#in which howl goes shakespearean

[liviatrivia]

“He picked the skull out of the sink and held it in one hand, mournfully. ‘Alas, poor Yorick!’ he said. ‘She heard mermaids, so it follows there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I have caught an everlasting cold, but luckily I am terribly dishonest. I cling to that.’ He coughed pathetically.”

Chapter 17, Howl’s Moving Castle

[ariadne-mouse]

Tagged by @saturdaysky and @essektheylyss! If we cannot boop, we shall tag meme.

Last song/piece I listened to: Scavengers Reign soundtrack (ethereal, spooky, moving. watch itttttt)

Last book I read: I am in the middle of a comfort re-read of Joust by Mercedes Lackey. I didn't get into her whole set of extended universes but I liked the dragon jouster series as a kid. The sequels are (imo) of declining enjoyment quality vs the original, so that's the one I kept.

Last film I watched: Watched Howl’s Moving Castle with a friend a few days ago. :)

Last TV series: I'm partway through Station Eleven, a pre/mid/post-apocalyptic limited series on Max about - among other things - and a troupe of Shakespearean actors who keep the art of stagecraft alive after the world goes to shit due to a mutated flu (yes, I know). Gripping, emotional, earnest, and has made me weep real human tears in almost every episode. Some Scavengers Reign vibes in a meta sense (no literal scifi), bit of Walking Dead, some comedy in that "absurdism in the face of calamity" kind of way, very thoughtfully weaves together storylines at different points in time and reveals connections between rich, complicated characters. Delicious, beautiful, and full of anguish. Highly recommend.

Last thing I googled: “ionar” which is a piece of traditional Irish clothing a bit like a jacket

Last thing I ate: popcorn while watching Station Eleven last night

Sweet, Savory or Spicy: Agree with Sky re: all three! And I shan't pick one. My ideal flavor profile remains shrouded in mystery (the limit does not exist).

Amount of sleep: less than I should! I am trying to be better about it, but lately even when I get in bed at a reasonable time I wake up multiple times having rotated like a rotisserie chicken

Currently reading: Hmm I already put Joust above, so instead I'm going to plug a fun set of geography guessing games

Tagging a handful of folks if you so desire! @fireryn @mllekurtz @the-kaedageist @kmackatie @tarydarrington

[sparksadrift]

I'm not even high, I don't understand what happened - but I sort of wrote a blurb for a Fantastic Beasts Parody, meant to pair with A Very Potter Musical, only it's mostly Grindeldore and pizza, and IT'S SO STUPID. I DON'T KNOW WHY I WROTE THIS.

A Very Fantastic Musical [Alternate working title: A Very Fantastic Pizza.]

Starts with summer 1899, big ol' number that suddenly ends with a somber imperative dance or something. Lights, pizazz, then young Albus flopped in some tragic Shakespearean pose - ends with a punchline of some kind.

Then it cuts to Hogwarts maybe, an echo-y reprisal as it reveals older Albus looking in the mirror, seeing all the summery pizazz, reflecting.

The blood pact is something stupid, like a pizza pendant, because Gellert and Albus both shared a love of pizza. On the fence about sausage euphemisms... Oh God. Then it turned out that Gellert was lactose intolerant all along, a heinous betrayal.

There's going to have to be a song about pizza, all wistful and morose eventually. Just know it.

Newt is still in school, and for some reason Jacob is there, because Albus was all - fuck it, here's a toy wand, just pretend.

I want Rumbleroar to be some wise counsel or something. Scarfy sorts Gellert as a sadistic fuck, and Albus is obviously as gay as the fourth of July, cause keeping with the Americanism and all that.

Then, I dunno, everyone splits off into teams, the goodies and the baddies, and Fawkes does something cool I guess.

I want Gellert to be all Shakespearean with unexpected profanities. He just crucio's everything. Even the chair, and someone yells it's not alive, it can't feel pain, and Gellert is all, anything can feel pain if you try hard enough! Crucio's his tie when he can't get it right, gets himself by accident. Adorable. Cut to Albus sobbing, no, Gellert, not the pizza!

WHY IS IT PIZZA LMAO???

OH MY GOD and Gellert can have a crystal ball, and sees Voldemort at some point, peers all close and shit, taps the glass because he isn't moving, like the screen is frozen, then Voldemort goes BOO! and does that insane cackle only Joe Walker can do, scaring the shit out of him. Ends up being like girl talk, but it's dark lord talk instead, then they heatedly argue about who's wand is bigger hahaha. Yeah well, *I* have a fortress! - And *I* become immortal, you swiiiine!

