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essaytime · 5 months

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I think the main thing that absolutely infuriates me about the "Romeo and Juliet were just dumb, horny teens" take is this implication that because they were so young, their relationship had to boil down to them being dramatic and inventing some great romance to moan about, or lust and hormones. As a teenager, it makes me want to tear the speaker apart with my bare hands. Interchangeably with stabbing, maybe.

When you look at the text, you can clearly see that there is some emotional connection between Juliet and Romeo. Their first conversation is literally a sonnet - which already indicates some sort of understanding and mutuality, and it's also beautiful poetry. They are the only characters in the entire play that they are really fully comfortable talking to. The adults are caught up in the feud, Nurse loves Juliet, but cannot understand her (and makes a dirty joke at her expense in Act I, which for a person Juliet's age would be awfully unpleasant), Romeo's friends, though I Iove them, don't get his sensitivity - Mercutio laughing at it and Benvolio worried by it - which Juliet, in turn, appreciates. They speak of each other with respect and admiration, quite unusually in Verona, where all is conflict and even Juliet's own father insults her: look at the sonnet, the balcony scene, Romeo comparing his sweetheart to the sun or a jewel (in contrast to his earlier quotes about Rosaline, which are literally a compilation of clichés stacked on top of one another). Even when Juliet awaits their wedding night, in a speech clearly centered on sexual matters, there is a visible softness and affection with which she treats Romeo ("cut him out in little stars"...). She waits for the night because it's him, not "I want to sleep with someone because I want to sleep with someone". The two genuinely care about each other, and are fond of each other. Of course, we can wonder if this love would last if they were given an opportunity to grow older, but when the play takes place, this love is there, and it's beautiful.

(Off-topic, I'd also like to note that this is an Elizabethan play that takes place in even earlier times, presumably late medieval - early renaissance Italy. They wouldn't live in the modern world where you can date many different people and settle well into your thirties or fourties. The average marriage age for girls in Shakespeare's time was about twenty, in fifteenth century Florence it was eighteen. Both of them were from wealthy families, so they'd likely be expected - even if Juliet's parents did not force her into a marriage with Paris - to marry earlier, for financial and political purposes. There couldn't be a "growing older" like we imagine it. Even their hypothetical different relationships would be early relationships for today's standards)

And it makes my blood boil when the visible genuine bond between these two is reduced to just "dumb kids being horny". The motive behind these words being partly, of course, the high-school-acquired All Required Reading is Nonsense edginess, but also a deeper issue - the inability to comprehend the fact that teenage love is also often real love.

Being capable of having deep and meaningful romantic relationships does not come baked into your birthday cake when you turn eighteen or attached to your first ever bill. Not every single feeling a teenager might harbour is at its core shallow lust and wanting to get laid. Of course, there's lots of cases of shortsighted infatuation where the pair really have nothing in common! I could name at least a few examples I have seen personally. But still, on every street and every corner of the world, and often a few metres from these pointless infatuations, teens fall in love because there's something more to it. Because they find they have a lot in common, because they get along well with each other, because they are able to see the good in the other person - their kindness, their intelligence, their enthusiasm, you name it. "Teens" including the younger teens, from thirteen to fifteen. And this love is a deep emotional bond. Sure, in most cases it will not last until death (and to be honest, relationships not working out is not really a teenage-specific phenomenon and a sign that young love of all is inherently doomed and it has to die so the curse of growing up is fulfilled), but it doesn't make it less of a love when it still remains, and it includes all the things love is about. Young couples go on dates, and have fun. They confide in each other. They support each other through hard times, they show care, they sometimes make sacrifices for their loved one's good. As any person in love does, at any age.

When I fell in love four months ago, I did not fall in love because I wanted to sleep with someone so bad. In fact, I do not want to - not for the next several years. I realise it's something I might want someday, but it's not today; and above all, I'm way too young. If anything, what I want is to kiss someone, or run my fingers through his hair, or read with his head in my lap - but it's not something I'd go out of my way and date a random person to get, come on. I fell in love because he is actually the first boy that reminds me of myself so much, the first I can understand so well. Because I also have a penchant for history and writing, I also tend to use formal and flowery language in very informal situations, I also enjoy people's attention (though I seem to worry more about being a potential inconvenience than he does), I also believe that we should judge people as individuals, because there's too much nuance in one person to make proper statements about large groups - and I find in him so many things that I can relate to, though of course I can't say I know him well enough to speak much for sure. Besides, he's simply a wonderful person, not flawless, of course, but he has a good heart. He is always kind, and well-mannered, and intelligent, and you can laugh with him. I think he would care if something bad happened, no matter if he says that he wouldn't. I think I know him well enough to say this at least. And if he loved me back (a thing I consider unlikely for now, but not entirely impossible), would we stay together forever? Heaven alone knows! Maybe not! It is up to the higher power. But even if we broke up, that wouldn't erase the fact that I loved him, and I would have done a lot for him, and we were able to have meaningful conversations. Just because a love isn't forever, doesn't mean it was never there.

Because - what the "dumb kids" people don't seem to grasp - teenagers are also human beings with a functioning, even if not fully developed, brain, capable of having complex feelings and thoughts just like an adult. Note that Shakespeare's leads, at least Juliet, actually do that - hence the pre-wedding night monologue, the "deny thy father and refuse thy name", her statement (I don't know the English original of that one, to be honest) that she is too soft and loving towards Romeo already, but it's because she has such profound feelings for him she can't even pretend to be strict. It's noticeable that she has some emotional maturity, at least - she shows some critical thinking abilities, she understands the consequences of many actions, she is able to see that the feud is pointless and a name is just a name. She's a teenager, and someone in their teens is also a Homo sapiens specimen, not a being from a different planet. Teens think and feel. It might not be the same reality as the adult one, and they don't deal with emotions with such ease as an adult would, but that doesn't mean they are unable to truly love and care, to enjoy talking to someone and want the best for them, like grown-ups do - as developing an affection for someone that makes you happy is a very human thing, and I can guarantee you a thirteen or fourteen-year-old is a developed enough human being to experience it.

So, to sum it up, if I hear any "Romeo and Juliet were just dumb kids being horny" on my watch, the author of this statement will presumably be mercilessly killed, and then I'll do as Fulvia allegedly did to Cicero and stab something through their tongue, except instead of a hairpin, I'll probably use one of the darts my little brother got for Christmas. They are very sharp. We have several holes in the floor already.

#and today I live up to my URL and write a full-blown essay #romeo and juliet #shakespeare #classic literature #my Romeo and Juliet rants

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runningfrom2am · 9 months

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i am a god

summary: after a fatal bar fire leaves the whole city distraught, your best friend can’t help but notice that you couldn’t care less.

pairing: jj maybank x fem!reader

wc: 3.9k

tags/warnings: possession, violence, blood, gore, s/h elements, death, all that fun stuff. also reader is a psycho. semi-platonic jj x reader, SOME jjiara (i couldnt resist- sorry kie girl ily), implications of a non-straight reader, manipulation.

a/n: this is for day one of obx week!! day one: au with jj maybank! if you couldn’t tell by now, i went with a jennifer’s body au. don’t ask why, it honestly just came to me in a raven simone style vision and i honestly hate the final product. but i thought it was so perfect getting into the spooky season :)

i hope you enjoy and i’ll see you again tomorrow for my first ever john b fic!!

disclaimer!! : please be mindful of the warnings on this one! there are references to assault and violence and self-harm so if any of this is disturbing for you please do not read this! come back tomorrow for some fluff :)

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"JJ, it's literally not that deep. Don't be a baby. It'll be fun." You scoff, throwing your bag over your shoulder as you get up off his bed.

"For you, maybe. I don't get why I have to come." JJ sighs, following you down his hallway anyways as you sway your hips in the cocky way you always do.

"Because we're best friends. Duh."

"Okay, sure, but what am I meant to do when you ditch me to go hook up with the lead singer like you're insisting you will?"

"His name is Rafe Cameron, and he's an absolute rocket." You giggle. "You're not gonna join us?" You tease, turning to him and tilting your head.

"No, Y/N. I'd really rather not." JJ pushes your hands away as you reach out to fix his shirt.

"You're so boring, J." You pout, huffing and walking out the door. As usual, JJ follows like a lost puppy.

At school the next day, all anyone can talk about is how the bar you had been in got burnt down. All JJ can think about is that awful dream he had after he saw you off in the bands van, leaving him behind to go have sex with Rafe Cameron. The dream that you'd come back to his house, eaten all his food, and puked this awful black liquid all over his floor before trying to attack him, hesitating, and then running out- he even dreamt that he cleaned it all up. The uneasy feeling in his gut the only tangible evidence of the event.

"JJ, would you believe it if I told you he genuinely believed I was a virgin?" You whisper in the boys ear, coming seemingly out of nowhere and draping your arm over his shoulder in the school hallway.

"Honestly? No, I wouldn't." JJ replies, slamming his locker shut. "He must have been dumber than I imagined."

You giggle, taking a step back from him to lean against the lockers. "Even so, the sex was subpar at best. It was really upsetting. Almost traumatic, even." You sigh dramatically.

"Can't you have the slightest bit of empathy? People died last night, Y/N." JJ whispers, hoping you're not drawing too much attention to them in the quieter than normal hallway.

You roll your eyes. "Loosen up, Jayj. It's literally not that deep."

"It is, actually!" JJ replies, shocked as you start to walk away.

"Love ya! Catch you later." You blow him a kiss and strut off, leaving him to shake his head in embarrassment. You've always been a force to reckon with, and truly no one understood why the two of you were friends, but even this was out of character for you.

Later that day, Topper Thornton had turned up dead in the forest behind your school. You had paid no mind. It had been a month since then, and JJ saw you in person less and less, despite how close you always had been. You called him frequently though, hushed voices crackling over the landline late at night to make up for missed time.

He took the opportunity of you not incessantly calling him to invite over his girlfriend. Kie had always put up with your friendship, but she wasn't your biggest fan- the way you walked all over him never rubbing her the right way. Why would it? Regardless, she was thankful to spend some time with him one on one without you there to ruin her mood.

It's when JJ freezes on top of her, muttering about how something is wrong and he needs to find you, that Kie snapped. Internally, that is. That was the final straw. She would go to the upcoming formal with him, and then they were done. She just couldn't take it anymore. JJ didn't really care that when both of them fled his house to their separate cars, Kie had left in a huff with a slam of her door. He was only really worried about you.

The panic rose in his chest as he got on his bike, revving up the engine and taking off. He didn't know where he was driving, just that he was driving to you. He took a right onto a dead street he hardly ever drove down, scanning the dark street based only on his gut feeling that you were close. What he didn't expect, was seeing you stumble out of the woods, if that even was the word, covered in blood as the red fluid dropped down your chin.

He screams, swerving out of the way as you stop right in his path, almost rolling his bike in an attempt to not hit you. He screeches to a stop at the side of the street, looking around frantically with his chest heaving. You were gone. JJ thinks he's going crazy- did he see what he thought he saw? There's no way, right?

As he shakes his head to knock some sense into himself, he looks forward and sees you standing right in front of him again. "Hi, J." You smile. Did you always have fangs?

JJ screams again, hammering the reverse and flying back on the bike, frantically turning around and speeding off. Whatever that was was not you. That was not his best friend.

In his panic and fear, he made it home and screamed for his father who JJ, for the first time ever, wished was home. Of course he wasn't. He sighs and wipes away his fearful tears, running upstairs to his room and crawled into bed in the dark. He lets out a sigh of relief- finally, he should be able to sleep, hellbent on admitting himself to a psych ward first thing in the morning. He must be losing his mind.

"Hi." He jolts up when he hears you speak, cheery as ever and feels you shift beside him to sit up.

"Oh my god!" He screams, leaping out of bed and smacking the light on.

"God, JJ- enough with the screaming! You're such a pussy." You say, kneeling on his bed in nothing but one of his t-shirts and your underwear.

"Get out!" JJ shouts in response, cutting you off and pointing to the door.

You pout, placing your hands on your lap. "But we always share your bed when we have slumber parties." JJ takes in your appearance. You were clean, head to toe; not a hair out of place or a drop of blood to be seen.

He doesn't say anything, breathing heavily as he stares at you in partial relief. He may be crazy, but at least you're not trying to kill him. You sit up on your knees and move to the edge of his bed, reaching out to him with a small smile on your face. "I'm not gonna bite you..." You smile, placing your hands on his shoulders, gently rubbing them.

"I'm afraid you might." JJ mutters, uncertain as he feels you play with the hair at the back of his neck.

Your smile grows slightly and you pull your lower lip between your teeth. "Only if you want me to." You shrug, suddenly leaning in. Closer, closer, until your lips are almost touching.

JJ is horrified, frozen as you brush your thumb over his bottom lip before ever so gently pushing your lips together. He can't even bring himself to close his eyes while you kiss him, but something draws him into the temptation to kiss you back. Eventually, as you lay back on the bed, he lays over you and kisses you again, in some sort of trance as you hook your leg up over his hip.

"Wait- what the fuck is happening?" He quickly pushes himself off of you and sits up.

"My god, J bug, what's gotten into you?" You chuckle, sitting up again and tilting your head at him in a way he's all too familiar with.

"I saw you! I saw- I saw you in the street covered in blood and now you're just here like nothing happened and we're kissing and I have a girlfriend and you know that and I-" JJ rambles on in a panic, trying desperately to figure out what is going on with him.

"Blah, blah, blah-" You cut him off. "Slow down, tardy slip. You sound like a sped."

"I'm gonna call the police." JJ nods, settling on what he has to do, even if he doesn't know how they'll help.

"Uh, okay, why don't you narc me out? I have the cops in my back pocket. I'm fucking a cadet, remember?" You say smugly, crossing your legs and leaning back.

"What do you want from me?" JJ sighs. He knows you're right, and he's crazy anyways- so what would calling the cops even do?

"I just want to explain some things to you." You admit. "Besides, best friends don't keep secrets. Right?"

JJ just nods, waiting for you to continue.

"'Kay, so remember the night of the fire? I got really messed up. And those guys from Low Shoulder, Rafe's band, are like totally evil. They're basically like agents of Satan with really awesome haircuts." You explain the whole ideal- how you insisted you were a virgin and they should find someone with more experience if their plan was assault. True fear like none other completely enveloped you, up until you passed out from blood loss and pain from their masochistic ritual- all in an attempt to get famous. From the second you left JJ's side at the burning dive bar you knew something wasn't right. Fear was the last emotion you felt, but you left that, and the fact that you were screaming for him in what should have been your final moments, out of the story.

"They killed you..." JJ mutters, a tear dropping quickly from his eye and staining his shirt.

"Well I'm still here, aren't I?" You scoff, seemingly unfazed now by the horrific events. "I mean, they did go all Benihana on my ass with that knife and it should have killed me, but for some reason it didn't."

JJ shifts uncomfortably. "Maybe it did."

"Anyway," You quickly brush off his comment, avoiding his eyes as you pick at your nails. "I don't really remember what happened after that. I just know that I woke up and I found my way back to you."

"I remember." JJ nods. He wasn't dreaming- it was real. It was all real, and he curses himself for not checking his trash to see if he really had cleaned up your mess that night.

"I couldn't bring myself to hurt you." You smile softly at him, leaning now on your elbow. "I mean, I'm a really good friend, but I was just so hungry. And ever since then, I just knew what I had to do to be strong."

JJ goes to speak, trying to understand but he has so many questions, when you just continue anyways. "And when I'm full, like I am right now, I'm like, unkillable." You say, a smug tone to your voice. "Like, I can do shit like this. Watch."

You grab a pen from beside the bed, and before JJ can even get a word out you're plunging the tip into your forearm and dragging it down towards your wrist. His eyes widen in horror, reaching out for you as you remove the metal from your arm. "It's really cool! Just watch, look." You stop him, the lighthearted tone of your voice settling him only slightly as he watches the blood drip down your skin. Within moments, all of the blood retreats the way it came, back into your body as the deep cut seals back up.

You smile and make a sucking noise, mimicking the one your skin made as the cut completely disappeared. "It's like some X-Men shit, right?"

JJ watches in awe and confusion, staring at the place on your arm where your skin should still be broken. "What do you mean, 'when you're full'?" He asks after a moment, eyes returning to yours again. "Why were you covered in blood?"

Your smile fades quickly as you look back at him, unsure how to explain. Or if you want to.

"You didn't even look human." JJ adds, genuine fear and worry behind his eyes.

"You know, J-Bug, maybe you should talk to somebody about these disturbing thoughts that you're having..." You shake your head at him as you speak. "We're all really concerned. Especially Kie."

JJ shakes his head and stands up. He didn't expect you to gaslight him, especially when you just showed him to his face that you're invincible now, and now that he knows what really happened to you the night of the fire. "I think she may be having second thoughts about you." You continue, and he's fed up. He points to the door dejectedly.

