#✛ / memento mori. ( verse: main )

[everythings-coincidence]

TAGS

misc

out of collar -> out of character

main verse (memento mori | ___ )

memento mori | main verse -> Mori's main verse/canon interactions memento mori | lore -> main verses lore! memento mori | mun art -> mun/my art! memento mori | q&a -> answers asks

verses

verses | little mori -> younger mori (ages 4-17) verses | twitter mori -> screenshots of Mori's tweets verses | puppy hour -> misc/mori shenanigans (not entirely canon but can be decided later) verses | mori's blog -> mori posting on social media

relationships

dori | relationships -> mori x cgi-blowme/the deep

Morning Sanders | relationships -> mori x @sandersbouquets / Elliot Sanders

[narcoticwriter]

Let's 'Rec' It - The Narcotic Edition

Yeah, I have Genshin fic recommendations that I need to shove down people's throats, keep scrolling, keep scrolling . . .

Series -

the angel share's cat - Although some may find it to be a bit canon divergent as this was written in the pre 2.8 era of Ragbros fanfiction. I can say with confidence that this was one of my favorite series of all time. It still is.

beasts and mortals (and how to cross the distance in between) - I absolutely love the characterization between the two main characters and the time the author takes to really flesh them out and have them interact with each other and others around them.

nobody in liyue respects diluc - This was one of the goofier fics I've read, but I had a good laugh. Essentially the 'What if Diluc Didn't Go Back to Mondstadt' speculative fanfiction that goes absolutely hogwild on the lore and respect to research.

Kazuha and The Crux Fleet (the family we made along the way) - Genuinely one of the most solid series surrounding the Crux Fleet I've experienced in a while as well as realistic whump and hurt/comfort. Featuring some other characters as well!

Legacy of the Ragnvindr Brothers - In my personal opinion, this fic is foundational to what I look for to a subconscious degree. Also written in the pre-2.8 Ragbros era, it sticks out with how it kicks off and how they deal with it long-term.

Frost And Flame - A Tale of Two Brothers - This series was one I kept up with at its tail end, and I was quite invested in it. The author had a blast and so did I. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you're willing to excuse the low-key crack in some places as well as other canon-divergent elements, then I recommend it.

memento mori, bitch! - I laughed so hard at this series that I felt my ribs start to shift and crack. Scaramouche is a little bitch. Arataki Itto is a himbo. Kuki Shinobu is holding it together by a thread. Beans.

Fox Tricks - This is probably the only Eimiko-centric thing I genuinely like as the characterization is top-tier, the writing is top-notch, and the realism is unmatched. Recommend to anyone willing to read through it.

noir!Fischl - What if Fischl consumed noir novels instead of fantasy ones?

Mora for a Myth 'verse - Arguably my best example of abusing how open Genshin Impact's worldbuilding is to make something better, featuring Beiguang.

Teyvat University of Fuck-Ups- I Mean Allogenes - Featuring familiar faces in a University AU as well as a healthy dose of characterization.

scarlet and amethyst - There is always that one crazy person in the fandom that latches onto a rarepair and makes it their mission to produce nothing but content for it. This is one of them and I salute them.

About Tengu Courtship - A Sara-centric fic on how and why the hell she's feeling things for Itto and vice versa.

the ragnvindr-alberich get along sweater - A slew of lore, headcanons, and character interpretations meet in a Modern AU that makes sense.

A Cat Visits A Winery - Diluc and Diona interact and grow closer as they bond over things they didn't quite expect to.

An Unexpected Duet - In which Barbara begins to develop a friendship and feelings for a certain bard, prompting an interesting path of character development.

Resurrection and Mayhem - Qiqi does not want to lose her main source of coconut milk, so she resurrects Childe as a zombie. Hijinks ensue.

contemplation, empathy, praxis - An Al-Haitham-centric collection that features him being put in situations and interactions that he would not be in ideally.

unfocused - A fanfiction that caused me to not only reach Ao3's character limit for the comments but had me compose a whole essay on it. The following smut also never broke the established character for a second.

let everyone be a part of you, a little - A collection of one-shots featuring interesting character interactions not usually present in-game and their varying headcanons. Some of my favorites.

occupational hazards - A Fontaine-centric collection featuring some of our favorite characters as well as dealing with a good chunk of the Archon Quests. Arguably some of the best stuff I've read.

Multi-Chapter Fics -

Scary Love - This fic took me the fuck out. You have to read it for yourself to really understand where I'm getting at. It slaps hard.

A Hypostatis' Guide to Godhood - Featuring Klee as its adopted child. It's not finished, but it slaps regardless of it. It gets technical, but this didn't stop me from having a good time.

All In A Day's Work - One of the only Noelle-centric fics that not only characterizes her well, but manages to stay true to its tags of 'crack treated seriously'. Also features NPC love, which is always a good thing to have.

how to human - A Razor-centric fic featuring Razor trying to learn what it is to be human as well as who he is. It made me cry inside.

Broken Wings - This one surprised me. The writing is one of the best I've seen for a premise like this. It's a genuine treat I go back to from time to time.

Teapot Tales - The dream of shoving characters into a space and watching how they interact like scientists observing a petri dish.

How To Finish Your Bucket List Before You Die- A Guide From Kaeya Alberich - The title is self-explanatory, but it's done so tragically well that I had to put it here. Came out way before anything substantial was done to canon, but still captures Kaeya's character perfectly.

The Meaning of Bromance - In which a card game sends Thoma on errands, stirs Itto into a bout of manic desperation, and spurs Ayato's typical scheming. Truer to the characters than usual. A good chuckle.

Circles - In which Lisa's house is burned down by accident and Klee inadvertently becomes a catalyst for two folks to get together.

Cake Crumbs - In which the trope of being a fake couple for a discount for food is taken up a notch.

Ragnvindr Brothers Mortuary and Co. - In which Crepus' death unlocks a morbid curiosity in the boys instead of the canon-typical fallout.

The Final Campaign - In which Diluc finds a leather-bound journal in his father's study and the nostalgia comes punching back with a vengeance only abated by seeing it through to the end.

throw me to the unknown (and hope for my return) - In which Venti has a rough time and Beidou is there to help him out of it. Featuring some other character interactions.

adrift - In which Tama's cat ends up with Kazuha in the end.

A Tengu's Flock - In which Sara delves into what 'home' really is when a kind elderly woman opens up her own, only for Sara to find out who inhabits that home and bond with them as well.

Problem Conversion - In which due to varying circumstances, Faruzan and Al-Haitham interact, with much being exchanged between them.

adoration - In which there is an Adelinde-centric approach to the Dawn Winery dynamic, in varying points of time.

Little Lioness - In which Jean is somehow turned into a cat, and the events that follow.

Kuki Shinobu's Day Off - In which Kuki Shinobu ends up getting sick, so Itto and the gang have to pick up the slack and try to take care of their deputy.

Carved in Stone - In which the Arataki Gang is founded, featuring some deep character analysis and tribulation

One Shots -

Lone Wolves - An intricate and wonderfully thought-out coming-of-age one-shot featuring the trio of Bennett, Fischl, and Razor and their unbreakable bond.

stubborn - In which Kazuha is recovering from an injury and insists that he's fine, but Beidou has none of that. Featuring Baizhu, the acceptable use of a syringe, and decent hurt/comfort in the midst of sickness.

Grow Forward - Collei takes the first step to improving her relations with Cyno and Tighnari offers her his support in doing so. If 3.5 didn't exist, this would be an acceptable subsidiary.

looking out for you - Ragbros without the pinch of angst but accompanied by diabetes-inducing fluff. It gave me whiplash to see them depicted as such, so now you have to experience it too.

clinical horror - Ningguang hates the dentist, but her tooth aches. And yes, Beidou forces and half-drags her to the dentist anyway because pain medication will only do so much.

Perilous Brunch Bunch - The Chasm gang gets some brunch and hangs out together, from the NPCs' point of view.

my home without seasons - Kaedehara Kazuha finds another place he can call home.

Butter Knife - Canon-divergent and goes into the speculative question of what would happen if Diluc properly lost his mind.

Kitties on Board - The Alcor suffers under a plague of cats, or that's what the captain of said boat would call it.

Like a Pair of Hunting Birds - Shenhe and Xiao in a character study with some interesting peeks into some of their shared traits.

consequences of one [1] sakoku decree - Ganyu deserved to go off a little and her reasons are entirely justified.

a knight and a nun walk into a bar - Kaeya and Rosaria have a few drinks, and a lot more that wine is spilled.

I Heard You Like Cocogoats - A prank war between two individuals that will inevitably have people caught in the crossfire.

calm after the storm - Diona grapples with who Diluc is and what she pictures him to be.

Rest Day - In what world would Chongyun's exasperation boil over into hatred? This one, but only speculatively, of course.

The Tale of Klee and the Gender Reveal Bombs - Who gave the child specializing in the making of pyrotechnics access to smoke bombs?

saraba pasara - It's Qiqi's birthday, and it comes with some baggage.

"But that'll hurt real bad!" - A punch here, a dented guard there, and the varying miscommunications that arise as a result.

Dawn Winds, Heed My Vision - Diluc bears witness to his Archon in the midst of dissociation.

to new beginnings - Freminet stumbles upon the Hydro Dragon and they become friends.

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

charlotte talks art history: memento mori and vanitas

Hey everyone! Welcome to the very first “charlotte talks art history!”

Today we’ll be exploring some of my favorite artistic motifs: memento mori and the vanitas genre of painting

Content warning for death and depictions of skulls throughout the whole post

~2200 words 

First let’s define some terms:

Memento mori is a latin phrase used across art forms (literature, art, music, etc.) meaning “remember you will die.” Essentially, it reminds the viewer of their own mortality

Vanitas is the name of a genre of art derived from a bible verse which states that everything is vanity. What this means in this context is that the things of this world (beauty, power, wealth, etc.) are fleeting and are nothing but vain pursuits when compared with the certainty of death. Some nice light stuff here, right? 😅

Quick note: although vanitas is a distinct genre of art, memento mori is more of a phrase that is widely used across media. Therefore, we typically call these images “vanitas paintings,” but they carry the message of memento mori (and also may actually use the phrase somewhere in the piece)

Both of these terms and the ways they’re applied to the art I’m discussing today is very much set in a western European Christian context, but this is absolutely not to say that other cultures did not have their own versions of these concepts. One example of this can be seen in Kusôzu, a genre of Japanese art in which the artist depicts a corpse in various stages of decomposition. The viewer was then intended to meditate on the depiction of this decay and contemplate their own mortality and the fragility of concepts like beauty and status (I’ll put a small cautionary note here to let you know that if you look these up, some of them can be quite graphic, and I know that isn’t for everyone, so if you would rather not see depictions of human decomposition, probably don’t go searching for these pieces). However, for reasons of space, time, and my own familiarity with these motifs, I’ll be focusing on memento mori/vanitas images today

Alright, if you’re ready, let’s head into the catacombs and meditate on our own mortality! 💀

Artwork with memento mori motifs can be found stretching all the way back to the ancient world, but the specific genre of vanitas paintings emerged out of the late Middle Ages and continued to flourish throughout the Renaissance and Baroque periods

Below are some early examples that don’t quite yet conform to what would become the vanitas genre, but include memento mori elements that would later be widely used in vanitas art

First, let’s talk danse macabre! A concept you may already be familiar with, the danse macabre is an artistic trope wherein various living people of all professions and stations are shown dancing with skeletons. The main idea here is that death comes for everyone, regardless of your power, money, or status. Although not precisely the same as the vanitas genre, it does promote similar ideas, such as the ephemerality of this world and the universality of death. Many scholars think that the danse macabre trope emerged as a result of the mass mortality caused by the Black Death in the mid 1300s. The disease was relatively indiscriminate, wiping out entire communities and leading many to feel as though they were living at the end of days – a perfect scenario for reflections on one’s own mortality. Now let’s look at some examples!

