#also in general people have a very narrow view about fairy tales + they are very much ignorant when it comes to How they came to be and why

[theophagie-remade]

I get what they mean, but it's always kind of funny when people who are into Disney, lost media, and this kind of stuff get all "But do you know that the actual fairy tale isn't like how Disney portrayed it? Do you know how Grimm's original fairy tale actually was? Do you know that many things were changed?" You will never guess what Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm did

[cassandraclare]

The Whispering Room: James’ POV

Here it is finally — James’ POV of the Whispering Room scene from Chain of Gold. I wanted to wait until Chain of Iron was released to give more people a chance to read the book, and also because what we learn in COI does inform the scene. I hope you enjoy!

*art by Cassandra Jean

Cortana wove with her words, underlining each one with steel. She turned as her sword turned, and her body curved and moved like water or fire, like a river under an infinity of stars. It was beautiful—she was beautiful, but it was not a distant beauty. It was a beauty that lived and breathed and reached out with its hands to crush James’s chest and make him breathless. — Chain of Gold

James had felt a strange emotion when Daisy first took the stage at the Hell Ruelle. It was a mix of several feelings...

worry on her behalf, annoyance at Kellington, curiosity, and admiration for her bravery and poise. It was unfair of these Bohemians to force her to caper for them, and, he thought, a bit insulting to Shadowhunters in general. He supposed that Matthew had given them a rather unusual view of what the Nephilim were like in such circumstances.

And then she had begun to dance. And suddenly she was not Daisy, his old friend. She was Cordelia, whose name meant heart, whose every gesture was fire. Every earthly worry he’d had had been swept out of his mind. He was conscious only of Cordelia, whirling back and forth across the small stage. Cortana danced around her, shedding light like embers. The dull glow of the lamps illuminated her body, describing her every movement, her every curve as she danced. Her scarlet hair whipped around her in time to the music, and the golden light of the lamps in the Ruelle slipped across her skin, slow and hot, like beads of honey. The cadences of her voice, rising and falling, seemed to weave a cage of silken thread about her audience, and James was no exception.

Later, James would think it was odd that he had not compared her to Grace. Grace had never entered his mind at all. Cordelia danced, and by the end of her performance, James’s entire life had been disassembled and put back together in a new and different shape. He was conscious of Matthew, beside him, also staring as the crowd cheered, his sharp cheekbones flushed. He looked dazed; James couldn’t blame him.

Cordelia descended the stage and slipped through the crowd to come back to them, blushing at the looks and murmured comments she was drawing from the audience now. James could see the desire in the eyes that followed her. Everyone wanted her. He felt a dull fury. They had no right. They did not know Cordelia. She was more than just that dance.

When she reached them she let out a long breath of relief and smiled. She glowed with the exercise of dancing. Sweat beaded along her collarbones, shimmered between her breasts. Her eyes were bright as Cortana’s blade, strapped to her back.

“Bloody hell,” Matthew exclaimed.  “What was that?”

A look of uncertainty crossed Cordelia’s face. James said, “It was a fairy tale, Math,” and Matthew nodded. His dark green eyes searched Cordelia’s face, as if looking for the key to a locked room he had only just discovered.

Cordelia looked uncertain. James couldn’t bear that. She’d been magnificent; she should know it. But he couldn’t say that, of course. It would only make her self-conscious.

“Well done, Cordelia,” James said instead; when he unfolded his arms; his wrist hurt and he wondered if he’d been clenching his hands.

Cordelia. He hadn’t called her Daisy, and she looked a little surprised. It seemed inappropriate, somehow. Daisy was Lucie’s friend, the Merry Thieves’ compatriot; he found it a smaller name than she deserved. Cordelia, though—she had been a queen, hadn’t she? Queen Cordelia, daughter of Leir, ruler of Britain before the Romans had ever landed on those shores. Like Boadicea, a legendary warrior queen. A blazing white fire behind fathomless black eyes.

“Anna has disappeared with Hypatia,” James said, noting the empty settee, “so I would call your distraction a success.”

Cordelia’s lips twitched into a smile. “How long does a seduction usually last?”

“Depends if you do it properly,” Matthew said, with a wink. James felt it as a spark of relief, a bit of lightness amid the feeling that something heavy was sitting on his chest.

“Well, I hope for Hypatia’s sake Anna does it properly,” James said. He registered, with the reflexes of a parabatai, that Matthew had gone still next to him, and wondered what was wrong. “Yet for our sake, I hope she hurries it up.”

All hint of Matthew’s jocular tone from before was gone. “Both of you,” he said urgently. “Listen.”

Did he mean all the muttering about Shadowhunters? Was he only noticing it now? It had followed them since they came into the place. But when James followed Matthew’s gaze, he found Kellington staring with an expression of vexation, not at them but at the door. All questions were answered as through the door came Charles Fairchild, looking around him with a haughty expression. He looked like was about to raid the place; so much for whatever work Matthew and Anna had done for Downworlder-Shadowhunter relations here.

Matthew narrowed his eyes. “Charles,” he sighed. “By the Angel, what is he doing here?”

Charles was, James thought, probably looking for them. He was making his way through the crowd and gazing around him. Luckily for them, the crowd was not interested in letting him through, and he was moving very slowly.

“We should go,” James said. “But we can’t leave Anna.”

In one way, at least, Charles’s arrival was helpful; it threw a bucket of cold water on the roiling heat that had gripped James’s heart since Cordelia had begun her dance. Back to the matter at hand: a demon, a Pyxis, a plan.

“You two run and hide yourselves,” Matthew said, still keeping his eyes on his brother. “Charles will go off his head if he sees you here.”

“But what about you?” said Cordelia.

Matthew shrugged, but James could see the tension in his jaw and his shoulders. “He’s used to this kind of thing from me. I’ll deal with Charles.”

Not for the first time, James wished that his parabatai wasn’t in such a hurry to sacrifice his own reputation. He exchanged a long look with Matthew, but Matthew was sure, and determined, and his desire to rush into his own humiliation was an issue that would have to wait. Nodding, he turned and caught Cordelia’s hand with his own. “This way,” he said, and she nodded back in acknowledgement. As he pulled them into the crowd he heard Matthew’s voice calling, “Charles!” in a hearty tone of pleasant, if entirely false, welcome.

James didn’t know his way around the place, and the crowd made orientating himself even more difficult, but after some trial and error he and Cordelia managed to get behind Kellington and slip into a corridor leading away. This wasn’t safe in itself, since from the main chamber one would have a clear view down the entire corridor. In fact, they were temporarily more exposed than before, and James’s hope for the hallway to take a quick turn or to contain large statuary to hide behind was quickly dashed. He continued to hold onto Cordelia’s hand, not that he needed to; she seemed to know her way better than he did.

Partway down the corridor, James caught sight of an open door — its silver plaque labeling it the entrance to THE WHISPERING ROOM. Swiftly he drew Cordelia inside, out of sight. He slammed the door behind them, causing a loud noise, but he thought it couldn’t possibly be heard over the crowd in the main chamber. Only then did he release Cordelia’s hand and take stock of their surroundings.

The room was dimly lit, but not cold: a scented fire burned in the grate, filling the space with the smell of sandalwood and roses. It was a study, he guessed, based on the gigantic walnut desk against the wall and the bookshelves opposite, but it was too richly decorated to be solely a place for studious contemplation. Phoenix feathers and dragon scales danced across the gilded wallpaper; there were no windows, but the walls were hung with patterned tapestries, the floor covered with a rug so thick James felt his boots sink into it as he moved further into the room.

Cordelia had leaned her back against the wall next to the door. Her eyes were closed and she was taking deep, full breaths, calming herself down. Cortana gleamed gold over her shoulder; the firelight gleamed a deeper gold on her skin, which seemed to take and hold its warmth. James curled his fingers in against his palm.

He wanted to touch her. He half-turned away, pretending to study the books on the wall. Any other time, he would have been fascinated by the titles. Now they seemed distant, neither immediate nor imporant. He could have sworn he heard his own heart hammering. He said, “Where did you learn to dance like that?” surprising himself with the roughness of his own voice.

His gaze snapped back to Cordelia as she opened her eyes and gave a little shrug. There was something magical about the dress she wore: it followed the shape of her own body rather than the shape of corsetry or whalebone petticoats. It slid softly against her skin as she moved, just as her dark red hair tickled the bare skin of her throat, her shoulders. “I had a dance instructor in Paris. My mother believed that learning to dance aided in learning grace in battle.”

The word grace pierced James like an icicle. He could not quite picture Grace at the moment, it was true; could not quite envision her face. He had given Grace his heart — that was an immutable fact, something he knew as he knew that two plus two equaled four. But he had to admit that at the moment his heart did not feel given. It felt like a thrumming machine inside his chest, pumping blood and heat.

“That dance,” Cordelia added with a quirk of her soft mouth that struck James like a blow to the stomach, “was forbidden to be taught to unmarried ladies. But my dance instructor did not care.”

“Well,” James said, keeping his voice steady with practiced control, “thank the Angel you were there. Matthew and I could certainly not have pulled off that dance on our own.”

Cordelia turned away from him, the smile still on her face, as though she were keeping it secret from him. She trailed her hand along the top of Hypatia’s desk. At one end was a stack of papers held down by a large copper bowl of fruit, and she brought her hand up to trace its rim.

James may have been distracted beyond the capacity for distraction he’d known before, but he was still a Shadowhunter. “Be careful,” he said warningly. “I suspect that is faerie fruit. It has no effect on warlocks—no magical effect, at least. But on humans…”

Cordelia pulled her hand back as though stung. “Surely it does not harm you if you do not eat it.”

“Oh, it does not. But I have met those who have tasted it. The say the more you have of it, the more you want, and the more you ache when you can…have no more.”

Cordelia was looking at him now, and though it took a great summoning of courage, he returned her gaze. In her dark eyes the silver and blue flames of the fireplace danced. James could not catch his breath. He had never felt this before, this breathlessness. It was like pain, but with a sweet, sharp edge. Like licking honey from a knife. He said, in a low voice, “And yet. I have always thought…is not knowing what it tastes like just another form of torture? The torture of wondering?”

The door shook on his hinges suddenly, making a clatter that made both he and Cordelia jerk their heads around to look at it. The knob was starting to turn.

Cordelia paled. “We’re not meant to be in here —“

James’s world closed down to just this: Cordelia was here, she was with him, and she looked frightened. He would do anything to stop that look on her face. He caught her in his arms, and the relief was incredible — he had not realized how much he wanted to be touching her until he was. Until he was holding her, and her strength and warmth and softness were all pressed against him, and her face was so beautiful it hurt, and her lips were parted in surprise and without another thought he kissed them.

He could feel her sharp intake of breath with his hands, clasped together at her lower back. She gasped, but did not draw back, or away — he thought he would have died if she had — she leaned into him, her full lips opening under his. She was kissing him back. He tasted honey, smelled jasmine and smoke. His hand slid up her warm cheek and into the soft fall of her hair.

Time stopped.

Cordelia’s arms were around his neck. Her lush mouth opened a little against his, and the kiss deepened. He moved his hand to the back of her neck to bring her closer. Her teeth grazed his lower lip, and he couldn’t help it; he moaned, and felt her tremble against him.

Very far away, a voice chuckled and the door closed with a soft click. This whole thing had been intended as a ruse, he knew, for the benefit of whomever was trying to get into the Whispering Room. Probably some Ruelle attendees, Downworlders most likely, who had snuck off for a rendez-vous.

Ruse accomplished, then. With intense regret, James drew back from Cordelia. Her hand, warm and soft and wonderful, was against his neck; her fingers stroked his pale white scar. Her eyes were fixed at the level of his shoulder. He could hear himself say her name — Daisy, my Daisy — instead of responding, she whispered, “I think more people are coming.”

He knew it wasn’t true. He didn’t care. He knew what she was saying: that she was asking and giving permission at once. All James’ life, he had struggled for control: control over his sudden falls into shadow, control over the dark world he could see, that was invisible to everyone else. He had worked and fought and trained for control every day, and for the first time in as long as he could remember it deserted him.

The walls he had put up burned to the ground in an instant as he caught Cordelia to him. He groaned against her mouth, his hands slipping over the silk of her dress, the hot satin of her skin. He undid the strap that held Cortana, got rid of it somehow — carefully, he hoped — and let himself fall back into delirium.

He did not ask himself why he had never felt desire like this before. He could not. He was lost in the feel of her, the incline of her waist, the flare of her hips, the rise and fall of her chest as she gasped. They were kissing wildly, uncontrolled; they fetched up against the desk, Cordelia’s back to it.

Her body bent backward in an impossible arch, her hands going behind her to brace herself. Her eyes half-closed, her head fell back, revealing the bare column of her throat. He pressed his lips there, eliciting a gasp of surprised pleasure.

His hands trailed up the sleek material of her dress — he could feel the heat of her skin through it — from her waist to the neckline of her gown. His palms followed her curves until the tips of his fingers were pressing into the bare bronze skin just above the neckline of her dress. She was sleek and soft and hot all at the same time, like nothing else he’d ever touched. He heard her whimper; she was saying his name, and his heart beat in time with her words: James, James, Jamie please.

The please undid him; shrugging off his frock coat, he caught hold of her around the waist, lifting her until she was perched on the edge of the desk. The material of her dress bunched around her knees, her thighs, as she took hold of his shirt by the starched front and kissed him. His mouth drove against hers, hot and demanding, even as he clambered onto the desk after her. She reached up her arms for him and he sank down on top of her, bracing his weight with a hand above her head.

He paused, just for a moment, looking down at her. Her scarlet hair fanned out across the desk, her eyes glazed, her full lips red from kissing. He was cradled by her body, her legs on either side of his hips, her skirt rucked up nearly to her waist. She wrapped her long, bare legs around him and he shuddered. What was in him, what he wanted, was inchoate but insistant, a force he’d never known. A yearning like hot wires in his blood, the pain-pleasurable ache of unbearable wanting that drove him to kiss her again, kiss her harder. She tangled her hands in his hair, pulling at it as he kissed her breasts, flicking his tongue over the sensitive skin until she gave a low scream and clutched at him with desperate hands.

He sank down against her and kissed her, hot and deep and hard. She arched into the kiss, her breath coming in gasps. He felt her through the thinner material of his shirt: the heat of her, the swell of her breasts against his chest, her hands smoothing over his chest, his sides.

His hands aching to touch her in kind, to find out what she liked, what made her gasp, and do it again and again . . . Nothing had ever felt like this, nothing. He’d known desire before; so he remembered, so he had believed. It turned out he had stepped into a puddle and thought it was the sea. As Cordelia moved in his arms, as her lips, he realized there was a depth to desire he hadn’t even guessed at: that it was more than just desperation, but joy and need and wanting and being wanted back. It was a fever dream, his hands sliding up under the heavy satin of her skirts, the salt-sweet taste of her skin, the soft sounds of her pleasure as she urged him closer, urged him onward, the desk seeming to spin beneath them.

He heard, as if at a great distance, the sound of the door opening. He lifted his head, saw the slim fair-hared figure in the doorway. Ice washed through his veins. Cordelia stiffened, began to scramble to sit up. No, he thought, but he couldn’t stop her, couldn’t blame her. It — whatever it had been — was over.

He slid off the desk. Already the fever was vanishing, that feeling —the glorious freedom from the burden of his own will — receding. Grasping at his control, he drew it around himself,  reaching for his coat, turning to calmly meet the gaze of his parabatai.

“James?” Matthew said.

[mimisempai]

I made a wish and you came true

Summary:

Sylvie asks to see what the prince of Loki looks like. When he shows her she laughs at him. Count on Professor Loki to give her a lecture about his Prince.

🌈 Happy Pride month ! 🌈

To celebrate, 1 day, 1 story.

Be ready for smiles, laugh, fluff, tooth rotthing fluff, positive vibes and a lot of love!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32183185

1731 words - Rating G

In storm-black mountains, I wander alone

Over the glacier I make my way

In the apple garden stands the maiden fair and sings,

"When will you come home?"

Loki had to stop, overwhelmed by emotion.

Sylvie, her eyes devoid of all mockery, said softly, "So there is a would-be-princess somewhere..."

Loki chuckled sadly before replying, "I like metaphors you know, in this instance, it's not a princess, it's a prince, and I don't know if he's waiting for me or hoping to see me again, it's not even really my home, but..."

"...but you'd like to believe it, right?"

Loki could only nod.

"Show me your prince."

"No way," Loki replied, shaking his head.

"Come on, please Loki!" she paused before continuing, "If you show it to me I'll tell you in detail how I enchant people!

Loki couldn't resist, so he turned his hand and there appeared a mini hologram of Mobius.

Sylvie approached and looked at him closely before sitting down again.

Loki made Mobius disappear.

"Don't tell me that that little man with no stature, no class is YOUR prince?!"

Loki wished he had his brother's hammer to blast her with lightning bolts.

"Yes this is my prince! And your impudence has earned you a lecture on the definition of Prince Charming by Professor Loki!"

Sylvie snorted and told the passing maid to bring her a glass of champagne, because finally she was going to need it.

"First of all, you should know that the charming prince doesn't exist only in fairy tales.

In real life, he is not perfect but he has many qualities that are essential to be wonderful. Is Mobius my Prince Charming?" He didn't wait for an answer.

"To find out, I'll show you point by point that he meets all the criteria that make him a prince for me."

Sylvie settled back in her chair to enjoy the show.

"First, the Prince Charming is generous. He is generous in every sense of the word. He doesn't hesitate to invite you to an excellent restaurant and to offer you a gift you've been dreaming of. Ok, ok, I agree, I didn't have time to fully test that point. But that's not all! He is also generous in giving you all the time you need. He is also able to have an attention that will brighten your day. And Mobius devoted an enormous amount of time to me, when nothing required him to."

Loki thought back to the time Mobius had spent with him just before they left for the mission. He had taken the time to show Loki that he wasn't the villain he thought he was. Nothing forced him to.It wasn't necessary for the mission. In a place where everything was about time, Mobius hadn't hesitated to give him time.

Sylvie simply nodded and waved her hand impatiently for Loki to continue his «  lecture."

He took a sip, cleared his throat and continued.

"Second, the Prince Charming committed. He knows what he wants. He gets up every morning knowing exactly where he is going and what he wants to do. He is also resolute, he has goals in life and intends to achieve them. What is touching is that he is not bragging. Humility is his middle name. Quite my Mobius."

Sylvie noted, fondly, the possessive pronoun, but said nothing.

"Even though he pisses me off, because he is narrow-minded about the TVA,  what he thinks is real. Nevertheless, he still manages to impress me because he believes that what he does is his reality and that he does it for a better world, he does it with all his heart. And when he talks about it there is so much candor that even I have a hard time getting him to see the reality of things."

