#actually one of the most complex in literary history

[nerdyfangirlmel]

It’s the way that Annabeth looked at Luke when they were telling percy the plan like he hangs the stars in the sky. The way little siblings (especially with big age gaps) do. Like he is her own personal Greek hero because at SOME POINT HE WAS. And it’s the way that book readers know she will continue to look at him that way in at least a little bit despite knowing what he’s become. Because (a reminder) he was the first person to show her that love isn’t earned.

[cryptotheism]

Actually trying to write seriously about Crowley is hard for a few reasons:

He's maybe the most sensationalized figure in occult history.

Short biographies take him at face value

Long biographies are exhaustive to the point of reaching

His contemporaries either loved him or hated him, corroborating anecdotes is a pain in the ass.

He was commenting on one of the most complex systems in western esoterica to date. The HOOTGD.

Who themselves loved to conflate histories and myrhologize.

He Actually Is That Deep. His literary background and extensive experience means that his work has explored with a fine comb. It is almost designed to bounce off shallow analysis.

He regularly makes extremely insightful points through the vehicle of like, edgy South Park humor, but esoteric.

If you translate any good Crowley Idea into non-wizard language, it sounds like: "The Golden Dawn will never achieve the mystical apotheosis it desires because it subscribes to a limiting system of doctrinal analysis rather than creating tools to explore the mechanisms of religion. In short, their divine feminine be shopping."

[glowettee]

hi there! im a fan of your page 💕

can you give me the best studying techniques?

hi angel!! @mythicalmarion tysm for asking about study techniques 🤍 i'm so excited to share my secret methods that helped me maintain perfect grades while still having a dreamy lifestyle + time for self-care!! and thank you for being a fan of my blog, it means everything to me. <3

~ ♡ my non-basic study secrets that actually work ♡ ~

(don't mind the number formatting)

the neural bridging technique this is literally my favorite discovery!! instead of traditional note-taking, i create what i call "neural bridges" between different subjects. for example, when studying both literature + history, i connect historical events with the literature written during that time. i use a special notebook divided into sections where each page has two columns - one for each subject. the connections help you understand both subjects deeper + create stronger memory patterns!!

here's how i do it:

example:

left column: historical event

right column: literary connection

middle: draw connecting lines + add small insights

bottom: write how they influenced each other

the shadow expert method this changed everything for me!! i pretend i'm going to be interviewed as an expert on the topic i'm studying. i create potential interview questions + prepare detailed answers. but here's the twist - i record myself answering these questions in three different ways:

basic explanation (like i'm talking to a friend)

detailed analysis (like i'm teaching a class)

complex discussion (like i'm at a conference)

this forces you to understand the topic from multiple angles + helps you explain concepts in different ways!!

the reverse engineering study system instead of starting with the basics, i begin with the most complex example i can find and work backwards to understand the fundamentals. for example, in calculus, i start with a complicated equation + break it down into smaller parts until i reach the basic concepts.

my process looks like:

find the hardest example in the textbook

list every concept needed to understand it

create a concept map working backwards

study each component separately

rebuild the complex example step by step

the sensory anchoring technique this is seriously game-changing!! i associate different types of information with specific sensory experiences:

theoretical concepts - study while standing

factual information - sitting at my desk

problem-solving - walking slowly

memorization - gentle swaying

review - lying down

your body literally creates muscle memory associated with different types of learning!!

the metacognition mapping strategy i created this method where i track my understanding using what i call "clarity scores":

level 1: can recognize it

level 2: can explain it simply

level 3: can teach it

level 4: can apply it to new situations

level 5: can connect it to other topics

i keep a spreadsheet tracking my clarity levels for each topic + focus my study time on moving everything to level 5!!

the information architecture method instead of linear notes, i create what i call "knowledge buildings":

foundation: basic principles

first floor: key concepts

second floor: applications

top floor: advanced ideas

roof: real-world connections

each "floor" must be solid before moving up + i review from top to bottom weekly!!

the cognitive stamina training this is my absolute secret weapon!! i use a special interval system based on brain wave patterns:

32 minutes of focused study

8 minutes of active recall

16 minutes of teaching the material to my plushies

4 minutes of complete rest

the specific timing helps maintain peak mental performance + prevents study fatigue!!

the synthesis spiral evolution this method literally transformed how i retain information:

create main concept spirals

add branch spirals for subtopics

connect related concepts with colored lines

review by tracing the spiral paths

add new connections each study session

your notes evolve into a beautiful web of knowledge that grows with your understanding!!

these methods might seem different from typical study advice, but they're based on how our brains actually process + store information!! i developed these through lots of research + personal experimentation, and they've helped me maintain perfect grades while still having time for self-care, hobbies + fun!!

sending you the biggest hug + all my good study vibes!! remember that effective studying is about working with your brain, not against it <3

p.s. if you try any of these methods, please let me know how they work for you!! i love hearing about your study journeys!!

xoxo, mindy 🤍

glowettee hotline is still open, drop your dilemmas before the next advice post 💌: https://bit.ly/glowetteehotline

[darlingofdots]

What is a romance novel, really?

So far, the response to this post has mostly shown me that a lot of people don't actually know what a romance novel is, and that's okay! I don't expect everyone to know! However, for my own peace of mind, I am going to do my best to explain what we mean when we talk about romance novels, where the genre comes from, and why you should not dismiss the pastel cartoon covers that are taking over the display tables at your nearest chain bookshop. Two disclaimers up front: I've been reading romance novels since I was a teenager, and have dedicated the majority of my academic career to them. I'm currently working on my PhD and have presented/published several papers about the genre; I know what I'm talking about! Secondly, all genres are fake. They're made up. But we use these terms and definitions in order to describe what we see and that's a very important part of science, including literary studies!

The most widely used definition of "romance novel" to this day is from Pamela Regis' 2003 A Natural History of the Romance Novel, in which she states that "A romance novel is a work of prose fiction that tells the story of the courtship and betrothal of one or more [protagonists]."* People also refer to the Romance Writers of America's "a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending" and another term you will see a lot is "Happily Ever After/Happy For Now," which posits that the protagonists must be in a committed and happy relationship at the end of the novel in order to count as a romance novel. That's it. That's what a romance novel is.

Of course it's a bit more complex than that; Regis also posited the Eight Essential Elements which describe the progression of the love plot over the course of the book, and there's a similar breakdown from Gwen Hayes in Romancing the Beat that is intended more as writing advice, but both of these are really useful for breaking down how this narrative structure works. My personal favourite part of the Eight Elements is that the romance opens with a definition of the society in which the protagonists exist, which is flawed in a way that oppresses them, and then the protagonists either overcome or fix it in a way that enables them to achieve their HEA. A lot of social commentary can happen this way!

It can also be a bit difficult to pin down what exactly counts as a "central love story" because who decides? A lot of stories have romance arcs in them, including dudebro action movies and noir mystery novels, but you would never argue that the romance is the central plot. A lot of romance novels have external plots like solving a mystery or saving the bakery. A useful question to ask in this case is whether the external plot exists for its own sake or to facilitate the romance: when Lydia runs off with Wickham in Pride & Prejudice, it's so that Lizzie can find out how much Darcy contributed to saving her family from scandal and realise her own feelings for him. The alien abduction in Ice Planet Barbarians happens specifically so the abducted human women can meet and fall in love with the hunky aliens. There are definitely grey areas here! Romance scholars argue about this all the time!

I have a suspicion that a lot of people who responded to the post I linked above are not actually romance readers, which is fine, but it really shows the lack of understanding of what a romance novel is. I have a secondary suspicion that the way we have been talking about books has contributed to this miscategorisation in a lot of people's minds, because especially with queer books we will often specifically point out that this fantasy book is f/f! This dystopian novel has a gay love story! This puts an emphasis on the romance elements that are present in a book when a lot of the time, the romance arc is just flavouring for the adventure/uprising/heist and we are pointing it out only because its queerness makes it stand out against other non-queer titles. It makes sense why we do this, but there is SUCH a difference between "a sci-fi book with an f/f romance arc" and "an f/f sci-fi romance." I could talk for hours about how the romance genre has evolved alongside and often in the same way as fanfiction and how there are codes and tropes that come up again and again that are immediately recognisable to romance readers, even down to phrases and cover design, and how romance is an incredibly versatile and diverse genre that functions in a very specific way because of that evolutionary process. The same way that dedicated fantasy readers can trace the genealogy of a given text's influences ("this writer definitely plays a lot of DnD which has its roots in the popularity of Tolkien, but they're deliberately subverting these tropes to critique the gender essentialism"), romance readers are often very aware of the building blocks and components of their books. These building blocks (that's what tropes are, lego pieces you put together to create a story!) often show up in other genres as well, especially as part of romantic arcs, but that doesn't make every book that features Only One Bed a romance novel, you know?

Romance is an incredibly versatile and diverse genre and I really highly recommend exploring it for yourself if you haven't. I personally read mostly Regency/Victorian historicals and I've been branching out into specifically f/f contemporaries, and there are so many authors who are using the romance framework to tell beautiful, hard-hitting stories about love and family while grappling with issues of discrimination, disability, mental health, capitalism, you name it. The genre has a very specific image in a lot of people's minds which makes them resistant to it and it's not entirely unjustified, but there is so much more to it than Bridgerton and repackaged Star Wars fanfiction!**

*the original text said "heroines" but Regis later revised this. There is a very good reason for the focus on the heroine in the first couple waves of romance scholarship, but that's a different post!

**neither of these are a bad thing and part of that genealogy that I mentioned earlier.

[angy-grrr]

answer to that ask about how problematic bkdk and togachako are in canon

wow I didnt know there were time machines in 2017! In 2025 we are trying to see bkdk more than the bully-victim as the story progressed so so much and neither of them fit those standards nor the abusive dynamic! Oh, and Himiko and Ochako fit more into what stories like Carmilla present, where yes theres horror and murderers but we appreciate the actual symbolism and history of these themes and queerness in literature!

