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uniquejellyfishqueen · 2 months ago

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CHAPTER 1:

I want to tell you a story, it’s a story I have been writing for 14 years and it has never been finished, or good enough to tell to other people. Well as I have taken a step away from the world and placed my focus solely on myself for once I have found that a work in progress is exactly where I need to be. If I were a finished work then it would be over, and there is still more chapters to come. It is long, morally fucked up with morbid humor, but it is truly unapologetically me. I no longer feel bad for any of the “explorative” decisions I made during this long period of my life. What is it going to change, nothing, nothing at all. So I am done letting the comments that were made to me in the past affect my future self any longer. The one thing I might apologize for is the exact dates, but those are irrelevant to the story itself.

So for now I give you a part of the rough draft that is my life. Also this draft of this whole story is also very very rough, but I was on the point of exploding if it did not get out of my head. More to come I’m sure.

*there are name changes FYI

Once upon a time, I peaked at 17. Not in the way fictional characters are portrayed, I literally hit the peak of womanhood at 17. And started the climb at 14, or at least that is when I slowly started the ascension into becoming a tortured poet/imprisoned writer. When I got to high school I remember immediately hitting it off with guy friends too, but I have always been that way, its a shame that we now live in a world where you don’t want a woman to be friendly with men, almost like you would prefer them to live in fear, huh? Anyways, with that being said guys and girls can just be friends. In my case it’s a little different, so when you’re 14-16 ish years old and a girl it fucking blows, don’t let people lie to you. Yes it is the time of your life, but there are so many lessons you do not see hidden there in plain sight. This is the time when a girl listens to what people say around her even if it isn’t friendly advice, or when they rebel against their family’s decisions (don’t lie you all snuck out at one point or another.) with that being said I had feelings for more than one boy at one time when I was a freshman. One boy, *Bryan was the football stud, and the other *Mark was the hockey player who was also a drummer. As I write this I see that my type was as vast as my genres of music I listen to on the regular. Believe me when I tell you this, I was a curious young woman that I knew well enough that I was sticking my hand in too many cookie jars because I singled out two boys out of the list of more than two names, which is something I saw a lot of in the way that I was raised. I saw my mom go through men like they were new underwear (to each their own, but not a good example to set.) This is no excuse for my actions freshman year but it’s honestly not my fault at all that I have a heart big enough to hold feelings for so many people, I had a lot of love to give away because all I wanted in return was to feel loved in return.

This stems from daddy issues honestly. I’ve started telling my daughter that her grandpa is out fighting bad guys and thats why mommy doesn’t know where he is, its helped me heal a bit to create a narrative where he did want me and it wasn’t true when my mom told me that he left when she wouldn’t abort me.

Freshman year homecoming was kinda fair game, so not the right choice of words at all, but it makes sense. Yes I went with the Bryan & got back together with him right at the end of the dance, half kissed Mark- we both missed, and then snuck out to a party with neither of them and met someone else. The only good decision I made that day was the color of my dress, my goodness. I would love to actually clarify for once that I did not have sex with Little Red in the tent at the party I snuck out to with *Laura. This is also a good time to give everyone a reminder on the dangers of drinking and driving because Laura’s boyfriend was smashed that night. The shituation that happened in that tent was that I was a 110# girl and tipsy on beer, on my period wearing a pad, and Little Red got handsy down there without permission and out came a bloody hand. By the next morning before I even woke up I had messages (was it still MySpace, or was FB here yet… who knows.) the important thing is that I hurt the two boys who I did have feelings for because I gave into peer pressure because I thought I needed to to be cool. You know what I bet Mark and Bryan were doing after homecoming? They were probably playing video games or something that probably seemed lame but would have actually been the better choice. Like I said being a young teenage girl with no sense of direction is a terrible time to be alive. I was grounded for sneaking out of Lauras house, how did our parents find out? Because they hacked into my social media to read my messages to see what I was doing and who I was with. I would like to think that it was only hacked that one time, but I should know better than to assume. This is where things take a turn. My mom told me that I should write letters of apology to the boys I hurt. Based solely off of memory from writing those letters I think the spicy booktok writers might have been proud of me for writing nearly identical letters to those guys. But I remember it was received that way, it was taken as the opposite of a compliment. Looking back on my younger self I see a young girl who had feelings for two boys and was honest in the best way she knew how to be. Aside from cards and little notes here and there I have since stayed away from letter writing, it burns.

Prior to starting freshman year of high school I went to a local Catholic school. I was given a talk the summer before 9th grade started my grandpa was very firm when he told me “if you get pregnant no more sports, you’ll get a job and you’ll graduate and you’ll be a mom.” That seems very normal, or at least I thought it was. Now at this point I had not tapped into my hormonal urges yet. But when I did it was at 14, and well it was memorable in itself because it was my first time. But I will also never be able to forget his grandma offering me a cookie right after we just did the deed for the first time.

After that “first” time my privacy was violated. Not by the boy but by my mom. We were on the way home from a basketball game she was driving, she did the normal mom routine “anything you want to tell me?” She didn’t give me much time to respond as she pulled out a note from a friend of mine where we discussed me losing my virginity. My mom stopped the car in the middle of a back road in our town near the local pizza joint and told me to get out of it so she could hit me, when I laughed she was serious and told that she meant it.

My privacy was violated bad enough from that one time that I stopped keeping a journal, I stopped writing things that could be used against me. But in doing so I became my worst enemy because I took away my only weapon. The even more odd part of this is that when we got home that night she took my phone away for having sex. This still makes no sense to me.. but the worst part was when they tried to limit the music I listened to because they felt that it was influencing me to be a horny teenager. No that is just the way bodies work.

But with all of those punishments no actual lessons were taught. I was not taught how to track my cycle, I was not taught about missed periods, or that for some women you do get pregnancy symptoms right away. I was given birth control pills and denied the HPV vaccine because “I chose to be sexually active.” Yet again not sure that is the way the world of Medicine is supposed to go but here we are.

The whole birth control industry as a whole needs reevaluated or just removed entirely, it is harming young girls too early, not to mention parents see the new laws and think, “Ok she’s 15 we should put her on birth control because if not she would be forced to have a baby.” This is the world we are living in today, by creating fear you are risking lives of women. By putting laws into place forcing GIRLS to become WOMEN before their bodies are ready for that decision is actually cruel and unusual punishment, from laws that were governed long before us. And we are not like them, we are not like that time.

By the time I turned 16 I had learned to flirt in the way a girl does in 2009, surprisingly I would be 10x more awkward now if I attempted to flirt. But this is where it all gets juicy. Going to a small school is one thing, but dating a guy from the equally small rival high school was gonna have its drawbacks. We met beginning of junior year, and it was one of those up and down relationships for the year. Junior year, well that was just a time to be alive. Bittersweet 17 and suddenly me and *Melvin started dating during football season, but he didn’t take me to Homecoming which was such an issue, but btw Melvin didn’t take me to his Homecoming either, someone else did. I told you this year was a cluster mess. Anyways it was up and down between Melvin and I, with all the cheating rumors and he was one of those ones that never fully trusted me when I wasn’t with him, always needing to know what I was doing this and that. Well I thought this was sweet and cute and that it meant he loved me. I drank the koolaid, and the aftertaste lingered for years.

During this loving treatment I allowed myself to go through, even though I recall friends of mine flat out saying he was a punk ass loser. Don’t worry, I can fix him… as Melvin and I are back and forth there was another boy that was brought into the mix. I don’t remember when my crush developed on *Gabe or if it was just the exciting thing to do because he was hot and I was petty? I truly don’t know how we happened but we did, more than once, but who’s counting? Pretty sure I will always make a mental connection to him every time I hear the song Paradice playing. After we had our 7 minutes in heaven I did get back together with Melvin and this is when he wrote me a loving note and it basically was a proposal in itself asking me to let him get me pregnant. And my dumb ass said yes. I had to pause so I could vomit because if you’re 17 and this happens to you, don’t hide it like I did. Buckle up this is where it gets fun. After we sealed that deal, he changed his mind. You see he took it back what he said he wanted, he said he was too young and that he regretted it, so I took Plan B for the first time. Imagine everyone’s surprise when we found out I was pregnant, don’t forget I was on Birth Control, and I took Plan B. The universe was not on my side.

When I saw 2 pink lines in my friend’s bathroom the morning of a softball double header, I mentally checked out for the day. I was still with Melvin and told him and he said we were gonna figure it all out. When I got home that day I did the normal thing a girl would do (that I would not do today) I went to my mom, who freaked out and took me to my aunts house because my mom must have missed that course in parenting because she literally had no clue what to do with me. After peeing on so many more sticks we got the same answer, I’m shocked, can you tell? The days following had me in the doctor once again getting a really helpful talk, “I can’t believe you did this, I’m so disappointed.” There truly is nothing like bedside manner to a scared teen, 10/10 Dr Murphy. That same day is when I stood in the entry way to the kitchen as my grandma told my grandpa who said he was disgusted and told me to go to my room, yes you’re right I will not be pregnant there.

I was alone

There were no hugs

There were no “it will be ok”

Those hugs that came were very rare because the few friends that knew what was going on weren’t allowed to know anymore once the decision was made for me. It’s honestly like I grew up in Vegas.

Then Melvin’s mom called my house and my mom put the call on speaker so I got the warm pleasure of hearing her call me a whore as I fell to our kitchen floor sobbing my eyes out. This was the first time I really got that insult thrown my way, so that added to this situation makes it all unforgettable.

Melvin’s mom was literally flipping through a calendar and I was expected to answer her accordingly and my mom did nothing. Melvin wasn’t really helpful either because he didn’t know who to believe, with the guilt that Melvin made me feel up until the end it really does not matter to me who he believes.

Now remember what I told you about the speech that was given to me on what would happen if I did get pregnant. Well that was apparently all bullshit, because my grandpa made me an appointment for an abortion which I did not want to have. Due to me being 17 and essentially alienated because I didn’t know what to do he forced this decision upon me. The car ride there and back I was reminded of two things, that I was disappointing, and that no one could know. Unfortunately for me that was only the first appointment. You have the initial consultation, and then you have to have a waiting period to see if you change your mind, and then you go back for the procedure for a second appointment. At the first appointment I got to have my very first ultrasound, alone. My grandpa said I could do it alone and didn’t need him back there with me.

*If you want to know where my father is at this point in my story, well the night my grandpa decided i was having an abortion I was once again sent to my aunt and uncles house where I stayed for the evening (see I was bounced around a lot..) I remember calling my dad to tell him everything and his response was that he was against abortion and hung up on me. Now for reference to the story this is super important because my grandpa had only gotten in touch with my bio dad the year prior so technically this man was only in my life for a year and took me out with one sentence. Yet again I felt alone.

After the first appointment came the few days “in between” the time that female patients are given to basically think over their choice to make sure it is the right decision for them. Did I fight my family, yes I did. I was fed every excuse under the sun of why having that baby would have been the worst decision for me. They basically would have made me choose being a part of the family if I were to have it, they had told me they wouldn’t have supported the decision. This is once again where I would like to remind you all that I had no guidance, I wasn’t given the talk at the doctors about my options, and because I was a minor what my grandpa said was the only answer, there was no fighting with someone who can only see one way. Back to the clinic I went for the second appointment. This included taking the antibiotic pill there and then doing the insertable pill where you do it at home and let it bleed out. Did you know how much blood you lose during this process? Did you know there were clots the size of lemons? Did you know you can sweat from pain that bad? Or maybe it was a fever. I am very hazy at this point but that is probably because of the amount of Vicodin that I was given, the clinic even told my grandpa they couldn’t write for more. And my mom kept giving me iced tea with extra vitamin C which can help speed up the “miscarrying” process.

Melvin was at my house each night to be with me, what was actually happening was that he made me feel guilty enough for what I went through that he made me feel like I needed to comply and have sex with him while I was actively bleeding out an abortion. That is not the action of a man that loves you. Because even if I was hornier than I could have ever been that was never the time to have sex with me. If you can’t tell by this point I was raised to please the man, and go to work. And I’m just now realizing it, this is literally an ah ha moment. My cousin did make a joke that I had conformed, guess she wasn’t wrong.

I had just gone back to school when I passed out in the bathroom and I had to go back to the clinic, where I was told that it didn’t properly take the first time so I would have to do it again. Yes that is right I had inserted 2 more pills that day when i got home and the process began again. I once again question healthcare in regard to women, because when I called the clinic recently they said they wouldn’t have had me just do it again, she told me to keep looking into this.

When that part was over and I finally resumed my life is where the next curveball came. During class one random day I went to the bathroom and found the Bitch List. These were posted by “the Senior girls” and well seeing your name and use a condom next to it was eye opening to know that no one believed the lie my parents concocted that I had Mono. For funsies February 14th is not only Valentine’s Day but it is also Condom Awareness Day… hallmark you are missing an excellent time for punny cards. The thing that irked me the most about this experience is that I was singled out for that group apology but I still didn’t give my story. It was almost kinda assumed, or it was the if you know you know. And that is where there is so much wrong with the world. So it’s been too long for me to hold it all in, and if you’re one of the ones that say they know my story, no you don’t. But you will.

Now remember how I told you that I was not properly educated on all things sex ed, so when Gabe came up to my locker after all of it went down and asked me why I didn’t tell him my response was “what could you have done?” Now I stick by this because he was a high school boy and my grandpa still scares the shit out of me, so what was gonna happen? Melvin made this experience worse on me. After the abortion happened he said something I’ll never forget, he told me I had the loosest vagina he had ever had. But this isn’t about him, and it never should have been. He never should have been part of my story and it is disappointing that he were a significant enough chapter that I am still affected by his actions 14 years later, but his chapters are over and we won’t read them again.

If I could go back now I would change everything by calling Gabe first, because it was his baby too. Who knows how the story could have changed, with my grandpa and his beliefs I don’t think much would have changed but it’s nice to imagine that it could have. The last few days I have said that sentence out loud over and over again. By me saying that he was the father of the baby I aborted is lifting a weight placed on my shoulders all because my family wanted me to keep a secret, they told me no one could know. “What would people think of you?” I hear that in my head a lot now. (I should mention that friends of mine have learned the true story, but not everyone.) But that is not fair on a young girl to grow up with that secret and have to be judged everywhere she goes because the guy that truly had no right to my body or unborn kid was the one running my name through the dirt. And the crazier part is that what happened with him Gabe and I was by chance, or fate, or something it was like the universe was telling me that my ex was not the one to do that with. So thank you universe for looking out for me on that detail of the scenario.

I don’t know the guidelines now, I would hope they are similar. But it was mandatory for me to attend therapy after the abortion. My therapist was a young blonde beautiful woman, but the important thing is that she made me feel safe enough to talk to her. I went for a few sessions and got used to this being part of my routine. I told her that after everything, I didn’t want to do sports anymore and I would have rather been writing and reading, but that was of course not an option in my house. As I was getting ready to go the one day my mom informed me that my therapist moved away and had said that I didn’t need it anymore because I was all better. Off to basketball camp I went with a wad of cash, no water, but the newest smart phone on the market because I was such a good girl and did what they wanted. They didn’t attempt to put me in therapy again or anything like that, and I remember they never asked how I was doing after it all happened. After this happened to me I made it known that my family took away the “want to be a mom” part of me as a woman, and they laughed it off and told me when I’m older and meet the right person I will change my mind.

I had my daughter in 2022. That pregnancy is a tale for another day, but because I was shamed in my own house for what I went through I was not given the proper means to grieve what happened to me. I know I had PPD but I believe it was magnified due to the ptsd of the abortion. This taboo talk has got to go, because once again there was no proper chat at the first appointment about the history of the abortion 2x in 2010. And it wasn’t important to watch out for the signs of a depressed mom. I just realized that she is my rainbow baby in a sense, she is the one I had after I had a loss. Maybe thats why her smile is so bright.

Life is not fair usually, and you have to find that out the hard way. It wasn’t until this year that I really saw how much of the past I carry everyday, it has been such a heavy load and I am finally ready to put it all away. There is more to say about my story, but not all of it needs to be told at once. As I said at the beginning I am no longer allowing the remarks and comments of others from years past hurt me now, because if other people looked in the mirror they too might see things they do not want thrown back at them. There is way more to my story as the chapters continue to unfold and a lot stems from what was written here today, in the steps to healing the written word can give so much clarity and it has been opening the door to my soul. So to the people that want to sit there and tell me they are disappointed in any decision I have made, please try on my size 7 shoe and take a walk. Because it was not a smooth little stroll. It was rough and I am not gonna sit here and feel regretful because you don’t like my life. The door is ever revolving, I’m used to people heading out, it no longer bothers me. I’m not interested in playing the game or holding the grudges anymore, I hit rock bottom lower than I ever thought possible, because I felt like I was not pleasing others the way that I should have been. The perpetual people pleaser. So in my opinion unless you are my grandpa or Melvin, in my book we are starting with a clean slate on my end.

#September 14

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mybukz · 9 months ago

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"Writer’s Postcards" by Dipika Mukherjee: Review by Lawrence Pettener

Dipika Mukherjee is a globe-trotting poet, sociolinguist, writer, editor and educator who often travels alone. Her family and friends are scattered worldwide: Malaysia, Chicago and Delhi to name but a few.

To offset our dizziness with Mukherjee’s continual world tour, we are brought into the subjective world of a poet early on, with the disarming assertion that the cicak (gecko)’s “thik thik thik” sound is repeating ‘truth’ in Bengali. She goes on to say, “What we do is so inexplicable to the more pragmatic.”

One clear thing Mukherjee does here is to stand for the oppressed, detailing migrant workers’ poetry. She is told first hand of Tibetans escaping Chinese repression:

“…trying to avoid the splitting ice and the strong currents… they took turns to piggyback the young ones, but inevitably… some were lost in these passes, while the sick had to be abandoned.”

She relays the message: “One person blows up a building and the media has pictures everywhere, but our youth are burning themselves and no one cares.” While Dipika sometimes backs up her political punches with literary references—on self-censorship, she quotes Jane Austen—she certainly remedies whatever ‘harmlessness’ an earlier reviewer accused her editing of.

We also get into specific details; ghungroos are bells, but they could be creatures or a vehicle from a Dr. Seuss novel. True to form, the author credits the translator of every work cited. Far from simply being nice, it’s all part of Dipika’s revolt against historical erasure, as she puts it.

Mukherjee deploys declamatory one-line paragraphs as little jabs of truth or summation, occasional fresh claims that could easily belong in the preceding or following paragraph. She uses them sparingly enough not to clobber us over the head with them, as in advertising copy, interspersing them with longer paragraphs.

Penguin have never been strong on proofreading since the early eighties, to put it politely. Here, the Hindu deity Dasarath is spelled Dasarth, and the sacred plant tulsi starts with upper- and lower-case ‘T’ randomly.

As with Mukherjee’s recent poetry collection, Dialects from Distant Harbors, these nuanced pieces bring to mind BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent; the pleasurable, subjective pieces balancing the hard reportage. Mukherjee honours local efforts and enactors such as Malaysia’s preeminent creative writing host (Readings at Seksan) and teacher Sharon Bakar.