Loki remembered their discussion in the cafeteria.

Loki had asked him completely sincerely, because he wanted to know what made Mobius go on, "I mean, you really believe in all this stuff, don't you?"

Mobius had replied simply, "I don't get hung up on, 'Believe, not believe.' I just accept what is."

Loki had tried to show him the absurdity of a world ruled by the 3 time keepers and Mobius had replied by telling him that his story, Asgard, mystical realm, beyond the stars, Frost Giants was the same thing.

He remembered Mobius' words perfectly, "Actually it's exactly the same thing. Because if you think too hard about where any of us came from, who we truly are, it sounds kinda ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense, so we try to make some sense of it. And I'm just lucky that the chaos I emerged into gave me all this... My own glorious purpose."

Loki had chuckled, to hide the fact that he was disturbed by the accuracy of Mobius' argument.

Mobius concluded by saying, determined, "Cause the TVA is my life. And it's real because I believe it's real."

Committed, yes, his prince was. Loki realized that he missed their discussion. Rarely had he met someone who could resist him intellectually.

"Hey! Loki! Are you there? "Sylvie was waving her hand, seeing that he was lost in his thoughts.

Loki regained his composure and moved on to his next point.

"Third, the Prince Charming for me must be smart but not pretentious, yes because there can only be one pretentious and that is me of course. Who wouldn't want a smart, educated man? Mobius is extremely smart! Can you believe that he knows hundreds of languages more than I do because he has been working in the multiverse for so long! And best of all, when I tried to manipulate him on my first consulting assignment, he figured me out. He almost knew right away that I was trying to play for my own side. Okay, it's a little humiliating. But that's the charm of him."

If Loki was honest, that was when he started to fall under Mobius' spell.

He had been so sure that he could get what he wanted from him. He was sure he had hooked the fish and then Mobius had blurted out, "He's lying. Just playing games. There's no one out there."

Loki blushed slightly as he thought about how he had been found out by Mobius at that moment. That's when his interest had been piqued, because Loki couldn't resist a challenge.

"You know Loki, it's almost cute how you have it bad."

"There's nothing funny about that." retorted Loki before resuming, "Fourth, my prince is someone I can lean on. He is a pillar on which you can rest. Imagine, Sylvie, we were working at the same desk and I fell asleep. And on top of that he let me sleep. You know he has this quiet strength. That thing that makes me know that with him I don't have to pretend anymore. But anyway, I was talking about Mobius, not me."

Sylvie moved closer to Loki and said with a smile, "From my point of view it's the same thing."

"What?"

"Nothing, go on."

Loki looked at her strangely before continuing.

"Fifth, my prince is listening. You know I talk a lot and three quarters of the time to say nothing important. But Mobius, even if I tell him something stupid, he listens to me as if it were the most important thing in the world. And most importantly, he really hears me. He can read between my lines and my metaphors, which he also loves. He's much better at getting people to talk than I am. He was able to see and make me say things about myself that no one had heard before. Sometimes I feel like he's the only one who knows who I really am."

Loki had to stop because the scene was still so present in his mind.

"I can't go back, can I? Back to my timeline. I don't enjoy hurting people. I... I don't enjoy it. I do it because I have to, because I've had to."

Mobius' tone, his look, his whole being turned toward Loki when he had said just that, "Okay, explain that to me.

Then Loki told him that he knew he was a villain.

Mobius' simple but straightforward answer was, "That's not how I see it."

"Hey Loki? You okay?" Sylvie had put her hand on his arm, looking concerned.

Loki pulled himself together.

"Yeah I'm fine."

He coughed and continued, "My Prince Mobius has an incredible number of qualities but I've summarized them for you because we don't have enough time. So I'm going to conclude this lesson by telling you that the quality that attracts me most to him is that he's surprising. He surprises me all the time. Which is paradoxical after all, I am supposed to be chaos and he is supposed to be order. But he surprises me. Where everyone else hates me, he is there and sees qualities in me that even I don't see. When everyone wants me gone, he doesn't hesitate to put his own head on the line so that I don't get erased. Mobius is not perfect, but he is perfect for me. Because precisely, he doesn't put me on a pedestal but he doesn't make me feel inferior either. He treats me as an equal."

"Okay, okay, okay, it's fine he's a Prince. But the mustache though..."

Loki looked mischievously at her and leaning in close to her ear, he said softly, "His moustache is very nice when he kisses me."

"Loki!" she moved back and flicked him on the forehead.

He took a sip of champagne and they remained silent for a few moments.

"And you told him all this, well not in so many words of course?"

Loki's smile disappeared.

"Because of you, I didn't have the time. And I hope that all of this won't have ruined this beginning of a relationship.Anyway, I'll tell him when we meet again, or at least I'll try to, as long as he wants to listen to me..."

Sylvie smiled softly, clinked her glass against Loki's and said softly, "You're insufferable to the core, but I sincerely wish you'd have the chance to talk to him. "

Loki nodded, this time he was determined to fight, because for the first time it was his own happiness that depended on it.

_______

The whole serie here : The story of Loki and Mobius

Not beta'd I hope you enjoyed it 🥰

[oflur]

What do you consider the most important event of your life so far? The most impactful memory is the week of Christmas when Mirana lost both her parents (or who she believes to be, at least) in a house fire. 

Who has had the most influence on you? Amara Diaz née Pérez - her mother. Mira inherited many of her favorite hobbies from Amara, such as reading, mythology, and stargazing. Amara was incredibly caring, and while Mira does a poor job of showing it, she is very protective over anyone she cares for. 

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Mira once managed a page 2 story in the San Francisco Chronicle, but it was written under the name Isabel Perez. 

What is your greatest regret? Her greatest regret is triggering her pyrokinesis. 

What is the most evil thing you have ever done? From her perspective, murdering her parents. 

Do you have a criminal record of any kind? Nothing listed other than a speeding ticket, but she has committed arson and numerous counts of trespassing. 

When was the time you were the most frightened? Waking up in the ashes of her childhood home. 

What is the most embarrassing thing ever to happen to you? She once got caught staring at a bartender, and when asked why, she fumbled and said she was wanting to ask for a job application. This is how she met her current roommate Logan and ended up working at Neon Nights. This may not be the most embarrassing memory, but a recent one. Also, drunk texts. 

If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be, and why? She would easily change Amara not being alive. 

Is your character an optimist or a pessimist? Mirana was never an overly positive person/dreamer, but she generally considered the glass half-full. In recent years, she is very much a pessimist. 

What is your most treasured possession? Her most treasured possession was a bracelet from her mother that Mirana had engraved in remembrance of Amara. This was recently lost, leaving her current treasured possession a house plant from her roommate, Ilana. 

What is their favorite fairy tale? She has always enjoyed the story of Robin Hood. 

Do they believe in happy endings? For herself ? No. 

Do they believe in love at first sight? Absolutely not. 

How would your character court the person of their dreams? Mirana is entirely action-oriented and present-focused, and is very unlikely to plan out courting someone. Instead of romantic confessions, sappy poetry, expressing romantic intent, etc. she is much more likely to react in the moment with little to no advance thought for her actions. 

What makes your character embarrassed? Not much can embarrass Mirana. 

Have they ever been bullied or teased? While often teased, she has rarely ever been bullied. When growing up, she spent her time mostly around other Seraphs, where she was seen as a prestigious legacy of the Diaz family. 

How do they display affection? Her love languages involve acts of service, sharing food, banter, and physical touch (this last one she currently has banned herself from). 

What do they consider beautiful in others personality-wise? Mirana admires others who openly show they care for others or are unafraid to be vulnerable, perhaps because she can’t manage to do so herself. 

What do they consider ugly in others personality-wise? She despises people like her father, who use people for personal gain or have no regard for harming their loved ones. 

What is their idea of perfect happiness? Being able to be human instead of a witch (as she thinks she is), never being able to harm someone ever again, starting life over again in a place where no one has ever heard of Seraphs or Witches or Vampires, living somewhere warm where she can lie in the grass and watch the stars, with a large library to read from, and a bustling nightlife where she can dance the night away unnoticed. 

Is your character religious? She grew up in a Roman Catholic family and attended church every weekend for nearly eighteen years, but has not attended Mass except for on occasions on her mother’s birthday. She considers herself Agnostic. If there is a power above, she believes they’ve done a horrible job and looking out for her.

How would your character describe themself in one word? Spontaneous. 

How would your character describe themself in three words? Spontaneous, curious, hilarious. 

Is your character quiet or loud? When she does speak, she can easily be loud, especially when laughing or in a boisterous mood. 

How vocally expressive is your character? Highly. Mira has difficulty keeping her opinions to herself. 

How bodily expressive is your character? Highly. Her facial expressions, despite her efforts, often give her away, and she is always moving unless cozy on the apartment couch. 

What type of music does your character like? Indie, occasionally Salsa, some Pop, anything to get her out of her head. 

What emotion does your character evoke in others? Probably anger, humor, annoyance. 

What is your character’s goal in life? To pay penance. 

Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity? No. She lost her virginity at 16 to her childhood best friend and boyfriend at the time. 

What are your views on sex? She views sex as a fun activity, whether with a serious romantic partner or one night stand with a stranger, but is no longer sexually active as to not wanting to accidentally set anyone on fire. 

Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love? She’s never witnessed anyone actually in love, other than possibly with her best friend, but even then she considered love in general to be mostly bullshit. 

In general, how do you treat others (politely, rudely, by keeping them at a distance, etc.)? Does your treatment of them change depending on how well you know them, and if so, how? Mirana generally keeps everyone at a distance by attempting to not share any personal details or seem particularly interested in them. She often tries to push people she finds herself caring for away with sarcasm/lies. Those who don’t fall for her bullshit that she grows attached to will find she is still just as snarky, but can also be goofy and enthusiastic. 

Who is the most important person in your life, and why? Her childhood friend Max is one person Mirana considers herself to have undying loyalty to, as she was the only person in her previous life, so to speak, to find her again. 

Who is the person you respect the most, and why? Mira respects Ilana highly, despite not showing it well, as Ilana is kind and generous and open and never seems to give up on wanting to be Mira’s friend. 

Who are your friends? Do you have a best friend? Describe these people. Mirana would not list anyone as a friend if asked, as caring about people would only lead to eventually destroying them, but she does have a small handful of people she has met since her return to New York that she regrettably is beginning to care about. She would describe them as chaotic. 

Do you have a spouse or significant other? If so, describe this person. Her last significant other knew her under the alias of Isabel Perez when she lived in California. He met her in journalism school, was a photographer, and asked very few questions about her past, which was ideal. Despite dating him for nearly six months, Mira moved back to New York with nothing more than a one line text.

Have you ever been in love? If so, describe what happened. While not in love with the previously mentioned significant other, she did love her and Max’s childhood best friend. They’d been in her life so long that the transition to a romantic relationship was mostly accidental, but it lasted nearly two years before she ended things abruptly after losing her parents. She has not seen them since. 

What do you look for in a potential lover? Things Mira finds attractive: confidence, witty banter, spontaneity, adrenaline, assertiveness, independence, affection. 

How close are you to your family? To her knowledge, Mira has no biological family remaining. She was incredibly close to her mother, and essentially wished her father dead. 

Have you started your own family? If so, describe them. If not, do you want to? Why or why not? When younger, Mirana liked the idea of one day having two to three kids, always jealous of her friends with siblings and a decent babysitter when she needed to save money over the summer. Currently? She’s terrified to touch another human, much less a child, so no family of any sort is a much better plan. 

Who would you turn to if you were in desperate need of help? This is the existential question. She is in desperate need of help, and hasn’t managed to trust anyone enough to let them decide whether to help her or turn her in. 

Do you trust anyone to protect you? Who, and why? She hasn’t had enough self-preservation to be concerned whether anyone would protect her for a long time. Protectiveness mystifies her, as she of all people doesn’t deserve it. 

If you died or went missing, who would miss you? As this is her third attempt at a new life, other than possibly Max, she would say no one. 

Who is the person you despise the most, and why? Overall? Her father, for being an abusive asshole to her mother. Alive? Herself. 

Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict? She loves arguments. 

Do you tend to take on leadership roles in social situations? While not exactly a follower, Mira rarely shows interest in leadership roles. 

Do you like interacting with large groups of people? Why or why not? Mira enjoys the thrill of a crowd and being nameless, but she would probably not enjoy having to interact with all of them. In a large group, she’s probably narrowed her conversation down to one or two people nearest to her. 

Do you care what others think of you? No, unless they’re someone close to her, Mirana generally does not give a damn. 

Have they ever lost a loved one? What happened to them, and are they the same as they were before they lost them? As mentioned earlier, Mirana lost both her parents when she returned home from Seraph training for Christmas holidays and attempted to defend her mother, but in terror and rage accidentally activated her phoenix abilities. She has not been the same since, living in guilt and self-imposed solitude.

Has your character ever been hurt or betrayed by someone they thought they could depend on? What happened? Not particularly. She tries not to depend on others. 

Does your character have a deep and/or dark secret? If so, what is it? She hasn’t told Logan she sought her out on purpose and got the job at Neon Nights to try and meet the Supreme of NYC and learn how to convince/manipulate her into removing her powers. She hasn’t told anyone that she is to blame for her parents’ death. Only Max knows about her father not being the glorious Seraph the Seraphs believed him to be. Only a few coven members believe she is a witch, but she hasn’t told them she’s unable to do basic spells and is starting to believe she is something else (a demon? cursed? some monstrous mutation?). This may or may not be all of them. 

If you knew you were going to die in 24 hours, name three things you would do in the time you had left. 1. Destroy her father’s headstone 2. Travel to Europe for her mother’s dreams. 3. Somehow manage to recover her mother’s bracelet from the Atlantic. 

What is the one thing for which you would most like to be remembered after your death? For not being a complete and utter monster. 

What three words best describe your personality? Mirana is stubborn, tenacious, and inquisitive. 

What three words would others probably use to describe you? Blunt, hungry, sarcastic. 

[callboxkat]

A Little Nightmare (part 2)

Author’s note: Here it is! The next installment of this new story in the world of Infinitesimal. I hope you guys like it!

Again, you do not need to have read Infinitesimal to read this story!

Warnings: fear, miscommunication, illness, injury, nonsexual nudity, death mention, censored swearing

Word count: 3372

Infinitesimal Masterpost!

...

Joan was on their phone, looking through emails and texts for anything important. Despite trying to get some work done, most of their attention was still focused on something else entirely. They certainly felt that that distraction was understandable, though, given the circumstances. Occasionally, they couldn’t help but look up towards the coffee table and the blanket folded on top of it. The tiny person within hadn’t woken since they’d brought her home, and Joan couldn’t help but worry. They knew that the long-term success rate of CPR wasn’t exactly as high as a lot of TV shows would have its viewers believe, and Joan had no idea how long she’d been in that bucket before they arrived. They were hopeful, though. She seemed to be in good shape, other than the whole almost drowning thing. They believed she would pull through.

Joan glanced up again as a soft sound came from the table. As Joan had found out shortly after getting the tiny person settled in, she snored. It was very quiet, which didn’t surprise Joan given the woman’s size; but in the absence of their car’s engine and the roaring in their ears, they could hear it. They’d been a bit worried at first, slightly adjusting how her head rested to see if that helped, but it seemed that she just snored. They decided to view it positively. As long as she was snoring, they knew she was breathing. That was good.

If only she would wake up, so they could know she was okay.

“You’re probably pretty tired, huh?” Joan murmured into the quiet. They imagined that nearly drowning would take a lot out of a person. “That’s alright. Take as long as you need.”

…

A new message popped up on Joan’s phone, drawing their attention away from the borrower, or whatever she was, for the time being. They would have ignored it, but….

Talyn: What time are you picking up Marco?

Joan swore under their breath. In all the excitement, they’d nearly forgotten about him. Marco, their own dog. That just went to show how distracted they were, that they could forget that lovable furball for even a moment. They tapped on the message and typed a response.

Joan: Not sure. Later?

The reply popped up within moments.

Talyn: Are you still pulling weeds? Isn’t it dark out?

Joan glanced out the window. The sun had in fact gone down, but the sky was still fairly light.

Joan: Not much longer

Talyn: Damn, must be a lot of weeds.

Talyn: Don’t trip over a rock and die, dumb*ss.

Joan: There go my weekend plans 😥

Talyn: What a shame

Talyn: Seriously tho, I’ve got work at 7

Joan: Gross, late shift?

Talyn: Yeah. :P Come get yo dog.

A photo popped up. Marco was curled up on the floor at Talyn’s feet, looking up at the camera with his big brown eyes. His ears were pricked in a way that made Joan think that Talyn had absolutely just called the dogs name to get his attention for the photo.

Talyn: Look at him, he misses you :(

Joan sighed, glancing at the time. They couldn’t make Talyn late for work, but there were other factors to consider. One in particular, they thought as they looked to the tiny woman asleep on the table in front of them and grimaced. What if Marco tried to bother her once they brought him back here? Would she be safe? Aside from that, they really hated to leave. It would take only a short amount of time to get their dog, but enough to worry Joan. What would happen if the tiny woman woke up while they were gone?

But if Talyn decided to come here to drop off Marco… that could be bad. If Joan knew one thing about borrowers, it was that they wanted as few people to know about them as possible. Granted, that number was generally 0, but the cat was already out of the bag for Joan. Joan assumed that whatever this girl was, borrower or not, probably wanted the same secrecy, given that they had thought that tiny people were nothing but a fairy tale only a few hours ago.

They thought for a moment, fingers tapping uncertainly on their phone case.

Joan: Ok, five min

And so, reluctantly, Joan got ready to leave.

They made sure that the curtains and blinds on the windows were firmly shut, preventing anyone from peeking in and spotting the tiny person—one of the drawbacks of living in a first floor apartment was that this was a distinct possibility. Thankfully, people were generally not that creepy, but it would be just Joan’s luck for today to be the one time some weirdo decided to snoop around. And, as they had established, they were not taking chances.

“Sorry,” Joan said, looking towards the coffee table as they put on their jacket and grabbed their keys. “I’ll be back soon.”

The tiny woman, of course, didn’t answer. The only response they received was another soft snore.

“Okay,” Joan sighed, turning away.

They triple checked the lock as they left the apartment, glad that there was virtually no chance that anyone else would go barging in while they weren’t home. They lived alone; and they were, in fact, the landlord of this building. So, no one had a key to this apartment but them, which was honestly very reassuring.

Satisfied, or as close to satisfied as they would get, Joan hurried out of the building, planning to return as soon as possible.

…

Remy drifted into consciousness slowly.

She knew that she was warm, that it was dark, and that she was lying down on her side with something soft wrapped around her. It might have been nice, had it not been for the fact that her chest felt like someone had yeeted a brick at it, or the fact that she felt so weak that she was pretty sure she couldn’t get up even if she wanted to.

