#and also Wes and Walter are great examples of this

[whydoistilllikethehost]

Thinking about smeyer’s commitment to “perfectly happy endings”: a rant

As in happy endings that cannot come at the price of any sacrifice. Twilight is obvs the most exaggerated example of this. She can’t have Jacob be sad about Bella, so she tosses him a newborn to become completely devoted to. She can’t have Eddie and Bella worried at all about their daughter, so she makes sure we know that Renaenae is going to stop aging at a convenient age for Jacob to be in love with her forever. She can’t have any of the Cullens face real danger, so she cuts the Volturi confrontation off at the knees (esp in the book). She cant even put Bella through any struggle with her new life so she wraps it up in a pretty bow of super self-control and Charlie-being-super-chill-with-unknown-supernatural-forces (and we don’t get to have a conversation about any other sacrifices Bella might be making to become a vampire).

It’s so FRUSTRATING. Because, in most good literature, the struggle and sacrifice contribute to the meaning of the story. It gives us stakes. It shows us who the characters really are and what they’re willing to do.

That’s one reason the Host is actually smeyer’s best work but y’all aren’t ready for that conversation

[waokevale]

A Clarification to Wormwood's Age (And why he's fully fledged without a shred of doubt)

So, as we all know or have heard some at point, there are still people out there, who think the peculiar lunar plantation is an infant, solely due to the way he speaks, behaves and of conviction that he was literally born yesterday. Which by all means is false.

That's why I'm here to finally dismantle that belief. I'll present you with several compelling arguments of mine based on throughout research I did on his character overall, and if by the end of this post, you'll still hold firm to that same opinion, then I'm afraid that's out of my hands by that point.

If you're willing to stay for the duration of this thesis, and hear me out, I'll be very greatful. And please do listen, so we may not make any more misconceptions as such about him in the future.

I'll be splitting this post into 5 segments, one with additional subcategories.

General Appearance

Behavioral Pattern

Intelligence

Character Interrelations

Canon Information

First of, let's start off with the obvious:

General Appearance

If we're going to interpret his appearance based on 'human qualities', then physically, compared to actual child characters, Wormwood's design is vastly different.

The easiest way for me to prove that, lies in one of the recent animations: (Swine & Dine), where all the (live) children are gathered in one place, alongside Wormwood and Wes.

Here, you can distinctly pick apart the difference between the three preteen characters, Walter, (who's likely supposed to be a teenager on the younger side; around 13-14), and the last two.

The most obvious difference is the jawline. Wormwood, for one, has a massive jaw, easily rivaling that of Maxwell's (while technically, this feature isn't reserved solely for adults, it is moreso common to see an adult with a define jawline, rather than a child.)

This, alongside his torso being usually depicted as an inverted triangle (at least in the official animations), seem to be features added intentionally somewhere post his release, as he looks much more childlike in his animation video, where he's still technically a sapling per se.

Even Several of Wormwood's skins showcase, that he is in no way meant to be seen in a juvenile way.

The best example of that being his Victorian skin.

Look me dead in the eye and tell me that's a child. That is one of the most indisputable old man portrayals, you can get from an anthropomorphic plant character in media. Do not try and argue, how a child is meant to look like that, because neither of the four actual child characters has a skin, which makes them appear that much significantly older than they actually are.

So what reason would Klei even have to make his skin look so apparently elderly, if they saw him as a child?

More examples of his mature skins could be said for the Roseate and Guest of Honor. While they're not outright elderly, as is the former, the general vibe is similar to that of other adult characters' portraits.

Now that we've compared him to human characters and their characteristics, we should take into consideration what he actually is. Let's remember, that at the end of the day, he's partially a plant organism and partially an inorganic crystal from the moon , certainly he ages much differently than us humans, or even most other constant species for that matter.

I'm pretty sure he was also formed with a fully developed body (since he seemingly bloomed shortly after forming, which is a trait reserved primarily for mature plants)

But then again, appearance alone isn't enough to make one truly adult, is it? Thus we're moving on to:

Behavioral pattern

Few things you'll immediately realize about Wormwood is his alleged naivety, playful nature and seldom use of grammatical correctness. Due to this, many immediately assume that he's a child, which is understandable, but not a good enough reason to make such an assumption.

There are many factors involved in building one's disposition, and in Wormwood's case, there's plenty of reasonable causes for his behavor:

As previously stated, he's quite literally a sentient amalgam of vines, brought to life by a jewel from the moon. His origin far disparates that of any known being, especially a human.

His mind develops much differently than that of an average person. This correlates with the point above (since its a big green gem in his chest and not an actual brain). Plus, he likely hadn't had the chance to have a proper education. While he seems to have picked up on a lot of mannerisms from the pigsfolk in Hamlet, I doubt anyone went out of their way to actually school him.

He's feral. The majority of his upbringing, he likely spent surviving in the jungle. In a way, he reminds me a lot of Tarzan (A human, who grew up raised by a troop of gorillas after his parents were killed. He can communicate with the local wildlife just fine, but deeply struggles understanding and relating to the outsiders; other humans, who one day arrived on his land.) That's likely the reason why Wormwood refers to certain creatures with mimicking the sounds they make. Perhaps he can understand them to a degree, or at least is trying to.

Just because he doesn't speak English, doesn't mean he's slow. It is plausible he speaks a different language, while English doesn't come naturally to him. As is the case with Wolfgang, who has similar speech impediment issues and struggles with saying full sentences, but that's quite literally because English isn't his mother tongue. It's been a running gag that Wolfgang is the embodiment of a European man, and whichever country/countries he might've originated from, it's definitely not the UK. As might be the case for Wormwood and whatever constant language he actually thinks in.

He has certain traits akin to people with autism/Asperger's or ADHD (Nonverbal communication, delayed language development, lacking social cues, sensitive nose, short attention span, hyperactive and somewhat impulsive behavior, wild or overexaggerated movement, struggle with fitting in, little sense of awareness etc.) And I'm speaking from experience with this one, he's quite relatable to me, and many of my friends on the spectrum.

With that let's move on to the third segment.

Intelligence

Just how smart is he truly?

Wormwood isn't regarded for his high intellect, that's for sure, but remember, intelligence isn't defined by just the book smarts society imposes on us. Therefore it doesn't always correspond to a person's age and experience.

Wormwood, while definitely not on a level of a Harvard graduate, is extremely intelligent and a quick learner at that.

Let's digest what we generally know about intelligence and what it really means for Wormwood.

With the main question at hand : What differentiates a child mind from an adults'?

While he certainly shares some personality traits with Webber, their mindsets are rather different.

I'd like to present my point with a simple method.(From that one Quora post, believe it or not, it was the most convenient out of all the theories and tests I found) Dividing that, which is known as thought process into five subcategories, of which are:

Cognitive Development

Life Experience

Responsibility and Independence

Emotional Regulation

Social and Moral Development

So let's start with Cognitive Development/Psychology

(Definition : The process of growth and change in intellectual/mental abilities such as thinking, reasoning and understanding. That includes: the ability to interpret information, verbally communicate ideas, appropriately apply words and gestures to given situations, recognize and differentiate various sounds, comprehend your surroundings, use past experience to resolve current or future problems more efficiently, etc. TLDR: How thought process changes with age ; Talking, hearing, reading, remembering, problem-solving, understanding, You get the point. )

By this point, Wormwood's acquired plenty of general knowledge of the world around him and what to expect from it. (In some cases, he seems to know things without realizing it, or simply wishes to not provide more info of what he's already aware of.)

He is capable of understanding various different things, applying appropriate words to them, when given the chance. He often struggles to properly phrase what he means, but you can still get around to grasp it.

And you know what? He's especially good at deducing things not every character can point out. Here are some of the more obvious to least obvious things he's mentioned:

Leaky teacup - "Can't drink from it"

Beaten Beater - "Hmm... Can't use it"

Start tower kit - "Need to plant it on the water"

Compass- "which way?"

N- "North

S- "South"

E- "East"

W- "West"

NE- "Northeast"

SE- "Southeast"

NW- "Northwest

SW- "Southwest"

(The direction one would seem pointless to add but let's remember that there literally are characters in this game who don't know which way is which cough cough Winona cough)

Clippings - "Can sell this hair"

Sapphire Medallion/Tenpiece oinc – "Can buy things now"

(the plant understands capitalism 👍)

Winona's GEM-erator (out of fuel) - "Oh. Needs sparky"

Telelocator Focus (missing gem)- "Needs Purple Shiny"

Telelocator Socket (missing gem)- "Where shiny things?"

The Queen of Moon Quay: "Oh...she thinks Night Ball is friend hair?"

(He might know who They are after all)

Beast of Hunger (1) - "Oh. Not alive"

(This, plus any other quote of his mistaking a statue or an object with distinguishable features as alive, does not make him dull; this world literally has statues coming to life. He simply uses a reasoning he acquired from living in the Constant.)

Rose-Colored Glasses – "Friends show Fixer friend secret things"

(Most character, barring Maxwell, Wendy and Wigfrid don't know about the glasses' true purpose)

Ancient chest - "Put stuff in there!"

(One of 4 characters to have an inclining what to do with it)

Greater Gestalt- "Protect"

Enlightened Crown - "Helps hear them"

(Okay, he definitely knows who They are)

Hound Corpse (reanimating) - "Coming back"

(He seems the least bit of surprised or disturbed by this, compared to everyone else)

Antlion (upset) - "Oh no. Needs gifts"

(interestingly, no one else seems to mention why the Antlion is upset)

Mysterious Energy- "Seed"

(...?)

Distilled knowledge- "Plant this in funny floor"

(he's the only one to have figured out what to actually do with it)

I think what we all can realize from going through his quotes, is that he's in no way as clueless as he initially seems. He has his moments, but so do the rest of the survivors.

Life Experience, Responsibility and Independence

This plant has lived through a lot, but then again so have the rest, a lot of them have faced countless hardships most of us can't even fathom.

From what we already know, the fandom generally believes he is very naive and trusting, which really isn't the case. The thing is, it's not that he's naive, he may not react especially negatively to a creature or thing because he's used to seeing bizarre things, or because he's not afraid of them, unlike the majority of the survivor cast, who are alien to the constant.

Barring the in-game mechanics which force characters to be competent regardless of their experience, we're going to focus on his reactions to mobs and items that might pose actual threat to him or others, or are considered as questionable by him.

Inflatable Vest - "Safe?"

