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roguestarsailor · 4 years ago

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thoughts on a court of mist and fury *spoilers*

***** lots of spoilers folks *****

- MY GIRL FEYRE IS READING!! SHES READING LIKE REGULARLY AND CASUALLY IM SO PROUD

- RHYSAND MY LOVE I TAKE BACK ALL THE BAD THINGS I SAID IN BOOK ONE AND YOU ARE A BABY THAT NEEDS TO BE LOVED AND PROTECTED AND DESERVE PEACE AND QUIET AND MORE LOVE

- tamlin needs therapy like pronto; we dont stan a unsupportive partner and partner who is unwilling to share pain!! CANCEL TAMLIN 2020

- rhys popping up during the wedding scene was *chef’s kiss* and i noticed that he didn’t “claim” her as he said he would for like three months after everything. i suspect he was being a good person and literally letting her live her life. also for loving someone, tamlin was super chill and just kind of let her go??? idk i thought there would be more of a fight??? when feyre was literally like why are your claws retracting man?? fight for me??? hello??? but then again rhys is definitely more powerful than tamlin and probs some unspoken laws and such between high lords i guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ anyways tamlin aint shit

- page 296-298! fucken shook me to my core. that self awareness, that confrontation, she identified the core of everything and it was such a turning point and im just so proud of her!!! She's recognizing her traumas and is healing!!!!!!!!!!

- yeah i immediately ship cassian and nesta; i hope she fucks shit up in the next book 😀 😀 😀 😀

- maybe az and mor are truly the slowest of slow burns ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

- i pictured pollution from good omens as how Amren is suppose to look like

- rhys is such a strong leader and im just -- baby deserves all the love. He's really good at plotting. He really made feyre learn all these things so they can nurture their love but also be a strategic advantage its interesting that even tho theres love there he still treats her like a weapon

- the joy in his rhys eyes when they winnowed into his regular ass town house that feels super lived in. and his friends banging on the door like he isn’t the feared night court high lord that he is. that was so refreshing to see that hes a regular person and not that high lord man who lives in a near empty mansion. he puts on a mask for everyone but he himself is just a regular fae.

- reading about the peace that velaris was able to live through was beautiful. i imagined a city like san francisco with the hills and views of the ocean but kind of like the peace found in super small towns or cities in asia; maybe even some european cities (which is prob where this location is inspired by but i haven’t visited many euro cities). the scenes of ppl dining out, making art and music and just chilling is so lovely esp given our current pandemic. art is so treasured there and im like thats the epitome of a great society isn’t it? being able to do things because you just can without the pain of financial insecurity, civil unrest, etc. i definitely would love and die and for a society like that. its just so wonderful. i was filled w happiness while reading those scenes. :)

- rhys and his inner circle taking feyre out into the town and just being casual. nobody treats them like theyre royalty or anything special. theyre just a regular group of friends who enjoy hanging out. its super nice and nostalgia inducing esp during this pandemic when friends are so far away and not like it used to be.

- when rhys immediately saw how under weight and dead freye looked when she was in spring court -- AND IT WAS THE FIRST THING HE SAID TO HER WHEN HE SAW HER THROUGH THE DOOR WHILE TAMLIN DIDNT FUCKEN NOTICE

- i also take back my frustrations in book 1 when freye always wondering around the grounds in spring court esp during calanmai. i thought it was because the author needed to move the story forward but its just freye. she doesnt sit still and now that shes w rhys, we are seeing soooooo many things about prythian and thats beautiful. tamlin was truly a hinderance huh

- rhys sent her music when she was in the cell in Under The Mountain which was found in velaris. maybe he wasnt risking a lot but he just showed her a glimpse of the forbidden world right under aramantha’s nose holy shit he saved her from destruction!

- when rhys had his nightmare and feyre came to comfort him and kissed him on the cheeks and gave him such tenderness made my heart sing~

- rhys is literally opposite of tamlin is soooo many ways. RHYS DID THINGS OUT OF LOVE, WHILE TAMLIN DID THINGS FOR LOVE. everything from how rhys made sure feyre can grow into who she is meant to be, to how he introduces her to his friends and how he interacts w everyone in his court, how he handles pain, everything is so different than tamlin. tamlin feels pain and just bulldoze over things, doesn’t think about how his actions are hurting others even as he is hurting. he doesn’t talk, he doesn’t share, he doesn’t try to get himself or feyre out of this misery and just sees threats everywhere and hits them. he was also supper passive honestly. no doubt hes riddled w guilt and grief but can’t figure out how to handle it so he uses feyre as his crutch where if he can “save” her he will be free smh

- rhys PAYS feyre!! HE GAVE HER FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE AND RESPECT FOR HER WORK!! THE INDEPENDENCE THAT TAMLIN DIDNT FUCKEN GIVE.

- THOSE NOTES THEY SEND TO EACH OTHER SINCE FREYE CAN READ AND WRITE NOW

- Ianthe was sus from the beginning!! i knew it!! although i did bet she was gonna sleep w tamlin on the side. But she's a lot worst so we don't like her either

- the throne room scene was steamy af this time its fine because there was ~consent~ and also because we see the dynamic and growth between the two and how they work together. this was great although I was kind of like pls get a room tho

- RHYS SMILING!!! FEYRE AND RHYS LAUGHING TOGETHER UGH I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

- THEY ARE MATES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FEYRE AND RHYS FOUND EACH OTHER AND HAD SO MANY SHARED TRAUMAS AND WORKED IT OUT TOGETHER AND GREW TOGETHER AND LEARNED ABOUT EACH OTHERS QUIRKS AND ITS JUST LOVE IN ITS PUREST FORM UGH THAT SCENE WHERE RHYS WAS CRYING AND FEYRE HEATED UP FOOD FOR THE BABY AHH MY HEARTTTTT MY WHOLE ENTIRE HEARTTTTTT IS BURSTING WITH LOVEEEEEE

- LUCIEN AND ELAINE HOLY FUCK WHAT A LEFT FIELDER i hope this is the push that will propel lucien to defy tamlin. going back to the contrast between how tamlin vs his court and rhys vs his court, rhys has a group of unwavering loyal friends and are treated equally esp letting them joke around so much and it feels like a casual group of friends hanging out. tamlin has just as much loyalty from lucien but theres still a power structure that tamlin maintains. luciens words doesn’t have much weight whereas rhys’s friends do. both tamlin and rhys have so much power and sway and similarity in traumas and tragedy but both execute things completely differently. tamlin only wants to upload what he is familiar with, maybe what he thinks his father wants whereas rhys actively tries to think of something better, to change the system regardless of how hard it is.

- tamlin you dumbass. He didn't learn from amarantha. He again let his pride fuck over a bunch of other ppl. He shat on amarantha and fucked over his court. Now he fucked the rest of prythian and human world by bargaining w the king. Smh goodbye tamlin

- I straight up knew the queens were bad!!! I knew they had to be plotting something. The sixth is "ill" my ass.

- LADY OF THE NIGHT COURT LETS GO FEYRE AND WOOWW WE STAN A MAN BREAKING TRADITIONS AND SUPPORTING EQUALITY

- when hybern was destroying velaris. I WAS GONNA THROW HANDS BRO. I'm glad we saw the extend of how powerful feyre could be and how she was clever and we can really see how she's completely different from before. She has bite and fight in her and it's so refreshing!

- how about we let az and cassian live in peace. Those boys had to deal w the blunt of literally everything. from being the only shield in valeris to poison/hurt wings against the king, just beat up all the time 🥺

- suriel is their version of a wikipedia

I read all 600 damn pages in like 2.5 days and I was loving it the entire time! My heart sored when feyre and Rhys were getting close and starting to break down their walls and really connect. This was a truly good enemies to lovers, slow burn tale and the drama is so great. There were good stakes that changes a character and their behavior and a good balance of action and excitement but at the same time so many little moments that let u see the character and how they interact w each other and the world. a lot of big plot moments, slice of life moments, a bit of romance and comedy. overall, an amazing book but super long. thus far this is my favorite book and im hoping the rest of the books can be just as charming and lovely but not too heart breaking. i hope rhys and feyre makes it. i cannot predict what to expect in the other books in the series (isn’t there gonna be 8 books total???)

#amandathoughts #bookthoughts #acotar #acomaf #a court of mist and fury #a court of thorns and roses #book 2 #sarah j maas #acomaf thoughts #i said a lot because this book had so much content #acotr #amandabookthoughts #feyre #rhysand #feyre archeron #feyre x rhysand

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orihime00sama · 5 years ago

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Tobitate! Hanafuda - Fate/Prototype Route

Hello!

This is a translation of the Prototype route of the Toraburu Hanafuda Travel Journal game included in the PS Vita version of Realta Nua, Team “Miss Ayaka and her Three Knights” AKA the Otome route.

This is my first time translating something like this and I’m far from being good at Japanese, so there’s a bunch of lines I’m not sure about. If you have any suggestion or correction, please let me know. I’ll also be linking the translations to the videos in case you want to check out the original (or just hear the voices).

——————

Sajou Residence - Part 1

Ayaka: Hello, everyone. To those of you who are new, nice to meet you. I’m Ayaka Sajou. It’s a long story, but I’m a Master in the Holy Grail War. My Master’s Degree is the Seventh. It’s the lowest, the weakest. Honestly, I want to quit right now, but the circumstances won’t let me. By the way, I don’t have any relatives. I lost my Dad in the previous Holy Grail War, and my elder sister who was one of the previous Masters is… well.

Saber: Ayaka, you didn’t check the mailbox yet, right? I’ll go do it. After that, let’s have some tea.

Ayaka: This is Saber. The first Servant I summoned and made a contract with. He’s the ideal good young man any girl thinks of, in other words, someone like Prince Charming[1]. He’s so perfect that it makes me feel uncomfortable. Also, he’s a bit of an airhead.

Lancer: Osu, good morning~. Oh, the fridge’s got a lotta ham, ain’t it. And there’s sliced bread and eggs and… All that kinda stuff, huh.

Ayaka: That’s Lancer. In the past, he was our enemy but now he’s a barbarian who lodges in our house and raids our fridge without permission. He may be a borderline trespasser, but he’s helped us out many times, so I’ve got no choice but to let him do it. Give and take, give and take. Besides… if you ignore his crude side, he’s the easiest to understand.

Lancer: Oh, you’ve got a serious face early in the morning, Missy. Back to your usual criticisms? Keep your self-hatred in moderation, ‘kay?

Ayaka: I don’t want to hear that from someone who rummages through our fridge with no warnings. Leave me alone. Lancer, are you off today?

Lancer: Ah, I’ve got no plans for today. I’ll tend to the Missy’s garden, or maybe play with the dogs.

Saber: Unfortunately, tending to the garden is my job. It is not your turn to act. Why don’t you get back to your original sheath, Lancer?

Lancer: I’ve been free from the start. But since the Missy asked me to guard[2] her, I gotta do my job. There’s still some unscrupulous bunch left around. Like, for example, a wolf[3] in prince’s clothing.

Saber: Bold of you to say that. Now then, is it an honour or an insult to be treated as a wolf by a wild dog? What do you think, Ayaka?

Ayaka: I don’t know! More importantly, what’s that envelope? There’s two of them.

Saber: Ah, it looks like they were delivered this morning. Here you go.

Ayaka: Err, let me see… “Are you familiar with the hot spring that can make any wish come true? Here is the oldest and best hot spot in Fuyuki City －However, only the wishes of the first group will come true. Please be ready.” … So it says. What is this, are they joking?

Lancer: Incredible… Is it an invitation to a Holy Grail War from another place? What, Holy Grail Wars can happen anywhere?

