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bakubabes-and-ramble · 3 years ago

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Headcanon: The Gundalian culture is based on individualism, the Neathian culture is based on collectivism

Race interpretation part one: Neathia

Summary: The Neathian culture is built on the core values of communities and collective thinking. While conformity within the society is of a high level, they pursue a 'closed gate' diplomacy towards other races - resulting in a 'bubble' phenomenon and becoming vulnerable to losing their sense of belonging. Centralised urban system, with regional reciprocity and redistribution, whereby the Queen plays a coordinator role, and exists as a unifying symbol along with the military.

(Wall-of-text warning ; with block-breaker illustrations, but a huge amount of information ahead.)

Okay, this topic is something I was thinking about for a long time, and I finally hit the point to collect my thoughts and write them down. I've seen a lot of people trying to build up/further and enrich the cultural and social-political features of the alien races we've seen in the series (namely Vestals, Neathians and Gundalians), and I felt some inspiration to put my take on these things into words.

It's not only intriguing to try one's hand on the world-further-building, but I felt, I have to explain how I imagine the build-up of the Neathian and Gundalian culture and society to make the story of the 'Neathian Special Squad' ('NSS') more understandable 'symbolically' and from the aspect of a 'cultural clash'. /For those, who follow the NSS: This is something that definitely happens later on, you just don't know about it yet./

I have to put a small disclaimer here: This entire piece of writing was conspired out of fun and passion towards the series. It was not meant to be a 100% professor approved scientific research, but a seemingly logical untangling of my personal train of thoughts concerning the fantasy creatures of the third season. And this means, there is going to be some personal opinion mixed in as well (especially at the rewriting parts).

I wish the readers to enjoy reading it regardless. You are always free to disagree or not to take it seriously. :) To me, headcanonizing and imagining things always meant to be fun.

Side note: I'll add canon elements as examples or refer to the events of Gundalian Invaders, although I have to admit, I'll do this mostly from memory. So If I get anything wrong, or just remember incorrectly, you are welcome to add-in or correct me! :)

Season: Bakugan: Gundalian Invaders (and Mechtanium Surge)

Language: English dub

Okay, let's go!

Gundalian Invaders - Slightly rewritten

The first and foremost reason I actually started writing this post, is because I had some issues with the characterisation of the Gundalians and Neathians in the third season. One side is depicted blatantly, purposelessly and one-dimensionally evil, while the other is portrayed to be the goodie-two-shoes victims with no backlashes. I wanted to swing over this simplicity and make an attempt at explaining, how I imagined these races to function. These interpretations were explored with the intention of both keeping the main features of the races, staying canon-compliant where possible, but change canon elements/propose ideas to turn the races into interesting (and on a theoretical level functioning) societies.

For these added or assumed ideas to work, some lore elements have to be changed or removed: For example the way Bakugan got to be on the planets. For this explanation see: a further point below.

This post discusses only Neathia for now. (Gundalia will probably get it's own post, as there is much more canon-divergence to be talked about.)

Neathians

1. The beginnings and core values

Due to the power of the Sacred Orb, almost the entire planet have relished in a lush fertility since the beginnings. (And this is why there are huge plants in their jungles. The wildlife also experienced a great upsurge by the life-force of the Orb.) This prosperity quickly enabled the Neathian race to organize into a peaceful and sharing society, because the wars over resources became redundant and unnecessary. The established racial mindset reallocated the focus from the individual needs to the communal efforts, and gives a ground for the Neathian values and collective thinking up to even the days of the season.

Neathians think mainly in groups: Let those be pairs (e.g. Fabia and Jin as fiancés; Linus and Neo Zipperator as brawling partners), teams (Neathian Special Squad; Friendship circles), communities (Castle Knights), and the biggest of them all, their entire race. These are all bigger or smaller communities within communities, and they play a major role in how Neathians perceive the world and themselves. Being in these relationship structures defines their place, grants them their basic mental frame, which they are able to think in, and not only their resources, but also their goals are shared with each other. This kind of goal assimilation is what makes them really efficient team players, and also provides them a strong social support from a mentalhygiene perspective. This important role of the sense of belonging makes Neathians both empowered while being in close social constructs , and extremely susceptible to losing these connections.

Thinking like this, when Fabia lost her fiancè or Linus lost Neo, their grief extended further than their deaths or the traumatic events. Losing strong bonds like these put Neathians in a technical identity crisis, as it is a part of their personal perception and mental frame which were dismantled through these events. We have seen Fabia going to extremes to retrieve Aranaut - and to retrieve that part of her, which was lost with Jin. Just as when Rubanoid was handed to Linus, a new connection was formed to either replace or continue the old one in a different form. Fabia's communal bonds were successfully restored, when she also became a member of the brawlers.

The Neathian society is based on caring and cooperation to achieve a collective well-being. This is why communities play such a major role in their self-perception and world-perception.

2. Open-sources, but enclosed diplomacy

For most part, I've always imagined the Neathian race as an although proud and generous, but closed society. They share commodities with each other - within their society -, but it is very important, that only within it. The outside world (meaning outside of their habited planet) is fundamentally shut out of these transactions.

I often refer to this phenomenon of enclosedeness as the 'Neathian bubble':

Not only their mindset operates in closed communities, but their diplomacy too. They are generally passive towards other races, missing trust and a reason to pick up the communication /Up until the Gundalians came and the war started/. This perspective could be applied to understand, why could they be more insistent on and better at operating defensive mechanisms (layered shield generator), than initiating communication with the rest of the universe (Unlike Gundalians, Neathians have no ships or bigger means of transportation. Yes, teleportation is accessible for them, but I don't think they use it that often outside of Neathia.)

I treat this as an explanation for why Neathia had only asked for outside help after the second shield generator went down - the situation became desperate and already being involved in the conflict, it was time to try and reach out for aid. According to these headcanons, I also think, Serena wasn't putting - or at least shouldn't have put - faith in the Brawlers so easily. The reason they weren't tested to prove their trustworthiness further than one question, is because she trusted Fabia's judgement. Without the support of a Neathian, outlanders are almost automatically dismissed. Their (or their Queen's) empathy and compassion may overwrite this code, but even by then they have to be made certain by proving the cause.

Just as when Fabia accepted Ren, because she had seen how much he tried to prove himself. Winning Neathians’ trust is supposed to be a big and determining moment, because they ‘internalise’ you into their scoiety.

Neathians are capable of empathy and kindness (this is something they actively practice among each other), even towards outsiders, they just need time and proof to accept them. Trust is just not automatic towards them, and even so they keep their distance until they get used to it.

3. Personal paralel counterparts - Night elves and the Highborne of WoW

When I think about Neathians, I often put them into paralel with the Night elves and the Highborne from World of Warcraft. For most part, I use their artistic motives, architecture, fashion and cultural approach as an inspiration for Neathians, as they are recognised as 'The pretty space elves' in my book too.

Beside the above mentioned, what could be imported from their WoW counterparts is a rather matriarchal social apparat. For example, Neathians traditionally having a Queen, and women being present in the military or in higher positions, playing important roles. //Just as by the Night elves leadership, religious and military roles being traditionally occupied by women (priestesses, wardens, sentinels).//

Another elven impression, which is more or less universal, is their sense of pride (I like to say it as the expression of 'Neathian pride '). Highborne in World of Warcraft are a quite prestigious race and are usually said to be a little 'aristocratic'. I can imagine the Neathians being lightly less, but somewhat similar on these terms, when it comes down to interacting with their own or other races: For example being proud of their appearance (Emphasizing their unique V-shaped forehead with adequate clothing and accessories), structuring buildings and constructs based on aesthetic instead of real functionality (using diamond as the main material of construction, structuring buildings with elegant but futuristic shapes), or being confident and showing immovable standing and opinion on things (towards outsiders).

As far as I know, the Warcraft elves used to be similarly passive and uninitiative - even mistrusting - towards other races too. And in this, it played part, that they also had exclusive access to a powerful source of power and prosperity, the Well of Eternity (an almost one-on-one counterpart to the Sacred Orb).

While the half-tribal connections of the Night elves derive from their ancient bonds with nature and druidism, the Neathian society feels more likely being based on a futuristic envisionment of these social relations. A civilisation that perfectly blends technology (teleportation technology, communication devices) with classic fantasy elements (knights), while still remaining tribal in the core (shared communality is just put into a modern environment). /Although I like to lean more into the fantasy setting, the technical advancement is undeniable there./

4. Overall economy

If we wanted to negotiate about their economy, I would say reciprocity and localised redistribution are the dominant mechanisms of it. The basic definition of economy builds on the premise of distribution of scarce resources. In this case, resources are not scarce, in fact, due to the Orb they are very much prosperous and renewing. This accessibility discounts the value of the traditional market trading, and supports the establishment of semi-centralised recollection and redistribution. The semi-centralisation here means regional production and consumption, whereby the accomodation of the population happens mainly territorialy, but these regional centres still have a connection to each other and the capitol. This economy is based on caring and well-being, and the high level of conformity and trust within the collective society results in a lack of currency usage (so, my headcanon is basically, that they don't use money).

5. Urbanisation and territorial layout

The reason we talk about a more physical apsect of the planets, is because the core values of the races both play a role, and mutually affect how I imagine their civilised hubs being developed. Communities form hubs and cities with strong connections - just like their society!

When I mentioned localised redistribution, I was also refering to the urban structure of the Neathian planet. Important to note, that Neathia is not just a city, or a country - just like Gundalia, it's the entire planet. What we've seen in the show is the capital of their urban system - which makes sense to be technically built around / in the immediate enclosure of the Sacred Orb, for it's the source of the relishing power. Assuming this, along the capital there could be a centralised territorial layout with rural areas (cities, villages), and untouched wilderness (due to the overflourishing flora and fauna; the urbanisation doesn't affect the entirety of the planet, there are a lot of uninhabited/uncharted areas).

Here is a simple schematic illustration of the above.

The rural hubs not having physical connection with other centres due to the dangerous and untamable wilderness (see: Giant plants in the show) could have lead to the advancement of the teleportation technology. The cities are connected through this port-system, and also with the capital, which serves as the centre of the network.

6. The role of the queen and the military

The main purpose of the current Queen is an overall governance with the direct help of a council consisting of the local leaders of the hubs. The queen bears not only a political, but a symbolical importance to the people. The concept of the Queen is a unifying symbol, someone who watches over the nation. The Neathians can stand behind her and being represented by her. But it's important to note, that her status is not as glorified as to be a despotic being, and her power is not extending much further than overall policies, diplomatic representation and helping the transactions of the local leaderships. There is much more power and independence shifted into the regional governance, rendering the Queen's position to be an effective coordinator between them and unifier, who keeps the nation together. /Still thinking about the way the queen is chosen/comes to the throne, but I had the idea of the next Queen being elected by the current Queen, so the order of succession is not based on the Queen’s family, nor being a community vote of the people./

The peace-oriented existence in itself doesn't require a military to exists, therefore I treat the Castle Knights as a mainly defensive organisation. This military serves as Neathia's defenders, bearing symbolic and community building purposes. Among the Castle Knights - just as the name itself suggests - the traditional medieval knight values show up primarily, such as loyality, humility, courage, faithfulness and the act of mercy. In their comprehension, being a Castle Knight is an act of service towards their country and the Queen, and is not mainly for warfare reasons. (To some extent, I assume martial arts and other forms of fighting - even brawling - is essentially a spiritual activity, which they pursue in order to keep their inner- and physical balance.)

As we've seen it the show, I assume the Palace also functions as the military's operation base. The head of the military is the current commander (formerly Jin, recently Elright), and under them operate several divisions with captains as division leaders. The separate divisions are Physical Fighting (both with weapon, like those defensive shock-sticks the guards are using - formerly offensive melee weapons until the fall of NSS - and hand-to-hand combat, e.g. used by Fabia), Technical staff (operating the shield generators and overseeing their areas) and Bakugan Brawling (this headcanon part is still under construction, but Elright used to be the former leader of this, and the reason he was promoted to commander after Jin’s death, is because the Neathians' realisation of the war swinging in favor of the Bakugan fights, so it was logical to put him as the next 'general leader'). /There may be other divisions outside of these, I just put out some ideas here./ Every guard receives education to some extent in all of these fields, but they end up specialising in something.

//The Neathian Special Squad (NSS) had it’s own divison under Captain Pyrehart, they were a special strike team with a unusual task: Staggering, forcing back or just divide the Gundalian leadership’s attention from focusing on their assault. Basically poking them with melee weapons until they either go away, or can’t concentrate on helping their Bakugan on the field and their monsters get defeated. According to the story - made up by me of course - after a tragedic mission this unit wasn’t restored, and the war effort shifted onto long-range fighting with Bakugan, Gear and Bakugan Assaults.//

7. So...where are the Bakugan?

They have been mentioned here and there, but I'm sure, whoever made it this far into this theorising information dump, may wonder at this point: 'But what about the Bakugan?'

My simplest answer is, that I firmly want to believe, both Gundalia and Neathia had a civilised and established culture before the Bakugan appeared there.

According to the original lore, Bakugan existed on the planets since almost the beginnings. Now, this is part of those lore bits I would definitively change during a rewrite: I want to believe, Bakugan only appeared in their very recent history, almost as recently, as on Earth and Vestal itself.

Perhaps a Bakugan lore- and GI rewrite explanation deserved it's own post, but for the further understanding allow me to explain here a little: A similar event of raining cards - what the first season started with - occured on Neathia and Gundalia too, caused by the dimensional boom of Michael Gehabich and his transporter. The twist on this - and the effective solution to the problem of possible timeline inconsistencies - is that although the explosion caused this interference at one point in time, across cosmos and universes time flows differently. So technicaly the result of it - the raining cards and Bakugan being transported into the particular worlds - could happen at different point of their relative times - even years earlier or later! On Neathia and Gundalia it could happened a few years before on Earth, which covers most of the questions of the timeline-consistency /such as Ren being assigned to watch over Linehalt as a child etc./

Bakugan coming to these places has only an added effect: Just as on Earth, they are not (yet?) integrated into the society and culture of the planets so deeply to be any kind of pillar of their existence or basic civilisation. There could be a start (as having specialised researches, technology revolving around Bakugan, taking part in the war,..) regarding this internalisation process, but it still runs on the surface, and not in the 'veins' of the culture.

I hope this breakdown made sense in some form or another. I just felt an urge to pour out the content of my head. Looking back,this became longer and more detailed, than I originally intended, while also surely missing things because there is no worldbuilding without holes or further questions. The attempt to lay down the basics was made regardless haha!

As always, feel free to disagree and follow your own visions concerning the races and worldbuilding. :) This post was made to reflect back my personal interpretation of Neathians - just for fun and thinking out loud.

For the very end, I leave a disclamer here, which was supposed to go at the beginning, but it felt redundant to put there, so here it is:

I tried to approach it from a more sociological side, as focusing on a bigger, overall picture, common features, than create exact statements. (I would rather call this a speculation regarding the features of the races themselves, their core values, common attitudes, mindset - and this doesn't mean other questions are fully out of the picture. We are just discussing things, which can be derived from the features of the society itself, and make up a more or less coherent chain of thought for now. Other 'for fun' or miscellaneous headcanons, like fashion or physical traits will be covered another time.)

Thank you for coming to this TED mambling!

#bakugan #gundalian invaders #neathia #gundalia #headcanon #long post #text #bumblispeaks

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wlw-lovestruck-fiction · 4 years ago

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Mc being super drunk and dragging Cecelia to dance with her. At first Cecelia is worried about MC but ends up having fun dancing with her and enjoys her flirty drunk personality. At the end of the night, MC sinks into Cecelia’s embrace as they slow dance

Written by: @evoedbd

The Saloon was alive. The throbbing heartbeat of the sleepy little town, Wisp Willow. As the sun sulked, and the moon reigned, the Saloon roused. Even the most straight laced of folk came in from the unforgiving cold, lured in by the smell of fine food, of cigar smoke and leather. Of a home away from the homes many had left for their new start out in the Devil’s Backbone. People sat in clusters around their tables, laughter and chatter floating on a tide of wistful piano notes or a swish of Ada’s skirts. Some danced to the jolly jigs, kicking their heels and trying not to entomb their spurs in the floorboards in their drunken staggering. The sound of boots across the floor only added a beat, an intimacy to the din. Din which flittered by those seated around a table in the corner, just to the left of the door. The table with the greatest vantage point.

An odd bunch they were, none looking like another. No rhyme or reason as to why they’d be seated together, let alone throwing coin with laughter and barbs of their own. Yet not one person in that Saloon, dead drunk or stone cold sober, would deny how intimate the table was. How comfortable they were with one another. They shared the type of security come from risking life and limb together, they did. The Wardens. Nobody knew just what they did or who they were, precisely, only that even the Sherrif made way for them. That made folks antsy round them. It was safer to avoid that type of crowd when possible. Less complications that way. Thus, nobody paid them heed, offering the perfect place to relax and unwind for the unusual crowd.

“Who knew all it takes is a few drinks to make the Moonlit Outlaw play like crap?” At the table, Nathan Cayde’s voice cut above the din, the lilt of his voice strutting through the sound of the upbeat piano.

That earned a huff from Roslyn Arosi, the forementioned Moonlit Outlaw.

Nathan’s earnest glee radiated from him, almost as if he were a cool breeze in the harsh frontier desert. With his lively, deep blue eyes glimmering like a mirage, lips peeled into a good-natured smile. It never ceased to amaze her how he could smile like this, as if his actions weren’t a one-way ticket to disappointment on a bad hoss. Least he wasn’t some yellow belly, the way he gigged up to the table of cheats, seers and demons. Perhaps his ghastly status was enough to earn him some reprise, yet it wasn’t bout to save his dignity. A fact proven by the cackle which came from the impish woman across the table the moment Nathan’s money collided with the wood.

He shook his head, drawing Roslyn’s attention. His wavy locks, one many might be long to cut to lessen such a beautiful man, proved aptly distracting to The Moonlit Outlaw. Lord’s mercy, was it wrong to want to run her fingers through those fine hairs? To see if the beginnings of curls felt as smooth as they looked? It wasn’t like she was fixing for his bed, nor pressed for fine company in said regard, but watching those locks bounce with every tilt of his head, or the broody fix of his chapped lips, roused a curiosity in her drunken state. She watched the ends bounce round his jawline, contrasting the harsh line of his beard. A beard better suited to the Ace-High parts of town, a dab too neat for the rougher parts, but by the devil’s charm did it gruff up Nathan’s otherwise baby like face. For all his chiseled jawline, the grizzled gauntness to his cheeks and heavier brows, his petite little nose added this aspect of utter adorability to the man, enough that the moonlit outlaw found herself fixing to bop it… or maybe poke it? A little pinch to the adorable button?

She settled for a sloppy poke to his cheek, which earned a chorus of amused laughter. Even Roslyn laughed, though, she wasn’t quite sure why. It felt good to laugh with friends, to let go, even with Fiona sitting across the table like a predatory cat ready to devour the mice. Roslyn swore she could almost see a tail swishing, though that might have also been the alcohol flooding her veins.

“Come on, Roslyn. Show us some spark.” If Nathan’s voice had been a strut, Fiona’s goading words were a skip. A teasing, coy swish of skirts and mysterious smile to match the Seer’s very nature. Keen, golden brown eyes twinkled; their brightness only intensified by the smudged, dark eyeshadow. Fiona made no effort to hide her borderline sadistic mirth as she sized up the table, lording her knowledge over them with taps of her armored fingers against the backs of her cards and a subtle glint of teeth in an overly satisfied smirk, added to a subtle downturn of a pointed chin to her collar; a demure little jest between those at the table. The almost childish image of braids peeping from beneath her hood added to long with the tufts of an unevenly cut fringe, didn’t detract from the spooky allure. Here she was, optimism and mischief, cheekiness and mysterious magnetism set upon an undercurrent of a mournful disconnect, all wrapped into a woman strutting a line between adorable and sexy with an element of spook that set many hearts fluttering. Of course, butterflies did nothing to soften the downright wicked grin as Fiona continued tapping, a subtle reminder to all that the only other human at the table held the future in her palms. Was savoring her victory, toying with everyone there like an adolescent cat having found a wayward old mouse.

“She’s saving it for her bed tonight.” Sascha purred, the wicked upturn of his lips leaving nothing to speculation when it came to the meaning of his words. As always, his voice was almost liquid sex, a dose of lust accompanying his crude observation. Roslyn could almost feel heated breath across her ear, the seduction in the words translated directly to her soul, drawing out every memory of what could follow. His little trick radiated through the room, had women shuffling awkwardly in their seats, men clearing their throats just a tad too loudly as they tugged at their neck ties. Even the pianist stuttered, a key pressed a tad too roughly, slipped off.

A mood killer if ever there was one. Roslyn flinched, hand tipping for the briefest moment. Enough for Sascha to get a glance of her cards, she wagered.

Sascha Orosco looked far too pleased with himself as he slouched back in his chair, fixing the table with one of his feline grins. An expression designed to be kissed away, hard and demanding. All lust and unquenched heat. A devil’s snare if ever there was one. Not that a jawline stronger than a king’s military didn’t help, nor those high cheekbones, sharp enough to cut yourself on. He was the type of man momma told you not to run off with, the type who promised to leave you ruined by the time he burned through you… but being burned was too much a thrill to ignore.

“A chance to play to the gallery? I’d love to” The witch retorted, words slurring together a little. She had to pretend not to notice the ripple of concern travel throughout the group. The guilt briefly illuminating Sascha’s magenta eyes. Darn it all, she hadn’t meant to find herself so deep in cups, hells bells, she’d even partaken of less than her usual amount. She never should have listened to Sascha, have branched from her usual poisons. She may be a woman of many, many vices, but her vices were all kept rightly in check. If not by her own efforts, then by her partner’s. When working alongside the Desert Rose of the Devil’s Backbone, one learned quickly to keep their wits about them.

Her lips twitched. She was always aware of the regal vampire’s presence. The untamed beauty. A queen of the night, much like the Queen’s in a few hands. It was easy to imagine Cecelia’s face upon those cards, fangs and bloodied butterflies, sharpness nipping at the fingers touching her, or a blow to Nathan’s boots. His grunt was enough for Roslyn’s magic to spark, to bring about the drunken images of dancing numbers, of beating hearts and digging spades. Effortless. A breath. A laugh at the startled faces of her competitors, except Fiona. The mystic was too busy smiling like a cat who’d just lapped up the last of the cream.

“Ahhh.” The seer began, her voice amazingly bored. A dexterous flick of her wrist had her cards spraying across the table, a pair of aces hiding amongst them, to land directly in front of a grumbling Nathan.

