#i also talked to several people who said this wasnt an issue

[jennrypan]

The Butterfly miraculous is..ridiculously op. That needs to be fixed..quickly. Cuz??? Tikki and PLagg are suppose to be the biggest ones but..Nooroo can just give you any type of power you want at all?? Cmon now.

Rewatching the London Special and uhm— opinions. (Need to write the convo with Tikki and PLagg cuz I’m bored so—) also..why is this opening kinda hard..what tf.

Also does Alix still need to be in the ..circle places? If Gabriels dead, cant she go back to school ? Anyways. “The end of time.” Thats so..funny how casually she said this- great. Anyways fsjsj[ Gotta rewatch this so i can write some shit and crap. (The alcohol is starting to get to me. )

I love exposition. Anyways..Alix reacts more to Adrien and Marinette kissing as opposed to Adriens dad being Hawkmoth which is..interesting. Like?? “I feel bad for Adrien.” Would’ve been great but no, we care more about Marinette getting her prince..ANYWAYS— “Sending his son to London to protect him.” ..Thats not what he was doing let’s not muddy things up here.

I adore Alix design sm..it’s so cute. Anyways. Marinette looks pretty with a long braid, i love it. Anyways.. “So it’s over? Over over?” “Yes. Over over..” LIAR— YOU LIE- ANyways. Kagami you hate liars you— lovely you shouldn’t honor thiiiss.. Marinette had no issue telling Kagami that her mother was a villain but Adrien doesnt get that same agency?? Interesting interesting, anyways-

Im saying anyways anyways. A lot. And ah. Thats why they didnt tell anyone Tomoe was an accomplice. To keep up the lie so Adrien didn’t find out which is..worse i think. I guess that talk with Kagami and her mom didnt go that well cuz shes still being evil??

Gorilla could’ve let him go this entire time— also i just started laughing waaay too hard when she told him Gabriels dead i— it’s not funny it’s just..omg. Adrien has to deal with so much in like an entire day— “Youre father was a hero.” Oh that killed you to say didnt it. I bet. And awe..Gorilla cares about Adrien so much..hes literally the only guardian that deserves to be around him fr. Also Adrien got over his depression real fast after this episode. Like..he doesnt have any more questions about the fight?? None?? Okaaay. Kagami should’ve stayed shady towards Marinette ngl. It’s kind of annoying that Adriens support system is also..Marinettes support system?? Like Natalie is joining with Marinette to keep things from Adrien and so his Plagg.. and it’s just…wow. Adrien literally has no one that wont just clam up cuz Ladybug told them to. Logically the civilians would have several questions cuz how did you not know Hawkmoth ID after all this time?

And when they find out she failed they’d be..pissed off cuz theyve been suffering through this this whole time, you defeated Hawkmoth but you didnt find out who he was and you didnt get the miraculous back? It’d make no sense. All of the Kwami should also be pissed too cuz the current guardian is just as unhelpful as the last apparently.

Wait. Why didnt Plagg go to Adrien as soon as it was over?? I— sure. Ok sure “I did the right thing, right?” NO?? Plagg should be the main one telling her bluntly. Cuz theres a right answer and theres a wrong one and lying to the people you love about something SO important is never the right answer. Plaggs love for his actual holder should override his need to protect Marinettes feelings rn. “I know it was for a good cause.” ..It wasnt though. There’s nothing good about protecting Gabriel and Tomoes involvement in terrorizing all of Paris. If you feel terrible..maybe there’s a reason for that.

I fuck with Chromo bug ngl. The colors are pretty.. bright as hell but pretty.

[fatmaclover]

theres something to be said about how mac still holds such a childish adoration for his parents after such a long time. how literally its shown to us by the fact that

mac always slicked his hair back as a child, when he still had contact with his father

he stops doing this into adulthood, but later in life, once mac interacts with his father again, he starts slicking his hair back again

he doesnt stop. slicking his hair back. until his own father walks out during his coming out performance. the guy he put it on for. only after that does he completely stop styling his hair that way

not to mention the constant refusal that his mom (and dad) could be anything but perfect, the way hes so desperate to do good by them, viewing them as the way to measure his success...

and. yeah thats. something.

the internal denial that his parents treated him poorly, the fact that its his primary instinct to deny that his parents suck, the constant dismissal of his own issues relating to family because his whole life hes been told that "other people have it worse". the way hes internalized that so hard. the way it takes his dad walking out on macs coming out performance to him for mac to stop blindly idolizing some guy whos threatened to kill him

the constant fear of his own father, while also believing him to be the coolest bestest guy ever. the way he always assumes his father is gonna get violent when actually talking to him, but sings nothing but praises when away from him

the fact that he still calls his dad "daddy" even.

i mean you cant really blame him for not fully growing up in some areas huh

its not even that i think he doesnt know that his parents treat him horribly, it just really seems like he wants so badly to believe thats not the case from years of having his cries for help ignored or made fun of. he cant have been treated poorly, because charlie was treated poorly, and his baggage isnt nearly as bad as charlies, so clearly macs home life wasnt bad.

i think thats proven most of all by his frustration with his own family at times, it really feels like theres some underlying issues. they can very quickly manifest as frustration and anger, but honestly its probably mostly sadness. the way he reacts to his own mother really reminds me of how i interact with family members i have grudges with but have to pretend i dont. im not actually angry at any of these people, im mostly just exhausted by them.

he very clearly is still aware of the neglect he faced as a kid, to me. he knows his home life was severely fucked up, hes just never been able to express that, so hes coped by just. pretending that it didnt happen.

and realistically i dont know if he could ever properly acknowledge that his home life was fucked and his parents suck. maybe hed acknowledge that his dad sucks now, but it wouldnt have been that bad when he was a kid and wasnt a fag. right? he was loved then. his mom still did a great job raising him, and he really loves her, and he was raised with all the love and care a child needs.

[canisbrutus]

Would you be willing to do beatrice/mandy headcanons? I've been getting back into bully recently and they were always one of my favorite ships :3

by all means let me cook 🍳 note i havent written posts for either yet so this might be rambly as i need to give context for some things.

obligatory shoutout to @anguesinherbalatentes for helping me bang out the timeline of their relationship. ily babe

CW: mentions of eating disorders and sexism

Beatrice & Mandy 🧪🎆

the very definition of a slowburn. not to boil them down to your basic enemies to lovers trope but like. yeah kinda.

they shared a dorm (oh my god they were roommates)

and Boy were the first few weeks insufferable.

yeah over the course of the schoolyear they learned to tolerate and then care for eachother but sheeeesh.

at first they really didnt Get eachother, and why they were like that.

mandy, who comes from a generally flat nothingburger family, took education for granted, and didnt know why bea threw herself into her studies instead of having fun.

while beatrice, who comes from a very... old fashioned household, running herself ragged trying to prove she could be more than a kitchen wench, and didn't know why mandy would degrade herself into being a dumb bimbo.

after several smackdowns (the final one ended up with mandy thrown into the floor because Surprise starving yourself makes you weaker) the two agreed to just. ignore eachother and coexist.

