#evil stepsister dead

[melpcmene-arch]

I am here-- I am awake-- I am alive-- ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[romangoldendreams]

Shoe's testing

[bestworstcase]

the perennial Tai Discourse is really interesting to track bc, speaking broadly, the two major camps are just:

those who focus primarily on ruby’s recollection of her childhood and relationship with her dad (and filter what yang says through that lens such that “i had to pick up the pieces and keep things together when i was five” gets diluted into “yang had responsibilities as a child”)

those who focus primarily on yang’s memories and her arc in v4 (and tend to just ignore or minimize the things ruby says that suggest a positive relationship with tai, in particular often just flat out disregarding how excited ruby is to spend time with or receive care packages from him)

when it’s like. yeah that’s. literally the point. that ruby and yang had profoundly different childhoods.

they’re half-sisters in a story about fairytales and only one of them had a decent dad. rwby is unsubtly interrogating the fairytale archetype of the Evil Stepmother/Dead Mother with raven (not dead, but absent) and summer (villain, presumed dead) and that archetype quite literally requires its counterpart archetype of the Neglectful Father who remarries and tacitly participates in the Evil Stepmother’s abuse of his child from his first wife

tai is as much an exploration of the fairytale Neglectful Father as raven is the Dead Mom and summer is the Evil Stepmother. that’s. a core aspect of the narrative surrounding the rose xiao long family.

the Dead Mom often reincarnates as a bird or tree or similar spirit to watch over her child; rwby turns this on its head by reimagining the Dead Mom as an absent one. raven watches over yang in her bird form because she is too afraid to be meaningfully present; she isn’t dead, but her absence in yang’s life is so complete that she might as well have been, and the fairytale tension between the Dead Mom’s death and her lingering presence is explored through these cramped and inadequate half-measures raven takes in trying to have it both ways.

the Evil Stepmother is a vehicle for making the fairytale heroine miserable; she has no identity nor any reason for her monstrous treatment of the child who is not her own. rwby, again, flips this over with the mystery of summer rose. who was she, really? did anyone know? she was a good stepmom—she loved yang like her own daughter—but now she’s gone. she left. she never came back. she lied. she joined salem. why? what expectations did she feel on her shoulders? what broke her? why did she do the things she did?

lastly, the Neglectful Father must either be a love-blind fool or a weak, contemptible man with no love or loyalty to his own blood; he forgets his motherless child at the behest of his new love. rwby turns this on its head too by rendering tai as a human being—messy, flawed, fully-realized. wicked stepsisters exist for the purpose of being spoiled by the Evil Stepmother in juxtaposition with her cruelty to the first child, who is kind and good because she remembers her mother’s lessons. the fairytale children of these archetypes function as repetitions of their mothers. rwby makes that the central conceit of its spin on the Neglectful Father: what if he loved both the Dead Mom and the Evil Stepmother so much and then both of them broke his heart in mirrored ways, leaving him a single father to both of their children? if he sees raven in yang and summer in ruby, how does that color his relationships with both girls? if you take away the Evil Stepmother but not her daughter, does the Neglectful Father remember his first child? or are people more complicated than that?

and with all three, the narrative engages with these one-dimensional archetypes by constructing complicated, multi-faceted characters on top of them; by tossing the simplistic moral didacticism of a fairytale and presuming, first, that everyone is trying their best, that bad choices can be made from good intentions, and that no one gets it right all the time, or even most of the time. love and profound dysfunction can coexist.

ruby and yang had very different childhoods. that’s the narrative foundation the whole rose xiao long family is built on, because they’re a deconstruction of the archetypal fairytale blended family.

[stevesbipanic]

Billy was not racist. He was trying to protect Max and Lucas both from his father, who would have harmed both of them plus Billy if he knew they were even hanging out let alone romantically involved. Billy was a victim of abuse at the hands of his father, and his mother abandoned him to his father despite knowing what cruelties he would suffer just to save her own ass. Was Billy an asshole? Yes. Was the shitty way he treated people especially Max okay? No, never. Nothing excuses it. But you try living with the sorts of abuses his father heaped on him, and on his mother before she left, and the abuses he would have been heaping on Max's mom too. I have zero doubt that Billy's father r-worded both Billy's mom and later Max's mom because "wifely duties" or some other misogynistic garbage. Billy would have overheard the sounds from it pretty much any time it happened while he was home. You try living with all that and see how YOU turn out. Billy did deserve a redemption arc. He got one of a sort when he sacrificed himself despite "the mindflayer's" control over him, all to save El, Max, Max's mom, and even people he hated. Because he knew what "the mindflayer" had planned. Did you not see Billy's tears when "the mindflayer" was speaking through him? Did you not notice Billy told Karen to stay away from him rather than give in to "the mindflayer" and kill her? Did you not notice Billy flat out lied to his father when his father demanded to know where Max had run off to? There's no way Billy didn't have some kind of clue where to find her. But he lied to his father, to shield her and to shield Lucas, from whatever harm would absolutely have come to them at the hands of Neil Hargrove. Billy is not the embodiment of evil you clearly think he is.

Did Billy somewhat sometimes care about his stepsister? Yes. Did he get abused by his dad? Also yes. These facts don't excuse him from his actions in both seasons 2 and 3.

In our early meetings of Billy he highly threatens to run over the party while they're on their bikes. A normal same human being wouldn't do that. He also beat Steve to the point the kids thought he might be dead. He continued beating Steve even once Steve had been thoroughly knocked out, and likely would've killed Steve if Max hadn't knocked him out.

Also YES HE WAS RACIST WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???? Did you know that Billy's line "certain type of people" in regards to Lucas, was originally a black slur? He was a racist character picking up the trait from yes his abusive dad. Just because his dad was abusive doesn't mean Billy didn't become racist because of his upbringing with him.

You can definitely say that line is to protect Max from abuse from her stepdad if he found out she was talking to a black boy. But it certainly wasn't protecting Lucas, billy couldn't care less about Lucas' safety (SEE TRYING TO RUN HIM OFF THE ROAD).

His character was written to be a bad person, accept this. Characters aren't always written to have redemption arcs or all be good people. He was a racist bully from the 80s with an abusive dad. Just because you think he's hot doesn't change these facts.

