#orciny

[fieryphrazes]

i don’t know why we don’t talk about The Face of an Honest Man all the time, literally every day of our lives, i think about it constantly

[lesbiampire]

why is no one hyping the city and the city? it’s based on a book by china mieville, is very dystopian with a really cool setting, is layered and political as fuck so tumblr should be eating it up, and apart from the main character literally EVERY OTHER important character is a woman! out of the two main women, one is poc and one is a lesbian! go read it! or watch the BBC adaptation because it’s all available on iplayer. don't sleep on this! trust in breach!

[jbk405]

The City & The City

I read The City and the City by China Mieville yesterday, the book my sister got me for my birthday last year from Barnes and Noble with their mystery packaging.

It's a very interesting story: It takes place in a not-precisely-defined southeastern European territory that is occupied by two cities in the same place.  The cities aren't side-by-side, they're actually in the same place: They claim different streets and buildings, sometimes even different rooms in the same building and different trees in a park, and govern them as independent territories.  People who live in one city have to "unsee" the other, they don't acknowledge the people and places that are "in" the other city unless they actually go to the other city: Travel to the border, get their passport stamped, go through customs, etc.  They might wind up literally back on the same street as they started, but now they don't see the city they came from.  Mail has to go through customs, phone calls go through an international exchange, etc.  One character recalls the time that a building next to his home caught on fire and he had to watch the story on the news, even though he could see the flames from his window.

An organization called the Breach enforces this separation, and will take you away if you so much as look at and acknowledge the person next to you on the street from the other city.

The rest of the world is, by all accounts, normal, and is either bemused or contemptful of this setup.

Besźel, where we are first introduced, is an economically stumbling ramshackle mess, while Ul Qoma, the other city, has a booming economy from an archaeology and technology boom despite being under an embargo from the United States.

The story opens with a murder and investigation by Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad in Besźel, who eventually has to go to Ul Qoma, and the investigation uncovers the possible existence of a third city.  Orciny, which most people dismiss as an urban legend or joke. A hidden city that is secretly controlling the other two, existing in territory that each city believes belongs to the other, influencing what happens to people and organizations alike.  Perhaps with advanced technology, maybe with magic, but certainly with unearthly control given what they can do...

The twist (SPOILERS, of course):

There is no third city.  There is no ancient conspiracy.  No magic or secret advanced technology (...probably. There are some archaeological questions that are never quite answered).  Just ordinary criminals (A corrupt city councilman, some right-wing nationalist street thugs, and a discredited archaeologist) running a smuggling operation to indulge what seems to be the whims of a foreign CEO who is poking some myths about ancient technology.  It's pretty much the behind-the-scenes story of Ancient Aliens if the show had never been officially granted access to some of the places they went, so they tricked some gullible college students into believing they were on to something real and had them smuggle artifacts for them.

The organization Breach, which does exist, doesn't have supernatural powers either. They're just your run-of-the-mill secret police, except that since they move "between" cities and everybody takes such pains to not notice people not in their city, that means that people literally don't notice them. Hence, they seem to be invisible. Their access to both Besźel and Ul Qoma information means that they know things which seem like magic to people living in one city or the other.

I wonder if there's going to be any kind of follow-up? 

[climbingliterature]

What a Secret Can Do

Image Source: https://ordinary-times.com/2019/11/10/sunday-morning-the-city-the-city/

I have concluded that China Mieville’s The City and The City has similarities as the film from 2019 titled Synchronic. I was thinking about this film the entire time I was reading this book and I couldn’t put my head around it, until the end. The secret city of Orciny is like Synchronic in the movie where Synchronic is an obscure thing that people do not understand. 

