#seeing siracusa with no connections
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By the way seeing the map I was really surprised with how close Rim Bilton to Siracusa (and how Higashi is far away). It's kinda ironic that two closest neighbors of Siracusa are represented by prey animals (sheep and rabbits).
Do you think we will get any relationships between Siracusa and Rim Bilton? At least as we know from Popukar story there are lumberyards in Rim Bilton and do you think it could be somehow connected with woodcutting in Siracusa?
Oh yeah, Higashi is seriously far away but I think that Columbia is about the same distance if not further so those wolves don't half go far for some reason.
Also yeah that is honestly quite funny, especially when it's practically in the text itself. Like, Dolly despite roaming is most associated with Leithania and he got hunted by the Signore dei Lupi and Emperor kept leveraging them as a threat against him in the event lol.
Actually it's part of why I find Provence, Earthspirit and Eyja to be a fun trio.
As for Rim Billiton, I'm not sure about logging (mostly cause I don't know how that works as a business and would imagine there's not much overlap) but I think it's really reasonable that they aught to in some capacity.
Like, Siracusa is like Kjerag in the sense that they need to build their country up through business with other countries and as of the moment I think Siracusa is in a sore spot with Columbia. It's possible that they're looking to other countries for business and Rim Billiton could be a good option.
And I thought maybe Rim Billiton being a company could make things complicated, but they have worked with Kazdel which would look worse than working with the mafia logically. So I don't see any reason why not, but possibly further I think it's likely the mafia would try doing under the table dealings with Rim Billiton in various different ways.
And I'd like to see something just to see how Red and Amiya's home countries interact when they get along lol.
#ask#I remember drawing lines on the ak map#seeing siracusa with no connections#and now there's quite a lot#I'm quite chuffed about it honestly lol
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Imagine Penance meeting W.
Like, W doesn’t even have to say anything to her, maybe they just pass each other in the hall, maybe Penance overhears something and looks over to see her annoying a few other operators in the cafeteria, whatever. Penance recognizes her. Just barely.
Sarkaz Mercenaries show up pretty much anywhere and everywhere on Terra, its just inherit to their life style. And Siracusa is probably well connected enough to the outside world to have heard about Reunion and what they tried to do. Or at least the public version of it. Chances are she also read a bunch of files in RI so she could learn a bit more of what came and happened before she joined.
And there, right there, is one of the damn leaders of a fucking terrorist cell just walking around this landship she’s decided to camp out in for however long like its no big thing, and she just found out about it. She’s worked with criminals before, and it ended well for absolutely no one.
She knows about a bunch of the legally shady shit RI had done and is doing, but this is something she would have liked a warning about to prepare for it. If she needs to shove her face in the mud to get justice, again, she’ll do it. But it would have been nice to know what kind of mud to expect.
So, she barges into Doctor’s room, slams her hands on their desk and snarls, “why is there a terrorist war criminal walking around this ship?”
Whatever answer she was expecting, she sure as hell didn’t expect the Doctor to just blink at her and ask, a bit too confusedly, “uh, which one?”
A few seconds later everyone on the landship hears a screech of “FUCK DO YOU MEAN WHICH ONE!?”
#Arknights#Penance#she might not get oripathy but if Doc keeps this shit up she'll die of alcohol poisoning#Penance's continued stressful adventures at RI
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Okay I am feeling kinda insane so I have to spell everything out
I have a theory about Lappland
First of all I'm sure she has connection to Laterano and that's why.
1) Skin
So her skin from Bloodline of Combat "Refined Horrormare". The one in which description written "The outfit Lappland wore at the Laterano Apostolic Knights' Funeral Memorial Hall.
Even two years ago , I was confused about what Lappy to do with Laterano. Why does she visit the Funeral of Apostolic Knight?
The thing about BoC skins is that they have usually heavy lore. Mountain leaving RI, Beagle dying, Executor tracking down Artoria, and past of a lot of operators. Right?
So about Lappland's skin. We see her wearing this clothes in IL Siracusana, and a lot of people, especially wiki-writers think that it is that big moment skin's introduction written about. BUT IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.
First of all it's nowhere near Laterano and other skins if they have a very direct connection with place and event.
Also quotes in this skin
" Collect the debts, and pay the price."
And
"Is that all? That's all our lives are worth. I told you, everything you've taken from me, I'll have you repay. In full." - is quote from Lappland and people(on wiki) think that she says it to her father, BUT BUT she didn't try to take a revenge on him in event. Maybe in the future, but unlikely. She stated that she doesn't want any connection with Siracusa and said goodbye to him, not trying to hurt. Hardly counts as repaing, right?
Also also in whole even she never showed as much hostility or better say vengefulness? Even her fight with Texas felt more like friendly rematch.
And I don't think anyone or anything in Siracusa could cause her such emotions if she leaves it so easily.
BUT WHAT IF THERE IS SOMEONE IN LATERANO WHO CAN CAUSE THEM?!
So I am sure we will have Lappland in Laterano
Okay sorry moving on.
2) Her belt
Her belt has number "1911" on it and IT is a year when last Newfoundland Wolf was killed, but in contrast with Texas her family is fine. So kinda weird isn't it?
So maybe this number has a double meaning
And you know what else happened in 1911?
M1911 was designed.
And I mean Sankta's and their guns, right?
3) Sweets
It's almost nothing, but second thing Laterano is known for is their sweets and Lappland kinda mentions sweets a lot?
Her notorious voiceline with mentioning of mille feuille and which she given to Exusiai and tried to give to Texas. Her keeping chocolate (of course it's maybe more about Texas). This stickers
Kinda suspicious isn't it?
So like she has connection to Laterano definitely. But what is this connection?
Well my theory is that her mother was Sankta.
And my arguments, I do have arguments!
1) Sankta's offsprings with other races don't bear any physical similarities with their divine parents, so her being Lupo doesn't contradict this theory
2) She is one of only two Lupo operators who deal Arts damage, and she was stated to not have any training with it, using Arts with just raw talent alone in her file. And Sanktas are well known for their impressive Arts controlling abilities
3) Also the end of her file
For a long time we thought it was Texas about Lappland and about her family. But now after Siracusano we can see that we mistaken a lot. First of all she lost her family not because they are dead, but because they threw her away. Also she didn't forced Doctor to choose anything yet. Doctor even wasn't present in Siracusana. Also know I'm even doubting if it was written by Texas, because we seen them interacting in Siracusana and they are fine. Weird as fuck and deadly to each other, but fine. If Texas truly believed she is that dangerous she would try to keep PL as far away from her as possible. But she isn't
So whatever this file states it going to happen in future.
And I think she will revenge for her mother.
It is a very weak theory I know, but I can't stop think about it.
So if you have your own theory about Lappland's connection to Laterano, please, I am begging, tell me.
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Just had the most insane shounen girlyaoi brain explosion for Younger Texas/Lappland.
You know how Texas is quiet while Lappland is actually personable, outgoing, and charismatic? God, that little detail suggests such a perfect shounen enemy backstory, like some real Jojo’s Part 1 shit.
Like. Okay. Imagine when they were younger and living under the same roof.
Young Lappland is a skilled fighter, ruthless, talkative, swaggering: easily beloved by everyone, surpassing everyone’s expectations. The perfect mafioso, who’s worked so hard to meet the expectations of an heir, grown so well out of the troubled, excessively soft-hearted child she used to be—but there’s some dark, swirling discontent in her, a disgust, unvoiced, vague and violent that she keeps trapped behind her smile.
The fact that nobody else notices it just makes her feel all the more disdain for them.
