#* nell crain: interaction.

[untilthcyrot]

❝ Everyone in my family thinks I'm losing my shit. ❞ A hand runs over her face, exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally. She's heat the trifecta that weighs down on her shoulders so heavily that it's all she can ever feel anymore. No matter how she reaches out to her brothers and sisters, for their help, they push her away. Steven doesn't believe her stories and Theo just wants her medicated, but does anyone know what she wants? ❝ Nobody believes me. It's so . . . tiring not being believed. ❞

♡ ───── @chaos--mode liked for nell crain & rien !

[krikeymate]

top 5 fictional characters. RANKED!

RANKED?! Why would you hurt me like this. Oh boy. Oh man. Ok. I was only joking but this was actually very hard.

Sam & Tara Carpenter. They're just one character to me, sorry about it.

Catra, She-Ra.

Marceline, Adventure Time

Clint Barton, Hawkeye.

Lexa, the 100.

[fearlessmuses]

👻 ───── this seemed ... wonderful and terrible at the same time. she didn't know what the proper response was but there was comfort in who she found here. "so what .... " she trailed off. oh she had so many questions, how could she not as she stared towards the woman she had missed for so long now. there was sadness in realizing she could only witness this because a tragic end, but ... still. "how long have you been here like this?" she trailed off again as she leaned forwards and fingers reached up to touch her lips. "what do we do? what are we suppose to do? is this .... hell?" or worse? or better? so many questions she didn't even know how to think straight, she supposed in death the fog of her mind was not going to improve only increase.

@aigonakru ♥ for a starter from eleanor 'nell' crain for olivia crain

[nightskied]

@tobeblamed fuck me up , honestly .

nell let out a shaky breath before dialing the number that had reached her through a friend of a friend of someone that had once heard something else from someone else, that maybe he could help her and her family . the car was cold even with the heating on , and her breath made soft white clouds that quickly faded . the phone rang until it came to a connection , and nell spoke warily . " --- hello ? is this john winchester's number ? "

[stefansallvatore]

Stefan was unsure as to why, but after meeting Eleanor, he’d been compelled by her. She’d been on his mind constantly the last week, a mixture of worry and intrigue, so he was grateful to spot her walking through town. Noticing that her heartbeat was steadier than when they’d last spoke, Stefan smiled and decided to approach her, wondering if he could get to know her better, now that she was seemingly calmer. “Hey, Nell.” He’d found a spot on the outskirts of town, a place that was much quieter with better scenery, an ideal location to talk without interruption. “If you’re not going anywhere in particular, ‘you mind taking a walk with me?”

[neverafters]

        ☾   —   do you always have to be so pessimistic  ?

❝ i'm not pessimistic , i'm realistic. there's a difference, ❞ he defended himself. alex was very aware of the reputation he had at seattle grace mercy death hospital. @sordidery was . . . something else , so optimistic , it was like she had an ethereal glow around her. it was almost enough to turn his frown upside down . . . almost. ❝ not all of us can have sunshine shining out of our asses all day , crain. ❞ but that was the type of company he kept , wasn't it ? meredith and cristina weren't like that , they were dark and twisty. but izzie and jo , and now nell. no one was that happy all the time.

[intcthatgoodnight]

OPEN STARTER [ nell crain ]

       Time made more sense now, in that she now understood how scattered it truly was. Scattered - like her, like she had always felt. At times the old house seemed to fall dormant. Waiting. Days and weeks and months would pass in the blink of an eye, from one moment to the next.

       The creaking of the front door opening was like a shock wave to all those inside. A breath of fresh air. COME INSIDE.  “You shouldn’t be here.”  she called out, a lone figure almost hiding at the side of the stairs. Nell didn’t know where the others were, certainly not far, most likely watching. This person needed to leave. No one was supposed to be here.

[lumiinousbeingsold]

tag drop - horror

[lovehurried]

@willowdied said:    “He looks like he will keep you safe” not here  • not accepting.

Tears prick her eyes as she hugs her twin tight, pressing her cheek against the rough fabric of his jacket. "Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what everyone wants, right? And I've not... Had that."

[untilthcyrot]

❝ I can't do this anymore . . . ❞

♡ ───── open starter for nell crain !

[blakesque]

“ everyone has secrets, don’t they? i’m sure you’ll tell me yours when you’re ready. ” / nell Crain to Rowan or Samuel

a shrug. “ yeah, I guess . . . “ or he figured, at the very least nell was right. Rowan wasn’t particularly an open book — it took him a lot to get to the point of fully TRUSTING somebody. a finger flicked the edge of the cigarettes filter to ash it before he took a drag from it, mulling it over. he was usually against getting close to anyone - bad shit always happened and he’d dealt with enough already to continuously be let down. “ I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. “

[intcthatgoodnight-a2]

OPEN STARTER!    [ nell crain ]

           “It’s hard to understand. Everything been so twisted, and it’s hard to explain. I’m just - I’m worried.”

