#but they seem to have actually tried with a number of historical details

[alexjcrowley]

If anyone's interested the Amazon TV show Those About To Die is basically doing "What if Andretti did manage to become the 11th team?" in Ancient Rome

[tokiro07]

Ichi the Witch ch.11 thoughts

[WitchCon 2024]

(Topics: praise - comedy, narrative progression, world building, thematic analysis - freedom vs. order, predictions)

Make 'Em Laugh

Y'know, for a chapter that was like...90% political dialogue and exposition, this still managed to end up being one of the funnier chapters so far: Desscaras' report being a comic book that makes her look like the hero and Shirabedonna just throwing it away, Ichi straight up leaving the Zoom call to get food, Togeice goofing up her dramatic entrance; and that's not even every funny bit from this chapter

Handled wrong, this could have come off as a super dry and meandering chapter, but for the sake of setting up the conflict of revealing Ichi's existence to the world, I think an in-depth analysis of both sides of the argument was necessary

Better to Ask Permission than Forgiveness

While I agree with Togeice that Shirabedonna's conclusions are being made on too few datapoints (one grateful village and three unusually quick hunts in only two weeks), I'm also inclined to agree with Shirabedonna that this is a tricky situation to maintain

The longer Mantinel tries to hide Ichi, the more contradictions and public distrust are bound to pile up. Coming up with excuses later to explain every little detail will just make discussing it more difficult, and Mantinel will only look more suspicious. On the other hand, coming clean now less than a month in should be fairly understandable given the implications of Ichi being a male Witch that acquired Uroro - some people will be mad, sure, but most people would probably be forgiving of the caution exercised

More than that, though, Mantinel's acquisition of the first male Witch would do wonders for their reputation, as that's a historic discovery. Even if he ends up being dangerous, the narrative wouldn't be too hard to spin in Mantinel's favor, as no one could have predicted how a male Witch would behave

The fun thing about this argument to me, though, is the acknowledgment of other Witch organizations

Frog in the Well

We haven't been shown a world map or anything yet, so we don't really have any sense of scale to this world, but I wouldn't have been too surprised either way if either Mantinel had a monopoly on Witch administration or if they were just one of many such organizations

The acknowledgment of an equivalent of Japan last week was a good clue that there was more to this world than...whatever this one country is called, but we still know nothing about this fantasy-Japan's society other than that they still have sashimi

Do they have their own Witches Association? Do they even have Magiks there in the first place, or are they endemic to the current focus country?

Black Clover kept expanding to reveal that other nations had different relationships with magic, while JJK revealed that Curses pretty much only exist in Japan for...some reason. I would imagine that this is more like the former, but the realization that one nation is hoarding the concept of magic would be pretty wild, wouldn't it?

Then there's the fact that ch.1 told us that there's only a 0.001% chance of a man being able to acquire magic even if he did have the capacity to pass a trial and physically handle casting spells. That seems like a low number, but...it's one in a thousand

For every thousand men, one of them has the capacity to acquire magic. Presumably this number is compounded by the ability to use it, since the narration said there were so many other factors that had to line up perfectly first, but that just means that the chances of finding another man with the potential to overcome those factors aren't actually all that slim

EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that I goofed the math and this is one in a hundred thousand, but my point stands! I thought it was going to be like one in a million or even a billion, and it ended up being a lot more generous than I anticipated! In our world, that would still be 40,000 men with the capacity for magic!

In other words, it's only a matter of time until another male Witch is found

From there, the method for cultivating male Witches will likely start to become more widespread, and eventually the proportion of female to male Witches should approach an equilibrium

That's probably looking too far ahead, though. That's the kind of thing that would probably take several generations to pass, so while we may have like...a dozen male Witches by the end, they probably won't be a normal part of Witch society until a far-flung epilogue

For now, I'd like to focus on the worldbuilding that we actually received this chapter: that Ichi's acquisition rate is ridiculous

Gotta Go Fast

Ichi has three Magiks under his belt in less than two weeks, and Shirabedonna tells us that one week is on the fast end for a hunt. That seems especially strange to me, since one of the first trials we're ever told of was only set for an hour, but I suppose that figure is based on the number of attempts and the prep-time? It's easy to assume "oh, they got it one," but this statement gives the impression that almost no one acquires a Magik on their first try

I do think it kind of skews our perceptions to tell us the upper and lower limits of one week and ten years without also giving us an average or at least a mean. All she says is "some take X amount of time," like that means anything statistically...

It also doesn't help that the first hunt we actually saw would have been over almost immediately had it not been for the circumstances: Desscaras immediately stabbed Uroro's heart, and only failed to pierce it because she was a woman. Now, Desscaras is likely an outlier herself because she's ostensibly the strongest living Witch, but sub-10 minutes is nowhere near a full week!

Again, it's entirely possible that the hunt for Uroro was on a constant timer since Mantinel first started trying, so that would be an extreme circumstance no matter what. I suppose in a sense that would mean Ichi has the record for clearing both the shortest and longest hunts?

But just being fast or lucky doesn't make Ichi an expert, and it's only a matter of time until he hits a wall where his unique perspective fails to compensate for his lack of experience in the field he's so suddenly found himself in

Rising to the Level of Your Incompetence

Togeice is being presented as morally incorrect here, with her talk of reforming Ichi into a "proper Witch" being accompanied by a vision of all of Ichi's best qualities being sanded down to a bland scholarly appearance, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't have a point

Ichi's lack of experience makes him something akin to an outsider artist, which is what allows him to discover unconventional methods within the field, but it also means that he's not familiar with the pitfalls of the profession. Ichi took Hisame's challenge in a different direction than what was intended by the rules; it worked out, but if Hisame hadn't been impressed with this loophole, then that gamble would've gotten everyone present killed. Since she expressed that she wanted to attack another village as a palette cleanser, it's entirely possible that she could have taken this approach as an insult and gone on an even worse rampage after the fact

In fact, Ichi going straight for attacking Hisame could have resulted in her not even bothering to issue her trial, which would have effectively made her invincible in the resulting combat encounter. Perhaps Magiks don't work that way and they have to share their trial in order to maintain their power, but there's no precedent for that yet, so Ichi's ignorant and rash behavior could have sabotaged the entire mission

There's also the possibility that Ichi will continue to acquire stronger and stronger spells that he's less and less equipped to control and will cause some kind of huge disaster. He already used Parthion to create an entire new ecosystem on Druid Mountain, which could well have untold consequences on the local wildlife and nearby settlements, so what's to stop him from naively trying to save a desert village with Poltata and just washing them all away?

Togeice's desire to force her vision of order onto Ichi is obviously wrong and potentially detrimental to Ichi's value, but she is right that he's not capable of wielding his powers effectively or responsibly. Even if Ichi is a perfectly moral and upstanding Witch, if his trump card will only result in him being rendered unconscious for three days, then he's only going to be a liability when the time comes to use it against a major threat

The goal then should be to cultivate Ichi's sense of freedom and experience using magic while also giving him a clear sense of the responsibility that he carries. Fortunately, he's already demonstrated the capacity for that with his strict adherence to Death for Death, but unless he can prove to Togeice that he already has the discipline she's looking for, she won't be able to trust such an unknown with her back

Fortunately, the upcoming challenge provides the perfect opportunity for Togeice to get to know Ichi

Just a Little Guy

It was pointed out to me by @wickedsick that because the mushroom Magik isn't a human-hater, it likely doesn't hold any ill intent towards humans and doesn't go out of his way to hurt them, and therefore shouldn't trigger Death for Death. This would likely prevent Ichi from harming it, and in turn give Togeice the opportunity to take the win

The way I see it, there's five ways that this could go

Ichi loses because the mushroom isn't hurting anyone and he can't bring himself to hunt it -> school arc, Ichi learns valuable lessons, though he doesn't fundamentally change the way that Togeice wants him to

Ichi is just hopelessly outclassed and decides he has plenty to learn from Togeice and Mantinel -> same outcome as above

The circumstances of Ichi's refusal to hunt the mushroom somehow prove to Togeice that he's already plenty disciplined -> she wins, but still lets him go free because she doesn't believe she has anything to teach him after all

The nature of the trial doesn't necessitate Death for Death, and Ichi wins solely through his specific skillset -> Togeice realizes that she was not equipped for this specific scenario and different approaches will always be necessary for different circumstances, so she drops her objection

Togeice accidentally goads the mushroom into triggering Death for Death and realizes that it was her irresponsibility that endangered people, not Ichi's -> same outcome as above

For sure, there are more nuanced outcomes available, but those seem like the most likely either for developing the themes of the story or driving the plot in a specific direction. I'm definitely open to whichever route Nishi chooses to take, as I think that the two broadest outcomes of Ichi going or not going to school both provide interesting opportunities for the story going forward. Whichever she chooses, I have faith in Nishi that it'll be a fun time

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

[dailyanarchistposts]

To The Punjab Governor

Sir, With due respect we beg to bring to your kind notice the following:

That we were sentenced to death on 7th October 1930 by a British Court, L.C.C Tribunal, constituted under the Sp. Lahore Conspiracy Case Ordinance, promulgated by the H.E. The Viceroy, the Head of the British Government of India, and that the main charge against us was that of having waged war against H.M. King George, the King of England.

The above-mentioned finding of the Court pre-supposed two things:

Firstly, that there exists a state of war between the British Nation and the Indian Nation and, secondly, that we had actually participated in that war and were therefore war prisoners.

The second pre-supposition seems to be a little bit flattering, but nevertheless it is too tempting to resist the desire of acquiescing in it.

As regards the first, we are constrained to go into some detail. Apparently there seems to be no such war as the phrase indicates. Nevertheless, please allow us to accept the validity of the pre-supposition taking it at its face value. But in order to be correctly understood we must explain it further. Let us declare that the state of war does exist and shall exist so long as the Indian toiling masses and the natural resources are being exploited by a handful of parasites. They may be purely British Capitalist or mixed British and Indian or even purely Indian. They may be carrying on their insidious exploitation through mixed or even on purely Indian bureaucratic apparatus. All these things make no difference. No matter, if your Government tries and succeeds in winning over the leaders of the upper strata of the Indian Society through petty concessions and compromises and thereby cause a temporary demoralization in the main body of the forces. No matter, if once again the vanguard of the Indian movement, the Revolutionary Party, finds itself deserted in the thick of the war. No matter if the leaders to whom personally we are much indebted for the sympathy and feelings they expressed for us, but nevertheless we cannot overlook the fact that they did become so callous as to ignore and not to make a mention in the peace negotiation of even the homeless, friendless and penniless of female workers who are alleged to be belonging to the vanguard and whom the leaders consider to be enemies of their utopian non-violent cult which has already become a thing of the past; the heroines who had ungrudgingly sacrificed or offered for sacrifice their husbands, brothers, and all that were nearest and dearest to them, including themselves, whom your government has declared to be outlaws. No matter, it your agents stoop so low as to fabricate baseless calumnies against their spotless characters to damage their and their party’s reputation. The war shall continue.

It may assume different shapes at different times. It may become now open, now hidden, now purely agitational, now fierce life and death struggle. The choice of the course, whether bloody or comparatively peaceful, which it should adopt rests with you. Choose whichever you like. But that war shall be incessantly waged without taking into consideration the petty (illegible) and the meaningless ethical ideologies. It shall be waged ever with new vigour, greater audacity and unflinching determination till the Socialist Republic is established and the present social order is completely replaced by a new social order, based on social prosperity and thus every sort of exploitation is put an end to and the humanity is ushered into the era of genuine and permanent peace. In the very near future the final battle shall be fought and final settlement arrived at.

The days of capitalist and imperialist exploitation are numbered. The war neither began with us nor is it going to end with our lives. It is the inevitable consequence of the historic events and the existing environments. Our humble sacrifices shall be only a link in the chain that has very accurately been beautified by the unparalleled sacrifice of Mr. Das and most tragic but noblest sacrifice of Comrade Bhagawati Charan and the glorious death of our dear warrior Azad.

As to the question of our fates, please allow us to say that when you have decided to put us to death, you will certainly do it. You have got the power in your hands and the power is the greatest justification in this world. We know that the maxim “Might is right” serves as your guiding motto. The whole of our trial was just a proof of that. We wanted to point out that according to the verdict of your court we had waged war and were therefore war prisoners. And we claim to be treated as such, i.e., we claim to be shot dead instead of to be hanged. It rests with you to prove that you really meant what your court has said.

We request and hope that you will very kindly order the military department to send its detachment to perform our execution.

Yours

BHAGAT SINGH

[apple-salad]

Mary Magdalene’s Faltetto/Farutetto Dress: Remnants of 2017

Mary Magdalene recently made a few sample and leftover stock items available for purchase on their website, and I was very, very lucky to be able to get not one, but both colours that I had been wanting for years. 

In this post, I’d like to share some pretty pictures of these pieces (especially the “new” colours which we have seen so rarely), but also talk about a little bit of my history (and Mary Magdalene’s history) with these dresses. Because I feel like this little-known knowledge must be documented somewhere....

Companion posts: 2023 Faltetto unboxing+some details (mist and navy), initial worn post, petticoat/bustle post

Note: while this dress is most often known by the name of “Farutetto” due to this translation being used on Lolibrary, I will be calling it “Faltetto” since Mary Magdalene has translated it this way on their website.

Table of Contents

Prologue Rambles: Mary Magdalene (the brand)

Faltetto (2017)

Faltetto (2018/Le Panier event)

Le Panier/Fée d’une Fleur incident

Faltetto (2022)

Faltetto (2023/Samples)

Unboxing

Faltetto comparisons

Epilogue Rambles: Mary Magdalene’s Future

Faltetto dress. This dress design was first released in 2011, with a rerelease in 2014 that included a new colour, amethyst (a purple). This was basically Mary Magdalene’s last good year, with no more original main piece designs being released since. I don’t think anyone knows for sure why Mary Magdalene dropped off after this, but common theories are factory issues or management issues. The brand has pretty much been on life support since, with demand outpacing a near-nonexistent supply.

Mary Magdalene has always been a small brand, with a very small number of each release being produced. Secondhand prices for many coveted items are incredibly high, making for an overall depressing outlook on the brand, and in similar ways classic lolita in general, which currently appears to have a much smaller number of wearers than the other two main substyles sweet and gothic.

Mary Magdalene is the brand that got me into lolita, and remains my favourite, beloved brand--and I think many others feel the same. It feels both rewarding and disheartening to obtain some items directly from the brand (a first for me). I have always tried to keep an eye on the brand’s activities since releases started dropping off, but as updates started dwindling to once a year, or sometimes once every two years, I don’t always stay on top of it.

Still, Mary Magdalene’s activities around 2017~2018 in China are largely unknown or misunderstood, so I hope writing about what I know may provide some knowledge to the community.

Finally, into the Faltetto content. The Faltetto dress was actually rereleased in 2017 at an event in Guangdong (I believe it was an anime/culture event with some Japanese lolita brand guests, but I can no longer remember the details). As far as I know, it was intended as an early reservation/MTO with a general reservation intended to be made available to the public shortly afterwards. Mary Lou OP was also available to reserve, with a few new colours. The general reservation did actually happen for this dress later in 2017, but Faltetto never did. Which is only the start of difficulties with this release...

Promotional image of the event. I’m glad I saved this, because it doesn’t seem to be viewable on weibo anymore.

Two new colours were introduced:「 枣红色」, or what would later become known as “maroon”; and 「雪灰色」”snow gray”, or what would also later be revealed to be “mist”. The maroon colourway was supposed to be an event limited colour, though I don’t know if this meant that it was originally intended to be only available for the event or maybe only available at the event + the online shop (it seemed like historically Mary Magdalene limited colourways were “online shop limited” or “online shop and KERA shop limited”, so it would be rare for a colour to not be available online)

I think a lot more people ordered the maroon colour vs. the mist, as I have seen the maroon a few times on xianyu since, but never the mist. Red is a lucky colour, so it makes sense. But I had always been in love with the mist. I came very close to reserving the mist through two levels of SS (CN SS talking to a event SS via xianyu), but the fees and conversion rate made me balk (I was quoted about $430 USD for everything but international shipping, which in retrospect was probably worth it to not live through the heartache. For reference, the event sell price was 2127 RMB), plus I thought that Mary Magdalene themselves would make the dress available sometime soon, so I never followed through. Terrible regret on that one.

The dresses were scheduled for shipment some time near the end of 2017, but production was slightly delayed into spring of 2018. I believe that the dresses didn’t necessarily ship out all at once, so some of the orders that were fulfilled later came with a free headdress.

The picture of the maroon headdress I have saved seems to be the Claudia Headdress with ivory side ribbons instead of red ones. The picture of the mist that I have saved seems to be totally different, with one single strip of lace (similar to Rose Cameo Headdress, except without the ruffles) used for the hairband part.

This is a picture of my regular release Claudia headdress, which has red side ribbons (I am trying to avoid posting pictures that aren’t mine if I can). The lace matches that used for the free headdresses, although the included hairband was a very thin ribbon-covered wire band, not a plastic one.

A couple weibo users posted pictures of their mist, and knowing that the dress both exists and basically doesn’t gave me terrible heartache....I wouldn’t doubt if it gave you, the reader, terrible heartache too, since the numbers remain few. But I believe some hope out there exists that Mary Magdalene will have a larger reservation intake for these someday...

I later found the maroon secondhand on xianyu in 2018, and purchased it.

The dress has a few differences from my (probably older) other Faltettos. I’ve added a few comparison photos at the end of this post, as well as a few comparison pictures in my unboxing post.

About halfway through 2018, a new lolita magazine, “Le Panier”, was released. A number of other lolita blogs have posts on the magazine, but the general concept was a more premium, artistic “high fashion” lolita magazine. The magazine was published in a Chinese and Japanese version. Mary Magdalene was featured in the magazine (which was a surprising and very rare thing to see), in just one page:

Not the best picture of this page, but hopefully it’s readable. The dress is indicated as “Faltetto Dress 2018″. I also forgot that there were a number of coords in the magazine styled to each sister in “Little Women” (I wouldn’t say all of them hit the mark, but lolita works okay for Meg).

