#seems unlikely

[kirianthedivorce]

Choosing to believe all the hints towards helly/helena being pregnant are actually a red herring and the baby motifs are because they’re growing a new kier in a vat in the basement

[o-uncle-newt]

Yes, this is another rant about the Petherbridge/Walter Wimsey adaptation

Okay, to motivate myself to do other less fun things that are unfortunately on my to do list (which I am, of course, abandoning in order to write this) I've been skimming the series in small chunks today and I just got to the penultimate Peter/Harriet scene in Strong Poison- when Peter reveals to Harriet that Urquhart will be arrested and she will be freed.

In some ways it's a great scene- as are most of the Peter-Harriet scenes in Strong Poison (the final scene this episode is, of course, a travesty, but we'll get back to that). They're fun, they either are taken from the book or are pretty faithful to the characters/this imagining of them, and they're of course extremely well acted by our lead duo. As I've mentioned before, one of my favorite scenes in the show is one that was invented by the episode writer- the one where Harriet tells Peter "it would be awful if you were funny all the time, wouldn't it." It's just an excellent way of distilling a bunch of the book's subtext into one relatively short yet extremely effective scene, and in a way it shows that the creative team would seem to have had a really good understanding of the books.

So I rewatched this final jail scene, which I usually like, and which I'm overall entertained by- and realized that a scene that I'd largely enjoyed in previous viewings actually contains a sequence that basically sets up all of the problems with the later episodes. Like, maybe one or two of them are unrelated (their removing Lord Saint-George from Gaudy Night was a travesty in its own right) but most of them can be traced pretty directly back here:

To quote:

Peter: You are the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, how else could I have behaved? Harriet: You're such a romantic, Peter. A sort of latter-day knight errant, searching for opportunities to perform deeds of valor, rescue damsels in distress- Peter (interrupting): What's wrong with that?

She goes on, of course, to continue to reject him, saying she's not ready for "another affair" (to which he corrects her- "marriage!"- and she says, in a line that I loved enough to put in a fic that I wrote, "marriage, affair, what's the difference- it's supposed to be about love, isn't it?") and that she's too tired to think and decide. But she never says what's wrong with the above description of Peter.

Now, there are two options when you have a scene like this. Either you treat it as a valid description of, and therefore a foreshadowing of, the main character and his upcoming arc in the story, OR you bring it up in order to subvert it. The show decides, for some reason, to do the former, and the book, of course, does something very different.

To be clear, in the book as well as the show this final jailhouse scene makes clear that Harriet will not marry Peter. And I actually think, interestingly, that it's for a similar reason, though in the book it's not explicitly stated- it's because Harriet doesn't love Peter. But the underlying issues are totally different, because in the show, Harriet refuses Peter's offer of either marriage or an affair because she's not ready and because she doesn't love him. But in the book, Harriet is willing to be Peter's mistress, but not to marry him- she says, because it will allow him to drop her whenever he tires of her. And between this and Gaudy Night, we get the idea that Harriet feels enough of a sense of obligation toward Peter that she will be with him out of that obligation, even though she doesn't love him.

I think it's a combination of these two things that sets the show on the wrong path- maybe because the right path would be unfilmable, but it still was wrong:

In the show, they decide that Harriet is only not with Peter at the end because she doesn't love him. They're compatible and he loves her, but she won't just fall into his arms just because he's rich and saved her life and she likes him, because she's a Strong and Independent Woman. That's what makes her, to the creators, a strong character- the classic "damsel in distress" usually marries the "knight errant," but Harriet won't without love- and having her go from liking him to loving him is the journey that she goes on over the course of the series.

In the book, Harriet is not with Peter at the end because Peter (finally!) recognizes that he's been badgering her and if she ended up with him it wouldn't be out of love but out of exhaustion and indebtedness, and he (selfishly, in a way) wants her to be with him because she loves him. Over the course of Have His Carcase, she realizes about herself that she felt that kind of indebted way to him and is disgusted with herself (and extends those feelings on to him, whether justly or not), with those emotions battling her growing actual attraction to him. The thing that makes her a strong character is that she only wants Peter on her own terms. She only wants him if she feels equal to him, not indebted to him, and (of course) in love with him. She feels the latter, of course, long before she feels the former, even if it's hard for her to realize it. (And, of course, part of feeling equal with him is building up her own self-worth, which had been dragged to the gutter by her ordeal.)

