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[wildhoneyvalancy]

Commentary on Chapter 22 of The Blue Castle

“The next thing the Stirlings heard was that Valancy had been seen with Barney Snaith in a movie theatre in Port Lawrence and after it at supper in a Chinese restaurant there.”

I wonder if the problem is just her being with Snaith and her “scandalous” attire or do Stirlings have a problem with cinema and Chinese cuisine too?

“I’m going to the Port. Will you go there with me?”

His eyes were teasing and there was a bit of defiance in his voice.”

Barney absolutely heard the “I wouldn’t mind him kissing me” comment.

“They tore into and through Deerwood. Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles, taking a little air on the verandah, saw them whirl by in a cloud of dust and sought comfort in each other’s eyes.”

Amelia and Christine, under a tree, kissing 🎶🎶

“Valancy, who in some dim pre-existence had been afraid of a car, was hatless and her hair was blowing wildly round her face.”

Love that for her.

“A slave to moth-eaten traditions.”

I love this sentence.

“They went to the movie—Valancy had never been to a movie. And then, finding a nice hunger upon them, they went and had fried chicken—unbelievably delicious—in the Chinese restaurant. After which they rattled home again, leaving a devastating trail of scandal behind them.”

Best date.

“Mrs. Frederick gave up going to church altogether. She could not endure her friends’ pitying glances and questions. But Cousin Stickles went every Sunday. She said they had been given a cross to bear.”

Mrs. Frederick clearly only went to church for social reasons.

[dandelionsandderivatives]

“You should have been stricter with her when she was young,” said Uncle Benjamin. “I don’t see how I could have been,” said Mrs. Frederick—truthfully enough.

this line cracks me up every time I read this book

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

the supreme irony of orson scorson corson's virulent transmisogyny is that ender from enders game is like one of the most chillingly and accurately transmisogynized characters in all of science fiction

[xenasaur]

ohhhh yup. yeah. so that's why I liked that book so much as a kid. it was very easy to immerse myself in ender's world

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

if you take the explicit notion that is in the text that peter represents masculine power and aggression and valentine represents feminine love and nurturing, which the two of them discuss when making their decision to argue one another's viewpoints in the public sphere so as to temper each of their extremities, and you read that onto the notion that is again explicit in the text that ender, a "third" child who is illegal by birth and has only been permitted to be born in hopes that he can be the goldilocks child between his siblings' poles, is somehow the fusion of both of their natures, a quality which best qualifies ender out of anyone on earth to be sent to The Child Abuse Institute for Making Boys Into Weapons and trained through homosocial abuse to view genocidal violence toward an alien other as a game to be won, an experience which breaks him completely, it kinda just is like. bruh

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

fuck would estrogen have saved him, would estrogen have saved the buggers??? (what a name)

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

he is constantly wishing he was valentine and hating any part of himself that is peter. the most haunting line in the book, to me, which i can quote to this day from memory, was always after the brain implant which lets the military scientists monitor him is removed and he's ambushed (!) by a group of older boys (!!!) and he explicitly breaks the masculine code of fair fighting (!!!!!) by cheap shotting the ringleader and then stomping him on the ground, and once the fight is won and he gets away and he's completely sick with guilt and self hatred at having lashed out in violence, in his despair he says "I am just like Peter. Take my monitor away, and I am just like Peter."

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

my explicit goal in writing this post is to get it reblogged and spread so widely that orson scott card sees it and finally cracks her poisonous self hating little egg. it's never too late you wack bitch

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

everybody wants to fuck my run-on sentence that has like 8 clauses and is a 4 full inches tall on a screen

[quotespile]

“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.”

— Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

[omtai]

Hate how lighting a candle does wonders to my mood. Like wowwww. Grug like fire? Grug not sad anymore because Fire in Cave? Wow. Real predictable of Grug.

[flintandpyrite]

The problem with reading murder novels is that I always think I’m better than them. If I, through inaction, allowed my frenemy to die, surely I would not be consumed by guilt and self-doubt. Surely this is an illogical response to the situation. Surely I could just get on with my life, free of the thought of their last rattling breath. And then I realize I am exactly like them, and therefore I keep reading murder novels.

[kleinergeist]

After 9 months of work, my Oseberg tapestry sweater is complete!

This was my first sweater knitted in the round, first stranded colourwork project, and my first time steeking. It was definitely my most challenging project so far, and a lot of learning and research was involved. I used a colourwork chart created by the very talented Molly Gifford, which is available for free on Ravelry

For reference, this is one of the fragments uncovered from the gravesite:

Some scholars think that the Oseberg tapestry includes the earliest known artistic depiction of Odin's ravens, Huginn and Muninn. So I added them to the sleeves as a little Easter egg.

