#zelda d fuller

[hrodvitnon]

The Shape of Water Headcanons!

As a child Elisa was never scared of monsters under the bed/in the closet.  While the other kids were, she’d just park herself in front of the closet or roll under the bed and wait for the monster to show up because she believed they were just lonely.

One time at Occam, Yolanda was standing in the locker room doorway just going off on a tangent at Zelda and Elisa couldn’t get inside.  Instead of tapping her shoulder and getting an earful, Elisa opted to be a little shit and started doing a series of silly dances behind Yolanda.  Zelda, along with everyone else in the locker room, maintained a valiant effort to keep straight faces… until Elisa busted out the Cossack kick dance.  Zelda can’t remember the last time everyone’s laughed so hard.  Yolanda still gave Elisa an earful, but it was worth it.

The same day Elisa introduced him to music, the creature had a moment of “be cool be cool be cool BE COOL” when Elisa started eating and he just then remembered the egg she gave him.

The creature would get so engrossed in watching Elisa that he’d forget what he was doing at the moment.

The first time Elisa gave the creature the grand tour of her apartment was also the first time she noticed his natural toreador stance… and his ass.  Elisa was so distracted her heels got caught in the floorboards for the first time in years.

Giles started calling the creature Charlie partly after Charlie Chaplin and partly (mostly) because he caught Elisa’s piscine paramour playing with her beret and his glasses during a StarKist commercial.  The nickname stuck, especially after coworkers see Elisa’s bright mood and new heels, so she and Zelda talk about her new boyfriend, Charlie.

People started noticing when Elisa would come to work glowing.  In the cafeteria Yolanda accused Elisa of fishing for attention from Strickland, knowing he has a (fucking creepy) thing for her.  To this day Zelda whispers in hushed tones about how the utensils in Elisa’s hands snapped loud enough to shut the place up, how she had to interpret Elisa’s rebuttal, all the while vaguely terrified of an expression she’d never before seen on Elisa’s face; she describes it as a mix of contemptuous amusement and black rage.

Sally the secretary witnessed the above episode from a safe distance, and after the... impressively colorful things Elisa had to say about Strickland she can barely maintain stoicism when he walks into his office.

Elisa absolutely taught Charlie to swear.  The first time was an accident, a reflexive signing of Bullshit! in response to hearing “Dixie Doug’s: That’s a Great-a Pie!” on the radio.

Speaking of pie, Giles completely forgot about all those half-eaten key lime pies hoarded in his fridge during the preparations of busting Charlie out of Occam. While spending time with Giles and the cats, Charlie discovered the pies and, despite the color making his eyes itch, decided to try one.  Elisa came home to the sight of Charlie signing with enough fury to blister paint; something about “bad food” and “bad man give bad food”.

Shortly after, Dixie Doug’s business begins to suffer a huge decline.

Charlie asks about the egg timer and Elisa explains how it’s been part of her routine and usually gave her enough… ahem, alone time before work.  He proceeded to break her fastest time.

Zelda accompanied Elisa after work one time.  When she saw how Elisa’s fish man literally lit up, it reminded Zelda of when she and Brewster were newlyweds.  

At some point Zelda pulled Charlie aside with the intention of giving him the ‘boyfriend talk’.  In response to her expectation that he be good to Elisa, Charlie just signed forever.  Ordinarily it would’ve made Zelda roll her eyes but the way he signed it, earnest and matter-of-factly, as though laying down a law of nature, as certain as rain falls and the sun rises, convinces her.

Some time after that rainy night on the docks, people return to the home river of Deus Brânquia; there are sightings of a pale woman in the brackish waters.  Legends are spun about a white woman with shark gills who rescues children when they fall in the river.

I kinda want to give Elisa a cool god name like her hubby

[neon-moon-beam]

Seeing a lot of kneejerk reactions, so I thought I’d offer some perspective...

Just gonna throw this out there...

Do we have any information that any of what dropped tonight is canon at all?

I own and have seen a few art books for Legend of Zelda, and they often include character designs that went unused, as well as ideas that were scrapped or changed. For all we know, this is earlier concept art and a backstory for Ingo that got changed for the final cut.

