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katabay · 8 months

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THE SHERIFF AND GUY OF GISBORNE

uh. try to stay with me for a second. so incest motifs are a huge part of medieval lit. you see it in arthuriana cycles, you see it in romances, it's a whole thing.

Incest and the Medieval Imagination, Elizabeth Archibald

so robin hood. both adaptions and the text itself, tend to get interesting with guy of gisborne. and I will say that while I found the media being discussed in this text absolutely fucking insufferable to watch, the discussion on it was delicious, impeccable, show stopping

Mouvance, Greenwood, and Gender in The Adventures of Robin Hood and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Brian J Levy and Lesley Coote

and with regards to discussions on the origin text (which I love and adore forever)

Horseplay: Robin Hood, Guy of Gisborne, and the Neg(oti)ation of the Bestial, Stuart Kane

we're. getting to the point, I promise. guy of gisborne and the sheriff in my own "adaption" are not cousins, but brothers in law (fucked up brothers in law are my thing over on my other blog. brutus and cassius? I'm there. caligula and lepidus? all over that, baby!) because I'm aiming for an adjacent transgression.

on the topic of adjacent transgressions and guy's comment in this comic about cannibalism: there's an overlap in various genres of literature, predominantly in branches of horror and tragedy: between cannibalism and incest. (additionally! a lot of texts will take on christian subtexts and allusions, so there's a bonus homoerotic cannibalism discussion happening wrt communion that I'll get into in the future) it's about. chomping. the teeth, you know.

Managing Monsters, Marina Warner

Statius and Virgil: The Thebaid and the Reinterpretation of the Aeneid, Randall T. Ganiban

there's a 100% chance I will revise the sheriff's design at some point, but I wanted to draw the flowers exploding out of the spine so bad

AND FINALLY, the neck focus on guy is half due to his fate in his origin tale (beheaded) and half my own invention: I girl-with-a-green-ribboned him. a little narrative necromancy, if you will.

#long post #outlaws in the woods tag #im sorry for how long this is and also bc its 2am but also i am not sorry. i love medieval literature and horror #the sheriff wants to crawl inside guy's ribcage and eat his lungs #he is. interestingly enough. horrified at what everyone else does to guy's body #its about possession. obsession. who else has the right to eat you etc #im going to go folk catholicism forced sainthood on guy and every second of it is going to be awful for him #i will do narrative necromancy but i will adhere to the rules of the setting and the setting is TERRIBLE #i love it! sorry guy of gisborne.#anyway you guys ever watch showtime's borgias. favorite show. so. so uh. you know that one scene. the---

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hauntedskeletonmoon · 4 years

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ENTRY THE SECOND

Time for a few more of my ghoulish opinions! Today’s theme is folk horror. Most days will probably not have a theme. I’m very tired.

6) The Dunwich Horror

H.P. Lovecraft: can’t live with him, can’t kill him because he’s been dead since 1937. This is yet another story that I was certain I had already talked about on this blog because I hold it in such high regard. Inspired by Arthur Machen’s “The Great God Pan,” Lovecraft produced this tale of a fucked up Massachusetts family and the unholy terror it unleashes upon the countryside. Main character Wilbur Whateley may have plans for the destruction of human life on Earth but he’s still one of Lovecraft’s most sympathetic characters. Read with caution if you live in or near the woods.

7) The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971)

I’ve mentioned this movie before as being more interesting than it is good, but I do think it’s worth watching, especially if you have an interest in the history of folk horror. In the 1700s in England a farmhand accidentally digs up a hairy, bestial skull in a field. Things get weird. Everyone who comes into contact with the remains grows a repulsive patch of black hair somewhere on their body. What happens with those weird growths? Well, you’ll just have to watch the movie and see. I want to issue a serious warning that this movie does not like women, and it especially doesn’t like teenage girls. There is an appropriately scary but still very harrowing rape scene about halfway through that I wouldn’t want anyone to be surprised by.

