#the background commentaries are gold
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"Slay Dua... slay" just about sums it up
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what are your suggestions for starter poetry for people who dont have strong reading/analysis backgrounds
I've answered this a few times so I'm going to compile and expand them all into one post here.
I think if you haven't read much poetry before or aren't sure of your own tastes yet, then poetry anthologies are a great place to start: many of them will have a unifying theme so you can hone in based on a subject that interests you, or pick your way through something more general. I haven't read all of the ones below, but I have read most of them; the rest I came across in my own readings and added to my list either because I like the concept or am familiar with the editor(s) / their work:
Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (ed. Nick Astley) & Being Alive: The Sequel to Staying Alive (there's two more books in this series, but I'm recommending these two just because it's where I started)
The Rattlebag (ed. Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes)
The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (ed. Ilya Kaminsky & Susan Harris)
The Essential Haiku, Versions of Basho, Buson and Issa (ed. Robert Hass)
A Book of Luminous Things (ed. Czesław Miłosz )
Now and Then: The Poet's Choice Columns by Robert Hass (this may be a good place to start if you're also looking for commentary on the poems themselves)
Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World(ed. Pádraig Ó'Tuama)
African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song (ed. Kevin Young)
The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing (ed. Kevin Young)
Lifelines: Letters from Famous People about their Favourite Poems
The following lists are authors I love in one regard or another and is a small mix of different styles / time periods which I think are still fairly accessible regardless of what your reading background is! It's be no means exhaustice but hopefully it gives you even just a small glimpse of the range that's available so you can branch off and explore for yourself if any particular work speaks to you.
But in any case, for individual collections, I would try:
anything by Sara Teasdale
Devotions / Wild Geese / Felicity by Mary Oliver
Selected Poems and Prose by Christina Rossetti
Collected Poems by Langston Hughes
Where the Sidewalk Endsby Shel Silverstein
Morning Haiku by Sonia Sanchez
Revolutionary Letters, Diane di Prima
Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved by Gregory Orr
Rose: Poems by Li-Young Lee
A Red Cherry on a White-Tiled Floor / Barefoot Souls by Maram al-Masri
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky
Tell Me: Poems / What is This Thing Called Love? by Kim Addonizio
The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins (Billy Collins is THE go-to for accessible / beginner poetry in my view so I think any of his collections would probably do)
Crush by Richard Siken
Rapture / The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy
The War Works Hard by Dunya Mikhail
Selected Poems by Walt Whitman
View with a Grain of Sand by Wislawa Szymborska
Collected Poems by Vasko Popa
Under Milkwood by Dylan Thomas (this is a play, but Thomas is a poet and the language & structure is definitely poetic to me)
Bright Dead Things: Poems by Ada Limón
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire,
Nostalgia, My Enemy: Selected Poems by Saadi Youssef
As for individual poems:
“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
[Dear The Vatican] erasure poem by Pádraig Ó'Tuama // "The Pedagogy of Conflict"
"Good Bones" by Maggie Smith
"The Author Writes the First Draft of His Weddings Vows (An erasure of Virginia Woolf's suicide letter to her husband, Leonard)" by Hanif Abdurraqib
"I Can Tell You a Story" by Chuck Carlise
"The Sciences Sing a Lullabye" by Albert Goldbarth
"One Last Poem for Richard" by Sandra Cisneros
"We Lived Happily During the War" by Ilya Kaminsky
“I’m Explaining a Few Things”by Pablo Neruda
"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" //"Nothing Gold Can Stay"//"Out, Out--" by Robert Frost
"Tablets: I // II // III"by Dunya Mikhail
"What Were They Like?" by Denise Levertov
"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden,
"The Patience of Ordinary Things" by Pat Schneider
“I, too” // "The Negro Speaks of Rivers” // "Harlem” // “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes
“The Mower” // "The Trees" // "High Windows" by Philip Larkin
“The Leash” // “Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance” // "Downhearted" by Ada Limón
“The Flea” by John Donne
"The Last Rose of Summer" by Thomas Moore
"Beauty" // "Please don't" // "How it Adds Up" by Tony Hoagland
“My Friend Yeshi” by Alice Walker
"De Humanis Corporis Fabrica"byJohn Burnside
“What Do Women Want?” // “For Desire” // "Stolen Moments" // "The Numbers" by Kim Addonizio
“Hummingbird” // "For Tess" by Raymond Carver
"The Two-Headed Calf" by Laura Gilpin
“Bleecker Street, Summer” by Derek Walcott
“Dirge Without Music” // "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
“Digging” // “Mid-Term Break” // “The Rain Stick” // "Blackberry Picking" // "Twice Shy" by Seamus Heaney
“Dulce Et Decorum Est”by Wilfred Owen
“Notes from a Nonexistent Himalayan Expedition”by Wislawa Szymborska
"Hour" //"Medusa" byCarol Ann Duffy
“The More Loving One” // “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden
“Small Kindnesses” // "Feeding the Worms" by Danusha Laméris
"Down by the Salley Gardens” // “The Stolen Child” by W.B. Yeats
"The Thing Is" by Ellen Bass
"The Last Love Letter from an Entymologist" by Jared Singer
"[i like my body when it is with your]" by e.e. cummings
"Try to Praise the Mutilated World" by Adam Zagajewski
"The Cinnamon Peeler" by Michael Ondaatje
"Last Night I Dreamed I Made Myself" by Paige Lewis
"A Dream Within a Dream" // "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (highly recommend reading the last one out loud or listening to it recited)
"Ars Poetica?" // "Encounter" // "A Song on the End of the World"by Czeslaw Milosz
"Wandering Around an Albequerque Airport Terminal” // "Two Countries” // "Kindness” by Naoimi Shihab Nye
"Slow Dance” by Matthew Dickman
"The Archipelago of Kisses" // "The Quiet World" by Jeffrey McDaniel
"Mimesis" by Fady Joudah
"The Great Fires" // "The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart" // "Failing and Flying" by Jack Gilbert
"The Mermaid" // "Virtuosi" by Lisel Mueller
"Macrophobia (Fear of Waiting)" by Jamaal May
"Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong" by Ocean Vuong
"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou
I would also recommend spending some times with essays, interviews, or other non-fiction, creative or otherwise (especially by other poets) if you want to broaden and improve how you read poetry; they can help give you a wider idea of the landscape behind and beyond the actual poems themselves, or even just let you acquaint yourself with how particular writers see and describe things in the world around them. The following are some of my favourites:
Upstream: Essays by Mary Oliver
"Theory and Play of the Duende" by Federico García Lorca
"The White Bird" and "Some Notes on Song" by John Berger
In That Great River: A Notebook by Anna Kamienska
A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
"Of Strangeness That Wakes Us" and "Still Dancing: An Interview with Ilya Kaminsky" by Ilya Kaminsky
"The Sentence is a Lonely Place" by Garielle Lutz
Still Life with Oysters and Lemon by Mark Doty
Paris, When It's Naked by Etel Adnan
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A tentative and not-so-short rundown of The Reunion 24/01/18 opening night. Ramin & Hadley centric.
Act 1
There's scripted talking in between the first few songs to introduce everyone. I say scripted because there are Chinese subtitles on the side screens.
Man of La Mancha: Ramin+Earl
Earl did the squeaky Sancho voice he was hilarious
I've Decided to Marry You: Hadley+Natalie+Holly
Holly is so sweet I'm officially a fan
Hard to Speak My Heart: Hadley's solo
This is Hadley's only solo, honestly, I'm a bit disappointed BUT he nailed it as always, what can I say the man is perfect. Also, talk about aging like fine wine. He was in full suit & tie in Act 1, I was looking through binoculars & shaking he's so handsome.
What Baking Can Do: Samantha solo
Journey to the Past: Samantha's solo
I don't have much commentary for Sam because honestly, I think her brilliance is like. A given fact at this point. Everyone should just acknowledge that she's perfect. End of discussion.
Come What May
Evermore
For Good
My memory has failed me. I think Come What May was Samantha+Natalie+Holly. Evermore was Ramin+Holly. I'm not sure.
Love Finds You: Ramin+Holly+Natalie+Hadley+Earl
Much better than the meet&greet version. More put together. Although I think the band fucked up a bit at the end.
After this song there's a short POTO entr'acte. They had installed chandeliers on the stage so they were lowered for the next few songs.
Think of Me: Holly+Hadley
Holly is so sweet. Hadley ran up the stage to sing "Can it be Christine". Lots of screaming.
All I Ask of You: Hadley+Holly
I'm aware there are comments online about Hadley!Raoul being a bit mean/harsh/demanding/whatever, BUT this version. THIS VERSION. Hadley's voice was so soft and gentle, he was smiling and gazing at Holly the whole time. At the ending bit when Raoul & Christine were supposed to kiss, Hadley does a little bow and kisses the back of Holly's hand. THEY'RE SO CUTE I CAN'T TAKE IT. Although I'm kinda getting sibling/bestie vibes from them lol.
Music of the Night: Ramin's solo
Classic & perfect.
20 minutes intermission
Act 2
Into the Unknown: Samantha+Holly+Everyone else in the back
Holly did the "voice calling to Elsa" part, everyone else was harmonizing in the background. Such a powerful beginning to the second act. Again, Samantha, QUEEN.
Heart of Stone: Natalie
I was shocked in all the good ways, Natalie's voice was so powerful it was mind-blowing. The band fucked up big time here but she saved it, she's amazing.
Love Me Anyway: Ramin+Natalie+Hadley on guitar
This song is by Pink, I think, and the only song that's not from a musical. Hadley has a few bars of beautiful guitar solo right in the middle and I'm pretty sure Ramin & I were wearing the same expression.