Saber: Doesn’t it have different rules from ours? Here, Ayaka, another one.

Ayaka: … This is a memo and … a ticket for the bullet train? Let’s see… “I’ll be waiting for you at the Fuyuki Holy Grail Hot Spring ♥" … They’re totally looking down on us.

Saber: So, the Fuyuki Holy Grail is actually a hot spring. Ours was a hellish cauldron, so I guess they’re not similar.

Lancer: A hot spring, huh, not bad at all. But well, this is up to you, Missy. What will you do? The other side even sent an invitation to make sure you’d go. Will you jump in?

Ayaka: … That… going by my life plans, I don’t want to go but… (Going by my feelings, it made me mad… Besides, if that hot spring that makes wishes come true is real, then…)

Archer: I have heard the whole story!

Ayaka: Archer!? Where did you get in from?

Archer: Obviously, from the window! Don’t worry about the little details, Ayaka! Else your cheek lines, lovely and beautiful as a flamingo, will fall.

Lancer: Is that a compliment? That’s a compliment, right?

Saber: What have you come here for, Archer? As you can see, we’re in the middle of a morning reunion. If you’ve come here to settle things, come back through the front door one hour later.

Archer: Hah, you fools. Are you even Heroic Spirits, those proclaimed to have no match on the earth? From the very beginning, we are those who bloomed on the battlefield. We respond to challenges, trample down our enemies, and gather treasures.

Archer: I don’t know about a war someplace else, but if it is a Holy Grail War, then it’s a given that Heroic Spirits would assemble. How can I call myself the original Heroic Spirit, the Senpai of Holy Grail Wars, if I don’t respond to this challenge!?

Ayaka: ………………

Saber: Hmph. As usual, you are a very hot-blooded man. If you want to fight, feel free to do it on your own. I’m against exposing Ayaka to danger.

Lancer: But being overprotective is also something to think about. The Missy these days isn’t as frail as you think, Saber. Or what? Are you holing up at home so you can keep her to yourself?

Saber: Wha－ I, I don’t have such impure thoughts often.

Ayaka: Let’s go! Saber, I’m going to this Holy Grail Hot Spring. Get prepared.

Saber: Ayaka!? Hah, it was already too late the moment you decided it. It can’t be helped, I’m not on board with this but I’ll accompany you.

Lancer: Missy, do you need your long weapon? If you need it, I’ll lend it to you.

Ayaka: Of course, come with us, Lancer. And you too, Archer. The four of us will conquer Fuyuki City.

Archer: Now you’re talking! As expected from my princess, you know the time to fight.

Ayaka: We’ll depart in 20 minutes. I have to go gather the bird feathers in the yard, so wait until then.

(She runs off)

Saber: Now you’ve done it, Archer. You’re always leading Ayaka down the bad path.

Archer: Good or bad is for Ayaka to judge. You cannot blame me. More importantly… Hey, lend me your ears. I have an idea.

Saber: ?

Lancer: Hn?

Archer: Hot springs are this land’s highest form of leisure. I’ve heard that they are summer resorts where lovers and married couples stay in. How about it? The one who does best in this expedition will get to be in the same room as Ayaka.

Archer: If it is a reward for the battle, even Ayaka who always has her guard up cannot oppose to it. And after your minds and bodies relax in a famous hot spring, the flower of romance will bloom.

Saber: …

Lancer: Incredible… Wait, this is all in your head, right? Didn’t you fail with terrible women?

Archer: It is unavoidable. To debauch is a king’s duty. I have the obligation of consuming fruit and flesh.

Archer: However, what I truly cherish is the one single flower. I’ve gotten tired of rotten meat and juice. Now, what will you do, Saber, Lancer? Will you take a knight’s oath?

Lancer: No, so we’re keeping it a secret from the Missy?

Saber: Okay, I will take it. The one who does best will share a room with Ayaka, right?

Lancer: You’re on board with this!?

Saber: Archer’s proposal makes sense. This is something I never imagined even in my dreams, but now I’ll work together with this man.

Lancer: Good grief… It can’t be helped, I’m on board. It’s a principle to have the feast in front of you, after all.

Archer: HAHAHAHA, how bold, wild dog! Now then, let us duel fair and square, with sharing Ayaka’s room as stake!

Ayaka: Sorry to keep you waiting. What are you four doing? Did you always get along like this?

Saber: N-no, we were just discussing something. Don’t worry about. Once the battle is over, I’ll tell you everything.

Ayaka: In that case, it’s fine, I guess… Well then, let’s go. I don’t know about the Fuyuki Holy Grail War, but let’s show them a difference in history!

(Stage 1 – Vs Team Tokiomi)

Victory Quote:

Archer (Prototype): You fools! You mediocre Heroic Spirits shouldn’t stand before me! Especially you, that golden one over there. Wearing a full body golden armour, there are limits to how inelegant you can be! In that case, I shall take it.

[1] Prince on a white horse

[2] Likely referring to how Lancer becomes her Servant after she lost Saber (and he lost Misaya)

[3] the actual word used was “Okuriōkami” (送り狼) which apparently is a term for “a ‘gentleman’ who escorts a woman home, only to make a pass at her”.

—————–

Fuyuki – Emiya Residence - Part 2

Saber: Ayaka, how about we have lunch here? This mansion is well-maintained, and perfect for resting. Besides, I feel a strange affinity to it. Especially to that storehouse. It must be a renown work of architecture, there’s no mistaking it.

Lancer: I’m more interested on the inside of the house. Like, a surprise attack from the ceiling of the living room. I wonder why Japanese-style houses are so full of openings.

Archer: I am interested in that wall. It may be inferior to skyscrapers, but it has quite the charm to it. Well now, let’s go climb it.

Ayaka: It’s embarrassing, so please don’t wander around too much. What are you, middle schoolers on a field trip!?

Saber: My apologies, that was rude. Indeed, it’s as you say. Even if they are our enemies, we should act in moderation. It’s unfortunate but let’s refrain from lunching. But you’re not taking a break, right? Are you tired, Ayaka?

Ayaka: U-Uh-huh. I’m getting used to the Hanafuda duels but… Isn’t this city weird? Everyone walking around has empty eyes like a dead fish. Could it be a characteristic of this provincial city? Look, there’s a harbour nearby, right? Like an octopus monster came from the sea and turned all humans into its familiars.

Saber: That’s “something like a summon “. You still have that hobby of reading gloomy books like always, Ayaka. Haha.

Ayaka: Don’t call them gloomy! Who cares about my hobbies? We are talking about the dead fish eyes! Look, right there!

Kiritsugu: *chewing*

Saber: …. T-that… His eyes really are empty…

Ayaka: Looks like he didn’t notice us… He’s just been there in a hiding spot, eating from a plastic piece.

Kiritsugu: *chewing* … This is Iri’s homemade cooking. I can eat it. Of course I’ll eat it. Even if it’s onigiri that changed like depleted uranium. *chewing* Ah, I’m happy… Shit, I’m so happy that I even started crying.

Ayaka: It’s better if we leave him alone. He’s gross.

Saber, I know you made this lunch, but let’s leave. I’m sorry, but let’s have it later… Saber!?

Artoria: *chewing* It has a nostalgic, wild taste from somewhere but it’s not bad. Ah, could you give me some tea, lady over there? I’m holding the turkey with both hands, so my hands are busy.

Ayaka: S-S-Saber turned into a girl!? W-what’s going on!?

Saber: Ouch… To suddenly strike my head from behind, that’s unbecoming of the chivalry code… Wait, who are you!?

Artoria: Hmph, from what I see, you are a naïve man, Pendragon. While you collapsed, I took your delicious lunch!

Ayaka: Even if you play it cool, you already ruined it! Saber, who is this? Could she be your younger sister?

Saber: That’s what I want to know! Who on earth are you!? If you are a knight even in the slightest, then name yourself!

Artoria: Hmph, you say “even in the slightest” after I got you, you make me laugh. I am both your shadow and a possibility of your future. *chewing* Draw your sword, Holy Sword Wielder. Show me how much power the original wields.

Saber: … I wonder what’s this feeling of disappointment I never felt before… However, as you can see, we are both of the Saber Class. As an opponent, there is nothing lacking about you. Lancer, Archer, don’t interfe—re!?

Lancer: Oouaahh, what’s up with this hawk!? Don’t pull my feather accessory! It’s not from your nest!

Archer: Aaargh, step back, Animose! Why are there gorillas around the wall!? And you, Roland, don’t swing me around! Don’t swing me around!

Irisviel: Ufufufufu, go get them, wire animals! Flying Guillotine (Hawk’s Name) on the tights-less Lancer! Gattling Brothers (Gorillas’ Name) on the nudist Archer!

Irisviel: If you’re going to make them, gorillas really are the way to go! Primitive power is really different!

Kiritsugu: Iri… What on earth happened? … No, I have to observe this place. I’ve got to find out the reason why the two of us were in a hole!

Irisviel: Ufufu, hahahahaha! Anyone who invades my Sweet Home with Kiritsugu won’t be forgiven! Prepare yourselves, I’ll whip you to the skin of the butt and then throw you out penniless!

Ayaka: And over here, an incredible beauty is getting drunk! What on earth is going on in this city!?

(Stage 2 – Vs Team Kiritsugu)

Victory Quote:

Ayaka: We went a bit overboard… but no matter how you put it, those guys were weird… What’s going on with this city’s Holy Grail?

—————–

Part 3

Fuyuki/Prototype Grail Pit - Part 3

Ayaka: Is this… Fuyuki’s Holy Grail Hot Springs? Rather than a hot spring, this…

Lancer: It looks exactly like our Greater Grail. Did we get tricked?

Archer: No, we probably just took the wrong path. My intuition tells me that if we had gone up on that last crossroad, we’d get to the hot spring.

Ayaka: Is that so? Archer’s got an amazing nose for money and treasures, so I think it might be true… but the ticket says that it should be around here.

Archer: Let me see that… Hoh, I see, so that’s what’s going on. The way is indeed correct. However, it is not meant for us! Saber, this concerns only you!

Saber: What? Why only me?

Archer: FUHAHAHAHA, you still don’t understand, you oaf? This ticket wasn’t sent to Ayaka! It is a love letter overflowing with love that pinpointed you!

Saber: Wha-what!? Don’t tell me… Then, the one waiting for me here is…!

Manaka: SABER!! You’ve finally arrived!

Saber: !!!

Manaka: Jeez, your face turned so pale. You’re so happy that your face went stiff…Saber really is my prince! I love you! I love you so much to the point I’d sacrifice every life in this planet, Saber!

Lancer: Well, we’re off then. Hang in there, ladykiller.

Archer: Fu, so you’re dropping out alone. Time to pay the piper[1], Saber.

Ayaka: ………

Manaka Sajou. My sister, six years my elder. She’s Saber’s former Master who, in the previous Holy Grail War, advanced through almost invincible. I don’t like to talk about her so I’ll spare you the details, but if I had to describe her, I’d say she’s a super devilish genius who wouldn’t die even if you killed her.

Manaka: Now, come over here, Saber. I prepared a special bath just for you. Oh, unless you’d rather have dinner first? Or just like last time in front of the Holy Grail, YOU’LL • HAVE • ME?

Ayaka: Huh, this is the first time I’ve heard about this, Saber. So something happened between you and my Big Sister. In front of the Greater Grail, too?

Saber: T-this is a misunderstanding! What happened was that I impaled (with the Holy Sword) a mad Manaka from behind with a thud!

Ayaka: From behind… with a thud… for real!?

