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#but most of it happens in fiction because fiction is inherently rife with it. heres these things you feel like are alive that arent
batmanisagatewaydrug · 5 months
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reading updates: october 2023
hi everybody!!! things (by which I mean everything) have been a little bit hectic lately (by which I mean it feels like everything is one fire 100% of the time), which I guess explains why I'm late posting this AND why I only finished four books in all of October.
I would be very sad about this if the number of books I read had any correlation to my value as a person, but luckily it doesn't! so I don't give a shit, I am literally just vibing and trying to have a good time reading my silly little stories. here's a book report about it.
what I've been reading:
The Goblin Emperor (Katherine Addison, 2014) - okay, so picture this: you're the fucking elf king's least favorite son. you're not a bastard, but he didn't love your mom and after she died he basically banished you to a miserable little estate in bumfuck nowhere with no one but your abusive older cousin for company. probably he was going to leave you out there forever and hope that you would die quietly so no one would ever have to remember you existed. (un)fortunately, your shitty dad and all of his male heirs just died in a blimp accident and now you're the emperor. GOOD LUCK. this book is political fantasy of the highest order, with loads of machinations and intrigue and chewy worldbuilding interspersed with genuinely sweet moments between characters as one very good boy befriends his way to power. blah blah empires are inherently evil, obviously yes but this is a made up empire with 0 real consequences and Maia is my little dude. the only way I could love him more would be if he'd just nutted up and kissed his boy secretary on the mouth.
Happy Hour (Marlowe Granados, 2020) - I kept seeing this book enthusiastically as kind of a light fizzy funtime celebrating being young and free and running around New York City with no plans, and man... that was not my experience! Isa and Gala are maybe the most stressful girls I've ever encountered in fiction: perpetually broke and hungry, absolutely lacking in direction or ambition, always ricocheting listlessly from one situation to another in search of a good time and mostly only discovering disappointment, I need these girlies to get their lives together for my sake as a reader. there's one scene in particular where Isa is crashing with some disgustingly wealthy friends at the beach and keeps getting callously dismissed while sweating profusely and trying to figure out how she's going to convince them to keep paying for her food and it was so visceral that I developed a second, worse anxiety disorder because of it. Granados' writing is stylish, to be sure, but drama was not worth it for me.
The Magpie Lord (KJ Charles, 2013) - this historical fantasy romance is quick, dynamic, and horny. I can't actually say that I'm particularly charmed by the quality of the writing, which is there to hurtle you at warp speed between scenes of homoeroticism and bald exposition about magic, but I do admire Charles' panache. the book opens on a rather gruesome scene of our protagonist, Lord Crane, attempting to slit his own wrist; it quickly becomes clear that this isn't because he's genuinely suicidal, but because he's been cursed by persons unknown in an attempt to drive him to ruin. enter Stephen Day, a magic practitioner who hated Crane's deceased father and brother but is determined to help him all the same. some plot happens, but also a lot of flirting and (spoilers) sex that comes with an actual power-up for Stephen due to the wonders of blood magic. a pulpy good-time all around, and short enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome.
The Fervor (Alma Katsu, 2022) - The Fervor is a historical horror with a tantalizing premise: in the 1940s, Japanese demons begin to manifest inside of an Idaho internment camp for Japanese-Americans, adding a swirl of the supernatural to a situation that's already rife with mundane horrors. the actual execution is... lacking. Katsu's prose is blunt at best; when I call it "unsubtle" I don't mean the way some racist might mean when they inevitably go on a ramble about how Katsu beats her readers over the head with how racism is bad. racism is bad, duh, and it's hardly unrealistic to emphasize the fear and hatred that dogged the lives of Japanese-Americans during WW2. when I say this book is unsubtle I mean Katsu approaches each chapter like her readers have maybe forgotten everything they read leading up to that moment; you will be reminded frequently of characters' names, relationships, and straightforward motivations. and yet, somehow, the actual plot is still pretty murky. much is hinted at in the protagonist's past in Japan, then never actually elucidated, a main POV character falls clean out of the plot without resolution just before the climax, I still don't know what was up with those goddamn demon spiders. disappointing!
there was also one very specific, GLARING thing in the ending of The Fervor that I did not care for in the slightest, but that's tucked away on my Patreon in the monthly hater post. pay me if you want to hear about some CRAZY copaganda!
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nbraraeaves · 3 years
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“‘let people enjoy things’ okay well I enjoy criticizing things checkmate athetits” look. as someone who literally does this for a living rn and is pursuing my doctorate in doing so, there’s different variations of this, and I think certain segments of the internet have a bit of a problem getting them confused:
- there’s dissecting the problematic elements of a text, as mentioned in my pinned post. this is discovering what systems and hierarchies the text upholds in both its text and subtexts, talking about who the text(/author it’s complicated) thinks it’s addressing and who it’s inherently not addressing at the same time. Ofc all texts are going to be problematic in some way as they aren’t made in a vacuum, and are representative of the flawed people who make them, but it’s always important to know these different ways. this stage can be filled with emotion - some people are just fucking tired!! of this shit happening all the time!! - but it doesn’t always have to be, it can just be a discussion of “so here’s what we see, what do we make of it.”