Her eyesight came gradually into focus, and her gaze fell on her own hands, curled in front of her on the fuzzy, dark blue surface of the… what? A blanket? She didn’t know what else it would have been. But why was she wrapped in a blanket? Remy loved herself a good blanket burrito, but she had no idea where she was or how she’d gotten there.

She turned her head, feeling dizzy at the motion, and tried to look around. It looked like there was some sort of ceiling far above her, but it was hard to tell in the darkness. Was she in a house? What the heck?

Remy thought back, trying to piece things together. She’d been looking for a new home, she knew, because those pricks in her old house had called an exterminator. She remembered being outside, the storm, and the tomatoes…. She swallowed against her rough throat. She’d been trying to get down from the work bench, she remembered. And… her dumb foot had slipped. And then… she’d fallen.

Oh.

Remy narrowed her eyes. Why wasn’t she dead? She should have drowned in that bucket. She had drowned in that bucket, hadn’t she? She remembered the time passing, passing, passing, her attempts to stay afloat growing weaker and weaker until it simply became too difficult. She remembered feeling terrified as her head started to dip below the water, the exhaustion overpowering her, her heavy, waterlogged clothes only helping to pull her down faster.

So… why had she just woken up here? And why did her chest hurt so bad? None of this made any sense.

“Am I dead?” she wondered aloud. Her voice was so rough and quiet that if she hadn’t known it was her own, she wouldn’t have recognized it.

Unsurprisingly, no one answered her.

Remy coughed, then hissed at the fresh stab of pain this caused.

No… she didn’t think she was dead. Maybe heaven, or whatever, if there even was such a thing, really was like being wrapped up in a warm blanket in the dark, but Remy felt too much like crap for that to make sense. Any reasonable afterlife would have given her a cup of coffee by now, too. Decent coffee. And if hell was real and she was there, Remy was pretty sure it would be much worse than this. No, she was definitely still alive.

Remy thought harder, trying to focus her sluggish brain.

Oh. Oh. Sh*t.

That human. She remembered now. A human had been there… saying something… And Remy had said something back? She remembered being scared. She’d wanted to know what the human was doing there. She remembered feeling weirdly detached, like the didn’t care what happened, which was so not like her. But she couldn’t recall any more detail than that.

The human must have taken her, she realized, working her fingers into the fibers of the warm blanket. That wasn’t good. She should probably do something about that.

Remy breathed, in and out, then started to move.  “Come on, girl, get off your butt,” she urged herself in that painfully hoarse voice. She struggled to push herself up on shaking limbs, but they wouldn’t hold her, and she collapsed back down almost immediately. Her breath left her in a rush.

“…After a nap,” she conceded.

…

“Good boy,” Joan said, closing the bedroom door with a click. “Sorry, bud. It’s just for a little while.”

The corgi on the other side of the door barked once unhappily. His clawed paws tapped anxiously on the wooden floor as he paced back and forth.

“I know, I know,” Joan sighed. “I want to let you run around, too, but I can’t right now. Good boy. We’ll play later. Go lay down.”

Marco whined in response, but Joan could already hear him laying down beside the door. They could clearly picture the pout that the dog was undoubtedly directing at Joan through the wood.

Marco was a good dog. He was three years old, and Joan had owned him for only two of those, but he was already pretty well-trained. He also had a very low prey drive, and was so short that he had trouble even reaching the edges of the coffee table. So, really, the totally-not-a-borrower was probably completely safe even if they did let the dog roam freely. But Joan wasn’t taking any chances.

Besides, she’d probably freak out if she woke up to a comparatively gigantic, unknown dog in her face. Joan knew they would, in her place. She had no way of knowing that Marco wouldn’t hurt her, and Joan couldn’t 100% guarantee that she would have no reason to be afraid.

Even without the dog around, she’d probably be freaked out enough already when she saw Joan there, alone. They winced at the thought.

There was always the chance that things would go smoothly… right?

Whatever would happen, Joan decided to just settle themself back into their chair and wait. There wasn’t much else left to do. The tiny person wrapped in the blanket was still asleep, snoring softly, and Joan wasn’t sure how much longer it would be before she woke. It looked like she might have moved while Joan was gone, but they couldn’t be sure. She really was very small, and it wasn’t as if they’d taken note of her exact position before they left. Plus, she was almost completely covered by the blanket.

Joan reached forward and poked at the clothes that they had laid out off to the side. They had dried by now, thankfully.

They retracted their hand, intending to go back to checking emails on their phone and to trying not to think too much about their unexpected companion; but a soft groan came from the table. Joan paused, their eyebrows lifting.

The tiny woman shifted in the blanket, her eyelids fluttering.

Joan opened their mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. They figured they should probably stay quiet.

Her eyes opened. Joan leaned back, hoping to let the tiny woman gain her bearings without their interference.

She blinked, her eyes travelling slowly around the room. Then, she sighed, almost in a resigned sort of way. Like she was thinking, “Oh, great. I really am here.” Perhaps she had woken up while Joan was gone after all.

She pushed herself up on an elbow, wincing, and looked down at herself.

“What the hell,” she muttered, probably noticing she wasn’t wearing any clothes. Joan winced again.

The faint movement drew her attention, and she seemed to see Joan for the first time. Her eyes went wide; and she froze, her hand gripping the blanket tightly.

“Um…. Hi,” Joan said awkwardly.

It was like the noise unfroze her. She shrieked, scrambling backwards on all fours with the blanket still clutched around herself. Her movements were stiff and sluggish, like she still hadn’t fully recovered from her ordeal. But the alarm on her face was clear to see.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” Joan said. “I’m not gonna hurt ya, promise.”

The woman stopped, breathing hard, then slowly turned to stare up at them, her skeptical expression hard enough to scratch diamond. A long moment of silence passed. It was only seconds, but to Joan, it felt like hours. Finally, she cleared her throat. “Maybe I’m wrong,” she said, her voice hoarse, “but to me, it kiiinda seems like you already hurt me, b*tchboy.”

Joan blinked, taken a little off-guard by her words, then found their voice again. “I’m sorry,” they said, willing her to hear the honesty in their words. “I had to do that. You were drowning; it was that or let you die.” They rubbed a hand through their hair. “And, uh… I’m actually not a boy. I’m Joan. They/them pronouns.”

The tiny woman blinked, looking them up and down. “Still a b*tch, though,” she muttered.

Joan laughed, more out of surprise than amusement, not noticing how she tensed. “Maybe,” they agreed, before leaning forward marginally. “Really, though,” they continued more seriously. “Those bruises on your chest? They’re from CPR. You weren’t breathing when I found you.”

The tiny woman stared for a second, unconsciously putting a hand to her chest.

“You’re okay now, though,” Joan said. They hoped. “And—look, I’ve got your clothes right here.” They reached forward to grab them, and the woman flinched back. Joan froze. “Oh… sorry.”

A beat passed, and then Joan slowly reached for the clothes again. They brought them nearer to the tiny woman and set them beside her. She didn’t flinch away this time, which they counted as a win.

“How are you feeling?” Joan asked.

The tiny woman just stared at them warily.

“Come on, please? If something’s wrong, maybe I can help.” Was she really okay after nearly drowning like that? After all, they had no idea how long she had been in that bucket before they found her. And had they hurt her when they did CPR? They’d bruised her, yes, but they hoped they had done nothing more serious. What if they’d broken one of her ribs or something? Could Joan even do anything about it if they had?

The woman scoffed.

Joan frowned, drawn from their worried thoughts. “What?”

She glanced at her clothes, her fingers tight around the blanket, then looked back up at them. Joan could clearly picture how, if she had had sunglasses, she would have lowered them to stare at them over their frames. “L-look, babes,  I don’t know what your deal is, but this ain’t cute. I know you’re not some sweet, kind guardian angel sent to like, save me or—or whatever. So you can just cut the sh*t.”

Joan opened their mouth and shut it again. The tiny woman glared at them as they tried to come up with a response.  

“There, uh… there is no deal,” they said. “I just found you, and I couldn’t leave you there to die. I don’t have a plan or anything. Honestly, I don’t know what the f*ck I’m doing.”

“Right,” she drawled, clearly trying to seem aloof and unfazed; but Joan could hear the fear in her voice. Great. “And was undressing me part of this totally non-existent plan of yours?”

Joan groaned internally and rubbed at their eyes. “You were soaked to the bone and freezing,” they said. “You already drowned, I didn’t want you dying from hypothermia.”

The tiny woman coughed, wincing, then continued to glare at them. “So, what, girl, I’m just supposed to believe you did all this to help me?”

“Why else would I do it?”

“Gurl, how should I know? For all I know you’re planning to like, kill me or whatever.”

Joan looked down with a slightly frustrated sigh. “Okay, well… uh…. Believe it or not, I guess, but I want you to get better. I’m sure as hell not going to hurt you. It’s… I don’t mean to be, like, harsh, but if I wanted to kill you, all I had to do was nothing. And… well, obviously I didn’t do that.”

She swallowed.

Joan glanced at the time on their phone. They should probably give Marco his dinner, or he’d start whining. “Look, um… I’ll be back in a second. Just, I don’t know, get dressed, try to relax. I’ll be back with some water for you.” They got to their feet, noticing how the girl’s eyes widened as she craned her neck back to see them.

Joan scrunched their eyes shut for a fraction of a second, then sighed, opened them again, and left the room.

This was going about as smoothly as they’d expected.

…

As soon as the human disappeared into the other room, Remy grabbed for her clothes and got dressed as fast as her tired and sore limbs would allow. She didn’t bother with the shirt, just pulling her jacket around herself. Her clumsy fingers fumbled to tie the belt at her waist. When she was done, she probably looked like a disaster. She was pretty sure she even had the wrong boots on each foot; but whatever, right? Why not let her outside reflect how she felt on the inside?

She didn’t see her backpack or her hook and rope anywhere, which in retrospect was probably too much to hope for. It was a waste of precious time to even consider trying to find them. Why would the human have brought home her stuff? It wasn’t like they could use them.

She staggered to her feet, nearly sending herself crashing back down as she tripped over the folds of the blanket. Away from its warmth, the cold air washed over her and made her shiver. She took a deep breath, swaying, and hurried to the edge of the table she was on. That’s right. Of course, she was on a table. She didn’t have a hook or rope, and she was a full foot and a half off the ground. It sure would have been nice of her “rescuer” to leave her on the floor where she had a better chance of getting away. But it couldn’t be that easy, could it?

She looked around, her head spinning at how fast she moved, and her eyes fell on the heating pad underneath the blanket she’d woken up in. It was electric, she realized. She could see the cord attached to it. Finally, something she could use.

Remy hurried over to where that cord reached over the edge of the table and down towards the floor, and she made quick work of shimmying down its length. Which had nothing to do with the fact that it was mostly a barely-controlled fall. Shut up. She was trying, here.

Regardless of her now splitting headache, the crushing pain in her chest, and the throbbing in her ankle and hip that she may or may not have hurt in that fall climb down from the table, she was on the floor. But Remy didn’t have time to feel triumphant. She had to find a way out. She was not waiting around to see what this human wanted with her. No, ma’am.

[tangyyyy]

Triangle and bullshit

Taking part in every dramas inherent to this fandom is not in my habits, I must admit it. Generally, I don't agree with the majority view. Why? I don't really know... I already asked myself the question without really finding any answer that totally suits me. Do I have different logics because I'm older than the average age of the fandom? Perhaps my opinions, steeped in French culture, do not match the cultural majority of the fandom? I really don't know. The fact remains that I often disagree with the majority opinion and that more often than not, I force to shut myself up. Unwilling to give anything to chew to people who spend their time complaining, questioning everything, most of the time, I keep what I think for myselfn just sharing my views with fandom friends who, without necessarily sharing my opinions, can themselves be open-minded and less radical than some in the tag. Anyway, seeing the increasing criticism and, above all, the more or less hateful messages directly addressed to the Skam France team, I feel the need to explain myself. Completely selfish approach, it has no other goal than to bring out what I have in mind, nothing else. Afterwards, I will no longer take part in this sterile and somewhat childish "debate". The vox populi (aka the majority opinion of the fandom) seems to reject the idea of ​​a love triangle. Small parenthesis... This rejection is so massive, so extreme, that it's impossible for me to forget the underlying narrow-minded morality that seems to create it. I don't judge you ! Myself, at the start of the season, I was one of those who prayed not to be entitled to yet another love triangle. What I regret is the little thought shown by the fandom now that the event they feared has happened. The love triangle... Let's talk about it. Love triangle is a dramatic scheme widely used since time immemorial. The literature (western or otherwise) of the past three millennias testifies without controversy to this dimension of archetypal universality of the love triangle. I won't cite all the books, films and series that deal with love triangles, it would be endless. Why does this dramatic pattern come up all the time? But because these triangles can give rise, among the protagonists, to a palette of feelings, each more interesting than the other. Jealousy, humiliation, betrayal, guilt, feeling like a traitor, being dishonest, hurting someone... And guess what? All this... This is love too! To believe in a love without cloud, without wound, without misunderstandings, excuse me, but I find that a little... Naive. Youy think I'm cynical? No no, I sincerely believe in pure and eternal love. I don't turn a blind eye to the difficulties experienced by couples to achieve this, quite simply. In short.. As unpleasant and painful as it is, the experience of the triangle can be a powerful growth lever for the characters involved. Betrayal has enormous potential value on us. It denounces an identity flaw and at the same time authorizes a process of quest for identity, which will succeed or not, depending on what the characters decide to do with it. If a triangle comes into our life, on our own or someone else's act, it has a purpose. It becomes the revealing mirror of our unconscious. You don't like relationships based on triangles? That's too bad, The majority of interactions between humans is based on triangular issues. (One of the three people may very well be imaginary, a fantasy. The triangle may very well not be romantic but can take place into family (Freud and his Oedipus)). The problem in this fandom is the poverty of meaning that the fans seem to add to the love triangle of this season 5. Exemple: “Arthur cheats the nice Alexia with the bad Noée, it's not good, it does nothing for the story”. Or even without a personal value judgment... “Arthur hesitates between Alexia and Noée, it's silly.” WTF? But if we stick to this vision of things, necessarily that no intrigue is worth exploring. Through this intrigue, instead of grumbling and rejecting it, how about considering its potential? OKAY! Ok I know! You did't want to see a love triangle. Neither did I. But once we have said that, once we have expressed our dissatisfaction, we should perhaps think of moving on to something else, right? I only see posts that ramble, that always say the same thing, it's kinda annoying, really...

We have no choice, we aren't decision makers. The writers decided to write the story this way. Well. We can have reservations, but that won't change anything, so go ahead, right? Or else, you know what? You can also make the choice to stop watching Skam France or even to shut up... Yes, yes, I assure you, it's possible! I say all this while finally, for me, in this season 5, there is no love triangle. Let me explain... For me, there is a love triangle only if there is real hesitation, if one of the three protagonists is really attracted to the other two, may not be in the same way but in any case with the same power. Is this the case here? No! Arthur is not in love with Noée! Arthur is clearly in love with Alexia, it shows, it feels. Maybe I'm wrong but for me, there is no doubt. For a love triangle to work, the outcome must be uncertain. There, we know very well that Arthur never thought of becoming a couple with Noée. So no, for me, there is NO love triangle, Arthur is not attracted (lovingly speaking) by Noée. Okay... Okay, but he kissed her, right?! Yeah right... But there is kiss and kiss, right? I know many will disagree with me. I know it and I expose myself, by giving my opinion, to many outraged reactions but I want to say it anyway ... (My blog is not important enough to receive haters anyway :P) I don't think Arthur really cheated on Alexia. Is kissing cheating? Everyone discuss about it, often sticking firmly to their positions. The debate rages between those for whom the kiss wreaks havoc in the couple with a strong taste of cheating, and those for whom kissing remains harmless and is not adulterous. the notion of cheating remains at the discretion of each. In my opinion, a kiss can be considered as cheating if it's leaded by attraction, by desire. In the case of Arthur and Noée, it wasn't really the case I think. Maybe yes on Noée's side but certainly not on Arthur's side! And it's Arthur who "cheats", not Noée. This kiss came to fill a moment of interstellar emptiness. We all know these voids. These moments, often silent, which follow great confidences, when people find themselves in a state of great vulnerability, an intense fragility, where we could die of embarassment or fear. So yes, at that time, Arthur and Noée kissed. It wasn't desire but simple reassurance. Let's face it, kissing someone, touching one another lips, it's a feeling that can make you forget everything. An intimate gesture that comforts, that warms. Did you know? In some cultures, friends may very well kiss on the mouth without this being considered a loving gesture. So ok, that was bullshit. Instead of kissing Noée, Arthur would have done better to burst into tears, to give her a hug or even to make a mental breakdown, that would have meant the same thing (at least for me) but would have been much more politically correct.It would have less shocked  very young fans who still believe in the love of fairy tales...

But... Ok, I take a step aside, I take a step back (come, try, do like me, you'll see, it's pretty easy actually!). For this paragraph, I will consider this kiss as cheating... An infidelity can speak of many other things than disaffection. It can be linked to a problem in the couple: loss of communication, concern for the other, desire, estrangement from the two partners, conflicts ... It can also respond to a very personal problem. Kissing Noée, Arthur didn't mean to say: "Noée je t'aime", or "I don't love Alexia anymore." or even "That's it, I hesitate between two girls now!". No! Perhaps this "cheating" simply meant "I'm lost", "There is a problem between Alexia and me, we no longer understand each other. ", " I'm scared.". By kissing Noée, Arthur expresses his doubts to the spectator, he lets go under the pressure of being perfect on both sides. He shows himself to be human. And yes! Before being the perfect boyfriend, Arthur is a human. Anyway! Love is worth living, it is a feeling of intense lightness, of absolute happiness. But one cannot ignore all the pains which can gravitate around this love. It's not magic. All that to say that I will continue to follow Skam France season 5 with great happiness. Ok, they did not go in the direction I wanted but... This is also why I watch series, films, that I read books. To be surprised. If I want to control all the stories, I write them, it's that simple. I do not agree with everything that the writers put in place (the treatment of Alexia's caracter disappoints me a lot so far for example) but I won't flood the social networks with my own disappointment and my hateful comments. Trust me, I have a lot better to do with my free time. So, in short: Take a deep breath, try to step aside, get out of your own representations and you'll see, the Skam France experience is worth living.

[praphiteyes]

Black Lives Matter #1 (Jesus’ Skin Color)

Does the race of Jesus matter? This is a question that many have gotten into before, and are left with a variety of answers. What do you think? I always jokingly end the conversation with "Go to a church with a bunch of paintings of white Jesus, and replace them with black Jesus, and you'll have your answer." But, let's think this through.