“Well… I fold.” Fiona’s casual surrender was delivered with a perfectly innocent shrug. Roslyn’s eyes narrowed. Even sunken to the ocean floor, she could read that something was… off? It wasn’t her hood. Perhaps pantihose? No, somehow Fiona didn’t seem the sort to be reactive to that kind of thing. Or rather, not reactive in this way… With her dress being so short, wouldn’t everyone know if she was taking command of her nethers?

“Say what now?” Nathan gaped; his eyes fixed on her cards for a split second before shifting back to her face.

“I thought you were using your gifts to win, not buy all my expensive drinks.” Roslyn’s barb was met with a chuckle from the table, along with another innocent gesture from Fiona… Roslyn wasn’t buying the act. Not for a single second. Not even with Fiona’s money.

“You’re an absolutely delightful drunk, Miss Arosi. A worthy cause to lose a days payment to. I fold.” Sascha purred, his charm laid on thick, complete with a playful wink as he laid his cards down. Roslyn couldn’t relax, couldn’t focus, couldn’t think. Her eyes shifted between smirks, between sly grins exchanged around the table, all the way to Nathan’s grouchy huff.

“You’re not the ones who have to manhandle her and her little demon. I fold.”

“Hold on now!” Roslyn began, hand sliding across the table as she tried to right herself, intent on giving the cowboy a piece of her mind. It failed of course, given the room begun to swim, her chair tilted, until she surrendered to gravity and allowed herself to fall, full bodied onto the table.

“I’m the one roostered one, not Enzo.”

“If I don’t copper my bets, this game will last hours… besides, I foresee you’re going to be busy.” Fiona continued to tease, lifting a hand to dramatically touch the space between her eyes. She acted up the gig, Cheshire smile fixated so firmly in place Roslyn doubted when a herd of mustangs could drag it down. Sascha straightened before she could retort, his eyes shifting to the door, brightening with rich amusement and a deep seeded satisfaction, his need for lust sated for the moment.

“I foresee five foot ten. A rather fetching jawline. A smile sharper than moonlight on a starless night-”

“Cecelia!” Roslyn realized out loud, jerking up in her chair. She didn’t even hear Sascha, nor the table. There was a serenity to the presence approaching her, like the moment one went underwater in a cool, refreshing lake… followed by the hyperawareness of every droplet of water running across one’s skin when they surfaced; the jitters assaulting her in full swing. Those pesky nerves marched down her arms, lifting the hairs in places many might say hairs had no place rising. The moment before lightning sizzled in her veins, even as the breath of calm approached her from behind.

Instinctively, Roslyn turned to that presence, letting her gaze fall upon the Desert Rose.

“I didn’t even get to the marble bust-”

“Have some respect for the woman. She’s your boss!” Nathan’s scolding served as a timely interruption for Sascha’s playful leering. The Demon’s brows ceased wiggling, flicking for a breath before he commented offhandedly.

“I forgot I was drinking with a prude apparition.”

“I’ll give you an apparition.” Nathan grumbled, reaching for his bottle. Bottle? That was a good idea! Her mouth was quite dry after all, her head empty. Where was Roslyn’s drink again? Blindly, she groped around the table for it, only to find the welcoming rasp of well-loved wood.

“Judging by the gleam in your eye, Sascha, Roslyn’s providing quite a soaked feast.” Fiona’s words drew Roslyn’s attention. Damn it, the Seer’s golden eyes had too knowing a glint to them, a cat who’d gotten the cream, complete with a little milk moustache. Sascha wasn’t much better. The Incubas was practically preening as he leaned back in his chair, lazy, Cheshire smirk forming across her unfairly attractive lips.

“Half the patrons are. The Desert rose makes quite an entrance.”

That she did. Even across the room, Cecelia cut an intimidating figure. A blade through the night, straight to Roslyn’s gut. Goddess, Mother of Night, was Cecelia able to make an entrance. Demons strutted, Fiona kind of skipped, Nathan had this floatiness to him. But Cecelia… Cecelia redefined reality. The world existed only to be a backdrop to the Supernatural perfection of every step, smoother than any criminal could hope to be, the perfect predatory stalk reimagined into casual yet purposeful strides… So many conflictions that SHOULDN’T work, but Lord did they work for Cecelia Visconti.

Roslyn was stuck watching, breath catching at each stride, at the flex of those impossibly strong legs clad in form fitting charcoal black trousers. The casual confidence in those strides, the power of those legs… Roslyn had ridden horses with less. The smallest part of sense in her brain warned her to look away, her sluggish body thought that meant down. Straight to the vine engravings across Cecelia’s boots, gold gleaming across chocolate straps, which in turn bound midnight leather… it was a miracle that Roslyn did not collapse to her knees, that she could fight the urge to press her lips to those vines in devotion. Why else did such a perfect being exist if not to be worshipped?

“They damned well better be respectful about their thirsts. Cecelia could rightfully have their heads.” Nathan’s continued griping bought Roslyn a moment of clarity. The entire table could hear the underlying, unspoken threat to Nathan’s statement. That if Cecelia did not claim the heads, that Roslyn might have a collection of balls to kick down the streets. An image which had said Witch snorting before taking another healthy swig of her booze.

“Doubtful she’ll notice when Roslyn’s half seas over. She’ll soak up all of Cece’s attention.” The way Fiona practically purred the last word left very little to the imagination.

“She does seem to have partaken of too much alcohol.” The unmistakable voice of Cecelia Visconti echoed in Roslyn’s ears, serenading her mind in an untouched vault of time for sober her to process later on. This was accompanied by a grounding touch to her far shoulder, the tips of Cecelia’s claws prickling through Roslyn’s cottons. The Witch surrendered to baser instincts, shuddering with delight as she leaned back into the Vampire, head resting against the Immortal’s lace covered shoulder, and downright shamelessly admired Cecelia’s visage.

Cecelia was a beauty unlike any Roslyn had seen. The Vampire was every inch as regal as the Princesses from the worn fairytales tucked away in Roslyn’s rucksack. She was also the mysterious seductive huntress from the penny dreadfuls hiding beneath Roslyn’s pillows. Her lips were fine, bathed in midnight red which stood starkly from skin the delicate shades of fallen snow. Her pale complexion blended the cut of her jaw into the graceful heights of her cheekbones. The faintest dappling of blush concealed that supernatural perfection, blending Cecelia with the land of the mortal living. Even across the room, the deep greens and greys of her garb seemed unable to dull the glorious mane of chestnut, the luxurious hair hanging down below her shoulders… all lost to the devil’s snare of winter greys. Gentle eyes made to appear angular by an overly generous portion of eyeliner and smokey red eyeshadow.

“Or perhaps of a more potent variety. Tricks of an Incubas, perhaps?” Cecelia’s comment was accompanied by an accusatory brow arched in Sascha’s direction. Despite the inconvenience, Cecelia somehow seemed amused, fit to saw the Incubus. A mental game where she was steadily tightening a noose around the Incubus’ throat as she smiled. An undisguised trap she practically dared Sascha to sacrifice himself to, for what she might do if he didn’t simply acknowledge the corn. It seemed Sascha was not willing to take the risk, given his simple response.

“I would be amiss not to slake a lady’s thirst.”

“Slake?” Nathan demanded, laughter dancing beneath his tones.

“More like you aimed to drown her. She’s as full as a tick!”

At the confessions, at her victory, Cecelia seemed to preen. A quiet, subtle shift to how she held her head. She’d had her blood, albeit metaphoric, and was sated for the moment. The quiet tinge of smugness remained as she gathered her chair, and proceeded to ignore how the wood screeched as she dragged it across the floorboards. Even as she gathered her own chair, she never jostled her shoulder, never disrupted Roslyn’s drunken obsession. If anything, the Vampire seemed to encourage it, given the playful flicker of a wink she offered Roslyn once she finally managed to claim her seat.

It was unfair how such a simple expression could have Roslyn’s cheeks flushing with more than the warmth of her booze. How Cecelia’s quiet intensity could shake the Witch’s very foundations, until she had to look down like a blushing maiden. Of course, that meant she was face to bust with Cecelia. Hells Bells, she just wanted a fair shake at seeming like she had a control on her libido.

But how was it a fair shake when said bust was concealed only by see intricately decorated, rose vined lace which left the sharpness of her collarbones exposed like the worst kept, sexiest secret this side of the Devil’s Backbone? Roslyn’s cheeks flushed at the realization that it was not merely the lace panels of her grey button up, but Cecelia’s lacy undergarments that added to the teasing vision. It was only running into the hard edge of grey across the swell of Cecelia’s forementioned bust that broke Roslyn out of her thoughts, and mercifully tore her from the teasing of the black corset defining Cecelia’s boddice.

“Not to worry, miss Visconti, I’ve left a particular thirst for your enjoyment.” The Incubus commented, his pointed gaze fixed out on Roslyn and her current occupation. The entire table shuffled, gazes anywhere but where Roslyn’s was. That didn’t make sense to the drunken Witch. Cecelia was stunning, why ignore that? It wasn’t like Cecelia was hid- oh… Leering wasn’t becoming. But it was Cecelia! Innocently, Roslyn’s gaze rose, meeting Cecelia’s. Amusement twinkled there, the gleam of waves in oceans far deeper than anybody could comprehend. Whatever darkness swum in those depths were known to the depths alone, much like Cecelia’s thoughts. Much like her pains. It may have been the booze talking, or the heat of Cecelia’s gaze, but Roslyn was willing to drown in those depths if only to take a droplet of the pain from Cecelia’s lonesome.

“It seems this Witchling is drawn to things both deadly and beautiful.” Sascha’s words fell un unhearing ears.

“Cecelia, lovely, dance with me!” Roslyn was urging, sacrificing her place of comfort to spring to her feet. She lurched, held only by Cecelia’s gentle arm around her waist. The Witch fell, sprawling into Cecelia’s arms with nothing more than an excited giggle. The vampire’s chest heaved with suppressed laughter, even as those talons came to brush some of Roslyn’s hair away from a clammy forehead. There was such a tenderness to Cecelia’s innocent gesture, something that stole the breath from Roslyn’s chest even as Cecelia’s lower voice came.

“Oh Witchling, I doubt your feet would hold you to these tunes.”

“Don’t worry, Cece,” Fiona began, that mischievous grin coming back tenfold.

“I foresee the music is about to change.”

For a brief moment, Roslyn and Cecelia stared at the seer, both processing her words. The Saloon had fallen quieter, the makeshift dancefloor abandoned as the melancholy notes of the piano rung. It was as if the patrons dared not speak over the beauty, the story each note wove through their ears.

“I suspect this is more foreplaned than foreseen.” The note of skepticism within Cecelia’s voice had the table smiling. Even the lord of disapproval himself seemed to find something endearing about the antics. A series of shared glances and grins launched a silent debate, who would take the fall and who would claim credit. A blink, a shuffle of the cards, a twitch of a brow. The quirk of lips, then a glance towards Kellen. Finally, it was the brave little Seer who spoke up.

“I see the jig is up. Would you deny us our entertainment, Cece?” Fiona wheedled, her eyes large and brimming with their innocence, a display of her deceptive talents. Nathan didn’t even try to put on a puppy face, instead tipping his head in an effort to hide behind his hair. Sasha’s attempt at a convincing face looked more suited to a brothel. Then, there was Kellen.

Concern on his face was… it didn’t belong. The demon’s exotic face was practically carved to express disapproval. From his low set brow resting over the most worn, blazing eyes of literal hellfire, he gauntness to his cheeks which led into the sharp angle of his jaw. Hells Bells, even his lips were the damn poutiest Roslyn had ever laid eyes on. His face was young enough to be brotherly, yet the transition from dark black to frosty white along each tussle of hair gave the salt and pepper look of a father. Double doses of disapproval and disappointment, nuff to drag one’s stomach out their pucker and their heart into their gut. Heck, if his regality didn’t drown you, his dapper stylings were able to remind everyone that he was better. That he was far further refined than any mortal clutching at the nature of sophistication he had in the toes of his boot, nevermind his whole visage.

Why was he concerned now, of all times, for her? They clashed, so violently. He was due process, whereas she was chaos. She was the one who’d swept into town off of theft from murderers, and in turn pocketed their finest Ranger as her partner in, well, law. Criminally amazing law. Right, so she and Visconti also chaffed each other at first, yet how they’d come together as a team was leaving the other Wardens in the dust. They were better, she’d admit that while sloshed. They got things done, they helped PEOPLE as people instead of objectives. Instead of seeing that, Kellan seemed more disturbed that his Ranger was straying from the rigidness he’d shackled her in. Shackled to save… Mother night, it was fucked up. What he’d sacrificed and endured as punishment for revering life.

Cecelia. That was their common ground. Kellan might have been the man to have raised Cecelia, but he was not the one to draw her from her shell. He wasn’t what Roslyn was to the vampire. His presence was order, was the reminder of Cecelia’s indirect imprisonment. Roslyn was chaos. The freedom. Kellan was the ground, where Roslyn was the sky. Cecelia needed both, but for so long she’d been kept on the ground due to the hurricanes in her life. Roslyn refused to lose Cecelia to those hurricanes, just as she refused to accept that Cecelia should never use her wings. Yet, if she were Kellan, she doubted she could let go any easier than he. Kellan was Cecelia’s childhood, when she needed him. Roslyn was Cecelia’s true stride into adulthood, her testing of the shackles the Ward had groomed her to praise. Of all the nights, this was the one where Roslyn was the direction everyone needed Cecelia to step. The fact she lingered… this was way too heavy for her drunken mind to wrangle.

Cecelia’s loud sigh signaled her surrender.

“I suppose a dance in an innocent enough request.”

The table broke into cheers, all save Kellan taking up the encouraging chant.

“Dance. Dance, dance, dance.”

Kellan’s lips merely twitched into an approving line, a sip of his drink concealing the encouraging nod he sent Roslyn’s way. Somehow, her drunken mind latched onto the sense of victory, the acceptable and belonging of a family she’d never truly had. It was enough to make her smile, to lean closer to the cool body she’d been warming. Cecelia, for her credit, remained composed. Quite a feat, given she had a lap full of drunken Witch and a table chanting for her to make a public spectacle of herself right in front of the man who’d raised her. How she was so composed, Roslyn had no idea, only that this was not the night she’d envisioned. She needed to see that youth that immortality had preserved in Cecelia for so long. Needed to see those cheeks flush and that stoic veneer crack.

“Come on, lovely, I know several dances that don’t need any music.” The Witch purred, squirming, wiggling her rump deeper into the cave of Cecelia’s body until she could safely turn. Still, Cecelia barely seemed phased, watched with those gorgeous eyes. What Roslyn wouldn’t do to see the disguise fall way. To see the blood moon of the Visconti vampire. If even for a blink. With two fingers, pointer and middle, Roslyn stroked from the hinge of the jaw, a teasing touch that whispered across chilled flesh and fell from Cecelia’s pointed chin. As if she might wipe away the illusion, to see those terrifying depths. Was it even a case of willingness to drown anymore? Or had it become desire?

“You seem bereft of what little propriety you usually possess, little Witchling.” Cecelia’s response was delivered quietly, the tone relaxed, almost indifferent, save for the smallest catches. What such a tone did not possess was what urged Roslyn to push harder. Dared her, even. Then, there was Cecelia’s hand, lifted to catch hers. The Vampire prevented Roslyn’s second pass at a touch, yet those talons caught the Vampire’s earlobe, tugging it lightly even as she guided Roslyn’s hand down. All Roslyn could do was stare, lose herself in the depths of Cecelia’s eyes once more. Hunting. This was a hunt, the thrill running down Roslyn’s spine. Cecelia, the perfect prey, thus far… but how could a mere mortal hunt immorality? Unless… said immortal was playing the game.

That drew the most unholy of smirks to Roslyn’s face, even as she worked to throw one of her legs over Cecelia’s. Her legs hung, toes swinging, weight supported by nothing save the vampire. Flying and grounded. Earth and sky. Roslyn was the prey, with a hunter gracious enough to allow her dignity. All it would take is one movement, one moment where Cecelia lost herself or lost her patience, and Roslyn would bear the cost. She was so close to the fire, playing with an inferno. She had Cecelia between her thighs, more power than the most expensive stallion from any estate in the east. If Cecelia bucked… The Witch wanted that. She wanted Cecelia to buck, wanted the Vampire to lose her patience, to cling with more than the gentle hands against the curve of her waist.

“You could bereft me of far more, darling.” She purred, letting the huskiness of alcohol sink her voice into the sinful satiny tones. In a motion as smooth as silk, for a drunk at least, Roslyn slunk her arms around Cecelia’s neck, fingers weaving into the vampire’s glorious locks even as she rocked herself closer, leaving no space between herself and Cecelia. She had to cling with her thighs, squeeze the Vampire so she could lift herself out of the chair, to look down at her huntress. The Witch could only swallow, licking her lips before leaning close enough that her next words were only for the Vampire’s delicate ears.

“Then…” The Witch let her breath brush the shell of Cecelia’s ear, the tease of the corner of her mouth adding in as she let her words become heated. The filthiest things, every dark desire, her deepest secrets painted in the most scandalous of tones she could muster. Requests, nay, demands that would have demons blushing. That HAD demons blushing.

“HAH!” Fiona laughed in absolute awe; eyes blown wide. Roslyn’s met hers, the Witch giving that unholy smirk to the Seer for a split second before even Fiona found herself overwhelmed on Cecelia’s behalf.

“Oh hells… please stop.” Nathan groaned desperately, face flushed, eyes haunted. He had to avert his gaze when Roslyn’s teeth closed around Cecelia’s ear.

“Oh, please do continue. This is delightful… is she truly that flexible?” Sascha barked with glee, a glimmer of a demonic tongue brushing across his lower lip. The Incubus fed, eyes seeming to glow as he took in such a potent meal before him, only encouraged by the appearance of little horns peeking from beneath the table.

“According to the Lady’s Arms patrons? My mistress is the most flexible human they’ll ever meet!” Enzo declared almost proudly, earning a few tensed chuckles at the implications of such a statement. Roslyn was far too drunk to care. Lost in alcohol and power, in the game she so desperately needed to win, but so desperately wished to lose. Was there anything but victory from such a game? Something so pure could never be a loss, not for her, not for how the flames were licking up her spine. She could feel it, Cecelia’s composure cracking. It came in the pricks of talons. In the occasional flex between her thighs, something she answered with another dirty line expressing her appreciation. How close could she dance to this fire before it consumed her? It seemed she was never going to find out given the look of horror on Kellan’s face as he finally, FINALLY, spoke up. Given his discomfort, she couldn’t help but silently query if his voice was the only thing rising.

“Cecelia! For the seven layers of hells and every bell that might ring, shut Arosi up! Those of us with fine hearing don’t wish to hear such-”

“I’m sure I can find something to occu-”

Cecelia never let Roslyn finish. Cecelia’s hand came to her jaw, cradling it sweetly even as the pad of her thumb fell tenderly across the Witch’s lips. All it took was a single talon, pressed ever so tenderly to Roslyn’s lips for the Witch to still, to surrender. The moment Roslyn did, Cecelia gently slid her thumb away, caressing the line of Roslyn’s lip then the swell of her cheek, a gesture which stilled Roslyn’s heart.

“Quiet now, Witchling. I’ll give you your desired dance if you cease haunting our ghost. Your brazen attempts to make me blush are for naught.” The Vampire urged, corners of her lips twitching, teasing the smile Roslyn was so devoted to drawing out. The table, the Saloon, the world. Everything in existence needed to see the radiance. Such a small expression, something so simple and true, such beauty it could chase the darkness of evil from the comforting shadows of night.

“Give me an hour.” The Witch said, giving a sloppy waggle of her brows. That did it. Cecelia cracked, lips quirking up into the fondest smirk Roslyn had ever laid eyes on.

“You would be asleep within ten ticks, much less an hour.” Cecelia’s comment was delivered on a smile. Forever gentle hands gathered beneath the Witch’s thighs, holding them steady before Cecelia merely stood up, baring the weight as if it were that of a feather instead of an entire being. For a second, Roslyn simply indulged, smiling peacefully as she leaned her forehead into Cecelia’s collar. She was warmer, warmed by her contact with Roslyn, yet still refreshingly cool, enough that Roslyn could feel her body drooping into the relaxation, a realm of half consciousness and safety. Then Cecelia wasn’t holding her. Falling. She yelped, clawing at Cecelia.

“Careful!” The Vampire was equally as quick. One hand caught beneath her thigh, encouraging the leg around her waist even as the vamp’s other arm wrapped around her torso. Again, she was weightless, held aloft by Cecelia’s strength. Again, she was entangled with the Vampire, wrapped around her, poised to climb her like a tree if only she had the courage and lack of… Oh no. She absolutely had the lack of propriety down. Drunken misbehaviour. The brattiness, in public, complete with the clinging. The wicked gleam in Cecelia’s eye as she led Roslyn to the makeshift dancefloor… The Witch’s cheeks flushed, leading her to curse her complexion. There was no way anybody was going to miss her blushing, nor her previous antics. Hells, she was never going to live this down, not if the smirk upon Cecelia’s face was any indication.

“I won’t dance if it proves a danger to you.” The warning was given light heartedly, a soft, intimate whisper as Cecelia drew Roslyn in close. Already, it was apparent the Witch barely had her feet, yet as always Cecelia was there to ground her. To be the very ground she stood upon. Without a blink, Cecelia had Roslyn standing on her feet, had her held impossibly close.

“How else are we meant to celebrate the date you were born?”

The innocent question punched the air from Cecelia’s immortal lungs. Mother night, it tore her back hundreds of years. Back to when the day held meaning. To memories of a time before Kellan. Before the Ward. Where the ballrooms were alive, where she… The answer was so close, yet so far. So very, very far from Cecelia’s grasp. All she could do was sigh, was close her eyes and lean her cool forehead to Roslyn’s clammy one with a solitary observation.

“You know.”

“Of course I know. It’s important to know that about your family!” Roslyn’s earnest statement lured Cecelia’s eyes open, the impact of the unspoken acknowledgement a gift unlike any she’d received in her long life. She smiled, not one of her above mortality, tragic smiles, but a true smile, complete with a glimmer of fang. It was a smile which shook Roslyn to the core. Upon Cecelia’s feet, Roslyn finally stood at even height, their faces aligned. It was effortless, to lose herself in the beauty of Cecelia’s face so close to her own. To feel how their breath mingled in the tiniest of spaces between their lips. With a flush unattributed to alcohol, the Witch babbled on.

“It took a lot of magic though. And Kellan.” The conclusion of Roslyn’s explanation only proved her dedication. For Roslyn to willingly have sought out Kellan, to have chosen to confide in him, even for Cecelia… It went beyond Roslyn’s appreciation for him as someone in Cecelia’s life, or as her boss.