- Then there’s whether these elements can be changed somehow to prevent these attitudes from being as entrenched if not somehow magically eliminating them altogether, which is usually where transformative work comes in, but as we all know fandom is rife with its own issues that tend to be reflective of the text itself + whatever societal baggage fans are bringing to the table, etc. This is where my specific kind of research comes in - I’m interested in “Reparative Reading,” a la Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, in which marginalized readers find spaces in a text produced by a society that does not emotionally or spiritually sustain them (and often works against them in those aspects) where they can in fact feel sustained somehow bc they identify, enjoy, or somehow ~vibe~ with something we find there. it’s not a perfect metaphor but whenever I as a bisexual nb person see something in fiction I like and go “damn that’s bi as hell” even when it isn’t, that’s reparative, baby!! Not all texts are going to be found reparative by all people, as Competiting Needs is a thing that exists and no one text can perfectly soothe and address all the damage Society(TM) has done, so it’s v much a form of picking and choosing what works. This stage I’m writing about is something that, to me is filled with love - for one’s self, one’s community, whatever parts of those things people see reflected in those aspects of the text they want to salvage and change somehow. I’m esp interested in this in American media post-9/11, which I usually focus on in horror movies but if I’m not careful I might just blather on about it in the MCU since that’s what I tend to be fiddling around with rn.
“Paranoid reading,” the opposite (or at least parallel) of reparative reading, is kind of like the first mode I outlined but maybe not exactly. (There’s lots of gray areas and imprecise things here, you get used to it.) It’s the mode we as people dissecting media probably are taught to spend the most time in both academically and culturally, where we read a text in an apprehensive way expecting those problematic elements from the word “Go,” rather than just allowing them to present themselves. This is also fine - it’s a natural response to, again, living in a society that only holds up certain types of people, so we can therefore expect other types of people who are not the first type to be put down. We feel like we’re looking for these things because we totally expect, with good reason, to find them. That can also be an emotional process, and that’s fine.
- Then we have the type I usually tend to see in v online spaces, which I call “Whatever the Fuck is Happening in an ‘Ant!- (Anything)’’ Tag.” This is Paranoid reading on steroids and four loko, it feels like, if you’ll forgive the v millennial reference. This is criticism... Grotesqued, I guess, usually hyper-emphasizing any problematic element as a purposeful and malicious slight against a certain group rather than the fumbling missteps of a person/group of people trying to tell a story with the broken lenses they have been handed through precedent and upbringing in aforementioned Problematic Society. Think about how tumblr went from “hey for a long time historians often mischaracterized queer people bc they were working within a v heteronormative structure” to a narrative of “No One Hates Gays More Than Historians and Archaeologists.” This is generalizing the thing and people who interact with or participate in the thing to an unmitigated degree, often to a point not supported by what we actually see reflected IRL. This is also usually where people take the things we find repulsive or unethical in real life and tend to draw a 1:1 correspondence between their presence in fiction and a causational relationship with reality, even when there’s often evidence to support otherwise. This is also really worrying to me for two reasons in particular:
1. there are a lot of people, particularly young people, who seem to build their whole online personality around loudly and performatively hating these things, which honest to gods just isn’t healthy. It can’t be. You don’t have to like these things for various reasons (just not liking it being an extremely valid one!), but actively seeking out and interacting with this thing you hate to decry and disavow it in a public space to define yourself for a long period of time at least had to physically fuck with you in some way. I’m not a med student by any means, but I imagine the aggression/fight brain chemistry it activates probably isn’t meant to be sustained for as long as these people are trying to sustain it - like trying to sprint a whole marathon. if you find yourself interacting with something you hate more than with things you love... like a) why? and b) don’t you feel a little exhausted? kinda bleh?? kinda sad all the time?? I’m genuinely concerned here.
2. a lot of people conflate people’s real life activism and beliefs with their fandom presences, and that shit is often more complicated than it’s allowed to be recently. we went from interacting transformatively with texts in an IRL then online fandom context that was still intertwined with politics, but wasn’t taken to be a direct cipher for that person’s personal identity or belief system. I get it, late stage capitalism has us conflating what we consume with who we are and what we support, ergo how we ‘’’vote with our [currency]’’’ - but as someone who’s been a PhD student in literature for literal years now, the more I learn, the more nuanced I think our relationship to fiction actually is. Fiction, to simplify it as much as I can without totally squishing what I’m trying to articulate here, is often our space to work out or explore or imagine shit that’s just impossible or would upset too many stakes IRL. This flattening of how we talk about someone’s relationship to it, much like the flattening of the relationship between fiction and its affect on reality, is probably going to fuck us up somehow down the line in ways we haven’t even figured out yet.
now of course, that’s not to say that pieces of media can’t be outright malicious towards marginalized groups, and that those can’t have an effect on our social mores, but people tend to conflate missteps in a show/book/podcast/whatever to outright propaganda, which is dangerous, bc propaganda by definition has a very different set purpose than your typical fast and furious movie, and that’s a whole other conversation that I don’t want to type right now bc I’ve already spent too fucking long on this post that probably no one will read, but that’s fine bc at least I got to spin this out a bit.
tl;dr (don’t blame you) - there’s a difference btwn people going “hey we should talk about how the American military/imperialist mindset influences a lot of our recent media and how that’s Not Great” and “I watch this show every week bc I think this character is the Literal Worst and I hate them, but if you watch it to enjoy it I’m blocking you and you should immediately die in a jail fire uwu” and a lot of people online seem to think they’re doing the former when they’re really only ever doing the latter.
