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bethanydelleman · 6 months

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Hello!

I rewatched Pride and Prejudice and it's surprising how my thoughts on it changed over the years 😃

When I was a teenager, Elizabeth Bennet was the plucky heroine that I wanted to be (lol) , now I'm older with a mortgage and responsibilities/bills, I'm like what was her plan in life?

Because she wasn't really educated per se (im thinking about how she answered lady Catherine about what she has to recommend her re:drawing, playing the piano etc) so I guess a 'career'(no matter how little it would be available at that time) was out of the question, but accepting marraige to the (admittedly obsequious) Mr Collins was also out of the question as well as Mr Darcys first proposal (which I get why sge turned it down!) ...I guess I'm asking what Elizabeth's plan for her future.

I've heard this from a lot of people upon re-read, "Why isn't Elizabeth more worried about her future?" I think there are a few things to note.

Early 1800s or not, Elizabeth is 20 years old when the novel begins (the average age of first marriage for women was 23). 27 year old Charlotte is in more of a future panic, but Elizabeth is still young. She has done practical thing like learn to play piano, but like most young people, she's probably just hoping for the best. And it's not like there is much she can actually do, Elizabeth is putting herself out there, she's dancing, she's playing piano, but otherwise she can just hurry up and wait. Her mother's marriage schemes are seen as vulgar and mostly backfire, and we would hardly want Elizabeth to act like Caroline. We read across Austen's novel's that women are largely stationary and it is the men who move in and out of their lives.

Also, I think a big part of Austen's point is that women are in a position where they feel the need to accept any and every proposal, because as Mr. Collins says, they may never receive another, but that this leads to misery (just look at the older couples and how many of them are unhappy!). While somewhat foolish from a financial perspective, Elizabeth is thinking about her long term happiness. She has watched her father turn bitter in an unequal relationship, she does not want that for herself. Elizabeth is choosing possible spinsterhood over being married to a person she knows she could not respect. Marrying for love, or at least on a basis of respect, is a big theme in Austen's novels. Let me add this quote from Mansfield Park to illustrate this point:

“I should have thought,” said Fanny, after a pause of recollection and exertion, “that every woman must have felt the possibility of a man’s not being approved, not being loved by some one of her sex at least, let him be ever so generally agreeable. Let him have all the perfections in the world, I think it ought not to be set down as certain that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself.... And, and—we think very differently of the nature of women, if they can imagine a woman so very soon capable of returning an affection as this seems to imply.”

So yes, Elizabeth Bennet isn't being financially prudent but she is being sensible in preserving her happiness. And for realism, we know Austen made this decision herself! She turned down an eligible offer.

Next, Mrs. Bennet is somewhat exaggerating: they are very unlikely to starve or be destitute. While it is never explicitly stated, Mr. Gardiner seems to be doing very well, and would probably very happily take at least Jane and Elizabeth if Mr. Bennet died. Mr. Philips is also doing well for a country attorney, he could take in his sister-in-law and nieces. It is going to suck, the Bennets should have planned better, but it's not the end of the world. We also do not know Mr. Bennet's age, but he may well only be in his late forties. He's no Mr. Woodhouse who may die tomorrow in a stiff breeze.

So what is Elizabeth's plan? She doesn't have one, she's 20. She's hoping life will throw her a man with a decent income that she doesn't hate. It works out in the end, but I don't think she would live to regret either turned down proposal if she had never met Darcy again.

#question response #elizabeth bennet #pride and prejudice #she doesn't have a plan #she's young #she just has staandards

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bloomingdarkgarden · 3 months

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Could Vassa Be Immortal After All?

A Firebird Theory

(WARNING: HOFAS SPOILERS BELOW)

While reading CC3 I couldn’t help but notice a plot element regarding curses that brought me back to Vassa in ACOTAR.

In HOFAS we learn Jesiba's mysterious backstory and all this talk of curses- I couldn’t help but to meditate on our favorite firebird. Jesiba unveils that she has been cursed in Chapter 38:

And also elaborates that there were unintentional consequences of the curse:

Jesiba obviously holds a strong grudge against her cursor but is able to use the curse to her advantage.

So Jesiba, similarly to Vassa, was a mortal, cursed unwillingly by an immortal male figure. The curse made her immortal in turn. This has me thinking- what if the same has happened to Vassa? More from Ch.38:

I also find the passage in ACOWAR really interesting, in which Feyre is describing her perception of Vassa the first time they meet:

‘Only a few years older than me, but ... young-feeling. Coltish. Fierce and untamed, despite her curse.’ (ACOWAR chapter 79)

Could this be because although Vassa is, let’s say, age 28- she actually stopped physically aging when she was cursed at age 20? Perhaps it's just Feyre noting that she's a spicy pepper. Who knows.

I recently went down a rabbit hole of Slavic lore and I’m so intrigued by Vaasa’s storyline in the upcoming books. Most folks are aware that SJM has taken her story directly from Slavic mythology- and there are loads of potential breadcrumbs in the fables of:

Ivan Tsarevitch in which Ivan, the youngest of several malaligned brothers, sets out on a quest to free a firebird from a dark sorcerer who also entraps other princesses (often Koschei the deathless).

Princess Vasilisa in which an archer finds a firebird’s flaming feather and gets roped into a quest to deliver a lost princess. Hello Elain’s vision regarding this exact imagery: “I saw a feather of fire land on snow and melt it.” (ACOWAR)

Swan Lake in which Princess Odette (Vassa) is cursed into a swan form by an evil lord and can only take human form between midnight and daybreak. Only a faithful vow of true love can break the spell. If her true love makes a vow to the wrong woman (Elain perhaps) the princess dies instead. Could something as powerful as a male (Lucien) breaking his mating bond to forge a destiny with Vassa be the key to breaking her curse??

Who knows.

Will Vassa be immortalized by Koschei's power touching her and chaining her to the lake? Will Lucien be the key to deliver her from her curse as Ivan was in the fables?

I don't know. But regardless of Lucien's heart, I myself am a Vassa acolyte. I'm so enraptured by the beautiful myths surrounding this lore, and am so intrigued to learn what becomes of Vassa as a heroine in her own right. Her character and story have so much magical potential!

In the words of Yakov Polonsky’s poem:

And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf's back

Riding along a forest path

To do battle with a sorcerer-tsar

In that land where a princess sits under lock and key,

Pining behind massive walls.

There gardens surround a palace all of glass;

There Firebirds sing by night

#vassien #acotar theory #vassa #firebird #lucien vanserra #this girl is on fire #hofas spoilers #acotar #cc3

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rockkal · 6 months

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HOMESTUCK BEYOND CANON NEXT UPD8(s) PREDICTIONS (I'm delusional, btw) /SHITPOST

We get to see Jack Noir be a pathetic little meow meow and has depression because he's too busy working at the mine coal to see his wife

The Felt come into the screen, also somehow snowman, and they all say "We voted for Obama" (this is very important homestuck lore, btw)

Brand new character called HEROIN ADDICT is introduced. Son of Karkat and Dave. Has a brother named John Egbert Strider Vantas

Clover flirts with Jane and gets sent to the weed dungeon. And not like the good weed. I mean like the weed that really feels like shit

Jake becomes new leader of the Felt and Crowbar becomes his dad (Crowbar dad AU, write that down, it'll be on the test)

We get to see Death, the character, talk with ULT Dirk and he brang along the Midnight Crew, Mom Lalonde B1 and Dad egbert because he thinks they're cool (also, Mom Lalonde and Dad Egbert kiss a lot in death's office and have tea and buscuits with the Midnight Crew)

CALIBORN COMES FOR A SINGLE PANEL AND MAKES JUNE OFFICIALLY TRANS! BECAUSE HE HATES JUNE AND HE HATES WOMEN SO HE COMBINES THE TWO THINGS HE HATES INTO ONE (this is a joke, btw. I honestly want June's transitioning to be more in character then just the gremlin guy I like does it for me)

Ms Paint. becomes narrator of both Candy and Meat and it's just a podcast about different types of paint

Something related to The Midnight Crew's creator, Professor Mayasaka or however the fuck ya spell it, something translated into midnight. Whatever. I just wanna see the professor man come in and do something

JANE REVIVES AIMLESS RENEGADE SOMEHOW AND HE GOES GOD TIER! (His Classpect is Mage of Blood because I say so)

Sollux and Eridan kissing

Roxy breaks the fourth wall and says "it's Roxy Lalonding time" and Roxy Lalondes all over the place

A bucket appears and yeah

We see Andrew Hussie in a bath robe

Terezi manages to give back the legal rights to Beyond Canon back to their creators (sorry, I forgot your name, mister cool homestuck guy. I forget easily :'(]

Vriska dies. (I hate Vriska! (In a Kismesis way))

Equius comes back to say "I require horse" and then he gets prototyped with the universe frog

Matchsticks gets a personality and we learn he wants to become an actual fire fighter and save people since he was a kid

Stitch becomes hella cool by partnering with Kanaya to beat the shit out of Dirk

Rose just stays Rose because I forgot she existed

21 again but with Dave

June Egbert gets two new dads and they're Eggs and Biscuits from The Felt because it reminds her of her dead dad's cakes

Diamonds Droogs/Draconian Dignitary x Dad Crocker 20 hour oiled up make out session flash animation

Calliope has a child with Roxy. (comment what ya think they would be called)

Dirk eats a baby (it's John Egbert Strider Vantas)

AR gets to have a robo body and becomes friends with AR and Aradia and also Aranea is there to keep them in check and they call eachother the "AR squad", but Aranea is the out cast because she is blue

Eden Gardner (homestuck OC of @springselkie) gets a mention.

Monkeys become relevant to the plot

Jack Noir gets to show us his stabs

Bold Eagles are Aimless Renegade's second power, because he's the only AMERUCAN character in homestuck

Jake gets a beard and celebrates by showing us his level 100 GYAT

What Pumpkin office remains is an important location in the story

Mommy Condie comes back and marries Earth C's version of Colonel sassacres

Freddy Fazber, new character, literally the best. Hor hor hor hor.

Something related to drugs, I guess (I'm running out of ideas)

Fortnite becomes canon and everyone loves it

Deltarune reference

Jack Noir eats money and becomes lamborghini

Jack Noir villain arc where he and June kiss (their kismesis, it's ok. They want to kill eachother)

Rose's wifi is STILL shitty! COME ON, IT'S BEEN 10 YEARS, FIX YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION, GURL!

Kanaya gets to make something Lord English related

We see Doc Scratch because he's awesome

Wayward Vagabond comes back from the grave and does ANOTHER revolution against monerchy. He is truly the best diplomat.

MLP gets mentioned

Problem Sleuth shows up for 5 panels and then dies

Nepeta gets to kill Pickle Inspector

Eridan smokes weed

[S] Terezi: Do the mackarena

Weed chapter

Karkat gets a period cramp

Something something Lord English in black void, becomes normal Caliborn, being room mates with Equius, Gamzee and AR (auto-responder)

Free Bird fight sequence

Joe Biden gets a mention because he was probably in office before the clown fuckers took over D.C. Washington

Cockaine chapter

MSPA reader gets hella blazed and yeah

Caliborn kisses a rule 63 version of a Miku body pillow

Pic Yaoi sequence or smth

Sawbuck stays a fat fuck and eats the earth at the end

Itchy dies from tripping on a rock

Doze unslows himself and does a break dance

Trace and Fin make out session

Quarters gets to shoot ULT Dirk and is declared a war veteran

Bog from RHG shows up to eat a chocolate bar

I'm high

Ok, that was the end of this dumb shitpost. Hope ya got a kick out of it. Or not.