this didnt get resolved until like. finals week. mandy drove herself to tears because studying feels like Hell if you havent practiced it and just staring at a book is Boring.

beatrice was too tired to put up with her crying so (after sighing very loudly and dragging herself away from her own desk) she offered to help, no payback needed.

and slowly things started to lighten up between em. started talking again, with less n less snark everyday.

and that turned into mandy dolling bea up like a barbie. her excuse being 'if you wanna be my friend we gotta make you unrecognizable for when you go out with me.'

got her skincare products, brushed her hair, did her makeup once, dragged her to the mall for clothes, etc.

beatrice developed her own style in this time; stepping away from the outdated outfits forced onto her between her parents and the school uniform and leaning into what mightve been early scene culture. colorful braces, bolder checkerboard patterns, etc.

hanging around mandy also strengthened her Bite.

in turn, mandy herself learned to be a bit more patient/open minded; putting more thought into people n things instead of dismissing them vapidly.

that being said, society still wasnt the most accepting of things like. girls being 'rebellious,' and stepping out of line.

the two of them got in trouble for staying out late at a party one time. for one with their parents, especially bea's, for another with their peers, having seen the unlikely pair holding hands.

that drove another small wedge between them for a moment; with beatrice withdrawing into herself and mandy playing it off as a joke and avoiding her for a week, as that's what everyone thinks of their relationship.

buuuut after bea goes to apologize out of fear of mandy talking behind her back, mandy broke down in sobs yet again and confessed finally.

bea has been her guiding light and she feels so Very lost without her. she hasn't cared this strongly for anything before. and well. bea accepted her apology.

after the rumors of them being seen together died down, their relationship had to lay low, but they were still bonded like turtledoves in a way.

they had so much to learn from eachother after all.

time for some fun facts. beatrice knows how to sew. embroidery and similar needlework.

it was forced onto her at home because shes a woman but: mandy was enamored by this all the same.

there's some custom floral stitching around the hems of her clothes now, after some buttering up.

bea was also very supportive of mandy's... issues. with food and whatnot. her mother gave her a complex over it, because heaven forbid a woman can pinch her own stomach.

she didnt need to live up to their expectations perfectly. sometimes you're better off doing what you love instead of trying to shove yourself into a box you dont fit in.

^ was what beatrice told her. that's the mindset she herself lives by, after all.

how lucky they were to have eachother, in the end.

[hc masterpost link]

[whywoulditho]

ough... sorry for jumping in when you said you're still reading stuff, i hope this doesn't come off annoying or anything! but that thing the prev anon said about timkon is... a WILD take.

tim wasn't trying to "replace" kon, he was having a grief-induced mental health spiral and was doing anything and everything to get a chance of getting his best friend back. (the "resurrection of ra's al ghul" event goes over this too - tim and dick have a short fight that ends in tim crying in dick's arms because tim was tempted to use a lazarus pit to try and bring back his dad, steph brown, and/or kon.) it's an unhealthy coping mechanism he exhibits during a period of his life where he's experienced several catastrophic losses back to back, and he's coping poorly. moreover he literally apologized to kon for trying to clone him in adventure comics (2009) #3.

also saying that kon is created as a replacement for superman is true, but acting like he never has an established character outside of "replacement for superman" or that other characters treat him as just a replacement superman, is not. in world's finest three (tim and kon's first meeting) we literally see tim initially turn to kon for backup with metallo, a superman villain, and at first he's dismayed that kon doesn't have all of superman's abilities, but over the course of the two issues, he admires kon's use of his ttk and they establish a mutual respect with each other (they both save each other's lives at the end).

and generally, kon & clark have a very positive relationship in postcrisis comics (aka the continuity that the cloning stuff with tim happens in) - if you want to see more of it, i'd rec "adventures of superman" #506 and superboy (1994) #59 and #70. kon definitely has plenty of issues, but his identity and relationship to superman aren't really the ones in question. (although i'll admit there is the caveat that kon's [lack of] superman-related identity issues is kind of soft retconned in teen titans (2003), which is where the lex luthor retcon is introduced - fun fact, luthor has nothing to do with kon initially!)

this got long i'm SO sorry - it just gets my goat when people tell straight up lies about comics to people who are just getting into reading comics 😭😭 i hope i didn't come off aggressive bc thats def not my intention but i'm sorry if i did!! and i hope you enjoy your comic journey and have fun with it overall!!!

do NOT apologize! i really appreciate this!!

i have a couple more people on my inbox yelling things like "how dare you even entertain the thought of them together!!!" i wasnt expecting to see so much passion on this subject when i first talked about it but it seems like DC comics fans have very strong opinions about that pairing hahaa

as i said in my previous reply to that anon, i really need to do my own reading before i form an opinion on the ship but your reflections seem very fair and i really appreciate the comic recommendations! and honestly, the whole reason i was interested in timkon was that their relationship seemed very complicated, and therefore very angsty, which is what i live for. so i do really understand why some people like it and some hate the idea of it. from what i've seen so far.... i like it. but i can't really speak on whether or not it is compatible with the canon dynamic of the characters. does that make sense?

also like on another note. HOW do you guys give such specific references when talking about these things?? 😭 DC universe seems HUGE and i have no clue where to start and then i see people giving like the exact issue number of events and stuff and i'm like.....HOW?? and also like. teach me. guide me. i'm lost 😭 HQJSKFKCJDJ

[tarpitbell]

vvvery well then ill come off anon, feel free to block me as you see fit

i said it because even if we dont interact anymore, i hate seeing people get kicked when theyre down. i cant stand bullying and i cant stand condescending bullshit directed at people who dont deserve it. it wasnt a waste of time because any time a person is getting hurt and they dont deserve it, i step in. i dont care if it was my business or not. it wasnt a waste of time because you still deserve to be treated with respect.

ill say it as many times as i have to but you really dont deserve the hatred you receive. everyone in that server kept telling you that we never hated you but you kept believing we did to the point where it felt like you were making us out to be the bad guys. it was incredibly unhealthy on both sides. we hoped that if we just stayed moots with you on tumblr that itd be okay and that you could distance yourself as much as you needed to so that it wouldnt be so overwhelming.

i see that that probably wasnt really issue but possibly several other things. if you want to stop posting content related to alnst then so be it. thats your decision. we will dwell on you because youre an amazing person and there are many fond memories with you and your characters. if you dont want to participate in any of the fan seasons, including sona season, then we will make adjustments for you. whatever you want to do with your characters is completely up to you.

thank you for being a beautiful and wonderful being, and i hope that whatever you choose to do, you do it in good conscience. we dont want to push or annoy you any further than we might be doing (sorry, genuinely. i really do care about you tbf.) but we also just want you to be happy.

/gen, /lh, and /withlove.

- zen (papa, if youre still willing to call me that /nf)

It was you -!!! (Geno sans, CPAU comic dub voice) ((I knew itt.. you do stand up for others and are more vocal about being ..indunno but I guess yk inna way, just the way you typed it (sorry if that's ..weird/creepy), the way that you confront others and such .much braver ig, since you take action a lot))

Sorry for making it seem like I was making y'all the bad guys. Didn't mean to, and honestly shouldn't have done that- that was wrong of me from the start. Though, now I don't think I can remember- well. Given how it was like. Two months ago now? And I do forget a lot so- ...sorry for unfollowing as well (tho I know that no matter the amount of me saying sorry will ever fix things up since I avoid what happened/etc..)

