#anne is barbaric one

[belle-keys]

A strong suggestion of plagiarism: Detailing the similarities between Anne Bishop’s The Black Jewels trilogy and Sarah J. Maas’s ACOTAR series

Anne Bishop released her The Black Jewels trilogy between 1998 and 2003. It is a dark fantasy book trilogy, part of a larger fantasy saga within the world of The Black Jewels. Sarah J. Maas released the first book in her A Court of Thorns and Roses fantasy romance series, which goes by the same name, in 2015. This popular series of Maas is still ongoing.

For the last decade, many individuals have noticed glaring similarities between Maas’ fantasy series and Bishop’s earlier books. From character names to world-building elements and plotlines, several readers have concluded it is highly possible that Sarah J. Maas has plagiarized major aspects of Bishop’s work in the ACOTAR series. For purely legal reasons, I am hesitant to say outright that Mass indeed plagiarized The Black Jewels in ACOTAR. However, I do believe that there is very strong evidence indicating that Maas may have done so. Please note all my screenshots here are all from The Black Jewels and I can provide more if necessary.

This post presents my observations of the similarities between Maas’ book series compared to Bishop’s trilogy. Indeed, there are several elements that are near-indentical in Maas’ series compared to Bishop’s. Whatever is in brackets is my shabby-MLA-esque way of referencing in which specific book you can find the content I'm talking about. I am aware others have made similar posts on Tumblr and Reddit, and I salute them! Here, I am merely outlining what I have noticed myself, and I imagine there will be significant overlap between his post and others online.

The Eyrians and the Illyrians

The Eyrians are a winged warrior race in TBJ, described as having tanned skin, black hair, gold eyes and "batlike wings". They are one of the long lived races and live thousands of years, based upon a lofty mountain range in their realm. They are a warrior race with a long history of physical fighting, often reputed to be "backward" by aristocrats in their realm (DOTB, HTTS). Their "dark, membranous" wings are the prized physical feature among their race and they have a tradition of turning to militarism and barbarism during skirmishes (DOTB). Cutting off or clipping an Eyrian's wings is the greatest torture and the worst dishonour for a warrior (HTTS). The Illyrians in ACOTAR are a virtually identical winged mountain warrior race with a similar culture and physical features including "black, membranous" wings and tanned skin (ACOTAR). The Eyrians, like the Illyrians, yearn for freedom of their expansive mountains and the war camps within them.

Eyrian males are raised to be warriors in hunting camps in the mountains, while females are forbidden from touching weapons and are confined to domestic pursuits. Eyrian women are often mistreated and are usually expected to be docile and subservient to their militaristic males (QOTD). This is the same gender construct present among the Illyrians in ACOTAR.

The Eyrians in TBJ carry prejudices against half-Eyrians, similar to the Illyrians' prejudices against "half-breeds" like Rhysand in the ACOTAR series (ACOMAF). The word “half-breed” is actually used to describe an important half-Eyrian in TBJ, Lucivar Yaslana.

The Eyrians have a practice known as the "Blood Run" which is a rite of passage taken by skilled Eyrian warriors in their mountains, rather similar to both "Nephelle's Run" and the "Blood Rite" which we learn about in ACOWAR and ACOSF respectively.

Powerful Illyrians, like Cassian and Azriel, use siphons—colourful, jeweled gauntlets that channel and hone their magical power. This is eerily similar to the way aristocrats in TBJ use jewels to channel and concentrate their power. The Illyrians also wear fighting leathers while the Eyrians wear black skintight leathers to go to battle.

Lucivar Yaslana and Cassian

Lucivar Yaslana is an Eyrian male who commands a large portion of the Eyrian troops. He is described as a "bastard", both as an insult and a jest in TBJ, because his father and his mother were unmarried and he did not grow up knowing his father who’s the High Lord. The same situation is pertinent to Cassian in ACOMAF whose "bastard reputation" precedes him.

In QOTD, Lucivar begins training Eyrian females to defend themselves and fight military-style, which is a radical move in the realm and receives a lot of push-back from fellow Eyrian males. Lucivar wants to make sure the Eyrian women tap into their strength, at least a little, to prevent them from being helpless when under attack or in battle. There's a few heartwarming training montages in QOTD where he whips them into shape. Cassian leads a similar initiative in ACOSF where he trains Illyrian women so they learn to defend themselves and some even become respected warriors.

Lucivar has gold eyes, big wings, big muscles, shoulder-length dark hair, and light brown skin. Cassian also has gold eyes, big wings, big muscles, shoulder-length dark hair, and light brown skin. Lucivar ultimately reports to the authority of his queen and serves her faithfully just as Cassian reports to authority of his High Lord and Lady and serves them faithfully.

Daemon SaDiablo and Rhysand

Daemon SaDiablo of TBJ was forced to serve as a sex slave in the court of an evil priestess, Dorothea of Hayll, and he has experienced a lot of trauma and pain for hundreds of years due to being forced to serve in the bedchamber of this abusive enslaver. Rhysand similarly serves as a sex slave to Amaratha for 50 years when she builds her court Under the Mountain. In TBJ, the evil queen who conquers the realm through cruelty and corruption, Dorothea, enslaves multiple males to serve her in bed and she even banishes Lucivar to land's brutal "salt mines" when he becomes disobedient. Daemon is known as "Hayll's whore" by the public in DOTB just as Rhysand is known as "Amarantha's whore" by the public in ACOTAR.

Daemon has jet-black hair, golden skin, and a frighteningly beautiful face. Daemon is also known as a natural Black Widow, one of the one only male Black Widows ever in their world. As such, Daemon is one of the most powerful males in all the realm. Rhysand, similarly, has dark hair, a stunningly beautiful face, and has unique powers making him the most powerful High Lord. Daemon, like Rhysand, becomes the highest ranking male in his "Dark Court" and he is also the main love interest (QOTD).

Daemon has a habit of putting his hands in his pocket when he's nervous and/or trying to intimidate people. Rhysand has the same habit. Daemon is feared for his sadism and power in TBJ but is, deep down, a good person and a devoted lover, similar to Rhysand’s persona being much crueler and sadistic than his real personality (ACOMAF).

Daemon originally starts seeing the protagonist of the series, Jaenelle, in his dreams and he recognizes while enslaved that she is the realm's salvation (DOTB, QOTD). Rhysand also begins seeing glimpses of Feyre in his dreams while enslaved Under the Mountain and he knew she was Prythian’s hope (ACOMAF).

Wingspans

We know that in the ACOTAR world, the wingspan of an Illyrian male is supposedly proportional to their, yunno, male parts. This is also the case in The Black Jewels where, in the second book, we learn a male's wingspan also corresponds to the size of his… down there.

Scents and gender

In TBJ, magical figures have the abilities to identify or smell another person based on his or her "psychic scent", which is their unique scent. The psychic scent also allows them to sense the magical abilities, emotions and traumatic experiences of other persons. Romantic couples also have a keen awareness of their partner's scent. This is the likewise the case in the ACOTAR world where mates and fae can identify and read each other based on specific scents including their arousal.

In TBJ, you can put up a "psychic shield" to stop someone from peering into your thoughts and reading you through your psychic scent. It's the same in the ACOTAR world, a concept introduced in ACOMAF, where you can put up a mental shield or barrier to stop someone like the daemati from breaking into your mind.

The males in TBJ can become quite territorial and possessive over their women and mates, almost animalistic based on their emotions. They purr and snarl and growl quite often, and Sarah J. Maas uses identical descriptive language regarding the bat boys.

Dragons and Amren

There's an older female character called Draca in TBJ who is a dragon in human form, trapped in a human body. Draca, who serves in the main character's Dark Court, has to decipher old texts in the TBJ because she is the only one who understands the ancient languages they contain. Draca is referred to as the "ancient one." This is exactly like Amren being known as the little "ancient one", a powerful angel in human form who is the only one that can decipher the Book of Breathings in ACOMAF.

There is a "creature" deep beneath the Keep and library of the High Lord of Hell in TBJ who, in HTTS, turns out to be a mighty dragon whose name is Lorn. Likewise, beneath the library in Velaris lurks Bryaxis who is a dangerous dragon-esque creature (ACOWAR).

