#hareton as the only person that heathcliff's really loved.

[berkeley-mews]

hareton earnshaw was 23, he should have been at the club!!

[longagoitwastuesday]

I am liking Jujutsu Kaisen, way more than I imagined I would, but I foresee it will let me down and it's keeping me from enjoying this as much as I could haha

I think the characters and dynamics are well set, and I think many of them have an incredibly good and deep potential, but I would be willing to bet they'll not get a proper development, enough for them to really hit. A well assembled set of gears is not enough to make the movement go, you have to wind the clockwork.

I think Gojo and Megumi have a fascinating and very complex dynamic, but I doubt it will be given the time and care that imo it needs to actually work. And it is going well enough for now! One could see the intimacy between them was deeper than the one Gojo had with, say, Yuji and Nobara ever since the very first few episodes despite the fact Fushiguro too was a first year. But the pieces forming what they have are extremely complex, and it just wouldn't be realistic if it doesn't show, even if in a not showing way, or if it doesn't have consequences or implications.

It's one of those dynamics that shape one's life, the way one regards the world, the way one establishes or not relationships with other people. It's one of those dynamics that could be full of fondness, gratitude, resentment, admiration, trust, and that imply intimacy, the good kind or the bad, even if in just the knowledge of someone who's been a constant through your life. It could, and would, imply a myriad of feelings, and probably in such a mix it could imply contradictory feelings too. Even the nothingness would weight, even the nothingness would be significant and meaningful.

Gojo took Megumi and his sister under his wing, the son of a man who murdered him, because of both selfish and selfless reasons. Megumi looks like Toji. What does Gojo feel about this? How does Gojo deal with this? How does Gojo go about taking care of Megumi? Would he walk him to school? Make him breakfast? Celebrate his birthdays making him blow candles? Did he take him to the zoo? Does the relationship between them feel professional or is it something more? Gojo appreciates his students, but is Megumi to him just another student? When Gojo faces Sukuna in Megumi's body, did he see the kid he raised, or does he just see Sukuna in one of his students' body? Did he have one faint wavering instant? And how does Megumi feel about this? Is he resentful of him? Resentful of the situation? Of the selfishness behind his actions? Does he feel like a pawn? Is he grateful? Does he resent feeling grateful? Would he rather not? Does he love Gojo? Does he feel nothing about him other than what he could feel about a teacher that sort of annoys him but knows he's reliable in his strength? Does he think it unfair, cruel or unfeeling that Gojo is close, closer perhaps, with Yuuji or Yuta, considering their story? When Sukuna slices Gojo in two, does the remnants of Megumi's soul tremble?

And not just Megumi and Gojo. Yuuji and Nanami, Gojo and Nanami, Yuuji and Fushiguro, Nobara and the boys, or Nobara and Maki, Todo and Yuuji or Yuta, Gojo and Yuta, Megumi and his sister. Gojo and Geto, even! If the pieces are well set, the dynamics are intriguing, interesting, and have potential to be deep, but then the characters have like two plot relevant scenes that punch you hard, but little more, it's not nearly enough. Especially not nearly enough for the enormity that is shonen dynamics and situations. And the potential existing at all, and then not delivering, makes it all the more frustrating when you're left with something mediocre that could have been so good.

The development of dynamics through not only a few plot relevant gut wrenching moving scenes, but also the smallness of life, is important. The friend who recommended this to me said that those things were just unnecessary filler, but I disagree. I think there's a big difference between a large amount of anime-only filler episodes whose existence is based on the fact they had run out of manga chapters to animate, and moments of quietness. The low stakes character-driven moments of quietness can be so telling and so insightful, and they are so satisfactory when brought back later in higher stakes situations. My friend teased me there was no scene of Gojo making breakfast to Megumi, that it would be an idiotic idea, but it would be so telling. How he makes breakfast, what they eat, if he tries hard or if it's all mechanised, if they have personal bowls or if they use whatever, if he just buys them some pastry on the way to school, if the way they have breakfast changes through the years, or if he doesn't make them breakfast at all! All that would be very insightful on their dynamic and its evolution. All that would give a glimpse on how they regard each other and why, even in the present. All that could become meaningful in tense situations and high stakes scenes.

These moments also let the plot breath; if a lot is happening all the time, if every character is always experiencing trauma after trauma, the entire story is so emotionally draining that at some point you don't even care all that much. Besides, these nothing moments or low stakes plot arcs, besides deepening and developing dynamics, also let some in-world time pass, which would make the intimacy and bond between characters more believable imo; between Yuuji eating Sukuna's finger and their last confrontation in December how much time has passed? A few months? Am I truly to believe these characters are so everything to each other in only a few months?

Without some smallness, some repetition, some daily life, some low stakes not plot-centric development, the dynamics don't hit, they don't truly feel fleshed out, and dynamics as complex as the ones Megumi and Gojo have, or as supposedly meaningful as the one Megumi has with Yuuji or his sister, should be fleshed out if they're going to exist at all. Otherwise they'd risk making the writing feel awkward and fake. Besides, if the dynamics felt well fleshed out and realistic, they would shape the way the characters interact and act, and how they deal with situations, thus being plot relevant.

The shonen genre has so much happening all the time, the stakes are so high, the dynamics are so rooted in big events and the relationships carry enormous weight and implications. Yet they barely get developed, and it feels so stupid, so plain, the absence of something so important noticeable like a constant void, a shapeless nothingness present in every scene. It makes the characters feel like cardboard figures. Jujutsu Kaisen is already getting a better job than many, but I doubt it will do enough for what I've heard, and I fear I am bound to feel let down, and bound to feel unmoved.

After all, if not enough time and care has been given to develop a dynamic, I am not going to feel pressured by the high stakes; if not enough time and care has been given to develop the dynamic between Megumi and Yuuji, as good potential as it has I am bound to feel little for this last confrontation between Sukuna and Itadori, and his effort in getting Megumi back.

