#she is inspired from the Roma people and culture

[mariacallous]

Lithuania’s Jews and Yiddishists around the world are mourning the passing of Fania Brantsovsky, the last surviving member of the Jewish underground in the Vilna ghetto and a keeper of the flame of the city’s once glorious Yiddish past, who died at the age of 102 on Sunday in Vilnius.

Brantsovsky escaped the ghetto in 1942 and fought against the Nazis and their local collaborators in the Rudninkai forest with a group of Jewish partisans under the command of Abba Kovner. 

In the years after the war, she became a lifelong advocate for the memory of Lithuanian Jewry and their Yiddish language, serving as the librarian and beloved teacher at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute and an ambassador to visitors she brought to view the landmarks, many vanished, of a city that had once been known as the “Jerusalem of Europe” for its rich Jewish culture. 

It was a role that brought her world-wide acclaim and eventually local hostility, when Lithuanian nationalists began to equate her Soviet liberators with the Nazis, and tried to discredit partisans like her who had once considered the Russians their allies.

For all these roles, Brantsovsky was hailed by Yiddishists around the world who consider her death the end of an era.

“She lived so long that she came from a completely different universe than ours, like out of a history book,” Alec “Leyzer” Burko, a Warsaw-based Yiddish teacher, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“We’ve lost the last exemplar of interwar Yiddish Vilna, someone who could impart the spirit of the Yiddishist movement of interwar Vilna and its secular circles. We lost our last active veteran of the Vilna ghetto and the Jewish partisans,” said Dovid Katz, an American-born Yiddishist and co-founder of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute.

“And on a personal level,” he added, “we’ve lost a dear friend whose warmth, enthusiasm, encouragement, and desire to help, show and teach was a huge inspiration.”

Brantsovsky was born Feige Jocheles in 1922, in the then-Lithuanian capital of Kaunas but her family moved to Vilnius, then a part of Poland, when she was just five years old. 

As a young girl, she was active in the rich Jewish life of Vilnius. At the time, Vilnius was home to more than 60,000 Jews and boasted over 100 synagogues, the largest of which had seating for more than 2,000. With a Jewish community that had been flourishing when Napoleon passed through the city in the 18th century, Vilnius was more than just a religious center. It was home to a rich cultural and political scene, all in the Yiddish language. 

While she hailed from a secular family, which Brantsovsky noted kept neither kosher nor Shabbat, she completed her entire traditional education in Yiddish-speaking schools, and as a teenager was active in Jewish political youth movements

That world was shattered in 1941, when Vilnius fell under the control of the Germans and Brantsovsky, along with Vilnius’s tens of thousands of other Jews, were herded into the cramped conditions of the Vilna ghetto. 

From the first days of the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, they began taking Jews from Vilnius to be killed in the nearby Ponar forest. Over 100,000 people would be killed there, including 70,000 Lithuanian Jews and 8,000 Roma, making it the second-largest mass grave in Europe after Babyn Yar in Ukraine.  

“Our life was more of existence, really,” Brantsovsky once described the ghetto in an interview with Centropa, a European Holocaust memorial organization. Every day was a struggle for survival, and one slip-up or turn of fate could mean starvation, or deportation to Ponar.

Brantsovsky recalled hearing of a resistance movement forming in the ghetto and quickly requested to join. 

“The underground organization of the ghetto united all parties and trends such as communists, revisionists, Bund etc. Their common goal was to fight against fascists,” she told Centropa. 

That group would be remembered as the United Partizan Organization, or by its Yiddish initials, FPO. 

The FPO had considered instigating an uprising in the ghetto, as would later take place in Warsaw. After the capture and execution of it’s leader Yitzhak Wittenberg by the Gestapo, the movement’s leadership decided instead to take its fighters out of the ghetto and into the nearby forests where Soviet-backed partisans were harrying the rear and supply lines of the German army. 

Brantsovsky bid farewell to her family and was smuggled out of the ghetto on Sept. 23, 1943. She would later learn that on the same night, the Germans began their final liquidation of the ghetto, killing most of its inhabitants. None of her family would survive the Holocaust.

In the Rudninkai forest, which has been immortalized in partisan literature under its Yiddish name, Der Rudnitzker Vald, she joined up with a partisan unit composed of Jews under the command of Abba Kovner, known as the Nokmim or Avengers.  

In the forest she trained with weapons and explosives and took part in military operations against the Nazi occupation. 

“We blasted trains and placed explosives in the enemy’s equipment. We shot and killed them,” she told Centropa. “Yes, I did, I killed them and did so with ease. I knew that my dear ones were dead and I took my revenge for them and thousands of others with each and every shot.”

In the forest, she also met her future husband Mikhail Brantsovsky. Nearly a year after fleeing the ghetto, Fania returned, rifle in hand, as the Soviet Red Army captured the city. 

Less than a month after returning she and Mikhail married. 

“We were intoxicated by the victory, our youth and love,” she recalled. 

After the war, her commander Abba Kovner would gain fame as one of Israel’s poet laureates, and infamy for an aborted plot to kill 6 million Germans in vengeance for the Holocaust. 

Brantsovsky took part in none of that: She stayed in Vilnius where she and Mikhail built a life together and had two children. 

In the years after the war, it quickly became clear to Brantsovsky that the world of her youth had been lost. 

“There were hardly any Jews left in Vilnius. When I saw older Jews, or they looked old to me considering how young I was, I felt like kneeling before them to kiss their hands.” she once recalled. 

Fania quickly went to work, helping to document what had been lost, and assisted Soviet Jewish writers Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman in the “Black Book of Soviet Jewry,” a 500-page document that recorded the Nazis’ crimes in the occupied regions of the Soviet Union. 

While it was first published in the USSR by Der Emes, the Yiddish-language arm of Pravda, the book would later be suppressed as the Soviet policy towards the Holocaust shifted to present the genocide as solely an atrocity against Soviet citizens, not one that specifically targeted Jews.  

Though Mikhail and Fania had been present and honored in Moscow’s Red Square during the victory parades of 1945, their enthusiasm towards the Soviet regime dulled after experiencing the antisemitism of Stalin’s later years. 

Mikhail passed away in 1985, and Fania retired from her job as a teacher in 1990 just before Lithuania gained its independence. 

In retirement, Fania found a new purpose: In an independent Lithuania, there was renewed interest in recording Vilnius’s Jewish past and studying the Yiddish language of its Jews. 

In the early 1990s, Fania and a group of other survivors, including another former partisan, Rachel Margolis, worked to establish a Holocaust museum in Vilnius known as the Green House. 

In 2001, Katz, a professor of Yiddish who had previously worked at Oxford, relocated to Vilnius and established a Yiddish institute at Vilnius University. 

“When I founded the Vilnius Yiddish Institute in 2001 my first executive act was to hire Fania as librarian and that choice was a success from day one,” Katz told JTA.

Fania, who worked as a teacher much of her adult life, originally trained to do so in Yiddish for students in the city’s Jewish school system. The Nazis shattered that future, but decades later, the Vilnius Yiddish Institute represented a return to her roots. 

“She understood that she was the carrier of so much of the living Yiddish culture of the interwar period, especially its secular Yiddishist incarnation,” Katz explained.  

The Institute lasted for 17 years, until it ultimately closed down in 2018. Every year it ran a summer program attended by students from around the world, and Fania became a fixture of the experience, telling students about the city of her youth, the experience of the ghetto and bringing them out to the remains of her partisan camp in the Rudninkai forest well into her nineties. 

She is remembered fondly by nearly everyone who passed through.

“I feel really blessed to have had an opportunity to work with her,” Indre Joffyte, who helped run the program, told JTA. “Fania’s energy, determination and passion in everything she did was an inspiration to everyone around her. I will always remember her caring nature, our girly conversations, her preparedness to help, and her inner youth despite her age and tragic life experiences.”

In independent Lithuania, Fania became a prominent figure in its Jewish community as well as in diplomatic circles, guiding visiting leaders on tours of the former ghetto and Ponar where so many of her relatives were killed.

But the increased attention also invited trouble. 

In the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, a nationalist narrative arose in the Baltic states that equated the actions of the Soviets with the Nazis.  

Known as the “double genocide” theory, it has been largely rejected by Jewish and western Holocaust institutions, but has become the standard presented in Lithuania and the other Baltic states. 

It resulted in a smear campaign directed against Brantsovsky and other surviving Jewish partisans, such as Margolis and Yitzhak Arad who was the director of Yad Vashem from 1972 to 1993. 

For fighting in units allied with the Soviets, they were accused of being war criminals on the same level as Lithuanians who collaborated with the Nazis. 

“I agree completely with all the anti-Communist pronouncements. What I disagree with is, of course, the equalization of the people who committed the genocide at Auschwitz and the people who liberated Auschwitz. They’re simply not the same.” said Katz.  “As much as one should hate the Stalinist Soviet Union between 1941 and 1945, we were in the American-Anglo-Soviet alliance, and the Soviet Union was the only force fighting Hitler in Eastern Europe. So of course, Fania’s partisan union was aligned with the Soviet partisans in the forest who were fighting.”

For Brantsovsky, the issue came to head in 2008, when Lithuania’s chief prosecutor publicly demanded that she be questioned over her alleged connections to a massacre of Lithuanian civilians during the war. 

Katz believes that the demand was in retaliation for increased pressure from the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other Jewish institutions for Lithuania to investigate its own wartime collaborators.

The charges were dropped that same year, but the incident had a notable effect on Brantsovsky, resulting in her receding somewhat from public life in Lithuania. 

She didn’t stop teaching Yiddish, however, and was active in working with students and guiding tours until her 99th year, when she had a fall on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With her passing, another thread connecting Eastern Europe’s Jewish past and rich Yiddish culture has been severed. 

“She was one of the last witnesses of prewar Jewish life in Vilna, a proud graduate of its Yiddish school system where everything from chemistry to Latin and Shakespeare was studied in the Jewish community’s native language,” Jordan Kutzik, a former deputy Yiddish editor at The Forward, said in a memorial post on Facebook.

“After nearly her entire family and cultural milieu were murdered and then her native language suppressed for 50 years, she wasn’t wasting any time in helping to document her city’s history and encouraging others to explore it.”

