read new books, three have been slogs that I've forced myself to keep at. 

L'inferno- Dante  (1321)  So I'm reading the inferno again, but this time in Italian, and taking my time. Usually I'll read one book at a time, go until I'm done, then start a new one. While I read this one years ago, I read it in English. This time I wanted to really get into it, so I decided I'll do one canto per week... or somewhere around that. I'll translate around one page per day, the cantos are around 5 pages each, then supplement my translation with reading the notes, reading the English translation, and reading a modern Italian version as well so that I'm making sure I catch the meaning.  

The poem is really fantastic. 

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita  mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,  che la diritta via era smarrita.  Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura  esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte  che nel pensier rinova la paura!  Tant’è amara che poco è più morte;  ma per trattar del bene ch’i’ vi trovai,  dirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ho scorte. 

It's written in what's called terza rima, or third rhyme, consisting of groups of three lines.  

The first and third line rhyme. The last word of the middle line becomes the rule for the rhyme of the next triplet of lines. 

So in the first, vita rhymes with smarrita. The middle line finishes with oscura, which determines the word rhyme scheme for the second triplet, where dura rhymes with paura. Forte is the end of the second triplet's middle line, so that determines the rhyme word for the third: morte and scorte. 

This means that every third line rhymes as well, but in intervals.... Dante maintains this scheme through the entirety of the three books, which is a really impressive feat. 

This month I read the first six cantos. 

In the first, Dante finds himself, in a mid-life crisis, sort of lost in life. He is wandering through when he is confronted by three beasts: representing lust, power, and avarice. They block his way and won't let him move out of his funk. But then he meets Virgil, the famed Roman poet of the Aeneid, who offers to guide him through the underworld... well, telling him that it's really Dante's only way out of the forest. 

In the second, Dante starts to doubt he's up to the task and questions Virgil about it. Virgil recounts that he himself was visited by Beatrice, a girl Dante loves, from heaven, where the virgin Mary is concerned about Dante, alerts Saint Lucia, who commissions Beatrice to help save Dante. She enlists Virgil to lead Dante through the first parts of the tour. Virgil tells Dante to buck up and Dante, revived by the knowledge of these three women's concern, commits to the journey. 

In the third, Dante and Virgil enter hell. The first group they encounter are those souls that refused to make a choice either for or against God. They are consigned to follow an ever moving standard.... and to be forgotten. They are ferried across the river by the Greek mythological character Charon. 

In the fourth, they enter the actual circles of hell. The first is filled with those that didn't sin, but were born before Christian baptism. Dante meets the great Pagan poets he admires and is admitted into their ranks. Virgil acknowledges that this is where he himself belongs. Dante asks if there is anyone who had ever escaped. Virgil explains that right after Jesus died, he came in and liberated the Old Testament saints, but no one else. They then pass a series of notable pagans and get ready to pass into the circles of actual punishment. 

Canto five finds them at the gates to the next circle down, where they are met by the cruel Cretan ruler Minos, judge of the underworld. He consigns each sinner to the proper level of hell. The first level they encounter is for those that sinned by lust. These are carried about, flailing, by a whirlwind. 

Canto six- they enter the third circle down, where the three-headed dog beast Cerberus tortures the gluttonous. The sixth canto of each portion of the divine comedy is dedicated to politics: the sixth of inferno is focused on local- for Dante, Florence- politics. As I understand it, the sixth of Purgatorio is Italian politics, and the sixth of Paradiso concerns 'world' politics. I don't think it's a coincidence that the three chapters: 666, make the number of man, and the mark of the Beast in Revelation.   

Canzoniere- Francesco Petrarca  (1374)  This collection of poems written in the vernacular Italian of the time, became, along with Dante and Boccaccio, the basis for the Italian language. The theme of many of them is the poet's love for 'Laura'. 

The Italian is seven centuries old, it's difficult, but not impossible, to understand, but.... it's poetry. Even in English, I struggle with poetry. I often have to ignore the meter and rhyme in English poetry and just read it through in order to follow what's happening. If I focus on the rhyme, I lose the subject altogether. It's even worse in Petrarca's early archaic Italian. In order to catch it, I used an English translation alongside reading it in the original. 

Fascism, Integralism, and the Corporative Society: Codex Fascismo- 4, 5, and 6- HR Morgan 

This is a collection of writings from the leaders of fascism, explaining what it is. I will write more about the contents of this in my other blog, where I've tended to go more in-depth on political theory books. 

This type of thing isn't much fun for me to read. I don't agree with the point of view and too much of it was the sales pitch version- focused on how so much of the current situation is bad, and how fascism is the answer for the problems. 

The reason I've gotten into reading it is because our current political climate is pretty divided, with the left mindlessly calling the right 'fascists', and the right mindlessly calling the left 'commies'. While communism is generally more known, I thought: I doubt most of the people calling the right fascists could really define anything about fascism. Then I realized that I didn't know enough either, so I decided I would learn, and the best way to do that is to read the source materials from those that advocated it. So I read Fascist material for the same reason I read Marxist material- so I can know what they believe and why they believe it. 

