#the poem itself and the author's explanation says it all

[skylarbee]

milex and a poem

i read this poem and shed a few tears because it reminded me so much of them, because it is so them... so i invite you to suffer with me.

Friends with No Benefits, Megan Fernandes, Poem-a-Day, 2023

I now replace desire  with meaning.  Instead of saying, I want you, I say,  there is meaning between us. Meaning can swim, has taken lessons from the river  of itself. Desire is air. One puncture  above a black lake and she lies flat. I now replace intensity with meaning. One is a black hole of boundless appetite, a false womb, another is a sentence. My therapist says children need a “father” for language  and a “mother” for everything else. She doesn’t get that it’s all language. There is no else.  Else is a fiction of life, and a fact of death. That night, we don’t touch.  We ruin nothing.  We get bagels in the morning before you leave on a train,  and I smoke a skinny cigarette and think  I look glam, like an Italian diva. You make a joke at my expense, which is not a joke, really,  but a way to say I know you.  I don’t feed on you. Instead, I watch you  like a faraway tree.  Desire loves the what if, the if only, the maybe in another lifetime.  She loves a parallel universe. Or seven.  Meaning knows its minerals, knows which volcanic magma belongs  to which volcanic fleet. Knows the earth has parents. That a person is raised.  It’s the real flirtation, to say, you are not a meal.  To say, I want you  to last. 

+

the author said this about it:

“This piece is about a friend. We drink martinis and talk poems all night. We have an energy easy to mistake for desire but that might instead mean something more earthbound. Desire is instructive. But she’s often instructing us toward some edge, toward some abyss. As I get older, I’m re-narrating the intense feelings I have for some people that don’t take the form of ravenous, cosmic, and consuming intimacies, but intentional, rooted, and durational ones. What’s better than the dumb luck of living at the same time as someone you truly admire? It’s so mortal and random. No cosmos could compete.”

#it's from miles' perspective too... #the night when they don't touch; the bagels before alex leaves; the cigarette and feeling like an italian diva; the joking; #the watching; the 'maybe in another lifetime'... #yeah #i don't have to say any more do i? #the poem itself and the author's explanation says it all #it's from a site called 'poets.org'. you can subscribe to their 'poem-a-day' and you'll get a new poem every day via email #i can only recommend it #alex turner #miles kane #milex #poem #friends with no benefits #megan fernandes #milex and

[poeticpains]

I would love to make an Escape the Night fanzine one day (here's a good explanation as to what a zine is, for those unaware). This isn't a call to action or anything; I'm just musing.

I think fanzines are fantastic parts of fandoms, especially fanzines that incorporate a lot of fanfic. It sometimes feels like people think of zines as art-focused, but they don't have to be! And as a fanfic author who has made fanzines for other fandoms, it's an incredibly validating feeling to hold your own writing in your hands. (Speaking of that, I'm currently working on teaching myself to bookbind, and hope to bookbind my fanfic for this fandom one day, if I ever can.)

Keep in mind that I'm not talking about the fancy fanzines I always seem to see floating around Twitter these days — I'm talking about the old-fashioned, copied-on-a-library's-copier, hand-folded and hand-distributed six page zines of old.

If I made an ETN fanzine, I think I'd put some of these in it:

Art

Fanfic (especially short stories, as these work very well in zine format)

Poems

Fake news stories about the events of Escape the Night (I'm using these in my writing, and have found they're very fun to create)

Messages from the Society Against Evil/references to the Society Against Evil, as if it's a journal from them (this could be a zine in and of itself!)

An additional bonus to making fanzines is the concept of preservation. Though I'm relatively sure that AO3 isn't going to go down or delete all my fanfiction, one can never be too safe. Fandom content has been lost before in events like Strikethrough, and I don't want that to happen to us. A physical copy of my favorite art and writing (or your favorite art and writing!) is another extra buffer between the ephemeral nature of content and the inevitable decay of internet spaces.

Anyways, before I get too wanky about fandom history, I'll end this post by saying that if you want to make a zine, message me. Maybe we'll figure something out!

#escape the night #etn #escape the night season 3 #escape the night season 2 #escape the night season 1 #fandom zine #§ zines

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Celeste, the angel

Sherlock. You don't have to answer to me. That's between you and God.

That is a long word, but it has a short history: it comes from a German, a late Christian writer named Schiller. The name means "spiritual," but only the German meaning, and I am going to use the name Celeste for the purpose of this essay. The word has its origins in the Book of Genesis, in one of the world's first accounts of the creation of the world, where the word is used of God's first act, "Let us make man" (Gen. 1:26). God calls his first man after Himself, "Celeste," then lets him run free, to "rule the earth."

It is, in itself, a noble word, but it is a very old one. The first known use is in a poem by the German poet Gottfried August von Leibniz, and the poem is called Der Steppenwolf ("The stepping stone wolf"). (Googling "Celeste von Leibniz" will give you some more details about the poem and its author.)

It was a long time before other people started to use the word in a textual sense. I do not mean to disparage the people who had to be first. I do not mean to diminish the importance of their work. But by the time the der Steppenwolf was translated and used by English-speaking writers, the poem was a thousand years old. I am not sure if the Book of Genesis was much younger when the word "Celeste" got its start in that book, though my intuitions say yes.

I feel like I know more about Gottfried August von Leibniz because of the poem, which was not so far from the German for me, a language I do not speak. He is a more distant and more revered figure, and more of a German. I have a vague feeling that it was a lot more difficult to translate a poem about a wolf and a woman into English when the name of the woman was a phrase like "the most noble of women" and the language you were translating into was a language that did not exactly look like it had been written for this exact purpose. Gottfried August von Leibniz was probably very good at poetry, but he didn't know how to use English in the best way: he would have written a word like "Celestina," which is a perfectly valid English name if you're in the habit of transliterating foreign names to English, but a mistake if you are trying to do the name justice.

There is a certain dignity to being the first person to try to capture a poem or a word with an English name for it, but there is also the other side of the medal: being first is not an entirely safe position, in this case because it took a long time. You can't just pick up a word, any word, and use it to name a new subject. Once a word has a textual history it is almost certain to have many other textual histories behind it, from translations to misinterpretations to uses you never knew about. I was reading an article about the word "Celeste," and I realized that it came from Leibniz's poem Die Zauberflöte (Magic Flute), a kind of fairy-tale-as-opera with some fairy tales as instrumental (not as incidental) parts. It was probably not the first place the word "Celeste" showed up, though.

You may feel that this is rather a personal, even childish interest, and that is true. This is the sort of thing that children get deeply fixated on. There are a few possible explanations for this, but the one I believe is that children have a natural tendency toward pattern recognition, toward thinking about connections and patterns. That means that they're inclined toward stories and symbols and patterns and relationships that can be seen and understood by a child. They love these things, because they are the basis of their world.

And they want to know where everything comes from.

Celeste is a perfect word, and people have been wanting to talk about what kind of a word that is ever since there have been human beings who cared enough about what kind of a word that is to write anything down at all.

And then the internet came along. For a long time, the most important feature of the internet was not its speed or its convenience or its anonymity, but its abundance. On the internet you could find almost anything. Anything you could think of, you could find. Anything you could think of could be put online, by someone, somewhere. For a time, it seemed possible that all the thinking, all the talking, all the reading, all the art, all the entertainment, all the ideas, all the beauty and the terror of human life could be put online.

Then that ended. The internet became a place for the things people could not put online.

It became a place where people could share their lives, and their deepest pain, with the entire world, but still do it with the security of anonymity. It became a place that the police could not use against them, a place you could be as evil as you wanted while still hiding behind the screen, and you could be as alone as you wanted while still talking with others.

But that kind of anonymity has costs.

No place has perfect safety. We all know this. No place has perfect security. We all know that, too. The internet has been used since its creation for all sorts of harmful acts, all sorts of cruel things.

But that doesn't mean it's not useful.

There is a place on the internet where people can speak to one another without the risk of being exposed. This may seem like a simple fact, but it is actually kind of astonishing in the way it is so often ignored. The internet has become a place where people can say what they want to say, and know they will never be exposed (not in the sense that they are not observed, or not reported).

The internet has become the perfect place to say and publish what you don't want people to read.

And that is very useful.

Some of you have read my essays about Tourette Syndrome and Tourette's-related social difficulties; some of you know my family's story. My uncle used to have tics (now his tics are under control), and people who didn't understand that kind of difficulty could not understand him. The internet created a place for him to say what he wanted to say, and to know that people would never read it. Now he can make the kind of jokes that he wants to make without people being scared by the prospect of tics and Tourette's being used against him in court.

That's not true for everyone,

[nation-of-bros]

"three men passionate anal sex alternately"

So apart from keyword-summarized run-of-the-mill ramblings, it can't do anything special. And as soon as things get more interesting, i.e. sex, the built-in morality filter comes into play. BORING! :D

ChatGPT – a Sledgehammer with Potential

I'm trying out ChatGPT right now because everyone is talking about this "miracle AI" program. My first impression: It is very useful for displaying information in a summarized form and can save a lot of work instead of writing boring texts that are of no literal value: reports, expert opinions, dry scientific papers without new knowledge on a specific topic, or simply descriptive texts about products. Basically, the program does nothing other than summarize information from different sources and provide certain variations according to some sophisticated random functions, so that different texts are always generated for the same input terms. The only thing that impresses me is that the generated texts are so correct and coherent in terms of content. I tried it out with a few chemistry topics. For instance, I let it generated a summary of different models on the formation of complexes and could not fault it at all.

I think for science and engineering fields it is an excellent tool; or simply for Lorem Ipsum filler texts on websites that don't even have to be replaced. :D

However, the program does not replace real literary art. When I want a story about two men, all I get is boring stuff, created using random variables along with a lot of dime novels as sources, obviously. It's not real intelligence, just a program that simply summarizes content according to complex algorithms and huge amounts of background data. Ultimately, there's no real creative consciousness behind it, and that's also my general criticism of the current AI hype, where everyone pretends it's real intelligence, fueled by the AI researchers babbling nonsense like "the AI learns" what in reality is nothing more than feeding a highly complex algorithm with a lot of data. Basically nothing more than customizing an application in the user settings, just on a different level.

In education, writing on some subjects as homework has long since become a matter of copy and paste, since virtually everyone has a PC and Internet access. ChatGPT merely represents a continuation of these possibilities, but nothing new. In the future, teachers need to demand more independent thinking instead of expecting scientifically precise explanations about something that a program can generate too. In German class at high school, I was forced to follow strict rules when interpreting poems, analyzing "linguistic means" like a scientist. The more silly Latin or Greek terms I processed that corseted and deadened my own thoughts, the more the teacher experienced an orgasm when reading my stuff, which eventually culminated in a better grade. But I wasn't really proud of it, especially since I doubt Geothe was thinking, as he wrote his Faust, "Ah, I've got to add a oxymoron here, and an alliteration there." The mere thought that the author of a literary work was writing from a gut feeling seemed too far-fetched at school.

AI programs, which can generate such interpretations of poems strictly according to textbooks at the push of a button, are finally forcing us to question the general approach when we ask for little else in school than things that a machine can do. This is not to say that we should unlearn mental arithmetic because a calculator is much better, but that more real creativity is required. So I see AI programs like ChatGPT as a welcome sledgehammer to expose all this ramblings, with or without Latin decoration, as uncreative, reproducible with no added value.

The new software will inevitably lead to the coercion that the quality of human texts has to increase in order to justify itself. Therefore, when writing, one's own thoughts, conclusions, ideas must be in the foreground, which no machine can generate from existing data. If professional groups such as journalists are threatened by ChatGPT, then they should rather seriously question their previous work, which is obviously of such a trivial nature that it can be written by an automatism.