As most of these pieces are not about herself—though some of the strongest, most connecting passages here relate to the deaths of her brother and her father—if Mukherjee occupies one clear role, it has to be that of representative or champion of others.

Interview

Lawrence Pettener: Dipika, you wear so many hats and do so many things: lecturing, judging competitions, editing, panels, your own writing. How do you stay on top of it all?

Dipika Mukherjee: Nowadays, I think everybody’s being tested for various inability-to-stay-focused issues to put it euphemistically. I think I may actually have some ADD (sic) as well, because what I find is that I actually work best when I’m working on more than one project, ‘cause I tend to get bored very easily. So let’s say I’m writing a novel and it’s going well, but then, you know, you hit a bump as one always does and then I have maybe an academic project which is very cut and dried, and I don’t have to expend my imagination; so I find that if I switch my brain to something more cut and dried that just needs to get done, then I come back to the imaginative project feeling rejuvenated. But if I keep hammering away at my, you know, “Come on Muse, where are you?!”, it’s just so tedious for the process and for me of course.   So then very often I have at least two projects on; and sometimes a poem pops into my head because of something that happens. I secretly write from a point of rage! (Laughs.) So let’s say I read something in the newspaper, or I see something happening out in the street, and something overtakes everything else that I’m doing, and I feel I need to get a poem out, or maybe a short piece of fiction that addresses the immediacy of what I’m feeling.

LP: Maybe you’re one of these people who, like me, might have fifty to a hundred Internet tabs open at once?

DM: Yes, I’m a little compulsive about that! I try not to have more than about twenty-two open!

LP: I should follow that.

DM: I know, it’s like throwing stuff out of my cupboard and not letting that overwhelm, because I do tend to be a little bit of a going-down-the-rabbit-hole person, so if something else is interesting and shiny, and gleaming, I just rush to it. But as I’m getting older I’ve learned to control that. I use the Pomodoro Technique, do you know that?

LP: Yes but I’ve forgotten.

DM: OK. You can find timers online, and you write for twenty-five minutes and then you take a break for either five or fifteen. And what helped with my writing, when it’s not going well, is if I know I only have to sit down for twenty-five minutes, and after that I’m free to go and make myself a coffee, I really do sit down. And then what happens is that in twenty-five minutes I may be at a point where something is taking off; so I make myself some coffee and come right back.   Whereas I think that if I sit in front of just a blank sheet of paper and think, I have to get Chapter Four done, it’s so intimidating. Twenty-five minutes isn’t, because you can sit there and shake your leg – watch this (shakes leg; laughter).  LP: Yes, I tell my students the best way to write a poetry collection is to flit between five or ten pieces simultaneously. They feed into each other; it shows which ones don’t fit into the collection.

DM: Absolutely. I have not actually ever tried that, but I think I might. The other thing I find when I’m teaching writing is that students are often very concerned about having spent a lot of time writing something they’ll never publish or never use and which they feel is like a bunch of rubbish. I actually have a folder for unused writing, or writing in progress, is what I title it. I often cannibalise from that folder, because sometimes when you’re kind of lost for ideas, you go back to a piece of writing and once it’s been marinating for however long, it doesn’t look that bad, and you can still see the bones of it, the ones you can use. And you don’t have to use it as it is, but it’s a wonderful jumping-off point, you know? And I think anything that frees you from a blank page is a good thing, because a blank page almost universally for writers is a very daunting thing.

LP: It could be the opposite of a rabbit hole in a way. What would be the opposite of a rabbit-hole though? Serous question.  DM: Yeah, for me I think it would be sort of just being mind-blocked, and not having your mind going anywhere. Thankfully again, because of the way I think my mind is, it doesn’t happen too often. But again, you have what the Buddhists call the monkey mind, right? Then also, you’re really not doing yourself any favours, and ultimately you get to a point where you’re so frustrated and discombobulated that it goes nowhere.

So I try to in a way structure my time into bits where I have to let go after a certain time. That’s my Pomodoro Technique. It has helped me because as a person I’m naturally not inclined to stop worrying something until it’s done to death, whereas now if I know that, OK, I’ve got it in a schedule, twenty-five minutes, and I have X, Y, Z things to get done, I will move on instead of wasting the whole day.

LP: How often do you manage to read others’ poetry yourself?

DM: Sometimes when I’m writing my own poetry, or editing it, I find it very useful to read people that I absolutely adore. Naomi Shihab Nye is a favourite, because she writes political poetry with great heart; I like Mary Oliver. I like Billy Collins, you know all these people who write with a great deal of heart. I think that kind of helps me put my own poems into perspective, because as I said I do often start from a point of rage, and that rage overcomes any poetic beauty.

Whereas getting back and latching on to somebody who writes lyrically, about things that are important, kind of centres me as well; it doesn’t all have to be vomiting stress. It can be beauty, even within the stress.

LP: I was discussing your poetry with somebody who said, from what I’d shown them of your stuff, that perhaps you didn’t take on social issues enough.

DM: I think I do take on social issues wherever I can. I was listening to this lecture by Gitanjali Shree, who has just won the Booker Prize for Tomb of Sand. She said very eloquently – far more eloquently than I’ll be able to tell you right now – is that there is a kind of a global movement now, because the world is just such a shithole place rally, I mean every country has so many problems; there is such a burden now on writers to lead the protest. But it’s not our job, it’s never our job to be in protest lands, and leading protests with little soundbites about what we feel.

What we like to do is go off and do the writing that sometimes addresses these issues, but I do not feel like I have to address every issue in Malaysia. I do not have to address the traffic jams, and the racial inequities, and the school system. I mean, I would go mad!

So I think I’ll pick and choose, and because I have such a strong allegiance to three countries, I will write about the anti-Muslim sentiments in India, which I’ve done in this book in a few poems; I’ll write about the Trump presidency and the marginalisation of any non-white people in America, which I have also done here; and I’ve addressed Malaysian problems in various books, including my debut novel, which was never published here because of that; because it starts off with a chapter on a model being blown up in the fields of Shah Alam (greater Kuala Lumpur area). Any Malaysian knows that politically that’s very, very controversial.

That’s Ode to Broken Things, and it’s related to the death of a model who was the mistress of the powers that be. It’s available here. I did have a Malaysian publisher but he pulled out about four months before the publication. And by that time it had already gone into print in other parts of the world, but he wrote a very – ‘kesian’ is the only word that comes to mind – a very sad email saying that he can’t publish it here because it will pretty certainly get banned, and he will lose his job and it will affect the livelihood of everyone who works for that company.

I have a little bit of an advantage in that I don’t live here but then it will affect my ability to come back. So I also don’t want to rock the boat too much.

LP: This recalls Preeta Samarasan’s latest novel, The Tale of the Dreamer’s Son.

DM: I was supposed to be moderating the launch of her book, and obviously because of my own book tour, which took me to many countries, I fell a little behind and I couldn’t read it. But I love Preeta’s work; I loved Evening is the Whole Day. At the time when she wrote that, it was very close to Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things in terms of the lyricism and the sentences feeding into each other in very ripe and visual ways. I think that that kind of style seems to have gone out of favour right now. I think that people very often do not like to read what they consider a little bit overdone style; but I absolutely adore Preeta’s work and the reason is also that I find it so fearless in terms of what she says.

You know, Preeta and I see Malaysia through very different windows, because I continue to come back here and I continue to interact with a lot of writing people. I have mentors who are writers and published collections and short fiction with them. And so I have a much more optimistic view, whereas I think Preeta sometimes, can come across as pessimism, certainly.

I absolutely love the fact that we have her, in Malaysia, as a voice with such a strong conscience.

LP: Who can you see as a mentor? I imagine you get some of that from literary interactions.

DM: Right. I love literary festivals because of that, because one of the things it makes really clear is that the people who are truly great writers are not the divas, and I was telling this story to someone else just a few days ago:

My first novel, called Thunder Demons at that time, and the title was changed to Ode to Broken Things, was longlisted for the Man Asia literary prize. In that long list, there was also Su Tong, a Chinese writer. I don’t know if you know Su Tong’s work, but he’s a highly respected Chinese writer, he wrote this book called Wave the Red Lantern, which was made into a Hollywood movie. I have been reading Su Tong since my late teens, and then read his novel Rice when I was about nineteen, and I was just totally in love with it. His style is very Zola-esque, very dark, but it’s beautiful.

So anyway, I was in this long list with many people. Soo Tong was also on it, and he had been one of the people I had worshipped as a writer. I was at Shanghai Literary Festival, and Su Tong was one of the main guys talking at that, so I went up to him and said “I’m delighted to meet you, and I’ve been reading you” blah blah, and he turned to his interpreter, who said, This is your fan, and she says she’s also on the Man Asian long list with you. He looked a little puzzled, and then he asked the interpreter to ask me what my book was. And so I said it was Thunder Demons. I saw his name on the list and I knew I would lose to someone so worthy, it would not be a loss.  So he turned around and he takes my hand like this, and he said, in English, Miss D, you should have won! And I start to laugh, his interpreter starts to laugh, because he’s saying this in English, and with such heartfelt, You should have won! That’s the kind of interactions I have with people who are really writers.  The other person who I felt was a really good mentor was Amitav Ghosh. I met him at various places; the last one being Northwestern University, where I was teaching, and he came in in one day. He has written this amazing book that talks about climate change, and true fiction as well as non-fiction. And he’s this amazing towering person in the literary world, but he has always been very open to just talking about literature on a level that is very accessible. He doesn’t just say, Oh, this is a book that I wrote; he will also ask, What are you writing. He’s wonderful; people should all be like that.

LP: Are you in any writers’ group, or somewhere that you can get feedback?

DM: Yes. Thank you for asking this, because I do think that writers’ groups are important. You have to be a bit smart about them of course, because there’s always a danger of you writing only to the group. That is never a good thing. What I do is, I have different types of writers’ groups, so for a long time I had an Asian American writers’ group, in Chicago, so I would be able to write whatever I wanted without a glossary, because they would just get it. And then I also have a women’s writing group that is about four of us, all working on longer pieces; and nobody else is Asian there. So then sometimes I can check out whether it translates.

It��s good to have more than one group because it reminds you that even if one group tends to go in a certain way, that opinion is not universal; there’s another group that would take things completely differently. So yes it’s important to have writers’ groups and it’s important to have a variety of them, and not just have an echo chamber that gives you what you want to hear.

LP: With that, I imagine that your being on the move so much helps to keep that sense of who you’re writing for rooted in the generality.

DM: Yeah, I don’t really have a reader in mind, it’s not like my sister-in-law’s my ideal reader or anything like that. I try to not patronise my audience, because I’ve felt patronised so many times, especially by Indian authors writing in English, when their gaze is very much the Western, often male gaze; so I tend to just think of you now, an educated, global person. Of course it’s impossible to do on my own because I’m so close to my own writing that I don’t see the defects; which is why having a writers’ group tells me that this makes no sense, or a character is just not believable.

LP: And then what really should be written about because it’s so unbelievable, is just that: unbelievable.

DM: Yep. You know, when I wrote Shambhala Junction, I had a really good agent in London, and she was shopping it around. The good thing about having a power agent is that you get a response back quite quickly, so she came back to me with a publisher who had read it, and she said that she could not read Shambhala Junction as the mother of young girls, and she did not feel that any father would sell a child, or rather abandon their child. Now if you’ve grown up in any part of Asia, you know that that happens all the time. So again, there is obviously a dissonance between what I see as possible in the world and maybe a London agent is able to show.

Bio:

Lawrence Pettener is a poet and freelance editor living in Subang Jaya, Malaysia. His reviews and interviews have appeared in Juliet Art Magazine (Italy), Asian Review of Books and The Culture Review. He recently co-edited ‘Salleh Ben Joned: Truth, Beauty, Amok and Belonging’ (Maya Press, Malaysia), and a collection of poems on Malaysian food is due out this year. He’s editing another book for somebody right this minute.

#travel #non-fiction

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onestowatch · 3 years ago

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19 LGBTQIA+ Artists You Need to Listen to This PRIDE

PRIDE is all about self-empowerment and self-determination. It’s about not just being comfortable with who you are but showing the world that there is pride to be found in being unapologetically you. And that’s why, this PRIDE, we wanted to shine a light on a small handful of our favorite LGBTQIA+ artists. Ranging from rapturous hyperpop, revelatory bossa nova meditations, romantic rave music, and everywhere in between, these are 19 LGBTQIA+ artists who deserve a spot on your PRIDE playlist and every playlist for that matter.

girl in red

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In her debut single, “i wanna be your girlfriend,” a teenage girl in red unapologetically sings of young queer love over a mesh of lofi production and jangly instrumentation that would come to define much of the bedroom pop genre. It is a standout moment of unrelenting honesty, and a serenely simple three-minute confession that would go on to strike a chord with millions who were afraid of what it meant to be something more than friends. Now, a few years later and following the release of her critically-acclaimed debut album, if i could make it go quiet, Ulven still writes with that same emotional honesty, putting forth every ounce of herself for the world to see.

Meet Me @ The Altar

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“the little lonely black alt girl i was in the 00s is living rn, she never even dared to hope she might see this 💖💖,” reads the top comment on Meet Me @ The Altar’s music video for their single “Garden.” It is a sentiment shared by much of the rising band’s fanbase, who are used to the mainstream alternative scene championing cis white males. Existing in the space between pop-punk and hardcore, Meet Me @ The Altar exists to challenge the notion that queer women of color don’t have a place in punk. And after penning a record deal with Fueled By Ramen, home to the likes of Paramore, Panic! at the Disco, and nearly every pop-punk band that made up your middle school playlist, chances are this is just the beginning for our new favorite punks.

THE BLOSSOM

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For Lily Lizotte, better known as THE BLOSSOM, music exists as the synthesis and subsequent recontextualization of a host of past experiences. From the sound of their dad belting away in his home studio to stumbling upon niche Internet subgenres, THE BLOSSOM transforms all this and more into a sound that is instantly recognizable but impossible to perfectly place. The culmination of this host of influences takes sweeping sonic form on their debut EP, ‘97 BLOSSOM, a perfectly imperfect introduction to one of the most fascinating rising artists of recent memory.

BIMINI

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You may recognize BIMINI as Bimini Bon-Boulash, the runner-up on the second season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. And now you should familiarize yourself with Bimini, brit-pop extraordinaire. Releasing their debut single “God Save This Queen” earlier this June, Bimini deftly channels late ‘90s brit-pop and punk to deliver a single that has us absolutely living for the ensuing chaos. Serving up multiple looks throughout its eye-catching music video, “God Save This Queen” is not just a non-binary anthem but a veritable 2021 lookbook.

Hope Tala

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With a sound that falls somewhere between turn-of-the-century R&B and bossa nova, Hope Tala’s music is expectedly a dream given sonic form. Perhaps that’s why much of the UK singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist’s music is able to so deftly weave imagery of love, heartache, and teenage fistfights into tightknit tracks that feel simultaneously transcendental and deeply personal. And with the release of her 2020 EP, Girl Eats the Sun, Hope Tala poses one all-important question, “Why have a life if you’re not going to do something crazy and make a difference in the world?”

chloe moriondo

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For much of chloe moriondo’s avid fanbase, watching her transform from budding ukulele sensation to pop-punk phenom very much meant watching her grow up. Getting her start on YouTube, moriondo's fanbase witnessed her evolve as both an artist and person. Coming out in the aptly titled “a ramble about self identity, growth, and being a lesbian,” to be a fan of the artist often feels like trading secrets with a close personal friend. It is a sentiment that rings all the more true upon delving into her debut album, Blood Bunny. Grappling with coming-of-age at the axis of empathic pop and euphoric pop-punk, Blood Bunny sees moriondo taking yet another impressive step forward.

Godford

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Little is known about Godford beyond what can be garnered from a handful of interviews online and his succinct Spotify bio, and chances are he’s happier that way. The anonymous DJ and producer aims to make non-binary music that exists outside of the confines of genres, overly-simplified classifications, and even himself. What is important are the emotions his music hold and what his listeners take away. Fusing romanticism and rave in his debut album, Godford: Non Binary Place, the anonymous artist does just that. He provides a space that exists simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, like an ephemeral night spent out on the dancefloor with a stranger or close friend.

Joy Oladokun

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Joy Oladokun is at the core of her music. It may at first glance appear to be a painfully obvious statement, but as her sincere songwriting seeps into every corner of your soul, it is a notion that becomes undeniable. In her major label debut, in defense of my own happiness, Oladokun writes with an unabashed authenticity, never turning a blind eye to the world around her. These shared reflections and recollections of life are often heartbreaking and uplifting in the same breath, but in their candidness, we can begin to piece together what it means to be human, imperfections and all.

Allison Ponthier

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Allison Ponthier may only have a handful of singles to her name, but her unmatched potential is clear as day. Raised in the outskirts of Dallas, Texas, Ponthier’s moving songwriting and emphatic vocal prowess speak to her country roots. Pair that country sensibility with some of the most pristine pop songwriting we have heard in quite some time, and you begin to understand just how exciting Ponthier is as a rising artist. With only two singles to date, there’s not much else we can say beyond do yourself a favor and play “Cowboy” on repeat.

Rina Sawayama

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It feels like no hyperbole to call Rina Sawayama an inevitable pop icon. First garnering critical acclaim with singles like “Cherry” and her 2017 debut EP RINA, the Japanese-British singer-songwriter staked her name on her immaculate ability to capture all the glamour and larger-than-life appeal of early ‘00s pop. Building on what was a nostalgic yet forward-thinking vision, Sawayama returned with her 2020 eponymous full-length debut. From nu-metal, club beats, to veritable pop anthems, SAWAYAMA emerged as a genre-defying showcase of an avant-garde pop star.

Arlo Parks

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Listening to Arlo Parks’ music is akin to sipping on a hot cup of chamomile tea as you watch the world slowly pass by your living room window. It is a testament to the British poet and singer-songwriter’s subtle yet beautiful way with words, the way in which each lyric serves as a glance into a tightly-held memory or passing observation. These poetic musings come to life in her debut album, Collapsed In Sunbeams, which layers lyrical revelations over some of the most tender R&B of recent memory. Parks’ is more than a must-listen; she feels like the birth of a new wave.

Claud

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Claud has spent the past few years making a name for themselves in the indie pop world, and the culmination of it all arrives in their debut album, Super Monster. The acclaimed album sees Claud reckoning with coming-of-age and love with an irresistible charm. Pair that with a penchant for grounded, affective songwriting and infectious, dreamlike melodies and you have one of the best debuts of recent memory. In case you somehow need any further convincing that Claud is one to watch, Super Monster marks the debut release from Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records.

UMI

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Equally as inspired by R&B and neo-soul as she is by her generation’s penchant for blurring genre lines, UMI and her music exist as a form of spiritual healing. Half-Black and half-Japanese, her work explores everything from identity to self-introspection, such as on the aptly-titled Introspection. It is a fondness for self-exploration that UMI delves headfirst into on her 2019 EP Love Language, a sublime blend of identity struggles, love, and anime that tackles the issue of always feeling like an other, never Black or Japanese enough.