[divorcedwife]

hi! i was wondering what exactly you mean by characters that are kind on purpose? i have an idea but im curious about the details. could you give some examples?

i was also wondering how you like the characters in tevinter nights compared to how you like them in game, just your opinion on them. oh and did you read the book before you played the game or the other way around?

oh of course!! i meant characters who are extremely kind and selfless and never take things personally, but are written this nicely on purpose, to make a point. like the idiot in dostoevsky's book - the prince is kind and sweet and doesn't hold a grudge, he's disarmingly sincere and always compassionate, he has great insight into other people and why they behave the way they do. and it's on purpose in that this makes him extremely singular, a mystery to other people, cause every other character is held back by social conventions or pragmatic desires or cruel impulsions, and the prince simply doesn't have those. i think this idea also applies to hareton in wuthering heights to some level, he's not saint like and doesn't talk people through their issues, but he is patient and willing to endure cruelty, to take violence inward and not look for revenge. everyone else is thinking about revenge and who they can torment as proxy for revenge (like heathcliff taking revenge on hindley by mistreating hareton, little cathy is mean to hareton because heathcliff makes her miserable) but he is willing to defend little cathy from heathcliff and to defend heathcliff from little cathy, even thought that puts him at risk. he's very selfless in a book where everyone else is pretty selfish, so it stands out

i really love both of these characters, i just don't like it if someone is meant to be a normal regular person but they're a saint in social interactions anyway, or if everyone is also like that - i dont remember for sure what prompted me to make that post in the first place but i was probably vaguing veilguard, i imagine. that's just my personal bias but i cant imagine someone insulting me to my face and responding by trying to coach them through their feelings, and it doesn't feel like a natural human response to me, even less so when everyone else is also like that. i wouldn't mind kindness if there was one character who was a ray of sunshine and always selfless, but we have TOO much sunshine in this beautiful guard of the veil for it to feel like a trait specific to anyone

i read tevinter nights after playing dav! i went in dav with zero info on the companions aside from very very basic things, like i saw some gifs. that's about it i ended up not finishing tevinter nights because of the eight little talons story - i disliked that one SO thoroughly that i needed a break after. but that's so weird, because i only realized recently that the author for that also wrote the lucanis story that i really enjoyed?? so idk what happened there, i don't get why courtney woods would do that to me. i hesitate to call anything objectively bad, but i found that story painfully sexist in how it handled the characters of teia and viago, and also not very good as a murder mystery (i guessed the killer based on the fact that the character spoke ominously and had otherwise nothing to do). i liked teia and viago way more before i read this, i will never look at them the same again </3

but i did still like the lucanis story, and it has made me sympathize with illario way more lol. it's a shame he's written with zero subtlety in the game, because i do like their dynamic in this one! if i had to help my cousin on a special mission and he kept changing objectives and getting us in danger by being too kind and sweet, i would also want him mega dead tbh. i'd think about it at least. looking back though, i think the issues with lucanis do start in this story ; in that he's an assassin with a moral code who doesn't kill innocent witnesses and will draw out a killing to make the target suffer more - i think that's 1) unprofessional 2) contradictory? for example, in this story, he kills a bunch of guards. were they all guilty? to the level of deserving death? i wouldn't think so. the idea that someone can be a good & moral assassin who only kills bad guys is a total dead end, it's not possible. especially if he's not a vigilante, but a hired mercenary. it shows in his banter in dav, his sense of morality made him sound more deluded and sinister to me than if he'd said "i kill people for money, whatever" i still think this story is fun in itself, and i enjoyed it. i think this contradiction in lucanis could have been interesting if it had been on purpose and explored in the game, but i think the writers really thought they found the loophole to have an assassin who is morally unquestionable....... too bad i liked neve's story, i thought her bitterness and the way she assumes the worst outcomes and the worst of everyone, but still never gives up, that was fun. if neve was written by the same person who wrote the story (and i think so?), then she was written by the same woman who wrote evka, which i think is amazing because i thought multiple times that they were pretty similar, but i like how it works for evka more. i think it's because evka is balanced by antoine, the optimist to her pessimism, who knows her deeply and allows her to show a softer side without it feeling jarring or contradictory like it did for me with neve

i also liked the first story, the one that had strife, thought i felt VERY unprepared for the first named character in the book to be extremely elf racist. it's not bad, it's definitely on purpose, it's just that since you never see anything like that in da:v, i didn't think it would be on the table. i liked the action scenes and the little twists and reveals, which i think may what weekes is best at writing tbh... my favorite dragon age book i read is probably still the masked empire, and i remember liking that about it, the action and the suspense and the twists

i like the story with antoine and evka, who are great and i love that we get to see them before they fall in love. i think this story benefits from the fact that i know they will come back later and their relationship will grow - on its own, i probably would have found it just ok, but the book and game feel very complementary and work together well in my opinion :-)

other stories have already slipped out of my mind for the most part, i just remember liking the one with emmrich and really disliking the one with dorian. maybe i'll finish it at some point, there probably arent that many stories left anyway... just for completion's sake

[princesssarisa]

Some time ago, I remember a post from @faintingheroine about Wuthering Heights, criticizing the fact that young Cathy has to stop speaking out against Heathcliff because of Hareton's love for him. I agree that this aspect of the plot deserves to be questioned. Heathcliff is young Cathy's captor and abuser. The fact that Hareton not only fails to defend her against him the way she hoped he would, but insists that she not even speak negatively of him, and that her acquiescence is portrayed as a good thing (at least by Nelly), isn't an entirely comfortable plot point, to say the least.

But I think I can offer at least a slight defense of it.

It means that Cathy stands by Hareton even when there's no apparent hope that he'll ever reclaim his father's land and money. Even after Hareton learns the truth about Heathcliff's dealings with Hindley, he has no desire to claim his rightful inheritance because he's too loyal to Heathcliff, which means he'll be living like a laborer as long as Heathcliff is alive. No one knows at this point that Heathcliff will die in just a few days, or that he'll die without making a will, leaving the property to default to Hareton. As far as they know, in all but his birth, Hareton is a nobody with nothing and will stay that way. Yet unlike her mother with young Heathcliff, Cathy doesn't abandon him so as not to be degraded. (Not that the elder Catherine thought she was abandoning Heathcliff by choosing to marry Edgar, but that was her own naïveté and/or self-delusion.)