Shadowcraft plinth - "Scary hands helping?"

Fish steak - "Watch for bones"

Candy Apple - "Careful! Don't eat stick! "

Platapine (sleeping)- "don't wake it"

Sentrypede husk - "Sleeping. Shhh"

Sea Stack - "Oops! Watch out!

Great Tree Root - "Oh! Don't bump into friends!"

Worm hole (open) - "Deep. Dark"

(When deerclops is near) - "Something scary coming!"

Pressure plate - Hmmm...Odd rock"

Dread mite (about to explode) - "Look out!"

Shadow Reaper - "No...Wants to hurt friends!"

Depth Worm (lure) - "Hmm... not safe"

Depth Worm (burrowed) - "something hiding"

Meat bulb - "Careful!"

[The fish quotes in DST + the candy Apple are giving me an image of him saying that to the child characters (and definitely Woodie for the latter)]

Independence-wise, the one thing I especially took notice of, is how much the child characters seek guidance from the adults in the group, mentioning them by their formal titles too. That's especially frequent with Webber, Wurt, and Walter, though Wendy rarely does this. On one hand, she claims she considers toys and fun to be behind her, but contradictory, enjoys playing with other children and some of the adults. (Besides we canonically know she's 10-11 years old)

Wormwood isn't known for wanting to seek guidance either. He's sometimes confused about how certain things work and thus will ask about it, but that's understandable given his predicament. (As @thebleedingalien once mentioned, he's like an extraterrestrial experiencing bits and pieces from 2 different worlds at once)

He doesn't really care to play with toys either, (barring a couple of instances, one being Bernie and the others; toys with wheels and Antlion's sand castle. But c'mon, I know some of you grown adults own toy cars/collectibles or build sandcastles when the opportunity arises, you can't lie to me and say neither of these things is fun. Plus, this is literally a forum on video games, and those, not too long ago, were considered childish.

Besides, adult characters in this game also goof around. There's the whole sand castle building thing in Shipwrecked, which curiously Wormwood doesn't have a strong opinion on.)

But if we were to compare his maturity to other adult characters…

(Wilson) [aside his many, many jokes]: Silk- "It comes from a spider's butt."

(Willow) Portal Exit - "It's fun to watch OTHER people fall on their butts."

(Wolfgang) Coral Nubbin - "Haha. Rock is bald."

(WX-78) Regular Jungle Tree (normal and stump) - "THIS DUMB TREE HAS A DUMB FACE"

(Wickerbottom) Weregoose - "My! What a silly goose!"

(Wigfrid) Plant (ready to be picked) - "Ugh, vegetables. I'm nöt sure what I expected..."

(Woodie) Ghost - "Boo! Ha ha!"

(Winona) Kingly Figure - "It's BUST-ed! Ha!"

(Maxwell) Frazzled Wires - "I might hide those in WX-78's bedroll if I get bored"

(Wortox) [But if we were to pick an example of many] Potato Sack- "Hyuyuyu, wouldn't it be fun to hide inside and give him a scare?"

Yeah, I think he's good.

In this section I don't really have much else to say. He can be cautious, he can be daft. He joggles the braincells alongside the rest of the survivors. But all in all, I would not consider him any more reckless or goofy than either the child or adult characters. Independence wise, while he can absolutely manage just fine on his own, his desire for companionship far outweighs that.

And since we've already talked about maturity, let's move on to:

Emotional Regulation

Despite common belief, Wormwood is not overly emotional. While, yes, he is excitable and easy to impress, he doesn't usually display intense negative emotions, unless something (more often than not wooden) is destroyed, or unless a plant or a creature he likes, suffers. But then again, in those situations, it's logical to display panic, worry and grief. Imagine if your family member or friend suddenly caught on fire and burned before your eyes... Yeah, I bet no one morally adjusted would be the slightest bit of composed in those kinds of situations...

Worse yet, the majority of the Constant is filled with plants, most of whom are his friends, the closest to his kind, beings which display varying amount of sentience...

In actuality, the children, including Wendy, display a shift in emotions much more often than Wormwood does.

Then there's Willow, WX-78, Woodie (birds) and Maxwell, who all have even less emotional stability.

In comparison, I'd say he handles most situations much more maturely and nonchalantly.

Social & Moral Development

Ah yes, the ability to difference right from wrong, morality, patos or however you would call it. Now this one's a little tricky, on one hand, while he may react strongly to a plant's demise, his reaction varies, when it comes to animals and structures. Sometimes, he doesn't really bat an eye, frankly, other times, he displays intense amounts of grief.

I guess that's the definition of selective empathy.

Curiously, he has 2 separate quotes for a pigeon. One from Hamlet, where he seems a lot more distressed when it perishes, and the other, from The Gorge, where he simply states the fact "Oh. Dead."

I'd like to think this was intentional to sort of give him that fading care many of us experience as we grow older.

Here's another example:

[Hamlet] Glowfly (dead) - "(sob)"

[DST, Host of Horrors update] Koalefant Carcass - "Braump...? Not anymore"

Regarding the other survivors; for the most part, he sympathizes with them. Though he doesn't panic much when they die from average constant shenanigans. He knows it's not permanent or consequential.

He does show sympathy, when some of the others' precious belongings get destroyed or damaged.

Winona's Catapult (burnt)- "Fire bad"

Winona's Spotlight (burnt)- "Oh. So sad"

Mighty Gym (burnt)- "Oh... poor muscle man..."

Or in some instances, when a character strongly disapproves of something/is emotionally hurt and he takes notice of that:

Nautipilot - "Robot friend doesn't like Pull Rock"

Mocking Bird - "Mean tweeters, hurt friends' feelings!"

What's interesting, is that, while he calls many creatures his friends, he specifically avoids calling Maxwell that. He even considers Lucy, Willow and Woodie his friends, which is just... wow. May he harbor a grudge against him for what he did to the other survivors? Something more personal? Or is it moreso related to the fact he's fully siding with the shadows... Most likely the former.

Overall I would say he's definitely more empathetic than not, and one doesn't have to care for every living being after all.

Character Interrelations

Regarding what other characters think of how old he is...

It's debatable, keep in mind, the characters don't have to be fully aware, or can misinterpret his age based on his behavior alone.

Most people just refer to him as "plant", unsurprisingly.

There's characters like Winona, who seem to intentionally downplay his age. Winona in her quotes refers to both Wormwood and Wilson (who's officially in his 30s) as 'bucko' (a lively, young fellow. Or in some cases a friend, or another version of buddy). As for her quotes for Bramble trap and Compost wrap, she refers to Wormwood with the terms 'lil plant fella' and 'little guy'. She pretty much just teases people who are younger than her or seem younger. Or she genuinely believes he's actually that young.

There's plenty instances of people calling him a variation of little, small or sapling, which might just be how they see him. Keep in mind, just because a character may think he's on the younger side, does not mean their interpretation is the absolute firm belief you should uphold.

Then, there's Wolfgang and Wurt, who both firmly believe that he's a grown adult.

(Wolfgang) Generic - "Is leafy green man, %s! Hello!"

Firestarter - "Leafy green man did a fire booboo."

Syrup of Ipecaca - "Will leafy green man be sad if Wolfgang doesn't have a taste?"

(Wolfgang only calls him little once in his quotes, because he calls everyone little, children though, he refers to as very tiny + boy/girl/child, so there's that.)

(Wurt) Attacker - "Ow! You mean old weed!"

You might think; why would I care about what a child and a man who's considered to not be so bright think? Well, my previous point about language barriers explains that. Besides, Wurt is a constant-born creature who builds an entire kingdom in her play style, by no means, is she clueless. She also refers to Deerclops and Antlion as 'She', while most of the other characters use he or it.

What's interesting is that Wickerbottom also tends to avoid referring to him with youthful terms, aside the obvious general one she uses for everyone and everything. If anything, she's more patronizing towards Woodie, Wilson, Winona and Wigfrid. (All of whom are in between their late 20s-40s)

Lastly, we have:

Canon Information

While there isn't much information relating to his age, there are hints in the game canon that explain that.

In the game's compendium, where reside the survivors' profile, backstory and description, three of the four kids have 'young' in their introduction. Barring Walter, who instead has 'boy' which is as much of a youthful term. Wormwood's simply stated as 'an amalgam of vines' not a seedling, sapling nor a young/little plant.

From his backstory, we know that:

"A green gem fell from the moon, landing on an ancient stone monument in the middle of overgrown rubble. Over a long period of time, a vine encircled the gem and eventually formed a humanoid figure sitting on the monument. The figure, Wormwood, opened his eyes and looked at his hands. (...)"

(Now this simply explains, that a lot of time has passed as he was forming, unlike what's shown in his animation, where his body instantly forms.)

There's also this part of his bio.

“Though the circumstances of his creation were unusual at best, Wormwood came into this world full of optimism and curiosity, ready to make new friends and see all that life had to offer. But as time wore on and he experienced the cold sting of rejection, he came to learn what the moon above had always known: Wormwood the Lonesome does not belong here.”

It's implied that a while has passed since his birth. Everyone assumes that he was just created recently and that he doesn't know anything, but as I've shown you previously, he's very perceptive when it matters. He has the knowledge and experience, even insight or a hunch. He is able to determine things others can't. Ever since Hamlet happened, his quotes gradually became somewhat more apathetic towards creatures dying, as opposed to the worry and care he previously displayed.

I wouldn't say he's exactly an adult the same way the human characters are, but he's in no way a child as many presume him to be.

(It actually kind of reminds me of how certain Greek gods are created; some are formed as adults, some grow and then eventually stop, and some come to be under very strange and specific circumstances, Aphrodite. But overall, you can't exactly compare their maturing process to that of a human.) Meanwhile, Wormwood is an alien plant with a crystal for a brain

So by the end of this post, are you still inclined to believe he's a child?

Was this completely unnecessary and took far too long to construct? Yes.

Do I regret making this? Nah.

[o-uncle-newt]

We don't talk enough about the Petherbridge/Walter adaptations of the Wimsey/Vane novels.

(Well, we probably talk EXACTLY enough about Gaudy Night, which is really pretty bad, but besides for that...)

(Sorry, just a warning, Richard Morant as Bunter is fine but I won't have much to say about him here. I just really like this picture.)

