#it's because i was influenced at the beginning of my portrayal
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Random Astrology Observations
Moon in the 1h is often talked about like 🥺🥺wears their heart on their sleeve🥹🥹uwu softie way but tbh Moon in 1h can make someone incredibly manipulative, they know just what to say and when to say it and know how to work their audience, this is perhaps why this placement is found in the charts of soooo many successful actors. ex: Leonardo DiCaprio, Audrey Hepburn, Henry Cavill, Charlie Chaplin, Priyanka Chopra, Antonio Banderas, Brendan Fraser, Benicio Del Toro, Jared Padelecki, Val Kilmer, Adrien Brody etc
I think this is a very manipulative placement, again manipulation is not in and of itself a bad thing, its what we use it for that matters. Some people completely lack the ability to manipulate at all (they don't have Moon influence)
2. Debilitated placements point to unconventional intelligence & wisdom in that area. I feel like they've cracked the code . They struggle a lot but when they triumph it's magic
3. I've mentioned this in other posts but many notorious sex offenders have Venus influence. Actions of this sort, as well as criticizing others' beauty, not taking care of yourself/surroundings, being shabby or disorderly in general are all things that harm your Venus. Abusing someone is the quickest way to ruin your Venus, you start corroding and that ugliness begins to manifest on the outside.
Ex: Harvey Weinstein looks like a cartoonish villain
4. As I explore the astrology content put out by others across different platforms, I've seen how the nature of the take themselves are so specific and unique to the person making them. Claire Nakti has a tendency imo to focus heavily on romance, sex and women's sexual behaviour and what sort of men they attract.
Going through her website, it's obvious that she's deeply immersed in occult & esoteric philosophy (all of which ties together with vedic astrology, philosophy, Buddhism etc because I truly believe that spiritual truths are universal and different schools of thought/religion/culture/mythology express these same truths in their own way with a LOT of recurring patterns) and Carl Jung as well.
It's studying Jung that helped me understand that what we see or draw from something is a reflection of who we are. As a beginner to vedic astrology, I initially believed Claire's one dimensional portrayal to be the all encompassing truth of a nakshatra until I started doing my own reading and research.
The things I talk about or the patterns I find are a reflection of me and I get a lot of asks about why I don't do xyz nak and honestly it's not as simple as doing research for an essay for uni, you kind of have to have a gnosis or innate knowing of its themes, something to base your search off of. And different naks call to me at different points. I come across content that describes certain naks in lights i could've never imagined which is to say that gnosis or inner knowing is an important aspect of studying anything esoteric, it kind of has to be revealed to you and what you see, what you can discern is a reflection of you.
5. you have to have a strong Rahu to discern patterns and similarities because Rahu is maya/illusion and a well-placed Rahu will allow you to see through those patterns/illusions. it will be very hard for someone without a strong Rahu to find similarities or common tropes, patterns, themes etc. Seeing through the veil or fog is Rahuvian.
6. Claire Nakti made a video about Venusian men where she said they were the ideal type of man and tbh that just confirmed my suspicion that she's Moon dominant because I think Moon dominant people are attracted to Venusians but in my humble opinion both Venusian men and Moon dominant men are some of the most batshit crazy people (manipulative and controlling at the least, psychopathic at worst) basically men who have a lot of Yin tend to be psychotic
7. I've noticed that Revati people tend to speak in a very verbose way. Nigella Lawson, Revati Moon is a really good example. Obviously other placements will also impact speech
8. Moon dominant people hate it when others share sob stories. They're the type to have the least amount of empathy for others and will either react in a neutral way or like they don't understand why you're saying this stuff at all. They're bored by other people's mundane problems and make it known as well. Not people you want to open up to.
My former friend was this way, I once cried in front of her and she showed zero emotion and didn't even try to comfort me lol
9. The way others treat us is the way we treat others. ik this is a basic take but karma is cause and effect. if you're dismissive of others feelings, other people will be dismissive of yours. what you do is what will be done unto you. Its so crazy to see how people who've been treated like shit by their friends will turn around and treat other people like shit. this is sooo basic but genuinely dont do anything to others that you dont want done to you.
#astrology notes#astrology observations#vedic astro notes#nakshatras#astrology#sidereal astrology#astro notes#astro observations#vedic astrology#astroblr
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Also because bringing up "I watched Hazbin Hotel" and only talking about discourse is a Bad Look, here's my thoughts on the pilot and the four episodes thus far released.
I've seen some people say the animation in the show is less fluid in the pilot, but I think I like the show's animation more? It's a lot more consistent, the characters are shaded so they stand out from the background more (and kind of "pop"), but honestly a passing vibe I got in the pilot now and then was that it was "too fluid", like it moved too fast at places or like it had a lot of "flourishes" that felt off. I can't accurately explain it, but point is, I like the show's vibes more.
I also like the redesigns. I didn't notice anything too drastic with say Dust, Alastor, or Charlie, but Vaggie's was an upgrade. The red shirt breaks up the white, and she's looking much more Moth (the more Moth your characters look the better).
I don't really have anything to say about the voices, my attention was divided elsewhere. I will be committing seppuku later for not being able to have a strong, belligerent opinion on this matter.
Speaking of Vaggie, now that I've seen more of her character, I've grown to appreciate her more. There's a sort of 4-section graph where Charlie and Vaggie believe in the Hotel's success, with Charlie being much more personally emotionally invested in it while Vaggie's more cynical and seems to be doing it more for Charlie's sake. Meanwhile Angel Dust and Alastor don't believe the Hotel can succeed, but Alastor still helps while Angel Dust just blows things off.
Also everyone who did the "she's an Angry Latina stereotype" thing can eat shit now. She was angry in the pilot because Angel Dust publicly embarrassed her girlfriend, tarnished any credibility the Hotel had, and then insulted her to her face while being unrepentant the entire time. Now that we've seen more from her, she's just grumpy and more willing to put her foot down (as opposed to Charlie who is bubbly and more accommodating). I knew this specific accusation was bad faith from day 1.
I genuinely don't think the show is edgy. It "appears" edgy, but Charlie's a disney princess who walked onto the wrong set and is shifting the genre through her presence. The fact that her goal is to show that people in Hell can change and become better people isn't just portrayed as earnest (instead of naive) but it is in fact achievable (as shown by Pentious and the others over time) adds onto this. The show is a fundamentally hopeful and positive one and I respect it for that.
In line with that, I appreciate the musical numbers. They bop, I didn't need to tell you this, but they also fall into the category of "endearing through earnesty". Like Charlie singing to Pentious about how change begins with an apology is the corniest shit on earth, but I couldn't help but smile about it.
I do like the speed of the plot, both the "redeeming people" plot and the "expedited extermination" one. I cynically expected Pentious' redemption to be a red herring, but the fact that he stuck around and is turning over is something I approve of. It is a bit fast at times though, I do know that this is because there's only 8 episodes, but I choose to blame the studio/streaming platform over the writers on this one. Also, we should throw bricks through the window of every streaming service headquarters.
I did like Adam's portrayal. The original Adam and Eve myths, whether or not Lilith is there, do lend themselves to misogyny, both in terms of reading and "what influenced some doctrine". Between Lilith being cast out for not wanting to be subservient to a man/wanting to top and then having sex with animals and demons or something, and Eve getting duped by the snake and now humanity's been cursed with original sin because femoids are dumb and bad and men should make the decisions, etc. etc. Adam being depicted as a misogynistic frat bro-type who is obsessed with his dick and brags about his conquests to random people reads to me more as "a clever take/commentary on christian mythology and culture" instead of "gratuitous edginess".
Honest to god, I think they're better at using swear words now. My principle criticism of Helluva Boss (which I like) is that they sometimes use "fuck" like it's punctuation, and it can get grating or become "noise" that doesn't register, which is Bad when it's your funny dialogue. Cursing is still casual, but I feel like characters only turn on the capslock and start screaming FUCKING SHITASS when they're emotionally compromised or intentionally meant to come across as crude and unlikeable. If they took notes and course-corrected on this, I will never wear a hat because it's going to be off to them forever.
Angel Dusts' voice direction in episode 4 was really good. He usually speaks in a somewhat high-pitched, New York ("new yoike") accent, but when he was yelling at Charlie to leave I noticed that it seemed to get a bit deeper and he lost the accent, as though he was so upset he couldn't keep up the affect anymore. I got chills.
TL;DR Hazbin Hotel is good, actually.
Maybe people should take more breaks from using the internet, for their mental health.
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just wanted to say i really enjoy your portrayal of abuse and abusive relationships with gangle and their twin. their dynamic is just so toxic and horrible and all around fucked up in so many ways. the constant fear, the helplessness of the entire situation, the inseparability (both physically and psychologically), the terror of ever lashing out against them, the feeling of no one being able to help you (or that they just don’t want to, that nobody cares at all), depending on them so much it’s hard to tell where you end and they begin, the over-reliance on them because you can’t properly talk to anyone else, the horrified and panicked response to them getting hurt, knowing it’ll be taken out on you, that you’ll always get hurt, they’ll always, always hurt you, but maybe they’ll be nicer this time if you help them as much and as quickly as possible.
all that on top of their pre-existing situation, which is already incomprehensibly fucked up to begin with. it’s absolutely miserable.
(/pos
That’s honestly part of what this au is about, exploring realistic(physical and mental) horrors, I tried to keep true to actual horrific situations like abuse or the atmosphere of power or the lack there of. Hell all of them are in pretty tragic situations, ragatha has something similar, forced into silence both physically and mentally for, well speaking her mind (I’ll elaborate on that later).. I haven’t gotten around to expanding on the other characters but Jax himself is experiencing trauma, he often picks on the others to cope with it.. and part of that is from influence by Caine, the other part is that he’s an asshole because he thinks he has to be to get by here
A lot of them were manipulated to abide by the rules they do now, especially gangle.
I’m glad I could show these issues through my art and explore them, and I want to expand on the others as well sometime soon
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Introduction to the Rock of Eternity~✨
This was my first time trying to make a drawing with a full background, a character, and shading and it took soOoOo long 😭 lmfao.
Anyways, this is my finished concept art for the train car that Billy gets off of once he’s magically transported to the Rock of Eternity. This version of the Rock of Eternity is a series of floating island that is in the middle of The Magic Realm.
This version of the Rock of Eternity is filled to the brim with jungle and rainforest nature and animals. That is how Tawny comes into the story. Tawny is a magical tiger who is the Wizard’s right-hand pet. They have a magical gemstone embedded in their head that grants them the power of telepathy, allowing them to communicate with others around them. They are not humanoid. They walk on four legs like a tiger and aren’t really fond of wearing human clothes.
I still have to draw the throne room for the champions, that’s where I want The Wizard and Tawny to spend most of their time. Working together as they divide up their time between recording/collecting ancient magic artifacts, resolving magic-related issues, and overall just trying to keep The Magic Realm safe. The Rock of Eternity is a protected hub of information and resources for anyone who is interested in learning about magic.
[ WRITING CONTINUES BELOW ⬇️ ✍️📝 ]
⚠️ Content warning: mentions of slavery in ancient Egypt, mentions of tyranny, clear portrayals of villainous intent, moral corruption etc.
It is a tireless job, that always has a constant flow of work to be completed. This also explains why The Wizard is looking for a champion of magic. He is looking for a pupil to train. Someone who will assist him protecting/saving the other realm. The Wizard sees The Mortal Realm as a mess that is in desperate need of assistance.
The Wizard decides to launch a project where he will expand his influence to The Mortal Realm in an attempt to solve all the problems he sees that plague the mortals of Earth. This project starts roughly about 5,000 years ago, when The Wizard believes he has found a worthy champion, Teth-Adam.
Teth-Adam proves to be a very powerful champion, who actively trains his newfound powers to help harness them to their full potential. He also becomes very involved in his studies of magic. Spending his early adulthood growing alongside The Wizard and Tawny as they eventually form a family-like connection. This joyful aspect of Adam’s life is in sharp contrast to his life in The Mortal Realm. Where he is a slave in ancient Egypt, being forced to help with the construction of the pyramids.
Eventually, Adam starts to corrupt. He returns to The Mortal Realm and begins to use his powers as a tyrant. He successfully frees the people of Egypt from their current enslavement however, instead of letting them roam free and begin to build their own lives, Adam has a different plan in mind. With his arrogance and ego afoot, he decides that he is the one true ruler of Egypt, and seizes complete control of the country.
Adam believes that he is the best possible person to rule over Egypt. He sees himself as a strong, competent leader. A pillar of strength who wants to optimize Egypt to it’s fullest potential. As his overt political power starts to corrupt him, Adam starts to micromanage the Egyptian people, turning the country into a complete and total dictatorship.
The Wizard sees this corruption that Adam is forcing over the people in Egypt and tries to talk some sense into him. Telling Adam that he did a good thing by freeing the people of Egypt however, in seizing complete control over the country he himself has become the one of tyrants he swore to destroy. Adam isn’t hearing any of it, he believes he is different from any previous leaders of Egypt because he has the country’s best interests at heart. Everything he has done in his rule has only improved the country, so he was clearly destined to be Egypt’s one true leader.
The Wizard then realizes that there is no getting through to Adam. They have a dramatic confrontation. The Wizard with a heavy heart, realizes that Adam has grown to be a very powerful advisory and is willing to fight for his rule over Egypt.
The Wizard eventually wins the battle however, doesn’t have the heart to kill Adam because they formed a very strong father/son relationship over the years as The Wizard was training Adam as his champion. As a last resort The Wizard decides to banish Adam to the furthest star in the galaxy. The Wizard reverses Adam’s influence over Egypt. He helps them to establish a proper democracy before returning to The Magic Realm to grieve over what he had to do to Adam, someone he saw as his own son.
The Wizard and Tawny mourn for many moons, causing the Wizard to put an indefinite pause on his project, leaving The Mortal Realm with no champion for the time being.
Fast forward about 5,000 years, The Wizard realizes in his old age, that he is growing weaker and weaker as the centuries pass. He ponders the idea of trying to find another Champion of Magic. Tawny tries to talk him out of it, reminding him of how poorly that went last time and saying there is no reason to want to do that again. The Wizard eventually changes Tawny’s mind once he reminds his fuzzy friend that once the Wizard is dead and gone, that Tawny will be unable to keep up with the responsibilities of the Rock of Eternity all by themselves.
The Wizard doesn’t really want to find a new champion, but he deems it necessary because he wants to make sure there is always enough people/resources to keep the balance of magic. He wants to personally train a mortal to eventually one day take over his duties, guiding them closely to make sure they are on the correct path. Hoping that now that he and Tawny are both wiser and older that they can find one pure, good soul to build into the perfect hero, and avoid repeating their old mistakes.