You may have already seen this image of The Danse Macabre, created by Michael Wolgemut in 1493. However, note that this depiction includes only the dancing skeletons, not their living counterparts

Another image, the Procession of the Dance of Death made by Wenceslaus Hollar circa 1607-1677 does include the living. This depiction also serves as a good example of many different types of people being shown, even those of great power such as kings, popes, and bishops. Again, this underlines the “vanity” of worldly power and the omnipotence of death. Additionally, note that this image was created over 100 years after the first depiction, which demonstrates the lasting interest in this type of imagery well into the Renaissance and beyond.

I also want to touch briefly on two fascinating examples that relate to this theme, but aren’t perfectly aligned with any of the overarching categories I’m discussing. The first is The Three Living and the Three Dead from the De Lisle Psalter which was created circa 1308-1340. This is a trope found especially in medieval memento mori art, and it has a very similar message to the danse macabre. Typically, we see three living figures – usually of high class – who meet three corpses that remind them of their inevitable deaths. It’s also interesting to note that this manuscript was likely created prior to the outbreak of the Black Death, which shows that that memento mori themes and meditations on mortality were part of the cultural consciousness even before this mass death event.

And lastly, I want to show you a panel called The Dead Lovers created circa 1470. Although a much later piece, its imagery is absolutely aligned with everything else I’ve discussed so far. This piece is a panel painted on both sides, with the living couple on one side and the dead couple on the other. Similar to The Three Living and the Three Dead, the mirror of the living versus the dead shows just how quickly life can fade, and even those of high status or those who are healthy and youthful can still be reduced to corpses. Note in this one especially how grotesque the depictions of the corpses are. Super fun, right?

Okay, finally – vanitas!

As I mentioned previously, vanitas is a genre of painting that builds upon these prior ideas and uses memento moriimagery to encourage reflection on the fleeting nature of the world – and the things of the world – and the inevitability of death. They convey these messages through symbolic imagery rather than through the more confrontational presentation of corpses or dances with skeletons

So let’s break down that symbolism! 

The first “proper” vanitas paintings that we have are from the 16th century (“proper” in this case meaning that they take a more symbolic approach rather than the earlier more literal/direct depictions of death). These are often simple, depicting only a skull, perhaps with a latin phrase written on a slip of paper. So, first up in death symbolism: the skull! 💀

This one is fairly straightforward, since skulls and skeletons today still act as reminders of death. This is, of course, because the only time we would see a complete human skull is when that person is dead – and typically long dead, given that their remains have decomposed to the point of becoming skeletal

Here we have a couple examples of the simple skull vanitas: Portrait of a Man – Memento Mori by Andrea Previtali, ca. 1502 (left) and Portrait of Jean de Carondelet by Jan Gossaert, 1517 (right). Also, note that both of these works were on the backs of portrait paintings, meaning they have a similar effect as The Dead Lovers

Now on to some other “traditional” symbols of death: timepieces and candles! Clocks, watches, and hourglasses are associated with the passing of time because, well, they keep time lol. Therefore, they serve vanitas paintings as a reminder of a person’s limited time on earth. Personally, I think that hourglasses are particularly effective at this since you can watch the sand running out, but many vanitas pieces also feature clocks and watches, which convey the same idea. Similarly, candles track the passing of time since they have a definitive end point; when they burn to the end, they’re gone. Vanitas art tends to focus especially on candles that are close to burning out or have just been burned out (usually indicated by a wisp of smoke still floating from the wick), since that really emphasizes that the end is close, and time is limited. I’m sorry this is such a downer lmao 😅

Philippe de Champaigne’s Still Life with Skull (1646) is clear and to the point, with an hourglass prominently featured on the right of the canvas (upper left). Antonio de Pereda’s Allegory of Vanity (1632-1636) has a lot going on, but you can see an elaborate gilded clock on the right side of the image (upper right). Pieter Claesz’s 1625 Vanitas – Still Life has a candle that is still burning, but is incredibly close to using up all the wax and going out (lower left). In Sébastien Bonnecroy’s Vanitas – Still Life (1641) we can see a wonderful example of a just-extinguished candle, with a fading ember at the top of a wick and a ribbon of smoke floating upwards (lower right).

Next, let’s chat about whimsy! Bubbles, butterflies, shells, and flowers were all used in vanitas paintings. Bizarre, right? Today, we usually associate these objects with more positive feelings, not as reminders of our inevitable demise. However, in the context of memento mori imagery, they totally make sense. One thing they all have in common is their fragility. Bubbles pop, shells shatter, cut flowers wilt and decay, and butterflies are easily crushed or damaged. Therefore, in this context, they represent ephemeral beauty and the delicate fragility of life

In Vanitas by Jacob de Gheyn II (1603) we see a giant bubble hovering rather ominously over a skull in a niche that resembles the simple skull vanitas images we saw previously (left). Vanitas – Still Life with Bouquet and Skull by Adriaen van Utrecht (ca. 1642) features a vase filled with lovely flowers that dominates the left side of the composition. Although beautiful, we know that they will inevitably wilt since they’ve been cut and placed in a vase. This process is even hinted at in the drooping pink flower that has fallen from the rest and is now languishing on the table, soon to fade and decay (right)

Vanitas by Harmen Steenwijck (ca. 1640) has a lovely pearly shell placed just below a skull, whose shape it echoes (left). Vanitas by Jacob Marrel (1637) features both a butterfly and a dragonfly (which holds similar connotations of fragility/delicacy). They’re a bit hard to see so I’ve added circles to point them out (right).

And lastly for this post: the vanities of earthly life. Since the underlying idea of vanitas art is that everything is vanity, I wanted to close on this one. Vanitas paintings frequently depict things like jewelry and luxury items, coins and gold, and even armor and weapons. They may seem a little out of place amongst the skulls and shells, but they each indicate the ultimate unimportance of the things that humans use to distinguish themselves. Jewelry and adornments represent beauty and status, bags of coins represent wealth, and military equipment represents power. By laying all these things alongside the more obvious symbols of death and ephemerality, the artists remind us that these things too – even if they are made of sturdy metals – are ultimately just as fragile as a shell or the flame of a dying candle.

On the table in Clara Peeters’ A Vanitas Portrait of a Lady (ca. 1618) we can see piles of coins along with jewelry items such as rings and bracelets (upper left). Still Life Composition by Hendrick Andriessen (ca. 1650) features an ornate crown and scepter on the right side of the canvas. Tied in with luxury and status items, this represents the fact that even those who hold the most worldly power and status – like kings and other rulers – are subject to death just as much as anyone else (upper right). (we can also think about this in conversation with Hollar’s Procession of the Dance of Death in the fact that it also shows rulers and nobles being equal participants in the danse macabre). The lower left corner of Exilium Melancholiae by Bartholomäus Hopfer (ca. 1643) contains a pouch full of gold and silver coins along with strings of pears and gold chains and rings (lower left). In Memento Mori Still Life by Carstian Luyckx (ca. 1650) we can see a whole suit of intricately decorated armor on the right side of the image along with a banner, other armaments, and military accessories (lower right). 

You’ve reached the end! If you’ve read this far, thank you so much!! I know this was long (sorry!), but I love this topic and simply cannot shut up about it. I hope you’ve learned something or at least enjoyed looking at these fascinating images. From the simplicity of the 16th century skull niches to the explosion of items depicted in paintings like Luyckx’s piece, I hope you found something you like! Many of these symbols are used to this day, so hopefully this little primer can help you identify and analyze them in the future. There are so many more paintings and symbols I could have covered, but I have to stop here for now. Please let me know if you found this helpful, which painting and/or symbol is your favorite, or anything else you’d like to say!

Hoping I didn’t give you an existential crisis 😅, 

yours,

charlotte 💙

[kuroki---kaze]

🎼

Music of the Wind || Accepting

You got my Kaze song of Kaze songs and Theo gave me this one. This is the one song on his playlist that just does not match the dark grungy feeling of the rest of the music on it but I will be damned if this song doesn't slam Kaze nail on the head. It hits Kaze SO hard and let me give you the clip of his introduction:

This is episode 1 so it's no spoilers. This how the main party Ai, Yu and Lisa meet Kaze. They just find this man, stuck in a tree / building sleeping there and the reason he's so overgrown is because he's been sleeping there for 12 years. Kumo put him there (Kaze doesn't know that but he did.) Kumo used his Mist to put Kaze to sleep so he could heal from the damage to his mind caused by Chaos and Kumo had no intention for that sleep to be 12 years.

Truth be told, he didn't mean for it to be that long but alas here we are. So that leads me to need a clip from Episode 2:

When Kaze asks "is that scoundrel here too?" he means Kumo. He means White Cloud. I'm bringing these clips up so you can see why the second half of verse 1

Oh I won't forget/ Memento Mori leaves a debt/ You haven't paid it yet / I never wanted to sleep

Hits me so damn hard. For those who are forgetting the meaning of Momento Mori it translates to "Remember you will die". And this works for the aspect of life always falling to death and it works for the concept of the "Spiral" that governs Soil as an element. "The Soil Spiral" is the universal function of cycling souls through the wheel of life and death -

but it ALSO works on the whole "Kaze hunting Kumo down to try to kill him for the whole of the animated series" thing. Kaze is downright furious at Kumo for "killing his sister" even if Kumo didn't do it. Chaos fucked with his memories and says he did. This issue doesn't get slightly addressed until the end of the animated series when Kumo dies again.

(by Chaos' hand and not Kaze's but Kaze still has to see his corpse and that was not good for him. It was the first time all series he spoke his name without malice in his voice. It's like seeing Kumo dead was the key to undoing the chains on his memories)

__

[Verse 1] Ashes to ashes, dust to dust Fillin' up my coffee cup One way to shake me up I never wanted to sleep

Oh I won't forget Memento Mori leaves a debt You haven't paid it yet I never wanted to sleep

[Verse 2] My brain was cynical Inside this massive hole And then it swallowed me I never wanted to sleep

My suit stayed the same Can't remember my own name Inside a timeless cage I never wanted to sleep

[Chorus] A muzzled hound I'm tied and bound A wild beast crying for release I want my mouth So I may howl And share with silence of the trees

[Verse 3] Ashes to ashes, dust to dust Fillin' up my coffee cup One way to shake me up I never wanted to sleep

My bones became a drip Now that I've had my sip After a little taste I never wanted to sleep

[Chorus] Like a muzzled hound I'm tied and bound A wild beast crying for release I want my mouth So I may howl And share with silence of the trees

[Outro] I never wanted to sleep I never wanted-

[retribate-blog]

@noxtied ( aigis ) | s.c.