I enjoy criticizing and picking apart media so much that I’m literally taking the time, effort, and pains to figure out how I can keep doing it as my career for the rest of my life, and then pass that on to other people who want to learn. But I also made this sideblog (originally) bc that doesn’t mean I don’t want to have fun with it anymore, and maybe more people should... try that, idk. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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dajokahhh · 3 years
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Alright, time for some pretentious sociological-esque rambling. This is gonna be long as hell (its 1822 words to be specific) and I don’t begrudge anyone for not having the patience to read my over-thought perspectives on a murder clown. CWs for: child abuse, 
I think a lot of things have to go wrong in someone’s life for them to decide to become a clown themed supervillain. A lot of people in Gotham have issues but they don’t become the Joker. I think that as a writer it’s an interesting topic to explore, and this is especially true for roleplaying where a character might be in different scenarios or universes. This isn’t some peer reviewed or researched essay, it’s more my own personal beliefs and perspectives as they affect my writing. I think villains, generally, reflect societal understandings or fears about the world around us. This is obviously going to mean villains shift a lot over time and the perspective of the writer. In my case, I’m a queer, fat, mentally ill (cluster B personality disorder specifically) woman-thing who holds some pretty socialist ideas and political perspectives. My educational background is in history and legal studies. This definitely impacts how I write this character, how I see crime and violence, and how my particular villains reflect my understandings of the society I live in. I want to get this stuff out of the way now so that my particular take on what a potential origin story of a version of the Joker could be makes more sense.
Additionally, these backstory factors I want to discuss aren’t meant to excuse someone’s behaviour, especially not the fucking Joker’s of all people. It’s merely meant to explain how a person (because as far as we know that’s all he is) could get to that point in a way that doesn’t blame only one factor or chalk it up to “this is just an evil person.” I don’t find that particularly compelling as a writer or an audience member, so I write villains differently. I also don’t find it to be particularly true in real life either. If you like that style of writing or see the Joker or other fictional villains in this way, that’s fine. I’m not here to convince anyone they’re wrong, especially not when it comes to people’s perspectives on the nature of evil or anything that lofty. Nobody has to agree with me, or even like my headcanons; they’re just here to express the very specific position I’m writing from. 
The first thing I wanna do is set up some terms. These aren’t academic or anything, but I want to use specific and consistent phrasing for this post. When it comes to the factors that screw up someone’s life significantly (and in some instances push people towards crime), I’ll split them into micro and macro factors. Micro factors are interpersonal and personal issues, so things like personality traits, personal beliefs, mental health, family history, where and how someone is raised, and individual relationships with the people around them. Macro factors are sociological and deal with systems of oppression, cultural or social trends/norms, political and legal restrictions and/or discrimination, etc. These two groups of factors interact, sometimes in a fashion that is causative and sometimes not, but they aren’t entirely separate and the line between what is a micro vs macro issue isn’t always fixed or clear.
We’ll start in and work out. For this character, the micro factors are what determine the specifics of his actions, demeanor, and aesthetic. I think the main reason he’s the Joker and not just some guy with a whole lot of issues is his world view combined with his personality. He has a very pessimistic worldview, one that is steeped in a very toxic form of individualism, cynicism, and misanthropy. His life experience tells him the world is a cold place where everyone is on their own. To him the world is not a moral place. He doesn’t think people in general have much value. He learned at a young age that his life had no value to others, and he has internalized that view and extrapolated it to the world at large; if his life didn’t matter and doesn’t matter, why would anyone else’s? This worldview, in the case of my specific Joker, comes from a childhood rife with abandonment, abuse, and marginalization. While I will say he is definitively queer (in terms fo gender expression and non conformity, and sexuality), I’m not terribly interested in giving specific diagnoses of any mental health issues. Those will be discussed more broadly and in terms of specific symptoms with relation to how they affect the Joker’s internal experience, and externalized behaviours.
His childhood was, to say the least, pretty fucked up. The details I do have for him are that he was surrendered at birth because his parents, for some reason, did not want to care for him or could not care for him; which it was, he isn’t sure. He grew up effectively orphaned, and ended up in the foster care system. He wasn’t very “adoptable”; he had behavioural issues, mostly violent behaviours towards authority figures and other children. He never exactly grew out of these either, and the older he got the harder it was to actually be adopted. His legal name was Baby Boy Doe for a number of years, but the name he would identify the most with is Jack. Eventually he took on the surname of one of his more stable foster families, becoming Jack Napier as far as the government was concerned. By the time he had that stability in his mid to late teens, however, most of the damage had already been done. In his younger years he was passed between foster families and government agencies, always a ward of the government, something that would follow him to his time in Arkham and Gotham’s city jails. Some of his foster families were decent, others were just okay, but some were physically and psychologically abusive. This abuse is part of what defines his worldview and causes him to see the world as inherently hostile and unjust. It also became one of the things that taught him that violence is how you solve problems, particularly when emotions run high. 