Other worldbuilding plotpoints

There are “High Lords” of various realms in The Black Jewels and High Lord is not a traditional feudal title throughout history or mythology. One major character in TBJ is the High Lord of Hell, Saetan SaDiablo. His court, and that of his adopted daughter, is known as the Dark Court or the "Court of Darkness". Rhysand is the most powerful High Lord who presides over the Night Court which is also, in many ways, Prythian's own Court of Darkness.

The Dark Court in TBJ has a "first circle" that is comprised of the queen's most trusted courtiers. Rhysand's Court of Dreams in ACOMAF also has an "inner circle".

Jaenelle is known as "Dreams Made Flesh" because of her immense power and ability to deliver her lands from evil. Jaenelle was a saviour-figure who was dreamt up by the "dreamers" in her realm who were suffering and oppressed for many years, ruled over by cruel queens (QOTD). Likewise, the Court of Dreams and Feyre's defeat of Amarantha were, more or less, the product of dreamers who wished upon the stars (ACOMAF). Just like how Feyre possesses the power of all seven High Lords, Jaenelle is the magical figure to possess the power of all the various colored jewels in TBJ.

There is a character named Prythian in The Black Jewels who is a powerful priestess, and the main land that the ACOTAR series is set in is called Prythian. There's also an assassin-prostitute character in TBJ named Surreal, and the Suriel is character in the ACOTAR series.

The sigil/seal of Janelle's Dark Court in TBJ, we learn in the second book, is an image of a mountain with a unicorn’s horn above it. The main sigil of the Night Court in ACOTAR is a mountain below three stars. The vastness and freedom of mountains are a motif in both TBJ and ACOMAF.

Conclusion: There are others online who have pointed out the similarities between The Black Jewels and the Throne of Glass series, but it’s been many years since I read Throne of Glass and I’m rusty so I won’t touch it. Did Sarah J. Maas rip off Anne Bishop’s work? I think it could be proven in a court of law, but I’m quite hesitant to say outright that she’s guilty of plagiarism. Is Sarah J. Maas guilty of serious unoriginality? Yes, definitely. A preliminary search online will tell you that Sarah J. Maas has openly praised Bishop’s writing and she has even said that Lucivar is her favourite fantasy man of all time. Bishop's books were released when Maas was a teenager. Make of this what you will.

I’ve used a variety of tags on this post because, honestly, I’m not sure whether it falls into the “anti” category of posts or not. I think this post neutral in tone and exists just to catalogue the similarities between both series. I hence believe both fans and antis might appreciate it... for different reasons.

[gothhabiba]

For Hobsbawm and Ranger, historicizing tradition means finding the historical means by which a tradition was first invented and then naturalized as tradition. Tradition is sharply distinguished from custom [...]. Custom simply refers to a set of practices that combine flexibility in substance with formal adherence to precedent [...]. Tradition, on the other hand, is a set of rituals and symbolic practices that are fundamentally ideological rather than practical. Tradition, as Hobsbawm uses it, is bad, because it is usually a kind of modern ideological mystification which is installed as a constant by the elites and governments whose real interests are thereby served. To show that traditions are invented is in effect to show that traditions are not true, nor real, not legitimate.

[...] The clearest example of how the "invention of tradition" ploy can go wrong can be seen in the article by Hugh Trevor-Roper, "The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland" (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983, 15-41). Trevor-Roper begins by arguing that the kilt, the tartan, "the clan, and even the bagpipe, rather than being signs of great antiquity and cultural distinction, are "in fact largely modern." If these things existed before the Union with England at all, Trevor-Roper asserts, they did so only in "vestigial form," and as signs of "barbarism." Trevor-Roper goes on: "Indeed, the whole concept of a distinct Highland culture and tradition is a retrospective invention. Before the later years of the seventeenth century, the Highlanders of Scotland did not form a distinct people (15)." And so Trevor-Roper proceeds to demonstrate, with convincing historical flair and wit, the recent vintage of Scottish national culture.

The only problem with Trevor-Roper's argument is that while Hobsbawm debunks mystification in general as well as in the particular forms of its manipulation by states, ruling classes, or colonial powers, Trevor-Roper debunks the the necessary claims of Scottish nationalists — necessary because of the hegemonic terms that became set in the eighteenth century for nationalist or populist political aspirations — that Scotland had its own authentic traditions, epics, and histories. Indeed, Trevor-Roper's argument has a genuine colonial ring to it, for, in recounting the invention of clans and kilts and the forgery of the great epic Ossian, it uses smug notions of authenticity and historical privilege to contest what appear to be absurd claims about Scottish customs and traditions. At the same time, and with similar colonial resonance, Trevor-Roper uses his historical mastery to conceal his own moral position, one that appears to justify, at least to support, the unification claims of the British state. The effort to historicize tradition and custom can thus both expose the mystifications of cultural hegemony, and be appropriated by them. When historical methods are used as if the methods themselves are exempted from historical scrutiny and critique, history becomes a way of deauthenticating everything but its own authority, denigrating difference and displacing the categories and logics of historical discourse.

– Nicholas Dirks, "Is Vice Versa? Historical Anthropologies and Anthropological Histories." In The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences. Terrence J. McDonald, ed. pp. 17–51. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. pp. 21–2.

[blue--ingenue]

soft!sebastian headcannons - part 5

Author's Note: *shakes this post like a bag of cat treats* i'm back with some more soft sebby :) as a reminder my taglist is open, and if you'd like me to write any specific hc, feel free to send me an ask! and if you'd like a break from the fluff i did post some angsty!seb hc (link in my masterlist)

he’s an advocate for house elves. his parents found the idea of keeping house elves bound to their family barbaric, so he never had any growing up. stands up for house elves being mistreated by cruel students, so he’s a natural favorite among the Hogwarts house-elf community

boy is Public Enemy Number 1 for Peeves. they’ve hated each other even before the poltergeist ratted him out in the restricted section. he once dedicated an entire restricted section trip to finding books on how to cast spells to make his day a living hell (most common spells pass right through him). Peeves was livid, and so began a relationship of mutually-assured destruction

(they’ll never reach a truce, but they’ve both decided to keep their distance from the other to avoid further headaches)

back to the house elves, the kitchen elves are especially friendly towards him. he recruited their help to bake you a birthday cake, and they gladly obliged

he inherited his father’s pocket watch. his father had pasted a beautiful photograph of his mother on the inside. he has since stored the picture safely in an album and tucked a candid photo of you in its place

Anne is two minutes older than him, and she uses the ‘older sibling’ excuse to justify bossing him around. he makes it a point to wake up before her on their birthday every year so that he can feel ahead of her for once

if you’re smaller than him, he absolutely loves just picking you up. loves patting you on the head, comparing hand sizes, scooping you into his arms to deposit you in your bed if you fall asleep in the room of requirement

when he’s sick, he’s a total drama queen about it. (especially if he thinks you’ll fuss over him for it). his extra-large slytherin scarf is wrapped around his neck. he’ll pull it over the bottom half of his face and burrow into it while napping during professor binns’ notoriously dry lectures. he positively refuses to take medicine. boy has faced everything from trolls to dark wizards, but will sit and pout like a toddler if madam blainey faces him with a spoon of cough syrup

(it’s gotten to the point where Madam Blainey calls you to the hospital wing before she sends for sebastian because she knows you’re the only person who could convince him to take the medicine)

his parents used to take him and Anne to the seaside every summer. every once in awhile during the warmer months he’ll fly you to the Clagmar coast for a picnic lunch. he ties a basket laden with little sandwiches, delicate cakes, a bottle of champagne, and a blanket to the broom handle before you both take off

he’s constantly keeping an eye out for pretty shells and stones he thinks you’ll like. he's constantly running up to you with his latest "treasures." once he was so excited to show you a whelk shell he tripped over a sand dune and dropped it. he spent nearly half an hour digging through the sand to find it until you reminded him that he is, in fact, a wizard, and could use accio

he manages to find a pearl in one of the clams in a tidepool and uses the muselet from the champagne bottle to fashions it into a ring for you. he kneels in front of you in the sand, exaggerating a proposal and sliding the ring onto your finger. (naturally it’s a perfect fit. he’s spent so long memorizing the warmth and shape of your hands for it to be anything less). you laugh at his antics, but he’s sincere when he tells you it’s merely a placeholder for the real thing 

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Taglist: @mlktea13, @mrsbrookesallow, @ithinkweallsing, @snickette, @crispywiz

[sarcophagid]

ithaqua backstory related headcanons/analysis

THE PLATEAU OF LENG:

Ithaqua's 5th deduction refers to the area where he lives as a 'barbaric land'. 

