#Giovanni’s room spoilers

[foundfamilynonsense]

Ok but like. B.J from M*A*S*H = David from Giovanni’s Room hot take.

So. Y’know. This is obviously only if you accept the popular headcanon that BJ is gay, repressed, and in love with Hawkeye.

So anyway. David has sex with his childhood friend and then immediately starts repressing shit. He flees to France, somewhere where it’s not illegal to be gay, because he’s feeling the heat and knows he’s going to have to get married soon and he needs to put a pause on his life, to get away from that.

Then he goes to France. And yes, he does get to know a few people in the gay community. But what’s the first thing he does? He finds himself a perfect wife. Gets into a committed relationship to her. Until proposal is literally the only next step.

Ok. So BJ gets sent to Korea. And meets Hawkeye. And, yeah, this isn’t all that canon. But a lot of people in the fandom like the headcanon that BJ was immediately attracted to Hawkeye.

He’s away from home. If BJ was ever going to experiment with his sexuality it would be now. Now, I’m not saying he should have cheated on his wife but like y’know. If he was ever gonna let himself be gay it would be now.

But he doesn’t do that. He clearly has attachment to Hawkeye, but his whole personality revolves around his wife back home. Every time she has a problem at home, he becomes obsessed. His wife gets a job and he throws his ring into a poker table. He has a breakdown over her cleaning the gutters. He literally tells a woman who’s interested in him that he’s tethered to a little house with a wife back in California. He’s tied himself to his wife in the one place where it’d actually be better to let go a bit (again, not meaning cheating but like. Going to shambles bc somebody innocently hit on her).

So. For David, France represents his homosexuality. For BJ, it’s Korea. And both times, they completely reject it. Tether themselves to home and the heterosexual lie they’ve been telling (did I mention David’s girlfriend is American! Bc she is!)

So. David proposes to his girlfriend. Bc what else would someone escaping hetero standards in the US do in France? And she says SHE has to think about it and leaves for a trip around Spain.

Meanwhile, BJ gets some incorrect travel orders and gets to go home to his wife. He rushes off without even leaving Hawkeye a note and then. Gets caught. And gets sent right back to Hawkeye and the war.

Ok. Now what. David meets Giovanni and they get into a heavy relationship. Living together. Etc. meanwhile his girlfriend writes him back saying yes to his proposal and that she’ll be back, which is now a problem, bc like. Whoops. He now understands he doesn’t want her. Giovanni is sitting there, realistic and understanding, saying well you can have her and I’ll still be here no problem. But David just can’t think like that. Because in Giovanni’s room he can be gay, but this is his whole life, and he’s still repressed as hell.

BJ gets sent back. And the peace talks work out and the war is ending. And he refuses to say goodbye to Hawkeye. He refuses to admit they’ll never see each other again. They’ll meet up all the time. Even though BJ lives in California and Hawkeye in Maine. Meanwhile Hawkeye, who just came out of the mental hospital, is the voice of reason. Saying that they will never see each other, and that their relationship deserves a goodbye. They have a huge party talking about the future and BJ gets drunk and jokes about cheating on the wife he’s been obsessed with for so long, only a few days before he gets to see her again. Which seems a bit odd. Y’know, unless he actually didn’t want to face real life.

With both, only once the reality of the heterosexual love life is staring them in the face do they panic and allow themselves to want what they want.

And then what happens. The reality becomes too close and they’ve actually got to choose.

So. David doesn’t tell Giovanni, goes to pick up his fiancée, and writes his dad saying he’s coming home with a wife. Doesn’t acknowledge Giovanni again.

BJ goes home to his wife, says goodbye forever.

Giovanni’s Room ends with Giovanni getting put to death bc of a crime he wouldn’t have had to commit if David had just gotten his shit together. Meanwhile David gets caught in a gay bar by Hella, his fiancée, and she leaves him. He has no one and finishes the book in guilt and anguish.

So………… should I write a really fucking depressing M*A*S*H fanfic?

[underratedgrapeju1ce]

behold

-

bonus one (spoilers for Room 103)

[creed-of-cats]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[swimmingwithfish]

reading Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin alexa play ‘Casual’ by Chappell Roan

[reloha]

Well, there’s precedent for that with the previous appearance of Jelly Roll Morton (real composer of the “Wolverine Blues”).

re: this post, all I kept thinking was how the show going to do Louis and Claudia in ww2 France, and realizing that they could be in a community of Black expats who stayed or moved to Europe after ww1 which is how we get Jonah again and yeah maybe James Baldwin too

it would be so funny if there was a joke about Daniel not being the only author Louis has told his life story too, and he describes telling James and him going off to write Giovanni's Room

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #38 – Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion

Didion is one of those canonical authors I always feel like I should already have read at some point (isn’t that what high school English class was supposed to be for). Of course this was a very vague feeling, and not attached to a single scrap of actual information about her and her work beyond the general time period and cultural milieu – so I grabbed this from the library and started it entirely blind (partially my own fault for skipping the introduction by a different and much worse author tbf). Fascinating book, artistically successful and emotionally affective, but not one I’m able to say I really found enjoyable, or even necessarily beautiful (it’s no Giovanni’s Room, to compare another bit of canonical latter-20th century high literature).

The book follows Maria Wyeth, an (increasingly former) actress in 1960s Hollywood, through her slow decline from up and coming starlet and wife of a prestigious young director to an enforced retirement as an isolated upscale sanitarium/hospital resort. Which is hardly a spoiler – the book starts at the end and jumps through the timeline freely, and in any case the whole thing feels telegraphed to the point of inevitability. Maria’s life in LA is contrasted with how she grew up in a tiny desert town in Nevada, so small it at some point stopped existing, and in the process more or less gives you the narrative of her life.

