#I wonder which robin seth is

[awfulwriter123]

Halloween Party! (Rhea Ripley x Reader One-shot)

Hey guys! Creative idea's are flowing and this one came to mind. Gonna keep this short and sweet, Happy reading everyone!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Warning's: slightly jealous rhea, bout it

"Babe! Cmon we are going to be late!" You yelled upstairs as you had your keys and purse ready to get to Becky and Seth's Halloween party.

They had a theme set for the party which was 'Cartoon's'. Too say it kinda upset rhea would be a understatement as she didn't like being restricted to a specific theme, but after some convincing you got her too go.

"I'm coming sorry! I feel ridiculous." You heard her say as heavy footsteps came down the stairs. You both decided to go as Woody and Bow-peep from toy story, I want you to take a guess as to who was who.

"Awww c'mon babe, you look great partner!" You said with a weird voice at the end as rhea came downstairs dressed as woody, holding the cowboy hat in her hands.

She quickly looked you up and down before looking into your eyes. "That dress is too short." She said whilst crossing her arms, to which you rolled your eyes.

"It's not that short babe it's fine, stop stalling lets go and have fun." You said while holding out your hand for her to take which she did. You left while closing and locking the door behind you, taking rhea's hand again as you made your way to the car.

~Time Skip~

You guys pulled into the driveway already seeing some cars pulled in, while also seeing a car.....walk!? You squinted your eyes a bit to see it was dom dressed as Lighting McQueen and his wife dressed as Flo which made you laugh.

You looked over to rhea as you unbuckled your seatbelt to see hesitantly unbuckle hers. "Hey." You gently grabbed her hand. "It's gonna be fine, you don't look nearly as ridiculous as dom." You said while pointing out the window making her laugh a bit.

"We're gonna have a good time okay?" You said whilst pecking her cheek making her smile and nod her head. "Yeah." She said getting out of the car, still a bit hesitant but did none the less.

"Looking good cowboy!" You guys heard as you turned your heads to see priest and finn dressed as batman (priest) and robin (finn). "Shut up boy wonder!" Rhea said to finn, which got a laugh out of everyone.

"Well what are we waiting out here for? Let's go party!' Dom said wrapping his arms around priest and finn and making a beeline for the front door. You wrapped your arm around rhea's while putting her hat on her head, getting a low grumble out of her.

~Time Skip~

You had a few to drink, didn't help that liv (dressed as black cat) was also giving you another after you finished one. That's where you were, drunkenly chatting with liv while rhea kept a watchful eye while drinking her water.

"Look stressed woody, something on your mine?" She heard from her left as Seth approached with Roux in his arms, dressed as Mr incredible and Jack-Jack.

"I'm alright mate, where's Miss incredible?" She said while turning her gaze back to you and liv as look scooted a bit closer to you in her drunken state.

"Ah chilling with Bayley and Finn in the kitchen." He said while following rhea's line of sight, seeing it lead to you and liv which caused him to smirk slightly.

"Jealous?" He ask's while leaning against the wall beside where rhea was sitting while readjusting Roux in his arms. "Not one bit." Rhea said calmly while drinking her water.

Seth knew she was lying through her teeth, but didn't say anything about it. "Well if something goes down, take it outside, don't need blood on my carpet." He lightly joke with rhea to lighten the mood.

It worked slightly as rhea chuckled and looked towards him. "Will do mate, will do." She said as he walked away, turning her gaze back toward you she saw liv put her hand on your thigh, which was a bit TOO high for rhea's liking.

She quickly put her water down, and calmly walked over to you as to not draw attention, reaching you after a few step's and putting a hand on your shoulder.

"Hey babe, you had a bit wanna head home?" She looked at you with a slightly concerned look, while you looked at her with a flushed face from how you've had to drink.

"Nope! I'm having a great time!" You basically shouted throwing your arms up getting some laughs from everyone. "Alright, I take that as a yes." Rhea said helping you up, quickly looking at liv. "Talk to you later Morgan."

She turned and walked out the house quickly saying your goodbye's as you went (and you yelling "RHEA'S GOT A SNAKE IN HER BOOT!!" drunkenly), gently helping you into the passenger seat and helping you buckle up, getting in the drivers seat to take you home.

You looked over at her halfway through the drive while giggling quietly. "You were jealous~" You said with a sing song voice, as rhea quickly looked at you before turning her attention back to the road.

"Maybe." She said whilst shrugging her shoulder's, placing her hand on your thigh where liv placed hers and looking at you since you were at a red light. "Too bad she doesn't know how to pleasure you with these" She did her signature wave, wiggling her fingers at you. "Like i do."

Your face blushed red more, which you didn't think was possible in your drunken state. You quickly turned your head to look out the window as rhea turned hers back to face the road and keep driving.

You said under your breath. "Jerk." "What was that?" She said while looking at you out of the corner of her eye. "Nothing Mami." You said quietly while twiddling your thumbs now. "That's what i thought." She said while putting her eyes back on the road.

[willowworkswithwords]

Good Morning Coffee – Seth Avett

-

Steve just couldn’t get a break, could he?

This customer was ridiculous, truly. They were gonna run out of sugar at the rate he was going, and they were a coffee shop. They ordered enough sugar to supply a whole neighborhood’s worth of sugar.

It was like each week he changed his order just so, adding a touch more or “oh yes please add whipped cream to that” (as if they hadn’t learned the first time that he absolutely needed whipped cream, even that one time he got a black coffee. Which, to be fair, made it not a black coffee).

Steve got the impression he was a funny guy, for all Robin laughed and laughed each time he came to the window. He made Steve wish they were the kind of coffee shop to ask for people’s names, or wish, for just a fleeting second once or twice a day, that he could hear well enough to actually take orders through the headset. And, damn him, this guy only came in during the morning rush and only through the drive thru. Steve didn’t really know anything about him, besides a guess at outrageous dentist bills and a glimpse or two of dark, curly hair piled in a  high bun.

So Steve just made this man’s coffee around eight o’clock every morning, and wondered.

- - -

“Steve, you’re squinting.”

“Shut up Robin, I’m fine.”

“Have you taken your meds yet?”

Steve turned his back to her, eyes focused on the screen. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Robin cross her arms.

“Steve, my beautiful friend. Take your medication.”

“Rob, really, I’m ok—”

Bells.

Steve turned around with a smile, launching into his spiel before he’d even fully turned around. And when he did, the words died in his mouth.

“Hello welcome to Groovy Gary’s—”

Dark curly hair. Silver rings. It was the sugar guy. He was. Wow. He was something else. He had tattoos, his outfit all black, piercings and bracelets and and and—

Reboot, Harrington, stop staring.

“Hi!”

Too chipper, Steve. Robin smothered a laugh from where she was covering the window, and Steve wanted to melt into the sticky floor.

“Hey there.” A shit-eating grin spread across his face and Steve was only sort of annoyed by it.

“How can I help you?”

Act natural Harrington, act natural.  He tried to lean against the counter and put his hand directly into the cup of stopper sticks. Sugar-guy saw. Shit he definitely saw. Steve cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows.

“I was coming in for a coffee.”

Steve bit the inside of his cheek to keep from rolling his eyes.

“A coffee? I don’t know, we might be low, I’ll have to ask Robin if we have any in stock.”

A shit-eating grin.

“You remember my order?”

“How do you know it’s me making it?”

Sugar-guy glances around behind the counter. It’s only Steve and Robin, as it’s almost always only Steve and Robin. Except on—

“Except on Thursdays. That grumpy guy makes mine on Thursdays.”

Steve laughs.

“Keith.”

“He hates me.” His voice is full of despair, and Steve laughs again.

“Wow, what are you gonna do? You’re not every baristas favorite customer.”

“Am I your favorite customer?”

Steve pretends to think, tapping his finger against his chin.

“Well man, you never get the same thing in a row, but your variations are definitely interesting.”

“You know my variations?”

Sugar-guy is looking at Steve up through his lashes, hair pulled across his mouth, barely hiding the grin.

“Do you only eat sugar?”

Another laugh.

“Hey, I order black coffee sometimes.”

“Dude, you order it with whipped cream. That’s not black coffee.”

A car horn blares outside the drive-thru window. Robin comes up on Steve’s right.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Steve, it’s Mrs. Click. She’s spitting mad already, which I don’t how that’s possible because it looks like she just rolled out of bed. They wrong side of the bed, maybe.”

“Oh Jesus, ok.” He turns to sugar-guy.

“Hey, I’m sorry, I never got your order.”

“Oh, nothing for me today. Got something for you.”

Steve tilts his head and automatically takes the things Eddie holds over the counter. With a wink Steve barely catches, sugar-guy’s walking out the door. Steve looks down at the…napkin? The folded napkin. He unfolds it.

Eddie Munson 432-9090

Steve doesn’t stop smiling all day.

[redgoldsparks]

August Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb read by Paul Boehmer 

This was my third re-read of this book, and when looking back over my book list I realized that my first read was 20 years ago!! I believe I picked it up in a used bookstore based solely on the cover art, which is a bit funny in retrospect when looking at it, because it is very beautiful but not very accurate to the character descriptions in the book. Regardless, I'm glad it caught my eye because this remains one of my favorite fantasy novels of all time. It's a coming of age story interwoven with court intrigue, magic, politics, and a deep compassion for common folk, the kind of people who fish, farm, care for horses and dogs, who cook and clean around the edges of the lives of royals and nobles. This story follows Fitz, a bastard son of the royal family, from age 6 to about 14, as he learns and grows into what he might eventually become: a catalyst of immense change. The writing in this series is so good, so grounded in real lived details, neither fast nor slow paced but unrolling at a natural speed that draws the reader along and into this rich and complicated world.

Grace Needs Space by Benjamin A Wilgus and Rii Abrego

Grace lives on a space station with one of her moms, while the other is gone for long stretches of time working on a cargo ship. Grace longs to travel, to visit planets, to see trees and lakes. Finally she gets the chance to go with her space fairing mom on a trip to the inhabited moon Titan, but her mom barely has time for her, constantly delaying her requests for games, attention, or adventure. So Grace sets out on her own for the day on Titan with a group of kids she met the day before. This gentle family drama is resolved when engineering mom swoops in to remind Grace and cargo ship mom that working together and being honest is the best way to move forward. I loved the artwork; all of the characters had a cuddly quality and the space ship and station interiors were simple but very effect, especially with the lovely colors.

Witching Hour by Beth Fuller 

A short, beautifully drawn comic about a teen's journey into fairyland and what can be found there.

The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson 

The first book in this series was devastating, with enough content warnings and upsetting aspects that I was genuinely unsure if I'd go back for more. But my book club decided to continue with the series, so here we are. This installment is challenging in a different way. Originally, this book was just the first part of a 360,000 word manuscript that had to get chopped into two volumes. It suffers from middle-book problems; no distinct beginning and no conclusive ending. The majority of the story is a long drawn out chase scene, which is a story structure that works for some but not so well for me. I remain deeply impressed by the breadth of Seth Dickinson's world building. I enjoyed the new POV characters, especially the nonbinary Tau-Indi, who lives in a society that recognizes a third gender. Dickinson can craft a devastating turn of phrase, designed with precision to emotionally injure the reader. But overall I struggled with the pacing of this book, and the constant violence and confusion.

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose 

A wonderful new alternate-history series with dragons! Anequs lives with her family on the island of Masquapaug; her people have lived through the colonization and invasion of settlers from a white, Norse culture who now have cities, trains, universities, and industry on the mainland of the north-eastern part of America, though countries have different names in this story. Also, every region has its own dragons, though Anequs' people haven't seen one of their native dragons in 200 years, since the Great Dying. When Anequs finds a dragon's egg she initially plans to raise it at home, with all of the songs, dances, and stories of her community. But the Anglish have laws about dragons and one of them is that all future dragoneers must train at an academy; if they don't learn to control their dragon's breath, which can break things down to their elemental parts, the dragon will be killed. This is a very smart and thoughtful alternate history. I loved the indigenous lens, and the fact that Anequs sees through the bullshit rules of her school and doesn't let her self worth be judged by an outside culture. If I have one complain it's that the book had too many made up words; I'm fine with the fact nearly every place had two or three different names, but I didn't need made up names for the periodic table of elements. But I'm still very interested in reading the sequel and to see where this story goes!

Liberated: The Radical Art and Life of Claude Cahun by Kaz Rowe

Claude Cahun lived at the crossroads of masculine and feminine, of artist and activist, of blessed and cursed by the circumstances and time period they were born into. Rowe weaves together historical photos, direct quotes, and lyrical imagery to tell the tale of this brave queer icon to great effect. It's short but very informative, and really filled out my understanding of someone I previously only knew from a few fandom photos that circulate on tumblr. I had the opportunity to blurb this book; look forward to it's release in September 2023!

The Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu 

A beautifully drawn soft romance set in a utopian Mars colony, a community full of parks, public transit, and cute helpful robots. Clem booked a one way ticket from Earth to work under her intellectual idol, Dr Lin, who works on AI. Clem is initially wowed by her scientist boss, and intregued by her humanoid AI assistant, Kye. But soon the cracks begin to show in Clem's new life- PTSD from an abusive person in her past has followed Clem to Mars; Dr Lin has an ugly temper and doesn't treat Kye as a being with thoughts and feelings; and Kye himself starts to glitch. The color palette of soft reds and blues and the CLAMP manga aesthetic charmed me, as did the hopeful vision of biological and synthetic beings living in harmony.

The Last Session Vol 1: Roll for Initiative by Jasmine Walls, Dozerdraws, and Micah Myers 

When a group of five teens met in their high school's GSA and formed an impromptu D&D group, none of them suspected the game would last for more than four years! Now in college, balancing jobs, internships, partners, and moves, they have gathered again to play the very end of their oldest campaign. With a hitch: the DM wants to add a new person to the party. The art in this volume is excellent, strong character designs, clean page layouts, and beautiful coloring all support a story of friendship and fantasy.

Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb read by Paul Boehmer 

This is my second or third read of this book, but my first since high school. It's not as well paced as book one- sections in the middle definitely drag, and a few of the dynamics of central relationships feel repetitive especially after the wonderful unfolding of the first book. It also only covers about two years of FitzChivalry's life, as opposed to the eight years in book one. But it's still exciting, and the last third has more twists and turns that many books fit into their entire narrative. I'm so invested in this world and these characters, and immediately started book three because I want to know what happens!

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

You are given free tickets (including plane/train/bus/whatever tickets as needed) to go see one comedian anywhere in the world. It's the only live show you can see for the rest of the year. Who do you go see?

Yesterday I finished listening to the audiobook of The Holy Vible, written by John Robins and Elis James, and the final chapter was Z for Zappa, where John Robins talked for a while about how much he loves Frank Zappa for a while. At the end of the chapter, Elis James jumped in and they had this exchange:

Elis: He was hugely prolific and varied, so I would like to pin John down to the three Zappa albums he would take with him to a desert island. John: Oh, all right, then. Roxy & Elsewhere, Waka/Jawaka, Bongo Fury, Zoot Allures, Burnt Weeny Sandwich. Läther. Elis: That's six. John: It'll be ten if you're not careful.

That made me laugh because it's exactly how I answer questions like that; I'm a big fan of loopholes and copouts (though I usually make at least a cursory effort to find a loophole to justify my copout, which is why John made me laugh by just not bothering with that), and I do not like being pinned down to anything.

Okay, what are the parametres? Do I have to have to see whatever they're touring right now, or can the magic of this hypothetical have them right a new show, or could I pick something from their back catalogue? Would I get to the pick the genre of the hypothetical new show? Do they have to be performing at all this year in real life, or does the magic of the hypothetical situation solve that too?

Obviously the first thought is Kitson, but I have heard his current show before. It's a very good show, and specifically one where I think it's more fun if you're in the room and physically experiencing it, so that would be great. But also, it's a show I've heard before (a bunch of times, if I'm honest), and it seems a shame to use a literally magic opportunity on one I've already heard. Kitson, if in this instance he's got a new show (or is just doing one of his mostly improv WIP nights, and it's one of the ones where he's really on form).

