#bluebeards egg

[quotespile]

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.

Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard's Egg

[princess-ibri]

Working on some early ideas for a Bluebeard retelling, so here’s some concept art (subject to change) Lucretia our Heroine

And Bluebeard our Villain

I’m basing their looks/names/time period off of what I could find from what Disney already had Bluebeard wise. Which was a tombstone with the names of Bluebeard’s previous wives and their/his date of death and a portrait of Bluebeard in Jake and the Neverland Pirates 😅

Plus some 1440s historical inspo. But yeah we’ll see how this goes!

[wellconstructedsentences]

'Sinkhole' and 'quagmire' are not flattering ways of speaking about other women, but this was at the back of Sally's mind.

Bluebeard's Egg by Margaret Atwood

[adarkrainbow]

I was recently reminded of the existence of this artwork, so I'll make a quick post about it. I had a very large version of the picture allowing t scrutinize little details - but unfortunately the size limit of Tumblr shrunk the picture.

This is the map known as "The Land of Make Believe", the most famous work of Jaro Hess - a collection of more than sixty references to various fairy tales, nursery rhymes, pieces of children literature and European legends, collected together in the shape of one fantastical and magical land. It was published in the early 1930s.

I will leave under the cut a complete list of all the places described and named on this map (a bit more than sixty in total):

Here the North Wind lives

Bluebeard's Castle

Here lives Peter Pan

Rip Van Winkle

Do not go in here

Here Little Miss Muffett was terribly frightened

Red Riding Hood's Grandmother's house

Jack Sprat - His house

The dilatory ship that never comes in

The Water Babies live here

Here the old man caught the golden fish

Dapple Gray Poney she rode him through the mire

Little Boy Blue fast asleep

The city of many towers where the beautiful princess lives

The castle of the giants

This is the cow that jumped over the moon

The city of brass

Jack the giant killer's house

Simple Simon met the Pieman here

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

The Crooked Man lives in his Crooked House

Mary and her Little Lamb

The black hen who laid eggs for gentlemen

Old Mother Hubbard's place

Bo-Peep's sheep

Contrary Mary's garden

Jack and Jill went up this hill

Here fairies dance in the moonlight

Here the Old King Col lives and the fiddlers three occasionally fiddle

Enchanted woods

Bottomless lake

Here is a desert

High tower where the little lame prince was locked

This house belongs to Grandfather-know-all

Magic carpet

The glass mountain

The wonderful Moo-Moo bird

The Emerald City of Oz

Long, Broad and Swift Glance

Do not walk near the edge!

Hansel and Gretel find the gingerbread house

Here the black bird picked off the maid's nose

Peter Rabbit lives in this hole

Here are the Babes in the Woods, covered in leaves

The shoe here the old woman lives

Little Bo Peep is looking for her sheep

The Wandering Jew

Tom-Tom the piper's son ran this way

Here the mermaids play

The Squall Fish

In this place there are peculiar fishes

The mysterious island

The path that leaves to no place eventually

The house that Jack built

Cinderella lives here

The castle where the Sleeping Beauty sleeps

Humpty Dumpty had that great fall here

The talking bird

The old witch lives here

West of the moon

East of the sun

[dracomort]

One of my favourite things about Bluebeard is Draco’s unprocessed grief for his parents. Him imagining his parents having tea in a different room of the Australian mansion and pretending they’re sat behind him at Christmas js hits me in the feels, and also leads me to ask how would Draco process it eventually? How long would it take him? Has he come to terms with it by the time of The Diadem?

His unprocessed grief was definitely one of the things that stood out to me once I switched to Draco POV for Bluebeard and got into his head. It's a uniquely difficult experience for him. No one in the world has experienced what he has, and he can't confide in anyone other than Tom, lest he be thought insane or risk causing some sort of time paradox (at least... a bigger one than he already caused by spilling the beans to voldemort). He can't even be vague about 'a death in the family' or whatever because he isn't exactly mourning their deaths... since they will likely still be born in the future. It's the loss of the people that they were to him, closer to mourning a parent with dementia, I suppose.

And on top of that, Tom is about the least sympathetic ear possible, since he is quite confident that dead parents is ideal. If Draco's parents weren't dead/pre-birth, he'd prob suggest offing them anyway. That murdering his father did, in fact, not cure his deep seated resentment and abandonment issues is another matter.

I would say that grief comes out predominately when Draco isn't as close with Tom. As Tom is the only one who actually knows his past—and is, even unintentionally, the kind of person who elicits intense personal connection by nature of his personality—Draco develops a real emotional dependency on him to meet his needs for friendship, family and romantic love. All of his eggs are in one basket, so to speak, which is why the loneliness, guilt and misery in Bluebeard Chapter 3 hits him far harder than it would have if he'd still had his support network in place. To not have a single person in the world who has his best interests at heart is a foreign experience to Draco and very upsetting. It's also yet another thing that Tom can't understand as he has never had a support network. The contrast between the effects of similar traumas experienced at critically different ages is a whole other topic though.

Draco is an excellent compartmentaliser—arguably to his own detriment—so rather than process his grief, he shoves it down and ignores it, bar those occasions when his isolation is impossible to ignore. I think if Tom does leave England, even briefly, Draco will struggle to continue ignoring reality. He's the sort of person who uses social stimulus to numb negative emotions.