Which is as close to a plot as the book has, really. Maria and her internal monologue are the near-sole focus, and her view of the outside world and what’s happening around her basically always says more about her than the world. Watching Maria’s life falls apart really is watching a car crash in slow motion – you’re never really surprised at any point, but the shearing metal and flesh are hard to look away from.

The book’s very much capital-l Literature, here meaning that the style and prose is at least half the reason to read the book. The story’s told through short vignettes (I’m not sure a singe chapter was more than ten pages, whereas the vast majority were two or three) and the deliberate, generous use of white space, both figurative and literal. Maria is pretty relentless in her self-deception and lack of self-awareness, and in any case is quiet elusive and vague with descriptions of people and events – reading between the lines is quite necessary. This overall really does work for me - the imagery is vivid and memorable, and Maria’s head is a compelling and believable place to be.

It’s also just intolerable. I have no particular issue with deeply unsympathetic, tragically unselfaware, or wince-inducingly self-destructive characters, but Maria sure is all three of those to a degree I rarely see. More than that, she is just profoundly passive. It is, for me at least, far easier to be invested in operatic delusion and hubris leading to ruination than a just resolutely thoughtless and pettily cruel person letting her life rot around her. Which is a failure of literary empathy on my part, probably, but did make this a somewhat frustrating book to read. You’re left want to scream at Maria to just do something (anything!) that she isn’t led to by people around her like an ornery goat to water.

This is probably exacerbated by the supporting cast. Who are all very much portrayed as hopeless, clueless gamblers and unprincipled, hypocritical Hollywood decadents,, absolutely – but despite that, keep trying to reach out and offer her lifelines or support. Which is mostly surprising because she might literally not say a single kind word to another human being in the entire book, is relentlessly caustic in her internal monologue, and sure isn’t doing favours or advancing the career of anybody. The real tension of the book ends up not being whether or not she’ll destroy her life and more how long before everyone around her just lets her.

It’s a blisteringly cynical novel overall, really – both in its portrayal of individual characters and of society as a whole. I joked while reading it that it felt like American Psycho without a Patrick Bateman, and while that’s a bit too far – everyone’s still very recognizably human, most of whom do care about at least a few things besides status symbols and dick measuring contests – but the portrayals of Hollywood and Wall Street certainly feel like they rhyme.

Though the implicit politics of that cynicism do feel do feel very different here. Very possibly because the back cover called it something like ‘a blistering satire of the excesses of the ‘60s’ (paraphrasing from memory), but the book definitely ended up feeling very (socially) conservative, full of worries about broken families and marriages of convenience and just generally decadence. The whole plot where Maria gets a motel-room abortion to deal with the consequences of her affair which almost kills her, sends her spiralling into months of total, life-ruining depression, and destroys her relationship with both her husband and her paramour feels like something you’d only see coming out today in explicit pro-life propaganda, for example; certainly it’s a trope I’ve seen complained about more than (until now) I’ve ever actually seen done. The fact that Maria’s foremost redeeming feature is always her love for and desire to be with her (disabled and permanently hospitalized for vague reasons), and that the climax of the book is a suicide directly caused by infidelity, also. None of which should exactly be surprising, really – a book almost as old as my parents has dated opinions on social issues! - but for some reason I always expect canonical authors to have been free-wheeling libertines and bohemians.

Speaking of being written nearly sixty years ago – the time capsule quality of this book is positively fascinating. Which I say whenever I read something from before the millennium, but still – the ‘60s are still so profoundly mythologized I do love the chance to see anything written about them at the time, if only for ‘the past as a foreign country’ tourism reasons. The Hollywood of exploration, drug abuse, meaningless sex, vicious gossip and every combination of the above feels like it could almost be written about today, right up until the point where an easy divorce means finding an amenable judge and finding a witness to corroborate the husband’s admission of wanton emotional abuse (which becomes a stark reminder of how horrifying even a historical five minutes ago was when you consider what happens if you can’t meet any of those conditions). The illegal abortions, the utterly casual homophobia, the auteur theory being a hot new thing, the cult of the open road. It all adds up to an interesting effect.

Speaking of the cult of the open road – Maria’s only real sense of peace, happiness and self-control in the entire book is when she’s spending all day cruising the highway at dangerous speeds just for the sake of it, without itinerary or destination. No real coherent point to make, just that there’s something truly and incredibly American about that? The descriptions of the Nevada desert and highways, too.

But yeah, an expertly written novel that’s positively lovely in places (the opening monologue is near-sublime, for example), but not one that really awed or oved me the way some other literature has.

[noneorother]

Share your GOS2 bibliography with me

How crazy is it that season 2 has basically forced me to go back to university. I’ve done more reading and critical analysis and historical research than I have in years. I bite my thumb at you, Neil (affectionate).

And as I’m sure I’m not alone in this, I’d love to see your bibliography of all of the references or reading/watch lists. I’m sure to pick up a few good ones! I’ll go first.

