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"writhe." an erasure. original text by Z.
I suspect one of my friends has discovered fandom. She's summer-binging on Buffy, Angel, HIMYM, True Blood. It could all be a coincidence, of course, but it kind of reminds me of the time I searched for the Merlin DVDs on Amazon and the "Others who bought this item also bought" list included Torchwood, Dr. Who, Supernatural, and Smallville.
Anyway. The following is an erasure of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zempasuchil's Merlin OT4 fic, Rewriting the Old Language, which I loooove. Funny that we both ended up erasing each other's Merlin OT4 fics. It's not like we told each other beforehand which fic we were doing, but I guess the siren call of polyamory was just too great.
writhe
an erasure. original text by Z.
In short,
according to this
I will be here
after they are gone.
the very stones settle
and man shakes the earth, relieved
any lifted gaze can pass you by, can remember
and the face of the years will decide
She wasn't empty
she reared her head
her hands in everything
if magic is real There's no such thing as love
nothing like trust and knowing
she tries not to laugh
she’ll know the language
she’ll be around
"Do you know how?"
"I can figure it out."
somehow It's a veil torn away
father, father, take up the life he'd never known
he doesn't know a thing
you know how it works because
you built it yourself
never forget
no greater thing than earth confirmed
the hardest life and the simplest
real living; real work
he saw his own eyes
his heart, if not his father
the heartland, the earth, the sweat of his brow
the abstracts were their own lives
he could reach out beside him
below him
above
as strange as her dreams must be
something says, I don’t know how. There’s so much
trapped in buildings, in this city, in this country,
You’re right,
you’re right
it's all right
everything is all right
or changed.
she can beat him
It doesn't take much
suddenly "No,"
"Yes. you got your
little victory." But
he's already inside
all those years
do better, be better. victory hasn’t won her a thing.
to become something that she earned
she broke halfway between spitting and tears
it doesn't matter
walk down the street
Get something to drink
Look, this is how it is.
for years she explains
men and women, brothers and sisters,
you have to fight
that's the problem.
this strange new world held first the audience the wolf the open mouth
there is no invitation
but come anyway
sit
switch
avoid
there isn't much change
The threat is distant, the satellites unmarked,
the stars without a war fought in the right direction.
forget them. bring them up
get quietly angry because there's nothing he can do
he's only the son, only the father and
just the nation, enough to serve and protect
every word demands a continuation of tradition.
these accidents without casualties
these lines as simple as closing the door
it's not criminal
but from the start, he knows
keep above the tide
More is not the solution
less is not the solution
she's been part of the revolution
long enough to change
long enough to turn the tables. She says, Every chain link cracked
understands, understood
that words will wrap around and
swallow.
She appreciated the morning light
bright against her skin, and loose about her shoulders.
a discarded summer, pale, mentioned in the place of love;
"it's more than that.
You know how to speak; to keep your words
when you pause You make them want what you want."
They forget to remember together,
and he learns
where the city
where the fields
They explore, fall and get caught
and laugh
and laugh
and she thinks they might be the only people left who clamber down ravines
to forget about the rain
They are looking for satellites
for all the wrong reasons.
She bites terror from both sides.
He rests his fist by his father
slowly, as though this is just occurring to him,
as though by saying it he is coming to himself
to everything
on the roof with the stars and satellites
The sky smells like summer and life and sweat
they dismiss it, and it floats away on a tendril of smoke
It's as simple as
a fool going to meet a universe
its own time a whirlwind of moments until he arrives
He can't describe it.
His body holds memories more solidly than his mind
he feels every toss and pull and plunge long after his body
reveals to him white sun and crisp sky, golden fields;
the world blinds him with all he remembers
a late afternoon
a rhythmic motion
their bodies reaching, burst.
They dig and dig easily
It's so easy, here, when the afternoon is warm
and the sunbeams meet each other
where a secret is ready
to light up.
at night, the signals vanish.
the storm-fresh air looks up at the sound
and reaches for the morning
and hears the lights and the fear.
everything is bright and clean
usurped and appropriated
crumbled and glorious
the outstretched hand will speak in tongues
expect visions
Anyway. The following is an erasure of
zempasuchil's Merlin OT4 fic, Rewriting the Old Language, which I loooove. Funny that we both ended up erasing each other's Merlin OT4 fics. It's not like we told each other beforehand which fic we were doing, but I guess the siren call of polyamory was just too great.writhe
an erasure. original text by Z.