There's a bit of talking at this point from Ramin and Hadley, improv & not scripted. I'm getting FTRR vibes, they're so relaxed and comfortable with each other. Ramin jokes about Hadley's first time singing AIAOY after the 25th anniversary, and Hadley goes: is this your first time singing MOTN? They laugh and Hadley hums that meme sound effect (idek how to describe it), Ramin *singing along*: "No." Oh I love these two.
The Other Side: Hadley+Ramin
Hadley as Barnum and Ramin as Philip, I mean, wait what? But it worked guys it worked. And Hadley's version, the way he lowers his voice... is actually really sexy? (the friend I went with: it's not talking business it's seduction) I'm so confused.
Who I'd Be: Hadley+Ramin+Holly
This trio is gold.
I'm All Alone: Hadley+Ramin+Earl
They made this song hilarious. Ramin and Hadley making funny faces behind Earl and talking quietly while Earl was getting bullied singing "I'm all alone" (Ramley in the back, with an eye roll and a shrug acting all exasperated: "Yeah. He's all alone")
Till I hear you sing: Ramin solo
KING. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BE NORMAL AFTER THIS?
I Dreamed a Dream: Natalie's solo
Again, Natalie has a resonating, powerful voice, and this song shows it.
Stars: Earl solo
How does he go from laughing and joking to full-on Javert mode in 5 seconds I will never fully understand. Amazed.
Heart full of love: Hadley+Holly
Another dream come true moment of hearing Hadley!Marius. If I'm honest this couldn't beat the 22-year-old Hadley version but again let's talk about aging like fine wine...
On My Own: Samantha
There was a suspended moment after "a world that's full of happiness that I have never known" & I'm pretty sure the entire room was collectively holding their breath. I don't think my words are ever going to be adequate to describe Sam's performance.
Bring Him Home: Ramin solo+Hadley on guitar
Them gazing at each other for 3 minutes. On the last note Ramin messed up a little, he turns to Hadley like "sos I fucked up" and Hadley takes his hand. During the meet&greet Hadley said Ramin was a bit sick so I guess he's not yet at his 100% (Last night Hadley was still coughing a bit as well, at stage door he was wearing two layers of jackets lol), but they're both looking (and sounding) much better.
One Day More: Everyone
Ramin as Enjolras. OMG. I think there's video online guys go see for yourselves.
Aaaand I think that's all.
#ramin karimloo#hadley fraser#earl carpenter#holly anne hull#natalie may paris#samantha barks#the reunion#the reunion beijing#ramley#also i wrote this on my way to the second performance please excuse any mistakes
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So I'm a pretty big LotR fan. And I'm a pretty big fan of the movies. No, they're not perfect, but they're a really good adaptation and a truly masterful work of cinematic art. I've grown pretty familiar with the movies over the past 23 years (@_@) - and not just the movies themselves, but I also love learning all about how they were made. I've watched all the way through all the bonus material in the Extended Editions at least five times (and some of the more fun bits way more times than that XD). I've even watched all three movies with the cast commentary.
But you know what I've never done, not even at the height of my obsession when I had way more free time than I do now? I've never watched the movies with the other commentaries. It looks like there are three more commentaries, with different groups of various people on the crew, and for some reason I never got around to listening through them. I can't for the life of me think why - maybe I thought I already knew everything they'd talk about? maybe I somehow thought it would be boring??? - but today that changes!
I'm going to just jot down the main things that stick out to me that I didn't know before. I've gleaned a lot of BTS information and stories about these movies from various sources, so I'm not sure how long this will be, but I'm sure there will be some new things that jump out at me.
From the FotR writer/director commentary with Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh:
There was a draft of the script where they didn't have a prologue, and all the information about Sauron and the Ring and Gollum and everything was going to be in that conversation between Frodo and Gandalf @_@ Can you imagine? I mean, yeah, it would be more like the book, but At What Cost? (At the cost of several memes and short attention spans, that's what.)
Peter Jackson says he doesn't like magic or wizards in movies. Um...sir? Why the heck are you making fantasy movies then???
The location where they shot the Ford of Bruinen was a real ford that was used during the gold rush in New Zealand! Because New Zealand had a gold rush around the same time as the one in the U.S.!
Hugo Weaving actually did the voice of Isildur when he claims the Ring and says, "No." I have...questions.
Peter Jackson says the journey through Moria is the best sequence in the book, and Fran and Philippa say it's the best-written chapter. Interesting! I don't know what I would point to as the best-written chapter of FotR; I don't think I've ever thought of that (though I might say some of the best descriptions in this book are in Rivendell).
They said they might redo the Gollum scene in Moria to make him look more like he does in TTT. Uhhh...it's been 23 years, guys, where's my remaster? XD
The Frodo-Gandalf conversation in Moria (the "all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us" conversation) was done with forced perspective??? I never realized that! I thought they just had Elijah sit a little lower than Ian so their eyelines would be right! They totally look like they're looking into each other's eyes, but they're not! :O
"Often in movies, that's a rare thing, to have shots in which nothing is real." - Oh, PJ, if you only knew what the state of things would be in two decades....
The scene of the Fellowship mourning Gandalf outside Moria was filmed before Ian McKellan had even arrived in New Zealand! :O So they were all mourning and reacting to the death of someone they probably weren't even sure what he looked like yet!
Sean Bean was apparently the only one of the primary actors who had any experience with a sword? Or at least he had the most experience. Viggo had to do the Weathertop fight scene on his first day, when he'd never touched a sword before @_@
In Boromir's death scene, the words sung by the chorus in the background is an Elvish translation of Faramir's line "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." ;A;
At one point, they were going to have Frodo fighting off an Uruk-Hai before he goes into the boat??? They even shot some of the footage?! Thankfully, they realized that was completely the wrong way to go about his end to this movie; it needed to be an emotional climax, not an action scene, and Frodo's victory is over his own doubts and the Ring's influence on him, when he grasps the Ring and marches forward to continue on his Quest, alone if need be. Thank goodness they realized that before it was too late.
SEAN ASTIN WAS NOT UNDERWATER IN THE SHOT OF HIM DROWNING WHAAAAAT MIND BLOWN
The shot of Boromir's boat going over the edge of the waterfall was actually footage of a barrel going over the Niagara Falls, and they just used CG to replace the barrel with the boat O.O
Fran Walsh: So Viggo's just put on Boromir's gauntlets...
Me, a nerd: Vambraces, actually.
#lord of the rings#lotr#peter jackson#philippa boyens#fran walsh#these might be a little slow coming in because i don't want to binge the movies three times in a row#but i WILL be going through all the commentaries besides the cast commentary which i've already heard
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now that I have finished watching All The Sharpe That There Is, we have made a Tier List of our Very Strong Opinions. behold.
further (condensed) commentary from yours truly and usual partner-in-crime @sailorpants under the readmore:
S: Eagle, Company, Battle
Eagle: 'the plot of this one makes sense,' 'it really does show (well!) that this was the first book,' 'one of the ones we rewatch,' 'a good episode of television!'
Company: 'Pete Postlethwaite is a great actor -- Hakeswill made me want to throw up,' 'the lads and also the horrors,' 'genuine emotions were elicited,' 'well-established team dynamic at this point'
Battle: 'bad men! good men! beautifulest ladies!,' 'if Perkins must die then at least he gets a really cool death and to be bridal-carried by Harper and mourned by everybody,' 'the fucked-up love square,' 'plot hangs together well,' 'this episode has the most women of any Sharpe episode: four,' 'I have watched this episode three times', 'these rewatches were with lust (for the beautifulest ladies)'
A: Enemy
Enemy: 'decently written,' 'all the lads are there,' 'type of enemy Hakeswill becomes isn't as compelling and the inconsistency brings down both his episodes,' 'egregious women-tossing,' 'it is cool that there are other women; however Sharpe would not do That,' 'French people allowed to be interesting as a treat,' 'Sharpe and Teresa SOULMATES quote [screams]'
B: Rifles, Honour, Sword, Siege, Waterloo
Rifles: 'bit of a rough start,' 'the first half is good and then it gets Weird... phobias of sorts are In There', 'TERESA!'
Honour: 'extremely cool fights in this one,' 'Ramona!!,' 'some of the best Chosen Men banter in the whole series,' 'fake-Sharpe's-death plotline is quite well done,' 'unfortunate nonsense'
Sword: 'epic Harris moments cannot earn this episode a better ranking,' 'good casting and the background characters are cool,' 'the Lass deserved much better than this episode gave her'
Siege: 'oh, the chemical warfare episode,' 'they've learned to workshop their plans since Honour,' 'made me believe that Sharpe and Jane's relationship could have worked out, 'plot hangs together well (rare in a Sharpe episode)'
Waterloo: 'the scale of it doesn't quite sit right,' 'pretty good episode,' 'Paul Bettany is uncanny and I don't like whatever it is is going on with him,' 'getting the gang back together for one last Lads Adventure!'
C: Regiment, Mission, Revenge, Justice, Challenge
Regiment: 'more time with the Chosen Men could have saved this,' 'Company was a better 'the army sucks' episode,' 'the wet soupy episode'
Mission: 'it takes me two minutes to remember what happens in this one whenever I think about it,' 'again epic Harris moments cannot save this episode,' 'quite a high SCUM score,' '[impact font] MARK STRONG'
Revenge: 'ehhhhhh,' 'Lucille's nail-gun is the only thing that is cool and fun,' 'weird vibes about it,' 'Ducos' Bond-villain stuff is needless escalation,' 'Frederickson's ending is fun'
Justice: 'he's a cop in this one,' 'don't like Hagman's mustache,' 'Jane plotline no good, '[from sailorpants] when I actually watch this one I'm gonna have THOUGHTS'
Challenge: 'would rank this higher but I do have receipts on the fact that I was having a Bad Time throughout,' 'Toby Stephens makes this worth watching,' 'almost everything else about it is bad,' 'high points in every SCUM category,' 'four whole named plot-relevant speaking-role-having women! haven't had that many since Battle!,' 'TOBY STEPHENS CUNTSERVACIOUS LITTLE OUTFITS'
D: Gold, Peril
Gold: 'we don't need to discuss why we are ranking it like this'
Peril: 'the secret good Peril that lives in my head is so cool but unfortunately it is not real,' 'they are trying to have Themes and it is not working,' 'casting director is now finding conventionally attractive men instead of weirdguys with interesting faces,' 'Daniel Deever should have his own entire show but unfortunately this is a show about Richard Sharpe (I would write about him so much if I felt that I could do him justice but therein lies the Research Pit)' 'most important point is that he has a locket with Antonia's picture but the rest I could take or leave and I will probably leave it'
#em is posting about sharpe#sharpe#<- we are feeling confident and silly so shall maintag this#for a bit of translation on our commentary the SCUM score is borrowed from the podcast kill james bond#stands for 'Smarm; Cultural insensitivity; Unprovoked violence; Misogyny' and it is a helpful tool when watching sharpe and yelling at it#(mostly for yelling at it)#kill james bond is a very good podcast which we highly recommend that you listen to#this post is kill richard sharpe which we hope will be a component of said podcast one day. but until then we have. This post I guess.
