#meme [ luke crain ]

[thespookybean14]

The gang

[spookyspoiledho]

Me, but about seeing the actor behind a terrible character I find attractive

[nighthcwling]

“  i can’t keep running.  ” ( nell for luke )

it felt like they had run their entire lives, ᴀs ɪғ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴄᴀᴍᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ ʀᴜɴɴɪɴɢ. he wanted to hug her and tell her they would never have to run again - ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴡᴏʀʀʏ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ, but the last thing he could ever do is lie to nell. she was far better at this than he, comforting people, words were never his strong suit. luke sucked in a fresh breath of air as he kneeled down in front of his sister, ❛ we don't have to run right now, nellie, we're... ❜ the single word caught like a lump in his throat, he couldn't bring himself to ᴍᴜsᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴏᴜʀᴀɢᴇ to even say it, because were they ever really S A F E?

he didn't want to see her this way, he hated that he couldn't take her 𝖋𝖊𝖆𝖗 and her 𝖕𝖆𝖎𝖓 away, ʜᴇ ᴡᴀs ᴡɪʟʟɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴇɴᴅᴜʀᴇ ᴀʟʟ ᴏғ ɪᴛ ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴛᴏ sᴇᴇ ʜᴇʀ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴘᴇᴀᴄᴇ. ❛ why don't we make some hot cocoa and talk about they guy you keep thinking about and smiling over. ❜ shaking hands grabbed ahold of hers, the contact seemingly calm his heartrate, ❛ as long as we're together we don't have to run. ❜ | @nightskied

[strangesmallbard]

What do you mean by "bad adaptation?" I would say that haunting of hill house is maybe an inaccurate? adaptation, or like maybe subversive adaptation is better, but it's still a good adaptation. Ig I'm curious if by bad adaptation you mean it doesn't match the source material in terms of story or in terms of narrative meaning or both?

while i enjoy flanagan's hill house and think it carries enough of the core themes to have a passing connection with the source material, i ultimately believe it works much better as an original story rather than as an adaptation. "bad adaptation" is definitely an oversimplification for the sake of a meme lmao - unsuccessful is a little closer to what i mean, which i'll explain in more detail below.

first, i want to clarify that analysis of book-to-screen adaptation that only considers 1:1 story accuracy (called "fidelity" by adaptation theorists) when judging the final product's merit is often super myopic. many adapters seek to faithfully recreate the story in a new medium using their own artistic skills, but other adapters like our boy mike flanagan employ more artistic freedom.

to adapt hill house, he changed the basic plot/character elements and explored the nuclear family in more definitive terms than the novel. he also set the story in contemporary times, allowing him to modernize the story. this form of adaptation is totally legitimate and can work amazingly, but i believe it requires a certain recognizability to be truly successful.

here is where i believe flanagan went a few steps too far. his hill house is a good story, but it's a fundamentally different story from jackson's hill house. (this is a whole book ahead, i'm so sorry.)

the characters

again, it's completely okay for adaptations to change up the characters + their dynamics. some works combine characters or remove them altogether if they feel their presence isn't necessary for the version of the story they're trying to tell. but the hill houses have an almost entirely different set of characters, with entirely different dynamics.

in the books, a scientist interested in paranormal phenomena contacts individuals with recorded experiences to explore hill house alongside him and the owner's son, luke sanderson. these individuals are eleanor "nell" vance and theodora, who doesn't have a last name. other characters include the caretaker, mrs. dudley, mrs. montague—the scientist's ouiji board-obsessed wife—and arthur, who works for mrs. montague. the characters bond as they discuss the house's history, their own backgrounds, and the origins of supernatural phenomena. meanwhile, hill house slowly ingratiates itself in nell, who's mourning the loss of her mother.

meanwhile, the tv show centers around the crane family, who move into hill house to renovate and eventually flip the property. the show chronicles their tragic interactions with the house—which resulted in the death of olivia crain, the family's matriarch—alongside the house's robust, terrible history. it also chronicles the crain family in current day after the youngest sibling, nell vance nee' crain completes suicide in the house. throughout the season, we see the crain family learn to deal with their tragic past, their ghosts, and the stories they tell each other to cope.

