#troubled Victorian woman aesthetic

[ariacherie]

They offered to send me away to my aunt and uncle in the mountains to “clear my head” bro what year is this!

[akallabeth-joie]

Les Mis 1.2.2

Following up from Pilf’s post, because clothing is the topic I have stuff to say about. [Also the rest of the action feels very natural follow ups from the previous 15 chapters: the people and house we met in 1.1.1-14 are about to encounter the guy having an awful day in 1.2.1, and this is Hugo’s set up for that.]

Caveat: my main research area is the mid-19th century (right around the time Hugo was finishing Les Mis, not the years it is set), and my working language is English. The US in 1860 is not France in 1815-1832, but I think some elements here do transfer over, or at least offer insight into how Hugo’s readers might have interpreted the text.

Main observations re: Baptistine Myriel’s clothing:

9 years is a very long time for a dress in active use. Washing and non-washing dresses will have different trajectories, but in contemporary non-fiction, making a silk dress last 7 years is a feat of clever planning and care. Five years is noteworthy. One to two years is more typical, and 3 months isn’t necessarily a frivolous waste (wearing a silk dress only once would be). Much like with the soup thing, the Myriel household is taking ‘practicing good economy’ to an extreme, almost absurd degree.

Also, the fact that Mlle Baptistine is still wearing her silk dress “in the style of 1806″ in 1815 is notably weird. Fiction and non-fiction sources of the 1850s/60s show economically-minded women remodeling their silks every season in order to keep up to date. Magazine articles give instructions for turning last year’s flounced skirts into gored ones, or adding puffed overskirts to update narrow gored skirts. Advice books recommend getting an extra yard or two of fabric so that you can update the sleeves of your dress when it’s taken apart for washing. Trousseaus should have some of the dresses left “unmade” (as lengths of fabrics) in case fashions change over the year. A missionary woman writing from not-yet-Seattle in the mid-1850s opines that the dresses she made for her wedding less than a year earlier are too “rusty” to be worn at home (in New York) but are sufficient for living in the woods.

So my impression of Baptistine is that she’s meant to be The Superlatively Economical gentlewoman, and also Not At All Vain About Clothes. She’s not spending her time or money on fashion, but the fact that she is still bothering to wear a silk gown for dinner is signalling that she’s still performing (her class’s) respectability. From this, and her letter about re-doing her room, I expect that her whole wardrobe and all the house’s domestic interiors are scrupulously clean and mended, but also old and likely inharmonious. The two women will do the work to live respectably, but will not spend any unnecessary money on their own comfort or aesthetics.

Hugo taking the trouble to describe Baptistine’s dress (”short waist, a narrow, sheath-like skirt, puffed sleeves, with flaps and buttons”) just reminds me of how much crinoline-era Victorians do not like the Neoclassical look. All of these specific elements are basically the opposite of early 1860s fashion--waists are worn just at/above the natural waist, skirts are about as wide as they can get, more fitted coat sleeves are replacing the wide-open sleeves of the late 1850s. It’s a bit different from how most modern folks seem to view the 1810s style (Austen! Romance! Bridgerton?): I’ll need to dig through my notes, but there’s at least one 1850/60s cartoon and one article I recall which amount to ‘yikes, the fashions of 50 years ago were awful’, and another article from the late 1860s which holds that the crinoline is a great improvement on the raised-waistline silhouette. I think we all prefer to ignore the weirdness of the c.1865-9 Second Empire style, but there were absolutely pairing high waistlines with fitted sleeves and trained skirts over elliptical or half-hoops (transitioning from the rounder cages of the late 1850s and early 1860s into the bustles of the early 1870s).

[gardenofshadcws]

Dracula Daily Day 82

Dr. Seward’s Diary

It’s always nice when Quincey shows up

“There has been so much trouble around my house of late that I could do without anymore” That is the biggest understatement ever made

Van Helsing throwing shade at Jack for being a skeptic gives me life

You know, VH, if you would just be straight with people it’d be a lot easier to get their permission

This is such a fascinating condemnation of Victorian repression.  Never question why you’re doing something, just do as you’re told and focus on maintaining your social status as a gentleman and a Christian and nothing else matters!

Aaaand opening your dead girlfriend’s coffin seems pretty sacreligious to me but what do I know?

Awww Arthur sweet bean he got his hopes up so high :( 

Of all the times for Van Helsing to be straightforward it’s “May I cut her head off?”

Arthur is a real one.  It’s so sweet how protective he is of Lucy, even if he’s misguided.

Time for sneaky sneaks!

GASP she’s gone again!  You know, sometimes you wake up and want to go for a little walk

Quincey in particular is taking all this VERY well

“Dark-haired woman?”  I thought Lucy was blonde?  Or did turning into a vampire give her a Goth dye job?  Which, you know.  Fair.  Gotta keep the aesthetic.

It’s so sad to see everything we loved about Lucy turned monstrous, as much for us as it is for the suitor squad

“Come, my husband, come” shiver

Quincey and Jack catching Arthur as he collapses is too pure.  We love the polycule

Hey Van Helsing you want to stop leaving small children abandoned on the side of the road?

Dr. Seward’s Diary

They don’t even need to communicate anymore, they’re all on the same wavelength.  You love to see it.

Not sure I love the idea of Lucy being monstrous because she’s not “pure”.  Stoker conflating those things and demonizing desire is kinda icky

Vampire Arthur would be an interesting AU

It is now Not Fucking Around O’Clock

Goodbye Lucy :(  

The descriptions of Vamp!Lucy dying again are deliciously gruesome and absolutely chilling

And to end it with Lucy sleeping there like nothing happened is gut-wrenching.  Goodbye, sweet girl.  Now you can finally rest in peace.

Bless you, Stoker, for letting Arthur cry and not being all macho about it.  We love when men are allowed to have feelings

Surely The Horrors are over now!  Look, the sun is shining and birds are singing!

Oh right Dracula still exists

And Mina!  Mina’s coming!  The squad is together again!

Mina Harker’s Journal

It’s okay Mina he’s just reminiscing

It’s even more impressive that Jack can recall all these conversations word for word as recordings.  I wonder if he does voices for all his friends

Awwww he’s embarrassed!  What a dork.

RIP Jack Seward you would have loved podcasts and Voice Memos.  You can search through those

Look at these two babies getting to know each other by reading each others diaries I love them

Dr. Seward’s Diary

Awww, Mina.  Lookit her being all empathetic

“We need have no secrets amongst us” Why did no one say that like a month ago?

Mina Harker’s Journal

Holy crap this is a long day

“Fortunately I am not of a fainting disposition” Bless you Bram Stoker for not falling into that Victorian trop

“The world seems full of good men - even if there are monsters in it” is SUCH A GOOD QUOTE

Jonathan Harker’s Journal

IT’S MY GOOD FRIEND JONATHAN!!!

God Dracula really did think of everything.  Eugh.

[estherdedlock]

I am dismayed to see that there’s a new feature-film biopic of Emily Brontë coming out soon, and my, does it look a mess.

Actually no, it looks pretty gorgeous, and I’m a sucker for the aesthetic. So I’ll probably wait until it’s streaming so I can watch it at home with the sound off (a wonderful way to enjoy a beautiful, but stupid, movie or show...try it sometime!).

Based on the trailer, the premise of this claptrap appears to be that Emily Brontë was a simmering volcano of repressed sexual desire that might have erupted into a full-blown love affair with a young man (who appears to be William Weightman, a real-life curate who served in her father’s parish). And of course, she was a total smoke show, a dark-eyed beauty who wandered windswept moors with her brunette locks tumbling past her shoulders in perfect beachy waves...or I suppose that would be “moory” waves.

The last time I saw something this idiotic about the Brontës, it was an unintentionally hilarious 1979 French film, Les Soeurs Brontë, that starred Isabelle Adjani as Emily. This movie seems to be borrowing heavily from that one, at least in terms of style. Isabelle Adjani (at the time considered one of the world’s most beautiful actors), portrays Emily the same way: a passionate enchantress of smoldering, near-Byronic temperament. She’s most often seen gallivanting across desolate Yorkshire in a getup that looks like a Victorianized version of Diane Keaton’s menswear-inspired outfits in Annie Hall. Egregiously, the French movie implied (or maybe made it explicit, I can’t fully remember) that Emily Brontë’s great romantic attraction was for...her own brother, the troubled Branwell (I actually think they might have even suggested that Branwell’s drinking and drug problems were a direct result of thwarted lust for his sister).

I know you need money to make movies. The producers of this film wouldn’t have gotten much backing for a costume drama about a plain, and by all accounts, rather odd spinster who only wrote one book in her life before she died of tuberculosis. But is there really no way to make Emily Brontë interesting without sexing her up in this ludicrous way? 

I can’t express all the reasons why I find this so irritating. In part,  because it was actually Anne Brontë, not Emily, who really was in love with William Weightman, and might have married him if not for his early, sudden death. It seems shitty and dishonest to rob Anne of her own story and give it to Emily, just because Wuthering Heights is more famous than Anne’s books (including Agnes Grey, whose male leading character was actually based on Weightman).

But mostly, it’s irritating because the filmmakers obviously think that the real Emily Brontë is boring or, at least, would bore a modern audience. And they can only think of one way to make her interesting: by fanficking her into a wild-at-heart hottie. That’s lazy in two ways: It takes a hackneyed old shortcut to telling a woman’s story and it borrows shamelessly from Emily’s own creation, Cathy Earnshaw. In fact, from what I’ve seen in the trailer, they basically just conflated Emily with Cathy and called it a day.

There’s a story to be told about Emily Brontë and no one’s ever put it on film. Part of that is because she really was a mystery, sometimes even to the people who knew her best. Her own sisters were often confounded by her behavior. She could be gregarious, witty, and outspoken, and then withdrawn and incommunicative. She seemed to have been deeply intelligent with a fearless streak that, in her day, was often praised as a “masculine” virtue (I guess that’s why the French saw fit to dress her in tweedy waistcoats and neckties). She shunned any form of attention and refused to publicly link herself to Wuthering Heights, but she was still mortified by the book’s negative reviews. She was, in short, fascinating all on her own. I don’t understand why, in 2022, filmmakers can’t tell a story about that woman, and instead have to make up some chick-flick drivel about a windblown beauty with a case of the hots for the sexy curate. Definitely one to watch with the sound off.

[octaviasdread]

any girls! dark academia movie recs? i really struggle to find anything not about a group of boys (as much as I love them)

SO MANY!!! This is probably a far more detailed answer than you were expecting but this is a popular question and I want to keep a list for myself and others.

Feel free to add to it/give opinions. I've tried to give a tw for anything I can remember

Girls! Dark Academia Movies/TV Shows

Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

1950s Women’s college

Art professor! Julia Roberts

She’s legit the female Mr Keating of the art & college world

Feminism vs. Tradition

Maggie Gyllenhall x Ginnifer Goodwin; their characters were more than friends. Fight me.

Does not end how you expect

Strike!/All I Wanna Do/The Hairy Bird (1998)

MY FAVOURITE!!!

Free on YouTube under one of its various names

Comedy

1960s all girls boarding school

Young Kirsten Dunst

Group of girls plot to sabotage a merger with a boys school less prestigious than their own

Secret attic clubhouse meetings of the D.A.R aka Daughters of the American Ravioli (eaten cold, ew)

girls get political & advocate for their rights using ANY elaborate and chaotic scheme

TW: eating disorder, vomiting & creepy male teacher but the girls plot against him too

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

based on a short book I read for uni by Muriel Spark

1930s girls school in Edinburgh

Scottish teacher! Maggie Smith, controversial with a focus on romantic ideals

Spoiler alert, the liberal teacher is actually a fascist

Her group of fave students has cult- vibes and it’s fascinating

Picnic at Hanging Rock

1970s movie or 2018 mini series

Never watched either but I plan to

Wild Child (2008)

00s romcom every UK teen girl loves

Emma Roberts as the spoiled rich American teenager sent to a strict English boarding school

Plots to get herself expelled but oh no she’s making friends with the girls who help her

And the headmistress has a hot son, and he’s nice??? Double oh no

ICONIC SCENES

Everything! Goes! Wrong!

omg she burns the school down

Feel good, comfort, nostalgia

St Trinians (2007)

English girls boarding school

The kids are all criminals, no joke

So are the teachers

CHAOTIC

gay awakening for british girls

Art heist pulled off by school girls

Government tries to shut them down but oh no, the education minister & the headmistress are ex-lovers

Colin Firth x Rupert Everett in drag

Superior cast: Jodie Whittaker, Gemma Arterton, Juno Temple, Stephen Fry, Colin Firth, etc...

embodies the phrase 'problematic fave'

St Trinians 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold (2009)

Mystery, pirate ancestors, hidden treasure

omg Shakespeare was a woman

girls disguised as boys to infiltrate and rob the posh boys school

Villain! David Tennant in that ICONIC boat scene

Teen girls vs. ancient misogynist brotherhood

like the first film but MORE chaotic and BETTER!???