Wait

Shit

I should probably add an image so that I could look cool

Give me a sec

Yes, God of Yaoi.

Perfect for this.

See ya

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lemonhemlock · 4 months

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i think when ppl talk about rhaenyra having a birthright they don't actually know what means. if that was true for rhaenyra she would have been her father's heir from the time she was born. but i kinda get why someone would use those words but that sort of language is a lot more convincing than "claim."

also rhae being 8 in the text when she's named princess of dragonstone versus 14 in the show- what kind of difference do you think there was, in terms of emotional impact on her? idk if that makes sense, lol. like book rhaenyra probably can't remember a time that she wasn't first in line to the throne, whereas tv rhaenyra can remember because for almost the first 15 years of her life she wasn't viserys' heir

Hi again!

Technically, Rhaenyra did have a "birthright" to the throne when she was born, but that was because she was the only (living) child. As soon as a living brother of hers was born, her birthright was to be second in line, after him. Of course, as soon as he died, she reverted back to being first in line. Until Aegon was born.

I think the age difference is really interesting in that regard, because the older Rhaenyra is, the better chance she has of understanding that dynamic and internalising it. Like you said, if she is named heir at 8, it's easier for her to forget that she wasn't always no1. But maybe it's also a little more, IDK the right term for this, maybe honest? For Viserys? In the books, he's 20 years old when she is born and 28 when he names her heir. Certainly, no one would have considered him at the end of his heir-making career, yet he still insisted on Rhaenyra. Whereas in the show, he is much older - his actor is a 50 year-old-man. Not to say he couldn't still sire children, but deciding on Rhaenyra when both of them(!) were so young is a detail that maybe someone writing an adaptation could focus on as evidence of true belief in her (if incompetent politicking).

Of course, a lot of this can just be attributed to GRRM's typical bad maths or attempt to force through as many events as possible within a tight timeline - which would explain why everyone is so young all the time.

Anyway, back to Rhaenyra, I think they did explore that a little, as they did give Rhaenyra lines to that extent - how Viserys always wanted a son, not her, how her mother died trying to fulfill Viserys' wish (and ultimately downgrade her in the line of succession), how Viserys intends to replace her with Alicent's son, etc. It's a very fucked up idea to ultimately wish for your replacement just so your mother could get a respite from the pain. NGL - that was a very compelling conflict point that made young!Rhaenyra sympathetic. Unfortunately, it went completely away with her adult self, which they sanitised into this blank canvas and stripped of most personality traits that she resembles a YA novel heroine.

Looking back, I wonder if it were not better to skip the last time jump altogether and just end the 10-episode season at Driftmark. They could have included 3 extra episodes to bridge the divide between young! and adult!Rhaenyra and explore some of the ways in which she ultimately found the position of heir dissatisfying. Which, again, could have been an interesting character exploration. Imagine finally getting the recognition that you wanted only to discover that you greatly dislike all the restrictions that come with that recognition and you become so cantankerous and disparaging of it that you end up wishing you never named heir in the first place, all the while living as if you have no responsibilities.

#ask #alicenttully #anti rhaenyra targaryen #for filtering purposes

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spidersmiceandeverythingnice · 2 years

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Ya know what tbqh I'm having a lot more fun interacting with SJM since deciding to hash tag stan tamlin but also what grinds my gears!?!? What butters my fucking croissants!?!?!

Tamlin has HOBBIES.

No no. Seriously. I have a point. Listen:

We know the following pieces of information about the Spring Court/Tamlin in ACOTAR: Most of the government falls squarely on Tamlin's shoulders because most of the old guard and the former sentries are dead, because they left the Spring Court to search for a "cure." He and Lucien actively patrol their borders and hunt for monsters that threaten humans and faeries alike. Taxes are collected once a year via the Tithe, but Tamlim absolishes the Tithe during Amarantha's rule. There are no cities. There is almost no distinction in the Court between High Fae and "lesser fae." He was a victim of abuse via his father and two much older brothers. Human slaves used to be common, but Tamlin finds his family history abhorrent and considers himself a protector type. He personally took Lucien to another Court for healing after Amarantha damaged his eye in a way that Tamlin himself could not fix. A faerie dies in his living room and Tamlin personally buries him. Tamlin takes refugees from other courts. The most important holiday is Calanmai, wherein Tamlin sacrifices his bodily autonomy and gets possessed by a god (?) in order to generate magic during the changing of seasons. He can be grouchy but he has a sense of humor; he writes silly poems for fun and plays music well enough that Feyre thinks he could make an actual career of it.

A lot of this gets re-conned, re-framed as "conservative" and sometimes actively ignored in order to attribute more positive qualities to Rhys - who in ACOTAR, is shown to be a manipulative liar who commits murder for fun and drugs/assaults Feyre. Tamlin clearly suffers from PTSD in ACOMAF but his symptoms are not "noble" or cute like Feyre. The narrative postulates that while Feyre needs to learn that she's worthy of love and freedom and that her dark past doesnt define her, Tamlin needs to be "redeemed" because his trauma is not as important or as valid as hers, and he can't be worthy of help until he repents for his "crime" of acting in ways that are - from his perspective- completely logical, and based in genuinely good/loving intentions.

In ACOWAR, Feyre states that she begins implanting/altering the memories of Tamlin in other people's heads to make them abandon him. She also steals a gift (presumably, a gift from Rhys to Tamlin) because she doesn't feel he deserves it, and contemplates burning down the rose garden which is pretty much all Tamlin has left of his mother.

This... does not make me hate Tamlin in the slightest. I read these books and actively struggle to hate him the way the narrative wants because everything about him is legitimately just tragic and pitiable.

While all this goes on the narrative goes on to reposition Rhysand - the guy who caused a lot of the main heroine trauma - as the best guy who ever lived. He's cruel to be kind, deeply misunderstood and hurting in silence. A martyr whose pain is just like the heroine's, who is an immortal ancient warrior king more powerful than any other person in the world but still somehow the narrative equal of a barely literate 20 year old woman. That sure is a choice and ya know what fine, whatever, I accept that this is the story I'm reading. But back to my earlier point:

What hobby does Rhysand have other than sex and fighting?

Answer me. Quickly.

The retcons with Tamlins character are annoying on their own because SJM clearly thinks her audience is too stupid to remember book one of her own series. But it's especially annoying for me given that Rhysand is a boring mouthpiece for the author to moralize her faerie books. As a character he's incredibly bland. There's nothing about him that's compelling because everything "bad" that he does is justified and righteous, and he can't be challenged or hurt because that would make Feyre (the other author mouthpiece) very sad. :(

Anyway remember to stan tamlin, send tweet.

#anti sjm #tamlin #anti rhysand #im so bored of feysand they are the most boring insufferable fucking couple

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angel-of-hunky-doryness · 8 months

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The Conflicts of Disney's Hercules (Part 1): Meg vs Hades

Long post y'all.

I promised my diva of a sponsor to get to this and since my last post gained steam, I thought I'd finally talk about one of my favorite Villain vs Heroine conflicts in Disney's canon. This will be a bit of a mini series as I break down and explore the conflicts in the movie, think Hades vs Zeus vs Hercules, Hercules/Hades vs the Fates, etc. As I continue the series if you have a suggestion for one you want me to deep dive I would love to hear it!

That's the fun part about Tumblr, the opportunity to hear voices and begin discussion about little things no one mentions in a 20+ old film. Also, bare in mind I will be exploring other Disney films eventually, but I've just spent too long digging in the Hercules trenches i can't help but gush about it even if it is far from my favorite Disney film.

Also fair warning ahead of time but there is a CW in one section of this post that can be easily circumvented if you so wish. There will be a space and *** symbols to indicate when it starts and when it ends as we discuss some dark themes and symbolism.

Now on to the evening's entertainment!

The history of Disney hero(ine) vs villain goes all the way back to Disney's very first animated film: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In this film, we are treated to a classic clash between good vs evil with well-established background that fully explains the animosity the Queen has towards Snow White and to a lesser known extent of myself when I was 3. However, keep in mind, the Queen interacts with Snow White through indirect sources like the Huntsman and when the Queen disguises herself as a hag.

To summarize in case you haven't seen the movie, Snow White finally gets to the ripe old age where a person can finally be considered fair, which I suppose is 14 years old. The queen gets so frazzled her hair falls out and turns white and ages about seventy years or something.

Anxiety, hits at every age y'all. Even for the wickedly beautiful.

And so ensues the assassination plot of an abused princess who manages to escape and finally gets the love and life she dreamed about for so, so long.

The reason I'm using Snow White as a jumping off point is because we have the very first example in Disney's canon of a deal being offered to an otherwise naïve young girl.

And that naïve young girl accepts out of her own volition, no forcing, no pressuring, at the end of the day, taking a bite of a poisoned apple or in Meg's case taking Hades' hand sealing both Heroine's fate.

Now, while Disney's Hercules touches on how Meg got ensnared in Hades' plans, let's review what we do know:

Meg was at the end of her rope when her ex died. So much so that she was willing to do anything to get him back, and she meant it. While we do not know exactly how healthy Meg and her ex's relationship was before his untimely demise, the fact that her Ex ran off with another girl soon after tells me a lot on what the relationship was really like. It wasn't as steadfast or true as Meg had previously believed.

Oh yeah, weird side note, but we're completely ignoring Twisted tales: Go the Distance. Yeah, way to go. You took away Meg's chance to shine and connect with an unspoken minority in the audience. Do you know how many friends of mine found so much connection with Meg because she had been in a prior abusive relationship and still found love despite all the trauma she went through? Meg's iconic. Having Hades be the reason her ex took off is such a dumb move. I don't think he was that invested in her personal life to ruin it even further just to mess with her. He could care less, he's focused on taking over Olympus rn.

"Priorities, Jafar," - hey gifmakers of the world???

Anyway, tangent over.

So Meg's whole life revolved around her ex, and she was willing to put in the sacrifice and effort to be with him, but he snubbed her. The movie is very clear that the reason Meg is so cynical when we meet her is b/c she used to be a very openly sweet and loving person back when everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. And in that period, when she was so enamored with this Joe Schmo, she was probably starry eyed and saw everything in rose-colored glasses and thus didn't see the red flags of this chump. But she grew up and learned from her mistakes, but in a path that stopped her from ever trusting or loving someone else.

It's interesting, but Meg's ex comes up again at least referenced in I won't Say(I'm in Love), in the line:

"I thought my heart had learned its lesson..."

But when Meg sings that line, do you know what part of the garden she's in?

***CONTENT WARNING: R*pe. We will be discussing the setting of where I won't say (I'm in Love) takes place and picking apart at the various statues littered about in the Greek courtyard.

Now the garden is filled with statues of lovers and other symbols of love, but some that are not examples of love, specifically ones that revolve around scenes of r*pe.

The reference to her ex by the aforementioned lyric is when Meg's surrounded by scenes of r*pe: We have a centaur carrying off a lady and a satyr chasing after a girl. A common theme in greek myths, and I can't help but feel this was intentional on the writer's part. They are shouting and screaming at us that Meg's ex was a bad dude. Why would the only reference to her past dating life be when she's surrounded by the only sexually perverse imagery in this entire scene? Of males taking advantage of women? Carrying them off when they are not at all interested based on their body language?

***

I think that's why when Meg and Hades talk after her fake dating AU with Hercules their whole conversation is filled with so much substance. The song pushes so much character development for Meg that it enables her to face her trauma head-on and accept the past and still have the courage to move forward and try again with this budding new relationship now that the Muses helped support her- as her back-up chorus and her conscience lol.

