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andswarwrites · 1 year

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Day 13

Part Four: Stacey is Bipolar (getting the hang of things, at last)

Shortly before I was hospitalised and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I pleaded with my husband to ask one thing of me, and he asked me to be stable. My heart sank at that request, because I felt it was impossible. It's not impossible. There's just a learning curve. And you can't do it on your own. You need to accept support. In my case, I got a lot of support from the very beginning. My psychiatrist, my therapist, my family, my friends who are as close as family. I was surrounded with care and consideration.

For my part, all I had to do was cooperate and take one day at a time. That may not seem like much, but it's enough. I wrote while in the throes of psychosis, as well as when I was first recovering, and then when I was well on my way to recovery, and all three stages are visible. What I have learned from re-reading what I wrote is that, like a waking dream, everything makes sense to you while you're dreaming, even though it's splintered and scattered and forever unravelling, and when you first wake up, it still makes sense, but as you reflect and remain awake you see the dream for what it was: a collection of visions and storylines that kept shifting like sand.

My dose of medication had to be adjusted, so I had to have regular blood tests and regular appointments. As time passed, my mind slowly stitched itself back together. I participated in some recommended activities and courses. And mainly I learned patience. Being discharged from the hospital does not mean that you are fully healed from a psychosis. The first time, I thought it did, so I tried to resume life like the whole ordeal had never taken place. I quickly learned that you don't magically heal from something like that.

It takes weeks, then months, then years, of taking your meds, evaluating how you feel, gauging what you can do, embracing healthy habits, getting sufficient sleep and rest. I'm a bookworm, and I used to be able to devour a book in an afternoon. Now, even a graphic novel tires me after a few pages. And it's been years now since those psychoses happened. I have to pace myself, and not take on too much. But these limitations don't dishearten me. My reality is who I am right now, if that makes any sense.

What I mean is: I do my best to not dwell on good things from the past, because there were bad things too; I focus on what I can be grateful for in my present situation, and I do hold out hope for an even better future. That is what I consider to be a balanced perspective. And I focus on what I can control: I can remember to faithfully take my medication. I keep a little three compartment pill organizer in my handbag, just in case I don't get home in time to take those pills in the evening.

Another thing I can control is my attitude. If I had a choice, I would obviously choose to not be bipolar, but what choice do I have? I choose to make the best of my situation. On a bad day, I think "Maybe tomorrow will be better." And if tomorrow is worse, I think "This is just a low period, I'll make it through." And then I make it through. Even though I take medication, that medication only tempers the highs and lows, it doesn't make them vanish completely.

I asked S- which he prefers, the highs or the lows, and he told me that when I'm on a high, I'm fun, and when I'm on a low I'm cuddly. So even though I'm not perfectly stable, in his eyes I'm stable enough. The therapist I was seeing retired and I made the decision not to replace her. She had seen me through the worst of it, and she bestowed upon me so many tools to help me cope with life. And she did so gently, simply through discussion, and asking questions to make me come to my own conclusions.

When I see my psychiatrist I basically bring him up to speed on what is going on with me. We go over my last blood test, he asks me a few questions and I answer them honestly. Then I leave. He's told me several times that a lot of individuals with bipolar disorder stop their medication because they can't live without the highs. I don't get that at all. I cannot relate. I mean, experiencing a manic episode can lead to some funny stories, like redecorating your bedroom in the middle of the night, and you do feel this incredible combination of joy and power, but I feel the cost is too high.

If we look at mental health the way we look at physical health, how do we become and remain healthy? Good, daily habits are the foundation. For physical health, we need to stay active, eat well, drink enough water, avoid stress and get sufficient sleep. I find those habits go hand in hand with mental health. Just add healthy relationships, healthy self-care, and reasonable expectations of yourself and others. I also find I need a routine, but if that routine is too rigid, I collapse, so it needs to have enough flexibility and variety for me to keep it up.

How do I conclude? If there's one thing I'm bad at, it's ending a story. Every once in a while, the perfect ending comes along and writes itself, but most often, I just abruptly end my tale, leaving things unresolved. But that's because it's not really the end, it's a stopping point. I'm only thirty-five, who knows where I'll be at in five, ten years, not to mention fifteen or twenty. I can plan, to a certain extent, but this story of me being bipolar will continue to unfold and I will learn more and more as I go on. So for now, let's close the topic and move on. And thank you so much for reading.

#bipolar disorder #personal experience #emotional stability

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evansrussell67 · 5 months

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bao3bei4 · 3 years

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fan language: the victorian imaginary and cnovel fandom

there’s this pinterest image i’ve seen circulating a lot in the past year i’ve been on fandom social media. it’s a drawn infographic of a, i guess, asian-looking woman holding a fan in different places relative to her face to show what the graphic helpfully calls “the language of the fan.”

people like sharing it. they like thinking about what nefarious ancient chinese hanky code shenanigans their favorite fan-toting character might get up to⁠—accidentally or on purpose. and what’s the problem with that?

the problem is that fan language isn’t chinese. it’s victorian. and even then, it’s not really quite victorian at all.

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fans served a primarily utilitarian purpose throughout chinese history. of course, most of the surviving fans we see⁠—and the types of fans we tend to care about⁠—are closer to art pieces. but realistically speaking, the majority of fans were made of cheaper material for more mundane purposes. in china, just like all around the world, people fanned themselves. it got hot!

so here’s a big tipoff. it would be very difficult to use a fan if you had an elaborate language centered around fanning yourself.

you might argue that fine, everyday working people didn’t have a fan language. but wealthy people might have had one. the problem we encounter here is that fans weren’t really gendered. (caveat here that certain types of fans were more popular with women. however, those tended to be the round silk fans, ones that bear no resemblance to the folding fans in the graphic). no disrespect to the gnc old man fuckers in the crowd, but this language isn’t quite masc enough for a tool that someone’s dad might regularly use.

folding fans, we know, reached europe in the 17th century and gained immense popularity in the 18th. it was there that fans began to take on a gendered quality. ariel beaujot describes in their 2012 victorian fashion accessories how middle class women, in the midst of a top shortage, found themselves clutching fans in hopes of securing a husband.

she quotes an article from the illustrated london news, suggesting “women ‘not only’ used fans to ‘move the air and cool themselves but also to express their sentiments.’” general wisdom was that the movement of the fan was sufficiently expressive that it augmented a woman’s displays of emotion. and of course, the more english audiences became aware that it might do so, the more they might use their fans purposefully in that way.

notice, however, that this is no more codified than body language in general is. it turns out that “the language of the fan” was actually created by fan manufacturers at the turn of the 20th century⁠—hundreds of years after their arrival⁠ in europe—to sell more fans. i’m not even kidding right now. the story goes that it was louis duvelleroy of the maison duvelleroy who decided to include pamphlets on the language with each fan sold.

interestingly enough, beaujot suggests that it didn’t really matter what each particular fan sign meant. gentlemen could tell when they were being flirted with. as it happens, meaningful eye contact and a light flutter near the face may be a lingua franca.

so it seems then, the language of the fan is merely part of this victorian imaginary we collectively have today, which in turn itself was itself captivated by china.

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victorian references come up perhaps unexpectedly often in cnovel fandom, most often with regards to modesty.

it’s a bit of an awkward reference considering that chinese traditional fashion⁠—and the ambiguous time periods in which these novels are set⁠—far predate victorian england. it is even more awkward considering that victoria and her covered ankles did um. imperialize china.

but nonetheless, it is common. and to make a point about how ubiquitous it is, here is a link to the twitter search for “sqq victorian.” sqq is the fandom abbreviation for shen qingqiu, the main character of the scum villain’s self-saving system, by the way.

this is an awful lot of results for a search involving a chinese man who spends the entire novel in either real modern-day china or fantasy ancient china. that’s all i’m going to say on the matter, without referencing any specific tweet.

i think people are aware of the anachronism. and i think they don’t mind. even the most cursory research reveals that fan language is european and a revisionist fantasy. wikipedia can tell us this⁠—i checked!

but it doesn’t matter to me whether people are trying to make an internally consistent canon compliant claim, or whether they’re just free associating between fan facts they know. it is, instead, more interesting to me that people consistently refer to this particular bit of history. and that’s what i want to talk about today⁠—the relationship of fandom today to this two hundred odd year span of time in england (roughly stuart to victorian times) and england in that time period to its contemporaneous china.

things will slip a little here. victorian has expanded in timeframe, if only because random guys posting online do not care overly much for respect for the intricacies of british history. china has expanded in geographic location, if only because the english of the time themselves conflated china with all of asia.

in addition, note that i am critiquing a certain perspective on the topic. this is why i write about fan as white here⁠—not because all fans are white⁠—but because the tendencies i’m examining have a clear historical antecedent in whiteness that shapes how white fans encounter these novels.

i’m sure some fans of color participate in these practices. however i don’t really care about that. they are not its main perpetrators nor its main beneficiaries. so personally i am minding my own business on that front.

it’s instead important to me to illuminate the linkage between white as subject and chinese as object in history and in the present that i do argue that fannish products today are built upon.

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it’s not radical, or even new at all, for white audiences to consume⁠—or create their own versions of⁠—chinese art en masse. in many ways the white creators who appear to owe their whole style and aesthetic to their asian peers in turn are just the new chinoiserie.

this is not to say that white people can’t create asian-inspired art. but rather, i am asking you to sit with the discomfort that you may not like the artistic company you keep in the broader view of history, and to consider together what is to be done about that.

now, when i say the new chinoiserie, i first want to establish what the original one is. chinoiserie was a european artistic movement that appeared coincident with the rise in popularity of folding fans that i described above. this is not by coincidence; the european demand for asian imports and the eventual production of lookalikes is the movement itself. so: when we talk about fans, when we talk about china (porcelain), when we talk about tea in england⁠—we are talking about the legacy of chinoiserie.

there are a couple things i want to note here. while english people as a whole had a very tenuous knowledge of what china might be, their appetites for chinoiserie were roughly coincident with national relations with china. as the relationship between england and china moved from trade to out-and-out wars, chinoiserie declined in popularity until china had been safely subjugated once more by the end of the 19th century.

the second thing i want to note on the subject that contrary to what one might think at first, the appeal of chinoiserie was not that it was foreign. eugenia zuroski’s 2013 taste for china examines 18th century english literature and its descriptions of the according material culture with the lens that chinese imports might be formative to english identity, rather than antithetical to it.

beyond that bare thesis, i think it’s also worthwhile to extend her insight that material objects become animated by the literary viewpoints on them. this is true, both in a limited general sense as well as in the sense that english thinkers of the time self-consciously articulated this viewpoint. consider the quote from the illustrated london news above⁠—your fan, that object, says something about you. and not only that, but the objects you surround yourself with ought to.

it’s a bit circular, the idea that written material says that you should allow written material to shape your understanding of physical objects. but it’s both 1) what happened, and 2) integral, i think, to integrating a fannish perspective into the topic.

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japanning is the name for the popular imitative lacquering that english craftspeople developed in domestic response to the demand for lacquerware imports. in the eighteenth century, japanning became an artform especially suited for young women. manuals were published on the subject, urging young women to learn how to paint furniture and other surfaces, encouraging them to rework the designs provided in the text.

it was considered a beneficial activity for them; zuroski describes how it was “associated with commerce and connoisseurship, practical skill and aesthetic judgment.” a skillful japanner, rather than simply obscuring what lay underneath the lacquer, displayed their superior judgment in how they chose to arrange these new canonical figures and effects in a tasteful way to bring out the best qualities of them.

zuroski quotes the first english-language manual on the subject, written in 1688, which explains how japanning allows one to:

alter and correct, take out a piece from one, add a fragment to the next, and make an entire garment compleat in all its parts, though tis wrought out of never so many disagreeing patterns.

this language evokes a very different, very modern practice. it is this english reworking of an asian artform that i think the parallels are most obvious.

white people, through their artistic investment in chinese material objects and aesthetics, integrated them into their own subjectivity. these practices came to say something about the people who participated in them, in a way that had little to do with the country itself. their relationship changed from being a “consumer” of chinese objects to becoming the proprietor of these new aesthetic signifiers.

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i want to talk about this through a few pairs of tensions on the subject that i think characterize common attitudes then and now.

first, consider the relationship between the self and the other: the chinese object as something that is very familiar to you, speaking to something about your own self vs. the chinese object as something that is fundamentally different from you and unknowable to you.

consider: [insert character name] is just like me. he would no doubt like the same things i like, consume the same cultural products. we are the same in some meaningful way vs. the fast standard fic disclaimer that “i tried my best when writing this fic, but i’m a english-speaking westerner, and i’m just writing this for fun so...... [excuses and alterations the person has chosen to make in this light],” going hand-in-hand with a preoccupation with authenticity or even overreliance on the unpaid labor of chinese friends and acquaintances.

consider: hugh honour when he quotes a man from the 1640s claiming “chinoiserie of this even more hybrid kind had become so far removed from genuine Chinese tradition that it was exported from India to China as a novelty to the Chinese themselves”

these tensions coexist, and look how they have been resolved.

second, consider what we vest in objects themselves: beaujot explains how the fan became a sexualized, coquettish object in the hands of a british woman, but was used to great effect in gilbert and sullivan’s 1885 mikado to demonstrate the docility of asian women.

consider: these characters became expressions of your sexual desires and fetishes, even as their 5’10 actors themselves are emasculated.

what is liberating for one necessitates the subjugation and fetishization of the other.

third, consider reactions to the practice: enjoyment of chinese objects as a sign of your cosmopolitan palate vs “so what’s the hype about those ancient chinese gays” pop culture explainers that addressed the unconvinced mainstream.

consider: zuroski describes how both english consumers purchased china in droves, and contemporary publications reported on them. how:

It was in the pages of these papers that the growing popularity of Chinese things in the early eighteenth century acquired the reputation of a “craze”; they portrayed china fanatics as flawed, fragile, and unreliable characters, and frequently cast chinoiserie itself in the same light.

referenda on fannish behavior serve as referenda on the objects of their devotion, and vice versa. as the difference between identity and fetish collapses, they come to be treated as one and the same by not just participants but their observers.

at what point does mxtx fic cease to be chinese?