Also, abuse doesn't inherently make your character grow up to be a bully. Lonnie Byers is heavily written as an abusive father, even going so far as it was suggested he killed Will in season 1. But neither of the Byers grow up to be bullies. Eleven is brought up in an abusive environment and moves past these traits. Steve's parents are seen as hard on him and in some ways absent and neglectful and besides Jonathan we never see him fight anyone that wasn't for protection.

Billy is the only older character that shows complete disregard for the kids safety. And him dying in st3 doesn't forgive these actions nor rewrite his racist abusive character.

You're allowed to hate characters that are written to be the bad guys. No one attacks anyone for hating Dr Brenner because he's the villain. Many people including myself didn't like Steve in season 1 because he was written to be the popular asshole. Characters are written certain ways for reasons. So go enjoy your self insert fanfiction where you really just want Billy to be a hot ooc. But for the rest of us it's totally fair to hate on one of the villains of the series.

[knightwithakay]

OKAY SOOOO

First off, "Aschenputtel" is Cinderella as we know it. Specifically in the Grimm version, it's Cinderella's mother's spirit who gives her magical help, she calls the birds to pull lentils from the fire, and in trying to fit into the slipper her stepsisters cut bits of their foot off. Unsurprisingly, they went with the bloody option. The Nutcracker I find very interesting, and I think it's probably coming in primarily to give us a Mouse King, which Brennan has used before and is also v appropriate. (this is the whole bit where the King is actually a bunch of rats tied together at their tails.) My money's on this being connected to Pinnochio's story in some way, given that the fairy he met is implied to be connected to rats and the Nutcracker universe is full of animated toys and puppets.

Snow-White could go a lot of ways; the Grimm story includes the "skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony" descriptor which I've always personally loved for horror, and the classic poisoning, dwarfs, glass coffin as we know it. (Snow-White is not woken by a kiss, but by a bump in the road that causes the apple to come out of her throat, so really if anyone knew the Heimlich that story could have been a lot shorter.) Given the Stepmother has already made an on-screen appearance, I think it's most likely that we're tying her into this story as well as both stepmother and Evil Queen, though ostensibly at the end here when she gets found out she's put in red-hot shoes, "in which she had to dance until she fell down dead."

[decadentpostnachos-evil-twin]

Let's talk once again about how much of a plothole the whole time in the den/hut in acotar is.

This was supposed to be Feyre's traumatic backstory, I get it. It's still lacking logic.

We're told that Feyre was the only one ever caring for the family, taking any responsibility while their father did quite literally nothing (and that I even believe bc Feyfey has daddy issues bad enough to get with Rice) and Nesta and Elain were the incarnation of Cinderellas evil stepsisters. Because they didn't do anything either. But there are so many problems there.

1. No one can cook? Because Feyre can't as we see in acomaf. So how exactly did they make food if nobody was capable to cook?

2. Staying with the food, the odd piece of wild meat is not a diet that can keep you alive for years. You'd be lacking so many nutrients and vitamins that you'd constantly be sick. And in their circumstances, you'd just be dead very soon. So they must have eaten other stuff, but where did it come from? With what money was it payed?

3. Still the food. It's highly unrealistic that Feyre, a self-taught teenager managed to bring home enough meat to properly feed four people. So again, there must have been other things or they'd have died very soon.

4. Who cleaned? Because seriously, you can't tell me nobody cleaned that hut as good as it was possible. But who, when Feyre was in the woods for the whole day?

5. Who repaired shit? That thing was just short of falling apart at any given time. There must have been several things to fix over the years, seeing as it still stood in acotar. But who did the fixing? Again, Feyre was supposed to be in the woods the whole day.

6. Who fixed their clothing? They didn't have enough to buy new clothing often, so the bit they had needed to hold up for quite a while. But if it was somehow damaged, who'd repair it? Feyre who never learned needlework? Also the washing. Who took care of that?

[soupdwelling]

finally watching all the stuff starkid released today and mY GOD I CAN FEEL MY HYPERFIXATION SLAMMING VIOLENTLY BACK INTO MY BODY here are all my unhinged little thoughts

first of all i missed them all so much i love starkid livestreams <333

I ALSO FUCKING LOVE FAIRYTALE RETELLINGS!!!! OH MY GOD!!!

bryce and james in major roles do you WANT ME DEAD

ANGELA AS THE EVIL STEPMOTHER OHHH YESSS OHHH YEAH

also her casting announcement video was iconic

mariah and lauren as the stepsisters too i cannot wait for this shit oh my god

CRYING AT THE FACT THAT THE OTHER VIDEOS ARENT DONE YET BC THEY DIDNT EXPECT TO GET FUNDED SO FAST

also all the puppets are so fucking cool r u joking this is going to be insane

kim as the fairy queen bro i am Going to be in love with her

sir hopsalot and crumb i would die for u in a heartbeat

i am also SO excited for the makeup and the costumes i feel like starkid is about to completely outdo themselves with this one

Joey Richter As The Woods

GET GROSS GIRLS!!!

hocus pocus vibes with the stepmother and sisters ohhh i have never been more on board

[brighterdaysarebeforeus]

Found this prompt here and just couldn’t help myself!! This is silly, I think, and maybe a little off character, maybe, but I couldn’t help it. (>.<)

Also as an apology for taking so long with the a/b/o verse, which came out a few minutes ago (and by proxy, taking so long with the a whole new world verse, which should come out tomorrow as well)!!

Enjoy!!

When Hobie imagined being part of theater, he hadn’t quite imagined this; he’d thought he’d spend his time backstage, helping with costume changes or prop handling, maybe even just dealing with the set pieces and set changes.

And that’s sort of what he’s done, if he’s being honest, the past three years or so of theater classes and he’s done a little bit of everything backstage-wise; he’s done lighting and sound, he’s done set building and prop making (though technically the whole class was part of that, so…), he’s done costuming —

And then Gwen, Gwennifer, Gwendolyn (she hates when he calls her random names, it’s great), anyway — then Gwen insisted she needed help with her audition for their production of Cinderella, and Hobie tried to fight her on it but he’d lost. Which, honestly, was whatever because it wasn’t like it was Hobie who was trying to audition, specifically, and so it wasn’t likely Hobie was going to get casted as anything anyway, right?