Midori Fukasawa wearing Faltetto in mist. The coord uses a brooch and tights from Mary Magdalene’s personal collection seen in a number of their other stock photos. The blouse is Faltetto Blouse, bonnet is Bisque Doll Bonnet and the shoes are Lace-up Ribbon Strap Shoes. While I think Mary Magdalene’s intentions here are genuine, the description just feels like betrayal.

2017年にイベントで先行発売。 人気を呼んだファルテットドレスのミストカラーが、 ついに一般でも発売に。

This page is, I think, proof enough that Mary Magdalene definitely intended to open a general reservation for Faltetto at the time. Along with the publication of the first volume of the magazine, Le Panier announced and held a large tea party in Shanghai, featuring many Japanese brands as guests (including Mary Magdalene, Metamorphose, Victorian Maiden, Juliette et Justine...), as well as touting exclusive items and reservations. And this was the start of the problems...

It’s hard to not bring up Le Panier without also mentioning the Juliette et Justine Fée d’Une Fleur incident. This is in fact also relevant to me, as I preordered that dress💧

I can’t remember all the information regarding the incident, but to keep things hopefully brief, it boils down to the dress not being what was promised. 

Fée d’une fleur is quite a coveted dress in China (and it is incredibly rare, being from 2008, I believe was made to order by reservations, and also was expensive for the time), and it sounds like lolitas had been requesting JetJ to rerelease it for some time. Soupir d’ange had been released a few years prior with similar design elements, but was not the same (notably, the skirt “petals” are not placed and do not drape in the same lovely way). It seemed unlikely that the original would ever be rereleased because apparently the original pattern had been lost, and manufacture would be incredibly costly.

So when Le Panier announced that JetJ would be taking exclusive reservations for the Fée d’une Fleur, Chinese lolitas were incredibly excited. The original  Fée d’une fleur stock image was used in Le Panier’s announcement post.

Among this, reservations for Faltetto were presented for two new colourways:

Navy and a lilac (I do not know the official colour name, but one Chinese poster called it “light purple”. And yes, the provided photo quality was extremely bad).

The price for Fée d’une fleur was significantly higher than previous (original price: 37800 JPY, le panier price: 4600 RMB [converts to about 77400 yen at the time]), which I think bothered people, but the bigger problem appeared at the event...

The sample Fée d’une fleur looked nothing like the original that was promised. 

The sample dress can be seen in the background of this catwalk picture.

The colours and drape were just off. The response was so bad that Le Panier had the designer of Juliette et Justine come up and promise that it will be exactly like the original. But few seemed to be convinced.

I ended up going ahead with the preorder anyway, because I had already paid my SS. I didn’t mind the differences as long as the colour was corrected on the final product. Juliette et Justine ended up releasing reservations for this “Fée d’une Fleur 2018″ to the general public, with a "lavender pink” colorway as well.

By the way, the price on JetJ’s website for this was ¥68000 without tax (¥73440 with tax, which I think was 8% at the time). Le Panier later did also give those who reserved a discount of I think 300 RMB off the original list price because of the price difference (I can no longer remember exactly how much, it was maybe 300-400 RMB).

There were two blue colorways released. The one on the right, “sax blue” was the one shipped to Le Panier reservees and was labeled on the site as the colour of the original, while the one of the left, “mint” reminds me more of the sample...I wonder if it was meant to evoke the original 2008 dress better with a more pronounced difference between colorations (it still feels off, though)

Le Panier reservations received a few extra gifts: a matching floral brooch-clip (with small JetJ charm) and some Le Panier gifts (I chose the JetJ rabbit tote, which I believe was a gift available for a small additional fee with the Chinese release of the magazine, and washi tape selection). I also think the Le Panier reservations shipped first, but that’s whatever. I almost would have preferred the lower JPY converted price without SS fees and getting points from JetJ’s site, but the brooch is nice with the dress, I guess, and the dress itself turned out okay as long as you knew what you were signing up for (the stock photos of this 2018 release were accurate to what was shipped).

To this day I’ve never used the tote. I think it says Le Panier on it.

Closer look at the washi tape and the back of the brooch with JetJ charm. Le Panier made (I think) 3 types of washi tape with 3 different brands, and I think I was randomly given this JetJ one. No idea why we weren’t able to get all 3, but whatever.

The final dress still has some shortcuts taken like a few tulle/mesh petal panels instead of all chiffon, and the length is also very long (ankle length on me, vs mid calf for the original). Also, the petal placement is still wrong (closer to soupir d’ange), but it looks okay if you don’t think about it too hard.

My old fairy coord (from 2018) with Fée d’une Fleur 2018.

And now, back to Faltetto again...

Mary Magdalene designer Rieko Tanaka herself attended the event, which was nice to see. A booth was set up with a few stock items (notably Aria Fleur, which went on sale on the Mary Magdalene website in 2022. At that time, a few of the OP variations were sold out, so I can only assume they sold out here. Other pieces for sale were a single Copine Georgette JSK in pink, and a preview of the rerelease of Arabesque Rose).

Price for the navy or lilac Faltetto was 2000 RMB, plus shipping fees from Japan. Depending on the ticket level purchased, 2 or 1 piece per colour could be reserved (I think the might have later been increased to 3?). Apparently, these colours were supposed to be limited to the Le Panier event.

A sample version of the lilac Faltetto was on display, and the navy was shown during the fashion show. 

The bodice lace on this faltetto is the same as mine! I think the navy sample sold in 2023 is likely be the very same as this one presented in 2018.

I am unsure if I should upload a photo of the lilac here as I think the photos I saved were posted by individual participants of the event, but I’ll consider it if someone would really like to see it (the colour is quite similar to the grainy stock above).

I wonder now why Mary Magdalene didn’t post the sample of the lilac for sale along with all the other faltetto samples, but it may be because the lilac was missing the lace/braid at the front (for the event, the detachable bows were placed there to make the area less lacking).

I am quite fond of navy colourways, so upon hearing that a navy faltetto was something that was going to exist, I searched for an SS for it (I think I used Chinese Lolita Updates because I didn’t want to use two levels of SS), paid the deposit, and waited.

It looks like this particular attendee/SS reserved the maximum of 3 dresses for VIP ticketholders.

I can’t remember if the dresses had an estimated ship date, but they’ll ship when they’re ready...

...right? 

After much silence, in 2019, about a year exactly since the event, Le Panier announced that Mary Magdalene would not be able to produce the dresses, and everyone would be refunded. Mary Magdalene posted an informational notice on their website, which had an unfortunate translation error:

This follow up was added later:

I’m surprised that it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge what the “gift” that Mary Magdalene gave to people who reserved, but it is very minor--a small Mary Magdalene logo mirror.

I had to ask my SS to ship this to me, actually, as I think they deemed it too minor to bother spending the money to ship (shipping ended up being fairly cheap because the item was so small and light, though). It sounded like they were going to throw it away if I had not asked!

Le Panier also mentioned that they would give an extra gift and 100 RMB voucher, but I can’t remember what that was and/or if I ever used the voucher. Probably not, since all the things Le Panier sold were a bit expensive (imagine brand new Japanese brand retail prices plus SS fees, and then conversion... much easier to just buy directly from Japan)

Anyways, this whole thing just... sucked, really. Le Panier seemed to have dragged multiple brands’ names through the mud (I will not talk about it here, but there is the infamous VM Classical Doll incident as well), had a track record of numerous other hiccups and operational issues at their events/booths/sales, and overall was losing Chinese lolitas’ trust very quickly.

I should note that Mary Magdalene had attended another Chinese event some time in 2018 where they took reservations for a rerelease of Perfume Bottle, but production of that also failed with much silence from the brand (there was even going to be a new dark purple colourway). It’s very strange that the 2017 Faltettos were able to be manufactured, whilst planned pieces from 2018 weren’t, but I think these two incidents mean that the factory problems are real.

Later in 2018 Le Panier also took reservations for the rerelease of Arabesque Rose that was previewed at the event. These were in fact manufactured and shipped successfully around 2019 (+ I believe the Le Panier reservations came with a free headbow), and extra stock was uploaded to the Mary Magdalene website in 2022 as “Arabesque Rose Midi Dress”. The fabric used was identical to the original, with fewer colourways (caramel, iris and navy--no offwhite), no rose lace at the bottom, no shirring/less corset lacing loops, and slightly wider (weirder in my opinion) bows. While I am happy these were in fact produced, the rerelease looks like a sad shadow of the original, and the long bows with skinny, tight middles look like replicas (why is this type of bow so common on replicas? Not cute, in my opinion).

Le Panier continued to (attempt to) sell a few extra Mary Magdalene items on their website, but their bad reputation along with interest in Mary Magdalene being quite scarce at the time meant that selling the stock took a little while.

Le Panier’s original shop URL no longer functions, but they remain modestly active on Weibo. Le Panier volume 2 was published in late 2019, including a small report of the 2018 event, and there hasn’t been any more publications since. Perhaps Le Panier was started by a well-meaning lolita enthusiast who was a bit too ambitious and wasn’t able to manage their brand and event well. Or, perhaps it was a poorly executed plan to make a profit off of Chinese lolitas involving convincing Japanese brands to overpromise exclusive items and reservations, as well as resell Japanese lolita goods...potentially run by someone who doesn’t fully understand lolita/lolitas. 

After this, Mary Magdalene went silent for a while...and maybe I don’t blame them after all these Chinese events kind of exploded on them. It’s a little disappointing how much attention and exclusivity was turned to China during this time (I was seriously mourning that Mist had turned into a “2017 China event reservation only exclusive”), but most everyone came out empty handed, so was it really that exclusive in the end...?

Mary Magdalene saw a small return to activity in 2020, with a rerelease of the Génoise coat. But, after that...silence...for 2 years.

In 2022, Faltetto in maroon was uploaded, plus a few in stock items which appeared to be leftovers or extras from Le Panier (Aria Fleur and Arabesque Rose as mentioned earlier; plus the Arabesque headbow in offwhite only which I feel like was just extra unsold stock from 2014, and some small number of perle lace bolero which MM stated explicitly that was just old stock from the original 2016 release).

This release of Faltetto was particularly interesting, as the listing stated:

今回の販売分は、通常の量産とは異なり一人の職人が一貫して製作した特別バージョ���となっております。価格の変更が御座います事を予めご了承の程お願い申し上げます。

Google translate: This sale is a special version that is consistently produced by one craftsman unlike normal mass production.

(the second portion apologizes that the price has been raised due to rising production costs, but the price difference is 30000 yen (excl. tax) vs the original 26800 yen (excl. tax), which is hardly egregious)

So, this release is not mass produced and should be quality controlled very carefully. How nice, I thought.

Although I already owned a maroon faltetto, I put in an order request through Mary Magdalene’s overseas form anyways, in the slim chance that the dress wouldn’t sell out before Mary Magdalene processed my order, and so I could perhaps compare a mass produced vs. non mass produced faltetto.

Unfortunately, the dress sold out shortly afterwards. And I received this response:

この度はご注文頂き有難うございます。 大変申し訳御座いませんが、現在、「ファルテットドレス(マルーン)」の在庫は御座いません。 今後、受注生産にて再販を予定しております。その際は優先的にご案内させて頂きます。 (また、今回キャンセルが発生した場合もご連絡させて頂きます) この度はご希望に添える事が出来ず大変申し訳御座いません。 何かご不明な点等御座いましたら、お気軽にご連絡下さいませ。 それでは、失礼致します。

Disappointing, but at least this reiterates that Mary Magdalene has an intention to have a general release/MTO of faltetto. (But it hasn’t happened...yet...)

I heard that the quality of this faltetto is good and “Mary Magdalene quality”, but I have never seen it in person. I will note that I don’t have any issues with my 2017 faltetto (aside from the fabric choice being a bit thin) and I’m not sure what would be considered “better quality” or more “individual craftman-like” than a normal faltetto.

All other items on the website sold out quickly, as expected.

And then silence again...until now. Almost a year exactly after the last update. Like before, the update came suddenly and without warning, simply mentioning that a few leftover stock/sample/B items were going to be added the next day between noon and evening (what a big help!...though, I think this was intentionally vague so that the website wouldn’t crash with condensed traffic at a scheduled time)

Special thanks to rabbitreverie to letting me know about this update. I had kind of lost hope by this point and was not checking the site regularly. We were both refreshing all night! The site update came suddenly, with some sample items already being sold out by the time I saw the update (and I think I was quite on the ball, too...). What an odd treasure trove of an update, though...I imagine the sample items were only one (and potentially one of a kind).

(In some ways, I’m just glad with this update that we finally get a better quality stock photo of mist. You don’t want to know what blurry, artifact riddled pictures I’d been gazing at before this.)

A Faltetto “2017″ was available! In maroon and mist. This lines up with the 2017 guangdong event, with likely the same product number (my maroon faltetto did not come with tags to confirm, sadly). Mary Magdalene must have made a few extra pieces of stock that they never got around to selling...maybe? It’s impossible to know how many pieces were available.

Everything on the website sold out in about 5 minutes or less, which is impressive considering there couldn’t have been many people who knew about the update. But there was also very, very little stock.

Sample Faltetto dresses were also available in a separate listing (Mary Magdalene labels the second section, mostly older items, “outlet”, with discounted prices to match the sample or flawed status of the items. But why is it cheap when people would definitely pay more?? I suppose it is the principle of the matter...).

Peacock, Amethyst, Maroon, and Navy (!) are all available as sample versions. From the provided pictures, it looks like Amethyst and Maroon are a bit more saturated than the released versions.

Of course I go for the mist and navy, given my history with the colours...and somehow I manage to check out with both of them whilst fumbling around trying to enter my information.

A few weeks later, I have them in my hands! It’s a bit of an emotional moment for me since Mist had been on my “dream dress but impossible” list since it was announced.

Given that this post is already getting so long and superfluous, I have the unboxing and detail pictures in another post.

And here is probably the most interesting part, the comparison pictures:

I have 5 Faltettos now... which is quite a lot...

Overall the dresses I own are quite similar, aside from the navy having some obvious differences due to being a sample, and the >2017 dresses having their skirt tier lace gathered with the main fabric. Note that I obviously have not laid these out in chronological release order, it just looked aesthetically pleasing in this arrangement.

I used to own a different version of the ecru faltetto, which I believe may have been an older release, and that one definitely had some more prominent differences (such as placement of the chest lace being a tiny bit lower, with the first row of embroidered dots clearly visible [like the stock photos], and the bustle loop being sewn on the same edge as opposed to being a strip folded in half [it’s hard to explain]). Thus, my brain wants to tell me that the pink and ecru faltettos I have may be from 2014, a little more on the recent side.

Anyways, I won’t comment much on the following photos since there isn’t much to say anyway (except 5 of the same dress as eye candy!)

Bodice details--always the same lace, although the colour might vary a bit between dye lots/releases

The gathered (or not) lace at the skirt.

The braid used also seems to be quite consistent.

If you look closely, the second row of stitching securing the braid down can vary a little between releases. Also, the navy has clear buttons instead of same-colour buttons, which is as expected.

They all look pretty similar from the back.

I tried to make the bustle loops of each dress visible in this photo. The way they are sewn is pretty consistent across the faltettos here that I currently own. I didn’t have the heart to untie the navy ribbon ties that had come pre-tied! But I imagine they’re about the same as all the others (the ecru is wrinkly because I had it tied up while I stored it)

While finishing up my photos, I pondered what other areas of difference might be of interest. So here’s a picture of all the linings. The mist and maroon are pretty consistent with each other, which makes sense since they are from the same year. Navy has the least nice lining (also makes sense as a sample), with pink having a satin lining similar to the others, and ecru having a thinner but potentially still satiny lining (It’s hard for me to tell looking at this photo because the dress is so wrinkled from storage)

The inner tags are also not of much interest, but dresses released in 2017 and onwards have the country of manufacture specified (Japan). It’s pretty unusual for Mary Magdalene to list where their clothes were manufactured, but it can be found on the occasional piece. While I don’t own enough modern pieces to know for sure, I have a feeling that all of their newer pieces from 2017 have the country listed.

The older dresses (in my case, pink and ecru) have a tag like above, with no country of manufacture (qnd no extra button attached). The navy has no washing tag at all--again, likely because it is a sample.

These were all the photos I thought worth taking--the interior of the dresses seemed to be quite similar when I checked them. Although, I did notice that the navy had the skirt seams pressed open, whereas all the rest have the seams pressed to one side. It makes very little to no difference to how the seam looks from the outside, so I’m not sure why it is like that (maybe a minor difference in pressing decision in a mass manufactured factory environment?)

So, now that Mary Magdalene has updated their website, what does this mean for the brand?

One depressing conclusion could be that they were clearing out stock of whatever they had left in the office, and will close soon...

But I am hopeful. Or choosing to remain hopeful, in any case. It has been over 5 years now since a rerelease of Faltetto was planned and promised, which is so long that it’s easy to conclude that those plans are dead. But...why would Mary Magdalene sell the one of a kind navy sample, the colour that was sold to way more than just one person, and cancelled on more than one person? And mist... that colourway was in a magazine, expressing to thousands of readers that they will be able to order it someday. It’s too unfair to only have some 5-10 mist and 1 navy in the world, especially with how constantly apologetic Mary Magdalene’s site messages are (heck, the “add to cart” buttons broke/displayed incorrectly after the update and MM added an apology message about that). So... could Mary Magdalene be clearing out Faltettos in preparation for a larger release of navy, maroon, mist, among others? Everyone who wants these unique colourways deserves to own them if they want, and we need more Mary Magdalene pieces in the world. I hope that a larger release of main pieces from Mary Magdalene is coming...

(note: since initially drafting this, Mary Magdalene opened up reservations for another release of Génoise coat. So, I’m hopeful, but it’s not a dress yet!)