Some spoilers for PLA follow.

Edit: As of April 16th, the authenticity of the leaks has been verified, but questions as to whether or not the concept art of Ingo is canon remain. I posted about that here.

Wondering because there’s concept art of Ingo laying on the ground and a Pearl Clan member finding him, yet in the game itself, Ingo tells us he was “standing there in bafflement” when the Pearl Clan found him.

It also seems a little weird that he could have been in Hisui for over a decade and yet his memory loss is presented as more urgent to the player, as though it were recent. Even weirder is how quickly a single talk with the player caused him to vaguely remember Chandelure and Emmet, and a single battle caused him to remember even more. You’re telling me in 10+ years he never had any memories jogged by having a conversation with someone, nor did he ever battle anyone else? His talk with the player wasn’t especially deep nor about any topics that would have reminded him about his life in Unova, and seeing how most of the other Wardens battle (even though they do things like send out three Pokemon on one), he’s almost definitely done it before, even if just to instruct someone on how to do it.

Then there’s also that Volo asks Ingo if he thinks the Space-Time Rift caused his memory loss. Considering no one else has amnesia, other than the player to an extent that’s debatable and the player is believed by everyone to have come from the Rift, this isn’t Volo asking Ingo if the Rift somehow targeted him and erased his memories. He’s most likely asking Ingo if coming through the Rift (whether or not Ingo actually did is also debatable) caused it. I can’t find the source, but I was sure an NPC mentioned the Rift had only been there a few months. But in any case, it seems the Rift is much more recent than decades ago; people are concerned about it and the events associated with it are all recent, seeming to happen fairly shortly before the player’s arrival, and getting more intense after. And if the Rift had been open for decades, people would be desensitized to it for the most part. It would have become a fact of life and we’d have younger people who had never known a time before it. Instead, even children find the Rift concerning.

The few details we have on a single scanned page and what we’re told and shown in game aren’t exactly adding up yet.

It’s also no secret that PLA as it is now lacks a conclusive ending for even the main plot (we’ve caught Arceus, now what?) It’s also a relatively shorter game compared to other Pokemon titles. It’s possible that they had other plans that were cut short or omitted for the final cut.

And as other people are starting to point out, Ingo being in Hisui for over a decade doesn’t line up with the time between D/P/Pt/BDSP and BW. Caitlin is 14 in Platinum, and an adult in Gen 5. So besides Ingo needing to return by then, even if it had been over a decade, he can’t go from being in his 50s back to being in his 30s (unless Arceus just undoes everything that happened with PLA or something to that effect).

People are also taking certain phrases out of context for now; we don’t have a whole translation. The page in question barely has any text on it; there’s likely another page with fuller details.

Also kind of funny that people are freaking out over the idea that Ingo could be older. Ingo and Emmet were never shown to be people who have just entered adulthood. They were probably around 30 in 5th Gen at least. They could have receding hairlines at 30. Some guys I went to high school with had receding hairlines before finishing college. For anyone who is not 30 yet and reading this, just wait until you’re 30. There’s a lot they don’t tell you about how your body will change (and not all of it is bad!) because of society’s focus on remaining youthful and hiding all evidence of aging.

Anyway, it’s 6 AM. I’m tired. Please don’t blow up my notes or inbox, I just thought I’d throw this out there because all I’m seeing is panic. We need more information, folks.

[ethien]

...You!

This mini series get longer as I expected :D

It got silent between the two hylians. It was only a minute ago Link said he knew you for a very long time. The young hylian seemed not to believe him. 

“Are you...Are you her friend...Link?”

He was surprised by the question, so he nodded. 

“I’m still confused and I really don’t believe it. I mean...it was a century ago and you look very young to me”

“It’s okay. I don’t look like my age should be”

“I guess I don’t want to know that story. Well, however. Gran had a last wish before they closed their eyes.”

Now he was kind of curious about the wish.

“One day, you will meet a young man by my grave. He will look like a knight to you or someone who likes to travel and can fight. Blond hair in a ponytail, blue eyes. His name is Link. If you meet him, please give him this letter”

Link didn’t know how to feel about it. A personal letter from you. You still had him in mind...even with the thought you two couldn’t share a future together. It warmed his heart.