Movies + TV Arrival - Denis Villeneuve Clue - Jonathan Lynn I Know Where I'm Going - Powell & Pressburger The Ball - Magnus Dennison and Katja Roberts Every Day - Michael Sucsy About Time - Richard Curtis The Red Shoes - Powell & Pressburger The Small Back Room - Powell & Pressburger The Tales of Hoffmann - Powell & Pressburger Stairway to Heaven - Powell & Pressburger Ill Met By Moonlight - Powell & Pressburger The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse - Steve Bendelack Monty Python's Life of Brian - Terry Jones Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones The Twilight zone (The Arrival) Boris Sagal The Twilight zone (The Hitch-Hiker) - Alvin Ganzer Staged (Seasons 1 and 2) - Simon Evans & Phin Glynn Books The Crow Road - Iain Banks The Bridge - Iain Banks The Scholars of Night - John M. Ford Symbols of Sacred Science - René Guénon Catch-22 - Joseph Heller A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett Night Watch (Discworld) - Terry Pratchett Parlement of Foules - Geoffrey Chaucer The language of the birds - Farid ud-Din Attar Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen Persuasion - Jane Austen Midnight Days - Neil Gaiman Negative Burn #11 - Neil Gaiman Chivalry - Neil Gaiman Other Les contes d'Hoffamann - opera, Jacques Offenbach Don Giovanni - opera, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The Line, the Cross and the Curve - musical, Kate Bush The book of Enoch - Ethiopian Apocryphal trs. Rev. George Schodde, PhD

I'm sure there will be more... sigh. Spoiler alert: there are more! Donnie Darko - 2001, Richard Kelly Nothing Lasts Forever - 1984, Tom Schiller The Ghosts of Berkley Square - 1947, Vernon Sewell Brazil! - 1985, Terry Gilliam No Bed for Bacon - 1941, Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon Don't, Mr Disraeli! - 1949, Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon Murder Mysteries - Neil Gaiman The Man Who Was Thursday - 1908, GK Chesterton Small Gods - 1992, Terry Pratchett Ipomadon - Medieval - Trs. Richard Scott-Robinson

[liliesbythewater]

Pascal Quignard, Tous les matins du monde | The Smiths, "I Know it's Over" | Lossapardo (via @metamorphesque) | James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room | Lomepal, "À peu près" | Jeff Buckley, "Lover, You Should've Come Over"

inspired by Crimson Rivers chapter 68 by @mayzarbewithyou , which I didn't include because of spoilers but oh boy did I want to

also I translated the french parts myself because there's no official translation, so now I've stared at it for too long and I don't know how to English anymore

[theyellowapron]

on the love mark has for his pa

i am the messenger by markus zusak // the rifleman, “end of a young gun” // alpha by rachel vincent // the rifleman, “long trek” // vanishing acts by jodi picoult // the rifleman, “the deadly wait” // giovanni’s room by james baldwin // the rifleman, “the vision” // m*a*s*h, “sons and bowlers” (x) // “my father’s house” by bruce springsteen // the rifleman, “the journey back” // m*a*s*h, “sons and bowlers” (x) // the rifleman, “the deserter” //  the pain scale by eula bliss // the rifleman, “seven” // “catastrophize” by noah kahan // m*a*s*h, “hawk’s nightmare” (x) // manon lescaut by prevost abbe // the rifleman, “the spoiler” // “leader of the band” by dan fogelberg

thoughts/headcanons below:

admittedly some of these quotes are taken out of context, but i thought they all represented the unconditional adoration mark has for lucas.

even knowing that lucas is only human- and i think mark realized this quite young, given how the series hints at the depression lucas had following margaret’s passing- and eventually coming to see his flaws and mistakes, his regard and worship for his father never falters. i think a part of mark wishes he still had that naive understanding that his father is invincible, but i think he loves him more knowing that he’s fallible, and i think the idea of being able to protect his pa pleases him as well, too, although lucas probably wouldn’t want mark to feel that way or have such a responsibility.

despite this father-son love being one of the central themes and the core of the show, the characters only voice their love a few times; but that’s because every single thing they do and choice they make is a declaration of love, just of a different kind.

also sorry that some of the images are blurry! hopefully the alt descriptions clear up any confusion. also let me know if the alts should be more detailed

[assassinschaoticcreed]

Can we get some funniest Auditore moments for the year??

I got you anon 🫡

• Maria heard screaming and banging coming from upstairs. she ran upstairs to find Ezio & Claudia standing on a table, Desmond & Frederico standing on chairs throwing whatever they could at something--it was a spider. Maria saved the day by killing the spider, she silently judged them and they knew it.

• Ezio used the last of Claudia's hair products. there was a brawl in the living room that Desmond, Frederico, Petruccio and Mario were placing bets on who would win. spoiler, Claudia won.

• to get back at Ezio, Claudia put a little bit of bleach in some of her hair products that were almost all gone knowing Ezio would use it. she almost used Nair, but knew she would feel guilty. him having mis-matched hair wasn't that terrible in her eyes though.

• Desmond has accidentally broken some of Maria's favorite plates & glasses, he panicked not only out of fear but he also felt guilty. Claudia managed to get Maria into believing it was Ezio without Desmond knowing. he was very confused when Ezio was being yelled at in Italian and being dragged away by his ear and yelling "WHAT DID I DO!?"

• Frederico, Ezio & Desmond like to free run on rooftops and even do races sometimes. there was a time where Desmond tripped and fell on his face. Frederico went to help him back up and Ezio laughed, after he got done laughing he ran to help Frederico with Desmond. karma hit Ezio cause he fell through a roof. good luck explaining that.

• Maria asked Desmond to go grocery shopping, she forgot a little too late that Desmond isn't good at reading, let alone speaking Italian. he came back with half of what was needed, a goat and a few chickens. needless to say, he is no longer allowed to go shopping on his own.

• both Giovanni & Maria were terrified of teaching Ezio, Desmond and Claudia how to drive. Claudia has road rage at times, and very little patience. but she is very observant. 7/10. Ezio is too focused on the women either walking around, or driving. he also gets way too into the music he's listening to, speed limit is only 40 mph? what is he doing--80 mph?! 5.3/10, Giovanni's heart has almost stopped on a few occasions. Desmond is just a nervous wreck. speed up or slow down? do I turn my blinker on now--wait do I turn here or farther up? but he is a safe driver overall. 8/10.