I don't really think I can stop posting alnst/alnst oc content. I'm in too deep, in three gc (AREPH, Setup and Takedown, and then Toxic ysosu)— I have an Au (you probably know or maybe not; Sonic.exe like au, I'm mainly focusing on the hypothetical 3d game in the universe that happens in 2035, called Mor. I remember asking you for permission, but then again.. gah. Fucking sorry for putting onna invisible time limit to the question, as said- for almost everything I've done since I was in the series(what I call servers now) and out of it.... Though you did say we don't talk anymore, and so like. Yeah- haven't answered my question- tho ITS TOTALLY NORMAL! FINE! Just slightly weird?? That like. Just recently you came here to like. Ig cheer me up? When I was "kicked down even more". Tho it is .you. You did say that you can't stand what they have said to me and what/who they were referring to, which is interesting but I won't bother you with anything i have to say) — I still have a lot more to show (so many hidden characters and hidden lore) and post,, and I've been going back to writing like. Flor's lore, and getting some basic ideas down. Besides, I still can't stop thinking of the ocs and such.. as ..said..... I'm in too deep (was basically here from the start.. before s39 was even s39.....ah..kills the wall). And it's not leaving me anytime soon, since I always have thoughts- ideas and such. <- this is what 50+ OCS does to a person

I still have OCS, in the seasons. I still have OCS I want to work on and expand on.

Besides, Eddy and Sebastian have a very close bond. Flor, Oli, Dian, Faisal, and their other siblings are well. Siblings. Four of them don't belong to me. I have OCS in romantic relationships with others, and all of that. I can't just .. abandon it all honestly.

For the Sona Season, I think I'm like. Basically disqualified though? Before I did whatever I did, I kinda did ask to be in round1 so things can end faster for my sona. But then again. <- is a whiny person. <- impatience, which is wrong. <- generally a ""ugly"" one. So I just decided to do what I did in the server basically— and just leave the Garden & Stage thing. ..tbh I did do a song-comic, but I doubt you want to see anything I do now (NOT trying to make you see what I do. Waste of time. And again in the previous ask you sent you used past tance and so that practically means that we are thru, huh? Along with us not talking to each other besides those two asks you sent to this blog..along with the Seb song. But I don't think that you and the others don't want to touch anything made by me or are related to me! Which I totally get)

You all have NEVER annoyed me or pushed me, at all (only ever asked me for some small things, or actually nothing at all). IM the one who's annoyed and pushed you all (too many ideas, too many posts I've tagged as ocs- I've tagged y'all in, etc etc. basically at those times and still now, it's just me talking to a wall). It's.. stupid to apologize for what I've been doing the most.

Also don't .. apologize for caring actually. I don't know what to say, or have anything to say besides that.. still can't fucking believe that you are still. That you still allow me the chance to call you papa...stupid of me to have mentally clocked the community as a family(ish?only a few) to me. since it ended up with me being .not continuing that sentence. but yeah, really stupid of me to have you all as family when we ended up like this.which is unhealthy as you said! What type of friendship is like person A: your my friend! / Person B: (you are like a sibling to me. You are family.) ???? Certainly not a working healthy one. Because I became so very impulsive when .not finishing that either.

[yume-joshi]

going to talk abt obey me and how they are all extremely neurodivergent!!! gonna go through my thoughts on each characters who stands out to me in one way or another.

Lucifer- he has NPD. dont even try to argue with me about this. from the way he holds himself to an extremely high standard to how hes LITERALLY the avatar of pride, hes just a total narc and I love him dearly. I also consider him to be autistic. half bcuz he shows some signs half bcuz I'm autistic and love projecting onto characters. I think that the way he is so strict and finds being on time so important is extremely autistic of him. he follows a very specific routine, and if said routine is messed with, he is unapproachable for atleast the rest of the day. this is shown in likee late lesson 24 or early lesson 25 I forget. he also has issues with emotions. both showing and I think even identifying them. autistic man. ALSO ptsd. duh.

mammon: adhd. he has adhd. he doesnt have npd, HOWEVER, he totally shows symptoms. he acts like hes on top of the world but the second a minor inconvenience happens he is just. reduced to nothing. I also like the hc of him being dyslexic.

levi: AUTISM AUTISM AUTISM!!! yeah that ones obvious like extremely obvious. stg autism runs into the family or smth cuz it feels like mammon and asmo are the only allistics in that mf house. dont need to explain why Levi is autistic. its obvious. if you really need an explanation just ask. but I also think he has severe social anxiety. like to the point that he gets extremely sick at the thought of social interaction. over the years, and with lots of trial and error medication, he can sort of deal with it now. still freaks him out though.

Satan: I think he takes after his father. like. A LOT. he is so npd and so autistic. I think that he really prides himself on his smarts but like. if he were to fail/get an average mark on a test (especially if lucifer got a high mark) he would disintegrate out of pure self hatred. if lucifer is better than him in any academic topic, you can practically feel the envy and rage coming from him. lucifer understands how he feels, and always tries to help him with his npd issues, but that just upsets him tenfold. "you think that *I* need *YOUR* help??? disgusting!". he has such issues I love him so much. not much to comment on his autism. also quite obvious, especially in nightbringer.

Asmo- I KNOW SO MANY PEOPLE THINK ASMO HAS NPD AND LIKE I GET THE IDEA BUT NO. HE HAS HPD AND I WILL FIGHT TOOTH AND NAIL OVER THAT HC.

beel: autism. binge eating disorder. ptsd.

belphie: autism. BPD!!!!! B!! P!!! D!!!!!!!! I will scream it from the roof tops THAT MAN HAD BPD IDC WHAT YOU SAY!! impulsivity (especially when angry), unstable relations (mostly hc), uncontrolled anger, chronic emptiness (hc), self destructiveness, fear of abandonment. you look into the DSM-5 and there is a picture of him there. I think that. he might have PTSD too.

diavolo: autism. I dont care what anyone says I think he is an autistic woman who was just forced into masking. c-ptsd due to mainly emotional neglect.

solomon: autism. no canon reason to support this I'm just projecting. c-ptsd. he has very complicated feeling surrounding loneliness and abandonment due to his childhood.

simeon: autism. C-PTSD!!!!!!! I think that. there wasnt nessacarily anything that could generally be considered traumatizing. but a lot of things in his early days were extremely stressful for him. I think that hes always questioned the word of God just a bit. he made sure nobody ever found out, but he always had doubt within him. this has always eaten at him, as he is supposed to be an angel. Angel's do not doubt the word of their father,, so, why does he?

ermm okay I think that's. enough ranting for today...

[mrs-monaghan]

Jk did not hug him back in their pictures and also i think it speaks volumes that jm didnt post his and jks solo ones. Why he did that and posted tkks instead is so so obvious, why would he hide something thats not true anyway?