the tv show's story works really well for its medium, but it's a different story. while some core themes stay the same, they're approached from very different angles.

the house

until the very last episode, i would have argued that the house is the most successful aspect of flanagan's adaptation. it's big, scary, and wrong-looking. you don't want to walk into this house. the angles are quite literally wrong. the addition of actual apparitions complement book!hill house's tendency to entrap its victims and haunt them until they eventually join its history.

olivia crain assumes the role of book!nell in the flashbacks; the idea of a proper home/family drives their internal arcs in both books, with some key differences. nell receives the letter from dr. montague about hill house after losing her mother, whom she took care of her entire adult life. nell and her mother eventually resented each other, and this resulted in mach 10 complicated grief for nell, who suddenly has no place and no one to call her own, to call home. she arrives at hill house ostensibly to search for this place and her fears of eternal loneliness drive her spiral.

in flanagan's hill house, olivia crain's fears over her children drives her spiral. the house ostensibly sends her a premonition of nell's death, leading her to believe the house (and the world outside) will kill her children. in desperation, she tries to kill nell and luke. while these internal arcs are demonstrably different, there is also a through line that allows book readers to recognize olivia as the "nell" figure. this was quite good and fun, aside from my issues with olivia crain's character and how flanagan uses the theme of motherhood. that's for another essay.

HOWEVERRR the last episode happened. the crain kids reunite with their sister, leave their dad in the house, and even see the dudleys reunited with their murdered daughter. afterward, the crain kids live happily. flanagan gave hill house a redemption arc, dismantling the fear from the previous episodes in one ten minute montage. at the end of the book, nell dies and the book ends by repeating the opening line. hill house has stood for a hundred years, and will stand for a hundred more.

a thousand essays could be written on this line alone. does this refer to the perceived permanence of the nuclear family? will humans always destroy themselves if they can't confront the immovable haunted house in their own lives? and so on. you can't unhaunt hill house without writing a fundamentally different haunted house.

theo and nell

in jackson's hill house, the relationship between theo and nell are arguably the heart of the story. the majority of nell's interactions are with theo, including the main "haunting" of the book - when the ghost rattles the walls and door of nell's room. we watch nell become equal parts entranced with theo and resentful of her perceived freedom. she's drawn to theo's vivaciousness and regrets that she's so meek in comparison. she later dreams of living with theo, who gently shuts her down, sending nell further into the spiral that eventually leads to her death. theo is also the last person nell touches when she tries to leave hill house. while i read their interactions as super mega gay, there are many alternative readings. either way, nell and theo are inextricably linked in the book.

in flanagan's hill house, theo and nell are siblings. this automatically changes the relationship and, obviously, removes any possibility of romantic feelings. the most salient parallel is how nell tries to reach out to theo for help; her rejection pushes nell further towards her deadly return to hill house. (not that it was actually her fault, but theo felt like it was her fault.) otherwise, flanagan nell's greatest connection is to her twin brother and her mother, olivia crain. the latter is ostensibly the most like book!theo, but show!nell has very few memories of her mother, and what she does remember, she cherishes rather than interrogates.

theo continued

theo herself is a very, very different character. she's closed off emotionally and her sarcasm is biting, rather than charming, like jackon's theo. book!theo also has a roommate heavily implied to be her girlfriend, which has been the subject of many literary journal articles over the years. while i think it's genuinely great that flanagan's theo is openly gay, she's just. an entirely different lady. this choice is ostensibly subversive, but i think her overall lack of connection to the original character diminishes this quality. (in a more faithful adaptation, i'd love to see a depiction of theo's internal life; it could be a realy interesting juxtaposition to nell's pov, which dominates the original book's narrative.)