This was definitely a problem at school too; moving around a lot meant going to a lot of different schools. Always being the new student made him a target, and being poor, exhibiting increasingly apparent signs of some sort of mental illness or disorder, and being typically suspected as queer (even moreso as he got into high school) typically did more harm than good for him. He never got to stay anywhere long enough to form deep relationships, and even in the places where he did have more time to do that he often ended up isolated from his peers. He was often bullied, sometimes just verbally but often physically which got worse as he got older and was more easily read as queer. This is part of why he’s so good at combat and used to taking hits; he’s been doing it since he was a kid, and got a hell of a lot of practice at school. He would tend to group up with other kids like him, other outcasts or social rejects, which in some ways meant being around some pretty negative influences in terms of peers. A lot of his acquaintances were fine, but some were more... rebellious and ended up introducing Jack to things like drinking, smoking cigarettes, using recreational drugs, and most important to his backstory, to petty crimes like theft and vandalism, sometimes even physical fights. This is another micro factor in that maybe if he had different friends, or a different school experience individually, he might have avoided getting involved in criminal activities annd may have been able to avoid taking up the mantle of The Joker.
Then there’s how his adult life has reinforced these experiences and beliefs. Being institutionalized, dealing with police and jails, and losing what little support he had as a minor and foster child just reinforced his worldview and told him that being The Joker was the right thing to do, that he was correct in his actions and perspectives. Becoming The Joker was his birthday present to himself at age 18, how he ushered himself into adulthood, and I plan to make a post about that on its own. But the fact that he decided to determine this part of his identity so young means that this has defined how he sees himself as an adult. It’s one of the last micro factors (when in life he adopted this identity) that have gotten him so entrenched in his typical behaviours and self image.
As for macro factors, a lot of them have to do specifically with the failing of Gotham’s institutions. Someone like Bruce Wayne, for example, was also orphaned and also deals with trauma; the difference for the Joker is that he had no safety net to catch him when he fell (or rather, was dropped). Someone like Wayne could fall into the cushioning of wealth and the care of someone like Alfred, whereas the Joker (metaphorically) hit the pavement hard and alone. Someone like the Joker should never have become the Joker in the first place because the systems in place in Gotham should have seen every red flag and done something to intervene; this just didn’t happen for him, and not out of coincidence but because Gotham seems like a pretty corrupt place with a lot of systemic issues. Critically underfunded social services (healthcare, welfare, children & family services) that result in a lack of resources for the people who need them and critically underfunded schools that can’t offer extra curricular activities or solid educations that allow kids to stay occupied and develop life skills are probably the most directly influential macro factors that shaped Jack into someone who could resent people and the society around him so much that he’d lose all regard for it to the point of exacting violence against others. There’s also the reality of living in a violent culture, and in violent neighbourhoods exacerbated by poverty, poor policing or overpolicing, and being raised as a boy and then a young man with certain gendered expectations about violence but especially ideas/narratives that minimalize or excuse male violence (especially when it comes to bullying or violent peer-to-peer behaviour under the guise of ‘boys will be boys’). 
Beyond that, there’s the same basic prejudices and societal forces that affect so many people: classism, homphobia/queerphobia, (toxic) masculinity/masculine expectations, and ableism (specifically in regards to people who are mentally ill or otherwise neurodivergent) stand out as the primary factors. I’m touching on these broadly because if I were to talk about them all, they would probably need their own posts just to illustrate how they affect this character. But they definitely exist in Gotham if it’s anything like the real world, and I think it’s fair to extrapolate that these kinds of these exist in Gotham and would impact someone like The Joker with the background I’ve given him.
I have no idea how to end this so if you got this far, thank you for reading!
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aion-rsa · 3 years
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Shadow & Bone: Ranking the Ships
https://ift.tt/3ve46aI
This Shadow and Bone feature contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 1.
Netflix’s Shadow and Bone adaptation is rife with excellent shipping options. Adapted from Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse YA book series, there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to romantic relationships. Whether you’re into the Enemies to Lovers vibes of Nina and Matthias (aka Helnik), the Slow Burn angst of Inej and Kaz (aka Kanej), or you just like to see Jesper having fun with the hot stableboy, Shadow and Bone has you covered. In the interest of covering the wide swathe of romantic ships on this show, and recognizing that everyone has their own subjective taste when it comes to storytelling, Den of Geek editor Kayti Burt and Den of Geek contributor Lacy Baugher are teaming up to discuss loving the love of Shadow and Bone. Welcome to our discussion, and feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments below…
Question: What was your favorite ship in Shadow and Bone Season 1?