But there's still one problem. One overhanging problem that's give or take 7 feet tall of abandonment and anger issues, permeating with the stench of sulfur and brimstone.

When the song ends, Hades almost immediately appears in the most on the nose way. By ripping apart a pair of young lovers as he emerges from the Underworld like the extra edgelord he is.

Thus begins my favorite scene of the movie. Songs don't count.

Now we've seen Meg and Hades interacting before and I will touch upon the scene after Zero to Hero later, but its poignant to get to the only time they really have a true clash first. The garden scene is the first time Meg is facing Hades as a heroine and not a reluctant minion.

Gosh, I love it when a girl goes feral, and Meg goes all out here. The interchange between Meg and Hades is written so tightly and neatly, everyone is dripping with so much character I just adore it.

But the most ironic part that isn't given much thought is why Hades says his most iconic and memeable line:

You bet this line is hilarious, but look at Hades' expression in the gif before. The exaggerated eyeroll, the sagging shoulders of disbelief as Meg is full of so much love and hope she almost forgets who's she's saying all this to.

The irony of Meg gushing about Hercules to Hades is this: Meg and Hades have had this exact conversation before. But now the guy in questions isn't her ex, it's Hercules.

And this time around, Hades is done beating around the bush and pretending everything is hunky-dory. Last time, he was fine with her going on about her ex and gushing about how "great" of a guy he was b/c he just wanted to take her soul. Hades probably had to fish her Ex out and knew what kinda guy he was once he read his record. In fact, I'm willing to wager, Hades has had multiple women similar to Meg who had done the same as her for some deadbeat.

And that's why Hades comes across as so annoyed by her being back in the same position.

Didn't she learn her lesson? Hell, even Hades knows guys can be pigs. And a small part of me has always wondered if his annoyance is also springing up b/c he knows that Hercules is a son of Zeus. While I don't think Hades ever had a soft spot for Meg- went lenient with her, etc, I can't help but wonder if Hades saw Hercules as someone who got around like Zeus and had a reputation like Zeus' other sons, ie, Apollo, Hephaestus, and even Hermes(yes Hermes had a lot of kids with tons of women). So Hades might legitimately be trying to warn her. I mean he's about to set her free, he's trying to pass on some good advice here before he disappears from her life

Btw, Ares is the only son of Zeus and the only god in Greek mythology who ever had a 100% confirmation rating of consensual relationships.

Be like Ares.

As the scene continues to play out, we start to see that as Meg continues to resist Hades' attempts for her to spill about Hercules' weakness, we see Hades for the first time lose it at Meg instead of his imps.

What little control Meg thought she had in her servitude comes crashing down and I think it's at that moment she realizes how much Hades had been holding back or really how good he was at pretending. He had been manipulating her into thinking she had a platform/control in her life. When Hades takes off his mask and Meg realizes when he had "convinced" her to seduce Hercules in a classic Samson and Delilah situation, it was never her choice. And now she's second guessing if Hades really intended to free her for the information she was undercover for.

He has all the leverage in the world after all.

That's why despite the threat Hades made on her life, she doesn't budge one bit. B/c she loves Hercules more than her own safety. And Meg triumphantly declares to Hades that he lost b/c Hercules can't be beaten b/c of his lack of weaknesses.

Only to realize too late that Hades possesses far more emotional intelligence to understand what's going on. Villains who understand that love is a motivator for people and don't dismiss it as a stupid chemical imbalance are some of my favorite. Not only does Hades understand that if someone like Meg had fallen so quickly then the other party had to have been a genuine person who sought her in the same way she wanted to seek him. Sure, he's taking advantage of it, but he's been around enough to know how much love can be used against people.

And I think that's why when Hades finally meets Hercules, old flame head decides to spill the beans to Hercules about Meg and her role in Hercules' downfall.

Yes, he wanted to hurt Hercules and taunt him and torment him with thoughts on how deep Hades and Meg's relationship went, but he did so to hurt Meg too.

Her show of loyalty to Herc was the last straw and Hades wanted to make sure she could never salvage a relationship with him for her slight against him. But also doing it in a way that broke her spirit and put her in a terribly guilty position that she would feel so undeserving of being with Hercules right as she is freed by him. And ensuring that she never faces Hercules again- maybe split town so she could avoid being harmed, idk.

And that makes Hades revealing Meg's complicity all the more personal. Bc Hades knows how much Meg wants to love and be loved again.

So when a powerless Hercules crumbles beneath Pain and Panic's taunting we see the first time this stubborn, hard-hearted girl cries. Not for her sake, but his.

We have seen throughout this movie that Meg and Hades have the most conflict, the most interactions, and the most character heavy scenes in the movie. They are very similar characters. Both are awfully cynical and sarcastic, both want to be free from some higher power's hold on them, and they're both bitter, bitter people who hate how their lives fell apart at the hands of someone who didn't care for them: Zeus and Joe Schmo.

Now, I'm going to backtrack and move to the Hades scene right after Zero to Hero.

Here, we get another facet of their relationship.

Hades finally realizes that he'd been sending so many beasts after Hercules, so to not be labeled insane, this time around he decides to send in a beauty. *Insert Susan Egan played Belle on Broadway joke here*

Which let's be real, should've been his first approach based on who Herc's daddy is.

But Hades doesn't try to convince Meg with yelling and screaming like he does with the boys, instead, he levels with her. Homeboy puts all his cards on the table, but does so by first empathizing with her and reminding her who helped put her in this situation.

For one second of this film, Hades shows some degree of humanity. And that is super scary. Out of the disney villains, Hades displays a huge, huge depth of emotional intelligence. I don't think any other villains compare and that's what makes him such a compelling villain. Most villains don't have that, and his ability to read the room and know how ppl work that really explains how he's able to manipulate ppl so easily. Even someone like Meg who's been putting up with him for quite a while was persuaded by him. And he does it by turning off the used car salesman persona and acting like an empathetic human being, albeit a flamed hair one.

Maybe that's why he doesn't bark orders to her, he has to appeal to her to let her be more agreeable for a better success rate. Or maybe Hades really is one of the few gods who uses consent.

When I first watched this movie as a kid I never saw the implications of Meg and Hades' relationship until I got older and watched the movie Casino (1995). James Woods, the voice actor for Hades, plays a pimp and that had a kind of whiplash for me when I realized why his role in Casino felt eerily familiar. In Meg's first scene, Hades had sent her out to recruit a centaur knowing full-well that centaur's really dig chicks. We all remember a certain statue in Meg's iconic song, I'm pretty sure the writers knew what was going on.

And that has some super dark implications right there about what Hades expected the scenario to come to and why he sent HER of all people to recruit Nessus without some kind of backup. Whether you agree on my analysis about this is something I really won't argue about. I don't personally see Hades as a pimp, but he does take on characteristics of one mostly b/c of his conman persona since they are rather similar in their manipulation tactics.

Just thought I'd put it here to give some food for thought and since I don't want to make a post on it.

In the end, after reviewing the most important scenes between Meg and Hades you can start to understand my perspective of why the conflict, the clash, and the antagonism feels the most vivid when its centered on Meg vs Hades. Far, far more so than Hercules and Hades ever had. And dare I say it? Even more than Zeus and Hades.

We only get the implications of Hades and Zeus, we don't see them at the forefront.

Everything boils down to Meg. In fact, b/c Hades drags her in, b/c she saves Hercules when he was powerless that Hades ever had the slightest chance of winning, but on the flipside, so did Hercules. If Hercules had remained a deity, he would've been lounging about too along with his parents and unprepared for the oncoming attack.

Throughout this film, Meg grows from being an unwilling participant to someone who's willing to risk it all, overcoming her fear and trauma to get the band back together to save Hercules and ends up helping him get his powers back. So it wasn't so much Hercules' actions that save the day, but Meg's.

At the end of the day, the conflict between Meg and Hades has always felt like the central conflict in Hercules more than what Hades vs Hercules was ever like. Every scene, every biting interchange, its quite obvious the two had a heated past and I can see why some ppl have shipped them even if I personally never did.

It's why I really don't see Hercules as the main character. After zero to hero, we start to lose focus on him since he has no bearing on the overall plot of stopping Hades. To me, Meg has the most growth, the most courage, and the best development in the film and that is because of how well she works as a foil to Hades, the film's antagonist.

If you made it this far, thanks for sticking around.

It's been a real slice.

#disney #disney hades #disney megara #disney hercules #hercules #hades #my rambles #greek myth #greek mythology #kinda

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synergysilhouette · 11 months

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Brainstorming child units for these Engage characters

I was super sad that we couldn't have child units in 3H, and this was echoed in Engage--though I will praise Engage for being able to S-support everyone (even though not all of them are romantic). So because of this, I wanted to brainstorm ideas for child units in Engage. Sadly, I have no artistic skills, but I've got my imagination.

Iliad, the child of Alear. Early to mid teens, and I'd imagine they have a different color scheme so they don't look like carbon copies of their parents like Kana and Morgan do. I thought male Iliad's hair would be predominantly blue with a streak of red while female Iliad had red hair with blue highlights in the front (similar to Rogue from "X-Men"), but it'd be a cool detail if the ends of their hair matched the hair color of whoever Alear married. I imagine since their parents showered them with love and affection, they're much more emotionally and psychologically stable than Alear, as well as being a bit of a pacifist. In a contrast to Fates and Awakening, I'd like for Iliad's gender to match Alear's.

Neciso, the son of Pandreo. Originally I pictured him as a wolf pup type of kid, but then I imagined him as a young man who's also a kind priest like his dad--but he doesn't have the energy for parties. He's more of a scholarly type, but occasionally he'll let out an energetic howl.

Adele, the daughter of Alfred. Given the fact that Alfred dies young but it's never said how young that is, I think his daughter is super protective of him as she grows up (she'd be a teen here), training herself to be the strongest in the kingdom.

Emeraude, the daughter of Diamant. Due to the circumstances that made Diamant king, he wants Emeraude to be fully prepared for the worst-case scenario if she needs to become a queen immediately. That said, he also makes sure to spend a lot of time with her just in case she never sees him again.

Lazul, the son of Alcryst. A young man very big on upholding the honor of the royal family and looks up to his dad a lot, despite the latter's embarrassment. His cousin also encouraged his uncle to give him an education befitting a monarch, as she always saw him as her equal, just as their fathers did before them.

Aquamarine, the daughter of Amber. A young woman who inherited her father's romanticism and affinity for animals, she comes across as a fairy tale princess. She strives to become a legendary heroine--along with seducing a village boy or five. She's basically the female version of Laslow/Inigo and isn't shamed for that.

Chikai, the son of Yunaka. He frequently slips in an out of situations, and has a bubbly personality. It's believed he is also a thief, though he's so likeable most people find it hard to believe. He's a sly charmer (very similar to Hermes from the Hades video game).

Rubis, the daughter of Saphir. She's a popular knight and friend of Emeraude and Lazul. Her duty takes precedence first and foremost, and is the oldest of the child units (being in her mid-20s).

Eos, the son of Ivy. He's a young man known for being even-tempered and uncharacteristically kind by those who still deem Elusia with suspicion. He frequently wears a ghostly-white rose in his breast pocket, and while he's shy like his mother, he pushes himself to be more sociable to make others lose their fear for his kingdom.

Solanum, the son of Hortensia. As a little kid, one would be unsurprised by his childish behavior--though those who know Hortensia think it's because she spoils him, and that he'll likely be that way when he's older, too. He often sticks to Eos like glue, and is quick to protect his family.

