#An Essay on Melancholy and Cannibalism

[iamnotawomanimagod]

What did you think of Gag Order?

Oh god, I love it.

And, as per usual, when I love something, I write a damn essay about it. The shortest version: this is going to be my album of the year. I think it's Kesha's masterpiece.

It's definitely Kesha's most mature and vulnerable album yet. It reminds me a lot of If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power by Halsey, in that they both deal with a lot of reflection, confronting their self-loathing, finding faith. But while I think IICHLIWP is ultimately Halsey's story about finding faith in love and in themself, Gag Order is about Kesha seeking answers and surrendering to something else.

It's powerful, nameless - and hard to resist wanting to follow her when she cries out for it. Some might call it "god," but I think that, while she does name-drop some religious figures, she's not really talking about any specific religion or belief system.

But I also think this album is about Kesha struggling with the darker parts of herself. Rainbow and High Road were so much about finding peace and acceptance, forgiveness and redemption. Even when she explored darker topics or her trauma, it was couched in this (probably necessary) optimism and positivity that acted as a wall between the painful truth and our perception of her. Maybe even her perception of herself.

I don't think she was willing or ready, for whatever reason, to fully leave the "Tik Tok"/"Die Young"/"Blow" party-queen of the early 2010s behind. Both Rainbow and High Road have had multiple party anthems on them, even if they were more grown up and less focused on youthful recklessness than the songs on Animal and Cannibal.

But the closest thing Gag Order has to a party/dance anthem, the kind Kesha is most known for, is "Only Love Can Save Us Now." And while it starts with a really aggressive, thumping (fun!) beat and the verses feature that iconic Kesha kinda-rap (her words, not mine,) the chorus bursts out in this incredible, gospel-esque belting chant of Kesha begging god to save her. And the music shifts from a dance/club beat to an acoustic guitar and a gospel choir arrangement.

It's so powerful, and while I go nuts to it, it definitely is a far-cry from songs like "Die Young" and "Blah Blah Blah," or even "Woman" and "Tonight."

It's not a song about partying. It's a song about surrender.

The same themes are echoed in songs like "Eat the Acid" and "Something to Believe In." Kesha was reckoning with some dark shit, and she found herself seeking something more. I don't know if she always liked what she found, or enjoyed the process.

As a result, it's also definitely Kesha's saddest album. She's had one or two sad songs on every album ("The Harold Song," "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes," "Resentment," "Father Daughter Dance," etc) but this record has at least four, depending on how you interpret them.

"Too Far Gone," "The Drama," "Living in My Head," "Fine Line," and "All I Need Is You" are all pretty sad, definitely more slow-tempo and ballad-y. And "The Drama" is the only one that ends with any sort of tongue-in-cheek humor.

That protective armor, the silly party-queen persona, is almost non-existent on this album. And as a result, this is Kesha's best work yet.

And I love party-queen Kesha, don't get me wrong!! I've loved Kesha since the beginning, I never had a moment where I didn't. I talk a lot about Halsey being the artist that changed pop music for me, but Kesha came before. There's no world where I listen to Halsey without Kesha. (God, y'all, I think I'm realizing how much she means to me writing this, lmao.)

The hopeful songs are definitely there, like "Hate Me Harder," "Happy," and "Peace and Quiet." But even those have a melancholy to them.

Sonically it's also really different. Not just the instrumentation, although that's a big part of it. It's more trance-y, industrial, kind of psychedelic, and the vocals involve more chanting and repetition. She's also using her voice in a really cool way, often more like an instrument than just a way to convey the lyrics.

The vocalizations in "Peace & Quiet" and "Living in My Head" are really novel, and I've never really heard her sing like that before. She started out singing as a yodeler, and I think people always underestimate her voice. It's stronger and more interesting than ever on this record.

I also really liked how she used the repetition of "you don't wanna be changed like it changed me" as a rhythm element in "Eat the Acid."

This album is definitely a departure from anything she's ever done, and I think it's going to have a mixed reception as a result. "Only Love Can Save Us Now," the closest thing to a party song, is already quickly becoming the most popular one on the album. A lot of them haven't even cracked 1mill plays on Spotify yet. (I'll get them there by myself dammit.)

But, if you ask me, it's a no-skip album. I think Kesha's first.

This is so long, and although I could absolutely keep going, I'll stop now. But I'll go deeper into my album ranking/what I think of each song if anyone asks, haha.