If we can magically have them write a new show, Alice Fraser comes to mind, but she's specifically said she's not doing one this year. I've seen all her previous hours, and as much as I love her stuff, I can't use this opportunity on an hour that's already been filmed, or is likely to be filmed.

Which brings me to Andy Zaltzman, who has self-promotion skills that never cease to amaze me. He's doing at least one WIP this spring that I haven't heard him mention anywhere. On yesterday's Ask Andy episode for Bugle subscribers, he got asked what football players he'd compare himself to, mentioned someone from Salford, and because that had come up, happened to mention in passing that Salford is not on the list of the places he's going on his stand-up tour in November. This tour is not listed on his website or anywhere else that I could find with a Google. A show that I haven't heard before (and is unlikely to get filmed) is going to exist this year anyway, so I wouldn't need the magic hypothetical to create it. That's a strong candidate. Main drawback is most of the material in it would probably appear on The Bugle - I desperately want to see it but could I use magic for something that could be cobbled together from podcast episodes?

And then I also wonder if I can use this to magically make John Oliver do stand-up again. This wouldn't need to push the boundaries of reality all that far, because he did a stand-up tour last year. If I could make him do more performances of that, but this time not with Seth Myers (Seth Myers is probably fine any everything, I'm just not into him), and in Kitson-sized rooms. I'd use it for that in a heartbeat.

Josie Long is starting a new show, so there's another realistic one. The main copout loophole I like to use is just doing a bunch of honourable mentions/I could do this one, so I can get away with actually giving multiple answers.

Could I make Danielle Ward come back even though she's retired from live performances? Bit of a left-field choice, but it would be a solid use of whatever magic is in the hypothetical situation, getting someone whose stuff I loved (on Do the Right Thing, but also the one stand-up hour she filmed was very good) to come out of retirement. Would feel like I really used that magic well, rather than seeing a show I've already seen.

The answer's Nish Kumar, though. I didn't actually need to write the rest of this post, because the answer's Nish Kumar (I liked the idea of ending this post on an uncaveated statement like that, but sorry, I need to add: unless I could get a new show, even just a new unstructured WIP - or a back catalogue show of my choice - out of Kitson - actually the answer might just be Kitson, I mean I've heard Nish's current show too so having heard it before doesn't disqualify people, my answer is Kitson or Kumar, you've pinned me down to two, I'm not going to one, it'll be ten if you're not careful).

[adultswim2021]

The Venture Bros. #47: "Self-Medication" | November 23, 2009 - 12:00AM | S04E06

Season four continues with an episode that is really good!!! Like, one of the better ones for sure. Like, there have only been a couple episodes I’ve felt blah about, and even those aren’t too bad.

In this one: Dr. Venture goes on a boyish adventure with a bunch of other former boy adventurers. They all belong to the same therapy group, which also consists of Action Jonny, two Hardy Boys style guys who clearly murdered their parents and got away with it (ala the Menendez Brothers, who didn’t get away with it), a tubby ex-Wonder Boy, and a cute little robot child. Somebody kills their therapist and they need to go to the local strip club to investigate. 

Meanwhile: Hatred is having withdrawals at the movie theater with Hank and Dean. He’s out of the medicine what makes him not want to touch little boys (sexually), and starts having a panic attack. He abandons his post and locks himself in the panic room. That’s it! That’s the episode! Rusty and a bunch of losers wander around like it’s a Richard Linklater movie and Sgt. Hatred has a mental health crisis. Like, I literally have been sitting here thinking to myself if there was an A story and these were just the B & C stories.

But the thing is: this episode is hilarious and great and I’d put in the pantheon of “very good episodes”. And this episode has Seth Green in it! You’d think I’d be too pissed off at him to not overlook this, but I did! He plays the jockier of the Menendez/Hardy Boys. His brother is played by professional virgin Jon Hodgman. Brendon Small reprises his role of Action Jonny, who is definitely, legally not Jonny Quest. Patton Oswals plays a former Wonder Boy, one that didn’t get murdered by the Monarch (he probably just got fucked by him). This wonder boy is based on the actor who played Robin in the 1940s Batman serials, who grew up to be a middle-aged man with weird hair. The Ro-Boy is a parody of AstroBoy, and he’s voiced by Jackson Publick. He’s famous too, he’s just, you know, the creator of the show and not a guest star. 

Stuff I will mention now: 

I love all the scenes with the therapy group. Great collection of characters. The therapist with the racist “native” puppet is so funny, I love the “chemical dependence” line. 

There is a nice-sized slur in this one, and it’s followed up with Action Jonny saying a crass joke about giving a guy’s wife herpes. His hit-you-over-the-head phrasing of “after I put herpe in there” was a Brendon Small ad-lib and improves that joke tenfold. 

There’s a deleted scene where we see Rusty’s brown friend jump into the pool during the flashback scene, when Rusty is being forced to undergo talk-therapy with his abusive father. That’s why you see him swimming around in the finished episode. I wondered about this. It turns out he jumped in that pool first. 

The commentary has a big long section cut out of it. Jackson and Doc actually record a little thing to replace the missing audio, explaining that they had to edit something out of the commentary. Have they ever said what that’s about? 

MAIL BAG

Did you enjoy the Oscars? Who on adult swim would you give the awards for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Picture to. You can do others if you are feeling frisky but I don't want to bowl you over.

i don't respect acting or actors and I don't think we should encourage them. Best picture is uh, Kentucky Nightmare, directed by Space Ghost. I didn't like the Oscars, I didn't see any of those films :(

I'm watching Delocated again thanks to your blog and I was loving it until there is a scene where Jon says "If tea is what he wants then T is what he's gonna get" and then he holds a big letter T. I thought that was just so stupid. Like I thought I was watching Sesame Street. Put the letters away.

You don't like Sesame Street?? What do you like??

You're invited to hang out with three of your favorite adult swim stars. The catch? You have to hang out with Andy Merrill and he brought his favorite board games. You must play with Andy to have access to the other celebs. Do you?

I really do think that questions like this are meant to make me look FOOLISH, as if I like to sit around having childish fantasies of playing Cards Against Humanity with Brak. Well, I have a non-childish answer, maybe the most adult thing I've ever said, as a matter-of-fact: I would do it, but I would pick only hot sluts and have sex with them in front of Andy while he whined about being married in a Brak voice. What do you think of that you gay little ho

I was re-reading your Saul of the Moleman writeups and wow, what an awful show that was. My friend insists that Gerhardt Reinke's Wanderlust is good. I think there's no chance because this guy is a clown. Tell me for him that it sucks too. Please. Even if you don't believe it. Bend the truth for my advantage.

You know what I haven't really watched it but for you? Sure: that show sucked, and that's the reason I turned it off before the first commercial break of the first episode. Sorry, but Saul is a gay little ho

Any plans for Oscar's Big Night?

It was rather quiet, but I appreciated their minimalistic approach this year.

[talesfromthespiritforest]

So, while I haven't finished Engage yet (I'm on Chapter 21), my brother graciously spoiled an endgame plot point for me. As disappointing as it is, it did give me ideas as to what Intsys could have done if they had an infinite budget and time. I've put it under a read-more for both long post and spoiler reasons.

Marth - Medeus: Same as in Engage.

Caeda - Hardin: I know that this makes sense lorewise, but I can't find the right words to explain it.

Tiki - Gharnef: Self Explanatory.

Alm - Berkut: Sorry Rudolf, your nephew is cooler than you.

Celica - Duma: Same as in Engage.

Sigurd - Arvis: Also self explanatory.

Deirdre - Hilda: I wasn't really sure what to do here, honestly. I ran out of major villains. Chagall wouldn't work, and Sandima seemed a bit too minor, so I ended up with Hilda. This is a bit of a stretch since we never see the two interact in canon, though it is highly likely they met. It's just an evil vs good mom battle. You could also do Sigurd/Deirdre in the same ring, I suppose...

Seliph - Manfroy: The two are foils to each other, believe it or not.

Julia - Julius/Loptyr: Self explanatory once more.

Leif - Veld: Same as in Engage.

Nanna - Raydrik: Secondary Protag and Secondary Villian. Also Raydrik did kidnap her.

Finn - Travant: REVENGE.

Roy - Idunn: Same as in Engage.

Lilina - Zephiel: I thought about making Zephiel Roy's counterpart, but Zephiel killed Hector, so...

Fae - Jahn: I don't know much about Binding Blade, to be honest. I had to ask for advice here.

Eliwood/Hector/Lyn - The Black Fang: While Nergal is more responsible for their trouble, he's with Ninian and Nils. Thus these three end up with the human members of the Black Fang: Lloyd, Linus, Ursula, and... well, I'm not sure on Jaffar. If Arvis and Travant are here, then maybe he can be too...? But he's also a bond ring in game, so maybe not.

Ninian/Nils - Nergal: Self Explanatory. You could put Sonia, Limstella, and Ephidel here too.

Erika/Ephraim - Lyon and Formortiis: Same as in Engage, but with added Lyon for extra angst.

Ike - Black Knight: Same reasoning as Lilina, but even stronger.

Elincia - Ashnard: He did take over her country, after all.

Soren - The Four Riders: Uh... I remember now that BK is one of the riders, so perhaps the other three to complete the quartet? Or even just Petrine since she and Soren are both half-laguz. Yeah, that works.

Micaiah - Ashera: Same as in Engage.

Sothe - Sephiran: Ashera's right hand man (I think), just like Sothe to Micaiah. Yes it makes a tangential amount of sense, just go with it.

Lucina - Grima: Same as in base game.

Chrom/Robin - Validar: Self explanatory, though I did consider splitting them up and making Robin Validar and Chrom Gangrel.

Corrin - Anakos: Same as in Engage.

Azura - Arete: Just like with Deirdre, I ran out of major villains. Other ideas appreciated.

Hosh. Siblings - Garon: See below.

Nohr. Siblings - Hans and Iago: You're probably wondering why I didn't go with Garon for them. I mean, he is their dad. But Conquest has an entire scene dedicated to the siblings beating the heck out of Iago, and iirc Garon is the final boss of Birthright, so it just felt right.

Byleth - Nemesis: Same as in Engage.

Edie/Dimi/Claude - Rhea/Thales: As much fun as it would be to have it be Thales + Solon, Kronya, and Cornelia, I thought it would be funny if post Scarlet Blaze Rhea and Thales ended up in Ring Purgatory.

Shez - Epimenides: Once again, self explanatory.

This does leave some questions about the bond rings and if they also have dark sides, which could be used to incorporate even more of the villains if they're not in one of the Emblem rings (i.e. Seth and Valter). Then you could simplify some of these, like Tailitu or Tine getting Hilda instead of Deirdre, or in the case he's still a bond ring, Finn and Travant.

[monstermaster13]

MM13'S TF Preferences:

Characters I'd Love To TF Into: Any Dan Aykroyd character (human characters mostly but Beldar is allowed too, even if it's Grocer, Wade Motch or Tom Everett, Aykroyd is my favorite SNL cast member), any Tim Burton character but either any character that was played by Johnny Depp, Adam Maitland, Betelgeuse, or the Hessian (you can also make me Max Shreck, Danny Devito's Penguin, any of the apes from the POTA remake, and heck one of my avatars was Otho Fenlock, it would be interesting to see what you could do with that, i've always wondered what having the voice of the late Glenn Shadix would be like), Jebediah Morningside/Tall-Man (Phantasm), Dawn Bellwether (Zootopia), Santanico Pandemonium (From Dusk Till Dawn), Jerry Dandridge (Fright Night 1985), Herbert West (Reanimator) - I am mad about Jeffrey Combs so it would be awesome to be Herbert West (or Milton Dammers or HP Hatecraft), Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare On Elm Street), Ludban (Leprechaun), Genie (Aladdin, only Robin Williams will do. I wouldn't mind being any of Robin's other roles either), Lady Amalthea (Last Unicorn), Lady Dimitrescu (Resident Evil: Village), Ash Williams (Evil Dead franchise), Hades (Hercules), Collector (Demon Knight), any Kyle Machlachlan character but in particular Dale Cooper or Paul Atreides, Salazzle, Lopunny (both in anthro form would work just fine), Angela Franklin (Night Of The Demons), Elvira (Elvira: Mistress of the Dark), Any South Park character (i'd like to try something with the adult versions of the kids from the recent specials), Any Simpsons Character (Treehouse of Horror is a must) teen versions of the Ghoul School Girls from Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School, Any Monster High character, Abe Sapien (Hellboy), Morticia Addams (Addams Family/Addams Family Values), Jareth (Labyrinth), Pinhead (Hellraiser), Annie Wilkes (Misery), Helen Hyde (Doctor Jekyll and Ms Hyde), Any Stallone character but in particular John Spartan (Demolition Man), Felicia (Darkstalkers), Bowsette, Any Bojack Horseman character (Beatrice, Bojack, Hollyhock or maybe any of the other animal-people chaacers too), Any Sing character but Buster Moon in particular, Carrigan Crittenden (Casper), Mirage (Aladdin tv series), Randall Flagg, humanoid style werewolves think Teen Wolf or Big Wolf On Campus, humanoid/anthro style Pokemon, Honey Monster (Sugar Puffs, either the actual HM himself or a Honey Monster in general).

Would Enjoy It: Akasha (Queen Of The Damned), Iago (Aladdin) - I like the idea of making Iago anthro or humanoid and well I cannot say no to having Gilbert Gottfried's voice, Scar (Lion King) - I have an anthro version of Scar I did a picture of (I made him a professor in my 'Prideland University' concept which is basically if the Lion King's characters were anthro and went to college), Professor Ratigan (Great Mouse Detective) - highly underappreciated, would be good to be him or Basil (or that sexy Miss Kitty mouse too), Lillith (Bordello Of Blood), Minerva Mink (Animaniacs), Julie Bruin (Tiny Toon Adventures), Seth Brundle (The Fly 1986), Grandmaster (Thor: Ragnarok), Philoctetes (Hercules) - Yes, to Danny Devito, yes...yes, yes. Selene (Underworld), any alien character from a movie or show but in particular Jumba or Pleakley or Gantu for example (Lilo and Stitch) and also maybe Mork from Mork and Mindy, Pete (Disney), Any Biker Mice character but Vinnie in particular (i'm also considering Lawrence Limburger or a plutarkian in general, but i'm having trouble deciding on how i'd do it), Sil (Species), Peggy Bundy (Married With Children), Weyoun (Star Trek: DS9). Anthro version of any MLP character (I have a whole section of humanoid/anthro MLP characters you can choose from or ones I can choose from, but i'd like to be Discord, Chrsaylis/Chrissy or King Sombra or Tirek or Cheese Sandwich, can't beat Weird Al), Any of Jay Leno's Tonight Show characers (Iron Jay, Mr Brain or Evil Jay perhaps), Kronk or Kuzco (Emperor's New Groove), Gaston (Beauty and the Beast), Serleena (Men In Black II), Live-action Grinch, Vacendak (Freejack), Mystique (Marvel), Lee (Critters 2), Djinn (Wishmaster), Jennifer Check (Jennifer's Body), Megamind (Megamind), Ursula (Little Mermaid), Edna Turnblad (Hairspray 2007), Mona Lisa Vito (My Cousin Vinny), Lisle Von Rhuman (Death Becomes Her), Seth Gecko (From Dusk Till Dawn), Buffy Summers (Buffyverse), Ahmanet (The Mummy 2017), Candy Kong, Tigra (Marvel), any Corey Feldman character, but specifically teen or adult Feldman characters, Vypra (Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue), Jack Burton (Big Trouble In Little China, the three storms or Lo Pan or Gracie Law would be good too, in case you're wondering my favorite of the storm is Thunder). Mileena (Mortal Kombat), Pennywise (It), any Star Wars alien species, any Warcraft species, but in particular Pandaren. Any species from the Star Trek franchise but definitely Klingon, Caitian, Romulan, Vorta.