In short,
according to this
I will be here
after they are gone.
the very stones settle
and man shakes the earth, relieved
any lifted gaze can pass you by, can remember
and the face of the years will decide
She wasn't empty
she reared her head
her hands in everything
if magic is real There's no such thing as love
nothing like trust and knowing
she tries not to laugh
she’ll know the language
she’ll be around
"Do you know how?"
"I can figure it out."
somehow It's a veil torn away
father, father, take up the life he'd never known
he doesn't know a thing
you know how it works because
you built it yourself
never forget
no greater thing than earth confirmed
the hardest life and the simplest
real living; real work
he saw his own eyes
his heart, if not his father
the heartland, the earth, the sweat of his brow
the abstracts were their own lives
he could reach out beside him
below him
above
as strange as her dreams must be
something says, I don’t know how. There’s so much
trapped in buildings, in this city, in this country,
You’re right,
you’re right
it's all right
everything is all right
or changed.
she can beat him
It doesn't take much
suddenly "No,"
"Yes. you got your
little victory." But
he's already inside
all those years
do better, be better. victory hasn’t won her a thing.
to become something that she earned
she broke halfway between spitting and tears
it doesn't matter
walk down the street
Get something to drink
Look, this is how it is.
for years she explains
men and women, brothers and sisters,
you have to fight
that's the problem.
this strange new world held first the audience the wolf the open mouth
there is no invitation
but come anyway
sit
switch
avoid
there isn't much change
The threat is distant, the satellites unmarked,
the stars without a war fought in the right direction.
forget them. bring them up
get quietly angry because there's nothing he can do
he's only the son, only the father and
just the nation, enough to serve and protect
every word demands a continuation of tradition.
these accidents without casualties
these lines as simple as closing the door
it's not criminal
but from the start, he knows
keep above the tide
More is not the solution
less is not the solution
she's been part of the revolution
long enough to change
long enough to turn the tables. She says, Every chain link cracked
understands, understood
that words will wrap around and
swallow.
She appreciated the morning light
bright against her skin, and loose about her shoulders.
a discarded summer, pale, mentioned in the place of love;
"it's more than that.
You know how to speak; to keep your words
when you pause You make them want what you want."
They forget to remember together,
and he learns
where the city
where the fields
They explore, fall and get caught
and laugh
and laugh
and she thinks they might be the only people left who clamber down ravines
to forget about the rain
They are looking for satellites
for all the wrong reasons.
She bites terror from both sides.
He rests his fist by his father
slowly, as though this is just occurring to him,
as though by saying it he is coming to himself
to everything
on the roof with the stars and satellites
The sky smells like summer and life and sweat
they dismiss it, and it floats away on a tendril of smoke
It's as simple as
a fool going to meet a universe
its own time a whirlwind of moments until he arrives
He can't describe it.
His body holds memories more solidly than his mind
he feels every toss and pull and plunge long after his body
reveals to him white sun and crisp sky, golden fields;
the world blinds him with all he remembers
a late afternoon
a rhythmic motion
their bodies reaching, burst.
They dig and dig easily
It's so easy, here, when the afternoon is warm
and the sunbeams meet each other
where a secret is ready
to light up.
at night, the signals vanish.
the storm-fresh air looks up at the sound
and reaches for the morning
and hears the lights and the fear.
everything is bright and clean
usurped and appropriated
crumbled and glorious
the outstretched hand will speak in tongues
expect visions
no subject
every bit of this is so well composed, it hardly reads like erasure except for the fact that I can see parts of the story in here (just in concrete bits: on the roof, the outstretched hand, "Look, this is how it is")
ack I have to go now but I will return because there is so much to say about this, eee, I love it!
no subject
I feel like I took a different approach than you did, when I read your notes on process. I did know that I was going to erase their names, so I wouldn't be tied to their specifics. I did a lot of conjugation modification if the order of letters allowed for it. When I started out I didn't know if I was going to end up telling a similar story or something else altogether, and what I ended up carving out of your fic felt like a process of soft and unfurling discovery.
no subject
- She wasn't empty
she reared her head
her hands in everything
if magic is real There's no such thing as love
OH MAN. that line is terrifying and amazing. what if it's truuuue? And that whole stanza - it reads like a sort of painful revelation, realizing that you're free to struggle for your life, to figure it out though you don't know! oh morgana. I can't not read this as Morgana.