We believe there's a difference between complex relationships with heavy issues and romanticizing abuse! Anyways, we constantly talk about abuse in queer media to the point that the het ship is considered superior and good exclusively bc "they arent toxic", this has been going on for more than 10 years, and at this point I believe this is more of a talking point than an actual concern for queer representation than anything else, searching for which ships are the most "pure" over what the story is about or what their dynamics actually are; you say there are so many characters to ship these characters with writing wise, but is it writing wise actually? Or are you just looking for "not problematic" ships, and claiming it makes sense for the story bc it doesnt include anything anyone could consider abuse, mean, or dirty? Do you really think these characters work better with others, or are you scared of it looking like a stereotype when shipping?

I am tired of this idea that queer stories need to be a reflection of what "good relationships" should be; I think bkdk for example are really good actually, and its wild to see them as just bully-victim relationship, but thats not the point: why do we have to focus only on "clean" representation in the first place? No interesting dynamics, no bad relationships that grow past that, no play onto queer problematic themes, just "feel good, PG representation". Just digestible, just simple, just a literal representation we are supposed to imitate. Wtf? Stories arent meant to be exclusively rule books, and while yes theres a problem with romanticizing toxic relationships in yaoi and yuri, so is in het romance. Its not a queer thing, its a problem we clearly see with hetero romances in manga too, both in shoujo and shonen, so why is it good that we "dont" get these queer ships but good "woman stays as her 16 year old self waiting for a guy who actually never payed attention to her nor noticed her absence after years of not talking, with her needing hallucinations from that serial killer in order to agree to talk to him more", is good? Why are WE the ones that need to be clean and proper and healthy and nice and good and morally pure, why are WE the ones considered as inherently wrong the moment you add complexity, the moment you do something that isnt "they are good friends, and now they are dating"? Why cant we play with the ideas historical stereotypes give us, in order to create our own interpretations outside of what's literal for the real world? Why am I supposed to ignore how vampires, cannibalism, love and imitation are queer shit? Why am I supposed to read all of these themes as not valid, as inherently wrong, when we are talking about a piece of media that knows about these literary tropes?

This isnt about making abuse cute or good, or representing these things in a disrespectful way, bc these characters do so much to be more than that -its not that katsuki and deku would date without addressing shit about the past, bc katsuki constantly thinks about it and keeps it in mind in order to be better, for himself and for izuku, so why is it problematic when their dynamic isnt toxic, and Izuku's bigger issues have always gone beyond Katsuki's bullying? Being canon is also not about literal dating in my opinion, but clearly sharing those feelings for each other, and you may not like it, but Himiko loved Ochako and Ochako loved Himiko. Yes, while she is a serial killer, yes, while killing is wrong, yes yes and yes. Their relationship is complex bc those facts enter in conflict, which only makes the dynamic tragic and interesting.

Am I supposed to dislike it bc its "problematic"? Bc you consider it "darker"? Maybe start watching actual queer things, made by queer ppl, and you'll realize we dont need to look "good", or enjoy stories that are a plain romance. Maybe Rocky Horror Picture Show will give you a heart attack, bu we cant go back into puritanism -bc thats what this is, tf you mean bkdk is problematic and you are glad it isnt canon bc of it? Bkdk? Bkdk?????? Of all ships you draw the line at bkdk???? BKDK???? The ship where two ppl are basically soulmates in canon, explicitly need each other for the story to even work, explicitly are their closest persons, get no actual label except for osanajimi, lose their mind if the other is hurting, and work extremely hard to be better for the other? That's the problematic ship, bc katsuki was a dumb little shit, who is portrayed as a literal chihuahua, and serves as a contrast of how actual abusers like AFO and Endeavor, bc hes better than that and actually cares about the person he hurt? That's the ship that would haunt you if it was canon??? How am I supposed to not read this as puritanism and being scared of making "bad" representation?

[sebbyisland]

Akahika can actually be something so special.

Below the cut is part 1, which goes into the literary background informing the sapphic subtext between Akane Osaki and Hikaru Koragi (3.7K words)

part 2

part 3

Akane-banashi and The Inherent Homoeroticism of a Shojo Theatre Rivalry

People have talked about Akane-banashi‘s “(homoerotic) shonen rivalry with women” but I really want to emphasize how cool it is that Akahika hits the typical shonen narrative beats AND plays into established yuri and shojo dynamics. While Akane-banashi is known to make direct references to shonen tropes(see: rakugo-quest gag), it would be short-sighted to assume the story is not informed by the history of shojo and/or yuri. We are in an era where shonen and seinen stories are sometimes indistinguishable from a "typical" modern shojo manga (why this is the case is a whole other discussion)! To examine the depth of the Akahika character dynamic, it is ESSENTIAL that we fall back to the legacy of shojo and yuri.

I will briefly give historic context on the queerness of a shojo manga rivalry, them dive into how Takarazuka theatre has influenced the queer themes explored in mainly (but not exclusively) shojo, and finally illustrate how Akane-banashi embodies both legacies through the rivalry between Akane and Hikaru.

Historians Would Call Them Shojo Rivals

There’s a long history of shojo that features rivalries between two young girls, similar to shonen manga and rivalries between two young boys. The intensity and intimacy of shojo rivalries can and often are read as homoerotic by the audience, such as the main girls from Glass Mask. Furthermore, explicitly homoerotic yuri center rivalry dynamics like Shiro to Kuro: Black and White, I’m in Love with the Villainess (inspired by historic fantasy shojo), and one series literally called Shojo Manga Protagonist x Rival-san (you can't really get more on the nose than that).

As you can imagine, yuri and shojo have a lot of overlap. This makes sense, given they also share similar origins. Anime/manga about intimate/emotionally complex relationships between two girls can be traced back to the Class S genre of the early 1900s. Class S literature (not comics. novels) usually consisted of a tragic sapphic high school romance between an underclassman and upperclassman at an all-girl's school. Girls could fall in love within, but only for that brief period of time of their youthful school years. These relationships were considered "test runs" that would be dissolved once the girls "grew up" and became real women with real husbands. While Class S eventually fell out of fashion, it went on to strongly influence future works. Influential yuri series Maria Watches Over Us has been considered the spiritual follow up to Class S, even though it began serialization in the 90s, decades after the peak of Class S. Now, nearly a century later, we still feel the influence of Class S in how queer intimacy between women is written in light novels/manga/anime.

The way that Class S made space for intimacy between women is an exercise in visualizing a more free reality for all women. Put in other words, simply allowing girls to connect with each other outside patriarchal expectations can be read as queer. This is much of the appeal of the Class S all-girls school’s setting: a contained social environment with your peers where women are not faced with the expectation to become wives and mothers just yet.

We can feel this legacy of exploring womanhood and queer gender/sexuality, hand in hand, through the modern viral "old woman yuri" manga series Hanamonogatari (2022). Hanamonogatari shares a title with one of the most influential Class S works to be published, which was written by openly feminist and lesbian author Nobuko Yoshiya. Hanamonogatari discusses womanhood in the context of a sapphic romance, but also the importance of intergenerational solidarity between women, women forming relationships outside of the institution of marriage, and other forms of intimacy between women. Furthermore, the original Class S Hanamonogatari collection is the apparatus guiding the protagonist’s self realization of these feminist themes. The intersectional nature of Hanamongatari's depiction of feminism and lesbianism highlights how a supposedly niche genre is not any different from other stories that center women’s perspectives.

With this in mind, perhaps it is only expected that shojo magazines, which developed to be known as written "by women, for women," published early yuri manga. Popular shojo magazines like Ribon, Margaret, or Princess from the 1960s-1990s would release explicitly homoromantic stories about women with the caveat that their relationship would fail or fizzle out (in typical Class S-esque fashion). Most notable out of this type of retro shojo/yuri would probably be Dear Brother, made by the creator of Rose of Versailles.

Unsurprisingly, what was much more common in shojo was to release stories that were littered with sapphic subtext, but not enough to really be considered textually romantic. Echoing the kouhai/senpai peer dynamic of Class S, classic shojo rivalries typically feature two young girls in the same field where the protagonist is the new, odd, up-start girl who admires her rival, a girl who usually is upper-class, considered more refined, and has an established reputation among their peers. Refined senpai might take on a mentor/older sister role with kouhai protagonist while simultaneously thwarting her progress. The protagonist is viewed as a threat to the popular girl's status/reputation, but is resolved by both girls acknowledging each other as worthy opponents. Kouhai matures in the process, senpai learns to let go a little.

The homoerotic intimacy of the shojo rivalry comes from two girls who are the only ones who seem to truly understand each other among their peers. The refined girl seems perfect on the outside, but has her own problems that are unexpectedly soothed by connecting with the new girl. The new girl is insecure about her inexperience and considered naive, but she is able to find inner strength when she is challenged by her rival, and begins to acknowledge her own worth because she is someone who can challenge their rival right back. They envy their rival, but strangely enough, feel like they can show their rival their more vulnerable moments, and perhaps even most shockingly, want to always make sure their rival brings their best selves to the competition. If the girls are rivals in both love and their careers, their respect for each other as colleagues usually trumps all else--they literally care about their relationship more than the relationship with their potential love interest. Add this in with being hyper-aware of each other's beauty, some classic "do i want to be her or stand next to her" emotional gray zone, and yeah. You get the sapphic-coded shojo rivalry.

Whether the battlefield is in love or their next career opportunity, this specific character dynamic is consistent across different story genres and time periods in shojo history: retro dramas like Candy Candy (Candy and Flanny), modern high school romance like From Me to You (Sawako and Kurumi), magical girl like Sailor Moon (Usagi and Rei) or Little Witch Academia (Akko and Diana), sports like Aim for Ace (Hiromi and Reika), or theatre like Glass Mask (Maya and Ayumi). Obviously, this isn't the case for all shojo, especially since the “love rival who exists to tear down the protagonist” character role is also very popular. The key point to grasp is that this specific rivalry dynamic continues to bring queer subtext to the forefront of shojo to this day.

There is obviously overlap with shonen rivlaries and how I'm trying to define a "classic" shojo rivalry, but there are also important distinctions ie gender roles, historic connection to exploring themes about gender/sexuality leaning into exploring queer themes, trajectory of character arcs, art language, etc that are distinct between the two demographics. Even if you don't agree with my claim that Akahika's dynamic builds off of this legacy of shojo rivalries, I want more people to start considering how simple story concepts change in execution depending on if a story is catered to male or female audience, and why those differences might exist.