“Please follow me. The letter is in our house”

He agreed and follow the young hylian. He still had the feeling the man didn’t trust him. But Link felt the deep Love the man shared with you. It seemed you were a huge part of his life.

After 5 minutes, they arrived and Link waited outside for the male. He soon came out and gave him the letter. There was his name written on it in your writing. He was a bit nervous when open it up and started reading.

Link

I think you didn’t see receiving this letter from me. There was a lot of things who were more important than thinking about me. I guess you just remembered our time some days ago.

Where I know that? Well...the thing is...I knew it from princess Zelda. 

At the day the calamity rose up, I had a bad feeling. I saw the fire in castle town from afar and the screams of dying people. The divine beast were deep red and I knew something was wrong. So I followed the path my heart told me. And I found the shrine where you already laid there. 

I asked Zelda what happened and she explained it to me. You got deeply hurt and the shrine will heal you. But even she didn’t know how long this would take. I remembered her words well “It can be a week or a day. Or the worst, even a century”

I was sad but it was the best decision she could make. After that, she closed the door to the shrine and went away. I want back to the village. Only to find it burned down. I cried. If I was there, I could help them. But I failed.

It was luck I survived. 

Since this day, I tried to progress this day and well...to hope you would wake up before I would die. 

I found a little house in a small village and the years went in. The house got fuller, I got older. But I still remembered our days. 

The best days of my life. You were my life and my love. It still hurts to never see you again. But did you know...I was never without you. 

The first page ended and Link was a bit confused about the last sentence. He took out the second page and started reading.

Please don’t be offended by Elias behavior. He is my precious grandson. He is a bit shy with strangers. He is like the whole opposite of you. However, he is a kind and caring man like you are. It’s the only thing you two have in mind. Maybe you two will talk about it later. 

The thing is...Since I knew you, I saw a future with you. A house, a family. You would be a splendid father to your child. But the fate wasn’t on our side. I know this isn’t the best way to inform you...but we had a family.

It was months after the calamity I found it out. I was afraid and happy at the same time. Happy to have a part of you with me. Afraid that you will never meet them. And so it was. 

Our daughter died by a guardian attack. I knew how I played with my grandchilds and suddenly, I heard screams from afar. She had your hair and was reckless as you. It was terrible. But it her death was hard for me. 

I raised their childs and they are beautiful people. They travel around Hyrule and help with medicine in small villages far from the next town. And when they started their journey, they asked me to help them raising Elias. 

I know this isn’t the best way to inform you. But it is something I wanted to tell you personal. 

I don’t know what your life is now. I guess Hyrule is now saved. And I guess you hoped to find me alive. I am sorry, Link. In the years, I got weaker and Elias had to take care of me instead I take care of him. Please say him that I am proud of him.

And I am proud of you. It was hard losing all memory and losing friends and family. I still don’t know what you will do now with your life. But know this:

With finding my grave, you found a family who will accept you who you are. 

I hope we will meet in our next life. You’re the love of my life. 

In Love, [Y/N].

[angelicgarnet]

1, 12, 13 and 14 for the fanfic ask game! :D

1. has a comment someone left on a fic of yours ever made you laugh out loud?

i wrote a fic where nandor and guillermo are about to kiss on a ferris wheel and laszlo and colin ruin it and this comment referring to it as 'ferris wheelus interruptus' has not left my head ever since i read it ngl (also including the rest of the comment bc its very sweet)

12. what headcanon will you keep implementing in your fics, even if canon ends up contradicting it?

will graham IS autistic and nothing bryan fuller says will change my mind about that

13. do you make playlists for when you write? if so, share!

ngl when i write i just search up hour long extended versions of video game music. usually zelda, undertale, or animal crossing

14. what trope would you refuse to write even if you were paid to do it?

aside from like, Obvious Problematic stuff, i dont know if theres a trope i'd never write tbh? i think pretty much any trope can be done in an interesting way if u try hard enough but that's just my onion

[lifejustgotawkward]

365 Day Movie Challenge (2017) - #391: The Shape of Water (2017) - dir. Guillermo del Toro

(Warning: some spoilers ahead!)