And then Texas arrives—quiet, unwilling to participate in all the dick-measuring and bluster, uninvested in the Mafia’s idea of itself, uninterested in making connections—but she’s so clearly naturally talented that everyone respects her anyway.
She doesn’t have to do any of the work to make people like her. She doesn’t have to play the perfect gangster. She doesn’t even care. And everyone *still* loves her.
And Lappland just hates her hates her hates her. But she’s also jealous, and she admires her, and she connects with her like she connects with nobody else, and she also learns from her, they fight so well side-by-side, they balance each other’s temperaments, and Texas *sees* her, and Lappland hates her, hates her, loves her.
They have a special connection to one another. They spend a lot of time together.
But there’s a rift there, too. Because Texas, she’s upended Lappland’s life, made herself the center of it, and Lappland kind of resents her for it. But Lappland doesn’t seem to have made any sort of indelible impact on her at all. And she can’t stand it.
And as Lappland’s hatred for Siracusa and what they do and what they are and how they think grows, as she starts to get wilder and more violent and more trapped and hopeless, more bitter, more resentful of the unaffected Texas, her facade starts to crack, and the rifts run between them, pushing them farther apart.
And then Texas leaves.
And Lappland starts to spiral, a little bit. She still performs perfectly, but she’s a bit of a loose cannon. Scary. Not “who she was.” All she can look forward too is the next time she sees Texas again.
And then, years later, Texas abandons her obligation, and Lappland betrays her duty, and she gets her duel.
And Texas wins.
But of course, all it seems to mean to her is that she can leave.
She just looks back once, at Lappland, bleeding on the ground, in the rain, the Texas estate on fire behind her, staring up at her with madness in her eyes, and she turns and walks into the forest.
#ill never recover from il siracusano#the brainrot is fucking permanent with these two#they are like. the best shounen rival duo. do you see it.#like no wonder lappland is so fucked up over her#only hg would be like ‘yeah we’re only going to show you the fourth arc of this insanely high-quality mature shounen political story’#hnnnnng#lappland#cellinia texas#arknights#this post may have been inspired by JJK season 2#but who’s to say
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I hope next arknights event will be about siracusa but I wonder if there's more than mafia crime syndicates in siracusa because other country have dragon gods or sea god or computer god or god or demon lord or big mech or ice demon priests so having mafia doesn't seem that bad...
You'd be surprised how much darker and higher stakes a story about mere people can get. Arc 1 may have had a god like Kaschey the Deathless for its climax, but the real terror was seeing just how easily Wei Yenwu turned to ordering genocide all just to not appear weak before Lungmen.
In fact, stories about humans (or as human as possible in a setting of magic animal people) often make for my favorite Arknights events. I don't mind the Feranmut or the Seaborn or the Ageless or any of the more fantastical or supernatural elements of Arknights, but I greatly prefer the more grounded stories, such as Light Spark in Darkness where the villain who destroyed Susie's life was simply a greedy factory owner committing insurance fraud.
Having organized crime and violent mobsters may not look that bad compared to sea monsters or an AI attempting to create an ethnostate, but all you would need is the right protagonist in the right circumstances to make something just as intriguing, if not more so.
In real life, you don't have to worry about dimension-warping demons living in the lands where humans fear to tread, nor do you ever have to concern yourself with dragon gods or sea monsters. It's pure fantasy.
But the slide of nations into fascism, the rise of megacorporations, the deadly clash of tradition with modernization, even just the fear of seeing your business go up in flames after years of hard work, those are very real fears. It is Arknights' dedication to writing stories with all these connections to the real world and to our histories that make Terra feel so alive and believable, in spite of being populated by magic catgirls with rock cancer.
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CG art for the siracusa event dropped, and I ended up getting a couple theories to my head. And a bunch of them were fucking bangers. Emperor the Rapper with a G u n, Projekt Red and Crownslayer connection, the fucking BIG BLACK WOLF
(Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3M87kH055o)
The Giant Smoky Red Eyed Wolf is the Signora Sicilia everyone is talking about.
The Signora Sicilia is who Red is talking about when she mentions the "Grandmother".
Crownslayer is related to Signora Sicilia.
Kal'tsit is either friends, enemies, or familialy related with Signora Sicilia, and because of this, took in Projekt Red.
Signora Sicilia is one of the Immortal races, or Feraerus. Or maybe even a Feranmut.
(Crack) The Red Haired Siracusan is related to Chiave, i just KNOW it.
I'm gonna add more to this along the way to the event, but god fucking damn.
Saving this to see if i called any of em right.
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What's on your event wishlist for Arknights? Which character story arc are you itching for? I'm so sorry if this has already been asked and/or you've addressed this somewhere else
I WANT MORE NEARL MORE NEARL MORE NEARL MORE NEARL MORE NEARL NEARL NEARL NEARL NEARL NEARL NEARL NEARL I AM ROLLING AROUND AND BEATING MY FISTS ON THE FLOOR LIKE A CHILD WHOSE PARENTS WOULDN'T BUY HIM A TOY -
Good question, thanks for asking! There are a lot of things I want to see more of, given the way the world of Terra is so rich and vibrant. The list below is in rough order and not by any means exhaustive.
I want to learn more about Columbia.
I want whatever the next step in Nearl's storyline is so badly because I would bet money that it's not over, but also every Nearl event has left a bad taste in my mouth because whoever's writing them has made a career out of fumbling the bag at the end of the event. I predict the next Nearl event casts Whislash as the protagonist solely because she's the only horsegirl remaining in the family who hasn't gotten dicked over by a crappy ending yet.
I am dying to see more of the Abyssal Hunters and learn what the hell is going on with Aegir. Give us more of the Inquisition and their sick Bloodborne drip too, and what the actual fuck is the Last Knight's deal?
I really want to learn something, anything, about Sami and Higashi. Please give us an event set in those areas. Please.
I require additional Siege. It took her literal years to become relevant to the narrative despite being a launch unit. Thankfully, the current main story arc is focusing on her. I would also like more of the Glasgow Gang along with her.
I really wanted to learn about Siracusa very very badly because it's packed full of wolfgirls apparently and I really love wolfgirls, but we got a Texas event in CN very recently so that will probably hold me over for a little while.
Swimsuit Horn. This is not a story arc, but I need it anyway because I want to see her BOOTY.
Playable Degenbrecher and Viviana Droste. I would take out a loan from the Mafia to pot 6 them. I also really want to know more about both of them.
Holy fuck please make Surtr a character that exists outside tier lists and one vignette.
Blaze. I want to see more of the Elite Operator who got to bond with the Doctor in Chapter 6.
More Elite Operators in general, I am very tired of Arknights releasing characters that don't feel particularly connected to the story while actual units we canonically have access to in-universe aren't available in the game. Give me Logos and Misery or I'll piss in your Cheerios Lowlight. Let us learn more about Rhodes Island and its history in general while we're at it.
Bolivar
Rhine Labs
Penguin Logistics
Give me more handsome men to roll for. Give me hunks. With muscles and beards.
Allow me to install a mute button on Kal'tsit and Catapult.
Things I do not care about or want more of at this point:
Lungmen, holy shit no more storylines set in Lungmen, please, I'm so tired of Wei and his stupid dickass city, just let me kidnap Swire and Hoshiguma and their gay rat lover and reunite them with Ch'en, they deserve so much better
Literally anything to do with Reunion, Kashchey, or Talulah.
I have no interest in the Sui storyline at this point, other than the Sui siblings none of the characters rise above mid-tier to me and the writing is so smugly self-congratulatory, the writers are so proud of making the story as obscure as possible and are too busy whacking off to their own intelligence to write a story that actually makes fucking sense.