[bracketsoffear]

Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) "In 1950s Mexico City, beautiful young socialite Noemí Taboada receives a letter from her cousin Catalina, begging for help. She firmly believes that her English husband, Virgil Doyle, intends to poison her. Suspecting that Virgil may be after Catalina's money, Noemí's father, Leocadio, sends her to the Doyle home, High Place, which is located in the mountains outside of a small town named El Triunfo. Once there, Noemí is struck by the strange and unwelcoming atmosphere of the Doyles' house and the controlling and patronising attitude of its inhabitants. Catalina is proclaimed to be suffering from consumption and Noemí is mostly kept away from her cousin. Noemí spends her time learning about the Doyle family, which also includes Florence Doyle and the frail family patriarch, Howard. The family has a history of incestuous marriages and deep intergenerational traumas, such as one of Howard's daughters, Ruth, killing several family members before shooting herself."

SPOILERS BELOW CUT

Rappaccini's Daughter (Nathaniel Hawthorne) "Giovanni Guasconti, a young student renting a room in Padua, has a view from his quarters of a beautiful garden. Here, he looks at Beatrice, the beautiful daughter of Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini, a botanist who works in isolation. Beatrice is confined to the lush and locked gardens, which are filled with exotic poisonous plants grown by her father. Having fallen in love, Giovanni enters the garden and secretly meets with Beatrice a number of times, while ignoring his mentor, Professor Pietro Baglioni. Professor Baglioni is a rival of Dr. Rappaccini and he warns Giovanni that Rappaccini is devious and that he and his work (which involves using poison as medicine) should be avoided.

Giovanni notices Beatrice's strangely intimate relationship with the plants as well as the withering of fresh regular flowers and the death of an insect when exposed to her skin or breath. On one occasion, Beatrice embraces a plant in a way that she seems part of the plant itself; then she talks to the plant, "Give me thy breath, my sister, for I am faint with common air."

Giovanni eventually realizes that Beatrice, having been raised in the presence of poison, has developed an immunity to it and has become poisonous herself. A gentle touch of her hand leaves a purple print on his wrist. Beatrice urges Giovanni to look past her poisonous exterior and see her pure and innocent essence, creating great feelings of doubt and confusion in Giovanni.

In the end, Giovanni becomes poisonous himself: insects die when they come into contact with his breath. Giovanni is troubled by this, which he sees as a curse, and he blames Beatrice. Professor Baglioni gives him an antidote to cure Beatrice and free her from her father's cruel experiment. However, when Beatrice drinks the antidote, she becomes sick and dies. Before realizing that Beatrice is dying, Dr. Rappaccini excitedly welcomes the love between his two creatures, his daughter and her suitor, Giovanni, who has been transformed so that he can now be a true and worthy companion to Beatrice.

While Beatrice is dying, Professor Baglioni looks down from a window into the garden and triumphantly shouts "Rappaccini! Rappaccini! and is THIS the upshot of your experiment!""

When she begins to sleepwalk and experience strange dreams and visions, Noemí decides that she must leave the Doyle household, only to be told that she cannot leave. They reveal that Howard discovered a strain of mushroom that has a symbiotic relationship with humans. The Doyles use this fungus and remain at High Place, the house infused with the spores of the mushrooms, which has grown inside its walls and all around it, in order to heal themselves and prolong their lives. As the fungus's potency is lessened depending on the individual's genetics, the Doyles have intermarried in order to ensure that their offspring can also receive these benefits. Because it is interlaced with mycelium and infested with the mushroom's spores, the house can hold memories, which the family refers to as the "gloom". The spores can also help the Doyles control people who have inhaled them, which frightens Noemí. She grows more horrified, however, when she learns that Howard's wife Agnes was used as a sacrifice to grow the spores - and that Howard can use the gloom to take over the bodies of family members, which he's used to further preserve his own life.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: july 2023

I don't have a cool and witty opening for this one. I read a fuck of a lot of books this month and I want to tell you about them LET'S GO

Black Water Sister (Zen Cho, 2021) - Black Water Sister has a very fun premise: a closeted lesbian and unemployed recent graduate moves back to Malaysia with her parents and is already having a bad enough time when she starts hearing the voice of her dead grandmother, who turns out to have been deeply involved in supernatural organized crime. our hapless protagonist becomes a medium against her will, and has to navigate to world of Malaysian spirits and superstition to lay her grandma to rest. unfortunately the actual style of the story wasn't more me; although definitely adult fiction, the prose is breezy in a way I affiliate strongly with YA, which is not to my personal taste but is still so hashtag valid. if you're one of the countless people trying to make that jump from YA to adult fiction and you like queer urban fantasy then Black Water Sister might be a great fit for you, although I should provide a warning for a pretty surprisingly graphic near-rape in the book's climax that really took me by surprise in a story that's otherwise pretty zany in its violence.

The Bride Test (Helen Hoang, 2019) - I think I said last month that Alexis Hall's A Lady for a Duke was the best so far of the romance-novel-every-month scheme I'm trying to pull off this year. the Bride Test has pretty swiftly displaced it; have I finally discovered the really good romance novels? (worry not; I know what I'm reading for August and my hopes are. low.) our two protagonists, Mỹ/Esme (her chosen American/English name) and Khai, are both genuinely charming and are pretty strong characters independent of each other, which cannot be said for A Lot of romance protags. despite the absolute insanity of how they met (yes, Khai's mother went to Vietnam and offered, uneducated a poor single mother a tourist visa in exchange for trying to seduce her autistic son. yes, that's shady. don't think about it too hard) and Esme waiting until WAY too late in the game to reveal the existence of HER LIVING HUMAN CHILD, I liked this book a lot. it's silly and heartfelt and I had fun; what else do you need? 5/5 eggplant emojis.