Joesef

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Sad boy summer. It’s the simplest way to being explaining Joesef’s serene albeit somber sound. Emerging out of Glasgow, the quickly rising star often wears his still bleeding heart on his sleeve, even when the underlying sonics seem to be moving onto greener pastures. It is an exquisite balancing act that comes to life on his 2020 EP, Does It Make You Feel Good?. Blending elements of soft-spoken R&B, jazz, and ethereal pop, Joesef sets himself apart as an artist whose influences and appeal know no bounds.

Serena Isioma

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At the top of the year, we named Serena Isioma one of our top artists to watch in the year to come, and for good reason. The self-proclaimed “nonbinary rock star” experienced a breakout moment with “Sensitive,” a track that is difficult to perfectly encapsulate but think along the lines of fusing modern-day R&B and woozy indie-pop with reckless abandon, and you’ll be about halfway there. It was an impressive standout track that was only buoyed by a pair of EPs, Sensitive and The Leo Sun Sets, in 2020, officially cementing Isioma as an artist like no other.

Khai Dreams

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Khai Dreams’ music is effortlessly easygoing. With its straightforward guitar lines and understated production, every track from the Pacific Northwest singer-songwriter flows out as naturally as breathing. Maybe it’s that laid-back approach that begins to explains Khai Dreams’ universal appeal and millions of monthly listeners, despite releasing most of his music independently. A hallmark of the DIY generation and its massive homebrewed potential, it would be a crying shame if you didn’t let Khai Dream’s serene meditations transport you somewhere far from here.

Frances Forever

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Like much of their Gen Z cohorts, Frances Forever’s exponential rise was not the result of a well-executed marketing plan but by the pure chance of a single song finding a home online. The song in question, “Space Girl,” was originally part of NPR’s Tiny Desk Content before soon blowing up on TikTok, and it’s not hard to see why. Short, sweet, and to the point, “Space Girl” is a saccharine love letter to that bubbly feeling of floating on cloud nine. Now signed to Mom+Pop and with their debut EP, Paranoia Party, due out later this year, this is the perfect time to get familiar with Frances Forever.

Dorian Electra

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Unapologetically playing with gender norms and stereotypes while seeing just how far they can push the limits of pop, Dorian Electra has long maintained a cult following in the world of experimental, highly addictive hyperpop. And it’s not hard to see why. Having collaborated with the likes of Charli XCX, 100 gecs, Village People, Pussy Riot, Rebecca Black, and more, Electra’s music ranges from off-the-rails hyperpop to introspective pop slow burns. All of this and more reaches a fever pitch in their 2020 album My Agenda, a devious showcasing of one of pop’s most explosive figures.

MAY-A

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Maya Cumming, professionally known as MAY-A, is no stranger to the hustle it takes to make it in the music industry. The Australian artist got her start entering numerous singing competitions in her hometown of Byron Bay and started busking on the streets at the tender age of 11. Now, she has a breakout single under her belt in the form of “Apricots,” an anthemic indie-pop ode to queer love. And since that breakout moment, MAY-A has continued to release impressive single after single—the latest being the collaborative “American Dream.”

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snicketstrange · 3 years ago

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Rereading The Chapter 14 (The End)

I believed that in ASOUE's universe, chapter 14 was apparently written some time after the rest of the book. But I abandoned that idea. Lemony wrote to the editor that chapter 14 could be found at the end of the same manuscript.

We then have the epigraph of Le Voyage. It's an excerpt that portrays the moment of death, and perhaps the acceptance of death. But I don't think this means that Lemony is completely certain of the Baudelaires' death. I think it means he's pretty sure he won't write about the Baudelaires anymore. I think the right question is "why did Lemony decide to stop writing at this point in the story?" "Why did he plan to write more and then stop writing?" I think Lemony didn't promise to write the entire story of the Baudelaires. He promised to write the story of the conflict between the Baudelaires and Olaf. So when he was sure of Olaf's death, and that was only with the additional information he had probably had access to through Beatrice Jr, Lemony realized that the research might be over. The certainty of Olaf's death was the event he determined when the narrative came to an end. So, it makes us wonder what kind of promise Lemony made. Apparently he promised that he would clarify the facts surrounding the charges the Baudelaires went through, as well as the contexts in which these events took place. That's why it was so important to get this information out to the general public. Because it involved the honor of the Baudelaire family. Furthermore, this explains why he could not rely solely on the account given by the Baudelaires themselves: after all, they were being accused of being lying criminals. Lemony needed to clear their name, proving, so to speak, that the facts reported by the Baudelaires were real, and it was not enough just to record what he read in the island book.

I think this is the most sensible explanation, and as a theorist I will defend it. But as a fan willing to come up with slightly bizarre ideas, I feel like imagining Lemony realizing that his own death was close to happening. It would be interesting to imagine that Lemony's research took so long that he was an elderly man when he was publishing The End. And the reason Lemony finished his work at this point would be his physical limitations. That would explain shocking secret #13: "he's finished." And more than that: it would even explain the title of the book: "The End of Lemony Snicket". And furthermore, this would explain Lemony's dedication to Beatrice in chapter 14. After quoting the words of Charles B., in which the poet compares the hour of death with the setting off of a ship, Lemony claims that both he and Beatrice are like boats sailing at night, but especially her. Both were on a dark and lonely journey, but she was already dead. "

Beatrice's last words recorded in the book were really emotional to me when I first read them, and they still are today. Especially after I watched the Netflix series, it's now possible to imagine a very specific face when I picture Beatrice. And it's possible to think of a specific soundtrack when I read this.

About the baby's name, on my Headcanon Violet is the name of Mrs. W, who was presumed dead around the same time as Lemony. And in my Headcanon, just as Lemony didn't really die, she didn't either. I still like to think that she was the mystery woman on TGG, and that's the real reason Quigley used the name Violet in the message he sent to submarine Q.

I think this is the first time I stop to think that the Baudelaires ate crab. This is unclean food for those who practice Judaism as a religion, isn't it? I even thought the roast lamb was a reference to the Passover celebration, but they wouldn't do that by eating crab. Or is it that in a book in which Daniel Handler implicitly criticizes religion, he did so on purpose? I think it's unlikely, but still possible. But, albeit unintentionally, the Baudelaires rejected the religious customs of their ancestors in a book in which religious customs are questioned and this is significant.

"The baby had heard about danger, too, mostly from the register of crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind from which the Baudelaires read out loud each evening, although they had not told the infant the whole story. She did not know all of the Baudelaires' secrets, and indeed there were some she would never know."

The above excerpt is important as it reveals that Lemony has information about Beatrice Jr's future as he was writing this chapter. This explains how Lemony knows what happened in this chapter: Beatrice Jr told him. Lemony did meet her, and he realized that the Baudelaires hadn't told her the whole story.

A detail that has always pleased me in this book is to notice that after 1 year, Sunny stopped babbling words and has a more conventional and extensive vocabulary. I find this compatible with the fact that 1 year has passed and it's also compatible with her character development arc. One of asoue's themes is "how some children are forced to mature too quickly because of tragedy". Sunny, for example, needed to learn how to cook and convince herself that she loved doing it and that she was good at it in a few days. And all this before she learned to speak English properly. She needed to help with a birth long before she fully understood issues related to human procreation. But in chapter 14, she finally had the opportunity to develop without tragedies forcing her to skip important steps in life.

"Do we take this?" Violet asked, holding up the book from which she had read out loud.

"I don't think so," Klaus said. "Perhaps another castaway will arrive, and continue the history."

"In any case," Sunny said, "they'll have something to read."

Please realize how important this dialogue is. Daniel Handler placed this dialogue here to make sure the reader understood the source of information Lemony had access to: the island book. The children wrote about their own story in that book, including their thoughts, feelings, and private conversations. The children shared some details about ancient events, about when Sunny wasn't even born. In the book, Lemony found details about some events that took place on the island before the arrival of the three Baudelaires.

"I want to make sure these life jackets I've designed will fit properly."

Well... It's good to know that, even though the boat sank, the Baudelaires had lifeboats. Their chances of survival really increased a lot. And knowing that Beatrice Jr managed to survive a shipwreck, it's quite possible that they did too.

The Baudelaires watched her approach, wondering what the next chapter in this infant's life would be, and indeed that is difficult to say. There are some who say that the Baudelaires rejoined V.F.D. and are engaged in brave errands to this day, perhaps under different names to avoid being captured. There are others who say that they perished at sea, although rumors of one's death crop up are often revealed to be untrue. But in any case, as my investigation is over, we have indeed reached the last chapter of the Baudelaires' story, even if the Baudelaires had not.

Lemony just reports here what he heard. Although Daniel Handler intentionally wishes the ending to be left open, and I will respect his decision, I will speak my opinion. They didn't die at sea, though. Note that Lemony directly relates the baby's future to the future of the three Baudelaires. The way Lemony wrote here suggests that the baby's future is as uncertain as the future of her adoptive parents. But we TBL readers know the truth about Beatrice Jr.'s future. Beatrice is alive! So the most likely situation is that her parents are also alive. ( And who knows other characters that we thought had died there on TBB... could it be that at least one of them could also have survived?)

But the question is: if Lemony knows the baby survived, why did he hide this information from the reader? Certainly to protect his niece. Lemony didn't lie, just omitted some details.

The baby paused, and looked at the back of the boat, where the nameplate had been affixed. She had no way of knowing this, of course, but the nameplate had been nailed to the back of the boat by a person standing on the very spot she was standing—at least as far as my research has shown.

Lemony once again dismantled specific knowledge through research, which could only have been done through information provided by others. Beatrice Jr needed to tell Lemony exactly where she was at that moment and Lemony needed to compare that with the information Beatrice Sr and Bertrand wrote in the island book. And then, on visiting the site, Lemony was able to ascertain the most likely position for those descriptions. While Lemony is a bit mistaken, the research process must have been like that.

Finally, she uttered a word. The Baudelaire orphans gasped when they heard it, but they could not say for sure whether she was reading the word out loud or merely stating her own name, and indeed they never learned this. Perhaps this last word was the baby's first secret, joining the secrets the Baudelaires were keeping from the baby, and all the other secrets immersed in the world. Perhaps it is better not to know what was meant by this word, as some things are better left in the great unknown. There are some words, of course, that are better left unsaid—but not, I believe, the word uttered by my niece, a word which here means that the story is over. Beatrice.

Oh... How I love this ending. That's when I felt my head explode for the first time in my life, and I'm still picking up the pieces.

#asoue #asoue theory #lemony snicket #a series of unfortunate events #asoue theories #beatrice baudelaire #snicketverse #beatrice snicket #beatrice jr #violet baudelaire #sunny baudelaire

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song-of-the-swans · 3 years ago

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Natalia did nothing wrong.

I recently reread Bronze no Tenshi and oh my God I love Georges D’Anthès with all my heart - as if I already didn’t love him enough when I first read this manga. He’s so respectful, he’s ready to sacrifice everything for Natalia and he understands a woman’s struggles.

I don’t despise Pushkin in Bronze no Tenshi as it often happens to me with the other “love rival” of Saito’s stories, sometimes I pity him, but I also think a lot of people overlook his flaws and mistakes in his relationship and attitude towards Natalia out of their admiration for the figure of the real Pushkin, the poet. On the other hand, I see a lot of blame put on Natalia, when, if you really think about it, Natalia did nothing wrong. Natalia cannot be the usual strong, single-minded, fierce woman that Saito portrays in her stories: it wouldn’t be realistic and true to the time when the events take place. In my opinion, Natalia was a good person that always sacrificed herself for the people around her, who had for once the chance to do something exclusively for herself when she met the love of her life, D’Anthès.

I personally am analyzing the events and the characters of the manga as someone who didn’t know Pushkin the first time she read Bronze no Tenshi. I see a girl who grew up in the country, with her relatives advising her not to speak her mind or reveal her true personality to anyone, with a crazy father who traumatized her, with a strict, oppressive mother who forbade her to read books, only ingraining religious concepts in her, and who tried to sell her to the best offerer when she was only 16. Everyone makes her believe her only merit is to be beautiful. When she is 16, she meets Pushkin who feverishly falls in love with her and, moved by his persistence, she develops a crush on him and agrees to marry him. She sees him as an escape from her condition and as a chance of independence from her mother. She knows he can treat her right and, in her innocence, she believes that would be enough to make her happy, because she is not interested in love, having never experienced it. Natalia says that love scares her because people in love act irrationally, so she keeps on living a peaceful life with Pushkin fulfilling her duties in the way she was brought up. But she doesn’t know love and... she’s never truly happy or satisfied. Then D’Anthès arrives in Russia. In a certain sense, he’s someone used to be treated as an object of desire by the others just like Natalia. When he sees her the first time, he finds her beautiful just like every other man, but he doesn’t try to pursue her, nor is he interested in her. When Natalia tries to get close to him for her sister’s sake, he misunderstands her at first because he thinks she’s just treating him like the other women. Then their interactions increase and they find each other insufferable. They bicker, because D’Anthès doesn’t idealize her. People do nothing but point out Natalia’s beauty to the point of exhaustion, but D’Anthès actually treats Natalia as his equal - even recognizing how it must be tiring to be always told the same compliment over and over - and more importantly as a woman. And during their arguments, Natalia’s personality comes out to her own surprise, the personality that we only saw at the beginning of the story when she’s alone with her sisters and that she was told to suppress. She gets emotional and worked up. He gets a reaction out of her. They get to know each other as two people of the same age. He advises her. He protects her. He starts to understand her and he realizes she’s genuine and naive, that she doesn’t scheme, that she doesn’t do things for her own good, that she doesn’t want to hurt others and that she has no experience of life… and love. And they fall in love madly, to the point they will sacrifice their own happiness for the sake of seeing the other safe and at peace, since there’s not a place on the earth where they could possibly be allowed to be together. Anna Karenina is quite an example. Their only option was to flee abroad but that would’ve meant for Natalia not to see her family and children anymore. Leaving aside that I wouldn’t even have blamed Natalia for abandoning a whole brood of children that were literally put into her as if her body didn’t belong to her, D’Anthès understands that for her. When the day comes, he decides that he has to be stronger for her sake, because even if Natalia was willing to leave, she could’ve blamed herself all her life and died out of guilt. Ironically, D’Anthès has understood and known Natalia more during their illicit affair of stolen glances, confessions that lasted the time of a dance and secrete meetings, than her husband, who’s lived with her for years, ever did. Natalia always thought about the others. She first sacrificed herself for the sake of her family when they wanted her to get married. She restlessly gave her husband children he put in her one after the other without even letting her recover from the previous pregnancy, without ever objecting. After her marriage, she took her older sisters in her house to allow them to live a happier, social life in town and she escorted them at balls to chaperone them even when she was pregnant and had to take care of her body. She started to interact with D’Anthès to introduce him to her older sister who had a crush on him. She never wanted to hurt her admirers, even those who were pestering her. When she finally meets the love of her life, she fights back her feelings as much as she can and even avoids to be intimate with him because “her body doesn’t belong to her”. The moment she’s about to flee with him and make love to him, she physically stops herself because “she was about to be happy” in such a dramatic situation and “that is unforgivable”. Natalia is not even free to put an end to her life, because she has obligations, she’s leaving a family behind. So when she thinks D’Anthès doesn’t love her anymore when he sends her back home, she also knows she has to keep on living. And, in the end, we know her biggest sacrifice was to give up for good to the only person she ever loved for the sake of her children, her husband, her relatives and for social pressure… but even that is not enough for her husband.

Nevertheless, readers still blame her, just like Natalia blames herself for having fallen in love, just like she guilt trips herself throughout the story when she thinks she’s become someone who only thinks about her own happiness. After Natalia puts an end to her affair for her family, Pushkin decides to duel D’Anthès anyway and die, leaving her not only alone, but also making impossible for her to remarry with her lover decades later and abandoning the children just like Natalia would have done had she fled abroad with D’Anthès. With the only difference that Natalia would have done it to be with the one she loved after having lived a life that didn’t belong to her, whereas Pushkin did it for pride and vanity.

I suppose people blame Natalia because they think that she cannot make up her mind, but the truth is that the characters’ feelings are very clear in Bronze no Tenshi: Natalia doesn’t love her husband romantically and never has. You hear her thoughts, you watch her actions. She repeatedly confirms that she sees Pushkin as a relative and a father figure, even before D’Anthès came in the picture. Natalia didn’t fall out of love because of D’Anthès and D’Anthès didn’t steal her from Pushkin: she simply never loved him and Pushkin knew before and after marrying her. But he does nothing about it, he is happy to have her because she is beautiful and because he idealized her. Sure Pushkin loves his wife, but he doesn’t actually know her. He treats her like a muse, he calls her angel, he acts like a father towards a child, he scolds her, he keeps secrets and financial issues from her and when Natalia begins to show a firmer and more mature personality after she meets D’Anthès, he admits he liked her childish side more. He doesn’t treat her like a woman and an equal like D’Anthès does. If Pushkin had been depicted truer to his real physical appearance and age, I don’t think many people would’ve overlooked his obsession with making Natalia pregnant out of insecurity to “leave his mark on her” because she’s his possession.

When Pushkin got engaged to Natalia, he even promised her mother that he would’ve stepped aside in case Natalia realized one day that her life could’ve been different had she not married him. But he doesn’t. Or let’s say he does, but in an egoistical and manipulative way. Yes, it’s understandable on his part because it’s not easy to give up to the one you love and Russian society didn’t allow divorce. Yes, he doesn’t blame his wife for falling in love and he also waits for Natalia to come back to him... but he doesn’t realize that Natalia cannot be who he used to think she was through his rose tinted glasses and this to me shows that he’s actually more egoistical in his love than D’Anthès is with Natalia. D’Anthès is ready to be hated by her for the sake of seeing her happy. The moment D’Anthès is close to obtaining happiness and fulfilling his dream to live with her in France, he realizes that Natalia won’t ever have the chance to live with him in a dream, because she has too many things at stake that even love cannot make up for: the price she has to pay for becoming his wife is too high, it would kill her. So he sends her back home and he hurts her, pretending he never loved her in order for her to give up on him more easily. D’Anthès never once tried to force himself physically on Natalia, he never had to be told “stop” twice. He is ready to die for her, to marry someone he doesn’t love to protect her honour. D’Anthès doesn’t want Natalia to break under the burden of having left her family to be with him, Natalia doesn’t want D’Anthès to willingly die in the duel with Pushkin because he can’t live without her. Natalia returns home but becomes an empty shell because she thinks her love hates her, D’Anthès goes mad because everything he did to see her happy turned out to be useless. They aren’t allowed to find peace whether they’re together or not.

When that becomes evident, Natalia will finally do something for herself. She makes love with her lover to say goodbye and to carry that memory forever in her heart, before returning to her husband’s side. But we all know what her husband’s final decision was to put an end to this situation. He dies, D’Anthès leaves Russia forever, Natalia loses her dear husband and her lover. She meets D’Anthès again 15 years later in the same place they became aware of each other, they reminisce about their young days, but they can’t be together this time as well.

