#Isaura the Slave Girl

[ariel-seagull-wings]

[primathehomonculus]

Reasons To Like Rosa

I recently watched Isaura the Slave (1976-77), a Brazilian soap opera, and really liked it.

My favorite character early in the show was Rosa and I want to talk about her. Spoilers ahead!

Rosa was cool. Reasons to like Rosa: 

She’s a slave, but she’s afraid of no man. In my opinion lack of fear in the face of inevitable oppression is an admirable quality.

She knows how to use her owners and the slave driver for personal benefits. She mainly uses her sexuality and charm to achieve this, which could be seen as exploitive in her situation, but it’s more complicated than that, as I’ll explain in the next point. She also likes to touch and try on the owners’ jewelry while nobody’s looking. Normally this is morally wrong, but if you’re literally a slave to these people, why not?

She’s a huge “objectifier” of men, often commenting on how hot they are and trying to get with them, both other slaves and free men. She is not just pretending to be attracted to them to gain benefits. This is probably not a common quality in main heroines of telenovelas, who are supposed to be chaste and virgins until marriage (the main heroine, Isaura, is a good example), or at worst lose their virginity to a deceitful man who then refuses to marry them. But there is nothing morally superior about that. The main heroine of these stories usually possesses uncommon, striking beauty, which makes many male characters fall at her feet, and put a high price on her love, while a more ordinary looking female character doesn’t have this level of “pretty privilege” and has to lean on other factors to achieve the same success with men. A pervy woman can be a heroine, too.

She helped André when he was being punished by the slave owner, twice. But she also is petty, and envious because Isaura has more male attention and pretty dresses than her. That makes her morally grey and interesting, just like a real person.

She’s a bit of a troll, for better and worse. One of her dumbest and most chaos-inducing pranks is definitely one where she sets up a “date” between Isaura and Leoncio by sending Leôncio a falsified letter from Isaura and telling Isaura her father is going to meet her there. It’s hard to tell if she just wanted to prank Isaura or was trying to “help out” Leoncio like a shipper writing a poorly thought out fanfic, but this ended up putting Leoncio in a very embarrassing situation, when he got his hopes up and then dashed by a very confused Isaura. The prank also lead to something extraordinary, which is Isaura becoming enraged for the first and only time in the series and giving Rosa a beating, despite being a very stoic, sweet and refined person usually. And so Rosa not only owned the villain of the show, but also lead to the main heroine’s character development. lol.

Next up, a post on Reasons To Dislike Rosa!

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

Original title: Escrava Isaura.

[hauntedheroines]

What is your ideal villain x heroine relationship?

Well first, there are Basic Rules(TM):

Must see her as a human being, not as a pretty object, disposable or replaceable. Examples of villains that don’t do this: Jabba The Hutt and Ming the Merciless

He must be clean. He doesn’t have to be pretty, just hygienic. Grima, from LotR, is ugly, but I still ship him with Eowyn, while Jabba The Hutt is just a disgusting worm.

He is powerful and talented; has to have some sort of confidence. I can pity him, sometimes it's even better when I do (like with The Phantom of the Opera) but some stalker movies make the character so realistically obsessed because he is an insecure and repressed person. This also has to do with not seeing her as an object. Most of the time they don’t even know why they want the girl, they are just searching for any replacement for the maternal love they didn’t get. They don’t think they are special, they would just take anything to fill the gap.

He can’t be willing to watch her die. This usually ruins the ship. I mean hurt her, okay, but to kill her would mean he thinks he can live without her. And if he thinks that, he better get into a deep depression and regret afterward, or be well-aware that he has dammed himself for the rest of his life. Leôncio from Isaura The Slave Girl, Bill from Kill Bill, Jack Devlin from The Net, and Frollo from NDdP do that.

Either the heroine wins or neither of them do. The villain must not triumph at the ending, keep the girl hostage and miserable at his side. Either he is redeemed or he is ass kicked. There is no evil triumph - nor in the sense that he gets everything he wants without reforming himself into a better person, neither in the sense that the heroine is corrupted and rules as mistress of darkness by his side. The most I can accept of a good character losing is that she loved him despite it all and after rejecting him, they both perish.

The ideal villain x heroine is when they are bond by their loneliness. Most authors believe the villain is always the hero's antithesis - the classic "Two sides of the same coin".

Maybe they share trauma, neglect - people think they are strange or too erratic. Maybe the heroine's willpower is walking the line of ruthlessness. Her power inspires fear in people, even in her, but the villain admires it.

Either way, they feel there are parts of them no one else would understand. That only they could know and love. That the villain, in an curious way, challenges her to become the greatest version of herself.

They would be the perfect match in different circumstances, or if the villain wasn’t so far gone. But he has hurt too many people and to forgive that would be impossible. Maybe forgiveness is not what he seeks. Maybe he just wants to be sure she will never leave him, the only way he knows how.

She hates him, but once again he is the only one who matches her. Examples of ships that do this: Steerpike x Fuchsia, Annie x the Teacher, Alina x Darkling, Reylo, Casey x Kevin...

Other interesting premises:

They have a telepathic connection. A spell was cast on them and their hearts are connected. One can only die when the other does. They could even be born from the same womb at the same time. Like, they came to this world together; their destinies are intertwined oh no Nuada/Nuala.

They were childhood friends or met when they were younger oh my gosh I love this trope.

The heroine is socially acceptable in her sexuality, meaning she is not sexually active or she is a full-on virgin. The villain is comfortable with his own and teases her.

He never loved anyone before. EVER.

He is more invested than she is, or at least he gives in and expresses his feelings more than she does, showing her the possibilities and getting frustrated when she discards them once again. He will be willing to sacrifice everything for her while she will hesitate (Lizzie from The Blacklist) or will rather kill herself later (Lady Fuchsia Groan) than to be with the man she loves because of the moral boundaries, people who depend on her, the complete absurd of saving such a despicable person and etc.