Would Definitely Find It Interesting: Shao Lin (Captain Simian and The Space Monkeys), Donkey Kong or Funky Kong (Donkey Kong), Thirty-Thirty (Bravestarr), Beast (Beauty and the Beast, as long as it's not too focused on lovey-dovey stuff and actually has some action and other elements I like), Demona (Gargoyles), Any Flushed Away character, Darkness (Legend), Salvatore Moreau (Resident Evil: Village), Any Xenaverse character (i'm not picky, but I definitely gravitate towards Xena herself, Callisto, or Autolycus), Jara (Beetleborgs/Beetleborgs Metallix), Horribelle (Beetleborgs/Beetleborgs Metallix), Flabber (Beetleborgs/Beetleborgs Metallix), Kimberly Hart (Power Rangers), Toxica (Power Rangers Wild Force), Nefaria (Masked Rider), Astronema (Power Rangers In Space), Chuds...just Chuds in general, Assett (Shape Of Water), Smithy (Gavin and Stacey) - Okay, you can turn me into a James Corden character or James himself if you wish but i'm not very good at acting like James so you'll have to either teach me or i'll teach myself to do it, Amilyn (Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1992, any Buffyverse character would work well with me to be honest even if it's from the movie).

Would If Under Certain Circumstances: Louis (The Princess And The Frog), if I get to be Louis can I at least be a headcanon version of him I made in which he is a human turned alligator and in anthro form as opposed to a non-morphic talking magical alligator? Pegasus (Hercules), the thing is when I want to be Pegasus i'll choose anthro or if normal Pegasus i'd like to at least have some action, no lovey-dovey stuff for too long or I might get violently ill, besides...what good is being a heroic demigod's best friend if you cannot go on adventures? Maximus (Tangled), anthro please and i'd like for him to be able to speak, Sulley (Monsters Inc) - as long as nothing too out of character and nothing sexual and no lovey-dovey stuff because remember Sulley is more than just a snuggling machine. Also Randall must be involved too and must be given a redemption arc.

Uhhhh...No, Don't Want This: Non-morphic Pokemon, non-morphic style werewolves that sometimes run on two legs, 100% Wolf (I don't like that particular franchise), any celebrity from the 40's-60's, Tug (Brother Bear). The thing is I don't dislike bear transformations I just find that outside of hibernating and eating there's nothing much to being a bear so I would very much be bored if I got stuck as a bear character anyway, I don't understand how he and the other clearly non-morphic animals can talk I can get how Kenai can do it, but how come he can? Baloo (Jungle Book), the only exception is the Talespin version because at he's anthro and wears clothes in that universe (no non-morphic Jungle Book characters please, only anthro or humanoid versions, if you have to go with one species from that movie, primates only), Tiger Dancers (Zootopia)- they're overdone and I don't want it to be like that one piece with the tiger dancers essentially pulling an Agent Smith and creating clones of themelves by turning others, Fire Emblem characters (tried it, didn't like it and not too keen on the art designs, either make Kaden more half fox-like or don't include him or any Fire Emblem character at all), Simba (anthro only please and the last time I did something Simba related it got kind of uncomfortable), Homestuck characters - i'll only do Homestuck if I can do my own version of it where the characters look like actual human beings since I don't know how to even do a tf into how they normally look like or how to describe it also nothing overly predatorial (you heard me. I don't want any overly rapey subtext with Jade Harley, she's too good to be treated like that), Queen Ellinor (Brave, don't like her as a woman and as a bear, didn't like having to be her OTP in a tf rp and didn't like having to be a bear, so please don't include her), Norm (Norm of the North) - no Norm of the North period, I don't know why some people think non-morphic animals are sexy, so I wouldn't want to be him, Toothless (How To Train Your Dragon) - I got burned on out doing Night Fury stuff ages ago and will only do it if I can do anthro night-furies or night-fury-girls (half human/half night fury dragonesses) and don't have to do any cutesy wutesy momma and baby stuff/lovey-dovey stuff, Puro (Changed), please...DO NOT do anything related to Changed with me, the only way i'll ever do Changed is if I can parody it or do my own headcanon version of it or my own version of it which addresses the issues I have with said game, Gloria (Madagascar). Either make the Madagascar cast anthro or don't include them at all, don't try to do anything sexual with Gloria, I feel uncomfortable with non-morphic animal character x human character pairings plus I don't think she's sexy. Creepypasta characters (don't know that many and the only ones I know are Jeff, The Rake and Laughing Jack, I can do FNAF but only if I can use my anthro/living versions of them).

[galaxy98]

While I like to joke about the whole voice cast of the Mario movie, there's a conversation to be had about celebrity voice acting and whether something like this is an indictment of said issue.

But before I get into that, I would like to share some insight that I learned from Jason Marsden back at an April convention.

While some may know him as Eric's friend from Boy Meets World, I've known him as Max Goof from Disney's Goofy Movie and just about any cartoon where I'm bound to hear his voice.

When I went to his panel, he talked about some things that I didn't even know about. It turned out he had left California a while back and had been doing work over in Tennessee, specifically the entertainment scene. Just recently, he created a web series called The Mars Variety Show, which showcased entertainers over in Nashville.

But the one thing he mentioned from his experience is that the workload he was getting was less compared to what he got back in Cali.

This is especially true when it came to voice acting.

So once it was time for me to ask him a question, I was able get an answer that should've been obvious at first, at least to me.

Voice acting, like Animation and Entertainment, is centralized.

If you really wanted to work in the big leagues, you have to go over to California.

It's like the saying goes, Hollywood is the place to be. Because it's sadly the ONLY place to be.

Because of how centralized it is, no major studio is willing to look outside their own state to see the potential diversity that's out there. Even Marsden lamented about this at his panel because he knew that there were so many talented voice actors that would've killed to have to have a chance in the field. But because they don't live in California, they're ignored.

As such, studios only relied on two groups, career voice actors who live there or celebrities. There are some exceptions, but that's the main gist.

Now what does this have to do with the Mario movie?

Well here's the list of who's going to star in it:

Chris Pratt

Anya Taylor-Joy

Charlie Day

Jack Black

Keegan-Michael Key

Seth Rogen

Charles Martinet

Fred Armisen

Kevin Michael Richardson

Sebastian Maniscalco

Out of all of the cast members, only three of them are career voice actors, Charles Martinet, Kevin Michael Richardson, and Fred Armisen (I think). Even Martinet, who's been doing the voice of Mario for decades is relegated to a cameo. Yet Chris Pratt is billed as the top star for the plumber. Now all of them had done some voice work one way or the other, especially Jack Black and Seth Rogen.

So why is it that celebrities get the all of the marketing while career actors are sitting in the sidelines?

Two words.

Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Jeffrey was once the chairman of Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 1994. While the movies during his tenure would go on to be successful, he was often criticized for his business practices and for his general attitude towards animation. In the documentary, Waking Sleeping Beauty, many animators talked about how he was being disrespectful towards them because he was more concerned with how much money these movies were going to make or how these movies were going to be marketed. It's an open secret that he originally wanted to cut Part of Your World from Little Mermaid because of the reception they were getting at a test screening.

Then comes in Robin Williams.

When creating the movie, Aladdin, they made the Genie character with him in mind. He agreed, but stipulated that he wasn't in the majority of the marketing. According to Williams, he wanted to make movies, not merchandise.

As the story goes, the exact opposite happened and that's what created the sour relationship between Robin and Disney.

So if you wondered why the Genie is voiced by Dan Castellaneta in the supplementary material and spinoffs, this is why. It wasn't because they couldn't afford him. It's because Williams wanted nothing to do with them.

Since then, many would try to capitalize on this type of strategy.

Many Disney rip-offs would place the emphasis on the celebrity marketing rather than putting effort into the story.

Even when Jeffery Katzenberg left Disney, he took that mindset along with him when creating Dreamworks. Some would argue that may have been a factor to why they were struggling in the early 2010s. He was paying the celebrities so much money to star in the movies that once the diminishing returns started piling up, it left them in a struggled state. There were other factors too, but what was happening in the animation side didn't help.

Not even Disney was safe when he left.

All of this set a precedent for years to come. All because Disney didn't abide by Williams's contract.

The most recent example of blatant disregard for career voice actors would have to be the Space Jam sequel.

In the marketing, it advertised Zendaya as Lola Bunny.

You wanna know who they forgot?

Jeff Bergman, Eric Bauza, Bob Bergen, Candi Milo, and Fred Tatasciore.

These people have done voice work for Warner and Looney Tunes, some were even doing it a while longer.

Yet they thought they were being clever by not properly crediting them in the trailer.

I actually had to go on the wiki page to look up the cast.

This caused some controversy within the Animation and Voice Acting community because it exposed a general problem with marketing.

There was also another issue with the animators not getting any proper credit, but that's a whole new can of worms.

Now you may be asking me, "Aren't there any celebrities out there who had done live action before getting into voice acting? If so, wouldn't they be considered a part of the problem?"

And that's where the lines are blurred.

While Mark Hamill had done some voice work prior to Star Wars, his role as Luke Skywalker is what defined him for the rest of his life. People speculated that the reason why he went back to voice acting is because he was tired about being typecasted. It was because of his role as Joker in Batman TAS, he was able to get more work as a voice actor. So while Star Wars is what defined his live action side, he was able show off more of his talent in voice acting. Ironically, he's tends to be chosen for voicing villain characters, so you could say that the Joker defined him on the animation side.

Not convinced? Here's another example.

Tim Curry, a man well known for having such a flexible resume in theater, music, video games, television, radio, and film, had also done a ton of voice work in several mediums and there are a few roles in that specific area that would go on to define him and his career before suffering a stroke in 2012.

Not enough? There's more.

Brenda Song once started as an actor for live action shows for Nickelodeon, Disney, and other misc. TV and is recently voicing Anne Boonchuy on Amphibia with no objections.

Okay then, here are other examples.

Tom Hanks, Jack Black, Jeremy Irons, Mike Myers, Seth Green, Ben Schwartz, just to name a few. They all started doing live action prior to voice acting and yet some of their roles in that field had defined their career.

So most of these examples boil down to circumstances, if anything. Not only that but some of those roles came from either a one-off or a start up franchise.

So why do they never face any scrutiny?

The problem isn't with the celebrities themselves doing voice acting. It may seem like that, but it's not entirely accurate.

The problem is the intent behind it.

When you look at Chris Pratt voicing Mario, you don't hear someone voicing an Italian plumber. You just hear Chris Pratt because that's what defined voice work. You only hear the person himself. And unless if the trailers say otherwise, this is going to be the looming fear over people's heads because that's what we tend to expect from Hollywood.

True, there were other people who had played the role before Martinet, but none were able to stick around like he did. Plus, you have to keep in mind that while the franchise was popular right out the gate, it all took place during the younger years until things started to settle.

You could say the same thing for Sonic, though they are a lot more loose regarding the changing of voice roles.

Would Charles make much of a difference if he starred in the role? I don't know. Make no mistake, what I'm saying isn't an indictment on his craft, it's just...I don't know. While some may think that he's secretly against this, Charles doesn't strike me as that kind of guy.

For Mario fans, myself included, it was such a drastic transition from Charles to....Chris Pratt. Though my reaction was me laughing at the absurdity.

As for the whole movie, who knows. If there's one thing I've learned from Sonic 2020 is that you can never know how it's going to turn out. It's why they have a sequel on the way and Idris Elba is going to voice Knuckles.

But yeah, I feel like the biggest solution to the problem is that system itself needs to be changed from the ground up in order for fresh new talent to thrive.

The Entertainment industry shouldn't be limiting themselves to their own front and back yard just because they can make easy bank off of it. They're passing by unknown talent outside of California that would've wanted to have a chance at working for more than what's given to them.

Is this the only solution out there? Maybe not.

But that's the beauty of taking risks

TL;DR: The Voice Acting industry, like everything else in Entertainment, needs to be decentralized.

[smalltownfae]

Book Recs Ask Game: 7, 10, 15, 19, 20, 29, 35, 45, 51, 52, 62, 92, 131, 132, 133, and 134?

7. a book you did not finish

Only one? I am great at not finishing books. Here’s a list of the most famous ones that I didn’t like enough to continue:

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

Circe by Madeline Miller

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (maybe I will go back to it someday. I was just tired of the topic)

Heart’s Blood by Juliet Marillier

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (I am still so disappointed after loving the first chapters so much)

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Shaman’s Crossing by Robin Hobb (maybe one day I will manage to get through this trilogy)

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

10. a book that got you through something

The entire Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb helped so much to keep me alive. I am forever thankful. I was so depressed and somehow depressing books helped.

15. a book rec you really enjoyed

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones <3 I was a bit scared because I didn’t love the movie, but I trusted the person that recommended it given that we had so many books/shows/movies in common. Turns out that reading the book made me appreciate the movie more too, even if I still prefer the book and forever will.

19. a book that put you in a reading slump

Most recently it was “Heir to Sevenwaters” by Juliet Marillier. I am still reading it, but it’s so boring at times that it makes me wonder if I like reading. Another one that put me in a reading slump, but in a good way, was “Assassin’s Fate” by Robin Hobb because it was the end of my favorite series that I have been binging for 3 months and every other book I picked up after couldn’t compare. It was just not the same.

20. a book that got you out of a reading slump

No idea. I should have tracked the books I read after finishing “Assassin’s Fate”. The ones strong enough to get me out of the slump were “Howl’s Moving Castle”, “The Blade Itself” and “The Goblin Emperor”, but I don’t remember in which order I read them...

29. your favourite YA novel

Hard to say because some of Patricia A. McKillip’s books are categorized as YA in some places and Howl’s Moving Castle is too. However, I consider HMC middle grade and most McKillip’s books adult.

The ones that are definitely YA and I love are: The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher, Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura and The Changeling Sea by Patricia A. McKillip.

35. a book featuring the found family trope

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune. I say I love found family, but I actually haven’t read and loved many books with that trope...

45. a book featuring the friends to lovers trope

“Child of the Prophecy” by Juliet Marillier. Like the found family, I really like this trope and yet I can’t think of many books that I read that have it and I have loved... I don’t usually read romance so I guess that is also a reason why I am having a hard time thinking of books with the friends to lovers trope.

51. a book that you found underwhelming

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. Both beloved, both very average books.

52. a popular book/series that you love

Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb is popular, right? And the First Law series by Joe Abercrombie? I also love Discworld by Terry Pratchett and the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. For big popular classics, I love Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

62. a book with a forgettable plot but amazing characters

Honestly, I have no answer to this. I usually remember the characters more than the plot but if I loved the characters then I loved the book and remember the plot too (at least mot of it). This to say that nothing comes to mind.

92. a book about a redeemable villain

I don’t think I ever read those... it’s already hard to think about a book with black and white good and evil let alone one that has a redeemable villain. The books that I am thinking about that have that kind of good and evil plot don’t have redeemable villains so I got nothing.

131. tag somebody with whom you would want to buddy read a book

@monpetitrenard and we already buddy read at times. Also @whatevsbla

133. a book that you came across randomly and fell in love with

The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher just happened to be on the audiobook service I used at the time, but I had already read The Raven and the Reindeer by the author before. I don’t tend to stumble upon books randomly anymore. I usually do at least a little bit of research before buying a book.

134. unreccomend any book you like!

A book I like or unrecommend any book I don’t like?

For books I like, I would only recommend the Xenogenesis/Lilith’s Brood trilogy by Octavia E. Butler and Lonely Castle in the Mirror to specific people because they are not crowd pleasers at all. I can see most people disliking those. The same thing applies to Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.

For books I think no one should read:

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. Stop calling it feminist omg. Every time a woman says this book is feminist I know what kind of feminist they are and it’s not the one I agree with.

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goete. The main character wasn’t suffering as much as I was while reading this.

On Writing by Stephen King. Unless you want to write like him or know anything about his life, don’t read it. Waste of time.

Thank you for the asks :)

[oss-crime]

Chapter 2-Project “Ma” –Eve–; Scene 4

Original Sin Story: Crime, pages 37-48

Seth’s wound wasn’t too bad, but for safety’s sake he wound up receiving treatment at a hospital in the Twelve Royal Capitals.

He got on one of the huge automated carriages of the security force and went back with the soldier driving it.

Adam wound up staying in the village of Nemu for a time along with his bodyguard, Gammon.

Naturally their goal was to search for the “Witch of the Forest”.

And Eve…she served as their guide when the two headed out to the Forest of Held, as well as their driver for the carriage.

The fee they paid her for this service had far greater profit to her than her income selling ingredients from the forest, so she had no reason to refuse.