Wrong. Apparently, dead wrong.

When all was said and done, Gwen got cast as an evil stepsister (how? She didn’t even read for the stepsister?), Pavitr got cast as an evil stepsister (how?), Peni was the fairy godmother (which…ok, sort of worked, that was fine), Margo was cast as Cinderella (that actually tracked, ok), Miles was cast as the evil stepmother (how??), and somehow…somehow Hobie got casted as the prince (HOW?), which…

Hobie tried to fight it, just a little; he didn’t particularly care for being onstage, he was much more used to being backstage with other responsibilities, he wasn’t even auditioning for anything anyway — didn’t matter. Peter wouldn’t let him step down or put, just kept telling him it would be good for him to break out of the shadows one time. Hobie’d scowled at that but, ultimately realizing that it was pointless, just gave in and let it happen.

Might as well, right?

They’d had a couple of good rehearsals thus far, mostly just reading the line from the script book in a circle with each other; they got in trouble several times for getting off topic or ad-libbing stupid lines that would never make it into the final cut (like when they got to the part where Hobie found the shoe after a very long hour of them all messing around and he said, “ah, I’ll let her go, not really worth it, is it?” and made the whole cast burst into giggles; Peter didn’t look amused but Miles did, and Hobie didn’t particularly care how Peter took it as long as Miles thought it was funny).

Honestly, though Hobie liked theater a lot (really he did — the fun parts of building the show before the live event, the stress of making sure things went smoothly once they went live, the joy and melancholy that came with putting on a fantastic show — all of the was great and fun, and Hobie was having the time of his life doing it), he liked being in theater with Miles specifically a lot more. Miles had been Peni and Gwen’s friend first, and had spent the first few theater sessions with them being slightly weary of Hobie while Hobie put his foot in his mouth continually around him, but they were past that now. Partly because it seemed like he had a crush on Gwen and realized after a couple of weeks that Hobie wasn’t trying to make a move on her.

Hobie thought it was mostly because at one point, Miles looked like he was ready to fight one of the other teachers about unfair casting practices, and Hobie had ensured that he knew he was on his side for it if things went down. It didn’t end up in flames, at least, but Miles seemed to be more open with Hobie after that, more friendly with him. And Hobie —

Well. Hobie knew Miles had a crush on Gwen, so that was that, wasn’t it?

Anyway, they’d moved on from regular script memorization onto adding movement to the scenes; the theater was booked for their use, and Pav and Hobie were play fighting on the stage while Gwen shouted encouragements to both boys (“I can’t pick favorites!” was her argument, “you’re both my friends, I want you both to win!” and Hobie had told her “that’s cowards talk, mate!” but she wouldn’t budge up) while they waited for everyone else to show up for rehearsal.

Hobie had just gotten Pav in a headlock, rubbing his knuckles into his hair and mussing it up while he shrieked, when Miles came in followed by Peni and Peter. He looked a bit resigned, calling them to attention as soon as he got the front.

“So Margo had some family thing at home and she can’t make it.” He said, and the teens groaned, “but! We can still get a rough start of the blocking today, and refine it more when Margo comes back, so chop chop!”

“Wait, then who’s gonna play Cinderella?” Hobie asked, jumping off the stage and falling carelessly into the theater seat. The one good thing about playing the prince, in his opinion, was that he didn’t have to be onstage all that much. Just the ball scene, and the final twenty minutes or so, and that was all. Easy, for the most part.

“Uhhh — ”

“I can play her for the beginning part!” Peni volunteered, throwing her hand up. “I’ll just need someone to play opposite of when it’s my turn.”

“Miles can fill in.” Gwen said before anyone else could say anything. She had a glint in her eye that made Hobie uneasy in a way, but he couldn’t put his finger on why.

“Great!” Peter said brightly, clapping his hands together. “We’ll also skip some of the more Margo specific parts she’ll need to be here for, like the ball dancing scene and the monologues she has, and go from there. Let’s go!”

Hobie knew he tuned out most of the rehearsal in front of him; he didn’t really need to focus, his part was only the last bit right now (thanks Margo) so when it was his turn to go up he almost missed his cue. It took Peter elbowing him in the side for him to even look up from his phone, and then to the stage where the group was assembled. Gwen was giving him a wide eyed look, one that read ‘get up here now’, and Hobie only blinked at her for a moment before scrambling up onto the stage.

She and Pav were on either side of Miles, who was sitting in the chair Margo was meant to be sitting in. Hobie frowned a bit, glancing around and realizing that Peni had vanished.

“Just keep going for now.” Peter called out, pencil in hand as he watched the teens onstage. “From your line, Hobie.”

“Right, uh.” Hobie pulled his script out, flipping to the last couple of pages. Gwen smacked her forehead into her palm, loud enough that it echoed upstage, and Pav snickered into his palm. “I do request that every girl in this house try on the shoe.”

“Surely not every girl,” Pav said brightly, “for there are but two here in this household!”

“Then who is this?” Hobie gestures towards Miles, and Peter’s pencil scratched against the paper.

“None but the serving girl, who couldn’t have gone to the ball,” Gwen added, “for she had many chores to occupy her time, and nothing to wear besides.”

“I said every girl and I meant it.” Hobie stepped forward. “Whether she was there or not, she shall try on the shoe.” He kneeled down, blinking up at Miles, who looked like he was embarrassed. Unable to stop himself, Hobie reached out and grabbed Miles’s leg. Miles stared down at him, wide eyed and looking like he would be bright red if he could be, and Hobie pretended to put a shoe on him.

“It fits?” Gwen said, pretending to be startled.

“It fits!” Pav sounded, still, very bright and happy for being a stepsister who wasn’t going to be marrying into royalty.

“You’re the one I’ve been searching for.” Hobie said, standing up. Miles stood up with him, staring up at Hobie, and Hobie pressed his lips together for a brief second before pressing them lightly against Miles’s cheek. Miles squeaked, and suddenly everything stopped; Peter’s pencil against the paper, the quiet squealing that had been coming from Pav from his right, the whispered encouragement from Gwen.

