#she’s a lot of things but I interpret her ultimately as the worst mother figure in the world

[shelobussy]

Ohmygod YES Susan Pevensie is awesome please talk to me about Susan i want to know everything you have to say

Literally THANK YOU for asking me this bc Susan Pevensie is a character I never get asked about and I have So Many Opinions.

I'm going to start by saying that Susan used to be my least favorite character in the series. This goes for the books and the movies. Some of it was for personal reasons--she reminds me of a couple of annoying ppl I know irl--but it was also bc I watched Prince Caspian which shoehorned her into a relationship with Caspian which I hated.

HOWEVER. I ended up rethinking this position after interacting with Susan fans and realizing that there are so many wonderful things to love about her!

(putting under the cut bc this got long)

Things Ash Loves About Susan Pevensie

Aight I'm not going to do a formal analysis yet on her, but instead rant about some of the unrelated things I adore about Susan Pevensie.

Susan the Archer

Look we all love archery here. I don't have anything more to say.

Okay, I actually do have more to say. I love the fact that Susan is a complete badass with the bow. You get the general impression that she's one of the royals in charge of public relations, traditions, foreign policy, etc. and yet she's the most competent archer in the series. One of the few things I liked about the movies is how they didn't downplay this. They actually let her be a badass and show off her skills.

Also the part where she kicks Trumpkin's ass was awesome.

Susan the Gentle

Susan being the most passive Pevensie was something I definitely underappreciated as a teenager. I think my non-ability to see past "I'm not like other girls" narrative and the combination of Susan being described as the most traditionally feminine woman in the Narnia series is what initially turned me off from her.

HOWEVER, now it's one of my favorite attributes! I love that Susan is a badass and the most beautiful woman in Narnia. She has hair down to her feet, every man and woman in the kingdom want to fuck her, and she's still a fucking badass who will not hesitate to kick your ass.

Susan the Sister

Most of my thoughts of Susan as an older sister mostly stem from my own personal headcanons, but she is an awesome sister to her siblings. She's Peter's voice of reason, Edmund's sass partner, and Lucy's big sister.

Susan the Mom-Friend

She is a literal mother-figure for Corin.

"[...] the most beautiful lady he had ever seen rose from her place and threw her arms round him and kissed him, saying: "Oh Corin, Corin, how could you? And thou and I such close friends ever since thy mother died. [...]"

-The Horse and His Boy, 33-34

Most everything I have to say about this ventures into headcanon territory, but I love the idea of Susan basically adopting Corin after his mom dies. The way she trusts Cor--who she thinks is Corin in this chapter--is really sweet and I wish we could've seen more of that relationship.

Susan the Flawed

Something I notice from the fandom is a lot of people who hate Susan tend to because of her flaws. On the other hand, most Susan stans like to wave away these flaws and blame C.S. Lewis for being misogynistic or Aslan for being a "cruel god" and ignore the fact that she is a deeply flawed person.

Susan gets something of a "reverse redemption arc" in The Chronicles of Narnia. This makes her not only a fascinating foil to Edmund--as both are analytical, logical people--but an interesting character by herself.

She starts out in TWW as very skeptical of Narnia and it's whole deal and also very condescending to Lucy throughout. She ultimately does admit that Lucy was right and does get on board with the whole prophecy at the same time Peter does, and ends the book being crowned "the Gentle Queen."

In The Horse and His Boy, she has a very interesting dynamic with Edmund and in even more interesting relationship with Rabadash. They don't even interact on-page with each other, but it's highly implied that she was interested in him when he was a guest in Narnia. His behavior obviously changed when she visited him in Tashbaan, but you have to wonder what their dynamic was like before for her to travel all the way to his home when relations between the countries were strained at best.

Prince Caspian is where the cracks start showing through. Susan has lived an entire life as an adult in Narnia, gets thrown back to England with her siblings, and is yet again in Narnia as a child. This book is what really emphasizes her one fatal flaw: convenience.

(Put a pin in that thought, I'll get back to it.)

Susan denies once again that Lucy saw something that the rest of them can't seen. She continues this narrative until every other sibling finally acknowledges Lucy in the right and only then does she apologize.

The last mention of Susan is in The Last Battle, where all of her flaws rise up against her in the worst way possible. I have a lot of controversial opinions on this that I'm going to address later, but I just want to say that Susan's reverse-redemption arc is something I actually like about her.

(There is also evidence that Susan does get a full redemption arc, just as Edmund and Eustace did, but C.S. Lewis was pretty much done with The Chronicles of Narnia at the point and instead encouraged fans to write their own version of how that went down.)

Okay, back to convenience being Susan's fatal flaw. So the one thing that comes up time and time again in the series is that Susan is very focused on material comforts. I believe it's implied that she's vain, and it's canonical that her own personal comfort spurs her to make decisions.

"[...] I really believed it was him — he, I mean — yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and — and — oh, I don't know [...]"

Prince Caspian, 81

Prince Caspian has the strongest examples of Susan doing this, but certainly there's evidence elsewhere. There are a lot of fans who are distressed by this, claiming that Aslan and the others are too hard on her and shouldn't judge.

Honestly, I like that she's written with this flaw. Not only is it very relatable--(my own personal comfort and convenience is something I highly prioritize too)--but it humanizes a character who otherwise is ridiculously op and basically the Helen of Troy of the series. It may sound like I'm using this as an excuse to rant, but I really wouldn't have her any other way.

Susan As Portrayed by Anna Popplewell

Movie!Susan is a fucking delight.

She's sarcastic and badass and awesome and I could spend hours heaping praise on Anna's acting and her portrayal of Susan, but I can already tell that this post is going to be long so, I'll just stop here.

(10/10 want to be stabbed by her tho.)

Personal Headcanons

Let's talk about my fanon thoughts. I have many.

Susan is Aro

There's canonical evidence for this! Susan is a character who is heavily pursued by suitors everywhere, and even lets herself be courted by many of them, but chooses not to settle down. Even when she gets back to England and is described as only having interest in parties and material things, boys aren't mentioned.

I like to think that in The Horse in His Boy Susan was interested in Rabadash at first because he was a brilliant conversationalist. Nothing she says about him implies romantic interest, before and after she realizes the truth of his intentions.

Susan and Edmund Were Best Friends

This might be my love for The Horse and His Boy showing itself, but I think Susan and Edmund were thrown into circumstances where they interacted the most with each other.

Edmund is the ruler in charge of politics. Susan is the ruler in charge of Cair Paravel's public image. I imagine they spent time as ambassadors to other countries and planning royal functions.

They're also the most level-headed and logical out of their siblings, so they probably found a lot in common.

Susan Fancast

I literally just said I loved Anna's potrayal of Susan's (and I love what they gave us of older Susan too in LWW!), but I read the books in 2008 and my parents didn't let me see the movies bc I was like...nine years old and they thought it would be too scary.

So I had to headcanon my own interpretations.

Queen Susan the Gentle:

For some reason Merlin wasn't too scary for me to watch and I fell in love with Katie McGrath in like. Two episodes so. (On an unrelated note, I also fancast Bradley James as Peter at the time.)

Anyway, fanon Susan is basically Morgana Pendragon pre-evil arc. Sassy as hell, hot as fuck, and can kick your ass.

Unpopular Opinions

Yeah, feel free to skip this part if having controversial fandom opinions is a deal breaker for you.

The Problem With Susan Isn't Actually A Problem

I'm about to start so much discourse in the Narnia fandom, but C.S. Lewis's choices with her in The Last Battle weren't misogynistic. Bear in mind, I'm not saying that all of his writing choices in the series were A++ or excusing away certain racist/sexiest bits, but it's honestly baffling to me that people are so up in arms over Susan's exclusion in the final book.

So the part that everyone loses their shit over is as follows:

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

The Last Battle, 83-84

There's a lot to unpack here and I first want to say that everyone's opinion on this part, no matter how different than mine, is valid. I'm going to be quoting some other ppl's opinions on here and by no means am I bashing them. I just want to address my feelings on the matter and the best way to do that is to cite the thoughts of ppl who have opposing ideas.

Here are some arguments on Tumblr I've heard regarding "The Problem of Susan":

"How about we talk about what might have happened if Narnia hadn't deserted Susan? [...] What if we didn't tell Susan she had to go grow up in her own world and then shame and punish her for doing just that? She was told to walk away and she went. She did not try to stay a child all her life, wishing for something she had been told she couldn't have again."

"Narnia is filled with metaphors (often not very subtle ones) that are supposed to teach us how to be, and the most glaring one for any young girl to absorb is that it's okay to be a girl like Lucy, unthreatening and cheerful and valiant and faithful, but to be a girl like Susan gets you punished - in fact, you aren't just punished, you're destroyed."

"why do we call it ‘the problem’ where’s the problem about a young woman dealing with her trauma and choosing her own path, actively making the choice to keep living and to stay and to carve a life out in England when her siblings couldn’t? what is the problem about susan forgetting to somehow cope with what she’s experienced? why is it ‘the problem of susan’ that she recontextualised her faith?"

And then there's JK Rowling who said this:

There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.

It's weird how I'm still finding new ways to hate JKR in the year 2021. Again, there is absolutely zero implication that Susan had sex when she came back to England. ZERO. Did she actually read the books? IDK. If someone shares this opinion pls reply with actual canonical evidence.

Back on topic, I'm a firm believer of death of the author and interpreting art via your own experiences. Which is why I'm also going to share my own interpretation by saying y'all are wrong.

Susan Pevensie was not abandoned by Narnia. She was not barred from Narnia because she is traditionally feminine or because she "owned her sexuality" (another opinion I didn't have time to condense down for this post) or because she recontextualized her faith or even because she deserved to be punished.

I also fail to see how Susan recontexualized her faith, as the entire point of it all is that she has none. Bringing this back to Susan's fatal flaw (personal convenience/material comforts), her prioritizing herself over her own faith is the reason she is "no longer a friend of Narnia." Not...whatever fanon y'all are imposing on her character.

Susan is not being punished for liking lipstick and looking pretty. Susan's not even being punished. Y'all read Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan and forgot it wasn't canon.

There are many reasons Susan is not in Aslan's Country (one of them being that she's not actually dead yet), but the main one has to do with this:

"[...] But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 215-216

Yeah, okay that's why Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia. The implication when the Pevensies are told that they can no longer enter Narnia is that they are to find Aslan in other places. Susan doesn't do this, instead choosing to focus her life on material things. It isn't the lipstick, it's that she only wants the lipstick.

Susan Had Sex In The Books

Oh and not in the context y'all are thinking. (Again, there are no implications that Susan was barred from Narnia for having sex or that she had sex when she came back to England.)

So there's actual canonical evidence that Susan and Rabadash had a sexual relationship. Sort of.

"What think you? We have been in this city fully three weeks. Have you yet settled in your mind whether you will marry this dark-faced lover of yours, this Prince Rabadash, or no?"

-The Horse and His Boy, 35

Edmund calls Rabadash her lover. Not her suitor. I don't know if the word had a different meaning in 1954, but it feels like C.S. Lewis is saying that they're fucking. I'm not really happy with the idea of Susan sleeping with an abuser, but really proud of her for Getting Some as a woman born in a time period where having premarital sex was a big no-no.

This also invalidates the weird opinion going on that Susan was barred from Narnia because she had sex.

Suspian Is The Worst

I haven't really talked about Movie!Susan much, but as long as we're talking unpopular opinions, it's worth noting that I hate Suspian. Some of it is the "Susan is Aro" headcanon screaming inside of me, but it's also the fact that it's written poorly, does nothing interesting for either character and generally comes across as awkward.

I feel like they were trying to make Prince Caspian sexy and relevant to teens. It came across as super heteronormative and unnecessary.

It also gets really really weird bc the next movie then gives Caspian and Edmund mad chemistry and we're all just like........ok.

Final Thoughts

Susan may not be my favorite character in the series, but she's grown on me over the years. I have many issues with fanon interpretations of her--which definately fueled some of my disdain for her initally--and I don't identify as a Susan Apologist.

I do however adore Susan and have many headcanons for her not mentioned here. I love reading fanfic, writing fanfic and meta, and generally having conversations about her and would love to talk more about it.

I welcome criticism (CONSTRUCTIVE) and conversation on all of my opinions and observations. Please drop into my inbox. <3

[lacrimaomnis]

BRF Reading, 20/7/2021 (Part 1 of 3)

Background: This is the one question that drives me to pick up the tarot and learn to read myself. Some of you might be reminded of three spreads @celticcrossanon did on Archie, and yes, this is partly inspired by those spreads. I asked this question again because the first time I tried to read about it, I got the feeling of my stomach churning and it was so bad I wanted to throw up, so I thought: there must be something. Am I scared to do this reading the entire time? Yes, I am very much scared because I'm afraid the cards will show me something I don't want to see. But as you can see, the curiosity killed the cat. I am that cat.

A fair warning though, this reading might veer into the conspiracy theory realm. Is it hard to believe? It is. Just because I read tarot doesn't mean I believe in conspiracies. I find it difficult to believe what I read because it challenges all the established facts that were particularly established by the existence of the birth certificate.

This is the first of three spreads.

As written, this is merely a speculation and therefore must be taken with a grain of salt. This speculation is not true until proven otherwise.

My question is, does Lili exist?

Cards drawn: Page of Pentacles, Queen of Pentacles, Page of Swords, Four of Wands, Five of Cups, Eight of Cups, Page of Cups Underlying energies: Nine of Wands, Queen of Cups

Summary: I have my "yes, I do exist!" card, which is the Page of Swords, but with it came another two Pages. This reading is confusing at best and is just nonsense straight out of the realm of conspiracy theory at worst.

First card: Page of Pentacles. As a birthday card, in my deck, this card is associated with birthdays between December 22 to December 28. Zodiac wise, Pentacles represent the earth signs: Taurus, Virgo, or Capricorn. If we are to believe the information given to us, Lili was born on 4th June, which means she is an air sign, particularly Gemini -- but this card as the first card drawn immediately made me doubt if she is indeed delivered on 4th June because this card suggests otherwise.

This card suggests to me that Lili is a Capricorn because this card is associated with birthdays between December 22 to 28, but that just does not make sense. If she was delivered on 4th June, and assuming all are normal (9 months pregnancy, nothing is out of the ordinary), then she should've been conceived at least 9 months before June, which should be around September last year. Barring anything that could go wrong, it is impossible to have her born in December, just 3 months after being conceived -- because if she was indeed born in December last year, she doesn't exist, the woman who carried her miscarried.

What is not impossible, however, if she is delivered later than 4th June. Here is where I veer into the realm of conspiracy theory. My understanding of how each person is assigned into a zodiac is rudimentary at best, so please do bear with me. If this card is to be believed, then Lili should have been born around December 22 to 28 this year. If again, we assume normal pregnancy for whoever carried her (9 months, no early delivery, yadda yadda), then she should've been conceived around March this year. This interpretation implies that Lili is still not here yet. Which is impossible, because we have her birth certificate.

Whichever theory you choose to believe, neither of them makes sense to me. Both are equally impossible. I ruminate a lot around this card because this is the card in the first position, and for me, anything than the Page of Swords in the first position indicates an answer other than "yes, she exists". I think I even remember the controversies around the supposed birth certificate, but the only thing I remember from it is that Harry was listed as HRH something something.

Second card: Queen of Pentacles. Who are you? What are you doing here? How do you relate to this reading? If you are not Meghan, then who are you?

Queens typically represents feminine energy, and Queen of Pentacles is the ultimate embodiment of a motherly figure. She is practical, secure, motherly, and wise. In my deck, she is illustrated as a woman wearing a crown and holding a rabbit inside her arms; a symbol of fertility and family.

I was just...who are you? You are a woman of the earth signs. You are not Meghan. Are you the surrogate people have been seeing in their cards and have been suspecting? Do you confirm to me (even when I don't ask) that Lili is born from your womb and not Meghan's? What do you want to tell me? Are you even a person? My gut says you represent someone, but who are you?

Third card: Page of Swords. This is the absolute "yes, I do exist!" card for Lili if she is indeed born on 4th June. Sadly, this card is not the first card of this spread -- that spot was filled with the Page of Pentacles. Page of Swords is the card of "words and ideas" rather than "feeling and intuition". She (the pages in my deck are all drawn as young women) is associated with messages and messengers and can also manifest as gossip, which made me think about the buzz around Lili's birth. There were a lot of hearsays and speculation before and after her birth, particularly because of the distasteful choice of the name her parents given her.

Now, in my reading, there are several Cups cards (Five, Eight, the Page). If this card comes up with several Cups cards, this card is particularly hard about honesty. This caused me to think: is there any dishonesty on Meghan's part from the announcement of pregnancy and until Lili is born?

Fourth card: Four of Wands. Again, this card seems to come up a lot lately. This card is closely associated with the elements of home and family. It is about a new life, new success, and prosperity. In this spread, this card is about the "immediate future".

Fifth card: Five of Cups. This is the pair for the Four of Wands. This is the card of grief, loss, and negative thinking. This card signifies difficulty and loss, and as it is the pair of the Four of Wands, could this signify that the loss was about a family member? An element of home?

The only thing I can think of is that the readings saying either whoever that carried Lili miscarried or something happened to Lili that involves a loss so difficult that Meghan mourned as if she lost Lili.

Sixth card: Eight of Cups. The card of walking away, leaving the situation, and leaving things behind. This card heralds change and transition, prompted by dissatisfaction, unhappiness, or because it is that time to take that leap of faith. This could mean turning away from a present situation even if you have invested a lot of money and energy into it, just because it is time to move on.

This card comes in pair with the Page of Swords. This may tell us that we will hear of new rumours surrounding this child to turn our attention away from the distasteful choice of her name (which is entirely her parents' fault, she is in no way responsible for something she didn't have the power to choose) -- that book by Harry? An alternative interpretation is that Lili is left behind, people walking away from her because she disappointed them, whatever the reason was. I really really hope this was not the case.

Seventh card: Page of Cups. This card is about creativity, new projects, and inspiration, but also about immaturity, escapism, and emotional troubles. This card comes as the pair of the Queen of Pentacles: if the Queen of Pentacles is the surrogate, could this mean that carrying Lili caused her turmoil and emotional troubles?

Underlying energy 1: Nine of Wands. This is the card of being wounded, to hold your ground, and of resilience. This card often indicates that the querent must hold their ground against all the challenges thrown their way. This card may also speak of a recent illness. Was Lili ill? Is she ill? Was whoever carried her suffered from illness?

Underlying energy 2: Queen of Cups. This is the card of virtue, fertility, creativity, success, and power, but also of an inability to connect emotionally, a lack of empathy, and stress -- and this is coming across as Meghan. She perhaps might be stressed, she might perhaps is in a disconnect with Lili? If looked at from the Queen of Pentacles angle, the Queen of Cups further emphasised that Meghan, represented by the Queen of Cups here, might not be fertile or healthy enough to carry Lili full term, which further reinforces the Queen of Pentacles represents the surrogate analysis. Combined with the Nine of Wands, I am inclined to say that either Meghan is in distress and might not be able to connect with Lili, who needed her mother the most at these moments, or that Meghan might not be healthy or fertile enough to have a baby and carry it full term.

Conclusion: This reading tells me absolutely nothing I want to hear, but rather it makes me question things that are already established (I'm looking at you, Page of Pentacles). Nothing makes sense. I got an answer to a question I didn't even ask (that Queen of Pentacles) if that counts as an answer. Just as I feared, the cards showed me something I did not want to see, because I don't see anything that tells me "yes, this baby exists, she is healthy, and she is loved by her parents".

[clare-with-no-i]

ok clare you are absolutely the queen of good discourse so i want to hear your thoughts on this, buckle in:

so a lot of old jily fics, from early 2010s that i've read (a concerning amount, i'd go as far as to say) portray james and lily with an incredibly unhealthy dynamic

where james is usually bad boy/player/asked lily out every single time he saw her for the first five years of schooling

don't even get me started on the last two tropes; literally what part of the text made people see james as a player? all we see is that he had a huge crush on one girl and later married that girl... so if anything he was the OPPOSITE of a player lmao. and the last trope is also really fucking annoying because what 11 year old boy would ask a girl out all the time?? 11 year old boys don't care about girls, they care about making fun of slughorn and finding out what their scarred roommate is hiding and pulling stupid pranks and taunting that slytherin weirdo and whatnot. take it from me my brother has been an 11-year-old boy.

