bertilakslady

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[bertilakslady]

some highlights from my students’ romeo and juliet modern interpretation projects:

- someone made a username for friar laurence with 420 at the end - the same kid who put 69 in romeo’s username like i wouldn’t know what either of those things mean - the girl who added ‘clean’ at the end of all the songs on her juliet playlist like lmao girl i know spotify doesn’t have the clean version - the kid who said romeo and juliet killed each other - the weird dichotomy of kids who put love story on their playlist vs the kids who choose bad blood - the kid who wrote ‘get a room’ as tybalt’s comment on romeo’s couple pic - the kid who said ‘romeo is probably one of those douches who follows a ton of people so they follow him back and then he unfollows all of them’ - the one who legitimately used the word ‘alrighty’ do kids say this in their text messages???? i thought i was the one talking like an elderly person but okay - the one who made romeo’s username ‘montagoose’ - the only kid who acknowledged that posting about your secret relationship on instagram was a bad idea - the girl who wrote that romeo would unironically say ‘#blessed’. she’s right. - the one single solitary girl who wrote mercutio as gay as shakespeare did (she’s also the only one who used mercutio at all which is a tragedy but whatever) - the one who wrote romeo’s insta bio as ‘thus with a kiss i die… LOL RIP ME 😂💀’ - the one who made benvolio’s username benvoliYO

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compilation of this type of post

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"continuum"

<3

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Janet Elizabeth Aulisio

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Y’all need to watch Blake’s 7 if you don’t already know it!

One Dress a Day Challenge

Black and White October

Blake's 7 ("Rumours of Death") / Jacqueline Pearce as Servalan

Servalan was villainous, but she sure had style! One of the highlights of each episode was waiting to see what she'd wear. She usually wore white, sometimes black, rarely both, and other colors even more rarely. I probably would have featured some of her costumes before now if it were easier to find decent pictures; fortunately, this one was pretty well documented, possibly because it comes from a fan-favorite episode.

The asymmetrical construction of this dress is very interesting. I particularly like how the white portion of the strapless side is beaded, while the sleeved side is merely edged in beads at the collar and cuff.

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1895 - Victorian Sherlock

Colour Pencil on brown cardboard, A4

I finally managed to try doing some art again. Went back to my favourite medium colour pencils because I needed something safe and comforting.

I am flattered if you reblog, but do not post my art on other sites/social media or use in any other way without my written permission.

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My Servalan and Tarrant thoughts because @probably-enjoying-this asked so nicely on Discord

So it’s taken me a little while to puzzle out why Servalan and Tarrant have their romance on Virn, because at first it seems to come from nowhere. I’ve seen a lot of different explanations floating around - that the sand was influencing them, that Servalan was manipulating Tarrant, that the romance was a leftover from the original concept where Avon was the one stranded on Virn. But none of these ever felt right to me, because they don’t take into account the scenes where both Servalan and Tarrant seemed genuinely affected by what happened between them. The final scenes in particular suggest that this wasn’t just some careless, throwaway one night stand, but something much deeper - when Servalan says “I mean so much to you”, Tarrant does not deny it.

So basically, my belief is that Servalan and Tarrant genuinely do have feelings for each other. Certainly not in a traditionally romantic sense, because that kind of love just doesn’t exist in the B7 universe, but there’s definitely some much deeper feelings there. The question is - why should two people who are supposed to be enemies feel that way about each other? They’re on opposing sides of a revolution, and Servalan was directly responsible for some of the biggest tragedies in Tarrant’s life, namely the deaths of Deeta and Cally. I don’t think the show gives us any blindingly obvious answers, but they are there if you know where to look.

Let’s start with Tarrant. I think the key to understanding his motivation is to take into account his arc as a whole, especially considering how he’s changed since season three. The biggest shift in Tarrant's characterisation between season three and four is how he goes from being incredibly assertive (challenging Avon at every opportunity, trying to install himself as Liberator’s captain, etc) to being remarkably passive. Compare his behaviour in an episode like ‘Dawn of the Gods’ versus ‘Stardrive’, for example - the assertiveness that defined him in season three is all but gone. I think this is mostly because, in season four, he's tired and demoralised after losing Deeta, Cally, and the Liberator in a very short space of time. He also knows that, by this stage, his arrogance and bravado has got him nowhere, and it’s exhausting and futile trying to keep it up. But as the Scorpio crew fails mission after mission, I can only imagine how deeply that exhaustion would begin to weigh on him. And who lies at the centre of all that failure? Why, it’s Servalan, of course, the woman who has caused untold amounts of pain for Tarrant and the rest of the crew. When she starts breaking down and showing her vulnerabilities in ‘Sand’, I think Tarrant recognises that, if he can appeal to that vulnerability and show her a little tenderness, he might be able to convince her to have a change of heart. Then, perhaps, the pain will stop.

