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for-peace-war · 4 years

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No, really. Lovecraft Country sucks.

These are spoilers, but I also don’t give a shit because it’s a bad show and I hope you skim enough to fucking skip it. I took a few days to decide if I hated it enough to write this and well, I do.

I will try my best not to say “X is a bad actor,” but instead stick with the characters as they’re intended save for one particular issue.

The Story

It isn’t very Lovecraftian. And don’t take this as me saying Lovecraft was some kind of master of his craft. I think he was an absurd racist that used xenophobia as his guise for what truly horrified the sane mind. That being said, the element of the unknown is definitely the hallmark of his world and that in no way is represented in this show. It could easily be called “Goosebumps: The Black Version” and it’d be just as authentic--if not more so, really.

The story deals with the Bible (?) and magic that comes from uh, knowing the names of things. You speak a made up language and then you do some kind of confusing magic that has no real purpose or point. I sound dismissive of this because I am, to be clear. They could have just as easily had this language be something whites stole from Africans and then perverted into their own means of power (it’d be a pretty easy parralel to any number of imperialist issues left behind in Africa, huh.)

But anyway, it has a tentacle monster. I think we see a big scary octopus at one point. But the monsters are often in your face and it’s probably less scary than Stranger Things S1.

Honestly, the characters repeat “autumnal equinox” so much that I felt I was going to have a fucking breakdown. Just the writing is very empty and no one seems to really care about anyone else on the screen except for in a rare moment between the only two characters that make it far and matter.

Characters

They aren’t very good. There are tropes present, which isn’t bad at all, but the way the characters interact, speak, and in general move us through the story feels stilted, often nonsensical, and entirely reliant on the viewer assuming that the latest sentence spoken is the only one that matters.

Atticus “Tic” Freeman

A war criminal that derives his power from the white blood inside of him. Again, dismissive but true. We see this man struggle to connect pieces to a puzzle and eventually he pays the price for it, but not in the way Lovecraft would have someone pay for endeavoring beyond their realm. Rather, something about fate and a book. Look, honestly? Who gives a shit. Tic murders a woman in coldblood and it’s never really touched on. There’s a lot that could be said about militaries, oppression, etc, but we often see these characters enact violence and then the story skips merrily beyond it. So yeah, he summarily executes a Korean woman and then is later shown torturing another, but it’s okay because he feels a little bad and fucks the Korean sex demon woman. More on that later. I felt nothing for him. He didn’t have some deep animus over being a torturing war criminal. He was just kind of moving through scenes and having confusing fights with his girlfriend/baby mama.

Letitia “Leti” Lewis

This is what empowerment shouldn’t look like. It amuses me that the show claimed to subvert some kind of norms when the primary love interest (and ultimate heroine) remains the lightest skinned sister in the room. She is able to maintain the appeal of the ingenue while at the same time having the understood attractiveness of her complexion. As far as Leti is concerned as a character, she too seems to be a pretty shitty person. We hear that she has “transactional” friendships and she seems pretty much all about self-survival and rarely if ever puts up where others do. She’s a heroine in the sense that the story makes her be heroic, but it never addresses how her flaws are ultimately all self-inflicted and unnecessary. She could just not be a shitty person.

Hippolyta Freeman

Well. Hidden Figures was an excellent film, and I think that’s where Hippolyta came from. In a more serious series, perhaps she and her daughter could have had a very touching arc that would deal with survival and exceptionalism in a world that maligns you for your very being. Unfortunately, in reality she just comes off as a character that’s quirky in a world that’s also quirky and she doesn’t get to harness her power. There’s an entire episode dedicated to how she discovers who she is and the result is well, her hair turns blue and she makes robots? I think the character TYPE is great, but they misused her here in all ways.

George Freeman

Well, well. If the series had remained about George, Tic, and Leti adventuring through America and encountering sundown towns and monsters both human and otherwise, I think it’d have been okay. The issue is, they wrote this series by the numbers so George is immediately thrown away. He’s a wise and circumspect guy that has his own flaws (he has patrarchical notions built around protecting/babying his genius wife, clearly), but the flaws he has are understandable and well reasoned. George dies early on. Then he sort of doesn’t, I guess? But the fact he did was really the nail in the coffin for this series. The moment they did that, the rest just became empty strokes. A story where George witnessed the others dying and going back to his wife and daughter would have had so much more heart to it, but well. Uncle George is literally one of the few bright spots.