Or else, let him be tormented. Let his feelings for her confuse and scare him. Let it be against everything he is and believes. Let her be a whore or heretic and he, a devotee. Let her be his family and he, in a position of power and prestige like a king or a millionaire, wanting the only thing he can’t have and would make him a joke to those who fear and respect him now. Let him stare at her intensely, without her knowing why, trying to kill or imprison her or send her away, only to succumb and confess his feelings. Let him be disgusted with himself for wanting her, blaming her, and then coming back on his knees for crumbs of affection from the one he has disgraced. Let his power be drained from him and delivered to the hands of whom he judged unworthy, to such an extent that he is the one to make the delivery. Let his feelings consume him to the point he doesn’t even know what he is doing anymore, things he never thought he was capable of; burning a city, destroying a kingdom, enslaving a galaxy.

BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT IS:

They defy each other. I like it better when the heroine is not naive and passive. They can fight mano-a-mano or play his mind games and schemes. Or she just has a mind of her own and won’t bend to his.

[brazilian-telenovelas]

Blog Post #1

Every country has their specific unique cultural elements and aspects that make up their culture. Television is a specific cultural phenomenon that is popular for many different people as it shows what your country is like, as well as showing what specific shows your country likes to watch, whether that be romance shows, sporting events that are broadcasted, comedy skits, or dramatic shows, like telenovelas. Telenovelas are very popular in the country of Brazil; they are a country that thrives on drama shows. Telenovelas are similar to American soap operas, “similar to a soap opera in plot development but having a broader audience and airing during prime time rather than daytime” (Telenovela). Telenovelas have a permanent cast which is another reason as to why so many people get attached to them, not to mention their incredibly melodramatic storyline, which also helps keep viewers entertained. These programs originally started out as something called radionovelas, which were the radio versions of these original dramatic stories, however they were shortened into 15-minute segments, instead of the long, one-hour pieces that are typical on television nowadays. These radionovelas begun broadcasting in Latin America around the 1930’s. However, another interesting fact is that these shows were traditionally created for typically middle-aged viewers, they were also created to specifically be early programs that were shown on television during the daytime, unlike the nighttime like they are shown now. What allowed them to switch to nighttime was the increase of, “they had begun to include overblown plots, overt sexual content (usually including nudity), and subjects chosen for controversy and scandal, such as deception, incest, murder, and adultery” (Telenovela).

A popular Brazilian telenovela that was released around the 1970’s was the telenovela called “Escrava Isaura”, which stands for the slave Isaura. This show is focused on the main story of an enslaved girl, who works on a popular Brazilian coffee plant. As well as following, “The difficulties faced by a gentle-hearted young white slave targeted by the obsession of her lord in the Brazilian colonial period” (Isaura: Slave Girl). It aired many different cast members from, Rubens de Falco, Gilberto Martinho, Lùceila Santos, and Markus Kónka. Lùceila Santos actually won an award for Best Foreign Actress in this telenovela at the Golden Eagle Awards, that take place in China. The show first aired on October 11th or 1976, and one of its downfalls was that since it was broadcasted in Brazil, it was broadcasted in the Portuguese language. This made it harder for people of other countries in Latin America to watch it, because most of the other nearby countries only spoke Spanish. The production company that it was broadcasted on was the company called Rede Globo De Televisão. In English it is referred to as TV Globo, which is a popular free to air television network, it began airing shows on April 26th in the year 1965.  It was then shown in many other countries besides Brazil, like Argentina, France, Poland, West Germany, and the Soviet Union. Overall, Brazil has produced many popular telenovelas over the past decade that have become immensely popular not only among people of Brazil, but also people of nearby countries.

Works Cited

“Isaura: Slave Girl.” IMDb, IMDb.com, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0142036/releaseinfo?ref_=ttfc_ql_2.

“Telenovela.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/art/telenovela.

[dangermousie]

So, here is my list of telenovelas to watch

099 Central (Argentina) - hot cops fight a super psycho who is hero’s brother and make out. I am in it for the leads who I will watch in anything (they are the OTP in Padre Coraje.)

Alborada (Mexico) - like one of those old-school romance novels, our hero is a hunted nobleman whose paths cross with a mistreated wife.  Wife’s evil in-laws blackmail him into pretending to be her husband on pain of death (go with it - just think of Kathleen Woodiwiss) because they need heroine to have a kid. That happens and they meet years later. I am here for fine lawn shirts, swords, tight pants, and make-outs in the field of flowers.

Alma Pirata (Argentina) - three friends, love stories, revenge blah blah. Watching because recommended. 

Amazonia (Brazil) - it’s period, that’s all I need to know. 

Amor del Bueno (Peru) - have never seen a Peruvian one. Also politician’s wife and hardcore journalist falling for each other when they are kidnapped? Yes PLS.

Amor Gitano (Mexico) - noble woman in love with a gypsy in the Middle Ages? OMG where do I sign up! 

Caminho dos Indios (Brazil) - a telenovela set in India? Frankly I am checking it out because It sounds so strange!

Chocolate com Pimento (Brazil) - 1920s, flappers, chocolate factory, poor heroine makes good.

Corazon Salvaje (Mexico) - 1993 version. Pirate x nun. That’s all that needs to be said.

Corazon Valiente (US) - two lady bffs meet as adults. There are cops and stuff and it’s on Netflix so I am gonna give it a try.

El Elegido (Argentina) - adultery! masons! blah blah blah!!! It came recommended and I like the actors but frankly I know little about it.

El Zorro, la espada y la rosa - Zorro!!!! Mmmmmm!!!!