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finally, it seems readily apparent that attitudes towards chinese objects may in fact have something to do with attitudes about china as a country. i do not want to suggest that these literary concerns are primarily motivated and begot by forces entirely divorced from the real mechanics of power.

here, i want to bring in edward said, and his 1993 culture and imperialism. there, he explains how power and legitimacy go hand in hand. one is direct, and one is purely cultural. he originally wrote this in response to the outsize impact that british novelists have had in the maintenance of empire and throughout decolonization. literature, he argues, gives rise to powerful narratives that constrain our ability to think outside of them.

there’s a little bit of an inversion at play here. these are chinese novels, actually. but they’re being transformed by white narratives and artists. and just as i think the form of the novel is important to said’s critique, i think there’s something to be said about the form that fic takes and how it legitimates itself.

bound up in fandom is the idea that you have a right to create and transform as you please. it is a nice idea, but it is one that is directed towards a certain kind of asymmetry. that is, one where the author has all the power. this is the narrative we hear a lot in the history of fandom⁠—litigious authors and plucky fans, fanspaces always under attack from corporate sanitization.

meanwhile, said builds upon raymond schwab’s narrative of cultural exchange between european writers and cultural products outside the imperial core. said explains that fundamental to these two great borrowings (from greek classics and, in the so-called “oriental renaissance” of the late 18th, early 19th centuries from “india, china, japan, persia, and islam”) is asymmetry.

he had argued prior, in orientalism, that any “cultural exchange” between “partners conscious of inequality” always results in the suffering of the people. and here, he describes how “texts by dead people were read, appreciated, and appropriated” without the presence of any actual living people in that tradition.

i will not understate that there is a certain economic dynamic complicating this particular fannish asymmetry. mxtx has profited materially from the success of her works, most fans will not. also secondly, mxtx is um. not dead. LMAO.

but first, the international dynamic of extraction that said described is still present. i do not want to get overly into white attitudes towards china in this post, because i am already thoroughly derailed, but i do believe that they structure how white cnovel fandom encounters this texts.

at any rate, any profit she receives is overwhelmingly due to her domestic popularity, not her international popularity. (i say this because many of her international fans have never given her a cent. in fact, most of them have no real way to.) and moreover, as we talk about the structure of english-language fandom, what does it mean to create chinese cultural products without chinese people?

as white people take ownership over their versions of stories, do we lose something? what narratives about engagement with cnovels might exist outside of the form of classic fandom?

i think a lot of people get the relationship between ideas (the superstructure) and production (the base) confused. oftentimes they will lob in response to criticism, that look! this fic, this fandom, these people are so niche, and so underrepresented in mainstream culture, that their effects are marginal. i am not arguing that anyone’s cql fic causes imperialism. (unless you’re really annoying. then it’s anyone’s game)

i’m instead arguing something a little bit different. i think, given similar inputs, you tend to get similar outputs. i think we live in the world that imperialism built, and we have clear historical predecessors in terms of white appetites for creating, consuming, and transforming chinese objects.

we have already seen, in the case of the fan language meme that began this post, that sometimes we even prefer this white chinoiserie. after all, isn’t it beautiful, too?

i want to bring discomfort to this topic. i want to reject the paradigm of white subject and chinese object; in fact, here in this essay, i have tried to reverse it.

if you are taken aback by the comparisons i make here, how can you make meaningful changes to your fannish practice to address it?

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some concluding thoughts on the matter, because i don’t like being misunderstood!

i am not claiming white fans cannot create fanworks of cnovels or be inspired by asian art or artists. this essay is meant to elaborate on the historical connection between victorian england and cnovel characters and fandom that others have already popularized.

i don’t think people who make victorian jokes are inherently bad or racist. i am encouraging people to think about why we might make them and/or share them

the connections here are meant to be more provocative than strictly literal. (e.g. i don’t literally think writing fanfic is a 1-1 descendant of japanning). these connections are instead meant to 1) make visible the baggage that fans of color often approach fandom with and 2) recontextualize and defamiliarize fannish practice for the purposes of honest critique

please don’t turn this post into being about other different kinds of discourse, or into something that only one “kind” of fan does. please take my words at face value and consider them in good faith. i would really appreciate that.

please feel free to ask me to clarify any statements or supply more in-depth sources :)

#x #-__- another fandom essay sorry

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nanshe-of-nina · 3 years

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Favorite History Books || The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution by Yuri Slezkine ★★★★☆

In the House of Government, some residents were more important than others because of their position within the Party and state bureaucracy, length of service as Old Bolsheviks, or particular accomplishments on the battlefield and the “labor front.” In this book, some characters are more important than others because they made provisions for their own memorialization or because someone else did it in their behalf.

One of the leaders of the Bolshevik takeover in Moscow and chairman of the All-Union Society for Cultural Ties with Foreign Countries, Aleksandr Arosev (Apts. 103 and 104), kept a diary that his sister preserved and one of his daughters published. One of the ideologues of Left Communism and the first head of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, Valerian Osinsky (Apts. 18, 389), maintained a twenty-year correspondence with Anna Shaternikova, who kept his letters and handed them to his daughter, who deposited them in a state archive before writing a book of memoirs, which she posted on the Internet and her daughter later published. The most influential Bolshevik literary critic and Party supervisor of Soviet literature in the 1920s, Aleksandr Voronsky (Apt. 357), wrote several books of memoirs and had a great many essays written about him (including several by his daughter). The director of the Lenin Mausoleum Laboratory, Boris Zbarsky (Apt. 28), immortalized himself by embalming Lenin’s body. His son and colleague, Ilya Zbarsky, took professional care of Lenin’s body and wrote an autobiography memorializing himself and his father. “The Party’s Conscience” and deputy prosecutor general, Aron Solts (Apt. 393), wrote numerous articles about Communist ethics and sheltered his recently divorced niece, whose daughter wrote a book about him (and sent the manuscript to an archive). The prosecutor at the Filipp Mironov treason trial in 1919, Ivar Smilga (Apt. 230), was the subject of several interviews given by his daughter Tatiana, who had inherited his gift of eloquence and put a great deal of effort into preserving his memory. The chairman of the Flour Milling Industry Directorate, Boris Ivanov, “the Baker” (Apt. 372), was remembered by many of his House of Government neighbors for his extraordinary generosity.

Lyova Fedotov, the son of the late Central Committee instructor, Feodor Fedotov (Apt. 262), kept a diary and believed that “everything is important for history.” Inna Gaister, the daughter of the deputy people’s commissar of agriculture, Aron Gaister (Apt. 162), published a detailed “family chronicle.” Anatoly Granovsky, the son of the director of the Berezniki Chemical Plant, Mikhail Granovsky (Apt. 418), defected to the United States and wrote a memoir about his work as a secret agent under the command of Andrei Sverdlov, the son of the first head of the Soviet state and organizer of the Red Terror, Yakov Sverdlov. As a young revolutionary, Yakov Sverdlov wrote several revealing letters to Andrei’s mother, Klavdia Novgorodtseva (Apt. 319), and to his young friend and disciple, Kira Egon-Besser. Both women preserved his letters and wrote memoirs about him. Boris Ivanov, the “Baker,” wrote memoirs about Yakov’s and Klavdia’s life in Siberian exile. Andrei Sverdlov (Apt. 319) helped edit his mother’s memoirs, coauthored three detective stories based on his experience as a secret police official, and was featured in the memoirs of Anna Larina-Bukharina (Apt. 470) as one of her interrogators. After the arrest of the former head of the secret police investigations department, Grigory Moroz (Apt. 39), his wife, Fanni Kreindel, and eldest son, Samuil, were sent to labor camps, and his two younger sons, Vladimir and Aleksandr, to an orphanage. Vladimir kept a diary and wrote several defiant letters that were used as evidence against him (and published by later historians); Samuil wrote his memoirs and sent them to a museum. Eva Levina-Rozengolts, a professional artist and sister of the people’s commissar of foreign trade, Arkady Rozengolts (Apt. 237), spent seven years in exile and produced several graphic cycles dedicated to those who came back and those who did not. The oldest of the Old Bolsheviks, Yelena Stasova (Apts. 245, 291), devoted the last ten years of her life to the “rehabilitation” of those who came back and those who did not.

Yulia Piatnitskaya, the wife of the secretary of the Comintern Executive Committee, Osip Piatnitsky (Apt. 400), started a diary shortly before his arrest and kept it until she, too, was arrested. Her diary was published by her son, Vladimir, who also wrote a book about his father. Tatiana (“Tania”) Miagkova, the wife of the chairman of the State Planning Committee of Ukraine, Mikhail Poloz (Apt. 199), regularly wrote to her family from prison, exile, and labor camps. Her letters were preserved and typed up by her daughter, Rada Poloz. Natalia Sats, the wife of the people’s commissar of internal trade, Izrail Veitser (Apt. 159), founded the world’s first children’s theater and wrote two autobiographies, one of which dealt with her time in prison, exile, and labor camps. Agnessa Argiropulo, the wife of the secret police official who proposed the use of extrajudicial troikas during the Great Terror, Sergei Mironov, told the story of their life together to a Memorial Society researcher, who published it as a book. Maria Denisova, the wife of the Red Cavalry commissar, Yefim Shchadenko (Apts. 10, 505), served as the prototype for Maria in Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poem A Cloud in Pants. The director of the Moscow-Kazan Railway, Ivan Kuchmin (Apt. 226), served as the prototype for Aleksei Kurilov in Leonid Leonov’s novel, The Road to Ocean. The Pravda correspondent, Mikhail Koltsov (Apt. 143), served as the prototype for Karkov in Ernest Hemingway’s novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls. “Doubting Makar,” from Andrei Platonov’s short story by the same name, participated in the building of the House of Government. All Saints Street, on which the House of Government was built, was renamed in honor of Aleksandr Serafimovich, the author of The Iron Flood (Apt. 82). Yuri Trifonov, the son of the Red Army commissar and chairman of the Main Committee on Foreign Concessions, Valentin Trifonov (Apt. 137), wrote a novella, The House on the Embankment, that immortalized the House of Government. His widow, Olga Trifonova, would become the director of the House on the Embankment Museum, which continues to collect books, letters, diaries, stories, paintings, photographs, gramophones, and other remnants of the House of Government.

#historyedit #litedit #soviet history #russian history #european history #history #nanshe's graphics #history books

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coffeebeannate · 3 years

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The Old Guard: Vol 2-Force Multiplied (Summary &Overview)

I’d been meaning to make this post for a while, and kept forgetting. Because I know there are those who are curious about the comics and not sure about reading them, or can’t read them, would rather opt out etc. So I’ve put together a basic summary and breakdown of what happens within the issue. I’ll include some information about the characters, some timelines (as I can, we know what Greg thinks of timelines) and mostly keep it uncommented until my own general thoughts at the end.

The movie mostly follows the first comic almost completely, and bits of the second, so I’ve not created a summary of the first volume.

Under a cut, includes images and information. If you want a TL’DR, skip to ‘Final Thoughts’ at the end. Long post.

Content/Trigger Warnings: Mentions of Human Trafficking, Slavery, Torture (This one I need some clarification on, gonna use the word just in case but..basically that’s what it is)

**SPOILERS**

Credits: The Old Guard Vol 2 Force Multiplied is created by writer Greg Rucka and aritst Leandro Fernandez. Colouring by Daniele Miwa. Letters by Jodi Wynne. Publication Design by Eric Trautmann. Edited by Alejandro Arbonna. Published by Image Comics. Graphic Novel Published 2020. USA.

Characters and Settings

Characters are the same from volume one. So we still have Andy, Joe, Nicky, Booker, and Nile. As well as more about Lykon and Noriko (she’s not Quynh in the comics, she’s Noriko). There’s more Copley too.

Additional/new characters are FBI Agent Mustafa King (also called Moose) and people who work for Noriko *none are named*.

Setting is California, USA and historical settings for the flashbacks we have for Andy. Summary and Overview (Basically the story overall, broken down, with my own commentary)

We open here, with a flashback of Andy’s earliest life. It’s a tiny bit vague, but provides the general idea.

I believe Andy is mortal here, but I’m not 100% sure. I believe she’s providing the narration to her first death. Which comes as the result of being betrayed in battle.

(Much of the stories focus is on Andy. I’ve noted it before, but Andy is our narrator, and a lot of the story is told via her flashbacks, over narration and POV. The comics really are Andy’s story, with the cast supporting around her.

We cut to modern day, of Andy, Nile. Nicky and Joe doing a job in California, USA. I believe the whole job revolves around taking down human traffickers, and in a couple parts. The job at the beginning has a shoot-out during the day, a car chase and then a stealth take down on a dock and shipping warehouse at night.