The casting is basically perfect, especially Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane. I no longer see the book character in any other way- the only notable difference is that in the book she's noted as having a deep voice, but Walter's has a distinctive enough tone that I think it works regardless. She is just so, so, so good- captures the character beautifully, sells everything she does whether mundane or ridiculous (probably the best/most realistic reaction of someone finding a body I have EVER seen in Have His Carcase), makes the most of every limited minute she's on screen in Strong Poison and leaves her mark every minute that she isn't... and she looks AMAZING doing all of it. Just perfect, could not imagine better casting.

Edward Petherbridge I don't hold up to that level of perfection- I think that, try as he might, he's not really able to capture Wimsey's dynamism (possibly because he's a bit too old for the role) and is a bit overly caricatured in many of his mannerisms. But overall he does a pretty good job, in addition to looking quite a lot like how I'd imagined Wimsey- but in particular, I think he does a really lovely job of selling a lot of the emotion that he has to convey in some scenes that feel like they SHOULDN'T be adaptable from the book- specifically the scenes of him and Harriet. Him proposing to Harriet, him being disappointed when she (completely reasonably) turns him down... those shouldn't work on screen with real humans rather than in Sayers's calculated prose, but it DOES work and in no small part because he's great at selling Wimsey's feelings as being genuine even when his actions seem over the top. And, of course, Harriet Walter sells her end of the scenes right back. All in all, I think I have mixed feelings about Petherbridge as Lord Peter Wimsey the detective, but I'm a fan of him as Peter, the man who has feelings for Harriet.

Overall, though, both are, I think, very successful in capturing these characters- the fact that they take these people who even in the book can sometimes push the boundaries of likeability (which to be clear, is part of what I love about reading them) and make them eminently watchable is a great achievement. And also, in addition to their really looking like their characters individually, they're very well matched as a pair in the way that one pictures them from the book. They're even of very similar height and build, which we know is canonically true from Gaudy Night, and thus at least a somewhat relevant element of their dynamic.

Now, the adaptations are very uneven, and that's even without talking about Gaudy Night because, while it has about as good a rendition of the punting scene as I think we were ever going to get, most of the rest of it is crap and massively expands on what I think are serious problems to Peter and Harriet's relationship that the series as a whole had (not to mention cutting the character of St George, which is a travesty). None of the adaptations are perfect, and mess with aspects of their relationship in negative ways- for example, the ending of Strong Poison is exactly backward in a really awful way. I'll get back to this.

But when the show gets the two of them right, it gets them RIGHT, even when it's adapting Sayers's text/creating new dialogue. There are scenes in this one that I love almost as much as the canon text, like this one:

I don't think any of this is in the book, and there are things that happen here that I don't think Sayers would have ever written. But at the same time, a combination of the dialogue and the actors makes it COMPLETELY believable as these two people, and it captures a moment that is just really key for Peter as he faces his limitations and his feelings- something that in the book is conveyed through a lot of internal narrative on Peter's part that would be impossible to adapt as is, but that in the world of the show needed to happen in a much more visual and narrative way. Not all of the dialogue that this series chooses to fill in those gaps works, but even when it doesn't the actors do their best to sell the heck out of it, and when the dialogue DOES work it is seriously brilliant.

Probably my favorite of the adaptations is Have His Carcase, and scenes like this one are a big part of the reason why:

They change the location, but otherwise it's EXTRAORDINARILY faithful to the equivalent scene in the book, and honestly it shouldn't have worked with real people doing it and yet it does. It's just acted perfectly, given just enough arch and silly humor (particularly with the spinning door) that we don't attempt to take it too seriously, while also conveying the relevant emotions so well. The actors in the scene through only their faces and ways of speaking convey subtext that Sayers, in the book, conveyed a lot later on as actual text in the characters' thoughts, and there's something pretty great about that.

Other Have His Carcase scenes are less good (the dance scene is mediocre at best, I think), but if there's another Have His Carcase scene that I think illustrates how great Walter and Petherbridge are at selling the human sides of their characters, it's That Argument- seen here:

The Argument is a pale imitation of that in the book- the one in the book is, in fact, probably unadaptable as is- but it is still just so good because the actors are so good at selling it. Walter is just brilliant in the role and utterly inhabits it while also imbuing it with her own spin, and makes us feel Harriet's pain- and Petherbridge, through some relatively subtle facial expressions and reactions, is able just as well to make US understand what all of this means to him and how he feels. It's actually really remarkable that, just like how Sayers writes a relationship dynamic that only feels like it works because she's the one who wrote it that very specific way, this scene feels like it only works because these two actors play it in this specific way. Could two other actors do it? Very possibly, but it would feel super different and I wonder if it would feel this authentic. (I do want to note though that this scene made me really wish that we'd seen a Frasier-era David Hyde Pierce in the role of a younger and spryer, but equally posh, witty, and vulnerable, Wimsey. It just gave me vibes of something that he'd do beautifully.)

Now, as I said above, this doesn't get EVERYTHING right. In fact, quite a lot of their relationship ends up going pretty wrong- as I think a major mistake is their throughline which emphasizes Peter's continued pursuit of Harriet as not just reiterating his interest to make it clear that he hasn't changed his mind, but actively taking advantage of moments and situations in a romantic sense, taking a much more specific role in engaging with her physically, commenting on her appearance, saying how difficult it is for him to NOT pursue her more, etc. It makes the whole thing feel a lot more cat-and-mouse rather than a budding relationship of equals, and one where Peter acknowledges the whole time that they HAVE to be equals for a) Harriet to feel comfortable with him and b) them to be good together. In fact, however good the Argument above is, it's kind of undercut by this very pattern- he makes the book's point about him treating his feelings like something out of a comic opera, but he also at that point in the story has had a few much more oppressively serious scenes with her that clearly make her uncomfortable- nothing like anything in a comic opera. It's like the show misses the point a little.

I think the place where this really starts is at the end of Strong Poison. (I could see an argument to be made that it starts earlier, in a few smaller nuances of their jailhouse scenes, but I like those enough that I choose not to read into them too much lol.) After what I think is a great addition to the final jailhouse scene (one that I loved so much I repurposed it for a fic)- "it's supposed to be about love, isn't it" and some excellent reactions from Petherbridge- Harriet goes to court, her charges are dismissed, and unlike in the book, when it's Wimsey who leaves first (which Eiluned and Sylvia point out is a sign of his decency in not waiting for Harriet to thank him), here Wimsey is the one who watches as Harriet rejects him and walks away from him- the beginning of the chase. But nothing about their relationship is meant to be a chase! It's so frustrating to watch as that proceeds to be a continuing issue to a limited degree in Have His Carcase (where it's at least balanced by enough good moments that it doesn't matter so much) and to a MASSIVE, genuinely uncomfortable degree in Gaudy Night.

The only praise I will give it is that while the punt scene in the book is unfilmable, I think this adaptation did its best here and it's pretty good.

I'm not going to spend much time talking about Gaudy Night otherwise, because I'd need all day for it and also I'd probably need to rewatch it to make sure I get the details right and I have zero interest in doing that, but the way that it has Wimsey imposing himself and his feelings/hopes on Harriet to a really ridiculous degree, in a way that he never, ever does in the book, is just so so discomfiting and makes me feel terrible for Harriet. She doesn't deserve that. If I recall correctly, in that scene at the dance at the beginning, she's so happy just being with him and then he's all "oh so this means you want to marry me" and she just droops. He's so aggressive!

And that's what makes the worst part so bad, because not only does this miniseries not depict Wimsey's apology as the book does- one of the best scenes in a book full of brilliant scenes- it would actually be weird if it did, because this show doesn't imply that there's ANYTHING for Wimsey to be apologizing for! In fact, unlike in the books where we see Wimsey growing and deconstructing the parts of himself that had been demanding of Harriet, in the series we only see him get more demanding- until finally he wins. It's honestly infuriating and I hate it- the actors do their best to sell it (and apparently they were given bad enough material that they actually had to rewrite some of it themselves, though I have mixed feelings about the results) but it is just massively disappointing. Basically the whole emotional journey between the two of them is not just neutered but twisted.

For all of my criticisms of the adaptations' all around approach to their relationship, I do have to reiterate- Walter and Petherbridge do a wonderful, wonderful job. (Especially Walter.) When they're given good material to work with, and even often when they aren't, they are able to sell it so well- and particularly in the case of Walter, I genuinely can't think of the character as anyone but her rendition now. She IS Harriet Vane for me. And, for all the flaws that the series has, that's something pretty dang special.

Anyway, for anyone who read through this whole thing and hasn't seen these adaptations, I DO recommend Strong Poison and Have His Carcase- but not Gaudy Night unless you're either really curious or a glutton for punishment. The first two, though, have very good supporting casts, are quite faithful plot wise (sometimes to a fault- another flaw is that they are really devoted to conveying the whole mystery with all its clues sometimes to the point of dragginess, but will drop sideplots like, for example, Parker and Mary- which is totally reasonable, but still vaguely disappointing as those sideplots tend to add some levity/characterization), and just generally are an overall good time. (Some standout characters for me are Miss Climpson in Strong Poison and Mrs Lefranc in Have His Carcase.) And, of course, the best part is seeing the little snippets of Peter and Harriet that come through- less so their journey, vs in the book where that's central, but so many scenes where we just see the two of them together as they are in that moment and it's so satisfying.

[felixcosm]

Thought about your Edgar post for like 5 seconds too long, and I wanted to say how much I think that it seems that Mike is really judging their characters based on personality rather than actions if that makes sense?

They've both done some truly awful and heinous things - Edgar especially - but when not caught up in time travel bullshit, Edgar is a genuinely kind and compassionate person. Something that, as his boyfriend, Mike sees a lot of. Mike on the other hand, can be a bit of a bitch sometimes. (said with all the love in my heart of course)

Obviously Mike Walters is the true champion at seeing his loved ones through rose-tinted glasses with Edgar being one of the two most blatant examples (the other being Anne imo), but I do think there's something about the Mikes saying that the truth is what they feel to be emotionally true. They have flaws that they don't like about themselves, whereas Edgar is someone they love, and someone who loves them back. They see a lot of cruelty from the both of them, but they also see a lot of kindness and love from Edgar. Therefore in the Mikes' eyes, they are a worse person than Edgar.

Not sure if I quite articulated this great, but your post got me thinking!

