Fairy dew
Monika Marchewka - Dream, 2022
I’ve been amassing books about magical libraries/books. It’s time I read some of them. This one is first!
Okay but so much of the character of Sam Vimes is influenced by him being a former alcoholic tho. I don’t think it’s possible to discuss his unbreakable moral code without also discussing his addiction.
There is significant parallels between how he does not touch alcohol EVER starting from Men at Arms and every other ways that he holds himself accountable in the books.
One minute late to storytime with his child would be one minute too much, because once you excuse one minute late then you can excuse five, ten, and then fifteen minutes late. -> one drink is too many drinks because one drink « tends to arrive in five glasses ».
« If you do a bad thing for a good reason you’ll do it for a bad one », « If one part of the machine breaks down it all breaks down » and « who watches the watchman? Me. » are all different ways of saying that Vimes cannot allow himself to make even one exception in how he behaves. Will not, yes, and that’s very admirable, but this will not is the result of a CAN NOT because what would happen if he did is not, in fact, unthinkable. On the contrary, he knows very well what would happen if he did break one of his many rules, and this is exactly why he doesn’t break them.
« One drink is one too many » is basically the center of his character’s moral code. And it hits so hard because he’s not being rigid for the fun of it, he’s like that because he knows. It’s a sliding slope and he’s been on it and at the bottom of it and he KNOWS how quickly it slides.
And it’s so interesting to see how he applies that core concept to all other aspects of his life, cultimating into the guarding dark.
everyone talks about unhinged women this unhinged women that but no one talks about them. the og unhinged women
I’ve been amassing books about magical libraries/books. It’s time I read some of them. This one is first!
Next read: The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe
I ended up really liking this one!
It’s always weird to read books inspired by books I haven’t read, but it was fun to see a lot of things in this story that I’ve seen in other Lovecraft-inspired books. Eventually I’ll know his mythos without having to read any of his work 😅
I do wholeheartedly believe Wes Anderson is a sick sick freak. I like his movies but I definitely think this guy has like a hidden room in his spacious french apartment that he slips into quietly each night and it is just filled with tiny little doll replicas of all the actors he's ever used in any of his movies and he puppets them around and mimicks their voices and shit. and sometimes he'll text Owen Wilson pictures of his little doll with a comb or something from an untraceable number and pair it with like "see how I take care of you Owen?" and then the following day Owen Wilson will find him at the service table and go, "Geez Wes look at this," and Wes will pretend to be all concerned and horrified but there is this calculating almost eager look in his eyes that unsettles Owen Wilson. and the next time Wes is having a little soiree with all his actors, his beloved beloved actors, maybe Owen Wilson will accidentally get lost on his way to the beautiful bathroom and find that little room and see all those dolls and his throat will hitch with horror. And before he can call Bill Murray or Adrian Brody to look a dark silhouette will appear in the doorway and Wes looks sort of resigned when he says, "I see you finally found my secret, Owen," and Owen Wilson will try and pretend that he's fine with it but they both know better. and Wes will go (the look in his eyes back again) "We both know this can't get out, right?" and he'll grin very suddenly and Owen Wilson will laugh along very nervously and leave the room and eat some brioche and when the evening is over he will rush over to his Prius and frantically click his keys but over the cobbles on the beautiful beautiful street there is the sound of footsteps. and tears are running down Owen Wilson's cheeks but he can't say a word and Wes, emerging from the shadows, will gently touch him on the shoulder and say, "look, I'll drive you to the airport, huh?" and Owen Wilson will try to refuse but they both know it's futile. and, halfway through the drive, Wes Anderson will smile and say, "I'll miss working with you" and then perfectly jump and roll out of the car, wiping off his corduroy pants, while Owen Wilson's Prius swerves into a local patisserie, bursting into flames
I read the comic in one sitting less than an hour after finishing the movie, and wow I have many Thoughts™.
- It's very obvious the two versions were meant to cater to different audiences AND tell different messages. I don't get why people are going "But the comic was better! It had more nuance!" just because Nimona was easier to root for in the movie.
- The comic was written back when ND Stevenson was still trying to process a lot of stuff, so all the characters are morally grey/straight up evil and the climactic battle is between a Ballister who regrets turning against Nimona, even if it was to save others vs. a Nimona who's too hurt to care if her lashing out was going to hurt innocent people.
- By the time Nimona got a movie adaptation, ND was a lot more secure in his sexuality, so the climactic battle was Nimona vs. the Director, the symbol of religious oppression and bigotry. It's not just about your friends turning on you because you're "too much" for them anymore, it's also about a society that would rather bring itself to the brink of ruin than coexist with you.
- (I totally get why people were upset about Ballister's surname change, though. Like come on, the media dubbing him Blackheart just to be mean was RIGHT THERE).
- Nimona's metaphor for not shifting is such a neurodivergent thing. Even in the comic, Nimona's parents insisting she's a monster who replaced their daughter is reminiscent of the changeling myth, which is what many parents thought their neurodivergent kids were—changelings who replaced their "real" children.
- Ambrosius being trained to cut off HIS BOYFRIEND'S WHOLE FUCKING ARM instead of merely disarming him is a very cop thing to do. As much as cops claim they're trained to de-escalate situations, their training still teaches them to treat everyone as a potential threat, and that level of constant vigilance can turn anyone into a trigger-happy/arm-choppy bastard. Even the Director, who can use a sword but probably hasn't actually fought someone in ages, STILL can't see Ballister reaching for the squire's phone without assuming he has a weapon.
