#(Nothing wrong with interpreting Aphrodite in that way either just it's more obvious with the Muses)

[the-busy-ghost]

Look I respect the art of past ages, but it's the 21st century and personally I'd like to see less depictions of the Greek Muses as ethereal sexually objectified fairy women, and more art of Thalia doing stand-up

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 1.3.4 “Tholomyes Is So Happy, He Sings A Spanish Song”

I think this chapter title is actually yet another pun. In a later chapter, Favourite mentions that Tholomyes’ first name is Felix, which is Latin for “happy.”

This first paragraph feels like a pretty blatant comparison of the group to the nature mentioned. The flower beds are balmy with perfume, as the ladies may have been, the boughs are gesticulating as the men (and maybe the women) were, the bees pillaging the jasmine is certainly a pretty obvious metaphor, the “bohemian crew of butterflies” would probably be the men, landing briefly on these women for a year or so and then taking flight elsewhere.

(I just looked up bindweed and flashed back to elementary school, where it grew as a weed all over the campus and we’d pick it and put it to our noses and inhale so the petals stuck to our faces, so now I’m imagining them doing that.)

The fact that everyone but Fantine is kissing everyone else is yet another clue that she doesn’t exactly fit in. It also seems like another indication that Favourite should have been paired with Tholomyes.

Fantine’s “dreamy, fierce resistance” (FMA) or “dreaminess and wildness” (Hapgood) is an aspect about her that I feel comes out a little more when she’s back in Montreuil-sur-Mer and has unfortunately hardened a bit. She has quite literally no lines of dialogue until 1.3.8, and her lines up through the letter are superficial, except perhaps for the line about the stagecoaches. Everything we see of Fantine is observational; she’s watching her friends to follow suit, we’re watching her. Later on, in M-sur-M, she’s fiercer, more willing (or perhaps more desperate) to talk back, to talk aloud to herself. The fierce part of her is very inward here, and it’s poverty and desperation that really brings it out. Her confrontation with Bamatabois later, and the moments just before it, bring the “dreaminess” and the “wildness/fierceness” together quite violently.

(Sidenote: The more I read and think about it, the more I’m loving the Fantine-as-autistic headcanon. She’s quiet here because she’s working hard at masking and mimicking; once she’s at her lowest points in M-sur-M, she’s totally given up that effort because she absolutely does not have the energy or mental capacity. So we then get her talking to herself, self-soothing by wringing her hands, shrinking back, etc etc. Idk who came up with that headcanon or where I read it mentioned, but I love it.)

This entire massive paragraph about love in springtime feels very romantically pastoral in its imagery. It certainly fits with the whole leaving urban Paris to go to the park and nature in Saint Cloud (despite the weirdly dark aspects of the area). He continues the theme by mentioning Honore d’Urfe, a pastoral romance author, and Watteau and Lancret, both painters of light, colorful, Baroque style paintings. Watteau painted “The Embarkation for Cythera,” a painting of a fete galante, which is essentially what’s going on in this scene. Cythera is the Greek island said to house a cult of Aphrodite. I’m not sure what the Diderot reference is doing there; I know about his reason vs feeling philosophy, and I know he wrote a “naughty” novel, but I’m not sure how either of those fit into these themes in the rest of the paragraph?

"Beautiful girls lavish their charms with sweet prodigality. We imagine it will never end.” What an interesting pairing of sentences. The second line takes on a tone of quite dark foreshadowing when reading the Brick again. But that first line is interesting to me for the idea of women wasting their charms on men. It feels like an expansion of his “poverty and coquetry are fatal counselors” line, but from a different angle. Flirting or falling in love with a man who is only going to use you for his own pleasure and then drop you is a waste of emotion, not to mention painful if you’re not ready for it. Lavishing “charms” on men only for them to treat a woman in a way that could potentially ruin her is Bad. But if you don’t realize that’s what’s happening, if you think that instead of shallowness or emotional manipulation, you’re actually getting real love and connection, you’re not going to ever want it to end. And then when it does that shock and hurt is so much the worse. Again it’s the difference between Fantine and the others; she seems to think it’s real love on Tholomyes’ side like it is for her, while everyone else seems fairly aware that it’s just a fun little fling and nothing more.