Salix, daughter of Zelkov. Considered a counterpart to Chikai, she's known for being dangerous and charming--though while Chikai often keeps his criminal activity to non-life threatening activities, Salix is known for being lethal to her enemies. Her father doesn't seem to mind, considering her loyalty to the crown.

Tia, daughter of Timerra. Known as "the wandering princess," she's often found camping with her family and traveling on her own--unless her retainers happen to catch up to her. She has a close relationship with her family, and has a singing voice that is much better than her mother's--something her uncle frequently takes advantage of when Timerra tries to sing.

Taralli, the son of Seadall. Like his father, he is a renowned dancer and fortune-teller, though he often prefers to leave fate to chance, only reading fortunes when truly necessary. I imagine his outfit is similar to Inigo's "Indigo Dancer" outfit in FEH, except Taralli would probably be called the fated dancer.

Hope you like my ideas! Who knows, I may make more for other characters--maybe 3 Houses. Lemme know your thoughts or if you have any questions!

Update: check out the art @yanderefairyangel made inspired by these posts! We've both posted them on our Tumblr accounts.

#fire emblem #fire emblem engage #OC

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mermaidsirennikita · 5 months

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What are your "she’s all grown up" recommendations?

I feel like you can either do this as "he knew her when she was a child and there is an age gap" or "they knew each other as kids". My post was prompted by my currently reading Stephanie Laurens's A Rogue's Proposal, in which the hero, Demon (no it's not his legal name yes it's what everyone calls him yes it's great) is 31 and knew the heroine, his friend's ward, when she was a little girl but meets her again when she's 20 and is like "well I feel gross for this but that ass tho". I am greatly enjoying his sexual confusion.

Other recs:

--Olivia and the Masked Duke by Grace Callaway. The hero is like 10-12 years older than the heroine and has known her since he rescued her from drowning when she was a child. He really doesn't see her in That Way until she starts coming on to him when she's like... 18 to 20. And he's like "oh NO" about it, because he is in fact her dad's friend.

--Another "dad's friend" one is Joanna Shupe's My Dirty Duke, wherein the heroine is 20 and the hero is like... 43. And her dad's best friend. She again starts coming on to him and he has to realize... she's A Woman Now.

--She Tempts the Duke by Lorraine Heath has a heroine who was the hero's childhood sweetheart; right after they share their first kiss as 12 (her) and 14 (him) he and his brothers have to run away because their uncle is literally trying to murder them. They come back 12 years later and she's on the brink of getting engaged to another man. I remember very distinctly the hero in this ballroom like "hello I am alive" and being obsessed with this freckle on her cleavage lol.

--The Rake's Guide to Seduction by Caroline Linden is a brother's best friend book wherein the hero realizes at the beginning that he sees his best friend's sister in a new way now that she's all grown up; but he's too late and another guy swoops in before he can tell her. Years later, she's widowed and depressed when they meet up again during a house party.

--Ever Yours, Annabelle by Elisa Braden has a heroine who's obsessed with her brother's best friend when she's like... 10-13, and he gets injured in this maiming accident that sends him away from her. They come back into contact again over a decade later and he's shocked by how... grown she is.

--When the Duke Was Wicked by Lorraine Heath. This is Lovingdon's (28) entire crisis when Grace (19) a family friend asks him to help her find a good husband. He was super in love with his wife and has been a mega rake ever since she and their daughter died. This is also RUM ON LIPS book, which means it Must be read. One of my top Lorraine Heath reads.

--Seduce Me at Sunrise by Lisa Kleypas. Kev and Win were childhood friends and super devoted to each other already, but there's something extra special about Win coming back from the Continent after two years with her health restored and trying to find Kev, only for him to think she's a sex worker because she's wearing a cloak and bending her over a table before being like "WIN??????" I love it so much.

--A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean. Love this because Bourne and Penelope were separated for yeeeears and she super obviously had a childish crush on him, and when they're reunited as full adults he's like "she..... actually does it for me a lot...."

--Shadowheart by Laura Kinsale has the hero and heroine reunite when she's 17 (it's a medieval and released in 2003-04 lol) and he's... 27ish I want to say? After he dropped her off with her sister when she was like 5 and he was a very messed up teenager she idolized. He's very quickly Spellbound. TW: nonconsensual first encounter.

--Mercy by Sara Cate I offer as a gender-flipped version in that the heroine, 34, is matched with her best friend's son, 22, on a kink-driven dating app (he's a sub, she's a domme). She really only saw him as a spoiled brat (and he is) but begins to view him in a verrrry different way as they get to actually know each other.

Eyes On Me by Sara Cate--LOL WHOOPS. This one is a stepbrother/stepsister romance with a decent age gap--10ish years I want to say? They didn't live together long, and he accidentally finds her on a camgirl site (he's a major voyeur). He starts watching her cam while also dealing with falling for her in real life.

--It Seemed Liked A Good Idea At The Time by Kylie Scott is a contemporary romcom wherein the heroine (now 25) has been effectively banished from her dad's house ever since he saw her trying to seduce his best friend (15 years her senior) topless right after she turned 18. The friend was very resistant then and is pissed at her for almost ruining a very important personal and professional relationship, but when they reunite for her dad's wedding.... Feelings and lots of tension ensues because she's like. Not a kid anymore!!!!

--Deep by Kylie Scott. The hero really met the heroine when she was a legal adult lol, but there's still a lot of this vibe because he's late twenties/early thirties and one of his best friend's college coed sister-in-law, and everyone has been like "STEP AWAY FROM THE CHILD" since they met... Even though, again! She's not a kid! But basically they have an ill-advised one night stand that becomes significantly more complicated when she turns up pregnant.

--The Arrow by Monica McCarty. Classic ward/guardian romance, medieval, the hero saved the heroine when she was a kid and took her in, and years later returns to find her all grown up.... and very interested in seducing him.

#romance novel blogging #book recs

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loversgothic · 10 months

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What's princess tutu??

OH BOY YOUVE OPENED THE FLOOD GATES NOW LET ME TELL U ABT MY FAVORITE SHOW, PRINCESS TUTU (take 2 bc i lost my old writing abt this.)

I think it’s a bit funny this is one of my OTHER obsessions other than Ultrakill considering how different they are, but eh. I can’t guarantee this will be everyone’s cup of tea.

Princess Tutu is an anime released in 2002 (it had its 20 year anniversary recently :D) and is somewhat well-known (but also kinda not..) among fans of mahou shoujo. It has only two seasons and is one of my favorite animes ever. It also has a manga series that was released I think alongside it however its story is different from the anime and I hear it isn’t as good as the anime. While it is not action-packed or full of bright colors it tells a story that resonates with me so deeply and made me rethink what makes a good story. It has a very soft and delicate look to it, and while it can get very fucking dark it can be very sweet and cute. It also inspired my love of ballet and returned a love of classical music to me that I had lost, and is what inspired my Ultradanse AU in MANY fucking ways. My partner Valentine is the one who showed it to me and it changed me fundamentally, and I showed it to Dex and it ruined his life (positively). So now I hope by dumping about this, it interests you in watching it!

VERY LONG WRITING UNDER THE CUT. I AM SO SORRY.

The story follows the heroine Duck, and three other characters named Fakir, Rue and Mytho. It takes place in Gold Crown Town, a place where fairytales become reality. However, Gold Crown Town is only like this because it is under the influence of Drosselmeyer, an author of immense power who died before he could finish writing his story The Prince and the Raven and is now using the town and its residents to orchestrate his story to give it a conclusion.The Prince and the Raven from the book escape their story and come into reality, and to seal the Raven away he shatters his heart into shards that scatter themselves across the town. He succeeds, but the Prince is now without emotion or feeling, barely able to think for himself. He now studies dance at Gold Crown Academy, where the other three main characters study as well.

Drosselmeyer has given the main four different character roles, each one meant to end in their demise or a tragic end. They’re meant to play the roles, submit to the fate of the character, and fully believe that they were that character from the beginning even if that wasn’t true. Drosselmeyer may or may not have influenced and altered their histories and memories, and probably altered their feelings as well so it can be brought into question how much is under Drosselmeyer’s influences.

Drosselmeyer wants this story to end in tragedy, to end in sadness, as to him that would be the best ending. The characters within it though are very complex people, and rather than to succumb to their fates, everyone is trying to escape it. Princess Tutu plays a lot with defying destiny.

Duck plays the role of Princess Tutu. While the title of the role she plays is the title of the series, in Drosselmeyer’s story and in his plans, Princess Tutu is a minor character who is only meant to return the Prince’s heart shards to him, confess her love and then immediately die. It’s a cruel fate, as Duck wants nothing more than to do the right thing and help the prince and others by returning his shards to him where they belong so he may feel and think for himself again. Being Princess Tutu is conflicting for her, because it doesn’t just affect her fate and others but if she wasn’t Princess Tutu she would no longer be able to dance so exquisitely as she wants. Not being Princess Tutu means a lot of things for her, it also means she could forfeit her ability to be a girl. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention? Duck is not even a human girl. She was born a duck and ends the story as a duck. She’s not particularly skilled in much and isn’t very special at all. And yet, what makes her so great is her kindness and resilience. You don’t have to be particularly skilled or perfect at anything to change things or be loved, it’s okay to be average or “just a duck.” It’s fine to be flawed, you can still move someone's heart and change your fate.

Rue plays the role of Princess Kraehe, I don’t think I can really call her an antagonist as she isn’t really one to me. Princess Kraehe is the daughter of the Raven, and she desires the prince and actively works against Princess Tutu to stop him from regaining his heart shards, or just to mess with the process and use it to further her goals. However, Rue makes me SO FUCKING SAD. The Raven leads Rue to believe Mytho is the only one who’d be able to love someone as ugly as her, and only believes she is ugly because she is human in appearance instead of a bird. He gives her this insecurity and desperation that makes her easy to manipulate as he plans to “help” her secure the prince for herself. But she really does love Mytho, and has loved him for all her life. I wish I could go on and on about her, she’s one of my favorite characters ever and she makes me CRY. SHEEE ONLY WANTED TO BE LOVED THATS ALL SHE WANTED AAGGHGHHH

Fakir plays the role of the Prince’s knight, and while I thought he was the antagonist when I first watched the way he develops over the course of the story really makes that idea fade fast. Hell, I even forgot I hated him when I first watched, and now he’s on my top 10 favorite emo boys. He seems like a total dickweed at first and has some.. Kinda vaguely gay scenes with Mytho at the beginning, but he’s far more than that. He admires Mytho and when he was younger, swore he wanted to be Mytho’s knight to protect him, and doesn’t want Mytho to get hurt. Having emotions means he’s susceptible to getting hurt, but there’s more to that. Fakir, playing the role of the knight and believing in his fate, he fears that fate and what is to befall him. Similar to Princess Tutu, he is also destined to die, to be sliced through the chest in battle. He was even born with a birthmark that resembles a scar across his chest. If Mytho has his heart shards returned to him, the story goes into motion, and the closer he gets to his fate. He wants to protect Mytho and keep him safe, but he also doesn’t want to die.While everyone plays a very important role in the story’s finale, he plays a very big one howweeever I don’t wanna spoil what that is or some abilities he has. :]

Mytho, my dear sweet boy and his fucked up haircut, is the prince. He doesn’t play a role, he IS the prince from the story. He exists as this heroic figure that is meant to be perfect, and he has a desire to protect and save others. For most of the story though he lacks his emotions and gains them back slowly, but kinda just gets get pushed and dragged around by Rue and Fakir who are both, for different selfish kinds of love and in different ways, keep him from regaining feelings and dictating what he does. Maybe I’m silly for this interpretation, but he is kind of used like a tool or a doll sometimes rather than a person. Regaining his emotions can hurt him in more ways than one and yet he still wants all of his emotions back. He kind of goes from holding no opinions or thoughts of his own at all to forming ones can be conflicting in the moment. He also gets hurt when Kraehe taints a heart shard with raven’s blood which gives him a touch of evil and flaws he did not begin with. I don’t think he gets the same amount of a transformation of character as the other three, but in the end when his emotions are regained he becomes a bit of an imperfect prince.