Gabriela (Brazil) - small 1920s town is shaken up by the arrival of Gabriela, a sultry and mesmerizing migrant and Mundinho Falcao, a young reformer. Surprisingly they do not hook up but have parallel stories and OTPs. Hooray. Based on one of my very favorite novels though only very very loosely.

La Dona (Mexico) - lady and her daughter fight for the same man. Okaaaaaay. But looks pretty!

La Esclava Isaura (Brazil) - yup, am gonna rewatch the 70s novela of my childhood about boring but virtuous white slave girl who finds happiness despite her evil master. The main heroine is blah but ahhhh the side stories! Ah, Henrique my love! 

La Gata (Mexico) - poor girl, rich boy. Oh, my girlcrush Maite Perroni, ILY!

La Mujer en el Espejo (Colombia) - ugly woman becomes pretty during the day thanks to a magic mirror (and back to ugly at night) but what happens when it breaks? This sound awesome!

La Passione (Brazil) - lady learns her husband gave away her kid. My fave plot trope, sorry!

La Tempestad (Mexico) - I am here for William Levy. The end. I am sure there is some sort of a plot but does it really matter?

La Traicion (Colombia) - two hot identical twins in the 1890s fall for the heroine. Pity that one is evil and will stop at nothing to separate her from her true love, the other twin. (Lady, why be picky? Either one looks like Mario Cimarro.) This sounds so bonkers I simply must. 

La Usurpadora (Mexico) - if I discovered I had an identical twin, I’d find better uses for that knowledge than to ask her to swap with me so she could put up with my husband, who is awesome, sexy and looks like Fernando Colunga. But what do I know?

Made in Cartagena (Colombia) - lady is ordered to seek revenge on awesome guy. Geeee, I wonder what will happen? Mainly to see Miguel de Miguel play a sweetheart as he was so repulsive and terrifying in La Esclava Blanca, I cannot imagine it.

Mas Sabe el Diablo (US) - the mob plus the male lead looks a lot like Aidan Turner and I am a shallow woman!

Milagros aka Mas Alla del Horizonte (Argentina) - set in 19th century, this has it all - evil families, star-crossed lovers (he is a white boy brought up by Indians! She is a well-off white lady!) etc etc etc! 

Montecristo (Argentina) - modern day count of monte cristo. Yum.

Morena Clara (Venezuela) - 1980s clothes and mullets (yes, one of the characters has a mullet!) terrify me but I am a sucker for star-crossed lovers and want to see Luis Jose Santander as an earnest romance hero after watching him steal the show as a charming scoundrel in Pasion. P.S. I am aware Morena Clara was made in 1994. Somehow it still has 80s hairdos and fashions.

O Clone (Brazil) - a woman is torn between her lover and his clone. Ummmmm. Solutions that come to mind are not suitable to family television.

Padre Coraje (Argentina) - yes, I am still watching this beast of a show! It’s almost 200 eps and I am on 135. Noble bandit pretends to be a priest to solve a crime, hooks up with the victim’s daughter, there are psychos and supernatural conspiracies.  if you ever wanted to see a reincarnation of Jesus nibble on a woman's neck and caress her legs, this is for you.   

Pasion (Mexico) - am on ep 70 of 95 now. Pirates, damsels, evil lords, costumes, wigs, multiple OTPs oh my. It’s not deep or realistic in any way, but sometimes I have a yet for a picaresque fluffy romance novel of a show.

Pasion de Gavilanes (Colombia) - it feels like I’ve been watching this for a decade because this is pretty and shippy but so slow I can literally hear grass grow as I watch.

Pasion y Poder (Mexico) - poor abused oppressed rich wife wants to leave her monster of a husband and reunite with her first love. Ooops, everyone in the audience apparently is bored to death by first love and evil husband steals the show. The fun is watching the poor writers trying to madly rewrite the story halfway through and turn supposedly evil husband into a misunderstood woobie. Eh, who am I kidding, I am here for Fenrando Colunga, 50 but still fiiine, going from villain to hero on the sheer force of his charisma.

Ramona (Mexico) - noble Indians and noble Spanish fight evil Americans in the 1840s. I am here for Eduardo Palomo in a loin cloth and also because I’ve never seen Kate del Castillo in anything. Secondary dude has an unfortunate 70s mustache but alas we can’t all be perfect.

Reina de Corazones (US) - Our heroine wakes up not remembering her marriage to a hot hot guy. I wish we all had such problems.

Resistire aka Siempre Julia (Argentina) - talk about married to the mob! Poor heroine unknowingly marries an evil mobster with a plan to take over the world. Luckily, one of his assistants (a) also wants out of the life (b) is madly in love with her. Witness protection and make outs ensue!

Rosario Tijeras (Colombia) - a mob hit woman gets involved with two different dudes and nothing good happens to anyone. I’d prefer the Mexican version but can’t find it anywhere with subs and this is on Netflix. 

Senora Acero (Mexico) - bring it on, cartel queen in love with a federal agent! On Netflix.

Sortilegio (Mexico) William Levy and his biceps star as an amnesiac who is told a lady is his wife but little does he know she was forced by his evil brother to pretend to be so to steal his cash. We all should have such luck!

Terra Esperanza aka Esperanca (Brazil) - true lovers are separated by a trip to Brazil where our “hero” (I use the term loosely) acquires another wife. Ooops, his first love is not dead and somehow sets to win her hapless, spineless but very hot man back. Good luck to you, lady!

Terra Nostra (Brazil) - lovers are separated by a trip to Brazil where our hero acquires another wife. I am noticing a theme here. Luckily, heroine also acquired a husband so reciprocal angst and misery for everyone.

Yago, Pasion Morena (Argentina) - villager x city lady. Here purely because of my Facundo Arana megacrush.