Looking at the city of Orciny, it is described in a way that society wouldn’t have the knowledge unless they were in these positions of power and authority to interact with the problems lying within the city. It’s described by Borlu when he is speaking with Corwi that “Orciny’s the third city. It’s between the other two. It’s in the disseni, disputed zones, places that Beszel thinks are UI Qoma’s and UI Qoma Beszel’s. When the old commune split, it didn’t split into two, it split into three. Orciny’s the secret city. It runs things” (50 via Kindle). When Borlu presents this idea to Corwi, explaining how Orciny as a city came about, we as the readers get to see that even these officials, detectives, and higher people understand how Orciny is in hiding from people in ways, it's not a common knowledge to people because of its secrecy.

Image Source: https://deadline.com/2019/10/jamie-dornan-anthony-mackie-

Within Synchronic, we also get this sense of secrecy. As two men in higher ranks of society being in emergency management, they are exposed to drugs and the real life of addition from both people and of their own people. Then, when they know of a new drug and it becomes a trend, but the side effects are in secret. Nobody knows what happens to those who use the drug. Society knows in this world of the trend, but not the consequences.  

 The primary common ground is:  

 #1: Orciny is in secret from the public; in the same way, Synchronic’s side effects are secret to the public including those who have lost somebody to the drug. Even though Orciny is not a real place and synchronic is a real drug, they are still equally hidden from public conversation.

 #2: Borlu is determined to get to the bottom of this and figure out how the first victim dies from being intertwined with Orciny; at the same time, one of the medics also is determined to figure out what is happening to people who take this drug even if consequences for him are involved.  

 #3: Yolanda is the victim that Borlu feels sorry for when she did no wrong and continues to fight for truth at least for her justice; likewise, there is a girl in Synchronic that becomes a victim and becomes the motivation for understanding how Synchronic works.  

 The key takeaways here are while there are similarities, they are very much their own story in respect to each author. The crossover moments seen and experienced from readers and viewers are meant to provoke thoughts on morality, truth, and what is kept from the public? Higher power and authority have access to things we don’t. Is this a good thing? Is it for our own good? Both stories leave us as the audience wondering if we are in the dark today, but if that’s okay.

[myepisodecalendar]

The City and The City Season 1 - Episode 3: Orciny AirDate: April 20th, 2018, 09:00 PM

[servantofclio]

silksieve replied to your post “I just went to the Cultural Exchange Center, and the description of...”

Isn't it amazing?! The cheery PR is just relentless. The krogan one in particular makes me crack up because it's so upbeat LIKE NO KROGAN EVER.

Let’s just not talk about the genophage or anything!

shadoedseptmbr replied to your post “I just went to the Cultural Exchange Center, and the description of...”

It's hilarious

I feel like Commander Shepard ports in from the afterlife just to give the whole thing two middle fingers.

thievinghippo replied to your post “I just went to the Cultural Exchange Center, and the description of...”

I'm still salty that the default for all the non-asari race VIs are male.

Yeahhhhhh -- the salarian one is vaguely ambiguous, I guess? But yeahhhhhh.

orciny replied to your post “I just went to the Cultural Exchange Center, and the description of...”

so far i honestly think the cultural centre propaganda is the best writing in the whole game

LOL, it certainly reveals their priorities. :P

[justgot1]

orciny replied to your post “I wish I were the sort of person who could keep doing their job well...”

I am exactly like this and wish I wasn't. I end up stuck in a cycle where I start slacking, and then people start to notice, and then my fear of inadequacy kicks in and it becomes a "project" to earn back people's trust, and then once it's there I start to get bored again. It is awful and I sympathize with you 200%

Yeah. :-/  There’s a reason why I rarely last in one job more than two years, and why my career trajectory has been firmly stuck in the lower-middle for a couple decades now.   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[swimmingtrunks]

orciny replied to your post “getting laid off from day job May 6th decides what the hell, time to...”

I'm so sorry. Do you have a Patreon? Have you ever considered one? 10/10 would support

I don’t right now. Thus far I haven’t felt like I’ve been making enough content to have something extra for people who donate? But maybe now that I’ll be spending more of my time doing creative work that will change! Thank you so much for the condolences and offer of support. It does mean a lot.