The Wizard and Tawny search for hundreds of years in an attempt to try and find a new Champion of Magic, but no one they bring to the Rock of Eternity seems to have a completely pure and good soul.
After years and years of tirelessly searching, they eventually stumble upon Billy Batson. Unfortunately Billy, like everyone who came before him, has imperfections and moments of human weakness that lead The Wizard and Tawny to initially discard him as a possible champion.
Then Billy questions their judgment, questioning them if there is such a thing as a “completely pure good person”, explaining that everyone has their flaws no matter how “good” they are. Suggesting that The Wizard and Tawny have been searching for so long because they’re looking for peoples flaws instead of their strengths.
This convinces The Wizard to change the conditions of his search. Deciding to comb over Billy’s mind again, but this time looking for the good within him instead of his flaws. The Wizard begins to see that Billy has a lot of moments that show him being a good kid and genuinely trying to help people, showing that Billy genuinely has a good heart.
The Wizard and Tawny mull over this decision and bicker amongst each other. They eventually decide that the Wizard has already burned thousands of years on this search so far, and they don’t know how much longer he has left to live as it is. Better to choose this kid who obviously has a good heart, and help mold him into a hero than to wait around for another thousand years, possibly having The Wizard die before he ever found a replacement.
And then, The Wizard decides to bestow the powers of Shazam to Billy Batson, making him the next Champion of Magic.
Very shortly after this decision is made, Adam returns to Earth. He has spent the last five thousand years traveling across the galaxy in an attempt to eventually make it back to Earth. He is very hurt by the Wizard’s decision to banish him to the furthest star in the galaxy and seeks to make amends.
However, when Adam finds out that The Wizard has chosen a new champion this sends him into a complete and utter rage. He sees this as The Wizard trying to replace him, both as a champion and as a son.
It’s a total slap in the face to Adam since he just spent the last 5,000 years traversing the cosmos to see The Wizard again. Adam sees it as a complete dismissal of the deep and meaningful familial connection they once shared to replace him with his new champion, Billy.
Adam knows that Billy is on the same path that he once was, being trained by The Wizard and Tawny to become the new Champion of Magic, and that they eventually plan to have him manage/protect The Rock of Eternity.
Adam resents the idea that he could ever be replaced and seeks to seize control over The Rock of Eternity. He plans to kill both The Wizard and his new champion to prove his superiority and “show them” that he was always destined to be the one true champion of magic.
His villainous behavior is not only motivated by his desire to have control, but also by his deep internal hurt of being replaced by Billy. Adam sees the terms “champion” and “son” as interchangeable. To him they mean the same thing, and Adam will stop at nothing to prove himself because deep down he wants The Wizard’s approval.
The Wizard and Tawny were the closest thing Adam ever had to a real family and after spending thousands of years trying to get back to them, he returns only to find he’s been replaced, and that is a pain he’s never felt before.
Adam doesn’t know how to cope with the feelings that erupt within him besides crushing all competition and once again using his tyrannical personality traits to try and prove his worth.
End. ⚡️
Wow that was a long one, lol. Anyways I hope you guys enjoyed. I know the writing of this post was a post about Black Adam’s origins rather than The Rock of Eternity, but I hope you enjoyed regardless.
As always let me know what you guys think. I’m always open to suggestions since I’m making my own version of Shazam anyways lol. ⚡️💕
#billy batson#captain marvel#captain marvel dc#dc comics#fawcett comics#shazam#shazam 2019#digital art#digital illustration#artists on tumblr#black adam#shazam: fury of the gods#Shazam:CoBL
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In my previous post I talked about the women of Gundam Wing not being treated as awards or reasons for man pain for the guys and I’m actually a little surprised that no one so far called me out on Meilan because at first glance, she falls right into that category. Because her death is specifically there to motivate Wufei and do nothing else. No one else knows about her, her death doesn’t affect anyone or anything else.
Except for her grandma who is apparently still so grief-stricken she blows up her entire colony. Thanks for more trauma, Master Long.
But I guess I’m gonna call myself out here then and derail this into a meta about Meilan’s portrayal actually being male-coded. Apparently I’m also gonna make up words while doing so lol
What do I mean? Let’s first clear up what I meant when I said the Wing women aren’t used for man pain. Man pain is quite an umbrella term that’s supposed to describe any instance of the narrative portraying a male’s emotional pain be of a higher magnitude than anyone else’s within his story. Especially women’s.
In my post I was referring to the very specific case where a woman’s suffering is stripped from her narratively and made exclusively a guy’s problem, to the point it only exists if it’s in relation to him. Think Gwen Stacy’s death affecting Spiderman or 2009‘s Spock’s mom dying or Aang burning Katara and then moping about never firebending again, necessitating her comforting him about his (accidental) assault on her. messed up doesn’t even begin to cover that last one
The girl with the puppy is actually an example of this in Wing because her death only exists to make Heero feel bad. She isn't even given a name.
The most classic example really is a guy’s mom dying though and him being forever sad about it. It’s the easy way for the writer to give his manly man something to cry over without making him a wimp. Otherwise Kira from Gundam Seed would be more popular.
But when we get asked to name a famous fictional death, I think most people will pick Mufasa, the prime example ever of a death affecting the audience. And it makes sense. Because not only was Mufasa a good parent, who sacrificed his life to save his son, Simba’s entire hero’s journey is basically living up to his father’s example. It's what drives the story.
And that’s the difference between men and women dying in fiction, especially parents. If a mother dies, it’s something to be sad over (i.e. Spock). If a father dies, it’s a legacy to uphold (i.e. Kirk). Simba is never worried about living up to Sarabi’s expectations. Hiccup spends three movies trying not to shame his father. Katniss won’t shut up about what a great person her dad was even though her mom is right there, being the medic for her entire district, but never being worth emulating in any way.
The same goes if it’s just a friend. A female friend’s death is a devastating event, a male friend’s death is a call to not let his sacrifice be in vain.
Which brings us back to Meilan. Meilan may have been written as just a device to give Wufei a tragic backstory, which lands her squarely in man pain territory, but narratively she is the same category as Mufasa, influencing Wufei to the degree he changes his entire way of life to live up to her memory and hold himself accountable during the series when he fails to do so, which yanks her right out of it again.
Besides, Wufei never goes around openly mourning her death. It’s hidden in aggressiveness and weird sexism towards Noin and his odd reverence of his Gundam. I love that it was supposed to be a secret that would have been revealed at the middle of the series, just like everyone else’s backstories, had the schedule not been crazy, giving us the recap episodes instead. Alas...
But this is one of the reasons I love Gundam Wing so much. The colony leader Heero Yuy and the late King Peacecraft may be revered figures within its universe, but by the end of the series, and definitely by EW, the person the entire galaxy admires is Relena. A girl. Which is completely deserved for all the things she manages to pull off, mind you.
I love most that Heero admiring Relena also has a very personal aspect to it. He knows her. He knows how bullheaded she can be. She’s not an abstract to him, he’s intimately familiar with that Gundanium backbone of hers. That scene on Libra where they keep throwing compliments at each other is great. Relena tries to transfer her accomplishments to Heero, playing into narrative tradition of gender roles here where the guy always gets all the glory, no matter how competent the girl may have been (glaring at you here, Hiccup and Astrid >_>) and Heero, the show’s male protagonist, bounces it right back, telling her he is nothing compared to her, landing a sweet blow to narrative sexism.
Gundam Wing is a weird little show where I don’t know if one could call it feminist considering how every woman is assigned to a man, with Treize and Zechs and Duo and Wufei standing above their female counterparts due to their strength or lineage or because they’re the series’ Char clone, but within the roles it assigned to everyone, it does a wonderful job of not being sexist about them. Une is portrayed as more competent than Treize, who is more of an opportunist. Zechs outright says Noin is better than him. Wufei won’t shut up about Nataku and what a failure he is. It's like the show apologizes for being Gundam and made in the 90s, explaining why the pilots and big bads all have to be male, but they'll make the female characters as cool as they can to make up for it. Here, have some Sally and Noin being a badass duo or Relena and Dorothy carrying the philosophical debate during the Cinq arc.
....Except Hilde. I got nothing here because her and Duo are classic gender roles to a T, haha. But at least Duo is not being a jerk about it, which is more than can be said about most fictional guys trying to dictate a female’s actions. Duo lets Hilde make her own decisions.
#Duo is a gentleman#and epic#it still stinks that there couldn't be more to Meilan#but I'll give it a pass since 98% of Wufei's actions are based on her#gundam wing#gender roles#long meilan#chang wufei#duo maxwell#relena peacecraft#heero yuy#I don't wanna tag everyone I mentioned#that'd be 6 different fandoms#nah
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Do you know why Abe-no-Seimei became so popular compared to any other onmyoji in folklore and literature? Is it because of who wrote his stories or something else?
There is no single clear answer. It seems safe to say there are multiple interconnected factors at play.
Seimei’s real career was genuinely extraordinary in some regards. To begin with, it was unusually long. He was around 85 years old when he passed away, and historical sources would indicate that he was still fairly active in old age (in fact, most references to him which are fully verifiable come from the second half of his life). Shin’ichi Shigeta actually argues here that Seimei's longevity in no small part contributed to cementing his legend.
However, it’s hard to argue that the times when Seimei lived were not a factor in its own right too. Institutional backing was no longer the sole reason behind the relevance of individual onmyōji. As I discussed in my recent article, by the middle of the tenth century their clientele expanded. And to find new clients, personal charisma was necessary.
The shift started slightly earlier already but it doesn’t seem like the likes of Shigeoka no Kawahito or Kamo no Tadayuki left quite as much of an impression as Seimei and his contemporary Kamo no Yasunori in the long run. Legends do deal with earlier onmyōji at times, or rather reinvent earlier figures, especially Kibi no Makibi, as onmyōji, but this is often merely a way to make Seimei’s or Yasunori’s deeds appear even more amazing by making them a part of centuries old legacies (granted, standalone tales of Makibi appear for example in Konjaku Monogatari already).
Seimei’s personal influence is evident in the fact that he seemingly was responsible for popularizing formerly obscure Taizan Fukun no sai as one of the main onmyōdō rituals (check Shigeta’s article above for more specific evidence). Note that this was a performance so popular the early medieval reinterpretation of Amaterasu was in no small part driven by efforts to make her fit into rituals similar to it and Enmaten-ku. There’s also evidence that Seimei had an impact on the popularity of tsuina, a ceremony originally held only in the court but later also in private houses of nobles which served as a forerunner of modern setsubun.
The Abe clan remained influential in official onmyōdō circles long after Seimei’s death, and his heirs obviously invoked his fame to validate their own influence. There are texts only compiled after the Heian period which were attributed to him, such as Hoki Naiden. This obviously further contributed to the spread of his legend, making him relevant even as onmyōdō changed.
I don’t think it matters who wrote down the legends though, at least not before the Edo period. However, there are at least some individual elements which absolutely became such a mainstay of modern portrayals of Seimei because of the fame of specific authors who introduced and/or popularized them. A good example would be the Kuzunoha story, which was only invented in the 1600s and attained popularity because of Ryōi Asai’s Abe no Seimei Monogatari (I am not aware of any older legend claiming Seimei was not fully human, unless you want to count the Shuten Dōji variants presenting him as a manifestation of Kannon or Nagarjuna).
Another thing which comes to mind as an example of influence of specific works of fiction is portraying Dōman as older than Seimei, which is a convention started by Edo period theatrical performances as far as I know. Dōman's historical counterpart was pretty obviously younger (granted, there's also no evidence he interacts with Seimei). He was still active three years after Seimei’s death, and there’s no indication he was somehow 90+ years old.
Bit of a digression but it’s worth noting Dōman isn’t Seimei’s only rival in the early stories, in Konjaku Monogatari he also faces a certain “fearsome fellow” named Chitoku who does seem to be older than him. He is an unlicensed onmyōji and comes from Harima, so it's easy to draw parallels with Dōman. However, they aren’t really similar characters; while Dōman is pretty firmly portrayed as a shady figure - a curse specialist first and foremost - Chitoku actually seems to utilize his skills to deal with pirates troubling his area. He just learns he’s a big fish in a small pond after unsuccessfully challenging Seimei. Still, I wonder if the two may have merged at some point in popular imagination.
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your voldemort is 10/10 perfection. are there any characterizations, common interpretations, etc that you find implausible or just plain dislike? or that you really love and have drawn from? :)
thank you so much for this ask anon :)
i received a similar ask from @sarafina-sincerity, and so they are answered here together.
i have received a flurry of asks about my main boy, lord voldemort, which form a neat triad, so this is part two of a three part meta on him:
1. what do i like about voldemort as a character? [here]
2. what is my preferred way of writing voldemort (a character analysis deep-dive)?