Riding donkeys seems like kind of a ripoff in terms of a date? Maybe another example of Tholomyes’ cheapness as a date as well as an example of his charisma. If he can sell riding an ass as a fun and cute outing instead of a bit of a let down, then no wonder he’s the one in control of this whole endeavor.

I have no idea what plant it is they’re viewing at the Jardins des Plantes, and it’s really bothering me. The only thing I could think of is wisteria, but that can’t be right, since it has leaves, and I have no idea how to search that on google. I’m also wondering what the “mannikin anchorite” at the Chateau d’Issy was. There’s a statue of the actual St. Cloud (Clodoald) in Saint Cloud, but they’re in Issy at this point as far as I can tell, so I have no idea.

As far as I can tell, the satyr-millionaire/Turcaret-Priapus lines are just a joke about rich horny people. I’m not sure why the hall of mirrors is an aphrodisiac? But I suppose the joke is something about voyeurism and watching the person you’re attracted to via means only available to those with lots of money to build a hall of many mirrors? Unless I’m interpreting the entire “cabinet of mirrors” wrong and it’s not even real mirrors. I’m just making guesses at this point.

I think the “Abbe de Bernis” line is a reference to Casanova, but I’m not 100% sure.

Fantine refuses to swing, and Favourite thinks she’s being superior. This seems like another moment pointing out Fantine’s modesty; the “flying skirts” produced by the swinging are maybe a little much for her taste. But it’s another thing that makes me think that maybe the other girls don’t like her very much and are maybe a little frustrated at her prudish behavior compared to the others, or think that that modesty is her thinking she’s better than them.

They’ve now been out and about for about 10 hours, which is a lot. There’s a post somewhere on tumblr about the Russian Mountains, but I love that there was a rollercoaster in Paris in the 1810s. The roller coaster also seems like perhaps an interesting chance at a metaphor for what’s coming: a big climb upward, a rush, and then suddenly much lower than you were a moment ago. For the other women, being back down on the ground is expected at the end of the ride, but for Fantine, it’s an unexpected, painful let down.

Ten (or more) hours is a long time to wait for this “surprise.” I’m wondering if this whole outing has a sort of twofold objective: one as a sort of “last hurrah” date, where they do all the fun things and then there’s the cruel “surprise” at the end. And two, as a way to tire everybody out, so the women would do exactly what they do later on in 1.3.9: get distracted with chatting or just gazing out the window in thought until they suddenly realize how much time has passed, giving the men plenty of time to get away.

[atlantic-riona]

1, 2, 5-8

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

It swings between a story with friendship/family dynamics, lots of humor mixed with drama, and ultimately a happy ending, and a story that’s philosophical, vaguely terrifying and/or depressing, and ultimately bittersweet/scary.

…The former tends to be longer stories, while the latter tends to be my short stories. I have no idea what that says about me!

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

I would love to try my hand at writing faeries. I feel like a lot of modern stuff I’ve read tends to either crib off of Tolkien or be really badly done/uninspired (although for an excellent, wonderful interpretation of faeries, everybody reading this should go read @hobbitsetal‘s Mute, because it’s amazing and I will never stop talking about it).

However, I’m not sure that I could do it well? I don’t know. I have vague plans for something similar to faeries in The Raven’s Return, but these might get adapted as time goes on.

ALSO I would really want to try an arranged marriage story because secretly I ADORE them. it’s just!! their marriage is arranged!! but then!!! they fall in LOVE

5. Share one of your strengths.

I feel like dialogue is a strength of mine? It’s really easy for me to write, at any rate!

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

Description. I really struggle to write description. I’m never sure if I’ve overdone it, underdone it, or what.

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

A solitary figure stands forlorn, silhouetted against the sunset. The mass of curls on her head burns in the dying light, like a sputtering fire. It’s her. Helen of Troy.