Since the result depends on the amount of input, the data in the background, typical system opinions are "pre-programmed" for political and social issues. Additional moral filters show that ChatGPT is not an objective thing. Ultimately, it's not much different than Wikipedia, where scientific and technical articles are quite useful, often also classical philosophies; but as soon as it gets more subjective, Wikipedia propagates the "politically correct" opinion. So if I schwurbel at ChatGPT, the program spits out the desired system opinion:

This proves conclusively that ChatGPT isn't intelligent, let alone think for itself! 🤓

But it also means that you can turn the tables by feeding the program with data for a "bro correct" opinion. It would be a brilliant thing to create our own "Broish artificial intelligence", even though it's actually just a dumb chatbot. Nevertheless, I'm always open to new technologies because you can pervert anything for your own purposes. *rubbing hands madly

#essay

[banji-effect]

If—and the thing is wildly possible—the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line

"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes."

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History—I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened.

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it—he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand—so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman* used to stand by with tears in his eyes: he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, "No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm," had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words "and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." So remonstrance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.

As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the "o" in "worry." Such is Human Perversity.

This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard words in that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.

For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards "fuming," you will say "fuming-furious;" if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards "furious," you will say "furious-fuming;" but if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious."

Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the well-known words—

"Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!"

Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or Richard, but had not been able to settle which, so that he could not possibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that, rather than die, he would have gasped out "Rilchiam!"

*This office was usually undertaken by the Boots, who found in it a refuge from the Baker's constant complaints about the insufficient blacking of his three pair of boots.

Lewis Carroll, Preface to The Hunting of the Snark

#carrolliana #<3 #such is human perversity

[lokilysolbitch]

SYMBOLISM ART

hey bbygworls for anyone who is like me and did not fucking understand english class and symbolism i have a simple explanation

okay. light bulb. think what are light bulbs associated with. light. it helps you see. inspiration. ideas ("lightbulb going off above your head").

if you are writing or reading or drawing a guy who had an idea. maybe the guy will be under a light bulb. in writing, the author may say he is under a lightbulb. you will read is and say "why did they specify that?" if youre asking that, they probably wrote that in for a reason. the reason may be symbolism. if a guy is drawn in a dark room, and he is under the only light bulb in the room, OR if hes in a well lit room but the light above his is especially bright, it might be symbolism. if he is the only guy in the drawing standing under a lightbulb in a room with lots of lights, even if that placement puts him in an awkward placement in the drawing, it might be important. maybe symbolism.

okay. new word. break. what is that associated with. its violent. it could be loud, or accidental. lets compare it to snap. snap is a clean break. its quick. its contained. break, in comparison, is explosive. messy.

so we have the light bulb, symbolising an idea. what if the light bulb breaks?

the idea didnt work. it blew up in someones face. messily. the light bulb is broken? the idea is gone. its out.

so say you want to express in art that a guy used to have an idea, but it backfired bad. instead of writing "he had an idea and it failed", you might have your character get the news that his idea is going wrong, and a light bulb breaks above his head. ooh foreshadowing. you can draw a character with a concerned or disappointed or fearful expression reading over a plan or a blueprint and a broken light bulb is hanging above his head. in a poem instead of saying "my idea is bad. oh i am sad" you can say "light bulb broken, wires smoking"

there you go. i am sorry high school teachers try to explain this to you with old old books. it is hard to learn how to do this when you are busy the whole book translating things like knaves and joint stools into modern english. of course you will be less familiar with what a spindle symbolises. you have never used one and it is also 7 am on a wednesday.

okay practice question. what could a burning blanket symbolise

blanket- comfort, familiarity, warmth, childhood, home, protection (because kids feel safer under blankets)

fire- destruction, light, warmth but much more heat then a blanket, cleansing (in the way it burns everything until there is nothing. like a clean slate). its also associated with passion, creativity, or anger by a lot of people

with all these associations this could mean a lot of things but the first thing to come to mind would probably destruction of comfort, or of your childhood, or of your feeling of safety and what is familiar.

if you wanna REALLY get into it, you could say it is warmth and comfort, but to the point it gets so hot it burns and destroys itself. like the consequences of staying too long in your comfort zone. idk

you may have had other ideas for associations, and those aren't wrong if they weren't in the list. symbolism is subjective and you had a creative interpretation. sorry they take off points for that in school.

i very hope this helps you create and consume art. it hits different once you know WHY the artist put things in places. art gets much more magical, including your own work.

as always i did not proofread this

#art #symbolism #english class #english literature #art analysis #literary analysis #songwriting #creative writing #poetry #tagging this autism bc it was the autism that made this difficult for me to learn #autism #photography #film #cinema #artist #this really does apply to a lot of things #dreams #psychology #tarot #witchcraft #okay im out of ideas but there are probably more #my lightbulb is fizzling out

[unfoldingmoments]

How to Read and Why

We read not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space, time, imperfect sympathies, and all the sorrows of familial and passional life. You can read merely to pass the time, or you can read with an overt urgency, but eventually you'll read against the clock. Bible readers, those who search the Bible for themselves, perhaps exemplify the urgency more plainly than readers of Shakespeare, yet the quest is the same. One of the uses of reading is to prepare ourselves for change, and the final change alas is universal. Read not ro contradict and confute, nor ro believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. - Sir Francis Bacon The pleasures of reading indeed are selfish rather than social. You cannot directly improve anyone else's life by reading better or more deeply. I remain skeptical of the traditional social hope that care for others may be stimulated by the growth of individual imagination, and I am wary of any arguments whatsoever that connect the pleasures of solitary reading to the public good. Interview: Unless you read deeply and in your own interest, Unless you explore what is the most profound in what has come before you then you will never get down to the recesses of your own self.

You never learned what Ralph Waldo Emerson rightly called self trust and self-reliance and most deeply you never will heal the self.

I think that in a culture which has all of the peculiar difficulties and complexities of the one currently developing around us, there is nothing more profoundly healing in the act of solitary reading provided that what is being read indeed permanent, deep, lasting work.

Work that calls for all of your faculties in response work that calls you out of your own deep as it were work that transform you that is to say Shakespeare, Dante, Dickens, Jane Austen. We knew who these authors are, we neglect them I think at our own potential debasement. --- Even some of the best, simply have not read enough. Reading is in the end even though one doesn't want to discourage reading groups which do good works. But reading is in the end of solitary activity. You're not really learning I believe how to speak to other people when you are deeply engaged in reading Shakespeare/ Dante/ Cervantes. You're fundamentally learning how to speak to yourself, you're learning how to listen to yourself, you're learning the discipline of yourself. You are indeed in the act of discovering yourself. Some kind of preparation needs to be made before you have a young individual with the incredible, the endless range of the Internet coming at them all at once. I mean they can't just as it were surf endlessly, None of us live forever. There's only so much time in the end to read. Our time is limited we read against the clock, we read ultimately in the shadow of mortality and I think it does matter immensely what you read and how you read it. I have moved by idealism and have some residual idealism in myself but I think there are enermous obstacle now I think that the tyranny of the visual is a frightening thing. The next idea is to defend the idea of individual genius itself and of potential genius. I think it's absurdly pushed aside. The public to some degree does the universities have long since abandoned it and explained it away on the basis of one historical factor or another. Ie. Saying that Shakespeare is the product of certain historical forces as it were this is not a very good explanation. Because then one wants to know why Thomas Middleton or some other contemporary of Shakespeare John Fletcher or Fisher the same kind of force was not equally historically benefited. To possess something by memory to really read a poem hundreds of time because it can sustain hundreds of readings to read a poem like the great anonymous poem the greatest anonymous poem in the language atomic bedlam song or which I mean to hold in your heart and your memory. ---

POEM:

A Shropshire Lad, XL A. E. Housman 1859 – 1936

Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those? That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot come again.

-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Ulysses, published in 1842, has been called the first true dramatic monologue. After Ulysses, Tennyson's most famous efforts in this vein are Tithonus, The Lotos-Eaters, and St. Simon Stylites, all from the 1842 Poems; later monologues appear in other volumes, notably Idylls of the King.

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour’d of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

   This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,— Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, ’Tis 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.

- Harold Bloom, "How to read and why" Youtube Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVWiwd0P0c0

#haroldbloom #howtoreadandwhy #book #quotes #poem #poet #aehousman #ashropshireladxl #ulysses

[largethingslargerthings]

Meditative Week of Poetry

My most profound religious discussions came from speaking about poetry.  Even from silence.  Going to a Quaker meeting house where nothing was said except the sound of birds outside or passing cars on the highway...I remember reading that Kafka thought of his act of writing as a prayer...there´s something so fitting about the indirectness of poetry when it´s good.  It seems like a religious act.  Like prayer.  Meditation.

In a recent New Yorker article, the poet Pádraig Ó Tuama said, “The more I think of the Bible as art rather than obligation, the wilder it´s become”.  If I replace the word “Bible” with the word “God”, then the sentence strikes me deeply.  God has always been, despite whatever outward declarations I felt or feel compelled to make, art.  God is not arranged in a hierachial relationship, dangling me above the earth, awaiting the precise moment to yank me back up again; nor is God a metaphor for my deeper self.  God is the nexus of things happening around me, accumulating within and against me and things that seem to be parodixcally waiting to be instantiated (not past or present or future but something outside the three).

God has always been very personal to me because I have the suspicion that I never created God.  I´ve never found that explanation satusfactory.  It sounds so arrogant.  God appears like a waiting room sometimes.  At other times (to borrow from Ocean Vuong) God is like a season.  (I think of Elijah standing at the mouth of a cave as God passes in a whisper and he hides his eyes.)

The entity, the reality or (perhaps even...) the experience of God moves like art.  It seems like it´s always reforming itself according to an invisible meterology.  Not obligation.  Obligation was how you threaded God through power, how you pulled the loom tight and made it to produce...  

The poems this month are about the practice of threading God through things.  This act of threading has more to do with creation than systems of authority or structured metaphysics.  People are meaning-making folks.  Patterns are inheritely part of meaning-making.  Do you create them?  Have they always been there?  Or, do they exist for a moment and, in the moment that you see them, if you say or do nothing, they disappear; the door closes and all access to God with it.

These are the conditions for inspiration, epiphany, which are connected to art just as much as to God.  This is what these poems have done to me: they leave that door open for a few seconds longer.  Enough to hear the whisper pass.  When it does, you are in a different room entirely. I hope you enjoy them.

#mwp #meditative week of poetry #pádraig ó tuama

[accio-victuuri]

You know what time it is!!!! ⏱

A rundown of important points from today’s candies. same disclaimer applies, it’s all speculation. If you’re familiar with LRLG, you’ll know that we just treat this as ff and not real. Well, till we get proof otherwise. BXGs make connections because of other clues before. It’s up to you if you believe this or not. Let’s go! 💪🏻

• I already pointed out the same brand of clothing A Cold Wall. I just love seeing GG wear other brands and this casual ( but still hella expensive ). Looks like this is at the same hotel, good thing he wore something different. should we expect another batch recording? LOL.

• The poem GG shared, < A Wish > is just so him isn’t it? Aside from having a cat- it also speaks of a simple life that he dreams for himself. I wonder if that’s what spoke to him. I expected him to read something by a Chinese poet tho.

In our entire sunny world. I have but one wish, a garden bench. A cat sunning itself.

There I would sit. A letter at my breast. One small single letter. That is what my dream looks like.

I looked up this poet and it’s nice to think that GG has read her other works too. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

• Now let’s talk about the main thing here which is the LRLG rumor. ( full english translation ) Compared to the other contributions where it’s super long and has conversations, this one is just a line from a poem. Mimicking GG’s douyin post where he recites a poem. I honestly still don’t know how these submissions work and the mods probably will never share that. I mean, we know that there was gonna some poetry related thing coming out with GG on it but what are the odds.

1. The line/ poem shared was from Wang Xiaobo's collection of short stories called "Green Haired Water Monster". Green. Okay. It is one of his earlier works and was only published after his death when one of his friends contacted his wife and told her he had the manuscript.