Giovanni's Room (James Baldwin, 1956) - there's probably nothing I can say about Giovanni's Room that I could say that someone smarter and gayer hasn't already said, but god. it really is breathtaking. I so often see this book talked about as a gay tragedy, and honestly that feels like almost too glib of a description. it's a really meticulous dissection of white male masculinity and the claustrophobic constraints there of, and our narrator's claustrophobic fear of divesting himself from the power that he's entitled to by virtue of being a white American man perceived as a heterosexual. this man would rather live in repressed misery for his entire life than risk being like those effeminate faggots at the gay club, but spoiler alert! being miserable doesn't make you better than your fellow fags; it just means you're miserable AND a fag. sharp and painful and so so so smart. also I'm going to summon @zaricats because I was supposed to tell you what I thought about this book. oops!

Lone Women (Victor LaValle, 2023) - okay so listen. did I just say Black Water Sister wasn't really for me because of the simplistic prose? yes. did I really enjoy the very sparse, straightforward style of Lone Women? also yes. leave me alone, I contain contradictions. anyway, Lone Women is a ripping piece of historical fiction spliced with supernatural secrets, based on LaValle's research into 19th century Black women homesteaders who made their lives in Montana. LaValle opens on a scene of irresistible intrigue - Adelaide Henry, lone woman, sets out for Montana with a mysteriously heavy trunk after burning down her family's California farm with her parents' mutilated corpses inside. and boy, does it escalate from there! it's a story about isolation and community and the people who are failed by so-called close knit small towns, and the ways in which vulnerable people band together to protect one another. it also makes the compelling point that maybe, just maybe, the real monsters were your local transphobe and her husband's lynch mob all along.

Black Disability Politics (Sami Schalk, 2022) - what a cool book! Schalk's argument begins with the idea that Black disability politics are distinct from predominantly white mainstream disability politics, and are therefore often overlooked in conversation, activism, and academia. Schalk analyzes the historical work of the Black Panthers and the National Black Women's Health Project to showcase what she describes as Black disability politics in action. in Schalk's conception, Black disability politics take a much more holistic approach to disability, conceptualizing as just one form (and, frequently, as a result of) of oppression tangled up with a myriad of others that cannot be meaningfully addressed when they're treated as separate issues. the book concludes in interviews with contemporary Black disability activists and organizers that shed light on ways in which the wider movement is often unwelcoming to folks of color, and an exhortation from Schalk for readers to continue the conversation well beyond the confines of the book. in a killer show of praxis, the entire book has been made available to read in PDF form, and I strongly recommend giving it a look!

The River of Silver (S.A. Chakraborty, 2022) - mentally I am kicking myself a little for waiting so long to read this continuation of my beloved Daevabad trilogy, because it did take me a minute to get back into the swing and mythology of the world and that did make me feel unpleasantly like I wasn't appreciating these character-focused short stories as much as I could be. but even having said that - man! fuck I love the world of Daevabad, and I adore these characters so much. getting to see them again, even briefly, was a delight, and I am once again congratulating Nahri and Ali on being the invention of heterosexual romance. (also, on a related note, but I ADORE the way Chakraborty writes her characters having crushes. they crush SO hard and it's very sweet. these books are such big drama all the way down.)

Men We Reaped (Jesmyn Ward, 2013) - an absolute powerhouse of a memoir, and devastating the whole way down. in Men We Reaped Ward attempts to make sense of a series of tragedies that befell her community when five young Black men - beginning with Ward's younger brother - died between 2000 and 2004. the word 'unflinching' is hopelessly played out, but it's difficult to figure out how to describe the head-on way Ward explores each young man's life and ultimate end and her own upbringing. the men in Ward's history - her brother, the friends she lost, her father and other male relatives - are never idealized; their demons, miseries, infidelities, addictions, and violence are placed on full display. but Ward is also insistent on displaying these men with dignity, compassion, empathy; showing them at their best and, most importantly, as men who were loved and deserved better than the violence that poverty and racism wrought on them. it's a furious memoir, one that will leave you mourning too.

Nimona (ND Stevenson, 2015) - did I only read this so I can make more informed complaints if/when I end up watching the netflix movie with my wife? YES. but listen, it wasn't JUST petty hater behavior. Nimona is just really good, and I think I got a lot more out of it this time around that I did when I first read it years ago. this comic is wild and unfettered and so spectacularly weird; I wish more things felt the way Nimona does. I also with more things starred small girls begging to kill cops and stage a violent overthrow of the government, that rules hard. also man I love Ballister, he's SUCH a good protagonist. he's curmudgeonly, he's deeply principled, he's held a grudge for years, he's paternal, he's even gay. what a guy!

[gluon01]

Finally finished Underworld by Don DeLillo yippee !!! Took me a month but finally!! Very solid book from him, but unfortunately the weakest of the 3 by him I’ve read.

A very long meandering book (820 pages lol) that traces America through the Cold War with a lens so wide that it does take away from the main thrust of the novel ever so slightly. The themes are excellently presented however, and you really get a feel as to the atmosphere the author is trying to conjure.

Spoilers lie below:

The paranoia of the Cold War is one of the stronger themes in the book, along with all the connections between interlinked lives that lie just out of the field of perception being expertly illustrated. The obsession with an underworld of connections, waste, and hidden causality causing ripples through time is the clearest theme in the book, however, whether it be as simple as a baseball or as massive as the atom bomb.

