#closer to the wedding

[brontes]

and THEN I got bit by a bug that said "Chicago house?" What if I could contrive a situation such that Edward and Bella could get married in Chicago? In a little old church just a few blocks from the house he grew up in. That he inherits from himself every few years. Which would be kept in good order and have minor updates made but stay true to the time period in which it was originally. And what if he had it fully furnished and decorated and stocked and they spent the night there before leaving on their honeymoon. And what if they lived there while Bella was human for a few years. What if it was restorative and healing for Edward to do that. What if he took this house that he had owned and not known what to do with or why he kept it. And what if he began to restore it as he fell in love hardly knowing what he was doing. What if the house was a metaphor for the humanity inside him brought back to life by the power of Bella's love for him?

[spellmage]

my Nevarra headcanon is that they love Memento Mori rings

[jeeyuns]

madney parallels: their lifeline through the seasons you heard chimney, there's somewhere he has to be

[carouselunique]

Yeah, sure why not! Here's a snippet of them I did a few days ago!

[d66dle]

ASCENSION

I will take my life into my hands and I will use it I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it

[howdaretrashships]

A comparison of two scenes

Mysterious Lotus Casebook - Ep 16 // Ep 38

[rayllumoon]

I finally finished watching S6 oH MY GOSH.

That was SO GOOD. Definitely best season of the second arc! The Rayllum moments were to die for. 🥹💖 The pacing was really good. The story arcs were so good. Everything was SO GOOD. I am worried about the future of so many characters tho. So many potential death flags 😬 That extra quasar diamond is definitely going to be used.

[pharawee]

—Your cheek is all red.

[eueclid]

Me when I spend money on the trip that I saved up specifically for the trip

[o-wild-west-wind]

so after the s2 teaser drop the pirates have been ping-ponging inside my brain for the past few days rapidly enough to reach a boiling point and I think it’s just cooked a theory: the Kiss™ was, for all intents and purposes, a marriage proposal—and Ed’s not raiding weddings just because he feels like the possibility of a future marriage is off the cards, but because he sees himself as, quite literally, having been jilted by a man who just said yes to his proposal.

Prefacing that a) I know the historical context is not (and absolutely should not) be given much weight in this show, and b) I am not a historian (so please correct me if I say anything patently ~falshe~) but that said and with my only qualification as being a Certified Slut for period dramas, I think a case could be made that this show—and Ed specifically—could be assuming an era-specific formula for romance.

While the majority of society was kind of a free-for-all when it came to sex/marriage/etc. in the 18th century, the upper echelons were still bound to a relatively strict level of propriety, as well as transactional views of a relationship; and at the same time, this was a period when the notion of marrying for love was rising in popularity (Stede, of course, is the poster child of someone forced into this contradiction). For the upper classes, you'd be lucky to get a period of courtship before the actual marriage, because if you did, it meant you got a shot at getting to know the person you were going to end up with (and had the potential for love). And—as such—courtship was kind of a thrilling, romantic thing with a few common qualities: it tended to be very public, very loaded & grandiose, and very brief, and even though it didn't have to end in marriage, marriage was always the end goal. You can probably see where I'm going here.

I think it's easy to read the "you wear fine things well" scene as a possible soft-launch of their courtship, and Lucius's nudges solidify it. Courtship was traditionally full of big, romantic gestures—maybe planning treasure hunts and setting ships on fire weren't typical ones, but they sure do count—and as much "getting to know you" as possible. Like dating, it was the time when you'd learn the other person's values, hobbies, preferences, etc., except perhaps to a shallower degree given the typical lack of privacy. If anything, Ed and Stede have a leg up in this respect.

Now, I do think it's a misconception that the majority of marriage proposals in this time happened after, like...3 weeks of knowing each other, but the trope is there for a reason. It was a lot more common for the engagement period to be the time you really got to know each other, and it wasn't abnormal for the engagement to last longer than the actual courtship; a marriage proposal kind of WAS the first truly official step in someone's relationship socially, emotionally, and physically. And while this might not have been true of the rungs of society Ed has been a part of, it definitely would've been true of Stede's.

Now, I don't think Stede is really thinking consciously of all of this during the timeline he's with Ed; he's intent on breaking all the rules he's felt strangled by his whole life. But Ed—he wants all that. He loves the idea of an aristocratic life, but he's also a romantic who wants an aristocratic love. Like how so many of us romanticize Jane Austen novels because it's a world we're so far removed from, Ed probably romanticizes love in Stede's world. He doesn't want the free-for-all he's been living; he loves the thrill of a courtship, of gentlemanly sensibilities, of the metaphorical dance of it all. And when an upper-crust gentleman appears to have initiated this courtship—and when he's being encouraged by everyone (except Izzy, but there's even more romance in rebellion) to reciprocate—he's going to indulge in it with all his heart. He's literally living a romantic novel dream world, and once he's sure of Stede's feelings, he has absolutely no reason not to expect that their trajectory is marriage. Sure, Stede is a pirate now—but he's still a gentleman, and isn't that what being wooed by a gentleman means?