(also when I say Mike, I mean Mike Walters as a species)

No no you're absolutely right and I am obsessed with how Mike says things that feel true in the moment even if they are blatantly wrong or impossible to prove (him telling Matt he loved him may be a bad example since later Mikey says he was only trying to be nice but I feel like there is certainly more to that whole scene than Mikey was willing to admit to Matt or his podcast listeners at the time)

And I feel like even though Edgar has obvious personality flaws as well, like he can be petty and mean (re: Rugby) he often speaks over Mike as if Mike's feelings don't matter (making decisions for him, disregarding his opinions and emotions during missions, treating him like a warm body to be sent out into the field), or manipulating him (Dylan mentioned in the commentaries how often Edgar puts Mikey in a position where he's the "adult" and Mikey's the "petulant child" re: 118) - and it seems like the Mikes do sort of know about it. Like Michael's still holding a grudge about Rugby so he's clearly not blind to Edgar's less than savory moments.

But that won't matter to them because in the end they will look past facts.

I'm also fascinated at how much of an unreliable Narrator Mike Walters is. Even when we have an episode where he's speaking to other Mikes or to himself, we can't fully trust what he says because he will apply his emotions to a situation and make decisions based on that.

We rarely do see Edgar and the others alone in scenes where they are themselves without Mikey interjecting with his own narrative. Which makes sense, as this is WOE.BEGONE and its the story of Mike Walters, so we see the world through their eyes.

I think you can probably say Edgar is a better person than Mike though and I am completely agreeing with your points. But at the same time I do think its funny how Mikey leads us to believe that Edgar is perfect and holy while his boyfriend just can't fucking wait to get his hands dirty.

WOE.BEGONE is a show about power and how it can corrupt someone and I think Edgar is just as good of an example as Mikey. Mikey might've started as someone who was very happy to get into the time-travel murder game as he accuses himself of being in Episode 21, but Edgar goes from being scared and unsure to the actual leader controlling the fates of all of Base.

[isobellenoire]

Solas is Neurodiverse.

This is of course my opinion, don't invalidate me, if you find comfort in this character then I'm glad, join the party!

• Info dumping (You boost his approval by asking him about magic & the fade... and oh my world does he have a lot to say about it!)

• Strong sense of justice... freeing the slaves, wanting to right wrongs. He feels so strongly about injustice, especially when he can sympathise (mages & elves) a strong sense of social justice is often linked with ND people because we are marginalised, mistreated and ridiculed. I can often get angry, irate and depressed when there's injustice in the world and for a lot of my ND friends it's the same.

• Likes to be alone (he still has friends who are spirits, but he doesn't actively seek out companionship with people) prefers his own company. (Hermit tarot... come on! I'm crying in INTP/INTJ here)

• Always reading, writing, he even paints a whole ass mural on the walls as skyhold in a short burst of time, hyperfocus/hyperfixation.

• Comes across as blunt. I've been told I'm blunt so many times it's infuriating when I don't mean to be, I'm just firm in what I know to be true and will say it without dancing around the matter.

• Speaks 'strangely' in a poetic rhythm. While not an exclusive trait, given everything else it holds merit.

• He does have a great deal of empathy if you romance him/get to know him, but on a surface level he seems distant because he doesn't open up personally! It takes a LOT to crack that egg. I'm 4 years into a committed relationship and I still get told I don't open up enough when I'm struggling with emotions because I keep them internalised... probably a trauma response but in Solas' case... yeah, definitely a trauma response.

• Comes across argumentative when talking about stuff to which the group (Dorian especially during party banter) will ask if he's upset with them, and he says he isn't. ND people are always stuffed in the 'uncanny valley' and seen as outsiders, or stand-offish... we're just not very good with social nuances in terms of delivery, but are deeply self aware of that and prefer to observe, and I argue Solas is incredibly self aware. (Knows when he is being 'selfish' or 'foolish')

• Incredibly knowledgeable on a lot because he's intensively researched it, has to know everything about that subject and becomes deeply immersed in it.

• He never lied about anytning, he just didn't throw it out there... Autistic people can lie you know... however not once did he lie, he just kept his secrets hidden, that's very different to lying. Lying wild be 'Are you Fen'Harel'?... 'No' I've kept secrets from people for a long ass time to spare their feelings and my own self interest. (Not as bad as it sounds ahah! Just an example)

• History nerd... C'mon most of us have a favourite time period that isn't this one...

• I mentioned the paintings, he's also an artist, as well as a dreamer. A lot of us have infiltrated science or the arts... or both! Most of the world's leading scientists and artists are ND. He probably has an idetic memory.

I have more if people care to hear it, but in my opinion and based on my own personal experience being AuDHD, I'd say he is. I resonate with his character more deeply than the others because no ND person is alike and we all have our own personal struggles/wins.

A similar example in media to Solas would be (and hear me out ahah) Walter White (minus the drugs) but intelligence and the way he speaks to others, hides stuff from people (and assumes an alias to seperate himself) I definitely see WW as Autistic. So why not Solas?

Can we please stop infantalizing ASD, and applying the manic pixie lense to it, there's so much more to it that just 'quirky'. Cole is practically confirmed, people have debated Sera being ADHD, but also they are painted with a similar 'childish' brush.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk ahah.

[marypickfords]

5 brazilian horror movies

since it’s october i wanted to make a post to recommend some of my favorite old brazillian horror movies. i tried to add links to watch them but not all have subtitles unfortunately! this is mostly in the order i thought of them, not exactly of content/quality/whatever. i haven’t watched many myself yet but i figured this would be a nice introduction to anyone who is interested!

1. as filhas do fogo (1978) dir. walter hugo khouri 

ana & diana are a couple who go on a trip to diana’s family estate - an old house owned by old money, german colonizers. there we learn about diana’s family, her controlling & wwii-obsessed grandfather who wanted to get away from everything and bought this land & her mother who commited suicide years ago. we also meet the groundskeepers who live there, including the mysterious mariana. a heavily atmospheric, dark (both in content & the poor quality of the available print..), quiet, haunting & wonderful movie. khouri was mostly disregarded by critics because he seemingly went against the grain: while directors at the time were documenting concerns re the brazilian working class, khouri was mostly in old big homes, filming the ennui of a middle to upper class. that’s not to say that his movies are without a critique, however, and as filhas do fogo is a good example of his cinema that was well aware of, not only the history of the country, but the current political climate of a dictatorship. besides all that, most importantly.. it is so creepy! this is my favorite from khouri (and not just because it stars a lesbian couple) and possibly my favorite movie on this list.

watch on archive.org (w/ eng subtitles)

2. barão olavo, o terrível (1970) dir. júlio bressane

in this lovely experimental film, bressane pays an homage to horror & insanity in a very brazilian manner. the titular baron olavo owns the home which is the central point of the film and the inspiration for bressane, who saw this 19th century house as a laboratory of light. there’s no central plot exactly, but a spectacle of colors, horror, tenderness, absurdity and indulgence.. i love it. and yes, maybe lesbians are involved too.

watch on archive.org (no subtitles)

3. estrela nua (1984) dir. josé antonio garcia & ícaro martins

a very recent watch, estrela nua is a movie that could be easily paired with perfect blue or any of those 2girls1persona films. carla camurati plays glória, an aspiring actress who is suddenly cast to substitute troubled actress ângela, who has recently died in a car accident. ângela was working on an incestuous erothic thriller, and as glória starts working on the film she begins to.. maybe blend with said dead actress?? obsess over her?? dream about/with her..?? you know where this is going. there’s the clear element of a film within a film in this, but as it ends we realize we might have watched more than a couple movies - and they all work. carla camurati & cristina aché are phenomenal and the great selma egrei (from as filhas do fogo) also shows up as a lesbian actress.. it's just so strange and good.

watch here (no subtitles)

4. excitação (1977) dir. jean garrett

i opted for his garrett instead of a mulher... even though i consider both great brazilian horror films. both lean heavy on the erotic (or rather, the pornochanchada) and deal with, among other things, The Gaze. but i think excitação’s atmospheric beach scenes fit this list better. helena's husband buys a beach house hoping that she'll be able to rest & recover from whatever has been ailing her (hysteria..? paranoia..?). there, she finds out the past owner killed himself and that perhaps is what has been haunting her.. or is it maybe all the electronics in the house? excitação is, as i said, incredibly atmospheric. helena is mostly isolated, away from her husband, walking around the beach alone at night. she looks and looks: at the sea, at beautiful women, at every possible machine around her. this is one for the psychotic women enjoyers. kate hansen is so good.

watch on youtube (no subtitles)

5. as noites de iemanjá (1971) dir. maurice capovila

as noites de iemanjá is in my mind reminiscent of 40s val lewton films like i walked with a zombie.. both in the sense of women at the beach & also the vital element of african religions/deities, in the case of this movie the afro-brazilian iemanjá. and also because while that is the background (and it is very important to the story), the movie centers women that aren’t exactly a part of said religions, even if they are influenced by them. it’s a mysterious one, i can’t remember much of the dialogue, but joana fomm is hypnotic in this. she plays a nameless character who goes to the seaside with the lover because she is ignored by her husband. there, they watch together a group of people making offerings to the sea, to iemanjá. after this her lover disappears. it’s another good example of the mix of horror, folklore and the erotic, so characteristic of these brazilian movies of the time. this one (along w/ as filhas do fogo) shows up on kier-la janisse’s folk horror doc and it was a lovely surprise! 

watch on youtube (no subtitles)

[sunscreenstudies]

Iconic Things My Coding Professors Have Said (Part 2)

"windows is bad at following international standards because they think that they ARE the international standard"

"now i'm going to let you struggle for a while as you try to figure this out"

"mike in wonderland by lewis carroll. that would have been a much better book"

"before unicode, the world was an ugly place..."

"programming gives you a lot of power, but also a lot of power to do bad things... I'm looking at you walter" *PhD student/assistent professor Walter avoids eye contact, looking uncomfortable*

"extension codes are very versatile, great for lying, and quite fun to confuse your computer with"

"we don't have that much content to cover but it's VERY exciting content... at least i think so, but i'm also the kind of guy who thinks that finding an extra pair of socks when i thought they were all in the wash is exciting, so you probably shouldn't just trust my word for it"

"the first time i saw that notebook pop up i felt like i had a lot of power over the world so i hope you also get that mystical feeling today"

"in general, users are very stupid, as you know, so you need to guard what they enter into your system" *ten minutes later* "for example, the user might be stupid, as always" *ten minutes later* "but if your user is stupid, which is a common user fallacy - i'm sorry, you've probably realised by now i don't like users" *ten minutes later* "so here python is protecting you against yourself because, similar to users, we too can be stupid”

"so now, just because we like pain, how can we do this with a while loop?"

