Episode 166: The Histo-Remix, ft. ALIX E. HARROW

You're listening to World Building for Massacasts. And we're wondering why we do this to ourselves. Because some of us were not popular in school. I'm Alexi Harrow. I'm Marshall Ryan Mariska. I'm Natania Barron. I'm Cass Morris, and this is episode 166, The History Remix. [Music] I am in that picture, Alex, and I do not like it. I would struggle to. I mean, I think if you took a poll of all the fantasy writers, almost not a. Yeah, but then you meet one in this disorienting. It's disorienting. You're like, "Oh, I can tell that you had a wide social network. You could have done other things with your life, but you've chosen to be here." Yes, I was just having a similar conversation with Murr. Laffrey DeXa did another reading with her, interview with her locally here a couple weeks ago. And she was like, "It's like whenever you find someone who's not neurodiverse." It's another similar Venn diagram. You're like, "Oh, you're actually normal normal." And I feel like this happens a lot for me when we all had to switch from Twitter. And then I suddenly used my Instagram account for the first time. And I was like, "Now hold on, some of you work out." I was not. I didn't know that. I thought we were authors. I was not aware we were supposed to be real chill. Look, abs are not in the list of things that I'm. I'm willing to exercise and be outdoorsy in the Elizabeth Bennett sort of way, where it's like, "Yes, I will wander these fields. I'll walk forever." But anything else, I forced myself to stretch. And that's about it. I have my yoga mat up here, which is just like. Get those hip flexors going. I'm trying to be better about remembering that. I mean, I will tell you that I have an ice pack on my back right now. We love that for you. Alex, we are delighted to have you with us. Please introduce yourself to our listeners. Let them know who you are and what it is that you do. I'm an author of fantasy novels, like the 10,000 Doors of January and Starling House. And the ones in future witches and short fiction too. I'm originally from Kentucky and I'm now living in Charlottesville, Virginia. And I am annoying everybody by going on all of your favorite podcasts. I'm so sorry. If you're listening to this, I just feel like you're in the circle where you're going to hear me a little bit this month. And that is because I have a new book coming out called "The Everlasting." Well, we love it. Tell us more about the "Everlasting." No. No, you refuse. We'll just copy and paste it from the other podcast as well. We can take the blurb and just. They won't know. No, I think the not publisher approved pitch that I'm going with is Big Sad Lady Night, stuck in a time loop. And I think that hits the highlights because I'm in it for the Big Sad Lady Night. And then it's also about the historian who is sent back in time to make sure she keeps completing her role in the national mythology. So it's about like. Fascist propaganda and the uses of folklore. And again, I really can't emphasize enough a Big Sad Lady Night. I. I know. Sounds great. Directly in my veins, thank you. Well, we actually recently talked about some similar topics. And we'll obviously, it's not exactly the same because this is a different topic. But how powerful folklore is when. Yes. weaponized. And who controls the narrative of how the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are? So. Yeah, I feel like in my career I've moved from. I am unfortunately always writing books about books and stories about stories. And that's just where we're at. I understand that it's very annoying and naval gazing, but here we are. It's too late. But I've moved from like the power of stories smiley face to like the power of stories frowny face. That's the evolution of my thesis so far. Well, I can't imagine what would ever encourage you to go in that direction. Yeah, what about the last decade of existing? Yeah, nothing in particular. I just made it up. I was just thinking like it's interesting who gets to control historical narratives. And mandate. Oh really?. the stories that we tell about ourselves and who belongs and who doesn't. And what our future should be based on what our past is. It's coincidental that museum plaques are disappearing right now. Weird. It's weird. I love that they keep like chipping off the LGBTQIA+ Which is like literally the poem, right? I can't believe. Right. And we're always saying they're gonna start with our trans friends, but they are not gonna end there. But they did. And they literally like, you know who I don't like? Bisexuals. I don't know if they were at Stonewall either. It's insane. Yes. As I drink out of my love and love cup. Yeah, it's very interesting. But we're here to talk about world building. And particularly dear to my heart topic, which is history. I think all of us write historical vibed things now and then. But talk to a little bit about your approach to world building. It's kind of funny because I of course had to think about it specifically to come on the show. And I was like, well, I'm not sure that I see it as a really clearly distinct part of novel writing. Because like the work of writing your novel is the work of building a compelling and convincing world. Like you are trying to sell a lie, a convincing lie. And you have to sort of build the architecture around that that convinces the reader for the links of the book. And it's very possible in this world that I am making. And this includes I think realist fiction as well because it's all constructed world. Like you're trying to convince someone like this is all very possible. Even though it's obviously not. And I also think of world building as like, I love homework. That's the homework part. Oh, I'm so going to get an A. That's another common theme we have found with folks on this podcast is the. Yes, we. We were door I think my very first Marshall the first time I came on the podcast my why we do this was because some of us read the encyclopedia as kids for fun. And it shows like the reading every time I've yeah. And we want you to know that we did that we weren't chill about it. We can't be quiet. We can't be quiet. Yeah, exactly. And some of us put the word project in group projects because nobody else in the group had the intellectual capacity to bring our visions to fruition. I feel like this vocation either brings like the people who had to win at school or. Or the people for whom school just did not work. Period. Yeah, yeah. Like, no, this is wasting my. I realized literally I don't need to do this year because I already understand I was like, oh my god. I did it. I found a career where I'm literally awarded gold stars. I'm like, yeah. I can't believe that I wanted to win school so bad. What is a publisher's weekly review? If not here is a gold star give me the sticker. Just give me the sticker. Well, and I think I realized that too because I've always talked about how I left academia and it was really because I couldn't get paid enough to just do research and like it wasn't nerdy enough for me, the path that I've for saw. Having to do literary criticism. No, I wanted to be in the archives finding medieval manuscripts that no one had read that version of the song of Roland literally. And now I just do the research because no one can I just bought my own subscription to J store and you know, powerful. It's a powerful thing. It's amazing as long as it's still there. That's five year moving paywall though. Very you know, it's me. J store. I still use my brother's logins for you first days of that reason. It's a good $20 a month though. I gotta say for compared to other things I can spend it on. I used mine from well, first when I worked at the Shakespeare Center, I had it and I kept that up and it didn't expire for like two years after I left there. And then by the time it finally did, I started teaching at a community college and they didn't take that away from me for two years after I stopped working there either. Yes, just keep using this. We love it. We love it. So yes, our topic today is the use reuse misuse abuse of history, the various different ways that we spin and respin history in our worlds and in our stories. Because yeah, we on the especially I mean, I think this is true of many fantasy writers. There's always some like historical inspiration often behind something, but we in this group, especially have some particular like things we draw from things we have chosen to spin. So why? Why do we feel the need to do that? Yeah, I think about it. It was like, is historical fantasy or historical fiction a real category? Because honestly, even if you're in a secondary world, I just feel like history is the narrative structure that explains to us how the world works and how things change over time. It's literally the study of change over time. So I feel like it is very much baked into what narrative is and how we understand societies. And I think another way, like I have my masters in history and I study cultural imperialism. So, you know, I'm not going to say that. I'm in deep. I'm already in the back here. So it's surprising. But I never had creative writing classes, but I did have history classes. And it took me a while to realize that like, oh, that was the writing class. That was the project of taking this wildly disparate massive information and weaving it into a narrative. And I'm not saying