ANYWAY. i've seen characterizations of lily vary a lot in older fics. nowadays they seem to be less problematic and more alike throughout different authors' writing, but back in the good ol' jily days lily was pretty varied.

i've seen her written as a 'self-righteous shrew' from the words of the characters themselves. she's usually really damn unlikable in these fics, and even if she IS likable neither she nor james seems like they would be good fits for each other. they're not 'complementary opposites' they're just plain opposites who have, like, 2 things in common in total. which just never made sense to me because they fell in love, did they not??

i've also seen her written as the paragon of morality and virtue, like a mother teresa figure as you said earlier. like, she's just treated as a near-mother to the marauders, and the sole reason james changed? which not only does james' character growth dirty, but also removes all her agency as a character and makes her a device to further along james' arc. which is basically what she already is in canon so ig the writers are just adding onto jkr's horrible treatment of lily & other women in hp

anyway! this is a behemoth of an ask! all of this is just to wonder what you think these interpretations of lily have in common. to me the one similarity between all of them is that lily seems to be a self insert for the author, and they're just projecting onto her a lot. but maybe there's something deeper going on ! what do you think?

AHHH this is great, sorry for getting to it so late bb.

so, @thequibblah mentioned a 'wish fulfillment' aspect of how we write Lily in her reblog of my discourse post, and I really agree with this - I think there is so much projection that goes on with Lily's characterization; even in the olden days when she was the heartless shrew.

when reading those fics, it always sort of struck me as a fleshing-out of the projected wish for someone (read: male protagonist) to pursue and desire the female character (read: you, the reader) even when they're acting their worst, when they're immature but well-meaning, when they don't have a grasp on their own feelings yet, but still maintain boundaries such that the ultimate decision rests with the female character. especially when then adding the 'bad-boy' element, which I've always believed (and I'm sure this has been articulated by people much smarter and more qualified than I) to be the projection of women's conditioned desire to have someone deem them important enough to change behavior for - that they're awful to everyone else, maybe, but this one specific woman holds enough value that just the possibility of her reciprocation of feelings is worth a change of heart.

isn't that just a base desire that women have been socialized into? that you can do nothing but exist, and even in your worst moments, someone will deem you so important that they better themselves just for your love?

the motherly role, I think, comes a little bit from how strongly the Marauders depict the 'found family' paradigm, and then with this, the question of how to infiltrate that as a woman and not face the rejection of the other boys as Lily tries to endear herself to James. or, like, that's one way - this one I haven't seen as much because I've been reading a lot more recent fic where it doesn't happen (thankfully), so I'm not as well-versed in it.

but I'd wager that it harkens back to that archetypal role she occupies: the only canon thing we know about Lily is that she was a mother who died for her child, so what safer option is there than to relegate her to a role of mother even before she has a child of her own? what can be truer to her character than the one thing JKR even deemed to mention about her?

it bears mentioning as well how deeply the HP canon (and early Fanon!) is entrenched in whiteness - and how it upholds social ideals of whiteness through characterization. one of these ways is through depicting Lily as innocent and pure - essentially, an ingenue. the white woman ingenue image is transhistorical and deeply harmful, but also extremely popular in so much early-aughts fic. Lily as the corruptible, beautiful female lead, James as the dark, roguish male lead who needs saving from his bad-boy tendencies. very...........tired.

as discourse around Lily grows and changes, along with the recognition of literary tropes into which JKR's characters fall, it's really heartening to see this stuff abandoned in favor of complex, fluid characterizations of Lily, but it's also something that's good to be aware of when writing and reading!

AGAIN: this is not a call-out post to Jily or Marauders writers - just noting some historic trends in how Lily is written!

[starry-sky-stuff]

Historical Sortings

I've done a lot of reading about royalty in the 19th century and I decided to have some fun and try my hand at sorting historical figures.

I wonder if you can tell who my favs and unfavs are from my sortings.

Cut for length.

British Royals:

Queen Victoria: Snake/Lion. An unhealthy Snake Primary who expected that level of unhealthy devotion from everyone around her. Probably burned a bit after Albert died. Also an unhealthy Lion Secondary who strong-armed, controlled, and domineered others, particularly her children.

I don't know too much about her husband, but I think Albert might've been an Idealist.

Edward VII, aka Bertie: Lion/Badger. His charm strikes me as more of a Badger than a Snake. He seems to me to be the ‘I know a person’ guy. Just the vibes I get. He also really liked routine and wasn’t a particularly good conversationalist, just genuinely interested in others. Not too sure about his primary, but I didn't get Loyalist vibes so I went with Lion.

Alexandra of Denmark {wife of Bertie}: Snake/Badger. She usually gets characterised as the long-suffering wife so it’s not surprising she’s the love interest sorting. She was loyal to her husband despite all his infidelities, and her interests were confined to her children and pets

Princess Alice {daughter of Queen Victoria}: Bird/Badger. Experienced a crisis of faith in middle age which I interpret as a Fallen Bird trying to reconfigure their system. Her dedication to helping others makes me think Badger Secondary. Also, she died after contracting diphtheria from giving her sick son comfort which seems like a very tragic Badger.

Prince Alfred {son of Queen Victoria}: Lion/Lion. He was wilful and abrasive, and had a no-nonsense attitude, so probably Lion Secondary. I can’t really get a read on his primary but maybe also a Lion. That would mean he and his wife houseshare, which might’ve contributed to the breakdown of the marriage.

Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna {wife of Alfred}: Lion/Lion. Very caustic and abrasive, I definitely wouldn’t want to be around her in real life but I admire her no-nonsense attitude and no tolerance for BS. Her marrying off her daughters young because she thought it was right makes me think Lion Primary.

Princess Beatrice {daughter of Queen Victoria}: Snake/Badger. She subjugated her entire life to fulfilling her mother’s needs and the only major conflict they had was over her wanting to get married (Snake on Snake loyalty conflict maybe). Very much a background character who worked behind the scenes, so Badger Secondary.

I don't know enough about Queen Victoria's other children to sort them.

George V: Badger/Badger. Dull, dutiful and dependable is how he tends to be described, which always makes my mind go to Badger (I swear, I love Badgers, they’re great but they’re not very flashy). Considering he refused to give sanctuary to his cousin Nicholas II because he was afraid he might threaten his own country and throne, I’m going with Badger Primary who put the good of his group over individual loyalty.

Mary of Teck {wife of George}: Badger/Badger. Duty and dignity defined her, so I think she was a Double Badger who was loyal to the institution of the British Monarchy and her family (above any individual member). Her and her husband houseshare, which might explain some of their parenting issues since neither could compensate for the other’s shortcomings.

Marie of Edinburgh, aka Missy {daughter of Alfred}: Snake/Snake. Charismatic and flamboyant, she started out as a young bride in a foreign country with no support and she ended her life as a beloved figure and the most popular member of the royal family. Part of this was her finding meaning in her life by working for the benefit of Romania, which makes me think she was a Snake whose loyalty came to include all of Romania. Also, she was disgusted with her son’s selfishness and his (initial) abdication of his rights.

Victoria Melita of Edinburgh, aka Ducky {daughter of Alfred}: Lion/Lion. Strong-willed, temperamental, and uncompromisingly honest, Ducky unabashedly followed her own course in life. She divorced her first husband despite family and social pressure, married her second husband despite protests from his family, and was no-one’s fool.

German Royals:

Victoria, Princess Royal, aka Vicky {daughter of Queen Victoria}: Lion/Lion. I read in her biography that someone was quoted as saying she was “always clever, never wise”, which I think just fits this sorting. You’ve really got to admire her steadfast belief in liberalism in the face of Prussian conservatism, but sometimes reading about her aggravates me because I’m like, can’t you chill for just a second. Like, stop doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.

Frederick III, aka Fritz {husband of Vicky}: Lion/Badger. He and Vicky were really united in their shared Lion Primary and belief in liberalism, from which they never wavered. His indecision and constantly subjugating his beliefs to family loyalty make me think he of an unhappy Badger Secondary loyal to a group that doesn’t value him.

Wilhelm II {son of Vicky & Fritz}: Lion/Lion. Considering his fraught relationship with his mother I find him and Vicky having the same sorting to be kinda funny. But he was such a Glory Hound Lion, a total egomaniac, bombastic, and a bully. A deeply unhealthy Double Lion.

Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein {wife of Wilhelm}: Badger/Badger. Definitely an unhealthy Badger Primary, she exalted anything that was German and was prejudiced against anything that wasn’t. Probably a Badger Secondary too, who dedicated herself to her husband, children, and throne.

Otto von Bismarck: Lion/Snake. Also a Glory Hound Lion judging by his visceral reaction to the implication anyone but him was responsible for German unification. The ultimate politician and opportunist, his Snake Secondary allowed him to stay in power for decades and outmanoeuvre pretty much everyone until the system he created failed him. The irony of that is hilarious to me (Bismarck’s a figure I find interesting but utterly despicable)

Russian Royals:

Nicholas I: Badger/Lion. I’m going with Badger just on his dehumanisation of ethnic minorities, liberals, and anyone who opposed him. And he was known as the Iron Tsar, so definitely a Lion Secondary who crushed any dissent both large and small. Very ironic that he’s the Protagonist sorting, since he was someone who really wanted to do what was right for his country, but what he believed was right was the worst and he's generally considered one of the worst tsars.

Alexandra Feodorovna {wife of Nicholas I}: Snake/Badger. Similar to Alexandra of Denmark, she was defined as being the perfect wife, loyal to her husband and overlooking his infidelities, with few interests outside of her family.

Alexander II {son of Nicholas I}: Lion/Snake. Definitely not a Loyalist based on the way he treated his wife. Loyalists can commit adultery too, but if he’s a loyalist than he’s not one who valued his wife or their children. And he definitely gives me immature Lion Primary vibes, doing what makes him happy to the detriment of others, his family, and his country. He was known for his charm and congeniality, but his way of dealing with his ministers was to play each of them off each other which makes me think Snake.

Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich {son of Nicholas I}: Lion/Lion. A total firebrand and idealist, he pursued his goals relentlessly and often tactlessly. Burned later in his life after his brother took a conservative bent and then Konstantin was basically removed from power after his brother’s death, so he retreated to life with his mistress and second family.

Alexander III {son of Alexander II}: Badger/Lion. Very similar to his grandfather, Nicholas I. Dutiful and hardworking, but also a lot of dehumanisation and running roughshod over others. Treated his family better than his father, and family was very important to him which could also be Snake.

Maria Feodorovna {wife of Alexander III}: Lion/Badger. She was vivacious and friendly and flourished in court life, which makes me think either Courtier Badger or Snake. I think Badger because she really understood the institutional power of the role of empress and was also really suspicious of anyone outside of the family. Nothing about her suggests Loyalist to me, but she was very firm in believing in the correctness of her own opinions. Her conflict with her daughter-in-law definitely makes sense when viewed through the lens of a Lion/Badger vs Lion/Lion

Nicholas II {son of Alexander III}: Badger/Badger. He garnered a reputation for duplicity because, since he hated conflict, he would agree with a minister during a meeting and then fire them via note the next day, so definitely not a Lion. Probably a Badger since he was obsessive over doing every single aspect of his job, including even sending letters and he refused a secretary. His attachment to autocracy derived at least partly from duty and he was very attached to his family, so maybe Badger Primary. He was also very close to his cousin George V and they houseshare.

Alexandra Feodorovna {wife of Nicholas II}: Lion/Lion. A deeply unhealthy Lion, she was obstinate, imperious, and completely inflexible. Wholeheartedly believed that she was entirely correct in her opinions, often based on little evidence, and objectivity was completely beyond her.

[mc-critical]

What do you think about the relationship between SS and his father? In all the times it is mentioned, it seems that he still fears him and holds a grudge for trying to kill him, but what happens after Mustafa's execution, it is not clear to me if in his mind he made peace with him

The relationship between Süleiman and Yavuz Selim was clearly very turbulent from the start. When Selim was mentioned and appeared on the horizon, he indeed was always portrayed as this ruthless and even equally paranoid guy who would do anything to keep his power. And this paranoia of his kept on even when SS was the only heir left. We don't know much of his canon characterization outside of what people that knew him have said about him and a few flashbacks, but I do headcanon that he went on campaigns a whole lot and that he cared about the state, his own state much more than any other personal attachments he could've had. That's why he may not have gotten that close to his only son, too (SS spending most of his time in a sanjack could've also contributed to this) and since similarly to SS, his paranoia and self-righteousness hardened him to the point where there was no turning back anymore and that more or less became who you are, you look at yourself as a figure of a ruthless padişah, not so much as a human being, Selim would be capable of the most drastic measures against whoever he felt betray him in some way. It's no wonder Hafsa kept SS as far away from his suspicion as possible, because Selim is characterized by everyone by being ruthless and cruel and that means he can be pretty unpredictable, as well, judging by the situation with the kaftan. He is a guy that his family - his wife (in the show apparently), his daughters and his only son! - is afraid of.

Given the circumstances, it's pretty explainable to me why SS is afraid of him, as well, and is probably the one who is the most afraid of him deep down, but wouldn't admit it so openly, of course, only in self reflection. SS has apparently grown distant to his own father and perhaps they haven't even met so much. The flashback in E55 gave us a glimpse of how their relationship could've been - a pretty familiar sword fight and words about innocence that establish that Selim has also seen the danger in SS from pretty early on. It's as if SS has always been a suspect from day one. However, outside of that flashback, SS defines Selim by two major deeds - the whole ordeal with Selim's own father and the poisoned kaftan. Since again, SS spent most of his time in a sanjack and he didn't have the chance (Hafsa could've talked him out of it) or simply didn't want to let out his anger on his father for this event, deep resentment would overtake SS more and more throughout the years, because it's a vivid, impactful image and a strong, negative emotion one wouldn't forget so easily when your own father is the one who wants your death. This precise event is the one most telling of Selim's cruelty and ruthlessness in the show and that's what SS associates him with - cruelty and ruthlessness. But there the fear comes in, most of all, because of the similar position: one day SS would have to go in his footsteps, one day he would have to take on his role. SS is also a padişah and what if he also becomes like Selim? What if he also sends a poisoned kaftan to his son? (he asked Allah not to let him do that in one episode) What if he becomes as cruel, what if his reign also turns into a bloodshed? This fear of his is so strong and deep-seated that the further SS goes on with his growing Ego and paranoia, the more this fear ends up overtaking him and makes what he has still strived to avoid become part of him he lives by and a mold he would always follow, for he is the padişah and he, just like his father, wouldn't stand betrayal or what he perceives as betrayal, because he has become so used to living with this fear that amplified his Ego and paranoia even more that he writes off his deeds as absolutely necessary when he only screwed up big time.

This fear has turned into SS's ultimate justification, for Yavuz Selim was presented as his Azraeel two episodes before he did one of the wrongest deeds in his life. Here's the place for me to say that SS would have only benefited more as a character and gained much more sympathy from me, if precisely his backstory with his father was more explored beyond what we got. What we got was too scarse to justify his (let's face it) mostly out-of-context event-based paranoia to the point it became like this is used as SS's own justification without him truly realizing it, not a justification the audience got, because the show didn't want to justify neither Ibrahim's (maybe aside from E82 itself), nor Mustafa's execution. We could see the factors, yes, but justify the executions? No, especially when they both were presented as wrong when it came to the state itself through the tragic themes. And that's the thing: SS eventually put his Ego of a padişah and warped beliefs of what has to be done over his own early established principles and the state itself. That's also why SS's motivation rings hollow due to this minimal information and I think that SS not only became like his father, he even exceeded him. The stability of the state still played a part in the only other established event of Yavuz Selim SS eventually leaned on in E97 and shown with an actual flashback in E122 and his intentions didn't seem to have changed, since he was praised for his ruling and conquests. No matter how ruthless he was, we're led to believe he still was a decent ruler. That changes with SS. He begins putting Selim's way of thinking and courses of action in his own ways of thinking and ends up twisting them even further, if only for the deeper exploration and character arc we got with him.

Süleiman gives in to Selim's ways of thinking pretty early actually: he's used to being suspected and he quickly becomes accustomed to his own role to the point his decisions could hurt his family and could be pretty similar to his own father's. The paranoia of betrayal and dethroning appeared much faster than even he could imagine, since once he saw Mustafa grow up more and more, yes, he had very mixed feelings when he saw him again in E46 and he showed pride in him then still, but he also saw the danger more and more and recited the exact same words his father had once said to him himself. It's no wonder that E55's flashback and the aforementioned scene were parallels to each other: it's like Selim had said these words to SS in a fairly early stage of their relationship and here the cycle repeats with Mustafa and the signs of SS becoming like Selim, something he would never principally want to, are already there, not to mention Hafsa's warnings even before that. (because I wouldn't be surprised if she knew Selim better than SS did - she has spent quite some time with him as his wife and she was the one who immediately sensed danger in the kaftan situation, yes, a mother's survival instinct plays here, too, but Hafsa isn't a person who would be suspicious without any reason whatsoever, even at her worst) By then and by E123, SS had already shown the ruthlessness Selim demonstrated and the more we went, the more SS fell into despair for all his actions, the worse he ended up being, ceasing to realize the effects of what he has done. (like his intervention or lack thereof in the culmination of Selim and Bayezid's conflict) For SS it's way beyond a matter of self-righteousness, but a matter of conscience he had stopped listening to, a conscience he previously said that would define his reign. That fear of his father made him go in lengths he wouldn't imagine him going and for all the perceived attempts to avoid it throughout the show (like him not sending a poisoned kaftan to Mustafa and telling him that he wouldn't ever dare such execution), he ended up caving to them more and more and taking his own spin on Selim's mindset. SS took his role as a padişah much more dearly and that allowed him to delve deeper into his paranoia, into what he has to do for the sake of solely continuing to rule. Perhaps that survival instinct present during Selim's reign never left and evolved into something else. (we don't know the full extent of Selim's cruelty, which is honestly merely covered in hints, but we do know the full extent of SS's, which gives us even more of a possibility for SS to have "evolved" past it.)

Did Süleiman make peace with his father? It never became clear in the show, but I doubt that happened, at least not before he died. It's the fear of becoming Selim Yavuz that ruined SS's whole life in one way or another and his conscience always spoke to him left and right, no matter how willing he was to listen or not. I see SS becoming even more resentful of his father's ways when he committed his worst crimes. And even in his last days, he was more adamant to prove to people that he himself was still a capable ruler by going to a campaign, risking his own life and health for the sake of proving a point than thinking about how far has he come when it came to what he did as a padişah and how did that tie into the ways of his father. He certainly became more accepting of his mold over the years, but not in the way that would make peace with him, but rather as something that has to be done for the sake of your role. Until he died, SS probably still heavily disliked his father as a person and the best he could do at that point is not think about him. He would never justify or make peace with Selim Yavuz's deeds, not even in front of himself, despite of him doing the exact same. Süleiman makes a distinction between his thinking and that of his father, despite of even his own self telling him otherwise deep down. He wants to make that distinction, so why would there be a reason for SS to make peace with him back then? There would be no reason in his eyes.

Now, when he died, it's up for interpretation. Maybe he could've made peace with his father or at least convinced himself of that in his afterlife, since in his last monologue he did say that he takes only love and friendship with him and that would mean no negative feeling left, right? But the monologue itself is very up for interpretation, too, because.. what does that mean? How did this sudden turnaround happen? Did SS realize what he had done was wrong? Was he ready to accept that? Was he truly ready to get out of his role he has been used to since forever and live another life that consisted of only love and friendship? Then what about the imagery of this scene that showed him going to another throne instead after all? Yes, maybe the love and friendship were the true throne he went to with the Sultanate coming to an end, but couldn't that be more him only fully coming to terms that he'll come back to where he came from, where every person on the earth came from (that is, the ground)? Because he could start over anyway, but still not forget what happened in his life, paralleled with his first monologue ever in the first episode, where he said that he doesn't forget? There is so much to speculate here.