[sarkos]

John Kidd, who is 65, is well above 6 feet tall and comfortably carries the emerging evidence of many a fine dinner. He no longer has the tidy short blond hair of 30 years ago. It’s now grown out snowy white and halfway down his back, deep into Gandalf territory. He’s a devoted fan of loosefitting Hawaiian shirts, flip-flops and shorts. He has a high-water booty and takes rapid tiny steps, making every excursion feel as if we’re running late. Right off, he wants to talk about that Boston Globe article with the pigeons. His outrage is still raw. He’s particularly miffed that he was called “broke.” He wants me to know he’s flush and always has been. He has, at the ready, a notarized letter from Fleet Bank in Brookline dated 14 years ago, stating: “six months avg balance in this checking account has been $15,618.00.” I want to talk about how he left Boston University, but when the bitter memories of departmental fights at B.U. or old quarrels with students over grades come up, it’s as if he’s bitten a lemon and his entire face focuses darkly on a point just beyond his nose. Kidd told me he quit. And he did, but only after there were stories in The Boston Globe noting his temper, his treatment of students and his clashes with campus security over birds. He lingered on campus for a while, haunting Marsh Plaza, and then he disappeared. He told me he set off to Beijing. He had read “Dream of the Red Chamber,” China’s great epic novel, and become a “redologist,” an actual term for those who submerge themselves in the study of this one book. He later moved to Brazil and became fluent in Portuguese before plunging, as seemed inevitable, into that language’s own works of heroic fiction. He is obsessed now with a 19th-century book about a helpless young girl, “The Slave Isaura,” a popular work that in its early days helped end slavery (essentially, Brazil’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”). Kidd’s compulsion to understand any culture’s big book is still what gets him out of bed in the morning. As we settle down to breakfast at a swanky hotel, it’s clear that the controversies of 1988 are all still very much alive for him. Of the 5,000 or so corrections Gabler claimed to have made to “Ulysses,” there is not one of them Kidd cannot discuss, in rich detail, 30 years later. In particular, he is still steamed up about the Penelope chapter. He flipped open the book and stabbed his finger at the dead center of the famous 42-page interior monologue of Molly Bloom. Joyce originally punctuated the chapter with two periods, one at the end and one at the center, appropriately after Molly muses over the word “ashpit.” Gabler’s edition eliminated the ashpit period — then replaced it not long after Kidd made a ruckus. But when asked by a journalist once about how he came to correct this mistake, Gabler said he heard about it from a stranger who showed him a newspaper article. (More recently, Gabler assured me that he’d heard it from a “number” of sources.) “Of course, the article was Remnick’s Washington Post piece,” Kidd said, highly agitated. “There were three different portraits of me in that one article,” he went on, “huge pictures of John Kidd, one of which is like seven inches tall or something, a picture of me!” Kidd didn’t merely remember every textual change in the Gabler edition, but every minor grudge match attending each change. The old fight, it seemed, had moldered into a snit about credit. And indeed, it’s possible to dismiss Kidd as a man who found a handful of serious errors and then used his fussy mastery of minutiae to inflate a few hundred other flecks into a raging scandal. But it’s also true “Ulysses” is a book whose every detail matters. Joyce himself was consumed by his own compulsion for details, his love of coincidence and his obsession for superstition — he built the novel out of them. He once wrote to Harriet Weaver worrying about the year 1921, whose digits total 13. One outlying theory connects this arithmetic fear to Joyce’s decision to publish Ulysses on his birthday the following year, which had a sublime smoothness when written down on paper: 2/2/22. It’s also fair to wonder about Kidd’s sanity. He is fairly manic when discussing these preciously irrelevant textual changes. They all get explained in the rushed, self-interrupting fervor of the zealot. But in his encyclopedic way of talking, of thinking, of seeing, an undeniable brilliance comes through. This quality was on vivid display the afternoon he welcomed me into his apartment, a unit in a high rise with a nice view of Rio. The place is neat and walled with books on shelves. There are lots of bureaus and built-in dressers, and at one point, when he went to retrieve a book, every drawer he opened was packed top to bottom, side to side, with even more books. “You really have to read Fernando Pessoa,” he said, handing me a collection of poems, in Portuguese, by this early-20th-century Lisbon writer, titled “A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe.” I cracked open Kidd’s copy to find a swarm of marginal notes on nearly every page, cataloging textual alternatives in the many other Portuguese editions he owns. This is how John Kidd reads everything — as a search for the perfected text.

The Strange Case of the Missing Joyce Scholar

[diaryofanobsessivefangirl]

I’m surprised but not disappointed to discover that Gilberto Braga adapted Escrava Isaura inspired by Wuthering Heights. The most successful production of my country and most globally acclaimed telenovela of the world was all about a dark love inspired by the most dark love of classic literature.

The author of the adaptation was inspired by my favorite book, and the author of the book based it on a report he read one afternoon at the news, in which a farmer was offering an great amount of money to however could find his runaway slave, which he described as white, beautiful, sophisticated and with a birthmark at the shape of a butterfly next to her breasts. The author, of course, immediately thought the farmer was in love with her. That means in real life, in some way, Leôncio existed and loved Isaura.

My ship is legendary.

“Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.”

[diaryofanobsessivefangirl]

My fave Lucélia Santos and Rubens de Falco pics [x]

[diaryofanobsessivefangirl]

You know one of the 127563 reasons why I love Escrava Isaura? The story is about the heroine and the villain.

I’m not being to bold when I say this: It’s almost law telenovelas must have a main couple (hero/heroine) facing obstacles on their way of being together as the center of the story. Even if it is a revenge story, the hero’s obstinate quest for vengeance will eventually be just getting in the way of leaving the past behind and being with the girl he loves.