The next stanza with its you know how it works because you built it yourself along with the "father father" makes me think of King Uther the puppetmaster of politics, the guy whose word is law and so the law is him. creepy.
I LOVE the phrase "earth confirmed". It has the BEST sound. And, firm earth. mmmm.
he saw his own eyes / his heart, if not his father - OH ARTHUR *criesssss*
the abstracts were their own lives - MORE CRIESSSSS agh abstracts!
I really like the texture and grammar of what you got out of this. It's so very smooth. And you cut out a lot, that's great, I wish I had cut out more. If I were to do it again I would print it out on the page and then go through with a pencil, rather than just reading it on the screen.
There’s so much
trapped in buildings, in this city, in this country, - I love this stanza. and then having it end: everything is all right // or changed. breaks my heart. it's a little bit "change is the only constant" and it's a little bit revolutionary, a little bit destiny like if you don't like it just wait and it'll change, and a little bit like agency and reforming the world to your ideals.
to become something that she earned
she broke halfway between spitting and tears - this is beautiful and scary. she is halfway between spitting and tears in the whole story, between rebellion and embracing - it's exactly her tragedy. Ending this section with there is no invitation / but come anyway is perfect. she is limited by invitations - and like the revelation in the beginning she's breaking free.
I'm not sure how you intended this but I'm reading this as alternating Morgana and Arthur. the politics are rising out clearly in the stanza that ends he's only the son, only the father and / just the nation, enough to serve and protect. Those lines are a beautiful combination of the whole picture into one figure - the son, the father, the nation. wonderful. I can see how this is an unfurling discovering process.
keep above the tide
More is not the solution
less is not the solution
she's been part of the revolution
long enough to change <33333333 the SOUNDS of this! the rhythm! and the last two lines, oh my god <33333
a discarded summer, pale, mentioned in the place of love; HOW BEAUTIFUL. Also I absolutely love what you did with the original here: and she thinks they might be the only people left who clamber down ravines
to forget about the rain - mmm so concrete, so much real living. it is about so much more than laughter.
COOL: They are looking for satellites / for all the wrong reasons.
- as though by saying it he is coming to himself / to everything
the world blinds him with all he remembers - THIS. ohhhh lass! <333
and :a late afternoon
a rhythmic motion
their bodies reaching, burst. - I see what you did there *waggles eyebrows*. (Somehow after I read A Humument erasures became about finding sex in texts. uhhh lol, sort of like fanfic then right?)
The last few stanzas, from "at night the signals vanish" to the very end (THAT LAST LINE, so perfect!), is just everything gorgeous and urban revolutionary and just perfect. I have no words.
girl this is super amazing and so smooth and beautiful! I really love it. I really do. It makes me intimidated to go back to that fic and work it up some like I'd been contemplating, haha.
no subject
You're right about the Morgana&Arthur thing. Halfway through I realized that I was, in fact, writing (erasing?) about them XD. This is pretty much about them in the vein of MOTHERFUCKING PENDRAGONS. I think the vibe of the "Noble and Most Ancient House of Pendragon" fic I've always wanted to write/read got channeled into this, as did my Arthur/Morgana 1sentence that I'm noooooowhere close to done with. PENDRAGONS: so proud and tragic and fraught and caught and destined! Arthur in the shadow of his father, Morgana negotiating her power; they are both trying to find agency, in their own way. And I think maybe there is also more of a feminist bent here maybe, maybe by virtue of it now being simply about a man and a woman ostensibly. Something like a revolutionizing of the feminine? A catalyzing, an arming? Or something.
That's interesting what you say about puppetmaster Uther, because I think more than puppetmaster, he's just a regular old-fashioned dictator. I don't think he's very smart. His methods are very blunt and he appears to lack the political acumen of, say, Edmund Pevensie. XD
you're free to struggle for your life
THIS. Desolation is one of freedom's pitfalls. Liberation brings about the destruction of identity and freedom is a complex thing. Not to say that, you know, we should all stay imprisoned or oppressed or whatever, but freedom is not a panacea. I think this would be interesting played out in fic, especially considering the show's emphasis on destiny. What is the role of free will? And also, what about freedom when it comes to love? If Arthur and Merlin are destined to be together, do they ever feel trapped by each other? I bet they do, and then they have to, like, I dunno, find a way to own their love.