Lucius and Narcissa being born in this world will likely be the kind of comfort and closure he needs. He'd still miss them but it wouldn't be as severe. Now, if he's fucked up the timeline to the degree that his parents aren't born... that's when he'll actually have to come to terms with their deaths. Deaths caused by him.

[moo-oon]

VAGUE OFMD SPOILERS!!! (not truly)

I recently read Margaret Atwood's “Bluebeard’s Egg” and it reminded me of Izzy Hands. Here are quotes that fuel/support my insanity:

(Sally=Izzy | Edward=Ed)

“Stupidity like Ed’s can be a health hazard, for other people.”

“What if he wakes up one day and decides that she isn’t the true bride after all, but the false one?”

“(But does she [Sally/Izzy] want him to see her more clearly, or not? Most likely not. If he did he would notice the incipient wrinkles, the small pouches of flesh that are not quite there yet, the network forming beneath her eyes. It’s better as it is.)”

“Trouble with your heart? Get it removed, she thinks. Then you’ll have no more problems.”

“Technically she’s second-in-command” (I mean come on)

“But she isn’t interested in having an affair with anyone but Ed.”

“Oh, come on, Ed, she could say. But she knows also, most of the time, when to keep her trap shut.”

“But no one will think of the egg. How does it feel, to be the innocent and passive cause of so much misfortune?”

“That’s fine with Ed, who hardly notices what he eats, but the angel is getting tired of being an angel.”

“It’s held together only by Sally, who sits in the middle of it, working on a puzzle. The puzzle is Ed.”

“The stories didn’t say what happened to the women the princes had already married, though Sally wondered about it.”

“Her version of Ed is not something she’s perceived but something that’s been perpetrated on her, by Ed himself, for reasons of his own.”

[marzipanandminutiae]

My favourite fic you've written is a smaller one, but "The Cumberland Bluebeard (View Full Playlist)" for Crimson Peak is so clever and well-written. For a long time I've been fascinated by how the events of a story would be seen within its own universe, since the characters aren't the audience and don't know everything that happened in the story we saw.

Cumberland Bluebeard not only nails that, but is also an on-point parody of that kind of "makeup true crime" YouTubers who talk about real tragedies with tasteless jokes and sensationalism. It not only adds a layer of believability but also to what I love about this kinda story, since even if they do know some version of what happened, everyone has a different POV and their interpretations will be vastly different. It's not too far off from how real history is interpreted by us in the present.

(Also LOVE the joke of Del Toro making his Haunted Mansion movie instead of Crimson Peak in the Crimson Peak universe, I live for those kinds of clever easter eggs.)

Thank you!

I had a lot of fun writing it. Since I work with history, it's always interesting to imagine historical fiction characters' legacies in our time. How have they been imagined between now and then? How do people think of them today? What are their Wikipedia pages like?

Allerdale Hall Museum is a pet headcanon of mine. The staff there are soooo normal and nobody has Eleanor Vance vibes at all! :D :D :D

There are a lot of easter eggs in that story, actually- I kind of thread GDT's Buffalo movies into one universe. Enola Cushing's partner is Molly from Nightmare Alley, for instance, and the Sharpes' nanny is a relative of Dotty Wolmar from Lot 36. Lucille's previous host was Agatha the antique shop owner, see previous example, and Molly's and Enola's adopted son is Dr. Dreyfuss from Mama (2013). I've also written a oneshot on here somewhere where an elderly Enola was the person listening to Giles' story in The Shape of Water. GDT Cinematic Universe, singular, ftw.

(For anyone who's unaware, the joke re: The Haunted Mansion is that Del Toro was in talks to do a remake around 2010. That never came to fruition, and some speculate that Crimson Peak was his way of making a haunted house movie anyway, to replace it)

Thanks for reading!

The Cumberland Bluebeard (view full playlist)

[returning-spring]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

tagged by @asterdust :) feel free to play if you want: @blackwatervial @ghost--houses @another-lost-one @melodydrifts

How many works do you have on AO3? 34, but funny enough, 18 of them were all posted in 2021, so. I don't actually post a lot of fic per year

What's your total AO3 word count? 160k, and it doesn't really feel like it. I write a lot of oneshots

What fandoms do you write for? right now, it's scum villain and kpts

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? the only two scum villain fics I've posted are my top 2 fics lmao, you can really tell it's the biggest fandom I've written for. the last 3 are all word of honor fics

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? yeah because I like interacting with readers, especially the ones I recognize from previous comments

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? my tankhun/pete fic probably, since it ends with pete getting atticwifed

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? not sure how this could be measured, so I'll say the fic ending that made ME happiest is proper etiquette because I love writing comedic shen qingqiu/luo binghe

Do you get hate on fics? no lol

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? the…. kinky kind? the angsty kind? the humorous kind sometimes? not sure what this question means

Do you write crossovers? not my thing. if I ever want to meld two works I enjoy, I would just write an AU

Have you ever had a fic stolen? nope

Have you ever had a fic translated? yes, a fic of mine was translated into russian

Have you ever co-written a fic before? no, though that could be fun depending on the collab/writer

What's your all-time favorite ship? if we go by longest brainrot, then it's shen qingqiu/luo binghe. if we go by most intense brainrot, then wen kexing/zhou zishu. honestly not sure I have an all-time favourite, but I'd like to promote black sails for a second to say anne bonny/max is one of the greatest love stories ever told on television. I'm dead serious

