#evolution of the hammer lady
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what if smol?
#sky cotl fanart#sky cotl#sky children of the light#sky cotl elders#sky cotl forest elder#evolution of the hammer lady#digital art#🔨
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Chapter Thoughts — Chapter 383: Meek Spirits
Pre-cut Positivity—
O Rule and Mount Lady are a fantastic team-up. Mount Lady is, in general, pretty boss this week. I want to combine this and my last fandom and give her Barbatos’s mace-chan. I also have to admire her exercise routine, given that winging around a solid metal wrench as wide as your leg and almost as tall as you are must take considerably more strength than e.g. wielding a similarly sized spear or club made mostly of wood.[1]
O The effects of Mina's efforts on her appearance are neat. The way the blacks of her eyes melt off?? I wonder if Curious’s could do that too, under the right circumstances. Also, her horns extending out is a cool look, one that I don’t recall ever seeing before. I wondered briefly if it was meant to represent a quirk evolution like Koda growing in that horn, but Mina’s seem to go kind of droopy afterward, so I don’t know if they’ll be permanently different in shape the way his seems to be.
Hit the jump for the rest. Note that I have seen the leaks, but I’m leaving the writing below as written pre-leaks, if only because I am very much going to want an accurate translation before I start talking in-depth about the Machia content in 385.
On Gigantomachia and the Limits of Emergency Situation Excuses—
The bit about Machia embodying “pure psychological scarring” is very… Like, guys, That Is A Person. He is not a symbol, not a metaphor. He is a human being. Apart from being a bad look in general, it's especially bonkers to dehumanize Machia in this specific fashion—“From the standpoint of ordinary people”—when the first thing the heroes’ do upon bringing Machia, the soul-numbingly terrifying symbol of everyday peoples’ trauma, under their control is to—stampede him fifty miles back across the landscape over the same path he took before? What are they going to do, stop to yell at everyone they see between here and Jakku not to worry, he’s working under hero auspices now, please refrain from having any PTSD-induced panic attacks!
As I said last time, turning Machia against his own is the sort of thing trial-at-the-Hague war crimes are made of, or would be if this were an international conflict. What’s even more maddening is the stench of double standard hanging over it: when Spinner turns up intending to rescue his ally use a mentally conditioned victim as a tool, he got a moralistic scolding from Mic about how “that guy ain’t gonna be your ace in the hole.” But as soon as the heroes find themselves in a tight spot, all concerns about not using mentally conditioned victims as aces in the hole go right out the window.
The only difference between Kurogiri and Gigantomachia that matters in this context is that the person Kurogiri was pre-mental conditioning was friends with a hero, whereas Machia, so far as we know, has always been loyal to AFO. That’s it. If Machia had been best school buddies with e.g. Ryukyu, we would never have seen him used like this; the heroes would never have even thought about it. We even know that’s the case because the heroes could just as easily have had Shinsou brainwash Kurogiri to open all the portals they needed to kick off this combat; instead, they had Monoma copy the Warp Gate quirk and use it under his own power.
Kurogiri is not to be used as a tool. Eri is not to be used as a tool. But Machia? Break out the psychic hammer and tongs and start beating him into shape; the heroes have lots of uses for him.
I know there’s a measure of shrugging and saying desperate times call for desperate measures out there on this topic, and, indeed, that’s the way Kirishima and Tsukauchi both frame this—a back-up plan, a massive gamble. But the heroes of BNHA are not just any sort of protagonists; they’re called, by both the narrative and as an in-universe job title, heroes. That carries a connotation of ideal, of role model, of a character/person viewed as worthy of admiration and acclaim for their nobility and courage even under duress.
@robotlesbianjavert reminded me of a quote by Rich Burlew, author of the webcomic The Order of the Stick, that really encapsulates my problem with the heroes’ tactics and the big shrug those tactics elicit from certain portions of the fandom.
Burlew said, “Being heroic often means rejecting some tactical options that, while potentially effective, violate your personal moral beliefs.” While he was talking in the context of D&D characters with specific moral alignments, I feel it’s applicable when it comes to superhero comics, as well. Certainly it's a plot that comes up with marked frequency in the U.S. comics Horikoshi draws so much of his heroic iconography from.[2]
If I may use a more widely recognized sentiment, “The ends don’t justify the means.” That’s the issue with the calls the heroes keep making, over and over again. They condone things being done to their enemies that they would never condone in any other context. This isn’t admirable Plus Ultra determination; it isn’t heroic. It’s pessimistic and inconstant, useful only for securing short-term victories.
By all means, that’s a valid story to tell, and heck, sometimes the short-term victory is all you can get, so you do what it takes to get it. That’s true in real life, too. Certainly, if the narrative just wanted its leads to be able to do whatever it takes to get the job done, it could have framed them as being harshly pragmatic, doing whatever it takes to get the job done, dirtying their hands and making hard, uncomfortable decisions in order to keep people safe. That’s the bread and butter of spy dramas and political thrillers! Heroism, however, especially in the sense of cape comic imagery and tropes that Horikoshi is using, requires harder decisions still.
A hero is someone who doesn’t take the easy way out. They not only have to get things done, but they have to get things done in a way that doesn't betray the ideals they uphold. That means they don’t get to use villainous tactics and still call themselves heroes. They certainly don’t get to castigate their enemies for their methods and then turn around and use those same methods themselves.
(More on this next time.)
Moments with Mina—
You know, I thought it was a little weird, back in the Class A vs. Deku fight(‘s aftermath), that Kirishima’s “thing” he tells Deku is that he saw the news story about some kid facing the Sludge Villain. It felt so out-of-left-field, so random—surely there could have been something more relevant to Kirishima than a callback to the Sludge Villain that he had never once indicated he knew about? But now I wonder if the selection wasn’t about Kirishima in that moment, but rather, undercooked set-up for this one. Bringing the Sludge Villain back here instead of any place he might confront a character he faced before just felt like such a non-sequitur, but with the earlier setting, at least there’s that tiny bit of connection. Save that it doesn’t come to anything here, either—I don’t even get the impression Kirishima recognizes him?
Instead, we get a moment for Mina, and—it leaves a bit to be desired, I’m very sorry to say.
O Firstly, okay, Mina failed against Machia before—froze up when she recognized his voice and had a brief, vivid flashback to the fear she felt when she first crossed paths with him. Yet here, when she comes up against him again, he’s basically incidental to her. Which, yeah, I guess you could say is progress—she’s come so far she saves Mount Lady from Machia as an afterthought. On the other hand, though, we’re deprived of a big moment of her facing the fear she failed against before—which Kirishima got!—and instead get her taking out the Sludge Villain, with whom she has no prior interaction, to save Shinsou, so Shinsou can stop Machia.
Not only does her action, then, come down to another example of a girl’s action being crucial to enable and support a boy’s more decisive action, but she even credits it to the training she got from two boys—Bakugou and Shouto—rather than her own efforts.[3]
O Mina being the one to talk about Midnight continues to feel a little strange. Midnight never had a close-close relationship with any of the students, but surely both Momo and Mineta had more significant moments? And Momo’s not here; she’s being criminally wasted on the Sky Coffin battle. Mineta certainly is here, though, and he gets a sum total of bupkis to say or do when faced with Midnight’s killer.
O I wish I didn’t find Hose Face’s writing this week so overwhelmingly exhausting (more on that shortly), because Mina’s line to him about heroes and villains both finding strength in numbers is interesting on its own merits and would be even more so if it weren't being wasted on such a flat caricature.
It has echos of things like Jeanist calling heroes and villains two sides of the same coin and Spinner spitefully accusing the MLA of being the same as him (bandwagon jumpers). It’s also somewhat ahistorical in the sense that the story alludes a few times to the fact that groups of villains were fairly rare prior to the rise of the League of Villains/the fall of All Might. Hero teams were likewise uncommon until they had to start banding together to fill the gap All Might left. The MLA has certainly been cultivating strength in numbers for generations, but it’s still a pretty new thing to both “sides” of the conflict Mina’s talking about.
Anyway, it’s interesting, but I wish I knew where it was coming from. The closest Mina’s ever been to facing the humanity of her enemies is keeping Shouto company in the wake of the Dabi reveal. There’s Aoyama, too, of course, but there’s been no collective effort made to extend the class’s experience with Aoyama—forced into “villainy” against his will—to empathy about other villains they don’t know personally. So wherefore this sudden empathy with villains looking for closeness with like-minded people?
O My final issue with Mina’s big proclamation is that it carries zero weight for her to disavow revenge when she’s never been shown to have a vengeful personality. Mina’s cheerful! She’s upbeat! She doesn’t hold onto anger; she doesn’t brood; she’s extremely well-adjusted in that she cries when she needs to, to get it out of her system, and then she bounces back.
If Mina had been shown to have a particular fondness for Midnight,[4] then maybe I could buy her having to struggle with a darker turn. In the story we have, though, she lacks both: she has no personal connection to Midnight more significant than “teacher whose classes I enjoyed,” nor did the story spend even a breath of time prior to this on Mina struggling to cope with Midnight’s death.
It’s the same issue I have with, say, Deku’s “mad drive to save.” I can’t accept the characterization of Deku’s saving instinct as so intense it’s like a form of madness when the story continually fails to treat that instinct as in any way aberrant or alien to the people around him. Likewise, I can’t applaud Mina for overcoming her rage or desire for revenge when the story never portrayed her wrestling with either.
Way to keep forcing Shouji to be the model minority for everyone else, though.
Hose Face and the Incongruous Belief Set
The PLF material this week is mostly just sigh-inducing and difficult to muster up much enthusiasm for discussing. To recap, though, the members of the erstwhile MLA are taking every opportunity in this second war arc to double down on quirk supremacy despite tiny little issues like the fact that a great many ranking officers and members of high command have quirks that aren’t suited to getting them ahead in a society built around quirk supremacy.
I mean, really. Here’re some impromptu categories and characters that fit them:
Good but unrelated to the function they actually serve in the organization/plot:
o Skeptic – Makes active use of his puppets exactly once; otherwise does nothing that isn’t connected to electronics.
o Curious – Quirk has combat applications, but they have little to no relevance to her day job of running the MLA’s propaganda arm.
Okay but not so impressive that you’d think they’d have what it takes to rise to high positions in the society they themselves profess to want:
o Hose Face – His emittance lets him float, and does—what else, exactly? It’s clearly not lethal to the touch, given that he uses it to float a bunch of his allies, so at best, I can see it giving him a bit of extra punch if he boosts his attacks with it. Not all that impressive or stand-out compared to things that hit harder or are more versatile.
o Galvanize (Taser Dude) – Lightning is a great quirk, except for the fact that elemental quirks seem to be relatively common, so you’d be up against every other asshole in your town that has the same power as you but with some barely more than cosmetic variation. Hard to make a name for yourself that way!
Just kind of whatever:
o Slidin’ Go – If he were getting as much mileage out of a slip-and-slide quirk as e.g. Captain Celebrity or The Crawler, he’d be more famous and recognizable instead of being basically a joke.
o Brand (Pinstripe Shark)– If his quirk is so impressive, why does he bring a katana to the battlefield with him?
o Scarecrow and Nimble - Are their heteromorphic appearances all they have going for them? If not, we sure didn’t see them do anything else, even in the middle of pitched combat.
Functionally useless in an every-man-for-himself world:
o Trumpet – If he had to live in a dog-eat-dog world where only the strength of one’s own quirk, zero other factors, determined who got ahead, he might as well be quirkless.
There are other issues, of course, but another one that’s on display this week is how quirk supremacy is nowhere to be found in the words of Destro or Re-Destro. Nowhere in any line Rikiya has ever spoken, even in the privacy of his own mind, has Might Makes Right-style quirk supremacy been in evidence; he has unfailingly thought of nothing but liberation and building a better, freer world. Here this week, Hose Face’s flashback entails a memory of Re-Destro calling himself and whatever audience he's speaking to comrades, equals, “one and the same.” What part of your supreme leader calling himself and you equals is in accordance with the law of the jungle?
Seriously, guys, if the MLA were actually supposed to have believed all this in such a heavy-handed way all along, why was Geten[5] the only one who actually brought it up during MVA? MVA is the arc that introduced the CRC; surely Hori wasn’t worried about the League fighting a bunch of violent extremists! Or is it rather that he didn’t want to show the League allying with a bunch of violent extremists, so he downplayed the truth as much as he could?
Is it doublethink/groupthink, a cult-enforced unwillingness to ask logical questions if they run you into trouble with the dogma? Is Hori just simplifying them because he’s rushing the ending and doesn’t have time to resolve their plot lines in the way that would be necessary if they were written as having valid points?
On both the Watsonian and the Doylist levels, I’m completely at a loss.
Stray Notes—
O Hose Face’s face hose gets torn apart, and I have some seriously pressing questions about whether he just lost a limb to what was functionally a hero’s attack. I suppose it could have been a support item, but no lines between his quirk, his briefly glimpsed fighting style, and an enormous fucking hose on his face leap to draw themselves in my mind. Again, if his quirk is a biohazard of some kind and he needs a mask to protect him from its effects, like Mustard, surely he wouldn’t use it to float his unmasked allies around the battlefield? So what is it, just dead weight on his mask to make him look creepier?
Anyway, there’s none of the blood spray that has tended to accompany traumatic limb loss in the series to date, but I do wonder. It would be, I think, the only instance other than All Might pulping AFO’s face of heroic action maiming a villain to such an irrevocable degree.[6] You know, just to exacerbate the severity of turning Machia on his allies even further. God knows Shinsou doesn’t tell Machia to hold back, and those claws were plenty lethal against heroes, as we all well know.
O Not sure why Shinsou had to base his Persona Chords arrangement on recordings from Tartarus when he could have just gotten it from the phone call to the Aoyamas. I wonder how much time he needs to program those voices in? It definitely drives home that the heroes had been contemplating using Shinsou against Machia for a long time, though. Which, again, would be perfectly fine if all Shinsou were doing were making Machia stand down. Not so much all the rest of it, though.
O Would it kill Horikoshi to stop telling us the outcomes of these flashbacks before we spend whole chapters on them?? At least when Mirio came back during the war, we spent like a page and a half on the foregone conclusion before getting on back into the swing of things. The reason the fight with Spinner at the hospital had tension is because we didn't know the outcome in advance. What exactly would have been the issue with ending Chapter 382 with Machia showing up and hurling a mountain at the combatants without revealing that the target is AFO and showing Shinsou and Kirishima?
(Tune in next time for: trying to make heads or tails of what exactly Shinsou thought he was doing.)
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FOOTNOTES
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[1] I’ll take Scale Considerations the Author Probably Wasn’t Thinking About for $600, Alex.
[2] Consider, for example, Bad Future Timelines where the present-day heroes have to debate and, ultimately, defeat jaded dystopian future versions of themselves. Or the perennial question, "Why doesn't Batman kill the Joker?"
[3] This after crediting her Acid Man move as being inspired by Kirishima’s Unbreakable, too, recall.
[4] And I’ll note that both times she’s brought up Midnight, here and in the war arc when Mineta is fretting, it’s in the context of going back to Midnight’s classes. She never actually brings up Midnight as her own person, Kayama Nemuri, because Mina doesn’t know Kayama Nemuri. It’s always and only “Midnight-sensei, whose classes I like.” It can’t be stirring and personal when it’s so staunchly removed from being personal.
[5] The kid whose name means Apocrypha, to repeat myself for the umpteenth time.
[6] Give or take the way the heroes have been pretty openly using lethal force against Shigaraki ever since he got out of the tube.
#bnha#chapter thoughts#bnha 383#gigantomachia#pink alien on parade#meta liberation army#plf advisors#ethics of heroism#my writing
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I was lurking in the D$ny tag (guilty pleasure) and anon asked a D$ny stan about the Lucifer-Dany paralels and the stan said that she have more paralels with Venus (fertility, femininity and etc.) but she wanted to put this positive/good image on D$ny and discredit the Lucifer one. And that put me thinking that and certainly she has this paralels but not in the way she put it. But i wanted to see your opinion on this subject of Venus.
Ciao anon!,
good job you found an amazing gem!, keep on the good work. And thank you for having come to me with this, because I find this kind of things super-duper-interesting.
And I agree wholeheartedly with you! Let's see why.