"Leave." He tells you firmly.

"Come on, JJ, let me stay the night." You plead. "We can play boyfriend-girlfriend like we used to." It sounds like you're offering it to him, like it should be something tempting, but it isn't to him. Or at least he thinks it shouldn't be- but in reality he would love nothing more than to let you stay.

He sighs, looking away from you. He knows he wouldn't be able to say no. You nod almost sadly to yourself and get up, pulling your pyjama pants on before climbing up to the window.

"What are you doing?" He asks as he turns, seeing you go to the window instead of the door as you climb up onto the ledge.

"Uhm, you said to leave. See you at school." You reply snarkily, and before he says anything else, you're gone.

After attending another funeral for a boy JJ hardly knew and then one for a girl he also hardly knew, with new information knowing that his best friend was the one doing this, he couldn't just sit on it. He had to do something, he had to figure out what was wrong with you. He started with something he never did; reading.

He concluded after weeks of reading, that you're possessed. More specifically, by a succubus; and he's going to have to kill you. A blade to the heart when you're at your weakest. Even though he hasn't spoken to you since you left his room that night, he doesn't know if he can do it. But he certainly can't sit and watch while you kill every boy or girl in your school and eat them for brunch.

His breakup with Kie was hard- but she didn't believe him. He could see it in her eyes when he tried to explain that she thought he was crazy- that he needed help. To Kie, of course he would ditch their plans to go to the dance together just to "watch" you. She should have known that he was always going to choose you.

As she walks to the spring formal all alone, her lavender dress swaying in the breeze, she's startled by the sound of a bird flapping its wings not far away. When she turns back around, she's faced with you. "Kie, didn't you hear me calling your name?" You ask, ignoring how startled she already seems.

"You weren't." Kie looks you over. Under your makeup your eyes are sunken, you look tired and thin- despite any attempts made to cover it up.

"Yes I was." You insist.

"I-I couldn't hear it." She stutters, uneasy with the interaction already.

"Listen, I need to talk to you about you-know-who." You say, wringing your hands in front of you as if you're nervous. "Our little J-Bug."

Kie nods a little. While she's never been your biggest fan, it seems that you do have his best interest at heart. You're worried about him too. You grab her hand and lead her off towards the old pool building so you can talk somewhere more private.

"He's been... acting a little off." Kie says as you head up towards a wooded area.

You sigh, stopping and turning to face her. "Look, I think I know what's wrong with him."

"What? What is it?"

"You know how JJ has been really upset since Sophie Mally died?" You say, dropping her hand. Kie nods, looking confused. "Well, it's not just because she was like, brutally murdered and stuff." You hesitate, bringing a hand up to your head. "I don't want to say this, I-"

"Just say it." Kie insists, already battling with what she knew you were about to say.

"JJ and Sophie were intimate." You say, suddenly showing no hesitation. "And by that, I mean they were porking on a semi-regular basis." Any empathy in your tone and face was long gone, Kie could see that, but it looked like you were trying.

She just shakes her head a little, avoiding looking at you. It's not entirely beyond the realm of possibility that he was cheating, and hearing someone you're close with get murdered could cause a mental break like the one he was clearly having. She just expected that if he was ever to cheat, that it would have been with you. She didn't want to believe it, though.

"Trust me, they were doing things you've never even heard of. Total varsity moves." You add when she doesn't reply.

"Okay, Y/N! I get it!" She snaps, surprisingly making you smile.

"I just, you know- I can't believe he would mess with you like that. I told him it was wrong, that he shouldn't do that to you but I was totally caught in the middle. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner... I was just scared, I guess." You explain, smile faltering towards the end. "I didn't want to hurt him, but I see now how it could hurt you more. I didn't want anyone to get hurt. Truly. I care about you both so deeply."

Kie chews on her lip as she listens. If you were in her shoes, it would be really hard. She understands why you wouldn't tell her, even if she needed to know.

"I care about you so much, Kie." You add, grasping her hand again. "More than I have ever had the guts to admit."

You step closer, running your hand up her arm now. "JJ didn't deserve a girl like you."

As JJ stands inside the gym, basking in the sickening irony of Low Shoulder agreeing to play at their formal, he faces the nerves that he hasn't seen you yet. Thankfully, he also hasn't seen Kie, who he begged not to come. She was stubborn, like you, so he expected his ex to show up anyways just to spite him.

As he lifts the plastic cup of punch up to his lips, he gets a shiver that reverberates through all his bones like he just jumped in a frozen lake. Kie. Your voice echoes in his mind, and suddenly it's no wonder he hadn't seen either of you there.

He rushes out of the building following only his gut instinct- like when he got on his bike all those weeks ago. His intuition will take him to you.

By the time he runs away from the school, through the forested area and up to the pool house, he can hear Kie screaming for help. He rushes in through a window, stumbling over the overgrown vines and his eyes land on you and Kie in the dirty pool. "Kie!" He shouts, making only brief eye contact with her before you turn from where you had your back to him. Your jaw looked almost unhinged- and there were those fangs again, this time covered in the blood of his ex girlfriend while the colour drains from her skin.

He dives in without another thought, attempting to pull you off of her, shoving you away as quickly as he can. Under the water you see the two of them- JJ between Kie and you. You can't hurt him. You just can't. They scramble to get out of the water and you find yourself levitating out instead- it's more graceful, that way. Kie should be embarrassed, you think- suppressing the urge to laugh at her as they struggle.

"She can fly?" Kie coughs out, blood pouring from the puncture wounds in her neck now.

"I guess!" JJ replies, just as your feet land on the ground. "Y/N- this is insane! You can't keep killing people!"

"God, you just don't get it." You scoff, crossing your arms.

"No, I do. I do, I know what's going on with you." He insists, still standing between you and Kie.

You shake your head, rolling your eyes at him. "God, J-Bug, don't you care about me at all? If you know everything about me like you say you do, you should know I have to do this."

"You don't! If you were the Y/N I knew you would have killed yourself to avoid this." JJ says, and the air gets thick. "You were never a good friend to me! When we were little you broke my toys, poured juice in my shoes, not to mention all the weed you never paid me a dime for, but you would never do this."

"And now I'm eating your girlfriend." You scowl. "See? At least I'm consistent."

"Why do you need her?" He asks, dirty water dripping from his hair and down his face and neck. "You could have anybody that you want, Y/N. So... why Kie?"

"Ugh, god. Boys are so dumb sometimes." You chuckle to yourself. "You know why."

JJ's chest is heaving as he takes in your appearance. You look nothing like you used to.

"You're actually gonna make me say it?" You laugh, Kie jumping a little where she's sitting on the ground behind him, startled by the loud noise. "Because you're my boyfriend. I have loved you for years in a way no one else ever has. A way no one else ever will."

"Do you mean that?" JJ mutters.

"JJ!" Kie gasps, shocked that he would even consider believing this crap.

"Every word, babe." You smile softly, nodding as you step closer to him.

"JJ, come on! You can't be buying this!" Kie cries out.

"I mean it, I swear." You say again, attempting to drown her out as you place a hand on his cheek. He flinches only slightly before leaning into your touch. "I pinky promise."

For the first time in months, you were being real- you had the energy to be yourself, despite the fact that you were starving. You couldn't live a life like this without him, and you wouldn't leave him behind.

"Come with me." You whisper, leaning closer. "We can be perfect together, J."

He glanced briefly down at Kie, who no longer has the energy to protest.

"Don't you love me?" You ask, jutting your lip out in a familiar pout and you tilt your head.

"I.. I do, yeah." He nods, his voice barely above a whisper.

"This will only be a pinch, J-Bug." You smirk, kissing him briefly, softly, before moving quickly down to his shoulder and biting down on his soft skin. He cries out until you pull away, a small smile forming on your blood stained lips.

You've never looked more beautiful to him.

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#obxweek23 #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank #jj x reader #jj obx #jj blurb #jj maybank x you #jj maybank fanfiction #jj maybank imagine #outer banks #obx #obx fic #obx fanfiction

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iamthenightcolormeblack · 3 years

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My Experience with Jane Austen Part 2: Reading the Books

In part one I laid out which books I read, which ones were my favorites and least favorites, and the adaptations I've seen. Now I'd like to talk about my reading experience.

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert, just a casual reader sharing some observations, feel free to correct me if I get some details wrong. Out of the books I’ve read I’m most familiar with Pride and Prejudice.

Let's face it. Reading Austen can be challenging and I understand why some people dislike Austen.

It's easy to perceive her novels as "boring" because on a surface level, not much happens. The characters are well-off people (in the upper half of society) who spend their time at home or traveling between social calls and it's easy to dismiss their conflicts as "first world issues." Settings are often indoors, reflecting how "confined and unvarying" the lives of the rich (especially women) were. The plots often move forward through dialogue or conversations rather than big dramatic events. The focus on marriage can also make the stories feel like antiquated relics of the past and can be hard to relate to.

The writing style is also different. There isn't much dialogue at times because Austen slips in lots of very subtle commentary or prefers to describe a character's external appearance or characteristics. Often big events like proposals are described briefly after they happen rather than during, which can make the story feel rather "dry." The books are narrated in third person and sometimes there is unreliable narration (Pride and Prejudice) where we get characters' multiple points of view, but all narrated in the third person as to give each one credibility and prove that it's hard to trust others. Austen's writing style means that readers have to fill in the blanks with their imagination. For example, she doesn't give exact physical descriptions of her characters, often relying on general characteristics like "tall," "handsome," or "amiable." In my previous reviews of Pride and Prejudice adaptations, I explored that intentional ambiguity as a big reason why the character of Mr. Darcy is alluring--because the reader forms a personal connection with the character by sketching his portrait alongside Elizabeth. The characters (their physical appearance and some of their motivations) are purposely mysterious and while it gives the reader lots of opportunities for engaging with the text, without historical/literary context for "filling in the blanks" it's easy to see the characters as stiff mannequins in strange clothing rather than human beings.

Austen as a romance writer: Her romances don't always match up with our perception of what a romance should be. Some people start Austen expecting intense emotions and outbursts of passion but become disappointed when presented with formal courting and stately dances instead. Emotions are often veiled behind dialogue and for a first-time reader it can be challenging to see a romance developing. Most of the time readers have to rely on the clues given by Austen (descriptions of characters "blushing," looking "pale," or losing their composure) to detect the stirrings of love, but on a first reading it's difficult to do so when one's trying to figure out the plot and the characters. Finally, the dialogue can't always be taken literally; lots of people, including me, were disturbed when Mr. Knightley said he loved Emma since she was 13, but it was actually a joke made in response to something she said.

Her books are products of their time, and I sure am not an expert in Regency era economics or social norms. Sometimes the implications of certain actions can be lost on a reader if they don't know about the social norms of the time (I had no idea that Darcy following Elizabeth around, alone, on her favorite walk at Rosings was a sign of his love for her). Differences in social class are also very subtle and while one can generalize the characters as all "well-off" people, they are separated by many levels of hierarchy and their ideas about social position and status affect how they interact with others outside of their station. Darcy looks down upon those whom he perceives to be below him, and while Emma wants to make an advantageous match for Harriet, Harriet's lower social position means that Emma's schemes are not likely to work.

Because of the unique quirks within the novels, the reader is required to go beyond the surface level of plot and appearance and read between the lines to understand character motivations and actions. Without historical context (Regency era society having little social mobility, women having few legal rights and needing to make good marriages to secure material comfort) or literary context (the Enlightenment, 18th century Gothic novels referred to in Northanger Abbey, the birth of the novel, early Romantic writers just to name a bit) reading between the lines is nearly impossible.

So why do we read Austen? Below are my personal reasons.

The novels feature female heroines that have dignity and self-respect. It's significant that the stories focus on women who are trying to live according to their own values and speaking their own minds rather than acquiescing to societal dictates. Elizabeth Bennet is revolutionary in part because she wants a marriage based on mutual admiration and respect between two partners who know each other well, rather than an economic arrangement for a home. One could go on forever about how Austen is a feminist, but, the characters don't act like modern day feminists--they are still people of their time. However, it's easy to assume "feminist" heroines have to have "aggressive" characteristics (rebelling, fighting, defiance) in order to be labeled as "feminist." Importantly, Austen's women are allowed to be vulnerable (they cry or struggle with their emotions) without that being a shameful thing. We also see different types of personalities celebrated: Jane Bennet, who is kind to everyone, is seen in a positive light rather than shamed for seeing good in everyone. Anne Elliot, who is regarded as "old," becomes more beautiful as she gets older and has a second chance of love. Emma Woodhouse is spoiled yet confident and assertive and "not likely to be well-loved" (paraphrase of Austen's commentary on Emma). Fanny Price is a shy person but still achieves her happy ending. Her heroines are real people who have flaws and get opportunities to learn and grow so that they can make their aspirations reality.

A unique take on the universal conflict of humans versus society: Austen's characters are bound by social norms of etiquette as well as a value system that idolizes wealth and connections above all else. Persuasion is a great story in part because it focuses on how Anne Elliot learns to follow her heart and avoid being "persuaded" by others (and by society) to follow a path that will not make her happy. She's had to live with the regret of following the well-intentioned but harmful advice of others (Austen notes that Lady Russell values social connections too highly) over her own feelings and judgment, nearly losing her chance to be with Wentworth. The romances are significant in that they reinforce the dignity and self-respect of the female heroines. To a certain extent, Austen's stories are realistic in that marriage is necessary for material well-being in a patriarchal society that provides few ways for women to provide for themselves. But most importantly, she also sees marriage as a means of affirming self-respect and dignity of the women. It's one of the few parts of their lives over which they have any control because they get to choose whom they marry (for the most part, unless the marriage is arranged). Their wish to marry for love is revolutionary because they dare to aspire for something more than wealth. They want their future partners to be their equals, someone who they can love and respect (or be totally honest with them) and who will provide the same in return. This line from Emma (the 2020 movie adaptation) sums it up: "I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Fame I do not want. Fortune I do not want. Consequence I do not want."

The difference between outward appearances and inner character is a fascinating theme that appears in several Austen novels, most notably Pride and Prejudice, where Wickham and Darcy are foils of each other ("one has got all the goodness, the other all the appearance of it"). A lot of the villains in Austen's novels are those who deceive others about their motivations or lie for their own advantage. A common trait these villains all have is that they have a charming outward appearance that masks their true natures; they don't look ugly nor are they unpleasant (ex. Wickham having great social skills, Willoughby following the trope of the knight rescuing Marianne as the damsel in distress but leaving behind many broken hearts, Mr. Elliott being charming and knowing exactly what to say and how to act but actually a swindler). In contrast, the "good" characters are honest, even at the cost of social displeasure, use manners/etiquette to show respect rather than deceive people, and act selflessly to prove their worth (actions speak louder than words). It can be summed up this way: "don't judge a book by its cover."

Psychology: Austen very effectively described hindsight bias when sarcastically commenting on how the village of Meryton turned on Wickham after the elopement with Lydia, when previously they regarded him as an "angel of light." She also understands how easy it is to manipulate peoples' minds through confirmation bias (Wickham telling Elizabeth all the dirt about Darcy, which she eagerly takes because she hates Darcy so much). She also knows that emotions can override people's judgment: "angry people are not always wise." It's fun seeing how her people are social animals who make flawed judgments based on first impressions/emotions.

The secondary characters: Mr. Collins the clergyman is the most famous and he's so funny because of his arrogance in spite of his low social position (he keeps worshiping Lady Catherine instead of respecting God). Another great one is Sir Walter Elliott, a nobleman who is vain and constantly checks himself in the mirror (the most obvious social criticism). Also Austen understood how women insult each other: through passive aggression (ex. Caroline Bingley and Louisa Hurst talking negatively about Elizabeth behind her back). Austen's female bullies use their talent and "good breeding" to intimidate or shame others.

The romance (no explanation needed): "You pierce my soul. I am half-agony, half-hope. I have loved none but you." I love how the couples learn about each other through many spirited conversations and become slowly fascinated with each other until they realize they are in love and then have a conflict between formality and their growing passion...or they fall back in love with each other...or they are friends who slowly realize that they are more than friends...okay I'll stop talking nonsense I've been trying so hard to be semi-scholarly

Tags: @talkaustentome @austengivesmeserotonin @austengeek @princesssarisa @appleinducedsleep @colonelfitzwilliams

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tomatograter · 3 years

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What are your thoughts on Dave's bro/Beta Dirk and Grandpa Harley/Beta Jake, as in, how do you feel like their relationship played out in their timeline?

(If you already talked about this in a post I'm so sorry but could you link it?)