Nervous Impairment and anything that incorporates dodge, I hate both mechanics and they actively make the game worse
Despite how genuinely funny Laterano is as a setting, Guiding Ahead was such ass that I genuinely don't want to revisit it, the only reason it even felt connected to the rest of the story was because Mostima was in it. This event had so many aspects that should've made me like it but the execution sucked so hard I just want nothing to do with the storyline it's setting up anymore.
Anything related to how awful Ursus is, I get it already.
There's a lot more but I want to go to bed. This should cover the most important stuff.
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i like this arknights event story a lot. it's probably partly because i'm at a level where i can get further than a couple parts in now but it's also just really good. the event stories are always good i like that they're always super interesting and you can see how they connect with the rest of the world if you know the history and other stories but you can still enjoy it even if you don't. i have no idea how that edgelord wolf god thing guy is related to the penguin that loves rapping or why they have beef but it doesn't even matter because i'm busy being taken by the beauty of the penguin logistics girlies friendship and texas and lappland's complicated histories and the weird complicated dynamic of siracusa
#of which they compare to laterano which i know about from the other event story that i only managed to get a little bit into#but even just that much context is enough to give more depth to the world and make me appreciate it more.. 🫶#i love this tower defense gacha game
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Alright everyone, it's time to talk about Lappland.
A common misconception of her character is that she is a bloodthirsty psychopath whose oripathy has made her hyperfixate on Texas. All that “Madness can never be healed” stuff.
That isn’t what she’s actually like though. From what we know she is ‘polite and personable’ and ‘actively seeks out people to converse with’. At worst it seems like she may be mildly unsettling while on base. The rumors of her instability seem to come from the ‘excessive violence’ she uses on the battlefield, and I think I have an explanation for that.
Lappland has a very odd Operation Start voiceline:
Ha, you people... I don't even remember your faces. Whatever, let's go, huh?
This makes me think Lappland’s oripathy has damaged her fusiform gyrus resulting in acquired prosopagnosia. Basically, she has become unable to recognize faces. There isn’t a lot of solid research on what kind of effect this has on a person but the general consensus is being unable to read people’s faces can lead to difficulty empathizing with others. Combine that with a childhood where violence is the norm (and quite likely other negative mental effects caused by oripathy) and you get the Lappland we see in game, someone who kills her enemies without a second thought and can’t properly connect with anyone. The only living person whose body language she knows well enough to read is Texas.
This brings us back to Lappland’s Archive File 4, which I am going to be assuming was written by Texas. It paints a sad image of Texas watching as Lappland slowly cares less and less about the killing, not being able to help her, eventually deciding that to end the bloodshed she will have to kill her, leaving Siracusa when she can’t bring herself to do it.
Maybe you’re not yet mentally ready to fight her. I wasn’t.
Then there’s Lappland’s worryingly suicidal ‘In Battle’ lines. Her Archive File 4 mentions she has some specific reason that she has stayed alive until now, but it seems like she wants someone to kill her, to let it end without her having to give up on whatever keeps her holding on. If I had to guess, that reason is some oath sworn to Texas or her family.
That’s the Lappland we see in game, a fucked up person made more fucked up by oripathy. Lappland just after she wanders in, drawn by the only person that means anything to her anymore.
And then we get Ambience Synesthesia, and for some reason Lappland is there.
Two things about this outfit stand out to me, she is wearing long pants, and she has short hair. In all of her other outfits she is wearing shorts, presumably because of the massive crystal growths on her thighs. The short hair also seems odd, alt outfits don’t usually change the length of a character’s hair. Both of these make me think this could be Lappland after the snapshot we see in the game.
Just imagine:
This is Lappland after she comes to Rhodes Island and signs on. After she starts getting treatment for her oripathy and going to therapy. After she finds people who like having her around.
Imagine that maybe, just maybe, Lappland is getting better.
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A deep dive into Lappland as a character, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mangy Decrepit Wolf Lady
I’ll be going over her backstory, personality/character, and what I think her relationship with Texas really is, so it’ll be a long one.
Lappland is a character with painfully little in the way of content, despite being a launch operator. The only real scrap we got from her was with Suzuran’s record, which I made a separate post about here.
Starting with her history, we know a bit about Lappland from her time in Siracusa, mostly from a) her short interaction with the mafiosos in Code of Brawl, b) her token, c) her file and d) Suzuran’s file (maybe, but I’ll be treating my conclusion from the previously linked post as correct because honestly I don’t think they’d put in a red herring like that).
Most of this is, of course, very vague. We know that she used to be part of a family involved in the mafia, that her family was killed and Lappland was branded a traitor, and, based on her token, took revenge on several gangs before leaving Siracusa with a massive body count, possibly even making a takeover by that “Miss Sicily” character possible. The fact that Lappland herself was branded as a traitor could point towards her being the one who infected Suzuran, or having been framed for it. Or it could just be because the gangs she tore through were once allied with her family. Either way, her reputation seems to precede her as Gambino and Capone put aside their feud to prevent themselves from being dismembered, as Lappland has been noted to do to her victims.
Moving on to her personality, and this is where people tend to misunderstand Lappland as a character. Taken from her file:
Lappland is not as crazed as many of her voice lines suggest. In fact, she seems to seek out people for conversation. Her penchant for gallows humor makes sense: she was alone for a long time, maybe years, with the only constant in her life being killing and bloodshed. After such a long time knowing nothing but pain and killing, it makes sense that grim humor would be one of her preferred ways of communicating. It’s not like she has had anyone else to talk with since coming to Rhodes, hence her “frightening” aura even when just trying to communicate. As the person writing her final archive file says (most likely Texas),
She’s lost her family and will never truly be a part of another one.
The only time we see Lappland trying to reach out and communicate to other people, it goes poorly.
While this may be a particularly charitable reading for a spree killer, this seems like Lappland attemting to form connections with others, but failing as she either forgot how to properly form connections after losing both her family and herself to vengeance, or she simply can’t get past her Oripathy-riddled, bloodstained appearance.
Focusing more on Oripathy, we see the flip-side of Lappland’s personality: her sadism and gleeful lust for fighting. Having grown up in Siracusa, she may have been a killer from a young age, but her file points to the effects of Oripathy as being one of the key factors in her fixation on violence.
So, not only is Lappland just a wizard when it comes to fighting, but her Oripathy actually helps her in this regard. Most importantly, though, is the fact that her Oripathy causes her to fixate on those she considers to be combat targets, which can be seen in her voice lines where she attempts to spur her attackers on and encourage them rather than simply taunting them. This alone might be enough to explain her fixation on combat, but it leaves out one very important voice line.
To me, the only source of joy remaining in this insane would is using my power to conquer all.
What Lappland is saying here is that fighting isn’t the only thing she enjoys, or even that it would be something she has always enjoyed: she says it is the only thing left for her. Her family, her friends, her home, nothing but dust now. The only thing left for her is her blades and her enemy.
Everything that Lappland knew was taken from her, and likely left her a shell of whoever she used to be, but there is one person we know for sure had connections to Lappland in the past. That person, of course, being Texas.
What’s important to note about Texas here is that her backstory is, for all intents and purposes, very similar to Lappland. Both grew up as part of the Siracusan mafia, both are sole survivors of their family, and both got out, one way or another. Their E2 art and tokens mirror each other, if that wasn’t enough to convince you that they’re narrative foils. (I can’t show the E2 art without hitting the image limit, but the resemblance should be somewhat obvious.)
I think the tokens symbolize the difference between the two pretty well: Texas keeps her family’s scutcheon, damaged but intact. She bears the scars of her past life but still has sight of herself. Lappland, on the other hand, does not have her family’s scutcheon. Having lost sight of who she once was, she is now defined by bloodshed and vengeance.