“It is alarming is that you, of all of us, got him to the table.” She noted. An absolutely monumental understatement. Their conflict went beyond Kellan’s hazing a tenderfoot approach to Roslyn as a member of the team. Truth be told, Cecelia had half expected Roslyn to give Kellan a bad plum in leu of an apple when Kellan declared the trials. Their tensions even went further than Roslyn thinking Kellan a ten-cent man, and he finding the Witch to be a bag of nails. It was her. Roslyn’s issues had only grown worse once she knew precisely what Kellan’s role had been in Cecelia’s upbringing.

Just as his hostility towards Roslyn had only increased once he recognised her connection to Cecelia. The temptation she could become, had become. What she was only proved to be the icing on one very hostile cake. The fact that they were beginning to bury the hatchet, instead of simply co-exist was just another priceless gift.

“I wanted you to have fun, and instead lost myself in my cup trying to flavour my blood before you even arrived. I was going to let you bite me so we could watch the sunrise. Sascha suggested some different drinks… I ruined your surprise! I’m going to be grouchier than a bear with a sore head come morning.” Roslyn deflated, squeezing her hand just that little tighter on Cecelia’s bicep.

“Then it seems we will both be hiding from the sun.” Cecelia sighed, unable to conceal her smile as she leaned back. The tickle of Roslyn’s hair against her nose was the smallest of prices to pay to deliver the gentlest kiss to the Witch’s forehead. A gesture which had Roslyn smiling too, creeping from the melancholy that had been nipping at her heels.

“You’ll be a…” Cecelia trailed off, mischief brewing in her stormy eyes. As she continued in a sing song voice.

“What is it you called me? An adorable, grumpy little muffin?”

“You were all pouty! an’ to think, here I was tryin’ ta be nice to ya.” The Witch laughed, shaking her head a little at the gall Cecelia had to throw her own words back at her. That was a low blow. Totally uncalled for… adorable too. A little kitten mewling.

“I sincerely appreciate the sentiment, little delinquent.“ Cecelia crooned in return. Roslyn shrugged, unable to focus on anything but the gentle curve of Cecelia’s lips. The hint of fangs behind the midnight red curtain. Mindlessly, Roslyn tipped her head forwards, playfully nuzzling the Vampire’s jaw before her ear once more settled over Cecelia’s shoulder, forehead nestled into the safety of Cecelia’s neck. There, tucked away in the scoop of Cecelia’s body, swaying in slow circles to the sweetest notes of a steady piano, Roslyn yawned, her smile shifted into contentment. Cecelia sighed too, tilting her head so that she could rest her cheek to Roslyn’s temple. Together, they swayed, enraptured by one another, lost on the tide of the piano’s melody. Cecelia, drowning in the orchestra of Roslyn’s heartbeat. Of her soul. All of which fell secondary to the sweetest whisper, like the touch of wind across the desert on a still night.

"Happy Birthday, Lady Cecelia Visconti.”

“Thank you.”

Cecelia’s response was honest. Sincere. Spoken from the heart. Even drunk, Roslyn could see it in her eyes. How gentle they were, soft, with a droopiness to them. For once, it was not Cecelia trying to appear harsher, nor watching for danger. There it was. The chasm in the veneer Roslyn had so desperately desired, mere millimetres from her face. Overwhelming, like how the Sun’s light drowned the moon out every day, but still the moon shone, as did every star. Only, they were within Cecelia’s eyes. Mother Night, they were in Cecelia’s eyes. Roslyn could only smile, even with her cheek rested to Cecelia’s lace covered shoulder, giggling at the tickle of Cecelia’s hair in conflict with the scratchiness of the lace.

“So,” Roslyn begun, her smile only growing as she saw Cecelia tilt her chin that little bit closer, as if trying to connect their gazes once more.

“are you ready to tell me how old you really are?”

Cecelia cracked. Her warm, rich laughter vibrated in her chest, disrupting Roslyn’s resting place. When faced with such a thing, what else could be done but to giggle along, to bathe in a moment where the weight of the world was not upon their shoulders? Where they could be young, drunk and ditzy without it leading to the cost of lives. Where the Ward had no power to punish Cecelia, or leverage her life against Kellan. Where, they could just be. Roslyn laughed too, turning her head so that she could playfully try to sneak a kiss through the lace over Cecelia’s collar. Whether it was the pressure, the heat of her mouth or the wet of her kiss, Cecelia seemed to feel something. Her chest swelled, and for one glistening moment, they were completely still. A snapshot in time.

“Oh my darling Witch, you still have not learned it is rude to query a woman’s age.”

#answered #anonymous #lovestruck #women of lovestruck #cecelia visconti #cecelia x mc #wicked lawless love #fluff #fluffy #touching thursday

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aspoonofsugar · 4 years ago

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Shipping aside, can you analyze Zuko and Katara's relationship, as well as Zuko and Azula's vs Katara and Sokka's

Hello anon!

When it comes to Katara and Zuko’s dynamic, I would start from this scene:

This scene is where they interact for the first time not as enemies, but as people. It is meaningful that the first thing they share is about their respective mothers.

Ursa and Kya are two fundamental figures in their kids’ lives. In particular, when it comes to Katara and Zuko, they are linked to sides of them they usually hide.

On one hand Ursa is linked to a kind and empathetic side Zuko has, but does not initially show.

For Zuko (and also for Azula, but in a more complicated way) Ursa symbolizes unconditional love. Ursa is the parent who has always shown Zuko kindness and appreciation no matter what he accomplished.

Ursa being linked to a more positive side of Zuko is made clear also here:

Iroh: “You have more than one great-grandfather, Prince Zuko. Sozin was your father's grandfather. Your mother's grandfather was Avatar Roku”.

Ozai is Sozin’s descendant, while Ursa is Roku’s. Zuko is the descendant of both and must reconcile these two sides of himself.

In short, Ursa embodies a more positive side of Zuko. This is why the flashback about her is one we have when Zuko is travelling alone and is already starting to change and to show more and more of these positive traits.

When it comes to Katara, the violent death of her mother is instead linked to a ruthless unforgiving side she rarely shows:

Katara: “It's not the same! Jet attacked the innocent. This man, he's a monster.”

Katara is usually compassionate and empathetic. As Sokka says:

Sokka: “ Nah, she doesn't hate you. Katara doesn't hate anyone.”

However, when it comes to her mother’s murderer, she shows cruelty. What is more, at the root of both Katara and Zuko’s traumas reguarding their mothers there is the fact that they grow up without knowing what really happened to them.

All in all, they stay confused and without closure to the point that years later what happened to their mothers is still haunting them. What makes their parallel even stronger is that both Kya and Ursa died/disappeared to protect their children. However, the reasons why their children risked death are different.

On one hand Zuko risks to die because Ozai does not value him. In particular, Ozai sees him and his bending as weak. On the other hand Katara risks to die because she is a bender, so she might be strong enough to pose a danger for the Fire Nation.

Both children are threathened by the Fire Nation, but for opposite reasons. Zuko is targeted because of his “weakness”, while Katara for her strength and potential. This ties to the different social role they are asked to fulfill by their respective communities. On one hand Zuko is asked to be a prince and so to exhibits traits like ruthlessness and strength. On the other hand Katara’s culture (well, the culture of the North Water Tribe, at least) asks her to be a woman and not to fight.

Both Katara and Zuko exhibits traits they should not have. Katara is powerful and has taught herself how to fight, while Zuko is compassionate and does not want soldiers to be cruelly sacrificed. They end up in trouble because of this and enter into a conflict with parts of their culture just to be themselves. At the same time, theirs is also a story of getting to know their respective cultures better and this can happen also through getting to know other cultures as well.

This is made clear by how their respective bending progresses throughout their journeys.

On one hand Katara leaves a homecountry which was almost completely destroyed by the war. Many aspects of her culture, especially the ones related to her bending, went missing and her main objective at the beginning of the series is to learn more about them. Throughout her journey she succeeds. As a matter of fact in each season she discovers more and more about waterbending. In the first book she discovers its healing properties and learns a Northern style. In the second book, she discovers the swamp style of water-bending. Finally in the last book she is trained by a Southern bender and learns blood-bending. In short, throughout her journey Katara discovers her roots and accepts both positive and negative things about them.

On the other hand Zuko’s bending develops as he learns more from other cultures:

And, thanks to in his attempt to teach fire-bending to Aang, he connects with a style of fire-bending often forgotten:

In short, Zuko is enriched by other cultures and it is through them that he also discovers more about his own.

It is also interesting that what we discover about each bending each season parallels Zuko and Katara in some way.

On one hand Zuko starts the story as an antagonist and what people say about firebending in season one is mostly negative:

Even a firebending master recognizes how dangerous his bending is. This is what is said about waterbending instead:

Waterbending has healing qualities. Water can heal, whereas fire can only hurt. This is a good power for a character like Katara to have. As a matter of fact she is an extremely nurturing character to the point that she often acts as a mother figure even for characters who are her peers:

Sokka: “I'm gonna tell you something crazy. I never told anyone this before, but honestly? I'm not sure I can remember what my mother looked like. It really seems like my whole life, Katara's been the one looking out for me. She's always been the one that's there. And now, when I try to remember my mom, Katara's is the only face I can picture.”

However, in season three we are shown that firebending can also embody a positive philosophy:

Aang: “All this time, I thought firebending was destruction. Since I hurt Katara, I've been too afraid and hesitant. But now I know what it really is ... it's energy, and life.”

Zuko: “Yeah. It's like the Sun, [He curls his hand into a fist.] but inside of you. Do you guys realize this?”

Fire is linked to the sun and can represent life itself. After all, where would humans be without fire?

At the same time, we are shown how waterbending can be extremely dangerous:

These revelations about firebending and waterbending fit with what we discover about Zuko and Katara themselves, as stated above. Zuko can be helpful and kind, while Katara can be resentful and feel deep hatred.

In short, both characters have negative and positive traits. However, they manage not to lose themselves and to find an equilibrium and this is also because of their loved ones.

This is also true for their respective cultures. All in all, all cultures have positive and negative traits and this is why it is important to acquire different points of view. This is the main theme of ATLA after all. It is not by chance that the Avatar gets to bend all elements. It is because only through knowing all kinds of people he can help maintain harmony.

Another interesting similarity between Zuko and Katara is that they foil the other’s sibling.

On one hand Zuko and Sokka are both boys who are struggling to live up to others’ expectations. Both have a father figure they wish to make proud. However, they feel they are failing.

In Zuko’s case, Ozai being proud of him is something which will never happen. This is because Ozai will never accept Zuko as a person and will fail to see his positive traits. This is why in the end Zuko realizes Ozai’s praise is not worth it. He realizes that there is already a person who is proud of him and who loves him despite it all aka Iroh.

When it comes to Sokka, Hakoda is already proud of him, but Sokka feels he is not enough if compared to his father. This is because what he mostly sees of his father is his strength as a warrior. Sokka is an average person when it comes to physical strength and battle prowess. He acquires more experience as the series progresses, but he mostly uses his intelligence and skill to solve situations. What is more, he is a normal person in a cast of people with magical power. However, Sokka slowly discovers that he can be like his father (a leader and an example) just by being himself. His strength lies in him seeing things outside the box and he does not need to lose his goofy side to be useful. At the same time, he progressively loses his toxic masculinity (just like Zuko). He starts to respect women more and learns from them, for example.

On the other hand Katara and Azula are similar in how they are both affected by their mothers’ disappearances. This despite the fact that they hide their hurt well enough. As a matter of fact it is clear pretty soon that Sokka and Zuko want to be appreciated by their fathers, but the level of pain and unsolved issues Katara and Azula have for their mothers’ disappearances is something which comes up much later.

This is because both Katara and Azula are asked by their societies to fulfills different roles. Katara is asked to become the woman of the family and she ends up mothering her older brother. Azula is instead asked to be a princess and a military leader. This makes so that they repress their issues until they come up in ugly ways:

It is interesting that the moments they are at their most powerful when it comes to their bendings are also the moments where they are the most unstable psychologically wise.

That said, Katara still manages to process her feeling of grief and to find closure. It is also important that she expresses her feelings of resentment towards her brother to an extent:

Sokka: “Katara, she was my mother, too, but I think Aang might be right.”

Katara: “Then you didn't love her the way I did!”

Because of this, she is ultimately able to move on.

However, when Azula has the chance to address her feelings for her mother, she refuses to do so, as I explained here:

Azula: I don’t have sob stories like all of you. I could sit here and complain how our mom like Zuko more than me. But I don’t really care. My own mother… thought I was a monster… She was right of course, but it still hurt.

In conclusion, Katara and Zuko are pretty strong foils and they represent two sides of the conflict and two different cultures, which initially despise each other. This is pretty much made clear by them being linked with water and fire respectively. This is why their story is a story of reconciliation and forgiveness and this is made clear when one compares their respective roles in each season finale.

In the first season finale they fight each other. This is the first time they are on equal footing because Katara finally got the chance to be trained. The focus is mostly on their competitiveness and conflict.

In the second season finale, they discover they are more similar than what they think. They have similar traumas and are in similar situations. However, even if Katara is ready to give Zuko a chance, Zuko betrays her and a reconciliation does not happen.

Finally, in the third season finale, they are shown fighting together against Azula, who is a foil of both. They save each other’s lives and help to end the war.

These are my main thoughts on these two characters and their foiling.

Thank you for the ask!

#atla #atla meta #katara #zuko #azula #sokka #asksfullofsugar #anonymous

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kaibutsushidousha · 5 years ago

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What do you mean by ridiculous names ? Is there puns or the name very unusual with fancy kanji/unusual readings for them ?

All of the above. Using older kanji makes sense since the story is set in Taishou, but most names are either unsubtle puns or relatively direct descriptors of the characters, like Gyokko meaning “jade vase”. Unusual readings don’t often all that often, but a great example is 不死川 being spelled as Shinazugawa instead of the more obvious Fujigawa (same kanji as Killer Killer’s Fujigawa btw).

Not only that, but there also a few examples of names that are straight up regular words with no twist to them whatsoever: Muzan (cruelty), Giyuu (heroism) and Agatsuma (my wife).

Kamado means “furnace gate”, because the Kamado family sells charcoal. It’s an outdated kanji for furnace (竃) to keep that Taishou flavor. Now, Tanjirou is a much more competent and interesting name, one of my favorites in the manga. Depending on whether you interpret its 治 as the 治 in 治す or the 治 in 退治, the meaning of his name could be either “healing son of charcoal” or “demon-slaying son of charcoal”, fitting perfectly with how Tanjirou’s goals involve both killing demons and getting a cure for his sister’s predicament. Not mention a lot of Heian mythology associating slaying oni with curing illness. And the charcoal part is because Tanjirou, of the Furnace family who sells charcoal, sells charcoal. By the did I mention Tanjirou sells charcoal? But anyways, there’s even another layer to this name and which it’s why it’s one of my favorites: it can be sort of a namefication of the verb 歎じる(tanjiru), which means to mourn, reflect Tanjirou’s main trait of sparing sympathy for pretty much every demon he kills.

Nezuko means “shrine bean girl”. Specifically Heian era shrines, so it’s maybe this kanji is too old even for the Taishou era (so old that a lot of people on the internet don’t know to type it or don’t bother the conversion takes too long). But it fits the character since Heian is when we got most of the oni related mythology this series is mostly about. The “bean girl” part is probably there only to sound cute.

Agatsuma, as mentioned earlier, means “my wife”. I already considered one of the funniest I’ve ever seen before I even started the manga and it only better after actually seeing Zen’itsu’s character. Zen’itsu has a cool double meaning like Tanjirou, with 逸 potentially being from 逸する or 逸物, so his name means either “goodness missed” or “goodness at its best”, which fits how Zen’itsu is normally an absolutely terrible person in every aspect but shows himself to be ultimately caring and competent when pushes come to the shove (even if through the power of stress napping most of the time).

Hashibira means “beak flattened”. A rare name I have no idea how it connects to the character. Inosuke’s kanji mean “helper of the elegant” but the intent is clearly a pun on inoshishi (boar). Besides, looking at the meaning feels like a moot point because everyone is “the elegant” compared to Inosuke.

Both Kanawo’s names are antiquated as heck, mainly there for the series Taishou era flavor. Tsuyuri is one of Japan’s most notoriously unusual ateji names (yeah, there are only 3 instances of the manga using real people names and one of them is the name known for being weird), with it’s kanji meaning “chestnut flower falling” and the kana means “rainy season starting”, because chestnut flowers fall in early May, signaling the start of the rainy season. Kanawo’s “birthday” is in May btw. Anyways, the name was probably chosen for her specifically because of flower kanji in the middle and her Breath of Flowers. Kanawo is a katakana name, so no proper meaning, but it overall feels very old because it’s a name that uses “wo” instead of “o”. Taishou flavor, as I mentioned.

I’m skipping Gen’ya to his brother’s section because their names are matching.

Ubuyashiki means “childbirth grounds”. Kagaya had 5 children so it checks. Besides, with their family curse, pretty much all the Ubuyashikis can do is give birth to the next generation as much as they can before they kick the bucket. Kagaya means “radiant!”. Yes, the exclamation mark is part of the name’s meaning. I’m sure it’s a name all pillar agree with.

Tomioka means “wealth hill” it’s a rare instance of a real people name in this series, so I assume it must a reference to some one, but I have no idea who. Giyuu, as already mentioned, is just the regular word for heroism. Military volunteers are actually called “giyuu soldiers” in Japanese even.

Similarly, Kochou is the regular word for butterfly (although not the most commonly used). Shinobu is a hiragana name, so no proper meaning (much like Kanae and Kanawo’s katakana names), but name Shinobu is normally written with 忍 (the shinobi kanji) or 偲 (remembering, but most often in the context of remembering a dead person). The latter has obvious meaning in Shinobu’s relationship with Kanae, but the former might also have an interesting meaning behind it. The shinobi kanji is made with the heart kanji under the blade kanji (insert Monogatari reference here), so a huge cliche in ninja-themed literature is the saying “a shinobi without a heart is just a blade” (surprisingly never mentioned once in Naruto, as far as I can remember). I believe this thematically connects to Shinobu’s central character trait of wanting to have Kanae’s kindness but not being able to bring herself to be that empathetic to demons. She tries to be Shinobu but can’t force herself to retain the heart she lost, so she ends up just being a blade.

Rengoku is the regular word for purgatory, as you probably know from it being also the name of his ninth kata. Kyoujurou means “congratulating son of apricorns”, with father Shinjurou being “congratulating son of yew plum pine” and his brother Senjurou being “congratulating son of thousand”. The pun here is probably with ��受(kyouju; happily accepting something) vs 信受 (shinju; accepting a fact, in a somewhat resignated way). Another possibility less related to the conflicted with his character is 教授(kyouju; professor) since he’s a mentor character.

Uzui means “roof marrow”, but real pun is with uzu uzu, the gitaigo for impatience, a character trait fitting for a character completely centered around rejecting shinobi philosophies. Also reflects how his very first sympathetic moment was him honestly admiting that his impatience to save his wives caused him to make a few bad moves. Tengen is the Japanese reading for Tianyuan, which is the heaven’s energy which composes everything according to some ancient Chinese traditions. You may have heard of it as the “celestial unknown” or the “heavenly element”. Don’t know what it has to do with Tengen’s character though.

Kanroji means “nectar temple” and Mitsuri means “honey lazuli”. The “temple” and “lazuli” part are kanji commonly used in names, so that’s a pretty much just thrown in there to make her name sound more like a name. The real keywords here nectar and honey, since those are two words that can be used as horny words in a very subtle way, but suddenly look a lot less subtle when they are about the Love Pillar.

Himejima means “scream island”, but specifically the sad, crying kind of scream, matching with how Himejima is pretty much always crying out of compassion for others. Also, archaic kanji for “island” because Taishou. Gyoumei means “carita afterlife”. Carita is an umbrella term for all forms of spiritual training in Buddhism. It includes a lot of things we see associated with him in the manga, like sitting under waterfalls, reciting chants, etc.

Tokitou means “time transparent”. Possibly a clever amnesia reference (in the sense of how his past time was invisible to him)? Muichirou means “first son of no”, in a ridiculous match with his twin Yuichirou (”first son of yes”). Yuichirou references that multiple times in his backstory, saying it’s supposed to mean “no worth” or “no point”, only to then say it’s supposed to mean “no limits” in the climax of the flashback.

Iguro means “elegant black”. It’s an obvious anagram on guroi (gorey). Now, Obanai is easily the most incomprehensible name in the series. It means “small banana inside”, which is nonsensical enough for me to know for sure there’s a hidden pun involved, but I can’t find it for the life of me. The closest I can get is a pun with the English word “overnight” (OBAaNAIto), but I still don’t know Iguro’s character enough to know what “overnight” has to do with him.

不死川 would mean “immortal river“ as Fujigawa, but due to ateji it be comes more like “river of not dying“. Like with Kanroji’s names, the river kanji is only there to make the name look more like a real name (note: it’s not working) and the “not dying“ part is what really matters. Sanemi is introduced showing off his chest covered in scars and having Kanroji commenting on how he’s got a new scar in his last mission, immediately conveying to the audience that he’s a dude that’s not dying despite injuring himself a lot. Now Sanemi is a much more complicated name because 実 has dozens of meanings and I had no way of knowing which one is supposed to apply to him until Gen’ya finally came into play. Looking at them as paired names, Sanemi means “more reality“ and Gen’ya means “more illusion“. Can’t say why Sanemi is supposed to represent truth or Gen’ya is supposed represent lies, though. Could be something about how Sanemi knows the truth about how he felt about his brother while was fed Sanemi’s lies in their reencounter, could be about how Sanemi is a true breath user while Gen’ya is a fraud who needs to rely on Breath of Gun or going Kirby on the demons to fight, who knows. On a semi-related note, all of their other siblings had generic unrelated names. I guess their parents didn’t think of going with “more half-truth“ or “more ommision“ names before dropping the naming pattern.

Kyougai means “echoing fanfare”. Two sound related words for the drum guy. Pretty basic.

Rui is a regular word for bad influence, fitting of how he forced others into his abusive family play. It’s written with the radical for thread, so I that’s one of the ones I find more clever than ridiculous.

Enmu, on the other hand, means “nightmare dream”. And if that wasn’t redundant enough, it’s also an anagram for nemu(sleep).

Kaigaku means “sly peaks”. The peaks part is common surname kanji, so only the “sly” part matters. Obvious traitor name, which must be why he was unnamed in Zen’itsu’s first flashback.

Nakime means “sounding woman”. Very self-explanatory, she’s a woman who plays a biwa.

Daki means “fallen princess”, which is already meaningful enough for her character, but more importantly, it sounds very close to Dakki, the Japanese for the Daji, a famous Chinese monster disguised as an imperial courtesan. Giyuutarou is a name used for courtesan assistants, as already explained in the manga itself. Daki’s human name Ume is plum.

Gyokko means “jade vase”, as I said in the intro paragraph. Competing hard with Nakime for the title of most to-the-poing name in the series.