[igobythenameheisenger]

The Platform, personal film review Skip or Stream? Stream!! 8.5/10 This film’s premiere on Netflix perfectly coincides with the time it’s more relevant— these months going on with the pandemic. Prescript— It’s not some film you can watch with snacks on. At least I lost my appetite. The Platform is a sci-fi/thriller concept/metaphor film (like parasite but as open as Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! when it comes to story telling, it goes beyond imagination to get the message across). Only this time, it’s satirized. It’s about the separation of classes, the rampant inequality of our modern life. Through its metaphors, the film introduces the floors as people’s classes. A tray of food is provided for all but it comes from the top, all the way down where of course, the masses at the late bottom of the building has no more food left because people on the upper floors consumed every bit of it. What they’re only left with is each other and hunger, which ultimately leads to violence. What’s interesting here is how the film tells us that there is more than enough food (say money, land, rights) to go around down to the lower floors, but overconsumption easily rules people when they know everything has a deadline (monthly switching of random floors). The pace was not as speedy as Uncut Gems but it took all the time it needed to get the feelings right in your skin. I just panted a bit on the change of mood it brought me though— humor, disgust, terror, relief (sometimes?), and back to terror, and most especially, hopelessness. The finale was left open. Even when it was conclusive that they somehow succeeded— it didn’t really show what actually happened. I think ultimately because in reality, we aren’t there yet. They didn’t show how because there was nothing to show. But what I got about the child being the message was because, people (even the admins) didn’t believe there could possibly be a 16 y.o. below anywhere in the platform - esp someone that was alive and well-fed in the bottom most floor. That it was even possible for that kid to be alive (and innocent and uncorrupt) amidst all the chaos and everybody believing they need violence to survive. And what they did with the child wasn’t shown in the ending, because that’s what we’re supposed to really solve. The film embodies the current class differences and if there was a solution to this, we would’ve figured it out already. But there’s not (hence not shown). And up to date, we’re still jammed (with the pandemic coming into picture, the hoarding, the VIP testings— this is apropos now more than ever). The ending was put there not for us to understand or interpret, but so WE could actually think of a solution, so we could search for that little girl in this cruel society, and only then we would be able to satisfy the closing of the film. It wasn’t a closing with meaning, it was blank “how” we needed to answer ourselves.
Deep diving to the story— you can skip this if you’re not in for SPOILERS. The protagonist, Goreng volunteered to be imprisoned inside a vertical tower with 333 floors (it’s not easy to imagine since it’s architecturally impossible in the real world), where the only source of food is coming from a platform— some sort of block of cement coming from floor 0 down to floor 333 (funny how x2 per pax is 666). The platform is packed with delicious cuisine (which were specifically favorites of the people who came/brought in as prisoners— yes, I said came in because there were actually volunteers that wanted in so they could get something in return, like a diploma). Once a day it lowers through the layers of the tower allowing the inmates of each floor (2 pax each level) to get their fill. You get the point— those at the top get to stuff their cheeks with as much food as they can, and those at the bottom left with shattered glasses and empty bowls and plates. But the interesting thing here is, every month, the inmates are drugged and taken to a new floor, randomly picked. First month you could be starving at the bottom, and the next month— who knows, you could be the ones stepping on freshly baked cakes— worst is if you belong to 100+ floors down, where there’s absolutely no food left. So with each floor having 2 inmates and nothing to eat, what do we make of that? It’s a complete transparency of the current situation (I’d say in our country but it’s all over the world ESP today)— those at the top has nothing to worry about, while the bottom tenants eat each other alive. And the fact that everything has a deadline forcing each individual to take as much as they can, while it’s there. Sounds familiar? (Toilet paper, masks, alcohol, ring any bells?) Eventually, Goreng, being an idealist, wanted to destroy the way the system works by giving everyone only the part of the food they need. It was revealed by one of his floormates that the food was actually enough for all floors even when it doesn’t seem like it. And that’s only because people at the top couldn’t stop their greed about consuming so much more than they need, leaving people below starving and violent. Baharat, his floormate is also an idealist and wanted to climb to top most floor by asking the tenants above them to grab his rope. It gets complicated when they even started asking him a lot of things including who his God is (religion conflicts) and said they’d help him and instead, shits on his face when he tries to climb. Realizing they don’t have a chance at the people above, Goreng and Baharat decided they could work together into Goreng’s original goal, feeding everyone fairly by getting into the platform (with very good intentions) as it descends each floor. They were also planning to go up with it to send a message, like a rebellion as it ascends every after it reaches all the floors. This starts off okay but ultimately becomes gore when they start to see floors where people have already engaged in murder and cannibalism for survival’s sake. This stains their innocence and leads them to kill other tenants off for survival as well. There’s this one character— mother, who was seemingly looking for her lost boy by going down the platform every once in a while, but dies in the latter part of the film. The child however, who turns out to be a girl btw, meets Goreng in the end, at the 333rd floor. It’s unclear how and why the child is down there esp when one of the tenants specifically said they weren’t letting 16 years old and under in the facility. It seems that the mother’s repeated descent on the platform wasn’t an attempt to find her child, but to ensure the food reached the bottom floor to feed and protect her child by keeping her there. When they realized she was the one they should send up as a clear message (not sure about this but I think is— she’s the message that there doesn’t have to be violence? Because she was pure? Unharmed, innocent, and even healthy, despite being at the last floor. And something that nobody believes is possible— both the fact that there’s a child in a facility and that her being there without violence to survive, that’s why she was the right message?) like in real life? She was the symbol that we don’t all have to be like this to each other to survive, I wasn’t sure if they were talking about hope but I think (and hope) so? And it was also then I realized, it’s on us to understand and figure out how to get her? How to get “the message” across and change the system? Hence, why it was open ended and what happened wasn’t shown at the end, because there was no really knowing what happened to something that isn’t happening yet— irl. It was the shoe’s way of shoeing its audience that hey, this is possible if only we all cooperate. There doesn’t have to be violence and dead bodies, if we learn to give we can beat the system. And not showing how the system took her in the end is a hint that we haven’t gotten there yet, and that’s for us to figure out. Also my take on the mother was pretty much how I see it in Mother! movie— she was really mother earth preserving hope. And with people’s greed and selfishness, she was eventually murdered brutally. And in our case, she is being treated that way now, sadly. We’re all almost like Goreng, who finds out how the system works and tries to fight it but is being hopelessly corrupted in the process. Those at the top never even consider giving up excesses and just know how to take and take as much, and the bottom masses are too busy surviving to even consider reason— no matter what that meant. If this isn’t the greatest interpretation of how the world works, I don’t know what is.

[margridarnauds]

Your "Grace O'Malley" tag is extremely gratifying--it's so nice to see actual scholarship. So with that in mind: Have you read Morgan Llwelyn's novel, and if so, what do you have to say on it?

Hi! Thank you so much! I’m glad you like it; it can feel a little bit like I’m shouting into the wind, given that Gráinne is one of my more niche focuses. I still kind of want to do something that actually looks at the EVIDENCE, but I digress.

Morgan Llewelyn….I have mixed feelings about. I last really looked into this book when I was toying with doing my undergrad Capstone Thesis on Donal O’Flaherty, about….4 years ago, now. Time really does fly. So, I forced myself into a refresher, just to remind myself what I missed. 

[warning for references to rape, incest, and some of the most Cursed™ lines I’ve ever been forced to read in my life, and that’s including the zombie blowjob scene.]

Final Verdict: 2.5/5 - DEFINITELY not the worst retelling of Gráinne’s life (I’ve seen....Things), but also not the best, either, and with some very, very glaring flaws that make it impossible for me to really enjoy. 

My main take away from it is that…as far as its depiction of Gráinne, it did about as well as its source material. I can tell, looking at it and reading it, that she really looked hard at Anne Chambers’ book. Which is unfortunate because, as I’ve made……………relatively clear over the years, I think that it’s very, deeply flawed. And, unfortunately, Llewlyn stuck rather close to the book, leaving in things like Donal’s “murder" of Walter Fada Burke (if the patronymic don’t fit, you’ve got to acquit), Sexist™ Incompetent™ Donal™, and…..Hugh de Lacy, which, in my personal opinion, owe more to Chambers lack of critical reading of her own sources than they do to the historical record. ESPECIALLY Hugh de Lacy because…the name. Very odd that one of the major Anglo-Norman officials should share a name with Gráinne Ní Mháille’s boytoy. Very odd. Especially given that the pattern of “Love interest of Gráinne’s killed off/Gráinne seeks revenge” is VERY similar to what we hear of the Defense of Hen’s Castle. Almost as if they come from the same story.

This also leads us to the scene where Donal tries to rape Gráinne in her sleep which, honestly, I loathe with every fibre of my being. Nope, nope. Hate it. Hate. It. Oh, God, I forgot about the references to Donal!Incest. Why is this a mini-genre of Gráinne Ní Mháille historical fiction. Why. I can think of at least…..2-3 books that do this. Why God. Why. 

Lest anyone think that this is the Donal fangirl in me jumping out, in general, I feel like Llewelyn’s treatment of most of the characters is ultimately paper-thin. Richard Burke is also given this treatment and, while I wouldn’t REALLY expect a sympathetic Richard Bingham (nor would I particularly want one - I’ve spent a lot of quality time reading his complaints and cackling), even HE’S done a disservice. 

On a technical level, I don’t REALLY like how she handles the timeline, it jumps around a little too much for my taste. We’re treated to constant flashbacks with little warning, including ones that could have been just as easily folded into the timeline proper. And, while Llewelyn has a rich, descriptive style, she also writes an, honestly, impressive number of lines that will haunt me for all the wrong reasons. I’ve detailed a lot of them under the readmore, but some highlights: 

She had gazed in wonder at the child—his perfect ears and fingers, the miniature penis that would eventually become a mighty rod for transmitting further life.” This is, I’m sure, what every mother thinks when she sees her newborn son’s penis for the first time. Why. Why God. Why. Why. Why.

Okay, another candidate for Cursed Lines: "Richard noted the high color in her cheeks, and saw how her nipples stood out strongly under the soft fabric of her gown.” If this were a male author, I would be-Nah, it’s still bad. It’s just bad writing, I’m sorry. In general, I found that she massively sexed up Gráinne’s life, for no real reason that I can tell except for that it felt almost like she felt like it was necessary to prove that Gráinne was a Real Woman™? There’s a very....odd way that her sex life is treated, and it grates on me. We have to deal with Donal, Richard, Huw(uwu), Philip Sydney, and Tigernan, all in the course of one book and, honestly, I don’t really CARE about Gráinne’s sexcapades, and they’re generally written with so little development or feeling, even and especially in the case of her GREAT LOVE HUW, that I found myself actively groaning. My take on Gráinne, at least the Gráinne that I know in the sources, is almost asexual. I don’t deny that she had sex. She obviously did. (FOUR CHILDREN.) And I think that she might very well have enjoyed it. (Not that there’s enough evidence to KNOW.) But I also think that she was a profoundly pragmatic woman who didn’t fixate on it that much. Again, I could be wrong! When we have as little as we have to go on as we do with her, it’s impossible to know! But I just do not see her as jumping into bed with guys that often, especially not in cases where there was no clear benefit. There’s this...trend, where Gráinne HAS to have a love interest, in every major adaptation of her life, because it’s almost like people are afraid to have her without the anchor of sex and romance. (For what it’s worth - I do think, simply because of the amount of time that they spent together + the fact that they did have at least three children with one another, that Donal was probably her favorite of her two spouses. I don’t KNOW this, because I can’t. The evidence isn’t there. I don’t know whether they loved one another, whether it was a great romance, whether the sex was good, or even if it was just a mild affection, but I do lean towards him, even if I can’t say that he was the Great Love of Her Life™. I think they complimented one another’s lifestyles quite nicely, and that’s all that I can really give.) 

Llewelyn also has a very, very obvious bias against Catholicism that ultimately makes me wonder whether she ever meant to engage with 16th century Ireland on its own terms. As an atheist in Celtic Studies....look, I can GET having many, many mixed feelings about Catholicism, but it WAS the religion of the land at the time. If you want to have ANY understanding of the people and what was going through their minds, you have to try to engage with them on their own terms. I’m not in any hurry to convert to Catholicism, but I do try to consider life through the eyes of medieval and early modern Catholics when I’m analyzing sources made in that time. And trying to separate it off from the Good Pagan Times, to the point of creating a 16th century druid woman to voice your opinions on free love/organized religion/etc. is just going to get you into disaster. (Though Evleen did give us one female character who is a friend to Gráinne, so...victory?) Bonus, by the way, for the Evil Priest who schemes against Gráinne and is fucking boys on the side. (It seems like they’re of age, at least?) We’re told that he has reasons for what he does, but it comes as a bit of a last minute attempt at creating the illusion of a three dimensional character. I feel like Llewelyn, ultimately, should have stuck to Pre-Patristic times. I shudder at what she would do with, say, the Mythological Cycle, I don’t particularly want her touching my baby (if she touched Bres in particular, I would probably cry) because, at this point, I don’t trust her with ANY medieval materials (mainly because they’ve all been CONTAMINATED by CATHOLIC HANDS, oh NO), but I feel like it’s where her heart truly is. 

IF she’d stuck with pre-Patristic sources, we wouldn’t have to deal with 16th century characters thinking things like: " He would go in the style of his warrior ancestors, fearless in the face of death; the ancient, pagan Gaels had known death was only a brief incident in the ongoing flow of life, a transitory happening of little importance.” Admittedly, Llewelyn herself SEEMS to realize this, as she has him cross himself afterwards, but I really, really don’t think it would be the sort of thing to cross a man’s mind in the Early Modern Period. There was very little evidence for reincarnation that was that explicit (One of the papers that I did was on the existence of reincarnation in Pre-Christian Ireland, so I actually CAN speak on this one with some degree of confidence - My ultimate findings were that it probably did exist in some form, but the evidence makes it hard at times to draw definite conclusions), and I’m not sold that they would…understand it as reincarnation, as SUCH. We can look at what, say, Julius Caesar wrote about the druids’ beliefs and apply them to medieval Irish texts, but a man living in 16th century Ireland wouldn’t necessarily have the same luxury, especially since relatively few figures are given reincarnation narratives. It’s like…she’s applying the Mythological Cycle, but she momentarily forgets that these characters wouldn’t have VIEWED the Mythological Cycle like we would have, and it’s rather jarring. No one else might pick up on that, because this is my field. This is the ONE THING I can be pedantic on.

Now! There are some things I actually do like! Outside of Chambers’ questionable grasp of historical interpretation and the resulting taint, I can tell that Llewlyn did have a solid grasp of the FEEL of Early Modern Ireland. As I noted above, she’s a very fine author, the kind I honestly ENVY as a historical fiction writer, the type that is so confident and descriptive that, even when she’s wrong, which is often, I find myself reaching for the sources just to make sure. Her descriptions are vivid and visceral, pulling me immediately into the FEEL of Ireland in the 16th century, a way of life on the verge of collapse. 

When she isn’t being descriptive in all the wrong ways as detailed above. I do feel, for whatever it’s worth, that as someone with the background in this material that I have, I was kind of doomed from the get-go. I THINK that for someone who isn’t a Celticist (in training), it would be much, much more enjoyable, BECAUSE she is so confident in her style and her way of evoking the mood that it wouldn’t really stick out. I happen to be both blessed and cursed in that regard. 

 It’s clear, as well, that she has a grasp on the literature of the time - References to the things like the first Gaels coming from Spain make my heart SING with joy because it’s a very clear allusion to Lebor Gabála Érenn and the Mythological Cycle, which is my specialty, and there are plenty of times that I can tell you EXACTLY what sources she had to hand while she was typing on a section. It’s just a pity to me that she seems to try so hard to toss it all away in order to bifurcate Early Modern Irish society into Pagan VS Catholic, since she fundamentally did betray her own sources there. And, unfortunately, the way she tends to show her research is about as subtle as a blunt nail, in a very “As you know” manner: See:  “I have heard the brehons chanting the laws governing fosterage, describing every article of clothing that must be furnished a child and every detail of the training the child is to be given.” Like, yes, the law texts record this, but I can’t really see someone from the 16th century SAYING it that bluntly, you know? Also, I’m not really sold that they would be chanting it out loud as a ritual thing, rather that a lot of the law tracts are in a simple Question/Answer format because it would have, presumably, made it simpler for the Brehons THEMSELVES to remember that way.

I do like that Llewlyn’s Gráinne…she’s attractive, yes, but she’s not conventionally attractive, and she’s explicitly said to be big and tall as a man. I feel like a lot of pop cultural depictions of Gráinne want to make her dainty and beautiful, despite living in an incredibly harsh, stressful environment. I think that her outfit’s a little too much “Modern pirate”-y for my taste, but I’ll allow it because, tbh, it looks really, really badass and, whatever clothing Gráinne would have worn, we probably wouldn’t have really recognized it as “Pirate-like”, since our vision of pirates in the modern day is mainly an early 18th century one. I do appreciate that Gráinne has that hard, pragmatic edge that I respect in the Gráinne that we read about in the State Papers and in Bingham’s recollections - a very matter of fact, no nonsense woman who would do whatever it took to survive. Though I do think that she probably didn’t really spend that much time thinking about Elizabeth. It seems slightly unrealistic to me that, knowing how pragmatic Gráinne was, that she would really, really concern herself that much with Elizabeth, especially when she would have had powerful women like Iníon Dubh closer to home. There are some really nice, poignant moments as well that the hard edge masks, like the moment where she asks after a piece of hair that sent on to her son Owen. When Gráinne is in her natural element, having fun on the open sea, taking vengeance, and getting to be angry and proud and fierce, as well as the moments where she shows a softer side....those are the moments that make it for me. But then we’re back to the sex and romance, to the point where the book is literally divided by which man she’s screwing at the time. 

Also, despite wanting to LOATHE Tigernan, as an OC love interest of Gráinne’s, I did find myself warming to him, as he has a nice, laid-back dynamic with Gráinne built on trust and filled with plenty of banter. Next to her, he is probably the single best developed character in the book, though, unfortunately, he does get it through a ton of space devoted to his thoughts, his pining for Gráinne, and his intense jealousy for the many times she chooses someone else over him (mainly because he never tells her he loves her and then he feels like she owes him for what he does for her - yes, there are some Nice Guy tendencies here, but, honestly, after about the second or third time this happened, I was very pro-Tigernan running away and finding a better gig for himself.) No, besides being Catholic and lower class, we don’t really have that MUCH on him outside of being Gráinne’s first mate, but, honestly....that’s still more characterization than the others get, and, at least as of Chapter 24, he hasn’t done anything TOO atrocious. 

My PETTIEST of bitching/impromptu liveblog beneath the cut: 

A VERY pedantic thing: Llewelyn says, multiple times, that the English would anglicize her name “Grace”. In reality, no one in Early Modern England did that, it came much, much later. In all the Letters of State, she’s referred to as “Grany” or a variation of that name - An English attempt at “Gráinne.” That’s also why you’ll notice that I tend to refer to her as Gráinne here - It was the name she was known by in her own time, it was the name her contemporaries called her, and so it’s the name I call her.

"He wore a full and drooping mustache in the old Gaelic style, though otherwise he was cleanshaven.” Again. MINOR nitpicking. The Gauls were the ones who, traditionally, we associate with the droopy mustaches. In the sagas, beards are given a TON of prominence, to the point of being the marker of being a man. So. Odd choice on Tigernan’s part there. I know that Llewelyn didn’t intend to write him as a 16th century Irish coxcomb, but…well.

"He realized he had made a bad mistake in referring to her peculiar relationship with her husband. He had been in the castle at Bunowen himself; he had seen with his own eyes that Grania’s belongings were taken to one bedchamber, and Donal O Flaherty’s were put in another. Many might speculate in private about the arrangement, but only a fool would have mentioned it to her face.” As I’ve mentioned before, I really, really don’t think this relationship was as loveless as it’s generally portrayed as. I don’t know whether they were PASSIONATELY in love (and unlike a certain biographer, I won’t try to fill in what I don’t know with what I WANT her to have had), maybe they simply got on, but they did have three LIVING children. And I underline “living” because there were likely more. “Likely more” means that they probably did regularly share a bed, at least as much so as their respective schedules allowed.