"You must close the memory address because you've opened the connection to that particular file. If you don't close it, you will lose that section of your memory. It's like going for a shower, you have to turn on the water, do unspeakable things, and then turn off the water. Opening and closing files is basic data hygiene"

"What would happen if i append to a non-existing file? ... no, you guys, i'm seriously asking, i have no idea, i don't know what this is going to do"

"now we're going to see something really cool! it's my life! no, i'm joking, that's the opposite of cool"

"that is a very good question, what do you think we should do to find the answer?" *student gives super complicated key command order to return an info help function on that one word of code and then lists even more complicated actions to actually make it understandable* "... That's definitely an option, but I was actually just going to suggest that we use google"

"there's this thing with files, where if you open them and don't close them, something horribly horribly wrong will occur, both on your computer and in your life because if you're the type of person who doesn't close files, then karma will do it's job"

"when you do this, nothing bad can happen... to your computer... that doesn’t include you"

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7  | Part 8 

Part 9  | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14

[crepe-of-wrath]

Benefits Package AU St. Valentine's Special Part 1 (Alucard x Fem Reader)

Notes: not a direct continuation of BP 1/2, but happening in the same AU continuity; this is the set-up for the Main Event on Tuesday so no smut here; this is more light-hearted/slice of life

Picture it: the Hellsing Manor, sometime in late 1998. You had learned many unexpected things about Alucard since Sir Integra ordered him to start 'taking care' of you. For example, he had a surprising Boys' Own impish streak that occasionally broke through all his weightiness, and at the most unpredictable times...

You caught him emerging from the wall out of the corner of your eye and screamed right over his (presumed) greeting.

The vampire just grinned at you as though he was totally unaware of how badly he'd frightened you, which, as you had come to learn, was probably the truth of it, as age and...whatever else had happened to him had made him completely blind to temporary flashes of human emotion.

To be fair, the fact that you were now laughing--I mean, he did look ridiculous, only phased halfway through the wall, attention now turned to your TV and DVD player--didn't help.

(Thanks to his Master, Alucard had not only been one of the very first beings on earth to have his own DVD player, but he also had perhaps the finest collection of action movies on DVD in the world. There was an entire folder in one of your cabinets that contained volumes of correspondence negotiating for one-off DVD copies of Alucard's favorite films that hadn't seen regular public release yet. As a result, the cinematic world now labored under the assumption that Sir Integra was a great admirer of thrillers. She was not.)

"I heard you opening something. Did I get a new movie?" asked Alucard, with all the genuine enthusiasm of a twelve-year-old child.

"This is actually for me," you said. "You won't like it. It's sitcom stuff." You had just unwrapped the world's only version of The Simpsons (Seasons 1-4) on DVD. (Many DVDs, to be precise.)

Alucard shrugged.

"Enjoy, little human." And, with that, he was gone.

You were skipping from episode to episode in Season 4 while doing your usual late-night work when there was a knock at the door. You squealed in surprise.

"Little human," said Alucard, who just walked through the door instead of waiting for you to open it, "is there any method of entering a room that doesn't upset you?"

"It's late!"

"Yes it is"--now he sounded like Walter when he lectured you about taking care of yourself--"and you should stop working." With no effort, he pulled over a large, ornate wingback, plucked you out of your office chair, and settled you in his lap. He let you wrap your comparatively little hand in one of his and prop your head on his chest as he gently scratched your scalp with the fingers of his other hand.

"That's right," he quietly whispered. "All done for today, little human. Tell me, what are we watching?"

"Well," you said, "the girl in the dress gave that boy next to her a paper valentine because no one else gave him one and she felt sorry for him, and now he thinks she is his girlfriend and she's about to embarass him at this public event on camera by telling him she's not."

" And...this is funny?"

"Yes," you said, although in the moment you found yourself unable to explain why.

"What sorts of Valentine's presents do you usually get, little human?"

You laughed. "The only person who ever got me anything was my father. I think it was so I wouldn't feel left out when he and my mother exchanged gifts."

"Hmmm," said Alucard. "And what did he get you last year?"

"Oh, he hasn't gotten me a Valentine's gift in some time," you said, only realizing in that moment that this made you a little sad.

"Hmmm," said Alucard.

TBC

[henrysglock]

A boy from Nevada loved Henry, and he loved him back???

I haven't watched the play, can you elaborate a bit more about it? please.

It's not that on the nose, it's v much subtext.

There was a boy back in Nevada who Henry seems to have physically attacked shortly before the Creels move/the attack was the driving reason for them to move. The severity of the damage varies by which source you're relying on. For example, Walter Henderson says Henry's "some kind of psycho" because he broke a kid's arm back in Nevada, but Virginia later says to Victor "he put that boy in a wheelchair" as Henry eavesdrops from the attic. So it's possible there are two boys, or that there's just one boy and the sources are unreliable. Regardless, Henry is in shambles over the whole thing. It's clear that whatever happened left a huge emotional scar and continues to cause him a great deal of grief. Whoever he was, Henry cared about him enough to fall to pieces at the mention of him.

That incident is also largely purported as the reason why Virginia doesn't want Henry to make friends or date anyone. Like...yes, Henry and Virginia have an uncomfortable degree of enmeshment, but the incident in Nevada seems to be what's making Virginia so neurotic about Henry being around other children unsupervised.

This, combined with the fact that the Mindflayer tends to lash out at a) people who are close to Henry, b) people who are too close to the truth, and c) people who are trying to separate Henry from Patty, tells me the boy who got attacked was someone close to Henry who was sticking his nose where he shouldn't have.

It's like I said when my friends and I were analyzing Henry's on-screen relationship with Virginia in preparation for TFS: We can see the shadow of the thing, even if we can't see the thing itself. (We predicted that Henry and Virginia had an uncomfortable degree of Boy Mom covert incest/enmeshment. Lo and behold, we were right.)

When we consider that Henry refuses to tell anyone the truth about his affliction, (not Patty, Virginia, Victor, or even Brenner) it then becomes a question of "Who was this boy to Henry, and how did he get close enough to be a worth of attacking?"

And some people might go "ohhh they were just good friends" to which I tap the sign: The Mindflayer seems to have a personal vendetta against people who pose a perceived romantic threat, personal enough for it to speak through Henry, and the people who are targets of that typically end up injured or dead. "Are you jealous?/Who's your sweet little boy now?" to Virginia vs her enmeshment with Henry and "I'm not your boy" to Brenner vs the weird romantic/sexual overtones to their relationship...and then both of them end up either dead or injured. Before anyone goes "oh but Patty gets hurt too"...a) Henry + the Mindflayer wasn't attacking her. The attack landed behind her, meaning it was meant for Brenner, who had just had his whole "[Henry] needs me, not you!" thing with Patty. Romantic threat. and b) that accident nearly killed her. She has a cane when she meets her mother. That's riiiiiight along the same lines as "He put that boy in a wheelchair".

So...what kind of relationship did this boy have with Henry to land him in a wheelchair?

Closer than Brenner and Henry, closer than Virginia and Henry...and closer, even, than Patty and Henry had.

By all accounts...it seems Henry had a boybestie that he left behind.

[free-and-to-none-accountable]

Posted on August 26, 2022 by Jean-Carl Elliott and Susan Fabrich

The text below is transcribed from a hand-written document by Susan Fabrich that I came across while digging through some IWW boxes at the Walter Reuther Archives in Detroit. I wanted to make sure that it was published so that it could be better circulated, but also because I think it’s a great example of what honest reflection on organizing can look like. Too often we mimic capitalist journalism in our writing and in doing so we feel the need to leave out our mistakes while sensationalizing our wins. Focusing on only publishing “historic” and “first ever” victories erases hard-won lessons that also come through struggle and failures. Insights from these less glamorous stories can provide us with wisdom that can strengthen our organizing and cultivate important institutional learning.  

I like this piece because it articulates barriers that the organizers faced and the author makes an attempt to prescribe why things didn’t play out as they had hoped. Many of the challenges they came across are still challenges for organizers today. I think that if we try to incorporate more of this sort of introspection in our strategies, it might help us address and overcome some of those obstacles. There have been some slight formatting edits for readability, but otherwise the text below appears as it was written by the original author. I have also included some of my own insights at the end.

FLORIDA–The Pizza Hut organizing attempt suffered from one essential flaw that prevented it from ever really getting started. This was a lack of contact with any solid social groups at the workplace. Since this was not present, we never got the chance to make any tactical mistakes, simply because there wasn’t a basis for organizing in the first place. 

Why did this happen? It was a consequence, I think, of student-radical ways of relating to people which both Paul Green and I fell into. Specifically, I think that Paul began with a fairly clear understanding of how his dissatisfaction with his job fit in with larger social patterns, resulting in turning to the IWW in an attempt to find a collective solution to a collective problem which would be directly related to his work.

But Paul came to this conclusion due to personal background (grew up in a union family) and an intellectual interest and training which are by no means common among the types of people who work at Pizza Hut. Armed with the conviction that unionism is the right answer to worker problems, he pressured and cajoled two of his workmates to somewhat reluctantly support organizing. He also contacted the IWW for help.

I don’t know what he expected, but he got me, another student radical with no organizing experience. Perhaps because our backgrounds and inclinations are similar, I didn’t pick up on the lack of enthusiasm of Paul’s “recruits” as a crucial issue. I am used to the pushing and prodding technique myself. 

With the assumption that we had enuf [sic] of a core group to start with I asked Dan Pless to come down and help us figure out preliminary tactics. If the core group had been solid, his advice, research and support would have been invaluable. As it was, we never really got a chance to put any of it into practice.

Several things happened that slowed us down to a crawl over the summer. I was working at another Pizza Hut and developing a relationship with people there – altho the turnover was so great that it was next to impossible to get to know everyone. This was tied up with our tactics – at first Paul and I, naively, were hoping to organize all four Gainesville Pizza Huts. Dan convinced me that, in terms of the definition of the bargaining unit, concentrating on Paul’s Pizza Hut would be better. So after about a month and a half at one Pizza Hut  I started trying to get transferred to the other Pizza Hut.

Paul, due to cancellation of his student loan, had to move for the summer to a more lucrative job in New Hampshire. At this point I had met only one other person from his Pizza Hut, and had no regular contact with that workplace. 

Two things happened over the next few months, until the end of August. I was in the middle of a complicated process of getting transferred, as I felt I could get nothing done as an outsider to that working situation. This involved finding a new apartment, cross training as a cook, and making up complicated stories to justify my move.