[avcnturine]

I’ve seen a number of theories about Aventurine’s eyes, how they’re viewed within the Avgin culture and how they’re viewed by outsiders, what they symbolism, their powers, etc., so I want to hear your headcanons 👀

〈　　　from　　∶　　　　𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐀 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐌𝐈𝐂　/　🇦​🇨​🇨​🇪​🇵​🇹​🇮​🇳​🇬​　　〉

ooooo!! granted, i don't know what others have been saying myself, so apologies if my headcanons aren't quite up to their theories

how they're viewed within the avgin culture,

note to myself here to talk at some later date about avgin cultural history and origins because looking at the flashback scenes gave me some more thoughts. anyway!

brightly-colored, multi-toned eyes are seen as a good omen, specifically that the child is a gift from fenge biyos herself. for the life of me, i'm almost sure i remember there being a line either from his mother or his sister or his younger self in one of the flashbacks about how aventurine's eyes are a sign of gaiathra triclops' blessing, but i can't find it rn!!!!!! anyway, the association comes from their veneration of the aurora, which is believed to be the embodiment of fenge biyos' divine essence when she leaves behind her body to ascend for the rebirth of kakava. because the avgins' signature brightly-colored eyes mirror the hues and vibrancy of this aurora, it's believed that these children are in essence "fragments" of fenge biyos' divinity brought down and shared among the people as sources of blessing and good fortune. there's more i could say here about the embodiment of fenge biyos' divinity here ( as in divinity made bodily ) given the avgins' beliefs that sigonia itself is shaped from the goddess' body. so there's definitely a common thread that runs through the avgin belief system here. anyway, in particular, blessed children like these are seen as a kind of deliverance for the avgin people from their reality of suffering. there's a clear collectivistic value system and sense of community duty that comes with it. this is, i would argue, where aventurine's own view on fate and how good fortune can be used to combat it, stems from. from the scene where kakavasha returns the stolen necklace to his sister:

???: Pain and poverty are the trials of Gaiathra Triclops. SHE has also granted us a chance, and that's your good luck, Kakavasha. Your good luck is the most precious wealth that we — and all avgins — have. ???: You're a child blessed by Gaiathra Triclops and can lead the clan to happiness.

not every avgin has them. the sigonia planar ornament, as well as numerous other characters' reactions to aventurine, indicates that the "sigonian eyes" are a well-known phenotypical stereotype. but given that they seem to so far broadly associate the eyes with sigonia even though the avgin is only one of its numerous tribal groups, i'm willing to believe that the distinctive eyes themselves are a case of generalization also. there are plenty of sigonians, and avgins, who have gone unrecognized by the larger galaxy due to not possessing them. 　

the exact colors and hues vary. aventurine's are distinctively a sharp sky blue and bright lilac, but there have been other variations of different colors, shades, and combinations. the lighter and more vibrant ( thus closer to the aurora ), the luckier the child is considered to be. notably, no two individuals with the exact same colors have existed at the same time, something that's only deepened the avgins' beliefs.

how they're viewed by outsiders,

aside from the established indication of stereotype,

superstition. some other buried text that i can't remember right this second, as well as sunday's question to aventurine during the interrogation of whether "the avgins have any ability to read, tamper with, or manipulation one's own or another's mind", tell us that the rumor or urban legend that this may be the case is fairly commonplace. it's pretty clear that hoyo takes some inspiration here from how the roma people are similarly perceived and distrusted. 　

jealousy and envy. the description for "sigonia: the unclaimed desolation" also tells us that the avgins frequently draw "jealousy and ire" from others due to their naturally attractive features, beautiful eyes, and inborn ease of social maneuvering. the interaction of these two faces ( the superstition / distrust and the envy ) can be seen whenever aventurine's defining features are brought up — his eyes are almost always called " beautiful " by others ( such as by sparkle ) in the same breath that they and what they represent are also disparaged. we also see this in of course his former slavemaster, who valued him in part for his beauty while also treating him like dirt. though in this case the direct correlation to aventurine being avgin isn't present, we still see that same dichotomy. 　

so do those eyes have powers? most likely not. ( i say most likely because frankly, the cutscene where he accosts the trailblazer like hella aggro plays up specifically the force of his gaze super super intensely, with his eyes clearly being the locus of the intimidation going on there. so i wouldn't be entirely surprised if hoyo was trying to imply that there is "some" sort of pseudo-hypnotic / psychic thing he can pull out. idk. ) 　 ultimately though i land on no. the reason for this, even despite said cutscene, is because i think aventurine understands the power of suggestion very, very well — and knows that if everyone already sort of buys into the idea that avgin eyes have the ability to bend their minds, then it's already most of the way there to being true. it's basically placebo effect in reverse. i think this is actually why the cutscene is the way it is, and why the game doesn't give us any other clear answer otherwise — it's essentially putting this same "is there, isn't there?" question in the player's mind that the characters in-game themselves have. 　 the knowledge of this power of suggestion is why aventurine doesn't oppose or correct any of the avgin stereotypes others have about him, instead actively playing into them and using them to benefit himself. the sunglasses are not to hide his eyes; they're there to enhance them. he knows that with sunglasses that flashy, the eyes are where most people are going to look first on his face. so he leans into that, and when he takes them off, it only brings out his eyes even more. if people who are confronted by them then think they might be getting psychic'd, and are then jumping through hoops in their own minds and psyching themselves out, then they're doing half the work for him. and at that point, isn't the rumor then just kind of true?

[romajuliettemai]

Chloe Gong Character's Names + Their Meaning

We all know Chloe picked the names based off Shakespeare- but it's also possible she picked them based off what they meant.

Here is a list of names and their meaning!

(Some of these definitions were picked that best suited the characters/ were taken out of a much larger definition. Also these defintions are taken from several different cultures/origins/ countries, so the meanings may vary.)

___________________________________________

Secret Shanghai Series

Rosalind - Literally translates to "gentle horse", meaning a balance between elegance and strength.

Orion - Beyond the Greek Hunter translation (which is most likely where the code name 'Hunstman' came from) and the meaning 'Great Hunter' is derived from, more meanings are the celestial 'Rising in the Sky', 'Dawning' and 'Shining Star'. This is most likely from the constellation as well. The name in general means warrior, strength, bravery as well as a connection to the sky.

Celia - "Heavenly" (hold significance as a character from As You Like It obviously), An ideal hero: witty, fearless, independant and extraordinary- destined for great things. (Shakespeare introduced the name to the English language and giving it the definition it has today.)

WIKIPEDIA SAID BLIND FOR SOME REASON LMFAO

Oliver - "Ancestor's descendants". "olive", "olive tree" - associated with "olive tree" in peace, dignity, fruitfulness and beauty.

Phoebe - Bright or radiant- refers to the greek god of the sun, Phoebus Apollo

Silas - "Forest" or "woods", great love of the outdoors- the name inspires the image of "a daring explorer unfazed by the depths of the darkest woodland."

Roma - I am not even joking, this can translate to "One with shiny hair"- However it also can also relate to "wealth" & "prosperity"

Also a type of tomato, but, yk, that's not really a name definition

Juliette - "Youthful", a person with this name can be described that "they love their life and have eternal spirit." "shiny, sky" another definition is "downy" meaning soft/ fluffy or also "covered with fine soft hair or feathers" for some reason.

Benedikt - "Blessed" or "the blessed one." as well as "well spoken."

Marshall - "Caretaker of horses." Literally not even kidding. If read into more it can be seen as "animal lover."

Katherina - "Pure" with connotations of "tradition, beauty, and excellence." In the Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare, Katherina is depicted as fiery and spirited in contrast with the meaning of the name.

Alisa - "Great happiness" and "joy." It can also mean "noble" and "kind." The name suggests that "you give up what you want so other people can have what they need."

Lourens - Derived from the Latin word "laurentum" meaning wreathed/ crowned with laurel. The name signifies "a freedom-loving and free-spirited individual."

Surnames

Hong - In the mandarin dialect, the name translates to "rainbow", "enlarge", "great", and "expand." It can also mean "water" and "flood."

Here's a funny little story I found on it-

"Legend has it that Hong as a surname dates back to the 23rd-century b.c. to a group known as the Gonggongshi. The clan took Gong as a surname but changed the character by adding a water component to escape their enemies. Gong converted to Hong, and, thus, a new name was born."

(TheBump Baby Names - https://www.thebump.com/b/hong-baby-name)

Lang - "A passionate person with a fighting spirit" as well as "tall." It could also mean "flame."

Mai - "To sell", "to betray", "to spare no effort", and "to show off or flaunt." It could also mean "dance."

Montagov - I found absolutely nothing on this name or even 'Montagova' as it is the female version.

The closest I could find was 'Montague,' (picked especially from Shakespeare) literally meaning "pointed hill."

Cai - The name originally refers to "the tortoise used in ancient rituals of divination" in Chinese. It also means "rejoice", "happy," or "feminine." "Pure" is another defintion.

Seo - "Slowly" and "gently."

Wu - "Martial", "military", or "martial arts." It can also mean "affairs business", as well as "shaman" or "sorcerer."

Van Dijk - meaning "from (the) dike."- it's a "topographic name for someone who lived by one of the many thousands of dikes in the Netherlands."

FLESH AND FALSE GODS

Calla - "Beauty". The calla lily flower actually embodies "life, fertility, and purity."

Anton - "Priceless" or "praiseworthy." It can also mean "flower."

August - "To increase" and "great." It's derived from the name Augustus, meaning "exalted" - "(of a person or their rank or status) placed at a high or powerful level; held in high regard." and "venerable" - "accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom, or character."

Galipei - There is absolutely nothing on this name.

The closest I could find was the name 'Galilei', which is the surname of Galileo, so it relates to being astronomical.

SURNAMES

Tuoleimi - There is absolutely nothing on this name either.

I used 'Ptolemy' since that was where this name was derived from. It means "agressive" or "warlike."

Makusa - This name can mean "truth, reality, and genuine" as well as "pure."

Shenzi - Literally means "savage" or "barbarian."

Weisanna - I could also find nothing on this.

The closest I found was 'Weissanna', meaning "sacrifice", "innovative", and "powerful."