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The Witcher Netflix - 3x08 Episode Reaction
In season 3 of The Witcher Netflix we got our first look inside the Nilfgaardian Empire. I was taken by surprise because sometimes I think the show isn't subtle with certain things. Sometimes showing without telling. Or telling without showing in a way doesn't offer viewers enough information to understand the impact of a creative choice.
The glimpses we got of Nilfgaard are, in my opinion, a subtle bit of worldbuilding that doesn't lose its impact without showing too much or telling too little.
In the books Nilfgaard's culture and history, its military strategy--it's all pastiche from different historical empires. That is a hallmark of Sapko's style. I'm sure other people have spoken more definitively about that on tumblr and elsewhere. CDPR absorbed a lot of Roman Empire influences from the books for its own take for Nilfgaard.
And now we can see TWN's production is also picking up on that as well and going with Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) flavor.
So let me share a few screenshots from episode 3x08 that caught my eye. This is a mini-commentary with some thoughts, not a deep analysis.
We had this establishing shot of a Nilfgaardian city (which I'm presuming to be the capital). This looks like Constantinople to me.
A modern day photo of Constantinople ruins for comparison:
Next we have Emhyr with several men dressed in what comes off as very Eastern Orthodox-inspired vestments, right down to the monastic headwear (mitre, I think?). I'll leave more the in depth TWN and costume critical takedown to perseruna. But those hats definitely kept screaming Eastern Orthodoxy at me and making me circle back to Eastern Roman Empire.
And finally we have this scene of Francesca and Fringilla in the church. In all of my groupchats everyone was losing their mind about their conversation and heartbreak. But I was losing my mind over the fact that they were a) in a Nilfgaardian church or temple and b) this shot was framed in such a way to show us the statue of an ambiguous church figure in the background. Standing in between Fringilla and Francesca, no less.
I can't help but think this might be a statue of the Nilfgaardian Emperor who, in the books, is implied to be a prophet or important figure in the religious sphere.
"...Recently the main topic of preaching has been of a Saviour who will come from the south. From the south! From beyond the Yaruga!”
“The White Flame,” muttered Demavend. “White Chill will come to be, and after it the White Light. And then the world will be reborn through the White Flame and the White Queen… I’ve heard it, too. It’s a travesty of the prophecy of Ithlinne aep Aevenien, the elven seeress. I gave orders to catch one cleric who was going on about it in the Vengerberg market place and the torturer asked him politely and at length how much gold the prophet had received from Emhyr for doing it… But the preacher only prattled on about the White Flame and the White Queen… the same thing, to the very end.”
-Blood of Elves
(thank you to @akilah12902 for sourcing this quote for me when I was looking for help!)
This just reaffirms my thoughts that Fringilla and Francesca are arguing before a statue of Emhyr. A surprising amount of symbolism for this scene and show.
Anyway. This was my main takeaway from 3x08. It was nice to be pleasantly surprised by this.
#twn#twn season 3#witcher meta and thoughts#kuwdora's witcher screaming#not really screaming but i tagged all my other episode reactions under that so here i am i guess#blogdora#textpost
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Any chance you could explain the five poem references in the chorus of 山外? 👀👀👀
(I love love love ur tls and the accompanying notes for context/elaboration, you put so much thought and effort into them and it shows!! Just read ur tl of Hen Bie and cried ;-;)
i'll take any chance to obsess over classical chinese poetry so i'd be delighted to :D ty for finally giving me the motivation to flesh out my explanations of them in my translation bc i've been too lazy to do it before this, but also you might regret having asked me this by the time you finish reading this post lol
also i'm rly rly glad you liked my tl of henbie! the last line still gives me ulcers every time i think about it, it was so difficult 😭
anyway so 山外 chorus!! it has eight lines split into two stanzas and the first three lines of each stanza is a poetic reference which is absolutely insane to me?? lyricist大大 真是太佩服您了
the first line of both stanzas is 山外青山楼外楼 / beyond the mountains are yet more verdant mountains—beyond the towers are yet more towers. i translated it a bit more literally to get the parallel structure, but a more figurative translation might be something like an unending expanse of verdant mountains—the buildings stretch on for so long one cannot tell where they begin or end.
this line comes from the 七绝 / seven-character quatrain 《题临安邸》 / on the subject of the inns and residences in lin'an by song dynasty poet 林升 lin sheng. (note: 邸 here refers to an inn, but i've also translated it as residence to emphasise lin sheng's criticism of the government officials who have come, in his view, to visit lin'an in this poem.)
the poem goes something like this (aka, have yet another very rough tl):
山外青山楼外楼， / beyond the mountains are yet more verdant mountains—beyond the towers are yet more towers;
西湖歌舞几时休？ / at what hour will the singing and dancing on the western lake come to an end?
暖风熏得游人醉， / the fragrance wafting through the warm breeze sweeps the sight-seers into a drunken stupor;
直把杭州作汴州。 / they have simply taken hangzhou to be once-glorious bianzhou.
context! this poem was written after the fall of the (northern) song to the jurchen invaders. as the capital of the song dynasty, bianzhou (known today as kaifeng) was captured and sacked by the jurchen, and the song rulers who managed to escape fled to southern china, whereupon they made hangzhou the capital of the southern song. the emperor gaozong, the only one of the imperial house who wasn't in bianzhou at the time, took the throne in lin'an, which he favoured for being a 人间天堂 (paradise on earth, basically). the officials then proceeded to engage wantonly in song and dance—that is, in a life of degenerate extravagance and debauchery, and it got to the point where hangzhou was labelled a 销金锅 (lit. "a pot of melting gold"), which is now used to describe a place in which huge amounts of money and gold are frittered away. it was this exact attitude that this poem is criticising lol.
(i'm putting the rest under a read more because i am apparently incapable of shutting up)
the second line is 不如黄鹂鸣翠柳 / it cannot compare to the singing of golden orioles in jade-green willows. this line is adapted from the first line of the third (and most famous) of 杜甫 du fu's 《绝句四首》 / four quatrains: 两个黄鹂鸣翠柳 / two golden orioles sing in jade-green willows.
some background info on du fu because the guy is just ridiculous: he's known as one of the three greatest tang dynasty poets, aka the triumvirate 李杜白 lidubai, which stands for 李白 li bai, 杜甫 du fu, and 白居易 bai juyi. depending on who you ask, either he or li bai is the greatest classical chinese poet of all time. he's known as either the 诗圣 / poet-sage, for the way he engages with morality in his poetry, and also the 诗史 / poet-historian, because of his extant poetry (and it's a truly insane amount, btw, i mean, close to 1500, which is wild for a guy who lived in the 8th century), many were intended as political commentary and therefore indirectly shed light on the effects felt by the common people. anyway, he's also extremely notable for his range and technical excellence, because given just how many poems he wrote, it's kind of understandable that he ended up writing in all the poetic forms available to him at the time. but also wow.
the most incredible part to me about him is that he specialised in 律诗 / regulated verse (about two-thirds of his extant poetry is in this form) which is. holy shit. this form is incredibly demanding, and it's absolutely astounding just how easy du fu makes it look. i won't get into it here because i've already rambled enough about him, but if you watched shl, part of his poem 《登高》 / climbing the heights, which is one of the best existing examples of 律诗 out there, was quoted in the lyrics for 天涯客, and i explain it in the footnotes of my translation.
anyway, onto the actual poem! the context is that it was written after the an-shi rebellion was quelled; coincidentally, it was this exact rebellion that greatly influenced du fu's writing. after learning that his good friend yan wu, the governor-general of chengdu, had returned to his post, du fu too returned to his home in chengdu in great spirits. upon seeing the fresh and vivid spring scenery, he was seized by the impulse to compose a poem about it. the reason it's just named 绝句 / quatrains is because he didn't think of a title before writing it and was too lazy to come up with one afterwards (mood).
the couplet that's quoted also uses parallelism, btw. specifically:
两、一 -> number
个、行 -> measure word
黄、白 -> adjective: colour
鹂、鹭 -> noun: type of bird
鸣、上 -> verb
翠、青 -> adjective: colour
柳、天 -> noun: nature
(yeah he writes like that. constantly. how, you ask? excellent question, i don't know either.)
anyway, the full poem, as roughly translated by me:
两个黄鹂鸣翠柳， / two golden orioles sing in jade-green willows;
一行白鹭上青天。 / a line of white herons rise into the blue skies.