3. what does dumbledore get wrong about voldemort? [here]
what is my preferred way of writing voldemort?
this meta is split into two parts, the first of which has three sections:
influences on my writing of voldemort
character traits my voldemort always has
voldemort’s physical appearance
part two examines diferrent stages of voldemort's life
voldemort’s childhood
voldemort’s school years
what do i think is going on with voldemort between 1945 and 1970?
voldemort and the first war
voldemort and the second war
let's get into it...
influences on my writing of voldemort
the author whose voldemort has had the greatest influence on me is, without a doubt, eldritcher. while i have no hope of replicating the majesty of their prose, i have never been able to shake their depiction of voldemort as someone profoundly lonely and deeply affected by grief, something most prominent in their transcendentally good almagest, and a reading of voldemort which i bring not only to my writing but to my engagement with the canon text.
i am also very struck by their depiction of voldemort as a creature of sensation, instead of the rather austere version we tend to find in fanfiction, particularly in their catullus 16 and their writing of tombraxas. while i diverge from their portrayal of voldemort as lazy - i think he’s sustained by a current of nervous energy (and, indeed, that both he and harry have poorly-managed adhd, but that’s personal projection) - i find myself always writing voldemort as someone who likes being warm, loathes the outdoors, and is fond of expensive, sensory fabrics.
that voldemort is a creature of sensation also affects how i read many of his relationships. as i have pointed out in my prior writing about bellamort, he tolerates an enormous amount of physical touch from bellatrix in canon, and i am quite taken with the idea that he’s a surprisingly tactile person.
another influence i have found very significant recently is @phantomato’s excellent series of meta on voldemort and gender identity, in particular because they have helped me work through a discomfort i have always had with this quote from half-blood prince:
He raised his glass as though toasting Voldemort, whose face remained expressionless. Nevertheless, Harry felt the atmosphere in the room change subtly: Dumbledore’s refusal to use Voldemort’s chosen name was a refusal to allow Voldemort to dictate the terms of the meeting, and Harry could tell that Voldemort took it as such.
voldemort and gender identity is something which i would love to see explored more in the fandom. i am as guilty as anyone of writing a cheerfully cisgender dark lord, and - in particular - of not engaging enough with the fact that the canonical voldemort considers tom his deadname. i find myself returning again and again to these meta each time i sit down to begin a new voldemort-centric wip, and i think that my own writing of voldemort has been nuanced considerably by them. certainly, voldemort’s gender plays a far bigger part in scylla and charybdis than in my previous long-fics
there are, of course, portrayals of voldemort which have influenced me to write in the opposite direction. i’m not going to mention, even obliquely, the names of these authors or their stories, but i am going to mention one version of voldemort which i loathe and which i never intend to replicate in my writing: the voldemort of the films. as i said in the previous meta in this series, film!voldemort is the source of countless fanon which undermines the statement of the canonical seven-book series, above all the idea that voldemort is not terrifying, that he is completely deranged and incompetent, and that he doesn’t very nearly win.
character traits my voldemort always has
as i said in the previous meta in this series, i prefer a voldemort who isn’t a sociopath, largely because i think it’s quite lazy writing to have a villain whose evil is caused by just not getting human emotion (after all, there are plenty of people who find it difficult to parse other people’s emotions, and it doesn’t automatically make them bad). it is considerably more challenging - as both a writer and a reader - to have to confront the idea that the villain has complicated, human, and multifaceted motivations behind their actions, and that we are called as humans to accept that it’s possible to be simultaneously horrified by and sympathetic to people who cause harm (voldemort's political beliefs are addressed in part two of this meta). above all, i loathe the implication of the text that voldemort was born bad and was always irredeemable, not least because it completely undermines the series’ central thesis on the value of choice.
i accept, of course, that this is not what the doylist text thinks. jkr has been very clear that she thinks voldemort is sociopathic and that he has no concept of humanity. fortunately, i take her opinion as infallible in very little (trans rights are human rights), and i much prefer a watsonian approach to the text which views dumbledore’s conviction of voldemort’s sociopathy as… just incorrect.
separate to this, i like a voldemort who is emotionally demonstrative. it seems to have become standard to write him as preternaturally controlled (maybe breaking down when under extreme pressure, but almost exclusively doing so in private), but the voldemort of canon is, and there’s no other word for it, feral. he is one of the male characters whose emotional range is described in the most detail and who is described as registering his emotions very obviously on his face (snape, another person whose fanon characterisation is one of emotional repression, is the other). i’m always tickled by harry’s complaint in order of the phoenix that he picks up ‘lurches of annoyance or cheerfulness’ via the scarcrux, and i love thinking about the little joys in voldemort’s day.
i also see him as someone who is often fretful and unmoored - indeed he basically says as much in goblet of fire:
"I will not pretend to you that I didn’t then fear that I might never regain my powers... Yes, that was perhaps my darkest hour... I could not hope that I would be sent another wizard to possess... and I had given up hope, now, that any of my Death Eaters cared what had become of me."
certainly, the canonical voldemort has a sense of purpose when focused on the wars which doesn’t seem to be a permanent presence in his everyday life, and he - like dumbledore - seems to spend a lot of time in stasis until pushed to change course; the clearest example of this being that he stays in customer service for ten years and would have continued at borgin and burkes if hepzibah smith had just kept her treasures in the safe.
this is not, of course, to say that voldemort is not ambitious - he absolutely is - but that, as with harry, that ambition is accompanied by a certain need for pressure. indeed, voldemort is one of the more adrenaline-chasing slytherins we meet in the series, and i am convinced that this is the trigger for his often-expressed (and, let’s be real, pretty gryffindorish) view that courage and daring are valuable, seen most clearly in his frankly simping description of james potter as dying ‘like a man, straight-backed and proud’ and his determination to duel harry in the graveyard rather than just off him; as well as in his frequent statements that he loathes cowardice, his cruelty to minions (especially wormtail and lucius malfoy) he regards as insufficiently daring, and his taunting of harry and dumbledore with the idea that they allow others to hide them or fight their battles for them. that dumbledore fails to understand this about voldemort is addressed in the next meta in this series.
so, too, is the fact that dumbledore fails to appreciate voldemort’s clearly quite profound sense of honour. this is seen most clearly in his relationship with wormtail, whose inherent lack of honourable conduct - not only to him, but to the marauders - evidently disgusts him:
“Wormtail, I need somebody with brains, somebody whose loyalty has never wavered, and you, unfortunately, fulfill neither requirement.”
“You returned to me, not out of loyalty, but out of fear of your old friends. You deserve this pain, Wormtail. You know that, don’t you?”
his detestation of liars seems, throughout the series, to be genuine, and he is actually very rarely shown lying in canon - although the implication that he lies frequently off-page is obvious.
i like the canonical description of voldemort as highly independent, self-motivated, and self-sufficient, although - as discussed in the second half of this meta - i think there is room for more nuance in whether he actually likes the death eaters than canon gives us. i also like the fact that the canonical voldemort is incredibly pragmatic (even if this is undermined on several occasions by his flair for the dramatic) and i think that this aspect of his character is all too often overlooked by authors who want to make him inflexible and obsessive. voldemort openly admits to having changed his mind on several occasions throughout canon, or to have modified his approach on the basis of new information; that this information is often partial, or given to him falsely by snape, does not change this. he seems - like ron, and somewhat like harry - to have good gut instincts, to be an excellent judge of character, and to be reasonably self-aware (although he uses this almost exclusively for nefarious ends). i love the chameleon-like aspect of his charisma - the being-the-centre-of-attention at the slug club which morphs into him having negative charm in the hepzibah smith scene, as he sits offering her all the rope she needs to hang herself - and i love writing, especially in tomarry, the ways in which his customer service mask cracks.
now, the more controversial aspects of my characterisation of voldemort…
the canonical voldemort is very, very funny, and far too few fics engage with his (malicious) sense of humour. tomarry works as a ship entirely because they would have a great time bickering with each other, and snapemort works because they are both comically petty and extremely dramatic.
i adore the magpieishness to voldemort’s character, not only in the idea that he likes shiny things, but also in that his love-language is gift-giving (he rewards his followers for acts of service, absolutely, but the language with which he describes this is always focused on the idea of gift-giving, and, especially, reciprocal gift-exchange). i always write him as a collector not only of impressive magical objects but of things full stop, whether we’re doing the cheerful fluff of him filling grimmauld place with interestingly shaped rocks he finds on walks, or the more canon-compliant helping himself to trinkets he sees in his friends’ magnificent houses. i am committed to the idea that he genuinely likes working in the antiques trade and i never write him going into teaching or politics - if i find myself in a situation where he has to get a job beyond being a terrorist, he stays at borgin and burkes.
i view voldemort as someone whose great longing is to be perceived and understood. both the child we meet in dumbledore’s memories and the adult who rises in the graveyard share a tendency to reveal far too much about themselves when they are given the opportunity, and i always write voldemort - especially the voldemort in one year in every ten - as never mastering a habit of letting things slip when he gets excited. tomarry again works because harry is happy to do this perceiving.
i also - and this is definitely the controversial one - view him as someone capable of great and stalwart faithfulness, whose ability to express this aspect of his character is constrained by the trust issues caused by his childhood trauma. he is extraordinarily devoted to both snape and bellatrix throughout the canon series, and he also seems to be quite fond of augustus rookwood. obviously, this is because he thinks his read on them as loyal servants is right, but i don’t think we necessarily have to see this as a negative - most of us trust and like people because we think their motivations are trustworthy and likeable, and most of us maintain at least some relationships which have a degree of transactionality to them, but are no less sincere for that.
whether he is someone who loves is another question. i vary it by story, although i always frame his rejection of love as a deliberate choice rather than, as the text does, something innate.
my voldemort always has several much more frivolous traits which i like to put into stories entirely to amuse myself…
i notice a tendency for voldemort to be written as pretty culturally sophisticated, and i think this is generally correct. certainly, the way that class functions in britain is that toleration within a class which is not one’s own can be achieved through simply knowing the right references, and i absolutely believe that voldemort is someone who learned what books to say he’d read and which knife to use at dinner with dizzying speed when he arrived at hogwarts. however, one thing i can never get on board with is the idea that he’s a good cook. i prefer my voldemort to have a touch of the ration book to him - and for his plebeian tastes in food to confuse and annoy the posher death eaters. i like him refusing to eat at fancy dinner parties, before sneaking into the kitchens for a stack of toast and margarine, and being a connoisseur of all the finest bits of british cuisine: a fry up, beans on toast, a good roast dinner, potatoes in any form, kippers and kedgeree, fish and chips, mysterious pies, and tea with everything. that is not to say, of course, that i think he’s into bland food (the only mischaracterisation of the brits i, as an irishwoman, am prepared to go into bat against). this is a man who loves a curry, without a doubt, and i am incredibly fond of the idea that he develops a serious taste for many of the world’s most delicious cuisines on his travels.
i also always write him with an incredibly sweet tooth - he takes his tea with milk and six sugars, hermione is dismayed. i do this entirely because i think it’s funny. (fans of the asenora cinematic universe will have noticed a repeated motif that voldemort loves marzipan. this is because i love marzipan, and everyone else i know thinks that this is a great moral failing equivalent to being a mass-murderer.)
i like a voldemort who has some muggle skills. i write him as being able to drive, use a telephone, fire a gun (although this is another eldritcher influence), take the tube, and correctly handle muggle money, much to the shock of many of the death eaters. i prefer him to be absolutely terrible at anything which could be termed muggle manual labour, though - the man cannot do diy, garden, lift heavy objects without magic, play any sport, swim, or cook well (as discussed) - although i imagine him as extremely fastidious and perfectly happy to be put to work on household chores. i have him keep a diary into adulthood.
i also like him to have some appreciation of muggle culture, very much despite himself. again, this is because i think the fact that he is exactly the right age for the fashions of his youth to have been distinctly un-voldemort-ish - think tiki cocktails, p.g. wodehouse, golden age detective fiction, film musicals, swing music, and the lindy hop - is hilarious. this manifests across my works in the idea that he is incredibly fond of fred astaire, the only muggle he is prepared to accept has some sort of residual magical talent. the only reason i write this is because my late grandfather, a man whose only personality trait otherwise was ‘fenian’, was born in the same year as lord v and absolutely adored old fred, and i will get teary-eyed listening to cheek-to-cheek for the rest of my life as a result.
voldemort’s physical appearance
the narrative importance of the young voldemort’s appearance is often overlooked, i think. it is a comment on his broader purpose within the series - he wants to be perceived as striking and special, and his unusual physical attractiveness as a young man and horrifying eldritch features as an adult contribute to that, while harry, the modest, everyman hero, is neither obviously beautiful nor obviously ugly (and the series, more generally, treats those who are very poorly). voldemort’s attractiveness - as with snape’s ugliness - is also an inversion of one of the series-as-children’s-literature’s main characterisation choices: that good people are nice, kind, and good-looking, and bad people are ugly, rude, or unpleasant. i also always love the little nod to the picture of dorian gray in the way the sin voldemort inflicts upon his soul changes his face.
however, beyond being told that voldemort is hot-then-not, the text also gives us some hints at voldemort’s appearance and mannerisms which i would like to see more in fanfic, especially the fact that he is described in quite a few feminine-coded ways: his voice is high; he usually speaks softly; he moves in a way which suggests elegance - that he’s always described as ‘gliding’ in canon always strikes me; and by his late twenties he has hair long enough for harry to comment on it (particularly interesting, since this comment comes in the course of voldemort’s most feminine-coded action in the series - the murder, in a domestic context using poison, the classic ‘woman’s weapon’, of hepzibah smith and the framing of her servant, hokey). the text refers to him as ‘finely-carved’, which can be read as meaning that he has quite delicate features; the repeated emphasis on how pale he is - even pre-horcruxes - makes us think of the consumptive, effeminate artist of victorian literature who never leaves the house; and the text’s constant highlighting of how thin he is - and, especially, his long, elegant fingers - again calls to mind effeminate stereotypes who lack proper male brawn. voldemort’s only uncomplicatedly masculine characteristic in canon is that he is very tall.
this is to say, i much prefer a voldemort - whether he looks as he does aged sixteen or aged sixty - who doesn’t look stereotypically masculine. the text refers to him as ‘handsome’, of course, but i choose to believe that this is just harry’s own binary understanding of how men should talk about men, and that the more appropriate word for voldemort is ‘beautiful’. i've discussed some references for how I picture him here.
even when writing him as cisgender, i always find myself leaning towards him being quite camp, and there being an effete edge to his otherwise sinister vibe. i go back and forth on whether i imagine him as vain - the tom riddle of bookbinding spends hours each morning on his elaborately-pomaded hair, the one of scylla and charybdis keeps wearing cologne even as his face his whittled away by dark magic, but the canonical voldemort of the second war clearly isn’t doing either of those things…
i am also interested in the idea that voldemort is physically quite fragile. i write him as having been quite a sickly child, and i think this provides an interesting jumping-off point into thinking about why he is so obsessed with magic. i like the idea that he wasn’t top dog at all at the orphanage, because he was easy to physically subdue, until he learned to use his magic to protect himself, and i like to imagine that he always knows that, should dumbledore or harry decide to throw away their wands and just deck him, he is absolutely losing that fight.
of his individual physical features, i am completely wedded to the idea that voldemort has his mother’s eyes. marvolo gaunt is described in half-blood prince as having ‘brown’ eyes; morfin gaunt, like his nephew, is described as having ‘dark’ ones. i like to think merope's are the same.
voldemort’s childhood
i love an au as much as the next girl, but only very rarely one which alters voldemort’s childhood and expects him to turn out largely unchanged. indeed, i don’t think there’s any way to write a voldemort which nods to canon if he’s not an orphan, not raised in an institution, and not poor - he can have some similarities with his canon version (i’m always struck by the comment in goblet of fire that nobody likes the riddles, and i always write tom sr. as being the source of many of voldemort’s traits and mannerisms) but voldemort’s purpose within the series depends on his relationship to his class background, and especially:
that he is the most ‘aristocratic’ wizard we meet in canon - he is the only person in the seven book series to be directly descended from one of hogwarts’ founders, and the only one (horcrux harry doesn’t count) to possess a unique magical talent connected to his lineage - but is unable to reap the benefits of this in the wizarding world because he has a muggle name and a muggle face (it’s notable in canon that pureblood families all tend to look very alike within their family units - think the weasleys, the malfoys, the blacks, and the longbottoms - that voldemort doesn’t look like a gaunt confers him benefits in that he’s hot, but it undermines the ‘immediately being identifiable as one of slytherin’s descendants’ vibe which he might otherwise have.)
that he is the most aristocratic muggle we meet in canon - he is the only person in the seven book series to have a member of the landed gentry in his immediate family - but is unable to reap the benefits of this in the muggle world because his father doesn’t acknowledge his existence and he is raised as working-class.
