make a wish

Beth. Millenial. Christian. Female. Multi-shipper. Multi-fandom.

[super-sootica]

This is just what working in an office does to you

[isabellaofparma]

[alicent-florent]

like brother like sister

[cinematv]

ERIN BROCKOVICH (2000) dir. Steven Soderbergh

[cuntghoulie]

Hey HOT TAKE TIME for Rebecca: Rebecca clearly abused Maxim in their relationship. Gaslighting, cheating, manipulation, etc. that’s all literally abuse. She literally emotionally abused him for their entire marriage.

That doesn’t justify him killing her, but it Does provide a hell of a lot more context and sympathy than people usually give him in that situation. Are there layers of “women’s sexuality is harmful and bad” misogyny in the whole plot line itself? Yes, but that doesn’t mean Maxim killed her out of anything but the desperation of a tired, traumatized, and Abused man. There are a lot of heavy themes of toxic masculinity and its extremely mentally damaging affects on Maxim in the novel AND the musical.

I think people trying to find a clear “this person is evil and bad and wrong and is clearly the villain” in Rebecca by Daphe Du Maurier are not doing that novel any justice by trying to simplify its incredibly complex and dark themes.

[ainomica]

Thank god people in this hell site are acknowledging Maxim de Winter as an abuse survivor. People treat Rebecca as this feminist icon (and I do think Rebecca is a feminist novel but not for the reasons tumblr lists) who was imposing suffering because she was just a “girls just wanna have fun” type of lady trying to rebel against Manderly patriarchalism or something. Girl was fucking wild whipping her poor horse until he bled but “yas queen” I guess

..Honestly, I had NO CLUE that people read Rebecca like THAT. When I read this book back in the day, my take and eventually as I would learn in academic circle take was that Rebecca was the kind of woman who subverts the patriarchy by exploiting it for her own gain by weaponizing her feminine role in it. People say that men can get away with a lot of shit if they perform their masculinity well and Rebecca is a good example in that women can do it too if they perform their femininity well. She was an anti-social personality type who exploited who she wanted and tormented who she wanted because she knew she was rich and was a good “role player” to public that no one would believe Maxim if he said anything against her.

She is basically proto Amy Dunne. There is feminist study in her character but she is no feminist, she is not even a decent person let alone a role model type for any political cause LMAO.

I think previous adaptations of this book don’t focus on Maxim as an abuse victim because there was no vocabulary and social context to understand pop culture wise that is what he was. Now people , in fandom circle don’t focus on Maxim as an abuse victim because it railroads this idea that even old school patriarchy is no infallible privilege which can protect each and every man within it and rob them of their humanity. 

This is not how this works feminists, especially in Lit analysis, nope! 

I hoping this 2021 version would actually focus on Maxim and his psychology since it can expand beyond the narrative limitation of the novel where everything is filtered out through an insecure young woman’s thoughts. Like any well rounded character who is supposed to imitate a real person, of course she would miss out on someone meaning something else sometimes. Give it a more “ A Star is Born” narrative treatment where the guy’s role gets modernized and expanded to suit the modern narrative sensibilities. Also Maxim is a clever subversion of Gothic Male character trope. In most Gothic novels , male characters are usually like Thomas Sharpe in Crimson Peake( which is borrowing heavily from old school Gothic romance) -- beautiful , charming, lives in a haunted remote house and turns out to be the root of the problem or hauntings. Maxim is not that-- he just appears to be. He is good looking, wealthy, lives in a haunted and remote “castle” and haunted. But he is the victim here and Rebecca, a woman is a specter and perpetrator( she has autonomy in tormenting who she wanted) 

[forthegothicheroine]

My in-universe reaction to Maxim and Rebecca is that she emotionally and psychologically abused him for years, and I don’t blame him for finally snapping.  My out-of-universe reaction is that it was fucked up on du Maurier’s part to signal that Rebecca was a bad woman by making her a promiscuous femme fatale stereotype.

[percysowner]

Honestly, I have mixed feelings on Maxim. I don’t think he’s a reliable narrator about Rebecca and her actions. I mean he killed the woman, he’s not going to say she was great to him. Plus he marries a meek, quiet woman who will do whatever he wants, lets the housekeeper run roughshod over her, lets everyone tell her how WONDERFUL Rebecca was and watches as that just chips away at her self-esteem.