窗含西岭千秋雪， / within the window—snow atop the western ridges, gathered over a thousand autumns;
门泊东吴万里船。 / outside the door—vessels in anchorage, come ten thousand miles from eastern wu.
and now, finally, the third line! this one isn't a line from a poem, but the title of one: 春江花月夜 by tang dynasty poet 张若虚 zhang ruoxu, which i've translated as flowers by the spring river on a moonlit night. i won't be translating the full poem because it's incredibly long and this post is long enough as is, but it's gorgeous. it was praised by the poet 闻一多 wen yiduo as being 诗中的诗，顶峰上的顶峰 / the poem of poems, the pinnacle of pinnacles, and is also considered to have 压全唐 / surpassed the entirety of the tang [in poetry], which is insane considering just how many incredible poems/poets came out of the tang dynasty, aka the literal golden age of chinese poetry (if you recall, 李杜白 lidubai were all tang dynasty poets).
this is a 宫体诗 / palace-style poem, and each character in the title is described in great detail: 春 / spring, for the gentle and exquisite spring; 江 / river, for the winding and flowing river; 花 / flowers, for the hazy but resplendent flowers; 月 / moon, for the glow of the distant moon reflected in water; and 夜 / night, for the tranquil and melancholic night.
other than the scenery, this poem also explores the enigmas of the universe and human existence—specifically, how although each of our lives are short and limited, the existence of humanity as a whole stretches on unendingly, much like the bright moon that rises over the river day after day. it then goes on to describe the yearning of a wife for her travelling husband (fun fact: he's travelling by boat on the river), and the last line in particular is very, well. it's very li lianhua-core, shall we say? 不知乘月几人归，落月摇情满江树。 / i know not how many will return with the moonlight; the falling moon sways with the sorrow of parting, spilling it over the riverside trees. yeah. :)
next up is a quote from tang dynasty poet 王勃 wang bo, who wrote one of my absolute favourite couplets of all time, it literally rewrote my brain chemistry omg: 海内存知己，天涯若比邻。 / as long as there remains someone who knows me within the four oceans, we will be as neighbours even at the edges of the earth. (i definitely shoved it in here bc it's relevant to this post since zeng shunxi quoted it in his farewell letter to fang duobing and absolutely not bc i just wanted to :D)
anyway the ACTUAL quote is 物换星移几度秋 / landscapes change and stars shift—how many autumns have passed? it comes from the poem 《滕王阁诗》 / prince teng's pavilion: a poem, which is considered a founding piece of tang literature. in days of yore, this pavilion was constructed by prince teng, son of the tang emperor gaozu, and was often used by him to host great feasts and guests, but now that he's now long gone, the only thing left is the empty expanse of river water that flows beneath the railings. basically, it laments the ephemeral prosperity and declines of human life, particularly when contrasted against the perpetuity of the universe.
and now, at long last, the final poetic reference! the line in question is 举杯销愁愁更愁 / raise a cup to drown your sorrows, but the sorrows only worsen, which, apart from referencing a classical poem, also links back to a very similar line from the opening theme 就在江湖之上 / at the pinnacle of the jianghu: 千杯不醉入愁肠 / a thousand cups of wine lead not to intoxication but despair.
as for the poem, this one comes from 李白 li bai, the man the legend the icon himself, poet-drunkard-swordsman-hermit-he of the multiple moon and wine poems (although that pretty much describes all of classical chinese poetry so, eh). i only know three (five?) chinese poems by heart in their entirety and one of them is by this guy (静夜思, bc every cn diaspora kid learns that growing up).
this particular poem, 《宣州谢朓楼饯别校书叔云》 / ascending xie tiao's pavilion in xuanzhou for a farewell repast with uncle yun of the imperial record-keepers, is a leavetaking poem (clearly), and opens with the lines 弃我去者，昨日之日不可留。乱我心者，今日之日多烦忧。 / yesterday, which has abandoned me, can no longer be pleaded with to stay. today, which upsets my heart, causes me much anxiety. then it takes a rapid one-eighty into describing the gorgeous scenery (长风万里送秋雁 / the great winds escort the wild geese through the autumn skies) and the noble aspirations being discussed while drinking their fill atop this tall pavilion. and then right after the couplet 俱怀逸兴壮思飞，欲上青天览明月 / all harbouring intrepid and grandiose thoughts, in our surging states of mind, we desire to leap into the blue skies and take the bright moon into our arms, the poem plummets once more into the abyss of misery at the realisation that these ideals/aspirations sharply conflict with reality. (remind you of someone?)
here's where the couplet this song quotes comes into play: 抽刀断水水更流，举杯消愁愁更愁。 / draw a blade to stem the flow of water, but the surge of water only gets fiercer; raise a cup to drown your sorrows, but the sorrows only worsen. it is at this moment that the poet decides, you know what, i'm going to retire to live in the jianghu. specifically, he says: 人生在世不称意，明朝散发弄扁舟。 / since life in this world is so incongruous with my desires, i may as well let my hair down and drift through the jianghu on a small boat. :) everything's about li lianhua here huh.
and there you have it! 2,222 words about all the poetic references (that i'm aware of) in 山外.
#mysterious lotus casebook#li lianhua#li xiangyi#fang duobing#di feisheng#tagging them bc i think this song is about liansanjiao#莲花楼#lhl#rui rambles#goddamn this is basically a whole essay alr#if you read this whole thing know that i am giving you a massive hug rn. or whatever else you prefer if you don't like hugs.#i'd like to thank my handy dandy book of 唐诗三百首 / three hundred tang poems for single-handedly carrying me through this pseudo-essay#couldn't have done it without you bestie
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Okay, confession time - as a non-USAmerican I have never watched Liberty's Kids. What is the deal with James and Sarah? What is their story? Europeans need to know!
Hmmm... how to summarize the pain...
Ok so quick overview, Sarah is sassy British gentry and starts out a loyalist. She comes over from Britian (15 YEARS OLD AND UNCHAPERONED, but I digress) to find her dad, who fucked off years ago to the Ohio wilderness ostensibly to find land for their family to settle in because land is cheap (no, their financial situation isn't explained,) but he's an easily distractable man and seems to keep forgetting he has a family. She takes up residence in Benjamin Franklin's print shop, because him and her mother are Best Buds, and this is where James is an apprentice and also lives. (There are alot of historical inaccuracies here as the shop had zero living space and Ben Franklin had sold the Pennsylvania Gazette and retired from printing before the 1770s and was in no way involved.)
James is a poor orphan colonist who manages to get an apprenticeship at Benjamin Franklin's print shop, which is wild and amazing in its own right. He's a tad goofy, smart but dumb, and a firebrand patriot, although his enthusiasm for rebellion and violence cools over the series. The show frequently uses him to make commentary about not letting your enthusiasm take over your mind, and not letting yourself be swayed into violence because of mob mentality. (But of course its an American show about the American Revolution that got released in 2002, a year after 9/11, so even though it does make a real genuine effort to be Fair And Balanced about the whole thing, patriotism can't help but worm its way in.)
Anyway, both of these teens are smart-but-dumb, sassy, hotheaded, and stubborn. Not only that, they are set up to be on opposite sides of the Revolution. Its the perfect formula for enemies-to-frenemies-to-lovers pipeline, and also coworkers-to-lovers pipeline, with a dash of Idiots in Love and a little bit of Forbidden Love vibes, and what eleven-year-old can resist? And honestly? Its frequently written that way.
Ok so I said there was pain.
Sarah had a gold locket she was gifted by her father. Its precious to her and reminds her of her father, who's been absent for years. (Are you picking up all the Dysfunctional Family vibes yet? Stick with me.) In the first episode, she unwittingly gets caught up in the Boston Tea Party shenanigans and loses the locket in the harbor. Its a Huge Fucking Deal, losing her only tangible connection to her dad and her life back in Britain.
In the second fucking episode (this is important to the Pain,) we get some backstory for James. Him and Sarah get to talking when she opens up about her dad and about losing the locket. James opens up and we learn he was orphaned as an infant when his parents died in a house fire from a lightning strike. A neighbor saved him, but eventually he ended up wandering the streets of Philadelphia when still a child. The only thing he has left of his family - of any family - is his mother's wedding ring, which he wears. Although they come from different backgrounds, he actively empathizes with Sarah's situation and tells her he understands what it means to put alot of emotional weight on an item like a ring or a locket.
(The second episode was the first one I ever watched and I went fucking FERAL at this scene.)
Anyway, at the end of the, and I remind you, SECOND FUCKING EPISODE, James makes the decision to melt down his mother's ring to make a replacement for Sarah's locket.
Please just let that sink in.
Is it sunk in yet? Allow me to go feral for a defining moment in my first experience shipping.
James melts down the only thing of actual value in his possession, and the only remnant of his family, in order to give Sarah a replacement for the locket that her deadbeat dad absent father gave her. The scene is very sweet. Sarah is genuinely elated. James is thrilled she likes it. He fucking. Puts it on her. When she finds out where they got the gold, she calls it the greatest gift she's ever received.
The SYMBOLISM HERE IS NOT VERY SUBTLE, is it??? The Found Family. The Healing. The coming together to make things Right. The Sacrifice. The Radiant Joy of Love.
Now, there are other moments throughout the series hinting that the two of them have crushes on each other, some more obvious than others ("I'm so happy I could kiss you!!!") but here comes the fucking PAIN.
They don't fucking get together in canon. Despite it being obvious that the writers had set them up to be a thing. I don't know if it was just infighting with the writers and the studio, or if there was some executive who decided that romance was silly, or if someone thought that romance wouldn't resonate with their target audience (children ship ALL THE TIME wtffff) but a grievous sin was committed that day and I have been burning with Bad Feels ever since.
Anyway that's why I spend so many hours trying to correct this error with silly, sometimes horny lineart.
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Untitled Wednesday Library Series, Part 123
I recently attended a gathering of several hundred librarians at which nametags were sorted by first name and lunch was held in the oldest, fanciest, book-cagiest reading room. I say so not because it's especially important — it isn't — but rather to communicate (1) a sense of profound social exhaustion and (2) some degree of low-stakes bemusement, neither of which I've yet gotten over.
