#the title which is also the Heinrich tag translates to

[aelnare]

;;Sprich mir von allen Schrecken des Gewissens, von meinem Vater sprich mir nicht. 

He was a boy on the edge of becoming a man when his world slowly but surely began to fall apart. Drystan von Reuß, son of the princess of Dale, did not understand the anger within himself. He did not understand the distance between him and everyone else.  But there was nothing he could do about it.  He had tried his best to be a good son, to make his father proud, to make his mother smile. But whenever his mother smiled his father became angry. And whenever his father was proud, his mother became sad. There had been a time when he thought himself the reason for that. Had they not been happy when they first married? Lady Mother often spoke of that time.  Brand was the crown prince, the golden boy, the wonderful future. They loved him. They adored him. Drystan was ready to die for him. The two boys were the best of friends, playing between the flowers in Dale’s gardens, fighting each other with wooden sticks. They hunted dangerous dragons and wild beasts in their dreams together. Nothing could tear them apart. Nothing and no one. But deep inside his heart, hidden away between hopes he never dared to speak about, dreams he never dared to dream, there was a different feeling altogether. There was agony. There was pain. And worst of all there was jealousy. And nothing he could do about it.  He was seven when he first realised that there was something different about them. Something different between them. Where Brand was met with smiles and laughter, only cold hands and stern faces greeted Drystan. His father grew ever more distant, he could hear them shout at night, fight and bicker. Over the kingdom, over their honor, over the truth. Uncle Bain and Sir Lancelot turned away when Drystan approached with Lord Heinrich. They turned away from him, they turned away from his father.  All he wanted was to make them proud. It was during that time that Brand became too busy to play with him. A future king needed a different sort of upbringing, a different sort of teacher. He was the heir after all. And Drystan was left to bend and break under his father’s iron fist, always eager to please but never good enough. He was seventeen when he dreamed of dying a hero’s death. When he dreamed of being a knight in splendid armour, living forever in songs and poems. His father would be proud of that, what other choice did he have? Mother would be sad. But she was always sad. And at least he would give her a reason for it. At least she would have to think of him for once. Brand laughed at him for that. All he had wanted was to make him proud. He was a grown man when he stood upon a bloodied battlefield, watching Dain Ironfoot defending a motionless body, a dead king. A dead cousin. Dain died that day, like so many others he died protecting the king of Dale and their kingdoms, the vision they had built for their future. But Drystan survived. And there was nothing to be done about that. Drystan, the spare, the one they had never wanted. He was the one that survived, for fate played a cruel game in those days. They cried for Brand. They sang songs and wrote poems, they would remember him forever. And princess Tilda, his own mother, was so so proud. Drystan could not help it. He was jealous. He was angry. He should have been the one to die. And Brand should have lived. Should have ruled. He had been ready to die for the other, but not even that he was allowed in the end. He was guilty all the same. 

[papermoonloveslucy]

JOHN MYLONG

September 27, 1892

John Mylong (aka Jack Mylong-Münz aka Johnny Mylong) was born as Adolf Heinrich Münz in Vienna Austo-Hungaria (now Austria). A Russian-Jewish character actor, he first acted on stage in 1912 and was briefly popular in German films of the early 1930's. After the  annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, he emigrated to the United States. In Hollywood, he played assorted characters in B-movies under the name 'John Mylong', wisely changing his original name, Adolf. In 1941 he starred in the Theatre Guild's production of Somewhere in France, which was headed to Broadway, but closed in Washington. 

After arriving in Hollywood, his first American film was The Devil Pays Off (1941) for Republic Pictures. He was uncredited, but naturally played a German character in this war-time drama. He continued doing films in Hollywood and adopted American citizenship in 1948. 

He began doing television in 1952 with “The Sound of Waves Breaking”, an episode of “Lux Video Theatre” featuring Natalie Schaffer and Teresa Wright. 

Mylong did two episodes of “I Love Lucy,” both part of its season five trip to Europe story arc. 

On February 26, 1956 he was seen as a gendarme in “Paris at Last” (S5;E18).

Mylong plays the officer who speaks both French and German (second from left) in the famous tag-team translation scene. The other characters say he’s from Strasbourg but Mylong was originally born in Vienna. On December 20, 2019, CBS broadcast a colorized version of “Paris at Last”.  

Seven weeks later he returned to the series as the Monte Carlo Casino Manager in “Lucy Goes To Monte Carlo” (S5;E25). After Lucy mistakenly gambles her way into a small fortune, he tries to make sense of her confusion and clarifies that Lucy cannot simply walk away from her enormous winnings! 

In 1959, he returned to Desilu to play a role in “Perilous” an installment of “The Westinghouse-Desilu Playhouse” starring Joan Fontaine and Maximilion Schell. The series was produced by Desi Arnaz, who introduced the episode on camera. 

In 1965, he was at Desilu Studios one last time for an episode of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” titled “Uhny Uftz”, a story about flying saucers!  The episode also featured Lucy-alumni Madge Blake and Ross Elliott. 

Mylong’s final screen appearance came in January 1967 with an episode of CBS’s “Jericho”, a short-lived World War II espionage series in color!  