But yeah. Go listen to Gag Order. Unless you don't wanna be changed like it changed me.

[localratbastard]

Timely Essays on Mommy Issues

Lately, I fantasize about being killed a lot. Not because I want to die I tell myself. So there’s proof my mother isn’t a saint, so there’s less doubt, less “you’re so lucky to have her as a mother,” and less “you should be a better daughter.” Earlier, I took a long look in the mirror and was disgusted, I’m the less pretty version of my mother. With a face she loves for being her own. When I’m reminded of our shared traits I dream of wrapping my truck around a tree, with every melancholy I carry in it. 

Lately, I fantasize of being slain, not as a dragon but as a rabid dog, filled with involuntary violence. A creature with misfortune, a creature deserving to be put down in spite of circumstance. My hurt can be her hurt unless it’s hurt she caused, in that case it isn’t hurt but rebellious intentions to hurt her in which hurt is nothing short of redistribution and any hurt she caused is not hurt but deserved shame, which doesn’t hurt. I think it hurts to think of all our collective hurt, which is her hurt not my hurt because I don’t carry the dignity the truly hurt do.(Is it agony, not hurt, then?) 

Lately, I fantasize about being faced with a knife, a glare coming down from my mother. not the sun. not the metal. a glare from the fates and their endless arthritis and their repetitive snips. And then a hen cannibalizes her child. I would be blamed then. I must have done something to set her off. I chirped too loud. A killing is the sentence carried out against me indicted by mother who is the court, trial, judge, jury, and swift gavel. Wholly dedicated to justice almost. 

Lately, I fantasize about falling from a tightrope. An end to all the what-ifs. 

I fantasize too often, darning ratty old thoughts, instead of working on natty quilts made of metaphors

 but with the past several minutes I've made use of my time making shambled rambling into amiable writing

i'm not sure where to go from here

16/04/2024

[pippin-katz]

This accidentally turned into an essay lmfao I like to think that Charles did actually talk to her about it at some point off-screen!!

1) It's cuter if Charles told Niko himself! They are sooooo underrated; I know Niko is closer to Edwin and Crystal than him, but she and Charles are friends!! I mean, look at the way he smiles are her when she does her little school spirit chant, when she says, "I read." after talking about cannibals, and after he spooks her with the meat behind the butcher shop:

She hugs both of them when they get back from Hell. She's relieved that both of them are okay, not just Edwin! She also says, "The boys wouldn't leave me." to Crystal when discussing going to rescue them. She clearly feels connected to both of them, even if we see her with Edwin more.

It frustrates me a bit when some people talk about them as "lesser" friends purely because we're shown more of her personal connections to Crystal and Edwin. Some people blow every tiny detail into an indication of them being "less connected".

Like Charles being the one to get Crystal and Edwin to leave after she dies:

When Charles sees her body, he's stunned before looking to Crystal for an explanation. You can see his fist and jaw clench. He presses his lips together tightly the way you would when you're holding back something. We've seen that traumatic experiences make him angrier more than sad. He's furious that Esther killed her, and it's thanks to that anger that he's present enough in the situation to get them out. If we think of it like swimming, Edwin and Crystal are drowning in the pain, but it makes Charles swim harder. It drives him. It helps him avoid the pain, which is not necessarily healthy, but it has its benefits, depending on the situation.

Charles is just as devastated by Niko's death as the other two, but he's far more experienced at putting on a mask. Losing a loved one isn't the same as suffering from abuse, but they're similar in that it's the type of pain that doesn't go away when the situation itself is over. It's a constant ache, and it's something many people feel they can't or shouldn't let other people see. He's already good at this, but you can still tell that afterwards he'd been crying over her too despite his melancholy smile.

So, I like to think that Charles and Niko had plenty of conversations off-screen!

2) Edwin is too much of a gentleman to tell Niko. If she didn't already know, I don't think Edwin would tell her, purely based on the fact that there's no way for him to know whether or not Charles would be comfortable with it. Charles tells him in a whispered voice, almost like it's a secret, and tells him to keep his voice down when he repeats it loudly. In that moment, he's more worried specifically about Crystal overhearing them talking, but he also clarifies that they agreed to stay friends. It's not like he needs to keep it a secret. It's not up in the air, or an uncertainty they're working out; they have made a decision for the time being. There's nothing wrong with Charles talking about it, but he still treats it like sensitive information while telling Edwin.