Eve knew of several of the villages where the people of the forest lived, and so she first took the two of them to those.

And then they tried going around to the places where the witch was rumored to be, or just moved through aimlessly.

But the days passed without achieving any particular result.

.

That day as well the three of them had been advancing along a forest path with the automated carriage.

The sky was overcast with thick clouds. When Eve suggested that it might rain, Adam replied that they perhaps ought to end things early today.

“That aside, you’re quite skilled with driving the automated carriage, Eve,” Adam complimented. “You must be, to move so smoothly through such narrow pathways.”

“It’s no big deal if you’re used to it. But as you’d expect you can’t get to the deeper parts of the forest with a carriage.”

“Still, people would seldom be going in such places. So they’re not likely to be targets of the tribesmen, and thus there’s a low chance of the witch showing up there.”

Putting together the information that Adam and Gammon had been able to obtain up until now, the Witch of the Forest would apparently make her appearances in public to rescue people attacked by the white army.

But strangely, none of the people who had been rescued by her could remember what this witch looked like.

“She has green hair, is a woman, fires lightning from a blue spoon…And that’s all they can remember, oddly enough.”

“They’re all probably in a state of shock from being attacked by the white army, so that’s understandable isn’t it?”

“I wonder. Maybe…this witch can use a spell that manipulates people’s minds.”

Upon hearing that, Eve’s eyes widened for a moment. Then she quickly chuckled. “That’d be pretty convenient, if there really were such a spell. I’d control all the big-wigs into making me the queen.”

“Haha, I guess so. You could have all the wealth and influence you want…Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“I’ve been raised in a village of sorcerers for over twenty years, but not once, no. Do you know of anything, Adam? You’re seem pretty well educated.”

“I’ve hardly done any studies on magic.”

“Huh…That’s a bit surprising. Don’t you have all this magical potential?”

“I only learned that relatively recently.”

As the two of them talked, Gammon simply looked around at their surroundings without showing the least amount of interest in their conversation.

Over these past few days Eve had been able to learn quite well that taken favorably he was a man who was very dedicated to his work, but taken unfavorably he was a very strait-laced person with little flexibility.

Adam was also a bit too serious, but he at least was easy to get along with.

Among the people who had come over from the capital there were some every now and then who would look down upon a country bumpkin like Eve. But Adam never showed any sign of such behavior.

From what she’d heard, while he was currently living in the Twelve Royal Capitals, originally he had been raised on the coast west from there.

“Just like you…I was an orphan.”

Apparently when he was a child he had been able to make a living and fend off starvation by hunting fish in the sea.

“One day a man suddenly appeared before me. He took me back to his home in the royal capital, and adopted me as his son. Even now I’m not sure why he did that. After that I received an education as a student under my adoptive father—Horus Solntse.”

“Did you…not have any parental figures until then?”

At Eve’s question, Adam responded without hesitation, “I did have a mother. …Though she was a whale.”

“Eh?”

“Ever since I can remember, that white whale had always been by my side. She watched over me…Or so I always thought. Though she never did anything to actually help me, ha ha.”

“…”

“Do you think my story is strange?”

“Mm, nooo…” Eve shook her head, and then replied earnestly, “I’m positive that whale must have been the manifestation of a spirit.”

“A spirit?”

“There are a lot of them in this forest; spirits that take the form of animals. Robins, chipmunks…I can’t talk to them, but I know of them.”

“I see…”

Adam listened in to Eve’s story, offering neither affirmations or denial.

“I too…had times when I was a child where I felt unbearably lonely. My adoptive mother and father were very kind people. But of course they weren’t my real parents…I couldn’t stand that.”

“…I understand that feeling.”

“In the middle of the night I ran out of the village and into the forest. But it was pitch-black, and I couldn’t tell my left from my right…I sat down alone and started crying. And then…it appeared.”

Eve’s shoulders faintly shook.

A drop of water fell from the sky and hit her face.

It had started to rain. There was no roof on this carriage.

Eve stopped the carriage under the shade of a large tree to keep from getting soaked.

“It?” Adam asked.

“A bear. A frightening bear…Here, look.”

Eve suddenly rolled up her skirt.

Adam unthinkingly moved to avert his eyes at catching sight of her bare skin.

But when he noticed the large scar on her thigh, he regained his composure.

“It bit you?”

“Because it was hungry. A little bit longer and I would have ended my life inside that bear’s stomach. But at that moment—the animals of the forest all attacked the bear at once. And they saved me.”

“And so they…were spirits of the forest.”

“I never saw a bear in this forest again. The spirits might have gotten rid of them, or else directed me so that I never got close to one…In any case, the spirits are my friends, and I owe them my life.”

Eve had never really told that story to anyone.

That was because anyone who didn’t know much about the forest in particular would likely think it was just a silly tall tale.

But in that drizzling rain Adam listened to her speak with a serious countenance. Conversely, Eve started to regret having told him.

Thinking on his goals…It would be only natural for him to start to hold some doubts towards Eve, upon hearing that story.

“Eve. So you really are—"

Before Adam could continue speaking, they could suddenly hear a loud explosion from far off.

“--!?”

They all turned over there at once.

…There was smoke coming from the direction of Nemu village.

“—What’s happened!?” Gammon shouted as he whipped out the sword at his hip.

What came to Eve’s mind was the white army.

They had never once attacked the village directly…And yet, she couldn’t think of anything else it could be.

As though in support of that, several tribesmen wielding weapons appeared from the shadows of the trees and circled the carriage.

“Oh, we’re not letting you get back to the village,” said a woman standing in the center of the tribesmen, glowering at Eve and the others.

Gammon had swiftly leapt down from the carriage, and shifted his piercing gaze to the woman.

“You must be the commander of the white army…The ‘White Fiend of Jakoku’.”

“Oh my. How impressive, that you know of my illustrious title…Your henchmen serve you well, it seems.” Gammon asked her if she had come here as payback for what happened on the plains, but Raisa shook her head. “Though there is a little of that, yes. This is more—a test.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I…Or rather, all of us, are planning to let loose much bigger fireworks after this.”

Giving no indication that she would explain any further, Raisa and her cohorts started to steadily draw closer to the carriage, weapons at the ready.

“You louts, tread cautiously! This military bastard looks pretty tough. Not to mention—” Raisa glared at Eve. “—He’s traveling with the ‘Witch of the Forest’, too.”

As though in response to those words, Eve got down from the carriage and stood next to Gammon.

“…You seem to be under a misunderstanding. I’m not a witch.”

Eve maintained a calm demeanor, but in response to that Raisa laid bare her anger.

“Don’t bullshit me! Countless of my people have been reduced to ashes by you!”

The moment she spoke, Raisa ran towards Eve.

Pale fire curled around the long and thin weapon she held in both hands.

These flames were not put out by the rain; they were likely some type of magic, or else produced by a unique power she had.

“…”

Eve glanced briefly at Adam, still inside the carriage.

He looked like he had something he wanted to say to Eve.

She didn’t have time to hesitate now.

First…she would need to do something about the enemy in front of her.

And she was worried about the village, too.

--Eve took out the spoon she’d kept hidden on her person.

A blue spoon. The item that was publicly referred to as the wand of the Witch of the Forest. For Eve it was a memento that she’d received from her adoptive mother.

She turned it toward Raisa, who was still heading towards her.

And then—expressionlessly, and concisely, she chanted a short spell phrase.

“Medvedi ubit!”

And it was all over.

It was a lightning spell she had been taught by her adoptive father.

A large bolt of lightning shot from the spoon, and then Raisa and her underlings in their entirety were swallowed up in a flash of light.

.

--The lightning strike that had engulfed the area had no effect on the trees of the forest or the animals.

It was the same with Adam and Gammon who were nearby Eve.

The lightning spell could only burn up that which it had been fired at. And after the flash of light went away, all of the tribesmen that had been surrounding the carriage had been reduced to charred corpses.

…No, there was one exception.

Raisa must have taken the direct brunt of the lightning, and yet despite her body having sustained massive burns she was still clinging to life.

“Wow…I’m surprised. That’s the first time anyone’s taken that shot and lived.” Eve looked down on Raisa with a cold expression.

“Y…you bitch…”

Gammon pressed down on Raisa’s body as she tried to crawl into the forest to escape.

“What an unexpected bounty, to be able to capture the head of the white army. For now let’s get her to the village—”

As he turned his face to the village, Gammon stopped speaking.

There was still smoke rising from that direction.

Eve quickly got back into the carriage and put her hand on the control crystal.

But Adam gripped her thin arm.

“The village will be dangerous. The bulk of the white army is probably attacking it now.”

“That’s why we have to go help my father and the others!”

Gammon tossed something at the carriage as it started to move.

Adam caught the weapon.

“This is…”

It was the peculiarly shaped sword that Raisa had been carrying.

“Take it! It should serve as some protection,” Gammon shouted to Adam. “I can’t let Raisa get away. You’ll have to go on your own!”

His words were in a sense an abandonment of his responsibilities as bodyguard, but under the circumstances he must have judged there was nothing more he could do.

Or maybe he was dazzled by the potential for glory that had fallen before him.

Eve didn’t care which it was.

Whatever the case, she was focused on the situation in the village now.

Though I can’t imagine my father would be done in by the white army so easily…

The residents of the village of Nemu were a band of once famous sorcerers.

Even so, Eve couldn’t help the unease in her chest.

The carriage started to race, Adam sitting beside her.

And in this way they advanced at full speed along the forest path, headed for the village.

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[crowdvscritic]

round up // JULY 21

‘Tis the season to beat the heat at the always-cold theatres and next to fans set at turbo speed. While my movie watching slowed a bit with the launch of the Summer Olympics on July 23rd, I’ve still got plenty of popcorn-ready and artsy recommendations for you. A few themes in the new-to-me pop culture I’m recommending this month:

Casts oozing with embarrassing levels of talent (sometimes overqualified for the movies they’re in)

Pop culture that is responding or reinterpreting past pop culture

Stories that get weEeEeird

Keep on-a-scrollin’ to see which is which!

July Crowd-Pleasers

1. Double Feature – ‘90s Rom-Coms feat. Lots of Lies: Mystery Date (1991) + The Pallbearer (1996)

In Mystery Date (Crowd: 7.5/10 // Critic: 6/10), Ethan Hawke and Teri Polo get set up on a blind date that gets so bizarre and crime-y I’m not sure how this didn’t come out in the ‘80s. In The Pallbearer (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10), David Schwimmer and Gwyneth Paltrow try to combine The Graduate with Four Weddings and a Funeral in a story about lost twentysomethings. If you don’t like rom-coms in which circumstances depend on lots of lies and misunderstandings, these won’t be your jam, but if you’re like me and don’t mind these somewhat-cliché devices, you’ll be hooked by likeable casts and plenty of rom and com.

2. The Tomorrow War (2021)

I thought of no fewer movies than this list while watching: Alien, Aliens, Angel Has Fallen, Cloverfield, Interstellar, Kong: Skull Island, Prometheus, A Quiet Place: Part II, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith, The Silence of the Lambs, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and World War Z. And you know what? I like all those movies! (Okay, maybe I just have a healthy respect/fear of The Silence of the Lambs.) The Tomorrow War may not be original, but it borrows some of the best tropes and beats from the sci-fi and action genres, so much so I wish I could’ve seen Chris Pratt and Co. fight those gross monsters on a big screen. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 6/10

3. Dream a Little Dream (1989)

My July pick for the Dumb Rom-Com I Nevertheless Enjoyed! I CANNOT explain the mechanics of this body switch comedy to you—nor can the back of the DVD case above—but, boy, what an ‘80s MOOD. I did not know I needed to see a choreographed dance routine starring Jason Robards and Corey Feldman, but I DID. All I know is some movies are made for me and that I’m now a card-carrying member of the Two Coreys fan club. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 6.5/10

4. Black Widow (2021)

The braids! The Pugh! Black Widow worked for me both as an exciting action adventure and as a respite from the Marvel adventures dependent on a long memory of the franchise. (Well, mostly—keep reading for a second MCU rec much more dependent on the gobs of previous releases.) Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

5. Liar Liar (1997)

Guys, Jim Carrey is hilarious. That’s it—that’s the review. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7/10

6. Sob Rock by John Mayer (2021)

It’s very possible I’ve already listened to this record more than all other John Mayer records. It doesn’t surpass the capital-G Greatness of Continuum, but it’s a little bit of old school Mayer, a little bit ‘80s soft rock/pop, and I’ve had it on repeat most of the two weeks since it’s been out. Featuring the boppiest bop that ever bopped, at least one lyrical gem in every track, and an ad campaign focused on Walkmans, this record skirts the line between Crowd faves and Critic-worthy musicianship.

7. Double Feature – ‘00s Ben Affleck Political Thrillers: The Sum of All Fears (2002) + State of Play (2009)

In The Sum of All Fears (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), Ben Affleck is Jack Ryan caught up in yet another international incident. In State of Play (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10), he’s a hotshot Congressman caught up in a scandal. Both are full of plot twists and unexpected turns, and in both, Affleck is accompanied by actors you’re always happy to see, like Jason Bateman, James Cromwell, Russell Crowe, Jeff Daniels, Viola Davis, Morgan Freeman, Philip Baker Hall, David Harbour, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren, Liev Schreiber, and Robin Wright—yes, I swear all of those people are in just those two movies.

8. Loki (2021-)

Unlike Black Widow, you can’t go into Loki with no MCU experience. The show finds clever ways to nudge us with reminders (and did better at it than Falcon and the Winter Soldier), but be forewarned that at some point, you’re just going to have to let go and accept wherever this timeline-hopper is taking you. An ever-charismatic cast keeps us grounded (Owen Wilson, Jonathan Majors, and an alligator almost steal the show from Tom Hiddleston in some eps), but while Falcon lasted an episode or two too long, Loki could’ve used a few more to flesh out its complicated plot and develop its characters. Thankfully, the jokes matter almost as much as the sci-fi, so you can still have fun even if you have no idea what’s going on.

9. Double Feature – Bruce Willis: Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995) + The Whole Nine Yards (2000)

Before Bruce Willis began starring in many random direct-to-DVD movies I only ever hear about in my Redbox emails, he was a Movie Star smirking his way up the box office charts. In the third Die Hard (Crowd: 10/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), he teams up with Samuel L. Jackson to decipher the riddles of a terrorist madman (Jeremy Irons), and it’s a thrill ride. In The Whole Nine Yards (Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10), he’s hitman that screws up dentist Matthew Perry’s boring life in Canada, and—aside from one frustrating scene of let’s-objectify-women-style nudity—it’s hilarious.

10. This Is the End (2013)

On paper, this is not a movie for me. An irreverent stoner comedy about a bunch of bros partying it up before the end of the world? None of things are for Taylors. But with a little help of a TV edit to pare down the raunchy and crude bits, I laughed my way through and spent the next several days thinking through its exploration of what makes a good person. While little of the plot is accurate to Christian Gospel and theology, some of its big ideas are consistent enough with the themes of the book of Revelation I found myself thinking about it again in church this morning. (Would love to know if Seth Rogen ever expected that.) Plus, I love a good self-aware celebrity spoof—can’t tell you how many times I’ve just laughed remembering the line, “It’s me, Jonah Hill, from Moneyball”—and an homage to horror classics. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7/10

July Critic Picks

1. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Television Could Not Be Televised) (2021)

Even director Questlove didn’t know about the Harlem Cultural Festival, but now he’s compiled the footage so we can all enjoy one of the coolest music fest lineups ever, including The 5th Dimension, B.B. King, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, and Stevie Wonder, who made my friend’s baby dance more than once in the womb. See it on the big screen for top-notch audio. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

2. Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

Robin Williams takes on the bureaucracy, disillusionment, and malaise of the Vietnam War with comedy. Williams was a one-of-a-kind talent, and here it’s on display at a level on par with Aladdin. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 9/10

3. Against the Rules Season 2 (2020-21)

Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball, adapted into a film starring Jonah Hill), is interested in how we talk about fairness. This season he looks at how coaches impact fairness in areas like college admissions, credit cards, and youth sports. 