Author

Chloe - "Blooming" or "fertility", the literal translation refers to "young shoots of foliage that appear in the spring."

Surname

Gong - "Royal palace" in Chinese. The Mandarin form of the surname means "showing respect for elders or guests." There are many other meanings, but the surname is laden with many events in Chinese history.

___________________________________________

I hope you all enjoyed this post! I know I haven't posted in a while but this one's been in the drafts for a good few days and I figured I'd finish it and post it. Let me know if you manage to find any more meanings to these that you think I should add. What connections can you make between these definitions and the characters?

[thevisibilityarchives]

Roma (2018), Alfonso Cuarón

BIPOC

Summary: Returning for his first film since 2013’s Gravity, famed director Alfonso Cuarón transports viewers to the hustle and bustle of Mexico City where a young housekeeper named Cleo, experiences the joy, pleasure, and pain of that which we call life in this heartfelt drama. 

Full review: As the screen fills with soapy water, lapping in waves across a floor, the bubbling suds set the stage for a film that finds its heart within the theme of cleansing; emotional baptism and renewal, the cleansing of a soul laid bare and its pain washed away. 

It’s been nearly 10 years since director Alfonso Cuarón last swept audiences away with Gravity, the sci-fi thriller featuring Sandra Bullock that joined Cuarón’s diverse filmography, a small but mighty collection of films speak to a man who will not be pigeonholed into the confines of any one stereotype, culture, genre, or style. 

With his latest entry Roma, Cuarón returns to his Latino roots, this time drawing upon personal inspiration to bring to life what feels like the embodiment of a living memory. 

Set in 1970s Mexico City, Cleo, a live-in housekeeper for a moderately wealthy family, becomes the center of our cinematic universe for the duration of the film. Her days working for the family are a churn of unending routine, cleaning and caring for a group of raucous children.

 Endlessly she cycles through the same tasks with no determinable goal in mind; no lofty dreams of greener pastures or constant periods of yearning. Her needs are provided for: home and hearth, a surprising amount of love and warmth granted to her by the family she cares for themselves. There is a degree of enviable simplicity in Cleo’s life, a minimalism lost two generations past to growing decades of consumerism, in which to simply have all we need is not enough in the Western world. 

For viewers in North and parts of South America and the Caribbean, it may be difficult to picture the idea of a live-in housekeeper without the connotations of the centuries during the slave trade bearing down upon the mind, and an ever-present barrier exists between Cleo and her employers, Sofía, Antonio, and their children.  Cleo is young and dark-skinned, possessing Indigenous-Latino features as she speaks Mixtec among her fellow housekeepers, in juxtaposition to her employers Sofía, Antonio, and their children, all light-skinned Hispanic Latinos. 

Yet the lines are blurred between class and creed, employer and friend, family and servant in ways that are inherent in such a dynamic, and Cuarón approaches them with boundless empathy, filling the screen with what ultimately comes to feel like a family drama. Family here is exemplified in its deepest sense:  the connections that bind us, extending beyond the boundaries of flesh and blood, offering a family photo album of Cleo and those who surround her in picturesque black and white tones. 

The course of life for Cleo, Sofía, and the rest of the family changes when they each face unexpected events in their lives. For Cleo, it is a heart-rending pregnancy by the first and only man she has intimately known. For Sofía, it is the discovery that Antonio is having an affair and no longer intends to financially support the family. 

What we expect to become yet another tale of woe beyond the border, reinforcing the plight of people of color in poverty,  instead plays out with the ideal amount of humanism and realism necessary for the film to captivate in the ways it does. Joy can be found in the depths of despair, and whether intentionally or not, Cuarón cultivates a character who exemplifies both the burden and successes of Second Wave and Intersectional Feminism. 

Roma can be streamed on Netflix. In light of the removal of content recently from streaming sites like HBO Max and Netflix, consider buying a physical copy as well if you enjoy the film which can be found at big box stores like Target and Best Buy. 

Citations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixtec_language

Note:

For the purposes of this blog, Latino* is used universally as a gender-neutral infinitive to respect both nonbinary individuals as well as native Spanish-speakers. 

[bamf-jaskier]

Why I enjoy the parallel between Yennefer and the Striga's transformation

I think Yennefer's transformation is best viewed through the understanding that women of color have historically been subjects of forced sterilization.

From Lennard in 2020 -- Eugenics programs directed at decimating the lives of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, particularly poor and immigrant communities, as well as people with disabilities, were an explicit part of U.S. policy in the 20th century...Tens of thousands of forced sterilizations were carried out nationwide last century. California’s so-called Asexualization Acts, which led to 20,000 men and women losing reproductive capacity, were a direct inspiration to Nazi eugenicists. “There is today one state,” Adolf Hitler wrote, “in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of citizenship] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States.”

From Patel in 2017 -- Coerced and forced sterilizations have often been justified by medical personnel as necessary for public health. For instance, in the early 20th century, medical personnel argued that forced and coerced sterilizations were needed to address hereditary and genetic defects. In the late 20th century, forced and coerced sterilizations were considered necessary to address overpopulation. In the 1990s, forced and coerced sterilizations were carried out in Peru as part of a discriminatory public health program.

More recently, forced and coerced sterilizations of Roma women has been justified by medical personnel as necessary for their own medical benefit.

We have to understand that for Yennefer, being part-elven means she is a part of this targeted class of people. She literally gets booted from Aedirn due to her being Elven and beyond that Yennefer is played by a woc which is also adding in these overtures.

There were often 3 main ways in which consent was not obtained when these women were forcibly sterilized. The consent was obtained under duress, the consent is invalid because the woman did not have full and accurate information and finally consent was simply not obtained.

In my mind, the first two largely seem to apply to Yennefer. The consent was obtained under duress, she thought this was her last chance at becoming a mage, and realistically it was, and she also did not have full information on what would happen until the procedure was already occurring.

Giltine when he first meets Yen in episode 3 says, "You are a...first draft of what nature intended yes?"and it comes across as just another way of saying that she does not fit into their dominant culture and therefore is lesser for it. It comes off as almost micro-aggressive. Oftentimes, people will claim a certain cultural style is more progressive or better just because it came later and treat the original version as if it is inherently diminished. We saw this a lot in Residential Schools where native folk would be told to cut their hair, speak, and dress a certain way.

Tissaia further puts this idea forward when she asks Yennefer to look into the mirror and close her eyes. She makes special focus on Yennefer's eyes and posture, trying to again purpose this idea that Yennefer is "wrong" but Yennefer never says she wants to be "beautiful" in fact she outright rejects it but she does constantly state that she wants to be powerful. And she is manipulated into believing that that beauty is a source of power by just about every figure in her life from Tissaia to Giltine to Istredd to every girl at Aretuza.

This gets to why I like the parallel between Yennefer's Transformation and the Striga fight so much. Because at the end of the day, Yennefer's transformation is a tragedy. It's something she was forced into and pushed into and they show her in absolute agony. She was not told the full extent of what she would suffer and has been pushed to this point. Technically she consented but it was in word only. In the same way, the Striga's story is also a tragedy. A girl's life cut short before she could ever life it, abandoned to a castle as monster, hidden away.

Both of these woman were seen as "monsters" before this transformative scene in their life. the princess was a literal monster as a Striga who ate people while Yennefer was seen as a societal monster as the "other". For both of them, their transformations were supposed to fix their "monstrousness".

Yennefer's transformation is supposed to strip her of her flaws and make her powerful and beautiful but in practice it makes her exposed and in pain and suffering. With the Striga, the transformation should be simple --- keep her out of her crypt until sunrise but once again this transformation is full of pain and suffering.

And then --- once the transformation is complete and both women are huddled on the floor, panting and covered in blood -- their problems are not solved. Obviously the visuals for both are meant to parallel a birth. Because for both of them this transformation is a rebirth. But as Yennefer soon finds out, court is a glamorous lie and her job is to help murderers and rapists keep a throne. The Princess is unable to talk, to communicate, and the injury that hurts Geralt the most is one she gives him while in human form. The form that is the supposed to be "beautiful" "transformed" and "cured" is the one that gravely injures Geralt.

Their "rebirth" is not the salvation they might have assumed.

Basically for me it comes down to how compelling I find the parallel between the two situations. Two women forced into a situation, into a transformation that doesn't solve their problems but only creates new ones. A rebirth that feels more like a nightmare.

[scarlet--wiccan]

open letter to Marvel's X-Men office

To whom it may concern,

I'm a longtime reader of Marvel comics and a weekly buyer with subscriptions and pull lists at my local comic store. I'm also an American of Romani descent who has spent years researching and writing about the function of pop culture in the systemic racism that my people endure. Much could be said about the record of Romani characters in superhero comics, particularly the Scarlet Witch, but I'm writing today to raise concerns about the character's throughline in the current X-Men era, which has come to a head with her apparent murder in X-Factor #10, written by Leah Williams. First, however, I would like to address the racial and sexual violence visited upon the character Prodigy, as depicted by Williams, who is a white author, and the history of racist microagressions and the objectification that many readers have observed in Williams' past work. In X-Factor #10, Prodigy, a Black bisexual, is shown to have been sexually assaulted and murdered by a predator who specifically targets Black bi and gay men. Prodigy's assault and death transpired while he was dressed in a drag-inspired look, an arbitrary decision which served only to further sensationalize the homophobic violence. This plotline was abrupt and underdeveloped, and leaped without warning into imagery that many Black and LGBT readers found traumatizing. This was not an authentic or meaningful exploration of Black and queer experiences-- rather it was an exploitation and objectification of the violence done to Black and queer bodies. Coming from a white writer, this is wholly inappropriate. Leah Williams being bisexual herself does not excuse that. I am particularly disturbed by the implementation of pro-police messaging, via white character Aurora, after we have all spent the last year protesting police violence against Black lives. At worst, this is tone deaf, but I, and many other readers of color, found it to be egregiously offensive. Readers of color, particularly East Asian readers, have long been wary of Williams and her treatment of non-white characters. The repeated and disturbing objectification of East Asian women in her series X-Tremists struck a serious nerve, particularly with Williams' original character, Nezumi, who seemed redolent of racist WWII-era propaganda conflating Japanese people with rats. Her over-sexed and racially tokenized treatment of Akihiro in X-Factor has also put readers on edge, although many bit their tongue and endeavored to support her new book on account of its numerous LGBT characters and plotlines. Unfortunately, it seems as though that tentative faith was misplaced, and we must reiterate that LGBT representation does not outweigh violent racism. The Scarlet Witch is a complex character with an ever-changing history. The most formative and consistent element of her origin, however, is that she was born to a Romani mother, and raised by a migrant, working class Romani family who faced racial discrimination and violent hate crimes. For context, the Romani people are a South Asian diaspora who are racialized in European society, and have endured systemic oppression ever since our arrival in the West, including an attempted genocide during the Nazi regime. Although Wanda is no stranger to taking a dark turn, the Decimation plot stands out as a uniquely damaging and harmful case of character asassination. You can imagine how the identity politics and acts of violence which were projected onto the character are offensive given her personal history, and the real-life history that she represents. For years, the vitriol and anger that were directed towards Wanda within this narrative, boosted by blatantly ableist tropes, shaped the way that readers and writers alike perceived her. That negative perception encouraged audiences to espouse hateful sentiments about Wanda without forming clear thoughts about their racist implications, or making any effort to better their understanding of Romani people and our needs regarding popular culture. The current era of X-Men comics has revisited the Decimation several times, but I fear that