[nightskied]

@nighthcwling ! cont'd .

nellie understood what theo was doing , she'd been consistent in doing that for the longest time , even when all the rest began to get tired of her shortcomings . personally , eleanor had run out of juice to believe that things would change , and that was simply due to one thing : things had changed before . and then again , and everything always seemed to spin so endlessly back into itself , warp and twirl and twist and fold , time and time again , until the thing left was an origami of herself . a mirror image of her being happy , of her dancing during her wedding night , of the happy trips to the beach when they were younger , of the nights spent up writing , laughing , drinking with friends or reading on her own . the good times , they warped and warped , and became paper thin and so paper frail . she didn't want theo to see that , she -- had enough with herself , and nellie would still have a hard time laughing in the morning .

so she had learned how to put up walls , and she did that this time , forcing out a rather shaky smile that gave end to the matter they were so dreadfully trudging through . " yeah , things will . things have , so they will again . " at least that was the merrier part of her train of thought , something to translate to hope when it was really just the opposite . " what about you ? " she returned to the kitchen with ease in her steps , turning to look at her sister over her shoulder as she stirred the vegetables in the pan . " still avoiding that pretty girl from the other day ? "

[strangesmallbard]

What do you mean by "bad adaptation?" I would say that haunting of hill house is maybe an inaccurate? adaptation, or like maybe subversive adaptation is better, but it's still a good adaptation. Ig I'm curious if by bad adaptation you mean it doesn't match the source material in terms of story or in terms of narrative meaning or both?

while i enjoy flanagan's hill house and think it carries enough of the core themes to have a passing connection with the source material, i ultimately believe it works much better as an original story rather than as an adaptation. "bad adaptation" is definitely an oversimplification for the sake of a meme lmao - unsuccessful is a little closer to what i mean, which i'll explain in more detail below.

first, i want to clarify that analysis of book-to-screen adaptation that only considers 1:1 story accuracy (called "fidelity" by adaptation theorists) when judging the final product's merit is often super myopic. many adapters seek to faithfully recreate the story in a new medium using their own artistic skills, but other adapters like our boy mike flanagan employ more artistic freedom.

to adapt hill house, he changed the basic plot/character elements and explored the nuclear family in more definitive terms than the novel. he also set the story in contemporary times, allowing him to modernize the story. this form of adaptation is totally legitimate and can work amazingly, but i believe it requires a certain recognizability to be truly successful.

here is where i believe flanagan went a few steps too far. his hill house is a good story, but it's a fundamentally different story from jackson's hill house. (this is a whole book ahead, i'm so sorry.)

the characters

again, it's completely okay for adaptations to change up the characters + their dynamics. some works combine characters or remove them altogether if they feel their presence isn't necessary for the version of the story they're trying to tell. but the hill houses have an almost entirely different set of characters, with entirely different dynamics.

in the books, a scientist interested in paranormal phenomena contacts individuals with recorded experiences to explore hill house alongside him and the owner's son, luke sanderson. these individuals are eleanor "nell" vance and theodora, who doesn't have a last name. other characters include the caretaker, mrs. dudley, mrs. montague—the scientist's ouiji board-obsessed wife—and arthur, who works for mrs. montague. the characters bond as they discuss the house's history, their own backgrounds, and the origins of supernatural phenomena. meanwhile, hill house slowly ingratiates itself in nell, who's mourning the loss of her mother.

meanwhile, the tv show centers around the crane family, who move into hill house to renovate and eventually flip the property. the show chronicles their tragic interactions with the house—which resulted in the death of olivia crain, the family's matriarch—alongside the house's robust, terrible history. it also chronicles the crain family in current day after the youngest sibling, nell vance nee' crain completes suicide in the house. throughout the season, we see the crain family learn to deal with their tragic past, their ghosts, and the stories they tell each other to cope.

the tv show's story works really well for its medium, but it's a different story. while some core themes stay the same, they're approached from very different angles.

the house

until the very last episode, i would have argued that the house is the most successful aspect of flanagan's adaptation. it's big, scary, and wrong-looking. you don't want to walk into this house. the angles are quite literally wrong. the addition of actual apparitions complement book!hill house's tendency to entrap its victims and haunt them until they eventually join its history.

olivia crain assumes the role of book!nell in the flashbacks; the idea of a proper home/family drives their internal arcs in both books, with some key differences. nell receives the letter from dr. montague about hill house after losing her mother, whom she took care of her entire adult life. nell and her mother eventually resented each other, and this resulted in mach 10 complicated grief for nell, who suddenly has no place and no one to call her own, to call home. she arrives at hill house ostensibly to search for this place and her fears of eternal loneliness drive her spiral.

in flanagan's hill house, olivia crain's fears over her children drives her spiral. the house ostensibly sends her a premonition of nell's death, leading her to believe the house (and the world outside) will kill her children. in desperation, she tries to kill nell and luke. while these internal arcs are demonstrably different, there is also a through line that allows book readers to recognize olivia as the "nell" figure. this was quite good and fun, aside from my issues with olivia crain's character and how flanagan uses the theme of motherhood. that's for another essay.

