#young madeline usher

[screensland]

The Fall of the House of Usher, E07.

[nonbinarylesbianherb]

warning - flashing

The fall of the house of usher edit !

[erodingsinner]

Madeline Usher certainly is a milf. Well except she's not a mom but I'd like to make her one if you catch my drift

[themacabrebarbie]

tag drop !

[dusty-daydreams]

Peer review!!!

The Fall of the House of Usher 1.08 | The Raven (2023)

[doyouwanttoseeabug]

oh OOOOOOH their deaths mirror each other. Tamerlane and Leo are both driven to what looks like suicide chasing hallucinations around an apartment that architecturally represents their psyche (as they destroy it), shortly after leaving/planning to leave their loving partner. (Both of them invite her in, at first. Both of them want her there. But now she's in the mirrors. She's in the walls.)

Vic and Camille are both killed/driven to death by Vic's experiments, their rivalry leading to both their deaths (Camille to prove it doesn't work, Vic to prove it does), immediately after they get left by people they are using in professional/personal ways - Camille hires Toby and Tina to sleep with them, Vic dates Ali to get her to work with her on the heart mesh.

Perry and Frederick both die in the same warehouse, looking at the ceiling, waiting for death to come to them - Perry with a look of ecstasy, Frederick in terror. Both of them are in that warehouse because they've been humiliated by Roderick and are now determined to prove themselves. Both get led here by drugs. Both involve the mutilation of an innocent, Morrie. Both of them see Verna not as another character, but something like her true self. And there's the parallel between all the mercy that Verna offers Perry - the most she offers any of them, other than Lenore - and her glee in explaining to Roderick exactly why he deserves to die like this.

And then you get the final pairing/quartet of deaths - Eliza Usher + William Longfellow vs Madeline and Roderick which is obvious but oh my god. oh my god you guys. Eliza's wall of crucifixes and clinging to Christian faith and the sanctity of pain as a way of hoping for reward after death vs Roderick putting Madeline through the agony of vivisection to 'honour' her + grant her Egyptian immortality. Both William and Roderick eat their young. Fuck.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 2

Book summaries below:

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers series) by Becky Chambers

Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.

Science fiction, adventure, series, adult

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (Sworn Soldier series)

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruravia.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

Horror, fantasy, gothic, mystery, historical fiction, turn-of-the-century, retelling, novella, series, adult

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #12 – What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher

I initially meant to read this back last year when it was up for a Hugo nomination, but well – honestly I forgot my copy in an airport waiting room and it’s presumably now living a good life somewhere in a New Jersey compose heap. But a friend had a copy and said they enjoyed it, so! Stole it for a few days, and very glad I did. It’s a quick, fun shot fungal gothic, great for stormy nights.

The basic plot is, well, it’s very explicitly Fall of the House of Usher with a slight admixture of Ruritanian Romance. The Ushers are a genteely impoverished family of minor aristocracy in Ruravia, a less than impressive principality in Eastern Europe. Alex Easton, Roderick Usher’s former commanding officer in some recent war (the Gallacian Army they served in having a habit of getting into these quite habitually) receives a letter from Roderick’s sister Madeline begging company and help, as she is deathly ill. Of course by the time Easton arrives the pair of them look like they’re one stiff wind away from dying, and the estate and the lands around it are both decaying and full of unnerving strangeness. The only person who seems happy to be there is Eugenia Potter, an Englishwoman and amateur mycologist studying the great variety of mushrooms and fungus to be found in the area.

So yes this is very much aiming to be Gothic Classic, at least in aesthetics and trappings. An overgrown and decaying estate several times too large for the last remnants of the family who now occupy it. Genteel madness and disease, hidden behind polite euphemisms and high walls. A deep, atavistic horror at parasitism and the desecration of the human (especially the well-bred, young and female) body by an alien presence. There’s even a cowboy for some reason. It definitely all works for me, but then my exposure to the genre is all a bit second hand.

Speaking of parasitism – mushrooms! The book expresses decay and desecration basically entirely through the idiom of fungal infections, both in terms of metaphor and imagery in descriptions and just in the actual source of the horror here. The lights in the tarn are fungal blooms, Madeline’s disease and her reanimation are both the result of almost drowning and inhaling that fungus into her lungs, and so on. There are two really effective horror beats in the book for me – the image of an infected hare which had just had its head shot off slowly jerking back to its feet as a dozen others placidly stood there and watched it be shot, and the moment of realization that Madeline’s oddly long and wispy body hair is in fact mycelia growing out of her skin – and both play off of this pretty directly.