More than once in the past, I've seen @faintingheroine and others express discomfort with Hareton's status as a "prince in disguise," and feel as if it makes the novel's ending all too conservative. They've noted that while it's tempting to view young Cathy and Hareton as "elder Cathy and Heathcliff redux" and see the daughter as correcting her mother's mistake by embracing her love for the poor, rugged stable boy, it's not really the same, because Hareton isn't a gutter child like Heathcliff was, but the rightful heir to Wuthering Heights. That's all very true. But the fact that Cathy doesn't abandon Hareton after she fails to turn him against Heathcliff shows that she's come to care for him as a person, not because he's the rightful heir. It arguably makes her love for him more progressive and more a case of correcting her mother's mistake after all.

Nor does Cathy stop defying Heathcliff altogether. She continues her friendship with Hareton even though Heathcliff forbade it, and she continues teaching him to read, slowly undoing the harm Heathcliff did by denying him an education. And Hareton is a willing participant. Despite his devotion to Heathcliff, he goes against Heathcliff's will and risks being thrown out by staying friends with Cathy and receiving her lessons. These simple facts make Cathy's acquiescence to Hareton's request that she not criticize Heathcliff seem less like submission and more like a compromise.

Feel free to agree or disagree, but these are my thoughts.

[boredmezzosoprano]

In defence of Catherine Earnshaw

I just wanted to take this time to talk about the heroine of my all time favourite book Wuthering Heights. She is often described as "selfish" by a lot of readers and yes this is true, but there are reasons for why she acts the way she does. It bothers me how much quicker people are to defend Heathcliff than her when if you ask me, Heathcliff has done worse things than her i.e manipulating and abusing Isabella Linton, abusing his own sickly son, abusing Hareton and robbing him of his inheritance, manipulating Catherine Linton into marrying his son and then robbing her of her inheritance and kidnapping her so she couldn’t be with her dying father and then there’s the little matter of him being the last person to see Hindley before he mysteriously dies (admittedly Hindley was an a$$hole, but still). Don’t think I’m unsympathetic to Heathcliff’s own pain and suffering - I am, it’s just that you cannot judge Cathy harshly while whitewashing Heathcliff’s character🤷🏼‍♀️ Anyway the points I want people to keep in mind are thus:

Like Heathcliff, nobody ever really raised Cathy as her parents both died when she was a child (and even then she wasn’t the favourite of either of them) and Hindley and Nelly couldn’t have been less bothered. Even though the Linton's tried to tame her spirit and mould her into "a lady" it makes sense that her default mode will always be that of a feral child.

People often accuse her of being a gold digger and yes she did plan on marrying Edgar for his money in the hopes of using that money to get Heathcliff out from under Hindley's tyranny, it should be remembered that Cathy really did love Edgar too just not as much as Heathcliff. Also how was she to know that Heathcliff was able to make his own fortune? Given that he never reveals how he made his money and nobody ever finds out how could she have known. It’s speculated that he became a highwayman i.e a glorified thief, most people would choose to avoid living such a precarious lifestyle if given the choice and its hard to blame for not wanting to live a vagabond existence, even Heathcliff admits that he "struggled". As a woman living in the 1700s the only honourable way she could make any kind of life for herself was by getting married!

When she marries Edgar she had no idea where Heathcliff was and when or if he was ever coming back and her choices were limited to marrying into a family who treat you well or stay in your own chaotic and miserable household with your violent drunk if a brother and a maid who’s made it clear she hates you and does not see you as worth her time. So yeah…

Catherine seems to suffer from some sort of disease that’s only ever described as "brain fever". Some readers have described it as encephalitis and others have called it epilepsy. In any case anytime she’s aggravated or upset in anyway she becomes violently ill and this ultimately kills her. With that in mind it becomes understandable that she would actively avoid anything that would cause her any distress as it could (and did) kill her!

There were moments in the book where Cathy with her mood swings came across to me as being bipolar or at least having some kind of personality disorder. Nelly describes her as "having seasons of gloom" during her marriage and she self harms a couple of times in the book. She also threatens to kill herself if it would get a reaction! She seems to place her own sense of value on the men in her life which shows a fundamental lack of self esteem. As someone with BPD these things all hit home for me very deeply, but unlike Cathy I have the freedom to back away from situations that trigger me (well most of the time) and access to medications that even my moods.

While it was undeniably harsh of Cathy to humiliate Isabella by revealing her feelings for Heathcliff with both of them in the room but at the same time she wasn’t wrong to try to snap Isabella out of this naive fantasy. Isabella is a character I care about deeply but it’s obvious that she was in way over her head when it came to Heathcliff! Cathy knew better than anyone that he hated Isabella and would only hurt her. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. Poor Isabella does ultimately learn too late that Cathy was right. Even Nelly has to begrudgingly agree with Cathy on this one.

Speaking of Nelly, it should be remembered that everything we learn about Cathy as well as many other characters, we learn only from Nelly who it is clear is quite biased against the characters whose story she is telling. Because she can’t relate to the intense emotions of the other characters she tends to assume that it must be because there’s something wrong with them. It’s entirely possible that Nelly made Cathy out to be far worse than she actually was. It has to be said that Nelly is a character that I tend to back and forth on…

Anyway that’s my take on Catherine Earnshaw. If you disagree that’s fine but please no rude comments cuz we’re all adults and we can agree to disagree😉

[wonusite]

Hiiiii

I dont know if anyone here had read the book Wuthering Hills by Emily Brontë (if you havent you really should) but when i think about a svt version of this i always think of these and i really wanted to share whatever this is

heathcliff!scoups/wonu: im sorry, i love seungcheol dearly but he just fits okay? Wonu is also there bc i really like him and wanted to add him and thats the only fitting role for him except edgar who was already filled with people (im just rambling at this point)And for the both of them i already said that they are probably the most intense SPOILER:obsessedloversakayanderes

Edgar!Jun/Seungkwan: both fit (actually all of them fits bc Edgar is my fave character but i dont want to say all just to say it lol) and i cant choose which one fits better (also dont come at me and say "but Edgar should be smaller than Heathcliff, Jun is not smaller than Scoups" Yes i know but lets ignore it and just think about the personalities of them pls)

Joseph!Joshua: wont even explain this, iykyk bc hes the only one fitting to this role

Linton Heathcliff!Jeonghan: bc linton is described as the pretty little boy of the book and there is some other reasons as well but dont wanna give spoilers (i hate that little bitch's guts but i love hannie so much please dont @ me)