The Falling (2014)

1960s all girls school

best friends! but its unrequited love

Agoraphobic + distant mother aka mommy issues

Sudden death and the school suppresses/ignores the students grief, sparking mass hysteria & a fainting epidemic in the girls

Cast: Maisie Williams (GoT) & Florence Pugh (Little Women) & Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders)

TW: teen pregnancy, death, vomiting, underage s*x, sibling inc*st, past s*xual assault

READ THE PLOT SUMMARY FIRST

The Book Thief (2013)

Based on an amazing book by Markus Zusak

set in 1940s Nazi Germany

Daughter of a communist whose family were taken by the Nazis/died is fostered by an older couple who teach her to read & she paints a dictionary on the basement walls

Coming of age story about a compulsive book thief. No joke, this kid steals books from banned book burnings and breaks into the mayor's library through the window

Family hides the Jewish son of an old friend in their basement and he helps her to start writing about her experiences in the war

TW: death, bombings, WW2 anti-semitism

Mary Shelley (2017)

Overall good & roughly biographical

Pretty costumes and aesthetic

Modern feminist take on Mary Shelly in her own time period

So many INACCURACIES for the drama so don’t take it as truth

Percy Shelley slander and not all of it is justified

Cast: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, and Maisie Williams

The Secret Garden (1993)

Based on a fave childhood book

1901 colonial India & Yorkshire, England

Orphaned, spoilt & neglected girl sent to live with her reclusive Uncle in the English countryside

Gothic elements, mysteries, secret doors/passages/locked gardens

local boy with a flock of animals, magic, kids chanting around a fire and all around immaculate vibes

Happy ending!!!

Hidden Figures (2016)

African-American women as mathematicians for NASA

1960s space project

Women balancing a career and family obligations

Deals with racial & gender discrimination

Loosely based on the lives of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan who worked for NASA as engineers & mathematicians

Anne of Green Gables (1985) & sequel (1987)

Adaptation L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

Canada (late 1890s/early 1900s)

Highly imaginative & bookworm orphan is adopted by a reclusive elderly brother and sister duo

Small town & school years comedic drama

Unrequited Enemies -> Friends -> lovers

Inspiring new woman teacher

Girls re-enact Tennyson’s poem and nearly drown for the aesthetic™

Dramatic poetry reading with INTENSE 👀eye contact👀

Writer! Anne & English teacher! Anne dealing with unruly girls school antics

Collette (2018)

biographical drama on french writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette

Victorian & Edwardian era France

More talented than her husband so she ghostwrites for him

Fight for creative ownership of her wildly successful novels

Affairs with a woman called Georgie and also with Missy, born female but masculine presenting

Cast: Keira Knightly, Dominic West, Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark)

Enola Holmes (2020)

Netflix book adaptation

Younger sister of Sherlock Holmes

Victorian era! feminism/suffragettes

Mother-daughter focus

Mystery, adventure, secret codes, teens running away & escaping from (and eventually fighting) assassins

Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, Fiona Shaw, Millie Bobby Brown

Ginger & Rosa (2012)

1960s England

best friends since literal birth navigating troubled teen years

poet & anti-nuclear activist! Ginger

off the rails but also catholic! Rosa

Shout out to Mark & Mark the gay godfathers we all want

family troubles 

TW: older man has an affair with a 17 yr old

Testament of Youth (2014)

based on WW1 memoir by Vera Brittain

young woman (writer & poetry lover) escapes traditional family & goes to study at Oxford University

abandons to become a war nurse

romance, tragedy and war trauma

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Kit Harrington (GoT), Taron Edgerton (Rocketman), Colin Morgan (Merlin)

Little Women (2019)

Writer! Jo & Artist! Amy

Mother/daughter focus and sister dynamics

the March sisters’ theatre club is *chefs kiss*

champagne problems edits of Jo x Laurie are a mood

Ambivalent ending perfectly captures Louisa May Alcott’s dilemma with the book the movie is based on

set in 1860s America

ALL STAR CAST and a Greta Gerwig masterpeice

Lady Bird (2017)

coming of age in early 2002/2003 Sacramento, California

all girls catholic school

writer! Christine aka Lady Bird wants to get outta town and start her life again at college 'in a city with culture'

Mother/daughter dynamics - so realistic!

I live for that Jesus car stunt & the nun's reaction

school theatre program

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Timothee Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein

Another Greta Gerwig gem

Beguiled (2017)

Virginia, civil war era

Girls school with only five students and two teachers left

Find an injured Union army soldier & bring him inside

Women & teenagers want his attention (v. problematic) before uniting against him

(tbh you'll either love it, hate it, or watch once & forget it)

Sofia Coppola film so its very feminine gaze

TW: violence, death, underage

Legally Blonde (2001)

No questions will be taken

Elle Woods was the blue print

TV series:

House of Anubis (2011-2013)

I know it’s a kids/young teen show but I still unironically love it

ANCIENT EGYPT!!!!

Modern day with Victorian era links to treasure hunters & Egyptian research expeditions (stealing from tombs)

Chosen one plot lines, curses, kidnapping, mysteries, secret tunnels under the school, elixir of life

Teens have investigate & protect themselves cus oh no the TEACHERS are involved in some shady stuff

new American kid at British boarding school is the actual premise not just a fanfic au

Nostalgic, light-hearted, funny, and kinda cheesy but I will accept no criticism

The Alienist (2018 -now)

Mid 1890s, New York

Woman’s private detective agency (Season 2)

Serial killer mystery

Woman secretary turns detective and teams up with a criminal psychiatrist and a newspaper editor to solve crime

TW: violence, child pr*stit*tion

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Luke Evans, Daniel Bruhl

The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

Woman chess prodigy

1950s & 1960s

TW: drug & alcohol abuse

Gentleman Jack (2019 - now)

Based on the diaries of Anne Lister

Victorian Yorkshire, England

Upper-class lesbians

Confident, suit wearing! Anne Lister x shy! Ann Walker

Business woman! Anne running the family mines

Cast: Suranne Jones (Doctor Foster) & Sophie Rundle (Peaky Blinders)

TW: violence

Gilmore Girls (2000-2007)

bubbly/ambitious single mom + intelligent daughter

bookworm! Rory Gilmore gets into a prestigious private school and then an Ivy League college

Small town drama is comedic gold

Fast dialogue packed with pop culture and literary references

Comforting & nostalgic

TEAM JESS

Anne with an E (2017-2019)

Loose adaptation of L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

they completely change the plot lines but it’s still very good content!

Orphan girl with trauma and a love of books/poetry is adopted by an elderly brother & sister duo, bringing light and fresh ideas to a rural community

Feminism, girls writing club, lgbtq safe spaces, girls eduction, black/indigenous representation

Miss Stacy as THAT inspiring teacher

Aunt Josephine’s lavish gay parties have my heart

TW: creepy male teacher tries to marry a student, racial discrimination, indigenous assimilation school

Victoria (2016-2019)

Adaption of Queen Victoria’s life

Victoria navigating her political, royal, and personal life

Albert’s involvement with The Great Exhibition, 1851 (on cultural + industrial innovations)

Alfred Paget x Edward Drummond is exquisite

Gorgeous costumes and aesthetics

TW: bury your gays trope

Derry Girls (2018-now)

1990s Northern Ireland during the troubles

Comedy, episodes 20-25 mins long

English boy sent to an all girls Catholic school with his cousin

✨Dead Poets Society parody episode ✨with a free-spirited female teacher

Sister Michael, the sarcastic nun who hates her job & reads the exorcist for giggles

Wee anxious lesbian! Clare Devlin (plus her friends wearing rainbow pins)

Badass with bad ideas! Michelle Mallon

Main Character! Erin Quinn

Lovable weirdo who would fight a polar bear! Orla McCool

Wee English fella & honorary Derry girl! James Maguire

Dickinson (2019-now)

Loose adaption of the poet Emily Dickinson’s life

Set in 19th century Massachusetts, US

Historical drama with modern dialogue & music that works SEAMLESSLY

gives a great understanding of Emily Dickinson’s poems

💕Vintage gays! Emily x Sue💕

Theatre club, writing, poetry, dressing as men to sneak into lectures, love letters, teen drama, feminism, and an underground abolitionist journal as a brief side plot in season 2

Wiz Khalifa plays death in a horse drawn carriage

TW: opium use

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017-2019)

Based on great childhood books

Bookworm! brother, Inventor! sister, and baby sister with sharp teeth

Mystery, secret organisations, orphaned siblings figuring things out & fending for themselves against the villain after their fortune

Adults either cartoon evil, comedically incompetent, or SPIES

Boarding school, library owner, scientific researcher, and theatre episodes

Ambiguous time period which is really fun to try and pin point

Killing Eve (2018-now)

Classic detective who has homoerotic tension with the assassin she is tracking down

British Detective! Eve Polastri figures out the notorious assassin MI5 are investigating is a woman, is fired & then put on a secret MI6 case with a small team

Assassin! Villanelle, a psychopath with a tragic past and a mastery of both accents & fashion

Woman MI6 boss! Carolyn Martens, head of Russian section

Travel Europe following Villanelle’s killings and escaping the assassins sent by Villanelle’s organisation

‘You’re supposed to be my enemy and moral opposite but omg you’re the only one smart enough to get me and why am I obsessed with you????'

🚨 GO IN FOR A KISS AND THEN STAB YOUR ENEMY 🚨

Cable Girls/Las chicas del cable (2017-2020)

Spanish drama set in 1920s Madrid

Four young women at a telecommunications company form a group of friends and help navigate the difficult situations they are all in

Secret identities, dangerous pasts, murder, crime, lgbtq couple & throuple, trans man character, feminism/suffragists

girls commit crimes for humanitarian reasons and cover! it! up!

UNDERRATED SHOW!!!!

Gorgeous costumes and set

Haven’t finished it yet and I’m catching up

TW: abuse, violence, death

Outlander (2014 - now)

haven’t watched yet but plan to

Woman time travels to Scotland, 1743

Rebel highlanders, pirates, British colonies, American revolutionary war

Time jumps between 18th & 20th century

[dandymaximilian]

Uh, here's some my personal headcanons for some of the Wordgirl Villians and their backstory. Also, what I think they looked like when they were younger.

Lady Redunant Woman

Rebellious, a troublemaker, and prankster.

Often caused trouble in Fair City out of sheer boredom.

Had a very odd, 80's sense of fashion.

Designed a lot of her own clothing.

Perky and fun loving, before customer service/life drained her.

Dreamt of being a model, but was rejected over and over again by the industry.

Had an easier time forming attachments to inanimate objects rather than people.

Settled for her current job out of desperation for money.

Mrs. Question

An animal's rights activist.

Became a vegetarian at a young age

A teacher's pet and an A+ student.

A quick learner and incredibly observant.

Endlessly curious, so she asked a lot of questions in school and at home.

Many of her peers were annoyed by this.

Became discouraged when her degree (philosophy) proved useless.

Turned to villiany as a way of utilizing her skills.

An absolute comic book geek.

She had every comic that depicts The Riddler, and based her villian persona off of him.

Leslie

Painfully shy and insecure.

She didn't have many friends due to this.

An absolute workaholic and an A+ student, often studying to the point of exhaustion.

Had a controlling, strict family who micromanaged her life.

Wanted to be a hero since she was a young girl, so she could finally feel a sense of power and confidence.

Found comfort in comics and princesses.

Superman was her favourite comic book hero, although Wonder Woman was a close second.

Was hired by Mr. Big by absolute chance, and was tricked into believing he was a hero. Yet, she never looked back.

She used to look up to Mr. Big, before getting to know him better. 🤣

Big Left Hand Guy

Suffered from bad insomnia due to crippling anxiety.

Dropped out of high school.