The other thing was the disintegration of my relationship (tenuous at best) with the union supporters Paul had lined up. We had met with Dan Pless in June, and they seemed willing (tho not eager) to put some effort out to begin an organizing campaign. They were to try to convince people to sign auth [sic] cards.

I met with one of them, Jay, at the beginning of July, and gave him some blank auth [sic] cards. The other person, Pam, began to back out at this point for reasons that she never made entirely clear. Without Paul around to nag them, they seemed to be taking the union less and less seriously.

When I finally got a job at the right Pizza Hut, Pam was totally detached from the issue and Jay was very reluctant to talk about it. I was busy getting to know the other employees, but I was also reluctant to talk union to anyone. By the time my sense of outrage exceeded my shyness, after about three weeks on the job, it was September and time to go to IWW Convention. I was beginning to talk union to some people. Pam moved up into management. I got mad at Jay for various reasons, including his reluctance to discuss unionizing with me or to give me an honest decision or whether to stick with it or not. 

I lost my job when I stayed at convention longer than I was supposed to, and Paul got his job back at the same time. When I came back to Gainesville, Paul and I got together and discussed the situation. We decided that the problem all summer had been the lack of contact of the ideas of the union with the social group formed at the workplace, and with the absence of conviction on Pam and Jay’s part that the union actually filled some need for them. The work to be done went back to the basics – for Paul, as ‘organizer’, to develop relationships with other employees of trust and a feeling that the union fulfilled their collective needs.

This ‘subjective’ need was not the only obstacle to our organizing attempt, but it was the basic one. Other problems which may have wrecked it if we had gotten any farther were also legion [sic] – such as:

Pam, who became assistant manager, had full knowledge of our plans.

The turnover, though low in comparison with other Pizza Hut’s in town, was still great enough to make it hard to reach each employee.

The NLRB would have had fairly good grounds for rejecting a single Pizza Hut as a bargaining unit.

Many employees were part-timers studying at U of F, with a lack of commitment to their work and the improvement thereof

– Susan Fabrich, 1970s.

Initial Reflections

As an IWW member and lifelong restaurant worker, I found this piece to be particularly fascinating. I joined the union in 2012, which was right on the heels of IWW campaigns in the food and beverage industry at companies like Starbucks, Jimmy John’s, and even Pizza Hut. Through the creation of our Organizing Department and the Organizer Training Program, we have been able to take wisdom from campaigns like these and build them into our institutional memory, so that we don’t make the same mistakes and can repeat our wins. In 2013, I became an Organizer Trainer for the IWW and then in 2017 I was part of an organizing campaign at a local sushi restaurant. As a trainer and organizer, I’ve come across many of the mistakes and challenges listed above, both from personal experience and from other IWW members. I’ve tried to learn from those mistakes (and occasional successes!) and to become a better organizer as a result. And of course the IWW as a union has made some pretty significant changes in the 40-50 years since this piece was first written. Here are some of my observations on the above piece, based on those experiences:

Theoretical Organizing vs Workplace Realities

I think to really understand these failures, we need to start by taking a closer look at Susan (the author) and Paul. Susan mentions early on that the “student-radical ways of relating to people which both Paul Green and I fell into” were “by no means common among the types of people who work at Pizza Hut.” I think this disconnect is a common experience for many wobs and can often lead us to think that our coworkers are either apathetic or conservative. Business unions and universities both seek to shape the way we think about labor by pointing us towards the “proper,” i.e. state-sanctioned channels. In the US, that takes form through the National Labor Relations Act, contractualism, formalized grievance processes, and using disruptive action only as a last-ditch resort. What results is that we only legitimize the former methods of organizing while overlooking the everyday ways in which workers struggle against the boss’ control over the workplace.

If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant (or probably anywhere really), you are going to know what I’m talking about. Our bosses try to control every aspect of the working day, but you really don’t have to look very far to find all sorts of ways in which workers undermine that control. We refuse to abide by their scripted interactions with customers, we don’t upsell if it’s not worth it to us, we sneak food to our friends and regulars without charging them, we have people watch our stations while we sneak extra food or cigarette breaks. There are all sorts of ways that workers subvert the status quo and exercise their own power on the job. Oftentimes these actions can become concerted through what some labor writers have named “the informal work group.” Unfortunately, we don’t think of these actions as being part of the struggle for job control because they happen outside of the state-sanctioned labor relations framework and we end up completely writing off the ways in which an overwhelming majority of the working class struggles against the boss’ control over the workplace. But organizers have turned these smaller and more atomized actions into more concerted disruptions by organizing walkouts, work to rule, good work strikes, service refusals, and all sorts of other creative actions.

Because Paul doesn’t see the workplace this way and because he’s the one seemingly calling the shots, he recruits two workers based on vocal support for unions but without much substance behind that. In fact, Susan points out that there was a visible “lack of enthusiasm” but ignored it. In the IWW, we organize through committees that build their strength and capacity through practicing direct democracy and direct action. In other words, it requires participation. And you can’t build a participatory committee with people who don’t participate. Many unions follow the AEIOU and assessment models of member recruitment, in which they ask workers what issues are important to them and then use that as an opportunity to ask them to sign an authorization card for the union. The current IWW version of this is unique because instead of asking them to sign an authorization card, we ask them to participate in planning and executing collective job actions that will win demands. And whether or not they deliver on those tasks determines how we assess them. If there’s a lack of follow through, then you might need to agitate them more or try to find an issue that they are more passionate about, but we don’t want to recruit workers to the committee until they are enthusiastic and demonstrate it concretely through participation. 

Understanding the Workplace

Something else the author mentions right off the bat is a “lack of contact with any solid social groups at the workplace.” In the IWW Organizer Training 101, we have a whole module on Social Charting in which we discuss the existing social dynamics in the workplace, both in terms of the boss’ forms of organization (shifts, departments, positions) and in terms of how workers begin to organize themselves (cliques, people who take breaks together, people who hang out outside of work). It’s important to understand how these formal and informal organizations on the job contribute to the status quo before we start having 1 on 1s with coworkers because we should know ahead of time *why* we want to have 1 on 1s with coworkers. It doesn’t seem like the two workers that Peter recruited were brought on board because they could help provide inroads to social groups in order to build better connections with workers. It sounds like they were recruited because he was able to pressure them. And if workers don’t feel that they have a personal stake in organizing then they are likely to flake or worse yet, betray the organizing committee down the line. 

Who Decides When We Get To Be A Union?

Two other issues the author brings up are employee turnover and NLRB bargaining units. I think these can be addressed simultaneously because they often feed into each other. Turnover is something the industry has been dealing with for a long time. Even prior to COVID, parts of the food service industry were reporting turnover rates of 100% or more. This has caused many unions to take a hands-off approach to the industry because of how this dynamic affects their ability to win elections. But part of what constitutes shifting the balance of power away from bosses is taking back our ability to define what a union is, who is in it and what it does. Former IWW General Secretary Treasurer Alexis Buss had a great column in the Industrial Worker which centered on what was then called “minority unionism.” Our methods have changed since that time, but what remains the same is that we believe that small groups of workers can tackle grievances at work and win on them on their own terms. Obviously the goal is to expand the union beyond that small group, but especially when turnover is high you can still have a committee of a few dedicated members who can hold their ground until they can build a stronger density. Three IWW members at one workplace can become chartered within the union as a Job Branch. As such, they can collect and manage their own dues, elect their own officers, and share the same functions as other branches in the union. The important thing is not to get bogged down because you don’t think you can get everyone on board, but to instead focus on what is possible with the people who do get on board and to use that as your foundation. As Laborwave Radio recently said: “Who has the power to bring a union into existence: the state or the workers? Your perspective on this question will shape your strategies for organizing.” 

On a larger scale, the IWW charters Industrial Union Branches. In industries like food service, workers may change workplaces several times throughout their career but stay within the same industry. Many business unions in the industry will have high turnover because membership is tied to employment. Once the worker leaves the workplace either through quitting or being fired, they are no longer part of the bargaining unit. In the IWW, membership stays with the worker for as long as they continue to pay dues and are working class. In other words, the IWW focuses on its relationship with workers and not with bosses. Contractualism prioritizes the latter. This is why we say “organize the worker, not the workplace”: if members are active in workplace committees, take trainings, and participate in direct actions then they can take that experience to other workplaces and recruit more IWW members. The goal is to build more and better organizers and more committees and branches will follow.

Final Thoughts

What has gotten the IWW to where it is now versus where it was at the time this paper was written is that we have been learning how to learn. Having a strong popular education program has been crucial to that end. Training is a huge component of that, but trainings are also shaped by who trains and the first-hand experiences they bring. Experiences bring stories and stories bring lessons and lessons bring progress. It might seem like Susan didn’t get very far at Pizza Hut, but I think the lessons she learned and the example she set by sharing them will inspire more IWW members to share and reflect on our own experiences to keep learning from them so that we can keep moving the work along. 

[bethanydelleman]

Hello! So after your posts about Austen characters as parents, I started to wonder if there was any form of family planning at the time. I mean, Austen's parents had 8 children and one of her bothers had more than 10 😱 On the one hand, we know Austen's heroines married for love but on the other hand, I have a hard time imagining them constantly pregnant 😅

It's hard to imagine because our society has drastically changed in the last hundred years. We have gone from 40% infant mortality and families with 6-10 children to about 3% infant mortality and 2.3 births per woman. It is now incredibly rare for women to be pregnant constantly but it was a reality in the past.

Family planning did exist, but it wouldn't have looked much like it does today. This is from the first chapter of Persuasion (it's an interesting example, I know these aren't real people):

“Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15, 1784, Elizabeth, daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county of Gloucester, by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth, born June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son, November 5, 1789; Mary, born November 20, 1791.”

They got married in 1784, had a baby basically right away (11 months later). Then Anne is born 2 years later, still-born son 2 years later, and Mary 2 years later. The two year gap suggests family planning, which would probably consist of just not having sex. People always say condoms existed, yes they did, but they weren't great and were usually only used for prostitutes. Pull-out did exist, though it was condemned in the Bible (see the story of Tamar in the book of Genesis), and the rhythm method is actually modern (like 1930s).