I very awkwardly didn’t use any pronouns for Easton when giving the plot synopsis because the book actually plays around a bit with gender and pronouns in a way I’ve always loved and wish I saw more of. Easton is Gallacian (unrelated to the actually existing Galicia, I think), and the Gallacian language has a variety of pronoun sets beyond just he and she – one for children, one for God, and one (ka/kan) particularly for soldiers. Which, due to the exigencies of early modern warefare’s manpower requirements, eventually led to both men and women being perfectly eligible to become ‘sworn soldiers’. So y’know, Enlist today! Service guarantees citizen-transition!

(But actually I enjoy the thought and at least superficial sociological plausibility/consideration of what gender means in Gallacian society a lot more than how a lot of modern spec fic just kind of assues that every culture in the world has the perspective on gender of a well-educated 21st century progressive, material conditions be damned).

Anyway yeah, overall very entertaining read. Though Goodreads tells me it’s now the first in the series, which given how cleanly this one ended is not something that fills me with an abundance of faith.

[jewish-space-laser]

I TAKE IT ALL BACK MADELINE USHER GOT EXACTLY WHAT SHE DESERVED

so this is my first time ever seeing Mary McDonnel in anything any I have to say that my first impression is that she’s amazing. Just looking at her you’d never guess that Madeline Usher has compassion under her calculated exterior… I think she’s more sensitive that Roderick is making her out to be.

[that-little-bisexual-mess]

I haven't posted here in a long time, but i feel the need to now, to quickly talk about The Fall of the House of Usher.

My bisexual heart was all over the place, the actors performances were top tier (wasn't really surprising to be honest, with a cast like that). Great cinematography as well (again, not that surprising). Great dialogues and story !

I particularly loved Madeline, Roderick, Lenore and Camille. Also, loved Mark Hamill as Arthur Pym. Especially loved Madeline, she's a queen, to be honest. And i ALWAYS love to see T'Nia Miller, Henry Thomas, Samantha Sloyan, Rahul Kohli and Katie Parker on screen. They were AMAZING. Carl Lumbly as Auguste Dupin, Sauriyan Sapkota as Prospero Usher, Zach Gilford as young Roderick and Willa Fitzgerald as young Madeline were also great!

But the biggest highlight was, of course, Carla Gugino as Verna. OH MY LORD. THE PERFORMANCE ! And also, gay panic everytime she was on screen, i mean WOW (yet again, it always happens with Carla Gugino, so not really surprising either). I want Verna to haunt me, to make a deal with me, idk, she can do anything to me, i'll be happy.

In conclusion, great show, loved it and Carla Gugino is a queen !

[screensland]

The Fall of the House of Usher, E04 — The Black Cat.

[flanaganhorror]

Mike Flanagan shares a photo of Willa Fitzgerald (young Madeline Usher), Mary McDonnell (Madeline Usher), and Carla Gugino (Verna) with the caption, "Cannot be prouder to know these three badass, fiercely talented actors! So great to see them celebrated for their fantastic work in TFOTHOU. #thefallofthehouseofusher"

[kikithecoconut]

USHER HEADCANON/THEORY!!!!!!

I think that Roderick had a system of how/when he brought in each child.

Freddie and Tammy he’s had since birth

Vic to me was young when she was brought in like still a kid

Leo was 18

Camille was 20

Perry was 16

I think that the options for the youngest 3 were,

1. They’re fully grown, 18+. He doesn’t have to actually raise them

2. He’s looked into them and knows they would be good at business.

“If you’re my blood you’re my blood” he does mean that but it doesn’t mean that as soon as he finds out you’re alive that you’re in the family.

I refuse to believe he didn’t know about Leo and Camille until they were adults, there’s no way their mother’s didnt try to contact Roderick before he ‘found out’

For Freddie and Tammy he didn’t get a choice. They’re his kids they were always going to be in.