Deeply insecure, only finding pride in his big left hand due to it's strength.

Dreamt of preforming in theatre, but was too overwhelmed by stage freight.

Obsessed with the 1940's aesthetic and films, as it reminded him of his late father.

His first crush was Charlie Chaplin.

Ended up working as a construction worker, and gained a grudge from terrible conditions.

Became a villian as a way of proving himself worthy.

Spent a lot of time at the gym, using the equipment to let out his repressed anger.

Invisi-Bill

Was sent to boarding school at a young age to "straighten him out".

Struggled with staying visible, and was often ignored because of it.

Was seen as annoying whenever he was perceived by his peers.

Had to suppress personality due to pressure from parents and teachers.

Victorian fashion was a significant interest of his, and he put a lot of effort into his appearance.

Dreamt of being a celebrity of any kind, so that he could be beloved by countless of people.

Became a villian for the attention.

Loved to sing whenever he was alone, even if he wasn't very good at it.

The Butcher

Dreamt of being like his father, Kid Potato, since he was old enough to speak.

His mother died during childbirth, so he was raised by his father.

Kid Potato often left him at home alone while he committed crimes.

Dropped out of highschool.

He didn't have many friends after kindergarten, and was teased for the way he spoke.

Found comfort in his meat products, often stimming with it or stress eating.

Stole tokens at the arcade, specifically to play Dance Dance Revolution.

Secretly dreamt of being a dancer, but never found the courage or the confidence to go for it.

[komoryriku]

Queering KH Part 4: Hearts in Tune

Actually KH Finally lol

Pictured: Riku humming Sora’s name in a soft, adoring, wistful voice the way a swooning straight person sighs the name of their beloved of the opposite gender.

Kingdom Hearts gives off so many subtextual signals of queer coding that it genuinely BAFFLES me how people can really believe it is straight. You may be wondering what makes me so confident in that when there has not been anything in the games to explicitly prove any of the characters are not straight, and I will be happy to tell you. It is because in order to believe Kingdom Hearts is straight, you have to ignore WAY too much subtext. To truly believe that Sora is in love with Kairi and only coded to be interested in Kairi, you have to ignore his questioning of what love is. You have to ignore the combined keyblade he shares with Riku. You have to ignore how much the narrative is driving him to understand that Riku is his most important, cherished person. This all goes doubly for Riku who has a coming out story not unlike Elsa’s metaphorical one, in which his love for Sora is his greatest source of strength. You have to pretend the necklace gifting plot point is entirely straight and cannot possibly mean anything homoromantic. You have to ignore the way Sora cries while clutching Riku’s hand compared to his subdued and non-emotional reunion with Kairi- that’s just too much “accidental subtext” for me to confidently ignore lol. Intentional or not, KH is Gay~

Here’s how we’re gonna do this.

So where the hell do I even begin with coding KH? Well- I can’t possibly queer the whole of KH text in 1 summer, so what I plan to do is this:

Give you the tools to understand KH’s coding so that you can code it yourself~

Queer a few major KH scenes so that everyone can see that the proof is in the pudding.

I’m gonna try to break down various scenes to decode them and queer them so you can see what’s at play in KH. Originally when this meta was a single doc, I was only gonna cover 4 scenes. But since I’m breaking it into parts to update at my leisure, I’m gonna just add scenes and meta as I go~

Now without further ado:

How the Hearts in Tune scene is Gay Coded

This shouldn’t be too hard at all.~

This scene is almost too easy. 

The scene opens with Sora bringing Mickey the sound idea he found but as it turns out, one sound idea is not enough. Sora tells us not to worry because he has a friend who is always picking up the slack for him. Likewise, on Riku’s end, he brings his sound idea to Mickey and is surprised to see that Sora’s sound idea is necessary to complete the song. 

Once the sound ideas meet, this beautiful visual plays out in which the 2 sound ideas swirl around each other and the soundtrack title “Dearly Beloved” plays. 

Now, there are several things I want to note about this sequence- heck this visual alone before we move on. 

Recall earlier when I discussed Shiki’s point that blue and pink (likewise blue and red) “go together”, romantically.

I will let the visual of Sora’s sheet music being pink while Riku’s is blue speak for itself. But I will also add how this ties into the yin and yang themes I’m about to discuss:

Yin and Yang

This concept gets its own section because it’s such an influential concept in so many aspects of various cultures around the globe.

Yin and Yang is an eastern philosophy which illustrates the concept of dualism. In short, it is the concept that 2 opposite halves are complements to a whole. The original term in fact translates to dark-bright.  

I am neither a philosophy professor or student so I will keep this as brief as I can and simply encourage you to study up on Yin and Yang at your own leisure. I will however paste this section from wikipedia because I think it is extremely helpful information to have for studying eastern media in general. 

Yin and Yang: husbanded opposing forces. Dark-Light, Moon-Sun, Chaos-Order, Winter-Summer, Negative-Positive.

Female (Yin)-Male (Yang): Yes this is often used in a heteronormative heterosexual context because people are homophobic and believe in gender binaries, unfortunately, but I implore you to consider the concept in more figurative, spiritual, aesthetic themes, especially since Yin and Yang is a much grander philosophy than mere sexuality discourse; it’s about complementary forces creating a whole. 

For shipping purposes, think opposites attract. Think concepts that are traditionally associated with femininity meshing with concepts that are traditionally associated with masculinity. Queer media has a wonderful way of subverting heteronormative Yin and Yang tropes by showing that cis-hetero standards can be hypocritically non-compliant with the complementary concept.

Rather than thinking of this, 2 heteros in love based on being just- the same person with opposite genders:

Think of this, same gendered couples with complementary personalities:

Think about how an aloof scrappy butchy vampire queen attracts an uptight calculating femme princess.

Think about how this goody-goody dumb jock with a martyring hero complex attracts this naughty cunning jock with a self-loathing villaness complex.

And now think about how badly we need more canonical mlm couples in children’s media lol. Oops my finger slipped. But I’m getting ahead of myself lol.

The concepts of interconnected opposite forces are so important and prominent in literature throughout the world, but yin and yang is ESPECIALLY important in Kingdom Hearts because it is a story that explicitly explores Light and Dark forces. It explores how they both oppose one another in catastrophic ways,

and how they complement each other in harmonious ways.

Getting ahead of myself again… But hey speaking of harmony, back to the matter at hand.

Hearts in Tune.

This scene shows a number of romantic symbols. As I was saying before the yin and yang tangent, pink and blue (nee red and blue) are already symbols of romantic suggestion. And in the case of them representing 2 parts of a whole song, these song pieces act as complementary halves, adding another layer of dualism to the scene. Furthermore, the music sheets swirl around each other in a yin and yang fashion. Harmony has been achieved. This lets us know these forces belong together. These forces representing Sora and Riku. They are husbanded together. These 2 hearts in question are part of each other. In fact, Mickey even says so:

Perhaps most damning, however, is that the song in question is “Dearly Beloved”, arguably the theme song for Kingdom Hearts as far as the score goes. I’m sure it goes without say that “Dearly Beloved” is not only in itself a romantic sounding phrase but it is also the phrase specifically said by officiators of weddings to the congregation before the wedding vows are exchanged. “Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today…” 

I will also mention that Riku’s dream eater symbol visible in the shot is specifically designed based on a bleeding heart flower, a symbol of passionate love. Credit to Steam for pointing this out here, please follow them and read their posts they are magically delicious:

So almost everything about this scene is aesthetically romantically coded, and I didn’t even mention the fact that Dream Drop Distance’s whole color palette is themed with rainbows, which as I said earlier is absolutely still a gay symbol in Japan. Note the rainbow of colors animating from the sheet music. 

So in terms of the atmosphere of the scene, its already incredibly homoromantic in every way I can think of. But what about the dialogue?

Well lets talk about the dialogue. Dialogue should always been read with care when you’re trying to queer a text. Often a lot of queer messaging in a text is subtextual. This means the text itself may actually say something gay, but you have to read further into it. This is an old method of queer writing designed to protect the writer from getting in trouble for their gay crimes.

Historical aside on this:  If you’ve ever read Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, you may have note that Lord Henry can never just simply say that he is gay, lest Oscar Wilde be charged for homosexuality in 19th century England. Instead, Lord Henry simply tells us he is married to a woman, but makes it clear throughout the text that this marriage is mostly performative and he is not emotionally invested in it whatsoever, going against the puritanical, heternormative ideals of Victorian prudery. Lord Henry is by contrast MUCH more invested in following the life and times of his very close friend Dorian Gray, with whom he shares a hedonistic philosophy in the name of Fin de siècle. Not to be a downer but for the sake of understanding how real this subject of oppressed gay censorship is, despite keeping the homosexual themes as purely subtext, Oscar Wilde was tried and convicted of homosexuality and this book was used against him in court. 

What we are privileged to have today with KH is a cutscene and not just a script. Meaning we have visuals, animation, voice acting, musical cues, etc etc to follow along with to enhance our subtext. 

On Sora’s end of the conversation, Mickey points out that the song is incomplete with just his sound idea alone, and Sora tells him not to worry, as Riku is his dependable friend who will fill in where he fails. The text in the official English translation is:

Mickey: That's strange... Is one Sound Idea not enough?

Sora: Don't worry. I've got a friend out there who will help. He's always 

picking up the slack for me.

This on its own sounds platonic. But note just how affectionate Sora’s voice acting is when he says it. Not only that, he clutches his heart to let us know how close he is to Riku and how much his connection with Riku matters to him. How much confidence he has in this friend he cares so much about. He then closes his eyes after saying it, smiling up in the air blissfully while he waits for their hearts to make their connection and finish the song.

Once it is finished, Mickey remarks that their sounds joined together to make something more powerful. Sora then says looking thoughtful, “Yeah. Two forces are better than one. Right, Riku?”

Following this, Sora leaves to fight the boss.

On Riku’s side, Mickey questions what happened, and Riku looks up thoughtfully, and says tenderly, “Sora.”

Mickey comments “Sora? Funny... Just hearing that name kinda makes me wanna smile.” and Riku tells him warmly, “Yeah. That's how he is.”

Mickey then goes on to say some really shippy stuff:

“Whaddaya know... Riku and Sora. The Sound Ideas you two set free joined together. And when they did, they made a great and powerful harmony.”

Riku then nods and tells Mickey brightly that “Sora can find the brightest part of anything, and pull off miracles like there's nothing to it. It's pretty hard not to smile around him.”

And I would like to pause to look at that line. “It’s pretty hard not to smile around him.” Although Mickey says the same thing, that just hearing Sora’s name invokes a smile, we sense a somewhat deeper meaning in Riku saying it. Why is that? Well, for one thing this game is entirely about Riku protecting Sora and exploring how much Sora actually means to him. This game is continuing Riku’s redemption arc from KH2, but it is also doing something perhaps even more important: it is providing him a journey of self discovery. This test resets Sora and Riku to level 1 so to speak, not just in their powers but even their models revert to variations of their KH1 selves. This helps to underscore Riku re-examining himself and his feelings. 

And then guess what? Mickey makes some even SHIPPIER commentary. He exclaims “Wow! No wonder the music sounded like so much fun. But I bet he's got you to thank for that. Having such a good friend means he could really enjoy it.”

Riku is taken aback by this comment. “Huh?”

Mickey continues, expressing some extremely yin and yang themed sentiments, 

“It's like each of you is holding on to a little part of the other. Your hearts are always in tune, so they're free to sing. Gosh, I hope I can be part of the team someday.”

Mickey did us a wonderful favor and expressed to us explicitly, for those who didn’t understand the romantic coding of the scene already, that Sora and Riku are a good match. Mickey tells Riku that the music sounded like fun in English, that it was a happy, pleasurable time, and tells him that Sora has Riku for a friend which is what must have made it so enjoyable. 

So from this dialogue we get assurance that Sora and Riku are two very close friends, whose hearts are connected, and they are 2 powerful forces that merge into an even greater one. Their hearts are in tune.

Now if this were a scene about a boy and a girl, I doubt anyone would question whether it was romantic. Why should we be asked to look at it platonically just because it is 2 boys? The romantic imagery is clear. 

And let me ask you this while we’re still on the subject of Dream Drop Distance: 

According to Riku’s character files, he had previously thought of Sora as a little brother, and tried to be a cool older brother to him. 

He then tells us that this has changed. What did it change to? 