Other notes:

I recommend Tamie’s video about Mary Magdalene for a little bit of further information and a different account. Complaints and problems with LePanier actually are more numerous than just the issues that Tamie brought up (which sounds ridiculous considering how many were mentioned), but I won’t talk about them here, especially because LePanier’s presence seems to have almost disappeared.

I do not know Chinese, so my information is limited. If there are any Chinese lolitas that know more or have read more detailed posts from the Chinese communities, please let me know anytime!

[mydaroga]

So what did you think of Tune In as a whole? Did you feel that Lewisohn was somewhat biased in the way he chose to frame/ present certain events?

That's the recurring topic of debate, isn't it? And, I think, an important one. I'm glad, for example, that AKOM is doing their series outlining their issues with the book, because I definitely have become concerned about how, in certain quarters, this book is lauded as the ultimate testament of Beatles history.

And not without reason. It took me a few tries to get hooked, but I really did enjoy reading it. I loved all the context and detail, and the historical research Lewisohn has done is tremendous and so, so valuable. Early Beatles history was covered by pop critics and journalists, and it's high time we started holding this story to historical standards.

(I'm sorry, this is gonna get long, but you knew that if you're asking me.)

But I do have qualms about this book. (Don't get me wrong--I think sometimes, especially on Tumblr, those arguments can be overdone. He's by far not the worst.) I am not a historian, or an expert, but I know that no one is without bias. And ML's constant refrain that he's free of such things and totally objective is belied not just by his being a human, but by other statements he's made in public. The danger here is less the fact he's biased, and more the fact he's convinced himself he isn't. He seems to have decided that his opinion is actually verifiable fact, and if only we were as keen observers as he, we'd know it, too. And that is worrisome.

I don't think it's necessarily conscious, which is even more dangerous. And I don't think any one instance of this in the book is that egregious--you could talk me out of caring about any number of them. It's the aggregate that creates a picture that comes off as less than objective. Off the top of my head, this arises in a few different ways. 1) He picks and chooses what to include, even from the sources we know he is already using. 2) He mashes quotes up from different sources, making context blurry and inherently creating new contexts via juxtaposition. 3) He misapplies quotes from one subject onto others, which may be useful when you don't have a quote for a specific thing but is spurious at best when you're using a reference about someone's character in one instance to a totally other instance. 4) He seems to have taken certain statements at face value and applied them to an overall picture of a person, such as when he uses Paul's statement about "looking like a poet" or whatever and applies it to numerous statements about Paul just sort of faking being arty, or when he applies John's reference to confronting the Maharishi to John taking control in every single situation ever. He's using quotes to support whatever he wants, and he's doing it without cluing in the reader that we're now in the realm of analysis.

Essentially, I think his research and notating and all that are stellar and super important. I think his prose is, if not highest quality, quite readable. But I have no doubt at all that he also is making assumptions, judgments, and leaps that aren't there and passing them off as factual, not speculative or interpretive. And I think that's dangerous given that he's currently lauded as the foremost authority on Beatliana.

But what do you think? I'd love to know.