that neither of these two halves of his class background can ever intersect, and he is a half-blood character whose sense of belonging in either world is tenuous (snape is another; harry - who has a pureblood name and resembles his pureblood father - is much less so). voldemort’s dislike of the common and ordinary, the fact that he is absolutely shameless about money, the fact he takes a muggle title for his wizarding alias etc. can all be read as attempts to seek meaning in a world in which he is otherwise pretty liminal. whether he actually supports the class system is discussed below…
all of which is to say, i never write a voldemort whose childhood circumstances alter from canon. there are no two ways about it: voldemort’s childhood is spectacularly grim, and the trauma it causes (while different from the trauma fanon often ascribes to it - above all, and i’ll die on this hill, the fact that he doesn’t give a fuck about dumbledore setting his wardrobe on fire) drives far more of voldemort’s actions than the watsonian narrative seems aware of. it is, for example, clearly the trigger for his hoarding, for his lack of trust in authority (which is exactly the same as harry’s, but treated very differently by the books), for his obsession with being the best, and for his tendency to show off. the adult voldemort loathes reminders of childhood neglect - especially babies crying - and, while dumbledore mocks him for this, his ignorance of fairytales is a neat way of saying that he didn’t have a real or carefree childhood. i am flexible on the headcanon of him suffering specific physical or sexual abuse in the orphanage (i always wonder if his canonical fear of doctors is meant to imply something along those lines), although frankly i think the childhood we see in canon is miserable enough.
the most significant bit of voldemort’s childhood trauma, though, is his grief over the death of his mother (and, it’s worth noting, his grief over the presumed death of his father - who he doesn’t know for certain is alive until morfin tells him). i’ll go into this - and especially dumbledore’s spectacular mishandling of it - in more detail in the third meta in this series, but i want to emphasise two important merope-related things which the narrative highlights: that voldemort murders both his father and hepzibah smith to avenge her, and that the locket is the only horcrux for which he constructs an elaborate defence in a place meaningful to him from childhood. i expand on this in my writing with the headcanon that voldemort believes he killed his mother and that, therefore, his destiny to be a killer was set from birth; that he doesn’t know her actual name; and that he believes he looks like her and is devastated to discover this isn’t the case. i am certain that he gets his conviction that tom riddle sr. abandoned his mother due to magic from his father directly, and that his implication in goblet of fire that he thinks he was a wanted baby until his mother revealed her powers is a deliberate, self-comforting misinterpretation of tom sr. not being able to fully articulate what happened to him at merope’s hands beyond ‘she was a witch’.
i have two worldbuilding headcanons when it comes to voldemort’s childhood. the implication of canon is that the orphanage is in vauxhall in south london, but i always locate it on dorset street in spitalfields; this is the site of one of the ripper’s most brutal murders, and i like the idea of the long shadow of that horror hanging around the place. naturally, i see him having a cockney accent he goes to great lengths to disguise as an adult.
i also always write the orphanage as a catholic institution and voldemort raised - although he has no genuine conviction (which doesn’t mean he escapes lots of catholic-y quirks) - in the church. this really can’t be justified by canon - the orphanage appears to be state run, which would mean it was church of england, if anything - but i do it because, as someone from ireland, the appalling history of the laundries is the first thing which comes to mind when thinking about poor pregnant merope staggering into an institution to give birth and promptly dying.
voldemort’s school years
as i’ve said above, i don’t think you can write a good voldemort if his childhood poverty isn’t acknowledged. however, where i might deviate from other authors is that i don’t think his isolation in the muggle world (clearly the rest of the orphans go out of their way to avoid spending any time with him) continued once he was at hogwarts. it seems to have become standard fanon that voldemort was bullied in slytherin over his secondhand possessions and either the assumption that he was muggleborn or the knowledge he was half-blood. i understand this - particularly because i’m a snapemort defender, and its parallel with snape’s canonical experience at school is nice - but i think that it fails to note two key things about voldemort’s character.
firstly, as said in the first half of this meta, class in britain depends as much on performance as background. while snape clearly remains identifiably working-class into his late teens at least, voldemort is chameleon-like enough to ape his roommates’ accents, mannerisms, and references immediately and to pass as someone from a wizarding background with comparative ease. the fact that he has shabby possessions wouldn’t count against his ability to claim that he was a pureblood or half-blood - after all, we see plenty of poor purebloods in canon, and it doesn’t stop their blood status from giving them a social cachet - if he was able to give the impression of passing as someone who wasn’t raised as a muggle.
secondly, voldemort is shameless, a show-off, and - crucially - has proof of his claim to be from, to borrow slughorn’s phrase, ‘good wizarding stock’. i am sure that dumbledore is inadvertently right when he speculates in half-blood prince that voldemort discovers slytherin was a parselmouth almost immediately and uses this to establish among his fellows the fact that they’re related. voldemort implies in chamber of secrets that he learned of this connection early in his first year, since he claims to have spent five full years planning to open the chamber - although dumbledore’s implication in half-blood prince is that, initially at least, he believes his father is the descendant. all of which is to say, it is clear that voldemort could undercut any negative rumours about his heritage - and any bullying which might result - very easily and very quickly after arriving at hogwarts.
indeed, i always write voldemort as - while perhaps not being popular - having a group of ‘dedicated friends’ (dumbledore’s term - voldemort himself refers to them as ‘intimate friends’) whose affection for him is genuine. i think it’s impossible to write the knights of walpurgis/the original death eaters as not really liking him - voldemort’s very charismatic, yes, but it takes more than charisma for people to agree to become terrorists under your command, and one of the things it takes is genuine sympathy and admiration for you and your aims; and the fact that voldemort’s shamelessness about money must mean that he happily freeloads off them would require their assent at first (he might be able to squat at malfoy manor in the second war on the basis of nothing more than being terrifying, but that isn’t going to cut it at eleven). more controversially, i am of the opinion that he genuinely likes them - as noted in part one of this meta, voldemort tends to tell the truth in his canon appearances and while this is a narrative necessity (it often falls to him to provide exposition harry and the reader otherwise don’t have, especially because both dumbledore and snape need to keep information to themselves) i like the reading that his claim in the job interview scene in half-blood prince that dumbledore is ‘mistaken’ to dispute that he considers the earliest death eaters friends is sincere.
and also i just like the idea of them having normal teenage fun while at school. as well as all the crime.
intellectually, while it’s clear that voldemort’s canonical favourite subject is defence against the dark arts, as a snapemort girly i always love writing him as an extremely good experimental potioneer - which he does imply of himself in goblet of fire. like everyone else, he hates history of magic, and he is definitely not someone who particularly enjoys subjects like herbology or care of magical creatures - all of which sound a bit too much like hard work in the outdoors. his least favourite part of being at hogwarts, of course, is quidditch, and i am absolutely on board with the idea that he learns unaided flight because riding a broom is the one thing he’s not good at.
what do i think is going on with voldemort between 1945 and 1970?
as i’ve said in the first part of this meta, i think that working at borgin and burkes suits voldemort - and it’s my preferred non-dark-lord career for him. i love lots of fics which show him being a good teacher (especially this) or which examine how he trains his minions, but i just don’t see him doing well at the job within the confines of hogwarts. there’s a certain rejection of the ivory tower baked into voldemort’s character - not least in the fact that all the ‘pushing the boundaries of magic’ stuff requires a rejection of academic gatekeeping around systems of knowledge - and i can’t imagine him happily settling into what appears to be an existence for the hogwarts teachers which is pretty removed from the realities of everyday life. (incidentally, if you’re writing a muggle au an excellent basis for voldemort-at-university would be something like engleby - a working-class kid yeeted into an elite academic institution which hates him and which he hates in return. with deadly consequences.)
so he becomes a shop assistant and is, as dumbledore tells us, extremely good at his job. so good, in fact, that he stays at borgin and burkes for a decade and seems to commit only the most minor crimes while he’s there.
and this seems quite strange, for someone who - aged sixteen - tells harry that his plans for world domination were well established before he had even left school, particularly because most of the knights of walpurgis/death eaters must settle down into family life over the course of voldemort having a 9-5 (we don’t canonically know that abraxas malfoy is one, of course - although i consider it more feasible that he is given the diary than the explanation we get in canon - but lucius malfoy is born while voldemort is still in england; my belief is that the lestrange mentioned in half-blood prince is rodolphus and rabastan’s father, and so they’re also born in the late 1940s or 1950s.) it would undoubtedly have made more sense for him to have struck immediately after school, before his followers got tied up in the messy obligations of adult life.
i’ve seen some very fun explanations of what causes voldemort to stay in his job for so long (especially this), but - as i said in the first half of this piece - i think the main reason is that he’s someone who gets held in stasis quite easily, until a push comes along which causes him to dramatically alter his course. and that is hepzibah smith, and the opportunity she gives him to avenge his mother, take back his birthright, and continue in his quest to conquer death (which is, of course, evidence - contrary to the spree-killing voldemort of the films - that he is methodical in violence, more on which below).
after which he toddles off to the continent. the implication of canon seems to be that he spends most of this time in albania - and why that country seems to have such a chokehold on the magical world, i don’t know; i presume jkr just thought it sounded suitably far-flung - looking for ravenclaw’s diadem and performing ever darker feats of magic, but i like to think that he travels widely across eurasia. that he seems to spend much of his travels behind the iron curtain (he must, for example, meet karkaroff in one of europe’s socialist republics) is something the series doesn’t address, since it’s irrelevant to the canonical narrative, but it’s something that i think is incredibly interesting to explore in fanfiction. my headcanon is that voldemort must be able to speak some level of russian, as well as albanian. (and also that, like any teen edgelord in the 1940s, he has a certain appreciation for the aesthetics - and maybe the iron state control - of communism.)
as an aside here, something else i see a lot in fics is the idea that voldemort is incredibly traumatised by the second world war - and this could very well be the case. however, i think it’s worth just being clear about the timeline of some events which are often taken to have triggered this trauma:
voldemort is at school during the blitz - and therefore never touched by it - and he is also at school during the main waves of evacuations. it is possible that he returns following his second year to find the orphanage has been emptied, but evacuations were not permanent and children were often sent away only temporarily; it is equally feasible that the orphans are back in july and august 1940 and then evacuated again when the blitz begins in september.
he is similarly at school during other major bombing campaigns in 1942 and 1944; during the bombing campaigns of summer 1944, he may very well be in london - although dumbledore’s implication in half-blood prince is that he leaves the orphanage permanently in 1943, and he could be staying with a pureblood friend instead.
voldemort doesn’t have anyone in london he’s likely to be worried about, and i imagine that he watches the muggle war with professional disdain for how distinctly unmagical it all is.
i do, however, think he’s probably quite concerned by the atomic bomb - dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki when he’s 19 - and its potential to wipe out muggles and wizards alike unless muggles are brought under magical control, and i think one political belief he can be easily written as holding is that wizards (stuck thinking of muggles as they were in the age of cannon and musket) underestimate the depths of, as he sees it, muggle stupidity, brutality, and covetousness and are unprepared for what might happen if these are turned against them.
by the time he returns to england - which appears to be in around 1965 or 1966 - he has made at least four horcruxes (the diary, the ring, the cup, and the diadem - my reading of canon is that he turns the locket into a horcrux shortly before he places it in the cave, as dumbledore tells us in half-blood prince that he tends not to carry them around with him once he makes them, much as i love the image of him always wearing the ring, which would also be much more sensible…). we are told in philosopher’s stone that the first war begins in earnest in 1970, so there are four or five years which need to be accounted for. the reason for this is almost certainly that jkr can’t count, but i am committed to the belief that voldemort’s request to come back to hogwarts in half-blood-prince is completely genuine and that he has factored a few years of teaching into his plans. dumbledore’s reaction to this is discussed in the next meta in this series.
his main reason for coming back, though, seems to be to begin the campaign of political infiltration he will dedicate his forces to for the next thirty years. according to jkr’s list of ministers, voldemort returns to britain during the tenure of the only muggleborn minister in history (prior to hermione, if you accept that idea), who is forced out of office two years later when abraxas malfoy poisons him and is then replaced by a minister who also supports social causes (above all the squibs' rights riots - one of jkr’s recent heavy-handed analogies for real civil rights movements across the world in the 1960s) which do not align with the pureblood population’s views. halfway through this minister’s tenure, voldemort moves to open terror.
the wizarding world is evidently not a democracy - no matter jkr’s insistence in the linked articles above that it is - but it is implied in canon that multiple candidates are considered for the position of minister, and that the wizengamot (which canonically is not automatically a council of aristocrats, although if an author wants to have it mirror the house of lords, with hereditary seats alongside appointed ones, i can deal with it) serves as a sort of council of electors. my preferred outline of events is that voldemort’s aim in the later sixties is to trigger the election of a puppet minister (maybe even himself, although i prefer to view him as someone without any genuine ambition for political office - he’s more of a constitutional monarch) who would bring in the programme of sweeping changes to the world he desires. obviously, he doesn’t get that…
voldemort and the first war
working out how to write the first war is complicated - the form the war took, the death toll, who was targeted, and what the political justification was are hugely inconsistent in canon. fanon doesn’t stand a chance…
let’s try anyway.
you may have noticed that i keep using the term ‘sectarian terrorism’ when describing voldemort. you may also have noticed that i have referred to myself as irish. i am, to be more specific, northern irish. i come from derry, i’m from a catholic background, and i was born well before the signing of the good friday agreement. in other words, i grew up with the troubles right on my doorstep. i have experienced discrimination in the place i live for having an obviously irish and catholic name, i live in a community which could probably be described as segregated, and i still conceal my religious background in certain areas of my everyday life. i have met a number of people who spent the seventies and eighties as - by any reasonable definition - terrorists.
all of which is to say, when i first read the first six books of the series, and saw the description of voldemort and his organisation as having had a reign of terror in the 1970s, seeming to operate mainly in terms of highly-organised political assassinations with occasional attacks on civilians, seeming to issue pre-warnings for atrocities (he tells fudge that he’s going to attack the bridge he brings down in the first chapter of half-blood prince in advance), not being allowed to use his real name on the airwaves, the fact that so many of the death eaters have not only anglo-norman but hiberno-norman names, and the fact that voldemort is clearly regarded by the wizarding world at large as ‘a bastard, but he’s our bastard’... well, i know who i thought he was supposed to be a pastiche of.