Erasing is a cool mental groove to settle into. My tendency when I edit my own fic is to cut out more than I add, so this was like an extension of that. I did want to include more stuff from the Dragon's letter at the beginning -- I think I had "no time could weaken nature / it will overflow the world" -- but in the end, I dunno. I just went with this.
ZOMG REWORKING THE FIC \o/ stfu intimidation whatever, i was only working off your NATURAL AWESOME with this anyway.
no subject
Hm, I guess I didn't mean puppetmaster, because you're right he's not really manipulative. He just runs the show, because he *is* the show in so many ways. The body politic. I think he sees he doesn't need to be Edmund Pevensie, because he sees how well brute force works for him.
Oh man. destiny. I think that's the thing that fandom likes to play with but doesn't always bring to its conclusion like you just did - that the underlying destiny means a tragedy of freedom/unfreedom. Sure it plays out sometimes but most fics do end up with "Arthur and Merlin are destined for each other so they end up together despite everything, hooray!" Rather than "they end up together despite everything, fuck." There are enough of those fics where a magic spell makes them fall in love or in lust and through the process of breaking it they find out their feelings are in the end genuine. But what about the fics where they don't give in to destiny's domination? where they rebel just to rebel for the sake of their free will? or where, yeah, they find their own way rather than just accepting fate?
Erasure is a brilliant working example of how less is more. If you think you should cut it, you should; it comes out more impressive 100% of the time.
Yeah! I was thinking of fleshing it out more? Rewriting scenes? Making it bigger? Making it (gasp) original? because I really like it and it's pretty removed from a lot of its fannish origins in being an AU about revolution.
no subject
Actually, now come to think of it, maybe the thing is to approach the Pendragons from another angle. Maybe capture them through rumors, records, and correspondence. So they can seem even MORE larger than life through the exaggerated lens of gossip! I dunno, it just seems easier than actually narrating Pendragon actions and thoughts.
Could Gaius possibly be the manipulative person character at court? I think he can be. Uther trusts him a lot, so he knows he has a lot of sway. He drugs the only other sorcerer of high rank. And who knows what kinds of potions he can make -- maybe he's kind of like Snape, stoppering death and bottling life or whatever. Geoffrey the librarian is probably occasionally in cahoots with him. Together they are like, the ultimate Slytherclaws of Camelot. And maybe years and years ago when Hunith maybe used to chill at Camelot too, she'd roll her eyes at them a lot and say stuff like, "Fine fine, keep your secrets and play your silly little games, I've got better things to do."
AND GAIUS AND GEOFFREY, whenever they have to talk to the Dragon, they're like, "It's your turn," and "Oh no, it's your turn, don't try to wriggle out of it," and like, "I'm not wriggling, just ask him and we'll be off tonight," and like, "Tonight? You're awfully optimistic. Answers are like pulling teeth with this one."
Arthur and Merlin are destined for each other so they end up together despite everything, hooray!" Rather than "they end up together despite everything, fuck."
yessssss. This is possibly just me being contrary, but I want the fic where they explore the claustrophobia of their relationship. I want Arthur and Merlin resenting each other at least a little bit! The pitfalls of knowing each other in a way no one else can. Getting in each other's space. Not aggression so much as entropy, and the natural disintegration of the spirit when you block change out of your life. Like, sheesh, it can't be all porn and endearing name-calling all the time.
Intriguing! How would it go? More beatniks? More gender politics? So, if you go original, would Uther be the real president of the time?
no subject
that's Pendragons!: they're rich and you wanna bite 'em.
XD you have hit the nail on the head! this should be made into an icon.
ahahahaha, Gaius and Geoffrey and Hunith and the Dragon! I bet they had their own tales of gallivanting and ruckus-raising. A prequel to Merlin would be kind of amazing - dragons and all sorts of magic everywhere, then the purges, and young King Uther, wow! It's quite possible that in his youth Gaius was not so cautious or restrained with his sneaking. I can totally see him running stuff behind the scenes for a while when Camelot was more chaotic.
Claustrophobic relationships are just natural, too! Love is not always happyfuntimes all the time! We want a little realism, right? This turn towards a theme of unhappy relationships reminds me of the HP fandom's characterization of Sirius/Remus - it seemed like in the recs circle they transformed into these vehicles for gritty realism, romantic claustrophobia and uncommunicative dysfunction and cynical urbanity.