Texas has friends. She found her new family. She has people who like her, who want her around, and she has purpose. She is happy now. To Lappland, Texas’ very existence is a mockery to her. How come she gets to be happy while Lappland still has to suffer after everything? How come she has a new family? How come she has a purpose? Likewise, to Texas, Lappland represents the specter of what she had to grow past, and what she could be dragged back to if she let it.
It’s no secret Lappland has something of an obsession with Texas, but I don’t believe it to be that of wanting to rekindle an old relationship.
Lappland sees Texas as an enemy, and as her file said, she develops an obsession with those she considers enemies. But Lappland doesn’t want to kill Texas, or else she would have probably tried to kill her already. Lappland wants to drag Texas down to her level, to make her as miserable as she is. And, as she says in Code of Brawl, she wants to rile Texas up. Killing people Texas let live and bringing her their mutilated corpses isn’t a gift, it’s a provocation. Lappland wants to fight Texas, but she doesn’t want to kill her. As gruesome as it is, I think Lappland wants Texas to kill her, so she can die doing the one thing that still matters to her, looking, at least, at the face of someone she knows, instead of a cold, sterile hospital as she wastes away from Oripathy. Even in death, Lappland doesn’t want to be lonely.
#arknights#lappland#texas#long post#hopefully it’s not too rambling#my campaign to get people to appreciate Lappland continues#please just give us a Siracusa event I'm on my hands and knees here#maybe I should have split this into separate posts#not sure how many people are gonna read all this#oh well
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since i've been talking a lot about my hcs for la squadra's backgrounds i figured i would drop what i've thought of so far for risotto 👀
as a heads up there will be talk of ❗catholic trauma, familial death, and grief❗
prefacing this: so i saw an idea somewhere once that risotto and mariah are related b/c their stands both deal w/ magnetism and they both have white hair and then i made a mental exercise to play around with the idea of how that would actually Work but then the idea stuck lol
so they're half siblings and mariah is like, 5 or 6 years older? they have the same dad. he and mariah's mom separated on good terms and he eventually moved to sicily for work but went back n forth a lot to still be active in mariah's life
which is where he met risotto's mama. risotto was born and raised in siracusa but the family went to cairo a lot and likewise mariah and her mama would come visit too
so risotto's family life may have been unconventional (especially considering it was the 70s in a catholic country and his parents weren't married, nero is his mama's last name) but was very happy. he had good and loving parents, he and his sister loved each other a lot, their moms got along really well and mariah's mama was very nice to risotto too and vice versa, it was all pretty chill!!!!
maybe a few months (or a few years) later some wreckage washed ashore that could be identified as part of their vessel, but that's the most closure risotto had. he knows in his heart that they're dead because they were good parents, they would never have abandoned him and mariah. he doesn't blame the sea though and he's not afraid of it, it's just nature, and nature happens sometimes.
but when risotto was about 8 or 9, his parents were lost at sea. not sure if they were on a ferry and there was a freak storm and there were others that were lost too or they just liked to sail or what, but their boat pretty much vanished and they were never found.
so as presumably, probably, an orphan, he was taken in by his maternal grandparents in the sicilian countryside and lost contact with mariah and her mama. his grandparents had also taken in his older cousin prior to that too so it was the two of them being raised in the middle of bumfuck nowhere by their grandparents.
and their grandparents were, hm. Not Great. they were pretty hardcore catholics who ran a strict house, made ris and his cousin go to church whether they liked it or not, tried to instill them both with Catholic Guilt™️, were very conservative, kinda broadly fucked up and controlling etc. it was just, not an emotionally healthy environment.
risotto's mama probably moved away for a reason 😬 they were definitely aghast that their daughter had a child out of wedlock and it wouldn't surprise me if they had this notion of having to '''save''' risotto from '''sin'''. which probably made him feel like something was wrong with him, which he thankfully knew wasn't true because his early childhood was happy and healthy enough to give him that perspective, but it hurt nonetheless.
he and his cousin were each other's confidants and partners in crime, they loved each other so damn much and were always looking out for each other. often it was big cousin looking out for baby ris cause he was like ~5 years older but risotto wanted to be there for him too.
they got up to a lot of trouble as kids in small towns in the middle of nowhere do and it was stupid as hell but fun and freeing. authoritarian houses make good sneaks and good liars and the two of them definitely lived up to that. risotto also couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and love when he did what he pleased and tried his best to live freely because he felt like it brought him closer to his parents in spirit.
as soon as big cousin graduated the two of them hit the road and moved to palermo, against their grandparents' wishes. they shared a shitty cheap apartment that felt like a damn mansion to them cause they could do whatever they wanted and just live their lives.
they lived there for about a year before risotto's cousin was killed and he felt like the fucking world crumbled from beneath him. he viewed it very differently from his parents' deaths: one was nature, one was some asshole who couldn't be considerate to the people around him and now risotto's best friend is dead.
so he was back with his grandparents but without his cousin and he was pretty fucking miserable, but he refused to just be sad for himself, he was sad for his cousin first and foremost and couldn't stop thinking about him. and he was angry. big cousin had his whole life ahead of him that was cut short, he was a whole person with dreams who loved and was loved, and this guy only gets four years in prison and then could just go back to his life like nothing had happened when his cousin wasn't alive anymore? no. it wasn't right. risotto refused to let that go unresolved.
and that thought is what kept him going but he still ran away a lot, didn't bother with school unless he thought it could help him, etc. he became sort of numb to his grandparents and the irony of plotting revenge in his head while he was made to sit in church wasn't lost on him.
he probably dropped out and left his grandparents' place by the time he was 17 and he hasn't spoken with them since, went back to palermo, and went from there with his plotting. that's how he got involved with passione.
he got vengeance for his cousin at 18, and it was at least something, but yeah, he realized it would never be enough and the pain stayed. not that he regretted it in the slightest tho, he can still sleep a little easier and feels like he can do.... something aside from just being consumed by it.
but then he was indebted to passione for their help with getting risotto to the guy, risotto took it in stride cause again, he didn't regret it, and the rest is history.
not to say he's necessarily happy or satisfied being in passione tho, but he accepts it and works with it. he doesn't really think about what he'd like to do cause this is what he just.... does.
he tries to visit his cousin's grave in palermo every year for his birthday (and maybe throws some flowers into the ocean for his parents too, they left from the opposite coast but he figures the water will carry his intentions where they need to go). he would be perfectly happy to never see or hear from his grandparents again. once as an adult (and with gang connections) he realized he could try to track down his sister again, but decided against it. not only because he's not sure if she would accept him for who he became (he can't stand the thought of her rejecting or being afraid of him), but if he put her in harm's way, he would never forgive himself.
he doesn't know mariah is also a stand user, nor her involvement with dio or who the fuck dio even is or basically the whole mess of stardust crusaders. but she IS alive, she got very injured but is alive. maybe once giorno becomes boss, gets in touch w/ his joestar family and the speedwagon foundation etc all the little strings start coming together and risotto and mariah can find each other again. and she very much does love her big baby brother and wouldn't even dream of rejecting him. so they can be brother and sister again and it's really lovely and healing :')
#i love him and he WILL be happy and satisfied this is a threat#religious trauma -/#catholic trauma -/#familial death -/#grief -/#risotto nero#mariah#la squadra#agents of dio#vento aureo#stardust crusaders
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Provence, Gaul and Mr Grape Speculation.
Aka despite the trickling of Gaulish Operators since Phantom and the Crimson Solitaire, she has not been confirmed as being Gaulish despite her name and as such, I want to talk about things relating to it.
And because I really want an excuse to talk about her. Without further ado though:
So first thing's first: Why theorize that Provence could be Gaulish?