But the diffuse nature of the novel does harm it compared to DeLillo’s other works, which are much more focused and streamlined, and are able to get their points over much more effectively (although I’m not sure if there is a more efficient version of this book that still hits all the textual beats the author clearly intends to hit).

Anyway, good book if you can stomach the staggering length. Onto lighter reading (probably Giovanni’s Room by Baldwin)!

[regretful-kishin]

I said I'd write an essay about Silver if allowed, and I was left unsupervised (aka sleep schedule is ruined and 4am idea brainrot is an all day thing now). Anyway, this became more of a summarizing of both Silvers' stories with just a bit of how they finally start to heal at the ends. Oops?

Essay under readmore (warning! Goes over pretty much everything so manga AND game spoilers ahead. You've been warned)

In manga canon, he was taken away from his home at 2-3 via giant bird snatching him away and across to another region, had a mask made of ice sealed to his face, and forced to grow up as a child soldier without a childhood. The only silver (heh) lining was Blue, who was kidnapped not too long after and took up the mantle of older sister.

When they finally manage to escape, the hardships aren't exactly over either. Neither could remember home and when Blue eventually figured out she was from Pallet they choose to travel separately. Even if the choice was mutual and from their point of views logical (be in 2 places to gather more info about Masked Man while Blue also looks for home), Silver still ended up losing his one pillar of support for years until finding Lance post Yellow Chapter-Pre GSC. And SpeLance isn't exactly a great role model, considering the whole tried to wipe out humanity deal (it's also been debated he may have withheld some of what he'd seen from Sneasel either as a grudge against Gio or to keep Silver working under him longer)

Essentially, with the exception of any time he may have been allowed to be a kid around Blue after their escape, which was probably rare, Silver was forced to be a mini adult to survive. When we finally get introduced to him in the GSC chapter, it's easy to assume he's just the standoffish rival (we thought) we knew from the games. We don't get to see him let his guard down until he finally accepts Gold's challenge to a battle, where we finally see him really smiling and enjoying himself (until he gets a call from Lance and had to go back to serious again)

Throughout the rest of the chapter we get to see him quite literally fighting against his past trauma (the Masked Man), eventually accepting Gold's (and Crys') help when the other refuses to let him fight alone. When the battle is finally won at Celebi's Shrine, Silver is fully willing to let himself be taken to the authorities by Green because 1. His fight is over now that Mask is trapped in time and 2. He feels like he doesn't have any reason to keep fighting for himself because his first friend Gold was also trapped. Until he wasn't, appearing on the shrine roof and giving Silver an alibi using the wanted poster that he gave the wrong detail for.

We don't see our crew again until the FrLg chapter, when Silver mentions sending Blue a dress as a gift for when she finally gets to reunite with her parents (like the sweet little brother he is) before he sets off himself toward Kanto to resume his own search.

There he runs into Yellow who takes a look into Sneasel's memory to try helping her junior out. This is why people believe Lance held information from Silver, as she sees a glimpse of a familiar looking face that she'd seen on a statue in Green's gym (previously Giovanni's). It's on their way there that they run into Rocket Executives Sird and Orm, who are there to retrieve Silver, with Sird (pretty harshly) revealing that he is the son of their leader Giovanni, and heir to the Rocket throne, throwing Silver off enough for her to have her Pokémon knock him out and grab him.

When he wakes up again in the same room as an unconscious Gio (long story short, very very sick), when he sees the way Sneasel starts acting? We see him break. He wanted so much for his home to be some place warm and welcoming like Gold's, where he could finally be happy, only to find out his home is as cold and cruel as he grew up.

We end up learning that his home wasn't so cold, that Giovanni really was a loving dad who never gave up searching for his son even if he had to perform truly evil deeds to do so (every legendary hunt and note by Team Rocket can be tied to this in some way. Additional essay on subject pending), and we get to witness this love as he holds Silver (unconscious again) and Sneasel up out of reaching flames as he himself burns.

At the end of the arc, when Silver wakes up and Gio is unconscious again (they just can't seem to be awake at the same time), he starts to feel down again because his fate is with the heartless Team Rocket. It's not until Green points out that they were found in the fire, but Silver is unharmed while Gio is burned from holding him up that Silver truly breaks down for his father.

Of course, the arc ends on a heavy cliffhanger that doesn't resolve until the end of the next one.

In HgSs, we get not only the return of Team Rocket, but the return of Masked Man Pryce himself on top of Arceus rampaging.

Pretty much 24 hours of nonstop battling, getting injured (getting paralyzed by a Ghastly lick to the face had to have left some lasting effect, and I'd be surprised if none of Arbok's poison stings hit skin), almost losing his dad to sickness, then his dad walking away after being healed by Celebi to continue Team Rocket while telling Silver to train under his 2 mentors to come defeat him (one of those mentors being the guy who KIDNAPPED him and caused at least 70% of the problems by proxy (Gio told Silver Team Rocket wasn't the result of him being taken away but as I noted earlier, many of their endeavors can be tied to finding Silver)), said Kidnapper just. Being allowed to come back without facing the consequences of his actions. A lot is piling up on his shoulders until Gold quite literally throws a solution in his face: the script for Proteam Omega. Yes it's a goofy kids cartoon (most likely on par with real world Power Rangers), but it looks fun and interesting and yes he's going to camp out in front of his best buddy's TV to watch it.

After so many years, he finally has something to let him be a kid again, and he has best friends by his side supporting him!

----

On the game verse side of things, Silver's upbringing is a bit of a mystery. How he was raised could be anywhere from strict, harsh, loving, or rich. Our main clues are him being told that Giovanni was the greatest, and him believing that Pokémon are just tools.