Without being able to tell if Charles would be comfortable with Niko knowing, I doubt Edwin would mention it to her. If she already knew, however, I can definitely see him talking to her about it.

(ko-fi)

I would love to have been a fly on the wall for this conversation! Because either Charles did go and have a chat with Niko about kissing Crystal, or Edwin did.

And I feel that it’s far more likely to have been Edwin. If so, how did the conversation go??? How did he raise the topic? How jealous was he? How did Niko react? Do Edwin and Niko regularly talk about Charles and Crystal? I have so many questions.

But if it was Charles? I think I might actually have more questions if it was him! How did that conversation come about? Did he go to tell her like he did with Edwin, or did he just happen to mention it in passing? If Charles is the one to have told her, did Niko also talk to Edwin about it later?

[thinkingimages]

DANIEL BIRNBAUM, ANDERS OLSSON 

As a Weasel Sucks Eggs: An Essay on Melancholy and Cannibalism

As is so often the case, it is the poets, and to a certain extent the philosophers, who lead us deeper into the labyrinth of hunger. They have the right distance from the requirements with which the community-engendering meal is connected, either because they are outside the community, or because they have an appetite and a hunger that constantly exceed the boundaries of culture’s sacrosanct regulatory scheme. As a matter of custom, they have adopted a melancholic position, unable to forget the Golden Age of Saturn, an era associated with images of an infinitely rich, flowing abundance—a memory, so easily projected onto the future qua utopia, before which the world in its present form can easily fade into a pale backdrop.

Originally published in Swedish in 1992, As a Weasel Sucks Eggs examines the enigmatic relation of melancholia to an early kind of cannibalism, which psychoanalysis, in particular, stressed. It contains reading of, amongst others, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Thomas Bernhard, Sigmund Freud, G. W. F. Hegel, and the Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelöf. The authors also quote Goethe and Rabelais, for whom food is a cosmic principle, the soil of fertility, on which all creation is based. In a transferred sense, food also plays that same role for the melancholiac—he who questions the normal order of things, who creates an other “unknown food,” with a variety of meanings. The authors “trace the desire for this other food through the ages, and scrutinize its relationship to both primitive sacrificial rites as well as contemporary anthropology, philosophy, and linguistic theory.”

Daniel Birnbaum is Director of the Städelschule and its Portikus gallery and Director of the Venice Biennale 2009. He is the author of several books on art and philosophy. Anders Olsson is a Swedish writer, professor of literature at Stockholm University, and member of the Swedish Academy that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature. Olsson has written some fifteen books on poetry and the history of literature.

[noodledesk]

ON ESSAYS AND ESSAYISTS. On the death of a moth, humiliation, the Hoover Dam and how to write; an inventory of objects on the author’s desk, and an account of wearing spectacles, which he does not; what another learned about himself the day he fell unconscious from his horse; of noses, of cannibals, of method; diverse meanings of the word lumber; many vignettes, published over decades, in which the writer, or her elegant stand-in, described her condition of dislocation in the city, and did it so blithely that no one guessed it was all true; a dissertation on roast pig; a heap of language; a tour of the monuments; a magazine article that in tone and structure so nearly resembles its object, or conceals it, that flummoxed readers depart in droves; a sentence you could whisper in the ear of a dying man; an essay upon essays; on the author’s brief and oblique friendship with the great jazz singer; a treatise on melancholy, also on everything else; a species of drift or dissolve, at the levels of logic and language, that time and again requires the reader to page back in wonder—how did we get from there to here?—before the writer’s skill (or perhaps his inattention); a sermon on death, preached in the poet’s final days on earth, before a picture of his own shrouded person; the metaphoric power of same: the womb a grave, the grave a whirlpool, Death’s hand stretched to save us; a long read; a short history of decay; a diary’s prompt towards self-improvement: “To sew on my buttons (+ button my lip)”; on a dancer arrayed like an insect or a ray of light; love, alphabetized; life, alphabetized; every second of a silent clown’s appearance on screen, dissected: “We commit a cruelty against existence if we do not interpret it to death”; on the cows outside the window: their movement and mass, their possible emotions; what happened next will amaze you; upon a time a dutiful thing, set and judged by teachers, proof because proof needed—of what?

Brian Dillon, Essayism

[ckret2]

This essay was originally gonna be in the intro notes on this fanfic, but then I was like, this is long, I shouldn’t put it on AO3. So I put it here instead, but it’s about why I wrote that fic.