Also, the Elliots were probably still trying to have a son, Lady Elliot didn't die until Anne was 13, so after Mary she probably experienced a pregnancy complication that resulted in secondary infertility. Something like an infection could render a person unable to carry children (if you survived the 25% mortality rate) but would have likely been treatable today. (Mr. and Mrs. Bennet kept trying after Lydia, they likely experienced the same thing).

And when I say not having sex, I mean the husband and wife with each other. The husband might well look elsewhere, as there was an idea that denying oneself was bad for your health. There also was an active campaign against masterbation at the time. It was also seen as morally superior to visit prostitutes rather than have a mistress because the bond interfered with marriage (source). So a win for syphilis basically.

There were many couples, especially in the aristocracy, who only had a few children and then basically stopped having sex, at least with each other (many women had affairs too and secret affair babies), however, love matches usually produced more children (shocking!) so our heroes and heroines are probably going to have more children than average unless something happens to interrupt their fertility.

So yeah, Elizabeth Darcy with 6.6 children (average for gentry families at the time) is very much in the realm of possibility. As is, unfortunately, one or more of our heroines dying from childbirth.

Related post about the age gaps between Austen siblings.

Rant post about this.

[nateconnolly]

A Raisin in the Sun is a story about time. Lorraine Hansberry examines tradition, innovation, and assimilation through the intergenerational divide of the Younger family. Each member of the family has (and represents) a different perspective on the culture, heritage, and direction of the African American Diaspora. Mama still remembers her unfulfilled “dreams” that she and Big Walter hoped her children will “make worthwhile,” but it isn’t clear that they will. A Raisin in the Sun is not the story of a woman who has “deferred” her own “dream”. I posit that Mama’s dream was deferred by her children when they replaced it with new dreams. 

By “dream,” I mean one of a person’s most cherished aspirations. Mama and Big Walter dreamed about “not being lynched and getting to the North… [with] a pinch of dignity”. But more than that, Mama dreamed about “buying [a] house and fixing it all up and making… a little garden in the back”. Their dreams were about survival, dignity, and family. These dreams are closely related to their Christian African American culture. When she describes her views on abortion, which are clearly in tune with her faith, Mama says “we a people who give children life, not who destroys them”. She specifically associates her values with her notion of a “people,” by which she means not only her family, but also their race, community, and heritage. They are African Americans, distinct both from white Americans and continental Africans. Mama views history as a slow, but relentless progression of the rights of her people. She expects children will be “the fruit of her days,” and follow the example she and Big Walter set. As she tells Walter, “I’m waiting to see you stand up and look like your daddy…”. She correctly believes her children have opportunities that she did not. However, Mama is mistaken when she assumes that her children will make the same choices that she would have made if she had those opportunities. Her children interact with other cultures, religious ideas, and social circles. The result is that they have developed their own worldviews and their own dreams. Mama wants a house. Walter’s dream stands in the way. 

Walter’s dream is financial prosperity—money “is life” in his mind, and he believes in no limits to ambition, not even the limits of morality. As he tells his distraught mother, “there ain’t nothing but taking in this world,” and Walter is determined to take as much as he can get his hands on. He wants “to hang some real pearls ‘round [his] wife’s neck”. While Walter vehemently proclaims hedonistic nihilism, the belief that nothing matters other than pleasure, Beneatha assures her mother that her new worldview—atheism—is in line with order and morality. Beneatha stresses that she is “not going out and be [sic] immoral or commit crimes” because she has turned her back on Christianity. Beneatha dreams of achieving human greatness. “There is only man,” Beneatha proclaims, “and it is he who makes miracles”. She wants to become a doctor and participate in the miracle of healing, which she regards as “the most marvelous thing in the world”. 

You can read the rest on Substack

[litres-of-cocaine]

i cannot believe that people genuinely dislike skyler white it is so strange!!! like even my dad called her manipulative and yes, sure but like that’s what makes her so fun??

like i think the direction they took her in s5 was the right and logical one for her character but s4 was PEAK come on.

in the early seasons she is essentially the embodiment of the stay-at-home mum existence and she’s an interesting and assertive character in conversation with that but ultimately used a plot device. like the family life she represents conflicts with the meth trade that walt is getting involved in. obviously she has an inner life going on, i.e. her pregnancy and the arguments with marie about the shoplifting, but she more seems like an individualised portrait used for walt’s deception. she’s propping up the narrative where walt lies to himself about the reasons he does it and parallels his family life to his business life.

like this is not to diminish that side of her character at all (although it is irritating that we don’t get a female character that isn’t a family member or love interest be a larger part of the narrative until s5) but i feel it’s more of a setup not just for walt but her later arc.

s4 where she is actively involved in the money laundering, buying of the car wash etc. is so so dear to me as it’s such an interesting view into her naivety but her skills in doing this.

where krazy 8 said walter wasn’t suited to that life and then he turned out to be works in a similar to manner to how skyler adjusts to this sudden criminal enterprise that she is a major part of. she also turns out to be good and criminal-minded when she gets involved even if she is unsceptical that what walt (and her by extension) are doing is hurting people.

she doesn’t want to be involved because she’s afraid for walt but it’s undeniable that she is good at it. i would argue that this characterisation of her as so overly cautious and nearly paranoid is paralleled to gus’s cautiousness and care and is probably the most successful businessman that we see throughout breaking bad. certainly more successful if we are thinking in terms of caution and longevity. skyler. beyond this parallel she is already shown to be good with tax evasion in that whole ted plotline and then manages to get him off of prison after the irs discovered him. the irs. the people who are literally ruthless when it comes to that kind of stuff.

it creates such an interesting contrast with walt who likes that world not only because he is good at it but also because he likes the power it gives him over others. it makes him ‘feel alive’ blah blah blah etc etc. but skyler doesn’t enjoy this power. when ted is afraid of her she is devastated and feels the guilt of her actions come up on her all at once and this is the start of her unhappiness and fear of walt. like in s4 she’s not *happy* but she’s not necessarily unhappy either. there’s a whole ass scene of her bouncing holly on her knee while she’s looking up money laundering on wikipedia.

this all comes crashing down in s5 and becomes particularly obvious after the midpoint of the series. she’s practically a shell of herself. those looks between her and jesse at the car wash?? could not be more obvious kind of submission to walt’s gross authority from either of them.

(don’t get me talking about the parallels between skyler and jesse it will set me on a roll)

and again this makes sense for the changing dynamic between her involvement and the increased understanding of how violent the business the both of them are a part of is. her character is not less interesting but definitely less fun to watch. it’s not presented as cathartic suffering for the audience either which i think brba did a good job with. she’s not assertive anymore and i think that’s a great example of the effects it’s had on her. she’s lost a key component of her character. like i guess you could call her high-maintenance or difficult in s1 if you found her annoying and that’s an opinion but realistically i’d say she was just assertive in way that’s alienating for some of the misogynistic sides of the fanbase.

she regains some of this right at the very end where she confronts walter thinking he’s going to say he did it for the family again. it’s only a small thing in refusing to let walt walk all over her but at least it has some reclamation of her initial character!

this has been a ramble and i think i had other things to say but in conclusion:

skyler white is overhated

[nem0c]

me and a friend were having an argument- is patlabor cyberpunk? is lain?

excellent ask because it means I can complain about three things:

1. all transhumanist sf is cyberpunk now (actually New Weird stuff avoids this) This bothers me because there was a great deal of transhumanist fiction in the 60s and 70s which influenced cybperunk but often had a different imaginary wrt what new technologies would mean and how society could be organised. Examples: -Samuel Delany's Nova (one of Delany's least interesting so still better than most space opera) is one of the first sf novels to feature mind-machine interfaces and they exist specifically to end the social isolation of contemporary workers. As work is always social and mediated through machinery, they get to directly experience both their fellow workers and the thing they're working on - no longer a bit part of the process. -John Varley's Eight Worlds fiction in which mankind gets all sorts of future tech as a result of an alien invasion and promptly develops double welfare state plus libertarian socialism. Stories focus on the day-to-day problems of people in this post-scarcity society. Morphological freedom is a given, though this is the 70s so the exploration of this often gets about as far 'wouldn't it be cool to be a hot babe for a weekend?' -Whatever is going on with Cordwainer Smith -Also see Walter Jon Williams' Aristoi for an example of a cyberpunk author trying something different (transhumanist means-tested solar neoplatonist aristocracy wherein each aristocrat is a plural system of personalities)

2. Transhumanist film and videogames, due to big number investment and the necessity of mass-market returns, don't even copy the cool print cyberpunk works (exception for Caves of Qud because it's correctly copying Gamma World instead)

3. Post-cyberpunk wasn't/isn't what I want it to be. I agree we should question the humanist++ vision of transhumanism and the neo-noir story set-up of Corpos Are Evil (but provide actually good product and actually want to dismantle the nuclear family) but there is a street-level resistance composed of your stupidest speed dealer friend who's totally going to make it big this time. However, post-cyberpunk authors mostly have californian tech investor brain disease and were writing in the late 90s/early 00s and I can't really take 'silicon valley will save us, billions must prosper' seriously in 2024.

To answer your actual questions, genre is whatever is useful to discussion and I'm willing to call Lain and Patlabor 2 cybperpunk because of their thematic concerns with conspiracies, technological reimagining of the human, the breakdown of certainties in a world inundated with simulation, and a post-cold war post-nation state public/private hell co-operation politics.

What makes Patlabor 2 different is its complete rejection of -punk aesthetics and its associated political commitments. This is an anime about interdepartmental politics and middle-aged public servants rooting through paperwork, and there's no solid moral conflict. Much as in GitS:SAC 2nd, the fight is between the status quo and a slide into authoritarianism. It's barely even a mecha anime and Noa's repeated statements that she 'doesn't need it any more' and 'doesn't want to be remembered as the robo crazy chick' reinforces this.

Lain is a religious text and an initiation into a way of perception that only people who have been shut-in NEETs will understand. Lain is just like me frfr. Lain knows that the way out is through.

[aemiron-main]

Sorry if this is an obvious question but as I’m reading more and more Henry/Edward posts the more confused I get about the currant timeline (I know I’m probably supposed to be but STILL), you might’ve established this in a post you’ve already made- and if you have feel free to just link it and not re-explain everything

So like after the events of Edward being sent to dimension x after the massacre- and he “turns” into Vecna (since we’ve established Vecna=Edward and not Henry) what happens to Henry-? Maybe this is an obvious question sorry but like

Since Vecna isn’t Henry- where does he go???

WHERE IS HE??

Like is he just mentally not there anymore or is he at least somewhat Vecna?