they have done nothing to counteract the harmful messaging that was attached to Wanda during that time, and have only doubled down on her troubling political position in the mutant world. I shouldn't have to explain this, but characterizing a Romani woman as an interloper, and a bogeyman figure that Krakoans invoke to engender nationalism, directly parallels the racist propaganda that is used to subjugate real-life Romani people throughout Europe. Year after year, Roma communities face forced eviction, deportation, and property laws designed to weed out migrant travellers, while our lives are often endangered by violent hate. Earlier this month, on 19 June, 2021, a Romani man in Teplice, Czech Republic, was murdered in an act of police brutality, and the Czech state has refused to launch an investigation or deliver any sort of justice on behalf of his family. We have spent the last two weeks protesting for Roma lives. To be honest, witnessing Roma death on-page, particularly in the heartbreaking scene where Wanda's own son discovers her body, triggered a lot of the distress and emotional trauma that I've been carrying since the Teplice incident. Of course, the timing of it couldn't be helped, but I fear that Williams will continue to exploit our trauma and our pain in her upcoming series, Trial of Magneto, which promises to revolve around Wanda's death and Magneto's reaction. Given Williams' history, and her choices in this most recent issue, I simply have no faith, only grave misgivings. Leah Williams is a white woman who continues to profit from the exploitation racial trauma and stereotyping, and Marvel cannot claim to be inclusive while enabling her behavior. As readers, we feel we must demand her removal from upcoming and future Marvel projects. We cannot in good conscience support and continue to give money to the X-Men franchise with such creators at the fore. In general, Marvel needs to take a good hard look at how it employs. This won't be a solution to the company's ingrained problems, but removing Leah Williams would be a constructive place to start.

[certain cues have been taken from other readers who have posted and shared their messages to the X-Men office. Please feel free to borrow and modify any aspect of this letter, barring, of course, the passages regarding my own identity. This message has been sent to officex@marvel.com]

[yukinojou]

I already squeed quite a bit on Twitter, but turns out my Shadow and Bone thoughts demand longform. So that was a 40+ tweet thread or using my Tumblr for an original post for once.

I was wary about the Shadow and Bone adaptation the way I'm usually wary about good books being adapted onscreen. It was amplified because my actual favourites are the Six of Crows books, and because the American-based movie complex has a bad track record of doing anything based on Eastern Europe. 8 episodes in 3 days should tell you how much I loved it - the moment I finished, I wanted more.

First, the technical praise:

Damn but the plotting is tight. It took me a while to realised it's based on heist movie bones, where every little thing (The Freaking Bullet!) is important. The story fulfills its promises and manages not to bore at the same time - it delights by the way they're fulfilled. I called out a few plot developments moments before they happened, and I was happy about it. Such a joy after so many series where "not doing what viewers expect" led to plot holes and lack of sense. It might be an upside to the streaming model after all.

From a dramatic point of view I can tell all the reasons for all the changes, especially providing additional outsider points of view on Ravka (Crows) and letting viewers see Mal for themselves the way he only comes across in later books.

Speaking of which, this is a masterclass in rewriting a story draft. SaB was Bardugo's first, and having read later books you can really see where she didn't quite dare to break the YA rules yet, especially Single POV that necessitated a tight focus on Alina's often negative feelings rather than the big picture and a triangle that felt a bit forced. The world in the series is so much bigger, the way Bardugo could finally paint it when SaB success gave her more creative freedom, and some structural choices feel familiar too. It's a combination of various choices by crew and cast, but the end result meshes together so tightly and naturally.

Visuals! Especially the war parts because Every Soviet Movie Ever, but also the clothes (I would kill for Nina's blouse in the bar), the jewelry, the interiors. The stag was so very beautiful. And a deep commitment to a coherent aesthetic for each character and setting.

Look, you can do a serious fantasy series with colours! Both skin colours and bright sets and clothing! And all scenes were well lit enough to know what's going on, even in the Fold!

Representation (aka I Am Emotion)

To start with: I was born behind the Iron Curtain, in the last years of the Cold War. The Curtain was always permeable to some extent, and we have always been aware that while we have talented artists of our own, we never had the budgets and polish of the Anglosphere Entertainment Machine. So we watched a hell of a lot of American visual storytelling especially because yeah, you can tell we don't have the budgets. 90s and 2000s especially, it's getting better now.

In American stories, the BEST case scenario for Eastern European representation is the Big Dumb Pole, the ethnic stereotype Americans don't even notice they use, where the punchline is that his English is bad or that he grew up outside Anglo culture. Other than that, it's criminals, beggars, sex trafficking victims, refugees. Sure, we may look similar (except we really really don't, not if you're raised here and see the distinct lack of all those long-jawed Anglo faces), but we are not and have never been the West, never mind America. It's probably better for younger people now, but I was raised under rationing and passport bans. Star Trek and Beverly Hills 90210 were exactly as foreign to me.

The first ever character I really identified with was Susan Ivanova in Babylon 5 (written by J. Michael Straczynski, yay behind-camera representation). This was a Russian Jewish woman very much in charge, in the way of strong women I know so well, not taking any bullshit, not repressing her feminity. I recognised her bones, she could be my cousin. The sheer relief of it. There have been few such occasions since.

The reason I picked up Shadow and Bone in the first place was recommendations from other Polish people. I've had no problems finding representation in Eastern European books because wow our scene is strong in SFF especially, but it's always a treat to find a book in English that gets it. And Leigh gets it, the bones of our culture, and I could even look past the grammar issue (dear gods and Americans, Starkova for a woman, Morozov for a guy) that really irked me because of the love for the setting and the characters, the weaving in of religion/mysticism (we never laicisized the same way as the West, natch), the understanding of how deep are the scars left in a nation at war for centuries. The books are precious to me, they and Arden's Winternight and Novik's Spinning Silver.

To sum up: Shadow and Bone the Netflix series gets it. You can tell just how much they've immersed themselves in Eastern European culture and media, it comes across so well in visuals and writing and characters. Not just the obvious bits (though the WWII propaganda posters gave me a giggle), but the palaces, the additional plotlines and characters, the costumes, the attitudes. About the only thing missing in the soldier scenes was someone singing and/or quoting poetry.

I will blame the Apparat's lack of beard on filming in a non-Orthodox country. Poland's Catholic too, but I very much imagined him as an Orthodox patriarch, possibly because I read the books shortly after a visit to Pecherska Lavra in Kiev and the labyrinthine holy catacombs there. Small quibble, not my religion, not my place to speak.

(I've seen discussion on the issues with biracial representation in the show, which is visceral and apparently based on bad experiences of one of the show writers in a way that's caused pain to other Asian and biracial people. I'm not qualified to speak on those parts, other that Eastern Europe is... yeah. Racist in subtly different ways. If anything, the treatment of the Suli as explained in Six of Crows always read so very true of the way Roma are treated, and even sanitised.)

And now for the spoiler-filled bits:

Kaz and Inej. I mean... just THEM. So many props to the actors, the writers, the bloody goat.

I adore the fact the only people who get to have sex in the show are Jesper and a very lucky stablehand.

Ben Barnes needs either an award or a kick. The man's acting choices and puppy eyes are as epic as his hair.

So Much Love for Alina initiating the kiss. Her book characterisation makes sense, she's so trapped in her own head because she has no time to process everything that's happening, but grabbing life by the lapels is a much more active choice. Still not making the relationship equal, but closer to it.

Speaking of, Kaz's constant awareness of how unequal his relationship with Inej is, and attempts to give her agency. I'm really curious how his touch issues come across to someone who doesn't know the backstory there.

Feodor and his actor. He looks exactly like the pre-war heartthrob Adolf Dymsza, a specific upper-class Polish ethnic type that's much rarer now that, well, Nazis killed millions of Polish intellectuals in their attempt to reduce us to unskilled labour only. The faces he makes are the Best.

Nina!! Nina is perfect, those cheekbones, that cheek, I was giggling myself silly half the time. I cannot wait to see Danielle Galligan take on the challenge of Nina's plotline in Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, she'll kill us dead.

I already mentioned that the writers fixed Mal's absence from the first book, but Mal in general! The haircut gives him a kind of rugby charm, and Archie Renaux is outstanding at emoting without talking. Honestly, all the casting in this series is inspired, but him in particular.

Extra bonus: Howard Charles and Luke Pasqualino playing so very much against the type of the swaggering Musketeers I saw them play last. Arken dropping the mask at the end... Howard Charles is love.

I can't believe not only was Milo's bullet a plot point, but the fact Alina was wearing a particularly sparkly hair ornament in a long series of beautiful hair ornaments was a plot point.

In conclusion: so much love, and next three season NOW please. Okay, give me a week to reread the books, and an extra day because new Murderbot drops tomorrow...

[dragynkeep]

*BBC narrator impression begins*

Oh dear. It appears that Rooster Teeth Productions have cocked up Miss Blake Belladonna's fairy tale allusion upon wrapping up the story arc with her Beast.