4. Bugsy Malone (1976)

A gangster musical starring only children? It’s a little like someone just picked ideas out of a hat, but somehow it works. You can hear why in the Bugsy Malone episode Kyla and I released this month on SO IT’S A SHOW?, plus how this weird artifact of a film connects with Gilmore Girls.

5. The Queen (2006)

Before The Crown, Peter Morgan wrote The Queen, focusing on Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) in the days following the death of Princess Diana. It’s a complex and compassionate drama, both for the Queen and for Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen, who has snuck up on me to become a favorite character actor). Maybe I’ve got a problem, but I’ll never tire of the analysis of this famous family. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9.5/10

6. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)

This month at ZekeFilm, we took a closer look at Revisionist Westerns we’ve missed. I fell hard for Roy Bean, and I think you will, too, if for no other reason than you might like a story starring Jacqueline Bisset, Ava Gardner, John Huston, Paul Newman, and Anthony Perkins. Oh, and a bear! Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 10/10

7. New Trailer Round Up

Naked Singularity (Aug. 6) – John Boyega in a crime thriller!

Queenpins (Aug. 10) – A crime comedy about extreme coupon-ing!

Dune (Oct. 1) – I’ve been cooler on the anticipation for this film, but this new look has me cautiously intrigued thanks to the Bardem + Bautista + Brolin + Chalamet + Ferguson + Isaac + Momoa + Zendaya of it all.

The Last Duel (Oct. 15) – Affleck! Damon! Driver!

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Nov. 11) - I’m not sure why we need this, but I’m down for the Paul Rudd + Finn Wolfhard combo

King Richard (Nov. 19) - Will Smith as Venus and Serena’s father!

Encanto (Nov. 24) – Disney and Lin-Manuel Miranda making more magic together!

House of Gucci (Nov. 24) - Gaga! Pacino! Driver! 

Also in July…

Kyla and I took a look at the classic supernatural soap Dark Shadows and why Sookie might be obsessed with it on Gilmore Girls.

I revisited a so-bad-it’s-good masterpiece that’s a surrealist dream even Fellini couldn’t have cooked up. Yes, for ZekeFilm I wrote about the Vanilla Ice movie, Cool as Ice, which is now a part of my Blu-ray collection.

Photo credits: Against the Rules. All others IMDb.com.

[notbecauseofvictories]

Hi Sarah! My friend and I are starting a bookclub (as much as you can with two people who aren't pressed for deadlines) and I was wondering if you have any recommendations? (That is if you have time to rec anything!) We're starting off with Deathless and have Fitzgerald next in line somewhere but I def want to try to expand the genres we read and tbh from years of following you, I trust your judgement

I don’t...like giving recommendations? At least not directly, it seems like too much opportunity for getting it wrong. Everybody has their own tastes, after all, and even the best of friends don’t necessarily vibe with what you vibe with. (I’ve experienced this with multiple friends, so I know what I’m talking about.) Truly, one of the reasons that my whole “I’m going to get back into reading for pleasure!” push has been so successful is that I only bother with books that interest me, and stop reading when they fail to catch my attention.

But I’ve now read at least 60 books in 2020, which is approximately 60 more than I’ve read in the years prior, so I’m happy to share that. Below is my list of recent reads, beginning to end, along with a very short review---I keep this list in the notes app on my phone, so they have to be. Where I’ve talked about a book in a post, I’ve tried to link to it. 

Peruse, and if something catches your interest I hope you enjoy!

2020 Reading List

Crazy Rich Asians series, Kevin Kwan (here)

Blackwater, Michael McDowell (here; pulpy horror and southern gothic in one novel; come for the monster but stay for the family drama.)

Fire and Hemlock, Diane Wynne Jones (here; weird and thoughtful, in ways I’m still thinking about)

The Secret History, Donna Tartt

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (here; loved it! I can see why people glommed onto it)

Swamplandia!, Karen Russell (unfinished, I could not get past the first paragraph; just....no.)

Rules of Scoundrels series, Sarah MacLean (an enjoyable romp through classic romancelandia, though if you read through 4 back to back you realize that MacLean really only writes 1 type of relationship and 1 type of sexual encounter, though I do appreciate insisting that the hero go down first.)

The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden (here)

Dread Nation, Justine Ireland (great, put it with Stealing Thunder in terms of fun YA fantasy that makes everything less white and Eurocentric)

The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson (VERY good. haunting good.)

Tell My Horse, Zora Neale Hurston (I read an interesting critique of Hurston that said she stripped a lot of the radicalism out of black stories - these might be an example, or counterexample. I haven't decided yet.)

The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society, T. Kingfisher (fun!)

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell (some of these short stories are wonderful; however, Swamplandia's inspiration is still unreadable, which is wild.)

17776, Jon Bois (made me cry. deeply human. A triumph of internet storytelling)

The Girl with All the Gifts, M. R. Carey (deeply enjoyable. the ending is a bittersweet kick in the teeth, and I really enjoyed the adults' relationships)

The Door in the Hedge and Other Stories, Robin McKinley (enjoyable, but never really resolved into anything.)

The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley (fun, but feels very early fantasy - or maybe I've just read too many of the subsequent knock-offs.)

Mrs. Caliban, Rachel Ingalls (weird little pulp novel.)

All Systems Red, Martha Wells (enjoyable, but I don't get the hype. won't be looking into the series unless opportunity arises.)

A People's History of Chicago, Kevin Coval (made me cry. bought a copy. am still thinking about it.)

The Sol Majestic, Ferrett Steinmetz (charming, a sf novel mostly about fine dining)

House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune (immensely enjoyable read, for all it feels like fic with the serial numbers filed off)

The Au Pair, Emma Rous (not bad, but felt like it wanted to be more than it is)

The Night Tiger, Yangsze Choo (preferred this to Ghost Bride; I enjoy a well-crafted mystery novel and this delivered)

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin (unfinished, I cannot fucking get into Le Guin and should really stop trying)

The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo (enjoyable, but not nearly as fun as Ghost Bride - the romance felt very disjointed, and could have used another round of editing)

Temptation's Darling, Johanna Lindsey (pure, unadulterated id in a romance novel, complete with a girl dressing as a boy to avoid detection)

Social Creature, Tara Isabella Burton (a strange, dark psychological portrait; really made a mark even though I can't quite put my finger on why)

The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins (slow at first, but picks up halfway through and builds nicely; a whiff of Gone Girl with the staggered perspectives building together)

Stealing Thunder, Alina Boyden (fun Tortall vibes, but set in Mughal India)

The Traitor Baru Cormorant; The Monster Baru Commorant, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson (LOVE this, so much misery, terrible, ecstatic; more here)

This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone (epistolary love poetry, vicious and lovely; more here)

The Elementals, Michael McDowell

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (didn't like this one as much as I thought I would; narrator's contemporary voice was so jarring against the stylized world and action sequences read like the novelization for a video game; more here)

Finna, Nino Cipri (a fun little romp through interdimensional Ikea, if on the lighter side)

Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey (engrossing, even if I could see every plot twist coming from a mile away)

Desdemona and the Deep, C. S. E. Cooney (enjoyed the weirdness & the fae bits, but very light fare)

A Blink of the Screen, Terry Pratchett (admittedly just read this for the Discworld bits)

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine (not as good about politics and colonialism as Baru, but still a powerful book about The Empire, and EXTREMELY cool worldbuilding that manages to be wholly alien and yet never heavily expositional)

Blackfish City, Sam J. Miller (see my post)

Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan (didn't finish, got to to first explicit sex scene and couldn't get any further)

Prosper's Demon, KJ Parker (didn't work for me...felt like a short story that wanted to be fleshed out into a novel)

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik (extremely fun, even for a reader who doesn't much like Napoleonic stories)

Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone (fun romp - hard to believe that this is the same author as Time War though you can see glimmers of it in the imagery here)

A Scot in the Dark, Sarah MacLean (palette cleanser, she does write a good romance novel even it's basically the same romance novel over and over)

The Resurrectionist, E. B. Hudspeth (borrowed it on a whim one night, kept feeling like there was something I was supposed to /get/ about it, but never did - though I liked the Mutter Museum parallels)

Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang (he's a better ideas guy than a writer, though Hell Is The Absence of God made my skin prickle all over)

Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (fun, very much a throwback to my YA days of fairytale retellings, though obviously less European)

Four Roads Cross, Max Gladstone (it turns out I was a LOT more fond of Tara than I initially realized - plus this book had a good Pratchett-esque pacing and reliance on characterization)

Get in Trouble, Kelly Link (reading this after the Chiang was instructive - Link is such a better storyteller, better at prioritizing the human over the concept)

Gods Behaving Badly, Marie Phillips

Soulless; Changeless; Blameless, all by Gail Carriger (this series is basically a romance novel with some fantasy plot thrown in for fun; extremely charming and funny)

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James (got about 1/3 of the way through and had to wave the white flag; will try again because I like the plot and the worldbuilding; the tone is just so hard to get through)

Pew, Catherine Lacey (a strange book, I'm still thinking about it; a good Southern book, though)

Nuremberg Diary, GM Gilbert (it took me two months to finish, and was worth it)

River of Teeth, Sarah Gailey (I wanted to like this one a lot more than I actually did; would have made a terrific movie but ultimately was not a great novel. Preferred Magic for Liars.)

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (extremely fun, though more trippy than Gods and the plot didn't work as well for me - though it was very original)

The New Voices of Fantasy, Peter S. Beagle (collected anthology, with some favorites I've read before Ursula Vernon's "Jackalope Wives", "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers" "The Husband Stitch"; others that were great new finds "Selkie Stories are for Losers" from Sofia Satamar and "A Kiss With Teeth" from Max Gladstone and "The Philosophers" from Adam Ehrlich Sachs)

[westofessos]

What I’ve Watched During Quarantine (so far):

TV Shows:

The Last Kingdom - holy shit I love this show and I cannot wait for a new season. Æthelflaed is a badass bitch. But I miss Alfred.

After Life - the most heartbreaking show in the world, with Ricky Gervais being funny between making me cry.

Community - maybe my favourite sitcom. I fucking love this show. I’m containing myself because if I don’t, I’ll go on forever.

Hunters - I love love love love love this weird-ass, terrifying, mind-bending, incredible show. What a ride. Sister Harriet is my favourite even though I don’t trust her.

Tiger King - Yes, along with everyone else I watched this fuckery. What is there to say? I was entertained, that’s it.

Making a Murderer - I was on a roll after Tiger King and wanted something crazy, and I got it. What a bunch of fucked up shit. I can’t believe this is real. Also Kathleen Zellner is a badass bitch and I love her.

Good Omens - I broke down and watched it. And this was the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen but I loved it. Crowley and Aziraphale are a delight. And my history nerd heart couldn’t handle it.

The Boys - wow this was the most disturbing, wonderful show. Truly terrifying but great. Billy Butcher is incredible.

Peaky Blinders - when I say I am in love with Thomas Shelby. Wow. What a fantastic show. I didn’t expect to like it, but I finished all five seasons in less than a week because I’m absolutely addicted. Damn you Thomas Shelby and your pretty eyes.

The Umbrella Academy (S2) - wow wow wow wow what an amazing season. I don’t want to spoil anything but it was absolutely fantastic.

Rewatches:

Lost - my favourite show of all time, and my favourite series finale of all time. Fuck what people say, Lost is brilliant and I would die for this beautiful show.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - what an all around great time. I just love it so much.

Roseanne - ah, old school Roseanne. My actual favourite sitcom. Y’know, the one that was my entire childhood, basically made me who I am today, only for me to find out that the actress that played my actual idol was a racist. Yeah, that one. It was nice to ignore that though and love my favourite show regardless.

Scrubs - I just watched it for the first time just before quarantine, and decided to watch it again during. What a brilliant show. It means so much to me. Also, Perry Cox is one of the greatest, most complex characters to ever exist. And Carla Espinosa is an underrated queen. I’m also listening to Fake Doctors, Real Friends, which is Zach Braff and Donald Faison’s Scrubs rewatch podcast, and it’s great.

Friends - I missed this show, really. It’s still so great. Chandler Bing is amazing and I forgot how adorable he and Monica are.

Movies:

The Philadelphia Story - again, Cary Grant is lovely. Also, Katherine Hepburn is incredible and I love her.

Rocky 1-4 (haven’t gotten hold of 5 yet) - oh, yes, yes, yes. These movies. I love love love these movies. Rocky and Adrian are the couple.

Cocktail - this one wasn’t bad, considering I hate Tom Cruise. I’d watch it again.

Anastasia - I’ve been wanting to watch this one for a while, and it was awesome. I love Meg Ryan so much.

Rebel Without a Cause - this is such a great teen movie. I was surprised about how much I related to it. Also, as if everyone didn’t already know, James Dean is gorgeous.

Thelma & Louise - what a beautiful story about friendship and badass ladies. This is exactly my shit. Yes.

Steel Magnolias - this was such a lovely, sad movie. Oh, I love it.

The Wedding Planner - this one set me on a JLo kick, because this was such an adorable movie. Her and McConaughey were adorable.

Maid in Manhattan - ah, JLo, you did it again. I loved this one so much. Loved it.

Save the Last Dance - I hadn’t heard of this one, but I saw Julia Stiles and immediately clicked. That was the right choice. This movie was so cute, oh, I loved it.

All the President’s Men - me geeking out over journalism, politics, and history for two hours? Yes please. Also Robert Redford is gorgeous and I never found him that attractive before.

Terms of Endearment - oh, break my goddamn heart why don’t you. Fuck, this was so heartbreaking. I loved it.

Taxi Driver - a garbage movie for garbage people. Imagine if Fight Club just like, wasn’t a good movie. That was the vibe of this one. God, don’t waste your time.

Singin’ in the Rain - what a lovely, fun movie. All three main characters were great, the songs were awesome, the relationships were fun, what more can I say? Oh yeah, Gene Kelly? Damn.

His Girl Friday - overall an okay movie, but it was pretty funny, and Cary Grant. Dear god, I love me some Cary Grant.

Good Will Hunting - oh, fuck me, this movie. How dare you make me feel such things, Matt Damon. What an incredible movie. It made me, a person who hates Ben Affleck, not hate Ben Affleck for two whole hours. It made me cry, of course. Robin Williams, dammit. Wow. And Matt fucking Damon was so brilliant, and so was Minnie Driver, and they were so good together, and I could gush about this movie for days.

Set it Up - as of now, I’ve watched this movie, oh, nine thousand times?? How perfect is this movie? All of the actors are great, and I’d watch two hours of just Charlie looking at Harper. Ugh. The way he looks at her gets me every time.

The Old Guard - I’m not usually a fan of action movies but this one was so good !! I loved the plot and just the idea in general, and all of the characters were so awesome. It was a really great movie.

Rewatches:

Tombstone - I could watch this movie every single day. Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday might be my favourite performance ever. I can quote almost this entire movie, and I don’t even like westerns.

Gladiator - I hadn’t watched this in a long time, and I knew it was good, but it was so, so, so good. Wow.

Memento - maybe my favourite movie ever. Definitely my favourite mind-fuck movie. So cool, and just. . . god, it’s such a good movie. Hats off to you, Chris Nolan.

The Usual Suspects - this is one of my favourite movies of all time. Everyone is so good in it and that ending is incredible. I could gush about this movie forever. Dean Keaton deserved better.

This is the End - such a funny movie, wow. Anything with Seth Rogen and James Franco is good. Jay Baruchel, wow. I adore Jay Baruchel.

You’ve Got Mail - in my books, the best romantic movie ever. I watch this shit constantly. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are so adorable together. Add in Dave Chappelle, and it’s perfect.

Unbreakable, Split, and Glass - M. Night Shyamalan is always good and I’ll fight anyone on that. These three expecially. He’s the absolute master.

Back to the Future 1-3 - if I’m being honest, they’re not the greatest movies, but fuck, aren’t they, though? They’re cheesy as hell, but absolutely iconic and I still love the hell out of them.

The Neverending Story - this is the weirdest goddamn movie I’ve ever seen but the nostalgia hit me harddd. This movie was my whole childhood and even though it’s absolutely disturbing, it’s still great.

