#this gives me all the room to yell

[pacinglikeghosts]

assigning ronance signature scents

because i am obsessed with fragrance and this is kind of like my hidden talent and i want to use it on robin and nancy. 

this is not historically accurate because i really am just out here having a silly goofy time, i mostly just use this as a resource in my fics and wanted to share!

nancy: 

starting with my best girl because i actually have info to help me with this! during the filming of s1 natalia bought a vintage bottle of charlie blue (which i also bought, as an experiment) to wear and get into nancy’s headspace (it was literally awful. she made joe keery sneeze or cough according to the story). but to get to the point, charlie blue is a floral fragrance, leading me to pick two floral perfumes for nancy. more specifically, i picked “pure white linen” from estee lauder (left) and “sun moon and stars” from karl lagerfeld (right).

not only do i think nancy would stick with florals, i also think she'd stick with name brands (like what you could find at macy's). charlie blue is a revlon perfume, so it led me to believe that while the wheelers have money, they aren't exactly spending it on something like fragrance that is just going to be drained. i also think karen may have bought nancy her first fragrance based on what she knew, because that's what her mother did, and nancy never bothered to venture out until she was older. "pure white linen" gives me daily use vibes, while "sun moon and stars" is more special occasions/dates. i also think she has a permanent lingering smell of ink and paper but that's not featured here.

robin:

oh robin. to the surprise of no one, these are a bit more gender-neutral to masculine than nancy's. when thinking about robin, i wanted things that were masculine, but still had a touch of softness and sweetness to it. fragrance has no gender, but a lot of masculine fragrances created in the 1980s were very masculine (think branding for men like GLACIER ICE FREEZE vs soft vanilla woods for women) so if she were to buy fragrance in the 1980s, i think she'd steal steve's cologne or spend five hours trying to pick a cologne that is slightly less overly masculine. that all being said, i picked 'skins x vilhelm' by vilhelm parfumerie (left) and 'ambre topkapi' by mdci parfums (right)

as you may notice, there's a lot of lavender, sandalwood, leather, and tea in these fragrances. that is completely on purpose, because i find that those pull especially gender neutral-masculine on a lot of people that is soooo appealing. they also don't flag incredibly masculine on first sniff, making it so most people can get away with wearing them and not smelling like a forty year old man named Tim that works a 9-5 and plays golf. the floral and spice notes work as countering pairings of each other but in the best way, and i could totally see robin wearing this in her full butch glory. also, the queer history of lavender is not to be ignored and robin certainly wouldn't ignore it. to me, i see robin wearing 'skins' on a more day-to-day basis, and 'ambre' as a special occasion/date thing.

anyway that's it! i love talking about fragrance and i don't think i've ever really talked about it here except for the coco chanel poll so PLEASE talk about it with me if you'd like.

[good--merits-accumulated]

truly truly Neil Charlie Todd triumvirate is king please share any thoughts you have on them

OH BOY ANON YOU HAVE OPENED A CAN OF WORMS.

I. OPENING THESIS?

Basically, here’s my abstract for this whole thing:

(Les Misérables, trans. Isabel F. Hapgood)

And having put this down, I’ll ask you to overlook it, lol. Or treat it as a very loose guide! (If you haven’t any idea what the context of this refers to, here’s a quick rundown: a chief is a leader and someone who people rally behind. A guide is an enthusiast about all things and an advocate for progress, someone who checks the rampant idealism of the chief. The centre is warm, loyal, and acts almost as a mini-Sun for the chief and guide to orbit around, to stop them shooting off on their own wild trajectories.) In the interest of complete transparency, reading Les Mis at a young age had this irreparable effect on me where I now have to think of every triumvirate as a chief/guide/centre dynamic, but I don’t think this model applies 1:1 towards Neil/Charlie/Todd. Instead, I think of them a little as composites, interplaying with each other – Charlie as a guide who would much rather be a chief, Neil as a chief who works better as a guide, and Todd as a centre who’s never given the grace to grow into that role. Let’s go!

II. CHARLIE AS THE CHIEF-GUIDE

Charlie is like if rowdiness was a Guy. He’s big, he’s brash, he’s the instigator and he’s the captain and he’s the shameless one and he’s a side character! I have always found this very interesting whenever I watch DPS; despite Charlie’s main character-ness he is secondary, and doesn’t even get his own sideplot in the same way that Knox (for example) does. He’s a born leader who by virtue of the trappings of his story is relegated to supporting others, although you can so, so clearly see him fighting for space in the story. He gets pushed into being a guide almost by default; only the trait of enthusiasm really applies here. If Neil wasn’t there he’d be the leader of their group, no question. And the thing about Charlie is that he gets things done. He’s the one pushing the most for the re-creation of the Dead Poets Society after Neil, he’s caustic about things that are in his way (“Well, why don’t you stay home?”), people follow him! See Knox running after him, asking to be taught:

Charlie is the man of action – the telephone stunt is the biggest incident of that. And the way the boys gather around him afterwards as he regales them is chief-like; here he is acting as the chief, because this is around the same time that Neil’s chief role starts to slip away from him. But more of that later. 