'Plateau of Leng'/'Leng' is also a place name in the Lovecraft mythos.

I think we can infer that the Plateau is very geographically and socially isolated from the rest of 'civilization'. They are likely behind on understanding of major world events and technological advances. It is also difficult to travel in and out of the area due to environmental conditions and/or social, economic, and legal limitations. This isolation results in the cultural bubble we see in Ithaqua's story. 

While Ithaqua's weibo intro post describes the area as the 'far north', I think it's still located somewhere in the UK, similar to the origins of most of the IDV cast (if only for the practical reason that Nightwatch would be going to the manor on foot). The surname 'Norwell' is also English/Scottish in origin. 

addendum: It's been mentioned to me that Leng is also possibly located somewhere in the mountain ranges near lakeside village!

RELIGION:

While there are many references to christianity in the game, I don't think the dominant religion in the Plateau of Leng is a 1:1 adaptation of christianity irl, although it may reference it or be inspired by it.

Given the mentions of 'lies' and 'barbarism', as well as the mention that the practices in Leng are now archaic, I also think the religion could be an offshoot from whatever dominant religions and cultures are seen in the mainland, similar (but probably not the same) to some insular cults. 

note: an example of this 'original' religious culture would be the one associated with Gravekeeper's backstory, since he presumably lives in the mainland. (also apparently Ann isn't actually a nun she just dresses like that 🤔)

Ithaqua's trailer refers to 'gods' plural, so it's also possible they don't have a monotheistic religion at all. But this could also refer to the fact there were multiple aggressors during the night of the attack, and he's conflating 'gods' with 'holy people'. 

Regardless, I think there are still a lot of undeniable similarities to christianity in Ithaqua's backstory, and even direct references in essence lore like Morningstar. 

WITCH HUNTS: 

I think it's possible that the magistrate's persecution of Ithaqua's mother and the 'hunt' in general was more to secure social power than born out of actual religious belief. The other townspeople may truly think there are demons, but I doubt the Norwell family was genuine. If the magistrate truly believed stillborn babies were caused by the devil, and/or truly thought he was doing this for the 'good of the people', then he wouldn't quietly cover the case up and pretend nothing happened.

Creating an atmosphere of suspicion and fear of punishment based on arbitrary rules would benefit those responsible for 'justice'. Since anyone could be accused, everyone would have to tread carefully - except for the judge, who decides who is or isn't condemned. 

The resulting chaos would be a good opportunity to seize a leadership role. Leng was already superstitious, and these beliefs could be leveraged and amplified to bring the people to the state it is today. 

This practice of manipulating the townspeople with fear also parallels how Ithaqua later creates a persona of a 'monster' and feeds these rumours with violence in order to scare away intruders and protect his mother - although they have different motivations and goals, they're playing a similar game. 

Leveraging false beliefs is also referenced in Ithaqua and Nathaniel's roles in both Morningstar lore and the Truth & Inference lore (although T&I wasn't as accurate to their characters)

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINTS THOMAS MORE AND JOHN FISHER Feast Day: June 22

"If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes." -Thomas More

"Penance is a needful thing to the sinner, who desires to recover health of his soul. And, in doing penance, there be three things to be considered: serious compunction of heart, confession of mouth and satisfaction by deed." -John Fisher

John Fisher and Thomas More are the most outstanding English martyrs who were killed during the persecution of King Henry VIII.

The problem started in 1527, when Pope Clement VII refused to declare null the King's marriage with Catherine of Aragon, his spouse for 18 years. The king who wanted to have a son from Anne Boleyn, was maddened by the denial and separated from Rome.

In 1534, with the Act of Supremacy, he appointed himself the sovereign of the Church of England, and began persecuting those who remained Catholic. The Martyrs of England, as they are known, were tortured in a barbarous manner. Some were put on the rack and dismembered; others were hanged and eviscerated while still alive.

John Fisher, the bishop of Rochester, was imprisoned in Tower Hill after he refused to acknowledge Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church of England and for upholding the Catholic Church's doctrine of papal supremacy. He was beheaded on June 22, 1535 at the age of 65, and his head was displayed on London Bridge for several days. He died with the Holy Gospel in his hands for pronouncing words of pardon for his executioner.

After him, Sir Thomas More, the Lord High Chancellor of England, preferred to disobey the king rather than God. A devout Catholic, father of four children and prestigious lawyer, in 1527 he refused to support Henry VIII's claim for a divorce.

Five years later, he resigned from his office rather than separate from the Catholic church. He was convicted of treason and beheaded on July 6, 1535 at Tower Hill at the age of 57.

More is widely quoted as saying (to one of the officials): 'I pray you, master Lieutenant, see me safe up and for my coming down, let me shift for my self.'

Before his death, he said: 'I am the King's servant, but God's first.'

After he had finished reciting the Miserere (Psalms 51) while kneeling, the executioner reportedly begged his pardon, then More rose up merrily, kissed him and gave him forgiveness.

[0junemeatcleaver0]

june you gifted us with meta on marius's virginity, can you also expound on ancient roman perceptions of penis size and what effects what he's packing would have on his Issues™ and perceptions of self?

I am SO glad you asked.

Between having my ass whooped by allergies and dealing with other household irl stuff, I can't dedicate the time to source gathering that I would typically like. And so my citations for this one are gonna have to look something like:

[1] trust me, bro [2] google will show you many fluff pieces like this so that you know this idea has been floating around in the ether for quite some time [3] i've seen even the people who hate my guts for being pretentious and too academic site this same idea so either we're both wrong or both right and they're just gonna have to try to live with that fact 🤷‍

Like most other things to do with sex and the human body, the Romans had some odd ideas about penis size. Specifically the idea that the size of one's member was a reflection of one's intellect and civility.

If a man was blessed with a small penis, he was thought to be intelligent and in control of himself and his desires. If, on the other hand, he was cursed with a large penis, he was thought to be slow-witted and barbaric.

In terms of Marius and his virginity and his sense of self re: his place in society, we have three options, really:

One: He has an average sized dick for the time and so he'd feel much the same as most men of his time. Two: He had a small dick and was quite proud of it. Three: He had a large dick and was ashamed of it.

Option One This option is beyond boring and we will now disregard it wholesale. This option is dead to me.

Option Two I think it would be a bittersweet tragedy for Marius if he had a small dick and it just did not matter. Just like his mother dying in childbirth before she could be freed (thus freeing him, too), or being born to a wealthy father while not being able to rise through the social ranks of Rome, or knowing, doing, and saying all the right things but never getting the same respect as a Full Roman Man™️...there is something so perfect about Marius having a tiny, perfect penis that no one will let him use on them because he's just such an off-putting weirdo.

Just imagine him strutting proudly through the bathhouse, head held high, ready and waiting for congratulations on his itty-bitty pretty cock and it just never comes because no one wants to bother with the guy who constantly corrects the historical record at dinner parties or spends most of his time at the function scribbling down what you and your buddies are doing and saying instead of getting drunk and joining in on the fun.

Who cares that it's the most glorious micropenis you've ever seen?? Complimenting it means you'd have to speak to it's owner and you'd rather eat ever terracotta chamber pot for sale in the market.

Option Three This is my favorite one. Because by modern values, it reads as an embarrassment of riches. The idea of the most 'rational' and 'controlled' of Anne's characters being seen in his own time as being a pea-brained moron incapable of subduing his carnal desires because he's forced to slang horse cock through the bathhouse is just fucking perfect to me.