Enter Stage Right, Takarazuka Revue

Shojo/yuri fanatics reading this might have noticed I side-stepped a pretty big factor that ties together Class S, yuri, and shojo, and that's the Takarazuka Revue.

Takarazuka Revue is a prestigious all-female Japanese theatre troupe known for extravagant dancing and singing performances where women are casted into strictly male or female roles. The troupe originated in the early 20th century and was founded as Japan began to adopt the cultural influence of Western theatre. Traditional kabuki theatre was already well established, but women were banned from participating (which is so crazy because kabuki was originally popularized by all-women's troupes but that's a whole other topic). Similar to how actors in kabuki troupes played both male and female roles, so too would the all-women troupe. Do not mistake this for feminist origins, however: Takarazuka Revue was established by a rich man and continues to be run by primarily men to train students for a niche entertainment industry. It is meant to be palatable and profitable, and the strong adherence to male/female dichotomy reflects this.

Perhaps not-quite-so coincidentally, both Class S literature and Takarazuka Revue rose to fame at similar time points. Their popularity was so loud among young girls that they helped establish young girls as a viable target audience for marketing in popular media. In a similar vein the revue productions, Class S literature balanced depicting queerness in a way that was palatable to society (definitely less palatable than the theatre though. Class S was temporarily banned from being published for approx a decade). Furthermore, the training school established for Takarazuka girls relies on a kouhai-senpai mentorship dynamic, which naturally bleeds into the same romanticization of the underclassman/upperclassman dynamic seen among Class S school girls, modern yuri, and shojo (this isn’t to say any kouhai-senpai dynamic is gay lol but that in certain contexts, it has sapphic subtext. I also don’t want to imply causation between Class S and Takarazuka Revue because that is simply not the case. I only mean to highlight how they both impacted the cultural consciousness).

Despite attempts to emphasize the Takarazuka Revue as totally not queer, by nature of the gender-crossing acting roles, it has undeniable queer subtext. The most popular figures from Takarazuka Revue performances are specifically the actresses placed in exclusively male lead roles. Feeding into the genderqueer identity, they are expected to perform masculinity on and off the stage. The fantasy of a celebrity actress who is able to perfectly embody the "ideal" feminine and "ideal" masculine became iconic in Japanese pop-culture, especially with young female audiences (aka target shojo demographic).

The “girl prince” and/or bishonen character trope in shojo is inspired by the Takarazuka male leads. The first shojo manga, Princess Knight, features a literal girl-prince protagonist, and the author, Osamu Tezuka, cited inspiration from the revue performances he would watch with his grandmother. The legendary Rose of Versailles is another acclaimed shojo manga that based its own girl-prince character, Lady Oscar, on the Takarazuka Revue. In a whirl of serendipity, the Revue’s adaptation of Rose of Versailles would rise to be their most successful work to date, even prompting sequel productions. The adaptation would not only elevate Rose of Versailles into a franchise, but cement the Takarazuka Revue’s reputation as a prestigious entertainment company. More recently, Takarazuka Revue released a stage musical adaption of the highly acclaimed shojo manga Boys Over Flowers in 2019. Through the last ~50 years or so, the popularity and profits of shojo manga and Takarazuka Revue continue to build off of each other.

We see the influence of the Revue show up again in famous yuri relationships like Sailor Uranus (girl-prince type)and Sailor Neptune (princess type) in Sailor Moon, whose creator has also expressed inspiration from Takarazuka Revue. Another influential yuri shojo work that features inspiration from the Revue is Revolutionary Girl Utena (RGU), with again the girl prince/girl princess sapphic romance coupled with the story’s theatrics resembling a stage production. “Girl-prince” characters are also common in shojo romcoms like Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun and Kiss Him Not Me!, albeit as gag characters. Basically, any iteration of the pretty-boy-girl type you see in anime and manga is a downstream product of Takarazuka Revue.

The influence of Takarazuka Revue can be broadly felt across shojo covering theatre settings. On top of RGU’s girl prince/girl princess couple, there's an all-women’s theatre club that performs an interlude in nearly every episode. More recent stories like Revue Starlight (not published as shojo but had obvious shojo influences) and Kageki Shojo essentially recreate a fantasy Takarazuka Revue training school environment that’s set up as a modern take on Class S dynamics and homoerotic shojo rivalries (Revue Starlight leans more to the rivalry, Kageki Shojo leans more to the plausible deniability of Class S). Expanding the scope of theatre shojo, we can also observe classic rivalry dynamic from ballet shojo like Princess Tutu or Swan. Ballet shojo manga is actually it's own distinct shojo sub-genre that blew up starting in the 70s. Even a modern seinen (targeted to young adult men) series like Oshi no Ko develops a classic shojo theatre rivalry dynamic by having two actresses face off in a live stage theatre production, even though both of them usually act for recorded productions like movies or TV shows! That is all to say, we likely would not have the theatre rivalries between fictional women we know today without the Takarazuka Revue popularizing the idea of the stage as an ideal setting for women to explore complex relationships with each other.

Shojo-banashi

We’ve established that there is a strong precedent for sapphic-coded theatre rivalries between young women in primarily (but not exclusively) shojo manga. Where does Akane-banashi fit into all this?

To make this easy to digest, let's break down how Akane and Hikaru's dynamic compares to elements of a shojo rivalry mentioned in the first section of this post:

Senpai-Kouhai Dynamics: What's so fun about Akahika is that they are both the senpai/kouhai for different elements of rakugo. Akane is obviously more experienced in the art of rakugo, but Hikaru is more experienced as someone who is older and has an established acting career. Hikaru knew how to cater to her audience from the get-go. She came into the field already hyper-aware of how she presents herself to others. Knowing this, I think it's especially interesting how Hikaru selectively tells Akane not to use honorifics with her, but demands the opposite from Karashi. It shows that she is making an effort to be more open with Akane than her other rivals (you could argue that she does this to mess with Karashi, but again, this would show she has more of a teasing relationship with Karashi, which is distinct from her dynamic with Akane). If we are talking surface level, however, yes, Akane and Hikaru match the typical spunky young kouhai and fancy mature senpai in shojo manga, which I go into in item 2 below.

Naive Protagonist vs Refined Senior: Akane is our protagonist, and also characterized as someone who is reckless, shameless, rowdy, impulsive, etc....but notably NOT naive, which makes her distinct from the "normal girl" shojo protagonists meant to represent young femininity. Regardless, she has more youthful energy in contrast to Hikaru, who is not only older, but maintains an elegant fashion style and a professional, princess-like persona. Of course, except when she doesn't. A fun layer to Hikaru's character is that she's petty, ambitious, and competitive! Despite her appearances, she's not the type to walk off and pick the high road. Isn't it heartwarming how Akane brings out that side of her? Furthermore, despite all appearances, Akane has a sensitive side to her, as seen when she starts crying alone while grieving her loss to Hikaru/inability to win with her father's rakugo. In fact, it is because Akane inspired Hikaru to be commit to rakugo (therefore becoming Akane's senpai), and Hikaru prompts Akane to be more vulnerable, that their dynamic fits in with other Naive Protag vs Refined Senior shojo pairs, the caveat being there are many facets of their personality that exist outside of their dynamic.

The New Girl Shakes Your Worldview: Similar to point 1, this kinda goes both ways, because they are both kinda the "new girl." Hikaru immediately scopes out Akane as her competitor by accurately perceiving her strong rakugo background before even seeing her perform. But Akane doesn't truly become a rival until Hikaru has realized that Akane was on a higher rakugo level than her. It triggers her deep dissatisfaction with the trajectory of her career, but in a deeper level, reminds her of times she felt dissatisfied in her youth when people would underestimate or exclude her for being a girl. Emboldened by a fundamental desire to prove herself, she decides to commit to becoming a rakugoka. Akane, on the other hand, doesn't really perceive Hikaru as a threat until Hikaru declares her own intent to beat Akane, followed by Akane experiencing her first major loss because of Hikaru. Losing to Hikaru helps cement in Akane's mind the lesson she gained during her performance, which is that it's not enough to chase her father's shadow. Both girls are able to change how they view themselves and their core goals because of their interactions with each other. While Karashi also decided to pursue rakugo because of Akane, Akane has not had her view of herself shaken by Karashi. Only Akane and Hikaru have this degree of reciprocity.

Value Rivalry Over the Guy/Love Interest: Granted, I don't think Karashi was ever going to be a love interest for either of them. That said, it's interesting how the the story goes out of their way to highlight how Hikaru and Karashi COULD be seen as a couple, but they definitely most certainly are NOT because Hikaru said, and I quote, "I only have eyes for you, Akane!" Hikaru prioritizes her rivalry with Akane over the perception she could be attracted to Karashi. If you haven't noticed yet, all these "classic shojo rivalry story elements" I've listed so far tend to neatly fit Hikaru more than they fit Akane (i love akane. but she definitely doesn't' act like a typical cutesy energetic kohai who needs help from her mature gorgeous senpai and cries a lot), so I also find it interesting Hikaru is so vocal about this in particular.

Next, we can examine Akahika in the context of Takarazuka Revue’s influence on yuri and shojo:

Girl prince/girl princess: I'll be frank: the bishonen character of Akane-banashi is Kaisei, and he doesn't even have anything close to the noble personality traits of a girl-prince LOL. Neither Akane nor Hikaru fit the girl-prince or girl-princess archetypes very well. However, when it comes to rakugo, the story does present them with contrasting gender presentation. Akane, inspired by her dad, proudly wears a men's kimono to every performance. When tasked with being in touch with her more "seductive feminine" side for the Fetching Tea arc, she realizes that doesn't suit her at all and adjusts her interpretation to both fit the story and her nature. This isn't to say that Akane isn't feminine, but the story repeatedly goes through lengths to show she, personally, doesn’t adhere to traditional femininity, and she doesn't have to. Hikaru, on the other hand, show a preference for more traditionally feminine things, but also seems to struggle with the pressure to always seem dignified. She's a bit of a clumsy princess. This is most apparent when Akane and Hikaru first meet, where Hikaru as a lop-sided obi knot in her women's kimono that Akane fixes for her. Akahika may not fit the glamorous Takarazuka male lead/female lead dichotomy, but their failure to do so adds to their dynamic and personal relationship with gender, so I still wanted to bring it up.