Manaka: Uh-huh, that’s right♥! That passionate way, it felt like the world froze for a moment… That’s why… I’ll do the same to you, Saber. Goes without saying, I’ll do it from behind. Leaving no gaps, every nook and cranny of your body. Just like a large-flowered flower. No, like the stars of the shinning sky. Receive my tentacles until you’re all shiny and slippery♥!

Saber: That’s no good, Manaka. It’s true that I betrayed you twice. The first time when I backstabbed you. The second time when I made a contract with Ayaka. So, I’m prepared to have you seek revenge.

Ayaka: Saber…

Saber: But, now let’s remember words of love that are more heroine-like. A girl your age shouldn’t say things like “receive my tentacles"⋆.

Lancer & Ayaka: Urk…!

Manaka: Saber…! Yes, from now on I’ll be more careful! How about the lovely “Manaka Slaughter Whips”?

Ayaka: I’ve been thinking about it since back then, but could it be that you actually are a perfect match for Big Sister, Saber?

Lancer: Well, they’re both airheads, after all. Maybe they could work out as lovebirds[2].

Manaka: That’s right, you people I don’t know. Saber and I are fated lovers. I won’t forgive you if you get in our way. Or rather, I don’t need you. I’ll burn you all on the Greater Grail later.

Ayaka: ….! Don’t tell me, the townspeople looking dead inside was your doing, Big Sister?

Manaka: Yes. Since I had spare time waiting for Saber to come, I went and took over Fuyuki City. After all, in a wedding ceremony, the more the merrier, right? Of course, right after that, I’ll turn everyone into zombies.

Ayaka: … I really can’t let her do as she pleases… I feel bad for her, but just by being here she’s evil. Saber, Lancer, Archer, let’s go! This time for sure, I’ll seal my relative’s disgrace!

Manaka: Fufufu, very well. Welcome, Miss Obstruction. I’ll play with you to kill my bore— Eh? Relative? You? Such a plain character?

Ayaka: Oh geez, you really couldn’t tell…! Just how self-centered are you, Big Sister?

(Stage 3 – Vs Manaka)

Defeat Quote:

Manaka: Ahh, you finally came back to my hands, Saber! First, let’s have some tea, then an afternoon nap. I have so much I want to talk about with you!

Victory Quote:

Ayaka: Thanks for helping me, everyone. I couldn’t have won alon— eh? The Hot Spring as the reward? Right after this? Well, it can’t be helped if it’s a reward but… I have a bad feeling about this…

[1] Just adding this here because this was actually my first time hearing this idiom:

to pay expenses for something, and thus be in a position to be in control;

to pay a monetary or other debt or experience unfavourable consequences, especially when the payment or consequences are inevitable or a result of something one has enjoyed.

[2] Baka couple

—————-

Fuyuki Holy Grail Hot Springs - Part 4 - Ending

Ayaka: And so, after we safely defeated Big Sister, put her to sleep with a sleeping pill, coffin-packed and delivered her to the Church… we finally arrived at the Hot Spring, but…

Ayaka: No way, mixed bathing!?

Lancer: Oh, this is something you don’t see often these days. The guy who made this was really smart.

Saber: Yes, this is what they call gender equality. By the way, Lancer, how about taking at least a towel? It’s minimal manners to wrap it around your waist.

Lancer: My bad. It’s been so long that I’ve forgotten. What about you, swimsuits are forbidden, y’know? We’re both men, so there’s nothing to hide, right?

Saber: Of course, I didn’t bring such a boorish thing. Having a swimsuit is desecrating the hot springs. Isn’t that right, Ayaka?

Ayaka: Argh, you guys— No, Lancer is one thing, but Saber! This is a mixed bath, are you okay with this!? Could it be you don’t understand the meaning of mixed bath?

Saber: I do. It’s a public bath without a men’s bath and a women’s bath. I’ve heard that this culture has been familiar to Japan since the Edo period.

Lancer: Yeah. Well then, I’m going ahead to the dressing room. You should hurry too, Missy. You promised that the reward would be the hot springs. Don’t tell me you’re going to take that back?

Ayaka: I-it’s true that I said that, but…

Saber: Ayaka, a lord must always go through with their servants’ rewards. It goes without saying, but that’s a condition to becoming a first-rate Master.

Ayaka: Wha-wha-wha—

Saber: Well, it’s my turn. Come, let us take off our clothes and enter the hot spring.

Ayaka: Guh, Saber you idiot———! I can’t believe that only at times like this you guys get along…! (But this is bad, this development is bad…! Think, me! I can’t avoid the mixed bathing no matter what… In that case… That’s right!)

Ayaka: Wait, you two. A little timeout! I’m going in first, so until then, don’t go in!

Lancer: Uh? Well, I don’t mind.

Saber: Neither do I. Both getting in first or getting in later are good.

Ayaka: Geez, those animals! Heh, but that became fatal. Just you watch, this is my counterattack.

(That huge wall behind her is the result)

Saber & Lancer: Y-you had that move!?

Ayaka: Uff, I’m saved… “Make a wall to separate the genders in the hot spring.” I ended up using it for such a stupid wish but it’s a story that sprang up from the start. I guess a wish like this is something within my means.

Lancer: How could this be? The Missy’s Eleventh-Hour strength is the real deal… What will we do, Mr. Knight? Even though the treasure is right in front of us, we’ve been left in limbo.

Saber: …. Lancer, no matter how you put it, we are weapons of mass destruction. The Noble Phantasms we wield are not for saving people.

Lancer: Right. Fine, let’s destroy it.

Saber: Yes, let’s destroy it.

Ayaka: Wh— I can hear you clearly from here! What are those two thinking!?

Saber: Let’s do it on 3. Even if it’s a wall created by the Holy Grail, if it gets hit by a direct hit of our Noble Phantasms—

Archer: Hold it! And you still call yourselves renowned Heroic Spirits? How can you not understand a bashful girl’s feelings!?

Archer: You fools! Cool down your heads and reflect on your actions! If you fool around in the bedroom, that’s your secret, but this is a hot spring! A place for decent relationships!

Lancer: What…

Saber: … on earth?

Archer: In the first place, seeing the bride’s nakedness is only after marrying properly! I, the King of Heroes, will not allow you to destroy this wall without Ayaka’s permission! Now, correct yourselves, you idiots! Listen well! I won’t let you disgrace Ayaka’s purity while I’m alive!

Saber: S-such seriousness! I can’t believe it, are you Ayaka’s mother?

Archer: At least call me her Big Brother! I have the “reliable university student senpai” position, after all!

Lancer: Oh, in that case, I’m the unpopular host of the neighbourhood. I’m one of the Missy’s senpai in senior high school.

Saber: Wha… Then, what about me? Rider is the classmate, so what other positions are there?

Archer: Hm… How about the blond exchange student who homestays at the Sajou house?

Lancer: Oh, that sounds nice. How about one who speaks Japanese in a funny way but is actually the prince of a certain country? It’s a pretty fitting role, right?

Saber: Guh… It’s frustrating but I can’t deny it.

Saber: It looks fun, so let’s think about the setting a little more. In the meantime, what does Ayaka do in the first place?

Ayaka: Like I said, I can hear you clearly. They’re getting all excited… Don’t they actually get along really well? Geez, and I’m the only one here… Oh well, I don’t mind. It’s a nice bath, and it’s a refreshing travel mood. I’m glad I came.

Ayaka: In reality, these are just alternate versions of ourselves, but doing something like this once in a while isn’t bad. Right, Dad?

Saber: By the way, Ayaka. Why did you, who hates fighting, decide to do it this time? Were you attracted by the hot spring?

Ayaka: Hn? It’s not that I hate fighting, it’s just that I don’t like going through scary experiences.

Saber: What?

Ayaka: This time it was full of opponents we’d obviously beat. It’s just like Archer said, we’re their senpais. That’s why I didn’t think we’d lose to anyone except Big Sister. After all, they were all within our range, right?

Lancer: …

Archer: …

Saber: I understand what you want to say. Yes. It’s hard to explain but the one I fear the most is Ayaka.

—————–

Random Duel Quotes:

Ayaka

“All right, all right♪!”

“Uwaah… What a careless mistake…”

“Too bad for you!”

“Yay!”

Saber

“I won’t give you any openings.”

“I’ll be taking that.”

Lancer

“You shouldn’t look somewhere else.”

“Guess this is what they call ‘killing two birds with one stone’.”

“I’m not done going wild yet.”

Archer

“Praise this unfaltering procedure!”

“Something like this isn’t enough!”

Ayaka & Saber

A: “Please, come to me! Saber!”

S: Yes, here I go, Ayaka!“

S: "You’re doing well, Ayaka.”

A: “T-thanks… This is just the usual, though.”

S: “What, this is just a scratch.”

A: “Are you alright, Saber?”

Ayaka & Lancer

L: “Let’s start, Missy?”

A: “Right, this time it’s a speed match, Lancer!”

A: “Good job, Lancer.”

L: “Not yet, there’s still more to come, Missy.”

L: “Ouch…!”

A: “Lancer, here, have some ointment!”

Ayaka & Archer

A: “Are you alright, Ayaka?”

A: “Y-yes, thank you very much.”

Tokiomi & Kotomine

T: “Impossible! I refuse to accept such an ending!”

K: “Hoh? Are you that frustrated, my teacher?”

Gilgamesh:

“Rather than the nonsense of victory or defeat, what truly is an eyesore is that conceited, prideful face of yours! Let us continue. I won’t allow you to refuse!”

Artoria & Iri:

A: “I’ll stave them off here. You have to retreat!”

I: “It’s alright, Saber! Believe in your Master!”

Irisviel:

“Hanafuda duels sure are fun, Saber!”

“Whatever it takes, right?”

Artoria:

“If you still will not give me your name, then stand up and come at me!”

Kerry & Iri:

K: “It’s enough, Iri. We have to retreat for now.”

I: “Y-yes… I’m sorry, dear.”

Manaka:

“For a mere toy to try to defy me.”

“Come forth, city of decadence. The night is long, sweet and cruel.”

“You do really cruel things to a lady.”

“Save me, Saber!"

—————— Character art

Ending CG in high quality

————–

My Final Thoughts

#fate prototype #ayaka sajyou #proto saber #Fate Grand Order

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greetingsfromeboncreek · 4 years ago

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In my defense, I was literally asked.

So, I have actually been asked about my LGBTQ+ headcanons for Suppression. I shall now recite from my massive, ancient textb- ok no, I’m kidding, Iggy was my most detailed one, but here’s some others I’ve been kicking around under the cut:

So first and foremost, I want to be clear: There doesn’t have to be a REASON to make someone gay or transgender of asexual or whatever. There is no reason for these things in real life after all, people just are. You can be a rocket scientist or a wrestler or a pigeon breeder and just happen to be someone who was assigned a different gender at birth as well. It happens. That’s not to say that there isn’t a culture and some common trends that go along with it, but the point I’m trying to make is that just because I’m noting my favorite characters to think these sorts of things about here, you could literally make ANYONE LGBT. There’s no checkboxes you have to tick before you get your lesbian license.

...but if there was, Sam would have like 3 of them.

ANYWAY so yeah that’s the first one: 1. Everyone is gay and transgender. All of them. All at the same time. Figure it out.

Also, even if any of these WERE canon, I wouldn’t expect it to come up very often either? Suppression is a very action based comic, I don’t think there’s a lot of downtime for characters to be like “ANYWAY, I’m going on a date with ANOTHER GUY this Wednesday because that’s HOW I ROLL.” Because that would be. Weird. Still, sometimes an offhand mention can go a long way.

To organize this a little bit better though, I’m going to split it into “Characters who I think could or should be X, Y, and/or Z” and “Characters where I wouldn’t do that unless a lot of effort was put into pulling it off well.” Personal dos and don’ts, pretty much.