The surface level, heteronormative answer would say it changed to them being merely friends. 

But isn’t that an odd regression? After all, found family is a thing, and that’s a bit weird for him to question since there is no reason for those feelings to change on that notion. If Sora loved him like a brother, that clearly hasn’t changed. Riku clearly loves Sora as deeply, so that didn’t change. The other problem with this phenomenon Riku is dealing with is that there is no reason for him to feel this strange sense of repression we keep seeing over this change. He is constantly holding back on some feelings for Sora but platonic and brotherly feelings are entirely acceptable. What is it that he is hiding? What sort of feelings for Sora would be hidden?

From the Kh2 Novel: 

He really did want to see Sora and talk. But that was impossible with this appearance. The things that mattered the most were what he couldn’t tell Sora. It had always been that way.

What sort of feelings might be systemically oppressed?

This scene is pretty much EXACTLY what I would do to say as explicitly as possible that Riku is gay without being able to say it outright due to censorship. 

[novantinuum]

that fantasy au concept is so interesting! it has such a cool emotional core with neat worldbuilding while still staying true to the spirit of the show, and just seems to... idk how to put it but it Works?

a aaa thank you ;w;

i have a metric butt load of ideas for it, some of them being:

-Lots of typical fantasy creatures like elves, dwarves, dragonborn, gnomes, orcs, etc etc etc alongside humans

-The visual aesthetic of the larger cities is strongly victorian steampunk. This is a world right on the edge of technological revolution, and as a result, oftentimes magic and those who perform it are kinda left behind and ignored in lieu of new inventions and ideas.

-Magic is something all denizens of this fantasy world can learn if they put their minds to it enough- but there are definitely some people who have an innate closer connection to the magical aspect of this world and have an easier time with it. This often runs through family lines- i.e. if a parent is a powerful witch, for example, their child will also have an innate inclination towards performing powerful magic.

-All the magic in this world is really personalized. Each individual will have an inclination towards a few types of magic that speak towards their personality and heart. It’s kinda... soul magic? So when I said the eldritch beings Rose was once a part of consume people’s souls, they’re basically feeding on pure magic. 

-Rose is, of course, secretly an eldritch horror disguised as an elf. She’s like... super long-lived? She’s been around for hundreds upon hundreds of years in this world, far beyond the normal lifespan of elven folk. However, she flies under the radar and is never really questioned because everyone just assumes the immense power of her magic is what’s keeping her alive. She deals very deeply in eldritch magic, and also boasts considerable healing/restorative powers. She’s still alive when Steven is born, and is loving as a mother, but... she tends to be very reclusive, and starts to keep him at arm’s length the older he becomes. (see: she’s super stressed and distracted about trying to find a way to save this realm when her ward fails in a few years.) This may be an AU, but Steven still gotta have mommy issues. 

-Pearl is her first love, the elven woman she fell for when she first came to protect this world. Rose has granted her long life, afraid to see the people she loves die. Pearl is a skilled fighter and mage, able to show others impeccably accurate visions of her memory in a cloud of smoke, conjure an illusionary version of any item she’s seen, and even summon light soldiers to cover her.

-Garnet is another early friend she made, during that initial fight against the eldritch beings trying to consume this plane of existence. Garnet has also been granted the power of long life. She is a clairvoyant seer who can see potential paths of the future, but while she uses this power she temporarily goes blind as she accesses her “third eye,” so to speak. As a result, this is a magic she must use wisely, outside immediate dangers. Haven’t decided what fantasy people she’s of.

-Amethyst is a young human girl these three came into care of much later, someone without a home to call her own. She’s scrappy, and is adept with forming illusions and shapeshifting. Her magic is very handy in conflict with distracting and disorienting others, and is also fun for cheap tricks to get a laugh. These days, it’s a rare day she’s NOT in some shapeshifted form.

-Greg is a human, and he’s absolutely a bard :D Most of his magic he actually learned from Rose, as his parents didn’t allow him to seek out magic training when he was a kid under their thumb. 

-Connie is a human who lives in one of the larger cities of this world with her parents, and she quite literally ran into Steven in the streets one day... which eventually lead to them striking up a close friendship and their stories intertwining. She’s always wanted to study magic, but as of late, with all the technological revolutions, texts on it are becoming harder and harder to find. Magic is becoming something that is more often only passed down within families... something unfairly insular. Neither her mother or father are innate magic users, so she has no one to teach her. No one, that is... until she met Steven and his family. Steven... who is the son of the literal most AMAZING sorceress who ever walked this world.

She is a quick learner, and over time picks up some mid-level telepathic abilities- which allow her to poke into people’s inner thoughts at will. She also becomes adept at scouring information- magically soaking up words in a book like a sponge, and at sensing hidden sources of magic many others cannot. She trains with Pearl as a swordfighter, as well. 

-Steven... genuinely believes he is a half-elf for most of his childhood. His mother is an elf, of course, and his father a human. He’s got pointed ears like his mom, and shares her natural magical aptitude. However, since he is actually half-eldritch instead, there’s a lot of very, very subtle, unusual physical quirks about him he doesn’t know to mask, some of which are:

His eyes shimmer with little pinpricks of light occasionally, almost as if an entire galaxy were encapsulated within them. This only happens when he’s feeling very strong emotions. It’s not something anyone would notice unless they were looking for it.

Sometimes... rarely... when you look at him close, it’s as if for a brief glimmer of a moment his form feels off. Like something’s missing, or your sight is somehow glitching. Like there’s something about him you can’t quite see.

He doesn’t feel warm to the touch, nor does he feel cold. The closest description of sensation I could make for what someone feels when making contact with him is like... TV static.

If you know him long enough, eventually you’ll grow to recognize a slight dissonant harmony within his voice. It’s very subtle, but always there.

These quirks are things Rose shares, but knowingly masks. Every single day she doesn’t tell him the truth about her origins is a day she fears these quirks will grow so strong it’ll put him in danger, but what’s even more dangerous is the thought of having to burden him with her secret, and... likely have to deal with the fallout of everyone discovering that she’s lied about what she is for all this time.

Steven’s magic is heavy on abjuration. He’s very adept at summoning barriers and shields and at casting all sorts of defensive spells. He can also bring plants to life, but this is incredibly draining for him earlier on in his magic training. He’s got a bit of healing ability, although nowhere near his mother’s, and he’s also a strong empath. As his power grows, so too does the strength and longevity of his shields and creations. However, along with that, his empathic abilities become so powerful that he often finds himself overwhelmed by the emotions of people around him. He’s largely unable to just “turn it off,” and thus prefers to stick to peaceful, secluded areas rather than trundle through highly populated areas all the time. Music is a really good diversion for him when he feels too overwhelmed by everyone’s emotions.

-At some point, Steven and Connie come to question Rose’s secrecy, and pry into what she’s doing a bit... Connie attempts to use her telepathy to peek into her surface thoughts, and... hoo boy, that’s not a super wise move on Connie’s part, because Rose can feel this girl picking around in her mind. The two of them get into big trouble, as Rose is terrified at people discovering her true identity at this point, at people learning about the truth and then pressing into her dangerous world. While she doesn’t intend to be, Rose gets kinda... scary when she’s upset. Don’t upset her.

[bananaink]

KeGo December Day 14 - Did you ever truly love me?

Izuku couldn’t sleep.  

Which wasn’t something unusual. But this time he was in a foreign home, a foreign place, and despite his dwindling fear and vanishing nightmares, he wasn’t quite there yet to just lie down in a dark room and sleep. Bakugou was snoring on the bed on the other side of the room, grumbling even in his sleep and rustling the sheets now and then. Aizawa was just a room over, probably still working despite mom threatening him to get a decent amount of sleep. She could be terrifying and Aizawa had sheepishly nodded all the way through her explanation why sleep was so important and necessary and healthy – but Izuku could faintly hear the little tip-tiptip-tip on his laptop.

And despite Izuku parallel nodding beside Aizawa at their dinner table, he was now faced with his raging mind and wide eyes. He quietly turned around to find Bakugou in the soft nightlight mom had installed just for these rare occasions they’d be sleeping over. His arm was hanging from the bedside, knuckles lying on the floor and his face squished into the pillow. How in the hell was he able to breath?

Concerned and definitely not using it as an excuse to leave his bed he quietly shuffled out of the blanket and tiptoed over to the other boy. Half-way, the blonde jerked in his sleep and turned his head away from Izuku, grumbling on an exhale. Frozen on the spot Izuku stared at him, old instinct to stay still and wait until immediate danger was over numbing his limbs.

Healing scurried over his arms and legs, surprised over his exploded heartrate but he quickly got himself under control again, awkwardly standing in the middle of the room and creepily staring at the explosive boy. Okay, this wasn’t working. He glanced back at his bed and noticed the forming black shadow in the corner just above his headboard. The little nightlight didn’t help banishing it.

No, no thank you.

Izuku decided that a glass of water sounded nice.

Quietly and slowly creeping through the big house, he eyed all of the western-styled furniture and decoration. He could immediately tell when he came across something his mother had brought into the home and when it had been one of Yagis weird and awkwardly tries at getting his own home more homely. The picture frames of people stared at Izuku in passing and some exotic statues stood impressively in the hallways, looming over him.

“Gifts and souvenirs from my travels.”, Yagi had explained one time and Aizawa had to stop him from telling stories upon stories about them.

Izuku frowned at a mask on a pedestal and almost forgot about his glass of water while staring it down when he suddenly heard noises from the living room. Silently he creeped closer until he could make out the noise from a TV, the volume turned down so quietly, he was sure whoever was watching had wanted to make sure to be as quiet as possible. He reached the doorframe and peaked around. The long and lanky body with the wild blond hair of Yagi greeted him. Izuku eyed his sunken shoulders, the weird halo of light the TV drowned the man into. His shadows seemed deeper, despite him sitting in an almost whiteish glow of a black and white movie. It looked old and Izuku had trouble understanding it until he realized, it was in a different language.

Izuku strained his ears. English maybe?

A floorboard creaked when he leaned too far and Izuku froze as Yagi startled a little bit and turned his head to where he stood.

“Oh, young Midoriya.”, he said, voice a little bit hoarse, as if reign emotions back in and smile tired. In the dark room, only illuminated by the TV, the shadows under his eyes looked almost deeper than Aizawas. Or his own.

“I'm sorry, I hope the TV wasn’t too loud. Let me just-”

Yagi awkwardly leaned forward to reach for the remote but winced and a hand flew to his stomach. Izuku winced in sympathy. He knew about the wound and its degree, how he was only able to eat the smallest little meals and even smaller little bites. How he wheezed sometimes because of his damaged lungs. But the man had never told him how he had gained it. Izuku was pretty sure he was hiding something but Aizawa hadn’t seemed troubled by Yagis flimsy story, and he himself didn’t like talking about the scar on his face, so he had let it slide.

That’s why he walked into the room – pointedly not looking at the screen because they still made him queasy and jittery, expecting to see father on them – and gave Yagi the remote. The lanky man smiled a genuine thankful smile and Izukus shoulders sagged in relief when he leaned back. His hand was still on his stomach though.

“Thank you, and sorry, I’ll turn it down.”, Yagi quietly mumbled and Izuku shook his head, slightly turned away from the TV.

“You didn’t wake me or anything. Just wanted a glass of water.”, he explained and Yagi made a little surprised ‘oh’. Shifting on his feet, Izuku eyed him for a second from under his curly bangs. He looked tired.  Awkwardly he nodded to the kitchen.

“Um... do you want some water, too?”, he asked and Yagi smiled.

“That would be wonderful, thank you.”

Izuku bobbed his head a little bit and shuffled to the open kitchen. He could still hear the TV – even though Yagi still turned down the volume a little – and when he came back with a glass in each hand, he took a deep breath and quickly glanced at the screen. A woman, dressed in a Victorian costume, with a ridiculous hat was arguing with a man, equally ridiculously dressed in feathers. She dramatically threw herself into his arms, before pushing him away, mascara and tears ruining her make-up and giving her over-the-top crying that little push from being kind-of-believable to absurd.

“But sweetheart, no come back to me! I love you!”, the man yelled in despair, as she turned around and stomped away over a cheap looking set of second-hand furniture and decoration. And Izuku had been right. It was in English.

The woman opened the door and walked two steps into the rain, further ruining her dress and make-up and even threw her hat away so the water could ruin her hair, too. Then, when the man rushed to the door and had his arm outstretched as if he couldn’t just walk the two steps after her, she turned again. The camera dramatically had her face in the frame.