Last week concerned Moore's 1970 Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy, which is basically quite important. This week steps back and to the side, but not away: Irving Lewis Horowitz's 1939 dissertation, The Metal Machining Trades in Philadelphia: An Occupational Survey, presented to the University of Pennsylvania in pursuant to a PhD in education.
The How
Like the Moore, this one is only on loan. Unlike the Moore, I wasn't looking for it; I happened to glimpse the title while scanning for another University of Pennsylvania dissertation at work. I'm not sure why the (very definitely non-UPenn) lending library had anything from UPenn at all, much less something this old and rarely used — it was checked out exactly once, to a C. M. Crawford on 12 Jan 1942 — but it seemed interesting enough.
The Text
Per Horowitz: 'The aim of this study is to provide information concerning the number, the nature, and requirements of the machine shop occupations in urban Philadelphia. The purpose of this information is primarily to aid in the guidance and training of youth in public schools.' To that end, he interviewed 172 individuals across as many firms in the city in 1938 and '39, crunched several decades of semiannual wage reports submitted to the Philadelphia Metal Manufacturer's Association, conducted observations of work conditions, and put together some extraordinarily tidy syntheses of his findings.
Much of the text proper summarizes numerical findings, so there's not much purchase for fancy prose or commentary. The structure is sufficient but not very intuitive; the occasional exposition about grinding or tool and die making or piece-work or set-up men is probably necessary but feels efficient only once or twice. Sometimes this works like a business brief, sometimes like a government one, and only at the beginning and end does it (to my much later, not-an-education-PhD-candidate eyes) feel most like a dissertation.
That someone could write such a thing, at such a time as the late 30s, in such a place as Philly, is fucking outrageous. Any amount of information about metalworking in that setting is, to a certain kind of person, as good as gold, especially given the sources involved. It is, of course, inescapably a product of those sources — racial disparities, when mentioned, are treated casually; women only incidentally labor; older workers are liabilities; military contracts lurk in the background but are never mentioned explicitly; geography is left to the imagination. No maps; no real demography; no worker surveys; few data we'd recognize as useful labor statistics.
The Object
Dissertation binding is easy to spot, by which I mean it's usually an afterthought. This one's boards are original and very, very sad. Crispy, really. The stitched self-adhesive strips connecting the text block and spine (which is hand-lettered backward to the American standard) are mostly intact, but only because of limited handling time. Thankfully the block itself is nearly pristine.
Tangential light still shows some very neat artifacts from printing — the heavily ruled lines around tables all left slight dents in the paper, and many of the borders were printed with either loose or slightly imperfectly cast blocks. None of this detracts from the quality and care the thing exudes. Tables and graphs this good AND this old might as well not exist, but here they are: perfect anyway.
In the third image, you can see the pressure artifacts coming through from the verso most clearly. In the fifth, note that the lower graph’s axes are identically numbered in different units — cents/hour and hours/week happen to have lined up nicely enough through those years to make scaling extra delicious. That plus the third one’s layout make me want to [REDACTED] the author, as @girlfriendsofthegalaxy put it, right on the [EXPUNGED].
The Why, Though?
As I said, Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy is basically quite important. This basically isn't at all, and may never have been. I don't know, but it is worth remembering that the trade schools Horowitz discusses are exactly the ones that would've trained the seasoned machinists and engineers employed by Moore Tool 30 years later. Whether anyone cared about this survey in particular isn't really knowable to me. It cites lots of local work, sure, and I bet certain people would've cared, but come on. 1939? In Philly? The Naval Yard was right there, and wartime production measures could've done any number of things to educational policies.
More importantly to us, please remember that the requisite data were taken down on paper and crunched on a slide rule. The graphs were drafted with pens and rulers, then printed in small batches at a college press using bespoke plates. Poor fucker interviewed 172 workshop and factory administrators before even writing. I hope he made that defense committee beg for his mercy.
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[ID: A new copy of the cover of The Shivadh Romances, V.1, featuring a lurid blue-and-orange cover with an orange star on the front, handwriting font for the title block, and a back cover full of book summaries.]
Making my way through the to-do list this morning...
I’ve fixed a handful of typos in the omnibus and cleaned up the cover; resized some of the text, brightened the background, color-adjusted the star. I’m still messing around with the front -- I might move the star around or replace it with something else, given all the other covers are based on emojis, but I think I’m going to keep the handwriting font for title/volume, I like the look of it. Enlarged the back matter, brightened the background, we’ll see how it looks in the second proof copy. Barring any disasters, the Omnibus will be available for sale, in 6x9 softcover and hardcover, on October 31st!
I’m hoping the day it goes up for sale I will also get to post a new and very slightly spooky short story, Cryptofauna Of The Shivadh North, in which Gregory and Eddie play matchmaker for a couple of Photogram cryptid hunters and also make some dick jokes. But that will require me finishing it in time and I’ve hit a bit of a wall, so we’ll see. If I can’t finish that one I will perhaps post “Gold Digger,” in which Jes is accused of grifting the King Emeritus, who is very amused by the idea.
Commentary welcome; bear in mind as someone for whom graphic design is a hobby and not a passion, there’s only so much I can do, but I’d like to hear peoples’ thoughts. I know it seems quite bright, but it will appear a bit darker in physical form, I’m finding. (To the art student -- I know it’s all still centered, I’m playing around with that but it just doesn’t look right any other way. This may be my own personal issues talking. :D)
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How to Rest Director's Commentary—Chapter 6
| Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 |
It’s here it’s here! The big finale!!!
This chapter is arguably my favorite of the whole fic (though choosing between them all is a bit like choosing a favorite child). It’s just so happy. It makes me so happy. It’s just so full of love, and I’m really excited to talk about it!
(spoiler warning for the entirety of How to Rest)
A couple of things happened to Caleb on the way home from the market.
Don’t ask me why I styled the opening sentence of this chapter after the Sondheim musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; I could not tell you. I have never seen it, I don’t know what it’s about, but I did spend my teenage years obsessed enough with musical theater to have heard its name floated about and I dunno I think it’s got a nice mouthfeel.
“A message from Zivan Margolin,” [Astrid] said. “Welcome to Soltryce Academy, Professor Widogast. We look forward to working with you this fall.” She paused for a long moment before continuing, her voice softer, more sincere. “Congratulations, old friend.”
Astrid is not Margolin’s messenger, but I think she would not be completely out of the loop regarding Caleb’s hiring, what with the historic connection between Soltryce Academy and the Archmage of Civil Influence, and would be able to work her way into being the one to tell Caleb of his hiring if she wanted. And I wanted her to because 1) I love her, and 2) I like giving Astrid a little space to be human and to try to have a friendly relationship with Caleb again. I wanted her to switch off her formal voice and replace it with a more genuine one. Because she took up Ikithon’s position almost immediately after removing herself from under his thumb, it is more than likely that she is still splitting herself in two, though at least she has more control over this situation than the last. But she is trying to be more than the Volstrucker Ikithon made her, and giving Caleb some good news and congratulating him on it is part of that journey.
And I know that 25 words—only 3 of which are actually her own—are not nearly enough to explore all of that, but she has been a background player in this fic and I wanted her to make an appearance and unfortunately, every time she comes up, I have so many thoughts about her. Here’s a post about that.
Essek stood in the living room, turned away. His hand rested on the back of the couch, and the edges of his travelling cloak rustled in the sudden shift of air. He looked over his shoulder at Caleb’s entrance. The early evening light shone over his nose and hair and cheekbone, casting the edges of him in gold. He smiled.
“Hello, Caleb Widogast.”
Look at that dramatic entrance! What an image he strikes!! Handsome boy!!!
But on a functional level, this is one of those visual tropes that I like in TV and movies, and I think it aids the pacing to have a moment to slow down and take in the scene—Essek’s clothing, the time of day, how recently he arrived—before they rush at each other. It adds a little drama, builds some anticipation, it’s a good time.
Caleb always prepared Unseen Servant on market days.
One fun part of this chapter was considering what magic Caleb might use in his day-to-day, and I thought that Unseen Servant would be great for a scrawny wizard who would like to put his groceries away quickly so he can get back to nerd business. Would that I could do the same.
As they moved through the narrow spaces between table and cupboard, they nudged past each other in with soft touches to backs and hips and shoulders, the routine of it hardly a thought while they chatted about what had happened since they had seen each other last.
More often than not, How to Rest is about the little intimacies and the ways in which Essek and Caleb are growing their lives around each other. Compare how monumental every little touch was in Chapter 1 to it being a passing mention here while they catch up and do chores. There is so much love in being comfortable with another person. Even though this chapter has other bigger moments of romantic love, moments like these are not to be discounted either.
He had a house that he had lived in for over a year now. He knew the quickest path to and from the market, which he took with little variation and without fear of being followed. He had a spell he used specifically to help him put groceries away.
Much of How to Rest is also about settling in, finding and creating peace within your life, because with that comes rest, which is what Caleb and Essek have been desperately in need of for years. Not just the kind that restores spells slots, but the kind that lets you breathe and live (hi my name is eve and i live up to its meaning)
For Caleb, I think rest is found in routines and rituals, in security, and in magic both awe-inspiring and completely ordinary. So that’s what I gave him. mwah. love you, buddy.
He knew which cupboard his oats belonged in and how to operate the Vault of Amber where he stored his milk so it wouldn’t spoil.
To the two commenters who independently needed to talk about Caleb keeping his milk in a Vault of Amber: I love you. I love you so much. It will never not make me laugh that—out of everything in this chapter—this line I wrote in about two seconds and didn’t think about again was enough to warrant two whole comments. It is genuinely so funny and delightful.
But to give you a breakdown of my thought process for this detail:
Vault of Amber has refrigeration properties.
It requires five pieces of amber that merge into one upon completion of the spell.
Bruh, can you imagine a refrigerator the size of a pebble???
His heart swelled with an emotion too big to breathe around. It was warm and light, and it ached, insisting that any distance from Essek was too far apart. Just in the other room wasn’t close enough; Caleb wanted to be near him for as long as their scant few hours would allow, to hold him and enjoy his company until he vanished into thin air once more.