The suchwita episode became so awkward when V came and im not gonna lie jk was a little dismissive towards him and paid more attention to suga

What are these deluded people seeing we aren’t? I was like before I form an opinion, go on twitter or tumblr lemme watch the raw footage myself and that was a tough watch ngl. V tried involving himself a couple of times but jk wasnt acknowledging him or quickly changed the convo.

Even when he first came in he wasn’t very excited and he made a comment which I thought was interesting, about getting the views to 20 million now. Which if you think of it kinda shows his acknowledgment to the fact that tkk sells to the deluded.

It was a tough but interesting watch. Jungkooks bits about his album were amazing and hes so talented it’s admirable. That and the news of jikooks travel variety show…🤧🤧🤧

Anymore ideas of where they couldve gone because i have a feeling jeju will be in it too with a possibility of a cameo from V

As always lovely speaking with you shaz💜

I actually didn't see what most people want to see are are saying they saw. I didn't see what u saw, anon. I didn't think it was awkward at all. Taekook were fine. If anything its the Taegis who should be crying because that thing where Suga snubs V is still a thing apparently 😂 I find it funny.

Anyway, V said he didn't plan to be on camera. Now this is V we're talking about, so idk how true this is 🤭 but I wouldn't read too much into how JK treated him. Because this is a huge part of Taekook's dynamic. V annoys JK, JK snaps or pushes him off and they move on. Kinda like Yoonmin and their bickering but its JK telling V off or ignoring him all together. V likes to disturb the maknae, he's always done it. Even when JK has been annoyed by it. V don't care, he's played that hyung card since time immemorial.

But V got lost in the bg and I even forgot he was there so I think people made his presence a bigger deal than it was. In my opinion anyway. Did he need to be there? I'm gonna say no. His presence there seemed a bit pointless compared to Jimin making an appearance during Taemin's. Which ig could mean V really didn't plan on being on camera? But I have my doubts coz well, it's V 🤭

Anyway, imo that episode was fine. I personally didn't have an issue with anything. 🤷🏽‍♀️

As for the Jikook Vlog I didn't think about another member being in it but that would be interesting... though I thought it would all be about their NYC trip and that was just them? 🤔 But you bring up and interesting theory anon. What if this vlog is several episodes? Then who knows how long they've been filming for it

Either way I'm even more excited for it now...

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

the thing with once upon a time at bennington is that... it paints itself as trying to paint a picture of "all" bennington, but all it does is spread misinformation and cut up interviews with people who loosely knew donna tartt and bret ellis. if you want any more proof of that anolik is like... really reaching and unethical, look no farther than her insistence that michelle maitland (costume designer on succession) is the inspiration behind judy poovey. she said numerous times that she didn't know donna, and maybe her car was the basis for judy's corvette, but THERE WASNT A COSTUME DESIGN MAJOR AT BENNINGTON, and she was a theater major, and she seriously doubts donna has a third eye and could know what industry she'd go into like 10 years after TSH was published. anolik published the interview and said maitland is surely judy anyway.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/12/succession-secret-history-judy-poovey-connection

Geeeeeez 🤦🏻‍♀️. Yeah this was the stuff I was skeptical about. There seemed to be things that could be such crazy interesting details, but that we can’t know the full context of. And they’re just being stated as truths. I hate to talk about this podcast only having read articles about it; these are just my takes from stuff analyzing sections— but I have thoughts on Matt Jacobsen and Todd O’Neal as well. They probably did give Tartt inspiration for Bunny and Henry. Certain quotes and details seem very taken from them. And Claude Fredricks totally inspired parts of Julian and the Greek class.

That said, it seems fallacious to assume there’s a 1-to-1 comparison between these people and the characters. Just because aspects of Matt Jacobsen were seen in Bunny does not mean that everything Tartt had Bunny do was with Jacobsen in mind. Bunny is still a fictional character. She also stated here that Julian was based on her mind running wild and creating a character based on rumors about Claude Fredricks. He wasn’t literally just Claude Fredricks. Tartt also has given a huge list of books that inspired writing choices in TSH and it really checks out for certain characters. Did Donna Tartt use the fact she transferred colleges and perhaps felt like the odd man out in a Greek class when she wrote Richard? Sure. But does that mean Richard is literally her avatar and that they share every thought, and that he came from zero other inspirations— or that she never departed from herself while writing him? That’s such a stretch.

And there’s another part of this narrative that just doesn’t make much sense to me. If TSH is really a revenge story about how Donna Tartt hated her Greek class and wanted to get back at them, and Richard is her stand in to do so… why is Richard so bad? Do self indulgent revenge fantasies typically make the supposed author stand-in just as wicked as everyone else? And he ends up miserable and alone and coming to terms with that he’s not special and that he’s got California in his blood (being from Cali is a huge part of Richard and Tartt isn’t from California).

Again, I can level with the assertion that authors/artists I like are flawed (some of my favorite authors are severely flawed). But my issue here is that some of this immediately jumps out as wildly intrusive (it reminds me of a different interview where the person asks Donna Tartt a really personal question, and it really shocked me that the person didn’t feel intrusive in asking it. It’s like Tartt’s emphasis on her own privacy makes people weirdly bold.). And it definitely seems like many people in the podcast have a story they want to tell and have decided to tell, despite the discrepancies and lack of clarity. Ultimately, these people are like “please be aware we aren’t claiming this is as fact” but they’re still inserting a scandal into the world.

Finally… another thing that’s weird to me is that Tartt’s peers paint this bitter picture of her for using true happenings and facts about them in the context of her fiction, and they view it as a scummy thing. But I mean, she never addressed anyone by name, claimed a character was them, or portrayed TSH as truth about Bennington. Nobody would even know these people now or about their lives if they hadn’t revealed this stuff on the podcast. But then they go on to say stuff about Tartt that is painted as biographical and they use her real name for profit. I guess I just don’t understand how that’s not very clearly doing what they’re upset she may have done. It’s very hypocritical.

[femme-enby]

I would like to let y’all in on a fun fact about me.

Firstly, generally speaking, I am a pacifist. I mean that in the sense that I feel as though interpersonal issues (obvi not like… abusive situations) can always be solved w words, or simply removing yourself from a situation.

I am also just… not a fighter. I’ve been jumped, slapped, etc. back when I was in grade school. And aside from being minorly concussed after being slammed into a cinderblock wall from behind, every other time someone tried to start an actual physical confrontation with me… I’d simply look at them. Either with dead eyes, or with raised eyebrow(s), paired with either a blank expression or a small smile. Typically this either sucked the fight out of them or just unnerved them severely (bc I’m small. Always been small. Always been weird. Never trust a small person who looks wildly unconcerned at the notion of physical harm via another person, they’re crazy, probably. That is what I assume is going on in their heads.)

That being said…

I fucking LOVE playfighting. I might have said all this before idc. Few people really GET it.

