#historical viewpoints

[theorahsart]

Incorruptible pt 32

If you didn't know where the terms 'left wing' and 'right wing' come from...now you know! Also, can you spot the Robespierres in these pages? lol

[annajewelsphotography]

Parish of Our Lady of Sorrows in Barro - Spain ((by Anna Jewels (@earthpeek))

https://www.instagram.com/earthpeek/

[besteurope]

Dubrovnik - Croatia (by Luca Sartoni)

[jilted-love]

Majority of ORV fandom doesn't care enough about how its anti Japanese colonialism got blatantly censored in the webtoon and the e-book. Yamamoto Hajime's constellation was called "Korean Empire Invader" and his stigma was "colonization". ORV webtoon and e-book changed the constellation and the stigma was called "phantom encampment". Like what the actual fuck. ORV is a story where its universe can weaponize words. WORDS MATTER IN ORV. The fact that Japan was spared from their colonizer history because of blatant censorship for those few words should anger the fandom more. It's disgusting how criticism of Japanese history always gets censored in Asian fandoms, my Filipino ass is ashamed.

[silvathemagicalgirl]

*slams fist on table* SOLO LEVELING AND TOWER OF GOD WERE BOTH ANNOUNCED WITH MANHWA-ONLY TRAILERS

THE LACK OF ANIMATION OR A STUDIO ANNOUNCEMENT DOES NOT MEAN THE ORV ANIME WILL BE BAD.

Crunchyroll has also been historically consistent with Webtoon translations, even if the anime does things like change names or the title. (TOG went with Bam over Yoru, CR called it Doctor Elise: The Royal Lady with the with the Lamp over the Japanese title being Surgeon Elise in English, etc.) Hence the lack of Viewpoint. Dumb...yes. But it's a consistency thing. Blame Webtoon if anyone.

None of this is new, and says absolutely nothing about the quality of the anime we'll get. It just means they don't have anything to show us at this point other than confirm it's happening.

[tortoisesshells]

if you were in control of a dark shadows adaption (or, hypothetically, could alter the original; whichever you find more interesting to think about!) what does your ideal version of 1795 look like? are there things you would change? things you’d want to keep?

Let me preface this by saying I do genuinely like or appreciate a lot of the 1795 arc! When it's at its best, it's a tragedy born out of hubris and the terrible things we'll do for the people we love (or the terrible things we'll do to hold on to love. or the problem of love without respect). I'm up to episode 741, and the confrontation between Joshua and Barnabas over the latter's coffin is still one of the best scenes in the show, for my money. That said; Broadly speaking, most of my problems with 1795 either have to do with characterization, or with historical context: that DS's unwillingness to delve into historical realities undercuts its ability to talk about monsters, and that it completely mishandles Vicki to the point of functionally ruining the nominal main character (who, to be fair, was already being pushed out).

Historical Context: DS loves the past, conceptually, but it really doesn't deal in historical conditions, and that's on full display in 1795 - witchcraft trials? zippers? claiming a house built in the early 20th century, with the attendant architectural style, was actually built in the years leading up to 1795? okay. I forgive that, because we do live, narratively, in a world with witches and vampires and curses and passenger rail service north of Portland, ME after 1965 - and in a make-believe world where the costumes are as good as a budget of a crisp single and a pb&j can make 'em. I say this mostly lovingly: DS simply is not the kind of show that cares about historical plausibility, let alone accuracy. Plus, Reverend Trask was great, and on the basis of giving Jerry Lacy scenery to chew on, the witchcraft trial plotline is excused.

More seriously and damningly, I do think it's a glaring omission on a show being made and aired in the late 1960s to have three characters said to be from the (fictional) wealthiest family of planters and enslavers on Martinique and have that go unexamined and unpacked, especially when commentary on class in Collinsport has been a constant undercurrent (sometimes more of an under-trickle, or under-vague-breeze) since episode one - and because Joshua Collins is very explicit about how beneficial the connection between the two families will be for the Collinses, who always need cargo for their ships. [Since David Ford's here, you'll forgive the reference to 1776: "Molasses to Rum" playing vaguely in the background] But that's the problem with Post-Barnabas DS. Since there's a Collins running around befanged and literally drinking the blood of others, the show's lost interest in discussing how, exactly, the Collinses became wealthy and powerful, beyond the odd occasional reference to the fishing fleet and cannery or, in 1795, the shipyards. We've got a real vampire, what do we need all that metaphorical monstrosity and class/race/gender analysis for?

As a choice the show's made, I think it fundamentally undercuts one of the show's most reliable and interesting points of commentary: how charming and human some monsters are, or that humanity and monstrosity are not entirely mutually exclusive conditions.

also speaking of monstrosity. the show excuses Barnabas for so much outright evil because he preys on sex workers, primarily, and other assorted poor men and women of Collinsport, who the show ... doesn't really see as people. but that's a separate but not unrelated rant.