In the novel, there is a plot in which Chen Hui (the male protagonist) and the demon (the female protagonist) talk about poetry:

It rained during the day, but at night it was very cold and there was no wind, and the result was rain and fog. It was getting dark early. The windows of the buildings along the street sprayed with a cloud of white light. On the street, mercury lamps illuminate the sky with a white mist in the middle of the day. People and cars appear and disappear in shadow. We walked to the bus stop 10. Under a few dim street lights, people felt like they were underwater. As we walked wordlessly, the demon suddenly asked me, "Look at this night fog, how do we describe it?"

I ghosted God to make a poem and read it out at once. You know, I didn't think I had a talent for poetry at all.

I said, "Demon, you see, what does that mercury lamp look like?" Large clumps of dandelions floated on the river of the street, swallowing soft needle-like light. ”

The demon said, "Good. So what about us walking on the sidewalk? What about this dim street lamp? ”

I looked up at the street lamp, which cast its dim light all the way to the ground through the hazy fog.

I said, "We seem to be at the bottom of a pond, walking from one moon to another."

The demon suddenly cried out in surprise, "Chen Hui, you are a poet!"

Can I just say how this whole thing about a monster in the mix is totally on brand for Xiao Zhan? Lol. We know how much he loves a tinge of horror or supernatural. Whoever this LRLG is, he does it so well. If it’s GG, well. We will never know.

Anyway, the main explanation for the line : the general meaning is that in the vast sea of trillions of people, two lonely and beautiful souls are so lucky to meet. 🤍 Y’all can make interpretations of your own based on the text from the story above. I can’t believe this fandom got us interpreting literature like we’re in school.

BXGs are also bring back the fact that GG was seen holding one of this author’s book which is Silent Majority. I found one excerpt from that work and it’s interesting. 🏳️‍🌈

2. In that contribution, there is a photo of the moon and it appears to be similar to one of GG’s artwork. There is a whole CPN about Boxiao and The Moon here as well as the song The Moon represents my heart if you have no idea why BXGs love the 🌙 symbolism.

3. There is a known fake rumor house contribution that talks about them having a small notebook that they pass to each other. Now that we see this poem, some BXGs are thinking that one thing we can see there are lines from books GG has read. This way, he can share things with Yibo or he can read it when they are apart ( and vice versa ).

Even in the early hours of the morning waiting for the show, Mr. Wang misses Mr. Xiao. I saw him flip through the small book, so he must have been thinking about it.

Mr. Xiao gave Mr. Wang a small notebook. I don't know what's inside, but Mr. Xiao said it's very convenient to carry.

I have never talked about this here but if you watched OOL ( filmed 2019 ) there was a part there that LZX gave a small notebook to GW. It contained her ideas for their dates and etc. My BXG senses were going haywire when I watched this cause it reminded me of the fake rumor ( which was first shared like 2020, it’s made an appearance a few more times even before anyone watched ool. ) I’m wondering if GG got the idea from there and decided to apply it to him and Bobo. It’s just so romantic of GG. Nowadays, everything is sent in electronic messages but here he is, making an effort to write things and keep a physical connection between them.

4. The fake rumor was posted 19:28, still love Bo. It is also the 28th contribution, love Bo.

5. My favorite part is the last where it says three months of summer, to meet frequently. Does it mean they will get to spend time? Please! 🙏🏼 or will we get their dramas or some kind of content? lol. tbh i prefer that they both get to spend time together.

That’s all folks! I’m sure I missed some minor clowning but the ones I mentioned are those being talked about and I’ve looked into. 🤍

sources:

https://m.weibo.cn/status/4761510599722209?

https://m.weibo.cn/status/4761502848390495?

https://www.laitimes.com/en/article/3jvfq_40kgj.html

https://m.weibo.cn/status/4761499564511293?

https://m.weibo.cn/status/4761500320007893?

chrome://external-file/chinaperspectives-3483.pdf

#bjyx #yizhan #clowning and cpn bye #cpn thoughts #i love the text design in this GIF #i thought it was gonna be a chill saturday but NOPE

[nectarofthegods-j]

✧･✧Love Poems That Represent Your Relationship✧･✧

Enhypen’s 02z Love Poems That Represent Your Relationship-----❥

♡ ´·ᴗ· `♡ yes...its been two months. anyways, i got caught up in life and the new year blah blah blah. please enjoy this!!! all the poems provided below are not mine!!! they belong to their respected authors!!! 

✧·ﾟ: *✧·ﾟ:* *:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧

paring: enhypen 02z line x gn reader

genre: love, romance, poetic 

warnings: none

written on: Feb 28 2022

✧·ﾟ: *✧·ﾟ:* *:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧

❥ jay:  “Looking at the Moon and Longing for a Distant Lover” by Chang Chiu-Ling, China (A.D. 673-740) ➳

“The moon, grown full now over the sea,

brightens the whole sky,

bringing to separated hearts

the thoughtfulness of the night.

I blow out the candle

to enjoy the clear radiance,

and put on my coat

for I feel the dew grown thick.

But since I cannot give you

a handful of moonlight,

I shall go back to sleep

hoping to meet you in a dream.” 

❥ jake: “Falling From The Night Sky (a song)” by Joy Harjo (from An American Sunrise: poems) ➳

...“My heart wore flowers and a red dress.

The first time we kissed

You smelled of happiness and moonlight

We drove the night to tenderness. 

When you’re here we are the sun and the moon.

In the land where promises come true,

When you’re here, we share imagination

No explanations.

It’s just me, and you.”

❥ sunghoon: “Bird-Understander” by Craig Arnold ➳

...“Of many reasons I love you here is one

the way you write me from the gate at the airport

so I can tell you everything will be alright

so you can tell me there is a bird

trapped in the terminal  all the people

ignoring it  because they do not know

what to do with it  except to leave it alone

until it scares itself to death 

it makes you terribly terribly sad

You wish you could take the bird outside

and set it free or       (failing that)

call a bird-understander

to come help the bird

All you can do is notice the bird

and feel for the bird       and write

to tell me how language feels

impossibly useless

but you are wrong

You are a bird-understander

better than I could ever be

who make so many noises

and call them song

These are your own words

your way of noticing

and saying plainly

of not turning away

from hurt

you have offered them

to me       I am only

giving them back

if only I could show you

how very useless

they are not”

✧·ﾟ: *✧·ﾟ:* *:·ﾟ✧*:·ﾟ✧

#park jongseong #enhypen jay #enhypen #sim jake #jake sim #park sunghoon #sunghoon park #enhypen smut #enhypen suggestive #niki nishimura #nishimura riki #jungwon yang #yang jungwon #kim sunoo #sunoo kim #lee heeseung #heeseung lee #enhypen jake #jongseong park #jay park #park jay #enhypen sunghoon #enhypen sunoo #enhypen niki #enhypen heeseung #enhypen jungwon #enhypen smau #kpop #kpop aesthetic #kpop idol

[imbellarosa]

Let’s Talk Calm-ly about Two Loves

OR: When you’re a grown man who writes stories for a living, you definitely wrote your own weird bedtime story, too. 

The TLDR here is that H has taken one specific listener around the globe, notably to Tokyo and Jamaica. He quotes an old Victorian Poet who was an awful human but who’s lasting legacy is the phrase “a love that dare not speak its name” which is - you guessed it - a reference to queer love. He also is super excited to spend what seems like the foreseeable future with this listener and has bought a little house with a garden of daisies with them and it’s very sweet and domestic. Anyways this is a wild time and it’s all under a cut because it’s...really a lot. 

Anyways I think the people I owe thank yous this times around to are @queenlokibeth​ who had to listen to me scream about this for a while, Astrid, who screamed with me when this came out, and “M” who convinced me to finally get to work in this fandom. And, of course, all of the lovely people tagged below who’s work I used to build my argument. 

1.) Who Wrote “Dream With Me”? 

Well, not H, or so the story goes. Two other people (Steve Cleverly and Sanj Sen) did! I mean, right, okay, for a while I was like...that seems like an odd choice for a man who didn’t want to hand Two Ghosts over to his own band because it seemed too personal. He wrote on every song in both albums’ he’s released thus far, because he seems to be passionate about telling the stories he wants to tell (even if he won’t tell you explicitly what they’re about). But for a while, I was totally going with the flow there, and the rest of this analysis would still stand: the writer of this story definitely referenced a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas and Harry’s own songs. 

However, I then read this fun quote from the Co-founder and CEO of Calm: 

“Well,” he said, “The the Harry Styles one is interesting because that came purely from Harry Styles himself...we took the approach of creating a sort of musical epic poem – he doesn’t sing, it’s spoken with poetry, but there’s a sort of musical sound bed to it and it’s pulling on things and themes that Harry’s fans really adore about him and associate with him. So his story was driven really by him – we really created a concept around him.” 

-  Chris Advansun, July 7th, 2020 via @hlupdate​

And I thought, hmmm. This does not sound like a project that he was not involved in creating. From this point on (July, 7th 2020), I began to think of it as a three way co-collaboration between him and the other two authors. But this confused me a bit, because there was largely a nonreaction from the fandom. I was waiting for an actual transcript, because I always fall asleep to these meditation stories, but it was being referenced to as some sort of Y/N fic, which was...honestly not what I expected, but also not implausible, thanks to the ~lovely~ image this man has had since the age of sixteen. But also, twitter seemed to be concerned by other things at the moment, and no one was analyzing the story. . 

In fact, I messaged a friend the day that this story dropped, because it had been kind of a shit show day on Twitter. Rumors were sort of flying about everyone and everything: had Liam shaved his head? Was he engaged? Had he and Maya broken up? Were Zayn and Gigi engaged? Had they broken up? Did Niall have a girlfriend? (this one was true lol). Were Elounor engaged? Were they pregnant? Had they broken up??? My personal fav was the bald Liam rumor, which he promptly put to rest in LP Act 1 by...having a huge mane of hair. 

So then I thought - huh. Why has today looked like this? I’m not saying that there aren’t days that twitter goes wild because of boredom, because there definitely is - the articles about secret meetings in Italy that are coming out this week (8/12/2020) are proof positive. So that definitely does happen, but it doesn’t usually happen on the days that there’s a lot of content. And maybe I’ve just been starved for content in this fandom, but I would consider a 40 minute video quite a bit of content. 

Then the transcript dropped. I’m using two as references - this one on Wattpad and also @carl-and-pearl ‘s version here (thank you so much for the transcript!!). We’re going to get into a more detailed description of what’s going on in the story, but the first thing I recognized immediately is that it was first person POV. I knew that going in, based on the number of Y/N jokes going around on twitter. Then I read it aloud, and I realized that it read like a letter. Like an experience specific to the writer and the reader. And while that’s not super uncommon to write about an experience from the author’s POV - I listen to a podcast called Nothing Much Happens: bedtime stories for adults which has a similar concept - I thought it was odd that they were trying to include both the author and the listener. I completely understood why the y/n jokes were pertinent. But at the same time, it felt like something had snagged in my mind - like a particularly annoying splinter. 

The conversations I was having around this story - completely based on the content, concept, and my own instinct - was that this story contained specific references to one person. I thought that it did read like a love letter, and that most identifying features would have been taken out, but the essence remained. Which, once I thought about it, was something that H excelled at doing. Think about Sunflower Vol 6 and Adore You and Canyon Moon and even Watermelon Sugar and Golden.  Ask yourself, What do I know about the person they are about? They have skin that browns, they have a secret, they have mesmerizing eyes, they’re willing to dance in the kitchen with him (to dancehall), they have a belly, they’ve been through hard times, they’re witty, they have an accent, and they have lips. I know - super specific right?

So the splinter grew into a thorn - what was I missing? And then - when I was looking for something completely different - I stumbled upon this old interview Harry did with Zach Sang and the Gang Show back in 2017.  For context, he was being asked about Sweet Creature. As you can imagine, it’s hard for people to believe he wrote such a beautiful love song when he hadn’t ever really had a long term relationship (two hearts in one home?? Who did you move in with, you can imagine them asking. When did you have time?). So what did he have to say about this?