As always, I am in no way an expert, and if anyone knows better please come forward!, all I know is what I learn from my researches and the studies I did in highschool where I chose the classical subjects (latin, greek, history, art history, geography, biology, chemistry, Italian, etcetera).
A couple of premise might be in order, anon, for one when speaking about ancient deities we must take into consideration that there is no clean-cut, most of them are mixed and merged and molded to embody some concepts that probably would have no bearing going hand-in-hand for our sensibilities. For second, often one deity was the ending point of an ongoing evolution of several other deities absorbed in the same figure.
And this is what happened to Venus and its figure.
Lastly I feel like we must scind between the ‘classical’ Venus-Aphrodite (from the greek-roman world) concept and the other connected deities (usually more ancient, and coming from the east), because in asoiaf I feel that we have characters which embody both.
On a footnote of the premises, I shall use the Latin names unless it's imperative I use the greek ones when speaking of the classical deities of the greek-roman pantheon, it's a personal preference. Just giving you all the heads-up.
Now, had you asked me about this matter a couple of months ago, I would have liquidated this with a very simple ‘No, Cersei embodies Venus’ and be done with it, but as chance would have I recently stumbled upon a book on this very matter and subject and while I just gave it a light first look, I feel like I am more prepared, while albeit completely unconvinced of holding the holy truth, to answer better to this quiery.
For starters, let's talk a bit of etymology and understand from whence the word Venus comes.
ETYMOLOGY
Venus, (it. Venere) comes from the proto-italic concept of ‘desire’ wenos— which recalls to the proto-indo-european wenh-os (always meaning ‘desire’). So, the whole point of the name Venus is that it speaks of desire more than love.
CLASSICAL ROMAN-GREEK VENUS/CERSEI LANNISTER
As I told you a bit above, had you asked me some months ago, I would have simply explained why I felt like Cersei embodied Venus better than Daenerys (and she does, to an extent) and be done with it.
So, in the classical greek-roman pantheon, Venus was the goddess of sexual love and sexual drive (the opposite of Mars, to the speak), she was the wife (forced by the king of Gods, Jupiter — which in some myths are her father, in others her brothers or simply kin) of Vulcan (a fat, smith, not pretty to look at, deity whom she spited by sleeping with various lovers, her most famous the god Mars, god of war.
You see the point I am trying to make, don't you?
Next had come King Robert himself, with Lady Stark on his arm. The king was a great disappointment to Jon (...) Jon saw only a fat man, red-faced under his beard, sweating through his silks. He walked like a man half in his cups.
(...)
They called him the Lion of Lannister to his face and whispered "Kingslayer" behind his back. Jon found it hard to look away from him. This is what a king should look like, he thought to himself as the man passed. — Jon I, AGOT
Also, Robert wields a war-hammer and forged a new dynasty, for how ill-fated it was and short-lived besides, the same way as Vulcan was the forge-God.
Also let's not forget: ‘Robert was the true steel.’ — Jon I, ACOK
And Cersei, who is so beautiful she is called the Light of the West, is spiteful of him and thus has several affairs the most prominent one with her own brother, Jaime who is everything Robert isn't, and looks like what a real king was supposed to look.
Also, did you know that Venus was in ancient times considered a star and for its erratic journey in the sky (normal since it's actually a planet) for a time they believed it to be two stars, instead of one, divided in the Morningstar and the Evenstar, this second one called also the Light of the West?, just saying.
Also, the prophecy which will ruin Cersei's life, and is already doing so, the one about the younger-more-beautiful-queen actually is a recall to the story of Eros of Psyche, which is one of the stories collected inside the Metamorphosis by Apuleio.
THE STORY OF PSYCHE AND EROS ~ THE YOUNGER, MORE BEAUTIFUL QUEEN
Venus, envious and spiteful about Psyche a human girl, beautiful and young, so very beautiful than despite the girl's pleads of the opposite, she was started to be venerated in Venus' place, as the human Venus. Irated and furious about it, Venus condemned the girl to marry a monster, but Eros/Cupid, fallen in love with her, steals her away from her monstrous husband and takes her for wife. Since he has to keep his identity hidden Psyche has to be blindfolded during the day if he ever comes around and she cannot have the candles lit when he comes to her bed at night, so that she might not see him. Long story short, she discovers the truth, Venus discovers the truth, takes her for handmaiden and mistreats her. Eros has to plead at Jupiter's throne for his wife and declares his love her her, and Jupiter moved by his favoured nephew (in this story) pleadings grants them marriage and to Psyche immortality.
OMG! 🤯 is this... Jonsa?
Both Jon and Sansa have been connected by the whole stealing of the lover/love deal, and Cersei believed Sansa to be the younger, more beautiful queen come to cast her down (and while imo all girls will play a part, Brienne included on the Jaime front) Sansa will be the ultimate one as she'll end having all that Cersei wanted, ironically, by it being perfectly acceptable in Sansa's case where it was, instead, unacceptable in Cersei's case.
Also, Jon is Ned's nephew, Ned who embodies the Father of the Faith of the Seven pantheon (greek-roman Jupiter), who hid Jon's identity for his own safety, Jon who is considered half a wildling and half a wolf... Ned who promised Sansa a prince Aemon of her own and someone brave, gentle and strong and Jon embodies all of that and the courteous love both he and Sansa desire and.. I sense a pattern here— sorry, excuse me as I go gushing about it for five minutes.
Okay, sorry I am back (tho I might write an Eros and Psyche/Jon and Sansa meta at some point).
Anyway — see my point?, how well Cersei does embody the classical version (greek-roman) of Venus? Okay, said that, let's hop onto the Daenerys and Venus-like deities train.
But before that—
Alexa play the Superquark theme!
(for those of you who aren't Italian and don't know, Superquark is an Italian documentary, which speaks a bit of everything, in easy to understand speech for anyone, and is presented by Piero Angela, a man who has several graduation papers from various universities ad honorem; he's like ninety-something and still presents it and explains it and his son has his own documentary more focused on history and art...anyway, not me fan-girling about the Angela men, this is neither the place nor the time, I just love 'em, ok?)
A small tumble into the origin of this kind of deity.
THE PALAEOLITHIC VENUSES
So, the divino femmininio has been venerated since the dawn of time, as the woman was considered the epitome of fecundity and creation of life, just look at these, called the Palaeolithic Venuses and you might see my point.
The woman as capable of create life is one of the first deities ever venerated by mankind. Though, as some experts point out, many of this figures had elements of both the male and the female (the heads have usually phallic form, while the body is that of a very pregnant, or fertile woman) as to hint toward the fact that the sexual act which has the power to give life need both the male and female component; which is my opinion a very whole and level headed conviction and celebration of the capacity of the creational process.
THE EASTERN VENUSES, WHICH LANDED OF CYPRUS AND BECAME APHRODITE/VENUS — VOYAGES OF A GODDESS
Now, Aphrodite/Venus are not the very same deity, but they are two form assimilated to each other, of which Venus is the last one before the expansion of christianity with the masses; but both of them come from a long line of deities coming from the east, which, imo, are where the parallels between this goddess and Daenerys get more striking.
Venus was the italic version of this all-encompassing, sexual driven female deity, and once Rome conquered the provinces of Greece and Magna Grecia in southern Italy, they put in action the absorption of the local deities with their own for two orders of reason: a) romans (and ancient people) believed that people without gods could not rebel (and the romans actively stole their gods), b) polytheism was very tolerant toward new deities and easily the romans could add new deities to their pantheon or assimilate them to theirs, thus keeping the conquered under their thumb, as they would not feel the need to rebel since they could still venerate their own gods. Thus Venus absorbed traits of Aphrodite and became the last heir of the line of goddesses coming from the east that had landed on Cyprus and taken the form of Aphrodite.
But which one were the eastern-cultured deities of which Venus was the last heir?
As Bethany Hughes says in her book Venus & Aphrodite: History of a goddess, Aphrodite did have two births: one on the shores of Cyprus as this kind of female, all-encompassing deity of sexual drive and another, more ancient, in the east, as a warrior-goddess.
‘The wildness of war, and passion, took female form: across the Middle East, a kind of sisterhood of feisty warfare-and-wantonness goddesses – variously called Inanna, Ishtar and Astarte — started to emerge.’ — Bethany Hughes, Venus & Aphrodite: History of a Goddess
Remember when I told you about ancient deities embodying more than one aspect of life, often aspects we would not connect together?
Ancient people believed that desire which is the core aspect that characterises Venus and her progenitors is not only revolved toward love and life-making, but also war and destructive power. Thus mankind started to venerate female deities which embodied both the sexual drive born of lust and desire, and the violence of war and destruction.
These deities were female, with very particular physical aspects, and they were characterised by being always travelling (usually by sea — Venus did spring forth from the sea-foam), which connects nicely with the fact that people connected them with the celestial being of Venus which they believed to be a star, or two as I told you before, because of its errant journey in the night sky. Why?, why not some fixed star? because these deities were described to be voluptuous and volatile of nature, they had vacillating nature and felt deeply the need to travel and conquer. The deity ferocious power was drawn by Venus itself. And it was considered so strong and ferocious that kings and pharaohs called to it, to heal them and to ensure that their enemies lost everything (if their wives fell in the lap of the enemy their line would not longer be pure, no longer be theirs — look at Menelaus and Helen of Troy — Venus had a role in that matter as well, btw).
Etymology is fun because we can understand something of the cultural environment of people come before us thanks to it.
And if you think that authors after Homer used the very same word to indicate sexual penetration and military invasion — we see how much this dichotomy between lust/passion and war/death was fundamentally ingrained in their minds. (also keep this particular point in mind, I will return to it later).
ISHTAR, INANNA AND ASTARTE/DAENERYS TARGARYEN
It's my personal opinion that Daenerys actually embodies more the eastern cultural oriented versions of Venus, so to speak plainly, Ishtar, Inanna and Astarte, which are often depicted with both horns and wings (both traits shared by dragons ‘I am the blood of the dragon, if they are monsters so am I’ — Daenerys Targaryen).
Also, it makes sense that Daenerys would embody that east-oriented cultural deities (Ishtar, Inanna and Astarte) and Cersei the western-oriented cultural deities (Venus and Aphrodite), for a series of reason, but mostly because Daenerys is of valyrian descent (eastward from Westeros) and she has lived all her life in Essos, it's there that she was raised and there that she has formed her own character; while Cersei embodies the western deities as she worn in Westeros, was raised there and was queen there for over a decade (the whole Tarly speech about Cersei being born, raised and lived in Westeros, while Daenerys is a foreign invader despite being born in Dragonstone — the eastern fortress of the crown lands, so to speak — because she lived all her life in Essos, comes to mind).
But aside from that, these eastern-cultural oriented goddesses embodied both the sexual drive typical of Venus (who had the warcraft and destruction counterpart in Mars) but they also embodied the war&destruction traits that classical pantheon often associates with Mars, which intertwines nicely with Daenerys' own arc and character in my opinion.
Also, remember that point I made about etymology and authors after Homer using the very same word to indicate both sexual penetration and military invasion?
Here, have a treat:
No one was calling her Daenerys the Conqueror yet, but perhaps they would. Aegon the Conqueror had won Westeros with three dragons, but she had taken Meereen with sewer rats and a wooden cock, in less than a day. — Daenerys VI, ASOS
Yeah, I daresay Daenerys embodies this, more ancient and eastern version of the all-mighty goddess of passion/desire and war/conquest/death.
Why do I think that Daenerys might be more connected with these goddesses than the classical Venus?
Ishtar was venerated and celebrated on the Ishtar's Gate in Babylon and one of her epithets (emblazoned on the gate) was actually ‘she who vanquish all’.
Inanna was usually depicted wearing refulgent white (and I distinctly remember Clapton says in an interview that her wearing so much white was to show not her moral purity but her otherworldliness, her godlike complex as well as her detachment from reality, her mind, as perfectly highlighted by the book quote ‘Up here in her garden Dany sometimes felt like a god, living atop the highest mountain in the world. Do all gods feel so lonely?’ — Daenerys VI, ASOS); also, always Inanna was depicted with horns and sometimes wings, and described as a fickle teenager with sovereign strength who never marries but breaks heart, and sometimes she's depicted with a beard ( ‘Aegon with teats’ — Tyrion VI, ADWD)
Astarte is probably the most connected with Aphrodite and thus Venus (just think over the fact that most of the sanctuaries of Aphrodite were build on the shrines of Astarte) and again she was depicted with horns and wings (common traits with the dragons and Daenerys considers herself the dragon), she's often depicted at the prow of a boat (Daenerys and her ships, really — also Daenerys loves sailing because it gives her the freedom unparalleled until she makes her first flight, and she's meant to sail back to Westeros across the Narrow Sea); Astarte encapsulates both warfare and destruction (Astapor) as well as the life-giving powers of sex (Mhysa, and Mother of Dragons — remember how Daenerys had sex with incapacitated Drogo, before killing him and then putting the eggs on his body, entering the pyre, in her wedding with the flames and the night (her wedding night with the fire of which she's bride) consuming to day before she came out of the ashes with three dragons?)
Desire – for control, blood, fear, dominance, rapture, justice, adrenalin, ecstasy – can lead both to making war and to making love, to churn and change of all kinds. — Bethany Hughes, Venus & Aphrodite: History of a Goddess
I analyzed already how control and love/lust go hand in hand for Daenerys (x); so I think she embodies this perfectly well.
In Homeric Greek, meignumi means both. Eros – love, passion and desire – was in the ancient world firmly paired with Eris – strife. — Bethany Hughes, Venus and Aphrodite: History of a Goddess
And exactly as Cersei, Daenerys embodies both. She’s lust and passion and love and empathy, and feminine, but also strife and spite.
Also, as I said most recently in one of the prompt for Sansa’s month there has always been this duality between the feminine traits of a woman and fury and wrath as the Hymn of the mother goes “soothe the wrath and tame the fury (…) — for the women — and teach us all a gentler way”.
And both Cersei and Daenerys embody both.
Through the widespread and fervent worship of goddesses of perturbing passions, we are starting to get a picture of ancient societies who recognised that desire can cause trouble. The ancestors of Aphrodite were the incarnation of that realisation. In the story of human society, the aboriginal Aphrodite was indeed lovely, but she was awful too, a creature of both day and night. — Bethany Hughes
So I agree with that Daenerys fan, she without doubt incarnates some of the traits of Venus (femininity and victory — I am not putting in question either) but both Cersei and Daenerys embody also the awful whiplash (one as mother of madness and the other as mother of death, mother of monsters); their wrath is something to behold, and their fury and spite is better not stocked, their beautiful and charismatic but they are also led by their impulses by their desire, the desire for power and for the Iron throne.
And as we’ve seen Cersei’s descent into paranoia and madness, into the Venus furiosa, we are witnessing something similar in Daenerys and her possible descent from Venus victorious to the Astarte overthrown by the gentler, more feminine-oriented Venus.
On a footnote, one parallel between Venus and Daenerys (the classical myth of Roman-geek mythology), Venus is born from seafoam after Kronos cuts his father’s manhood as he takes his mother-wife Gaia by force which reminds me of Rhaella and Aerys (sibling married to each other — so incestuous relationship) and the violent nature of how Rhaella got pregnant with Daenerys.
Actually @sansaissteel here me cackle, if actually Cersei ends up being Aerys’ kid and so both half-sister end up embodying the eastern and western version of these goddesses, thus also fulfilling this parallel of being born of a violence/forced sexual intercourse.
So, I agree with you, anon. Daenerys does embody these traits, but not only the positive ones — she embodies the duality between the positive and the negative ones. She’s both a mother and a mother of monsters, she’s both a beautiful woman and a ruthless conqueror; after all her name has Greek origins, imo, which reminds me of:
Deyanira and Iris —> which should mean extremely beautiful woman capable of terrible destruction/destructress of mankind.
Again with that duality, see?
Also, as I said in my Lucifer series of metas, Lucifer angel-version, Samael could be considered a positive/sided version of the Lightbringer, an enforcer of good through violent means; and no one can say that Daenerys does not thrive on chaos and violence, because she does, even as she tries to make the difference. Still with the duality see?
So, I hope you enjoyed the read!, I did digress a bit with the whole Cersei matter, but I feel it was needed to explain my opinion on this matter. As always thank you for your ask and keep searching for these 💎, I adore them!