       EVERY DAY AIGIS WAS becoming more and more human-like. It was an observation agreed upon not only by him but practically everyone in SEES. He doesn’t really understand it, and without Ikutsuki, he’s not sure if any of them ever will. 

In any case, she’s making progress to bonding with the group, and he supposes it’s his turn to try as well. He would like nothing more than to try and interact more with the guys, but they’re all out of the dorm. He’s still feeling a bit apprehensive ( shy maybe? ) about talking to a girl but... Aigis was a bit more approachable.

Maybe.

“ Aigis-san, what do you do when none of us are with you? ” he asks from his place on the couch doing his homework. 

[raith-way]

Pick an OC and gush about why you are excited about them and their story! Be as wordy as you like! Ready... set... go! :-D

You might regret telling me to be wordy, because I ramble on the best of days. Also, picking just one?? My OCs are like my babies, and I can't imagine picking just one! One second, please. Spinning a wheel.

OC: Revina Jane Revnic / Fic: Memento Vivere

She prefers the name Rev, her official codename is Revenant, and she will also answer to the following names: Cap, Captain, Cap'n, Boss, Boss Lady, Godsdammit, Zombs, and Living Dead Girl.

Rev is a Suicide Squad OC, who was first thought up back in 2016 and was given a makeover this year after The Suicide Squad came out. Her story crosses over with Memento Mori, a DCEU / Snyder Verse fic, whose main OCs are Ryan Lopez and Kit Kelley. Rev actually makes her debut in Memento Mori, because she's an old friend of Kit's and goes to him after an incident sidelines her, and then she gets her own story.

One important thing to know about Rev? She is a metahuman, not by choice. How she got her abilities is revealed in her story, but her abilities are fairly basic. She has above average strength and speed, but nothing in comparison to Superman or Wonder Woman. She's only abnormally strong compared to average humans. She also has regenerative healing abilities. Meaning that if she is damaged to the point of death, she will heal. (Rev refers to it as her respawn abilities. I refer to it as going Wolverine, minus the claws.) The regenerative healing abilities are where her codename originates from, Revenant, because she was once believed to be dead and then very clearly wasn't. She cannot, however, regrow organs or limbs. She knows this for a fact because her perfectly healthy appendix was removed and never grew back, and her left arm was severed at the shoulder and never grew back. As compensation, she was given a state-of-the-art prosthetic that has been programmed to look exactly like her original arm but can also change colors depending on her mood.

Prior to her story starting, Rev is a Captain in the Marines. Known as the Golden Child of Black Ops. If someone needs a job completed quickly and efficiently, they go to Rev. Even though, at this point, she feels no pride in her work and is only continuing on her current path because she doesn't know what else to do with her life. Then there's a slight incident, maybe someone dies, and she gets put on probation. That's when she shows up in Memento Mori, hanging out with Kit and contemplating her future.

Memento Vivere starts with Rev getting orders to report to Belle Reve, to become a live-in guard of the metahuman prisoners considering her own metahuman abilities and to act as Rick's second-in-command during missions, and she sees the order as a demotion. Going from being a top agent (top assassin) to babysitting? It's a little insulting. She also hates that she's no longer going to be operating on her own. That she'll have to work with a team and spend her days constantly around people, after spending years on her own. The story is going to start before the first Suicide Squad movie, the 2016 movie, and there are going to be so many changes. The story will also continue into the 2021 movie. (The timeline is plotted out and completely ignores canon.)

What I'm most excited about, is writing how Rev grows and changes throughout the story while still remaining true to who she is. The criminals that she expected to hate and resent having to look after? Those people are going to become her family. Girl nights (rarely officially approved) with Harley. Little gifts for (and from) Boomer. Shooting the shit (sometimes literally) with Floyd. Bets (over the dumbest shit) with Rick and GQ. Nap time with Cleo. Hitting the ranges with Dubois. Reading to Nanaue. Falling in love with Rick. There's so many wonderful things waiting for her, after she gets over being pissed off at the world. I don't have the ending fully planned out yet, she might actually become one of the criminals instead of being in charge of them, but I do know that her story is going to be a wild ride. A tragic backstory, a defining moment, scenes that are equally action-packed and heartfelt, and a main character discovering who she is after only ever knowing what she was for the longest time.

Thank you so much for the ask!!

[mcmcntomorii-later]

alias / name | Koobs!

Birthday | March 3rd!

Zodiac Sign | Pisces

Height | 5′5″

Hobbies | Writing, Playing Video games, coming up with more angst for mukuro lmao, and drawing.

Favorite color | Pastel Blue!!

Favorite book | Uh... anything by Junji Ito? It’s manga, I know, but I haven’t read an actual book in so long lmaoo

Last song | This English cover of Kilmer!

Last Film/Show | Well I’m currently watching Underground Marvels lol

Recent Reads | Venus in the Blind Spot by Junji Ito uvu

Inspiration | Durarara!! That’s how I came up w/ Mukuro in the first place, but now I mainly used the Yakuza games as more of an inspiration or really any other video game/anime/source of media for Mukuro’s AUs/Verses

Story behind URL | I absolutely love the phrase ‘memento mori’ ( i actually have it tattooed on me - but that’s also b/c of a personal reason lmao ) and I think it just kinda fits w/ Mukuro tbh

Fun fact about me | I’m super forgetful!!! I had a head injury when I was a kid and I think that’s the main source behind how forgetful I can be lol ( also the depression doesn’t help lol ) But I’ll come up with something to send to someone and be like ‘oh!!! i should send them that!! before I forget!!’ but then in the next moment my cat walks in and my brain goes smooth lmao

Tagged by: @ceruleansniper​ and @eternalcyber​ ( thank you <3 )  Tagging: everyone that hasn’t done this yet ovo

[justforbooks]

Dame Muriel Sarah Spark DBE FRSE FRSL was born on February 1, 1918. She was a British novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist.

Spark began writing seriously, under her married name, after World War II, beginning with poetry and literary criticism. In 1947 she became editor of the Poetry Review. This position made Spark one of the only female editors of the time. Spark left the Poetry Review in 1948. In 1953 Muriel Spark was baptised in the Church of England but in 1954 she decided to join the Roman Catholic Church, which she considered crucial in her development toward becoming a novelist. Penelope Fitzgerald, a fellow novelist and contemporary of Spark, wrote that Spark "had pointed out that it wasn't until she became a Roman Catholic... that she was able to see human existence as a whole, as a novelist needs to do". In an interview with John Tusa on BBC Radio 4, she said of her conversion and its effect on her writing that she "was just a little worried, tentative. Would it be right, would it not be right? Can I write a novel about that – would it be foolish, wouldn't it be? And somehow with my religion – whether one has anything to do with the other, I don't know – but it does seem so, that I just gained confidence." Graham Greene, Gabriel Fielding and Evelyn Waugh supported her in her decision.

Her first novel, The Comforters, was published to great critical acclaim in 1957. It featured several references to Catholicism and conversion to Catholicism, although its main theme revolved around a young woman who becomes aware that she is a character in a novel.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) was even more successful. Spark displayed originality of subject and tone, making extensive use of flashforwards and imagined conversations. It is clear that James Gillespie's High School was the model for the Marcia Blaine School in the novel. Her residence at the Helena Club was the inspiration for the fictional May of Teck Club in The Girls of Slender Means published in 1963.

Spark received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1965 for The Mandelbaum Gate, the US Ingersoll Foundation TS Eliot Award in 1992 and the David Cohen Prize in 1997. She became an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1967 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1993 for services to literature. She was twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize, in 1969 for The Public Image and in 1981 for Loitering with Intent. In 1998, she was awarded the Golden PEN Award by English PEN for a "Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature".

Spark received eight honorary doctorates including Doctor of the University degree (Honoris causa) from her alma mater, Heriot-Watt University in 1995; a Doctor of Humane Letters (Honoris causa) from the American University of Paris in 2005; and Honorary Doctor of Letters degrees from the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, London, Oxford, St Andrews and Strathclyde.

In 2008, The Times ranked Spark as No. 8 in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". In 2010, Spark was posthumously shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize of 1970 for The Driver's Seat.

Bibliography

Novels

The Comforters (1957)

Robinson (1958)

Memento Mori (1959)

The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960)

The Bachelors (1960)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)

The Girls of Slender Means (1963)

The Mandelbaum Gate (1965)

The Public Image (1968) – shortlisted for Booker Prize

The Driver's Seat (1970)

Not To Disturb (1971)

The Hothouse by the East River (1973)

The Abbess of Crewe (1974)

The Takeover (1976)

Territorial Rights (1979)

Loitering with Intent (1981) – shortlisted for Booker Prize

The Only Problem (1984)

A Far Cry from Kensington (1988)

Symposium (1990)

Reality and Dreams (1996)

Aiding and Abetting (2000)

The Finishing School (2004)

Other works

Tribute to Wordsworth (edited with Derek Stanford, 1950)

Child of Light (a study of Mary Shelley) (1951)

The Fanfarlo and Other Verse (1952)

Selected Poems of Emily Brontë (1952)

John Masefield (biography, 1953)

Emily Brontë: Her Life and Work (with Derek Stanford; 1953)

My Best Mary (a selection of letters of Mary Shelley, edited with Derek Stanford, 1953)

The Brontë letters (1954)

Letters of John Henry Newman (edited with Derek Stanford, 1957)

The Go-away Bird (short stories, 1958)

Voices at Play (short stories and plays, 1961)

Doctors of Philosophy (play, 1963)

Collected Poems I (1967)

Collected Stories I (1967)

The Very Fine Clock (children's book, illustrations by Edward Gorey, 1968)

Bang-bang You're Dead (short stories, 1982)

Mary Shelley (complete revision of Child of Light, 1987)

Going Up to Sotheby's and Other Poems (1982)

Curriculum Vitae (autobiography, 1992)

The French Window and the Small Telephone (limited edition, 1993)

Complete Short Stories (2001)

All the Poems (2004)

Spark died in 2006 and is buried in the cemetery of Sant' Andrea Apostolo in Oliveto.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[cadcnce-archived]

Tell me who’s the enemy with all eyes on the king?

I’m not gonna go into a super long or organized post about this but I absolutely adore the themes I spread through plots and such with Wylan. His given name at birth, Zachary Reis, can roughly be taken to mean God Remembers The King. You take that in conjunction with one of the songs I enjoy musing with him. It’s a song by Kamelot, Memento Mori. Here’s an excerpt of the lyrics which most closely follow the foundation for his goals and verses I had set- (particularly his general verses (Modern, Fantasy, Scifi), Persona, Re:Re:Zero)

I am the god in my own history The master of the game I may believe if she would come to me And whisper out my name Sometimes I wonder where the wind has gone If life has ever been Sometimes I wonder how belief alone Can cut me free from sin

I am a man without a mystery The deal is done within I will embrace the coldest winter breeze And pay for every sin

When it comes down to it Wylan lives a life of surrender, in trying to become something he wants to be he actually ends up surrendering his best circumstances. This happens in pretty much every fucking verse. His selfish behavior sets him free but acts as a detriment that will inevitably lead to him dying much sooner than he would of death. Like he doesn’t live past his 50s in main verse to put it in perspective.