Hantengu means “half tengu”, because his ability is to split in halves and the tengu is the youkai species he’s themed after. Kinda weird how all oni in Kimetsu are themed after classic Japanese monster but only Daki, Hantengu and Douma get to be named after the ones they represent, I wish that was done more often. Anyways, his emotion bodies all have the kanji for their respective emotion in their names.

Akaza has my favorite name in the series, which makes sense considering everything else about him is also great. His human name is Hakuji, meaning “lion-dog healer” (yes, same ji in Tanjirou, but “demon-slaying” can’t be considered as a possibility for him for obvious reasons). As explained during his backstory, he’s named after lion-dog statues often seen guarding temple entrances. He’s someone who is supposed to be there to protect others. The healer part of his name also fits with how his spent half of his human life nursing his loved ones. And then Muzan turned him into Akaza. Due to its outdated kanji, even Japanese fans find his name a bit hard to interpret, but Akaza is generally agreed to mean “castrated dog sitting on a pit”. Delightfully humialiating name with delicious irony. In the chapter “The Useless Lion-dog”, Muzan turns the lion-dog who failed to guard its two families into a castrated dog sitting on a pit. All his nobility was neutered and he was left sitting still in a pit as he has no home to guard. Before this becomes a full Akaza meta on how he’s a full anti-thesis of what Hakuji swore to be, let’s get back to talk about names. His wife Koyuki’s name mean “love snow”. The love part represents how she’s a love interest of Hakuji and the snow part reflects she always a snowflakes hairpin and how Akaza projects the image of a snowflake on the floor when he activates his compass ability.

Douma means “child exhausted”, fitting his childish nature, especially in how he’s portrayed as a child who still hasn’t developed empathy at the age of 20, and with how his backstory is all about him being exhausted by human emotions after listening to hours of worshippers narrating their own tragedies. But most importantly, he named after Doumahoushi aka Ashiya Douman, the mythological villain he’s themed after. I like how he’s the only oni themed after a human villain rather than an actual oni or youkai like all the rest, but he might be the one oni who understands humans the least.

Kokushibou means “black death pupils”. Pupils as in eye pupil, not students, of course. He has no students, but he sure has a lot of pupils. Also eyes are often used as symbol for envy, which is the main theme of his backstory. Lastly, his name is a pun on kokushibyou aka the black plague, the disease that killed the most people in the world, just like he’s the oni who killed the most people. The 3 Upper Moons all have pretty unironically good names, all things considered. His human family name means “successor country”, probably in reference to how his brother passed down his hinomaru (symbol of Japan, the country) earrings to his next generation all the way down to Tanjirou. His name Michikatsu means “rock winner”. The winner part is obvious but I don’t know the (outdated) rock kanji was picked. His brother is Yoriichi meaning “fated one”, which probably on feeds Kokushibou’s complex harder.

Lastly and most ridiculously, Muzan Kibutsuji. Kibutsuji means “demon dance road”. Yes, the oni kanji is right there on his name, same demon kanji as the demons everyone faces. And as mentioned in the opener, the name Muzan is literally just the regular word cruelty. I’m commenting stuff with a friend as I read and we semi-consistently refer to Muzan as Meanie Demonbroadway because that’s just how stupid his name is. I really love it. Thank you anon for this opportunity to talk about Meanie Demonbroadway in a public space.

#kimetsu no yaiba

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blackswaneuroparedux · 5 years ago

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Anonymous asked: What poem would you want to be read at your funeral and why?

Surprisingly I don’t find this a morbid question at all. It is a question I haven’t given much thought to in a long time because when do we ever really question our mortality?

I suspect the younger we are the further we push it away. That is until a freak crisis of some sort hits us. I can think of a few occasions when perhaps I have thought about it momentarily. I have found myself in some freak situations where I thought I was going to die - like a mountaineering accident or when I had a parachute accident. But in those situations a poem to be read at your funeral is the last thing that you dwell on in your mind!

The only other conscious times I have thought about it was when I was going through Sandhurst as an army officer cadet. Towards the end of Week 8 or so the junior cadets have to visit Brookwood Military Cemetery to see the fallen - the visit is done by all cadets and it’s done not just as an act of remembrance but also a reminder that the fate of real lives could depend on the decisions you take as an officer. I can’t articulate the feelings that coarse through you as you read the youthful inscriptions of those who died in battle (past and present) and reflect it back upon your own sense of fragile mortality.

Surprisingly I didn’t think too much about poems or eulogies when I was out serving in Afghanistan. There simply wasn’t time to think too much. It’s hard to explain but there is simply too much going on both in and out of the heat of battle: the amount of work to be done between missions as well as the tiredness, lack of sleep, and exhaustion to manage whilst also doing anything - from playing silly pranks, playing sports, reading, writing, doing laundry etc - to take your mind far away from dark thoughts.

I think about my mortality more when I meet very old veterans on their last legs or when I attend solemn commemorative services.

I can think of many poems that I would love to be read at my funeral so it’s hard to decide. I especially like ‘Ithaka’ by Cavafy for instance. But I’ll go with Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’.

The last part of the poem especially resonates for me:

Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

The full poem itself reveals Ulysses (Odysseus from Homer's Odyssey) the ageing king who, having returned from the Trojan war, yearns to don his armour again and ride off in search of battle, glory, and adventure (leaving his poor wife Penelope behind). The poem ends with Ulysses triumphantly announcing his intention to sail off again on yet more adventures. After being away from home for ten years while fighting in the Trojan War, and then taking ten years to get back home to the island of Ithaca to his family, Ulysses feels ill at ease at home. The civilian’s life is not for him: he is made for battle and adventure and voyaging (even though, in the Odyssey, he manifestly hates travelling on the sea), and will never be content to be the stay-at-home king with a wife and son, living out the rest of his years on Ithaca and enjoying ‘the quiet life’.

Tennyson of course drew upon Homer's Odyssey but also drew upon Dante's Inferno, Canto XXVI, in which Dante is led by the Roman epic poet Virgil to meet Ulysses and hear his tale. In Homer, Odysseus is told by the blind prophet Tiresias that he will return home to Ithaca but will then make one more journey to a land far away from home. In Dante, this part of the story is fleshed out. Ulysses gathers his men together to prepare for the journey and exhorts them not to waste their time left on earth. He dies on this journey, which is why he is in Dante’s hell. Tennyson's character is somewhere in between these literary predecessors, as Ulysses knows he will set off on a last journey but has not done so yet. Critics also note the influence of Shakespeare, particularly his Troilus and Cressida, which also includes Ulysses.

Ulysses knows he is famous for his great deeds, but this is not what motivates him. Unlike Achilles, glory was never the goal of Ulysses, it was the spirit of adventure.

Indeed what I love about this poem is Ulysses’ inquisitive spirit is to be always looking forward. He has seen much and has seen a great variety of cultures, but this is all in the past. Experiences have made him who he is, but what matters is passing through the “arch” to the “untravell’d world” and constantly moving toward the ever-escaping horizon.

In addition to the arch, Ulysses uses another metaphor here, calling himself a sword that must “shine in use” rather than “rust unburnish’d.” Yet, at home he feels bored and useless, yearning to truly engage with what’s left of his life. He is impatient for new experiences, lamenting every hour and every day that he does not seek “something more.”

Ulysses’ quest for adventure and fulfilment, like the goal of Goethe's Faust, is defined by the pursuit of new and unique knowledge “beyond the utmost bound of human thought.” Adventurer isn’t just about experience it’s about knowledge and, one hopes, wisdom.

Tennyson wrote this poem just after the death of his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam in 1833. Tennyson found himself thrust into the role of Ulysses. Confronted by the death of his friend, Tennyson noticed a sudden urge to drive forwards in life and not settle for the commonplace. As stated in the poem, ‘death closes all,’ enlightening the poet to the need to make the most of his life before it escapes him.

The poem’s final line is the most famous. The need ‘to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield’ fits into the Victorian urge to escape the tedious nature of day-to-day life, to achieve a level of mythical fame reached by the classical heroes, to travel ‘beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars.’ Tennyson doesn’t want to conform, he wants to challenge himself, and he wants to break new ground before his inevitable death. Just like Ulysses, Tennyson wants to go out adventuring rather than settle for regular life.

But where most people have misunderstood the poem is in that final line. They tend to only focus on the last line at the expense of what comles before. So “‘To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield’ is meremy seen as a monumental pronouncement for unbridled success and arrogant pride disguised as optimism. But it’s one that is isolated from its context within the poem as a whole. Indeed in doing so it robs Tennyson’s poetry of its fragile nuance. People forget to think about the last line within the context of the two lines above, “ One equal temper of heroic hearts/Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.”

Despite being stoic and leading a life of meaningful purpose (heroic even), life still leaves us room with doubt and equivocation. As Tennyson himself suggested, confidence and doubt are equal elements of his poem’s meaning: he said that it ‘was written under the sense of loss and that all had gone by, but that still life must be fought out to the end’.

The struggle between the sense of loss and the desire to fight life out to the end remains unresolved at the end of the poem. I think this titanic struggle remains true even if one has religious faith and a belief of resurrection of an after-life. As a believing Christian I see no tension in this other than the ones being pulled on the human heart and the divine soul.

In the end Ulysses' enduring challenge to himself, is a challenge to us, to push ahead with energy and strength of will no matter how old or weak our bodies are. To yield to age or weakness is to be less than fully human and yet paradoxically when our bodies give out and we fail it’s also very human. As honourable as it may be to live a peaceful life without risk, we miss the most exciting aspects of life if we do not venture out, at least a little bit, into the unknown. For me as a Christian, the unknown (or as Donald Rumsfeld would put it ‘a known unknown’) is of course the ‘undiscovered country’ beyond life, the eternal life in the presence of Christ. As such Tennyson’s poem - as I like to think about my life - is not one of past lament but one of future hope.

Thanks for your question.

#question #poem #funeral #tennyson #ulysses

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shenanigans-and-imagines · 5 years ago

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The Interview: Rough Notes

I know I still need to finish O’Neil’s intro episode, but I finished watching The Interview and took notes. I’ll properly arrange this later, and will do some re-writes, but here are some of her initial answers I came up with.

Elizabeth “Doc” O’Neil Character Sheet

What’s Up Doc? Part 1

Word Count: 2.1K

Do you see anything good at all coming out of this war?

No.

You answered that rather quickly.

You gave me an easy question. I don’t. I don’t see anything that can be gained or any real good in the long run. But I don’t see that in most wars really.

So you think there are some wars that can produce some good?

Only in extreme circumstances, but I don’t think Korea is one of them.

Is there anything from home that you brought over with you? Home comforts?

Books, that’s really the only thing I could think of.

Really? Nothing else?

Well everything else is temporary, in terms of things you can bring over. Shampoo or make up or even a nice dress can only last you so long and then you spend however long you’re here wishing you had them for a little while longer. But books are more consistent, safer bet.

What books did you bring if you don’t mind me asking?

I might mind you asking a little bit. (laugh) Ah, nothing of real high literature, really just any fantastical thing to distract you from all this for a while.

What do you feel was the most difficult thing you had to adjust to over here?

The language I think, more than anything.

You mean with the locals?

Yes. Korean is just so different from English. With something like French or German there’s enough of a base root to kind of figure it out, but Korean is completely foreign in comparison. It’s harder to get your foot in. But, at the same time it’s a study in universality.

How so?

Well, facial expressions, I guess. You know a smile or tears or fear, it’s the same on every human face. I think we forget that sometimes, that there is that universal language we all share.

Do you feel there are different pressures on you as a female doctor as compared to your male co-workers?

Yes and no. Um…(laugh) I know that’s not really an answer. Yes in the sense that it takes longer for people to trust me. With higher ups or other officers that come in here, let’s just say I’m always picked last for the team. But when we’re in OR actually doing our job I don’t feel that at all. I think the boys that come through here are just so happy to have their insides where they’re supposed to, they don’t care who did the sewing.

What do you do when you’re not working?

Uh..reading, talking, catching up on sleep. Honestly anything really. Anything to keep you distracted for a while. I will say Pierce, Doctor Pierce, our chief surgeon, he’s probably the best at that. At keeping us distracted.

What sort of things has he come up with?

(laugh) I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say it on television.

So I take it there is a lot of boredom to go around.

Yeah, you can say that.

What do you do to combat it?

Same as before really, just about anything. But, I don’t really think it’s the boredom that really gets to me. I mean there’s always something to do if you put your mind to it. It’s the waiting, I think. Like no matter how bored you might be there’s always this part that’s aware that it could end at any moment and you’re thrown right back into the chaos.

Is there something special coming out of this in technical or medical elements as compared to WWII?

Nothing that makes any of this worth it. It may have taken a little slower back home to perform the tests and experiments we do here, but no. Nothing that can make up for the loss of life here.

Is there anything special coming out of this war?

No. There’s nothing...you keep phrasing the same question over and over again in different ways; is this war worth it? And if I may be frank, by my count America has only been involved in two wars that have been worth it; the Civil War and World War II. The Civil War to put an end to slavery and stop the systematic and tortuous execution of a people and World War II for the same reasons. And I think that’s the only excuse. That if somehow by the end of it you come out of a war with a net positive of people saved to lives lost. So, no. There is nothing special or good coming out of this war.

Do you get scared?

All the time, but I think that’s true of everyone here.

Is there a time you get more scared than others?

I think it’s the silence. The silence is what scares me. When you hear the bombs going off outside or gun fire, you know where you are. You know where the fighting is coming from and you can focus on what you have to do. But, in the middle of battle there are times everything goes quiet, no gunshots no anything, and those are the moments that scare me because I have no idea what’s going to happen next. Either the fighting has stopped or maybe a bullet finally got me and I haven’t realized it yet.

How would you describe yourself, are you a Captain in the U.S. Army or are you a doctor?

I’m a Doctor first, a woman second, and a captain last.

Can you describe what you do?

We try our best to keep young boys alive which the U.S. Army is determined to kill, in however way we can.

How do you keep your morale up?

Drinking, I think, is the common thing here. Ah, watching films. Um, God anything. But, I don’t think morale is a good word for it. Morale I always thinks implies some sort of patriotism or happiness in your work, and I don’t think there’s any of that really here. I think it’s more just trying to find those moments where you can pretend you’re not here, if only for a little while.

How do you manage to stay sane over here?

The people. The other doctors, nurses, and so on. They’re how I stay sane. If I were here by myself, I don’t think I could handle it. There would be no frame of reference to know this wasn’t normal. But, so long as you can look to other people and see that they know this is crazy too, then it keeps you grounded.

How did you pick the military as a career? You started as a nurse as I understand.

Yes, though I’m hesitant to call the military my career. Medicine has always been my profession, at least I’d like it to be. I was training to be a doctor when World War II started, and it seemed at the time the right thing to do. There was all the propaganda at the time and a kind of glamour to it, for lack of a better word. So I went and it...forced a new perspective. After you sew up enough kids with shrapnel in their spine, taking out appendices seems like small potatoes.

So, is that why you joined? Some kind of greater purpose?

No, not greater purpose. More I think the chance to do some real good. Tangible good. Plus the patients give you less attitude when they walk out.

Has this whole experience changed you in any way?

Not drastically, at least comparatively. Who I was at the start of the last war vs. who I was at the end of it was very different. But who I was at the start of this war compared to who I’ll be at the end of it… I think, at least I hope, I’m more aware. I’m more aware of other people and other perspectives and how that might shape how they see me. I think in some ways I’m more open than I was just because there is really to pretext for hiding it. But in terms of priorities, no I don’t think so.

Do you have respect for authority over here?

Let me put it like this, I have respect for authority which has earned it. I do understand why the structure is there, but that doesn’t always mean the people in charge are there because they’re the best suited for the job.

Can you tell me about the people with whom you’re working?

Wonderful. All of them, each and every one. I think I really got lucky in that sense.

Does that include the nurses?

Of course. The nurses here are fantastic and I don’t think people understand just how integral nurses are to every aspect of medicine. Honestly, I think I worked harder as a nurse than I do now as a surgeon. I’m more convinced than ever that nurses do exactly what the doctors do backwards and in heels.

Do you agree now with romanticizing war?

I don’t think I ever really did, but now it frankly disgusts me. I can’t put it any other way. Propping up war was some romantic adventure and proof of bravery is the most dangerous thing you can teach someone. It genuinely makes me sick to think about.

Do you have any heroes?

Marie Curie is probably the first that comes to mind.

Could you explain who that is, for people who may not know?

Oh, yes. Marie Curie was physicist and chemist who pioneered studies in radioactivity. She one the Nobel Prize in physics for discovering two new elements, and in a way is the reason I’m here. During World War I she recognized how important it was to have mobile radiology units near the front lines. Her involvement saved thousands of lives. She was a woman of every study women aren’t supposed to study. It’s hard not to look up to her.

What do you think of president Eisenhower?

I’ve never met the man, so I can’t say.

Do you ever get leave?

Every now and again. Tokyo is a great city, but unless you’re close to death or a mental institution, it’s hard to get away.

Is there a lot of drinking here?

No more than any other army camp I think. It’s just another way to distract yourself.

What do you think will happen when the U.S. leaves?

We’re going to be leaving it the same way we left it, but with more bombed buildings and dead bodies. I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen to the people here, and I don’t think the U.S. Army really cares.

Do you know the South Koreans?

Of the families here, yes, very well. At least I hope so after being here for so long. I don’t think you can be here and not know them. That who the U.S. army says we’re here for anyway.

Can you tell me what you miss most back home?

My bed. More than anything. I miss having a real mattress and a hot shower. My bed and my shower, those are the two things. I think it just comes down to being warm and comfortable. It’s really either or here. Either you’re comfortable and you’re freezing or you’re warm and you’re laying on a hard floor.

What will you do when the war is over? Where is home?

I suppose I’ll go back to Philadelphia.

Is that where home is?

Home is a bit of a strong word, but it’s where my parents are and where I did most of my schooling. I’ll probably head back there and try to find a job.

If home is a strong word, is there a place you would call home?

...I might have to get back to you on that.

Do you want to say hello to anyone back in the states?

Um, I guess, hi Sophie. I hope you and Andrew are doing alright and I promise that next letter is coming. And if I you’re watching somehow; hi Mom, hi Dad. I haven’t heard from you in a while so um, I’m still alive. So, I’ve got that going for me.

Would you want to see people here after the war?

I hope so, yes. When you go through something like this, you can’t really relate to anyone who hasn’t. At least, it’s difficult to. So as much as I don’t want to remember a lot of the things that have happened here, I know that they have and that I won’t be able to forget. I want, at least the option, to reach out and talk to someone who understands. I love so many of the people here, I don’t want them to be gone from my life. I don’t think I could take it.

#mash #m*a*s*h #hawkeye pierce #b.j. hunnicutt #elizabeth o'neil #doctor o'neil #mash oc #m*a*s*h oc #my oc stuff

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yesthishere · 5 years ago

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John Watson's Birth Chart

Guys I am an astrologer and I just saw John's birth certificate from the show, the one that says he's born on April 23, 1971

He's a Taurus Sun-of course he is; he's loyal, steady, predictable (ish), traditional (ish), introverted. He craves a "normal" life, security, comfort (hence his attempt to have a family with Mary). BUT

His Moon and Mercury are in Aries!! The Moon in Aries shows a raw, primal kind of emotional world, one based on instinct and reaction. Passion, need for novelty and excitement. Mercury in Aries shows that his way of thinking and communicating is also fiery, he sees the world mainly through the prism of his own desires and instincts. Hence the "he flirts with many women because he's a man" or the "you killed my wife, so you're guilty". It's an instinctual kind of logic.

His Mars (action, energy, sexuality) is in Capricorn. I think this establishes him one and for all as a dom 😅 Mars in Capri is the father figure, the general, the one who uses raw instinct and power (Mars) in a disciplined way (Capricorn). We see this at John in his choice of career, in his military manner, in his confidence during stressful times, in his refusal to be one-upped.

Until now, we had fire (Aries) and earth (Taurus, Capricorn) signs. Fire and earth= lava; the people who have these dominant elements are very oriented towards the material plane, steady and passionate, confident, reactive and collected at the same time. Unlike air and water, which are wet/humid elements, fire and earth are dry- they define themselves through separation. John doesn't have many friends and he prefers to rely on himself.

With fire and earth, depression arises when the person feels their impulses blocked, their need for novelty stifled or their abilities not used. John was depressed at the start of the show, when he was feeling useless after returning from the war, and in season 4, when he thought he could stifle his need for excitement and danger (fire) in an ordinary kind of life.

His Venus (love, relationships) is in Pisces, the ONLY water placement he has. Water is emotion, intuition, relationships; when a person has only one planet in a water sign, this planet defines them. It's one of their strong points and at the same time it can be a little too much. For John, this is Venus in Pisces: kindness, wanting to help others, self-sacrifice, love, dedication. We can see this as an overarching theme in his life- he probably got so used to putting others first that he neglected his own needs and real desires. In the positive sense, he's a healer, a nurturer, a romantic, a dreamer - albeit in his own fire/earth, raw/abrasive way.

Venus is in the final degree of Pisces; planets in final degrees bring extreme experiences and critical moments in the area they represent. For John, it's crisis in the area of relationships, which he had plenty of, and also crisis in areas linked to healing (Pisces; being a war doctor?). The purpose is to learn how to give and to receive love without either repressing his feelings or losing himself for the sake of others.

He has no planets in air signs- he has to make some extra efforts to see things from different perspectives and to communicate clearly. It's interesting that he's known for his blog, an Air kind of endeavour. Missing elements from a birth chart can get to define the person's life because they ask for conscious effort to be developped.

Finally, Jupiter in Sagittarius brings an adventurous spirit, while Saturn in Taurus brings a no-nonsense, pragmatic approach to things. Jupiter in Sag rules his entire chart, so he clearly needs to be on the move, always acting, learning, experiencing new things.

As for the aspects between planets:

- Sun conjunct Mercury: the importance of communication and knowledge (Mercury) in his life. His blog!

- The Moon conjunct Venus: a really soft aspect that shows sensitivity, romanticism and a big need for harmony and comfort in his relationships (with a hint of excitement, since the Moon is in Aries)

- Neptune conjunct Jupiter and trine Venus& the Moon: biiig aspect for romanticism, compassion, healing and a tendency towards self-sacrifice

- The Moon and Venus trine Jupiter: a touch of dramatism to his emotions and the way he expresses them. The need for excitement and adventure, the need to have an exciting relationship

- Mercury square Mars: possible aggression, difficulty thinking (Mercury) before acting (Mars), a need to be in charge, to have things under control, or else. We can definitely see this, especially in S4.