Marius' family would have been wealthy enough to have their own bath at home, but going to the bathhouse was an important social event. This probably became a dilemma for a young Marius.

As outlined in my character study, I believe the text supports the idea that Marius was the youngest of the sons. It doesn't take much for me to be able to imagine his older brothers giving him shit for having such a large penis. I also imagine Marius at first being very wounded by this teasing. Then furious. Then being smart enough to know he can't afford to have an outburst and risk proving the rumors of those with his affliction correct. And then rationalizing it as his brothers are liars--they're giving him a hard time. They probably were blessed with tiny penises because they're all full blooded Roman men. And Marius, well. His penis is probably more on the average side. It would have been tiny like his brothers' if it weren't for the blood of his wild Keltoi mother, you see. And that's not ideal, obviously. He'd rather have a tiny cock--the tiniest!--but average isn't as bad as the alternative.

And then the potential mortification of going the the public bathhouse for the first time and realizing that his brothers were not exaggerating. And the men all having a good laugh about it because he's still young and growing. "My son Sextus had the feet of a Gígas when he was your age. Now, they look like the feet of any man. You shall grow into it." "Certainly. With my son, it was his hands." "And mine, his nose."

And so it went. Each year deeper into puberty, his body growing longer and leaner. Marius growing taller than the boys and indeed most of the men around him. And the whole time, his dick growing right along with the rest of him. Slowly, as the years go on, the reassurances dry up. No more talk of feet and hands and noses. No more laughter and friendly slaps on the shoulder. Just averted eyes and hushed whispers as soon as his back is turned.

Yet another reason he feels such a desperate need to constantly prove himself.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

By Parissa DJangi

August 18, 2023

Some say he was a surgeon. Others, a deranged madman — or perhaps a butcher, prince, artist, or specter.

The murderer known to history as Jack the Ripper terrorized London 135 years ago this fall.

In the subsequent century, he has been everything to everyone, a dark shadow on which we pin our fears and attitudes.

But to five women, Jack the Ripper was not a legendary phantom or a character from a detective novel — he was the person who horrifically ended their lives.

“Jack the Ripper was a real person who killed real people,” reiterates historian Hallie Rubenhold, whose book, The Five, chronicles the lives of his victims. “He wasn’t a legend.”

Who were these women? They had names: Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly.

They also had hopes, loved ones, friends, and, in some cases, children.

Their lives, each one unique, tell the story of 19th-century London, a city that pushed them to its margins and paid more attention to them dead than alive.

Terror in Whitechapel

Their stories did not all begin in London, but they ended there, in and around the crowded corner of the metropolis known as Whitechapel, a district in London’s East End.

“Probably there is no such spectacle in the whole world as that of this immense, neglected, forgotten great city of East London,” Walter Bessant wrote in his novel All Sorts and Conditions of Men in 1882.

“It is even neglected by its own citizens, who had never yet perceived their abandoned condition.”

The “abandoned” citizens of Whitechapel included some of the city’s poorest residents.

Immigrants, transient laborers, families, single women, thieves — they all crushed together in overflowing tenements, slums, and workhouses.

According to historian Judith Walkowitz:

“By the 1880s, Whitechapel had come to epitomize the social ills of ‘Outcast London,’ a place where sin and poverty comingled in the Victorian imagination, shocking the middle classes."

Whitechapel transformed into a scene of horror when the lifeless, mutilated body of Polly Nichols was discovered on a dark street in the early morning hours of August 31, 1888.

She became the first of Jack the Ripper’s five canonical victims, the core group of women whose murders appeared to be related and occurred over a short span of time.

Over the next month, three more murdered women would be found on the streets of the East End.

They had been killed in a similar way: their throats slashed, and, in most cases, their abdomens disemboweled.

Some victims’ organs had been removed. The fifth murder occurred on November 9, when the Ripper butchered Mary Jane Kelly with such barbarity that she was nearly unrecognizable.

This so-called “Autumn of Terror” pushed Whitechapel and the entire city into a panic, and the serial killer’s mysterious identity only heightened the drama.

The press sensationalized the astonishingly grisly murders — and the lives of the murdered women.

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary Jane

Though forever linked by the manner of their death, the five women murdered by Jack the Ripper shared something else in common:

They were among London’s most vulnerable residents, living on the margins of Victorian society.

They eked out a life in the East End, drifting in and out of workhouses, piecing together casual jobs, and pawning their few possessions to afford a bed for a night in a lodging house.

If they could not scrape together the coins, they simply slept on the street.

“Nobody cared about who these women were at all,” Rubenhold says. “Their lives were incredibly precarious.”

Polly Nichols knew precarity well. Born in 1845, she fulfilled the Victorian ideal of proper womanhood when she became a wife at the age of 18.

But after bearing five children, she ultimately left her husband under suspicions of his infidelity.

Alcohol became both a crutch and curse for her in the final years of her life.

Alcohol also hastened Annie Chapman’s estrangement from what was considered a respectable life.

Annie Chapman was born in 1840 and spent most of her life in London and Berkshire.

With her marriage to John Chapman, a coachman, in 1869, Annie positioned herself in the top tier of the working class.

But her taste for alcohol and the loss of her children unraveled her family life, and Annie ended up in the East End.

Swedish-born Elizabeth Stride was an immigrant, like thousands of others who lived in the East End.

Born in 1843, she came to England when she was 22. In London, Stride reinvented herself time and time again, becoming a wife and coffeehouse owner.

Catherine Eddowes­­, who was born in Wolverhampton in 1842 and moved to London as a child, lost both of her parents by the time she was 15.

She spent most of her adulthood with one man, who fathered her children. Before her murder, she had just returned to London after picking hops in Kent, a popular summer ritual for working-class Londoners.

At 25, Mary Jane Kelly was the youngest, and most mysterious, of the Ripper’s victims.

Kelly reportedly claimed she came from Ireland and Wales before settling in London.

She had a small luxury that the others did not: She rented a room with a bed. It would become the scene of her murder.

Yet the longstanding belief that all of these women were sex workers is a myth, as Rubenhold demonstrates in The Five.

Only two of the women — Stride and Kelly — were known to have engaged in sex work during their lives.

The fact that all of them have been labeled sex workers highlights how Victorians saw poor, unhoused women.

“They have been systematically ‘othered’ from society,” Rubenhold says,"even though this is how the majority lived.”

These women were human beings with a strong sense of personhood. According to biographer Robert Hume, their friends and neighbors described them as “industrious,” “jolly,” and “very clean.”

They lived, they loved, they existed — until, very suddenly on a dark night in 1888, they did not.

A long shadow

The discovery of Annie Chapman’s body on September 8 heightened panic in London, since her wounds echoed the shocking brutality of Polly Nichols’ murder days earlier.

Investigators realized that the same killer had likely committed both crimes — and he was still on the loose. Who would he strike next?

In late September, London’s Central News Office received a red-inked letter that claimed to be from the murderer. It was signed “Jack the Ripper.”

Papers across the city took the name and ran with it. Press coverage of the Whitechapel Murders crescendoed to a fever pitch.

Newspapers danced the line between fact and fiction, breathlessly recounting every gruesome detail of the crimes and speculating with wild abandon about the killer’s identity.

Today, that impulse endures, and armchair detectives and professional investigators alike have proposed an endless parade of suspects, including artist Walter Sickert, writer Lewis Carroll, sailor Carl Feigenbaum, and Aaron Kosminski, an East End barber.

"The continued fascination with unmasking the murderer perpetuates this idea that Jack the Ripper is a game,” Rubenhold says.

She sees parallels between the gamification of the Whitechapel Murders and the modern-day obsession with true crime.

“When we approach true crime, most of the time we approach as if it was legend, as if it wasn’t real, as if it didn’t happen to real people.”

“These crimes still happen today, and we are still not interested in the victims,” Rubenhold laments.

The Whitechapel Murders remain unsolved after 135 years, and Rubenhold believes that will never change:

“We’re not going to find anything that categorically tells us who Jack the Ripper is.”

Instead, the murders tell us about the values of the 19th century — and the 21st.