8) The Wicker Man (1973)

This is one of those rare movies that is just as good as everyone says it is. It’s perfect from the first frame to the last frame and is all but guaranteed to creep the absolute shit out of you. The most uptight British policeman in history travels to a remote island village to investigate a missing child. He finds more than he expects, to say the least. Featuring Christopher Lee in one of the all time great performances as the magnetic and charming Lord Summerisle. I recommend this more than anything else on today’s list.

9) Beasts – “Baby” (1976)

Short and bizarre! I watched a couple other episodes of this British anthology series and liked them fine, but wasn’t particularly wowed. Such was not the case with “Baby.” A young couple finds a desiccated animal corpse sealed in a jar inside the wall of the old farmhouse they just moved into. Not only that, it turns out that a previous tenant’s attempt to keep cows in the field ended with a series of “contagious abortions.” The wife in this couple is pregnant and has previously had a miscarriage. Naturally, she’s very uneasy about this whole situation. Naturally, her husband is a complete boor with no sympathy for her at all. I came here for the mysterious animal corpse and stayed for the horrifying portrait of a bad marriage. My girlfriend watched with me and remarked that the husband comes across worse than James Sunderland, and that guy’s a murderer!

10) The Borderlands (2013)

DO NOT LOOK UP SPOILERS FOR THIS MOVIE. I cannot stress enough how important it is to not know how this movie ends. The Borderlands—released in the US as Final Prayer—is like Paranormal Activity meets The Exorcist. The Vatican sends a church member and a layman to investigate an alleged miracle at a rural English church. It sure seems like nothing good ever happens in the English countryside, huh? Interestingly, the religious agent is a complete skeptic, and the nonreligious technology expert is ready to believe that a miracle is happening. I don’t want to shock you, dear reader, but it isn’t exactly the hand of God moving things in this church. I’m a sucker for good found footage and this is GOOD. It’s right up there with The Taking of Deborah Logan for last minute reveals that’ll knock you on your ass.

#the dunwich horror #the blood on satan's claw #the wicker man 1973 #beasts 1976 #the borderlands 2013 #horror recs #horror fiction #horror movies #found footage #sorry for the lateness I'm a mess lol #2020

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takerfoxx · 7 years

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“Fires of the Sun, Part 2″ Thoughts

In which I killed off a major character. On my birthday.

Quality-wise, I feel this chapter was a major step up from the first, and that is for one very easily identified reason.

Snarky Rin.

Oh, how I love snarky Rin!

See, Rin's always a fun character to write for, which is great, seeing how she's the closest thing this story has to a central protagonist. However, her scenes usually come with a sort of balancing act. On the one hand, she's very sympathetic, given how much shit she's gone through coupled with the fact that she usually doesn't really want to hurt anyone and her concern for those she cares about. However, her hands are far from clean. She's does some messed up stuff herself, and keeping her in that grey area right over the moral event horizon is usually something of a challenge. On the one hand, it makes perfect sense for her to be angry, belligerent, spiteful, and even vengeful at times. On the other, you don't want to go too far and make her "go full bad guy," as she and Rumia like to put it.

(Though interestingly enough, when this story first started, Rin was actually penciled in to be the main antagonist, with her going full bad guy by the end of the first arc, Yuuka being something of a chaotic neutral anti-hero, Mima never turning, and the Shadow Youkai not showing up at all. But then good ol' Bold Text made a last-minute appearance and Rin proved to be too likeable to treat that way, so the old plan got thrown out, the Shadow Youkai got promoted, Yuuka's role was changed, and eventually Mima went full bad guy instead due to butterfly effect. Funny how things work out, isn't it?)

But anyway, I still have a knack for tense, belligerent conversations between people who really don't like each other. It was admittedly a problem when the story first started and everyone was kind of an asshole, and I had to dial it back when it was pointed out to me. Still, it's fun to cut loose every once in a while, and a Rin that gives no fucks is a hoot. Hey, at least in this case she has ample reason!

But anyway, it's weird to say this as the author, but thank God for Utsuho. Some characters just come alive from the get-go and really come to speak for themselves, so when you do their scenes it feels more like you're taking diction instead of coming up with their dialogue yourself. And her monologue here was just wonderful. She's one of the few unapologetically good characters, and given their similar circumstances, it made perfect sense for her to be the one to talk Rin down. And Rin's already shown to have an affinity for tragic monsters like herself, so it also made sense that she would listen. She still had plenty of salt, but there was plenty of that going around. And in the process, she also got to accidentally shame her bullies while doing it. Jeez, I need to let Utsuho make more speeches. She's surprisingly good at it.