Ruby Baptise

Much like her sister, Leti, Ruby is a terrible attempt at showing empowerent on the one hand, and a masterwork on the other. The bad first: she’s a rapist. I’ve been called a nigger before and while it didn’t feel great, I don’t think I’d have been justified in just sodomizing the person that did it. That entire sequence was weird and they tried to hype it as her reclaiming something, when really it spoke to a disgusting and gratuitous tendency toward Ruby: she’s always too much. Ruby, IMO, should have been Tic’s love interest. In a sense. First, because Wunmi Mosaku was a very attractive woman with impressive acting chops (she’s where I’ll break my moratirum, sorry), but also because it wouldn’t be what you’d see in every other show now: light-skinned pretty sister, dark-skinned sexual eikon. And that’s the issue with Ruby there: she’s always too much. She’s sexual by existing and that isn’t necessarily to her benefit since Leti, the good one, is an actual virgin before her sudden period sex. So the narrative has already spoken as to how it views sex. Yet, because they tried to give Ruby these strange strokes, she comes out as an interesting character. She has feelings, aspirations, and dreams that she’s kept from and that’s very real. In a story about the absurd, a sense of realness is a familiar handhold to gather your wits. She’s all that, really. It’s why she has the best relationships in the show, which is AGAIN an issue, but well. I’ll say Ruby was never bad to have on screen though I was disgusted with how often her blackess (and Blackness in general!) became the source of grotesque horror.

Christina Braithewaite

This is where I get annoyed. My issue with Christina is that she should have easily been the most hated character, but they overplayed their hand with not showing how nefarious she was. In fact? Christina and Ruby’s relationship is the only meaningful, real, and understandable one in the entire series. I felt no joy during her downfall, because I didn’t really get to see her doing anything bad? Just, consider what the show is. It’s about Lovecraft’s lore, ostensibly, which treats all non (specific types of) white men like dogs. So Christina comes at it from the “white” but “woman” perspective and you know, she has moments of duality that you can say is she more white or woman here. But they don’t execute on how sinister she should be. She’s a little rude at times? Yet she is the only person to treat Ruby like she should be treated and she’s the only person that seems to have a goal outside of “the quest.” It really bothered me that she came out so well done, because either they needed to have her for two seasons and make her far more nefarious after the first, or to just make her less a force for good. She saves the characters more than a few times and pays for it by being killed when she’s at her lowest. Yeah, it’s... a weird take.

Ji-Ah

What can I say? There are depictions of sex in the series, and they’re all negative: most of Ji-Ah’s scenes, Montrose’s angry self-loathing sex with his boyfriend, Ruby’s morphic horror scenes. In the case of most of those, there’s something being said. Ji-Ah is a monster, literally, that could be seen as Lovecraftian in the sense she’s an exotic Asian woman that kills men that sleep with her. So, HBO was like “we’ll blow our tits and ass budget on her,” and she exists for a series of sex scenes and vague, inscrutable... shit, maybe SHE is the most Lovecraft of all the characters! Anyway at some point she joins the party after confusing drama with Leti because they both fucked Tic. It’s okay though, because Ji-Ah isn’t here for any of that now. She’s the one who had the best friend that had her teeth yanked out by Tic, and also who was there when he shot her other friend in cold blood, but they get over that and she’s now their friendly red panda pal or some shit. It’s fucking trash. Much like the Freemans (sans Tic), I think she’d have done great in another show. But they rushed her story and it felt less Ghost Nation (Westworld) and more Masturbation (Jordan Peele).

Diana Freeman

Confusing. A stock character (quirky kid that does art, is impetuous, and won’t take no for an answer) that is given a lot of screen time. When she sort of hijacks an episode when two ragamuffin girls chase her down and infest her or something because racist cops. Well, the story veers to her direction. What can I say? If you like 11 from Stranger Things but wanted her to have Mike’s attitude, well. Here you go.

Montrose Freeman

He could have been a good character, I guess. He seemed unnecessary and often was there purely for an x-factor of “uh?” Like, his infamous scene where he slits a two-spirit Native American’s throat after we learn that this indigenous person had just been restored after being raped by bad guys. So there’s that. Also I guess he was self-loathing so he beat his son (that may not be his son???) and also liked fucking dudes, which was I think where we were supposed to care about him. It’s like someone saw Omar was a gun-wielding desperado of drug theft and decided, “Well what made him okay is he’s gay!” But it didn’t add much. I get he was angsty but other than Tic calling him a “faggot” (one of the few good scenes between them in terms of emotion), it all seemed empty and kind of meandering. At no point does Montrose seem a part of the team. He just half-mumbles, gets angry, cries, and falls apart.