The name and song lyrics represent him coming to terms with himself, throwing away his search for vitriolic freedom that caustically eats away at his life, and embracing the person he knows he could have been. The ultimate characterization of Wylan holds onto the better parts of himself and takes destiny back into his own hands instead of letting himself be washed away on that river of ‘chance’ and ‘whatever happens’. The Wylan that grasps the future in his hands, the one that masters the game and throws away all the mystery he had let plague him and obscure him. Throw away the mask.

Anyway as much as I hate how he acts around women and brings chaos to everything around him I really can’t help but love the character and the paths he takes and the possible futures ahead of him.

[omophagias]

What makes the 14th century alliterative revival interesting to you? If I can ask?

(i’m going to do the best i can to answer this while every piece of premodern lit i own is taped up in a box somewhere. this post is also going to be very long because it’s my blog and i do what i want.)

first of all i just like alliteration in any form of poetry—i think it makes it more fun to read out loud and helps to accentuate and drive along the meter. it’s also the primary ornamental device in old english poetry—i think the ruin provides a pretty good ongoing example although the translation they’re using on wikipedia is a bit lackluster imo. the ruin is also interesting in itself for a variety of reasons but i’m personally a fan of the way the alliteration seems to ebb and flow in intensity throughout the poem as the poet moves between the city as it once was and the ruins that it is now. it’s also got a bit of internal rhyme near the start with the repetition of -orene words—gehrorene, scorene, gedrorene, forweorone, geleorene (undereotone if you squint)—that i love. this is largely beside the point. anyway it looks like this—

glædmod ond goldbeorht  ||  gleoma gefrætwed, wlonc ond wingal  ||  wighyrstum scan; seah on sinc, on sylfor,  ||  on searogimmas, on ead, on æht,  ||  on eorcanstan, on þas beorhtan burg  ||  bradan rices. (the ruin, lines 33-37) 

broadly, the rule is: four stresses per line, at least three of which alliterate (wlonc ond wingal  ||  wighyrstum scan; or, more widely known and a bit looser, hwæt! we gar-dena  ||  in gear-dagum...)

anyway post-conquest a lot of things change; partially because english isn’t the prestige language for a couple-three centuries afterwards so prestige poetry is in latin or norman french (or anglo-norman), partially because english itself is obviously changing through absorbing a lot of norman & otherwise-french influence, partially it is the nature of poetic form to adapt. i’ve seen some arguments that end-rhyme was introduced into french-etc. poetry through diffusion of arabic poetry out of al-andalus; i’m not qualified to comment but it sounds plausible. either way, at and after the time of conquest, french verse was generally octosyllabic, and rhyming or at least assonant—

Bels fut li vespres e li soleilz fut clers. Les dis mulez fait Carles establer. El’ grant vergier fait li reis tendre un tref; Les dis messages ad fait enz hosteler; Duze serjant les unt bien cunreez. (la chanson de roland, att. turold, c. 1040–1115, lines 157-161; assonant)

Quant des lais faire m’entremet, ne vueil ubliër Bisclavret. Bisclavret a nun en Bretan, Garulf l’apelent li Norman. (bisclavret, marie de france, c. 1160–1215, lines 1-4; aabb rhyming)

alliterative verse didn’t entirely disappear, probably, but we don’t have evidence for it after the composition of layamon’s brut in 1190. the verse compositions in identifiable english that we have, like of arthour and of merlin or richard coer de lyon, tend to take after anglo-norman and french antecedents—

Merlin seyd to þe king “Al y knowe þi glosing, Y wot þou louest par amour Ygerne þat swete flour. What wiltow ȝeue me, ar tomorwe Y schal þe lese out of þi sorwe?” (of arthour and of merlin, c. 1250–1300, lines 2477-2482)

He answeryd wiþ herte ffree, “Þeron j moot avyse me. Ȝe weten weel, it is no lawe, A kynge to hange and to drawe…” (richard coer de lyon, c. 1300, lines 997-1000)

the above two are fairly representative of earlier (like, pre-chaucerian) middle english poetic literature. speaking broadly: short, metrical rhymed couplets. i should also mention, probably, that people at the time were fairly inconsistent about the scribal difference between u and v or y/i/j, that þ goes “th”, and that ȝ makes a variety of “g” or “g”-“y” cusp or “gh” or “ch” sounds and can also stand in scribally for a z or hard s.

anyway, the 14th century alliterative revival is what it sounds like: around 1350, primarily in the north and west of england, a lot of alliterative verse began to be written down. it’s…very different from the examples given above:

And þat þe myriest in his muckel þat myȝt ride; For of bak and of brest al were his bodi sturne, Both his wombe and his wast were worthily smale, And alle his fetures folȝande, in forme þat he hade, ful clene;      For wonder of his hwe men hade,      Set in his semblaunt sene;      He ferde as freke were fade,      And oueral enker-grene. (sir gawain and the green knight, “gawain poet”, c. 1370–1390, lines 142-150)

middle english alliterative verse by and large rejects end-rhyming (however, the exceptions to that rule are absolutely my favorites—more later), and brings back the four-stress line (both his wombe and his wast  ||  were worthily smale) although in a longer and looser form than was common in old english, probably because of linguistic shifts and because of evolution of the medium. it is so fun to read out loud. sir gawain and the alliterative morte arthure are probably your most accessible examples—they’re both available in facing-page translation by simon armitage, who isn’t my favorite translator of sir gawain but does a good job of retaining the stresses. piers plowman is also representative, but reading it, to me, is a little like being trapped in the donut shop my grandpa hangs out at with a bunch of other old guys, except without donuts—it’s very old-man-yells-at-cloud. but really my interest with them is less with translation than with the way that the language sits in my mouth, and the way that i think alliterative verse sort of pulls the lines forward in a way that end-rhyme doesn’t necessarily—it feels more propulsive, more churning. it’s like a water-wheel, if that makes sense? it plays off the natural stresses of the english language in a really engaging way, and differently from iambic pentameter, which tends to get most of the spotlight when it comes to naturalistic rhythm in english poetry. and there’s a playfulness to a lot of it (especially the rhymed poems), or at least a sense of the ability to play with language, that i love and that i think a lot of people don’t really realize existed in medieval literature (or think only chaucer was capable of it.)

however! the works from the alliterative revival that combine alliteration and end-rhyme are some of my favorite poems in the english language (for a permissive definition of “english”), because they tend to develop these incredible complex, elaborate structures of rhyme and meter. so there are two poems in this category that i’m going to talk about, and i can go for…a long time on the second one. i’m not really going to bring up sir gawain on its own much more because, no room, but it’s really one of my favorite arthurian works, in part because of the alliterative verse, in part because i just love the figure of the green knight and the awful castle hautdesert threesome setup; it’s also one of the more accessible examples of the core of the genre (at least to me—i bounced really hard off of malory, the mabinogion is fun but deeply weird in a way that might put off beginners, and i think chrétien de troyes really depends on how you’re introduced—english translations of french arthuriana tend to be prose translations, which is a whole different post but suffice it to say i don’t think they work.)

first is the three dead kings, which is an expansion on the “as you are so i once was / as i am so shall you be” type of memento mori motif that was pretty common at the time; three kings on a boar hunt run into three corpses who identify themselves as their ancestors and tell them to stop fucking around and take death seriously. so, thematically—i think memento mori art and literature is a lot of fun, in general; the combination of the focus on life’s transience with macabre and often enthusiastically ghoulish imagery—

Lo, here the wormus in my wome — thai wallon and wyndon! Lo, here the wrase of the wede || that I was in wondon! (the three dead kings, att. john audelay, c. 1426, lines 98–99)

—and the vision of life still continuing after death and among the dead, not necessarily solely in the sense of the resurrection but in a community of the dead on earth who speak to and concern themselves with the living, it’s just very fun. (afterlives by nancy mandeville caciola is an absolute blast on that front, by the way.) the three dead kings is also structurally complex in a really enjoyable way: it’s not bob-and-wheel (which you see very famously in sir gawain, the little two-word bob and four-line abab wheel at the end of each verse), but the five-line cdccd bit that i’d call a sort of wheel; and then the main body of each stanza has this very fun abababab scheme where the a- and b-words still half-rhyme with each other. from the stanza i quoted above, you get “fynden — fondon — lynden — Londen — byndon — bondon — wyndon — wondon”. i think it plays very well with the meter.

aside from that, i love the imagery of it; it ranges from, like i said, almost comically grotesque—the dead king whose legs are like leeks wrapped in linen, the worms wallowing and winding in the womb (interesting word choice, also)—to this very sere, wintry atmosphere; the last stanza has a half-line about the “red rowys of the day,” the red daylight, that i just love. and i’m a big fan of the way that, kind of like sir gawain in miniature, the three dead kings opens with this celebration of chivalric performance that’s suddenly pulled askew by the intrusion of supernatural—or, like, really, the most natural; what’s more normal than death, or than cyclical renewal?—forces.

the second poem is pearl. (the linked translation is not my favorite; simon armitage has a facing-page one that’s pretty good, but my favorite overall is marie borroff’s (rip), who also did my favorite sir gawain.) i’m going to do my best not to just go on and on about pearl for ages, because this post is already very long, but it’s also, i think, one of my favorite poems, period. its structure is very hard to talk about briefly, because the way that it’s built is integral to its subject. in brief: 101 stanzas, each of 12 lines in abababab-bcbc rhyme, divided into 20 cantos (the 14th canto has 6 stanzas, the rest 5), for a total of 1212 lines. within each canto, the first and last line of each stanza repeat these linking words and phrases (except the first line of each canto, which does so to the final line of the canto preceding, and the final line of the poem, which paraphrases the opening line.) this is all because pearl is in part about heavenly geometry, the square/cube of the heavenly city (12 furlongs on a side, filled with 144,000 maidens) and the circle/sphere of the pearl, and the way that those two shapes are interposed on each other—there’s a lot of structural/behind-the-scenes numerology and geometry to talk about, but like…i won’t right now. it’s also, in the poem itself, something that can’t fully be talked about—

An-under mone so great merwayle No fleschly hert ne myȝt endeure, As quen I blusched upon þat bayle, So ferly þerof watȝ þe fasure. I stod as stylle as dased quayle For ferly of þat frelich fygure, Þat felde I nawþer reste ne trauayle, So watȝ I rauyste wyth glymme pure. For I dar say wyth conciens sure, Hade bodyly burne abiden þat bone, Þaȝ alle clerkeȝ hym hade in cure, His lyf were loste an-under mone. (pearl, “gawain poet,” c. 1370–1390, lines 1081–1092)

briefly—the narrator sees the heavenly city and nearly dies on the spot, only protected by the fact that this is all taking place in a dream-vision. borroff translates a bit of that as:

As a quail that couches, dumb and dazed, I stared on that great symmetry Nor rest nor travail my soul could taste, Pure radiance so had ravished me.

like…i love that. so much of pearl is about mortal and divine perception, about the unknowability of death and the depth of grief and the final breakdown of the consolatio as a literary-philosophical genre, and about the way that the dead who have transcended death and come out the other side are residing because of that transcendence in a fundamentally alien sphere of cognition, marked out by the impossible-to-withstand radiance of the heavenly city.