The Shape of Water is a film that pulls me in several directions. It contains themes and storytelling choices that I love immensely, but there are also aspects of the narrative that I believe could have been improved. From the reviews I have read so far, reactions are extremely polarized; moviegoers either worship Shape as a masterpiece beyond reproach or, on the other end of the spectrum, they throw around “D” words like disappointed and disgusted. I want to point out again that I enjoyed Del Toro’s production a lot - I would put it at #9 or 10 in my top ten for 2017, out of the thirty features I have seen so far - so I hope that my criticisms are tempered by my admiration for all that the film gets right, whether technically or ideologically.

All things considered, I’m probably the ideal viewer for The Shape of Water. In the Venn diagram of intersecting genres that the film explores, I’m right in the middle as a lover of romance, science fiction and fantasy, horror, thrillers, period pieces, studies of “the grotesque” and portraits of outsiders who challenge societal expectations of normalcy. I have a ton of respect for Guillermo del Toro’s ambitions as a filmmaker (I definitely dug Hellboy back in the day and I remember getting a kick out of Pacific Rim too) and I applaud his commitment to telling a socially conscious story in which historically marginalized people are our heroes and the clean-cut, stereotypical authority figures are the villains. I also adore Del Toro’s irrepressible cinephilia, which is evident throughout Shape via constant references to the films, actors and genres that have inspired him. In that regard, The Shape of Water is successful just as a celebration of the power that the silver screen has to change our lives.

The story is almost painfully simple: in Baltimore circa 1962, mute janitor Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) discovers a fantastical new world of love when an Amazonian fish-god (Doug Jones), referred to in the film’s credits as “Amphibian Man,” is brought to the government facility that she cleans at night. Elisa and her best friend at work, Zelda Fuller (Octavia Spencer), are assigned to take care of the Amphibian Man’s private room by high-ranking security official Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), who brought to the creature to America and, in his words, they “didn’t get to like each other much” during the trip. This much is obvious at the beginning of the film, when we see the aftermath of an attack on Strickland by the captured fish-god, who has bitten off two of Strickland’s fingers.

Elisa quickly forms an attachment to the Amphibian Man, with whom she learns to communicate by teaching him sign language, feeding him hard boiled eggs and playing him Benny Goodman records on a portable hi-fi. (I’m amazed that more critics haven’t noted the connection to Annie Hall’s famous ending monologue about how human beings continue to look for love after failed relationships because we “need the eggs.”) It soon becomes apparent to Elisa that Strickland and his boss, General Hoyt (Nick Searcy), plan on killing the imprisoned creature, so Elisa devises a plan to steal the Amphibian Man from the facility with help from her neighbor, Giles (Richard Jenkins), an older gay man who has worked as an advertising artist but was fired from his job, in part because of his alcoholism but presumably also because of his sexual orientation. Giles and Zelda stand since they are the only two people in Elisa’s life who have bothered to learn ASL. They understand that she is disabled, but she is not “lesser than” in their eyes because they have adapted themselves to the language she uses.

It’s wonderful that Guillermo del Toro gave space to main characters who are a non-speaking woman, a black woman and a gay man, all of whom are over forty years old. Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins do beautiful work in the film, particularly Hawkins, who has finally broken through in American cinema thanks to this film. I have been a tremendous fan of Hawkins ever since she starred in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky nine years ago, so it has been glorious to see her shine in Maudie and The Shape of Water this year. She radiates tenderness, humor, curiosity and compassion as Elisa, a performance that absolutely deserves the Best Actress Oscar nomination it will certainly receive next month. Jenkins also gives a remarkable performance as Giles, making his friendship with Elisa plausible and heartwarming. Spencer has less to work with as Zelda since the character often comes across as a collection of cinematic stereotypes (both as a black woman and as a best friend/sidekick), but Spencer elevates the role to something special, occasionally with a mere glance or a roll of her eyes.