Empowered by the Character You're Cast As: This one is unique to theatre shojo and more indirectly tied to the revue. An example of how this works would be two ballerinas training to perform "Swan Lake" where one is the Black Swan, Odile and the other the White Swan, Odette. The Black Swan role pushes the dancer to be more bold, while the White Swan role pushes the dancer to be more gentle (this is also basically what happened in Yuri on Ice, a story that, wait, incorporates theatre....is gay...has bishonen men...it's almost as if-). What is important is that these roles not only prompt character growth, but present the shojo rivals as two sides of the same coin. Rakugo is obviously different since actors don't play as just one character. Still, Akane-banashi uses the stories Akahika select to build up their rivalry and character arcs during the Changing Time arc. Basically every rakugo story in Akane-banashi does something to prompt character growth in the performer, so that's already covered. What makes Akahika mirror each other in Changing Time is subtle, but no less effective at tying them together. Hikaru picks the story "Hanami Revenge," which includes the setting of watching cherry blossoms bloom. It's almost like she's stealing the "blooming cherry blossoms" in Akane's family name, Osaki, in order to pursue her revenge for the Karaku Cup (this is directly pointed out in the narration). Furthermore, Hikaru picks a story that allows her to push her voice actor training to the next level--it's a story that suits her specialties as a rakugoka. It's a story that fits her nin, which is a rakugo principle we're introduced to during this arc. Akane, on the other hand, actively chose a story suited to her father's nin, which works against her own. However, her story of choice still empowers her because it helps her connect with both her and her father's rakugo essence on a deeper level. Akane loses to Hikaru not just because she couldn't maintain audience engagement, but because as Kaisei says, "the stage isn't the place to find yourself." The Changing Time arc might not connect Hikaru and Akane as cleanly as a Black Swan/White Swan dichotomy, but I would say it accomplishes something as similar as possible for a rakugo story.

I mentioned this briefly, but it’s also important to acknowledge that Akane and Hikaru’s rivalry is written to be very distinct from Akane and Karashi OR Hikaru and Karashi. Hikaru bemoans about her chance to face Akane “in the heat of battle.” Meanwhile, Karashi begrudgingly finds himself casually hosting training events with BOTH of them, separately. Karashi spends more time outside of rakugo with Hikaru than Akane, but Hikaru shows blatant favoritism by only letting Akane refer to her without honorifics. Karashi and Akane/Hikaru are rivals who give each other advice and challenge each other to grow, yes, but they don’t create dread in each other the way Akane and Hikaru do. They don’t addrress each other’s life perspectives like Akane and Hikaru do. They don’t have the same senpai-kouhai like dynamics that Akane and Hikaru do. And, ironically enough, they don't have male lead/female lead dynamics with each other the way Akane and Hikaru do. Karashi, frankly, has way more (one sided) tension with a random side character who showed up for one chapter than he does with Akane or Hikaru. It’s very likely that side character exists just to show that he will never to have that kind of relationship with either of these girls.

Karashi fills a needed role in the girl's lives that an intimate rivalry isn’t going to give them. As someone closer in age to both Hikaru and Akane than the rest of the cast, he forms a casual intimacy with the girls that they can't get from their mentors or fellow zenza. Akane is listed as “Jugemu girl” on Karashi's phone the way an older sibling affectionately teases their annoying younger sibling. When he meets up with Hikaru, he teases her about her professional photoshoot for work. He can rile up Hikaru to the point her Fukouka accent slips out in front of him. The camaraderie Karashi has with the girls resembles what I’d expect from a secondary rival character, but lacks the theatrics (haha. theatrics) of a PRIMARY rivalry in a story. Make no mistake, Karashi is absolutely third wheeling whatever Akane and Hikaru have going on. There are in-text jokes about this.

Be honest with yourselves. When was the last time you saw all these story elements in a shonen manga rivalry with the main protagonist*? Full-stop, when was the last time you even saw a shonen manga about theatre**? You haven't, because theatre is not typically associated with shonen manga, and emotionally complex rivalries between women are also not typically associated with shonen manga. Meanwhile, theatre has appealed to shojo audiences since before shojo manga was even a thing. Intimate rivalries between women in theatre are well established in shojo manga. Shonen manga is not the only inspriation for the Akane-Hikaru dynamic! It's historically, distinctly shojo! Isn't that exciting? I think it's exciting.

That said, I have barely even BEGUN to address just how gay Akahika is in comparison to stories that ACTUALLY have sapphic romance. This is covered in part 2.

* The closer answer I would say is in Marimashita Iruma-kun. A story that also has...you'd never guess...shojo and yuri story elements…wow what a surprise...

**We don't need to mention what happened to Act-Age....And I know there's Dance Dance Danseur. But guess what. THE AUTHOR HAS WRITTEN MOSTLY SHOJO MANGA. In addition, both of these are fairly new stories from the last 10 years, which reflects how uncommon it is to talk about any form of theatre in shonen. Also that popular series about rakugo? From a josei magazine. So my point still stands.

[daydreamingoveracupofcoffee]

"Alfred's literary misadventure"

[Human University AU]

[USUK/UKUS]

The university library was quiet, save for the occasional rustle of pages and the soft hum of air conditioning. Arthur Kirkland, a third-year History student, sat at a corner table, surrounded by stacks of books on Victorian England. His green eyes scanned a worn copy of Pride and Prejudice, a faint scowl on his face as he scribbled notes in his meticulously organized notebook. His blond hair was slightly mussed, and his sweater vest screamed "I take my studies seriously."

Across the room, Alfred F. Jones, a second-year Technology and Computer Science major, peeked over the top of a random book he’d grabbed from the shelves. His blue eyes were fixed on Arthur, and his heart did a little flip. Alfred had been smitten since the day he’d bumped into Arthur at a campus coffee shop, spilling latte all over the Brit’s syllabus. Arthur’s sharp tongue and sarcastic wit had only made Alfred fall harder.

“Dude, you got this,” Alfred muttered to himself, adjusting his glasses and smoothing his hoodie. “Be cool. Be smart. Be… gentlemanly.” He’d overheard Arthur talking about classic literature with some other history nerds, and Alfred was determined to prove he could keep up. He wanted to be the kind of guy Arthur would notice—not just the loud, burger-loving tech bro everyone else saw.

He clutched the book he’d randomly picked—a hefty tome titled Moby-Dick—and sauntered over to Arthur’s table, trying to channel every period drama hero he’d ever seen on TV. “Yo, Arthur! Fancy meeting you here,” he said, plopping down across from him with what he hoped was a charming grin.

Arthur looked up, one eyebrow arched. “Alfred. This is a library, not a fast-food joint. What do you want?”

Alfred leaned back, propping Moby-Dick on the table like it was his prized possession. “Just, y’know, soaking up some classic lit. Gotta keep the mind sharp, right?” He tapped the book’s cover, hoping Arthur would be impressed.

Arthur’s eyes flicked to the book, then back to Alfred. “Moby-Dick? Really? I didn’t peg you for a Melville fan.”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Alfred said, nodding enthusiastically. “This book’s, like, super deep. All about… uh, whales and stuff. And, like, chasing dreams. Or… fish?” He faltered, realizing he had no idea what Moby-Dick was actually about. He’d only picked it because it looked thick and important.

Arthur’s lips twitched, as if he was fighting a smirk. “Chasing dreams, you say? Care to elaborate?”

Alfred’s mind scrambled. He vaguely remembered something about a whale from high school English. “Well, there’s this dude, Captain… Ahab, right? And he’s, like, super obsessed with this big white whale. It’s, uh, a metaphor for… life?” He flashed a nervous grin, hoping he’d nailed it.

Arthur closed his book with a deliberate thud. “A metaphor for life,” he repeated, his tone dripping with skepticism. “That’s your take on one of the most complex novels in Western literature?”

Alfred’s confidence wavered, but he doubled down. “Yeah, man! It’s all about, like, chasing stuff you can’t have. Like… love, or whatever.” He winked, thinking he’d smoothly tied it to his feelings for Arthur.

Arthur’s cheeks pinked slightly, but his expression remained unimpressed. “And what about Ishmael? Or the Pequod? Any thoughts on their significance?”

Alfred blanked. Ishmael? Pequod? Were those characters or what? “Uh, Ishmael’s… the narrator, right? Cool dude. And the Pequod’s, like, their ship. Real… shippy.” He cringed internally. Shippy? Really, Alfred?

Arthur sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Alfred, have you even read the book?”

“Uh… I’m more of a… big-picture guy,” Alfred said, scratching the back of his neck. “But I’m totally into classics! Like, uh, that Pride and Prejudice you’re reading. It’s got that Darcy guy, right? Super romantic. I bet you’re into that stuff.”

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “Oh? And what makes you think I’m into Pride and Prejudice for the romance?”

Alfred panicked. He’d assumed all classic books were about mushy stuff. “I mean, it’s got that whole… love-hate thing going on. Like, Darcy and… uh, Elizabeth? They’re always arguing, but it’s, like, hot, right?”

Arthur’s face turned a deeper shade of red, but he looked more exasperated than flattered. “You’ve clearly never read Austen either. It’s not just about romance, you twit. It’s about social class, gender dynamics, and—”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Alfred interrupted, holding up his hands. “I’m not a history nerd like you, but I’m trying, alright? I just… thought you’d like a guy who’s into smart stuff.”

Arthur blinked, caught off guard by the sincerity in Alfred’s voice. For a moment, his sharp edges softened. “You don’t need to pretend to be something you’re not, Alfred. If you want to impress me, just… be yourself. And maybe actually read a book before you try to discuss it.”

Alfred’s shoulders slumped, but he managed a sheepish grin. “Yeah, okay. Maybe I’ll start with something shorter. Any recommendations?”

Arthur hesitated, then slid Pride and Prejudice across the table. “Start here. And don’t skip the parts you don’t understand. Come back when you’ve finished, and we’ll talk. Properly.”

Alfred’s face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. “Deal! But, uh, you’re gonna have to explain some of those fancy old words. I’m more of a code-and-computers guy.”

Arthur rolled his eyes, but there was a hint of a smile. “Fine. But only if you stop calling me a ‘history nerd.’”

“No promises, Artie,” Alfred said with a wink, grabbing the book and practically bouncing out of the library.