but what pearl is about-about, it’s generally agreed, is the death of the narrator’s young daughter. she is the pearl who he lost; grieving her, he falls asleep in a garden and has a dream. in this dream, he wakes up in a fantastical garden or forest, divided by a river, and on the other side of that river is a beautiful young woman who identifies herself, and who the narrator identifies, as the “pearl”. the rest of the poem is a back-and-forth between the narrator and the pearl-maiden, which is largely him asking questions and her explaining biblical parables to him. but describing the conversation as that really does it an incalculable disservice, because what it is is, on the one hand, a grieving parent asking these very human, tender questions of his lost child—are you really her? why did you have to go? where are you? are you happy where you are?—while the child offers only these very stern, cold rebukes—þou most abyde þat He schal deme—and abstruse explanations of the parable of the vineyard; and on the other hand, someone who has been made greedy and grasping and willfully uncomprehending in his grief, refusing to understand that the child he lost is happier where she is now, and that she can be happier there, and that he cannot join her before his decreed time. and he’s not at fault for being that way, but he’s thinking in ways that are fundamentally limited by the mortal realm that he can’t yet exit and she’s thinking in ways that are incomprehensible to people who haven’t also undergone the same apocalyptic, in the word’s sense of “unveiling” (but also, i mean, she’s in the heavenly city), reorientation of thought and being. it’s a very tender poem that i think also manages to prefigure some of the staples of eldritch horror.

and i love how the structure plays into that; the alliteration is looser than the three dead kings—there’s basically no caesura (the || that shows up sometimes in three dead kings and is more or less mandatory in old english verse), and sometimes there’s only 2 alliterations to a line, because the lines are shorter, or none at all—but it’s still got these wonderful repetitions of sound across the stanzas, tied into the repetition of the key words at the beginning and end. the whole thing builds up and up and then collapses back onto the beginning, as the narrator gradually believes he’s understanding more and more and then, in his attempt to ford the river before his time, is thrown back into the mortal world; the poem’s like an impossible staircase. it’s this massive crystalline structure enclosing a deeply human core. there is, to my knowledge, nothing else like it. it—and the other works, including sir gawain, attributed to the “gawain poet” on the basis of stylistic similarities—survives in a single manuscript, cotton nero a.x, which fortunately survived the ashburnham house fire in 1731.

to close off on the alliterative revival at large, it fell out of fashion over the 1400s; in england, the chaucerian tradition—end-rhymed iambic pentameter—dominated, and while alliterative-meter poetry still had some currency in the scottish court that ended with james vi/i stuart’s ascent to the english throne and transfer of his court to london. in modern usage, alliteration as its own technique does crop up in poetry—and i’m always happy to see it—but alliterative meter (as in, four-stress lines, or even the looser form of sir gawain or the three dead kings) is much less common and most people encounter it either through translations of beowulf or through some of the poetry in the lord of the rings (from dark dunharrow  ||  in the dim of morning…)

[upennmanuscripts]

Question of the Week: “What will you do when he comes at you with the sickle?”

Fifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No. 31/52

   Denis Faucher, manuscript additions to Hendrik Herp, Speculum perfectionis (Mirror of Perfection), Venice: Sabio, 1524; University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 1620, fols. 1v, miniature of a Nun on a Cross, and 3r, miniature of the Mememto mori, both by Denis Faucher, after 1524

As we approach the end of October, we interrupt our regularly scheduled blog posts to bring you a seasonally appropriate reminder of the grisly fate that awaits us all. This week, we delve into an item from the University of Pennsylvania’s holdings (not formally within the Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis project but closely associated with it, and now accessible through the main BiblioPhilly interface), a sammelband or hybrid volume that consists of a printed book sandwiched between two manuscript gatherings. Despite the extraordinary morbid imagery present in these hand-written and illuminated sections, the book in question has been little studied to-date, despite the fact that we can name its author (who was also its scribe and artist) with great precision.

The printed core of the book is an edition of the fifteenth-century Franciscan mystic Hendrik Herp’s Mirror of Perfection issued in Venice in 1524. The two eight-folio manuscript quires that bookend it contain texts authored by Denis Faucher (1487–1562), a mystical poet and Benedictine monk with close links to the South of France. Faucher’s authorship was deduced by Norman P. Zacour and Rudolf Hirsch in their catalogue of the manuscripts of the University of Pennsylvania, published in 1965.1 They were able to locate the hymn to Saint Catherine, which begins “Festa lux mundo rutilans coruscat…” in the standard index of hymns, Ulysse Chevalier’s Repertorium hymnologicum.2 At numerous points in the manuscript portions, the rubrics tell us that the poems were written by a certain “Dionysius,” all but confirming Faucher’s identity.

Surviving information on Faucher’s biography is quite rich, and corroborates the notion that he actually transcribed and decorated his own devotional manuals.3 He was born in Arles and began his religious vocation in 1508 at the Benedictine monastery in Polinore, near Mantua, but was based for the majority of his career at the Abbey of Lérins off the coast of Provence, where he was elected prior in 1548. This storied island monastery was the subject of several early monographs, which discuss Faucher at length, and mention his activities as a spiritual advisor and provider of edifying religious texts to various mentors.4 Most fascinatingly, these sources also mention Faucher’s work as a scribe and johnny-come-lately illuminator.

The Abbey of Lérins, France (photo: Alberto Fernandez Fernandez, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0)

The poems by Faucher present in the sammelband are mostly addressed to a scholasticate, a nun in the training period following the novitiate, and concern the attainment of spiritual perfection in the world. While hybrid books of print and manuscript could be useful for obtaining a customized set of literary texts, or for pairing mass-produced images with favorite prayers, they could also allow for spiritual advisors to add tailored content suited to pupils, in a manner reminiscent of the earliest thirteenth-century Books of Hours. Faucher’s interest in embellishing pre-existing books is conformed by an intriguing manuscript, signed by him, that surfaced on the market in 2018. Formerly in the collection of Arthur and Charlotte Vershbow (see Riverrun Books & Manuscripts, Hastings-on-Hudson, catalogue 2, 2018, item 1), and now in a European private collection, it consists of an apparently unfinished fifteenth-century Book of Hours that has had its miniatures and border decorations entirely painted by Faucher in a colorful style that can be described as a mid-sixteenth-century re-imagining of a century-old illuminated book. Faucher’s intervention is attested by an autograph inscription, dated 9 April 1554, in which he offers the book to his brother Jean on condition that it remain in the family in perpetuity (“Semper apud Faucherios maneant.”). Remarkably, this Book of Hours is mentioned in Barrali’s early-seventeenth-century biography of Faucher. Barrali even transcribed a portion of the inscription, and stated that the book was not only illuminated, but also written, by Faucher (“Haec sunt horaria preces manu propria ipsius Dionisii scriptae & miris figuris penicillo subtiliter adornatae….”).5

As seen at the top of the post, Faucher’s poems in the Penn sammelband are accompanied by two striking images. The style is extremely close to the miniatures in the aforementioned Book of Hours, confirming that Faucher’s hand was responsible not just for the images but also for the texts as well. The first image shows a nun in a black habit being crucified, with a snake biting a heart, representing sin, entwined around her left arm (fol. 1v). The lit oil lamp the nun holds in her right hand represents faith and refers to the parable of the Wise Virgins (who tended their lamps). This remarkable iconography merits further study, as apart from its brief mention (and illustration–thanks to digitaztion) in a recent article on the figure of the crucified abbess in the New World, it is totally absent from art-historical literature.6

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 1v, detail of miniature of a Nun on a Cross by Denis Faucher, after 1524

Arrayed around the nun are illusionistic scrolls with quotations from scripture: Matthew 25:41: “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire;” Matthew 5:16: “So let your light shine before men;” Psalm 118:120: “Pierce thou my flesh with thy fear;” Psalm 118:37: “Turn away my eyes that they may not behold vanity;” Psalm 140:3: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth: and a door round about my lips;” 1 Corinthians 15:56: “Now the sting of death is sin;” Luke 12:35: “Let your loins be girt;” Psalm 118:116: “Uphold me according to thy word, and I shall live: and let me not be confounded in my expectation”; Jeremiah 2:2: “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals;” Psalm 118:101: “I have restrained my feet from every evil way: that I may keep thy words/order;” and Galatians 2:19: “I am nailed with Christ to the Cross” (with a feminine ending in Latin).

The four-line poem below can be roughly translated as: “The heavenly bridegroom, so that he could appear beautiful / Made this likeness of a chaste girl for your eyes. / Do not be pleased by her face, or lose your shame in front of what is shown here, / only pray now for those who are dead.”

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 1v, detail of poem

The second image (fol. 3r) consists of a somewhat more conventional memento mori, at least pictorially. A medallion hangs from a stalk of lilies, its frame decorated with bones and pansies (pensées in French). At its center, a skull in a circular mirror is intended to invoke a sense of self-consciousness in the viewer’s mind. The scroll above the image bears a further moralizing extract from the Bible: “In all thy works, remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin” (Ecclesiasticus 7:40). Similar scriptural quotations are found surrounding a painted skull in a manuscript addition to a printed Book of Hours of 1491 now in Cambridge University Library (Inc.5.D.1.19 [2530], fol. 4r).

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 3r, detail of miniature of the Mememto mori by Denis Faucher, after 1524

The two vertical scrolls, however, bear a unique message, likely authored by Faucher himself: “If you tremble in fear looking at this image of death, what will you do when he comes at you with the sickle?” (“Si fremis inspiciens mortis turbata figuram, quid facies cum te falx truculenta trahet?”). Interestingly, the verb faucher in French means to mow, reap, or knock down, and it comes from the Latin root falx (sickle, scythe) used in the verse. One wonders whether the author was indulging in a macabre pun. The large scroll directly beneath the image contains a quatrain that, in Barrali’s early-seventeenth-century history of Lérins,7 was ascribed to Faucher and said to be dedicated to “Anna de Boufremont,” possibly Anne de Bauffremont-Sennecey Abbess of Tarascon, suggesting that this otherwise obscure figure may have been the recipient of the present hybrid book, early in her career.

The final scroll is an adaptation of Saint Bonaventure’s exhortation: “When death comes, no one accepts it willingly, except for he who prepared for it, while living, with good works” (“Mortem venientem nemo libenter accipit, nisi qui se ad ipsam, dum viveret, bonis operibus praeparavit”).

Ms. Codex 1620, fol. 3r, detail of scroll

All good things to keep in mind in the run up to All Saints’ Day. Happy Halloween!

  from WordPress http://bibliophilly.pacscl.org/question-of-the-week-what-will-you-do-when-he-comes-at-you-with-the-sickle/

[everythings-coincidence]

//hahahhhah Mori main verse lore drop !

[patricksilverrose]

Current Music Obsessions: March 2020

March was a wild month and April is looking like it's gonna be another wild one. I did have a few jams though, including a good bit of Eurovision songs that were supposed to happen this year. So let's start out by checking out the honorable mentions.