Characterization: really, this is about Vicki. So much of what I dislike about 1795 has to do with Vicki's characterization changing for the worse (granted, I think this problem starts much earlier, but see digression a below) once she hits the ground in 1795, AND that the 1795 arc continuously insulates her from the important parts of DS's narrative. If the whole point of Vicki landing in the past was to explain how it all began (whether that's Barnabas's vampirism, or the opening of the great house at Collinwood - Sarah's ghostly goals are unclear here), she's party to neither: Vicki spends very little time in Collinwood, and is kept completely apart from even a hint of knowledge that Barnabas is a vampire. In effect: Vicki, as nominal main character, gets sent into the past, but not as a character - she's just a windowpane, or a magic mirror as far as her importance to the narrative goes. Which is unfortunate for her, because as a character taking up space, she's given screen-time without agency, intelligence, or inner life. The only change that being dragged by her puppet strings through 1795 effects in Vicki Winters is a rope-burn from a failed hanging, an infected gunshot wound, and a I-wish-he-were-more-permanently-dead rebound boyfriend whose response to Vicki panicking about being hanged was to slap her for being hysterical.

Forgive me for being unimpressed.

As far as fixing it goes - there's where I've been striking out. She's fatally passive in 1795 as written. Why doesn't Vicki try to figure out how to get back to her present? (and if she doesn't, perhaps ... gesture at why Vicki might feel like there's not a lot to return to in the present? She nearly jumped from Widows' Hill about 10 episodes before 1795 started.) Why does Vicki persist in making herself suspicious, when she was introduced as a character hampered more by inexperience than true ignorance? In the idea 1795 that lives in my head, why wouldn't Vicki try to figure out who the real witch was, because - given her experiences with the supernatural! - surely a witch might be any help in getting her out of the 18th century and back into the present? End of day, she needs a real plot which doesn't end with her in prison unconnected to the Collinses. Whether that's searching for an escape hatch back to the Swinging Sixties, or Sarah's ghost giving her clear instructions - some kind of a goal! - Vicki either shouldn't exist in 1795 (recycle Moltke as another Collins sibling? that would add a wrinkle to the question of Vicki's antecedents) or she has to be given something to do.

&, finally ...

Digression A: In fairness to the 1795 arc, I think the arc was only following a pattern of characterization and plot involvement that started with Barnabas's arrival: first, that Vicki initially wasn't really involved in the Barnabas plot because she was more involved with the Liz & Jason plot, and, unfortunately for Vicki, everyone still talks about Barnabas, where no one (alas for Patrick and Bennett!) talks up the blackmail thing; second, I think, that the one-two punch of the definitive end of the era of metaphorical monsters & the Burke recast meant that a lot of the dramatic tension that Vicki was carrying either got dismissed or dissipated. We're not playing Jane Eyre any more, we're doing Dracula: Vicki's relationship with Roger and David no longer bears any dramatic weight. We've completely sidelined the question of Vicki's origins, so whether or not Liz is her mother doesn't matter (and the revelation and dismissal of Liz's not-actually-monstrous conduct sort of defangs that relationship, too? oh, Liz isn't actually a murderer? so mother or not, there's no strain on her relationship with the conspicuously virtuous Vicki.). Burke's no longer threatening to burn down Collinsport for revenge, and all of his various relationships with the Collinses or Collinsport denizens have gotten abruptly normalized, so there's no tension to his relationship with Vicki any more: he's rich (don't ask where the money came from), he's in love with her, and now he's chummy with all her friends/stand-in family members. He doesn't even have conversations that are totally just about pens or guns with Roger, for god's sake. The show kicked out all the pillars Victoria Winters as a character had been built on, and it only gets worse after 1795. No wonder Moltke left.

[deermouth]

im going to lose my fucking mind

[ayasenisan1713]

Guys, I have an idea for you if you’re bored.

So, who wants to reread orv and list all the philosophical things appearing in the novel for us here~?

(Like the ship of thesus or something, etc…)

[harminder]

🏛️ One of the many views of the Roman Forum 🇮🇹

[voluptuarian]

You know, very rarely do I run into accounts of historical cannibalism that are completely new to me. But I did today and I'm frankly completely taken aback by this

Fro the article: "The Guangxi Massacre comprised a series of lynchings and massacres in the Chinese province of Guangxi between 1967 and 1968, during the Cultural Revolution. The official record shows an estimated death toll between 100,000 and 150,000. Methods of murder included beheading, beating, live burial, stoning, drowning, boiling, and disemboweling. In specific areas, including Wuxuan County and Wuming, Nanning, hundreds of incidents of human cannibalism occurred—even though no famine conditions existed. According to records that have been made public, at least 137 people were eaten, with thousands of people having participated in the cannibalism... In 1993, The New York Times stated that the incidents reported from Guangxi were apparently the most extensive episodes of cannibalism in the world in the last century or more. They were also different from any others in that those who took part were not motivated by hunger or psychopathic illness. Instead, the actions appeared to be ideological: the cannibalism, which the documents say took place in public, was often organized by local Communist Party officials, and people apparently took part together to prove their revolutionary ardor."