Despite her tragic endings, Saito always treats her heroines more kindly than her male character (s). It’s like she protects them. They’re always mentally stronger than their lovers and they are resilient… in a way they are always able to find a happy ending in their misery. Natalia is mentally stronger, she survives, she remarries to protect herself, but, partially because this is based off real events, she also is probably the most miserable heroine portrayed by Saito. In the end she doesn’t find her happy ending, nor does she succeed in anything. She just finds peace of mind that she imposed on herself by sealing her feelings for D’Anthès and grieving her first husband, fulfilling the role society required. And I truly pity her. I honestly don’t know how people can blame her.

#spoilers #bronze no tenshi spoilers #bronze no tenshi #chiho saito #natalia goncharova #natalia pushkina #alexander pushkin #natalia #georges d'anthès #d'anthès #pushkin

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apothecarinomicon · 3 years ago

Text

Spring week 1 part 1

I’m not quite sure how to begin.

I’m not typically one for journaling but it would appear to be part of the gig, as it were. I found this book—the one I’m writing in, heavy and musty and leather-bound—sitting on the table when I arrived, open to a blank page. There are at least a thousand pages filled before it, and no matter how many blank pages I flip past this one I can’t reach the back cover without closing the book entirely.

Mòrag told me things that present themselves for investigation here tend to be worth exploring, and if my gut tells me what’s right not to stray from its guidance. But I’m getting ahead of myself—you don’t even know who I am.

My name is Fionn Gill, and I’m a witch. I know, I know, but I don’t get into all that “warlock” “wizard” shit. It’s just a way to separate and belittle the same practice based solely on the gender of the practitioner, in my opinion. My specialty lies in potion-making, though I’m not very experienced. I’ve really only just finished my training—I’m from Huntsmanland and they’re not nearly as magically-inclined there as they are in High Rannoc. This is the first part of the country I’ve visited other than my tutor’s homestead and I must say, it hasn’t made the most stellar impression.

My tutor Edith received a letter stating that services would be required in the town of Greenmoor, and since the letter didn’t specify her services, she sent me to take care of it. I don’t know if she expected it to be an indefinite position, but here we are.

I didn’t bring a lot with me—just enough for the journey. It was about all I could carry walking. I arrived in Greenmoor with just about the clothes on my back, hoping they had an apothecary of their own so I could get this over with.

I’ve never really been one for small towns, and nor do they have much love for me. I’ve always thought I was meant for adventure—movement, action, peril, all of it. Small town life just feels so… stagnant. Nothing changes, no one grows or changes or has anything interesting to talk about. It’s enough to drive you mad.

Not to mention the natural suspicion of outsiders. I could see it on Mòrag McKinney’s face, even as she greeted me at the edge of town in her official capacity as mayor. Her hair was done up in a huge bun of thick braids on top of her head—a hairstyle with a formality at odds with her armored clothing.

She seemed surprised when I told her I was the witch. That’s not uncommon—like most intellectual and healing work, witchcraft is traditionally the domain of women. Even in the relatively forward-thinking country of High Rannoc, I tend to get some variation on ‘oh, how progressive!’ when I tell people my vocation. Often if you get a man doing witchcraft, his neighbors will whisper certain things about him. My neighbors back home were whispering those things about me anyway, so that wasn’t much of a hurdle to me.

Mòrag (she insisted I call her by her first name once we’d been properly introduced) gave me a brief tour of Greenmoor. It is, to put it lightly, tiny. I’d estimate a population around fifty. Near everyone has a job that serves an internal function to the community, with maybe the exception of the innkeeper. There are blacksmiths, miners, a carpenter, a tanner… she didn’t indicate any artists or poets or anything of that sort to me, which was disheartening. Even when I thought I would only be here briefly, I was hoping to enjoy the finer things the locals had to offer. The closest this town comes is a library, but I sorely doubt they have any kind of collection of works by local authors.

Mòrag pointed out all the magical resources in town, and some of them impressed me—the lunar tower and ritual circle in particular looked useful. She did not show me any apothecary, and following her aforementioned advice, I took that to mean there wasn’t one. Can’t wait to go out and experience the joys of foraging in the wilderness myself.

Once we’d gone through the entire village, she showed me to the cottage where I’ll be staying. It’s a little ways away from the town proper, down a walking path through some trees. It’s little more than a one-room thing, with only the washroom closed off from the rest of the space. The walls and door are made of dark wood, and the outside still has bark attached in many places. The roof is sloped and overgrown with moss and ivy. Inside the main room there is a bed, a large set of shelves which ought to have reagents and potion-making materials on them but are mostly bare, and a table on which this book sits. The washroom has a tub and a latrine—no plumbing to be found. Out back sits the remains of a garden, only one plot of which looks salvageable. A ways back into the trees there’s a creek. Most of the rest of the clearing is in the early stages of becoming overgrown, with trees and bushes and flowers starting to stretch themselves out and remembering how to be wild.

Mòrag told me the witch who was here before me was a bit of a recluse. No one in town knew very much about her, and she seemed to prefer it that way. They came to her for her healing potions and never made it past small talk and kept inviting her to parties and festivals even though she never attended. And then one day nearly everyone in town woke up with a gift from her—the farmers received her animals, the barkeep her ferments, the innkeeper and bakers her crops. As the townspeople tallied their gifts they realized it amounted to nearly everything she owned. They went together to her cottage to ask her why she’d given it all away, and found her cottage—this cottage—empty. The ensuing search turned up no body, no note, not a shred of evidence to speak of. It was as if she’d disappeared into thin air. As the townsfolk talked and wondered what had happened, they quickly realized no one knew her well enough to provide any real insight. They couldn’t even come to a consensus on what her name was.

They had quickly moved on to discussing the more pressing issue: the town was lacking a healer. The general store owner had worked with my tutor Edith in years prior (Edith loved to tell stories of the time she spent pursuing the culinary arts). Thus, the letter and thus, my presence.

Mòrag told me she hoped I might be more engaged in the community than my predecessor. I decided to refrain from telling her not to get her hopes up, and instead expressed my confusion: I’d thought this was a single gig, that I was to heal someone of their illness and then leave.

She disabused me of that notion with rather more intensity than I think was warranted.

She told me that unless my predecessor reappeared, I was all they had. She said Edith had spoken highly of my abilities in her return letter (I doubted that—Edith never spoke highly of anyone). She told me I would receive a base pay of 20 silver per cure to start, and that if I did the townsfolk well and they grew to like me, they’d most certainly be willing to pay more. She told me that the folks of Greenmoor were good people, even if they were a bit disaster-prone and some of them could make good use of a little more common sense.

And, well, how do you say no to that?

When I asked where I would be getting my materials, she told me the areas surrounding Greenmoor were rich in natural resources. So it will be as I feared. I’m glad I brought my off-road boots.

Mòrag left me to get settled in and I immediately took stock. There are no reagents on the shelves (of course not! Why would there be?), but I did find a cauldron, mortar and pestle, and a copper alembic (which is used for distilling)—so at least once I have the reagents I’ll be able to do some basic cooking with them. I also found a small leather-bound book with vague descriptions of some of the areas surrounding the village. I should be able to cross-reference it with my notes on the environments where useful reagents can be found to make searching for materials a bit less painful.

I pulled a matted tangle of weeds out of the garden plot, but it looks like whatever was planted underneath already shriveled away to nothing. Well, at least the land’s clear now.

One thing that I knew I’d need if I was going to be able to handle this was a familiar. I’ve never been one for conjuration but in this case it’s an unfortunate necessity. I was supposed to be getting one within the next few weeks at Edith’s anyway, and I already knew the process. You’re supposed to have a more experienced witch observe your first time, but that’s just academic formality—there’s nothing actually dangerous about the process.

I found what looks to be a quarter cran basket (was my predecessor into fishing…?) under the bed, and set out around the property collecting small rocks and flowers and toadstools that had the right kinds of vibration. They were for use in the ritual, but also collecting them was a good start to cleaning the property up. Because if I’m going to be living here, it cannot stay looking like this.

I took the basket into the woods near the creek and laid its contents out in a circle as wide as I was tall. Before I placed each one down, I held it for a moment and asked it to help me with my task. Then, I sat in the center of my circle and closed my eyes and tried to meditate. Clearing my head has never been my strong suit, but I’m usually able to fudge the process enough to do what needs doing. This time took a bit longer than usual but eventually I managed. I felt my energy (spirit, consciousness, whatever) radiating out from me, pink and orange and bright and loud, first to the edges of the circle and then beyond. All of it asked a single question and listened for the answer.

The response came from much closer than anticipated, when I felt something small hop onto my knee.

I opened my eyes and looked down to see a frog staring back at me, blinking lazily and making small, guttural noises. Her back was green and rough and slimy. One of her eyes was milky, pointing vaguely off to the left, while the other gazed straight at me. The tips of her toes (three on each foot) edged closer to brown than the rest of her body.

Having clearly presented herself, she now asked if my gut said we would be good partners.

I’ve named her Ailean.

And now here I am, writing all of this down. I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage this every day. Whoever reads this may have to settle for a few times a week. With that said, I do think I’d like to go back and read what my predecessor wrote. Maybe it’ll give a clue as to where she’s gone, and help me escape this position sooner. She seems to have been quite the prolific writer—getting through her logs could take months, especially if the townsfolk keep me particularly busy with their various woes. I’ll have to start reading sooner rather than later.

Speak of the devil, there’s a knock on my door. It hasn’t even been a full day and I might already have my first customer. I’ll finish this later.

⇦●〇●⇨

#writing #writers on tumblr #writeblr #original writing #fantasy #apothecaria #entry #amwriting #creative writing #fiction #rpg #roleplaying game #high rannoc #writeblr community #writers #writblr

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buckstaposition · 4 years ago

Text

I cling to your lips like gloss (2)

a Javier Peña x OFC story

also on AO3

author: @youhavereachedtheendofpie (in case u wanna come say hello on main but no pressure)

rating/warnings: swearing, mentions of character death, some mentions of sexual situations but nothing explicit, spoilers for season 2 (should probably have tagged ch1 for this too oops)

words: 6607, no regrets

summary: it’s not a date if it’s for work

Author’s note: There is so much research that went into this I would just like to say thank you internet for letting me look up stuff from the comfort of my own home at unholy hours even though I did get very distracted while looking up late 80s wedding dress fashion. Also bless the s2 dvd extra which was a director’s commentary on s2 ep10 and very informative.

—

Tag list: @keeper0fthestars @opheliaelysia @dindjarindiaries @fromthedeskoftheraven @shikin83

(message me if you want to be added to the list. or just message me in general)

and also I urge you to look at the beautiful moodboard that @huliabitch made for me! I love it so much!

Masterlist

Prologue

Chapter 1 - The Informant

Chapter 2 - A Wedding and Four Funerals

"All the best from Mr DEA." Diana said as she threw herself down in the seat across from her best friend. Gabriela looked effortlessly glamourous as usual, even though she was just in a blouse and jeans. She just had that air about her, like one of the vintage movie stars, something Diana had never quite been able to match. She was well aware she was downright frumpy in comparison, not one to catch eyes just by walking past. For the most part, that suited her. Gabi tried to seem nonchalant about the greeting.

"Oh?" She sipped gingerly from her drink and put her menu away. "You finally met, then? He's back?"

Diana nodded and stowed away her purse and cardigan. "Yeah, this afternoon and yesterday, in the morning. He seems... nice enough? I don't know. Not a talker, is he? He seems a bit on edge, to be honest. Though I suppose that's to be expected." But despite everything, he still has kindness in his eyes.

Gabi just grinned at her for a long moment, waiting to pounce.

"Yeah, he can be a bit of a grump. ...Handsome though, no?"

Diana sighed, swatting at the other woman with her own menu. "Did it ever occur to you that the newly divorced woman might have had her fill of men for the time being?"

"It has occcurred to me that five years of unchanging, uninspired missionary for half an hour exactly, twice a week, with that wet blanket you married might have left you with the need to really be filled by a man for once."

"Gabriela!" she gasped, choking on thin air and mortification, even though their conversations would often get way more explicit than this. Just never with her being the subject. Gabriela just smiles like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, hailing a waiter to give him their order.

"Speaking of newly divorced: has the dipshit finally signed the papers then?" Diana groaned, throwing her glasses down onto the table to massage her temples.

"No, he's dragging his feet. Which is ridiculous, it's not like I want anything from him. It's not like we're fighting tooth and nail over every other thing, like that American movie, the one we watched on your mom's old VHS player, you know? With Meryl Streep? In any case, now he decides to fight? If you can call that fighting."

"Kramer vs Kramer." Gabi remarked sagely. "Yeah... At least you don't have children together. That could really have gone ugly. I still don't know what you ever saw in that man."

"Oh shut it. I used to be fond of Juan Mateo; I don't know when that changed." Diana huffed, quickly snatching up her glasses when the waiter sailed over with their drinks and appetizer.

"Well that's the problem, you never loved him! And your parents set too good an example; what could ever live up to that?" She took a generous drag from her drink, then dug into the food with hungry abandon. "At least you're finally rid of his snoring. And his mother."

"God, she really hated me. Couldn't bear it that her precious boy brought some lowly scum from the comunas into her pristine middle class home. Marrying me might have just been the only demonstration of free will that man has ever managed." Diana allowed herself to seethe a bit at the memory, taking it out on her food as she stabbed at it roughly. "And I will definitely not miss the snoring."

"Mr DEA barely snores." Gabriela remarked lightly. "Just ...very softly. It's quite cute."

"Since when do you let clients stay to actually sleep?" Diana inquired around a mouthful, brows scrunched. Gabriela hummed thoughtfully, swiping some sauce off her plate with a piece of bread.

"Ah, but he was so tired, poor thing. It wouldn't have been safe to send him back out, he would have crashed his car and died in a ditch somewhere, which would have been a real shame. I just let him nap for an hour or so that one time. Besides, I wasn't in any state to do much myself after he blew my back out." She had a way of being so nonchalant about these things that Diana supposed came from a sort of professional equanimity. Diana possessed no such poise and gawked openly, the wheels turning in her head as she recalled previous conversations and connected dots.

"Oh." She breathed as realization hit. "Oh! No! That was him? You're kidding me. How am supposed to look him in the eye now?" Gabi was already cackling, barely able to hold her laughter as Diana sputtered, recalling the very detailed recounting she'd received after the night in question. "You said you felt that for days after!"

"I did, but it was worth it." Gabi was now subtly holding her sides, having pushed her empty plate away to be collected. "You see, you're my dearest and oldest friend and I only want the best for you."

"I'm sure Mr DEA would be delighted to know of your crude attempts to pimp him out." Diana snarked, pushing her own plate to the side just in time to be whisked away by the waiter. "You're incorrigible. This is serious. Besides, I think he really liked you, actually."

"He liked the illusion of intimacy, like most of my clients. Lonely but with committment issues to the moon and back. It's not like I'm telling you to marry him. I'm just trying to get you properly laid for once." Gabriela scoffed. She could be so detached sometimes. In fact, one could call it downright cynical. But Diana had known her since they were both in pigtails and could detect the care behind even the most jaded words.

"Oh whatever. I request a change of topic. How's your book coming along? Any progress on that chapter that's been giving you so much trouble?" Diana asked sweetly, making the other woman glare at her over the plates with their main courses as they were being set down. Because yes, Gabriela does indeed write more than letters, and she's good, too. Also, two can play this game of being just slightly mean.

--- --- ---

Javier hated team meetings. And now that he was the boss here he couldn't even get out of them. Worse, he had to lead them. He looked over the assembled agents, glad that he had most of their names down by now. Gladder still that this was a DEA-only event and he wouldn't have to deal with any of Stechner's CIA asswads for now.

"Duffy, where are we on the shipments?" He turned to the other man expectantly. Duffy was one of the few agents here that weren't younger than him; he actually had some experience under his belt, unlike all these fucking greenhorns the higher-ups had sent him. He forced himself to pay attention to Agent Duffy's answer, making notes of important dates as he listened. Operation Cornerstone had, at this point, not yet come to full fruition, but if they continued to put in their due dilligence it was almost certain to turn up something useful. When they'd gone through all the points on his agenda, and after clearing up a few uncertainties, he dismissed the roomful of agents.

"Duffy, got another moment?" Javier stopped the other agent as he turned to leave the conference room.

"Sir?" Duffy sat back down and pulled his writing pad back out.

"Have you come up with any ideas for my informant in Calí?" Javier had mentioned this before, seeing as Duffy was one of the agents permanently stationed at the Calí field office. Now that Escobar was gone it would look suspicious if the head of the DEA in the country trekked up to Medellín every other week, and they needed a better way for Miss Rivas to hand over her collected intel. Duffy cleared his throat and caught the eye of one of his colleagues and waved him over.

"Lopez here has had a few ideas, sir. Tony, tell the boss your ideas for drop-offs."

The other agent was younger, handsome in that pretty way that made girls sigh dreamily, going by his own, admittedly remote, memory of high school and college. Lopez hadn't said much during the meeting, but had that eager glint in his eyes that said he wanted to prove himself. Javier had had that same look when he first came down here; it hadn't survived the first year.

"Let's hear it."

"Okay, so I was thinking the public library might be worth a shot." Agent Lopez pulled a notepad from his own case, squinting down at the scrawled chickenscratch. Javier nodded along, encouraging more than praise. He'd have to run these ideas by Miss Rivas anyway, and if she had concerns they were back at square one. But that was a river he intended to cross when the time came and not a second earlier.

--- --- ---

The satphone was also a good instinct because after their preliminary meetings in April, it gets irritatingly difficult to arrange another one for over a month.

"The what now?"

"The 4th International Poetry Festival. It's on from June 2nd to 8th." she explained patiently. "Orietta Lozano, Gloria Gervitz, Blanca Varela!"

"I assume those are poets."

"Obviously."

"You want me to go to a poetry festival with you?"

"No, I'm taking the week off and I'm going to the festival, and I am also free to meet you. I'm just suggesting that maybe your work hours don't all have to be spent in dreariness and drudgery." Something sizzled on the other end of the line where she was making herself dinner while talking to him, and it made Javier's stomach grumble. "A bit of culture is good for the soul, Agent Peña. You'll burn yourself out with how much you work. When was the last time you ever did anything for fun? Read a book? Hell, listened to music?"

Whenever you call me. She always had music on at home. It drifted through the receiver, a soothing background hum that was too soft to truly make out most times. Add to that the fact that he was still sitting in his office at almost half past seven in the evening, and he didn't have a proper counter-argument.

"Alright, fine. 2nd to 8th, I'll see what I can do."

--- --- ---

She was wearing another belted shirt dress, this one pale yellow and sleeveless, the full skirt reaching to just below the knees. It reminded Javier of the style his mother used to wear when he was little. Saturday, June 4th, had him meet up with Miss Rivas at the Teatro Metropolitano in central Medellín. Her dress contrasted against the blocky red building in a way that tugged familiar, but Javier was trying to train himself to not see blood in every instance of red.