Hareton Earnshaw!Mingyu/vernon/chan: no reason at all just fits the vibe

And i really dont wanna add him but Hindly Earnshaw!Dokyeom bc idk it just fits the vibes as well i guess

Lockwood probably would be a mix of hoshi and mingyu but since he is not a permanent character of the story i dont wanna add him here

Im trying to think more of male characters that made an impact on the story unlike Kenneth or Mr. Earnshaw (who did make an impact but didnt stay for long) but i cant think of any

Also Ellen would definitly be seungkwan and Zillah would be hoshi if they were male characters

haven’t read it so i don’t have anything to add lmao

[doctorcolubra]

Wuthering Heights (reread)

My thoughts on beginning this reread were that (a) I didn't particularly enjoy reading this in high school, although I wasn't a confirmed hater either; (b) I didn't like any of the characters, with sort of a half-hearted fondness for Lockwood; (c) I thought I would appreciate the deeper themes more as an adult, now that I'm not expecting it to be either a love story or a supernatural gothic.

For the most part, the latter assumption held: I understood it far better and was able to appreciate the descriptions and the themes of class. I appreciated the way the nested framing and the narrative doubling situates the story in time and emphasises repetition and consequence. I also really respected the way that this book inspires passion in the reader, whether positive or negative, just as the characters are buffeted about by their emotions—it's like casting a Scroll of Strong Opinions on yourself with little control over the outcome.

My strong opinions on this reread: fuck all these people. Yes, even Nelly! For about 75% of the book, Nelly is the only normal person with something resembling a conscience...and for the last 25%, she hates on a dying child whom she knows and acknowledges to be a victim of parental abuse, and it happens a lot. Linton Heathcliff was the only person I really wanted to rescue from the narrative, because (at least after Isabella dies) he hasn't got one single solitary adult in his life who cares about him or sees him as human. Yes, Linton's annoying and selfish and sickly; so is practically everyone else in the book! But Heathcliff hates and violently abuses his son, Hareton contributes to it, Cathy Jr. clearly thinks she's incredibly kind and generous to tolerate his company, and Nelly calls him "effeminate", "defective", "cowardly", etc. etc., both in private and to his face.

The only way this behaviour makes sense is by reading the racial undertones of the book, which are covered in an essay at the end of this edition: Heathcliff is written as strong-but-evil because he's racialised (albeit ambiguously!) as some type of dark-skinned other, but Linton is the result of (perceived?) miscegenation, and therefore gets the Victorian stereotypes about mulattoes and hybrids—weak, sick, evil, treacherous, not masculine, and so on. Nothing besides a white Victorian horror at race-mixing really explains why this poor sickly traumatised kid is portrayed as such a villain.

[Sidebar here but the racism in this book is genuinely so ugly that I'm not sure why any PoC actor would want to play Heathcliff—he's so spiteful and nasty and abusive that I don't think there's much scope for humanising him.]

Is it still a great novel? Yeah, sure, why not—all Victorian lit is racist, take yo sensitive ass back to Third World Lit. The portrayal of family abuse and trauma wreaking havoc over generations is powerful, and it should make a great movie even though none of the adaptations have been good that I can recall. I enjoyed Nelly's company through much of the book, at least. But that last 25% left a nasty taste in my mouth, and the "conventional" ending (with its hidden layers of darkness) between Cathy Jr. and Hareton did nothing to change that for me. I'm not in high school anymore and I don't have to have complex, well-grounded opinions for my final essay, I'm free to have a bad time and get mad at everybody and imagine unquiet sleepers in that quiet earth.

[heidisenglandblog]

Week 20 blog

Emily Brontë

Wuthering heights

Word count: 443

Summary:

We go back to the present and after the disturbing encounter with Heathcliff, Lockwood returns to Thrushcross Grange, where he becomes increasingly obsessed with the story of Heathcliff and Catherine. He spends much of his time reading Catherine's diary and trying to unravel the mysteries of the past. Meanwhile, the focus of the narrative shifts to the present day, where we see the relationship between Catherine's daughter, also named Catherine, and her cousin, Hareton Earnshaw, the son of Hindley. Hareton was once a strong and capable young man, but after years of being mistreated by Heathcliff, he has become illiterate and has lost his position in society. Catherine feels bad for Hareton and tries to teach him to read and write. He refuses her efforts, but over time, however, the two develop a deep connection and begin to fall in love. The section ends with a tragic twist: Catherine died giving birth to a daughter, also named Catherine, and Heathcliff takes in the child as his own. He becomes even more consumed with his obsession for the dead Catherine, and his behavior becomes even more violent.

Critical analysis:

This whole time we see Heathcliff battle his personal demons for someone who previously treated him with unconditional kindness. We can pick up his unhealthy obsessions and the way he copes with the loss of his true love. Lockwood describes it as, “He kept himself sober for the purpose toler- ably sober: not going to bed mad at six o’clock and getting up drunk at twelve. Consequently, he rose, in suicidal low spirits, as fit for the church as for a dance; and instead, he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by tum- blerfuls” (238.) We see that after all these years, he still cannot fathom the loss of Catherine. Even throughout their childhood, he still experienced hardships that surrounded his life just by being associated with her. So not only is heathcliff trying to cope with Catherine’s death, but also trying to move on from the misfortune she brought to him.

Personal response:

Healthcliff needs therapy, I have never seen someone so distressed for someone else like this. He’s very much down bad for Catherine. And, I kinda get it- but is it really necessary to go all out?? Healthcliff literally turned into the villain. He stole Catherine’s daughter, and is raising her as his own. For all we know, heathcliff’s love for his “daughter” might be fake, or clouded, by his revenge plan. I hope he doesn’t get a good ending in a way, but I also hope he doesn’t die with closure. He’s been through a lot, but his actions aren’t justified.

[pristina-nomine]

Can you do both Cathys from Wuthering Heights, please?

Turned out I didn’t have that much free time aha, I’m so sorry for the waiting. But, without further ado:

Catherine the First!