The running gag is figuring out when Albus's birthday is. He's Ron with food, only it's sweets, so he can do the Red Vines bit at least once. Constantly licking a lollipop, cause why not. A fucking rainbow of outfits, some are definitely sparkly, and he changes like every other scene. Maybe some split suits to save time lol.

Something about a pinky promise with the blood pact, and Gellert has a hissy fit and is all but everyone knows you can't go back on a pinky promise! And Albus is all, that was a long time ago, I'm a changed man, my pinkies have physiologically changed cells several times over, in fact-

Gellert grumbles and huffs and calls him a nerd or something, and is all what about our pizza? You promised we'd make it, together. Albus- YOU LIED TO ME GELLERT, YOU MADE ME BELIEVE *sobs* THAT YOU COULD DIGEST DAIRY. Gellert- It was never about eating it. It was making it, together - swirling the sauce across the soft dough, the sprinkling of infused herbs-

*Albus snaps out of his dazed dream, in which they swirl the imaginary sauce and breathe in the happy aroma of a promised pizza* I told myself I'd never touch another pizza...

This is totally when the wistful and morose pizza song occurs, with an echo of the pizazz in the background, and Gellert serenading Albus with a list of possible cheese blends.

Of course, Gellert's best argument is lactose free cheese, which makes Albus sob THAT'S NOT A FUCKING PIZZA AND YOU KNOW IT! This is just another of your sick experiments! You're twisted!

I'm howling at this, I can't - it's so fucking ridiculous. I can't with this plot.

Bro - then Jacob makes them a pizza at the end.

Or sends them a kit at least, so they can make it together.

...I have more ideas for all the other characters too, and the casting and everything, and I'm so pissed and pleased with myself all at once. I have no fucking clue why it's pizza. I blame dinner. No hate to non dairy cheese!

[pinelife3]

Sadness

The treatment of the breaking of the fourth wall in Fleabag is the most compelling thing I’ve seen all year. Throughout the first season, our protagonist Fleabag (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge who also writes the show) would look at the camera to make witty asides. Usually a sarcastic remark or eye roll to hammer home that she’s sardonic, insincere, perhaps a little underhanded. 

You’ve probably noticed how if you’re in a one-on-one conversation, it’s hard to rag on someone but that in a group it works (because you can pretend it’s good natured humour rather than a scathing attack on their very existence). In Fleabag, the breaking of the fourth wall is a way for Fleabag to safely ridicule whoever she’s speaking to. It’s also a succinct way of delivering backstory, revealing her intentions, and getting us on side. These interactions with the fourth wall are pretty standard, see: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Amélie, House of Cards, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Shakespearean asides, American Psycho. It’s an accepted device. But then in season two, when Fleabag speaks to us, someone takes notice, someone spots her dipping out of their diegetic reality as she speaks to us in ours. 

I thrilled at this. 

Sometimes I feel like I’ve seen everything - but I’d never seen this before. This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen on a TV show (forget the Red Wedding). This is a masterful trick, and great storytelling all at once - it demolishes a literary device. But most of the coverage of Fleabag has focused on how sad the show is:

People seem to like that: they like being crushed, enjoy being devastated. Why is that?

I’ve recently cried over two cowboy related things: Brokeback Mountain and Red Dead Redemption 2. 

I cried when I finished Red Dead Redemption 2 because I love Arthur Morgan so much: he was just the sweetest guy, and I was sad the story was over because we can’t go fishing anymore, or crash his horse into trees and fall, or fight gators in the swamps, or brush his horse while we cruise around the old west. I just felt so wistful for his life and the idea of bad guys working hard to be good in a changing world. 

And then I cried at the end of Brokeback Mountain because it is objectively very sad. The shirts tucked inside each other which Jack kept all those years. The possibility that Jack didn’t know how much Ennis loved him. The life they could have had together, and how much they loved each other - but the families and relationships they destroyed along the way as well, because no one ever said what they felt. 

I really liked both Brokeback and Red Dead, because they have great stories and characters. In Red Dead, I have so many fond memories - and for that reason it made me feel strong emotions. But I don’t like Red Dead because it made me feel strong emotions. I don’t like Brokeback because it was ‘crushing’ and/or ‘devastating’ - it was enjoyable because it was a beautiful story with tragic, poignant elements. I like the story - not that it made me cry. Most Fleabag reviews seem to focus on the sadness it made the audience feel as a way to recommend it to people. 