I don't think i ever actually talked about this aside from joking, nop. If you mean relationship as in their work dynamic, we know that grandpa employed both mom lalonde and bro strider— whether this was done officially in paid Skaianet positions or just person to person to put plot shit in it's place is like, up to the viewer. Main miss i see frequently is the impression that beta dirk operated alone or got his information alone while the others played npc roles, which is simply not true. If anything grandpa + mom are implicated in the direct coding, orchestration and release of Sburb wayyyy more openly than he is, which makes him look like he's doing fuck all on the side, but they still aren't solitary operators. Dad egbert is legitimately the only guardian who just jumped in for the ride last minute and was prolly clueless during his tragic short time there. Mom could have filled him in when they were onboard the spaceship? Idk.

If you mean their relationship as in romantic relationship, being fairly honest; chances are nothing happened here. Its a bit noticeable that while grandpa does take roxy under his wing and keeps her relatively close to his family (she's included in joey's family crafts even)

The same cannot be said about dirk. (Read the following with a slight sigh:) according to the skaianet archives, beta jake moves up to new york to help raise roxy halfway through working on the development of some "incredibly advanced software" that he will only later discover results in the game, when he finally comes into contact with the artifacts on the frog island; while dirk, all the way out in texas, was set to grow up remotely with a trust fund. Through the items present in Jade's house, particularly the neon colored rooms made vaguely in honor of the other 'alpha' kids, it is somewhat implied that beta jake, like jade at the beginning of HS, had some foreknowledge of things yet to come thanks to Inane Plot Bullshit, and this is joked about/referenced with alpha jake a few times too. (You could blame this on info he got from the ruins or visions from the clouds of prospit or just general story bullshit thanks to the fact the alphas are paradox-people that originated out of themselves ie nothing, and they exist to fill mechanical roles) SO while we get a lot of fond cross-referencing of their interests & dirk's character in a postmortem way in the beta universe—it does feel like he was purposefully avoiding dirk. Reasons vary: The age difference is too dramatic in a fixed timeline, that's not something i think jake would be comfortable with, he's deeply closeted still, they are all literally working against the sands of time and going to die, etc.

The alpha universe provides ideal conditions in that it gives them the opportunity to live a life they simply weren't programmed to before, but i'd be remiss not to mention that even there, dirk is sent 400 years into the future. Running theme.

#(taps mic) still good in AUs though #homestuck #meta #grandpa harley #mom lalonde #bro strider #hiveswap #jake harley #jake english #roxy lalonde #dirk strider #dirkjake

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frevandrest · 3 years

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Everything Wrong with Saint-Just's Introductory Scene in La Révolution française (1989)

As promised, here is an analysis of Saint-Just’s first scene from La Révolution française (1989). You can watch the scene (with English subtitles) here. It sadly misses the dramatic entrance part, but everything else is there. SPOILER: This analysis will not, in fact, cover everything wrong because there’s so much trash you can’t adequately address it in only 1000 words.

In the scene, we see a young man with that hair rushing down the steps of the Convention (in what will be his signature dramatic! style). He pushes people way without even looking at them. There is someone at the rostrum, and many people wait to address the Convention. Saint-Just doesn’t give a fuck. “I demand to speak.” Some deputies murmur a weak protest, but they are shit out of luck because it’s time to introduce a new character, and we need to know what a jerk he is. So of course he’s granted the word.

At first, nobody pays attention, but “just like you, I would die for this Republic”, seems to work. He delivers the speech (which contains maybe two lines from the actual one), and by the end, Marat claps, the Convention claps, Danton and Girondins are suspicious; Robespierre is in love. Camille, oh Camille, does he know he’s just been replaced? Saint-Just pouts slightly (my interpretation) but doesn’t show much emotion. Next scene: Louis receives news that he’s being put on trial. Good job, new boy.

As first scenes go, this is a good introduction to Saint-Just as depicted in the film. But it’s also very wrong for SJ as a historical personality (what we know of him). Which sucks, because it’s not like it’s impossible to make an unsympathetic yet historically accurate SJ, if one wants to go that route. See, Saint-Just in La Révolution française is a prop; he’s not a character with his own complexities, goals or motivations. He is just there to be pretty and evil, and to take Robespierre away from Camille.

So, why is this introduction wrong?

Let us remember that this was Saint-Just’s very first speech at the Convention. He got elected days after his 25th birthday; he was the youngest out there. Also, even with Robespierre’s support (that some claim he already enjoyed), he was an unknown; a peasant provincial from Picardie barely out of his adolescence. He wanted to prove himself and demonstrate that he was a worthy representative. Being rude and pushing people away is not really a good way to achieve that.

Here’s the thing about Saint-Just: despite all stereotypes of the contrary, he respected authority. However, he only respected authority that he felt deserved to be respected. In 1792, “monarchy” was not it. But National Convention? Revolutionary government? Of course he respected it. He fought so much to get there, and he respected the place he was given.

Throwing his weight around, pushing people away, demanding to speak when someone else is at the rostrum, disobeying order... It was really not Saint-Just. He hated commotion and fights that happened so often at the Jacobin club. Even on 9 Thermidor, when Tallien interrupted him and shit hit the fan, he continued to attempt to deliver the speech. They pushed him, and he kept trying to speak, without, I don’t know, punching someone in the face (La Révolution française Saint-Just totally would, which is, admittedly, one of the many, many many reasons why it sucks that they shortened and condensed Thermidor).

The film uses “blame Saint-Just for Robespierre’s turn to darkness” approach. SJ is there to encourage Robespierre into cruelty and cold violence, and, if Robespierre starts to doubt even for a moment, to reassure him that yes, this is how things should be done, you are right Max, let’s kill them all, but particularly Camille; I can’t stand that guy for having you first ridiculing my poetry (wait... SJ’s poetry wasn’t in the film. Why does he hate Camille, again?) Who knows. The only explanation the film provides is that Camille is Good and Saint-Just is Evil, so of course he’d want to get rid of him.

Now, let us see about the speech itself.

The Speech

The speech Saint-Just delivers in the film contains maybe a few lines from the actual speech (notably: “this man should reign, or die”). I don’t have a problem with them not replicating the speech word for word because it followed on what other deputies talked about (which we didn’t hear)*, and because nobody has time for Antoine’s ramblings about antiquity. (And it would take around 10 minutes to act, which would probably provide us with more glorious shots of Robespierre falling in love being impressed, but it would take too much of the running time. I get that.)

So, in theory, I am fine with shortening the speech and paraphrasing, as long as the meaning and content is there. Which... it did on a surface level while also missing the point substantially.

*Not showing SJ addressing what others said before him was understandable (condensing runtime), but it’s another thing that made it seem like he didn’t listen nor paid attention what others were doing. Also, it’s a missed opportunity to characterize him as a jerk full of himself, since his real speech basically opened with: “all that the previous guy said is bullshit, and here’s why”.

Speech in the film: I would die for the Republic and I would fight the enemies of the Republic. We all know the name of the enemy, and I, like none here, am ready to fight against this enemy. Louis is a symbol of traitors among us. We should not hesitate; the king is an usurper.

In short, speech in the film is, kind of, less about Louis and more about what SJ will be important later: his own sense of revolutionary righteousness and for weeding out “traitors” from the Convention.

Another issue with the speech is that it wasn’t just about the speech - it was part of Saint-Just’s introductory scene, so we had to learn about his character through the speech. In the film, SJ is rude, cruel and cares only about... well, we are not sure, because there are no motivations whatsoever, but he is there to push Max when something bad needs to be done. I feel that his rudeness during the introductory scene and the way the speech was delivered fulfil this purpose nicely. However, I am not sure that we actually understand what Saint-Just’s speech was about, except vague “we must kill the king” vibe.

The Aftermath

The scene following Saint-Just’s speech is that of Louis, a doting father, reading a book to his son. Men come and rudely tell him to send the child away. He is to be put on trial. The implication? Saint-Just’s speech won the crowd over and they decided to kill Louis, or at least put him on trial.

In reality, while Saint-Just’s speech was highly noticed (his real-life dramatic entrance into Convention), the deputies did NOT listen to him. The whole point of the speech was that Louis should not be put on trial - trials are for the citizens, which he is not. Louis’ crime is not treason - the monarchy is a crime in itself. Saint-Just argued against the trial. Yes, his speech was highly influential but presenting it in this way puts way too much weight on this newcomer’s words and implies he was the key factor behind the trial.

Other Observations

- There is a long debate among historians whether Robespierre was present for Saint-Just’s first speech on 13 November 1792. (I think the conclusion is “probably not”.) But I don’t mind this change, if nothing else, for those glorious shots of Robespierre’s heart eyes and Camille’s “wtf did this guy come from and why is Max looking at him like that?”

- Marat. It is true that he generally praised Saint-Just as an orator, but he disagreed with this speech (Marat was for trial).

- The reason why this post is dedicated to SJ’s first scene is because I was asked/challenged to write about it. It doesn’t mean that his other scenes were any better (I’d say they were worse). In fact, the entire SJ’s character was a Thermidorized mess.

- That being said, I don’t hate this SJ. I cannot; LRF was my introduction to the whole Frev thing and will always have a special place. Christopher Thompson was ok, particularly in some aspects of SJ. However, the whole thing was a mess and it should be criticized.

- Hair. I promised to dedicate one full paragraph to SJ’s hair, but I... can’t. I simply cannot. I am sorry. I tried, but the words failed me.

- This was more fun that it should have been and there are so many things I didn’t get to say (the entire performance and what this scene means for SJ as a character in the film, a more detailed analysis of the speech and comparison with the real one, etc.) But it did show that I can still vomit write 1000+ words about anything that I have any interest in, which is... good to know, I guess? (Let’s just say that I won’t be winning any SJ contest prizes for laconicism).

#la revolution francaise #saint-just #french revolution #frev #saint just #movies

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terrainofheartfelt · 3 years

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I think it's pretty amazing how much the gossip girl Fandom has changed. From my experience, most of my friends admit they didn't know what they were thinking with Chair when GG was on TV. And now you see this women empowerment movement. It's nice to know I've always been right about supporting DAIR. If only you saw the Fandom when GG was popular lol.

Oh, well for starters, let’s all be glad I wasn’t in the GG fandom while the original show was airing for a lot of reasons. Back then, I was a teenager DEEP into the twilight saga. My myspace page was all about my devotion to Team Edward. I was insufferable, my parents and brother are not on tumblr (thank whatever gods exist) but shoutout to them for loving me & putting up with me at my Peak Fangirl.

But to your point on how the fandom has changed, to put it extremely simply: I think it’s because we’re ten years older now. Most of my beloved gg mutuals are in their 20s like me, and while I can only speak for myself, the distance of my beliefs between when I was a teenager and the person I am now is VAST. My ideas of self, of feminism, of love, of sex, they’ve all evolved drastically over time.

Oh god especially my ideas of sex. My sex ed in high school wasn’t even in school, it was received via my church youth group [horrifying]. Now we don’t have time to unpack ALL of that, but I remember the exercise we did for the idea “just remember you’re having sex with everyone they’ve ever had sex with” (which, sidebar, I’ve always thought is a stupid ass phrase. That’s just not accurate, but I’m getting off topic) and it wasn’t that we were taught abstinence-only, but more like, “now don’t you want to keep this number as low as possible?”

So, between twilight and my religious upbringing, I’ve internalized this idea of “the first person you have sex with should also be the last person you have sex with,” and I think I’m still grappling with undoing that idea in my brain. BUT. bringing this back to GG: this idea permeates a lot of teen soaps in the 2000s, and the romantic fatalism that goes along with that.

I’ve been watching The OC for the first time, and it’s been interesting bc it’s the show the GG showrunners did before GG, so I can kind of see the blueprint for the ideas and characterizations that were really...amped up in Gossip Girl? Like OC is a dramatic-ass show, but it feels more gritty and grounded than Gossip Girl, in which everything feels heightened and elevated and...distanced, I guess? And these two shows are really actually period pieces, they are such snapshots & products of the area in which they were created -- which, carried those views of love and sex as a throughline throughout the course of their shows. (i.e., dan & blair both end up with their respective firsts, bc it’s Destiny. Or something like that).

So, when I first watched the show (I was a freshman in college, the show had just come up on netflix streaming - I still thought I was straight, I was still Christian, I still had yet to take a gender studies course), well - for starters, I was so into the derena endgame, and chair...I wasn’t too invested, but like, it’s not like I wasn’t positive towards it. And I think a lot of that was due to these 00’s media ideas of, what’s the right word...sexual fidelity? And the belief that everyone has One Person, and if they’re ever not with that One Person then those other relationships are fake and false. And derena and chair in the show both followed and affirmed that kind of viewpoint by ending up together.

I should say here that I am not equivocating the relationship dynamics of these separate ships, I’m lumping them together to make a point, but derena =/= chair in my interpretation of the show and of the characters.

Now, I am older and hopefully a little bit wiser, and I believe that romantic love isn’t necessarily destined, but it’s something that’s built, that grows, and a person’s sexual history is not a reflection of their goodness, and that love can change and evolve and it doesn’t have to be romantic or stay romantic to be meaningful. So, when I rewatched the show in my mid-20s, dair was the ship that resonated with me the most. And it still does, which is why I’m here, writin’ fic, and answerin’ tumblr asks from you lovely people.

Also on my rewatch, I read that dan & serena grew out of each other, which is sad, but it happens, and that’s okay. And with chair, all those red flags that 00’s teen soaps gloss over (because they do them for nothing but the Drama, the lasting implications don’t matter, it’s about taking the stakes of the moment as high as possible) I really saw them, and they alarmed me in a way that didn’t alarm over-romanticizing 18-year-old me. That being said, I’m very happy in my little corner of the fandom sandbox, and I’m not looking to argue the virtues of some ships over others or change hearts and minds. I just want to write my silly little stories and maybe have my friends read them :)

I think it’s also important to mention that since GG stopped airing we’ve entered a new wave of feminism, and the MeToo movement arose, and as people of my generation have grown up, we are engaging with the media we grew up in with our evolved/evolving viewpoints, and I think that’s why there appears to be such a change within the fandom. Plus, in the grand vast scheme of history, sex positivity and gender empowerment are SUCH recent things, and in the past ten years, they’ve progressed lightning-fast. Like, remember when I said I began college and I still thought I was straight? Gay marriage was not legal where I was from then. Like, I remember the day Obergefell v. Hodges was decided, and that win was not a guaranteed one. (I was actually studying abroad in Rome at the time, so we American students were running through Italy being like “gay marriage!!!” while the Italians just watched us like “????????”)

You say you’ve always been a dair shipper, and that’s great for you! But I wasn’t. And for me, I am constantly learning and unlearning and relearning, and media (even off the rails CW teen dramas like Gossip Girl) is one of my ways of doing so. Though I will put on my Old Lady Librarian Liz hat for a second and say: if you’re still in school/university, and have the opportunity to take a gender studies course (outside the realm of the internet, bc tumblr is not the be all end all of education), I highly recommend it. I’m still no expert, and I can’t throw any verbatim Judith Butler at you, but engaging with those ideas and the history of gender studies academically gave me a framework for thinking critically that I’ve taken with me. And nothing teaches you humility like wading through Butler jargon.

Thank you so much for this ask, this really got me to think and reminisce and I enjoyed it!

#asks #anon #long post #on today's episode of liz overshares...#you may have gotten more than you bargained for with this response anon #but tbh no one has ever accused me of being shortwinded #gg meta #also for tagging purposes #anti derena #anti chair

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villainousshakespeare · 3 years

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Learning a Lesson Chapter 9

iLearning a Lesson Chapter 8

Part 1 Here, Part 2 Here, Part 3 Here, Part 4 Here, Part 5 Here, Part 6 Here, Part 7 Here, Part 8 Here

Young Actor Tom Hiddleston/OFC

Rated E -Smut, Angst, Complicated Relationship - Teacher/Actor Posing as Student, Feels, Flirting, Fluff, Oral Sex, Sex, Shower Sex, Threats, Breakups, Angst…

ANGST IN THIS CHAPTER! (but don’t worry… I’m a hopeless romantic)

Summary: It’s your first day as a teacher and things are going well. That is, until a tall, gorgeous boy with blond curls and dramatic ways saunters into your last class. When he ignores all the swooning girls to flirt outrageously with you, it is secretly thrilling. Even more so is when he tries to steal a kiss after class ends. How long will you be able to keep your defenses up?

Up and Coming actor Tom is under cover in high school for research for a movie, but the pretty drama teacher is making the long assignment so much more enjoyable

@arch-venus25, @caffiend-queen @ciaodarknessmyheart @frostbitten-written @just-the-hiddles @kellatron55 @myoxisbroken @nonsensicalobsessions @poetic-fiasco @shiningloki @shae-annelore @thecutestlittlebunbunfairy @hiddlesholic @yespolkadotkitty @vodka-and-some-sass @wolfsmom1 @tom-hlover @toozmanykids @delightfulheartdream @whyispistashanuttaken @hopelessromanticspoonie; @loki-yoursaviourishere @is-it-madness

The Monday morning walk to school was the longest of Emily's life. With every step she took she was tempted to turn around and run the other way, hiding under her blankets and weeping rather than going on. Only a deep seated stubborn streak kept her from giving in to her fears and doing just that.