Lingua Ignota - Butcher of the World Elderwind - In the Morning In Tormentata Quiete - R136a1 Mesarthim - ..... Macbeth - Dead and Gone Znich & Rutvica - Ой над ракою Sermon - The Drift Astrid in Avantgarden - Sing to Me Emerald Mind - We are One Gjon's Tears - Repondez-moi (ESC: Switzerland) Go_A - Solovey (ESC: Ukraine) Elhaida Dani - I'm Alive Alicja - Empires (ESC: Poland) Ulrikke - Attention (ESC: Norway)

Purple Nail - Lust and Desire Eyes of Eden - Man in the Flame Divitius - Memento Mori Hellena - Love is Dead Martyrium - Curse of Salvation (live) Ignea - Disenchantment The Hardkiss - Косатка Kaliopi - Crno I Belo (live at ESC 2012) The Roop - On Fire (ESC: Lithuania) Hurricane - Hasta La Vista (ESC: Serbia) Septicflesh - Faceless Queen Little Big - Uno (ESC: Russia) Tornike Kipiani - Take Me as I am (ESC: Georgia) Darkwell - Fate Prisoner Apocalyptica - Live or Die feat. Joakim Broden (Sabaton) Darkwell - Moloch Issues - Hero Fallcie - Parasites Emphasis - Hate is All You Left for Me Natalia Gordienko - Prison (ESC: Moldova)

Now for my main obsessions.

Johari - Jewel

These guys make such gorgeous music. I love ambient/atmospheric djent bands like these guys. The music is so pleasant and great to vibe to. This is my new favorite from them. The singer's voice is absolutely beautiful and the melodies are lovely. If you enjoy Tesseract, highly recommend these guys.

Samanta Tina - Still Breathing (ESC: Latvia)

This was the first of 2020's Eurovision entries that I heard and holy tits is it epic. Homegirl is a powerhouse. I really hope that Latvia will keep her for next year even if they decide to change songs, because she finally made it and I know how devastated she'd be if she lost the chance to represent them. Anyways, go check out this power house of a girl power track.

Spiritbox - Blessed Be

Stunning. Absolutely stunning. I know they've released some soft songs in the past, but I don't think they've done anything like this type of soft. The upbeat chorus, the pleasant pre-chorus, the insane breakdown; I love it all. I'm so looking forward to the full length album that'll be coming later this year.

Efendi - Cleopatra (ESC: Azerbaijan)

This song caught me so far off guard in so many ways that it's mind boggling. Showing love for the lgbt community in the first verse, female empowerment throughout, that exaggerated pronunciation of Cleopatra in the chorus, those deep vocals before the chorus, that rave-esque exit. We always stan a bombastic masterpiece.

Athena Manoukian - Chains on You (ESC: Armenia)

I never thought I'd hear a track like this in Eurovision. This is such a bomb trap-hop/r&b track and I live for it. Such a bomb track with such a bomb video (the lighting is everything). I really hope they keep this song, because I know that performance will be so dope.

Carach Angren - Monster

This is the first single off their upcoming album and it's exactly what I love from these guys: spooky storytelling wrapped up in a symphonic black metal package. I love how the verses are mainly just spoken with very little happening with the instrumentals. It just helps to further push and create this dark atmosphere that I just love from these guys.

Wilderun - The Tyranny of Imagination

Spotify recommended these guys to me, so I decided to check out this track from them and I'm blown away. This is some really cool proggy goodness. I'm definitely gonna check out more from them. The production is solid and the singer's cleans are so lovely. It's both really intense, but kinda dreamy and a bit psychedelic at the same time. It's a really interesting song.

Arilena Ara - Shaj (live)/Fall from the Sky (ESC: Albania)

Again Albania is my favorite this year and I'm hoping that they keep it for next year. I have both the performance from the selection process when it was originally Shaj included here because that's how I fell in love with it. It's such a dramatic power ballad and I absolutely love it. Then they revamped it and changed it to Fall from the Sky and also turned it into an Enlish song instead of being in Albanian. I was a bit scared at first, but it's just as good as how it was as Shaj. It's almost like they're two completely different songs and they're both absolutely wonderful.

And that's it for March. Hope you all enjoy these tunes as much as I did.

[behind-the-screen-of-bangtan]

Words to make you think

This post is part of the TSU. It belongs to the third part: Socio-political reflection.

There will be several parts in this post:

Citations in the videos

In the lyrics

Concepts based on philosophy/psychology

BTS’ discography through a Jungian perspective

Citations in the videos

We’ll start with what’s mainly a list of the quotes then we’ll interpret their purpose. Some citations may not feel that philosophical but as they can be interpreted the same way, they were included here nonetheless.

BTS introduced us to philosophy, and then to psychology, quite progressively. As it started in the background, it’s hard to be sure whether I caught them all or not but the earliest occurrence I have is in “Boy In Luv” Japanese version MV:

“One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings, Diogenes”

Despite the signature, it seems this quote is not from Diogenes himself but was rather attributed to him by William Safire in a New York Times article from the 7 April 1996 and titled “ON LANGUAGE; Worth a Thousand Words” -  the article itself is explaining the real origin of some expressions. It was later used by Banksy for one of his works - and it’s probably this one that inspired Big Hit’s artistic directors.

It’s funny to start a post about philosophical references with a fake quote. Let’s say it’s a reminder to be careful with what you say and to not blindly believe what you read.

The sentence was written on the blackboard. You can also find a verse from the Bible’s proverbs not too far away:

“Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin.”

Now let’s be honest, it’s impossible to read these in the MV (I found them thanks to a making-of video). As for their link with “Boy In Luv” (lyrics of the Japanese version here), it seems hard to establish. “Boy In Luv” tells the story of a boy struggling to confess his love for a girl and waiting eagerly for an answer. An overinterpretation of the quotes could be that the boy needs to find how to confess by himself (in opposition to the “Dad how did you confess your love to mom?” from the lyrics) and that a gesture would mean more than a verbal confession, or that he must choose his words wisely to not lose his chance with the girl.

The next ones are more known in the fandom since they appeared during The Most Beautiful Moment in Life. It’s words related to the concept of the series, namely the brevity of life, the death of innocence and childhood, and the cruelty of the world:

“Paradise is where I am” - Voltaire in “Le Mondain”

“Dedicated to all the boys who have lived in this painful world”

“Too fast to live too young to die”

“Without soul goal and **** We are nothin but a mannequin”

"You must live on"

“YOLO” / “you only live once”

“Youth is never coming back”

“Pain past is pleasure”

There’s also a series of Latin citations that appeared in “RUN” Japanese version:

“Carpe Diem”           (Seize the day) “Dum Spiro Spero”   (While I breath I hope) “Memento mori”        (Remember that you have to die) “Pro Memoria”          (For memory) “res, non verba”        (Facts instead of words) “Viva”                        (Alive/Living or Long live…!)

Some of those expressions made their comeback during the WINGS series, along with new ones:

“Man muss noch Chaos in sich haben, um einen tanzenden Stern gebären zu können” (One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.)

A citation from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. And:

“You oldest fears are the worst ones”

“Expiring for love is beautiful but stupid”

“Fear is the most elegant weapon Your hands are never messy Threatning bodily is rude” (original typo)

Different sentences from Jenny Holzer.

These citations are once again fitting with the concepts for WINGS and The Wings Tour, that is to say, temptation and the fear of becoming an adult.

For details about where all those can be found in BTS’ works and their origins, I’ll let you refer to the glossary. Most of them don’t have a real author and some may even have been created by the artistic direction team.

Agust D’s album cover had citations over Suga’s face:

“You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say. ‘That’s the bad guy’.” said by Tony Montana (Robert de Niro), the main character in Brian de Palma’s movie Scarface.

“Life is a daily oscillation between revolt and submission” by Henri Frederic Amiel, a Swiss philosopher.

“Life is ecstasy”

“Every man dies, but not every man lives.” pronounced by William Wallace (Mel Gibson) in the movie Braveheart.

Again they go with the theme of the mixtape.

We even got a surprise during the 2017/2018 ceremonies. A citation from Gilles Deleuze could be seen in the background during the “Mic Drop” performance at the 2018 Seoul Music Awards. There was also a lobster during the Golden Disc that connects with it. I’ll let you refer to the glossary for details but here’s the quote, from A Thousand Plateaus:

“Nor can the status of social formations be analyzed by throwing some signifier into the base, or vice versa, or a bit of phallus or castration into political economy, or a bit of economics or politics into psychoanalysis. There is a third problem. It is difficult to elucidate the system of the strata without seeming to introduce a kind of cosmic or even spiritual evolution from one to the other, as if they were arranged in stages and ascended degrees of perfection.”

I won’t pretend I understand everything but I still feel it’s the less pertinent quote until now. It’s an analysis of the world on a binary base which doesn’t really connect with the boys’ success that’s celebrated in “Mic Drop”. 

The last quotes up to this day are in Persona’s comeback trailer. They’re from Carl Jung, the psychologist who inspired the series:

I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.

The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens up to that primeval cosmic night that was the soul long before there was the conscious ego.

As expected, they relate to the lyrics of “Intro: Persona” that wonder about one’s own identity and the dream theme linked to the album.

Even though they are mostly related to the concept of the series, we can wonder whether these words are intended to be seen by fans or just serve as a Lorem Ipsum to fill the background. Indeed, you’ll need to pause the videos to read most of them and sometimes even more effort will be needed - for example, Holzer’s quotes are written backward when they appear behind Jungkook. 

(This also applies to most of the literature references, they’re relevant for the concept but quite hard to catch.)

It’s like background noise. But a background noise that you can take the time to listen to in order to understand the whole concept even better. There’s one thing however that seems recurrent between those quotes and it’s their negativity. Of course, most of BTS’ concepts are dark so it’s fitting but they also usually have their bit of hope: youth is painful but it’s the most beautiful moment in life. Or then again, we can overinterpret and consider that while the world is dark, it’s the boys themselves who bring hopefulness.

In the lyrics

Obviously, all of BTS’ lyrics are quite philosophical, be it when they question their feelings, the meaning of life or the way society works. And I’m not even talking about the puns.

One notable line though is in RM’s “God Rap” when he explicitly talks about Buddhism, as explained by Muish here:

Foolish believers, you can become a god as well

It references the fact anyone reaching enlightenment can become a godly being.

The next ones appear in the Love Yourself series. First, we have “Magic Shop” (Muish’s rambling), a song dedicated to ARMY and written by Jungkook. The concept of the magic shop is detailed below. Here, it’s like an IRL version. The fear they exchanged is the hate they received before and the positive attitude they gained is ARMY. And they wish us the same:

You gave me the best of me So you’ll give you the best of you

Since the magic shop is a mental exercise, you’ll find it in your heart.

There’s also something in “134340” and “Answer: Love Myself”. Their lyrics can be connected to what Jung defined as a complex: a constellation of elements that when they’re activated can influence our will (more details can be found here). Those elements are usually past trauma or similar events.

So when they say in “Answer: Love Myself”:

Under your mask When even the scars left from my mistakes Are all my constellations

The constellations that emerged from mistakes can be seen as a complex.

As for “134340″ (lyrics), the whole song can be interpreted as a rejected complex. “134340″ is initially about Pluto not being considered as a planet anymore and thus feeling lonely. It’s similar to what happens to complexes. Normally they’re in the unconscious but once they’re activated, they can reach the consciousness, like the sun in the lyrics:

At one time, belonging to the sun’s world

But once the ego has dealt with the complex, it is sent back into the unconscious, where it just float around aimlessly like Pluto:

All I’m doing is circling around (Beyond the fog, I watch over the you who is still smiling Without you and without meaning, the reality of my irregular orbit) All I’m doing is spinning around aimlessly (Pluto in the darkness with a number that’s difficult for you to remember But even then, I’d continue to circle around your surroundings, damn)

To relate to the concept of Tear, let’s add the fact that complexes have personalities. They’re usually weaker than the personality of the ego (which is our personality; in the case they’re as strong, we observe multiple personalities disorders).

