Shogun is very...modern.

John Blackthorne should be no stranger to a world where death lurks around every corner. The show is set in 1600. Famine and war are sweeping across Europe routinely in the last century, for starters. He's a sailor, too. When we met the man, he is dying of scurvy. You ever watch Master & Commander (you should, very good movie)? Death and the sea are perhaps more companions than freedom and the sea. The man must be well-traveled, too, to be so good at his job; he's been some wild places and seen some things, he had to.

The social strictures of Japan should be no shock to a sailor in their degree, because to this day, and definitely in 1600, a captain's word was law among the crew as intensely as a lord's word was law in feudal Japan. Violence at court? This is the later day of Queen Elizabeth I! It wasn't exactly all tea and crumpets and paeons of glory to the Enlightenment! Beheadings and kinslaying and intrigues all day! Don't tell me it wasn't the subject of speculation in London. Secret police! Bad harvests! Nothing resembling modern medicine existed, so people and especially children died all the time! Elisabeth I was only three years from her death in 1600, too, and the high court was a mess at the time. Let's not even get into what Elizabeth I the one was doing to the Irish. The cult of personality that had grown around her (and since been regrown) was waning for very good reason.

John Blackthorne being clumsy and rough at this high court intrigue in a foreign land makes sense, but his brand of shock at its violence and Mariko's lectures about death make no sense. It's just so modern, written from the perspective of people who are very unlikely to die from a random infected cut and who probably don't have any female relatives who died in childbirth for several generations, which has not been the case for most of human history until very very recently.

It's a brilliant show, don't get me wrong, entertaining and beautifully crafted and just magnificently acted, but whatever it's trying to say about Japan or the world at the time or humanity in general just falls flat because it misses that, in 1600, no one, great or small, east or west or north or south, did not know death as a too-casual companion in a way thankfully utterly foreign to most of us now. Especially not its POV character, a veteran British sailor with a letter of marque to harass and kill if possible the enemies of the Crown.

(What really bothers me about all this is that it feels like it means we forget how to be grateful and how to guard the safety our forebears found against our own madness.)

if you've never engaged with a creative art on a regular basis you need to understand that it requires concerted effort to get into "the groove" to make something and every second that it takes to get into that groove causes physical pain, but the only thing worse than doing it is not doing it.

just found heresy on etsy

no he’s got a point though

Why is the Mufasa movie not high quality 2D animation like the original? Why is it more CGI slop? You telling me Disney couldn't afford it?

wish women’s fitness was more about boosting our energy and getting our bones and joints ready for our old age and getting strong enough to punch men and less about losing weight while getting a bigger ass

Shogun is an excellent show, but once again, we've got a British take on Spanish/Portuguese history.

It does lay all this at the feet of the Jesuit hierarchy though, and, well *gestures at assorted creepy big-eyed mosaics around the world* I lack concern for their image at the moment.

ok

Advice I gave someone today was: 'do it stupid.'

She wants to learn photography. Do it stupid. Take a million photos. Don't think about why they're not good. Enjoy the process of taking photos.

Pick out tge ones you like the most and figure out why you like them. Is it because the subject is centered? Is it because you caught them doing something cool? Is it because the light made cool shadows?

Do it stupid. If you try to do it smart, youll get stuck. If you think too much you'll never get to doing. Do it stupid.

It's funny to me to see people shipping the Ghoul with Lucy, though understandable; Maximus has zero charisma (writing, not actor; in interviews he seems quite charming!) and while I'm sure there's some people who it works for because there always are, the Ghoul oozes gunslinger charisma on top of being played by the ever-charming and awesome Walter Goggins.

I'm pretty sure the show is going for a father-daughter relationship with them, because he had/has(?) a daughter and she was daddy's girl, though it turned out the father she thought she had didn't exist. Her reminding him of the hero he once was and him teaching her the skills she needs to survive is the thing I look forward to the most in next season (what are we thinking, two years? Three? I miss when you'd get a new season of a show every year.)

The thing about Lucy is she is what female relatable characters are when they're at their best. She's what a lot of women aspire to be in these adventures when they're being played out as stories and not mere power fantasies. Smart but not all-knowing, capable but with a lot to learn, making mistakes and paying the price for them, and in the end, through the pain, holding true to real core principles- awakening the capacity for heroism in others, too. So a lot of women see themselves in Lucy more than they do in, say, Captain Marvel or some of the other recent MCU and Disney heroines. We look at her and say "yah, that'd be me" or "the best I could hope to do in this situation is being like this" and this, not being a power fantasy of instant competence and strength, this makes us root for her, connect to her. I wonder if it's similar to the shonen appeal for men, where they see themselves in a guy and his struggles and enjoy watching him grow to be the hero like they want to be.

So a lot of women really connect to Lucy, and a lot of women find the Ghoul very hot, so there's going to be shipping of Lucy and the Ghoul. Blame the writers for making Maximus not do it for most of us. Myself, I think I like the father-daughter version of the relationship, but I do get the ship.

Hah, so now there's been two female characters of this type named Lucy: Lucy Maclean of Fallout and Lucy Carlyle of Lockwood & Co. Something about the name, something about having clear sight when it comes down to it? They're very different young women, but very alike too in a lot of ways, I think.

Brother Gregor never spoke and often spooked the neophytes with his appearance, but he was a gentle soul and a phenomenal cook and knew more ways to prepare a fish than the abbot knew hymns

My husband insists on calling on weekend and just sitting in silence on the phone for hours and somehow it is as counterproductive for writing as when he is in the room.

they’re neighbors okay!!