I think... more description, more beatniks, more politics, more everything! I don't think Uther would be the real president... I want to make him a politician though. Maybe a state governor. So Arthur's going into politics isn't completely overshadowed, and he can be a law student and stuff. Oh, and more Gaius and the Dragon!
no subject
"Well, I must. As a physician."
"Don't give me that, I've seen the pictures in that anatomy book of yours."
AND, lots of ribbing about Gaius helping Uther to sleep on the king's more troubled nights!
"Offer him succor, do you?"
"GEOFF!"
POSSIBLY GEOFFREY IS JUST JEALOUS.
Yanno, all those nights staying up late in the library, being distracted by the careful manner with which Geoffrey turns a page, all graceful fingers and an analytical eye. And Gaius's total concentration when he mixes potions. Geoffrey has his books and Gaius has his lab, so it's humanities vs. science headbutting sometimes, but they both understand the value of precision and they respect this in each other.
But Gaius being less cautious then, yes! Precise in science, but a bit more brazen with being a shadowy conspirator. Maybe that's why he sees a lot of himself in Merlin. He wonders if Merlin will make the same choices he has made. He hopes Merlin won't, for everyone's sake.
Haha! The fandom/MerlinArthur ship seems to still be in the honeymoon phase. I wonder if and when it will embrace romantic claustrophobia?
\o/ Moooooooooooooore everything! The name-dropping of actual beats? More of the CIA sabotaging communist regimes? GAIUS. Ya, what is Gaius in your story? Where has he been!
no subject
He wonders if Merlin will make the same choices he has made. He hopes Merlin won't, for everyone's sake.
This is probably my favorite thing about Gaius - they don't give us a lot of glimpse to his motives as anything more than fatherly or wise-advisorly, until Edwin the bug-sorcerer comes along and reveals some of Gaius's hidden past, and when Gaius goes to visit the dragon, and then we see that Gaius is in this way deeper than Merlin. oh mannnn I love it.
I think the Merlin/Arthur ship will start embracing romantic claustrophobia as soon as the characters start actually having some sort of tension between them in the show... as it is they are still risking their lives for each other in more and more dramatic, emotional ways. Like, Ep 10's scene of Arthur warning Merlin about the badness of
Willsorcery - that brought a bitter note into fandom for sure, reminded people that things could go horribly, horribly wrong for Merlin because of Arthur.There might be actual beat name-dropping! And oh man way more politics. In fact I sort of want to make it more extreme than the 50s were. Something more like pre-WWI Wobblies labor-agitation stuff (hee, WWI IWW) but with the corresponding countercultural movement of the 50s. And plenty CIA sabotaging communist regimes.
Gaius is, I think, a dude who was doing his undergrad in something humanities or social sciency and was all revolutionary, and then when the war came as soon as the government started cracking down on subversives, he quick left that social scene and went to med school, started working for the government in the military hospitals. He was abroad as a military doctor for a while so maybe he saw some of these CIA crackdowns. Maybe now he is at a med school high up, or in military hospital administration, or maybe he teaches at university. I think he must've known Uther in the military. He has all those social theory and history of magic books that he gives to Merlin. While Merlin's not rooming with Arthur he's living with Gaius, old family friend, while his mother lives far away taking care of his grandparents. Eventually Merlin and Arthur move in together, but Arthur's gone a lot so Merlin still goes to see Gaius plenty. And Gaius tells him stuff about military history and politics and the Pendragons and helps him with his classes, and he's not exactly Merlin's introduction to the revolution but he provides some connections and the voice of reason.
no subject
I feel, like, a desire to rewatch Merlin, oh man. I almost bought a pirated DVD of all the series 1 episodes, but what would be the point, when they're all online and the reason I would purchase a Merlin DVD is for the cast commentaries anyway, I think.