In sharing some of the philosophy with my son, and particularly how I found it not particularly deep, he responded that he didn't think there was any depth to it at all. But that's precisely the kind of thing I want to avoid. He has never read one bit of what they wrote, or say they believe, but he's convinced that he knows enough to comment that what they believe isn't worth believing. THAT attitude: I don't know what they believe but I know they're wrong!, is what I think is wrong with so much of our political discourse. We don't bother to find out what others actually believe or why... we just assume what they believe on some hearsay or worse, pure conjecture. 

For example, my guess is almost anyone would think fascist = nazi = racist murderer, therefore no need to know any more. Well, not quite, fascism grew out of marxism. Marxism saw the world as oppressor v oppressed and wanted the proletariat to develop class consciousness in order to overthrow the system and bring in a new order. Fascism buys the marxist analysis of what capitalism will eventually bring, but thought that marxism's class warfare was 1) divisive, and 2) not really workable anyway. In order to bring in a new system, one that would fulfill human needs, the more natural alignment would be national consciousness. Fascism sees the 'nation' as THE primary thing that people in the nation can rally around. Fascists, like Marxists, HATE the liberal view of the individual as supreme. They want a collective system, where the individual works for the betterment of the nation, rather than for his own betterment. 

Now there was a German philosopher, whose name I forget right now, who saw racial consciousness as the important thing, rather than national consciousness, and that particular view developed into national socialism, or Nazism.  

Fascism per se doesn't require racism at all. In fact, it would ideally encompass everyone within the nation, no matter what race. The important thing is that they are submitted to the cause of the nation. 

Just below the surface of this relatively benign-sounding idea, is the trouble. HOW exactly does one put such a system into place? And it is precisely in that area that the high sounding ideas that are packaged into the sales brochure turn into the nightmare in everyone's life... just like it did trying to implement Marxism. Because ultimately, there are as many ideas about how things ought to be run as there are people. And if the marxists or fascists decide that everyone is going to work 'for the good of the people' then it really means a very small group of those people are going to have to decide what exactly is meant by that, and consequently, everyone else is going to have to get in line... to the detriment of their own freedom. This is why collectivist ideas always sound good to people, but look terrible in real life. 

Much of what is in the book is the sales brochure: they'll tell you what they think is wrong, and they'll tell you how it will all be great when we’re working together. But every once in a while, they just tell you the truth: they're going to have to suppress anything that goes against the program... which means you'll have the freedom to do what your told, which means... you're not free at all. 

For all this, I think it's worth understanding where exactly they're coming from and why. Unfortunately, our current liberal system is running up against problems that have plagued republican systems throughout history: human divisiveness means stuff doesn't get done AND that brings increasing unrest because the sides up their animosity towards each other. And the answer throughout history has been to choose some strong man who can get stuff done AND bring a measure of peace. Safety and Security starts to look a lot better than freedom when things are unstable. 

Being aware of this at least provides me with some insight about what to look for when people with bad ideas start pitching their ideas. 

In Search of Lost Time 1: Swann's Way- Marcel Proust  (1913) 

This is the first of a seven-novel series that make up the whole novel: In Search of Lost Time. The entire novel is extremely long, around 3000 pages.  

The first book is divided into three sections: Combray, Swann in Love, and Place Names: The Name. 

In the first section, Combray, it is supposed to be extremely difficult to read. The sentences aren't difficult, the language isn't particularly difficult, but it is a series of impressions... recollections or remembrances of the author's childhood. There is nothing like a discernable plot, and for this reason, you can find yourself having read pages and pages and both not knowing.... and not caring, what you just read.  

I have seen one or two interesting bits about memory, but so far, it's been difficult to drum up any enthusiasm for this work. One example though is that the author, as a teenager, was interested in writing, but couldn't imagine he had anything interesting to write about. And then he would find some bit in a book by an author he admired that he could recognize as thoughts he himself had. This revelation showed him that his own humble life and the 'realms of truth' were no so widely separated as he had thought. 

The second section: Swann in Love, takes one of the characters recollected in the first section, Charles Swann, back in time to when he fell in love with Odette, a courtesan who he meets at one of his dinner parties. This section is more of a story, which makes it easier reading, but more than that, there are some very sweet passages about the initial stages of his love for the young woman.  

The third section: Place Names: The Name, reverts back to recollections of memory, this time of the author's interactions with the daughter of Charles and Odette. 

Babbit- Sinclair Lewis  (1922) 

George Babbit is a man of business in Zenith, and he is on the upward path to.... well, he can't quite figure out what. He assumes it's going to be great, and everyone around him seems to think so too, but along the way he keeps getting gentle reminders that he, and the others he surrounds himself with, are pretty hypocritical in many of their approaches to things. They mostly deal with this by not thinking too seriously about, or questioning, the things they've taken for granted. But at some point, George notices that he isn't really very happy about it, despite the level of success he has reached. He begins to dream of some outlets, but as he begins to experiment with things his old group considered taboo, and hang out with people considered outside the mainstream, he is increasingly excluded from the in-group. He is then bullied by the people he formerly led. But in a twist, his wife needs an operation and it is the old group that shows up for him. He is welcomed back in, but his boosterism isn't the same as it was before. He does however realize that there were things among his old life that he loved, but hadn't properly cherished. 