Lacy: Matthias and Nina are my favorite ship in the books, and my favorite ship in Shadow and Bone. I’m actually kind of surprised by this though, because there are just so, so many ways that their storyline here could have gone off the rails and been truly awful to watch. Instead, their connection is really natural and develops carefully throughout the season. (I was really afraid it would just be some insta-attraction, but that’s not what happened at all.) 
From Nina’s capture and  imprisonment aboard what is essentially a Grisha slave ship bound for Fjerda to Matthias over the top hatred of her “kind,” there’s just so much goodness for those fans— like me, lol—who love a good enemies to frenemies to OTP forever style romance. They’re both so good for each other, and I love how thoughtful the show is about showing us how they’re each expanding one another’s experiences and worldview. Also, waffles!!! 
Kayti: From the get-go, I was pretty much all in on Alina and Mal (aka Malina), which surprised me because they are… fine in the book. The decision to play this romantic connection as so obviously reciprocal from the beginning, even if Alina cannot see how Mal feels about her (and maybe vice versa), was so smart. In the first half of the season, which was the weaker part of this story for me, the yearning between these two is the narrative aspect that kept me emotionally engaged, even when the Little Palace stuff wasn’t as interesting.
Lacy: I love how hard Alina fights to go with Mal into the Shadow Fold in the first episode. That isn’t the way that happens in the books (they’re both basically just ordered to go) and that choice sort of crystallizes for me all the right things that this series does with their relationship. They’re both really active about how much they mean to one another and are constantly fighting to either stay together or get back to each other, I find that so romantic.
Question: What was your least favorite ship in Shadow and Bone Season 1?
Lacy: I find the idea of Alina and the Darkling (aka Darklina) really off putting for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that his desire for her is almost completely and utterly self-serving. I know there are a lot of Shadow and Bone fans who love it for whatever reason and I support anyone shipping whatever they need to ship. (Also, Ben Barnes is certainly a looker.)  But, for me Alina deserves better than a man who seems to think he has some kind of right to her simply because their powers are similarly spectacular and rare. It is fully not Alina’s job or responsibility to save this man from his own darkness or loneliness or however he would describe the many moral failings that he expects her to somehow magically cure.
Plus, well, he’s a remorseless murderer who is basically trying to take over the world. But even if he wasn’t, the Darkling is still someone who lied to and manipulated Alina for his own selfish ends, and then forced her into compliance with his desires against her will. There is truly no aspect of that story that’s romantic for me, and I think trying to pretend that he’s in some way good for her is downright dangerous at points. 
Kayti: Yes! It is not Alina’s job to fix the Darkling. She deserves support and love now, not some time in a possible future when she has managed to coach Aleksander through his pain. (That being said, Ben Barnes is an utter delight and I love him.)
I will say that, even though I don’t personally like this ship, I love how the series handles it. As a story, I don’t think the adaptation really ever romanticizes this relationship as anything other than what it is: a toxic, manipulative dynamic that, for Aleksander, is always about power and never about love. The series’ contextualization of their relationship (it only ever briefly entertains the idea of these two as a proper couple) honestly feels somewhat radical, especially because Alina/the Darkling is such a popular ship in the novel.
Additional note: I am not here to murder anyone’s ship. If you’re into the Darklina of it all, I say go for it. Shipping fictional characters is different than perpetuating toxic dynamics in real life, and if shipping Darklina brings you joy, I say go for it!
Question: Which ship gets the “Most Improved” award from the books?
Lacy: 100% Mal and Alina! I’ve written about this at some length already, but I’m honestly a bit stunned by how well the show adapts this relationship for the screen. I did not expect it, but I love it and I honestly can’t wait to see how the show handles the events of the second book.
Mal and Alina’s relationship is so much more complex and interesting here than it is on the page, from the changes to their shared history (Mal and Alina aren’t just from the same orphanage, they’re both the only mixed race kids there who get bullied for being part Shu-Han) to the increased depth Mal’s presence throughout the story lends to his character. These two make so much sense as a couple here, and it’s all very natural and earned to me – and doesn’t at all come off like they’re only together because they books say they have to be.
Kayti: Agreed! The adaptation made Mal a protagonist in his own right, outside of his value as a romantic interest for Alina, and it made their relationship so much more interesting to me. Getting to see Mal fight to get back to Alina, all while she thought he had given up on here, was quite powerful.
Lacy: Right? Like Mal is also…fine in the books, but he really comes into his own as a character for me here. I know part of that is just that the books are primarily Alina’s POV so she can’t know what she doesn’t know when it comes to him, but the downside is that Mal really comes off as a jerk at multiple points. (Like, oh, now he’s suddenly jealous of the Darkling? What?) 
Plus, I just love the repeated imagery of them choosing each other, not just once, but everyday. That’s what real love is, in my book—the decision to be with someone that’s a constant, conscious part of your life that you choose to uphold in big things and in small.
Question: Which ship has the most potential to be The Best Ship moving forward?
Kayti: As someone who has yet to read Six of Crows, I was very into the Inej/Kaz dynamic, which is more of a pre-romantic relationship in this first season. I love the angst of a Slow Burn, and I imagine this is one of the benefits of bringing in the Six of Crows characters ahead of the main plot of their books: we get to see how these characters’ relationships develop before their arcs come to fruition, or even properly begin. I also am glad these two didn’t start anything when there is the messy power imbalance inherent in Kaz paying off Inej contract. This will still be a factor moving forward, but feels less squidgy when Inej has the option of leaving.