The big thing is that Charlie never gets to really assume that role of chief, because Neil is always there. I talked earlier about how he pushes for the re-creation of the Society; well, Neil is the one who finds Keating’s old annual and reads it aloud to them. Charlie is the one cutting down the guys’ concerns about sneaking out after school: Neil is the one who suggests it – more than suggests it! Almost commands it, in a way that leaves little room for debate:

(Note that in this section, it’s Charlie who does the arguing for Neil, who doesn’t speak except to lay down the law and then ask who’s coming. Real king and knight energy.) 

Charlie never quite manages to edge into centre stage. You can sort of see how there might be resentment there – perhaps there would have been if they had gone on uninterrupted. But then of course Neil dies, and Charlie assumes the chief role by default, but it’s no longer glorious or something he can covet. But he does it anyway; he wakes up Todd, he breaks the news to him, very, very gently, he wipes Todd’s mouth with snow when he vomits and tells the others to leave him alone. But by this point, Charlie going into the chief role he’s so good at isn’t enough to stop the splintering of their group or his own expulsion.  

III. NEIL AS THE GUIDE-CHIEF

Part of Neil’s tragedy is that he would be good at the things his father wants him to do! He’s a wonderful all-rounder, he's the perfect all-American specimen, there’s no doubt in my mind he would have been a great doctor – except he wouldn’t, because the enthusiasm and the motivation would have been lacking entirely. (As someone who just did a shit ton of medical school interviews, yeah, they would have sniffed this guy out really fast. Or maybe they wouldn't… not sure how stringent they were in the ‘50s.) He would have been technically great. But being able to do something doesn’t mean you should; these are the things that Mr. Perry conflates and which Neil is never able to verbalise to him, except in a way in which he thinks he’ll understand:

In this scene, when he talks to him post-performance it’s not “I enjoyed it”, but a very simple, “I was really good”. And despite this concession of terms he says it when his father can't hear, because he knows he would never relent, oh God.

Actually, a lot of what I wanted to say about Neil has already been said in Charlie’s section. (The summary is basically that you must imagine me offstage with a megaphone as the movie plays, yelling, “YOU TWO NEED TO SWITCH PLACES, FUCKOS”.) Neil is a good leader, but that doesn’t mean he likes being one, or that he should be one! He has a few characteristics of a guide – he’s enthusiastic about everything, he has this boundless kind of delight in the things he loves (not idealism; that’s slightly different). But this is honestly where the model falls apart. I don’t think that Neil would make a great guide either, logic not being his forte; the irony is that the role of the triumvirate he most fits IS the chief, it’s just that that’s what kills him. The responsibility that comes with being someone who “speaks and people listen” isn’t good for him – this dichotomy of having “control” over the friendship group/no control over his personal life is terrible. He does get to lose the chief role, but it’s not in a way that is good for him; instead this manifests in a loss of control that happens very very quickly, which just makes him reach for ways in which he can control his own life. And besides, stepping outside of a leadership role with a great deal of responsibility and losing control over the course of your own life are two very different things. I just think that he should get to go offstage for a little bit and rest, with zero expectations on him ever. (Also there’s something here about how he gets to play Puck – a side character who has major effects on the story but doesn’t have to actually put his skin in the game. This is what I think Neil should get to do In Real Life.)  

IV. TODD AS THE PROTO-CENTRE 

One thing about Todd is that in my mind, I always imagine him as much redder than he actually is in the movie. I don’t mean I imagine him to blush more often – I mean ruddier, more flushed. Going back to the Les Mis quote – in my mind he does “possess all the qualities of a centre, roundness and radiance”! Todd is a catalyst like Keating in a way that Keating isn’t; this is never explicit at all but he has always felt to me like someone who inspires others by their presence. He’s such a wonderful, calming, grounding influence. Even when he talks to Neil and they have that non-argument he tempers Neil and reminds him what’s at stake without looking down on him. And when he realises how serious he is, he goes with it and supports him to the best of his ability – he says “Oh, Neil, Neil, you’re crazy” but it’s fond, he’s overjoyed for him. And you can see similar behaviour perhaps to a lesser extent with Charlie in the way particularly he calls him Nuwanda after his request, which is taken as ridiculous by other characters: 

And even after Neil’s death he does so, refusing to go back to normal:

But the reason I’ve put “proto-” for a prefix is because these are all singular occasions. The thing is that I think Todd could be that brilliant, grounding, assured man, a lighthouse of a man, almost. But he isn’t – he clearly isn’t – at the beginning of the movie he is shy and diffident and the non-argument I mentioned early does go a little sour, because while he speaks from a place of concern and love, his anxiety manifests in the conversation and makes him a little less tactful than he might have been otherwise. If things had gone on better than they went, and if Todd had been allowed to grow and develop more and without worry, he really, really would have blossomed into this kind of centre, this very steady man who would have reminded Neil of the consequences of his actions and made Charlie care about the consequences of his. But he doesn’t get to do that – by the time he grows and becomes more confident it’s too late, the worst has already happened. 

