#and the way I see it the book is as much a critique of fatalism as it is of Leibnitz's optimism

[chaotic-history]

I will die on this hill

[mareastrorum]

This took a while to write up. Here’s something about Dune and Villanueve’s adaptation. I felt I really needed to chew on it before posting.

This is by no means a full thesis, just putting down some thoughts on Chani and Paul. I’m trying to minimize my use of story-specific terminology so that people who aren’t as familiar with that can still follow along.

Of course, massive spoilers below.

For those that have only seen Villanueve’s films, they are an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, the first book in a series. You’ll find an incredible number of critiques and reviews of them online, as well as other adaptations. All of the adaptations have cut at least one part of the main plot, for varying reasons. Note that I said main plot. Cutting side plots is absolutely expected given that the first book is a behemoth, but each adaptation also cut part of the actual main plot line. That isn’t something unique to Villanueve’s films.

Some book background: Dune is a very thoughtful exploration of imperialism and ecology, particularly how certain patterns are reflections of each other. Most of the story takes place on Arrakis, a desert planet and sole source of melange, colloquially called “spice.” Spice is a mind-enhancing drug that is necessary for navigators to manage intergalactic travel at high speed—so it is the backbone of the intergalactic empire that plants aristocratic families on the desert planet of Arrakis to harvest the spice, which of course involves the oppression of the native Fremen that see the worms as religiously sacred. The atrisocrats use varying combinations of violence, diplomacy, and religion to oppose the Fremen at the same time that they appropriate Fremen knowledge of how to survive the incredibly harsh clime of Arrakis.

The key problem is that Arrakis as a habitat cannot change without endangering the sand worms that provide the spice. Terraforming to shrink the deserts where they live puts them in danger because water (the rarest resource on Arrakis) is fatal to the worms. Liet-Kynes (an ecologist from the Empire and half-blooded Fremen) persuaded Fremen leaders that it would be possible to terraform the planet gradually over dozens of generations and eventually create pockets of safe and habitable land for the Fremen without taking too much from the sand worms. The Atreides family learned this from Liet-Kynes before he died, and Paul eventually sets this plan in motion when he becomes Emperor. That plan was what won over the Fremen to his side. He had an actual plot to get them what they wanted, a path to become Emperor so he would have the power needed to make it happen, and intent to do this in a way to safeguard Fremen culture in the face of imperial exploitation by making the Fremen the dominant culture of the Empire. At least, that’s the story he sold them and himself.

Dune Part 1 did not have that facet. Liet-Kynes did not teach that to Paul and Jessica before dying. In fact, Liet-Kynes’s most lampshading scene of dying in the desert while despondently hoping that the Fremen would “beware of heroes” was cut entirely from the film. Now, that is a small deviation, and I can understand that Villanueve would have cut it for his style anyway. He doesn’t like telling—he favors showing in film. That is perfectly fair. Having a character lay out “this is my plan” and telling the audience blatantly “Paul is a hero and that is not a good thing” just wasn’t going to happen anyway, regardless of whether it was part of the plot. So when Part 1 came out, I didn’t take that as a decision to deviate from the actual plot of the book. I figured Villanueve would introduce these things otherwise, and it would make sense to come from Stilgar or another Fremen leader. Not that big a deal.

(Note: I’m not getting into a lot of the other omissions, such as the missing scenes, Gurney’s paranoia that Jessica had betrayed the Atreides, Paul’s mentat training, Jamis’s funeral, etc. I could literally write a book about everything that was left out, and honestly, it’s just more reason to read Dune.)

For Part 2, the biggest difference in is that Chani is a true believer in the prophecies that Paul is the Lisan al-Gaib, the messiah that would lead the Fremen to paradise. In the film, Chani is not merely a skeptic—she is a nonbeliever. As a result of this change, rather than support Paul, bear his first child, and agree to become his concubine (eventually bearing the twins that feature in the next two books), Chani of the films instead does not have his first son, disputes Paul’s claims, and leaves on her own rather than support his war. Additionally, although it’s not facially relevant, Chani is also the daughter of Liet-Kynes, the Imperial ecologist, and so is a mixed blood Fremen (though she is accepted without issue by the Fremen). Instead, in the film, Chani has no connection to Liet-Kynes.

This is a drastic change in plot. I genuinely do not know how that will be remedied so that Chani will bear the twins that eventually rule the universe and lead the empire down the prophecied Golden Path in later books.

Why is that a big deal?

To start, there is a significant change in symbols used between the book and film in this respect. I cannot overstate the importance of Chani as a symbol in Dune. In the books, Chani is a stand in for the Fremen and their culture, particularly that culture in current day. She is the daughter of Liet-Kynes because the current Fremen cultural goal is to bring about that dream of a terraformed Arrakis where they do not need to live so desperately. That is inseparable from the effects of the Empire; her father is an ecologist because that is the Imperial influence that the Fremen were willing to accept and integrate into their own lives. Paul genuinely loves Chani, is protective of her, wants her to thrive, and eventually wants to become the person of the prophecy she believes in. He wants to be the hero she expects of him, without losing his identity as her partner.

However, Chani does not represent all Fremen. Stilgar, Chani’s uncle, represented the old guard of Fremen that rigidly held to their old laws and ways of living. Paul and Jessica were not given any leniency; they had to prove themselves to become Fremen, and his support was clearly conditional upon that. As a result, to gain the Fremen’s respect and move them towards their common goals, Paul and Jessica assimilated into the Fremen culture, and then Paul systematically destroyed his rivals—which is the Freman way—taking the remainder under his banner to fight the Harkonnen. Paul finally broke from that tradition when he chose to let Stilgar live, convincing the old guard that it was better to cut down their enemies rather than each other for deviating from tradition. Chani stood by Paul the entire way, learning how fight Harkonnen from both Paul and Jessica, learned to use the Voice from Jessica, and became Paul’s most staunch supporter and connection to all other Fremen. Every aspect of Chani’s identity and her choices feed into the narrative that the Fremen had expectations of Paul, he willingly rose to the challenge, and they loved each other fiercely.

But near the end of the first book, Paul sent Chani and their firstborn son to a hopefully safe location that was then attacked by the Harkonnen. Paul did not know if either had survived at the time it was reported. Rather than rush to find them, Paul struggled with the decision and ultimately continued the fight against the Harkonnen. This was to tell the reader that Paul’s love didn’t save them, that he was not going to save the Fremen, and he was going to continue his bloodshed. This had already happened, and was going to happen again. Luckily, Chani survived, they mourn their son, and she agrees to be his concubine so that he could marry Princess Irulan and become Emperor. Everyone knew at that moment that Paul had no love for the princess and the marriage was purely political. Princess Irulan resented this until the end of the next book, when she reveals that she also came to love Paul, and she was jealous of Chani. But Paul did not love Irulan the way he loved Chani. It’s again a reflection that Paul truly loved the Fremen culture and saw the Empire only as a means to an end: achieving the Fremen’s goal of creating paradise on Arrakis. Dune ends with that affirmation.

In the film, that is no longer the case. Chani was not a symbol of Fremen support because she set out alone. Most of the Fremen supported Paul. She didn’t believe in Paul or the prophecies when most did. She didn’t have his firstborn and it remains to be seen if the twins will exist. Rather than Paul making a decision that shows he will destroy the Fremen culture, Chani makes a decision to reject him. This changes the dynamics involved in the story, and I genuinely don’t know if it will be handled well.

The next books continue the story years after Paul becomes Emperor. In Dune: Messiah, Paul wrestles with the duties of Emperor while attempting to preserve the Fremen culture (to keep Chani and their unborn children alive) and fulfilling his roles as prophet and leader. At the same time, he is beset by assassination, rebellion, and usurpation attempts. At the end of Messiah, Chani dies while birthing twins, the worms are beginning to die off, Paul loses hope in his plan, and then he walks off into the desert expecting to die because he does not want to become the Emperor he foresees necessary to continue this plan. He realized he has changed the Fremen forever, not for the better, and he thinks the best thing he can do is exile himself. Paul didn’t save anyone he cared about, and when faced with the decision to try to salvage the future in front of him, he walked away. Paul is a failure. The point is that he fails in the book titled Messiah.

The books were an ongoing warning that no matter your good intentions, no matter the support and love and resources involved, to introduce an outsider whose power depends upon a limited resource into the place of origin will eventually destroy any other aspects of it, even if that power was intended to preserve. Whether it’s imperialistic appropriation of a culture and its religion, or terraforming to change land optimal for a religiously and economically significant animal into something comfortable for another species, the thing you love will die.

You cannot save a habitat by introducing an invasive species. You cannot save a unique species by destroying its habitat. You cannot save a culture by using it to conquer others. You cannot appropriate a culture and keep it just like it was before you commandeered it. You will wind up with something else, and eventually the only remnants of the thing you loved will be memories reenacted by people so separated from the original that they won’t even know or care why they’re doing it (as shown in Messiah and God Emperor).

The entire point of the Dune series is that “white saviors” don’t actually exist. They’re “heroes” until time reveals that they’re not. They are merely conquerors with the delusion that they are saving the thing they sacrificed in order to attain power.

Chani’s rejection in Dune Part 2 erodes that. Someone who didn’t read the book is going to wonder, “what if she had stayed and persuaded him?” “What if Chani was the Lisan al-Gaib?” “What if an actual Freman had taken over the Empire instead of Paul?” Then the audience thinks, ah, of course, Paul made mistakes and that’s why he’s going to fail. If only he hadn’t been so blinded by ambition, everything would have been fine. If only he hadn’t needed to be the leader, if he had let Stilgar do it, if he had let Chani do it, etc. In other words, if the white savior had just done it the right way, it would have worked.

But that isn’t the point of Dune. To become the leader of an Empire requires that level of ambition. Stilgar submitted to Paul because he saw that Paul’s ability to engage with both the common folk and the extremists among the Fremen was absolutely necessary to defeat the Harkonnen, and Stilgar chose that over any other priority. Chani supported Paul because she loved him and genuinely believed he would lead her people to better times, because all she knew was desperation and oppression. There was ruthless calculation and devotional love in equal measure, but the cost of success as a hero seeking to lead an empire is that the thing you loved will die. The Fremen had already changed into the bloodthirsty, fanatical army before Paul ever saw the Emperor face to face. Paul’s son died and Chani went missing because Herbert was telling us that the future Paul and Chani both wanted was already dead before he laid siege to Arrakeen, before he became Emperor, before he started a war to solidify the Freman’s domination of humankind. The reason that everything in Dune eventually works in Paul’s favor is because even with perfect conditions, he failed. There is no world in which he would have succeeded.

You can’t eat a cake and have it too. Empires eat. Heroes, no matter how much love they have in their hearts, no matter who they fight for, no matter how much their supporters/victims wanted it too, cannot use an empire to save anything. The very nature of imperial power is to consume. Love doesn’t make a “white savior” any less imperialistic than a tyrant bent on conquest.

Is the next film going to get us to that point? I don’t think it will. I think it’s going to be yet another adaptation trying to tell a different message because Herbert’s message isn’t very palatable to a mass audience. We don’t want to hear that love doesn’t win in this circumstance. It’s a horrifying message, but it’s one that’s true when telling the story of imperial and ecological exploitation of cultures and rare resources.

That isn’t to say that the films wouldn’t be a good story on their own. It’s just not the story of the books, and I’m one of those people that actually likes the books.

There’s a lot of ways Chani’s new story could go, and I’m watching it like I’m observing someone setting up a dare devil leap. Villanueve is an incredibly skilled storyteller, but this is something no one’s done before, a lot of things can go wrong, and if he doesn’t stick the landing, it’s gonna be pretty gross no matter how the crash happens. I want him to succeed. I’m still gonna watch the next film. I’m just well aware that this is probably going to end in a watered down, generic “Paul failed because he wasn’t Fremen” sentiment rather than “Empires rely upon exploitation and destruction, at the expense of everything else.”

It’s still fucking amazing eye candy, and I’ll probably watch it again.