We now turn to the well-informed pair of siblings, Owl and Luke, for their conclusions on how the allusion to Belle even fits any longer.

*BBC narrator impression ends*

The hell happened to Blake and her supposed to being Belle? Sure, in the original Beauty and The Beast novel, Beast's real name was Adam. Duh.

But let's take off our "Fuck RT" caps for one second for a more in-depth analysis. Does her Belle allusion really even fit anymore?

nerd fixation on beauty and the beast goes into overdrive.

did it ever really fit? belle in most iterations wasn’t a freedom fighter, she wasn’t part of an oppressed class, hell in most reading & a love for books & adventure wasn’t a defining trait of belle’s. it was her kindness, contrasted to the spite & greediness of her sisters, who wanted only monetary things from their merchant father. hell, even with the development of blake in volume 4 where we find out she’s basically the princess of menagerie; that contrasts the original belle as she was a merchants daughter turned peasant after he lost his wares at sea, who’s sisters abused her & made her clean & do work in order to try and buy their home back. the only time she’s ever really applied to a “belle” allusion is reading with disney’s iteration of belle, & every other rwby allusion in that team takes from the original tale, not any other more modern iteration. also i don’t know where you heard the beast’s name being adam in the original tale from but from what i’ve researched, he was only ever referred to as la beté & adam was a name given purely for the disney version.

now, the most defining traits of blake in the show are her drive for justice, her determination, her courage, being defined as a faunus, but isn’t above despising or hating those who are prejudicial & pick on those who are smaller than them. taking all of those into account, she honestly fits esmeralda better than any other fairytale protagonist, or quasi protag in this case. so many of esmeralda’s lines in the movie feel like they could’ve come straight from early volume blake, so much of their defining characteristics match up far better than blake & belle. like some of these lines?

you mistreat this poor boy the same way you mistreat my people.

[ silence ! ] justice !

what do they have against people who are different?

you saw what he did out there. letting the crowd torture that poor boy? i thought if just one person could stand up to him then...

you speak of justice, yet you are cruel to those most in need of your help !

i don’t see any. [ see what? ] monster lines. not a single one. now, you look at me. do you think i'm evil?

LITERALLY THE ENTIRETY OF GOD HELP THE OUTCASTS !!

blake being esmeralda is the one time i would endorse rooster teeth taking inspiration from the disney iteration instead of the actual source material as there is a lot of anti romani sentiment in the novel that disney managed to make less egregious [ by having esmeralda actually be romani instead of a french girl who was stolen by them & was a sex worker. ] it also keeps in with her french theme & doesn’t allow for any vagueness around what her potential coding could be; blake can be poc & french, many roma are.

blake being esmeralda also lends to some actual poc representation on screen without falling into the oofness of making blake black / poc with her current mother’s name meaning a slur. the belladonnas could still exist in the storyline if wished, just don’t have them be blake’s parents. blake could finally count for some very rare romani / gypsy rep that we don’t see in media often, let alone animated media; & with her being nonsexualized most of the time & her defining traits being her righteousness & her compassion & drive for justice, she wouldn’t fall into the stereotypical traps of a sexualized gypsy.

also fun fact, red is an unlucky colour in romani / most gypsy cultures; which could be a cute nod to adam being unlucky for her & their cause.

so yes, this is my blake should’ve been based on esmeralda propaganda post ♥

[chaosscroissant]

What i mean is, it's great that actors of color like Amita Suman are playing our favorite characters from the Grishaverse. It's great that Leigh Bardugo is happy for actors of color to appear in Shadow and Bone. It would have been nice if a Romani actor had been hired to play a Romani-coded character from a Romani-coded fictional culture.

As fans we have the power to demand that the media industry do better re: representation. I'm not Romani, and it's not up to me to get mad on behalf of all Roma when a Romani-coded character is played by a South Asian woman (btw, the Roma are genetically descended from people who left India centuries ago, and, due to their travels all over the world, they come in all shapes, sizes, and skin tones with a variety of cultural practices, some of which correlate to South Asian cultures).

It's also important to remember that the Grishaverse is fictional. Ravka's not Russia, Kerch is not the Netherlands, and Leigh is drawing inspiration from a diverse array of cultures and histories to build a fictional world. It's important to remember that when readers get upset that Leigh "didn't do Russian names right," or, "Leigh got Amsterdam wrong." She made Ravkan names. They work how they work. She mapped entire countries, designed cultures that mirror our own, with all their virtues and faults.

By which I mean, try using your imagination, instead of getting mad on behalf of the Eurasian landmass's diverse collection of peoples who all want and need different things, and who are not a monolith.

[richincolor]

There are five books out this week that have piqued our interest. Which ones do you have your eye on?

The Descent of the Drowned by Ana Lal Din White Tigress Press

As the sacred slave of a goddess, Roma is of a lower caste that serves patrons to sustain the balance between gods and men. What she wants is her freedom, but deserters are hunted and hanged, and Roma only knows how to survive in her village where women are vessels without a voice. When her younger brother is condemned to the same wretched fate as hers, Roma must choose between silence and rebellion.

Leviathan is the bastard son of an immortal tyrant. Raised in a military city where everyone knows of his blood relation to the persecuted clans, Leviathan is considered casteless. Lowest of the low. Graduating as one of the deadliest soldiers, he executes in his father's name, displaying his worth. When he faces judgement from his mother's people-the clans-Leviathan must confront his demons and forge his own path, if he ever hopes to reclaim his soul.

But in the struggle to protect the people they love and rebuild their identities, Roma's and Leviathan's destinies interlock as the tyrant hunts an ancient treasure that will doom humankind should it come into his possession-a living treasure to which Roma and Leviathan are the ultimate key.

Set in a colonised Indo-Persian world and inspired by Pre-Islamic Arabian mythology, The Descent of the Drowned is a tale about power, identity, and redemption, and what it takes to hold on to one's humanity in the face of devastation. -- Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Can't Stop Won't Stop (Young Adult Edition): A Hip-Hop History by Jeff Chang, Dave Cook Wednesday Books

From award-winning author Jeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop is the story of hip-hop, a generation-defining movement and the music that transformed American politics and culture forever.

Hip hop is one of the most dominant and influential cultures in America, giving new voice to the younger generation. It defines a generation's worldview. Exploring hip hop's beginnings up to the present day, Jeff Chang and Dave "Davey D" Cook provide a provocative look into the new world that the hip hop generation has created.

Based on original interviews with DJs, b-boys, rappers, activists, and gang members, with unforgettable portraits of many of hip hop's forebears, founders, mavericks, and present day icons, this book chronicles the epic events, ideas and the music that marked the hip hop generation's rise. -- Cover image and summary via publisher

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. Daunis dreams of studying medicine, but when her family is struck by tragedy, she puts her future on hold to care for her fragile mother.

The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, certain details don’t add up and she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into the heart of a criminal investigation.

Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, but secretly pursues her own investigation, tracking down the criminals with her knowledge of chemistry and traditional medicine. But the deceptions—and deaths—keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home.

Now, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she'll go to protect her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known. -- Cover image and summary via Goodreads

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore Feiwel &amp Friends

When two teens discover that they were both sexually assaulted at the same party, they develop a cautious friendship through her family's possibly-magical pasteleria, his secret forest of otherworldly trees, and the swallows returning to their hometown, in Anna-Marie McLemore's The Mirror Season...

Graciela Cristales' whole world changes after she and a boy she barely knows are assaulted at the same party. She loses her gift for making enchanted pan dulce. Neighborhood trees vanish overnight, while mirrored glass appears, bringing reckless magic with it. And Ciela is haunted by what happened to her, and what happened to the boy whose name she never learned.

But when the boy, Lock, shows up at Ciela's school, he has no memory of that night, and no clue that a single piece of mirrored glass is taking his life apart. Ciela decides to help him, which means hiding the truth about that night. Because Ciela knows who assaulted her, and him. And she knows that her survival, and his, depend on no one finding out what really happened. -- Cover image and summary via Goodreads

A ​Queen of Gilded Horns (A River of Royal Blood #2) by Amanda Joy G.P. Putnam's Sons Books For Young Readers

On the run and desperate for answers, Eva and her friends have fled Ternain. With them they have brought captive Isa who is chained and magicked to prevent her from making trouble. Their lives bonded after the Entwining ceremony, each sister's life is now in the other's hand. Having fled to the northern part of the Arym Plain, Eva hopes she might find her father's family and learn more of his plan to unite the country. However, the welcome she receives at her father's ancestral home puts her at death's door, and leaves more questions than answers. Without Baccha to guide and train her magick, Eva must find a way not only to survive her own metamorphosis, but to unite all the people of Myre, including her sister, before it is too late. -- Cover image and summary via Goodreads

[atarahderek]

The Gaang - Africa and Europe

For some reason, DeviantArt is really not working on my desktop, so I’ll just be uploading here for a while.

Anyway, Someone else’s fan art inspired me to experiment with a reinterpretation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. What if the creators had drawn the bulk of their inspiration from Africa/Austronesia or from Europe? This is the start of what I came up with (I also have Suki in the works and may include the Order of the White Lotus at a later time).

I kept the characters’ associated colors and identifying features as much as I could, for familiarity’s sake.

Aang

The inspiration for African Aang is drawn from the Malagasy people–specifically from the Merina and Betsileo peoples of the highlands of Madagascar. His outfit is inspired by a folk band that represented the closest thing I could find to 19th century Malagasy semi-formal dress. The Malagasies originated in Austronesia, sharing a genetic and linguistic ancestry with the peoples of Indonesia, Australia and Melanesia. Since the Austronesian peoples were historically nomadic to varying degrees (island hopping, after all), I thought it would be appropriate to make Aang Malagasy. Madagascar is also strongly influenced by bloodlines from both India and mainland Africa. Actually, they have a disproportionate number of beautiful people, imo, with some of the most contagious smiles in the world.

Somewhat similar is the European version of Aang, whom I have made Romani. The Roma are originally descended from people groups of northern India, and are traditionally nomadic. Their connection to India–the Himalayan region in particular–and nomadic roots made the Roma the perfect inspiration for a European version of Aang. Like the Air Nomads, the Roma were subject to genocides that attempted to eradicate them. Today, they are still one of the most discriminated against ethnic groups in Europe. They also suffer subtle but notable discrimination in the US.