Favorite thing about them: her ghostliness. She *is* an extremely realistic character, but even when still alive she has this tension towards the supernatural and the afterlife. And I love the ambiguity over her being an actual spirit, or maybe only a memory, or maybe it's the same thing

Least favorite thing about them: another flawless character. And she's not exactly a good person, but I can't think about something that really irks me atm

Favorite line: Find a way, then! Not through that kirkyard—you are slow! Be content, you always followed me! Like, she's obviously in her delirium talking as her child self, but also, this is what will happen? He is slow, it'll take eighteen years for him to follow her. Okay.

brOTP: Isabella

OTP: Heathcliff duh

nOTP: Edgar

Random headcanon: err, none actually? I'll have to think about this one aha

Unpopular opinion: *she* is the true representative of nature, not Heathcliff. Or better, both of them are.

Song i associate with them: Me and the Devil by Soap&Skin and I Lost Something in the Hills by Sybille Baier

Favorite picture of them: this screencap of best girl Shannon Beer from the 2011 movie

Bonus: this hilarious Kate Beaton panel

EDIT: looking back at this, I actually think my favorite Catherine picture is this portrait by Christian Birmingham

Catherine the Second!

Favorite thing about them: her snark and fierceness. Also, a fellow bookworm!

Least favorite thing about them: that she's completely isolated from her mother. Like, simbolically, she follows her steps backwards, but there's never a moment in which she actually confronts her memory, how she feels about her late mother, who had her same name. It'd be clichèd maybe (the worst adaptations always have at least one scene like this aha), but I'd love it.

Favorite line: I should feel well—but you have left me so long to struggle against death, alone, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death! Absolutely heartbreaking and beautiful. The Antigone of it all.

brOTP: the obvious answer is Nelly, but I'll go with Linton. I think there was some genuine affection there, if only someone hadn't forced them into romance maybe they would have been good friends

OTP: Hareton! But I already talked at lenght in the other ask about why I love them aha

nOTP: Linton

Random headcanon: that after her stay at the Heights she ofter wears her hair down. It's the middle of nowhere, who would even care.

Unpopular opinion: She's extremely similar to the first Catherine. Basically, what she would have become if she grew up in a loving household (and given an education besides whatever Joseph was doing).

Song i associate with them: Tam Lin by Anaïs Mitchell (her again..) and The Hazards of Love by The Decemberists, which is also a reimagining of the Ballad of Tam Lin. She's kind of the Janet of Wuthering Heights, isn't she?

Favorite picture of them: this still from the 1978 series (more acknowledgement of her climbing abilities please!)

[dahlia-coccinea]

This might be a wrong question, and I hope that I won’t be judged for asking this, but do you think that despite all the abuse he suffered, Heathcliff was lucky in some ways? He was really loved. Mr. Earnshaw preferred him to his children, Catherine loved him beyond words, Hareton loved him and was loyal to him, Isabella’s crush was maybe delusional but she still loved him, his son clearly wants him to love and appreciate him. Of course Heathcliff’s childhood was very traumatic and Hindley was horrible to him and he was abused and discriminated against, but isn’t it surprising that someone who was so loved is so incredibly angry at the world to the point of devoting his life to avenging himself on Catherine’s husband that Catherine wasn’t even in love with? Why feel bitter against Edgar at that point? He knows that he was more loved than him?

Hah well I won't judge you for the question. I would agree that Heathcliff does have some luck. If we consider what could have happened instead - Mr. Earnshaw treating him horribly, Catherine not loving him, literally no one caring for him, etc. - he would be even more tragic. I don't think saying that negates the tragedies that do occur to him.

I'm not really surprised that he remains bitter towards Edgar though. Edgar definitely was a significant reason he lost the chance of living a happy life with Catherine. Even though she loves him, they only have all of 20ish minutes with the knowledge of each other's feelings before her untimely death (which I think he also blames Edgar for). Also, it seems after her death he has almost no contact with Edgar. which allows for his hatred to fester. They obviously both feel there is too much bad blood between them - not just about Catherine but Isabella as well. 

There is also a strange element of them still being rivals, in part because Catherine was never able to fully choose one or the other before she dies. Edgar never knows the words exchanged between them and only finds her unconscious in Heathcliff's arms. He could easily tell himself that Heathcliff forced his way in and wasn’t actually welcome there, or even if he was welcome, he never knows the extent of her feelings and I don’t think it is something that would be useful for him to ponder. He has their daughter and he did love her, so it makes sense he just wants to live with the happy memories. This can be seen in how her grave ends up basically a point of territorial confrontation. They both feel that Catherine loved them and they have the right to visit her and then later be buried next to her. The impression I get from Heathcliff’s conversation to Nelly years later, is that he doesn’t even like that Edgar continues to visit her. 

Now I’m just rambling...in the end I think it would take a very benevolent person (which Heathcliff is definitely not) to let go of their animosity after everything that happens. To be fair, even kind Edgar can't.

[siren-of-redriver96]

Villian Heights (part 8)

(reading Wuthering Heights for the first time and trying to figure out the deal with this book with some assumptions from previous summaries of the story)

Today: from the point where Linton comes to Thrusscross Grange to the loveletter debacle)

(spoilers and kind of heavy themes - also strong language)

Also, I totally forgot I named Cathy Cathylin to avoid confusion XD here it is again

poor Linton - he just lost his mom and now he has to hold himself back to not upset Cathylin - really Edgar?

well at least he tells her to leave him alone for tonight

what’s wrong, Edgar asked when the kid who just lost his mom cried

it’s the chair ... honestly I think he’s just confused from grief. Let him go to bed people, ffs!

well, at least Edgar is patient with him

Cathylin, you were supposed to leave him alone - but nevermind, how she cared for him was freaking adorable

aaand Nelly was right. Heathcliff is not the kind of person who leaves something to others. I’m still surprised he never came for Isabella.

Linton has the right instinct unintentionally - yeah, you should stay with your uncle

How am I supposed to love him if I don’t know him? Oh boy you have no idea.....

kinda scary how much they lie to him to get him to come along ...