Are you gonna write about the CIA sabotaging Indonesia's communist regime?? JUST WONDERING ehehehe. And then what about the one where, 10 years after the US did this to Indonesia, Indonesia did the same thing to East Timor? THE CYCLE, IT'S SO VICIOUS :((((
I like Gaius teaching at university, since universities are the typical hotbeds of dissent, he's still surrounded by it and so it emphasizes his moral gray area even more. He is trying to lay low, but maybe he can still go either way, with the right push. OH OH OH, and what about how magic is treated in other countries? Or, what is the difference between magic and superstition? In Indonesia, politicians still consult the witch-doctor. Business entrepreneurs from East Asia building their houses in posh San Francisco neighborhoods still design their houses according to feng shui. I mean, even in a non-AU universe, magic is still very much alive and part of the fabric of everyday. WHICH POSSIBLY RESULTS IN THE FOLLOWING ANALOGY:
Uther : magic :: Ahmadinejad : homosexuality
no subject
You know Lance would be out there in Indonesia in the thick of it, writing the rare letter to the gang (mostly Merlin of course, no tensions between those two) telling them about what's going down.
YOUR ANALOGY SDFKLDSFK If I were drinking anything it would be spurting out my nose onto my laptop, thank god I'm not (instead I am making weird noises and probs disturbing the plumbers). But yes you are right about that - university so he is actually in a place where moral grey areas are going on, where he has friends still who remind him of these revolutionary ideologies without actually getting him into the revolutionary political dirt (so he doesn't get in trouble).
Isn't Ahmadinejad:homosexuality also a denial of its existence within Iran? It might be more like Uther:magic::Fundies:homosexuality? uhhh, I dunno. But I like your analogy, it does work - Uther thinks of magic as the supernatural rather than the natural, but the lines between the two aren't so clearly drawn. magic is belief, after all; even if most people don't think feng shui does anything people still practice it with the belief it does so it might as well do something. eh I dunno I'm babbling. but you are so right, magic/superstition has no real division. Like politics lie on a spectrum and you can be LBJ and have a Great Society without being a red. Like the government has to have its hands in people's business otherwise there's no government and there's anarchy.
no subject
It is a strange thing to see -- Indonesia grows stronger, but the very thing that makes her stronger will also be the weapon used to destroy her. If you're interested, "Terlena" is a documentary about the communist purges of the 60s in Indonesia. made me cryyyyyyyy. Communism is practically nonexistent in Indonesia, in name. I mean, the administration actually has a lot of technically socialist tendencies, but the word 'communist' itself is like, a dirty word.
Yeah, Ahmadinejad denied its existence in Iran, but then when the election protests broke out, homosexuality magically appeared again. He was like, "It's those bothersome gays/Israeli spies/Americanized youth! Not REAL Iranians." Maybe Uther also becomes an international laughingstock, with this magic thing. Seriously, does Uther/Ahmadinejad have no PR team? And how strict is Uther's anti-magic/superstition thing. Is he against, like, good luck charms? Rabbit feet and such?
Maybe I'm overthinking the communism=magic thing, but what's stopping magic-users from calling upon mystical creatures and forces to quash non-magic-users? Will there be the magical equivalent of the Cold War? OF THE BERLIN WALL? MR. GORBACHEV, TEAR DOWN THIS ENCHANTMENT.
no subject
Uther's got to have a PR team. He's a big jerk - I watched the Mordred episode again last night and jeez, how do you justify the execution of a little kid? His tyranny was probably typical of the time but yeah, I wonder how his anti-magic policy sits with other kings and in other kingdoms. If he has enough power he probably manages to work that into treaties!
Rabbit feet seem innocuous enough, as "good luck" charms they're pretty vague and a lot of doubt can be cast on them. I think when it starts getting specific or obvious is when it starts getting dangerous - poultices under the pillow to cure illness, Merlin moving things with his mind, seeing the future. Also, anything Gaius can explain away with his special brand of "science" is pretty safe.
No I think you're right, they could and that's why Uther's trying to stamp them out (also they all seem to have it in for HIM particularly. I wonder why.) And I think the magic users are really in hiding after his purges and are mostly too scared or feeling too weak to band together. I don't know why Nimue was always working on her own... And I doubt that just one of them could control a magical creature. Merlin didn't have any power over the griffin directly (but he probably wouldn't know how). Bringing this into a commie!AU, I think probably magical creatures have been mostly killed off? But the USSR (Union of Soviet Magical Republics?) (oh god what would that be, a Nimue/Stalin chimera???) would be that distant yet near threat. WOW A BERLIN WALL OF ENCHANTMENT I love this. Of course it would be Arthur demanding the removal of the wall because Uther would be freaking Star Warsing and arms racing the whole time he's doing everything. you know, the pendragons probably should be presidents like I originally thought.
no subject
lol Gaius's special science. Hmm, maybe ppl still look askance at good luck charms, and the line between "they're wary of it because they're genuinely wary of magic" and "they're wary of it because Uther overreacts to everything and they don't want to be accidentally implicated" is getting blurry.