[kassandrasdisciple]

~~~Joker: Folie à Deux Spoilers ~~~

This is hideously long, I am so sorry.

Housekeeping

I really wanted to like this Movie, I saw the first one and was sufficiently whelmed; it was certainly a movie. However when trailers came round for Joker 2 and it was starring Gaga in a musical I was hyped, she's known for her brand of choreo dancing and out-there outfits, so i thought she'd be at home in this dancing clown's world.

Furthermore Harley might patch my biggest gripe with any Joker origin story which is that they miss the point. Joker was made as a formula break. Batman, the world's greatest detective, would fight the ecoterroist, the man who loves his wife and the catburglar with facts and logic™ but the Joker was a wild card (pun intended). He was used sparingly because he had no motive other than Chaos and he was uniquely only interested in Batman, not riches or love. However for this to work he has basically no backstory, he's just the clown prince of crime, you undercut this character by weiting a backstory, and that was my biggest issue with Joker I.

The way writers have gotten around this however is by making him interesting by proxy, and they usually use Harley. We don't know much about Joker from the animated series but we do know alot about him in how he treats Harley. As such, I thought introducing her to the second movie could allow for them to remove so much focus of Arthur's backstory and inner thoughts and start building him up into the Joker of myth, filtered through Harleys eyes.

However none of this actually happened; infact so little happened I have to ask you all to watch this movie so you don't accuse me of misrepresenting this train wreck. I usually give any non-Indie project some leeway as it's easy to walk back an indie project and only waste 100 dollars vs in a multimillion project, No one wants to tell the boss you need to start from scratch and waste 10 mill, now in this case? I would've watched the final product as an executive and said scrap it all, and then fired the writers that I'd accuse of using AI. With that let's get into it.

The Good

This is gonna be meanly short but I really tried.

Makeup & costume

This was phenomenal and I don't even say that in pity to bulk the good section, I'd genuinely say this surpasses most films and shows. The costumes looked properly dulled or muddy, most looked fitted for the actors and although I'm not a historical costumer they seemed to fit? Joker firmly breaks from the current trend of fresh of the line clothes that look costumey and captures a city on the brink.

Makeup is also beautiful and this is a production for the craft to shine in, both Phoneix and Gaga are made up perfectly depending on the scene, juggling Glam, Weariness and Clown-core beautifully. I also loved the story of Gaga's clown makeup, with her slowly gaining more with each musical break from reality. However I will say I dislike they didn't go full face like Phoneix had, does feel slightly like they refused to de-feminise Gaga.

Cinematography & Sets

Also beautiful, I will preface that within the narrative your really only shuttled between a prison complex and the courtroom which is quite disappointing, however where they go hard is the musical breaks from reality, these beautiful backdrops and lighting, along with perfect use of angles is phenomenonal, my standout being the tap dancing number (I believe the song is The Joker).

My favorite shot comes early in the film and it's when the four guards are escorting Arthur in the rain and open Umbrellas in the colours of the Joker, it's on the nose but I do love that pallete and it was a cute detail.

Confirmation of POV

This is a smaller one but I was thankful they used multiple POV's. It was draining in the first one to have to second guess if something actually happened, Joker II confirms the 6 murders happened and has shots from Harley's, the guards, and other prisoners POVs, creating a more concrete version of events than it's predecessor.

Stand out performances

I will admit I have always conflated character writing and acting knowing full well that the best actors can't resuscitate a poorly written character (looking at Malekith/Christopher Eccleston) however I'm flawed so I won't comment on Gaga's or Phoneix' acting as I won't be sure what's writing and what's performance.

Kicking it of, Harry Lawtey as Harvey Dent. I feel like he really captures the character of pre-2face Harvey, a brutal prosecutor with a bit of a prideful streak. He still wants to help Gotham but he's not one to humanize villians and Lawtey's tone when he talks about Arthur envisions this perfectly.

My second pick would be Leigh Gill as Gary Puddles, I will say production does their best to cram the most jokes at a little person's expense into Gill's time on screen which im not a fan of. However when Mr Puddles breaks down over how witnessing a murder affected him; how powerless he felt and how he can't function in day to day life anymore. It really hit me, it goes in the face of the narrative spinning around Arthur, how even if he's trying to be morally neutral his actions aren't just murders in a vacuum, he hurts even those he was close with. It was an amazing scene and that was solely to Gill's performance.

The Bad

This might be ungodly long and I have to say now, this might not even be all of it.

Everyone loves Arthur

I need everyone who called Rey a Mary Sue to tell me how Arthur isn't. It is unfathomably strange how everyone in this universe believes him to be the biggest social activist since MLK. 2 years since his murder spree, where on TV he said he killed the business men for shits n' gigs and then gave a milquetoast speech on how we live in society, he still has fans, hundreds, maybe thousands. We hear before the interview his first exclusive tell all is coming soon, so assumingly he's not been talkative since. Yet he has a whole social movement, he has a movie and not just that but in the on screen scenes every character is all about Arthur.

Keep in mind that the multiple POV's make this Movie more solid that the first, knowing that the amount every character centre's Arthur is insane. Harley has no character to the extent I'm calling it Girlboss Sexism where the second Arthur lays eyes on this Jezzabel he stops taking his meds and regresses on all his progress for love. She's girlbossing because she makes the joker worse not the otherway around, however it is still Sexism because we could replace her with the 1 ring and the plot wouldn't change. I have no clue why she's so obsessed with Arthur, or why she does anything other than "I Love The Joker". Outside of singing I think she gets maybe 10 minutes of dialouge which is being generous, to call this move a dualagoist movie would be to lie.

Harley isn't the only one bending over backwards for the most uncharismatic man however. We have Ricky Meline (His prison lackey who FUCKING DIES and the cop, Arthur and the narrative forget about) we have no idea why he idolizes Arthur, actually we can include the whole prison who start kinda-riots several times in support of him.

We have the defense, Maryanne Steward, and even though it's her job to defend Arthur, the level of faith this woman shows to him is frankly dumb. Oh, also he non consensually kisses her twice, both times she's never does more than reproachfully look at him, and doesn't even consider firing him as a client.

This isn't mentioning the BOMBERS who blew up the courthouse on a vague line, the prison guard who flip-flops between getting him into music class then beating him, or the jury who cycle between distressed and sympathetic. Let's be clear this man is pathetic, he has no personality other than sometimes manic, other than that he's despondent. He should not have this much support, it feels like a power fantasy for incel school shooters.

The plot

I've gone into it above the level of distortion the plot does for Arthur but really to call it a plot would be generous. We start with Arthur in prison awaiting trial, with no Harley and we end with Arthur in prison maybe awaiting trial/execution and no Harley +stabwounds. Nothing happens. I never thought my obsessions of phoneix wright and legally blonde would have an antichrist baby called joker: folie à deux but they did and the world won't know peace. The musical numbers don't advance the plot, the entire thing is setting up a court verdict we don't hear, and the opening animation posits a question I don't think even the writers know the answer to.

In the opening animation we see Arthur the clown be replaced by Joker the clown who goes on to shoot the talk show host, we don't know if Joker also killed the 3 business men, his coworker or his mum but oh well. The movie starts and we find out the court case hinges on if Joker actually exists so they can use DID as a grounds for insanity. Let's be clear, even if Arthur has DID, in the 60s/70s he's getting the death penalty, courts don't care about mental health now, you think they did more then? Secondly even if he's doesn't you spend 5 minutes with this man and you know he's so disassociated even without medication that he's got enough grounds for an insanity case. Either way we'll never know, the opening seems pretty clear that this is DID and is seems like Joker is provoked multiple times into fronting during court, but Arthur's ukulele apology to the jury at the end seems to make the answer be he's always been fully aware, which is frankly ludicrous.

The long and short being that there are no plot threads from either the first movie or this one that are answered, open-ended or no, which for a character study movie is abysmal.

The Ending

I was actually laughing by the end, and that isn't a compliment. This started with Arthur trying to stop Lee singing, mirroring the audience's views of this sad excuse for a jukebox musical, and finished when they snuck in one last unanswered question for the finale? Why was someone visiting Arthur? Was is Lee? Why? Did she miss him? Did she want to sing at him again? Was it baby batman?

Oh yeah, there was also some random shanking Arthur. I will admit, I was surprised by how blatant an answer was given in this duology of unexplained threads of films this was. Why is the joker older than batman by loads? I think we all inferred from Arthur's billions of fans that one of them will be Joker Joker but apparently this was the one question that needed a concrete answer, we even saw how he got those scars. It was unnecessary, and honestly I would've rathered seen Arthur get the chair as a send-off. It also posses the question of if the real Joker of this universe will have the same Harley or are Gaga's days numbered? (We don't have to worry, it's tanking so hard there won't be a third one).

In conclusion, the conclusion was a perfect summation of the entire movie, that is that, Harley had no actual role, Arthur was boring yet people are obsessed with him, and we're still stuck in this fucking prison.

Rapid fire time

I don't want to expand these into full points but some further issues -

This is super harmful to the representation of mental health, I won't go fully into it because I will double this post, but as someone who has a grab bag of everything this is on the same level as split bad wise.

God's O gods why was he uncuffed for the majority of the movie.

That jury took an hour? I would've set a speedrun, also why are you letting him get closer, he might whip out a gun or worse a ringlight and a camera.

I shouldn't of watched this a month after quitting smoking, this was just a cigarette Ad.

Is that how this universe's Harvey got 2face'ed because if so that is disappointingly light.

I had to Google every side characters name because they where all so unremarkable.

Why secure Gaga and then do a jukebox musical.

They did a live broadcasted trial for the first live broadcasted TV host shooting AND DID NOTHING WITH THAT CHEKHOV'S GUN.

This was actually chekhov's military arsenal, so many things I thought they'd circle back to, like the dead lackey, the tell all, or the expose interview on prison conditions, and they went nowhere.

The opening animation was ugly I'm sorry, it wasn't even a good homage.

The musical numbers where just I feel numbers so they ground the film to a halt.

This was the first movie I've ever had to turn my phone back on just to check the runtime for.

WHY SECURE GAGA IF YOU WON'T LET HER BELT.

TL;DR

My gods this was long, I think I've thought more about this film than the writers did, my new conspiracy theory is that this was a test for AI writing of major motion films. I cannot fathom how people are defending this Movie, if you've made it this far, firstly I'm so sorry you read all that, Secondly, please let me know in detail WHY you liked this Movie. I know you exist, I've seen the reviews and comments, I want to know genuinely because to me this Movie was holistically bad, I went in with my heels set to enjoy and be the contrarian who likes it and I was swept skywards by a deluge of shit.

This film ends as it begins but with 2 hours of your life lost and a legion of your braincells lost.

Thanks for reading.

[gsmattingly]

Review "Napoleon"

I went to see "Napoleon" directed by Ridley Scott and starring Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon Bonaparte and Vanessa Kirby as Josephine. It was certainly a large film. The battle scenes were huge and quite detailed. This is the first time I saw a horse get hit with a cannonball. (One assumes the actual horse was not hurt). Supposedly the battle scenes are far more accurate than many other incidents in the film. There is some question as to historical accuracy of many scenes. "TV historian Dan Snow called out the film’s trailer and argued that “Napoleon didn’t shoot at the pyramids” (the trailer depicted as much during a peek at Scott’s interpretation of the Battle of Pyramids) and that Marie Antoinette “famously had very cropped hair for the execution, and, hey, Napoleon wasn’t there” (the trailer shows Marie Antoinette with long, frizzy locks).

When asked to respond to such historical fact checkers, Scott was blunt in his response to The New Yorker: “Get a life.”"

I mean, really?

Joaquin Phoenix may have been fine for the later scenes in the film but he did not look like a 24 year old Napoleon in the early scenes. He looked like he was 49 (if not older) which is his current age. Also his actions and emotional portrayal of Napoleon seemed a bit questionable to me. I am not historical expert relative to Napoleon but still . . . I personally liked Albert Dieudonné in Abel Gance's 1927 Napoleon. I also liked the early childhood scenes in the silent version.

There seemed to be many scenes which were a bit darker than I liked. Detail seemed to be lost in the darkness. I don't know if this was the film or the Vine Theater's projection system.

So, I thought there were many good things about the film and there were a number of things not quite right about the film. So I really wouldn't give as high as grade to the film as many did.

I was amused by this

"Less enthralled was critic Brian Tallerico, who writes in his review at RogerEbert.com that Napoleon is “a series of accomplished battle sequences looking for a better movie to connect them.” Tallerico is another who takes issue with the scope of the film, writing that “one of the problems is that David Scarpa’s script tries to pack a lot of life into the running time of a single film.”"

[duhragonball]

The Punt Trick

I've been kind of inactive lately because I'm doing a writing project this month and I sort of fell behind on it. My morale was kind of low this past week, but I managed to turn things around this weekend by writing 5280 words, which is more than a quarter of the goal. Not too shabby, so I want to capture how I did it.

Historically, I've been able to write a lot more than 5k in a single day, but I can't do it consistently. It really depends on what I'm writing, and if it's something I already have laid out pretty well in my head, the words will flow. The problem I've been having in August 2023 is that my plot is well laid out, but I'm struggling to put down the words. I know what to do but I'm less clear on how to do it. So it's been slow going.

Basically, I made an hourly schedule for the rest of the month, detailing how many words I would write. I've tried stuff like that before, but the trick this time is that I made the wordcount assignments very small. I didn't think it would help very much, but it turned out to make a big difference.

For years, I would write numbers on a calendar, like "Oh, I'll write 2000 words on Tuesday, and then I'll do 2500 words on Thursday!" and then it'll be 11:48pm on Thursday and I'm 4000 words behind schedule for some reason.

I've tried making it more granular, but that would mean doing things like "At 6pm I'll write 1000 words, and then at 8pm I'll write another 1000 words! Easy!" But then it'll be 7:55pm and I won't have the first thousand done, which just demoralizes me further for the next thousand.

This time, I just decided "to hell with it" and assigned myself 500 words per hour. This turns out to be much more realistic. When I'm doing well, I can bang out 500 words in twenty minutes, but when I'm struggling (like this month), 500 words can take me... about an hour. Well, more like thirty minutes, which is great because if I procrasinate for half of the time alotted, I still have time to get the goal met.

And 500 is small enough that it's easy to overshoot. So chances are that I'll clear the goal with a little more than I needed, which makes the next hour easier to tackle, and so on.

And now that I've had this productive weekend, the schedule I've laid out for tomorrow will be even lighter. Monday I'm doing 250 words for each hour, which is probably too lax, but that just means I'll finish ahead of schedule. The important thing is that I'm not just vaguely declaring my intent to write 1500 words after I get home from work. Normally, I can do that pretty easily, but that confidence turns into procrastination, and I'll put it off until 10:30 at night, and then one thing leads to another and I blow it off completely. With this system, I have to start at 6pm, because it's not about getting 1500 by midnight, it's about getting 250 every hour for six hours.

This is something I really, really need to keep in mind for the future, because even when my writing goes well, I'll still run into spells where it doesn't, and this seems like an effective way to break the logjam. And it might also be handy for smaller projects, which I could break down into even smaller chunks, like 100 words, or even less.

I suppose what inspired me to try this was when I kept looking up at my word-counter and expecting to see some big numbers, and ending up with something dinky like "83" or "112". But with what I'm doing now, those are actually pretty good signs of progress. Chain a few of those together, and I can actually get somewhere.

I'm not sure if this would be helpful for others, but it definitely seems to be working for me, so if you're reading this and you find yourself stuck with your writing, give it a try.

[infranscia]

Everything Wrong with Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet (almost)

So not too long ago, Steam alerted me that a number of Sherlock Holmes games were on sale. Realizing that I wasn't really familiar with this classic, beloved icon, I figured it was about time to change that and - for now - started by buying a low-price, little bundle.

I also decided to check if the books were public domain yet, and was glad to find out that they just became public domain this year.

Turns out, Doyle had a tendency to include a lot of foreign cultures, and/or foreign persons of note, in the Holmes stories. And I'm guessing there's a fairly strong tendency to get details wrong, or at least for them to be fantasized - based on whatever stereotypes and whatnot were most available at the time, if I had to guess.

At the very least... imagine the awkwardness when I found that in the very first book, it had a HIGHLY INACCURATE - and stereotypical - portrayal of early members of my religion. 😅

So... Yeah. Here I am to debunk as many inaccuracies as I can. 😂

Feel free to take things with a grain of salt - I know a lot of the stereotypes - and flaws of members - tend to lead to people disliking us, and you probably don't have much reason to take my word about things.

...Also, I'm not the most studied when it comes to history - including my religion - so I may have some details wrong. 😅 Still, I'll try my best.

Major spoilers for A Study in Scarlet below the line - especially the second half - including some content that some people may be sensitive to (it IS a murder mystery... among other things).

Also: don't expect this to be short. There's a lot to cover, I'm VERY detail oriented, and I ramble a LOT. ...This took me days to make. (I'm not even doing any more error-checking than a spell check, and such, because I just want to get this done. 😵)

(Note: This post also exists as a Skiff document.)

Okay, I guess I'm coming out more-strongly as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints here - essentially born and raised, actually (not so much a convert). As I mentioned, there's a lot of stereotypes, bad-blood, and such where we're involved, so I haven't exactly been in a habit of being public about it. 😂 I guess I'll see how this goes.

I'll note that Doyle actually got enough of the setting accurate that I was able to guess what he was leading up to before the reveal was dropped: the description of the desert in the middle of North America, with the wagon trails, and occasional bones of both people and oxen, was more than enough to ring familiar. The average Church member - especially those who have been raised in the Church, or are otherwise longtime members - will easily recognize these as being elements of stories of what we call early Church pioneers.

And while I had to look it up, I was able to confirm that there were at least some areas where the soil and/or water was alkali. However, it doesn't look like it was anywhere near as alkali as Doyle made it out to be. (Heck, I'm not sure it'd be possible.) I'm also not sure the alkali areas were as widespread as it seems like they're being portrayed, but as far as I'm concerned, this is a relatively minor detail.

...Anyhow, I looked back over the second part of the book and tried to go over things roughly in order... so what I'm starting with may seem a little odd. 😆

For a bit of context for anyone who might not have read, this part of the story starts with a flashback, focusing on a couple weary travelers in the desert - a man, John Ferrier, dying of thirst and hunger; and a young girl, Lucy, 5 years old. They're discovered by what appears to be a very large wagon company.

Travelers seem to have knowledge of nearby wells, possible dangerous areas to avoid, etc.

Okay, maybe my lack of historical knowledge is showing, but I do wonder how much of this they could've known. Maybe a lot of the stuff originally came from Sacajawea, or something, but I also wonder how wells could've already been found and built.

The verbiage of members is generally flowery, using fancy names for God, etc.

This is hard to pick-apart without going into even more detail than I'm already going to include. But basically, we prefer to keep things simple, easy-to-understand, etc.

Going into a specific example as I bring up something else...

“He who could draw it from the rocks will not now abandon His own chosen people.” “Amen! Amen!” responded the whole party."

We don't respond to random declarations like that, esp. with the double-amen. Yes, we'll say "amen" in unison - ONCE - after the end of things like prayers, talks (sort of our version of "sermons"), testimonies, and maybe a few other things, but that's about it. And it's not a shout (no exclamation point).

Honestly, at this point, I think most of us do it mostly just out of habit and tradition than much anything else. 😅 Something we're advised against, occasionally, but it's hard not to do stuff like that.

I'll touch on the "chosen people" thing later.

There appears to be absolutely no struggles of traveling members to hold onto faith

This appears to be a common misconception with religious groups, in general. But anyhow, our stories of Church pioneers are FULL of instances of people struggling to hold onto faith that things might work out, if not faith in their religion as a whole.

They're also full of stories of how they tried to hold onto faith. My favorite, so far, involves a woman noticing flowers growing in the desert (the desert rose, IIRC). She figured that if delicate flowers could make it in the harsh desert, then she could, too. 😊

"Brother" and "Sister" used, fairly strictly, as titles/honorifics for members.

While it is part of our culture to refer to each-other as "Brother/Sister such-and-such," something about the usage portrayed feels a little too strict and formal.

The honorific (if you can call it that?) is used most-often during church-related activities (meetings, asking for help in Church-related thing, etc.). We tend to use it fairly casually in such settings - if anything, we may see it as sort of a term of endearment. Still, it's not uncommon to drop it in casual settings, esp. with close friends, or children/younger members.

It's also one of those things where, if you grow up with it, it becomes so habit and routine that it's easy to forget the reason for it. 😅 So much, that I'm finding some conflicting information on the reasons when I try to look it up. 🤔

Some of the results I'm finding are articles that do mention the interpretation of us all being 'baptized as brothers and sisters in Christ.' However, I think the interpretation I was taught, that I prefer, and that's found in the Church manual (which I consider more official that articles, which are typically written by members, rather than leaders), is that it's based on the Gospel principle that we're all (everyone, not just members) LITERAL children of God - and thus a spiritual family. 😄

As such, sometimes members will refer to non-members as "Brother/Sister," especially if they're visiting (as we call it) in a Church meeting, or in another Church-based setting.