“I know that’s what they call me,” Helen says without moving. Her gaze is fixed on the carnage below. Cassandra hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but now that she has…

She moves closer and Helen speaks again. “They used to call me Helen of Sparta.” Her lovely, hated, adored face remains turned away, shadowed and sorrowed. “And my husband–”

“Which one?” Cassandra interrupts, having assumed a careless position of relaxed leaning against the battlements, one elbow propping up her chin. At the tenseness of the other woman’s shoulders, she shrugs and looks away. “I mean, there are so many of them.” Despite the laxness of her appearance, her muscles are thrumming like a just-fired arrow. This woman is bringing murder and grief to her city, all for the sake of her stupid affair. Cassandra has no interest in hearing any sad story from this woman. Sad stories won’t resurrect the dead or comfort their grieving wives.

Helen turns to face her then. Cassandra stares coolly back at her. She’s beautiful, indeed, but beautiful like a snake. Cassandra has experience with snakes.

“Do you know what it’s like?” Helen of Troy asks her, advancing. “To have never had a choice?”

Cassandra says nothing, because her breath has been stolen away. As with Scáthach, though, she does not retreat. She is no coward.

“All my life,” Helen says, “I have been a prize. A prize to be fought over. First, I was a prize to Theseus at the tender age of seven. My brothers stormed his stronghold and won me back, and so I was again a prize for my father. Then I was a prize for all the kings of Greece. And so that no one would feel insulted, I was not left to choose one out of all of them. Instead my would-be husbands drew straws. And the man who won was not even there to claim me, his winnings–his brother was.”

“You’re still a prize,” Cassandra interrupts, taking a step forward. “Don’t you realize? You’re a prize that Aphrodite granted to my brother for saying that she was the most beautiful goddess. You’re still a prize, so why do it? Why give in to it? Why is it better to be a prize over here, in Troy–why is it better to destroy my city as Paris’ prize than to live quietly with your daughter as Menelaus’ prize? Tell me.”

The crows circle overhead. Helen remains still, frozen like carved ice. A moment later, when she moves, it is like ice shearing off to reveal a storming sea. “Because,” she says, her eyes reflecting the carnage below, “because I have chosen to be here. It may be my destiny to eternally be someone’s prize; but I’ll be damned if I don’t choose who wins me.” A single tear falls. It shatters on the stone like glass. “And I thought you might understand,” she says, “because you’re god-touched too.”

______

I really like this one because it was one of the few times in my life where the descriptions were exactly what I wanted, with barely any editing at all. I also like it because Helen of Troy and Cassandra have fascinated me for, like, ever and I always thought they were such intriguing characters to play with.

Like, Helen can be written as a victim or as a villain or somewhere in between (and when you read the Iliad, it’s pretty obvious that Aphrodite’s heavily involved and making Helen do stuff she doesn’t want to, but also Helen’s life has basically been plotted for her since the beginning–she’s the daughter of Zeus, she’s been kidnapped by Theseus, she’s going to be married off and she’s the most beautiful woman in all of Greece–who’s to say that maybe at the beginning, she chose to do something for herself? I think for this version I went a little more ‘ice queen’ and ‘selfish’ than how I would read the actual Helen in the Iliad, but I do think she can be seen that way). And for Cassandra–is she mad? Is she trapped? Is she going mad? (Wouldn’t you, if you could see everything that was coming, but nobody listened to you, and you couldn’t stop it?)

In I See It Crimson, I See It Red, I was playing with the idea of fate and destiny, and whether it was even possible to have free will if you could see the future and your destiny, so Helen was kind of an example of knowing one’s destiny but making a different choice.

Also, this was a really fun twist to write, because for the earlier parts of the story, Cassandra hates Helen, and Helen gets portrayed extremely negatively, but here, Helen makes the point that she and Cassandra are not so different–both of them have gods meddling with their lives–so that was something I really liked.

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“You shouldn’t curse people,” he said firmly. “That’s wrong.”

Great. The Raven had standards. “Sorry,” she said, getting up and brushing her knees off, “not all of us had the luxury of morals in the recent past.”

Milon was still warm to the touch when she pressed her hand to his forehead—a little cooler than before, or was that wishful thinking?