“No, I don’t know you anymore! I will never come back!”, she said and Izuku had to use every english lesson Yamada had drilled into his head to understand her sobbing.

“But I love you my dear, please come back!”

“Did you? Did you ever truly love me? Or did you love the money my father offered you to take me in?”, she wailed and the man fell to his knees, hands over his face.

“It’s quite dramatic, don’t you think?”

Izuku flinched hard at the sudden question uttered quietly beside him and a little bit of water dripped down his fingers. He quickly pressed one glass into Yagis waiting hand and – now a little bit more confident – looked back at the TV. Now the man was telling the woman how she had misunderstood everything and Izuku scrunched his nose up.

“It’s tacky.”, he said and when Yagi chuckled and patted the free seat beside him, Izuku only hesitated for ten seconds. Then he shuffled into the soft cushions and pulled his knees up. Yagi offered a blanket and Izuku shortly hesitated again before draping it over his shoulders. His hands free and griping the glass of water. The big man beside him had his shoulders hunched, his long legs awkwardly folded under the couch table and looked entirely like someone used to having furniture too short or too small for him. His long arms rested in his lap, where he held the glass of water between two large hands.

“I suppose it is.”, he chuckled and his eyes had that nostalgic gleam Izuku knew from a lot of adults talking about something that hurt and felt good at the same time.

“This movie was the favorite of a good friend of mine.”, Yagi began, sipping on the water and leaning back as the woman on screen woke up the whole neighborhood to fight with her almost-husband. She even threw her ring to the ground, stepping on it.

“Why is it black and white?”, he asked and Yagi sighed amused.

“Well, a good couple of years ago I was in America for-” he coughed a little “- I was in America and they had a spike in nostalgic-feel-movies. Did you know that the first movies hadn’t had any color? With the limited amount of technology they could only film in black and white and some filmmakers tried to push that ‘aesthetic’ back into business.”

On the screen the man slipped in a puddle of mud with an obvious expression that that hadn’t been scripted.

“It didn’t work well.”, Yagi added amused and fiddled with the glass. “But my... friend really liked this one. Who knows why.”

Izuku quietly sipped on his water and watched the movie in silence, sometimes he got the dialog and sometimes he didn’t. He let his tongue flick over his bottom lip and felt a pang of something in his chest. Yagi wasn’t quite... lethargic looking yet but sadness and nostalgia flooded the room and Izuku fiddled with his glass. He was obviously upset, tired and in the mood to talk so Izuku was conflicted in leaving him alone to stirring in these feelings. The shadow in his and Bakugous room fresh in his mind, Izuku cleared his throat discreetly.

“Do- uhm... do you mind if- if I watch it with you?”, he asked and quickly elaborated when Yagi looked at him surprised.

“It’s just, uhm- my english isn’t the best and Yamada can get very passionate about me talking english and- I don’t understand what’s going on with the guy and the woman and the rain so- You could- could explain some words to me?”

Izuku – a little bit mortified with his mumbled outburst – stared into his glass as to not stare at Yagi looking at him. On screen, the rain had stopped and the woman was kneeling in front of the man, both crying into each other's arms. Yagi let out a breath but it didn’t sound annoyed so Izuku peeked over to the man. He smiled, softly, and Izuku blushed a little bit because he was so genuine.

“That would be amazing, young Midoriya.”, he said and lifted the remote to tune the sound up again. Just a little bit, but when the scene brightened up, so did Yagi and Izuku attentively tried to learn, listen and awkwardly offer comfort at the same time.

The next morning Inko found them sleeping on the couch, Izuku wrapped in a blanket, leaning on Yagis shoulder and Yagi sunken into himself, chin on his chest. The movie replaying for the probably umpteenth time. The position couldn’t be good for Yagis neck, but she hadn’t had the heart to wake them up just yet. So, she let them sleep some more.

__________

Made another day! :D First draft/idea was definetly more dramatic and sad but then I got sad writing something dramatic and sad so I decided to switch it up to soap operas and cuddles on a couch :D

Check out @banashee and my AO3! I crosspost the chapters over there :D

[millenniumfae]

Mass Effect: Andromeda Companion Headcanons

Liam Kosta

He’s canonically a big fan of 20/21st century culture (aka, OUR culture). That’s not being retro, that’s the equivalent of being a Victorian era buff. Very geeky, but he’s not alone - he’s attended ‘21st century’ conventions, subscribed to youtubers who specialize in exploring the 20th century, been to reenactments, and has more than a few period dramas in his vid collection.

His favorite 20/21st century things? Old cars, weird recipes, and the movie Train To Busan.

And if there’s still anime in the year 2185, he’s a huge fan of that too. Doesn’t stick with a particular drama, he loves many of the more popular ones. Doodles characters in an anime style, and he’s not particularly good - but he wants to be better.

He was perfect for the role of being a crisis response specialist. His teammates thought he was great at calming the injured down, ensuring positivity in stressful situations, and producing results. Literally employee of the year.

And that’s one of the reasons why he fucks up a bit when in Andromeda - its not a high crisis situation like a hostage holdup or a terrorist bombing, its a slow but terrifying pressure on them all. Not what he’s used to, or what he thrives under. Take him on Vetra’s loyalty mission, you see a glimpse of the crisis expert he used to be.

He’s actually not that great in communicating with aliens. It takes a special skill to understand radically different cultures, and Liam spent most of his years surrounded by other humans. Hence his weird way of doing it with Jaal, and accidentally pushing Turian/Krogan buttons

Cora Harper

During the game’s duration, there’s only flat coffee available, but the minute someone’s offers blended venti-sized caramel macchiatos, Cora is first in line.

She’s medicated for depression, and it definitely helps her. Back during her training on Thessia, she had a lot of emotional problems stemming from her life as an especially powerful biotic. She found one pill that works, and sticks with that.

I don’t like how the Mass Effect franchise handles the Asari, so I’m changing it; Cora never had a relationship with an Asari, but its not because she’s straight - Asari aren’t at default women. Some are, but most don’t have genders. Just because they ‘look like women’ doesn’t mean Cora, a straight woman, wouldn’t be attracted to one. It’s just a coincidence. 

I mean, it’s 2185, humans have had contact with several alien cultures for decades. The vast majority of people understand gender and sexuality in a much less limited way than we do nowadays.

Used to have a pretty popular Instagram, or at least the Mass Effect universe equivalent of one. Sometimes, it’s pictures of her hair and makeup, sometimes it’s her working out, sometimes its scenery and landmarks. On occasion, it’s her at a crazy bar and about to down some weird novelty cocktail.

Pelessaria "Peebee" B’Sayle

Her age is the human equivalent of being 24, since she’s near Liara’s age and Liara was apparently barely an adult. She’s got a doctorate, and several masters. Not human ones, but not Asari ones, either. Asari doctorates probably take 100 years, masters half that long. Peebee’s studied all across the galaxy, because her dislike of staying in one place has always been her hangup. 

She’s telling the truth when she tells Drack that her father was an Elcor. Drack does that to people - brings the truth out of them. Peebee doesn’t admit it, but she felt like Drack didn’t deserve some bullshit lie. 

And her Elcor father didn’t raise her, because her mother was one of those Asari who didn’t want a partner but wanted offspring. That’s rare amongst humans, but common with Asari. Her mother said to her father, ‘I want a child, not a husband.’

And her mother died 70 years before Peebee would jump onto the Andromeda Initiative from age-related complications. Her older sister, on the other hand, was left behind. But since she was already much older than Peebee, she’s probably dead and gone too. Peebee left her only remaining family with more than one tears shed, but they were never particularly close. 

Kalinda knew how young Peebee was, and that’s why she decided to use her. She was Peebee’s first actual relationship, started right after Peebee left her sister for dead and about to leave home forever. Kalinda knew what she was doing.

Nakmor Drack

Drack’s understanding and gentle nature isn’t atypical of the Krogan. In the original trilogy, we could usually only talk to Krogan during battle situations, unlike Ryder’s chances to be diplomatic. Sure, the Nakmor clan is particularly civil since they’re the ones to join the Initiative in becoming immigrants to another galaxy, but there’s more than one gruff yet charismatic grandpa out there.

It’s canon that he likes cooking, and yes, he’s good at it. He specializes in roast meats, which is not easy, but he also bakes pastries, delicious soups and stews, grain dishes and other noms. Some of those recipes are very old Krogan ones, but many are from other cultures and other aliens. He got them from cookbooks, which he reads in his spare time.

Such as Hanar shellfish cocktails, Asari butter biscuits, Drell cheese dips, human sauced pasta, Turian marinated chops, Elcor flatbread, etc. Except Salarian cuisine. He doesn’t want to ‘benefit’ from them anymore than the Krogan had to. But Salarian pillbug skewers are pretty tasty.

And like many grandpas, he’s kinda slow to adapt to new technology. ‘New’ to him meant Omni-tools at one point, universal translators at another, and etc. As the centuries go by, Drack’s gotta get used to some other new smartphone-equivalent technology. He’s not the best at it, but long ago he learned not to be stubborn and make an effort.

Vetra Nyx

Garrus in the original trilogy made a big deal out of being an atypical Turian, but Vetra and her sister even more so. That’s because Garrus grew up in Palavan to a very traditional family, while Vetra and Sid spent their lives bouncing from place to place. As she said, they’re probably not part of Turian society anymore. No rank, no caste. If Vetra ever wanted to rejoin the Turian census, she’d have a lot of trouble. That is, if she did it completely by the book.

So Vetra is so much more flexible and casual compared to the Turians of the original trilogy. You see it in her jokes, her body language, but also when she gets mad; Turian culture has people like Kandros reign in their volume and temper when they get frustrated, but Vetra will snap back.

Humans wouldn’t know this, but Vetra’s actually not much of a looker in Turian culture. Her mandibles are thin, her eyes too large, and her waist too short. She wears the Turian equivalent of makeup, but its not much. She looks like what we’d think of a librarian nerd would be. But that matters little to her; Vetra’s charismatic and highly intelligent, winning crowds (and sometimes hearts) all across the board.

And speaking of librarian nerds, Vetra’s visor is for her poor vision, too. She’d been wearing corrective vision technology since she was a kid, and it’s inherited from her mother. Sid, meanwhile, lucked out on the vision compartment, never needing a visor. 

The age gap between Sid and Vetra is around 14 years, and they have different mothers. 

And Vetra isn’t a horrible cook (Sid is grateful), she just doesn’t know how to make human steak. Turian meat needs to be cooked much longer than Earth cow, so she overshot it and doesn’t realize why. If Ryder chooses to romance her, Vetra actually makes an effort to learn about human cooking and does much better at it.

Jaal Ama Darav

Jaal’s poetic vocabulary is typical of those native to Havarl, which is where he (and his accent) are from. And he intentionally harbors it, too, because his family is famous and rooted in Angaran royalty. As an insecure famous soldier figure, he unconsciously makes an effort to appear as affluent as he can be.

We only see two models of a Rofjinn amongst the Angara; Jaal’s, and the smaller ones like Efra has. But there’s many styles of Rofjinn out there, Jaal’s actually being more ornate, with a patterned fabric that has a sheen. It was gifted by his mother, who makes them as per tradition to children that she believes are destined to live a troubled or eventful life. The Rofjinn is a reminder than they have their mother’s love and protection.

And Jaal’s Rofjinn is especially ornate particularly because Jaal’s actually quite camp. Not because of his love for lotions and perfumes, that’s typical amongst his people. We don’t get to see it, but Jaal loves fashion, aesthetics, and accessories that border on tacky. He rarely gets an opportunity to explore it as a soldier, but in his spare time, his crafts are wildly dotted with gold and pink acrylic flowers, holochrome pearls, and shining with glitter. And when his mother made his Rofjinn, she decided to make it a bit more Extra just for him. He was thrilled.

Jaal’s huge compared to us, and indeed he’s stocky amongst the Angara. But his attractiveness isn’t because of that, it’s because of his particularly theatrical and poetic nature. Angara are naturally expressive, but some are expressive in a gruff way, others in a dramatic way. Jaal is one of those Angara that embrace the world like a Broadway stage. 