Watch Fleabag - it will make you feel something. 

Prepare to emote because Fleabag is preternaturally sad.

The discourse around the show on Reddit is similar:

Pffft want to feel really sad? Check out this scene from Synecdoche, New York:

It’s very moving, kind of irresistibly so. And I think that’s because it’s calling out to that scared, bitter, self-pitying part of you which is always cringing in the shadows, waiting for someone to invite it out of the garage into the living room. This speech is designed to frighten you: you’ll make misssssstakesss and ruin your life. You won’t even know you’re doing it until it’ssssss toooooo late. You might think your life is nice - but that’sssssssssssss only because you haven’t ssssssssssseen how bad it will get. It’s giving you permission to feel bad without providing any reason to feel bad, and then it’s allowing you to wallow in that bad feeling. It’s poison. 

I promise you, for 99% of people who watched Synecdoche, New York , life is not that bad. People in horrible, war torn places where they aren’t able to watch Charlie Kaufman films because no one dubs indie movies in Kurdish have it bad - and not just because they’re missing out on great films, but because they essentially live in a sandier version of Hell. Haven’t you ever sat in the sun with a dog and seen it look back at you and felt a perfect connection? Haven’t you ever fallen asleep, perfectly comfortable, tucked in beside someone you love? Haven’t you ever eaten pancakes with ice cream, or seen a huge mountain, or been really cold and then gotten into a warm bath? Haven’t you ever seen a baby fake-crying on the tram and then its mum tickles it under the chin and it laughs, and you see everyone around you smile because babies are so pure? Come on! You’re not Othello. Your life is pretty nice. Even Othello’s life was pretty nice right up until the end. 

Pretty nice.

But boring. Right? 

Pancakes? Cuddles?

How am I to thrill at sunsets and smiling babies? 

Good. Now I’m sad again. 

And if the realisation that you don’t have anything to be sad about (except for the ordinariness of the pleasures in your life) didn’t make you sad, check out this compilation of the 10 most depressing moments in Bojack Horseman (ranked in order from least depressing to most depressing!).

A major inconvenience of modern life is that most of us have supremely comfortable, happy, safe lives. And when something goes wrong, you can’t go on a tragic rampage and tear out your own eyes, beat your breast, or wail on the moor in a thunderstorm - even though that may be what you feel like doing. 

Work sucks, no one respects me, and I messed up that section of the Excel spreadsheet so maybe they are right to not respect me: take me to a moor where my tears can blend with rain and my howls will be swallowed by the wind! 

Ordinary people don’t get to live in a tragedy - and besides, there aren’t as many moors around as literature might have you believe. The most you can do usually is make a scene at a family dinner or isolate yourself at a party and then get drunk and walk home crying. Who would write a sweeping, romantic story about an embarrassing fuck up walking home drunk, feeling sorry for themselves.

Oh.

Wait:

And Now For That 2000 Year Old Mystery

Aristotle’s Poetics is the source of the word catharsis (in italics because it’s Greek which is the way I was taught to do it in high school - if only there were Greecian-alics, am I right?), which in common parlance today basically means any kind of dramatic release of emotions. Kickboxing is cathartic. Getting your eyebrows waxed is cathartic. Crying during an emotional episode of a TV show is cathartic. 

Because the word appeared in Poetics, it's original usage related to the theatre, in particular the experience of an audience watching a tragedy: the release of emotions they feel in watching things go seriously wrong for the hero. For this reason, catharsis is often tied to anagnorisis - the moment of tragic realisation. 

Oh god I killed my father and married my mother. 

Oh god, that’s my son’s head on the pike, not the head of a mountain lion.

Oh god, remember when I messed up that bit of the spreadsheet and everyone knew it was me. Existence truly is pain.

You get the idea. It’s not enough that the protagonist is a fuck up: that matter needs to be brought to their attention and they need to reflect on it.

(A more proper (read: academic) definition of catharsis is: “an imitation of an action ‘with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.’” The emotions the audience feel echo what the people on stage are feeling. The jump scare in a horror movie scares the character on screen and the audience watching at home.)

Aristotle never clearly defined catharsis. So for all this time (2000+ years) people have been trying to infer what he meant from a couple of references to a pretty slippery concept. Even though the general public has their understanding of the word, academics still cannot agree on a definition. But we know what it means, roughly, because we’ve all experienced it. 