I love the characters, a lot. A totally normal amount. BUT. I gotta say, Princess Tutu has some of the prettiest but also the coolest scenes, and they’re good art inspiration for me. I really gotta go out of my way to clip my favorite things, because some of my favorite things haven’t been clipped and put on Youtube somewhere. Here’s some gifs from the series that I like

okay thanks for hearing me ramble have a nice day

#long post #ask #thank you for letting me ramble i am so normal #watch princess tutu Do it for me #i did not explain it the best the show speaks for itself better.#i probably make it sound more lame than it actually is

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bethanydelleman · 10 months

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Kinda of a downer and you don't have to answer this but your post about how one of the austen heroines could die giving birth made me think of how the heroes would grieve. Do you think they would remarry and such?

I don't mind. It's important to remember that in this era (and sometimes even in Western countries today), people aren't only marrying for love. If Mr. Darcy ended up widowed with a daughter, he might think the "right" and responsible thing to do is to marry so there is a mother in the house to look after the child. And having a mistress of the manor was a real job which was even more important when you had children.

I've written this. (it's sad obviously)

Now we know with Georgiana that Darcy is wealthy enough to basically replace a mother with staff (like Mrs. Annesley), but say an Edward Ferrars with five children might require either a wife or a female relation (who basically gets room and board) to manage the house and help with the children's education.

To give an example from a novel, in Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, Molly's mother dies when she's very young. Her father is a country surgeon and not that wealthy. He ends up hiring a governess, both to teach Molly and to keep the house respectable (it's heavily implied he wouldn't have if his wife lived). However, when Molly reaches 17 and he realizes she's going to have suitors, he decides to remarry mostly so she has a chaperone. There is another widower in the novel who has only sons, he doesn't remarry and depends on his female relations to entertain.

As for the Jane Austen heroes...

Colonel Brandon and Captain Wentworth both have the kind of romantic personality that would lead me to think that they wouldn't remarry. They also are probably both wealthy enough to cover the lack of a wife with staff. Maybe Sophia Croft could help too ❤️ (Colonel Brandon has some family mentioned too).

Charles Bingley and Henry Tilney I can easily see remarrying, after an appropriate grieving period.

Edmund Bertram got over Mary, I bet he would remarry after Fanny. Just throw him someone wife-shaped (is my disdain for him coming through?) Also, given Fanny's weak state of health, he may be our most likely candidate. Reginald de Courcy would be like Edmund.

As for Edward Ferrars, he is pretty devoted to Elinor, but it depends when she dies. Life is long and can be lonely. I do see grieving taking him longer than the others.

With Mr. Knightley, he just doesn't really leave Highbury (lack of opportunity) and he lived as a bachelor for like, 38 years? So I feel like he's unlikely to remarry if Emma dies. Also, he can invite John and Isabella to live with him.

And Darcy. Firstly, I can see Lady Catherine pushing very hard for him to marry Anne if she's still alive and unmarried. Secondly, he's such a catch that he will definitely have women trying and he does engage in society (keeps a house in London ect.) so he has opportunity. However, he is picky and it took him 28 years to be so bewitched by a woman... I could see it taking him a while to remarry, but not because of grief but because it takes him a while to meet someone else he likes well enough to marry.

Also, just as a note, Jane Austen has very few remarried people in her novels, contrary to what was statistically likely at the time. Mr. Henry Dashwood and Mr. Fraser (Mary Crawford's friend's husband) are exceptions to the general rule. General Tilney, Sir Walter, and Mr. Elliot are some of the very few widowers and only the last one is trying to remarry. There are several widows and as far as I know none of them remarry.

There is speculation that Lady Lucas is a second wife, since Charlotte is 27 and has a 7ish year old brother (The famous Lucas Wine Boy). However, with about 20 years of fertility, this age spread is certainly possible with a single wife.

#question response #jane austen heroes #jane austen #pride and prejudice #mansfield park #sense and sensibility #emma #persuasion #Northanger Abbey #lady susan

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undomielregina · 1 year

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Lyta Hall

Lyta is one of the most changed characters between the comics and the Sandman adaptation, so much of this will have limited applicability to her show version, I imagine. One of the interesting things I discovered in reading all of her pre-Sandman appearances was that the show version is in personality more like the character as she had previously appeared in comics than the Sandman comics version is. The difference is profound enough that it makes me wonder if people who had liked Lyta at the time were kind of upset with what the Sandman comic did with her. I didn’t think I’d be saying this — I love the Sandman comic dearly and it’s very important to me — but Neil Gaiman did her dirty back then. She was a minor character from a canceled series who had been written off even before it was canceled. She had too much bad writing making her all about her boyfriend, she was creepily mindwiped of the memories of her real parents, her backstory is a mess. She was still done dirty. I’m glad the show seems to be giving her back some of the agency and self-confidence that she displayed in Infinity, Inc.

I should, at this point, warn that Lyta’s backstory is a mess deeply rooted in some of the weirder, more complicated parts of DC comics history. Her story starts out on Earth-Two. Earth-Two was a development based in a problem of DC history, a problem Marvel mostly never had, which was the difficulty of reconciling WWII canon for their flagship characters. This was all well and good through the 50s, by the 1960s this was starting to strain credibility even in an era where most comics were episodic. Many of these characters, including DC’s most popular, had been operating continuously for over 20 years and plenty of them were mortal. And DC was understandably proud of its Golden Age work and didn’t want to just cast it out of continuity. All kinds of comic book tricks came into play, slowed aging, magic, all sorts of stuff. But eventually, in the early 1960s, they tried something completely different. They lopped the Golden Age comics off, plopped them in their own universe, and declared that the main lines took place in a world where the age of heroes had begun after World War Two. The Golden Age Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were separate characters (this also let them dump some of the sillier stuff, like the Amazons riding giant kangaroos). Also consigned to this alternate reality were the members of the Justice Society (not league) and the All-Star Squadron. Earth-Two had a lot of the Golden Age heroes who had slipped into obscurity as they were replaced by more familiar faces.

There will be spoilers for Sandman under the cut.

This is all important because Lyta was born on Earth-Two. She first appears as a teenager in a comic where Wonder Woman (Earth-One) accidentally travels to Earth-Two and meets her counterpart there. Who is married to Steve Trevor and the mother of a teen girl they are raising as an Amazon. Because of her Amazon heritage, she’s stronger, faster, and more durable than a normal human.

(Wonder Woman #300, Feb 1983)

As you can see, one of the cool things about Earth-Two was that the major heroes there, freed from having to carry titles that existed in an eternal status quo, had been allowed to age and change. (Batman had married Catwoman, raised a daughter, and they had both died, leaving Robin (Dick Grayson, there were no later Robins on Earth-Two and he never became Nightwing) to carry on their legacy with her. She’d become Huntress; the original version. Imagine, a long-running comics continuity where Batman could die and the death stuck!) In fact, the entire Justice Society was starting to get on in years, which is where Lyta comes in.

Lyta was, in comics terms, still a fairly new character when Gaiman picked her up for Sandman; she’d only been introduced about seven years ago (her first appearance is Feb 1983, and she shows up in Sandman in Dec 1989) and had only been a heroine in her own right since March 1984, with the first issue of Infinity, Inc. (She’d also been dormant as a character between mid-1988 and late 1989, so she actually only had about 4.5 years of publication history, compared to the Justice Society characters who at this point had 40-50 years of back issues.) Infinity, Inc was a book and superteam of legacy heroes, characters with a close connection to the Justice society, either as children or as protegees, and Lyta Trevor and Hector Hall were two of the founding members. (For those who have watched Black Adam, Atom Smasher was another, under the alias of Nuklon. Having just read all his Infinity, Inc appearances, it was nice to see Al, but I wish he’d gotten to keep his doofy mohawk.) Infinity, Inc was basically the Earth-Two Teen Titans, but consisted entirely of new characters instead of consisting almost entirely of teen sidekicks with multiple years of appearances.

That’s her first appearance in costume, on the right. At this point, she’s Fury because she’s pulling from the Greek pantheon that’s her Amazon birthright. She’s assumed her own identity, she’s not a junior version of her mother, she has a generally very strong relationship with her parents, and a happy relationship with her boyfriend. That’s Hector Hall there on the far left, by the way. They’re already dating at the beginning of the series. Hector’s backstory is much less messed up than Lyta’s, except insofar as DC’s Hawks have a notoriously tangled continuity. But suffice it to say that Hector’s parents are the reincarnations of an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh and his queen, who were murdered by an enemy, and they are also the superheroes Hawkman and Hawkgirl (not the alien ones, those are different), who fly with the help of wings made out of a substance called Nth Metal that they discovered in the tomb of their original pharaonic selves. Hector’s suit is made out of the same stuff, and he feels like his parents were so obsessed with superheroics and figuring out the secrets of their past lives through archaeological digs that they never gave him enough attention. I wouldn’t bother you with this but it becomes relevant later on.

The beginning of Lyta and Hector’s romance.

So they go off, form their own team, do a bunch of superheroics, some more successful than others, and generally act like perfectly ordinary superheroes. Most notable through here is that Hector and Lyta sometimes have values conflicts and she is completely comfortable holding her own. Being raised by Wonder Woman and spending her summers on Paradise Island means she’s grown up extremely confident in her abilities and beliefs. This is where I feel like Gaiman sold her short, although there are some mitigating factors to that decision.

That kind of reaction is very natural for an Amazon, but it would be very foreign to the Lyta Hall of Sandman. While I imagine that was part of the point, there’s also the question of how she and Hector got to a point where that would seem like a reasonable direction to take the character. The answer to which begins shortly after this issue, in the aftermath of the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Crisis collapsed the entire DC multiverse (most importantly Earths One, Two, and Four (the Earth where the Charleston Comics characters like Blue Beetle lived)) into a single reality called New Earth. Most unique characters just kept right on going, some of the ones with duplicates died or were erased from existence or chose to travel beyond the boundary of the multiverse because there was no longer a place for them. The Earth-Two characters mostly remembered having been from an alternate universe for a while, but the JSA and their now-messy backstory was conveniently shuffled off stage by trapping them eternally in fighting Ragnarok (they’re still there during Sandman, there’s a brief mention in Season of Mists.) This means that Hector Hall, whose parents did not have an Earth-One counterpart (the Earth-One Hawks were aliens), retains his backstory and history. Lyta, the daughter of a now-redundant Wonder Woman, was not so lucky.

The weird thing there, part of a series of what I found to be genrally odd, often upsetting choices, is that Lyta’s backstory wasn’t just rewritten with the formation of the New Earth. Her parents survived the transition and then were taken away to Olympus, never to return.

Why would anyone think this was a good way to handle this?

So anyway, Lyta is terribly upset about being in this world where she can never see her parents again and no one but her teammates even remembers they existed. Plus she’s having an identity crisis. Fury was basically a temporary identity until she someday took over from her mother, and now there’s that other Wonder Woman instead and who the heck is she? So she’s sad about that some of the time for the following issue and then in the one after that, we get this:

Guess what’s about to happen.