“Ah, this is…a rehearsal, guys?” Peter said slowly from the seats, “there’s…there’s not really a need for — ”

“Right, right, sorry.” Hobie cleared his throat, pulling back and putting some space between him and Miles.

They continued onwards with the scene, though Hobie couldn’t bring himself to look Miles in the eye for the rest of the play and it felt like Miles couldn’t stop staring at him the entire time.

Afterwards, he sort of wanted to dip right away, but Gwen grabbed hold of his arm and was chattering to him about something or other while Pav was talking to Miles by the bottom of the stage.

With a heavy sigh, Hobie patted Gwen’s shoulder and made his way over to where the other two boys were, making Miles fall silent and Pav practically skip away from the two of them.

“Hey, Hobie.” Miles said brightly, shuffling a little and looking shy. Hobie smiled down at him, shifting slightly in place.

“Hey, mate.” He glanced away, to where Peni had rejoined the group magically, standing in a little crowd with Pav and Gwen by the door. “Look, I just wanted to say — ”

“You-You did great today!” Miles said loudly, and Hobie was startled into silence. “I just…I mean, you-you had, like, some real natural kind of movements, for blocking, you know, I don’t think Peter’s pencil stopped moving, like, once, you know?”

“Yeah…” Hobie trailed off, took another deep breath, and said it as quickly as possibly. “Look, man, I’m sorry. About the kiss, you know?” Miles’s mouth slid shut slowly and he gave Hobie a sort of unreadable look. He pressed on. “Peter was right, today was only the first day of blocking? Not even a reason for it, really. Should’ve asked, at least.”

“Well…” Miles took a breath, and it was Hobie’s turn to blink in surprise. Miles glanced at their friends as well, then stood up straight. “If you want, you can-you can get permission. Later. On…on a date?”

“Like a movie date?” Hobie asked, and the breath seemed to go out of Miles all at once. He looked less nervous, somehow, more excited as he bounced a couple of times on his toes.

“Yeah, maybe this Friday?” He added. “At six?”

“At six.” Hobie confirmed with a nod. Miles beamed at him, then leaned up as best as he could. Hobie leaned down a bit to humor him, pressing his lips together to hide the grin that wanted to bust out when Miles pressed his lips against his cheek.

“It’s a date!”

[batboybisexualism]

if it would be pleasant to you: talk to me about Lisa Frankenstein

gaaaaahhhh okay idk if you've seen it and just want to hear my take on it or you haven't seen it and want to know what it's about, so I'll just do a smattering of info without big spoilers!!

basically it's about a girl who's kind of an outcast and she likes to hang out in this cemetery for bachelors in her hometown when she's feeling Down. she has a job as a seamstress I think, and her stepsister (her dad remarried after her mom got axe-murdered, sad.) won a tanning bed in a beauty pageant (miss hawaiian tropic I think), ANYWAY she wishes during a thunderstorm that she could be with the guy whose grave she hangs out at most often and then lightning strikes it and brings the guy back to life. she gradually sews new parts onto him and pops him in the tanning bed, which is broken and shocks you when you use it, because she discovers it also brings dead things back to life. basically she rebuilds him and they bond and do murder together :)

I just think it's a super-cute movie, there's some heavy stuff in it but it manages to be really fun and romantic too. I love when disturbed high school girls get to kill people, and when they find people who understand them, as a former disturbed high school girl lol...and as a current weird trans dude who loves evil women and the idea of one making me into her ideal man it appeals to me on many levels!

apparently it takes place in the same universe as jennifer's body (both written by diablo cody), which is just cool, and explains the very well-done mix of comedy and fun schlocky horror. idk it just made me very happy!! plus it's set in the 80's so the Aesthetic is bangin' imtbo (in my tacky bisexual opinion), AND it's lit well so you can actually see how cool it looks!

[fairytale-poll]

ROUND 3C, MATCH 3 OUT OF 4!

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Saki:

Psychic goth girl who was cast as Cinderella in a school play. The play was so poorly cast overall that the entire script had to be rewritten, thus “Cinderella-ish” was born. Hanajima played a Cinderella dressed in all black, and when confronted by the fairy godmother, she simply wished for meat.

idk if this is what you meant by 'acting' as Cinderella but in-universe she got cast as Cinderella in the school play, and the characters ended up re-writing the entire play to work around her because she was too Goth and disinterested to play a classic Cinderella character.

She plays the best version of Cinderella. All she cared about was going to the ball for the barbecue. The episode she's in is a really good one as well.

Overall Saki is not a Cinderella character, but you did say we could submit them if they were Cinderella in an in-universe play, and that she was! In Season 2 Episode 23 "It's Cinderella-ish", her class puts on a production of Cinderella and she ends up getting cast as the titular role, which a lot of other characters think is crazy because she's this straight-faced, emotionally-repressed, exclusively-wears-black kinda girl. Also her best friend Tohru (the anime's protagonist) gets cast as an evil stepsister, and she's one of the sweetest people ever and has so much trouble being mean to Saki even fakely and vice versa. Of course, Saki has no problems being rude to the Prince Charming character in the play, played by Kyo, a guy who's sweet deep down (but only to Tohru and his adoptive father) but is other wise a hot head who's always getting into fights. So between Saki as Cinderella having a genuine love for her stepsister and a general animosity with the prince, in addition to the fact that when she goes to the ball, all she wants to do is eat, not mingle, she makes for a very interesting Cinderella.

so this shoujo series has a storyline where the class puts on a Cinderella play but instead of the heroine playing Cinderella, shenanigans happen that lead to the heroine's goth best friend, Saki Hanajima, aka Hana-chan, aka Demon Queen, playing the lead role. Hana-chan's Cinderella dresses in all black against the wishes of the play's director, does not give 2 shits about the prince, and is just a general menace to society. I know she's probably not gonna win but I just wanted to share her with all of you bc I love her and the Cinderella-ish arc is to this day some of the funniest shit I've seen in a manga

their high school class decided to randomize who played which characters in their production of Cinderella & the creepy goth girl got cast as Cinderella & her painfully kind-hearted bestie got cast as the evil stepsister (among other mismatched roles) so they rewrote the play into "Sorta Cinderella" & Cinderella became a deadpan, lazy girl who only wants the best for her darling step-sister & who only went to the ball for the food.  in the end, instead of marrying the prince she takes his money & opens a restaurant with her sister & I love that for them <3

Cendrillon:

[Mod's Note: Warning for Persona 5 spoilers]

Her Persona is Cinderella. Her story is about disguising herself as another person to gain acceptance.