fictionalizing. I'm just saying like, like, since making is the work of history, it is not about like recording everything that ever happened, right? It's about picking out the pieces that are going to convey something meaningful, something that explains how the past worked, how the present couldn't learn from it, like all these things. And so like, that is the work of writing. And so I think it lends itself very well to it. It's so true because when when you are, even if you're doing nonfiction history, you are still constructing an area, you are still telling a story. And you are still making choices about what of history are you showing in the same way that fiction writers, we make choices about what are we constructing. And even if you do that with the best of intentions, the best faith, the best practices, you are still making choices. Because like you said, you can't include everything. You can't completely catalog the entire universe. You have to choose. And it's not not as far removed from fiction as some people might think. Yeah, and I will say my brain does not know the difference between speculative fiction and historical fiction. It's like, it feels the same. And I remember one of my favorite medieval professors gave me a copy of The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett when I was in her class. It was like my parting gift because I was that nerd that was so into all that stuff. And she's like, it's not really accurate, but it's such a good story. And it is, it is such an incredible work for that reason because of this lush attention to detail, filling in those blanks, pulling us through the building of a cathedral over a couple hundred years. And sort of this like giving you the perspective of the medieval experience. And I remember reading it and I'm like, I guess this is not fantasy, but it feels like fantasy. I mean, and even any secondary world fantasy, if you're in the world building you're doing, you're drawing on your readers' expectations of what the history is, even if you're like doing wildly different things, they're still going to come with those biases. And if nothing else, you need to teach them, like forget those biases that you have because I'm doing something radically different. And please, you know, even if you're doing like, here is a fantasy that is inspired by, you know, ancient Sumeria or something, be like, okay, use those little bits that you do know about ancient Sumeria to like fill in the negative space that I'm leaving open. But at the same time, here's the stuff I'm doing differently. So try to ignore this stuff you know. And like playing that juggling act with your readers. But I think that's one reason that I think historical fantasy is appealing as opposed to maybe secondary world or entirely secondary world is that shorthand you get to use that is so fun and efficient. And I love how fast it can happen. Literally like one noun you put in the first paragraph and they're like, I got it. I'm there. Petticoats, I hear you like your grace, a castle. Like we have such powerful associations with specific nouns. And they're not accurate. They're not actually based in history. But we have, you know, we don't know the medieval, but we have medievalism. Like, you know, and so you immediately imply an entire world when you do that. And that's like half the work of a novel is building a words. Yeah. Can paint that picture in your readers. I remember my mother went to some like small village in England and she's like, how did in having read my book, she's like, how did he do that? Like describe this so accurately when he's never been there. I'm like, mom, I didn't. I just said you did that. I just said cobblestone and wooden signs and you did the rest in your brain. Film. Film and rest. And what's funny is how quickly you can get if you were trying to use some of that like you were saying, but not all of it. The reader's first imagining of that world is so powerful that you're going to have to work really, really hard. Like I just did a dystopian short story set in the near future, well, far future, I guess. Where my little idea, my little conceit with like feudalism has re-emerged in like Appalachia. So I get to have nights and stuff. And it's very fun, but it does not matter if your first sentence is 300 and some odd years after the world ended the night road into the holler. They heard night and they're going to be confused and angry. The whole short story. Which is fine. Like that's the fun of short fiction is to get to play with those things, but like I was amazed at the power of the word night. Like it couldn't, it didn't matter if I mentioned COVID. It didn't like after that they were like, I just don't understand. Literally a person wrote me an email that was like, well, I don't think they would have had stainless steel at this time. And I was like, right. So they're born. Stick with me. I'm reading like some complaining review about ancillary justice, which is very much science fiction in space with spaceships. Because like the main character goes into an inn in the first paragraph. And like the word inn just made them be like, no, that's fantasy. Like no. Yeah, we're like, no, that's D&D word. You've used D&D word. You can't be in space. And I'm like, I don't know how to explain to you. Yeah. I also think that the the other danger of having this historical shorthand that's available to everybody as an aesthetic world builder is that like it can be very, very shallow if you're not careful. And sometimes I think that is literally a point of it. Like I'm a big historical romance reader and I love them deeply. And I'll defend the genre to my death. However, in some of those, it's a specific disinterest in history. They are using the word Duke to cue to you that you're in a fantasy world, like a bubble world where nothing actual real is happening. And you know that it's not a real world because the dukes are physically attractive and kind. And that's not real. Like so you do need to like engage. You do need to like serve like, okay, follow me. And so you already are in a fantasy world because that's never been true. Never in all of history. There's so many. There's not been one fuckable member of the British aristocracy. Like I'll stand on that. But like extra, especially the region's period, where like all of the dukes were the royal dukes. There were no non-royal dukes at that time. If I remember right. And they were not. And the fashion of not a fantasy era in particular. I just do not think of lines with current understandings. No, there's beautiful and amazing work done in like historical romances that are like intentionally subversive that dukes are not the love interests all the time. But like the way the history is deployed, I think is an inheritance from like Georgia Hire who is doing a crafted world that says there's no politics to this moment in British history. Obviously there is. She's like that's fine. There's no questions about where the sugar came from. Everything is fine and everyone agreed. And it's not that different from her. It's a very different who are wanting to say you know that simpler time in American history. And you're like, which one? Just be more specific. So if you're going to do historical fiction, my contention is that like you have to be ready to wait into actual history and not only history as costume. Yes. Which is why I tend to love alternate history, historical fantasy. Because then I can be like, so there's witches. I mean, I know we have this in common. And given that there are witches and they've been around and they have their own like aristocratic level, these are all the things that are different. And if you don't agree too bad, you just like clearly you don't want to see, you know, sapphic wishes just kissing and flirting the whole book. And that's fine. It's not free for those people. But I do know that there are readers who struggle with alternate history, right? Because there is such a butterfly effect. And but I would argue that any historical fantasy/fiction is like you're saying alternate, right? These people have full sets of teeth. Please. They have tells the perfect hair and great complexions. All the women have their armpits. They listen to women. They listen to women have thoughts. I like how there's an error just fully problematic historical romances, which in some ways I am almost like, you know what you were, which you were. And I appreciate that you weren't trying to mitigate it. And then there's an error follow up historical romances where they're like, but actually he very much cared about tenant welfare. And you're like, diddy, diddy, where they're keeping all the same tropes that they're like, he supported women's right to get the vote. And you're like, diddy, I don't think so. Once again, less, less, less, less work. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I feel like getting into alt history is kind of more fun. And it's often where like if you're doing a historical fantasy, it's often some kind of alternate history because like the introduction of magic usually changes things pretty dramatic, or should I think. And I feel like it also allows more It can allow for some more subversive stories because I feel like my little spiel about what I think fantasy is good at is exaggerating things and bringing them up to a scale that they become visible. So like you said, "Ooh, there's witches." Yeah. And I think what witches often are is literalizing the agency of often women. And that's something you absolutely can do with realistic historical fiction. And I think what fantasy allows you to do is blow up the scale to where it becomes thematically bigger and allows you to kind of like dig in in ways that are like those things, agency power, justice, these are invisible things. But you can literally make them visible. And more than a metaphorical sense, and it's really, really fun to play with. And I feel like that's why some of my favorite alt histories and alt fantasies often come from like marginalized writers. Like P. Jelly Clark, Colson Whitehead, Nicola Griffith, I don't know if it's alt history, but it's kind of a retelling of a king Arthur sort of like Hilden mean wood, yes, but also her novella spear is a queer king Arthur reimagining. I don't know. Like I was thinking about it. I was like, "Oh, that's a lot of my favorite books in the last 10, 20 years, right?" Like Shelley Parker Chan, she became the son. Lee Mandela is the woods all black is like a queer trans 1920s Appalachia with like folk magic in it. Yeah, and I just feel like that it lends itself to not revisionism, but like telling the truth on a larger scale. Or flipping the script in some way or another, which is also fun. I think if you are a writer who, if you are a writer, who is a person with identity markers, to which history has perhaps not always been kind, then it makes it, you know, you're a well positioned to see both the ways you can either expose what real history did that sucked, or flip the script, change it upside down, give, you know, empower people who were not empowered and see what that does and what that opens up for you. I feel like that's one of the things I see and I'm not going to like call individual books, but what I feel like it can be less successful is when the fantasy that you are being presented with is in this world, marginalized people could either be happy or resist depression because those two things were happening. So you have to be careful that I think you're not being like, yeah, what if in this imaginary world queer people could fall in love and it was that queer dorm world in the historical setting because of magic and it's like, so I hear you, however, that was definitely happening. And to not erase, not to accidentally sort of trample over the real histories that simply are not talked about, but definitely did happen. Wait, I thought you think woke up and decided to be queer like 20 years ago. Yeah, or that was just best friends or roommates or they fell in love, but they had a really sad ending. Right, right. All the death. It's one of the things that interests me most about history is how did people in different times and places under different conditions navigate their own life experiences? How did they find joy, have fulfilling lives even when the world was set against them in ways that didn't want them to have those things? I find that how did they conceive of themselves in a world that tells them they're lesser because like, we're not without that now. Yeah, no, I mean, it's very much historic. It's some periods than others. And that's something else I love about doing historical fiction and alternate history is that people across time are not exact. You know, we're not the same, same culture influences us. But we face the same problems and questions. You know, everything from how do we keep our community fed to who gets rights, what traditions are worth preserving and which ones inhibit growth? Should we let new people into our community or not? These are questions that we face over and over and over again. I like looking at how different societies have answered these questions and how they justify it to themselves and how the people on the losing end of those equations go on. How do they justify their, you know, like if they choose to still be part of this society, like what do they do with themselves? There's so many interesting angles and facets. And that's that. Yeah. I think you're really hitting on why I think there's actually not that much air between all history and secondary world. Like those are similar ideas and at least the way that I see secondary world working, which is like whatever your reason for needing to put this story in a made up world. Like it kind of like in sci-fi where they're like, well, but the rules of physics still need to apply and whatever other planet you've invented. The rules of like basically sociology still need to apply in your secondary world. And that's the only way it feels like it has an internal logic is if it has a recognizable approach to like things like what you were talking about. And I will say that doesn't mean those rules are often less rigid than we think they are. They are like it's that I'm not saying that they need to have like a big discussion about the binary gender nature of a song. You know, like obviously, obviously a lot more of this is up for debate than we would like to think. But just sort of like how hierarchy works, how power works, how oppression and resistance work. Like those things are familiar to us. And there's a reason, I don't know, I was thinking about the show Andor as I often am, as I do, if I turn the camera you see my poster. And the reason those narratives work in the fundamentally goofy world building of Star Wars, which is a goofy place. It took seriously those dynamics of power. It was the only Star Wars property that has ever been like so empire is a real thing. I know that it just means bad guys for 90% of this footage. But what if we thought seriously about imperialism? And that's why it doesn't matter what your meetup planet is in that circumstances. We all see that footage and we are thinking of like 50 different real circumstances that it echoes. Yeah. I loved the meme that came about. It was just like on Andor, you have this thing of like this very serious meeting about very serious topics. But there's just one fuzzy little guy in the corner because because it's still Star Wars. Because it's Star Wars. So there's a fuzzy little guy. And you almost feel like they tried to reduce it as much as possible. And still be a Star Wars. Andor definitely is more humano-centric than lots of the property. And I wonder how much of that is because they didn't want the rubber suits to be a distraction from the point they were trying to make. I think it was 80% budget saving. That too. That too. Not that those have ever been high budget costumes. But I also really trash cans in my love. It's funny. I thought it had fewer like, well, I guess there were some droids in it. But Star Wars has never decided how it feels about aliens for droids or whether they're like people. Like what degree of rights they have. And so I feel like Andor was like, we're not going to get into that anyway. But it is really so into, especially the empire seems to be 100% human. Yes. And the message that's in pretty much. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Really fast. And one of the original trilogy entirely male as well, which they have changed more in more recent movies and things. But you still, yeah, it's. I mean, that's also part of just how they made movies. That's also true. Like, yeah, you have to account for that. Not notable to the rebel leader, like the monothe that you see in that first move. You're like, okay, it was certainly engaging in a certain 70s things of like, you know, oh, beautiful white woman in the sweeping robes. She must be some sort of peaceful activist. I recognize that. And I support her. Like, but sell again, we use those visual cues to be like, you know what I mean? She's got one line, but you get it. You get the vibe. You get, well, and I think, I think there's the whole thing. I don't think we realize how powerful empire is a concept too in history. There's this meme that I can't stand that is the Roman statue of the dying Gaul and then an actual Gaulic Celtic, like a stone of a sort of mustachioid, very symbolist thing. And it's like, look at how backwards they were when the Romans came. Yes. The Romans made of them and how the white supremacists mean. But yeah, it is. Oh, totally. But it's also we still hold this concept of empire and the definition of a Roman empire, which is over too millennial at this point almost old as being superior. And that is still so much of it. The whole like men think about the Roman empire multiple times a day. Not the way that cast does because cast is brilliant and her Roman empire stuff is amazing. Is there a public anyway? I like that. Right. But when you read, when someone's like, all I read are, and I've met someone, all I read is his history is about the Roman empire. You're like, yeah. Eight. Eight, you should know better because if you've read enough history about the Roman empire, you realize how self-methologizing they were and that it was a shit show most of the time. Like it was not the light more interesting empires. But it's also true. What is then made into is more interesting. The mythologizing of it is, and then leveraging this art to say this one art is superior to another because it is more, there's a higher level of bare, a similar to a realistic something versus the sort of stone carving that of course, they deserved being taken over and their culture destroyed in their hair, you know, scalped off