Lacy: I think that the answer is probably also Mal and Alina? I can’t quite figure out how Shadow and Bone will incorporate the elements from Six of Crows moving forward so I’m not sure how big of a piece those characters will play in any second season—though don’t get me wrong, I am very much looking forward to however Nina manages to get Matthias out of Hellgate prison. 
But, given the tensions that arise between Mal and Alina in the book Siege and Storm, I’m very curious to see how—or even if—the show handles/presents some of them. I fully expect that the more layered presentation of Mal we saw here will play into this, and I think that’s going to make a real difference in the story. (Which, unfortunately, often comes off on the page like romantic conflict that exists for the sake of propping up a love triangle.) 
Question: OK, rank your ships. Go!
Kayti: Why did I give us this question? It’s so hard! And now, since gushing about Mal and Alina at the beginning of this conversation, I have talked myself into Inej and Kaz as my #1. Plot twist! This just goes to show how many great romantic relationships (and other kinds of relationships) there are in this show. Here goes…
Kaz/Inej
Mal/Alina
Nina/Matthias
Jesper/that stableboy
That ship they all end up on at the end
Genya/David
Alina/Aleksander
Lacy: There is Matthias and Nina and there is everyone else. 
This show has made me a hardcore Malina shipper though. So that’s new and exciting! 
I do have one shipping-related complaint, however, and that’s that Genya and David are a favorite pairing of mine from the books and I am truly not sure that they exchange more than a dozen words in the entire first season of the show? I fully believe there are viewers who probably can’t even easily identify who David is. (Unless you’re armed with the book knowledge that he’s the one who fuses the stag’s antlers to Alina’s shoulders.) 
Kayti: Yeah, justice for Genya/David.
I love how much you love Nina and Matthias, and also think your enthusiasm has kept me from writing too much about them in favor of highlighting other ships. But let the record show: I am here for these two. Of the Six of Crows crew, they had the best and clearest arc, which is how their connection manages to support a whole subplot all on its lonesome. I wrote about this in our other Shadow and Bone conversation article, but these two give me Jon Snow/Ygritte vibes in the best possible way (hopefully, they get a better ending!), but I haven’t mentioned that watching them share that floating detritus post-shipwreck helped soothe the Titanic trauma I still hold from watching Jack freeze to death because he can’t fit on that door with Rose. (Um, Titanic spoilers.)
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Shadow and Bone Review: Netflix Adaptation Brings the Magic
By Lacy Baugher
TV
Shadow and Bone: Why Netflix Cast Its Fantasy Adaptation With Relative Unknowns
By Kayti Burt
Question: Any final thoughts?
Lacy: Romantic or no, I just love the care that Shadow and Bone takes with all their relationships. Nothing happens on screen simply because it does in the books and everything feels really organic and true to who these characters are. 
That’s not easy, and there are a ton of shows—let alone adaptations—that are really, really bad at it. Shadow and Bone is really good at it, and I can’t wait to see what happens as things get more complicated from this point forward.
Kayti: The relationships on this show, brought to life by this charming and talented cast, are the heart of this adaptation. So many epic fantasy series brought to the screen bring the world or the plot without giving us a reason to care about the people, and that is a dealbreaker for me. One of the strengths of YA has always been the prioritization of relationships and emotional interiority, and to see those narrative priorities brought to the screen in an epic fantasy story makes me so happy. 
Lacy: It’s such a rare thing, when you find a show where you can literally ship almost everyone in virtually any sort of arrangement or permutation, but if the entire cast just suddenly decided to make out I would not be mad. 
Kayti: The perfect conclusion to our conversation… and the show?
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lucyreviewcy · 4 years
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Made in Chelsea - S02 E09
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In this episode, Caggie takes misc Frenchman on a tour of London. Spencer is mad at Caggie for not wanting to be with him, so cuts her out of his life. Amber throws a fundraiser for the Chelsea Pensioners and raises less money than she probably spent on breakfast that day.
Richard Ellis wrote in 2009 that as television proliferated throughout the twentieth century, audiences developed an increased awareness of emotionality in TV shows. By the time he was writing, which is handily close to the inception of MIC, he noted that public figures were trained to “present the appearance of sincerity.” He also comments on the way that TV dramas don’t actually allow their characters much closure, often resolving one issue amid a sea of other problems. As a constructed reality show, MIC is a tangy, sweet and sour combination of factual and fiction, mixing up these two elements to create a kind of sincerity that is completely unique to the show. 
One of the things that sets MiC apart from other reality/constructed reality shows is that it lacks the confessional interview clips that have provided the world with so many gifs of the Kardashians. In other shows, these are usually first person interviews in front of green screened backgrounds, where the characters discuss events in the present tense as if they are reacting to the story as it unfolds. This allows the characters to demonstrate what they’re learning and how their feelings are evolving through the course of the narrative. For Richard Ellis, characters learning as they go is important. He notes that this offers the audience a “secular form of salvation”, where characters achieve “redemption through socialisation.” 