MAYBE THIS IS AN UNANSWERED THING THAT ISNT CLEAR BUT IF THERE IS A “CLEAR” ANSWER/What you personally think happened I wanna know! You’re very much big brain 🙏

AND SRRY AGAIN IF THIS IS RLLY OBVIOUS MY BRAIN HAS TAKEN IN SM INFO TODAY LMAO

HELLOOO!! No worries at all!! :DD It’s a great question!

So, the thing is, as far as the “current timeline” goes, we don’t always know what timeline we’re in- after all, the Henry and Edward papers seem to have somehow ended up in the same timeline, as Robin and Nancy read both of them.

Which, in this post, I assumed that the Creel house with the red wallpaper was Henry’s house/the Hawkins gang was in Henry’s timeline in those scenes because that seemed to be the timeline where we got the scene of Victor mentioning Henry by name- however, this is just my best guess, because there’s evidence in some of the papers to indicate that Victor was also taken in by Hawkins lab and had his brain fried similarly to Terry, and he ALSO has a bizarre number of parallels to El’s NINA scenes- so, point is, Victor might not be remembering the right boy, there’s a chance he could be Edward’s father, and had his brain messed with & ended up thinking his son’s name was Henry instead, OR there’s the chance that Victor himself ended up in the wrong timeline.

Especially considering Fringe being a confirmed source of inspiration for ST versus Victor’s constant parallels to Walter Bishop from Fringe- Walter, who raised the “wrong” son/raised the alternate timeline version of his son because his original son from his actual timeline had died.

I’m not saying either of those things re: Victor are true for certain, he still could very well just be Henry’s dad, and it could be as simple as that- but the point I’m making with this is that we don’t know for sure- and because we don’t know things like this for sure, we can’t always know what timeline we’re being shown in the show- because going back to that Creel house wallpaper example from this post, we ARE being shown two different timelines, even if we don’t know for sure which timeline is which.

So, this subtle way of showing two different timelines/ST’s tendency to splice together clips of different timelines & present those clips as if theyre part of one continuous timeline (when in reality it’s clips from multiple timelines but together) makes it really difficult to figure out which timeline we’re seeing in a given scene.

So, my main point here is that there isn’t really a “current” timeline- because we’ve already seen clips in S4 from multiple timelines, so we don’t know what other scenes in the show could be from the Edward timeline vs the Henry timeline.

But anyway, setting that aside, let’s get into your main question- what happened to Henry?

It’s a fantastic question, hell, it’s one of MY biggest questions LMAO, because as far as what happened to Henry goes, we don’t know for sure- but we do have some ideas.

One of the main ideas is that Henry is in another NINA tank, hooked up to the NINA system, hence why he seems to be so “present,” in NINA, and seems to be aware of the simulation.

I made this post about the parallels between The Evil Within and Stranger Things, and the STEM System versus NINA, and Ruvik versus Henward, and long story short, there’s a ton of parallels in that post that support the idea of Henry being in a NINA tank/in the simulation SOMEHOW, even if he’s not in a tank.

And there’s also the fact that there’s BTS photos of a white NINA tank suit for Henward-

-which, this indicates that a.) Henry was very very likely NINA’d at SOME point, and b.) the NINA technology predates El- after all, NINA is just the name of this specific project, so who knows what other projects this NINA technology has been used on (especially considering the Project One stuff hidden in the code of the TFS website, in addition to Brenner’s Project Talisman footage/files)!

And there’s also Brenner’s line about how El could get “lost in the darkness,” if they go through NINA too quickly, versus Brenner later saying that he believed Henry was “hiding in the darkness,”- so, again, I wonder if Henry ended up in the void/as part of the simulation/if the NINA simulation behaves almost like a pocket realm/if it’s similar to Vecna’s mindlair in the sense that it’s actually in the void/in the “darkness” (look at how Vecna’s mindlair dissolves into the void), especially considering what I talked about in this post re: a “backdoor” into Vecna’s mind lair versus a “backdoor” in the context of computer viruses, versus the NINA computer program.

I’m not saying that the NINA simulation world & the mindlair are the same place, as the mindlair is in Vecna’s mind, but if we think of the void as this infinite place that transcends space and time, then the mindlair and the simulation world could both be in the the void, but still not be the same place.

And hell, if the NINA simulation IS Henry’s mind somehow, especially considering that in The Evil Within, the STEM simulation is Ruvik’s mind, then is Henry lost/hiding in his own mind?

And hence the whole “NINA and getting lost in the darkness” thing versus Vecna’s mindlair being in the void, because if NINA is Henry’s equivalent of a mindlair (more like a mind prison), then it would explain that NINA-void connection, because Vecna’s mindlair has already established that peoples’ mind places dissolve into the void/seemingly exist in the void in SOME way.

SO, ANYWAY, YES!! This is very much an unanswered thing, and it’s something I’m really curious about, especially considering all of the weird simulation vibes with TFS + the stuff that points to TFS not actually taking place in the 50s, but instead, the 70s- stuff like the anachronistic song references, and the fact that Rachel, Nevada (the town that Henry’s supposedly from in TFS) didn’t even exist until 1978.

AND THANK YOU AWGWHWHDH <<333

Personally, I think he’s stuck in the NINA simulation and/or the void somehow, at least mentally (which then brings up his physical body- is his physical body in a tank, or is it somewhere else? Does he even HAVE a physical body anymore? After all, in The Evil Within, Ruvik’s body was destroyed except for his brain, which then serves as the basis for the STEM system- did something similar happen with Henry and NINA? And/or *Patty* and NINA, especially considering all of Argyle’s stuff re: NINA being a “small woman,” versus Patty being a small woman, but I’m getting off topic LMAO), and I won’t be surprised if Henry’s in a tank/facility that’s underneath Hawkins Lab.

And to add one final bit of confusion for you re: Henry, not only do we not know where Henry went, but we also don’t really know who Henry IS- specifically when it comes to The First Shadow, there’s a BUNCH of weirdness re: “who is Henry Creel?”

Like, not only is the question “who is Henry Creel?” stated by Walter in the beginning of the play, but a.) Alice says that Henry is “not Henry,” during one of the Attic scenes, and b.) TFS Henry is 14 in 1959, whereas in-show Henry was 12 in 1959, and c.) The 7 year old Henry we see in the flashback/birthday video footage in TFS looks NOTHING like TFS Henry or in-show Henry! He’s got DARK brown, almost black hair, he’s straight up a different kid.

And so, that also brings me to something I mentioned on here the other day- not only do we have all of that weirdness re: 7 year old Henry and TFS Henry, but also, isn’t it weird that the only sources that mention Henry Creel in-show are a.) a conspiracy newspaper, the Weekly Watcher, and b.) Victor Creel, who very likely had his brain scrambled by the lab?

Like, EDWARD’s the guy whose name shows up in the actual non-conspiracy paper, and everything happened to Edward first compared to Henry (ie, Edward moved to Hawkins two years before Henry did, Edward’s Creel murders happened a few days before Henry’s murders, etc), so was Henry Creel ever actually real? Or is he the result of some sort of lab meddling re: timelines and experiments?

Did Henry ever really exist?

I wish I knew for sure!

(AND OMG THATS SO FAIR LMAO ITS A GREAT QUESTION NO WORRIES!!! I HOPE THIS HELPS!! )

[alwayschasingrainbows]

Tangled Web Readalong Chapter 1.7.

another long post, so sorry about it, but I have so many thoughts about one, incredibly short paragraph...:

"Peter, being notoriously and incurably left-handed, had not been accepted for overseas service." (Tangled Web).

It appears that Peter Penhallow did not fight on the front lines of World War I. Didn't he enlist in the infantry after being rejected for overseas service? Was he unable to take part in the fight because he was left-handed? I haven't heard about such cases of exclusion from combat, but maybe one of you has such knowledge?

By the way, in this novel World War I is presented in a very negative light, which is surprising in Montgomery's novels. You can see how much her bitterness has grown over the years. In Rilla of Ingleside, the war is presented as a fight for a better world: bloody, yes, but glorious nonetheless. The soldiers returned wounded and aged, but in the glow of the glory of sacrifice for a better cause.

In Tangled Web, however, we see a completely different face of war: Naomi's husband does not recognize her and does not love her as before; Donna and Virginia lose their husbands, and their grief is shown in a mocking way; one of the men dies of pneumonia before he even has a chance to leave a training camp; the other experiences a "moment of glory", but it is described ironically and without due respect.

It seems to me that Montgomery no longer believes in fighting for a better world.

In Rilla, war is presented as consuming many lives, tragic, but in a way also... glorious and not without meaning. Pacifists are portrayed as ridiculous and harmful.

In Tangled Web, however, so far none of the main characters has commented on the war as a "great victory" or "a glorious fight for the homeland." In fact, it seems that none of the characters whose adventures we have seen so far took part in it (aside from Naomi's husband).

We know absolutely nothing about Hugh's reasons not to join (or did he?). Peter did not- although given his temperament and adventurous spirit he ought to have been the first to enlist. Left-handedness seems like Maud's hastily concocted explanation. Maybe Maud believed that war robs people of everything - including their energy and love for living on the edge? Maybe she didn't want Peter to stop being Peter?

I wonder how the war might affect the characters in other of Montgomery's books. Would Barney be able to love forests and write books about them if he had to fight for survival for four years? Would Teddy be able to paint if he had to come face to face with another man - perhaps a writer, a doctor, a father - and had to choose between his life and that man's? Or Walter, with his love of beauty - would he have been able to write poetry if he had survived?

One might say that Andrew Stuart continued to live, got married and started a family. True. But he himself claimed that the war aged him ten years. We don't know the trauma he underwent. Perhaps his too quick marriage to Robin, his inability to be a good husband to his young wife and a good father to his newborn baby was the result of war trauma? Who knows what was left of Andrew-of-the-years-before in Andrew who returned in 1918?

In her later novels, I think Maud doesn't specifically mention the war in relation to her characters (except Andrew). She even creates worlds in which there is no mention of war… Emily's Quest's ending, for example never mentions the war even though it should have happened there, especially as something about the war is mentioned in Emily Climbs: "one stormy night in a February of the olden years before the world turned upside down."

Similarly, there is no mention of the war in The Blue Castle (IWW) or Mistress Pat (IIWW) - at least as far as I remember - if I am mistaken, please correct me :).

I find it so interesting how Maud's change of heart is portrayed in her novels.