Most of the issue is Lyta dreaming/remembering a time when she met the other JSA kids as preteens (there’s eventually a second version of that seen after her backstory change, but it’s not really relevant to anything here), and then this happens. I cannot believe editorial thought this was a good way to handle their Lyta problem, I really cannot:

Yeah, that’s one of her teammates and ostensibly a hero. The mindwipe works so well that no one else remembers Lyta’s parents either! So after this you get this weird period where they’ve wiped Lyta’s backstory and failed to establish a new one for her and no one has any idea about her background or where the hell her pet kanga came from (Earth-Two was the one where the Amazons rode giant kangaroos, and Trouble there was a present from her mom, the child of Lyta’s favorite mount when she visited Paradise Island.) Some of Lyta’s weird fuzziness about her own motivations for being a superhero and everything in Sandman definitely come from what a complete clusterfuck her backstory had been in the last three and a half years.

At the same time Lyta and Hector start having relationship problems and he eventually breaks up with her and leaves the team. He’s a real dick in this period, but it’s pretty clear from the start that there’s comics bullshit happening and it’s not just him being a giant douchebag.

Still, before any of that gets resolved, and before Lyta’s backstory has stabilized in its new form, she finds out she’s pregnant. Yes, this is Daniel. This is also the November 1986 issue, meaning Lyta will be pregnant for more than three years of real time. No wonder she’s so vague about the length of her pregnancy in Sandman!

Lyta gets her new backstory in the next issue, when she starts referring to “Mom and Dad Trevor” without any explanation. There’s an editorial note to see the issue’s letter page, but I don’t have access to that. She now spent her summers on “Trevor Island,” which had giant riding kangaroos and suchlike, but was a desert island her father discovered when he crash-landed on it. Her new mom used to be Miss America during WWII, but had since lost her powers. Lyta’s also adopted and knows nothing about her birth parents, or why she has all the same superpowers that used to be explained by her Amazon heritage. Until, shortly afterward, she gets dragged to Greece for reasons and learns that her birth mother was a Greek teenager who her adoptive parents saved during WWII, and who made a bargain with the Furies that granted her superpowers. Her hero name was also Fury. (Yeah, this character was made up to cover the plot holes left by not having Wonder Woman in the WWII All-Star Squadron stories anymore.)

Turns out her mom made a bargain specifically with the Fury Tisiphone, who punishes crimes of kinship, and Lyta has inherited the powersf from her. Not that that’s particularly relevant to the climax of Sandman and Lyta’s role in it or anything.

Here’s her new bio mom on her first outing fighting some Nazis.

So Lyta gets involuntarily put on maternity leave from superheroing (she’s none too pleased about this) and decides to go visit Hector at his parents’ house in New York to find out what the fuck he was doing dumping her like that, and maybe tell him about the baby if he has a good answer, and finds out that the Hawk bullshit has caught up with him. There’s an entity calling itself the Silver Scarab that insists Hector is dead.

Lyta’s immediately fighting for her life, damsel-in-distress rescued by the rest of Infinity, Inc, and then fighting to save the world. They stop the Silver Scarab because Daniel’s existence means it failed to fully destroy Hector’s humanity (no, really), but Hector is dead for real and Lyta goes off to mourn with her parents. The reasoning underlying all this is pure Hawk bullshit I don’t even pretend to follow — their history is infamously convoluted so I’m not going to waste the effort untangling it when it’s really not important for Sandman.

So Lyta goes back to her parents’ home for a while and then Al flies out to ask Lyta to marry him so the baby won’t grow up without a father, which Lyta shoots down. But her dad is concerned because there’s been a prowler lurking around peeping in Lyta’s window. And that night Al hears a noise and..

The team identifies him as Garret Sanford, the Jack Kirby Sandman from the 1970s. That’s the series that introduced Jed Walker, Brute, Glob, and the Dream Dome. Also the red and yellow Sandman costume (the “other one” is Wesley Dodds, the original Sandman and a member of the Justice Society, who in Sandman is inspired by Dream’s imprisonment and, per Odin, carries a bit of Dream’s essence.)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch,

welcome back, Hector! Here’s Hector’s story in full, because it’s definitely relevant to what Gaiman later did with him in Sandman. Honestly, Gaiman’s pretty hard on Hector too, he’s a dumbass and ways too conservative for his own good, but prior to whatever creepy personality degradation happened over time to get him where he was in Sandman, he wasn’t a buffoon.

Hector and Al go off and help the rest of Infinity, Inc in a fight, but convince Lyta to stay for the sake of the baby. Then Hector heads back with about one minute of his hour a day in reality to spare and

So, the last we see of Hector and Lyta before Sandman is their wedding.

Lyta’s wedding dress is amazingly hideous.

As for why they’re so… different… in Sandman, Gaiman’s clearly playing with the mess of Lyta’s history and the way the changes removed any real reason for her to want to be a superhero, and was also commenting on the way Infinity, Inc wound up making every story about her about Hector and their relationship. At the same time, I wish he hadn’t made her such a brittle, shattered person through the rest of the series. However, just as Hector can’t leave the “Dream Stream” for very long, I know I encountered a warning in one of the comics I read (I cannot remember which one, but it was something published before Sandman) that ordinary humans also can’t remain inside for long. So I assume that some of what we see in Sandman is the inevitable effect on mortals of living so long in dreams. (It’s possible that Dream can shield people from the effect, but it’s also possible that he can’t or just doesn’t notice what it does to them because he’s so used to dreamers.)

#the sandman #sandman comic spoilers #lyta hall #hector hall #infinity inc

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scumcoin · 1 year

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Pondering and Rambling About Isekai A Little Bittttt.....

Rewatching VS Knights of Lamune & 40 Fire. (mouthful of a title, henceforth 40 Fire)

For the unfamiliar, the Lamune series is SD mecha anime series, comparable to Mashin Eiyuu Wataru and Madou King Granzort. in both TV anime the hero is some bozo kid who gets sucked into a video game (in 40 Fire's case, a CD-ROM game that was inserted into a console that suspiciously resembles a playstation) only to be gilded with the title of the great hero Lamuness: in this case, our new protagonist Lamunedo is christened Lamuness the Third. It's pretty much text that Lamunedo is the son of the previous hero... I honestly don't wanna think about it too hard so I won't but his parents look like Milk, the last show's heroine and love interest, and the original protagonist.

It really be like that.

Given I've already watched this show (albeit over a decade ago and never in Japanese, and I suspect heavily censored as well), I probably won't be doing a lot of posts on it, but I recently rewatched a chunk of the original and I've been thinking about both shows approach to isekai and hell, the approach many other isekai shows take. Shows like this, Fushigi Yuugi, Those Who Hunt Elves, et cetera. There... wasn't much "I died and now I'm permanently in another world"... was there? But I'm not really thinking about those shows because I have seen neither, we're talking about Lamuness, a series aimed at kids. There's a lot to unpack about modern isekai's penchant for escapism in a Japan that's settled into its post-Bubble Era woes, but I'm not qualified to talk about something so culturally heavy nor is it super related. But I do wanna touch on the "method" of being spirited away into another world, and the story structure.

Like I said, it's anything but permanent. There's no truck, no sudden heart attack from overwork. Come, Lamuness, time to save the world. There's no time to waste. Get in the fucking TV. The method is an incredibly accessible one, arguably: getting sold a shady CD-ROM for like a dollar and getting whisked away when it boots.

The premise of this series is very goal-based, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that even if the person in these kinds of older isekai in general comes to love the world and decides to stay, there is always the goal of "get back home". Lamunedo has the hefty weight of defeating the demon god's henchmen before they revive him, and when it all ends he gets to go home (sorry for spoiling an anime that's like 25 years old at this point, but that's how most of these ended). In contrast to newer isekai shows where the story begins with the protagonist's life ending, cementing that this is their new life and that they have no real grand goal... unless the goal is to not die. You have to live your new life, effectively an escape from the old life lived previously. The protagonists often skew older in their original lives, office workers over the age of 20 or NEETs who have wasted their lives and what have you. The issue with a lot of newer isekai media is not that they're paint by the numbers, but that because there isn't much of an immediate goal in most, many cannot deliver on the breadth of the premise or many would consider a gimmick. They drown in trying to tick boxes of "you should know the genre the protagonist is stuck in if you've picked up this book/manga/anime, so I'm not gonna think too hard about it either". It's not a diss or anything, but if your protagonist is just going to live and adapt to a new world and you make it the entire premise then you better have thought of the world building at least a little, or give it an actual plot structure to follow that isn't just you going through a buffet table and piling on more cute girls/boys/etc onto the protagonist's plate. They overwhelm with technicalities like video game stats (STOP!!!!!!! STOP PUTTING STATS IN YOUR SHIT I'M GOING TO KILL MYSELF AND YOUR NAME WILL BE IN MY NOTE) and are indulgent in a lot of the wrong ways that may alienate those who do not consume the inspiration of the isekai much.

The best isekai that don't get immediately lambasted by the audience are isekai that dive right into the story without treating the outsider protagonist like someone standing behind the fourth wall at all times, and the rest of the world actually matters. Drawing attention to the fact that other characters are NPCs is tiring and makes me think I'm not supposed to care about them. It creates a vacuum where the only real person in the story is the protagonist and it's difficult to feel for a protagonist when everyone else is treated like an object. Both a literal object to interact with in a video game sense and in many cases a sexual object. Most good isekai will have you forget that the setting is based on something previously assumed to be fictional. It's not enough for the protagonist to be invested in the world, by the way. That's why shit like Shield Hero sucks ass even when you ignore the slavery shit (why would you though?!). I find that I prefer when it seems like the protagonist is in the story just like everyone else, rather than someone who consistently pushes against it. Of course there are many different ways to do it. This is a topic that's way too deep for me, and contrary to what my tone may convey I think that the genre is painted with an unfair brush so a lot of good shows slip through the cracks.

Or to be honest... the fact of the matter is that people are biased and judge stuff harshly just because they're a genre that's in vogue right now. Go figure. <-guy who hasn't even watched that many newer isekai shows

I'll make myself clear here: both old and new isekai are escapist fantasy and I dislike it when people try to paint escapism as a pathetic thing that only the NEW bad isekai shows employ. What's more escapist than being sucked into a video game and being told you're the hero that will save the world? You, a normal kid. What I find refreshing about the Lamuness series that I think newer light novels could learn from. There isn't any "I'll use my experience from the old world". Because Lamunedo is a child, and hero can never be an adult.

So that's a modern isekai shorthand immediately eliminated. (Note that I haven't once called anything a cliche in this post, I don't have that kind of scorn for the genre. I think it'd be good for actual critics to remove this buzzword from their vocabulary unless they truly face off against something that is an actual ripoff, because people have now taken the word cliche and turned it into an entirely negative thing, same with the word trope. But I digress.)

The entire point of the series is to be an escapist fantasy for little kids who love RPGs, but you'll never once see a stat block nor will you hear much of bosses in the video game sense. Sure, maybe the tyke will wonder about home every now and then but after this point you're set off into the story with the express goal of saving the world. There's nothing deep to think about. Traversing through different "space"s and RPG village-like places is a given, and it seems like they're made up as you go unless they're on a map explicitly (they are supposedly, but they still feel made up). You won't hear much about what Lamunedo thinks besides the fact that his (and Da Cider's) BIG COOL MECHA has his blood pumping.