But MiC doesn’t have confessionals. 
In fact, have we seen any of our posh pals do any learning throughout these episodes? Let’s go through a few examples:
Binky (lovable Binky) and Cheska’s tiff over Hugo. This is an interesting example. Binky distances herself from Cheska after Cheska’s meddling in Milly and Hugo’s relationship causes a ruckus in the group. We have a few episodes where Binky and Cheska, rather than being our favourite dynamic duo, appear in separate scenes or in stilted confrontations. Following her holiday in Morocco with the Jamie/Spencer/Millie crowd, Binky returns to Cheska and Ollie. The relatable crew are back together again. Binky apologises to Cheska. So has she learned anything? Not really. Perhaps Cheska and Ollie have learned to value Binky as a part of their group? But overall, the conflict arises, but by the end of the story arc, the status quo is resumed. By this episode, Cheska and Binky are back to their old tricks of drinking together and making mischievous phone calls to help Ollie research his book. Relatable they may be, but they haven’t gone on a learning journey, and nobody has been redeemed here.
Hugo and Millie’s cheating saga
Hugo and Millie both cheated on each other during their brief relationship, but they eventually reconcile and become friends again. Or do they? Millie begins her relationship with Hugo when Hugo is more interested in Rosie, and sees Rosie as a rival. Rosie rejects Hugo, so he gets together with Millie. Millie cheats on Hugo. Hugo cheats on Millie. Millie and Hugo agree to be friends. Millie still likes Hugo. Millie sees Rosie as a rival. 
Millie, in particular, doesn’t appear to have learned anything. There’s certainly no symbolic redemption arc for either of them because Millie’s treatment of Hugo when she finds out he’s a big cheater is completely undermined by the fact that she is also a big cheater. 
In real life, they’re married now. So I guess nobody learned any lessons here at all.
Spencer and Caggie… again… I mean the subtitle here says it all. This series is rife with circular storylines; Caggie and Spencer are no different. The storyline follows this pattern: Caggie is not interested in Spencer, Spencer is interested in Caggie, Spencer professes his love for Caggie, she’s still not interested, Spencer decides to be mean to Caggie, Caggie is not interested in Spencer. Oh look, you’ve gone all the way round, collect £200 for passing go. 
The series arcs are repetitive, and characters leave each episode in pretty much the same state that they left it. What is it about Made in Chelsea that allows it to get away with this?
Ellis writes that “Reality TV shows encourage speculation about sincerity and the limits of permissible behaviour”, and suggests that the audience gain entertainment from speculating about the sincerity of the characters involved. But as I’ve talked about previously on this very blog, most of the characters on the show come across as naturally incredibly insincere. I think of MiC as a very pretty fiction, but I never feel like the characters are being their true selves.
Is it possible that the reason MiC is so successful despite its inherently insincere cast is that there is something fascinating about the idea of a world with no consequences? The way that the characters in the show behave is predictable. Spencer will pursue Caggie, Millie will flirt with Hugo, Rosie will wear hats. These are not complicated characters. Watching the show is a little bit like watching different games of chess each week. What happens when you put this character in this conflict with this character? But at the end of every series, the characters are put back in their neat lines, perfectly intact and unchanged. 
By “limits of permissible behaviour”, Ellis refers to the discussions audiences have about the moral and ethical decisions that the characters make. We use these shows to develop and understand our own morality. By making the statement: “Spencer is a bad person”, and then having to give the reason: “because he doesn’t respect Caggie’s boundaries and treats her like property”, I’m expressing my beliefs about how people should interact. While I don’t believe these stories are occurring organically, I do find them helpful as a chronicle of what was acceptable ten years ago compared to what is acceptable now. We watch our favourite toffs bounce off each other and come to blows, and we use their actions as examples to justify our own way of living. By saying “I think Spencer is a bad friend to Caggie”, I am saying “I recognise that this is not a good friendship, and wouldn’t treat a friend that way.” My dislike for Spencer reinforces my own beliefs, because he behaves in a way I find morally objectionable. 
Ellis points out that all reality TV shows are also a safe playground for discussing and expressing your beliefs. There is enough distance between the viewer and the character for us to comfortably discuss these complicated ethical structures without getting caught in the crossfire. If a friend says to me that they love Spencer, I would disagree with them. We wouldn’t be discussing our morals and ethics, though, don’t worry - no reason to get heated - we’d be discussing Spencer. 
This has been an unusually long post for what is, let’s face it, a ranty little blog about posh misogyny, but I’d like to finish by pointing out one thing. Ellis was writing in 2009, before social media really got its grubby little fists out and started pummelling the world into submission. It used to be much safer to explore your own beliefs by discussing the actions of characters in TV shows, but social media becomes a free for all battleground for shouting your opinions into the void. Rather than exploring our objections to characters and storylines, we all to often write them off as “problematic”, without delving into the problems that make them that way. Mass media is made for a mass audience, and it is good for it to start discussions, but all too often we use our love/hate for a specific piece of media to symbolise our ideologies. I like watching Made in Chelsea. It doesn’t make me a Tory. It doesn’t make me a capitalist. It doesn’t make me sexist. It makes me a person who likes watching Made in Chelsea. In the same way, liking Lizzo doesn’t make you a feminist, and liking Joker doesn’t make you a gun-totting clown. We should not use our media consumption habits to define ourselves. They should spark discussion, they should cause us to evaluate our beliefs, but they are not who we are. 