“Aye, and didn’t she put her children out to fostering before they could stand? A woman’s not usually that anxious to get away from her children that she takes to the sea to avoid them.” Given that fosterage could begin VERY early, I really, really don’t think anyone would have questioned this at all. Gaelic Ireland, simply put, often didn’t have our own conception of the nuclear family, and this was generously provided for in the law codes. Fosterage was useful as a way of maintaining ties between both neighboring families and, most especially, between kings and their vassals, with vassals often fostering kings’ sons. (That way, if the king should die with multiple possible heirs, it means that the kids have people backing them for the kingship.)

"I think that husband of hers had been crying poverty so loud and long he made her deaf to everything else” - Not to be #TeamDonal on main, but the facts as they’re recorded tend to have a strong pro-Donal bias. Take the words of his 17th century relative, Ruari O’Flaherty: "Of all the western O'Flaherties, Donel an chogaidh , although not the chieftain, was the most powerful and opulent.” Most. Powerful. And. Opulent. Yeah, Donal wasn’t crying poverty to anyone. Could he have been lying through his teeth? Maybe. Who knows? But this is ONE thing we have on Donal’s personality, recorded not too long after he died, by a historian who would have had close access to O’Flaherty sources. I believe him. And, I’d even be willing to commit the ultimate heresy and say that Donal’s success was not due entirely to his wife.

She does use the proper terms in a few places! Such as “rechtaire” for “steward”. (Io stem, masculine.)

“You are a noble Irishwoman, you go to no man’s bed unless you want to.” COMPLICATED. Arranged marriages were definitely the norm, and, in the legends, we get to see the unfortunate downsides of what happens when a woman is coerced into a marriage she doesn’t want, generally by an older man, while she is generally pining over a younger one. I wouldn’t say it was something that people LIKED, the fact that this entire genre exists is a pretty good example of people being like “DON’T DO THIS SHIT”, but I can’t say it didn’t happen. Examples of this include Fingal Rónáin, Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne, Longes mac n-Uislenn, Aided Con Roí, etc. I would not say that it was considered to be an IDEAL, it was something that was definitely warned against, but it could, in theory, happen. It wasn’t necessarily a legal form of marriage, but it was a form of marriage. 

"Shorter than Cuchullain or Brian Boru,” PETTIEST of pettiest bitch complaints, but Cú Chulainn is generally described as short. I know, I know, not what she’s going for. But still. Let me be a petty bitch on this one thing.

“Times have changed,” he said impatiently. “Those are archaic luxuries, and luxury has worn thin here. Perhaps in Umhall there is still leisure for sitting around listening to bards, but it takes every resource I can command just to maintain my territory against those who constantly nibble at my borders.” MOST. OPULENT. AND. POWERFUL. Okay, but one thing that she does get right, and is right to emphasize, is the importance of the bard - chieftain relationship. This was really, really one of the key relationships in a chieftain’s life, to the extent where one of the privileges of the chief ollaimh was the right to sleep with the king in his bed. And yes, it was EXACTLY as homoerotic as it sounds. For a chieftain to not keep a bard - It’s actually a really, really stupid move on Donal’s part, not just for the sake of tradition, but because…who’s going to be there to remember him and keep his memory alive? Who’s going to write praise poems for him (and for Gráinne! The chieftain’s wife was often celebrated in verse.)

"Grania had brought a handsome marriage portion with her, her own property under the Brehon law, for a woman of her rank must be able to stand on equal footing with her husband.” Accurate - Gráinne would have, most likely, been a cétmuinter, or chief wife, under the law, and her union to Donal would have been a union of equal contribution. (Donal also might or might not have owed her a “Thank you for your virginity!” Present on their wedding night.)

 “The priests are right in giving husbands authority over their wives,” he had shouted at her then, while she pleaded to be allowed to keep her babies with her longer. “The old Gaelic way gave women too much freedom altogether, and you are a fine example of the folly of that custom.” Kill me now, kill me now, kill me now, kill me now. This is just….GAR. GAR. Or, as Llewlyn likes to say every five seconds…*Dar Dia*. Suffice it to say, the question of how much freedom post-Christianity Ireland had for women VS Pre-Christian Ireland is an endlessly long topic that has to begin with how we define “freedom” and, specifically, which women get it. (Sucks to be a slave girl no matter what.) But also, while women definitely DID have power (EVEN POST-CHRISTIANITY, THANK YOU VERY MUCH)…that doesn’t mean that it was that COMMON, or that post-Christianity radically changed how (un)common it was. This is just…too blunt, too much of a caricature, and also happens to be insanely, insanely anachronistic. (Also: What would a 16th century chieftain really KNOW of the Old Gaelic Way? He would know about women like Medb, yeah, and he would probably see her as evil and uppity, depending on which stories he’d read - Though as a Connachtman, he would probably be inclined towards being on her side. But that doesn’t mean he would have really thought “Oh, yeah, pre-Christianity, women had SO MUCH power.” Lawlessness and chaos tend to be features of pre-Christian Ireland in the medieval writings, but I wouldn’t really say that liberated women….were? Especially because in those same writings you have women like Emer who, while distinct in their characterization, are still very much proper and chaste women who keep to the house.)

“I warn you, Grania—you will accede to me in this or I will send you back to Clew bay and denounce you throughout Connaught for a lack of womanly graces. Is that what you want, to be sent home rejected with your shortcomings shouted from the hills?”

           “Who would believe such charges?” she had demanded to know, outraged at his unfairness.” 

I’m just going to say it now: She could sue him SO MUCH in a proper Brehon court if she could get some witnesses to say that they heard him talking shit without cause. So. So much. So. Much. Donal would be losing a solid chunk of his goods. Though I will point out that, technically, since Gráinne isn’t sleeping with him, she isn’t doing her proper duties as a wife, laid out by the Brehon laws, and so, yeah, he could probably have a case against her. (For what it’s worth: If he was refusing to sleep with her, she could ALSO divorce him, with him explicitly being at fault and having to pay up. It was equal opportunity, in that sense.)

The Brehon law keeps being called “pagan” and…no. No non noon no. It had its origins in pre-Christian Ireland, likely, and that’s why a ton of legal scholars, with a few noted exceptions, tend to be strongly Nativist, but that doesn’t mean that, by Gráinne’s time, it hadn’t been more or less adapted into Christian marriage in Ireland, albeit sometimes semi-awkwardly. (For example: Polygamy was allowed, but the law very much privileged the rights of chief wives, including their right to toss their husbands out on their ear for taking in a woman over their head.) There’s this odd obsession in the book with Brehon Law =/= Christian Law, and that’s definitely not the case. You wouldn’t have had two marriage ceremonies, one under the church and one under the Brehon Law, because the Brehon Law would apply no matter WHAT. It’d be like forcing a couple to undergo a ceremony after their official wedding where a bunch of lawyers read out of a law book to them. It just wouldn’t happen.

“The Augustinian monks of Umhall, who taught me history in my childhood, explained that when the Romans left England and that land sank into barbarism, it was missionaries from Ireland who took God’s words to the British tribes and taught them to read and write.

          “Perhaps they hate us, Donal, for being a more ancient and educated race. Perhaps they mean to drag us down by treating us as savages until we do not remember ever having been anything else. And along the way they can take our land from us with a clear conscience because we are only savages and deserve no better.”

On one hand, it DOES capture that note of PRIDE that tends to be there, loud and clear, in the texts, especially, say, Auraicept na n-Éces, which claims that Irish is a perfectly formed language, made from all the best bits of the Tower of Babel’s languages. (And….well….”The land of saints and scholars”. Ireland WAS a hotspot of monastic activity.) And, honestly, I support showing off the literary side of Ireland, since it doesn’t get discussed enough. That being said, no monk in his right mind would have said that it Irish missionaries civilized Britain. Why? Because Patrick came from Britain. Or, rather, Britannia, more accurately. He wasn’t an Englishman, not in the modern sense, he would probably be Welsh today, but he was from a monastic, educated family (despite claiming his Latin was poor in his Confessio, it’s actually quite good - Patrick was a MASTER at using humility as a rhetorical device).        

"Grania slept naked. She liked her skin to breathe as she slept, not encumbered with a gown that would twist and bind.” “And then Gráinne froze her ass off because the nights in Ireland, even in the warm heat of summer, are cold and bitter as a Norseman’s frozen tit, if there were, in fact, any Norsemen in Ireland in the 16th century, and frequently require multiple blankets + a solid duvet. Gráinne then died of pneumonia several weeks later, making for a very short book.” Also. Again. If this were a male author. I would have committed a murder at this point.  

Reference to saffron dye - NICE. This was really a staple of the clothing, for both men and women, to the extent that it features a LOT in accounts of Ireland at this time.

“By the paps of Danu!” No one. In 16th century Ireland. Would have shouted out “By the paps of Danu!” “By the Washington Monument!” “By the Lincoln Memorial!” “By the stunning cliffs of Oregon!” Sounds rather silly, doesn’t it? (Though if you WANTED to start shouting “BY THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL!” Well. I’m not here to stop you.)

"She was small for a Gaelic woman, and pale, a tiny wraithlike creature who exuded a contradictory air of resilient strength.” I’m not going to say that Chambers is WRONG, because, of course, Irish women come in a variety of shapes and sizes. You know, like people everywhere. But I WILL say that, during my time here, it’s the only time in my life that I’ve felt at home, because, for the first time in my life, I’m not short. Also, I want it on the record that now, whenever I see her, I’m picturing the little old woman who sits in on research seminars and who has the entire department scared shitless. Tiny, but MIGHTY.

"Her only ornament was a triskele of silver in an ancient pattern, suspended upon her flat bosom by a leather thong.” The Triskele is a Neolithic symbol used through the Iron Age, DEFINITELY not in use, in Ireland, by the Early Modern Period.

"“Evleen Ni Brien-“ That would be “Ní Bhriain” in modern Irish. Normally, I wouldn’t be THIS nitpicky, but hey, if you’re patting yourself on the back for the research you did and then can’t be bothered to put in a fada + the proper possessive form of “Brian”. I also don’t THINK that the “Ní” form had been adopted yet, I’m fairly certain that’s modern, so it would, more properly, be Evleen iníon Bhriain. Though, since it emphasizes that she’s from the Dál Cais and the O’Briens are predominately associated with them, I’m going to GUESS the proper form would involve her father’s name. It would be “Evleen iníon *possessive form of father’s first name* Uí Briain”.

"He had only heard whispers of such people, but enough tales still abounded concerning them to make them readily identifiable—even if this one did claim the noble name O Brien.” You know, in Reign, when you have a bunch of druids dancing in the forest and everyone was like “That’s fucking ridiculous!” Yeah. Yeah. That’s exactly how I feel right now. Druids DID last for some time in Ireland after Christianity, but not INTO THE 16TH CENTURY.

"“Of course not. But neither can I forget that it was the strictures of that faith which kept me bound in marriage to a man I learned to despise.” Divorce was still a thing. There was no problem, in theory, with getting married at a fully Catholic altar and then dumping them for getting jiggy with the serving girls a few years down the line. Llewelyn’s misunderstanding of the relationship that the Church and the Brehon laws BOTH played in the lives of people (SHOCKINGLY ENOUGH, the Catholic Church was NOT seen as pure evil by every day people at the time, who had to flee into the arms of the Brehons for comfort from Mother Church. Note that I’m saying this as a confirmed and strong atheist.)

Can I just say that the scene where Gráinne’s feeling up Hugh (the OC) in his sleep would be MUCH creepier if the genders were reversed?

"But he was not the man he had always been. He was some different person here.” Wow, the sex must be REALLY good!

"set in violet shadows that spoke of wonderfully sleepless nights.” Why is it that when I stay up doing an all-nighter, I end up looking like a raccoon going through its emo phase, but when Gráinne tumbles some random dude for a little while, she gets “violet shadows?” It’s not right, I tell you.

"“Was your marriage so bad, Grania, that you have turned your back on your own womanhood forever?” GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Well. Now I know where The Pirate Queen gets its “Your ultimate worth as a woman and happiness in life is decided by whether or not you have a dick in you” philosophy. I wish I hadn’t known. But now I do.

“That’s the way it is with men,” he said. “They touch us. For the feel of strong arms around her and a solid chest to lean her head upon, a woman will put up with a lot of misery. It’s the curse of our skin to be hungry for the feel of a man’s skin.” GAAAAAAAAH. GAH.

"God the benevolent patriarch promises us rewards in the next world if we’re willing to sacrifice in this one. But maybe I don’t believe in patriarchs anymore.” Totally a thing that the real Gráinne Ní Mháille would have thought. Because women, in general, in the 16th century had the terminology to make these critiques in this exact way.

" If one satisfaction was snatched from her she would find another; if she lost love she would embrace hate, and glory in it.” Oh, god, not THIS motivation for a female character, please. Gráinne Ní Mháille was a hell raiser from birth, there’s no reason to think that, because she lost her boytoy, that really radically altered her life path.

“I wonder if Tigernan thinks you and I are damned,” she asked her husband. “We were wed in no chapel.” Given that there were nine degrees of marriage under the law, of varying types of legality, I doubt it.

Yay, exactly what this book needed: More sex!

I’ll be real: Richard Bingham playing Weddingcrashers at Margaret’s wedding only to nearly get his ass handed to him by two members of Gráinne’s family is truly an #Iconic moment. 10/10, if the rest of the book was like this I could die a happy woman.

"It was not an Irish face, but the eyes were unforgettable.” ….what is an “Irish face?” Especially post-Norman invasion? What does an Irish face look like?

“There are rumors he gained his inheritance by murder, and it is said outright that he and his mother between them drove his first wife into her grave.” Yay, the return of the Oedipus complex! My favorite thing in this book!

"Grania herself slept alone in a tiny walled guest chamber above, but she was aware of Richard sleeping in the same house. A strong man, sleeping naked in a bed … .

How people change, she thought to herself with amusement. This is definitely not the same Grania whom Donal an Chogaidh knew.” 

Yay, MORE sex! MY FAVORITE THING. IN THE WORLD. BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS WHEN I READ THE LIFE OF GRÁINNE NÍ MHÁILLE?"**MORE SEX**.”

" If Richard took her at all, he must take her under the old Gaelic concept of “marriage for one year certain” to see if they suited one another.” Ah, yes, the old Gaelic concept of marriage that mysteriously shows up in no legal texts, legends, or genealogical tracts. A very authentic Gaelic tradition, very old, much wow. (For what it’s worth….the Telltown marriages are as close as this comes, but the thing that makes them stand out is that everyone KNEW they were the oddballs.)

"According to pagan custom—which still lived in uneasy truce with Christianity in many parts of Ireland—there were ten degrees of marriage, all the way from a union between propertied partners of equal rank to union by abduction or the mating of the mad. From any of the ten a child could result, and the brehons therefore had allowed for every child’s rights to be recognized by the social order. No human containing an immortal spirit could be illegitimate.” The astonishing thing is that it’s very, very obvious that she read Cáin Lanamna for this…and then proceeded to not apply it to any other time except for when it was necessary.

"How can I be Grania if there is no Tigernan at my shoulder?” Yes, because we all know that the thing that really defined Gráinne Ní Mháille was, in fact, the men in her life.

"Evleen smiled. “At least it isn’t fettered with Christian chains,” she said. “You were wise.”” Oh, God help me. There’s no way to have a marriage in Early Modern Ireland not “fettered with Christian chains” because Christianity IS the religion of the people.

Remember when Gráinne was described as “More than master’s mate” to Richard Burke, implying a union that was mutually respectful? Yeah, me neither. I’m so glad he’s a one dimensional sexist with mommy issues. That’s such a new, innovative take on their relationship. I LOVE to see it. (Note: I’m saying this as someone who HATED Chambers’ blatant shipping in her biography, but hey. I can’t deny what the first hand evidence says. Unlike Chambers.)

" I’ll get the O Lee—he’s our ship’s physician, and at least he can-“ Unless the chieftain of the O’Lee family moonlights as a ship’s doctor, you wouldn’t call him The O’Lee. Just say “I’ll get Aidan O’Lee.” Or, even, “I’ll get the ship’s leech!”

“TAKE THIS FROM UNCONSECRATED HANDS.” I won’t say that all’s forgiven because, I’ll be honest, I really, really hate this novel at this point, but you know what? This forgives at least some of this novel’s sins. One of my favorite tales about her being brought to life on page by a very talented author does make for a high point, between this and Gráinne avenging the boytoy.

Okay, I’ll be real: The O’Donnell and Gráinne boasting about their respective kids is really, really cute, and I accept it because my very first exposure to Early Modern Ireland was “The Fighting Prince of Donegal.”

The O’Donnell talking shit about English poetry is…..very accurate to the time and the mood. My personal favorite genre of Early Modern Irish poetry is probably “The English aren’t shit.”

"Black Hugh nodded. Grania stood up, and Philip Sidney rose with her, as smoothly as if they were joined at the hip. Tigernan uttered a strangled curse. The sasanach was taking hold of Grania’s arm as if she were an old woman and he were a blackthorn stick for her to lean upon! Was that some English custom, insulting the strength of women? Or did he mean to grab her and make off with her?” Honestly, for once, Tigernan is a #Mood.

"But when Philip’s hands moved over her body, Grania discovered that all human landscapes have a certain similarity. She knew his touch as male, and hungry, and when she returned it in kind she felt a familiar rising response that flattered her and made her eager for more. Within the bed they did not seem to be foreigner and Gael. They were just man and woman, enjoying each other.” I ENDURED THE SEX SCENE WITH PHILIP FUCKING SYDNEY. SO THAT NO ONE ELSE HAS TO.

And, just like with Richard, no one can match up to Wonderful Boytoy Huw.

"She prances along the seaways as if she had a man’s balls, John, and by the bright blue eyes of God, it should be my hand that grabs those balls of hers and crushes them.”” Oh, GOD, I THOUGHT THAT THE PIRATE QUEEN’S MOST INFAMOUS LINE WAS JUST BAD LYRIC WRITING. I DIDN’T KNOW THEY TOOK IT *FROM THE NOVEL*. WHY, MORGAN LLEWELYN. WHY.

Look, I’ve made it to Chapter 24. There are 32 in total. I COULD read the rest of the way, since I want to see how poorly the treatment of Elizabeth is going to be (I’d be very shocked if there isn’t some variation of Not Like Other Girls involved), but also: I do not care at this point. I might pick it up again, but also: A bitch is tired. And illiterate. Perhaps, if I’m ever feeling brave, I’ll take on the last eight chapters, but for now: I’m calling it. 

[daughterofelros]

Hey so I saw your post about Alex and his resilience and how he's rate on a scale and how this relates to his childhood trauma etc and was really curious to know/understand more on the topic and how it manifests with alex but also you mentioned rosa? And the other characters too. If you're happy to elaborate otherwise no worries of course. What interpretations do you make from what we've seen on screen? ☺

Oh my gosh Nonnie, thank you for the juicy, delicious ask!

The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (Commonly abbreviated to CD-RISC) measures, in its full version, 25 different statements. Some of the ones that stand out to me in thinking about a bunch of the RNM characters include being able to adapt and change, having close and secure relationships, able to make unpopular/difficult decisions, know where to get help, but they’re all pretty important.

As established in my earlier assessment, Alex Manes = Super Resilient, and that definitely has an effect on the ways he handles the traumas he’s faced over his life.