She needn't have worried. Tom was true to his word. There was no sign of him to be found in school. No infectious laugh ringing through the hallway, no tousled halo of blond hair floating above the shorter students amidst a throng of admirers, and no ice blue eyes seeking hers for a secret wink or speaking glance.

Emily told herself it was for the best. She hoped she would eventually believe it.

The other god-send was that Jim Howard seemed to have called in sick. A substitute was in his classroom when she got there, and never had she been so glad to see the old woman than she was that day. She assumed that it was his pride that kept him from walking into the building with a black eye and a swollen jaw, and took evil delight in the fact that Tom had so thoroughly trounced him.

Tom. There he was again. She could not go five minutes without calling him to mind. It was going to be a long day. Hell, it was going to be a long forever as far as she knew. How long would it take to get over the golden boy who had so completely won her heart?

Half a day was how long it took for the news of his exit to hit the school grapevine. Emily began hearing his name whispered during her fourth period class. By the time that class ended and she made her way to the staff lounge it was all anyone was talking about. Ada, Janis, and Mike were gossiping about it when she came in, a pathetic lunch of coffee and a banana in her hand.

"Well, anyone with eyes could have seen that that boy should be a movie star," Janis was opining. "It doesn't surprise me one bit."

"Oh, come on Janis," Mike laughed, skepticism showing, "he was handsome, sure, but there's no way you saw this coming!"

"I'm not saying that," Janis sniffed. "Obviously I didn't know he was an actor. But if anyone in this school was destined for greatness it was Martinsson."

"Hiddleston," Mike corrected her. "Apparently that's his real name. You're awfully quiet, Emily. You were close with the boy, weren't you? Tutoring him after hours and all?"

"Not that close," she said with a half shrug. "He claimed to want help with an audition monologue, but that was obviously for show. We never actually worked on it. Just class."

The words were true enough as far they went, even if the meaning behind them was an all out lie.

"Still, he clearly preferred you," Ada said, giving her a probing look. "I heard all sorts of chatter about how he always flirted with you, volunteering to read romantic scenes with you. I was a little jealous, to tell the truth. I mean, and I can say it now that I know he's a genuine adult - what I wouldn't have given for a chance to sculpt a nude of that boy!"

"No wonder Howard hated him so much," Mike laughed good naturedly. "It seems it's not just the high school girls who had a thing for him."

Emily did her best to tune them out after that, and took to eating in her classroom. The days blended into each other, with no end of the day secret to make them stand out as special.

The kids in her drama class were all excited of course. The thought that they had read scenes with an honest to goodness actor, one who was going to be starring in a movie, made them practically giddy. Kate began recirculating the lie that the two of them had been involved, and no one dared to correct her. Emily was angry on his behalf, offended that anyone would believe he would fool around with a student, until she realized the implications of that thought.

It was that guilt that was the worst. Well, along with the loneliness. Even if he had been an adult, she hadn't known that. She had thought him no different than Kate or Zack or Jamie, and she had slept with him anyway. She deserved all the pain she was feeling. Deserved more than that; to loose her job and never be hired again, even. More and more she slipped into a depression.

It was nine days after she had thrown him out of her apartment and her life that the first letter arrived. She grabbed her mail from the small slot inside the door and rifled through it on the way up the stairs as she always did, expecting nothing more than bills and solicitations. When she turned over an envelope addressed in an instantly recognizable hand, she felt as though she had been punched in the gut. Hands shaking, she opened the seal, afraid that if she didn't do it at once she would never find the courage, and unfolded a letter.

"My Darling Emily," it began in Tom's loopy mess of long hand, "I know I have no right to write to you, having broken your trust in the most caddish way possible. I only hope that you will allow me the opportunity to once more take advantage of your goodness of heart and kindness of disposition, that I may try to explain why I orchestrated such a hurtful charade.

"As you are patently aware now, I am an actor of both stage and screen. I take my profession very seriously, perhaps more so than it deserves, though I like to believe that you among all women will understand why. If I can peel away the layers of a character enough to expose the beating heart within, allowing my audience to sees even a piece of the truth of humanity in my portrayal, then I truly believe that I am contributing something to this shared experience we all are living. Pretentious as that sounds, it is my goal every time I assume a role, be it Iago or a soldier, or even Mr. Toad.

"When I was cast as a student from the States, I knew I had my work cut out for me. I was educated, I blush to say my love, in the best schools in England: Eton, Cambridge, and RADA. My good fortune has been quite excessive, I know, though no teacher I encountered in all of my tutelage could hold a candle to you, my darling. In any case, I was woefully unprepared to know the struggle such a young man was going through. My director came up with the idea to have me pose in a small town school, and I admit I leapt at the chance.

"Never in a million years would I have guessed that I would meet the woman of my dreams in such a situation.

"I confess that in the beginning I flirted with you to amuse myself. You are quite breathtakingly beautiful, my sweet, and I was bored beyond belief. As the days went on, however, I began to uncover the woman underneath the starched blouses and pencil skirts. A woman with a mind that soared and a soul that sung. One who shared my passion for stage poetry, and did not back down from a challenge.

"In short, my darling Emily, I fell in love with you.

"I should have told you the moment our relation crossed over the line. Alas my love, I fear that it is a coward who worships you. I was afraid that if you learned the truth you would be angry, and I wanted to collect as many precious moments with you as I could before your warm eyes turned cold. My sin is great, I know. I do not deserve to be forgiven. Nonetheless, I place my heart at your feet in hope that you will take it up, take pity on me, and not stomp it beneath your shoe.

"The film I am working on seized the opportunity afforded by my early matriculation to begin shooting. I am relocated to New York City to start principal photography. I know it is a mere two hours from you, and yet it feels the length of the world. Knowing I will not see you each day, hold you at night, is a weight on my soul that I know I have only myself to blame for.

"I ask nothing of you, my dearest Emily, but that you allow me to write to you. I do not expect you to write back, although I live in hope that one day you will. The distance keeps us apart, but perhaps that need not be all bad. Perhaps it can give you time to heal and to trust me once more. Let me write to you, to tell you about myself - my real self - and try to win your friendship back if nothing else. It has been the most important of my life.

"I do not flatter myself that I will ever hold you again, kiss your soft lips, feel you beneath me as you gasp in passion. I have too great a mark against me to hope for such grace. I would die to have it, but will not impose it on you. Just let me try to heal the hurt I have done, and I will be content.

"If you cannot find it within you to accept my offer of friendship in the form of epistles, simply write me with one word. 'Stop' and I will cease. You are in control, my heart. I will bow to your wishes.

"Please take good care of yourself, my Emily. I wish I could be their to tend to you myself. Be warry of the dread maths teacher. I know it is no longer my place, but I would ask you to not be alone around him.

"Enough of that. I will end for now. Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

"My heart is yours.

All my love,

Tom."

Emily read the letter through, barley able to make out the words through the tears welling in her eyes. When she had finished, she collapsed onto the bed and read it through again, openly weeping this time. All of the pain and guilt she had been holding in came flooding out. In the end, she had to put the letter aside so that the deluge of her tears didn't permanently mar the ink composing the lines. By then she knew it by heart, but she still loved to see his strong hand scrawled out over the page.

She did not for a moment consider writing him to stop. Perhaps she should have. There was no future she could see for the two of them. Her trust had been shattered, along with her mental image of herself, by the situation. On top of that, he was away, filming a movie in the big city that she rarely went to. When this movie was ended, who knew where he would be? Jetting off to exotic countries? Treading the boards in London? His life was exciting and adventurous, and she was a little mouse of a school teacher from a small town. How could they hope to make a relationship work, even without their drama?

The letters came far more frequently than she had expected. While it was not every day, Tom was clearly grasping every spare moment he had to pour out his heart to her. He told her all about the filming process. She felt as though she knew his costars, so vividly did he depict them. Against her will, Emily would find herself laughing at ridiculous anecdotes, or groaning in commiseration at delays in the shooting.

In the midst of all of these tales of misadventures and productivity, Tom made clear to he still hoped to win Emily back. He never missed an opportunity to praise her, calling her darling, his sweet, his dear, his love. He mentioned how he had suggested that one of the teachers should be young, smart, and sexy as an homage to her, though no one could possibly do her justice. He let slip that he had been making his costars groan with his continual referencing her, to the point where they teased him any time her name arose.

At the end of each letter he dropped all pretense, stating plainly that he loved her and would do anything to win her back. He insisted that he would wait, that the decision was entirely hers, but that he lived in hope that one day she would write him back, telling him she forgave him. Until that day, he would soldier on and try to deserve her.

Several times Emily found herself sitting down, trying to pen a reply to him. She wanted, desperately wanted, to do so. But each time, the fear would come crashing down and she would end up tearing the letter to shreds.

About two months after the letters started, there was a longer than usual gap between arrivals. Emily began to think that he had given up on her, and a panic she had never felt gripped her. She had not realized the extent to which she had been living for his words.

When an envelope finally arrived, it was in an international envelope, and the return address was London, England. That was it, then. He was out of the country. All of the stories of his homecoming, complete with welcoming family, were a dagger to her. He still professed his love, but now an actual ocean separated them along with the sea of emotion.

Their were two more letters, spread over a month and a half, and then nothing for three weeks. Depression returned. She had all but given up when a card shaped envelope, gilded on the edges, arrived in her box.

***

"Alright, out with it!"

Emily looked up from the pile of papers she was grading to see Ada standing in her classroom door, arms crossed over her paint splattered apron and a determined look on her face.

"Out with what?" Emily asked, confusion genuine.

"It's been four months, Emily," the older woman said, shutting the door behind her as she walked in and sat at one of the student desks. The same desk, Emily couldn't help but note, that had once been Tom's.

"Sorry?"

"Four months that you have been moping around! Barely showing your face in the teacher's lounge, looking like someone stole your dog and kicked your kitten. This, from the girl who was such a spark of joy when she was hired that she even ignited passion for teaching in an old war horse like me!"

"I'm sorry," Emily mumbled.

"Don't be sorry, girl! Tell me what's wrong!"

"It's nothing."

"Emily, do you think I'm blind?" Ada asked with a sigh.

"No..."

"Or that I'm stupid?"

"Of course not!"

"Good," Ada snorted. "As I am neither. Four months ago, a certain long-legged boy with more looks than are good for anyone swaggered out of this school, and you have been a ghost ever since. It's not hard to put the pieces together."

Emily gaped at her, all color draining from her face. If Ada knew, or strongly suspected, was it then general knowledge? Was her shame a joke amongst the faculty, or a cause of scorn?

"Don't worry, hun," Ada said, as though reading her mind. "Most of the people around here are blind and stupid. No one else has any idea. Well, maybe Jim, but that's a whole other can of worms that I am not too keen on digging around in. So, you fell for the boy, huh?"

"You must despise me," Emily said, voice hardly above a whisper.

"So you're failing is that you're deaf," Ada shook her head. "How many times did you hear me rhapsodize about him? Hell, I was undressing him with my eyes every damn day!"

"But you never took it farther than that."

"No, I didn't. But then I am decades older than either one of you and was not given the opportunity. Who knows what I might have done if he had batted those long golden lashes at me and flashed a dimple."

"You wouldn't have slept with a student," Emily said doggedly.

"Is that what this is? That you feel guilty? Tell me something, Emily: would you ever even consider anything inappropriate with say... Jack Simmons, or Zach Lewis, or Dan Fielding? Would it even occur to you?"

"No," Emily said at once, repulsed by the very idea.

"Of course not. Because they are children. The Simmons boy is a hulking child, true, but even though he is big, he is still an adolescent. You can easily tell in a moment he is not an adult. Now, compare that to Tom. He has a baby face, and is all gangly, but there was something about him that flatly identified him as a man. You knew that, instinctively. That is why you let things play out the way you did."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because I know you," Ada said simply. "You are a good person, with a moral compass. Was it a stupid thing to do? Of course! It could have ended horribly for you, and thank god it didn't! But don't beat yourself up for listening to your intuition when it turned out to be right! Even if the boy did end up being a snake."

"What if he wasn't?" Emily asked carefully.

"I just assumed... he left, and you didn't seem happy about it... Emily, what did happen?"

Emily looked at her friend, chewing on her lip as she decided what to say. Ada already knew the worst; what harm could it do to let her in on the rest? In a rush it all came out. The clandestine affair, the trouble with Mr. Howard, seeing Tom on Nicholas Nickleby, their disastrous fallout, all of it. Ada sat there rapt as Emily spilled the whole sordid story.

"He really punched Jim?" Ada asked when she had finished, a huge grin spread over her face.

"Twice," Emily confirmed, answering smile on her own mouth. "Hard. Knocked him flat onto the ground."

"Oh, would I have loved to have seen that."

"I could have lived without it, honestly."

"Oh, hun, I don't know what to tell you," Ada shook her head. "I don't even know whether to feel jealous of you sorry for you. Both, I suppose. Ah, to be young again."

"He's been writing me letters," Emily confessed, face reddening. "Ever since he left."

"What does he say?" Ada's eyes were huge.

"Different things. How his day is going. About the filming. That he loves me and wants to be with me."

"Well what the hell are you doing here then?" Ada stood from the desk to stare at her.

"Ada..."

"Girl, if that young man wanted me, you can bet that nothing would keep me away!"

"He's in London," she muttered.

"Did something happen to all the airplanes?"

"No... In fact..."

"In fact what, Emily? Spill it? Give a woman something to live vicariously through!"

With a sigh, Emily dug through her bag and pulled out the card she had received the day before. It was an invitation to a movie premiere in New York City. Folded along with that was a train ticket, prepaid first class, and a small note:

"I would not wish Any companion in the world but you, Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of.

Tom (with all thanks to Miranda in The Tempest)"

"Well," Ada smiled at her, "when shall we go shopping? You, my dear, are going to need a dress!"

#Tom Hiddleston #tom hiddleston rpf #Tom Hiddleston/OFC #fic #fanfic #love #angst #pining #letters #love letters #smut (in other chapters)#teacher/student relationship #BUT NOT REALLY #he is undercover for a role #I am a sucker for a happy ending I promise!

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ms-gallows · 4 years

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Astrological signs for Anakin Skywalker!

I mostly just focused on the signs and planets, not on the houses that they fell into, so there may be some inconsistencies! I might change these later the more I learn, but this is just for fun! Here is my take on Anakin! (with some minor Obi-Wan analysis for comparison!) Read Obi-Wan’s interpretation here. Edit: I changed Anakin’s moon!

Before I get into this, I want to explain the elements and the modes: Air = thoughts/intellect Earth = materialism/pragmatism Water = emotion/spiritualism Fire = Action/Instinct

Cardinal = initiative Fixed = stability Mutable = adaptability

Anakin has mostly Fire and Water, making him active and emotional. He has just enough air to give him an unconventional intellect. He is also Cardinal and Fixed dominant, which gives him initiative and stability (not often a word you would describe Anakin with!). He has a beautifully intense chart, this boy belongs in a Gothic novel. Lord Byron would be proud.

Scorpio Ascendant: The ascendant is our mask or ‘filter’. It is the first layer of our personality, what we show to people before they truly know us. Anakin processes the world around him through the lens of a Scorpio; with high emotional intensity and an almost psychic perception. He is reserved with most people around him, he keeps his guard up like a Scorpio. Most of the time he keeps quiet, letting Obi-Wan do the talking with his more chatty Libra Ascendant. Scorpio Ascendants also look very intense, and may come across as cold to people. Unlike Obi-Wan’s airy Libra, Scorpio has a very heavy presence, because it’s a fixed sign. It has the intensity of a black hole.

He’s not going to budge an inch, until he knows that he’s safe around you.

This is probably why Anakin comes across as a loner most of the time, even though this boy is like ‘im so lonely please love me i’m so lonely’. When people get to know Anakin better, and he lets his guard down, they get a glimpse of his core Aries self (Obi-Wan is very familiar with this side).

Aries Sun: The Sun is the ‘core’ part of the personality. Anakin is an Aries Sun, a fiery cardinal sign, making him highly action-oriented. Anakin seems to have a lot of trouble staying still, always needing to do something with his body or work with his hands. He needs to see the fruits of his labors right now dammit.

Anakin often gets typed as a Scorpio Sun, however I think Scorpio, for all of its emotional volatility, can be frighteningly calculating. Scorpio Sun likes to hide in the shadows, waiting patiently for the perfect opportunity to strike. Anakin broods like a Scorpio, but he has the impatience of an Aries, and carries out most of his actions like an Aries.