Even though Caleb has accepted and made peace with their weird long distance relationship situation, it doesn’t fully remove the longing that comes with being apart or the intensity of the reuniting. And right now, Caleb is having a moment of realizing that despite the brevity of his visits, Essek has incorporated Caleb’s home and life into his own and that when Caleb said he wanted it to be a home base for Essek, Essek took that to heart. To put it into words a little earlier than Caleb does, right now he is feeling how much Essek loves him and how much he loves Essek, and it’s kind of a lot.
“Hello, dear,” he said.
“Hallo.”
Me when the wizards say hi: 🥺
Caleb nodded and dropped a kiss between Essek’s eyes, delighting in the way Essek laughed and squeezed them shut. He hoisted himself up and over the back of the couch and lowered himself onto the seat beside him.
It’s fun to write some playful, unserious moments for them, too. Silliness is essential to one’s health.
“It is well-earned. I am very happy for you. In fact, I have something for this very occasion.” He pulled away to reach into his component pouch, and with a flourish of his free hand, his arcane chest appeared at his feet. He opened it and pulled out a thick, square-shaped bundle wrapped in crepe paper and twine. He held it out to Caleb. “Here. This is for you.”
THE OUTFIT!!!! I thought harder about this outfit than I have about any outfit for anything I’ve written and probably anything I’ve drawn. Fashion is something I find very interesting when it is presented to me (Bernadette Banner’s youtube channel was one of my 2020 binges), but is not so much something I consider much of my own accord. But I wanted this outfit to have a lot of meaning. I wanted it to be built of things Essek picked up during his travels because he was thinking about him. Caleb mentioned once that he needed a new wardrobe for teaching and Essek took that on as a sidequest. I did a lot of research in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount and on the internet to find inspiration for what each piece would look like and where in Wildemount it would come from.
I wanted the textiles to be mostly wool, cotton, and linen, but with a few silk details. More practical fabrics because they are, well, practical. And Caleb is the son of farmers. But some silk because he is allowed to be a bit fancy. Everything is of extremely high quality. It is what he deserves.
I didn’t want it to be reds, maroons, and browns because while Caleb looks great in those colors, he has plenty of them already. Something cooler would contrast nicely with the reds in his hair and bring out the blue of his eyes.
So let’s break down each piece (in order of appearance, not of purchase):
…a coat made from a dark forest green tweed and lined with silk […] and dark brown trousers of the same make as the coat.
Both of these pieces were commissioned and purchased in Yrrosa, which is a town located in a snowy part of the Zemni Fields. With this information, I figured that it isn’t a wild assumption that they might raise sheep there and use their wool for textile. While it isn’t the richest town, it doesn’t seem to be exceedingly poor either, so I imagine that Essek was able to find a good tailor with some fine tweeds to make Caleb’s coat and trousers.
…a white linen shirt with traditional Zemnian whitework embroidery on the collar and cuffs.
The shirt was the first garment Essek purchased once he got the idea. After that first date, he went down to Feolinn and bought a plain white linen shirt to be a staple in Caleb’s wardrobe. Later, whether it was through Caleb or his own travels, Essek learned of the style of whitework embroidery practiced in more rural areas of the Zemni Fields and decided to have someone embroider the shirt with that style.
There wasn’t time to describe the whitework in detail, but I was inspired by Schwalm whitework, which is a style of embroidery that originated in the early 19th century in Germany. I think it is so so beautiful and I really wanted to include it somehow. Here is an article that gives you an overview of Schwalm whitework and some examples, and here is an image of a men’s shirt that helped me place the embroidery.
…a waistcoat made of rich purple brocade.
The waistcoat is from Nicodranas. The Menagerie Coast and the Concord were not involved in the War of Ash and Light, so I imagine Essek feels a bit freer to commission something with a bit of Dynasty flair here than anywhere else.
When Essek was in Nicodranas, I fancy the idea of him consulting with Veth (and maybe Jester if he catches her there?) about the gift, and Veth, knowing that Essek would have limited funds and always being willing to spend money on Caleb, decided to split the costs with Essek. Maybe she knows a good tailor in the city, or maybe she brought Essek to Marion to find one. Veth is probably the best chance at sneakily getting Caleb’s measurements, or at least getting them without suspicion.
I didn’t specify a design for the brocade, so nothing’s set in stone, but I think it could be fun if there were some geometric elements to it. Or even if it had the more naturalistic patterns most brocades seem to have, they could be grouped in a way that evokes a pentagonal shape, like the face of a dodecahedron.
…a set of bronze cufflinks with an intricately carved dodecahedron on each face. […] Caleb held it up to the light, and as he turned it, the metal suddenly seemed to turn purple and a rainbow of colors shimmered across its surface, like oil on top of water. He rolled the cufflink between his fingers and watched as the color shifted—gold to purple, purple to gold.
Gwardan, my beloved! An elvish city in a temperate area near the mountains and not far from the ocean with a unique and beautiful artistic tradition!! I need to go there!!!
I took some liberty with the description of steamcast metal, as it is only described as having a ‘prismatic shimmer’ and I needed more detail for how close and intimate the narration is during this section. So I thought about prisms refracting light and creating rainbows, then about rainbows in oil slicks and how metal reflects light and color and lenticular prints and iridescence. Then I decided on bronze because I think it’s a beautiful metal and purple because it is the best color.
Caleb shucked off his clothes and began changing right there in the living room. Essek shook his head and turned his gaze upwards. Caleb didn’t care if Essek saw him in his smallclothes, but he wouldn’t begrudge him his sense of modesty.
Essek is not embarrassed, per se. He would have had to get over that pretty quick during their wizards’ Aeor trip, what with close quarters, infrequent privacy, and relying on each other for medical care. It’s really nothing he hasn’t seen before.
But like, there’s a time and a place for getting undressed, and Essek doesn’t consider the middle of the living room one of them. And even if it were, what else is he supposed to do with his eyes? Close them? Stare? Awkward.
Essek was still paying attention; once Caleb had put on his new trousers and buttoned his shirt up halfway, Essek moved in front of him and placed his hands in the path of Caleb’s. Instead of moving on to the next button, Caleb’s hands alighted on Essek’s wrists and followed them up as Essek deftly and delicately fastened each button. He turned the collar down and smoothed the fabric over Caleb’s shoulders and down his arms, then took Caleb’s hands and lifted them to chest level. He tapped his index finger against the back of Caleb’s hand, and a box floated between them.
Bruh 🥺
The closeness and the intimacy. This section is almost the entire reason for the non-sexual intimacy tag because it’s just so—
It’s not what I think of as obviously romantic, but that’s what makes it romantic. If that makes sense? Maybe it’s not even romantic at all. It’s just comfortable. Content. Caring. But it’s still intense and meaningful, even if it doesn’t have the same heart-pounding excitement of their early relationship.
I have always loved the way writers, romance writers in particular, are able to slow down scenes and convey that feeling of tunnel vision that comes when you’re near someone you like. There has to be an attention to detail and a keen visualization that can be hard to achieve sometimes. You can’t fudge things or handwave them away like you might when the narration is quicker or more distant. Everything must feel deliberate but natural. It’s not always easy, but when it’s pulled off, it’s great. I’m very proud of the writing I did here.
“In the winter maybe, when the semester is over, we can go and celebrate. If it is safe for you, of course.”
Essek pressed a kiss to Caleb’s cheek. “I shall plan on it.”
Caleb is hedging around making a definitive plan, worried about pressuring Essek on accident and not wanting to set himself up for disappointment. But Essek is fully ready to make a plan because he knows where he’s going to be come winter and he’s dropping a little hint as to what his news might be (but Caleb doesn’t have any context for this and misses it.)
but I didn’t miss it >:)
readers, you must know that every time I do a little foreshadowing or allusion or implication, I am tapping my fingertips together and ehehe-ing like the least threatening cartoon villain. this is enrichment for me.
Caleb turned around and took a step back, holding his arms away from his sides to show off the whole outfit.
Modeling is a skill that Caleb does not possess.
Essek looked him over from head to toe, his mouth pressed into a line as he considered. When his eyes met Caleb’s again, his expression softened, and Caleb caught a glimpse of his lower lip caught against a sharp tooth. “You look very beautiful.”
Caleb’s breath caught, and heat crept from beneath his collar all the way up to his cheeks. He cleared his throat, glancing away for a moment to regain his composure.
Caleb was asking how the outfit looked on him, but instead Essek compliments his whole self, and it’s so unexpected and so flattering that Caleb bluescreens a little bit.
And if I am remembering correctly, this is the first time either of them have outwardly called the other beautiful, or any compliment of the like, even though they have thought it often. Essek has implied it, by complimenting his outfit in Chapter 1 and his hair and eyes in Chapter 3, but now he’s saying it directly and without shame. I don’t think Caleb is necessarily cognizant of of all that, but he has a subconscious understanding and definitely feels its impact.
“Archmage Becke has insinuated to me that Ludinus has become engaged in a new project that has diverted his attention away from me entirely.”
This is great news for Essek! Bad news for Exandria because Ludinus decided that the moon and killing the gods was more important than his former co-conspirator who’s hardly shown his face in the last two years.
I’m not sure if the timing works out (based on the little bit of digging I did just now, it doesn’t seem to), but I like to think that this is when Liliana showed up to the Ruby Vanguard and Ludinus’s plans really started to take shape. Uh-oh!
“For the time being, if I am careful, I am a free man. And I’ve grown rather tired of running from place to place.”
Essek: I’m tired.
The Avatar: The Last Airbender super fan sleeper agent in my head, activated: THEN YOU SHOULD REST. A MAN NEEDS HIS REST.
“So…” He trailed off, his eyes searching Caleb’s—eager still, but brimming with an unspoken question. “If you will have me, I would like to spend the time I have here. With you.”