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theliterateape · 4 years
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Democracy Post-"Impeachment": Dead, But Still Heartsick
By Dana Jerman
The following essay was originally written and performed for BUGHOUSE! #40 in Las Vegas at the Bunkhouse Saloon on February 10, 2020. The topic of debate was Democracy Post-Impeachment: Dead or Alive? Dana Jerman went up against Joshua Fisher. Jerman lost the argument.
It does not make me happy to be arguing this particular topic, and especially to be offering anecdotes that speak to this side of it. I do this with great reluctance. It brings me no pleasure whatsoever to consider recent events, which feature a shyster head official operating freely under the current law. To ponder the negative elements brought about from our collective suffering under the effects of getting pushed out, our voices drowned out by the weakly-elected, drastically unqualified few.
Democracy: The mother load of loaded words in this day and place.
In this scenario where the Huxleyian disruption is taking hold, there is certain chance that more than our money- our pleasures and pains and very souls of now and far flung future then, are damned be recruited to power the GAFA conglomerate: Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. These are your newly elected leaders, my people. Now it’s up to you to accept or attempt to block their deliciously toxic elements from your feed.
We cannot separate our lives from politics. Unfortunately, if the ideology of democratic thought is dead then so are we. 
The bright side to this breakdown, if there could be any at all, (and smash-the-state anarchists with their direct action modus would disagree with me entirely here because they know it is your very life that is at stake and I surely love them for that) is that, because of the inflated bureaucracy in place, the breakdown of the laws of living in this land, initially based on the spirit of liberation and the decency of the common man, as the systems meant to bulwark them fall slowly away and out of place, they will go the way of the dodo in an extremely slow and agonizing fashion. Not with a bang but a whimper.
Thomas Jefferson suddenly comes to mind, as he referred to knowledge in his thoughts and writings as “Light.”
You best believe when our forefathers were sitting in a Philadelphia courthouse day after day for months during a sweltering summer trying to birth this country, every minute felt like a pressure-cooked eternity of Light.
Knowledge as Light. Light as Power. Light is rife with truth, striking as uncommonly uncomfortable…
I have the sinking feeling all the time that democracy is dead because of people like me. People who are terribly interested in freedom and liberty and rights, but possess sheer contempt for most everything else that surrounds it.
Have any of you ever seen the documentary A State of Mind about the mass games phenomena in North Korea? It’s not a new film, I think I watched it sometime in 2006, so Bush Jr. Administration frustration was high. It is an incredible piece of filmmaking, and moreso for what it says about the people who are in it—namely beautiful, starving athletes who possess such a pride for their country and its high-handed kingdom, that they work themselves to a noble premature death for it.
Mass Games are a rally designed to please a “great leader” and his glorified family. The kicker in the film is—we don’t even think this fucker and his heinous haircut, Kim Jong whomever, even showed the fuck up. 
However, I found myself genuinely in tears after watching it, (not too long after that I read Nothing to Envy By Barbara Demick and donated to libertyinnorthkorea.org) and I said to my partner at the time, “As much as I know this too to be an empty, blind sentiment, the people touched me. I wish I could genuinely be as proud and openly supportive of the leader of my country as these people are. I earnestly wish I could have that pride and joy and sureness of purpose, and confidence in my country’s chosen leadership.”
I can tell you about the precise moment I dropped out for good. You probably have a moment like this, too in your life where you realize, “I have better tools and more faith in my instincts, I don’t need any more of this.“
I dropped the ball completely. Like, not off-the-grid checked-out, but no more news really of any kind. No more investing in a modern world outside of what fiction I chose to read and what my friends were into and my parents and immediate family and what was happening in my own daily life… 
I was in Martyrs Bar and Grill music venue in Chicago on Lincoln Ave around 2010. We were there to see Jah Wobble. In between sets talking to my boyfriend of a few months who was also a few years my senior, we began a dialogue about past presidents and political decisions and for the first time, with the help of his lens, I zoomed out a bit and began to see with more clarity the truth inherent in this sick myopic democratic cycle. A pattern had emerged which meant society would be held hostage to this unthinking loop for as long as it had memories to make to forget. The push of progress would be stymied by the pull of nostalgia. The chicken-or-the-egg conundrum result of a two-party accident of existence would go on hijacking our national consciousness and conversations forever and ever.
And when this dawned on me, I didn’t feel betrayed or offended like I did after watching A State of Mind, so much as I felt duped and mostly ridiculously at a loss for not understanding this aspect of our grotesquely ludicrous and obesely encumbered farcical government sooner.
Now grok this:
Democracy is dead.
But it has not lived in vain.
As Thomas Jefferson might say “Long live our Light.”
Long live what remains of our Constitutional Republic.
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