Over the weekend I watched Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s other other TV show (not Killing Eve) which had an exchange between an artist and a drunk girl on sadness and how it factors into art:

Character 1: He’s my muse!

Character 2: Your muse?

...

Character 2: Like an artist's muse?!

Character 1: Yes, he is! You think meeting someone like Colin happens to artists all the time?! He gives so much.

Character 2: Yeah, sure, and you just lap it up and just slap it on a canvas.

Character 1: Pardon?

Character 2: "His pain is so beautiful." You're using him to indulge yourself.

Character 1: I am indulging? And what is this? 

Character 2: This is a $4 bottle of wine.

...

Character 2: Sorry if I upset you, Melody.

Character 1: You don't upset me. You bore me. All you seem to want to do is drink and wank and drink and wank.

Character 2: Well, at least I don't have to wank other people's pain onto a canvas, and then shove it in people's faces and call it "my art."

Character 2 in this scene is played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I can’t be bothered to explain why it’s relevant. 

For the eternity of human brains, or at least for as long as preserved creativity, the most comfortable, secure people in the world have tried to experience the things tragic victims feel - perhaps so they can briefly know what it feels like to be a romantic figure struggling in an unjust world. A passport to feelings and drama we aren’t permitted in every day life. Catharsis is the word to express the reaction, but what do we call an audience who seeks out that sensation? Catharsis chasers?

It’s not insightful to say that people like to watch Fast & Furious movies because they’re exciting and perhaps audiences enjoy that excitement because their own lives are un-exciting. But commending a thing because it will make you sad seems aberrant in some way. A fast and dangerous car that will make you miserable. A roller coaster that will make you depressed. An incredible shootout in the streets of LA that will make you sob in the bathroom cubicle at work every time you think about it. I can’t explain the drive, but like Aristotle I will invent a new word, so that academics can never know what I meant but will still write at great length about it, so that it will slip into common parlance and be horribly misused until eventually, 2000 years from now, a girl can waffle on about it on her blog. And the word will be: scartharsio. Or maybe scorpithoniacs? Or sarcastiharsics? 

Sadness is entertainment for a scartharsio.  

ALL TIME HALL OF FAME: WAILING WOMEN AND MOORS

Nobody knows what it’s like to be me, a sad woman who weeps on moors! 

I’m not being overly dramatic!

[carlyjyll]

Review! Hemlock Grove: Part 3 The Forever Howl

Time to dive back into that wacky Gothic adventure by Brian McGreevy called Hemlock Grove. There will be SPOILERS!

Review Time!

Guys, I’m upset. This is the last part of my four-part review for Hemlock Grove and I have to say that I’m really sad to say goodbye. Which is odd considering how God awful this ended for all of our characters.

So we start this final part with Peter and Roman making up! Also during this marvelous reunion, we have Peter confessing he loves Letha! Yay, the gangs all back together again! Well metaphorically speaking, Peter and Roman gotta go kick ass first. Sadly their attempt at stopping the vargulf is futile as Dr. Chasseur decides this is the right time to tranquilize Peter just after he transforms into his wolf self.

THANKS A LOT, CHASSEUR, YOU JUST GOT EVERYONE IN THE REST OF THIS BOOK KILLED INCLUDING YOURSELF! 

I digress, as Chasseur’s attempt to take Peter away and kill him is stopped by none other than the world’s greatest mother, Olivia Godfrey. This light of joy has Peter brought back to the Godfrey mansion as she proceeds to tie Chasseur up for two days before devouring her. Which I really liked Olivia’s story about her and her sisters game before killing Chasseur, it was sickly satisfying.

Before Chasseur dies, the vargulf kills Alexa and Alyssa Sworn. This causes Christina’s hair to become fully white and leaves her in a very bad place still believing that Peter is killing all the girls. This idea is shared by many others as the Rumancek’s trailer is burnt down. Olivia puts the Rumancek’s up in her house, where the next morning Peter and Letha are finally reunited!

 Unfortunately, this reunion is spoiled as Neck and Nose show up to arrest Peter. Nose is a complete racist but honestly are any of us surprised? As Peter is getting beat by the cops as they try to take him in he pretty much confirms his love for Roman. “And Roman. Help Roman become a man on the path of light and love. Not the other way. Tell Roman... all the things I couldn’t.” (page 247) UMMMM if that isn’t a confession I don’t know what is!  As is the theme of this book Roman shows up just in time to tell the police to 1) fuck off or 2) he’ll make them shoot their brains out. This works because Roman is Roman.