[unexpectedgeese]

Fate is already decided, is the thing. The giants of Gigantomachia have already lost. Secretive Plotter has already lost everything. 999th YJH has already died. Orpheus has already killed his father. And there is no undoing any of that; The stories that unfold on the page are immutable. These people have wounds, and they can’t be healed.

The Star Stream is a system built for tragedy. Again and again incarnations have thrown themselves at impossible dreams of a happy ending; and every time they die for it. There are hundreds of regressions, thousands of victims, a million stories unfolding— Every last one a tragedy.

Is there meaning in a story with a fixed end? The incarnations write their own downfalls, bound into tragedy by an impassive system. Yoo Joonghyuk dies again and again, eventually succumbing to overwhelming despair.

You cannot change the past. You can’t rewrite a story that’s already been written.

You can read it, though. And that’s the point— the entire point of a story is to be read. To read a story is to understand, to love, to pick through a lifetime of suffering and find the good in it; To take that story with you when you write your own.

And what then? What if every story is meant for one reader? What if that reader writes their own story in turn, influenced by their predecessors, bringing those scavenged bits of hope along?

If every story is told and listened to, every failure a building block of some unseen future, are we still writing a tragedy? When that original story is  built on, bookmarked and dog-eared and woven into a final epilogue, is it still a record of hopelessness— or is it a way to survive?

Every story has a flaw. This means that every story can be completed. If reader, writer, and protagonist all band together and just try to reach the ending— 10 times, 100 times, 1000 times, each one compounding on the next— What will happen?

These people can’t be healed. But they can be saved. You cannot change the past, but you can change the future. You cannot rewrite a story, but you can give it an epilogue.

We are not reincarnators, or regressors, or returnees. But if we tell our stories, isn’t it a similar thing?

[ileftherbackhome]

i think a lot about how the only people in america who were supporting amber heard in 2022 were black people and terfs for the most part. like i didnt know there was a famous ass bitch called jessica something who was a terf because my tweets about amber heard earned me a following on twitter from this person and i think we interacted a couple of times publically but never to the point where i knew she was a terf until i watched a youtube video last year about terfs today and she was brought up.

and on tiktok, i followed several black creators (they were autistic too for the most part which is very interesting to me) who supported amber heard that i was so grateful for at the time to see because it truly felt so grounding to see normal people speak out publically in support of amber at that time.

and i do think it's extremely telling that black young people were once again the only normal group of human beings during a big Societal Defining Event and it saddens me that they are harrassed and bullied for it only to end up on the right side of history every time.

like im thinking a lot about the public media response to amber heard and how it plays out within our demographics.

and this is before you even get to the fact that johnny depp's lawyer has literal ties to the russian bot misinformation operation. Like actual documented ties.

before we even talk about how in 2016, when all of this went down, incels were shitting on amber and calling her a golddigger and there was a huge overlap between the alt right accounts on tumblr supporting trump and hating amber heard. like these accounts, if they still exist, can be studied to show that amber heard hatred originated within the incel alt right communities.

and this is before we start talking about how mewing and like other literal incel racist ideology is super popular on tiktok now and tiktok was central to ben shapiro spending thousands of dollars on anti amber heard bot accounts.

like babe what the fuck why dont we talk about this more.

[rabbitcruiser]

Robert Gray commanded the first expedition to sail into the Columbia River on May 11, 1792.

[teddybasmanov]

Alright, I'm saying it in plain text: I miss Adam. He was so simple! His whole mindset was "tasty + fun to torture = want". No bigger plans, no manipulation, not a thought behind those red eyes. I want the simplicity back - I am tired (yet again, because of course we've already talked about this) of the bigger or more complicated problems.

[mikansei]

the frustrating part of writing a canonical genius is that i myself am not a genius, and to make some of kisuke's science-speak believable i find myself stumbling thru wikipedia articles on particle physics like a bull in a china shop

the fun part of writing a canonical genius is that technically i can make kisuke say little bastard words like "dark matter and dark energy are just reishi and reiryoku" anyway, b/c bleach worldbuilding is like 'whose line': the magic's made up so the physics don't matter

[witchee1014]

Freedom of Thought: The Case Against Banning Books

Banning books limits our intellectual freedom and stifles our growth as individuals. In this blog post, we explore the harmful effects of book banning, from the slippery slope of censorship to the impact on education and the creative freedom of authors an

Hello there, fellow book lovers! Today, I want to talk about a topic near and dear to our hearts: intellectual freedom. As readers, we know how powerful books can be in shaping our ideas and understanding of the world. They expose us to new perspectives, challenge our assumptions, and help us grow as individuals. But what happens when some people decide that certain books are too dangerous or…