(And I'm gonna give a side-note because I'm sure some people are going to wonder: setting aside the politics of our views on gender, it is common for Church teachers to mention, without being asked, that they don't know how it's supposed to work for intersex people [even if they don't usually use that term, or similar ones]. Giving a quick search, there don't appear to be any specific rules - only a firm recommendation to be considerate. I wouldn't be surprised if some people use "Sibling," however. ...And NGL, I haven't heard it myself, but I suspect that a lot of debate crops up... esp. in the cases where it's really relevant... 😞)

"Elder" is used, multiple times, like a title of high status.

Actually, as far as priesthood titles go, "Elder" is the lowest-ranking. I know it's confusing, but a guy can become an Elder - and is generally expected to be, and encouraged to try to be worthy in advance - at the age of 12, well before he'd be considered an adult (at least nowadays).

(TBH, I'm not sure why they're called "elders" - maybe there's some linguistic drift going on? Might be worth looking into, but I'm not focusing on that right now - it's something that, I'll admit, the average member seems to have forgotten about. 😅)

But yeah, an Elder pretty much just has the most basic level of priesthood, which comes with the authority to bless and pass the sacrament, and to help with blessings (a sort of prayer) for health and such. Maybe a few other, simpler things. That said, one does need to be an Elder before he can be other things, like a High Priest, Bishop, Stake President, etc.

John adopting Lucy is taken totally in-stride.

Not that we're against adoption or anything - in fact, the Church has its own adoption services, which focuses on helping unmarried, expecting teens find parents to potentially raise their child; and for married couples, esp. (or solely?) those who can't have their own children, to find a child/children to take in and care for.

Anyhow, still: it's not a major issue, but it still seems odd. Like everyone else, we tend to find intrigue where adopted children and the like are involved, getting curious about the birth parents, etc.

Also, we have a strong emphasis on family and genealogy (or as we prefer to call it, family history), so there's an even stronger reason to wonder where Lucy came from.

No apparent help is offered in raising Lucy - there's relatively little talk of help, in-general.

Like I mentioned, we have a strong emphasis on family. (Esp. traditional families - not looking to get political or anything, and I'm not going to try to preach; I'm trying to just be honest here about our beliefs, culture, etc. I won't argue, even if you try to start an argument. So I'd prefer if you don't bother.)

Similarly, lot of church members absolutely adore children. And on top of that, there's a lot of emphasis on service (as in helping people out) - members are particularly encouraged to help families in need, and such.

Heck, one of our most-commonly-quoted scriptures states "when ye are in the service of you fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." (Mosiah 2:17)

As such, I find it VERY hard to believe that a lot of the members - especially the women - would NOT immediately start to talk about how adorable Lucy is, and offer to help take care of her.

Similarly, there would probably quickly be talk of sharing water and rations with John - maybe suggesting he ride in one of the carts, to regain his strength.

The group help up the castaways up at the start, and there are some onlookers showing shock and pity... but that's about it, as far as I can tell.

“[T]here seems to be a powerful lot of ye.” “Nigh upon ten thousand [saints]” (No mention of who's in charge of this group.)

I had to look up the numbers on this one, and it took me a little while to find the right articles and sort through the details, esp. with the order I ran into the info. 😅

This Church article/infographic probably gives a good balance of info, and readability. This other article also gives some good info, and goes into a little more detail.

As the second article puts it, "It is difficult to identify an exact number of individuals who came to Utah[...]because not all the company rosters were turned in to the Church." However, numbers are estimated from 60k-70k.

This said, it's pretty common knowledge among Church members that they didn't all travel as one group, even if we don't always know the details. This said, Church pioneers were organized into 250+ companies - mostly wagon companies, with 10 handcart companies making up about 3,000 members total. The exact size of companies varied, but it looks like they averaged somewhere around 250 people, give-or-take.

Each company had a captain - some companies were known by the name of their captain. E.g. the handcart company captained by Edward Martin - the biggest of the handcart companies, according to this wiki page - was also known as the Martin (Handcart) Company. And apparently, companies were further divided into smaller and smaller groups, each group with their own captains - presumably, captains of smaller groups reported to captains of larger groups (that's how we tend to do things).

Interestingly, Church members tend to focus on the handcart companies, and not the wagon companies, to the point where I didn't know there was a distinction until until I stumbled upon this other infographic. The first thing I found with my search was actually this Church lesson guide" with a lot of info, including a map of their route. From the looks of it, I'm thinking the handcart companies probably made their own journey - it might explain a few things. 🤔 But I'm rambling...

(Still... since the infographic mentions the transcontinental railroad, I'll throw in a tidbit I think is fun: Apparently, the handcarts and wagons left such deep impressions in the ground that they were actually used when first laying down railroads. Thus, the width of railroads and trains is based on the width of those carts and wagons. 😀)

But yeah, whether going by the total numbers, or the size of a company, Doyle got something off there. 😅

“[W]e are the persecuted children of God—the chosen of the Angel Merona.”

First off, I dunno if it's a typo or what, but it's technically the angel Moroni.

Secondly - and I'm just going from how I've heard things talked about - while it's true they were persecuted a lot, along with the other hardships, I don't think it's likely that they would've focused on the fact that they were persecuted to the point that they would introduce themselves that way. More likely, they'd introduce themselves by naming their religion from the getgo - either in full or by the (now defunct) nickname of "Mormons".

Third and most important... we don't do the "chosen people" thing, and especially not chosen by an angel.

While we believe in angels, they don't have the same level of importance as in other Christian sects - esp. Catholic, I think; correct me if I'm wrong.

(And you may debate terminology, but we do consider ourselves Christian, because we believe in the same Christ that's in the Bible. The Book of Mormon even includes another version of the Sermon on the Mount.)

While we're vaguely aware of how some Christians put a lot of focus on angels, saints (as they define them - to us, any member is technically a "saint," regardless of how "saintly" they might be 😅), and specific demons in their belief systems, that's about the extent that most of us know. The average member isn't likely to be able to name any of them, esp. the saints and demons. I'm taking a guess that the list of angels includes those in the Bible (e.g. Gabriel), but if you asked the average member, odds are you'd get a blank stare, and an answer of "Uh... I dunno."

Putting the metaphorical definition aside, we see angels more as messengers and servants of God - they do His work as He directs, and like with living Church members, they won't have any authority unless He gives it to them.

The authority to choose people like that is not one of those that would be given, even if we considered it a thing, in general.

The Book of Mormon has mentions God not being "a respecter of persons" - as does the Bible, come to do a search. Or for those who don't know the term, the idea is that He doesn't favor people based on age, race, gender, level of freedom, etc. 2 Nephi 26:33 is one verse with that includes the spiel on the latter part. (I'll touch on a scripture that mentions the first part later, because of the context.)

In fact, there's actually a story in the Book of Mormon that talks about ancient missionaries (on the American continent) being shocked to discover a religion basically centered around that belief: people taking turns standing on a tower, giving an identical prayer, thanking God for letting them know that they were chosen to be saved while everyone else should perish, then departing and not even mentioning their religion until they gather again the next week...

The religion in that story is VERY MUCH used by Church members as an example of what NOT to do. 😅

In any case, if there was any choosing going on, it would be done by God - or maybe Jesus - and it would basically be choosing people who give Him respect, and already follow his teachings. NOT that He would choose a people to give teachings to for some, arbitrary reason.

“We are of those who believe in those sacred writings, drawn in Egyptian letters on plates of beaten gold, which were handed unto the holy Joseph Smith at Palmyra["]

While not that far off, for the most part, it is definitely romanticized, and feels like a very weird way for us to talk about this.

For the nitpicks, the writing wasn't drawn so much as etched or engraved - we tend to just say "written." That's the most common word in the BoM.

I don't think there's info on how the plates were made - it's not mentioned in the BoM as far as I can remember, or find, and it's hard to find a detailed description. One description I heard made them sound kind of like thick pieces of foil, though our typical portrayal is something like golden pieces of sheet metal, with D-ring bindings. And we tend to just call them "the gold(en) plates." That said, "beaten" sounds more-right than one, mistaken voiceclip I heard that called them "tablets" (which sounds WAY more heavy and impractical).

I'm having trouble remembering, or finding, the scriptural reference, but as fancy as the fact that it's gold sounds, I understand there was a practical reason: materials like paper and parchment tend to rot, and other metals tend to rust or tarnish over time. (And, of course, stone is hard to use in a space-efficient way, and tends to crack.) I understand modern science vouches for this.

Speaking of, it's odd that the mention of the style of writing is mentioned first - we usually say things like "...from (the) golden plates, translated by Joseph Smith." The bit about the kind of writing usually has less emphasis.

Still, the writings are described as reformed Egyptian. I don't know why the writing is considered "reformed," but the reason given for using reformed Egyptian (and not Hebrew) was so they could fit more writing into less space. I imagine that the fact that it was difficult to engrave words on plates - as one writer in the BoM mentions - might've been a factor.

(Speaking of Hebrew, the primary people focused on in the BoM report themselves as decendants of Joseph of Egypt, son of Jacob - the one with the fancy coat who was sold into slavery by his brothers.)

The plates weren't handed to Joseph Smith - they were revealed to him. Basically, they were buried in a (stone?) box, with a biggol rock for a lid, with some other items inside. Moroni is the one who showed the location to him (being the one who hid them in the first place - he's the last author in the BoM).

Finally, I understand this is a common misconception, but like with angels and saints, we don't worship prophets.

...Or at least, we're not supposed to. Though the way a lot of members act, I think there's a tendency to effectively worship the prophets... 😅

But no, it's not part of our doctrine to do so. We never say "holy Joseph Smith." We're likely to say "the prophet, Joseph smith," but we never put the word "holy" in there. It gives the wrong kind of impression.

"We have come to seek a refuge from the violent man and from the god-less"

I'm generally inclined to agree with the "violent man" part. But a lot of the persecuters were members of other Christian sects. We would call them FAR from "godless" - maybe a little misguided, and with a different view on the details, but we essentially believe that we worship the same God.

“We are the Mormons,” answered his companions with one voice.

First off, we don't have a hive-mind. I don't see any real reason why they'd answer in unison. It's not something we recite, or anything.

Secondly, as mentioned, the term "Mormons" has always been, at best, a nickname. It's never been an official name of the Church. We've been asked to abandon that nickname (and while we've got the biggest changes made it looks like we're still in the process of adjusting some smaller things, e.g. things on the website that aren't talking about the past). The main reason stated for this is that we want to emphasize the fact that Jesus Christ is a key part of our faith - even when we were still using the nickname, we emphasized the words Jesus Christ on our nametags, on the sides of our buildings, etc.

(Note: I'm including the word "Mormons" as a tag only because I think it'll be more-widely recognized, to help with visibility of this post. Otherwise, I'd leave it out.)

I think another major reason for abandoning the nickname is because it led to some confusion as to whether "Mormons" meant the same group. I've heard a story where some group was getting humanitarian aid, and someone apparently reported "We're getting help from two groups: the Mormons, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." (Cue laughter.)

But yeah, the term "Mormons" actually started as an insult - presumably mostly by other Christians, on account of the fact that, besides the Bible, we had another book that we believed in (the Book of Mormon, of course).

IMO, the fact that members accepted the nickname at all is a pretty good indication of our tendency to be on the doormat-y side. 😅

And just to make sure: no, the Church was never named after the Book of Mormon. Nor was the Book of Mormon named after the church. It's named after the person who did most work compiling and condensing his people's records that later became the Book of Mormon. (Mormon, of course. ...Moroni's father.)

[...]and were surrounded by crowds of the pilgrims

Technically accurate (aside from the inferred size of the crowds), but like I sort of mentioned, we prefer the word "pioneers."

(This said, as a kid, I used to mix up Church Pioneers and "Thanksgiving" Pilgrims. 😅)

[...]until they reached a waggon, which was conspicuous for its great size and for the gaudiness and smartness of its appearance. Six horses were yoked to it, whereas the others were furnished with two, or, at most, four a-piece

No.

We don't really do flashy, and the companies had to be as practical as possible, and couldn't really pack much besides probably essentials. I'm pretty sure that a bunch of smaller, standard wagons would be more practical than one, big, fancy one.

Any fancy wagons like that would more-than-likely have been sold, to afford more, smaller wagons, or more food and other supplies.

Also, the text strongly infers that the big wagon is for the leader of the group. We don't give such deference. In fact, there's a lot of emphasis in our doctrine that the leaders have to work for a living as much as any other person. We don't pay our leaders with our tithing, or anything.

“If we take you with us [...] it can only be as believers in our own creed. We shall have no wolves in our fold. Better far that your bones should bleach in this wilderness than that you should prove to be that little speck of decay which in time corrupts the whole fruit

This is one struck me as wrong in so many ways...

As mentioned earlier, we have a very service-oriented culture. We believe VERY STRONGLY in helping others in need. We're not going to abandon someone to die in the wilderness just because they're not a member. Nor withhold food and water (as is done in this story until John Ferrier agrees to join).

Similarly, at this point, I'm pretty sure a lot of members would be converts, themselves. They don't have much reason to fear people just for being non-members because, at some point, most of them were non-members - they already know that one can very well come into the fold, of their own volition. (Also, it's already established that these two were Christians, already.)

If anything, members are more likely to be afraid of physical danger, especially after all they've been through. And a dying man and a small girl are NOT going to be a physical threat. (Not to mention that, again, there's no hive-mind: more likely, if anything different members might have different ideas. This said, as kind of a side-note intra-faith politics seem to be something rarely touched on outside of of the faith in question, regardless of the religion/sect/etc.)

ALSO! We have a VERY STRONG belief in freedom of religion. In fact, one of the things we try to have members memorize - the Articles of Faith, written by Joseph Smith as a summary of our beliefs, after being asked about it - talks about it. Specifically number 11, which states:

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege. Let them worship how, where, or what they may.

*checks* ...Only some spelling errors (corrected) and one punctuation difference (left in). Still got it! 😁

But yeah, the decision to join the Church is supposed to be a choice. Even little children aren't technically considered members - we're supposed to wait until they're old enough to decide for themselves (officially, eight years old - with possible exceptions for people with mental challenges needing more time; Lucy is actually too young at this time in the story). ...That said, I'll touch on some more stuff in the next segment...

But yeah, a more likely response would be something like giving an invitation to learn of our teachings while along the way. And even if they ended up declining in the end, the two probably be allowed to live alongside the members, or helped to find another place to live if they so chose.

I was going to go even longer with this, but I think I'll actually put those comments under the next point...

John Ferrier and Lucy appear to be considered members as soon as John agrees to it - or as soon as Brigham Young makes it official

The direct authority of the President of the Church is not required for membership. More on this, later.

Besides that, Doyle missed a very important step in the process of becoming a member:

BAPTISM!

(And the laying on of hands for the Gift of the Holy Ghost, but that comes after baptism... which tends to get more focus, anyhow, to the point where I think the gift of the Spirit is underrated...)

But yeah, the importance of baptism as a part of becoming a member is VERY MUCH emphasized in the Church.

We also note the importance of baptism by immersion - i.e. after a priesthood holder gives a prayer, he briefly dips the person into the water and pulls them back out, like John the Baptist did with Jesus. A fairly common saying is "Don't sprinkle yourself with the Gospel! Immerse yourself in it!"

There's also another important thing with baptism (which I bet some people are wondering about)...

WE DON'T DO INFANT BAPTISMS!!

Aside from the obvious safety reasons and such, and the part I mentioned earlier about how it's meant to be a choice (John shouldn't be able to make the decision for Lucy), there's another important element: while we do consider baptism an important element that has to do with "washing away sin" (or remitting it, technically), our definition of sin is to knowingly, and willfully, act against what you already know to be true.

Naturally, it takes a while for children to get a real sense of right and wrong. As such, little children are considered incapable of sinning.

Heck... there's an entire chapter in the Book of Mormon (Moroni 8) that's dedicated to this.

But yeah, like I mentioned earlier, eight years old is basically when you're officially considered old enough to decide for yourself. It's also what's known as the age of accountability - i.e. when you're old enough to have a sense of right and wrong (barring some exceptions), and are considered responsible for your actions.

Kids who die before the age of eight are basically believed to get a free pass into heaven. (No, we don't encourage trying to make this happen...)

But yeah, like mentioned, Lucy is five years old at this part of the story. She wouldn't technically be eligible.

And technically, even kids who grow up in the Church, with their parents as members, aren't considered members, themselves. (Though if their parents already had a temple marriage, the children are considered born in the covenant - basically already connected to their parents so they can potentially stay together, eternally.)

Though yeah, along with the basic Gospel principles, a big part of Primary (children's) lessons - esp. the littler children - is helping them get ready for baptism.

...Or trying to...

I'm going to go on a tangent, but I think it's an important one: baptism is really supposed to be something that a person decides to do, for themselves. However, with the way lessons are taught - and particularly, with the way the songs we sing are worded - we end up not so much helping children understand that they decide whether they want to be baptized, as we try to get them excited for baptism... like, for "when" it happens. Not "if."

(And in a way, it's not just with baptism. This type of thing is something that never really sat well with me, even as a kid.)

I don't know the ratio/percentage/whatever, but I do know that part of the end result is that at least some children end up not realizing that they're supposed to choose whether to get baptized, or not. I know that was the case for me, and I've definitely heard that I'm not the only one.

Heck, I remember being taught baptism is "a choice." But the way my teachers talked about choice, I actually didn't realize that "to choose" and "to decide" were synonyms... if anything, I perceived them as antonyms - I didn't see baptism as MY choice: I heard it as a choice that was made FOR me.

As such, I never even realized that I was supposed to be able to say "No"...

...and at the time, I REALLY would've liked to have known that. 😓

So... yeah. It's sadly very possible for children to effectively be baptized unwillingly - which actually goes against our doctrine. (I'll note that I, personally, probably would've voluntarily gone through with it at age 12, but at eight? Yeah... no. 😅)

But yeah, I can hope that things have been shifting. However, since I haven't really been involved in Primary classes since I attended, myself, I can't say what the trends are, at least for my local Ward (congregation/small geographical area).

Still, the idea that even a SINGLE child might be put through that? That the parents and teachers might fail to realize the agency involved in the process? It REALLY troubles me...

It is DEFINITELY something that I think the Church - or at LEAST Church members - need to do better on. 😢

...anyway, continuing... (And no pun intended, because of what the next one is.)

["]Forward! On, on to Zion!”

It's hard to say with the context, but for starters, this seems to be portrayed less as a rallying cry, and more as a chant. We don't do chants. (Which I guess might be part of what I've been trying to say, already.)

Regardless, this phrasing includes a common misconception: While the word "Zion" can refer to geographical locations, it's defined more as "the pure in heart." (And one of the few geographical locations mentioned in that link is in Missouri, not Utah.)

Similarly, I vaguely remember being told in Church lessons that's less of a place and more of a people.

But yeah, the more common phrasing we use is about establishing or building Zion. Sometimes we might use the word "gathering," though it's noted that while it was more literal back then, it's more metaphorical these days.

...Kind of makes it hard for members to travel onward to - even back then. 😜

And I know how cult-ish this might sound, but to me, right after this is mentioned seems like an appropriate time for the traveling members to break out into a hymn. I understand that early Church members did sing hymns along the way - not for any strict, religious reason so much as to try and keep their spirits up on the long, hard, dangerous journey.

["...]remember that now and forever you are of our religion. Brigham Young has said it, and he has spoken with the voice of Joseph Smith, which is the voice of God.”

...Well, props to Doyle for getting the names right, at least.

Whether or not this is inaccurate depends on definition, intention, and interpretation. However, given the phrasing (which we would never use), it sounds like the idea that essentially anything and everything the President of the Church says is also the Word of God.

That's not accurate. While they're authorized to speak the Word of God, they are still their own people, separate from God, and still very prone to mistakes. Heck, I know that my mom and I, at least, still like observing the occasional moment that reminds us that our Church President is still human.

Examples include:

Saying we're now going to sing a hymn we've already sung, then looking confused for a moment while one of the other Church Leaders walks up and turns the page on the program he's reading from.

Saying something (I don't remember what) and having his wife correct him. Immediately turns to wife and says "Oh, is that it?"

There's a rather comical moment where President Monson (already Church President) wiggled his ears in front of a live congregation. (And here's a link to the talk in question in case the video stops working. Linked to the paragraph in question, though there's an non-shortened video at the top.)