More complex and difficult to pin down is the film’s antagonist, Richard Strickland. I almost snorted at the ominous horn sounds that accompanied the character’s entrance in the film, which I suppose many viewers accept as de rigueur since Michael Shannon is synonymous with malefaction on the big and small screens. Some viewers see Strickland as a textbook villain, evil for evil’s sake (is that the inverse of Ars gratia artis?), but I would argue that the character's motivations are explained to a greater extent than those of anyone else in the film. Strickland is the definition of toxic masculinity, a white man who abuses his position of power by mocking, harassing and sadistically torturing the people (and fish-god) he identifies as inferior to him. Strickland strives for the American Dream - the suburban home, the wife and two kids, a brand new Cadillac - but underneath the exterior of perfection is a man who doubts himself. (For my money, one of the funniest moments in the film is the shot of Strickland sitting in his office, solemnly poring over a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking.) It’s not by accident that one of the digits that the Amphibian Man tore off of Strickland was his ring finger, or that this racist man can’t handle the fact that his body rejects fingers whose skin has turned black.

There is also significance in Del Toro’s disparate approaches to sexuality involving Strickland and his wife versus Elisa and the Amphibian Man (or Elisa by herself). Elisa’s desire is never ignored because of her inability to speak; she is a sexual being and her strong connection to that aspect of her life is viewed with delicacy and respect. The film incorporates two brief scenes showing her masturbating as part of a daily routine, but they don’t feel exploitative; Del Toro went out of his way to create intimacy that wasn’t designed for the male gaze. This is why I’m glad that he didn’t go all the way and show Elisa and the Amphibian Man having sex, contrary to the grumblings of many frustrated viewers who feel cheated out of hot fish-on-human action. What little we see of Elisa and her beau’s encounters glows with eroticism because the characters’ most private moments are withheld from us.

In response to other complaints voiced by moviegoers, the sex scene with Strickland and his wife Elaine (Lauren Lee Smith) was disturbing yet necessary. It’s mechanical, heartless and, as it progresses, turns into marital rape. It was one of the moments that seemed to freak out the audience I was in the most, leading the woman sitting directly behind me to loudly say “blecch” when Strickland placed his hand over his wife’s mouth. (Isn’t it interesting how obsessed Strickland is silent women, whether it’s Elaine or Elisa?) Leave it to Guillermo del Toro to make an interspecial romance inviting and arousing, while sex between two humans is the true act of monstrosity.

All this happens, and politics too. Yes, The Shape of Water covers the topics of human/fish-god courtship, sexism, racism, homophobia and American exceptionalism, but the Cold War also plays a big part in the story. The one expert working at the Baltimore facility who cares about the Amphibian Man’s well-being is Dr. Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), who aids in the creature’s escape. I won’t go into detail about Hoffstetler’s various complicated allegiances, but suffice it to say he comes through as a dedicated scientist and a decent person who recognizes the supreme value of love over country. Del Toro infuses Hoffstetler with a number of fascinating characteristics, even when they’re as seemingly minor as him baking a butter cake in his apartment.

There are a lot of cooks in Shape’s kitchen. With so many compelling characters, plot lines and images, the film is an aesthetic feast for the senses. On the other hand, Del Toro never satisfactorily answers the question of whether the Amphibian Man is an entity of high intelligence. Elisa is smart, funny, creative and resourceful; is her water-bound lover capable of those same feelings and abilities? He is more than the “wild animal” that Giles sees him as - the Amphibian Man’s first face-to-face experience with Giles’ cats ends bloodily, but we later see the fish-god petting the remaining felines sweetly - but I’m not convinced that the Amphibian Man is on Elisa’s level emotionally. Doesn’t it strike anyone as odd that the love song featured in the film’s gorgeous, black-and-white dream sequence, was “You’ll Never Know”? Wasn’t Elisa implying that her lover either didn’t or couldn’t comprehend the depths of her affection?

(Incidentally, that dream sequence, which is modeled on Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger’s “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” scene from the 1936 film Follow the Fleet, is reminiscent of another musical that copied the same number, 1981′s Pennies from Heaven. There, Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters dance and lipsync to Astaire and Rogers; the entire film is a cinephile’s dream, paying homage to old Hollywood while simultaneously maintaining a dark, tragic tone amidst the colorful song-and-dance confections.)