[tinydragontoonz]

Ooo I really like your Anne design with the horn-branches! You mentioned the design was for an au, what’s it about?

Thank you!

My AU is a sort of… fantasy AU I suppose? It’s hard to give it a concrete a name since amphibia is already pretty fantastical haha. But it takes more inspiration from some of the beta designs and incorporates the magic of the stones (and magic in general) into daily life. For example, the Plantars specialize in Druid magic to help their crops grow.

This is why Anne’s hair has blue in it: the magic from the Heart gem shows itself much more though her. Also there’s an early design where Anne’s hair was full-on blue like Hilda lol. Each of the trio has magic that they can use. Anne starts to practice hers when she arrives with the Plantars and finds her magic mostly has to do with plant life. Sasha can enter a barbarian-like rage when she gets emotional and this leads to conflict later. Marcy ends up finding a magic staff of sorts with a moth on the end in the woods that she can use to cast magic. It can also speak to her for Lore Reasons :)

I don’t really have a concrete story in place, mostly just bits and pieces. It follows most of the main general arcs the original series has with some key differences. Andrias is known to be a tyrant from the start but he’s also a total recluse. No one has seen him in years so it’s been relatively peaceful (save for the toads and their barbaric ways. They essentially do Andrias’ job for him.) The Core is an artificial god created when the stones were first gifted to the people of Amphibia. The deity had to step in when it got too powerful and, when it was unable to destroy it, cursed the Core to sleep forever. But now that the stones’ power is in the three human girls, the Core begins to stir, especially when Marcy finds that staff in the woods.

Here’s some refs for what I’ve drawn the trio as (Marcy and Sasha refs are old art lol):

But yeah! Thank you for the ask so much, I absolutely adore talking about this AU, as it’s the one I’ve developed the most. Feel free to ask more about it!!

[elizabethan-memes]

Hi there,

Love your blog! Do you know much about The Duke of Norfolk's relationship with Cromwell? I'm currently re-watching the Tudors and unfortunately the Howards are cut out by Season 3 and 4. I read a theory recently that the Howards including the third Duke wanted to take out Cromwell because he took down Anne Boleyn. Is there any truth to that? Would love to know if there is.

I don't think Anne Boleyn's downfall helped, but I think Cromwell and Norfolk already had plenty of reasons to want each other out of favour. Cromwell was Wolsey's servant, after all, and Norfolk was very sensitive to hierarchy. As an aristocrat he was very aware of 'new men' like Cromwell, Wolsey, and yes- More too. More was the grandson of a baker, so in Norfolk's eyes he's only one generation higher than Cromwell, son of a brewer.

And while Norfolk supported the Break with Rome, he was a traditionalist in terms of religion. And while More, Cromwell, and Wolsey were all enthusiastic about renaissance humanism, judicial reform in favour of ordinary citizens, (and also critics of enclosures) these aren't policies that benefit the likes of Norfolk. More is often portrayed as friends with Norfolk, but the only real evidence I see for that is the hagiography written in the 1550s- at a time when Cromwell was controversial at best, while Norfolk was supporting Mary I. When More's grandson was born in the 1530s, it was Cromwell his parents chose as godfather.

Norfolk is often portrayed as boorish and uncultured, which is a gross simplification. But Norfolk preferred medieval chivalric literature to ancient literature. Erasmus called such medieval literature 'barbarous fables' and perhaps Cromwell would agree- certainly, Cromwell and More both loved Erasmus' New Testament, Cromwell learning it off by heart.

Also, Cromwell had a 'genuine and selfless' (Macculloch) friendship with... Norfolk's wife Elizabeth. If Cromwell needed more reasons to despise Norfolk, Elizabeth would give him PLENTY.

So Cromwell and Norfolk really have no shared culture, their worldviews and goals don't align. I think Norfolk would want Cromwell out, even if 1536 never happened.

[saint-starflicker]

Overview and Criteria for Gothic Fiction

Gothic as a genre of fiction novel emerged in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Modern scholars frame these works as part of a Romanticist pushback against the Enlightenment era of calculated, scientific rationalism. In English literature, these may also have been artistic expressions of the collective anxieties of British people regarding the French Revolution. The term hearkens back to the destruction of the Roman Empire in the 5th century CE at the effect of Gothic peoples, an event that marks the beginning of the medieval era. As early as the year 1530 CE, Giorgio Vasari criticized medieval architecture as gothic, that is "monstrous", "barbarous", and "disordered" contrasted against the elegant and progressive neoclassical architecture reconstructions. In the late 20th century, a subculture of post-punk horror rockers began to be described as Gothic as well. This subcultural goth variation characterized itself by an aesthetic of counter-cultural macabre and "enjoyable fear".

Notable early works of what would become the gothic literary "canon" are listed as follows: The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764), The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne by Ann Radcliffe (1789), The Castle of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons (1793), and The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe (1794). Udolpho is the name of a castle. Early gothic literature was intertwined with an admiration for gothic architecture, sorry to Vasari Giorgio who hated that sort of thing so much but is an outlier and should not be counted.

One example of French gothic literature in this vein is Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, published in 1831 although the story is set in 1482 and it was about a gothic cathedral rather than a gothic castle. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen is an affectionate parody of the gothic literature genre and a staunch defense of the gothic novels' artistic merits. It was completed in 1803 but not published until 1818 after the author's death.

In Northanger Abbey, a character recommends to her friend a list of books in this genre, all the titles of which were publications contemporary to the time the author was writing about them: The Italian by Ann Radcliffe, Clermont by Regina Maria Roche, The Mysterious Warning by Eliza Parsons, Necromancer of the Black Forest by Lawrence Flammenberg, The Midnight Bell by Francis Lathorn, Orphan of the Rhine by Eleanor Sleath, and Horrid Mysteries by Carl Grosse.

The appeal of these stories was less the architecture itself and more the emotions evoked by being haunted by the past, threatened by unknown histories, frightened by misunderstood monsters, and in awe of wilderness and nature. All of this would be set at or relative to a location: a gothic building. Heroines in gothic stories would commonly be abducted from convents that they sought refuge in, or confined to convents or other locations against their will when they try to exercise their freedoms. Other common tropes became the journey of a gothic heroine in an unfamiliar country, and the horrors of being made to rely on guardians who make impositions against her wishes or best interests. In other cases, the gothic horror mixed with gothic infatuation would be shown by an invasion of sorts by a foreigner in the heroine's home country, person of color, or the occupation of a disabled person. These works frequently lend themselves to queer readings.

The common and notable qualities of what works came to be considered gothic literature between the 1819 publication of The Vampyre by John William Polidori and the 1896 publication of The Werewolf by Clemence Housman, naturally expanded and evolved with the inclusion of more works within this genre. Even now in the 21st century the continued recognizability of the gothic applies to new additions to the genre. The criteria for what qualifies a gothic story follows:

Ill-Reputed Work. The story is accused of being degrading to high culture, bad for society, immoral, populist or counter-cultural. At the very least, it's considered bad art and ugly.

Haunted by the Past. This can be found in a work framed accordingly in the cultural context that inspired the authors, such as early 19th century English literature of this genre as a response to the French Revolution. Works emblematic of the Southern Gothic in the United States could be framed in the context of the anxieties surrounding the Civil War. More often, however, it is personal history that haunts a gothic character.

Architecture. This is not necessarily mere mention of a building, or even a lush description of literally gothic architecture. This is more a sense of location. While it stands to reason that confined locations are buildings, the narrative function of architecture can be served by themes of isolation and confinement. Social consensus that is impossible to navigate or escape is a gothic sentiment. This is, of course, more clearly qualified if the architecture is literally a building.

Wilderness. This is not necessarily natural environments, but rather situations that are unpredictable and overwhelming. Storms can be similarly admired, those "dark and stormy night"s. The anxiety invoked by nautical horror emerges from the contrast between a human being made to feel small and out of control when situated on the open ocean and all its depths and mysteries. The gothic simplicity of fairy tales relies on the inhospitable and chaotic woods full of bandits, wolves, and maybe even witches. Logically, a city should be more architecture than wilderness, but if the narrative purpose is chaotic unpredictable vastness horror rather than confinement horror then the city can become a gothic wilderness. This is, of course, more clearly qualified if the wilderness is literally the weather.