I just thought Andy looked cool here. Moving on.

Nile and Andy have a cool sportscar. Joe and Nicky have this very stylish *coughs* but exceptionally practical large van.

After the four of them take care of their day business, we cut to Booker being confronted in Paris by Noriko. Now the scene presented in the comics here is close to what we see at the end of the movie. Except this time it’s at night, and Noriko essentially kidnaps Booker. Since she wants to know where the others are, and Booker won’t tell her.

I’ll cut right to the chase. She uh. She tends to torture him. She’s got him on a heavy chain with a metal collar, and at one point drowns him over and over again to get him to talk. He never does, but she keeps him around anyway.

Around this time Agent King (Moose) appears, and then manages to come across Nile. Which leads to the infamous ‘stew of romance’ scene.

However. while Nicky and Joe are amused (and making bets on him asking her out).. (I love them)

Andy is not amused at all and loses her goddamned mind over it. To which she threatens to..spank Nile (????????) and Nicky and Joe basically tell her to calm down. (Andy’s worried that Nile befriending a mortal is going to end badly, and Nicky and Joe remind her that even if it does, they can’t just stop her. And that some things, Nile has to learn and adjust to herself. Nile is smart, and she’ll come to her own conclusions in time. Interfering isn’t right.

(They all look so sad in the bottom there, help me)

After this is the night mission at the warehouse docks.

Another shot I just thought was cool. Nicky’s sniping shots are done really well.

After they finish, Noriko comes out of the actual blue to get them. Or well..attack them. Joe’s the first one to greet her, and all she does is comment about how he (Yusuf) hasn’t changed and shoots him. She shoots Nile and Andy as well. After both of them recover, Andy and Noriko start fighting, and Nicky puts a stop to it by shooting them both.

(It’s after Andy see’s Noriko that we get the first flashback from Andy to the ships, the same storm that ended up throwing Noriko overboard all those centuries ago and causing her time at sea).

After Noriko and Andy revive from Nicky’s snipe shot, they split, leading us into the next day where Copley and Agent King (Moose, our new character) are surveying the damage at the warehouse and trying to decide what went down.

Copley already knows it’s the Guard, and is trying to explain this to Moose. I do kind of like this moment, where Copley comments to himself about Nicky being a good shot.

Hey-credit where credit is due and all.

Shortly after this, Copley falls on Nicky and Joe’s radar. And they quickly accost him at night. Which is far more satisfying than I thought it would be. A lot of the outcome with Copley and them does feel pretty good.

(Nicky’s scary face aside, I kind of love this shot, and this moment)

They don’t beat around the bush nor give him much leeway. They let him know-without preamble, that they’re pissed and his continued existence is on their good graces unless he explains himself.

I have actually discussed this before (here-also has extra screencaps) so I won’t go too hard in detail on it. But I do love these scenes a lot. I like that they’re allowed to be as fuming angry as they have every right to be, and that they present Copley with no bullshit. Nicky and Joe are completely on the same page. And Copley is made aware of where he stands very quickly. This is where Copley presents them with the information he’d collected in his little self driven conspiracy adventure about them, and then drops the bomb that he knows Noriko has Booker.

Around this time, Andy has more flashbacks of Lykon and her old life..including participating in slave trading of humans. (Which comes back near the end) she also meets up with Norkio. Noriko’s main belief system at present is that, they are above humans *mortals* and there is no reason to behave otherwise. They have no need to stay on the same level as mortals when they’re not.

Also around this time Nile hooks up with Agent King.

Copley gives the information about how to track Booker and Noriko to a boat that Noriko is keeping him on and Andy and Nile join them up in the nick of time. This is also where Copley informs them about how Noriko has gotten her money-organized crime..and basically whatever she can get her hands on. Which is also how Noriko has her own personal army.

‘Fancy’ Joe please.

And for whatever reason, Copley seems to think ‘undercover/distracting’ means..being as stereotypically British as possible?

Though I’ll be honest, I mostly post this cap for how badass Nicky looks.

So! Everything culminates in the boat battle, and at the end, they get Booker back, and handle Noriko. Everyone goes back to a hotel to celebrate, and things are fine until Nile asks Andy about something Noriko had told her. She’d at one point accosted Nile, and told her to ask Andy about “Law 282″ which Andy reveals is the Code of Hammurabi. Which is how they all find out about Andy’s participation in slave trades. slavery etc. Back in her more..ancient warrior days. Nile, and the others are pretty appalled and Andy has a bit of a mental breakdown and explains that she can’t carry on anymore. She won’t. She can’t keep fighting, she can’t keep doing this. Which is when Nile tells them that they have to go.

They don’t really want to leave her, and ask her repeatedly to come with them-but she won’t. So they leave, even though Andy says she doesn’t want to be alone, they leave. (This is where I say, unless they physically forced Andy to come I don’t personally see what else they could have done without Andy fighting them, and probably figure that she’ll come around).

Next morning:

I’m not sure what ‘others’ Noriko is referring to here, but I personally think she set a lot of this up. She gave Nile that law to give back on purpose. I do wonder if it was part of a larger scheme on her end to alienate Andy from her team and swoop in, but I have no true proof of this beyond theory.

So that’s the basic summary of what happens.

Other Points:

Noriko vs Quynh

Noriko is very very much NOT Quynh, and I don’t believe the movie is going to act as such either. I’ve seen some *legitimate* concerns with having Quynh portrayed within the movie as she is in the comics, but given the complete difference between the tone of the movies, and the comics, I think that they’ve already set it up to be different. Personally, I’m not too concerned. I have a lot of faith in Gina Prince-Bythewood, and I can already sense where they’re probably going to make alterations.

Andy/Being Abandoned

Andy’s story has some issues. It’s not..great. It is legitimately hard to reconcile the Andy we know with her past, but I don’t see the ending as the team ‘abandoning’ her to the degree it’s presented. I think they FULLY intended to give her some time to cool off and get their bearings themselves, then come back for her. She keeps telling them she won’t come, but they absolutely do try. And everyone knows that nobody forces Andy to do anything Andy doesn’t want to do.

I mean, Idk, but these just..don’t look to be the faces of people who willingly want to leave her behind.

Just Because:

Nicky and Joe looking over Copley’s work. It’s sweet. Feat WWII Joe.

Final Thoughts

There are-without a single doubt, issues with the comics. I will never deny that. I do enjoy reading them, and I enjoy the dialogue a lot. (And Miwa’s absolutely incredible colouring). I think that there’s a definite difference in tone to them and that there are places where things could be expanded upon overall.

The comics are, as I’ve said before-Andy’s story. The other characters very much exist in support of her, and do not do a lot separately themselves. The movie is definitely more..family with them? Everyone’s personality in the comics is harsher overall. A little bit more dry and dangerous. There’s definitely less comradery with the team too and way less of a family vibe.

As characters, Nicky and Joe are very very similar to their movie counterparts, and I think they are written quite well. They seem to make decisions about what to do together, always appear on the same page *when we see them* and follow the same wavelength We get the sense that they’re completely in-sync. I also do like *though I did say it before* that they’re allowed to have the appropriate reactions and some resolution of what happened to them in Vol 1.

Nile still doesn’t feel as fleshed-out as she could be, so I’m really glad the movie put way more emphasis on her.

There’s some truly strong points in the dialogue-and I personally think dialogue and writing is one of Rucka’s strong points as a writer. Even if I still want to beg him to hire any type of historian whatsoever..and someone who can do math.

I sympathize with the math bit, this is why a helper would be good.

I’m going to wrap it up here, because holy moley this got LONG. If you’ve made it to the end, hi! Feel free to message me with any questions.

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rwrbreversebang · 3 years

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Rules

First and foremost, because this is a general event meant to celebrate the novel in all its entirety, all ships—or lack thereof—are welcome in the fan works created. And below we will describe the rules of participation.

Propriety

Though there is a screen between us, please do remember that all participants and we Mods are all humans. Always remember to speak with respect and kindness.

A huge part of this event is collaborative, so all participants must be mindful and respect one another’s squicks and no gos within the artist/writer teams.

General Requirements

Do not post the entirety of your works to any social media until your assigned posting date, however teasers are permitted to an extent. If you have a question about whether or not your teaser is too revealing, please ask us, that’s why we’re here.

You must comply with mandatory deadlines and check-ins; failure to do so will result in ineligibility to participate in the bang. This will make your art invalid to claim or require a pinch hitter to write the story in your stead. Though, we understand emergencies and life issues can get in the way, just please be open and honest with your Mods.

Artist Requirements

All art pieces must be created for this specific event by your own two hands, you cannot turn in an already published piece or anything of the like.

You cannot claim your own art if you decide to also participate as an author.

I know you’ve read this a thousand times over, but this is a—let’s say it together now—collaborative event! So you are highly (HIGHLY) suggested to be in contact with your author and to communicate with them through the process. Due to this, please give each other up-to-date contact information whether through Tumblr, Discord, Twitter, or email when you begin communicating.

Artist Specifics

Digital traditional art: Your final piece must be no smaller than 800x600 pixels, and the idea of a completed art piece is up to uour discretion, what you would ordinarily post on ur own blog. You are permitted to create more pieces to accompany the story if you so wish once you and your author begin collaborating (but this is completely optional).

Comics must be at least one full page.

Playlist entries should have at least 12 tracks in the queue, with a completed front and back cover, and a accessible link.

Graphic edits should include a coherent story arc, while adhering to Tumblr sizing limitations.

For any other inquiries, please message us through the ask box or email.

Author Specifics

You cannot claim your own work if you also signed up as an artist.

The minimum word count is five thousand (5,000) words and absolutely no maximum, but do take caution that your fic must be completed and beta’d by the final submission date.

All writing pieces must be beta read before publication. You may use your own beta or request a beta through the bang.

Again, this event hinges on the fact that it is CALLABORTIVE! This means means that you are highly (HIGHLY) suggested to get in contact and stay in contact with your artists as you create your project with one another.

As authors, you are required to take into consideration your artist’s squicks, no gos, triggers and etc. You want to stay respectful and thoughtful to your partner.

Please! Please! Do NOT claim a NSFW artwork unless you are 18+, we know that this is mainly based off of trust, but if you do lie about this and we somehow figure it out, you will be removed from the event and prevented from participating in any future events.

How To Sign Up

The sign up date and check in date are all published in our schedule.

Signups for the event will be through a google forms link, but for now we want to simply get a head count of how many people are interested and or excited to participate.

All forms—amidst the four separate ones for artists, authors, pinch hitters, and betas—will ask for your name, contact email, and one reliable social media contact (tumblr, twitter, instagram, discord) which are all required. If you agree to be a pinch hitter as an author in your form, you will not have to fill out the pinch hitter form separately. Beta forms have slightly different questions asking on their strengths and preferences for what to beta.

The discord link will be sent in the confirmation email once you’ve signed up.

Once Artists Complete Their Works

One of the most important rules we hold is that when an artist completes their piece for the claiming rounds, that you do NOT include a watermark or signature for the preview page. We want folks to choose anonymously to try and make this as much of a fair playing field as possible.

We know art theft is a concern, but we promise that the preview page is simply a google doc with limited permissions, with the art works all shown in a column and it will not expand from that private viewing.

The preview will only be open to participants of the event, and we ask kindly for no one to share the link anywhere to anyone.

The only information in the preview page is simply the art piece, with a number indicating it for claims. The NSFW work will be divided with a distinct warning. But that is all, anything else the artist wishes to clarify to their author will be discussed once we pair everyone up.

You will be able to edit your artwork as much as you please once linked up with your artist, but it must be recognizable from your original submission.

Look above for the mandatory aspects of your art medium.

No artworks or artists can be accepted once the previews are opened to the authors.

Claiming

Artworks are anonymous, without any watermarks or signatures by the artist. So they will be claimed based off the artwork and that is all.

All art pieces will be given a number to make claiming run smoothly.

All claims, once submitted to us, are final. So please authors be careful in choosing artworks you can and are excited to write for.

Take your time with claims, they are not done on a first come/first serve basis. But we will do our best to match everyone up with their preferred choices.

Authors should not choose an art piece with a possible trigger/squick already in mind before they even speak to the author.

Check-ins

All check-ins are mandatory. You will receive the check-in forms through a link via email and posted on the discord server. We really hope everyone is honest and consistent with communication.

All check-in dates are already scheduled and you can see them on our schedule post, though if you have a conflict on any of those dates, please communicate that to us before hand.

When you sign up for the event, you are required to give us an email that you check regularly and can communicate easily through.

You are only “required” to communicate with your artist/author directly after claiming and directly before posting begins. But again, we highly suggest you communicate throughout.

Always stay as kind as possible to one another.

How To Contact The Mods In Order Of Preference

Email » [email protected]

Discord DM

Tumblr Inbox

Tumblr DM

Instagram DM

Posting

Posting is obviously the final part of this event, please as stated above, do not post your works anywhere publicly before hand, besides small teasers that shouldn’t give much of anything away.

Your posting dates will be assigned by your Mods, but if there is any sort of conflict just message us ASAP.

There are no requirements for actual posting, besides the fact that the artist/author duo discuss with one another when they’d like to publish, and tag this blog on the post for round up.

There will be an AO3 collection that you can opt into joining, whether through the link or search box. It will be revealed and not-anonymous from the start.