"In my opinion,” he explained, “I think most songs are written for one listener. Maybe there's one thing in there that only they'll notice about them.... It's so much easier to say something in a song than it is to say it to someone and I think it's really amazing to be able to communicate through that and be able to wrap up everything that you want to say in three and a half minutes and say it in a song."

- HS, May 3 2017

By this time, please believe that I was screeching. Seeing this felt like he put into words the exact feeling I had about “Dream With Me”. It felt like a nod to someone that I didn’t know, which made the story hard to listen to, tbh. Although, I will say that when I did finally listen to it, it knocked me out and gave me odd dreams so. Once was enough for me haha! 

So my new operating theory is exactly what Advansun said: I think that H was the primary writer/the driving force behind the story. Because of the references I’m about to run through, because it feels like the way he tells stories, and because they admitted to him being more involved than they originally claimed. That’s going to be how I write the rest of the analysis - under the impression that H had a direct hand in the story that was being put forth. However, I think that the analysis itself would stand whether or not he wrote any of it. It would just be a more tenuous reflection of him than I believe it to be. 

2.) How Do I Love Thee? In Two Ways. 

Before I jump into the story, let’s talk a little about the poem that I want to compare it to: Two Loves, by Lord Alfred Douglas.  Let’s be clear this is not at all a defense of who Bosie was - he was a terrible person, particularly in his later years, when he’d converted to Catholicism and turned his back on his younger self, and his partner, Oscar Wilde. He was violently anti-Semitic, and turned his back on his own community. I want to get this out of the way because I very much believe that we should examine artists for who they are. That is, after all, what I am trying to do here. 

But his poem Two Loves has often been used - much to his disappointment, I’m sure - as an exploration of queer love in Victorian times. A line that I will be exploring more deeply in a second was in fact used against Oscar Wilde in his trail for indecency . He attempted - unsuccessfully - to explain it away, but it was too blatantly about their relationship for even the British Victorian society to ignore. I really, really recommend a read of this poem, because it is - despite it’s author - a good piece of work, which explores the themes of shame and love and longing between two men in that time. 

I’m going to start with my own background, as someone who’s analyzed fandoms before. I first came across this poem in the Sherlock fandom, with this analysis by @the-7-percent-solution​, when I was running in that fandom, and she explains the poem brilliantly in just a few lines. I’m going to take a little longer to run through it, but if you want a concise explanation and a brilliant meta, I encourage you to run to their blog and check it out. That fandom taught me most everything I know about catching symbols and recurring themes and “clueing for looks” and I love it desperately, still. 

But we’re here to talk about this fandom, so on with the poem! Essentially, the poem outlines a dream the speaker had: In his dream, he’s standing in a field with flowers - beautiful ones of all kind - and he meets this young man with clear blue eyes and bright red lips and they kiss a bit and have a picnic, and it’s all lovely. If you think I’m kidding, I’m really not. Please, read it for yourself. 

Anyways, after they did they did the whole picnic thing, the speaker and his date go on a walk in this field, where they come across two figures. The first is described as, 

“...fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids And joyous love of comely girl and boy, His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy; And in his hand he held an ivory lute With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair, And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute, And round his neck three chains of roses were.” 

- Two Loves, 1894

The speaker, however, was drawn to the second figure: 

“He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight, And yet again unclenched, and his head Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death. A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was fiery flame..”

- Two Loves, 1984

Of course, the speaker immediately asks the second man who he is. The second man says, “My name is Love”. The first man corrects him quickly: 

“ He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.”

-Two Loves, 1984

The second man sighs and acquiesces, “Have thy will. I am the love that dare not speak its name.” 

It was, of course, this last line that really gave the meaning of the poem away. It was the line that was put to Oscar Wilde as proof of a romantic relationship, it was the line that went down in history as a way to refer to queer love, and it was the line that first stuck out to me when I was reading “Dream With Me”. 

The reading here is clearly that “Love” is the love that is acceptable to society - easy, sweet, and cherished. “Shame” is the love that happens in secret - beautiful, alluring to the speaker, passionate, anxious ( as can be seen in the clenching and unclenching of his hands), and proud. He refuses to call himself as anything but what he is. The first man may call him Shame, but he refuses the name, and instead, offers a qualifier to his own descriptor. He is still love, he is just the love that can’t be spoken about. 

3.) Walking in Golden Fields of Sunflowers

Now let’s talk about “Dream With Me”. I’m ignoring the first few stanzas (from the line “Have you ever wondered” to “What the two of us can find”.) because those are pretty standard introductory paragraphs to a guided meditation. So we start with the line “Let’s travel now to moonlit valleys...”. 

I’m going to do the same thing I did with “Two Loves” first. I am going to describe literally, in general terms, what happens in the story. Warning, I change pronouns from “they” to “you” because the whole thing confuses me, but note that I’m always talking about the speaker and the listener: 

So after doing the standard intro, the speaker and the listener take a walk through the woods enjoying nature, particularly the grass, the trees, and the blue sky above. You’re already clearly in love. Then you’re magically on a raft, with cherry blossoms all around you. If you want a good visual for that, here’s a site that has pictures from a boat rental in Tokyo where you can snuggle on a raft in the  Chidorigafuchi moat. And then suddenly it starts raining, and they (you) watch the rain for a hot second, and then the scene magically shifts again, and you’re under a porch (although I guess it could be the boat rental’s porch. They do usually have covered areas). 

Kind of furthering that theory, they then lounge by the shoreline, skipping stones and hanging out, looking at the snow capped mountains. In case you’re curious, because at this point I sure was, you can see mountains from certain areas in the city of Tokyo. 

Anyways, then it’s snowing, and you’re magically in a cabin, just chilling by the fire, and you fall asleep again. You wake up somewhere else.

Where are you now? Well, you’re on a tropical island filled with palm trees. As an American, my mind immediately jumps to the Caribbean, but I suppose it could absolutely be in the Mediterranean as well. The island has white beaches, mangroves, a turquoise ocean, and a gorgeous, peaceful atmosphere. 

If you’re curious as to what a mangrove looks like - and I certainly was - they are a group of trees and shrubs that live in the coastal intertidal zone and Jamaica is doing a massive restoration project involving primary school children to regrow this vital part of their ecosystem. More interestingly, there currently exist no mangrove forests in the Mediterranean, so my initial feeling that this scene would take place in the Caribbean was correct. On that note - again, because I was curious - Jamaica has gorgeous white sand beaches with turquoise oceans. 

But I’ve gone off topic again! After you’re minds are “in tune” once more (trying to find a heartbeat, anyone?), you reappear in a meadow, with beautiful flowers of all kind, where you are now walking hand in hand through a field of sunflowers, which give the feeling a “warm and golden hue”. Then you come across a little farmhouse with daisies poking out (clearly I have no way of locating this anywhere in the world, but I assume that the UK has both sunflowers and daisies). It’s an empty house which was loved and left because of the passage of time, which inspires my favorite line in the poem: “ The thought of passing time inspires/A feeling that grows stronger”. It’s just...really sweet to me. 

So, of course, they do what anyone would do when they come across an empty farmhouse, they go inside. And there, they begin to fall asleep, reflecting on all they have just seen, referencing other scenes of the poem: “ Moonlit valleys, Burdened forests, Gazing at the ocean. Summer meadows, Tranquil sunsets steeped in emotion”. 

The next few stanzas are just going to be copy-pasted, and then I’ll go into them a bit, but this is the end of the poem, so they’re the final reflections;

“The tenderness we feel When we are close Two minds as one Surrounds us and connects us But we’ve only just begun.

For now we dream together Of all there is to follow. And know that sleep will keep us safe From now until tomorrow.

Maybe all the memories That we’ve gathered here tonight Are all dreams now remembered Or wishes in plain sight.

No matter what They’re with us now. For this night and forever. And every time we close our eyes They’re yours and mine to treasure.” 

- HS, Dream With Me, via @carl-and-pearl​

And that’s it! The literal story, in short, is that you started in a forest, then went to Tokyo (maybe) and then Jamaica (perhaps) and then back to a field of sunflowers and daisies in the UK (which is also a guess, it could be Italy or France or Idaho for all I know, but let’s call it an educated guess). 

4.) My Dream Journal

So now that we know what happens in the story, how do we interpret this? Well, There are a few lines in the poem that I want to draw your attention to: the first takes place in the first part of this story, when you’re still in the forest. This is, I must say, the most direct reference to Two Loves in the whole poem/song/story. Both works are describing a walk in the woods with your loved one, and, in a fun reference in the middle of the story, Dream With Me says

The shimmering reflection Shows us smiling from above. But what we think But dare not speak is L-O-V-E love.

-Dream With Me, 2020

Remember that line I mentioned before? I am the love that dare not speak its name. Right, so that’s almost a direct quote. It also has a really fun nod to “I Would” (Would he say he’s in L-O-V-E?/Well if it was me then I would), but I digress. 

This first part of the narrative, I feel, really sets up what the rest of it will look and feel like, in the same way that “Golden” sets the tone for Fine Line. (You didn’t think I was going to make a post about Harry and NOT mention Golden, did you?? If you did, I’m disappointed!!). So  let’s take a look at what’s happening, and the language he’s using to describe it. 

One of the best things about this poem is how vivid it feels. Of course, I’m about to argue that it’s vivid because it was based in reality, but let’s talk about the sheer amount of detail he uses to describe the place he’s walking through. The valley (canyon lmao) is moonlit, the grass and the leaves make mosaics of green, you’re walking by the heather (the symbolism of heather is good luck, admiration, and protection), the sepia sunlight breaks through the trees. 

You know what it kind of sounds like? Sweet Creature. You’re about to roll your eyes at me! I can feel it! But listen, okay?  

“Sweet creature Running through the garden Oh, where nothing bothered us But we're still young I always think about you and how we don't speak enough”

Which, to be honest, sounds like what they’re doing. They’re walking through the garden in the sun, not daring to speak about the Love that he (they both) feel, and instead refering to it in veiled Victorian terms. 

And then we head to Tokyo! I know that you’re about to ask me why I think it’s Tokyo versus...idk, anywhere else? Well, for one, he went to Tokyo (to let it go) publicly in 2019. He was there for a few months, and there are some great pictures of that time: 

Look! Here he is with his club owner friend and his dog, and a fun red bandanna! But let’s be honest, the dog really steals the show here. But wait! there’s more! More dog content, too!

This was on Jan 31st, 2019, and he’s taking the dog for a walk! Very cute! If nothing else, he spent a lot of time with dogs in Tokyo! And the city fits the description of the story. So I feel rather comfortable with my interpretation that this first date is a memory of this trip - or another - to Tokyo. 

So what did “you both”do in Tokyo? Well, chill on a raft while the cherry blossoms flutter around you, clearly. You also refocused your purpose. What did he do in Tokyo in 2019? Well, he took time to think about and write songs for the album he was about to go record. Kind of like refocusing on what’s next, right? And then, in the story when “you both” had time to think amongst the lake and the water and the rain and the moon, and you’d come to the conclusions you needed to, you left. What did he do when he did the things he needed to? Well, he left, too. 

And where did he go? Well, in real life, I suppose he went to do his job. But, in the story, you’re meant to be falling deeper and deeper into sleep, so it’s sort of like traveling backwards, you see? Like counting down to one. So you end up on this island with turquoise ocean and mangrove forests. I’m calling this Jamaica. Why? Well, the description fits, for one, down to the four types of mangroves that exists within its ecosystem. 

And - probably the biggest reason - I can place him there, too. Here’s him in 2017:

I added this picture because the water around him....looks rather turquoise, doesn’t it? Kind of like he’s enjoying his time on a tropical island by the beach?? Oh, and here’s another one!: 

The red bandanna makes a comeback! 

So what are you doing in Jamaica, according to the story? Well, you’re hanging out, basically. Enjoying the beach and each other, of course!  What else? To be exact, “[Your] thoughts dovetail and unify/ In tune two minds together”. I’m so glad that you’re tuned like an old guitar now! Congrats! Really happy for you! 