Her persona is Cendrillon, the French name for Cinderella and the name of an opera based on the story, and it mirrors her arc in the game. When you boil her down to the essentials, she essentially made a wish that was granted by her....... fairy godtherapist to go from pauper (bland and talentless depressed Sumire) to princess (her dead sister Kasumi, bubbly, personable star gymnast). As far as she sees it, even, it's this transformation that helps her 'get the prince' (read: befriend the protagonist). Why should she win, though? Umm because she's my baby my angel my sweetie my cherub specialist character in fiction and most important girl in the universe. Out of love in your heart for me, tumblr user [REDACTED], vote for her.

GOD I LOVE HER SO MUCH ok ok ok everyone here's my autism. Major spoilers as you get closer to the end btw! - She has three personas, in order they go: Cendrion, Vanadis, Ella. The first and last are taken from Cinderella, with Cendrion being the german name for Cinderella, and of course Ella just being a shortened form of Cinderella. - She does gymnastics, although a lot of her phantom thief design is heavily based off of ballet as well! In particular the black swan mimicking the white swan, and while of course that's not cinderella, it does remind me of how Cinderella was treated in the beginnings of the story - Cinderella and her both have major sibling trauma! It's a huge point about her character. Major spoilers, but she pretends to be her older sister Kasumi for most of the game; the sad truth is that she's in fact the younger sister Sumire. She's pretending to be her older sister because she can't deal with the trauma of that day she ran out into traffic and her sister got hit instead of her. (It does not help that her therapist uses eldritch god powers to gaslight her into thinking she is her sister.) - They're both pretty and also I love sumi so much she's everything to me. unironically the character of all time NOT FOR PROPAGANDA but for mod: image because it can be awkward to find one: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UyOsg26GnZU/maxresdefault.jpg also!!!! if you're interested in not potentially spoiling people you should call her Kasumi Yoshizawa. If you aren't worried about that though and want to be accurate, Sumire Yoshizawa is better. Or just call her Violet because that's her codename!

Initially introduced as Kasumi, she is a dorky and sweet first-year student who looks up to the protagonist as a mentor and eventually joins the Phantom Thieves in figuring out the fake reality they're trapped in. However, it's revealed that she's actually Kasumi's sister Sumire, who was always stuck in her more talented sister's shadow and yearned to be Kasumi. Unfortunately, she got her wish when her sister died saving her and her therapist brainwashed her into believing herself to be Kasumi. With help from the protagonist, Sumire realizes she was holding herself back and breaks free from her false identity, embracing her true self and rebelling against the hollow utopia. Her initial Persona--an embodiment of her true self--is Cendrillon, and her third tier ultimate Persona is Ella.

Sumire dosen't just pretends to be her dead sister, she was brainwashed into believing to be her by the final act's main villain/her fairy godfather figure, because that was her (misguided by trauma) wish as she believed that her sister was better than her. The final acts has a lot of 'making wishes come true' theme that connects her to Cinderella even more, also she does have a bit of 'save by the prince' thing going on with the game's protagonist

Please please vote my girl!!

Sumire is such a cute and cool character and deserves to leave the life of cinders how the fandom treats her and be a shiny princess!!

[princesssarisa]

The next set of tales I've read in Cinderella Tales from Around the World hail from Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Denmark.

*One Icelandic tale, which Heiner's book features in three variations, is The Story of Mjadveig, the Daughter of Mani, also known as Stepmother Story. The heroine, Mjadveig, is a princess, and after her mother dies, her father King Mani's advisors urge him to remarry. In a foreign land he finds a charming widow and marries her. But unbeknownst to him, both the new queen and her own daughter are evil giantesses magically disguised as humans, and depending on the retelling, they either abuse Mjadveig or tie her up and abandon her in the wilderness. But either way, Mjadveig has a dream at night in which her mother advises her to follow a certain path, and the next day she obeys and finds a little house, where she lives in safety. On the way there, or at some point when she goes out, she loses a shoe. Soon afterward, a prince arrives from another land, and he finds the shoe, is struck by its delicacy, and sets out to find the owner. The giantess queen lies that it's her own daughter's and secretly cuts her daughter's foot to make it fit, but of course a bird reveals the truth to the prince, and then he finds Mjadveig and falls in love with her. He forces the giantess stepsister to appear in her true form, then kills her and tricks her mother into eating her flesh. This causes the queen to reveal her own giantess form, and the prince kills her too.

**One of the three variants ends with Mjadveig's marriage, but in the other two, some time later, she meets her dead stepmother's sister, an equally wicked giantess. The new giantess magically takes Mjadveig's shape to replace her, and sends the real Mjadveig to her brother, a giant who imprisons her under the sea. But a herdsman and a dwarf ultimately rescue her and return her to her husband, and the giant and giantess are killed. (This is obviously similar to Gaelic versions like Fair, Brown, and Trembling.)

*The book also includes another Icelandic story, The Tale of How Three Damsels Went to Fetch Fire, though this is less of a Cinderella story and more of a "Kind and Unkind Girls" story combined with Beauty and the Beast. There are three sisters, and both of their parents spoil the older two but abuse the youngest. One day each sister in turn goes out to fetch fire, and each in turn comes to a cave where a hideous yet polite giant and his dog live. Of course the older two sisters behave badly, but the youngest is kind despite her fear. The giant turns out to be an enchanted prince whose spell the youngest girl breaks, and he marries her.

*There's also one story from the Faroe Islands, The Girl Who Got Meat and Clothes in the Mound. Again, this is really more of a "Kind and Unkind Girls" tale. An abused and starved stepdaughter finds an earthen mound containing a table with rich food, remembers to thank God in prayer before she eats, and later she finds elegant clothes inside the mound, which attract the attention of a prince, who marries her; but when her stepsister goes to the mound, she eats without praying, and gets nothing more.