What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? I wanted to write a gothic vegaspete fic, a bluebeard AU where pete marries vegas out of convenience, and then finds the literal skeletons in vegas's closet. but after my current wip (vampire vegaspete au), I won't be writing kpts fics anymore

What are your writing strengths? outlining, probably. finishing most of my works, for sure

What are your writing weaknesses? god knows. staying in a single pov for an entire fic? some fics are easier than others; sometimes you're just so tempted to write a passage from another character's pov, and then suddenly you have to change your outline so the fic is dual pov

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I'm going to assume this means writing the dialogue in the actual language the characters are speaking, even though the rest of the fic is in, say, english. I don't think this is a useful technique. at best, you write the dialogue in the original language, but you still waste time translating it for the reader in the same passage, which comes off clunky most of the time. at worst, you don't translate it (perhaps as an easter egg to those who understand the language?) and leave the readers guessing from context or pulling up google translate, both of which break the flow of the story

First fandom you wrote for? I don't want to say lmao, but it's not on my ao3 page, it happened in the wilds of fanfiction dot net

Favorite fic you've written? this changes all the time, but right now it's probably my tankhun/pete fic. I love it

[owlbelly]

picked up a copy of The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (which has all 156 stories from 1812 & 1815, before they were changed/embellished) in the free book shed at the town dump a few weeks ago & finally cracked it open last night looking for a story i thought i remembered

it's a Bluebeard variant called Fitcher's Bird & it's one of my favorites! just absolutely wild. a succession of 3 sisters are kidnapped by a sorcerer (who has no name until the end - apparently it's Fitze Fitcher) & given a key but also an egg when he goes out of town - don't use the key, keep the egg clean - & of course the first two use the key to open the bloody chamber & both accidentally drop the egg in the vat of blood & dismembered corpses they find. they're discovered because the blood won't wash off the egg & they get chopped up & added to the vat.

third sister is always the smart one & she puts the egg away in a drawer before using the key - when she finds the vat with her sisters in it, she just gathers up all their parts & sticks them back together & they're fine! she hides them & when the sorcerer comes home she hands him the clean egg like "i was so good! also i'll marry you now but you gotta do something for me" - then she concocts a plan to have the sorcerer carry the sisters home in a basket on his back (which he thinks is full of gold he's bringing to her parents as a wedding gift), and she herself escapes by...dipping herself in honey, covering herself in feathers, setting up a skull with jewels on it in the window & then flapping around outside singing a song about how she's Fitcher's Bird but the princess is up in that window right there, see, you can see her jewelry! the sorcerer comes back & invites a bunch of people to the wedding, "Fitcher's Bird" & some helpers lock everyone into the mansion & burn it down. amazing.

[cymorilcinnamonroll]

The Best of You, Honey, Belong to Me

I curled up in the bones of a corpse. Dead in the woods at twelve. Lost Boy Scout camping. It was cold. I was on the hunt for Death. Little slices of Mr. Grim that I could eat like scuppernongs from the vine. In the South, we rarely get snow. Thick like eider down. Frost creeps in, into bones your ex the cannibal touched. He finds you come morning, when you’ve rotted away. Resurrects you with a kiss, Samael does. Sinew snaps, tendons bend, the maggots you barf are his breakfast. He’s the fucker of corpses, not you – no, Sa’el is sweet Prince Pure. Like a clear river flowing, his white flesh of paper is for your poetry. And he calls you his angel. You call him your sin. But in truth, with Death, you are holy so you build a stained glass cathedral of obsidian, blue, and gold panes, anoint him with spikenard, him dressed as dark Christ in linens wrapped up tight, pallor as cold as the edge of a galaxy. But he’s the Black Hole. The ages of Sheol, gaping maw, but you are his heart – Death’s hunger is you, Lucifer’s rebellion (a story told to girls, run, Eve, be free, I, your Nachash grant you wisdom – you are your own gift.) Tree and snake, wyrm and woman. He takes you to the morgue, dissects in cold Hannibal decorum meat hanging from vines, fries a liver in olive oil (extra virgin) and Chianti. Adds a sprig of thyme. It’s too buttery, this stuff, too dead, so alive it reeks. Everything he cooks is so bloody and raw, cooked yet seared with Tawu. No wonder you vomit, no really. It never ends. It always begins. You are open about him, Mr. Grim, your greatest secret – compose elegies, odes, make him pumpernickel and hor d’ourves, little Devils on Horseback. But what use does Ha Satan have for eggs with spicy mustard and paprika in the filling? He’ll eat it, sure. But his room? It’s filled, old cartons of lo mein, greasy pizza boxes, half drunk coffee cups (he is your favorite way to die, to come back alive in spring, you are so thrumming with life and the children of the Elohim, Rose Bride, sometimes the only hope a witch of spring has is to be eaten alive by the abyss.) Dancing. Piano. Driving fast through the messy streets of Hell aback a White Mustang. Greasy diners with Odin. Endless weed with Loki. Beelzebub’s got a bug up his ass. He and Michael are kissing twins. Lilith seems almost an afterthought. Agrath, Naamah Eisheth – they are separate spheres of whoredom. You are nobody’s whore, Devana of Lightning, hanging with Jewish angels and demons because they have the best drinks. Dumah has hair like sand, Asmodeus thighs like an ox. But Sammael’s seed? It is thick, black, grimy sweet. You smear it on your brow, on your tongue, fuck like the rams of Gilead. Yahweh is a black and comely bridegroom. You are one of a thousand maidens to dance in his evil red shoes. They carry you on into the flames. But Samael said you became Bluebeard in the end, and you have a thousand husbands chained to the radiator in your mansion under skeleton keys. I let my demons out occasionally. Feed them scraps of moonlight. Mostly, I starve them. But not Samael. I am feeding him each breath and hummingbird heartbeat. We fuck. We eat. We devour. We fuck each other. We devour our minds with drugs. We eat each other alive. An unholy ouroboros. And hell, does it feel Good.