Mylong died in Beverly Hills on September 8, 1975 at age 82.  

[thylalock]

tagged by @haileymorelikestupid thank you for tagging me again hon! ♡♡♡

Icon: george mackay, who hasn't left my mind since january 2020 it's getting ridiculous

Content: mostly 1917 now because OH MY GOD that movie (you all know what that movie did to me), but also other movies and shows that i enjoy, period dramas, and of course my other three otps: johnlock, merthur, and spirk

Letter color: does this refer to the accent color? i have blueish purple that goes with my header ♡♡♡

Header: one of george's stefan heinrichs photoshoot in 2017 (from the same session with my icon's), he just looked so soft in that photoshoot

URL: thylalock - t'hy'la literally translates to soulmates in star trek vulcan (which kirk and spock are) and lock refers to the real lock (in relation to being soulmates) and to johnlock (i got this url when i was knee deep in johnlock angst, but i still ship those two as hard), I KNOW, i'm absolutely trash for the trope

Blog title: age before beauty - basically the three canon words that encompasses a lot of layers of schofield and blake's dynamics perfectly, i still have a lot of feelings about this line

tagging @ryanbercara @aoskirk @floweryshell @adamparrrish @smilecapsules @julies-andrews @allanpoe @willschofield + anyone who wants to do this, you can tag me back (sorry if you've done this before, and no pressure though, only if you want to!)

[enricodandolo]

Can we please stop reading Wagner's operas as complete sausage fests?

(Cross-posting from /r/opera for the five people browsing the #opera tag on tumblr)

Inflammatory title, check. Typing this fresh out of the shower inflamed with righteous indignation, check. References to YouTube comments, check. That's right, it's rant-time (or, as Wagner calls it, "act 2").

So this is something that has been on my mind a lot but that I've never really bothered to write down. I don't think this will come as a surprise to most of the people on here, so this is gonna be somewhat self-indulgent. Obviously, big shout-out to the 2005 Copenhagen Ring, which was my first introduction to Wagner.

In a lot of the literature, and certainly in the popular imagination (hello there, angry YouTube commentors), Wagner is all about the men. *Meistersinger* productions almost always hinge on the director's perspective on Hans Sachs and what a cad he is. The *Ring* is usually told as either the story of Wotan, whether he be a visionary master manipulator or a villain in disguise. *Tannhäuser* is about Heinrich dithering about for three hours like a latter-day Hamlet who can't decide between Betty and Veronica (wait, what?). This is not to say Wagner's big female characters -- Brünnhilde and Kundry being the prime examples -- don't receive attention in those productions or analyses. But they're usually ancillaries of the men, in some way or another, and not the focal points of the action.

But that's not at all what we can see in the libretti themselves, let alone the music! If anything, I'd argue that in all of Wagner's mature works -- Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan, Meistersinger, the Ring and probably Parsifal -- it's the women that drive the plot, and the women that make the most use of their agency.

I think the best example for this is probably Walküre, and in fact listening to the first two acts this morning brought this on. When the Copenhagen Ring had Sieglinde pull Nothung from the ash tree rather than Siegmund, I saw a lot of reviewers tut-tutting. According to a not very scientific study of the comments on the YouTube upload, that seems to be a point of more contention than the deaths of Loge and Alberich in that production, or Hunding getting away scots-free. I note that the Met Ring has the twins pull out Nothung together, hand in hand, which is cute and doesn't seem to arouse nearly as much dissension.

But in fact, Sieglinde is far from the helpless damsel in distress that some people seem to want to paint her as. Hell, her very first line goes: "A stranger -- him, I must ask." The clear implication that she has some sort of plan in mind -- which, though never spelled out, becomes pretty clear over the course of the first act -- doesn't exactly characterise her as helpless victim waiting for her saviour. It is Sieglinde who, at risk to her own safety, forces Hunding to grant Siegmund shelter by literally calling him a coward. Later, it is Sieglinde who -- on her own initiative -- drugs Hunding and directs Siegmund to the sword, not just to save him but also herself. Rather than Siegmund saving Sieglinde, this is a transaction between equals: Sieglinde gives Siegmund the means to defend himself from certain death at Hunding's hands, and in return Siegmund bodily protects Sieglinde from her abusive husband.

Throughout the act, the equality between the twins is emphasised. In part, of course, that's for foreshadowing that sweet, sweet twincest, but one line always gives me pause:

HUNDING Wie gleicht er dem Weibe! Der gleißende Wurm glänzt auch ihm aus dem Auge.

I've seen some pretty bizarre translations of that (that deceitful serpent, really?), but I think this might be the most literal:

How like to the woman is he! The same gleaming (radiant? bright? searing?) worm (almost definitely: dragon rather than earthworm, cf. Fafner) shines in his eye.

I don't really think you can get much clearer on what kind of temperament Wagner had in mind for both Wälsung twins than comparing them to a freaking dragon.

Later on, too, it's Sieglinde who first realises just who this dashingly handsome stranger is and goes "eh, fuck it" and proceeds to basically spell it out to her brother. By this point, we've seen Sieglinde pretty much run the first act, directing events to her advantage from a position of supreme weakness. No matter which of the twins draws Nothung from the tree, I think it's pretty clear that the first act is Sieglinde's self-actualisation and emancipation more than anything else.