Heck, I've even heard a story where Joseph Smith, reportedly, gave a talk during one congregation. The week afterward, he came back and said something to the effect of "Last week was Joseph Smith talking. This week is God talking."

And then he apparently said pretty much the opposite of what he'd said the week before.

(I couldn't find a record of this story with a search of the Church website - it could be the quote I heard isn't accurate enough. Or maybe, if there IS an actual record, then it hasn't been transcribed to digital format, yet. Or both.

Still, even if just as a metaphor/analogy/allegory, I think it gets the idea across. 😉)

The area is referred to as "Utah" - mentioned as being a state

There are a number of contradictions here. Church settlers actually called the area Deseret, which is a word which the Book of Mormon lists as meaning "honey bee."

We kind of took on honey bees (and beehives) as a not-super-official symbol (i.e. not part of the doctrine, but part of the culture). The honey bee is seen as a symbol of industry - e.g. hard work. Industry is still the state motto - similarly, we're known as the Industry state - and similarly, the state emblem is still the beehive, and the state insect is still the honeybee. (Reference link.) Heck, the state flag still has a beehive on it. (Though a few years ago, someone made a proposal to remove it... go figure... Doesn't seem to have gone through, though, AFAIK.)

This said, while Deseret (the region) could be said to have been established in 1947 (I think), it wasn't made an official state until 1896. (For reference, the later particular part of the story, after a timeskip, is listed as taking place in 1860.)

Heck, the term "Deseret" is still used in some Church-related things. Examples include Deseret Industries (a Church-based thrift store/charity shop), Deseret Book (a Church-based book store, of course), and hymns such as In Our Lovely Deseret (which, IMO, is not one of our better hymns - not for musical reasons so much as the way it talks about certain things, particularly in the 2nd verse, where it addresses the Word of Wisdom* in such a negative way that that it gets kinda... contentious and prideful... heck, these days, younger members tend to have trouble getting through that verse without going quiet and laughing awkwardly).

But yeah, when it came time to make the area an official state, people apparently didn't like the idea of it being a religious reference (again...). So they suggested the name "Utah," meaning "tops of the mountains."

...We willingly accepted. 🤣

That said, importantly, as part of of the conditions for letting our area become a state, we were also forced to give up polygamy - which, predictably, is a major part of the story. More on that later.

But yeah. Again, from a number of different angles, there are contradictions on that front.

I think the story also mentioned members making trade with neighboring areas, though I'm having trouble finding the reference, assuming I didn't misremember. In any case, Nevada is mentioned a few times - not explicitly as a state, but still, Nevada wasn't established as a state until 1864. California is also mentioned once, in passing - this said, California actually WAS established as a state in 1850.

Heck, I'm actually not sure what, if any, relations we might've had at the time. 🤔 I'm not sure if we even used a real currency, at the time... I'm not having any luck finding references with a search on the Church site, and I'm not sure how I'd refine my search. 😅

*Some advice, given through Joseph Smith, with recommendations regarding diet and using (or rather, NOT using) certain substances. The part regarding stuff like drinking, tea**, and coffee is probably taken TOO seriously by members (like, a straight-up commandment), while the dietary parts tend to be forgotten (I remember another member saying "How many of us actually eat meat sparingly?" ...Heck, how do you quantify "sparingly"? 🤔)

**Herbal tea is controversial. I'll note that this type of tea was only invented in 1969, WAY after the Word of Wisdom was established. Members tend to debate whether it's the caffeine, the heat (the original wording for "tea and coffee" is technically "hot drinks" - Joseph Smith apparently had to clarify), or other details that are the issue.

Just to be safe, many members avoid even herbal teas. I'd basically decided to do the same thing (aside from trying to do a homemade, makeshift lemon-ginger tea - my family didn't have fresh lemons, OR fresh ginger 😅).

That is... until after I got prompted/impressed (basically, told by God directly, via the Holy Ghost) that I needed to get into herbal tea - starting with chamomile, to help me sleep better, and help manage my anxiety, somewhat. (I do cool it down. I prefer most of my drinks about room-temp, anyhow.)

I won't make a definitive claim on what this means for members as a whole, but I suspect that if it's okay for me, it's probably okay for the average member - most exceptions would probably be in the cases of stuff like allergies. For any members reading this, I recommend you stop trying to reason it out, and pray about it. ("Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding." - Proverbs 3:5)

Anyhow, continuing with the point of this post...

All around farms were apportioned and allotted in proportion to the standing of each individual.

Again, no. We don't give deference to our leaders in that manner. Leaders aren't paid for their Church service (it's pretty much volunteer work).

If anything, farms would be allotted according to ability and/or need - e.g. bigger, and more-farm-handy families would get bigger farms, since they had the know-how, and more mouths to feed. Non-farmers would probably not get farms, instead getting something more in-line with what they already knew how to do. From what I understand, people would probably basically just do what they did best, and basically help each-other as needed.

From the great inland sea to the distant Wahsatch Mountains...

I don't know if this is a typo, but I know at least modernly, it's "Wasatch Mountains."

There's also a later mention of "Salt Lake Mountains." Personally, I never heard the term before reading this story. Looking at a few maps, it doesn't look like an official name: the character using the term is probably referring to the part of the Wasatch Mountains closest to Salt Lake City, or the Great Salt Lake, itself.

Actually, come to look, I think Doyle made another mistake, this one geographical: the story later talks about travelers heading through the mountains as they head for Nevada, but looking at it, there aren't very many mountains between Salt Lake and Nevada; definitely not as big or as dense to the ones east of Salt Lake (in the other direction). In fact, it's pretty much just desert.

Come to think, I've traveled to Nevada a few times, myself. This is pretty in-line with my own experiences: I can vouch that it's STILL mostly empty desert. 😅

Above all, the great temple which they had erected in the centre of the city grew ever taller and larger.

Even as I first read this, I felt like it gave the wrong impression: sure, the Salt Lake temple is fairly tall, and, in a way, kind of castle-like, but I consider it more wide or long. The use of "taller and larger" makes me think of the Tower of Babel (which, as you may or may not know, was supposed to be a shortcut into Heaven, which God punished people for - confounding their languages so they couldn't all communicate easily, breaking the tower down... I hear that was also when what's now known as Pangaea was separated into the different continents...).

Anyhow, I already knew there was at least one detail that probably put a kink in this description. And looking it up, I can give more detail:

In 1858, about five years into the initial construction of the Salt Lake Temple, the foundation of the temple was actually covered up, due to threat of war. (Which, I totally forgot about the war thing. And apparently, Doyle also either missed, or forgot about that detail. I think I remember the story saying something about basically having no outside threats... I either haven't found it yet, or I misremembered.)

But yeah, it wasn't until the next year that the foundation was uncovered again, and as this Primary lesson says...

After the problems with the government were resolved, President Young ordered the foundation uncovered. The workmen found that some of the mortar and small rocks used between the large foundation blocks had cracked and shifted. [...] The workers removed the small rocks and mortar and all of the sandstone blocks down to the first layer, replacing them with hard granite blocks.

In other words, starting in 1859 they had to completely dig up the foundation and start over.

A reminder that this part of the story takes place in 1860. Odds are that the temple hadn't even really reached above ground level, yet. 😅

This said, the temple also wasn't finished until 1892, over 30 years later. (The granite blocks they used had to be shipped in from distant mountains, carved out by hand... it was hard, slow work.)

So... yeah, the temple wouldn't grow tall(-ish) for some more years. And its original width was planned out from the beginning, so it wouldn't grow bigger on that front, either. 😅

Lucy remains motherless/John Ferrier remains unmarried/"celibate" (as Doyle put it)

Not inherently false, but I do think it fairly unlikely. Like I mentioned, there's a strong culture of helping each-other out, and I really do think that a lot of the members - esp. women - would've gushed over Lucy, offering to help with raising her. (It's not directly stated, but it's pretty strongly inferred that John didn't get ANY help on that front.) Women in particular are generally tasked with assisting those in need and offering relief - hence why the Church's organization of women is called the Relief Society.

So, yeah. I find it hard to believe that there wouldn't be other members visiting often, helping in her upbringing. I particularly find it hard to believe there wouldn't be any women to help out... and while not impossible, I find it unlikely that at least ONE wouldn't leave a strong enough impression on Ferrier that he'd want to marry her. 😉

Again, not inherently false... but I think it pretty unlikely. 😅

This said, while I think I should comment on the subject of marriage in general, I'll do it farther down.

He had always determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing would ever induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon./["]What is the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted Joseph Smith? ‘Let every maiden of the true faith marry one of the elect; for if she wed a Gentile, she commits a grievous sin.’["]

I looked up this so-called quote and found nothing about it. (A search for an exact quote literally turns up 0 results.)

I've never heard of a "code of Joseph Smith" (and we wouldn't use the term "sainted"). My only guess on what he could mean is the Articles of Faith that I mentioned earlier, which, none of them mention marriage - not even the thirteenth and last one (which basically just talks about trying to be good people, and good to other people).

Farrier's opinion isn't inherently contradiction - given that opinions are, by nature, subjective, and this is a fictional character - it is supposed to give him a sort of conflict that sets the background of his story.

In any case, I think I should still touch on this at least briefly:

There isn't a hard-and-fast rule that says that you can't marry a non-member. It is generally seen as unwise, but not much more, I don't think. Heck, Idon't think it's technically even considered a sin. Sure, it would mean you couldn't be sealed in the temple - which basically means you'd be missing out on a number of blessings - but there's nothing that forbids it, AFAIK.

Well... maybe some parents forbid it, and people might treat you weirdly, but that's probably as close as it gets. 😅

...speaking of which...

[T]o express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in the Land of the Saints.

I can't claim to have exact knowledge of what kind of tension might've been going on, by a longshot. I'll note that, yes, I wish I could say that this is 100% false. I've definitely heard of intra-Church conflicts as far back as before the Saints even traveled to Utah/Deseret, long before reading this Holmes story. 😔

Still, the story seemed largely and dramatically exaggerated. (Which, in my non-professional opinion and observation, it seems like non-members, particularly anti-Church groups, have a tendency to do. 😅 ...Heck, on a broader scale, people who are against something tend to make up false rumors about the thing that they hate. Why wouldn't the same apply with us? 😕) In any case, the story didn't fit with what I've been taught about Gospel doctrine, or Church history.

This said, I still tried to find a specific reference, and look it up. It took me a while, because I had trouble finding it again in the story - even when looking multiple times. 😅 I did find it, eventually, and have since looked it up... even if it meant rewriting this section. 😂 (Or at least part of it.)

The story basically describes members suddenly going missing if they express controversial viewpoints and whatnot. It mentions these appearances being done by a particular group, which is given a couple names - apparently the most common name for this group is the Danites.

I, personally, had never even heard of the Danites before reading this story. (And I think it would be pretty weird if non-members knew something that the average member doesn't. 😕) BUT! That said, apparently there's a bit of truth in that they were real.

Emphasis on "were." Very, very past-tense... and apparently short-lived, among other things.

I found a couple of particularly good pages on the subject: this one gives a little information. this one goes more in-depth on general violence in the days of early Saints... both received and, sadly, caused by some earlier members. (I linked specifically to the part on Danites, if you want to check it out, but keep it short.) The article doesn't make any attempt to condone such violence, but neither does it cover it up. If anything, I'd say it looks like it goes into pretty good balance of detail. Both pages link a number of references.

But yeah, looks like the story of the Danites is wildly exaggerated. To sum up, they didn't go to kill any member who had trouble with any little part of Church doctrine: their focus was on non-member an ex-member groups who posed a potential, physical threat to members as a whole.

Also - while I still won't claim this was appropriate - they mostly focused on burning, or stealing, property from these groups, with (apparently) only a few deaths caused... which, while not mentioned in the articles, it sounds to me like their primary goal was to deter and discourage groups who might attack the Church, with killing probably being a last resort. (Or possibly meant to be avoided, altogether, but there's no accounting for the actions of individuals in ANY group. 😑)

Third, they lasted less than half a year. They more-or-less stopped being a thing by the time Brigham Young became head of the Church (as he's supposed to be in this story).

There's more, but I think those would be the main points for the sake of this post (which is running VERY long as it is... and I'm not finished 😅).

I guess I'll note real quick that we also don't really do secret societies, though I'll touch more on that in another section.

As for what I'd already written, I decided to touch more on how things are these days, modernly. I'm including most of it, with some adjustments for the new context:

Sort of like I said earlier, I've never heard of a member suddenly vanishing, just because they weren't sure about one or two points of doctrine, or anything. There are PLENTY of members who will talk about this or that multiple times, across multiple weeks. 😅

As for doctrine in general. We do still believe that murder is a bad thing (we basically still use the Ten Commandments, among other things). Things like self-defense might be another story. Heck, there's a story in the Book of Mormon where it talks about some of the people - namely the Nephites - deciding to go to war for the sake of self-defense (they were attacked first). There's a couple verses back-to-back talking about how God told them when it's okay to defend themselves.

But still, outright murder? Just for not being 100% true to the Gospel? No. That would be horrendously hypocritical, and it would be very hard to justify it.

I've mentioned that, if anything, modern Church members tend to be more of doormats. 😅 A lot of us actually tend to avoid aggression, contention, etc. (At least... in public. 😂) It's to the point where lot of us have a lot of trouble being assertive, or standing up for ourselves and our beliefs, because (like many others) we're not sure how to be assertive without being aggressive... or prideful, which we're also warned against. 😅 (Though many still struggle with it. 😔)

This is not to say that we never do anything... not-so-kind when/if someone expresses a non-Gospel opinion, or anything. Like I inferred, a number of us may express our disapproval in-private, when the person(s) in question can't hear. 😅 In public, members are more likely to be avoidant than aggressive. (I've definitely heard stories of people being shunned for one reason or another... though typically not until they'd long already moved out or something. 😔)

But yeah, we have an emphasis on bringing people (back) to God. Leaving people in wickedness is more intimidating - we tend more toward a fear that comes from not wanting someone to be tormented for denying the Gospel, and not coming back to it. 😅 Put positively, as one of our scriptures puts it, "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" - a common quote among members.

This said, one of our most-common mistakes is that we tend to try to follow that more out of fear than of love. 😂 Or even when trying to be loving, we tend to accidentally give bad advice, accidentally insult people instead of showing empathy, all the usual stuff that a lot of people are known for. 😅

Heck, I'm not sure I've heard heard of any modern stories of a member getting violent - particularly not in that sense. That said, I'm not going to claim that violence never happens. Heck, I think it would be insane to assume that it never does. We're still human, after all.

I actually remember a young guy losing his temper at a Ward barbecue, once. 🤔 He mostly just yelled and jumped on a table - maybe threw a few light punches. Thankfully, someone managed to talk him down. 😅

(This said, I have heard stories of sexual assault within the Church. 😬 So... I think that's a pretty good indicator that physical violence probably happens, at least occasionally... 😔)

But yeah, the Church doesn't condone aggression, and encourages members to work towards peace - something I, personally, would like to vy for. Any violence in members is more of an individual thing, not a group one.

And even then, again, when it comes to a member not being completely faithful, most of what I typically hear about is avoidance, less-than-empathetic comments (often meant with good intentions, but... yanno), shouting from other family members... and maybe the occasional case of someone getting disowned. 😬

I still don't think the first two are good - maybe at least the second I can sometimes find understandable, but still. I definitely don't condone the latter two... (And if Church articles including this one are any indication, neither does God. 😔)

So... no, that kind of violence is DEFINITELY not something that's advocated for. 😔

Polygamy...

Like said earlier, I am definitely NOT surprised that this is a major part of the story. Polygamy is one of the biggest points of misconception that non-members have about our Church, and we are VERY aware of the stereotypes... which this story fits to a T.

YES, early saints practiced polygamy. NO, as of this time I'm writing this, we don't currently practiced it (I've mentioned some of the reasons above). NO, we didn't practice it for the reasons, nor in the manner, that many people tend to think. (And NO, we don't try to skirt around laws regarding legal marriage age... at least, not in what I consider the real branch of the Church... some people have made offshoots that, as far as I can tell, are very much in line with the stereotypes. 😑 Not sure if they're still around - at least not the main one. Haven't heard anything in a long time. 🤔)

I mentioned before that the journey to Utah/Deseret was dangerous. Being as traditional as we are, especially back then, I understand that it was mostly the men that hunted for food, and generally worked to protect everyone from various dangers. Thus, apparently mostly men died, leaving the population a little skewed.

And when many women would be left without even the option to marry (or remarry, in many cases), what's left to do?

Near as I can tell, the whole polygamy-vs.-monogamy thing appears to be one of those things where it's less of there being only one, real way of doing things, and more of being about what's probably most appropriate for the circumstances. Jacob (father of Joseph of Egypt) is known for having multiple wives, and in his case - and some others - it appears to be appropriate, from what I can tell.

HOWEVER! The ancient Church members in the Book of Mormon (commonly known as the Nephites) were commanded by God to only have one wife per man. Also, thereas a mention that David and Solomon having many wives (and concubines) is something God considers abominable (His word).

So... it sounds like, even in cases where polygamy is considered okay, having an excessive amount of wives is still a no-no. Heck, in the Holmes story, it seems to suggest that having many wives was... typical.

I don't think the population was that skewed. And even if it was, it wouldn't be for very long. 😅

So no. I don't see how that would be possible. Even if, hypothetically, it were encouraged.

Heck, I'm kind of afraid to look it up (for numerous reasons - not sure what exactly I'd search for, for one), but I've heard that the husband needed permission from his existing wives - starting with the first/"main" wife, and working his way down - before he could take another wife. I've also heard that a common conversation was most likely something along the lines of "Sister XYZ lost her husband on our journey here. Do you mind if we take her in? Give her someplace to stay and raise her children?"

Quite a different image than the "harems" people tend to expect (and that Doyle called them), huh?

(And it's not mentioned in the story, but since I know some people will wonder about it, or have heard otherwise: no, the wives are not considered married to each-other.)

I'm not going to make any claims, nor denials, as to who had how many wives, or anything. (Other than I've heard a rumor - not a hard fact, but still - that Joseph Smith's wife wouldn't let him take in any other wives.) Those records will probably be a pain to sort through... I pretty much just take things with a grain of salt on that front, personally, regardless of the direction.

Still, just as an estimate, I'd venture that 2-3 was more common, with several happening occasionally... and just one still being very common.

But yeah, as of the time of writing this, I've basically heard only heard emphasis on the one-man-one-wife arrangement, as far as the Church goes. Heck, right now, the idea of polygamy still seems odd to most members, AFAIK.

That said... I've also heard rumors that Utah is considering making polygamy legal again. I would not be surprised if Church leaders say something about it.

(This said, there are some elements I, personally, can respect about polyamorous relationships. Namely, the idea of multiple people being in a relationship with another person - or maybe even each-other - and being open and honest about it with each-other. Less of that ridiculous drama of someone being "taken," just because they're dating.)

Related side-note... Non-members, ready to have your mind blown? The recommended guidelines for dating in the Church: first and foremost, it's recommended to hold off until the age of 16 - this is largely to help prevent early pregnancies. (Turning sweet 16 is something often looked forward to. 😂) Secondly, it's recommended to start off with "group dates" (basically hanging out, not even beginning to pair off), in order to get an idea of what kind of people you like. After a while of that, you can move into paired-up dating, but it's recommended to avoid dating one person steadily - the idea is to try and help prevent getting too attached to any one particular person until you're ready to pick someone to marry. Finally, once you are getting ready to marry, you can start steady-dating the person you're considering - basically, you can start courting at that point.

How much of that sounded weird - maybe even crazy? 😜

Not to say it always works out that way... Along with the fact that people have their agency and autonomy, and that temptation is still a thing... some of us still struggle to get dates. 😅

...or feel that the pressure makes it... more intimidating. Maybe even gets some people focused more on the social pressure - feeling a need to rush things - than on whether it's actually a good idea, in their specific, current circumstances.

(I know I've been impacted by that... indirectly... 😓)

...anyhow...

The President of the Church (too many details for a header)

TBH, the portrayal of Brigham Young is probably the part that bothers me the most.

It might not have been so bad if Doyle wasn't misrepresenting a specific, named, major figure in our history - and particularly if it wasn't so incredibly inaccurately. But nope! Doyle was probably trying to be "realistic." 😅

It'll be hard for me to get into every detail (both emotionally, and just because of what it would take to point out EVERYTHING), but basically, the portrayal includes aggression, intimidation, making a point to oversee basically everything seen as a potential issue, outright threats... The narration even explicitly mentions that getting a visit is unlikely a good sign (at least for the character in question).