[adarkrainbow]

Some references of Zenescope’s Grimm Fairy Tales

Still in preparation for the “spooky season”, I wanted to make a brief post about the “Grimm fairy tales” comic book serie(s) by Zenescope. It is a comic book franchise that keeps popping back up when you search or go around looking for fairytale-based fantasy. And... I expressed my opinion before, but I’ll still repeat it here.

The “Grimm Fairy Tales” comic started out as an actual decent and interesting piece. It was a horror anthology about twist-retelling of fairy tales that had parallels with various real-life situations and problems. Imagine Once Upon a Time season 1 - but with more nudity and more gore. If you passed by the vulgar appeal of “boobs and gore”, typical of Zenescope’s product, the series was actually quite interesting and I personally was into it. But then, it became a full fantasy story - and it was the blended, most generic and boring fantasy story I ever saw, which to add offense to the crime, didn’t even reuse fairytale logic or tropes and just did random generic “fantasy things”! And then, as the series went on, it became some sort of generic X-Men/super-hero school/Harry Potter rip-off dealing with the teenage descendants of fantasy heroes going into some sort of instituton... Blerg. 

I gave up. After the failure of the main series, there is a series of spin-offs and side-series which vary wildly in quality - some being very entertaining and interesting despite the typical Zenescope flaws (I did fall in love with the Wonderland spin-off... at least at first), others being just... not good ; and some starting out as great and devolving into some sort of stuff you can’t really describe, a generic shapeless mess. 

Overall I do not advice this franchise. Half of it is bad, every great idea ends up becoming boring, and it clearly shows a lack of understanding and interest in the original material it takes inspiration from - it just twists it for shock value, and mostly uses Disney as a reference. There are good things - but you need to be ready to dig into the filth and to be very concentrated to find them. I mostly would advise people to stick to the very first issues of the very first series 

Anyway - while I re-read the series from the beginning, and before I completely gave up, I still took note of all the fairytales the comic used, reused or made references to. I also threw in some additional cultural references (because the franchise is all about parodying and twisting existing stuff) - so I’ll still throw the list, in case some people are interested.

I) The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm

Little Red Riding Hood ; Cinderella ; Hansel and Gretel ; Rumplestilskin ; Sleeping Beauty ; The Robber Bridegromm ; The Frog King ; The Pied Piper of Hamelin (not a fairytale but still) ; The Juniper Tree ; Rapunzel ; Snow White ; Snow White and Rose Red ; The Devil’s Brother ; Godfather Death ; The Boy who did not know what fear was ; The Glass Coffin (which is NOT Snow-White, but a different story)  ; The Three Snake Leaves ; The Seven Ravens ; The Lord’s Animals and the Devil’s ; The Girl Without Hands ; The Elves and the Shoemaker.

II) Other fairytales

French fairytales: Bluebeard, Beauty and the Beast, Puss in Boots, The Yellow Dwarf (it is vaguely retold in the issue “The Fairy and the Dwarf”), Diamonds and Toads

English fairytales: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs, The Gingerbread Man ; Jack the Giant Killer

Fairytales of Northern Europe: The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Snow Queen, The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, the Seal’s Skin, The Princess and the Pea

Fairytales from the East: Vasilissa the Beautiful (Russian), The Golden Stag (Romanian) ; The Grateful Beasts (Hungarian) ; The Death of Koschei the Deathless (Russian)

The One Thousand and One Nights: Sinbad the sailor ; Aladdin

III) Fables

The Boy who Cried Wolf ; The Lion and the Mouse ; The Scorpion and the Frog ; The Goose and the Golden Egg.

IV) Nursery rhymes

Little Miss Muffet ; Three Blind Mice ; Jack and Jill ; The Old Woman in a Shoe ; Peter Pumpkin Eater ; Little Boy Blue ; Mary Mary Quite Contrary ; Humpty Dumpty ; Little Bo Peep ; Jack be Nimble ; Rock-a-bye Baby ; The Riddle Song (actually a folk-song, but I’ll place it here)

V) Other pieces of fantasy fiction

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice ; Rip van Winkle ; Pinocchio ; The Portrait of Dorian Grey ; The Last Unicorn ; The Monkey’s Paw ; The Nutcracker ; Dracula ; Twilight ; Tolkienesque’s fantasy (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings) ; Alice in Wonderland + Alice through the looking-glass ; The Wizard of Oz (and the Oz book series) ; Peter Pan ; the works of H.P. Lovecraft ; The Divine Comedy of Dante (more precisely the Inferno part) ; The Jungle Book ; The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ; The Chronicles of Narnia ; Ovid’s Metamorphosis ; The Invisible Man ; Paradise Lost ; Stephen King’s The Stand ; Bradbury’s Something Wicked this Way Comes ; Beowulf ; The Sword in the Stone (T.H. White’s novel)