What was he doing in Jamaica three years ago? Why, he was recording his first album, or so the story goes. I’ll tell you something: finding press for that album was literally the most difficult part of this whole analysis. I got a fair bit of the tattoo roulette with Kendall Jenner, and some things about Carolina, but the interview with Zach Sang took me like an hour and a half to find again to link. The fact that a lot of it has been buried is...not great, for posterity purposes. He’s going to want that one day. 

But I’ve gotten off track again! We gotta go back and finish our story, right? What happens now? Well, this does: 

hahahaha okay, I’m really sorry, but I had to. I’m not, actually, making it up though! According to the story: 

“ As minutes turn to hours We drift off somewhere new. And visualize a stairway To a door we now walk through”

- Dream With Me, 2020

So maybe Louis was just...demonstrating for you. 

Anyways! Where do you walk out to? A golden field full of sunflowers. You walk for a minute, then come across an old house with daisies popping up out of the garden. And that’s where the story ends. I guess you’ve made that farmhouse feel like home. 

Now to the little reflection he does on the outro. The lines I want to bring your attention are: “The tenderness we feel when we are close two minds as one surrounds us and connects us but we’ve only just begun” and “Maybe all the memories that we’ve gathered here tonight are all dreams now remembered or wishes in plain sight.”

Let’s talk about the first sentence first. In the context of finding a home that could be a shared home, and a future, this is very much an “end of the story, beginning of our lives” sort of thing. You’re back from all over, and it’s time to settle down, and see what’s next. 

And now the second sentence. I think this is the one that really drives my point about this story being a collection of memories he has - that’s what he calls it. The story is “gathered memories” that might also be called “remembered dreams” (think of how people say of vacations, “oh it was a dream!”) or you might call it “wishes in plain sight”. This feels in line with the rest of the story. In this stanza, he’s sort of letting you in a bit. If I’ve read this right - and I really think that I have - he’s giving the larger context for the story. It’s a collection of memories he’s had with someone he loves. 

5.) Cool! Can you prove it? 

I mean, I’d argue that if you read this far, I have proved it, but let’s make some more links, shall we? This was called a “muscial epic” that was “driven by him”. I’d argue that if I know my Victorian literature (thank you, Sherlock!), then he definitely does. Then there’s the fact that he quoted it, so. That did happen. And he knows what it means. And even if he didn’t, there were two other people on the story. Someone was more than capable of catching that one, and the fact that they didn’t speaks to intent. They want you to think of that phrase when you read this poem. They want you to think of that walk in the woods while you’re going on this one. 

And, as for my assumption that this is for and about one person, well. Think about it. He said that he writes his songs for a single listener. I’m not saying it’s the same listener each time, let’s get that right, but it is always just for one person. With that, and with the assumption that he’s been involved in the writing of this story, I’d say that the same rule applies. He went with someone to Japan and Jamaica (J^2 haha). And, if I had to guess, it was the same person. 

Why, you ask? Well, for one, if that weren’t the case, then this poem would no longer be for one listener, it would be for multiple. And, for another, imagine how awkward it would be to listen to it with his current partner and have to explain “oh, yeah that was the super romantic vacation I took with someone else” . And, I suppose that because I think that attitude of “refocusing” and “dovetailing” and “tuning” and getting excited about imagining all of the tomorrows with your partner speaks to a long term relationship breathing easily, you know? 

I’m also going to argue that describing the aura around the house as “golden” was intentional, especially when paired with the location - in the middle of a field of sunflowers. Those are both direct references to his songs. And those two songs are particularly linked by the number 28. The third song that features 28 is Fine Line the song, but that’s a different story. Anywho! “Golden”’s bridge just repeats the word ‘golden’ twenty eight times (if you go here , you can count the bridge) and “Sunflower Vol. 6″ ends the song with 28 “boops” (believe me, I wish I was making this up. I’m not.). So then, once again, you’ve linked a story to two already linked songs. 

And, even if you don’t buy the intentional repetition, they’re linked another way, aren’t they? The color scheme and the sun symbol. Sunflowers were named because of their sun-like appearance. They turn to face it. They symbolize loyalty and adoration. And then, of course, the sun is - say it with me - golden. And it - like the person in golden - waits in the sky, beautiful and dangerous and constant. And here that symbol is, in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. At home. 

This whole story feels like you’re taking the time to find that heartbeat that you think you might have lost, and sort of coming back to a space where you understand that this is what you want, now and forever. It feels like finding a home that could be yours forever, and it feels like walking through some of the moments that remind him of that. 

It really is rather lovely, if you think about it, especially since he has a tendency to attribute “home” to people rather than place, in his songs. So it’s like. Going all around the world and always being at home. 

#harry styles #calm #dream with me #two loves #honestly man #im happy for you #but ewww #be less sappy please #i mean #SOME OF US DONT HAVE THAT YET HAROLD #hahahaha i think im funny #long post ts #idk how else to tag this but im really proud of it #okay now i'll do the penguin song #promise hahaha

[watayaaratamblr]

Chihaya has feelings for Arata: Another confirmation! + other..

These are the 6 waka poems chosen for the waka corner in Chihayafuru's new & ongoing art exhibition; every poem has a commentary explaining it and its role in the story.

Before I post them, please know that Suetsugu sensei supervised this exhibition, why I say this? Because Sensei said in her latest NOTE that she visited it for a last check and mentioned that a certain illustration wasn't horizontal like she drew it -or something like that- and she mentioned it to the person in charge and they fixed it immediately WHICH MEANS that sensei approves of everything in the exhibition as it is now She even said about her last visit to the venue before the launch of the exhibition: "そうか、最終チェックってこういう「原作者の違和感を消して、最終的なGOに練り上げる」場なのだな、といまさらそんなことをフワッと思っている作者を導いて、" which means: "So, the final check is a place to "erase the original author's sense of discomfort and refine it into the final GO".")

The poems are: 1) "17/Chihayaburu" + the scene where Kana explained it to Chihaya and told her that it's a poem about a bright red love" This poem however did not have a commentary, I believe that it's both because Kana's explanation was good enough for its meaning and this card's role is being explained little by little in the remaining part of the manga so it's saved for the end.

2) Next to Chiha, we find "57/Meguri aite" + the scene where Chihaya was studying in a train next to Kana and then mentioning this poem, she compares its story to her & Arata's relationship. The commentary is another & RECENT confirmation of Chihaya's romantic feelings for Arata (I asked a Japanese friend to make sure native fans also get the same meaning, and she confirmed it to me!) It makes perfect sense: Chihaya's feelings of "friendship" are not "unconscious", her admiration too, so this was a reference to other feelings she has for him that she didn't realize yet at that stage which can only be her romantic love that she discovered a bit more in the hospital scene.

3) "77/Se O Hayami' + the scene where Taichi receives Chihaya's message telling him that the last card read in her match was "SE" and Taichi recalled someone's words about asking fate for a chance to meet again (nothing indicates that they were Chihaya's words, so for me, it's either Taichi's thoughts according to what he already knows about the meaning or, they are Kana's words, I believe it's the latter, she explained it to them and all Mizusawa members know this meaning) This scene didn't mean to me more that what I saw in it, but with the new scene from chapter 234 (which felt so out of nowhere), I was waiting for a clarification, maybe something indicating that this is a card that Chihaya associates exclusively with Taichi for a meaningful reason? but this commentary clearly explains that: 1) Se is about the "TRIO", so every time two of them feel a distance , SE is used to remind us that they will meet again as part of the trio that promised to always meet (thanks to karuta). 2) in Taichi's scene, the meaning of SE is explored better as it highlights specifically the determination in the second verse of the poet's words to meet again (which seems to have caught sensei's interest) and making use of it to show Chihaya's determination too which is very "IN character" for her. This determination was drawn differently when Arata was the one who drifted away as Chihaya immediately decided to travel to Fukui and see Arata personally, and "SE" was not used then because it was saved for another scene where SE between them was hinted to have implications more than being "friends who are determined to meet again" and that was when Kana recited it as a love song when she saw Chihaya texting Arata before one of their early matches.

4) "40/Shinoburedo" + the scene where Kana compared Taichi's hidden love to the poet's. Clear as it is, like the commentary like the manga itself, this is a scene completely unrelated with Chihaya's feelings.

5) "43/Ai mite no" + the scene where Kana finds Chihaya seeing everything glowing after Arata's confession. I have no better words to show how this is about Chihaya's pure love for Arata than how the commentary itself said it.

6) "48/ KazeO Itami" + the scene where Chihaya cried telling Fukasaku sensei how she is the rock that crushed Taichi's feelings and Fukasaku sensei told her that she too looked like she could break.

As we can see, this poem is about an unrequited love, exactly like Taichi's. And Chihaya is despairing because she sincerely does NOT have what the waves wanted from her, what Taichi desired, she DID NOT LOVE HIM back and even though she was the rock, but the waves hit her too and she was also under pressure that none maybe cared about but Fukasaku sensei highlighted it. Chihaya was also hurt by Taichi's feelings and how they couldn't be another chance for her to show her known care for him. she can't fake a love that is not there.

WARNING: I'm not fluent in Japanese so take these translations with a grain of salt.

+ Original post on MAL HERE

#chihayarata #chihayafuru #wataya arata #arata wataya #ayase chihaya #chiharata #watayaarata #ちはやふる #chihaya x arata #綿谷新 #ayasechihaya #arata chihaya #arata x chihaya #chihaya ayase

[set-phasers-to-whump]

trust fall

prompt: “do you trust me?”

whumpee: max evans, also slightly kyle valenti

fandom: roswell new mexico

hi hi hi! this fic is set at some point this season after everybody finds out about max’s heart. i haven’t seen the last three eps (curse rnm and 911 for being on at the same time...) so idk where exactly this Can fit in but it don’t matter too much... i hope you like this!

Max wakes up shaking - or, no, that’s not quite right, to someone shaking him. He opens his eyes with a soft groan. Everything is blurry and dimly lit and his head really hurts.

“Wh’ happened?” he asks, not entirely sure of the identity of the person he’s talking to. 

“The ground just...collapsed under us. It looks like we’re maybe 15 feet down,” says Kyle’s voice, and the blurry figure in front of him resolves itself into Kyle’s shape. Max gets a flash of memory - being with him, exploring in the desert, a cracking noise, waking up just now. “It looks like you hit your head. You’re bleeding a little bit.”

Max nods, because this makes sense. His head hurts and he’s pretty sure there’s something sticky running down his forehead, which he assumes is blood. 

Some combination of the headache and the nodding and the feeling of blood on his face creates a sudden spike of nausea and before he can even process or react to the feeling he’s throwing up and god, that makes his headache so much worse, and then Kyle’s hand is on his shoulder and Max is apologizing and Kyle is saying not to worry, it’s okay, just take a deep breath, you’re fine. It takes a second, and then the pain in Max’s head dies down a bit and he feels like he can breathe properly again. He opens his eyes, which he doesn’t remember closing. 

Kyle is looking at him with a sort of professional concern on his face that tells Max he is probably not okay. Which is something he most likely could have figured out for himself, admittedly.

He watches as Kyle rearranges himself, digging into his right pocket with his left hand and pulling out his phone. He turns on its flashlight, and suddenly their small enclosure is a lot brighter. It hurts Max’s eyes, which he promptly closes.

“Max. Hey. Open your eyes and let me get a look at you really quickly and then I’ll turn it off, okay?”

Max opens his eyes - yet again - and squints into the bright light. Kyle’s hands are gentle and sure as he touches Max’s face, turning his head gently, looking into his eyes, examining him for...something, Max is sure. What that something is, he has no idea. He just sits there and tries to keep his eyes open. Everything is blurry and bright and he can’t really see Kyle that well, but at one point he adjusts his right hand and Max thinks he sees a pained look on Kyle’s face. He isn’t sure, but then Kyle moves his hand again and audibly winces. 

“What’s wrong?” Max asks, at the same time that Kyle asks, “are you dizzy?”

Neither of them answers the other’s question. Kyle repeats his before Max has the chance. “Max. Are you dizzy?”