HOWEVERRR the last episode happened. the crain kids reunite with their sister, leave their dad in the house, and even see the dudleys reunited with their murdered daughter. afterward, the crain kids live happily. flanagan gave hill house a redemption arc, dismantling the fear from the previous episodes in one ten minute montage. at the end of the book, nell dies and the book ends by repeating the opening line. hill house has stood for a hundred years, and will stand for a hundred more.

a thousand essays could be written on this line alone. does this refer to the perceived permanence of the nuclear family? will humans always destroy themselves if they can't confront the immovable haunted house in their own lives? and so on. you can't unhaunt hill house without writing a fundamentally different haunted house.

theo and nell

in jackson's hill house, the relationship between theo and nell are arguably the heart of the story. the majority of nell's interactions are with theo, including the main "haunting" of the book - when the ghost rattles the walls and door of nell's room. we watch nell become equal parts entranced with theo and resentful of her perceived freedom. she's drawn to theo's vivaciousness and regrets that she's so meek in comparison. she later dreams of living with theo, who gently shuts her down, sending nell further into the spiral that eventually leads to her death. theo is also the last person nell touches when she tries to leave hill house. while i read their interactions as super mega gay, there are many alternative readings. either way, nell and theo are inextricably linked in the book.

in flanagan's hill house, theo and nell are siblings. this automatically changes the relationship and, obviously, removes any possibility of romantic feelings. the most salient parallel is how nell tries to reach out to theo for help; her rejection pushes nell further towards her deadly return to hill house. (not that it was actually her fault, but theo felt like it was her fault.) otherwise, flanagan nell's greatest connection is to her twin brother and her mother, olivia crain. the latter is ostensibly the most like book!theo, but show!nell has very few memories of her mother, and what she does remember, she cherishes rather than interrogates.

theo continued

theo herself is a very, very different character. she's closed off emotionally and her sarcasm is biting, rather than charming, like jackon's theo. book!theo also has a roommate heavily implied to be her girlfriend, which has been the subject of many literary journal articles over the years. while i think it's genuinely great that flanagan's theo is openly gay, she's just. an entirely different lady. this choice is ostensibly subversive, but i think her overall lack of connection to the original character diminishes this quality. (in a more faithful adaptation, i'd love to see a depiction of theo's internal life; it could be a realy interesting juxtaposition to nell's pov, which dominates the original book's narrative.)

nell continued

we are veering a little bit into My Personal Reading of the Text, but i think it holds some merit for this conversation. in jackson's hill house, nell reads as gay and closeted. she feels fundamentally displaced in then-modern society. she's in her thirties and unmarried, and she also isn't a working professional. her sister tolerates her, but nell perceives herself as an unwanted presence. i believe she's partly attracted to theo because she wants aspects of her life - the little house theo describes, her confidence. when book!luke (who's very much not her twin brother) flirts with nell, she recognizes how much she hates the interaction. she doesn't want to flirt with men. this realization makes her a little giddy. the tragedy in hill house is that nell reached out a hand for help, for home, and only the house answered. everyone else lets her drive away.

making nell unequivocally straight in the tv show just. eschews this entire aspect of the book for me. show!nell has a husband and a loving family. she definitely has ptsd from her experiences at hill house (and the vision of her own corpse looming over her head) and grieves her mother, but those societal factors are gone. i can't entirely claim this is an adaptational failure, but it's definitely the biggest missed opportunity of the show.

tl;dr

both jackson's and flanagan's hill houses did what they set out to do. those things are just irreconcilably different. i enjoyed the show and its versions of the characters have stayed with me. but it's not a "successful" adaptation of the book's story, themes, and narrative as i understand them.

[roseguided]

⭐

you know, all the usual muses from hotd/got !

rhaenyra + daenyra, visenya, daenerys, helaena, alicent. kisa of the free folk. i think alys could be fun too. elinda.

now, outside of hotd canon !

rhaenyra + wanda maximoff, other mother, edward frankenstein, pearl, verna, nell crain, jessica atreides (<3), chani kynes, irulan corrino, death, persephone, enzo st claire (<3) !

send ⭐ for me to give some muse pairings for plotting/interactions !

[intcthatgoodnight]

OPEN STARTER! [ nell crain ]

       Time made more sense now, in that she now understood how scattered it truly was. Scattered - like her, like she had always felt. At times the old house seemed to fall dormant. Waiting. Days and weeks and months would pass in the blink of an eye, from one moment to the next.

       The creaking of the front door opening was like a shock wave to all those inside. A breath of fresh air.  COME INSIDE.  “You shouldn’t be here.”   she called out, a lone figure almost hiding at the side of the stairs. Nell didn’t know where the others were, certainly not far, most likely watching. This person needed to leave. No one was supposed to be here.