*Now we move on to Denmark. There are many different Danish Cinderella stories, but most of them include similar motifs.

**Most Danish Cinderellas are abused by a stepmother and one or two stepsisters. But some give her two biological sisters who abuse her after their father's death. Still others have her run away from her stepfamily, or be left all alone in the world after her father dies, and become a servant at the prince's castle in the tradition of Donkeyskin/All-Kinds-of-Fur.

**Her magical helper is most often an animal – typically a dog, but sometimes a red calf, a cat, a dove, or in one version an eel in a pond. A few versions feature a dwarf, though, a few others have her mother rise from her grave to help her, one other has an old woman who gives her three linseeds that contain three beautiful dresses, and yet another has her her helped by a merman she meets when her sisters send her to catch a fish.

***The versions with the red calf are basically the same story as The Blue Bull from France – she and the calf run away together, the calf is killed but still grants her wishes in death, and the rest of the story is a Donkeyskin/All-Kinds-of-Fur variant.

**Sometimes she also receives finery and a coach from a tree, often a lime tree, which either her dog or her mother's spirit tells her will give them to her. Sometimes while the tree gives her the finery, the dog or other animal does her chores for her while she's gone.

**Some versions start out like Puss in Boots. The three sisters' father dies, and leaves all his property and money to the older two, but just a dog to the youngest. Then the two older sisters treat the youngest like a scullery maid, but the dog becomes her magical helper.

**The event she attends is nearly always church. Only two variants have a ball instead, and those two show obvious signs of being based on the Grimms' and Perrault's versions, not authentic folk versions.

**In many versions, when she goes to church, she chants "Light before! Darkness behind!" or some variation on it (sometimes with "Mist behind" instead). This ensures that no one who tries to follow her can see where she goes, either on the way or coming back.

**Almost all versions include the theme of the (step)sisters (or other ladies, in the Donkeyskin variants) cutting their feet to make the shoe fit, only for a bird to reveal the trick.

**In one version, after the prince has the church steps smeared with pitch and the heroine's shoe sticks, he also steals a ring from her finger just before she escapes. Thus all the ladies have to try on both the shoe and the ring: some can wear just the shoe, others just the ring, but none except the heroine fit both.

**Only three variants continue the story after the heroine's marriage, but none have her stepmother or sisters try to murder her. Instead it's her children who are endangered. In two, the magical helper – a dog in one, a strange man in the other – wants to take away her children as payment for his help, and the last part of the story becomes a version of Rumpelstiltskin. (Silly note: When I read these versions, I couldn't help but think of "Cinderumpelstiltskin" from The Stinky Cheese Man.) In the third, the stepmother throws each of the heroine's newborn babies into the pond. But the magical eel in the pond who helped her earlier brings them back – but only after he's been appeased with a gift of many bushels of salt, which she promised to give him earlier but then forgot.

Next country on the list: Sweden.

[uwmspeccoll]

Spooky Staff Pick of the Week: The Vampyre

Because Halloween is coming up, I decided to pick something spooky for my staff pick this week! I chose this first edition copy of the original modern vampire story, The Vampyre, by John Polidori (1795-1821). Although the binding is not original (there is a note on the front cover from the Harvard College Library that it was bound on July 12, 1904), it is indeed a first edition, published in 1819 by Sherwood, Neely, and Jones in Paternoster Row, London. 

It follows the story of Aubrey, a wealthy young English gentleman who becomes acquainted with the mysterious Lord Ruthven. They set out to travel together to Greece, where Aubrey meets the beautiful Ianthe, who warns him of the evil vampyre and tells him that if he does not believe the tale he will surely have some evidence of this evil creature befall him. During a storm, Aubrey encounters the vampyre in a hovel where Ianthe is found dead, with her throat opened. Afterward, Ruthven and Aubrey leave Greece and on their travels are ambushed by robbers and Ruthven is mortally wounded. Before he dies, Ruthven makes Aubrey swear that he will not speak of his death for a year and a day, then dies with an evil cackle. Can you guess who the vampire is? Hint: It ain’t Aubrey. 

Ruthven’s body disappears the following morning and Aubrey decides to return to England and his sister, who is oddly only called “Miss Aubrey.” Shortly thereafter, Miss Aubrey is introduced to society and who should appear but Lord Ruthven! Only now he goes by the name Earl of Marsden. He reminds Aubrey to keep his oath, and Aubrey subsequently has a nervous breakdown because he now knows for sure that Ruthven/Marsden is... THE VAMPYRE! 

While Aubrey is having his nervous breakdown for literally the next year, his sister is being seduced by none other than the “Earl of Marsden.” Aubrey snaps out of his misery only to find out that his sister is to be married to Marsden on the exact day his oath is to end. He writes a letter to his sister warning her of the danger she is in, and dies. The letter is never delivered, and Miss Aubrey is found dead on her wedding night with her throat ripped open and Marsden long gone into the night. 

The story was written after a fragment by Lord Byron—in which a man seemingly dies and then comes back to life—for the same scary story contest that prompted Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein. John Polidori, who was 21 at the time, was Lord Byron’s personal physician during some of his travels and joined Byron, Percy Shelley, Mary Godwin (not-yet-Shelley), and Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont at Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816. When The Vampyre was initially published in 1819 without Polidori’s permission, it was credited to Lord Byron, who denied having written it, and attributed it to Polidori. It is perhaps the case that Lord Byron was unhappy with Polidori’s portrayal of Ruthven, whose name was taken from the satirical novel Glenarvon by Lady Caroline Lamb in which Ruthven is based on Lord Byron, who was Lady Lamb’s ex-lover. Eventually Polidori’s authorship was established and his name added to subsequent editions. Polidori died of “natural causes” in 1821 at the age of 25 in a state of depression due to various things including large gambling debts. 

View more Staff Picks.

View more Halloween posts. 