As Arthur watched him go, he shook his head, muttering, “Idiot.” But his smile lingered, and he opened his notebook again, wondering if Alfred would actually read the book—or if he’d just show up with more ridiculous metaphors.

[stanfordsweater]

Sequential Tart: Supernatural Love: Catherine Tosenberger on Sam and Dean's Transformative Love Story (Volume 12, Issue 4, April 2009)

read the article here

Defying the lowest common denominator logics of broadcast television, Supernatural is actually gaining more viewers and mainstream media attention as it gets darker, more complex and more extreme: the incest subtext is now surtext, and drives the show's intensely compelling myth arc.

...

One of the things I like about this more literary approach to fan fiction is that it's very much in line with how fans look at their own material. Fans take their stories seriously as stories. They're not thinking, "Hey, I'm in a sociological phenomenon! I better produce some fan fiction to participate in it!" Well, I'm sure some people might think that — "I need to write some stuff so I can participate" — but for the most part, fans take their stories seriously as stories, and put just as much work into it as any other published authors would.

...

Somebody like Sera Gamble on Supernatural seems very savvy on the ins and outs of fandom. It's kind of silly to pretend that they don't know. The Internet has forced this truce between creators and fans, as long as no money is being made.

...

There are some fans who have really strong feelings that there shouldn't be any overlap between creators and fans, that it should be an unbreachable divide. However, in the age of the Internet, that's not really a realistic expectation. I was reading an interview with Sera Gamble recently where she talks about Castiel, and she says he's really going over well with the fans, and it helps that he's male. This is something that a lot of fans in fandom talk about, how female characters on Supernatural seem to get routinely thrown under the bus. (I loved Bela, now she's gone. I'm upset!) There is a fairly vocal contingent that seems to despise any woman who gets near Sam and Dean, and those fans who don't are feeling a bit drowned out.

On a more positive note, it is cool that Supernatural is so willing to listen to the fans. Supernatural really excels at what TV Tropes Wiki calls "fan disservice." ... Fans would say, "We want canon confirmation that Dean's love for Sam is totally indistinguishable from romantic or erotic love, and it's going to give a creature that exists for sex exactly the same kind of high." So they give it to us [in "Sex and Violence"] but it's going to come at a time when Sam and Dean are utterly miserable and at each other's throats. That's pretty much a flat-out canon statement that Dean is in love with Sam, but it's not exactly happy, fun, Wincest times!

...

What makes Supernatural so irresistible to deconstruct?

For me, I think the main thing is that there's this incredibly intense relationship between Sam and Dean. There are layers and layers of emotional history there, and the actors and the writers have created something really complex. The thing that I love about it is that it plays on so many different levels at once, with so many different narratives. It plays as psychological realism, as high gothic melodrama, as fucked-up romance, all at the same time: at any given time you can read their relationship in all those different ways.

I personally love that this show bodychecks all of our cultural and literary narratives about incest, and if you look at literary history, especially amongst gothic and romantic writers, sibling romance is often presented as the ultimate romantic connection. It's like the One True Pairing (OTP) to end all One True Pairings. And yet on Supernatural, there's this veneer of plausible deniability — well, after "Sex and Violence," that veneer is really, really thin! There's that intense emotional connection between men which has been the driving force for classic slash fiction since the beginning.

...

I thought that the little four-episode series this winter (episodes 4.12 to 4.14) was a look at this incest narrative. "Family Remains" was a monstrous incest narrative, and it was book-ended with this more romantic, gothic but really fucked-up love story of Sam and Dean in "Sex and Violence".

I was thinking about that, too. This show is putting the incest really front and centre. In the first two seasons, whenever they referenced the Sam/Dean subtext, it was always in this jokey way. It was always, a-ha-ha, the boys are being taken for a gay couple: isn't that funny? It was always there, but it was always played for laughs. But this season, it's starting to get deadly serious. "Sex and Violence" didn't play off the connections between Dean's love for Sam, and how every single other model of love that we saw the siren invoking was romantic, sexual love. It just played it absolutely straight-faced and very tragic and miserable. You made that comment earlier, that they're leaving no subtext unturned: it's not being played off as a funny or silly "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" to the fans anymore. They're taking it very seriously, this emotionally incestuous relationship between Sam and Dean.

...

I notice there's a lot of Real Person Slash for Supernatural. Is that because a lot of people want to avoid writing about incest, or is it because they know the two actors are friends and roommates?

I think it depends on the fan. I was a Real Person Slash fan before I got into Supernatural. Enough fans have said that Real Person Slash in Supernatural fandom provided a real alternative for fans who were squicked out by the incest, so that's a viable interpretation. But I'm always reluctant to assign one particular motive to a broad, fannish movement like that. The thing about Real Person Slash, especially for Supernatural, is that it plays on some of the same elements that make Sam/Dean so appealing. You have these two guys [Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles] who are really working very hard all the time and who basically have to rely on each other emotionally a great deal because they're basically the only two main characters on the show, so they're really tossed together a lot. And then we found out that they live together — fandom exploded! Personally, I like to read Real Person Slash as a break from the intensity of Sam/Dean. You get the same hot guys, with half the angst!

I should say there's a lot of prejudice against Real Person Slash in certain quarters of fandom. One of the things that's really crucial is that real person fic is about public personae, it's about public image. And really, most Jared/Jensen slash reads like Mr. Darcy — Jensen — and grown-up Tom Sawyer — Jared — fall madly in love. That's what it reads like, and it's awesome! It's really just borrowing faces to tell a story.

[pynkhues]

Do you think they completely removed book Louis and Claudia incestuous relationship from the TV show, or is it something Louis decided to not talk about with Daniel? I assume it would be something one sided from Claudia that Louis would be in denial about.

I am wondering here if, from Lestat’s point of view, Louis and Claudias relationship will have these complex layers. That would explain his fear of seeing Claudia as sexual competition. Of course the fear could be due to Lestats own history with Gabrielle, but I wonder if there is some truth behind it as well.

I mean, I'd argue that they actually are pretty emotionally incestuous on the show, and I do think the show plays around with Jung's Electra Complex, which I talked about a tiny bit here. A quick description of it:

The Electra complex is a stage in Freudian psychosexual development in which a female child unconsciously desires her father and experiences a desire to eliminate her mother. It is the female version of the more famous Oedipus complex. Jung, the first to use the term, chose to follow Freud’s model in taking the name of the complex from Greek mythology. Electra is a bereaved daughter who pushes her brother Orestes to kill their mother and her lover and thus avenge the murder of their father. Feminist psychologists viewed the Electra complex as sexist, although some modified the Freudian view. As Freud’s influence waned, the Electra complex became less important in psychology, although it continued to be employed by literary critics. Twentieth-century playwrights and poets, perhaps most notably Eugene O’Neill and Sylvia Plath, found the idea useful in writing about family relationships.

You can even apply it pretty literally in the show in that Claudia pushes her brother, Louis, to kill their mother/maker, Lestat, to avenge the murder of her father, also Louis [avenging not just for the drop itself, but in a lot of ways, the drop is a part of what shifts her dynamic with Louis and kills him as her father, as she has to care for him in his recovery]. Of course, the reality is a lot more complex than Claudia wanting to kill Lestat and have Louis ultimately choose her as companion, but it's an interesting parallel to consider, and one I do read in the show's depiction of this chain of events.

But yes! I tend to read the show flirting a lot more with the perversion of the family unit - a staple of Gothicism - with Louis' family even before Claudia than the books ever did. Louis' relationship with Florence is a lot more complicated than people give it credit for, because him having to step up after his father's death makes him not just her son, but her guardian and in other ways her spouse. Louis manages the family business, while Florence manages the household in a pretty traditionally gendered dynamic, but they actually kind of co-parent Grace and Paul. Louis' both their brother and their father - he's prepaing to give Grace away at her wedding, and takes the lead on guardianship with Paul (and I tend to even read Florence's anger at Louis after Paul's death as being more spousal, than mother-son, especially when you consider the fact that her husband is the one who institutionalised Paul, taking him away from her the first time, and she had to wait until his death and Louis to step in as patriarch to get him out).

This dynamic is made even more complex by the fact that you can draw a pretty clear line between Louis' desire for a child being tied up in Grace starting her own family, and (what I think is more perceived on Louis' part initially than anything) as this transition away from him. There's also a degree to me of Grace transitioning from the Madonna to the Mother to him, but that feels like a whole other thing, haha. The point is that he ultimately replaces her with Claudia, who's both daughter and sister, only to literally cast Grace in the role as her mother to his father in Europe (something we do not talk about enough!) which is - - yeah. A pretty classical gothic depiction of the family unit perverted and a thread of unconsumated incest.

As for going forwards, I do think it'll be expanded upon, yeah! Claudia did literally ask which one of them was going to fuck her in s1, so that seed of truth is in many ways already planted, and like I said, I think the show's already flirting with this idea of the Electra Complex, and that from Lestat's perspective, he's probably going to feel that more sharply than Louis ever did as the outsider parent to Louis' insider parent. The fact that Lestat does have that degree of intimacy and enmeshment with his mother too will probably colour his behaviour, as will the fact that Claudia and Louis do echo Nicki and Gabrielle in becoming his 'silent children' by using the mind link so much which cuts him off from them. Given the way that Armand weaponises that in the book in trying to seduce Lestat to him, I really do think that'll be a pretty significant factor, not just in the 1800s flashbacks, but likely the 1940s ones, given Lestat's inability to communicate with them telepathically is a part of what makes Claudia's death inevitable.

I don't think the show's necessarily going to be explicit about it, nor that they'll have Claudia genuinely wanting to have sex with Louis, but I do think there'll be some really unhealthy boundaries and a bit of commentary on how isolated and insular they were as a family, and how that compounded dynamics and, again, perverts that family unit. I kind of can't wait to see what they do with it, haha.

[httpsoftbunni]

The Friendship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien: From the Trenches of WWI to the Publication of The Lord of the Rings

Few friendships in literary history have been as influential as that between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Their shared experiences as soldiers in World War I, their scholarly careers at Oxford, and their mutual love for myth and storytelling helped shape two of the most iconic works of fantasy literature: The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings. Let’s explore the journey of their friendship, from the trenches of war to the creation of Middle-earth and Narnia.