[horizon-verizon]

https://www.tumblr.com/horizon-verizon/712117136498294784/lets-be-real-and-say-that-alicents-portrayal-in

I am not saying that her portrayal in the book is misgonystic, maybe i didn't get my point right. However, what I meant is people generally believe that her portrayal in the book is the one dimensional evil stepmother despite the fact that book! Alicent has much more agency than Show! Alicent who is a pov character atp. Rhaenyra is nothing but passive character,and Alicent a teary-eyed eternal victim. But i think this is Feminism nowadays.

Ah...okay. Then yes, agreed. And I don't think her book self was portrayed misogynistic-ally, that truly is what a patriarchal system will generate and inspire in a lot of women. That doesn't mean she, Cersei, and Catelyn Tully do not make active decisions against women for power or make them tools of some sort. Catelyn assessing her brother's Frey betrothed also shows a preoccupancy with women-as-tools or perpetuates it when it's not accompanied by some sort of critique from her. One could say she was preoccupied with getting the support her son needed, which is true. Again, that doesn't mean the cycle isn't there.

Unfortunately, when you got people to believe and spread the false term of "female gaze" (which doesn't exist), people do not take the actual male gaze and its effects seriously. If you like, here is a link to xenonwitch's POST about how the male gaze made HotD and its female characters the way that they are.

The male gaze is not about men just finding women attractive. It's about film and media objectifying, sexualizing, and dehumanizing female characters into stereotypes of women (example: the oldest versions of the femme fatale and the idea that women only seek to ruin men) so that they serve the story about the heterosexual male central characters and support that fantasy of heterosexual male sexual dominance over/victimhood of women.

Excerpt from xenon's post:

Instead of a woman who saw the individual power she could hold under patriarchy was far greater than allowing a woman to rule (and thus subvert or challenge the patriarchal status quo) as we see in Alicent (and real life Women for Trump and/or Conservative Women) the writers decided that a woman could only align with patriarchy if she had been brutally crushed beneath it and deprived or all agency. Hence Alicia becomes a doll for the men in her life to play with.

And the pics they present:

"Feminism nowadays" is not actually feminism, anon. It is either stupid/uneducated people swallowing this distorted narrative of the male gaze and declaring "female gaze" as if American or most modern popular media isn't of and/or for the hetero-male perspective and comfort. I'll add white/European to those descriptors as well. The American white gender norms of female submission and purity still come from EU ideals of femininity.

In fact, it is a very sinister and swept-under-the-rug form of anti-feminism and misogyny, because it seeks and results in discrediting feminism/male gaze by distorting its meaning.

[dethronedroses]

i just rbed a post about a comparison between the pjo adaptation and the atla adaptation and, as someone who thoroughly enjoyed and critiqued the pjo adaptation, and as someone who has only seen snippets of the new atla and people's reactions (so this is based on that and is my general opinion!!!)-- i think it's safe to say you can see the impact of not having input from the original creators.

all of the changes made in pjo were done with the author's input, and even in some instances, encouraged by him. now, were all the changes perfect? no! did they help move the story in a way that made sense for the audience, both for book readers and new people? YES!

additionally, in the pjo adaptation, the characters themselves did not fundamentally change-- percy's fatal flaw is still loyalty, annabeth's is still her pride, and the show does a good job of showing us those character details rather than telling us!! (there are some instances where they do more telling rather than showing, but different rant for a different time)

what i've gathered from the atla adaptation, especially in regards to most of the characters, is that they've stripped away fundamental character stories for the sake of appealing to a different audience. the biggest examples i can think of is aang's lack of his carefree nature, as well as MUCH of katara's rage (and feminine rage, which also has to do with how they changed sokka, but again, that is a different rant for a different time), and from what i understand, suki's character development as well

these characters arcs last throughout the entire series, and culminate at different points and conclude with the story-- something that it seems that the adaptation chose to ignore.

i still might pirate watch the show in my own time, but at the moment, from everyones initial reactions, it truly looks like the creators made the right choice to walk away from it, especially if they saw all of this coming

[blenderscaty]

CRITIQUE 1

I WANT TO EAT YOUR PANCREAS

AUTHOR

Shinichiro Ushijima   - Shinichirou Ushijima is an animation director affiliated with Studio VOLN. He studied design at a university in Los Angeles before joining the United States branch of animation studio Madhouse after graduation.

CHARACTERS/CHARACTERIZATION

Sakura Yamauchi - is the deuteragonist of the I Want to Eat Your Pancreas series and the only friend of Haruki Shiga. Haruki Shiga - is the main protagonist of the I Want to Eat Your Pancreas series and the first person to discover Sakura Yamauchi's secret. Issei Miyata -Also known as Gum Boy is a supporting character in the I Want to Eat Your Pancreas series. He's a classmate of Haruki Shiga, and someone he eventually befriends as Haruki learns to open up. Takahiro - is a supporting character in the I Want to Eat Your Pancreas series and the ex-boyfriend of Sakura Yamauchi. Kyoko Takimoto -is one of the main supporting characters in the I Want to Eat Your Pancreas series. She is the the best friend of Sakura Yamauchi.

SUMMARY

-An unnamed male high school student comes across a book in a hospital waiting room. He soon discovers that it is a diary kept by his very popular classmate Sakura Yamauchi, who reveals to him that she is secretly suffering from a fatal illness in her pancreas. Despite this, Sakura intends to maintain a normal school life and thus is drawn to him due to his relatively unfazed reaction to her condition. They begin to spend time together and become friends. During their school break, Sakura invites him on a train trip to Fukuoka where they play truth-or- dare game and eventually share a bed in their hotel room. Afterward, Sakura's friends and classmates grow suspicious and resentful of his newfound closeness to her. The two begin doing activities from Sakura's bucket list together until she is suddenly hospitalized. During her hospitalization, the two sneak out to see fireworks together. When she gets discharged, Sakura invites him for lunch but fails to show up at their meeting place. Later that night, he learns from the news that Sakura died from a stabbing. He breaks down and does not attend her funeral. Later, he visits Sakura's mother and asks for her diary. Her mother recognizes him and reveals Sakura left a message in the diary for him. The message tells him to keep the diary and to make her best friend Kyoko read it since she was unaware of her illness. Soon after reading the message, he immediately breaks down into tears as he never felt so much sorrow for a single person before. Sakura's mother learns of his name as Haruki Shiga before he leaves and explains how his name meaning "spring trees" corresponds to her daughter's name of "cherry blossom". Haruki meets with Kyoko, who is in denial that Sakura ever lied to her, but she runs away after reading the diary. Haruki runs after her and asks her to be his friend. In a post-credits scene, Haruki and Kyoko, who are now friends, visit Sakura's grave a year later.

MORAL LESSON

-'I want to eat your pancreas' is about a young girl named Sakura who was diagnosed with a pancreatic illness, and told she had only a little time left to live. This film not only is beautiful aesthetically but also through the story it tells the audience. I think the strongest part is the theming. It is just beautiful and woven into the film so effortlessly. It explores friendships, loneliness and death as well as live and living in such an amazing way. It isn't scared to really dig deep into these topics and shove them in your face to look at. I can't express how amazing it was to watch the writer explore and play with these films in such a real way.The message is to live everyday like it's your last!

[meanypunches]

Psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists and their variants are a special ‘modern type’ of monster. There is some scientific evidence that our society may favor such personality types, who can perhaps disproportionately occupy powerful positions in the ‘credentialed’ or ‘upper echelon’ institutions of our society. As part of my research into serial killers and communication I read Jon Ronson’s book The Psychopath Test. One slight correction or update to my review below is that as of this present date (12 12 2022) I have now read another of Ronson’s books, but I’ve left this review as it was first written for Goodreads and Amazon:

A shallow dive in a deep pool

Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test is an enjoyable book and hard to put down but also an easy read so pay as little as you can for it. One gets the feeling especially in this internet age that most of the information (aside from the author's own telling of how his own discovery unfolds) is available elsewhere and perhaps from more authoritative and complete sources. If you are looking for a nice rundown of additional sources and themes for further study (which I was) this is a feature of the book. Nonetheless, also for this reason, perhaps I was expecting too much. The book is admittedly a "subtle" critique as the author suggests he is aiming for on page 64 when he describes his desire on at least one topic to plant "doubt into the prose[.]" We can see he does not in any way come right out and call L. Ron Hubbard a "crackpot" and he finds the Scientologists to be very helpful but... perhaps he is holding back his true feelings, and sometimes he shows us this very clearly and other times he does not. Though he plays at being open and honest with the reader, I am somewhat skeptical of his ability to walk the fine line between truth and honesty at all times, and perhaps so is he. He sets up a code or a joke at the beginning and then he plays upon it in a variety of ways, on a variety of subjects, and its particular charm is that its construction encourages one to create patterns where perhaps none exist, and that is at least one point of the book.

We all have our own little obsessions, but of course they don't usually end in random acts of violence or corporate crime. Psychopaths could be the key to a true understanding of modern society. Or they could not be. I think Foucault also wrote a little book about the madness industry, didn't he? Or at least its early days. Modernity is in full swing now. Mr. Ronson finds himself afraid of both psychopaths and lawsuits. A very modern type of fear. Or at least anxiety. Perhaps this is what he is really getting at. I found his excessive discussions of his own anxieties a bit tiresome in places, but I have not read any of his other books and perhaps this is his shtick that his regular audience enjoys. The bit about journalists and their own obsessions reminded me of Fatal Vision and its related controversies, which are also discussed much in other sources. I was a bit surprised he didn’t at least mention them. I was also surprised that though he spends a great deal of time dealing with LSD experiments on psychopaths in Canadian asylums, and he also mentions while discussing L. Ron Hubbard the CIA mind control experiments with LSD, he does not touch upon the Canadian connection here as well with MK Ultra.

I suppose at times the book feels like a collection of missed opportunities for the author to go deeper. He quips at one point that bloggers write a lot because they aren’t getting paid for it, and maybe his regular audience is made up of people who really enjoy his light (“subtle”) touch, but I personally wished he would have spread his net much wider and deeper, as the rich source material seems to invite. He makes a lot of good points. One can’t really argue with him. He seems entirely reasonable and not at all taken by conspiracy or fear mongering. Mass media, as he points out, does seem to pay more attention to certain types of madness and this critique of his is perhaps the most powerful in the book. This type of media/social system confirmation bias makes the most sense intuitively and has also been studied intensely and at length by numerous academics and other social critics. Simply put, terrorists would throw roses, if only they could get attention that way. It can be difficult to know whom to trust these days and the book paints a still somewhat comfortable picture of modern paranoia. The author navigates these waters with skill, especially in the bit with the Scientologists.

But most of all, I’m wondering what became of Tony, the psychopath who faked it ‘til he made it. Tony is not his real name, the author makes clear, and we learn also that Mr. Ronson is not allowed to discuss what was said at a certain hearing concerning Tony’s fate. Most of us would rather stay far outside the reach of such a person. Tony could be your neighbor, the person sitting next to you at the pub, or someone walking down the street towards you under the soft glow of streetlamps one quiet summer’s eve, but probably not the executive of a major corporation, which is some consolation. Tony’s crime was vicious but it only affected one person, not the populations of entire towns where factories were shut down by a brutal CEO and the cold calculation of “P/E on Nxt FY”. Certainly as the book makes clear psychiatry and psychology evolve like all science and other systems of communication. The paradox of science is that its coded truth changes over time. As the book suggests, the collision between capitalism and science here has led to some abuses. The opioid epidemic seems to be another example. Let’s hope at least that we don’t devolve back to the glory days of the sixties and seventies, when LSD served to psychopaths and feces smeared on the walls were considered good fun, or at least good therapy.

[oh-hush-its-perfect]

Alex Fierro is a Good Character, Actually

So a lot of people in this fandom a) reduce Alex down to being her gender identity to the point where it feels tolken-ish, and b) misread the actual books (or read them so long ago that memory is hazy) so they think that it's RR's fault that the fandom treats Alex as if she has no other traits— as if the only personality trait he wrote her with is her gender.