-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

[zoology]

YAY I CAN POST. thinking about how florida is an evil state i remember we had to go for my stepsister’s taekwondo tournament a few years ago and i was sitting in that auditorium petting my cat (dead) (invisible). that whole trip i was convinced people were out to hurt me i’d never been that paranoid in my life. now i had been traveling to different states for about two weeks straight and i am a VERY bad traveler so a breakdown was inevitable i was actually hallucinating in the MET a few days prior in nyc. But i liked seeing the pigeons in New York and the lizards and Florida

[bestworstcase]

I'm now imagining the second half of Cinder's backstory - the meeting Cinder and presumably Summer portion of it. And trying to think which of the more family music osts/what shot parallels could be used to drive home that yeah Salem at some point just slotted Cinder in as a daughter in her heart if post that reveal to the audience.

Though in general I'm also thinking how Salem essentially emotionally adopting Cinder would be a good play on the idea of a fairy god mother role - Cinderella mistaking intentions even when they're turning to her favor because trauma and abuse, miscommunication because Salem is unfathomably ancient/"fairy", and sidesteps by Cinder already (lethally) leaving the step family the whole "leaving someone in an abusive situation is a terrible move"... Also a good want versus need lead in for Cinder.

one thing about the cinderella allusion is—while i do often say ‘fairy godmother’ for simplicity—my sense is that cinder’s story hews more to the grimm brothers version of the story wherein the magical benefactor is a white bird which comes to her aid when she visits a hazel tree planted over the grave of her mother. (ie, a reincarnation of her mother.)

rwby flags the relevant imagery in ‘until the end’ (“the tears that you shed will find a tree to water”)—which is ozma’s song, but salient to the cinderella narrative because cinderella’s father provides the hazel twig which cinderella plants and waters with her tears until it grows into a tree. specifically, cinderella’s mother dies in autumn, her father marries again in the spring and allows the stepmother and her daughters to abuse cinderella. at some point after her effective removal from the family is complete, the father goes to a fair and each of the three daughters requests a certain gift: beautiful dresses for one stepsister, jewels for the other, and cinderella asks for “the first twig that brushes against your hat on your way home.” the hazel twig knocks his hat off while he travels through a thicket. 

so… in rwby the cinderella narrative is nested into the ozlem conflict in a very particular way; the hazel tree over the grave of her mother grows from a symbol of her father’s complicit indifference to her abuse and is fed by the intensity of cinderella’s anguish. the point of cinderella asking for the twig that brushes your hat is not to illustrate any virtue in cinderella; she is not humble, she is not temperate, she is acutely and painfully aware that she is an inconvenience in her father’s eyes, an unwelcome reminder of the past he would like to ignore. 

slavery was abolished after the great war. ozpin raised atlas to serve as a shining example of his ideals. cinder grew up enslaved, surrounded by atlesians who politely ignored the obvious abuse happening in that hotel. as cinderella turns to the spirit of her dead mother for aid, cinder turns to salem. “throw gold and silver down to me” -> “you will have the power i promised you”—in this version of the story, cinderella knows she can seek help from her mother’s tree and asks for the specific things she needs every time, and the bird also intervenes to protect her from her stepfamily’s deception when the prince calls on the house. 

(conversely of course, the bird can only do so much to help her because it’s a bird; her mother is dead and cannot take care of her as she did in life. likewise, salem lacks the power to effect change by any means other than violence because she’s been cast out of civilization completely.)

it all clicks together pretty intuitively. although summer rose is an interesting player too in that where the madame, the sisters, and rhodes were straightforwardly iterations of the evil stepfamily + indifferent father i think summer is likely to be the ‘good’ stepmother in relation to the cinderella narrative; ruby and yang are the ‘evil’ stepsisters (in that ruby harmed cinder and cinder is effectively told not to retaliate) but summer rejected ozma’s cause to join salem’s instead and is by extension aligned with cinder against her own daughters, even if cinder doesn’t perceive it that way. so that will be an interesting thread to watch, i think. what happens if the stepmother also needed to escape?

that the central relic involved in this facet of the narrative is a crown is not coincidental, i think. the prince is cinderella’s liberation; the crown is the relic of choice. it tracks.

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review: Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

Rated PG-13 for violent content, bloody images, sexual material, language, sexual assault, teen drinking and drug content

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2024/02/review-lisa-frankenstein-2024.html>

Score: 3 out of 5

Lisa Frankenstein is a vibes movie. Despite having been heavily marketed on the fact that it was written by Diablo Cody, the writer of Jennifer's Body (who has said that the two films take place in the same universe), her screenplay is actually one of the film's weak links, falling apart in the third act as the plot starts to get weird and disjointed in a way that left me wondering just how many scenes got rewritten or left on the cutting room floor. No, it's the cast and director Zelda Williams (daughter of Robin) who put this movie over the top, crafting a film that feels like if a young Tim Burton directed Weird Science in the best possible way. (In the interview with Cody that the Alamo Drafthouse showed before the film, she cited both Weird Science and Edward Scissorhands as inspirations, alongside Bride of Frankenstein and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and I'm not surprised.) It's at its best as a pure comedy, one that sends up its nostalgic '80s setting to the point of farce and pushes the PG-13 rating as far as it can go. I'm not surprised that, much like Jennifer's Body did in its initial run, this movie failed to find its audience in theaters (though releasing it on Super Bowl weekend probably didn't help), but while I don't think it'll be treated as an outright classic in ten years' time, I do believe it'll follow a very similar trajectory of being rediscovered on home video and streaming.

Set in suburban Illinois in 1989, our protagonist is Lisa Swallows, a teenage girl who's been moody and morose ever since her mom was killed by an axe murderer two years ago, followed by her father Dale remarrying the obnoxious jackass Janet and thus gaining a stepsister in the cheerleader Taffy. She likes to hang out at the old cemetery, where, one night after going to a party where she accidentally takes hallucinogens and subsequently gets sexually harassed, she runs off and tells one of the men buried there that she wishes she was "with him" (i.e. dead). Something must've been miscommunicated, because that night, that grave is struck by lightning and its occupant rises from the dead, trying to find Lisa and be with her. Lisa is initially horrified, but soon realizes that, beneath this creature's rotten exterior, there's actually a romantic soul who longs to be human again. And after tragedy strikes, Lisa decides to find a way to make her new boyfriend's dream a reality... no matter who gets in her way.