and i maintain this was intentional - even if jkr (who is herself an english protestant living in mainland britain, which would naturally have influenced her experience of the troubles) later pivoted to drawing on the nazis to write the death eaters; a much better analogy if we’re thinking of them as unambiguous genocidal villains, since the causes of the troubles are incredibly complex and multifaceted and the good old protestant-coded brits of the ministry and the order of the phoenix would absolutely not be seen as the uncritical heroes of the piece if she kept to the death-eaters-are-the-ira analogy. (of course, she now claims the death eaters are like trans people - which is fucking abhorrent.) the brutality of azkaban immediately brings to mind prisons like the maze and portlaoise; the death eater trials in the first war mirror operation demetrius; a year after the canonical quidditch world cup, there was a sectarian riot at an england-ireland football match; and - oh yeah - the fucking story ends with voldemort’s defeat in the same year as the gfa was signed. jkr does not have a light touch with historical analogy, after all.
which is to say, i think the voldemort of the first war is not a genocidaire dictator-in-waiting, but an anti-state terrorist whose goal is the weakening of the ministry and its institutions in pursuit of sectarian goals, specifically the removal of the muggle-aligned’s rights to intervene in the social and political affairs of the magic-aligned population, and their relegation to a secondary influence in public life. his views can probably be more accurately described as magic-supremacist rather than blood-supremacist - he’s not exactly a meritocrat, but he clearly does reject the patronage- and lineage-based structures which define wizarding society, and there is certainly a real suggestion in the way the teen snape is written that the death eaters provided one of the only avenues for talented people from non-pureblood backgrounds to escape the crush of the class system (as i’ve said elsewhere, i think this justifies snape’s evident belief that the death eaters would be interested in helping lily, which otherwise seems deranged).
voldemort clearly believes that a system of government which keeps itself in thrall to the statute of secrecy can’t achieve the full power of its magic (his views on non-human magical creatures - such as giants and werewolves - which often seem more progressive than the views expressed by the heroes of the series - can be seen under this umbrella: he thinks that giants should have the chance to roam free and that it is anti-magic to constrain them). he evidently believes that muggleborns can never fully appreciate this view and will always stand against it - although he is presumably willing to view as legitimately magical muggleborns who completely reject the world of their birth (snape cannot be the only muggle-raised death eater, and voldemort clearly likes him because of his commitment to leaving the muggle world behind him; and i am sure that there are a couple of self-hating muggleborns somewhere in voldemort’s ranks.) he clearly thinks that a properly magic-supremacist order couldn’t exist until the muggle world - which he thinks inherently fears and hates magic, like his father, and will never let it achieve its true, free purpose - was subjugated and, therefore, couldn’t try to resist or appropriate magic for itself.
it is, of course, absolutely reasonable to not read the first war through this lens - that i do so is because the parallels to my own personal experience stand out when reading the text. the first war can absolutely also be read as racist, or anti-semitic, or inspired by islamist and/or far-right terrorism. i just, as someone who has grown up under the shadow of sectarian discrimination and violence, see that as its best real-world parallel.
now, while it might be clear which way my sympathies lie in the real troubles, i certainly have no intention of saying that terrorism and discrimination is a good thing, nor that i think the canonical voldemort is a good or noble person, nor that i think the death eaters are right. i only bring this up because it is an explanation for why i think the war takes the form it takes in canon and also because it introduces a complexity to voldemort’s motivations which is flattened by turning him into a one-dimensional villain bent on wiping out a minority group for fun.
which is to say, these are the things which appear most consistently in my writing of the first war:
voldemort’s operation seems to be divided into several distinct strands: ministry infiltration; the surveillance of other key figures (snape, for example, is clearly the detail assigned to dumbledore, even before he starts working at hogwarts; barty crouch jr. could be feasibly recruited as a teen to inform on his own father); propaganda and recruitment both at home and abroad; political assassinations; and random attacks on civilians. presumably the death eaters are also conducting some sort of illicit business to finance themselves underneath this (in the second war, aberforth dumbledore complains about the trade in illegal potions going on in the hog’s head) and i tend to write voldemort as having a substantial money-laundering campaign going on in the background. i also tend to write him as having infiltrators within the muggle system - since the ministry has the same.
the vast majority of deaths associated with the war are clinical assassinations of political targets and/or their families or pro-ministry fighters killed in combat, the death eaters are tightly controlled and there are no dark revels (it’s worth emphasising that canonically, voldemort is not particularly impressed by the violence at the quidditch world cup, and i think it can be reasonably argued that quidditch hooliganism etc. was typically the result of groups of young death eaters getting drunk and going off message, rather than something which was ordered by the top brass), and when voldemort enters the fray himself he does so to attack high-profile figures connected to state institutions (in the first war, we hear of only one person murdered directly by voldemort before the potters - dorcas meadowes, who despite her fanon persona has never been stated to have been at school with the marauders, she may very well be a senior politician or auror targeted both for that and because she’s in the order; in the second war, prior to the outbreak of open combat after dumbledore’s death, the only person definitely assassinated by voldemort himself is amelia bones, who is killed because she is the head of the department of magical law enforcement).
there are nonetheless periodic attacks on both wizard and muggle civilians, which must have targeted pubs, shops, and other busy areas and which are designed to keep the population afraid. voldemort is, nonetheless, clearly prepared to leave wizarding civilians - including muggleborns - who keep their heads down free from specific, targeted attacks.
the potters are targeted not only due to the prophecy, but because voldemort believes that their deaths - and the removal of harry as a potential figurehead for the resistance - will destroy the order’s morale to a sufficient extent that they and the ministry will come to the table. he acts similarly in canon, when he tries to use harry’s apparent death during the battle of hogwarts to force a surrender.
voldemort’s army of inferi are the apparent exception to this moderation in violence - although i think we can justify the idea that they are deaths he considers collateral (i.e. executed hostages, murder family members of targets, deaths in attacks on civilians) rather than that he’s roaming the streets as a serial killer.
there is an escalation of violence against both civilian targets and political targets who are seen as sympathetic in the later 1970s - for example, in scylla and charybdis we find voldemort murdering the pre-teen daughter of a ministry official, to widespread outcry, when her father won’t do what he wants - and it is this which triggers the unease felt by people such as orion and walburga black about whether voldemort’s violence is justified.
i occasionally write the voldemort of the first war as a technocrat. whether the wizarding world is more advanced than the muggle one is a frequently debated point; obviously magic is infinitely more sophisticated than most technology and the series clearly considers muggles to be behind wizards, but i think it’s interesting to explore in fanfiction the idea that the social advances of the muggle post-war era don’t touch the magical world. the population is so small, for example, that there is no wizarding baby boom, and there doesn’t seem to be any significant immigration in the magical world (so no wizarding windrush). the changes in social mobility which muggles enjoyed in the 1950s onwards - such as the expansion of funded higher education places, changing attitudes to marriage, divorce, and family planning, changing attitudes to living apart from the family, the emergence of more spaces where young people living alone would interact, and the collapse of the domestic service industry and the emergence of affordable labour-saving devices - are clearly not part of the wizarding world. all of which is to say, magical society could be made even more advanced than the muggle, even as muggle technology improves, if only it had a certain leader willing to take the reins...
to reiterate, i am not expecting the above to be an interpretation of the war and its causes which resonates with every reader and author, but it’s something which has spoken to me since childhood - and, indeed, was one of the things which really sucked me into being a harry potter fan as i walked home from school and got shouted at for being a taig. that it led me to having voldemort as my favourite character may not have been jkr’s intention, but there we are…
voldemort and the second war
after harry blasts him into non-existence (just because he tried to be nice to snape, smh) voldemort obviously slithers off to albania to live in a tree for fourteen years - with a little trip to britain on the back of quirrell’s head to break the monotony. his return to his body in goblet of fire does several things: it completes the tonal shift of the books from children’s literature to something darker; it triggers the overtly folkloric narrative of the second half of the series and its focus on prophecies and horcruxes, through voldemort establishing a mystical connection between himself and harry through his use of harry’s blood in his resurrection ritual; and it begins the second war.
it also causes one of my least favourite bits of fanon: the idea that the post-resurrection voldemort is completely insane. in my view, this is, once again, mainly due to the films - ralph does a great job of running around that graveyard shrieking, i’ll give him that - and their omission of many of 90s!voldemort’s successes, which makes it look like all that happens in three years is the death eaters fucking up getting the prophecy, downing a bridge by swooping, and then - somehow - taking over the government. it is also, however, due to a failure to pay attention to something dumbledore says in half-blood prince:
Without his Horcruxes, Voldemort will be a mortal man with a maimed and diminished soul. Never forget, though, that while his soul may be damaged beyond repair, his brain and his magical powers remain intact.
one of the common arguments in favour of insane!voldemort is that - seven horcruxes in - his mind has been totally destabilised by dark magic. but this misses the point of how the series understands the soul and, specifically, how it understands the soul as something which exists independently from the will - that is, the soul cannot influence the will (since, otherwise, nobody would do anything which damaged their souls - but wizards evidently have the free choice to do that) and, therefore, the status of one’s soul has nothing to do with one’s cognition. the canonical voldemort of the second war is perfectly lucid in all his appearances, and behaviours which seem to have been triggered by his resurrection can be shown to just be personality traits he’s always possessed - for example, the pacing around monologuing he does after stepping out of the cauldron reflects a tendency shared by the eleven-year-old tom riddle to give away too much about himself when he’s excited (and you would be excited, if you’d just freed yourself of a year having to depend on wormtail); voldemort doesn’t dramatically monologue when he faces either harry or dumbledore in order of the phoenix, and he only does it in deathly hallows when he’s in charge of a meeting of death eaters. he remains largely methodical in his use of violence, he doesn’t cackle wildly while planning his schemes (he laughs derisively when harry is literally about to kill him and that’s it), and he is emphasised by the text as being absolutely terrifying and having the upper hand throughout the period 1995-1998, with the order scrambling to keep up with him.
that is not to say that he comes back from the almost-dead unchanged. it’s clear that the voldemort of the second war is more paranoid and secretive than before, that he is less willing to take advice (both bellatrix and yaxley’s resentment of the fact he listens to snape suggests that there was once an impression among the death eaters that voldemort was happy to solicit their opinions, which vanishes once he comes back), that he’s quicker to anger and treats the death eaters more poorly than before (indeed, i am certain that the implication of canon is that the majority of the death eaters don’t have physical violence or public humiliation - like the malfoys experience - used regularly against them until the second war, and that this is what drives their obviously wavering loyalty to their leader), and that his obsessive focus on harry (and, in particular, on mystical phenomena which will help him kill harry) is met with some scepticism by the more revolutionarily-inclined of his followers. he also seems to only attain his horrifying eldritch form after his resurrection, which must be a bit of a shock for the lads. the vision harry has in order of the phoenix of voldemort with augustus rookwood - in which rookwood is clearly thinking what the fuck is this the whole way through - is a particularly good illustration of this.
in order of the phoenix and half-blood prince, nonetheless, the course of the second war follows that of the first: voldemort concentrates on espionage, ministry infiltration, politically-motivated assassinations, sporadic attacks on civilian targets, and a propaganda campaign (lucius malfoy is undoubtedly the source of the anti-harry and anti-dumbledore press of order of the phoenix; greyback spends half-blood prince recruiting werewolves).
things change in deathly hallows, after the death eaters execute one of history’s better coups - even lupin’s impressed - and take over the ministry. at this point there’s no doubt about it: voldemort’s government is an analogy for the nazis, as jkr has widely stated. obviously we don’t have to take her word for it - the author is dead - but it cannot be ignored that voldemort’s ministry is nakedly racist and is perpetuating a genocide of muggleborns. voldemort becomes, then, per jkr’s intention, an analogy for hitler - which requires the text to gloss over pretty inelegantly the fact that grindelwald (defeated by dumbledore in 1945, which any british child reading philospher’s stone even in primary school would know was the year the second world war ended in europe) was clearly the magical world’s hitler equivalent.
and, sure, the analogy functions perfectly well within the final book - voldemort is a transparently evil man, his views can certainly be read as mirroring racist and anti-semitic prejudice in our world, his ultimate aim can certainly be claimed as outright genocide even in the first war, and i think it is impossible to justify an argument that he doesn’t know what his death eaters are up to in the ministry (he’s a megalomaniac, everything happens at his command even if he isn’t sitting behind the minister’s desk) - but i think that it’s not inappropriate to suggest that the analogy requires quite a shift in voldemort’s canonical modus operandi from the previous six books. and, indeed, that this is why he spends much of deathly hallows being… kind of useless, wandering around central europe on his hunt for the elder wand, narratively removed from much of the horror being done in his name, reduced from the terrorist kingpin with a network of agents of the previous books to someone whose only concern is harry. i don’t think this is because jkr wished to spare him from the suggestion that he’s the person directing the genocide, i think she simply couldn’t fit the characterisation of him already established into that plotline, and so she just didn’t try.
which i have some sympathy with. i find writing the voldemort of deathly hallows the most difficult - and i generally don’t do it - for this reason. as i’ve said in the previous meta in this series, i find voldemort particularly interesting as a character for what he says about the wizarding world and its social structure - above all, how his existence and the ministry’s resistance to him demonstrates the genteel corruption of the wizarding world - and how that reflects corruption in british society and state institutions. the immediate familiarity to me as an irish (and, legally, british) reader of the way the previous books in the series reflect class and how institutions gatekeep and discriminate based on it, how poverty drives resentment and radicalisation, how one becomes the other in a sectarian conflict, and so on is less palpable in deathly hallows (which is not to say that experience is universal among readers, and i am not claiming it is) and i find engaging sincerely with the fictional genocide of the last book less interesting than i find thinking about the way the text presents the first war (and, of course, less horrifying and confronting and worthy of my time than i find thinking about real genocides in our world).
how to square the circle of making the voldemort of deathly hallows feel more in character, while also not handwaving away the canonical events of the final book isn’t something i’ve managed to get a grip on yet. i suspect i’m not the only one.
and after?
what i am more confident of is saying that i hate the imagery of voldemort’s little baby soul in train station limbo - the only person in canon denied access to some sort of non-liminal afterlife (clearly heaven exists for wizards, but does hell?).
is it his own fault? absolutely, although i’m always raging at dumbledore stopping harry offering the soul-piece some comfort at king’s cross. am i surprised that he doesn’t have a road to damascus moment in the final confrontation and collapse to the floor shaking and crying? not a bit.
do i think he could ever feel remorse for his actions? yes. one of my least favourite fandom debates is whether x or y character is incapable of redemption (rip snape, it’s always you). a principle i hold is that there is nobody on earth incapable of being redeemed - and i don’t mean redeemed in a religious sense or a heavenly context, i mean redeemed in their human actions and in their human form.
and redemption absolutely doesn’t mean getting away with it, and it doesn’t mean that remorse absolves you of having to experience punishment or work to undo the harm that you’ve done, and it isn't something which is possible by accident, and it doesn’t mean your victims being expected to forgive you. but it does have to be possible for all of us - even those who commit incomprehensible evil - because if not then it is possible for none.
so maybe voldemort sits in the nether zone and starts glueing his soul back together and eventually makes it to an afterlife where he can hang out with his mam. maybe he doesn’t, because remorse is a choice and we all have the option to keep being bad people.
but i’m a hopeless optimist.