I'm kinda sympathetic to both these groups because the first camp tends to be young people and the second camp tends to be people who have seen RR's pattern of bad representation and have become somewhat hypersensitive to it— and understandably so!

But at the same time, canon Alex is actually a really well-rounded character (one of RR's best characters period) and that kind of gets lost in the tolken-y stuff and in the wider RR critical movement. RR made a lot of mistakes— many while writing Alex— but much of his writing is still quality. Alex's canonical character is really engaging and well-done.

So this post is just a reminder of some of Alex's traits that have nothing to do with her being genderfluid.

PERSONALITY:

Alex is a caring person. People tend to forget about this a lot, but when she needs to be, she's genuinely kind and comforting and heroic.

Alex is a clingy person. When she opens up to people, she becomes very attached to them and their well-being— both in a physical and non-physical sense.

Alex has adapted confidence as a defense mechanism.

Alex is snarky— not a defense mechanism. That's just how she is. :)

Alex exhibits a lot of entitlement. If you ask me, it's her fatal flaw; fatal flaws need to be consistent throughout a character's page time, and Alex's entitlement is there right up until the end, with her expecting Magnus to wait on her to make a decision about their relationship. I could write a whole seperate thing on just this topic.

ALEX'S TRAUMA IS NOT JUST THE RESULT OF HER BEING TRANS. Of course that's part of it, but there are other factors, too. Which bring us to...

TRAUMA:

Being unwanted and unexpected by her mortal parents— similar to what Annabeth Chase experienced in terms of trauma.

Developing anti-capitalist opinions in a household that organized itself around capitalism.

Yes, part of the reason her father kicked her out was because of her gender. But it was ALSO— and people tend to forget this— because she refused to take over the family business and wouldn't tolerate her father's abuse. At the core of Alex's character is a critique of capitalism and industry.

Being raised in part by Loki, who implicitly tried convincing her to do terrible things (it's never said outright, but the scene where he convinces her to make her clay-cutter a weapon... it's not unreasonable to think that he also tried persauding her to hurt people). This is similar to Samirah's experience.

A disconnection from her heritage— the kind of thing a lot of first and second generation immigrants experience.

While we're here, let's talk about something fun.

HOBBIES/INTERESTS:

I've heard the claim that since Alex sees herself in her pottery in the way that that clay in changable. For that reason, okay, yeah, let's not count pottery. Let's talk about her other interests. Because, yeah, she has quite a few that have nothing whatsoever to do with her gender.

Fashion. Alex has an eccentric fashion sense— and an expensive one. She likes prestigious brands (like Stella McCartney). She also enjoys making clothes. This is shown in SotD when she a) makes Hearth a scarf to replace his old one, and b) makes herself a chainmail sweater-vest.

Hiking/camping. Alex mentions how she used to go out with her pottery studio to get out of her house, and how she developed a love for it. This is kinda cute because it gives her a common interest with Magnus.

Reading. This also gives her a common interest with Magnus. I also appreciate how RR named names— Alex really said "meh" to Lord of the Rings.

TL;DR: Rick Riordan didn't reduce Alex Fierro down to her gender. The fandom did— and that's something we need to address and correct as a community. Also, maybe you should re-read the books if it's been a while. They're pretty good!

[rhetoricandlogic]

After the Dragons, Cynthia Zhang

(Stelliform Press 978-1-77709-174-3, $19.99 160pp, tp)

August 2021. Cover by Wang Xulin.

“Shaolong. Throat scorch. Caused by long exposure to poor air quality, especially common in cities with high pollution indexes and poor environmental regulations – the same disease that killed his grandmother.”

Cynthia Zhang’s After the Dragons is a queer SFF novella that follows Xiang Kaifei (Kai), a jaded college student, and Elijah Ahmed (Eli), an American medical researcher, as they search for a cure for shaolong, a terminal lung disease that ravages human populations. Perhaps they can even save the dragons, the former gods and revered beings of the East that now live like stray animals on the streets of Beijing. Focusing largely on climate change, the environment, and its impact on people and other earthly inhabitants, After the Dragons follows the Kai and Eli through science labs and street alleys as they tackle questions of a dying planet and their blossoming love for one another.

Beijing native Kai is terminally ill with shaolong and spends his days rescuing abandoned dragons in the streets. His caring yet stand-offish nature captures the attention of Chinese-American Eli, who is in Beijing to do immunological research before starting medical school and to learn more about the disease that killed his grandmother. Connected through this shared pain and tender kindness for the abused, forgotten dragons, their small yet meaningful attempts to make positive change are quite heroic, even if not filled with intense action scenes or brutal romantic heartbreak. They’re very sweet boys who have found one another through their shared caring for others. While it can be unclear exactly what attracted them to one another, aside from shared interests, it’s not of particular concern in the grand scheme of the story; they simply enjoy one another’s company and want to see one another survive.

Cynthia Zhang’s depictions of Beijing are built in part on Kai and Eli’s conversations about the differences between American cities and Chinese cities like Beijing. This happens quite often, despite their rigorous studies and Kai’s deteriorating health. It’s unclear why they are so fascinated with these constructed differences, and it seems more of an intrusion of the author’s interests than the characters. Yet they both appear to have wandering minds that direct the plot in various, unexpected directions. Kai and Eli are very much focused on their studies, and sorting out their place in a dying world rather than trying to change political systems and prevent planetary destruction. In a way, it makes the book less overwhelming, even if the stakes are still high. They’re average people, but just above-average enough to make an attempt at change a part of their life’s mission.

Due to the generous use of reflective inner dialogue, I found some passages a little too obvious, particularly as it related to Eli and Kai’s thoughts about imperialism, capitalism, and consumption. Not that their critiques of American cultural and moral imperialism and global consumption were unfounded, but they were written in an academic way rather than from the characters’ point of view, which removed me from the story and did not quite fit the rest of the novella’s tone. This wasn’t a fatal flaw, but it made it difficult to get into the story without losing my focus, and made it harder to understand the characters’ immediate, day to day aspirations.

Conversations between Kai and Eli become more relatable and less rehearsed as their relationship deepens and the physical space between them shrinks. It’s quite cute to see the pair grow increasingly comfortable around one another. I’m biased towards romance in SFF, so I can’t give an even and balanced take on whether this took off too quickly or not, I was just thrilled to see it happen.

There are many beautiful moments nestled in After the Dragons – like the subtle, two-sentence summaries that convey how the poor and the wealthy experience natural disasters amid slice-of-life depictions of Kai and Eli’s day to day life in the city. Kai’s walks through the city to search for dragons are a clever way to introduce readers to this fictional depiction of Beijing. The dragons flit in and out of the narrative like color splashes against the polluted city before taking on personalities of their own. Mei is a particularly well-written dragon, even if she has no dialogue – her personality is conveyed well enough that she is just as memorable, if not more so, than some of the human characters in the story.

It was very unusual to read a climate change novel devoid of a looming and sudden global extinction event – there were no large super storms or floods, just increasingly bad air, droughts, and sickness as a result. I quite enjoyed it, even with the slightly too-close-to-home feeling that much of this (dragons excluded) is already a reality for people….

[hamliet]

Do you think Mikasa will kill Eren? This brings me back to Game of Thrones' terrible ending 😭

Yes, but this time I think it works 100%. If anything, it’s the inverse of GoT’s grotesque disaster--which keep in mind, Isayama himself has noted both on his blog and in an interview, he didn’t like and felt it ruined the show’s “artistic legacy.”

The thing about a tragedy is that you have to frame it as a tragedy the entire time; opening with that bittersweet panel (it’s literally the first scene of the series) and having Eren crying as a result of this dream told us we weren’t headed for Happily Ever After. Daenerys, on the other hand, had her story framed as a triumphant hero, a chosen one, Azor Ahai (which she pretty clearly is in the books) who will do terrible things and wonderful things, and ultimately save humanity.

Jon and Daenerys is also not framed tragically. I’m not getting into the show because they didn’t do it either, but I honestly don’t think the books are setting up this ending either. She sees a vision of a blue rose spilling sweetness in the wall, symbolizing Jon. That gives a sense of comfort, of peace.

If Jon kills Dany in the books or they both die, my guess would be it’d be after they had a child, so they leave a legacy, and it’d be heroically (instead of Azor Ahai killing Nissa Nissa, with NN being Jon, Dany may sacrifice herself instead). Now, for the record, I still think that’s problematic and subject to quite a bit of critique. But it isn’t a tragedy in the sense of someone’s worst traits consuming them.

Mikasa’s first meeting of Eren was when he stabbed several people. Yes, he told her to fight for her life, to live, and that’s good. Eren’s not evil incarnate or anything. He’s not a mad dog who needs to be put down. He is a person so fully convinced of his own nationalism and fatalism that he’s not listening to reason, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

I think Mikasa and Eren will have a moment before she kills him, wherein she shows him he was wrong and they could have had a happily ever after. Jon and Daenerys’s union is supposed to be hopeful; it’s a good thing they get together in the story (eventually). They needed each other to save humanity (and in the show they did and then everyone forgot 2 seconds later because... yeah that makes a lot of sense).

And so a hopeful union could have been for Mikasa and Eren... except Eren and Mikasa didn’t get together, and that’s the tragedy. It’s not anyone’s fault so much, but Eren left after one simple ask. Zeke even told him directly that Mikasa is in love with him, and Eren insisted it didn’t matter because he’s so focused on his own death, on his destiny, that he can’t look at life around him. He shoves away all comfort.

Eren chose this. It didn’t have to be this way.

[cherry-interlude]

Lana Del Rey Album Songs Ranking (Remade)

It’s been a few years since I ranked all of Lana’s (album) songs so I wanted to do it again. This is all my OPINION, which I’m sure some people might disagree with, but you don’t have to agree with it. This is also a very long post.

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

This cover song is just a little too drab and uninteresting to me, and I never listen to it. After the brilliant, sprawling, sexy, heart-breaking tracks on Honeymoon, this feels like a tacked-on track just to plump up the album. It feels simply like a cover.

For Free

Though this is a well-made song, with three brilliant women owning the track, it again just feels like a cover. It fits in well with Chemtrails, but by the time I get to this song I’ve had my fill.

Breaking Up Slowly

It just feels repetitive and simple, something only to have on in the background while my attention is diverted. It’s a good song and a nice attempt at bringing Lana’s country music in, but it does little to keep me interested.

God Knows I Tried

This song is filler. Jammed between the jazzy softness of Terrence Loves You and the pop favourite High By The Beach, this track just feels like it was sort of shoved in. It doesn’t even feel completely right on Honeymoon, instead a throwaway song that bridges Ultraviolence and Honeymoon whilst not fitting in with either album.

24

Though perfect for the credits of a Hollywood movie, 24 has plenty of flair but nothing of substance. The lyrics aren’t as imaginative as most of Lana’s music and I’m not surprised this song found itself near the end of the album.

Lucky Ones

Personally, this song irritates me. It's sickly in its lyrics, sugary in the romance and classic Lana tropes of dangerous men and Lana starstruck by them no matter if they’re ‘careless cons and crazy liars’. The little flair of the verses and the overtly sweet chorus really irks me, especially following the brilliance that is Lana’s first ‘Del Rey’ album.

Coachella

It is a rushed track, sounding completely unfinished and hurried with an unconvincing track beat. Polished, it would be brilliant – but it sounds like Lana thought of the song (which sounds promising in the video where she sits in the forest and sings) and had to force it to ‘fit in’ with the trap-pop tracks on Lust For Life. The lyrics are thoughtful, if not cliché, but it could have been done better.

This Is What Makes Us Girls

It just doesn’t appeal to me. Maybe because I can’t connect to the lyrics in any way, I just don’t feel anything when I hear this song and choose to skip it. That being said, the demos are pretty fun.

God Bless America

As much as it’s a song honouring women during a period of time when feminism was being shaken, it doesn’t quite feel like Lana’s heart is in it. The patriotism is uneasy considering she was removing herself from the American flag and its associations, and the anthemic feel never lifts. It’s a sweet song, but never goes deeper than surface level.