Bc I’m not really talking about cutesy “hehe we kinda push each other and like, tickle and pin each other down”

Naw. I’m throwin my weight around. I’m tryin to lock you down. I’m flippin, floppin, twistin, contortin. I’m pushin you (steadily, not kicking!) with my feet. I’m using my dexterous toes to pinch and grip. I’m puttin folks in headlocks. I’m throwin you around despite STRUGGLIN to pick up some wooden pallets sometimes.

My spouse & I play like this. I rarely am close enough w even best friends to play like this bc obviously there is a LOT of physical contact, and rarely do people want that amount of contact with a friend.

But him and I be scrappin like two alley cats. Sometimes someone gets hurt, that’s ofc when we stop (or at least pause) and switch to “baby voice”, kisses & forceful cuddles (which sometimes turns back into play fighting) but like… it’s so much fun.

Hell! One time, the bastard had me dangling over his shoulder down his back, and my best idea (which I wouldn’t do w a friend btw) was to get REAL personal with him, which led to him fully jumping off the ground, and falling back… onto me. I got squished between him and the bed. Hurt my big ass nose, scraped the inside of my upper lip on my teeth.

Ofc I got the baby voice, kisses, cuddles, we did gently play fight a lil more…

Next mornin… woke up w a FAT LIP. Ain’t never managed that before! First time I get a swollen lip is from playfighting. (He felt real bad about it, I thought it was funny especially since I didn’t realize till I tried to hit my vape & my lip ain’t feel right, wasnt movin right to kinda “seal” around the vape)

Plus this ain’t abnormal for him bc he’s got scars from playfighting with his sister bc she would always have long nails and she would SCRATCH.

So yeah, we’re both crazy & it’s a lot of fun

[waybeforeyourtime]

i agree with much of what u said that people need to have boundaries etc but comparing a legitimate stalker who is a very extreme case that required police involvement to fans saying that a celebrity gives them a reason to stay alive is honestly pretty messed up. I get ur point that it may be a lot of pressure to SOME celebrities But other celebrities have shared that it makes everything they do worth it to know that it gives someone hope and something to look forward to in a really dark world. Especially for queer youth many of which really struggle with their mental health the portrayal in young royals and also omar and edvin being vocal in their support really does mean a lot to them as it does to many of us who are not even teens anymore. So your judgement and telling people to seek mental help is honestly quite insensitive. I do agree with you about people harassing celebrities and not respecting celebrities but you also made a lot of assumptions and a lot of judgements toward people who are really struggling linking them to someone committing multiple crimes that is a bit unfair. I wasnt going to say anything but it has really been bothering me as someone who works with queer youth.

I didn't compare what happened to Bradley. I used that as a jumping-off point to explain why you shouldn't judge anyone for stepping away from socmed.

Read it again.

And you contradicted yourself. You say these fans who have unhealthy parasocial relationships with these actors have mental health issues and then say I'm insensitive for saying they need to seek mental health help.

"I wasnt going to say anything but it has really been bothering me as someone who works with queer youth."

Listen, credentials on the internet mean zero. You could be lying. So.... and I was a queer youth. I also worked with queer youths. And, imo, they need to start hearing these things from adults. They're isolating themselves in echo chambers of online fandom culture, and they are being raised to believe they can dump all of their problems on another unwilling person.

They can 100% love their fav, bestie, mother, father, or whatever they want to call people. But they have to learn to understand that the relationship is one-sided. That their fav owes them nothing. That their fav exists as a human being outside of being their fav.

"I get ur point that it may be a lot of pressure to SOME celebrities But other celebrities have shared that it makes everything they do worth it to know that it gives someone hope and something to look forward to in a really dark world."

Yes I'm sure being asked 'what size is your penis' really gives someone hope in a dark world. Or being harrassed to come out publically. Or having your bf receive threats online. Or having fans invade a restaurant that you're at with friends. Or having a fan from another country happen to just show up at your local market.

That's just some of what has happened in YR. If a fan isn't part of harassing people online or making them feel uncomfortable*, then my post wasn't about them. And, if they are, then I stand by my statement that they need to look at their behaviors online.

* Edvin asked people not to comment about his physical appearance, and it never stopped. If you think the people talking about that toxic behavior are the problem, then you are part of the problem.

Also, those SOME celebrities who say they really enjoy socmed will usually always add something like, "the majority of fans are cool BUT..." And I could give you several examples of those who have said that and then eventually went off socmed, driven off by fans.

[shorti11]

OK, SO FIRST CREEPYPASTA OC, SHES STILL A LITTLE IN THE WORKS BUT SHES KINDA CUTEE (TW FOR MENTIONS OF ABUSE, EATING DISORDERS)

Full name: Kami Smith. Age: 21. Species: human. Pronouns: she/her. Gender: female. Height, 5'3. Personality: very quiet to most people, to certain people she's bubbly and sweet but can easily get emotional. Fav color: black and dark blue. Birthday: February 14th. Hair color: dark blue and black. Eye color: dark brown/black. Style: mcbling/2000s bimbo. Powers/weapon: though kami isn't strong, she's very fast, using daggers to kill her target. Fav food: Alfredo pasta. Nationality: Canadian. Fav song: Take a slice by glass animals and lovers rock by TV girl. Strengths:art (she us heavily into singing), speed (kami use to be a runner, doing track and often winning since she was little) and a makeshift therapist (she before becoming would take care of others and help with their problems) Weakness: strength, Kami grew up into more of the arts and wasn't really athletic, any sports she may have played was for fun or gym class.

CONNWCTIONS: Liu Woods: At first her and liu are pretty cold to each other, but after a while, Kamo tries to gain his trust after finding interest in his scars. After a while, they end up very close

Sally: Kami acts motherly to sally (im my AU sallys mother wasnt very pressant) and  close too her

Lizari: also acts motherly to lizari though lizari refused the love more then sally who needed and craved it

Jeff: she isn't sure on how too feel on him, after lius story she found him to be pretty disgusting

Tim: likes to vent and talk to tim, finds comfort in his unoften kindness, both get alog decently well

Brian: they both draw together and are friends though aren't crazy close

E.j: they don't talk often but don't dislike each other

Ben: finds him a little annoying but doesn't dislike him, they don't talk often

Nina: very pushy on kami but meant well, ended up friends over fashion sense

Clockwork: Kami is scared of her rough personality but thinks she's very admirable

Toby: helps him with cooking, and has too check in with him every so often

Slenderman: Kami and him barley speak but she found comfort in him. Though he won't speak to anyone

Basic knowledge on kami:

How long as a proxy, was brought there and became one at 18 she's currently 21

Disorders, anorexia nervosa (between 13 too 17)

Depression (it isn't severe but can fluctuat)

Generalized anxiety disorder (she constantly is nervous and it causes her chest pain)

Ptsd (from past abuse)

Social abilities: Kami isn't very social and often would keep to herself. If someone came up to her she'd be polite but awkward.

Why she stayed with lucas: Kami's family and Lucas's were very close during high school and college, also both families wealthy and strict. Both families wanted an arranged marriage and forced it upon the two. Throughout Kamis' younger years, she didn't like it but didn't know better, it was basically brainwashing her into thinking it was the norm

Her job as a proxy is to gather and stalk people for slenderman and gather info to help him.