For characters who I think are or could be LGBT, well, like I said, it’s fun to imagine just about anyone, and I think making a character some type of LGBT can add a really fun element to someone that ordinarily would be a little bit boring. In this case though, I’m expressing only my thoughts on the ones that either have some sort of written element that could be taken as supporting my headcanon, or ones where I think it would play well with their pre-established traits and desires. So, without further ado:

1. Samantha Wight is a lesbian, in both continuities but ESPECIALLY the reboot, god. I think this one is most obvious when you compare the version of her that existed in the preboot timeline in comparison to the reboot. And for that, I’ve got to talk about the Wights a bit, or at least as how they were in the preboot.

They come off to me as… well, deeply repressed, unhappy, and (let’s be honest, most likely) very conservative people. They all want something out of life and want to be proud of themselves and their family, but are so deadlocked in trying to “maintain the family tradition and honor” and whatnot that they end up dragging each other back down into that depressive pit. There’s plenty of examples of this; Alaster is very proud of being a Wight and their traditions of burning and pillaging, but hates what his family has become and how they treat each other. He tries very hard to be a good role model for his younger relatives even though he’s unable to get out from under his father’s thumb himself. Meredith is incredibly enthusiastic (and gifted!) about her family’s magic traditions and history but is constantly facing snotty, belittling remarks about how airheaded she is from Samantha. In addition, it’s clear her dad and uncle don’t understand her in the slightest, let alone have a shred of respect for her (or if they do, it's for her use as a resource or tool and not as a person with her own merits). Jericho thinks the Wights are already great, but is increasingly frustrated with the fact that his beliefs mean absolutely nothing in the wider world and he doesn’t actually have the power to do anything about it. Heck, even Arthur had a line that implied a LOT about how he and Max were raised- how he didn’t really want to be a necromancer, but picked it so he could “get out of what Dad had (Max) doing”. It gives off the impression that no matter how powerful a Wight you are, your life gets set in stone at birth and you aren’t changing it, no matter how hard you try, and those traditional roles are HARSH. I wouldn’t be surprised if Alaster wasn’t the only Wight that got quietly offed when they stepped out of line, that’s for sure.

Needless to say, I would imagine it would be pretty much impossible to come out as anything in that sort of environment… provided that you managed to get out enough to learn about that stuff to start with. And Sam definitely appears to be one of the worst victims of this. She died really young. While Meredith and Alaster might have gotten to go to a public school or at least hit the mall every once in a while, she probably spent every second since the day she died locked up in the mansion because… well, zombies aren’t supposed to exist. Unable to go anywhere, do anything of value, make any friends… it’s really no wonder her nihilism cranked up to 11 in just a decade or so. Not to mention (especially in comparison to the reboot), there’s no way she can buy her own clothes, so she’s literally just a Wight themed dress up doll. She has the Wight family logos literally all over her- bones in her dress, the skull on her head and shoes, a Wight crest on her necklace, most of them oversized for her stature. Literally weighing her down in a poofy dress that makes her look adorable instead of practical. Heck, she’s even drawn in a way depicts how she’s had her agency removed. She’s a Wight, so she definitely HAS the sharp pointy teeth, and yet unlike everyone else in her family you barely ever see them. (If at all- I’m pretty sure you don’t, but I’m not going to go through every page she appears to check.) She’s literally defanged and weighed down by family expectations. It’s no wonder she lashes out at Meredith, who is capable of actually expressing herself to a degree.

(Also, a smaller side headcanon- I’ve noticed that while the red eyed fangy icon is the Wight family crest, those simplified skulls on Samantha and Meredith’s heads appear a lot as well. I like to think that those were the family crest of Nora’s now extinct bloodline from when she married into the Adigard family. Even though they aren’t the official Wight crest, they’re now considered a sort of secondary crest that’s still carried around out of respect to the maternal lineage, which is why you see it more prominently on the women of the family as well. Is there any textual support for this? No, none, but it’s still fun to think about.)

SO YEAH, Sam in the reboot, wow. Goes by a (notably more gender neutral) nickname instead of the longer and more formal “Samantha”, with her clothing following. Jeans and a t-shirt. Square glasses. Very short hair. The family symbols are now not dragging her down, but smaller accents that she wears to go with her outfit instead of defining it. She’s finally free! She has a job she likes. She takes pride in her skills. She has a favorite sandwich spot and a college education and friends. ...And like, maybe a girlfriend? It would be nice. This is admittedly because her style of hair and dress is… well. Kinda butch. But like I’ve mentioned before, physical appearance is one of the last indicators I like to go for with this. Instead, I prefer to look at it in terms of her personality- outside of the deathgrip of outdated family tradition, Sam can afford to be herself more, and yeah, maybe that involves dating folks with the same gender and wearing blue jeans. This is also kinda supported to a degree by how her siblings haven’t changed that much since the old timeline. Merry’s outfit is pretty much the exact same. Jericho doesn’t have the biohazard suit, but his new outfit still kinda evokes it in the hat, long coat, and boots. He still seems to prefer the same styles, at least. Alaster is pretty different, but that’s more because he’s wearing a uniform more than anything, and with the bandages it’s clear he’s still putting his own personal spin on it. Sam is COMPLETELY different, and it’s a change for the better and happier. So yeah. It would be really fitting if part of that new access to personal freedom was in getting to explore her sexuality as well, and eventually settling down into being a lesbian. It would be a happy ending to Samantha’s story, even Sam’s is only getting started.

2. Arrie is bisexual! What? Who do you think it is that Sam’s dating? But yeah, I ship them pretty hard. Like Sam, Arrie has some pretty big personality differences between her preboot self and current self, Parrios vs. Tinderbolt. Old Arrie seemed to be well versed in politics, able to negotiate and take charge easily even if she was a bit overly formal and her interpersonal skills weren’t QUITE up to snuff. That’s not to say that she couldn’t have been bi, but I also didn’t read her as vibing with anyone all that well.

Not to turn this into a massive shipping discussion (as that’s not really the topic I’m trying to cover here), but I saw her most interesting potential romantic foils as Trevor and Sally… but neither of them were very likely in practice. She and Trevor were good friends but the last time they spoke in the comic he stuck his own foot in his mouth with her and they never got the opportunity to work things out after that (and even then, there was no sort of… spark implying that they would make each other better as a couple. Seriously, just friends.), which leaves that ship on a particularly sour note. And while she and Sally were FANTASTIC counterparts to each other (rough and tumble demon girl and overly formal and technical elf princess? Sally getting her to slowly loosen up and have fun with it a bit while also reminding her how much her one liners suck? Arrie coming to impress her and earn her respect with fancy spellwork? Hell yeah.), but they only spent maybe an hour tops with each other and didn’t have any opportunity for deeper conversation. Also, that would mean that Sally and Bael wouldn’t be a thing and I refuse to break that couple up.

But Arrie in the reboot? Oh man. Her social awkwardness and getting stuck on details have really been dialed up now that she’s essentially been raised in a classroom and in private study instead of being trained as a politician and dignitary. She’s no longer a princess, but a magic computer programmer. She’s anxious, stubborn, and definitely has a lot of room to grow. But, that’s where Sam comes in. They’ve known each other since they were little- they definitely know each other’s baggage and have accepted it. They know each other’s hopes and dreams. They spend a ton of time with each other. And yeah, they bring out the best in each other. Sam gets Arrie to leave her room once in a while, and Arrie’s attention to detail means she no doubt always listens to Sam complain long after anyone else would have tuned it out. And yes, you could easily interpret this as mere best friend territory, but wouldn’t it be interesting if it was something more? After all, Sam is really touchy-feely with Arrie even though she’s normally standoffish. She drapes herself all over Arrie in the early pages of the comic, and Arrie barely blinks. Sam threatens to drag her and Arrie is suddenly done with her work, but they’re both smiling about it. Similarly, when Arrie finally pries Sam off of her with magic, Sam just lets Arrie toss her around midair even though they both know she could use it offensively (which Arrie does when tussling with Sally later.). But they both know Arrie would never do that- they trust each other implicitly. Again, could just be friendship, but it’s not difficult to read into it and see a bit more intimacy than that. Additionally, it would really be neat to see them together just from an angle of “Their families used to be bitter enemies, but… well, not for these two, I guess.”

Also, it’s really funny to imagine a copy of that first scene but Sam’s in fancy clothing trying to drag Arrie to their anniversary dinner. For god’s sake Arrie, you’re already in the dress. The runes look FINE. You’re going to miss your reservation, get UP.

(And on another headcanon side-note- If I was going to cosplay as anyone in the comic, it would 100% be Arrie, if just because I have blonde hair and blue eyes and none of her outfits look too crazy to sew and it's not that hard to find elf ears online. With current circumstances though, I don’t think I’ll be doing anything like that any time soon.)

3. Charlie is agender or genderfluid, at least in the preboot timeline. This is less “it just feels right” and more “this is probably the inevitable conclusion of having hundreds of souls with conflicting gender identities stuffed into one body.” He is made up of boys, girls, and people who never got to have enough of a personal identity to make a decision about that sort of thing. Just a big bag of angry ghosts. Considering what happens in the approximate… like… what, six to nine months or so? That he gets to exist, I don’t think he really thought about what gender he was all that hard and probably only went with “he” because that’s what everyone who met him assumed he was. Which, let’s be honest, he’s canonically very emaciated, has long, probably matted hair, and probably has heavily stunted growth due to his upbringing- I think it would actually be pretty hard to figure him out on first glance. I’ve just noticed that people tend to default to “this is a dude” if they don’t know right away. If he had time to think about it though, I think he either a. Honestly would not give a crap, or b. Would just switch his pronouns around depending on how he was feeling that day. Heck, while “Charles” is definitely a guy’s name, I’ve definitely seen “Charlie” used for both. So he wouldn’t even have to change anything there. Still, if you asked him what he identifies as, his answer would probably something like “An Avatar Of Vengeance”, which, while accurate, isn’t the answer most people are looking for. (He knows this. He does it on purpose.) That being said though, I still have no clue what reboot Charlie’s deal is or how many souls he’s got stuffed up in there, but hey! Like I said, anyone can be anything so who’s to say Charlie ISN’T still genderfluid in the current timeline? Could have just been a “dude” day when we met him the first time around.

4. Junior is genderfluid! Or, well, would have been in the future. This just feels like a logical progression of the worldview Junior had going. He seemed very into transhumanism and just changing yourself to who you want to be instead of sitting there and waiting for it. I certainly can’t imagine him going “Hm yes. I have all these options, but I think I’m just going to stick with being a Regular Dude until the day I die.” when he was so gung-ho about getting his hands chopped off and replaced with giant claws. Therefore I could see a “I think, therefore I am.” sort of philosophy with regards to his gender developing as he gets older. “I think I want to be a girl today, so I am a girl! That’s all there is to it!” Unfortunately, considering he was being raised to be a weapon (or at least a lab rat) of some sort, I don’t know how much his identity would be respected, but I’d imagine there’s at least one or two people in his life that would nod and swap over to what he was feeling that day.

5. Lexi as a nonbinary woman. To explain a little bit, most people who imagine nonbinary genders for the first time think of gender as a slider with “dude” on the left side and “lady” on the right side with nonbinary genders somewhere in the middle. And for some people, that’s how they feel… but for others, its not that simple, with their gender being somewhere “off the grid” so to speak, or aligning themselves with one gender but… not.. QUITE all the way with it, or picking and choosing the parts of it they like, etc. So a girl or a guy, but… a nonbinary girl or guy. I could see Lexi as this, using she/her pronouns or they/them pronouns, just kind of being blase about it.