Sokka and Katara

I drew my inspiration for these two from Melanesia–especially the Solomon Islands–and Australia. Because Sokka couldn’t be without his boomerang. Melanesia is tucked right up in between Micronesia, Indonesia and Polynesia. The Pacific Islands in general were influential on the worldbuilding for the Water Tribes, so Melanesia was a natural choice for recreating waterbenders in this re-imagining. Sokka does not always wear Aboriginal body paint. I just wanted to show what it looks like when he does put it on.

European Sokka and Katara are inspired by the Sami people of northern Scandinavia and Russia–the same people who inspired both Kristoff and the Northuldra people of the Frozen franchise. There is some Norse influence as well, particularly in Sokka’s choice of weapons. If I draw Pakku at a later date, he will be more heavily influenced by Norse culture. Of this set, I am least satisfied with Sami Katara. Her eye got screwed up in the inking process, so I attempted to fix it in Photoshop, with mixed results. It still bugs me.

Toph

For Toph and Zuko’s African designs, I drew inspiration from some of the wealthiest areas in Africa in the 19th century. For Toph I chose Ethiopia, which by that point was very heavily influenced by both Middle Eastern and European fashion. Toph’s travel and fighting outfit therefore didn’t go through an extensive redesign.

European Toph comes from a traditional Austrian-style family. She probably borrowed the dress from a servant’s daughter, and keeps it hitched up for freedom of movement. Out of all these characters, I think Austrian Toph looks the most anime. More anime, ironically, than she does when I draw her in her original Asian design.

Zuko

For African Zuko, I chose Mali to inspire his redesign. Mali was once the most powerful empire in sub-Saharan Africa, and was an extremely valuable trade partner for Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East. In the 19th century, military attire was influenced partially by Arab fashion and partly by standard African fashion of that region. I chose to draw Book 1 Zuko and Book 3 Zuko to get the broadest representation I could without drawing him half a dozen times–which I could easily do, as he goes through the most physical changes in the series. Tried to make the phoenix plume work; I couldn’t.

European Zuko had to be British. The British empire was at its height during the Victorian era. I referenced historical European martial arts (HEMA) for Zuko’s weapons. HEMA does not use dual swords. Instead, dual wielding is done with a rapier and a knife or dagger.

[sebastianshaw]

And I’m sure Snowbird getting a happy ending had nothing to do with her being a blonde white woman and Haven being a dark skinned woc

I don’t think it was THE reason, but I would not rule it out as a contributing factor.

The major reason is that Snowbird is a hero and a major character, whereas Haven was an extremely minor character and a villain. So it’s pretty standard in that regard for Snowbird to get a happy ending, and Haven not to. Especially considering that, while Snowbird was not a character that “belonged” to anyone in particuliar, Haven was the creation of DeMatteis and when he left the book, so did she. That’s why her story just ENDS so abruptly after her confrontation with Charles, even though it seems like it should just be getting starting---her creator took off, and the new writer wasn’t interested in her.

She pops back up in the annual a year or two later to die, and I strongly suspect this was due to readers writing in and asking what happened to her; I can’t confirm this for fact, but TV Tropes claimed that fans actually refused to root against her because she was so sympathetic and benevolent, so I imagine a lot of them wanted to know where she went and this was to get them to shut up.

(It kind of reminds me of when this webcomic writer wrote a character he meant as despicable and twisted, and she was, but she was also way more deep and interesting than the 2D mouthpieces the protagonists were, so fans kept asking when she’d come back. He got so fed up he drew her dying in a gross and humiliating way. So yeah, if people were indeed asking “what happened to Haven and her evil possessed fetus?” and writing her dying in the mud giving birth while a goddess victim-blames her was the response...yeah. Again I cannot be for sure this is what happened, it’s just a GUESS.)

But yeah the big reason is Snowbird is a heroine and important, Haven was a flash-in-the-pan villain that only one writer wanted to write and had to be gotten out of the way when someone new came in. Nothing deeper than that. But the WAY that Haven’s story played out, especially compared to Snowbird’s...that’s got a lot of sexism and quite potentially racism there, yeah. So um, let’s get into that. Under a cut for length because I doubt people following a Shaw blog for Shaw want to see a bunch of non-Shaw rambling.

Haven’s story, as I have written about MANY times on her blog, is REALLY UNCOMFY in its sexism, racism, and xenophobia. Let me say, I do not think DeMatteis intended this. He writes Haven as a very kind, well-intentioned person even at her worst, and I happen to know he has a genuine real-life interest in Indian spirituality, which I think is definitely what inspired her. Unfortunately, these good intentions didn’t stop Unfortunate Implications galore: - Our first Indian/Hindu/Zoroastrian character is not only a villain, her “evil” philosophy is taken directly from real-world Hindu beliefs - She is opposed by a team comprised ENTIRELY of white people who work for the US government who scoff at those beliefs and refer to them as “New Age” (aka a white hippie movement that appropriated a lot of actual Hindu ideas but certainly did not invent it!) - The US government says she’s a terrorist. Polaris raises doubts, because Haven’s actions at that point have been nothing but benevolent (she saved Polaris) whereas the same government making these accusations has been malevolent (the people trying to kill/capture Polaris were US agents, despite Polaris working for the government, who attacked her because she had the same energy signal as Magneto) When they go to see Haven in person, she’s preaching peace between humans and mutants. Havok opens fire on her---so basically, a law enforcement officer shooting without warning at an unarmed WOC who isn’t doing anything threatening and they don’t even know has superpowers yet--and Haven has to hit the deck. Despite her own great power that we later learn she has, she never retaliates. But we find out that yes, actually, everything the government said about her is true, she’s leading a terrorist death-cult, and so it’s a-okay that our white government cop FIRED A FUCKING PLASMA BURST AT HER WHEN SHE WAS JUST STANDING THERE. The moral of her story is seriously “this brown woman with a funny religion is a terrorist because the government said so, no matter how nice and gentle she seems, and thus any excessive force against her was definitely justified even if we didn’t know that at the time” like it’s CHILLING. - Haven herself actually has very questionable agency in all this. She’s actually been pregnant for twenty years; her unborn child is permanently in the first trimester and possessed by the powerful demon known as The Adversary (which doesn’t make sense timeline-wise, but I have no doubt this thing can time travel, its entire point is to fuck the rules of universal order) We don’t know exactly how much it can influence her or perhaps even control her, but we do know it’s been talking in her head from 20 years and came on at a time she was REALLY messed up and vulnerable, and manipulated her at the least. I personally think it probably was controlling or influencing her at a very deep subtle level, but that’s just my interpretation. At the least though, again, talking in her head for 20 years, that’s the supernatural equivalent of schizophrenia and we wouldn’t blame her for THAT, right? - Oh, and about it appearing when she was at her lowest, most vulnerable point? Know why she was at her lowest, most vulnerable point just when she happened to be pregnant? Haven’s story is she was born extremely rich but was so passionate about using her privilege to help the poor that she ran away from her parents---philanthropists themselves, but who wanted to protect her from the outside world too---to go work directly in the streets, bathing lepers and cradling dying babies. She got her name “Haven” because she used her wealth to renovate a children’s hospital of the same name, I’m serious. She was literally a fucking SAINT. And then she fell in love with a man, and he used her, knocked her up, and ran off. She was DEEPLY ashamed and berated herself not only for her loss of “purity” but also for being “selfish” and forgetting the children. This is...so sad, and so DEEPLY entrenched in how women, ESPECIALLY women of color in a colonized culture, are considered “selfish” and “evil” if they don’t utterly sacrifice themselves 24/7 to care for others and dare have wants/needs of their own. So she fell into this deep despair and that’s when her fetus starts talking to her and filling her head with twisted lies that preyed on both her devout spirituality and her desire to help others.

There is no more sympathetic villain setup POSSIBLE, you’d think Haven would be a SHOE-IN for a redemption arc or at least being saved from her own “child”, but she gets neither. She dies alone in the mud, having only now realized as the birth is coming just what it is she’s about the bring into the world. Roma, the Omniversal Guardian Goddess and eternal foe of the Adversary, appears to watch. Haven begs her, not to save her own life but to stop the Adversary from the terrible things it’s going to do to the world. To her last breath, her concern is others. And Roma tells her “I would weep for you, but you brought this on yourself.” So basically, Haven, who is the most wonderful person in the world and who VERY much fits expected gender roles (gentle, maternal, loving, non-violent even when attacked, long hair, pink and purple flowing clothes, literally SPARKLES) has sex ONE TIME and she’s punished for it in the worst fucking way while the guy who impregnated her gets off scott-free. It’s just...it’s the worst narrative, in terms of sexism AND racism AND just in general. That’s not even getting into, say, the really uncomfy way her meeting with Xavier is handled, eesh. Compare, Snowbird. She’s actually far LESS the “perfect” woman than Haven is, she’s very cold and aloof and she even contemplates LETTING HER SON DIE so that her ties with mortality will be severed and she can join her divine family in paradise. But she had that son within the confines of MARRIAGE to a mortal man, and she only got married after her duties were done, unlike Haven on both counts. And her loss, and the loss of her child, are deeply mourned by those around her, she has a very dignified and beautiful funeral with Snow White style glass coffins, and we see the spirits of herself, her husband, and her child all ascend to the Inua paradise together, the gods having decided to let them in even though mortals have never been allowed before. She gets divine exception, Haven gets divine condemnation. She gets a beautiful funeral surrounded by loved ones, Haven’s corpse is probably still rotting in the jungle and her brother likely still has no idea what happened to her. To be clear I in no way resent Snowbird for her better treatment in a similiar story, I like Snowbird, but it is very disparate in how differently these seemingly similar situations---possessed baby and such---were handled, and the specific ways in which Haven’s were handled so badly ARE very much the product of bigotry that Snowbird didn’t suffer in part due to her being a white or white-coded character (in addition to being, again, a heroine and a major character, which helped her a lot too) Also, is it just me or is Marvel like...weird around childbirth/babies/motherhood and mixing that with demons/evil spirits/possession? Because in that same vein we’ve also got Madelyne Pryor and Wanda Maximoff who also go through demonic possession that’s related in some way to being mothers of babies. That’s a very strange pattern to have and something’s going on there.   As a note, it bugs me that Snowbird’s human disguise as “Anne McKenzie” is a BLONDE WHITE WOMAN. Like, yes, her human father was white, but her mother Nelvanna is one of the Inua, the ancient gods of Canada from LONG before white people showed up and WHO LOOK LIKE FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE, Snowbird herself is constantly emphasized as a child of these lands, she is literally magically BOUND to these lands and can’t leave them without weakening and dying, she was raised by an indigenous shaman, and she can only turn into animals that are INDIGENOUS to Canada. She is very unsubtly the embodiment of pre-colonial Canada, so it’s just...asinine to me her human form is that of a colonizer. I get they probably didn’t think further than “let’s give her human form blonde hair so it’s recognizably her” but like, that’s the problem, they didn’t THINK. Also I feel like her being mixed would really thematically fit her, since a strong part of her story was struggling between her divine and human heritage and being forced to try to “pick a side” which is something I’ve heard (I’m white) that a lot of irl mixed people deal with. It just would make more SENSE.