and put on wigs, which we are like going far afield. But at some point I will send you the Daniel Levery, do you know Daniel Levery? They write, like they used to write for the toast. He did. Anyway. Oh, oh, oh, I think so, yeah. He has a long, long hysterical piece about that exact statue. Great. I was just roughly really-- I was just a homoerotic dialogue about the sculptor who made it because it's a very hot statue. It is. It's up there with the sexy statue. It's the sexy statue. It's the sexy statue for sure. And he kind of has a porn statue. He has a porn statue. And he has a collar. And we're all like, OK. All right. Yes. Yes. Yes. But I mean, everyone here has heard my Nazis in Percival story. But it's so similar because you see this so often by empires and people who want to be empires is finding something that they feel is the story, the ideal story, and erasing all other versions of it, and then poisoning the academic well forever, which is one of the things I love about Spear is that it does take the paradigm myth and most people don't want to touch it. My own person was like, he's going to be gay, and he's going to be a dork, and he's going to be the last person that the Aryans wanted that dinner table. But that shows us why it's so powerful. And people are like, oh, why would you bother writing this stuff? Why do you like retellings? Because they're so important to us. And the very act of recasting it is part of what is so essential to continuing-- Wait, why don't mind retellings? OK. This was one of the books that I really found. I read it online, but it was so useful. I don't know if you can see that. But it's called "Savurn Fantasies," Arthurian Romance, and the Making of Britain, by Patricia Ingan. I don't know how that one. What have so many Arthur books? There are Arthur books you don't have, Natalia. I know. Is that legal? I don't know. My degree is Arthur. I'm sorry. I didn't get that one. No, that's awesome. So it's sovereign fantasies. And it's specifically about the invention of the Arthur mythos. I think it has a section on fantasy, romance, and tragedy, and how that story sort of united those things, and that those are the ingredients you need to make a really good state propaganda story. Yeah. And she goes through the different ways that Arthur mythos is retold at key moments in British history, when you really need to weld together a single ethnic identity from these very different language groups that don't have that much in common, or even really a shared history. But you need to be like, actually, this is the matter of Britain. I think you'll find-- [LAUGHTER] --that's what it is. --and then a little bit she touches on. And that's what I found more interesting, sort of how that gets exported as part of empire. And sort of used to justify the conglist of the world. Every time. Every time. Yeah. OK, now there's quite a bit of a preview. The hard cover is $78. Yeah, I found a new study cake. Oh, I could have noticed. Hi, new. I know that that's why people were like, where are those come from? I paid good money for these books. And then we have a McCays here. So I'm always cleaning their academic section, because there's stuff that you just can't find anywhere else. But yes, I think Arthur obviously is a great example. But I would even argue that things like Jane Austen retellings are falling into a very similar category as well. Because of all the heights you mentioned. For example, one could say, don't get me started. When you have-- --a movie poster that intentionally echoes Gone With The Wind. The movie poster that they posted with that trailer is the original Gone With The Wind poster. My god, I haven't seen it. Oh my god. And I think that is low-key. What a statement. That is low-key evil. Some of my choices? Those are choices. Those are choices we're making in this particular moment to be using, to be leveraging that as what you're saying. Jane Austen has fallen into, which is a sort of-- Oh, yeah. Oh my god, it really is. It really is. That's on purpose. And I see from the trailer that she's doing this very filmy already, like call back to the sort of, I would imagine it being the 1940s era Technicolor film making. Like I see that she's trying to call back to that kind of a thing. But really Gone With The Wind? Is that what we're going to do? Well, according to my mom, it was the most romantic story of a girl. According to generations of Southern moms. I do feel like Emerald Vannell is somebody who is going to do something weird and subversive because that's-- No, I low-key hated Salburn. Actually, I'm a hater all the way through. And promising a woman. And I think what I actually see is that she wants to be seen. I'm just going to be known as a hater, I guess. I'm becoming a weird-- I'm going on to podcast about worldbuilding to be like, you know who I hate? Like this is weird at this point. I understand that. We respect-- I love it. I love it so much. I better never actually become famous because I'll just immediately have like 60 to 70 enemies. And I love both of them because they were so willing to be like, you know what we're going to do? We're going to do the fucked up thing. We're going to work. And when you think that's as fucked up as they could possibly go, they're going to be like, hold my beer. And I think that's frustrating for me because I was like, very into-- like, I was excited to see Salburn because I was like, let's do a real gothic. I'm ready. It should be weird. And we just don't have enough weird and horny and sexual films. Like, truly, I think our films are becoming increasingly sanitized. And you will hear people say that there's just so much sex in everything these days, but films literally measurably have less than they used to have in the 80s and 90s. So don't talk to me about that. No. And like, half the time the sex isn't sexy. Yes. It's not sexy. It's not-- it's just bodies. And it's like, there's nothing. Yeah. Well, and sometimes too good to use-- like, we watched Anora. And I was just amazed at how beautiful-- The beautiful sexiness. --the sexiness. Beautiful movie. But also, like, they did such a good job of the commodity of sex, right? From the first shot, you're like, this is not about-- this is not about, like, deifying the human female form. This is transactional. And she's good at it, right? This is her skill. And I think it was-- Who was Harlett's was the same way. Like, that was-- I'll kind of love that show. And when they did have actual moments of real connection, those scenes were shot completely differently than the sex workers do in their sex worker thing. Like, that was very matter of fact. Like, we're doing the thing. Anyways, so I wanted to love "Selburne," because I think we need more fucked up in horny films in this world. However, I was like, I think the actual ethos of this is one I fundamentally disagree with. I think that this is, like, misunderstanding what the gothic is supposed to be for, which is a fundamentally subversive-- the things lurking underneath the beautiful facade of power and wealth. And it had that part. But it seemed to be almost like-- the gothic, I think-- And if you're evil enough, you can get your own. Well, and-- That was almost the best-- Ultimately, the message was they were innocent. The wealthy were strangely innocent. The only psychopathic villain in that was your protagonist. And I was like, huh? Why is this-- why is this Ripley? But the town took Mr. Ripley, but for dummies. I'm not down. I'm not down. I think the bathtub scene just kind of-- it's interesting when you just get this cultural shatter movement, right? And I think that it floated a bit on the shock value, but not on the substance. And it's weird. My husband and I both have this conversation. Sometimes you watch a movie and at first, like, oh, this is really good. And then, like, 20 minutes later, you're like, but what was it saying? Was it though? Was it though? Well, and if you compare it, then I'm putting things in line. And I'm like, well, promising young woman-- this is insane. We can cut all this out. Promising young woman is also about the oppressed or the marginalized figure going too far. The coming, yes. And so that's twice, girl. And now I'm looking at weathering heights and you're on thin ice. That's all I'm saying. Well, I will say, I really enjoyed promising young woman until the last half an hour. Because I thought it was-- the actual pretext of that is so powerful. And having Boberna in that role of just this-- not to give it all away. But he has that trusting, sweet guy thing going. And many of us probably have gotten in that situation. We're like, oh, he could do no wrong. Turns out that's not really how that works. But it's like revenge without the character growth. Maybe that's part of it is that her revenge just drove her to the very end to be as shocking as possible, not to change as a person. And maybe that's where me as the writer reader is going, I felt very unsatisfied and very uncomfortable with the way this ended, because it was just more pain on top of pain. I think-- But I'm going to draw this back. Watch this. There's an ethics to world building into aesthetics. And you need to think about them. Yes. I mean, that does tighten to the wind. People were justifying things in the game of Thrones. It's like, well, that's historically accurate. And it's like-- No, it's not. But is it? But also, even if that is the case, you're still making that choice of what you want to exist in your world and what that means. And that's not necessarily an invalid choice. But if you're going to do that, why are you doing that? Why are you doing it to what end? Exactly. In a bit. has a function, like I'm not opposed to depictions of intense things. And I think we've gotten a little bit hand-ringing about that stuff. Like artists are allowed to make art about heavy stuff that you don't like. That's okay. But why? It should be for a point. Like we also do need to have an argument that you were making about the world. And I am, I am so leery of using history only when it excuses these sorts of things. Like you all don't care about history. There's dragons in this show. You don't care about historical accuracy, except when it allows you to say, you know, rape was really common. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We actually, medievalist hat here. Like, yes, it happened. But just like today, people went to court frequently when this happened. This was like, women didn't like being beaten by their husbands. And they went to, I mean, the English drive me crazy in a million different ways. Not just because I'm francophone, but because I also love their literature. And that drives me crazy. But the fact is they took such good notes. These are like the Virgo people. Like we have, I think it's, I want to say it's like, it might be nodding him. Sure. But there's like, there's a couple places where the history knows how good notes they took. Which is rude. Okay. For those of us that have French ancestry, because everything just gets burned. Various points. And they're like, good. Yeah. I tell you, and I wish I find nothing. But my British, I've got. Well, but that's the thing is that we know we have reans and reans. Why was a new historicist? I love looking at all of the really cool data points that we had. And it's like, okay, yes, this happened, but it wasn't like everyone was like, well, I live in 1512, I'm just going to go rape women instead of like, you know, because there were consequences for doing these things. And so when you're that laziness of saying, well, we had to depict it because it's historically accurate. It's like, yeah, I was a research assistant for a professor of early Ottoman law. And I found him case like, there's literal case documents about how. Laws are applied women to either husbands to court. So like we don't need to pretend like there's been periods of history where, yeah, women just had no rights at all. And I actually think that's kind of a mythologizing that we do in order to essentially be like, be grateful. Aren't you so grateful for what you do have? And it's like, not really. My mom couldn't have a credit card until, you know, like, but aren't you so glad you weren't a medieval peasant? Some days I'm telling you. I mean, yes, yes. Do like running water, but I like warm water. That's my big thing. There was running water. It just wasn't warm. You had to have people generally to warm the water for you. And I'm not that wasn't it didn't it's not that it didn't happen. It just took a lot more effort to warm a lot of water, which is why with magic, I'm always like, oh no, we figured out we figured out how water. I like my water without parasites in it, which is why I say that. And this is to sort of go, you know, to go back to the fantasy of it and things like that. And choices you make. It's like, yes, in my current thing, I'm very clear about some things that magic can do, which includes purifying water. Like a simple ruin makes this safe to drink. Excellent. Great. Good. Took care of that problem. I enjoy how many fantasies that I would read with my mom in like middle school, where it's like, if it's written by a woman, there's either sci-fi or a fantasy answer to birth control real quick. Like pretty often it was like, where charm around your neck we're done. Boom. Yep. Got runes for that too. It's like, make this easier. Because what truly what what is more of a fantasy to some of us than like, oh, if I could just get rid of certain problems regarding my anatomy. Well, I mean, what's funny is again, it's one of those things where it's like, it's treated like a fantasy. But actually, of course, everyone who studies actual history knows that people have practiced many, many, many forms of birth control and abortion for a very, very long time in every society. So it is one of those things of like, well, they would have had an answer. Guys, we know that they did. So here's mine. Well, and that's, I mean, once again, it's time to blame the Victorians. Yay. Drinks there. But there is there is a lot of that too of this need to have we are the enlightened final form and everyone else that came before us was wrong and bad and stupid. And that's just drives me crazy. I work in the medical industry and I'm, we're still discovering stuff now that is folk medicine or like Eastern medicine that is in fact doing what we, we're trying to figure out now, like, you know, antibiotic medicine is critical to say everyone in the past was less evolved than us because they were also doing the trick constantly of everyone else in the world is actually further in the past. Like they did this thing of like all of these people are like, what you might imagine early man living like we're like a peasant in their village. So they're constantly literally placing other people in the world into the past. So then the natural conclusion is they are less evolved. Like, and that justifies almost anything that you want to do next. I feel like one theme that I would like to point out and everything that we're saying is that if you're going to do alternate history or secondary world inspired by history or anything like that, you clearly have to know this. You have to like, you're going to want to be a nerd about it. I feel like, and I don't necessarily mean that in the sense of like, you need to have a really solid understanding of every single thing that happened in 1893. If you're setting your book there, but that like whatever your theme is, you should know like, like if you're interested in like criminality or in women's social movements or in publishing history, like whatever your characters are invested in and whatever the thesis of your book is, like you actually do have to do the reading. But vibes are not enough. I can't end. They're critical. You can't do it without good vibes, but they're not enough. Read, but I went to a ren fair once. Exactly. I also find that people want to do the research after the fact. I found a lot of like, well, it slows me down. So I just write like question mark where there's something I don't know. And that works for a layer of like, were zippers invented then? I can't remember. Sure. You can leave brackets around that. But like you should be doing that reading early enough in the process that it shapes the entire plot. Like, what is possible in this world should be informed by like your readings of it? What's that like, like so much, so much of a society at a point in time, it's like you say is death defining the self versus the other. I think it's very often it's we define everyone else is primitive. The thing I loved about Rome was that they define well, actually greased it at first and then Rome just sort of shifted where the border was. Everything to the west was barbaric and primitive and they were pants like maniacs. Everything to the east was there might be a lot of something to do with that. Everything to the east was profligate, degenerate. They they'd drink and drugs and sex and all that stuff. The only perfect place is right here in the middle where we are perfectly moderate. First it's Athens and then greased gets conquered and Rome's like, no, actually it's us right here. We're we're actually the midpoint. It's like and then I feel like it becomes London like centuries later. It looks the same. And all those Orientalist tropes are available to them to use and that's one reason that they're so obsessed with the Roman Empire that works out real well for them. There in no way is the actual inheritors of the Roman Empire. But man. And now it's some mythical Midwestern city that doesn't actually exist. That is like the perfect center of what America is. They say it low. Yeah. Yeah. Like St. Louis, but like that might as a little too city. It's true. It's true. It's true. The idea that they they they are want to vibe into does not exist, but they pretend it does. And then they say that they're like the American, the the the nameless Midwestern town that you see in 1950s TV shows that I mean, one of the since we were already talking about our three and how it's used in Empire. I feel like one of the more interesting things I ran into was how popular the roundtable stories, but specifically just like medievalism was in the American Confederate South. Like they loved that shit. There's a reason gothic architecture had its little revival in the South. There's a reason that like they were referring to people in their groups as knights, right? Chivalry quote unquote. Like because it so conveniently justified a feudal arrangement power, right? So like they were like we're doing we're doing great actually. And it's very funny to me to think about a vision of feudalism that never really existed being exported to a colony to justify a brand new social and economic