Heathcliff and Joseph, sympathetic as always

I’m jealous and want his love all for myself. Well, at least you’re honest Heathy. Poor child

okay, he’s a bit spoiled (I mean, the Lintons were too, so Isabella treated him accordingly - maybe we’ll learn a little more about their history as the story goes on)

heartbroken at how he screams in insane fear that he doesn’t want to stay there ... spot on kid. You really don’t want to

okay Linton is, again, a bit spoiled, but he’s also sickly, I don’t really blame him - still it seems he’s kind of unkind

sad that Hareton tries to befriend him and it doesn’t work

Cathylin’s birthday is never celebrated happily because it’s her mother’s death date - that’s sad, but then again she’s got a lot of blessings

she’s so happy go lucky, it’s sad to imagine the angry person she turns into further down the line

re-reading, for a moment I thought Cathylin was intentionally forcing Nelly to come with her into the area around Wuthering Heights to maybe get caught and see Linton again - but no, she doesn’t know Heathcliff

aaand Heathcliffs plan to get both properties through marrying Linton and Cathylin and then waiting for firsts death - we got a villian! That’s almost cartoonish

Listening to “Poker Face” while writing this - even though he’s pretty honest to Nelly about the details of his plans - like I said, cartoon villian

poor Cathylin is sunshining everywhere - I like the detail that her body is full and yet lean, a little body positivity

I just realized she talks just as much as Cathy XD

Heathcliff verbally abuses Linton, great, and would rather have Hareton as his son. Obvious parallel how old Earnshaw favoured him, though for other reasons and much differently, he doesn’t like either of the boys

he still spoils Linton and has encouraged his meanness ... well what to expect

Cathylin being rude to Hareton - okay she’s done that before, kind of

Heathcliff’s devilish laugh - lol, cartoon villian moment Nr. 3

we have another example of three kids together, one is older - but the dynamic is much different

Cathylin is really rude - I mean, Edgar didn’t teach her any better, plus the golden cage upbringing - kinda sad

her wanting to hear good reasons for Edgars bans is actually pretty refreshing

the letter sceme is kinda cool

Heathcliff even helped with them, geez. He is a villian

Nelly burning them one by one and threatening to tell her father must be really cruel from Cathylins perspective

even though she’s only fouling Heathcliffs plan

it would be easier if she just told Cathylin the truth, although she probably wouldn’t believe it

Thank you very much for reading!

[jostenneil]

how do you feel about people shipping toxic ships?

i think this depends on a few things. primarily, that fandom tends to conflate the terms abusive and toxic with each other. . . a lot. toxicity is inherent to abuse, but the reverse of that isn’t necessarily true. you can have a toxic relationship with someone without it being abusive, esp since, to me at least, abuse specifically arises from a person taking advantage of a power dynamic within what should normally be a mutually supportive relationship to deliberately hurt the other person. an example of an abusive relationship to me would be (from the grisha trilogy) alina and the darkling, who uses alina’s trust and sympathy towards him to manipulate, isolate, and threaten her to the point that it emotionally debilitates her and threatens her other relationships with people. there’s a clear power dynamic being manipulated there to the advantage of one person and to the harm of the other

a toxic relationship to me can involve intentional behavior but it can also involve a lot of unintentional behavior, esp that driven by trauma or a non-ideal upbringing, and then i also think a lot of toxic relationships are simply. . . between people you would never expect to get along to begin with. a lot of enemies to lovers ships have their initial basis in toxicity bc the people involved are enemies. they’re not supposed to actually like each other (or value each other’s lives) in the beginning, and usually if you write such a dynamic well, then certain political events and revelations eventually help those stances evolve to where the toxicity is addressed and overcome (and the same process can apply to rivals to lovers situations as well, albeit along softer parameters usually since politics aren’t necessarily involved). i personally like to see toxicity explored if writers give it direction. toxicity is off-putting if it’s static bc then it serves no other purpose than to scream in big neon letters “omg these ppl are sooo toxic it’s so sexy blah blah blah” and that’s incredibly boring to me. what well explored toxicity does is analyze how the people involved are impacted by that toxicity. whether being toxic invokes remorse, isolation, misery, etc. that’s what interests me

sometimes, it goes the ideal way, wherein characters realize their toxicity only hurts themselves and they express a genuine desire to change and grow. sasuke (from naruto) is a fairly obv example of that phenomenon to me, in that, yes, he’s absolutely right to be distrustful of the villages’ ulterior motives and to want justice for his family’s massacre, but driving away the people he loves and who love him doesn’t ultimately help him in attaining that goal or vision. post canon naruto is an absolute mess, but i think most people would agree on the general premise that in an ideal world, sasuke opening himself back up to naruto, sakura, and kakashi could have helped him enact change bc he would have a support system behind him, and he wouldn’t have to further isolate himself or render himself so prone to manipulation via trauma if he was able to rely on people he genuinely cared about

other times, toxicity can go the tragic route. the characters may be aware of their faults but fail to figure out how to fix them, or they may not be aware of those faults at all and continue to indulge in them until their ultimate downfall. as miserable as that sounds, i think there’s a value in narratives like that, too. it teaches you a lesson, and it can also garner sympathy from you as a reader in some circumstances bc you may realize that some toxic behaviors of a given character were inadvertent and they didn’t have the resources or environment that would make them conducive to change. that’s like the epitome of wuthering heights to me. most of the characters are absolutely terrible to each other, but there’s something to learn from that, and with heathcliff esp, you see that a lot of his toxicity stems from trauma and abuse that he didn’t really have the emotional resources to ever recover from, so you can’t entirely render him into a villain bc it’s a flat reading

toxicity can also exhibit a blend of the two above scenarios. wuthering heights also feels like a good example of that to me. heathcliff and catherine’s ends are tragic, but hareton and cathy junior’s ends are far more hopeful in comparison. some people don’t learn, but others do, and it’s a good insight into the nature of human dichotomy as well as cycles of toxicity and abuse within context of class and race relations

so ultimately, i think i personally find a lot of worth in exploration of toxic relationships bc it can really get to the heart of analysis of the human psyche and how real world relationships are often non ideal. but that being said, how i feel about the phenomenon as it goes in fandom is. . . tricky. i’ll be straight and say i don’t think most people are sensible enough to really get to the root of what makes toxic relationships interesting and are instead content to rely on toxic stasis bc it’s easily marketable and readily appealing. you don’t have to deal with the real questions contending with toxicity demands of you if you don’t care, and that’s unfortunately a mindset that pervades fandom at large

[codenamebooks]

Wuthering Heights Book Review

In a quest to have some content to start, I will be reposting some reviews and challenges that I’ve already done on a previous account within last year.