He is. Not overwhelmingly so, but it’s there. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Are you okay?”

Kyle ignores his question, turning off the flashlight. “Do you have a headache?”

“Yes.”

“How’s your vision?”

“Kinda...blurry.”

“Are you nauseous?”

Max would’ve thought that one would be obvious. “Yeah.”

“Okay, you’ve almost definitely got a concussion. I’m gonna see if there’s any service down here - do you know if Michael’s around? I think we might be needing his telekinetic powers to get out of here.”

“Sure, yeah, he’s in town.”

“Great,” Kyle replies, and he turns his phone back on (sans flashlight). Max watches him as carefully as he can, watches him type slowly and carefully with the fingers of his left hand. The phone rings - it’s on speaker - and Kyle breathes a sigh of relief. 

“What’s up, Valenti?”

“Michael, hey,” says Kyle. “Uhh…so Max and I are sort of…stuck underground. We’re in the desert, not super far from the pod cave - you’ll see my car, and not too far from that, you’ll see a hole. If you can come rescue us, that is.”

“I’ll be there soon,” Michael replies, and hangs up.

Kyle takes a breath like he’s about to say something else, and Max has had enough of that. It’s his turn to talk. 

“Kyle…” It’s his turn to talk if he can remember the words he wants to say. It takes him a few seconds, during which Kyle is charitably silent. “You’re hurt.” He means it to come out as a question, but it doesn’t. 

Kyle sighs, and shifts a bit, throwing his face into the light. The pained look Max thought he’d seen is back. 

“It’s nothing.”

Max promptly reaches out a hand and grabs Kyle’s right wrist, having fairly easily determined this to be the location of his injury. 

Kyle hisses in pain and yanks his hand away. “Leave it, Evans,” he says sharply.  

“Let me see,” Max insists. 

“No,” Kyle insists right back. 

“Why not?”

“Because I know you, Max.” Kyle sounds exasperated. “You can’t heal me.”

Max repeats himself. “Why not?”

“What should I start with? The fact that you’re concussed, or the fact that your heart -”

“Kyle, it’ll be -”

“Don’t you say it’ll be fine, Max. It’s not fine. None of this is fine.” 

“I’m sorry I -”

“Don’t. Just...look, Evans. Do you trust me?”

“Yeah,” Max says, without a second of hesitation. Of course he trusts Kyle.

“Then listen to me. I have a sprained wrist. You have a heart condition and a concussion. I will be fine without immediate medical attention - without immediate alien healing powers. You don’t need to be exerting yourself right now. Michael will be here soon and he’ll get us out of here and I’ll go get appropriate medical treatment and then I’ll give you appropriate medical treatment and we’ll both be fine.”

“Yeah, okay.” Max gives in because he trusts Kyle and Kyle’s professional opinion of his own injury, and also because he’s getting tired and really doesn't feel like having an argument. He closes his eyes for a second and Kyle is immediately tapping him on the cheek.

“You can’t sleep right now,” he says.

“Why not?” Max asks, for the third time.

“Because you have a concussion,” Kyle says, like this should be explanation enough. It is, technically, Max knows, but he’s tired and in pain and just sort of foggy and he’d really like to sleep. But Kyle is intent on not letting him, and he insists that Max should talk to him to keep himself awake.

“Tell me about something you love,” Kyle says, and for a second all Max can think of is Liz, and then Kyle taps his shoulder to get him to focus and Max starts talking about writing, about his lifelong ambition to become an author and the poems he used to write in the margins of his notes and the way that it feels to finally figure out how to convey the thing you want to say and about a million other things that under any other circumstance he would never reveal. Now, though, the words spill from his mouth as easy as anything, which Max figures is probably the result of his concussion. He doesn’t actually mind it, though - in fact, he kind of likes it, this soft, easy honesty. It reminds him of Liz, a dull ache in his chest, but more than that, it makes him feel safe, comfortable. Like everything is going to be okay, even with the blood drying tacky on his face and the aching in his head and the persistent nausea and all the other discomforts that come along with having a concussion. 

“Thanks,” Max says, suddenly, during a lull in their mostly one-sided conversation. The second he says the word he wishes he had something better, something more, to say, but his brainpower is a little lacking at the moment. He repeats himself, putting as much feeling as he can behind the word this time, and hopes that Kyle gets the message.

“Of course.” Kyle reaches out and puts his good hand on Max’s knee, and just like that, Max knows that he understands. 

thanks for reading this! i love how the title theme perfectly fits this fic lmao. i hope you liked it!!!

#whumptober2021 #no.4 #do you trust me? #roswell new mexico #fic #max evans #kyle valenti #fall #concussion #blood #vomiting #small amount of both tho #my writing #i say things #also this is like kinda shippy? idk. i swear i ship all these mfs... #anyway i hope everyone enjoyed their monday! mine was alright. new ep of 911 mixed bag but i am glad eddie and ana broke up #i don't dislike her or anything but that was Not working and i'm glad eddie was mature enuf to break it off yknow? #anyways i gotta watch rnm...i am just so busy and aghhhhh #i have avoided spoilers tho which i am very happy about! #ok thats it shutting up gn! love yall <3

[hystericalfeminist]

BUILD ME A CANON

Earlier this week, Delhi University's Oversight Committee removed works by writers Bama, Mahasweta Devi and Sukirtharani from the university's syllabus for undergraduate students of English. Bama and Sukirtharani are Tamil Dalit writers whose work looks at the experiences of the marginalised. Mahasweta Devi, a Bengali writer, was well-known for her Left-leaning politics and for being an advocate for tribal communities and their rights. She passed away in 2016.

I'd suggest one moment's silence for the Oversight Committee committing an oversight, except this is not an oversight. An oversight is an unintentional mistake, but this seems very intentional. As the DU clarified in a statement later, "the syllabus of the course has been passed through a democratic process with the involvement of all the relevant stakeholders and necessary deliberations at appropriate forums” (emphases mine). The university claims the English syllabus is suitably diverse and inclusive (suitably being the key word here) and it's interesting that as part of its defence of the Oversight Committee's decision, DU has pointed out the process of coming to that decision was "democratic". What it doesn't acknowledge is that if the committee is full of people who belong to dominant groups and doesn't have members who represent the minorities and the marginalised, then the committee's "democratic process" is critically flawed.

The DU statement came after the Academic Council submitted a dissent note, protesting the Oversight Committee's decision. The Academic Council described the Oversight Committee's functioning as vandalism and alleged it has been harassing liberal arts departments. "It is important to note that the Oversight Committee does not have any member from the Dalit or the Tribal community who can possibly bring in some sensitivity to the issue," said the Academic Council in its note.

There was some noise on social media about the decision to drop works by these three writers. Most of the discussion that I saw was about Mahasweta Devi's dropped short story, Draupadi. (Apparently the Oversight Committee chair complained the short story doesn't show the military in a good light. From what I remember, it's the police. They carry out wrongful arrests and brutally gangrape a tribal woman.) There's been far less discussion of Bama and Sukirtharani's works on English Twitter, who have mostly been referred to as the "two Dalit writers", like an addendum to Mahasweta, which is infuriating in itself. I know that this is probably because not enough people read translations. Particularly translations of literature from Indian languages.

There is also little talk about what has replaced the dropped works. One of the authors who has been included is apparently Pandita Ramabai, identified as an upper caste writer (Brahmin, if I'm not mistaken). I've no idea if her writing continues to feel relevant and/ or engaging, but it is all sorts of bizarre to "replace" a 20th century author with someone who died in 1922. Also, if she was included because she was Brahmin, I hope they have fun reading her book The High Caste Hindu Woman which is, I'm told, deeply critical of how sexist Hinduism. Whether or not Pandita Ramabai voiced any opinions of casteism in Hinduism, I don't know.

Even though translations don't get read as much, the fact is, the writings of Bama, Mahasweta Devi and Sukirtharani have been translated to English and other languages. They're part of different university's syllabi and for better or for worse, DU is not such an influential player in academia. If DU's decision to drop these writers convinces some Indian universities to do the same, we can only hope that other universities (in India and abroad) will start thinking about including them in their syllabi (if the writers aren't in them already). In a not-so-distant future, it's very likely that there will be universities abroad that will have a more diverse, inclusive and representative portrait of Indian culture in their syllabi while institutions like DU remain mired in a casteist, Hindutva bog. At that point, who should decide what will make the canon for Indian literature? The Indians or the foreigners?

It's the second time this week that we've heard conversations about erasure in the Indian cultural scene. Earlier this week, social media was on fire after the Indian edition of the Rolling Stone carried a cover story about the record label and music platform Majja, featuring two artists best known for their collaborations with Dalit rapper and lyricist Arivu. Rumour has it that the Rolling Stone cover was bought by Majja, presumably to promote upcoming albums by those two artists. However, since Dhee and Shan Vincent de Paul are currently riding a popularity wave because of their work with Arivu, many readers — beginning with director Pa Ranjith — expected the cover story would be as much about Arivu as Dhee and Shan Vincent de Paul. People also pointed out that Arivu had effectively been removed from a (disastrous) remix of "Enjoy Enjaami" (the original song is amazing).

Shan Vincent de Paul, one of the artists featured on the Rolling Stone cover, issued a statement on social media saying he had the utmost respect for Arivu and had no intention of erasing him. He clarified that the story was part of his efforts to promote his new album Made in Jaffna, which he's releasing with Majja. "I have no control over how the Press chooses their messaging or what narratives they push," de Paul wrote, which would be an excellent point if the cover wasn't bought. He may not have control over the narrative, but he's hardly an irrelevant cog in the wheel. Instead of attempting to exonerate himself, de Paul could have acknowledged that the story doesn't give as much space to Arivu as it should. I am, of course, presuming he's read the story.

If the rumour about the cover being bought is true then Rolling Stone and Majja are complicit in deciding a narrative that sidelines Arivu, either intentionally or carelessly. More than half of Rolling Stone's cover story is about "Enjoy Enjaami" and there is just one quote from Arivu. This sidelining may not be deliberate — the way DU's Oversight Committee's decision was — and it could be an example of the kind of unthinking oversight that the privileged commit all the time when it comes to acknowledging the contribution of the marginalised. Either way, the impression conveyed by the two organisations is that Arivu is not the person they want to promote. Countering the decision of the establishment — it doesn't get more establishment than Rolling Stone and Majja. One of Majja's founders is legendary music director AR Rahman — is the reaction on social media. The songs being freely available on multiple platforms and the (relatively) free access to the artwork and arguments by Dalit creators and critics on social media makes it difficult to invisibilise Arivu.

A translation of Mahasweta Devi's Draupadi is available online as are some of Sukirtharani's poems. DU has dropped Bama's novel Sangati. I'm not sure if there's an extract that's available online. It is not lost on me that it's easier to listen to a song than it is to read a novel, or a short story, or a poem. It is also not lost on me that the fact you can bob to an infectious beat makes it easier to not register the deep-rooted casteism referenced in the lyric, "Enna kora, enna kora, yein chella peraandikku enna kora? (In what way is my darling grandson any less?)" There are no such distractions when you read, for example, Sukirtharani's My Room Needs No Calendar: "As they write on me/ with their penises,/ I will my body to stop/ slithering away."

Sukirtharani and Bama minced no words when they were asked to respond to their works being dropped from the DU syllabus. "I was not surprised at all. Dalit voices such as myself and Bama’s are speaking for all oppressed women, not just Dalit women," said Sukirtharani. "I don’t see this necessary as an exclusion of just Dalit writers as we have seen how progressive writers whose works speak against caste, Hindutva, fundamentalism have also been removed in the recent past. These things will happen in our society, but we cannot be ignored." She said she wasn't going to ask for an explanation, but believed DU owed her an explanation. At the very least, they should have intimated her about the works being dropped. "When they want to project an image of India wherein there are no caste and religious inequalities, our works point out that caste and religious inequalities exist in our society. So, it is obvious that they want such works removed from the syllabus," she said.