[voldemort’s version of king’s cross is, of course, the orphanage.]
up next, what does dumbledore get wrong about voldemort?
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SO PJO CAME OUT TODAY
and i have a lot of thoughts
this is just me screaming into the void about this show that i’ve been excited about since it’s been announced.
i haven’t personally really read the books in a bit, so if i am remembering things incorrectly or forgetting if something was in the books or not, forgive me (and correct me and my terrible memory)
OBVIOUSLY SPOILERS AHEAD
EPISODE 1: I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher
first off - chapter titles. i knew about this a while ago but im so happy we are doing this
getting the whole speech from percy in the beginning oh we are so back
blackjack??? that was blackjack right??
MYTHOMAGIC CARDS
if this gets us actual mythomagic cards we can buy, so help me god. i’m gonna spend all my money on them
i will never be able to speak highly enough about sally jackson. best fictional mom ever and i love her with all of my heart.
the “hold fast perseus. brave the storm” parallel at the beginning and end of the episode oh i’m sick to my stomach
the fountain scene felt a little… goofy? from what i remember percy just remembers her ending up in the fountain,like it sounds like he kinda blacks out. maybe that’s actually how it was in the books, but i did imagine it differently.
grover and brunner being the KINGS of gaslighting
percy is stronger than i could ever be if grover exposed me like that i couldn’t talk to him for like a year.
the biggest issue i’ve seen everyone talk about: gabe. i understand WHY they made him how he is in the tv show. it’s a disney show, they can’t have him be completely book accurate putting his hands on sally and threatening percy for money so he can play poker, but i feel like this doesn’t fit with how he ends up at the end of book 1. maybe we will see a more ‘evil’ side to him through the news interviews and stuff, or he will have a different ending, but i feel like the way he acts now doesn’t justify his end in book 1 that i expect to see in the tv show.
sally in the rain listening to olivia rodrigo i love her so much 😭😭😭
d’angelos??? it’s spelled differently but reference perhaps? i cannot WAIT to see nico i hope we get to see him in the casino
i didn’t get this until i saw someone point it out but the cuts to black were ends of chapters!! and it makes so much more sense. i will say it feels a bit odd?? but i honestly prefer it more as someone who has read the books.
i find the whole sally explaining the gods to percy interesting. it fits for the tv show more, but i love book percy just getting forced into camp half blood without any real knowledge just like “what the fuck is going on”
“Like… like Jesus?” PERCY PLS
i love this grover reveal, but the BEST will forever be the musical
“She was a fury!” “YOU’RE a furry, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR LEGS?!?”
grover dropping the fact he is 24 in a super intense scene is very grover
that first shot of thalia’s tree lit up by the LIGHTNING gave me CHILLS
the entire minotaur scene was incredible. sally’s speech to grover and percy. percy killing the minotaur. insane
not to mention sally taking percy’s jacket to throw off the minotaurs scent? such a cool choice
EPISODE 2: I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom
"you droll when you sleep" YUPPP MHMM YUP
ik that the whole 'Mr. D trying to use percy to get a drink' thing is supposed to be a little joke, but its also such a good way to explain the whole "gods can get their kids to steal shit for them because they can't do it themselves" without having a whole dramatic moment explaining it.
in my head I imagined the entire camp being very heavily wooded, maybe that's just the movies having some influence over me when it comes to visualization, but it was cool to see the camp in the actually valley in a very book accurate portrayal.
OH THE CABINS MY EYES WERE GLUED THE WHOLE TIME
THEY LOOK SO GOOD
this tv show has already captured the two personally traits of percy jackson: 1. he loves his mom 2. he hates the gods
the jelly beans
seeing Luke befriend percy and be his first friend at camp luke I am in your fucking walls
I personally feel like the way they have chosen to portray clarisse is quite different from the books, but I absolutely love it. i was not a fan of her for a while in the books, but I love her immediately in this version.
also did we get to 'see' the cloven council in tlt? I don't think we did, and I like seeing it in prep for sea of monsters.
the entire scene of percy praying to his mom breaks me. oh my god. favorite scene in the entire show so far. it breaks my heart he loves and misses her so much.
"I think I've made some friends here. like real friends" luke I have a gun
the whole bathroom scene. that's it.
ANNABETH
maybe its just different seeing all these characters portrayed well on the screen, but she feels super different than book annabeth but also exactly the same. im not 100% how to explain it but there is no one better to play annabeth than leah
I am so excited to see this slowburn all over again
"she my little sister" luke please
thalia name pronunciation how are we feeling team
i have 100% been pronouncing it the other way this whole time but oh well
"sunshine" hey! when we get the first "seaweed brain" I am going to go crazy
"percy's on it. when its time he's gonna be ready" are you sure about that luke
in the books the main 'introduction scene' we got with clarisse was the bathrooms, but this scene with her in the woods feel much more like an introduction scene and im not sure if this was done on purpose, but I love her and this scene.
annabeth. I cannot stress my love for her enough
annabeth pushing him into the water instead of him falling. love her
percy FINALLY finding a place he belongs only to be forced out on a quest for his dad that he fucking hates
"good kid" from tlt musical was so right
"I am Sally Jackson's son!" what if I just started eating glass rn
anyway I am absolutely obsessed with this show already. I am so sorry to anyone who doesn't want pjo on their feed you are getting it anyway.
if this show is your first introduction to the series. read the books! or at least the lightning thief. and for the love of god LISTEN TO THE MUSICAL. I cannot stress enough how good of a portrayal of the book it is and it is my all time favorite interpretation of the books (although this show may take that top spot soon).
#pjo fandom#pjo spoilers#percy jackon and the olympians#percy jackson#percy pjo#annabeth chase#grover underwood#camp half blood#this is going to become my entire personality#percy and annabeth#percybeth#luke castellan#thalia grace#clarisse pjo#the lightning thief
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So several people have asked me about my opinion about James Gunn making a live-action Batman & Robin movie centered on Bruce and Damian that’s based on Grand Morrison and Tom King runs, I already shared what I thought on twitter, but to summarize it: this is the worst news I have heard while in this fandom and if this movie happens, Damian’s and Talia’s characters will forever be ruined.
As all of you know, movies always have a massive effect on how the general public view comic characters for many years after the drop, even if their portrayal in the movie was a complete 180° change from their usual selfs. I mean look at how much damage the animated movies have done to these characters’ reputation? Now imagine what a live-action Batman movie would do, whatever “The Brave and the Bold” will do to Talia and Damian, it will easily stick to their image for 10+ years and will most likely influence the comics to imitate the movie and change their portrayal in them in a way that align with the movie, again, even if it’s completely different or regressive for their characters.
Then you have all the red flags from Gunn’s statement, first of all he’s influenced by MORRISON’S and KING’S runs? That’s the biggest red flag of them all, because if you like these two characters then you would know that these runs are hands dow the worst possible combination you could pick as an adaptation and somehow Gunn’s managed to choose both of them, seriously all that is left is for him to reference Teen Titans: Rebirth and its over for us.
I have already went on and on about how Morrison’s racist treatment of Talia is the definition of character-assassinations and how till this day her reputation hasn’t recovered yet from it, there might have been some progress lately, but it will all go through the drain if this movie happens because I don’t see Gunn’s, how sings so much praise about Morrison’s run, will bothering fixing the racist caricature that Morrison created, especially since the whole point of Talia in this run is to give angst to Damian’s backstory and portray Bruce as the superior parent compared to her (and don’t let me get started on King’s proud-ex-CIA-agent ass and HIS racism)
So yeah, unless they plan on using another character as the big bad of the movie, which I don’t see happening, because what other character has personal ties to both Bruce and Damian and can be used as an antagonist other than Talia? Then the real Talia is gone forever, she will officially never escape Morrison’s character-assassination (at the very least, they can change her drugging Bruce to her faking a miscarriage like in the original comic, since that part is not REALLY important to story, but I highly doubt it....)
Then we get to Damian......look at all the words Gunn used? Do I need to say more? Some people are actually excited that he claimed that Damian is apparently his favorite Robin, but looking at the way he described Damian here its clearly evident that he likes him for all the wrong reasons, which I would argue is worse than hating him and that he doesn’t understand his nuance or any of his best qualities.
I can already predict what he will do with his character: he’s gonna go look for the whitest White boy in the world, cast him as Damian, immediately drench him in hair gel, then have him act as the most arrogant, stuck-up, obnoxious, disrespectful brat imaginable which in turn will influence the comics to reset his character to that again for the 574th time in a row (and of course you will have fans of other characters going ""look at Damian always being favored by DC per usual!!" without realizing that this is basically a death sentence to his character forever)
Some argue that this is how Damian’s character started out like before he started his development so its alright and to that I say: 1- even in the beginning, his character wasn’t this exaggerated and he still had some redeeming qualities 2- his development happened in a slow and steady pace in stories that mostly had no Bruce 3- he started out as Dick’s Robin and had already established a relationship with every Batfam’s member as well as his place in Gotham City before he got to spend any time with Bruce, which is something the movie will obviously skip.
Also the keyword here is "development."
The problem is that so many people, including Gunn, can't comprehend that Morrison’s Damian is supposed to be Damian at the very beginning of his development, in their minds, Morrison’s Damian is "default" Damian who acts like that all the time and Gunn’s might like Morrison’s Damian just the way he is, so I don’t see him bothering to develop Damian’s character nor do I believe that he has enough time to do so in one movie (lets be real its not like they will dedicate several movies for Damian’s alone) and as an already overly-hated character who constantly get portrayed as a brat that needs to be humbled, a movie based on his fist appearances is the last thing he needs right now.
It will just reaffirm what his haters think, that he was always a rude brat and he will always remain a rude brat and again, this will unavoidably influence the comics to reset his character (which is something the comics have already been doing constantly without the influence of a big blockbuster movie) to the characterization of his first appearance for the millionth time.
Like I said, this is the worst news I have ever received regarding these characters, I know I’m always being dramatic whenever I don’t like the treatment of Talia and Damian, but this is probably it for me. If this movie happens (and I pray it gets canceled/changed to something else in these 3 upcoming years) and it ends up being as bad as I think it would be, then I will probably lose all interest in DC as a whole, my standards were already at rock-bottom, but even I wouldn’t be able to enjoy their characters anymore at this point.
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At some point, in my copious free time (haha), I want to go back and really pay attention to who's the POV/framing character of each episode of Only Friends and what consequent impression we get of all the other characters from the ep.
At least partially because Ray's seemed like the designated punching bag in the wake of Ep 8, and I can't help wondering if that's influenced by his presentation from Boston's POV, which is not only pretty unforgiving in general, but is also the POV of a guy who's seemed to have had it out for Ray the entire show. I've seen people talk about how they find subtextual signs of friendship between these two, but if so, it's a friendship that's gone badly wrong. Boston's been consistently, deliberately mean to Ray - not just thoughtless or selfish, as he can be with other characters - since Ep 1, when he calls Ray a "burden" when he's drunk, echoing the language Ray uses for himself when he's at his suicidal lowest. Then add in the fact that Ray's the one who spilled to Mew about Boston and Top, setting off this whole chain-reaction that's estranged Boston from his friends group, as well as pressing on his issues about exposure. Yeah, Ray behaved badly, and he should never, ever snort up again because he's an asshole on coke, but there's also no way Ray's going to look like anything other than his absolute worst - practically malicious rather than a fucking mess - if we're looking at him through the lens of Boston.
Similarly, Boston's seemed, if not actually friendly, at least on decent terms with Sand - enough to feel like he can say what is or isn't Sand's usual stash. I ... don't know at this point if he knows that Sand was the actual leak re: Nick's sex recording, rather than Ray getting it directly from Nick? If he doesn't know, there's even more reason for Sand to come across as a stand-up guy stuck dealing with an absolute asshole - despite Sand also having some responsibility for what's going on between him and Ray. (Because a) I still want to know what Ray's dad wanted Sand to help him out with - and does Sand have some kind of ulterior motive for his interactions with Ray, at this point? And b) I question whether there wasn't a point that if Sand had stopped pushing Ray away by saying they weren't anything more than friends, Ray wouldn't have fallen into this thing with Mew so easily. Yo and Plug aren't just randomly breaking up in the middle of Ray and Sand having a fight. They're breaking up because Yo is Sand. Sand's commitment issues after Boeing or whoever, and the way that's affecting the SandRay relationship, in which Ray has made a ton of soft overtures, pursuing and pursuing, are Yo's commitment issues in a now-failing relationship that initially started because of Plug's courtship. It's maybe the most blunt-force writing we've seen in the show - Yo and Plug's relationship got fridged to make a statement about Sand and Ray's relationship.)
ANYWAY, just because Boston's not in a scene doesn't mean we're not seeing other characters through his lens, in his POV episode.
I also found Force's portrayal of Top in this ep interesting, including the way he interacts with Boston, given the visible discomfort and unease he's portrayed around Boston in other eps, particularly in sexual situations. Instead we get that weirdly companionable moment Boston and Top have, when Top doesn't take any shit from Boston, and in response, Boston doesn't take any offense to his threats. Cheum isn't the only one who looks to Top to solve the problem with the police - so does Boston. Top is actually pretty solid and steady and take-charge in this ep, but he also constantly looks kind of hangdog and whipped, and that may give some insight into how Boston tends to see him, as well as how he sees Top's current fixation on Mew.
Cheum is over-invested in Top winning back Mew, an amplification of her encouragement of their relationship since the beginning, and overall tiresome in her self-appointed role as cop-without-a-badge, but without any real force - nothing she says here manages to reach the level of dismissing Boston as a heartless slut in front of everyone and his date - which may indicate that Boston doesn't actually give a shit about Cheum.
Mew, on the other hand - the one who threatened to out Boston to his father and possibly the world via revenge porn, and all that after locking down Top in a chastity belt - spends his time either moping around and feeling sorry for himself or being a self-centered, smugly superior, thoughtless and sometimes malicious little fuck, encouraging his addict "best friend" to drink and do drugs with him, doing everything he can to make Top's life miserable including openly using Ray to try making Top jealous, and trying to poke his fingers into Boston's wounds - which of course Boston brushes off, because he'd see himself as above whatever Mew could throw at him. And then after all that, he can't even hold his liquor. Amateur.
Don't get me started on how soft and pretty Nick looks in this ep. I don't know if that's Boston's lens, or if that's just Mark Pakin.