This is what I mean by goal driven: it ironically feels much more like a video game without constantly bringing attention to the fact that it's supposed to be a video game. A big greater goal punctuated by smaller goals and pitstops is how a lot of JRPGs progress. Perhaps it's prescient to compare a lot of newer isekais to an open world game: you're doing... something, there are story important cutscenes, but you meander around until you hit them and often you are sidetracked. It works when you're the one doing it, but when an isekai story is overwhelmed by the lack of nothing it is accomplishing that's when the audience disengages and starts wondering why the protagonist is a fucking idiot, and why they won't do something that actually matters. Have you ever watched someone dick around in Skyrim? Unless you really like Skyrim in my opinion it's not very fun to watch.

I find that this is why villainess isekai is so popular. Many employ the otome genre, which are much more linear in comparison. Sure, you make choices that lead you off to other routes and affect what ending you get, but everyone who plays Norn9 for example is playing the same Norn9 that the next person plays. Even with linear RPGs, you could be underleveled, you could favor certain characters, your experience can still be somewhat varied. Therefore, in a villainess scenario where the base is an otome game, there is an enforcement of an in-game clock where events will happen regardless of how much you dawdle. In fact, slacking tends to be punished. I'm aware that there are similar premises that don't employ a villainess or are based on other genres that are associated with women like management sims and mobile games, but in general they tend to emphasize proactiveness (also I'm speaking very broadly). Even the characters are treated with care. Sure, the heroine may casually spoil their supposed fate and metagame with previous knowledge, but they feel like actual characters.

In any case, as I've stated several times I carry no ire towards the genre. You'll catch me dead before I watch crap like Mushoku Tensei and Shield Hero but there's plenty of isekai manga and anime that I've either enjoyed or am looking forward to enjoying, past or present. But rewatching the Lamuness series got me thinking a lot about it. I wasn't even intending on writing most of what I wrote and I'll be honest when I say I don't consider myself a writer: I'm not the most eloquent and I struggle to express how I feel but by god do I express.

#general thoughts #cullen rewatches 40 fire #isekai #any comments feedback and reblogs appreciated :pleading:#anime essay #essay #isekai is such a fascinating genre even though i dont have much exp with it

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kaypeace21 · 2 years

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Theories for s4 .

May be wrong but whatever XD I will mention movies said to inspire s4 as well. Also throwing in some of my crack theories in the small chance they're right. This will be just a quick rundown of ideas. I will also briefly discuss leaks, merch etc so just warning you now. To not read-if you don't want to see that.

- Eddie may die . he has a skull with lighting on it (on his d&d book). This is probably hinting he dies in the (lightning filled) upsidedown. Billy had a skull tatoo before he passed away, ( so it has precedence) . Eddie may distract the bats with his guitar (inhibiting their echolocation) and sacrificing himself to protect the others. maybe another hint he dies is how bob died and was a vampire for Halloween (vampires = bats /un-dead).

- satanic panic is alive and well, and false rumors about the hellfire club(being linked to chrissy or others de*ths spread). S3 foreshadows the satanic panic (and it's historical ties to d&d). In the 80s (on 20/20) was literally a "news report" claiming d&d was correlated to :Satanism, witchcraft, necromancy, m*rder, being gay (rolls eyes the homoph*bia of conflating that with the others), and many other things. The gang probably first gets involved to clear eddie and Co.

- I feel like we will hate Jason and Freddie. My guess is Freddie with his school newspaper and Jason with his popularity help spread the satanic panic and witch hunts. Their names are probably from the villains in the freddy vs Jason franchises . Which is why I think we will dislike them. Also maybe a weird coincidence but in friday the 13th: Jason and the heroine chris were enemies. Despite in st, jason/chrissy dating. Could just be an Easteregg but maybe Jason is a jerk of a bf to chrissy. We also have nancy and Freddie working on the newspaper- and given how elmstreet is inspo. Freddie and nancy probably don't get along. Similar to freddy kreuger and nancy thompson -in elmstreet.

- appears like max and Co break into the counselor's office. My guess is: they look at the psych notes of the missing students for leads . Maybe that's where the drawing of the creel house comes in? Chrissy or someone else may have had nightmares of the house before they're attacked by vecna. The ripped drawing is also a callback to nancy finding the ripped photo of the demogorgan and later investigating it. So the drawing probably is what causes robin and nancy go to pennhurst (mental hospital) ,in addition to the creel house.

- already explained 2 possible theories for vecna. Skip this bullet point if you want to avoid leaks. Ok so if leaks are true. My theory is then ...henry creel, later peter ( who maybe changed his name to start fresh ) worked at hnl as a guard. And prob had powers and became vecna when trapped in upsideown. Since vecna is based on freddy k... St's vecna's backstory is probably based off the freeddy k comics. Freddy was a boy with ab*sive (step) dad, he was bullied because his dad was in an mental asylum (victor). He later becomes a dream-monster who targets kids with similar ab*sive backgrounds to himself. Explaining why the monsters targeted: Will, el, billy, max, chrissy etc. The clock immagery of the monsters- may be correlated to the m*rders and the cursed creel clock). maybe it's like a metaphor for being stuck in the past ( to the creel m*rders)? "Wanting to turn back the clock" to a better time. Vecna also makes dreams based on peoples' fears, secrets,etc. And s1-3 made direct references to Alice in wonderland/wizard of oz (which have dream worlds). And if vecna is a ruler of the upsidedown it could explain why the upsidedown monsters already mirrored the fears of el, hopper, and the byers boys in s1-3. Silent hill is st inspo: the alternate version of the town (silent hill) is filled with monsters and they reflect the tra*ma of various towns people. This alternate version of silent hill was first made by an ab*sed psychic kid . Apparently Peter can also manipulate minds /memories too which mirrors the mindflayer's ability to do so. And I already explained this , plus the alternative crack theory that could be connected to the creels in part 2: about a time paradox/loop-Here.

- there's most likely a lot of infighting in the government and that is shown via sullivan's team attacking the cali/owen's base. People think the sbp gang save her. But I think its more likely she uses the fighting between gov agencies as an opportunity to escape and head to Hawkins... maybe even hitchhike like s2.And she only reunites with sbp later. I also think el may have shaved her own head trying to "turn back the clock" to a time when she had powers while in the lab. She may try anything to regain her powers and help her friends. A few movies involve a character having a breakdown and cutting their hair (most likely El). She probably gets her powers back when in the sensory tank (called nina). Since the hnl-pre teaser has the opera song sung by nina - and the character NINA had repressed memories- El may recollect something before her powers reactivate (probably involving the lab massacre). In assasains creed: a character also sees their repressed memories/ past while in a water tank . Also I think it’s interesting that creel can mean ‘fish trap”. An nina can mean “enclosure of fish"” (and el is stuck in a tank like a poor fish in an aquarium). :(

- vecna forces El to have a vision of the rainbow room. The inception totem is a and eye imagery of El/vecna is a hint of this. What may be weird is the person playing chess looks like Will. But could be a coincidence. However it is weird that when max enters a vecna dream- the grave of billy changes to William. Or the fact the creel clock also says "williams". link here

- I do wonder if jonathan and Will have vecna flashbacks of their pasts as well ,in part 2. Especially regarding lonnie. Because some s4 movies have trippy dreamscapes - one film "the cell": involves a dream memory of an ab*sive, h*mophobic father hurting his young son. Bill and Ted's bogus journey: teen turns into little kid, chased by giant rabbit monster, told he's a horrible big brother, is harassed by older relative (in dream flashback)- reminds me of jonathan, etc. Also some trippy swing flashbacks - in "terminator 2 " and " enter the void" (so mike or Will?). I agree with 0aurelion-solo theory that Will's true sight may let him eventually see past the illusions/break the code (of the dream) like Alan turing. Because in d&d truesight allows you to see past illusions.

- the fake name used for filming s4 was "ocerat", an anagram for tareco- in d&d he's a "wizard hunter". He believes the world would be a better place if he could k*ll all wizards. He often would st*lk his victims for weeks and try to isolate them to attack them. He obviously isn't a fan of El (a mage). But... is sullivan's group just getting rid of the byers cause they know too much? Why not be subtle and make it look like an accident *like what they did to Hammond? Barb? Etc? Are they unaware El isn't there? If sullivan's crew attack the base and house at the same time: that would ring alarm bells for me, that something else is going on. Maybe the sbp crew doesn't realize sullivan is after them for other reasons. I mean will is a "wizard" -could be a part 2 twist. And since Utah (suzie's house) is between California and Indiana. It appears the sbp crew is going to Indiana maybe to warn their friends they are in the "eye of the storm". A monoply card claimed suzie would help them find el... but idk if it will be that simple ... maybe they learn El isn't even at the base anymore. And or ...

- crack theory: I still think there's a strong chance suzie and her family may be spies and working for the gov. May betray the sbp gang initially. Theory and reasoning here. If not her- I do wonder if there is some other betrayal or spy. It's a common theme in the s4 films. Even the s4 videos store has a movie poster about a undercoverspy gf , and another film poster about basketball.

- hopper's imprisonment probably has parallels to el's time in the lab (especially cause irl: soviets experimented on soviet prisoners in the "psychic armrace" ). But in the show they use the soviet prisoners to train and weaponize the demogorgan. If what david said is true: We probably see flashbacks of vietnam ,his dad,sara. Along with possibly solitary confinement in the prison etc. I think vietnam/prison scenes may be pretty messed up if in the show (just from the s4 movie selection). Historically the usa also did questionable experiments on vietnam soldiers as well. So his time in the war (buzzcut , being trained to be a weapon) probably echos el's time being in the lab , and being trained to become a weapon/experiment.

- also not sure if it's symbolic or something else. We see a Russian doll at the creel house. And in the st mobile game Victor's favorite food is a Russian dish borscht. So is it just simple easterggs, are they of Russian descent - or is there some type of parallels/symbolism we will see later on in the season relating to the creels and the soviets. Perhaps all 3 storylines: lab , creels, and soviets are all linked via experimentation gone wrong.

-the creels probably will have parallels to: the byers and el (which we’ve already seen), along with max , maybe chrissy and her ab*sive mom. And I think I heard Eddie had an ab*sive dad too. So there may be parallels there as well...

- Max seems to be having nightmares connected to vecna- before they realize it’s supernatural in origin. She obviously is grieving and vecna’s pursuit of her probably is a metaphor of survivor’s guilt , tra*ma , etc. It’d be interesting and cool if Max and Nancy bonded over this commonality (since they both suffered through it). Wouldn’t it make sense for Nancy to be super protective of a red-head after what happened to Barb? Not sure if they’d do it- but it’d be nice if Nancy was like a mentor-friend to Max.

- Lucas’ pursuit of basketball and popularity echos how steve who was on the basketball team and learned popularity is over-rated. And being your authentic self is the best thing to do. I think Lucas’ is still very loyal to his friends even when on the team. But is initially torn. And quickly sides with his friends. Hopefully he gets some good characterization like s2.

- I think Hopper may escape on his own, he also may use fire as an escape method. We saw in the trailer- an explosion in a snow covered place. We already see hopper using a flamethrower etc. Also, there's little evidence for it ... I just worry the joyce/murray's rescue mission won't go as planned. It could. It just seems ... too easy tbh. I kind of wonder if joyce is stuck in russia at the end of s4.because of a st comment of hers. Plus, their plane literally crashed so...

- I still wonder if in part 2: Will and el are captured at the end of the season by brenner (where he may have restarted his program at pennhurst mental asylum ). Or maybe Will goes with Lonnie and El goes with Brenner. Especially if joyce is m.ia. Mkultra historically did experiments in mental asylums. Lucas made a joke in s1 , that el is from pennhurst (foreshadowing?). There's movies where questionable guardians, dead beat dads etc- got custody. Plus s4 films where psychiatrists do unethical supernatural experiments on patients.