His Aries Sun is very active, always on the move, acting on its feelings almost without thought. Anakin seems to be flying by the seat of his pants in most areas of life. He’s also naturally pretty fiery and competitive, having no issue with showing off. Anakin is restless, he has an urge to push boundaries and to experience everything. He’s very open, and his moon blends in easily with this. It’s this fire and action-oriented cardinal energy that has given him drive to become a Jedi, and probably his Aquarius/Scorpio that gives him the follow-through. Cardinal energy wants to lead, and Anakin is a natural-born leader. It comes more naturally to him than to Obi-Wan’s mutable Virgo!

Moon in Sagittarius Leo: The moon is our vulnerabilities, our emotions, and our maternal instinct. It is the side of ourselves that comes out when we are most comfortable. I thought that Anakin was a Sagittarius moon, since he seems given to sensory experiences. The more I saw how he interacted with Ahsoka, however, I’m starting to think he is in fact a Leo Moon. His emotions are wrapped in his pride. I remember the idea that Anakin wants more than what a Jedi’s life offers, even though he shouldn’t. He has strong desires. There is a nobility to Leo, fiercely protective of what it claims as its own. The way he tells Ahsoka he would never let anyone hurt her makes me think of a lion protecting its cub. Anakin is so fiercely protective of her, he sneers at the mere implication that Asajj sees a part of herself in her. With Padme, he wants to express his love in grand, dramatic gestures, probably in ways that he wishes he could show the whole world, but he can’t. He wants to save people who are suffering and right wrongs in a very grandiose manner. It feels like a divine calling, a narrative in which he is the main character, it is his purpose in life. This is how Anakin mothers the people he loves. Extreme, devout protection and gestures of adoration. Just think of a Lion’s majesty and ferocity, and you’ve got Anakin’s moon.

Mercury in Aquarius: Mercury is all about how we understand things, think, and communicate. Anakin’s Aquarius Mercury is having a hard time breathing with all these fire and water signs around it. This is where Anakin’s unconventional thought patterns come from. Anakin will come up with a solution to a problem that is very unexpected. Anakin’s action-driven Sun, his possibility-driven Moon, and his forward-thinking Aquarius Mercury combine to make him a very daring pilot. Honestly it makes him very daring in many areas. His Aquarius Mercury is fascinated by tech and creating new things with it. He also doesn’t care much for social etiquette, and may even be amused by saying something blunt. He has a taste for innovation. Him and Obi-Wan having Mercury signs in air makes me think that’s why their banter is so amusing. They are both quick witted in this regard.

Venus in Scorpio: Venus rules romance, aesthetics, and taste. Oh boy, this is a doozy. Where do I start?

Having a water-based Venus is compatible with Obi-Wan’s water-based Moon. Water signs are compatible with other water-signs. However, there is a problem: Obi-Wan’s moon only comes out when he feels completely comfortable to do so. That happens extremely rarely.

Anakin’s Venus is pulling at Obi-Wan’s Moon, demanding that Obi-Wan share a part of himself that Obi-Wan only shows when he feels absolutely safe to do so. Unfortunately, being a Jedi, it’s never safe to do so. Scorpio probes, which might even feel parasitic to Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan will block it out, because it’s sensitive, it hurts. Anakin interprets this as a rejection, and thinks that he did something wrong, when it’s really just not the way Obi-Wan expresses his love (most of the time). That said, the detail-orientation of Obi-Wan’s Venus and his emotionally-psychic moon are extremely precise in detecting Anakin’s mood-changes and feelings.

(Obi-Wan’s Moon/Venus: “I love you but I don’t know how to deal with this.”)

Anakin’s love is raw. It is an all-consuming type of love, it’s like an addiction, a drug. Anakin wants to know the depths of someone’s soul, he wants to know someone’s deepest traumas and demons, to accept them and love them for all that they are, because ultimately that is what he craves for himself.

This kind of love is extremely intimidating to Obi-Wan’s gentle Virgo Venus and sensitive Cancer Moon. I don’t think Padme really knows how to deal with it either. I don’t think he’s shown all of it to her.

Scorpio Venus, along with his Scorpio Ascendant, makes Anakin very possessive and stubborn. This doesn’t mean that Scorpio Venuses are bad, only that they have an urge to take things to an extremely intense depth that most others don’t feel comfortable going to. Not everyone sees that as love. A Scorpio Venus has to learn that not everything has to go that deep, and that boundaries need to be respected.

On the plus side, you can probably tell your deepest secrets and insecurities to Anakin, and he won’t tell a soul. He’ll probably feel closer to you.

Suspecting rejection, Anakin thinks he has to prove how much he loves someone, so that they don’t let him go. I think of the scene where Anakin gives his lightsaber to Padme, as a symbol of his life and love (I also suspect that Padme is probably a Cancer Ascendant, which would explain Anakin being drawn to her because she has a mothering, caring energy that he wants in love). Anakin doesn’t realize that he doesn’t have to go to these extreme lengths to prove that he loves someone, he doesn’t see that they already love him. He feels wrong and broken, and he wants someone who can heal his soul, when he really needs to look inwards and heal himself.

A Scorpio Venus can also take things very personally and become wrathful. Scorpio has a divine wrath, it is complete and utter destruction. Anakin is fire and ice, he burns everything to ash and freezes it over.

(Anakin’s Leo Moon/Scorpio Venus: “Why are you leaving me? What did I do wrong?”)

Losing someone he loves is death itself to him. When he speaks to Master Unduli about not giving up on Ahsoka, the thought of losing her looks like it physically pains him.

In short: Anakin not properly dealing with his Scorpio Venus/Leo Moon is probably the cause of his fall.

Also: Scorpios like darkness and intensity. To them, it is the most real, the most deep. Explains why Anakin likes black, huh?

Mars in Aries Scorpio: Mars rules passion, war, instinct, and sexuality. An Scorpio Mars is a planet in the sign of its old rulership! It is not as potent as Aries, but I changed it because I examined the way Anakin goes to war. He is more likely, at least later on, to use underhanded and sneaking tactics. This is where he becomes very cold, calculating, unyielding. Having a third inner planet (Ascendant sort of counts as a planet) in Scorpio makes his personality slightly unbalanced. There’s a LOT of Scorpio here, a lot of intense emotions that he has difficulty understanding. He can never completely express himself, there is something he’s always holding back, and he doesn’t even know what it is that he’s holding back.

When it comes to sexuality, this is another area where Anakin gets possessive. This is where not only his Mars, but his Scorpio Venus and Leo Moon all come out to play. The eroticism is ridiculous. It’s wild, uninhibited, dark, passionate, emotional, and probably loud. What a drama queen. He’s easily aroused and wants to give everything he can to his partner. Having Scorpio in the planets of love and sexuality makes his expressions of love tinged with darkness. He probably has a dominant edge and wants to explore dark taboos. He wants to utterly consume his partner and have them consume him in return. This is an intense sensory and emotional experience for him, and he wants the best. His ideal is a luxurious bed with candles, a beautiful moonlit view, and nobody else for miles. Leaving his partners exhausted and satisfied is what he strives for, and he’d wish they could do this forever. Aries/Leo/Scorpio make his head, back, and well...his genitals, his erogenous zones, respectively.

#Anakin #anakin skywalker #skywalker #star wars #sw #clone wars #cw #star wars clone wars #swcw #astrology #anakin skywalker headcanon #anakin headcanons #obi and ani #padme mention #anakin skywalker character analysis #star wars astrology #anakin reference

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hrodvitnon · 3 years

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Post-Abraxas timeline GvK scenario - Continuity and thoughts

Continuing from my review of ‘Abraxas’ new chapter on FF .net; I thought I’d just contribute some thoughts I’ve had about how 'Abraxas’ would affect events, mythos and continuity (ways in which Abraxasverse has already deviated and diverged from Monsterverse’s post-KOTM canon and how that would impact on GvK, that sort of thing), if the GvK crisis DOES occur in some form or another canonically in Abraxasverse. Sorry it’s late, it took a lot longer to write this than I thought it would. ^^’)

This post by me is for making pointers for consideration about diverges from Monsterverse canon that the main 'Abraxas’ story has already made and how they’ll impact if a GvK scenario occurred in Abraxasverse, though I’ll also take this opportunity to share some of my own thoughts and ideas about it beyond that. :)

So, down to it:

—-

(1) Where/How/Would a Ghidorah skull come in in regards to Mechagodzilla? It’s been established in 'Abraxas’ that Abraxasverse Ghidorah’s severed heads will fight off necrosis with their healing factor and will just slowly regrow the rest of Ghidorah; that severed heads can suck the power out of any electrical systems they come in contact with to feed themselves; and that humans being too close to Ghidorah heads’ telepathy for too long is a bit like mixing lead poisoning with an over-winter stay in the Overlook even if you don’t actually sit in the head’s skull. All three of which are divergent to the implications of the Ghidorah-skull in GvK. Maybe there’s adaptation deviation in the Abraxasverse GvK scenario, where Apex use the Children of Zmei instead of a Ghidorah skull to pilot Mechagodzilla and it’s them that makes the Mecha become a sentient psychopath?

(1.5) This is just my thoughts and ideas: if it’s still a Ghidorah skull piloting MechaG instead of some of the Children of Zmei: maybe in the four years after 'Abraxas’, Ghidorah comes back again and is killed again and the skull comes from this most recent defeat, with Apex using a chemical to suppress the skull’s healing factor and assuming that was enough for them to control the evil triple-mind inside the bone. (Although after how big and dramatic that climax chapter was, I like to think that Ghidorah is now either gone for good or it’ll be a very long time, as in at least a decade in-universe, before Ghidorah ever resurges directly.) Or, maybe there’s a creepier origin story for Apex’s Ghidorah skull: Apex unearthed the skull in a dig which reveals it to be thousands of years old, and when Monarch find out after everything, they’re puzzled about why a decapitated Ghidorah head just decomposed and became a semi-sentient hunk of bone, instead of regrowing the rest of Ghidorah like San’s old head did or re-attaching itself to other severed pieces to speed up Ghidorah’s resurrection from a pre-Antarctica ancient battle. Godzilla doesn’t know anything about the skull, and neither does San. What’s creepier, Monarch’s analysis of Apex’s Ghidorah skull indicates that while the skull’s structure is the same, its DNA actually isn’t entirely identical to Ghidorah’s, as if the skull encountered something which changed its genetic makeup. A thought occurs to Viv 'n’ San: San’s decapitation at Isla de Mara probably wasn’t the first time a shed skin got split off from Ghidorah, in fact San remembers that when there was more than one shed skin each time Ghidorah died in the past, they would usually signal each-other and combine to speed up Ghidorah’s resurrection… but there were times, on alien worlds that Ghidorah conquered, when it just wouldn’t care for these shed skins before returning to space since it wouldn’t be around on the planet for them to challenge it. What if more Ghidorah clones grew from the severed pieces it left littered on the dead alien worlds once the main Ghidorah left? Godzilla, San or other Titans would surely know if a Ghidorah-clone ever set foot on Earth while they were alive - does that mean the Ghidorah skull’s owner came to Earth and died before the still-living Titans were born and before the main Ghidorah that San came from arrived on Earth? And what killed the skull’s owner? Why is it’s DNA altered: did it encounter something, on ancient Earth or in space, that changed its genetic makeup? :o Does this mean there are more creatures like it, born from Ghidorah’s remains littered on dead alien worlds, who are still amongst the stars and who might one day find their way to Earth?

(2) I’m wondering who will be in charge of Monarch when Godzilla starts rampaging. If Mark rejoins Monarch and it’s still him who’s in charge, hopefully his character development during 'Abraxas’ will mean that even if his role doesn’t change much, he’ll be a lot less of an ass now than he was in GvK, and he won’t be the same fantasy-forbidding father that he apparently was to Madison in the GvK novelisation.

(3) One major thing that’s on my mind every time I think about this: in GvK, a lot of the conflict came from the humans not understanding why Godzilla’s attacking; and Viv 'n’ San as a Titan with EVP can communicate with both humans and Godzilla. So the only way I can imagine the whole Mechagodzilla crisis wouldn’t be over in time to prevent MechaG’s activation with Maia never getting near the Hollow Earth energy source, (unless there’s more adaptation deviation) is if Viv 'n’ San are on vacay in the Hollow Earth when the Titan rampage kicks off, and therefore aren’t topside to explain to Monarch and the world that Godzilla can hear Ghidorah’s call at every place he attacks. (Who knows, maybe in Abraxasverse, Viv 'n’ San will run into Kong and Team Kong in the Hollow Earth, then follow them topside in time for Mechagodzilla’s emergence - heh, I can imagine Viv 'n’ San’s “Oh, for fuck’s sake!!” reaction to a big, cybernetic Godzilla-Terminator bursting out of a mountain with Ghidorah’s bio-acoustics howling out of it.) And on top of this, there’s also the main 'Abraxas’ story hinting that the old Bone Singers’ ways of communicating with Titans are going to start coming back soon in Abraxasverse among the human population, making it less likely humanity will be as completely in the dark about Godzilla’s rampage as they were in GvK…

(4) I’m not sure where the internet rumour that Godzilla in Monsterverse canon sent the Titans back into hibernation because he sensed the Ghidorah skull came from - from what I’ve read, in 'Godzilla Dominion’ and the GvK novelisation, Godzilla explicitly sent all the Titans back to stasis because keeping them in line while they were awake was too much for canon-Godzilla to keep managing in the long-term, unlike with Abraxas-Godzilla. Maybe the other Titans will globally participate in Godzilla’s rampage looking for the Ghidorah-piece that’s calling out to any Titan listening, and the fact it’s every benevolent Titan that’s rampaging instead of just Godzilla will proportionately fan the flames of public panic and enable Apex’s role to go unnoticed. This could actually go quite a long way to make it understandable why the public are so blind to the pattern with Apex-facilities that Godzilla is attacking; if over a dozen Titans rampaging on humanity’s cities has the public too whipped up into a panic to think straight - especially since from what we’ve seen in 'Abraxas’ so far and from what TVTropes says about the GvK novelisation’s expansion, it looks like the public generally in Abraxasverse are a bit more humbled and concerned about the Titans’ environmental importance and a bit more common-sensed after KOTM’s events than they were in GvK’s continuation. Anyway, frankly I’m hoping an Abraxasverse GvK scenario will retcon or at the very least downplay the KOTM Titans going back into hibernation - I’m in agreement with TVTropes that turning KOTM’s humans-coexisting-with-awakened-Titans setup into an aborted arc and largely letting the Titans-environmentalism thing fade into obscurity was a crappy move on the Monsterverse writers’ part.

(5) Mechagodzilla’s pilot. With how Abraxas-Ren has already interacted with the Titans and shown his father’s respect for nature, I can’t see that character going down the same path as the Monsterverse-canon Ren did. There’s that idea a Nonnie suggested that Ren could get mind-raped by Ghidorah if it comes back (or maybe by another psychic evil Titan like Gigan ;)) so Ren becomes like canon-Ren - but after Chapter 17, I feel it would be better if canon-Ren, who’s stood apart from his canon counterpart and become his own endearing character in 'Abraxas’ already, goes down his own unique path. There’s also the possibility that Abraxas-Ren could be an unwitting pawn to Apex who doesn’t know what they’re really up to, but I doubt Simmons, if he’s anything like in Monsterverse canon, could ever fully pull the wool over nature-respecting Abraxas-Ren’s eyes. If MechaG still has a pilot with a relevant role, I think the pilot should be someone else. Maybe it’s Maia, who has a bit more brains in Abraxasverse than she did in GvK. Or maybe it’s an OC.

(5.5). An idea in the latter camp I had: maybe, as a mirror-world like flip to canon-Ren; whereas in Monsterverse canon it was Serizawa’s son who was MechaG’s pilot, in Abraxasverse it’s instead the OC son of Admiral Stenz - the son who agrees with his late father about killing the Titans to prevent human casualties, but who is much more willing to murder thousands for the so-called greater good and is crossing lines that his father never would’ve crossed. Or alternatively, maybe Stenz Jr. is a bitch-in-sheep’s-clothing; he expressly disagrees with his late father’s approach to handling the Titans which almost handed the world to Ghidorah on a silver platter in 2019, and he believes humans and Titans should live together… but instead of seeking a fair coexistence, Stenz Jr. thinks the Titans should be humanity’s slaves and Sentient Batteries, replenishing the world to benefit human civilisation whilst being penned by humans who dominate them with MechaG and being harvested for any resource goodies their bodies hold.