Yes, too weak after the purges! Like maybe Uther ordered a huge autodafe of grimoires and other magical artifacts, and then mowed down the writers, intellectuals, teachers, and philosophers of magic, which greatly handicapped the magical community. Knowledge is power, and Uther just destroyed a lot of it. Their books, their tools, and thus essentially their identity.
OMG WHAT IF THIS IS WHERE GAIUS'S DUBIOUS MORALITY COMES IN. Gaius is the magician Uther hires to find counter-enchantments to undo the spells that protect the magic books, artifacts, whatever from destruction. Gaius also breaks Fidelius spells, so to speak, so Uther can find insurgents in hiding. Up to what extent Uther trusts Gaius though, I'm not so sure.
Maybe this is all why Nimueh ends up working alone. "We rely too much on books and wands and other trinkets. We entrust too much of ourselves and our power into them. The oldest magicians needed no such things. Our ceremonies have made us lazy. Our rituals have made us weak. We need to go back to the source." So essentially, Nimueh = Martin Luther. She begins to talk of an ideology of magic from within, free of intermediaries. Her disciples grow in number and they spread her gospel across the land, through drunken debates in speakeasies, through pamphlets hidden between the pages of books passed from one revolutionary to another.
And maybe this is why Nimueh is dangerous. She wants magic free of symbolism and avatars, and so what can Uther strike but the magicians themselves? His own citizens, still his subjects, subversive as they are -- but if the body is the weapon, then you must destroy the body. It would be an autodafe of people -- a massacre. Uther would be condemned internationally, and he may be bull-headed, but he is not that stupid. (Or is he?)
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I like that approach to the charms a lot!
And you know there's all sorts of surveillance and breaking up of the groups that meet (sedition!) - this sort of thing went on with the IWW too before WWI gave the government a real excuse to regulate the workforce. Yes! the pressure put on university presidents who put pressure on their faculty to stfu about this red stuff, whole files of blackmail keeping them in their place, bans and ruination upon their name, etc etc - there would be an extremist group that Uther wasn't technically involved in but he turned a blind eye when they burned mountains of books of questionable morality. I don't know if Gaius could stand to actually give these people up to the authorities; his specialty seems to be turning a blind eye. Maybe he is just working for NASA or whatever (what was it we said? in a University? and working on a govt research grant w/ Nasa maybe) and not actually using his magical powers to fight his own kind but he's fully aware of the purges going on around him and how he could save them but he can't, and he doesn't. so it is morally dubious and tragic.
oh my god, if Nimueh is Martin Luther then Uther is running the Inquisition - yes yes autos de fe! :OOO She's a witch! or a heretic! or a greedy land-grabber (as Spain figured when the accusations of witchcraft started leaking in from France. in France they were all mad about witches but Spain had been fighting the infidel Moor and Jew for a long time now and thought this magic hubbub was nonsense.)
But yes! the source! no ideas but in things! She says, these books and writers were not causes but consequences, and we can get more in touch with the real source of our power if we don't rely on the translating medium of a text, a manual, an facet, an idea.
I would love to write about subversive books. It makes me think of the story I heard from my aunt's Romanian friends, who were Christians in Romania under Ceauşescu, about the terrible danger of smuggling bibles and hiding them and not knowing who to trust. Code phrases whispered at speakeasies or bookhouses that seem innocuous but are really lines from Das Kapital or Lenin or 1800s Arthuriana that mentions Nimueh.
What you're saying about the body is an awful lot like Foucault's description of medieval punishment. Like, the King has his body and violations against the law and kingdom are considered attacks against his person (this is soooo evident w/ Uther) and so the criminal is punished bodily, drawn and quartered publicly etc. but you can't do that these days - you can't destroy, you have to have incarceration and rehabilitation etc. but you can't deal that way with terrorists. Uther would, well, have a secret wire-tapping plan and a Guantanamo Bay.