The whole concept of Tear is faking yourself to the point it’s unbearably painful. It’s like the boy rejected his own personality to the point it became a complex instead of his own ego and now it’s exiled in his subconscious. Luckily, he will accept it in Love Yourself 結 Answer. Concerning the reason why such a thing would happen, we have to remember the ego is directly under the influence of the persona (so how we behave in society). So to fit in the world, the ego changed itself.

Concepts based on philosophy/psychology

Until now, it’s safe to assume all the quotes in the videos were decisions from the artistic team only. It all changed with the Love Yourself series.

Not only its main reference is The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, but the whole series is constructed as a reflection based on the 起承轉結 structure and it also references the magic shop technique. Philosophy is central in this concept and not only the artistic directors but also Bang PD and the boys are participating in developing it.

The Art of Loving explains love is like an art and you must work on it to develop it. Love has several forms, including self-love, but true love is rare nowadays. People tend to compensate for the lack of love with consumerism.

The Chinese structure has an introduction, two parts considering the subject from two different points of view and a conclusion.

The magic shop refers to a psychodramatic scene performed during therapy by the patients and the therapist. In the magic shop, it’s possible to exchange whatever you want against a certain price. However, the real strength of this technique is in the bargain preceding the exchange. The shopkeeper (either the therapist or another patient) will question the reasons motivating the exchange and through their answers, the patient often realizes their initial wish was hiding another desire they hadn’t identified. You can refer to this paper by Professor Earl Koile for examples.

In Love Yourself, Euphoria shows that the introduction is actually The Most Beautiful Moment in Life. It’s the initial situation. As we saw in The universal coming-of-age story, the boys struggled with accepting the outside world and still had to find how to be happy.

The two development parts of the reasoning are the bargain inside the magic shop - note that all the what-if considered during this bargain also exist in the BU thanks to the time travel.

The exchange the boys want to make is revealed in ”FAKE LOVE” first teaser:

'Magic Shop' is a psychodramatic technique that exchanges fear for a positive attitude.

We also see in the video that what they understand by fear is their traumatic past and that “a positive attitude” is being with a girl (several interpretations can be made as to what the girls represent).

The bargain begins in Her and the boys explain how being with a girl will bring them happiness because it’s destiny (see notably “Serendipity”’s and “DNA”’s lyrics).

The teaser revealed during the 2017 KBS Gayo Daechukje can be considered as the shopkeeper’ answer:

“The magical time is coming. Come to the Magic Shop. Now, take off your mask and open your eyes.”

The boys are asked to take off the mask “destiny” had put on them, the one that makes them smile because they’re with a girl.

We see the result in Tear. They’ve been denaturing themselves to the point they literally ask “who are you?” in “FAKE LOVE”. Being with a girl actually doesn’t bring them happiness and they’re just forcing themselves to fit the situation “because it’s destiny”.

The conclusion happens when the boys realize what they really want is not “a positive attitude” as decided by some abstract authority but to be happy by themselves and for themselves. Thus “Answer: Love Myself”. This whole reflection proves the ideas developed in The Art of Loving: the boys had to do a lot of mental work to reach true love, they all had different relationships with the girls and with themselves, and they had to work on it themselves and not just wait for someone else to bring them joy.

As the 起承轉結 structure is for a written work and the magic shop technique is a purely mental exercise, we can assume no one was really hurt in the process - no girls were involved and the boys didn’t denature themselves. Again this idea is made possible in the BU through time travel - but since it’s the BU, there are still people who are hurt, sadly.

However, the VCRs shown during the performances at the 2018 year-end ceremonies imply there was someone who helped them and that they want to help back:

“Fake Love Take off the mask and face yourself I can be your hero”

(2018 MMA)

“I didn't know what power/love is but you taught me how to use power/love”

(2018 MAMA in Japan)

“You gave me power. You gave me love So now I'm a hero So now I'm a boy with love I'll show you the map of the soul I'll show you the dream”

(2018 MAMA in Hong-Kong)

It’s hard to tell who is that “you”. It can be the girl from the Love Yourself reflection but it can also be ARMY since we’re the subject of the next album, Map of the Soul Persona. Something that should be considered here too is that these VCRs were shown with songs from Tear (”FAKE LOVE”, “Airplane Pt.2″, and “Anpanman”) so rather than a teaser for Persona, they could be a development of Tear’s concept - except the last one of course. The masks and the doll concept were also most likely a complement to Tear - obviously the doll concept references the E version of Answer, but it’s a repackage including songs from Tear.

The series following Love Yourself is this time based on psychology, and more specifically on Jung’s works through references to Dr. Murray Stein’s Jung’s Map of the Soul.

At the moment it’s hard to know where they’re heading with this one as we only have one album. However, based on the graffitis in Persona’s Comeback trailer, we can assume the Map of the Soul series will be a trilogy made of Persona, Shadow, and Ego. These three parts of the psyche are tightly connected. The ego is the conscious and controllable part of our mind, the persona is the mask we wear to adapt to society and be able to live as a community, and the shadow is all the traits that were rejected from the persona. I detailed more ideas from the book in this summary.

If we go with such a trilogy, it means we won’t go deep in the psyche (to the self) and rather explore the surface (consciousness and personal unconscious).

Persona is the first part of this series. RM explained in his Vlive about the album that BTS’ persona is ARMY - and we do often represent them where we are. Most songs are about happiness and love: thanks to their persona, the boys could fit in the world and enjoy it at best. We can also mention “소우주” (Mikrokosmos) and its lyrics about everyone being a galaxy made of stars - the galaxy is also one of the metaphors used to represent the map of the soul.

BTS’ discography through a Jungian perspective

Before we start this part, please keep in mind it is an interpretation following the different releases so I’ll obviously make sure it makes sense. This, however, doesn’t imply Big Hit planned it, I’m just adapting to what we have. Also, had the last series been about another psychologist’s works, I would’ve made this interpretation based on this psychologist’s theories.

According to Jung, the psyche is something that grows along with the body. At first, there’s an undefined mass that’s both the self and the rest of the world. Progressively, through experiences and trauma, an ego develops - accompanied by a persona and a shadow. These allow the individual to differentiate themselves from the outside world. However, it creates a conflict within the being between the different parts that all have different goals: the persona wants to fit in the world, the ego wants to be an independent individual. An ultimate stage would thus be for all those part to become one again while remaining differentiated. But most people don’t reach it. Jung conceived this development as 5 different stages of consciousness. As the details get quite complicated I’ll let you refer to the book if you want to know more.

In BTS’s discography, we can link the development of the ego with the school trilogy. Through encountering the three main themes of life (dream, happiness, and love) the boys gain morals: you don’t need a dream, don’t be late to be happy, love is complicated. As for their social behavior, it is at first shaped by society (the teacher in “N.O”, the director and the other teacher in BTS Begins): they’re told to obey authority, to aim for a stable job and to create a family.

In the first stage, the consciousness tries to connect with the outside world to begin its existence. And indeed, the boys obey at first...

Before quickly revolting in the second stage, as they realize they’re different from the outside world

On the third stage, the perception of the world changes, the individual focuses more on concepts than objects. Which fits quite well with the YOLO and oniric philosophy behind The Most Beautiful Moment in Life.

Since WINGS is based on Demian and Demian is based on Jung’s works, there’s obviously a lot of connections. WINGS references the whole book but especially the end, with the idea of the bird flying to the god Abraxas. This image is most likely the ego getting inflated in the fourth stage and identifying with god. It’s also a stage of realism where we realize everything is a social construct.

In BTS’ concept, the bird is the young being accepting adulthood. However, rather than identifying with gods, it seems the boys rather related to angels/Icarus and thus to the whole notion of falling from the sky/sinning/succumbing to temptation. An interesting take we find in the WINGS Concept Book is that the fall of the angels and their rebellion against God is a step to grow up - possibly to grow into god themselves then, considering the stage of consciousness.

In the Love Yourself series, a lot of people have associated the girls with the anima of the boys. In Jung’s works, the anima is like your other half, the one who completes you and who exists in your subconscious. This interpretation has flaws but it’s still possible. It also fits with the fifth stage since it’s the one where all the different parts of the psyche reunite. Considering the concept of the series, we can interpret the different parts reuniting as the being finding inner peace and thus being able to love themselves.

Hypothetically, the 5 stages of consciousness stop here but Jung considered supplementary ones. It’s just that only a very small number of people reach it so it can’t be studied well.

But it doesn’t look like Map of the Soul will head here. As I said above, it seems they will rather explore the surface. Interestingly, the surface of the psyche is central in the first stages of consciousness. And the first stages of consciousness have been explored in the school trilogy. And Map of the Soul just happens to revisit the themes of the school trilogy.

And just like that, we connected the whole Reflection of Youth to Jungian ideas~

Now just for fun, here’s another one:

At first, the world population is just a mass

Out of it emerges the BTS self

Through a trauma of hate, they develop their ARMY ego

ARMY grows a persona of being a kind and generous fandom and a shadow made of hate, memes, and overreactions

Just like the map of the soul can be compared to a galaxy, BTS and ARMY reunite as one beautiful galaxy in concerts💜

Conclusion

Philosophy, psychology, proverbs, and just any idea intended to lead to a reflection have been in BTS works for a while now. It remains unsure if we’re supposed to know about them or not as they’re really not highlighted - The Art of Loving and Jung’s Map of the Soul being the exceptions. They remain pertinent to the concept they’re linked to though.

In such a context, it’s clear that only the fans will know about it. So just like hidden tracks on albums, it could be that those quotes are only intended for ARMY because only ARMY can understand them in the context of BTS’ works and their whole message.

And indeed, see how half-fans and journalists hurried to label the magic shop technique as a reference to Into the Magic Shop. Rather than the whole reflection connected to the 起承轉結 writing structure and explaining how they reached self-love, people just went with “OMG a child discovering the mysteries of the world!!”. Which is a theme Bangtan already explored and not with one but with eight references (see here) so I promise you, they really don’t need that trope anymore.

In the same idea, while Jung’s Map of the Soul and The Art of Loving are relatively easy to read, only a very dedicated fan will go through A Thousand Plateaus (before you ask, I didn’t, I only read the chapter of the quote).

To complete my thought on those quotes being background noise, they’re indeed something that’s hard to pick but also something that needs to be decoded.

As for the two books referenced that have been made very public and very explicit since you can buy them on Big Hit’s shop, as I said, first they’re easier to understand and second, BTS has gained a lot more casual fans who won’t necessarily take the time to search for all those details. So there’s a possibility they made it easier to find them so everyone could join in the fun. Lastly, BTS are more invested in those concepts and since their part of the works is mainly the lyrics and not at all the videos, it’s only logical for the ideas to be presented differently.

[musikfurfreiheit]

March of Mephisto

This fanfiction wasn’t written by me, but by a writer who uses the name Fire in the Night. The person asked me to post it on my blog, but all credits go out to her.

Enjoy!