Two things:

1) How do Christians view Christ vs how they should?

2) How do non-Christians view Christ?

First, we'll talk about the Christians:

Jesus was (and IS) God, but He is also MAN. In most cases, how we view Christ as a man shapes how we view Him has God; it shouldn't, but it does. We all have to manage the stereotypes that we hold in our heads about certain people groups. It is very possible to project those stereotypes onto Jesus (The Son of GOD). White people can certainly relate more to a white Jesus than a black Jesus (or any other race for that matter). There are even black people who subconsciously look for a "white savior", and Jesus (white Jesus), can be that for them. This is only scratching the surface when talking about this issue, and how various people groups react to seeing the race of Jesus. Not to mention how kids start to form their opinions about Jesus, religion, the world, and different communities, as they consistently see Jesus in a certain way.

All the while there is this scripture Exodus 20: 4-6, the second commandment.

Now, as an artist, I view painting a picture of Jesus as merely art and not a breaking of the commandment, but it becomes a problem when we add paintings as such to our times of worship. Especially, these days, when we're in the midst of social evolution on these types of matters.

So, to recap:

We SHOULD view God as God, as light, and not box Him in by a human shell. There is actually scripture on that as well in 2 Cor. (find scripture).

We are still very much impacted by Jesus' portrayal in art, including impacted by His portrayed race.

(Not to mention that we KNOW Jesus was Jewish, hung out in the Middle East, and often walked from place to place in an abundance of sunlight.)

Next, we have to talk about how non-Christians view Christ. For the sake of this post, I've narrowed views down to these (as a teacher, as a character, as a fairy tale):

#1 - Teacher

At the very least, one (who does not believe that Jesus is God) should acknowledge that the Bible has some wisdom in it; this includes the words of Jesus Christ. But, the teachers of whom we allow to shape our lives hold more power for us when we can relate to them, and us relating to them starts with whether or not we look alike. I am not saying that this is the way it should be, but this is the way that it often is when deciding how much weight to give a person's ideas or knowledge. We won't accept knowledge from someone of whom we do not respect. Ex. If someone who is white is trying to pass out wisdom to a black person, even if that black person respects that white person for other reasons, they still have in the back of their mind, "Yeah, but this person is white.". Or if a man tries to give advice to a woman, even if that woman respects that man, and is receiving the advice from him (in part), there's still a "Yeah, but he's a man." in the back of her head. It's the "Yeah, but..." that COULD end up being a problem, in a variety of ways.

#2 - Character

There are certain people in human history who are real, but I don't have enough information about them to make them real to me. Like George Washington, I know he existed, but he's just a character to me. I'm not moved by the thought of him one way or the other (in general). Now, if you were to mention MLK Jr, I would feel a certain way immediately, due to his race, and what he has done for people who look like me. It doesn't even have to be someone who is no longer with us. Kanye West, is quite a character. I have little in common with Kanye (that I know of, because I do not know him). He's a musician, as am I. And he is black, as am I. Not much more than that can we connect on, other than the fact that I like his music. If he were to speak on his financial situation, I would not be able to relate. But, if he were to speak on an issue of race, it's a different story. Jesus is the same here. For some, they know he was an actual person, but there would have to be a specific convo on a topic of which that person can relate, for Jesus' race to matter to them.

#3 - Fairy Tale

Here it doesn't really matter what Jesus' race is, because any angst or complaints to a fictional character always fall on the one who created the character, and in this case, for that person, it would be the church. Though racial issues can definitely projected onto the Church as a result.

So, where does this leave us?

If they were to make Batman black, people would lose their minds. If they were to make Wonder Woman black, people would lose their minds. There are even black people who would lose their minds over such a thing, because it's different. We are naturally against change. We are used to our heroes being as they are, completely pure in the notion of how we see them. We are naturally frightened when our beliefs are threatened.

There is a deeper problems within religion of our beliefs never being challenged; of our methodology never being questioned. We take all such challenges as an attack on the religion/the God in which we believe, but what if it's simply a opposition towards us, not our gods?? Sometimes, we need to be challenged in order to sharpen our beliefs. People in power (mostly white people, and mostly men) use their power to suppress these challenges. They feel the same way that others feel when threatened, only they have the means to do something about it. Their power gives them a sense of entitlement; a sense of purpose to keep their joint ideals "sacred".

Does Jesus' race matter? I believe that it does, but it's debatable.

What's not debatable, is that at the top of the power structures of Christianity, there are white people, who have the power and sense of entitlement to keep THEIR Jesus white. In doing so, they protect their "culture". In doing so, they feel safe. In doing so, they remain in control, while minorities either have to accept the fact that they're on the outside (in delusional joy or in disdain - because deep down we know what time it is) or continue to challenge the notion of a Jesus who only fits one type of person, and be seen as a rebel.

Ironically and thankfully, Jesus, no matter what race that we may see Him as, is always read in the gospels as a rebel.

[toomuchtimenerd]

Review for ‘A Curse So Dark and Lonely’ by Brigid Kemmerer

Aaaand here’s yet another popular retelling of ‘Beauty and the Beast’. So something to know about me - I LOVE fairy tale retellings. I grew up on a lot of fairy tales, lots of Disney princess movies (most of which are based off fairy tales or in the case of Mulan, a ballad/folk legend). I’m pretty sure growing up I had this giant anthology of a bunch of old European fairy tales that had been adapted for children’s reading. I’m pretty sure my love for magic, fantasy, and all kinds of other-worldly things stems from how much I read and re-read everything in that kid’s anthology as an eight year old or something. Nowadays, I am on the lookout for anthologies with adaptations of folk lore from other cultures. Hopefully I will soon find some that seem promising.

So A Curse So Dark and Lonely is, interestingly, not a stand-alone and its sequel came out earlier this month. I opted to stop after the first book and not pick up the sequel, for reasons that I will divulge in later. A Curse, like The Cruel Prince, has incredibly favorable reviews on Goodreads, and for good reason really. It’s just unfortunate that neither of these two books quite hit the spot for me. Perhaps in the future I will pick up the sequel for A Curse, but with the third book planned for a late 2021 release I probably will not be reading A Curse So Fierce and Broken anytime soon. Something already tells me that I may have to put recreational reading on the back burner for an extended period of time once again when I go back to school. Sadface

A Curse So Dark and Lonely loosely follows the widely known story line for ‘Beauty and the Beast’, with notable changes in that the main character (Harper) has cerebral palsy and is transported from our non-magical contemporary world to the magical kingdom of Emberfall. Our Prince Rhen does not adopt the appearance of a beast 24/7, but rather transforms into one at the end of the repeating autumn season. In his transformed state, he has a penchant for violence and generally does not retain any sense of mind or humanity. When he yet again fails to win a woman’s love, the season will restart to the day of his 18th birthday and he will have to try again with a new woman. Rhen is accompanied only by the sole survivor of his first transformation, a royal guard named Grey. Grey was given the power to go to Harper’s world and take a woman to bring back to Emberfall for Rhen to court. This entire curse was brought down by an enchantress named Lilith, who apparently exists only to torture everyone’s existence. Harper wasn’t originally chosen by Grey, but Harper witnessed Grey “abducting” an unconscious woman and chose to interfere, which leads to her transportation into Emberfall. 

So let’s talk about the obvious; the representation of disabled peoples in this book via our protagonist Harper. She has cerebral palsy, and this is made very clear within the first chapter of the book. Props to the author for not OVER-emphasizing Harper’s disability, though. I love representation, and I believe in the power of representation, but I’m not a fan of when representation goes too far and it becomes the sole definition of a character’s existence. It comes off as lazy writing when a character brings no substance or value aside from the fact that they represent some kind of minority group. However, this isn’t the case here and I think Kemmerer did a wonderful job of blending Harper’s cerebral palsy into the background, yet not enough for the reader to completely forget that she is living with a disability. There are times when Harper is in a lot of pain and isn’t able to do certain things as easily as other people can, but her perseverance/grit/determination shows us that she is still just like any other human being trying to get by. She doesn’t view herself as a victim of her disability either, it’s just something she was born with and has learned to live with. It is a part of her, and even if she doesn’t like it she has learned to accept it as a part of her. I think Kemmerer sends a beautiful message in portraying Harper’s attitude with her cerebral palsy: there is no need to feel victimized by one’s disability, and there is no need to hate oneself for it either.

Outside of Harper’s disability, she is a very standard YA fantasy heroine - hardworking, passionate, cautious, determined, guarded. Is it bad that I’m getting a little bit tired of this character trope? I kind of want to see a heroine who isn’t so perfect, and I kind of want to see someone who is a little whiny or bratty at first but then grows from their hardships and experiences. Harper, like many YA fantasy heroines, just seems to start out incredibly likable (or maybe too likable) with the perfect package of personality traits. Now I’m not necessarily complaining about this, but I definitely would’ve liked to see a little more substance from Harper outside of just “I need to find a way to get home and I’m going to keep rebelling until I do”. Obviously this wasn’t her as a character the ENTIRE book, but it definitely was more or less the only thing passing through her mind for maybe the first 40% of the book. Another issue I took with her (or maybe not even her as a character, maybe it’s an issue I have with the book itself) is her wishywashy-ness in regards to her feelings. For pretty much the entire book up until Grey takes her home, Harper at best only deeply cares about and respects Rhen. But in the last 20% of the book when Grey takes her back to Emberfall to face the transformed Rhen, Harper suddenly proclaims her love for him and is willing to pretty much give herself up to Lilith to spare Rhen and Grey. That’s a huge change in emotions, and according to the book timeline this change of feelings happens over the course of like... 36 hours or something. And then the book ends on a MASSIVE ambiguity over whether the curse was broken because Harper truly loved Rhen, or if it was because Grey had succeeded in killing Lilith. So, we went from “I deeply care for you and I find comfort in your company” to “I would DIE for you” to “did the curse break because I love you? Idk” over the course of like... 3-4 chapters? Uhhhhh. Yeah I’ve got questions.

Now I know this review is coming off as pretty negative, and not gonna lie I don’t think I was a big fan of this retelling but I certainly don’t think it was bad either. Rhen’s character development was so captivating and surprising because most YA authors generally don’t pay much attention into developing the male lead as much as the heroine. In all honesty, Harper began pretty perfect with very little room for growth so she her character progression just seemed to stagnate to me. But Rhen starts off as a meh character who didn’t seem to learn all that much from his countless failures of wooing women during his cursed time and progresses into a very selfless leader (re: true KING). He goes from isolating himself in his castle while trying to break the curse to nearly ignoring the curse so he could focus on protecting and caring for his people. I guess it’s pretty obvious that I really liked Rhen as a character, and I personally think he deserves a lot better than that ending we got. It wasn’t a bad ending, and I think Kemmerer wanted to be original in creating a somewhat ambiguous ending. But as a hardcore romance junkie I think I may have a narrow scope of what my heart can tolerate for any retelling of ‘Beauty and the Beast’. 

And finally, let’s talk about Grey. He’s not a POV character in this first book, but he’s in almost every single chapter and he plays a pretty big role. At the beginning I thought I was going to get a load of a love triangle, but thank GOD that wasn’t the case. I’m all for originality, but my mind will never be okay with a love triangle in ‘Beauty and the Beast’. It’s beauty and the fucking beast!! Not beauty and the beast featuring Ludacris!! Is it obvious that I don’t like love triangles to begin with? Yeah. Anyway, Grey is an interesting character. I kind of saw the epilogue coming, because for a side character Grey was too fleshed out and well developed (considering side characters rarely are, except for my one true love Despina from Wrath and the Dawn). But nevertheless, I quite enjoyed Grey! In the beginning of the story I felt like he served almost as a foil to Rhen. They were quite the opposites in terms of personality, but they ultimately are working towards the same goal. Watching Grey’s relationship with Harper unfold on paper was also quite nice. Unlike Rhen, Grey starts off kinda antagonizing Harper (with good reason, considering their first encounter consisted of her attacking him). Rhen is kind and very elaborate in his words and manners with Harper, but Grey very much the opposite. He speaks simply, he’s a man of actions, and is mostly very detached from his emotions. I actually felt his character complimented Harper’s character quite well (considering her own emotional detachment), and I think this is what Kemmerer was going for anyway since Harper does actually warm up to Grey much quicker than she warms up to Rhen. 

Some last thoughts to wrap it up - while I understand that Kemmerer wanted to bridge the gap between this book and its sequel, I felt that she pulled WAY too much of the spotlight from Rhen/Harper and onto Grey. The ending between Rhen/Harper felt incredibly rushed, and again I just don’t think I like the ambiguity over what actually broke the curse. I was thinking about giving A Curse So Dark and Lonely a 4-star rating for most of the book up until the end, and now I’m thinking it’s more like a 3.5 star from me. The last couple of chapters were heavily action-packed, and Kemmerer’s way of tying up the lose strings (pushing the foreign army out of Emberfall) was very creative. But the ending following all of that action was just so... bland and unexciting. It was like dumping a large tub of water on a small campfire that was just starting to grow warm. I like Grey as character, but not enough to want to read the sequel where he stars as a POV just yet. 

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Golden Girls and Lost Boys

Shimmin considers a Disney film much too seriously for anyone's good.~

Spoiler warning for Tangled.

Recently, I went to watch Tangled (in 3D! not that it matters, and because there wasn't an alternative, but there you are), the new Disney Rapunzel film. I'm not planning to do yer'actual review of it, and I'm not that interested in getting into heavy analysis of the plot or logic or of a Disney film based on a fairy tale, because that would be silly. It was fun, it was more-or-less for children, it was funny, it was sweet if a bit saccharine, it had an awesome horse. Their version also seemed quite original, which is something I tend to forget about Disney films. Anyway, this article is not about that. It brought up some vaguely interesting issues that I thought might be worth waffling about in case anyone else also found them interesting.

Synopsis

The Disney plot is rather different, and people might not be over-familiar with the details of Rapunzel anyway, so here's the gist. A drop of sunlight falls to earth and grows into a magical flower (just go with it, okay?). An old woman finds the flower, and discovers that if she sings a particular magical song to it, it glows with healing light that temporarily restores her youth (ditto). She hides it and uses it to stay young and beautiful for an unspecified but long time. The Queen becomes ill while pregnant, so they send the army to find the fabled flower. They make a healing potion from it, which works, and the child is born as a beautiful golden-haired daughter (it wasn't entirely clear when the mop of hair appeared, but stick with me here). One night, the old woman sneaks into the palace to steal a lock of hair, believing it'll have the same healing properties. But when she cuts it, the hair loses its power. In desperation, she steals the baby. Nobody knows what happened to the princess, and they never find her. Every year on her birthday, they release Chinese lanterns to remember her.

Eighteen years later, thieves break in and steal the princess' crown (presumably a traditional item from the treasury) which is handily kept on a cushion beneath a skylight with all the guards facing away. They're pursued, and one (Flynn) splits off from the others with the crown, escaping the guards but still followed by an angry horse. He finds a tower in a hidden valley, which seems like an ideal hiding place. Sadly, he's beaten unconscious by an 18-year-old Rapunzel with a pan, and stuffed in a cupboard. Rapunzel wants to go and see the floating lights she's spotted every year on her birthday, but her mother won't let her. After yet another argument, which dissuades her from revealing her prisoner to her mother, she decides to make the man take her instead while her mother's away. Wacky adventures and angst and excitement ensue. The two fall in love, and are followed by the old woman, who uses Flynn's betrayed partners to set an ambush, and sets it up to look like he's abandoned Rapunzel so she'll accept her mother's advice and won't try to leave the tower again. He escapes, comes to see her, is mortally wounded, and has a pointless heroic moment of sacrifice that is negated by Lurve. Old woman crumbles to dust, Rapunzel is reunited with her family, and all live happily ever after. Except the old woman, and presumably the now-imprisoned Stabbington Brothers.

Family Matters

One of the things that was vaguely interesting about the film was the family issues it brought up. The thing that really got my attention was right at the end, during the reuinion, when the narrator (i.e. Flynn) says something like: "...Rapunzel finally had a real family..."

Let's leave aside the likely problems for a girl brought up by a single parent in humble surroundings in a small tower, who's barely met a handful of people in her life, joining two unknown biological parents of immense wealth and power who live in a massive castle and incidentally becoming the biggest celebrity of all time. I'm sure there will be no issues whatsoever getting accustomed to that. Or long-term trauma associated with the violent death of the woman who brought her up and whom she sincerely loved. This is a fairy tale. However, it does get me thinking about families.

The old woman is never named in the story. I do wonder why; perhaps to stop us having any sympathy with her, though villains in other stories are named, or perhaps they simply couldn't be bothered inventing a name. It does dehumanize her a bit. Anyway, I'm going to call her Agnes. So Agnes has, indeed, kidnapped Rapunzel to use her supernatural power so she can live forever. This is Not Okay. And she keeps her trapped in the tower so she won't either leave her, or be found by anyone. The thing is, apart from that, she treats her as a daughter.

Now, I am not going to claim she's a great mother. She's controlling and emotionally manipulative, which I suppose isn't that surprising when she's keeping Rapunzel there basically by force of will. She's only tepidly affectionate. On the other hand, Rapunzel's very comfortable and, apart from a desire to see the outside world, she's pretty happy. She has nice furniture and playthings, nice clothes, and an apparently endless supply of hobby materials. They don't seem to have a luxurious diet, but neither do most peasants; and Agnes makes a point of cooking Rapunzel's favourite food when she visits. She's also educated her brilliantly: although a tad naive, she knows everything an ordinary, non-imprisoned girl would know. She recognises Flynn as a man, knows what birthdays mean, how drowning works, and when she's in danger. The outside world doesn't really phase her, so she must know about nature and geography, and she seems to have a decent grasp of society and normal behaviour too. She's articulate, intelligent and very pleasant. In fact, given the difficulties of the situation, Agnes is one of the most successful child-raisers I've ever heard of. It's very clear that, right until the end, Rapunzel is very fond of her mother. Regardless of Agnes' ultimate feelings towards the girl, she treats her extremely well so far as the situation allows. Compare, say, Cinderella or Snow White. Agnes may not be a great mother, but she's actually not a terrible one.

I was talking about this to Dan, and he summed up my argument here as basically: "Apart from kidnapping a baby, pretending to be her mother, bringing her up alone in a tower for eighteen years and deceiving her for her own selfish ends, she's not a particularly bad mother". The thing is, ridiculous as it sounds, I think that's about right. The things she's done wrong aren't really about how she raised Rapunzel, but more general wrongs that intertwine with that. The problem is that Agnes' dual status as adoptive mother and kidnapper rather complicates the issue.