(6) Continuing from my pointer about how the human public in Abraxasverse seem to be a bit more common-sensed generally in Abraxasverse: I’m guessing this means Apex probably won’t have the military’s under-the-table support that they had in the GvK novelisation (according to TVTropes), and instead Apex’s corporate conspiracy will rely more on underground paramilitaries and other illegal groups - including groups with anti-Titan sympathies - to get the materials and resources they need to build Mechagodzilla. OR: maybe in Abraxasverse, MechaG wasn’t built in secret by Apex; maybe in reference to your old Tumblr shenanigans about Vivienne and Serizawa using MechaG, Monarch started building MechaG so humanity could contribute in a fair and meaningful way to fate-of-the-world Titan brawls alongside Godzilla and Mothra, but Apex stole MechaG (maybe Apex used the havoc and confusion of a Titan rampage instigated by Ghidorah-remains or the Children of Zmei calling out) and they installed the Ghidorah/C.O.Z.-parts into the Mecha thinking they could control it.

(7) If this scenario does occur, considering how awesome Monsterverse-MechaG was; maybe in an Abraxasverse scenario, instead of being killed fifteen minutes after he’s born, MechaG will have the smarts to flee once Kong and Godzilla team up and the odds turn against MechaG, leading to MechaG being a longer-lived threat? Maybe he’ll even recognise Viv 'n’ San are part-Ghidorah and take an interest in the Ghidorah half of them, in contrast to Ghidorah’s interest in the human half during 'Abraxas’?

(8) The destruction of Skull Island. It was caused in Monsterverse-canon by Camazotz manipulating Ghidorah’s storm. Assuming this still happens in Abraxasverse, wouldn’t Monarch contact Viv 'n’ San and make them aware of what’s happened (if Viv 'n’ San don’t find out on their own) so they can use their Ghidorah-derived, storm-harnessing powers to try to reverse what Camazotz did? After all, Monarch would probably be thinking, since the storm will kill all non-protected life on the island if it stays that way, even if Viv 'n’ San’s attempt to change the change goes wrong, it can’t be any worse for the island than if they didn’t try. Of course, there’s still the real possibility Viv 'n’ San’s attempt could make no difference or even end up making the storm worse for the climate of places beyond the island.

So, yeah, those are just my thoughts on how a GvK scenario could occur in Abraxasverse, and the mythos and continuity considerations involved. :)

—

JAYSUS CHRIST LOOK AT THIS GOLDMINE!

Whew! So many possibilities and great ideas, thanks for sharing them! Who knows what the future brings, but what I can say is that, whenever the hell I start working on it, Chapter 18/Epilogue won’t be nearly as huge as 17 was (which was over 22 THOUSAND WORDS HOW THE FUCK), so if it’s okay maybe I’d like to leave one or two nods to this list for the AbraxasVerse take on GvK…

#zerm1v0hg #fic: abraxas #submission #thanks for the submission!

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monysmediareview · 3 years

Text

Shadowhunters (Freeform show) Review

Review #2!!

In case you missed it, I wrote a review on the Mortal Instruments book series books 1-3 (they’re the only ones I read because a chapter into book 4 and I was over it). I had mixed feelings on it, as I do with most things - including the Shadowhunters TV show, which is what this review is about!

Casting

Let’s talk about the casting in this show. First of all, I think the cast matched the physical descriptions of each character in the books and I very much enjoyed that. I do like when shows take liberties with casting, especially for the sake of things like diversity but there’s something very satisfying about seeing the characters exactly as they were written.

I don’t think all of the acting was fantastic, but it’s FreeForm so I really didn’t expect much. It did get a lot better as the series went on and I think the actors really found their footing with these characters. It’s one of the reasons that I love series so much more than movies for things like this because there’s growth and the chance to really explore characters as they exist. These characters really took on a life of their own in a way, but we’ll get into that as I go through the rest of my points here.

One thing I will say is, while this show did much better than others in terms of diversity it is not lost on me that the BIPOC characters in this show (and in the book series as well) were all “other” characters. As is often the case, people of color in fantasy media are usually portrayed as animals such as werewolves, or other “undesirable” characters. This is an incredibly complex part of casting, creating, and writing, and I will not get into it here, but I didn’t want to not mention it.

Gay Pride & True Love

If you read my review of the Mortal Instruments series then you already know that I love love love Alec and Magnus, but that love grew exponentially when I watched the show. Magnus was an interesting character in the books but Harry Shum Jr. really brought the character to life and that show especially in the scenes with Alec. The show also gives Alec a ton more depth than in the books and I love that they didn’t keep him hung up on Jace (a straight man) for most of the story. He fell for Magnus and he fell for him hard. Magnus is the one that broke through Alec’s shell and encouraged him to be himself. By cutting away all the petty teenager shit that was in the books we were able to see this real, complex, but honest and deep love story that rivaled the main love interests immensely. I would watch this show over and over just to watch these two again.

Representation and diversity are two huge factors when I think about whether or not I liked a piece of media. These kinds of things are what makes media so relatable, real, and ultimately enjoyable in a lot of ways. This show didn’t make the characters gay-ness a main factor of their relationship; they just showed a relationship as they would with a straight couple. They didn’t ignore their gay-ness either, though, and acknowledged the difficulties within that. By making this normal, they took huge strides in showing these kinds of relationships on TV and I adore that. And I just cannot get enough of this pairing in general - there are so many contrasts and compliments in their relationship and it’s what I honestly consider to be a perfect OTP relationship in any kind of romantic plot.

10/10 would watch the show just for Alec and Magnus.

I like Clary better in the show than in the books

Clary is by far, not one of my favorite characters in the fantasy genre. I find her to be selfish, martyr-like, and just kind of annoying but I really felt like the show was able to redeem the decent characteristics that she has and shed off most of the aggravating ones.

As a whole, I am not a fan of how stupid the books make Clary out to be. Clary falls into the category of characters I don’t like because there is ultimately nothing very special about them yet they end up with a guy who is completely out of their league in every way who is head over heels in love with them. It infuriates me so much and Clary is not an exception to this rule. Her character is still this way in the show but it is much less evident because she seems to be more of an active participant in her own life and I don’t have to sit through her endless internal monologues about how attractive or strong or whatever Jace is. Thoughts that she still has while she thinks they’re siblings. At least in the show, these characters seem to draw a strong boundary here when they think they’re related rather than making out in a field like they did in the books.

Clary also has a much stronger sense of self in the show and often reflects on what her life was and what it has become, how she’s grown. And I think that’s a huge part of it - that she has grown when in the books she was just constantly such a dumbstruck teenager who only thought of herself. I absolutely love the difference in her character here so I’ll give the show a star for that.

Her relationships with other characters is also so much stronger. I believe this is in part because we don’t know her every inner thought about them and we also aren’t distracted by her distraction that is Jace. Her relationship with Izzy is so much better and stronger. I’ll always give good reviews to strong female relationships! Even her friendship and relationship with Simon is more in depth in the show. Their book friendship is very baseline; they constantly say they’re best friends but that’s not really reflected in the way they act around each other. In the show they have anecdotes about the past we never see in the books, they talk in a comfortable way and even show their relationship with each other’s families a lot more. This plays into her being an active participant in her own life as well.

The Lightwood Family Drama

This might be something that happens later on in the books (however I don’t think so because of some spoilers I’ve received on my main account) but I really liked the Lightwood family subplot. I would imagine they have some marital problems after Max’s death in the books but considering they don’t kill him in the show, divorcing them earlier and giving Maryse a second chance was a fantastic choice. I kind of wish they had kept Max’s death because to me, it was the driving force between Izzy and Simon, but overall I don’t mind the way they did it. It just felt like a missed opportunity for drama and angst.

Back to the point at hand - families are complicated and the only “normal” or rather, nuclear family we see in this series is the Lightwoods. Clary was raised by a single parent, as was Simon, and no one else really has parents that we’re introduced to to be able to judge their family life. By making their family story a complicated one, rather than the “ideal”, it becomes not only more dramatic, which is fun and interesting, but real. And it may seem counterintuitive to make things seem real in a fantasy genre show/book series but that, in my opinion, is what makes it easier to believe the fake stuff. I can focus more on the magic and the demons and the end of the world as we know it if it’s grounded in something that’s familiar to me. The Lightwoods feel like a very real family with complicated relationships between kids and parents, adopted children/siblings, and marital issues that affect everyone differently, which invites us as an audience to relate to them and doesn’t make the Shadow world so different from ours.

A scene I loved specifically is when Izzy brings the doctor she’s seeing to the Hunter’s Moon and they’re all messing with each other, eating, drinking, laughing, talking. They really felt like a family there, like adult siblings which can be a really difficult feeling to capture but I think it was done very well. I didn’t want to go through this review without mentioning that part since it was something very special for me.

Design Choices

Changing topic just a little bit, I wanted to talk about the design of the show. First thing I noticed was that the runes were not at all how I pictured them. Now, that may be a fault of the writer because they weren’t very well described so it all landed on imagination which is different for everyone. The show design gave me kind of Henna tattoo vibes, whereas the books gave me full black ink vibes.

The clothing was also something very strange to me. Izzy was always described as wearing long silvery skirts. I very much imagined her as wearing borderline rave outfits in most of these scenes but she mostly just wore crop tops and low cut shirts. I also noticed that as the series went on she dressed in a bit more of a conservative way compared to the first half of season 1 when I recall her wearing literally just a sports bra as a shirt in a few scenes. It was apparent to me in the books that the way Shadowhunters dressed was something that separated them from humans, made them stand out, and the show lacked that. I think this also took away the idea that Shadowhunters are a whole race of people with a history and culture separate from being human (they are, in essence mixed raced, but this comes with a lot of implications and is not a complete statement or comparison in any way). My point with this is mostly that I wish there had been more of a separation visually between Shadowhunters and humans beyond their runes.

I also pictured the Institute to have a very non-human, Catholic type of design and instead just got pseudo-futuristic feel. I didn’t hate it, it just feels overdone in these kinds of shows and movies. For example, the Divergent series or Maze Runner or even Tomorrowland all have this type of vibe and I was hoping for more of a DmC: Devil May Cry approach.

Jace Wayland is a beautiful character

I had mixed feelings about Jace in the books; he felt stale and like every other straight, white, male, romantic lead. In the show, however, I think Dominic Sherwood did him a great deal of justice and gave him the depth that actually made him a desirable person that I could understand someone being in love with. He’s charming, and a little cocky but we also get to see a deeper side of him than we do in the books. We see his emotions, especially his unconditional love for Clary (whether I agree with that or not).

The Owl plotline was a waste of time in my opinion, but the scene when Izzy and Alec go to save him from inside his mind and we see him break down is absolutely beautiful. Jace is introduced to us from the start as hard, strong, calloused and here we see him vulnerable and scared with two of the people he trusts most in the world. I will accept the Owl plotline if only to keep this scene because I think it is absolutely essential to his character arc.

I also found that scene to be indicative of his relationship with Izzy. In the books it’s often alluded to that he and Izzy had been together in one way or another but that’s not the case for the show (thank the angel) and here you can really see them as siblings more than in any ther scene, I think. But this takes me to his relationship with Alec as well.

Parabatai

I don’t remember Parabatai being mentioned much in the books but it is a huge deal and talked about quite a bit. I this this is super cool, personally and it’s not something I can really think of too much in fantasy outside of sires or singers or the like in many vampire novels but that has a whole “owner” vibe that doesn’t exist with Parabatai. I am super intrigued by this idea and I loved how much they played with it being a strength and an essential part of their existence.

The relationship between Alec and Jace is obviously stronger than just brothers, but it also isn’t quite love in the romantic sense. It’s something else and it makes them vulnerable to each other. They feel everything the other person feels, sometimes literally, and while that can weaken them they use it as a strength. It’s really beautiful how honest and open these men are with each other. I feel like the Parabatai bond breaks down a lot of the toxic masculinity traits these characters might have otherwise and I will always be in favor of tearing down those walls. A+ characterization if you ask me.

I thought Izzy deserved better in the books - the show gave it to her

In the show Izzy is way more badass than in the books, which I wasn’t sure was possible. They made her so much smarter, gave her important roles at the institute like head of weapons and she even did autopsies? In the last episodes we even see her as Head of the Institute. Beauty, brains, and brawn simply can’t be beat.

Her love life was even more interesting! She wasn’t boiled down to just a slut who slept with everyone regardless of species: she was a lover who fell quickly and saw the best in people despite what people might tell her about “their kind”. She’s strong and very sure of herself; she doesn’t need a man in her life but she wants love and I think that’s a really amazing trait they gave her that deepens the character.

They made her an activist, too in a way. She’s found really standing up for her beliefs in the show and challenging the way things are. In the books Izzy is pretty stuck in the way Shadowhunters do things but in the show she speaks up when something isn’t right. Her connections to downworlders does a lot of really great things for the Shadow world as a whole. They certainly could have beefed this up a little bit, but it wasn’t a huge part of the show in general so I’ll allow the pass on it.

Her Yin-Fen addiction was so interesting! Again, I don’t know if this is something that happened in later books in the series but this is just another layer to Isabelle that I really loved. No one is perfect, even her, and it built her relationship with Rafael (another plot I was a huge fan of) which was incredibly complex.

All in all, I would die for Izzy. Please give me shows and books about her and more characters like her.

This series was steamy as hell

I can’t write a review on this series without mentioning all of the steamy scenes with so many of the characters. I mean, of course, I expected as much with Jace and he got a lot but so did everyone else. We got saucy scenes with Alec, Magnus, Simon, Izzy, Maia, everyone. (Not all at the same time, thankfully). But they were all very well directed and acted and I enjoyed them quite a bit. What can I say? Sex sells.

In conclusion, I liked this series a lot. I really was not expecting to. I was warned that it was bad, and to start off it was but I found myself unexpectedly enjoying a lot of it. There’s still work to be done and it is by no means perfect but it was entertaining and had some really good moments. I also give so much credit to the actors and creative team for doing so much with material that didn’t give them much depth in the first place.

Would recommend for something to enjoy but maybe not think too hard about.

xoxo

Mony

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paradife-loft · 4 years

Note

1&2 for general, ships, characters & story

General

1. If you had to join a sect, which would you join?

Ahahaha oh, oh no, the difficult question!!! *covers face*

Tbh I would. join the Lan sect and then be like, the most problematic Lan ever to Lan XD (”But James, don’t you have a reflexive fight me!!! response to rules and authority....?” yes maybe so shush now that’s why I said problematic.)

Like the thing is. I DO like being a nerd, and I DO like the idea of cultivating with music certainly moreso than with swords look I do not enjoy physical exertion a lot of the time, and I semi-regularly become full of emotion and start wailing to whoever’s nearby about wanting to live in somewhere as beautiful as the Cloud Recesses??? It is SO lovely there. Also the only other option I was considering, the Jiang, tbh gives me the impression that I would die miserably of humidity in Yunmeng sooooo :/

But also for real I am... a lot more chill with following rules when I agree with them about their purpose being to better you ethically and also to form a cohesive community, and I’ve chosen to adhere to them by my own will? Uhh, demonstrably lmao. But yeah I’d definitely still be Arguing about things and eating hot peppers in Caiyi town and playing the “it’s not really drinking if you neutralise the alcohol” game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2. Your three favorite characters?

*lies dramatically on the ground* How am I supposed to pick just threeeeee???

But ok, so, Jin Guangyao, and then *spins the roulette wheel for today’s picks* probably Lan Xichen and Wei Wuxian, averaged out?? But I have a lot of feelings about Everyone ;u;

Ships

1. What’s your OTP?

*chinhands* Surely we all know this by now :P

2. What’s your NOTP? Or any other ship you hate?

Uhhhhh hhhhhhh hahaha ngl I usually feel guilty talking about notps in public??? Probably bc often as not it’s more about “90% of the content I see in the fandom is relatively fluffy and/or mundane and/or lacking in meaty conflict and therefore bores me to tears” oops.

But I will say tbh that I have a pretty visceral unhappy NOPE reaction to LXC/NHS in. Probably 95% of contexts ever. Unless I feel particularly into reading, like, sex-as-self-harm fic on any given day, lmao.

Characters

1. If you could date any character from MDZS, who would you pick?

Lol, none of them.

2. If you had to kill a character, who would you kill?

Save a sex worker or POW, toss JGS off a cliff :) (predictable answer but hey) (I mean, this is distinct from an answer to “who would I kill at a point in the story prior to their actual death,” but. I would be remiss at existing if I didn’t take the opportunity to say I would kill JGS given the slightest excuse.)

Story

1. If you could make one major story change, what change would you make? Why?

Ahhhh, hell. Actually, you know what? I would slightly revamp Qin Su’s character to have her be aware of her parentage since roughly the same time as JGY is, and have them both separately keeping that a secret from one another for roughly the same reasons. She’s disturbed by the letter from Bicao simply because of the implications around someone wanting to make this knowledge public. (On the other hand: she DOES still ask JGY about how Rusong died, and IS still angry and horrified by the attitude he takes to that question and the implication that he was the one who orchestrated that death, because wtf just because his parents were siblings doesn’t mean he should have been anything other than a happy, perfectly loved, alive child??? Get a fucking grip!)