Essek is excited and he knows Caleb will be excited, which is why he feels comfortable showing up unannounced with the intention to stay, but he is still exercising caution. He’s trying to gauge if this is still something Caleb wants now that he is presented with the reality of it. It is. He’s not guaranteeing that forever is a sure thing, but for now, for as long as possible, he can be here.
His vision was fixed on Essek, here in the living room with his back to the front door, as if he had just come home after a long day, and Caleb was sent reeling with the realization that maybe he had.
That’s right, a visual framing in this written medium!!! Positioning the POV so that the front door is behind Essek to reinforce the idea that he has come home.
“Welcome home, Essek.”
Essek’s eyes glistened. “It is good to be home, Caleb Widogast.”
HE’S HOME. THEY'RE HOME. TOGETHER! WITH EACH OTHER!!! I AM PUNCHING THE WALLS!!!
“I love you,” Essek said. “I hope you know that.”
Caleb stilled.
It was a held breath, finally released. The resolution of a chord.
I love you.
An expected ending—the natural transition into the next refrain, but no less beautiful for it.
I love you.
I love a music metaphor. I love music! You know when there’s a chord or a progression that has tension and you can hear how that should resolve? And then it does? That’s good stuff. And I thought it would be a good comparison to the feeling in this scene. As I said when I discussed Essek’s “oh” moment last chapter, I never intended for love to take either of them by surprise, but even so, it doesn’t lessen the impact of the realization. Good music can feel a lot like that. Like, of course that makes sense to the ear, but you still get chills or you gotta move your body because it resonates. Big fan of resonance. As a physical concept and as an emotional one.
The feeling had lain dormant for so long, but now, acknowledged and given a name, it bloomed throughout Caleb’s entire body and reached for the light that was Essek. He followed it forward, nuzzling Essek’s cheek, catching the corner of Essek’s lips with his own. “I love you,” he murmured.
Essek leaned into the touch. “And I love you.”
Caleb has loved Essek for a while now, but naming it and expressing it—and knowing that it is returned—he experiences it with more clarity. It’s not necessarily of a greater intensity than the moment near the start of the chapter, but it is a different experience of it. Instead of a longing ache or a yearning, he is filled with elation because Essek is in love with him and he is in love with Essek. He knows this now, and when he reaches for him, Essek will be there.
Essek was silent, his face still in a way that usually meant he was working through some new emotion. It occurred to Caleb that this was perhaps the first place Essek had had of his own, to do with as he pleased, since his towers in Rosohna. He stepped beside Essek and placed a hand between his shoulder blades. Essek took a deep breath.
“This is wonderful, Caleb. Thank you.”
My purpose in giving Essek his own room as opposed to sharing with Caleb was initially to keep continuity with On the Nature of Attraction, yes, but then I had to think about why I made that choice in the first place, and it’s more than just narrative convenience. Essek is a known introvert, and in my experience as an introvert (with a generous helping of neurodivergence that I dump onto Essek without specificity), having a place I can retreat to where I can decompress without the presence of other people, even people whom I like immensely, is beneficial to my health and well-being. I’m sure Caleb enjoys that privacy and would want Essek to have it as well.
Essek has been travelling from place to place for the better part of the last year, and prior to that, he was in charge of a very small outpost in the middle of nowhere. The lack of a place for himself and to himself is destabilizing. And with the fact that he must keep his identity secret everywhere he goes, there is a lot of importance in having a space that is not just where he can be alone, but that is representative of himself as well. I think that is key in making the house feel like Essek’s home too, not just Caleb’s.
“It is no Tower, but it is permanent, and it is safe, and it is yours.”
I decided against the Tower making an appearance in this last chapter for several reasons. First, there is the practical: a room being reliant on you casting a 7th level spell every day will be inconsistent. The Tower is a luxury that I’m sure Caleb uses often, but there may very well be days where he uses up his high level spell slots or wants to save them for emergencies and in those cases, it is worth it to have a real, physical space that he is comfortable in. This leads me to the second reason, which is that part of the point of Essek creating a home here is for consistency and the security that comes with that. Can he have that if he is relying on Caleb to create and design his space on a daily basis?
“Are you tutoring tomorrow?”
“I am.” A pit formed in his stomach.
“But you have only just gotten here. I can reschedule it, if you’d like.”
Essek shook his head. “No need. I will be here when you return.”
Here, that instinct to make Essek the absolute number one priority, to the detriment of everything else, crops up, an understandable reaction to Essek popping in without much notice or time to spare. But that’s not the case anymore. Caleb will see Essek when he wakes tomorrow and when comes home after work. And the same will happen tomorrow, and for as many days as they are able.
At the end of the hall, before splitting off into their separate rooms, they stopped. It was a scene that had played out dozens of times before, but now—instead of the pats on arms and short hugs of Aeor, or the bittersweet goodbyes before an indefinite separation—Caleb took Essek by the hand and pulled him close.
And here we are, bringing this story to a close by bringing it full circle. It is another parting, yes, but the angst of previous partings is gone. The separation is only a few feet and a couple hours. Lingering at the doorway is an indulgence they can freely partake in, without awkwardness or anxiety. They will go to bed and rest, safe in the knowledge that tomorrow, they will wake in a house that is theirs, where the person they love resides.
asldfaslkdjfljskdfjlk How to Rest, my most dearly beloved! It has been such a joy to work on over the last year and a half, and I’m just… really proud of it. I had to talk about it because writing and wizards excite me and I wanted to share that excitement.
Thank you all who have read the fic and read the commentaries. I hope it’s been a fun journey for you as well!
#last one last one!#i love this chapter! it's so fun!!!#we're tying the whole fic together!!!!!#and here's where I get to break down the ~outfit~#which was a big motivator for doing this whole director's commentary project ngl#shadowgast#caleb widogast#essek thelyss#long post#eve talks#eve’s writing#how to rest#how to rest director's commentary#chattering at birds
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gems from my poetry notebook
transcriptions [and some commentary] under the cut
concrete imagery bitch
i dont know anymore
could just remove instead of replace --> fuck it, remove these. no replacements
nah, original
draw on my 'wonderful daring feel for the erotic' for this part a little [a comment i received on an early draft of this collection i did for a class]
needs some better energy & shit
IMAGERY
okay maybe there's a lot i can work on
[screenshot from a comment i recieved] 'a great title for this poem. i so enjoyed the unapologetic eroticism and 'blasphemous' toying with religious iconography' [the poem was called 'blasphemy'. it was about fucking a girl in a church]
what is this??? you dumb bitch
do like, not sure will leave in for now
nah, no enjambment there --> maybe see how it looks --> yes enjambment
irony is the fact [redacted] only did photography for the art portfolio. it wasn't 'her thing'
valid, my beloved ['valid' was the first poem i performed, it is a very important poem to me]
def. not necessary
do not refer to your friends as twinks in work you're gonna publish please
what if it was a lot more like a cliche breakup poem? [this was a poem titled 'breaking up with god while coming out to him]
i don't wanna write this one anymore
[pencil drawing of a girl with an eyepatch covering her left eye and a sword strapped to her back, on a blue background with a gold boarder]
yo, what if i wrote a poem where it's literally ritualistic cannibalism? [this was a poem about my first communion called 'committing ritualistic cannibalism at the ripe age of eight'. i did end up writing a version called 'actually committing ritualistic cannibalism at the ripe age of eight'. google doc with both poems are available upon request]
#lohst.txt#there are so many poems in here that are just *covered* in red ink#where i basically just rewrote the entire thing
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I HAVE MADE MORE SEVIKA ART!
BEHOLD IT WITH YOUR EYES!!!
Say one word about the ugly curtains and I will do unspeakable things to you sdlkfjsldfjsdlkfjldsfjk.
Close ups and artist commentary beneath the cut!
God, I struggled on this one. I started this piece back in July of this year. It did spend some time sitting while I stared at it in a deep state of ennui, so it's not like I was actively working on it for *counts on fingers* three-ish months.
This is what I get for trying to make a whole fucking scene instead of just drawing a character with no background.
I am pleased with how everything came out, but I still have a lot of frustrations with this piece. A lot of the perspective is off, the floorboards got lost because I noodled with them too much and you can't erase marker, and the rug is just bad sldjfdslkfjldskfjdlskjf. Still, I had fun (mostly) doing it!
A close up of our lady! (The colors got really washed out on my phone, but the warm filter made everything too red, so *shrugs*.) I wanted to stick her in clothes and an environment that was a complete antithesis to her character -soft, feminine, opulent. The baby pink was my first choice, and while I don't regret it, I had second thoughts (after putting the color down, naturally) about picking green instead because of its association with money. I think baby pink, however, was the right choice in the end.
I went with body jewelry like I did for her formal look. However, I stuck with something less opulent this time because I wanted more focus to be on the lingerie and lace. The glove she's wearing was supposed to be sheer -like her stockings-because I thought it was cool, but it didn't translate well on paper, alas.
I was so excited to do her scars, but they got lost/muted in the shading/shadowing under her arm. I tried to use some acrylic paint to boost them up, but they uh... got too boosted sdlkfjdslfkjldskjflskjf.
Arm close up! I hated drawing and detailing this! There's a reason I hid her arm under a cape in the first piece I drew of her!
I didn't want to just draw her "pre-explosion," though, because there's a lot of prosthetic erasure in fandom (in general) already. The highlighted bits were done with metallic gold paint. Also pls appreciate the lil fiddly scenery details I worked very hard on them sdlfkjdslfkjdslfkjdslf.
Materials used: water and alcohol based markers, colored pencils, and acrylic paint for highlights and details.
Lessons learned: spend more time plotting the background before jumping into drawing the character dslfkjdslfkjdslkfj. Also, pick a color palette first.