There is also no posting standard, but in your posts we do ask that you both link to one another’s pieces so to help the folks consuming your works understand the full picture.

Because tumblr is unreliable, we ask you to both tag the blog, RWRBREVERSEBANG, and also send us the links through the submissions form.

If you miss your posting date, please contact us and speak with us to figure out when and how you can publish your work.

All stories and art works will be included in daily roundup posts, and a final master list of works.

Feedback

Please, whether participating as an author, artist, beta, pinch hitter, or simply enjoying the works, let’s spread love to one another’s creations. Reblogging means so much more than just a like on tumblr, and kudos are sweet, but comments are a God send. I promise that literally anything you say in the comments will make the creator feel like there is a legion of birds fluttering around in their heart.

And of course, if you have any feedback for the Mods or the blog in general, our ask box is wide open!

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orangerful · 3 years

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Snowflake Challenge 2021 – Post 1, Introduce yourself

In an effort to use this blog more, I’m going to participate in the annual ‘Snowflake Challenge’ so I post on a regular basis. Hopefully, eventually, I will just make some time for blogging and enjoy the process of getting some of the thoughts constantly rolling around in my head committed to the digital page.

Enter, the Snowflake Challenge (details here)

Challenge #1 In your own space, introduce yourself!

I’m orangerful aka Sam. Librarian by day, nerd 24/7.

If I listed every fandom/obsession I have, we would be here all day, so let’s just hit the big ones that will probably give you a pretty well rounded view of who I am:

I was born a Star Wars fan and while I don’t love every single thing Star Wars, I have a soft spot for the original films. I tend to pick and choose from the new stuff, since there is SO MUCH of it, but the galaxy far far away is still a happy place for me when I need to escape this planet.

I have also watched ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. A lot. I discovered it at just the right time in my life, Buffy’s first year of college was the same year as mine, and that was when I finally gave the series a chance. It clicked with me on a level of no other show and, despite its flaws, I still go back to it and quote it often.

I’m currently watching ‘The Expanse’ on Amazon Prime. It is one of THE best sci-fi shows on right now (and maybe the best ever? Only time will tell). I have only read the first book in the series, but I do plan on picking them up at some point (I mean, I work in a library, they are right there) but right now I am enjoying not knowing what is going to happen next.

I just finished a rewatch of ‘Bob’s Burgers’ which still holds up really well and I adore that show. It makes me laugh and it somehow manages to be edgy and wholesome. Maybe because we are all a little bit Bob, Linda, Tina, Gene and Louise every day.

I read a LOT of young adult and middle grade chapter books along with all ages of graphic novels. It’s not required by my job, I just prefer them at this point. I find that YA books are just so much more fun and uplifting than “Adult” books. In YA books, the teens start out struggling with who they are and then experience life to learn and grow and be a better person by the end. In adult books, they start out struggling…continue to struggled…and tend to be struggling/miserable at the end.

That being said, the one adult book series I do enjoy is ‘Murderbot’ by Martha Wells. I need to read the newest one (2020 gave me terrible readers block) but they are the kind of sci-fi snark I need in my life.

My current obsession is all things tabletop games. You will see many posts from the previous year talking about the excellent YouTube channel Dicebreaker and how I have followed all their guidance to amass a large collection of games this year.

I’m also a HUGE fan of OutsideXbox and OutsideXtra. I have been playing video games all my life and their fun and positive and very British approach to talking about games keeps me coming back. These channels reignited my love of gaming. They are just nice people and they love games. Oxtra host Luke Westaway did a few streams on his personal channel during 2020, first composing chill beats and then reading ghost stories (and recently LEGOS!) and the community that formed around those live streams include some of my new favorite people on the planet.

As for fannish things that I do, I’m in the category of thinking-too-much-about-that-silly-thing-you-love and picking it apart until no one will talk to me (so I post them here). It is why I am a fan of Pop Culture Detective and (recently) Cinema Therapy. I have an entire bookshelf of media studies books, mostly about BtVS but a few more general ones too. My undergrad is in American Studies which is all about looking at American culture and ideas and how they shape us as a society.

I was once called a “brand evangelist” so I am also the kind of fan that will talk about one show or game that you absolutely must watch and explain to you why it is awesome until you ask me how I found you and to please back away slowly.

I hope that gives you a good picture of who I am through the lens of all the media I consume. Hopefully over the course of this month, we will all get to know each other a little better!

Happy New Year! It’s 2021 – let’s do better this year!

#snowflakechallenge2021 #about me #fandom #snowflake challenge

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uzumaki-rebellion · 4 years

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I would really just want to get to know you as a person. Your personality seems so electric and this is from your work and posts. What are your favourite things to do?

How kind of you!

I love to read. Lots of fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, and poetry.

I love cinema, and I watch a ton of documentaries, especially docs that deal with the Black diaspora.

In the before times, (Before COVID-19), I traveled a lot to attend SF/F conventions. I write SF/F outside of my fanfics and I also like to write random essays about Black stuff.

I like doing research on topics that interest me, so I am often on youtube going down the rabbit hole.

I like learning and sometimes I take those free Massive Open Online Classes from universities around the world. (Like Coursera ).

I like to cook, but I’m a big foodie and enjoy watching cooking shows. Iron Chef used to be my jam back in the day. (The original one in Japan though)

I love writing fics. Black Panther has given me the opportunity to write about all kinds of Black women and it has also given me the push to eventually indie publish my own stuff soon.

I love listening to music, a lot of world music.

I enjoy binging tv shows. Especially Korean, Northern Europe, and the few Nigerian ones I’ve found on Netflix. I also love binging anime.

I’m a beach bum. Love to swim, bodyboard and snorkel. I used to surf when I was younger but I got hurt really bad with my board (head injury) so I stuck with bodyboarding. I want to return to surfing again. I love Black people surfing all over the globe (I’m having fun writing “Waves”)

I enjoy studying Black History, the Black West in particular especially Black Cowboys past and present. My next Killmonger AU will have him as a contemporary bronco busting Black Cowboy. I’ll have a preview up soon. I majored in Black History & Native American studies in college and went to Texas a lot to visit relatives there as a kid and attended Black rodeos and stuff, so I wanna flex my pen in that world. I have an indie contemporary Black Cowboy/Cowgirl novel already done, but I want to play with Killmonger in it. I’m interested in expanding the Killmonger AUs into some more unique territory. Which is really just sticking him in stuff that I do in real life already, lol!

I study Black kink, Black polyamory, and all things Black and alternative. I enjoy shibari/kinbaku rope bondage and collect images of Black women who participate in it. I would like to do a coffee table book one day of original photos of Black women tied with intricate rope patterns.

I also like collecting Black folktales/myths/legends from around the world.

Thank you for asking about me. I’m a big ole gregarious introvert, but this is a nice list of things to know about me. Now you know all my secrets!

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bluewatsons · 4 years

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Alice Bolin, The Ethical Dilemma of Highbrow True Crime, Vulture (August 1, 2018)

The “true-crime boom” of the mid- to late 2010s is a strange pop-culture phenomenon, given that it is not so much a new type of programming as an acknowledgement of a centuries-long obsession: People love true stories about murder and other brands of brutality and grift, and they have gorged on them particularly since the beginning of modern journalism. The serial fiction of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins was influenced by the British public’s obsessive tracking of sensational true-crime cases in daily papers, and since then, we have hoarded gory details in tabloids and pulp paperbacks and nightly news shows and Wikipedia articles and Reddit threads.

I don’t deny these stories have proliferated in the past five years. Since the secret is out — “Oh you love murder? Me too!” — entire TV networks, podcast genres, and countless limited-run docuseries have arisen to satisfy this rumbling hunger. It is tempting to call this true-crime boom new because of the prestige sheen of many of its artifacts — Serial and Dirty John and The Jinx and Wild, Wild Country are all conspicuously well made, with lovely visuals and strong reporting. They have subtle senses of theme and character, and they often feel professional, pensive, quiet — so far from vulgar or sensational.

But well-told stories about crime are not really new, and neither is their popularity. In Cold Blood is a classic of American literature and The Executioner’s Song won the Pulitzer; Errol Morris has used crime again and again in his documentaries to probe ideas like fame, desire, corruption, and justice. The new true-crime boom is more simply a matter of volume and shamelessness: the wide array of crime stories we can now openly indulge in, with conventions of the true-crime genre more emphatically repeated and codified, more creatively expanded and trespassed against. In 2016, after two critically acclaimed series about the O.J. Simpson trial, there was talk that the 1996 murder of Colorado 6-year-old JonBenét Ramsey would be the next case to get the same treatment. It was odd, hearing O.J.: Made in America, the epic and depressing account of race and celebrity that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, discussed in the same breath with the half-dozen unnecessary TV specials dredging up the Ramsey case. Despite my avowed love of Dateline, I would not have watched these JonBenét specials had a magazine not paid me to, and suffice it to say they did very little either to solve the 20-year-old crime (ha!) or examine our collective obsession with it.

Clearly, the insight, production values, or cultural capital of its shiniest products are not what drives this new wave of crime stories. O.J.: Made in America happened to be great and the JonBenét specials happened to be terrible, but producers saw them as part of the same trend because they knew they would appeal to at least part of the same audience. I’ve been thinking a lot about these gaps between high and low, since there are people who consume all murder content indiscriminately, and another subset who only allow themselves to enjoy the “smart” kind. The difference between highbrow and lowbrow in the new true crime is often purely aesthetic. It is easier than ever for producers to create stories that look good and seem serious, especially because there are templates now for a style and voice that make horrifying stories go down easy and leave the viewer wanting more. But for these so-called prestige true-crime offerings, the question of ethics — of the potential to interfere in real criminal cases and real people’s lives — is even more important, precisely because they are taken seriously.

Like the sensational tone, disturbing, clinical detail, and authoritarian subtext that have long defined schlocky true crime as “trash,” the prestige true-crime subgenre has developed its own shorthand, a language to tell its audience they’re consuming something thoughtful, college-educated, public-radio influenced. In addition to slick and creative production, highbrow true crime focuses on character sketches instead of police procedure. “We’re public radio producers who are curious about why people do what they do,” Phoebe Judge, the host of the podcast Criminal, said. Judge has interviewed criminals (a bank robber, a marijuana brownie dealer), victims, and investigators, using crime as a very simple window into some of the most interesting and complicated lives on the planet.

Highbrow true crime is often explicitly about the piece’s creator, a meta-commentary about the process of researching and reporting such consequential stories. Serial’s Sarah Koenig and The Jinx’s Andrew Jarecki wrestle with their boundaries with the subjects (Adnan Syed and Robert Durst, respectively, both of whom have been tried for murder) and whether they believe them. They sift through evidence and reconstruct timelines as they try to create a coherent narrative from fragments.

I remember saying years ago that people who liked Serial should try watching Dateline, and my friend joked in reply, “Yeah, but Dateline isn’t hosted by my friend Sarah.” One reason for the first season of Serial’s insane success — it is still the most-downloaded podcast of all time — is the intimacy audiences felt with Koenig as she documented her investigation of a Baltimore teenager’s murder in real time, keeping us up to date on every vagary of evidence, every interview, every experiment. Like the figure of the detective in many mystery novels, the reporter stands in for the audience, mirroring and orchestrating our shifts in perspective, our cynicism and credulity, our theories, prejudices, frustrations, and breakthroughs.

This is what makes this style of true crime addictive, which is the adjective its makers most crave. The stance of the voyeur, the dispassionate observer, is thrilling without being emotionally taxing for the viewer, who watches from a safe remove. (This fact is subtly skewered in Gay Talese’s creepy 2017 Netflix documentary, Voyeur.) I’m not sure how much of my eye-rolling at the popularity of highbrow true crime has to do with my general distrust of prestige TV and Oscar-bait movies, which are usually designed to be enjoyed in the exact same way and for the exact same reasons as any other entertainment, but also to make the viewer feel good about themselves for watching. When I wrote earlier that there are viewers who consume all true crime, and those who only consume “smart” true crime, I thought, “And there must be some people who only like dumb true crime.” Then I realized that I am sort of one of them.

There are specimens of highbrow true crime that I love, Criminal and O.J.: Made in America among them, but I truly enjoy Dateline much more than I do Serial, which in my mind is tedious to the edge of pointlessness. I find myself perversely complaining that good true crime is no fun — as self-conscious as it may be, it will never be as entertaining as the Investigation Discovery network’s output, most of which is painfully serious. (The list of ID shows is one of the most amusing artifacts on the internet, including shows called Bride Killas, Momsters: Moms Who Murder, and Sex Sent Me to the Slammer.) Susan Sontag famously defined camp as “seriousness that fails,” and camp is obviously part of the appeal of a show called Sinister Ministers or Southern Fried Homicide. Network news magazine shows like Dateline and 48 Hours are somber and melodramatic, often literally starting voice-overs on their true-crime episodes with variations of “it was a dark and stormy night.” They trade in archetypes — the perfect father, the sweet girl with big dreams, the divorcee looking for a second chance — and stick to a predetermined narrative of the case they’re focusing on, unconcerned about accusations of bias. They are sentimental and yet utterly graphic, clinical in their depiction of brutal crimes.