In The Slave Girl’s case, the relationship dynamic that pushes the plot forward is not between a hero and a heroine, but her and the villain. If it wasn’t for Leôncio, Isaura’s quest for freedom wouldn’t be hard or meaningful. If it wasn’t for her, Leôncio would never grow as more than just a fuck boy. These characters need each other to make a stand, unlike Isaura’s sugary affairs, which never went deeper than that or provided conflict enough to sustain a plot.

Firstly, bc Leôncio is present in Isaura’s life since the first episodes until the end. Her romantic interests are so unimportant she switches between them, and each relation is developed for around 40 episodes mostly.

Second, the development itself ain’t impressive, and serves to tell the audience about Isaura as a character more than the couple as individuals and as a dynamic. Tobias, the first boy, was a interesting hero, because, although he was kind, he was not soft. He was witty, knew how to make a stand and how to verbally counterattack Leôncio. But that doesn’t mean he changes along the episodes or is presented with nuances and deeper shades, so there is no character development. Alvaro, on the other hand, is the one-dimensional prince charming archetype. In compensation, the romance finds more internal conflicts getting in the way as the show progresses, unlike Tobias/Isaura (which were practically love at first sight), because Isaura is afraid to betray Tobias’s memory, but that doesn’t say a single thing about Prince Charming. This is about Isaura. So what stands in their way is at first resistance from Isaura’s part and latter her condition as a slave preventing them to be together, like it worked with Tobias. It’s always her who changes her perspective of things, whether to accept herself as a slave and realize Tobias wouldn’t be ashamed of her because of it, or that she can love again after he is gone. It’s always Isaura who develops through these relationships, it’s always her who has a lesson to learn. And you know which other character develops? Leôncio (more than Isaura, for that matter). Ge, the writers dedicate themselves to them almost as if they were the main issue on the plot. (Sarcasm’s level too high)

As my final stand here is how the Telenovela’s release focus on the villain and the heroine like, “hero? we have a hero?”, “Actually, two, but who cares?”

You won’t find one single official synopsis mentioning Isaura’s romantic interests. It describes the story as the struggle for freedom of a heroine victim of an obsessive passion from her owner.

The DVD cover? Both of them or just her on the front and him, featured on the back.

International travel to promote the telenovela? Lucélia Santos and Rubens de Falco did together, just the two of them.

Even the audience didn’t care about Isaura’s affair with Tobias or Alvaro. My family told me only old ladies would root for them. The rest of the population was not waiting until the next day for another kiss by the lake between the hero and Isaura. They would wait for Leôncio coming into her room.

Isuara and Leôncio mean the world to each other; one keeps the other away from what they love. Leôncio keeps Isaura away from her freedom; Isaura keeps him away from her. Without one character, the other has no reason to be.

[diaryofanobsessivefangirl]

Do you know any villain like Hap ? ( deeply in love with someone they destroyed and from whom they crave attention and trust and love despite knowing they were the other’s destruction )

What you’re asking for, Anon, is nothing but my favorite trope ever: The Frollo Effect

A guy falls in love with a girl he is suppose to reject, repulse or dehumanize, and fights against it. By trying to suppress it, he mistakes love for hatred against her and himself, and probably punishes both hoping it will make the feeling go away. It does not work and the guy does things he never thought he was capable of in order to deal with this unbearable need. He is usually proud, rational and very in control of himself until she comes along.

It’s the amount of horrible things he does to her (and himself) when in fact he wishes to be gentle that fits what you described.

Example: Esmeralda x Frollo (Gypsy and priest), Vasya x Konstantin (Pagan and priest), Amon x Helen (Jew and nazi), Isaura x Leôncio (Slave and master), Daisy x Ram (Sister and brother), William x Dolores (Droid and human) and Hap x Prairie (Subject and scientist)

I’d say Dragging You to the Gutter With Me also fits your description:

When a villain turns a heroine into a brutal, lonely, broken thing only he can understand what it’s like to be, and still she won’t come to him. So what keeps them together is also what keeps them apart.

Example: Naraku and Kikyo; Alina and Darkling; Petyr and Catelyn; Dolores and William

All of the above are absolutely amazing, and I can’t choose between them. Maybe William and Dolores cause they have both tropes? Darklina and Vasya/Konstatin is great if you want something less brutal than Willores. If you’re in for incest, go for Daisy/Ram.

FAIR WARNING: Don’t watch season 3 of Westworld, and only watch season 2 until the first half of the last episode. The second half makes no sense and kind of ruins the season and the ship.

[diaryofanobsessivefangirl]

Hunt - Chico Buarque

I don’t know your name or whereabouts. I track your smell and steps I'll be armed with teeth and courage I'll bite your wild flesh

I spend sleepless nights in angst I wake up imitating your roar I approach, prowling your den And when you see it, you taunt me

You sing a mad agony Water drips from my mouth. My prey, roaring the cry of her race Legs floundering and your fire

Today is a holiday Today is hunt’ and hunter’s day

I stretch like a cat To catch you, indocile creature To quench your half-blooded thirst Which flinches and stirs at my sight.

And in the same pull, she repels and embraces me. Our skins, covered up in sweat

Today is a holiday Today is hunt’ and hunter’s day

From a blind spot, I watch the beast And soon I deliver the fatal blow

Your gazelle form is no stranger to me A wild horse ridden bareback

Dominant, she does not cringe She is the owner of her master.

Today is a holiday Today is hunt’ and hunter’s day

[diaryofanobsessivefangirl]

Masterlist of Ships Subtropes

Dynamic tropes

Puppy love

Romance between children.

Examples: Gendry x Arya, Arnold x Helga, Mike x Eleven, Shaoran x Sakura

Childhood Acquaintance

They meet when they were children, regardless of the frequency or how close they were. They may have been raised together, may have saw each other every now and then, or even just once.