Big Mood Energy. This is what I call a collection of emotions evoked by the design of gothic literature. The sense of vulnerability in the face of grandeur, or overwhelming emotion, is known as Sublime. The betrayal of that which is supposed to be familiar is known as the Uncanny. A disruption or disrespect of identity, order, or security is known as the Abject. Gothic literature often evokes disgust and discomfort with ambiguity, or showcases melodramatic sentimentality, or includes heavyhanded symbolism. Gothic literature explores boundaries and deconstructs the rules that keep readers comfortable.

Optionally, Supernatural. As a response to Enlightenment-era science and rationalism, the supernatural found new importance in gothic literature, symbolically and in the evocative emotions it wrought.

The growing edge of genre gothic I think can be found in genre overlap with picaresque stories, detective mysteries, works of libertine sensationalism, science fiction, fairy tales, and dark academia. Quaint tropes are subverted or transformed, and new ones can emerge in the symbolic conversation that works of fiction can strike up with one another. I hope the above criteria remains a useful guide.

Sources:

Peake, Jak. “Representing the Gothic.” 30 April 2013, University of Essex. Lecture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B51o-1KTJhw

Nixon, Lauren. “Exploring the Gothic in Contemporary Culture and Criticism.” 4 August 2017, University of Sheffield. Lecture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZP4g0eZmo8

"Why Are Goths? History of the Gothic 18th Century to Now". Wright, Carrie. 17 December 2022. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrIK6pBj4f8

"8 Aspects of Gothic Books". Teed, Tristan. 19 June 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NULLOYGiSDI

Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London, Vernor & Hood, etc., 1798. Originally published in 1756.

Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny, Penguin Books, New York, 2003. Originally published in 1919.

Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, translated by Leon Roudiez, Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 2010. Originally published in 1984.

Commentary and reading list under Read More.

Commentary

I owe to Tristan Teed the idea of framing emergent gothic literature as countercultural to Enlightenment rationalism and science, and this pushback symbolized by wilderness; Dr. Jak Peake for contextualizing gothic literature as an artistic response to civic unrest in general, and highlighting the fear of seductive immigrants in Bram Stroker's Dracula more specifically; Carrie Wright for the feminist readings of the literary references in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Dr. Lauren Nixon framing the term gothic as originally meaning bad art—the lattermost aspect I personally consider integral to the genre as it must remain a constant interrogation of what artistic expression we as a society consider "bad art" and why. Both Wright and Teed inspired the aspects list applied to an otherwise categorization-defiant genre that gothic literature is. Critical Race Theory readings and Queer Theory readings of works considered part of gothic literature canon, I would say are informed by the works themselves being very suggestive of these readings. Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 Carmilla influenced Rachel Klein's 2002 The Moth Diaries that blurred the lines between the homosocial and the homoerotic at a girl's boarding school. Florian Tacorian (not listed in these citations, but go watch his videos) highlighted Romani presence in adaptations of Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, as well as Emily Brontë's 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. The work of another Brontë sister, Charlotte Brontë, is more often mentioned as though closer to the core canon gothic literature, and the eponymous Jane Eyre contends with a Creole woman confined to the attic of her new home (this was written in 1847, the race issue was made explicit in Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys published in 1966 that was a retelling of Jane Eyre.)

Notes on the works of gothic literature mentioned: As of this writing, I have read Northanger Abbey, The Vampyre, Carmilla, Dracula, and only half of Notre-Dame de Paris. I have only watched a movie adaptation of The Moth Diaries. (Update as of the 8th of October 2023: I finished reading The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein. This whole essay was posted on the 1st of October 2023.) (Update as of December 2023: I finished reading Jane Eyre.) Despite taking the internet handle Poe, American gothic literature is pretty much completely alien to me. I might have read a handful of other works that might be arguably gothic, but have not mentioned them here so I would not count them in a list of works that are mentioned in this essay and that I have personally read. The initial list was a semi-facetious argument for the presence of gothic architecture in gothic literature based on the titles alone. Note also my focus on gothic literature from the British Isles, with a mention of only two titles from Germany (Der Genius by Carl Grosse, translated into the English The Horrid Mysteries by Peter Will; and Der Geisterbanner: Eine Wundergeschichte aus mündlichen und schriftlichen Traditionen by Karl Friedrich Kahlert under the pen name Lawrence Flammenberg, translated into the English Necromancer of the Black Forest by Peter Teuthold that was first published in 1794) and only one from France (Notre-Dame de Paris 1482 by Victor Hugo). This is not to say that there was little to no Romanticist movement in Germany or France in the 18th and 19th centuries compared to Britain. Friedrich Maximilian Klinger's stageplay Sturm und Drang premiered in 1777 and lent its name to a proto-Romantic artistic era that was supremely Sublime and Big Mood Energy. The earliest French gothic novel I could find via a cursory search engine search was Jacques Cazotte's Le Diable Amoureux, 1772, and I deliberately selected Notre-Dame de Paris for mention instead to demonstrate the continued theme of architecture and variety in architecture: churches as well as castles, and to affirm the representation of disability in gothic literature because Quasimodo (a character in the book) is deaf and according to John Green had contacted spinal tuburculosis that left the character hunchbacked. I have not read any of Le Diable Amoureux, let alone the half that gave me the temerity to list Notre-Dame de Paris among these gothic works.

This sparseness is due to my own interest in the emergence of English-language gothic literature focused on Britain between the years 1789 and 1830, in keeping with Ian Mortimer's definition of the Regency era in Britain. That, and the information from the sources I have cited, are what I based the criteria that I offer for what makes a novel genre-compliant to gothic. The narrative psychology and historicist analyses of The Castle of Otranto as an outlier published earlier than the timeframe I confine myself to, is for another essay perhaps written by somebody else. Similarly, my argument for the lineage of picaresque heroes from Paul Clifford to The Scarlet Pimpernel, Don Diego "Zorro" de la Vega, and ultimately the angst-filled cinematic version of Bruce Wayne as overlapping the picaresque with the gothic is a blog post for another time. I have read some works by the Maquis Donatien Alphonse François de Sade and I utterly and unutterably abhor all of it, will the spectre of his abysmal depravity ever cease to haunt me—but I think I can make an argument for his works being gothic even as he argued for himself that they were not; I have no plans of doing so.

My main intention in writing this overview and criteria is to lay the groundwork for examining the overlap between Gothic as a genre and Dark Academia as a genre, which I aim to evaluate in future essays by using this criteria.

List of Works Mentioned Above

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764)

Le Diable Amoureux by Jacques Cazotte (1772)

The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne by Ann Radcliffe (1789)

The Castle of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons (1793)

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe (1794)

Necromancer of the Black Forest by Lawrence Flammenberg (translated by Peter Teuthold, 1794)

The Horrid Mysteries by Carl Grosse (translated by Peter Will, 1796)

The Italian by Ann Radcliffe (1796)

The Mysterious Warning by Eliza Parsons (1796)

Clermont by Regina Maria Roche (1798)

The Midnight Bell by Francis Lathorn (1798)

Orphan of the Rhine by Eleanor Sleath (1798)

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (1818)

The Vampyre by John William Polidori (1819)

Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1830)

Notre-Dame de Paris 1482 by Victor Hugo (1831)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)

Dracula by Bram Stroker (1897)

The Werewolf by Clemence Housman (1896)

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emma Orczy (1905)

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966)

The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein (2002)

[czolgosz]

i went to a used book sale today... procured:

railroad color history: new york central railroad (brian solomon & mike schafer) — i'm not actually that into trains but it appealed to me.