***

by Emily Bronte

2/5 stars | Goodreads

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is a long tale detailing the life of the Earnshaws and Lintons to the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, Mr. Lockwood. We follow Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff and Edgar Linton from a young age and how their loves and hostile personalities intertwined with each other for the better and worse for those surrounding them and the following generation. There is lots of meddling, mixed emotions, developed and broken love for a very Bronte-esque story (at least compared to Jane Eyre by Charlotte)

I... was a little scared of this book. Although the themes in it weren’t particularly or inherently dark, the characters made everything as dark as possible. For this reason, I could not stand any of the characters! They were well written and their personalities were (sadly) consistent, but they irked the hell out of me. I didn’t like how feral Heathcliff and Catherine were, or how indecisive Miss Catherine was, or how Nelly meddled in everything. I really only felt for the second generation of kids because of how their elders treated them, but they made me dislike them too. Except Hareton because he always meant well and it took long for him to get a fair chance.

What I did like, though, was the story telling aspect. I don’t think it was needed, the plot could’ve existed on it’s own, but it intrigued me with the “up until this day” being told. With this though, I wish Lockwood would have contributed more or been apart of the story more. If anything I really only enjoyed parts of this novel because I was finally reading a well loved and read by many classic. It was crazy and what kept drawing me forward was “what the hell is going on?” and “I’m ready to start another book but refuse to DNF this one.”

This is obviously a good read for Classics lovers and dark Regency romance lovers, but I’m sure if you love that you’ve already read this. If you haven’t, I’d say give it a shot if you love crazy personalities and not a dense love story.

[princesssarisa]

Linton Heathcliff for the 7-questions-ask?

Three facts about them from my personal headcanons.

He was conceived on Heathcliff and Isabella's wedding night, but even with that earliest possible date, he was born prematurely.

His light skin, blond hair, and blue eyes are evidence that Heathcliff is mixed race himself (though not that he's white, just that he has some white ancestry), which adds to the eternal mystery of Heathcliff's origins.

He's not inherently bad. He could have been a decent person, and to insist otherwise (which I'll admit, might be the perspective the book intends, but only might) has ableist and racist implications. But to become a decent person, he would have needed to live an entirely different life.

A reason they suck:

How whiny, manipulative, and sometimes sadistic he is.

A reason they are great:

He contributes powerfully to the book's theme of the cycle of abuse, and to the unanswered question of whether certain people are inherently bad or corrupted by their upbringings, which applies both to him and to his father.

A reason I relate to them:

I also tend to be whiny, fussy, and oversensitive at times.

(what I consider to be) the top tier otp/ot3 for that character:

None.

Five things that never happened to the character that I believe should have happened:

These are "in an ideal world" fantasies, not things I wish had happened in the actual book. If they had, there would be no plot.

That his mother hadn't died.

Even if Isabella still died, that he had never gone to live with Heathcliff – that Edgar had stayed true to Isabella's wish and refused to give him up.

Even if he still went to live with Heathcliff, that Heathcliff had treated him with basic decency.

That he had never gotten sick.

Even if none of the above could happen, that Heathcliff had at least sent for a doctor to try to relieve his pain on his deathbed, or at least sat with him and tried to offer him some comfort as a father should, instead of leaving Cathy to nurse him all alone.

Five people that character never fell in love with and why.

Catherine Linton. Not really. Their "love" is something that they're both manipulated into by Heathcliff.

Catherine Earnshaw. He never knew her.

Nelly Dean. She's too old for him and she detests him.

Zillah. No sparks there either.

Hareton Earnshaw. He shows no sign of attraction to men.

[undecidedpersonality]

“Wuthering Heights” Book Review

By Emily Brontë

2/5 stars

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is a long tale detailing the life of a generation Earnshaws and Lintons to the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, Mr. Lockwood by the housekeeper Ellen Dean. We follow Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff and Edgar Linton from a young age and how their loves and hostile personalities intertwined with each other for the better and worse for those surrounding them and the following generation. There is lots of meddling, mixed emotions, and developed and broken love for a very Romantic/Victorian era, Brontë-esque story (at least compared to Jane Eyre by Charlotte).

I... was a little scared of this book. Although the themes in it weren’t particularly or inherently dark, the characters made any and everything as dark as possible. For this reason, I could not stand any of the characters! They were very well written and their personalities (sadly) consistent, but they irked the hell out of me. I didn’t like how feral Heathcliff and Catherine were, or how indecisive Miss Catherine was, or how Nelly meddled in e v e r y t h i n g. I really only felt for the second generation of kids because of how their elders treated them, but they made me dislike them too. Except Hareton because he always meant well and it took so long for him to get a fair chance.

What I did like, though, was the story telling aspect. I don’t think it was particularly needed, it could’ve existed on it’s own, but it definitely helped intrigue me of this being a “up until this day” story being told. With this though, I wish Lockwood would have contributed more or been apart of the story more since this was the case. If anything I really only enjoyed parts of this novel because I was finally reading a well loved and read by many classic. It was intriguing and crazy and I what kept drawing me forward was “what the hell is going on?” and “I’m ready to start another book but refuse to DNF this one.”

This is obviously a good read for Classics lovers and dark Romantic/Victorian lovers, but I’m sure if you love that you’ve already read this. If you haven’t, I’d say give it a shot if you love crazy personalities and not as heavy on the love.

[fangirlinglikeabus]

Execution (Wuthering Heights)

summary: Cathy survives childbirth. Her daughter lives through the consequences.

ao3   ff.net

When Cathy looked back on her life with her mother she couldn't in all honesty think of any really affectionate moment between them. For as long as she could remember everyone in the house was slightly scared of Cathy the elder, who always seemed to her daughter to be nursing some long pent up rage at the world for forcing her inside and at Cathy for being able to run and laugh and strive against the boundaries set out by Edgar when she couldn't herself.

***

It had been an unpleasant and painful pregnancy, leaving Cathy the elder not dead (how much better to be dead) but severely limited, the punishment for her self-starvation worse than she could have ever imagined. The result, as well, was unimpressive - a small screaming child, hard to look at, which might have near disgusted her if it had been anyone else's; but she knew it was hers, her own thing, her own child, something neither Edgar nor Heathcliff nor anyone else could take from her. And so she tolerated it.