-crack theory: I still wonder if chrissy's death will be faked (and they find her in water like Will). And at the end of the season it's revealed she's at pennhurst (where Brenner may have restarted his program). Theory and reasoning here. Ofcourse 50/50 chance she may be another Heather but we will see.

-kali may return in s4 part 2 or s5. It was foreshadowed: Kali also wants to take down Brenner and suggested to El they work together to do so. Maybe they team up again?Not to mention in a season exploring El's past: why not bring back Kali? Or maybe in s5 she helps the gang rescue El- if El's in need of rescuing. Plus, in s4 bts: there was a pic of a guy that looked very similar to axel (Kali's friend ) in Hawkins.

- not really a theory but alot of s4 films have plays, musical numbers, drawings, etc foreshadow huge plot points later. So obviously we will pay attention to the d&d game and anything similar for foreshadowing.

- alot of s4 films have a boy or boys be bullied due to h*mophobia so I feel like given how Will has been bullied in the past he may also be bullied similar to el (just for different reasons).especially after the Alan Turing project. Ofcourse mike and Robin may be bullied for similar rumors? But more likely Will , just given the fact he has a history of being bullied. Also a few films , the boy snaps and beats up the h*mophobic bully or the bullied kid snaps and attacks the bully over very very messed up jokes about him and his family. Whether it happens is hard to say. It may happen in s5 or 4 . Who knows.

- I think jonathan is struggling alot and argyle helps him. Maybe , and hopefully, we get more insight on Jonathan's character and past because of it.

- based on the s4 films: the byers dinner scene is either going to be cute or dysfunctional as heck. Maybe be related to Will’s b day? We already know the creel dinner doesn't go as planned - could be a loose parallel??

- part 1: most of the canon couples breakup /or struggle in their relationships. Part 1 probably has ambiguous byler scenes too. And Part 2 m*leven and others may break up.

- crack theory I hope is wrong and probably won't happen. elmstreet dream warriors is said to inspire s4. In that film nancy tompson (who nancy wheeler is based on) is killed in a dream by freddy k (who vecna is based on) specifically after doing an investigation at a mental hospital -correlated to a character named Kirsten (chrissy?). I feel like the duffers love Nancy too much to do this(nor do this to any other original main). She's my favorite girl in the show so I'd be really upset If it happened tbh. Probably have nothing to worry about. But just in case.

- and who is in front of the car on fire... honestly there's so many possibilities. Fire was first associated with Will.But has frankly been associated with various other characters since then. So it could be theoretically anyone. Heck... there's 2 s4 films that have someone (In a dream world) burn alive the fake-dream- version of their ab*sive relative. for all we know it's simply a vecna dream. Could be Will or a different victim of vecna? Or just something more realistic we wouldn't expect . Of course could be the more obvious predictable choice - since el has messed up cars before ,using her powers in s1 . We will just have to wait and see.

- 8 minute clip that was on youtube-skip if you haven’t seen it. we also saw the parallels between the m*rder scenes: with victor creel (at the house) and el (at the lab). We have shots of both El and Victor’s backs (as they stare at a window) and bodies are at their feet. It also reminds me of how Will’s back is shown as he stares at a window (while possessed). It Appears el/victor were either possessed during these events. For example when Will was possessed he also caused a massacre at hawkins lab-which could be a parallel to El. Or maybe victor/el were tricked by vecna/henry/peter into seeing things that weren't there- and thus hurt innocent people. Some leaks say- el didn't do anything and she was just framed. But I'm not sure tbh. It's possible. I think it'd make more sense if it was one of the former explanations- just based on what's in the clip (el smiling after wards). But again we will see.

#stranger things #el hopper #will byers #jim hopper #max mayfield #nancy wheeler #mike wheeler #jonathan byers #joyce byers #lucas sinclair #steve harrington #robin buckley #kali prasad #eddie munson #dustin henderson

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a-skirmish-of-wit-and-lit · 10 months

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Book Review: In A Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

I have mixed feelings about this one.

On the one hand, I liked the locked room mystery (more like mansion) of it all, with all the characters stuck together in an isolated, dark forest-enveloped house made of glass for a weekend as part of a hen party. For my own part, I've always thought there was something delicious about embedding an entire plot around friends with complicated history, especially if they're forced into close proximity. There's something intensely gripping (and often times problematic) about friends who have petty hang ups or jealousies, who are still reeling with past insecurities or secrets, people who only reveal their real selves in sly, selective fragments by mistake or calculation. I particularly like this in mysteries and thrillers. I like it because it creates a bloated tension between the main characters that must be popped at some point. Or, in this case, will build between them until it dies in one way or another.

In this story, Nora gets invited to a hen party out of the blue, even though she hasn't seen or heard from, Clare, her ex-friend from high school, who is also the bride-to-be, in ten years. There's serious hesitancy on Nora's part about going, but also a desperate curiosity to see what's become of Clare, too. It makes for weighty friction from the outset. A web of conflicting emotion, action, and reflection that grows all the more tangled as the plot continues to progress, which I enjoyed.

I also liked that Nora was a bit of an insipid heroine. Is she frustrating as hell? Absolutely. Do you want to rip out your hair at her lack of self-awareness or insight? Without a doubt. Yet, I think it's this quality to her character - her marked oblivion, her complete and utter unreliability - which is actually the driving force behind the novel. That's what keeps you invested.

As a reader, it doesn't take long to connect the dots, to figure out who the nefarious one is in the house, or why, so the suspenseful irony of the book comes not from finally unmasking the murderer ourselves but from wondering why the hell it takes Nora so long to arrive at the obvious conclusion herself.

(It's fine if others disagree with me on this point, but that was my takeaway.)

I was disappointed in a few areas while reading this, though. For one, I thought the author could have leaned into the dark and woodsy environment more. I feel like an opportunity was lost to make the story feel more remote, more atmospheric. Like something insidious was lingering just outside of plain sight. (Because, for Nora, it was. In more ways than one.) I also didn't care for the beginning much. It was slow, the character interactions one-note, grating, immature, and catty--even for characters in their mid-20's. Things picked up midway, but I think I would've enjoyed this more had the suspense started to unspool earlier on.

All in all, a mixed bag read for me but worth a gander! I will say it was easy to see some It Girl seeds taking root here because Clare radiates that pick-me, I'm-always-the-center-of-everything It Girl aura, so that was a fun catch.

3/5 stars

**Follow me on Goodreads

#ashlee bree's book reviews #in a dark dark wood #ruth ware #mystery #thriller #recs: ashlee approved!#read july 2023 #book recs #bookblr #booklr #book reviews

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theriu · 1 year

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I posted 6,818 times in 2022

That's 2,560 more posts than 2021!

191 posts created (3%)

6,627 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@everythingfox

@taleweaver-ramblings

@doodlee-a

@o-lei-o-lai-o-lord

@ionlywantyougone

I tagged 1,749 of my posts in 2022

#humor - 543 posts

#rebagel'd - 240 posts

#video - 164 posts

#pets - 109 posts

#cats - 99 posts

#river rambles - 91 posts

#cool art - 78 posts

#brb laughing - 73 posts

#dracula daily - 62 posts

#nice - 56 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#it’s like that thing where you get off the computer internet and then check your phone internet in case the small internet has something ne

My Top Posts in 2022:

Helping Humans Is Complicated

"I don't understand. We showed the new planet our wellness machines and offered to modify them for humans, but their governments don't seem interested. They keep insisting their technology is better despite the data and demanding weapons technology we don't have."

"Oh yeah, I've heard about this. It's like a mix of species pride and a weird distrust of freely offered new things."

"Well, what do we do? Just leave the technology with them and hope for the best?"

"Nope. Take it away."

"...I'm sorry?"

"Take it away from them. Say they can't have it. Tell them it's too valuable to share."

"But surely if they don't care now, they won't care then."

"Oh, they definitely will. This species has invented entire agencies dedicated to stealing information other human groups try to keep secret. They can't stand not being ALLOWED to have something."

"Even if they didn't want it in the first place? How does that make sense?"

"Look, I don't know, but I found an example of it in the Earth History and Legends archive. Supposedly, peasants didn't like the taste of a healthy tuber this human king wanted to introduce, so he just told everyone they couldn't have the tubers, planted them, and posted really lax guards around the garden. Peasants 'stole' the tubers, and boom: nutritious potatoes introduced. "

"That's...nonsensical. I'm not sure we should give them anything if they're going to be that way about it."

"All I'm saying is that whether you take away the tech to trick them or take it away because you don't think they deserve it, humans are determined little plurski, and they WILL steal it. Should be interesting to see how they get past our firewalls."

"Do we even want relations with this kind of group?"

"Oh yeah, they can be super tough and resourceful, on the whole. Plus their coffee is FANTASTIC."

1,196 notes - Posted October 10, 2022

I love posts about human customs being incomprehensible to aliens or humans having all these strange but helpful instincts, but you know what would also be funny? Aliens super relating to some of humanity’s less admirable qualities.

- Woman starts shrieking hysterically at alien encounter, aliens are pleased that someone there properly respects the momentousness of this potentially terrifying occasion.

- Obsessive collector becomes liason to aliens with dragon-like hoarding culture.

- Human crying over a papercut is first human that soft jellyfish aliens feel they can relate to.

- Massive introvert (this is not a bad human quality it’s just rarer to see in Humans As Space Orcs scenarios) who likes spending time alone in a small room is highly desirable as coworker for extremely social race that get anxious in enclosed spaces, lets them work on other things in more open areas.

- Human with poor hygeine learns aliens find the smell of sweat delightful.

- Hivemind aliens mistaking an angry mob for another hivemind, successfully open relations with mob leader.

1,955 notes - Posted August 15, 2022

Yes yes everyone’s talking (or not) about Bruno and other plot twists in Encanto, but I want to explore the REALLY GROUNDBREAKING points of Encanto that you never expect in a Disney movie:

Heroine has two LOVING, ALIVE parents who are STILL MARRIED.

Both main married couples on-screen have been faithfully married (and NOT died) for at least 20 years.

The husbands are both LOVING and AFFECTIONATE to their kids and wives. (Yes I WILL go on about healthy marriages and families portrayed in media and you CANT STOP ME)

The main character’s dad is kinda goofy but still shown to be wise and capable when it matters.

A boy got the requisite animal companion(s) instead of the main girl.

The main girl has NO potential love interests ANYWHERE.

EVIL IS NOT LIME, I REPEAT, EVIL IS NOT LIME!!!!

5,373 notes - Posted January 20, 2022

Using my prodigious powers of deep literary analysis and cultural correlation, I believe I can and have predicted the next scene for @buggachat ‘s Miraculous Ladybug Bakery Enemies AU. Please consider my carefully and exhaustively rendered hypothesis:

See the full post

5,977 notes - Posted August 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

It has just occurred to me that of all the characters in Winnie the Pooh, the only ones that lack both fingerless stuffing hands and faint seam lines (the indications that someone is a stuffed animal) are Rabbit and Owl. Which carries the possible implication that Rabbit and Owl are just a normal rabbit and owl living with a bunch of sentient stuffed animals.

And somehow this makes Rabbit’s constant consternation with all of his neighbors even funnier to me.

53,119 notes - Posted May 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #hey neat!#I did not realize the winnie the pooh post was from May #these are fun #man I had some nice successful posts this year!#That makes me happy ^^#Thanks to everyone who liked my ramblings!

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