VI) Other myths and legends

The legend of king Midas ; the figure of Mother Earth and the Greek goddess Gaia ; the Arthurian myth ; the legends of Robin Hood ; the figure of Jack Frost ; the figure of the Tooth Fairy ; the legend of Jack O’Lantern ; the myth of the Wild Hunt ; the figure of the leprechaun and of saint Patrick ; the legend of Bloody Bones

VII) A whole bunch of Christmas references

A Christmas Carol ; It’s a Wonderful Life ; Santa Claus is Coming to town ; the Krampus legend ; Do you hear what I hear? ; Frosty the Snowman ; I’ll be home for Christmas ; Twelve days of Christmas ; Have yourself a merry little Christmas ; White Christmas ; the Elf on the Shelf ; T’was the night before Christmas ; the legends of the Nisse, the Yulecat, and Gryla.

VIII) The mythical sword series

Excalibur (from the tales of King Arthur) ; Ame-no-murakumo-no-Tsurugi/Kusanagi no Tsurugi (from Japanese mythology) ; Mistilteinn (from Norse sagas) ; Chrysaor (the sword of Artegall in The Faerie Queene)

IX) Urban legends

“Men can lick too” ; the kidney thieves ; Bloody Mary ; the killer in the backseat ; the clown statue ; Hanako-san ; The Island of Dolls (not a urban legend, an actual place surrounded by its ghost legends - The Island of Dead Dolls in Mexico)

X) Some movies

Legend ; Labyrinth ; Twilight (though based on a series of novels) ; Hitchock’s Rope ; Leprechaun (the horror movie) ; The Howling

XI) Some pieces of non-fantasy fiction

The Grapes of Wrath ; The Fault in Our Stars ; Pollyanna ; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ; Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass ; Kenneth Patchen’s Come my child ; Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations ; No Country for Old Men

XII) Ghost stories of New Orleans:

The ghosts of Le Petit Theatre ; the Lalaurie Mansion ; the ghost stories of the Blacksmith Shop Bar.

XIII) Other general influences

The Bible ; the comic book “Fables” ; the “Tales from the Crypt” series ; the Twilight Zone 

[rossemboss]

"With the bit of insurance money Dad got from the factory, Mom set up a small chicken shop at the market. Not a franchise with a pretty sign. Her shop doesn't even have a sign. All it says at the front are the words EGGS, ENRICHED EGGS, and CHICKEN. Behind the clear glass door is a cooler filled with pink chickens that have been plucked clean. With a money belt strapped around her waist, Mom sits all day before a large cauldron bubbling with hot oil. Her hair gets sticky with the fumes from the cauldron. My mom wasn't like that before my dad lost his hands. She nagged a bit, but her nagging was like the meowing of a cat. Though she didn't read novels, she sometimes flipped through women's magazines, but she's changed 180 degrees. Take home a friend chicken! Serve it up with his drink — he'll thank you good! She chats up strangers, and her voice booms. She puts a whole chicken on the cutting board and swings the cleaver, chopping the chicken into pieces. She seems like a stranger to me. I don't think it's the chicken she's chopping. Biting her bottom lip, she looks like she's attacking something else, something invisible."

- Ha Seong-Nan, Bluebeard's First Wife

[ailelie]

This idea is missing something right now. The new bride needs something to be creepier. Her curse needs to be worse. She needs to face a choice between losing her curse or embracing it and she chooses the latter. This should be a story of corrupting curiosity.

Anyway.

You know how in some versions of Bluebeard's Bride, the former brides are chopped up and the new bride puts them back together and they come back to life? (See Fitcher's Bird for example)

Part of me wants a version of this story where the new bride was born stillborn and her parents begged for her life and some entity said they could not grant her life, but they could curse her with it and warned that there would be consequences. But the parents didn't care.

Then, when the new bride was around 5 years old, she found a mangled dead bird and brought the poor thing back to life. Her horrified parents had to kill the beast again and then her entire family made sure she never saw anything dead again. Any meat was always off the animal. All hunting was kept far from home.

And then, of course, the new bride is finally made Bluebeard's (or the Tiger's or the Sorcerer's) bride. And he gives her a key (or an egg) and tells her to never go into the locked room. But she does and she finds multiple dead bodies. And she assembles them and brings them back to life with an instinct she didn't know she had.

Then, when Bluebeard returns home, the new bride and the old brides surround him and kill him. But, instead of burning or burying him, the new bride keeps his body in the secret room, the same room that someone kept all the other brides well-preserved. And, in the future, when they learn the old brides cannot age and that their bodies cannot heal unless the new bride gives them more life to use, the new bride steals away with Bluebeard's corpse and revives him.

He wants to kill. She wants to better understand her curse. She proposes a partnership and off they go.

[iphigeniacomplex]

[transcript:

Dream House as Bluebeard

Bluebeard's greatest lie was that there was only one rule: the newest wife could do anything she wanted---anything---as long as she didn't do that (single, arbitrary) thing; didn't stick that tiny, inconsequential key into that tiny, inconsequential lock.[14]

But we all know that was just the beginning, a test. She failed (and lived to tell the tale, as I have), but even if she'd passed, even if she'd listened, there would have been some other request, a little larger, a little stranger, and if she'd kept going---kept allowing herself to be trained, like a corset fanatic pinching her waist smaller and smaller---there'd have been a scene where Bluebeard danced around with the rotting corpses of his past wives clasped in his arms, and the newest wife would have sat there mutely, suppressing growing horror, swallowing the egg of vomit that bobbed behind her breastbone. And then later, another scene, in which he did unspeakable things to the bodies (women, they'd once been women) and she just stared dead into the middle distance, seeking some mute purgatory where she could live forever.