Moving on, the scene in the hallway was really demonstrative of how much improvising goes into these chapters, and how much moving all the pieces is required to compensate for one single problem. See, Patchouli's death was already set. I wanted the impact of at least one major character's death in this fight, and hers fit the bill the best. Yes, writers are often sociopaths like that. But I was going back and forth on whether or not to knock off one of Satori's pets as well. I sure as hell wasn't going to kill Utsuho, and going after one of the OC's felt cheap. I've never been a fan of Redshirt philosophy, and creating characters just to kill them feels sort of…cheap, I guess. I mean, under the right circumstances it can work very well, but in this case nothing really would be gained by doing so. I did contemplate killing Jun at one point, but eventually didn't go through with it, mainly because he was the most obvious choice and I had already telegraphed Patchouli's demise pretty badly.

Believe it or not, I seriously considered killing Orin off for a long while, mainly for symmetry's sake. The Scarlet Devil Mansion lost a major member, so it was only fitting that the Palace of Earth Spirits would as well. I eventually decided against it, mainly because it was too soon after Patchouli's death and I didn't want to tip the scales too far. And plus, I had grown really attached to Utsuho and didn't want to take away her best friend. So poor Patchouli was the only named character to not walk away. Hey, sometimes less is more.

But that meant a lot of improvisation became necessary. Because even if I was only going to kill one member of the hapless rescue squad, it made zero sense for them to somehow all survive everything that was happening, and I wanted to eventually zero in the focus on just a couple of them. Okay, they're practically all youkai, so knocking them off in some non-permanent way would work. Except the place is chock full of Mykr's Sirens, which have already been shown to prevent resurrection. Okay, Yukari's there, and she's going to anticipate that at least one of the people she's coming to rescue is probably going to become collateral damage and would prepare accordingly. So, throw up a soul net to fish the gang out. That gets most of them off the board for a bit. But I need that soul net gone for when Patchouli gets killed. Okay, establish early on that Mima had sent one of her split-offs into the fray to keep an eye on things, and have her tear the whole thing down after establishing that it's not something that can be replaced in time. Except this would of course tip Yukari off to the fact that Mima's gone evil again, which affects everything in the future and. Plus, there was no way in hell Meiling and the pets would just sit quietly and not try to come back, so I had to figure out a way to bring them back in a way that wouldn't distract from everything else going on, would still have a logical impact, and…

And that's pretty much the experience of writing Imperfect Metamorphosis in a nutshell. This sort of thing happens all the time.

Anyways, here we bring in poor Elly, who's just having the worst day imaginable. Begin things by reminding everyone that Shinigami scythes can kill youkai, then bring most of the focus on what was going on between her and Rin (with a little nod to Elly's original boss fight, what with the flying tiles and all) so that most people would forget about Patchouli entirely, then have Mima subtly insert herself into the fight, seize control of Elly's scythe, and send it spinning off toward Patchouli in a manner that everyone would blame the Shinigami. And with that, the third Touhou original came to an end.

…

Okay, I know I'm being real blasé about this, but come on! It's been months, and it wasn't nearly as horrifying as Marisa's death was! That one got me some interesting messages, let me tell you. Besides, compared to some other darkfics I can mention, I'd say my body count has been rather conservative!

Er, at least in regards to canon characters. There's still that whole thing with the Dragons and all those massacrs in the backstories and whatnot…

But in all seriousness, I really do like Patchouli a lot. I've always been partial to the SDM gang, and she was a fun, rounded character to write for. And at least her death had some significant ramifications. So, there's that at least.

Though of course, this chapter had to go up on my last birthday update. Sometimes timing works out great, like on this recent New Year’s. But other times you get this.

Okay, two down.