Also, credit to the artists of the pieces of art I have used for this meta, they’re not mine and I found them on internet!
You can find my other mythology metas here:
Sansa and the mythological figures she embodies (Persephone/Kore, Isis, Medusa, Gunnlöd, Psyche) — the Myth of Sansa Stark
Jonsa mythology — Jonsa foreshadowing, part VIII: Love and Psyche
Jonsa mythology (2) — Jonsa foreshadowing, part IX: Osiris and Isis
As always, hope you have a very nice day!
#ask the Hag#anon asks#Venus and Daenerys#Venus and Cersei#Inanna#Astarte#Ishtar#Daenerys and the duality passion and destruction#dark Daenerys#duality life and death#mother of dragons mother of monsters#mother of death#meta with a side-dish of JonSa
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Bestie I started thinking now that I have some more Kirby brainrot in me about what copy abilities Kirby would get if he inhaled the different miraculous users and here's my list/my opinions (idk if this is a PoD thought or anything take it as that if you wish idk if it'd ever come up):
*Ladybug/Misterbug/Scarabella: either Yo-Yo or Beetle (fun fact: apparently entomologists mostly call ladybugs "ladybird beetles" or "lady beetles," 'cus they're actually a type of beetle)
*Cat Noir/Lady Noire/Kitty Noire: Staff or Crash
*Rena Rouge: for some reason Mirror came to mind for me but I'm not sure if that really fits
*Carapace: another one where i'm not that sure, honestly surprised there's no shield or frisbee-themed abilities
*Queen Bee/Vesperia: can Top from the anime count? 'Cus I'm not sure otherwise
*Bunnyx: Parasol or Time Crash (if katfl evolutions count)
*King Monkey: Circus (for some reason I feel like it'd be fitting)
*Ryuko: Sword, Fire, Water, or Tornado (the latter three depends)
*Aspik/Viperion: can I say Time Crash if that counts again? Idk if a musical instrument for a weapon is enough to warrant Mike
*Multimouse/Polymouse: Mini (only one I could think of :'3 can make Kirby mass attack jokes out of this though-)
*Pigella: similar problem to the snake, is Mike reasonable to get from this. Though I think Sleep could be surprisingly fitting (I mean the episode Jubilation had Ladybug and Cat Noir getting snapped out of Gift by a ringing alarm clock so yeah dreams and stuff-)
*Purple Tigress: Fighter
*Pegasus: ESP, maybe (because teleportation)
*Minotaurox: Hammer or
*Miss Hound: Ball or Animal
*Rooster Bold: Copy (otherwise, maybe Mix if we can break the rules of that)
*Caprikid: Artist
Nice
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Wonderlands x Showtime pokemon matchups by me! Last I'll send in at once I promise but WxS is my absolute favorite and I should have started with them.
Tsukasa would absolutely pick something with a grand vibe. There's no pegasus pokemon, but a unicorn is similar in energy! So, galarian ponyta, for three reasons! Its evolution has a strong pegasus similarity and a general grandiose proud energy. While this WILL NOT be a primary factor as I still care little for aesthetics, I think WxS all having bright, colorful mons (except maybe Nene as I love the ":D :D :D :/" dynamic) would be delightful if I could work it out without sacrificing anything. The final reason is literally just that him raising a ponyta and hyping it up as this grand mythical beast like its evolution is when it's still a little fluffy guy sounds very cute.
Emu is a pretty simple character. That's not a bad thing! But it does mean it's hard to find something to pick for her. I'm thinking a gardevoir! Not only are they depicted as elegant/serene knights which gives Emu a fun dynamic with them, but also they gain strength through friendship! That's perfect for such an earnestly joyful and loving person like Emu. I'm still not weighing aesthetics heavily but I do like that they'd have a bit of a knight/lady energy even outside of just the dynamic it provides.
For Rui, I'm thinking a tinkaton! It's very new, and I myself haven't played Scarlet/Violet, but it's a cute little pink rabbit with a MASSIVE 200 POUND HAMMER that it made itself. While I think pretty much any pokemon being real could fascinate him (exceptions being ones like seel, crabby, or the new flamingo one i forgot the name of), he has remarked interest in the living plushies in the group's sekai. In addition! They could be tinkering buddies! They're both engineers! Tinkaton also has been shown to have a mischievous side, which, cmon, Rui. He's more or less the cheshire cat in human form.
For Nene! I'm thinking a mimikyu! It's a shy little shadowy guy that hides behind a pikachu doll in hopes that people will like it more. It's a lot more of a cynical and grim version of it, but that is somewhat similar to Nene hiding behind a robotic mikudayo-like mascot when she first joined the troupe due to her performance anxiety. I also think mimikyu would like being in the troupe itself, as it is somewhat desperate for people to like it and already has a tendency towards emulating what it feels people will like more. Imagine them making it new little costumes to play different roles alongside everyone! I had to give one of them a mimikyu and I just feel like Nene would kinda get its struggle.
YOOO OMG I LOVE THESE SM ACTUALLY !!!! the dynamics and overall bonds......mwah its so good <3
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Ultra4 Finals: Legends of the Fall
youtube
Ladies and gentlemen, off-road enthusiasts, and adrenaline junkies, welcome to the world of Ultra4 Racing, where the roar of engines and the thrill of the chase reign supreme. Let's dive into the history of this exhilarating sport and explore its evolution into one of the most challenging and exciting off-road racing series in the world.
The Birth and Rise of Ultra4 Racing
Ultra4 Racing was born out of the desire to push the limits of off-road racing. It began as a challenge among friends in the early 2000s, who sought to create a race that combined the technical rock crawling of the Hammers trails with the high-speed desert racing typical of Baja. This blend of disciplines gave birth to a new kind of racing, where versatility and endurance are key, and the vehicles are engineering marvels capable of conquering almost any terrain.
Over the years, Ultra4 Racing has grown exponentially, attracting racers and fans from around the globe. The series is renowned for its King of The Hammers event, often touted as the toughest one-day off-road race in the world. It's a race that tests the limits of both man and machine, a grueling battle against some of the most challenging terrains.
The 2023 Season: A Year of Grit and Glory
The 2023 Ultra4 Racing season was a testament to the sport's ever-growing appeal and the relentless spirit of its competitors. Throughout the year, racers battled across diverse landscapes, from the rocky trails of the East Coast to the vast deserts of the West. Each event was a showcase of skill, determination, and technological innovation, with drivers pushing their custom-built 4x4s to the edge.
As the season progressed, a few names began to dominate the leaderboards, but the true spirit of Ultra4 was evident in every competitor who took to the start line. They weren't just racing against each other; they were racing against the terrain itself, against the clock, and against their own limits.
The Ultra4 Finals in Lake Havasu City
The climax of the 2023 season was the Ultra4 finals in Lake Havasu City, a fitting finale to a year of intense competition. Set against the backdrop of the stunning Arizona landscape, the finals were a spectacle of off-road excellence. The course was a brutal mix of high-speed desert sections and technical rock crawling challenges, demanding the utmost skill and bravery from the drivers.
The event drew a massive crowd, all eager to witness the culmination of the season's battles. The air was thick with anticipation as the engines roared to life, and the racers set off on their final quest for glory.
In the end, it was a race that will be remembered for its dramatic turns, its display of incredible driving skills, and the sheer resilience of the competitors. The champion of the 2023 Ultra4 Racing series was crowned amidst cheers and applause, having conquered one of the most challenging courses in the series.
As the sun set over Lake Havasu City, the Ultra4 finals left an indelible mark on the hearts and minds of all who witnessed it. The event was more than just a race; it was a celebration of the spirit of off-road racing, a testament to the unyielding passion and determination that define the Ultra4 series.
And so, as we look back on the 2023 season, we are reminded of the raw, unfiltered excitement that is Ultra4 Racing – a sport that continues to push the boundaries, inspire awe, and ignite the adventurous spirit in us all. Here's to the drivers, the teams, and the fans who make Ultra4 Racing the pinnacle of off-road adventure. Let the engines roar and the adventure continue! 🏁🚗💨
#Tru Havasu#Lake Havasu Local Events & Coverage#sharing stories#experiences#vibrant culture#long-time resident#Youtube
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Art Ain’t A Mirror, It’s A Hammer (Part 1 of 3)
“The times, they are a’changin” Dylan sang, and in the few weeks that passed between my jotting down this idea for a blog post and actually getting around to writing it, the creative world changed again and again and again…
But before we delve into that, let’s look at this quote by our old pal, Bertolt Brecht:
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality
but a hammer with which to shape it.”
Get it?
Got it?
Good.
Now we’re going to throw in some miniskirts to the mix, add a little Samuel Beckett for good measure, then top it off with a nice Rick Beato finish.
Bear with me…
. . .
Brecht’s point was that art doesn’t reflect reality, it helps shape it by conveying ideas from the artist to the audience, ideas meant to console / challenge / desensitize / provoke / disturb / placate them and in doing so, help shape the choices and actions they make going forward.
Art is filled with unintended consequences, and typically low art / pop culture wields a far greater impact than high art / culture.
Case in point:
Who did more to channel outrage against fascism, Pablo Picasso with Guernica or Jack Kirby & Joe Simon with Captain America?
Take all the time you need answering that.
Now let’s look at one of the most important artists of the 20th century: Mary Quant.
Many of you (especially those with XY chromosomes) are going “Who?” while those who do recognize the name don’t recognize how much she helped changed the world.
Ms Quant invented the miniskirt in 1963 -- and that three square feet of fabric contributed mightily to the youthquake and subsequent cultural and political upheavals felt around the planet.
She owned a boutique in London for the fashion conscious yet on a budget young set. And while skirts had crept up to knee length by the late 50s / early 60s, Quant said “Wot the hell, luv, right?” or words to that effect and jumped several generations of fashion evolution.
The effect proved electrifying in ways intended and unintended.
The intended way meant fashion conscious young women could inexpensively look tres chic while still being able to afford rent and food. Most young men approved of the fashion and encouraged the young ladies (or “birds” as they were called in London back in the day) to follow the trend.
It meant the style got plenty of play in the press and on television, which bolstered popularity and sales.
Unintended effects? A mighty pushback against the trend, with young women being arrested in many instances and the garment outright banned in more than a few locales such as the Vatican and the Deep South, being denounced from pulpits and podiums alike.
The real unintended effect?
While the miniskirt began life as a typical “Hey! Look at me!” fashion trend, it soon morphed into something entirely different.
It was -- in the overused terminology of the times -- a liberating experience for the wearers, not just allowing more physical freedom of movement but also signaling to others in their tribe that they were young, free spirited, adventurous, and full of new ideas (yeah, I know the kneeslapper is that every new generation considers going back to the Pleistocene considers themselves to be “free spirited, adventurous, and full of new ideas”).
And while not every young women adopted it, the miniskirt sure became a cultural identifier for all young women, even those who felt it exploited them.
By wearing it openly in defiance of conventional fashion, it helped encourage women as a whole to be more openly defiant in other areas as well.
No, the miniskirt didn’t spawn the feminist movement, but it sure didn’t hinder it, either.
And paradoxically, it helped young women feel free enough to make other fashion choices. Sure, slacks had been acceptable for women in certain informal occasions since the 1930s, and late 1940s teen girls pioneered wearing blue jeans outside of the farm, but if the miniskirt was the primary female fashion statement of the 1960s, jeans & T-shirts weren’t far behind and grannie dresses pushed a respectable third.
Indeed, jeans & Ts became practically unisex ubiquitous during the 1970s and to this day are considered normal wear for people of all genders.
To say the miniskirt made all these societal changes possible would be a gross overstatement.
But it sure made them easier.
Did Mary Quant intend that?
No.
All she wanted was to create a bright bit of fashion that felt fun to wear.
Her customers brought the meaning to her art.
© Buzz Dixon
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Djura's 'pure white' eyes situation
Okay I am pretty sure everyone already noticed this but Djura's eyes are not just very pale shade of blue or grey, they are sheer white color, all 255 on RGB scale. There are four characters in total that have the case of white eyes according to sliders:
(Facedata and sliders datamined taken from this ( x ) page)
One of Djura's eyes is covered by bandages and unlike with Valtr we are never supposed to see his face without headgear item ingame, so we might speculate Djura is missing one eye for whatever reason, but color is still interesting as it might be a hint of start of eye condition, according to Hunter of Despair having glaucoma-like state of one eye and Lonely Old Dear having the same thing on both of them. Not to be confused with 'clouded eyes' look found on Brador, both female Research Hall hunters and Adella after she goes mad! And Arianna after childbirth.
White eyes situation made me remember a certain detrimental effect of blood usage amongst hunters though:
And when hunter uses blood vials to heal, the animation is injecting blood exactly in their right leg! There are many wheel chair ridden old hunters, Djura still has two belts on his right leg and Henryk has pairs of belts on both legs (guess he just be extra careful like this). Considering number of hunters that wear bandaids over their eyes, eyes gotta be the next thing after legs that at times have effect that is... well, reverse of "healing".
Also Edgar and Yamamura wearing glasses might be evidence that blood doesn't heal eyes at least, but probably makes them worse. Plus there is blood drunk hunter's eye. And don't forget:
So yeah. Ludwig might be a coinsidence though, however face being so 'crooked' seems to be not very uncommon, some characters' facedatas also have nose and eyes leaning very asymmetrically.
We are not sure where Djura lost his right eye, might have been weapons production trauma or hunt trauma or armored conflict, however white eyes thing is still here, and is suspicious. Most likely he is going blind ;-; Or at least on his way to have an awful eyesight of an old lady level, and that is with his only eye! I guess it is a good thing he has a friend to continue his beasts defending business in Old Yharnam, then.
Interestingly, four characters with 'pure white' eyes are Djura, Lonely Old Dear and two Church Hunters! There are two Hunters of Despair NPCs and one with white eyes is one in church garb. Healing Church hunters are explainable, they are totally blood freaks in there, but as for Lonely Old Dear?
It is evident that the sedative is a blood based medicine! (Apparently Willem just stopped at that only using it to learn more Eldritch Truth safely, but Laurence decided to use blood itself for evolution.) And Lonely Old Dear stocks a LOT of sedatives, implying she needs/uses that many. Which is another evidence that her claims that foreigners ruined the blood of this town are not fair, but also her eyes might have gotten ruined by excessive usage of "healing" blood rather than by regular old people thing! After all that one eye blind (?) hunter has similar problem.
So what it might be telling us, if we draw any statistics from all 4 NPCs with pure all 255 scales eyes situation, is that Djura might have used up too much blood back when he was a hunter, to the point where detrimental effects are irrevercible. Could be used as a base to think that, as follows, he hunted a lot, and by effect as extra fuel to the AMOUNT of his regrets and motives for redemption. After all, one of Powder Kegs weapons at least, the Boom Hammer, suggests intense hatred for beasts.
#bloodborne#retired hunter djura#bb#bloodborne theory#not art#text post#i keep finding things! why my brain is always thinking! this game is designed to drive nitpickers insane.#also for anons that sent a couple of asks sorry guys i will get to my inbox eventually!#i am just distracted and busy all over the place#i appreciate attention though i have you know
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Resident Evil Village’s Lady Dimitrescu: Terrifying Facts You Need to Know About Tall Vampire Lady
https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Ethan Winters can’t catch a break. After surviving the horrors of Baker Ranch in Resident Evil 7, it seemed like the everyman hero would finally get to go back to his normal life. But when seasoned zombie killer Chris Redfield shows up at his door with a new mission, Ethan is suddenly thrust back into the nightmare.
In Resident Evil Village, Ethan is dropped into a haunted European village, where he’ll have to survive a gauntlet of monsters, including werewolves and witches. Then there’s Lady Alcina Dimitrescu, the giant vampire villain who has taken the fandom by storm since she was first revealed.
Here’s what you need to know about the new game’s most interesting baddie:
Taller Than the Tallest Human
Before Resident Evil developer Capcom revealed her name, the villain was referred to as “Tall Vampire Lady” on social media, and for good reason: she’s 9’6”! That’s taller than the tallest human in recorded history. That would be “The Giant of Illinois,” a man named Robert Wadlow, who was 8’11” and at one point toured with the Ringling Brothers Circus.