Captain Seamus Lancaster

He’s barely a character, but I need to include him for another point. He’s the “bad guy.” I guess? He uses the bodies of black men to stay alive, which is actually a really smart reference to black bodies fueling the American system, but it comes off as cheesy because it just never comes up. He’s cartoonishly bad in a way that he’s less sinister than a meme. Compare him to say, Ridgeway from Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. One’s a sinister representation of an oppressive system and the other’s well, a joke.

Racism

How could this not be a theme? The issue, as was shown with Lancaster, is that it isn’t even remotely handled with seriousness. The best scene of racism is in the first episode when Tic, George, and Leti are forced to leave a Sundown county before they’re lynched by the racist sheriff. The anticipation and animosity lead to some serious anxiety and it was a nailbiter.

But after that? White people say “nigger.” Then they get, I don’t know, raped or spit on or who knows. A lot of black people talk back to the cops anyway in the 50′s and that’s cool.

But the real monsters of the series are all black people. Let’s go through it:

Tic brutalized women in the Korean War.

Montrose killed the two-spirit person.

Ruby rapes the shop owner.

Diane crushes Christina’s throat.

Ruby literally sheds her flesh in repeatedly gratuitous acts of the grotesque.

Even Ji-Ah, who’s not black, is a monster in the literal sense. We do see the doctor that experimented on black people, but that’s about 5 minutes at the end of an episode that has a baby’s head on a man’s body so I was too busy laughing at the absurdity to take any real meaning from it.

The truth is, in Lovecraft Country, white people always should do their best to kill or keep black people down. It definitely doesn’t speak at all to any togetherness or what have you. Just, well. Magical negroes doing bad stuff because nothing can stop them.

The show misses the chances to show real horror in race. Hell, the Tulsa Riots are reduced to a backdrop for a confusing book scene. But then again, Emmett Till becomes a kind of empty reference point that we then see a white woman act out... for some reason?

Again, the only characters with any chemistry are Ruby and Christina, which is very unfortunate for any number of reasons. As far as a statement that racism is bad goes, I mean. I barely saw it. If I was a racist I’d be like hell yeah, Lovecraft was right they are dangerous.

Even when people try to indicate the horrors of it like, “Oh, the Korean War scenes are bad because we see how men are forced into the military complex!” We didn’t see a white officer say “Shoot her, boy,” it was just two black guys killing women with no care at all. And no compeuppance, so that’s cool.

The Music

Sucks. Thanks Peaky Blinders for making modern music over gif sets a thing.

Conclusion

I sure as hell would never watch it again. If I can get one other person not to, then maybe it’d be worth it. It’s not a good show. It’s not “smart,” and there’s no secret subversion in it. It’s just... bad.

I won’t post on it anymore. Please, in true Lovecraft fashion, trust me when I say that this show is so bad it cannot be comprehended.

#lovecraft country

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leafy-wings · 3 years

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i got a LITTLE bit of the dangerous gift so heres some thoughts SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

i got to listen to like 5-7 chapters

most of the time i wasnt really listening. i was trying really hard! im just bad with audiobooks

i like mink, i think she’ll become a fan favorite, and can be slotted into everyones auklet/cliff/peacemaker fan jade academy winglet

im very excited to hear more about animus magic, like snowfalls jewelry, and i heard some stuff about (jer)boa that excites me

i still think snowfalls narration is annoying but i can only hope that she suffocates her quirky quippy remarks for actual tense scenes

i still dont like cricket or bumblebee. i do like hazel though

#spoilers

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the-melting-world · 4 years

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OC asks! What's up next for Kipling? Anything in the works? Any new headcanons?

Thank you so much for sending these in. They actually help keep me on track!!!

I have been working hard trying to organize Kipling’s journey. Hopefully everything I’m about to lay out all makes sense!

As I was planning fics, I noticed that Kip’s timeline was getting in the way with the order in which I wanted to write and when to publish. So in trying to find a way around this, but still staying true to Kip’s progression, I decided to organize her experiences under different continuities.

Vulpes Animus – not really a continuity, but rather a novelization of Kipling’s relationship with Asra. It’s not connected to her route (which is scheduled to come much later). Vulpes Animus just happens to be the first story that I thought of shortly after I finished playing Asra’s route in the game. VA is currently in the “Gardener” Phase, which I try to upload once a week. There will be 18 parts in all, but I’m leaving it open to further expansion if I’m ever called back to this narrative.

Kip of Wands – all fics under this continuity will explore Kip’s understanding of the source of her unique power/magic. It will include things like her encounters with her Major Arcana patron and the breakdown of her magic and how it connects to Vesuvia’s past/present/future. Basically any fic with the theme of discovery will take place here.