[writingamongtheroses-archive]

MA Ayres Info

I decided to update MA Ayres, the protag of Bad End. (Set off by @romanirainbow​​ answering some questions for me, thank you for that!)

Family: Both of her parents are Roma and have recently divorced, due to her father being emotionally abusive to her mother.

MA now lives with her mother Frida. The two moved to the town of Sunshine, OR, due to cheap buildings, in order to fufill Frida’s dream of being a fashion designer. Frida now runs Ayres Chic, selling clothes inspired by their Roma heritage. Her father is a businessman and wanted MA to be a perfect little lady, which meant cutting her off from childhood classics like animated movies and arcades.

Both sets of her grandparents are alive. Her paternal grandparents were crazy religious and severely denied their Roma heritage- for unknown reasons- a path that her father followed. MA doesn’t have much with her maternal grandparents, both due to her father’s family and their jobs. (They travel the country, visiting schools to educate people on Romani culture, which allowed MA to learn some basic stuff.)

Friends: Riley West! The boy who will be her platonic life partner and immediately decided to be a ‘bad influence’ when learning about her strict upbringing. She’s also bonded with the local feral Cat (who might not be a cat?)

Love Interests: In an alternate world, Amaryllis Eagerton.

Favorites: She doesn’t have a favorite dessert, cartoon, or video game due to her father’s side of the family. (Riley’s working on fixing that.) She is a big fan of cats and the color lavender.

Fashion: MA wears her hair loose while it recovers from years of it being forcibly straightened. She also starts to dye it. She’s a big fan of skater skirts, overalls, and tights under jean shorts. Thanks to new freedom, MA is experimenting with nerdy T-shirts, bright sweatshirts, and oversized sweaters. She models for her mother for Ayres Chic’s website, so she learned that she likes layers.

Hobbies: Dealing with Bad Ends, researching her heritage, catching up on her childhood with Riley, playing with the Cat, figuring out new outfit combos, working at Ayres Chic

Taglist: @andiwriteunderthemoon​, @shattered-starrs​, @oasis-of-you​

(Picture made with @sangled​’s picrew.)

[wandaposting]

Can you talk about the whitewashing controversy? I think it's a shame, but some people are acting like the people looking forward to WandaVision killed their dog lol.

They were originally white from 1964 until 1978/1979 where the Magneto connection was retconned in. Then from the late 1970s to 2014 their boilerplate backstory was that they were children of Erik/Max/Magnus/Magneto of 12 names (obv German/Jewish) and Magda Eisenhardt (usually Polska Sinti), and raised by Balkan (specifically fictional country Transia) Roma Django and Marya Maximoff with no discernible Jewish influences.

In 2014, during the height of Disney-Fox corporate childishness, it was once more retconned that Django and Marya were their birth parents, thus making them full Romani still with no discernible Jewish influences which is their current status quo.

It’s a messy situation stemming from their whiteness being carried over from the era where they were, in fact, generically white Europeans. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that George Perez revamped her design to give her the ample curls and “Transian” superhero costume, perhaps inspired by the recent release of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The Transian costume didn’t last, though the hoop earrings have been known to reappear ever so often. Notice, of course, how they were still colored as white people.

Some people frequently point to this era for proof that Wanda has historical pre-2010s instances of being drawn with darker skin after all — well, no, that’s just the palette they used for white characters at the time.

That one Avengers vs X-Men: Infinite issue definitely looked promising at a glance, until you realize it was the lighting all along and the colorist made no effort to make her palette distinct from Tony’s and Hope’s.

Same goes for Olivier Coipel art. Same even goes for the gorgeous Daniel Acuna panels where she’s famously known for not looking pasty white, in the context of lighting and how every other (definitely white, not counting fanon and headcanon) character gets drawn and colored.

It really wasn’t until the era of modern Representation Matters (specifically those All New All Different 2015/2016 halcyon days) and a couple of conscientious artists like Kevin Wada decided to take a serious look at that Romani backstory, and present her as how she should really look. And that redesign was amazing. You can go into my archives and see 2015/2016 me fangirling over how 🔥🔥🔥 it was.

Unfortunately, this too did not last. The outfit is still (mostly) in use from artist to artist, but the darker skin and the distinct Roma features- not so much.

*And, before you get on my case about colorism, which has been an issue for Sunspot and Storm, that argument is less compelling here when Wanda is literally white in her initial appearance.

The whiteness is still very much entrenched in the Scarlet Witch brand. You can see this in all of her merchandise and every pre-MCU adaptation she’s ever had. Unlike Mickey Rooney’s Breakfast At Tiffany’s role or Emma Stone pretending to look like her last name could be Ng, none of these adaptations are perceived as embarrassing or dated transgressions. They are all Wanda, for better or for worse. (Update: In an anonymous ask I recently received, someone likened the 70s Romani inclusion and the 90s Perez and Busiek interpretation of her “Romani roots” to a bad case of cultural appropriation. I’m inclined to agree. They really did just retrofit a white character into culturally appropriating a real group of people so that they could give her that exotique “g*psy witch” aesthetic.) 

Some people will counter with: Well, just because she’s been whitewashed before doesn’t mean it’s okay for her to be whitewashed now. And that all of this is a result of systematic racism and is gross and everyone who supports it is part of the problem.

Well, sure, but all those versions are part of the tapestry that make up her character. You can take a revisionist’s paintbrush to try and make that tapestry align more with your ideals, but at that point she becomes more your own personalized creation than what she actually is. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with stubbornly supporting a personalized, idealized take on a character, but all of that other content isn’t suddenly going to lose its fan following and vanish from the mainstream.

And the specifics of how the Romani elements were included in her backstory kind of actually were shadowed by this blissfully ignorant 1970s American kind of racism. The “g*psy witch” trope most of all. And the kind of ignorance that permeates in presenting that sort of character as levitating criss-crossed over her bed while reading tarot cards surrounded by candles all mystic-like.

If you can recall any of this or perhaps the one George Perez era panel where she’s screaming to Pietro about how “my father was a kind g*psy man named Django,” or how she’s casually written into referring to herself and her family as that slur over and over again, you can recall that 99% of Marvel Writers’ other sparse attempts at reminding audiences that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are, indeed, Roma made them out to be blindly romanticized caricatures that I suppose creatives behind adaptations would prefer not to tackle.

I don’t have a solution for the people who are hurt by this, and for the people who expect and demand for Wanda to become a vehicle for authentic Roma storytelling— something she’s never really been before, aside from a few shaky glimpses in the Robinson run. It’s not my place to tell them what to do or think, and I definitely wouldn’t tell them to stop being upset.

Different people feel strongly about different things. I don’t expect I’ll be seeing Mulan in theaters due to its pandering to China’s very problematic government with their literal concentration camps, but I don’t expect everyone to have the same feelings as I do, or hold it against them if they don’t. It’s a movie. I’m personally not comfortable supporting it, but who made me the God of Consumer Morality?

That’s the thing with MCU Wanda and with WandaVision or every other verse or artwork where Wanda is Still White. A mass snub of it isn’t happening with or without my help. If you’re excited for it, stay excited for it (with an understanding of why some may be upset)! If the thought of it breaks you out into hives, I’m very sorry to hear that (and I’m also impressed you got this far), hope you can focus on the things you enjoy instead.

[scarlet--wiccan]

Natalya + Django Maximoff

This is part 9 of my sigil project, where I design emblems, sigils, seals, and runes for my favorite Marvel magic characters. After doing the entire living Maximoff family, I thought it might be nice to design for their predecessors.

These designs were inspired by the dharmachakra, which has become a prominent cultural symbol of the Roma people, and is featured on the international Romani flag. I've also designed a pair of composite-letter name sigils using the Theban alphabet, which I'm using to distinguish "witch" characters from other types of magicians in the Marvel canon.

Speaking of witches, I also designed a similar sigil for Agatha Harkness, who was Natalya's peer and, later, a mentor to her daughter, Wanda. The emblem on the left is based on Agatha's brooch.

I recognize that Natalya is a polarizing character, so I thought I would share some of my thoughts, as a person of Roma descent, under the cut. I'll say up front that I, personally, get something out of bringing my perspective to imagery and narratives that are lacking in authenticity, but I respect that others may not feel the same way

Natalya Maximoff is depicted a Roma woman from a traveling community in the Balkan region. She died protecting her children from the High Evolutionary on Mount Wundagore, and the twins were subsequently adopted by Natalya's brother, Django, and his wife, Marya. While uncovering Natalya's past, Wanda learns that her mother practiced witchcraft as part of her family trade. Natalya was the Scarlet Witch of her time, and Django, who was a spiritual leader in his community, possessed mystical abilities as well. Wanda's magical aptitude is, therefore, hereditary, and we are meant to understand that the Scarlet Witch title is part of her cultural lineage.