"This is quite a way from Envigado." He announced his approach as soon as he was close enough to not have to shout. She jumped a bit, clearly startled, but her lips pulled into a polite smile when she recognized him.

"Agent Peña." She greeted. "No, cultural grandeur doesn't usually make it out to the comunas." She sat back down on the bench and pulled a flyer from her (rather big) purse, thumbing it pensively. Javier sat beside her, not quite at arms' length. Trying to appear wordlessly inviting, if only to mask how at a loss for words she made him feel. He seemed to be no longer used to normal, civil human interaction.

"Right, there is one reading here at the Metropol that starts in about half an hour that I think you might like. It has a few of the international poets; a few of them will be reading in English. Then there's another one later at the Teatro Carlos Vieco that I'm keen on. It's about half an hour on foot between locations, but there's the open air exhibits that only require a small detour." She pointed it all out on the program as she spoke, Javier silently nodding along in acknowledgement. "I've planned it so there's more than enough time for a lunch break. I hate having to rush through things that are meant to be enjoyed. I brought arepas, but there are usually enough street vendors out and about to get something else, if you prefer." She really did talk a lot. That was surprisingly fine by Javier, since it meant he didn't have to. "Though of course if you'd rather just get your intel and go I understand, but I must insist on at least this first reading, Agent Peña. But otherwise I wouldn't want to impose. I'm sure you have other things to do."

His lips twitched involuntarily and he held his hand out for the program flyer, silently reading it over. None of the names rung any kind of bell. Not that he was much of a poetry aficionado. "Sounds good to me."

She blinked. "Which part?"

He handed her back the flyer, which she took automatically, still eyeing him with uncertainty.

"All of it." She blinked again, looking mildly shocked, the flyer still dangling uselessly from her fingers. "Miss Rivas, I came all the way here and you went through all this trouble planning. It would be a waste to part ways after so short a time."

Truth be told it sounded ...nice. The thought of spending a day just exploring, letting work be work for even just a day (or at least part of it). Despite being an only child, he'd never liked being on his own even when he was young, cherishing every day spent with school friends or any of his numerous cousins. And it wasn't like he'd had to do far less pleasant things for information.

Her expression morphed from uncertain gaping into a wide, pleased smile that he couldn't help but mirror. Maybe she was quite a nice lady after all.

---

"...I have to ask though: What's a ...smit- ...smee-dereen?"

"Smithereens." Javier corrected gently as they exited the venue after the reading. "It means... it's all the small pieces that are left over when something is destroyed. Like with a bomb."

"Hmm," she hummed, pensive as they strolled along with the leisurely flow of the crowd, "I'll have to think a bit more about this." She fished around in her purse, producing bottled water and offering him one. He took it gratefully, unscrewing the cap and taking a sip. "How did you like it, Agent Peña? Already regretting agreeing to this?"

"No." Javier found himself replying perhaps a smidgeon too quickly. "No, it's very uh... enriching." And not what he'd expected at all. Though the festival was now in its fourth year running, he'd never had the chance or the wish, really, to attend it before. He'd barely taken note of its existence, too preoccupied with chasing down leads.

"Hm, you don't have to mollify me, Agent Peña. You'll still get your intel, don't worry." Her expression slipped, from an almost serene smile back into that underlying heaviness that he could identify only now that it had been lifted for a short while.

"Miss Rivas," he said earnestly, "I wouldn't lie to you. I'm just not that good with words. That's why I'm a government agent and not a poet."

That at least made her chuckle a bit. And it was true, too. He felt lighter, in a way, like his mind had been craving a break from the frustrating work of trying to find an in to take down the cartel. Even his shoulders felt less tense here. And it was a beautiful day, too. Warm but not too hot, sunny with a mild breeze. People were out and about around them, festival goers and other citizens alike, mingling freely with a carelessness that would have been unthinkable only a year prior.

"Juan Mateo never wanted to come with me to this." She gestured vaguely at the city and its people around them. "My husband. Ex-husband. Technically still husband because he won't sign the divorce papers." Her features turned tense as she explained, a slight frown appearing between her brows. "Not that it matters now, of course. But goodness, that man had no sense for these things. He thought top shelf coffee was the height of culture. He'd act like going out to a bar one evening every few weeks was a chore beyond compare. Such a martyr!" She huffed and Javier laughed softly, offering to take her bag for a while as she adjusted it on her shoulder for the third time now.

"No, that's alright. It's not heavy. This way." Her hand naturally slipped into the crook of his elbow to steer him down the side of the road and Javier faltered for a moment, cursing himself for wearing a short-sleeved shirt even though it was comfortably warm. He just didn't want to get separated in the bustle of activity, he reasoned. This was a perfectly tame and non-offensive gesture and it would be rude to flinch away, he reasoned. She initiated it, after all. No harm no foul. This was still a professional alliance.

"You think very loudly, Agent Peña." She remarked, lightly squeezing his elbow. "It better not be about work."

"Technically I am at work right now." He countered, covering her hand on his arm with his much larger one and giving it an awkward pat.

"Lucky you." She teased, lightly nudging his side with her elbow.

"Beats paperwork, that's for sure."

They ambled along, weaving through the crowds where they gathered in front of street performers and makeshift stages. Javier couldn't deny that it felt good to feel the sun on his skin, un-recycled air in his lungs; most of all being far away from Stechner and his legion of CIA goons was almost rejuvenating. They fell into a languid rhythm, walking leisurely and stopping every so often to linger a bit where music was being played or more poetry recited, in front of the stalls of local artisans or to look at the sculptures that had been put up as an open air exhibit throughout the city. Every so often, Miss Rivas would tell him some little anecdote, be it about any of the previous festivals or just the city itself. He barely felt the time pass.

By the time they'd made it across the river and to the park wherein the open-air theatre was situated, it was time for a late lunch and Javier felt his stomach start to protest, all that walking serving to work up an appetite.

"...and after school Gabi and I would trek across town to the library and hide by the shelves in the back, the ones with the old classics, and we'd read all the scandalous 19th-century novels about adulteresses and other fallen women. You know, Anna Karenina, Thérèse Raquin, Madame Bovary, Tess of the d'Urbervilles..." Miss Rivas set her bag down and produced a fairly big plastic container from within, setting it on the bench between them. "Perhaps not the most appropriate fare for a couple of fifteen-year-old girls, but it wasn't like we had a whole lot of supervision, you know? It definitely wasn't appropriate to read to a five-year-old, so I guess it's good that Maritza never really paid attention much- Stop my prattling any time, Agent Peña. I know I talk too much; Juan Mateo always used to say so."

Javier paused, an abundantly filled arepa inches from his mouth. "He what now?"

She flushed, looking down and picking at the wrapping paper she'd bundled the food up in. "It's fine, it's not a big deal, really."

"It's not fine." Javier insisted. Told her to shut up, told his own wife that she talked to much! What an ass. He started tearing into the arepa with a glower. They sat in silence for a while, chewing tensely in this little corner of the park at the foot of Cerro Nutibara, in a spot that was fairly hidden among the greenery while still affording a decent view of the city streets below. Javier didn't even know why it irked him so much. There were worse things out there than insensitive husbands. Ex-husbands at that. Still, he seethed quietly in his righteous wrath.

"Wanna see something funny?" She was already digging through her purse, so he didn't see much sense in replying. She pulled a photo from some deep compartment in her wallet, looking down at it thoughtfully for a moment before passing it to him. In his defence, Javier hadn't meant to laugh. It just came out, snorty and half-aborted.

"Hey, at least I managed to evade the poofy sleeves, okay? My mother was dead set on them. She wanted me to look like the English lady… uh, Princess Diana. I think she might have taken the name as a sign."

"That's a.. that's a lot of satin." And tulle. Javier pressed out, still suppressing his laughter and barely succeeding. He could have pointed out that the mass of ruffles negated any absence of actual puff sleeves, but thought it better to refrain. And it wasn't like she hadn't looked beautiful as a bride, it was more that in that ruffled satin-and-tulle concoction she looked like an unwilling dress-up doll, despite the tasteful off-the-shoulder cut and flattering waistline. It was just... there were a lot of ruffles. There was a lot of dress, period. Paired with an expression that was better suited to a funeral, the effect was almost morbidly comedic.

"Wait till I show you the cake; we were basically identical." It was the dryness of her tone that set him off. There was no suppressing it now, Javier was bellowing, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. It didn't help that the dress fashion hadn't really strayed very far from the 'bigger and more style' in the years since. All things considered, this was a comparatively simple gown, lacking the mass of sparkly appliqués and abundance of bows and flowers that had been popular in the latter years of the previous decade. It just wasn't a style that suited her personality in any way, at all. Her slender figure was absolutely drowned in the sheer volume of the skirt alone. Hell, it completely overshadowed the already forgettable man standing by her side in the photo. Though 'by her side' was a generous descriptor. There was definitely enough space for the Holy Spirit and then some between the couple.

"My mother spent ages on that damn dress. Her hands looked like pincushions by the time she was done; that's why she wore gloves to the wedding."

"She's a seamstress, right? Your mother?" She'd mentioned it in an offhand comment during one of their previous phone calls.

"She was." Diana confirmed, tucking the picture away again. "Didn't think you'd remember that."

"Of course. I listen to everything you tell me."

Diana chuckled, flushing lightly. "It's not even relevant to the case!"

"I listen to everything you tell me." Javier insisted and started gathering up wrapping paper and such to throw away. A quick look at his watch told him they'd have to get moving soon if they wanted to make it to the theatre on time to get decent seats.

"Right." Diana collected her things to stuff them back into her bag. "So it's a no for ruffles, but what would you have me wear, Agent Peña? What do you think suits me?"

Javier couldn't have told even the most skilled interrogation expert what exactly compelled him to answer, and so readily at that, why he had an opinion at the ready in the first place, or at least that's what he preferred to tell himself.

"I think... something soft and flowy, not a whole lot of embellishments, if any. Clear lines and a light fabric, something you can dance in and be comfortable. Definitely no more satin."

She laughed now, as well, eyes twinkling with what he thought was approval. "You are full of surprises. Should I ever get married again, I'll most certainly engage your services as designer, Agent Peña."

"I'll keep a spot open for you. First consultation is free."

---

How her hand can feel so natural there in the crook of his elbow after hardly a day, he cannot tell. All he knows is that by the time the reading at the open air theatre is done the sun has started to dip in the sky and if this was what his work was like more often he'd perhaps be happier in his workaholic ways. Though they haven't broached the topic of work in hours now, instead ambling half-aimlessly northward towards Conquistadores where he's parked his rental car at the hotel he's staying at. Because it is a long way to Envigado and he insisted on driving her home. Because even though now that Escobar is gone Medellín is much safer, but he's never been one to easily trust a good thing.

It's only when they've crossed the big main street Avenida 33 that Miss Rivas gets quieter. She's obviously tired following their prolonged outing, but he instantly misses the pleasant hum of her voice, her clever little observations- At the same time, it's a comfortable silence, not one weighed down by expectation. She'd even let down her hair from where it had been up in a ponytail for most of the day, most likely to keep the thick curtain of it away from her neck in the heat and sun.

They're just crossing a smaller square, the edge of it lined with shops, the hole-in-the-wall kind mostly, when she suddenly pulls away with a soft instruction to wait there for just a moment, and he's left to look after her flapping skirt with what is probably not the most dignified expression. Defeated, he sat down on the broad edge of a flowerbed nearby and watched her cross to a food vendor, order, and fish around for her wallet to pay, before turning around again with a plastic cup in each hand. Fresas con crema, he can make out upon her approach, and one corner of his mouth ticks up involuntarily.

"Hungry again?" He teased when she got within earshot, handing him one cup and setting the other down beside him along with her purse.

"There's always space for this in my stomach." She retorted primly. "If you don't want any, all the better."

"Thank you for the generous offer, but no. Thanks for this." He makes a show of cupping the treat protectively, fully knowing he'll have to set it down to unwrap the plastic spoon that came with it. It makes her laugh nonetheless, which imbues him with a strange, fluttery sense of accomplishment.

She's still standing, head thrown back and grinning wide, when her gaze catches on something at the far end of the plaza, and her expression morphs from glee to astonishment to rage so quickly it gives Javier whiplash.

"Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me!" Ripping off her glasses and thrusting them into his hands, she began stalking off.

Two things are fortuitous: one, she had to pass Javier to get to whatever she saw and two, his reflexes are still sharp enough for him to jump up and into her path, even having managed to safely deposit the cup of strawberries and cream.

"Whoa, what the hell is it?"

"I- ...she-" Her voice is strained, her whole body taut like a livewire as she attempts to round him and resume her warpath. On instinct, Javier took a few steps backwards, keeping himself between her and her target. It's only his hands on her shoulders that stall her enough for him to be able to whip his head around and follow her eyeline. That side of the square is empty save for an older lady shuffling along, huffing and puffing and blissfully unaware of the wrathful freight train about to rush her. To say Javier was puzzled would be an understatement.

"What, her? The old woman?"

"That's Hermilda Escobar!" She's shaking so much he has trouble keeping a grip on her. "Look at her! The nerve of that woman to show her face here-" She winds out from under his hands, rounding him with a quick sidestep, and he can only match her speed because his legs are longer.

"Hey!" Javier whisper-shouts to be met with flashing eyes, then repeats it more softly. "Hey. What exactly are you planning to do here, huh?"

"I'm gonna give that self-righteous bitch a piece of my mind is what I'm gonna do!" She retorted, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. It's cowing, the single-minded purpose rolling off of her. She's strumming with it, her seething damn near tangible. In her rage, she is ruthless. Javier had no doubt, in that moment, that once let go she might well maul the woman with more than words.

It's instinctive, the way his arm wraps around her. Like the few times he's had to restrain Steve and yet not like that at all. For one Javier doesn't have to go for a near chokehold, though energy-wise her wrath is at least as fierce. So, he wraps one long arm around her waist, hauling her much slighter body against his with a half-turn, her forearms colliding sharply with his chest.

"Easy." He rumbles, his other arm coming up to fold across her shoulders. "Easy. Calm down. Calm down!"

Palms smack against his pectorals and it stings. "Hey!" He tightens his hold around her trembling body, her angry, anguished squirming. Softens his voice. "Hey. Calm down, okay? What're you gonna do, beat up that old woman in the street? Come on, breathe."

The sound that comes out of her is something very closely related to a snarl, and he feels the bite of her nails even through his shirt, but holds fast, continuing to ramble empty phrases with the intent to soothe, or at least distract.

"If you tell me to calm down one more time I will get violent." She promised, hands pushing into his chest in an effort to break his hold. The old woman has almost passed by completely by now, seeming blissfully unaware of the savaging she's escaping. Javier held fast, as tight as he dared, the hand still pinching the pair of glasses between two fingers awkwardly patting at her shoulder while he sways them both, rocking from foot to foot.

By the time Diana has calmed down enough that he feels comfortable loosening his hold, the old woman is long gone from view. He feels her slump in his grip, reflexively tightening his arms again to hold her up.

"Hey," he gentles, lightly nudging the side of her head and thinking, distantly, that all but burying his nose into her soft hair is far too intimate a position for any of this. "Hey, it's alright, I've got you, okay? I've got you."

They're still swaying on the spot, a gentle see-saw motion, and then he felt the hands that had been clenching and unclenching on his chest lose all tension and drop down to the side. She's still shaking, her whole ribcage jumping with the hiccup of suppressed sobs. Somehow, he maneuvers them both around and back the few steps from where their snack and her purse still wait beside the flowerbed.

"Why'd you hand me these, anyway?" It's but a cheap distraction tactic, Javier handed her the glasses back as soon as she sat nevertheless.

"I'm not blind without them." Diana responded tersely, snatching the glasses and cleaning the lenses with the hem of her dress. When she doesn't deign to elaborate, he sighs and stretches from where he'd sat back on his haunches in front of her, resuming his earlier seat and finally unwrapping the spoon. It's a tense silence for a long moment, her aggravation like a pulse around them. Certainly it gives Javier a good bit to think on.

"You wanna tell me what that was all about?"

"Don't condescend to me. You may have been closer to the action, but I've lived here all my life." She ripped open her own packet with a vengeance, digging the spoon into her own portion with such force that the sliced strawberries bleed into the white cream. Javier sighed. Took a moment to order his words before they leave his tongue.

"I just need to know if this," he gestured between her and the edge of the square, "is going to be something that has to be taken into account. I need to know that you're not just in this for revenge. I need to know where you're at mentally. I need to be sure, both for your own safety and the integrity of this operation, that you're not just going to snap one day and try to claw Miguel Rodríguez' eyes out, okay?"

She chews angrily a moment, eyes flashing at him before she stares straight ahead again. The wrath is still rolling off of her in waves, perhaps dipping a bit in its intensity, but far from dulling just yet.

"You want to know my motivations, is that it? Well, let me lay it out for you, Agent Peña: of my entire class, a third never even made it to graduation, for one reason or another. I spent my youth plotting routes around gunfights in the street, with just enough success to still be alive, somehow. My mother was caught in the crossfire of a raid and was afraid to leave the house for years afterwards. My father was on that Avianca flight. My baby cousin Maritza is dead and her baby will grow up without her mother. And throughout it all, I took the coward's way out, moved cities, for university, for work, for marriage, for myself even, and everywhere I went they were, too. The narcos have spun their spider's web across the whole damn country and beyond and sooner or later everyone gets stuck in it. I got stuck in it despite my best efforts, and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of having to flee and turning up in dead ends. Somehow I have landed in this unique position, and I refuse to join them. Is that enough motivation for you, Agent Peña?"

She held his gaze, a challenge in fire, and he wondered how much longer that adrenaline surge would sustain her before she crashed. Wordlessly, he nodded his affirmation.

It's more tense silence after that, thick like stew or the humidity out in the jungle. She doesn't reach for him again as they resume the walk up to his hotel, doesn't casually link their arms like before, choosing instead to fidget with the handles of her bag. He hates it, misses the lightness the day had before. These narcos, they really do poison even the most mundane of things with their long, bloodied shadows. When they get to the hotel's underground garage, she's gone even more quiet, almost deflated. There are no more words exchanged, save for the clipped directions to her aunt's house. At one point, Javier was almost certain she'd dozed off.

---

"Do you ever think you should have been there? When they finally got him?" He'd just parked the car opposite of the house. It's almost completely dark outside by now.

"...Yes." Of course he did. He'd wanted, even needed to. The temporary suspension had not been near as effective a punishment as denying him that. The fruits of his labor, of years spent chasing after shadows and getting himself mired deeper and deeper, until he barely recognized himself when he looked in the mirror. He'd wanted it, sure, but perhaps he hadn't deserved it.

"Why did they send you home?" It's not that Javier is in a particularly obstinate mood, it's just that after the incident earlier, he's reluctant to bring up his own involvement with the cartels of Calí and Medellín, much less Los Pepes, so he gives a non-committal grunt in response. He should have known that wouldn't deter her. "When I first called, Agent Murphy said you had been recalled to the States. I only found out later that that was before they finally got Escobar. Why would a top agent on a case of this magnitude be pulled off and sent back before that?"