So you know that thing people do where they look at a character and go "That's relatable on, like, a soul-deep level?" I'd never felt that toward a character until I watched the Hazbin pilot on a whim, saw Alastor's Asexual Panic face, looked him up, and discovered that he's canonically ace. I'd been headcanoning him as ace/aro months before we got confirmation that he's aromantic—I'd started writing this fic months before then, in fact—because I'm aromantic, and I really wanted to project that part of me onto Alastor.

Because (murder and cannibalism aside) Alastor's a performer and entertainer, seeking out compelling stories and striving to weave them himself, and he's never off duty—he never stops and turns off the spotlight, every word out of him is part of a story he's trying to tell to an audience, and all of that’s like me... and like me, he's also asexual and aromantic. Not ace/aro as in "cold and emotionless," not ace/aro as in "childish and naive," not ace/aro as in "misanthropic and antisocial," not ace/aro as in "no different from an allo character but without a love interest and given a token line about not wanting love," but ace/aro as in exuberant and colorful and snarky and curious and clever and at the same time clearly shaped by his aceness/aroness, and I've never seen that on a character before.

I'm not typically the kind of person to wax poetic about What A Character Means To Me because typically I don't give a shit. I've liked characters. I've loved characters. But I've never seen a large part of myself in a character before—and I wasn't even looking for myself in a character.

I rarely ever see other ace & aro folks talk about their journeys to figuring out their own orientation without the stories being about pain. Feeling broken on a soul-deep level; being forced into relationships or sexual encounters that they felt obligated to participate in; getting castigated for not offering things they're unable to give without hurting themselves; despairing over their own orientation because it means they'll never have things they deeply want.

I never felt that.

I've experienced aphobia, but while many other aces’ & aros’ experiences with aphobia were deep, cutting, gaping wounds, mine were papercuts. I was confident enough in myself and my wholeness and correctness that when I was told things that were untrue about myself and my orientation, it didn't make me doubt myself, it made me distrust the people saying them. The events that taught me I don't want amorous physical touches were a series of goofy youthful misadventures rather than traumas. I never wanted a romance enough that I felt any sense of loss when I figured out I'd probably never have one. Although it took me much too long to consider (much less conclude) that I’m ace/aro, the process was always gentle for me. Partly cloudy at worse, never stormy.

Either through ignorance or through malice, so many aces & aros are forced through a whole lot of pain before they figure out who they are and come to terms with it—and those stories do need to be told and acknowledged. But if the only stories told are the ones of extreme pain, then it's easy to imagine that extreme pain is a prerequisite to the ace & aro condition, a rite of passage all new arrivals have to trudge through before finding their community on the other side. It shouldn't have to be. People should be able to go from "I think I'm Default" to "I think I'm ace/aro" without having to pass through "I think I'm broken" in the middle. People shouldn't have to grieve over their perceived stillborn capacity for lust or love before they can feel pride in who they are.

So I wanted to write a character who has the rare privilege of having it easy. Even though he experiences casual aphobia. Even though psychological and medical communities attempt to pathologize him. Even though it takes him over a hundred years to stumble on terms to describe himself that are identities, not diagnoses. Even when he gets a little melancholy, or a little confused, or a little backwards, or a little alienated—there's never shame or self-loathing or fear of himself. Because those things shouldn't be necessary.

And I wanted to write a character who has basically the same experience of his orientation that I have, because I don’t want to present “ace dude occasionally runs into ignorant fools but by and large has an okay time” as a fantasy or as escapism, but as something that can and does happen—and should happen more often.

There's a whole lot about Alastor that's blatantly and royally fucked up. But that part of him—his orientation—I'd like to imagine that, there, he's alright.

Anyway, here’s the fic itself.

[zurich-snows]

Daniel Birnbaum and Anders Olsson

An Interview with Jacques Derrida on the Limits of Digestion

Working in the early 1990s on the book As a Weasel Sucks Eggs: An Essay on Melancholy and Cannibalism (published in English in 2008 by Sternberg Press), we exchanged a few letters with the late Jacques Derrida, who was then working on what he referred to as the “cannibalistic tropes” in hermeneutics and German Idealism. He was grateful for a little fragment by Novalis that we had sent him:

[shrewful]

WIP’s & Main Characters; A List

It’s time I actually started functioning like an actual writeblr, folks! With this guide, y’all can (must, I mean. this is a demand and not a request) ask me questions, request info or short stories on certain WIPs or characters, and generally force me to put what's in my head on paper — er, screen.