Kamelot, US-tour 2007 Alissa couldn't help herself. Standing on a pedestal, Alissa was jumping to the beat of the music, Thomas and Roy next to her. When Kamelot had offered her to accompany them, she had had no idea who the backing band would be. Roy had only told her they'd be a relatively young band, smiliar to her own, the Agonist. Melodic Metal, Gwen had supplemented. They were known for Within Temptation's former member Martijn Westerholt. Delain. Curiously, Alissa had bought the first album of the band. The first few seconds of the disc had been significant enough. Delain had won a new fan. The singer's voice had captured her in a way few voices ever did. The slightly dramatic style, which became an identifying feature of Delain, had made sure she wouldn't forget any of the lyrics. Now, seeing the band live, she was drowning in the ambience. She felt like she was caught in a trance, allowing her to forget that the main band was not performing yet. While Delain performed Pristine, Roy laid his hand on Alissa's shoulder, signaling her to follow him. The other band members had already left, getting ready to perform. "You coming?!" Nodding, Alissa turned away from Delain, risking one last glance at the singer. Interesting indeed ... Sighing happily, Charlotte sat next to Rob, a bottle of water in her hands. Martijn and Ronald, each drowning a bottle of beer, were talking to Sander, who was busy putting his drumsticks away. "In the mood to accompany us?" "We're allowed in the galleries, right?" "Yep, no one else is up there, except the camera team." "Rob, Charlotte, what about you? Are you gonna join us?" "Of course!" Still intoxicated from being on stage, Charlotte bounced off the chair. "Kamelot are amazing! I don't wanna miss their show!" Ronald checked his watch. "The stage managers should be finished with their work soon. If we hurry, we won't even miss the intro!" "It'll be cool to see their new line-up", Sander reckoned. Together, they left the backstage area. The employees showed them where to roam without being part of the pictures they'd shoot. Charlotte stood in front of the railing, looking down to the crowd. "There he is!" Roy appeared, taking his place between Glenn and Thomas. Behind them were Oliver (keyboard) and Casey (drums). That was the line-up Charlotte expected. What she didn't expect, however, was the woman following suite. Distracted, Charlotte examined the newcomer. The woman had long, blue hair with green standouts. The corset she wore was black, matching her ripped jeans. The black arm gauntlets, filigran as nets, highlighted her bright skin. Her whole appearance practically screamed PROVOCATEUR. As soon as the crowd saw her, the cheering got intense. "Wailing your sorrow Is only my way to comfort you" Her angelic voice lit up the entire hall - "REMINDERS OF INNOCENT YOUTH" Startled, Charlotte did a double-take to make sure the growl came from the blue-haired woman and blinked. Before she could comprehend what had happened, the guest singer switched back to clean vocals, toying with Roy. "Waiting for morrow you're lonely I name your solitude I SPEAKETH THE TRUTH" A growl ripped through the woman's throat, transforming her into a demon. Within two seconds, the threatening manner vanished; the singer leaned into Roy. "Now tell me all about your pain Down to the detail Don't say it's love Your fragile heart feeds my contempt" During "Don't say it's love", the blue-haired singer chimed in, distancing herself from Roy, who'd briefly stroked her shoulders. During the last stanza, the woman smirked at the crowd and Charlotte felt butterflies dancing in her stomach. Sure, she was familiar with girl-crushes, but the last she'd had was Sharon (about three years ago). "Wailing your sorrow Is only my way to comfort you REMINDERS OF INNOCENT YOUTH" How the blue-haired singer could switch from clean vocals to growling without ripping her vocal chords was a mystery Charlotte had yet to unriddle. "Waiting for morrow you're lonely I name your solitude I SPEAKETH THE TRUTH" "TRUTH" came and the woman did half a headbang, the hand with the microphone in the air. "HOI! HOI! HOI!“ As if they were one, the crowd was cheering with the blue-haired singer, who seemed to carry the people's enthusiasm. Roy, kneeling between the speakers, got ready for the next verses. "HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI!“ "Chase the heathen call We belong... you and I Unison in all you deny" The woman got closer to Roy, offered him a hand. Slowly, she got lower, taking Roy's hand, letting him lift her instead while he stayed on the ground. Just as the refrain started, Roy stood too. He sneaked around the blue-haired woman who turned into the demon once more. The more the song progressed, the more the singer teased Roy, dancing in and out of his reach, being faithful to the demon appearance she was supposed to pull off. The crowd went crazy, yelling and jumping, cheering for the guest artist. "Waiting for morrow you're lonely I name your solitude I SPEAKETH THE TRUTH I am the thorn in your side That seeks accomplishment REMINDING THE MORTAL OF DEATH I am the spore of your pride An angel heavensent The master of all I AM THE URGE OF THE FLESH " "HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI - HOI!“ Fisits rose, supporting the woman who had much more stage control than Roy. The woman started headbanging again. The tension rose, men screamed. Charlotte was certain the walls shivered. The music went silent and the crowd continued cheering, some fans giving a flag with something written on it to the blue-haired singer. "Thank you!" Devil's horn ready, the woman took the flag and placed it behind a speaker. Roy waited for her to put it away. Once she resumed position, the drummer started playing. March of Mephisto followed This Pain, Moonlight, The Black Halo, Nothing ever dies, Memento Mori, Interlude I, II & III, Abandoned, Serenade and The Haunting (Somewhere in Time). Charlotte, who originally wanted to watch Roy, noticed that she couldn't convince her eyes to take themselves off the woman. She was fascinating, capturing her attention in a way she couldn't explain. Growling and clean vocals, whispering and bright opera notes, this woman seemed to be capable of anything. The point was proven when she sang along to The Haunting without making a single tonal mistake. After they finished the setlist, the singer leaned into the guitarist. The crowd was clapping. Laughing, the band members bowed and left the stage. Charlotte stared, completely overwhelmed. A hand on her shoulder ripped her out of her trance; Ronald, Rob and Sanders were nowhere to be seen. Martijn squinted his eyes at her. "Sorry, what?" "Should we go back?" Reluctant, Charlotte turned away from the railing. Lost in thoughts, she followed Martijn, blue hair dancing in front of her eyes. She really should find out who Kamelot's guest artist was and which band she belonged to. Maybe she'd even buy an album. Or two. As it turned out, Charlotte didn't have to do her research. Roy, who was embarrassed that the band members of Delain haven't had time to be introduced to their guest artist before the show started, introduced them to the blue-haired singer. Kamelot's guest artist, whose agreement to tour with them had been of short notice, was Alissa White-Gluz, the singer of a Canadian Metalcore/Melodic Death Metal band. Alissa was to bunk with Delain. Martijn didn't look surprised. Charlotte, who had been busy studying in Utrecht and hence had been excluded from the planning process, seemed to be the only one who wasn't aware of the sleeping arrangements. "Soooo", Ronald showed Alissa around the bus, "that's our kitchen. Roy took your stuff and put it away. Here we have a TV - that's the eating area ..." Charlotte, who wanted to grab a book, followed Ronald as he led Alissa towards the sleeping area. "There's the bathroom - on the left we'd have a shower but as you can see, we used it as storage space. - There are the bunk beds. Kinda like being in the marine, right?" Alissa agreed. Charlotte, searching her book in the depths of her bunk bed, was looking through her bags. "The bed over there's yours. Make yourself at home. If you continue ahead, there's the lounge. I'll play beer pong with the guys. If you want to, you can join us." "No thanks. Alcohol isn't really my thing", Alissa declined, throwing her bag on the bed. Ronald nodded. "We'll drive the whole night. Tomorrow, we'll be in Chicago. Just try to not miss any sound checks", he advised. "Wouldn't dream of it", Alissa said. Ronald left. Charlotte heard how Alissa organized her stuff. Grabbing Goethe's Fist, she sat in the lounge and read. After a while, Alissa joined her, a bottle of soy milk in her hands. "You're a vegetarian?" Alissa looked at her; it looked like she was trying to decipher which eye color Charlotte had. "Vegan", she said. "And straight edge." "That's the hardcore punk way of living, right? No drugs, no alcohol?" "Not exclusively, for some it means no caffeine and responsible sex as well", Alissa said. "Most are vegetarian or vegan, too." "Being a vegetarian is pretty easy", Charlotte said. "Being vegan is hard though, isn't it? Especially while traveling...." "Nah, you get used to it", Alissa shrugged. "You simply have to know what your body needs." Charlotte put down her book. "Sounds easy enough. Ever since I went veggie, I keep noticing products I never noticed before. Some even jump at me! Have you seen the veggie stuff in the refrigerator? I didn't buy any of them. They just appeared." Alissa grinned. "Delivery service named Ronald?" "More like Martijn", Charlotte said. "Nice." "Hmm." Alissa glanced at the book sitting in Charlotte's lap. "I'm distracting you, am I not?" "What?" Charlotte blinked. "No, that's okay. I'm nearly finished, anyway." "What are you reading?" Charlotte took the book and showed the cover to Alissa. "Goethe's Fist. Did you know Kamelot's album is based on this story?" Alissa nodded. Her lip piercing glittered in the dimmed light. "That's the story of the man who sells his soul to the devil to save himself from boredom, isn't it?" "That's the main plot, yeah", Charlotte agreed. "The book's about the consequences his actions have and how it influences the people around him." "For example?" "There are a lot of examples .... The main character ends up seducing a woman called Gretchen. She gets pregnant and the main character wants to save her with the help of the devil since she is to be executed because people back then were dickheads." Charlotte expected Alissa to drop the conversation after the short summary. Instead, Alissa kept asking her about the plot, about Gretchen and the main character, the devil and the townspeople. Somehow, they ended up talking about the nature of evil and the church. Alissa, outspoken Atheist, listened to what Charlotte had to say in regards of singing for the choir and going to church. "I don't go often", Charlotte concluded, "but I have good memories of it." Alissa nodded. Quietly, they listened to the faint cheering of the guys. "How old are you?", Charlotte asked. Alissa smirked. "What do you think?" "I don't know?" "I'll give you a hint. Ronald told me you were born in 1987. I'm a bit older than you." "1986?" "'85", Alissa said. "31. Juli." "Summerborn." "Aren't you?" "Yeah, 13. Mai." Alissa bit her lip. "One of the magic numbers." "Well, fate knew I'd like horror movies", Charlotte said. "Seriously?" "You don't?" "I don't watch movies in general", Alissa muttered. "Why don't you?" And just like that, the two women lost themselves in a conversation that would last the whole night. Martijn, who was the only one left awake, was also the only one who saw how Charlotte and Alissa exchanged numbers at the end of the tour, hugged each other goodbye and promised to call each other.

[retribate-blog]

@loveinclined | s.c.

       MOVING INTO THE DORM surrounded by high schoolers was one thing, but Cassandra was the first foreigner Ken had seen in his life. He's even less sure about how to strike up a conversation with her with that in mind. Is that an appropriate prompt to chat about? Should he just not mention it at all?

Then again, he's not really hear to mix and mingle with any of the SEES members. It doesn't matter one way or another he supposes. He's decided this after a few moments of the two of them sharing the same space in the dormitory kitchens.

“ I'll be out of your way, Cassandra-san, ” he says, an unspoken half-apology on his lips. Still, despite his statement, he's still looking through the fridge with no success.