It’s always talked around in discussions of why people like true crime: It is … funny? The comedy in horror movies seems like a given, but it is hardly permitted to say that you are amused by true disturbing stories, out of respect for victims. But in reducing victims and their families to stock characters, in exaggerating murderers to superhuman monsters, in valorizing police and forensic scientists as heroic Everymen, there is dark humor in how cheesy and misguided these pulpy shows are, how bad we are at talking about crime and drawing conclusions from it, how many ways we find to distance ourselves from the pain of victims and survivors, even when we think we are honoring them. (The jokey titles and tongue-in-cheek tone of some ID shows seem to indicate more awareness of the inherent humor, but in general, the channel’s programming is almost all derivative of network TV specials.) I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but in its obvious failures, I enjoy this brand of true crime more straightforwardly than its voyeuristic, documentary counterpart, which, in its dignified guise, has maybe only perfected a method of making us feel less gross about consuming real people’s pain for fun.

Crime stories also might be less risky when they are more stilted, more clinical. To be blunt, what makes a crime story less satisfying are often the ethical guidelines that help reporters avoid ruining people’s lives. With the popularity of the podcasts S-Town and Missing Richard Simmons, there were conversations about the ethics of appropriating another person’s story, particularly when they won’t (or can’t) participate in your version of it. The questions of ethics and appropriation are even heavier when stories intersect with their subjects’ criminal cases, because journalism has always had a reciprocal relationship with the justice system. Part of the exhilarating intimacy of the first season of Serial was Koenig’s speculation about people who never agreed to be part of the show, the theories and rabbit holes she went through, the risks she took to get answers. But there is a reason most reporters do all their research, then write their story. It is inappropriate, and potentially libelous, to let your readers in on every unverified theory about your subject that occurs to you, particularly when wondering about a private citizen’s innocence or guilt in a horrific crime.

Koenig’s off-the-cuff tone had other consequences, too, in the form of amateur sleuths on Reddit who tracked down people involved with the case, pored over court transcripts, and reviewed cellular tower evidence, forming a shadow army of investigators taking up what they saw as the gauntlet thrown down by the show. The journalist often takes on the stance of the professional amateur, a citizen providing information in the public interest and using the resources at hand to get answers. At times during the first season of Serial, Koenig’s methods are laughably amateurish, like when she drives from the victim’s high school to the scene of the crime, a Best Buy, to see if it was possible to do it in the stated timeline. She is able to do it, which means very little, since the crime occurred 15 years earlier. Because so many of her investigative tools were also ones available to listeners at home, some took that as an invitation to play along.

This blurred line between professional and amateur, reporter and private investigator, has plagued journalists since the dawn of modern crime reporting. In 1897, amid a frenzied rivalry between newspaper barons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, true crime coverage was so popular that Hearst formed a group of reporters to investigate criminal cases called the “Murder Squad.” They wore badges and carried guns, forming essentially an extralegal police force who both assisted and muddled official investigations. Seeking to get a better story and sell more papers, it was common for reporters to trample crime scenes, plant evidence, and produce dubious witnesses whose accounts fit their preferred version of the case. And they were trying to get audiences hooked in very similar ways, by crowdsourcing information and encouraging readers to send in tips.

Of course the producers of Serial never did anything so questionable as the Murder Squad, though there are interesting parallels between the true-crime podcast and crime coverage in early daily newspapers. They were both innovations in the ways information was delivered to the public that sparked unexpectedly personal, participatory, and impassioned responses from their audiences. It’s tempting to say that we’ve come full circle, with a new true-crime boom that is victim to some of the same ethical pitfalls of the first one: Is crime journalism another industry deregulated by the anarchy of the internet? But as Michelle Dean wrote of Serial, “This is exactly the problem with doing journalism at all … You might think you are doing a simple crime podcast … and then you become a sensation, as Serial has, and the story falls to the mercy of the thousands, even millions, of bored and curious people on the internet.”

Simply by merit of their popularity, highbrow crime stories are often riskier than their lowbrow counterparts. Kathryn Schulz wrote in The New Yorker about the ways the makers of the Netflix series Making a Murderer, in their attempt to advocate for the convicted murderer Steven Avery, omit evidence that incriminates him and put forth an incoherent argument for his innocence. Advocacy and intervention are complicated actions for journalists to undertake, though they are not novel. Schulz points to a scene in Making a Murderer where a Dateline producer who is covering Avery is shown saying, “Right now murder is hot.” In this moment the creators of Making a Murderer are drawing a distinction between themselves and Dateline, as Schulz writes, implying that, “unlike traditional true-crime shows … their work is too intellectually serious to be thoughtless, too morally worthy to be cruel.” But they were not only trying to invalidate Avery’s conviction; they (like Dateline, but more effectively) were also creating an addictive product, a compelling story.

That is maybe what irks me the most about true crime with highbrow pretensions. It appeals to the same vices as traditional true crime, and often trades in the same melodrama and selective storytelling, but its consequences can be more extreme. Adnan Syed was granted a new trial after Serial brought attention to his case; Avery was denied his appeal, but people involved in his case have nevertheless been doxxed and threatened. I’ve come to believe that addictiveness and advocacy are rarely compatible. If they were, why would the creators of Making a Murderer have advocated for one white man, when the story of being victimized by a corrupt police force is common to so many people across the U.S., particularly people of color?

It does feel like a shame that so many resources are going to create slick, smart true crime that asks the wrong questions, focusing our energy on individual stories instead of the systemic problems they represent. But in truth, this is is probably a feature, not a bug. I suspect the new true-crime obsession has something to do with the massive, terrifying problems we face as a society: government corruption, mass violence, corporate greed, income inequality, police brutality, environmental degradation, human-rights violations. These are large-scale crimes whose resolutions, though not mysterious, are also not forthcoming. Focusing on one case, bearing down on its minutia and discovering who is to blame, serves as both an escape and a means of feeling in control, giving us an arena where justice is possible.

Skepticism about whether journalists appropriate their subjects’ stories, about high and low, and about why we enjoy the crime stories we do, all swirl through what I think of as the post–true-crime moment. Post–true crime is explicitly or implicity about the popularity of the new true-crime wave, questioning its place in our culture, and resisting or responding to its conventions. One interesting document of post–true crime is My Favorite Murder and other “comedy murder podcasts,” which, in retelling stories murder buffs have heard on one million Investigation Discovery shows, unpack the ham-fisted clichés of the true-crime genre. They show how these stories appeal to the most gruesome sides of our personalities and address the obvious but unspoken fact that true crime is entertainment, and often the kind that is as mindless as a sitcom. Even more cutting is the Netflix parody American Vandal, which both codifies and spoofs the conventions of the new highbrow true crime, roasting the genre’s earnest tone in its depiction of a Serial-like investigation of some lewd graffiti.

There is also the trend in the post–true-crime era of dramatizing famous crime stories, like in The Bling Ring; I, Tonya; and Ryan Murphy’s anthology series American Crime Story, all of which dwell not only on the stories of infamous crimes but also why they captured the public imagination. There is a camp element in these retellings, particularly when famous actors like John Travolta and Sarah Paulson are hamming it up in ridiculous wigs. But this self-consciousness often works to these projects’ advantage, allowing them to show heightened versions of the cultural moments that led to the most outsize tabloid crime stories. Many of these fictionalized versions take journalistic accounts as their source material, like Nancy Jo Sales’s reporting in Vanity Fair for The Bling Ring and ESPN’s documentary on Tonya Harding, The Price of Gold, for I, Tonya. This seems like a best-case scenario for prestige true crime to me: parsing famous cases from multiple angles and in multiple genres, trying to understand them both on the level of individual choices and cultural forces.

Perhaps the most significant contributions to post–true crime, though, are the recent wave of personal accounts about murder and crime: literary memoirs like Down City by Leah Carroll, Mean by Myriam Gurba, The Hot One by Carolyn Murnick, After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry, and We Are All Shipwrecks by Kelly Grey Carlisle all tell the stories of murder seen from close-up. (It is significant that all of these books are by women. Carroll, Perry, and Carlisle all write about their mothers’ murders, placing them in the tradition of James Ellroy’s great memoir My Dark Places, but without the tortured, fetish-y tone.) This is not a voyeuristic first person, and the reader can’t detach and find joy in procedure; we are finally confronted with the truth of lives upended by violence and grief. There’s also Ear Hustle, the brilliant podcast produced by the inmates of San Quentin State Prison. The makers of Ear Hustle sometimes contemplate the bad luck and bad decisions that led them to be incarcerated, but more often they discuss the concerns of daily life in prison, like food, sex, and how to make mascara from an inky page from a magazine. This is a crime podcast that is the opposite of sensational, addressing the systemic truth of crime and the justice system, in stories that are mundane, profound, and, yes, addictive.

#true crime #adnan syed #media #ethics #The Way We Live Now #culture #andrew jarecki #james ellroy #criminal justice #detective fiction

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manuscripts-dontburn · 4 years

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The Fate of the Romanovs

Author: Greg King & Penny Wilson

First published: 2005

Pages: 672

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How long did it take: 16 days

Review HERE.

Woven in Moonlight

Author: Isabel Ibañez

First published: 2020

Pages: 365

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 4 days

The first half of this book left me rather underwhelmed. The second half.... let´s say I never thought I would be teary eyed over friggin woll-made animals. While the beginning felt like the most YA-est of the YA books (especially the really annoying main protagonist), the ending was simply grand. There is, actually, a lot to love about this story. The imagination, the originality, the Bolivian setting as well as drawing direct (and indirect) paralels to actual problems of Bolivia (and not just Bolivia), the woolen sloth and especially the character development. Essentially, what we are reminded by the author is that we should educate ourselves, not judge whole groups according to individuals and not blindly follow anyone, even if they are the closest people in our lives.

Ungovernable: The Victorian Parent's Guide to Raising Flawless Children

Author: Therese Oneill

First published: 2019

Pages: 288

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 3 days

This is a light-hearted and sarcastic reminder of what a hell the Victorian age was when you were a child. And a woman. I also appreciate the not-at-all-subtle message that you simply cannot apply modern standards to history. I enjoyed it.

Daisy Jones and The Six

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reed

First published: 2019

Pages: 406

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 5 days

Review HERE.

Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wife

Author: Sigrid Undset

First published: 1921

Pages: 396

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 5 days

Second volume of the Kristin Lavransdatter novel. As complex as the first, though bit slower in pace. What I appreciate about this story is how historically authentic it feels in all its aspects, including the mindset and logic of the characters - something many authors today have no idea how to achieve or simply indoctrinate the people of the past with all of the "wokeness" of today.

Radúz a Mahulena

Author: Julius Zeyer

First published: 1896

Pages: 82

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 1 day

Krásná slovanská pohádka psaná překrásným jazykem.

The Captain's Daughter

Author: Alexander Pushkin

First published: 1836

Pages: 152

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 1 day

Pushkin is a super-accessible classics author who can entertain, shock and move you all in one go.

Lovely War

Author: Julie Berry

First published: 2020

Pages: 468

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 2 days

WHY in the world isn´t this book all over booktube and other book communities? I would think this had everything a reader could want! War, friendship, adorable romance, really good representation of black soldiers at the turn of the last century, snarky Greek gods chatting in a New York hotel... True enough, it is, at times, slow and perhaps the relationships are idealistic.... but at the same time this book portrays wonderfully how devastating war is to all its participants, how it does not leave them unscathed, and at the same time that it is possible to strive forward and heal, at least to some point, when you have somebody to lean on. If you are at least a bit into romance books, do not miss this one. It is cheezy, it is touching, it is funny. It is just precious.

Jane Eyre The Graphic Novel: Original Text

Author: Charlotte Brontë, Amy Corzine

First published: 2003

Pages: 144

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 1 day

I am forever in love with this story and these characters. The art was really pretty in this, but.... Jane should not be the prettiest gal in the whole book. That just.... goes against a great part of what makes Jane Eyre... Jane Eyre.

A Skinful of Shadows

Author: Frances Hardinge

First published: 2017

Pages: 418

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 5 days

The imagination of Frances Hardinge astounds me. I loved The Lie Tree and I loved this book as well. It is just so ORIGINAL and well written! It is dark, terrifying even, it has some utterly heartbreaking moments and also moments which make you ache with pride. I also very much appreciate how effortlessly the authored wove in the actual facts on how people perceived body, health and soul back in the 17th century. Makepeace has no bigger agenda than to stay alive and stay free, and she is one of the most inspiring book heroines I have met recently!

Milk and Honey

Author: Rupi Kaur

First published: 2014

Pages: 204

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

How long did it take: 1 hour

Unfortunately I am one of those who cannot classify this as poetry of any kind. It is a collection of thoughts and quotes, some of which are painful, some of which are inspiration, some erotic and some encouraging the acceptance of self. There is nothing wrong with the book and I can see its appeal, personally, however, it was just not for me.

The Passion of Marie Romanov

Author: Laura Rose

First published: 2014

Pages: 256

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

How long did it take: 3 days

Review HERE.

Record of a Spaceborn Few

Author: Becky Chambers

First published: 2018

Pages: 358

Rating: ★★★★☆

How long did it take: 4 days

I think it speaks a lot about how wonderful Becky Chambers is as a writer when I give 4 stars to a book without a story. Everything about her universe is presented in such a realistic way you can only yearn for such a future for mankind and you can only hope she is right about aliens. This book also proved to be extremely soothing in our current state of quarantine and fear. I have never cared for sci-fi until Becky Chambers.

The Queen Mother: The Official Biography

Author: William Shawcross

First published: 2009

Pages: 1120

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How long did it take: 24 days

Review HERE.