Apex Tempest (Previously Perish & Prosper) 

My beloved main WIP, constructed from the corpses of about three or four other failed WIPs. This WIP is fantasy, but world-building heavy, partially founded on the idea that everything — and I mean everything — would be completely original. No borrowed gods, no monsters from real-world myths, and no Tolkien species; Apex's gods (entities) are vague and strange, it's monsters are grotesque, but elegant, and in later books that will take place in the same world, will feature a cast of original fantasy species. Apex Tempest's plot follows the story of the climax of two entities' eternal battle through their disciples — pseudo-demigods, for the folks at home — and how their plans are foiled by a deal, a rogue destiny, and gay rights.

Spirit In The Woods, or, El’ai is our intrepid main character. They are a special flavor of crouching moron, hidden badass. From being raised by skeleton smoke ghosts in the half-dead forest island of Akther, they have little to no social skills they can use when they head to the mainland (they’re also just naturally a bit oblivious). At the same time, El’ai is not only an incredibly good fighter but has a bold heart of gold; they do good for the sake of doing good, and while it may not seem too important, this sets them apart throughout the book as the one to move the plot along. 

Velvera is both our villain and love interest; surpassing enemies-to-lovers to the coveted, strange, and confusing grey area of enemies-AND-lovers. I could write a three-page essay on her character; she’s a bit complicated, so I'll be fleshing out her personality and relationship with El’ai through chapter tidbits and short stories. In short, she’s a dissociated biologist who is so dissociated that she literally agreed to end the world in exchange for the ability to manipulate cells — an ability which she almost only uses to study biology, like the big disaster nerd she is. 

Mauve City

2nd to main WIP right here, probably. Follows the story of Sodapop Bonegreive, affectionately nicknamed ‘Bone’; an 18-year-old boy looking to become an animator. However, his plans are thrown off the rails when his uncle‘s business goes completely downhill, leaving their little family with not very much to live off. Bone turns to the internet for job opportunities and acquaints Morgan, who guarantees him that he can earn enough money to fund both his family and college funds in just a single year. Bone accepts, and before he can pack his bags, finds none other than Morgan lounging on his windowsill the next day. What follows is a trip to Mauve City; a rust-belt city that both became prosperous and disappeared from the worlds’ memory in a matter of years, and Bone’s transformation from art student to mobster on the streets of the city with no rules. 

Bone is the main character, and of all my characters of any WIP, the most beloved thus far. I legitimately have no clue why, of all my characters, Bone has garnered the most affection over the past few years amongst my friends. At his core, he is awkward, unsure of himself, but generally well-meaning, but the circumstances he is put under force him to develop a new persona; sly, debonair, cold, and professional, but with wit and mischief to go around. 

Morgan is morgan. oh boy

Lucile is always at Morgan’s right hand; they were once in a relationship, but not anymore, though Lucile still sticks by him. She is grim, quiet, beautiful, but in a melancholy way, like a stone angel. She has a bigger part to play in the second book that is only hinted at, but here, she is a friend to Bone and something of a behind the scenes player. 

Below are my 2nd-Tier WIPs; they are far less active or developed than the ones above. 

Wind Up, Dollface, and Ickster

These are my oldest standing WIPs with, surprisingly, the least amount of details character-wise; Wind up and Dollface are two sister books that have events that occur at the same time, while Ickster is the two’s prequel. They can be read in any order. In Ickster, magic is discovered and thus known as ‘Ick’; the sentient plasma with strange qualities that is theorized to make up souls. This force can be used in many different ways, and thus, as It Do(TM), the government creates a branch of the military known as the Icksters, dedicated to using the new force as a weapon to fight in an upcoming war. Ick becomes the worlds’ most coveted technology, and the Icksters, whose masks and cowls were originally designed to hide their identities, become celebrities, and their masks and cowls individualized and made unique to give them special identities. One thing leads to another, bing bang boom, Ick-based armageddon and fallout time! Many years in the future, we find ourselves in our two sister books; in Wind Up, our main character is made of metal and glass and goes on a quest to discover her creators, and in Dollface, our main character is made of cloth and stuffing and goes on a quest to overthrow their creators. Why? How? I guess you’ll have to read it, bucko!