I talked about the Wight’s general culture a little bit and how it came off to me, but not Thal’nasia’s. To put it simply, I don’t think Thal’nasia is NEARLY as bad as the Wights, but I do think it has its own troubles. Between Trevor’s comments about how the humans shouldn’t trust anyone (which is probably in reference to the politicians, but it also implies a “the walls have ears” sort of vibe for the kingdom in general) and the fact that the elves are several years behind human culture in general, I could imagine being different in this way wouldn’t be… necessarily frowned upon, but there would certainly be a lot of gossip. Not to mention, it’s not like anyone who lives there can just move away if coming out doesn’t go so well. So I’d imagine things would be a little awkward for anyone who’s off the beaten track in terms of gender identity or sexuality, getting a lot of gritted teeth smiles and hesitant “Uh-huhs”. And then getting a lot of whispers and giggles as soon as their back is turned.

With that in mind, I think Lexi would have some trouble getting people to take her seriously, but in some ways I think this meshes well with what we saw of her in the preboot setting. She’s already a pretty counterculture person, working in a store that explicitly sells things that are edgy or in poor taste. And she’s already used to secluding herself to a degree, considering that she had been able to hide her plague markings for a while by the time we saw her for the first time. So for people she doesn’t know too well, I could see her introducing her gender in a half-joking manner similar to how she runs her shop in general, and gauging their reaction to see if they’re cool about it or not, at which point she’d either double down on the edgy performance or relax a bit.

6. Cerene is polyamorous! This one’s mostly for fun, and mostly because it was implied that Cerene had to pick either Morris or Charlie, and… why not both? Neither Morris nor Charlie seemed to dislike each other, and neither seem like the jealous type. Morris is super chill and reasonable, and as I already mentioned up in #3 I really don’t think Charlie’s the kind to care about traditional relationships. And who’s to say they wouldn’t like each other as well? Not to mention Cerene’s certainly capable of splitting her attention and dedicating the time needed to maintain a relationship that’s… bigger than most peoples’. I’m just saying, if anyone could make a polycule work, it’s probably Cerene with her insane networking skills. Bael’s downplaying her skills by just assuming she sleeps around a lot. Oh no- she’s asking multiple people about their day, keeping notes of their personal preferences and wants for birthday gift reasons, and plotting out multiple sweet date ideas to take place simultaneously. She has this shit ORGANIZED. There is a day planner. Also she gets to bang a lot but that’s, like, secondary.

7. James Narron is gay? Perhaps? Granted we only barely know him, but still. He seems like a nice guy with a tendency to scoop up and mentor outcast children. Perhaps due to a history of being a bit of an outcast himself? Not enough to damage his career- he’s still head of the scholar’s society after all- but something that makes him feel a little different in the crowd. I just think it would be neat!

8. Mara is a trans girl. This one’s a bit harder to explain, and considering I have no idea how she’s translated over to the reboot timeline (if at all, seeing as the circumstances of her backstory and personality have been completely erased.) Buuut I think this meshes well with her once you take into account her various motivations. She’s determined to be taken seriously. People try to brush her off due to being very young and not mentally fit for the position due to the whole “child soldier” thing. So she’s used to people not taking her seriously at best and at worst finding the fact that she’s in her hard-earned position at all to be disgusting. Not to mention that folks don’t exactly trust the red army to start with. This… surprisingly parallels a lot of what transwomen have to go through, both being taken seriously as real women and as not being seen as a “threat”. This is probably even harder for younger trans girls who no doubt constantly get the “Okay, but can you really be SURE at your age?” treatment.

You could also link this, surprisingly, into her hairstyle. Mara has boxy cut bangs in the front, but has a long twist braid in the back, far longer than most other characters in the comic. You could argue its a sense of personal style, but there’s a reason people in the military cut their hair so short (and even women in the military keep theirs in tight buns.). So you could handwave it as “it helps differentiate the character and looks like a vine, which is her whole shtick.”, which is a completely valid reading! But it’s known that a lot of trans women grow their hair out as a point of pride in transitioning, and its heartbreaking if they have to get it cut off again. So while it might be more convenient and strategic for Mara to cut her hair, she could also have a very good reason for keeping it as long as possible,

9. Dr. Grenner is bisexual. Or just questioning? Something like that? This has zero textual support and is just kind of fun to think about in terms of the personal conflict it would bring up for him. First and foremost- not everyone figures out that they’re LGBT right away. It’s not a “kids these days” sort of thing, anyone can learn something new about themselves at any time. It would be nice to see a character that has this experience, just for fun and interest! That being said, Grenner as we know him would be an interesting choice for this, considering that until very recently in the preboot’s storyline, he was likely happily married to a woman. (I mean. Iggy had to come from SOMEWHERE, and I doubt he was plucked out of a cabbage patch.) And it ended… badly.

As a result, I could see him being really conflicted due to his grief and the fact that he’s now single for the first time in decades. And, well. Santris is the only guy who really seems to stop and have any in depth conversations with him who isn’t a coworker or a patient. (Also, he’s kinda pretty. And Grenner finds that he can’t really stop looking at his eyes? That’s. Weird. Hm.) This leads into mental conflict between “It’s fine! Plenty of people figure this out at your age, and let’s be honest, there WERE some signs for it back when you were in college.” and “This isn’t anything, you’re still heavily grieving and you have a monster living in the back of your head and you’re heavily projecting onto the one person that actually treats you like a person. Get ahold of yourself.” Which one is it? Well, that’s what storytelling is for, you figure it out. But I could easily imagine himself just sitting there and psychoanalyzing himself endlessly to try and keep the issue at arms length, treating himself like a patient to avoid having to confront the emotional reality of his grief, guilt, and weird crush.

Not sure how Santris would feel about all of this because who even knows what that guy thinks, but I’m pretty sure he would definitely notice. And maybe milk it just a little bit so he doesn’t have to stretch and grab things on tall shelves anymore. Or pull out his own chair. Or make his own coffee. It’s a nice change of pace.

Is this piling too much on poor Grenner when he’s already such a guilt driven person? Yeah, probably. But what is fiction but a chance to torment fictional people with weird crises about their sexuality.

10. The old Wights? Are probably a lot of things? I’m not necessarily referring to the old Wights we’ve seen already, just the culture and atmosphere for the old clan in general. I definitely noticed how the old Wights and Adigards definitely don’t have the same culture as the new ones. There’s no need to prove themselves to be great- they ARE the greatness that the modern Wights are trying to live up to. So there’s not as much of an issue with trying to “fit in”. They’re the ones setting the standard to start with. Not to mention the old Wights are so far modified from their original human bodies already, does it really matter what they identify as after a certain point? That guy has 50 arms with flesh ripping claws and you’re saying he’s not a guy because there’s also a set of boobs involved? How do you know he didn’t put those on himself anyway? Let’s be honest, most people are going to refer to you as “OH GOD, WHY WON’T IT DIE!” anyway. Might as well call yourself whatever you want.

There’s also at least a little bit of historical support to this as well. The old Wights are vikings, or at least rather viking-inspired. In comparison to a lot of peoples that were living at the same time, vikings were surprisingly chill? It’s pretty well known that viking women could own property and demand divorces, etc. Who’s to say the Adigard family couldn’t take that an extra step further?

And then there’s the characters I WOULDN’T make a particular thing, whether it REALLY doesn’t make sense for them story-wise, or would just be stumbling into a bad stereotype for a particular group. I don’t think it’s impossible, but you’d definitely need to have more members OF that group in the story to make it clear that that’s just what that particular CHARACTER is like, and not an assumption of what that group of PEOPLE is like.

1. It could look bad if Sally was a transwoman. Don’t get me wrong- I love Sally a LOT. Like, SO much. Her personality is so much fun and I just love big, kinda dumb brawler characters. She has interesting twists to her personality (like how she loves being strong and having cool powers but is also aware that she didn’t use to be quite this aggressive and violent and finds it difficult to know where the line is and know when to stop.) and makes an excellent foil to the characters that have a tendency to ramble on. But… let’s be honest, having the explicitly beefy, aggressive female character be the only transgender woman would be a really bad look. Trans women are very frequently under a large amount of scrutiny for how they present themselves, and overly muscled and aggressive individuals are one of the negative stereotypes for that group. Does that mean I think Sally is a bad character? No, absolutely not! I’m aware she has depth, and for a cisgender woman I think her power set is a breath of fresh air. God knows I’d love to have the ability to throw someone across a city block when a guy’s been following me for a little too long when I’m walking home at 2 am. But I do think that, in the absence of other trans women, making her transgender would be choice made in poor taste as it hews too close to stereotypes that have been made to insult and belittle these women.

2. Max and Arthur as… well, anything. This is in regards to the preboot setting. We have known Arthur for literally one page in the reboot and he’s already clearly pretty different from the old version of him so I’m withholding all judgement there. Still, this one’s a little harder to explain.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a young Maxwell feeling absolutely nothing for all of the girls dragged in front of him as potential suitors and eventually picking one for no reason other than “Dad liked her”. Max assuming its normal to feel this way because being asexual isn’t an option when it’s your literal job to carry on the family bloodline. I like the idea of Arthur waking up from an accidental nap in front of the TV to find that it’s moved on to some sort of documentary about trans women and how relieved they felt to be able to reflect on the outside how they felt on the inside and sits there watching it blithely for a little bit too long before he identifies that feeling in his chest as something close to pain and scrambles for the remote a little too fast while grumbling something about kids these days ruining their bodies for shits and giggles. (Hey remember how I mentioned that those skull motifs are usually only worn by girls? I say usually because Arthur is the only dude who wears them. Funny, that.)

It could definitely be interesting to interpret them as something else, but… I think it would have to be in an AU or timeline just to the left where they’re. Mmmmore tolerable as people. Look let’s be honest, in the original Suppression timeline, Max and Arthur are some of the biggest… well, evil people we see. The younger Wights have their sympathetic traits (or are just hilariously outmatched such that they aren’t really a threat. Sorry Jericho.). Grenner wasn’t even trying to be a villain. Kolt is creepy as hell and I try to forget he exists. William… isn’t really traditionally sapient, it’s hard to hate an evil Siri. We don’t know much about Santris, and we were really only getting started on Maggie and Bartleby. But Max and Arthur kill innocent people, kill their kids, kill each other because they’re canonically selfish, miserable people. If you wanted to redeem either, they’d have to be… well, not those people. So like I said, you’d need a different version of canon.

This is because, well. While I’m sure there are evil people that are… let’s pick one and say gay. 1. Gay-coding villains is a well known negative stereotype. And 2. Saying that people who are against LGBT rights in real life are totally just repressed gay people is both harmful and… idk, annoying. For point one, there’s plenty of villains where they’re presented with traits associated with LGBT individuals. Think how Ursula in The Little Mermaid was based on a drag queen, Scar in The Lion King is a sort of effeminate gay stereotype, Raoul Silva in Skyfall and his… weird homoeroticism. Don’t ask me why those were the first three examples that came to mind. In and of itself, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Everyone loves Disney villains, they’re the most fun characters! But in settings where they’re the ONLY characters that are LGBT, it suddenly creates the stereotype that… all LGBT people are inherently evil, deviant, or corrupt in some way. Which is a nasty thing to say. For a lot of the other villains, it could be fun! But these two are just so unavoidably (if amusingly) awful that it feels… weird to pin this stuff on them.