The reason for that lies in her name because Provence is the name of a region in France, known for it's wine and lavender fields.
I'll keep my lips sealed about the wine for now, but in regards to the lavender fields it's what inspired her purple fur. She fits in nicely with Texas and Lappland who themselves are named after places outside of Italy, in their case because of the wolves they're based off.
And just for note: Provence was a Roman province, their first beyond the Alps but since they left in at the end of the fifth century, Provence has not been a part of Italy, instead being a part of France since 1468.
We'll get onto the wolf she's inspired by in a bit but first, while the above can be used to elaborate on her Siracusan roots, how does her inspiration compare to confirmed Gaulish operators?
For instance, these are the Gaulish Operators who were released before Phantom and the Crimson Solitaire (if I'm right):
Aciddrop
Astesia
Mousse
Phantom
Aciddrop and Astesia I am not aware of anything connecting them to Gaul before their module and Astgenne's files dropped respectively.
Mousse and Phantom on the other hand are quite obvious. Mousse is a French dessert and Phantom's whole character references the Phantom of the Opera, a French novel set in Paris. Provence is similar to them in regards to name and inspiration but there is something that separates them and it's the fact that they have voice lines furthering their connection.
From Mousse and Phantom respectively:
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a real avenue in Paris, whereas Gaspard de la Nuit is French, meaning "treasurer of the night" if I'm correct and is also a suite of piano pieces by a French composer.
Provence doesn't make any remarks about her home or anything in French or referencing anything from France, which isn't a huge deal. Aciddrop and Astesia had less (or more subtle) and were confirmed to be Gaulish so Provence's chances don't seem worse for it.
The Fall of Gaul.
This is an interesting part of this and one I can't see being too long.
But a thing of note is that the War of the Four Emperors occurring in 1053 and the Chernobog incident happens at the end of 1096. A lot of characters saw this unfold without being as old as Hellagur. Aciddrop and Astesia's families are mentioned and likely experienced it, whether as a child or an adult.
And on them, a lot of Gallians immigrated to Columbia whereas a lot of others remained where they were and watched as the territory ended up in the hands of Victoria, Leithania or Ursus. The latter two of those btw we do not see btw. We have only seen Gaulish characters from Victoria or Columbia, with only one exception being Clément Dubois from Hortus de Escapismo, as confirmed by the recent Twitter post/Terra Historicus, who is an Iberian that's descended from Gaul.
Which is to say that there's proof that Gallian refugees have gone as far as Iberia, although that's redundant because of the IS2 relic Wrath of Siracusans of all things. The "Super Siracusans" monthly squad expands upon it's lore as such:
So Provence's family immigrating from Gaul to Siracusa is more than plausible because the reverse has happened before and perhaps is emblematic of some sort of relationship the two countries has, this one conundrum aside.
But even if there isn't, Kal'tsit took Crownslayer to Siracusa, seemingly not because she had family there but because she is a Lupo/passes enough for one by Red. Provence's family may have fled to Siracusa simply for that reason.
Wine
Remember how I mentioned Provence was known for it's wine? Well here's that. See, Provence is known specifically for it's rosé wine.
I suggest reading into it yourself because it's genuinely really fascinating. But France is the leading country for rose wines, with Provence being the leading wine region for rose in the world. Around eighty percent of all wines made in Provence are rosé and I saw something that said it was the only wine region in the world who drink pink wine over red or white.
Which makes me think about Mr Grape, the wolf that appears in her E2 and who exists in canon:
And I mention all of this because I do think that wine is synonymous with Gaul because of the significance it holds within Phantom and the Crimson Solitaire. Both because of the Troupe Master, or being known as Tragodia, is so connected to it (such as having two wine relics associated with him) but because the description of Royal Liqueur:
And so with the region of Provence's relationship with on rosé wine, the significance placed on wine by Phantom and the Crimson Solitaire and Mr Grape being named such by Provence, I think her connection to Gaul is pushed even further.
The Beast of Gévaudan
Now, as for what sort of wolf Provence is based on, I believe that there's never been any proof towards it like there is for Texas, Lappland and Quartz. Any guess as to what it may be based on the appearance of her E2 is also very difficult because:
Yeah it's not an ordinary wolf but it's also not one that you could easily distinguish as something else however. It's just a large purple wolf with lighter fur here and there as well as body armour for some reason.
The trail ends there.
Or does it. Because if you take into account the inspiration Provence takes in France and begin your search there you'll quickly learn of a beast that stalked the ancient region of Gévaudan. Described as a wolf but not a wolf, it went on a killing spree and was quite the mythical creature while it existed.
I place quite a lot of stock into this idea of Provence's inspiration and Mr Grape's identity, not only because it's unique and really it looks unlikely they could be mundane but for some aspects of Mr Grape.
The Beast of Gévaudan was described as being larger than an ordinary wolf up to the size of a horse, with a broad chest, a snout like a greyhound, a white underbelly and what I find the most defining: a long thin tail, normally described with a tuft at it's end.
If you look at various depictions of the beast you'll notice a lot of these features between all of them so I think it's fine to use as a baseline.
So how does Mr Grape compare to that description?
Sizewise if you take these as ordinary wolves:
(Lunacub's are but with Emperor are Signore dei Lupi)
Then I think that he would count as larger than ordinary wolves. I also think that Mr Grape is larger than the wolves present in Projekt Red, Penance and Vigil's E2 art and compared to some, by a large margin.
He also has the white underbelly and as I stated to be the most defining: a long thin tail. One noticeably so when compared to Provence, almost purposefully contrasting. Cause you'd imagine, as a reflection of her that his tail would be just as big and fluffy but it's the opposite:
It's thin and long and only tapers out towards the end despite it's already bizarre thinness. Compare that to Provence's in the same image:
You can find more art from her artist Nian that depicts her and other character's tails and Mr Grape's tail is a stark difference.
Here is Provence's Vitafield skin:
And again Mr Grape's tail is depicted the same. I think it's purposeful.
Also as compared to his appearance in her E2, it appears like his snout is more elongated like the description as well as the white underbelly being more visible and how broad his chest is.
One last thing on his appearance is that a lot of stories of the Beast of Gévaudan is how resilient it is, taking musket shots and being stabbed but shrugging it off with being scared off at most. Maybe this is why he's wearing so much body armour, as to hint at how resilient it's inspiration is.
Now onto the last pieces because there's one notable story to come out of the Beast of Gévaudan's various attacks that I want to bring up and that's the story of the Maid of Gévaudan, or of Marie-Jeanne Vallet.
She was one of the several people attacked by the Beast of Gévaudan but at the time she was armed with a makeshift spear so when it attacked her, she was able to stab it in the chest, saving her own life as well as that of anyone with her. For the action she was called the Maid of Gévaudan.
Here's a statue of the event:
Now whether or not Provence would be based off of her or not I can't say. She resembles Mr Grape so much and as he's an extension of her and a reflection if you will, she's sort of the Beast of Gévaudan herself but it may be a combination like Projekt Red being Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.
That said, in the voiceline mentioning Mr Grape she implies that they met under curious circumstances, likely unintentional so who knows what the story there is and whether it could mirror this one:
But to wrap this up, Provence is almost definitely Gaulish and maybe it's because most of her oprecs came out prior to Phantom and the Crimson Solitiare, she hasn't been confirmed as such yet. But here's hoping!
Because two skins, two oprecs, a dormitory theme heavily featuring her, a decently large presence in an event and another character being romantically interested in her isn't enough for me. I want more for her and who knows, maybe there's a treasure trove of upcoming reveals for her.
One can only hope.