The Shape of Water hurtles towards its finale with intense speed, perhaps too much. The conclusion involves a number of coincidences and a lot of good fortune on Strickland’s part. He’s able to do a bunch of dastardly deeds due to characters who tell him what he needs to know or because he’s lucky enough to have information fall in his lap. The exact nature of the ending is also telegraphed from the beginning (at least that’s what I thought), so if you’re expecting a brilliant revelation regarding one or more characters, your hopes will be dashed. I was touched by the final scene, but I also longed for more of a resolution to the story at large, especially for Giles and Zelda.

Del Toro’s film succeeds thanks to the astonishing acting done by Hawkins, Shannon, Jenkins, Spencer and Stuhlbarg. Doug Jones’s performance can’t be gauged in terms of conventional acting, but his commitment to the role and the way that he physically brought the Amphibian Man to life (along with the services of the film’s makeup/special effects artists) is indeed worthy of praise. Visually, the cinematography, sets and costumes are stunning, while the score by Alexandre Desplat and the song selections (including a Madeleine Peyroux cover of one of my favorite Serge Gainsbourg tunes, “La Javanaise”) are charming. Despite the weaknesses, The Shape of Water is a beautiful film that encourages love, diversity and the importance of taking risks. In today’s political climate, we could all benefit from more of those attributes.

[everythingtimeless]

Historical Hour With Hilary: 1x01

Welcome to Historical Hour With Hilary, which is exactly what it says on the tin: for each week of the rewatch, I (@qqueenofhades​) will be writing a companion piece discussing aspects of the real-life history, people, and events featured in the episode, depending on what I feel like covering. I aim to amaze, entertain, and educate you, one of which I occasionally may end up actually doing. In this first installment, I very quickly discovered that it had relatively little to do with the Hindenburg disaster of May 6, 1937 itself, but much more with the stone-cold badass female journalists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who could have served as the inspiration for the fictional Kate Drummond that the Time Team meets in their first trip to the past, and who makes a particular impression on Wyatt. So. Much. Badass.

Be advised: You may want to run headfirst through a brick wall after learning about these women, from the sheer amount of awesome pulsating through you. I cannot be held legally responsible if you do this.

A woman working in the 1930s as a print journalist, even a foreign or war correspondent as it’s hinted Kate is, would not be completely or even considerably uncommon. They already had a history of over a hundred years. Anne Royall (1769-1854) is commonly credited as the first professional female journalist in America, a hard-nosed saleswoman who would stop at nothing to sell her paper and who was also rather famously known as the first woman to obtain a presidential interview, with John Quincy Adams, by catching him skinny-dipping in the Potomac River one morning and sitting on his clothes until he agreed to talk to her. (She certainly interviewed him, the sitting-on-clothes part is somewhat colorful, but shhh.) Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) was known as the best-read person in New England of either gender, was the first woman allowed to use the Harvard University library, and wrote a landmark work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, that was profoundly influential on the thinking of Susan B. Anthony and the beginning of the suffragette movement, and which critiqued the treatment of Native and African Americans alongside the ongoing oppression of women. At the New York Tribune, she was the first full-time literary critic and book reviewer in America, and later the Tribune’s first female foreign correspondent.

Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927), meanwhile, is a personal heroine of mine. The first woman to run for President of the United States (having nominated Frederick Douglass as her running mate), she was also the first female stockbrocker on Wall Street, founded Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly with her sister Tennessee, was an advocate of free love and the right to do this without any government interference, gave numerous blazing speeches on female equality, political advocacy, and equal rights, and otherwise was engaged in fucking the patriarchy in every direction the patriarchy was available to be fucked. She fought with Anthony Comstock, self-appointed guardian of late 19th-century America’s moral virtue and sponsor of the anti-obscenity Comstock Laws (who absolutely did not approve of fucking in any shape or form) and testified before the House Judiciary Committee about women’s suffrage; in fact, she was too radical for even some of the suffragettes themselves. A few decades later, Elizabeth Cochran Seaman (1864-1922), far better known as the intrepid Nellie Bly, was pioneering investigative journalism as a reporter for the New York World; she traveled around the world in 72 days as a publicity stunt to better the fictional 80-day journey by Jules Verne’s hero Phileas Fogg and wrote a book about it; she famously posed as a patient and got herself committed to a mental hospital for 10 days to reveal the inhumane conditions of insane asylums at the time, wrote a book about that too, and was instrumental in pushing for reforms in caring for the mentally ill as a result.