(Some scholars believe that Bluebeard's blue beard is a symbol of his supernatural nature; easier to accept than being brought to heel by a simple man. But isn't that the joke? He can be simple and he doesn't have to be a man.)

Because she hadn't blinked at the key and its conditions, hadn't paused when he told her her footfalls were too heavy for his liking, hadn't protested when he fucked her while she wept, hadn't declined when he suggested she stop speaking, hadn't said a word when he left bruises on her arms, hadn't scolded him for speaking to her like she was a dog or a child, hadn't run screaming down the path from the castle into the nearest village pleading with someone to help help help---it made logical sense that she sat there and watched him spinning around the body of wife Number Four, its decaying head flopping backward on a hinge of flesh.

This is how you are toughened, the newest wife reasoned. This is where the tenacity of love is practiced; its tensile strength, its durability. You are being tested and you are passing the test; sweet girl, sweet self, look how good you are; look how loyal, look how loved.

[14]. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, Type C610 and C611, The one forbidden place (forbidden chamber).

end transcript.]

carmen maria machado, in the dream house

[missbookiverse]

Der Ring des Nibelungen (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung) von Richard Wagner Siegfried der Drachentöter, Brünnhilde, die Walküren und Hagen – viele dieser Namen sind mir ein Begriff, aber die ganze Geschichte dahinter war mir nicht bekannt. Perfekt also, dass Regine Ahrem Wagners Opernzyklus (wiederum basierend auf der skandinavischen Nibelungensage und dem mittelalterlichen Nibelungenlied) für ein heutiges Publikum in moderne Sprache übersetzt und diese Hörspieladaption ins Leben gerufen hat. Die Produktion ist beeindruckend: tolle Sprecher*innen und gewaltiger Sound, inklusive Wagners epischen Kompositionen. Außerdem wurde das ganze mit der sogenannten Kunstkopftechnik aufgenommen, was bedeutet, dass der Sound (zumindest durch Kopfhörer) nicht nur von rechts und links, sondern auch von oben und unten kommt. Ich kann aus Erfahrung sagen, dass das dazu verleitet, sich unterwegs manchmal irritiert über die Geräusche hinter sich umzudrehen. Der Plot selbst schreitet rasant voran und ist voller Spannung, Intrigen und großen Emotionen. Für Tolkien-Fans dürfte außerdem die eindeutige Inspirationsquelle für den Ring-Mythos interessant sein. Inhaltlich haben mir Teil 1 und 4 am besten gefallen. Siegfried selbst finde ich ein bisschen doof. War sicher nicht das letzte Mal, dass ich mir dieses Hörspielkunstwerk angehört habe.

Allegedly von Tiffany D. Jackson Als Mary neun war, hat sie einen Säugling umgebracht. Angeblich. Seitdem ist sie in Haft und darf nun, mit 15, in eine betreute Wohngemeinschaft für kriminelle Mädchen einziehen. Doch auch da ist das Leben alles andere als leicht und Halt geben ihr nur ihr heimlicher Freund Ted und bald auch ihr ungeborenes Kind. Bereits in diesem Debüt versteht Tiffany D. Jackson es wie keine andere Jugendbuchautorin ihre Leser*innen (oder Hörer*innen, das Hörbuch wird wie immer begnadet von Bahni Turpin vorgetragen) sofort an die Seiten zu fesseln. Marys Erzählstimme ist so packend und eindringlich, ihre Erlebnisse so grausam und beispielhaft für ein kaputtes System, aus dem vor allem Schwarze (Mädchen) kaum je wieder entkommen können. Dazu kommt das perfide Spiel mit der Wahrheit. Nach und nach werden Informationen darüber enthüllt, was damals (wirklich) geschah und wir sind hin und her gerissen zwischen Empörung darüber, wie Mary behandelt und benutzt wird und Zweifel daran, ob wir unserer Erzählerin tatsächlich so kompromisslos vertrauen sollten. Schließlich hat sie ein Baby umgebracht. Angeblich. Am Ende geht dann plötzlich alles zu schnell und wirkt unnatürlich weiterentwickelt, aber nichtsdestotrotz: spannend und originell.

Bluebeard’s Egg von Margaret Atwood Eine Sammlung von Atwoods Kurzgeschichten aus den Achtzigern. Dem Titel nach hatte ich mit zahlreichen Märchenverweisen oder spekulativen Elementen wie in Good Bones gerechnet, die Storys sind aber allesamt realistischer Natur. Es geht in erster Linie um Frauen und Männer und ihre Beziehungen zu- und miteinander, um Sexismus und Emanzipation. Aber auch das Verhältnis mit den eigenen Eltern und Natur spielen immer wieder eine Rolle. Atwood schreibt subtil; oft ist nicht offensichtlich, welchen Fragen sie nachgeht oder welche Kritik sie übt. Zwischen den Zeilen und in ihren Stilmitteln lassen sich allerdings reichhaltige Antworten finden. Darüber hinaus lesen die Geschichten sich bereits wie moderne Klassiker à la Ray Bradbury oder Carson McCullers, mit einer wunderbar eingefangenen Atmosphäre von Alltag und Realität fern des 21. Jahrhunderts. Für mich gab’s in der Sammlung keine Highlights, alle Geschichten bewegen sich in einem ähnlichen Modus, unterscheiden sich aber trotzdem merklich voneinander.