Certainly, in Maxim’s universe, Rebecca was an abusive monster, I just wonder what her view on their life would be.

The cliche that a totally non-violent, good, kind man would suddenly be pushed into having to murder his horrible, sluttish wife sounds way too much like how every other man who murders their wives talk or how men who beat their wives talk. It’s always “she made me do it”

It’s a great book, but I’ve never been clear on whether Maxim was really the victim here. After all, he’s still breathing and Rebecca isn’t.

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

The thing is, if you read between the lines, everyone else who actually knew Rebecca talks about her the same way he does.

Only Mrs. van Hopper, who only saw public!Rebecca, and by reputation at best, actually talks about her as a wonderful person (which is probably what she believed; as mundanely horrible as Mrs van Hopper herself is, she comes across as too priggish to have approved of a person like the real Rebecca). Mrs. Danvers speaks positively of her, true, but among the anecdotes she lovingly shares is Rebecca beating a horse to death in a rage. Bea clearly can’t talk about her at all without anger (not least because it’s implied Rebecca probably put the moves on Giles). Ben breaks down sobbing at the memory of Rebecca threatening to put him in an asylum. Everything before Maxim’s confession points to Rebecca being awful; he merely confirms and contextualizes it. 

The narrator just doesn’t notice it because she takes every passing comment that she’s nothing like Rebecca as criticism due to her insecurity, and Maxim doesn’t notice that until she explains her side of things at his confession because of his. They’re both deeply insecure abuse survivors who each assumed the other was cold and indifferent and disappointed toward them, and the entire thing is built on subverting the idea that he’s going to fulfill all the red flags he appears to be showing at the start. It’s worth noting that they’re implied to finally be able to consummate their marriage after their mutual confessions, and his regret at her newly acquired worldliness is only because he feels like he’s tainted her with the burden of being married to him after what he’s done- which she 100% doesn’t care about. She’s the dominant partner in the marriage after that shift takes place, and they stick together and tough out the world’s judgment after losing their home and, to a very large extent, their reputations (which was Maxim’s worst nightmare where Rebecca was concerned, so for him and his second wife to still be in love and united after all of this suggests there really is something deep and true between them- even when he’s lost everything he valued but her, even when she’s kind of become the brains of the operation [so it’s clearly not just her innocence and guilelessness that he loves]- that he didn’t have with Rebecca).

[ivory-in-rapture]

Yes and I also think it’s kind of cool to acknowledge male survivors of domestic abuse/abuse. I know women get the short end of the stick a lot but I think this subversion is also interesting. 

[winterrosewriter]

One more thing from tonight on Rebecca...the character this time, not the book.

So many of the things Mrs. Danvers relates in Chapter 18 about Rebecca just make her sound like an absolute fucking sociopath, and it's honestly kind of awful to reread. At the age of 11 or 12, she already knows she's going to be beautiful, and she knows exactly what she can do with that beauty. Danvers even calls her a "little devil". She's wrapped her father around her finger, and knows men will fall at her feet. We know later from Danvers that she never loved any of them, and that it was all for fun. None of her relationships were serious. She can insert herself easily into adult conversations and there's no hesitation or uncertainty about her at all. At 16, she dominates a horse to the point of making it bleed heavily, and then just walks away. Hell, she cracks a horse-whip over her cousin's head at the age of 14.

But then it also just makes it sad that she never found something she really loved, the way Maxim loves Manderley. She married him because it was expected of her, but never really wanted to try to make it a decent marriage, according to Maxim. She made Manderley famous because of their bargain, but the only thing she seems to take seriously is her relationship with Mrs. Danvers. Even that comes into question because the reader only learns about it from Mrs. Danvers, because Rebecca is, after all, dead. And even then, Rebecca didn't tell her about her visits with Dr. Baker. Did she have anything she really cared about? That's a really sad way to live your life, honestly, if she didn't.

Still don't like her as a character but I've thought of some things lately that have made me empathize a bit. Just a bit.

(then again this book is open to a lot of interpretation, which is part of why I love it)

[conquerthenight]

TW: Sexual abuse mention

*runs in and screams from the rooftops*

The whole “Rebecca knew she was going to be beautiful by the age of 12” sounds like Danvers was hinting that Rebecca was sexually abused as a child. That, combined with her already apparent sociopathic tendencies, could be why she’s such an awful human and uses men (and women) for her own pleasure.