- And on that note, the Queen getting killed simply because she was trying to reform the Institution and allow commoners to become knights? That's the best "no such thing as a good cop" metaphor I've seen. Because even if there ARE good cops and they ARE in leadership positions, the system will crush them before they make any meaningful change. It's not a good institution that turned rotten, it's an institution that only exists to spread its rot and refuses to be good.
- That's why Ballister's characterisation is so different in the movie vs. the comic. Comic Ballister had 15 years to come to terms with his trauma and the Institution's evildoing, while Movie Ballister is still freshly traumatised and hasn't found a way to define himself beyond the role he was assigned by the Institution.
- Not to mention Comic Ambrosius was not very noble to begin with and genuinely believed Ballister was better suited to villainy than heroism, while Movie Ambrosius never wanted the glory that came with his lineage in the first place and only antagonised Ballister because of indoctrination he needed to unlearn (which he did, all by himself, after witnessing the lengths the Director will go to just to kill Nimona).
- It really shows how important it is to surround yourself with loved ones who are open to change. Comic Ambrosius can love Ballister all he wants, but he'll still blast his arm off because he thinks Ballister deserved it anyway. Movie Ambrosius will stop to question what "the right thing" even means, even if he didn't love Ballister enough to defend him unconditionally.
I have so many more thoughts bubbling beneath the surface, but I'll probably address them some other day. In conclusion:
Watch Nimona. This is not a request.
Back with more Nimona thoughts, y'all.
- It's definitely possible that the Director wasn't reacting on instinct when Ballister reached for the "weapon", and she was lying off her ass to escalate the situation until someone killed Ballister and/or Nimona. Something something instinctive prejudice, something something deliberate evil, something something police brutality is both.
- So much of the Director's "Boohoo, that wasn't me it was the shapeshifting monster" charade could have been debunked if Ballister planned ahead and recorded Nimona shifting back BEFORE he revealed himself. Classic "underestimating the enemy" move.
- Ambrosius going from "He killed the Queen" to "He's being manipulated, I can still save him from the monster's evil clutches" is a nice parallel to Ballister going from "He didn't mean to chop off my arm, it's what he was trained to do" to "If I can show this video to Ambrosius, he'll believe me". Both of them are still clinging onto old beliefs because that's all they've ever known, but the one constant is their desire to be together again. Just. ARGH. THESE TWO GAYS I CANNOT.
- Movie Ballister unlearning his prejudices over the course of the movie is a very important thing to portray, because no one is immune to propaganda and dismissing bigots as individuals who chose to be evil instead of addressing the system that produces them is the political equivalent of bailing water out of a sinking boat while going, "Dang, why won't these water droplets magically gain sentience and stop flooding my boat—or better yet, help stop the leak?"
- (Because let's be real, a society that values conformation and authoritarian control isn't going to install a Free Will Ex Machina switch that will automatically turn bigots good if X condition is met. Creating mindless robots who will persecute any minority without stopping to question things IS the point.)
- (Case in point: Gloreth, who could have been Nimona's best friend forever until she fell victim to her community's prejudices and didn't even stop to question them. She wasn't secretly evil the whole time, she was just a kid surrounded by people who actively prevented her from knowing better.)
- That being said, I LOVE that Movie Nimona never gave a single fuck about Ballister's discomfort and continued to be herself until he came around. The point isn't to dismiss the impact of conservative indoctrination or make endless excuses for people who reject every opportunity to reform themselves, it's to make some room for empathy without debasing yourself for people who won't even meet you a quarter of the way.
- It's a nice contrast to Comic Ballister the Morally Grey but Still Reasonable Anti-Hero and Comic Nimona the Cool Punk Gremlin Who Kinda Needs To Keep Her Destructive Tendencies In Check.
- The comic was radical because it validated people who were tired of being nice and just wanted to go apeshit, because fuck everyone who believes you're something to be saved or fixed.
- The movie was radical because it acknowledged that destroying your enemies sometimes just destroys you even more instead of bringing catharsis, and that's okay because fuck everyone who demands you choose between burning the world or being burned when all you wanted was a life of peace.
- I can kind of see why people thought Nimona's ending was anticlimactic but honestly, I think we've had enough buried gays. We deserve a little magic resurrection.
- (Besides, there's this cool theory that Nimona deliberately took the form of a phoenix before killing the Director so that she could be reborn, and I can't remember who OP was but damn if that isn't a great in-universe explanation.)
Again, in conclusion:
[ID: A pink-haired Nimona doing the sign of the horns with a maniacal grin while Ballister, a black-armoured brown knight, looks confused and dazed in the background.]
Go watch Nimona right fucking now. Rewatch it, if you've already done so. Hell, get the comic and reread it too. Join me in my Nimona obsession.
I want you guys to know that I absolutely bought The Flintstones comic after seeing that post about it last week.
Apologies for phone camera quality, but I simply need to show everyone how pretty the illustrations in this edition of The Romance of Tristan and Iseult by Joseph Bédier are. The artist is Olga Isayeva.
Stroboscopic photographs of the New York City Ballet’s production of Jewels, 1969. Photographed by Gjon Mili.