So when they're in a desperate situation and the bar for grand gestures can't go higher, and they experience true privacy for the first time ever, and Stede kisses back, and he says yes to running away together—and Ed even asks for confirmation to make sure it’s all for real—"yes?" "I think so?" "yes!"—that's as good as a vow. That's a promise on par with a proposal. And this is probably when it clicks for Stede, too—he hears Mary's words, "we never would've chosen each other," and suddenly he realizes that he can finally choose love! And so there they are: relationship made official, 1700s style.

Cut to Ed, crashing weddings and stealing little cake toppers in dramatically tragic, anachronistic fashion—because, well...they were supposed to get married, weren't they? Because that's what gentlemen are supposed to do, or so he thought. But in reality, gentlemen aren't romantic; they're just fickle.

And let the divorce arc commence.

[galaxytittus]

My sweet lovely husband is putting together my PC rn so everyone please pray that nothing got broken in shipment 😬we are finally settled in after moving 3k miles away lol I will be posting my drafts n getting to the askbox soon!

[moeblob]

Guess who is at the airport! With a flight originally to depart at 2, delayed to 4:30! In order to reschedule the second flight since we'll miss the connection, guess who has a flight at 10:45pm!

[whentherewerebicycles]

baby is in the right place I saw the heartbeat 😭

[bridgeportbritt]

Creeksbrey Ballroom | Umbrage, SimDonia

After a quick cocktail hour in the hall, the guests returned to the ballroom which was transformed into a beautiful reception. Guests enjoyed dinner, dancing, and of course more wedding festivities. The newlywed couple had their first dance, cut their cake, and enjoyed time with family.

@trentonsimblr @whitmoreroyals @atreanroyals @ladybugsimblr @storiesbyjes2g

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

Hi hello I watched all of carmilla in a weekend when I was 17 because a student teacher who in retrospect I had a bit of a crush on mentioned that she knew one of the actresses. also I am pretty invested in all your recent vampire stuff because I watched iwtv in 2 days last week because your edit intrigued me

oh hiiii 🫶 thank you for indulging me. thats so cool that you watched iwtv! did it live up to the expectation?

i also watched carmilla at 17! or like, 17-19. i found it when s2 had just started and followed it to the end. did something permanent to my brain but i think it was a good thing. on rewatch now im like, i was right to like this. like it's a solid show, it's good. it has its flaws obviously but it's well written, the emotional moments still get me, i can see why i liked it and i still like it now even when it's not anymore, you know, meeting every need that baby gay me didnt even know they had

what it doesnt reaallyy do though - i dont remember if i posted abt this or if i left it in my drafts but - is explore vampirism as a concept. their subject matter is more lesbianism than vampirism. which is great! thats what they wanted to do and they did it and it's very good. but reading interview with the vampire the book rn im realising how much potential vampires have to be metaphors for like so many things and i started wondering like 'wait, did carmilla just not really engage with it or did it all go over my head'. but it just didnt really engage with it all that much. which again is fine bc that wasnt what they were doing. im glad they were more about the lesbianism than the vampirism

but there's this interesting difference in framing, because in iwtv they keep calling armand 'ancient' right? and emphasising how old he is. and he's like 500? and i was like 'wait isnt carmilla like 400?'. she isnt, shes 340, but still, thats getting there, you know? and we know quite a lot about her history, but kind of just the Big Events. when she was turned, the events of the novella, coffin of blood, silas. thats sort of what we know. but none of the long lonely slog of history day to day you know? with armand i feel like we can really feel how much time everything takes. how every one of those years is made up of single days. with carmilla i dont feel that as much. i keep kind of thinking about daniel, when louis calls him a boy in the first episode, saying "im an old man, with all the triggers that come with it"

because carmilla might look 18 (or mid twenties at this point) but she has lived all that time. shes also seen her native land be claimed by like a succession of ruling powers, right? like armand. shes been buried alive, like louis. when lestat is born, shes already 80 years old, shes lived a whole human lifetime, and the entire adult part of it shes been a vampire. shes lived through 1680-1870 being a lure. i compared her to abigail hobbs in some tags on a post, i dont know if youre familiar with hannibal the tv show, but i do also kinda keep thinking about that comparison