Talk to me about any of these!! I’m desperate to rant about my favourite movies and tv shows, and if you are too, feel free to reply to this post or message me privately! I’m always ready to talk and gush about things I love.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Treat Your S(h)elf: The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise Of The East India Company (2019)

It was not the British government that began seizing great chunks of India in the mid-eighteenth century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by a violent, utterly ruthless and intermittently mentally unstable corporate predator – Clive.

William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise Of The East India Company

“One of the very first Indian words to enter the English language was the Hindustani slang for plunder: loot. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this word was rarely heard outside the plains of north India until the late eighteenth century, when it became a common term across Britain.”

With these words, populist historian William Dalrymple, introduces his latest book The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company. It is a perfect companion piece to his previous book ‘The Last Mughal’ which I have also read avidly. I’m a big fan of William Dalrymple’s writings as I’ve followed his literary output closely.

And this review is harder to be objective when you actually know the author and like him and his family personally. Born a Scot he was schooled at Ampleforth and Cambridge before he wrote his first much lauded travel book (In Xanadu 1989) just after graduation about his trek through Iran and South Asia. Other highly regarded books followed on such subjects as Byzantium and Afghanistan but mostly about his central love, Delhi. He has won many literary awards for his writings and other honours.  He slowly turned to writing histories and co-founding the Jaipur Literary Festival (one of the best I’ve ever been to). He has been living on and off outside Delhi on a farmhouse rasing his children and goats with his artist wife, Olivia. It’s delightfully charming.

Whatever he writes he never disappoints. This latest tome I enjoyed immensely even if I disagreed with some of his conclusions.

Dalrymple recounts the remarkable rise of the East India Company from its founding in 1599 to 1803 when it commanded an army twice the size of the British Army and ruled over the Indian subcontinent. Dalrymple targets the British East India Company for its questionable activities over two centuries in India. In the process, he unmasks a passel of crude, extravagant, feckless, greedy, reprobate rascals - the so-called indigenous rulers over whom the Company trampled to conquer India.

None of this is news to me as I’m already familiar with British imperial history but also speaking more personally. Like many other British families we had strong links to the British Empire, especially India, the jewel in its crown. Those links went all the way back to the East India Company. Typically the second or third sons of the landed gentry or others from the rising bourgeois classes with little financial prospects or advancement would seek their fortune overseas and the East India Company was the ticket to their success - or so they thought.  

The East India Company tends to get swept under the carpet and instead everyone focuses on the British Empire. But the birth of British colonialism wasn’t engineered in the halls of Whitehall or the Foreign Office but by what Dalrymple calls, “handful of businessmen from a boardroom in the City of London”. There wasn’t any grand design to speak of, just the pursuit of profit. And it was this that opened a Pandora’s Box that defined the following two centuries of British imperialism of India and the rise of its colonial empire.

The 18th-century triumph and then fall of the Company, and its role in founding what became Queen Victoria’s Indian empire is an astonishing story, which has been recounted in books including The Honourable Company by John Keay (1991) and The Corporation that Changed the World by Nick Robins (2006). It is well-trodden territory but Dalrymple, a historian and author who lives in India and has written widely about the Mughal empire, brings to it erudition, deep insight and an entertaining style.

He also takes a different and topical twist on the question how did a joint stock company founded in Elizabethan England come to replace the glorious Mughal Empire of India, ruling that great land for a hundred years? The answer lies mainly in the title of the book. The Anarchy refers not to the period of British rule but to the period before that time. Dalrymple mentions his title is drawn from a remark attributed to Fakir Khair ud-Din Illahabadi, whose Book of Admonition provided the author with the source material and who said of the 18th century “the once peaceful realm of India became the abode of Anarchy.” But Dalrymple goes further and tells the story as a warning from history on the perils of corporate power. The American edition sports the provocative subtitle, “The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire” (compared with the neutral British subtitle, “The Relentless Rise of the East India Company”). However I think the story Dalrymple really tells is also of how government power corrupts commercial enterprise.

It’s an amazing story and Dalrymple tells it with verve and style drawing, as in his previous books, on underused Indian, Persian and French sources. Dalrymple has a wonderful eye for detail e.g. After the Company’s charter is approved in 1600 the merchant adventures scout for ships to undertake the India voyage: “They have been to Deptford to ‘view severall shippes,’ one of which, the May Flowre, was later famous for a voyage heading in the opposite direction”.

What a Game of Thrones styled tv series it would make, and what a tragedy it unfolded in reality. A preface begins with the foundation of the Company by “Customer Smythe” in 1599, who already had experience trading with the Levant. Certain merchants were little better than pirates and the British lagged behind the Dutch, the Portuguese, the French and even the Spanish in their global aspirations. It was with envious eyes that they saw how Spain had so effectively despoiled Central America. The book fast-forwards to 1756, with successive chapters, and a degree of flexibility in chronology, taking the reader up to 1799. What was supposed to be a few trading posts in India and an import/export agreement became, within a century, a geopolitical force in its own right with its own standing army larger than the British Army.

It is a story of Machiavels from both Britain and India, of pitched battles, vying factions, the use of technology in warfare, strange moments of mutual respect, parliamentary impeachment featuring two of the greatest orators of the day (Edmund Burke and Richard Sheridan), blindings, rapes, psychopaths on both sides, unimaginable wealth, avarice, plunder, famine and worse. It is, in particular – because of the feuding groups loyal to the Mughals, the Marathas, the Rohilla Afghans, the so-called “bankers of the world” the Jagat Seths, and local tribal warlords – a kind of Game Of Thrones with pepper, silk and saltpetre. And that is even before we get to the British, characters such as Robert Clive “of India”, victor at the Battle of Plassey and subsequent suicide; the problematic figure of the cultured Warren Hastings, the whistle-blower who became an unfair scapegoat for Company atrocities; and Richard Wellesley, older brother to the more famous Arthur who became the Duke of Wellington. Co-ordinating such a vast canvas requires a deft hand, and Dalrymple manages this (although the list of dramatis personae is useful). There is even a French mercenary who is described as a “pastry cook, pyrotechnic and poltroon”.

When the Red Dragon slipped anchor at Woolwich early in 1601 to exploit the new royal charter granted to the East India Company, the venture started inauspiciously. The ship lay becalmed off Dover for two months before reaching the Indonesian sultanate of Aceh and seizing pepper, cinnamon and cloves from a passing Portuguese vessel. The Company was a strange beast from the start  “a joint stock company founded by a motley bunch of explorers and adventurers to trade the world’s riches. This was partly driven by Protestant England’s break with largely Catholic continental Europe. Isolated from their baffled neighbours, the English were forced to scour the globe for new markets and commercial openings further afield. This they did with piratical enthusiasm”&#157; William Dalrymple writes. From these Brexit-like roots, it grew into an enterprise that has never been replicated “a business with its own army that conquered swaths of India, seizing minerals, jewels and the wealth of Mughal emperors. This was mercenary globalisation, practised by what the philosopher Edmund Burke called “a state in the guise of a merchant””.

The East India Company’s charter began with an original sin - Elizabeth I granted the company a perpetual monopoly on trade with the East Indies. With its monopoly giving it enhanced access to credit and vast wealth from Indian trade, it’s no surprise that the company grew to control an eighth of all Britain’s imports by the 1750s. Yet it was still primarily a trading company, with some military capacity to defend its factories. That changed thanks to a well-known problem in institutional economics - opportunism by a company agent, in this case Robert Clive of India, who in time became the richest self-made man in the world in time.

Like many start-ups, it had to pivot in its early days, giving up on competing with the entrenched Dutch East India Company in the Spice Islands, and instead specialising in cotton and calico from India. It was an accidental strategy, but it introduced early officials including Sir Thomas Roe to “a world of almost unimaginable splendour”&#157; in India, run by the cultured Mughals.

The Nawab of Bengal called the English “a company of base, quarrelling people and foul dealers”&#157;, and one local had it that “they live like Englishmen and die like rotten sheep”&#157;. But the Company had on its side the adaptiveness and energy of capitalism. It also had a force of 260,000, which was decisive when it stopped negotiating with the Mughals and went to war. After the Battle of Buxar in 1764, “the English gentlemen took off their hats&#157; to clap the defeated Shuja ud-Daula, before reinstalling him as a tame ruler, backed by the Company’s Indian troops, and paying it a huge subsidy. “We have at last arrived at that critical Conjuncture, which I have long foreseen” wrote Robert Clive, the “curt, withdrawn and socially awkward young accountant”&#157; whose risk-taking and aggression secured crucial military victories for the Company. It was a high point for “the most opulent company in the world,”&#157; as Robert Clive described it.

So how was a humble group of British merchants able to take over one of the great empires of history? Under Aurangzeb, the fanatic and ruthless Mughal emperor (1658-1707), the empire grew to its largest geographic extent but only because of decades of continuous warfare and attendant taxing, pillaging, famine, misery and mass death. It was a classic case of the eventual fall of a great power through military over-extension.

At Aurangzeb’s death in 1707, a power struggle ensued but none could command. “Mughal succession disputes and a string of weak and powerless emperors exacerbated the sense of imperial crisis: three emperors were murdered (one was, in addition, first blinded with a hot needle); the mother of one ruler was strangled and the father of another forced off a precipice on his elephant. In the worst year of all, 1719, four different Emperors occupied the Peacock Throne in rapid succession. According to the Mughal historian Khair ud-Din Illahabadi … ‘Disorder and corruption no longer sought to hide themselves and the once peaceful realm of India became a lair of Anarchy’”.

Seeing the chaos at the top, local rulers stopped paying tribute and tried to establish their own power bases. The result was more warfare and a decline in trade as banditry made it unsafe to travel. The Empire appeared ripe to fall. “Delhi in 1737 had around 2 million inhabitants. Larger than London and Paris combined, it was still the most prosperous and magnificent city between Ottoman Istanbul and Imperial Edo (Tokyo). As the Empire fell apart around it, it hung like an overripe mango, huge and inviting, yet clearly in decay, ready to fall and disintegrate”.

In 1739 the mango was plucked by the Persian warlord Nader Shah. Using the latest military technology, horse-mounted cannon, Shah devastated a much larger force of Mughal troops and “managed to capture the Emperor himself by the simple ruse of inviting him to dinner, then refusing to let him leave.” In Delhi, Nader Shah massacred a hundred thousand people and then, after 57 days of pillaging and plundering, left with two hundred years’ worth of Mughal treasure carried on “700 elephants, 4,000 camels and 12,000 horses carrying wagons all laden with gold, silver and precious stones”.

At this time, the East India Company would have probably preferred a stable India but through a series of unforeseen events it gained in relative power as the rest of India crumbled. With the decline of the Mughals, the biggest military power in India was the Marathas and they attacked Bengal, the richest Indian province, looting, plundering, raping and killing as many as 400,000 civilians. Fearing the Maratha hordes, Bengalis fled to the only safe area in the region, the company stronghold in Calcutta. “What was a nightmare for Bengal turned out to be a major opportunity for the Company. Against artillery and cities defended by the trained musketeers of the European powers, the Maratha cavalry was ineffective. Calcutta in particular was protected by a deep defensive ditch especially dug by the Company to keep the Maratha cavalry at bay, and displaced Bengalis now poured over it into the town that they believed offered better protection than any other in the region, more than tripling the size of Calcutta in a decade. … But it was not just the protection of a fortification that was the attraction. Already Calcutta had become a haven of private enterprise, drawing in not just Bengali textile merchants and moneylenders, but also Parsis, Gujaratis and Marwari entrepreneurs and business houses who found it a safe and sheltered environment in which to make their fortunes”. In an early example of what might be called a “charter city,”

English commercial law also attracted entrepreneurs to Calcutta. The “city’s legal system and the availability of a framework of English commercial law and formal commercial contracts, enforceable by the state, all contributed to making it increasingly the destination of choice for merchants and bankers from across Asia”.

The Company benefited by another unforeseen circumstance, Siraj ud-Daula, the Nawab (ruler) of Bengal, was a psychotic rapist who got his kicks from sinking ferry boats in the Ganges and watching the travelers drown. Siraj was uniformly hated by everyone who knew him. “Not one of the many sources for the period — Persian, Bengali, Mughal, French, Dutch or English — has a good word to say about Siraj”. Despite his flaws, Siraj might have stayed in power had he not made the fatal mistake of striking his banker. The Jagat Seth bankers took their revenge when Siraj ud-Daula came into conflict with the Company under Robert Clive. Conspiring with Clive, the Seths arranged for the Nawab’s general to abandon him and thus the Battle of Plassey was won and the stage set for the East India Company.

In typical fashion, Dalrymple devotes half a dozen pages to the Company’s defeat at Pollidur in 1780 by Haider Ali and his son, Tipu, but a few paragraphs to its significance (Haider could have expelled the Company from much of southern India but failed to pursue his advantage). The reader is not spared the gory details.

“Such as were saved from immediate death,” reads a quote from a British survivor about his fellow troops, “were so crowded together…several were in a state of suffocation, while others from the weight of the dead bodies that had fallen upon them were fixed to the spot and therefore at the mercy of the enemy…Some were trampled under the feet of elephants, camels, and horses. Those who were stripped of their clothing lay exposed to the scorching sun, without water and died a lingering and miserable death, becoming prey to ravenous wild animals.”

Many further battles and adventures would ensue before the British were firmly ensconced by 1803 but the general outline of the story remained the same. The EIC prospered due to a combination of luck, disarray among the Company’s rivals and good financing.

The Mughal emperor Shah Alam, for example, had been forced to flee Delhi leaving it to be ruled by a succession of Persian, Afghani and Maratha warlords. But after wandering across eastern India for many years, he regathered his army, retook Delhi and almost restored Mughal power. At a key moment, however, he invited into the Red Fort with open arms his “adopted” son, Ghulam Qadir. Ghulam was the actual son of Zabita Khan who had been defeated by Shah Alam sixteen years earlier. Ghulam, at that time a young boy, had been taken hostage by Shah Alam and raised like a son, albeit a son whom Alam probably used as a catamite. Expecting gratitude, Shah Alam instead found Ghulam driven mad.  Ghulam Qadir, a psychopath, ordered a minion to blind Shah Alam: “With his Afghan knife….Qandahari Khan first cut one of Shah Alam’s eyes out of its socket; then, the other eye was wrenched out…Shah Alam flopped on the ground like a chicken with its neck cut.” Ghulam took over the Red Fort and after cutting out the eyes of the Mughal emperor, immediately calling for a painter to immortalise the event.

A few pages on, Ghulam Qadir gets his just dessert. Captured by an ally of the emperor, he is hung in a cage, his ears, nose, tongue, and upper lip cut off, his eyes scooped out, then his hands cut off, followed by his genitals and head. Dalrymple out-grosses himself with the description of Ahmad Shah Durrani, the Afghan invader of India, dying of leprosy with “maggots….dropping from the upper part of his putrefying nose into his mouth and food as he ate.”

By 1803, the Company’s army had defeated the Maratha gunners and their French officers, installed Shah Alam as a puppet back on his imitation Peacock Throne in Delhi, and the Company ruled all of India virtually.

Indeed as late as 1803, the Marathas too might have defeated the British but rivalry between Tukoji Holkar and Daulat Rao Scindia prevented an alliance. “Here Wellesley’s masterstroke was to send Holkar a captured letter from Scindia in which the latter plotted with Peshwa Baji Rao to overthrow Holkar … ‘After the war is over, we shall both wreak our full vengeance upon him.’ … After receiving this, Holkar, who had just made the first two days march towards Scindia, turned back and firmly declined to join the coalition”.

For Dalrymple the crucial point was the unsanctioned actions of Robert Clive and the bullying of Shah Alam in the rise of the East India Company.

The Jagat Seths then bribed the company men to attack Siraj. Clive, with an eye for personal gain, was happy attack Siraj at the behest of the Jagat Seths even if the company directors had no part in this. They “consistently abhorred ambitious plans of conquest,” he notes. Clive’s defeat of Siraj at Plassey and the subsequent chain of events that led to Shah Alam giving tax-raising powers to the company in 1765 may be history’s most egregious example of the principal-agent problem.