[crimeronan]

sometimes i have strong opinions but they're also so inane that halfway through writing a post i'll be like "yeah, this is Absolutely not worth the energy it's taking" and delete everything. but then the opinion is still in my head. and i still want to share it. so within five minutes i go "you know, i bet i can phrase it more succinctly this time" and anyway. you all see where this is going. sometimes i do this four times in a row before i give up on the specific inane opinion and instead write a vague post about the concept of opinions as if that'll satisfy the urge to post the entirety of my inner monologue online. may or may not be relevant to what you're reading right now. and now all our lives have been enriched. you're welcome

[jadwigaspeaks]

The fact that antisemites are using the word "noticing" and "noticing patterns" as dogwhistles is annoying because I do actually notice a lot of stuff, patterns included, and one of the most obvious patterns I've noticed to date is that all antisemitic rhetoric makes no sense if you think critically about it for 5 seconds. Often less

[jadwigaspeaks]

A TERF liked this post so I just want to clarify that another pattern I've noticed is the massive overlap between anti-trans rhetoric and antisemitic rhetoric

[minimushr00m]

the fact that the main criticism of If We Were Villains is the fact that the characters are one dimensional is crazy to me bc it shows that these people missed the entire point of the book. the characters are so immersed in the world of Shakespeare that they become the archetypes they acted as in the plays. they take part in the worst kind of method acting as they strive to be perfect. the whole story is centred around themes of losing yourself in an act. OFC THEY HAD NO DEPTH, THEY EACH STARTED AND ENDED THE STORY AS ONE THING AND ONE THING ONLY, THE SHAKESPERIAN ARCHETYPES THEY PLAYED. SOMEONE WENT TO JAIL OVER IT AND TWO PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE OF IT, THE PLOT OF JULIUS CAESAR PRETTY MUCH PLAYED OUT IN THEIR FUCKED UP LITTLE ARTS COLLEGE. OFC THEY'RE ONE DIMENSIONAL MY GOD.

anyways :D

[surayart]

If we were villains (by M. L. Rio) 🎭 Fanart by me, painted with Procreate

[flintandpyrite]

Finished reading if we were villains and tbh I really think there might be a good book in there. But somehow it’s weirdly too short? I think she easily could have filled another 150 pages with the last act which seemed crazy rushed to me. Also

Spoilers for a book from like 2017

The reveal felt extremely anemic to me? Like, if you’re going a The Secret History copy, why not commit? Make them all guilty!! Where is the incest? What was the point of having Wren there if she wasn’t having some kind of fucked up relationship with her cousin? Meredith should have been involved too. And Alexander. Justice for the only out gay character in the book please. He also deserves to do a little revenge motivated murder, as a treat.

I did love the gradual reveal of the James Oliver situation but as with TSH, the main character is entirely too bland and I just didn’t care about him at all. I think it would have been way more fun if the rest of them secretly disliked him and pinned the murder on him on purpose. There’s a much twistier meaner story in there somewhere and I wish she’d gone harder, or had more space to tell the story, or SOMETHING. I think this is one that might actually benefit from adaptation to film as was rumored this spring—not only will the Shakespeare dialogues land way harder in spoken word form, but I think l a story told half in hazy flashbacks could be much better. I do hope they change the ending though, what a wet fart. Alas.

[skullchicken]

If you have achieved something, please remember to observe a mandatory period of basking in the warm glow of your achievement like a lizard on a stone, lest you teach your brain that effort is futile, actually, because it didn't get to enjoy its happy chemicals, so, naturally, nothing good ever comes of trying. (And no, avoiding punishment is not a reward!)

I recommend, like, 5% of basking time in relation to whatever time you invested into achieving the thing minimum. And if you can't make your own bask, friend-brought is fine (= tell your friends!).

[thesweetnessofspring]

She was no longer unimportant, little, old maid Valancy Stirling. She was a woman, full of love and therefore rich and significant—justified to herself. Life was no longer empty and futile, and death could cheat her of nothing. Love had cast out her last fear.... Barney need never know it—though she would not in the least have minded his knowing. But she knew it and it made a tremendous difference to her. Just to love! She did not ask to be loved. It was rapture enough just to sit there beside him in silence, alone in the summer night in the white splendour of moonshine, with the wind blowing down on them out of the pine woods.

In the first chapter of the book club, I made a post about Valancy following the patriarchal idea that it should hurt her that a man has never desired her, making her an old maid.

Here, though, we see this flip on its head. Whereas before she "did not mind so much being an old maid" where she is not married, here Valancy is throwing off the patriarchal description altogether. It doesn't matter that she is just as unmarried and undesired (to her knowledge) as before. She is the one who has experienced love and desire for Barney. It is her own feelings, "justified to herself" which throws off any shame or hurt she has of being an unmarried, undesired woman.