***

Liverpool was cold on the day that the wood creaked with footsteps and Cathy looked up and thought about how they wouldn't let her see her mother before the trial.

***

"You're a much better mother than me, Nelly," the first Cathy said, pretending not to care, caring a great deal. "I sometimes think she should have been yours." But even as she said it she felt the tug of possession, the knowledge that whatever her opinion of her daughter (named for her in the early hours of the morning when Edgar had been sure she wouldn't live and sat downstairs with his head bowed and his hands covering his ears as though he could block death out by sheer force of will), she would not suffer her to be removed from her side.

Cathy came in that day and tried to pull her mother outside to show her a bird's nest she had found, and Nelly said Now, you know she's delicate, Cathy, and her mother smiled in such a way that for a moment Cathy was sure she hated her.

***

Almost time now. The nearby church clock chimed out the hour above the bustle of the city. A crowd had come but Cathy had come first, taken the first stagecoach she could, barely any sleep so she could make sure to be there. Edgar hadn't wanted it, had thought it would upset her as it had upset him, but she insisted and he was too weak by now to protest.

***

Cathy thought angrily that if her mother had not been so ill, had not had to sleep so much, she would not have let Linton be sent away. When she told Nelly that, Nelly shook her head and said that Cathy's mother had always been selfish, even when she was young Catherine Earnshaw, and that she would never stop Heathcliff from doing anything he wanted so long as it didn't hurt her. Then she covered her mouth like she'd just realised she'd said too much. The name stuck with Cathy. Heathcliff. She wondered what sort of a man he was, to have such a connection with her mother.

***

Next to her, Hareton stood impassively. He had agreed to go with her when she'd asked, but Cathy knew it couldn't mean much to him. The woman up there was his aunt, but he barely knew her. He had only met her a month or two ago. Only after-

***

Heathcliff was a great big hulking man who was cruel to his son and no longer believed in kindness. He took Cathy as revenge on her father. She sat on the floor and cried and was so, so scared that something would happen while she was gone from home, because her father was ill and his people weren't long-lived and he would have such a shock when she didn't come back by nighttime. Heathcliff's anger scared her, as well; it matched her mother's resentment with harsher blows of its own. Hareton hated her and Linton was mean-spirited and probably dying and she just wanted, she just really wanted -

Her mother appeared on the doorstep of Wuthering Heights a few days later and Heathcliff stared like he'd seen a ghost. "Cathy," he said in a whisper. "They told me you were -" "Heathcliff," she cried over him, and fell forward, and Cathy thought she saw the flash of metal in her hand. She must've dragged herself all the way up the path to get there, must've dodged Edgar's usual watchful gaze to walk step by excruciating step towards her daughter; she looked very pale and ill in the half-light. Heathcliff's eyes flickered to the knife but he still caught her and then - He was dead, with Cathy's mother on top of him breathing heavily, seeming in a stupor until she turned to Cathy and her dark eyes flashed and she said, "Where's Nelly?"

They were the only witnesses and Cathy still thought they could've buried Heathcliff before anything came of it - just her, and possibly Hareton, although he had cried out like a pained animal at the sight of death, and her mother the murderer - but the image of Heathcliff's body pooling blood on the floor had frozen her mind and no-one else had suggested anything of the sort. They left Wuthering Heights with her and Nelly carrying her mother between them, Hareton and Linton and, begrudgingly on Nelly's part, Joseph traipsing behind them because there wasn't anyone who was willing to stay in the house with the corpse. The only person to shed tears was Hareton; Cathy's mother just stared straight ahead and didn't say anything at all. Edgar had been so worried (he said later) that he rushed to open the door when he saw them coming towards the Grange; taking them in up close he turned pale, even paler than his illness already made him, and for a moment Cathy thought he might've fainted, but he only swayed in the doorway and stared persistently at the blood on his wife's dress until she said impatiently, "Stop standing there, Edgar, and let us in."

The body was discovered a week later and the legal proceedings were wheeled out with some grumbling, because Heathcliff was not well liked but he was rich so an investigation was required, and the woman still remembered as the young Catherine Earnshaw (she had been seen walking up there, she had been seen outside and far away from the Grange for the first time in seventeen years) may have always been a troublemaker but she was from old stock. On the day that her mother was taken away, was asked and didn't deny that she'd killed him, Nelly called Cathy to her and told her stories that made her sad to think of the boy that had once been, the girl running through the moors with him beside her, and she remembered the way Heathcliff had the knife go through him with a look like gratitude in his eyes and she almost felt like crying. 

***

Linton had been too ill to go with her, although they were married now, so she had asked Hareton to come, apologising for her earlier cruelty, and there must have been some kindness in him, or else some satisfaction at seeing the murderess hanged, because he had agreed. (She hadn't seen her mother before the trial but in the week it took to find Heathcliff she had asked her why and her mother had said, in that hard way of hers, because you are my daughter with all the weight of her lifetime of anger forced onto my).

The news had made its way up and down the country. It had been quite a story. Sensation was always popular, and the tales spread of the Earnshaws, from beginning to end, were nothing if not sensational. So they had sent her to bustling Liverpool, where whole crowds could gather to watch the death of the murderess.

Only one man was needed to carry her up to the scaffold, she was so light. The executioner put the noose round her neck and Cathy stared persistently and stubbornly at her mother's face in the hopes that she would look at her one last time before she died.

Then it was over. No ghosts here - not out in the open air of a busy port. Heathcliff would have to wander the moors alone.

Walking away from the scene a stone fell at her feet, and Cathy turned to see a shoeless brown boy glaring at her defiantly, chin lifted, from across the street, half-starved in a way that Heathcliff (cruel Heathcliff, dead Heathcliff, blood spilling across the floor Heathcliff who her mother had loved and hated) must have been when he first arrived at Wuthering Heights. Angry and alone and ready to be moulded into a monster by the hatred of others. No, no, no. She would not let the sound of two bodies hitting the kitchen floor echo in her head forever. She would go over to him. She would ask if he had family, anyone to look after him; she would ask him, if he was alone, if he'd like her help. Cathy tapped Hareton on the shoulder and before he could look around she was marching across to the boy. It might be a bad idea. Oh yes, it might be a terrible idea.

Or it might not.