Lucas personality:he was a rebellious teen, the smoking, partying kind of kid, bad grades rude, and had horrible anger issues

Backstory(wip), Kami was 13, a sweet girl who never loved her appearance. "I'm too big", "I hate my face", is what she'd often think, she was hopeless and desperate to look pretty, and that had caused an eating disorder from 13 to 17. Kamis parents weren't the best, always trying to make her the best of the best, good grades though she'd average Bs, And it was her parents faults on why she was so insecure. It was 6pm, Kami was at the dinner table and looking around. She was dolled up by her mother, a boy would be coming over, his name was Lucas, a year older then her. "Your gonna act like a proper women" her mother said sternly as she went to go to the front door. Lucas and his family came in moments later, all sitting at the table. Her mother greeting them and they started to eat. Soon after finishing the dinner her and Lucas were sat on the couch. "Kami, Lucas

... we'd like you too to start dating, " Lucas's mother said softly, a kind woman kami thought. After figuring out that she was now forced into a relationship, a boy she barely knew was dreadful, but she expected better than what she got. Through out being 13-15 Lucas would insult her, make her act like a slave for him when he came over, but when they got a little older 16-18 he had abused her, often verble but when he got drunk it'd be physical with her. One day, she was in his room, pouring him a drink while he ate at his desk while playing games. She watched him and would try to get his attention at points, but he'd shut her down with a harsh or nasty yell. Something in her snapped once she tried to talk to him one more time, but her smashed a cup on her head. She took the glass and everything went blank for her as she killed him, in sweat and tears. She had come back to reality minutes later and screamed, looking at the blood on her hands. She took her phone and weapon(glass shard) and rushed off to the woods around 8 pm in the winter. After an hour of exploring the adrenaline and fear wore off, as she fell down, the blood loss made her pass out. She thought that it, but she looked up at her head and hit the ground. She saw a lean tall figure, then passing out, hours later she had woke up, finding herself in a bed, her head bandaged as she looked around it was an empty room. A man had come to the room he was all stitched up and looked around 22. He stayed distant but walked into the room. "How's your head?" he asked. "I have a headache, but that's all," she stated, looking up at him, "i figured.." he ended up giving her painkillers. The man had multiple crosses around his neck and a black and white scarf. "Thanks.." she took the pills and sat up a little more."Who are you?" He seemed to ponder for a moment till speaking."liu, yours?"Kami.." OK, SO THATS WHAT WE HAVE RIGHT NOW, ID LOVE IDEAS OR QUESTIONS ON EVERYTHING AND MY AU FOR THEM!! (IM NO WRITER SO ANY FEEDBACK ID LOVE💕💕)

[lucifers-golden-bitch-apparently]

So the first thing you gotta know is

We didnt like this woman, i wouldnt say hate but there was no lost love between my graduating year and the principal

Firstly she was a late replacement because our old principal had died (RIP Sammy) and they grabbed the first person they thought would be suitable (news flash...she was not)

She had spent probably most of her teaching career around kids in their single digits and had little to no experience dealing with teenagers and especially highschoolers. Why these people thought to put her in charge of a highschool idk.

Almost as sooooonnn as she started being in charge of the school she had alienated herself against the entire student population and about half of the teaching staff (according to one of my old teachers who i still talk to, shes not only tanked the status of the school but is now also universally hated by all the senor staff)

But anyways back to the main plot, one of the reasons we disliked her is because of how she handled the previous years graduation, no prom fundraisers no special events no nothing so they had a barebones graduation season

The other thing is that she treated the entire student body as if we were incompetent, since she was used to having control over children she didnt know how to deal with young adults so she just going as usual....as you can imagine we didnt like any of that

Being talked down to, not letting us do any of the activities we were due as seniors and basically running the school like a low grade military

One of the most insane things she did was in regards to our clubs. Since i went to an all girls school we obv didnt have any boys attending. Because of that they had to find other ways to socialise us so we had interschool clubs with our brother school. Every friday we'd trade off the location of where the meetings were held. The general consensus for many years was "the boys are welcome to come in on friday and come and go as they please after school because we trust everyone to act civilized" and that system worked for all of those years with no issues

Within 2 WEEKS of her being there she decided this cannot stand and had every single boy who came into the school signing their name, sign in and sign out times and hovered like a vampire bat over our proceedings. And if they left the school, they wouldnt be allowed back in till next week. Again, as you can imagine not a single one of us were pleased.

Add to that all the little annoyances....yeah

But i digress

We didnt have fights often at my school but the ones we did have were Intense, usually ending in hospital visits or anger management appointments. The consensus was dont try to break up the fights, it will end badly. She was told this multiple times. Keep that in mind

That 2 girls who ended up fighting that day had been put in anger management Multiple times because they were fighty mfs. I dont remember why they were fighting that day, could have been literally anything. But they were going at it and as my school tends to do, we were all watching. About 2 minutes into the fight the teacher i still talk to tried to talk them down from the sidelines, she got a punch to the face, sent a punch back and then went downstairs because that wasnt her business.

Our esteemed principal came out of the office like a bat out of hell and ran up the stairs through the mess of students to break up the fight. What ended up happening is that she took several blows to pretty much everywhere while screaming at the girls to stop.

While that fuckery was happening our maths teacher, who is a 6'4 brick shithouse of a man, came out of the office, took one look at the second floor, threw his trash into the bin and went right back into the office. (Because as i said no one liked her much and she was very much warned)

After about 30 more seconds of screaming idk what happened, they probably got fed up with her, and from about 100 meters away we saw her go up and over the railing and flatten the students who were trying to come up the stairs

You would think that would be enough to end the fight (and her willpower) but nope. The fight continued and she put herself right back into it. About that time i decided to go do something else because i didnt want to be a witness. By thr time i came back everyone had gone about they business, the girls were probably getting their parents and the police called on them etc etc

As far as i know principal was fine, the girls got suspended and also more anger management and i believe she sent them to get cadet training (i heard she tried to have them expelled but idk how true that was)

There was one other incident that happened with her later that year but i dont remember the full thing.

(My god this turned into a saga sorryyyyy but yh thats the story XD)

HUH.