We see this play out in her exchange with Olive as well. She fully admits to her cousin that Barney hasn't tried to kiss her, but she "wouldn't have minded if he had." It isn't shameful for her to admit that she's still undesired and that she would accept Barney if he had desired her, even without a proposal prior to make it all "proper" as the Stirlings would have wanted.

[amarguerite]

Yeah this is is so interesting— I don’t think I realized until today that an important part of Valancy’s coming to grips with desire is being so wholly unshaken by the desires of others for the first time in her life. What does Olive want? Irrelevant, it can’t move Valencey. Is it hurtful that yet another man doesn’t want her? Absolutely not. Her own desire is enough for her and I think— given that Valancy mentions she wasn’t sure she loved her own mother— it must have been a relief to her to know that she can love in the way that she wanted to.

[puppydogwithlargeeyes]

Chapter 21

What kind of owl laughs?—I guess maybe laughter applies to the bubbling hitch in their "who's" sometimes.

So the part about love.

"She was no longer unimportant, little, old maid Valancy Stirling. She was a woman, full of love and therefore rich and significant—justified to herself. Life was no longer empty, and death could cheat her of nothing. Love had cast out her last fear."

For all its romance, the phrasing here emphasizes all the harsh realities of the sentiment. Love as social capital, as escape from poverty. Love as the snare that creates a woman as she exists in the world; love as what binds a person with womanhood, binds her to a man.

At the same time, though, I can't help but think about Courtly Love Undressed by E. Jane Burns, which cites "Throwing Like a Girl" by Iris Marion Young in its third chapter. The ideas I'm bringing up are moreso Young's, but the Burns book was my real introduction to the politics of heterosexual romance, even if the book itself is tied up (sewed up?) in the laughably nonsequitur topic of French courtly love song in the High Middle Ages. It treats on the many ways women, fictional and real, utilize clothing—gifting it, sewing it, donning it—as ways to move into a the position of "amorous subject" rather than fetishized object or mirror for a man's desire. And I think about that a lot. I think about becoming a subject that experiences the world rather than an object to whom things happen.

Becoming a subject is empowering, but it is also humiliating, as is described in tales of courtly love. Male suitors are wretched. They are often described (or describe themselves) as trapped or wounded by their female lover who spurns them. But the woman remains disadvantaged by her lack of interiority: often she wounds or kills her amors by doing nothing at all but be beautiful.

(Obviously this isn't always the case, or else Courtly Love Undressed wouldn't exist lol)

I'm sure there are nuances to this. But I am starting to fashion myself as an "amorous subject" these days, as someone who experiences all this humiliation, but also as someone who experiences the pride of unselfish feeling, the real delight of living in a body. The joy of being a woman looking away from herself.

I want more than anything else to be loved and desired—but—isn't loving and desiring so much more fun, so much more fulfilling and exciting? It's hard work but it makes me feel like a person. It makes me feel real. And love is a complicated, political thing. Loving and otherwise feeling doesn't exist in a vacuum for anyone, and especially for women. But that subject position can be one facet of it, right?

[deemoyza]

#blue castle book club#the blue castle#oooh this is so interesting#valency like many other women#has been fashioned by her family and society into an object#and what is worse#a useless object no one wants#but she makes herself into a SUBJECT#she is the main actor of her own life#and suddenly it is not about#being acted upon#but acting#that is so interesting and really reshapes how I’m thinking about this early dynamic#I used to think it was realistic but kind of sad#Like Valencey was so unused to romance and had such low self-esteem/ self-worth#It simply didn’t occur to her that Barney could desire her#Let alone love her#Like there’s a point later on where she’s delighted that he even enjoys her company#But I think it’s actually critical that the focus is on what SHE wants#and not how she is wanted#Because her wanting is the driving force of the novel#the emphasis needs to be on her wanting and her desire#it’s how and why she reclaims her life and gives it meaning#Barney’s feelings are actually irrelevant to the larger point being made here about how opening herself up to wanting and love#is a radical act in and of itself for Valencey#and that’s an incredibly important thing to focus on in terms of her character growth (via @amarguerite)

[ceruleana]

project hail mary is a touching and poignant film that leaves you asking questions about humanity like, "wow what if all mainstream media was genuinely good" and "what if book adaptions actually gave a shit about the book in question" and "what if studios hired actors that could actually act, and then let them get a lil wacky with it"

[astriiformes]

#Don’t forget ‘what if puppetry was treated as a serious artform’ (via @specialagentartemis)

[dashcon]

How big is the ball pit area going to be?

I don’t know the exact dimensions right now, okay

[mayflame15]

[yo-its-matt]

world heritage post

[that-one-fat-guy-over-there]

Reading this post is like walking into a civil war reenactment only to realize you accidentally time travelled to the real civil War