Clytemnestra von Costanza Casati Schwester der schönen Helena, Ehefrau des gewalttätigen Agamemnon und Mutter der Iphigenie. Clytemnestra ist aus all diesen Kontexten bekannt und hat innerhalb dieser Randzonen ihre eigene spannende Geschichte zu erzählen. In dieser Nachempfindung der mythologischen Überlieferungen bekommt sie endlich den Raum dafür. Casati weicht dabei nicht von der bekannten Handlung ab, sondern schafft eine für gegenwärtige Leser*innen gut verdauliche Version der Geschichte. Selbst ich, die mit den Highlights aus Clytemnestras Leben bereits vertraut ist, fand den Roman fesselnd und gut geschrieben, inklusive vertrauter zwischenmenschlicher Momente und überzeugender Charakterisierungen (obwohl Helena auch in dieser Variante wieder das zarte Opfer mimt, ich warte noch auf eine Darstellung, in der sie skrupellos und machthungrig ist, mehr wie Atwood sie in der Penelopiad andeutet). Clytemnestra selbst ist willensstark, kämpferisch und loyal. Wer noch nicht weiß, was sie in ihrem Leben alles durchmachen muss und weshalb ihr Rachedurst so unersättlich ist, kann sich auf einen rasanten Ritt mit schockierenden Twists vorbereiten.

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride von Roshani Chokshi Ein Mann heiratet eine Frau unter der Bedingung, dass er sich nie nach ihrer Vergangenheit erkundigen wird. Als die beiden auf einen Schicksalsschlag hin in das Kindheitsanwesen der Frau reisen müssen, gestaltet sich die Geheimhaltung dieser Vergangenheit schwieriger als gedacht. Von meiner Leseerfahrung mit der Star-Touched Queen wusste ich, dass Chokshi opulent und sinnlich schreibt. Nun bin ich nicht sicher, ob mir das inzwischen nicht mehr gefällt oder ob sich das nicht so gut ins Hörformat übertragen lässt, aber es ist auch nicht so wichtig, weil auch die anderen Bestandteile dieses Romans nicht für mich funktioniert haben. Die Hauptfiguren sind reich, verwöhnt und eindimensional, die eingeflochtenen Märchenelemente (der Hauptgrund für mein Interesse) erscheinen beliebig und wirkungslos. Ich habe nichts von der Atmosphäre gespürt, die in vielen Rezensionen gelobt wird. Womöglich liegt das an den Hörbuchsprecher*innen, deren Schwächen v. a. bei den Dialogen und unterschiedlichen Stimmen hervortreten. Anstatt nach 40% ganz aufzuhören, bin ich ohne ein Gefühl des Verlustes zum Ende gesprungen, um dort meinen Plotverdacht bestätigt zu bekommen und mich zu ärgern, dass ich nach der Hälfte nicht gleich ganz das Handtuch geworfen habe. Meine Bewertung wäre gelesen vielleicht etwas besser ausgefallen, aber ich glaube auch da wäre v. a. Enttäuschung zurückgeblieben.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms von N. K. Jemisin Nach dem mysteriösen Tod ihrer Mutter wird Yeine das erste Mal in ihrem Leben in die königliche Stadt berufen und findet sich dort plötzlich in intriganten Machtspielchen und einem Kampf um den Thron wieder. Jemisins Debütroman! Das World Building ist grandios: Paläste, die in der Luft schweben, versklavte Gottheiten, ein perfides Krönungsritual und eine reichhaltige Mythologie, die alles unterfüttert. Da fällt fast gar nicht auf, wie geradlinig und unspektakulär der Plot ist. Geschrieben ist das ganze in typischer Jemisin-Manier, also reduziert und zwischen den Zeilen, so dass es oft eine Herausforderung ist, sich alle Informationen zu erarbeiten und miteinander in Verbindung zu setzen. Das kann einerseits anspornend anspruchsvoll sein und andererseits verschleiert sie manchmal unnötig Sachverhalte, die auch einfach mal klar auf den Tisch gepackt werden könnten. Es lässt sich allerdings auch wunderbar als Spiegelung des Inhalts lesen, entweder für die Sprache der Götter, der wir Menschen uns nur gerade so annähern können oder für die undurchsichtigen Machenschaften am Königshof, die Yeine zu durchblicken versucht. Apropos Yeine: Wie bei vielen anderen Jemisin-Charakteren hatte ich das Gefühl, ihr nicht besonders nahezukommen und nicht all ihre Gefühlsregungen nachvollziehen zu können. Scheinbar ist das einfach die Art (von Charakteren, die) wie Jemisin schreibt. Dennoch: Solides Debüt und ein bisschen neugierig auf den Companion-Band bin ich schon.