[submarinerwrites]

t.h. white, the once and future king

★★★★★

truly one of the fantasy epics of the twentieth century. possibly all time. a retelling of the legend of king arthur, the once and future king brings potent, arresting emotion to stories that we too often think of as long-dead.

i think it might’ve been ursula le guin who said she’d read this and laughed over it and cried over it all her life? me too genuinely. i read it first when i was eight and then several more times over the years (though this is my first time since high school) and it has always always made me laugh and cry in new and painful ways.

on that subject, it is still blisteringly funny. i love its humor, the way white mixes vernacular and high english, the way he describes history. it’s lush and amusing and i think everyone can glean something from it.

it is also painfully sad. my feelings while reading vary greatly based on my mood, but i was sad while reading it and what i took away from it was sad also. i kept thinking about the way the orkneys killed the unicorn and killed their mother and how different and yet how similar it was to arthur’s boar hunt. i kept thinking about the way white wrote about arthur’s loneliness and desire to do good. and about how lancelot broke down and cried because the miracle was that he had been allowed to do a miracle.

and the idea that arthur spent his whole life a lonely and damaged boy determined to do great things and then found himself up to his elbows in blood anyways... that’s just... so....

also like sidenote i do love bbc merlin or at least the parts i’ve seen (okay yes i’m talking about the fic) but i do think there’s really something to be said for an arthur who grew up confused, and alone, and broken, and friendless, and who went on to do all of these great things while carrying all of that inside of him... like maybe it’s just because i read the book long before i ever heard of the show but there’s something so special about the way white writes about his childhood to me.

from a more critical point of view, i think the one issue—if you can call it that—is that tonally the sword and the stone is violently and completely different from the rest of the novel. i don’t think white maybe intended for people to read all four of them in one volume honestly. i think it’s to the work’s detriment.

also! how was kay seneschal of all of arthur’s lands and fucking galivanting around the country?? no the hell he wasnt?? bro thats a full time job??

loved how white continually referenced malory; reminded me of the way malory constantly referenced the french book. arthuriana intertextuality ftw fr.

and i don’t know how i’d never picked up on this before but i am almost certain upon this reading that white wants us to entertain the possibility that it was mordred, not lancelot, who killed gaheris and gareth. mordred is desperate because he thinks lancelot is going to get away with everything and arthur won’t be ruined by everything he’s done and so he leaves and then kills gareth and gaheris in the madness. also gareth died shocked which i don’t think he necessarily would be if it were lancelot who killed him. small point but it is interesting.

also i found myself thinking about the john steinbeck quote: that arthur has lived over and over again because of all the stories we tell about him. i think white’s book truly allows for that to happen, more than any other story i’ve read: arthur comes to life.

[mithliya]

I'm not suggesting there's a winner or an outcome. I'm simply outlining that it's normal for a community to keep discussing things that we disagree on. You might not see the reason why a topic gets brought up because you personally don't care, but others do and have good reason to. Maybe Be the Change and encourage new topics to talk about. But if we agree on whatever you bring up don't expect it to take up as much time as the more controversial topics. It's the same in politics. Politicians debate hot topics, and it's repetitive and annoying. Families go through particular issues and will ruminate on them because it's on people's minds, it's a source of conflict. Motherhood, het relationships and separatism will always be a source of controversy under radical feminism and the topics will never go away. New women come to the movement every day and want to discuss it after seeing an old post. They all revolve around the same issue: Is expecting radical feminists to be radical IRL, when they can be, a problem? How far can the movement go when we enable helplessness and doomer thinking? How seriously can radical feminism be taken when we have women walking around claiming to be one while doing absolutely everything patriarchy expects? In the second wave, women divorced their husbands and kicked habits/routines conditioned by patriarchy. Coincidentally, that's also when radical feminism made a change in the world. We can't even say it's feminist to centre women in your life and avoid relationships with men on radblr or else it's "misogynistic." Come on. Questioning or critiquing gender conformity isn't allowed because it's "misogynistic." It's laughable to not expect "radical" women to do radical things. The movement is being weighed down by inaction encouraged by those refusing to change a thing in their lives.

okay perhaps i wasnt clear so allow me to emphasise. i agree that people can & should talk thru disagreements and differing ideas. but i think the way radblr goes about it makes “overkill” an understatement. at a certain point we just have to accept that everyone has their mind made up and simply move on instead of pushing a debate in which every possible thing to say has already been said. the horse is not only dead, it’s beyond decomposed. like i do agree with u, many ppl do not live by their morals on here and many claim to be radfems but clearly simply by virtue of their lifestyle, they are not. instead of us just stating that n leaving it at that tho, people go through these meaningless tiresome back & forths where they keep talking at each other. at a certain point, all that can be said & needs to be said has been said and we need to simply move on. otherwise we are literally wasting everyone’s time & efforts going in circles when we literally have so many things to discuss! on one hand i get the frustration that a woman who does absolutely nothing radical is calling herself a radfem, on the other i also get feeling disillusioned by that being treated like the world’s worst crime that warrants comments like “lol don’t run to us if he ends up beating u!!” (which unfortunately i’ve seen several ppl make here). it doesn’t encourage women to take radical action and simply ends up making the women Not doing so feel attacked and hate the movement, so like. again who is it even helping?? the approach is simply wrong & at a certain point ppl need to just. agree to disagree. like, if someone makes the 900th “lmao a radfem wouldn’t fuck men so take that word out of ur mouth” it won’t suddenly change anything, if a woman whines about how separatism is heterophobic it won’t change anything either. all it does is cause infighting and people to be defensive and i wish people would simply move on & be normal about it. and perhaps have a new discussion that we don’t have 8 times per year

[autisticlee]

pretty sure I made a post about this before and maybe worded it better but I want to throw out a big text wall and just whine about gender stuff again with no editing so you get all the typos and bad grammar and stuff

sometimes I think about how my old friend group may have pushed me away because they decided i'm ~a big scary man~ or at least that's what the other guy in our group suggested once. when I was telling him I don't know why they uninvited only me from the group trip suddenly, since I never got a real answer, he said maybe they want "girl time" together and saw me as a man so i wasnt welcome and going to intrude. that's nkt fair, especially as someome who grew up exclusively friends with girls and never even truly identified as a man. only used he/him to test it out and make the gender police happy so I could get reproductive care i wanted but am not allowed if i use she/her or they/them. (though so i'm confused because the guy if our group couldn't afford to do the trip but they still said they wanted him to join but i was always left out if conversation about the trip i initially planned myself!) anyway, I transitioned for personal medical reasons (mainly I wanted those life-ruining female organs out because severe pmdd and every doctor I talked to acted like I was crazy saying it's not a real illness basically and they won't remove because you want to unless you're trans or about to die) so I had to go by he/him and change my name to a masc one and go on hormones to get the doctors and insurance to be happy. didn't have time to explore non binary genders. I finally got my surgery, nit long after the other guy in our gc. he was great help! I decided it was time to explore gender more since I'm not tied to needing to be masc anymore. didn't tell those friends yet because I was still figuring out which word and pronouns to use (ended on nonbinary). I was never very masc presenting though around them anyway and never called myself "man" ever. I didn't have words to describe it yet but it was obvious imo I wasn't "man." at one point not long before i was pushed out if the group, one girl in the chat called me a man or something, so I corrected her and said i'm actually nonbinary. she apologized and I said it's fine because i've been trying to figure it out and have now decided, so this is my coming out to the group chat. no one else responded. but even so, I expected them to have seen it? so I didn't connect that maybe they still insisted on seeing me as "man" based solely on pronouns I used and maybe that "threatened" them. because they're ciswomen and transmascs are "big scary men" even though i'm actually, under all the performative gender to get approved for surgery, more of a fem nonbinary. but they would have known/learned that if they had just kept their promise of the group trip and didn't hurt and betray me and push me out of the group without warning or reason!!!!!! I know they're bad friends. but they were so good up til that final few months where things went downhill and hostile towards me for no reason at all. sighs.