#arknights#provence#woo!#finally talked about provence!#I am hoping for those reveals#an event would be nice#but not holding my breath on that#just#one more oprec to explain it all?#oh#read her oprecs btw#they're my personal favourites
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Good Witch Season 6 Press Release - Spoilers
THE MAGIC IS BACK ON SUNDAYS!
GREY HOUSE’S MILESTONE BIRTHDAY IS CAUSE TO CELEBRATE AND MAY ALSO SHED NEW LIGHT ON THE MERRIWICK-DAVENPORT CURSE IN ‘GOOD WITCH’ PREMIERING JUNE 14, ON HALLMARK CHANNEL
STUDIO CITY, CA – May 19, 2020 – Middleton gathers together to strike a pose as they celebrate Grey House’s milestone birthday in “The Tableau,” while the festivities may also bring to light new information about the Merriwick-Davenport curse on “Good Witch,” premiering Sunday, June 14 (9 p.m. ET/PT), on Hallmark Channel.
Cassie (Catherine Bell, “Army Wives,” “JAG”) prepares for Grey House’s 225th birthday celebration and puts Nathaniel Merriwick’s paintings on display. The artwork inspires Martha (Catherine Disher, “Abby Hatcher”) to direct a tableau vivant to mark the occasion, but with only two days before the event they’ll have to work fast. Sam (James Denton, “Devious Maids,” “Desperate Housewives”) tries to appeal to a reluctant Adam’s (Scott Cavalheiro, “The Indian Detective”) competitive side when encouraging him to keep up his post-op physical therapy. Cassie welcomes Grey House guest Hayley (Isabel Kanaan, “Haunted or Hoax”), a social media influencer who is forced to see what life looks like outside the confines of her phone’s camera lens when her network connection vanishes and she can no longer post photos for her followers. Martha recruits Stephanie (Kylee Evans, “The Strain”) to head up the town’s Community Greenhouse committee but the mayor doesn’t get the preferential treatment she hoped for when the plots are handed out. Meanwhile, Joy’s (Katherine Barrell, “Wynonna Earp”) intuition has suddenly fallen by the wayside, leading to a misunderstanding when she and Carter (Jason Diaz, “The 100”) agree to set each other up on blind dates. Taking part in the tableau vivant temporarily brings Abigail (Sarah Power, “Killjoys”) and Donovan (Marc Bendavid, “Murdoch Mysteries”) together but in the process, make a discovery that could bring them closer to the key to breaking the curse.
“Good Witch,” is a Whizbang Films production in association with ITV Studios America. Darin Goldberg, Orly Adelson, Jonathan Eskenas, Craig Pryce and Frank Siracusa are executive producers. Catherine Bell is co-executive producer. Janina Barrett is supervising producer. Colin Brunton serves as producer. Alison Reid directed from a script by Erinne Dobson & Elysse Applebaum. “Good Witch” is distributed internationally by ITV Studios.
LINK
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We’ll Grow Stronger Making Room and Sharing Space: 2019 In Review
It’s the end of the year and the end of the decade (more on the latter in this post). It’s the time for me to reflect on the year and think too much about lists. Some things will never change.
Music I Worked On This Year
Jeff Schaller and the Long Way Home - “Younger Years” (guitar, recording, mixing, mastering)
Apocalypse Quest - Paradoxes (mixing, mastering)
Sloth Hands - Vacation’s Over (mastering)
Apocalypse Quest - “Mediocre Boys” (recording, mixing, mastering)
Flora Self - “Didn’t See It Coming” (bass, recording, mixing, mastering)
Pelafina - “Blue and Gold” (guitar)
Apocalypse Quest - “CEO Blood” (recording, mixing, mastering)
Apocalypse Quest - ERBA (recording, mixing, mastering)
My Favorite Albums of 2019
I’ve had a one-sentence review of my number one album, Breakup Season by Future Teens, in my head for a few months: If I had heard this when I was seventeen, I might have been a better person. That sounds hyperbolic, but I haven’t been able to shake the idea. I know I could have used this album as a teenager. It’s so honest and introspective about heartbreak and sadness and dealing with those emotions in healthy ways. I’m so happy that a band like Future Teens exists. I’m jealous of the kid that hears Breakup Season this year and connects to it like I connected to The Upsides. Future Teens will be that kid’s first favorite band, the soundtrack to their formative years, their inspirations and role models. I keep likening this album to The Upsides, probably the single most influential album on my past ten years. It feels like a torch-passing at the end of the decade, and it’s all the more apt because I saw Future Teens open for the Wonder Years in October.
The rest of my list feels as varied as my year, spanning genre and scope from emo debuts to the biggest pop artist in the world. As always, I think there’s a lot to love on this list, so pick something and give it a spin.
Future Teens - Breakup Season
Charly Bliss - Young Enough
Pedro the Lion - Phoenix
The Menzingers - Hello Exile
The Mountain Goats - In League With Dragons
Jimmy Eat World - Surviving
Taylor Swift - Lover
Origami Angel - Somewhere City
The Get Up Kids - Problems
Telethon - Hard Pop
Proper. - I Spent the Winter Writing Songs About Getting Better
Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties - Routine Maintenance
Ceres - We Are a Team
Oso Oso - Basking In the Glow
Better Oblivion Community Center - Better Oblivion Community Center
The Dangerous Summer - Mother Nature
Somos - Prison On a Hill
Dave Hause - Kick
American Football - LP3
Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars
Junius Paul - Ism
The Maine - You Are OK
Nervus - Tough Crowd
Great Grandpa - Four of Arrows
Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride
My Favorite EPs of 2019
Better Love - All I Ever Wanted Is To Be Where You Are
Mineral - One Day When We Are Young
Ruston Kelly - Dirt Emo, Volume 1
Rat Tally - When You Wake Up
Bosley Jr - No More
My Favorite Songs of 2019
Here’s a playlist on Apple Music and Spotify of songs I loved this year. It’s vaguely in order (at least the top ten or so).
My Favorite Shows of 2019
I went to 63 shows this year, 35 of which I played. Here were my favorites. These were all great, but the John K. Samson show is a contender for my all-time favorite performance. He doesn’t tour much, so make it a priority to see him if you have the chance.
John K. Samson and Christine Fellows - 11/23 at Beat Kitchen
The Wonder Years, Future Teens - 10/20 at Metro
Ruston Kelly - 11/1 at Thalia Hall
Mineral - 1/24 at Lincoln Hall
Pedro the Lion - 5/18 at The Castle Theater
Jacob Sigman, Jetty Bones - 3/29 at Beat Kitchen
The Sidekicks, Adult Mom - 7/7 at Subterranean
Spanish Love Songs - 5/19 at Cobra Lounge
Los Campesinos! - 7/6 at West Fest
We Were Promised Jetpacks - 7/13 at Bottom Lounge
My Favorite Podcasts of 2019
Two Headed Girl is the best new podcast I listened to this year. It’s a chronicle of gender dysphoria, transitioning, and marriage. Hosts Alex and Matthew Cox are unflinching in their honesty with each other about their lives, health, and feelings. It’s kind of amazing that they recorded all of this and are willing to share such a personal journey with the world.
Elsewhere in the podcast world, two of my favorite long-running podcasts hit new highs in 2019. On episode 102 of Reconcilable Differences, “Preparing the Way,” John Siracusa buys a refrigerator. The two-hour chronicle of this harrowing adventure is everything I love about the podcast format. And The Watch, Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald’s twice weekly talk about movies and TV, transitioned from purely critique to a behind the scenes look at making a TV show as Andy called in from the set and editing room of his upcoming show, Briarpatch.