- Mars trine Saturn: the ability to discipline himself, to control his impulses. Mars is also sextile the Moon and Venus, so it seems that even if he has the tendency to be aggressive, he definitely has the resources to control that. I think our baby will be fine

- Pluto, the lord of the underworld, the one who represents power, control, trauma, transformation contacts the most planets in his chart. On the surface he's a simple guy (Taurus), but inside he's a lil cauldron of intensity.

I'm thinking of a childhood trauma or perhaps an overly controlling father. His feminine planets (Moon, Venus) are opposed by Pluto, so maybe he's learned to repress his feminine side because his environment taught him that he'll be punished or criticized for not being manly enough. Aries, Capricorn, Taurus, his dominant signs, show power, strength, they're all "big dick energy" signs. He was probably encouraged to develop that part of him at the expense of his sensitivity & creativity.

It seems like it's a challenge for John to connect more to his emotional, sensitive side, to manage his fears and desires, to find better ways to use his power (without being abusive), to heal the conditioning/trauma that keeps him from being aware of his feelings for Sherlock.

Pluto trine Mars and Saturn is a power combo that shows great strength, resilience and staying power, but can also show a tendency to see the grim side of life. John knows that life isn't easy and he's totally equipped to deal with that. Let's see if he manages to nurture that Venus in Pisces and those Neptune aspects as well, connecting to his emotions instead of either repressing them or getting lost in fantasy, projection (the discussion at the end of TLD, where he gets angry at Sherlock, anyone?), self-sacrifice and idealizing others.

On top of all this, his South Node (past, karma, what holds him back) is in Leo: it holds him back to always care what other people think, to want to appear in a certain way to others. His North Node (future, purpose) is in Aquarius: his life mission is to screw what people think and to pursue his interests and passions freely, even if that means not always being approved of by others. I can think of an example of something that people would "definitely talk about", but that would "complete him as a human being" (North Node). (Hint: It's Sherlock)

God, this chart is perfect for John. I'm going to write about Sherlock's chart too and then about their synastry (relationship chart) ♥️

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dweemeister · 4 years ago

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New Orleans (1947)

The city of New Orleans is synonymous with a rich cultural tapestry shaped over centuries. Located on the banks of the Mississippi River, its economic and political influence waned with the spread of railroads and highways. Today, its influences are indigenous American, African, French, Spanish, Creole, Honduran, Vietnamese, and much more. But the city remains an inimitable cultural force. One of the city’s most significant contributions to the world is jazz – a musical genre that, even in the mid-twentieth century, attracted racially-coded disdain.

I must admit that I am instantly suspicious of any film that takes a city’s name as its title. Being not in a sniping mood as I write this sentence, I will not single any certain film out – for now. But to reduce a film title to a city’s name is to heighten expectations that the filmmaker will capture the so-called “soul” of a city (a nearly impossible task). Or perhaps they shall depict a man-made or natural disaster that takes place in that city (how often does a city’s name become shorthand for a mass shooting?). Enter Arthur Lubin’s New Orleans: a quasi-musical that does not have the courage to let the musical numbers guide it. The film stars Louis Armstrong (essentially playing himself) and Billie Holiday (not playing herself in her only credited role in a feature film), in addition to other jazz stalwarts at the time: Woody Herman, drummer Zutty Singleton, clarinetist Barney Bigard, trombonist Kid Ory, guitarist Bud Scott. New Orleans makes the mistake of not having Armstrong and Holiday be the main stars. Instead, the film has a half-baked, predictable romance. For a film title with such enormous implications, New Orleans’ concentration makes no sweeping statements about the eponymous city. Instead, it turns its gaze to jazz’s reputation among high-society white Americans.

It is 1917. The Storyville district of New Orleans is a den of prostitution, drinking, gambling, and – worst of all – jazz. Storyville’s residents are mostly black, but some of its welcome patrons are white. Nick Duquesne (Mexican actor Arturo de Córdova) runs a gambling joint frequented by Mrs. Rutledge Smith (Irene Rich) and classical music conductor/pianist Henry Ferber (Richard Hagerman). Irene avoids the jazz there (one of the regulars is Louis Armstrong and the aforementioned players), but her daughter, Miralee (Dorothy Patrick) – an operatic soprano who has arrived in New Orleans to make her professional classical music debut – is entranced by this radical music. Miralee is also entranced with Nick, against her mother’s wishes. Miralee is staying with her relative when she meets their maid, Endie (Billie Holiday), who surreptitiously plays the piano and sings jazz music when she gets the chance. As you might imagine, Endie’s employers disapprove. The film comes to a head as the U.S. military forcibly shuts down Storyville (evicting hundreds of black residents overnight), Nick leaves New Orleans, and Miralee must contend with her emotions just before she makes her classical music professional debut.

Billie Holiday’s fans might be troubled by the fact she is a maid here, given that she intentionally avoided physically demanding occupations in real life. Her reaction to this casting is unclear, as different reputable sources offer contradictory claims: that she abhorred being cast as a maid (Meg Greene’s Billie Holiday: A Biography), or that she relished the opportunity to be in a motion picture regardless of the role (an interview with music journalist Leonard Feather). So as tough as it may be to see her in a subservient role, Holiday appears to be enjoying herself – especially during the musical numbers she is a part of. She is clearly, other than Louis Armstrong, the most musically accomplished member of the cast. But when her character disappears from the film in the final third, New Orleans heaves due to the hackneyed romance between Nick and Miralee. To toss the one actor making this film worth watching for no sensible reason is a disastrous choice by screenwriters Elliot Paul (1941’s A Woman’s Face, 1945’s Rhapsody in Blue) and Dick Irving Hyland (1947’s Kilroy Was Here).

Even in a film independently released through United Artists (the one major Hollywood studio of Old Hollywood with the least executive interference), she and Armstrong cannot be the central stars. Considering Holiday’s musical talents, one wonders why she never starred in another film. Despite some digging, I could not find the answer. But if any black woman musician could have films centered around her, it would be Holiday. Her contemporaries, Lena Horne and Ethel Waters, could never overcome the terrible beliefs that audiences would not pay to see a film with a black actress in the lead role. But did Holiday – noting how Louis Armstrong also appeared in films – want to make more films? That may be an answer for someone else to uncover.

More than any film of its time that I can recall, New Orleans is overflowing with a disobedient musical energy. When considering musical genres innovated by African-Americans, there is an underground aspect to their initial spread that, at first, appears exclusive. Jazz, R&B, and hip hop have all gone through these motions: a tumultuous, secretive birth; a rebellious adolescence where critics decry the moral fabric of such music; and finally mainstreaming. Jazz in New Orleans lies somewhere within that adolescence. Its troubled reputation is the result of a mixture of musical and racial tensions. New Orleans’ affluent white community, on its surface, disdains jazz and prefers the import that is Western classical music – opinions they express vocally (as an amateur classically-trained musician who learned more about jazz later in life, I can’t stand the gatekeeping behavior exemplified in this film). So any time that jazz music is played in an unorthodox setting – the parlor of the Smith household, an orchestra hall – it feels defiant, dangerous.* These musical-racial dynamics persist in America to this day. To even see a film acknowledge that conflict, however ineloquently, is credit to the screenwriters and director Arthur Lubin understanding aspects about musical popular culture of this time.

But what is New Orleans and New Orleans without music? First sung by Holliday and reprised (one might even say appropriated in the negative sense) multiple times is, “(Do You Know What It Means to Miss) New Orleans”, with music by Louis Alter and lyrics by Edgar De Lange. Louis Armstrong is on his signature trumpet, a phalanx of great jazz instrumentalists play on the flanks, and Billie Holiday’s voice captures the timbre necessary in any song about longing.

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans And miss it each night and day? I know I’m not wrong, the feeling’s getting stronger The longer I stay away.

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It is a song representative of this film’s failed ambitions as an embodiment of New Orleans’ spirit. But it is also a brilliant showcase for some of the great jazz figures working at this time – including instrumental performances by Woody Herman and his orchestra and a virtuosic performance of “Honky Tonk Train Blues” by pianist Meade “Lux” Lewis. Nevertheless, New Orleans’ most soulful performances always revolve around Armstrong and Holiday singing Alter and De Lange’s original compositions. Other soundtrack highlights include “The Blues are Brewin’” and “Farewell to Storyville”. The former exemplifies Holiday’s timeless appeal, her singing voice’s unornamented pathos that elevates the simplest of lyrics. The latter is the most context-dependent song in the soundtrack and occurs as the U.S. military orders the closure of the speakeasies and gambling joints of Storyville – a swinging elegy without defeatism. New Orleans is at its most enjoyable during these musical numbers, and the film just feels lost whenever Armstrong and Holiday are not present or when any of the supposed leads open their mouths to speak.

That Lubin and the film’s producers do not trust the soundtrack to carry New Orleans indicates an ironic misgiving towards jazz music itself. United Artists’ refusal to reward Armstrong and Holiday star billing over de Córdova and Patrick is probably rooted to then-contemporary reality that movie theaters in the American South refused to show films with black leads. In addition, jazz music – like in this film – was not yet completely in the mainstream. If it appeared in a Hollywood film (and elements of jazz often appeared in mid-century American musicals), it almost always would be presented and popularized by a white performer. This development is not exclusive to jazz, let alone artistic medium. The filmmakers, in New Orleans’ final third, muddle their message through such appropriation. “Cultural appropriation” at its most basic definition is a neutral concept, but the developments in the film’s closing scenes – intentional or otherwise – extend this appropriation by presenting a white person’s presentation of jazz as more acceptable to a general audience than a black person’s.

For New Orleans, it remains obscure in terms of Hollywood musicals, African-American cinema, and within the esteemed United Artists filmography. In the present day, it serves best as an exhibition for some of the most acclaimed jazz musicians and performers working in the 1940s. To those fans of the numerous black jazz performers appearing in the film, New Orleans is a bittersweet reminder of what may have been.

My rating: 6.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

* In one scene in an orchestral concert hall, jazz is played as an encore to a classical music concert. It says volumes that the audience is beside themselves and that all of the members of the orchestra (and Richard Hagerman, playing their conductor) are transfixed.

#New Orleans #Arthur Lubin #Arturo de Córdova #Dorothy Patrick #Louis Armstrong #Billie Holiday #Marjorie Lord #Irene Rich #John Alexander #Richard Hageman #Elliot Paul #Dick Irving Hyland #Herbert J. Biberman #Nat W. Finston #Woody Herman #Eddie DeLange #Louis Alter #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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blackkudos · 5 years ago

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Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald, naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French entertainer, French Resistance agent, and civil rights activist. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. Baker was the first African-American to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant.

During her early career Baker was renowned as a dancer, and was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in 1927 caused a sensation in Paris. Her costume, consisting of only a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol of the Jazz Age and the 1920s.

Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the “Black Venus”, the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. She raised her children in France. "I have two loves, my country and Paris", Baker once said, and she sang: « J'ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris ».

She was known for aiding the French Resistance during World War II. After the war, she was awarded the Croix de guerre by the French military, and was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.

Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and is noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. In 1968, she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. After thinking it over, Baker declined the offer out of concern for the welfare of her children.

Early life

Freda Josephine McDonald was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, Carrie, was adopted in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1886 by Richard and Elvira McDonald, both of whom were former slaves of African and Native American descent. Josephine Baker's estate identifies vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson as her natural father despite evidence to the contrary. Baker's foster son Jean-Claude Baker wrote a biography, published in 1993, titled Josephine: The Hungry Heart. Jean-Claude Baker did an exhaustive amount of research into the life of Josephine Baker, including the identity of her biological father. In the book, he discusses at length the circumstances surrounding Josephine Baker's birth:

The records of the city of St. Louis tell an almost unbelievable story. They show that (Josephine Baker's mother) Carrie McDonald ... was admitted to the (exclusively white) Female Hospital on May 3, 1906, diagnosed as pregnant. She was discharged on June 17, her baby, Freda J. McDonald having been born two weeks earlier. Why six weeks in the hospital? Especially for a black woman (of that time) who would customarily have had her baby at home with the help of a midwife? Obviously, there had been complications with the pregnancy, but Carrie's chart reveals no details. The father was identified (on the birth certificate) simply as "Edw"... I think Josephine's father was white – so did Josephine, so did her family ... people in St. Louis say that (Baker's mother) had worked for a German family (around the time she became pregnant). He's the one who must have got her into that hospital and paid to keep her there all those weeks. Also, her baby's birth was registered by the head of the hospital at a time when most black births were not. I have unraveled many mysteries associated with Josephine Baker, but the most painful mystery of her life, the mystery of her father's identity, I could not solve. The secret died with Carrie, who refused to the end to talk about it. She let people think Eddie Carson was the father, and Carson played along, (but) Josephine knew better.

Josephine spent her early life at 212 Targee Street (known by some St. Louis residents as Johnson Street) in the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood of St. Louis, a racially mixed low-income neighborhood near Union Station, consisting mainly of rooming houses, brothels, and apartments without indoor plumbing. Josephine was always poorly dressed and hungry as a child, and developed street smarts playing in the railroad yards of Union Station.

Josephine's mother married a kind but perpetually unemployed man, Arthur Martin, with whom she had son Arthur and two more daughters, Marguerite and Willie. She took in laundry to wash to make ends meet, and at eight years old, Josephine began working as a live-in domestic for white families in St. Louis. One woman abused her, burning Josephine's hands when the young girl put too much soap in the laundry. By age 12, she had dropped out of school.

At 13 she worked as a waitress at the Old Chauffeur's Club at 3133 Pine Street. She also lived as a street child in the slums of St. Louis, sleeping in cardboard shelters, scavenging for food in garbage cans, making a living with street-corner dancing. It was at the Old Chauffeur's Club where Josephine met Willie Wells and married him the same year. However, the marriage lasted less than a year. Following her divorce from Wells, she found work with a street performance group called the Jones Family Band.

In Baker's teen years she struggled to have a healthy relationship with her mother, Carrie McDonald, who did not want Josephine to become an entertainer, and scolded her for not tending to her second husband Willie Baker, whom she had married in 1921 at 15. Although she left Willie Baker when her vaudeville troupe was booked into a New York City venue and divorced him in 1925, it was during this time she began to see significant career success, and she continued to use his last name professionally for the rest of her life.

Though Baker traveled, then returned with gifts and money for her mother and younger half-sister, the turmoil with her mother pushed her to make a trip to France.

Career

Early years

Baker's consistent badgering of a show manager in her hometown led to her being recruited for the St. Louis Chorus vaudeville show. At the age of 15, she headed to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, performing at the Plantation Club, Florence Mills’ old stomping ground, and in the chorus lines of the groundbreaking and hugely successful Broadway revues Shuffle Along (1921) with Adelaide Hall and The Chocolate Dandies (1924).

Baker performed as the last dancer on the end of the chorus line, where her act was to perform in a comic manner, as if she were unable to remember the dance, until the encore, at which point she would perform it not only correctly but with additional complexity. A term of the time describes this part of the cast as "The Pony". Baker was billed at the time as "the highest-paid chorus girl in vaudeville".

Her career began with blackface comedy at local clubs; this was the "entertainment" of which her mother had disapproved; however, these performances landed Baker an opportunity to tour in Paris, which would become the place she called home until her final days.

Paris and rise to fame

Baker sailed to Paris for a new venture, and opened in La Revue Nègre on 2 October 1925, aged 19, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

In a 1974 interview with The Guardian, Baker explained that she obtained her first big break in the bustling city. "No, I didn't get my first break on Broadway. I was only in the chorus in 'Shuffle Along' and 'Chocolate Dandies'. I became famous first in France in the twenties. I just couldn't stand America and I was one of the first coloured Americans to move to Paris. Oh yes, Bricktop was there as well. Me and her were the only two, and we had a marvellous time. Of course, everyone who was anyone knew Bricky. And they got to know Miss Baker as well."

In Paris, she became an instant success for her erotic dancing, and for appearing practically nude onstage. After a successful tour of Europe, she broke her contract and returned to France to star at the Folies Bergère, setting the standard for her future acts.

Baker performed the "Danse Sauvage" wearing a costume consisting of a skirt made of a string of artificial bananas. Her success coincided (1925) with the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, which gave birth to the term "Art Deco", and also with a renewal of interest in non-Western forms of art, including African. Baker represented one aspect of this fashion. In later shows in Paris, she was often accompanied on stage by her pet cheetah, "Chiquita", who was adorned with a diamond collar. The cheetah frequently escaped into the orchestra pit, where it terrorized the musicians, adding another element of excitement to the show.

After a while, Baker was the most successful American entertainer working in France. Ernest Hemingway called her "the most sensational woman anyone ever saw." The author spent hours talking with her in Paris bars. Picasso drew paintings depicting her alluring beauty. Jean Cocteau became friendly with her and helped vault her to international stardom.

Baker starred in three films which found success only in Europe: the silent film Siren of the Tropics (1927), Zouzou (1934) and Princesse Tam Tam (1935). She starred in Fausse Alerte in 1940.

At this time she scored her most successful song, "J'ai deux amours" (1931). At the start of her career in France, Baker met a Sicilian former stonemason who passed himself off as a count, who persuaded her to let him manage her. Giuseppe Pepito Abatino was not only Baker's management, but her lover as well. The two could not marry because Baker was still married to her second husband, Willie Baker.

Under the management of Abatino, Baker's stage and public persona, as well as her singing voice, were transformed. In 1934, she took the lead in a revival of Jacques Offenbach's opera La créole, which premiered in December of that year for a six-month run at the Théâtre Marigny on the Champs-Élysées of Paris. In preparation for her performances, she went through months of training with a vocal coach. In the words of Shirley Bassey, who has cited Baker as her primary influence, "... she went from a 'petite danseuse sauvage' with a decent voice to 'la grande diva magnifique' ... I swear in all my life I have never seen, and probably never shall see again, such a spectacular singer and performer."Despite her popularity in France, Baker never attained the equivalent reputation in America. Her star turn in a 1936 revival of Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway generated less than impressive box office numbers, and later in the run, she was replaced by Gypsy Rose Lee. Time magazine referred to her as a "Negro wench ... whose dancing and singing might be topped anywhere outside of Paris", while other critics said her voice was "too thin" and "dwarf-like" to fill the Winter Garden Theatre. She returned to Europe heartbroken. This contributed to Baker's becoming a legal citizen of France and giving up her American citizenship.

Baker returned to Paris in 1937, married the French industrialist Jean Lion, and became a French citizen. They were married in the French town of Crèvecœur-le-Grand, in a wedding presided over by the mayor, Jammy Schmidt.

Work during World War II

In September 1939, when France declared war on Germany in response to the invasion of Poland, Baker was recruited by the Deuxième Bureau, French military intelligence, as an "honorable correspondent". Baker collected what information she could about German troop locations from officials she met at parties. She specialized in gatherings at embassies and ministries, charming people as she had always done, while gathering information. Her café-society fame enabled her to rub shoulders with those in the know, from high-ranking Japanese officials to Italian bureaucrats, and to report back what she heard. She attended parties and gathered information at the Italian embassy without raising suspicion.

When the Germans invaded France, Baker left Paris and went to the Château des Milandes, her home in the Dordogne département in the south of France. She housed people who were eager to help the Free French effort led by Charles de Gaulle and supplied them with visas. As an entertainer, Baker had an excuse for moving around Europe, visiting neutral nations such as Portugal, as well as some in South America. She carried information for transmission to England, about airfields, harbors, and German troop concentrations in the West of France. Notes were written in invisible ink on Baker's sheet music.

Later in 1941, she and her entourage went to the French colonies in North Africa. The stated reason was Baker's health (since she was recovering from another case of pneumonia) but the real reason was to continue helping the Resistance. From a base in Morocco, she made tours of Spain. She pinned notes with the information she gathered inside her underwear (counting on her celebrity to avoid a strip search). She met the Pasha of Marrakech, whose support helped her through a miscarriage (the last of several). After the miscarriage, she developed an infection so severe it required a hysterectomy. The infection spread and she developed peritonitis and then sepsis. After her recovery (which she continued to fall in and out of), she started touring to entertain British, French, and American soldiers in North Africa. The Free French had no organized entertainment network for their troops, so Baker and her entourage managed for the most part on their own. They allowed no civilians and charged no admission.

After the war, Baker received the Croix de guerre and the Rosette de la Résistance. She was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.

Baker's last marriage, to French composer and conductor Jo Bouillon, ended around the time Baker opted to adopt her 11th child.

Later career

In 1949, a reinvented Baker returned in triumph to the Folies Bergere. Bolstered by recognition of her wartime heroics, Baker the performer assumed a new gravitas, unafraid to take on serious music or subject matter. The engagement was a rousing success and reestablished Baker as one of Paris' preeminent entertainers. In 1951 Baker was invited back to the United States for a nightclub engagement in Miami. After winning a public battle over desegregating the club's audience, Baker followed up her sold-out run at the club with a national tour. Rave reviews and enthusiastic audiences accompanied her everywhere, climaxed by a parade in front of 100,000 people in Harlem in honor of her new title: NAACP's "Woman of the Year". Her future looked bright, with six months of bookings and promises of many more to come.

In 1952 Baker was hired to crown the Queen of the Cavalcade of Jazz for the famed eighth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on June 1. Also featured to perform that day were Roy Brown and His Mighty Men, Anna Mae Winburn and Her Sweethearts, Toni Harper, Louis Jordan, Jimmy Witherspoon and Jerry Wallace.

An incident at the Stork Club interrupted and overturned her plans. Baker criticized the club's unwritten policy of discouraging black patrons, then scolded columnist Walter Winchell, an old ally, for not rising to her defense. Winchell responded swiftly with a series of harsh public rebukes, including accusations of Communist sympathies (a serious charge at the time). The ensuing publicity resulted in the termination of Baker's work visa, forcing her to cancel all her engagements and return to France. It was almost a decade before U.S. officials allowed her back into the country.

In January 1966, Fidel Castro invited Baker to perform at the Teatro Musical de La Habana in Havana, Cuba, at the 7th-anniversary celebrations of his revolution. Her spectacular show in April broke attendance records. In 1968, Baker visited Yugoslavia and made appearances in Belgrade and in Skopje. In her later career, Baker faced financial troubles. She commented, "Nobody wants me, they've forgotten me"; but family members encouraged her to continue performing. In 1973 she performed at Carnegie Hall to a standing ovation.

The following year, she appeared in a Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium, and then at the Monacan Red Cross Gala, celebrating her 50 years in French show business. Advancing years and exhaustion began to take their toll; she sometimes had trouble remembering lyrics, and her speeches between songs tended to ramble. She still continued to captivate audiences of all ages.

Civil rights activism

Although based in France, Baker supported the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s. When she arrived in New York with her husband Jo, they were refused reservations at 36 hotels because of racial discrimination. She was so upset by this treatment that she wrote articles about the segregation in the United States. She also began traveling into the South. She gave a talk at Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee, on "France, North Africa And The Equality Of The Races In France".

She refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States, although she was offered $10,000 by a Miami club. (The club eventually met her demands). Her insistence on mixed audiences helped to integrate live entertainment shows in Las Vegas, Nevada. After this incident, she began receiving threatening phone calls from people claiming to be from the Ku Klux Klan but said publicly that she was not afraid of them.

In 1951, Baker made charges of racism against Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club in Manhattan, where she had been refused service.Actress Grace Kelly, who was at the club at the time, rushed over to Baker, took her by the arm and stormed out with her entire party, vowing never to return (although she returned on 3 January 1956 with Prince Rainier of Monaco). The two women became close friends after the incident.

When Baker was near bankruptcy, Kelly offered her a villa and financial assistance (Kelly by then was princess consort of Rainier III of Monaco). (However, during his work on the Stork Club book, author and New York Times reporter Ralph Blumenthal was contacted by Jean-Claude Baker, one of Baker's sons. Having read a Blumenthal-written story about Leonard Bernstein's FBI file, he indicated that he had read his mother's FBI file and, using comparison of the file to the tapes, said he thought the Stork Club incident was overblown.))

Baker worked with the NAACP. Her reputation as a crusader grew to such an extent that the NAACP had Sunday, 20 May 1951 declared "Josephine Baker Day". She was presented with life membership with the NAACP by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Ralph Bunche. The honor she was paid spurred her to further her crusading efforts with the "Save Willie McGee" rally after he was convicted of the 1948 beating death of a furniture shop owner in Trenton, New Jersey. As the decorated war hero who was bolstered by the racial equality she experienced in Europe, Baker became increasingly regarded as controversial; some black people even began to shun her, fearing that her outspokenness and racy reputation from her earlier years would hurt the cause.

In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington at the side of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Baker was the only official female speaker. While wearing her Free French uniform emblazoned with her medal of the Légion d'honneur, she introduced the "Negro Women for Civil Rights." Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates were among those she acknowledged, and both gave brief speeches. Not everyone involved wanted Baker present at the March; some thought her time overseas had made her a woman of France, one who was disconnected from the Civil Rights issues going on in America. In her powerful speech, one of the things Baker notably said was:

I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad. And when I get mad, you know that I open my big mouth. And then look out, 'cause when Josephine opens her mouth, they hear it all over the world ...

After King's assassination, his widow Coretta Scott King approached Baker in the Netherlands to ask if she would take her husband's place as leader of the Civil Rights Movement. After many days of thinking it over, Baker declined, saying her children were "too young to lose their mother".

Personal life

Relationships

Josephine Baker was bisexual. Her first marriage was to American Pullman porter Willie Wells when she was only 13 years old. The marriage was reportedly very unhappy and the couple divorced a short time later. Another short-lived marriage followed to Willie Baker in 1921; she retained Baker's last name because her career began taking off during that time, and it was the name by which she became best known. While she had four marriages to men, Jean-Claude Baker writes that Josephine also had several relationships with women.

During her time in the Harlem Renaissance arts community, one of her relationships was with Blues singer Clara Smith. In 1925, she began an extramarital relationship with the Belgian novelist Georges Simenon. In 1937, Baker married Frenchman Jean Lion. She and Lion separated in 1940. She married French composer and conductor Jo Bouillon in 1947, and their union also ended in divorce but lasted 14 years. She was later involved for a time with the artist Robert Brady, but they never married.

Children

During Baker's work with the Civil Rights Movement, she began adopting children, forming a family she often referred to as "The Rainbow Tribe". Baker wanted to prove that "children of different ethnicities and religions could still be brothers." She often took the children with her cross-country, and when they were at Château des Milandes, she arranged tours so visitors could walk the grounds and see how natural and happy the children in "The Rainbow Tribe" were. Her estate featured hotels, a farm, rides, and the children singing and dancing for the audience. She'd charge admission for visitors to enter and partake in the activities, which included watching the children play. Baker used her children as metaphors: living examples of what humanity should look like, and her diverse children were used in a sort of attack against racism. She created dramatic backstories for them, picking with clear intent in mind: at one point she wanted and planned to get a Jewish baby, but settled for a French one instead. She also raised them as different religions to further her model for the world, taking two children from Algeria and raising one Muslim and the other Catholic. One member of the Tribe, Jean-Claude Baker, said:

She wanted a doll.

Another, Akio who was adopted from Japan, said

She was a great artist, and she was our mother. Mothers make mistakes. Nobody's perfect.

Baker raised two daughters, French-born Marianne and Moroccan-born Stellina, and 10 sons, Korean-born Jeannot (or Janot), Japanese-born Akio, Colombian-born Luis, Finnish-born Jari (now Jarry), French-born Jean-Claude and Noël, Israeli-born Moïse, Algerian-born Brahim, Ivorian-born Koffi, and Venezuelan-born Mara. For some time, Baker lived with her children and an enormous staff in the château in Dordogne, France, with her fourth husband, Jo Bouillon.

Later years and death

In her later years, Baker converted to Roman Catholicism. In 1968, Baker lost her castle owing to unpaid debts; afterwards Princess Grace offered her an apartment in Roquebrune, near Monaco.

Baker was back on stage at the Olympia in Paris in 1968, in Belgrade and at Carnegie Hall in 1973, and at the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium and at the Gala du Cirque in Paris in 1974. On 8 April 1975, Baker starred in a retrospective revue at the Bobino in Paris, Joséphine à Bobino 1975, celebrating her 50 years in show business. The revue, financed notably by Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, opened to rave reviews. Demand for seating was such that fold-out chairs had to be added to accommodate spectators. The opening night audience included Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Shirley Bassey, Diana Ross, and Liza Minnelli.

Four days later, Baker was found lying peacefully in her bed surrounded by newspapers with glowing reviews of her performance. She was in a coma after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. She was taken to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where she died, aged 68, on 12 April 1975.

She received a full Roman Catholic funeral that was held at L'Église de la Madeleine. The only American-born woman to receive full French military honors at her funeral, Baker's funeral was the occasion of a huge procession. After a family service at Saint-Charles Church in Monte Carlo, Baker was interred at Monaco's Cimetière de Monaco.

Legacy

Place Joséphine Baker (48°50′29″N 2°19′26″E) in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris was named in her honor. She has also been inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and on 29 March 1995, into the Hall of Famous Missourians. St. Louis's Channing Avenue was renamed Josephine Baker Boulevard and a wax sculpture of Baker is on permanent display at The Griot Museum of Black History.

In 2015 she was inducted into the Legacy Walk in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The Piscine Joséphine Baker is a swimming pool along the banks of the Seine in Paris named after her.

Writing in the on-line BBC magazine in late 2014, Darren Royston, historical dance teacher at RADA credited Baker with being the Beyoncé of her day, and bringing the Charleston to Britain. Two of Baker's sons, Jean-Claude and Jarry (Jari), grew up to go into business together, running the restaurant Chez Josephine on Theatre Row, 42nd Street, New York City. It celebrates Baker's life and works.

Château des Milandes, a castle near Sarlat in the Dordogne, was Baker's home where she raised her twelve children. It is open to the public and displays her stage outfits including her banana skirt (of which there are apparently several). It also displays many family photographs and documents as well as her Legion of Honour medal. Most rooms are open for the public to walk through including bedrooms with the cots where her children slept, a huge kitchen, and a dining room where she often entertained large groups. The bathrooms were designed in art deco style but most rooms retained the French chateau style.

Baker continued to influence celebrities more than a century after her birth. In a 2003 interview with USA Today, Angelina Jolie cited Baker as "a model for the multiracial, multinational family she was beginning to create through adoption". Beyoncé performed Baker's banana dance at the Fashion Rocks concert at Radio City Music Hall in September 2006.

Writing on the 110th anniversary of her birth, Vogue described how her 1926 "danse sauvage" in her famous banana skirt "brilliantly manipulated the white male imagination" and "radically redefined notions of race and gender through style and performance in a way that continues to echo throughout fashion and music today, from Prada to Beyoncé."

On 3 June 2017, the 111th anniversary of her birth, Google released an animated Google Doodle, which consists of a slideshow chronicling her life and achievements.

On Thursday 22 November 2018, a documentary titled Josephine Baker: The Story of an Awakening, directed by Ilana Navaro, premiered at the Beirut Art Film Festival. It contains rarely seen archival footage, including some never before discovered, with music and narration.

In August 2019, Baker was one of the honorees inducted in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields."

Portrayals

Baker appears in her role as a member of the French Resistance in Johannes Mario Simmel's 1960 novel, Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein (C'est pas toujours du caviar).

A character loosely based on Baker is featured in an episode of Hogan's Heroes titled "Is General Hammerschlag Burning?", which originally aired on 18 November 1967. The character Kumasa (played by Barbara McNair) is a chanteuse based in Paris. She later reveals herself to be Carol Dukes, a high-school classmate of Sergeant James Kinchloe (Ivan Dixon), on whom she had a secret crush.

The Italian-Belgian francophone singer composer Salvatore Adamo pays tribute to Baker with the song "Noël Sur Les Milandes" (album Petit Bonheur – EMI 1970).

Diana Ross portrayed Baker in both her Tony Award-winning Broadway and television show An Evening with Diana Ross. When the show was made into an NBC television special entitled The Big Event: An Evening with Diana Ross, Ross again portrayed Baker.

A German submariner mimics Baker's Danse banane in the 1981 film Das Boot.

In 1986, Helen Gelzer portrayed Baker on the London stage for a limited run in the musical Josephine – "a musical version of the life and times of Josephine Baker" with book, lyrics and music by Michael Wild. The show was produced by Baker's longtime friend Jack Hocket in conjunction with Premier Box-Office, and the musical director was Paul Maguire. Gelzer also recorded a studio cast album titled Josephine.

British singer-songwriter, Al Stewart wrote song about Josephine Baker. It appears in album "Last days of the century" from 1988.

In 1991, Baker's life story, The Josephine Baker Story, was broadcast on HBO. Lynn Whitfield portrayed Baker, and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special – becoming the first Black actress to win the award in this category.

Artist Hassan Musa depicted Baker in a 1994 series of paintings called Who needs Bananas?

In the 1997 animated musical film Anastasia, Baker appears with her cheetah during the musical number "Paris Holds the Key (to Your Heart)".

In 2002, played by Karine Plantadit in Frida.

A character based on Baker (topless, wearing the famous "banana skirt") appears in the opening sequence of the 2003 animated film The Triplets of Belleville (Les Triplettes de Belleville).

The 2004 erotic novel Scandalous by British author Angela Campion uses Baker as its heroine and is inspired by Baker's sexual exploits and later adventures in the French Resistance. In the novel, Baker, working with a fictional black Canadian lover named Drummer Thompson, foils a plot by French fascists in 1936 Paris.

Her influence upon and assistance with the careers of husband and wife dancers Carmen De Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder are discussed and illustrated in rare footage in the 2005 Linda Atkinson/Nick Doob documentary, Carmen and Geoffrey.

Beyoncé has portrayed Baker on various occasions. During the 2006 Fashion Rocks show, Knowles performed "Dejá Vu" in a revised version of the Danse banane costume. In Knowles's video for "Naughty Girl", she is seen dancing in a huge champagne glass à la Baker. In I Am ... Yours: An Intimate Performance at Wynn Las Vegas, Beyonce lists Baker as an influence of a section of her live show.

In 2006, Jérôme Savary produced a musical, A La Recherche de Josephine – New Orleans for Ever (Looking for Josephine), starring Nicolle Rochelle. The story revolved around the history of jazz and Baker's career.

In 2010, Keri Hilson portrayed Baker in her single "Pretty Girl Rock".

In 2011, Sonia Rolland portrayed Baker in the film Midnight in Paris.

Baker was heavily featured in the 2012 book Josephine's Incredible Shoe & The Blackpearls by Peggi Eve Anderson-Randolph.

In July 2012, Cheryl Howard opened in The Sensational Josephine Baker, written and performed by Howard and directed by Ian Streicher at the Beckett Theatre of Theatre Row on 42nd Street in New York City, just a few doors away from Chez Josephine.

In July 2013, Cush Jumbo's debut play Josephine and I premiered at the Bush Theatre, London. It was re-produced in New York City at The Public Theater's Joe's Pub from 27 February to 5 April 2015.

In June 2016, Josephine, a burlesque cabaret dream play starring Tymisha Harris as Josephine Baker premiered at the 2016 San Diego Fringe Festival. The show has since played across North America and had a limited off-Broadway run in January–February 2018 at SoHo Playhouse in New York City.

In February 2017, Tiffany Daniels portrayed Baker in the Timeless television episode "The Lost Generation".

In late February 2017, a new play about Baker's later years, The Last Night of Josephine Baker by playwright Vincent Victoria, opened in Houston, Texas, starring Erica Young.

Baker appears as a recruitable secret agent with French citizenship in the 2020 DLC La Resistance for the WWII grand strategy game Hearts of Iron IV.

Film credits

Siren of the Tropics (1927)

The Woman from the Folies Bergères (1927) short subject

Zouzou (1934)

Princesse Tam Tam (1935)

Fausse alerte (The French Way) (1945)

Moulin Rouge (1941)

An jedem Finger zehn (1954)

Carosello del varietà (1955)

#06/03 #04/12

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ofravensandgenesis · 5 years ago

Text

The Investment of an Antagonist - Part One

Entry 04. [Trigger warning content: post contains discussion of Far Cry 5 details including cannibalism, graphic violence, brainwashing, torture, child abuse mention, neglect, mentioned fatalistic/suicidal character pov, dark backstories, etc. Spoilers naturally. Part 01 of 03.] [Link to part two here.] [Link to part three here.] I was cooking dinner and had the sudden EUREKA moment of trying to figure out what exactly I want with regards to an antagonist for an original fic setting. Originally I was going to have a general state of conflict between two nations/city-states/etc on a larger, more impersonal scale, but that didn’t do anything to really interest me in that level of conflict. So I was thinking on why Far Cry 5′s villains and the conflict interests me so, and the eureka moment was realizing that they as villains have a personal stake in all this, and go about it in ways that are reflective of their stories. Specifically for the Seeds, it has me realizing it’s more interesting to me when the villain is acting due to personal motivations of an emotional nature and/or relating to their belief system, and in ways that compliment those internal motivations that can build out into or off of their backstories and other areas of the tale.

Like, it’s more than just a universally formulaic method of brainwashing for all of the people they kidnap during the Reaping (and before it, since it’s a cult and that means there’s a process of indoctrination, ie brainwashing.) All of the Heralds have their specific manner of doing so, and said methods are tailored to the particulars of each Herald’s backstory as is revealed to us.

— Jacob —

Jacob starves the Deputy and other “recruits,” exposes them to the elements, doesn’t give them enough water, keeps them near hungry and dangerous animals (pre-Judge wolves and Judges it seems.) He then gives them a bowl of raw meat that one can read as implied to be human flesh, particularly if Pratt’s anecdote about going hunting in what ends up being not-a-dream from online sources is taken into consideration, as mentioned in a previous writing-about-writing post. Link here to the audio, (credit and thanks to hopecountyradio,) transcription below: “I had a dream once that Jacob took me on a hunt. We shot some deer and he asked me to skin 'em. As I was cuttin’ ‘em open they changed. It wasn’t deer. I...I don’t think it was a dream.”

Obviously one can make some assumptions of Whitetail Militia imagery being used here, particularly given that one of the slides on the projector screens during the Trials includes a picture of Eli with antlers iirc (that may be only during the later trials or the last one, I am uncertain.) Ties right into the whole “the weak must be culled,” and “you are meat,” slogans Jacob’s got all over the place. The “only you” slogans and graffiti could also serve to foster the loneliness and isolation aspect of making the choice “to make the sacrifice” ie, the symbolic choice of killing Miller, or his surrogate equivalent in the case of everyone else that Jacob puts through his trials. I haven’t seen a lot regarding Miller’s ties to Jacob from in-game content but I could have missed something easily. The wiki labels Miller as Jacob’s friend, though I wish we had more detail on that. Most certainly, Miller was a member of Jacob’s unit, which based off of some reading and browsing on the internet, should still be a pretty close tie whether or not they were friends. The following speculation is based on my own interpretations of the matter and I have no history of serving in the Armed Forces, so if I’m mistaken or such feel free to drop me a line to let me know. Continuing: even if they theoretically hated each other’s guts, they were still a part of the unit, a part of the Army. That means they and their other brothers-in-arms lived together and fought together. They ate as a group, slept as a group, watched each others’ backs while on watch or during a firefight, fought along side each other, and did their best to keep each other alive while fulfilling the mission objective, working together as individuals brought together in a cohesive unit that also was a part of the whole. They all knew they had each others’ backs and that the others did the same for them in turn. Shifting between life-or-death situations and more peaceful times, it creates a bond and social structure that is very unlike most common, modern civilian social structures. There certainly at least seems to be a bit of culture shock in the US between the two environs, and Jacob seems to have experienced that, based on what we hear of his backstory in The Book of Joseph of having little to no support once back in civilian life (ie: deeply traumatized and staying in veteran hospitals until he ran out of money and ended up in homeless shelters) after being discharged from the Army. In the Armed Forces it’s about the group, rather than the individual. Imagine having that, knowing that, after being through all that Jacob has potentially been through. To have brothers in arms if not by blood by his side who he protects, who also protect him against the hostility of the world they’re fighting against. This is not to ding Joseph or John as characters by the way, all three of them were children at that point and shouldn’t have had to deal with any of that. Jacob loses what ties of family he holds dear with his blood brothers once he’s put into Juvie, perhaps makes friends there but is likely on his own once he’s out again, with very poor prospects given his history, and then he enlists. He’s alone and without support before he joins the military, and then suddenly he’s in an environment where there IS a form of support, and it’s predictable and structured down to the last bootlace (note: that’s a very broad statement and does not include variance and personal experiences, nor possible issues with potential power abuse or other flaws that might arise in such group structures.) Imagine Jacob being in the Army long enough to get used to that, to enjoy that aspect of it all, to share the camaraderie of bitching about the heat of the sun, sand in their socks, and getting yet another package of their least favorite MRE while trying to wheedle a trade with someone else for something better. Imagine him doing that with Miller, knowing how the other man likes the sugar cookie desserts in one MRE package and hates how the chocolate bars melt from the desert heat in another. Knowing what each others’ tells and bluffs are from playing poker on their down time while on a tour. Swapping stories about home...and noticing who doesn’t want to talk about the life they had before enlisting. Talking about the things they miss, the people they miss. Knowing who snores, who’s a light sleeper, all those things you learn when you’re in close proximity to a person for perhaps up to two years or so depending on deployment length. It could also be they’ve been deployed together more than once, as Jacob certainly went out on multiple tours per The Book of Joseph once again. Imagine Jacob knowing all of that and more about Miller. Then, day after day after day of being lost in the desert, with starvation eating away at their rationality, that hollow pain in their guts as their bodies start burning through their own cells and reserves to try to stay alive, running out of water and having to take chances with any drinking source they can find in the environment and having to expend precious energy to try or die early from dehydration, probably not sleeping well from the hunger, exhaustion, stress, possible enemy presence, dangerous wildlife... The brain starts shutting down real quick once we don’t have the resources it needs to run optimally. Some faster than others, but in Jacob and Miller’s case, their ordeal is definitely long enough to put them into that mindset of feeling that primal fear of a slow death by famine, weakness, scarcity. The psychological toll would have been heavy without a doubt, and that might’ve been compounded by experiences in Jacob’s childhood if his parents were not dutiful in buying food more regularly, which easily could be the case. Old Mad Seed needs more whiskey this month to fuel his raging, drunken fits of spewing biblical verses in a tyrannical fashion? There goes the money for the last few days of food. Easily could be how Jacob got into stealing candy (and likely also food in that case) for himself and his brothers. So Jacob would have a good idea of some of what’s coming down the pipe in that case. He knows how long the trip is, can reckon how fast the two can travel. Maybe he starts out hopeful in a grim way to start... ...but over time as things get more and more desperate (and it could be a familiar desperation he’s felt before as a kid going hungry, only worse,) “And I looked at Miller and I could tell we were as good as dead. And I accepted that. And in that acceptance...came clarity.” That clarity could very well be that Jacob decided that morality was futile if it meant you didn’t survive, which could very well be a very world-breaking revelation for him, since he is mentioned in his backstory to have had a praiseworthy sense of honor among other things. Certainly is potentially spirit breaking to go from being the older brother, the brother-in-arms who relied on and was relied on, who was trusted, to being a betrayer of that trust. A Judas, one could say, as he calls Pratt in his video after Pratt has helped the Deputy escape. And what does Jacob make the Deputy become, in relation to Eli? Eli, the man the Deputy was rescued by, was aided by, has been working alongside this entire time. Eli, who trusts and relies on the Deputy. Eli, who it could be said betrayed Jacob’s friendship with him by choosing not to hand over the Whitetail Militia and join Eden’s Gate (from Jacob’s perspective, based on his final fight dialogue.) “Hey. Only you could have gotten this close. Only you could have earned his trust. It was always only ever you. Good work. You did it. You passed your test. You made your sacrifice. But now...you’re alone. And you’re weak. And we know what happens to the weak.” That might seem contradictory at first, since in theory making the sacrifice should make one “strong” by Jacob’s line of reasoning, one might think. But the Deputy is a “traitor” now—to the Whitetail Militia by brainwashing (temporarily as we the audience know, pending Jacob’s death,) and to Jacob by choice, if one takes the following lines from Jacob into consideration: “You’ve forgotten your purpose, Deputy. You were on the path of the Chosen but now you’ve strayed. Fear did this to you, but don’t worry, I can help with that. I can remove your fear and give you strength. It’s not too late. Come back to me. Remember your purpose.” ”Deputy, know that I still have hope for you, but if you continue to support Eli and his merry band of cowards, that hope will cease to exist. Your judgement is cloudy because your mind is weak, but I have confidence you’ll make the right choice in the end. If not—you’ll all pay in blood.” Link to the audio for the above two lines here (credit and appreciation to hopecountyradio once more.) As with the other Seeds, Jacob starts out trying to persuade the Deputy to “see the light” and join the Project, but as with all of them, as the resistance meter rises and we draw closer to the final confrontation with him, he and the others abandon that idea in favor of trying to end the Deputy instead. So in this possible interpretation, it could be that Jacob views both the Deputy and Eli as traitors both. However...the two situations while both likely quite weighty with the Deputy being “the chosen one” to kick off the Collapse (or a herald of the Collapse if one wants to be cute with wording,) and Eli being an ex-good-friend or perhaps even ex-best-friend of Jacob’s, are potentially vastly different in emotional weight to Jacob. The Deputy is all tied up with this Collapse business, and while Jacob isn’t sure if Joseph talks to God, he does support him, what with being a Herald in the cult and all that. It involves the fate of the family, and in particular, Jacob’s family—his brothers and sister. Eli, however, Jacob has known for a while, likely years, back during the construction of the bunkers which Eli helped with, possibly and likely before then. I personally lean towards interpreting that as they struck up the beginning of a friendship, and Jacob hired Eli and his crew to help with the construction of the cult’s bunkers. Where they had their falling out is less clear as far as I’m aware. It could be it was during or after construction that Eli got a bad feeling about all of this Eden’s Gate business, or perhaps even as late as the beginning of the Reaping if that’s when Jacob gave Eli the “chance” to hand over his Whitetail Militia members, as mentioned in his final boss battle red-bliss section. That could’ve been the breaking point for Jacob and Eli, and if Jacob was expecting Eli to side with him due to friendship and perhaps some shared beliefs...perhaps Jacob took that...poorly. And by poorly I mean went full out on revenge of having Eli killed by betrayal of someone he’d chosen to trust—someone that Jacob had already gotten his hooks into. Someone Eli needed, in this fight against Jacob. Someone like the Deputy. The Deputy, who’s been put through starvation, exposure, and ingrained through conditioning and likely a liberal use of Bliss to facilitate said conditioning, to hunt. To train. To kill. To sacrifice. “You take away a man’s basic needs, and he will revert to his primordial instinct in just ten days.” [Chuckles.] “Ah, that’s a difficult thing to understand unless you’ve lived it...” This is what Jacob is putting the “recruits” and the Deputy through—his revelation. His experience. His choice. In the end as Jacob succumbs to his injuries, he is weak, he is dying, and he knows it, looking at the Deputy in his final scene. This time, he is the one who is sacrificed, by the Deputy, and in Jacob’s eyes by Joseph, to either try to end the chaos spread across the county, or to break a seal respectively. Jacob’s death is a means to an end—as Miller’s was. And Jacob “accepts that,” as he puts it. Does he accept it because now he’s betrayed the trust and faith of potentially two people he might’ve been close to? Miller, and then Eli? Is Jacob conditioning the Deputy during that red-bliss sequence of his boss fight to kill Jacob, based on how there are bliss-hallucinations of Jacob to shoot while destroying the beacons? There’s the generic Whitetail fighter, Judges, and Jacob himself scattered across the landscape before ending that sequence as far as I’m aware. Both Jacob and the Whitetail fighter present could be interpreted in this line of thinking as echoing the supposed betrayal of both sides and being “alone” against the world in a nightmarish fashion while Jacob potentially tries to break the Deputy through talking and said nightmare. The way Jacob talks though...is he strictly speaking to us, or is the Deputy actually a mirror as it were, with the things Jacob says being applicable to himself? “Don’t you find it ironic that everyone you try to help ends up worse off? Eli...Pratt...Tragedy just follows you. If you really wanted to keep people safe, be a hero...you’d just off yourself. Safer for everyone that way.” Is Jacob REALLY talking to us, or to himself through a medium? Through a glass darkly, as it were. He “tried” to “help” Eli and Pratt, in his twisted fashion, by trying to get Eli previously to join the Project and to make Pratt strong enough via brainwashing to also join the Project, which in Jacob’s perspective if he’s following his and Joseph’s dogma, is the only way to survive the Collapse. But Jacob has failed, repeatedly, to protect the people he held dear—his family. His friends. He’s become the threat they need protecting from. He has irrevocably perhaps proven to himself that under the right circumstances? He’s willing to betray people he holds dear for his own survival. Would he betray his family? That is the question, isn’t it. Perhaps Jacob fears finding out. Maybe he fears, that under the right circumstances, he would. Maybe that’s why he goes so willingly to be Joseph’s sacrifice, in part. Maybe having orchestrated Eli’s death, the death of yet one more person whom he was once friends with, yet one more person Jacob himself has betrayed, maybe Jacob doesn’t want to continue either. Maybe that’s the last straw, the nail in the coffin of underlying beliefs that Jacob is inherently not someone who can be fully trusted. Maybe he genuinely thought Eli would join him if given the chance. Maybe Jacob was still hollow and brittle as hell from the first time he’d killed a friend, when he killed Miller. All the Seeds bear the weight of their pasts heavily, and Jacob’s no exception. Jacob survived the first time, barely. He survived the second time, but not by long. He starts talking about his potential death at the Deputy’s hands quite early on during the red-bliss segment. Neither John nor Faith nor Joseph to my knowledge do so. Maybe he was waiting for the Deputy to be strong enough to finish what no one else could. Maybe that was what he wanted. “There’s no “win” for you here. It all ends bloody. For everyone. You die now, or you die later. It’s up to you. But either way? You won’t die a hero.” Perhaps that line from Jacob also is one of the things he fears most—dying without purpose. Dying being not a hero, a person who’s done good for others, but rather the opposite. Ironically so, given that he and his family are all in the torture and brainwashing business, but Jacob in particular gave up on being a good person a long time ago, I think, even by the cult’s standards. [Link to part two here.] [Link to part three here.]