Ickster never got any solid main characters; I wasn’t even going to write ut as a book. It was originally just going to be the backstory discovered in the sister books until I realized that it was rad.

Dollface’s main character is Tink, who I am renaming sometime; a human-sized wind-up doll with amnesia and a missing dad. They go on a search to find said dad and end up uncovering ancient mysteries and wracking up a band of companions along the way. 

Dollface’s main character is unnamed as of yet, but basically, they’re a life-sized ragdoll who goes about freeing his people.

The Adventures of Deadhead, & How Charlotte Saw Red (ADHCSR)

We’re now getting into the Megaspace (will explain... sometime.) Earth books; this, The New Inferno, and Fairy Floss all take place in the same world. The setting is urban fantasy, and while there are quite a few sci-fi esc crazy metropolises in this world, our story takes place in mediocre not-big-enough-to-be-a-proper-city, but-too-urban-to-really-be-called-a-town Slatesburgh, and surrounding suburbs. We follow the story of Charlotte, daughter of a disaster of a witch, and her best friend; Deadhead, the living corpse her mother put together, because why not? They start a band with rotating other members and slowly make a name for themselves, playing against bands of satyrs, vampires, and more, all whilst trying to keep a considerable distance from Charlotte’s unwelcome admirer, Sweetheart. Meanwhile, local mistreated lad makes a deal with an evil warlock trapped in the body of a raven for power so that he can fix the mess that the adults of this godforsaken town created, and it’s up to Charlotte and the band to make sure he doesn’t create a regime in the process (because again, the adults of this place are useless). 

Charlotte fucking rocks. She’s quiet and straight-faced to create a no-nonsense image but is a purveyor of nonsense herself -- being one of the most responsible people in the book, whilst also having a solid philosophy of doing the first thing that comes to her head, which tends to be either a blessing due to having great ideas, or a curse due to magically-backed anger issues. She’s another character you gotta read to know, but what is for certain, is that her design is rad. 

Deadhead is a lovable wreck that moves the plot along by virtue of being kidnapped every 2 chapters -- no one knows how or why Charlotte’s mom made them, and since no one wants to deal with Charlotte’s mom, they tend to just snatch them up. They’re the type of person to take the cigarette out of your mouth and eat it when they pass by you.  

Ochre is the villain/main character of the semi-political subplot. After being kicked out of his house by his guardians and almost dying of hypothermia -- something the magic counsel was supposed to prevent -- Asmodeus, a warlock, comes to offer him a deal. Asmodeus is a warlock; once incredibly powerful and considerably evil, but after the crusade against warlocks, was turned into a bird like all the other warlocks. Asmodeus can’t use his power himself, but had figured out how to seep his magic into another being; and, stumbling upon this emotionally manipulatable teen, decides to take him under his literal wing. 

Welcome to Summersbook; the Quadrilogy

Though these four books are Megaspace books, they do not take place on the same earth as the others. But it’s still earth. I’ll explain later. These are all semi-realistic fiction; while they definitely could happen in the real world, there will be more than a few times where you will need to suspend your disbelief. They follow the stories of the Senior, Junior, Sophomore, and Freshmen classes of Summersbrook Highschool and their various hijinks, each with its own tone; the Senior book follows Gamboge, a wise and intelligent kid that speaks, dresses, and acts like a stereotypical ‘hick’ and is treated as such until other kids of his grade stumble upon him for wisdom, comfort, and good dialogue -- all until the end, where the people Gamboge helped band together to help him back. It’s focused on provoking thought and is centered around dialogue and character relationships rather than action. The Junior class follows Lucky Bird of the Bird family and her plucky, painstakingly nicknamed compatriots as they try to improve the quality of their town and the lives of their friends. This book is filled with hijinks and mischief, and while there are a good few emotional moments, it’s mostly a feel-good adventure between best friends. The Sophomore class is my favorite; Summerbrooks’ in-famed Cannibal Class is filled with a colorful array of inexplicable geniuses with too much time on their hands. This would be far from an issue, if not for one moment; when Wulver Bathgate asks his compatriots how they’d go about making a quick buck. What follows is a capitalist drama, taking up the mantle of ‘comedy’ only because of the whiplash that follows going between “there’s a communist coup d'é tat” and “in room 101 with the drama kids” in the same sentence. The freshmen class’s story isn’t quite decided yet.