Which leads me into the second point. It’s fun to poke fun at say… a pastor saying all gay people are going to hell by going “Man, he has sure been talking about gay guys and their gay sex for a really long time huh? Makes you wonder, huh?” Because unfortunately at the end of the day… statistically, they aren’t. They just want to hurt those people (or “help” them in their own minds but again, let’s be real here.) And even if they ARE, they’re doing so much damage that it’s hard to feel sorry for them. It feels similar to my own experiences where I’d be bullied by a guy at school and the adults around me would be like “Oh don’t worry, he just has a crush on you!” Great! Awesome! That helps me out a LOT and makes me feel so much better. Really unrips up the homework he stole from me. That’s definitely a behavior we should be encouraging in guys too. Just fantastic. Yeah, I don’t think that mindset really helps anyone, and frankly feels like it would be a shallow addition to these guys.

And let’s be honest, with these two it feels like part of the fun that they’re so irredeemably awful because when they lose it feels just that much better. It was so, SO funny watching Max get squished by a demon falling several stories, or watching Sally deck Arthur in the face and Arrie blind him temporarily. It was fitting watching Arthur drink Max’s phylactery, wrapping up both of their character arcs as selfish people who inevitably only had each other but couldn’t even trust each other- and shouldn’t have. And then Sin Arthur got thrown around like a ragdoll by King Law like five minutes later. It was GREAT. If it turns out that deep down they felt differently but didn’t feel like they could say or do anything about it, it would make them more sympathetic and thus make me feel… well, worse about watching them get beat down on. Which would inevitably make those moments I mentioned fall a little flat.

So, uhm. Yeah. I think that’s everything? Just about everything? Holy crap, I was NOT expecting to write this much. Maybe a few notes for each character, but nothing huge. And it did get huge, that’s. That’s a LOT of words. I’d apologize, but I’m not THAT sorry about it- it was really nice to get the opportunity to put to words some of the feelings I’ve been having on this stuff for a while.

#text post #uhhhh #holy shit yeah i dont have much else to say lol #commentary #headcanons

0 notes

ariabauer · 7 years ago

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Carmilla Movie Theory

You’ve asked me to tell you a story, to weave you a theory. My inbox sings with your requests to try and jumble everything together. You ask. I’ll deliver.

I’ll give it my best shot because there’s nothing I like more than a challenge. We’re sticking to the usual plan of trying to make the most ridiculous but still kinda plausible theory possible. To start us off, here’s what canon information I have to work with.

The Existing Carmilla Mythos - So we naturally have everything from the 3 seasons to work with. You’ve seen the web series. You know.

The Original Trailer - This is the one on the beach that announced the movie. Frankly, I’m curious as to how much of this will actually apply because from my understanding it was put together before they had a script. As a scene, it’s probably cut. I’m treating the information as canon because I don’t have enough material to be cutting ANY of it.

The New Cast Information - Literally yesterday, we received the names of three new cast members. Seeing as I’m going to make the case that these are all literary references (stay tuned) just their names alone give me info. They are:

Emily Bronte

Charlotte Bronte

The Woman In Black

Now we do our magical conjecture and fun fact building to try and whip it all together into a coherent story. Basically, I’m going to write you a movie because I’m a novelist at heart and a story structure buff. We’re going to try and figure out what we can expect when the movie releases in the fall (?). Buckle up, creampuffs.

This is going to get 7k words worth of messy from parents to exes to fish gods to old school novellas.

We Need Some Vampires

So Carmilla’s not a vampire any more. Let’s just get that one out of the way. This leaves us with a question: how on this green earth can you make a Carmilla Movie, a Carmilla the iconic lesbian vampire movie, with NO VAMPIRES.

Answer: You can’t. It’s a betrayal of the premise.

So Carmilla may not be the vampire but I’m going to propose that they have to add in a vampire or two somewhere, just to stick to theme. I mean, if I didn’t know the webseries and just picked this thing up, I’d be expecting vampires.

Since I’ve heard nothing about retconning Carmilla to keep her a vampire, I’m going to assume she’s human.

So where to find some vampires?

Well the biggest baddest vampire of the series is the infamous Matska Belmonde. Problem is, she’s dead. Like deader than vampire-dead dead. Literally a ghost. That said, if the picture of Sophia and Jordan means anything we may be seeing Mattie lurking around but we’ll talk about that later. Regardless, Mattie is dead and a ghost and not a vampire.

There’s Danny. Our tallest redhead was turned into a vampire at the very end of s2 and maintained her vampirism as she strode out the library door in s3. Theoretically, she’s still very much undead. However, Sharon is the one person that didn’t show up in the day 1 behind the scenes shots plus Swerve is shooting at the exact same time and we KNOW she’s part of that.

So while Danny may pop up, I’m not counting on it. If she does, it’s most likely going to be a smaller role.

There’s JP but he also seems very dead if the sacrifice at the gate during s3 is any indication.

All the webseries vampires seem to be dead, ghost-dead, vanished, or human.

We need new ones. Lucky we have 3 new cast members who could take on the role! Let’s see if any of them could be our new vampire extraordinaire. We’ve got 2 options the Bronte sisters or the Woman in Black.

If you all thought we were going to start with The Woman In Black then you’ve got another think coming because I have a hunch that her identity is going to be the question of the movie. So naturally, I’m saving her for the end.

Plus, we know like nothing about her so we’ve got to build everything else up first then see where she fits in. You know the drill. Facts first. Conjecture second.

So we start with the Bronte sisters.

What’s Up with The Bronte’s?

I’m sure all my literary nerds got very excited when they saw the name Bronte pop up on the cast sheet. Just as Carmilla started as a novella by Sheridan Le Fanu, the name Bronte pops up in the same way. It’s a direct reference to authors from the 1800s. Specifically, Bronte is the last name of several famous writers.

The Carmilla Movie has cast two of these authors: Charlotte Bronte and Emily Bronte. Sisters. You may recognize their work. Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Erye (plus lots of other things actually) and Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights. I’m happy to see them show up.

Except. It’s kind of weird no?

Carmilla Karnstein is a fictional character. Jane Erye is a fictional character; I’d expect Jane to show up. Instead, we’re getting real live actual people. That’s like Sheridan Le Fanu walking into the middle of season 3. We’re getting writers; not characters. How are they even suppose to integrate into this 2017 story?

Ask a question and the internet already has two theories for you:

FlashBacks or Time Travel?

When your canon is a supernatural webseries full of literal gods and alternate universes, it does nothing to close doors on literally anything happening. Which is fun for fanfic and a nightmare for predictive theories. Still, the internet has used its collective power to offer two options:

Flashbacks: Carmilla is 300+ years old. She’s got a lot of history and the idea is that we’re going to get literal flashbacks of her past. In these flashbacks, she’s going to have met the Bronte sisters and interacted with their lives. Honestly, I find this perfectly plausible as it’s like a high production value s1 puppet show. The only downside is it means we get scenes with no Laura who definitely wasn’t alive in 1848. Also I just personally don’t like flashbacks but that’s a whole other story.

Time Travel: Considering the library literally popped Laura into an alternate universe, it’s not too much of a stretch that it could pop Carmilla and Laura round in time. Basically, our 21st century girls end up in 19th century England. From the BTS pictures this is looking like more and more of a possibility. Frankly, I’d love to see Laura hurled back in time to see some of Carmilla’s past. That said, I can come up with half a dozen reasons why we’ve seen her in somewhat old timey clothes that don’t include time travel either.

Now flashbacks or Laura timetraveling to the past would allow us to see some of Carmilla vampire in this movie which is something that you’d expect to see from a Carmilla movie.

If forced to choose, I’d probably go with flashback even if I’d prefer time travel just because I don’t have any proof that there is time travel involved. That said, plain old flashbacks are MUCH too boring for our pledge to ridiculous theories and we’re going to spice it up. Personally, I think we’re going to be getting some flashbacks regardless but I don’t think flashbacks are going to be the only place we see the Bronte sisters.

May I Offer You A Different Bronte Theory?

I’d make them our vampires. Or ghosts. But vampires seem more on theme and I’ve already got an idea about the ghosts. Stay tuned.

For now, vampires. If we make the Bronte’s supernatural creatures then they can easily still be kicking around in the 21st century to interact with our cast - no time travel or flashbacks needed (although you could totally still do both).

Plus, if they’re supernatural, long-lived beings it fixes our whole writer vs character problem.

Think about it, it’s already kind of weird that we’ve got authors and real life people stepping in beside our fictional characters. The only way it’s not weird… is if they’re fictional too. So here’s what I’m proposing, Emily and Charlotte Bronte are a mix of themselves and their characters. Their books, like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, are semi-autobiographical. Emily actually went to Rochester mansion and then wrote a book about it. Rationale?

Every single one of the Bronte books are written under a pseudonym. You know who likes pseudonyms? The vampire Carmilla Mircalla Macrilla Arcmilla Von Karnstein.

All the Brontes were actually governesses like their characters

It would explain why all of their protagonists are so similar. It’s just them over and over.

Moms are always dead in real life and the books

All their stories take place in creepy old mansions. You know who likes creepy old mansions? Supernatural beings

Sidebar - the creepy house in the BTS photos is probably either the Bronte House or Eel Marsh House which Hollstein + Crew are investigating

You don’t think after 300 years, Carmilla couldn’t write a kickbutt novel about her life? I do. I could probably write it for her if you gave me enough time. Imagine it. The Bronte Sisters are these immortal vampires who kill time being governess for kids and happen to run into supernatural stuff. Jane Eyre is probably a tamed down version of the time Charlotte was teaching some kids and discovered some weird lovecraftian demon in the attic.

Carmilla is known for mixing up it’s ‘canon’ material. They’re the ones who put gods into a gothic novella, not me!

Plus this lets me kill two birds with one stone. I get vampires and I get to explain why a 19th century author is suddenly in my fictional story. Occam’s Razor. This is the one we’re going with. Also, it’s waaaay more fun to think of this awesome literary ladies as undead fiends.

Now this means that we don’t technically need flashbacks OR time travel to have the 19th century Brontes interact with our modern day characters. They’ve just kept right on living through history and now Hollstein can waltz over and chat with them. Honestly, looking at Day 1 set photos and Grace in that lacey dress while everyone is wearing leather jackets, it seems plausible.

Again, the Brontes could definitely be ghosts instead of vampires as ghost stories are a HUGE thing in our source material but, quite frankly, I like the vampire idea better. Regardless, it doesn’t change the idea that the Brontes are still around as some kind of supernatural being in the 21st century.

Simply because Carmilla is a vampire story, I’m going with the vampires over ghosts.

Now, of course, this just creates more questions. If they’re vampires, how are they vampires?

How To Make A Vampire

The easiest answer is that the Bronte’s are just Mattie 2.0 and more girls that Inanna turned into vampires for her evil plotting needs. Basically, they’re Carmilla’s vampiric sisters that she’s just never mentioned ever. They were just made the normal way.

Well… Carmilla’s normal way.

So as a reminder, Carmilla likes to play with what canon is in big ways. In this instance, it’s that vampires aren’t made in even slightly the conventional way. Rather than the usual biting/poison bit that we see in pop culture, Carmilla vampires are the results of the Goddess Inanna using her magical powers to bring a dead person back to life. Vampires can’t make other vampires. Only Inanna can do it cause she’s the god.

(this is your reminder that carmilla turning laura into a vamp in s3 was always literally impossible. Inanna would have had to do it.)

So for the Bronte sisters, Inanna could have turned them back in the day and they’re estranged from the family or something which is why we never see them kidnapping girls. Fine. It’s not like Carmilla is particularly forthcoming with the family info and we don’t have any other options so.... Oh wait.

We totally do.