the complete guide to the soviet union (jennifer louis & victor louis) — travel guide from 1980

an anthology including the big sleep (raymond chandler), "the undignified melodrama of the bone of contention" (dorothy l. sayers), "the arrow of god" (leslie charteris), "i can find my way out" (ngaio marsh), instead of evidence (rex stout), "rift in the loot" (stuart palmer & craig rice), "the man who explained miracles" (john dickson carr), & rebecca (daphne du maurier) (i already have this one..) — it's volume 2 of something (a treasury of great mysteries) which annoys me but whatever

an anthology including "godmother tea" (selena anderson), "the apartment" (t. c. boyle), "a faithful but melancholy account of several barbarities lately committed" (jason brown), "sibling rivalry" (michael byers), "the nanny" (emma cline), "halloween" (mariah crotty), "something street" (carolyn ferrell), "this is pleasure" (mary gaitskill), "in the event" (meng jin), "the children" (andrea lee), "rubberdust" (sarah thankam mathews), "it's not you" (elizabeth mccracken), "liberté" (scott nandelson), "howl palace" (leigh newman), "the nine-tailed fox explains" (jane pek), "the hands of dirty children" (alejandro puyana), "octopus vii" (anna reeser), "enlightenment" (william pei shih), "kennedy" (kevin wilson), & "the special world" (tiphanie yanique) — i guess they're all short stories published in 2020 by usamerican/canadian authors

an anthology including the death of ivan ilyich (leo tolstoy) (i have already read this one..), the beast in the jungle (henry james), heart of darkness (joseph conrad), seven who were hanged (leonid andreyev), abel sánchez (miguel de unamuno), the pastoral symphony (andré gide), mario and the magician (thomas mann), the old man (william faulkner), the stranger (albert camus), & agostino (alberto moravia)

the ambassadors (henry james)

the world book desk reference set: book of nations — it's from 1983 so this is kind of a history book...

yet another fiction anthology......... including the general's ring (selma lagerlöf), "mowgli's brothers" (rudyard kipling), "the gift of the magi" (o. henry) (i have already read this one..), "lord mountdrago" (w. somerset maugham), "music on the muscatatuck" (jessamyn west), "the pacing goose" (jessamyn west), "the birds" (daphne du maurier), "the man who lived four thousand years" (alexandre dumas), "the pope's mule" (alphonse daudet), "the story of the late mr. elvesham" (h. g. wells), "the blue cross" (g. k. chesterton), portrait of jennie (robert nathan), "la grande bretèche" (honoré de balzac), "love's conundrum" (anthony hope), "the great stone face" (nathaniel hawthorne), "germelshausen" (friedrich gerstäcker), "i am born" (charles dickens), "the legend of sleepy hollow" (washington irving), "the age of miracles" (melville davisson post), "the long rifle" (stewart edward white), "the fall of the house of usher" (edgar allan poe) (i have already read this one..), the voice of bugle ann (mackinlay kantor), the bridge of san luis rey (thornton wilder), "basquerie" (eleanor mercein kelly), "judith" (a. e. coppard), "a mother in mannville" (marjorie kinnan rawlings), "kerfol" (edith wharton), "the last leaf" (o. henry), "the bloodhound" (arthur train), "what the old man does is always right" (hans christian anderson), the sea of grass (conrad richter), "the sire de malétroit's door" (robert louis stevenson), "the necklace" (guy de maupassant) (i have already read this one..), "by the waters of babylon" (stephen vincent benét), a. v. laider (max beerbohm), "the pillar of fire" (percival wilde), "the strange will" (edmond about), "the hand at the window" (emily brontë) (i have already read this one..), & "national velvet" (enid bagnold) — why are seven of these chapters of novels....? anyway fun fact one of the compilers here also worked on the aforementioned mystery anthology. also anyway Why did i bother to write all that ☹️

fundamental problems of marxism (georgi plekhanov) — book about dialectical/historical materialism which is published here as the first volume of something (marxist library) which is kind of odd to me tbh

one last (thankfully tiny) anthology including le père goriot (honoré de balzac) & eugénie grandet (honoré de balzac)

[haggishlyhagging]

That perhaps there has been no progress for women when it comes to the recognition that women exist creatively and intellectually in their own right is a concept difficult to formulate in a patriarchal culture, partly because the belief in progress is so deeply entrenched. It is a belief bolstered by the premises of growth and expansion which underlie capitalism, by the justification of evolutionary theory, and the construction of history as a steady march of human improvement. It is almost beyond our comprehension to question the notion of progress.

The absurdity of this concept is not challenged by the insanity of nuclear weapons, the wilful and increasing destruction and pollution of this planet or by the grossly inequitable distribution of resources. Society needs the concept of progress to legitimate as the high point of civilisation many of its current barbaric practices. Yet this concept of progress, and all that goes with it, has its origins in men's consciousness. It is formed from the perspective of dominance and demands the denial of life-sustaining values, including the denial of women and our thinking/explaining existence.

This is what Matilda Joslyn Gage argued; without benefit of Gage's ideas, it was what Dora Russell started to argue from the 1920s and what she is still arguing today. There are many other women with similar views - Carolyn Merchant, Jean Baker Miller, Robin Morgan, Ann Oakley, Mary O'Brien, Dorothy Smith, Adrienne Rich - who arrived at their conclusions without knowledge of Gage or Russell. This is more like the repetition of the same pattern, than ‘progress’, the pattern of interruption and silence, which denies women's consciousness so that men's creations can be justified. It is the pattern which constitutes women's culture, says Michelle Cliff (1979), where women's intellectual and creative resources are taken away by repeated interruptions partly through the role men have imposed on them.

Anna Coote and Beatrix Campbell (1982) agree. In their review of the 'modern' women's liberation movement in Britain, they state that progress is the prerogative of men; even the male lifestyle is based on the premise of uninterrupted progress. From school to apprenticeship to work there is the concept of continued advancement with greater prospects, pay and pensions. This is not the case for most women, for men have arranged the world so that women are the ones who must take time out. Ann Lane (1977) has also pointed out that the pattern of women's lives is very different from that of men, with women frequently enjoying their capacity for chosen creative work at a much later age when they have been freed from the demands made upon them.

This daily reality of interruption, argue Coote and Campbell is also the historic reality for women where again and again women are cut off from their past and must start afresh. It is lamentable, they say, ‘that generations of girls ... have grown up in ignorance of their grandmothers' politics. Only when they reinvent rebellion for themselves do they begin to disinter the buried remains of that knowledge. Each time they find that although the setting is new, the battle they are fighting is essentially the same' (pp. 9-10).

-Dale Spender, Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done to Them

[saintmeghanmarkle]

What charity work and public service makes Prince Harry's life at risk and needing security? by u/Negative_Difference4

What charity work and public service makes Prince Harry's life at risk and needing security? This post is related to this snippet from this post (https://ift.tt/vwl4oCm SaintMeghanMarkle/comments/1b24rkz/harold_is_a_lying_liar_who_lies_the_judgment/)​https://ift.tt/cp3x0GC is associated with Invictus Games (foundation international games for war veterans and those serving in the defence forces) and WellChild awards (charity to help support children with long term illness).He is on the board of African Parks and was the President of the Foundation. The foundation lost its charitable status and operates without any oversight. https://ift.tt/OUqCZGV. It also has recently been embroiled in barbaric rape and abuse of the local Baka tribe in The Congo.He is the co-founder of Sentebale (charity to help the orphans of Lesotho). This is the charity where Harry held the 10 month old Keke (rape and torture victim) and vowed to look after her but he never did.He is the patron of Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund (Aims to lift children out of poverty through education. Funds are directed to projects in south-east region of Uganda.) But he hasn't been as involved with itHe is a Honary life member of Royal Ontario Museum and Gloucestershire County Cricket Club.​These are the causes linked to his time with the Royal Family and I haven't look into Archewell endeavours as it is private foundation. So which one of these causes could cause a risk to his life, which would need the UK government to intervene and provide security including during the time he is in the US?​One thing that bugs me with this point and his constant need to connect himself to Princess Diana ... Diana was working with the following causes:AIDS and HIV CharitiesThe Plight Against LandminesHomelessness and PovertyThe Leprosy MissionCancer TrustsI don't know if people were alive during this era ... but her causes were insane ... no white, rich celeb would go anywhere near these types of causes esp AIDS/HIV in 1987. I never heard of AIDs before that, we didn't have google back then or even a computer at home! (And yes there were other royals already involved in this stuff like Princess Margaret support in the 80s and Princess Anne in 1988). The level of coverage Diana gave to this cause to dispel the myths was insane. Same with Leprosy ... there was so much stigma to even touch someone with leprosy esp growing up in India. The landmines cause in Angola ... well the world went crazy. Everyone told her that royals shouldn't be getting involved with political issues. This was in 1997, she died soon after. The conspiracy theories rolled on. Such a shame that Diana rejected her RPO security and only had a personal protection bodyguard. One wonders what could have been if she wasn't so paranoid about life and took the security. (BTW, the bodyguard survived the crash and is still working ... because he wore a seatbelt! How many times have we seen Harry, Meghan and the kids not wearing seatbelts?)How does Harry's work compare to Diana's charity work in the 80/90s? post link: https://ift.tt/vxQu9jd author: Negative_Difference4 submitted: February 29, 2024 at 11:20AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[dastardlydandelion]