Used to be Friends

Examples: Petyr x Catelyn; Erik x Christine; Mina x Lucy

Used to be Lovers

Couples that were officially together (At least had sex) before everything went to hell. Ships that only flirted, such as Anna/David (The Guest) and Jackson/Lisa (Red Eye) are not included.

Examples: Athos x Milady; Tom x Elizabeth (The Blacklist); Dolores x William

Love Makes You Evil

A character who was originally good but did things for love that turn him to the dark side.

Examples: Anakin, Petyr Baelish and Claude Frollo

Love Makes You Crazy

A character driven to the brick of sanity because of love.

Example: Claude Frollo from Notre Dame de Paris and Ram from Princess Daisy

Not So Different After All

Opposites/rivals/enemies that actually have many hidden similarities. They are canonically each other’s shadow and are compared as two sides of the same coin.

Example: Anne x Vincent, Steerpike x Fuchsia, Kylo x Rey, Jackson x Lisa

Love Beyond Death

Meeting in the after-life, meeting reincarnation or person coming back from the dead.

Example: Catherine x Heathcliff, Petyr x Catelyn, Dracula x Mina, Naraku x Kikyo

Dragging You to the Gutter with Me

A villain turns a heroine into a brutal lonely broken thing only he can understand what it’s like to be, and still she won’t come to him. So what keeps them together is also what keeps them apart. Read more.

Example: Naraku and Kikyo; Alina and Darkling; Petyr and Catelyn; Dolores and William

In Love with the Mark

A man who works for some really big, bad guys. He may or not believe in their ideology; that is not the point. He is there for the money and he prides himself of his professionalism. For some reason, this organization working on the shadows have “business” to deal with this ordinary everyday woman. So he is hired to stalk, threaten, or even kill her. Turns out, Stalking is Love, and he develops feelings for his target. That doesn’t stop him from keeping up with the job, thought. He had to be undercover to get closer, so cases of Used to be Lovers/Friends are probably included. You will likely hear from a character In Love With the Mark the quote “It wasn’t personal.”

Example: Jack/Angela; Jackson/Lisa; Vincent/Anne; Tom/Lizzie (Jacob/Masha); Skye/Ward

The Queen and her Champion

Woman occupies traditionally feminine roles of power and the man is an example of masculinity for others. She uses clever words, social understanding and schemes. He is her sword and her armor, but nothing more. Because of their different stances, he is bound to be close to her he protects, but never with her.

Examples: Maly and Alina; Zelda and Link; Lancelot and Guinevere; Rhaenyra Targaryen and Criston Cole; Daenerys and Ser Jorah; Every Elizabeth Tudor romance, Queen Anne and Aramis; Lucrezia and Cesare; Cersei and Jaime.

Art Inspires Love

When character A realizes or falls (more) in love with character B after watching him dance, sing, or doing something artistic.

Examples: Frollo/Esmeralda, Christine/Erik, Hap/Prairie, Isaura/Leôncio, Anne/Vincent, Sandor/Sansa and Babydoll/Blue Jones.

Supernatural Connection

The characters have a psychic or physical connection. Maybe they can communicate through telepathy or can feel each other’s presence and emotions when they are nearby. There might be a spell connecting their hearts in a way one can only die when the other one does. Maybe they are twins. Whatever the reason, these characters are bonded in a way no one else could be.

Examples: Kylo x Rey, Nuada x Nuala, Darkling x Alina and Cersei x Jaime.

The Frollo Effect

A guy falls in love with a girl he is suppose to reject, repulse or dehumanize, and fights against it. By trying to suppress it, her converts love into hatred against her and himself, and probably punishes both hoping it will make the feeling go away. It does not work and the guy starts doing things he never thought he was capable of in order to deal with this unbearable need. He is usually proud, rational and very in control of himself until she comes along. Her initial dismissal as a suitor commonly starts out as social expectation - in which the characters are from divergent social segments and ideologically separated -, but it’s always a expectation the guy has over himself, regardless if anyone else imposes this on him.

Examples: Esmeralda x Frollo (Gypsy and priest), Amon x Helen (Jew and nazi), Isaura x Leôncio (Slave and master), Daisy x Ram (Sister and brother), William x Dolores (Host and guest) and Hap x Prairie (Subject and scientist)

Bonding undercover

When the bad guy pretends to be a normal person long enough to befriend the good girl and make her fall in love with him. This is usually how tragically two-sided vxh happens, because she gets to know his other side before the bad one gets in the way, but they can still have a happy ending because it also establishes they could have the base for a healthy relationship if only he could abandon his malicious quest. This only happens when the girl develops deeply romantic feelings for him; if it's only a crush or devilish attraction (Red Eye, The OA and Agents of SHIELD) than it doesn't count. She must be sobbing on the floor when this is done. May also involve an amnesia period in which the antagonist approaches the hero as an old friend or a lover.

Examples: Steerpike and Fuchsia, Christine and Erik, Kiara and Kovu, Elizabeth and Tom, Dracula and Vanessa

Generation Parallel

A love story doesn’t end up well. Years later another generation repeats the first one in a slightly different manner. Most of the time, the parallel between the two affairs means the characters from the first one have the chance to develop as we wished they would, and that their love might have grown roots under a different field. Sometimes it just means shit happens no matter the circumstances, and that people will make the same mistakes of their elderlies despite that they should have known better by now. If we are talking about the first generation’s offspring (Incest not necessarily included), it might mean their love is on their DNA and they would fall over and over again under different names and places. In any case, this trope is the romantic side of History Repeats Itself.

Very common theme in incest, because their birth requires a previous affair between their parents, but it only counts if it is a story on its own, full of ups and downs, and people talk about it. If it’s not mentioned or important to the plot, there is no point in calling it Generation Parallel.