Bama said, "For more than 2,000 years, we have been segregated, our histories have not been written. This government is trying to strangulate our voices, but we will shout. The youth of this nation have understood [what is happening]. Rather than being upset, we are angry. The anger will reflect in our works in future.”

I find myself wondering if the business of building a canon was always so complicated and rife with uncertainties. Will the books, music and art propped up by commerce and politics be the ones that make up our mainstream cultural identity? Could we build a better literary canon for Indian literature if more excerpts and poems were available online for free, if more works were translated? Would we care more if the literature was easier to access or would we still dismiss it because they're translations, because the works are by Dalit women? Can the conversations that we hold in the informal spaces of the internet be loud enough to make the canon more inclusive, to make the mainstream expand its narrow definitions? What is more likely to make it into an archive and survive into posterity — the Rolling Stone Cover image or the many "fixed it" versions that people created online? Is it possible that both can and will be preserved? Does dropping the works of writers like Bama and Sukirtharani and Mahasweta Devi make them invisible? Will the dissent make a few more people buy Bama's novel? Will it make some curious enough to look up Sukirtharani's poems?

The words, the tech, the platforms, the imagery — are all these still the master's tools? How long must one wield them before they can claim the tools to be theirs? Will they always be the master's tools and not "our" tools? Is the master the one who cares for the tools and uses them better? Is the master the one with the loudest voice and the deepest pockets, the one who can bribe the boys and hire the deadliest mercenaries? Who decides when the tools have been reclaimed?

#Building a canon #Indian academia #Life in a progressively undemocratic country #Arivu #Bama #Sukirtharani #Mahasweta Devi #Indian literature #Culture and identity #Rolling Stone #Music #Enjoy Enjaami

[beneaththetangles]

Leah for Rachel: On Tower of God

What do you desire the most? Honor and pride? Authority and power? Money, and all sorts of shining riches? Revenge? Helping, or saving, or mattering to someone other than you (even when you’re not piloting a giant robot)? Or perhaps… something even more significant, more transcendent?

No matter. Reach the top of the tower, and it will be yours. Whatever you may be looking for, you will find it there. That’s what its Guardian, Hadon, says. That’s what every character in this show believes.

Tower of God (Kami no Tou) tells the story of Rachel, the girl with golden eyes who left everything to climb, desiring to shine like the stars. And of Bam, the boy who went after her without a desire of his own. So starts a quite atypical shonen, based on a beloved webtoon, with cartoonish, colorful, quite original designs, powerful music (“TOP” by Stray Kids is an opening for the ages), references to the book of Genesis, and a deep, unflinching depiction of sin, by which I mean evil of the darkest kind, the only true evil, chosen by the human free will, in a way that can poison the universe and kill that soul forever.

The human heart and its darkness are certainly at full display at Kami no Tou. Its colorful tower of broken dreams and people who are constantly left behind has a constant aura of threat and dread, even in the more innocent scenes. Despite the swords, powers, characters who combine medieval, fantastic, contemporary and futuristic styles, and the clever ways of overcoming difficult challenges, this is not the Heaven’s Arena of Hunter x Hunter, and it certainly doesn’t have that show’s leniency with the murderous organizers of these challenges for super-talented individuals.

As Bam goes up, level after level, we come nearer to the ultimate temptation, the fall, the consequences like concentric waves, and the dark mystery of evil, a mystery that defies understanding and rational explanation. One that is linked with all the pain and suffering in the world, with the reason why reality (Kami no Tou’s and ours) constantly breaks into painful fragments and goes into cycles of horrifying self-destruction.

A nameless boy awakes without memories in a system of caves where he cannot see the stars. He is taken care of by a kind, joyful girl with golden eyes. She heals him, and patiently teaches him, and soon becomes his entire world. She has a dream, too—to see the stars, to shine like them. She will ultimately depart, leaving him behind to enter the Tower.

But he doesn’t want that. He wants to be with her. Not romantically, I think, or not exactly. “I belong to her,” he says. Rachel is, especifically, someone Bam adores, his point of reference for everything, and he just wants to have her around, even if it’s not as an equal.

At the beginning, I compared this show with The Divine Comedy, Dante’s medieval poem about following the light of the loved one who has departed to Heaven. But this is a show about Babel, about a world in which humans fight to reach the skies and become like God, masters of good and evil. In our world, the limits of human power, coordination and communication (miraculously brought upon humanity for the first time at Babel), avoid a sustainable deification. And the tower, thank God, is forever left unfinished.

Not so in Kami no Tou. The desires of the heart have been completely instrumentalized to serve the present ruler. The Tower stands, every floor as great as an entire continent, and the tower itself is an empire, ruled by King Jahad, a Darwinian monarch who was the last to reach the magical top.

The characters surrounding are dangerous people, who soon reveal that they are just broken, very human individuals with a desire so strong as to risk everything. Khun is a banished prince from a well-known, powerful family. Rak the dinosaur and Haru the samurai just want to be the strongest. Anaak seeks revenge. Shibisu would like to be rich. Endorsi is a Princess of Jahad, and needs to keep her status. These are all lovable people, fun and relatable, but something is clearly wrong with them all. And something is wrong with us, too. Bam is going to learn that in ourselves, just beneath our daily reality, there is unspeakable evil, irrational, horrifying, linked to the worst evils we know, only awaiting the opportunity to manifest itself. Indifference and hate for the people we are supposed to love. A thirst that could devour others if they get in the way. Monstrous vanity, lies, violence, dreadful, intimate idols. The deep betrayal of everything that is good and true, of God and of love. And the realization that all that has been there from the beginning.

Though I liked this anime from the first episode, I think it reaches his peak with a certain twist that everyone remembers. So, spoilers for Tower of God. And I strongly advise you to experience it firsthand.

Bam becomes popular in his circle of self-centered friends because of his selfless, innocent personality that reminds them of what they have lost, or just encouraged them to help him. He wants to be with Rachel, to help Rachel. And he works hard.

In The Pilgrim’s Regress, C. S. Lewis’ version of the classical allegory, every so often a chapter is titled “Leah for Rachel.” This is a reference to the story of patriarch Jacob, who worked seven years to marry Rachel, the youngest daughter of Jethro and his loved one, who tricked him into taking his eldest daughter, Leah, instead, so he would have to restart the process to reach Rachel. In Lewis, this expression refers instead to the pain of the human heart which falls into the trap of egoistic, self-centered sexual acts when its desire for the bright, the eternal and infinite, symbolized (Utena-like) as a castle in the sky, attracts it from the distance. But, as Kami no Tou tells us, it can be just about anything. A person or a relationship, a position or a treasure, a story we tell to ourselves, a moment of pleasure or a momentary relief, an urge, can seem to us like the shining gate to a greater, more god-like world, as stars are for Rachel.

It is only afterwards that the heart recognizes, with bitterness, that over the top of the tower, there is only a darkness that engulfs you, that becomes you, that is akin to voluntarily sacrifice love and meaning, bonds and identity. And that is what happens to Bam’s Rachel.

I always trusted Rachel to have a good reason for having abandoned Bam. As Khun, I saw the warning signs. Bam was not being objective. It is wrong to idealize a person so much, to adore her, to put the entire weight of your own existence on her. First, you will never know her this way. Second, you may be more easily tempted by evil, as she betrays your hopes. But Rachel’s smile was kind and humble, and she was somehow radiant. Her character design showed that someone had thought of her with care and admiration. She had taken care of Bam, a perfect stranger, as a kind, patient, loving sister would. And I think any of us, looking the sky at night, have been filled of this longing, this thirst that Lewis calls the “Joy” and the Spanish translation, el Dulce Deseo, the Sweet Desire. I certainly never expected the chosen one, for whom all those sacrifices had been made, to willingly push Bam into the abyss to go up. It is a perfect moment of treason, sound off, seeing her go up in slow motion while Bam falls.

And then, there is the flashback. Where we only had watched her sadness, her darkness, her bitterness, her vulgarity, her spite, her greed, were all revealed. A character who was full of light, able to inspire, freely scarred herself in such a way that the thought of her achieving her goal, watching the stars at the top, is just unthinkable. Hadon himself tells her that, when he sees her cowardice. It will never happen. She’s just not capable of that sort of pure happiness. And her inner evil does not cease to grow.

And, if you were wondering, Rachel is the character in which I see myself the most.

I am a sinner. By which I mean that I habitually do things that I judge to be monstrous, world-shattering, dark and loveless beyond all rationality. Not the sort of things that may end up with me in prison, perhaps, or not often. But maybe they should. There is a seed of destruction in them, sometimes so manifest to me that I hold no doubt that the distance between it and the more showy and horrifying forms of evil is only a matter of opportunity and means.

While I’m still young, I’m convinced that there are deeper sins in me I cannot yet fully grasp, like frozen icebergs beyond the surface of my mind and soul. Also, I feel loved by God, with a love even more devoted, sacrificial and deep than Bam’s love for Rachel, a love that would, and does, travel any distance and fight any enemy just to see me happy. Whenever I sin gravely, I freely and consciously choose to hurt and betray a real person who has hope in me, and who has bought an opportunity for happiness for me, my only opportunity for happiness, at the price of His blood.

My whole being and personality, created for the good, become a carcass, a walking lie. I’m totally conscious that, for any of them, it would be just and appropriate that I should never taste happiness of any sort in all eternity. And why would I do thing of that sort, again and again? I don’t really know. It is a whim, or something that shines, or a perverse hope that this time, I will reach some happiness that way.

So, as you can see, I am every bit a son of Eve, and every bit a brother of Rachel.

If what the presumptuously named Tower of God offered was real happiness, there’s no way King Jahad would be such an egoist, murderous jerk, or that his followers would be as petty, perverse, and traitorous as they are. Neither Rachel or I will become happy or God-like by ascending the tower of human power and human pride. If we aren’t deformed and destroyed during the ascent, we are sure to meet just pain and betrayal at the top.

The one who tempted Eve and Adam to sin was an angel already in Hell. In the case of Adam, there was also the person who had already fallen, and was not happier or wiser for it. In the case of Rachel, the people of the Tower play that role, because it will be interesting to see how low she falls. And she falls really low. I know this. To some extent, so does she.

But we both forget, because we see sometime pleasing to the eye, and we infer that it would feed our hungry souls, and that we would be wiser, more powerful, and happier, even if we have to deform and destroy ourselves and the people around us and betray the purest love to achieve it. Aided by the original tempter and other human beings, we convince ourselves that we will be like loveless gods, masters of good and evil.

And we are increasingly desperate to get it at any costs, whatever may happen. I don’t think the scene in which Rachel eats the red apple is unintentional.

Of course, this is only one form of temptation. After the Fall, we can ignore the fact that there are some things that are worse than pain, and even than death, and corrupt ourselves hoping to avoid something that we feel would destroy us. Rachel won’t face the terrible creature Bam, guided as he is by love, goes against. She lets Hoh’s life be destroyed. Sin destroys our own courage, our ability to be signs of God for one another, as we were created for. And the salary of sin is pain, confusion and death. And scandal, the strike against love and hope in the hearts of those around us, that may tempt them to sin, too.

Scandal is a sin Our Lord condemns in the strongest terms. “But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.” Because, as we see with Bam and Rachel, what is done to the scandalized is just like that. To believe in true love, in God, in life, after such a betrayal is very difficult.

A scarred, somber, changed Bam emerges from the abyss, pursuing Rachel. This time, he wants an explanation. In future seasons, I think, we will see the extent of the wound she has inflicted him, and to what extent his innocent heart that inspired so many of the other characters and gave them a path has been hardened, and inclined to lovelessness and sin.

What will Bam do? I don’t know. What I know is what the One who has his place in my equation did, again and again. Which was, and is, starting again and again the path into the loveless and dangerous world of fallen Humanity to reach me again, and bring me such a love that I can be moved, and cry, and change.