Fortunately, his act didn’t involve anything quite as gruesome as what the Lady of Castle Dimitrescu has planned for her prey. Not only does she tower over Ethan but she also has long, sharp claws for fingers. The better to impale our hero with!
The First Vampire in the Series
Her appearance isn’t the only thing that makes Lady Dimitrescu so interesting. She’s also the first vampire villain in the franchise’s history. Resident Evil has largely avoided the classic monster canon up until this point, favoring zombies and monsters grown in labs over the creatures found in Universal and Hammer horror films.
Dimitrescu represents an evolution for the series. However, this isn’t the first time Capcom has considered experimenting outside of the franchise’s wheelhouse. At one point, Resident Evil 4, which is clearly a big influence on Village, was going to feature a killer ghost with a hook for a hand, but the idea was scrapped before release.
Callback to Castlevania
While she marks a first for Resident Evil, Dimitrescu’s role as the bloodthirsty Lady of a giant castle full of spooky creatures is rooted in a classic video game trope. The concept of a vampiric final boss was originally popularized by the Castlevania series, which is largely set in Dracula’s haunted castle full of monsters.
What makes Dimitrescu’s house of horrors unique is that it’s populated only by women. “With Lady Dimitrescu as the cult’s guru, we have created this hierarchy of women,” Resident Evil Village director Morimasa Sato told IGN. “Men have their blood drained by these women, so you could say it’s the opposite of Dracula.”
Dimitrescu’s Daughters
Lady Dimitrescu isn’t the only vampire in the game. She has three blood-sucking helpers she refers to as her daughters. While Dimitrescu’s attire exudes elegance, Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela lean into the grotesque, down to their smiling, blood-covered faces.
It’s teased in the trailers that Ethan will have to make his way past Dimitrescu’s vicious daughters before reaching the Lady, and it won’t be an easy fight, as these vampires not only carry sharp weapons but also have the ability to transform themselves into even more hideous forms. The way they creep towards Ethan and huddle over him to feed may remind you of Dracula’s movie brides.
cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });
Gruesome Inspiration
According to art director Tomonori Takano, the game’s “bewitching vampire” was partially inspired by real-life serial killer Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian noblewoman who is said to have tortured and murdered hundreds of women in the early 1600s. Legend has it that Bathory bathed in her victims’ blood because she believed it would stop her from aging.
Another inspiration was the Japanese internet urban legend Hashaku-sama (or “hachishakusama”), an eight-foot-tall evil spirit in a wide-brimmed hat who lures her young male victims to her by imitating the voices of their loved ones. Likewise, all of Dimitrescu’s victims are men, many of their bodies decorating the outside of her castle, “blood drained, looking like skinny scarecrows,” according to Sato. Terrified yet?
The Name “Dimitrescu” Has a Long History
Unsurprisingly, this vampire lady’s name can be traced back to Eastern Europe, especially Romania, where Transylvania is located. Romania also happened to be the home of Vlad the Impaler, the brutal warlord who inspired Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula.
The name “Dimitrescu” could also be derived from Demeter, the Greek goddess of harvest, grain, and fertility, which makes sense since the Lady rules over and terrorizes a village of farmers. Interestingly enough, in Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula travels to England on a ship called The Demeter.
Maggie Robertson and Helena Mankowska Brought Lady Dimitrescu to Life
Maggie Robertson, a stage actor from the Washington D.C. area who has also appeared in a few screen projects, voices Lady Dimitrescu. While this is her first major role in a video game, her performance as the already uber-popular lady of Castle Dimitrescu could be the breakout role that turns her into one of the industry’s up and coming voice talents.
Meanwhile, Polish actor Helena Mankowska provided her likeness for the character, turning her overnight into one of the most popular faces in survival horror. She has another interesting connection to the franchise: Mankowska was Milla Jovovich’s (Alice in the Resident Evil movies) stunt double in the movie Paradise Hills.
Resident Evil Village is out on May 7 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Stadia.
The post Resident Evil Village’s Lady Dimitrescu: Terrifying Facts You Need to Know About Tall Vampire Lady appeared first on Den of Geek.
from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3h91Iy7
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Three swords there were, forged from elemental divinity--
Mimung, the weapon of the Waelsungs, split Brynhilde's heart and sped her to the embrace of her One Eyed God, wielded after, by Vortimer, Vortigern's son, of Sinfjotli's line, now Uter's (Ohthere's) blade, grim Ohthere, of two fathers sired upon unwilling Ygerna, Vortimer (Embreis Wledig), or perhaps of Egil-Ongentheow's seed, he vies with Onela (Aelle Bretwalda) for the soul of a nation, and a woman's heart...
Tyrfing, the doom of Arngrim's brood, that brave Hervor dared the barrows of her dead father's host, scorning sulfur and brimstone to retrieve metal cast to the Host of the Dead, shaming the fallen, seeking vengeance for slain brothers, sword recovered to living light, forever cursed to take life at price of unsheathing, whose hilt Onela's (Aelle Bretwalda's) strong hands now grip upon the Plains of Eboracum (York)...
The Sword of Ares, Sarmatian iron, born of stars, a virgin priestess's flesh mated in sacrament to the Stallion, King of Heaven, both sacrificed upon the alter of flame and blood, hammer and anvil, brought to the shores of Albion in the days of Empire's might, but as centuries passed, the Eagle decayed, raising Wolf and Raven and Mare, Venaura (Gwenhwyfar), gazes upon mighty Tyr's gift of blood-gold justice, bride of death, Raven Queen and Horse Goddess, daughter of blessed Saranyu who settled her nation upon the Isle of Mists centuries gone, and centuries gone, where this child of Peteova, Lady of the Cawnur, and her Beltane lover, Palomydez (Pabo Pillar of Prydain), Alani war-lord, once commanded fire from heaven, ripping through her mother's flesh, melting sinew with lightening-struck oak, petrified water-fused stone, blade clutched in her mother's hand, symbol of defiance against Egil-Ongentheow's invading host, salvaging a tormented island, where now his sons war, Onela (Aelle Bretwalda) and Uter (Ohthere), for supremacy over Albion's clashing tribes, and in one desperate hour, does Uter send harrowing word for aid of the North, and Venaura at long-last, asks grieving Palomydez, her true-father unknown, enjoin the war and sway the battle-tide, but bitter Palomydez, stubborn yet, refuses in contempt of the southern lords he blames for Petoeva's death, sword cleaved to oak-fired stone, petrified flesh, cold memory of his bright queen's sacrifice, until this moment when her daughter, whose spirit blazes like a thousand suns from gray eyes, stands proud before his hall, voice strong above the storm lashing through the vaulted chamber, she summons Aesir and Don, bearing in her clenched fingers the ghost-banner of Old Brigantia, insignia of Iazyge, Roman, and Briton, calling the God's fire once more from heaven in a blast that blinds his court, and bades men take shelter beneath table or bench, freeing star-iron from stone, so that Venaura, Peteova's proud daughter, frees the Sword of Ares born aloft once more, into the world of men--
"In the name of the Women of Albion, and Valentia between the Walls, I summon your One-Eyed god out of Shadow, and your queen, Palomydez, summons your horse-lords to war..."
~~
Graphic, a result of me goofing around with PhotoLayers App, and ToonyTools online editing.
Verbosity, me droning in stream of conscience with highlights of how I see Uther's tale (and later, Arthur's) evolving with Gwenhwyfar's. Here, she’s based off a combo of Gwen, the daughter of Cunedda Wledig, and Gwenabwy (in my poor reverse linguistics, that’s actually Uindavia/Uendabhia), who’s the daughter of *Cawnur*, the sister of Gildas, Cywyllog, and Huail (from the delusional pedigrees of the Lives of the British Saints). Indeed, here Uther is actually adapted from the character of Ohthere (and in some bit, Amlwedd/Amlothi/Hamlet), who exists in some convoluted way, referenced as Vendel nobility, Ylfingas and Ynglingas (basically, Odin-Tyr progeny and Freyr progeny; Hamlet, and it’s predecessor Danish tale of Amothi/Ambhla-Odr, is basically another version, where Orwandil and Feng are representations of Odin/Tyr and Ingvi-Freyr. Somehow, Orwandil is also Egil-Ongentheow, which is also Angantyr. He shows up in various Anglo-Saxon genealogies as Angentheow/Angengeot). Amlothi marries both a northern British princess, and then a Scottish queen who was infamous for killing all her male suitors until she falls in love with Amlothi. Later, in Amlothi’s lay, the Scottish queen marries Wigleck, the adversary and new Danish king, and founds the line of East Anglians via Offa Anglian.
Anyone whose ever read Widsith, and Beowulf, and any of the Swedish/Danish/Norwegian/Geat dynastic sagas knows how very convoluted are the pseudo-histories and personages. At the end of the day, I love the take of Aelle Bretwalda, something of a misplaced Teutonic invader, without any lineage, and 3 sons whose names supply locations in Sussex (Cymen, Cissa, Wlencing—my Lancelot/Gwallawg ap Lleenog, of the next generation with Arthur...who’s Vortiporius in my take), as Ale (Norse version of Onela’s name), as the 1/2 brother of Uther. My whole justification here is that Uther’s name shares a parallel meaning as Ohthere—terrible/fearsome warrior.
Archaeology over the last few decades suggests something of a Swedish/possibly Geatish influx into East Anglia, from an earlier era (tentatively) based on the dating of certain artifacts, than traditionally believed. And possibly, the migration west of Mercian lines as East Anglian/Geatish pressure increased, reflecting a parallel migration of dynastic rivalries which followed them across the NorthSea board. The Sutton Hoo burial, and grave sites of mid-late 6th century/7th century East Anglia/The Norfolk-Suffolk areas allegedly have more features in common with the Swedish Vendel graves in southern Sweden than Anglian/continental Germanic burial sites of the same era. SOMETHING happened in Sweden/Denmark as well as Jutland that I believe involved late-Roman/Post-Roman Britain as well. Which leads me to wonder if the situation of the entire northern Seaboard all the way to the Baltic coast, isn’t a whole lot more complex than what our established theories reflect. Also, per poetic license, this circumstantial evidence allows me a bridge into fictional invite, proposing it’s Uther/Ohthere who becomes something of a prototype King Cnut/Canute, in my vision of his ambition, not of a Post-Roman Britain joined back with a dying Western Roman Empire which Constantinople refuses to concede, but a Britain united with the Nordic houses of Sweden/Daneland/Jutland, and reaching out to Theoderic the Great/Sexy Amalung to form some sort of Successor State confederacy, acting as a bulwark against Constantinople’s grasping influence, as well as the rising Frankish power of Clovis and the Merovingians. There’s reports Theoderic’s court of Ravenna hosted a Swedish king who’d sworn off his countrymen (Radulph—some scholars think he may actually be the personage upon whom Hrolfr Kraki was based), as well as Theoderic harboring, like his 18th century presidential doppelgänger, Thomas Jefferson (who was forever fascinated by the Western mystique of the American frontier and her indigenous peoples), something of an enlightened interest in collecting whatever history or knowledge related to northern tribal peoples, like the (mistaken, but heavily advertised) notion of Geats and Goths sharing a common root heritage.
This, This warped version finds inspiration from not just from the classic Brithish manuscripts or epics of Arthur, but combines Nordic legend/saga sources with late Roman figures synthesized with British/Germanic/Nordic figures. Story of Ongentheow and his sons, for starters. I have 2 notebook pages full up in finest logic tree form, like a jungle of neurons, detailing my convoluted interpretations and parallels of historic personages, and legendary/literary.
Lastly, Something about Vortigern's geneology always bothered me, especially in his kinship with The Jutes, Hengist and Horsa. A piece submerged or missing, that made me wonder if he wasn't only British, but as with so many high-ranking military officers in the early 5/mid-th century, perhaps also shared some Germanic/Teutonic lineage, which would explain his partiality to the Jutes, and their willingness to serve him in Britain at his invite. It’s recorded (in not very reliable sources), Vortigern’s father is a Vitalinus or Vitalis. A solidly Latin name, which shares a wonderful synchrony with Fitelis, the modified version of Sinfjotli, the son of Sigmund and Signy Waelsung, which relates back to the whole Brynhilde/Sigfrid/death of the Burgundians/ doom of Attila thread.
I’m actually just partial to Wotan and his symbolism with changing eras of history—war/rebellion/evolution/revolution/enlightenment. I also seem inclined to a symbolism of male characters as something like representations of that iconography, while my female characters act as mediums of inspiration for social/political reform, and logic/temperance/challenging the notion change only comes through violent upheaval. In lieu here, is a young Gwen, educated in Rome, as physician (of course...she does tie to Caroline Eleanor Graham later in preRev Paris), as ruler-philosopher, and yes, as a warrior in the style of nomadic horsewomen (how I bring in the character, Alardin as her tutor in these studies through her formative years exiled from Alba/Caledonia after her mother’s death). I hate the warrior queen motif. Not that my perspective alleviates gross anachronism, but I’d rather suggest she’s a queen, or at least, per the tradition of Caledonian tribes around the Walls, it’s through marriage she conveys the right of rulership to the man she eventually selects as her husband. Until then, she rules/advises her father and older brother when her father invites her back from Rome finally. And later, when Uther’s wars require the companies of the Votadini (her tribe), she’s left ruling in her father/brother’s stead, until Uther asks for her intervention, to summon the Pictish tribes of the far north, and Pabo Post Prydein’s Alani heavy cavalry, who occupy the area of Rheged, I place in NW Cumbria and SW Scotland/Galloway-Dumfries. Rerigonium looks an awful lot like an inspiration for Rheged, IMHO. Also, oddly, according to the Lives of the British saints, Pabo shares some sort of weird root with Palomides (?.). So, I’d rather suggest, Gwen is a woman who becomes a queen, from a family of Romanized-buffer state Caledonians, and as any woman in a position of influence, raised in a volatile era, and volatile province, essentially defined as *frontier zone*, I’d rather think she was raised to be competent, and strong-willed, and perhaps, more talented/unconventional/resourceful than what might be expected in a more pacific time. As I would expect of other women, and their men as well—British/Roman/or Germanic-Nordic...
Anyway, as the whole tragedy of Waelsungs, the Burgundians, and later Britain ties back, according to the Eddic poems, and Wagner, to that tale of Andarvi’s gold, Otter, and a neck-ring from that cursed were-gild which comes into Gudrun’s hands, I have Gudrun as a grieving Abbess residing in Rome, the patron to whom Gwen is sent to be educated as a girl. They don’t have a good relationship at first—Gwen, a rebellious girl who hardly knew her mother, and resents her father for sending to a college of widowed and bitter women, and Gudrun, who mourns her daughter, Swanhilde, slaughtered in an act of betrayal, and now, lives lay to see her son, ERP/Hyrp, take the throne of Caesar. Don’t ask how, but legends say, Gudrun does have a son named ERP/Hyrp. Somehow, Erp/Hyrp relates to Eadowacer, and that name is a version of the eponymous Odovaver/Adavacrius who deposed the last emperor in 476. He ties in with the story of Gwen, and Theoderic the Great as well. Anyhow, that cursed treasure with it’s cursed neck-ring sits in a convent in a quite, genteely decaying corner of the old Capital. No one wants to touch it b/c it’s cursed, and by this point of Gwen’s maturing to a young, precocious woman, she knows the legacy and taint it has upon the Abbess Gudrun she’s come to love as her mother. So, she decides to enlist the best street gangs of the convent’s local neighborhood, various carpenters/construction crews/artisans/as well as river merchants who want a cut of profit, and retain their own armed guards, to basically revive the convent’s local marketplace, founding their local agricultural coop/and vendor sites, as well as establishing a neighborhood hospital (based of St Galla’s, I think), and to add one more twist to Wotan’s cursed treasure, she takes the neck ring, and has it melted/redrafted into surgical implements which, to her delight, NEVER rust. And have amazing antibacterial properties...as some metal alloys are known to possess. Anyway, that’s the same woman who, rather than Uther or Arthur (her son, by Uther and Theoderic), who pulls the Sword from the Stone, the Sword which took her mother’s life, if that made any sense, up above, to mend a dynastic feud of Northern British houses, which has embroiled her biological father (Pabo) and her acknowledged father, Cunedda, since Gwen’s mother sacrificed her life to fend off an invasion of Swedes when Gwen was a child. It’s the moment Gwen realizes she has the aptitude and the attitude to sovereignty in interests of her people, and claims rule of Valentia, that troublesome province of Count Theodosius dating back to 370AD, which has confounded modern scholars as to where Valentia was located. I place it between the Wall of Antoninus and Hadrian, to include the regions north and south of each those boundaries as well. Thus, she is, rather like Amlothi’s Scottish queen (no Scotland in late 5th/early 6th c...), The Queen of the North (ah, GRRMartin and HBO, I’ll never forgive you for Season8), and rallies the discordant tribes of the Pretani/Picts, and the Caledonians (those Lowland and Scottish Border regions) to Uther’s aid, outside of Eboracum. Which is my draw from GeoffreyofMonmouth, and the HistoriaBrittonum, of Battle 8/The Battle Guinnion/TheWhiteFortress (don’t ask, but root words of Eboracum aside, either as *yew tree*, in the British, the Latin root of *eburos* is ivory. And if you’ve been to York, they have those lovely white-trunked trees everywhere, and its Walls, albeit dating from the MiddleAges, must have been at least as magnificent, indestructible, and...white, even by the later quarter of the 400s AD. One of my favorite cities, and hope to back when the world’s not so crazy...). How the dynasty of Eleutherius and York/Eboracum becomes occupied by Teutonic forces, you ask? Ties with Germanic/Teutonic royalty, of course, but resolving that takes up way too much precious Tumblr space already.