Kip of Cups – all fics under this continuity will explore Kip’s relationships with LIs from the game and other fan apprentices/ocs. These relationships will include companionship, collaborations/teamwork, or romantic developments. I already have a few fics written for this, though most are offline at the moment. I suspect that this continuity will collect the most content over time. (I mean just look at all of these awesome ocs out here!)

Kip of Swords – this continuity will be where most of Kip’s personal growth takes place. Any fics where she trains and really develops her magic. Finding ancient artifacts that amplify her power. Learning how to hone her green magic from Muriel. Learning more about controlling and safely tapping into her magic from Asra. Remember all of that stuff about the secret underwater library? It’s happening right here.

Kip of Pentacles – this continuity will explore Kip’s journey as she enters her FINAL FORM. It will address questions like: How will obtaining enlightenment and mastery of her skills change/alter Kip (physically/mentally/spiritually)? How will Kip use her power to help Vesuvia? How will Kip use her power to help those she cares about the most? I might also use this continuity to explore some possible scenarios for reversed endings for her eventual route, and perhaps some face offs with the Devil or the beefed-up courtiers.

*I’m aware that there may be some overlap between the different continuities. But hey, that’s what tags are for!

New Headcanons:

Kipling has a fascination with spiders. As a gardener / small time landscaper, she comes across them quite a bit. They help keep away pests that naturally want to destroy her plants, so she’s grateful for them. She also remembers hearing a lot of silly rhymes and poems from her childhood that featured spiders as the hero, so the positive association just sort of stuck with her.

Haven’t revealed these officially yet, but Kip’s zodiac sign is Cancer! (Birthday is June 30.) Her Myers Briggs type is ISTJ

Kipling dog-ears the pages of books at the local library. She stopped borrowing books a while back. Thanks to her demanding hours, she took too long to read them and eventually grew weary of paying the fines. So if there is a book she likes, she hides it somewhere inconspicuous so it won’t get checked out and dog-ears the pages so she can find her place the next time she visits. She doesn’t feel guilty about it and doesn’t see it as harming the book. In her opinion, if a book has zero signs of wear and tear, then it hasn’t been loved.

To help her feel closer to home, Kip carries around a glass bead filled with a little seawater with her at all times. Sometimes she braids the bead into her ghost lock or attaches it to one of her piercings.

Kipling writes poems about Asra, which to her knowledge, he has no idea exist. They’re usually very brief and humorous. She tries to jot them down when Asra’s engaged in a simple task or caught up having quality, quirky time with Taro or Faust. She’s definitely written a poem or two about Faust warming herself around Asra’s mugs. And of Taro curling up and sleeping on top of Asra’s disheveled hair when he’s completely knocked out.

#thanks again!#these are so fun to answer!#random oc asks #my asks #kipling the apprentice

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athyrabunlord · 7 years

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A/N: (⊃◜⌓◝⊂) finished more concept doodles for [Animus/JobSet AU]

[Law Enforcement] [Fuurin Shrine] [Ohara Apothecary]

Ramblings Info/Background below cut:

[Fuurin Shrine]

Kurosawa Dia

The shrine maiden at the Fuurin shrine (the kanji for Fuurin literally means 'wind bell'). As the eldest of the ancient Kurosawa family, she upholds her family teachings and does her best to preserve traditions. Hence, she often gets into arguments with Ruby, who has a more open view on the spiritual matters and welcomes unconventional concepts and foreign ideas. Deep down, she is proud of her little sister all grown up and independent, though that does make her feel a bit lonely sometimes. She finds solace in the cats that often surround Kanan and Chika, and greatly appreciates it whenever Chika comes by with a few cats that are left in her care.

During the time Ruby was away traveling abroad, she grew close to her student Hanamaru. In a way, the young calligrapher filled the void that her little sister left behind, but she certainly didn’t consider her a mere replacement. Hanamaru has become a true friend and Dia values her opinions. As per her family's instructions, Dia was to give the blessed katana, the Kochou, to someone worthy of wielding it as well as using it to its greatest potential. She was told that she would know who the right person was when the time was right. Eventually, Dia determined Kanan was the one, though she didn’t explain to Kanan why she chose her. Dia considers You to be a good assistant in tasks like locating mischievous spirits that play harmless pranks on civilians, and since Kanan has complete trust in You, Dia also does the same.

The Kurosawa Family specializes in cleansing vengeful spirits or vanquishing youkais, and there haven't been any prolonged supernatural cases for generations. Therefore, Dia takes the recent events seriously and vows to get to the bottom of this. She is highly suspicious of the foreigners, especially the airy self-proclaimed blonde chemist, even more so after finding out her precious little sister's closeness to Mari. Yohane’s tricks confuses Dia to no end and even rather irritating sometimes. At least, Riko seems like a reasonable person, seemingly aloof but actually warm-hearted.