Regardless of whether one believes one such as him to have actually been called of God, I'll note that I, personally, haven't really known any of our Church Presidents (and other high-ranking leaders) to be much anything other than gentle. And to me, this seems like one of the major reasons why they would end up being President of the Church in the first place. Any guidance and correction I've heard has been - again - gentle, and loving.

Since checking the thing about the Danites, I've heard that he read some warning verses from the Old Testiment with passion... but I suspect that was mostly meant as a stern warning or something, from what I can tell. Other than that, about the worst he did was make it official that war was going on - after members had been attacked - rallying militia for defensive reasons, from what I can find. 🤔 Some... fighting spirit, I suppose, but not really aggression. There's even a point where he warned against getting involved in the affairs of some others in the area, because he didn't want a fight. (Though his message was... too late... 😢)

The bit about a visit being something to be concerned about definitely struck me as odd. Normally the possibility of getting to meet a Church President is something that members are excited about. 😅 Sure, maybe if one was, well... very much a sinner. (Which, to be fair, part of the idea is that Ferrier hasn't done something that, according to the story, is considered critically important...) But even then, stories I've heard about Church Presidents talking with sinners and the like typically involve a very gentle love that really does remind me of stories of Jesus.

Speaking of which, opportunities to meet a Church President in person are fairly rare. Especially these days. But even back then, things would be organized so he wouldn't have to handle everything, himself. Like I mentioned before, things would probably be handled by a Bishop or Branch President first, then a Stake President, then maybe one or two other levels of authority (I'm unclear on the details, but maybe a member of Area 70s?), before making its way to the Church President.

Even back then - basically any time except maybe the very earlier parts with Joseph Smith - the head of the Church would've been a very busy guy. Fact is, I really doubt he'd have time to handle everything by himself.

(Fun fact: Even the President of the Church has to talk to his local Bishop for certain things. I'm uncertain on the details, but one thing I think would be a good guess would be verifying records of personal tithings and other donations. ...Yes, even our leaders pay tithing.)

One particular omission I noticed was that there was no reference to finding out what God might want for any given situation. (Even with the very cult-like portrayal, this seems odd to me - I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be a common form of coercion.) This said, I'm pretty sure an emphasis on prayer would be more likely. (Or at least, I believe that it should have been. 😅) Most likely in asking Ferrier and others to pray... though praying himself, on occasion, wouldn't necessarily be out-of-place.

But yeah, lots of portrayals of stuff that would NOT be appropriate for his station. 😅

Incidentally, here's a bonus detail that even members tend not to remember: Have you noticed that I've been using terms like "the President of the Church" instead of "the Prophet"?

Well it turns out, unlike how even most members talk about it, the President of the Church is technically not "the" p/Prophet! Not even the only living prophet.

He might be sort of the head prophet, and he definitely is granted more power and authority. BUT! At EVERY General Conference for the Church, and even in some other cases, members are asked to sustain the President of the Church, his two Counselors, AND the Quorum of the Twelve (sort of the next group of authority down - our apostles) as "prophets, seers, and revelators."

Heck, here's a link to a reference of this being done in the April 2023 General Conference - the most recent, as of this writing, though our next one is expected next week. So this is very much a current exercise in our Church.

Still, somehow, the average member seems to forget about this... 😕 ...I admit, it's kind of a pet peeve of mine. 😅 It's something I wish at least our members remembered more-clearly, if nothing else. 😑

Marriage, general; insane controversy over Lucy being unmarried

Along with the polygamy section getting too long as it was, it just seemed appropriate to touch on marriage, separately. 😅 Still, these two points seem to go well-enough together that I decided to combine them.

While there is a lot of emphasis on marriage in the Church, it's not to the degree portrayed in A Study in Scarlet. Like with basically everything else in the Church, the ability to choose who you marry and such is still pretty important - for the wives as well as the husbands.

And while I'm sure there's sometimes drama over multiple people liking the same person (not that I've been part of that, nor been part of any circles that talk about these kinds of things...), it definitely wouldn't be to the point of Church leaders giving a one-month deadline, complete with ominous death threats, hunting parties tracking down anyone who might try to escape... or anything like that. 😅

Heck, it's pretty rare for Church leaders - even as much as a local Bishop - to get involved with stuff like that. 😅 Maybe counseling for couples after marriage - that's pretty common. Maybe some advice about marriage, proposal, etc. But nah, not going to mandate anything, by a long shot.

About the worst staying single is likely to result in would be some some "encouragement" (pressure...) from other members, or members accidentally assuming all the adults in a Ward/Branch ((two types of small congregations)) are married... and accidentally making exclusionary choices, accordingly...

To quote that article:

Sometimes even those of us who think we practice inclusion can be unintentionally exclusionary. For example, when I served as a nursery leader, I often missed announcements that were shared during the second hour of Church meetings. When I told a leader about this concern, he said, “But doesn’t your wife hear the announcements in Relief Society?”

(I guess I should probably give a note that the definition I heard - likely the Church definition - of "single" is "not married." Even if you're engaged, that doesn't mean you're not single. 🤣)

But yeah, someone being single in the Church isn't going to evoke shock, gasps, or anything of the sort. Let alone ominous death threats... or people hunting you down if you try to escape... 😂 In general, it's mostly just seen as a bad idea. Or at most, maybe a "sin of omission."

This said, while non-marriage is not exactly seen as good, I'm inclined to point out that *ahem* intimacy outside of marriage is typically viewed as MUCH worse. 😅

(Side-note: Apparently this is to the point that some find it hard to wrap their heads around the idea that intimacy with their new spouse being okay. 😅)

Also, a member having been married in the Church, and then getting divorced, is more likely to bring scrutiny... 😅 One of those things where a lot of members tend to get a lot more judgmental than I believe they should be. 😑

...But yeah, it can still hard not to wonder what might've led to something like that. 😅

...Still, I've heard cases where I would say that it's completely justified. 😒 (Someone pretending to be someone they're not until the other person was "stuck with them"? Yeah. Apparently it's happened at least once. 😅)

Besides, people can change, and I prefer to reserve judgment - at least until I know more. 🙂

(That's "judgment" as in "to make an assessment" - the scripture before the semi-famous "man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" comes after Jesse assumed that Eliab, soon-king David's older brother, must be the one chosen by God to be King because, apparently, Eliab's big and buff. God basically goes 'Nope, don't judge him to be morally great just because he's a tough guy.'

Similarly, John 7:24 advises to judge righteous judgment - as does, actually, the Joseph Smith Translation of Matt 7:2.)

The most important figures in the Church are strongly implied to be the Holy Four

...Never heard of them. (Well, not outside of this story, at least.)

Honestly, given the context, it's hard to tell who this "Holy Four" is supposed to be. The Godhead* + Church President...? 🤔

...And honestly? Generally speaking, we're more likely to do things in sets of three. Three members of the Godhead*; three members of a Bishopric, or Stake Presidency, or the Church Presidency (all cases of one leader + two counselors); three witnesses of the Book of Mormon...

And when not three, other common numbers are eight, twelve, and seventy. Four isn't as big of a number.

But yeah, I'm not sure where this "Holy Four" thing came from. 😅

*The Godhead is sort of like our version of the Trinity, except instead of three beings in One, it's three separate beings, working as one unit (i.e. a team).

Ferrier is shown taking the Lord's name in vain

Not sure how relevant this is supposed to be to Ferrier's relationship to the Church, but I figured I'd touch on it.

Yeah, we don't encourage swearing. There's some debate as to whether things besides the Lord's name in vain is really considered swearing - or at least, many seem to agree that the Lord's name should, at least, be considered worse than other terms (not a teir-1 swear, or whatever that one word is considered).

But yeah, that's a no-no. ...And I'm only slightly surprised that there isn't an example of a practicing member breaking the Word of Wisdom (esp. the "no smoking, drinking, etc." part).

Secret groups are seen meeting, exchanging code-phrases, etc.

Like I was refering to with the Danites thing. This is another thing that the Church is against. Groups like this are what we call secret combinations. Secret combinations are one of those things that are described as "most abominable and wicked above all, in the sight of God."

Any secret societies and the like would not be sanctioned by the Church.

(Also, side-note, I have no idea what their code-phrases are supposed to mean.)

Endowment House - flags flown to indicate a marriage the day before

I actually hadn't heard of this, either, until reading this story. Turns out, it was a thing (again, past-tense). It was basically used as sort of a temporary temple, until the actual temple could be finished (something I'd guessed at). It doesn't seem to be much of a thing right now.

There's no mention in that page I linked of flags being part of an official ceremony, or anything (on the endowment house, or - apparently - in the streets). It's certainly not a modern thing - strikes me as way more showy and public than we tend to prefer things to be. Heck, marriage is one of those things that's considered more private. And if anything, one of the common comments about our wedding ceremonies is how simple they are.

And besides that, weddings are one of those things common enough, and with enough of them done in one day, that I really doubt there'd be any signals used for a single marriage the day after it was performed. 😅

I'm actually half-surprised there's no mention of endowments. I'm actually not sure if Doyle even heard of an endowment in our Church. It is something that's required before getting a temple marriage... or going on an official mission, though members can get one at other times. It's the thing that's related to the garments some of us wear (as some non-members called it some years ago, "Mormon underwear"). It's also something we consider sacred enough that it's done in a special room in our temples (basically hence the need for a temporary location while the temple was under construction for so long).

This said, a since only the first wife who's probably sealed to her husband, I'm pretty she'd be the only one that'd really need an endowment for her marriage, if she didn't have one already. 🤔

And I know I'm not being specific, but it's something that's also considered sacred enough that we're not really supposed to discuss it with others who haven't had it - if not just plain not outside the appropriate room in the temple.

I actually can't give details, even if I wanted, because I haven't had one, myself. But I remember that not that long ago, it was to the point that even members couldn't really find information about it by searching the Church website. (A point of frustration for me... And when bringing that up to a couple endowed girls, I remember them getting a little awkward and telling me "It's not secret, it's sacred." ...Which didn't help my frustrations, because I'd say it was at least both!)

A few details have been released publicly now. None of the sensitive stuff, but I've caught things about it once being called 'endowment of power from god,' and something about extra protection.

It's apparently also possible to put certain principles of it together if you know what kind of reasoning to use - even if you don't realize it's connected with the endowments, somehow.

But I'm not going into any more detail, nor look for more info on for the sake of this "dissertation." 😜 (Sorry not sorry.)

But yeah, an endowment house doesn't seem to be a thing now, marriages weren't forced, and I really doubt the flags were a thing. 😅

Wives observing custom of sitting up with someone the night before their burial

If this ever was a custom, it certainly isn't now. Sure, I'd say there's a tendency to stay by the side of someone who's dying, but it's not an outright custom.

...Nor have I ever heard of staying near an already-dead body the night before burial. 😬 Ew...

-----

So... yeah. Overall, while I was surprised to see the Church in one of these books in the first place, once I noticed it was there, I wasn't really surprised of the shape the portrayal took. Like I said, we're very aware of the common stereotypes... and we're painfully used to being seen as "the bad guys" - whether as a group... or individually... 😢

Heck, I'm betting that A Study in Scarlet contributed to a lot of it, directly or indirectly. 😑 We all know how popular Sherlock Holmes is, and this is the very first book. 😬

This said! Far be it from me to try and tell people to abandon Sherlock Holmes. (I think that would be folly, anyhow. 😅) We don't have to accept every aspect of the stories... And Holmes is known for his deductive reasoning, first and foremost, which I can very much get behind (even if it's a little fantastical/romanticized), and I think he shares a lot of nuggets of wisdom. 🙂

And if the principles of reasoning and getting to the truth used in the Holmes' stories are any indication - not to mention the strawman moments *coughLestradecough* - I think that Doyle was just trying to portray things as accurately as he could, wanting to be true to them - not to add to prejudice based on falsehoods. 😂 ...Sadly, a lot of what he had to work with would've probably been misinformation, or even disinformation. And communication technology would've been a LOT less advanced - worldwide websites weren't a thing yet. 😅

...I wouldn't hold availability of resources against Doyle. Yes, mis- and disinformation is harmful... but people, as a whole, are fallible. I do think he was probably trying his best, and I'm definitely not going to hold that against him. And in general, I prefer to give people the benefit of doubt. 😌

Also? ...This might seem like a side-note, but in my latest fanfic, I've written Holmes references into chapters that haven't been posted yet, starting with the next chapter. I considered removing them, but I keep feeling impressed through the Holy Ghost to leave them - heck, I keep feeling guided on how to include them, and such.

(And to reinforce this, I plan - and feel impressed - to still stream those Holmes games I bought, on my Twitch channel. No, I'm not giving you a direct link. 😉)

And heck... not trying to brag, but to be honest? The general way that Holmes works things out - his patterns of thinking, and a lot of the principles of reasoning he stands behind? ...I actually find them very relatable. 😄 A lot of the stuff Holmes suggest is stuff I figured out/decided to do on my own (if in different words and such... and even if I disagree on occasion 😉).

I'm not going to claim to be on the same level as Holmes (this is fiction), and my strengths in knowledge and such are in different areas... but the general style feels very familiar... and I think this actually is the strongest I've ever felt a character to be a kindred spirit of sorts. 😃

Heck... I'd say Doyle must be something of a kindred spirit, to even come up with Holmes' manner of reasoning.

...Call this a bold claim, but I think he'd like me trying to correct his mistakes. Try and repair a little of the damage. 😌

So... yeah. I'm not even trying to preach or anything, I just want people to be aware of the inaccuracies in portrayals like this one, at minimum. 😅

And... I want to share that I can still fondly appreciate something that started with such a big flaw. 😌

[recurring-polynya]

Ok stupid ask but like how do you think the story of ichigo and his friends will be perceived in like the soul reaper/ academy, ichihime and renruki parts of it as well….because like those 4 have to be in the history books by now right?.

I don't think it's a stupid question at all! The nature of history and remembrance in Soul Society is actually one of my favorite things to talk about.

What I love about Soul Society is that it's ancient and continuous and time is sort of made up in the sense that you can have two people who are 900 years old and one looks like a teen and the other looks 90. It's sort of immune to a lot of the historical events and trends that create distinct eras in the World of the Living, things just sort of mash together instead, like a garage where you keep throwing stuff. You might think that they care very deeply about record-keeping and history, but in fact, it is an afterlife. There is such a natural tendency toward forgetting and revisionism. There are archives, but they are difficult to traverse and have a tendency to eat information rather than retain it. Probably the number one source of actual information about the Soul Society in canon Bleach is the shady guy who got kicked out and runs a candy store in the Living World. (Does anyone else think constantly about how Rukia didn't know what a Quincy was before she met Uryuu??)

So onto the question of Ichigo and his legacy. One thing to keep in mind is that while Ichigo and his nakama have done a tremendous service to Soul Society, telling those stories truthfully does not exactly paint anyone in the Seireitei power structure in a particularly good light. In fact, just about every good thing Ichigo ever did would have been completely unnecessary if the Gotei 13 could find its ass with both hands and a flashlight.

What parts of the Soul Society Arc, for example, would Soul Society consider worthy of enshrining in a text book, for the edification of future shinigami? Well, there was Aizen's betrayal, of course, which would need to be a cautionary tale. Soul Society loves to heap blame on people, heaping blame is fun, so there would probably be significant page count devoted to how evil and corrupt Aizen was, detailing his horrible deeds. You definitely don't want any young people coming to their own conclusions about Aizen or any of the points he was trying to make. Now we, the readers know that this came to light because of Ichigo storming the Seireitei, but he wasn't the one who discovered the bodies or uncovered the conspiracy, was he? No, that was Captains Hitsugaya and Unohana. I'm not sure they would necessarily merit a mention either. I feel like Soul Society history texts are very fond of the passive voice. "The bodies were discovered." When you think about it, even as it's happening, Ichigo is erased from the narrative of Rukia's execution. My memory of it was that her specific crimes were (1) staying in the Human World too long and (2) giving her powers to a human, but when I tried to look up all the places in the manga where I expected her crimes to be spelled out, it was just like "for your crimes." I think if you asked a good half the captains what she was being executed for, they wouldn't be able to answer. Further, Soul Society couldn't have cared all that much about (2) given that Byakuya just left Ichigo for dead without even checking for a pulse or anything, and I'm not sure anyone (aside from Renji and Byakuya, who didn't seem to care) made the connection that the ryouka coming to rescue Rukia was the same human she gave her powers to. There isn't even a tendency to list Ichigo and his friends by name. They are simply the ryouka, which, as Yoruichi points out is the same thing they call anyone who makes trouble in Soul Society.

If you aren't familiar with it, Color Bleach+ is sort of a databook, but it's really half omake comics and the conceit of the other half is that it's the special edition of the Seireitei Communication that was published after ryouka invasion, the issue Shuuhei is passing out to Ukitake while Rukia and Orihime are training together [Note: It is wonderful and hilarious and I recommend that everyone buy a copy, it is my prized possession]. Overall, it's a pretty lighthearted book and not meant to be taken seriously, but I do want to point out that the Seireitei Comm absolutely paints Ichigo and the gang as Serious Criminals, whose motivations are unknowable and sinister. I mean, look at the entry on Orihime, the most precious flower in the universe:

Her offenses are odious.

In other words, we're not starting out well here, but Ichigo is the one who defeats Aizen, right? And he saves the Soul Society from the Quincy War, right?

Well, you and I know that's true, of course, but if you were writing a history book, think about all the other stuff that was going on. Moving Karakura Town to Soul Society and vice versa! Guarding pillars! The Head Captain releasing his sword! I feel like it would be very easy to fill up a lot of text book space with troop movements and Central 46 debates, and to really gloss over the unflattering fact that Soul Society had to rely on the kindness of some kid that they had no actual control over to save their bacon.

But everyone knew him, right? Surely, people would talk about his deeds, right? Well, maybe. For starters, how many shinigami really do know him? The filler arcs tend to make it seem like Ichigo is pals with most of the captain class, but I think that's pretty exaggerated. Obviously, Renji and Rukia know the whole Karakura gang well. The Advance Team lived in Karakura for a month, except that Ichigo, Uryuu and then Orihime all made themselves scarce during that time, and I'm not even sure how much, say, Captain Hitsugaya got to know Chad. Obviously, Byakuya, Kenpachi, and Yachiru, and Ukitake know Ichigo decently well. Chad taught Shuuhei to play the guitar. Orihime and Rangiku are close. But for most of the other captains/vice-captains, they may know about the events that happened, but only second-hand. And also, how much do the rank-and-file troops socialize with these folks? Also, a ton of shinigami died in the war. Just a metric assload. According to We Do (Knot) Always Love You, half the Gotei was lost and two-thirds of the Academy instructors. There was a huge recruiting and rebuilding effort afterwards, and we see that ten years later, things are starting to get back to normal, but at this point, there's a lot of new people who simply weren't there.

So here's my take on it. I think Ichigo et al's contributions are greatly diminished in the official texts. I think that most of the decisions and actions that were taken was attributed to Yamamoto (or later Kyouraku) and the Central 46 (even when they did nothing). The captains probably get about the right amount of credit. The vice-captains get about 1/10 of the credit they deserve. Kurosaki Ichigo and his pals are a footnote.

That being said, the guys still exists. Most people who serve in Squad 13 have probably seen him walking around and said hi to him and have probably seen him spar with their captain or her husband, likewise Squad 11, and know that this guy is for real and that his power level is horrifying, even when he's just goofing around with his pals. I think he takes on sort of a cryptid state actually: everyone knows he was a real guy who was involved to some degree in the wars, but was he really a human-shinigami-Hollow-Quincy hybrid? Sounds fake to me. Lost son of the banished clan? If you say so. I think there are a ton of Kurosaki Ichigo stories, and some are very real and some are very fake and I think after a few dozen years, it's hard to remember which are which, even for the people who were there. His friends likewise take on slightly legendary status: Orihime, his beautiful and kind lady-love with her otherworldly healing gifts. Chad, his lion-hearted, faithful companion, of unparalleled physical strength. And of course, Uryuu, Ichigo's narrative foil, brought back from the side of evil by their bonds of companionship. It really does have the ring of a folktale, doesn't it?

70 or 80 years from current time, when Ichigo makes the permanent move to Soul Society, I feel like he's going to introduce himself and people will be like "Oh, you must have been named after the Great Hero of Soul Society, eh? There were three Kurosaki Ichigos in my middle school" and Ichigo is just like "yes, that's it exactly."