system. That was so pervasive that I didn't realize that Mark Twain wrote Yankee and King Arthur's Court out of pure haterism. I like I mean, he probably did most things. I don't know. Spike was a big moderator for him. I should have I should have guessed this. Somebody talked that essay or I think it's a review where he talks about like how the Sir Walter Scott disease has held back the entire American South. And he blames Ivan Ho for like people's backwards ignorant thinking and their refusal to raise maternity and he's not wrong. Even though the Robin Hood arrow splitting scene in that book is sick and everyone's coffee did ever since it did hold us back. And so he wrote Yankee and King Arthur's Court to be like you know what if they did go back it would like they're not it's not great back then. They probably would be learning more from us really if you think about it. it. That's not coincidental, but it's a Yankee. But it is fascinating from a cuisine perspective. I can't remember where I read this article, but how? Because I'm a transplant at the south, so I live in North Carolina, but I'm in New England or French Canadian. People are like, "Where are you Italian?" And it's like, "There's tons of us up there." Okay, they're just like, "You know, I look like everyone." But the fact that the food is this incredible hybrid of, of course, food from Africa that was being prepped by enslaved folks, but also French food. And the canonization of Lafayette and the obsession that the south had for years, he would do tours, right? And every other street, every other town around here is Lafayette something. But somehow that snuck into the cuisine, I learned more about French cooking when I moved here, and like holidays and bachamel sauces and all of this stuff than I ever did because French Canadians eat ostensibly English food. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It's pie and cabbage and potatoes. It's delicious, but it's not, I mean, we do the pate-té thing, but like, otherwise not. And it's just, "Pout food is another really powerful storytelling mechanism." And by elevating food and architecture, because you see the French architecture too, on a massive level, this sort of like another revolution, right? But it's the pre-revolution that they're looking at. They're looking to build the bourgeois class again. So it's-- Which so many great ways. Britain was actively sort of, we keep returning to sort of like storytelling and myth-making, right? So like Britain was actively romanticizing the pre-revolutionary French world, the grandeur of it, the tragedy. It's very, very lost, cosy, frankly. And I understand that they were fighting French revolutionaries shortly thereafter, and that's why, however, like, you know, is it the Scarlet Pempernal Stories, which is arguably the first superhero, are set-- they're based on this idea that these poor French aristocrats and their beautiful things, specifically their beautiful things, had to be saved from those hits. I love the Scarlet Pempernal, and it is such a problem. Like, it's such a problem. But Leslie Howard was so hot. Oh my god. I could not. It's such a question him when I was like 15th. It's also such a-- it's such a funny thing in English history to see where they flip back and forth between whether they identify more with their German heritage or their French heritage, because it's-- King Arthur-- It depends on who they're at war with at the time. Like, do we embrace our Saxon origins, or do we embrace the Norman French? Corporal Mantek are the King Arthur stories that we're telling. Like, which ones are we pulling? Or are they the tutonic blood brothers? Like, which-- which are we doing this decade? But it's, of course, it's everyone-- the book I currently cannot shut up about is Ada Palmer's Inventing the Renaissance, which is 1,000% about this idea of mythologizing in the age, whether you are immediately of it and self-methologizing or looking back at it and mythologizing it. And the book is-- it's just so good. I've been throwing it at everybody, because she also relates it to modern movements of mythologizing history. And how this is-- this is a human instinct we apparently have. The Frickin Romans did it. Like, I know they did too. They were looking back at, oh, our pastoral heritage isn't at a shame. We've become so degenerate. And I think that is another reason that history can play into our speculative fiction so much, because this is a human instinct to look back and either mythologize or analyze or both. We're imperfect at it, no matter how we do it. But it is something else that gives us the juice for fictional storytelling. And if you're going to do it, I really feel like I can tell when I'm reading historical fiction, where it's like, oh, you were reading the pop version of like-- you know, like to understand that whatever historical area you're setting your thing in, there's probably a good thick layer of propaganda and mythologizing and to really think about like, you can just do the research. Without like, really thinking about when these narratives were yeah, popular, you know, like, sometimes I read my beloved historical romances where they clearly have read genuinely primary sources about things like the problem of gen drinking. And the thing is that many of those anti-gen pamphlets were like, intense Protestant tracks for T-totalers that were exaggerating to some extent, sort of like the poor teaming masses of London. And you're like, so you have reproduced a specific kind of like Protestant work ethic-y propaganda about the working class in London at this time. Without meaning to, and you did your research, I can tell. But what did you research? By historiography as important as history, like-- Yeah, exactly. Exam in the source. Yeah. Exactly. Makes me think of writing a historical thing about playing dungeons and dragons and using only the chick track as your source material of what's playing dungeons. The 1980s and 1990s people were summoning Satan left right in centre. That's what they were actually working. Exactly, exactly. That would have been so much cooler. It's kind of a sick book idea to be clear that like actually the D&D cults in the 80s were Satanic. It's so creepy. Say, play these nerds? These nerds? Satanic panic at the disco. There's something there. Yeah, I think you could make it work. The thing there's somewhere. Gosh. But I mean, I think to some extent though, we can never really know, right? Obviously, and I think it's important to take your stance. I think when I get frustrated as when I feel like there is no stance. And I'm reading something and it's like everyone's terrible. It's like, okay, I agree. Everyone is terrible. But can we have some sort of throughline here? Like, what are we trying to say? Because to your point, yes, there was a lot of processation over the gen stuff. But then there were actually the first time we were faced with alcoholics on a level that we had never had before. But that was a technology issue because we could produce it. Genius stillers. They were like, uh-oh. Yeah. For sure. And it was so cheap. It was so, so cheap. And it was, they weren't drinking because they were poor bad morals. They were poor because the world itself was failing them and they just didn't want to feel anymore. Right? What are you? Is boils down to like every drug act that is in history, right? Like those are real. But how are you portraying them? Like, you know, even now you could read portrayals of the opioid epidemic that you're like, that is not what Eastern Kentucky looks like. That's wrong. That's not why it exists, either. So thinking also, I think in general too, to think always about power and who benefits from these portrayals and who benefit from their material conditions, right? Always. Always. I mean, the Protestants have the same issues, the Puritans with patterned clothing, right? I mean, the like hysteria over women wearing chins fabric or elaborate and bang, yes, was just horrifying to them and massively, you know, demonic and pagan, right? Because they're wearing these patterns from India. Where worse could you do? Literally 50 years later, all those same people are wearing them. But it's the upper class that flips it because they're like, you're not allowed to look nice because you're poor because you were patching all this together from fabric from, you know, sofas. And now we made you feel embarrassed for it. We taxed you. We made summary laws and people died over this. I mean, it's like, when you read about the history of some of these things, you're like, they died because of a bolt of fabric. Like, we just don't have, and I think that's one of the things about modern cultures that we, many of these things that were scarcity in history, like a hope chest full of silks, right? If someone gave someone for a wedding a bunch of silks, they'd be like, uh, thanks. But these were passed down for generations, right? We have dresses made and remade and remade and remade until they're so tiny that there's nothing left of them. And that material culture, I think, is also something in history, retelling is that we don't see as much of like, oh, she had 75 dresses or the, the maid was wearing her Friday gown, like, no, no, no, the maid looked, that was her dress. And she maybe had two or three, you know, different aprons, but, um, it's not how, yeah. I think material history