"You mean what did I do?" She nodded. There was no getting out of it now. He didn't want to lie to her either. Javier sighed, scratching his thumbnail across his brow. "You're going to look at me differently."

"Perhaps, yes." She took a deep breath, rummaging through her purse and producing a folded up paper. "These are the names of some American banks that I'm very certain help funnel and launder Calí's money. Sorry it's nothing more specific." She placed the paper in his hand, gently closing his fingers over it. "Whatever you tell me, we're in this together, right? We both want to bring them down. I trust you, alright?"

Javier gulped, his fingers tingling under her touch. He pockets the paper to buy time, if only to swallow through his suddenly-too-dry throat. And then he tells her. The dead ends and the crippling bureaucracy, Don Berna, the Castaño brothers and Judy Moncada and Pacho Herrera. His desperate grasping at straws to find a way, any way to throw a wrench in the escalating violence and catch Escobar, how that backfired so spectacurlarly. How he tried to get out, despite knowing that these people do not allow outs. How he'd been played by the fucking CIA because he'd been an idiot falsely believing that the two agencies were operating under even remotely the same objectives. How he'd gone down, almost taking his partner with him, definitely tanking his boss' career. He hasn't spoken to anybody about this in such depth, not even his father. By the end of it, he's exhausted.

"So you're the one Carlos Castaño wanted to feed to the crocodiles."

"What?" He'd expected judgement, even disgust. Certainly not this.

"I overheard Gilberto mentioning it on the phone. I think he must have just learned that you'd be the DEA's man in charge. 'Maybe I should have let you feed that damn DEA agent to the crocodiles after all, Carlos.' The door wasn't all the way closed, that's how I heard it. I think that was the moment I realized I couldn't wind my way out of this. That either they were going down, or they were going to find out that I was already talking to Agent Murphy and have me... vanished."

"I won't let that happen." Javier promised instinctively, hands tightening on the steering wheel. "Crocodiles though? Really?" Not how he thought he'd end, that was for certain.

"Yeah, they're very uh... charming, huh?"

Javier grimaced. "If I never see any of them again, it'll be too soon."

"Knock on wood." Diana replied and unbuckled herself, pushing open the door.

"I'll walk you. It's dark."

"It's only across the street." She protested, and was that the ghost of a smile on her lips? Javier's hands stilled on his own seatbelt.

"You sure?"

"If my aunt catches me coming home with a man I'll never hear the end of it." Diana slipped out of the car, then bent to grab her purse. "Good night, Agent Peña. Until next time."

"Good night, Miss Rivas."

He waited until she was inside, the door securely locked behind her, before starting the drive back.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 3

-------------------------

Author’s note cont’d: if you wanna know what I had in mind, approximately, for the wedding gown see here

The International Poetry Festival of Medellín is a real thing, too. They have a youtube channel

#narcos (tv)#javier pena x ofc #series #I cling to your lips like gloss (series)#multipart #javier peña #narcos #narcos fanfic #javier peña fanfic #my writing #part 2 #like gloss tag

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finnickodaiir · 4 years ago

Text

IT Chapter Two: A Failure.

I will be criticizing the characterizations, the plot, the horror aspects and I will be comparing the film to the 1990 miniseries and the 1986 novel.

Characterization:

Ben. While he is still similar to his book counterpart, the writing for his character in the movies could have been better, because apart from being the lovesick poet and the history buff (a role which belonged to Mike in the book and in the 1990 miniseries), he didn’t get much of a characterization beyond that. In the novel, Ben was still a curious kid, who was interested in architecture and physics, and he was still a hopeless romantic, but he was not quite the poet the movies and the fandom makes him out to be, and as he stated in the book the reason why he liked haikus is because they are “structured poetry”. He was also the one responsible for building the dam in the barrens, the silver bullets and the underground clubhouse, which, except for the latter, were all excluded from Muschietti’s films. Another important moment from the novel, which was left out of the movies, was the scene where he stood up to his Gym teacher, who was complicit in the bullying he suffered at the hands of his classmates, which could have been in the second film, instead of his flashback with Pennywise, who was disguised as Beverly, a scene which didn’t provide the viewer with any new information about the character and its sole purpose was to pay homage to the 1990 miniseries.

Beverly. The movie at its worst never gets as bad as the book did, but one would expect that two movies made in the 21st century would be more progressive than a novel written in the 1980s, while certain aspects of the character were slightly better handled in the movies, it was not as good as it could have been. In the first film, Beverly is an outcast due to false rumors of promiscuity, an odd choice, because in the novel and in the miniseries she was bullied for being poor and wearing secondhand clothes, and because classism was still an issue in 1989 (the year the first film is set), it’s still is todays, so that was an unnecessary change. As was the fact that she didn’t interact much with other Losers, aside from her love interests (Bill and Ben), but perhaps the most infuriating decision was turning her into a damsel in distress and removing her role as the sharpshooter of the group. There are still positive aspects in Ch1’s treatment of Bev, she was given a personality while her book counterpart was an incredibly flat character. In the second film the scene where she is physically assaulted by her husband is played for shock value, while in the novel Beverly left her husband severely injured and he was later killed by It, in the 2019 film this scene was never addressed in a meaningful way, so it just comes across as gratuitous violence. Perhaps the best decision the second movie made regarding Beverly’s character was replacing the one-night stand she had with Bill with just a kiss to show that those childhood feelings no longer existed.

Bill. He was much better handled in the movies, while in the book the other Losers (except for Mike and maybe Stan) idolize Bill, in the movies they don’t, which makes them equals. My only complaint would be that scene in the second movie where he tells Audra that he wishes she would be like that woman he wanted. This would have made sense if they were going to stick with book arc and have him cheat on Audra, because he was still attracted to Bev, but that didn’t happen so that scene felt out of place with the rest of the film.

Eddie. He is the case of a character who was relatively well-written in the first movie, but then suffered a complete personality change in the second film. While in the first movie Eddie was brave and kind, traits which his book counterpart has, Ch2 Eddie was mean-spirited and cowardly. Most of his arc and coding was given to Richie, because the director thought that his fear of illness and relationship with his mother was enough, but he failed to realize that his fears of illness/germs and that feeling that he’s rotten are due to his internalized homophobia. And Muschietti didn’t even do a good job at handling what remained of Eddie’s arc (his fear of illness and relationship with his mother), he played it for laughs. He did not even let Eddie have agency over his death, in the novel he chose to sacrifice himself to save Richie and Bill. In the movie he still saves Richie from the deadlights, but he turns his back on It, giving the creature the opportunity to stab and thus losing any agency the character had over his fate in the book and the miniseries. He also butchered his death scene, which in the novel was when he finally accepted himself:

“Fading, fading back. Becoming clearer and clearer, emptying out, all of the impurities flowing out of him so he could become clear, so that the light could flow through, and if he had had time enough he could have preached on this, he could have sermonized: Not bad, he would begin. This is not bad at all. But there was something else he had to say first. “Richie,” he whispered. “What?” Richie was down on his hands and knees, staring at him desperately. “Don’t call me Eds,” he said, and smiled. He raised his left hand slowly and touched Richie’s cheek. Richie was crying. “You know I … I …” Eddie closed his eyes, thinking how to finish, and while he was still thinking it over he died.” (Stephen King, IT pp. 1086-7)

And Muschietti replaced that with a scene that made Eddie’s death all about Richie’s grief and changed his last words to “I fucked your mom”. All the emotional impact his death had has been completely lost.

Mike. No doubt he was the character who got the worst treatment in both movies. In the first movie, he was barely given any screen time, his role as the history buff in the group was given to Ben and they killed off his parents. In the second film, they didn’t even give him his a proper place to live in, he was just leaving in an attic, they had him steal artifacts from Native Americans (I’ll discuss that later), drug one of his friends, lie about the Ritual of Chüd being effective and he was the only Loser who didn’t even get a flashback of their own. While in the book, he was the historian, had the best parents and was one of the most important Losers. The only positive change that Muschietti made was having Mike go down to the sewers with the group for the final battle.

Richie. Even though he was played by Bill Hader, he wasn’t given the opportunity to be funny, apart from 1 impression, which was improvised. Also they removed his struggles with his sexuality in the first film, which was poorly retconned in the second film, his own bi-coding in the book was ignored and replaced with Eddie’s gay-coding (whose sexuality was left ambiguous at best), had him try to run away every 5 seconds (which something he never did in the book, he is one of the most loyal Losers), made his parents negligent just to add more unnecessary angst, because Muschietti thinks trauma = nuance. And just flattened an interesting character and took away any charm he had in the book, miniseries and Ch1.

Stan. While he was still the least developed Loser in the book, we never even get his POV, he had more character traits than just “the kid who gets annoyed easily”. In the book he was an eccentric kid with an equally eccentric sense of humor, had an interest in ornithology (completely left out apart from that puzzle), a good relationship with his parents who encouraged their son’s hobbies and weren’t as orthodox as the movies portray them. They replaced his encounter with the dead boys in the Standpipe for a painting (apparently that was Andy projecting himself onto Stan), which makes no sense because the dead kids offended him and Stan is a logical person, he would not have been scared of a painting. And they romanticized his suicide, framing it was an act of heroism, which sends the wrong message about suicide and is inaccurate, because the reason why the Losers were able to fight It is because there were seven of them, It was even scared of them. So, saying that his death was necessary to keep the Losers united just misses the point.

Issues with the Plot:

Raising the stakes to be more dramatic ended up hurting the story, while in the book the Losers’ decision to stay and fight It was one of selflessness, they decided keep a promise they made when they were eleven years old, in the second movie if they didn’t destroy It, they would end up dying, so this decision became one of self-preservation.

In the movie if they didn’t kill It, they would end up dying. This damaged the plot and eliminated the feeling of friendship, in this movie the Losers barely felt like old friends and more like co-workers. Another odd choice was to include the Ritual of Chüd, turn into a Native American ritual and portray them in a stereotypical way and it was also unnecessary to include that, because the ritual doesn’t work, so the viewer just wasted an hour watching the Losers looking for their tokens and in the end It was killed by the power of bullying. Another flaw of Chapter Two is its runtime, the movie is almost three hours along, most of the flashbacks were unnecessary and its structure is rather disjointed.

The film also fails to address important scenes in a meaningful way, while in the book the murder of Adrian Mellon was based on a real event and was included to condemn this action, the film never addressed it (it wasn’t even mentioned afterwards), instead it was played for shock value. Probably because the actual scares of this were not effective at all, instead of relying on practical effect and trying to create tension, the filmmakers decided to use CGI for all these scenes. It would have been wiser if they had only used it in essential moments, for example, when It turned into a giant spider. In an attempt to avoid the criticism the 1990 miniseries faced for keeping the spider while also trying to stay faithful to the source material, they decided to create a ridiculous hybrid, a giant clown with spider legs, whose death was caused by the power of bullying. Ironic for a movie which was supposed to condemn such a thing. What the viewer was left with was a dull, unimpressive, charmless movie, filled with problems caused by the director’s failure to understand the source material and the characters.

#I spent 2 days working on this and have been thinking about this for a year so I'd appreciate reblogs #Ch2 was a mistake

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therainbowwillow · 4 years ago

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https://therainbowwillow.tumblr.com/post/640901334281879552/therainbowwillow

Part 12. Yes. I will confidently state that this is part 12 of my “short” fanfic. GOD. WHY DO I DO THIS.

Premise/what’s up with everyone:

Hades heads for Olympus to bribe convince his brother, Zeus, to help him keep a hold on his kingdom. Thanatos heads for Olympus to get medical treatment for Hypnos’s concussion. Neither knows that the other is also going to be there. Orpheus sings and sings and sings. He tries to hide how disappointed he is by how awful he sounds. Smoke inhalation in Hadestown didn’t do him good. Eurydice and Hermes make sure he’s adequately drugged up enough not to notice the stab wound through his stomach. Hyacinthus is super excited to see his namesake flowers for the first time thanks to Orpheus’s springtime. Apollo resists going on any long spring walks after being shot through the ankle. Persephone cannot believe it’s really spring. Not too hot, not too cold, it’s a miracle! Dionysus enjoys getting drunk, but in the spring this time. Achilles and Patroclus wonder whether or not they’re going to be allowed to stay out of Hadestown.

Ps. My phone has decided to autocorrect ‘Orpheus’ to ‘AirPods’ now, rather than ‘Orange.’ This is not important, but I don’t think my phone likes his name very much.

———————————————

A week has passed since they’d arrived back home. Eurydice, for all the novelty the springtime has brought, hasn’t changed her routine since the day they’d arrived. Sitting beside her lover seems to her to be enough. The others spend most of their time enjoying the pleasantries of the world in bloom, but Eurydice had hardly leaves Orpheus’s bedside. Through the days, he sings and scribbles down notes.

The nights are harder. By sunset, she’s found, his pain medicine begins to wear off and Apollo gives him something stronger to sleep. Tonight, they’re trying to wean him off of the powerful medicine. His sleep has been restless already. Eurydice hasn’t closed her eyes.

She’s almost drifting into sleep when Orpheus wakes with a start. “Orpheus? You okay?”

His eyes well with tears. He clutches his chest and cries out, in fear or pain, Eurydice can’t tell. She considers running for Apollo, but she can’t bear to leave his side. “Orpheus, look at me.”

He won’t meet her eyes. Tears roll down his cheeks and he shakes with sobs. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

His lips move, but no sound comes out, save for his sobbing hiccups. She takes his hands. “Please look at me,” she pleads gently.

He tucks his head into his arms. “No... please...” he moans.

“Orpheus, can you tell me what’s wrong?” Much longer and she’ll have to leave him to wake Apollo.

She pulls him into her arms and lets him cry. “I... I wanna go home,” he whispers.

Her brow furrows. “You are home, lover.”

He shakes his head against her chest. “No... no.”

“This is home. You’re okay,” she reminds him.

He squeezes her hands, desperately. “No. No. No,” he repeats, over and over again. His tears soak Eurydice’s shirt.

“Can you tell me what’s happening?” She probes. He trembles against her and begins to cry harder. Eurydice lays him back in bed. He holds her wrists. “I’ll be right back. I won’t even leave the room,” she promises. He sinks against the pillows.

Eurydice finds a box of matches and strikes one. She holds it against her candle lantern. A little light might help her examine him. Orpheus lifts his head when the light touches his face. His lips part. He glances around, shivering with shock. “Orpheus?”

His breaths are quick and heavy. “E-Eurydice... I’m... I’m home,” he studders.

She sits at his side. “Yes. You’re home and I’m right here.”

“It... it was so dark,” he mumbles.

It dawns on her then. “It was dark! Did you think you were back... there?”

“I don’t know... it was just so dark...”

“I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t know.”

“I-it’s okay.” His voice breaks and he leans into her again.

“Is it better with the lantern?” He nods. “Okay. We’ll sleep with lights, Orpheus.”

He lays in her arms a moment, until she feels damp heat against her torso. She lays him back in bed at the sight of his blood.

His eyes widen. “Eurydice!” He begs.

She lifts his shirt to find his bandages soaked through. “It’s okay, love. You just put too much strain on it.” She presses his hand over the wound. “Keep pressure on it. Try not to move. I’m gonna go get bandages.”

“Okay,” he agrees. Eurydice finds a few rolls of bandages and returns to his side. She cuts away the bloodsoaked wrappings. “Eurydice,” he wimpers.

“Hang on, you’re okay.”

He squeezes her hand. “It hurts.”

“I know.” She unscrews the cap of a pill bottle and tips a flask of water against his lips. “Swallow.” He does. “Good. It’s okay, Orpheus. You’re fine.” She holds a wad of gauze against his stomach and pulls the blankets up around his shoulders.

He lays in silence until the bleeding stops. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“You don’t need to be sorry, my love. I’m sorry I didn’t light a candle sooner. We’ll keep the lights on, okay?”

He takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

———————————————

Hermes stokes the fire. Another letter. And another. And another. The words light up as if they don’t want to be burnt. He tosses a handful of twigs over the papers. They all say the same thing: ‘Hermes, you’ve been summoned to Olympus. King Zeus asks for your immediate presence.’

He opens another, glances over the words and tosses it into the flames. Only another stack or two to go. He considers just tossing them all to burn without opening. Still, he opens another, afraid of missing details. ‘Lord Hermes,’ it reads. He recognizes the handwriting but cannot place his finger on whose it is. Not the usual messages, written by cupbearer Ganymede when Hermes himself is unavailable. The letter continues: ‘I understand your predicament and I believe I must inform you of our own on Olympus. Your summons are not those of common matters, as I’m sure you have determined. I fear, however, that you were not told of the severity of your situation. Hades arrived at the gates of Olympus yesterday.’

Hermes freezes. Hades. On Olympus. He’s calling Zeus to his aid. ‘My father, Zeus, wishes to keep you in the dark so he will have you in his grasp the moment you arrive. Though I am not permitted to say so, you must not abide by your summons alone. You will be Zeus’s to do with as he pleases. Hades’s case is against Orpheus first, but his arguments are unconvincing. He provides no contracts or legally-binding terms the boy was meant to follow. It is his case against you that worries your friends here on Olympus. You broke every major agreement in your terms in helping mortals flee the underworld and hiding a shade’s contract, as Eurydice’s pact is no where to be found.’

‘Regardless, I side with you, not the King of the Dead. You may have been foolish to break your terms, but Lord Hades attempted to end a life out of sheer selfish desire, after claiming Orpheus could leave unharmed. Your case is stronger. I await your arrival. Bring with you Apollo, Persephone and Dionysus as well as the poet, Orpheus and his lover. The others may accompany you if you wish. Remember, you have allies on Olympus, myself included. Regards, Athena, Goddess of Wisdom & War.’

Hermes sinks back against his chair. He curses under his breath. Zeus has sided with Hades. He knows others will follow. Still, he has support. Demeter, certainly, would do anything to disrupt Hades’s goals. Hera will likely side against her husband out of spite. Artemis will join Apollo, if she bothers to show up at all. Aphrodite might defend Orpheus for the purity of his love of Eurydice. Ares, however, for all of his arguments with his father, seems predicated to choose the powerful side. Zeus, the King of the Gods has prospects. Regardless, he hopes Orpheus will harbor more support than prosecution. With Athena on their side, they have a chance.

Another envelope catches his eye. It is addressed to his name, in perfectly formed capital letters. He wishes he could throw it into the fire. Hades’s handwriting. He tears it open.

‘Hermes, I regretfully inform you that you have broken terms 1.1-1.3 of your contract, which state: The return of mortal souls to the overworld by your hand is prohibited. The aid in the return of mortal souls to the overworld is prohibited. Aid is defined by giving directions, supplies, or tools to any individual, mortal or divine. You have also broken terms 2.4-2.7, which state: Copies of important shade contracts will be delivered to Olympus in a timely matter, without interference. Other terms you have broken include: 5.5, which states: Insighting the overthrowing of the hierarchy of the underworld is prohibited. 6.1, which states: All contact with traitors to the underworld is prohibited. 7.3, which states: Removal of goods from the underworld without permission is prohibited.’ Hermes rolls his eyes. Orpheus had been wearing Hadestown-issued clothing.