Religion

Though fairly sexy and haunting – her unshaken faith to her man, her drawling voice – this delicate track is too simple and sombre for me to get completely into it. I always want to skip and get to my favourites.

In My Feelings

It’s great Lana has a bad-girl, bad-bitch, fuck-you pop track but this, like Coachella, feels unfinished. It has the vibe of work in progress, and the vocals are still messy (surely intentionally, though it doesn’t always come across that way) as well as trying slightly too hard. It doesn’t compare to Fucked My Way Up To The Top.

Beautiful People Beautiful Problems

The verses don’t match up to the choruses and I feel nothing – not empowered or emotional – when listening to this song, but it is a beautiful duet between Lana and Stevie. Their voices really are divine together and though I don’t listen to this song much, the demos are even better.

Change

Mostly because it freaks me out, this is a song I don’t often listen to. With a basic structure yet long, meandering lyrics, Lana broods over the state of America at the time, which can make for depressive listening. Though it’s a pretty enough song, it’s seriousness is too much to bear sometimes.

Blue Velvet

Sometimes too slow, Blue Velvet doesn’t inspire multiple listens in me, but it is a gorgeous cover and absolutely a showcase of Lana’s vocals.

Diet Mountain Dew

A cheeky little track that won many over, it still is hard for me to fully get into it. However, it ages like fine wine and is a wonderful step into the Lizzy Grant unreleased tracks (especially with the many, sometimes even better demos).  

Burning Desire

It’s a messy song, with Lana’s vocals shaky and the instrumental not quite up to scratch, but this song is certainly a guilty pleasure and great for getting into the sexy mood. The car metaphors are a bit much, especially considering it’s for a car advert, but if you get past that it’s a song to add to your freaky playlist.

Money Power Glory

As powerful and dark as this song is, with incredible instrumentals and Lana at her most dynamic, I barely remember the lyrics of the verses, instead waiting for the rich choruses.

Swan Song

A gentle track that has a lot of untapped power behind it, this is a quiet stormer of a song that has a lot of heart and grace. It may be a filler track, but it is definitely better than some.

Bartender

Even more gentle is the confessional, piano-led Bartender, which is a sweet little love song stripped back much like Lana’s simple romance where she sneaks out to see her lover. The main (and probably ridiculous) thing that keeps me from falling in love with this song more – though I’m already pretty amazed by it – is the very quiet sound of feedback that comes and goes, a fuzzy noise that is very subtle but distracting enough for me.

The Next Best American Record

This song would be higher if it was Architecture – the gorgeous, well-thought stunner that wowed us all when it was leaked. The lyrics are less fractured relationship and more wishy washy, wiping away the gritty sadness that made Architecture so beloved (at least to me). Now it’s been made ‘happier’, it’s hard to tell what the song is – is Lana happy with her lover or is she sad like in the unreleased version? Is this a break up song or a celebration of the romance? What does it mean now that it is both of them that are obsessed with writing? It’s something for me to certainly explore more, but it is paled in comparison to the original.

When The World Was At War

This track grew on me, with the hidden lyrics, fun vocals and hopeful message. Lana knows how to make a song that lifts your mood and this is certainly one of them.

Guns and Roses

I used to despise this song – finding it boring and dull. However, after giving it a listen years later, it is in fact a beautiful song with a gritty feel that is perfect for Ultraviolence. It fits in perfectly with the album and the extended tracks, and though it isn’t the strongest lyrically, the vocals and dreamy feel is thrilling.

Lolita

I choose to listen to this song without the underage character – or romantic connotations of her – in mind, instead seeing this song as a grown woman trying to charm an older man. However, as I have grown older – and read (and loved) the book several times more – I feel more inclined to distance myself from this song. It’s a fun, perky pop track but it definitely feels dated.

Dance Till We Die

Lana sings of her connection to other famous female singers and her daughter’s chosen name, making this a very personal pop song that also reminds of When The World Was At War for its hopeful and ultimately positive edge. It is a little slow but incredible touching, and the bridge is so kickass you can’t help but dance along.

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

This is a very sweet little song that again showcases the more positive side of Lana’s music, rather than the heartbroken and distressed women she tends to play. Though it is a filler song it’s a very pretty one and so catchy.

Wild At Heart

Wild At Heart is similar to Not All Who Wander Are Lost in that it’s a departure from a tragic femme fatale, instead a love song that also mimics Swan Song in that she considers leaving fame for her lover. What makes it even better is how Lana samples How To Disappear, a much sadder track, and twists it into something happy with this ultimately more upbeat album.

Radio

Like Diet Mountain Dew, Radio is another perky tune that is more than just a catchy filler. It’s a little bit sassy and has an edge to it (with the expletives and how her life is sweet not like sugar but cinnamon) that keeps it from being too frothy. Speaking of Lana’s newfound fame, it’s a nice break from the love ballads and tragedies peppered throughout Born To Die.

Without You

Shockingly dramatic, Without You is the ultimate symbol of Lana’s older music – a woman who could only feel happy unless her man was in her life. She has definitely moved on for the most part from wailing her demise at losing her lover but Without You is still glamorous, catchy and perfect to singalong to.

The Other Woman

This is one of Lana’s best covers – Nina Simone’s song about being the other woman and how it is in fact lonely and heart-breaking. Lana makes the song her own, her vocals stunning and lo-fi with instrumentals that are perfect for Ultraviolence.

How To Disappear

I feel that the live version of How To Disappear, where she sung it on stage before it was released with its real instrumental, is the superior version. It’s stripped back and tender enough to feel the emotion thoroughly, but the album version doesn’t disappoint. It’s one of many great tracks from (what I think is) her best album, and has a great story within it.

Fucked My Way Up To The Top

Lana’s satirical, sexy and stirring Fucked My Way Up To The Top was just tongue-in-cheek enough to keep from being too much of a cliché. Perhaps based on her real experiences but definitely a fuck-you to anyone who critiques her for owning her sexuality, it’s a little bit controversial but an incredible song.

Tomorrow Never Came

This song, which is a gorgeous duet with Sean Ono Lennon and a nice nod to 20th century music, subverts expectations that it is a sad song by in fact including a happy ending. I love how it can make you cry with both sadness and happiness, and tells a sweet story that paints pictures of parks and country houses.

Yosemite

The long-awaited Yosemite didn’t disappoint, and though it took a while to grow on me it became a classic and somehow familiar track. It’s impossible to not sing or dance to it and wouldn’t be out of place in Lust For Life.

Hope Is A Dangerous Thing

It’s quite slow – the Change/24/Old Money of Norman Fucking Rockwell – but it is clearly a personal and well-thought song that references Lana’s great inspiration Sylvia Plath. Lana’s deft at getting her thoughts out in song and I think though it’s not a song I often listen to, it is beautiful.

Honeymoon

The sweeping violins, dramatic vocals and the dangerous undercurrent makes Honeymoon crackle with electricity. It’s an amazing introduction to an album that once again has dangerous men, bad girls who get hurt but are strong again and amazing instrumentals. Though it’s not the best song from the album, it sets the tone perfectly.

Million Dollar Man

Like Without You, it’s another song of complete devastation, which Lana has grown from in her music. Million Dollar Man shows some great vocals and lyrics, and gets the emotion out perfectly whilst honouring the music that inspired her.

Old Money

The verses are pretty enough but they don’t catch my attention the way the choruses do. The slow, steady song took a long time for me to really appreciate but it’s impossible not to feel some kind of emotion when Lana lets her lover know she will be with them whenever they need her.

Sad Girl

Like The Other Woman, Sad Girl shows how being the other woman has it’s downfalls but appreciates the sexy, exciting side of it – how alluring her man is and how much of a bad bitch she may be. Once again, it’s a pure Ultraviolence song that shows Lana’s vocals and music in the best way whilst showcasing the classic caricature of the femme fatale.

Dark Paradise

Strangely upbeat for such a sad song, Dark Paradise is great to dance to but also something that makes you want to cry. Lana’s vocalisations and dramatic lyrics don’t quite compare to some of her other songs but Dark Paradise is iconic.

Summertime Sadness

The slow-burn, emotional gut punch that is Summertime Sadness is always a classic and one of Lana’s best. Though it is far from my personal favourite it is absolutely an outstanding song and the perfect example of Lana’s most well-made and well-delivered songs.

Gods and Monsters

The strained Gods and Monsters is a great tale about the evil side of fame, which Lana never quite delves too deeply into but gives a metaphorical and mildly personal nod to. Gods and Monsters is one of those songs that has you singing along and feeling strong.

Carmen

Carmen is a beautiful, sad story that feels rich and luxurious despite its harrowing lyrics of an alcoholic star. The French bridge adds to the decadence and it feels like a dirty alcohol bottle wrapped in silk, from the tentative verses to the unnerving chorus.

Born To Die

One of Lana’s original pop chart tracks, this is a song that never grows old. It’s one of the blueprints of the Lana Del Rey era and deftly shows her vocals whilst setting the tone for the pessimistic, romantic star in the early 2010s.

Salvatore

Opening with laughing – or crying – Salvatore has an eerie feel to it, though it is completely erotic in feel (enough to ignore some of the simpler lyrics). It is a song that feels dreamy, much like the rest of Honeymoon, but passionate and reminding of some of her older music (from the vocals in the bridge that have a Lolita/Fucked My Way Up To The Top feel to them to the continued trope of bad boys and glamour).

Flipside

Dirty, gritty and quite contained, Flipside is a song that I wished had more attention. It’s not her most imaginative song but there’s something about it, from the gloomy guitars to the hushed vocals, that have me wanting to sing it over and over. It also is one of her great fuck-off songs, as sympathetic as it is resilient.

Doin’ Time

Lana really turns this song into her own with the summery instrumentals and the pop edge she is so good at. It’s surprisingly one of her best covers and a fresh-feeling track that isn’t bogged down by emotion or maudlin music.

Lust For Life

Breathless and oh-so-romantic, Lust For Life is one of those songs that was perfect for the charts, and a key piece in Lana’s turn into becoming more positive. However, as fun and lovely as this song is, the demos are a whole other ball game. A little more ethereal, they fit Lana much more perfectly and it’s sad she dismissed the witchy feel for a song that is brilliant but generic.

Love

One of Lana’s warmest and most refreshing songs, she looks at love with fondness and dedicates this track to her ‘kids’. She knows her fans well and to make a song that references them (much like Happiness Is A Butterfly’s nod to her ‘babies’) makes this song all the more pleasant.

The Greatest

Lana’s vocals are put to good use in this intimately-written song. She speaks her mind in her reminiscence of the past and the worries for the future, all with a storming chorus that is certainly one of her best.

Love Song

Tender and almost tentative, Love Song is one of those tracks that is romantic through-and-through. It’s stripped back enough to feel like it really is a private song for only her lover’s ears, just as confessional as Cinnamon Girl and Bartender.

White Mustang

Short but sweet, this song has all the makings of a Lana Del Rey song, harking back to the Born To Die days with her imagery and fallen love affair, but it is spiky enough to be part of her later music where she starts giving less shits. The whistling and race cars are a nice touch, displaying her play on words snugly.

Dark But Just A Game

Sort of jazzy, Dark But Just A Game is ever-shifting and never quite settles on a particular sound. It’s cohesive, however, and clearly states what Lana is thinking in a way that works with the rest of Chemtrails. It’s pretty sexy as well, which doesn’t hurt the enjoyability factor.

High By The Beach

The wooziness, the carelessness and the growth from a woman begging to be put in a movie to a woman who is able to do as she pleases. Lana stumbles and swears through the song but knows exactly what she wants – and it isn’t disappointing men or stalking paparazzi.

Let Me Love You Like A Woman

Some may think it much slower and more boring than a lot of her tracks, but I think it’s a tidy, sweet track. Lana plainly states her love, urges her man to run away with her and lets her emotions (and voice) do the talking.

