Graceless, Godless, and Gaudy

“The company adopted the motto: Deus Indicat. Deo Ducente Nil Nocet. It translates as “God is our leader. When God leads, nothing can harm.”

my 2025 reading goal of reading more plays is well underway (from Emma: “perfect one sitting reading, do an act have a snack and read act 2”)

LOVED reading these two together, really REALLY made me think about how uncritically reading (or seeing) a story about how a group of young women were liars might hit different post Me Too.

The Crucible is a classic for a reason, John Proctor is interesting because he IS flawed and had made mistakes. Allegories for McCarthyism are of course extremely meaningful in 2025 — but man, John Proctor is The Villain did a masterful job complicating that story further. Abigail forever. It was funny, it was biting, had just extremely lovely teen girl solidarity, made me nostalgic for my fledgling first steps as a young bad feminist. I thought Belflower wrote excellent contemporary teenage girl dialogue that was able to reference Beyonce and Taylor Swift and not make me cringe.