the point is, ciswomen really like to make anyone they perceived as slightly masc out the be the enemy when I also feel uncomfortable by most masc men and seek the comfort and companionship of femme people instead. so the fact that they disown me helps keep me in a very lonely position and perpetually "othered" which isn't fair. not sure how people feel about my more femme nonbinary presenting but I feel like the little bit of masc-ness I have due to being on hormones will keep me getting pushed out of femme spaces still. it's really an issue. trans women have it the worst and that really needs to stop! but if I want to be some silly little nonbinary aroace lesbian then what right do people have to push me out of the spaces I feel comfortable in? you feel uncomfortable? suck it up and deal with it! you have a space to be comfortable in and can go to the other side of it. you have no right to kick me out into the cold!

if I want to be an aroace nonbinary lesbian mingling with the femmes, I wont let you decide I belong with men just because I might have some "masc" features you dislike (I've had Experiences and it gives me a discomfort of most men in general. or at least makes me wary of them) it feel horrible when they decide I can't stand beside them. Just like a past friend that decided she's ending out friendship because "girls can't be friends with guys so we can't be friends anymore" which is gross. that mindset needs to end. WE NEED GENDER EQUALITY. everyone needs to be treated truly equally. it would be so easy if people jist stopped putting gender in boxes and acted normal. but society isn't ready for that. so I will keep getting gendered with shitty stereotypes depending on who is deciding and i'll never have am equal footing among the gender policing. ugh.

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Mayerling (1936)

This one was really good, I absolutely loved it, but I do have one pretty big issue with it, that shall go into detail about a bit later.

This film starts off with Rudolf getting arrested at a student protest and hanging out a bunch with Seps while Taafe and the head of the secret police are trying to prove that theyre in cahoots, which excited me because although some of the previous ones did focus on Rudolf a lot, they didnt really focus on his politics in favor of showing us his always-strangely boring affair with Mary Vetsera, but then Seps' newspaper gets shut down and he has to flee and then we never hear from him again and the only political stuff in the rest of the movie is just like "oh, the baroness is cheating with the archduke whos already married, much scandal". So that was disappointing, but it's not the big issue I have with the film, and I was ultimately able to get invested in the relationship between Rudolf and Mary.

That's mainly because I thought Rudolf was very interesting. An issue that I had with both Elisabeth von Österreich (1931) and Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg (1928) was that Rudolf seemed like a fairly normal, well-adjusted guy which made his suicide feel very weird and kind of confusing. Like, I think if I had seen either of those films without knowing the actual history, during those scenes where he approached Mary to be like "my request for a divorce didnt go through. you know what we have to do now in order to be together", I wouldve thought that he was talking about running away together or something, like what people do when theyre crazy and in love but still, yknow, relatively mentally healthy. In those movies, there wasnt really any buildup to the suicide or to Mary wanting to die with him, but I think here they did a good job at portraying Rudolf as this complicated and tormented guy, I really liked Charles Boyer's performance.

Unfortunately, I cant say the same for Mary, who, like in the previous films, was just kinda portrayed as a very normal woman, even though willingly being in an affair with the heir to the throne of austria and then being willing to follow him when he commits suicide is pretty wild, at least in my humble opinion. This is the big issue I have: she came across as just this one-dimensional ingenue who didnt have any thoughts about what she was doing or her relationship with Rudolf beyond like "everything is all right because our love is pure", but I didnt really feel like the film made me understand why she would love him as deeply as she does. I can certainly understand why Rudolf loves her like that, she's this comforting, bright prescence in his dark dark life, but what does this sheltered 17 year old see in this weird, unstable, unfaithful manwhore? The only thing that's ever said is that she sees the sadness and the pain in his eyes, but idk. call me cynical, but that just isn't enough for me. But even beyond that, again, I really dislike how she has no inner life and doesnt seem to ever self-reflect and never expresses any opinion about Rudolf beyond like, after her second time meeting him she tells her governess that he's handsome.

There's this scene that's really emblematic of the issues I have with her characterization while also being one of my favorite scenes in the whole film. Basically, Mary's mother finds out about her daughter being in an affair with an unnamed man through an anonymous letter and when she refuses to tell her who it is, she sends her away to live with her uncle for 6 weeks. We hear that during those weeks, Rudolf has constantly been drunk and sleeping with a bunch of women and we see him at a brothel having.... not a bad time per se, but he's clearly not all there. When he looks in a mirror, he doesnt recognize himself and starts yelling at his own reflection before pulling out a gun and shooting it several times. Then someone approaches him to tell him that a pretty woman is waiting for him at the entrance and leads him there. The pretty woman is Mary, who just returned from her uncle's place and managed to escape her mother because she wanted to see him as soon as possible, and Rudolf immediately takes her to a private room because he doesnt want anyone to see her. There, Mary notices what she thinks is blood on his neck and gets concerened, but he tells her that its just lipstick from a prostitute. She doesnt say anything in response, but Rudolf starts ranting at her about how yes, he kissed prostitutes and he's allowed to do that if he wants because he hasnt tied himself down to Mary so it doesnt matter, while she just stays silent and expressionless. He gets increasingly more upset as he rants and ends up grabbing Mary by the shoulders and yelling at her that, if she doesnt say anything now, he never wants to see her again. I forgot what exactly she told him, but I think it was just something along the lines of "I'll love you no matter what". Then Rudolf calms down a bit and basically repeats "I dont know how you can love me, you can't actually love me when Im like this" while she assures him that she does love him.

This scene really demonstrates the duality of their relationship as presented in this film; Rudolf is this complicated and tormented mess of a person while Mary is just a doll looking at him with her beautiful blank face. Like, I cannot stresss enough how little emotion she shows during that scene and many others. And I dont think its because she's played by a bad actress, I actually really liked Danielle Darrieux's performance and I think she could have portrayed Mary with a lot of depth, if only she had any.

But with my big issue out of the way, I'd like to talk about all the things that made me love this movie regardless

I already talked about how I liked Rudolf, but I absolutely LOVED Gabrielle Dorziat as Elisabeth here despite her having a very minor role. Theres this small scene where she wants to see Rudolf but finds Mary instead and they talk for a moment that I think gave her a lot of depth, again, despite the fact that she only had a few small appearances in less than a handful of scenes.

The pacing and editing were on-point, like The King Steps Out (1936) this movie felt like it was longer than 90 minutes in a good way, and I adored the score, it added so much to the wonderful atmosphere of this whole thing. Or, well, maybe 'wonderful' isnt the right word here, this is a fairly dark film, but it was very well-executed. Places like the opera in the ballet gala scene or the ball at the end have this beautiful grandness about them, while the brothel Rudolf visits and even the fair where he and Mary first meet are dingy and kind of grimy, and the ending at Mayerling is so dark and melancholic and tense, my heart was racing with this horrible anticipation for basically the last 10-20 minutes, it was so good. I was gonna talk about it in more detail but honestly, I dont want to spoil it too much, you should definitely watch it for yourself when you can. I found it (and most of the movies I will review) on ok.ru, its a french movie but I was able to find it with english subtitles on there.

So yeah, all in all, its a good movie, I wish the creators had cared more about Mary but that's it.