Peter hides out in the chapel where Dr. Godfrey helps Roman and him to do this. Roman then reveals to Norman that Peter is a werewolf as Roman and Letha get it on in the chapel. Where Christina, having escaped her room, watches them. Norman only finds out about Christina’s disappearance as he decides to leave his wife permanently for Olivia. Poor Marie :( but also yay Marie? 

The next day it becomes known that another girl was killed. Peter and Roman go to Destiny to find out what to do. Roman goes on his own and becomes a Disney princess in this chapter. I kid you not. He starts stepping up for all these animals only to be met with Peter having to kill his cat in order for the vargulf to be stopped. This part made me go and hug my cat for a good five minutes until she scratched.

We also learn that Nicolae didn’t actually cross the Atlantic by lily pad, though that would be very cool. He actually stole a car and then sold it for an airplane ticket. Go Nicolae for being stealthy!

Norman apologizes to Shelley at long fucking last for being, well, Norman. This is of course before Shelley takes off to the chapel (but we’ll get to that in a moment.) At the same time, we learn that Christina escaped and went to Letha’s place. 

Now, man oh man, this next part was so well written. I just loved getting to see the insight of  Christina and how she became the vargulf (Spoilers).  That she once kissed Peter (while he was sleeping. Like girl, no wonder you ended up kissing a corpse! Stop kissing people in their sleep!) Then she followed after him once he transformed and poured water into his paw print and drank from it, thus become a werewolf herself. The entirety of Chapter Black Run was fucking wonderfully written, I really enjoyed it.

Then comes the climax! Which is so fucking Shakespearean, I love it. We learn that Jenny was the latest girl to die, you remember the girl that was fired at the beginning of the book for being nice to Shelley. Inside the church, Peter ties Christina up before they both turn into their wolf forms and battle it out. Shelley comes bursting through at the last minute and kills Christina, which is rather unfortunate as Sheriff Sworn sees her holding a limp body of yet another dead girl and shoots her. Not just once or twice but several times, causing Shelley to flee and go missing.

Peter lives! And all is right with the world! The End!

If only.

We skip to six months after Christina dies and Shelley goes missing. Letha is going to give birth but dies while doing so. Which, fuck, I knew this was coming because I watched the show but damn it! It still hurts! Anyways we cut to Olivia telling us her past, where long story short she was ugly af, but somehow got laid and had a baby that was adopted by the Rumancek family! So technically this would mean Peter and Roman are related somehow, which seems to be the new in with the Godfreys. Mainly because we learn that Roman was the ‘angel’ that Letha said got her pregnant, and her baby is his. Roman slices his wrists, which does nothing but trigger his full transformation into an upir, much to Olivia’s delight.

Peter leaves Hemlock Grove.

*Tears Go By, by the Rolling Stones plays*

So that’s the end of my Part 4 of Hemlock Grove! 

Like I said at the beginning of the review I’m sad that this is over. :( This book was not afraid to be ugly and twisted and flesh all of its characters. I absolutely loved how fucked up this book was! 

Big kudos to McGreevy though, that man knows how to tell a story. He literally laid out all the pieces for us in plain sight and yet we still were questioning what the hell was going on. That’s a hell of a storyteller there.

McGreevy’s writing style is so intriguing to me. Like I said in Part 3 of my review, reading his book has made me reevaluate a lot of my own work (which is excellent! I always need to improve myself in that area). He also gave me courage to make fucked up characters and not be bothered if everybody loves them. It doesn’t really matter if they’re beloved characters it's more about if they’re interesting or not. At least to me. Like I don’t for the life of me ever want to be associated with someone like Roman, but I will read fucking ten more books about that boy because his decisions and him as a character is so fucked up and intriguing. 

So a salute to McGreevy for writing this really awesome book, it kicked ass and is gonna stay in my brain forever. Especially Olivia’s final letter and chapter Black Run.

BONUS! Favorite Quotes!

“Shee-it” x2 

“It’s beautiful” *two seconds later* “I’m not a homo,”- Roman to Peter about shifting back into his human form.

“The fucking cat.”- Roman about the fucking cat

“Fucking actresses.” Chasseur about Olivia.

“Well okay.” - Roman about his life. This is probably the most relatable thing Roman has done.

“The women of the audience may want to close their eyes now.”- narrator becoming self-aware.

Go check out all of Brian McGreevy’s links!

Check out Brian McGreevy’s website here !

Buy his book, Hemlock Grove here!

If you haven’t seen Hemlock Grove on Netflix go and give it a look!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3