Servalan, I think, is in a bit of a similar situation, in that she too is incredibly demoralised and at a bit of a loose end. By season four, she’s lost everything - her name, her identity, her presidency, her power. Just as the Scorpio crew are a shadow of the Liberator crew, so too is ‘Commissioner Sleer’ a hollow echo of President Servalan. She’s skulking around all the backwaters in the galaxy working exclusively with fellow crooks and has-beens (Belkov, Keiller, Egrorian, etc), and I can imagine that that would instil in her such a sense of inner shame and disappointment. She knows how far she’s fallen, and I think that’s partly what motivates her to go to Virn to find Don Keller again. She wants to recapture something of what she used to be, a time when she was just eighteen and still had all her ambitions and accomplishments lying before her. Instead, she finds Don Keller dead, and with him dies the last dregs of her dignity. And so she starts to ruminate on her power and what it’s cost her, whether it was all worth it - her “power is like a drug” speech exemplifies this. But, Servalan being Servalan, addicted to power as she is, she’s more desperate than ever to reclaim it, and Don Keller’s death only heightens that desperation. There has to be someone, anyone, who still remembers the glory of what she used to be - and Tarrant is the perfect candidate. His youth reminds Servalan of the time she wanted to recapture with Don Keller, and his Federation upbringing means that there would’ve been a time where he could’ve genuinely admired her as a figure of power and greatness. If she can reach out to him, connect with him, his admiration could bestow her with the glory she so desperately craves.

So, Tarrant and Servalan meet on Virn at a very vulnerable time in their lives, and they both have something they crave from each other. Tarrant wants to take advantage of her vulnerability and ‘save’ her, use love to convince her to atone for her sins and stop tormenting him and his crew. Servalan wants to convince Tarrant to love her because she’s desperate for admiration, worship, for someone to remember who she used to be and adore her for it.

On screen, we never see them do anything more than kiss, but I’ve always suspected that they go further than that when the camera isn’t rolling. If so, I think that’s a crucial point for them. Yes, they both approach their romance with fairly self-serving motivations, but I think deeper intimacy would make them realise that they need each other for much simpler reasons. They’re both tired. They’re both demoralised. They’re both shadows of who they used to be. They’ve both been chewed up and spat out by the Federation, an institution that they once believed in, that they thought would take care of them. Tarrant and Servalan discover they they’re more alike than they ever knew before, and that there’s grounds for a real solidarity between them despite their cruel, violent history with each other. They’ve come from the same world - Servalan can understand Tarrant so much more than his crew ever could, and vice versa. And, at the end of the day, they’ve both been deprived of real love and affection for so long that, rather than them simply getting what they want from each other, their intimacy opens the floodgates for something much simpler to overwhelm them - love.

Of course, with the universe they live in, and with the kind of history they have with each other, that love must be cut down as soon as it blooms. Servalan is still a tyrant hell bent on crushing the rebellion, and Tarrant is still a rebel whose first loyalty is to those Servalan is out to destroy. Any real affection they have for each other cannot exist beyond the bounds of Virn, and as soon as Tarrant teleports back to Scorpio, their love must die. For one brief moment, they had something lovely, but both of them know that one brief moment is all it’ll ever be, and that they have no choice but to return to the cruel, violent status quo. Hence Servalan’s final lines:

“And Del Tarrant. I had the gun, but I didn't kill you, Tarrant. Yet.”

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let’s be spherical with mama

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ALT

View on Twitter

https://archive.org/details/vhsinstructionals

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good news i'm the most fuckable person at this vehicular manslaughter

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Over time 90s music will get boiled down to just cheap nostalgia for boy bands. This is disgusting. How dare you erase the year where everyone was inexplicably super into Gregorian Chants

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"I warn you that in times of great economic chaos, especially when people had dreams of affluence that they now are not going to realize-and when they are not able to have even the choices their parents had economically-women are at risk. We will be told, "You were wrong to think you could have it all. You must repent of your aggressive ways, you must repent of your ambition." In times of fear and anxiety people will be looking for false scapegoats, false solutions, and one of those solutions will be that all of this can be solved by sending women home again."

--Betty Friedan

She originally said this in the 80s, btw.

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I think this blog is helping me learn how to be less parasocial because before now I’ve only ever heard it used when referring to crazy insane fans who think their favorite blogger/youtuber/streamer/whatever is in love with them but this is making me realize that that isn’t the case. parasocialness can happen even with seemingly small things. all in all be mean to your anons it helps them and I’m sorry if this is parasocial in and of itself

idk what you’re blogging about rn but I hope you get that man pregnant or whatever 👍

the thing about parasociality is that it's undergone a rather bizarre transformation wherein the connotation is almost always a negative one, when the actual definition is merely describing a very human ability to feel connected to and concerned with people who we've never met and even "people" who might not really exist - the term was coined in the 50s to describe the attachment and investment that people felt in fictional television characters.

there's nothing innately negative OR positive about a parasocial relationship. to your example, a relationship doesn't become parasocial when you convince yourself that your favorite media personality is in love with you, but rather when you develop a sense of fondness for them in the first place.

I have no illusions about now attached my favorite youtube yoga instructor feels to me, personally (she doesn't, at all, because we've never directly interacted) but I feel warmly about her all the same, frequently feel cheered after following along with her yoga routines, and will be sad when the dog who appears in many of her videos inevitably dies. that's a parasocial relationship and it's fine! it's not bad to care about people you don't know personally, and that is arguably an important thing to be able to do.

you feeling warmly about my tumblr persona and appreciating what I do here is also parasocial, and that's okay! like I said, that's neither good nor bad! the parasociality can be harmful, but it's all nuance baybeeee!

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Inktober Day 2: Crisp

For @bluebellofbakerstreet 's Inktober prompt list.