“I only meant,” came the Raven’s voice behind her, “that it’s not right. You shouldn’t have to hurt people for money.”

“Are you any better?” she shot back without turning around. “Seems to me you do the same thing, only a little more violently—that’s right, I heard about the massacre in Arciun. A little bit before my time here, true, but the others are still talking about it even now. How many people had to die for the money you and Noz gained?”

“That’s different. Those people—they deserved it.” Almost to himself, he muttered, “King’s blood, you should have seen what they’d done.”

“Oh, but the brother that screwed over his family didn’t? The drunkard who beat his wife and children didn’t? The wife who cheated on her husband and laughed at him when he cried didn’t? The girl who tormented every other child in her village until they were reduced to tears didn’t? At least I don’t kill all of my victims.”

He came over to look down at Milon. “Those Valaviri nobles in Arciun—they kept slaves. They’d practically enslaved everyone else, too. The children were starving. There were—” He stopped, cleared his throat. “There were more orphans than adults. The nobles had killed their parents for resisting, or sent them off to prison—and worse, in that prison, they’d be—” Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. “I met the prisoners from Arciun. In prison, where we were all waiting to be killed. If you had heard their stories—” He broke off. “And we didn’t kill everyone, either. That’s a lie. Only the ones who were responsible.”

“And that justified making their children in turn orphans? Taking their wealth so they could take their own turn at starving?”

The Raven felt Milon’s forehead and bent over to listen to his breathing. “We didn’t take all of their money,” he argued as he straightened. “We left them enough to live on. More than enough.”

“Oh, yes, so very generous of you—leaving scared children in a province full of people looking to exact however many years of pent-up vengeance upon somebody. Noz feed you that line?” One of her friends had a brother who’d lived in Arciun—she’d cried for weeks when the news finally reached the Tower. “The way I heard it, nobody survived the second round of killings. Now the whole province is still in uproar—how many more orphans have you created? Noble rebels, my foot.”

He shoved his hair out of his eyes. “We—I—had nothing to do with that. You can’t—”

“If you hadn’t set everything in motion, none of that would have happened!”

“They were Valaviri,” he said, eyes flashing in rage. “You don’t know what they’re capable of, how cruel they can be!”

“For your information, I am Valaviri,” she told him coldly. “I may have been born in one of the outer provinces, but without the empire, do you know where I’d be right now?”

“Not running for your life?” he bit off.

She clenched her teeth. “I’d be slaving away on a farm somewhere, instead of knowing how to read—oh, and also how to throw literal lightning.”

The anger in his eyes hadn’t faded; Calista dug her nails into her palm, understanding suddenly why everybody in the camp was terrified of the Raven. He looked as though if she spoke one more word, he would leap across the tent and put her in the ground right then and there.

“Look,” she said, striving for a calmer tone, “I’m not here to make friends or debate politics. I appreciate your help with my little brother, really, I do. Just tell me what you want in return and my debt can be settled.”

He turned away, dismissing her. “I don’t want anything from you.”

Why had she expected anything different? Lulled by the banter between the two boys, exhausted from worry and late nights, she’d hoped—desperately, painfully hoped—for an ally, a friend; someone who could show basic human decency and understand her plight.

Instead, she had been bitterly reminded that she was surrounded by rebels who saw no harm in killing those she considered her friends and countrymen. Fine. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone. She and Milon were just fine on their own, thank you.

“That’s what you say now,” she threw at his retreating back. “That’s what Noz said at first, too.”

“I’m nothing like him!”

____

Because the majority of characters in The Raven’s Return are Falian, we generally see a very anti-Valaviri perspective of the world. And there’s good reason for that, but that’s not the way reality works. For one thing, you can’t blame an entire people for something that their military or government decides to do–and even then, how do you blame an entire group like that? Are the people in the military only in the military because they need money? Is it a way to make their lives better? Did the people in the government make their decision based on what was best for their people? Since people don’t have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight like we do, would it have been feasible for them to take the alternative route like we think they should have? What were the available options that they knew of at the time? Obviously, there are definitely cases where we can look at an event and the people involved and say, “here’s what went wrong, here’s what would have been better for everybody involved, here’s who’s to blame,” but history is complex. People are complex. And for a lot of people, that’s hard to wrap their minds around, because a narrative with good guys and bad guys is so much easier to process and understand.