[polyglotsguide]

Italian Poetry: The Beauty of Words

Italian Poetry: A Journey Through Time and Emotion

Italian poetry is a tapestry of artistic expression that spans centuries, encompassing a rich and diverse range of styles, themes, and voices. From the epic narratives of Dante Alighieri to the lyrical verses of Petrarch and the modern works of contemporary poets, Italian poetry holds a special place in the world of literature.

The Origins of Italian Poetry

Italian poetry has its roots in the Middle Ages, with the emergence of the troubadours in the 12th century. These poet-musicians composed verses in the vernacular, or the common language, as opposed to Latin, which was the dominant literary language of the time. The troubadours' works explored themes of chivalry, courtly love, and human emotions.

Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy

One of the most renowned figures in Italian poetry is Dante Alighieri, often referred to as the "Father of the Italian Language." Dante's epic poem, the "Divine Comedy," is a masterpiece of world literature. It narrates the poet's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, guided by the Roman poet Virgil and his beloved Beatrice. The "Divine Comedy" is a complex allegory that delves into themes of morality, theology, and the human condition.

Petrarch and the Petrarchan Sonnet

Francesco Petrarch, another iconic Italian poet, is famous for his Petrarchan sonnets, a poetic form that consists of 14 lines with a specific rhyme scheme. Petrarch's work revolves around themes of unrequited love, beauty, and the passage of time. His sonnets greatly influenced European poetry and played a pivotal role in the development of the sonnet as a poetic form.

The Dolce Stil Novo

The "Dolce Stil Novo," or "Sweet New Style," was a literary movement that emerged in 13th-century Italy. It emphasized the use of a refined and emotionally expressive style of writing. Poets like Guido Cavalcanti and Guido Guinizzelli were central figures in this movement, and their works explored themes of love, beauty, and the inner world of human emotion.

Renaissance Poetry and the Divine Poets

The Italian Renaissance witnessed the flourishing of poetry, with luminaries like Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio contributing to the development of humanist thought and literature. The Renaissance also gave rise to epic poems like Ludovico Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" and Torquato Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered."

Modern and Contemporary Italian Poetry

In the modern era, Italian poetry continued to evolve, with poets like Giuseppe Ungaretti, Eugenio Montale, and Salvatore Quasimodo experimenting with language and form. Their works explored themes of disillusionment, war, and existentialism. Contemporary Italian poetry is characterized by a diverse range of voices and styles. Poets like Sandro Penna, Alda Merini, and Valerio Magrelli have contributed to the vibrant landscape of Italian poetry, addressing topics such as identity, memory, and social issues.

The Influence of Italian Poetry on World Literature

Italian poetry has left an indelible mark on world literature. The Petrarchan sonnet, for example, served as a model for poets like William Shakespeare and influenced the development of English poetry. Dante's "Divine Comedy" has been translated into numerous languages and remains a seminal work in global literary history. Italian poetry, with its exploration of love, spirituality, and the human experience, continues to inspire readers and poets alike. It is a testament to the enduring power of language and the capacity of poetry to capture the essence of the human soul.

Who Are Some Iconic Figures in Italian Poetry?

Iconic figures in Italian poetry include Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, and Francesco Petrarch. Their contributions to the world of literature have been profound and enduring. To learn more about these poets, visit poetryfoundation.org.

What Are the Key Themes Explored in Italian Poetry?

Italian poetry has explored themes such as love, spirituality, human emotions, chivalry, and the human condition. These themes are richly depicted in various works throughout Italian literary history. To delve into these themes, visit britannica.com.

How Did the Troubadours Influence Italian Poetry?

The troubadours played a pivotal role in the development of Italian poetry by composing verses in the vernacular language, breaking away from the dominance of Latin in medieval literature. For more information on the troubadours and their influence, visit encyclopedia.com.

What Is the "Divine Comedy," and Why Is It Significant?

Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" is an epic poem that narrates the poet's journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. It is considered one of the most significant works in world literature, exploring themes of morality, theology, and the human experience. To explore the "Divine Comedy," visit divinecomedy.org.

How Did Petrarch Contribute to the Evolution of Poetry?

Francesco Petrarch's Petrarchan sonnets greatly influenced European poetry and the development of the sonnet form. His works focused on themes of unrequited love, beauty, and the passage of time. For more on Petrarch's contributions, visit poetryfoundation.org.

What Was the "Dolce Stil Novo," and Who Were Its Prominent Poets?

The "Dolce Stil Novo" was a literary movement emphasizing refined and emotionally expressive writing. Guido Cavalcanti and Guido Guinizzelli were central figures in this movement, with their works exploring themes of love, beauty, and human emotion. To learn more about the "Dolce Stil Novo," visit britannica.com. Read more about italian poetry Looking for the place where this picture was taken? Comment on our instagram and we will reply. Read the full article