Despite these trend-setting women, female journalists were still rare in America at the turn of the twentieth century, but the number had risen from just 288 (in 1880) to 12,000 in 1930 -- almost 25% of all journalists. They were, however, often restricted to typically “female” subject interests (the home, fashion, cooking, etc) and faced, as you might expect, considerable sexism. In 1939, Zelda Reed complains about men who pay lip service to being feminists, but won’t actually hire women to be reporters (or pay them equally...  The More Things Change.Gif). During this period, however, Kate Drummond would have been part of a steadily growing -- and even more awesome -- cohort of female correspondents, including the likes of:

Clare Hollingworth (1911-2017 -- yes, she died just this past January at the age of 105) who was the first correspondent of any gender to break the news of Hitler’s invasion of Poland and the start of the second world war. She then went to work personally issuing British visas for Germans, Jews, and communists to escape the Nazis, which MI5 put a halt to because of concerns about too many “undesirables” entering the country (THE MORE THINGS CHANGE DOT GIF!!!) She would later write about conflicts in Vietnam, Algeria, the Middle East, the cultural revolution in China, and interview the shah of Iran (both the first and last interviews he ever gave). She also broke the Kim Philby spying scandal during the Cold War, and worked for a laundry list of noted papers.

Sigrid Schultz (1893-1980) also covered the First and Second World Wars, was the first chief of Central Europe and foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, and she hated all these goddamn Nazis up in the goddamn place. Really hated them, wrote extensively about them (under her male pseudonym John Dickson) had unprecedented access to them, wrote pieces exposing the concentration camps and the treatment of Jews under Hitler’s regime, and was called “the dragon lady from Chicago” by Hermann Goering. You know, Hitler’s right-hand man. I’m sorry, if Number Two Nazi is scared of you and calls you a dragon lady, you are automatically The Awesomest. I don’t make the rules.

Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) was probably one of the greatest journalists and war correspondents of the 20th century, full stop. The third wife of Ernest Hemingway (who we also meet a few Timeless episodes down the line) between 1940-1945, she covered every major conflict of the 20th century and was the only woman to land at Normandy on June 6, 1944. How did she do that? Because Hemingway stole her press credential to cover D-day, so she stowed away in a hospital ship toilet, hit the beach disguised as a stretcher bearer -- and beat ol’ Ernest there, just for good measure. She was determined to be remembered in her own right and not just for her contentious relationship with him; there is now the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.

Helen Kirkpatrick (1909-1997) also covered WWII extensively, for both British and American newspapers, and entered Paris in August 1944. She later reported on the Cold War, was a longtime Democratic Party activist, and received both the French Legion of Honor and the U.S. Medal of Freedom. Virginia Cowles (1910-1983) also worked on some of the same conflicts as Gellhorn and Kirkpatrick, including the Spanish Civil War and WWII.

Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971) and Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) were groundbreaking photojournalists working during the 1930s and the height of the Depression (you’ve definitely seen Lange’s most famous photo, Migrant Mother) which helped show the real consequences of the economic devastation. The crash of the Hindenburg itself was a major landmark in the history of journalism (scroll about halfway down the page) due to the wide availability of newsreel and radio coverage of the disaster -- and as we can see, Kate Drummond, had she survived her encounter with the Time Team, would have been in some truly amazing company indeed, covering both it and the conflicts to come. She would also have been a familiar character in a movie to audiences at the time, given as Hollywood has arguably gotten much worse at portraying female journalists.

(Read more about all these women here.)

Join me next week as the Time Team, and we, head to 1865 and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln...

[svartur-kottur]

«The Shape of Water», de Guillermo del Toro, Daniel Kraus . "What she doesn’t know is what good she can do once she gets there, or what will be the aftermath. But such things are always unknowable, aren’t they? The world changes, or doesn’t. You fight for the right things and be glad you did. That, at least, is the plan, the best one Zelda D. Fuller’s got.