You mentioned Rukia and Renji, and of course, they are there and exist, with all the concomitant weirdness that shinigami captains who don't hold themselves completely apart from normal people have. Ukitake was thousands of years old, and on one hand, he liked to send everyone he knew cardso on their birthdays, but on the other, I feel like sometimes he would drop some casual allusion to how much work there was during the smallpox epidemic of 735, or perhaps mention one of the dozens of times he had to face down some ultra-powerful opponent who would have collapsed all of reality, except he can't actually remember the guy's name, there have been so many. Renji and Rukia are very very young in comparison, but I feel like they are very much on their way to becoming that guy. They have seen some shit. I think Renji, in particular, will be running a drill and launch into some aside about the time he killed 17 Menos who happened to be standing in a row in the Forest of Menos in the depths of Hueco Mundo, back when he had his worse bankai, anyway, guys, don't line up like that, it makes you vulnerable. Hey, is it lunchtime yet? It's not necessarily that no one believes the stories they tell, it's that the stories they tell are simply unbelievable. Unreconcilable with your daily experience. They're heroes of the Winter War and the Thousand-Year Blood War, because of course there are, but there will surely be more wars and more dimensional collapses and more Valleys of Screams and at some point, they're just Old Shinigami Captains, because that's just what you turn into if you manage to not die enough times.

I think there actually is one accurate account of the Karakura Kids' contributions to Soul Society and that only exists because it is the duty of the Kuchiki to compile and guard the history of Soul Society and Byakuya is autistic enough to want to record the actual truth and not the official version. Rukia and Renji actually wrote down most of it, and then Byakuya translated it into over-flowery, formal academic language, and it sits on a shelf in his library somewhere, gathering dust. In case someone ever wanted to read it.

[teddybasmanov]

So, Jimち ASMR spy storyline as I see it, might be completely wrong though. @wizardpigeon in case you want to take a look.

Obviously spoilers. Mentions of murder, espionage and brainwashing.

I'm going to call the listener Agent A, because that's literally the only designation they got, the CIA guy either John or Agent J and the young KGB senior lieutenant I'm going to call Felix, whether or not it is his real name - I like it. The old KGB colonel I'm going to call Colonel because he's not important.

Alright. Agent A hypnotized/brainwashed by the Colonel into becoming a sleeper agent, however their program seems pretty complicated and vague enough but here's literally what he says in the video: They have to go to Great Britain and join the Royal Air Force, stay there for a while and make connections, then move to Germany, then go to Paris and meet a KGB senior lieutenant (he isn't one yet - he's already a spy though) and receive some kind of information from him (the microfilm? probably). Here it gets even more vague but I presume since their main directive is to kill a CIA agent, they move to the USA. After that they move back, they meet with the KGB lieutenant again, hear the code phrase about Paris, they betray him, he gets arrested, but then they get arrested too, get processed and then "an accident" happens - they get to be free and then "follow the signs". Their code word - the one that makes them remember everything is "auslander" which means "foreigner" or "outsider" in German. It's also said that there's going to be three points in their mission when the word is going to be used. They are also given a radio and camera and a few colour/number codes.

So, it looks like everything went according to plan, until they got to Paris and met Felix and then... they fall in love or at least he does, but by the "we shared wonderful times" I can presume hey both did. Another important detail: either, their "programming" is not that straightforward and they do remember some parts of their real self at some stages of the mission OR this was exactly the part when the word was being said and they remembered, but anyway - Felix knows that they're Soviet and that they speak Russian.

Then - USA - they get the attention of the CIA somehow (another argument for the "programming" being not that simple), Agent J kidnaps them and tries to deprogram them. Here, I'm not sure if it was supposed to be a part of the initial plan to get the CIA invested in them, or if the "deprogramming" actually works. Well, he does get invested and they don't kill him yet at least. Maybe they kill someone else, I don't know.

Agent A moves back to the USSR, they get arrested, they get interrogated by Felix, who recognizes them. This happens somewhere between 1978 and 1981. (More on the historical details here.) Here's a big question if they recognize him and generally how much do they remember at this moment and how much they're acting genuinely/pretending (to not know Russian, for example). By the end of this interrogation, Felix gets an unpleasant phone call - he's arrested. Agent A seems to have forged or just brought up some papers on him. He says "enjoy your regalia, when they come for you" and "they" do come for them - because it's also part of the plan.

Here where it gets weirder, because "Four Men in the Park" is really vague, so a lot of it is guesses and wishful thinking. It happens on the 19th of May 1982 - this can be deduced exactly by the paper they're reading. It definitely happens after the CIA deprogramming part, because John doesn't work for the CIA anymore for a few a years already. He's a reading a book "The Outsider" by Albert Camus. He's there to avenge someone who got sold out to the soviets. I choose to believe that it's Agent A - that John knows that after coming back to the USSR they got arrested and disappeared. He obviously doesn't know they were let go and that it was all part of their mission. Another argument for this version is that during their mission they worked both with the British AND German intelligence and we've got exactly a British and a German agent here (the Israeli guy is just kind of there). I rewatched the last shooting/action sequence several times in half-speed and I'm pretty sure the one who survives and points the gun at John at the very end is the German agent from Stasi - it would also make sense for him to say "auslander" since it's a German word and John is a foreigner (both as in "a foreigner in England" and "a foreigner to the German person"). The thing that is the most unclear is this:

I yet again choose to believe that the listener here is Agent A. What are they doing there is a question though. I have two* versions:

Either, they ran off (as a part of the mission), followed the signs given to them with their little radio and they're still in programming mode. So, when the Stasi agent - a fellow communist (who might at least be let into some the details of the mission) - says their code word the mission kicks in and... I don't know, probably they kill john. OR, I put too much meaning into the details in the interrogation video and "Four Men in the Park" actually happens before it, so they fulfil their mission (kill John) and only then return to the USSR and get arrested etc.

(*That's a lie - I have third version that their program is fulfilled and doesn't affect them anymore and that they're in Britain with Felix of their own volition.)

That's kind of it with the facts, here are a few pretty meaningless thoughts, mostly about Felix.

I think Agent A is older than him, because when they meet in Paris they were already a full Agent, served in the Air Force etc. and he was still studying.

I chose to believe that he was, if not still in love with them, definitely harbouring some feelings for them even after all these years.

I really want A to remember him during the interrogation because it just makes the whole thing so much more dramatic. In my head they definitely gently stopped him by the shoulder and whispered that they're going to get him out of prison as soon as they get out of there themselves, and that while it's all for the mission they're still very sorry.

I obviously like to imagine that kept their word and actually rescued him somehow and that their meeting was very much "I don't regret anything because it was for the greater good but I understand if you hate me now - you have all the reasons".

Nobody talk to me (/j) for the next three business days, I'm going to be imaging romantic Paris scenes between Agent A and Felix, that are very sweet in the moment and very sad in retrospective.

I wouldn't be me if I didn't also create a small playlist (here are explanations for most songs).

[prolifeproliberty]

You’re going to start seeing stories like this for your area. They’re running the same freaking narrative they did last year.

Things you need to know:

- ICU bed numbers are not fixed. Hospitals move beds and equipment around to meet their needs.

- Most importantly, hospitals want to be as close to capacity as possible at all times. If beds are empty, the hospital is wasting resources and missing out on potential revenue.

This means that in normal, pre-pandemic times ICU beds might be 95-98% full. Not because there’s a lot of very sick people, but because the hospital is trying to use their resources as efficiently as possible.

They make decisions about resource allocation based on historical data for different times of the year. Hospitals get more injuries during the summer and allocate their resources to be prepared for those patients.

Last year they ran these same stories, and we found out that hospitals could simply create more ICU beds when needed by moving equipment around.

COVID hospitalizations and deaths are DOWN from where they were last year because:

- Many people have immunity from recovering from COVID last year.

- The vaccine may be preventing people from getting severe symptoms (especially for older, more at risk people)

- We now know about other preventative measures and therapeutics for those who do get sick.

- Changes in how COVID cases are diagnosed may mean that people who would have been counted as COVID patients last year are now being diagnosed with pneumonia or other illnesses.

And yet, they will still run headlines that make it sound like we’re right back where we were in April of 2020.

Pay attention to headlines and narratives that focus on percentages (98% of ICU beds are full, 97% of hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated, etc) without giving you the raw data in context.

For instance, they say “97% of hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated” without showing you the graph of how far down hospitalizations are. The actual total number of sick people is way down, but they want you to be scared anyway.

Also, the article briefly mentions a nurse shortage that appears to have nothing to do with COVID and probably has more to do with the general labor shortages hitting many industries. If you don’t have to work long difficult overnight shifts where you’re on your feet for hours on end, would you do it anyway? Some would, some would rather take government benefits or rely on a spouse’s income and stay home. Not to mention that many nurses may have quit or been suspended/fired if their employers tried to force them to get vaccinated when they didn’t want to.

But the article doesn’t give you any of that. They just say the hospitals are overwhelmed and then briefly mention the most significant detail, the nursing shortage, as if it was incidental.

tl;dr: the media is still lying to you by twisting data and using framing to make things seem worse than they are. If you didn’t learn media literacy in 2020, it’s time to get on that before they try to do it all over again.

[verloonati]

VNA #46 Just War, Lance Parkin, 1996

As a rule i detest Nazi uchronies, they are the most unimaginative form of time travel fiction, and almost always rely on using the nazis as pop villains rather than an actual political and militaristic force that commited genocide and expansion wars in the most bloody conflict in human history. Just War is also the second nazi uchrony of the Virgin range. At least, the element responsible for the different course of history is genuinely interesting. The doctor making an oopsie and fucking up history is interesting and the way the doctor is written is interesting enough altough Parkin doesn't seem decided between the manipulative streak of the seventh doctor and the most empathetic, genuinely upset by his action contemplative streak he had since the also people.

Just War is filled with violence whose historical implications put it from tasteless to genuinely upsetting, both because Benny spend most of the book getting tortured by nazis in great detail, or by how companions killing people, including a 17 year old soldier is barely even adressed, and the doctor "suiciding" a guy. Roz doesn't get a break and as usual her b plot is to deal with racism, she gets engaged with a fetishist that proposes after they fucked one time.

Perkin tries to adress how great britain is itself one of the most brutal empires of human history, and that the war wasn't a great moral endeavor of good versus evil but an affair of geopolitics regarding the invasion of an allied power. He fails in this that every sympathetic side character is british or french, and the nazis are of course one dimensionnal. Still, he tries to explain how "from the fascist perspective they are the good guys" by having a very large number of moral arguments on fascism between the main antagonist Steinmann and the doctor.

Since this is doctor who, and the book is dealing with very raw, very real kind of violence, it comes of as gratuitous and utterly tone deaf, because the horrors being discussed aren't removed at all by the layer of fiction. he tries to use the silly time space adventures show to deal with the horrors of world war II. And well it's one thing to argue and depict what societal violence looks like in the form of allegory, it is another entirely to just... depicts it.

3/10 i can see why it is regarded as a classic of the range, it IS very well written, but it's content takes none of the care the issues it depicts demand.

Since i've started reading trough the vna again, here's my opinion about each and every one of them because it's my blog and i do what i want with it

VNA #1 Timewyrm: genesys (1991, John Peel)

Okay, this book is bad, like it's a disaster. The idea of "dr who meets gilgamesh" is pretty good on paper, but damn does this miss the mark at every term.

Every single scene with ace is gross mysoginistic mischaracterisation, Gilgamesh is insufferable, Ishtar is a completely uninteresting antagonist and her motives are cliché af.

At the very least, the stranded Anuans are an interesting twist and the introduction of avram makes for an interesting Change of Pace.

2/10, that was Five hours of my life i'm never getting back

[epicstuckyficrecs]

Weekly Recap October 11th-17th

MARVEL TRUMPS HATE AUCTION WEEK IS LIVE! I'm offering two different auctions this year 😃 

- #1106: typesetting for the fic of your choice! INCLUDING A PHYSICAL COPY OF THE BOOK! Bidding is tiered, so 50$ for 50K, 60$ for 60K, etc. up to a 100K max!

- #2045: one fic cover/banner for the fic of your choice!

You can find the full details for both my auctions here!

Complete

💙  The Bargain by GoodbyeBlues/ @goodbyeblues-ao3​ (Historical AU, Marriage of convenience | 20K | Mature): Forced to wed to keep his inheritance, Steve finds himself married to a handsome but gravely wounded soldier. There are a number of issues surrounding this arrangement, but the most prominent one is also the most unexpected of all: Steve's dying husband is no longer dying.

💙  Take You for a Ride (On my Garbage Truck) by GoodbyeBlues/ @goodbyeblues-ao3​ (Modern AU | 20K | Teen): Despite how it often looks, dramatic millennial Bucky Barnes is not actually homeless. He's just really, really bad at flirting.

💙  The Taming of the Brew by GoodbyeBlues/ @goodbyeblues-ao3​ (Coffeeshop AU, Magic Bucky | 18K | Mature): When overworked nurse Steve Rogers sets out to get a simple cup of coffee, he somehow finds himself in a curious little shop owned by a captivating, yet slightly confusing young man. Steve soon discovers that his life begins to change for the better when he becomes a frequent customer, but that's got to be because of the delicious beverages, and absolutely not because of... anything else. It couldn't possibly have to do with the beautiful man behind the counter, who whispers secret words into cups of coffee and seems to know Steve better than he knows himself. ...Right?

Number Twenty by plutosrose/ @plutosrose​ (What's Your Number AU | 13K | Explicit): After finding a magazine on the subway that says that omegas who have more than 20 sexual partners have a 4% chance of getting married, Bucky becomes determined to find out if one of his exes was secretly The One. There's definitely, absolutely zero chance he'll fall in love with the hot alpha who lives across the hall.

The Irony of Fate by janedarling/ @anonymousjane (Canon adjacent | 11K | Explicit): Bucky had been curled up at one end of the couch when Steve got home on Tuesday, buried up to his collarbone in a purple flannel quilt Clint had recommended as "the coziest shit ever, you have to get one of these" and so absorbed by The Obelisk Gate that he barely said hi. Steve had simultaneously wanted to crawl under the quilt to suck his cock and bring him a cup of tea. He'd landed on tea, but now he's regretting it. Bucky had been so warm and soft, and Steve could have slid up under the quilt, spread his legs and settled down in between them. Maybe Bucky even would have kept reading a bit, and Steve would have had to work at it a little to distract him, do his best to get Bucky's attention with just his hands and his mouth— “Have you tried talking to him, or are you just thinking about sex all the time?" Sam asks.

Not Technically A Bromance by dontcallmebree/ @iamthe-wo-manwhocan​ (Canon adjacent | 2,5K | Mature): “A bromance?” Bruce asks, voice tinged with restrained laughter. “Yeah, we have one of those.” Steve glowers at Bruce, who’s patently laughing at him, eyes bright and twinkling with mirth. Bruce composes himself, biting at his bottom lip. “And you’ve had sex how many times?”

WIP

A Tapestry of Two by BlueSimplicity/ @bluesimplicity73 (Post-Winter Soldier, Mute Bucky | 4/? | 23K | Explicit): Ever since DC, things haven’t been easy for Bucky Barnes. HYDRA stole everything from him, even his voice, and two months later he’s barely surviving as he struggles to pull the few scraps of himself left into a cohesive whole. Until he gets his hands on a blanket and everything changes. Fascinated by its color and softness, he begins a journey he never would have imagined. Taken in by a stranger who teaches him to knit, Bucky slowly discovers he is so much more than a dropped stitch in the fabric of life. With time, patience, and the help of a few who have had their eyes on him for a long time, Bucky begins to turn himself into something stronger, softer and more beautiful than before, weaving a tapestry of friendship, laughter and love warm enough to embrace the entire world, fix old wrongs, and wrap around the only other person who never stopped believing in him.

💙  Read, White & Blue by JJK/ @trenchcoatsandtimetravel (Shrunkyclunks, Librarian Bucky | 4/16 | 18K | Teen): If Steve was certain one thing would have stayed the same during his sixty-something years in the ice, it was that libraries were still the place to go if you needed information. And Steve needed information. Lots and lots of it. aka Librarian Bucky helps freshly desfrosted Steve learn how to use computers and catch up on everything he missed whilst he was in the ice.

💙  What Once Was Mine (A New and Improved Guide to Project Rebirth by Steven G. Rogers) by dontcallmebree/ @iamthe-wo-manwhocan​ , kocuria-visuals (kocuria)/ @kocuria​ (Canon divergent, Post-TFA | 1/2 | 13K | Mature): Fresh out of the ice with no recollection of his past, Steve Rogers strikes out on his own and tries to cobble together a life worthy of the clean slate he’s been given.

[raposarealm]

Magitober 2022 Catch-up #2

Look, I’m doing my best here, it’s not my fault psych meds knock you out cold better than an old grandmother with a rolling pin.

Anyways, I scanned these as well, and tried to crop them best I could. A number of these are just concept sketches, ‘cause if I actually tried give them justice, we’d be here until next year.

I’m skipping past Day 6, because I didn’t even finish the concepts for these. I’ll be posting the finished items in December instead, to coincide with a different celebration. If I can get them done in time, that is. Moving on!

Day 7 - Favourite event

So, my favorite event is actually Beachside Bonds, but since it seems like a number of other folks also chose that event, I went with my second favorite event instead: Otsukimi is After an Elegant Tea Party. This is only the rough scene layout, showing the track behind Mizuna Girl’s School, with the figure in the foreground standing in for Yukika, the event’s main character. Eventually I’ll get around to drawing the scene in its entirety, but not today.

Day 8 - Historical magical girl

I double-checked earlier that historically-themed magical girls could be used for this prompt, ‘cause a) I didn’t want to draw Tart characters twice, and b) I didn’t want to draw Tsuyu or Chizuru, their designs are so damned complex. I do love the Tokime, though, so I picked one of the units I don’t actually have, Ryoko. She doesn’t look feisty enough here, though, I feel. Whoops.

(Skipping Day 9, ‘Create a Doppel’, because I don’t have the slightest clue how to go about doing that.)

Day 10 - Oriko Magica

Oriko’s hat looks like a bucket to me, so have Oriko’s true final form: Oribucket! Yes, I’m very funny. 

Fun fact! That’s the first time I’ve drawn Oriko.

Day 11 - Favourite non-magical girl

Yes, it’s Tasuke, big surprise. I guess I’m fond of that exact brand of very tired dad who ends up involved with a larger cause that their kid also ends up a part of. (Points if you can guess any other characters that fall into that description!)

Anywho, earlier I joked in the Discord about a playable unit, except it’s just Tasuke throwing something ‘cause he doesn’t have a weapon exactly. I wanna do an actual fake card art at some point for this, because it’s too funny to me. So have these sketches in the meantime.

Day 12 - Create an Alt

Another one I mentioned (and actually uploaded) on Discord, but here we have Seika, Sailor version! There’s lots of small notes on this one explaining the specific details, but in a broader sense, I modeled her altered design here off of old-time sailors, specifically those found around the Aran Islands, which are shown with the cabled sweater mostly hidden beneath the overcoat (whoops!), and the scarf in aptly named “fisherman’s rib”. Her weapon is a modified belaying pin, which are used to hold down rigging to the ship’s sides. I’ll have to work on its design a bit, but I do plan once again to do a better drawing of this at some point, ‘cause a number of y’all in the Discord seemed to like it.

That’s all I’ve got strictly finished for now. I’m going to keep chugging away at the prompts, but I’ve got the feeling that my entries are going to extend well into November. 

[absynthe--minded]

Okay, because clearly Amazon is doing a crap job, what if the fans made their own show?

We’ve got a large enough fandom to fundraise(I think). We’ve already proven we can make amazing fan films(see Born of Hope). We’ve got cosplayers to make costumes, fanfic writers to write scripts, language experts, etc.

And I bet we can do way better than Amazon.

so I guess I have to talk about Prelude to Axanar and Storm Over Gondolin, huh?

the Tolkien Estate has historically looked the other way on fan films... so long as those fan films are small-scale and low-budget. Born of Hope and The Hunt for Gollum both qualify here - they were labors of love, and even had decent production values, but they don't try and compete with the licensed (aka "moneymaking") properties directly, they focus on different aspects and stories. they do not, however, take kindly to large-scale fan film efforts (or at least they didn't when Christopher Tolkien was still alive)

the biggest and most notorious example of this was Storm Over Gondolin, a fan film being developed in the early 2010s that had some serious preproduction going on before being delivered a cease and desist. nobody at the time really understood why Chris decided to shut this down, since it was entirely noncommercial and entirely fanmade, but it couldn't continue. I was only on the fringes of this, so I don't know all the details, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was just so big that it stopped looking like a fan film and started looking like a low-budget indie movie. and even if the climate is warmer now under Priscilla, I'm not actually sure what would happen if we tried a fan series, because of...

... Prelude to Axanar, a Star Trek fan film that had a truly massive-for-fan-film budget and very good fanmade special effects. now Star Trek, unlike the Legendarium, has a substantial fan film scene and has had multiple long-term fan series and projects, including feature-length stories that bring back actors from the shows to reprise their roles. For a long, long time, CBS/Viacom ignored this and tacitly encouraged it, so long as there wasn't money being made - there were even sequel series to TOS being made and released on YouTube with sets and special effects comparable to the series proper. PtA seemed to signal a regime change, though, because it was so big and so professional-looking that it posed a threat to the brand. As a result, CBS introduced some stringent requirements for fan films, including a length limit, a disclaimer acknowledging CBS's ownership of Star Trek and the fan film status of the project, and rules about the content. This killed the Trek fan film scene dead, and forced some in-production stuff (like Renegades) to change to serial-numbers-filed-off original fiction.

In the wake of PtA, I genuinely don't know what Amazon et al will do. The only way I could see this genuinely working is if it was entirely made and produced in Russia, or other Eastern European countries that have a different relationship with copyright law than America. If you were ever wondering why Russia gets so many very cool Tolkien fan musicals and fan musicians, and why Russian fanfic can get published and sold, that's why - they can basically do whatever they want. Of course, that is an option, but is it one we want to pursue in the name of making an accurate series? I'd say yes, but I'm not sure if it's feasible. Unfortunately. I'd love to move to Russia and do nothing but make Tolkien fan films.