Summer Bummer

Lana is as restless as a hot summer in this song and it works. Her brisk-paced yet soft-voiced lyrics and gorgeous imagery gets my pulse racing, and ASAP Rocky’s verse works well for it. Though it would have been interesting to get a full, solo Summer Bummer, Rocky adds an edge to this song and compliments his ‘lover’ well.

Groupie Love

Much more flowery and wide-eyed, Groupie Love is like a contradiction. Lana’s passionate dalliance with Rocky’s god-like star opposes the relationship in Summer Bummer (uncertain) but both are just as secret. Groupie Love has the edge of being ultra-dreamy and demonstrating pure love – and lust – without the messiness.

American

It’s a filler track that has potential for much more. It’s an adorable song, almost cautious in its lead-up to the satisfying chorus, and is filled with Lana tropes galore. Following Lana’s stressed Ride and coming before the darkly sensual Cola, American is a breath of fresh air.

National Anthem

What an anthem it is. It’s simply provocative and one of her most classic tracks. Mixing love, money and fame together with a bit of sex thrown in, National Anthem is precisely what Lana’s America seems to be.

Is This Happiness?

It’s muted, mournful and resentful, questioning a relationship that Lana wants to keep but at the same time doesn’t. This is one of Lana’s best sad songs, tearful as it is still adoring beneath the exasperation.

Art Deco

Art Deco is purely dreamy, a song to bathe in. The lyrics are a little bit simple but Lana’s vocals and the flowing, aquatic music is the perfect hook.

Terrence Loves You

Lana’s jazzy song is delicate, letting only her voice and the saxophone dominate. With references to David Bowie, Lana pines for someone who hurt her badly, but she soothes herself with music the way plenty of her fans do when listening to her records.

White Dress

The vocals were a surprise at first – high, strained whispers – but they definitely grew on me. Painting a picture of young Lana loving life and dreaming of bigger things, it’s nostalgic in lyrics but also reminds of some of Lana’s old work – her unreleased tracks where she would serve coke and fries.

Chemtrails

It gets better as it goes on, growing and twisting from a song to sunbathe to into a restless, darkening track. It has the best vibe for an idealised world with something a bit off, and the imagery of pools, jewels and schools grounds Lana into a (very, very rich) normality rather than the glamorous star she always liked to portray.

13 Beaches

Opening with a quote from Carnival of Souls, Lana takes High By The Beach to the next level. She goes from sticking her middle finger up to the paparazzi to simply wishing she would be allowed to live her life without them hounding her. It’s a matured approach that uses sound interestingly, with beeps and whines adding a strange texture to the song.

Cola

The controversial line was intended as humour, but strangely it works. Even if Cola is satire like Fucked My Way Up To The Top, Lana owns the ‘other woman’, the patriotic singer, the sexy and unashamed woman who says what she thinks without caring of the consequences. It’s an iconic song, even if you have to turn the volume down to not offend.

Black Beauty

The unreleased version is ten times more emotive, with its stripped back and lonesome feel, but the album version is just as good. The ultimately loving but unhappy lyrics are full of stunning imagery, and this is a song that would have been perfect with a music video.

Body Electric

Blasphemous as much as it honours icons, Lana sinfully owns Body Electric. The bridge is a bit out of place but Lana’s eyebrow-raising approach to religion and sexuality is genius.

Off To The Races

The best demonstration of Lana’s vocals, Lana plays the glam girl without a care just as well as the Lolita-type, needy lover in this ode to money and her man. The soaring bridge is stunning, and the swirling violins add an air of Hollywood to it.

Bel Air

Completely overlooked (in my opinion), Bel Air is an apologetic song of redemption, a shining and honest track that is as touching as much as it is hazy and tranquil. With soft piano and the sound of children opening and closing the song respectively, it’s set apart from Paradise with a pureness that Lana pulls off well.

Ultraviolence

Controversial at the time and still controversial now, Ultraviolence is about being weak, about giving in to love no matter how toxic. I don’t entirely support the lyrics but it’s a stunning song, lo-fi enough to feel uneasy and haunting. When you shut off from the lyrics, you get a simply beautiful track.

Pretty When You Cry

Lana’s imperfect, close-to-tears vocals are wonderful in this song, and she really lets her emotion shine through. The pained guitar and Lana’s increasingly distressed singing are enough to get you feeling exactly as she does.

Florida Kilos

Fun. Fresh. Freeing. Lana’s ode to drugs is simply something to dance to and sing, and she somehow manages to get the sunny feeling across even with the Ulraviolence-esque grunginess. It’s one of my favourite songs of Lana’s because it’s just so happy, which is a nice departure from some of her heavier tracks.

Cherry

Many people’s favourite – Cherry. It was my favourite of Lana’s for a long time, dripping with sex appeal and sadness but with a cute dance to compliment it. It had all the right stuff wrapped up in a tidy, compact box and the imagery is lush. I still love this song but since then we’ve had the ‘Cherries’ of her next few albums, Cinnamon Girl and Tulsa Jesus Freak. Like these, Cherry was a song that seemed set apart from the rest of the album and was a novel take on her typical music.

California

Simply for It's meaningful, raw lyrics – promising to be there as soon as he wants her, much like in Old Money – California is a sun-soaked dream with a very honest approach. Lana isn’t completely devastated, or begging for her lover to return. She is sad but realistic, and only wants the best for him. It’s beautiful and sad with a crazily addictive chorus.

West Coast

The shift from fast-paced, grungey, whispered verses to sprawling, drawling choruses – complete with weirdly sexy beeps towards the end of the song – shook us all, and it’s one of Lana’s most interesting songs. Lana honours the West Coast but also her man, in love with the music scene as much as she is with him.

Shades of Cool

The snide verses. The gradually growing music. The guitars. The explosive chorus. The nuclear bridge. The absolutely perfect timing and pacing. Shades of Cool is flawless, another Sad Girl but with much more power, emotion and music.

The Blackest Day

The Blackest Day needs more attention. Cold in places, almost lost, but then wounded in the chorus, The Blackest Day rolls with the emotions and is the kind of song that makes you want to fall apart and sob. Which is good, in a way, as it shows how brilliantly Lana conveys emotion.

Freak

Cult-like and haunting, this is the sexy predecessor of California. Lana swoons and tempts in this track, from her harmonising to her pouting “take it to the back if you really wanna talk” - not to mention the rest of the song in its entirely, all elements married together to create the perfect seductive track.

Music To Watch Boys To

Like Art Deco, Music To Watch Boys To is fairly aquatic and dreamy. Like Freak, it has that cult vibe (the chanting of the bridge). However, this song is perfectly its own, from the mix-up of vocal styles to the shifting tone (sad to smug to obsessively in love).

Norman Fucking Rockwell

What an opener. Norman Fucking Rockwell lets the actual singing and lyrics do the talking, the instrumentals pushed back enough to let Lana’s gut-punching first line (“God damn, man child, you fucked me so good that I almost said I love you”) and her blue yet annoyed insults to her Norman Rockwell do the talking.

Mariner’s Apartment Complex

It’s a song for yourself and for the people you love. Lana is strong enough to take care of herself, to be her own guidance – and to take on her lover’s problems too. It’s an empowering song, so distant from a lot of her discography, and I adore the nautical references and the hopeful message.

Brooklyn Baby

Satire again, but it still works. Lana plays a (fairly cringey) and somewhat self-absorbed, over-confident singer who is too cool for her own boyfriend, but she does it well. From saying how she wished people didn’t judge her, to the freedom the seventies gives her, to the warm guitars and upbeat tone, to the backup vocals of Seth Kaufman, Brooklyn Baby is a song to remember for all the right reasons.

Ride

Ride is one of Lana’s best, if not the best. With her devotion to America and her open thoughts about needing other people to make her feel good and happy, Lana knocks it out of the park with the superb step up from Born To Die.

Video Games

Video Games is just beautiful, plain and simple. Lana’s low voice, telling a flowing story of the simplicities of true love, are removed from her ‘famous singer’ image she constantly tried to portray and instead open up to the heart of what she has always sung about: love and its many forms, good or bad.

Get Free

The new take on Ride was a pleasant surprise. From changing the lyrics to show she wants to move on and be happy to (silently) name-dropping her influences, Lana’s manifesto was a personal song that we could all resonate with. The outro of the beach was the perfect closer to Lust For Life, and Get Free summarised the album which took her from sad girl to someone who could let herself move on.

Heroin

Heroin is no doubt one of her best. It’s tense and dark, referencing Manson and (allegedly) a friend she lost years ago. Lana lets herself dive into her worst thoughts headfirst, not so much dreamy as it is nightmarish, but still comes out the other side dreaming of marzipan and ready to move on.

Tulsa Jesus Freak

The third of the ‘Cherries’, Tulsa Jesus Freak goes straight to a happy place. Where Cherry was angry and Cinnamon Girl was cautious, this track dives into being comfortable with her man. It was just as passionate as the other two songs but about religion, sex and self-satisfaction.

Blue Jeans

Plucking guitars, crying violins and Lana weaving a tale about a gangsta who left her, without explanation, and the hurt that follows. Similarly tied to Dark Paradise, Blue Jeans is the next level of that, her tough-girl spoken verses dismissed as the choruses open up and she pours her heart out.

Cruel World

Lana is on top-form on this song, furious, maddened, sad, taunting – she hits every emotion with style. Lana grows more and more unstable as the song goes on, invoking images of a woman scorned and no longer taking that shit, but she still has a fragility about her as she comes undone that is tied directly to her Ultraviolence era.

Happiness Is A Butterfly

This song goes through many stages. She is unsure, not knowing how her lover feels. She is optimistic, elated as she tries to capture the butterfly. She is dismissive, no longer caring if she might get hurt – she loves too much. She is pissed off, sick of being treated badly. She gives in, simply wanting to dance and just be happy. The flow of this song is constant, a little messy, but it has the beautiful message pinned to it: to keep trying to be happy and do what you love.

Fuck It I Love You

I love the music video version more than the album version, the latter being more stripped back. Fuck It I Love You just gives in to emotion, acknowledging Lana is hurt, her lover is hurt, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love him. She simply lets that feeling take over.

Cinnamon Girl

Cinnamon Girl touched me like no other Lana song has. Where Cherry was a mixture of emotions, good and bad, angry and loving, devastated and thrilled, Cinnamon Girl was about cautious optimism. Lana urges her lover to give in, and she knows – smiling as she sings it – she wins.

Venice Bitch

Venice Bitch just has that soothing, unhindered feel to it – and not just from the nine minutes of pure music and vibe. Lana dedicates this song to the kind of love that is just wholesome and homely, all whilst touching on her insanity, her ever-lasting love for America and the modern world (her live streams). It feels nostalgic yet contemporary, and adding the “fucks” and “bitch[es]” helps keep this song from being to sugary sweet but instead what it is – an honest love song rooted in the idealised and the realistic.

[onecornerface]

Against oversimplifying racism’s role in the drug war

Racism is a crucial part of the war on drugs, both in the past and the present. But it’s important not to be sloppy in how we structure our analysis of drug policy or our arguments for reform. The role of racism is historically and normatively complex.

Racism is, of course, a huge part of the explanation for why so many drugs are illegal while alcohol and tobacco are legal. Particular drugs are targeted or exempted in part based on *who* is using (or seen as using) the drug. The drug war largely began in the 1930s, in the campaigns of Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, along with a broader trend of media sensationalism, which were conducted in a manner that was overtly extremely racist. Earlier, anti-opiate laws already had a great deal to do with anti-Asian bigotry. Later on, in the 1970s and 1980s, Republicans mobilized racist stereotypes and white anti-desegregation backlash to massively expand the war on drugs and support “law and order” (see Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow).

Even today, in the US and some other countries, black people are much more likely to be arrested for using or selling cannabis (among other drugs) despite using and selling it at similar rates as white people. Carl Hart has explored how police brutality has been defended on the grounds of stereotypes and prejudices that specifically target black people who use drugs. Kerwin Kaye has explored how drug courts and addiction treatment programs are distorted by a reliance on racist and classist stereotypes of “the drugs lifestyle.”