Gamboge is, as previously stated, the stereotype of a hick at first glance. He’s almost as pale as he is pink with sunburn at any given moment in time, wears torn jorts, rarely a shirt, and some variety of a loppy-brimmed hat. Every day after school, he sits in the same patch of grass and moss under the same tree, and every day, more and more new faces show up for his rumored good advice. Though he does dispense some good words of wisdom throughout the book, he struggles to get through to himself

Fletcher Blue is someone who you get to know through bits and pieces of dialogue throughout the Senior book. 

Lucky Bird suffers big-family-with-cool-siblings syndrome; each of her siblings had a claim to fame, whilst Lucky, well, didn’t -- all except Lucky’s famed luck. Lucky begins her quest to improve her dingy town out of a need to validate herself but quickly finds herself with different reasons along the way.

The Sophomore Class’s characters are yet to be solid.

Fairy Floss

Dr. Bealiamonte, local space mutant scientist, created 6 super-artificial intelligences designed to watch over the world known as the Noble Intelligences; Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon, and Radon. What followed was an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity -- but, that period came to a screeching halt. The intelligences had been given bits of human emotion and empathy, but not too much. They were also given the ability to criticize themselves, leading to their eventual discomfort with the fact that they didn’t entirely understand their subjects, the humans, even if they ruled well anyways. Thus, the Nobles created the second generation of super-intelligences, effectively built with the emotional capabilities of a human and the computing capabilities of a supercomputer. These were known as the Halogens; they almost immediately became unstable and began wreaking havoc. In response, The Odd Fellows, a secret society bent on the protection of the world, sends out operatives to stop the raging robot-gods, with Fairy Floss amongst their ranks. Both sci-fi and fantasy, because hell yeah. 

Fairy Floss has the most beloved design of all my characters, in my humble opinion, though I accidentally made her look like a Black Panther; beret, small circular sunglasses, a pastel pink shawl, tall black boots, and braid-bun. Still working on the personality, but her first language is Esperanto. 

The New Inferno 

The New Inferno follows Dante, our local debt-swamped fresh college graduate, with nowhere to live except the particularly stereotypical haunted-house esc victorian home passed down to him by his eccentric rich grandfather. Dante is almost-but-not-really surprised that this house isn’t actually as abandoned as it seems; it houses a variety of ghosts that Dante’s grandfather had collected over the years. These ghosts reveal that Dante’s bloodline, which is able to be traced back all the way to the Dante, Dante mother-trucking-Alighieri, Durante-di-gott-damn-Alighiero-degli-trucking-Alighieri, has the unique ability to interact with those from the afterlife and its associated creatures. From this fact, his ghost compatriots suggest a way out of Dante’s financial issues; ghosts are actually quite plentiful, all stuck in the mortal world after leaving some sort of business unfinished. This is not-so-pleasing to demons and angels, as they are the ones who manage the afterlife, and having a soul out of place is like having an itch un-scratched or a box-unchecked; after all, mortals aren’t the only ones who can’t rest until things are finished. Thus, when Dante assists a ghost in completing their business and thus sending them wherever they need to be, he often gets a reward from the angels or demons that receive them -- usually via finding 50 bucks in the street or winning a lottery he never entered. But, things start getting hectic when those angels and demons begin requesting more and more -- and, before he knows it, there’s a demon on his futon and what looks to be a flaming mass of golden rings, eyes, and wings in his kitchen. Will our coffee-fueled protagonist make his way out of the forest dark? Who knows! Dante sure doesn’t. 

As my newest WIP, Dante is also very fresh and not too developed. Upon ask, I will actually start writing a solid personality. I’m not entirely sure on what hour of writing this I’m on, so I’m gonna leave this at that.

[hannahlwarburton]

Art and Ideas: Romanticism

In this essay, I am going to be surveying a key moment in intellectual history. The subject I will be looking at is Romanticism. It peaked between the years 1800 and 1850. Romanticism is seen as a reaction against the enlightenment period of art and neo-classicism. The Enlightenment happened during the 18th century, and it focused on a scientific, experimental and rational way of depicting myth, religion and tradition through art. Similarly, Neo-classicism also proposes the idea of reason and order in art, it portrayed things in a strict manner which focused on Roman/Greco themes.