if youre not familiar, in the first episode of hannibal the murderer of the week is this guy garrett jacob hobbs who kills and cannibalises girls who resemble his daughter. and later on it turns out she was made to be his lure. like they'd go places and he'd sent her to the victims to make friends and maybe get them back to their home or smth. not sure if they specified all the details. but that's what carmilla did for mother. and in s2 we hear from mattie that while every couple of decades carmilla had to lure victims for the fish god, she also seemed to just enjoy humans between those times, right? like the doctor, gets lonely, gets a new companion. but we've only sort of got mattie's mocking word for it ("dont eat him, hes a poet! or her, shes got such a wonderful voice. or that one, shes just too pretty to ruin"), we don't know exactly from carmilla's point of view what she was doing or why. if mattie's talking about stuff that happened after the blood coffin, 1950-now, then i think it's a fair assumption based on what carmilla says in the s1 sock puppet show that after she'd figured out what the real situation was and what her role in it was, when she'd started trying to save girls from being sacrificed, that she mightve been doing the same trying to save people from becoming mattie's victims. it's probably more likely that she was just trying to find excuses to stop mattie from sucking someone dry rather than actually having like an aesthetic based morality. but it might be a bit of both. im still trying to figure out what her philosophy actually is, like i dont know what existentialism actually means ghkfjghkj but i will

i also found it pretty striking in the movie when shes turning back into a vampire she says like "this was supposed to be done, you know? the blood lust, the self-loathing, the sleeping tied to a chair in my own bedroom". thats what defines her vampirism, wanting blood and hating yourself for it (the third part is a joke/reference to s1 but also i think meaningful for how she sees her relationship with laura when she IS a vampire. little bit of that 'she will reject me for my monstrousness' shining through). and thats what defines vampirism for lots of vampires across the genre obviously, but i dont know, it struck me. we dont get a lot from carmilla's pov, we know a fair amount about her, but the story is always told through laura. we get laura's diaries, but just snippets here and there from carmilla, what shes thinking, how shes feeling

and i love that shes a philosopher. i love that thats how she seems to try and find something to hold onto, in a world that kind of moves around her, having been murdered, kidnapped, turned and groomed to be a lure on the cusp of adulthood, never having been properly loved (the relationship with her father wasnt good she says in s3, and her mortal mother i dont think has ever been mentioned (like laura's)). the only good relationship she seems to have had for the better part of 3 centuries seems to have been mattie, and mattie seems to love being a vampire. i can imagine carmilla just sort of going along with anything mattie wants to do just because shes so desperate for that friendship. not like, against her will necessarily really. but more like, she hasnt even had the space to develop her own will, you know? and philosophy lets you do that. philosophy gives you frameworks to understand the world and to develop your own opinions on it. and by the 21st century she seems to have developed those opinions, she has a sense of her own values, but shes also still stuck in that same situation. shes jaded and cynical in the face of laura's optimism and strong moral code a lot of the time in s1 because she feels probably pretty powerless. like she does what she can to save some girls but at the end of the day shes scared of her mother and she has nowhere else to go really, right?

i like how she grapples with that over the course of the series, in tandem with laura grappling with her black and white morality. she sort of jumps ship from her mother to laura bc theyve fallen in love, but then laura still stuck in her hero thinking refuses to see her monstrous side. not literally bc i think the biological vampirism never seemed to be a problem for laura, but morally. the having murdered. carmilla needs laura to see that and love her while seeing it bc the last girl she loved rejected her for being a vampire.

but you see her kind of swing back and forth in s2. she softens first with laura but then they break up and she leans back hard into the sarcastic cynic defense mechanisms, leans hard into "im a monster, dont expect heroism from me". but thats like, it's sort of learned helplessness i think. it's powerlessness, resignation. bc morally shes not a monster. maybe she doesnt have as strong a drive to help other people as laura does and is a little more selfishly hedonistic in that she just wants to enjoy her/their life, but she doesnt hurt people for fun, she never has. she just sort of didnt have another option for a Really long time. so she pretends she doesnt care. "im a vampire, this is what i do, this is who i am". but clearly from the way she talks about it when she turns back into one, she doesnt enjoy it

and i like how she goes even further in s3, where she starts swinging even more to the heroic side, bc she sees hope. shes like "wow if we kill my mother, i'd be free". theres hope and she becomes like a lot more active. and shes like that at the start of the movie too, a lot happier, a lot more relaxed, and then vampirism is back and bam depression gfhgkjh like shes immediately more gloomy, ashamed of her past and her self, retreats into herself

sorry i just took this as an opportunity to dump all the carmilla thoughts floating in my head on you. you didnt ask fhkghgjh consider this an open invitation to you or anyone else to come talk to me about carmilla

[abyssalshriek]

I'm tired so I'm going to share a random Agent 24 headcanon of mine (there's Pearlina in the background/premise).

When the bouquet toss happens at Pearl and Marina's wedding, Captain 3 super jumps to be the one to catch it. They then realize, a bit embarrassed, that all eyes are on them as they just did that in front of everyone.

Pearl leans over to Eight and tells her, "Yo, now would be like, the funniest time to propose."

And so she does. The Captain says yes, but laments that, not planning to propose at someone else's wedding (because that is normally considered very very rude), they left their own ring for Eight at home.

Anyway, after that, Pearl and Marina announce they have some planes ready to fly the guests to a Shifty Station for a couple Turf War matches. Someone says that sounds excessively expensive, to which Pearl responds, "Eh, it was just a couple billion g."