...And then I think. if she does still end up dying* then it’s probably gonna be directly NHS’s fault, in this context? Because “oh okay I was not expecting her to be chill with that, that’s an unpleasant surprise; well I still gotta ruin JGY’s marriage somehow SHRUG”. But on the other hand I really really don’t love all the women dying, so maybe instead he just reveals her complicity publicly and destroys her reputation and turns her into a pariah? :/ Which is still unpleasant but at least isn’t. death.

Anyway the reason why is like. Partially just aesthetic preferences!! I like “morally questionable power couple” much better than I like “evil dude and morally pure innocent victim wife”. (I in fact very much dislike the latter. Looking @ u, late Numenor.) And also partially - I very much like the additional resonance of “JGY underestimates he sweet and kind people around him and doesn’t notice that they can also have sneaky ruthless streaks” that this would add re: Huaisang? While also for that matter foreshadowing the Huaisang reveal?

And, yeah, a lot of other changes I would “like” to make, honestly fall more into the genre of “things I would like as fix-it fics” rather than changes I want to make to the base story, because so many of the pieces I’ve gone “augh but what if that were different!” are just. structurally important to MDZS’s tragic and other thematic elements. Messing with this aspect to Qin Su’s story doesn’t have to make the base plot non-tragic, but does improve on a few issues I have with e.g. morally polarised female characters who all die anyway.

2. Which character would you bring back to life?

!!???!!? when are we talking, here! in what fashion?

....okay, so for the sake of not making my head explode with potential options, I’m going to limit this to cases of characters who are 100% confirmed dead, being brought back either as a fierce corpse or via sacrifice-summon, generally within the main timeline of the story (i.e. not several decades post-canon).

And of that set under those conditions, I’m gonna pick Jiang Yanli. Look. I LOVE the possibilities of fierce corpse!Jiang Yanli. As a scenario it’s both incredibly fucked up but also the possibilities for really emotional reconciliation between all three Yunmeng siblings in the present timeline??? Logistically I think this would have to take place in a bookverse-style “LWJ carries WWX off to the burial mounds post-Nightless City battle” situation... so like, in a fit of practically qi-deviating rage-grief, WWX reanimates JYL’s corpse right as she dies, a la Wen Ning? and then part of what he’s doing, half out of his mind, during the missing time in the Burial Mounds is working on bringing her spiritual consciousness to put back in there.

........there’s definitely more logistics to be worked out, most notably “where is she during the intervening decade?” but. I love the idea of Jiang Cheng’s anger being not only “you killed my sister” but also “YOU TURNED MY SISTER INTO A FUCKING ZOMBIE”. I love the idea of, eventually, her being ACTUALLY PRESENT to express some of her own opinions and feelings on how WWX & JC fighting over her death (& fierce corpse status) is rly fucked up. make them deal with her as an actual person who’s inconvenient in her wants and needs and willingness to always extend a hand to others, not just a place to hang all their messy emotions on! give her eventually a chance to bond with Jin Ling, and the awkwardness and grief about how much of his life she missed, interspersed with “!!!!! I get to have this back! feelings!”

Because also just in general, I’d really love to have her around to interact with all the characters in their fucked-up “one timeskip later” iterations, and her perma-dying really just robs us of that chance and it’s very rude!

Bonus: holy fuck what would it be like for all her talents and skills and weaknesses to suddenly be completely reversed? Extremely physically strong and capable now! But more likely to scare people than charm them. Can she still, like, taste food properly? Who knows. But wouldn’t THAT be a juicy situation to explore for her! :O

#stripedroseandsketchpads #about me #ask meme responses #no good things for the poor sad cultivators #ask a James

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Memento and the Significance of Sammy Jankis

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

“Have I told you about Sammy Jankis?”

On March 16, 2001, Christopher Nolan announced himself to the world with the US release of Memento. Not that everyone heard him straight away.

Despite garnering rave reviews on the festival circuit, Nolan’s mind-bending jigsaw puzzle of a movie failed to land a major distribution deal in the States. In the end Newmarket Films, the independent production company bankrolling the project, took the plunge and distributed it themselves.

Memento went on to earn more than $45 million at the US box office from a $4.5 million budget – a huge sum for an independent film.

Within five years, Nolan would move on to bigger and Bat-er things, but Memento remains among his most ambitious and effective films to date. A non-linear neo-noir that doubles up as a psychological thriller, it’s a film that continues to offer up subtle surprises on repeat viewing.

Guy Pearce takes centre stage with a mesmeric performance as Leonard, a man with short-term memory loss trying to track down his wife’s murderer. His pursuit is hampered by an inability to create new memories.

It’s a similarly disorientating experience for viewers who must piece together Leonard’s story while it plays out in reverse order. Allied to this is the story of Sammy Jankis, played by Stephen Tobolowsky, which intersperses that of Leonard’s and plays out across a series of black-and-white scenes shown in chronological order.

Narrated by Leonard, from an apparent recollection of a case he took during days as an insurance investigator, like our protagonist, Sammy also claims to be anterograde amnesiac – and that’s not all they have in common.

The film continues to alternate between the two narratives, with Leonard obsessively telling the tale of Sammy to anyone who will listen, before the two stories eventually converge in a climax where their shared plight becomes painfully apparent.

Despite its modest budget, Memento boasted an impressive cast. Pearce had shot to mainstream fame with LA Confidential a few years earlier while Joe Pantoliano, who played Leonard’s helper/fixer Teddy, was an established figure in the business along with his co-star from The Matrix, Carrie Anne Moss.

There was even a role for future Sons of Anarchy star and Nolan favourite Mark Boone Junior as the underhand manager of the motel where Leonard lives. Tobolowsky more than held his own though.

A seasoned character actor, by the time Memento came around he had enjoyed a memorable turn in Groundhog Day as the hilariously grating insurance agent Ned Ryerson. But it hadn’t been without its drawbacks in the years that followed.

Tobolowsky explained to Den of Geek: “The good news and bad news of being Ned in Groundhog Day is, guess what? You’re going to be Ned in Groundhog Day for the rest of your career. A lot of times when people are in comedic roles and want to do something more dramatic, it’s not available to them. Especially with something like Groundhog Day. An actor like me could get an opportunity to be in a drama but it might not work out because the audience would still see Ned Ryerson. Not this role. Sammy Jankis was so remarkably different.”

Landing the role of Jankis proved remarkably different too, starting with Nolan’s script, based on a short story written by his brother Jonathan called Memento Mori.

“My agent called me up and said John Papsidera, a casting director, wanted me to take a look at this script. John had a reputation for doing really unusual and generally good movies so I was very happy to. A standard first draft script is usually around 120 pages before a producer or director gets their hands on it. Because of the way it is formatted, one page should equal around one minute of screen time. I got the screenplay for Memento and it was like the Old and New Testament combined. I had never seen a script so big. I don’t remember the exact page numbers but it was in the 300s.”

Having seen his fair share of scripts over the years, Tobolowksy was apprehensive about reading what looked like the equivalent of “Gone with the Wind times ten.”

“I was thinking to myself ‘Oh God, this is going to be terrible. ’I even said to my wife, ‘ I know it’s going to be awful. It’s three times longer than normal but I’m going to read it just to be a good sport.’ I start reading and I’m halfway through and my wife comes in and I’m saying ‘damn it, damn it’ and she says ‘Terrible?’ and I say ‘No, so far really great but there’s no way these writers can continue at this level. It’s going to crap out by the end.”

“I get to the end and I throw the script across the room and my wife hears me, comes in, and says ‘Terrible?’ and I say ‘No, quite possibly the best script I’ve ever read.’” Nolan’s script was unlike any Tobolowsky had read, bringing the filmmaker’s vision for the movie to life in stunning detail.

“Chris and Jonathan wrote it in a way where they describe exactly what the camera is doing. Everything was perfectly described and you got a picture of the movie in your head, backwards and forwards in time. It was mind-blowing. I called up my agent immediately and said I had to meet Chris Nolan. I had to talk to him about Sammy Jankis.”

Despite few lines, the role of Sammy was a significant one. A part that much of the film’s plot ultimately rested on. Determined to make the role his own and shake off the ghost of Ned, Tobolowsky met with Nolan knowing he had a unique selling point when it came to the role.

“I said ‘Chris, I didn’t come here to read for you. There’s nothing really for me to read, but this is what I want to tell you: this is quite possibly one of the best screenplays ever written. You are going to have actors all over this city that will want to be in this. However, I am going to be the only person that wants to be Sammy Jankis who has actually had amnesia.’

Chris said: ‘You’ve had amnesia?’ and I was like ‘Yes, and this is how it happened…’”

Tobolowsky explained that during surgery for a kidney stone, doctors had used an experimental drug in place of the standard anesthesia.

“I’m a big guy, like six foot three and 210 pounds, so they gave me a new drug that they had been using on bigger people. It means they are able to give instructions to the patient like to get up on the operating table, rather than have orderlies lifting them. The patient performs the task and then forgets it had happened. It worked the same with the pain.”

It led to what he describes as “drug induced amnesia” as the medication worked its way through his system. “I would be in my living room and then boom! It was like I was just born. The worst was when I was standing over the toilet and suddenly didn’t know if I was about to pee or if I had already peed. Fortunately, I heard my wife yell ‘you finished ten minutes ago!’”

The description of his ordeal was enough to convince Nolan he was the man for the job – but that was only the start of the challenge for Tobolowsky.

“It was the most difficult part I have ever played in my life. When you are an actor, the thing that moves you through a scene is your motivation. But when your character can’t remember anything, you don’t have that.”

In order to better portray Sammy’s damaged mind, he began by breaking down the character’s actions into behaviors marked as either old or new.

“There are the old, every day, behaviors we don’t think about like making breakfast. The rote nature of that behavior means you might do it quickly, almost mechanically. Then there is the newer stuff that takes longer because you are trying to understand what you are doing for the first time.

“I had met people who have lost their memory, through Alzheimer’s or an accident, and noticed how these old behaviors were still familiar to them.”

This attention to detail was not lost on audiences.

In one small but memorable moment, Sammy greets Leonard at the door of his home with a look Leonard initially believes to be recognition and proof he is faking his condition.

It’s only later, when Leonard begins to understand his own plight, that Nolan has us revisit that same look, only this time with the realisation Sammy’s expression is instead one of desperate hope with that complex duality perfectly conveyed by Tobolowsky.

“That look was about putting out a message saying ‘I am sorry I may know you, so I don’t want to embarrass myself or you by acting like I don’t know you,’” Tobolowsky explains.

Later, after Leonard has rejected Sammy’s insurance claim, his wife, played by Frasier star Harriet Sansom Harris, decides to test the theory for herself by having him administer shot after shot of insulin, in the hope he will realise his mistake before she suffers a fatal overdose.

It’s then that we see Tobolowsky channeling the mechanical, emotionless actions of old, going through the motions of giving his wife the shot, as he has always done, oblivious to the tragic implications for both characters.

But Sammy is oblivious, with Tobolowsky’s emotionless, robotic approach to the repeated injections – something he has done for years – adding a layer of tragedy simultaneously to both characters.

“We all worked it out together in the moment. You let the truth emerge from the scene in the moment the camera is running.”

However, the true significance of Sammy in the wider story of Leonard only fully emerges later in the film after the latter’s revelatory encounter with Teddy.

It’s Teddy who reveals that he has been using Leonard to kill criminal associates. He claims to have tracked down the real “John G” behind the murder of Leonard’s wife years ago and, most tellingly, that Sammy’s story is actually Leonard’s, created to absolve himself of guilt.

Which begs the question: Are Sammy and Leonard simply one and the same person? And, if so, did Leonard kill his wife by accident?

While some degree of ambiguity remains, Tobolowsky says such notions played into Nolan’s decision to include a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment where Sammy, holed up in an old folk’s home, is for a brief flash, replaced by Leonard.

“Chris played with the idea on set. He said he had an idea for a moment where he would replace me with Guy. He wanted to try that out. That was determined while filming, the idea of the switch, which cements the idea of the two characters being one and the same.

“Chris was mining the depths of his script in the moment, which takes nerve as an artist. “

Reflecting on the experience, Tobolowsky only has positive memories of his experience on Memento, and the commitment shown by Pearce – particularly when it came to the tattoos that serve as reminders to Leonard of his past and forgotten present.

“Guy Pearce was just magnificent,” he says. “Every day, he would be in the chair getting those tattoos put on or removed. There would be long make-up breaks to get them adjusted perfectly and Chris would have it so that we would be shooting while Guy was in the makeup trailer.”

“Chris was a fabulous director to work with. Full of good humour and insight. The entire shoot was filled with energy and fun and that came from the top. I knew right away I was working with somebody very special. Chris takes chances.”

Tobolowsky holds his experience on Memento in the highest regard.

“When you do a lot of shows and movies, the idea is not how many you can squeeze in, it’s about which ones mattered to you. The work you did that affected you as a person and an artist. Something like Memento is profoundly affecting with the questions it asks.

“What haunts me about Sammy Jankis was that idea that if you cannot remember what you do, both your sins and your blessings, what kind of hell are you in? That final scene where Sammy is the old folk’s home, there is this question: Is he at peace? If you don’t know what is happening to you, what is your life? And what happens to Leonard?

He also credits the film with changing his career for the better.

“After I did Memento, I was considered for all sorts of roles that I wouldn’t have been before. It broke the Groundhog Day mold and showed what I was capable of.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“There have been so many movies I have been in. Some terrible, some mediocre and a few classics. It always comes down to the script and director. Memento is one of the good ones. It’s a masterpiece. There’s nothing quite like it.”

The post Memento and the Significance of Sammy Jankis appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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handlewithkara · 4 years

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@peggystormborn I think Iris Barry is the exception for a variety of reasons (imo partially race, partially the committment of the writers to the couple). But Oliver and Felicity did A LOT OF triangles before they committed and some of the writing for them was terrible on the romance front. People like to just remember the endgame, but they forget how terrible the road there was (Laurel, Sarah, Oliver marrying another woman, Oliver having a child with another woman, an entire crossover dedicated to a fantasy wedding between Laurel and Oliver, evil!Oliver being married to Kara). Granted in a lot of ways it was because Felicity wasn’t the original OTP and I think it took Marc Guggenheim a long time to finally accept it (I think he’s one of those writers who deep at heart doesn’t really like romance at all, and just eventually only grudingly accepted it, but I think the earlier seasons feel like there was a lot of latent animosity from the writers towards the storyline).

(and one can debate how Barry/Mirror Iris is something like a triangle, even if it is a triangle made up by writers who desperately want to maintain the “pure” status of an OTP, I mean, as long as you don’t think too hard about the implications of Mirror!Iris [I also think that the fact that Iris and Felicity predominantly don’t have superpowers makes it slightly easier for them to work as a functioning couple])

People thinking that the writers have handled Kara’s Kryptonian relations poorly doesn’t change that if the topic does not interest the writers they are not going to write it (and if they write something really tonedeaf about it, that is usually a sign that they don’t really care about a topic). It’s a very common trait of fanbases to take certain topics more seriously. Criticisms of co-dependency and calls for therapy are very, very common examples of this in a multitude of fandoms.

You have this all over the Supernatural ending, with people saying “Dean was acting suicidal for years, it sends a horrible message that the show ends up with him dying” and “John Winchester was a horrible father, it’s a horrible message that the show ends up with him being in heaven as part of Dean’s personal heaven and the show never doing a story where Dean recognizes that John screwed him up and fully breaks ties with him” and “the brothers were co-dependant, the show getting rid of all the characters who are not them and making the ending exclusively about them is a horrible message”.

I think it’s pretty clear that these things weren’t written because the writers intended to send that message, they just clearly see the characters very differently and many things the fans obsess over they see as just not that great a deal. Fans often latch onto characters and stories because they see part of themselves in them and project their own experiences and their emotions about those experiences into those characters (look no further than Lena’s fans and what they think is most important about her character). Fans also love their characters and want their angst to be explored, while most shows just want to keep the plot going. That’s why you will have amost every fandom clamoring how the show should do a therapy plot for their favorite character. To them that makes sense, they love their favorite character, so them sitting on a couch and talking about their feelings of course is going to sound fascinating. Doesn’t mean that the writers tick that way at all.

Supernatural can show pretty clearly how there can be a fundamental miscommunication between the fans and the creators. Where maybe writers might think that Dean’s dogged loyalty is his most fascinating trait, while fans might think his angsty woobie appeal is his most fascinating trait and his loyalty is boring or just a jumping off point or even actively harmful. Social media and fandom, I think it just has a habit of attracting people who have problems in their real lives and they are likely to project their own problems into these characters, but that does not mean that the writers are anywhere the same headspace (particularly in regards to how abusive or co-dependant a relationship is, I think just like with John Winchester, writers are way more likely to have a more positive view towards relationship and stories like that, because to them, those relationships are something good in their world because they are drivers of drama, providers of dramatic scenes).