Finally, I’ll recommend Michael Lewis’s Against the Rules, a meticulously researched exploration of societal rules and the people who make and enforce them. Unlike the long-running conversational shows I typically like, the tight format and high production value make Against the Rules feel more like an audio book.
My Favorite Books of 2019
As usual, I read very few new releases this year, but the few I did read were fantastic: Hanif Abdurraqib’s latest poetry collection, A Fortune For Your Disaster, Mark Z. Danielewski’s children’s book for all ages, The Little Blue Kite, and Mischa Pearlman’s One Day When We Are Young, a retrospective on the emo band Mineral and a companion piece to their first new music in over twenty years.
The best book I read this year, regardless of release date, was The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.
My Favorite Television of 2019
I started 2019 with the vague goal of “keeping up” with TV, but I quickly realized that’s impossible. There’s just too much great TV. With that in mind, I just want to highlight a few of my favorite shows of the year, all remarkable for very different reasons, which also happen to be short and digestible.
Fleabag - Season 2
A tour de force of emotion and energy, every episode left me thinking that writer / producer / star Phoebe Waller-Bridge might be the most talented person alive.
Watchmen
Every frame of this show is immaculate. I’m a longtime defender of the endings of Lost and The Leftovers so I had confidence in Damon Lindelof and his team to pull this sequel/remix, and my expectations were still far exceeded.
When They See Us
Ava Duvernay’s docu-drama about the Central Park Five is a heart-wrenching examination of injustice. The opening sequence alone is worth the price of a Netflix subscription.
Chernobyl
A different kind of bleak docu-drama, set on the opposite side of the world as When They See Us, Chernobyl is equal parts moving, gruesome, frustrating, and deeply sad.
And I can’t leave the TV section without giving a shout to Baby Yoda on The Mandalorian, constant cause of delighted squeals (both Liesi’s and mine) every time he’s on screen.
My Favorite Movies of 2019
As always, I'm very behind on movies at the end of year, but Knives Out is a masterpiece. 1. Knives Out 2. Marriage Story 3. The Irishman 4. Booksmart 5. Midsommar 6. The Report 7. Toy Story 4 8. Us 9. Dolemite Is My Name 10. High Life
Next Year
I haven’t made a formal new year’s resolution in quite a few years, but I do have some plans for 2020.
Pelafina will be releasing a new EP in the next couple months. More on that very soon.
The Long Way Home are deep in the process of recording our next album. That will hopefully be out later in the spring.
I didn’t make a single blog post this year, and I want to change that. I don’t have a clear structure in mind, but I just want to write more.
I’m going to listen to more jazz.
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October 2018 Book Roundup
This was maybe my weakest reading month this year, in terms of quantity--but it picked up towards the end! There were good books and meh books, but Anna-Marie McLemore’s Blanca and Roja was wonderful. If you haven’t tried any of her books--please do. This one was a beautiful fairy tale retelling full of magical realism and romance, while featuring LGBT+ and disabled characters. One of the best books I’ve read all year.
Siracusa by Delia Ephron. 2/5. A pair of married couples go on an Italian vacation together, where their internal strife builds to a boiling point. This is like... plot-wise, pretty much what you expect. But I’m fine with “expected” domestic thrillers... yet I hated this. The prose itself wasn’t bad, and there were themes that I enjoyed. But the male characters were the types of male characters where most of their pagetime is devoted to how much they hate women and how much they love tits, and that’s so boring. The women were more interesting, but why bother at that point?
Sadie by Courtney Summers. 4/5. After thirteen-year-old Mattie is found murdered, her sister--and caretaker in the wake of their drug addicted mother’s absence--Sadie goes missing. After their cases capture the attention of radio personality West McCray, Sadie and Mattie become the focus of a podcast, “The Girls”. As the podcast unfolds and West struggles to piece together the girls’ pasts and what drove Sadie’s disappearance, the story also follows Sadie’s journey, and the ghosts that haunt her. This is a sad one. Very sad. If you’re easily triggered, I recommend steering clear because the worst part about Sadie’s life is not the brutality we see, but the reality of what we know has happened. Summers is very restrained, and the horrid things that happen are not graphic, but... we know. Sadie’s love for her sister was extremely relatable for me as a reader--I’m the oldest of four, and my youngest sibling is a good bit younger than the rest of us, much like Mattie was a good bit younger than Sadie. It was a rough read, but very well-written. The ending didn’t really pack the punch I hoped for, but perhaps that was the point. Some stories don’t get to be wrapped up the way we want them to be.
The Corset by Laura Purcell. 4/5. In 19th century England, the privileged Dorothea visits women’s prisons, her interest in phrenology fueling her desire to examine the skulls of murderesses and uncover what makes them tick. Sixteen-year-old Ruth Butterham, about to go to trial for killing her mistress, sticks out for her youth and her plain simplicity. Yet she insists that she killed the lady of the house--with just her needle and thread. As Ruth tells Dorothea her tale, Dorothea begins to question her solid views on the nature of evil--and takes a second glance at those surrounding her. I love that Laura Purcell is giving us these Victorian chiller novels. Her writing style, her sense of description, gives everything a horrifying creepiness even when the gore isn’t on full display. (Though plenty of awful things happen in full view in The Corset, it isn’t quite as lurid as The Silent Companions.) There is a ton of tragedy in The Corset, and a lot of ambiguity in its ending. A bit more ambiguity than I’d like, to be honest? It didn’t pack quite the punch I think the rest of the story deserved. But it was still great, and I’d recommend Purcell to anyone--especially if you’re looking for spooky reads.
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White. 2/5. Frankenstein retold from the perspective of Elizabeth Lavenza, Victor’s foster sister and eventual wife. I wasn’t going to pick this up--but then I realized that Kiersten White wrote The Conqueror’s Saga, one of my favorite series ever. I just should have stuck with my gut. White writes well, but the first half of the book is sloooooow (where’s Victor + flashbacks basically sums it up) and because I was so bored, I couldn’t get invested in Elizabeth and Victor’s relationship. The toxicity of their borderline incestuous bond is really supposed to make this a great “mad love” kind of story. But no. You never even really get the sense that they were physically attracted to each other. And White should be able to do this well. One of the centerpieces of The Conqueror’s Saga was the love triangle between Lada, Radu, and Mehmed--and how Radu and Lada were both very drawn to Mehmed while loathing him. I think she got kind of caught up in the “fix it fic” aspects of a retelling, which--just don’t go there. I get it. Mary Shelley was amazing, but also a woman of her time who wrote a book in which the (somewhat) significant female characters get treated like garbage. Victor Frankenstein is The Worst. But everything was so transparent; you knew where the story was going at all times, and not because it was a retelling but because you knew EXACTLY where it would deviate. And the ending? RAAAAGE. Just a missed opportunity.
The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke. 2/5. Frey is one of the Boneless Mercies, women whose trade is death. She and her group deliver mercy killings upon request--and she’s tired of it. In order to break out of her role as a Mercy, Frey persuades her band to pursue a mysterious beast, embarking on a perilous journey that will endanger all of their lives. Tucholke’s prose is beautiful. Her idea here was amazing--a sort of take of Beowulf with women (and one guy, who was not at all what you’d expect). She was obviously inspired by Norse mythology, and the overall world and cultures presented are so compelling. The story? Is a lot of journeying. It’s very slow. I couldn’t get into it, no matter how hard I tried. It was really disappointing because so many components of this I loved, but the pacing just dragged and it seemed like the story was a stream of events via a road trip, which can be awesome but... the characters just didn’t play off of each other in a way that made me care. I’m not sure about how much of this was even the book, and how much was me not connecting with it--but is that my fault? I’m just left frustrated.