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Yes Uther's blind eye and university pressure! I would like to hear what you write on subversive books. Maybe you can write excerpts from these books, or write newspaper articles about these magic purges. Maybe you can write some of Morgana's poems? Which are possibly just erasures of the Manifesto arharhar. That is pretty fascinating about your aunt's Romanian friends, and also that the LINES MENTION NIMUEH. WHAT. whaaaaaat. awesome. the world continues to validate the way I participate in fandom.
Have you read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"? That memoir ('memoir'?) that only enables my worst fears about the neocolonial international development situation. I have to get my hands on it. It also sounds pretty relevant to these interests.
It sounds like Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" because we read that toooooooo. seriously wtf our classes! yesss Uther IS THE NATION. It's why he's such a despot. AND THEN, depending on how much one is drawing on magical realism, to what extent does the land reflect the king?
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timeline? timeline??? dsljk; I have been putting that off, hoping that I can get by with compounding elements of any revolution and any controlling government and any kind of magic I want into this setting. I don't know if I can write something with characters that aren't modern, you see. I have not read enough literature from that era to get a sense of the world. So "whatever" is sort of my motto on this. And maybe one day I will be serious about this and map out what is and what isn't, but for now I am just using what I find exciting and interesting. consistency is my bare minimum.
Oh wow I would LOVE to write parts of this literary canon they hand around! And Morgana's poetry of course! aaahhh yay!
I think I wrote those sentences very badly because I did not mean to connect Romanian Christian subversives with the subversives that used code phrases from communist texts or Arthuriana - they were subversives under a communist regime sadly and so lenin was a scourge :(
wow! I just read the Amazon summary of it, and holy cow, it makes me so paranoid. it makes me think of The Poisonwood Bible, which we had to read for 12th grade English, where Barbara Kingsolver pours her heart out about how the West just uses and abuses Africa. there's a part in there where a character talks about the World Bank loan to then-Zaire to build power lines, which were never finished and so sat useless while the country was forever in debt to it. I could swear there are actual articles we read about this sort of thing - I'm sure you've read them - I want to find them again. ohhhh why did I quit the International Studies major. it had such good stuff.
WTF OUR CLASSES! It... it must be destiny, lass XD big shiny academic fannish destiny.
I have always been enchanted by the body of the land. Is the king the land or is the king married to the land? I think they are thesis and antithesis. and then the synthesis... the people?
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The soul is a prison to the body. What if the people are the antithesis, and the land is synthesis?
re: Economic Hitman, Zaire. Here is my knee-jerk beliefs: IT'S TRUE. The colonies gained independence, but in name only. The power structure isn't as overt. Europe made its wealth on the colonies, so they're not going to let all these resources completely break away. They have to engineer a new ways to keep their fingers in the pies, how to perpetuate vulnerability and dependency. So they're all, "We'll only give you this aid package if you do the following things that are advantageous to us, and also to you of course, um," and now there are tractors rusting in Uganda that the people they're supposed to benefit don't know how to fix or where to get spare parts from, and even when Australia and New Zealand gives little Oceanic countries grants, it comes with the concession of exclusive trading rights. Why is a country like the Philippines the #4 importer of rice? Why do archipelagos get development plans from the multilaterals that don't account properly for their coastal resources? Structural adjustment and neoliberalism is round peg into square hole, and they KNOW THIS, but that's okay, 'cos they're not actually trying to fix that much. omg debt. argh.
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Okay. I'm going to try not to quote the whole thing, but ...
things that were far too awesome
-and she thinks they might be the only people left who clamber down ravines
to forget about the rain
-she’ll know the language
she’ll be around
"Do you know how?"
"I can figure it out."
-You’re right,
you’re right
it's all right
everything is all right
or changed.
-she's been part of the revolution
long enough to change
long enough to turn the tables
-expect visions
-His body holds memories more solidly than his mind
Oh, Morgana. Oh, OT4. *whimpers* Oh, they're all going to die a horrible, horrible doom, aren't they? *sobs* Oh, this was so beautiful, and well-composed, and I could see parts of the original fic in it but all in all it was like it's own poem, and oh, so beautiful.
But these lines, I just can't get over them.
she’ll know the language
she’ll be around
"Do you know how?"
"I can figure it out."
Those lines are probably my favorite - they give me chills every single time I read them, and make me want to cry and never let Morgana go. NEVER.
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OH MORGANA indeed! OH ARTHUR. OH Z. OH BETSY. <33
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