Let me dive into Rosa little bit more first— Rosa, despite not enduring the specific type of abuse that Alex and Michael did as kids, might actually score in a lower percentile than either of those characters on the resilience scale. Part of this is because adverse childhood experiences, though cumulative, aren’t exactly ranked and scaled. Trauma impacts people differently, and you can’t really say whether growing up feeling abandoned by an alcoholic parent in an otherwise supportive context, or never having a safe parental figure, or having a parent die will impact someone “worse”—they’re all adversity, and they all have an impact on our health and capacity for resilience. (Also, inequality isn’t a fixed experience in our brains—for more reading on how weird our brains are in this regard, check out “The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die”  by Keith B Payne).So Rosa definitely has adverse childhood experiences that impact her relationships. At the point when we’re first introduced to her, she’s probably in about the worst place she could be there—Her friendships are being proven to be based on what drugs she can score, her relationship with her mother is shredded, and she’s just learned that Arturo isn’t her father. Even though Arturo’s love and support for her wouldn’t budge an inch, she feels separated from the most supportive relationship in her life, and she’s spiraling. She struggles to adapt, her coping mechanisms mess with her brain chemistry where she’s already contending with dopamine issues due to the mental illness she’s battling , and it’s pretty clear that she doesn’t have a strong read on where to get help (Though she’s willing to accept it—Valenti’s help getting clean, having met once with a therapist, leaning into her artwork).  Pressure doesn’t make her think very clearly, and she doesn’t seem like she takes high levels of pride in her achievements, or trust that she can achieve her goals if she works for them. Traumas are going to hit her hard. They’re not going to roll off her back easily. When she comes back to life, she gets a partial reset button, and handles some big trauma pretty well…but she also is terrified of messing it up, and breaks down if anything gets derailed (see: “I Ruined my Miracle”). I’d say she’s doing a great job coping with what she’s got…but her resilience score isn’t the highest. Things hit her hard.

Let’s look at Michael then. He’s got every reason why his resilience score might not be high. He’s dealt with so damn much. But the thing that’s helped him get through is that his resilience score actually seems like it would be pretty well up there. He doesn’t have good parental figure relationships (understatement of the year)—But he’s got a couple of relationships (Max and Isobel) that won’t abandon him, no matter how he pushes, even when everything is burning around them. Michael clearly believes that working toward goals means he can achieve them. He’s been trying to build the spaceship to take him back home since he was, like, eight. That’s goal-oriented right there! He’s not going to score well in the “getting help” vector at all, but he does work extremely well under pressure (his genius increases when he’s pissed off). Michael also clearly believes that he can deal with whatever comes his way, he ultimately doesn’t give up when things look hopeless (alien pacemaker in 7 hours), and I’d bet my bottom dollar that he would agree that coping with stress has made him stronger. He’d probably rank himself pretty high on the “Can make difficult or unpopular decisions” factor—choosing to take the blame and protect Isobel, volunteering to be the alien who gets turned into the authorities…there are flaws in his reasoning on the last one, and definitely some internalized feelings of his life not being as important…but he shows a clear propensity for being willing to make unspeakably challenging decisions. He probably won’t rank high in the “Pride in my achievements” vector, and that hits up against the things he’s internalized from the ACES he’s had piled on him—from childhood abuse and abandonment right up to Jesse Manes, crippling injury, and covering up murders. His resilience is high, but he’s coping with a lot, and he doesn’t have as many tools to keep coping as, say, Alex does.  We can also see that there’s a pretty debilitating impact when he shifts to the knowledge that his Mom was alive and he watched her die… and then starts to question why she didn’t take him out of the Pod to be with her in 1947. He starts to have thoughts about abandonment that he hadn’t had when he just thought his Mom died in the crash…and that paired with Max’s death really, really throws him. He rejects connections that have ever been tied up in pain and abandonment, and we see him spiraling. His resilience definitely dips when those circumstances occur…and as we see him trust in some of his relationships again, we see his ability to cope return as well. With the right tools and support, he can actually do a lot of healing yet too.

Isobel probably scores pretty high on the scale at the beginning of season 1. She’s had some adverse childhood experiences from waking up from the pods, from being attacked in the desert as a teen., but she’s made it through all of that without a ton of trauma responses (given that the blackouts turned out to be mind control) She’s confident in her goals, her relationships, she’s strong in her decision-making, she believes she’s built herself a good life. She has a supportive family, Max is her person, she’s got Michael, and her husband is amazingly supportive. We don’t see much in the way of friends, but she’s got a Boss-Ass support structure. Until she realizes she doesn’t. That Noah is a thread of rot through all of it, and she’s been deceived on an inconceivable level. And then she loses Max.

Isobel at the beginning of Season 2 would fill this assessment out very, very differently. And the sharp drop in some of the factors of her resilience really make her struggle. Her confidence in herself as a strong person is deeply under review, and she’s leaning a little hard into the god-like powers aspect of herself. Knocking Rosa out with a book is a really alarming manifestation of how her reasoning and coping skills are out of alignment. She’d probably use it as evidence for her ability to make unpopular decisions though. She’d score really high in the vector regardless though—because choosing to terminate a pregnancy in a town like Roswell…that takes so damn much resilience, ability to make decisions under pressure, etc.  She’s still got the resilience that comes from her goal setting and working for things she values though—her training with her powers shows that pretty clearly.

Isobel definitely isn’t going to score high in the “Knows where to get help” vector though. She refuses therapy, refuses help from family, doesn’t seek medical assistance, and almost dies as a result of her abortion, when she would have had all kinds of support from people around her if she’d been able to reach out. Even when she’s struggling, she has a history of resilience to draw on though.

Let’s talk Cam for a moment—we don’t have a lot of info on her childhood, but Cam actually seems to be a character with high scores across the board—for only having 2 years in Roswell, she forms connections pretty readily, goes to people for help, is focused on goals, takes pride in her work. She handles most things with aplomb, and isn’t easily manipulated. Jesse Manes has to work pretty hard on her to get her to bat an eyelash. That’s particularly interesting given the relationship that resilience has in attenuating depression effects and PTSD effects on people with combat experience.

Max is hard to talk about, because we don’t know a lot about where he is this season, and what the trauma of dying and being kept in a pod in constant pain is going to do to him. He seems reasonably able to deal with the hardships he’s faced prior to this, shows a propensity to be able to make unpopular decisions, and is probably the character who is most consistently and intentionally shown investing in relationships. I’d imagine that his resistance score is at least in the middling percentiles. Max is also pretty much the character it’s hardest to wrap my brain around when I’m writing, so that’s why I think I struggle in guessing how he’d assess himself here too.

Kyle is so interesting, because he’s a character who seems to know himself really well, and has maybe also changed the most over 10 years. Kyle these days really values and invests in his relationships—His Mom, Liz, rebuilding a friendship with Alex, trusting Cam. He’s dedicated in pursuing goals, takes pride in his accomplishments, has a reasonably good idea of where to seek help, works well under pressure. He’s had a lot of advantages in life, and while med school definitely tests his resilience and endurance, I don’t know how much his resilience has had to help him get through trauma before this.  I do know that the scene where he almost buys a gun is one of my favorites, because it shows him trying to cope with crisis and handle a lot of stress. I don’t think we’ve seen a full enough arc of how he’s coping yet though—I think there’s more to come.

Maria DeLuca strikes me as scoring relatively high on resilience assessments (or at least the high end of mid-to-upper range). She’s caring for a mother with dementia, runs a business, and deals with racism and misogyny in a town like Roswell, which it’s well-established is renowned for both of those things. Maria has really strong relationships—her Mother is a huge priority, her friends matter deeply to her (fandom drama over ships aside, and whether Alex should forgive her for dating Michael or not, Maria in canon expresses a lot of care for her friends, worries if she’s hurt them, and forgives when she’s hurt herself). She’s close with Arturo, she visits Rosa’s grave once a month. She does a lot of giving, not a lot of getting back, and feels pretty shaken when she’s deceived, but she still has a lot of stable relationships to lean into. She’s…not great at asking for help, or letting on that she needs it- she tries to go everything alone. But she also problem-solves, she pursues her goals, she believes that you get what you work for  (“No one ever accused me of a lack of hustle”),  and she doesn’t give up when she feels hopeless.  She’s probably middle of the road on handling unpleasant feelings—some she handles well, some she reacts intensely to, some she buries. It seems like when a crisis happens, she’s conflicted and struggling in the moment, but processes through things in a reasonably short time. I’d say one of the places that she doesn’t score that high on is the ability to adapt to change. She gets there eventually, but that’s where she struggles the most. The thing is, because of what she’s faced with in daily life, she’s constantly utilizing her resilience. It’s something she leans on all the time.

Liz is brilliant, and amazing, and it’s kind of hard for me to parse this out for her. Strong relationships, she’s got those. She’s great at adapting, great at problem-solving and pursuing her goals. She sees herself as strong, faces challenges, sees the humor in things, bounces back from setbacks, honestly, she would score pretty well in every category. I think there’s pretty clear evidence that with all the things she’s accomplished and all the things she’s endured, Liz Ortecho is a wellspring of resilience, and it definitely attenuates the long-term negative effects she might face from her experiences. She faces some of the same adverse childhood experiences that her sister does, but reacts very differently. Their resilience—despite the similarity of their contexts for nurture—differs substantially…and that’s even before we add in the trauma of Rosa’s death that Liz contends with.

Overall, the characters on this show are a resilient bunch. I’m watching some other shows right now as I make masks for my community, and it strikes me that most of the RNM characters would score higher on the CD-RISC assessment than the characters on those other TV shows (many of whom hold a relatively large amount of privilege).

But notably, the characters on RNM strike me as far more like the people who move through my community every day. Overwhelmingly, my community is comprised of queer people, people of color, homeless and unaccompanied youth, people dealing with mental health issues, sexual assault survivors, abuse survivors, folks with PTSD and DID, and people who would be considered low-socioeconomic status. My community is made up almost entirely of people who deal with adverse experiences, and had intense adverse childhood experiences. Resilience is the norm. Resilience ends up being a key word in almost every letter of recommendation I write. And one of the reasons I love RNM so much is that the characters are brought to life quite realistically. There’s a lot of different truths from experience, and a lot of different paths to similar truth. But overwhelmingly, their responses to these impossible events are grounded in realistic depictions. When it comes to character development, this might just be some of the best writing I’ve ever seen on TV. And for a show that’s solidly in the sci-fi realm…it’s possibly the most realistic show I’ve ever seen.

[reliciron]

Notes on Redeeming Arcann: Part 1

Ok, here are my thoughts on redeeming Arcann. This is just my own current analysis of his character and where I might take him in possible future fics. If someone has a different interpretation I would love to hear it as my own ideas on him continue to shift. If anyone is struggling with his character, I hope this might give you a starting point or jog some new ideas. And if you’re just reading this because you like character analysis (I do too), then I hope you enjoy it and it’s not too incoherent.

This first part will focus more on redeeming Arcann. The second will be my thoughts on his character motivations.

Part 2

Alright, this is going to be very, very long, so strap in. 

Ok, so since I don’t have a lot of experience writing, I felt my own grasp of what it takes to redeem a villain was a little too shaky to do Arcann’s redemption justice on my own. He’s admittedly a pretty horrific character at his worst, and the game itself really doesn’t do a very good job of giving him a believable redemption arc. I feel it would be very easy for an inexperienced writer like me to fall into character apologia and try to ignore what he’s done in favor of ‘it’s not his fault’. Fiction is full of men who act like jerks and excuse it with daddy issues, and I’m really trying to carry that awareness into his redemption so I can avoid that pitfall. The atrocities he committed were his choices, but understanding why he became a character who would make those choices does not mean that he wasn’t ultimately at fault for what he did.

So with that in mind I did a quick search, looked through a few guides on redemption, and eventually settled on this one.

In an effort to make this smooth, I have copy/pasted the major points from the article and put them in brackets with my responses following each one.

[Realism is derived from a multitude of factors, but one of the most important is having authentic motives. Villainy is a dark path for a reason – it’s hard to come back from – which is why you need a super-bright ‘why’ torch to help your baddie see the light.

The best way to create a ‘why’ (or a motive) is to understand where it comes from. For example:

Maybe your villain wants a bigger pay off and this is how he thinks he will get it

He could be taking an order from someone more powerful

A more emotional reason might be that the hero appeals to his heart by saving someone the villain cares about

Or perhaps the villain just wants to right a wrong or past mistake]

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Ok, so Arcann has a little of the last 2 of those reasons. Now that he’s gone through the Force Healing dishwasher, he wants to try and make up for all the horrible things he did (Mostly the people he killed for shits and giggles while hunting down the Outlander. War is war, and he might not beat himself up over the people he personally killed on the battlefield. They made the choice to be soldiers/Jedi/Sith, and they knew they might die when they went up against him.)

He was also swayed by the Outlander letting him and Senya go, and how they cared for her while he was figuring things out.

-----

[Whatever the plot point for justifying your villain’s redemption, you can create added depth to their motive by linking it to an old wound in his past.]

-----

His mother left, and it’s possible that he still wonders what would have happened if he and his siblings had gone with her (I can’t remember if he touched on this in one of his cut-scenes during KOTFE). But more importantly, no one has ever come back for him except his brother. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t expect Vaylin to care about him enough to help him unless it benefits her, so after Thexan’s death he feels like he’s alone and nobody would miss him if he died. And that’s… really not a good place to be.

He doesn’t feel connected to his people since I doubt he ever saw much of them while growing up, so it’s easier to treat them like dirt if he can’t empathize with them. Also, the closest person to him, and the only one he seems to care about, is Vaylin, and she’s even more messed up than him so they just echo each other’s cruelty and drive each other to new heights of awfulness.

So that’s why it’s so important to him and game changing that his mom shows up after he’s been defeated.

Now the scene in KotFE goes like this: Senya finds Arcann dead (unconscious) and pinned under a bunch of debris. She drags him out and cries because she thinks he’s dead. Then Vaylin shows up, and while Senya is focused on her, Arcann blinks awake. Vaylin starts to attack, and Arcann stops her. Blah blah blah, Senya saves Arcann because he tried to protect her and she “feels the good in him”.

Ok.

(Keep in mind, my computer chugs much worse if I have the background music on, so I always play with it off. So scenes that maaaaay be relying too much on the music to carry the emotional weight, don’t have that crutch to lean on when I see them.)

Putting aside some dumb stuff, like why didn’t Senya sense that he was alive, and why didn’t she “sense the good in him” until after he pushed Vaylin away, here’s a few tweaks I might make:

Senya finds Arcann badly injured and pinned under debris. She realizes that he’s still breathing so she drags him out, sits down, and cradles him in her arms. She fully expects that he’s going to die, and her resolve crumbles. She rocks him gently and sings to him, her voice breaking here and there as the ship comes apart around them. She left her children once, and she refuses to leave Arcann again. She’s going to stay with him until he succumbs to his wounds, or the ship disintegrates.

To her surprise, he begins to wake. He turns his head into her chest, instinctively remembering her voice and the way she’d sing when comforting him and his brother after a painful day of training. He opens his eyes blearily with a mumbled “Mother?”. And now, finally, after years of being apart, she senses the conflict in him. Buried under years of pain and rage, is the tiny flicker of the boy she used to know.

The ship shudders underneath them and she makes her choice.

She hauls him up and throws his remaining arm over her shoulders. He can barely support his own weight and is fading in and out of consciousness as she drags him off the dais. They’re almost to the door when Vaylin appears and cuts them off.

Senya pleads with her, but Vaylin refuses to see reason and moves to kill her. Senya tries to throw Arcann out of the way, but the minute his arm is clear he manages to force push Vaylin away, where she appears to be crushed under falling debris.

Senya can’t save both of them, but she didn’t feel any conflict in Vaylin. So she chooses Arcann and takes him to the shuttle.

After they’re far enough away, Vaylin comes to in a rage, only to find that she’s missed her chance. She too, escapes in a patrol vessel.

-----

[Epiphany Redemption

Sometimes we don’t realize we have bad habits until someone tells us or we suddenly become aware of them. One of the most famous epiphany redemption examples is Scrooge going through an awakening. With the help of the Christmas ghosts, he’s shown the impact of his actions which causes him to see that he’s been leading a terrible life. The end of the story show him as a changed man, being kind and charitable to others.]

----

This sounds like what happened to Arcann.

It could be that with his mind clouded with pain and a likely concussion, he forgets his anger enough to think that, if his mother cared enough to save him and feels there’s still good in him, maybe there is.

It could be worked into the healing ritual, instead of this nebulous “light sapping the dark from him while he lays unconscious” thing. It could be that the ritual lifts all of his emotional baggage up so that he can view his past choices through a clear lens. Kind of A Christmas Carol speed-run, where his actions flash by in his mind and the horror of what he’d become slowly builds and replaces some of the rage. So the healing ritual doesn’t cure him of the darkness, so much as it’s a cold dose of the reality of his actions without the rage and bad justifications covering it up. The pain and rage is still there, and he’ll have to deal with it naturally later (get that boy a THERAPIST), but it no longer gets in the way of his decision making and he’s free to make better choices.

This explains why he was so panicked when he woke up that he didn’t notice his mother was still alive. And her “death” was just one more horrible thing he’s done. That even in healing, he still manages to kill the people close to him.

(It’s also why I always take the choice to tell him that Senya’s still alive right before he flies away, to spare him from that extra self hatred.)

-----

[It takes time. Just as a hero takes an entire novel to overcome her flaw, it will take some time for a villain to make this monumental change. Don’t let them flip-flop like a beached fish between good and evil – the change needs to build slowly throughout the book.]

----

I think this is the main issue that a lot of people seem to have with Arcann’s redemption. The healing ritual was such a hand-wavy “ok he’s better now” cop-out for what would normally be months or years of interesting character development.

I understand of course. This is a game, not a book series. There isn’t time to give Arcann the kind of focus that sort of development needs, and they weren’t allowed to weave his redemption too much into the story because not everyone spares him.

We can lessen the impact of this by ignoring some canon things and writing around others, but it would take a major rewrite of a large chunk of KotET to integrate this point.

-----

[Foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow. Readers don’t like to be cheated. You need to drop breadcrumbs throughout your story to let your reader know subconsciously that the villain is going to change, otherwise they’ll feel cheated. It doesn’t take much – the occasional soft glance from the villain, a nicely spoken sentence, and action that is ‘good’ rather than evil. Tiny clues.]

-----

There were tiny hints here and there, but not really enough for my taste and they were very easy to miss.

Some examples I can think of are:

He sort of yells at Vaylin at one point and without her saying anything, he immediately backs off, calms his voice down, and tells her that he’s not blaming her. She’s flippant about it, but it made it clear that he cares about her enough to treat her with respect and what little affection he’s capable of at that point.

@swtorpadawan made a good point in this post about how Arcann’s hesitation in destroying the Gravestone might’ve been because he sensed his mother’s presence.

And while I don’t think it was supposed to be hesitation on Arcann’s part, just the game forgetting about the time as we are shown Koth lining up the shot, he technically DID hesitate in killing the Outlander after he stabbed them (assuming you refused Valkorian’s power). There was a decent length of time where he had them, mortally wounded and defenseless, and he hesitated so long that Koth discovered the scene, figured out a plan, and shot out that big thing on the ceiling.

-----

[Don’t make it easy. It’s hard for the hero to overcome her flaw and likewise, it should be hard for a villain to overcome his. A quick way to make it harder for the villain to redeem himself is to catch him between two of his values. For example, while this character isn’t a villain, it still illustrates the point: Ned Stark in Game of Thrones values loyalty and wisdom – his wisdom tells him if he helps his King it will inevitably lead to his death, and yet, his loyalty forces him to help the King anyways.]

----

This one is closely tied to the “it takes time” point, and is also horribly ignored in the story. Once he’s healed he’s practically a different person. Now I don’t know if it’s because they didn’t devote much time to his writing since he’s an optional character, or if they meant to write him like this, but it’s still unfortunate.

He strikes me as determined and ruthless (like his mom). His interaction with Thexan and his commitment to the Outlander seems to imply that he’s loyal once he’s found someone worthy of it. He’s intelligent, but can be arrogant sometimes (of course this will have been knocked down a few pegs since the Outlander kicked his ass).

An easy point of conflict between his values (especially soon after he joins the Alliance), would be between his loyalty to the Outlander and his ruthlessness.

He could be on a mission with the Outlander, and have an enemy defeated but alive. The Outlander might want to spare them, while his ruthlessness demands their death. He knows how people like this work, that sparing them is a good way to get stabbed in the back, and if the Outlander is too softhearted to look out for themselves then he will.

BUT the Outlander is showing him trust by letting him accompany them, both trust that Arcann won’t kill them and that he will follow orders. Their trust is extremely precious to him (especially if he’s already crushing on the Outlander) so he really wants to do as they say.

He’s forced to balance their trust against his need to protect them.

------

[Don’t let them go soft. Villains are villains for a reason. Keep them authentic by retaining some of their sharper personality edges. Just because their actions are good doesn’t mean the whole of them will be.]