#ray (of)#sand (of)#top (of)#cheum (of)#mew (of)#nick (of)#boston (of)#sandray#topmew#bostonnick#tonick#only friends#only friends the series#only friends ep 8
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The Genius of Georgette Heyer
Georgette Heyer, an Englishwoman who lived from 1902 to 1974, is one of my favourite novelists, and I often reread her books or at least some parts of her books just to retire into an agreeable world. She wrote historical novels and thrillers, but I must admit I don’t like these very much. To me, Heyer’s genius was giving a breath of fresh air to the overworn genre of romance novels set in the English Regency era. (Although some of these Heyer novels like These Old Shades or The Convenient Marriage are set during High Rococo.)
In my opinion Heyer is highly underrated, standing in the shade of the more known Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters, books women most relate to when they want to read historical romance novels; Barbara Cartland is also more known, an author whose works are too saccharine for my taste.
Austen’s or the Brontë sister’s novels are not actually romances although they are often described as such; they are accurate portrayals of the society the authors lived in, romantic attachments playing a major role of course, but the focus is on the importance of family and society framing them and influencing them, for good or for bad.
I always found myself drawn to Heyer’s stories, long before I fell in love for the first time myself; the average romance novels get on my nerves. Now, and after having experienced love more than once, I can say that I wholly share Heyer’s approach that no matter how much in love you are has no influence on whether you and the object of your interest fit together.
The common trope in romances is “love conquers all”, which I personally dislike because it strips the protagonists of having their own mind and their own agenda. “Love” makes the choice for them; they don’t consciously choose to be with this person or other. Alternatively, the protagonists are “meant for each other” but “star-crossed”, i.e. circumstances or their own folly (or both) prevent them from being together, in which case the novel is framed as a tragedy and we are expected to cry buckets over it.
This is fortunately not the case in Heyer’s romance novels. Like Cartland, she writes of an England that was long gone before she was born, of course in a romanticized way. A lot of her stories mirror how the do’s and don’ts of those times, in particular in the upper class, influenced their lives and made it very difficult to navigate society.
Georgette Heyer’s genius is her capacity to imbue old tropes with new elements, and most importantly, to detach herself from the adage “love is all you need”. Without being sarcastic, she is at her best (in my opinion) when she weaves stories about people who realize that being in “love” is not that important at all. Her romances do end well, yet not due to the influence of a higher power but because the couples involved had the chance to realize who is the right partner for them to spend the rest of their lives with. Her heroines are usually headstrong, independent and reasonable; they may act on a whim or following their heart, but it is when they listen to reason - or are pushed to do so - that they finally get their happy ending.
Warning: spoilers ahead.
The Cinderella Trope
Arabella, and also Friday’s Child and The Convenient Marriage deal with the subject of a poor, or at least modest-living, female from a good family being launched into London’s high society by a strike of good fortune. In the latter two novels, this includes for them the chance to buy a heap of beautiful new clothes, strongly reminding of the Cinderella trope.
But Heyer would not be who she is if the novels would not be original in their own way: Arabella, far from being a modest, kind girl, pretends to be a rich heiress in order to “show his place” to a man who believed she wanted to ensnare him due to his wealth; Hero from Friday’s Child and Horatia from The Convenient Marriage both do not end but begin the story through marriage, and the plot unfolds as they slowly realize (and their respective spouses, too) that they have married the right person after all.
Finding Love in an Unexpected Place
In The Convenient Marriage, the Earl of Rule is ready to marry a certain girl to make a match, arranged years earlier, with a poor but very aristocratic family; it is on meeting her younger sister that he realizes “he does want to ally himself with the family”, to put it in his words.
In The Quiet Gentleman, as he has to deal with conspiracies and attempted murder, the protagonist Gervase Frant learns to put his trust in a female he first found dull, and who is not aristocratic the way he is.
In Sylvester or The Wicked Uncle, the Duke of Salford is at first disappointed by Phoebe, the girl his mother and her friend had chosen for him, and she doesn’t like him any better; they have to live through a number of adventures, together with friends and family, until they realize that they fit together perfectly.
In Sprig Muslin, Sir Gareth Ludlow overcomes his grief over his lost fiancé due to being responsible for Amanda, a girl of similar temper, and getting the chance to compare her to Lady Hester, a shy, unremarkable woman whom he liked but did not appreciate enough before. A beloved theme of Heyer’s romances is brought up here, too: having the same sense of humour shows to be indicative for two people fitting together.
In Charity Girl, notorious bachelor Viscount Desford gets involved both with a very beautiful girl named Lucasta and another, quite helpless damsel named Cherry, but none of them turn out to be right; instead, he finally realizes that Henrietta, an old friend of his, whom he had not wanted to marry years earlier, is the right mate for him after all.
In Faro’s Daughter, Mr Ravenscar gets interested in Deborah, a girl who works in a gaming house, which makes her free game to all men who visit it although she is a decent girl and only wants to earn a living for herself and the aunt who owns to place. A parallel is made through the protagonist’s niece Arabella, forever being in love with one guy or another but then refraining at the last moment. Finally, her uncle gives her a sound advice: that only if she will meet a man whom she will be ready to introduce to her family, she will know that he is the right man.
In False Colours, twin brothers Kit and Evelyn literally switch their places, one of them finding the right girl in the process by getting to know his brother’s prospected bride.
In The Foundling, the Duke of Sale is all but pushed to make an offer for Harriet, a girl he likes but is not in love with; but as he lives through some adventures and meets Belinda, who is very beautiful but also superficial, he learns to appreciate his future bride better and to realize that he would not want to be married to anyone else.
The Wrong Match
In An Infamous Army, Lady Worth wants to match up Colonel Charles Audley with Lucy, but then has to find out that the sweet, innocent-looking damsel is already secretly married, and that the temperamental Lady Barbara whom she had not liked for him is exactly what he needs since she has courage and straightforwardness.
Not Falling in Love at All
In A Civil Contract, Viscount Lynton, heir of an impoverished family, marries the shy and average-looking Jenny, the daughter of a rich, vulgar merchant to keep his family out of debt; she loves him but is aware of the fact that he does not requite her feelings, since he secretly loves Julia, a beautiful woman who does not have much money of her own. It is only as the plot thickens, the woman he loves marries another man and his wife gives him a son that he realizes “his Jenny” is the best wife he could have found.
Falling Out of Love
In Friday’s Child, Lord Sheringham believes to be in love with Isabella, an acclaimed beauty, until he has lived for a while with Hero, the young woman he had married on a whim.
“Bella with her airs and graces, her moods and her sharp tongue! No, thank you!”
Isabella on the other hand was about to contrive a brilliant match, but good sense makes her refuse it after all.
“When I thought how my life would be, that I would have to spend the rest of my life with him… oh, I could not!”
In The Grand Sophy, Cecilia is besotted with Augustus, a very romantic but unreliable young man. After a trying period spent nursing her small sister, who was critically ill, she finally realizes that the less romantic but more worthy Lord Charlbury who had offered for her in the first place is a much better partner for her.
In Cotillon, Kitty enters a fake engagement to teach a lesson to Jack, the man she is in love with; but when she comes to London for a while and learns more about him and the world, she slowly realizes that she was in love with a figment of her imagination, and that Freddy, the man she is engaged to, is a much better person.
“He seemed like all the heroes in the book, but I soon found that he is not like them at all.”
“No. I’m afraid I ain’t either.”
“Of course not! No one is.”
Heyer’s chief oeuvre in this respect is in my opinion Bath Tangle, where Serena and Lord Rotherham, both hot-tempered protagonists get engaged to someone much gentler than them, only for them to realize that they would not be happy with them. The heroine’s fiancé Hector gives her up amicably, having also found a much better life partner.
“You are a grander creature than I even imagined.”
“And you are the kindest and best of men, but not my love!”
The “Pride and Prejudice” Trope
The themes of Jane Austen’s famous novel is upended in Faro’s Daughter, where it is the man who has a strong prejudice against the girl, whom he inevitably believes to be a scheming, money-grabbing minx because she earns her living in a gaming house. The girl on the other hand has strong personal pride and would never accept money from anyone, or accept marrying or becoming the mistress of a man for whom she doesn’t care. Far from declaring his devotion to her, the man insults the woman repeatedly, before he finally realizes his mistake and also that she is the right mate for him.
The Beauty and the Beast Trope
In Black Sheep, the protagonists Abby and Fanny are aunt and niece, both at the same time in love with two members of the Calverleigh family who both have a bad reputation; but while Beauty (the niece) has to realize that the man she had fallen for was only after her fortune, non-Beauty (the not quite so pretty, but intelligent aunt) realizes that the uncommon Miles who gives nothing on society’s standards does care for people, and that he is the broad-minded, worldly-wise partner she exactly needs.
In Venetia, the person falling out of love is a Edward Yardley, a sidekick, who really ends up being disillusioned; but the story had made it abundantly clear that he had been a fool all along to believe that he and the protagonist would suit. Venetia, the Beauty, has to find out that she cannot tame the Beast Lord Damerel, and that she wouldn’t want to do it additionally. The Beast is not a bad man but someone who does not fit in with society; which makes him ideal for her since she does not, either.
This trope is brought to a climax in Lady of Quality, where the protagonist Annis, who never felt the slightest interest in the gentlemen she met, on getting to know the rude but protective and straightforward Oliver finally gets to fall in love, despite the fact that they argue frequently. At one time she muses that “Surely kindred spirits did not quarrel?” only to then add mentally, with a little self-irony, “How mawkish!”
If you are tired of Jane Austens’ prim heroines and the Brontë sister’s drama, I invite you: give Georgette Heyer a try. Her novels are entertaining but neither flat nor sentimental, and I always find new layers and aspects in them when I reread them after a few years. Her heroes of course live in an idealized world, but it’s just what you might need after a hard day’s work. 😊
#historical romance#literature#georgette heyer#jane austen#bronte sisters#english literature#critical reading#romance#reading#entertainment
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Ahh, I’m happy. First episodes of Rings of Power are a few steps above my expectations and I had a really good time watching it, which was all I really wanted to begin with. Numenor hasn’t even arrived onscreen and I’m already pretty invested.
I was actually surprised by how much I liked the Harfoot plotline, I had expected to find it really irritating and extraneous but it was so delightful to watch I was taken in. I think it was Lenny Henry’s influence, his acting was great and i’m really attached to Sadoc already. I’m STILL not sold on old meteorman Gandalf, mainly because I don’t want to see fuckin Gandalf, but also because he DOES feel very extraneous to the plot they’re driving towards. But the scenes with him are still well acted and seeing how big he is in comparison to Nori is endearing too. Liked being able to decipher the Quenya words for blessed and heat in there, which I assume was him trying to explain stars.
Oh it’s so humiliating... I do like Lindon 😔 they are using the set really well and the shots are sumptuous and filled with interesting detail. Also good GOD I love elf politics, I love incredibly elevated elven speech that’s just so elaborate that they sound like they’re in a Shakespearean play at all times. (some of the proverbs are a little over the top but still). Yes they SHOULD sound that ridiculous. I am also very much enjoying Elrond’s character and the way they have interpreted his ‘Herald’ position in Gil-Galad’s court. Speech writer and little busy body to be sent to solve problems. I think the promos really did a disservice in calling him ‘politically ambitious’. It’s technically true but on it’s own it doesn’t accurately describe his motives, he’s being invested in his people and wanting to help. He’s a young but very noble elf and full of optimism and love for all things! He’s excited to be of use! Maybe a little too invested! Hah.
Celebrimbor also I like so much, he’s got this 1920′s dandy vibe, he certainly feels like a jewelsmith to me. His mannerisms are so endearing and sharp, and when he speaks about the things he’s passionate about the actor actually manages to get this feeling of... a glint in his eye? Like he’s generating his own energy talking about it, very autistic of him, I love it. And I especially appreciate this much more emotive and engaged portrayal after the disastrous Shadow of Wardor nonsense. I respect them going for the precise opposite character. He even fucking cares about people beyond elves! Cares about middle-earth in fact! Oh and also! With his excitable dialogue surrounding dwarves, I have been given new hope that we WILL be seeing Narvi in later seasons. Indeed, these two episodes have really solidified in my mind what they’ve done to the timeline. It’s ALL contracted, including a lot of the aspects of characters we expect, their development has been reclaimed for the show to walk us through. We’ll see how that plays out as the years go by but I can see the logic of doing it that way.
THE DWARVES! Oh my days the dwarves. Every dwarf scene was so gorgeous and Durin’s actor has a way of settling his body into the costume that makes him feel heavy, durable and powerful. I’ve really gone on a 180 about his design. Even this rock breaking contest, which always felt really silly to me, actually is implemented in a way that I really enjoy. Disa is just... I can’t stop thinking about her, Sophia Nomvete matches Durin’s energy so perfectly and the way she uses her eyes is simply entrancing. I just want to watch them all the time. I also really loved the cameo of a bust of the dragon helm of dor lomin being paraded around by Durin’s children. I hope we get more of them too, can’t see enough dwarf children. The idea Durin just has replica heads lying around? Did he make them? Is it a hobby? I’m delighted.
But I can’t talk about Durin without mentioning his and Elrond’s relationship. A while back I commented on twitter that the way the promo material discussed it, it sounded like Durin was Elrond’s jilted lover and I joked about the idea that Elrond had just... forgotten about how time passes for Durin, causing Durin to feel entirely abandoned and to move on and get married..... WELL! don’t I feel like Apollo struck me with the gift of prophecy. The emotion within the elevator scene alone... the genuine pain in Durin’s voice, the heartbreak on Elrond’s face as he hears it! I lived a life in that time, a life you missed! I was surprised the show was able to drag out real feelings from me this early on. The way Disa is trying to heal this rift between them too. I’m so fond of all of them and I now even more cannot wait for the Elrond/Durin/Disa polycule fanfic. What twists and turns of fate.
The Southlands gave me slurs for elves so I will be forever grateful to them, although I was looking for something a little more imaginative than pointies. Would have liked something derogatory ABOUT immortality. And damn! We’re really going for racist elves! Love it honestly! I’m pretty shocked that they aren’t veering away from the textual ‘blood will out’ narratives. Elves really be inventing Faramir’s Darkmen/Middlemen/highmen paradigm as we speak. I also love mean elves, I love watching elves be snappy at each other, in general I love the expansion of what it means to be an elf outside of the heroic nobility we’ve only seen up until now. It’s a great elf portrayal! I love the mention of artificers by Arondir, elves usually expecting their bodies to heal on their own, but needing elf therapy to tend to much more fragile souls. As for Arondir and Bronwyn themselves? They are sweet and I do like the way they put their relationship into a historical context, but I want to see more of them enjoying each other’s company. Certainly I like Arondir and Bronwyn as characters on their own but I want to get to know them better.