For most of the supernatural cases, her direct intervention wasn’t needed. The ofuda/talisman imbued with her powers is more than enough. She would dress in her ceremonial robes to perform miko dance; there has yet to be any youkai that could defy this purifying power. Additionally, the winds would answer her call and heed her commands. However, this also causes great strain on the spellcaster’s body, so Dia would only resort to this if necessary.

Matsuura Hanamaru

A calligrapher learning the Art of Sealing - using the fudepen, she is able to create wards to keep off the lesser malevolent spirits, or confine the stronger ones on parchments until those with spiritual powers (such as Dia and Ruby) can purify them. She is proud to be Dia's student and both Kurosawa sisters' friends. She tries to be understanding and supportive of each sister's viewpoints, and thus encouraged Ruby's desire to travel abroad while remaining by Dia's side to provide companionship. When Ruby left on her trip, she missed her dearly and worried for her constantly, and most of that worry was transferred to her adopted sister Kanan. Kanan sometimes (fondly) remarks that she nags like Dia does. The similarity makes her happy, as she's always admired Dia and wanted to be like her. Even then, she continued to wear her hair in a ponytail like Kanan does.

She grew up with her grandparents in a secluded temple, but they passed away when she was just a little girl. Lost and scared, she remained in the temple and lived off of what remaining food the pantry had. Before things became dire, an older girl came by the temple in hopes of finding food and water. Kanan had lived off of the streets as long as she remembered, and she wanted to settle down at a place close to the sea. After Kanan invited Hanamaru to come along with her, the little girl decided to leave the temple behind and they traveled to many places until they reached Uchiura. It was by luck that they inadvertently helped out the aging Chief Inspector Matsuura in one of his errands, and he decided to adopt them after hearing their story. Kanan underwent intensive training to succeed him, while Hanamaru decided to learn more of the spiritual world at the Fuurin Shrine. A part of her still feels guilt for leaving the temple, but she does not regret her decision.

Since she is petite, her unusual strength always surprises people who don’t know her. Perhaps it’s due to being Kanan’s adopted sister or something, but she is able to carry her giant fudepen and utilize it fluidly, no problem (sometimes even uses it like a club…). She is quite protective of her family-like friends, so she is also skeptical of the trio from Ohara Apothecary. Riko seems an okay person, and Ruby always talks highly of Mari, so that just leaves the incomprehensible errand girl Yohane. At least, her magic tricks are entertaining zura.

Kurosawa Ruby

Apprentice alchemist. As a Kurosawa, she is naturally intuitive to spiritual matters, and she does take great pride in her family name. However, she also worries for her older sister Dia, who abides by rules and traditions and is practically confined to the family shrine. The heiress has to remain on shrine grounds and its perimeter in order to conserve the shrine’s full power. Ruby doesn’t believe in sacrificing one’s happiness, least of all not her sister’s, just because tradition demands it. She wants to learn and see more of the world, and surely there is a way for mikos to retain and utilize their powers regardless of location. In spite of Dia’s disapproval, Ruby left Uchiura and traveled abroad.

The journey was exciting albeit a little frightening. She grew to be so much more independent and confident throughout her trip, but she truly found her calling when she met a quirky scholar named Mari. Mari, however, is actually an alchemist searching for an item that can make the impossible the possible, a concept that enticed Ruby. Mari was intrigued by the spiritual ways, which acted like a catalyst for many chemical reactions, and so she took Ruby under her wing for a while as an apprentice. Before they parted ways, Mari promised to come by Uchiura one day and they could reconvene.

After Ruby returned to her hometown, she continues to study alchemy and attempts to hybridize the two very different disciplines, much to Dia’s displeasure. She sometimes shares her discoveries with Hanamaru, as well as You, Chika and Kanan whenever they visit. When Mari finally comes to Uchiura as promised, Ruby is happy but also conflicted by Riko and Yohane’s involvement in Mari’s quest. While it is good to have more members to their cause, it also presents the issue of fairly distributing their discovery, whenever that may be. Ruby doesn’t like such thoughts and hopes that she never has to choose between her sister or her teacher-friend. Sometimes she has the urge to exorcise Yohane even though she’s pretty sure Yohane is a human...

#athyra doodles #Animus JobSetAU #kurosawa sisters #azalea #minor diamaru mariruby #I had fun with maru XD #orca what did u do to her #very smart wooby #still cinnamon roll tho #both sisters are #maru so ain't lmao #prankster brat #orca mikan yosoro are bad influence lmfao #they close #guilty kiss concept doodles when X'D

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