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renlyisright · 7 years

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Season 6 Episode 2: Inside Information

I met some cool people at a party and discussed GoT (and Star Wars too) for an hour in a sauna with them. The sauna was sadly not on (poor party), so we had to be fully clothed to stay warm. But since we went there to get some quiet it was all good. But funny how things go. I haven’t talked a lot about this series aloud with people, and this time too I could only do it because the group was small and they respected my spoiler-freedom.

Bran is back. The old Child of the Forest (an Old God? Or just a guy who roots for them?) teaches him to open that third eye of his and achieve perfection. Flashback time! This one shows Ned, Benjen, Lyanna and Hodor as kids. Hey, it’s Benjen!

Yes, of course. A prediction fulfilled! At last!

Bran says that the Old Child shows him this stuff, but this is the first vision showing things he cares about. Did we miss a season of history and geography lessons? Too bad.

Bran can’t fly yet, and Meera feels like nothing is happening. They found what they were looking for in the lands of always winter, but it turned out to be some guy who could show visions to Bran and Jojen and told them to come here. Can he teach Bran to actually fly? To see visions of whatever he likes on his own (that would be handy)? Or was this just a giant waste of time?

Well I’m in for more flashbacks, but I thought that Bran would be further on on his training. The clock is ticking and before the end of the season he needs to be ready or he misses a lot.

In the Castle Black Thorne is just attacking Davos and the few watchmen loyal to Jon, when the wildlings attack the castle. With a giant on this side of the Wall and so very very few watchmen left (one fewer after the giant Wun Wun has had enough of these arrows) it’s just a formality. I can see how this is Thorne’s worst fear realized. He and his fellow conspirators are sent to the cells, and wildlings rule the Castle Black.

Lots of head-bashing these days. The Mountain (or “Qyburn’s Monster”) bashes one who talked very disrespectfully of Cersei. Cersei herself is not allowed out of the Red Keep, “by the King’s Command”. That means Kevan, right? Hey, she only wanted to grab all the power for herself, that’s what everybody is trying to do. So she made some very poor decisions like arming religious extremists, but everybody makes mistakes.

Like the Martells allowing Ellaria to be anywhere near a Lannister after she tried to murder one. Another Lannister funeral at the beginning of the season. Tommen must be thinking of who of them will be buried next. Jaime, Cersei, himself?

(It’s him, that’s my guess. But he won’t be having a royal funeral.)

It wasn’t Kevan, it was Tommen himself. Part of him is horrified of what his mother has done for her children, maybe even killing the Prince of Dorne to avenge Myrcella, and part of him is ashamed that he didn’t do anything for her when she was imprisoned and punished. So he locked her up.

The High Sparrow gives a lore nugget: The eye stones are used to show that while the dead have closed their eyes for this world they have opened them for the next. My theory was that they were originally used to make the Others believe that these bodies were already turned into wights and the Others should leave them be. It still could be, who knows how the traditions change while moving around the world.

The old man also says, as clearly as he is able to, that they are planning to overthrow an empire. He doesn’t specify which one, but I think he means this one. As I have said before, I don’t oppose getting rid of the monarchy and starting to build a more democratic Westeros, but they would have to fight a civil war or two for it if I have learnt anything of how things go in Westeros, and there are the White Walkers coming. And instead of a democracy the High Sparrow or his less-idealistic followers would create a theocracy anyway.

Tommen goes to speak to his mother, and asks for her help to become a stronger king. That means knives and heads on spikes, doesn’t it?

In Meereen the Small Council has a meeting. Yunkai and Astapor have gone back under the slavemasters’ control, there’s no news of who burnt the fleet and the dragons don’t eat. There are no decisions about the first two matters but Tyrion wants to meet the dragons and remove them from their chains.

Tyrion meets dragons! At last! Aaa! And they don’t kill him. Tyrion talks to them (how much do they understand the language of Westeros? Daenerys only spoke it with a couple of people when they were around. But they are smart.

Tyrion unlocks the chains but leaves them in the dungeon. No getting free and killing nearby farmers’ kids (but that one was Drogon, these two were innocent of that crime).

Arya, sorry, I meant the girl with no name gets her daily beating/lesson, and then the man with no name comes and tests her. She passes and is allowed back. This is a hard school, hopefully the girl gets through it while her list still has any names left.