The earliest fact we learn about him is Giovanni left him behind after his defeat at the hands of Red, saying that Team Rocket needed to become stronger. Silver yells back that he's a coward on his own, only standing strong behind his lackeys. When Gio says that Silver will understand one day, Silver yells at his retreating form that he doesn't want to understand. He'll get stronger on his own.

We won't see more of him until the start of the game 3 years later outside of Elm's lab. Talking with him gives us a taste of how rude he is as he tells us off and pushes us away. He ends up stealing one of the starters for himself, whichever one is stronger against ours likely after watching us pick first. (It's also his only Pokémon, meaning he's likely been all on his own these three years without a partner or friend to help him at all on the journey between Viridian and Newbark)

Most encounters with him during the game are on par with early gen rival encounters, with (harsher) banter and battle. However we run into him in Olivine, where he calls the gym leader weak for caring about a sick Pokémon in the lighthouse. Whether this is his continued views of Pokémon just being tools to cast aside when they become useless, or something deeper regarding becoming weak and useless in sickness, who knows. He chooses not to battle us here.

A trainer on route 43 mentions Silver making fun of his Pokémon. This wouldn't be too noteworthy considering Silver calls a lot of things weak, except that Pokémon is a Nidoking, a decently strong Pokémon in gen2 that also happens to be Giovanni's signature Pokémon next to Persian. This is likely the reason this trainer is the only one (outside a Rocket grunt and a trainer outside victory road) to mention Silver, our rival seeing a reminder of the father who left him behind and lashing out enough to be worth mentioning.

In the rocket hideout under Mahogany, Silver refuses to battle us again, instead asking about the guy with the Dragonite. He mentions losing against him, then complains about being told that he wasn't treating his Pokémon with enough love. Just the idea of love and trust makes him mad, and we can't help but wonder why.

He shoves us before stalking away, not being seen again until the Goldenrod tunnels (or in the case of the remakes, the radio tower first where he's furious at us for wearing the Rocket uniform, actually ripping the disguise away before realizing we were trying to sneak in to fight Rocket not join them.) After beating him again is when he finally starts to question what he's still missing, if love really matters so much. He just doesn't understand the idea of love, the pause giving us an idea just how much this is affecting him. If he doesn't understand the importance of showing love and trust. Does he even know how it feels to be loved?

He doesn't start to truly understand until we defeat him in victory road, seeing us still stronger than him. He's still aiming to be the strongest, but maybe he'll be less harsh about it. And we see some of his progress much later when we reach Mt Moon when he is genuinely excited to see us, challenging us even though he afmots that he's sure we'll just win again, but still wanting to battle to see more about what he still needs.

He mentions training in The Dragon's Den, and we can actually follow him to see him there training to be better.

And he does get better, because next time he rematches us at the Pokémon league his Golbat has evolved into a Crobat, meaning he's actually been treating his Pokémon with love! And going back to Elm's lab has one of the aides mention that he came to return the stolen starter, only to be told how much the Pokémon loved him and that he could keep it, how when he left he looked happy!

And while that ends up really being the last we see of Silver in the main game outside of rematches and just seeing him at the Den, Pokémon Masters has given us even more insight in his character, especially during the Ho-oh legendary event. He knows that the legendary will only present itself to a pure hearted trainer, so he doesn't want to bother going with us and Ethan to look, so sure that just him being there will mean that it won't show up. It's not until Lance talks to him, tells him how much his Pokémon cares about him (Sneasel, a Pokémon that many believe was the one stolen from Kirk in Cianwood) and how he's become a better trainer that he changes his mind to go with us and Ethan.

And even then he doesn't believe he's good enough, turning away when Ho-oh appears to the group only to be surprised when the legendary chooses him! Because he's letting himself be a better trainer and person!

The Johto Villain arc shows us that he still plans to become the strongest on his own, and he refuses any help from anyone ESPECIALLY against his father. He does eventually (and reluctantly) accept help from the Johtrio when it becomes obvious that he can't do everything alone, and that's ok. His one condition is that he alone fights Giovanni. But even then, in the end he accepts Ethan's help against Giovanni because this isn't just his battle against his father, this is everyone's battle against Team Rocket. He accepts that he'll have his chance to prove himself later, he can battle alongside his rival (still refusing to call anyone a friend at this point).

The addition of the trainer lodge gives us even more insight on how he feels about friendship with his hangout events, at first believing that to be friends he has to act all friendly and smiley and not like himself until we tell him that it's himself exactly that people wanna be friends with, that he doesn't have to do stuff that isn't him for people to like him.

Just the fact that he's in the lodge at all (especially for the opening wave of trainers!) proves that he's opening up, that he's willing to make friends and do stuff that isn't just training and battling and getting stronger. That he can just hang out and talk about places and Pokémon and ninjas and just have fun.

There's so many more events and scenes that gives so much more, but I think this is getting pretty long and also off track, and I'm losing steam so night all!

[envihellbender]

So here are five, amazing classic lit novels that are not written by straight, white, American/English cis men.

1. Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin

Honestly, any of Baldwin’s books are amazing and could have a place on this list. This is my favourite, because I find Giovanni such a relatable character. Baldwin’s main goal in a lot of his fiction books is to separate black characters from the tragedy of being black, Giovanni’s Room focuses on two white gay men and it both does this from a gay perspective and doesn’t. On the one hand, a lot of the tragedy regarding the romantic story has happened within heterosexual relationships, and when Giovanni’s is executed (it’s established from the beginning)… it’s clearly because he’s a poor young man who dared to stand up against the rich older man who at best took advantage of him. In some ways, this is more to do with abuse of power from rich old men.