As far as Rapunzel is concerned, at least, Agnes is her family. The thing that changes that is not really a shift in their relationship, or anything Agnes does; it's seeing a picture of the baby princess and then seeing herself in the mirror wearing the crown. It's a revelation of Objective Truth ('you are Really the Princess, the Queen and King are your Real Family'), rather than anything about the family itself - right until that moment, Rapunzel thinks of Agnes as her mother and loves her.

There's a decent argument that it's not a good family, because it's built on a tissue of lies. It's also possible that Agnes has no real affection for Rapunzel - she doesn't show any active affection in the film. On the other hand, she's brought the girl up for 18 years, and in that time, I'd have expected things to crystallise one way or the other. The first option is to view and treat her as a useful tool or a pet, in which case I wouldn't expect Rapunzel to be so well educated or comfortable; that's extra effort and liable to encourage further trouble, when you could bring her up cowed and ignorant so she won't get ideas. If, on the other hand, Agnes brings her up as though she was her daughter and treats her kindly, you'd expect some affection to arise on both sides.

Now, I don't think Disney thought much about this one throwaway line and I'm not that interested in decrying them. A fairly normative and slightly old-fashioned way of thinking is par for the course. I suppose the "real family" reference means one with honesty and love, rather than manipulation, deceit and using your daughter selfishly. It means the parents who wanted you and loved you unconditionally, rather than someone who stole you for selfish reasons, whether or not they've got fond of you. In context, though, it had a faint whiff of narrow-mindedness: that what really matters isn't who brought you up or how you felt about them, but your genes (and incidentally having two parents, not just one). The fact is though, Rapunzel actually had a pretty happy family life before all this kicked off.

From My Point of View, the Jedi are Arguably Morally Ambiguous

Although the story glosses over her, I was also quite interested in Agnes and her actions. We don't ever find out anything about her, other than her use of the flower and her relationship with Rapunzel. We don't know her background, her history, or what she does when she's not visiting Rapunzel. Why should we? Rapunzel doesn't either. She's presented pretty much exclusively as a manipulative, selfish woman, whose use of the flower is immoral, and who commits a string of selfish acts to keep herself young and live forever. I'm not sure how convinced I am by that portrayal, or the way morality is defined in this story as a whole.

Agnes is lucky enough to find the flower and discover its powers. She keeps it hidden and uses it to stay young (and therefore alive) for, well, a long time. She chooses to keep it to herself, which is selfish, but I wonder how long she'd get to keep it if people found out about it? She could legitimately have all kinds of worries about that, so keeping it hidden isn't that unreasonable. As it turns out, the first thing that happens when the flower's discovered is it gets taken - so her hypothetical suspicions are vindicated.

Now for a look at the Castle. When the Queen is ill, the Castle mount a frantic last-chance search for the rumoured magical flower, and due to carelessness on Agnes' part, find it. Under her very eyes, they carefully dig it up and take it away to the castle. Someone makes it into a magic potion, which heals the Queen and (probably) saves her daughter's life too.

The issue here is the magic flower. Who has the right to use it, and what uses are acceptable?

The flower just appears. There's no reason it belongs to anyone, but Agnes has as much claim to it as anyone. Agnes uses it to save her own life; the Castle use it to save the Queen's life (and her unborn daughter). While Agnes keeps the flower to herself, nobody else benefits; once the Castle destroy the flower, nobody else can ever benefit. There's a touch of criticism in the film's portrayal of Agnes' actions, as though it were a crime to seek immortality. I don't know much about ethics, but I suspect issues like immortality are much more complicated than "it's bad to try and live forever". The Castle's actions are presented straightforwardly as a good thing. To be honest, I can't really see much difference. From a purely practical perspective, the first is a much more efficient use of the flower. The only real difference I can see between them is that Agnes chooses to save herself, whereas someone else (the King?) chooses to save the Queen. The first is more obviously selfish; but the second involves destroying an item of fantastic potential benefit to the world, which doesn't actually belong to the King any more than it does to anyone else, to extend the life of his wife. Not entirely unselfish.

Once the flower is destroyed, Agnes is doomed. Having and then losing immortality is more of a blow than never having it. She works out that Rapunzel's hair could do the same job, and plans to steal a lock. It's a bit skeevy, and involves burglary; on the other hand, the Castle are responsible for her plight, and taking a lock of hair shouldn't actually harm anyone. I can't really see the Castle giving her one, so theft or death is pretty much the choice. It all goes downhill from there.

In a sense, the story is a series of choices that Agnes has to make, each one more morally questionable. Initially, she chooses to keep the flower's benefits for herself, rather than risk sharing it. Then she chooses to try and steal a lock of hair to regain her lost immortality, rather than dying to avoid a relatively minor crime that harms nobody. She's cheated of that option by the way the magic works. The real problem starts when, panicking, she chooses to steal the baby rather than die. Then she chooses to deceive and manipulate her stolen daughter rather than risk her running away. Then she chooses to genuinely betray her (by acting against Rapunzel's interests) to get Rapunzel and her own immortality back. Finally, when the truth comes out, she chooses to resort to force rather than lose Rapunzel and die. Agnes is stuck on a slippery slope, where each decision makes it harder to give up the immortality for which she's done so much, and makes it easier to take the next and wronger step. What she ends up doing, and her treatment of Rapunzel, is clearly wrong, but it's not nearly as simple as her being a wicked old woman.

One of my friends suggested that one reason why Agnes and the Queen are portrayed differently is that people find it creepy for old people to want to be young and live forever; but saving and extending the lives of young, beautiful people is fine. There might be something in that.

A Bit of a Lad

The other thing I found a bit off about Tangled was its hero. Aladdin had a thief hero, but it was a little different. He was clearly a destitute beggar who stole food to live. Flynn Rider, the hero of Tangled, is also from a humble background, but he's more of a professional thief - all we know is that he's conspiring to steal a crown from the palace.

Now, thieves as heroes are a well-established trope in literature. However, Flynn is clearly not only a thief, but an untrustworthy thief. In the film, he's sort of contrasted against the Stabbington Brothers, his partners, in a way that is clearly supposed to show him in a good light. However, if you look at the details, it's rather murkier. He is willingly engaged in the robbery at the palace, and makes it very clear that it's a chance to live in luxury rather than a matter of need. All three are chased by the soldiers and trapped in a dead-end gully. Flynn offers to climb up and help them after him; they don't trust him and insist he leaves the bag with the crown with them. However, once he gets to the top they clearly believe he'll help them escape too. Instead, he reveals the bag he's somehow managed to steal back, mocks them, and runs off to save his own hide. In other words, he betrays his partners and leaves them trapped in a gully to die at the hands of the soldiers. That is not the act of a hero, not even a thief. That is not being a rough diamond, or a rogue. That is being a treacherous backstabbing git. As it happens, the soldiers spot him and chase after him instead, but that's clearly not the intention.

Rather surprisingly, he does behave mostly honourably towards Rapunzel. He does try to deter her from going through with the plan, but since he's a wanted outlaw liable to be killed if he gets spotted in the kingdom, it's not that unreasonable. He's not doing it just to get the crown back. When she does offer him the crown later, he's in love with her and tries to give it to the Stabbington Brothers. To be honest, though, that came across more as a way to weasel out of any comeuppance for his betrayal and get them off his back, rather than a genuine attempt to face up to his actions or any real remorse. Unsurprisingly, they prefer to exact some revenge.

There's also a scene in the middle where they visit a dive. As part of his attempt to persuade Rapunzel to give up the excursion, he takes her to a wretched hive of etc. This being Disney, a bit of eyelid fluttering and a song show up all the murderous thugs as sweethearts deep down. The fact is, though, if it's even remotely as bad at it appears, he has no business taking her there. All the men there are clearly villainous and criminal, and there are no women there at all. Taking a naive 18-year old girl there, while (as we soon find out) not having the ability to protect either of you if there's trouble, is not only utterly stupid but an unforgivable failure of responsibility.

Despite all this, it's the Stabbingtons who are treated as the real criminals, who deserve only to be locked up. They're also the only characters, other than Agnes, who don't get a happy ending: the last we see of them, they're locked in the castle dungeon. Given that Flynn was about to be hanged for stealing the crown, I don't fancy their chances much.

In a way, neither the Stabbingtons or Agnes are villains, any more than Flynn is really a hero. They're all people who are faced with decisions, and sometimes choose the wrong ones. Agnes does wrong to avoid dying, the Stabbingtons and Flynn do wrong for profit, and the Queen does no obvious wrong. The reason they come across differently is that everyone has different choices to make. Agnes has to choose between crime and death; the Queen doesn't have to make that choice. The Stabbingtons and Flynn all choose to steal the crown, but Flynn's the one who chooses to betray them to death. The Stabbingtons choose to seek revenge when it's offered, but Flynn doesn't have any revenge to seek. Flynn is kind to Rapunzel and falls in love with her, but the Stabbingtons don't get the opportunity. The Stabbingtons plan to capture Rapunzel and profit from her powers; Flynn doesn't find out about them until he's already her friend, she's saved his life and they're well on their way to falling in love. It's not that surprising that, treacherous git as he is, he doesn't take that option. Whether he would have or not, we don't know. But while falling in love might redeem people to one another, simply falling in love with Rapunzel doesn't turn Flynn from a thieving, untrustworthy scoundrel into a noble hero.

Fundamentally, though, I'm thinking far too much about a very fun and nicely-executed children's film that I really enjoyed watching. Let's not take it too seriously.

[oliviathomasba2b]

Research - Notes and Tables: Queer Coding

I think it's intended to add "uneasiness" into the audience. Alfred Hitchcock did this with movies like "Rope" or "Strangers on a Train", because he felt that adding queer subtext to the films would make the audience feel uneasy and edgy, which was his intended reaction from these thriller movies. Now it's almost second nature for storytellers, especially in children's media, to add "queerness" in order to make the character easily identified as a villain or to strike that same unease into the audience. People associate queerness with comfortableness because it can be considered odd and not ‘normal’ to the majority of audiences.

Stereotypes used in male queer coding might include being flamboyant, feminine, talking with a lisp, being prim, vain or wanton.

When used unconsciously a writer sees these collections of traits or behaviours without realising they’re linked to queer men, but still understands that they are used symbolically as a sign of immorality

The sissy villain is a long-standing trope that is often associated with the hays code – a code in the 1940s in Hollywood which meant that you couldn’t have portrayals of LGBT people on screen that were positive in any way. The rooting of this trope is entirely grounded within the demonization of femininity, especially amongst men and outright homophobia

It’s not about a character actually being gay, but using negative stereotypes around gay and queer people

Examples:

Jafar – wears makeup and talks with languid sensuality

Ursula – based on the famous drag queen Divine, she is vain and sexual with a husky voice and exaggerated makeup

Hades – exaggerates hand gestures and sass

Ratcliffe- vain, wears bows in his hair, obsessed with gold and glitter. He hates masculine physical labour and dotes on his tiny prim dog

King candy – Flamboyant, pronounce lisp, bright pink décor in the castle and is labelled by our hero as ‘nelly wafer’ which employs a gay slur

The focus on Disney due to its ‘world of didactic storytelling and morality shaping through fiction. Children’s media, stories and fairy tales are how children learn about themselves and the world around them about morality – what is good and what is bad to be and do.

Obvious vices are often the main drive or plot are not to be mean greedy or violent for example – but other traits seep in especially if they’re repeated. – From a very early age, we’re conflating queerness and gender expression outside of the binary with evil and villainy, especially with no counterpoints due to the total lack of positive and canonical queerness in children’s media.

This can mirror a lack or representation or effeminate men or butch women for that matter in anything other than a sidekick, comic relief or secondary role.

Due to a lack of queer heroes and protagonists, especially that straight outside of gender binary – look at why this is.

 The Queer Power of Witches

I believe they [witches] share a magic unspoken bond with queer people even though they’re always cast as the villains; secretly they’re everything we wish we could be.

Within Matt Baume’s podcast series ‘the sewers of Paris’ he spoke various gay men and discussed the entertainment that changed their lives. Baume recons that if you were to ask a gay man who their favourite witch is they’ll have an answer.

He believes that the reason for this is due to witches being powerful women who step outside their gender roles to wield incredible control.

Ordinary people don’t understand them [witches] they fear them and when they’re found out they’re thrown out of town, sent into exile and if they’re unlucky burned

No wonder queer people love witches – they’re outcasts punished for being different. They know our pain. Like us witches often pass as mundane humans they slip into disguise, painfully cloaking their true forms in dreary camouflage

Witches are eternal outsiders and so they have to learn to be fearless and brave on their own. Being rejected teaches them strength and they become self-made, self-reliant and self-confident

The Evolution Of Queerbaiting: From Queercoding to Queercatching

They way that mental health is portrayed on film Is not just a reflection of the way society thinks about mental health, but in fact, the way it’s presented on film actually informs the way that people think about mental health itself.

Hays code – Hollywood had to follow. – the code lasted up until basically the 1960s, but the legacy of it and the effects of it lasted way past that – there’s a kind of proxy ban on showing healthy and happy queer people in relationships kept going. It wasn’t until the 1970s where a more mainstream vaguely positive portrayal of a gay man was shown on US screens (the teleplay ‘That Certain Summer’. Waited another decade in the UK to see a man kiss another man in soap Eastenders 1987 (even then it was only on the forehead and there were many complaints)

There’s a period where we have the development of an extremely influential art form, film, with a very narrow idea about whose stories got to be told, both through the code itself, but also more general social ideas at the time.

Taking something that is associated with queerness, even stereotypically, especially if it somehow threatens the status quo of cis normativity or heteronormativity and gender essentialism.

Essentially one effect of this is that we associate the attributes that we associate with queerness as something that is inherently negative, not just queerness itself so we can give a character those attributes and we automatically think of them in a negative way.

Use of queercoding in characters at the beginning of the film was a way of getting queerness past censors or it’s a very quick-hand way to show something that is perverse or some kind of villainy

It serves as a very easy opposition to a hyper-masculine hero – something that is very celebrated. Using these outdated gender ideals it makes the hero seem even better than the villain is the opposite

By contrasting the villain with the hero it has this dual purpose of making the hero seem even better in comparison, but then also damming the attributes that the villain has to villainy because they aren’t shared with the hero

Queer people may feel a kind of affinity to queercoded villains – for them there is a kind of subversive power of existing outside of the gender binary, outside of this ideal of heteronormativity and heteronormative romance

The language of cinema created through the Hay’s code endured for a long time. It taught new generations of filmmakers what queer characters should look like how they should act, how they should be treated onscreen, and what a villain should look like even if they didn’t realise the homophobic origins and implications of using those tropes

Why Are There No Gay Characters in Kid's Films? || Visual Essay

Research by William T.L Cox at the university of Wisconsin – Madison shows that negative stereotyping and prejudiced mind-sets in media contribute significantly to bullying, harassment, depression and suicide.

LGBT youth even from ages as young as 10 are at higher risk of suicide than their straight and cis peers – being 4 times as likely to attempt to take their own life and 6 times more likely to self-harm

An example of the sexuality of a character being revealed as the punch line of a joke is the character of Mitch in Paranorman who is revealed to have a boyfriend at the very end of the movie. This ‘twist’ ending relies on both the absence of gay characters from kids media and the stereotype that gay men are not the athletic jock types, to create an unexpected payoff.

Steven Universe – in 2016 the UK aired an episode of the show where same-sex romance had been censored. The romantic dance between Pearl and Rose Quartz instead featured close-ups of completely different characters. Many people say it’s actually the overseas markets in Asia and China specifically which causes shows to downplay LGBT characters but the fact the UK changed the original US show for a British audience suggests its more complex than that. In a statement Cartoon Network UK said:

“In the UK we have to ensure everything on air is suitable for kids of any age at any time. We do feel that the slightly edited version is more comfortable for local kids and their parents. Research shows that UK kids often watch with younger siblings without parental supervision. Be assured that as a channel and network we celebrate diversity – evident across many of our shows and characters”

However, this isn’t actually true. The description of the British U rating the lowest age rating that we have in this country and the one which cartoon network aims for, say “Character may be seen kissing or cuddling and there may be a reference to sexual behaviour”. This cute romantic scene [from Steven universe] was clearly seen as too sexual.

Important to note that these videos may be more opinion based than factual - therefore a bias or unbiased view may be given. Information may be very relevant, just important to note that the sources may not be reliable and should be used with caution.  

[katherinelhughes]

Ireland Impressions

I just returned yesterday from a five-day trip to Ireland with my daughter, Isabelle.  She is applying to grad schools, and this last summer I let her know that I had AAdvantage miles that needed to be used.  I thought she might use them to travel to interviews, but it turns out that in the world of Biology, the schools pay for prospective students to come interview.  I realized yet again that I chose a difficult field--as a free-lance professional violinist, I’ve gotten used to paying to play, so to speak...  Anyway, she suggested that we take a trip to Ireland.  She works in a lab with someone who had gone there on his honeymoon, and he had very enthusiastically recommended that she go.

Without going into a lot of detail, Isabelle had a run-in with a virulent virus (I know that’s redundant) in September.  The virus caused some frightening seizures which resulted in two hospitalizations.  We weren’t sure that we would be able to go on our trip, scheduled for the end of November.  So when Isabelle got the okay from her doctors, it was excellent news, in many ways.

We had held off making hotel reservations, but fortunately the end of November is off-season in Ireland.  Ordinarily I would have done a lot of research to decide where to visit and where to stay, but the last-minute nature of our planning made that impossible.  Maybe the more spontaneous approach to this adventure made it more satisfying.  Also, thanks to crowd-sourced reviews of everything on the internet, gone are the days of toting guidebooks around.  Our last big trip was to Munich and environs--eight years ago--and we definitely did that the old-fashioned way. 

Okay, I’ll get on with it.  We actually had five full days in Ireland, bookended by two days of travel.  The airline travel was unremarkable, which might be remarkable, now that I think of it.  Our plan was to spend one night in Dublin, two nights in Galway, one night in Cork, and the last night back in Dublin.

Day One: Dublin

Our hotel was just south of the River Liffey in the City Centre.  We took a cab there from the airport and dropped off our suitcases so we could immediately start exploring.  On our way to see the library at Trinity College, we ran across a cool exhibit of art books at a gallery.  A good start.  At the library we learned that only a facsimile of the Book of Kells (the famous medieval manuscript) would be on display that week.  Not a big deal, especially since the library itself was awe-inspiring.  I overheard someone saying something about Harry Potter, and we learned that they had shot a library scene there.  It was also featured in one of the later Star Wars movies.  Did that make it more meaningful to me?  I’m almost ashamed to admit that it may have...  We also visited the Guinness Storehouse in the early evening.  It’s described as a “brewery experience”.  A bit too theme-parkish for my taste, but I definitely know more about the process of brewing beer in huge quantities!  The top floor bar where we had our complimentary pint has a 360 degree view of the city.  We had two great meals that day, both at pubs.  I have a much different impression of what pub food is now--many vegetarian and even vegan options.

