MAGICAL ANGELS OF CULLA CASTLE

Juliet Capulet, cat lover and party girl and Guardian of Earth. Taurus. Phlegmatic. Raven hair and hazel eyes. In black and gold when she transforms. With ADHD. Left at boarding school by her scheming stepmother.

Ophelia Brahe, music and plant lover and Guardian of Water. Scorpio. Melancholic. Ginger hair and green eyes. In mint green and turquoise when she transforms. Bipolar. Left at boarding school by parents who only have time for her brother.

Desdemona de' Brabanzi, literature and fine art lover and Guardian of Air. Sanguine. Golden hair and honey eyes. Aquarius. In lilac and white when she transforms. Autistic. Left at boarding school by a father who seems to only care for politics.

And Viola de' Montecuccoli, lover of the performing arts and martial arts and Guardian of Fire. Choleric. Nutbrown hair and violet eyes. In orange and red when she transforms. Leo. Antisocial. Left at boarding school by guardians who are raising her twin Sebastian to be the next heir (the twins are obviously orphans).

The four schoolgirls, all of them intelligent yet regarded as outsiders, spend days full of routine in a Catholic finishing school in Culla Castle in Castellón Province, away from royal courts' intrigues and from the carnage of war.

But at night, when no Muggles are watching and only the hoot of owls can be heard, the quartet of friends are elemental magical girl warriors, mentored by Mephisto, a talking black cat who is actually a Matagot and the Guardian of Quintessence. Armed with wands topped with precious gemstones (that also serve as their transformation trinkets), they confront threats each time more complicated. However, if a Muggle should find out that they are magical girl warriors, they will turn into frogs!!!

Visits from parents and from fiancés, the banishment of Ophelia's parents to the Finmark, trips to Castellón and to Valencia, a prisoner King Francis I, a visit from Caterina de' Medici to leave Viola's cupbearer twin Sebastian in Culla (after fleeing from his execution, a decoy shikigami was quartered in his stead), San Juan with Elf King Oberon and Fairy Queen Titania, the heroics of Literature professor Alonso Quijano and the flirts of Andalusian heartthrob Don Juan Tenorio, ever accompanied by his trusty servant Leporello who is sweet on him; mysterious messages on the walls, written in blood, every now and then; Deep Ones on the streets of Benicassim and Oropesa... And the awakening of ancient Lovecraftian Gods, something far more dangerous than the rise of Gustavus Vasa, the Protestant Reformation, or the Habsburg-Valois Wars of that era (the doomsday prophets were more right than it seemed). Not to mention all four of our Guardians discovering that they are bisexual.

How can we get bored if we live in interesting times?

THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE

 

La nascita di Venere, painting by Sandro Botticelli. No other artist could so masterfully portray the Goddess of LOVE. This painting in particular has been homaged in countless visual media, and it appears on everything from knickknacks (souvenirs) to ten-euro-cent coins.

About them (Uranus' severed private parts) a white (sea-)foam grew from the immortal flesh, and in it a girl formed. First she approached holy Kythera; then from there she came to sea-girt Cyprus. And out stepped this modest and beautiful goddess, and grass began to grow all round beneath her slender feet. Gods and mortals call her Aphrodite, because she was formed in foam (aphros), and Kytherea, because she approached Kythera, and Cyprus-born, because she was born in wave-washed Cyprus.

Hesiod, Theogony (Origins of the Gods)

#SaveOurInternet 3: The Serenissima's Seal of the Senate

This Christmas may be the last one that a free Internet exists within the EU, to the detriment of many people in the creative professions. When I first went into blogging and publishing fanfiction online over five years ago, I thought this day would never come. There would be a requiem and a ban on parodies, on sharing images and stories that move us for free, on filk lyrics and fanfiction, and pirate translations of works outside the public domain... The Members of Parliament turn a deaf ear to all of us in the creative and the electronic world, and thus, next year... if we all don't come together and do something against this Article 13, everything we know and love will fall apart.
Now I know how Odin must have felt with the forebodings of Ragnarök. But who am I to be then... Odin or Enjolras? Feeling powerless against the rising tide, or not? Not only is my career as a currently unemployed translator at stake; many other creative professionals will be facing the same dire consequences - if we don't do something ourselves.
Most surely, this year's Advent Calendar will be about Save Our Internet and have to do with the history of copyright and resistance to it - maybe this very introductory article will be barred because the name of Enjolras (or any other Les Mis character) would be as encouragingly mentioned as Macbeth, if we just sit there idly instead of coming together for the cause.

The Serenissima's Seal of the Senate (in 1526, a law made it mandatory to acquire this seal before publishing texts)

je meurs de soif auprès de la fontaine...

Je meurs de soif auprès de la fontaine

Je meurs de soif auprès de la fontaine,
Tremblant de froid au feu des amoureux;
Aveugle suis, et pourtant je conduis les autres;
Pauvre en bon sens, étant pourtant bien savant;
Trop négligeant, en vain souvent songeur;
Ma vie est comme ensorcelée,
En bien et en mal par la Fortune menée.

Je gagne du temps, et perds des semaines;
Je joue et ris, quand je me sens douloureux;
Déplaisance j'ai, d'espérance pleine;
J'attends mon bonheur au milieu des regrets angoissés;
Rien ne me plaît, et je suis plein de désir;
Je me réjouis, et ma pensée se désespère
En bien et mal par la Fortune menée.

Charles d'Orléans 

LITERATURE - US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

I should have done this commentary on this mural from the US Library of Congress as part of last year's fourth centennial events, but, alas, I was kept too busy with other things to do.

Anyway, better late than never, they say...

Literature depicts a varied group of male and female figures sitting or standing. Apollo, the God of Letters, sits in the foreground of a Greek temple surrounded by a company of maidens (the Muses) reading an ancient scroll. On the right, are the muses of Comedy and Tragedy, the former reclining against a printing press. In the foreground a woman instructs two children in the rudiments of learning. On the left a dreamy poet reclines and reads the Homeric epics beside a bust of Homer while his muse hovers above him. Next to him a standing figure of Fame holds out a crown of laurel above the head of a seated poet who is deep in thought. Below are the names of countries notable for their contributions to literature: Greece (furthest on the left, below the Homeric reader and the muse of epic, symbolizing Homeric/classical-era literature), Italy (in the middle, below Apollo and most of the muses, excluding those of epic and the performing arts, symbolizing Renaissance/late medieval literature), and England (furthest on the right, below the muses of the performing arts and the printing press, symbolizing Shakespearean/early modern literature).

The painting is by William de Leftwich Dodge.
Wall plaques, clockwise from the northwest corner, bear the names: LITERATURE, Greece, Italy, England. Their arrangement from left to right mirrors the subjects of the allegories above; a mise-en-scène not left at all to chance.