Jacob worked for seven more years. Betrayed by a Leah, the Lord will still fight so that her inner Rachel arises, and ultimately triumphs, whatever it takes. So that the Tower is broken, and the bridge is built, one in which we can follow Christ in His Cross, in His Ascension, to the loving embrace of a Father who awaits every day His prodigal son, His prodigal daughter, to celebrate their rescue and restore their happiness. So that the present promise doesn’t become a lie, but a hopeful, humble truth so that we are able to bring hope, and not despair, to each other, On the only condition that we acknowledge our sins and confess them, putting them in His hands, Christ will return them to us as something that He willingly suffered for us, for love.

Our evil, Rachel’s evil, will be countered by a powerful, rich, sacrificial love which will become our own, for a beating heart of flesh, that of a hero, that of a heroine. One that is able to reach the true light our hearts thirst for, and display the true power and potential of the human heart and the human will, when they accept God, as shining vitrals, each with their own colors. If we cling to His hand and walk this path to the end, we will be saved.

What do you desire the most? Are you sure? Perhaps there is something even greater. A love that burns endlessly without consuming the loved one. A light brighter than the stars.

God’s way is not the way of Babel, the way of the world. He gradually purifies our wishes, enlarges our hearts, and shows us the true nature of those signs as signs of hope that bring us true joy when we are loyal to their true meaning, even when that entails going beyond them or rejecting them here and now.

When I thought Rachel may have had a good reason to left Bam behind, it was because these reasons exist in the path of true love. God pointed the stars to Abraham the nomad, old and sterile, promising to grant him the wish of his heart, to be the father of a great family, a great people. But when the time came, he had to renounce to everything, even to the son God had granted him, and hope against all hope, believing that God could even raise the dead. God gave Abraham what He had promised, and more that he could have ever hoped for, because that’s God’s own way of doing things, and that’s how He overcomes evil.

While they may not be not as corrupted as her, the characters of Kami no Tou generally reason like Rachel, not Bam. It was Hoh who was tempted and destroyed, but it could have been anyone. But sacrificial, generous, life-affirming, pure love like that of Bam, even if it entails suffering, has a great power of attraction, and its strength makes those who embrace it truly powerful. It creates communion. Its logic trumps the logic of this world, the logic of Babel, which rises against it, which tries to hurt it by temptation and scandal.

I hope Kami no Tou continues being the kind of show which illustrates this beautiful paradox. How those who cling to their own lives are lost, and see increasing despair, despite their efforts, but those who lose them for the sake of Christ, of the purer love there is, achieve true happiness. As Chesterton puts it in his Ballad of the White Horse:

“Our monks go robed in rain and snow, But the heart of flame therein, But you go clothed in feasts and flames, When all is ice within;

“Nor shall all iron dooms make dumb Men wondering ceaselessly, If it be not better to fast for joy Than feast for misery“.

Let’s fight, not the fight of Babel, chasing after idols and illusions, but the good fight against evil and sin. And may Leah/Rachel, full of light and hope, come to cry and find salvation, and receive as a gift the shine of the stars, with a heart that can accept it, and a thousand other stars in her firmament.

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Tower of God can be streamed at Crunchyroll.

#Anime #Christianity #Tower of God #Kami no Tou #Sin ui Tap #Rachel #Sin #Articles #Author: Gaheret

[rumbelleshowdown]

Author: Overpraised Lasagna

Prompt: Aphrodisiac; room full of chests

Group: A

A/N: This is a continuation of my Round One fic, The Book's the Thing

-

The Legend of the Dark One’s Dagger

“You wanted to see me?”

Weaver looked up at the police officer peering in at him from his office door. “Yes, come in.”

Rogers entered the room, his nerves on full display despite his best effort to hide them.

“Get rid of that uniform. We have work to do,” Weaver growled.

“What?”

The look of pure confusion on Rogers’ face put Weaver at his ease for the first time that morning. He hadn’t been himself since the previous afternoon when he’d met Belle French, or rather, when his murder investigation had intensified.

“You’ve been promoted to detective,” Weaver informed him. “At my request.”

“I, uh, I don’t know what to say.” Rogers stood shell-shocked by the news. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. This job’s about to take us into some very dark places… Now let’s get moving.”

Rogers hesitated before replying. “I was just on my way to the Pirate Cove Amusement Park. They were vandalized overnight.”

Weaver rolled his eyes. “Well, unless there are occult books involved, I don’t want you wasting a lot of time there. Get that squared away and get back here. I have an appointment with Miss French this morning to review photos of the usual suspects. I expect to see you by the time I’m done.” He felt the heat rising up his neck when he mentioned Belle by name.

“Yes, sir.” Rogers replied without moving. “The librarian?”

“Yes, the librarian,” Weaver answered curtly without looking up.

As Rogers started to leave after what seemed an eternity, he suddenly stopped. “Is that a new shirt you’re wearing?”

Weaver glared at him. “Is there a point to your question, detective?”

“Uh, no… just an observation.” The corner of his mouth twitched upward ever so slightly.

“Then go use those observational skills of yours to solve a case.”

“Yes, sir,” Rogers replied and left without further ado.

Weaver sighed. It was pointless to be irked by the very skillset that made Rogers such excellent detective material. So what if he was wearing a new shirt? It was practically a replica of every other white shirt that he owned. He’d purchased it over a year ago and it had been sitting unused in his closet. It’s not as if he’d been influenced by the thought of seeing the lovely librarian again today or by the fact that he’d fallen asleep to visions of her and awakened this morning to the same.

The memory of the morning jolted him back to reality. He almost blushed at the state in which he’d found his mind and body. Desires that he’d successfully subverted for years had resurfaced. He’d been convinced that the tea he’d shared with Miss French the previous afternoon had acted as an aphrodisiac on him. There was no other explanation for the desires that had overwhelmed him and the urgency with which he’d had to attend to them. Just thinking back on the pleasure he’d felt at his release made his body twitch with desire again.

Weaver pushed back from his desk and rose abruptly. He needed to concentrate on the case right now and nothing else. Once the librarian had reviewed the photos, he would have no reason to see her again and that was for the best.

He put on his leather jacket, grabbed the mugshot photo albums and headed out the door.

_________________________________________________________

Weaver cleared his throat as he approached Belle French’s office.

“Detective Weaver! Good morning!” He turned to his side to find the librarian waving to him from the acquisition room.

“Good morning, Miss French,” he said, relieved that the sight of her was not triggering his body to react in any unwelcome ways. In fact, the warmth that seemed to engulf him was more of a balm than a stimulant.

“I just finished taking inventory and I have something to show you.” She beckoned him toward her with a smile that seemed to exert an unmistakable pull on him.

Weaver shook his head to clear it. Obviously the pull was his impatience to see what she had uncovered. This could be the very evidence he needed to crack the case.

“Were you able to identify any missing books?” he asked.

“Unfortunately not. Everything is accounted for…” She bit down on her lower lip and looked at him with a hint of shyness in her eyes. “But I did find something that might be connected to your case.”

Weaver was immediately interested. “As I mentioned yesterday, sometimes the least obvious detail can be the most helpful.”

“Oh, I remembered,” Belle replied. “That’s why I thought this might be important.”

The detective noted the slight blush that had risen to her cheeks reminding him of just how attracted he was to this beautiful woman. He smiled to encourage her to continue while attempting to squash his attraction.

“There was one book that I recognized immediately because I’d read it many years ago. It ends with a mystery and a poem that I wanted to read again, but when I turned to the last page of the book, it was missing. Someone had torn it out.” She looked at him to gauge his reaction.

Weaver’s senses were on high alert. “This could be a mere coincidence, but in my experience that’s quite unlikely. May I see the book?”

Belle appeared pleased with herself as she retrieved the volume and handed it to him.

“The Legend of the Dark One’s Dagger,” Weaver read aloud before raising his eyes to hers. “Do you have an interest in the Dark Arts, Miss French?” Every one of his instincts told him she wasn’t a suspect, but he had to consider everything to do his job thoroughly.

“Not if you’re referring to practicing something that’s truly evil! But I do like myths and magic and legends and fairy tales. The book is about the legend of the dagger that controls the Dark One, a being who’s cursed with extremely powerful dark magic. It’s just a legend of course, but the story is so real that it gives you pause.”

“Do you have any recollection of what was written on the last page?” He knew the question was a long shot.

“I do. The book is about the various people who were the Dark Ones over the centuries, but the book ends after mentioning the last Dark One. He was supposedly a very poor spinner who took on the curse to save his young teenage son from the certain death that would come from fighting in the Ogre Wars.”

Belle giggled when she saw the incredulous expression on Detective Weaver’s face. “Yes, I know this is all far-fetched.”

Weaver laughed at her observation.

“But, anyway,” Belle continued, “the last page contained a poem about the whereabouts of the dagger.”

Weaver was once again on high alert. There was no doubt in his mind that the thieves were looking for this dagger. God only knew why. “You wouldn’t remember anything about the poem, would you?”

“I remember every word of it. I wrote it out for you.” Belle gave him a sheet of blue paper with the words to the poem written in beautiful script.

Once again he read aloud:

Deep within a room of chests

the dagger can be found

To she who holds it in her hand

the Dark One shall be bound

A cold draft passed through him, making his whole body shudder.

“H-How did you remember this?” he asked in an attempt to shake the unsettling feeling that had gripped him.

“The poem was a mystery beckoning to be solved. Something about it fascinated me and I read it over and over again. I always wondered if the dagger itself really existed even if there was no Dark One. There’s always some grain of truth to these legends.”

As he’d expected, her voice and words soothed his nerves. He attributed the chill that had gripped him to the realization that his case was even darker than he’d anticipated. The thieves most certainly believed that the dagger existed and they wanted it enough to commit a murder to find it.

“Thank you, Miss French. I can’t tell you how helpful this is. Would you allow me to take the book with me as evidence or do I have to sign up for a library card and check it out?” He grinned at her even as he admonished himself for his pathetic attempt at flirting.

Belle beamed. “Well, I can allow you to take it, but I’d much prefer it if you’d sign up for a card. There are many other good books in the library that may be of interest to you. I’d be happy to recommend some.”

Weaver’s heart stuttered when she chewed on her lower lip again. Was she flirting with him?

A harsh buzzing sound shattered the mood. It took Weaver several seconds to realize that it was his phone. He fished it out of his pocket.

“Excuse me, Miss French, I have to take this call.” He held the phone to his ear and turned the other way. “What is it, Rogers?”

“I’m going to be delayed. The vandals destroyed all of the treasure chests in the hull of the pirate ship at the amusement park and it looks like the same gang also vandalized all of the caskets in the showroom at the Sunset Funeral Home.”

Weaver’s heart almost stopped beating. These weren’t vandals; they were murderers looking for the dagger in rooms full of chests - just as it stated in the poem.

“Don’t move until I get there!” Weaver barked. “Both incidents are related to our case.”

“They are?” Rogers sounded as confused as he’d looked earlier that day.

“Yes, I’ll fill you in when I see you.” With that he hung up and turned back to the librarian.

“I’m afraid I have to leave, Miss French. There are new developments in my case that need my immediate attention.”

“Oh, I understand, detective. I’m just sorry we didn’t get a chance to fulfill our deal. Maybe we can share a cup of tea and I can tell you my story another time?” Her eyes pleaded with him.

“Of course. I was looking forward to it,” he admitted to both her and himself. “I can come by tomorrow at the same time.”

“That would be perfect! And you can sign up for a library card while you’re here and I can review the suspect photos.” She rewarded him with a smile that was like a beacon of light amidst all of this darkness.

His heart, which was already beating rapidly from the break in his case, seemed to threaten to burst from his chest. He thanked her again for her help and abruptly took his leave.

He drove recklessly to the amusement park, anxious to try to tie these events together. But even in his urgency to get to the scene of the crime and gather new clues, he couldn’t stop thinking about Belle French. There was no doubt that the woman had bewitched him - and she’d done it all without the aid of magic or a spell or a crazy dark curse.

#rumbelle showdown 2020 #Round Two entry #author: Overpraised Lasagna #rumbelle fic #woven beauty fic