Nevertheless, popular charges of racism are often oversimplified. For one thing, the historical picture is more complex. It wasn’t just white racists who supported the war on drugs in the 1980s. Nearly all the black members of Congress supported Reagan’s anti-drug laws. Many black people supported harsh laws against crack, including the powder/crack sentencing disparity, because they believed the anti-crack laws were necessary in order to save their own communities from crime and addiction. James Forman Jr. has explored this in his book Locking Up Our Own and his earlier article “Racial Critiques of Mass Incarceration: Beyond the New Jim Crow.”

Moreover, we should be careful to condemn drug prohibition for the right reasons. The drug war isn’t unjust only because it’s racist, is it? Suppose the government discovered a way to enforce the drug laws equally against people of all races. That would still be abhorrent, because it would still violate rights, destroy liberty, and create perverse incentives that mostly increase the rates of addiction, health hazards, and fatal overdose. (I think fleshing out and providing evidence for these claims is where the bulk of the pro-reform argumentation needs to be done.)

Many other laws are also disproportionately enforced against people of color, including laws regarding property crime and violent crime. Presumably this is not a decisive reason to abolish laws against theft and violence. (I am setting aside anarchism and police/prison abolitionist views for the moment-- which I think are respectable positions that deserve a lot more attention, but which are also highly contentious and often seriously under-developed, too often leaving them vague and speculation-based.) Naturally I would argue that anti-drug laws have much less intrinsic merit than anti-theft or anti-violence laws—but this claim is distinct from any racism-based argument.

It is also highly plausible that anti-drug laws are inevitably enforced in more racist ways than anti-theft or anti-violence laws—e.g. due to the higher degree of widespread noncompliance with anti-drug laws among the general population, and/or the fact that drug crimes are victimless in a way that most other crimes aren’t. This likely creates unique incentives to enforce anti-drug laws selectively against people who are the least capable of fighting back—largely those who are poor and nonwhite. (There are also further questions about how much this selective enforcement should be considered class-based vs. race-based. A robust analysis would, I think, acknowledge that both are factors and complexly interlinked.)

So anti-drug laws may still be more racist (and classist) than most other laws, and this may count as one of the reasons to abolish all or many anti-drug laws. But importantly, this argument is (1) a comparative argument that anti-drug laws are distinctively more racist than most other laws (rather than an absolutist argument that any amount of racist enforcement entails that a law should be abolished), and (2) a substantive set of empirical and normative claims—which require a lot more clarification and evidential grounding than what they’ve often been given.

[nullconvention]

So like, if you're a scifi fan and you read Gibson, then you'd probably see the two latest books out from him and figure "well, cyberpunk, right?" and like... no, actually.

The last overt cyberpunk books Gibson wrote were in the 90's in with the Bridge trilogy and those were a reaction to the response to The Sprawl trilogy. It's not farcical, but it does turn some of the "cool protagonist" tropes on their head. In this it sort of shares some of the extrapolation of the original sorts of themes with books like Snow Crash - a second or third generation of cyberpunk literature which had started to become self-referential.

Blue Ant, I argued, remains in the cyberpunk tradition since I use the subgenre as a way to map over broad themes and writing conventions more than I used it to point out tropes. In the same way the Star Wars probably shouldn't be considered science fiction just because it has spaceships with pew pew lasers, just making shit chrome and pattering an aesthetic after a half remembered 80's-90's neon filter doesn't make something cyberpunk.

Nevertheless, without the broad spectrum of tropes and setting, it was difficult to suggest that it was conventional cyberpunk. I sort of situated in a post-cyberpunk tradition - a set of writing conventions with the same themes but settings and issues appropriate to the time frame (here, the post 9/11 world which is very much still addressing the fallout from the 80's and 90's economic paradigm and addressing the political situation of the then-present as influenced very specifically by the previous cyberpunk period - the idea of post-cyberpunk as a themed sub-genre where critiques of corporations and capitalism had become blunted and accepting is a false one because that's just cyberpunk - a subgenre that was never actually hostile to capitalism).

The Peripheral and Agency have none of that. It's a full embrace of neo-liberalism and an incredibly muted, increasingly muffled critique of capitalism. It lionizes the super wealthy, explaining their fortunes once again as the result of a kind of genius-tier curiosity that just happens to make billions of dollars (ignoring entirely the materialist critiques of capitalism, something liberalism is fundamentally incapable of). Other then that, it's a fairly straightforward scifi story about an AI running from people who want to capture it. And that's it. The premise isn't especially robust, the resolution borders on the nonsensical, the incentives of the antagonists to be antagonists is vague at best, the resolution of the major plot point that was positioned as the reason for the book is resolved in a vague way by Hillary Clinton entirely off screen in a way that is entirely unexplained.

And it could be argued that these are intentional on the part of the writer, but frankly it just looks like Gibson contracted a fatal case of MSNBC Brain shortly after 9/11 and his writing began a shallow dive towards one-dimensionality which I'm not that surprised to see after examining the body of this previous work.

[caltropspress]

FEEDBACK LOOP #6: Cargo Cults’ “Rammellzee”

Since these symbols and all symbols are drawn, infinity’s separation from all symbols must be shown through drawing. The only proof of such a separation of the infinity would be the understanding by the majority of the planetary peers. There is no other way.

—from IONIC TREATISE GOTHIC FUTURISM ASSASSIN KNOWLEDGES OF THE REMANIPULATED SQUARE POINT’S ONE TO 720° TO 1440° THE RAMM-ΣLL-ZΣΣ (1979, 2003)

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

—from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland

Riding among an exhausted busful of Negroes going on to graveyard shifts all over the city, she saw scratched on the back of a seat, shining for her in the brilliant smoky interior, the post horn with the legend DEATH. But unlike WASTE, somebody had troubled to write in, in pencil: DON’T EVER ANTAGONIZE THE HORN.

—from Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49

1.  I walk down the street and people look at me and say, “Who the hell are you?”

Cargo Cults (Alaska and Zilla Rocca) begin their track “Rammellzee” with the voice of the some-16 billion-years-old being himself. The song is an ode, an invocation. The organ sample provides a bizarre ride: a carousel of colors. We immediately plummet—into a well, a subway tunnel, a cosmos of linguistics. Not a nonchalant That’s deep, but a depth of knowledge where “cipher” means code, means Supreme Mathematics, means gathering with your rapfolk outside the Nuyorican Poets Cafe or in Washington Square Park: a deep connection. Mimicking Rammellzee, Alaska presents the listener with “swirling pages / forming mazes of [his] formulations” and subsequently “break[s] them down into a form that’s shapeless.”

2.  Hip-hop is ageist….In blues, you ain’t official until you fifty. (Ka, Red Bull Music Academy interview with Jeff Mao, 2016)

The phrase …of a certain age has, historically, been used euphemistically to describe someone (typically a woman) who has existed for a “shameful” tally of years. Society is still undoing the stigma, but rappers have made strides.

In Adult Rappers, a 2015 documentary directed by Paul Iannacchino (Hangar 18’s DJ paWL), Alaska is [accidentally?] presented twice in the closing credits—like a double, a separate persona—which calls to mind the multiple personalities of Rammellzee: Crux the Monk, Chaser the Eraser, Gash/Olear, et cetera. Age allows for maturation, for building, for bettering. In Rammellzee’s case—and I’d argue Alaska’s—it allows for complexity to emerge organically through wisdom. It allows for reinvention, for many versions of one’s self. Age and development is how an aerosol can with a fat cap can graduate to customized deodorant roll-ons and shoe polish canisters.

It begins with jerry-rigging a nozzle and ends in diagramming a “harpoonic whip launcher/pulsating extendor” to illustrate the deconstruction of letter-formations in the English alphabet. The spirit of experience pervades the Nihilist Millennial album. As anyone who has ever sat on the couch knows, communication can also improve with age.

3.

Artists and rappers like Rammellzee and Alaska rely on wild-styles, a self-made world that warps quantum physics and disregards notions of dimensionality. It’s dream-vision. It’s liberation. It simultaneously celebrates and critiques communication: like the image of a muted horn.

“Communication is the key,” cried Nefastis. “The Demon passes his data on to the sensitive, and the sensitive must reply in kind. There are untold billions of molecules in that box. The Demon collects data on each and every one. At some deep psychic level he must get through…”

“Help,” said Oedipa, “you’re not reaching me.”

“Entropy is a figure of speech, then,” sighed Nefastis, “a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow. The Machine uses both. The Demon makes the metaphor not only verbally graceful, but also objectively true.”

[…]

Nefastis smiled; impenetrable, calm, a believer.

The wordplay seems just that: play—that is, until you find the thread. Alaska cobbles together words like rubbish, W.A.S.T.E. Words appear daisy-chained together—flowery, ornate, and strung together by their stems: “fatalism, Fela Kuti, razor thin” / “smash the superstitions with acid tabs and some Sufi visions” / “deep dive Sonny Liston” / “Walt Whitman.”

The track reads like a codex. Something crafted in a scriptorium. His words are warfare—double-tracked/double-barreled—and he slips into braggadocio to prove it. It’s an authoritative posture of experience. Having started atomically small—from Breaking Atoms bedroom listening, to Atoms Family—Alaska’s flow presents nuclear now: maximum damage.

There’s a refinement to what this duo is doing: “Me and Zilla well-established with a lavish vision. / Both hands crusty with Ikonklastic Panzerism.” The boasts rely on royal diction: Camelot, palace doors, Prince Paul. Each man a king, a God, and each one should teach one. Mentor texts for the masses.

4.  

Rammellzee is an equation, And simply stated it’s the way of life I’m chasing. That’s why I praise the future-Gothic future-prophet. Gotta rock it, don’t stop it, Gotta rock it, don’t stop.

You find diversions on the song, exits into familiar chambers. GZA quotations (“I was the thrilla in the Ali-Frazier Manila”) and allusions to Main Source. Large Professor rapped “Dead is my antonym,” and if that’s to be proven true, money needs to be removed from the equation. The refrain of “Gotta rock it” not only calls to mind “Beat Bop,” Herbie Hancock, and Grand Mixer DS.T (or his later incarnation, DXT), but rockets—Afrofuturist angles, future shocks (Bill Laswell [Material], friend to Rammellzee, had a hand in all this). It’s not so much a “future-prophet” as a “future profit.” “Freedom in the process” means creativity without expectation, without the constraints of market value.

Alaska gives it to us straight: “I don’t care if you don’t like it, and I don’t care if you don’t buy it / ’Cause I find freedom in the process.” Despite becoming increasingly complex in his visual approach—like a heap of garbage that loses the definition of its component parts over the ages—Rammellzee understood time equals clarity of vision. A wasted world becomes a meaningful one. Of course, we got to pay rent, so money connects, but ownership of one’s art is about empowerment. “Selling out” is the opposite—an evisceration of one’s self and spirit. “We lost control from the second we sold the art,” Alaska raps. “We sold our future….We should be seeking enlightenment.”

The moment arrives, epiphanically: “I find freedom in the process so I’m grateful, / And that’s my main source: it’s my friendly game of baseball.” For Alaska and Zilla Rocca, it’s not a job—it’s a passion, a pastime.

5.  Nascent imagination deep inside a battle station.

Post-9/11 meant luxury apartments displaced Rammellzee’s Battle Station loft, his living museum. But the art has been excavated and exists posthumously. His Gothic Futurism and Ikonoklast Panzerism seem at home archived on the internet—a network that appears more like a chaos cloud. Rammellzee deconstructed and transcended language—junk monk scripts and calligraphic cut-ups of consumerism. His art is the empowerment a recycling arrow-triangle could only hope to be. Recycle is also rebirth. Rammellzee’s career path is circuitous, deep-tunneled (subway-esque), eternal.

Similarly, Alaska’s multisyllabic patterns are an endless barrage, like weaponized letters tilted sideways, like bottle rockets angled into a bottle’s neck: “Armament / Now my names are built like a BattleBot / Locked inside an ad hoc Camelot, I rather not / Tangle with a rabid lot, hop inside a rabbit hole.”

