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Emily Brontë, from The Collected Works & Poetry of Emily Brontë; “Wuthering Heights,”

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“And the stars—I named some of the stars, too.” “And yourself?” said the doctor. She nodded, smiling. “This child is without a name,” the doctor said across her to Morgen. “Did you know?” Morgen thought, and then laughed. “I guess she is,” she said, “but I hadn’t noticed.” She laughed again, and pressed her niece’s arm. “If you’re taking on a new name, how about Morgen this time?” “Victoria?” suggested the doctor. “Morgen Victoria,” Morgen amended generously. “Victoria Morgen,” said the doctor.

1) Them trying to name her after themselves (Dr. Wright's first name is Victor, which I'd totally forgotten when I first read this part) is so gross (although not surprising from the two of them).

2) Even worse, the doctor already asked if she named herself and she nodded. She doesn't need them to name her; she's already chosen her own name!

But while my initial read of the ending was that it's a tragedy for the woman formerly known as Elizabeth Richmond, a more hopeful reading is possible. She doesn't agree with or even acknowledge their name suggestions, but states "I know who I am"; she exercises autonomy in getting her hair cut--giving herself a new look that both the doctor and Aunt Morgen disapprove of--and a few pages earlier described herself as the gingerbread man, clarifying in the face of Morgen's confusion, "I’ve run away from a little old woman and a little old man."

If this new version of her is actually happy, as she claims, it's not because of Morgen and the doctor, but in spite of them. And she's aware of this; she chooses not to tell them the name she's selected, to let them think they're naming her. There's power in being overlooked, in not being known.

(Thank you to Bernice Murphy for first suggesting this reading to me in "I am God": The Domineering Patriarch in Shirley Jackson's Gothic Fiction. Murphy writes, "The fact that the new Elizabeth has cut her long hair short without their permission and laughs loudly at their suggestion presents the possibility, however, that their new charge, like Frankenstein's monster, will continue to elude the control of her creator.")

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🏳️‍🌈🇺🇦 Pride march was held in Kyiv, Ukraine for the first time since the beginning of full-scale invasion. It's dangerous for big crowds to gather for a long period of time due to potential russian airstrikes, so the event was smaller and shorter than usual, but still important and powerful.

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FAVORITE MOVIE SHIPS: Beca & Chloe - Pitch Perfect Franchise (2012, 2015 & 2017)

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The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

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♡ swiftlgbt aesthetic boards: lesbian

❝ And I want to send my love and respect out to everybody who in their journey or in their life hasn’t yet felt comfortable enough to come out. And may you do that in your own time, and may we all ultimately live in a world where we can be able to love people and no one has to be afraid to love people and say how they feel. ❞

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(x)

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“That picture on the wall you’re scared of looks just like you”

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He is my mentor. He is my guide. He leads me through life. He shows me the truth. He shows me courage. He shows me compassion. He shows me kindness. He supports me through difficulties. He makes sure my future will be bright & beautiful. He shows me the little Joys of everyday life. His name? Is "Baby Sea Lion dot PNG". If you can't respect it ... BLOCK ME!

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By Valeria Kotsareva

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grown men will throw fits about how they face sooo much rejection and women would never get it meanwhile me and the girls who were even just like average or a lil ugly at like 12 years old were being treated like we were subhuman by peers and adults alike

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I don't know I'm not done talking about it. It's insane that I can't just uninstall Edge or Copilot. That websites require my phone number to sign up. That people share their contacts to find their friends on social media.

I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.

Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.

I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.

I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.

Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.

I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.

My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.

I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?

No more!!!!! I love my iPod with so much storage and FLAC files. I love having all my fics on my harddrive. I love having USBs and backups. I love running scripts to gut suck stuff out of my Windows computer I don't want that spies on me. I love having forums. I love sending letters. I love neocities and webpages and webrings. I will not be scanning QR codes. Please hand me a physical menu. If I didn't need a smartphone for work I'd get a "dumb" phone so fast. I want things to have buttons. I want to use a mouse. I want replaceable batteries. I want the right to repair. I grew up online and I won't forget how it was!

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I feel like this song makes way more sense to be about dorothea brooke and her old man husband from middlemarch than the second mrs de winter... and of course there is also a song that's literally called 'dorothea' on evermore (which on the other hand, ironically does not really have any other similarities to middlemarch at all lol)