nell continued

we are veering a little bit into My Personal Reading of the Text, but i think it holds some merit for this conversation. in jackson's hill house, nell reads as gay and closeted. she feels fundamentally displaced in then-modern society. she's in her thirties and unmarried, and she also isn't a working professional. her sister tolerates her, but nell perceives herself as an unwanted presence. i believe she's partly attracted to theo because she wants aspects of her life - the little house theo describes, her confidence. when book!luke (who's very much not her twin brother) flirts with nell, she recognizes how much she hates the interaction. she doesn't want to flirt with men. this realization makes her a little giddy. the tragedy in hill house is that nell reached out a hand for help, for home, and only the house answered. everyone else lets her drive away.

making nell unequivocally straight in the tv show just. eschews this entire aspect of the book for me. show!nell has a husband and a loving family. she definitely has ptsd from her experiences at hill house (and the vision of her own corpse looming over her head) and grieves her mother, but those societal factors are gone. i can't entirely claim this is an adaptational failure, but it's definitely the biggest missed opportunity of the show.

tl;dr

both jackson's and flanagan's hill houses did what they set out to do. those things are just irreconcilably different. i enjoyed the show and its versions of the characters have stayed with me. but it's not a "successful" adaptation of the book's story, themes, and narrative as i understand them.

[destage-arch]

CAST ( IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE )   ,     EXILAE IN THE ROLE OF THEODORA ‘THEO’ CRAIN  ,     DESTAGE IN THE ROLE OF ELEANOR ‘NELL’ CRAIN   .     KENNA FORGOT THE MEME    ,      ​  ❛   I LOVED YOU THEN AND I LOVE YOU NOW.   ❜

hers are cracks that showed too late,    hidden under flowers until this body was breaking,   and now she knows that her loveliness has become something twisted,    shapeless and writhing under her skin.    sometimes she still feels like the small child clinging at their sleeves,    pulling bodies closer and closer,    holding on to holidays and birthdays and believing recklessly that this year will be better,    that they can stomach a meal across the table without horrors resurfacing.    and now,   this year,   like every one she can convince them around a table,    eleanor’s sitting on a porch step swallowing a disappointment that feels like knives,    wondering if they were all shattered so far beyond repair that they cannot find themselves back to something real.    they’ll not try family time again at christmas,    she’s sure of that.    for now,   it’s raining and her fingernails are bitten down so hard they’re starting to ache,   and she’s thinking about local motels that might be easier to handle than this,    wondering if luke will come with her and she can pretend they’re happy for just a little while,    when the body sits by her side,    warm and steady and a promise made.     she leans in without thinking,    seeks a warmth that will sink into her aching bones,    make her feel like her bones aren’t quite so aching,   filled with a corpse - cold that comes from the grave,    from the dark halls of her home.       ❛    i know.  ❜        but she keeps looking forward,    staring at the distance as if she expects to see something coming for them,    with teeth and jaws unhinged,    to claim the life stolen;    she never could be present.       ❛    i do @exilae,    and they all love each other but it’s like this every year.    and every year i keep begging them to try again and i don’t know why i do it anymore.  ❜   

[pansyherondale]

and now some hill house memes...

[hatchetfield-scarecrow]

[infinitetrigger-uw]

I made a thing

[azonredil]

The red on the cake really makes me some type of worried ngl

[mvsicinthedvrk]

@mischiefmuses​ asked: “ i am someone who did not die when they should of. ” - Yennefer to Luke

Luke gives the woman a puzzled look. Luckily, he hasn’t had any brush with death to speak from personal experience, but he can at least defer to logic in order to settle on a reply to her statement. So he huffs a little laugh before slowly working it out. “Well. If you should have died, you wouldn’t be here now. Right? Must not’ve been your time.” 

[tickletastic]

Luke from hill house for the character meme please?

Ask Meme

On a scale of 1-10, how ticklish are they? 

Probably a 7 or 8

Where is their most ticklish spot(s)?

His ribs + his neck

Which spots are they not ticklish?

I think he probably isn’t too ticklish on his back aside from his shoulder blades

What is their laugh like?

He giggles really lightly up until a certain point, after that his laughter is really bubbly + frantic

Do they enjoy tickling? if yes, is it a fun platonic/familial thing, or kinky thing to them, or can it be both depending on the circumstance?

He doesn’t mind it but he would never admit to it. He likes it as a familial thing.