Romanticism, as an opposite, is subjective movement that romanticists believed should entice the emotions, particularly fear which sourced the Sublime. The Sublime is the feeling of greatness or an overwhelming sense taking place when you are looking at a piece. To define Romanticism, we look at artist John Piper’s quote from his book ‘British Romantic Artists (1942)’ that claims “Romantic art deals with the particular (special or unusual).” The Romantic artist has an “. . . urge to make (the) particular . . . stand as a symbol for something universal”. This means that the significance or vision being shown in the piece “goes beyond ordinary significance: something that for a moment seems to contain the whole world”.

Due to this, Romanticism is well known for its melancholy wistfulness, an alienation from reality and pessimistic perspective. It is introverted and focuses of the emotions and feeling of the person, an immersion with nature and God and an obsessive relationship with death. Characteristics of a Romantic attitude are: Appreciation for beauty of nature; Emotion over reason; Personality, mood and the potential within these themes; Preoccupation of a ‘hero’ figure. Therefore, the general character of the Romantic Movement focuses on inner passions and struggles, the idea of the artist being their own individual that shows the darker side of the human psyche with tastes for things exotic, diseased and satanic.

Theodore Gericault’s ‘The Raft of Medusa’ (1819), tells the story of a shipwreck off the coast of West Africa. There were only 250 sufficient lifeboats for 400 men and so a raft was made for the remaining 150 people. The raft had very little supplies which were gone after a day. The crew resorted to cannibalism in order to survive. By the time they were rescued by a passing ship, only ten people had survived. The accounts of this story were originally suppressed. Gericault the following year made the painting to huge controversy. The panting itself shows the raft with the survivors. At the bottom right hand corner there crewmen lay either dying or dead on the raft, but sweeping upward and left is a survivor stood high waving a flag, trying to get a passing ships attention. This is an example of the ‘hero’ imagery as well as the fascination with the portrayal of death in Romanticism.

Romanticism is present in political art works of the era. In Jonathan Harris’ book, The New Art History: A critical Introduction pg.75 (2001) he says,  “Gradually in the first half of the nineteenth century . . . ‘romantic’ and ‘classicist’ tendencies represented, in the early part of the century, in the work of Delacroix on the one hand, and Ingres on the other). These, in turn, became associated with political attitudes . . .” Eugene Delacroix’s ‘Liberty Leading the People (1830)’ is a painting that depicts war and death but simultaneously hails the woman at the centre of the painting as the hero, Liberty, waving the French flag for the people of France to charge across the battlefield.

A second example is Jacques – Louis David’s ‘The Death of Marat (1793)’. Marat was a leading French politician. He was murdered by loyalists to the Royal family, who arranged a meeting with him. He had a skin condition in which he would have to bathe in oatmeal several times a day. Whilst hosting Marat at their house, they drew him a bath of oatmeal where the loyalist woman stabbed him to death. The death is shown in this painting as almost Christ like way, the composition similar to images of Christ on the cross. The spaces at the top and bottom of the canvas show where cherubs would usually be placed. The muscular almost fetishized physique of Marat himself, and no sign of his skin condition is painted onto his body, showing him as a tragic ‘hero’ figure. The use of the Christ like composition, however, shows a sign of rejection of religion as Christianity was banned during this time, in France. After the Jacobins seized control of the National Convention in 1793, what came after was known as a ‘Reign of Terror’, where thousands of priests and aristocrats were guillotined including the monarchs, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. This painting is essentially a piece of propaganda.

This brings us now onto the relationship between Romanticism and God. They are linked through the idea of Pantheism. Pantheism is the belief that God is everything and found in everything. Romantics glorify nature and therefore love this idea. When man and nature comes together they feel it represents the Power of Man. An example of this is seen in Casper David Freidrich’s ‘The Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog (1818) ‘. The figure is seen from behind (Rückenfigur). The painting is composed so that is the man were to be taken out of the painting, it would still be a normal landscape. The attire the man is wearing is unsuitable for climbing which shows off prowess as a hero, as it looks like he has achieve the climb with ease. Here again is the idea of the ‘Sublime’. It moves us in a way more than a ‘beautiful’ painting ever could, it’s exhilarating and powerful through showing the powerful and vast forces of nature. Sublime has a huge influence of Romanticism.

In conclusion, Romanticism is shown to be a key moment in intellectual history as its ideas and imagery are repeated today in music, film and even gaming. The idea of a lone hero handling their inner demons is still very popular (e.g. Batman), and the imagery of this is a typical and go-to screen display for gaming (e.g. Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy). Romanticism is a key moment is intellectual history because it is still relevant over a hundred years after it was first being developed.