Tagging @abitohoney and @sevikasleftpussyflap. Also, Professor Flap has requested that I draw something of Sevika spanking a Reader insert. I've never drawn NSFW art, so I don't know if I will, but it did make me think about what y'all would like to see. I can't promise I'll take every suggestion/request, but if you have ideas, feel free to send them my way and I'll see what I can do.
#excess wealth#sass draws#sevika#i love her so much#NO ONE SAY ANYTHING ABOUT MY UGLY CURTAINS THEY ARE MY CHILDREN AND I LOVE THEM#look it's commentary about how rich people buy super ugly shit just bc it's expensive and name brand and fancy#it's social commentary#IT'S TOTALLY INTENTIONAL#those curtains were the bane of my fucking existence#i had this piece 80% done in two weeks#and i spent the rest of those three months figuring out what pattern i wanted#on those fucking curtains#bC SOLID COLOR OR STRIPES ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH#WE MUST CHALLENGE OURSELVES#it's supposed to be like stained glass of budding flowers#that's why it's all segmented and colored blocked#the vase was a nightmare too#IDK PATTERNS AREN'T MY FORTE#I DRAW FACE AND TIDDES AND BICEPS#TF ELSE IS THERE#i used gold paint on the vase too bc i wanted it too look like that gold parts were done with gold leaf#the whole vibe is supposed to be
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Continued from [X]
He was starting to get comfortable around their mix of odd characters, learning the habits and routines of each of the party members. But man did Yuffie have an overfill of energy.
At first the teenager had irked him with her endless commentary and play-fighting and proclaiming of Wutai as an utter victim in this war. Having been close to the front lines, he had an opinion that might not please her, so Kunsel bit his tongue. A war took two sides, and whilst Shinra had definitely been the aggressor and instigator, there were atrocities on both sides.
Regardless, that didn't matter. He wasn't a SOLDIER now. He was a background member of this band of terrorists. And the weeks had taught him that Yuffie was just a kid vying for attention. Attention that mostly got overlooked.
"I can't believe you doubted me," Kunsel smirked as she grabbed the massive plush and he chose to ignore all of those horrendous puns. "- I was trained in advanced driving ... maybe sometime I'll teach you a few tricks on a bike, or a car." The roadcraft courses he'd completed covered a litany of vehicles; he could advance-drive bikes, cars, trucks and other ground vehicles, and rudimentary pilot copters. "- if you can keep your lunch down, that is." She got a teasing elbow with that comment.
The Gold Saucer thrummed with people and excitement and Kunsel looked around. The others in their group had all paired off, or wandered off to do their own thing, so Yuffie had been left sitting in the creepy hotel's lobby. "Come on master-ninja, what else you got planned? I'm at your service tonight."
@finalvii
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45 (because I love the world building you do and would love to hear about the process!)
45. How much world building do you do?
This depends entirely on the story! If it's within canon, I don't have to do much, which is the joy of fanfic.
Very generally, it's a matter of what is important to the narrative. So a story like A Man in Chaos in which Jim Kirk gets marooned on an alien planet and goes native - I did a shitton of worldbuilding work. I actually had a whole body language system for the aliens that required me to think about why we wave or shake hands (are we showing we're unarmed? how else can that be accomplished? what does this alien race consider an acknowledgement? how do they couple that greeting with a goodbye? we use the same gesture, do they?) or nod our heads and I'll be honest - it's been 13 years and I have forgotten all of it. i also had a literal map of the world at one point that explained the complexions and colorism of that particular alien race.
For a story like "adding on weight" it was a matter of thinking about why things are the way they are in canon - why is Jesper a Dreg? Because Kaz recruited him? Because the Dregs were already powerful by the time he needed protection? How can I twist him around to another gang if Kaz isn't there? - and adjusting timelines - Inej needed time to have her father die and then get to Ketterdam on her revenge quest, so I adjusted the slaver's raid timing to give me what I needed (and frantically texted @wheremermaidsdwell about MOTIVATION while she was recovering from a fucking stroke because she is my angel.) I also know far, far more than ever makes it into the story. You can read some of my DVD commentary for that story here and you'll find that a lot of little character moments are straight up cribbed from people I know.
A lot of it also comes from just... falling in love with my background characters in a way that will never matter once the story is done. There's a character in chapter 14 of Adding On Weight, one of the guards at the harbor, who I know a shitton about because I love her. I will never need to tell anyone anything about Dael and her little brother, but I know it, and that makes the character easier to write for me and deeper for the audience.
If you're thinking about things like my re-imagined traffic-light safeword system in Sharp Knife, Loaded Gun, well. The first SOC smut I ever read used the traffic light system and it pissed me right off. (Other SOC pet peeve? Plastic polymers. These people do not have mass produced plastics because they do not refine crude oil like we do.) So I spent time thinking about what was important to the the characters, and what they'd use to communicate "good" "okay" and "bad" in an easy way. Gold/Silver/Tin for Kaz was obvious. What I would do for anther character is in the air. Jesper (dending on where in his arc we are) might get something like Raise/Call/Fold and Wylan would probably choose muscal tempi for his words. But it could have been hot/warm/cold and it would have done the same.
I have no idea if this satisfies your desire to hear me pratter on about my process. The short answer is "I read a lot of fic and when something annoys me I want to fix it and then I get hyperfixated on things that do not matter."
(writers asks)
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44. Five Nights At Freddy's: The Silver Eyes, by Scott Cawthon and Kira Breed-Wrisley
Owned?: No, library
Page count:
My summary: Ten years ago, Charlie's friend Michael was killed at the pizzeria that was her father's baby. Now, she's returned to the town where she grew up for the memorial, alongside the friends she's since drifted apart from. But when they break into the abandoned Freddy's, it seems that the disappearances weren't buried with Michael and the other children. The animatronics are alive. And there's a killer on the loose…
My rating: 2.5/5
My commentary:
So, Five Nights at Freddy's. That sure is a game. The background to me reading this is that I watched the film with a friend not too long ago, and it was surprisingly good. That, plus an excellent video essay by NezumiVA, got me interested in FNaF lore, and I wanted to take the plunge and see what the books were like for myself. Now, don't get me wrong. FNaF is not necessarily a good game series - it's too bogged down in its own lore and mystery, and the ongoing narrative just becomes more and more convoluted with each installment. Plus, Scott Cawthon himself is a conservative Republican who has donated to the Republican party and is anti-choice. Screw him. Still, I find FNaF in and of itself to be an interesting case of an internet horror series, and the progenitor of the 'twisted children's mascot' style of survival horror game. I'd heard the books went some weird directions, so why not borrow them from the library? So without further ado - it's The Silver Eyes.
And how did I find it? Mostly, bland. To be expected, really. The thing about FNaF is that it does, in fact, work really well in the medium that it is in - that of a jumpscare-heavy suspenseful horror game. All of the lore is backstory and background that gets hinted at through the actual game And I'm talking about the first game here. A common criticism of FNaF as it develops is that it gets bogged down in creating new Twists And Turns and piling lore upon lore upon lore. You can't adapt FNaF as-is into a book; literary jumpscares aren't really a thing. So what we instead have is a standard horror/coming of age story. A seventeen year old returns to her hometown, a place tied up in family history, a place that still holds a lot of mysteries about her past. But surprise! The monster that plagued her childhood is still here, and now she has to defeat it! The narrative doesn't really deviate from this basic premise, which is…alright. Like, it's fine. Paint by numbers horror, but largely inoffensive.
There were three things that greatly annoyed me about this book, however, and I will complain about all of them in turn! One, there were too many characters. Charlie is accompanied by her friends John, Jessica, Carlton, Lamar, Marla, and Marla's little brother Jason. So that's seven characters to get to know, and half of them feel sidelined. I couldn't tell you the first thing about Lamar and Marla, Carlton is mostly just The Snarky One, and Jessica's not that much more fleshed out than John, who gets deuteragonist status by virtue of being Charlie's sort-of love interest. You could cut half of this cast and the narrative would not suffer even the tiniest bit. Add to them the secondary characters like Afton and Carlton's family and Henry Emily, and you've got way too many people to keep track of.
Second, there were so many choices in the story that weren't justified or fall apart with any sort of scrutiny. Charlie had a twin brother who was killed when they were small; somehow, she didn't know about this until now? Nobody mentioned it to her? Carlton's dad refuses to look for him after he goes missing in Freddy's and leaves it a full night on the flimsy premise that Carlton is probably just pulling a prank, which is just an artificial way to create peril that made no sense. But the gold medal for this goes to the killer himself, William Afton. See, in the first game, we don't need to know why Afton murdered a bunch of kids - that part is just backstory to the idea that the animatronics are haunted. But here, we have serial killer Afton who just loves snatching and killing kids…because? There's not even a basic excuse for his behaviour, I guess we're just supposed to understand that he's evil or something and not think any more about it. But at the end, when he kidnaps Carlton, he just puts him in a springlock suit and leaves him there, which of course means that Carlton later escapes. Other people, he just murders, but that day he decides not to? For…some reason? He has no motive, he just does things that are meant to be creepy, and that's it. No nuance. Which, again, can work when it's just backstory for a video game whose whole point is to avoid getting jumpscared. Not so in this sort of prose narrative.
And finally, not all that surprisingly for FNaF, the narrative just takes a left turn into copaganda in the middle. Carlton's dad, a police officer, expresses that they knew that Afton was responsible for the deaths, but they didn't have enough evidence to convict him so he got away with it. Well, specifically they say that they can't convict him without bodies, but there's been murder convictions without bodies before in real life? But anyway, the fact that the narrative validates this sort of opinion by having Afton be an evil murderer who murders evilly feeds into that copaganda viewpoint of 'if only police were allowed to be tougher then those evil murderers would stop walking free'. Basically advocating for a police state. It was baffling, I had to put the book down for a minute when I read it because it felt like Cawthon jumping onto a soapbox just to be conservative for a moment. Gross.
Next up, the life of a godkiller, and those she loves.
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