The first two acts of this film felt like they were building to something very interesting. The thing about the best takes on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, not least of all the 1931 Universal classic, is that they recognize that the real "monster" is in fact Dr. Frankenstein himself, the creature's creator, and this film leans heavily in that direction with its depiction of Lisa. She eagerly starts killing people in order to build the perfect boyfriend, getting sucked into darkness as she's blinded by love, and Kathryn Newton completely steals the show playing her, starting the film as a dowdy, depressed dweeb but eventually developing a gothic fashion sense and, with it, a catty diva-like attitude while channeling a young Winona Ryder in both Beetlejuice and Heathers. There were many places that this film could've gone, most of them involving Lisa becoming a full-bore villain while Taffy suddenly finds herself in her stepsister's path, with the creature either serving as Lisa's partner in crime from start to finish or perhaps slowly gaining a sense of morality as he becomes more "human" and realizing that Lisa is evil. All the while, the Frankenstein metaphor becomes one about somebody who'd do anything for love, including that, and loses herself in the process. And at times, it seemed to be going in that direction, especially as Taffy grows increasingly traumatized over the course of the film.

Unfortunately, whether it was the PG-13 rating or a desire to make Lisa more sympathetic (and Taffy less so), the film won't commit to the bit. Lisa's characterization does a near-total 180 in the third act as the film asks us to side with her as, at the very least, a sympathetic anti-villain with good intentions. Lisa should've been the bad guy that the film was building her up as, no ifs, ands, or buts -- a sympathetic and compelling one like Jennifer Check, but still somebody who crossed the line miles ago and never looked back. It would've given Liza Soberano, who plays Taffy and will probably be the breakout star of this film, more to do instead of making her a supporting player in Lisa's story who plays only a minor role in the third act. Instead, it felt like I was watching a whole new character entirely that just so happened to share Lisa's name and face. I highly suspect that there's a lot of alternate material here, either in earlier drafts of the screenplay or deleted scenes, because the sudden tonal shift in the third act feels like a product of a completely different movie.

What saved this film in the end were the style and the humor. Much like Karyn Kusama on Jennifer's Body, Zelda Williams imbues this film with a ton of gothic flair, Lisa's outfits being just the start of it, inspired by Tim Burton and, by extension, the German expressionism that he in turn drew from. The bright pink suburban house that Lisa and her family live in is almost cartoonish, and draws a sharp contrast to the world around it. The moment we're introduced to Carla Gugino as Lisa's stepmother, a hilariously over-the-top parody of an '80s suburban mom who needlessly antagonizes Lisa every chance she gets, and Joe Chrest as her spectacularly inattentive father who looks the part of a wholesome suburban dad but otherwise can't be bothered to look up from his newspaper, we see exactly the kind of people who'd happily live in a house like that. There are multiple animated sequences that liven up the film throughout, most notably the prologue/opening credits showing us the creature's backstory in life. The soundtrack is filled with great retro '80s needle drops, especially once the creature regains the use of his hands and can play the piano again. Cole Sprouse as the creature had no dialogue barring grunts, moans, and screams, but he still made for a compelling presence on screen as the other half of the film's central romance, proving that seven years on Riverdale was a waste of a lot of young actors' talents. This was Williams' first feature film, and if this is indicative of her skill behind the camera, I can see her going far. And most importantly, this movie is hysterical. The entire theater was laughing throughout, and I was right there with them. There are jokes about everything from "back massagers" to the creature's physical decay, and more broadly, its campy gothic tone is played far more for laughs than frights, most notably in one death scene that would be the most brutal in the film on the face of it but is instead one of the most hilarious scenes in it as the film shows us just enough to let us know exactly what happened and wince while still remaining PG-13. Cody's grasp of storytelling may have been shaky here, but her knack for getting me to laugh my ass off remains fully intact.

The Bottom Line

Lisa Frankenstein should've had more care put into its screenplay, especially once act three comes around, but it's still a very funny and watchable movie that, much like Jennifer's Body, I can see enduring as a cult classic. If you're not into the Big Game, check it out.

[yurisorcerer]

This is a hell of a thing. I really liked it. I am going to spoil the entire first episode---which is a self-contained story, the series is an anthology---under the cut here. I would recommend the first episode strongly although not without a few caveats.

SO. This is a twist on the Cinderella story, wherein Cinderella is evil. Kind of. I have many scattered thoughts.

Ultimately it does seem to be the stepsisters' own greed that causes the situation, but I do think there's more going on here. It's hard to tell when specifically Kiyoko's malice becomes a factor as opposed to her just being vaguely unsettling.

The show mostly looks good but I do wish it looked just a little more so. In its best moments it really captures the sickly elegance and fake sumptuousness of a rich household, but it falters just often enough that it only works some of the time instead of all of the time. Notably, the characters look significantly better in profile than they do dead-on, which is mostly to the episode's benefit but occasionally saps a bit of impact out of closeups and such.

The fact that Kiyoko displays no *obvious* malice until the episode's halfway mark actually makes her more unsettling. I'm unsure of what to make of the living doll in her possession, especially since she looks like Charlotte from the frame story.

The translation of the various Japanese lordly titles as "Count" is weird but given that this is derived loosely from a European fairytale, it kind of works.

Kiyoko, of course, unexpectedly shows up at the ball outshining both her sisters.

When the stepsisters first arrive, Kiyoko's affection seems genuine, but over time her affection grows into a twisted thing where she thinks of her family members as playthings. Is this vengeance? Is this the entitlement of the upper class? Maybe a bit of both?

Oh the shot of her in a bloodied kimono but juxtaposed over her in the ballroom is lovely. As is her expression, visible for only a frame or two, of a sadistic grin when she's (correctly) accused of killing her stepmother. That the stepsisters are also acting is quite the twist, but makes sense with what we're presented beforehand, and leaves the tale on a suitably unsettling and disquieting state.

EDIT: Some further thoughts, actually, following a conversation with @anonus, I think it's interesting how the stepsisters' fate can be read if one is so inclined as the tendency of moneyed society to shut out anyone who tries to rise above their station. You can see this with how Kiyoko relies on the servants' trust despite throwing one of them under the bus in order to frame her sisters, and how she arranges events such that their "impure" tendencies from their upbringing, their poor etiquette and gaudy dress sense, are exposed and mocked.

Not that I think Kiyoko is necessarily unsympathetic either. It's a nuanced story.