And I think history has shown, no matter how annoying it is to the fans, new showrunners just will not be beholden to the themes and messages of previous showrunners. They will pay tribute to whatever part of previous seasons they like, but they are likely going to come in with their own spin, their biases and their own takes of the characters.

(for what it’s worth, I theorize season 4 started out with the plan for a sister season, to explore (via Red Kara and Elseworld and Amnesia) what is Alex without Kara, what is Kara without Alex and they just sort of lost the main plot somewhere in the middle between introducing Nia, introducing Lex and poorly thought out political metaphor)

Right now, what little we know of season 6 makes one hopeful that it could have a significant Alex and thusly sister focused plot, with Alex playing around with being a vigilante and there being rumors of another young sisters episode.

What is interesting about this is that either of Alex most likely developments, Alex becoming a hero in her own right OR Alex finally getting her baby and family provide interesting jumping off points for Kara to reflect on her own life. This does not mean that the writers will actually take this opportunity seriously, but it is at least possible.

Alex has been a physical fighter working with Kara since forever, but her getting her own costume could be a signal that she is getting her own hero identity. Alex being her own heroic person rather than just the no-name who supports Kara ideally should be an interesting change up in their dynamics. Either with Kara cheerleading and supporting Alex they way Alex has always supported her or with Kara realizing that maybe she has to step back a little and let Alex be her own hero and trust her that she can handle things on her own (potentially culminating with Kara leaving the protection of the city and Earth in the hands of Alex).

I could picture Kara having a relationship with William and eventually rejecting him symbolically but I just really wouldn’t expect it to be about Argo. But I could picture a plot where seeing Alex thrive as a hero makes Kara think she has the freedom to kick back and focus on her romantic relationship or focus on being just Kara Danvers for a while (and in the end realizing that that is not enough for her, I just would expect this NOT to be about Kara Zor-El but about Supergirl, Kara realizing that she needs to be Supergirl to be happy even if being Supergirl has made her life more complicated in many ways).

On the other hand, if Alex were to finally get her child wish fulfilled it could a be a good story to explore what the equivalent is for Kara (while with Alex, she has always been protective of Kara, so her having somebody else to raise and be protective over would also provide good emotional dramatic potential).

But it could just as equally be that they parallel Alex being happy with a baby and a girlfriend as their little family with Kara just getting William as the nice unproblematic understanding boyfriend, forming their own family unit albeit without a child. Or it could be Kara just getting gratification of being a supportive and loving aunt. You never know. Supernatural shows that just because the fans are convinced that the show will go one way (Family is about more than blood ties! The show will end with showing how Sam and Dean have evolved beyond “the two of us against the world!” and their family unit now includes Eileen, Castiel and Jack) doesn’t mean that the writers see it the same way.

It’s very interesting in how this reaction mirrors the reaction to the How I Met Your Mother Finale where the writers thought it made sense to circle back to the start and most of the general audience disliked it because they felt the characters had developed beyond the original premise. But it still shows how this particular pattern of thinking is one that writers are very likely to fall into.

Finales often have a way of exposing whether one’s (or even the audience in general) perception of the characters and their relationships and perceived moral takeaways align with the one’s of the writers. I don’t even think that that is something that can just be “fixed” by telling writers “don’t be the Game of Thrones finale, don’t be the HIMYM finale”. If powerful writers just have a certain perception of characters, that’s just how they see them and they can’t just break out of.

I guess one can argue that maybe it’s a sign of poor writing (even if it might be good business sense) if a show supports such a variety of readings till the very end (are we watching a story about co-dependant siblings which should end with them lovingly and supportively letting each other go? or are we watching a show about siblings through thick and thin, more powerful than anything?), but I think in some cases it just arises naturally because of the way fans can project themselves into characters in ways that was not intended by the writers and that can’t fully be controlled by them (and since those projections are heavily influenced by people’s very varied personal experiences you also can’t just please everyone).

#supergirl #kara zor-el #kara danvers #danvers sisters #alex danvers

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safflowerseason · 4 years

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veep livestream thoughts

I thought the Veep livestream with JLD and Reid Scott was so interesting and enlightening, and I wanted to post some of my (admittedly jumbled) thoughts about it, just as a way to process it all.

Mostly I was completely struck right by the fact that immediately RS commented on how the characters changed from the first season to the seventh season, especially Dan and Mike. Like, he basically summed up (and incredibly specifically!) exactly what changed…reflecting on how S1 Dan would never have a moment like S7 Dan, throwing stones in a lake and wondering about his future, how he would never question what his future was. He literally said S1 Dan would never be so vapid. And JLD chimed in with RS’s observations about Mike, how he’s a lot more acerbic and sharp in the earlier seasons, compared to later—I think they did actually use the word dumb to describe S7 Mike.

RS used the word “growth” to describe these changes (I think he meant in the sense of, like, “evolution over time” as opposed to “progress”, but who knows). It was very evident that he doesn’t view the changes in Dan’s character as something that “bad” as in, negative for the show or a betrayal of how he viewed Dan’s character. He described Dan’s ending in the show pretty definitively and with good humor, joking “good work Dan” when JLD brought up his twenty-year old wife, emphasizing that Dan ended up in the right place, that he would never run for office once he discovered his true fate as a Laguna Beach real estate mogul.

I think it’s very illuminating how RS describes himself too, pretty dark and sardonic (it was interesting and kind of cute how he said he didn’t mind the social implications of the lockdown at first, purely as opportunity to hole up and be with his family and not be out in the world….) It seems like he sees the character through a similarly dark lens, and enjoyed taking him to a darker (and dumber) place in the later seasons. And perhaps Dan’s more human qualities, especially in regards to Amy, are not what unlocked the character for him. When he acknowledged Amy and Dan’s Sam-and-Diane-esque qualities, he also qualified the comparison too, saying he enjoyed how the show kind of inverted the classic love-hate journey...both he and JLD talked about the enduring dysfunction of everyone on the show, and their inability to maintain healthy relationships.

I don’t know. I don’t really have a response or anything to all of this. It was just intriguing hearing him talk about the show so frankly, and I was impressed by how thoughtful and reflective he was. As I’ve said before, this kind of stuff is fascinating but also distinctly extra-textual, and there’s never really one interpretation of a text, anyway. More broadly, I think it speaks to the fundamental difference of being outside something, in the process of creating it, versus engaging with a “finished” creative product. It just changes your perspective. As anyone who has ever created any piece of art can attest to, you always see it differently than your readers or viewers. Just in Veep’s case, that change in perspective has been exacerbated by the dramatically different artistic approach to the final season.

I also think it’s interesting how these individual chats highlight how distinct the relationships between the different members of the ensemble are. I didn’t see JLD’s chat with Tim Simons, but the one with Tony Hale had a very different energy. It was a lot more banter-y…they have a very established rhythm, simply because they literally spent seven years filming almost every scene together. And RS and JLD naturally had a different chemistry together that manifests in a different way…at times, this felt almost like an interview, like, literally JLD thinking of questions to ask to keep the conversation going. Not that it was awkward or bad, not at all! They’re obviously incredibly close, their goodbyes were so heartwarming...I loved when she asked about his kids, it’s so clear they bonded over being the parents of two boys. It just translates differently to this kind of setting.

And tbh, an hour is a long time to vaguely reminisce, especially if they’re scrambling for questions. Although I feel like there were plenty of questions coming in?? Idk, I have no idea how these Instagram livestreams work. Also, now they have to do one with Anna Chlumsky..although I feel like the Dan/Amy content would just be more of the same. I mean, there are only so many scenes they remember filming together...only so many ways they can talk about the abortion scene and why Dan and Amy didn’t end up together. But otherwise it would be so much fun! I would love to hear their perspective on being the only two women in the ensemble.

In conclusion, Reid Scott is a very intelligent and deeply observant person who can apparently also perform incredibly handy tasks like re-upholster furniture and on top of all that loves history and reads books by women. Basically a Renaissance man with a perfect face. Do they sell Reid Scotts in stores? I refuse to believe there is only one out there. There needs to be at least one more available model for me.

#reid scott #veep social media #julia louis-dreyfus #dan egan #amy brookheimer

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roc-thoughtblog · 3 years

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Sense and Sensibility Readthrough Part 15

Chapter 18, Pages 83-88

Past two weeks have been... rough isn't the right word, that implies a specific level of hardship. Mismanaged implies that I made management decisions at all. I think "thoroughly paralyzing" and "difficult to manage" were what it was. If I ever mention emails in the preamble again you can be sure there's a 50% chance I'm imminently falling apart and disappearing for a while under the pressure. I still haven't conquered them at the time of writing this, but I've made some progress..

Over the weekend two sets of friends dragged me out, so that's helped a lot in resetting my mind to a less frozen space. I got to see a bird art exhibit and pick up a friendly kitty! I have no idea where yesterday went but I finished DDLC the day before, which was fun and I'd like to write something about.

This week's looking better.

Anyway! Previously, Edward Ferrars has returned, and makes his greatest spoken appearance thus far with all the sisters; and in the comfort of their familiar company he sounds very much at ease and how Elinor would refer to as "as himself." It's very sweet, but it also sounds like he's nursing something broody underneath it all.

Geez it's been almost two weeks.

It took me a good four hours today to get back into reading again, but I'm glad I did. This chapter was so sweet, and I feel like it's helping me get my life rolling again.

Readthrough below.

Chapter 18

Edward Ferrars is doing a good impression of me during social outings. Poor Elinor, he's so despirited she's not able to even read if he still loves her/wants to see her;

and the reservedness of his manner towards her contradicted one moment what a more animated look had intimated the preceding one.

Another for the nice line stack. I really know the feeling though; that you should or even are genuinely happy to be there but something weighs on you in a way that whatever you should naturally feel gets swallowed. Like happiness is a poor signal being intermittently obscured by static and noise. And other people can pick it up easily even if they don't know the cause; poor Elinor is feeling insecure right now being made to guess what it could be.

Edward's behaving oddly, not just in Marianne's opinion but in mine as well I think. Or at least, very detachedly. He skips breakfast with Elinor to go a walk around town to admire the scenery; I have to pause my train of thought for this actually:

"I shall call hills steep, which ought to be bold; surfaces strange and uncouth, which out to be irregular and rugged; and distant objects out of sight, which ought only to be indistinct through the soft medium of hazy atmosphere. [...] I call it a very fine country - the hills are steep, the woods seem full of fine timber, and the valley looks comfortable and snug - [...] I can easily believe it to be full of rocks and promontories, grey moss and brush wood, but these are all lost on me."

When Marianne tries to press Edward for the details of his aethstic opinion after his walk, he gets pre-emptively defensive over his inability to meet her standards of aesthetic appreciation. Asides from illustrating that Edward knows how to describe what he lacks, it's really helpful to me for being an incredibly easy to reference breakdown on the difference between observations made from aesthetics versus utility.

Steep hills, out of sight objects, comfort and resource presence are all practical concerns. Meanwhile, uncouth surfaces imply personality, a hazy distant skyline adds atmosphere, promontories are dramatic and grey moss and brush wood are appealing visual details. I haven't really stopped thinking about narrative voice, so I'm suddenly struck wondering about a detective/reporter dynamic where two characters cover the same scene but one is practical and the other is poetic, and seeing the difference... Well it's probably been done and I should nix this train of thought before it takes me interstate.

Amusingly, Elinor undercuts her beau by explaining to Marianne that Edward is not nearly as exclusively utilitarian-minded as he acts... he just masks the latent poetry within his soul because he holds a slight reactionary bias against aesthetics, because he finds some aesthetic appreciators to be fake and pretentious. Oh dear. :'D

Fortunately for Edward, Marianne agrees that florid language has been done to death. Unfortunately for Elinor, Edward refutes her claim that he has any hidden poetic appeal. He goes as far as to use language like "crooked, twisted, blasted trees" while doing so too, which, I think we can all agree it's a waste that he doesn't employ them more often. :'D

Marianne looked with amazement at Edward, with compassion at her sister. Elinor only laughed.

Same. :'D

Oh, oh no.

Next paragraph Marianne spots that Edward has a new ring and blurts out the observation for a conversation topic. Oh no, no that can't be any kind of good in general. A surprise new ring? In a romance novel? Murder! Bloody murder! It's like finding a bloody handprint in a murder mystery; Edward what have you done??

I might be having a little trouble following what comes now though. So there's a hair inlaid in the ring (what is it with people keeping each other's hair?), which Marianne asks if it's Fanny's. The hair's not the right colour to be Fanny's, but Edward makes an excuse while glancing (guiltily?) at Elinor. So now, both sisters think it's Elinor's hair, and he's lying about the source because he's embarassed? Marianne thinks it Elinor gave to him, but Elinor thinks he secretly stole it from her?

I think that's what happened?

Elinor doesn't even like... particularly mind that her hair might have been stolen to make a ring.

That hair is definitely not Elinor's though, which I think she will mind.

[Elinor] internally resolved henceforward to catch every opportunity of eyeing the hair and satisfying, beyond all doubt, that it was exactly the same as her own. [...] how little offense it had given to [Elinor].

Elinor's natural skepticism, at an 11 for Willoughby, is turned down to a 1 for her beau. In fact, her natural skepticism is playing second fiddle to her basking in attention; from the rest of the context it sounds like she's just using it as an excuse to admire her beau apparently wearing her hair. We've seen paranoid hyperaware Elinor, and this is definitely not her. This is a new Elinor, this is aaaaaaaaaa my beau has a secret memento of me aaaaaaaaa i can't betray my secret internal happiness aaaaaaaaaaa Elinor.

I don't even think I'm reading too much into the secret internal happiness thing, girl has feelings and biases. If it were Willoughby with the strange ring of hair she'd be driving herself up the wall with concern, but that it's Edward she's already half-convinced herself of his fidelity. Either it's not her hair, or he stole her hair behind her back, and neither is a good thing! In fact, the latter is quite a stretch, and Edward seems like an awful liar. And even though she assumes the latter option, that he stole her hair without her consent, she's not even upset! That's not just creepy nowadays, Elinor acknowledges in the text that she should be affronted! It's creepy then too! Poor girl has it bad.

Mama Dashwood are you gonna say anything? I don't think Marianne is useful here, she's just happy to see signs of love.

Oh boy, there's not even much of a reprieve before Sir Middleton and Mrs Jennings show up to meet the new lad in town. 0 seconds for Mrs Jennings to figure out Edward is Elinor's secret beau. Poor Elinor is gonna get her match made so hard. I expect exponentially increased amounts of unwanted advice.

Sir Middleton invites them to more parties, as he do, which may or may not be the coming chapters. Marianne is still despirited that Willoughby is absent. Edward catches on to all these mentions of a mysterious Willoughby and Marianne's despondent reactions, and pieces things to together to come out and ask Marianne privately... if Willoughby hunts.

He just made a joke, that cheered Marianne up. That's adorable, I love it so much. Bonding... :')

Not just him too, the entire narrative was setting that one up for the reader, trying to build it up into some kind of serious question or confrontation so that Willoughby could deliver the punchline on Marianne. On a dry technical level it conveys the same bare minimum of information that it otherwise could have (that Edward has figured something out and confronted Marianne about it), but on every other level it's so much more heartwarming and just adds such a fine, tender touch to an interpersonal relationship that really doesn't get all that much positive attention.

And beyond touched, Marianne is all of happy, anxious and certain that Eddie would be great friends with her Willoughby, which, I need many new sentences to express how incredibly meaningful that is.

Marianne's relationship with Eddie up until now has been marked by a frustrated inability to understand him, and mostly held together by the good words and attention of her sister. They're established to be friends and positive, but there's always a fraught element to it, especially since we've seen that she and Willoughby together have had a similar antagonistic relationship towards Brandon, and that doesn't play out well even with Elinor's defense. Given how much she insists that she shares her heart and mind with Willoughby, we can reach the implication that she treats her opinion or place as interchangeable with Willoughby's. If she can confidently opine that Eddie will like Willoughby, then I think this is that tender moment where we can see that, no matter how or if they fight or disagree, Marianne truly believes that Eddie deeply likes and appreciates her, because that's what's necessary to like Willoughby.

And Eddie reciprocates! "I do not doubt it." He has no reason to know that Willoughby and Marianne have appreciably interchangeable level singlemindedness, so he just likes Marianne enough to be ready to accept whoever it is that she loves.

It's such a lovely note to end an otherwise tense chapter on. That interaction alone might have made it one of my favourites so far.

#1800 words #all things considered i'm proud of myself for returning and continuing this #it's a simple thing that feels rewarding #jane austen #sense and sensibility #readthrough #novels #Diary Preamble

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