The theme continues in acts 2 and 3, in my opinion. Sieglinde takes the backseat here as the overarching mythological plot dominates the action, and the focus shifts to two other female characters: Fricka and Brünnhilde. Now Fricka seems to be positioned perfectly to be played under the "shrewish, overbearing wife" trope who just doesn't understand Wotan's greatness and is keeping him down, man. Wotan and Brünnhilde certainly seem to share that opinion in how they talk about her. But regardless of how she is portrayed on stage, Fricka completely dominates the confrontation with Wotan despite the supposed master-manipulator and patriarch's sweet romantic ideas on how to deal with the Wälsung twins. This is one sharp lady, and she doesn't waste a second before reminding Wotan that he's bound to enforce the divine law she set down. Musically, too, Fricka's sharp soprano lines seem to easily overpower Wotan's explanations in all the recordings I've heard, another common theme.

Brünnhilde of course is the poster-child for any feminist reading of the Ring for obvious reasons. Not only is she, apparently, her mother's equal in wisdom and magic (so says Erda, at least -- later on Brünnhilde bitterly mocks her lack of wisdom, so your mileage may vary). Over the course of the three operas she's in, she

wilfully defies Wotan's orders despite being literally created as his instrument in attempting to save Siegmund

convinces Sieglinde to live and (on the day of his conception, most likely) bestows a seriously programmatic name on her son, with the clear implication that she's doing this as her own way of fixing Wotan's broken master plan

transforms her punishment into an unishment by tricking Wotan into letting her set the conditions for her spouse-to-be, and it's pretty clear from the swelling Siegfried motif just whom she has in mind

musically overpowers brash Siegfried not once, but twice (the love duet and the oath scene in Götterdämmerung) -- I don't think it's a coincidence that Brünnhilde enters Siegfried fresh and ready to shatter every glass pane from Walhall to Niflheim while Siegfried himself has something like three hours of intensive singing behind him

hands out magic items and boons to a departing Siegfried like a mellow dungeon master just before a big-ass boss fight

after being forced into marrying Gunther, immediately turns around and moves to take down Siegfried hard, including by making alliances of convenience with her direct personal enemies Gunther and Hagen. No lovesick puppy here.

burns down the fucking world and kills all the gods

So much for the Ring (haven't touched on Gutrune and Waltraute, who I also think get a bad rap as an uninvolved accessory to her brothers' plot respectively a walking flying plot device). It's not that different in Wagner's other operas, but I'll run through them more curtly.

Tannhäuser: Elisabeth shuts down a mob of angry men about to lynch Heinrich, then cleverly leverages her reputation for piety to give him a way out that will, at the very least, save his life and has a chance of restoring him to the court's good graces. By contrast, Heinrich himself doesn't really *do* all that much.

Lohengrin: Ortrud runs the whole show here, and she would have gotten away with it too if not for those meddling grail knights! Telramund is something of a tool by comparison who doesn't even seem to be aware his wife is manipulating him. Elsa comes off as something of an ingenue, but she's got a will of her own and I like to headcanon that much of her behaviour in act 1 is deliberately performing saintlyhood and Christian mysticism as a legal defense strategy. Sure, a grail knight does come along, but if he hadn't there are worse ways to be perceived by the audience than a consumptive martyr. Big shoutout to Carolyn Walker Bynum's Holy Feast and Holy Fast here, aka the grossest book about medieval Christianity I've had the pleasure to read.

Tristan: sheesh, it's Tristan. Nothing much happens but what little plot there is is set in motion by Isolde deciding to avenge her late husband and kill herself to avoid to unwelcome marriage to a political and dynastic enemy. (Then the date rape drugs come out.)

Meistersinger: Obviously Hans Sachs gets most of the credit for plotting, but really, most of what he does seems to be prompted by Eva at least in part. Realising that her father has gone insane, she uses her limited agency to make the best of a bad situation by first trying to make Walther a Meistersinger (roping in Lene and David) despite his eminent incompetence and psychopathic temperament, then settle for a friend if not a lover by encouraging Hans Sachs to woo her instead. She also manages to keep Walther from murdering anyone on-stage which is quite a feat.

Parsifal: Like with Tristan, there isn't too much plot in the traditional sense, and the characters are hyperstylised archetypes -- excepting Kundry, who is of course one of the most multilayered and complex characters in all of opera (which ... isn't saying much, but still). While Kundry doesn't do all that much to drive the action on-stage, it seems to me she's expressing her agency by helping the grail knights as an attempt at restitution and trying hard to subvert Klingsor's magically-binding orders to the end of her own redemption.

So, yeah. Wagner may have had a massive thing for muscular pretty boys with big swords, but it's really the women who drive the plots and tell the muscular pretty boys what to do, and I wish more directors / reviewers / etc. would pay closer attention to that. Rant over.

TL,DR: just because Wagner was an antisemitic shithead, that doesn't mean he wasn't a crypto-proto-feminist!