Day Two: Dublin to Galway

A few days before our trip, I literally awoke in a cold sweat about driving on the left side of the road.  My colleague Catherine had given this advice, to be used as a mantra: drive on the left and look to the right.  We were picking up the rental car, and I would be the only driver--Isabelle isn’t able to drive for six months from the time of the last seizure.  The weather was pretty intense--driving rain and wind.  I thought it was charming that so many people apologized for the weather.  We had escaped just before a big snow in Chicago, so I kept assuring folks that we had seen worse!  The driving challenge turned out to be my position on the right side of the car.  It took me an entire day of Isabelle saying “Mom, you’re over the line!” to get used to centering the car in my lane.  Driving on the left side wasn’t as weird as I had thought it would be.  And I think the roundabouts are brilliant.  They keep traffic flowing, and cause fewer accidents than traffic lights.

We had breakfast/early lunch at Tyrrellspass Castle, and continued on to another castle at Tullamore--Charleville.  Evidently, they have an annual music festival there called Castlepalooza.  They were shooting a rock video when we arrived, and we weren’t able to go in, but the drive up to it was downright magical.  That was a word that kept popping into my head over and over.  The rain and temperate climate cause the vegetation to be green, even in late November.  That, along with the mist and ancient trees, conjured up images of fairy tale enchanted forests.

We decided that we would go directly to the Cliffs of Moher since it looked like it would be rainy the following day.  The drive up there was pretty harrowing.  We were on rural roads that narrowed without much notice, and I was still trying to hone my new driving skills.  What a reward when we arrived though!  The cliffs at the edge of the Atlantic are ruggedly breathtaking.  Because it was off-season and relatively late in the day, there were very few tourists.  And there were sheep grazing right next to the trails--even a proverbial black sheep.  They are the “Shaun the Sheep” type with the black faces, and both Isabelle and I are big fans.  It’s too bad that today I started thinking about the fact that they are livestock and not pets...

When I started the car at the Cliffs, two warning lights came on.  We looked them up--Electronic Stabilization Control and Emission Control.  I figured we could make it to Galway, but we knew we would have to address the issue the next day.  Thankfully, we did get there with no trouble.  Our hotel was once again in the City Centre.  About a block away was a Christmas market with food stalls and some carnival rides.  Before we left home, I had wondered how commercial Christmas would be in Ireland.  We learned that decorations generally go up a day after Halloween, so I guess that the US isn’t the only place that extends the holiday to last over two months.  But to us, everything looked so quaint suspended over cobblestone streets.  There is also an upscale Irish department store, Brown Thomas, that does some wackily inventive holiday windows.  In Galway, one featured a male mannequin with an owl’s head.  We had another great dinner--excellent farm to table food and a vegan local beer.

Day Three: Galway

We finally had a chance to sleep in!  Then, unfortunately, we had to drop the car at an Enterprise-approved car repair facility for diagnosis.  It was very close to the City Centre, so we walked to the Fisheries Watchtower (museum) and the Galway Museum.  The wind was fierce--equal to anything I’ve experienced in Chicago, but that weather was over by 2 PM or so.  At the museum, we learned about the ancient and more recent history of the city, including the Irish uprising against the British.  I know through 23andMe that my DNA makeup is 41% British and Irish, the largest percentage in the mix.  23andMe doesn’t specify English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish--I’m probably all of the above.  We're pretty sure that the Hughes name comes from Wales, and our background is pretty thoroughly Protestant.  I grew up with the impression that the Reformation was a positive thing, and that the Protestants held the moral high ground.  But in this phase of my political thinking, my belief is that religious differences have most often been used to justify` the lust for power and the control of natural resources and goods.  I also just finished an amazing book on the trip--”Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire” by Kurt Andersen.  The US was founded by some pretty crazy Protestants, and I can’t take much pride in the ways that they behaved.  Anyway, the visit to Ireland has led me to wonder what my ancestors’ political roles were in these struggles for independence.

We had savory pie for lunch--mine was kale and wild mushroom, locally sourced again, with spelt flour crust.  Isabelle and I agreed that it was our favorite meal of the trip.  We had to go back to the car repair place, and they informed us that we needed to get a replacement vehicle.  This gave us the opportunity to talk with the lovely young woman from the Enterprise facility in Galway, the longest conversation we had with any local on the trip.  The replacement car was newer and better, and they gave us a free day’s rental, so it was a win-win-win situation!  We briefly visited the gorgeous Galway Cathedral where a nice man let us in even though they had just officially closed.  We also heard some Irish traditional music, and ate at yet another farm to table restaurant.  Incidentally, the prices were really reasonable compared to Chicago prices for similar food.

Day Four: Galway to Cork

Isabelle figured that Limerick would be a great place to stop on our way to Cork.  We ended up spending much more time there than we had planned.  After a great mocha (my first time trying oat milk) and breakfast, we went exploring.  There was a mostly ruined castle, King John’s Castle, that had an excellent museum component that inspired more rumination on the conflicts between the different factions in the British Isles.  And very nearby was the 850 year old Cathedral of St. Mary.  Very impressive to us Americans when we’re inside a building with that kind of history...

We decided to visit Blarney Castle on our way to Cork, and it was much more captivating, and much less touristy than I had imagined.  As we approached the castle on foot, we passed signs that read “90 minutes to the Blarney Stone”, “60 minutes to the Blarney Stone” etc.  We were once again grateful that we were there in the off-season.  Our wait to kiss the Blarney Stone was...0 minutes!  Yes, we did it.  There are many stories about the Stone, but the most common is that it gives you the gift of gab, and not in a good way.  But I figure I can use the gift of gab--everyone always tells me that I’m too quiet and very private.  Wow--it may already be working, since I’m writing this long involved post about our vacation!  Surrounding the castle is a gorgeous park that is truly a botanical garden, including a poison garden.  That traditionally would have had medicinal plants that “will either kill you or cure you.”  There were huge redwoods, oversized rhubarb plants, a spectacular fern garden with waterfall--magical, you might say!

We went on to Cork, found our B & B, and went into the City Centre for another excellent meal.  We wandered around, figuring out what we wanted to do there the next morning.  There was a large courtyard with a light display called “Glow” that was set to open the next day.  Also a ferris wheel that seems to be a standard part of a Christmas market--who knew?  Our B & B was pretty cool, but the woman who ran it seemed disappointed that we hadn’t opted for the breakfast part of the equation.  We had our sights set on a coffee place we had seen on our reconnaissance mission...

Day Five: Cork to Dublin

We did go to the Bean and Leaf, and it was very near to the English Market that we planned to visit.  The English Market is a covered food market that houses a huge variety of fresh grocery items.  We wondered about the origins of the name, and found out that the English or Protestant Corporation that ran Cork untl the mid 1800′s founded it.  It catered to a wealthy clientele while the Irish Market catered to the working class folk.  Now, everyone goes there, and they have all of the super-trendy foods that you would find in an upscale grocery store in the states.  We bought a few things there, walked around a bit more, and got in the car to head to our last big adventure. 

Almost as ubiquitous as the sheep on the hillsides were the rainbows.  We saw a few every day that we were driving, including a couple of double rainbows.  The conditions were perfect--light rain, followed by the sun breaking through the clouds.  Now I understand the whole leprechaun and pot of gold at the end of the rainbow image.  They seem so...magical!

I think it was the vinyl record store we checked out in Cork that got us onto the subject of rock operas.  On our next car ride we listened to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”.  It was one of the few times we listened to music in the car.  Most of the time the British-accented Google Maps lady was telling us where to go--”take the slip-road on the left.”  Thank goodness for Google Maps!  It would have been difficult to navigate all of those one-way streets with me driving on the left, using an old-fashioned map...  Anyway, it was a pretty long stretch on a main road to get us to our next destination: the Wicklow Mountains at Glendalough.  The same mountain range extends into Dublin where they’re called the Dublin Mountains.  It was astoundingly beautiful there--and the smells were so fresh and fragrant.  We hiked a very short trail that took about 50 minutes, but it gave us the flavor of the park.  We had lunch at the Glendalough Hotel.  And that reminds me--many of our servers, especially in the Dublin area, were young Eastern Europeans.  Evidently, Ireland is a very popular place to look for better job opportunities, and a better life in general.  We did remark on the fact that we saw very few people of color though.  I want to find out why that is the case.  It does make me wonder about ethnic and religious homogeneity.  Would I have felt such an affinity for Ireland if I weren’t white and culturally Christian?  

On the way down the mountain and back to Dublin, we listened to “Thick as a Brick” by Jethro Tull.  Isabelle had never heard it before.  I thought it had an appropriately Celtic feel, and was loosely in the rock opera genre.  We listened to a few Irish artists as we were making our way back into Dublin in Friday evening traffic.  We checked into our last hotel, did a bit of last-minute souvenir shopping, and ate at a pub with live music.  The two musicians played mostly traditional Irish music, but also included a few American tunes.  It was kind of a fitting transition since we would be heading to the airport in the morning.

I am so grateful that Isabelle was well enough that we could make this trip.  She was a great traveling companion, and our energy levels were very well matched.  We shared a similar idea of the optimum balance between planning and spontaneity.  I’m not sure how to wrap this up except to say: Travel with your adult children!  Go to Ireland in the off-season!  Enjoy the rainbows!

[not-poignant]

1/2 Re: your last anti-anti post. It's weird for me because for so long I didn't even get why some stuff (like in your example, hs student/teacher) warranted the underage warning. In my country, the age of consent is 14. (I live in the EU; fyi) Nobody bats an eyelid here for 15-16 year olds hooking up. Doing so with a teacher **IRL** would raise questions, sure, but more so for the power imbalance and dynamic rather than one party's youth.

2/2 It’s strange and tbh uncomfortable for me how much hate gets thrown on these works and authors when it’s a rather normal part of life here. ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ I guess Americanization does that to you. And that’s just the RL-aspect of it - the other huge point being fiction≠RL, but as you’ve mentioned people genuinely struggle understanding that. =/             

*

I definitely think like, Americanisation and the imposition of American cultural rules onto other parts of the world that have different rules, is actually a part of the shitty attitudes towards underage fics in general that have sprung up out of the anti movement. (Because it’s never genuine pedophilia they’re crusading against but like, movies like Call Me By Your Name, *sighs loudly*)

(Under the Read More, I talk a bit about American cultural imperialism and some of the tie ins it has with anti culture, so like, idk, enter at your own risk I guess?)

While our age of consent is different, it’s definitely lower than that of the United States. And so a lot of these conversations I see about how like, how we should treat minors universally, only apply narrow-spectrum rules from a corner of the globe that - for all that it seems to rule the english-speaking internet - is not actually the only population that makes up the internet.

Back when I was at university, ‘Americanisation’ was called American Cultural Imperialism (like, how to explain the local cultural erosion that happens when countries acquire a lot of US products like media), which I actually love as a term, in terms of how much ACI asserts itself over the lived experiences of people in other countries and how often that shames the lived experiences of people in other countries. Or how we’re expected to change our rules and standards to fit theirs. I have been told I should be using Australian grammar on AO3 because it’s a site based in America (I wonder if those people go to all the fics where folks are writing in languages other than English and being equally dickish? God I hope not).

When it comes to age of consent, and age issues in general, I just feel like to have very hard and fast rules over it is - in part - to disrespect the governance and decisions other countries have made, and the citizens that live within those countries pretty happily tbh. I believe in nuance and I believe in graded scales, and talking to people from many different countries for over twenty years has taught me that y’know, a lot of the world lives very differently to me and they’re perfectly happy, and that my country isn’t the Right Way for all Australians, let alone for all people ever.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of the loudest voices and the most Fundamentalist voices are sometimes coming from a place where like, some of these people (not all, for sure, but definitely some) expect their cultural rules and views to apply all over the world in the same way. And it’s just not like that. Even something like age of consent is subjective enough to change from country to country, to change from year to year, decade to decade, state to state.

I’m not against fictional underage anyway. There are circumstances where I find it uncomfortable or where I wish it didn’t exist (in the same way that I wish that some super violent video games didn’t exist, but where I then go: ‘well, that’s something I don’t fully understand and that bothers me, but it hasn’t led to an increase in X crimes, so clearly something is happening there that I’m ignorant of’ rather than ‘this makes me uncomfortable, therefore, we must BURN IT WITH FIRE’). But in the majority of circumstances, I just don’t really care enough about it because I know it doesn’t - when well-tagged for - do damage in existing. It is, to me, no different than the explicit rape and murder in Game of Thrones or the dismembering and slow stalking of human beings in Dexter. It’s uncomfortable, it’s taboo, it can reflect problematic things in society we need to discuss (note: discuss, not: verbally tell people they should kill themselves for writing/reading it), and fictional spaces exist so this stuff can exist. Fiction wasn’t only invented for the tame shit. It was kind of never there for the tame shit. The tame shit takes up space there too, but honestly, fiction was invented for our taboo shit.

Anyone who has looked at original fairy tales, or folklore, can see pretty clearly that while stories of hope existed, it was actually the taboo shit that was the domain of our fiction. From almost all cultures (I’d say all cultures, but I haven’t researched all cultures, lol).

We wouldn’t have room for sunshiny fluffy stuff in the first place if we didn’t make fictional room for the dark stuff, the cautionary tales, the grim folklore that had bad endings, the fairy tales since the dawn of time that had underage, incest, rape, forced weddings and more. It is one of the backbones of the human psyche that will never be eliminated - many people need a place to safely explore that Id.

Anyway, I’m rambling now. But yeah, anon, I completely agree with you. Also *high fives* for living in a country with a different age of consent and then sometimes having moments where like ‘wait what? How is 17 underage? OH. Americans probably.’

[mouseymatchmaker]

I'd like to request a One Piece, Fairy Tail, and Kingdom Hearts matchup if that's okay. I'm a straight male ENFJ. I’m a Christian, but I understand and respect that other people have different views. I feel that I'm a caring person, almost to a fault. I'm a bit affectionate, but I'm very respecting of boundaries. I'm kind of a geek at heart. I love listening to music, weapons and anything with cool mythos/lore. I also enjoy cooking and origami when I can find the time for them. Thanks :)

You got it! 

One Piece:

Nico Robin immediately made this because of the fact you can respect other people and their views. This means she can have an in-depth discussion with you and what influences your views, if anything even does influence it! She appreciates that you respect boundaries as well, and will communicate very much to you when those boundaries are increasing/receding. You’re just an easy person for her to communicate with. Mythos and lore is where the heart of your relationship is though, together you two would read ancient texts and make connections to lore. You’re the ones discovering the origins of lore and whether there’s actually any truth in these myths. Discoverers extraordinaire! She’d like you to teach her origami, but she’s sasses you by making loads with her various arms. But don’t worry, that’s not her trying to steal your thunder or the things that you enjoy. She’s just teasing you.

Overall, marry her. I want you both to discover secrets of the ancient worlds. That is all.

Fairy Tail:

Erza immediate came to mind for you. She uses requip magic so she’s very familiar with weapons and armor. She’d be happy to show you them all and their characteristics. This also means that she knows what suits who, so if you wanna get suited up with a weapon/armor, she’s more than happy to assist you. I think she’d also enjoy cooking with you, if there’s a particular recipe she really likes then you’re going to have to teach her it, because she really wants to be able to cook it for you some day. I think she’d learn origami, but she wouldn’t be too invested in it, but anything you made for her, she will keep. She appreciates the fact that you respect boundaries and other peoples views, but unlike with Robin, she’s probably not going to have as in-depth a discussion about it. Her world is filled with mythos/lore so she would happily tell you tales about that. If there’s ever a mission regarding it too, she’ll take you along for the ride! 

Overall, generally your relationship surrounds the weapons aspect. I can see you both becoming experts in the weapons field!

Kingdom Hearts:

This was tough because I noticed there weren’t many KH exclusive women. I think I personally narrowed it down to 4 (Kairi, Aqua, Xion and Larxene) everyone else is Disney or FF.  So this was tough with that in mind, but I settled on Aqua. You like weapons? How about learning about a keyblade, and from a keyblade master no better? She’d happily teach you all she knew about it. And that in it’s own right could take you into the lore of the keyblade. Weapons and lore? Weapons lore? You both have it down! She’s quite creative, so she’d love for you to teach her origami! And in return, she’ll teach you how to make a wayfinder! Like Erza, she’d like you to teach her some favorite recipes for her to cook for you. But she’ll also teach you her own favorite recipes, so you have more to be able to cook! 

Overall, generally a decent start to the relationship and she’ll probably look to you for emotional support.

[syzygyzip]

The Myth and Meaning of MissingNo

A few notes about this essay: first, I have removed the period from the name “MissingNo.” for ease of transcription. I also refer to MissingNo’s sibling as Bar ‘M Bar or [][][][] ‘M [][][][] because its real name is irreproducible in Unicode:

Also, for the purposes of this essay it is helpful to think of Pokémon less as animals and more as a gamut of spectral entities: yokai, devas, fairies, sprites, genies, elemental intelligences, ghosts, servitors, unincorporated astral matter, etc. All those strange and elusive beings who populate world mythology and the collective imagination. In contrast to our world, however, people in Kanto are universally aware of these entities and their relation to ourselves. Much more can be said on this subject, but allow the basic premise to inform your reading when it feels appropriate. The subject before us is liminal by its nature.

Myths, Stories, and Suspicions

When we encounter a glitch in a game the temptation is to say that it broke our immersion. Maybe it’s because children are more easily entranced, but as a child my experience with MissingNo did not feel particularly incongruous with the narrative. The encounter, though strange, didn’t contradict the world of the game -- it expanded it in a psychedelic direction. When I met MissingNo, the battle played out more or less as normal. It was only the image of the creature, the arcane initiation, and the haunting after-effects that were atypical.

As soon as Pokémon Red & Blue came out, one fact of life became very clear: Kids love to spread tall tales about Pokémon. It was quite common to hear about Mew hiding under a truck or Togepi skulking around in the inaccessible wilderness behind Bill’s house. But the purported apparition of something called “MissingNo” or “Bar ‘M Bar” held an especially uncanny sway, because everyone believed it to be true. The basic story was that you talk to an old man, and then fly to an island where you meet bizarre and game-glitching Pokémon – but the many accounts which peppered the playground and Internet each held idiosyncratic details. Some said Mewtwo would turn up on the island, others said they found Pokémon native to the Safari Zone, or rogue trainers, or that you could multiply your items by 100. When I finally initiated what came to be known as the “Old Man Glitch”, I performed it in the prescribed manner:

Talk to the Old Man in the North of Viridian City. He will show you how to catch a Weedle.

As soon as the Old Man is finished, fly to Cinnabar Island.