[mermaidmafia-official]

A COLLAR OF SPIKES

“this world is full of dumbass rules, like ‘no drugs for breakfast’ or ‘put on some clothes’…” - Lucifer 4x06

   Name: Nessa ‘Pixie’ Lynch    Apparent Age: 27    Actual Age: 209    Birthplace: Galway, Ireland    Creator/Creatrix: O’Malley    FC or Features: Krysten Ritter

   Likes: combat boots, the Dropkick Murphys, being loud, whisky mixed with blood, drinking songs, motorbikes, following her instincts, playing pool, bar fights, lipstick, St Paddy’s, mosh pits, tongue piercings, wild nights, cats, impulse decisions, Gangs of New York (the film), silver jewelry, boxing matches, card games, teddy boys, gangster films, wireless headphones, not knowing what the future brings, Boston, sticky floors, racing, videos of people falling down

   Dislikes: sunrises, being told what to do, delicate things that break, boring people, knowing what weekday it is, paying attention to things, politics, stupid wolves trying to ruin her fun

   Goal(s): to enjoy herself as much as she can & never live by anyone else’s rules again - Nessa spent her ‘first’ life as a devout but bored Catholic girl, and when, on a stormy sea in a stinking third-class ship cabin, it all turned out to be a lie, she resolved to make the most of her second chance. While she can get territorial (a side effect from running Boston’s premier street gangs, moonshiners, rum runners, greasers, mobsters, and street racers, depending on the decade), she doesn’t like to be drawn into ‘the whole werewolf thing’, which she regards as other people’s politics. Soon, however, she might have no other choice.

   Fear(s): to waste her second chance at life - Nessa is not afraid of much, ever. In her two centuries on earth, she has chased every thrill and courted every danger she could find and she fully expects to bite the dust at some point - it’s what gives life flavour. Instead, she is more afraid of inertia, caution, and not feeling ‘alive’.

   Rumour(s): that ‘Pixie’ (he biker nickname) has her bikes run on magic, that her shenanigans were the cause of the Irish mob war of the 1960s, that she co-wrote Gangs of New York, that she was the mystery donor who saved Murphy’s bar downtown, that she drinks her blood mixed with whisky, that she turned a few soilders at USO dances in the 1940′s into vampires (out of pity or for a lark, no one knows, but none of those vampires have ever been heard from...

-Typicals-

   Wardrobe: leather jackets and biker boots, lots of silver jewelry, and usually some comfy black jeans and a band shirt. For more formal occasions, she has collected an eclectic mix inspired by her favourite eras - it comes off as boho but is mainly Victorian jewelry, flapper vibes, teddy boys, mob chic, and grunge thrown together.

   Places most likely to be found: in a bar downtown, at a concert, fixing her bike, racing her bike, waking up next to a stranger, sleeping off a hangover in cat form

   People most likely to be with: usually, Nessa spends a lot of time outside partying with strangers or chasing adventure with old friends (she is oddly fond of humans, for a vampire- they are so very alive). Meanwhile the coven members are patiently waiting for their disaster child to get it all out of her system & power herself out. 

   Strongest character trait: impulsiveness 

   Mannerisms: direct and hands-on, Nessa likes to grab the bull by the horns. She’s not one for elegance or drama and believes her afterlife is best spent having fun, racing her motorcycle, dancing, drinking, and leaving a bit of chaos in her wake. She likes flipping her hair and singing along, has a loud laugh and can be blunt, lazy when hungover, and impatient and grumpy when bored. She transforms into a cat, especially when sleepy, and then it can be hard to find her.

- Bio-

-the sleekest motorbikes in the garage belong to her- the fastest cars, too. and the latex-iest skirts. but for all of her edge, she thinks of herself as a simple undead woman, seeking her purpose in the universe as a semi-god. in a life now gone, she was a devoted churchgoing housewife (without children but with a brood of cats to look after). now, in this second run, she’s determined to “live” fully, to wreak havoc, and have a laugh while she’s about it. -

~ Nessa was created on a thunderous night in the hold of a ship bound from famine-ridden Ireland to New York by the raggedy vagabond O’Malley, himself a youngster made in Elizabethan London and widely looked down on by the more classy vampires. She still remembers him fondly, wherever he gallivants now

~ She found a new and excitingly bloody life in the outlaw underworld of Boston- from the street gangs of the 1800s to the 1920s moonshiners and the 1960s mob wars, she lived fast, partied hard, and didn’t want for blood

~ She was never in it for the politics, though - she likes to rebel, defy rules, and sow a little chaos.

~ She still digs the whole Boston Irish aesthetic, and feels very at home in it. She thinks it’s hilarious in an ironic way.

-Relationships-

   with THE BLOODMOTHER [likes and respects her as the matriarch of the coven, the only one she accepts ‘orders’ from]    with BLOOD GETS IN YOUR EYE [she definitely appreciates her bads.s energy but also maybe thinks she’s a bit of a drama queen?]    with FUNERAL FEAST [I think she likes her vibe]    with SLEEPING EVIL [tbh Nessa has probably forgotten about her? (for now?)]    With FACE LIKE A ROSE [finds her feral blood lust amusing & like not being the youngest/ the disaster child anymore]

-Extras-

   Playlist

Wicked Ones ~ Dorothy Smash Shit Up ~ Dropkick Murphys Drunken Lullabies ~ Flogging Molly Where the Devil Won’t Go ~ Elle King I’m Shippin’ Up to Boston ~ Dropkick Murphys The Gipsy Dancer ~ The Rumpled Trouble Finds You - Juliet Simms Hot Blood ~ KALEO Rose Tattoo ~ Dropkick Murphys This Is Our Day ~ The Roughneck Riots …

[eleenori]

Today I've decided to tell you about one of my favourite Keira Knightley movies which is pretty awesome to watch because of the aesthetic shots, accurate costumes and nice soundtrack.

I'm talking about Colette. The biopic was realeased in the end of 2018, but come on! It's still amazing.

The story tells about french author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette who is most famous for her novels about Claudine (Claudine at school, 1900; Claudine in Paris, 1901; Claudine married 1902; etc)

It's important to say that Colette's story is quite complicated, so is the film. Keira's character is faced to many problems, but the main one is sexism. As for the plot, young girl called Sidonie marries writer Willy and moved to the Paris with him. Willy has some troubles with publishing his recent works, so Colette decides to help him and starts writing some stories, based on her own childhood. They are pretty successful, but are published by Willy's name, not hers. This is the main conflict for sure. The rest of the story will be a huge spoiler.

Yes, it's a bit similar to such movies as "Big eyes", "The wife" and especially "Coco before Chanel", however it's still worth watching. Keira is very nice as Sidonie, who doesn't resemble the other characters she played. It's neither Lizzy Bennett, nor Cecilia Tallis. Maybe Colette has some vibes of Joan Clarke from "Imitation game", who was also a strong woman, but in general, it's unusual for Knightley and I'm really happy to see her in this role.

Costumes.

The Costume designer is Andrea Flesch and I really adore her work here.

The colours and shapes of clothes are pretty awesome. I'd like to call it "Edwardian ", but the movie sets in France, so it would be little bit wrong.

All in all, it was the time when everything was changing and the fashion wasn't an exception. The silhouette became more like S curve in contrast to Victorian hourglass. It's noticeable in Colette's white dress which you can see below.

Besides, there's also an oposite to elegant S - shaped corsets. The early 20th century is a time when women finilly got an opportunity to be not only a house wife or factory worker (from the lowest class)." The new women of the early 1900s were educated and informed, with an interest in politics and social causes." This reflecs in the fashion as well. In the movie you can see women wearing suts and short haircut.

Music

The composer is Thomas Ádes. The music suits the movie perfectly. I highly recommend to check tracks "Valse du Salon" and "Colette" out.

If you're interested, let me know in comments and let's discuss it.

Sources:

Edwardian fashion:

https://bellatory.com/fashion-industry/FashionHistoryEdwardianFashionTrends1890s1914

Vogue's review: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vogue.co.uk/article/colette-costume-designer-interview-andrea-flesch%3famp.

[woman-loving]

some thoughts on femininity

I start off with a long quote, so the whole thing is going under a cut.

There is a scene in the film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, where the heroine’s mentor Effie Trinket is learning to adapt to her new life in the revolutionary compound of District 13. Previously an inhabitant of the wealthy Capitol area, Trinket has been forced to leave behind her old excessive style in favour of a grey jumpsuit, a uniform worn throughout the District. Cleaned of makeup and without her frilly dresses, Trinket retains only a set of bangles which she still wears and often touches wistfully. Her fellow District 13 comrades find Trinket’s attachment to these objects absurd, and she is met with derision. This response from her revolutionary companions calls to mind Germaine Greer’s assertion that “the women who dare not go outside without their fake eyelashes are in serious psychic trouble” (1970, 325). That Trinket’s affection for feminine accoutrements makes her the focus of ridicule illustrates an important conundrum. It begs the question: should we laugh and pity the Trinkets of the world “who dare not go outside” without their feminine accessories? Are Trinket’s bracelets symbolic manacles? Or should we sit awhile, and wonder why these attachments might remain in the face of strong suggestions from others that liberation can be found in throwing such objects away? This leads to the central question: how can we consider femininity in a way that best attends to people’s experiences of, and attachment to, feminine styles?

Looking to both popular and scholarly feminist commentary over history we see that feminine styles of the body are often not merely understood as the effect of an oppressive gender system, but rather are seen to perpetuate and maintain this system. So the dominant theory goes: if a woman fails to reject those bodily expectations of the gender regime, she is part of the problem. I do not wish to deny that there are norms and expectations that shape the way that we are expected to appear and present ourselves in the world. Indeed, at times this regime is a punishing one. Women are expected to put an enormous amount of energy and money into their appearance, in order to be understood as “respectable”, “beautiful”, and “sexy”. The effort required to produce feminine aesthetics is increasingly being discussed in terms of labour (Baker 2016, 52). Furthermore,successfully achieving various looks for different contexts is no easy task. To wholeheartedly celebrate the various aspects of appearance which often constitute what is recognised as “feminine” – including makeup, clothing, hairstyling, and so on – would be to deny the daily experiences of women who are compelled to conform to particular styles in both the private and the public sphere.

For these reasons, I do not wish to celebrate femininity as something that should be seen as necessarily empowering nor inherently “good”. However, I do seek to intervene in the idea that political transformation can or should be affected at the level of appearance and identity. That is to say, I argue that femininity is not necessarily disempowering, nor inherently “bad”. Those aspects of feminine styling that may for some people feel cruel or laboursome may at other times or for other people be a source of pleasure or, indeed, may be central to their sense of identity and belonging. [...]

That gender expectations are contextual and change over history and location also reveals that it is not the specific elements of what we designate as “feminine” in appearance that are innately problematic, but rather what is arduous is being compelled to conform to expectations. While women of one era might define long dresses as oppressive, another might see miniskirts in the same way depending on the specifics of the disciplinary regime at the time. Another clear example of this is currently the colour pink, which is discussed in some detail in chapter two : pink is not inherently bad, but functions today as a symbol of girlhood. While many reject pink for the gender normativity it represents, at times the debate gets mired in making pink the problem rather than seeing the real issue as the system that merely encourages the use of pink as a signifier. [...]

--Hannah McCann, Queering Femininity: Sexuality, Feminism, and the Politics of Presentation, 2018

This is an excerpt from the introduction of a book that I was looking through, just because I was hoping it would annoy me into writing something. I have a bit of a bias against using "femininity" as a category of analysis; I fear that people are going to use this concept imprecisely, leaving it vague and relying on unspoken, preexisting connections between femininity, womanhood, and female to suggest its meaning. However, I haven't actually read much theorization on femininity or femme-ness, so I don't know for sure what this book is going to argue; I read another theoretical article on femme just before this and it seemed to be going in some interesting directions (building off other queer and feminist theorizing). But still I want to share some of the thoughts and concerns I have going into this topic, acknowledging that other people may very well be saying the same sort of thing, and that this isn't original to me.

First of all, I want to give my own, very rough working explanation of "femininity" (or at least one angle of it), which would go something like this: femininity names the quality of womanliness, or the range of physical characteristics, styles, mannerisms, interests, work, etc that are imagined to be the natural expression of womanhood. In other words, "femininity" and womanhood are tied together through an essentialist logic, one which also locates womanhood and its expression (femininity) in "the female body." (I will use "the female body" here to indicate another construction.) The reference point for all this that I'm thinking about here is specifically Western European constructions of womanhood, femininity, and the female body, and how these are constructed through race, class, ability, sexuality, and other factors.