Part of what I’m trying to do with The Raven’s Return is show the complexity of history and the effect of that complexity. The nin Roys and other Falians hate the Valaviri because their land was invaded and their own culture was taken over. But Lucan wasn’t the one who did that–that invasion happened centuries ago. Plenty of Valaviri weren’t responsible for that. And there are elements of Valaviri culture to be admired–Cal brings up education, and how that improved her future. The issue here is messy, and it’s complicated, and both sides have some of it right and some of it wrong. There isn’t a clear cut “bad group” and a clear cut “good group.” There is an empire, and a lot of the characters hate it (pretty much all of the characters have some problems with how it is right now, but that’s pretty standard for anybody with their government), but it’s not an evil empire, and Falia isn’t the noble rebel nation. It’s messy, just like history.

So I like this conversation because it gets into that a little bit. Cal doesn’t like the government or the magicians right now, but she appreciates the empire nevertheless. Bran can’t understand that, and maybe he never will, but he needs to hear that the world is more complex than he might think.

Also, I love having characters with different worldviews have discussions without one character being a strawman. That’s really annoying to read, and seems so lazy to me. So I like this little snippet for doing that.

[unspeakableisms-blog]

Melodrama

Even after more than ten years of working there, some protocols and regulations at the Department of Mysteries were still a mystery to Rodolphus as much as the mysteries he had helped attempt to solve for years now.   Of course irony had it that his ancestor and Minister for Magic from 1835 until 1841 had tried to shut down the Department, only to be told that the Unspeakables didn’t answer to the Ministry of Magic. When asked about it Rodolphus simply quirked his lips up in a half-grin and asked if they were the same as their ancestors too. The real implication in the matter was that Rodolphus’ family had been of importance over a century ago as well, important enough for one of them to make Minister for Magic, and that their pureblood ancestry could be traced back that much further, including a Minister that attempted to stop people thinking for themselves - it was something that Rodolphus could applaud, seeing that he agreed many people should not be thinking ever again, namely mudbloods.