V. SUMMARY

I’m so sorry, anon, this is a prodigious answer to what was a very simple ask, but you hit on the subject I have Very Strong Feelings About. Not to toot my own fanfic horn, but there’s an excerpt from the fair folk AU which I think sums this up pretty well:

TL;DR: Charlie gets pushed into a secondary position which doesn’t suit him; Neil gets pushed into a leadership position which suits him, but he hates; Todd is willing to step into that secondary position as a behind-the-scenes supporter, but never actually gets that opportunity. Hence the tragedy. Hence the taking of lives. Hence how many fucking tears I have shed over this movie, Jesus. 

(I had a lot of fun writing this – thank you for giving me a reason to!)

[velvetjune]

Spoilers for Alan Wake/Control games and DLCs: one of the things I really like in Alan Wake 2 is the confirmation that, no, Alan can’t create something out of nothing. There were implications in-story that supported that, but it was good to have that be a big part in the sequel. The AWE control dlc easily made it seem like Alan himself had a role in the events of the game and the formation of the FBC, and, personally, seeing it through that lens cheapened a lot of the game and Jesse’s story. Instead, having his writing influence the Hiss and try to manipulate (even out of desperation) Jesse/the FBC to end Hartman and get help, fit right into plot and conflicts of Alan Wake 2, with Alan being sympathetic, but also an asshole for trying to change and control people’s lives in his writing.

[bootyful-seventeen]

i am too mentally exhausted to even deal with this shit anymore with my mom and grandma and low key wish i'd go comatose for a few years to be left alone tbh

[mryqu3sti0nmark]

Will one day adopt kittens.

[my5hiningstars]

.

[keclan]

can daddy please have just five minutes to himself to piss in peace?

[dammit-stark]

what’s the teen titans fic economy look like?? I was a big teen titans kid and I’m a superbat adult so I’ve been thinking about using my complete lack of canonical understanding to write a teen titans/batkids slice-of-life fic but I fear being judged for all the liberties I’m about to take

just something about batman and superman reluctantly adopting their son’s superpowered friends yk <3

[captorcorp]

ough i just watched electric dreams. the whole time i was like 'miles i hope the computer steals your girl you don't deserve her'

AND THEN (spoilers)

i kinda always expected miles and madeline to get together at the end bc like cmon that's a common movie trope but like. miles being cagey and lying the whole time and telling her to shut up bc she didn't know what she was talking about and like, she must've overheard him yelling at edgar from the other room plenty of times too???

so all of that + her finally meeting edgar and him singing for her i was like 'wait are they actually going to have the computer steal his girl???' bc like. idk if i was in her position miles just seems like 100 red flags w all the lying and caginess and generally how he acts and everything;; and like the parts that actually drew you to him weren't even his and she knows that now... maybe it's just him under stress but like that's all you know of him...

but nope apparently that just makes her admit she really does love him. how does that make you realize you love him??? maybe it's like. she realized that the things she wanted to love from miles were coming from a machine instead and she realized she still loved him even without those things bc she couldn't love a machine. but like. girl the red flags...

the part where edgar asks miles to hold him and then dedicates the radio song to miles and madeline as the ones he loves was really 🥺 though... idk if miles deserved that love but like. he did teach edgar a lot and hold him in his final moments so i mean i guess. they were all he had...

anyway this is a miles distrust zone. edgar deserved better. madeline is cool but needs to get better taste in men

[hotsugarbyglassanimals]

huge fan of having two quality of life diminishing conditions (that I know of)

[the-heaminator]

.

[kohakhearts]

you think youve served your time as the child of parents whose primary method of bonding with each other was screaming and throwing things and then you move into an apartment where your neighbours do the same goddamn thing

[bellarichie]

everyone talks about the cat distribution system with glamour and reciprocity but no one ever warns you about an annoying ass cat fixating on you without any reason whatsoever when you already have a cat who's perfectly fine. like ok i guess? i'll be your loving owner. begrudgingly.

[raccoon-in-a-dumpster]

i wish my dad would leave again. im so fucking sick of him already

[acanthemp3]

finishing my shift 15 minutes late and sitting in my car with a thousand yard stare

[mcnuggyy]

why is everyone so insufferable tonight 🥲