m0dernchr0n1cles

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

Just started reading Sherlock Holmes and all the adaptations are wrong. This man is a delight. He gets excited about hemoglobin and is ecstatic at the thought of Watson as a roommate. He purposefully forgets how the solar system works so he has more room in his brain for crime. He shows Watson the dirt stains on his trousers and he can tell what part of London they come from based on color and consistency. (As far as i can tell Watson didn't ask, Sherlock just gets back from walks and tells Watson about the stains unprompted.) The text specifically says "Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with." Why does every adaptation make him unpleasant and rude, he's literally just eccentric. He's such a goober, I love him.

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

Eve Moneypenny:  How She is the Most Effective Subversion of the “...Black Woman Don’t Need No Man” in Pop Culture.

I racked my brain trying to think of a current black woman character in entertainment media who has managed to be pushed, who is high-profile, mainstream visibly desirable, and emphatically pursued, without any of the typical soft swerves that can be interpreted any other way in order to placate a bigoted mindset.  

In this case, even internationally (I exclude Shondaland, because she’s a black woman. It’s to be expected that we get to have rich complete black women’s lives in her programming, including being desired and centrally pursued). 

The only name I could come up with off the top of my head is Eve Moneypenny.

Why Eve?

Well, let me list the ways:

She’s not safely black: she’s got a halo of straw curls, -not the typical and expected stick-straight weave and  she has decidedly brown, not beige skin (I’d love to ask Naomie if curls was a deliberate choice on her end, if so BRAVO!)

There is an obvious attempt at seduction, that cannot be interpreted any other way.  Bond’s desire to do so is made clear. It is in no way oblique or up for interpretation, which is the usual standard.  

Bond being a ladies’ man a “raging misogynist” as Daniel Craig puts it, means that he is placed at the epitome of cultural iconography for peak masculinity.  He’s smooth. He suave. He’s gets EVERY woman he wants. Except for Eve, but and THIS IS IMPORTANT. It’s not because he lacks initiative or desire, but because she sees him for what he is and does not choose him.  Eve marks Bond as a dog and chooses not to sleep with him.  She has the power and choice  “Haha, you’re cute, but no.”

That facet of Eve’s personality has been changed for the better (originally she was the one pursuing Bond while he flirted and dodged her). Now, a black woman is the ultimate Bond girl, precisely because she is the only one who chooses not to fall for the schtick. Win-win.

Her image is used to push luxury brands associated with Bond, i.e.:

in a world where blackness is often associated “ghetto” and “ratchet” to see a black woman, as the iconic character being the international face pushing these brands? Welcome progress.

She’s not depicted as too busy, too strong, too anything, but smart, for sex with Bond. That I give a lot of credit to Naomie for her portrayal. In that gorgeous and sexy shaving scene.  She’s cheeky.  She smiles, she flirts, she plays the game, but she doesn’t leave the room because she lacks the time or the desire.  She leaves because cute as he is, he’s fucking messy.  …Not because he can’t love her, because he could and would and she’s not willing to risk ending up like Vesper. Like I said, smart.  Bond is the one who you can’t just kick out bed.  The point of the scene, and what makes it so much sexier than most full-on sex scenes, is Bond’s complete surrender  to her. He gives her a blade, with which she could easily slit his throat (especially if she had turned out to be a double-agent!) and gives himself over to her devices. She is clothed, he is half-naked eye-candy for the viewer. 

That’s a rare mainstream onscreen depiction of  grown-up, het sexuality, PERIOD and for it to be in a film this popular and successful and with a black woman?! Unprecedented. Talk about a turn around from the disposable, dead and forgotten a scene later, Jezebel plaything shit that was pulled in To Live and Let Die between Roger Moore, who is hot steamy garbage, and Gloria Hendry. whose toe-clipping is better than Roger Moore’s entire being.

She gets the show-stopping “cleans up nice” entry scene in that gorgeous golden gown. She gets the full body camera pan reveal, the jawdrop, and vocal acknowledgment of her beauty: 

And finally, she is the ONLY Bond girl who gets to endure. To continue from film to film, being not only the one who got away, but also the ONLY one who Bond got to save from himself. Bond suggested that she take a desk job, not because her mind is sharper than her sniping, but  because she’d be protected from danger.  Eve, went after that job, because she agreed, not that she wasn’t a capable field agent, but she’d also like to protect the beautiful brain of hers and she’d be good at it. She’s the girl, among the many; the revolving door of all matter of Bond girls that will come and go.

Moneypenny is the ultimate desirable Bond woman, too good for Bond not in the off-hand “this is how we get out of dealing with a black woman’s sexuality” Hollywood bullshit way, but genuinely, the ever pursued, always-protected, perpetually out-of-reach.

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

Frankenstein crossover this, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that, what I've just realised - and am very excited about - is that -

if Quincey Harker is born in the mid to late 1890s

then he is roughly the same age as Bertie Wooster.

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

Frankenstein crossover this, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that, what I've just realised - and am very excited about - is that -

if Quincey Harker is born in the mid to late 1890s

then he is roughly the same age as Bertie Wooster.