On the island, walk over to the eastern edge and use Surf.

Surf the very edge of the water, moving up and down.

And sure enough, there appeared a fuzzy Tetris-looking rando named [][][][] ‘M [][][][]. Armed with a little background research, I succeeded in slaying this entity, and came away with 128 rare candies, a glitched out Hall of Fame record, and a whole lot of questions. The experience was so simple and tidy, and the performance of the glitch was just dreamlike enough that my young mind felt the thin silver light of meaning shining dimly from behind the supposedly arbitrary method of contact.

MissingNo and its glitch siblings became well known in the Pokémon community as reliable and functional game exploits, and stuck in the imagination for the peculiarity of their presentation. The programming quirks behind MissingNo’s operations are well understood, and the character has wormed its way into a sizable number of fan theories and creepypastas. Something about this strange little block of static resonates with players, and it seems to have surrounded itself with cryptic clues as to its true nature.

The Method of Contact

The first step to understanding a mysterious aberration in a game is to consider the events that lead up to it. What must the player do in order to find MissingNo? The trip begins by talking to an old man in Viridian City who shows the player how to catch Pokémon by snagging a wild Weedle in a brief scripted encounter. This is an interesting motif right off the bat, because we are meeting a teacher figure who shows us how to catch the worm. In dreams and in myth, the worm is often a symbolic representation of the Kundalini serpent, the principal driving force of life itself which coils at the base of the spine. The Old Man is found near the beginning of the game, and he will show you this tutorial as many times as you like. After all, he is teaching an essential lesson: catch the Pokémon around you to expand your team; or more abstractly: integrate the aspects of nature which complete you.

Viridian city itself is a special place, in that we begin and end our Pokémon journey there. It is the first town we come to after leaving home, and it is also host to the final gym and provides a road to the Pokémon League – the culmination of a trainer’s journey. The next step to MissingNo is to fly to volcanic Cinnabar Island, which is incidentally the last town a trainer discovers. So we have leapt from the site of our first lesson to the final city. Here on Cinnabar we walk straight east to the beach, and use surf to ride a Pokemon up and down the edge of the water. If we venture further out to sea, the ritual is forfeit and we must restart. So we glide up and down and up. Here along the crashing waves, apparitions greet us according to our name. The letters in the player’s name are the values that determine which Pokémon appear – and what form MissingNo takes. With this, contact is made. So let’s take a look at this setting. The island is a classic symbol of self-conception: a crystallization of identity emergent from the undifferentiated ocean. There happens to be a volcano on this island, which is also a timeless symbol: that of the eruption of unconscious content; hidden energy and power which has formerly lain dormant and unknown. We encounter MissingNo in a rather narrow area: a single column of tiles representing the edge of an island. We move up and down this coast attempting to trigger the event, swimming/surfing/pacing along the seashore. This is an incredibly profound detail, because the shore of the ocean signifies the mediation between the mundane terrestrial (the land) and the vast realm of the unconscious (the ocean).  The fact that it is the Eastern coast is a bonus, as that is the place where the sun rises in its most prolonged glow, and gives birth to the new day. The island itself is named Cinnabar, home to a research facility that serves a major role in the game’s plot. As we discover through research notes littered about, Cinnabar Mansion was the site of a series of experiments to re-create Mew, which is thought to be a primordial Pokémon. Famously, this resulted in the creation of Mewtwo, an anthropomorphic “clone” of Mew who lacks the originator’s genetic purity (Mewtwo cannot learn any TM, as Mew can), but appears to have gained a humanlike awareness, a trait lengthily elaborated in the first Pokémon movie. Mew as Prima Materia

So what does Mew symbolize? It is known to resemble an embryo, and believed to be the ancestor of all other Pokémon. It is a light pink, which is interesting given that the alchemical prima materia – the formless substance that composes the primeval material of the universe – is said to be dually white and red. In the original games it is only attainable through the metatextual experience of an IRL promotional event, and was allegedly inserted into the game secretly. Mew is clearly meant to be a transcendent being, notoriously elusive and often depicted in space.

Mew is the only pokemon that learns Transform, except of course for Ditto. This has spawned a highly popular fan theory that Dittos are failed clones of Mew. There are some supporting reasons for this idea: they share the same coloration (in both common and shiny iterations), the same weight, the same stats, and Ditto is present at locations relevant to Mew’s story (notably the Pokémon Mansion and the Cerulean Cave, where Mewtwo is found). Unlike Mew, which cannot breed in game, Ditto can successfully mate with any non-Legendary Pokémon. But Mew, critically, is a psychic type. Ditto is “normal.” It is as though the scientists succeeded in recreating the prima materia, but only in a purely physicalist sense. Ditto contains the genetic potential of all current life, but it does not generate new forms. It does not even learn new moves by itself, it must be taught. Science has apparently replicated the form and fertility of immemorial cosmic life, but not its potentiating vitality, its breath of life, its pneuma. I wonder where that pneuma went. Mewtwo, though not having begat novel lifeforms of its own, nevertheless expresses the pneuma in its thoughts and deeds. But maybe pneuma, as a formless concept, could only be expressed allegorically to the player as the enigmatic and varying being known as MissingNo. Revealingly, MissingNo is a Bird/Normal type Pokémon, birds being classical symbols of the spirit. Its cry upon encounter is the default “blank cry”: an unaffected cry of the male Nidoran (the only gendered Pokémon in the original release). But when MissingNo is viewed in the Pokédex, it makes the sound of a Rhydon, the first Pokémon ever designed; we could interpret this therefore as a reference to the voice of creative impulse. There is a caveat to discovering this: the player can only view the Pokedex entry if they have not seen a Cubone. This is another mythic peculiarity, as Cubone’s defining characteristic is its knowledge of loneliness, and its desire for reconciliation with its ancestors. If this sense of separation has never been known, only then can we “read” Missingno’s information, understand its primal utterance, and order it in our Pokédex-pantheon (as #000)

Curiously, Cubone is also host to a popular fan theory: that its missing mother is Kangaskhan. This is believed mainly because Cubone always pines for its perpetually absent mother, and Kangaskhans bear their young in their pouch, but the young are never seen independently. It is therefore supposed that when Kangaskhans die, their young don the skulls of their mothers and become Cubone. I have no strong opinion about this story, but MissingNo closes the circuit thematically. Just as MissingNo has ties to Cubone, its sibling Bar ‘M Bar mysteriously evolves into Kanghaskhan. Additionally, one of the appearances MissingNo can take is the “Ghost” sprite. In the main game, this sprite is only used for the ghost of Cubone’s mother in a unique encounter. Until a special item is used, this ghost isn’t affected by the player; with this guise MissingNo tells us it cannot be grasped.

4 Visions of MissingNo

In addition to the L-shaped white noise and the ghost, MissingNo can appear in two more ways. It can take the form of the fossils glimpsed in the Pewter Museum: a skeleton of Kabutops or a skeleton of Aerodactyl. These constellations of bones further suggest that MissingNo is an ancestral spirit. Kabutops is a water dwelling primordial life-form, whose development name meant “Atlantis,” and who symbolizes the origin of physical life from the first primal waters. Aerodactyl resembles a dragon or wyvern, an intermediary of heaven and earth. These two beasts, like the ghost, are no longer embodied. Though all 3 are potential symbols of the dead, they embody that sentiment differently. Kabutops comes from the water, Aerodactyl from the sky, and the ghost, as a veiled Marowak, would be terrestrial, but its image taken independently refers to the realm of the etheric.

To see these alternative forms, the player must have a certain letter in the 5th, 7th, or 9th slot of their character name: W for Kabutops, X for Aerodactyl, and Y for the ghost. The natural form of MissingNo gives us 4 forms, an apparently timeless property of visionary and mystic experience, from Ezekiel to mandala art and the platonic elements. In fact, there are over 150 such amplifications found in Carl Jung’s General Index, so it’s rather difficult to catch them all. Like many mythological quaternaries, 1 among the 4 is qualitatively exceptional. In this case, of course, that is the so-called “Normal” form, the fuzzy L-block which appears as a result of a much greater variety of player names. Though this natural form is less definite in criteria and appearance, it is actually more definite in its character. The other three forms take their base stats and moves from the last Pokémon in the party (a dittolike effect!); and their sprites, when viewed from the back, are taken from whichever Pokémon’s data was most recently accessed. So when these entities are in use by the player, they resemble something else entirely; they are phenomenologically reordered to resemble a known quantity. The natural form however, has a constant square-shaped sprite when viewed from the back. Though this form is exceptional among the 4, it is reductive to say that this is its “true” image: each of the 4 is a different capitulation of the same idea which itself is formless. Though there is one more peculiarity about the natural form! MissingNo. and Its Twin MissingNo’s natural form is identical with Bar ‘M Bar, as is its Pokédex number, leading many to believe that they were the same creature. However, there are many differences between them. Their height, weight, and stats are different, and they learn slightly different moves. Bar ‘M Bar does not cry like a male Nidoran, but instead sings a pitched-up version of the Zapdos call. This sound resembles birdsong with a background buzz indicating electricity. This pitch-shifted voice tells us that Bar M’ Bar resides even higher in the heavens than the sky-streaking legendary bird of thunder. Its “height” is also coincidentally tied in value with that of Rayquaza, a sacred serpent whose name means “firmament” and is the canonical lord of the skies. Another difference previously mentioned is Bar ‘M Bar’s unique ability to evolve into Kangaskhan. This happens at level 0, but if you glitch it to level 128, it can also evolve into Clefairy. Clefairy is a symbolically rich Pokémon as well; it was the main character of the original manga, and originally slated to be the main character of the anime. It is strongly indicated to be of extraterrestrial origin and is also plainly representative of the fairy kingdom, as indicated by its name and type. Additionally, it happens to be the Pokémon that Bill, a famous internet architect, accidentally transforms into as he is playing with time and space in order to construct a teleporter. We therefore can surmise that Clefairy relates to that which is alien: the alienation of the creature from the franchise, the alien origin of the species within the narrative, and the truly alien experience of inhabiting another body. This changing of bodies is perhaps what Bar ‘M Bar does when pushed past the realm of possibility, into level 128. There is of course a practical programming reason for the number 128, but it also happens to be double the number of possible codons in DNA. The “clef” in Clefairy means “musical key,” or in French simply “key.” Clefairy’s trademark move is metronome, which replicates most other Pokémon moves through the magic of synchronization. What would the world be like if this memetic sprite succeeded in its role as mascot of Pokémon? Would the world be all the more entranced?

When it comes to seeking an audience, Bar ‘M Bar is even wider in its accommodation than its sibling MissingNo. It can be encountered with any name at all – besides the preset options! Bar ‘M Bar’s own actual name, [][][][]M’[][][][] is certainly its most obvious difference. The bars on either side of the ‘M are determined by the actions of the player – Bulbapedia sums it up nicely:

It is most commonly known as 'M, since these are the only typographical characters in its name—its real name is impossible to produce with text, and some tiles in its name are not constant. It is also called 'M Block due to either the glitchy blocks next to its name or the Pokémon's boxy shape.

The first two tiles in [][][][] ‘M [][][][][]'s name depend on which sprite is occupying the spot where the player's Pokémon appears. In battle, the tiles on the left of its name will copy part of the sprite in the bottom-left corner of the screen (the player's Pokémon), while the block on the right will copy part of the sprite in the upper-right corner of the screen (the opponent's Pokémon). Out of battle, the blocks in its name will change depending on the player's location.

We know that MissingNo’s name is constant, and its form is undefined, a result of the player’s bestowed name. On the other hand, Bar ‘M Bar is a definite outcome for any bestowed name, but its own name is defined by the player! Yet it always retains the ‘M in the middle, which is tempting to interpret as the conjunction n’ (and). It looks as though Bar ‘M Bar’s name is something like “This n’ That.” And indeed, that’s what the sprites which comprise the bars draw from: the player’s Pokémon and the opponent’s Pokémon. The fact that these two glitchy blocks are separated by something close to “and” is a beautiful detail. It takes these two oppositional beings and phrases them both, but does so with the separation intact. If it lacked the ‘M between the two samples it would give a different impression. It is the difference between hendiadys (good and ready) and a modified adjective (well ready). It acknowledges that the two things are distinct and in concert, yet they are termed by Bar ‘M Bar in a single body. There is an endless mystery surrounding the mythological motif of 2-in-1, but it is often explored in alchemy and Jungian psychology through the image of the coniunctio, the holy marriage, the reconciliation of opposites.

Can we even say that Bar ‘M Bar is a single entity? It certainly has the strong dual aspect of its twin, MissingNo. Are these two glitch Pokémon the same or not? In the coding of the game, they are not. None of MissingNo’s forms share the constitution of Bar ‘M Bar. Yet they are defined in the Pokédex – the pantheon of the player’s understanding – in the same place, #000, and therein utter the same cry (Rhydon’s). They share an identical sprite and learn nearly identical moves. They cause the same glitch effects to occur in game. The strongest evidence for seeing them as representations of the same essence is in popular conception: Bar ‘M Bar is frequently referred to as MissingNo, and was the first of many other glitch Pokémon subsumed under the generic description of “MissingNo.” It is almost technical trivia to separate them. And most tellingly for the sake of this investigation, they complete each other’s symbolism. So, they are discrete entities AND they aren’t. The mystery of the coniunctio is thus further embodied in this dual being.   The Lingering Presence Now that we’ve outlined the taxonomy of MissingNo+, we can begin to look at the consequences. The two most well-known effects of meeting MissingNo are the Item Duplication Glitch and the Hall of Fame glitch. Item duplication occurs after any encounter with MissingNo or Bar ‘M Bar, regardless of whether the player has fled, caught the creature, or knocked it out. When examining the bag after the battle, the player will find that the 6th item in their inventory has been increased by 128 (although this does not occur if the value is already over 128). Given that a player can reorder their inventory at will, this was a famous exploit for getting hundreds of Rare Candies in order to quickly max out any Pokémon’s level, or generating 128 Master Balls ensuring the capture of any creature you meet from then on. Indeed, this is the most common reason for performing the old man glitch, and likely the critical factor in MissingNo’s renown. And what fuel for the legend: a bizarre seaside vision that grants a wish. Another popular exploit is duplicated fossils, normally given only once per game, so that you could resurrect 100 Kabuto, Omanyte, or Aerodactyl. But any item is fair game: you could effectively wish for infinite wealth, health, lives, moves, defense, speed, power, whatever. You hooked the magic fish, what you do with it is up to you.

The experience also corrupts your Hall of Fame data, replacing some of the images with blocks of static, and scrambling names and values of your champion Pokémon. This is a largely inconsequential effect, but it has symbolic weight. Each Pokémon that exists is a symbol of some kind, representing an attitude, or an attribute, and as you go along meeting them and incorporating them into yourself, they accumulate further personal meanings. So consciously or unconsciously, the Pokémon that accompany you to your final battle are in some sense a mirror of the player: they represent your priorities, values, and appreciations. These are the ones canonized by the game in the Hall of Fame. MissingNo then transforms this composite irreparably. This act can be seen a psychic realignment of the player-character.

Summary

Let’s imagine the story of meeting MissingNo as a fairly tale. The protagonist, Red, talks to an Old Man at the edge of town who shows him how to catch a worm. Next, Red flies through the skies to a volcanic island. There on the Eastern shore of the island, he swims the coast. Attracted by his name, some number of foreign beasts appear before him, culminating in the appearance of a totally unexpected entity which defies easy categorization (though there are partial physical descriptions in some versions of the story). He then defeats, captures, or flees from the apparition. Then looking in his bag, he finds some object or capacity of his has been magnified to a superhuman extent. Finally, we find that some of his major psychic precepts have been mysteriously and radically altered for evermore.

So what then what was the encounter? An alien? A deity or holy ghost? The pneuma which animates life? Is it an unconscious complex made manifest? A psychotic break? The disorienting eruption of the Real? Is it a highly coherent and synchronous glitch-experience, or a pareidoliac imprint in static? I don’t believe that any of these answers satisfy in themselves. Like the images of MissingNo, the interpretations are interdependent, forming points along the circumference of a subject whose middle cannot be approached by the intellect. What is easier to parse is the influence of MissingNo on the fanbase. MissingNo is so famous as a glitch that it has become the common shorthand for any glitch Pokémon throughout the series. MissingNo and Bar ‘M Bar have inspired not only countless tall tales, but tons of fiction, fanart, merch, and a featured article on Bulbapedia. Using our imagination, it is rather easy to place MissingNo into the narrative context of the game, conceptualizing it any of the above ways. As much as this being seems keen to disrupt our in-game immersion, it seems equally willing to stride across our imagination, as though it were walking a bridge leading into the world of Pokémon, or our own reality, or wherever its place of origin.

[larasati98-blog]

KNB217 Digital Creatures Assignment 1

By Yosephine Vania Devi Larasati | n10129251

For this assignment, I decided to choose Jack from the folktale of a magic beanstalk. Since this is a well-known story for decades, I find it easier to identify the character and setting played in the story.

Jack and the Magic Beanstalk

Jack and the Magic Beanstalk is an English fairy tale. According to Joseph Jacob’s version (1890), this story revolves around the adventure of Jack, a boy living on a farm with his poor widowed mother. One day, his mother asked Jack to go to the market and sell their only cow there, since they run out of money to buy some food. In the market, thoughtless Jack met an old butcher that offered him a magic seed in exchange for his cow. Instead of selling it for some coins, Jack tempted to trade his cow for the seed. Knowing that Jack brought home a seed instead of money, his mother was angry and threw the seed outside. However, the bean grew overnight into a giant beanstalk where there is a castle upon it. Excited, Jack climbed the stalk to find the castle on the top and it was filled with magical animals and instrument which belong to a giant living in it. Realising that he needs goods to sell, he stole a magical hen that lays golden eggs and magical harp that can talk. Unfortunately, the harp began to scream for help and surprised the giant. The giant chased down Jack until he almost reached the ground, but Jack started chopping down the stalk that also crushed and killed the giant. The overall story takes place during the renaissance. The setting happened in the farm, market and a gigantic castle built for giants.

Jack

Jack is often described as a young man that is always taking advantage of any opportunities provided to him. The folktale also shows that he lives in desperation since he and his mother lived in constant poverty. From my personal view, I would describe Jack as a naive and reckless young man, yet caring about his family’s needs. Jack is very spontaneous, innocent, and easily tricked by an old man into trading his cow with what the man called it a magical seed. Not forgetting the fact that he is a farmer, he has a diligent personality.

Jack is physically skinny, due to living in poverty for a long time. He is a tall boy and his body barely shows any muscle, like a twig, I would describe. He weights very light that allows him to sneak into a castle without waking up the giant. His clothes are very simple and comfortable to wear for farming but seem quite dirty from going to the field often. Also, the clothes seem old since those are old clothes from his late father.