‘7.4, which states: Delivering goods to the underworld without permission is prohibited.’ They’d brought food and drink for Orpheus and Hyacinthus. ‘2.8-2.9, which state: Release of underworld prisoners by your hand is prohibited. Aid in the release of underworld prisoners is prohibited. 3.1, which states: The return of shades to the Styx by any purposeful means is prohibited.’ Apollo’s killing shot on their aggressor. The letter continues on: ‘3.8, which states: Agression against any individual under Lord Hades’s power is prohibited.’ More charges are listed. It seems Hades wants to use everything he has to argue his guilt.

‘Due to the aforementioned breaches of contract, your employment under Lord Hades has been permanently terminated. Lord Zeus has been granted jurisdiction to decide your punishment.’ Hermes sighs. The last man to recieve Zeus’s wrath thanks to Hades was Asclepius. The poor son of Apollo had been repeatedly struck by lightning until his heart stopped. He shudders at the thought. Even if he could take it, Orpheus most certainly couldn’t.

The letter finishes with the charges against Hermes’s son: Insighting revolution against Hades, freeing shades from the underworld, insighting riots causing property damage, manipulation against the king, and breaking the terms of a verbal agreement. Hermes almost laughs at how pathetic the accusations are. Entering Hadestown is no legal contract. Orpheus hadn’t had rules to break. His agreement was to leave without singing, which he hadn’t broken, according to Eurydice. If he’d sing in his cell, the terms had been nullified by his assumed death. Hades has nothing.

Nothing on Orpheus, that is. Hermes knows his own punishment will be brought against Orpheus, rather than himself. If Hades wants to hurt him, Hades knows Orpheus’s suffering is the way to do so, especially now. They have to win, for Orpheus’s sake.

#hadestown au #hadestown fanfic #hadestown #therainbowwrites #this is so off the walls it hardly counts as an AU anymore lol

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minervacasterly · 4 years ago

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First Protestant King of England, Henry VIII or Edward VI? (And why Edward VI's reign was no less important than his father's)

It is important to dispell myths about the most popular English dynasty, so I decided to briefly take on this topic. A common misconception until recent decades is that Henry VIII was the first Protestant King. In reality, it was his son who was the first true Protestant King of England. I’ve written about this before on my blog, building upon the research by great scholars like Chris Skidmore, Loach, and the short introduction to his reign by Kyra Cornelius Kramer. Besides taking after his father in intellect, Edward VI was fairly concerned with the state of the church of England but unlike his old man, he thought that the time had come to make it into the first true Protestant church of England, agreeing to the issuing of the book of common prayer and a revision of it two years later. Edward VI also frowned upon improper clothing. He loved to dance and watch sports, but didn’t think t0 was a good idea to indulge in these frivolities since the Evangelicals believed that this was a gateway to moral decay. (Don’t you just love those who interpret the will of god so good, that they conveniently forget about the passages where their savior rails against the rich and so on?) Edward’s actions had consequences and these, like the contributions of his reign, are often brushed aside in favor of his more famous father and sisters. One of them, was a rebellion in the North and his half-sister’s resistance to his new laws that forbade people to hear the Mass and forced the new English service on everyone. Long story short … lots of people hung, punished and lots of enemies that his councilors (who as always since people couldn’t point fingers at the king unless they had a sick death wish of some sort) were blamed and were punished for during his half-sister’s reign. Some of you might be pointing out that since Henry VIII was excommunicated and labeled a heretic by most of Christendom, that technically he was a Protestant king but no, seriously, he wasn’t. Henry was, despite these labels, still a practicing Catholic. He agreed to Gardiner’s articles of faith that criticized the church and validated his claim as supreme head of the Anglican Church, and God’s representative on Earth, and surrounded himself by obvious Reformists, but other than that, he forcefully kept everyone in line. Catholics who practiced the Mass or adhered to his new rules while still being loyal to their beliefs were tolerated, but if they pulled a ‘Thomas More’ where they denied the king’s supremacy or insulted one of his beloved wives (before he got tired of them, that is) then yes, off to the block with them!

As for Protestants … Ever heard of Anne Askew? She defended Henry’s actions, she thought he was some kind of Moses as his last wife -Kathryn Parr whom she was closely associated with- would paint him as in her two books (primarily in ‘Lamentations of a Sinner’) and then she defied her husband and Henry’s establishment, pushing for a more Evangelist agenda, and what happened? Oh nothing big … she just got tortured and then burned. As long as you played Henry’s sycophant you were fine. There is also a spiritual aspect that ties into his megalomania. As Henry became more obsessed with securing his dynasty, his focus on spiritual matters also grew. By the end of his reign, nobody could predict what the king would say or how he would act so everyone walked a fine line when they discussed important subjects. Kathryn Parr is one of them who learned this lesson early on during their marriage. If it weren’t for gentleness, and the friendship she established among prominent ladies in her household, her accusers would’ve succeeded in convincing Henry VIII that she was a heretic. She would’ve had a sham trial like Anne Boleyn and then beheaded or worse, burned like Anne Aske. Luckily for Kathryn Parr, she was one step ahead of them. Humbling herself before her lord and husband, she told him that she never intended to change his religious views but just challenged him as people did at the beginning of his reign, so he could stir her towards the right path since she was a woman and these things were too complicated for her to fathom, let alone choose on her own. She lived and continued to be a major influence on future Protestant leaders, such as Jane Grey, Elizabeth I and of course, Edward VI.

Edward VI was greatly influenced by his beloved stepmother’s religiosity and mourned her deeply. He referred to her as his mother. Kathryn encouraged his passion for books and aided his Protestant tutors in stirring him towards their faith, ensuring that he’d become the king they’d all be waiting for, that would transform England into a fully Protestant nation.

It was Edward who began to force religious codes on his people in a way that hadn’t been done before. His father cracked on religious houses on the basis of cleansing them from corruption and because of their disloyalty, and open defiance against his supremacy; but Edward made things worse. The monasteries that were sold to his father’s noblemen left many people begging on the streets while forcing others to adapt to their new environment. When people could no longer handle it, they rose up in open rebellion and like in his father’s time, these were brutally squashed. But here is where it gets interesting … Whereas Henry VIII is blamed for all the evils of his reign, Edward VI is not and the reason for this? He was a kid, don’t be so mean. Leave the poor tot alone. Fact: Edward VI died at the age of fifteen and by renaissance standards, he was not a little boy anymore. Even if he hadn’t come of age, he was not an innocent boy anymore who was oblivious to the world around him. In fact. When Edward VI found out that his uncle had been executed, he was like ‘meh … okay’. And sure, Thomas Seymour was a brash individual who thought he could get away with everything but even after he tried to kidnap his nephew, to act in such a manner and for an uncle who was married to your favorite stepmother and someone you claimed to be your favorite relative, that’s pretty cold. But it gets better. After Edward VI finally got rid of his tedious uncle and his irritating set of rules, Edward wrote in his diary (showing no emotion at all) that the former lord Protector died and that was that. Getting rid of Edward Seymour probably made the little critter sigh in relief because out of all his uncles, the Lord Protector was the one who always reminded him of his duties and responsibilities, not to mention all those rules and not letting him be king! How unfair! And then there was also that issue about the rebellions. Edward VI saw these people as traitors and agreed with Northumberland that they should be dealt with immediately but his uncle didn’t think that was wise, which was why people called him the ‘good Duke’ because they saw him as a friend of the people. Now that he was out of the way, his kingdom would not have to suffer any more dissenting voices, nor any threats of isolation or future skirmishes with Scotland. Edward VI was fully committed to the Protestant cause but convinced by Northumberland, he realized that he would not go far if he did not have any allies. And the whole campaign in Scotland had gone awfully wrong and with Mary, Queen of Scots in France, the only way to neutralize that threat was making an alliance with that country, betrothing him to Henri II and Catherine de Medici’s daughter, Elizabeth Valois. Sadly, Edward VI did not live to marry her or do more for the Evangelicals. He died and before he did, he wrote a paper called “my device for the succession” which became the basis to disinherit his sisters in favor of their cousin, Jane Grey. That opened a can of worms that could have easily escalated into another civil war like the wars of the roses but thankfully for everyone involved it didn’t and his sister won her crown fair and square. But as with every Tudor, once her sister became Queen, she began to make good use of the propaganda machine to portray her sibling as a puppet of Northumberland and other evil lords who had corrupted him and turned him against her. Why was this done? Same reason why people who rebelled against their kings often pointed their fingers at their councilors -because doing so against an anointed king meant that they were upsetting the natural order. It was only in extreme cases, when someone had enough support and belonged to a different dynasty, that they would point it directly at them. Edward belonged to the same dynasty as Mary, and a dynasty divided was bad business for everyone, especially for the first Queen Regnant of England who had inherited a divided country.

Mary I also did something else and that was appropriating some of Edward VI’s religious achievements in an effort to make Catholicism appealing to those who were still unsure whether or not they wanted to return to the church or side with the various groups within the Protestant movement. Sections from the book of the common prayer were added to a new set of prayers in Latin and English, and adapted in a way that didn’t contradict church doctrine. During his reign, Edward encouraged many poets and artists to express themselves. These would reenact passages from the bible, or create allegorical paintings that depicted Edward as England’s messiah, and all those who followed him as true Christians as opposed to the decadent Catholics who were portrayed as heathens.

Edward’s religious reformation became the basis for Elizabeth I’s reign who continued with many of these reforms. Although she did not go as far as Edward or his chosen heiress, Jane Grey, would have liked. Elizabeth I was far more pragmatic, recognizing that if she wanted to rule over a divided country she had to maintain some of the older traditions or else, she’d risk losing everything she had. Unlike her siblings, Elizabeth I wasn’t thought of as legitimate by many of her Christian peers. Ideological purity was a luxury that she couldn’t afford and in any case, she did not want because many Evangelicals didn’t like the idea of the supremacy of kings (or queens). Nevertheless, Elizabeth I built her religious establishment upon her brother’s by issuing a new revision of the book of common prayer and encouraging artists and poets to create works that extolled the Anglican Church and the Tudor Dynasty.

#Edward VI #Henry VIII #English History #English Reformation #dailytudors

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kaibagirl007 · 5 years ago

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A Boy In Love With You

( RP starter for @dragontamer05 )

With his work at Kaiba Corp done for the day, Mokuba returned home to the penthouse earlier than usual. No sooner had he stepped out of the elevator and in through the front door, the sound of slowly strummed guitar cords met his ears as the simple tune drifted out from the zen garden across the hall.

Overhearing his brother play the stringed instrument wasn’t uncommon these days,- a hobby that had been taken up during the rehabilitation process as an outlet to help Kaiba express his otherwise pent-up emotions,- the harmonious singing voice that accompanied it though, that was new:

“…Now I may stumble, I may come undone,

I may get crushed by the weight from above,

But if you lose faith in what I’ve become,

You can trust in the strength of my love.”

A warm smile appeared on Mokuba’s face as he listened to the lyrics whilst he slowly approached the zen garden’s transparent door that had been left ajar. Through the glass he saw his brother sat on the stone bench with his back to him, blissfully unaware of his presence.

“I try to write a letter, straight from the heart,

String my words together but I don’t know where to start,

Maybe I’m just a poet, without a rhyme,

But baby this boy will love you to the end of time,

Baby this boy will love you to the end of time.”

When it was evident that the song had come to an end, a soft round of applause was given.

“Mokuba!” Kaiba exclaimed after having turned around to see his brother standing in the doorway. His face’s contrite undertone morphed into embarrassment as he diverted his gaze. “You’re home early.”

“My workload is done and everything else is running smoothly, so I saw no need to hang around the office any longer.” Mokuba could sense he’d unintentionally caused his brother some discomfort from having overheard what he assumed was something deeply personal. “I’m sorry if I startled you.”

There was no response as Kaiba set his guitar down and began to gather up sheets of notes, then closed the online tutorial displayed on his laptop. He’d quickly gotten used to working alternate days as the two of them now shared the running of Kaiba Corp as a team, and was a little disappointed at having his free time infringed upon. Looks like I won’t be finalising this today after all.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you sing since our days at the orphanage.” Mokuba simpered at the fond memories of the times his brother had comforted him with rhymes and lullabies when they were small. “It sounded beautiful. I don’t recognise the song though. Did you write it yourself?”

Kaiba nodded. “It’s something I’m working on.”

“About your feelings for Kisara?”

“Obviously,” the bittersweet laugh almost brought tears to Kaiba’s eyes. He wiped at them and picked up his things.

Mokuba frowned at the sight of his brother trying to remain strong. Clearly the other still loved and was missing the woman who had meant so much to him. “Are those lyrics what you’d say to her if you saw her again?”

“Not entirely. I owe Kisara an apology and honest explanation for a start before I even consider revealing the feelings I still harbour for her… That’s not happening anytime soon.”

“Why not?” Mokuba queried as he stepped aside from the doorway so that his brother could leave the zen garden.

“I have no means of contacting her,” the response was sombrely spoken as Kaiba headed towards his room.

“What about Timaeus? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind relaying a message to Kisara for you.”

Kaiba had actually considered that and decided maybe he would ask sometime in the future, when he felt it would be an okay thing to do so. Right now though, he wasn’t prepared to put his newfound friendship on the line with such a request. “No doubt he would, but I’d rather not risk having Tim think I’m using him as a stepping stone to get what I want. I’ve few friends as it is.”

“Fair point.” Mokuba admitted upon hearing his brother’s reasoning. He then came up with another suggestion as he watched the guitar placed away into its case and closet, “You could always make an announcement via the blimps. That way Kisara’s sure to see it!… That is, if you’re okay with making an apology to her so publicly?”

“I’d have no issue with that myself, Kisara on the other hand...” Kaiba’s mind briefly recalled the tearful scolding Kisara had given him for having made the widespread announcement regarding the details of her kidnapping. Despite good intentions, his actions had only caused her further distress, and so, he’d vowed to never repeat the overly zealous stunt again. “I’m appreciative of your suggestion, Mokie, but broadcasting anything involving such private affairs is something I know Kisara would not approve of.”

“But it’s an apology!”

“Doesn’t matter, it would still be large-scale and draw unwanted attention her way,” the argument was calmly made as Kaiba countered his brother’s exasperation, “I’ve caused her enough pain as it is, I don’t want to upset her even more.” Without another word, he reached into his closet once more.

No further dispute was given. His brother was proving just how much of a changed man he was by the amount of serious consideration being shown towards other people’s feelings before his own. A warm sensation of pride was felt inside Mokuba’s chest, but was tainted with disappointment of his brother forfeiting the deserving chance to make amends with Kisara.

“I’m going to head over to the gym.” Kaiba declared as he now stood with a holdall bag in his grasp and closed his closet. “You wanna come with?”

“Sure, let me just grab my things.”

As Mokuba retreated into his room, an idea struck him. I should be the one to contact Kisara for Seto! He then bit his lip in hesitation. But that would mean I’d have to come clean and reveal I remained in contact with her all this time; will he be mad at me for not telling him?… Oh, screw it! I might not get another opportunity to see them both get back together again!

[TEXT to Kisa] Hey, how’s it going? :)

[TEXT to Kisa] Hope you don’t mind, but I have a random ‘hypothetical’ question to ask…

[TEXT to Kisa] If my brother made a request to meet with you some time so that he could apologise for everything he’s done to hurt you, would you agree to do so?

#RPing Kaiba #dragontamer05

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oh-theres-a-woman · 5 years ago

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War Melodies on the Gramophone; Part 2

A/N: Here’s the requested part two!! Thank you so much to the lovely anon and other loving followers that expressed their want for a part two. The conclusion to this story! Really hope that its the ending you desired! A fitting end to the reunited pair, wouldn’t you say?

Taglist: @zodiyack , @itsfrancisneptun , @shelbys-we-get-the-job-done, @amy-booxx & @fandom-fucking-shit

Pairing: Thomas “Tommy” Shelby X Female Reader

Word Count: 1519

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It was quaint and quiet the Shelby townhouse was at this hour. The loud crowd of the household all down at the Garrison which you’d departed shortly after. Tommy carried himself like he was the cock of the wall. The alpha among his pack. Yet, he held the damaged air of a dangerous lone wolf on the prowl. He wasn’t at all the boy you once met, however, during the war you had borne witness to that transformation as well your own.

Sitting down in the living area on a comfortable but worn out loveseat. You observed the family setting the room gave. Apart from that, it warmed your soul to know that he had a family to come back to. The epidemic that you had come home to without rest to throw yourself into a great risk environment of sickness and death after the gore-ish war. You had taken ill for a time and thought it’d be finally your end. Fate had something much crueller in mind for you. Your mammy and pappy as you called them took ill. It carried them away to the heavenly gates before you were able to see them again.

So, the homely scene was almost comforting to you. As you straighten your posture, gazing at some of the things that made it uniquely home. Only to be caught off guard by Tommy’s outstretched hand offering you a glass of whiskey. Awkwardly you smiled up at him. Accepting the drink, even if you’d had a few at the Garrison it felt like you needed a bit of a boost of your confidence. Time surely had passed on the era where you were certain to know that man before you. But, life was so different now.

Once you would have been able to speak your dreams, but now it seemed foolish to speak to a stranger. Whiskey was the answer for each discouraging thought that told you to run. Those thoughts dampened the best of moods, they wouldn’t win now. Fencing off those insecurities you clung to the hopes that made things seem a little more realistic. “You have a lovely home Tommy, it’s so homely. It's nice. Simple.” You complimented smiling at the rim of your glass. The home was something you have been looking for since you had returned from the war. After everything, the places you stayed were only beds to sleep in. The area where you paid way too much rent for the upkeep on a cheap and run-down flat. Shouldering the debts of family gambling… Your brother’s issues. Yet, that little shit ran away with his tail between his legs when he heard the world of your return.

You guessed that’s what came of the younger generation that didn’t go to war. It was all about larking about, making a fool of oneself. “Thank you, my Aunt Pol is very particular with things. She likes things one way. Her way and no other way.” Thomas didn’t change with one point that was likeable. Things were always straight to the point and it never took long for him to answer. He was smart, quick with his wit. Maybe there were actually a lot of points you honestly liked about it. Truly, if you were a grand author or poet you’d be able to write it all out. If time would allow you and you had the knowledge of all the fancy words under the sun.

No, you were, in fact, a little simple. Smart, but your wit came with the job and doing things with your hands. It helped things come across clearer; feelings, desires and needs.

“You’re somewhere else, [y/n],” Thomas said in a matter-of-fact, seating himself beside you. Nursing his own drink of Irish Whiskey. “Where are you lost?” He asked you quietly. Blue observing eyes turned quickly to you drinking your lovely features in. The distance in your handsome gaze.

“I don’t know, sometimes I just drift. A lot of days are like that.” You admitted hesitantly, it almost felt like dumping a burden on Thomas after so all. Sadly, the certainties of old familiarities seemed and felt long forgotten at that moment.