While we've come to speak about femininity as something independent from being woman or "female"--as that which has simply been "traditionally associated" with women--I think this is the logic behind that "association." To be feminine is to be "womanly." One concern I have with using "femininity" as a analytic category is that... so long as the reference point for understanding the meaning of "feminine" is an essentialist logic of womanhood, we risk carrying over this logic uncritically, and reproducing it even where we claim to have severed it off. How can we talk about both "womanliness" as an independent expression that can be found in people of any gender and also "women" as a group that can have a full range of possible expressions? 

Going back to my explanation of femininity and the broader gender logic of which its a part, another point that needs to be made is that... while ideal (meaning: white, middle-class, able-bodied, cis) women and womanliness are seen as fundamentally distinct from men and manliness, these categories are not as separate in this scheme as would appear. These values of male-man-manly and female-woman-womanly interpenetrate one another and can be quite mobile. Womanly characteristics can be found in a man; male traits identified on the female body. This mobility actually helps preserve the underlying essentialist logic. For example, we might understand a brave woman as expressing a manly characteristic, rather than questioning the notion that bravery is fundamentally male (and therefore an aberration in women) or that the real, essential man is brave. (This is touched on a little bit here, too.)

Moving on.

So, we have this introduction that starts out with considering the reception of Effie in The Hunger Games, and what Effie misses when she's in District 13, and what she's sneered at for being attached to, is identified as "femininity."

It's been a lot time since I read or watched The Hunger Games, but surely it would be accurate to say that what Effie is missing is a particular style, particular accouterments, a fashion; these are what the author here identifies as "femininity." And that's not wrong, exactly, but there are other ways of naming this. Lemme turn to a quote I saved from another book I read:

In spite of their differences in education, wealth, and social standing, most of the [Victorian] bourgeoisie resembled one another in dress, habits of speech, and deportment. Bourgeois men dressed somberly, in dark colors, avoiding any outward signs of luxury. Their clothing fit closely and lacked decoration—a symbolic adjustment to the machine age, in which elaborate dress hampered activity. It also reflected a conscious attempt to emphasize achievement-oriented attitudes, and new standards for what constituted honorable manhood. Through dress and other fashionable tastes, middle classes distinguished themselves from what they viewed as a decadent and effeminate nobility.

Bourgeois conventions regarding women’s dress were the opposite of men’s, further reinforcing gender distinctions—women’s clothing became the material symbol of male success. Extravagant amounts of colorful fabrics used to fashion huge, beribboned hoop dresses reflected the newfound wealth of the middle classes and confirmed their view of women as ornaments whose lives were to be limited to the home and made easier by servants.

--Western Civilization: Beyond Boundaries, Thomas F. X. Noble, et al., 6th ed., 2010

Ok, now this is where all my thoughts start to get scrambled together. Let's see in what order all my points will wind up.

So what appears to be happening here is the emergence of two fashion genres (to use a term from the previous femme article I read) within the white Victorian bourgeoisie. (Is that the same thing as middle class?) And these are shaped to express one of two sets of contradictory values held by the bourgeoisie. And while it's reasonable to assume that bourgeois women would also hold and reproduce these values, I expect that these social trends were largely shaped by white bourgeois men, and that both sets of values reflected their own interests. In other words, it's not that bourgeois men held one set of values and bourgeois women the other, and each were allowed to develop fashions as suited their own (singular) preferences. Rather, bourgeois men valued both somberness and display of wealth through luxury, and wished to express both, and resolved this contradiction by externalizing one of these value sets onto women. They were able to have their cake and eat it too: they could express esteemed middle-class values as a part of their manhood, while also getting the benefits of the values they decried: extravagance, excess, luxury, ornamentation--all foisted onto women, whose fashions were imagined as deriving from an essential womanly disposition that naturally gravitated to such qualities. I.e. women's femininity.

AND LEAST THAT'S HOW I'M READING THIS. I haven't looked into the development of these fashions beyond the quote from the book. So, if that's correct.

The use of The Hunger Games to illustrate the reception to women's attachment to "feminine" styles is odd, because the fashions of the Capitol must also be sharped by class values. Popular fashion in the Capitol appears to be characterized by exaggeration, excess, and flamboyance, a display of luxury which resonates with what the Capitol represents in the series.

HOWEVER. The Capitol does not seem to have markedly distinct genres of fashion for men and women. Let me qualify that. Just looking at these pictures, the few men who appear are less... excessive, but still notably flamboyant. (Two more examples.) It's been quite a while since I read the books or watched the movies, so I don't remember exactly how gender appeared to be constructed in the Capitol. But I'd posit that the difference in degree of excess between men and women here results from the fact that these fashions are built on the base of real-world fashions, where those for men and women have had different trajectories. Perhaps we could say, though, that the same basic concept lies behind all fashion in the Capitol, and imagine that the spirit behind Suzanne Collins' vision of the Capitol might be more "ideally" represented by a world where the forms of Capitol fashion were not gender-specific.

In that case, extravagant fashion is not specifically womanly. It might make more sense to speak of Effie not as missing the accouterments of "femininity," but more specifically the accouterments of a fashion characterized by exaggeration, excessive ornamentation, or however we might describe it. These fashions might be intimately tied to her identity and sense of embodiment, without primarily being understood as an expression of a uniquely womanly quality. Where, then, does the concept of "femininity" fit into it?

Moving on from The Hunger Games, the suggestion I'd like to make is that, rather than using a vague notion of "femininity," we attempt to be more precise in naming the contents of "femininity." By utilizing categories like "extravagance" or "flamboyance" (or perhaps other, better terms), we can uproot the characteristics that make up "femininity" from their presumed location in womanly nature. We can connect them as well to “manly” expressions of these same qualities, and perhaps note a range of similarities and differences in how they are socially received depending on the gender, race, class, etc of the subject in which they appear. This is not to say that we should ignore how certain things are gendered, or how people do in fact adopt certain styles as a way to express or embody their gender. This can/should still be part of the analysis. But expanding the repertoire of categories used to name what we mean by "femininity" might help us avoid over-determining the significance of gender, which can be a pitfall when the subjects under consideration are viewed as markedly gendered. (I complained about an example of this.)

(I suppose I'm basically describing a method of analysis that evacuates the category of femininity. I remember once, in a discussion of Buddhism, the concept of non-self (anatta) was illustrated by saying "a flower is made up entirely of non-flower parts." In this case, "femininity" or womanliness is made up entirely non-woman(ly) parts. So what are those parts?)

I also want to comment on something McCann said in the last paragraph of that first quote. She said that the elements designated as "feminine" are not innately problematic, but become so when they are compelled to be adopted. I’d agree that it’s a problem when these elements are compulsory (especially if they tend to require greater time, labor, expense, and self-monitoring to embody). However, the contents of "femininity" may in fact be problematic within the social context in which they are developed. Returning to that second quote, the ornateness of bourgeois women's fashion was problematic in its own right because it contradicted another, more centrally affirmed set of bourgeois values.

Now, I'm not sure what is the best way to name the characteristics that are identified as "feminine," but one common complaint against certain "feminine" clothing or processes is that they are impractical and unnecessary. And when women specifically are compelled to adopt styles that are impractical for a wider range of situations, it makes sense to complain about that. However, what may be needed to defuse tensions around "femininity" is not just a rethinking of the meaning or value of womanhood (e.g. what women "should" look like), but also a rethinking of the value of “impracticality.” A rethinking of forms of expression (and the labor they entail) that serve no purpose other than meeting an aesthetic or bodily goal, one which may be attained at the expense of practicality, efficiency, or frugality.

At the same time, even here we can't look at this question outside the interlocking context of sexism, misogyny, racism, classism, et al, since these determine which forms of expression that might in fact be impractical (toward a certain goal) actually get identified as impractical or unnecessary. It just goes to show how multiple approaches are needed, since these phenomena are complex.

Fin.

[isfjmel-phleg]

it's "the secret garden" "anon" again! did you see the teaser for the 2020 adaptation?! what do you think?!

Hi, Secret Garden anon! Nice to see you again!

I had no idea that the teaser had come out; thanks for letting me know.

undefined

The new time period allows Mary to have an adorable bob. I approve. Also her costumes are lovely.Misselthwaite looks appropriately Gothic and forboding. And oddly bare inside? Mary’s room appears to be very sparsely furnished. Even Colin’s room seems pretty minimal compared to other adaptations’ sets, but then clutter was very Victorian/Edwardian, and it would make sense for a 1940s Misselthwaite to look as if it’s seen better days, as if perhaps things have been sold to keep the place afloat amid the dramatic changes of the last few decades.Speaking of Colin’s room,

wow

, they went straight for that reveal. No secrets about

this

plot point. Although this is his only appearance in the teaser.The grounds are beautiful! Rather a different aesthetic than, say, the 1993 version, which was more muted, more old-fashioned. These gardens are bright and vibrant.Apparently she finds the key in a hole in a tree? Nice to see the robin is included, but I’m curious about this dog. Is it going to serve the same function as Dickon’s animals?This garden appears to be vast and wild, which I like for this setting, but I’m a bit confused by what look like rather tropical plants--not plausible for Yorkshire--and what looks jungle ruins. Unless this is an imaginary sequence? The garden should be a bit fantastical, but it shouldn’t stray too far from what’s likely for a walled garden in Yorkshire.Aww, Dickon. That shy smile. That’s in character.But I’m puzzled by this oddly threatening line from Mr. Craven. What trouble could she possibly cause him? Especially if (canonically, at least) he’s so seldom home. It’s normal for adaptations to throw in some Conflict involving the possibility of Mary being sent away or something comparable, but I’m not sure that this is in character for Mr. Craven. This is, however, given without context.Mary appears to either have a vision of or be visited by (the ghost of?) a woman. Is it her aunt? Letters are scattered all over the floor in this scene. I wonder if those are attempts to contact her uncle regarding Colin’s recovery that have been thwarted somehow, and perhaps she’s the one to be contacted by Lilias? And who are these mysterious floaty ladies wandering the halls of Misselthwaite? One could be Mrs. Craven, but several?Birds in Mary’s room? What’s going on?Is the garden literally magic? Or is this an imagination sequence? I wouldn’t get too worked up about it at this point. I can remember when trailers for the most recent version of

Bridge to Terebithia

came out and there was a great outcry over some emphasized fantastical scenes that turned out to be nothing than brief imaginary sequences. We’re seeing everything out of context, and at this point anything is possible.

Overall, I am curious and definitely eager to see where this goes. Obviously changes to the book will happen, that’s a given, but I hope they can capture the right spirit. I am determined to keep an open mind. 

I’ve seen a lot of comments denouncing this as a “remake” of the 1993 version which is Perfect and Should Not Be Tampered With (as if this film will obliterate the previous one’s existence?), but to be strictly accurate, this is just another adaptation of a classic book that was adapted multiple times even before the 1993 version. Same story, different take/interpretation. That’s what’s so great about literature; there are so many different ways to engage with a good story.

What did you think?

[cinemavariety]

The Director’s Series: David Lynch

The director series will consist of me concentrating on the filmography of all my favorite directors. I will rank each of their films according to my personal taste. I hope this project will provide everyone with quality recommendations and insight into films that they might not have known about.

Today’s director in spotlight is David Lynch

#10 - Dune (1984) Runtime: 2 hr 17 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

In the year 10,191, the world is at war for control of the desert planet Dune – the only place where the time-travel substance ‘Spice’ can be found. But when one leader gives up control, it’s only so he can stage a coup with some unsavory characters.

Verdict: Most directors who make enough films will always have a few misses. Dune is almost unwatchable with its convoluted storyline that will confuse anyone who hasn’t read the novel. I’ll give it this - the set and costume design are out of this world, no pun intended.

#9 - The Straight Story (1999) Runtime: 1 hr 52 min Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1 Film Format: 35 mm

A retired farmer and widower in his 70s, Alvin Straight learns one day that his distant brother Lyle has suffered a stroke and may not recover. Alvin is determined to make things right with Lyle while he still can, but his brother lives in Wisconsin, while Alvin is stuck in Iowa with no car and no driver’s license. Then he hits on the idea of making the trip on his old lawnmower, thus beginning a picturesque and at times deeply spiritual odyssey.