Miss Austen

Author: Gill Hornby

First published: 2020

Pages: 416

Rating: ★★★★★

How long did it take: 4 days

Oh how utterly beautiful, calming and sweet. The author has managed to capture the essence of the era in vivid colours. She also managed to infuse her novel with the wit, humour and intimacy, quiet reminicent of the Jane Austen novels. If you have ever loved one of the original Austen works, you definitely need to read this book.

Strange Medicine: A Shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Ages

Author: Nathan Belofsky

First published: 2013

Pages: 213

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

How long did it take: 2 days

This is not a book. This is a bunch of badly sorted notes with no coherency.

The Beauty and the Beast

Author: Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve

First published: 1740

Pages: 202

Rating: ★★★☆☆

How long did it take: 2 days

First of all, the MinaLima edition is beautiful.... but somehow the thoughts and ideas disappeared in the second half. Perhaps it reflects the story itself, of which the beginning is charming and beautiful... and the second half somehow becomes boring and actually takes away both the mystery and the lessons (pride = bad) we have learned. The whole equal rank and messed up families and fairy association stuff was completely unneccessary.

#booklr #wrap up #March 2020 #I read a lot

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Marissa Meyer Reflects on Her Iconic Lunar Chronicles Series

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New editions of The Lunar Chronicles has author Marissa Meyer looking back on inventive cosplay and forward to new fairy tale retellings.

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Upon glimpsing the dynamic covers for the new paperback editions of Marissa Meyer’s reimagined fairy tale series The Lunar Chronicles, one can’t help but notice there’s something familiar about them—especially the gorgeous stepbacks that feature Cinder in a ballgown and Cress staring wistfully in the opposite direction of the strapping Thorne, silhouetted by moonlight. They bring to mind… Sailor Moon.

Meyer laughs when this comparison is brought up, considering her background as a Sailor Moon fanfiction writer, but says that it was not intentional: “I think that’s just Tomer [Hanuka]’s style.” However, when her publisher Macmillan sent along the artist’s portfolio, she was certainly struck by Hanuka’s work.

“I think that’s one of the reasons why I was so drawn to him," says Meyer. "Because it does have a little bit of that Japanese/manga vibe to it, which I love. And coming from that fandom and that background, there’s definitely a lot of influence in the books. So, I think that it plays really well; the artwork very much complements the series in a great way.”

While The Lunar Chronicles concluded with its fourth and final novel, Winter, in 2015, fans have been able to spend more time in Meyer’s science fiction fairy tale universe with subsequent releases including the short fiction collection Stars Above and the graphic novel Wires and Nerve.

Now, a re-release of the original quartet with brand-new covers showcasing each of the key characters proves that the series is still relevant to readers today. To wit, part of the new covers process involved crowdsourcing favorite scenes from the active and enthusiastic fandom via Instagram. Meyer describes seeing the same scenes suggested over and over, which made their way into the new designs: Wolf spiriting Scarlet away from danger. Winter and Jacin in a romantic clinch in her menagerie.

read more: Marissa Meyer's Renegades Trilogy is Riveting Superhero Fiction

It’s quite the departure from the original covers, each of which featured one key element from its respective book: Cinder’s mechanical leg (in place of Cinderella’s glass slipper); Scarlet’s (or Little Red Riding Hood’s) cape; Cress’ Rapunzel-esque hair; and Winter’s plague-laced apple. While the series has long been celebrated for centering the stories of princesses of color—Cinder is Asian/Caucasian, while Winter is black—and for its representation of mental illness, now those women are actually on the covers in the (human and cyborg) flesh.

“They’re so beautiful and so vibrant,” Meyer says. “I love what [Tomer] does with colors, and so when you see all four of them together, it just stands out so much. I couldn’t be any happier with them.”

That said, this is not the first time that the series has been illustrated. In addition to the aforementioned Wires and Nerve, there is also The Lunar Chronicles Coloring Book. While most authors do not experience the opportunity to see their work adapted thusly, let alone three, Meyer says it feels “incredible,” though she hastens to add that there is a fourth lens: fan art!

“It’s unbelievable to think about these characters and this world that lived inside my head for so many years, and then to see other people putting their interpretation behind it,” she says. “And in a way that there’s such wonderful justice to it, and [that] really captures the same sorts of emotions that I was trying to put into my writing. It’s just like one giant compliment. There’s nothing quite like it!”

Recent years have seen more and more science fiction and fantasy authors talking candidly about their fanfiction backgrounds, including N.K. Jemisin (the Broken Earth series), Naomi Novik (Spinning Silver), Tamsyn Muir (Gideon the Ninth), Tochi Onyebuchi (Riot Baby), and Brooke Bolander (The Only Harmless Great Thing). But Meyer has always drawn a line connecting her professional work and her fanfic persona, Alicia Blade, as seen on her old website via the Wayback Machine. It’s no surprise, then, that Lunar Chronicles fan art and fanfiction began cropping up online not long after Cinder was published in 2012.

read more: Den of Geek Book Club Podcast Talks with Marissa Meyer

“That’s the fantasy,” Meyer says, “for there to be fanfic of your own work, because I know what love goes into creating fanfiction, and how fandoms can really rally around it.” And how must that feel for a former fanfiction writer?

“It’s a little weird, honestly! But it’s wonderful, and I’m hugely honored to know there are so many people who have taken the characters and gone off and done their own things with them.”

Early on, Meyer had to decide whether she would actually read the stories on Fanfiction.net and the Archive of Our Own (AO3). Despite her burning curiosity, she considered that “if Naoko Takeuchi, the creator of Sailor Moon, regularly went on and read Sailor Moon fanfiction, I think that that might have changed what I was writing and what I was putting out there. And so early on I decided, ‘No, I want that to be for the fans; I don’t think I should be involved in that side of it.’ But knowing that it exists brings me much, much joy.”

Another way in which The Lunar Chronicles’ heroines have made their way into the world has been through cosplay, which Meyer describes as “one of my greatest pleasures” to see at conventions. One group costume that stands out in her memory is a quartet of women in ballgowns representing the albino wolf, peacock, and other animals in Winter’s menagerie on Luna: “It was this amalgamation of ballgowns and formalwear on Luna, but also the animals of the menagerie, and I just thought it was so clever.”

In addition to fanfiction, Meyer is an alum of another online-centric writing community: National Novel Writing Month. Cinder and four subsequent books began as NaNoWriMo projects, but the life of an author has made it more difficult for Meyer to time drafting to every November. When asked if she might participate this year, she says, “I hope so! I haven’t been able to do it for the last couple of years; it never seems to line up with my deadlines anymore. [...] It’s a tradition for me, and one I would love to continue. I can’t say for sure if I’m doing it this year or not; but if I can make it work, then I definitely will.”

However, Meyer fans who are considering undertaking NaNoWriMo themselves will have to juggle a tempting distraction this November: Instant Karma, her contemporary romance novel with a magical twist, will be published November 3. Meyer describes the story, the first in a planned four-book series, as “about a girl who lives in a sunny, beachside town and one day inexplicably gets the power to exact instant karma on people. And she goes around punishing all of the snobs and the bullies and the people that she can’t stand. There’s one boy that she absolutely despises, but every time she tries to use this power on him, it ends up backfiring on her. It will be a love story and secrets will be revealed, etcetera etcetera.”

On her Alicia Blade website sometime before 2012, Meyer described herself as “beloved Sailor Moon fanfiction author and future romance novelist.” While each of the Lunar Chronicles books featured romance, there is something exciting about seeing her fulfill that description with her first romance novel. “It’s been a big change from my previous works,” she says, pointing out that “this is the first thing I’ve written that doesn’t have huge superpowers or futuristic technology. There are no fight scenes! Which is awesome. [...] It’s been really nice now writing something that still has romance, still has a theme of good versus evil and what is true justice, and all of these same sort of themes I like to play with, but in a much more subtle, quiet, sweet sort of way.”

But while she expands the Instant Karma world with contemporary happily ever afters, she won’t stay away from fairy tales for long. Meyer teased a new fairy tale retelling—and while she couldn’t say which story she’s adapting, she did share that it will be an epic fantasy what-if story...

“It is going to be fantasy—kinda my first ‘quest’ fantasy novel, which I’m super excited about because growing up, Tolkien and epic fantasy and Dungeons & Dragons—all of that was my jam. It was always weird to me that my first published book was science fiction, because I thought for sure I would write an epic quest story. So this is kinda my first [of] going back to my teenage roots a bit.” The book is tentatively scheduled for fall 2021, though that timing may be subject to change.

Even as she explores new genres and stories, Meyer will never forget the idea that first set her on this path. “I have so much love for this series,” she says, “and not just because it was my first series. I think for every author, the first one you get published is always going to feel really special. From the moment that I had this idea about writing about fairy tales in the future, and this cyborg Cinderella character, I was just so smitten with it, and I loved the idea of bringing all these characters together and throwing them on a spaceship and seeing if they could save the universe."

"That spoke to my heart and to my nerdiness on so many levels," she continues, "and I just had so much fun writing it. To see it now in the world, and see how readers have responded to it, and that there’s so much love and interest in the characters, it’s really been incredible. And of course I hope to have many more successful book series throughout my career, but I don’t know that there will ever be anything that’s quite the books-of-my-heart as The Lunar Chronicles have been.”

Close to a decade since Cinder was published, with a dedicated fandom returning to the books over and over, Meyer has one hope for the legacy of the series.

“Gosh, it’s so cheesy—I’m gonna say world peace,” she says. “That’s one of the things that I loved writing, was a world in which Earth and the countries of Earth have obtained world peace, and they have been at peace for over a century. I don’t know if it’s naïve, but I truly like to think that that is a potential future.”

The new, gorgeous paperback editions of The Lunar Chronicles will be available for purchase on February 4th. You can order them now via the official website.

As a former fanfiction writer herself, Natalie Zutter is mightily inspired to finish all of her WIPs. Talk fairy tale retellings with her on Twitter @nataliezutter.

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Feb 3, 2020

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akhuna · 5 years

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Shelf-History Tag!

I got tagged my @omgreading and it was an amazing surprise!!

Here are the rules:

❀ This tag is for those books that came to you in an unusual, interesting, funny, or sweet way. Pick 5 (or more if you want) books from your shelf and tell us the story of how you came to own that book. If you’re a public library user and don’t really own any books, you can still participate. Just tell us the most interesting/funny/sweet ways you came to find a particular library book.

Tag your posts #ShelfHistory so I can see them all!

When you’re finished, tag 5 (or more) readers whose Shelf-History you’d like to know about! This one can easily be done on any blogging/vlogging platform so feel free to tag cross-platform if you really want to. ❀

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now, I get a lot of my books because they are mentioned in other books, and if I like the character who is reading them, or they sound interesting, I will give them a shot. Here we go ...

Charles Darwin: The Voyage of the Beagle. This got mentioned in one of Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti novels - Brunetti’s mother in law reads it (and he is very surprised about this, because, as he later tells his wife, “he never pictured her [his MiL] as a serious reader” (she doesn’t show her intellectual side a lot). She said she loved the animal descriptions, and so I put it on my wishlist for Christmas. I still have to get past the first entries - Darwin’s style is a little hard for me - but it’s nice! :)

Kathryn Stockett: The Help. This was mentioned by a blogger I was following years ago - she read it for her book club. The story sounded interesting, so I looked up the book and then bought it for me - it’s one of my favourites. Definitely recommend it!!

Henry D. Thoreau: Walden. Same old, same old ... My mother has been collecting Lilian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who ... crime novels, and the protagonist reads Walden in one of the books. The crime novel series is light reading and very nice, I still have to get past the first few pages, but also looking forward to this. :)

Jiro Taniguchi (any of his graphic novels). These are mentioned in Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog; Paloma, the second protagonist, reads these a lot (in French, because she is still learning Japanese). The comics are very, very beautiful, The Gourmet being my faovurite. ;)

Carson McCullers: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. This is my favourite book story, because ... it’s a little long-winded. ;) So, my favourite band is Electric Six, right? I was listening to their song Greener Pastures one day (for the umpteenth time), and noticed the line: “And my heart ... yeah, my heart is a lonely hunter”. I raise my eyebrows approvingly. “WOAH!”, I think, “NICE!!” A few days later, during my lunch break, I’m in a book shop and browse the English section and TA-DAAA!!! This is an actual title of an actual book! Woah. I read the summary on the back and then but it back on the shelf, because I have enough books as it is. Fast forward a bit, and I get Susan Hill’s Howard’s End is on the Landing for Christmas (a collection of essays from a year during which she was only reading books she already owned. It was on my wishlist). In one of the first chapters, Hill gives you a list of great titles. Guess what - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is on that list as well. The next time I was in the book shop, I took the book from the shelf (it’s still there), read half a page, and fell in love. Carson McCullers is one of my favourite writers, thanks to my favourite band.

I’m tagging @lenkalost , @actualmichelle , @lettersfromthelighthouse , @teastainedpaper , aaaaand .... @spacepaanda !! If anyone else would like to do this, please come forward!! :)

#literature #booklove #books #shelfhistory #tags #thank you so much!#omgreading

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ongshat · 4 years

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For a comprehensive list of most of my print work (not including magazine articles) see this list on Goodreads.