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

The problem with most adaptations of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is that they may get the humor, but they miss the anger. It's a very angry book. The narrator is angry about serfdom, angry that they are forbidden to learn to read, angry that a flighty mistress can kill one for no reason and legally get away with it, angry that King Arthur is a good man for his time but until he's experienced all this himself he just doesn't get it. (It took me a while to get it, myself- that Mark Twain, author of Huckleberry Finn and Puddinhead Wilson, was probably talking about something more than medieval feudalism.) The only version I've seen that captures this is, of all things, A Knight in Camelot with Whoopi Goldberg.

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

Imagine a movie of a modern Dracula adaptation begins with an unseen pair of hands opening a box with a USB inside, the word Dracula scribbled onto it in red marker. The hand plugs the drive into a laptop, the screen goes up, and they click on a file. The laptop screen then takes up the entire camera as we transition into the found footage format of basically the entire film; But then it’s all recontextualized and comes full-circle when we see a video message recorded for Quincey Harker by his parents and their friends, ‘lil Quincey just chilling on VH’s knee. And then we finally cut away from the screen to an older Quincey smiling as he looks at the laptop, having absorbed the whole story now and appreciating what his parents went through, and how devoted everyone was to his mom.

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

As he grows up, Little Quincey looks a lot like his dad when he was all smiley and innocent, and it is healing for Jonathan to see.

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

Oh I meant a Van Helsing meding Hoppy sketch (it eas in response to your reply on a post 😂)

Okay, I think this is the cutest thing I've ever drawn! I immediately thought of the Calvin and Hobbes drawing with the same premise, so modeled mine off of that.

Quincey Harker is upset that his toy rabbit Hoppy was hurt, so Van Helsing very seriously performs surgery to save Hoppy's life:

[ID in alt]

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

Baby's Day Out but its Van Helsing trying to keep Quincey Jr alive while investigating the local urban legend

Van Helsing: *keeps baby in a carrier strapped to his chest for maximum security*

Also Van Helsing: Ok, I'll put him down behind this tombstone just because it might be dangerous. I won't be gone longer than a few minutes.

Quincey Jr: Ghost is bright and shiny. *crawls towards mysterious floating light*

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

I do have to start this by saying that I fucking despise that literary theory of "Oooooh WhAt iF QuInCey Is AcTuALly dRaCuLa'S sOn 👀👀👀👀" because not only it's not possible in the canon of the book, and it undermines all of the efforts put by our protagonists to end the bastard, but also I personally think it's only pushed by academics that are simply too deep in the (ugh) "Dracula is the only Alpha Male" juice along with being weirdly obsessed against Jonathan's whole character.

But what if, thanks to Jonathan's subtle supernatural changes and Mina's slow transformation, little Quincey Harker ends up being... A little liminal? Not enough to say supernatural, but just enough to go huh? And double check to see if you got confused.

Maybe Quincey's eyes shine a night when the room is completely dark. Sometimes Jonathan and Mina can't keep up with him when he runs despite being pretty young themselves. What if one day someone finds Quincey climbing a wall then falling after being discovered. He always knows where mom is, he is so good at hide and seek. Quincey tells Mina of a pretty lady walking around their home, and sitting on the sofa to simply see them, and her clothes are stained with blood. He sleeps like a rock, yet he immediatly wakes up at the slightest sound. Quincey has the little habit of climbing his dad's back with pure agility since he learned how to walk.

Just a little Quincey that is the king of games with his friends, but always receives double stares by some adults around him.

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

Oh I meant a Van Helsing meding Hoppy sketch (it eas in response to your reply on a post 😂)

Okay, I think this is the cutest thing I've ever drawn! I immediately thought of the Calvin and Hobbes drawing with the same premise, so modeled mine off of that.

Quincey Harker is upset that his toy rabbit Hoppy was hurt, so Van Helsing very seriously performs surgery to save Hoppy's life:

[ID in alt]

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

“Jeeves, I wish I had a daughter. I wonder what the procedure is?”

“Marriage is, I believe, considered the preliminary step, sir.”

“No, I mean about adopting a kid. You can adopt kids, you know, Jeeves. But what I want to know is how you start about it.”

COULD THIS MAN GET ANY MORE NOT-STRAIGHT GOOD LORD

Sherlock Holmes 🤝 Bertie Wooster

Daydreams about having kids but would rather die than get married

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

I must say I'm sensing a strong aroace aura around Bertie Wooster

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

modern au where bertie wears these shitty t shirts with increasingly bizarre slogans that keep getting more and more specific

one day he'll wear one that just says I <3 JEEVES and no one will even bat an eyelid

also i gave him funny little heart-shaped sunglasses cause they match his vibe and would send jeeves into cosmic stuffed frog territory

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

dog & daughter :]

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

i like to think that a j&w modern au would involve aunt agatha making a tinder profile for bertie. it seems like the most modern equivalent of arranged marriage and i think the image of a ~70 year old women swiping right on a 20 yro girl she deems acceptable for her wayward (see: gay) nephew is... fitting

[m0dernchr0n1cles]

Everyone gives Sherlock Holmes a hard time about being mean about Watson's writing, but honestly imagine you told your roommate "sure, you can write up an account of my work for the newspaper," thinking it would be like, about the murder, but then he publishes it and it's 90% about you, as a person, and it's a huge hit and now everyone in London knows that you hoard newspapers and do cocoaine when you're depressed. Because I think you'd be little miffed too.