Remember s3 when they first find out about Inanna being a god and Laura’s all “That’s like your nemesis is Zeus or Odin. And Zeus and Odin aren’t real. Wait- are Zeus and Odin real? Shouldn’t we have known if gods are real?” The implication then goes on that if Inanna is real then yes Zeus and Odin are probably real in the Carmilla universe.

Which on one hand I have questions but on the other hand OH LOOK MORE BEINGS WITH THE POWER LEVEL NEEDED TO MAKE VAMPIRES.

To which I hear your cries of “that’s pure conjecture, Aria.” First all, this is all pure conjecture. But second of all NOPE. Because Zeus and Bronte are a thing and I’m such a mythology nerd for knowing this.

Now most of you probably know what cyclops are and some of you may know that one of the eldest cyclops is named Brontes. So technically I supposed Charlotte and Emily could be cyclops. That would definitely be a twist.

However, I’m going to go with ANOTHER mythological Bronte. Charlotte and Emily are sisters. Zeus has two shieldmaidens who are sisters (twins but semantics) who are named Asprate and BRONTE. Yes, That’s right. Bronte.

Coincidence? I think possibly.

But another part of me thinks that Zeus decided to make his own immortal peons when he saw Inanna do it and this included the two women we know as Charlotte and Emily Bronte. Their job is basically translates to thunder and lightning so these are not sisters you want to mess with.

Plus, I think it’s very on brand for Carmilla to throw some more mythology in here.

So we have the boring (Inanna) and the ridiculous (Zeus) ways that the Bronte sisters could have feasibly become vampires. Since I’ve got nothing that can prove this wrong, we’re rolling with it!

Now I’ve been ignoring the slight screams from some of the literary fans in the background reminding me that “THERE WERE MORE THAN 2 BRONTE SISTERS ARIA. EXPLAIN THAT.” (i promised @kaitlynsgonnakait that i’d address this somehow)

Fine. I will.

The Third Bronte Sister

So technically there were 6 Bronte siblings. The two oldest girls died of disease when they were still kids. Then Charlotte Bronte who is in the movie. Then their brother Patrick Branwell who tried to be a writer, mostly failed, and became an alcoholic instead. Then Emily Bronte of Jane Eyre fame who is also in the movie.

And finally Anne Bronte whose works Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are considered classics just like her sisters. You can often buy the works of all three Bronte sisters together. It’s like a package deal.

So where is she? Carmilla only cast two sisters.

Easy answer is that they DID cast her and she’s ‘The Woman in Black’ who has been lurking around this document all mysteriously. Boom Bam. Problem solved.

Except, sorry. I don’t think so. My first reason was simply I had a more ridiculous/better theory for The Woman in Black (who we will now refer to as TWIB because I’m lazy).

So where’s Anne Bronte?

My problem is that when you’re taking characters from the 1800s and putting them into a story where you have a canon character who was ALIVE in the 1800s, it seems silly to not have their paths have overlapped before. Certainly, Carmilla could go to these ‘people she’s heard about from Mattie yet never met’ but that’s a missed excuse for conflict. Stories live and die on conflict. How much more interesting would it be if Carmilla had history with the Bronte sisters?

And considering the thing our cast is missing is villains, I’m guessing it’s not a good one.

I’m proposing that it’s Carmilla’s fault that Anne Bronte is dead.

Linkage to Carmilla’s backstory

So let’s be realistic here. Carmilla was not a nice vampire. Even in canon, she spends the second half of season 2 literally killing people off camera and appears drenched in blood more than once. So it’s totally feasible that there’s a hundred different ways she could have killed Anne Bronte.

Probably with Mattie only because I want a flashback with Mattie and Carmilla together.

Actually, with some slight creativity with dates (and let’s face it, Carmilla has always been bad on matching their dates (jp/ell date debacle)), you could 100% make Anne Bronte part of the sacrificing ritual to Lophiiformes. In real life, she dies at 29 in 1849 which isn’t far off from the canon ritual year of 1852/1854.

After all, the Bronte story does sound like one that Carmilla’s mother would want to throw her glittering girl into. Picture it, a carriage wreck outside a lonely Thornton estate. A home with 3 girls whose mother passed away only years before in 1842 to leave their father to try and best manage their education. The historically kindly man takes in the young Mircalla after her carriage wreck and entrusts her to his slightly older daughters. Anne, the youngest and closest in age to Carmilla, becomes fast friends with her but becomes ill. The doctors diagnose her with tuberculosis (which is what real life brontes died of) but she’s then trundled off to the ritual and dies.

ALternative options: Carmilla gets in a carriage wreck outside some place where Anne is being a governess. The same thing happens except Carmilla seduces a governess because of course she does. Who’s really going to notice if the governess goes missing on the moors?

Here’s the kicker guys. The real life Brontes LITERALLY TOOK IN A GIRL WHO WAS IN A CARRIAGE CRASH. In ‘The Letters (1829-1847)’ which is a collection of letters by Charlotte Bronte she notes in a footnote that “a carriage accident occurred on EN’s return from Haworth”.

Okay. Look. That’s neat okay and even if I’m wrong about all of this (which i probably am) IT’S STILL VERY NEAT.

This scenario is literally exactly what happens in the Carmilla novella… except Carmilla gets her head chopped off too. Semantics.

After all, this is our pre-Ell Carmilla who is still pretty big on the killing thing. Let’s say that Emily and Charlotte Bronte get their Laura Hollis on and try to save their sister Anne but fail.

Either this is where the Dean changes them in vampires OR this is where they make a deal with Zeus to give them immortality OR where they die like normal people but the vengeance/sadness/feelings in their souls allows them to hang around as ghosts.

(Somewhere in there has to be a Bronte Sisters: Vampire Hunters story. Consider that option D, very Vordenberg. Hey. We have like no information on this movie. You can’t prove it wrong!)

Regardless, I’m proposing that Carmilla’s got history with the Bronte’s and it’s not a good one. That also fits with why she looks terrified enough to climb up a pole in that BTS picture. Whatever’s lurking in that house is probably got some kind of beef with Carmilla. Our now very human and somewhat defenceless Carmilla.

I just think that if you have a character with 300 years of backstory then you USE IT.

Now of course, there’s so much of Carmilla’s backstory that I have no way of knowing and who knows what the writers decided to use. However, there is one more piece of our little puzzle here that I can pop into place in Carmilla’s backstory.

Let’s talk about the Woman in Black.

It All Comes Back to Carriages

Not who she is! No no. Still too early for that but we can talk about what this is a reference too. The Woman In Black is a 1983 horror novella written as an imitation of the traditional Gothic novella that Carmilla is. Basically one precludes the other. So they already have a link right off the top. You may seen the Daniel Radcliffe movie. It’s also one of the longest running plays which makes sense when you consider that Carmilla writer Jordan is a playwright.

So we’ve got a play/novella to tackle.

While Carmilla was concerned with vampires, The Woman in Black is a story about ghosts. A basic plot summary is that this lawyer goes to this creepy old house (Eel Marsh House) belonging to an old lady who just died so that he can handle her estate. No-one in the village will go near this place but no-one will tell him why. He attends the old lady’s funeral and there’s basically no-one else there except this woman who slips in about halfway through. She’s wearing all black but it’s sort of old fashioned and when he gets a look at her face he describes it as pale and horrid. Even creepier, like 20 children follow her around and just stare at her.

At first, he thinks nothing of it but she keeps appearing and disappearing. When he stays in the old lady’s house there’s all kinds of creepy noises and a one point he hears a child screaming and the sound of a carriage crash.

A CARRIAGE. WHAT OTHER STORY DO WE KNOW THAT USES CARRIAGE CRASHES?

Eventually he figures it out. So the ghost is the sister of the old lady who owned the house. Her name was Jennet. Back in the day, she had a son but it was super scandalous to have a kid when you were unmarried so Jennet had to give the boy to her married sister to raise on her behalf. However, they couldn’t bear to be separated so Jennet lived in this shack on the edge of the marsh and her sister would send her son to her so that they could see each other sometimes.

Pro tip: do not build houses in marshes.

One day, when the boy is travelling to see her, the carriage sink into the marsh and boy dies while Jennet is forced to watch. Unable to help him. Jennet herself dies and returns as a ghost.

The Woman In Black.

She appears to people right before a child dies. The screams that the lawyer heard while he in the house are those of her son, trapped and eternally dying. The lawyer peaces out of there but years later he sees TWIB and then his son dies.

The end.

What fun!

Now we talked about how TWIB is imitating gothic style stories like Carmilla however, it’s strongest predecessor according to the author is a 1898 novella called Turn of The Screw which is a contemporary to the Carmilla novella (1872) but is a ghost story. Turn of The Screw is a ghost story about this governess whose charges are haunted by the ghost of their old governess and her lover. At the end of the story, the boy dies.

Governesses. That sounds familiar… because Turn of The Screw is basically the ghost story version of the Bronte novels published 50 years earlier. For example, Jane Eyre makes it seem like something supernatural is going on but it’s just a lady in the attic. Turn of The Screw makes something really supernatural actually happen inside the same premise.

Basically if you mashed the Bronte works, the Carmilla novella, and Turn of the Screw together and waited 100 years, you get The Woman In Black. Neat.

Could Turn of The Screw just be another novel written by the immortal Bronte sisters as they travel through immortality? You tell me.

Most of them involve governesses, most involve children, most involve bad things happening to children, and most of them have carriage crashes. These stories have a lot of links and we’re developing some pieces that our Carmilla movie writers might have pulled on to bring these characters all together.

With the inclusion of TWIB in the movie, we can assume that she’s going to be lurking around creepily and foreboding death. She could be a vampire but I like her as a ghost.

Why? We’ll get there. You wouldn’t buy it yet. Still, with her carriage crash history it’s likely that this is another lady with some kind of grudge against Carmilla Karnstein because that’s a place the writers could link both stoires.

Now this is all well and good but we still have absolutely no reason for Hollstein to up and go investigate anything. All we’ve got is that Carmilla probably has some tragic backstory with some vampires/ghosts and there’s a specter that appears sometimes before kids die. The Bronte’s and TWIB have been holding status quo for hundreds of years while Carmilla killed people and got buried and met Laura.

What changed?

Enter the Carmilla web series with it’s god killing, apocalypse preventing shenanigans.

Let’s Crack Some Eggs

We haven’t talked about the teaser trailer yet and as this is the part where we start getting out of backstory and into modernity again.

So the motorcycle bit is completely useless to me but we do get a tiny bit of dialogue that I can use. Laura pulls a multiple choice card out of the box of creampuffs and says, “Dear Professor Hollis, you’re going to come and help us because a) you’re a nice helpful lady and it’s what you do b) you’re probably pretty curious about this whole mysterious message thing c) oh god oh god it laid eggs d) if you don’t a lot of people are going to die, starting with your friends. Talk soon.”

Pushing aside the question of how in the world Laura went from a first year undergrad to a professor in like 6 years… it’s c I’m most interested in because it sounds like plot.

It laid eggs.

Okay… so we need something to lay eggs. What animals are available in Carmilla? I mean, no-one had a parrot or lizard or ohhhhhh.... Well then. I can only think of one thing with a prominent role in Carmilla that can lay eggs.

Lophiiformes. The giant god anglerfish that Vordie apparently killed in s2.

Except you can’t really kill a god, can you? That’s the whole reason they had to lock Inanna up (fyi hastur/dumuzi is a whole separate thing). So even if they killed Lophii, she’s going to find a way to come back and preserve her godly power.