Vic was the first so I think he felt obligated to take her regardless of age. I think she must’ve been young because Tammy tells her “we still remember when you showed up” which implies to me that they were all still kids when Vic came in - it’s also why she feels more comfortable with the older 2. They’re closer in age. I also wonder if something happened with her mother that meant he had to bring her in earlier because her mother wasn’t at the funeral, so dead maybe?? Or just didn’t want Vic.

With Leo, I’m sure he knew before 18. Leo obviously doesn’t care about the business side of things. He’s their press guy he talks to the reporters and whatnot. I think Roderick had people watching his bastards to see what they would be good for, and they found that Leo was confident he was a good speaker, and so they brought him in at 18. Not a child so he doesn’t need to raise him and he has something he can do.

Camille was 20. Complete adult, she’s not on the precipice of being a child or an adult she’s fully grown. Again he must’ve known about her beforehand, they never speak of stepfathers or even imply they exist which means their mothers were all single?? They must’ve needed SOME financial help. He finds that Camille is smart, she’s maybe the smartest of them all so far except for Vic. I like to imagine it was Madeline who really made Roderick utilise Camille. Both options check off for her; she’s over 18 so no raising her and she has something lined up.

Perry is the outlier. He was 16 and he also was obviously not good at business. Because we don’t get a lot of Perry at all, there’s not much info on him so most of this has to be guesswork?? I think Roderick had his 5. Everything was as good as it gets in the Usher house, and then he finds this kid. The other kids he knew about, he found Vic and Leo and Camille, but Perry was the outlier. He came out of nowhere, there’s seven years between him and Camille, and 23 between him and Freddie. He’s just so YOUNG. But he’s Roderick’s blood and he clearly wasn’t living well (“rags to fucking riches”) so he gave into the guilt and just brought him in. He didn’t think of the repercussions bringing a 16 year old into a life like that would bring.

[blueopinions49]

Horror Typology (Villains)

Michael Myers ISTP TiSe 8w9 sp/sx Libra (Oct,19)

Freddy Krueger ENTP NeTi 7w8 sp/sx Taurus-Gemini (May 1942)

Chucky ESTP SeTi 8w7 sp/sx Taurus (May,1)

Norman Bates ISFJ SiFe 2w1 sx/sp Libra (Oct,14)

Hannibal Lecter INFJ NiTi 5w4 sx/so Aquarius (Jan 20th)

Annie Wilkes ESFJ FeSi 2w1 sx/so Aries (April,1)

Patrick Bateman ESTJ TeSi 3w4 so/sx Capricorn

Esther ENFJ FeNi 4w5 sx/sp Aries (April,20)

Pennywise ENTP NeFe 7w8 sp/sx Saggitarius

Carrie White INFP FiSi 6w5 sp/so Libra (Sept,21)

Leatherface ESFJ FeSi 9w8 sx/so Cancer

Jigsaw INFJ NiFe 1w2 so/sx Virgo

Amanda Young ISFP FiSe 9w8 sx/so Scorpio

Pyramid Head ESTJ TeSi 1w9 sp/sx Capricorn

Dalia Gillespe ENFJ FeNi 9w1 so/sp Aquarius

Dr.Bumbi INFJ NiFe 5w4 sx/sp Virgo

Albert Wesker ENTJ TeNi 1w9 so/sp Capricorn

Johnny Swayer ESTP SeFe 8w7 sx/sp Aries

Diana ENTJ TeSe 3w2 so/sx Gemini

James Sunderland ISFJ SiFe 9w1 sx/sp Scorpio

Happy Halloween to everyone!!!

Honorary Mentions

Nancy Downs ESTP SeFe 8w7 sp/so Aquarius

Madeline Usher ENTJ TeNi 8w9 sp/so Capricorn

Rodrick Usher ESFP SeTe 6w7 so/sx Capricorn

Pearl ESFP SeFi 3w2 so/sx Pisces

Candyman INTJ NiFi 5w4 sx/sp Libra

[unapologeticfeminista]

For frak's sake, IT'S 👏🏻 ABOUT👏🏻 TIME!👏🏻

Mary freaking McDonnell receiving the recognition she deserves! I'm so incredibly happy for her.

I know this is gonna be the first of many, Mary's performance as Madeline Usher is outstanding, brilliant, magnificent!