Blanca and Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore. 5/5. Blanca and Roja del Cisne are a part of a family with a terrible curse. The del Cisnes always have daughters--at least two. And one of those daughters is always taken by the swans and absorbed into their ranks. Blanca, sweet and light, and Roja, aggressive and resentful, have long worked to attempt to up-end the odds, neither one wanting to let go of the other. But the magic that controls the woods extends beyond the sisters’ curse, bringing two boys into Blanca and Roja’s predicament, and complicating their fates even further. This is McLemore at her best. The writing is beautiful, the romances are fantastic, the relationship between Blanca and Roja is heartbreaking and frustrating and everything it should be. McLemore also excels at writing authentic magical realism, pulling from her own experiences as a Latinx woman and injecting it into the lives of the del Cisne women. And as an added bonus, Page, Blanca’s love interest, is a nonbinary trans boy who uses varied pronouns and this is actually discussed on-page; and Barclay, Roja’s love interest, is adjusting to the loss of sight in one eye, and is a survivor of abuse. McLemore is so careful about how she treats these issues, without ever seeming preachy. This is a retelling of Snow White and Rose Red, one of my favorite fairy tales--and it’s my favorite McLemore book so far.
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Ronan Cormacain: “Social Distancing” of Emergency Legislation during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Ordinary legislation is different in its content and method of enactment from emergency legislation. But the risk is that the longer the Covid-19 pandemic continues, the less distinct these two types of law become, and that emergency legislation becomes the new normal. The structural solution proposed to this problem is “social distancing” of emergency legislation – that emergency laws are kept separate and distinct from ordinary laws. The more we conceive of them as abnormal, the more we maintain a gap between them and our ordinary laws, the easier it will be to dump emergency laws when the pandemic is over, and the less chance they will be used for illegitimate purposes. As Khakee put it
Emergency powers have virtually always implied limits on individual human rights and, while intended to secure the survival of the state, such extensive executive powers have not always secured the survival of democracy. In other words, the risk of an undermining of the state’s constitutional order, and in particular the role of parliament, the judiciary and other oversight bodies, always looms.
‘Ordinary’ legislation versus ‘Emergency’ legislation
The process for making ordinary legislation (in the UK at least) is generally slow and cumbersome by design. It involves policy development within Government, consultation with society and engagement with stakeholders leading, eventually, to a draft piece of legislation. The enactment phase is equally slow; an iterative process between legislature, government, expert witnesses, committees, lobbying groups and citizens. The content of ordinary legislation is occasionally radical, but rarely revolutionary.
By contrast, the process for making emergency legislation is characterised by break-neck speed through all stages of the policy development and enactment process. For example, the UK’s Coronavirus Act 2020 was introduced into Parliament on 19 March and had attained Royal Assent by 25 March. There is little to no time for citizen engagement, expert advice or parliamentary deliberation. Content wise, although some of it may make minor administrative tweaks, some of it is revolutionary. The pandemic creates actual lockdown rules – rules prohibiting people from leaving their homes, laws shutting down all but the most vital of businesses. These are laws that in ordinary times would never be countenanced.
Principles for making emergency legislation
Although law may be modified in a pandemic, the fundamental rule is that law still applies, even during emergencies. The key principles are that emergency measures must be necessary, proportionate, connected to the emergency and time-limited. These principles are present in the UK’s domestic legislation regulating emergencies generally and public health emergencies in particular. For example, see the conditions laid out in Part 2 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, Part 2A of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 as well as the Coronavirus Act 2020 itself. Similar protections and safeguards exist at the micro level of secondary legislation enforcing the lockdown rules and mandating the wearing of facemasks.
These same principles are reflected in international law. Both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights allow restrictions on rights where these are necessary for the protection of health. More specifically, Article 15 of the ECHR allows derogation from Convention rights, but only to the ‘extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation’. The Siracusa Principles state that limitations must pursue legitimate aims and be proportionate, no more restrictive than necessary, with notification of the period for which the emergency is proclaimed and derogations strictly time-limited. In assessing the Siracusa Principles, Abiola refers to an acknowledgement of the time-limited nature of the emergency with an emphasis on a return to the normal. From the political perspective, the European Parliament has a similar view, stating that emergency measures must be “in line with the rule of law, strictly proportionate to the exigencies of the situation, clearly related to the ongoing health crisis, limited in time and subjected to regular scrutiny”. Politically and legally, domestically and internationally, Government does not have a free hand to do whatever it wants during an emergency.
Social distancing of emergency legislation
I propose a framework of measures to reduce the risk of emergency legislation undermining the normal constitutional order. We need to reduce the risk of emergency measures infecting or contaminating the ordinary process and content of law making. This is to force a change in mind-set, a change in how we conceptualise emergency laws. By clearly differentiating them from ordinary laws, we force ourselves to think differently about them. We can do so by socially distancing emergency laws from ordinary laws. Emergency laws still apply, but we reduce the risk of them crossing over to mainstream law and contaminating ordinary law with their extraordinary provisions and practices. We do this structurally in how we design our emergency measures. This isn’t a complete answer to the problem of oppressive emergency laws, but it is one way to mitigate their effect and speed up the return to normal legislative practice. Set out below are several structural techniques for achieving this.
Structural technique 1 – the sunset clause
Emergency measures ought to be temporary. They should have a specified period of applicability, and that period ought to be short. Ackerman, writing in the context of an emergency brought on by terrorist attacks, stated that ‘defenders of freedom must consider a more hard-headed doctrine – one that allows short-term emergency measures but draws the line against permanent restrictions’. Emergency laws need a sunset clause – a clause in the legislation stating when the legislation ceases to have effect. This can be an automatic termination, or at least provide a trigger for the legislature to decide the termination date.
Structural technique 2 – self-contained and single legislative vehicle for emergency laws
Ordinary legislation works by accretion, by building layers of law on top of layers of law. The statute book is a coherent whole. But if the power to exercise emergency measures is contained in many different statutes, then it becomes increasingly difficult to keep those powers separate from ordinary laws. Beqiraj cites the Italian example of a multiplicity of sources of pandemic laws and states that this leads to “regulatory and legal chaos”. For this reason, emergency measures ought to be contained in a single legislative vehicle. They should all be sourced in the same place, all kept together and separate from ordinary powers. In order to scrutinise, control and ultimately repeal emergency powers, it is necessary to first know where they are.
Structural technique 3 – non-textual amendments
A textual amendment is a direct change to the wording of one statute by another statute, for instance, by adding, deleting or modifying the words of that other statute. The non-textual amendment doesn’t change the words of the ordinary law, it simply modifies how they are applied. The original wording is unchanged. Instead, a transparent slide is laid over it, causing it to work in a different way for now, but when the emergency is over, the slide is removed, and we automatically revert to the original version. There is no long-term damage to the integrity of the original law. Non-textual amendments are ideal for emergency laws.
Conclusion
Emergencies can be used as cover for profoundly damaging changes to the constitutional limits and restrictions on the exercise of governmental power. One way of guarding against these is to ensure that emergency legislation is conceptualised as an aberration, something which is separate and distinct from ordinary laws. One structural way to do this is to keep emergency law socially distant from ordinary law.
This blog post draws from the arguments published in “Keeping Covid-19 emergency legislation socially distant from ordinary legislation: principles for the structure of emergency legislation available” which is available here.
Dr Ronan Cormacain, Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law
(Suggested citation: R. Cormacain, ‘“Social Distancing” of Emergency Legislation during the Covid-19 Pandemic’, U.K. Const. L. Blog (10th July 2020) (available at https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/))
Ronan Cormacain: “Social Distancing” of Emergency Legislation during the Covid-19 Pandemic published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.weebly.com/
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