is like a very good place to ground your world's building to, um, and that like unexpected material history details can often, I think, make it feel like, again, if world building is like selling a lie, like that is one of the more compelling things to me when I feel like, oh, this person knows about food ways in this era for sure. Or like this person understands fashion, not just as I strolled through, I like clicked through an exhibit once. And I'm using the words that I would use for these things, but to like actually use the specific language that they would have, you're like, okay, I'm in good hands. And part of what you're trying to tell a reader at all times is like, you can trust me. You can trust me. I know what I'm talking about, because then you can sell bigger lies later on. You can tell when you're reading a fantasy, be it historical or secondary world, where where the author has given no thought to where like, they're clothing has come from, where their food has come from, where like, how these sorts of systems exist. And therefore, everything in the world that they're showing you has this sort of like, this, you just go to the store and it's there. Like, what are you talking about? And if that's like the point of it, like if it's a, almost a, I don't know, I was just thinking about Catherine Villantees, the girl who circumnavigated it. - Yeah, circumnavigated fairly in a shipover room making. Like that feels like a deeply whimsical world, but it's the way child sees the world. Like, so your world building needs to suit truly like the genre and the style that like, the thesis of that book has nothing to do with like the economies of fairy land. - Right. - Right. - And so maintaining almost the focus on your thesis, on the argument that you're making, I think also leads you to the good places. - The project I'm working on now is like, it's a romanticy. It's one that I've given a bad case of politics because that's who I am as a person. And I enjoy wrangling with the political history and things like that. But at the same time, I'm having to catch myself and be like, as much as I want to use material history in ways that are helpful to me, there are points where I don't need to get into that much detail about how they are traveling through the woods and still maintaining, you know, whatever, like all these things, like these details. It's like, yes, I could come up with answers for those. That's not what the story's about though. The story's about how much these two want to bone, but are not like that's what it's up to. - Well, I will argue that my very favorite historical romances are the ones that like go way too hard on details that are like, or how your thesis that you don't need. Yeah, they are, but I really like the ones that are like, let me tell you about the news tax and how that impacted the printing industry in the late 1800s. And you're just like, oh, tell me more. - Print culture is incredible, it's sexy. Yeah. - I have done this research in the novel. It's your story. - And no, sit with me. And you're like, I will, they'll bone later. - On the other side of that though, I've read like historical, it's like, it's I don't know, it's a regency or whatever. They're like eating Waldorf salad or Waldorf. And like, that has a very specific connotation to a very specific time. And I'm not talking about spring steel, just for your reference. I could have talked about a spring steel but I'm talking about Waldorf salads or even chocolate chip cookies did not exist until a very specific time. So that's part of what I'm talking about. That you have not been with. Never even questioned the idea that a Waldorf salad had an origin point. On the other hand, macarons. I was in France last year and saw one the oldest macaron shops in France and it goes back to like 1100. And I was like, awesome, I can have macarons in this story because they had them, they had them. There's no reason my world can't have them. Sometimes you get those weird bits that don't seem like they should be true and yet they are. - And Tiffany can sell them. - Yeah. Tiffany can sell them and Steve can sell them with her. Yes. Yes. But that's okay. - But it's, I mean, it's once again, we are making choices, right? When we tell stories, we make choices. Which of these things are important to us? The storyteller, which of these things enhance the story we're trying to tell and which ones might be better safe for the authors' notes or the Patreon because they might distract from the story but still be really interesting. - I always think of the button seller in Jonathan's Change in Mr. N'Rale in the middle of the battle of Waterloo. There's a man selling buttons. That's true. (laughs) Yeah. That's a real guy. - Doesn't feel like it should be. - But it also feels real. - I like it. It just like, even though it's absurdist in the moment, there's something about the way that she includes it that just makes you feel in that moment, the strange absurdity of like a long running war. - A war in general. Yeah. - Yeah. Well, if you ever, I love buttons. Not just because of my fashion history nerd, but the met has an incredible selection that you can of just button after button, beautiful buttons. And it's one of those things that we just don't think about anymore and how essential fashion to clothing was, which is why a button seller at Waterloo granted they were also harvesting teeth in hair. - Sure. - As you did. But you lost buttons very easily. You might not be able to find another one. So you needed the ones that matched or you needed the ones that, and that's another thing when they're doing, especially civil war, they find so many buttons because no matter how well you sew it on, you get, it's gonna snap right off you. And to me, those little notions are always my favorite. We had a whole episode about that and just like, give me the buttons. Give me the buttons. - But with all those things, you also want to have the balance. Like I've seen many, many of you on book talk talking about how in their romanticies, you'll have your two main characters like riding for three days and then immediately just strip off in bone. - I am explicit about the client blame. Like. - Like no, there. - You can wash. - You can wash. And in fact, and should. In fact, it's not healthy. - People did. - If you don't wash, people washed. - Yeah. - People washed. - People washed. - A lot. Maybe not the way we think of it's washing, but you get sick if you don't wash. - No, we don't wash. - And while I've been writing this perfume book, there are little recipes from ancient Egypt for Deodorant. Like, people don't like being stinky. We just spent a lot more time and had a much bigger framework for it. Now it's the thing of the luxury class, but forever, humans don't like smelling bad. And different people from different areas smell differently and this is like a very, you know, distressing, confusing thing for some people. Right? I learned this week that Mussolini's favorite, was it Mussolini? I think it was Mussolini. Or was it, no, it was him. One of his favorite foods to eat was just garlic and olive oil on a plate. And I'm like, this man must have smelled, I mean, and I'm talking like 30 clothes of garlic chopped up with lemon juice and olive oil. - That does sound delicious, but. - But can you imagine what this man smelled like? - Well, technology can be so much of what defines an age in people's minds. Whether or not, once again, whether or not their ideas matter directly. - I was wondering if I can press overnight, we were all publishing our own books of how it works. - Literally. Everyone could read. - And magic can often sort of supplement technology in some ways. Like I said, it can make safe drinking water possible. - It's funny, I realize how many properties that I love and books that I love do sort of equate like technology and magic. And I don't think I ever really think of them as being in the same category of-- - I love magic tech. - So much. I don't usually find myself asking questions like, well, but if they had x-kind of magic, would they have invented steam power earlier? Would that have replaced steam power? You know what I'm saying? That's not really the way that I picture it. I didn't event with Libert Duke go really recently and she was like, well, that's how I, the people advanced within these four books from like, 1890s warfare to like World War I style warfare. 