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations?”

Boredom can make trouble, but boredom can also breed creativity. Alaska rather not spar with trolls under ISP bridges—though he’s equipped to. Instead, he channels his energies into material.

6.  Our culture is done. We lived it.

Near the end, Alaska paraphrases Rammellzee: “I’m not the first or the last to don the mask. / I see it as a title, I’m monastic with these raps.”

Living a life of art—making it regardless of accolade or monetary payment—is the highest form of creativity. Live the art and die by it, like Stan Brakhage, poisoning himself at a slow pace as he applied toxic dyes to celluloid film. Like Rammellzee executing graffiti pieces maskless, huffing the carcinogenic fumes.

MF DOOM (née Zev Love X)—a Rammellzee descendant—taught us how to revel in anonymity, the importance of not spotlighting yourself, but instead seeking out the shade, secret passageways, and the trapdoor in the stage floor. Not all of us heed the advice, but some do, and they feel the throb of real success, not the sort that shows up in bank statements and 401(k) plans.

Images:

“Beat Bop” test pressing, Rammellzee and K-Rob, art by Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1983 (detail) | Rammellzee black-and-white portrait photograph (unknown) | Ikonoklast Panzerism diagram from IONIC TREATISE GOTHIC FUTURISM ASSASSIN KNOWLEDGES OF THE REMANIPULATED SQUARE POINT’S ONE TO 720° TO 1440° THE RAMM-ΣLL-ZΣΣ (1979, 2003) | Page 34 (muted post horn) in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, Bantam Books edition (1966) | “A scribe at work,” from an illuminated manuscript from the Estoire del Saint Graal, France (Royal MS 14 E III c. 1315-1325 AD) | Herbie Hancock, Future Shock cassette cover (1983) | Grand Mixer D.ST comic book image (unknown) | Stan Brahage at chalkboard (unknown) | Stan Brakhage, Mothlight celluloid (1963) | “Beat Bop” test pressing, Rammellzee and K-Rob, art by Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1983 (detail)

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 1.4.1 “One Mother Meets Another”

This Book title really gets me. “To Trust Is Sometimes To Surrender.” Which, I don’t know, feels really helpless. And helpless in a way that could be prevented, too, if there had just been more questions asked or something, maybe. Probably not. But poor Fantine, and poor Cosette, being forced into trusting people who take advantage of everyone they see.

The first thing that we see of the Thenardiers is nothing at all to do with Fantine’s storyline, but everything to do with Marius’. The Sergeant Of Waterloo sign, with its bad painting (I love Hugo’s sassy “on which something was painted”).

But it’s not the sign that makes Fantine stop, but a huge cart with an enormous chain. The Robb biography says that the cart visual was something Hugo saw as a child while he was crossing the border at Saint-Jean-de-Luz while returning to France from Spain. The cart and its chain are symbolism of both an obstacle and a veiled threat. It “might have been mistaken for a giant gun-carriage” and is “crushing” and “hideous.” The way Hugo describes the mud coating the lower half of this cart makes it sound like it’s slowly being covered by a yellow disease. Also, this is the second instance of chain imagery in as many chapters. We also get more imagery of obstruction a few paragraphs later.

Hugo makes it really obvious that this cart is here as an obstruction, literally and figuratively. The figurative is twofold. It is metaphor for the obstruction that the Thenardiers become for Fantine, taking all of her money and lying about Cosette in order to do it, making it impossible for her to stay afloat at Montreuil-sur-Mer. He also uses it to critique the “old social order.”

“Why was this vehicle in this place on the street? First to obstruct the lane, and then to complete its work of rusting. In the old social order we find a host of institutions like this across our path in the full light of day, with no reasons for being there.” Hugo’s critique of the “old social order,” which I’m assuming is the empire.

There’s so much symbolism in the young Eponine and Azelma swinging on the chain. They are swung back and forth by their mother, a symbolism of their own future, akin to the image of Fantine as the horse. They’ll be tied to Mme Thenardier and used by her in the future. Not only that, but the chain is huge enough to be reminiscent of the chains of the bagne; prison is a constant threat to them once they reach Paris. “Above and around the delicate heads, steeped in joy and bathed in light, the gigantic hulk, black with rust and almost frightful with its tangled curves and sharp angles, curved like the mouth of a cave.” What intense symbolism for the darkness and struggle that awaits them in Paris in the future.

“A mother, seeing this frightful chain, had said, ‘Now there’s a toy for my children!’“ First of all this feels like a sassy critique of Mme Thenardier’s parenting decisions. But it’s also a hint at their poverty and debt despite the nice clothing. Instead of tying a rope to a branch or something, the decision to turn a huge hulking terrifying chain into a swing for two tiny children...it’s just a lot.

God, the drastic difference between Cosette’s description and Fantine’s description. Cosette is all beauty and light. She’s “charmingly rosy” She’s dressed in linen and lace. Fantine’s description begins with a question mark. “She was young--pretty?” In 1.3.3, Hugo specifically points out Fantine’s “fine teeth” and her long, blonde hair as points of her beauty. Here, she has her hair wrapped up in a tight cap fastened under her chin, and she never smiles. She looks upset and ill and hard-worked. Lines are forming on her face and her skin is calloused. From here on out her beauty is either a small physical remnant or is purely an inner beauty.

What’s the kerchief fold for invalids that Hugo talks about? Does anyone have an image of that? Also why would invalids fold a kerchief over their chest? Is it the blue kerchief specifically that’s used by invalids, not the fold style?

So if it was August last chapter, it’s June now. If it was December-ish (from the sunset at 4:30 thing) then it’s October. If they’re outside playing on a swing, it’s probably more likely that it’s June. Hugo really just does not care about telling us the time of year unless it is Symbolically Important.

The friendship between Fantine and the rest of the grisettes was tenuous at best, manipulative and cruel at worst. But Hugo implies that none of the other grisettes stayed together either. They “no longer had any reason to be friends” despite suffering the same let down--only the others expected it and Fantine didn’t. And the men probably not only remained friends long after, they probably also made connections and used each other to gain social points and climb the ladder.

“Led by her liaison with Tholomyes to disdain the simple work she knew how to do, she had neglected her opportunities; now they were all gone.” This makes me think that for the two years she was with Tholomyes, she wasn’t working and he was supporting her and the child? Is this how it would have been? Or perhaps she was working, but other, better, more steady opportunities came up and she didn’t take them because of Tholomyes. Either way, her relationship with Tholomyes has fucked her over so many different ways. She doesn’t have a job should could have had, she has a child she can’t take care of, and she has a broken heart.

It’s also a huge clue to how little Fantine seems to know about how any of these affairs work and what’s going to happen to her that “she had a vague feeling of being on the brink of danger, of slipping into the streets.” The other grisettes kept their affairs very shallow, probably because of how acutely aware they were of how much power these men had over their lives and what a mistake could cost them. It’s why the lack of a parting gift in the last chapter was a huge let down for them--they probably should have gotten something expensive to make up for all the lost hours of work--but not as huge as it was for Fantine, who had already made that mistake.

“One day, Fantine heard some old women saying as they saw her child ‘Do people ever take such children seriously? They only shrug their shoulders at them!’ Then she thought of Tholomyes, who shrugged his shoulders at his child, and who did not take this innocent creature seriously, and her heart turned dark at the place that had been his.” Such a short series of lines on such a heavy realization. This is one of the reasons the English lyrics to I Dreamed A Dream irritate me so much. Before she even leaves Paris, Fantine’s heart has hardened to Tholomyes. She doesn’t yearn for him at all; from that point on her focus and love is purely about her child. She’s also angry here. She gets the message at this point and she’s upset about it. There’s also the double meaning of “who did not take this innocent creature seriously.” This line could be about Cosette, but it could also easily be about Tholomyes’ treatment of Fantine for the past two years.

“She had made a mistake, but, deep down, we know she was modest and virtuous.” Okay, Hugo, but what about other women who make mistakes? Are they not modest and virtuous? If they’re not, do they get different treatment? Again, back to his weird arguments from 1.3.2, about how “poverty and coquetry are fatal counselors” and how fallen woman are different from modest women, but also it’s society’s fault that they’re bad. I don’t know, Hugo seems to be confused in his moral opinions when it comes to this stuff.

(The more I learn about his youth while reading this biography, the more this kind of stuff makes sense. The “fallen women are bad” seems to be the kind of opinion he had in his youth, and the “it’s a societal problem” is an elder Hugo opinion. The two thoughts are kind of duking it out in these descriptions of working women.)

“We will see that Fantine possessed a fierce courage.” We get Fantine’s strengths in pieces: she is wise in that she notices things other people don’t notice, she possesses a fierce courage, and she has her capacity to love Cosette completely and sacrifice everything for her. This is also the second time we get a description of her as “fierce,” the first being in 1.3.4. Fantine’s courage and specifically her fierceness come out even more later on. We get the impression that had she lived in better circumstances, she would have been a force to be reckoned with. Again, I’m still reading this Graham Robb biography of Hugo, but the descriptions of Fantine’s characteristics remind me of a sort of ragged description of what Hugo’s mother seemed to be like.

“The woman had nothing in the world but this child, and this child had nothing in the world but this woman.” This just made me really sad because when Fantine goes to Montreuil-sur-Mer, she will have nothing in the world but Cosette. But Cosette won’t even know she exists.

We then learn about the fate of Tholomyes, similar to that of Bamatabois. Hugo has such an interesting perspective on law and lawyers. His characters that go to law school and complete it are all rich assholes who use their power and connections for pleasure and to ruin the lives of those in classes beneath them. Those who don’t complete due to other personal circumstances (Bahorel, Bossuet) or due to death (most of Les Amis) are the opposite. I’m wondering if this is commentary on law in general. Knowing it academically but not falling into the comfort of taking advantage of it, by leaving it instead? We don’t know what happens to Marius after Valjean’s death but I wonder if he would keep his more generous nature or fall prey to the bourgeois/Ultra personalities that hover around Gillenormand.

“The presence of angels is a herald of paradise.” An interesting sentence and description considering the ominous descriptions of what they’re swinging on. There are just so many ominous signs here amidst all the beauty of children and sunlight. You just want to yank Fantine back and go “Wait! Stop! Pay attention! Look at all the badness!”

Mme Thenardier gets so many animalistic descriptions. M Thenardier is later, in Paris, described as a wolf. Mme Thenardier gets she-wolf then, as well as sow and tigress. Here she gets  “that animal yet celestial expression peculiar to motherhood.” (An interesting description considering Fantine is also a mother, but her expressions are tender and passionate.) There’s also, “The most ferocious animals are disarmed by caresses to their young,” which is such an ominous sentence. Mme Thenardier’s cruelty is different from her husbands. His is greedy, hers is jealous. There’s also the moment where Hugo says “she sang between her teeth,” a visual that reminds me of a growl. So many threats in her description, and Fantine doesn’t notice any of them, because Mme Thenardier is sitting down, and that makes her less threatening. Plus her reading of trash romance novels makes her docile, relaxed and coy, which apparently hides this animal underneath.

“A person seated instead of standing: Fate hangs on just such a thread.” This is such a huge aspect in this book, summarized in such a short line. Time and place is so important in this novel, for everyone. So much of this novel is hinged on someone happening to be in the right place at the right time (or the wrong place at the wrong time) or happening to recognize someone, or happening to do or fail to do something that totally changes the course of everything around them.

What’s up with Cosette and flies? Here she’s digging a grave for a dead fly, and later she has a tiny lead sword that she uses to cut the heads off flies. Is this just a little kid characteristic that Hugo noticed in his own grandchildren and decided to include, or is this symbolism of some sort that I’m missing?