“I understand that, somedays it feels better to just be somewhere else, doesn’t it?” Tommy commented rather understandingly. Offering you a cigarette from his smart-looking case in the front pocket of his well-tailored coat. Gratefully accepting the stick of pure calmative and nicotine. Placing the glass down on the coffee table, you took it between your slightly chapped lips. Inhaling at Tommy lit the end, sparking the ember to life and filling your lungs with that heavy relief you couldn’t describe.

“Exactly, the work helps. It’s always helped. When I slow down the demons come rushing back, night horrors.” You admitted between a neutralizing inhale of the nicotine. It levelled out the insecurities. Beat them out like a flat iron. Before letting out a shaky laugh looking down at your lap feeling awfully silly about the suppression of emotions. Flicking the ask into the provided tray before you. “So, what have you been doing with your life? It seems to be going well for you, appearance-wise. But, I always picture you to be quite the smartly dressed fellow in any case.” There, finally, set in the creeping ease in your manner and comfort. Tensions releasing from you like a heavyweight rolling free off your shoulder and down a large hill.

“Bookkeeping and other sorts of jobs pay well enough, I won’t lie about that.” Tommy exhaled a cloud of smoke as he spoke, filling the dimly lit room with a greyish cloud that held a little bit of mystery to it. “By it sounds and the girl you were with at the Garrison, is it safe to assume you’re still a nurse?” He asked with a focus dedicated only to you.

“Yes, but I’m studying in the field to become a doctor. Bold, I know. The men at work are more than happy to point out how unwomanly and unbecoming it is to become a doctor. But, I don’t mind at all. It’d give me a purpose and something to look forward to. After all the hard work is done.” You smiled absentmindedly at the man at your side, feeling that comfort between each other once more. Like it had never left in the first place. Just stagnant time held, needing the flow of conversation once more to remove the frigid awkwardness.

Tommy chuckled at your remark of the men at work, their thoughts seemed invalid to him. “You’ve always had the most delicate hands, that do the job right the first time. Don’t take any notice of them.” There was a wit in his remark. Soul-warming. It lit an old spark for you. That had been so suppressed for so very long. It made you want to ask a question--something that would bug you later if you didn’t. No matter how rude it’d seem.

“Are you married, or involved with anyone, Tommy?” You needed to ask. Eyes appearing glassy when asking such a question. Almost like you’d cry if you heard someone stole his heart. Foolish and bitter as it seemed, the little light that was alive between you and the Brummy had kept hell from your door for a time. Pitiful it just seemed to lose all that now. Even when you didn’t know Shelby pulled through there was a hope there that he was always out there. Healthy, alive, surrounded by the people that mattered--even, bitterly, a lover if he had one.

Tom’s gaze became distant and wandering now. Taken to a place elsewhere. Locked on memories of the past. “No, there’s no one. The occasional whore, nothing emotional.” He suffocated the embers of his cigarette finishing that statement. Sparks jumping up and licking across his fingertips. Before glancing at you with that dangerously handsome gaze that made you feel like those days were the war stopped for a moment. Where you found yourself in his embrace.

“I lost my heart and was broken by a nurse in the war, for the longest time I didn’t know she was alive… That was until tonight when I saw you in the Garrison. All dolled up and looking every part the goddess of Gyspy dream.” Thomas said in a perfectly heartbreaking voice, before drawing you to his lips. Right hand on your cheek, smoothing over the soft flesh. Left-arm a smooth snake around your waist, stealing your breath away as you gave yourself away into the passion of a shared kiss. That searing reunion that seemed to call for both you.

“I lost mine to a Brummy Boy turned man, the bookkeeper, a crowned prince of the Peaky Blinders. My Thomas Shelby.” You announced against his rough lips once more. Before stealing a rough kiss once more. Easing back into the love seat letting things take their natural course. Only the smell of sweat and cigarette clung into the air after a time. Sweaty bodies tangled together. Still high from the memory of each other’s embrace.

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courtingstars · 4 years ago

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Notes for The Vanishing Prince: Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight has been posted! I don’t have nearly as many notes this time. (Which is good, because it took me a lot less time to draft this post. XD;) Still, I did want to bring up a couple of things that I thought might be worth mentioning.

And as always, I updated the inspiration board for this fic over on Pinterest, so feel free to check out the new images if you feel like it/have access to Pinterest. (The most recently added images are at the top, so when you scroll down, you’re basically going backwards through the story.) And with that, onto the notes...

(Cut for the ramblings of a writer who overthinks everything, and also some very important notes about omurice, because I LOVED writing that part…)

Akashi and His Mom, Plus Heian Poetry

This is basically just a note to say that I really loved being able to write the scene with Akashi and his mom. <3 I think it’s the first scene of them together that I’ve posted online…? (Though I’ve written lots of scenes where Akashi talks about his mother, or has a very brief memory of her.) I wrote something short about them for Mother’s Day years ago, but I never finished it, sadly. So it felt nice to finally be able to include a glimpse of how I see their interactions.

Also, the part about Japanese poetry is indeed a thing! A lot of the Heian-era poetry in Japan revolves around themes of courtly love, and because of how courting worked in that time period, they often feature various forms of pining-for-your-lover-from-a-distance. So like Akashi says, there was a folk belief that if you were missing your lover enough, you would appear in each other’s dreams, so that you could at least be together in the dream world. Like this site about the poet Ono-no-Komachi explains, “the intensity of one's feelings for one's lover could induce him to appear in one's dream or could cause one to appear in his dreams.” I always thought that was a fascinating concept. (Also the idea that Akashi would be studying those poems at six years old is just really funny to me? But anyway. //laughs)

Akashi’s Issues, Poor Guy

I don’t want to go into too much detail here, but I thought it might be worth mentioning… One of the things I really wanted to explore in this fic (and the series as a whole) is the reality that working on mental health problems can be a very difficult and often nonlinear process. While it’s not the only plot line of the story—and I definitely don’t claim to have done a great job with it by any means, though I try my best!—I felt like it was important to take the time to show how a person’s struggles with mental illness don’t just get solved overnight. Akashi has been fighting a lot of the same problems throughout the series, because these kinds of emotional hang-ups and coping mechanisms aren’t easy to change.

To be honest, it felt somewhat counterintuitive to me as a writer, because back when I was trying to publish original stories, there was this idea that you weren’t supposed to write characters “brooding” for too long or repeat the same issues/mistakes over and over. Basically, the characters needed to show growth quickly, and passages that could be seen as repetitive should probably be cut, because they weren’t “progressing the story.” While I can understand that idea in a writing sense, I tend to feel like it’s not a very fair representation of what it’s like to struggle with mental health. (Which also applies to a lot of other kinds of personal issues/growth as well, honestly. Change is just hard in general.)

So I’m definitely trying to walk a balance between not writing the same scenes over and over, while also showing Akashi’s struggles as an ongoing journey for him. The latter was really important to me, both as a writer, and as someone who’s had cycles and setbacks with my own mental health stuff.

Bokushi Is Still Kind of an Asshole, Lol

On kind of a similar note… I have no idea how Bokushi comes across as a character at this point in the story? //laughs But if anyone finds him to be kind of a jerk, I will say that’s an intentional choice, at least. Ideally, I wanted him to be likable but still flawed, and I do find him hilarious personally, but… Hopefully it’s obvious that I don’t think he’s a perfect person, by any means. XD;

I think I’ve said before that I really want to use this storyline as a chance to explore my view of his character—and the why/how of how his personality differs from Oreshi—in as much detail as possible. Hopefully it ends up coming across as nuanced in the long run… But if nothing else, I hope it’s at least fairly interesting to read! Because I do find him extremely interesting as a character.

Omurice!

So here’s my major cultural note for the chapter… I’m guessing a lot of people are already aware of the fact that Furihata’s favorite food in canon is omurice, since it tends to pop up in AkaFuri fics a lot. For anyone who’s not familiar with the dish, omurice (a borrowed compound word for “rice omelet”) is a Western-inspired Japanese dish that’s extremely popular as a comfort food. (This type of Western-inspired cuisine is generally called yoshoku. Which I think I also mentioned in Storming the Castle, but… it’s been awhile? //laughs)

So basically, omurice consists of pan-fried rice that’s usually seasoned with either ketchup (often considered the more homey/classic version) or demi-glace sauce (more often seen in restaurants). Like in a lot of fried rice recipes, vegetables and meat are added to the rice, and then the whole thing is served beneath a super-fluffy egg omelet. It typically looks like this, or this. I’ve made it before, and enjoyed it way more than I expected. So while I was writing this chapter, I couldn’t resist preparing one of my own (for research purposes of course, lol):

I’m not a good cook, to put it mildly, but I was proud that this one came out a little better than the last time I tried it. XD

To me, the coolest thing about watching someone prepare omurice is the part where they plate the omelet... This can be done a few different ways, and some take more skill than others. (I totally cheat, by making a single-layer omelet and just setting it on top of the rice as best I can. XD) The most difficult way (and the way Furihata does it in the fic!) is to layer the omelet on top of itself while you’re cooking it, so that it becomes a kind of pouch that you can slice open over the rice. There’s a great animation of this process over on my Pinterest board, and I also really recommend two videos on Youtube if you’d like to see more… This clip features an amazing chef from the most famous omurice restaurant in Kyoto, and this one is an iconic scene from Tampopo, a classic Japanese film. To learn more about the context of those clips, and about omurice in general, I also recommend this really fun article about it.

The thing I find the most interesting about omurice is that it’s such a popular comfort food, so it’s often associated with home and family life. That’s why in The Fast Train to Kyoto, I was inspired to have Furihata’s mom make him omurice when he’s having a bad day. At the same time, though, the dish can also have a bit of a “lovey dovey” connotation to it? Like how in this survey it was one of the top foods that Japanese guys said they would like their girlfriends to make for them. (Hence the trope of decorating the omelet with a ketchup heart, as Bokushi mentions, in his extremely Bokushi way. //laughs)

For all these reasons, I tend to think of omurice as the perfect favorite food for a character like Furihata. It definitely inspired how I write about him, especially when it comes to things like his family life as well as his romantic side. <3

So How About All Those Storming the Castle References Huh

This is just a quick note to say that if anyone happened to be confused by some of the references in this chapter, a lot of them were referring back to events from Part Two of Storming the Castle. (Like the first time Furihata saw Akashi’s dad, the huge portrait of Akashi and his parents in the ballroom, the butsudan altar, the secret passage with the stairs, the ghost, etc, etc… Also the character of Ginhara, since he’s the butler who runs the mansion in Tokyo.)

I tend to be pretty indecisive about exactly how much detail I should use to explain something that happened earlier in the series… Since I know some people might not have read the earlier fics, and at the same time, I don’t want to be too repetitive for those who have? In any case, if anything was confusing/unclear, it was probably a callback to that story. (Oh, and there was also a callback to The Fast Train to Kyoto, about when Akashi and Furihata talked about becoming friends!)

Well, that’s it from me this time around. Thank you so much for reading, as always. As I mentioned in more detail over on Ao3, I really hope everyone is staying safe where possible, and supporting each other in this difficult time. I will do my best to get the next chapter posted very soon. <3

#the vanishing prince #kat writes fanfic #long post #text post #akafuri #I'm so glad I was finally able to share all those omurice notes lol #and also share the omurice cooking scene!!#I never thought that Furi would end up preparing a rice omelet for Bokushi haha #and I was just really amused by his utter disdain for the ketchup lol #definitely inspired by all my friends who were like why would you fry rice with ketchup and I'm like IT'S BETTER THAN YOU'D THINK IT'D BE #anyway #this was also a tough chapter to edit because it was SO LONG #and I felt bad for Oreshi #and these boys have complicated feelings #but I hope it was enjoyable to read because I did have fun writing it <3 #kat writes about basketball dorks

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monotonous-minutia · 4 years ago

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because I think of it altogether too much, some dialogue on the differences in the role of the Muse in Les contes d’Hoffmann, in the play versus in the opera. Enjoy my nerdy, disorganized, former-literature-major ramblings as I spend altogether too much time picking apart the minutia of this issue (but hey, it’s in my URL, so).

In the original play by Michael Carré and Jules Barbier (the same people who wrote the libretto for the opera), the Muse doesn’t double as Niklausse. We get two separate characters–the Muse and Hoffmann’s sidekick, Friédrick.

The play opens with a monologue from the Muse, similar to the one in the opera (some lines are taken verbatim). The monologue in the play, though, isn’t about the Muse being mad at Stella and wanting to win Hoffman’s love. It is in a lot of ways a love letter to the real Hoffmann’s writing, of which Carré was a huge fan (obviously, he wrote a whole play about them). The works of E.T. A. Hoffmann were (and to an extent, still are) hailed as being unique, strange, and otherworldy compared to most of what was seen at the time. The Muse here talks about her stories as if they’re her own, and she happens upon Hoffmann in the tavern (read: when he gets drunk, he gets inspired to write weird stuff). She’s here, then, to introduce this story–the play that we’re watching/reading–as one of her own. She does reappear at the end and makes a statement similar to that made at the conclusion of the opera, that the poet had to suffer to be truly great and now that he’s given up on love she has him to herself–but it’s not that she specifically tried to make this happen, she’s just pleased that it did.

After the Muse’s opening monologue, she tells the audience that the people are coming and she’s going to hide, because they scare her. She puts on a suit and hat similar to that warn by the students that will soon be populating the tavern, so she can blend in with them and not be noticed. I’m guessing this is where the inspiration for the Muse also being Niklausse eventually (partially) comes from.

But we don’t have Niklausse in the play; we get Friédrick. Friédrick is, in my perception, ridiculously adorable. He spends a good portion of the play serving sass. There’s a ton of banter between him and Hoffmann, and some with Friédrick and the side characters as well as they collectively role their eyes at Hoffmann. So, much similarity to Niklausse. A few differences, though: the guys in the tavern love making fun of him, because he’s younger, and Hoffmann is even a little bit meaner to him than their operatic counterparts, and Friédrick is just kind of resigned to it, though he does make fun of Hoffmann at times. Mostly he feels sorry for him and feels the need to take care of him, as he can’t seem to take care of himself.

Friédrick is referred to as Hoffmann’ “shadow,” in that he follows him around everywhere making sure he doesn’t get himself arrested or shanked. He is also referred to by Hoffmann as “the voice of reason” through all his adventures, though of course Friédrick doesn’t remember any of them, since they didn’t actually happen. But he is constantly dragging Hoffmann out of trouble in these stories, which is why Dappertutto tries to off him in the Giulietta act. Dappertutto is annoyed that Friédrick first rescues Hoffmann from Olympia when she goes crazy (which is a big part of the play, and written into the libretto, but rarely ever portrayed on stage for the opera), then saves him from Crespel when Crespel tries to get Hoffmann for (as he perceives) killing Antonia (another bit that’s in the libretto but rarely portrayed onstage) and, finally, is trying to literally drag him away from Giulietta. As with Niklausse, Hoffmann severely under-appreciates Friédrick and all that his friend does for him. But when Dappertutto tries to give him a “sleeping potion” that he says will just make him pass out long enough for Hoffmann to get it on with Giulietta, Hoffmann kind of gets a reality check when he’s like “Wait, okay, but what if he drinks it and then he dies?” Dappertutto insists that no such thing is even remotely possible. I do wonder where Hoffmann’s sudden suspicion and consideration comes from. Like, is he already suspicious of Dappertutto, or is he just concerned because Friédrick is so small a single dose of Nyquil could end him? (Being a lightweight myself, I do wonder.) But we never find out either way, because Giulietta waltzes onstage and downs the poison first and of course Friédrick arrives just in time to save Hoffmann yet again. I just gotta wonder: given Friédrick is not the Muse in this version, why is it that he’s the one who drags Hoffmann out of trouble over and over again in a series of stories that didn’t actually happen? As constantly annoyed as he seems at Friédrick, he’s the one making the choice to have him play that role. And Friédrick is pretty cool with it. I guess they were roommates.

The Muse’s role, then, comes with a different vibe. She doesn’t have any influence over Hoffmann’s love life or seem quite as imminently concerned about it. She’s not following him around in the same way; she kind of just has to wait for him to come around. She’s less assertive and pretty resigned to having to deal with the constant BS but at the same time seems less bothered by it. She’s not totally dependent on him or solely invested in him; she just likes him a lot and enjoys writing stories with him. The operatic Muse is much more definitively attached to Hoffmann and sees his love life as a direct opposition to them. The stakes are higher for them than for the Muse in the play.

The whole Muse/Niklausse dynamic on the opera fascinates me to no end. I can’t even quite put into words the thoughts I have about it. Lately when I think about the question “If you could go back in time and talk to anyone in history who would it be?” I just want to go and talk to Barbier and Carré and ask how they came to the decision to make Niklauuse and the Muse the same character because–is there really anything in literature that’s quite the same as that? We get “a madwoman, come down from the heavens, to fight with a frivolous woman over the love of a fool” (a line from the libretto) who transforms themself into their poet’s best friend, and deals with his BS which is (as I rambled on a bit in an earlier post) borderline emotional abuse in some cases and even in its mildest forms raises the question “Why, sweetie, why do you put up with this.” Well, they can’t not, can they? What’s a Muse supposed to do? They’ve got their poet and have no other purpose in life that to serve as their inspiration. What would they do if Hoffmann did actually choose Stella over them? It’s basically out of the question.

So looking then at the Muse/Friédrick dynamic was an interesting transition. I can start to see some of the pieces but in some ways it also raises more questions. Was Niklausse ever an actual person, like Friédrick? Is the Muse donning the disguise for just that one night, to be witness to the storytelling, as the Muse in the play does? Does the operatic Muse just figure that Hoffmann will be drunk enough to not notice the difference when the real Niklausse comes back later? Or was Niklausse the Muse all along, and the Muse has for years (or however long) personified themself as another student to try and win Hoffmann on his level? Further, is it Hoffmann who comes up with all the little things that Niklausse does that hints to us what his status actually is, showing that Hoffmann is subconsciously aware of the connection all along? Or is it the Muse infiltrating the storytelling as it occurs to insert themself further, trying to get Hoffmann to really see them during the course of the telling?

On one hand I go crazy over the fact that these questions are never answered, and I wonder why the librettists went from the relatively straightforward Muse/Friédrick dynamic to the super meta, almost incomprehensible Muse/Niklausse dynamic. On the other hand, I appreciate the weird genius behind this that makes me think unreasonably hard about the creative process and art in general and also the relationships we have with people in our lives who we depend on in ways such as this. Also, I appreciate how the ambiguity allows different productions of the opera to have so many interpretations of the role (although there are definitely some interpretations that can go to hell as far as I’m concerned).

Also I think a lot about the names. I think Friédrick is just a cute name and I think it suits the original character. And the transition to Niklausse makes sense: a new interpretation of the character warrants a new name–plus Niklausse comes from “Nicholas” which means “victorious people” which makes sense, you know? Niklausse triumphs in the end, so why not have a powerful name like that? If I were a Muse taking on a human form on earth, I’d want something with that kind of power, too.

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