At Winterfell the Boltons discuss the Starks. Sansa has escaped with outside help, and Jon Snow is the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Ramsay suggests attacking the Castle Black and killing Jon, and Roose wonders if his legitimized son does more bad than good for their rule. At some point they need to rule with other means than killing people all the time. Killing people doesn’t make them like you, it just makes them dead.

And then come the news that Roose now has another boy. And it’s on! Roose and Ramsay hug, and Ramsay is the first one with a knife out and in the other person’s stomach. Roose has lost his reflexes, and now he lost his life as well.

Yes, while this world isn’t a great place for good guys and common people, it isn’t that better for the bad guys either. I don’t except Walder Frey to live much longer either.

Speaking of people being at the wrong place at the wrong time (that is, anywhere and anytime)… Ramsay kills lady Wanda and her baby. You know what, I don’t think that this guy ruling Winterfell is going to do the place any good. Last time when he had control of the place he literally burnt it down.

Interestingly, he has lost all the other named characters in Winterfell. That new lord Karstark and the maester have to stay around so he has anyone to talk to.

At least Sansa and Theon got out. Brienne tells her that she met Arya but couldn’t get her to join them, since she liked her companion’s company better. Brienne conveniently omits that she beat the man pretty hard and could well have killed him for all she knew, and only left her alone in the hillmen-infested hills because she couldn’t find her. But those are little details.

Sansa, Brienne and Pod are going to Castle Black for Jon. Theon says bye, he wants to go home. The best place to be at this point, even if what likely waits for him there is more of humiliation conga.

Finally back to Pyke. There’s Balon Greyjoy, and the moment I saw him I started to count minutes. I expected him to have about five left to live.

Four minutes later he is dead, dropped from one of their silly rope bridges. Killed in secret by his own brother, who has come back from far-away pirating.

I knew that’s how Balon would go. Well actually I thought of the wrong brother, the priest one. This one didn’t have any foreshadowing in the show. But the old woman in A Storm of Swords predicted the deaths of Robb and Renly, and the rest of the prediction fit Balon well. Actually in the book the rumors of Balon’s death came before the Red Wedding. This works better for the show as now it’s straight to next king’s election.

Ooh, they have elections. That’s nice. And Yara may not be elected because the Greyjoy name hasn’t been that good fortune lately. Two lost wars and everybody outside Yara and the priest either dead or missing.

The mysterious brother can of course mess things, and so can Theon, but… it just occurred to me, what are the stakes here? Someone is voted their new king, but they have lost every outpost on the continent, they can’t wage war against anyone now, so what does it matter to the big picture who rules these salty rocks that can’t even be sown?

Anyway, Yara’s first thought when they find Balon’s body is that she will avenge his murder. Normally, when people drop from a shaky bridge during a storm, the first explanation is not murder, so she must have known that people didn’t like his rule. And the Ironborn don’t suffer long those whom they don’t like.

The last of the Five Kings is dead. One dead king per season. Watch out Tommen.

Davos asks Melisandre to try to bring Jon back. Melisandre doesn’t feel like it’s possible, and she is having a crisis anyway. She listened to the Lord of Light, and he left Stannis and everyone else to die after having her burn so many people. I don’t know what parts of that she feels guilty about if any, but Davos makes her try resurrection anyway.

She does it by the book, using many more rituals than Thoros, who just prayed a little. Making things certain, I guess. If it doesn’t work she can say that she tried everything.

Likely the Lord of Light doesn’t care about specifics. If his plan needs someone alive that’s going to happen, good or bad. If it doesn’t… well, Stannis wasn’t as necessary as everyone thought.

Never mind me never liking Stannis, the Lord of Light was horrible to him. Maybe he will be equally horrible to Jon. Who made him a god anyway?

The resurrection... works! Not that surprising. Jon is alive again, let’s see which pieces of him are missing now. And we should not forget that almost half of the watchmen of Castle Black were amongst his stabbers, so how is he going to deal with that? Make wildlings new watchmen? Opposite day?

#game of thrones #renly is right #benjen stark

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