Thus, the East India Company acquired by accident the ultimate economic rent — a secure, unearned income stream. Company cronies initially thwarted attempts at oversight in London, but a government bailout in 1772 following the Bengal Famine and the collapse of Ayr Bank confirmed the crown’s interest in the company, which had now become Too Big to Fail. Adam Smith called the company’s twin roles of trader and sovereign a “strange absurdity” in Book IV of The Wealth of Nations (unfortunately, Smith’s long condemnatory discussion of the company receives only a cursory reference from Dalrymple).

As part of the bailout, Parliament passed the Tea Act to help the company dump its unsold products on the American colonies by giving it the monopoly on legal tea there (Americans drank mostly smuggled Dutch tea). This, of course, led to the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution.

By 1784, Parliament had set up an oversight board that increasingly dictated the company’s political affairs. The attempted impeachment of Governor-General Warren Hastings by the House of Lords in 1788 confirmed that the company was no longer its own master. By that stage, the company was an arm of the state. Dalrymple’s coverage of the subsequent racist policies of Lord Cornwallis and the military adventures of Richard Wellesley make for compelling reading, but they are not examples of unfettered corporate power.

Overlaid on top of luck and disorder, was the simple fact that the Company paid its bills. Indeed, the Company paid its sepoys (Indian troops) considerably more than did any of its rivals and it paid them on time. It was able to do so because Indian bankers and moneylenders trusted the Company. “In the end it was this access to unlimited reserves of credit, partly through stable flows of land revenues, and partly through collaboration of Indian moneylenders and financiers, that in this period finally gave the Company its edge over their Indian rivals. It was no longer superior European military technology, nor powers of administration that made the difference. It was the ability to mobilise and transfer massive financial resources that enabled the Company to put the largest and best-trained army in the eastern world into the field”.

Dalrymple pretty much loses interest once the Company gains full control. “This book does not aim to provide a complete history of the East India Company,” he writes. He skips past one mention of Hong Kong, which the East India Company seized after the opium wars in China. A few sentences record the 1857 uprising of Indian soldiers that led to the British government taking India from the Company and establishing the Raj that lasted until Indian independence in 1947.

The author makes passing reference to the fact that the struggle for American independence was underway for much of the period about which he writes. He notes that It was British East India Company tea that patriots dumped into Boston harbor in 1773. American colonists were so grateful that the Mysore sultans tied up British forces that might have been deployed in America, they named a warship the Hyder Ali. Lord Cornwallis provides a connection, having surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown in 1781, an event confirming American independence, and turning up in 1786 in India as governor-general, taking Tipu Sultan’s surrender in 1792.

That reference raises an interesting side question that may someday deserve closer examination - Why were American colonists successful in driving off their British overlords. At the same time, Indian aristocracy and the masses over whom they ruled were unable to rid themselves of the British East India Company and the British Raj for another century?

No heroes emerge from Dalrymple’s expansive account that is rich, even overwhelming in detail. He covers two centuries but focuses on the period between 1765 and 1803 when the Company was transformed from a commercial operation to military and totalitarian — to use an appropriate term derived from Sanskrit - juggernaut. Among the multitude of characters involved in this sordid story are a few British names familiar in general history, Robert Clive of India, Warren Hastings, Lord Cornwallis, and Colonel Arthur Wellesley, who was better known long after he departed India as the Duke of Wellington. None - with the exception of Hastings - escape the scathing indictment of Dalrymple’s pen.

At the core of the story we meet Robert Clive, an emblematic character who from being a juvenile delinquent and suicidal lunatic rose to rule India, eventually killing himself in the aftermath of a corruption scandal. In particular Robert Clive comes in for much criticism by Dalrymple. After putting down one rebellion, Clive managed to send back £232 million, of which he personally received £22m. There was a rumour that, on his return to England, his wife’s pet ferret wore a necklace of jewels worth £2,500. Contrast that with the horrors of the 1769 famine: farmers selling their tools, rivers so full of corpses that the fish were inedible, one administrator seeing 40 dead bodies within 20 yards of his home, even cannibalism, all while the Company was stockpiling rice. Some Indian weavers even chopped off their own thumbs to avoid being forced to work and pay the exorbitant taxes that would be imposed on them. The Great Bengal famine of 1770 had already led to unease in London at its methods. “We have murdered, deposed, plundered, usurped,”&#157; wrote the Whig politician Horace Walpole. “I stand astonished by my own moderation,” Clive protested, after outrage intensified when the Company had to be bailed out by the British government in 1772. Clive took his own life in disgrace. 

Warren Hastings, whom Dalrymple portrays as the more sensitive and sympathetic Company man, was first made governor general of India for 12 years and later endured seven years of impeachment for corruption before acquittal. Hastings showed “deep respect” for India and Indians, writes, Dalrymple, as opposed to most other Europeans in India to suck out as much as possible of the subcontinent’s resources and wealth. “In truth, I love India a little more than my own country,”&#157; wrote Hastings, who spoke good Bengali and Urdu, as well as fluent Persian. “(Edmund) Burke had defended Robert Clive (first Governor General of Bengal) against parliamentary enquiry, and so helped exonerate someone who genuinely was a ruthlessly unprincipled plunderer. Now he directed his skills of oratory against Warren Hastings (who was finally impeached), a man who, by virtue of his position, was certainly the symbol of an entire system of mercantile oppression in India, but who had personally done much to begin the process of regulating and reforming the Company, and who had probably done more than any other Company official to rein in the worst excesses of its rule,” Dalrymple writes. At his public impeachment hearing in 1788, Burke thundered: “We have brought before you…..one in whom all the frauds, all the peculation, all the violence, all the tyranny in India are embodied.’ They got the wrong man but, by the time he was cleared in 1795, the British state was steadily absorbing the Company, denouncing its methods but retaining many of its assets.

Dalrymple has a soft spot for a couple of Indian locals. “The British consistently portrayed Tipu as a savage and fanatical barbarian,” Dalrymple writes, “but he was in truth a connoisseur and an intellectual…” Of course, Tipu, Dalrymple confesses a bit later, had rebels’ “arms, legs, ears, and noses cut off before being hanged” as well as forcibly circumcising captives and converting them to Islam.

Emperor Shah Alam (1728-1806) is contemporary for much of the time Dalrymple covers. “His was…a life marked by kindness, decency, integrity and learning at a time when such qualities were in short supply…he…managed to keep the Mughul flame alive through the worst of the Great Anarchy….” Dalrymple portrays a most intriguing figure in Emperor Shah Alam, a man attracted to mysticism and yet as prepared as his contemporaries to double-deal; someone who endures exile and torture and who outlives, albeit in a melancholy fashion, his enemies. Despite his lack of wealth, troops or political power, the very nature of his being emperor still, it seems, inspired affection.

Part of Dalrymple’s excellence is in the use of Indian sources – he takes numerous quotes from Ghulam Hussain Khan, acclaimed by Dalrymple as “brilliant,” who threads the story as an 18th-century historian on his untranslated works, Seir Mutaqherin (Review of Modern Times). Dalrymple has used a trove of company documents in Britain and India as well as Persian-language histories, much of which he shares in English translation with the reader. However he does this a bit too often and portions of his account can seem more assembled than written.

These pages are also brimming with anecdotes retold with Dalrymple’s distinctive delight in the piquant, equivoque and gory: we have historical moments when “it seemed as if it were raining blood, for the drains were streaming with it” (quoted from a report c1740 regarding events that preceded Nadir Shah’s infamous looting of the peacock throne) as well as duels between Company officials so busy with their in-fighting that it’s a miracle they could perform their work at all; there’s also homosexuality, homophobia, sexual torture, castrations, cannibalism, brothels and gonorrhoea.

The principal protagonists of the “Black Hole of Calcutta” incident are both, naturally, certified pervs: Siraj ud-Daula is a “serial bisexual rapist” while his opponent Governor Drake is having an “affair with his sister”. And one particular Mughal governor liked to throw tax defaulters in pits of rotting shit (“the stench was so offensive, that it almost suffocated anyone who came near it”). All this gives one a rough idea of what historically important people were up to according to Dalrymple. But all things considered, Dalrymple’s research is solid and heavily annotated.

However entertaining and widely researched using unused Urdu and Persian sources, Dalrymple’s overall approach doesn’t tell us very much about the general tendency in eighteenth-century imperial activity, and particularly that of the British, that we didn’t already know. And other things he downplays or neglects. Thus, the East India Company was one of a series of ‘national’ East India companies, including those of France, the Netherlands and Sweden. Moreover, for Britain, there was the Hudson Bay Company, the Royal African Company, and the chartered companies involved in North America, as well, for example, as the Bank of England.  Delegated authority in this form or shared state/private activities were a major part of governance. To assume from the modern perspective of state authority that this was necessarily inadequate is misleading as well as teleological. Indeed, Dalrymple offers no real evidence for his view. Was Portuguese India, where the state had a larger role, ‘better’?

Secondly, let us look at India as a whole. There is an established scholarly debate to which Dalrymple makes no ground breaking contribution. This debate focuses on the question of whether, after the death in 1707 of the mighty Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707), the focus should be on decline and chaos or, instead, on the development of a tier of powers within the sub-continent, for example Hyderabad. In the latter perspective, the East India Company (EIC) emerges as one and, eventually, the most successful of the successor powers. That raises questions of comparative efficiency and how the EIC succeeded in the Indian military labour market, this helping in defeating the Marathas in the 1800s.

An Indian power, the EIC was also a ‘foreign’ one; although foreignness should not be understood in modern terms. As a ‘foreign’ one, the EIC was not alone among the successful players, and was not even particularly successful, other than against marginal players, until the 1760s.  Compared to Nadir Shah of Persia in the late 1730s (on whom Michael Axworthy is well worth reading), or the Afghans from the late 1750s (on whom Jos Gommans is best), the EIC was limited on land. This was part of a longstanding pattern, encompassing indeed, to a degree, the Mughals. Dalrymple fails to address this comparative context adequately.

Dalrymple seems particularly incensed at “corporate violence” and in a (mercifully short) final chapter alludes to Exxon and the United Fruit Company. Indeed Dalrymple has a pitch ” that globalisation is rooted here, albeit that “the world’s largest corporations…..are tame beasts compared with the ravaging territorial appetites of the militarised East India Company.”

It is an interesting question to ask: How might the actions of these corporate raiders have differed from those of a state? It’s not clear, for example, that the EIC was any worse than the average Indian ruler and surely these stationary bandits were better than roving bandits like Nader Shah. The EIC may have looted India but economic historian Tirthankar Roy explains that: “Much of the money that Clive and his henchmen looted from India came from the treasury of the nawab. The Indian princes, ‘walking jeweler’s shops’ as an American merchant called them, spent more money on pearls and diamonds than on infrastructural developments or welfare measures for the poor. If the Company transferred taxpayers’ money from the pockets of an Indian nobleman to its own pockets, the transfer might have bankrupted pearl merchants and reduced the number of people in the harem, but would make little difference to the ordinary Indian.”

Moreover, although it began as a private-firm, the EIC became so regulated by Parliament that Hejeebu (2016) concludes, “After 1773, little of the Company’s commercial ethos survived in India.” Certainly, by the time the brothers Wellesley were making their final push for territorial acquisition, the company directors back in London were pulling out their hair and begging for fewer expensive wars and more trading profits.

So also for eighteenth-century Asia as a whole. Dalrymple has it in for the form of capitalism the EIC represents; but it was less destructive than the Manchu conquest of Xinjiang in the 1750s, or, indeed, the Afghan destruction of Safavid rule in Persia in the early 1720s. Such comparative points would have been offered Dalrymple the opportunity to deploy scholarship and judgment, and, indeed, raise interesting questions about the conceptualisation and methodologies of cross-cultural and diachronic comparison.

Focusing anew on India, the extent to which the Mughal achievement in subjugating the Deccan was itself transient might be underlined, and, alongside consideration, of the Maratha-Mughal struggle in the late seventeenth century, that provides another perspective on subsequent developments. The extent to which Bengal, for example, did not know much peace prior to the EIC is worthy of consideration. It also helps explain why so many local interests found it appropriate, as well as convenient, to ally with the EIC. It brought a degree of protection for the regional economy and offered defence against Maratha, Afghan, and other, attacks and/or exactions. The terms of entry into a British-led global economy were less unwelcome than later nationalist writers might suggest. Dalrymple himself cites Trotsky, who was no guide to the period. To turn to other specifics is only to underline these points.

After Warren Hastings’ impeachment which in effect brought to an end the era when “almost all of India south of [Delhi] was…..effectively ruled by a handful of businessmen from a boardroom in the City of London.”&#157; It is hard to find a simple lesson, beyond Dalrymple’s point that talk of Britain having conquered India ‘disguises a much more sinister reality’&#157;.

One of the great advantages non-fiction has over fiction is that you cannot make it up, and in the case of the East India Company, you cannot make it up to an extent that beggars belief. William Dalrymple has been for some years one of the most eloquent and assiduous chroniclers of Indian history. With this new work, he sounds a minatory note. The East India Company may be history, but it has warnings for the future. It was “the first great multinational corporation, and the first to run amok”. Wryly, he writes that at least Walmart doesn’t own a fleet of nuclear submarines and Facebook doesn’t have regiments of infantry.

Yet Facebook and Uber does indeed have the potential power to usurp national authority - Facebook can sway elections through its monopoly on how people consume their news for instance. But they do not seize physical territory as Dalrymple states. Even an oil company with private guards in a war-torn country does not compare these days. This doesn’t exonerate corporations though. I know from personal experience of working in the corporate world that it attracts its fair share of psychopaths and cold blooded operators obsessed with the bottom lines of their balance sheets and the worship of the fortunes of their share prices and the lengths they go to would indeed come close to or cross over moral and legal lines. Perhaps the moral is to keep a stern eye on ‘corporate influence, with its fatal blend of power, money and unaccountability’&#157;. Clive reflected after Buxar, ‘We must indeed become Nabobs ourselves in Fact if not in Name…..We must go forward, for to retract is impossible.’ That was the nature of the beast. 

Speaking of being beastly, some readers may disagree with the more radical views presented in taking apart the imperialist project and showed it for what it was - not about civilising savages, but about brutally exploiting civilised humans by treating them as savages. I think that’s partly true but not the whole story as Dalrymple will freely concede himself. Imperial history is a charged subject and they defy lazy Manichean conclusions of good guys and bad guys.

Dalrymple’s book is an excellent example of popular history - engaging, entertaining, readable, and informative. However, I honestly think he should have stuck to the history and not tried to draw out a trustbusting parallel with today’s big companies. Where the parallels exist, they are to do with cronyism, rent-seeking, and bailouts, all of which are primarily sins of government. 

The Anarchy remains though a page-turning history of the rise of the East India Company with plenty of raw material to enjoy and to think about. To my mind the title ‘The Anarchy’ is brilliantly and appositely chosen. There are in fact two anarchies here; the anarchy of the competing regimes in India, and the anarchy – literally, without leaders or rules – of the East India Company itself, a corporation that put itself above law. The dangers of power without governance are depicted in an exemplary fashion. Dalrymple has done a great service in not just writing an eminently readable history of 18th century India, but in reflecting on how so much of it serves as a warning for our own time when chaos runs amok from those seeking to be above the law.

[aion-rsa]

The Walking Dead Season 11: Who Lives and Who Dies

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This Walking Dead article contains major spoilers.

Many of us thought this day would never come, but as all of The Walking Dead‘s characters know very well, everything that has a beginning has an end. Season 11 of AMC’s flagship zombie drama will be the show’s final run of episodes, but fortunately it’s an expanded season. Fans will get 24 more episodes, broken up into three parts, before the show — and a few of its characters — meets its end.

And it wouldn’t be a season of The Walking Dead without a few big deaths along the way. As we have in past seasons, we’ve made some predictions regarding who will bite the bullet in season 11. For the final time, here are the characters we think are on the chopping block and the ones we believe will live on to remember them after the credits roll on the series finale.

Keep track of all The Walking Dead season 11 deaths below:

DEAD

Roy (C. Thomas Howell)

Prediction: Dies

Result: Dead

Roy took an arrow to the face during a Reaper ambush.

Gage (Jackson Pace)

Prediction: Dies

Result: Dead

Gage stabbed himself in the chest twice, attempting to kill himself before being devoured by walkers in a train car. Zombie Gage was then put down with a shot to the head by Gabriel.