-----

I feel like this one is especially important, and also terribly overlooked.

Arcann learned some bad habits while being a villain and even when growing up, some of those should carry over into his healed self.

They might lessen with time and careful retraining, but he will always have sharp edges.

He will probably have a temper (although this must be handled very carefully to avoid making him look childish and abusive).

And if someone he cares about is threatened he may fly into a rage until they can calm him down. This rage may be followed by flashbacks of the battles he’s been through and the way the hatred felt in his gut, leaving him panicked and shaky once it’s over.

He probably has nightmares regularly, and care must be taken in waking him up to avoid a violent response, same thing with sneaking up on him: DON”T.

Honestly, the dude went through so much and did so many horrible things that I don’t see how he wouldn’t have PTSD. He certainly has self-hatred up to his eyeballs.

-------

One more thing:

Once he’s joined the Alliance, I think we need to be careful when writing him to make sure that his goal of trying to make up for the horrible things he’s done isn’t overlooked. I mean yeah, he’s helping by coming along on missions with the Commander, but that is super small time stuff compared to what he’s done and I don’t think he’d be satisfied with it for long.

He’s an intelligent man with experience commanding armies on the battlefield, and an extremely talented Force-user. At minimum, and when not accompanying the Outlander, he should spend most of his day immersed in Alliance reports giving tactical advice (once they trust him enough, of course) and helping with combat training in the Force Enclave. When they trust him more, he can maybe become the official liaison between the Alliance and Zakuul, using the resources and tech of his home world to help the reconstruction on the planets he bombarded and getting Zakuul what they need as well.

Of course, once the Republic/Empire war starts up again, his position will change and he may take on a more military role, commanding offensives on behalf of whichever side the Alliance has picked.

My point is, wallowing in emotional hurt/comfort and developing romance is really fun and satisfying, but don’t forget his promise to atone for his misdeeds.

[jcmorgenstern]

jcm meta 2020 edition

not to be fake deep on main but i think i may have found a way to make some vague amount of sense of the 3b edom flashbacks and the wild inconsistency between 2b and 3b’s versions of jonathan’s backstory. this quickly devolved into tracing a reading of Jonathan’s character arc identity through his appearance. Rambling and “i can do #deep lit crit takes on a fire exitinguisher” nonsense to come

So in 2b, Jonathan says to Valentine that “the demons” burned him because he was “too beautiful for this world, too human.” This clashes poorly with the 3b flashbacks that show Lilith burning him out of a misguided sense of love (when she says she is his true mother when he first arrives in edom and holds him and and it burns), or for disobedience (he talks back to her in the throne room and she burns his face, seemingly purposefully).

The first backstory, told to Valentine, can easily enough be written off as a lie or an unreliable narrator situation. Jonathan isn’t particularly good at telling the truth or expressing himself even when he wants to (unless he’s talking metaphorically about himself while giving spurious advice in 2b?). I don’t think it’s particularly realistic for him to tell Valentine the full truth, anyway, especially when he plans to kill him. His axe to grind in that scene is with Valentine, anyway, not Lilith, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to focus on her as his abusive parent figure (also it’s pretty clear they hadn’t even thought about her yet). One traumatic past at a time, so to speak.

The big inconsistency is the crispy elephant in the room. In 3b, Jonathan has some nasty but mostly cosmetic burns; in 2b he, well, IS a burn. Additionally, at 28 years young, Luke does not make a very convincing 13-15 year old. Bowlcut or no.

I’m not defending what was clearly laziness or lack of budget to hire an actual child actor. But if you think about it, blonde bowlcut 8 year old Jonathan may be the last image of himself he has before escaping Edom and taking on Sebastian’s face, as past that his face and identity have been completely burned away. Sebastian looking like a grown-up version of his younger self (blonde, blue eyes, fringe) supports this reading—before waking up as a redhead in 3b, the last self-image he has is of himself at 8 years old.

Thus, Luke being in the 3b flashbacks can be read as Jonathan filling himself as he is, trying to fill that gap, the years of not even knowing what he would look like between childhood and adult rebirth. (How’s that for a shitty puberty?) I’ve likened the body horror of being a Walking Burnt Drumstick to Frankenstein’s monster—he is viscerally hideous to others, cut off from human connection, and made monstrous by that isolation. It’s also a representation of the lack of identity—his identity as Valentine’s demon son is destroyed and eventually replaced with that of Lilith’s son (and, as the red hair suggests, Clary’s brother, something that is….uh, overwhelmingly important to him). It’s also an embodiment of the fundamental childishness of his character—his identity, emotional ability, and self-conception is physically stuck between childhood and adulthood, and he isn’t fully either one.

He’s narrating the 3b Edom flashbacks to Clary, actively constructing and interpreting his own past. These aren’t reliable narrations by any stretch of the imagination—in fact, I think they function better if read as a construction or fictionalization of his experience. Bits and pieces of many memories: tossing a ball in the throne room, Lilith saying she will love him like no one else, telling him about Clary and the Morningstar sword, a prince trapped in a tower, being burned. Revising his past to see himself not as Valentine’s son, or Lilith’s, or even just his own person, but Clary’s brother.

Thus, bowlcut Luke sulking around with mildly convincing prosthetic burns pretending to be 15 can be read as Jonathan’s attempt to fill in the gaps in his own memory, to construct for himself an appearance that draws from both and bridges the gaps between his childhood self and his reborn adult self. The (very bad) bowlcut from his childhood, the face and hair color of his adult self. In doing so, he attempts to reconcile the two identities, the two separate parental traumatic experiences (Valentine and Lilith).

We can see in live time how absent any strong parental force in his life, he turns to the next best thing—his sister—and begins enfolding her into his constructed identity. Clary is the only one who can save him from Edom with the sword, their shared blood being the key, never mind he escapes completely on his own with Clary none the wiser. The childish fairy tale of princess rescuing the prince in his tower from the evil stepmother.

There’s a sad kind of way the twinning bond is an echo-chamber of sorts—Jonathan is looking to Clary to complete him, to give him direction and purpose, the way Valentine and Lilith did. Except the way the bond works, she can only parrot his own unfulfilled motives and wants back at him. (See the fic ouroborous by xanisis, be sure to use promo code crispyboy at checkout). This is why both Jonathan and dark!Clary become increasingly hysterical about protecting the bond—each are profoundly unfulfilled by the increasing loneliness and solipsism of Jonathan’s longing for connection, which makes them both hold on ever harder.

Through this lens, it’s almost apropos that Jonathan’s worst fears—becoming something truly inhuman, truly monstrous—comes to pass. All struggles and suffering cease when he’s reborn yet again as a “god” in the Seelie Court, bleached blonde, sprouting wings, and emoting like a brick wall. He takes up the Queen’s ambition to rule and pursues it soullessly, mixed with a confused conception of revenge—against Clary, seemingly now the avatar for the world that wronged him, not much more than a ghost of himself. (Incel territory is neighboring).

Ultimately, Jonathan and Clary’s only moment of connection where she isn’t projecting his own emptiness back to him is as he dies. Her kindness isn’t killing him, but validating the one human connection he thinks he has, completing the fictionalization of their relationship he’d developed to make sense of his experience (which, honestly, is a lot of disjointed abuse backstories held together with dental floss). As if symbolizing this completion, Jonathan’s body (in true YA fashion) magically turns back from the white-haired emptiness to his original reborn appearance, the red hair and green eyes that marked him out in his eyes not as the unwanted child but as Clary’s brother.

tldr i missed overanalyzing this damn show specifically churning out thousands of words on this stupid mother sisterfucker

[axelsandwich]

Sorting The Untamed characters

In which I have a lot of feelings about sorting The Untamed characters into @sortinghatchats​ classifications because I’m a LOSER NERD WITH FEELINGS : D

Wei Wu Xian - Gryffindor primary/Gryffindor secondary

WWX’s Gryff energy is like….what are you so LOUD for. There’s nothing he can do other than stick to his morals and principles and what his gut is telling him is the right thing to do, no matter the cost. Even if it makes him public enemy number one of the cultivation world, even if it exiles him from his family and clan, even if it goes against everything he was taught and involves helping and saving his worst enemies - see: Wen clan in Xuanwu cave, the cultivators in Burial Mound after losing their spiritual powers due to Su She. This is someone who adheres brightly and with his all to his principles simply because it is the RIGHT thing to do and he knows this with unshaken conviction and is steady once he discovers this, which has its own power. 

Honestly I was actually initially thinking between Slytherin with Claw and Claw secondary because WWX has an improvisational streak to him, managing to thrive even when thrown into the worst of circumstances with a combination of his own prodigious skill and flexibility when it comes to drastically relearning the dark arts to compensate for a lack of golden core. But here’s the passage that convinced me otherwise: “it is a Gryffindor’s stark, direct honesty makes them them feel the most secure. Lies, or even misdirects, are slippery footing. For a Gryffindor Secondary, their blunt honesty is a facet of their personality and their morality—lying about who or why you are taints the victory. A Gryffindor Secondary can and will lie if the cause is important enough— but it will leave a bad taste in their mouth the same way trusting a stranger with their honesty might terrify a Slytherin Secondary.” The blunt honest is self-evident in…well, WWX’s entire existence lmao but even when young in the Gusu Lan sect. But what convinces me is after WWX gets Chenqing and the way the great lie about why he doesn’t use Suibian anymore is framed afterwards. It kills WWX to lie about all that he is, it’s presented as one of the fundamental tragedies of his story - the ultimate betrayal of himself that he makes for a greater purpose and in pursuit of his Gryff primary ideals. The fact it’s not treated lightly or as a tool to be used to achieve his goals is what makes him a Gryff secondary. 

He models a Claw’s curiosity and intellectual fascination with questioning the world order and a Slytherin’s keen eye for motivations and people, but ultimately it comes down to that red thread of charging when backed into a corner - quite literally, he charges towards the Xuanwu, out of Chiongqi Road with the Wen prisoners, into the plaza of cultivators calling for his ashes, directly into Guanyin temple where Jingyi is in danger; he puts himself in harm’s way without a second thought when his gut is telling him he’s right to do so. He also has the classic Gryff secondary trait of amassing an accidental army in his wake of the most unlikely people, all transformed by his draw and that irresistible quality of truth to him. 

Lan Wang Ji - Gryffindor primary/Ravenclaw secondary

LWJ is a quiet version of the Gryffindor primary, raised in a culture that forces him into like…the strongest of all Ravenclaw models. He adheres strictly and obediently to the Lan clan’s system of the world because in his mind, it was the right thing to do… until WWX forces him to re-examine his morality, about what he was taught and everything he believed was right. And when his model of the world is challenged, what he ultimately goes with is…his heart. Not necessarily because his morality is guided by how WWX is his in the same way of Slytherin/Hufflepuff’s personal morality, but because WWX embodies the new insight that nothing is truly black or white in the way his clan’s system has taught; because LWJ feels that WWX is good, even when every other rule he’s been taught is saying otherwise and, little by little, he rebels quietly by dismantling those systems that once shaped his worldview. 

LWJ wrestles visibly with this the entire flashback arc of the drama, unable to bring himself to denounce WWX despite all the ‘bad’ he had done all the way until the Nightless City battle and when push came to shove, at the very end, he still chose to clutch onto WWX’s hand until WWX made the choice for him to let go. I do think he was ‘stripped’ by the experience - his internal compass, sense of purpose, and even sense of worth broken by the loss of WWX and that’s what he spends 16yrs atoning and suffering for. After WWX’s revival, he accordingly sets himself up against the cultivation world with no hesitation because he’s had 16yrs to regret not following his Gryff primary heart that said WWX’s way of seeing the world is right and he’s not going to falter again. 

Ravenclaw secondary bc……his first instinct when his boyfriend was changed by demonic cultivation was to flip the library upside down trying to find a cure and try to invent a whole ass song to cure him nghghghshf. But yes, he’ll fall back on systems, skills and knowledge he’s carefully built from the ground up when backed in a corner, drawing on what he’s known and carefully cultivated, looking through resources to try and gain more knowledge. 

Wen Qing - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary

Wen Qing’s morality and driver is very simple. It’s her brother at the start, her family, and gradually expands as people help him and - by extension - her: WWX, LWJ, Jiang Cheng. For them, she’ll betray the wider clan with very few qualms because they’re not her people and those who are hers come first. She connects with Jiang Cheng on the basis of both their Slytherin primaries, but understands immediately that he would never have gone with her to rescue Wen Ning because while she may tentatively be one of ‘his’ people in his mind, Wen Ning isn’t, and so any future with him is tragically unaccepted. When it comes down to sacrificing even the brother she holds so dear, she does it in the hope that her people - WWX and her wider family by proxy - may be saved from the cultivation world’s wrath. She’s a Slytherin secondary because she’s adaptable and able to draw on whatever skills she needs and be who she needs to be to achieve her goals, with a knack for zeroing in precisely on people’s true motivations and what will and won’t work with a cultivation society looking to find a bad guy. You can bet she’s the one who figured out how to trick Jiang Cheng into believing he could get his golden core back. It’s telling that her most emotional moments are when she lays down all her defences and sincerely speaks from the heart - whether it’s crying over Wen Ning’s body or thanking Wei Wu Xian and apologising. ; _ ; Wen Qing is a good egg. 

Jiang Cheng - Slytherin primary/Gryff secondary

It’s clear from the start that Jiang Cheng’s morality revolves around his family who are his and come above everyone else, along with his pride (but we’re not gonna talk about thatttt...). His impassioned plea of ‘it was enough to just save ourselves, why did you have to save them’ re: bringing the Wen clan wrath upon the Jiang clan proves he could never see eye to eye with WWX’s Gryffindor primary that demands what is right be applied to all, and therein lies the source of their feud, when we get to the pointy end and doing what’s right involves a lot more sacrifice and hardship. Jiang Cheng’s very specialised loyalty is tested over and over throughout the beginning of the series by outsiders casting suspicion on WWX’s motivations, pricking at his pride and his deep set insecurities about his own position and whether he’s actually loved by the people he’s claimed as his own and also on their priority list (see: his father, WWX). 

What truly makes him give up and cut WWX out of his circle is when WWX himself says ‘I exile myself from the tribe’. In Jiang Cheng’s eyes, to betray the people who are yours is what is unforgivable and impossible to understand, and that’s what comes out as the most deeply buried point of pain in Guanyin temple and what’s driven JC’s anger the last sixteen years. That doesn’t make him any less of an extreme Gryff secondary than WWX, whether it’s charging straight into the feared Burial Mound where no one’s ever come out alive just to drag his brother out and confront him about all the problems directly, to confronting WWX directly in Lotus Cove, to marching into Guanyin temple’s front door. Which is probably why they fight. We also find out in the end that Jiang Cheng is fully capable of the same dumb self sacrifice that WWX made for him. Ironically, both of their actions boil down to ‘I must protect my brother’, except where WWX does it because it’s right, Jiang Cheng does it because that’s his brother. 

Jin Guangyao - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary

WWX’s diametric opposite. I do think he seems like a petrified Slytherin - Guanyin temple arc reveals that his world once comprised at least of himself and his mother, and perhaps the idealised image of who his father would be, and he strove and strove until his father shattered all his dreams, until his world narrows until it’s ultimately and dangerously comprised of just himself. I do think Nie Mingjue, Su She, Qin Su and Lan Xichen came the closest to who he would consider ‘his’ people, but even that falls away as they ‘betray’ him and because his actions are ultimately guided by his loyalty only to himself, and warps exactly what he interprets as ‘betrayal’. This is what allows him to betray them when they ultimately fall out of line with JGY’s priorities and give them such cruel endings despite how much he professes to treasure them. It’s what creates his resentment against NMJ that festers until it leads to NMJ’s demise - in JGY’s eyes, to throw aside everything in their relationship for the sake of some lowly, subhuman captain who’s always treated JGY with contempt and to keep holding it against him is incomprehensible, unforgivable. It’s also why LXC stabbing him is met with such choking disbelief and anger - because JGY, true to his word, would have never entertained the concept of betraying a person who was proving to be his and LXC was his last hope. His secondary Slytherin allows him to transform and shift with the wind, shedding personas and layers as easily as water, the same way it pains WWX to do the same. 

Nie Huaisang - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary 

Jin Guangyao’s equal and foil, ironically also putting up a very self-entered front in the world where it seems like he only cares about his own self interests but quietly loyal to a select number of people who are his - WWX, his elder brother - and will quietly work in the shadows playing the long con to systematically dismantle everything about the person he despises. Slytherin secondary allows him to make himself a fool without any qualms about it not being a reflection of his true face or authentic self, and pull the puppet strings on even those he cares about until he gets to where he wants to be. 

Lan XiChen - Ravenclaw primary/Ravenclaw secondary

Xichen sticks much more closely to what his clan’s systems are and his carefully constructed understanding of the world and that’s what both blinds him to JGY and shakes his worldview so heavily when JGY reveals himself to be a villain. But his felt morality, guided by the system of being just and fair is also what allows him to reject JGY and entertain the possibility of his betrayal. A Slytherin primary may stubbornly cling to faith in a person that he sees as ‘his’ person, but a Ravenclaw primary will feel guilty and immoral to be sticking with them despite knowing they’re betraying the system of justice that he prides above all. It’s what allows him to be an ally to both WWX/LWJ and JGY for the latter half of the series, trying to understand and question the logical holes in WWX and LWJ’s arguments. Where WWX and LWJ don’t have evidence for JGY being evil, they can feel it in their guts and they charge towards getting that evidence based on those convictions. LXC on the other hand may sense something in his gut but he will not act against JGY without being convinced of said evidence, until he is certain of what the real truth is and will methodically keep digging and questioning the evidence being presented to him until it becomes undeniable. It’s also telling that his anger when Huaisang manipulates him into stabbing JGY is not so much about the fact he betrayed his friend (which is the key pain point that JGY angrily latches onto) but that Huaisang may have been lying, that LXC may have acted on something that was not true and he had been unable to see through that. It’s a subtle difference I think, but what separates his primary. I think his Ravenclaw secondary is pretty obvious in the thoroughness of his methods and the ways we’ve seen him dodge the Wen clan, to be willing to work with JGY during the Sunshot Campaign. It requires flexibility of thinking and drawing on a range of resources and that’s what LXC quietly excels at. 

Jiang Yanli & Wen Ning - Hufflepuff primary/Hufflepuff secondary

Both are honestly quite similar — they’ll hold onto their belief in the basic goodness of all people, regardless of allegiance and regardless of their past history and that’s the source of what endears them to people and why they manage to build an army of people who would die and care for them when push comes to shove. 

The little we see of both Yanli and Wen Ning’s way of operating from a secondary perspective revolves around being of service to others, being a source of reliability, support and consistency, quietly building, strengthening and contributing to their little community. Wen Ning quietly and diligently attends to WWX’s protection at all times, reliably taking on the roles allocated to him with a genuine commitment to performing them to his best ability. 

When they ‘fight’, they fight by drawing on their resources, through a thorough, systematic and relentless persistance. A Li’s approach to the battle of words on Phoenix Mountain is an example of this - she draws upon her position, her knowledge of what is ‘proper’ to do within the community and the goodwill she’s built with Madame Jin to subtly dismantle Jin Zixun’s arguments while still pleasantly entrapping him in the niceties of the community she’s a part of without alienating herself the same way WWX can’t help but do with his bluntness. When JC threatens to push WWX to the limits of his endurance, Wen Ning defends WWX through words, standing up again and again despite being violently thrown back and systematically dismantling all of JC’s defence mechanisms by thoroughly and sincerely pushing back on every false claim and even urging JC to call on the community to verify the truth of his words. They’re indomitable, stubborn and effective and that’s Puff/Puff energy right there.