Shout out to Willa Fitzgerald for her work as young Madeline as well. This is how you know a character is well-written and will be unforgettable.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻✨

[canary-prince]

I feel like I could make a neat fic series out of the Usher kids' name meanings

Like a series of character studies through the lens of their names' etymologies.

FREDERICK: Peaceful ruler. Control freaks shouldn't be spineless, it's awfully frustrating for them. He wants to be in charge but is a conflict avoidant suck-up, insecure and petty. A peace-time king, no glory to his name, inheriting from a warrior and a sorceress who fought and bit and clawed. Under real challenge, he crumbles. A peace-time king becomes known from one of two things: that which they build and that which they heal. A peace-time king who is sung about? Bridge-builders, feeders of the poor; castle-builders, patrons of the arts; church-builders, tenders of the sick. But Frederick does not focus on the kingdom that has already been built, on the legacy to be preserved. Instead he longs for new lands to conquer, and new legacies to write. Outside his castle gates, the poor starve and the sick die and the artists are forced to take new jobs. I weep for bridges never built.

TAMERLANE: Iron. Cold and sharp and inflexible. A sword, a gun, a railroad track, an imposing bridge, an unassailable gate. She thinks she's invincible, but impurities and brittleness remain: she is not yet steel and ultimately never became steel. In the end, the fire does not cleanse or forge her: she simply melts away. We inherited iron from the dying stars of eons ago: it is in our blood, it gives us energy and strength and without we waste away to nothing. This is actually a boy's name, which is FASCINATING. How many women in history were buried beneath the legacies of their fathers and brothers and sons? So she hardened and sharpened and tried to prove herself.

VICTORINE: Victory. Locked in competition with her siblings, particularly Camille. She does whatever it takes to "win": arguments, pissing contests, "at life", against death. When Roderick reveals his CADASIL diagnosis, Victorine is the weapon he and Madeline attempt to wield against the disease, as if she can "beat" the deal they struck. She constantly tries to position herself as allied with Tammy and Frederick, on the "winning" team, on the side of the "legitimate" children. She lies, she cheats, and refuses to give her medals back when she's caught. Her nickname, 'Vic', is also cop show slang for 'victim'. She thinks these things happen TO her, not BECAUSE of her...but all of the kids are Roderick and Madeline's victims. He ruined her. Like he ruined all of them. Pyrrhic Victory indeed.

CAMILLE: This name can mean "perfect" or it can mean "acolyte", and either one can work, but I lean more towards the second meaning. A young initiate into a cult (here meaning the organized followers of a particular god, not the Lifton style destructive cult) there to spread the myth and carry on the traditions. She is the keeper of secrets and the teller of stories, isolated from the outside world, steeped in ritual for ritual's sake. Priests and priestesses may have employed psychedelic drugs and illusionist tricks to awe and entertain their followers or indue holy visions. Female cult initiates were often unmarried priestesses: either through widowhood or refusing to marry when young. Mystery cults were hidden or secret traditions, often focused on mystical re-interpretation of the mainstream tradition.

NAPOLEON: So the best translation for this name that we have is "Lion of Naples" or "Lion of the New City". Focusing on the "Lion" part, lions are social and lazy, most active at night. Males orbit the periphery while females form the heart of the unit. Male lions hunt alone, often as ambush predators, but general misconception is that they do not hunt at all, due to "failing" at it, compared to females. Furthermore, male lions will form "coalitions" with other males as opposed to priding up with females and cubs (Asiatic lions in particular are prone to this) and lions are one of the primary species in which we have observed bisexuality among males. Finally, lions make great dads and Leo is one of the only siblings who shows genuine grief over the family's losses.

PROSPERO: Prosperity or Fortunate. His name is symbolic of the changing tides of fortune, and is a reference to Fortunado itself. He was only 16 when he became a legitimized heir. That's a hard age to adjust to all that. He is gluttonous and lustful, soaking up every little bit of the privilege his family money gives him. What is the point of gull eggs, exactly? He is blessed with beauty: so much of it that even Verna comments on it. He assumes his blessings will never run out, and plays with fire by attempting to commit mass blackmail and ignoring all the red flags about the party venue, yet, at the same time? He thinks the world still owes him something more. Everything must be handed to him. It is his birth right, all of it. Earning it is for the unlucky: he is blessed.