It’s actually fairly in line with mythology to think that she lays eggs which stay dormant until her death when her godly powers transfer to them and start activating. It’s very Phoenix (dies and comes back as a baby). So let’s say that when Vordie killed Lophii in s2, he started her eggs going. Anglerfish lay their eggs in this gelatinous material in deep holes in the ground (a pit perhaps?). Then the eggs hatch into larvae and start wiggling around, growing on the surface until they return to the deep as mature anglerfish. The circle of life.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about little anglerfish worms either. Remember, in s1 it wasn’t the vampires who retook the girls. The little Lophii worms in their brains brought them back to Lophii automatically. So what happens when you have tiny Lophii babies swimming around?

Bad things.

Please recall, that Lophii keeps her power by feeding on the girls every 20 years. If she didn’t get the girls, then she’d leave the pit and go find them herself which is why the Dean kept feeding her. If she gets food then she doesn’t have to look for it and just eat people herself.

But no-one is feeding the baby Lophii’s girls on a platter. They’ve got to go find lunch. Which brings us to the first half of option D on Laura’s card - a lot of people are going to die when the little Lophii’s creep out of their eggs.

If Laura doesn’t get a move on and stop it, someone’s going to start killing her friends first.

So that seems like a pretty good reason for Carmilla and Laura to return to Silas or wherever Laf/Perry and other “the friends” seem to be. Now, it’s hard to say who would have written this note to Laura. It’s probably not any of Laura’s friends because I find it hard to swallow that one of them would have turned villain and someone being possessed is too Dean Perry.

Could be the Bronte sisters. Could be someone we don’t know.

Could be The Woman In Black.

Hard to say though when we don’t know who TWIB is?

Who Is The Woman In Black?

This will likely be one of the big questions of the movie just as it’s the big question in the original novel. Who is she and what is she doing? I like this because it earmarks back to s1 of Carmilla and it gives me something concrete to try and figure out.

Let’s look at our options:

Mattie - If you just gave me the name “the woman in black”, Mattie would be my answer every time. Just look at her in s3. She’d literally dressed in all black. Problem is that we already know that Dominique was cast in the role and she’s definitely not Sophia so we know it’s not Sophia under the veil.

Literally anyone else we’ve already met - It simply can’t be Danny or Laf or Perry or Mel or Kirsch or anyone whose face we’ve seen because, and i repeat, WE KNOW IT’S DOMINIQUE’S ROLE. That means it has to be a character whose face we’ve never seen before.

Ereshkigal - Look, if you can’t have Mattie then the goddess of the underworld who Mattie spoke also seems like a good candidate. She’s literally the original TWIB. That said, it feels like the web series did a good job of neatly packaging away the god stuff and to pull her in would require new viewers to catch up real quick. Plus, I can’t see why she’d bother. Possible but doesn’t seem plausible.

Anne Bronte - as previously discussed, the missing Bronte sister is the easiest candidate for our TWIB. I’ve heard a few comments that the three new cast members don’t look like sisters, which is valid, but also Mattie and Carmilla looked nothing alike either. My biggest problem with this idea is that I just don’t think it’s interesting

If you’re going to create the question of “who is the woman in black” and likely build it up for 25-50% of the movie then the reveal has to mean something. We don’t know the Bronte’s. Maybe the movie could build them up enough so that we have the emotional punch at the reveal but it seems unlikely with such a large cast. Better if it’s some we (and the characters) already know under there and can react to. The more connected to Hollstein specifically, the more we’re going to get those feels.

Laura’s Mother - I know. Weren’t expecting that one now were you! (Except @ukulelekatie literally 1hr before i posted this!) However, if we’re looking for mysterious characters then Laura’s mother/other parent and her complete lack of mention seems like one of the biggest holes.

Laura, even in the novella canon, has some weird traits that haven’t really been explained. In the novella, she has a dream about Carmilla 12 years before Carmilla even shows up which is literally a predictive/foreboding dream and TWIB is a predictive/foreboding figure. In the social media at the very beginning of s1, Laura mentions that the student roommate assignment services (aka the library aka Enki the literal god) found her aura ‘weird’. Which… I mean if you had one supernatural parent that might make your aura a little odd. Laura’s also the only one to have anglerfish dreams after she’s no longer been chosen. Finally, even though I’ve explained the whole living without a heart thing before via the Death Power Drain Theory, it could explain her resiliency there. Again, possible. But unlikely.

I’m not going to say that Elise and Dominique kind of look the same but THEY KIND OF LOOK THE SAME especially with Elise’s dark hair.

So hypothetically Laura’s Mom died and came back as a ghost or was turned into a vampire. While I think it would be fascinating my problems are that it doesn’t really link into Carmilla’s backstory OR into the whole Lophii eggs thing…

UNLESS you figure that Laura’s mom was ALREADY a vampire when she had Laura (ive given up trying to figure out undead biology) and she had to leave because people would have noticed she wasn’t aging. If Papa Hollis knew that may explain his raging paranoia. This is Laura reconnecting with her mother. Which frankly… so cool. But again… I don’t know why she’d be involved with anything to do with Lophii or why she’d be dressed in all black instead of just being like “hey. What’s up. Need some help with the fish?”

Also you could TOTALLY COMBINE THEM. If you make Laura’s mom a vampire before she has Laura then she can be as old as you want. You could totally make Laura’s mother the missing Anne Bronte who is parading as the TWIB. Sure, that creates the above challenges again but it’s a neat idea.

So this didn’t help narrow it at all. Maybe if we do a little more digging

What other loose ends do we have lying around? The anglerfish babies are rising and out to kill. The Brontes are probably mad at Carmilla for some reason. We’ve got a creepy old house.

What do we know about TWIB? She’s a warning figure of death She doesn’t actually kill anyone. She’s related to a bunch of children and her whole journey is started by a carriage crash. She’s a ghost and her clothing is a key trait about her. Her reveal has to matter because it’s a plot question but she can’t be anyone whose face we’ve seen before. At the same time, she has to be connected to our main cast so that we get the emotional punch.

So I need a ghostly girl related to Lophi who has angsty history with a carriage and our cast while acting as a warning of death and is someone we viewers have emotional connects to even though we’ve never seen her face and-

Oh.

Oh no. Creampuffs. We just mentioned this and I blew past it because I was looking at the wrong end.

Carmilla - “The charm should have chased the dreams away.”

Laura - “I don’t think it’s the vampires. It’s the girl. The girl in the nightdress…. She said maybe not to go into the light ‘cause the light is hungry.”

Creampuffs, I think The Woman in Black is going to be Ell.

Carmilla’s long lost love whose face we’ve never seen but we’ve heard her tragic tale of woe straight from Carmilla’s mouth so we have emotional investment. It would take about 5 seconds of movie time to remind us of that and educate new viewers. Ell was swallowed up by the anglerfish but she’s always been different from all the other girls. She’s always been the one who has been reaching out and trying to warn new targets to flee away.

What if she never stopped?

We never learn what happens to the souls after Lophii dies. We know Carmilla sees Ell at the pit but we never heard anything more of her. Carmilla spent years trying to drive girls away.

So did Ell.

What if, upon the anglerfish’s death, Ell stays either to save others or for typical “unfinished business ghost reasons” or because she’s tied to the gods power and has to. She gets enough of the power lying around to take on a ghostly form and when the anglerfish babies start growing and getting free, she tries to warn people by appearing before them. TWIB in black has never killed people, she’s always been a warning.

A warning for children. So that what happened to Ell will not happen to them.

Her white nightdress transformed into black robes after everything she’s seen.

Can you imagine that story? A story where Carmilla and Laura are living happily together until they’re summoned back to Silas to save the day once again by a mysterious letter threatening to start killing their friends. Where they arrive to find news of a stranger woman in black appearing right before people start dying and Laura wants to stay to try and reason with the specter. Get to the bottom of it.

After all, “we’ve already been through the apocalypse, Carm? What more could happen?”

A story where Carmilla just shakes her head with a sigh and a smile while she fiddles with the engagement ring in her pocket where only the camera can see. Their search brings them to a creepy old mansion and they rent it out because “creepy mansions are like obviously supernatural, carm!” and assemble the team to help them. Laf and Perry and Kirsch and Mel and even though Laura has tried to find Danny, the vampire does not want to be found.

Something about this house rings familiar in Carmilla’s mind and raises the hair on the back of her neck but she chalks it up to being human and carries on. More interested in the way, after 5 years, Laura still listens to her heartbeat when they sleep.

Until, as they sleep, the supernatural begins to take hold. Smoke and fog. Shrieks and silence. A bronte sister is the first to appear, bringing words of history and telling them to leave. For although they have tried to be peaceful, she will kill Carmilla for past grievances if they stay too long. Perhaps the vampire Bronte’s are still playing the game. Bringing back the fish and letting it feed it’s fill. After all, that’s what the Dean made them for.

The Woman In Black will come and go but never to Carmilla. It is only Laura who gets to see her face. It pings familiar, like something from a dream, but she doesn’t know where. She tries to speak but the woman says nothing back but warnings.

People keep dying. TWIB always appearing as a warning before. They will assume TWIB is the one killing them. Hollstein has made these assumptions before. This time Laura knows better.

Laura resolves to capture her. She’s got the truth that way before and she can do it again. Yet the plan goes awry and when Laura reaches out to grab, TWIB whisks her away. She whisks her away to 1872 where Laura ends up in a period dress and sees a familiar face who she knows but does not know her. The vampire Karnstein is too enamored with Ell to see anyone else and Laura realizes who TWIB actually is.

Ell is as lost to time as Laura is.

Somewhere, Laura will realize Carmilla has a type when it comes to the girls she loves and even though she knows it’s irrational. Her heart will throb a little as she watches Carmilla dance with Ell even as Laura is there in flesh and blood.

Carmilla meanwhile has known Laura’s disappearances before and while she may be a vampire no longer, she is still a moth to a flame. She barges into the Bronte’s home and demands their help. Demands explanations.

Laura returns and the reunion is tinged with a hundred different feelings. Laura who has seen her Carmilla and alt Carmilla but has never known a Carmilla who didn’t love her. She knows now. Carmilla will consider proposing but ultimately will hold off because Laura deserves only the best moment.

The Bronte sisters will show them the anglerfish eggs but the revelation will pale in the light of Laura’s admission that TWIB is Ell. The scenes between Laura, Carmilla, and Ell will break all our hearts. Together they’ll save the day and fight back the Bronte sisters looking to finish the Dean’s work, unaware of her change of heart.

Ell will finally see all the girls sent to freedom and, as she fades away for what is truly the final time, she will pick up the ring where it fell out of Carmilla’s pocket and press it into Laura’s hand with a sad smile.

And Laura will propose to Carmilla in the dust and ash of their victory.

And we will all break in the best way.

You asked me to write you a theory. You asked me to tell you a story. There are a hundred different versions and a hundred different possibilities because we have so little information. So this is the one I choose to tell today. Tomorrow I may rewrite this tale where the woman is Laura’s mother, where Ell is a descendant of the Bronte’s, where Elle is a Bronte and laura’s mother, where Laura turns evil, where twib is evil, where gods come back, where the world burns again, where brontes are ghosts, and TWIB is a vampire.

But today I choose to weave a theory that makes a love story. Where Carmilla gets the closure with Ell that she’s been waiting for and where Laura gets to understand a carmilla she never thought she’d see and love her all the more. This was always a love story. Our story written in Hollstein’s veins and the larger story around it written in Inanna and Hastur.

Love will have it’s sacrifices but love still always wins.

I’m @ariabauer and that’s The End.

#carmilla #hollstein #carmilla movie #carmilla theory #ariawrites #maybe give a girl a like reblog?#i really love how i somehow became theory girl #you can pry hollstein engagement from my dead hands #had to just get this out #because bts photos keep changing things #post date may 31 2017 #thanks for reading cupcake #<3

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