Aftermath of WWI

Both Lewis and Tolkien’s experiences in World War I profoundly impacted their view of life, death, and, ultimately, faith. For J.R.R. Tolkien, faith was a lifelong anchor, and his Catholicism only deepened during the war. He saw the horrors of the battlefield as part of a greater cosmic struggle between good and evil—a theme that permeates The Lord of the Rings. For him, Middle-earth was a deeply Catholic work, though not in a preachy sense. Instead, his belief in providence, free will, sacrifice, and the corrupting nature of power is embedded in the story's fabric.

C.S. Lewis had a very different trajectory. As a young man, Lewis was an atheist, largely due to the suffering he witnessed in the war. He couldn’t reconcile a loving God with the violence and death around him. His loss of faith was intensified by the death of his mother at a young age. Lewis emerged from World War I skeptical of religion and consumed by philosophical and existential questions. Unlike Tolkien, who was more rooted in his belief system, Lewis’s spiritual journey took much longer and was fraught with doubt.

Meeting at Oxford

When Lewis and Tolkien first met at Oxford in the mid-1920s, faith wasn’t a major topic of conversation. Instead, their bond formed around a shared love of literature, mythology, and language. Both men were professors—Tolkien of Anglo-Saxon and Lewis of English literature—and they quickly found common ground in discussing ancient myths, Norse legends, and linguistic intricacies.

However, it wasn’t long before Tolkien’s faith became a crucial aspect of their friendship. Tolkien was dismayed by Lewis’s atheism and saw it as an intellectual and spiritual challenge. As their friendship deepened, Tolkien became instrumental in Lewis’s return to Christianity, though the road was long and complex.

A Conversation Changed Everything

One of the pivotal moments in both Lewis and Tolkien’s lives came in September 1931, during a late-night conversation that would later become legendary. Along with their friend Hugo Dyson, the three men took a long walk around Oxford’s Addison’s Walk, discussing mythology, literature, and theology.

Tolkien, passionate about the power of myth, argued that Christianity was the true myth. He suggested that, just as myths and legends conveyed profound truths through symbolic stories, Christianity was the “myth become fact.” The story of Christ, he argued, had all the narrative power and beauty of ancient myths, but unlike them, it had actually happened in history. This idea struck a chord with Lewis, who had long admired the power of myth but had been skeptical of Christianity’s claims.

This conversation was a turning point for Lewis. Shortly after, he experienced a profound spiritual awakening and accepted the Christian faith, though he chose Anglicanism over Tolkien’s Roman Catholicism. This conversion would shape the rest of Lewis’s life and work, particularly in his writings on Christian apologetics like Mere Christianity and in The Chronicles of Narnia, where Christian themes are unmistakable.

Faith and Story-Telling

Faith became a deeply embedded aspect of both men’s creative work, though in very different ways. Tolkien, ever the subtle storyteller, wove his Catholic faith into The Lord of the Rings through its themes rather than through explicit symbolism. He once said that The Lord of the Rings is “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” Themes of redemption, grace, the power of free will, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil are central to the story. Characters like Frodo and Aragorn embody Christ-like self-sacrifice, while the corrupting influence of the One Ring echoes the concept of sin.

Tolkien’s depiction of evil is also rooted in his faith. Sauron, the Dark Lord, and the Ring itself represent more than just physical threats—they embody the corrupting nature of absolute power and the spiritual danger of succumbing to evil, much like the Christian concept of original sin.

Lewis, on the other hand, was more overt with his Christian allegory, especially in The Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan, the great lion, is an unmistakable Christ figure, sacrificing himself for Edmund’s betrayal and rising again to save Narnia. While Tolkien disliked allegory, preferring to let the underlying truths speak through the narrative, Lewis embraced it, using the magical land of Narnia to explore themes of resurrection, salvation, and the battle between good and evil in a way that was accessible to both children and adults.

Faith and Friendship

Faith, while it deepened their friendship in some respects, also introduced some strain. Tolkien was never entirely comfortable with Lewis’s Anglicanism and found his friend’s theological writings—particularly Mere Christianity—too simplistic and reductive. He also disliked the overt allegory in The Chronicles of Narnia, feeling that Lewis’s mixing of mythological figures (fauns, centaurs, and Santa Claus, for example) alongside Christian themes was too jarring.

For his part, Lewis always remained appreciative of Tolkien’s role in his conversion, acknowledging that without Tolkien’s influence, he might never have come to faith. However, Lewis’s rising fame as a Christian apologist and his more public embrace of faith through radio talks and theological books made Tolkien uneasy. Tolkien, a more private man, valued faith as something personal and profound, while Lewis became a public figure in the Christian world.

Their differences in how they expressed their faith and their literary styles led to some distancing in later years, but the bond they shared over decades of friendship remained strong, especially in their mutual respect for one another’s intellect and creative genius.

The Lasting Impact

Faith was an essential pillar of both Tolkien and Lewis’s lives, deeply informing their works, their friendship, and their worldview. Without Tolkien’s steadfast Catholicism, The Lord of the Rings would lack much of its depth and moral complexity. Without Lewis’s eventual embrace of Christianity, The Chronicles of Narnia would never have been written, and the world would be without some of the most compelling Christian apologetic works of the 20th century.

Though their spiritual journeys took different paths—Tolkien’s steady and lifelong, Lewis’s dramatic and intellectual—their faith shaped not only their writings but also the nature of their friendship. Together, they built worlds that reflected their belief in the eternal struggle between good and evil, the power of redemption, and the hope that lies at the heart of the Christian narrative.

Their works continue to inspire readers today, offering not only escapism into fantastical worlds but also deep spiritual truths that resonate across generations. And at the heart of these stories lies the enduring friendship of two men whose faith was central to their lives and legacies.

[voyaging-too]

March books and such

Recs Bolded.

Books

William Gibson: Count Zero (Sprawl Trilogy 2). Sequel to Neuromancer. The plot is somehow too simple and too complicated at the same time, but I don’t really mind because the characters (one elite mercenary, one disgraced art dealer, one suburban kid in way over his head) are just as lost as I am, wandering around a complex lived-in world full of wonderful subplots and supporting cast. Top-notch classic cyberpunk with corporate espionage and simulated virtual realities and weird AI gods.

William Gibson: Mona Lisa Overdrive (Sprawl Trilogy 3). Concludes the trilogy with yet more cyberpunk shenanigans and yet more hapless humans (world-famous influencer, yakuza heiress, traumatised reclusive artist, penniless teenage addict), caught up in the inscrutable machinations of all-powerful international corporations and rogue AI. Probably my favourite in the trilogy, because of the drop-dead gorgeous writing, the humour, the massive amounts of idiosyncratic weirdies populating the plot, and the return of an older, wiser Molly Millions. Gibson is not great at writing women, but here he made a concerted effort, and as a result, we have three very distinct female POV characters, all of whom I love but especially Mona herself.

Doris Lessing: Shikasta (Canopus in Argos 1) I’ve seen this book brought up as an example of what happens when a literary author decides to write sci-fi without a solid grounding in the genre’s conventions and possibilities. And that’s kind of true, but it’s only a small part of why this book is so weird. Lessing was already weird, her literary books were already doing weird things to pacing and structure. This novel is like… a novella about the fall of a prehistorical civilisation, then a few tales reinterpreting the events of the Old Testament, then a long compilation of very short stories, most of them brief fictionalised biographies of individual people in 20th century Britain, then a first-person novella about three siblings in a dystopian near-future, then an epistolary novelette about some teenagers doing a mock trial against the whole of Europe, which runs into another epistolary story about preparing for nuclear annihilation, these disparate pieces glued together by a framing device that involves aliens who observe and try to influence human history. Weird inconsistent book, but the good parts are extremely good. Some of the best short stories I’ve read in my life pretending to be a novel.

Andrea Dworkin: Right Wing Women. This is a feminist nonfiction classic for a reason. Easy to read, hard to forget. Yes, a fair bit of it is hastily written analyses of specific 1970s questions and conflicts, but the rest of it is painfully applicable even today. It’s a stark statement about how much of our society is built on facilitating marital rape, and how many women make the rational choice to accept and shore up that system in order to avoid even worse violence.

JRR Tolkien: The Hobbit. (German practice reread.) Everybody knows what the Hobbit is, it’s still good on reread although very much an episodic children’s book that swerves into a tragic war story at the very last minute. It sure has a lot of vocabulary that I didn't have before, most of it related to trees.

Jo Walton: Among Others. I loved the premise, loved the semi-autobiographical perspective of a teenage Welsh SFF-fan in the 1970s, I absolutely loved the low-key and hard-to-interpret fairy magic. But the book itself didn’t work for me, the writing didn’t work for me, too much of it felt like inert padding between the few fragile pieces of plot, and the constant name-dropping of 1970ies SFF titles didn’t give me a real connection to the character or a real sense of the historical fandom, instead I felt like I was reading a version of Ready Player One for people who actually read.

Star War

Revenge of the Sith. A double tragedy. A tragedy because if the characters made slightly different choices they could have had a happy ending, and a meta-tragedy because if the filmmakers made slightly different choices they could have made a good tragedy, as opposed to a frustrating muddle. Key parts of the plot are cribbed from Dune: Messiah and applied without context. Padme is written so atrociously badly it loops around and becomes a bold feminist statement on how a relationship can turn you into a shell of your former self.

Clone Wars Season 1. The dialogue and the moral lessons are written for eight-year-olds, the setting and the war story plots are written for fifty-year-old dads, it is dumb and doesn’t mesh well. There are some flashes of something almost interesting, and I’m told that that there’s more of that in later seasons.

A More Civilized Age Podcast, Season 1. Four people with varying levels of knowledge about Star War watch and discuss a star war. It’s funny, it’s smart, sometimes they yell at the show for being dumb and bad, sometimes they give it incredible amounts of grace and basically invent the secret good version of it, it’s fun.