All my works dedicated to the memory of my dearly departed friends: The members of The Formless Ocean Group – Nina Graboi, Elizabeth Gips, Paddy Long, Betsy Herbert, and Robert Anton Wilson. Also to my departed friends: Dave, DW Cooper, Dr. Hyatt (Alan) and humdog.

PAST WORK

Beats In Time: A Literary Generation’s Legacy (Chapter 12 is my interview with Diane DiPrima) also to be included in Conversations with Diane di Prima to be published by the University Press of Mississippi, in 2021/22.

Transmedia: Who Invited the Lobsters Anyway?

Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat by Michael Kinsell – While clearly this is a book about my transmedia project it also includes a lot of things that I wrote as examples, so I include it here. Metamodernism, anyone?

Rebels and Devils: The Psychology of Liberation edited by Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph.D. introduced by S. Jason Black foreword by Nicholas Tharcher contributions by William S. Burroughs Joseph C. Lisiewski, Ph.D. Timothy Leary Ph.D., Robert Anton Wilson, Austin Osman Spare, Genesis P-Orridge, Aleister Crowley, Joseph Matheny, Peter J. Carroll, Israel Regardie, Jack Parsons, Phil Hine, Osho, and many others

Black Book Omega: CIRQUE APOKLYPSIS by Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph.D. Joseph Matheny, Nick Pell, Calvin Iwema, Wes Unruh, Antero Alli (more info here)

Contributor YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts (more info here)

Introduction to The Art of Memetics Aside: When I posted about this book on Greylodge, Seth Godin references the post as a good example of “How to write like a blogger“ This made me happy. 😉

Contributor/Editor:This is Not a Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming with Dave Szulborski (Excerpt here )I edited and contributed to : “This Is Not a Game” which was included in the annual Tween market report that went to marketing executives worldwide in the toy, gaming and youth market industries. Also, I appeared as myself/in character, in person, in the “Catching the Wish” ARG by Dave.

Third Realm (The Yellow King) Written and executed by me, produced in conjunction with Foolish People http://www.argn.com/2009/10/puzzles_for_the_apocalyps

4P2 My first foray into the True Crime arena. Formula: Just put up a single, spooky web page, that purports to be a recruitment drive for an organization whose actual existence is speculative at best and at worst is fiction presented as fact or paranoid, hysterical hand-waving in the interest of selling books and you will get all kinds of reactions. In all fairness, I think the theories mentioned read as good fantasy crime fiction and this was a conceptual attempt at that very thing. Apparently, it succeeded. The unnerving side of this was the equal amount of applications I received asking to join (Really? Join a group of underground serial killers? Really?) or outright death threats by people who really believe in such things. (Someone summed it up pretty well in this article from The Fenris Wolf)

the-fenriswolf-iss-no-4-pp-87-116 PDF Excerpt

El Centro & OMEGA This was a ARG/Transmedia style story with occult/horror/conspiracy elements, started in 2004 and ended in 2006. It utilized Web, print (booklet), radio, phone trees, theater and news wire services. [A version of the doughnut shop scene from this story was used in Amsterdam production of Terra: Extremitas by Foolish People.] This project was done in collaboration my late friend Dave Szulborski. There’s a LOOOOOONG story about this project. So long in fact that it will take up at least three chapters in an future book.

Contributor: What Would Bill Hicks Say with Ben Mack, Amelia the Great and Soft Skull Press (along with Jeff Danziger and Martyn Turner; writers Neal Pollack, Robert Newman, and A.L. Kennedy; and Thom Yorke of Radiohead and others…)

Contributor: 2004-2005 Exquisite Language project for the 2004 ELfest and collected in the Spring 2005 issue of of 2 Gyrlz Quarterly. NOW AVAILABLE AT POWELLS.COM

Introduction, afterward and editing for Poker Without Cards– First Edition. I orchestrated the first release campaign for this book, with the main character becoming “real”on the Internet for a while. After the first few months I turned it over to the author. (statement regarding this work here)

GALT’S ARK: The Black Symphony, First and Second Movements Produced by Cthulhu The Players: Joseph Matheny, Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph.D., Father Daniel Suders & Nicholas Tharcher Illustrated by S. Jason Black, Jonathan Sellers, Weirdpixie & MobiusFrame

THE BLACK BOOK Volume III, Part I

THE BLACK BOOK Volume III, Part II

(The Black Books are considered the workbooks for The Psychopath’s Bible, which I wrote an infamous jacket blurb for.)

The Incunabula: Ong’s Hat Project [ Reviews | Interviews, etc. | Wikipedia | History] This was a ARG/Transmedia style story started in 1988 and ended in 2001. It utilized zines, BBS, early Internet, Web, CD ROM, CD Audio, DVD, print (book, graphic novel and magazine), radio, phone trees, fax, and news wire services. I gained and leveraged exposure in both the mainstream and alternative media to distribute over 2 million copies of CD ROM, ebook and print versions of the story combined. Story elements from Ong’s Hat were also included in the EA Game, Majestic which unfortunately ended prematurely due to 9/11. It was the subject of a full 4 hour show on Coast to Coast AM, been the subject of an article on the Weekly World News and been covered on many radio shows world wide, books, newspapers, magazines, etc. Links to media here.

Description: “…a bizarre Internet phenomenon: an “immersive” online experience—part mystery, part game, part who knows what—known as both the Incunabula Papers and Ong’s Hat. The Incunabula Papers/Ong’s Hat was, or is, a “many-threaded, open-ended interactive narrative” that ”weds an alternate history of chaos science and consciousness studies to conspiracy theories, parallel dimensions, and claims that computer-mediated environments can serve as magical tools…. the documents provoked a widespread “immersive legend-trip” in the late 1990s. Via Web forums, participants investigated the documents—manifestos—which spun up descriptions of brilliant but suppressed discoveries relating to paths that certain scientists had forged into alternate realities. Soon, those haunted dimensions existed in the minds and fantasies of Ong’s Hat’s many participants. That was evident as they responded to the original postings by uploading their own—all manner of reflections and artifacts: personal anecdotes, audio recordings, and videos—to augment what became “a really immersive world, and it was vast”. – The Chronicle of Higher Education—-

“Ong’s Hat was more of an experiment in transmedia storytelling than what we would now consider to be an ARG but its DNA – the concept of telling a story across various platforms and new media- is evident in every alternate reality game that came after.” – Games Magazine 2013

Though Ong’s Hat may not have set out to be an ARG, the methods by which the author interacted with participants and used different platforms to build and spread its legend has been reflected in later games. –Know Your Meme

The Incunabula Papers are arguably the first immersive online legend complex that introduced readers to a host of content, including what religious historian Robert Ellwood has called the “alternative reality tradition. – Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat

As a companion piece to understanding some of the history of the transmedia work that centered around Ong”s Hat you may also want to read Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat, reviewed here.

The Incunabula Papers CDROM was recently included in the BNF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) digital art collection.

Game Over? (currently re-vamping this for re-release)…but if you just HAVE to have it now, someone is selling one for $900 over here. 😛

What Really Happened at Ong’s Hat?

The Incunabula Papers (CD ROM) Free ebook versions here

Incunabula: The Graphic Novel Free ebook version here

Why DVD? (B and N Digital Bestseller)

A booklet published in April-99

Over 100,000 in circulation to date

Available from booksellers nationwide in October reprinted by:

DVD Creation Magazine

Videography Magazine

(printed copy sent out with each issue – July,1999)

Video Systems magazine

and many others

Convergence 2000 (B and N Digital Bestseller) Free ebook version here

Covert Culture Sourcebook

Earth Dance 2000 (Video and DVD)

The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog

Transmedia Litany (with Genesis P’Orridge)

Thee psychick bible

esoterrorist (publisher)

My idea for an Exquisite Corpse jacket blurb using faxes. (WSB missed inclusion by a day). Used on Esoterrist

Banishing Ritual (cover) with Illusion of Safety (audio here)

The Last Book

Also contributed a few articles to Bob and Arlen Wilson’s Trajectories.

A write up I did about my old friend Rob Brezsny for disinfo.com

Interview that I did with with Beat poet and author Diane DiPrima

Nina Graboi Interview, bOING bOING, Number 8 (written under my nom de plume: Michael Kelly)

I’ve contributed articles to AlwaysOn and Adotas. I’ve contributed book, music, and movie reviews to Gnosis and Magical Blend in the past as well as the old Boing-Boing print magazine and Fringeware Review. Note, in the interest of full disclosure, I’d sometimes contribute more than one article or review to a single publication and to avoid the appearance of saturation, I’d use the pen name: Michael Kelly for some of the articles.

Writing For a comprehensive list of most of my print work (not including magazine articles) see this list on Goodreads…

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twincitiesgeek · 4 years

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Every year since 2015, we at Twin Cities Geek have organized our Holiday Toy & Book Drive to support the families served by the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center and the individuals served by the Women’s Prison Book Project.

The Twin Cities geek community came together once again to make the holidays brighter for so many Twin Cities families. The 2019 Twin Cities Geek Holiday Toy & Book Drive drive collected 1,497 toys and gifts and 2,805 books, graphic novels, manga, and comics for a combined grand total of:

4,302 donations!

All of these items were supplemented by generous cash donations of $500 from Nelson Cosplay’s Holiday Market and $135 through community donations on Facebook for a total of $635!

This effort was made possible by a team of over 20 volunteers who made deliveries, sorted donations, and helped with content creation over a period of almost two months. This massive project would not be possible without geeks in our community going the extra mile.

Each and every one of you who volunteered, donated, or helped spread the word about this year’s Holiday Toy & Book Drive helped make a difference in someone’s life this holiday season. You all are amazing!

Donated books await new readers

Just one pile of donated toys

Alisha poses in front of donations while volunteering

Mary shows off a donated toy

Donations for Families in Need

The donated toys, gifts, and children’s and young-adult books were distributed to children and their families in the Summit-University neighborhood in St. Paul through Hallie Q. Brown Community Center. As in past years, we especially asked you to donate items that would make good gifts for teens, and you came through again, giving all manner of tabletop games, video games, graphic novels, collectibles, YA books, DVDs, and more. This is important, as toy-drive initiatives like Toys for Tots so often focus on gifts for younger children—tots—but we geeks are well aware how much it can mean as a teenager to receive a great gift that reflects our interests, and the income level of our family does not change that simple fact.

So, on behalf of all the young adults whose lives you have touched, Twin Cities Geek would like to extend another extra thank-you for being awesome!

Books for the Women’s Prison Book Project

Of the total donations, we also collected 483 paperback books to donate to the Women’s Prison Book Project in Minneapolis! We delivered these to Boneshaker Books, who will distribute them to women and gender-diverse people currently serving time in prison.

Donations delivered to the Women’s Prison Book Project.

Again, thank you to everyone who donated paperbacks. You have helped people you will probably never meet but for whom something as simple as a book can mean so much. And that is a feeling a lot of us geeks can relate to, regardless of our circumstances.

Special Thanks to Local Business and Organizations

Of course, the 2019 Twin Cities Geek Holiday Toy & Book Drive would not have been possible without the generous support of local geek-friendly businesses and organizations throughout the metro who agreed to host donation boxes for us. Many of them have been participating for multiple years, and we were so happy to have them back again—and we were also thrilled to have even more new locations joining us this year for the first time! Many stores also donated to the drive themselves in addition to hosting boxes.

This is a special thank-you to all of them, and we would like to encourage the community to check out these wonderful businesses and organizations throughout the year.

Minneapolis

All Systems Go Games and Movies 158 13th Ave. NE Minneapolis, MN 55413 (612) 331-0028 Map Link

Bingley’s Teas 118 E. 26th St., Suite 208 Minneapolis, MN 55404 (612) 845-1707 Map Link

Brickmania 1618 Central Ave., Suite 110 Minneapolis, MN 55413 (612) 584-3627 Map Link

Comic Book College 4632 Nicollet Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55419 (612) 822-2309 Map Link

Dreamers Vault Games 4701 Hiawatha Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55406 (612) 724-4543 Map Link

Electric Fetus 2000 4th Ave. S Minneapolis, MN 55404 (612) 870-9300 Map Link

Fifth Element 2411 Hennepin Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55405 (612) 377-0044 Map Link

Geek Partnership Society 1121 NE Jackson St. #106 Minneapolis, MN 55413 (612) 424-2477 Map Link

GLITCH 1829 Riverside Ave. #200 Minneapolis, MN 55454 (320) 321-9361 Map Link

Heroic Goods and Games 3456 Minnehaha Ave. Minneapolis MN 55406 (612) 200-9354 Map Link

Knit & Bolt 2833 Johnson St. NE Minneapolis, MN 55418 (612) 788-1180 Map Link

Level Up Games (Mead Hall) 1425 LaSalle Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55403 (612) 315-3945 Map Link

Moon Palace Books and Geek Love Cafe 3032 Minnehaha Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55406 (612) 454-0455 Map Link

Steamship Coffee & Games 711 W Lake St. Minneapolis, MN 55408 (612) 844-1011 Map Link

Tower Games 3920 Nicollet Ave. #150 Minneapolis, MN 55409 (612) 823-4477 Map Link

St. Paul

The Gaming Goat 1326 Grand Ave. St. Paul, MN 55105 (651) 690-4628 Map Link

Mischief Toy Store 818 Grand Ave. St. Paul, MN 55105 (651) 493-3307 Map Link

Source Comics and Games 2057 Snelling Ave. N Roseville, MN 55113 (651) 645-0386 Map Link