#writing about writing #Far Cry 5 #FC5 #antagonists #villains #Jacob Seed #long post is long #character study #trigger warning content #tw content is listed at the top of the post #hopecountyradio

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whiskeyworen · 5 years ago

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Halloween Festivities

There's one great thing about Tyria. Cyrus reflected as he sipped his whiskey. He smiled to himself, trying to surpress the chuckle that he knew would draw an odd look from the big bartender nearby. Halloween isn't just one day here. It's a damned -- literally! -- month!

Sure, there were significant downsides to a month long Halloween; haunted magical doors opening into the Mists randomly were one of the BIG ones. And having the Mad King appearing in several locations at once around Kryta was another. Last year Cyrus had dodged his way out of a Mad King Says 'game' -- a game that he witnessed more than one person being slammed to the ground by flaming pumpkin heads with enough force to leave them winded -- and into the Labyrinth.

That was a mistake; Not only did he witness Tenna running around and having her 'fun' with the lunatic hordes ( H.P. Lovecraft certainly got some elements right with 'The Festival', at least in that regard), as gory as that was. At the same moment the Mad King was playing his game in the real world, he was ALSO standing there, towering over the Labyrinth, facing off against his revolting, Joker-esque son.

This year, Cyrus resolved to stay away from the festivities as much as possible, but there were some absolutely wonderful parties going on. Costume parties. His 'friend' in the Whispers, that pale sylvari with the terrifying magenta eyes, had invited him and a Plus One to a private get together.

It helped that his companion for the night, his 'date', if the word was to be used, was also a Whispers agent. Certain hands were shook, as it were. It was all good.

Which is how he ended up waiting in the bar. A few weeks ago he'd discussed his costume design with Verula and the ship's AI, Aspect, and they'd come through with, presenting him with the outfit a couple of days ago. He straightened up a bit, running his hand over the sleek, black jacket with its golden gilt filigree, amazed at how well it fit. Remind me to compliment both of them again! This fits wonderfully.

"My, that's quite the outfit Cyrus." Came a familiar voice from behind him. Mixed into the amusement was a note of actual approval. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were going to some fancy ball."

He turned, smirking, to greet his 'date'. "Well, I thought about wearing that Mist suit Tenna designed, but it's bulky. Not exactly relaxation friendly." With a gesture, he indicated the lines of the suit. "This...on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable. Plus, it makes me look damned good."

Moryggan raised an eyebrow, a small smile quirking her lips. "Well, not to boost your ego, but it does look very nice. Very regal, maybe even noble." She rolled her eyes a bit, sighing. "If only that were the truth about you."

"Hey..." He frowned petulantly, crossing his arms. She giggled, shaking her head.

"I'm only toying with you." She admitted. "It's a very handsome outfit."

"Thank you." The frown disappeared, and for the first time Cyrus saw what Moryggan had on. "Oh... wow. That's, um..."

"Do you like it?" Moryggan did a slow spin, the shredded tassels, inscribed in tainted runes swirling around her. Her natural minty green sylvari glow lit up every bit of exposed skin she had, almost like glowing tattoos all over her body. It actually worked very well. But...

"That's...uh... that's a lot of exposed skin." Cyrus tried not to stare, averting his eyes a bit. He coughed into his hand, trying to cover the blush that suddenly rose in his cheeks. "Are you really going to be comfortable in that tonight?"

"It's a costume party. There's probably going to be someone dressed as Lord Faren for crying out loud." Moryggan grinned...and then they both winced and shuddered at the thought of anyone pulling a Faren. "Ugh. Okay, wrong example."

"Yeah. Let's..not mention that ever again." Cyrus agreed, desperately wishing for a bit of brain bleach. Other than adoring noble girls, absolutely no one in the known world wanted to see any MORE of Faren, who had not yet abandoned his bathing suit -- which Cyrus had reluctantly referred to as a 'banana hammock', much to his distaste -- since he returned to health from the assault on Joko's fortress at Kourna.

"So, are you ready to go to the party?" Moryggan asked. Cyrus nodded, and they headed out the passage to the street. "I hope we can take in some of the sights before we reach it, though." "Well, if you want, we can." He replied reluctantly. "Can we skip seeing Droobert though? I just find that depressing." "Agreed." As they reached the street, she linked their elbows, clasping his arm. "... So what is your costume, anyway? A noble?" Cyrus shook his head. "It's as close as I could get made to an outfit my favorite novel character wore." He chuckled. "Hero of the Imperium: Ciaphas Cain." Moryggan tipped her head, considering the golden filigree. This close, she noticed that the buttons had a little skulls engraved on them, and on the breast there was a double-headed eagle icon; blind on one head, the other head had a small diamond for its eye. Looking down, she could see the skulls-and-eagle theme was repeated throughout the outfit. "Hm... name doesn't ring a bell. What did he do?"

He laughed, shaking his head. "He tried for a peaceful, uneventful life in the military, and fell upward, going from one horrible, world-shattering mission after another, succeeding amazingly every time, much to his own surprise. Declared a Hero of the Imperium, all the while he was fully convinced he didn't deserve any of the glory."

"That...sounds strange." She looked at him, the smile on his face. "How is he a hero then?"

"He's not, really." Cyrus just smiled. "The way the world saw him was this tall, proud, masculine, brave, powerful man that never swayed and was the shining example of an upstanding soldier. The truth... in his own memoirs and some of his closest friends' admissions... was that he was an absolutely normal man. The same vices, the same pains, and more than the same amount of fears. He just hid it well, was very lucky, and had some very good friends."

He looked at her, smirking, one eyebrow raised smugly. "He was also quite the ladies' man. And never seemed to have any issues, given he kept moving around."

"Ohh, so he's a heartbreaker." She poked his side as they passed by some kids dunking for apples in a cauldron. "He surrounded himself with women and got away with it, did he?"

"I seem to remember him saying something about being a master of 'letting them down gently'." Cyrus laughed, jumping a bit at her poke. "I don't like THAT aspect of him, but... as a guy, I'm mildly envious of his luck with the ladies."

As they crossed the Piazza, chatting with fellow costumed individuals, Moryggan kept getting the lion's share of the compliments. More than one guy, and even a few ladies gave a low whistle at her hip-high leather boots, even if they DID end in hooves. More than one set of roving eyes ran over her gently glowing form as she walked with Cyrus. And more than one had envy in their eyes.

"I think they like your costume." Cyrus mumbled into her ear as they wandered the passage to the bridge near the Eastern Ward. The party was being held in the Guild register building, in its vast atrium.

"I should hope so. It took an hour of careful conjuring to form this illusion." She whispered back.

That gave him pause. It physically stopped him just before they headed over the bridge, and Moryggan kept walking, as if she hadn't noticed. "Wait...what do you mean 'illusion'? That entire outfit is a mesmer glamour?"

She stopped, turning to look over her shoulder at him, a smile as smug as his own from before on her face. "Of course! There's no way some parts of this would have stayed together on its own. Or in the right places. Add to that I was having a hard time thinking of something to make when I ran out of time. So I used the last hour to make the glamour illusion of this outfit." She turned to face him, hands lightly on her hips. "So I'm rather glad people are enjoying this one."

There was something that was nagging at Cyrus's mind, as he looked at her outfit. But what was it?...There's so much skin. Is that all illusion too?... And then a light went off in his head. "Moryggan..."

"Yes?" She replied innocently. She'd seen that realization hit him; as much as he liked to think he dissembled his emotions, Moryggan had instantly seen that certain things broke his mask in a delightful way.

"....if that's an illusion, then exactly what ARE you wearing?" He asked slowly.

Her smile broadened, and she turned away, letting him see the minty glow pulsing from the base of her spine outward. She couldn't hide it, but the speed of the pulse was slightly faster than normal, and a bit brighter. "....well, if I have too much to drink, perhaps you'll find out?"

She giggled, and looked back at him, seeing his mouth drop open. "Though, I would suggest that we get back to the inn before I lose control of the glamour. It's easy to maintain, but..."

Moryggan tipped her head, making an amused sound, before walking off, a bit of a bounce in her step. Cyrus stood there, his mind locked onto the image of Moryggan losing the illusion and...

"Whoa, wait up Mory!" He called, running to catch up with her. "Slow down!"

Her pleasant laughter was the only response.

---- Author’s note: This is totally non-canon... well, okay, maybe half way. I’m actually starting to ship these two. Which me distinctly envious of my in-game character. LoL. This fic was just thrown together, so take it with a grain of salt. Also, I just kind of wanted to show off Moryggan with her glow fully on, and just how pretty it looked. That, and Cyrus really does look great in that Courtier outfit. All that’s missing is a peaked cap and a laspistol. I’m still working on the chainsword, since they exist in game in about four different designs. (IRON BEAST BLADE!!)

#gw2 fanfiction #My characters #Moryggan Deraleth #Cyrus Sigismund #Halloween fun #Halloween #Costumes #Raiment of the Lich #Noble Courtier outfit #Sylvari Mesmer #Human Ranger

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giphantie · 5 years ago

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Photography as Symptom

Photographers and those who’ve written on the subject have had a problem; one could say this problem haunts the medium. This problem is seeing photography as a medium to be addressed within a relative vacuum.

Not necessarily culturally or socially, as many projects’ main focus today is to escape the tropes laid out in the late 20th century. Even NGOs have strict Stalinist-like guidelines and approval processes to make sure that images are both respectful to the subjects and ‘on-brand’. It’s not social and cultural issues, but larger ones. Photography faces a problem of ignoring the larger networks that photography exists under, specifically capitalism, neoliberalism, and post-fordism. This is exacerbated by the lack of writers on the topic in general, As Alan Trachtenberg observes in the introduction to Classic Essays on Photography, 1980:

A common lament among photographers and their admirers is that the medium lacks a critical tradition, a tradition of serious writing. It is true that photography has seemed to inspire as much foolishness in words as banalities in pictures, and especially true that we cannot name a single writer of significance who has devoted himself or herself entirely to photographic criticism and theory.

Even for those who have written on the topic, the primary focus has been dissecting the medium without confronting it as a symptom. Why is this the case? The why is a matter of ideology, however, what is missing will be summarized in this article.

While photography is its own network with elements existing under it (what most photo theory encompasses, although addressing of course the relation to things like art and technology), it’s more importantly an element within larger networks, such as the news media industry, photography industry, the tech industry, and larger networks like post-fordism, neoliberalism, and capitalism. To speculate on the current and future states of the medium, recognizing the medium as a symptom is essential.

To expose photography as an element within a network is to reveal the transcendence of the medium. Photography as a commodity (as Walter Benjamin claimed) displays what Marx called the fetishism of commodity (the process of a commodity disclosing the networks involved in its production and distribution). Like a commodity, the processes that bring this medium to the point in which it can be criticized and theorized are there even if there’s little acknowledgment of them. The obvious example is the photo and tech industry. Obviously the camera you shoot with was made by low paid workers in factories throughout Asia, then the people in companies that make decisions about labor and tech are at the mercy of the market and competition, the market and competition are dependant on consumers and investors, as photography shifts towards including smart phone images, it of course includes the practices of Apple/Amazon/Google etc…

Looking specifically at photojournalists, if they hope to make a living shooting images of current events, they are of course at the mercy of news media platforms who are of course also driven by the market. The current state of the news media industry exists as a product of neoliberalism (implemented by Reagan/Thatcher era deregulation) that led to the acceleration of globalized and hypermarketized news media companies. Neoliberalism’s not only a series of policies enacted by Reagan’s administration, but a global consensus, a hegemony, that the free market can solve problems and the government only disrupts prosperity (unless of course bailing out private institutions).

As full-time photojournalists continue to be laid off, the overall trend can be observed as a symptom of multiple factors: technology and the overabundance of images/events that implode the meaning and monetization of photography, news media losing money and influence, but also the evolution of the workplace, from fordism (working in a factory, but being paid a living wage) to post-fordism (the ‘gig economy’/’be your own boss’, low wages, less full-time jobs, less benefits). This is easily seen in photography as there’s a predicted continued decrease in employed photographers and an increase in self-employed, outlining the current and future state of the field¹.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that major news companies, after becoming the giants that they are, would be challenged and replaced by something new. This is of course an essential aspect of a market based system, summed up in the famous 1848 pamphlet by Marx and Engels:

All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify… All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations… (Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 1848 p 63).

This is illuminated in most industries today as the rate of technological advancements and automation threatens every industry when automation becomes the more profitable alternative to human labor, echoing the industrial revolutions. As Uber and Lyft drivers protest for higher wages and benefits, Uber is becoming closer to replacing drivers altogether with self driving cars. High quality phone cameras and dslrs have demonetized the career photojournalists. Small online news platforms are doing the same to larger news media companies. None of this technology would necessarily force industries to die if it were not for the larger networks it exists under.

The news media, a form of presentation which has caused a desensitization, a ‘war fatigue’ that spreads to all current events, has led many to believe that the medium as a vesille for change has lost its place altogether. However, there are many artists and photographers today who attempt to bypass the ineffective aspects of the news media through new processes, most of which are illuminated in Fred Ritchin’s books. Although Ritchin might not specifically address photography as a symptom of these larger networks in his writings, the projects he lists nonetheless illuminate an implicit intent to bypass profitability to spark change. Although they are subject to their own forms of market drives (most try to get the images posted on publications and displayed in galleries), specific projects seemed to have realistic goals set and their effectiveness seemed to be greater, especially with a lack of profitability.

One of the projects Ritchin lists is the project Basetrack in which a team of photojournalists and artists followed the deployment of 1/8 – 1st Battalion, Eighth Marines, during their deployment in southern Afghanistan, posting iPhone images on a Facebook group where the public and family members could engage. The photojournalist Teru Kuwayama describes his frustration with the military, who needed to approve and censor all posts, and the media who wouldn’t feature the images or project:

It wasn’t just the military that was discouraging us from making meaningful pictures... The magazines we worked for - or gave our pictures to - clearly didn’t want them, either. We would come back from an embed, where we’d been in the fight of our lives, and we would get these absurd reasons about how that wasn’t interesting enough to publish or wasn’t right for that week. p64

Ritchin goes on to say that while the media and military weren’t receptive - the military uninvited the team before the end of the tour - family members of the soldiers deployed or elsewhere in the military engaged with the project on an impactful way. One mother saying “It has truly saved me from a devastating depression and uncontrollable anxiety after my son deployed. Having this common ground with other moms helped me so much and gives me encouragement each day.”

Although Ritchin’s point is that maybe larger news companies should implement these alternative forms of presentation that utilize technology to more effectively illuminate current events and news, contributing their lack of implementation to publication’s taste (“The reluctance of other media outlets to contrast photographs in a similar manner may be a sign of a limited taste for visual adventure in the press, or a sign that such juxtapositions may be considered too politically charged…”), their implementation could warrant the opposite of what’s necessary for utilizing photography as a medium for change. Ritchin brings to light many of the issues and potential steps to solutions for reigniting the medium through utilizing technology, even if not acknowledging why. If we acknowledge where photography stands as a symptom, it’s clear that offering a new form of presentation to be exploited either by big companies or by becoming the new popular form of media presentation, this isn’t necessarily as glamorous as it sounds. These alternative forms of presentation would quickly become the ‘new meat’ which would quickly be commercialized and dried out just like the newest meme trend. More importantly these effects should be seen through this wider lens enveloping the larger networks such as the market driven news media whose place is a product of neoliberalism and whose future will be challenged by demonetized forms of presentation, just as photojournalism is now.

If there’s any solution to be formulated, perhaps acknowledging photography as a symptom is the first step. The medium is trapped in a bubble of the observer as Sontag prescribes: “Marx reproached philosophy for only trying to understand the world rather than trying to change it. Photographers... suggest the vanity of even trying to understand the world and instead propose that we collect it.” The essential second step would be to implement this acknowledgement of symptom into action. This would be through the way in which photographers and writers on photography go about engaging with the medium. Experimenting with projects which don’t aspire to be picked up by media outlets or publications, looking to fulfill specific realistic goals outside of market drives and larger audiences. Confronting the interaction, perhaps by attempting to avoid the larger networks, or exploiting them as a direct means of the aim of the project. Instead of simply acknowledging afterwards that “Yes, I am apart of the machine that delegitimize the impact of events on the public, but I’m just trying to do my part”, striving to experiment in ways that directly address the goals set. Instead of making the goal ‘exposure’ of an issue, which is inherent in every project that’s posted on as many publications as possible, try creating a form of realistic hyperintent (for example JR’s images printed on waterproof material used as roofs for the subjects being photographed). However, one should be careful in a misplaced optimism under these networks, as escaping them might be harder than it seems and photography, if utilized locally with hyperintent, will do little to nothing to change the larger networks. However, by acknowledging photography as a symptom, photographers can navigate the landscape of capitalist modes of photography and move towards a new future.

#photography #photo theory #capitalism

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possiblyimbiassed · 6 years ago

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What happened to Sherlock? Part VII – The Importance of Being Earnest (1)

This is the seventh instalment of my meta series, where I’ll take a closer look at the two last episodes of the show this far. As you know if you’ve read the earlier parts, a premise for this analysis is that we’re seeing the entire show from Sherlock’s perspective; we’re literally inside the great detective’s head since Day 1, and he’s working inside his Mind Theatre where he reconstructs scenarios with different ‘actors’ representing different concepts and problems he needs to delve into, very much following his usual MO of crime solving. By now I also part from the assumption that from at least HLV and onwards Sherlock is trapped inside his own mind (EMP theory), possibly in some kind of comatose state, and in ‘real life’ the detective is hospitalized and close to dying. These conclusions are based on the different hypotheses I’ve already tested in the earlier installments of this meta series, which you can find below:

Introduction - The game is on (explains the method of analysis) Part I - Blog vs TV-show Part II - Re-living memories Part III - Drugs and weirdness Part IV – Heartbreak and coma (1) Part IV – Heartbreak and coma (2) Part V – Bizarre scenarios Part VI - Live and let die (1) Part VI - Live and let die (2)

The hypothesis to test this time is about Sherlock’s inner development:

Hypothesis #7. By TFP Sherlock has managed to figure out some essential things about John and the importance of staying alive, and he has managed to get in touch with his own repressed emotions.