Theatre

Ariane Mnouchkine & Théatre du Soleil: Ici sont les dragons. A play about 1917: I expected either the bloody yet justified glory of the revolution, or the justified yet bloody execution of the tsar. Instead I mostly got endless political discussions between various revolutionary factions in various rooms. This play said: the original sin of the Russian Revolution wasn’t killing the tsar, and it wasn’t even killing the tsar’s children, all that hardly matters now: the original sin of the Russian Revolution was killing the emperor and then choosing to remain an Empire. Suppressing non-bolshevik revolutionary parties, even fellow socialists, and deciding not to let Ukraine go, Lenin let the Russian Empire survive, and it survived Socialism and the fall of Socialism and survives today. A dark bitter weird play in five languages with subtitles, metafictional digressions, long quotes from memoirs and history books, and historical figures portrayed by actors in rubber face masks of Lenin, Stalin and so on, yes really, it was a hard watch, except for a gorgeous five-minute farce about Lenin in his pyjamas.

Exhibitions (I got to go to Paris last month)

Louvre: Revoir Cimabue. Religious art from the 13th century, when some people had already started painting interesting, differentiated faces, but everyone was still indicating holiness by drowning the painting in golf leaf. Strange arched features, hooded eyes and green-tinged skin in a sea of gold, altarpieces just shining with divinity. Works by Cimabue and also all of his contemporaries and precursors and students because not even the Louvre has enough Cimabues to fill a small room.

Pompidou: Suzanne Valadon. May be my new favourite artist. She started modelling for painters as a teenager, she features in works by Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec and a dozen other great Parisian painters at the turn of the century. She learned painting from being painted, and started making her own work, first drawings, then eventually oil paintings. Her work is idiosyncratic and meanly realistic but also warm. Her portraits and her nudes are all wonderfully mundane. She was one of the first women to paint not only female but also male nudes, from life. (But the Salon of Independents made her add a strategic leaf or they wouldn’t exhibit it. No! Let her paint cock!) My absolute favourite painting from her was also centred at the exhibition, because look at it, The Blue Room is just perfect, she doesn’t give a shit, she’s in her pyjamas.

But I also loved Lady with Little Dog, partly because of the little dog, partly because of the colours of the drape, partly because the androgyny of the model.

[alpaca-clouds]

Is There Actually A Media Literacy Crisis?

Something I am thinking about a lot is that supposed "media literacy crisis" that people talk about a lot online. Some people say it is real, some people say it isn't.

Of course I am in the strange condition of not being American and this discussion focusing mostly on America. Talking to some of my bald eagle loving friends, I know that most Americans get way less media analysis taught in schools than us Germans. Like, I kid you not: All I did in German and English and history class between 7th and 13th grade was analyse texts and pictures. NOTHING ELSE. And how that was very dependent on the teacher in terms of how much media literacy I actually learned would be a topic for another day. But I know that a lot of my US friends did some analysis, yes, but comparatively little.

I will openly say one thing: Despite being pushed through so much literary analysis in school, I probably learned more about media analysis thanks to the internet than I ever learned in school. Because while we did it a lot. Well, it was basically the quality of content that the Japanese schools have when it comes to learning English. Do they start in primary school? Yes. Do they then absolutely fail on building on the vocabulary and all? Absolutely.

In history class we did a lot of analysis of historical propaganda. But do you think we ever spoke about framing? Just as a very accute example.

I would however not quite argue that we have a media literacy crisis really. More... Well, I would say we have four other problems that are seperate from one another - but that will contribute to it appearing as if people are media illeterate.

People do generally not think about or inform themselves how the media they consume is created. They are not really aware of what goes into the production of a piece of media, that has more complex behind-the-scenes scenarios than a book. Movies, TV shows and games are the most notable example here. As such, folks are often not quite able to see how the influence of several different people working on a project can be felt - let alone be able to analyse how that might have influenced the end product.

A lot of the most widely marketed media is very much created by coorporations to extract money. While some of the people involved might have had something to say, the studio producing it just wanted to make something that they can sell, which often results in some watering down of more complex themes. Through this people have kinda forgotten to even expect themes in their media. (Yes, this is very much about the MCU and most of AAA gaming.)

Because half of the discussion of any piece of media now takes place in the arena of the culture war, people often just reduce themes - if they are there - to very superficial culture war readings. And this happens on both sides of the isle. While the on the right we have idiots going "they hate white men", because a movie does not have a white male protagonist, the other side will go "this is sexist" because in a show of mostly female characters, a female character died.

People just do not have the time currently to actually sit with a piece of media and everyone in the industry knows it. A lot of media is created to be "second screen content", aka, something that you watch on your TV while you are in home office and working on that stupid powerpoint. And of course you cannot really interact with that media the same, you would, if you watched it on a first screen basis, right?

And of course, then there is the fandom side of things. Because yes, the entire proshipping and antishipping thing is also very much a media literacy problem, that mostly originates with, well... How should I say?

It originates with the same stuff like the rightwing leftwing culture war: From people not touch grass. From people not being aware that the folks that scream so loud online are actually a minority. And most people who will ever engage with a given piece of media will just never write something on tumblr, reddit or twitter about this piece of media. They will just consume it... and move on.

[eresia-catara]

girlartemisia can I be completely honest with you for a second there. I am BAFFLED at how much you, among others like girlcavalcanti know about guido. where do you get all this info? what are the sources? you have the knowledge of 30 scholars in a trenchcoat. also the "guido has red hair" thing is so elaborate, and yet you say it's NOT YOUR FIELD? miss girl. you. you know more than my father who is an art history teacher. they should give you a degree "ad honorem" for how much you know. they should make you guido scholar. official historian!! I can't hide how envious i am of your knowledge! when I grow up i want to be as smart and cultured as you girlartemisia

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

I am not deeply moved and have become a puddle of happy feelings rn haha what are you talking about ahsjdhskf

I do not deserve this T^T I genuinely don't know what to say to these kind words,,, thank you a lot??? I mean, I post stuff on tumblr simply because I like sharing these thoughts, the fact that they actually have a positive impact on an actual person is like- I am not good with expressing feelings but it's truly one of the most touching things anyone could've told me!! 💞💕💓💕

And I know it sounds like a cheap sentence everyone uses but. really, rest assured that if you are passionate and mostly curious about things, about anything, there is nothing your mind cannot achieve. It's not about the smarts mostly (that can only eventually be a predisposition to complex thinking, however Elon Musk does exist so) but about how much you are willing to wander with the mind and simply fuck around with things. Be creative. One thing society makes you believe is that being cultured = being "smart" and that it is thus only for the privileged few, but it's not true, culture is curiosity that is indulged. The only privilege involved here is not reaching the age of 15 being braindead because of this society (but even in that case, one can always change). My posts about guido? Yes they come from different books and papers that I read, but on top of that? unorthodox hypotheses and Thots that instead of discarding I like to explore (reason why I cannot claim attendability on my takes because a specialist would probably correct so many things and I do NOT have a degree, but they are interesting nonetheless! And have at times come in handy to me in unrelated topics lol)! What I mean is: these literary analyses are a fusion of academic papers AND personal thoughts that try to be compatible with them but also depend on the creativity of the mind.

That being said, I would LOVE to be a guido scholar!!! one day 👁️ And since you're not the first who's curious about sources on guido I will, eventually, make a post with all my books and papers :p

[st-just]

I think that the people moralizing their career paths were born from callout posts, honestly. Like there's a lot of information available online, including all of your pet career atrocities, from pharmacists to doctors to firefighters. And a lot of people bring these topics to light using social media, sometimes as a discussion point, sometimes as a bullet point in their callout (remember Mardoll). So I think that's where the need to be morally pure in all aspects of their lives comes from (cont

Cont) (also not defending mardoll just using xir as an example). But it's like, there is no such thing as a morally pure career. Some are worse than others, and if your job is to shoot people or build bombs I suggest you stop, but. I'm gonna judge the guy who says that there are no problems in his dairy farm and there never has been than the non-LEO park ranger who says "yeah the NPS has a really shitty history." I think that acknowledging this is the first step to making positive change.

re:

So I think that's a bit of it, but honestly I was mostly thinking of e.g. reporters, visual artists, basically every particular type of academic in the humanities, literary authors/poets.

Which like if I had to draw a connection here is that the remuneration for that kind of word is kind of ass and (not unrelated) the competition for one of the few slots where you even can do it for any kind of living wage is absolutely vicious. And both cause and affect of those dynamics is that being an ~artist~ or a ~journalist~ is prestigious entirely out of proportion to how much you actually make doing it, and as the money and competition gets worse the prestige gets more and more important to the (most annoying online minority of) the people whose identity is entirely tied up in doing that work. Hence 'if you don't have a BA can you really be trusted not to kill and eat the first guy who cuts you off on the highway?'/'if you don't have a portfolio on artstation do you even have a soul?'

(Related are nurses, schoolteachers, etc, where the money is better but the working conditions are so, so much worse that there's pretty much always a shortage of people willing and able to do it for what's offered, leading to what ime feels like mild industry-wide martyr complexes. Which are much messier because those jobs basically necessarily involve being in positions of immense power over some very vulnerable and dis empowered people).

[sad-boys-book-club]

"&" Ampersand - A Literary Companion: Eve & Paradise Lost

Hey everyone!

Let’s continue feeding my unhealthy obsession with Bastille by diving into the literary companion I created for “&”. Today, we’re talking about the second track: Eve & Paradise Lost. (Now that the album is out, I can finally follow the tracklist properly!)

In case you missed it, here’s my post about Intros & Narrators.

Before we jump into the book picks for this song, I want to apologize for the delay in writing this. I’ve had some family stuff going on, moved houses and also wanted to make sure I had read both books before recommending them.

Actually, I plan to take some time to go over the whole list of stories I’ve picked—I want to read them all thoroughly so I know exactly what I’m recommending to you all (some of them, I've already read, but I want to revisit them as well).

Now, let’s talk about the song. I find it fascinating to see a male songwriter like Dan taking on a woman’s perspective for a project that explores different stories. The official statement about the song stood out to me: “This song is about the burdens of loving women cruelly made to feel blame and shame from the dawn of time.” It’s clear Dan’s an artist who engages with feminist writings, and that’s something I truly appreciate—especially given how rare it is in the music industry, particularly for someone who presents as a straight, white male.