Rambles done, other than to add, the description of Cath Goddeu/The Battle of the Trees, from Welsh poetic sources, makes for wonderful mythic depiction of the Men of the North, and their Queen, advancing with a rising storm we all know is the Wild Hunt. And in the case of Gwen bearing the Sword of the Sarmatians/Iayzyges that had once belonged to the company of the long dead Artorius Castus, and his Brigantian Queen, who herself, once united a warring island in its desperate hour, Venaura’s actions have roused the old Guardians of Albion, the ghosts of Sarmati and their horse-lords, riding with their Alani scions of Rheged, in the name of the Women of Albion. My nod to William Blake, as Nemiane (my late 2nd c Romano-Brigantian military surgeon/Artorius’s lover), Gwen, and Caroline—the Scottish lady physician who becomes Jefferson’s lover in 18th c Paris, all find some reflection in the themes of Blake’s monumental mythicism. Thus, I believe we start this work with Blake, writing Vision of the Women of Albion...
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Zine Care Packages (Antiquated Future Spring Newsletter)
What a challenging time. Things have felt pretty bleak and I debated about whether to send this spring newsletter a lot, but friends convinced me we're all in need of good news. If nothing else, I want to say two things: 1) We'll still be shipping orders (with plenty of hand-washing and sanitizing) several times a week. 2) While we always appreciate and need your financial support, we'd also like to offer the resources we have to any of you who are having a hard time.
In short: We're offering free zines (and tapes and books) to anyone who's currently struggling financially, mentally, or physically right now. No need to tell us details, just email and say "I'd like a package," and we'll send one your way. Let it be a surprise or make a list of what you'd like and we'll send you what we can. Feel free to spread the word to your friends and community through our Facebook or Twitter posts. It's not much, admittedly, but hopefully it's something.
In more general distro news: we have a few more calendars & planners in stock (and very very on sale), we’ve been restocking things as much as we can, and we accidentally left up our temporary store-wide cassette sale (that also includes a decent handful of LPs and CDs) as well as our zine sale on select titles. We also just posted a newsletter from the record label side of Antiquated Future.
We're currently lending some small financial assistance to Portland writer Martha Grover as she recovers from a brain surgery by selling a fundraiser pack of her Somnambulist zine.
And if you're in the Portland area, we're helping do porch deliveries of food, baby supplies, and various resources. Please reach out if you'd like one or you know someone in need.
NEW ZINES
Antonia- A rare, almost-sublime zine about place, memory, and lost history. About the ways things change and stay the same. About how the place you're from shapes who you become. About growing up in a small Midwestern town without a zip code, a place not on most maps. ($5)
Behind the Zines #9: A Zine About Zines- The latest issue of newest best zine about zines around. Within: the evolution of DIY comics culture, zine-fest history, imagined zines, One Punk's Guide to collaborative zines, a history of that one Crimethinc poster, The Most Unwanted Zine, confessions of a sex-zine zinester. Contributions from our own Gina Sarti, as well as John Porcellino and so many others. ($3)
Brainscan #34: A Dabbler's Week of DIY Witchery- In the wake of the controversy surrounding a recent viral article about spending a week "becoming a witch," Alex considers what her guide to a witchcraft practice would look like. The results are a day-by-day guide to trying out her particular variety of secular witchcraft (that she lovingly refers to as "DIY witchery"). ($4)
Caboose #12: Jury Duty- A personal story of serving as a juror on a medical malpractice suit. As usual, Liz Mason's playful, endlessly curious take on the world makes this a ride worth taking. A peek into the court system through the eyes of this long-running zine-star. ($4)
Clock Tower Nine #15- One of our favorite Seattle zines is back with tales from the record store counter, long walks in various locales, dangerous doppelgängers, and 8-track tapes. As Clock Tower Nine ringleader Danny Noonan describes it in the introduction: "This fanzine is like a bunch of people sitting around a fire in late fall, all taking turns telling a story." ($3)
Cometbus #59: Post-Mortem- How does Cometbus, after 38 years as a zine, just get better and better? It's a mystery, but it does. Issue 59 is a deep dive into both death and longevity in the underground. In short: what does sustainability look like in counterculture? This question takes Aaron on a journey from the Epitaph Records and Thrasher magazine offices to hanging out at a punk-owned vegan donut shop and a tamale stand at the farmer's market with Allison Wolfe (of Bratmobile). ($5)
Doris #23- A back-issue fave from one of the best zines ever. Long personal stories that look both outward and inward in surprising ways. ($2)
Doris #26- Shy-punk-girl comics, social ecology, the cynical hour, a grandpa who built malls, hammer and nail history, and more. ($2)
Eulalia #3- Two issues of the art zine Eulalia in one. Grief and romance, hand-in-hand. Gorgeously designed! Letterpress-printed covers. Each issue is bound with a special do-si-do binding, so each half can be read separately. ($10)
Fluke Fanzine #17- Since 1991, Fluke has been creating great variety zines covering all realms of punk and underground culture. Graphic novelist Nate Powell, skateboard magazine historians, Maximum Rocknroll, R.E.M., '90s women-led punk, the Soophie Nun Squad family tree, more. ($3)
Forever & Everything #5- Comics on parenting, depression, coffee, therapy, alcohol, Willie Nelson, Charlie Brown, and living in New Orleans. ($5)
Good Days Gone Cold Days- A photography zine/art zine made while living and working in "a house without heat, without doorknobs, and without much insulation or electricity to speak of" for a late fall in western Pennsylvania. Comes with homemade bookmark, building permit, and banjo tab. ($12)
Keep Loving, Keep Fighting #8- A reprint of this 2008 issue of Keep Loving, Keep Fighting. Forty pages of feeling at home in New Orleans, communication between friends, death, visiting Montreal, and moving away. ($5)
Learning Good Consent- An essential compilation zine about consent. From personal stories to worksheets, approaches, definitions, resources, and beyond, Learning Good Consent is here to help us all feel more comfortable and be more respectful. ($4)
Little Leagues #1- The companion comics scrapbook to Simon Moreton's epic Minor Leagues series. Prose, comics and photos about being in Japan, making chutney, experiencing autumn. ($3)
Little Leagues #2- Comics about being in the snow. Drawings and photos of spring. A fold-out cover with facts about lesser-spotted dogfish. ($3)
Our Lady of Near Death Experiences- Jodi Darby writes about becoming a cross-country truck driver as a 23-year-old woman in the mid 1990s. A mini-memoir told in vignettes, Our Lady is a twisted love song to the road in all its complexities. A gorgeous reprint of this zine classic from 1998. (And we have the last few copies before it goes out of print!) ($10)
The Paruretic #1: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy- The first issue of one of our favorite new zine series. The Paruretic tells what the intricacies and complexities of life with parusesis, the social phobia of being pee shy. Illuminating, accessible, and worth reading every issue. ($2)
The Paruretic #2: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (College)- In this issue, Mark recalls figuring out the debilitating effects of his bladder issues when he goes to college and, for the first time, navigates living in dorms, drinking at college-town bars, and hooking-up. ($3)
The Paruretic #3: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (Vacation)- In this issue: searching out acceptable bathrooms while on the road, not urinating for ten hours while in the air, and a bathroom-by-bathroom diary of experiences. ($3)
The Paruretic #4: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (The Search for Help)- In this issue, Mark reaches out, looking for help, and is met with a less-than-sympathetic medical system. Within: clueless medical professionals, almost losing a job over a urinalysis, and finally finding someone who understands. ($3)
The Paruretic #5: The Story of a Guy Who's Pee Shy (Dating)- The dating issue covers how Mark handled (or avoided handling) dating in high school and college. It's a chronicle of, as Mark says, "how my shy bladder has driven every part of my love life." ($3)
Somnambulist Zine Pack Fundraiser- For the past 17 years, Portland memoirist and illustrator Martha Grover has been publishing Somnambulist zine, an expansive and playful look at the world at large (and easily one of the best zines running today). This pack includes all nine in-print issues of Somnambulist (a $40 value for $25!). All proceeds go straight to Martha's brain surgery recovery fund. Help a great writer, get nine amazing zines. ($25)
Somnambulist #33: How to Survive the Portland Winter- A fun how-to guide from Portland-born writer Martha Grover. Within: dealing with all the rain, taking care of your mental health, venturing out, staying in, eating soup (with recipes!), and the truth about umbrellas. Illustrated by Liz Yerby. ($5)
Somnambulist #34: The Starfish- A single, long-form essay about Martha's journey through Cushing's disease and Addison's disease, and the lingering tumor she's chosen to not demonize or see as something separate. The Starfish is a surprising and exciting meditation on what it means to be in a body. ($3)
Surely, They'll Tear it Down- A short zine letter about gender, race, identity, and not-knowing from the author of Fixer Eraser and We, the Drowned. ($2)
Tattoo Punk Fanzine, Issue 3- A jam-packed new issue of Tattoo Punk, the fanzine about tattoos, punks, and tattooed punks. Edited by Ben Trogdon of everyone's favorite artsy punk paper, Nuts! ($15)
Valentines Every Day- Weirdo anytime-valentines from zine-seller extraordinaire, Julie Wade. Funny, bizarre, off-kilter, occasionally unsettling. The perfect gift for that especially-odd someone. ($6)
What Happened- A dreamy comic from UK artist Simon Moreton. Set in a '90s boyhood of meadows, sci-fi VHS tapes, MTV, crushes, first kisses. ($5)
NEW BOOKS & MISCELLANY
The Collected Plays by Portland Preschoolers- In short: One of our favorite little books around! A modern classic, even. Five years of collected plays written by Portland, Oregon preschoolers. Hilarious, invariably bizarre, oddly brilliant, sometimes surprisingly profound. Perfect for putting out on the coffee table, reading aloud to friends, impromptu group performances. ($10)
Four-Year Depression- A book about figuring out how to love your family in the Trump era. From Billy McCall of Proof I Exist and Behind the Zines. ($10)
Zine Game- A long-time favorite in the zine community, now in a fancy, professionally-made version accessible to all game lovers. Playing like a cross between canasta and Magic: The Gathering, Zine Game is all about building your own zines. A really fun time with tons of possibilities. ($16)
NEW MUSIC & SPOKEN WORD
Alice Notley "Live in Seattle"- An LP of one of the most adored living poets. Alice Notley pushes boundaries, and it's an absolute joy to hear her reading her work. (LP + digital download) ($16.95)
Annelyse Gelman & Jason Grier "About Repulsion"- A collaboration between poet Annelyse Gelman and sound artist Jason Grier. About Repulsion mixes songs, sampled poems, textural walls, beats, noise, to create this EP of one-of-a-kind soundscapes. (LP + digital download) ($16.95)
Eileen Myles "Aloha / Irish Trees"- The legendary poet Eileen Myles, on vinyl for the first time. Aloha/Irish Trees features nearly an hour of Myles live in the studio, reading past and present poems. Intimate, playful, raw. (LP + digital download) ($16.95)
Harmony Holiday "The Black Saint and the Sinnerman"- Harmony Holiday's record of poems and sound collage. Adventurous and accessible, twisting cultural images into something surprising, political, socially aware. In conversation with Charles Mingus’ classic 1963 album The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. (LP + digital download) ($16.95)
Rae Armantrout "Conflation"- Fifty-four surprising and gloriously unique poems from Rae Armantrout, a Pulitzer-winning poet of great gifts. (LP + digital download) ($16.95)
Susan Howe & Nathaniel Mackey "Stray: A Graphic Tone"- Made in collaboration with Shannon Ebner, Stray: A Graphic Tone juxtaposes historic and recent material from poets Susan Howe and Nathaniel Mackey. An adventurous LP of spoken word delights. (LP + digital download) ($16.95)
Stay well, take care of each other as much as possible. Xo,
Antiquated Future
#zine distro#new zines#zines#chapbooks#spoken word#vinyl#new lps#new books#care packages#zine care packages#free zines#portland
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@hoopsheartthrob said: ‘ i’m going to go out, meet some boys and crush their hearts one by one. ’ Fujiko!
HELLO WISCONSIN!!!
The anime star barely fluttered an eyelash when the western rabbit hopped off the plush sofa next to her. The fancy dressing lounge for the ‘lady toons’ was usually packed this time of evening, but tonight it was just the two of them plus a couple other randoms milling about the full length mirrors or sinks. Fujiko dabbed little clouds of powder at her cheeks and checked her lip color. Not like they reallllllllly needed to take care of themselves the same way the flesh-bags did, but it was programmed into their backgrounds to always primp, after all. She vainly scoffed at her reflection, side-eyeing Lola in the vanity mirror as she fidgeted with her ears. Fujiko wondered how the 90′s bunny felt knowing her doppelgänger was out there, acting NOTHING like her. Guess it was cheaper for her studio to make ‘a clone’ then do what Fujiko’s people had done. She had undergone several ‘redesigns’ ( the toon equivalent of plastic surgery or evolution ) over the years, but she still HAD it, no matter the incarnation. Hey, she’s been around since ‘68. She’s a LEGACY anime character. She’s not going anywhere, and she’s a ‘forever fantasy,’ that was insurance to never fade.
Though this rabbit woman was younger, she was created basically for the same purpose. If they were both totally honest. Both could say to the crowds: ‘No, we’re foils, we’re tough gals and we move the plot, we have capabilities our co-stars need.’ But they both knew the real reason why they were first drawn. The artist’s intent is deep inside their ink. They were seduction magnets and fantasy girls for whatever pervo looked at them.
SO! Fantasy babes HAVE to stick together, no matter the studio, west or east. It was kind of an unspoken code among their type....
“Hmmm....have fun....and remember: if they go too far and you have to hammer them over the head or push them off a cliff? They asked for it. Fun little loophole for us, don’t you think?”
“The old, rich ones are always the biggest wolves.
..........See if you can get a car out of it.”
#asks#That 70's Show MEME!#V: HAMMERSPACE & DESIGNER COFFEE || TOON TOWN AU#{ Fujiko is a super flighty/elusive muse...just like in canon. *SIGH* But here she is }#{ Gotta love the TT plothole for every toon/anime character ever XD }#💠FUJIKO MINE💠
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Nexus Fall: Battlefield Reunions
A courtyard unfurled before a towering castle. Gray pavers, smoothed by use, spread out around a massive platform. Though the platform was empty now, it seemed as if something belonged there. Water could be heard flowing nearby. Walls cordoned off the courtyard from the rest of the garden with forts and keeps spaced in the intervening area as defense.
A vast and sprawling countryside of gentle, undulating hills spread out between the blue roofed castle and a red roofed castle far in the distance. Three roads cut through the countryside to the walls of the other castle. Beyond that, it sounded like a garden party was taking place somewhere.
A shrine lay at the north and south of the country. One dedicated to the moon, one to the sun. In the center stood a huge, stone dragon statue. Something seemed to crackle just beneath the surface, almost as if the statue was alive beneath the stony veneer.