had to revisit the fascinating men, women, and optimal violence by mary anne franks and it tickled that part of my brain that has long since theorized the classic final girl archetype as the very epitome of female violence (fear-motivated, resourceful, justified) and the classic killer the very epitome of male violence (rage-motivated, forceful, abhorrent) and how the brutalization and/or elimination of the initial final girls in sequels during the golden age of the slasher subgenre cast alongside the celebrated resurrections of the male monsters reflects the social backlash against valid female violence and simultaneous encouragement of barbaric male violence, punishing her for her survival yet rewarding him for his destruction, and how scream (1996) was impressively subversive in its prime in that it allowed sidney prescott to not only embrace her sexuality, but to embrace it in the monster’s arms, and emerge a victorious final girl anyway, one who would outlive every ghostface since, therefore never narratively punished for being sexually active, nor punished for trusting the wrong person with her sexuality, but also how sidney nevertheless conformed to the classic final girl archetype in the way of her exclusively necessary usage of violence, allowing her to remain the moral compass of the franchise while scream (2022) and scream vi have created a new subversive final girl in sam carpenter, who “feels right” inflicting harm, likely enjoys carnage (sam’s gloveless knife wipe, her unmasking before the final blow to wayne bailey: sam’s bareness-to-gore proximity), and could easily be the killer of another movie as demonstrated in the differing ways sidney and sam resort to wearing the ghostface costumes, in the differing ways they remove their slasher masks (sidney’s unimpressed disgust vs sam’s sweaty comfortability), and sam’s internal draw to the costume she makes the conscious choice to reject, whereas it was a choice sidney would never even consider, but how like sidney, sam is never narratively punished for her subversion to what the classic golden age would’ve expected of her and in fact earns the approval + acceptance of her sister, meaning that a franchise that began and to a degree certainly remains a satire gave us two fascinating final girls who flip the bird to the golden age and each cement themselves as remarkable in their respective eras for doing so.

[thecrimecrypt]

Crimes That Shook Britain (North West)

Moors Murders Not just notorious in the UK, the name Ian Brady and Myra Hindley are synonymous with evil worldwide. In the 1960s the twisted couple tortured and violently murdered Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12, Keith Bennett, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17.

During their killing spree, Brady and Hindley posed for photos at the murder scenes and gravesites on Saddleworth Moor, near Manchester.

Both were convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to life. Hindley died behind bars in 2002, aged 60. She was so despised that 20 local undertakers refused to handle her body. Brady spent 19 years in standard prisons before being transferred to a high-security psychiatric hospital where he died in 2017 at the age of 79.

The Murders of PCs Bone and Hughes In November 2012, wanted killer Dale Cregan, 29, had made a hoax call to police. When PC Nicola Hughes, 23, and PC Fiona Bone, 32, attended, Cregan fired 32 bullets at them and launched a grenade before driving off. Both officers died.

In February 2013, Cregan admitted both murders at Preston Crown Court. He was given a whole life order, and also convicted of two other murders and three attempted murders.

Then-PM David Cameron honoured PC Bone and PC Hughes, calling their murders ‘an act of pure evil’.

Harold Shipman Britain’s most prolific serial killer, GP Harold Shipman, worked in The Hyde area of Manchester. In January 2000, he was found guilty of murdering 15 of his patients by lethal injection.

Sentenced to life, it was recommended he never be released. After the trial, an inquiry concluded Shipman had actually killed an estimated 250 victims.

Shipman killed himself in Wakefield Prison in January 2004, on the eve of his 58th birthday.

The Murder of James Bulger The unforgettable CCTV footage remains as chilling as it was back in 1993. Little James Bulger, 2, being led by the hand from The New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle, Liverpool, by the boys who’d go on to kill him.

Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both 10, walked the tot for over two miles to railway tracks where they murdered him.

When James’ body was found, he had multiple skull fractures and other injuries that suggested he’d been hit with a metal bar and bricks, kicked and stamped on.

Thompson and Venables became Britain’s youngest convicted murderers in November 1993 for what the judge called ‘an act of unparalleled evil and barbarity’.

The Murder of Anthony Walker At 11pm on 29 July 2005, popular student Anthony Walker, 18, and his cousin walked his girlfriend to the bus stop in Huyton, Liverpool.

As they passed a pub, thug Michael Barton shouted racist abuse at the group, which they ignored. But later, Barton and his friend Paul Taylor ambushed the teenagers.

Anthony’s cousin and girlfriend escaped, while Anthony was killed by Taylor with a blow to the head from an ice axe. That December, Paul Taylor, 20, got 23 years for murder. Michael Barton, 17, got 17 years, reduced by a year in 2016.

Derrick Bird It was the UK’s worst mass shooting since the 1996 Dunblane massacre. In June 2010, taxi driver Derrick Bird, 52, left his home in Rowrah, Cumbria, drove to the home of David, his twin, and shot and killed him.

Then he drove to his family solicitor Kevin Commons’ home and shot him dead, too. His next victim was a fellow taxi driver. By now, police were hunting Bird and told residents of nearby towns to stay indoors. But by the time Bird’s body was found at 1:40pm, he’d killed 12 people and left 25 injured before shooting himself.

At an inquest into Derrick Bird’s death, a medical expert described him as ‘delusional and paranoid’. He’d apparently murdered his brother and solicitor believing they were in cahoots against him over a tax bill. He’d targeted his workmate over a jibe that’d been made over his personal hygiene.

But no one could ever offer a satisfactory explanation of this senseless, devastating crime.

[bobbyfiend]

Maggie Stiefvater Writing Appreciation Post #1

I can't say I'm a Stiefvater fan because I've only read the Raven Cycle (the one with Blue Lily/Lily Blue). The story and characters are, in many ways, riffs on the standard stuff. A reasonable amount of originality there, but not a mind-blowing quantity. I think that's intentional, actually; it probably makes a lot of YA readers feel just enough familiarity that the unique elements can shine.

But that's not the point. The point is that Stiefvater can fucking write. I mean, hair-on-fire, punch-me-in-the-gut, make-me-see-and-feel-things write. Many authors let their prose disappear so the story and characters can shine (I'm a researcher so I know all about that kind of writing). But Stiefvater... she has the characters and the story, and so much of her writing is worth savoring for its own sake. Other writers I've read, with this kind of skill, include Ray Bradbury, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Eluki Bes-Shahar, Ann Patchett... Without further ado:

(Warning: Maybe Spoilers for the series)

“Gansey had once told Adam that he was afraid most people didn't know how to handle Ronan. What he meant by this was that he was worried that one day someone would fall on Ronan and cut themselves.”

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“She sat perfectly upright in a chair designed for slouching.”

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“How do you feel about helicopters?" There was a long pause. "How do you mean? Ethically?" "As a mode of transportation." "Faster than camels, but less sustainable.”

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Adam had once told Gansey, "Rags to riches isn't a story anyone wants to hear until after it's done.

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“Maura had decided sometime before Blue's birth that it was barbaric to order children about, and so Blue had grown up surrounded by imperative question marks.”

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“He's a pit bull," Adam said. "I know some really nice pit bulls." "He's the kind of pit that makes the evening news. Gansey's trying to restrain him." "How noble.”