Verdict: The only one of Lynch’s films that could be considered purely “heartwarming”. It also feels the least like a Lynch film, with the director never really foraying into his autuerist territory. It is a simple, cute film that didn’t exactly leave much of an impression on me.

#8 - Lost Highway (1997) Runtime: 2 hr 14 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

A tormented jazz musician finds himself lost in an enigmatic story involving murder, surveillance, gangsters, doppelgangers, and an impossible transformation inside a prison cell.

Verdict: Lost Highway has a few scenes that I find to be the most bone-chilling in Lynch’s oeuvre. However, I wish that the entirety of this film had the same effect on me. There are more than enough satisfying plot elements to this, but I also feel like Lynch utilizing a modern soundtrack more than Badalementi’s superb score really does make this film feel dated.

#7 - The Elephant Man (1980) Runtime: 2 hr 4 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his “owner” as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick, a severely deformed man in 19th century London.

Verdict: The Elephant Man showcases how cruel human nature can be. It is one of Lynch’s most sentimental works that manages to be both horrendous and beautiful. John Hurt’s performance as the “elephant man” is multilayered and one of the most impressive, humanistic feats of an artist embodying a character with the utmost ingenuity.

#6 - Blue Velvet (1986) Runtime: 2 hr Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of criminals who have kidnapped her child.

Verdict: This is Lynch’s detective film, and I would say one of the best starting films for someone looking to get into his work. It has all of the surrealist plot motifs we come to expect from Lynch, but also has a pretty understandable storyline for the most part. Blue Velvet explores the dark underbelly beneath the fake “harmless” veneer of a seemingly quiet and peaceful small town.

#5 - Wild at Heart (1990) Runtime: 2 hr 5 min Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Young lovers Sailor and Lula run from the variety of weirdos that Lula’s mom has hired to kill Sailor. 

Verdict: Many might not see Wild at Heart as one of Lynch’s strongest works, but I personally find it to be the most fun film he has ever made. Lynch creates such a wide variety of scummy characters that truly make your stomach church (I am looking at you Willem Dafoe). It’s one of those so-bad-it’s-perfect movies and the Wizard of Oz allusions are a great addition to the story.  

#4 - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) Runtime: 2 hr 14 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

In the questionable town of Deer Meadow, Washington, FBI Agent Desmond inexplicably disappears while hunting for the man who murdered a teen girl. The killer is never apprehended, and, after experiencing dark visions and supernatural encounters, Agent Dale Cooper chillingly predicts that the culprit will claim another life. Meanwhile, in the more cozy town of Twin Peaks, hedonistic beauty Laura Palmer hangs with lowlifes and seems destined for a grisly fate. Verdict: I think it’s a real shame that this film was held in such low regard by both critics and fans alike when it was released. These people seemed to be truly confused as to the types of films Lynch makes. Thankfully, it has developed into a real cult classic since then. This film, which also serves as a prequel to the iconic television series, abandons the campy tone of the series and is Lynch achieving the vision that he wanted from the show. It’s a beautiful, haunting, and heartbreaking story.

#3 - Inland Empire (2006) Runtime: 3 hr Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: Mini DV & 35mm

An actress’s perception of reality becomes increasingly distorted as she finds herself falling for her co-star in a remake of an unfinished Polish production that was supposedly cursed. 

Verdict: Lynch has yet to make a feature film since this one, and it truly is the director going off the rails with his style in the best of ways. Inland Empire is almost completely impossible to describe because it is more of an experience than it is a structured narrative. It returns to Lynch’s often-used idea of “hollywood is hell”. To me, this is Lynch’s scariest film. It’s utterly hopeless and the pixelated DV cinematography exudes a very cold and artificial aesthetic. Laura Dern deserved an Oscar for her performance as an actress who confuses her own life to the character she is playing. 

#2 - Mulholland Drive (2001) Runtime: 2 hr 27 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman’s identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project. 

Verdict: You will very rarely find such a perfect masterpiece of a film, but Mulholland Drive manages to do that. It also seems to reveal new layers every time I revisit. Lynch blurs the lines between the dream world and reality so masterfully in this film that it really does linger in your subconscious afterward - much akin to a haunting dream that you can’t seem to shake. Naomi Watts is electric as an LA newcomer who gets involved in the dark recesses of Hollywood.

#1 - Eraserhead (1977) Duration: 1 hr 29 min Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1 Film Format: 35mm

Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

Verdict: By no means am I trying to say Eraserhead is Lynch’s “best” film - but for me it will probably always remain my personal favorite. This was my introduction to Lynch’s work and it holds a very sentimental spot for me as this was the time in my life when I really began exploring experimental film. Eraserhead is set in a dystopia that could also serve as an alternate reality altogether. Henry Spencer has to deal with his demanding wife and deformed child while daydreaming of a singing woman in the radiator. This is Lynch at his most surrealist, his most uncompromising, and his most nauseating. It truly is one the most impressive low-budget films ever made. It manages a fine line between repulsion and transcendence.

[gabe-tsi]

Stitched Heart  (LizardHat)

Hmmm... So... I made a little fanfic based on a drawing by @ringocapuccino

It WAS supposed to be little. I guess I got a bit excited writing it. I’m not as good as many of the people here, but I’ve tried. Hope you all enjoy it. Is the first time I post a fic that isn’t on a “anon profile” or something so please be gentle aksdnfks I’m nervous

Word Count: 1.572

His firm hands held the cloth that slowly slid under the needle with a thread; the noise of the sewing machine was the only sound that could be heard echoing through the dark room. Concentrated, the man finished embroidering a dress for his agent of chaos. It should be perfect, just like his little hitman. It should be sophisticated for the occasion, but still show the chaotic personality of his lizard. The color of the luxe blending through threads with the color of chaos, weaving step by step the appropriate robe until he could finally found the balance between chaotic and elegant. And so he did.

Finally, after so much time and effort, it was ready. In front of him, the finished dress resting on the table, next to the sewing machine that now lay still without a sound.

Clutching by the vest’s shoulders, he lifted his newest piece and looked at it seriously, searching for imperfections and analyzing, making sure that it fit his refined tastes. When he was sure that suit was perfect, he allowed a relieved grin to sprout on his face.

He let his back rest against the soft foam of the seat where he was. His head hung back and tired, his half-opened eyes trailing the dark room. Over there, several mannequins scattered, the vast majority with elegant dresses and suits on their inanimate bodies of cold wood. How long had he been holed up in that room, working unceasingly to embroider the perfect dress? Probably for over a week. Dozens of unfinished dresses infested the room, along with hundreds of crumpled sheets of paper, already overflowing the table on which lay the drafts of the discarded ideas of the eldritch. And analyzing all the paper, thread and fabric wasted in the process, you could say that he had worked hard on it.

Why tho? He thought. Why do I care so much? I could just buy some gala dress or have Flug to order one on the Internet, and my minios would still have something decent to wear at the next event. But why? Why do I bother, all this trouble and hard work, just for her? He wondered, but no matter how much he thought, he could not find an answer. He did not know why he was so excited to please his employee. He did not know why he considered her... So... Special... Why? And why her? She was nothing but an nuisance to him!

He was thinking too much about it. A slight headache began to bother him, making him massage his temples in a failed attempt to get rid of it. He sighed, tired, and decided to ignore anything that came in mind for now.

At that moment, a knock echoed through the silence of the sewing room. Black Hat did not have to answer to find out who was on the other side.

Carefully, he grabbed the finished dress that rested on the table and hold it on his left arm, bringing it with him as he walked away from the room.

He opened the heavy - and expensive - ivory door, only to face his evil scientist with a worried look on the face.

"Sir... Is everything alright with you, Lord Black Hat?" He did not answer

"Where's Demencia?"

"Is... everything OK...?"

"I said..." He raised his voice, already losing his patience. "Where the FUCK is Demencia?!" He hated when people answered his questions with another question.

The nerd stepped back, afraid of being hit or something.

"I-In her room, sir!" The skinny man swallowed dry.

The older man just glanced at his subordinate and turned his back on him, moving away and heading down the corridors of the mansion to the girl's room. The young one just stood there, a confused countenance. Curiosity was giving him an itch, but he would not question his boss. He knew what was best for him.

The heavy steps stopped in front of the huge white door decorated with threatening warnings and graffiti with the writing "Dem X BH" in neon. Oh, hell. Anyone would know who that room belongs to. Black Hat did not know why he let her vandalize something in his domains. That neon palette was a strong contrast that ruined the gothic colors and victorian aesthetics of his home. He rolled his eyes, trying to ignore that little detail that made him slightly irritated and finally knocked on the door. Something seemed wrong. It was too quiet to be Demencia. A few moments later, the female voice answered from within:

 "Come in!"

He opened the door without hesitation, and as he did so he came upon the lizard girl leaning on her bed, surrounded by dozens of scrawled papers. The man peeked, slightly curious, only to come across the drawings made by her; it were Demencia and Black Hat, in a romantic interaction, probably one of the girl’s fantasies with him. He decided to ignore her "beautiful artworks" like he always did. If she was drawing, at least she was not disturbing him.

"Try it." He lend the dress to her.

"I'm busy." She did not even bother looking, too focused on her drawing.

"I didn’t made it for nothing. TRY IT." He repeated with a firmer timbre.

That phrase made her turn away from the paper for a moment. She stared at the dress the man gave her, opening a huge smile soon after.

"Did you made this for me?!"

"Yes, I-" Barely had time to explain himself, in an instant the girl jumped out of bed and grabbed the tissues of his hand, admiring the dress.

"IT'S BEAUTIFUL I LOVED IT !!" She looked at the man for a moment. "What's that for?"

"The Gala this weekend."

"ÉS PERFECTO, GRACIAS BONBON! I'M GONNA TRY IT RIGHT NOW!" She began undressing in front of her boss.

"WAIT UNTIL I'M OUT, DAMMIT!" He screamed, turning away from her, annoyed at the girl's inconvenience.

He hurried to leave the room, closing the door right after. God, that girl was a hurricane, and at the very least a nuisance. Yet her presence was... tolerable, in a certain way. And the hat man could not tell why. Why did he tolerate her and her crazy vows of love? Why did he tolerate all her chaos and destruction? For fuck's sake, he could just rip her apart in a heartbeat and she'd be dead before she knew it. Yet... he did not feel like killing, not when it came to Dementia. He might even be crazy, but maybe he was beginning to find the girl's presence... Nice? He could not say for sure. Maybe that was it, right? No, bullshit, it could not be. Or maybe...?

"Hey, Blackie~" She called him, opening the door to her room. The sweet sound of her voice woke the eldritch of his own thoughts, making him to turn around and enter the room again, curious to see his most beautiful and recent creation in the body of his muse- He meant employee.

It was when he came across the lizard wearing the dress woven by his evil hands. He froze right where he was, completely static and stunned. It was... perfect, just as he had imagined. Mesmerizing. He could not look away, not even for a single second. He had lived hundreds of thousands of years, and yet he could have sworn he'd never seen anything so... Dazzling ... Demencia was... So... No, it was not that. Nonsense. Hypnotizing and stunning, bullshit! He was just proud of his work, that's all! He was sure! Only his well done work, it was the only thing that delighted eyes about that sight before him.

But... those beautiful curves that fit perfectly into the seam of his freshly finished work, that sensual body that looked more like a Greek work of art, the long and beautiful exotic hair... Her pretty evil face and... Her pink lips, silently calling him... Her eyes... staring at him... begging for any compliment... Compliment that almost slid out of his mouth.

"It fits. Now take it off, I don’t want you to ruin it before this weekend."

"As you wish ~" And began to remove the dress in front of him again. But in a blink of an eye, Black Hat had already disappeared hastily amid the shadows of his evil mansion.

"Damn you, woman. Why are you so bloody mesmerizing?" He murmured to himself. He knew that no one would answer him; he was alone by now. But maybe he knew the answer. Maybe he knew why Demencia seemed so... attractive, somehow. Maybe he knew why he'd bothered to have all that work just for her. He took that answer, thinking seriously about it. He shook his head in denial. It was almost as if he could not believe it. What a fool of me to think about it. I am an heartless entity of darkness. And he rebuked himself, remembering never to think about it again. An heartless entity of darkness. No feelings. He repeated mentally. And it's not a punk lizard, after hundreds of years of existence, that’s going to change that.

He decided to forget this subject. And suppress anything that he may ever came to "feel." Ah, Black Hat, you fool, only if you knew....