A dais, positioned directly in front of the castle gate, crackled with power before four figures seemingly appeared from thin air. In almost unison they stepped down from the dais. Three of them seemed to belong together with similar arms and armor. The fourth seemed like they were from another world entirely. Truly, they were.
“Another day, another fight! FOR THE WILDHAMMER!” A dwarf billowed from atop his gryphon.
“Enthusiastic as ever I see, Falstad.” A kingly figure with dark brown air chuckled as he glanced up at the sky. “Looks like sword and board today. We’re down a man and a healer.”
“Ain’t it a little funny? Even if they show up a bit late a fifth is always here by now…” A man in a full body suit of armor commented as he shifted his gun to his other hand. Almost as if that were a cue, the dais crackled with power again. “Speak a the devil…”
All of them turned to see who their fifth would be. The kingly figure turned a sickened shade of white immediately.
“No…” A barely audible whisper as he took a tentative step up on to the dais. “Why? Of all people… why are you here, my son?” With each step he seemed increasingly weaker. Finally, he collapsed to his knees before a flaxen haired young man. The very image of a broken man, he limply reached out to them. Finding strength in the myriad emotions welling up inside, he yanked the young man up against him tightly. Barely contained sobs buried themselves in the crook of the young man’s neck.
“Battle starts in 30 seconds.” A regal, albeit disembodied, voice echoed through the courtyard.
A dwarf in blue armor reached out and touched the grieving man on the shoulder.
“Come on! Wake up! We’re running out of time.” The king urged as he pulled himself from his sorrow.
“Ya Majesty. Yannae how this all works. He’ll be safe here.” The armored dwarf named Muradin spoke quietly and kindly.
“Aye, even if they take the core, they cannae touch ‘im ‘ere.” The gryphon riding Falstad chimed in encouragingly.
“Just... Come on, Anduin. Wake up.” The king gently shook the young man one last time.
“Come on, Wrynn. We gotta roll.”
“Right. If he’s here then I’m bound to see him again.” The king gently laid his son back down and got to his feet. A quick wipe of his face with leather gloved hands and he became a vision of seriousness. His noble features take on the shape of a king once more. Like so many times before, emotions pushed aside in favor of the stoicism necessary to lead.
“That’s the spirit!” Falstad cheered raising his hammer into the air. His gryphon squawked in seeming agreement.
“We need to figure out who we’re up against.” Sparing his son one last look, he left the dais. The others climbed on their mounts as they waited for him.
“Foolish mortal! I will feast upon your fear!” A deep voice shaded by darkness rumbled through the air like far off thunder.
“Great. It’s that guy… again... Someone really needs to tell him you can’t eat emotions…” Jim Raynor loosed a long suffering sigh before his visor clicked down.
“I hate demons…” Varian hissed under his breath. “Let’s go!” With a quick hop he was on his steed and racing toward the gate at the front of the courtyard. He glanced over his shoulder one last time.
“Light protect you, my son. Until we meet again.”
The clattering of hooves and roaring engines finally drew the young man from his slumber. Eyes slowly pried open by light and warmth coaxing him to consciousness. He sat up just in time to see a very familiar back riding away, cloak flapping in the breeze. “Father?” He blinked a few times while shaking his head and the figure disappeared beyond a gate. He got to his knees quickly and tried to call out to the figure again. Hands reached to take hold of the image but were met with nothing but air. His voice was lost to distance.
“What… is this place?” He finally took in his very foreign surroundings. “A dream?”
“You have been summoned to the Nexus.” A disembodied woman’s voice answered him.
“This… looks nothing like Northrend.” Confusion marked his features as he slowly got to his feet. He took one tentative step towards the edge of the platform.
“The name is a coincidence to the location you know.” The voice went on flatly. “The Nexus is where great heroes gather to fight.”
“For what purpose? Why are we fighting?” He took another step forward, but stopped short of going over the edge of the platform.
“That is the way of this place. Heroes are gathered to fight for lords of these realms. It helps to maintain the balance.”
“It’s some kind of arena then…? We must fight to be free of it. Is that it?”
“If that is how you choose to understand the situation.”
Any further questions were stifled by the sounds of a tremendous battle taking place beyond the gates. “Who’s fighting here now?”
Words appeared in the sky:
Blue Team
Anduin Wrynn
Falstad Wildhammer
Jim Raynor
Muradin Bronzebeard
Varian Wrynn
Red Team
Abathur, the Evolution Master
Diablo, Lord of Terror
Gul’dan
Illidan Stormrage
Miles “Blaze” Lewis
“My Father is here?! And... and… Illidan?! How is… I thought he…” Anduin’s brain came to a full stop along with his mouth left agape.
“Heroes from many different worlds and times are summoned here to fight.” The disembodied voice pulled him from his disbelief.
“Don’t let Lady Chronormu find out you are tampering with the timelines.” Anduin looked gravely serious as he shook his head to dispel his shock.
“You may have the opportunity to do so yourself in time. For now, the battle has begun. If you do not engage in combat soon you will be removed from the battle.”
“I can’t have that! My Father is out there! I have to help him!” He looked around quickly and found a chestnut mare waiting for him. He mounted the horse and rode off in the direction his Father went.
The scene that met him on the battlefield was not what he expected. Vast armies were commanded by the people whose names appeared in the sky but only 8 combatants stood out on the field. The combatants closest to him looked considerably worse for the wear, especially his Father. Varian was down on one knee leaning heavily on Shalamane.
“Damn… bested by Gul’dan and his demons again…” Varian sighed in resignation. “Regroup behind the gate! I’ll keep them busy!”
“Pitiful mortal…” A towering demon, the likes of which Anduin had never seen before, called haughtily before starting a charge right towards Varian.
“Raynor!” Muradin yelled sprinting towards Varian.
“Reloading!”
“FATHER!” Anduin screamed and Varian suddenly went flying backwards to the gate.
“Anduin?” Varian seemed wholly overcome with emotion to see his son awake again. He embraced his son tightly.
“Your wounds, Father.” Anduin quickly freed himself and began healing his father.
“Damn. Shalamane is out there.” Varian clicked his tongue as he watched the demon kick it to the side.
“Then take mine. I suspect I’ll be doing a lot of healing from back here.” Anduin pulled his Shalamane off his back and handed it to his Father. He gave his father a kind smile. “It always looked more at home in your hands than mine.”
Varian looked down at the blade then back up to his son with a conflicted look on his face. “This was not the life I wanted for you, my son.” His hand slowly wrapped around the hilt.
“I know, Father. Later.” He gave his Father a reaffirming clap on the arm. “I am here with you, right now.”
“Yes…” Dispelling all reservations, Varian took the sword and bolted back into the fray.
While Raynor laid down cover fire Varian slid down and grabbed his Shalamane before gracefully regaining his footing. He charged headlong toward the red demon.
“Thought ya said this was a sword and board match!” Falstad jeered teasingly as his hammer came flying back to his hand.
“Changed my mind!” Varian wore smug smile as he passed Falstad. “Cover the northern road!”
“Aye! LET’S FLY!”
Anduin sent a wave of light forward healing his allies before bouncing back to him.
“Always thank yer healer!” Muradin cheered as he gripped his axe tighter. Then he took a mighty leap into the air and landed a hair’s breadth away behind Gul’dan. “I’ve been lookin’ forward to this for a looong time…” There was a might crashing sound and Gul’dan went sailing through the air into the gate next to Anduin.
“You stay right there!” Chains reach up to wrap around Gu’ldan while canons rained down from above to finish him off.
“What is this place?” Anduin finally had a chance to ask as he collapsed into a sitting position on the stone courtyard of the opposing castle. Exhaustion had settled into every fiber of his being. Though he had trained after taking the throne, it had not been nearly as often enough and he could tell that now.
“They call it the Nexus. Something created it long ago and now it’s full of different realms. Each realm is ruled over by a realm lord. The acting realm lord of King’s Crest is Raena, the Lady of Thorns.” His Father explained as he offered a hand up. “It looks like the fighting is over for now so we’ll have some time to talk.”
Anduin took his Father’s hand and hoisted himself to his feet again. With great effort he mounted his chestnut mare and followed after his Father.
“I suspect since you’re still here, that means you’ll also be staying in the castle.” Varian motioned to the castle far off in the distance that was not fought over during the battle. A certain bitterness laced his words.
"Was that voice that made announcements during the battle the Queen?" Anduin's fatigue had lifted some in favor of curiosity.
"Yes. She is one of the many lords fighting over space here in the Nexus."
"Is... that why we are here to fight? For someone else to gain territory in this... bizarre place?"
"There is... quite a bit more to it than that. Once we make it to the planetarium things will make more sense."
The pair rode on talking all the way about the ins and outs of the Nexus. By the time they reached the grand castle Anduin's head felt like it might well and truly explode.
"Welcome back, King Varian!" A cheerful voice beamed as a VERY short stable hand came out to get their horses. "This must be Prince Anduin! We've been expecting you!"
"You... you have?"
"He is King Anduin. He succeeded when I was... What did happen to me exactly...?"
Anduin's face twisted up in confusion and concern at this. "Do you not remember, Father? Your fight with Gul'dan? And how you..." His voice faded off to nothing as sorrow took him. His gaze drifted away from his Father as he fought back tears.
"I remember getting on a boat to the Broken Isles but I don't remember ever getting there." Varian's answer was every bit sincere. He well and truly remembered nothing. "That is... a conversation for another time... Come, you need to see the planetarium."
Anduin thought to press the issue, but the more he thought to, the more he realized he didn't remember much of the what happened just prior to his appearance in the Nexus either.
"Quite the puzzle..."
"Take a look in this." Varian gestured to the eyepiece of the largest telescope Anduin had ever seen.
Still quite astonished by the size, he walked up to it and took a peek. He was greeted by a massive, swirling storm in the middle of space. "That's quite the storm..." He commented absently as he watched clouds roil and churn on themselves as lightning danced through them.
"Let's turn it so you can see something else." Varian turned the crank once Anduin pulled away. The telescope slowly moved in a clockwise rotation a few degrees at a time. "Look now and tell me what you see.”
Anduin obliged and what met his eyes now was wholly different than before. An endless expanse stretched before him dotted by millions of stars. Just off center of the field of view was a massive portal with a familiar world just beyond. Bathed in the light of day, it was clear to Anduin just what he was seeing. So startling was the image he fell away from the eyepiece and landed hard on the floor.
"That is... Draenor on the other side of that portal... But... The Draenor of the new timeline created by Garrosh. The one in which Valen dies and..." He stammered as his eyes shifted back and forth between his Father and the eyepiece. His hand pointed off into space shaking uncontrollably.
"Yes..." Varian nodded and smiled softly. "This place, this Nexus, is at the center of a great storm of energy that tears open rifts to other worlds, times, and dimensions. Even different versions of Azeroth." Varian walked over and offered his hand again. "There are even other versions of me here, at least Muradin has told me as much. And I suspect if you are here, I will see other versions of you in time as well."
"This is a lot to take in, Father." Anduin looked and sounded utterly overwhelmed by it all. "I feel as though I understand what is going on here to a point."
"There is more to all of this than just fighting to appease the lords of this place." Varian's countenance grew grim as he turned his gaze to the sky. "Could you imagine what would happen if Sargeras found out about a place like this? What he would try to do?"
All color drained from Anduin's face as horror washed over it. "I... I would rather not..."
"That's why it's important we try our hardest to fight. If we support the lords of this place they become more powerful with each victory. The more powerful they become, the easier it is for them to fight off any who would seek to use this crossroads as a means of conquest. As a means to worlds otherwise out of their reach." Varian slowly extended his hand up to the sky. He abruptly clasped it into a fist around a particularly bright entity in the sky.
“It’s not just terrors from our world either.” Anduin’s statement pulled his Father back to him.
“No. You saw as much during our battle today.” Varian reached out and put his hand on his son’s shoulder. All sternness faded into a mixture of sorrow and regret. Normally strong hands seemed weak as they pressed into Anduin’s shoulder. “I… I never wanted a life of constant fighting for you. I wanted you to live a life of peace and prosperity.”
Anduin’s eyes glanced to his shoulder before meeting his Father’s gaze. “I know, Father. But it seems fate has other things in store for me.” Anduin gave his Father a warm smile. “I, for one, am glad to have this opportunity. I never did get the chance to really fight by your side.” He trailed off a moment as a wave of myriad emotions washed over his face. “There are… so, so many things I want to say to you. So much left for me to learn from you.” His voice broke as tears pooled at the corners of his eyes.
“I know.” Varian wrapped his arms around his son and gave him the hug he had wanted to since they were first reunited.
“Father, I’ve missed you so much.” Wrapped in the comfort of his Father’s arms, tears flowed like springs from his eyes.
“I know. I missed you too. But I am proud of you, my son.” Varian was not immune to his own emotions, voice cracking at the end under their weight. Sensing words would only fail him, he opted to tighten his embrace instead.
“I should take you to meet Lady Raena now…” Varian begrudgingly pulled away from Anduin.
“Oh! It is only fitting I should introduce myself if I will be staying in her castle.” Anduin scrubbed the tears from his cheeks with the heels of his hands a moment. After composing himself he gave his Father a confident smile. “Shall we be off?”
“There’s something you need to know about Lady Raena.” The seriousness of Varian’s voice put an icy chill in the air.
“This must be your son.” A familiar woman’s voice filled the audience chamber as soon as Anduin and Varian entered it. There was a certain amount of venom woven around every word. “How nice for you to be reunited once again.”
Anduin looked around in distress at the state of affairs in the throne room. “This is far worse than you lead me to believe, Father.” Anduin assessed the damage the walls and ceilings that were still in the process of being fixed. “You said something troubling happened to the royal family. Is there anything I can do?” Anduin turned to his father who now stood beside a stone statue of a woman.
“You are welcome to try.” A woman’s voice filled the room.
“Do excuse me. I did not see you.” Anduin looked around confused. “I am indeed Anduin Wrynn. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance…” He finally laid eyes on his father who was not so subtly gesturing to the statue. “By the Light!” He immediately run up to the statue. “Lady Raena is imprisoned in stone?”
“It is the curse passed on through my family.” She replied bitterly.
“For… forgive me… I had no idea.” Anduin was genuinely apologetic as he lowered his head in embarassment.
“Hmph…”
“Has anyone tried removing the curse?” Anduin shook his head. “I’m sure that is the case…”
“This is not the type of curse even Archdruid Malfurion or Mehdiv could remove with their considerable skills.”
“They are… as well?!” Anduin seemed genuinely shocked to know more people he knew, or at least knew of, had been brought to this place as well. “Maybe… it isn’t a curse at all.”
“What do you mean?” Varian looked at him puzzled.
“What if… it’s a kind of vile enchantment?” Anduin looked quite serious as energy polled in his hand. “In which case, I might be able to help.”
“Save your energy, Child.” Lady Raena scoffed at him.
Anduin chose to ignore her and sent the energy at of his hand. It spiraled around her slowly, but seemingly did nothing. Until the statue’s façade cracked slightly.
“What did you just do?” She asked suspiciously.
“I… used dispel magic. I fear it did not yield the desire result.”
“No… It just wasn’t powerful enough.” Raena’s voice had lost it’s hard edge in favor of sadness.
“Hm… I wonder… In theory it could work…”Anduin held his chin as he considered his options.
“Do you have an idea?” Varian looked on expectantly.
“Mass dispel can remove harmful magical effect from many targets all at once. But if all of that cleansing power was focused on a single target it would, in theory amplify the spell’s effect.” He seemed quite thoughtful. “However… Given how little the effect of a single application was, I suspect it would require more than one attempt.”
“Or more than one priest.” A familiar woman’s voice echoed throughout the halls.
Anduin spun around quickly to meet them face to face.
“Or a priestess as the case may be.”
“Lady… Lady Tyrande…” Anduin’s wide-eyes narrowed quickly as sadness took him. “I am surprised to find you speaking so genially to me given our last meeting.”
“Our last meeting was quite joyful as I recall.” She smiled at him despite the worry on his face.
“Oh… Then you must be…”
“Perhaps it is a different ‘me; you know. But this ‘me’ is willing to test your theory if it means freeing Lady Raena.” Tyrande stepped up beside him facing Raena.