I think this show – especially from HLV and onwards - might represent an important inner journey for Sherlock, where he tries to find out what went wrong between him and John and what could be done to fix it. On his introspective journey, he gets to learn a lot about John, but also about himself and how he comes across in John’s eyes. To test this train of thought, I’ll re-visit TLD, TFP, and some scenes from TST, to see what this might mean in terms of Sherlock’s Mind Theatre Simulations. But first of all, I’d like to present a background idea:

The Therapist

Judging by the total number of scenes with therapists this far, they seem to play an important role in BBC Sherlock. But which role exactly? And are the therapists we see even real? After TLD I think it’s justifiable to question this. At the end of TST we see Sherlock visiting John’s therapist Ella Thompson:

According to John’s blog - which I believe we can use as a sort of anchor to the show’s ’reality’ (see my Hypothesis #1) – John has indeed been in contact with someone named Ella Thompson, who I think we can safely assume is his therapist, judging by the circumstances in which John mentions her. Her name appears in one of the very first blogposts:

And then Ella herself comments on another post:

And then she is mentioned again when John has just met Sherlock:

She also begs him to “please answer your phone”, after the post called “My New Flatmate”, where we can find John’s first account of the events related to ASiP. As for the TV-show, Ella appears in person in the beginning of it, in ASiP:

In the taxi heading for Brixton in ASiP, Sherlock tells John that he deduced John must have had a therapist: (all quotes below are based on the incredibly useful transcripts by Ariane DeVere - my bolding):

JOHN: You said I had a therapist.

SHERLOCK: You’ve got a psychosomatic limp – of course you’ve got a therapist.

Mycroft’s attitude towards Ella’s competence is a bit arrogant. Apparently she didn’t realize that war trauma isn’t the real cause of John’s trembling left hand:

MYCROFT: You have an intermittent tremor in your left hand.

She thinks you’re haunted by memories of your military service.

JOHN: Who the hell are you?

Yes; how could Mycroft know this? Therapists are usually bound by strict confidentiality, and civil servants asking questions about clients’ health issues are no exception. Did he threaten Ella? Or steal the document? Sherlock’s brother isn’t even mentioned on John’s blog until ASiB, and in the show John never mentions Mycroft’s theories to Sherlock. If Mycroft represents Sherlock’s brain here (as some of us believe), and the kidnapping scene only occurs inside his head, then this is rather Sherlock’s personal conclusion.

MYCROFT: She’s got it the wrong way round. You’re under stress right now and your hand is perfectly steady. You’re not haunted by the war, Doctor Watson ... you miss it.

After this, nothing more is said about Ella for a long while. Until she seems to start communicating via John’s blog again after Sherlock’s ‘death’, when John publishes a blogpost titled “A New Beginning”:

I don’t think it’s farfetched to assume that Ella has tried to persuade John to keep up the blogging. Later, in the comment section of the blogpost “Death by Twitter”, Ella also interacts with the username “theimprobableone”. The impression I get is that Ella is kind, reaching out to someone who isn’t her client (even if this would actually just happen to be Moriarty :))) She might also be very competent, but the therapy won’t work unless the client actually collaborates.

But in the TV-show we see a new therapy session in TRF, apparently 18 months after their last one, where John seems unable to tell Ella what actually happened to Sherlock, and why this has affected him so deeply.

Perhaps this scene is most of all Sherlock’s conclusion after observing on the blog that John was now back to Square 1 in his therapy with Ella? Which means he was back to ‘blogging-will-help’.

I’m gonna part from the assumption (according to my hypotheses #1 and #2) that the first two and a half series of this show represent Sherlock re-visiting his memories while reading John’s blog. He might be influenced by drugs while doing this, and he might ‘pimp up’ these memories by fantasizing about events he deduces must have happened, but where he wasn’t personally present. So he tries to mentally reconstruct what might have been said in these scenes. Since Sherlock isn’t present in the scenes with Ella described above, I think they might be fine examples of such ‘deductive fantasies’, basically constructed from reading John’s blog. (Regularly this is also an important part of Sherlock’s methods for crime solving by deductive reasoning inside his Mind Palace).

But in S4, at the end of TST, we see Sherlock himself visit Ella, although in a setting that reminds me more of a cathedral than a visits room for a therapist. The whole scene seems extremely ‘staged’, like a theatre piece.

And when Ella tells Sherlock he has to open up completely for her to be able to help him, we learn two things:

Sherlock states that this is really not his style. In other words: he’s not ready for it, and

Sherlock thinks his main problem concerns John rather than himself. He believes what he really needs is to find out “what to do about John”.

Which might mean, in my opinion, that Sherlock now believes that ‘Ella’ won’t be able to actually help either of them. Conclusion, in Sherlock’s view: John needs a new, different therapist. And who has shown to actually be effective in curing John’s ailments - his earlier psychosomatic limp and trembling hands? Sherlock has. So, to continue testing this meta series’ earlier hypothesis (#5) about Sherlock running mind scenarios, and at the same time begin to test hypothesis #7, I’ll make the following prediction:

Prediction #1: If Hypothesis #7 is true, TLD could serve as an ‘appointment’ where Sherlock is John’s therapist trying to figure out ‘what to do about John’.

One interesting thing with TLD is that it both starts and ends with John visiting his new therapist. But in the end it turns out that this ‘therapist’ is actually Eurus, a ruthless killer who has disguised herself as a therapist (while the real therapist appears to be ‘closeted’ in a horrendous way). But I don’t think Eurus is ‘real’; she’s rather an aspect of Sherlock himself.

Sherlock might also assume that if he can’t protect John and John’s loved ones, he has failed John (hence his extreme sense of guilt and self-loathing after TST). But if Eurus isn’t even ‘real’, in which ways has Sherlock really failed to protect John? I think the real issues are:

He can’t protect John from being 'outed’ in media, who will speculate about his sexual orientation (the problem of TRF), which John has shown signs of fearing. Being associated with famous ‘weirdo’ Sherlock Holmes is ‘bad for John’ because he’ll drag John into media exposure.

By TLD, Sherlock has reached a mental stage where he cannot help John keep up his heteronormative façade any longer; thus ‘Mary’ will have to go, to disappear, which Sherlock believes will destroy John.

Below follows a series of possible ‘what-if’ scenarios, which Sherlock might be running inside his mind in TLD (and this is of course mostly my speculation). They are following the same pattern I used to test Hypothesis #5: 1. Detect possible initial questions, 2. Investigate possible elements of inspiration from movies and/or Sherlock’s own memories and 3. Explain possible results in the show from each of Sherlock’s mind experiments. Plus discussions about evidence that indicate this is indeed a MP scenario. But this time the scenarios are also ‘therapeutic’; this is where Sherlock tries to look closer at John and their relationship, taking over from Ella the job as John’s therapist.

TLD, Scenario 1: What will happen when John visits a new therapist?

Inspiration: We don’t know if Sherlock has experiences in this field, but since he’s addicted to drugs it’s not unlikely that he has some knowledge of therapy from rehab. In this scenario I think Sherlock takes the role of therapist himself.

In Part 6 of his Follow-the-dogs meta @sagestreet makes a good case for Ella being a Sherlock mirror (My bolding). ‘Thompson’ refers to a character mentioned on Sherlock’s website. (Does anyone know, by the way, what happened to that website? It has been down for months by now!):

“And need I tell you that ThompSON could be a nice mirror for WatSON? (Let’s not even go into the whole fact that this could be Ella Thompson’s husband, which would make Ella a Sherlock!mirror of the first order. I mean, Ella has been a slightly distorted Sherlock!mirror right from the start, what with telling John, in TRF, he should articulate his feelings for Sherlock after Sherlock jumped…

...just to give you one example.)”

[running, running the TLD simulation, staged with ‘actors’ that either represent John or Sherlock or the challenges they are up against…]

Result: John appears to be in deep mourning; he tells the therapist that he has sleeping problems and ‘can’t always cope’. He also gives away something about his alcohol problems and loneliness; he has no one to confide in. He expresses his guilt and bitterness for not taking care of his child. But he won’t tell his therapist about how he keeps seeing his departed spouse as a ghost: MARY (offscreen): Are you gonna tell her about me? JOHN (shaking his head): No. MARY (offscreen): Why not? JOHN: ’Cause I can’t. MARY (offscreen): Why not? JOHN: Because I can’t ... you know I can’t. She thinks you’re dead.

And neither will John confess anything about his feelings regarding either Sherlock or his (now departed) wife. By the way, don’t you feel the scene with the new therapist in TLD is a tiny bit familiar? I at least see certain similarities with this situation from TRF:

This was John mourning Sherlock, and now we see exactly the same thing regarding ‘Mary’? Still in TLD, John is unable to put into words any sort of feelings towards the people closest to him.

Then they start to talk about Sherlock, whom the therapist’s behaviour reminds John of (could the show be any more obvious than this? :-o). But John claims that he’s not thinking of Sherlock at all, and that their separation is Sherlock’s own fault for locking himself away in his flat; Sherlock hasn’t even attempted to make contact (hiatus after TRF, anyone?). Then the session is interrupted when a sports car stops with squealing tyres outside the house.

Discussion: This is supposedly about ‘Mary’s death and John’s neglect of his daughter Rosie, plus Sherlock’s despicable conduct. But I think what we actually see here is Sherlock’s deeper exploration of how John must have felt when he believed Sherlock was dead after ‘the fall’ in TRF. Sherlock needs other ‘characters’ in his Mind Theatre, because he’s still unable to face the fact that it was he, Sherlock, who caused John this level of grief by leaving him. And neither can he fathom the reason for this deep grief. Which might indeed be difficult for Sherlock to comprehend, because why then would John marry someone else when Sherlock got back? John doesn’t open himself up here. But I do think Sherlock subconsciously learns that John might have felt guilty after Sherlock’s ‘suicide’, maybe for having called him a ‘machine’ or other negative things, maybe for drawing media’s attention to Sherlock in the first place, unable to protect him against the slander. Maybe for failing to take care of his friend. All since Sherlock’s comment in TSoT about having been a ‘child’ for John and Mary to look after, I imagine John’s supposed guilt regarding Rosie could just as well be about Sherlock (”everything is about Sherlock”).

TLD, Scenario 2: What will happen if Sherlock tries to make John confess his feelings for Sherlock?

Inspiration: This seems to be almost entirely based on Sherlock’s own memories. I think he is drawing from his vast experience of criminals and drugs. In ASiP there’s a serial killer who convinces his victims to commit suicide with a drug. But we’re also presented a serial adulterer in the same episode; the murder victim Jennifer Wilson. In TSoT we have the Mayfly Man, a serial ‘dater’ who is also a killer, and whose behaviour is reminiscent of John’s. This is, I believe, a long, charged and complex scenario stretching out along the whole episode of TLD. And it’s largely based on metaphors, hence the word play where ‘serial killer’ is substituted with the harmless ‘cereal killer’. As many have said by now: If murder is a metaphor for falling in love, confessing to it is a confession of love. And I believe we have a lot to go on in this show…

[running, running a scenario, where Culverton Smith represents an aspect of John, but where John also represents himself]

Result: A ‘serial killer’ (Smith, representing John) wants to confess to his ‘crimes’, but at the same time he is very contradictory about it, because he doesn’t want to take the consequences of confessing. So TD12 - a memory-altering drug (the effect of which is similar to alcohol) - is the solution; Smith/John can back-pedal and pretend the confession was never made.

Sherlock doesn’t have evidence, but tries to make the ‘serial killer’ confess openly by playing along with him and then confront him. But it doesn’t work; John just beats Sherlock down and leaves him - again. But later Sherlock manages to collect evidence by tricking the ‘serial killer’ to act when Sherlock is at his most vulnerable, which provokes John to save him. In this episode, we’re lead to believe that Culverton eventually, after Sherlock’s ‘entrapment’, confessed to being a serial killer and was taken into custody. But the thing is, we never see Culverton actually confess to any specific crime – not even to the police. What he says to Sherlock’s face is merely that “killing human beings” makes him “incredibly happy” and that he “likes to make people into things”. But this wouldn’t hold in court for a murder case, would it? Who, in particular, did he actually kill? What exactly is Culverton accused of?

Sadly, there’s no open love confession from John – or John’s mirror - resulting from this scenario. But at least Sherlock manages to take on a new approach; he delivers two physical hugs to MP!John – one to ‘John the cereal killer’, and one to a guilt-ridden, repentant John at the end. The apparent topic of discussion is always something else than Sherlock’s and John’s feelings for each other, but at least we’re told that the ‘serial killer’ now can’t stop confessing ‘off-screen’. In the end of the scenario, though, Sherlock insists on wearing the deerstalker, which he has always disliked.

Discussion: I think maybe the most important result of this experiment is that Sherlock will never get a love confession out of John by sacrificing his life, no matter what ‘Mary’ (= heteronormativity) tells him to do. Actually, I believe the modeling shows that it’s Sherlock who needs to take the first step and actually tell John how he truly feels about him. The hug at the end of the scenario - at Sherlock’s initiative - makes this evident.

But I think this scenario does hint that Sherlock is finally heading in the right direction, even if he’s definitely not ‘there’ yet (the latter is indicated by the fact that he puts on the deer stalker, thus succumbing to keep hiding who he really is). The internal conflict in both Sherlock’s and John’s minds becomes blatantly obvious in this scenario; homophobia and heteronormativity are basically the most powerful obstacles that stand in the way for their relationship to develop.

I think Sherlock is dealing with a heavy onslaught of emotions; partly because reaching a point of honesty about his and John’s relationship is still a bit of a long-term goal, and partly because the journey there is booby-trapped with difficult topics like jealousy and guilt. We hear a lot about the atrocious ‘serial killer’ in this episode (Sherlock still doesn’t approve of ‘love’?), but we never get to see any of his supposed victims or any kind of incriminating evidence for Culverton’s supposed crimes. Except for his attempt on Sherlock’s life, which Sherlock admits is actually a kind of entrapment, set up by Sherlock himself.

TLD, Scenario 3: What’s the role of faith in Sherlock’s and John’s relationship?

Inspiration: There are many re-cycled elements in this scenario, which speaks for it being based mainly upon Sherlock’s memories. I made a list of the repetitions in a meta some time ago (scroll down to TLD). Walking the streets of London with Faith, for example, is a bit like running these streets with John in ASiP. Faith’s cane and limping is even directly compared to John’s in ASiP.

And her gun is thrown in the Thames, just like John’s was in the Pilot.

Look how Sherlock has taken over John’s Faith’s cane, and is supporting her.

[running a scenario, where I believe Culverton Smith’s daughter Faith represents what could have existed between Sherlock and John]

Result: Faith – here impersonated by (supposedly) Culverton Smith’s adult daughter - is strong and fragile at the same time. She manages to resist her drug-induced amnesia (‘wilful ignorance’?) of what Culverton is up to by writing a note, and she puts Sherlock on her case. But Sherlock also discovers that Faith is suicidal (directly compared to John in ASiP), so he tries to help her by keeping her company and throws away her weapon. But we see the same gun firing here, as in the beginning and end of this episode:

However, while contemplating his own possible suicide, Sherlock gets stuck in his childhood memories.

And mixed up with this, we’re exposed to subliminal flashes of a syringe and a spoon, possibly with dissolved heroine:

Discussion: As far as I can see, that’s Sherlock’s kitchen in the background. I wonder: did someone in Sherlock’s past kill themselves? Did one of his parents? Did this make him turn to drugs? It’s particularly interesting that the moment Sherlock approaches his childhood memory is exactly when Faith disappears; he ‘loses faith’. This might say something about how traumatic his memory is. But if this version of Faith is Eurus, and Eurus is a part of Sherlock himself, then this also means that he finds her again in TFP, doesn’t it?

A likely (in my opinion) significance of this losing Faith scenario has been presented by @sagestreet in a very interesting addition to one of my earlier metas (X); “Sherlock (in his own mind) is telling himself here that what he thought helped John as they met (curing his limp, becoming his friend, giving him laughter, warmth and friendship) never, in fact, existed!”

I also think it’s noteworthy that Sherlock now has ‘Faith’ for a client, the same way he had ‘Love’ (=Lady Smallwood) for a client in HLV (and ‘Hope’ as an opponent in ASiP, for that matter). Unfortunately, the result is only slightly better than with Love; this time Sherlock at least believes he has solved the case, but the real Faith turned out to not have actually been acquainted with Sherlock.

TLD, Scenario 4: What will John do if Sherlock ruins himself with drugs?

Inspiration: This scenario also seems based on Sherlock’s memories from his life with John; the list of repetitions can be used here as well. Like Sherlock waving a gun and shooting the wall (TGG), trying to convince John that he can predict the future (ASiP), John punching Sherlock in the face (ASiB, TEH), etc.

[Running, running a scenario where Sherlock is isolating himself and destroying his own brain and body with drugs inside 221B]

Result: Well, this rather dystopic scenario – paradoxically – might in a sense be pretty close to Sherlock’s own reality, because this is what I believe he actually did in John’s absence (directly after the wedding). Here we meet a Sherlock who has turned 221B into a meth lab, who is hallucinating gravely and who frightens Mrs Hudson with his dangerous tantrums.

(On a meta level, I think Sherlock’s Shakespeare quotations might be a ‘call to arms’ directed at the audience; how much more heteronormative crap are the viewers going to endure before the bulk of us start to protest loudly?)

But after Sherlock at least manages to save his cup of tea (quite the obvious metaphor here), Mrs Hudson finally takes charge. Sherlock is then ‘delivered’ to John in a fast sports car and a pair of kinky hand-cuffs (insider joke: the car is an Aston Martin). And the premises is now once again John’s new therapist’s house; in a way, the session continues.

But we also meet a John who is even more disapproving of Sherlock than in TAB, but this time he seems to care very little about Sherlock’s drug use or health in general. John says nothing about Sherlock visiting a children’s hospital while being high, and he doesn’t care when Molly claims that Sherlock is dying from the drugs. John actually encourages Sherlock to take more drugs:

Discussion: To me this plot line isn’t even remotely realistic; ‘real’ John would simply not treat his friend this way. He mourned him for two years, why would John not care about Sherlock dying now? But if this is rather Sherlock beating himself up in his Mind Palace, his bias and self-loathing could totally produce this result. And apparently this tactic, no matter how elaborate, is useless; Sherlock ruining himself on drugs will never lead to any change in their relationship – John will not even acknowledge his ‘cry for help’. Sherlock has been dishonest to John so many times that John no longer trusts him when he tries to be honest, and his drug addiction doesn’t exactly help this. Conclusion: It’s Sherlock who must take the first step; he must prove to John openly that he does indeed love him, because John has never understood subtleties. I’m not sure that Sherlock understands this result just yet, though ;).

TLD, Scenario 5: How is John’s therapy going?

Inspiration: Again, Sherlock is perhaps drawing from his own experience and memories, and tries to continue psychoanalysing John.

[Running a scenario where John’s emotional state in most of TLD is contrasted to how he feels after the Hug]

Result: After the intimate hug scene, where John cries on Sherlock’s shoulder (without hugging him back, mind you!) we’re supposed to get a ‘happy ending’ feeling, right? And yes; at first we learn that John seems “so much better”, and his new therapist (=Euros = Sherlock) expresses her pleasure with this.

But, scratching a bit on the surface, this overly optimistic image falls apart quite quickly. They may have solved some issues, but the main ones are still unanswered. Sherlock is “back to normal” again, or at least he’s taking cases. And yes, he’s clean-shaven and tidy, he no longer appears high but rather his usual irritable self, and his flat no longer looks like a meth lab (’straightened up’ by Brother Brain and his spooks, wasn’t it?). Lady Smallwood (=Love) flirts with Mycroft (=Brother Brain). But it seems that Sherlock himself is still working alone; John isn’t there with him. And one of his clients says the other is channelling Satan. And then, there’s suddenly a gun in the therapist’s hand. in this episode, it’s John’s turn to get shot.

Discussion: John appears to feel better, judging by his final therapy session of the episode. But look at the ‘pool of blood’ under his feet (Eurus even mentions ‘blood on the carpet’ at this point). This rug is similar to the one Janine was lying on at CAM Tower, right before Sherlock was shot in HLV, isn’t it?

And the gun looks like John’s gun. In fact, the smoking gun (with tranquilizers??) at the end of TLD...

...is the same as in the beginning.

And the hand holding it seems like John’s hand.

John may write with his left hand, but he definitely shoots with his right. (Which by the way puts Eddie van Coon from TBB in another light. Hmm...)

The therapy session has come full circle, I believe. If Sherlock could kill himself with drugs, John could definitely do it with a gun. Let’s not forget that we have two suicidal protagonists in this show, which I read as a Romeo-and-Juliet kind of drama, interpreted by our favourite Drama Queen (hence the Shakespeare quotes in TLD and elsewhere :) ). John was suicidal already when he met Sherlock in ASiP, but Sherlock saved him merely by existing. And I think the key point here is what John says on his blog: #Sherlocklives means #Johnwatsonlives. But if Sherlock dies, so will John, most probably. So Sherlock has to stay alive to save John Watson from committing suicide, that’s the most important task that he has. And, as I’ve tried to show in earlier installments, he’s actually dying in S4. But he has to stay alive for John’s sake.

In conclusion, I think this is where Sherlock - in all honesty - has to admit that his ‘therapy sessions’ towards John don’t actually work; he’s definitely not a 'real’, competent therapist (which becomes glaringly obvious when Eurus/Elsa shoots John). Curing a limp and a tremor may be a good and useful thing, but it doesn’t actually deal with the kind of far deeper problems John and Sherlock have - both of them. Makes me wanna scream to him: “Give up, Sherlock! You’re not supposed to be John’s therapist; this is about you, not John!”

In my view, this is Sherlock expressing his frustration; he gets bored by his own fruitless scenario, and ends it all by shooting down his main ‘actor’. The session is over and we’re back to Square 1. Sherlock must now pass to the next level, go deeper still, facing his own demons. He’ll have to travel back in time, approaching his most traumatic memories. He must face Sister Sentiment...

But since this post is getting veeery long, I’m gonna have to save Sherlock’s experiments with Sister Sentiment for Part 2 of this installment. :)

(For more discussion about the therapists in BBC Sherlock, see @gosherlocked‘s meta on this topic, with additions.

(One of the best analyses of this episode that I’ve read so far was written by @loudest-subtext-in-tv immediately after TLD aired in 2017 (X).)

Tagging some people who might be interested: @raggedyblue @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sagestreet @tjlcisthenewsexy @elldotsee @88thparallel @devoursjohnlock @sherlock-overflow-error

#TLD #sherlock is john's therapist #john's gun #Sister Sentiment

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