Wet Paint 1684 Grand Ave. St. Paul, MN 55105 (651) 698-6431 Map Link

North Metro

Blue Sun Soda Shop 1625 County Hwy. 10, Suite D Spring Lake Park, MN 55432 (763) 432-0704 Map Link

Dreamers Vault Games 11591 Theatre Dr. N Champlin, MN 55316 (763) 506-0303 Map Link

Fantasy Flight Games Center 1975 County Rd. B2 W Roseville, MN 55113 (651) 379-3801 Map Link

The Gamers Den 140 Buchanan St. N #142 Cambridge, MN 55008 (763) 689-5370 Map Link

Games by James 327 Rosedale Center #652 Roseville, MN 55113 (651) 636-0701 Map Link

Games N Go 1595 Hwy. 36 W #190 Roseville, MN 55113 (651) 636-6099 Map Link

Hub Hobby 82 Minnesota Ave. Little Canada, MN 55117 (651) 490-1675 Map Link

Punch-Out Gaming 828 Lake St. S Forest Lake, MN 55025 (651) 464-9820 Map Link

South Metro

Dreamers Vault Games 14332 Burnhaven Dr. Burnsville, MN 55306 (952) 895-1989 Map Link

Gamerheadz 10 Southdale Center Edina, MN 55435 (952) 926-3155 Map Link

Games by James 1032 Burnsville Center Burnsville, MN 55306 (952) 892-1004 Map Link

Games by James Mall of America 358 East Broadway Bloomington, MN 55425 (952) 854-4747 Map Link

Games by James 2510 Southdale Center Edina, MN 55435 (952) 925-9656 Map Link

The Gaming Goat 1095 Diffley Rd., Suite F Eagan, MN 55123 (651) 797-2670 Map Link

Hot Comics & Collectibles 224 Broadway St. S Jordan, MN 55352 (952) 492-7870 Map Link

Hot Comics & Collectibles 26 West 66th St. Richfield, MN 55423 (612) 798-3936 Map Link

Hub Hobby 6410 Penn Ave. S Richfield, MN 55423 (612) 866-9575 Map Link

Issues Needed Comics 15465 Cedar Ave. S #160 Apple Valley, MN 55124 (952) 683-9339 Map Link

Mind’s Eye Comics 200 E Travelers Trail, Suite 105 Burnsville, MN 55337 (952) 492-9350 Map Link

Tomodachi Mall of America 384 North Garden Bloomington, MN 55425 (952) 582-1739 Map Link

East Metro

Level Up Games 120 2nd St. E Hastings, MN 55033 (651) 346-1631 Map Link

West Metro

Dreamers Vault Games 3015 Utah Ave. S St. Louis Park, MN 55426 (952) 938-8163 Map Link

Games by James Ridgedale Center 12529 Wayzata Blvd. Minnetonka, MN 55305 (952) 545-6616 Map Link

Hot Comics & Collectibles 3524 Winnetka Ave. N New Hope, MN 55427 (763) 593-1223 Map Link

Lodestone Coffee and Games 10982 Cedar Lake Rd. Minnetonka, MN 55305 (952) 657-5226 Map Link

Finally, we would also like to acknowledge RFA Engineering in Eden Prairie, which organized an impressive employee donation effort this year, and Wild Rumpus Books in Minneapolis, which donated several boxes of children’s and YA books.

In closing, one more enormous thank-you to our toy-drive volunteers and everyone in the Twin Cities geek community who participated in the drive this holiday season!

Our fifth annual #GiveTCG Twin Cities Geek Holiday Toy & Book Drive closed out 2019 with geeks helping those in need once again! Every year since 2015, we at Twin Cities Geek have organized our Holiday Toy & Book Drive to support the families served by the…

#GiveTCG #Hallie Q Brown Community Center #Holiday Drive #Women&039;s Prison Book Project

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yuvilee · 5 years

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22nd October 2019 Student-led seminar 1

Text: Lefèvre, P. 2008, The Congo drawn in Belgium. The Representation of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi in French-language Belgian Comics, in McKinney, M. (ed.) History and Politics in French-Language Comics and Graphic Novels, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, pp.166-185.

Table of content:

Introduction: A Short Biography of the Author Main part: Tintin - An unexpected Ambassador Belgium's ninth form of art - Lefèvre's antagonistic examples A Better Representation in Contemporary Narration My personal conclusion Notes: Books and articles Picture(s)

About the author: Pascal Lefèvre, born April 15, 1963 in Belgium is a renowned Belgian comics historian and theorist. His doctorate in 2003 was about 'Willy Vandersteens Suske en Wiske in de krant' (1945-1971) which made him the first to receive a doctor's degree in comics in Flandern. Not only does he publish analytical historical essays and books but he also creates comics himself. He was a researcher with the Belgian Comics Center in Brussels and thus contributed to diverse exhibitions and documentaries.

Tintin - An unexpected Ambassador

Sindika Dokolo(1), a collector of contemporary African art, recently held the exhibition 'InCarNations - African Art as Philosophy' in Brussels, Belgium until the beginning of October this year, with classical and modern pieces chosen from his personal collection. In doing so he is raising a number of questions that do not fade in relevance, such as who gets to portray African art and culture? On this basis for discussion, Belgium is working on its colonial past, of which there is a lot in Belgium and its former colonies, as Pascal Lefèvre delineates in his tract.

Even in the so-called 9th form of art, a similar discourse, tailored to the medium and the narrative, is continuously present.

A more recent example than the one from Great Britain cited by Lefèvre is the controversy that was rekindled in Sweden in 2012. For a long time it dominated (social) media and even spread to media abroad, like The Guardian(2). Its emerged from Hergé's comic ‘Tintin in the Congo’ that was to be removed from a YA (young adult) section in a library due to its naïve and openly racially portrayal of the indigenous people of Congo as they appear cliché and thus suggest an anti-African stance(3).

Hamelberg describes In an interview with The Guardian the problem as

‘(...) there are several layers that are problematic, (...) there are the early books that are blatantly and openly racist, like ‘Tintin in the Congo’. (...) there were things that would have been considered racist today but that were quite normal in Hergé's time.’(4)

In my opinion, Hamelberg has certainly addressed an important point with this statement since the first comic publication of Tintin was in a different time and era. Nonetheless, it is important to process and learn from the past just like France tried semi-successfully with a law in 1949.

Should young readers be denied this critical argument in order to protect them, to present them with a perfect world and shielding them from reality? In my opinion, this discourse should rather be actively encouraged and supported by guardians.

Belgium's ninth form of art - Lefèvre's antagonistic examples

In my point of view, Belgium has produced a large number of fantastic comic artists and boasts openly with its long-established comic culture - yes, they call it culture. Some other more conservative nations, in my opinion, are still having a hard time accepting this, even in the 21st century. That's why I was very pleased to see The New York Times revive their bi-monthly best-seller list for graphic novels due to high demand by readers after taking a 2-year break(5).

The reason why a discourse seems to me more important than ever becomes clearer when Lefèvre compares Hergé's ‘Tintin in the Congo’ with, for example, ‘Blondin et Cirage’ created by Jijé. Here we have a boy and his adoptive brother as equal protagonists - but Cirage is depicted with clown lips that are strongly cliché-oriented and for me, at first glance, appear as a shockingly racist illustration.

There is a striking dissonance between the representation and the narrative, which portrays heroes that are needed nowadays.

But why is the imagery still so caricatural?

A possible aesthetic and representational solution, in my opinion, can be to replace humans with animal shapes, which can be used as an indirect depiction of the problems of racism without resorting to real stereotypes and clichés.

To this point I would like to mention ‘Blacksad’(6) which is similar to ‘Maus’ by Art Spiegelman(7). This graphic novel takes place in an alternative universe similar to an exaggerated post-war period in the USA where Nazi-like propaganda and racial discrimination is omnipresent. The main character, a detective in the guise of a black cat, is confronted with the very same problems of our reality but avoids most of the stereotypes associated with the depiction of human characters.

Above: Blacksad: Arctic Nation, Page 5

A Better Representation in Contemporary Narration

As an illustrator, I am often faced with the question of how to create cliché-free and ethnically correct representation in my stories. Is there ‘the’ right way? I believe not. But there are approaches to different comics, graphic novels, children’s books, and other media such as movies that can be analysed for its reason for success.

Looking at more recent depictions of Afro-ethnic protagonists and their approaches, I would like to talk about Marvel's ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’(8) from 2018.

The young protagonist Miles Morales is not the first black Marvel character but the first Spider-Man with an ethnic background, as you might imagine it to be a familiar representation of the typical New Yorker.

But has this raised negative headlines? On the contrary I believe. Many reviews of large-scaled and well-established newspapers spoke of this at most in a side note(9). The focus in media reviews was on the narrative, the humour, the ingenious and particularly refreshing animation, and especially the fact how effortlessly the very message comes across that everyone can be a Spider-Man(10).

In my opinion, all those awards(12) such as a Golden Globe were justified for this comic book adaptation. The humorous and encouraging portrayal of an (almost) everyday hero depicts effectively a positive role model, which just happens to be black-skinned, without that fact ever becoming a central topic.

As an artist of narrative stories it is important to always keep this message and task in mind. I always need to think about this as an illustrator while creating my stories, be it a graphic novel, a comic book, or a children’s book. At the same time, I need to be able to talk to my publisher about the best approach and their ethical stance.

What emerged in France after 1949 to be negative self-censorship, I now have to see in reverse as a task to actively counter, to examine my art for equality, gender equality, diversity, and ethnic correctness.

But what are those rules exactly? Are they written down somewhere like the French law mentioned above? Unfortunately, I will never get ‘the’ ultimate correct answer to this question, while my art is at the mercy of many viewers and views.

My personal conclusion

I need to keep the above considerations in mind when creating a narrative to address children and young adults as my target audience. For myself, I see three options:

I do not have to get involved in the discourse and could avoid it altogether. As a responsible artist and adult, I could provide material for educational purposes along with my own work.

The clear opposite would be to create work that decidedly enters the discourse and actively participates in it, which requires a strong voice and a broad-based argumentative basis.

Or I could try the middle ground to go alternative routes such as animal representations to express an opinion but simultaneously avoid direct, confrontational depictions.

All of these options could work or backfire. Due to new media and especially social media, the audience is potentially larger and opinions (whether qualified or not) spread faster than in Hergé's time. See #TintinGate(13).

Although Hergé is put in a bad light here, I will remain a fan of his comics, because even this type of art must exist as part of our culture in order to encourage a discourse, like the one right here, and to serve as a cautionary tale and exemplification.

Notes:

Books and articles

Bozar, 2019, InCarNation - African Art as Philosophy, Bozar, viewed 19 October 2019, <https://www.bozar.be/en/activities/154489-incarnations>

Palme, J. 2012, Tintin racism row puts spotlight on children's literature, The Guardian, viewed 19 October 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/15/tintin-racism-sweden-row>

Chukri, R., 2012, Vad handlar Tintin-gate om?, Sydsvenskan, viewed 19 October 2019, <https://web.archive.org/web/20121010041224/http://www.sydsvenskan.se/kultur--nojen/vad-handlar-tintin-gate-om/>

cf. Palme, J., 2012, Tintin racism row puts spotlight on children's literature, The Guardian, viewed 19 October 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/15/tintin-racism-sweden-row>

The New York Times updates and expands its best-sellers lists 2019, The New York Times, viewed on 19 October 2019 <https://www.nytco.com/press/the-new-york-times-updates-and-expands-its-best-sellers-lists/>

Guarnido, J., Canales, J. D., 2004, Blacksad 2: Arctic Nation, Dargaud: Paris. Also available online in english: https://viewcomiconline.com/blacksad-vol-2-arctic-nation/

Spiegelman, A., 2003, Maus : a survivor’s tale. London: Penguin.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2018, Blue-Ray, Sony Pictures, Hollywood, Los Angeles, directed by Ramsey, P., Persichetti, B., Rothman, R.

cf: Scott, A. O., 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verseʼ Review: A Fresh Take on a Venerable Hero, The New York Times, viewed on 19 October 2019 <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/movies/spider-man-into-the-spider-verse-review.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fa.o.-scott&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=94&pgtype=collection> Here the only reference to his ethnicity is: ‘But we haven’t seen a Spider-Man like Miles onscreen, which is to say a Spider-Man who isn’t white.”

cf: Loughrey, C., 2018, Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse review: It makes the case animation beats live-action for comic book movies, The Independent, viewed on 19 October 2019, <https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/spider-man-spider-verse-review-live-action-marvel-comic-book-movies-soundtrack-a8679761.html>

Bramesco, C., 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse review – a dazzling animated caper, The Guardian, viewed on 19 October 2019 <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/28/spider-man-into-the-spider-verse-review-a-dazzling-animated-caper>

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was awarded with (samples): Best Animated Feature at the 91st Academy Awards, 2019, Best Animation at the 76st Golden Globe Awards, 2019, Best animated Film at the Critics’ Choice Movie Award, 2019, Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form), Hugo Award, 2019, 46th Annie Awards, won in 6 categories, BAFTA Award for Best animated Movie, 2019, Best animated movie, at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, 2019, Best animation Movie at the Producers Guild of America Awards, 2019,

#TintinGate: cf. Palme, J.

Picture(s):

Guarnido, J., Canales, J. D., 2004, Blacksad 2: Arctic Nation, p. 5, Dargaud: Paris.

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