Jin Ling - Gryff primary/Gryff secondary

Gryff primary…why are you so LOUD for Pt 2. Poor Jingyi, two Gryff secondary uncles and father…he had no chance lmaaaao. Impulsive, reckless, absolutely a ‘charge first and ask questions later’ kid and screaming Gryff secondary. Will bash a hole in a wall when he’s denied entry and get caught by the skeleton demons than like…find another way around, you know? Or charge into Guanyin temple without much second thought. His Gryff primary and his gut morality of what is right - aka. trusting WWX and treating him with fairness - ultimately wins against him being pushed hard into the whole ‘pride in your clan only’ angle by his Slytherin primary uncle, and that’s what allows him to become a WWX duckling (begrudgingly) despite all his puffery and objections. It’s also what lets him survive and accept the betrayal of seeing his other uncle revealed as a villain and how he’s able to reject JGY when his misdeeds become undeniable. I also think it’s super cute he’s the same type as WWX, honestly...it’s why I love their dynamic. He’s the young, unjaded version of his uncle.    

Lan Sizhui - Puff primary/Gryff secondary with a Claw model?

There’s a kindness to Shizui that he extends to Mo Xuanyu, Jin Ling and Wen Ning against convention and despite - in Jin Ling’s case - how hard he tries to create distance in that relationship that makes me think Puff primary and his determination to see everyone as people to be respected. I feel like we don’t see enough of Sizhui in action to really be able to determine his secondary - he has something of secondary Puff/Claw vibes in the way he comes across as quietly diligent, reliable and insightful, but he’s also got a certain amount of fire when he needs to - grabbing people’s legs as a kid, making a move towards possessed Song Lan in Yi City despite WWX telling them all to get out, brawling with the other ducklings when tied up, rushing recklessly back up the Burial Mound path to find WWX and LWJ who were holding back the ghouls etc. Maybe a secret Gryff secondary that’s normally held in place by a Claw or Puff model. 

[cainromainelettuce]

( non-binary ) haven’t seen CAIN ROMANOV around in a while. the BILL SKARSGARD lookalike has been known to be (+) RIGHTEOUS & (+) AMBITIOUS, but HE/THEY can also be (-) EVASIVE & (-) UNTRUSTING. The 24 year old is a SENIOR majoring in BUSINESS. I believe they’re living in EMERITUS, but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( snot goblin. 20. EST. she/they. )

surprise !! i am the snot goblin ! (aka james aka saige aka amos aka aleta) !! i very much apologize for this intro being late !! and also for possibly being pretty long.

EDIT: i forgot to mention but 1. like this if u’d like to plot w/ him !! obv !! and then 2. if discord is easier for any of u, my thing is emo stan #3644 uwu

TW: CULT LIFE, HEROIN USAGE / ADDICTION, DRUG ADDICTION / USE / ABUSE, EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION, ABUSE, MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES ( PTSD, ANXIETY ). if i forgot anything PLEASE tell me !!

a e s t h e t i c s

dangling limbs from tree branches, yellowed book pages, opened bottles of vintage wine, oversized sweaters and deep under eyes, bleached denim, worn leather gloves, cat hair against black cloth, fields of wheat, broken windows, descending staircases, tight-lipped smiles during public appearances, golden skies, light spilling from windows, stumbling over one's own words, wire-framed beds, linens, wool scarves, making the wrong decisions; running, from others and yourself.

general information !!

full name: cain alexei romanov

nickname(s): cock and ball torture, N/A

b.o.d. - feb 19th, fuckin pisces

label(s): the fallen, the phoenix, the crestfallen, etc. etc.

height: 6′4″ jfc

hometown: rochester, ny babey !!

sexuality: bi...? bi. yes. bi.

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biography !!

cain, like all of my other children, was born into a life of privilege. his father’s a senator of new york and his mother’s a philanthropist; both pretty prominent figures. cain is the eldest of five.

he was raised in mind of keeping a good public reputation, taught to be the perfect citizen. essentially, he was a golden child who could really do no wrong. as a child, he’d always aim to please his parents in any way he could.

this included joining several clubs during school, such as model UN, debate, DECA, etc. etc. as well as a few sports (soccer, track, basketball, lacrosse -- all throughout the years, not at once). pretty sure he’s been a class president once or twice, and has been in the lead for valedictorian.

his whole thing was that he was supposed to be perfect. volunteered on the weekends at homeless shelters and food banks and like...he just did The Most. the absolute most

this pleased his parents, and he never had a problem with them. life was good. they attended church on sundays, sometimes wednesdays, always did things as a Family. like, we’re talking family dinners and christmas photoshoots and new year eve parties.

probably lived in a gated community tbh

he went into college strong, started off as a double major in political science and business, lookin’ to take after both his parents. he’d Always been fairly close to tatiana, being around the same age as her. nothing freaky ever happened among them, and i wouldn’t have really called them...friends, if that makes sense? they were confidantes, they vented to each other for whatever reasons at the time.

however this whole ~do no wrong~ bearing was a charade. in the community and his families’ eye, cain was just this precious, hardworking citizen who gave back when possible.

those who actually, genuinely knew him knew he was just a dick lmfao

arrogant, harrowing, and an outright bully who tore down others when he felt like it -- often unprovoked. he was the senator’s son and a rich one at that, and ever since middle school he was just...mean !

because of his father and his family’s general position in the community, tattlers were the ones getting in trouble rather than cain, who’d often go without punishment for his attitude.

like...was That Bitch who’d actually, genuinely look down at somebody if they had less than him. just an absolute narcissistic dickhead who only cared about like, maybe two or three people outside of his family.

his only redeeming quality was probably his protectiveness over his siblings tbh -- even if he wasn’t ... the best person, nobody was rly allowed to fuck w/ his family.

this carried into college, he probably joined one of the frats too, y’know. known for keeping his composition even when others resorted to violence, ‘cos he never liked to get physical. it would’ve been bad for press, y’know ??

sometime during college, two important things happened.

the first one is that he became a sort of...middleman? broker? he wasn’t the one creating/growing what he was selling, but he wasn’t the one dealing them. y’know, he was the middleman. took drugs and sold them to dealers to sell, for profit, for funsies. very hush-hush for the obvious reasons.

the second is that he met earl and may meyers. they were fellow volunteers at a thanksgiving food drive, and the older couple were immediately drawn to cain -- and him to them, essentially. to this day he can’t tell you what about them had been so appealing. just, the air around them was something else entirely. some would probably call it unhinged. they were kind folks, very down to earth, very religious and warmhearted. they liked his name being cain a whole lot; told him that he reminded him of their late son.

i’d say the beginning of this was late junior year for cain. the couple volunteered more and more at the same places as cain, as often as he did -- which, in retrospect was odd -- but cain hadn’t really known better. being the Good Samaritan he acted as, he kept talking to them. it became a genuine friendship. a few months into it, they had started talking about like...the sin of wealth and what it does to your soul, god choosing only a select few to be saved when he eventually cleanses the earth, etc. etc. they claimed that cain was special, one of those to be selected, they could see it in his aura, etc. etc.

it was...oddly appealing to him? like hmm..maybe i am being constrained by capitalism and disappointing god!

but like...this was mostly because of a lot of emotional manipulation for a duration of months -- and he had never once suspected anything like that to be happening. cain had always been so sure of himself, that he’d never imagined one day being manipulated, even if he was manipulative himself.

earl and may told him that they were going to leave rochester, that there were so many more who had the same ideals as them -- it was time to join them, to be saved. cain held off from this, as a senior in college by now.

after all, he had his perfect lil family and a good side-business going on, and he had a long term girlfriend who put up with his shenanigans. cain was still an absolute asshole to others but he had at least found his crowd to all be collectively awful and full of themselves, y’know?

over winter break, however, cain had a change of heart pretty suddenly. 

for the third important thing had happened.

it had started off as a pretty average, normal day. christmas had gone and passed -- it was one of the days between christmas and new years eve, y’know? a period of days where time nor place is real. like walmart at midnight, or an empty 7/11 parking lot. during a seemingly normal conversation about his ancestry with his mother, she had suddenly broken down in sobs.

it was during this discussion that she revealed, to cain only -- that he was not his father’s son.

the beginning of vaughn and adelaide’s marriage had a pretty...rocky start, to say the least, and in a night of petty anger, adelaide had cheated on vaughn. this resulted in the pregnancy that wound up with cain.

the news rocked cain’s world in a very bad way, the sort of way that breaks a person. his entire life he looked up to his parents, did everything they ever asked of him, molded himself into perfection for the hope of being a sliver of a man his father was. and to learn that his father was not, actually, his father?

within the week he’d gotten into several altercations, both sober and drunk, and had landed in county jail overnight. nobody knows where cain went on new years eve, but he hadn’t skipped town until the third -- according to tatiana, who had received one last gift from him on the 2nd (her birthday).

then, he was gone. it wasn’t a missings person ordeal -- cain had made it very known that he was leaving rochester and that he had skipped town. hadn’t even broken up with his girlfriend before doing so. hell -- hadn’t even told the people he worked for. 

BEGINNING OF CULT / DRUG / MOST OF THE TRIGGER WARNINGS

only earl and may knew where cain went. because he went with them to the place they had told him so much about. this was the fourth most important thing to happen to him, because it changed his life.

cain didn’t know what a cult looked like, but it felt pretty accurate to hollywood’s interpretations. they lived separate from society in rural new york -- not nearly as far away as cain would’ve liked, but thank god in the long run for that. the people wore white, linens and cotton. there was no technology, just prayer and daily chores. money meant nothing, there.

i want to keep this part relatively short, so i’ll try my hardest. cain was only in the cult for three-ish months before he escaped. the beginning was grand -- it was peaceful, it was mind-clearing. he was treated as something special, his name being some sort of ... message, a sign that he’d been a gift for the group. that he’d be, ultimately, an eventual leader for them. however -- the longer he stayed with them, the more apparent it became that he wasn’t the messager they had long waited for.

he began slipping up. they became displeased with him. punishments occurred. sometimes once a week, sometimes multiple. he remembers hundreds of hands, pulling and tugging and gripping and begging -- asking him to repent, please, repent, and submergence on more than one occasion. these were not the worst.

 they were convinced that he couldn’t truly be cleansed of his sins unless he forgot his past life.

fun fact: heroin in small doses, daily, can lead to memory loss.

though it’d only been around three months of this -- it really felt longer to cain. time wasn’t a concept. there was only the ground they walked on, and god, and that was that.

drugged and weakened but still kickin’, he had gotten into a particularly violent, brutal fight with earl. this was the last straw. cain had attempted to murder his ‘brother’. this led to his next punishment.

in a particularly twisted reenactment / retelling, cain had been branded with the cult’s interpretation of the mark of cain (they were going to be accurate and place it upon his forehead, but after a lot of resistance [he bit somebody] it was, begrudgingly, placed atop his heart instead) and left for dead in the middle of nowhere.

by all means, he probably should’ve died. by miracle, though cain was no longer a believer -- he was found by a farmer.

END OF CULT / DRUG / MOST OF THE TRIGGER WARNINGS. PROCEED WITH CAUTION. STILL MENTIONS OF TRAUMA / MENTAL HEALTH / RECOVERY BEYOND THIS POINT.

by early april he’d been reunited with his family. things went very fast, suddenly, for him. recovering from his forced addiction, and the trauma he’d been put in within only a small amount of months -- and his father’s reputation -- his mother’s inability to look him in the eye -- cain took matters into his own hands and, rather than return to lockwood, put in his transfer to hendrix.

because he’s a grown man who, while recovering from being in a cult, can still make his own decisions even if they’re irrational. he should’ve taken a year off, really, and recover. but he couldn’t imagine staying in his house, either, and generally ?? his mind was just a very messy place.

he went to hendrix a s a p, before his term in the summer even began. he wound up at hendrix a few weeks (like...three?) before the lockwood kids and was very dismayed to find out that oh, coincidence, there’s an abroad semester attending !!

so that’s sort of where he’s at rn.

personality !!

okay so...douchebag cain is No More. they’re retired.

to the hendrix students they’ve familiarized themself with, they’re a pretty quiet person. well-meaning, kind enough if not a little sarcastic. sort of distant, not much for parties. smokes weed and like, drinks occasionally, but not much else. definitely doesn’t do anything harder. 

they’ve got four cats. that’s their entire personality. four cats. they got them all after transferring to hendrix and like ... no regrets ?

i imagine their parents still pay for their schooling ‘cos it’s not like their father Knows that cain’s not his child. if anything, vaughn just thinks that cain suffered a mental breakdown and needed a break.

anyways. they love their cats a lot. like, probably has photos of them in their wallet.

as mentioned above, their memory is pretty...fucked up right now. they don’t forget anything major, but there are days where it takes them a while to remember faces or names and sometimes they wake up and won’t know where they are.

not that they really...sleep a lot? they have night terrors, which fuck with their sleep schedule. they sleep only for a few hours each night because the nightmares are too bad.

cain suffers from severe touch aversion. skin-to-skin contact of any sort is enough to send them into a pretty bad panic attack. they wear leather gloves more often than not, because it helps without hindering them too much. they’re not the biggest fan of body contact in general, even with clothes, but it won’t send them into a panic like bare skin will. they make sure their few friends know that they don’t really like physical contact at all.

they’re dealing with PTSD, attends therapy every week. keeps an entire journal where they write b/c it helps them cope. it’s like, everything to them.

they’re...sort of like...blunt? they won’t go out of their way to be like ‘hey i joined a cult and it fucked me up pretty badly’ but they won’t lie about it either if the topic somehow comes to that. they don’t like delusions, but they don’t like drawing unnecessary attention to them either.

lockwood students being at hendrix makes them pretty anxious, just because they were looking to sort of ... rebuild themself into a better person, and like pretty much most students at lockwood knows how much of a massive tool they used to be. not to mention like, their plugs and customers they screwed over by leaving, and their ex girlfriend who they’re still probably in love with ?? but it’s just complicated now.

smokes weed to soothe them rather than just get high. is probably stoned often.

doesn’t really like cars! or swimming! or crowds. doesn’t like to feel trapped.

whenever they’re overwhelmed and needs to be away from everything, they’ve developed a habit of climbing into trees. they won’t suddenly go jump in a tree during a conversation, but more so at night or when they need to think.

probably trying to redeem themself in some sort of way. because while they want to avoid the lockwood students as much as possible, that’s not right. they want to fix the shit they’ve done and be a better person, because the whole...situation they’ve been in has opened their eyes.

uuuhh...there are days where they forget that tatiana’s dead. so that’s sad.

i wouldn’t be surprised if people from lockwood were suspicious of cain, considering they left rochester only a week or so before tatiana went missing, and just so happened to come to hendrix around the same time eva went missing ??

oh !! cain developed a stutter, and their voice is a little damaged from...screaming. a lot. in general they look a little gaunt, a little unhealthy. 

they can still definitely hold a conversation, and like i said they’re pretty...lowkey. soft, sort of. generally a quiet person and while they’re not the most social, they won’t be a direct asshole or anything. likes people! just...has low energy.

goes by he/they, doesn’t really care which one as he alternates pretty frequently.

dropped the political science part of his major and like...unfortunately is very much unhappy with being a business major atm. he might just go through another four years of college in a diff major or fuck off all together.

EDIT: i forgot to mention that he’s sort of really into the investigation of the cult he was part of b/c they’re still like...out there. also fascinated by the watershed app and shit, ‘cos they fucking...hate this shit with a passion. probably willing to stick their nose into places they shouldn’t

wanted connections !!

so first and foremost, cain would’ve been known around lockwood. connections relating to that would be v much appreciated !!

mostly enemies or people they’ve wronged, tbh, ‘cos he was a massive dick.

exes they’ve dumped, hook ups, ex-friends, people he’s gotten into arguments or fights with.

his ex gf would be gr8 . if anybody would like some angst.

uuhhh i’d imagine he’d know a few of the other prominent families from rochester, especially. not to say that they would’ve all gotten along.

hendrix pals !! give me some solid friendships based on mutual respect.

people cain used to receive drugs from and people he used to send those drugs to.

ex-party pals ??

people suspicious of them b/c cain was/is a very suspicious person. people still angry at them.

let them RECONNECT and FIX FRIENDSHIPS

people he’d bully or fuck with or whatever.

wholesome shit. angst shit. slowburns, anyone ?!? enemies to friends. friends to enemies. enemies to bigger enemies.

i’m not taking hook-ups for....obvious reasons.

but sexual tension is welcomed. maybe a sexting thing ??

ppl they DON’T even know that well but hATE his dAD because FUCK POLITICIANS y’know ?!?

old pals from lockwood, if i didnt mention that.

i imagine a lot of conversations w/ lockwood kids begin like ‘this is where u fucked off to, huh?’ b/c like....they told everybody they were ditching rochester. it wasn’t a secret or a shock. but it’s still like huh. u bastard.

people who are soft for them ??

people who are hard on him ??

make his life difficult but also uuuhh uwu him

[sethnakht]

This summer, two events in Star Wars comics became my primary source of recreation - Hope Dies, in the main, and The Catastrophe Con, in Aphra. Now that both have concluded, summer feels well and truly over, and I’m compelled to look back at why these comics played such a significant role in keeping me palliated and docile within the machine entertained.

There’s something about experiencing a comic live, when there’s a wait between issues, when the covers and solicits are both the doorway to the latest developments and to future speculations (covers don’t have the same impact in a trade paperback), when the imagination still has the time and space to imagine what sort of composition it is in which one finds oneself. While the experience is similar to reading an updating WIP or fan-comic, it also could not be more different. There are strict temporal and material boundaries, for one: fixed update schedules, page budgets, studio-set limits on what characters can be used in what way. Issues tend to be structured to do one thing you expect while introducing some new thing to keep the appetite whetted for the next issue - around cliffhangers, I guess, if the cliffhangers are also conceived of as major and minor twists (huge generalization, please take all of this with a grain of salt, I’m basically speculating aloud here and will probably regret it greatly after posting). All of this affects what one is given to read and how one reads it. 

[The comparison to fanfic is deeply flawed, since comics are ultimately mass-produced consumables whereas fanfic is ... the product of consumption plus some measure of active interpretation? Idk, I vacillate on whether fanfic is not itself just a more involved way of keeping its readers and writers permanent consumers or whether it does have the potential to open a sort of space for critical thought and action regarding ourselves and society - I used to think the latter, now am increasingly unconvinced.]

Anyway, keeping in mind that comics are products of the culture industry and designed to be just unsatisfying enough that you want to consume the next issue and the next and the next and ... something that does possibly fragment them a little is the collaborative process. Franchise novels are by their very nature interpretations of a text (here: Star Wars), interpretations stamped with the mark of authenticity after having been subjected to various controls, but they present the façade of coming from one author (one authority). Franchise comics are also canon-stamped interpretations of a text, but an additional interpretative process is reflected in every panel, since these comics tend to be written, pencilled, inked, and then colored by completely different people. (If you look at the Director’s Cut of the original Darth Vader #1, you can compare Gillen’s script to Larroca’s panels and see something of that communication process.) Each panel is the witness to a set of interpretative decisions, and I think that contributes to my vast preference for comics over novels in a franchise setting: they model active interpretation - or is it a kind of interpretative lack, a kind of gap between word and image? - even before the reader gets to them. The kinds of discussions we’ve been able to have here around Darth Vader especially would speak for the “gap” as a powerful incentive to thought - the gap between issues, the gap between word and image, the gap created by a medium that does not have the space or desire to hand-hold, to narrate every step from a to b, that uses image to imply those steps, thus creating new gaps for interpretative energy to fill, etc.

Enough pretentious rambling. Let’s be real, I was sucked in very obviously for purely consumerist reasons - Vader was going to be in both, of course yours truly was going to buy all the comics. That I also liked these two events because the creative teams (Gillen and Larroca, Spurrier and Walker, to name only the authors and pencillers, respectively) tend to produce interesting tensions on a page was more of a bonus, probably, than anything else.

Spoilers from here on out.

It was fun to imagine where these comics could go while they still had room to follow my Id. I’ve learned a lot about myself in the process - what assumptions I tend to make, my severe limits and biases as a reader, why I care so damned much about issues that promise meetings between a dark father archetype and some daughter archetype (I’ll say it aloud: I lack a positive relationship to not only my own father, but pretty much every male authority figure in my life, and am using Vader and his daughter/daughter-surrogates to work this through. Arrogance, much?). I’ve learned not to get my hopes up anymore, that this is a gap I have to bridge on my own. 