ALIVE

Pope (Ritchie Coster)

Prediction: Dies

I’ve never seen a guy more likely to die in the first half of a Walking Dead season than Pope, the leader of the show’s newest villains, the Reapers, who themselves strike me as filler villains for Maggie and Daryl while the real story at the Commonwealth develops. I assume the Reapers will be out of the picture by the time Alexandria needs to turn its attention to the much larger settlement in the second part of season 11.

Pamela Milton (Laila Robins)

Prediction: Dies

The Governor of the Commonwealth is poised to be the final season’s big bad. A bureaucrat hellbent on preserving the way things were before the zombie outbreak, Milton even established a caste system within her settlement to propagate class inequality. She represents everything that was wrong with the world before the fall of society and the complete anti-thesis of how the Alexandrians do things.

If you’ve read the comics, you know how Pamela’s story ends in Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard’s story, but the TV series is known for taking sharp left turns when you least expect it. One thing we know for sure is that the Alexandrians will have to reckon with Pamela’s rule before the series finale.

Lance Hornsby (Josh Hamilton)

Prediction: Dies

A Commonwealth acolyte and bookkeeper of the community, Lance is one of Milton’s chief personnel, helping her run the settlement’s government. He’s also seems like cannon fodder to me as things heat up between the Commonwealth and Alexandria, an early death that could spark a conflict between the two factions.

Mercer (Michael James Shaw)

Prediction: Lives

Mercer is loyal to the Commonwealth but there are more sides to him than his distinct orange military armor lets on. He’s one of the most interesting characters of the comic’s final storyline, and it would be a shame to lose him before we can see his story through.

Elijah (Okea Eme-Akwari)

Prediction: Lives

Elijah made his debut in one of the most WTF moments of season 10 when he rescued Aaron and Alden from the Whisperers. For weeks after his reveal, people wondered who the man in the steal mask could be. When he returned in the final six episodes of season 10, the show just kind of moved on without fleshing him out, which is unfortunate since he looks so cool! I’m going to assume that the series is saving a big Elijah-focused episode for later in the season and that he’s too awesome to kill off. You don’t just introduce a blade expert in a steel mask for no reason!

Virgil (Kevin Carroll)

Prediction: Dies

Virgil has a lot to atone for after kidnapping and drugging Michonne in season 10. At the end of the season, we learn that he’s found a disoriented Connie in the woods. His redemption arc will likely include helping Connie survive on the walker-infested road back to Alexandria. Will that eventually involve a final sacrifice to save her?

Connie (Lauren Ridloff)

Prediction: Lives

Connie’s been through a hell of a lot in the past season. After surviving an explosion, a cave-in, and an entire walker horde, Connie’s made it out of Whisperer territory but is still a ways from home. Expect part of season 11’s story to be about Connie’s odyssey and ultimate reunion with her sister and Daryl.

Lydia (Cassady McClincy)

Prediction: Lives

Lydia was at the center of Alexandria’s conflict with the Whisperers for a season and a half. With Alpha and Beta defeated, and their faction all but obliterated, I have to wonder what Lydia has left to do on the show. That said, the writers have continued to find interesting ways to explore this character, and someone has to live on to lead the next generation of Alexandrians. I think Lydia is in it for the long haul.

Magna (Nadia Hilker)

Prediction: Dies

Magna was sidelined pretty quickly after her introduction. While a reunion with Yumiko seems like the logical direction for her story, The Walking Dead universe is a cruel one. She could be headed toward tragedy.

Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura)

Prediction: Lives

In season 11, Yumiko is inheriting a major storyline from the comics that likely means she’ll survive the final 24 episodes of the series. Of course, the TV show could always alter that storyline to bring a tragic end to Yumiko’s story.

Luke (Dan Fogler)

Prediction: Dies

It’s pretty wild that Luke has survived as long as he has. A man of the arts hardly has a place in the cruel world of this show, but he has clumsily persevered thus far. But if the writers are planning an especially bloody final season, I’d put Luke on the short list.

Kelly (Angel Theory)

Prediction: Lives

Kelly has been one of the best late additions to the show. It would suck for her to finally reunite with her sister only to meet an unexpected end.

Alden (Callan McAuliffe)

Prediction: Dies

Another candidate for the chopping block. I’m surprised he’s even made it this long.

King Ezekiel (Khary Payton)

Prediction: Lives

Yes, Ezekiel has thyroid cancer, and were he in Alexandria, that would mean his inevitable death. But the Commonwealth is a different ballgame, an advanced settlement in the comics that will likely have the doctors and surgical resources needed to save him. That is, if Ezekiel isn’t caught up in Milton’s caste system.

Jerry (Cooper Andrews)

Prediction: Dies

I love Jerry and don’t want to see the tank with a heart of gold go. But if the season needs an early death that pulls at the heart strings, Jerry is a prime candidate for a midseason casualty.

Father Gabriel Stokes (Seth Gilliam)

Prediction: Lives

Gabriel has evolved so much since his debut in season 5, becoming one of Alexandria’s key leaders. He’s come so far and even survived longer than his comic book counterpart. I’d hate to see him go so close to the end. So I’m just going to say he lives.

Aaron (Ross Marquand)

Prediction: Lives

Aaron seemed destined to die seasons ago, too kind and trusting to survive this long. But here he is, still fighting and surviving. He’s lost the man he loves, his arm, and many friends — and it’s all hardened him into a war machine. It’d be a shame for him to die now.

Rosita Espinosa (Christian Serratos)

Prediction: Lives

In the comics, Rosita’s head ended up on a pike during the Whisperer war, but her TV counterpart has persevered. It’s difficult to predict where her story goes at this point, but since she survived her comic book death, I assume the show’s writers have something in mind for her in season 11.

Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt)

Prediction: Lives

Eugene has become an unlikely protagonist going into season 11. From a mulleted coward hiding behind his intelligence so that others protect him to the Alexandrian leading his people to the Commonwealth, Eugene is central to the plot of the final season, and I think that means he’s safe. Plus, Eugene is hilarious, and The Walking Dead can always use a little comedic relief.

Judith Grimes (Cailey Fleming)

Prediction: Lives

Result: Lived

NO.

Rick Grimes Jr. (Antony Azor)

Prediction: Lives

Nah.

Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan)

Prediction: Lives

I think The Walking Dead is going to end with one last big death, one last sacrifice before the credits roll on the massive zombie drama. Like Rick in the comics, one of the major characters of the TV series will likely become the martyr who inspires change inside the Commonwealth’s walls. Negan would probably be on the short list for this big moment from the comics, a villain finally choosing to do the right thing for a cause bigger than himself, a fitting conclusion to his seasons-long redemption arc. But Jeffrey Dean Morgan recently teased that he was already having discussions with AMC about a potential Negan spinoff after The Walking Dead has concluded, which means the former Savior leader is safe…unless the Negan show is a prequel.

Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride)

Prediction: Lives

This one’s an easy one: Melissa McBride is getting her own spinoff that will follow her character after The Walking Dead series finale. That means she’s safe.

Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus)

Prediction: Lives

Norman Reedus is joining McBride for that spinoff, so he’s safe, too. The actor even told us what the Daryl and Carol show will be about.

Maggie Rhee (Lauren Cohan)

Prediction: Dies

That leaves The Walking Dead with one logical choice to pick up Rick’s final storyline from the comic. It’s Maggie. It also makes a bit of sense from a logistical standpoint. Lauren Cohan has already left The Walking Dead universe once before to pursue other small and big screen projects. She’s back for the final 24 episodes of the series as a welcome legacy character but that doesn’t mean Cohan wants to stick around for longer than that. I assume Cohan’s returned to bring closure to her character, not to prepare for a spinoff.

Let us know your predictions for The Walking Dead season 11 in the comments!

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Lin-Manuel Miranda, Annaleigh Ashford, Neil Patrick Harris, Telly Leung, Ruthie Ann Miles and More The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ Virtual Benefit I’m Still Here at 90

On June 23, 2021 at 8:00 PM, an unprecedented, one-time-only virtual benefit, I’m Still Here, will stream on Broadway On Demand to benefit The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ Billy Rose Theatre Division.

The exciting evening is a celebration of the division’s 90th Anniversary, and the 50th  Anniversary of its beloved Theatre on Film and Tape Archive and will honor Harold Prince and George C. Wolfe.

Tickets to the fundraiser will be donate-what-you-can, with a recommendation of at least $19.31 in honor of the year the division was founded. To purchase tickets, visit stillhereat90.com

I’m Still Here will feature never before publicly shown archival content of Broadway productions from the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive, shown exclusively for this occasion, including Savion Glover, Jimmy Tate, Choclattjared and Raymond King in Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk, Meryl Streep, Marcia Gay Harden and Larry Pine in The Seagull, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Robin de Jesús, Christopher Jackson, Karen Olivo, Andréa Burns, Janet Dacal, Eliseo Román, Seth Stewart in In The Heights, Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard, and even more to be announced. The program will also feature interviews with Broadway legends and emerging creatives and reconceived performances of classic musical theatre songs, including “A Trip to the Library,” “Wheels of a Dream,” “Another Hundred People,” “Love Will Find a Way,” “I’m Still Here,” and more.  

I’m Still Here features artists and figures from the theatre community including Annaleigh Ashford (Sunday in the Park with George), Alexander Bello (Caroline, or Change), Laura Benanti (She Loves Me), Malik Bilbrew, Alexandra Billings (Wicked), Susan Birkenhead (Jelly’s Last Jam), Shay Bland, Stephanie J. Block (The Cher Show), Alex Brightman (Beetlejuice), Matthew Broderick (Plaza Suite), Krystal Joy Brown (Hamilton), David Burtka (“A Series of Unfortunate Events”), Sammi Cannold(Endlings), Ayodele Casel (Chasing Magic), Victoria Clark (The Light in the Piazza), Max Clayton (Moulin Rouge!), Calvin L. Cooper (Mrs. Doubtfire), DeMarius Copes(Mean Girls), Trip Cullman (Choir Boy), Taeler Elyse Cyrus (Hello, Dolly!), Quentin Earl Darrington (Once on This Island), Robin de Jesús (In the Heights), André De Shields (Hadestown), Frank DiLella (NY1), Derek Ege, Amina Faye, Harvey Fierstein (La Cage aux Folles), Leslie Donna Flesner (Tootsie), Chelsea P. Freeman, Joel Grey (Cabaret), Ryan J. Haddad (“The Politician”), Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof), James Harkness (Ain’t Too Proud), Marcy Harriell (Company), Neil Patrick Harris (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Mark Harris (“Mike Nichols: A Life”), David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly), Cassondra James (Once on This Island), Marcus Paul James (Rent), Taylor Iman Jones (Hamilton), Maya Kazzaz, Tom Kirdahy (The Inheritance), Hilary Knight, Michael John LaChiusa (The Wild Party), Norman Lear (Good Times), Baayork Lee (A Chorus Line), Sondra Lee (Hello, Dolly!), Telly Leung (Aladdin), Ashley Loren (Moulin Rouge!), Allen René Louis (“Jimmy Kimmel Live!”), Brittney Mack (Six), Taylor Mac (Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus), Morgan Marcell, Aaron Marcellus (“American Idol”), Joan Marcus, Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening), Sarah Meahl, Joanna Merlin (Fiddler on the Roof), Ruthie Ann Miles (Sunday in the Park with George), Bonnie Milligan (Head Over Heels), Rita Moreno (West Side Story), Leilani Patao (Garden Girl), Nova Payton (Dreamgirls), Joel Perez (Kiss My Aztec), Bernadette Peters (Into the Woods), Tonya Pinkins (Jelly’s Last Jam), Jacoby Pruitt, Sam Quinn, Phylicia Rashad (A Raisin in the Sun), Jelani Remy (Ain’t Too Proud), Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer (Beetlejuice), George Salazar (Be More Chill), Marilyn Saunders (Company), Marcus Scott (Fidelio), Rashidra Scott (Company), Rona Siddiqui (Tales of a Halfghan), Ahmad Simmons, Rebecca Taichman (Indecent), Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home), Bobby Conte Thornton (Company), Sergio Trujillo (On Your Feet), Kei Tsuruharatani (Jagged Little Pill), Ben Vereen(Pippin), Jack Viertel, Christopher Vo, Paula Vogel (Indecent), Nik Walker (Ain’t Too Proud), Shannon Fiona Weir, Helen Marla White (Ain’t Misbehavin’), Natasha Yvette Williams (“Orange is the New Black”) and Ricardo Zayas (Hamilton).

“From the Great Depression of the 1930s to the COVID crisis, the Billy Rose Theatre Division perseveres and preserves the greatest treasures of theatrical history,” said Doug Reside, the Lewis and Dorothy Cullman Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division. “As I look back on the last 90 years of our history, I’m struck by how our division has managed to document almost every aspect of the creative process and the people who bring theatre to life. I am so grateful for the opportunity to celebrate our first 90 years in such spectacular fashion, and to the theatre community for its support. As we plan for the next 90 years and beyond, my hope is that the collection continues to grow and flourish and reflect the diversity of voices that have shaped the theatre as we know it and are shaping its future.”

“The Billy Rose Theatre Division has served as the collective memory for our community by capturing the ephemeral nature of our unique art form. Until we can all experience the joy of live theater again, we are thrilled to look back into the archives to highlight theatrical masterpieces from their vast collection,” said producers Julie Boardman and Nolan Doran. “Our hope is to raise funds to ensure the archives remain accessible to future theatre makers for generations to come.”

The virtual benefit is produced and conceived by co-founder of the upcoming Museum of Broadway and four-time Tony nominee Julie Boardman (Company) and Co-Executive Producer of Broadway For Biden Nolan Doran (Head Over Heels), featuring direction by Steve Broadnax (Thoughts Of A Colored Man), Sammi Cannold(Endlings), Nick Corley (Plaza Suite), Grammy Award Winner Ty Defoe (Straight White Men), Drama Desk winner Lorin Latarro (Waitress), Mia Walker (Jagged Little Pill) and Tony Award winner Jason Michael Webb (Choir Boy), choreography by Ayodele Casel (Chasing Magic), Lorin Latarro and Ray Mercer (The Lion King), with new music arranged by ASCAP Award winner Rachel Dean (Medusa) and Annastasia Victory (A Wonderful World), with arrangements and orchestrations by Brian Usifer(Frozen). Casting is by Peter Van Dam at Tara Rubin Casting.

Tony Marx is the president of The New York Public Library, William Kelly is the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries, Jennifer Schantz is the Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director of the Library for the Performing Arts, and Doug Reside is the Lewis and Dorothy Cullman Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division. Patrick Hoffman is the curator of the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive. Henry Tisch serves as Associate Producer and Travis Waldschmidt is Associate Choreographer. Animation and Motion Graphics by Kate Freer, Graphic Design by Caitlin Whittington, Sean MacLaughlin is Director of Photography and Ian Johnston is B Camera Operator. Dylan Tashjian is Onsite Coordinator with COVID compliance by Lauren Class Schneider.

HOST COMMITTEE: Ted & Mary Jo Shen, Barbara Fleischman, Lizzie & Jon Tisch, Kate Cannova, Joan Marcus, Daisy Prince, Gayfryd Steinberg, Van Horn Group

LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS THEATRE COMMITTEE: Emily Altman, Margot Astrachan, Ken Billington, Julie Boardman, Ted Chapin, Bonnie Comley, Van Dean, Kurt Deutsch, Scott Farthing, Barbara Fleischman, Freddie Gershon, Louise Hirschfeld, Joan Marcus, Elliott Masie, Arthur Pober, Ed Schloss, Morwin Schmookler, Jenna Segal, Ted Shen, Kara Unterberg, Abbie Van Nostrand, Kumiko Yoshii

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS DOROTHY AND LEWIS B. CULLMAN CENTER houses one of the world’s most extensive combinations of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in the field of dance, theatre, music and recorded sound. These materials are available free of charge, along with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, and performances. An essential resource for everyone with an interest in the arts — whether professional or amateur — the Library is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters and photographs. The Library is part of The New York Public Library system, which has locations in the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island, and is a lead provider of free education for all.