I’ve heard that Fantine (read: Hugo) gets from Euphrasie to Cosette from “Chosette” which means “little thing.” Is that true or is that just someone making stuff up? If it is true, I can’t help the amusing thought that Cosette’s name is then basically “Sproglet” but in French. Also the “Josefa into Pepita” is maybe a reference to Pepita, the Marquesa de Montehermoso, who Hugo met when he was about 10 and she about 16. I couldn’t find anything about Francoise into Sillette, except that Hugo’s own son was called Victor-Francois? And nothing at all on Theodore into Gnon.

The moment Cosette leaves Fantine’s arms to go play with the other girls, Fantine ceases to be Fantine and instead becomes “the mother.” She is “the mother” for the rest of the chapter. She loses her selfhood the moment she loses Cosette. From that moment on, to the Thenardier’s at least, she’s just the mother of this child they have to deal with, the mother that they can suck money from whenever they want.

“It would be odd if I left my child naked.” This is such a weird line. I feel like this goes in line with interpreting Fantine as autistic. The Thenardiers are asking pretty obvious leading questions about money and costs and then about clothes. But Fantine doesn’t pick up at all on the weirdness or the sinister nature of their questions; she just thinks it’s weird that they might assume she’d leave her child without clothes.

“You’ve build a good mousetrap with your little ones” “Without even knowing it.” The adult Thenardiers fall into this over and over again. Often opportunities fall into their lap when they’re least expecting it; they plan using the new knowledge (as with getting money for young Cosette or attempting to kidnap Valjean) or they just run with it (as with meeting Valjean in the sewers). Sometimes they plan things, like with M Thenardier’s letters attempting to garner fake charity or patronage. But most of the time it seems like they just wait for a random chance and then jump on it. Which seems far more successful than any of Thenardier’s business endeavors, which is maybe why he ended up in such debt in the first place.

This entire scene feels very fae, very evil trickster-like. A lure or trap (the children), a false reassurance (Mme Thenardier) and the real evil not revealing itself until much later (M Thenardier). You just want to call out to Fantine and warn her of the danger that she doesn’t see. But it’s all hidden in a fae glamour, making everything look sweet and safe and beautiful, and she doesn’t notice all the sinister, ominous things in the corner of the eye because everything else is so bright and angelic.

[ssaalexblake]

the ballad of songbirds and snakes portrayed Snow as an abusive boyfriend who tries to murder his ‘love’, and throughout his internal monologue in this story we know he is firstly only treating her like a human because it would benefit His advancement in society, then  he only treats her as human (debatable, but he can treat people Worse is the point) because he decides she’s Not District by co-opting the pride in her culture she feels despite the fascism she lives under demanding she let go of it, and misinterpreting it for his own gain. And while he does show brief flashes during the games of what may be considered care for her well being, his thoughts Constantly go back to how he needs her to win so he can have Money from the Plinths to regain the wealth ‘stolen’ from him in the war by Those district people he hates (That she Isn’t... Because she’s a nomad.. Not district scum!!!! Yeah, he’s a bad narrator). 

When her songs in the capitol reference her having a life outside of the games, and therefore him, he is angry. This is pure entitlement, which admittedly is a very common trait in people like this in general, but i doubt it’s helped that she was Literally kidnapped from her family by his favourite dictatorship and her life was handed to him as an Experiment. His perception that he should be able to control her is absolutely Not helped by the fact that he was literally told this is his right as a Rich Capitol Citizen to do so and he is the capitol’s biggest cheerleader.

His possessiveness only gets Worse in district 12 when, every time she mentions anything vaguely alluding to a life outside of his his response is ‘well she should be thinking about Me not anything else’. He becomes increasingly annoyed by any song she sings that could allude to anybody but himself, even when she is clearly leaving him a message in the only way she could and it was unavoidable but to do so. His possessiveness comes above his rationality, which is what ultimately leads to his downfall in the original trilogy, he even admits his tendency to obsess is his fatal flaw. Despite the fact that he has many things on his plate in this story, and that she is often an afterthought and is very much a consolation prize in his life, according to him he always has to be her main priority. 

This post may read like me Not mentioning all the intricacies of their relationship and only pointing out the negatives, but i’m not here to talk about the toxic or non toxic parts of their partnership, believe it or not. I’m actually defending the writing of Lucy Gray, and saying that the toxicity of their interactions is the key defining piece to the depth of her character. I’ve seen many a person annoyed she is the ‘manic pixie dream girl’ with no depth or real characterisation but... To do a Gone Girl, she’s actually ‘Cool Girl’. 

You know that girl who doesn’t really exist except in guy’s heads? he thinks she’s cool girl.  We read this story from his perspective, and He thinks she’s cool girl, so that’s what we’re given (there is more depth to her, of course, real moments of Lucy Gray are very much there if you filter out Snow’s toxic narcissistic personality, but you have to ignore him for the most part). 

Lucy Gray Baird only comes across as ghostly and shallow as a character because the protagonist’s view of her is ghostly and shallow (hence the usage of the ghost Lucy Gray song, This portrayal of Lucy is as much a ghost as the one in the song, which is also why it is left ambiguous as to if he succeeds in murdering her or not, she Haunts this tale as the original Lucy haunts hers).

This story is a Critique of manic pixie dream girl as a trope, not an example of it, and a scathing commentary against partner violence imo. Snow was literally incapable of viewing her as human, he just falls for the feeling of Control he feels her has over her (he regards control as the Most important thing, it is important to remember that here... Also, nobody who thought he loved her and asked him about it knew about his inner thoughts, that is also important) and he is noticeably angry and even irrational when he senses he is Not in control over Lucy, as he feels it is his right to be lording over her, even to the point that he is Allowed and Justified to take her life simply because he has that privilege.

That is not an uncommon thing. That is just classic entitled abuser logic. 

And i mean, this is a story about many different things as well, but it’s a fairly classic retelling of the abusive boyfriend narrative as well, and it uses the manic pixie dream girl trope to carry it. And in a time where women being forced to stay at home with their abusive partners is leading to a severe uptick in fatal domestic violence (Lucy and Snow were not forced into close quarters because of a pandemic, but they were forced into it through life and death circumstances and as a result, she lost her support network (common to people in abusive relationships) and therefore possibly, even probably, her life when he was chasing after her with guns in the woods) this is not an angle to ignore when talking about the writing of Lucy Gray.

She is a ghost in this story simply because he doesn’t really see her as a human. It’s not because she wasn’t human with thoughts and feelings and a complicated nature, she Was, it’s just the perspective we are shown this story from is that of a controlling narcissist who does Not see her as a complicated person and therefore the narrative could not show her fully rounded and with complete depth, because it would profoundly alter snow’s characterization if it did so. 

If you wrote a book from Jessup’s pov, or from Maude Ivory’s pov, i imagine the lucy gray you would witness would be Vastly different to the one we see in this book. There is a difference between an unreliable narrator and an unreliable author, and this is the narrator’s problem, not Collins’. 

[cthibault21hasgov]

Media Assessment of Issue

https://abcnews.go.com/US/fact-check-trump-incomplete-border-wall-update-misstates/story?id=72673037

Subject The source is fact checking Trumps statements on boarder wall progress and on Biden's immigration policies that he made at the Republican National Convention.

Author Quinn Owen is a reporter and producer for ABC who writes on politics and policy. Owen lives and reports from Washington D.C. and tends to be neutral but leans a little left. 

Context Published August 28th 2020 in D.C. during the Republican National Convention. This means the criticism and fact checks were done immediately after Trump said these things and a week after Biden spoke at the DNC.

Audience The source was published by ABC a neutral news source. The intended audience however, is most likely those who oppose Trump because the article is fact checking him and correcting his lies. The article also correctly outlines policies on Biden campaign to show Trumps false statements.

Perspective The article is pretty objective. While it does correct Trump and fix his errors it does not bash on him or praise Biden. The article writes on the truthful sides of Trumps statements and corrects him when needed. It also makes sure to fully explain Biden’s side of the subjects to ensure there is no confusion. 

Significance The article quotes homeland security, the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Customs and Boarder Protection. there is also quoted material from Jim Crumpacker, a DHS official. This quoted information and perspectives shows the reliability of this article. 

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jul/8/joe-biden-immigration-plan-grants-citizenship-11-m/

Subject The source explains and analyzes Joe Biden's promise to grant citizenship to the 11 million immigrants working and living in the U.S. already. It also critiques Biden’s plan to make it easier for immigrants to become citizens. Joe plans to undo all of Trumps ‘get tough’ boarder policies.  

Author The author Stephan Dinan, CEO of The Shift Network; a website focusing on transnational education, media and current events. Dinan is also the author of Sacred America, Sacred World a manifesto of our countries spiritual and political evolution.

Context This article was produced Wednesday July 8th. Being a current article it is influenced by the pandemic and the soon to come election. Being written during the pandemic the article makes immigrants seam like a threat by saying they may take what few jobs are available during this time.

Audience The source was published by The Washington Times, a fairly right leaning news source. This means the intended audience is most likely republican or those who oppose immigration. This has lead the source to mud sling towards Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, who are both quoted throughout the article.

Perspective The article is from a republican perspective. This leads it to see illegal immigrants as criminal and as a threat. The article also makes Joe Biden sound threatening because he is supposedly letting all these so called criminals into our country. I would say I disagree with the authors message. I don’t see immigrants or Joe Biden as a threat because I agree with Biden’s polices more than I agree with Trumps. I also see immigrants as a necessary part of our economy during these times because they are out risking their lives to feed and protect America.

Significance The source does not have much explicit evidence however, it quotes Bernie Sanders on his opinions on Biden and his policies. The source also outlines Joe Biden’s “road map to citizenship” and his other ideas and how the contrast with Trumps.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-claims-he-can-suspend-immigration-through-executive-order-n1188561

Subject Benen writes about Trumps most recent tweet regarding banning immigration to protect american jobs and stop the spread of the corona virus. Benen analyzes this tweet and answers some questions over whether or not Trump can and will follow through with this spontaneous claim. 

Author The Author is Steve Benen a political writer, blogger and Emmy award winning producer. He also very recently published a book called The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics. Benen is a Democrat and even was the communications director of an unsuccessful democratic congressional campaign in 1996. 

Context Published April 21st 2020, not only is this article recent it was also published in the heart of quarantine when supplies were scarce and people weren't leaving their houses. The article analyzes a tweet Trump posted at 10 pm the previous night. 

Audience The source was created for those who do not support Trump and favor critiques of him. The article is written in an almost sarcastic satirical manor making the republican party sound ill prepared. Its also written with the intent of making Trump sound like he does what he wants when he wants and everyone else has to scramble to keep up with him. 

Perspective The article is subjective claiming that immigrants are vital part of our healthcare system and stating that since cases have passed 700,000 stopping immigration would not do anything. The article also claims this tweet contradicts Trumps previous statement that the U.S. had passed a corner and was improving. If that was true than why the sudden need to ban immigration Benen asks. I agree with Benen, that not only are immigrants an integral part of our healthcare system but also cases in the U.S. are so high banning immigrants would not stop anything. 

Significance The article directly quotes Trumps tweet, additionally NBC interviews a white house official about the tweet and how they plan to execute it. The article also quotes a New York Times article that discusses the possibility of such an executive order. Additionally taking quotes from the Washington Post who interviewed Alex Nowrasteh, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. Lastly the article has a link to another article mapping out the number of cases compared to fatalities. 

The ABC and the MSNBC article are similar in the way they both fact check and correct Trumps false accusations and errors. However the MSNBC article is much more critical of him and writes in a more satirical way by mudslinging at the republican party. The Washington Times post does the same thing at Biden making him out to be a threat to America. Both biased articles make the other parties candidate out to be something their not. The MSNBC article makes Trump sound uncontrollable and idiotic. The Washington Times article makes Biden sound like a radical socialist who wants immigrants to have more rights than average Americans. Neither of these statements are true, they are just a political tool. I would say I identify with the MSNBC article the most because I do support immigration. I believe immigrants are a vital part of our healthcare system and our economy. If we were to ban immigration and deport all the illegal immigrants we wouldn't have food on our tables. I agree immigrants that threat American security should be controlled but those just trying to get a job and provide for their family should be able to easily become citizens.