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dolorosa_12This is the first of my Friday open threads making use of questions proposed by you. You can still submit your own prompts via last week's open thread.
This week's question comes fromshadaras: What's a piece of media/a story that you keep returning to? Why do you keep returning to it?
This is a really hard question for me to answer, because I reread things again and again, rewatch things over and over and over. If a story does not inspire repeat readings/viewings for me, it's not something that I view as being particularly important.
I reread, and rewatch, for different reasons. Sometimes it's consolation and cosiness, finding comfort in spending time with characters who feel like old friends, and stories which live in the space behind my heart. Sometimes it's because I want to catch a glimpse of a younger version of myself, the person to whom this story really, really mattered. Sometimes it's because I want to wring more meaning out of the story, or see if its meaning has changed for me over time.
Most common, for me, however, is a desire to revisit particular stories because they resonate with particular personal moral crises or questions that are weighing on my mind, or with the wider social and political landscape. One such example is Sophia McDougall's Romanitas trilogy. I've written about this series frequently, and it is really dear to my heart, and it's always been something I've reread. But since 2016, I've been more deliberate in my rereads, because the series' denouement involves an international alliance of the dispossessed making common cause, using the tools they have to hand, and weaponising the misplaced perceptions those in power have of them to overthrow a violent, rapacious, insatiably militaristic empire, led by an unqualified racist, sexist sexually abusive ruler.
I assume I don't need to spell out why I've been returning to this series with such frequency these past four years...
This week's question comes from
shadaras: What's a piece of media/a story that you keep returning to? Why do you keep returning to it?This is a really hard question for me to answer, because I reread things again and again, rewatch things over and over and over. If a story does not inspire repeat readings/viewings for me, it's not something that I view as being particularly important.
I reread, and rewatch, for different reasons. Sometimes it's consolation and cosiness, finding comfort in spending time with characters who feel like old friends, and stories which live in the space behind my heart. Sometimes it's because I want to catch a glimpse of a younger version of myself, the person to whom this story really, really mattered. Sometimes it's because I want to wring more meaning out of the story, or see if its meaning has changed for me over time.
Most common, for me, however, is a desire to revisit particular stories because they resonate with particular personal moral crises or questions that are weighing on my mind, or with the wider social and political landscape. One such example is Sophia McDougall's Romanitas trilogy. I've written about this series frequently, and it is really dear to my heart, and it's always been something I've reread. But since 2016, I've been more deliberate in my rereads, because the series' denouement involves an international alliance of the dispossessed making common cause, using the tools they have to hand, and weaponising the misplaced perceptions those in power have of them to overthrow a violent, rapacious, insatiably militaristic empire, led by an unqualified racist, sexist sexually abusive ruler.
I assume I don't need to spell out why I've been returning to this series with such frequency these past four years...