Examples: Jaime and Cersei (Joana and Tywin), Arya and Gendry/Jon (Lyanna and Robert/Rhaegar), Catherine and Hareton (Cathy and Heathcliff), Abby and Henry (Wakefield and Sarah), Rey and Kylo (Padme and Anakin), Isaura and Leôncio (Almeida and Juliana), Leonardo e Marina (Pilar e Murilo).

Roaring Rampage of Romance

Love that starts a war and the main plot. Characters that destroy cities and galaxies because Love Made Them Evil, because they are trying to be with whom they love or to secure their safety and happiness. It might be on purpose, in which they have foreseen the consequences but choose to take them anyway as a means to an end, or it was accidental. There may be decades of conflict and the count of a hundred corpses, or maybe a famous massacre with a handful dead extras. Maybe a murderer is hunting down everyone on an Island so that he can be alone with his beloved. Anyway, innocent people that had nothing to do with them nor interfered with the couple’s happiness will suffer the collateral damage.

Common trope among royalty, since marrying or bearing the children of someone you were not supposed to could have disastrous consequences to the State, still people would do it for love.

If the character is causing the rampage in search for something else, like power, and to secure his beloved is an incidental bonus, it isn’t considered Roaring Rampage of Romance, unless he is doing it because Love Has Made Him Evil. Alina/Darkling and Nuada/Nuala, for instance, don’t fit this category.

Examples: Penny Dreadful, Inuyasha, ASoIaF (Rhaegar x Lyanna, Jaime x Cersei, Petyr x Catelyn), Harper’s Island, Westworld, Notre Dame de Paris, Wuthering Heights, The Phantom of the Opera, Bram Stroker’s Dracula, Apollo and Cassandra, Star Wars (Anakin and Padmé)

Taboo Tropes

Incest

Self-explanatory. Cousins will not be considered incest in here. I’m brazilian.

Subtrope: Decadent Aristocrats

Ho Yay

Homosexual couples

Age gap

Ships with age gap between then, 10 years at least. Supernatural/immortal beings won’t be taken into account unless the other part is a child or coming of age.

Wife Husbandry

A man adopts or temporarily takes care of a little girl. She may or not develop a precocious crush on him. Little girl grows up into a extraordinary and desirable woman. She had him on a pedestal all these years and has been saving herself for him. Man is distressed bc he can’t reconcile the image of the child he cherished as a father and the provoking woman she turned out to be. He mostly resists her advances, but they work that out by the end.

Example: Older!Mathilda/Leon AU, Nancy/Hartigan (Sin City), Veronica/William (Final Girl)

Development Tropes

End game ship

Is not everyday an OTP becomes end game

AU ship

A.k.a. “Canon? Who needs canon?” ships. OTPs that had a lot of potential but were ruined by canon. So either I ignore the end they were given, either some parts in the middle. Unlike Not Canon ships, these were meant to be romantically involved, but the way it was executed ruined it.

Secondary Interest ship

That One Scene ships are the ones with nothing shippable except for one or two scenes. Sometimes is not even canon and are more anti-recs than anything, but it’s still about villain x heroine, so it’s relevant to this blog.

Not canon

Word of God stayed silent and, according to my best judgment, the subtext was not enough. If something sexual or romantic happens between the characters but isn’t based on desire, such as the villain seducing the heroine for his advantage, it’s not canon.

Example: Scream (Billy/Sidney), Kim Possible (Kim/Shego), Mulan (Mulan x Shan Yu), World Without End (Carys x Edward), Sky High (Layla x Warren), Star Wars (Obi-Wan x Padmé), Richard III (Anne x Richard), Tesis (Angela x Bosco)

[dangermousie]

OMG I discovered Netflix has La Esclava Blanca, a Colombian telenovela whose heroine is a white girl raised by escaped slaves. The slaves eventually get captured, including heroine’s childhood love, and heroine gets sent to a convent. Years later she comes back under a fake identity to seek revenge on the man who killed her parents and captured her friends and family. She is gonna do that by pretending to be the evil dude’s fiancée. Oh and of course her true first love is in the mix somewhere. This sounds so bonkers, I simply must check it out. Also reminds me a bit of La Escrauva Isaura, a Brazilian telenovela I saw dubbed in Russian when I was a young kid. Heroine was a noble (white of course - I think the heroine was supposed to be one quarter or one eighth black but she was certainly played by a white actress) slave who yearned to be free and married to her true love (ok, loves. They changed the love interest partway through. That was my earliest instance of shipper disappointment since I liked guy n. 1 more than guy n. 2). Alas, the evil son of owner, Leoncio, had a mad pash for her and schemed until he was inevitably defeated. In the process, he crispified his own wife and heroine’s love n. 1 but that is by the by. I was crazy obsessed with it and so was half the country. Maybe I should rewatch. I want to see if I still ship my biggest ship on the show - evil dude’s wife’s brother and first love’s sister. Yes, it’s as convoluted as it sounds.

[dangermousie]

Telenovelas I have and am considering watching

I am sure I am forgetting something but whatever.

099 Central - the OTP from Padre Coraje are tough and occasionally deliciously angsty cops. There is also a lesbian OTP that gets a happy ending and in general, I like Argentinian filming style the best of all telenovelas.

Amor Gitano - this is set in the Middle Ages. That is all I need to know.

Amor Real - I am dying to watch this one! Not only is is a mere 91 eps (seeing that I am currently on ep 67 of 189 of Padre Coraje, this is a mere pittance) but it’s basically my favorite romance plot - heroine loves poor guy but her family marries her off to a rich landowner. The unsuspecting groom may be in love but the bride is not, and he must work hard to win her heart. People falling in love in arranged marriage in period clothes = my kryptonite.