“Yes. In that case, I appreciate any assistance you can afford me.”
Together than channeled their energies and focused them all on dispelling Raena’s stony form. When the light dispersed, much to their sorrow, the stone remained.
“It was… too much to hope for I suppose.” Tyrande sighed quietly to herself.
Suddenly a cracking sound filled the room. Like hundreds of eggs cracking all at once the stone splintered and spiderwebbed. Anduin held his breath hoping this was a good portend and not a sign they had in fact destroyed Lady Raena instead. Then the stone started falling away. Piece by piece the rock fell away, smashing to smaller pieces on the polished stone floor. At last, there was none left at all. Lady Raena took a deep breath and all her limbs relaxed immediately.
“For how long?” Her voice was only audible to Varian who took her by the arm to steady her. “For how long was I trapped in that accursed prison?”
“Too long.” Tyrande answered in relief.
“Indeed…” Raena clasped a gem to her chest. “There is much to do. But for tonight, let us all rest.” She looked up at Anduin with grateful eyes. It didn’t seem like the same person who so angrily and bitterly spoke to him before.
“Yes. I have something of great interest to you, Lady Raena.”
“Very well. I looked forward to hearing from you.” With that, Raena gently freed herself from Varian’s grasp and turned towards the throne. “I have already asked so much of many of you. But it seems I will need to ask you for your strength once more if we are to rebuild the kingdom.” She looked directly into Anduin’s eyes. “I was right to call you here, even if my motives at the time were… wholly selfish. I hope you can forgive me.”
“I… really don’t know what to say. I will do my best to assist you in anyway I can, Lady Raena.” Though Anduin answered clearly and happily, Varian looked rather displeased…
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Name: Amazing Flyin’ Hammer Brother
Debut: Super Mario World
Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and Goombas! Iiiiiit’s the Amazing Flyin’ Hammer Brothers!!
I really like the Amazing Flyin’ Hammer Brother! Definitely one of my favorite enemies to suddenly remember on a rainy day. I’ve always wanted to cover the Amazing Flyin’ Hammer Brother... but one thing led to another, and I guess I just forgot! I suppose I wasn’t quite sure what to write, but Mod Chikako suggested I do a post only referring to the Amazing Flyin’ Hammer Brother by the Amazing Flyin’ Hammer Brother’s full name, at all times. So that’s what I’m doing!
Okay, maybe not. Nobody would want to read a post like that. But wow! This sure is amazing alright! Amazing enough to want to repeat his full name several times! This wacky Hammer Brother sits atop two floating blocks and just tosses hammers everywhere like nobody’s business. Even weirder, regular Hammer Bros. don’t show up in this game at all! Clearly, this is the next step in Hammer Bro. evolution.
Though I guess, strictly speaking, he’s not really doing the flyin’ himself... He’s just hitching a ride. Is that enough to make you a Flyin’ Hammer Brother? Maybe the Amazing part comes from how he can throw two hammers at once! Or maybe it’s a self-given title. Which is fair! Remember to love yourself, too!
A whole 15 years later, Amazing Flyin’ Hammer Brother makes a grand return! Specifically in Super Princess Peach, the game that just mixed main-series and Yoshi-series enemies like a goblin mixing M&Ms and Skittles. Well, I can’t say I dislike it! Unifying the Mario universe is a wonderful thing.
And if you thought Amazing Flyin’ Hammer Brother was an unnecessarily long name, check THIS out:
They even had to make an acronym for it.
#mario#mario enemies#hammer bro#amazing flyin hammer brother#super mario world#super princess peach#mod f boy
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jaime, pia and perceived ideals of knighthood vs effective knightly deeds
for jaime lannister week, day seven: free choice [in this case: META DAY? APPARENTLY.]
so, for the occasion I figured I’d rant about a specific instance in jaime’s asos/affc arc that might be a tad overlooked as it features a minor character but that I think is really important to his arc/his character evolution, as in: how his subplot concerning pia in both books actually shows that while he thinks he turned into the smiling knight, for someone he’s been arthur dayne all along and how actually pia is about the one person to whom he’s never not been anyone or anything else else, which should in turn suggest that he’s been arthur dayne deep down for way longer than he himself thinks.
first of all, I would like to go into the canon instances on which jaime himself reflects on the issue:
The world was simpler in those days, Jaime thought, and men as well as swords were made of finer steel. Or was it only that he had been fifteen? They were all in their graves now, the Sword of the Morning and the Smiling Knight, the White Bull and Prince Lewyn, Ser Oswell Whent with his black humor, earnest Jon Darry, Simon Toyne and his Kingswood Brotherhood, bluff old Sumner Crakehall. And me, that boy I was . . . when did he die, I wonder? When I donned the white cloak? When I opened Aerys's throat? That boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the Smiling Knight instead. ASOS, Jaime VIII
"When I was a squire I told myself I'd be the man to slay the Smiling Knight."
"The Smiling Knight?" She sounded lost. "Who was that?"
The Mountain of my boyhood. Half as big but twice as mad. AFFC, Jaime IV
"You could kill Lord Beric, Ser Jaime. You slew the Smiley Knight. Please, my lord, I beg you, stay and help us with Lord Beric and the Hound." Her pale fingers caressed his golden ones.
Does she think that I can feel that? "The Sword of the Morning slew the Smiling Knight, my lady. Ser Arthur Dayne, a better knight than me." AFFC, Jaime IV
now, there are a few things we can deduce from these (there’s more on the arthur subject, but the crux here is the contraposition):
jaime has a very idealized view of his squiring period, obviously, because it’s the one time in which he was doing what he felt like he was born to do (being a knight) and in which he was part of an heroic quest/deed (slaying the smiling knight) that he carried out with his role model (arthur dayne);
the smiling knight himself is compared to gregor clegane, ie the worst person we could think of in these series;
in jaime’s head there’s a definite dichotomy in between arthur (extreme good) and the smiling knight (extreme bad);
jaime wanted to be like arthur (which he has no problem admitting now post hand-loss) but thinks that he turned into the smiling knight ie the worst possible other end of the specter, so he’a actually making himself look worse than he actually is as nothing he’s done in canon until that point is comparable to what gregor did if we stand by that comparison;
jaime *told himself he would slay the smiling knight* ie he dreamed of being the person who’d carry out that quest - it earned him the knighthood and he took part in it but he didn’t exactly do it as he points out later, as he says that arthur was a better knight than he was.
now, while we could discuss for ages about how jaime’s extremely idealized view of arthur and the rest of aerys’s KG doesn’t necessarily match up with reality (I mean, we don’t know much about what arthur was up to during the rebellion and we’ll never know until we get a direct account of what happened at the tower of joy but the man died trying to prevent ned from reaching his dying sister after his side lost the war, after rhaegar died and so on, which doesn’t look exactly knightly to me or at least it’s fairly morally gray/shady from the elements that we have), but the point I want to make here is that the way jaime sees it, he completely failed to uphold knightly vows, hasn’t measured up to his role model, turned into the kind of monster that he was dreaming of slaying when he was young and ponders when exactly that switch happened. and he mentions as possibilities a) when he went into the KG, b) when he killed aerys.
before I move on to the actual point, though, I’d like to point out one moment what is actually the oath knights swear when being anointed, as per ASOS and The Hedge Knight:
[..], do you swear before the eyes of gods and men to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to protect all women and children, to obey your captains, your liege lord, and your king, to fight bravely when needed and do such other tasks as are laid upon you, however hard or humble or dangerous they may be?
+
In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave. In the name of the Father I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent. In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women....
so, very shortly and not counting the ones about obeying one’s commander or liege lord, the crux is protecting innocent/weaker people including women and children who can’t defend themselves any better.
so, jaime thinks he’s done nothing of that and that he’s not doing anything of that. fair enough. follow-up under the cut for length.
now, on to pia: before going on to how she matters in his arc, we should keep in mind that from what we know from arya’s chapters in a clash of kings:
Arya heard all sorts of secrets just by keeping her ears open as she went about her duties. Pretty Pia from the buttery was a slut who was working her way through every knight in the castle.
Hot Pie was kneading bread, his arms floured up to his elbows. "Pia saw something in the buttery last night." Arya made a rude noise. Pia was always seeing things in the buttery. Usually they were men.
Tothmure had been sent to the axe for dispatching birds to Casterly Rock and King's Landing the night Harrenhal had fallen, Lucan the armorer for making weapons for the Lannisters, Goodwife Harra for telling Lady Whent's household to serve them, the steward for giving Lord Tywin the keys to the treasure vault. The cook was spared (some said because he'd made the weasel soup), but stocks were hammered together for pretty Pia and the other women who'd shared their favors with Lannister soldiers. Stripped and shaved, they were left in the middle ward beside the bear pit, free for the use of any man who wanted them.
so: we know that she’s a serving hand (so she’s a woman of low birth who has virtually no protection whatsoever), that she’s good-looking and that she most likely enjoys having sex (nothing bad about that)… but that people shame her for it (see the first quote). we also can deduce that she was willing in her enjoyment of sex and so on… but the last that we know from arya’s chapters, when roose conquers it, she’s stripped and shaved and left free for use for having slept with lannister soldiers, so we can add that on top of that she most likely was raped and we can deduce that not many people would have considered it such after because of her previous reputation for promiscuity.
now, what happens after is that qyburn sends her to jaime figuring that he’d appreciate it:
“I understand you had a visitor last night,” said Qyburn. “I trust that you enjoyed her?”
Jaime gave him a cool look. “She did not say who sent her.”
The maester smiled modestly. “Your fever was largely gone, and I thought you might enjoy a bit of exercise. Pia is quite skilled, would you not agree? And so . . . willing.”
what we can deduce here is that qyburn sent her to jaime after the whole part where she was put up for *free use* by any man who wanted her and he still says she’s willing, which is actually true but more on that later, but to qyburn it really doesn’t matter most likely because of her previous fame. also he talks about her as if she’s not a person with feelings (she’s skilled, you enjoyed her etc.), while jaime does not sleep with her out of faithfulness towards cersei, but what’s interesting is how pia said she saw the entire thing:
“She had been that, certainly. She had slipped in his door and out of her clothes so quickly that Jaime had thought he was still dreaming.
It hadn’t been until the woman slid in under his blankets and put his good hand on her breast that he roused. She was a pretty little thing, too. “I was a slip of a girl when you came for Lord Whent’s tourney and the king gave you your cloak,” she confessed. “You were so handsome all in white, and everyone said what a brave knight you were. Sometimes when I’m with some man, I close my eyes and pretend it’s you on top of me, with your smooth skin and gold curls. I never truly thought I’d have you, though.”
Sending her away had not been easy after that, but Jaime had done it all the same. I have a woman, he reminded himself. “Do you send girls to everyone you leech?” he asked Qyburn.
“More often Lord Vargo sends them to me. He likes me to examine them, before . . . well, suffice it to say that once he loved unwisely, and he has no wish to do so again. But have no fear, Pia is quite healthy. As is your maid of Tarth.”
Jaime gave him a sharp look. “Brienne?”
now, never mind that the entire exchange ends up with jaime finding out that brienne is in danger and it’s just before his dream and the bear pit as in, his Extremely Knightly Moment in asos which is also relevant as that episode (while not the first knightly thing he does after losing the hand since saving brienne from being raped while on their road trip would count) is the first major gesture of the kind he does: we know that after she was most likely raped repeatedly, she got sent to *him*, and we find out that she’s actually been thinking of him in extremely knightly terms all along since she saw him getting knighted. now she says she was a slip of a girl so she most likely was around four or five and she still remembers that he looked handsome and brave (knightly virtues) and that when she’s with other people she pretends it’s jaime making love to her, to the point that she can’t believe her luck that she’d actually end up with him. now, he refuses (even if he finds it hard), but he’s most likely one of the few people (if not the only one) who would have done that and he also doesn’t appreciate qyburn basically whoring her out, so at least he’s giving her some basic respect… but the point here is that to pia he sounds/looks like the embodiment of everything he thinks he’s not (brave/knightly) and she’s been thinking that since he went into the kingsguard ie one of the two moments that in the above quote he thought might have been when he turned from arthur into the smiling knight, which therefore would *not* match her idea of him as a splendid example of knightly valor… in theory.
now, at this point, regardless of what happened in between arya leaving harrenhal and jaime getting there, pia still seems to not having undergone through massive changes since what we saw in acok - she’s still pretty, she enjoys sex and she definitely is willing at least when it comes to the one man she’s been having an idealized crush on for years and that she thinks of when having sex with other men.
then jaime goes back to harrenhal in affc before heading for riverrun and he meets her again:
Any hopes he might have nursed of finding Shagwell, Pyg, or Zollo languishing in the dungeons were sadly disappointed. The Brave Companions had abandoned Vargo Hoat to a man, it would seem. Of Lady Whent's people, only three remained—the cook who had opened the postern gate for Ser Gregor, a bent-back armorer called Ben Blackthumb, and a girl named Pia, who was not near as pretty as she had been when Jaime saw her last. Someone had broken her nose and knocked out half her teeth. The girl fell at Jaime's feet when she saw him, sobbing and clinging to his leg with hysterical strength till Strongboar pulled her off. "No one will hurt you now," he told her, but that only made her sob the louder.
+
“Take the whore as well," Ser Bonifer urged. "You know the one. The girl from the dungeons."
"Pia." The last time he had been here, Qyburn had sent the girl to his bed, thinking that would please him. But the Pia they had brought up from the dungeons was a different creature from the sweet, simple, giggly creature who'd crawled beneath his blankets. She had made the mistake of speaking when Ser Gregor wanted quiet, so the Mountain had smashed her teeth to splinters with a mailed fist and broken her pretty little nose as well. He would have done worse, no doubt, if Cersei had not called him down to King's Landing to face the Red Viper's spear. Jaime would not mourn him.
"Pia was born in this castle," he told Ser Bonifer. "It is the only home she has ever known."
"She is a font of corruption," said Ser Bonifer. "I won't have her near my men, flaunting her . . . parts."
so, what happens is that when gregor (as in, the person jaime compared the smiling knight with before) was in harrenhal he smashed her teeth with a mailed first because she spoke out of turn and as per what the next quote says, she’s also been repeatedly raped again, and she’s definitely way traumatized and in a position of absolute helplessness… and she throws herself at jaime’s feet most likely seeing him as a possible savior - let’s remember that she’s idealized him as a brave knight all along, and he does promise she won’t be hurt, which is what he technically should do per his knightly vows. now, when he tries to argue for her staying in harrenhal, ser bonifer ie the person appointed to mind the castle in his absence says he doesn’t want her around because she’s a supposed whore regardless of how bad off she is right now. he could have ignored the issue, but he doesn’t and takes her as a washerwoman in his own army, and with that he already removes her from a place where she would have been even less safe than usual, but the important thing is in the next part:
Pia listened as solemnly as a girl of five being lessoned by her septa. That's all she is, a little girl in a woman's body, scarred and scared. Peck was taken with her, though. Jaime suspected that the boy had never known a woman, and Pia was still pretty enough, so long as she kept her mouth closed. There's no harm in him bedding her, I suppose, so long as she's willing.
One of the Mountain's men had tried to rape the girl at Harrenhal, and had seemed honestly perplexed when Jaime commanded Ilyn Payne to take his head off. "I had her before, a hunnerd times," he kept saying as they forced him to his knees. "A hunnerd times, m'lord. We all had her." When Ser Ilyn presented Pia with his head, she had smiled through her ruined teeth.
now: never mind that jaime (who as we all know is not the kind of person who reacts with a shrug when hearing/knowing someone has been raped or he wouldn’t be feeling guilty about his inaction with rhaella nor he’d have risked his hide to save brienne from it thrice two of which were post-hand loss and in one of those he wasn’t even able to stand by himself) always thinks that if she has to bed someone the important thing is that she’s *willing* nor thinks less of her for he promiscuity, which for westeros is fairly progressive all things considered… but he gives her the head of the guy who tried to rape her and by his own admission did it before *a hundred times* same as other soldiers in his group, and… she smiles through ruined teeth ie she doesn’t even care about hiding it, when later she takes care to cover her mouth when she speaks around other nobles. also, we can discuss that when she and peck start sleeping together jaime tells them to use his bed and:
The squire turned beet red.