Which is not to say that the events were disappointments, on the contrary. Hope Dies developed rhymes from Vader in ways I really enjoyed thinking about, bringing together a daughter (Leia) and her surrogate-mirror (Trios) in philosophical and physical conflict, showing Vader at his weirdest and worst, at his most controlling and at his most blind (to his daughter(s)), at his most controlled (precisely when you think he’s off the leash he’s shown lashed to it). I loved it, and think it will hold up even better with a little distance, when read all together as one piece. Trying to describe the experience, I’m inclined to say it was like reading the next book of an epic poem - or the next stanza of one long poem - there were poetic qualities to the experience, in other words.

The Catastrophe Con felt more like an enjoyable puzzle where all the pieces are given in staggered spurts at the start and the race is to put them together correctly before the minor and major twists are revealed. I had fun with that, failed miserably of course, but learned a great deal about how comics can be written in the process. Like - the spores. What do the spores do? They keep Aphra in the jail and indirectly bring a host of different agents to the jail by messing with her escape plan, thus setting up the final conflict. They bring out her greed. They create something of a mystery to keep readers invested. They drop clues about Lopset. They remind her of her mother so she can reflect aloud on the theme of choice versus necessity, on categorial versus hypothetical ethics, a major theme in Aphra comics that will also explicitly structure the next arc. And they invoke the Force, and thus can keep Vader distracted so that Sana can rescue Tolvan. Which, I mean, is a way of putting the joke on Vader - he misses something essential because he runs off to deal with an empty spectre. Is that what I thought the spores would do at the time? In some ways yes, but mostly no. One could ask the same question of the Bor - what does it do? One could argue that it establishes lore (recasting Bodhi's torture, giving us new information about Aphra's electric tattoos) and gives Aphra a way to escape. But it also serves as the means of bringing out Aphra's capacity for great love and infinite selfishness at the same time, highlighting how decoupled her emotions are from her self-preserving actions, contrasting her with characters like Vader and Triple-Zero. The Bor is a powerful tool in that sense. 

All of which is to say: these comics did something in my life, and it was a definite experience to open myself up to the process in this way, an experience worth thinking about and learning from for the future. Time now to go out into the world and do something active with it. /end of navel-gazing

[docholligay]

The activity page is being unrelenting garbage again so spoilers/comments on Hereditary under the cut

@awashsquid   I really like your take on why the women needed to be decapitated, etc. It’s not something that I would have ever thought of, but I think it really does make sense. I did find myself wishing there was more that directly foreshadowed Paimon’s rise at the end, but maybe that’s just me wanting it handed out too much. I’m curious—how much of the mental illnesses, do you think, were caused by all the Paimon stuff? My initial thought was that the brothers schizophrenia was directly because his mother tried to make him the vessel for Paimon but it somehow backfired and didn’t fully take, leaving him with himself but also a part that was Not, which ultimately drove him to suicide. I’m glad I got to read your take on this!

You know, I didn’t think about the brother that way! I should have, really, because it does tie in and make sense. For people named Doc who are me, a LOT of it had to do with Paimon stuff, the vast majority of it, but maybe not all? Her father I have trouble slotting into that space, but as I was telling Jetty when we watched it, I think this movie resists an easy “this is a metaphor for X” and I think that’s part of its strength, actually, are there are a lot of interpretations that make sense, but none come easy. 

 @skylineofspace  I feel like this movie worked as well as it did for me because of how creepily similar the family dynamic here is to how my own family interacted during high school; the two biggest differences being that it was my mom’s father who was the awful abusive one (he never lived with us before he died), and my sister is basically nothing like Charlie (she is also not dead). So the whole film felt really extra real to me because of that.

I think the biggest area where I’d differ from Doc’s analysis is that I really don’t think that Charlie is a demon at all, or if she is I don’t think demons work like the cult is expecting them to. Like Doc said, it’s clear that Charlie is never possessed during the film, but I’d argue that nothing she does is really demonic (the weirdest thing she does is make sculptures with mismatched heads, which really doesn’t seem too much different from Annie’s own art projects) and at the end of the film, Charlie/Paimon in Peter’s body does absolutely nothing (with what I would read as distinctly uncomfortable body language), while the cultists stand there and chant and the camera zooms out to show the treehouse floating in a black abyss. That final shot always communicated to me that despite everything it did, the cult was really just small and pathetic, and they affected nothing outside of that room.

Of course, if Charlie isn’t an evil demon at all, then who is making all the evil supernatural stuff happen? I would argue that it’s the spirit of the grandmother, which is present before Charlie dies, and is connected to the blue ring effect. This effect is very different from the effect we see when Peter’s body is possessed by Charlie at the very end. When we first see the blue ring effect Charlie is led outside to where she sees a white-clothed figure that looks very much like the grandmother, and the subsequent times it appears are when the directly harmful supernatural events are happening.

My big takeaway from the film is that it’s about how it doesn’t matter if you love your family and are acting from good intentions - families are complicated, and they can’t always be saved. It’s made clear several times that every member of the family really does love and care for the others (Peter’s sincerity on the way to the hospital, the way he says Mommy at the very end, Steve crying in the car after Peter gets hurt, multiple places for Annie) but they also all make tons of mistakes in dealing with each other (Annie never really regains Peter’s trust after almost murdering him with the paint thinner, no-one really takes Charlie’s disabilities as seriously as they should / they don’t seem to really be asking her what she wants, Peter has just about the worst reaction possible to accidentally killing his sister, Steve at one point knocks himself unconscious with sleeping pills rather than face what’s happening, etc.). This is brought to an extreme point by the presence of the cult, but it reflects attitudes that are present in lots of families that have smaller problems that will just fester forever because everyone means well, but meaning well isn’t always enough to solve the problem, and sometimes the problem can’t be solved. I found it a depressing takeaway, but also a useful lens to consider things through.

 I think all stories are like this, but especially this one--the window you look out of is as important as what you look at, and so far I haven’t talked to two people who’ve taken this movie in the exact same way. I didn’t really catch any of the family stuff and it being about intention, maybe because I didn’t think anyone’s intentions were all that good ahahah. But I see where you’re coming from with that, and I LOVE hearing what people thought of this movie because it’s so so interesting to me. 

[cdyssey]

Once Rewatch: Snow Falls, 1x03

“You’re a... girl?!”

“Woman.”

And then she clocks David upside the face with a big rock.

Now this is start of a beautiful pair. :’)

Omg, I’d forgotten that MM had gone on a date with Whale.

Talk about awkward.

Hm, I also think I’ll do some Whale analysis here as well. He’s arrogant, misogynistic, and kind of spineless when it comes to dealing with forces more powerful than himself. I think this is a great interpretation of source material, lol.

Bc if we’re being honest here, Victor Frankenstein is a whiny college dropout, a prototypical incel who probably passed biology but severely failed ethics.

I’m not crying—there’s just some Snowing in my eye.

On a related note, Isham’s swelling score is particularly powerful here; he amps up the suspense perfectly.

I love Once’s retcon of the name Prince Charming; it works so much better as an ironic moniker.

Snow: “True love? It doesn’t exist. It’s all arranged marriages and business transactions.” (1) So in my writeup on the pilot, I wrote something to the effect that Snow is less vulnerable to optimism than David is, that she’s long been disillusioned about the possibility for happy endings. I think this quote backs that sentiment up quite nicely. (2) I know A&E probably haven’t figured out the logistics of Regina and Leopold by this point, but even still, this quote very well applies to their farce of a marriage. (Snow’s cognition and/or ignorance of this is such a rich place to explore in fic.)

Emma (talking about Regina): Where does she think you are anyway?

Henry: Playing Whack-a-Mole.

Emma: And she bought that?

Henry: She wants to believe it, so she does.

This exchange is funny but also purty revealing, even if Henry doesn’t quite know it. Regina desperately wants things between them to return back to normal, so when Henry tells her that he’s off doing something normal, that he’s returning to his old habits of playing games and having fun and not becoming Storybooke’s new junior sleuth, she’s more than ready to take his word at face value.

Side-by-side, Ginny and Jared look so much alike, and I love that. <3 They also share a buoyant, youthful kind of energy when they play off each other. So I hereby headcanon that Snow and Henry, post-uh-everything, are always going out on mini-adventures together. With their combined imaginations and mutual penchants for curiosity, this grandmother-grandson can make even the most mundane of grocery runs into something like a hunt for buried treasure.

Regina: “Now you’re lying to me?” A simple question which cues us in on lying being a v. new trait that has surfaced in Henry. The psychology of it is pretty logical. She lied to him, and now he’s reciprocating the favor, both of them unable to trust each other at this point.

So Regina says that she found David lying on the side of the road somewhere and that she brought him to the hospital. Whale supports this statement and claims that she saved his life by this act. Assuming that this is true, then I’m reminded of that popular meta which essentially proposed that the Evil Queen rarely, if ever, made a move that would deeply or permanently harm Snow. Theoretically, Regina could have left him on the side of the road to die, could have dealt Snow an irreparable amount of damage without so much as lifting a finger... but she didn’t. #SnowQueen

“Enjoy my shirt... because that’s all you’re getting.” SJKhdsha. 

I like to think that Emma kept the shirt, and every once and while, she pulls it on just so she can mock a v. embarrassed Regina. “Hey, Regina, what was it you said to me again? You know, back when you wore a lot of dark eyeliner and had a giant stick up your—” “Oh, shut up, Miss Swan.”

Lolol, I love how Storybrooke’s hospital is apparently bordered by the woods. That’s some reaaaaally safe architectural planning there.

Snow wants to go somewhere “isolated, where she can never get hurt,” and in the context of the entire show, I hurt to fully comprehend that Snow’s young life was a hellhole. Her parents were killed, she’s forced out of her kingdom and into exile by a vengeful witch, and now, as a bandit, her existence, for all its flux, is constantly defined by paranoia and fear and cynicism and... well... guilt.

In the grand scheme of things, I think we sometimes forget about Snow.

How much she’s endured.

How much she’s suffered.

Snow: She blames me for ruining her life.

David: Did you?

Snow: [Pausing, thinking, her voice hard and wistful.] Yes.

This is a great beat because it further emphasizes that this isn’t your Disneyfied version of Snow White and the Evil Queen.

There’s no such thing as black and white morality in the world of Once Upon A Time.

The Evil Queen wasn’t always evil.

Snow White was not always as pure as the color of her name.

It’s complicated.

They both are.

MM: “Henry told me that you were from a similar situation to his own?” Honestly, beyond the fact that they were both adopted, I don’t think comparing Henry and Emma’s situations is exactly... apt. Emma bounced around from foster home to foster home and had to deal with the fact that she was ‘abandoned’ by her parents. Henry was given up by Emma to receive his best possible chance at life, and accordingly, he grew up in a mansion with a—as we’ll come to find out—loving mother. 

But, lol, that’s not the point the show’s trying to make here. Point is, Emma is a lost kid, and she’s trying so hard to make sure that Henry doesn’t end up being one as well. Plus, it’s heartbreakingly ironic that the very person she’s been trying to find is standing right next to her.

Oh, Kathryn, you have a v. painful arc coming up.

You know, had I been in the OUAT fandom when Ginny and Josh announced that they were together, that would have been the end of me.

The chemistry between these two is incomparable.

Like, I know it’s for the aesthetic™, but this bag is so impractical for the life Snow lives, lololol. 

Had to include these iconic lines.

Regina: We’ll talk about your insubordination later. Do you know what insubordination means?

Henry: [Shakes his head.]

Regina: It means you’re grounded.

Good God—Kathryn’s fake backstory is so intricate and moving. (Also, I love Anastasia Griffith. She really portrays the duality of Abigail/Kathryn well.)

“Because all of this has reminded me of something, oh, so very important... how grateful I am to have Henry.”

“Because not having somebody... well, that’s the worst curse imaginable.”

Lana Parrilla has no right giving such a nuanced performance of what should have been a one-dimension villain.

But that’s why we love her.

Over the course of the seasons, we learned that the curse backfired on Regina. Sure, everyone was miserable, but so was she... and at least her victims weren’t even cognizant of the fact that they were cursed. Heck, in that sense, they had it better than she did.

So in exacting her perfect revenge, Regina only deepened the void inside of her, drove herself to an emptiness like no other she has felt before.

By the time Greg and Owen showed up, it was nearly unbearable.

And then... she adopted Henry.

And suddenly, she wasn’t alone anymore.

Without Henry, her life is but a void, an emptiness, a nothingness of her own design, and right now, Emma Swan is a perceived threat to the tenuous solace she has carved out for herself these past ten years.

What Regina doesn’t understand is that she’s the real threat.

She’s the one who is ultimately pushing Henry away.

Okay, y’all aren’t allowed to make eye-contact anymore. 😭

:’)

I think I can safely say that “Snow Falls” is one of the most tightly written and acted episodes in the series. On an architectural level, the dialogue parallels were especially poignant, and the sentimental moments were well chosen. For instance, concluding the episode on this sweet, tender moment between Emma and Mary Margaret is an expert choice that ameliorates the Snowing pathos we’re currently feeling. Theatrically, it’s the little nuances that make “Snow Falls” so great: JMO’s uncomfortable vulnerability as Emma talks about her history with MM, the mutual attractions of Snow and David that surface in meaningful glances expertly affected by Ginny and Josh, the softnesses Lana and Anastasia imbue their hardened characters with.

Just really wonderful stuff all around.

[neoduskcomics]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Review (FULL SPOILERS)

LAST JEDI SPOILERS

Bottom line, I saw The Last Jedi (twice now) and I think overall it's a pretty good movie but it also has a lot of glaring problems. I'm just gonna make a list of things I didn't like, things I liked, and criticisms of the movie that I think don't make sense.

This is going to be long and verbose, and no one's gonna wanna read it. So, here we go.

Things I didn't like:

- Poe and Finn's story lines are totally contrived. If the vice admiral had just told literally anyone her plan, none of that stuff with the code breaker and mutiny and all that would've happened, and the rebels wouldn't have been decimated. We could've shaved off like forty minutes of the movie.

- Finn, my favorite character from Episode VII, has almost no role in this story. Yes, he's on screen most of the time, but he's mainly a bystander, running around as people lecture him about the greater good and who he's supposed to be. In TFA, he was such an important character, providing Rey with the first positive relationship in her life and adding an element of humanity and relatability to the cast. His story is basically him listening to people talk, and then he does this grand gesture of almost killing himself, which quite frankly would've been really dumb when the movie did so little for his character to earn such a dramatic development in the plot. Also, why the hell weren't Finn and Poe just put together in this film. Rose was okay, I guess, but come ON. Finn and Poe.

- I don't know if this is controversial, because I haven't seen anyone talk about it, but I was very disappointed that the movie just ends up with Rey and Kylo Ren on the same sides as before. Rey felt like she was really earnestly making a connection with Ren and she was really earnestly tempted by the dark side. I don't think it's unbelievable that she wouldn't turn, but it does feel like she was put on the spot to make a decision between light and dark at the last possible second. I would've liked to have seen her actually give in to Kylo Ren to set up a major conflict for the next film, or maybe even just her and Ren forge a new path together and leave both the First Order and Resistance behind. There was a LOT of build up to the connection between them, and seeing it thrown away so quickly felt very dissatisfying. This is something, though, that I think I can probably get over as time goes on, and plus I don't know what they're gonna do in the next movie. We'll see.

- The casino world was meh. Rose was nice but kinda meh. A lot of the humor was meh. A lot of the pacing was meh. A lot of the in-between-adventure stuff was meh. Some of the character arcs were meh. Phasma was meh.

Things I liked:

- Luke actually gets a freaking character arc in this movie that is meaningful and plays off of the expectations of the fans. He is not just another Master Kenobi or Master Yoda. He feels like a real human being who is flawed but also self-aware. He is stubborn and dogmatic, but also introspective and morally fibrous. He is wracked with guilt, but uses it as a stepping stone to overcome a new weakness and become stronger and happier for it.

- Luke, Rey and Kylo Ren's relationships all have great execution in this film. Their scenes together are dramatic, emotional, relatable and just plain good storytelling. You identify with all of these characters, and seeing them play off of one another lets you learn more and more about who they are, how they see each other, how they see themselves, and how that all changes throughout the film as a result of those interactions. It just plain works.

- We get some beautiful and much-needed fleshing out for Kylo Ren and Rey. Ren feels smothered and weighed down by the past, his mentors and his insecurities. He's trying desperately to overcome his weaknesses, kill off what gets in his way, and become his own man. Rey is struggling with a deeply set fear that she is alone, that she has no real family, and that she doesn't have a place set before her in the galaxy. They are struggling with opposite problems, and yet find common ground to connect over. Ren is a fantastic villain by the end of this film and Rey finally feels like a real, developed individual.

- The action was great. The visuals were great. Yoda was great. The performances were great. The drama was great. The themes were great. Some of the character arcs were great. The way the Force is explained and portrayed was great.

Criticisms that I kind of understand, but I think miss the point:

- "Luke acted completely out of character in this movie." Luke is a human being. He has flaws. He can change and experience new things and have new failures and get new lessons. He is not a pinnacle of benevolence, patience and wisdom. He demonstrates impatience, lapses in judgment and anger/hatred in every single movie. Luke becoming grumpy or considering killing Kylo Ren does not undo him as a good person. Him going through with killing Kylo Ren or refusing to learn anything/help anyone by the end of the film would have made him a bad person. He stews, reflects, learns and grows and it's a great part of the film.

- "Being able to smash through ships with hyperspace is dumb/you shouldn't be able to do it/why doesn't everyone just do it." A) It's Star Wars. B) It's Star Wars. C) Because it means someone commits suicide, you lose a gigantic probably really important and expensive ship in the process that you could've used for many years for other things, and now that there's a precedent for it, people will probably stop it before it happens again. It only worked this time because it'd never been done before and the First Order just didn't get what they were doing until it was too late. And if your complaint is that nobody thought of it before, then...your criticism is that this movie came up with a new idea? Not buying it.

- "Rey should've been related to someone important." Luke's related to someone important. Ben's related to someone important. How many of these characters need to be related to each other? Yes, there was build up that Rey had some important backstory, and then you find out she doesn't. That's the point. The film plays off of your expectations and does so in favor of making Rey confront what is to her a terrifying truth: as Kylo Ren puts it, she's a nobody and she has no place in this story. It's a legitimate insecurity that she has that she has to overcome. It's a far more interesting direction for the character than simply revealing that she's Kylo Ren's cousin or Kenobi's granddaughter or something. It's something new to the series and it makes sense both for the story and the character.

- "Snoke never got a backstory." Yeah, he didn't, and I get it. It's kind of annoying. But, you know, the Emperor never had a backstory until the prequels. Like the Emperor, Snoke was just a big, evil figure who was super important and had a lot of build-up, but ultimately was just a plot device for the character(s) to overcome (still like the Emperor). Yeah, we don't know how he seduced Ben, but we also don't know how the Emperor seduced Anakin (again, until the prequels happened). Not saying I loved this part of the movie, but it's, you know, nothing Star Wars fans should be unfamiliar with. And don't tell me there was tons of build-up for his backstory. Fans created that hype themselves. It was never even hinted at in the movies that we'd ever get elaboration on who exactly Snoke is.

This film is not perfect. But it's not terrible either. I get it if people think it's bad--I also think many parts of it are bad. But I don't get it when people say it's, like, the worst thing to happen to Star Wars ever. I think a lot of that hatred simply comes from the fact that Star Wars has been around so long, and has become so important to so many people, that it's become a bit of a double-edged sword. People love Star Wars, and they build a very personal attachment to it. But that also means that when Star Wars does something they disagree with or that doesn't align with how they personally interpret or connect to its story, they get really upset or sad or disappointed or like the world is ending. And I get it. I love Star Wars a lot, too.

But, come on, guys. Star Wars is a fantasy epic about space samurai flying around throwing lasers at each other. It's about drama and evil and good and relationships and magic and story, yes, but it's primarily, to me, about joy. I think a lot of people are letting their positive feelings for Star Wars become something ugly and mean, like Anakin turning to the dark side because of how intensely he loved his mother or Padme. There's a lot to dislike in this movie, but I think there's also a lot to love. Whatever your opinions, a lot of love clearly went into the making of this film, and for me, even if we're inclined to hold onto the hatred, we should make an effort to embrace the love instead.

Because, you know what, it's not about fighting what you hate. It's about protecting what you love.