*runs away*

[magsbanes]

People are more than just toys for your amusement. 

[nessa007]

I knew you through the daze Of the blades of the grass in summer Parachutes for the free fall of being younger Taylor Swift | I Knew It, I Knew You

[neednottoneed]

Idk relistening to Stuttgart Rebecca today got me thinking about the way the Hayes Code has influenced both perceptions of Maxim and Mrs Danvers when compared with du Maurier’s original novel—Danvers as the tragic, “evil” lesbian doomed to be punished and die for her actions and Maxim the tragic hero who accidentally killed his wife. and this perception has definitely carried over to the musical (since it’s the plot they use) and I’m just thinking about how in du Maurier’s original book Mrs. Danvers doesn’t die. She sets Manderley on fire and you’re left with this very ambiguous ending for the narrator and Maxim. And Maxim does actively kill Rebecca, he shoots her, and so you’re left with a much more Gothic ending than either the movie adaptation or the musical give you of—there is no happiness for these two, not really. Therein lies the horror. There is no “jenseits der Angst.” And I understand the Hayes Code and I understand the musical following conventional romantic tropes, but man sometimes I wish they’d been more faithful to the novel and given us that ambiguity and horror that du Maurier does.

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

I do love how the second Mrs de Winter isn't at all bothered that her husband is a violent murderer, she's just glad that she's better than saintly Rebecca.

Peak petty behaviour.

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

I do love how the second Mrs de Winter isn't at all bothered that her husband is a violent murderer, she's just glad that she's better than saintly Rebecca.

Peak petty behaviour.

[dailybridgerton]

Francesca and Anthony Bridgerton Bridgerton — 3x01: "Out of the Shadows" (2024)

[hopefulqueer]

I really appreciate how in The Queen's Gambit Job, they didn't try to have a reveal where Nate could actually beat all of the chess grandmasters without cheating. Like, yeah, Hardison can actually play the Scheherazade solo perfectly because his nerves were what got in his way and he got hypnotized out of that, sure. Sophie can identify the exact percentage and location of origin of cocoa beans in a piece of chocolate, why not, that makes sense. Eliot has almost-perfect pitch and can sing and play the guitar, that doesn't surprise me. Parker can pull off the White Rabbit for real, of course she can. But they didn't pull that trick with Nate and the chess tournament, and I really liked that. He's really good at chess, yeah, but not grandmaster level. They had to play dirty and cheat to get him in the finals against Olivia. In all of those other situations where the rest of the team doubted another member's abilities, Nate never had any doubt. Nate knows what they *all* can do, and that includes knowing that he isn't magically good enough to win those games without help, because even though chess is "his game", his REAL game is not played with chess pieces. It's played with People. His people. And he knows all of the moves they can make. He always knows how to win on that board.

[fanficandvidprompts]

Concept: typical sort of Eliot-and-Jake-are-related-and-one-gets-mistaken-for-the-other Librarians/Leverage crossover except it isn't Eliot Jake gets mistaken for but one of the aliases Eliot got accidentally-famous as and the Librarians find out the truth researching this mysterious sorta-celebrity to make sure there's nothing magical going on that could potentially harm Jake or something and pieces start adding up to something they weren't expecting and wait his WHAT is doing WHAT HOW close to their stomping grounds

[aardvaark]

talking to the leverage team when you’re investigating magic:

"he wins every fight, does he? okay. but like what if he’s fighting 20 guys? what if they have guns? he still wins… alright. no i’m just writing stuff down about something unrelated."

"and you say she can appear and disappear from rooms at will? and she has no known parents and no last name? interesting. tell me more about that ‘immunity to fall damage’ thing."

"so he’s a genius, he’s probably the best hacker in the world, he invents his own tech, he can pick up new skills extremely quickly, and he’s more than proficient at the violin, painting, and much more. no no, i’m not doubting you - trust me, i know some very smart people too. i just have some questions about a letter he may or may not have received."

[buffygifs]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 3.02 | 6.04

Giles moves to get the sugar - stops when he hears BUFFY'S LAUGHTER ring above the other voices. Hidden from the others by a cabinet, they do not see Giles' mask fall for a moment. He fights tears, his relief is palpable. — "Dead Man's Party" script, written by Marti Noxon

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