The Winners von Fredrik Backman Der dritte Teil über die Bewohner*innen Beartowns schlägt einen gekonnten Bogen zu Band 1, indem er das, was Maya geschehen ist, spiegelt und anhand von Ruth neu erzählt, um zu verdeutlichen, dass es hunderte Mädchen wie Maya und Ruth gibt und dass nicht all ihre Geschichten glimpflich ausgehen. Ein weiteres Motiv ist die endlose Spirale der Gewalt, “wie du mir so ich dir” bis ins Unendliche, Beartown schlägt Hed, dann muss Hed Beartown wieder eins auswischen. Aus diesem Muster auszubrechen, ist schwierig, aber nicht unmöglich. Ansonsten ist es ein typischer Backman, manchmal eng am Kitsch, aber meistens trifft er genau ins Schwarze mit seinen kleinen Beobachtungen und Beschreibungen der Stärken und Schwächen von dir und mir und unseren Mitmenschen. Ich mochte vor allem die Neuzugänge Ruth und Mattheo und die Familie um Hannah und Johnny. Was mich allerdings zunehmend stört, ist dieser „kindernormative“ Fokus. Es gibt zwar kinderlose Charaktere, aber ohne Nachwuchs scheint das Leben nie so richtig perfekt. Das „finale Ereignis“ ist furchtbar, real und erschreckend, auch wenn es sich lange vorher andeutet und sensibel umgesetzt wurde. Einziges Problem ist, dass Backman sich hier des Bury Your Gays tropes bedient – da hilft auch nicht, dass die Person als Held stirbt. 

Five Minds von Guy Morpuss In der Zukunft müssen sich Menschen mit dem 17. Lebensjahr für eine neue Lebensform entscheiden. Unsere Protagonist*innen teilen sich einen Körper als sogenannte Kommune. Fünf Bewusstsein steuern denselben Körper unbeobachtet von den anderen für jeweils vier Stunden des Tages. Sie können miteinander nur über Nachrichten kommunizieren. Als eine der fünf einen illegalen Deal eingeht und kurz darauf eine weitere Person der Kommune verschwindet, ist der Mystery-Thriller in vollem Gange. Das Konzept ist originell und gut umgesetzt. Kombiniert wird es mit Spielsimulationen à la Ready Player One, die abwechslungsreich und unterhaltsam sind, und kleinen Details über die Zukunft wie z. B. dass Lebenszeit die höchste Währung ist oder wie verpöhnt Fliegen aufgrund der Umweltbelastung inzwischen ist. Was dem Roman hier und da Minuspunkte einbringt, sind das fat shaming und der male gaze. Generell aber eine coole Idee, gut und detailreich durchdachte, rasant erzählt und mit zufriedenstellender Auflösung.

Poster Girl von Veronica Roth Vor zehn Jahre wurde der Überwachungsstaat der Delegation gestürzt. Sonya, inzwischen 27, ist allen als Gesicht von den Propagandapostern der Delegation bekannt. Inzwischen lebt sie wie die anderen Delegationsbefürworter*innen in einem abgetrennten Gefängnisdistrikt. Doch eines Tages bekommt sie einen Deal angeboten, um diesem trostlosen Leben zu entfliehen. Es ist hochspannend, dass gerade Veronica Roth, eine der bekanntesten Jugenddystopie-Autorinnen der 2010er, eine Geschichte über die Gesellschaft nach der Revolution und Befreiung vom Überwachungsstaat geschrieben hat – und dann auch noch über eine Protagonistin, die dem System so treu ergeben war, dass es ihr auch eine Dekade später noch schwerfällt, keine beschönigenden Propagandaausdrücke mehr zu benutzen und die sämtliche Interaktionen und Transfers als Austausch von Descoins, der damaligen virtuellen wie moralischen Währung, zu bewerten. Die Mischung aus Post-Dystopie und Mystery-Thriller funktioniert gut, bleibt durch das kühle Setting und die abgebrühte Protagonistin aber auch kühl und ungemütlich. Ohne den Moralapostel zu markieren oder die Lesenden mit der Nase hineinzustoßen übt Roth Kritik an Technologien, die sich zu sehr in unser Leben einmischen, an Gamification und der Cloud, aber auch an bedingungslosem Gehorsam und Opportunismus. Kein durchgängig fesselnder Roman, aber gespickt mit vielen interessanten Gedankengängen.

Arch-Conspirator von Veronica Roth (DNF) Eine futuristische Neuerzählung des Antigone-Mythos. Nur drei Stunden und 20 Minuten ist das Hörbuch kurz und trotzdem habe ich mich nach der Hälfte gefragt, ob mir dieses Buch irgendetwas gibt. Typische Vibes griechischer Mythologie sind nicht vorhanden, weil das ganze ein futuristisches Setting hat (ist ok, war ja nicht der Ansatz). Es ist ganz interessant, die Welt kennenzulernen und Roth versucht außerdem an der Übergriffigkeit, mit der weibliche Körper oft behandelt werden, Kritik zu üben, aber fesselnd war nichts davon. Die Kritik ist nicht neu, die Charaktere bauen so schnell keine Tiefe auf und der Plot packt mich nicht (obwohl ich nicht mal genau weiß, wie Antigones Geschichte endet), also brauch ich auch die letzten anderthalb Stunden nicht mehr hören.

[papirene-royzn]

On Loving Someone You Don’t Know:

1. x.

2. Haruki Murakami, South of The Border, East of The Sun, 210.

3. Jhumpa Lahiri, “Sexy,” in Interpreter of Maladies, 107.

4. Margaret Atwood, “Bluebeard’s Egg,” in Bluebeard’s Egg, 160.

5. Mordechai Richler, Barney’s Version.