  Protocol prescribed a limited amount of time to be spent in each and every room, varying per room. The Love Room was the most limited, and thankfully so seeing as everyone kept falling asleep in there due to the scent in the room. Rodolphus, and many with him, suspected that it was the Amortentia Fountain in the middle of the room. The moment he started to feel like he was at home he knew he had to leave. His Amortentia was rain (which was a first warning sign, seeing as it should not be raining in there), chai tea (which should wake him up, seeing that was what tea did for him during long days or nights) and the Lestrange library (which was his last warning, seeing that the smell lured him into a false sense of security). He hated working there, however, but protocol prescribed that avoiding certain subjects was counterproductive. He wasn’t sure how it was counterproductive having him work on something he did not and was never going to understand anyway. He was told that due to his obvious dislike of the subject he may come up with some new insights others may not see.   Rodolphus already severely disliked working there when he started working at the Department over ten years ago. The smell of the Amortentia fountain was impossible to resist and frankly he understood nothing of the concept of love at all. No one really did, but others got a much better grip at it than him and he hated being bad at something. Bad at love sounded like a title of a really bad Celestina Warbeck song, however true it may be.   Protocols, regulations and what not were in place for a reason, however, so Rodolphus spent his hours researching the subject and getting nowhere with it. It always got him to thinking about things he’d rather not think about, things that had nothing to do with the subject directly. He was supposed to think about the role of the subject in mythology and where the ancient Greeks first started attaching significance to the subject, but he could not care less if he actively tried. Aphrodite was a myth if he ever saw one and her earlier counterpart Astarte was no better. The Greeks, and others before them, used mythology and extensive religious practises to make sense of life’s mysteries. Disaster meant they hadn’t done well enough in their worship rituals or simply worshipped the wrong gods. Their practices were from ages ago and were supposed to sound ancient to the modern mind.    Perhaps this was his sanctuary. Perhaps knowledge was what he worshipped. It was one hell of a lot better than deal with everything else. Bellatrix looked at him differently these days, he knew. He may not pay attention to other people much, but he wasn’t blind either. Rabastan had been avoiding him, but that was hardly something new. The brothers never got along. He was the heir, Rabastan disliked him for it and he disliked Rabastan for disliking him for it. Rodolphus called it the ‘second son complex’ in his mind and had wondered on multiple occasions what Rabastan was capable of to make Rodolphus seem less perfect as the heir to their bloodline. The answer had never been quite clear - until it was.   Rodolphus was not an emotional kind of person. His life was built around duty and logic, two concepts that were clear-cut and left nothing open to interpretation. It was what made him do so well in school and had him take a job as Unspeakable. It was the reason he married Bellatrix. It was why he joined the Dark Lord and got the Dark Mark. It was the right thing to do. It was good for his family’s reputation. Because if you played by the rules, you did everything right, life would turn out right eventually anyway. It wasn’t difficult. It was logical.   Except that apparently, it wasn’t. Not when his little brother felt that tormenting him and reminding him that he wasn’t perfect was more important than the reputation of their shared family name. Not when his wife thought that sleeping with the one person that would bother Rodolphus the most was the best solution to fixing what was wrong in their marriage. He was once asked what he thought was the trademark of their society was. He considered many answers. Rumours? Existed everywhere. Gossip? Everywhere too. Flaunting money and luxuries? Hardly rare. Now he finally had the answer. It was melodrama. He wasn’t sure if it was pettiness or if Rabastan and Bellatrix were truly that pathetic. He was fairly certain that they would tell him it wasn’t about him when he mentioned it. ‘Not everything is about you, Rodolphus,‘ he would be told. Not everything was about him, but this so obviously was. Both of them could have slept with anyone and choose each other anyway.   One thing that he got about it was that he would never have done the same thing. He valued his family name and the family’s reputation too much for that. He did not exist to break down what his family had built up for years because something wasn’t going the way he wanted it to. He was not that childish. Apart from his family name he also had enough respect for his wife not to cheat on her. He had never even entertained the thought. Until now. Because if Rabastan and Bellatrix could risk their family name and think they could get away with it, Rodolphus felt like he had every right to do whatever he wanted. He may not start melodrama but he could finish it and he would do that in whatever way he liked. He was almost certain that Rabastan would not see the problem. He was almost certain that Bellatrix would point out that he had it coming due to his behaviour. He didn’t care. His younger brother sleeping with his wife sounded like the summary of another strange myth about love that some kind of life lesson could be drawn from. It could be considered a lesson learned.   He was the better person. The better man. The better heir. There was absolutely nothing right about your brother sleeping with your wife, but since he knew it would somehow end up being his fault he wasn’t going to get into it. Not Rabastan nor Bellatrix had ever come to him, so he wasn’t going to do the same thing for either one of them. The blame was with the two of them and Rodolphus was done with letting them think they were just going to get away with it. Hazel and everything else to follow was not something he was going to be responsible for. His brother and wife were not the only ones that could play that game. If their family name was going to be tarnished he was going down with it anyway, so it may as well play his part in it. If they could ignore the basic rules of society for selfish reasons he could do that too.   That day he thought he finally found out what his problem with love was. It wasn’t logical. It didn’t follow any rules. Most of the time it either mattered too much or not at all. It surely meant nothing in their society. His life had taken a turn for the ironic after he uttered those bedamned words to Bellatrix - I love you, he had said and she had started crying, telling him to stop talking and to go away - because the roles were suddenly reversed. Bellatrix kept running. He was at home waiting. What Bellatrix didn’t know, however, was that the day also reversed their roles in another way. Rodolphus had given up trying to safe their marriage. It was nothing more than a facade for the public eye for him now. His words, however, had no doubt given Bellatrix hope. Thus after a year of being the one trying to understand the other and getting her to talk to him, Bellatrix was suddenly in his shoes. The hunted became the hunter and the new hunted had no desire to get caught, because he had learned.