"If she'll have you, take her. She'll teach you a few things you'll find useful on your wedding night, I don't doubt, and you're not like to get a bastard by her." Pia had spread her legs for half his father's army and never quickened; most like the girl was barren. "If you bed her, though, be kind to her."
"Kind, my lord? How . . . how would I . . . ?"
"Sweet words. Gentle touches. You don't want to wed her, but so long as you're abed treat her as you would your bride."
now: obviously he can’t tell his squire (who is still noble) that he should marry a woman who is a commoner, most likely barren and way older than he is, but he tells him that he still should treat her *as if she was* until they sleep together, and his standard for how you’d treat your bride is sweet words and gentle touches which most likely is not what pia’s gotten until this point much if ever, and throughout the entire thing while he is attracted to her and he doesn’t deny it to himself he still doesn’t act on it. and meanwhile since she’s still traveling with his army of which he’s in command she’s in a position of relative safety, never mind that if people know that he ordered beheaded the guy who tried to touch her when she wasn’t willing she definitely isn’t under that risk right now.
back to the beginning, what are the knightly vows again? protecting innocent/weaker people including women and children who can’t defend themselves any better. what has jaime done with pia on her end? he didn’t sleep with her nor treated her as a commodity, he has quite literally protected her taking her into his service when she was in danger, he’s made sure that she wouldn’t have to sleep with anyone she didn’t want to, has respected her agency and gave her the head of at least one of the guys who raped her, which considering that the person hurting her was *gregor clegane* ie the man he’s roundabout compared *himself* to in asos if we go by the smiling knight = gregor comparison… it’s kind of the entire opposite thing and absolutely counts as fulfilling every single knightly vow he made since he protected/saved/avenged a woman in a position of absolute helplessness about whose agency no one cares because everyone decided that since she likes sex then she must always want it.
the thing that’s important though is that by doing that… he’s pretty much proved her right, in the sense that if she’s always imagined him as the brave handsome knight since she was a little girl and he had just been anointed and she always idealized him to the point where she’d think about him when being with other people because obviously his idealized self would be everything she might want then he about went and proved her right regardless of any other shortcoming of his or regardless of any horrible thing he might have done before or after, because to her he most likely would be a knight out of songs since he did waltz in, promised no one would hurt her after it happened to her and actually delivered on it in spades.
but, while for *her* it’s definitely the case, jaime himself doesn’t think of it in very knightly terms, at most we have:
“Ser Harwyn says those tales are lies." Lady Amerei wound a braid around her finger. "He has promised me Lord Beric's head. He's very gallant." She was blushing beneath her tears.
Jaime thought back on the head he'd given to Pia. He could almost hear his little brother chuckle. Whatever became of giving women flowers? Tyrion might have asked. He would have had a few choice words for Harwyn Plumm as well, though gallant would not have been one of them.
now, he’s thinking of it in the context of a romantic gesture since it was described as one before, but then he says gallant wouldn’t be one of those words and he doesn’t really register what he did as *gallant* or knightly while most likely pia would. also, he’s comparing himself to both the smiling knight and gregor (in another quote later he dreams of punching in the teeth one of cersei’s lovers the way gregor did while he’s still working through how betrayed that made him feel, but thing is, he doesn’t act on that at any point except when he punches ronnet for brienne and it’s nowhere near as bad as what he describes himself as) but he behaves in the entire opposite way since at least in pia’s case gregor about ruined her life and he avenged it/helped her/did what he could for her which is about more than most likely anyone ever did, and to her certainly everything he did would indeed look as knightly as it goes.
but like the entire point is that jaime doesn’t think of the knightly deeds he actually pulls off as such - he doesn’t think that of saving brienne’s life at the bear pit/saving her from being raped/giving her oathkeeper when brienne herself definitely sees them as such as in her affc chapters she keeps on thinking about both instances as proof that he’s Definitely A Honorable Person, he doesn’t think that of what he does with pia nor of anything else positive he’s ever done/does, which ties with the overall arc he has in which he has to realize that he can still be the person he wanted to be. in asos he thinks he turned into the smiling knight when he’s never been all along, in both asos and affc he does behave following the code when he can and hates not being able to when he can’t/when he’s forced to (see having to take riverrun when he says he has sworn to not raise arms against the tullys and he hates it) but he still doesn’t seem to have taken the leap and realized that he actually behaves in entirely different ways than he thinks (see that he thinks he’s the same as cersei when most of the things he does/he cares about are the entire contrary), so the subplot with pia shows that he’s actually doing that without realizing it… with the twist that, going back to the beginning:
he thinks he turned into the smiling knight (= gregor) sometime along the way when he wanted to be arthur dayne, then he’s the literal knight in shining armor to a girl who was hurt by gregor and his father’s men who always thought he was pretty much the embodiment of the institution same as jaime thought arthur dayne was, and it’s a girl who has no idea of anything else he might have done other than killing aerys and she obviously doesn’t care since she doesn’t mention it when she goes to his bed the first time. so there is someone to whom he was an arthur dayne all along, and the moment he could do something for her, he actually delivered and definitely was arthur dayne to her, not the smiling knight, and she’d know since she was hurt by the man jaime himself compared to him first. now, it’s important because everyone else that has had a chance to know that jaime actually does have that potential is people with whom he has an actual rship/who have seen him at his worst/with whom he has unresolved Issues To Solve ASAP (I’m meaning mostly brienne and tyrion - brienne didn’t like him whatsoever in the beginning and with tyrion there’s the whole matter of the tysha backstory which obviously ruined the high opinion tyrion had of him even if I think it’s salvageable) but in this case pia already thought she was arthur dayne As A Paragon Of Knightly Virtues (not as how arthur actually was which is as stated an entire other issue in itself) and he lived up to it without even realizing he was doing it, but he doesn’t even think once about whether he shouldn’t help her or he shouldn’t give her the time of the day. like, he doesn’t really consider doing otherwise or not giving a shit about what happens to her regardless. which should also automatically suggest that it’s actually in his nature to do the right thing/follow the basics of his vows. obviously he didn’t realize that but as finding out he has it in himself to be the person he wanted to be when he was young and that he didn’t turn into a gregor stand-in is I think one of the main themes in his arc, I also think this specific subplot really underlines how he’s still in the middle of figuring it out while also stressing that regardless of what he thinks about what he is or what he became, he can be arthur dayne As A Paragon and that he can deliver on that/be what he always dreamed he could be for someone who already saw him as that paragon and whom he hasn’t disappointed in any other way.
in short: by helping someone who exactly meets all the criteria for ‘category he swore to protect when taking his vows’ when this person already saw him as a paragon, he’s actually contradicting his own assessment of his morality/honor or lack thereof, because while he thinks he wanted to be arthur dayne and turned into the contrary, to other people he always was arthur dayne and when he could show them that he could be, he delivered on those expectations, differently from what most others did to him, and I find it quite a beautiful if heartbreaking parallel and also definitely a not so small hint that his overall storyline is going towards realize that he, in fact, isn’t the smiling knight at all and never actually has been.
#jaimelannisterweek#jaime lannister#gotjaimelannister#jaime lannister week#pia#asoiaf meta#ch: jaime lannister#janie writes meta#huh i managed to write this finally#HAVE SOME META FOR FREE FOR ALL DAY i guess#also apparently i tagged wrong the previous two fics lmao i'm a genius am i not? brb retagging#do i have feelings about jaime and pia? most likely#will i ever stop having them? never
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books read in 2019
january
1.The Little Mermaid — Hans Christian Andersen (1837) (audio)
2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — F. Scott Fitzgerald (1922) (audio)
3. Jungle River — Howard Pease (1938)
4. Lolita — Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
5. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence — Robert M. Pirsig (1974)
6. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
7. Crome Yellow — Aldous Huxley (1921)
8. The Story of the Eye — George Bataille (1921)
february
9. The Immoralist — Andre Gide (1902)
10. 1984 — George Orwell (1949) (audio) (2nd time)
11. The Catcher in the Rye — J.D. Salinger (1951) (audio) (2nd time)
12. Animal Farm — George Orwell (1945) (audio) (2nd time)
13. The Woodlanders — Thomas Hardy (1877)
14. Descartes in 90 Minutes — Paul Strathern (1996)
15. Jane Eyre — Charlotte Brontë (1847)
march
16. Discourse on the Method (1637) (in Heffernan) & 16.5 The Search After Truth by the Light of Nature — René Descartes
17. Bilingual “Discourse on the Method” & Essays — Descartes & George Heffernan (1994)
18. Autobiography — John Stuart Mill (1873)
19. Méditations — René Descartes (1641)
20. Discourse on Method and Related Writings — René Descartes (Penguin Classics) incl. le monde et les règles
21. Meno — Plato (385 BC) (audio)
22. Crito — Plato (audio)
23. Poetics — Aristotle (audio)
24. The Apology — Plato (audio)
25. Phaedo — Plato (audio)
26. Five Dialogues — Plato (euthyphro, apology, crito, meno, phaedo) (2nd time except euthyphro)
27. Ion - Plato
28. The Art of Loving — Erich Fromm (1956)
29. On Liberty — J.S. Mill (1859)
april
30. A History of Knowledge — Charles Van Doren (1991)
31. Why I am So Wise — Friedrich Nietzsche (Penguin abridged Ecce Homo) (1908)
32. The Varieties of Religious Experience — William James (1902)
33. Pragmatism — William James (1907)
34. Candide — Voltaire (1759)
35. Short stories by Voltaire — Zadig, Micromegas, The World as it Is, Memnon, Bababec, Scarmentados Travels, Plato’s Dream, Jesuit Berthier, Good Brahman, Jeannot and Colin, An Indian Adventure, Ingenuous, One-Eyed Porter, Memory’s Adventure, Chaplain Goudman (1747-1775)
36. The Great Conversation — Robert M. Hutchins (1952)
may
37. Aeschylus’ Oresteia Trilogy & Prometheus Bound (458 BC) — Laurel Classical Drama (1965)
38. Sophocles’ Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes (~400 BC) — Laurel Classical Drama (1965)
39. Euripides’ Medea, Hippolytus, Alcestis, The Bacchae (~430 BC) — Laurel Classical Drama (1965)
40. Mythology — Edith Hamilton (1940)
41. Erewhon — Samuel Butler (1872)
42. The Iliad — Homer (850 BC)
43. The Little Prince — Antoine de Saint Exupery (1943)
44. Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound (2nd time), The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, The Persians (Penguin Classics)
45. Teaching From the Balance Point — Edward Kreitman (Suzuki guide — 1998)
june
46. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (2nd time), Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone (2nd time) (Penguin Classics)
47. The Odyssey — Homer (850 BC)
48. The Secret Garden — Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911)
49. Coraline — Neil Gaiman (2002)
50. The Lost Art of Reading — David Ulin (2010)
51. Sophocles’ Ajax, Electra (2nd time), Women of Trachis, Philoctetes (2nd time) (Penguin Classics)
52. The House of the Seven Gables — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851)
53. The Awakening — Kate Chopin (1899) (audio)
54. Straight is the Gate — André Gide (1924)
55. Wuthering Heights — Emily Brontë (1847)
56. Journey to the Center of the Earth — Jules Verne (1864) (audio)
57. East of Eden — John Steinbeck (1952)
58. Sons and Lovers — D.H. Lawrence (1913)
59. Grapes of Wrath — John Steinbeck (1939) (audio)
july
60. Attached — Amir Levine (2010) (audio)
61. The Prophet — Khalil Gibran (1923) (audio)
62. The Four Agreements — Don Miguel Ruiz (1997) (audio) (2nd time)
63. The Transparent Self — Sidney Jourard (1964)
64. The Return of the Native — Thomas Hardy (1878)
65. The Souls of Black Folk — W.E.B Du Bois (1903) (audio)
66. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) (audio)
67. The Call of the Wild — Jack London (1903) (audio)
68. The Importance of Being Earnest — Oscar Wilde (1895) (audio) (2nd time)
69. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — L. Frank Baum (1900) (audio)
70. The Picture of Dorian Gray — Oscar Wilde (1890) (audio)
71. Justine — Marquis de Sade (1791)
72. Love and Will — Rollo May (1969)
73. Nine Stories — J.D. Salinger (1953)
74. The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution — P.D. Ouspensky (1950)
75. The Good Earth — Pearl S. Buck (1931) (audio)
76. The Symposium — Plato (385-370 BC)
77. Children’s Stories by Oscar Wilde (1888)
august
78. Plato’s Apology (3rd time), Crito (3rd time) ; Laches, Gorgias (audio)
79. Plato’s Greater Hippias, Phaedrus (audio)
80. The Scarlet Letter — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) (audio)
81. Plato’s Phaedo (3rd time), Euthyphro (3rd time); Charmides
82. Eyeless in Gaza — Aldous Huxley (1936)
83. A Little History of the World — E. F. Gombrich (1936) (audio)
84. Waiting for Godot — Samuel Beckett (1953)
85. Anna Karenina — Leo Tolstoy (1877)
86. A Little History of Literature — John Southerland (2013)
87. Sartor Resartus — Thomas Carlyle (1831)
88. Macbeth — Shakespeare (1606)
september
89. An Apology for Idlers — Robert Louis Stevenson (Penguin Great Ideas collection of essays) (1877)
90. The Cloister and the Hearth — Charles Reade (1861)
91. How to Read a Book — Mortimer Adler & Charles van Doren (1972) (audio)
92. Robinson Crusoe — Daniel Defoe (1719) (audio)
93. The Story of Art — E. H. Gombrich (1950)
94. The Moonstone — Wilkie Collins (1868)
95. Emma — Jane Austen (1816)
96. Daughters & Mothers: Mothers & Daughters — Signe Hammer (1975)
97. Looking Back — Edward Bellamy (1888)
98. Franny & Zooey — J.D. Salinger (1955)
99. Persuasion — Jane Austen (1817)
100. Sense and Sensibility — Jane Austen (1811) (audio and 2011 Annotated edition!!!)
101. The Aspern Papers — Henry James (1888)
october
102. Death of a Salesman — Arthur Miller (1949)
103. Brave New World — Aldous Huxley (1932) (audio)
104. Dhalgren — Samuel R. Delaney (1974)
105. Mansfield Park — Jane Austen (1814)
106. Northanger Abbey — Jane Austen (1817)
107. Rebecca — Daphne Du Maurier (1938)
108. Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austen (1813) (second time) (audio)
109. The American — Henry James (1877)
110. Washington Square — Henry James (1880)
111. The Europeans — Henry James (1878)
112. Watch and Ward — Henry James (1871)
113. Roderick Hudson — Henry James (1875)
114. Confidence — Henry James (1879)
115. Portrait of a Lady — Henry James (1881)
116. I’ll Never Be French — Marc Greenside (2008)
117. The Bostonians -- Henry James (1886)
118. Henry James short stories Vol. I 1864-1874 -- A Tragedy of Error; The Story of a Year; A Landscape Painter; A Day of Days; My Friend Bingham; Poor Richard, The Story of a Masterpiece; The Romance of Certain Old Clothes; A Most Extraordinary Case; A Problem; De Grey: A Romance; Osbourne’s Revenge, A Light Man, Gabrielle de Bergerac, Travelling Companions, A Passionate Pilgrim, At Isella, Master Eustace, Guest’s Confession, The Madonna of the Future, The Sweetheart of M. Briseaux, The Last of the Valerii, Madame de Mauves, Adina
119. The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul -- Douglas Adams (1988)
120. French Children Don’t Throw Food -- Pamela Druckerman (2012)
121. Au Contraire: Figuring Out the French -- Asselin & Mastron (2001)
122. Henry James: The Young Master -- Sheldon Novick (1997)
123. Henry James short stories Vol. II 1875-1884 Professor Fargo, Eugene Pickering, Benvolio, Crawford’s Consistency, The Ghostly Rental, Four Meetings, Rose-Agathe, Daisy Miller, Longstaff’s Marriage, An International Episode, The Pension Beaurepas, The Diary of a Man of Fifty, A Bundle of Letters, The Point of View, The Siege of London, The Impressions of a Cousin, Lady Barberina, The Author of Beltraffio, Pandora
124. The Trail of the Serpent -- Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1860)
125. The Silent Language -- Edward T. Hall (1959)
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