This drew a lot of rightful criticism, particularly from Jewish and Roma readers. For one thing, the retcon removes the Maximoffs' Jewish ancestry, and distances them from representations of Romani Holocaust survivors. Natalya and Django are also played straight as mystical "gypsy" stereotypes, which are, unfortunately, more common in American media than any sort of accurate representation. That said, the circumstances of these characters' lives-- such as their lifestyles and the challenges they face-- are reflective of Romani history in that part of Europe. This is very similar to Doctor Doom's family-- under all of the fantasy and genre trappings, these stories demonstrate an awareness of class and race that is rarely afforded to Romani people in American media. Unfortunately, writers tend to overlook these details, which reduces the characters to racist tropes. Nevertheless, Saladin Ahmed's Quicksilver proved that these characters can be used for informative, meaningful representation-- you just have to do the research and be respectful.

The magic stuff is complicated, and I find that Roma tend to really differ on how it should be approached. No group is a monolith, least of all one so diverse and wide-spread. Here's what I know-- witchcraft is a part of Romani history. Divination, folk medicine, and even spellcasting are all trades that Roma families have historically practiced. Some of these skills, derived from ancestral knowledge, have been used for healing within communities, but they've also been used by entrepreneurial folks to make money and provide for their families. Roma have historically faced job and housing discrimination, so this just one way of the ways that they found to get by.

Now, the Marvel universe is a setting where magic is real and tangible, and witches have actual supernatural powers. It makes sense that real-world magical practices would be afforded the same type of power in the Marvel world-- families like the Maximoffs and von Dooms would, logically, exist in that setting. The problem, as always, is authenticity. If we're being honest, I think that Romani witch characters, like Wanda and Natalya, are going to persist in the media whether we like it or not. I'm more interested in creating an authentically Roma image of the heroic witch than I am in stamping that archetype out entirely.

[thelibraryofhell]

Pretentious and Cringy: RoseBlood

For our very first condemnation to this library, we are given RoseBlood by A.G. Howard. Follow the read more for a full count of its sins and stupidity. Warning: it gets long.

This doesn’t count as a sin but great Satan the damn description is way too long! This was likely not the author’s choice though which is why it gets a pass.

This YA novel from New York Times bestselling author A. G. Howard marks the beginning of a new era for fans of the Splintered series. Rune Germain moves to a boarding school outside of Paris, only to discover that at this opera-house-turned-music-conservatory, phantoms really do exist. RoseBlood is a Phantom of the Opera–inspired retelling in which Rune’s biggest talent—her voice—is also her biggest curse. Fans of Daughter of Smoke and Bone and the Splintered series will find themselves captivated by this pulse-pounding spin on a classic tale. Rune, whose voice has been compared to that of an angel, has a mysterious affliction linked to her talent that leaves her sick and drained at the end of every performance. Convinced creative direction will cure her, her mother ships her off to a French boarding school for the arts, rumored to have a haunted past. Shortly after arriving at RoseBlood conservatory, Rune starts to believe something otherworldly is indeed afoot. The mystery boy she’s seen frequenting the graveyard beside the opera house doesn’t have any classes at the school, and vanishes almost as quickly as he appears. When Rune begins to develop a secret friendship with the elusive Thorn, who dresses in clothing straight out of the 19th century, she realizes that in his presence she feels cured. Thorn may be falling for Rune, but the phantom haunting RoseBlood wants her for a very specific and dangerous purpose. As their love continues to grow, Thorn is faced with an impossible choice: lead Rune to her destruction, or save her and face the wrath of the phantom, the only father he’s ever known.

That first paragraph would have sufficed for description and given the reader some mystery. The second could have stayed but it’s on thin ice. And we don’t have ice in hell. 

To summarize the story: Rune Germain is a 16-17 year old girl from Pleasant, Texas who is, in her own words “possessed by music”. Thanks to a rich aunt and some nepotism, she gets the chance to go to RoseBlood, a conservatory in Paris that is a refurbished opera house that, according to Rune’s online research, is the place where Gaston Leroux’s Phantom Of The Opera story really took place. Upon arrival, Rune is immediately overtaken by music and makes an enemy in Katrina Nilsson by interrupting Kat’s audition for Renata in the school’s opera. She also makes friends with a few other students who really have no bearing on either the plot or Rune’s adventures. She eventually finds her Love Interest Thorn - real name Etalon, stalking her as she goes about her day to day life, and immediately falls in love with him because they are Twin Flame and Destined by Destiny. It is soon enough revealed that Rune, Thornalon, and Erik are all psychic vampires that must feed off humans to survive. It is also soon revealed that Rune and Thornalon are Christina Nilsson’s soul reincarnated and split and that Rune “has Christine’s voice”. It also turns out that Christina and Erik got married and tried to have a child who was born premature and died. Erik was driven mad(der) by the child’s death and somehow, in the 1900′s, managed to build a contraption that kept the baby “alive” until he could track down Christine’s soul and reunite the pieces and transfer it to the baby... Needless to say, he failed, Rune and Thornalon live happily ever after, and Rune suffers no consequences from any of her terrible actions through the whole novel.

Sin count time!

Sin 1: The school name! RoseBlood.  What does it have to do with anything? There are bleeding roses later in the story but why would a school name itself RoseBlood? This choice is never explained. It has no French basis, no connection to the opera-house turned school, and no connection to Gaston Leroux’s original Phantom Of The Opera.

Sin 2: Overwrought descriptions right out of the gate.

At home, I have a poster on my wall of a rose that’s bleeding. Its petals are white, and red liquid oozes from its heart, thick and glistening warm. 

Mom looks out her window where the wet trees have thickened to multicolored knots, like an afghan gilded with glitter.

I trace the window now curtained by mud, imagining the glass cracking and bursting; imagining myself sprouting wings to fly away through the opening—back to America and my two friends who were tolerant of my strange quirks.

These are all from chapter one. It only gets worse as you go.

Sin 3: Racism. Main character Rune Germain regularly describes herself as a “gypsy”. According to her, on her father’s side, she’s a g*psy. Moving through this review, I will be censoring the word. I’m a demon of hell, not a piece of shit. Rune never says Roma or Romani in the entire book. There’s no references to Romani culture, nothing about the problems Romani people face in the modern day, nothing. Rune is also as white as a piece of paper. You can see it on the cover

And in how she describes herself.

People say we could pass for sisters. We share her ivory complexion, the tiny freckles spattered across the bridge of her nose, the wide green eyes inside a framework of thick lashes, and her hair—black as a raven’s wings.

If you look up pictures of Romani people, you see that they’re far from ivory skinned. 

It’s not only Rune. Her Aunt Charlotte does it too. The “Phantom” does it. And Roma culture is treated very poorly throughout the novel. Rune several times refers to her “g*psy blood” as “cursed” or “terrible”. One example:

Nausea sweeps through me at the thought. After our encounter, I realized why I was enchanted by the spider’s feeding rituals, that there was something in my g*psy blood—something tainted and wrong.

In this modern day and age, can’t humans stop demonizing and stereotyping an entire culture? Or using “half-g*psy” lineage to make characters “exotic” or “mystic”? No? Fine, I’ll see you down here eventually. 

Sin 4: The Love Interest’s backstory..... TRIGGER WARNING FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION OF RAPE, CHILD TRAFFICKING, AND REFERENCED CHILD SEXUAL ASSAULT.

Rune’s Love Interest is named Etalon. His mother was sexually assaulted by a psychic vampire who is apparently from Canada - I have no idea why Howard felt the need to include that - and it ruined her life to the point where she was forced to turn to prostitution to feed herself and Etalon. A man kept trying to “buy” Etalon from her because he was beautiful. She kept refusing, and eventually, she was murdered. Etalon was quickly snatched up into child trafficking where, at one point, he was forced to drink lye water to damage his vocal cords because he wouldn’t stop singing. He eventually escaped when Erik found him and took him in, renaming him Thorn. 

Love Interests with tragic backstories are a staple of the YA genre. It makes them mysterious and interesting. It often drives the main character’s interest in the aloof and unusual bad boy. Quite often, these backstories involve dead or missing parents, being turned into a vampire or werewolf, or some combination of all of these things. It’s very rare that it gets so real. Child trafficking is a very real and prevalent issue in the world and it needs attention brought to it. But not like this. Using it as a character’s backstory is something that takes a level of skill Howard simply does not have. It needs to be written with respect to victims who might read it and not just be used to give characters a compelling but otherwise unused backstory. Thornalon never displays any indicators that the time spent in this situation traumatized him. There’s no signs of PTSD or other mental health issues that might arise from what he went through. There’s also no signs that Howard donated any money from book sales to charities like Child Fund, Save The Children, or ECPAT-USA. This is a very serious topic that NEEDS more attention brought to it and Howard glossed over it like it was nothing. 

Sin 5: Underutilized setting.  Rune comes from Pleasant, Texas and moves to Paris, France. But there’s no sense of wonder from her. She never talks about how beautiful the city is or learning French. Supposedly, the school only admits American students.

“How many foreign boarding schools offer admittance only to American kids? This is a rare opportunity . . . a taste of French culture in a setting that feels like home.”

Oooor the author couldn’t be bothered to deal with French translations or expanding the student body to include a diversity? There’s no French culture anywhere in this book. Any time Rune goes into Paris, it’s skipped over. There’s nothing about it that says Paris. It could have been set in New Jersey and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. 

Sin 6: Each chapter begins with a quote from a different author and work. Including, weirdly enough, Karl Marx... Beginning a chapter with a quote is fine, but it should be consistent. Picking a single work or author to use helps to reader see a consistency in the theme of the book. Since this is a Phantom of The Opera based story, it would make sense to use quotes from the book. Instead, the author uses a different work for each chapter, and it’s honestly just annoying. 

Sin 7: All promise, no pay off. This book has a promise of action and mystery. It’s got a fabulous premise and a setting that could be beautifully used if in the hands of the right author. But it misses the mark on good characters, action, and keeping a consistent pace. 

Punishments: For being tone-deaf and generally bad at writing, author A.G. Howard is condemned to have the dead tree in her backyard become home to her state’s buzzard population. For being a terrible protagonist, Rune Germain is condemned to find a mistake in the middle of her knitting projects just as she is about to finish them. For the terrible Phantom Iteration known as Erik, we condemn his instruments to always be just slightly out tune. And Thorn/Etalon... we order you to get a lot of therapy and a service dog. 

So let it be recorded. Today’s story time is concluded.