El Clon (Brazilian version) - ok this sounds much too bizarre for me (woman has to chose between first love and his clone) but I’ve had it recommended by more than one person so…

La Escrauva Isaura - this novela is older than 95% of tumblr users, myself included, but it was my childhood love and I can’t say no to 19th century dresses and trip to nostalgia land.

La Gata - poor girl rich boy blah blah. I have a huge thing for Maite Perroni, who is the heroine, so here I am.

La Traicion - the romance novel cover hero from Pasion de Gavilanes (no, seriously, he looks like a cover for one of those period books) plays twins in 19th century. One is a rake and one is a quiet guy. Both fall for heroine. Heroine falls for the bad boy of course, unfortunately for her, it’s a tale of bad boy versus bad guy. Yup, the quiet one is evil! But hopefully both are shirtless.

Milagros, Woman of my Fate (don’t remember original Spanish title). Period one about two adopted sisters who love the same hot guy but one sister steals him from the other one whom he really loves. Then it moves to another generation and his son is his doppelgänger who’s been brought up by Indians somehow blah blah lots of OTPs and lots of episodes.

Pasion - our spunky 18th century heroine goes from peasant to slave to rich widow, all the while being entangled with a handsome pirate captain with questionable morals. This is basically like every bodice ripper I devoured when I was 15.

Reina de Corazones - I remember nothing about it at all other than it being recommended.

Resistire - heroine unknowingly marries a mobster as one does. He turns out to be awful but you don’t get away from the mob. Still, heroine decides to run away with the help of her husband’s friend who also wants out of the life. Spoiler - duh, they hook up!

Rubi - the plot itself sounds pretty forgettable - booo evil girl is jealous of good girl and steals her fiancé. But the leading man is a tall drink of water (no, he’s not the fiancé) and it was recommended so…

Sortilegio - evil dude has an awesome plan - kill half-brother for his money and then fake paperwork that he was married and get money from widow (simple woman he blackmailed.) Alas, half brother survives the attempt but loses his memory and now thinks he’s married for real. I too want William Levy as my surprise husband!

Yago, Pasion Morena - points for the punny title that translates as “Yago, Dark Passion” but in reality Morena is the name of the heroine. The Hot Priest from Padre Coraje (sorry but that is what he’s going to be to me forever more) is some sort of villager and heroine comes from New York after her fiancé ditched her. Trading up, I say! I am here basically because I have a thing for that actor now. But do Argentinian novelas have to be this long?

Zorro La Espada y La Rosa - yup, Mexico takes on Zorro. I am here for swashbuckling and period costumes.

I was going to check Terra Esperanza but everything I read about it indicated that I will want to stab the hero to death the whole novela.

Any more recommendations? Things I love - period stuff, angst, hot guys. Keep in mind that I tend to need English or Russian subs (or dub). At a pinch, if the novela is really good, I can do a Spanish language one without with my pretty rudimentary Spanish. Any Brazilian one is out without subs because my Portuguese is nonexistent.

[diaryofanobsessivefangirl]

Great piece on Escrava Isaura

I recently stumbled upon a rerun of this on russian tv…. Last time I saw it I was still a child :) I was also struck by realization that it wasn’t nearly as bad as your typical soap opera (I’m not into these things at all) mainly because there’s a number of valid social underpinnings there, but also because it’s undeniably sexy, in a good way…. if you know what i mean… the protagonist is not a doll with a painted face (meaning, she has flaws) which makes her eerily realistic. And if course - all that you said.

Are you actually that fascinated by the “villainly” love? Why? Leoncio is not a “bad guy”, he’s more like a looser there.

I think you just said one of the reasons I’m so into villainy love: Because the bad guy is simultaneously a loser.

I’m often wondered why so many bad things happen to good people and the bad guys always seem to get the advantage. Then I think why I’m not a bad person if that is the case, or rather why do I avoid my darker side more than I embrace my good intentions (because I don’t believe myself to not be a bad person on certain contexts, just as much as I don’t believe people are 100% good or bad).

Reason I always find is that I don’t feel the need to get in the way of others. I’m satisfied with my life and the love I receive, as troubled as it can get. I know I’ve what I need; most of all, I perceive getting support from others is more important than fighting them. Forgiving others flaws, specially those that worked against you, is a consequence of forgiving your own. It’s a developed ability to see them as human traits. People who are to hard on themselves often translate this on being harder on those who are near, and forgive their own mistakes and develop a comfortable sense of superiority by doing so. They lack compassion for people because they lack compassion for themselves.

What I’m trying to say is that no one satisfied with one’s own life wishes to harm others. When I am guided by destructive, vengeful desires against someone, it is because this someone did something that I perceived as a direct attack on my person and what I care about. That must mean villains feel attacked all the time. Can you imagine what this is like?

Villains who are 100% enjoying their choices on screen is cool, but it’s not profound, critical writing. I like to watch when the writers take on his angst for the consequences of his actions and why he is so trapped in a behavior ultimately harming to himself and to people he cares or could care about.

On way of doing that is making him fall in love with the heroine. Sure villains with only sexual interests towards the good girl is hot and entertaining, but when what he feels is a deep connection, is the perfect opportunity for showing his human side.

I hope I’ve answered your question. Here are some other posts in which I talk about why I love Villain x Heroine (1) (2) (3) (4)

As for Isaura, the Slave Girl, YEEES!!! All you’ve said and more. Like I’ve said, Leôncio is the sort of “loser” villain, the one who is haunted by the consequences of his actions. He has no one to blame for Isaura’s rejection but himself. I believe you’ve already read my meta on Isaura, but I’m going to leave the link here anyway.

Thanks for your question, honey! Kisses! :*