I think the MAJOR issue I have with this show at the moment is definitely how thick it feels. All the plot threads are good and I can see how they are all going to tie into one another, I can even see how the entire arch will feed into the eventual Akallabeth, but it’s SO MUCH to get through. I’m feeling nervous about there being only 6 episodes left in season 1. I wanted more breathing room between major plot points and whilst I was surprised by the amount of character I was able to glean from such short scenes, I was still left wanting more time to explore the more complex aspects of each of the situations.
I think the southlands suffered from this the most. You are left unsure what to think about morgoth worship, whether it’s active in the village, are the elves right to hold them hostage like this or is it because of their actions that they are turning back to those dark ways? It’s definitely an uncomfortable aspect to work through and I just felt it needed more time and care than it’s gotten at the moment. And it means that, despite how much I like it, I actually still feel like the Harfoot storyline was a thread too far. I would like to know about entwives and such, but I just don’t think the show has the time.
STILL annoyed about Durin III and Durin IV existing alongside each other. I would like to know how they’ll explain it or if they even will, but for now it’s a niggle that I can’t quite let go of.
I’m not sure how to feel about the whole Valinor thing, because on the one hand... religious overtures are DEFINITELY the right vibe for it, the more uncomfortable the better, there’s even a slightly offkey singer amongst the choir in the soundtrack for Valinor, and an ominous scary part to the music too, but it’s still... A LOT. I suppose it also enabled them to not show Valinor again and so forth. And honestly I am intrigued by the treatment of returning to Valinor being a reward for exemplary service, it’s kind of inline with canon and creates to me a very strange and intriguing dynamic. BUT... Valinor is so hard to get right, we’ll see if it comes up again.
I think that’s all I have to say! All in all, as I said, the show was fun and it was absolutely what I was looking for after House of the Dragons reminded me why I fell off of Game of Thrones in the first place. I would just like a little universal meta morality in my fantasy shows.
#the rings of power#the rings of power spoilers#rings of power#rings of power spoilers#rop#erran vs rop#text post#long post
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agree with the apology post lol, but what did you mean when you also wrote about taika there? that his own experiences influenced the writing?
I imagine Taika has a fair amount of input into the portrayal of Blackbeard, if only by virtue of being, y’know, an Oscar winning writer/director/producer/actor etc etc.
I think he puts a fair amount of himself into his portrayal of Blackbeard. Part of my view is influenced by David Jenkins talking about how he got Taika for the role in the first place, basically by proposing other actors that Taika kept rejecting until David finally asked, “Hey, do YOU want to play him?” And Taika was like, “Yes, when do we start?” Like he’s been very protective of the character since the beginning.
So basically when I said that Taika strikes me as a pretty proud guy and so is Blackbeard and Taika has a lot of influence over how Blackbeard is portrayed, etc etc…. I just had the gut instinct that we’re not going to see a groveling apology from Blackbeard to the crew. Blackbeard’s just too proud for that. One on one with Fang makes more sense because they’re both more “senior” sailors and Fang can ask for an apology without howling for Blackbeard’s blood the way, say, Jim might in the same situation.
Without a more specific question I’m not sure how else to answer. It’s mostly instinct. There’s an element of masculine pride to why he might not apologize to the group, masculine pride that I think the OFMD fandom often overlooks in its discussion of masculinity in OFMD (and I’ve written a whole essay about that too). Anyway. I was very gratified to be right that there was no apology tour or big apology. Just a small, quiet one with Fang. It felt right.
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🖤or 💜 or 💛!
(Sorry for taking a bit of time to reply!! I wanted to answer all of them hehehe)
🖤 Black: Do you think about your story when you're not physically writing it? Does it help with plotting scenes, character arcs, etc.?
Yes, always... Most of my stories begin with rotating ideas in my head, so concepts and ideas, even dialogue, will usually have to exist as a starting point before I actually write anything down. And for actual plotting - I really like using outlines and outline almost everything I write, so really it is a thing where I will be thinking about a fic and then a random moment will turn into an outlining moment if I go to write new ideas down :D
💜 Purple: Name one song you're listening to while writing your next/current fanfic. How or why does it help the writing process?
Ahh... I wasn't really listening to anything while writing my most recent fic xD Actually, listening to songs with lyrics while writing can be tricky for me, I prefer to listen to music while doing the aforementioned rotating ideas in my head thing 😁 One EXTREMELY fitting todolf song though is Poison by Alice Cooper... everyone listen right now... don't want to touch you but you're under my skin (deep in) etc
💛 Yellow: Do you ever alter, highlight, or de-emphasize certain canonical traits in a character? If so, why and describe how.
Ahh, this is such an interesting thing to think about!!!!
For something like Tod/Death, every writer has to kind of come up with their own interpretation. We never get insight into what he's thinking (kkog doesn't count that's not canon...), we don't have a clear view of his motivations because of the layers and layers of lies by Lucheni (up to the viewer how many layers there are), all we know is that he's There and there is some sort of deep connection to Elisabeth and, to a lesser extent, Rudolf.
However, the more fic I write, the more I write Tod as somewhat of an extension of Rudolf's personality. The idea really is that he's whatever you want him to be, he taps into all your weaknesses and insecurities and approaches them in a way that will be the most effective on you for the purposes of You Know What. Mirrors etc,,,,, Unfortunately for the kind of Rudolf I usually write, this mostly means that tod is pretty b*sm about it AJSJDJJF. So I guess for Tod I tend to emphasize the sexuality aspect which is a side effect of the kinds of fics I write LOL.
Rudolf, on the other hand... I keep saying his canon personality is "sad, queer and rebellious", he is literally on stage for like 10 minutes and most of it is being gay s*x depressed ajsjdjdj. There's a lot of portrayals to pick from... I think one of the main things I do is try to add historical facts into the mix while keeping the canon meow meow personality. Fic Rudolf usually has noble goals but despairs his life away because the environment makes it impossible to fully pursue or reach them - IRL Rudolf was similar but also fanatically obsessed with hunting I'm told (by stephanie xD) and a raging misogynist. I guess, though, that the way I write him is influenced by the fact that when the fics take place (because of what todolf is...) we're seeing him at his most private and emotionally vulnerable.
Ooh the question also asked "why"... For Tod the "why" is that I just don't really care about the paranormal entity interpretation, I mean I tried my hand at it with my todesengel fic but even with that I tried to make it fit together with the force of nature interpretation and not "god" or "demon" or idk "Satan" etc. I don't like the god or paranormal interpretations, or stuff that leans too heavily into Tod as a "creature", because 1) it would shift the genre of what I'm trying to write - idk I try to go more for toxic historical fiction metaphysical romance or whatever and not for dark fantasy or paranormal romance, 2) it's hostile to religious beliefs, like, it precludes the existence/validity of other god-like entities in this universe and more "atheistic" belief systems like Buddhism. I don't want to base my fics on a take where, for example, the Christian tradition is in a worldbuilding sense "more true" than another religious system. I think that's lazy and lets author bias show through too much - though perhaps I have a different kind of author bias, as someone raised culturally as a member of a pretty hands-off organised religion, but with a cynical attitude towards its impacts on society XD Anyway um yeah to me Tod is usually more like gravity or temperature and not like an actual Dark Angel King Of The Underworld...
As for Rudolf - I just write him according to personal preference and the theme of whatever fic I'm working on at the moment. Part of it is my reading of historical events (heavy emphasis on the "troubled hero, huge loss of potential" line of thinking) and part of it is just what sorts of performances I like best and want to incorporate into my belief system ajajsjdj.
#tysm for asking!#oh i guess one important thing abt when i write tod is that i. neglect elisabeth herself jajsjsjdjd rippp#then again its because my fics are rudolf pov and because it's his personal s*icidal ideation hour other people don't play into it that muc#but um yeah#this was fun to answer!! >:]#asks#writing#fanfic
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I've been thinking a lot as of late about Django's skill set, and the almost nightmarish reality of the type of violence and destruction he's capable of committing all on his very own. I'll probably make this into a more structured and proper HC post in the future. But for now, I just kinda want to ramble about this for a second because I don't think I've really had the opportunity to fully display just what kind of a one-man wrecking crew/army he is.
Talk to anyone who's a fan of SR and takes pride in their own version of The Boss, and they will tell you what sort of aspects they really lean into when depicting them in writing, art, or anything remotely creative. For me, aside from wanting to really explore the whole idea of a customizable character and that disconnect from most people, I really leaned into the more violent aspects that make up the character. And that's because when you stop and think about it, the sort of things that The Boss is able to accomplish throughout the original series—at least on their own—is really fucking astounding. And even more so terrifying.
You can make the argument that the original iteration of the Saints wouldn't have gotten to the point they did if The Boss hadn't come in and just carried the load, and got their hands as dirty as they did. Which isn't to say that everyone else wasn't pulling their weight. But it's clear to me that anything that was remotely significant was handed off to this random kid who got swept into the gang life. And when I apply that to my portrayal, Django starts to come across as almost relentless whenever there's work for him to do.
Said relentlessness can also be applied to how he handles the work he receives, or really, any sort of task at hand. He is goal-oriented. He is focused, despite what he may lead you to believe. A plan may fall apart and make it seem as if you need to go back and reconsider your approach. Not for Django. He will finish the task at hand by any means necessary. Even if wanton destruction is left in his wake. He is the human equivalent of the nastiest hurricane you could ever imagine. And he's got the body count and property damage to back that title up.
Let's talk about violence for a second. The guy loves it. Fighting in general gets his blood pumping, and his adrenaline spiking higher and higher. He is a sick freak that enjoys hurting his enemies and fighting tougher opponents just to better his own skills. Whenever he REALLY starts to get into a fight, I would equate it to a dog being let off a leash and getting zoomies. He's basically frenzied, and more than ready to put someone down if it comes to that.
And when I think about that kind of attitude, plus the way he can seemingly go through wave after wave of enemies, it really begins to paint a picture of what that may look like to an outside observer. Or hell, anyone for that matter, regardless of what side they're on. Like, it wouldn't surprise me if, as the years go on, people just made up ghost stories about the guy. Sure, he's prolific as hell. But you can't imagine what kinds of things he gets up to whenever there isn't a news camera on him. Plus, I would think that with everything he and the gang have accomplished, that anyone in the big leagues—whether it be in the criminal underworld, or from law enforcement—would take heavy consideration as to how to approach the guy given what he's able to do.
We're talking about someone here who has not only toppled several different gangs with varying degrees of influence and power, but gone up against cops, SWAT teams, the FBI, and even people who are as close to the honest-to-god military as possible.
I really don't have a proper way to end this because it was meant to be a long ramble in the first place. But man, I don't know. There's just a lot to consider about what Django's reputation would be throughout the world in his own canon. And this also goes for crossovers, AU's, all sorts of things. His penchant for violence is something that will be on full display no matter what the playing field may be when writing the guy. And I just hope people keep that in mind whenever we plot stuff out, or just have discussions in general.
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bawling my eyes out in the sunshine state: The Floria Project movie review
“This movie made no sense … It had no plot whatsoever .. the ending didn’t make any sense” (Zia’s Google Review, 2024).
While Zia may have only rated Sean Baker’s film, “The Florida Project,” one star, her reasons are precisely what makes the film such a masterpiece. The film follows a mother (Halley, early 20’s) and daughter (Moonee, 6) through a Florida summer living at Magic Castle Inn and Suites, a budget motel less than 20 miles from Disney world. Halley and Moonee are at the bottom of a capitalist society, with no viable means of upward mobility. Much like life, there isn’t a distinct beginning, climax, and resolution to the story and Baker doesn’t invent a happy ending for a story representing people without one.
The movie captures the slice of life spirit, especially because it is shown from the perspective of Moonee. Baker wonderfully captures the mind of a 6-year old with quotes like: “Ooh a spider lets see if it farts,” and “I love oranges but not the lid.” But it’s not just the portrayal of kids’ play, it’s the insight into how they see objectively dysfunctional surroundings. The only way viewers know Halley turned to prostitution is because Moonee has to take a lot of baths with loud music playing and try to understand the subsequent ostracization her mother faces from neighbors.
While the film isn’t shown from Halley’s perspective, it paints a representative picture of her situation. She relies on TANF and free food from her friends with jobs to provide for her daughter, because no matter how hard she tries, she can’t get a job anywhere. After trying everything else, Halley resorts to stripping and then prostitution. In a highly capitalist society in the shadow of Disney, the only way Halley can make money is to sell her body.
Baker is not afraid to talk about sex in controversial ways. Sex is one of the recurring motifs of the film, with portrayals of sex work, pedophiles, boob jobs, and nudists with varying degrees of ambivalent representations. It’s also interesting how the kids intersect with the idea of sex. The kids' most exciting summer moments are when Gloria is shirtless at the motel pool, and they can look at her “boobies.” The kids might not know what sex is, but the film reveals just how much they are influenced by a society that capitalizes on sex.
My only critique of the film is that there is almost too much unnecessary symbolism and unexplained motifs. For example, why the pedophile? There was one three minute scene about him and then never touched on again. Why were there constantly scenes of helicopters flying overhead? That said there were symbols and themes I appreciated. For example, it’s clear whether a character was important by their name. The main characters are: Moonee, Halley, Scooty, Dickie, Bobby, Jancey, and Ashley. Rainbows are a symbol of better things to come, often reliant on money (the pot of gold at the other end). The movie is characterized by bright colors in the surroundings (green nature and the motel is purple), the way characters dress and Halley’s hair and tattoos. The color is symbolic of childhood wonder and the perceived brightness of Disney World.
The final motif that I think had the biggest impact was the appearance of the American flag at the scenes that would make any nationalist question their faith in America. The irony felt the strongest when DCF comes to take Moonee away. Even though Moonee is in a dysfunctional situation, the film makes viewers frustrated in the system. Taking Moonee away to bounce between families for 12 years is not a solution. Halley is not perfect, but she loves Moonee and would do so much more for her if she had a reliable source of money.
The ending of the film turns the American Dream on its head. DCF tries to take Moonee but she runs and escapes. She sobs outside her best friend Jancey’s motel door. Jancey grabs her hand and together they run to Disney World and hold hands in joy together outside the real Magic Castle. (Filmed on an iPhone 6 so that Disney would not make money on the film)
One of Moonee’s quotes from the film is, “Do you know why this is my favorite tree - cuz its tipped over and it's still growing.” Despite living in one of the poorest communities in America, Moonie still finds joy in life. That said, there is no possible happy ending for Moonee as her mother is arrested and she goes away. That’s precisely why the non-sense ending that many Google Reviews complain about is so beautiful. If you want a movie that will have you sobbing and questioning everything, as well then this is the perfect film.
Sources:
Sean Baker explains why the ending is imaginary: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-the-florida-project-review-20171005-story.html
A look at the experiences of people actually living in the motels outside Disney:https://newrepublic.com/article/164335/homeless-gates-disney-world-florida-sunbelt-blues-review
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