2. Maurice - E. M. Forster

What if I told you… there was a classic queer novel… with a happy ending? And a working class queer character. And isn’t just about rich gay public school boys who keep everything behind closed doors. It took me a little while to get into it because I thought it was going to be just another book about the latter, but it’s not I promise you. It wasn’t published until after E.M. Forster died, which makes sense since it was written fairly close to the Oscar Wilde trial and prior to homosexuality being made legal in the U.K.. Also, It was inspired by Edward Carpenter, socialist, and early gay rights activist.

3. The Lottery - Shirley Jackson

The gif is from The Haunting of Hill House but Nell’s story is extremely fitting to this short story. Thinking about it shakes me to my god damn core. It’s a small creepy village that has a horrifying ritual, no one does horror quite like Shirley Jackson. Similar to the Haunting of Hill House I think a lot of the disturbing nature of it comes from the people so unwilling to listen. The Lottery itself refers to the annual stoning of a person which is a tradition among the villages to ensure the prosperity of the village for another re crops and such. There’s a bit in it where a couple of old men are talking about how other villages have stopped doing the Lottery and how ludicrous that is, with added “young people these days”. This story really gets into the psychology of why people so adamantly stick to tradition and don’t challenge authority. It’s so great.

4. The Dubliners - James Joyce

I actually think this is the most underrated Joyce book, and whilst I’ve heard some people have read it at school I’m extremely jealous. I always hear about Ulysses when this one is significantly easier to read, and I love how each story is about a new every day, normal person living in Dublin. It does not focus on separatism of religion in Ireland (not entirely anyway), and avoids politics almost entirely (excluding when a woman calls a journalist a west Brit). The idea was that like Baldwin Joyce wanted to depict Irish people being normal, and not to he defined by their tragedy, religion, and politics.

5. The Tenant of Wildfel Hall - Anne Brontë

This is the most underrated Brontë sisters’ novel. It’s absolutely iconic. The inspiration for this novel comes from a story that Anne’s father told. He was a priest who was hearing a confession from a married woman who was being horrifically abused by her husband. She didn’t want to leave him because that would he a sin, Anne’s father told her to do it and that God would understand. When you consider how divorce was seen in the 1800s especially in religious circles… that is pretty astounding. That is essentially the main theme of the book without going into too many spoilers, it’s also about how “odd” Helen is considered because she actually shows love and care to her son (which involves a spirited debate about how all children deserve affection and closeness from their mother.)

[softhanni]

2024 Media: 72. Spiritfarer (2020) - 5.5/10★ This review is going to be a long one and definitely not spoiler free so I'll write it beneath the cut off <3

Pros: - The concept was very interesting and unique - The art was beautiful, the animations of the characters felt fluid and the character designs were so well done - It has a bit of everything. You can grow crops, upgrade your boat, craft things, fish, explore, there's a story, multiple characters that have their own stuff going on, mini games. There's pretty much always something to do more or less! - The Everlight turning into oven mitts, a fishing rod, etc. I know it's only a little thing but I think it is SO cute and fun. Cons: - Some of the controls (I played on PC) felt not very smooth and like they overrode each other - You can't view the map outside of one specific room - You have to travel to a specific location to check your completion progress which is REALLY annoying and even then you don't know what you're missing because it doesn't say the names. - You have to hover over each individual location to check for resources which means whenever you're looking for something specific you have to check around unless you have a good memory. - Lack of instructions for certain crafting things on the ship Now onto the story and characters. I think this game should of been a lot shorter. I feel around the halfway point the characters became less impactful and all the back and forth of the later game definitely became less fun. I know not every death has to be a lesson or something thought-provoking but it felt as if that was the vibe of the game and then...it suddenly wasn't...and then it kinda was again?? Also, I really don't understand why a lot of these characters died which is strange in a game about death? Gwen was the introduction to the entire system essentially so that's chill. Atul's passing was the one that I felt left the biggest mark. Not getting to say goodbye felt like so impactful. Astrid and Giovanni allowed a conversation about how feelings surrounding loved one's death can be messy and complicated and not always black and white. Summer's cancer was of course a topic I'm sure resonated with many people and her conversation around being unable to find peace with it was very powerful imo. Alice slowly losing her mobility and memories due to age, once again, very impactful. Then... it just, for me, went downhill. Gustav felt so flat? Bruce and Mickey, I was waiting for something to happen and it just...didn't? Beverly was just...like a second Alice? Elena's intense challenges didn't fit the pace of the game AT ALL and she didn't feel like a character as much of a way to spice the game up. I LOVED Stanley with my whole heart but I'm still confused as to why he was there? Daria was a very interesting character but once again I'm confused as to why she passed away? I feel like out of the latter half Jackie was the only character to have that same impact. His more antagonist nature was very interesting and mental health is always a topic I'm happy to have more rep for. Not to mention it brought the topic of morality and the afterlife in which go hand in hand. However, I HATE that he was one of two essentially antagonist characters and the reason was...because of his mental health. Of course mental health can be ugly and cause people to be horrible but it being the ONLY rep of it in the game felt so ugly to me idk. As for Stella's story... I didn't really care by the end of it. Once again I think the length of the game and the way the pacing was ultimately worked against the emotional impact of her story. It was like "take her to the everdoor" and then I had to finish other quests for a billion years first which dulled the emotion completely. Also, her ending just felt sad and flat which may have been the point but it felt very anticlimactic either way. All in all I did enjoy this game despite all the complaining lmao, I just think it would have been more coherent at like...half the playtime and with half the characters. Shoutout to my baby boy Stanley <3