Cat Bohannon — Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution

The title character from the song. Probably the most cited figure from the Bible. A staple in paintings and literature for the past two thousand years. The first sinner. Eve remains a pillar of the Western collective imagination, her meaning changing a lot throughout the decades. From the representation of female sexual desire, scapegoating her for condemning the entire human race to death by eating the forbidden fruit (can you tell I went to Catholic school?), to being seen as the first example of female rage in the face of oppression. She embodies the complexities of womanhood—temptation, sin, and defiance—all wrapped into a single character.

Cat Bohannon’s book couldn’t be further from this. With a PhD from Columbia in the evolution of narrative, Bohannon explores why, in an age when we often see medical and science knowledge as some sort of truth, we still somehow have a very male-centric view of the human body.

By reexamining all the different potential Eves we have in the history of human evolution—that’s how she chooses to call all the ‘hypothetical female ancestors’ in our shared Homo sapiens lineage—, Bohannon urges us to reconsider and reshape our understanding of how our knowledge of the human body has often ignored half the world’s population.

As someone who enjoys reading non-fiction books (happy to share a few of my all-time favorites in the comments to whoever is interested), I found this book a really insightful, at times infuriating, eye-opening view into how sad it is that, for much of documented history, women have been seen as just men with breasts and wombs bolted on. The author is especially conscious of how sex (influenced by chromosomes, physiology, and hormones) and gender (how we identify, behave in our environment, and interact with one another) are not the same thing. She often adds notes to point out how science ignoring the female body and all its narratives has even worse consequences for trans and nonbinary folks, which I found really well-done and necessary in today’s age.

I picked this book as a companion to the song mainly because of the “rolled your eyes at pain you'll never comprehend” line, but I think it is a solid read on its own. I certainly learned a lot about my own body during the 15 hours I listened to the audiobook.

John Milton — Paradise Lost

So, Paradise Lost—the epic poem that pops up on pretty much every English Lit syllabus. Quick and snappy plot summary before we dive in: It’s a 12-part epic that covers Satan’s dramatic fall from Heaven, the creation of Adam and Eve, their blissful (but short-lived) days in Eden, the infamous temptation, and their ultimate eviction from paradise. Along the way, there’s a war in Heaven (didn’t exactly keep me on the edge of my seat), plus some deep philosophical chats between Raphael and Adam about creation, God, and, well, everything. It’s basically theological fanfiction (I mean it in the most neutral way possible).

Milton, being the good Puritan he was, used these stories to dig into free will, predestination, and conscience. It’s hard not to see Satan as a rebel leader and God as the authority figure, especially when you remember Milton was writing during the English Civil War. 

The poem was widely known but highly controversial and criticized during Milton’s lifetime, however, during the Romantic period, poets like Shelley and Byron “reclaimed” Milton’s Satan as a tragic antihero figure.

Anyway, I had to dig out my old uni notes (and hit up some audiobooks) to brush up on Eve’s role in this whole mess. And let me tell you, there’s a lot to unpack. Mainly because: a) as is often the case with old poetry, there’s a lot to read between the lines; b) classics come with a million different interpretations, and c) there are a few different versions, depending on the edition you read, so it’s easy to get lost in the variations of text, footnotes, and commentaries. (And also d) I won’t lie, it’s a slow, heavy read. At times, I had to resort to the audiobook just to get through some of the passages!)

Here’s what stood out this time around: Eve’s role is seriously hard to pin down, as Milton's relation to gender politics has been scrutinized since, well, pretty much since it was published in the 17th century. (Yeah, I had to pull out good old Google Scholar, watch some lectures on YouTube, and, of course, dive into Muses: An Ampersand Podcast—thanks, Dan and, mostly, Emma.)

What I really enjoyed was reading some modern articles that analyze Eve’s character through the lens of feminism which ties into the song’s exploration of blame and shame—no Wild World pun intended.

First of all, when Eve is introduced to Adam in Paradise Lost, Milton has her momentarily distracted by her own reflection in a pool of water, a subtle but significant parallel to the myth of Narcissus (hint hint). It’s an early indication of how susceptible to being misled she will be later on. But it also plays into this idea that her curiosity and desire—whether for knowledge or just, you know, herself—are somehow “dangerous.”

Now, Eve gets the blame for the Fall because she’s tempted by Satan to snack on the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Sure, she’s tricked, but let’s not pretend it’s all the serpent’s fault—once the idea is planted, it’s Eve who talks herself (and Adam) into it. That shows some sense of agency on her part, right? She wasn’t just a passive, helpless victim; she wanted to prove herself, to be tested, and she took action.

Milton is giving her a bit of credit for having a mind of her own, even if it’s wrapped up in this narrative of downfall. Eve’s curiosity and independence—qualities we might admire today—become her so-called "fatal flaws" here. So, yes, the story punishes female agency, but it’s undeniably there. And in a world where women were (and still are) often written as powerless, it’s refreshing to see Eve at least take some control, even if the outcome is a bit... unfortunate.

Now, let’s be real, this whole negative portrayal of Eve isn’t shocking. Milton was writing in a time where misogyny was baked into pretty much everything (which, sadly, isn’t all that different from now). Eve’s agency and sexuality are framed as the ultimate cautionary tale: women’s sexuality and agency are seen as inherently dangerous and something that inevitably leads to moral fallings.

But despite it all, towards the later part of Paradise Lost, Eve does get a kind of redemption arc. I came across one scholar who referred to the concept of felix culpa, a phrase in Catholic tradition meaning "happy fault" or "blessed fall." Eve might be responsible for humanity’s downfall, but her actions also set the stage for the coming of Christ, making her "mistake" a necessary part of the larger divine plan. It’s a bit of a paradox—how can something so disastrous lead to something so positive?—but the idea is that certain misfortunes can eventually lead to greater good.

Milton leans into this in Book 12, where Adam says:

"O goodness infinite, Goodness immense! That all this good of evil shall produce, And evil turn to good; more wonderful Than that which creation first brought forth, Light out of Darkness!"

So, in a roundabout way, Eve’s fall isn’t all doom and gloom—she’s the necessary catalyst that sets God's plan into motion. In fact, scholars have started to reframe Eve’s role in Paradise Lost as something more empowering than it initially appears. Traditionally, Eve’s been seen as the ultimate cautionary tale, blamed for humanity’s fall and cast as a symbol of female weakness and danger. But if you look closely, there’s something subversive in the way she’s actually the mover of the entire plot.

Eve isn’t just sitting around passively following orders—she actively makes the decision to eat the fruit, which, yes, brings about the fall, but it’s also what triggers the eventual coming of Christ and the possibility of redemption. Without her action, we’d all be hanging out in Eden, stuck in a static, sheltered existence. In a way, this is Eve taking control of her fate, making a choice, even if it’s framed as "wrong."

Plus, while Milton definitely punishes Eve, her agency is undeniable. Adam is kind of an afterthought in the whole thing—Eve is the one who steps outside the box, embraces curiosity, and disrupts the status quo. To modern feminist readers, that kind of defiance (even if it’s punished) reflects the strength of a woman asserting her independence. Raphael even calls her "the mother of humankind," acknowledging her dual role. She is both chaos and creation—a symbol of disruption but also the source of life. So, in a way, Eve’s choice is what makes humanity... well, human.

I like how in the song, there’s also a sense of Eve having an agency and a mind of her own. The chorus highlights Eve’s struggle with the idea of being “made for” Adam—“When they say I was made for you... made from you”—and the frustration of biting her tongue, which relates to how her love for Adam intertwines with her need for independence.

That’s it for this post! I’ll be back soon with more book picks for the next track. Let me know if you’ve read these or if you have any thoughts!

Feel free to share your thoughts and any other book suggestions as well!

With love,

Cat

[screaminginstratford]

Blog 2: Shakespeare Reimagined

In the Doctor Who episode “The Shakespeare Code,” the show brings William Shakespeare back to life in a really fun, modern way. Instead of being this distant, serious literary figure, he’s shown as clever, flirty, and even a type of “rockstar” for his time. The very first time that we see Shakespeare is when he comes out on stage after one of his performances. The Doctor says to Martha, “Genius! He’s a genius, THE genius, the most human human there’s ever been. And now we’re going to hear him speak! Always, he chooses the best words, new, beautiful, brilliant words…” (Doctor Who S3E2 06:40:00).

Which is then immediately followed by Shakespeare saying, “Ahh, shut your big fat mouths!” (Doctor Who S3E2 06:46:00). The show makes William seems like an actual person and not so different from you and I today.

It's hard to remember that when we study his works because of his enormous popularity; making it seem like there is this invisible wall between him and us. In all reality, he was just like the Doctor said, a human. Shakespeare is even depicted as a “playboy-ladies man” in the show. That is shown when the woman working at the pub hints that she’ll “do more than [save Shakespeare’s life], later tonight” (Doctor Who S3E2 08:52:00). Soon after, Shakespeare sees Martha and immediately tries to woo her.

Somehow while being swept up in this sci-fi adventure, he still finds time to write brilliant lines of poetry, like he reads to Martha at the end of the episode.

I do want to point out that the sonnet that he reads to Martha, which he says he wrote for her, is sonnet 18. That poem is famously known to be written about a man, albeit one of his most popular and recognizable poems. I find that the show decided to use that one for Martha, rather than any other one, a bit odd. It makes me think that the show might be trying to cover up Shakespeare's sexuality… or maybe I'm thinking too much into it. Overall, the show is a mix of history and fantasy that makes Shakespeare feel fresh and relatable, showing how modern pop culture can breathe new life into famous people from the past.

Funny enough, Shakespeare did something pretty similar in his own plays, like when he wrote about historical figures like Richard III or Julius Caesar. He wasn’t too concerned with sticking to the facts. Instead, he made these people larger-than-life, turning them into complex, entertaining characters that spoke to the issues and audiences of his time. He kind of brought history to life the way Doctor Who brings Shakespeare to life, by focusing on drama, personality, and relevance rather than strict accuracy.

Today, artists and directors often do the same thing with Shakespeare’s own work. They’ll set Macbeth in a corporate office or cast Hamlet as a modern teenager, using the old stories to talk about today’s world. My favorite adaptation being 10 Things I Hate about You, which reimagines Taming of the Shrew.

Just like Doctor Who gave Shakespeare a new twist, modern performances keep reimagining his plays to reflect current ideas, identities, and problems. In a way, it’s a full-circle thing. Shakespeare turned history into drama, and now we turn his dramas into something that speaks to us right now.