In summary, the characteristic of Jack is divided into two:

Personality traits:

Innocent and naive

Spontaneous

Somewhat stubborn

Taking for granted

Soft-hearted and devoted to his family

Physical characteristic:

Tall and skinny

Pale skin with noticeable sunburns

Extremely light

Round face (as he is still young)

Wearing old farming clothes that are lightly covered by dirt

Mood board

First thing, I gathered references based on style and body type that is relevant to the story. I love the idea of loose clothes with a belt that exaggerates his thin figure. However, since it is a low poly character, the clothes might be harder to animate the flow.

Experiment Drawing

After that, I began to draw the character concept based on the mood board. The first picture shows the characters line up consist of Jack, his mother, and the Giant. I love making a character comparison at first, so I know what will differentiate Jack among all of the characters.

Here is I draw rough sketches of Jack. From first glance, he looks like a scarecrow, which I found very interesting. I continued to explore his look by combining shapes.

I tried to combine shapes of circle, square, and triangle. I decided to use many circles for his head to show youth. Later on, I prefer a round shape for the eyes and the nose that emphasise his innocence, friendliness, and soft, while I was still playing around with the shape of the body.

Rough Silhouette

I narrowed down to 5 silhouettes that I find appealing and easier to create in low-poly.

Final decision, I found this very simple yet appealing. Just from the silhouette, this character seems clumsy and soft. I will develop this rough silhouette into a more unique character.

During the renaissance era, men were mostly wearing linen tunic that is belted at the waist and tight legging (Central Coast Renaissance Festival, 2019). The tunic was worn as an undergarment beneath outer clothes, such as cloak by upper class (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1998).

I tried to modify the clothing a little, such as cutting short the bottom part of the tunic. This makes Jack looks slender and gives clarity to his body shape. Creating a character turnaround sheet is not something new to me, yet still challenging no matter how many times I have done it. Especially, in a three-quarter view. Also, I am giving Jack a slightly crooked back.

Medieval and renaissance tunic (Larp Inn, 2019).

As for the colour palette reference, I am using a colour wheel and chose to use complementary colours with earth tones. Here, I combined blue and orange as well as adjusted the saturation to bring the two colours together.

Colour wheel sample (Lynton, 2018).

Coloured character turnaround

The image below here is used for reference in the modelling process. The character is drawn from the front, right, and topside view.

Modelling Process

The video below here shows the quick video of modelling the character from a cube.

Due to insufficient storage, I screen captured some stages after the recording. These are where I learned my mistakes.

1. Arm Twisting

I did not pay attention to the anatomy of the muscle. So I had to remake the arm and make a twist.

2. Face Topology

Modelling mouth and nose with the right loop pattern is complicated for me. I followed several other tutorial videos on the internet and other people’s work as a reference. Other challenges include modelling the face to look appealing while maintaining the polygons count to keep it under 1000, for example, changing the hairstyle to be much simpler than the original design.

Overall, I did not find any problems with the UV map process, everything went smoothly. Until I painted the model using Substance Painter. Painting hair surprisingly became the most difficult thing. I mostly do realistic style rather than stylised, so it took a while for me to get accustomed to the painting process. I mostly used polygon fill feature in Substance Painter at first, then added more details(dirt, and collar) using brush.

Rigging Process

First time using Advanced Skeleton 5, many things happened in the process. There are a few steps that I have to repeat until the model can move properly. One of them is the eyeballs that are stuck with the head model and won’t rotate by themselves. Resolved it by fixing the connection between the joint and the geometry. Another problem I had was the knees bend backwards. Turned out that my model’s legs were slightly bending backwards and Advanced Skeleton automatically generated inverted knees.

Animation Test

Final Render

Jack by yosephine98 on Sketchfab

In summary, I am satisfied with the design of the character. Even though the execution of building the 3D model does not meet my expectation. There are many things I have to fix in my model. In the future, I am excited to build another model with better design and 3D model.

References

Central Coast Renaissance Festival. (2019, May 24). How did people dress in renaissance England. Central Coast Renaissance Festival. https://ccrenfaire.com/how-did-people-dress-in-renaissance-england/

Jacobs, J. (2003). Jack and the beanstalk. English Fairy Tales. http://www.authorama.com/english-fairy-tales-15.html

Larp Inn (2019). Guy Tunic. Larp Inn. https://www.larpinn.co.uk/guy-tunic-brown-p-6496.html

Lynton, J. (2018, 29 May). Close to my heart color wheel [Image]. Make it from your heart. https://blog.closetomyheart.com/2018/05/29/color-theory-double-complementary-color-schemes/

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (1998). Tunic. Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/tunic-clothing

[heavyarethecrowns]

A Royal Affair: Meghan & the Royals.

In 2013, Man Booker Prize winning author Hilary Mantel, best known for her Wolf Hall duology, gave a speech at the British Museum. In it, Mantel eloquently interrogated the trappings of royal duty for women, and used both Marie Antoinette and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (a.k.a. Kate Middleton) as her prime examples. She recounts being asked at a book festival to ‘name a famous person and choose a book to give them’. Mantel said she chose a book on the historical importance of Marie Antoinette’s fashion for ‘Kate’ because she felt that the Duchess had been trapped by the blank personality and image she was forced to present to the public:

‘It’s not that I think we’re heading for a revolution. It’s rather that I saw Kate becoming a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung. In those days she was a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own, entirely defined by what she wore. These days she is a mother-to-be, and draped in another set of threadbare attributions. Once she gets over being sick, the press will find that she is radiant. They will find that this young woman’s life until now was nothing, her only point and purpose being to give birth.’

It’s a damning point, but one made with utmost empathy, stressing the dehumanising manner with which Kate was and continues to be viewed: She can’t have quirks because that could reveal controversial opinions; she can’t get too large or she’ll be called spoiled or be bombarded with pregnancy rumours for years; she can’t be too daring with her fashion because that’ll inevitably upset someone. Mantel notes the limiting narratives open to a woman whose sole duty to the crown, whether or not it is admitted, is to give birth.

Later, Mantel talks of Kate as the ideal figure for the job because she seems to have been ‘designed by committee’ and a world away from the troubles her late mother-in-law caused the British Royal Family:

‘Kate seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character. She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture.’

I heartily recommend you read the full piece because it seems like not many people have. About a month after she gave the speech, to little public response, the tabloids pounced on it as proof of Mantel launching an attack against Kate. Think-pieces galore were spewed on the nastiness of Mantel, frequently going after her own appearance, all under the justification that poor Kate had been bullied by one of Britain’s biggest authors. No self-awareness was exhibited that very week when breathless news coverage of a public event Kate attended focused almost exclusively on her hair, her clothes and her baby bump. Mission accomplished.

I think about this piece a lot and how defensive it made so many outrage merchants over the mundane and narrow realities of our monarchy. That fairy-tale image has done very well for the country, even as it becomes costlier, less relevant and, like Buckingham Palace, starts to crumble. Still, the fantasy remains of the handsome princes, their future brides and the glitzy weddings that will bring the world together in harmony.

William and Kate’s big day was feverishly reported upon by media worldwide, even those who had disposed of their own monarchies. Other European nations had their princesses of humble beginnings - the estate agent from Australia who married the Danish Prince, the former newsreader who is now Queen of Spain, the single mother with a dark past who found love with Norway’s future king - but they’ve never attracted the love of the Brits (the dregs of imperialism will do that to the planet). Kate Middleton is also a different breed of princess from those fellow consorts: Upper-middle class upbringing with a monied family, private education, little career to speak of, and strong connections to the elite. It was easy enough to twist into the Cinderella story, but in reality it’s just the country’s most upmarket society wedding. The glitz wasn’t there, and the British media still crave it.

Enter Meghan Markle. Actress. Former calligrapher. Advocate for the UN’s Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Ex-lifestyle blogger and clothing designer. Girlfriend of Prince Harry.

I’m not sure the British media, particularly the tabloids, know what to think of Markle. She ticks all the boxes they’ve been begging for when on the trail of the wilder royal’s love life: She’s beautiful, glamorous, and a career woman with lots of prior coverage to reference. Of course, she’s also a mixed-race American divorcee with vocal support for feminism and women’s issues worldwide, and that may be too much of a discernible personality of their liking.

It’s harder to project ideas and concerns onto Markle than it was onto Kate when she was still just Will’s girlfriend, a position she held on and off for a decade before Diana’s ring was slipped on her finger. Kate never spoke in public, she didn’t seem to have many hobbies, and she was always photographed in motion. Her life in the harsh glare of the public looked to revolve around exclusive nightclubs, working for her parents’ company, and being the dutiful plus-one to Will. Every photo could be gathered into a collection entitled “Public Relations 101”, as she spent a decade being prodded by the tabloids, derided as ‘Waity Katie’, and speculated over to within an inch of her life, and still she never put a foot wrong. There were no shocking revelations, no seedy tell-all moments (bar one uncle, and even then nothing juicy was revealed), and even her family seemed ready for primetime. Kate and her fellow Middletons were Teflon to scandal, which boded well for the Windsors. It must be said that The Firm’s refusal to get involved with the dirt of the commoners is glaringly hypocritical given their own status as the most gaffe-ridden family in the country, complete with toe sucking, tampon fantasies and basically everything that comes out of Prince Phillip’s mouth. Then again, class gives you the privilege to call such things quirks and not stains.

The British press have seemed less interested in Markle’s potential family drama, even though it fits a more scandal-friendly model. That’s nothing to do with Markle, of course, but certain estranged members of her family know a good opportunity when they see one. Her half-sister is trying to sell a book that ‘reveals’ Markle’s alleged social climbing, selfishness and cruelty, although few people seem to buy the set-up. It feels too much like bitter gears to grind than a true scandal to unfold. Perhaps it’s just a tad too Kardashian for the tabloids, who prefer to get their gossip through sneakier means. That’s not to say she wasn’t attacked by the press: Her films were picked apart for nude scenes, her race was fetishized and posited as a potential problem for the royals, and every aspect of her life as questioned as a possible block to becoming Harry’s wife.

A more shocking bride would probably be the dream pairing for the Brits when it comes to how they imagine the future of Prince Harry. The heir has the weight of responsibilities; the spare is free to truly screw up. From the infamous Nazi uniform fancy-dress costume to the nude liaisons in Vegas hotel rooms, Harry has always been our socially mandated bad boy - not irreversibly bad in the way rock-stars can be, but a redemption story in the making. William could never truly get down or let loose like a typical undergraduate because the security required and potential for trouble was too high. It’s partly the reason he went to St Andrews, one of Scotland’s oldest institutions that also happens to be in a small town with little nightlife and a very insular student community (his original choice was allegedly Edinburgh). Harry was expected to be bad on some level: It’s younger sibling syndrome, especially prevalent in the royal family, from Princess Margaret to Prince Andrew. As long as he put in the work - joining the army, establishing the Invictus Games - then a little bit of fun was no big deal.

In that aspect, Harry dating a jet-setting Hollywood star (albeit a C-list one at the most generous reading) on a show that can get a little risqué is far more in his wheelhouse than some of his previous girlfriends, who have been more in line with Kate or at least that aspect of upper-middle class society. There was Chelsy Davy, a party girl but one with a very wealthy background as the daughter of one of Zimbabwe’s largest private landowners; then there was Cressida Bonas, a dancer and actress with a Lady for a mother and good private education. Markle is also privately educated, with an Emmy winning lighting director for a father, but that kind of schooling in America does not tend to carry the markers of power that it does in the UK, where only 6% of the general public attend private schools but they make up over 70% of high court judges and close to half of all Bafta winners.

Markle is arguably as tailor-made for the job as Kate was, but the key difference is that Markle’s work was done independently, and not under the gaze of a press waiting for an engagement ring. I remember the sheer glut of obsessive interrogation Kate faced from the press the moment she graduated from university, thus forcing her and Will to leave the safety of St Andrews and the press’s agreement to leave the prince alone while he studied. It seemed as though, every day, there was a new set of photos of her leaving her house or walking to work or leaving a nightclub. Sometimes she looked understandably dour but mostly she had the same muted expression on her face, a clear sign of appropriate training on how to deal with the paparazzi. Kate was always a woman achingly aware of what people expected from her, and the limitations put in place by her position as a royal girlfriend, meaning she had the clout but none of the protection since the palace don’t tend to officially step in and warn off the press unless she has a ring on her finger.

Nothing Kate did would ever be the right move in the eyes of a cruel tabloid culture: She was criticised for waiting on Will to pop the question, she was derided for her weight, her employment was questioned while new opportunities opened to her were dismissed as benefits given by merit of her boyfriend, her clothes weren’t classy enough and then they were too boring for someone her age, and her family were posited as the new Bennets in waiting, with a social climbing sister and a mother eager to get the best marriages for her kids. Through all of this, Kate still did all the right moves: She stayed silent, she didn’t run to the press or get caught in a fake sheikh sting operation, and she remained as dignified as possible throughout. Despite it all, Kate still had to be relatable, just like one of us, the fantasy we all could live. Keep calm and carry on. Short term criticism for long term gain.

Meghan, by contrast, was given an unprecedented declaration of public support from Harry and the palace after their relationship was revealed. Not only was she discussed by name, the press was called out for sexist and racist abuse levelled at her, and the prince made a strident plea for her right to privacy. Any support Kate received from Will on an official basis was delivered in much vaguer terms.

Markle has also worn many hats throughout her career and done so with the expected level of exposure for a supporting cast member in a USA Network show, a far less turbulent narrative than one of a future consort. Most of her acting work prior to Suits, where she plays paralegal Rachel Zane (Rachel is also her real first name), was minor bit-parts in film and TV, from soap operas to procedurals. She appeared in two different iterations of CSI but has never done a Law & Order stint. Her filmography is not one that inspires Grace Kelly comparisons but it does reveal the typical life of a working actress, the kind of narrative that’s overlooked in favour of the bright young things who break it into the big time La La Land style. As someone who grew up adjacent to Hollywood, it’s easy to imagine that Meghan was aware of the harsh reality of the industry and knew a back-up option would be required. Her Northwestern University degree is in theatre and international studies, and her time as a student included an internship at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires, so a step into the humanitarian world made sense.

Her charity work has included becoming a Global Ambassador for World Vision Canada (she is Toronto-based as Suits is filmed there), where she travelled to Rwanda for the Clean Water Campaign, collaborating with One Young World, where she gave a speak at their annual summit, and becoming an official UN Women Ambassador. Her focus is on issues of poverty, gender equality and modern-day slavery, and all the ways those intersect. She’s written for Time on the stigma of menstruation in developing nations and how that can prevent access to education for girls. Vanity Fair even honoured her as a humanitarian to watch, photographing her alongside Fatima Bhutto and former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson. Celebrity philanthropy is an issue that’s raised many concerns over the decades, with some questioning the ultimate effectiveness of it when more attention is ultimately paid to the star and not the cause. Markle seems like a good exception to that rule: Before Harry, she wasn’t wildly famous so offered less of a distraction, and she had the education and work to back up what she was doing.

She also has hobbies and side-hustles that made her easy to define, as witnessed by her once active social media presence. One of her ventures, The Tig, was a Gwyneth-style blog with a focus on food, lifestyle and her humanitarian interests. The site was part self-promotion, part sweetly executed shine theory. She wasn’t afraid to get political, discussing the civil rights movement and racism’s impact on her family; she delighted in some Eat Pray Love shenanigans involving food and travel; she even offered BFF-esque advice to readers on everything from beauty to self-worth and voting. Nowadays, you can’t actually read the site, as Markle shut it down in April of this year, declaring that ‘it’s time to say goodbye.’ Around the same time, she also stepped down from her role as a brand ambassador for Canadian fashion store Reitmans, where she had helped to launch her own ‘accessible’ line of business-smart pieces. Her social media content has dried up too.

Immediately, engagement talk started up, because what other reason would she have for wrapping up satisfying and profitable business opportunities if not for an upcoming wedding? The prospect of having to give up so much of yourself to take on the role of wife cannot help but feel like a duty from another time, one that can be extremely dehumanising. It’s one Kate was familiar with: Allegedly, her commitments to Will in-between his duties and work made it hard for her to find flexible employment, thus exacerbating years of ‘Waity Katie’.

If Meghan does indeed marry Harry, everything has to go: The American citizenship, the acting career, her personal freedom, and her ability to live publicly within her own means and control. She will be expected to continue her charity work but probably with less say in the way she conducts it. Her clothes will be safer, any public speeches she gives limited and tightly edited, and she certainly won’t be sharing any of it on Instagram. Like Kate, she’s had time to grow used to fame and exposure, so the transition will be far easier than it ever was for 19 year old Diana Spencer, but the spectre of the Princess of Wales will loom ever-present over her dutiful life.

Basically everything Kate does is compared to Diana - ooh, were the polka dots she wore when leaving the hospital with Prince George a deliberate call-back to Diana? Would Diana approve of the children’s upbringing? Didn’t Diana have shoes like that? Remember when Diana also went to a charity event like Kate? She cannot help but be an heir to the potential the world hoped to see from Diana before the fairytale dissolved. For Meghan, that will be an inevitable problem, but not as immediate as the constant comparisons to Kate, which began almost as soon as the relationship was revealed. Outfits were compared and asked who wore it better, rumours flew about apparent tensions as well as instant friendships, and every dedication was made to prove that the pair were just like one another, despite evidence to the contrary. There will be less pressure for Meghan to breed but the intricacies of her reproductive organs will be scrutinized to the death if she isn’t pregnant quick enough. If a marriage takes place, you can rest assured that the eagerness to craft a catfight narrative will be evident from the get-go.

There’s a solid chance Meghan and Harry may already be engaged after going on holiday to Africa, where Will also proposed to Kate. We could see the dream-come-true Cinderella story play out all over again, all in service of a woman who has worked too hard and achieved too much to be labelled so narrowly. The monarchy is a splintering institution that thrives from appropriate decoration. Will and Kate have provided that for several years now, smiling and waving and occasionally wearing the same outfit twice just like the rest of us. Duchess Meghan will not be a person so much as a brand combined with a fantasy and the weight of centuries of historical expectations. The press will love her, then be cruel if they don’t think she’s doing things the way she’s supposed to. Hilary Mantel knew the cost of such inevitable cruelty, something that’s often omitted when talking about her now infamous speech. As she put it, ‘We don’t cut off the heads of royal ladies these days, but we do sacrifice them, and we did memorably drive one to destruction a scant generation ago. History makes fools of us, makes puppets of us, often enough. But it doesn’t have to repeat itself.’

SUBMITTED

I remember the press going after Mantel, saying she was attacking Kate. 

I remember it because if you read what she said she was attacking the press not Kate and so you knew they were but hurt over her attacking them!