'Cause they had magic and that spent things up and I was like, huh, do I agree with that? I didn't say that on stage. - See how I'm thinking about it. - I would a lot of times say I don't agree. Like I feel like the idea of like, if you have people who can just throw fireballs, then nobody's gonna be like, you know, if I had a metal tube that could shoot, - The control of rock really fast. (laughing) So from a power perspective, they bite, right? If not everyone can throw the fireballs, right? - If not everyone can. - Right, like if it's an equivalent amount of availability, then the need, the technological need to like, have some sort of advance is diminished if you want a magic solution. - Yeah. - Is, is, I guess too though I haven't written a book where people can throw fireballs. You know, like there's something about the like, the more classic or straightforward vision of like, wizardry or power that is like, that it's often a weapon. I feel like that changes it a lot and maybe that makes more sense. I feel like I tend to think about magic and world building a little bit the ways that we think about where the supernatural enters into human history. Like, ideas about the supernatural, into it anyway, you know, like, the concept of which leads to which burning is how the sort of magical thinking and the supernatural and the religious beliefs involved in like the Malmau rebellion or the ghost answers in the American past. Like, and I feel like the supernatural often enters in when there's not a natural answer. Like when there's no other solution that is possible, when what like you have isn't enough and people are desperate, they don't have literal agency then it's kind of an invention of agency. Like in the Malmau rebellion, they performed like these rituals and then were like, you are bulletproof. That's the magic that we have given you. That's a really effective thing to do to your rebel soldiers just for the record. You can get a lot done. They tend to get a lot more done. They get a lot done. It's a breeze, but it's effective. But it is also a question of like, is your magic just sort of like vague and ethereal? Yeah, yeah, we're like really grounded in specific like. Grounded in practical. And like I think the more grounded in practical, it is the more it replaces tech advances. But also I think the more it can expedite sociological advances. 'Cause I feel like the things that like spread ideas and enhance communication. Well, it kind of, it's interesting then because it becomes how do you feel about technology? Which is that like kind of the techno optimist or the techno futures increase is sort of sees each technological advancement as like a democratizing or something that like improved the level of quality of living or the amount of freedom in the world. Which I don't always buy. Increasingly, I think we're in a like. I was gonna say, I feel like I might have felt that way. I used to. I used to. But and as with so many things in the world, right? Sometimes there's both good and bad aspects. to a thing that we've developed. - And I feel like I'm sure you guys are on the same track too, but I'm always explaining to people that the leadites were right. They were making good points. - And they were not again-- - They were a labor movement against the use of the-- - Yeah, badly into-- - Yeah, yeah. - Not the people. - Yeah. - But again, it's the cyclical. Like it keeps happening. Like it is astonishing, 'cause I know that like the backlash of gender to AI, people are like, "Oh, you're just being leadites about it." It's like, well, actually-- - Yes, I am, yes, we have to be concerned. - Thank you for noticing. - Same concern. - It's actually, and destroying the methods of-- - Of production. - If by that you mean being really fun, - It's what the leadites are doing. - It's what the leadites are doing. - It's really fun, such that I remembered 400 years from now for how annoying I was. I can only hope. - I hope so. - #goles. But that too, like the boundaries that people have historically put around technologies and how it gets used and who gets to use it and why or how it is inflicted upon you and you're forced to use it and why. I think that's fun to look at through magic as well. That was one of the big things when I was developing the oven cycle was like, okay, they've got magic. These are extremely litigious people. They're gonna put laws around it. They're going to build an apparatus around the use of magic that imposes some control and constrictions, but also safety. Like these things are all like it's all together. And I think that is where magic and history gets the most fun for me is that sociological aspect of it. If it is another lever of power in the world, what do people do with that? And Alex, 'cause all the back to what you were saying sort of at the beginning, what magic can literalize? - Yeah. - And if it is an agency and power, then it's like the ways that it can be applied in society or as varied as any kind of power, right? It can be a striking back against your oppressor. It can be a democratizing thing or it can be an extension of imperial power, an extension of oppression. - And it can be multiple those things at the same time. Yeah, like-- - Yes. - It can be all of those things in the same society. Good, bad, evil, ugly, pretty, all at the same time as so many things in the human world are. (laughs) Yep. Every time. - Well, Alex, we are over our hour as we tend to be when the conversation's good. And so it's true. Like when we just like-- - That's fair. - That's fair, I'm sorry. I got very often-- - No, we adore it. - Like six podcasts this week. And at this point, I'm just like, "You know what I hate, saltberry? "I'm really sorry." - I love it. - No, we love it. - We love it. - No, seriously. But we are now at that time where we invite our guest stars to contribute some trivia to our co-built world that we have been making and have many pieces of over the last several years. - I like the idea of a big messy world where like many, many, many things are possible. Like you must have things for many genres. - You're so dumb. - Yeah, it is. It's great. It's not everything fits together well, but that's okay. - Well, what I'm gonna do is impose some a story or order here. So what I think happens is that when any character in this world commits like two or three tropes in a row that would belong in a certain genre, a narrator appears in their head. And starts guiding their next actions according to whatever genre they're in. Like if they make the mistake of being an inn that only has one bed, (laughing) shortly after getting caught in the rain and having to spend the night at a stranger's house, then they might find themselves in a romance. If they are brought in, it's fine to cool store. - A narrator. (laughing) - I love it so much. There's this very cute short film. I forget what it's called, but it's like a Western where like all these people are in the saloon and they're about to have a shoot out. But Nick Offerman is like narrating the thing, but they can all hear the narration. They're like, what the fuck is going on? (laughing) And he's like revealing, the narrative is then revealing their secrets. And they're like, wait a minute. No. - That's great. Yeah, I love that kind of thing. I think it's very cheeky and fun. I have been playing a lot of Hades 2. And there is a narrator's voice who's been in both games. It was just revealed in Hades 2 that it's Homer. And that one of, just keeps saying these bleak and very intense lines. And at one point for the first time in either of both games, the protagonist goes, "Homer, are you okay?" (laughing) Oh, I love it. Oh, that's delightful. - I have a great fondness for that movie, Stranger than Fiction with Will Farrell. - Yes. - Where he's- - Little did he know. - Little did he know where he starts hearing the narration of the book being written about him that is set for a tragic ending and being (laughing) that that's where it's going because that's the kind of book he's in. - I feel like if I knew committing certain tropes would drive me down a certain path, it would be potentially dangerous knowledge for me to have. (laughing) - I feel like it was like you would have a person who's avoiding being a protagonist of any particular thing, which would be pretty fun. - Yes. - You know. - Avoid the narration of the book. - They're like the same dark stranger sitting in the tavern and they'd be like, "No, I'm not doing it." (laughing) - Turn on every light in this room. - I don't see you. - I don't see you. - I don't know, this is a fun meat cut. I cannot have a meat cut. (laughing) - Not convenient right now. - This carriage wheel better get bit so far. - Oh my goodness. - Well, Alex, thank you. This has been wonderful. - Thank you, it's a happy one with us. - This is great. - And I'm buying that book. (laughing) - It's really good, it was really fun. (laughing) (upbeat music) - Hi you, thanks for listening to this episode of World Building for Massacists and letting us help you overcomplicate your writing life. If you want to know more about your hosts and the fantastical books we write, including My Maridane Sagan novels and The Velocity of Revolution, Natanya's Queen to Fate and Netherford Hall series and Castes Aventicele, as well as our anthology traveling light, links to all of that information is on our website at worldbuildingformasacus.podbeam.com. We also have an archive of all of our episodes and links to more information about the guests of this and every other episode. Also, we now have a Patreon. Come check us out at patreon.com/WorldBuildingForMascists where we'll give you bonus content and surprises. We would love any support you have to give us. We really hope you liked this episode. If you did, please do take a minute to tell a friend, shout about us on the internet or leave a review on iTunes. If you've got questions or just wanna tell us how cute we are, there's a number of ways to contact us. We're on Blue Sky, Instagram and Threads as @WorldBuildcast and our email is [email protected]. We also have a discord chat room linked in the about the show page of our website. If you want to come chat with us and other fans of the podcast. We'd love for you to share the world's you're making and help us all build until it hurts. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)