Are they more often a lee or ler, generally?

Definitely a lee, I think him and Nell were always the targets of their family’s tickle attacks

Who is someone in their life that they tickle often?

Luke definitely tickled Nell, but I think he was on the receiving end of tickling when it came to all of his other siblings

Who is someone in their life that they get tickled by often?

All of the Crain siblings, but mostly Nell and Steve

Does the word “tickle” or any variation of embarrass them?

He gets really embarrassed when people as him if he’s ticklish

Are they embarrassed about their ticklishness, and do they try to deny/hide it?

He’s not really embarrassed about it, but he definitely does try to hide it

Would gentle tickling or rough tickling affect them more?

Gentle tickling

Is there a specific spot that they enjoy being tickled, either exclusively or more than other spots? what is it?

Not really, but he does like massages even though they usually tickle him

Is there a spot that they can’t stand to be tickled, either because it’s just too sensitive, or it’s uncomfortable/painful/etc? what is it?

His toes are really sensitive, and he can only handle tickling there for a minute or so at a time

Would they ever purposefully bug a friend/partner/sibling into tickling them, and if so, how would they go about it?

sometimes he’ll egg his siblings into giving him affection in general, including tickling sometimes

Does teasing affect them?

So, so bad, and he’s super blushy about it too

[bandydear]

[nighthcwling]

“  it was always going to end like this.  ” ( nell for luke ! )

this couldn't be their destiny, they D E S E R V E D more time together - they deserved better. they may have been adults but they were still kids, ᴄʜɪʟᴅʜᴏᴏᴅ ʀɪᴘᴘᴇᴅ ғʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴀs ᴛʜᴇɪʀ sᴏᴜʟs ᴡᴇʀᴇ ᴛᴏʀᴍᴇɴᴛᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ᴄᴏʀɴᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇʏ ʀᴏᴜɴᴅᴇᴅ. they protected each other ( more so nell protecting him ) but their bond was everlasting. it was a cycle of pain and deep down he knew he added suffering to nell - to his entire family with his 𝕒𝕕𝕕𝕚𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟, but ғɪɢʜᴛɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴍᴏɴs ᴡɪᴛʜɪɴ ʜɪᴍsᴇʟғ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏɴᴇs ʟᴜʀᴋɪɴɢ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ sʜᴀᴅᴏᴡs ᴏғ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ʀᴏᴏᴍ ʜᴇ ᴇɴᴛᴇʀᴇᴅ was nearly I M P O S S I B L E.

lips quivered as he shook his head in denial, a hand reached out for hers like he had done many times since they were born, ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇᴀᴛɪɴɢ ɪɴ ʜɪs ᴄʜᴇsᴛ ʀᴇᴍɪɴᴅɪɴɢ ʜɪᴍ ʜᴏᴡ ᴛᴇʀʀɪғɪᴇᴅ ʜᴇ ᴡᴀs - or maybe it was the 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙𝕕𝕣𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕝 and he was overreacting to how loud his body seemed. ❛ no, i don't... ❜ his head continued to shake as tears trickled from his eyes, ❛ i don't believe that, i don't believe it... ❜ he repeated his words as if she didn't hear them the first time.

one, two, three - his mind was racing as he began to count to seven in his head, he refused to accept that this was it - ᴛʜɪs ᴡᴀs ғᴏʀᴇᴠᴇʀ. the lights flickered as ʜɪs sᴋɪɴ ᴄʀᴀᴡʟᴇᴅ ᴜɴᴛɪʟ ɢᴏᴏsᴇʙᴜᴍᴘs ᴄᴏᴠᴇʀᴇᴅ ʜɪᴍ ғʀᴏᴍ ʜᴇᴀᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛᴏᴇ, ❛ nellie, please don't leave me. ❜ | @nightskied

[thefriendlyneighborhoodcryptid]

look out luke, poppy hill is right behind you. oh my god, he has airpods in. he can’t hear us. oh my god.

[madeleineengland]

@my patience when people says that Steven Crain suffered less than his other siblings.

[hecksinki]