Effectively, the book is saying- as any fan knows- "their relationship was set up for failure because we have two strong people who, due to their roles in a massive disaster situation, are in a no-win situation- one is compelled to share his feelings and the other is compelled to reject them."

The SHOW, on the other hand, is saying "Peter and Harriet are suited for each other- they met in the wrong situation, but that's not unsurmountable. The problem is that she doesn't love him yet, so in the next two books we see their pathway to getting there." As with so many romance-type stories they accept the knight errant and damsel framing, the one that Sayers immediately discarded after realizing how little it suited these two people, as a framework for the rest of the show without really questioning its suitability- and the knight errant is meant to be continuing to come after the girl! That's why there's that horrendous final scene in Strong Poison. That's why Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night have Peter running after and confessing to Harriet so often- she needs to fall in love with him, and the only way for that to happen is for him to keep being around her and for her to see how great he is. Her own personal journey of self-growth isn't much of a factor- what she really needs to do is to learn more about him, get used to him, appreciate him, come to terms with him, and ultimately give way to him. With enough banter* and one-sided devotion, they'll fall in love- it's the classic romantic formula.

*Admittedly it's pretty great banter!

And that's why, however good the fight scene in Have His Carcase is, it always feels somewhat jarring- because it's one of the few real relics of the book's version of their romance that remain in the show! It's the only part that contradicts the rest of the show's thesis, which is that with enough time the damsel WILL end up loving the knight errant because they're right for each other. It's the only part that conveys any tension beyond basic frustration on Peter's part. If nothing else, it's the only part that grapples with one of the reasons why she DOESN'T love him, which is that he's a living reminder of one of the worst times of her life. That's before you get to all of the power imbalance stuff... and it actually backfires, almost, because before that you just have Peter pursuing Harriet but after you have Peter pursuing Harriet despite all of the power imbalance stuff! And it's still telegraphed on the show as a good thing, or at least not a bad one! It reinforces how Harriet's arc really is to be pursued until she finally cracks by seeing how noble Peter truly is.

(Usual disclaimer that I didn't rewatch Gaudy Night before writing this as I don't want to do that to myself, so any mistakes I make as a result are unavoidable and I appreciate any corrections.)

According to the show, there's nothing wrong with being a knight errant saving a damsel, so why not show it? According to the book, there isn't anything wrong with being the knight errant, but there is something wrong with then wanting to marry the damsel, because any damsel who would want to be married under those "circs" is not the right damsel for the knight. Even if Harriet HAD loved Peter immediately, it wouldn't have mattered because the ensuing relationship would have been imbalanced and she'd have felt that keenly, whether because she'd have felt so indebted that she'd feel at his mercy or because she'd always see them in the roles that they'd had at their first meeting.

One of these is definitely a richer text than the other, and I know which one that is, however much I may love Petherbridge and Walter in the roles.

[date-a-jew-suggestions]

In light of the roe v wade scare I’ve been seeing a lot of culturally Christian gentiles talk about registering with the church of satan to get religious exemption from anti abortion laws and like… if that works, that’s genuinely rad, but y’all know religious freedom laws aren’t like, for everyone, right… I haven’t looked into this but I just don’t see this ending well :\

[legendaryvermin]

I love when advertisers use phrases like "available wherever books are sold", because if you squint at it right it reads as if they have never once bought a book.

[sizzypheanloop]

Every damn time I think I'm ok and moving on I hear "Sit with me Eddie" in my head and yeah, no, I'm definitely not ok, nurse please apply ao3 stat, this patient is coding again

[indecisiveartform]

Kaseh is one of the young boys from the village. While the men were off at war, he spent a lot of his time with Sokka, even more than his own mother. He followed him around an idolized him, he practically became a mini-Sokka. When Sokka left with Katara to help the Avatar he was devastated, but it only furthered the hero worship Kaseh felt towards Sokka. When the war was over and they came back to the Water Tribe, Kaseh was overjoyed, exited to hear about all the adventures Sokka had. He also needed Sokka more than ever since he found out his dad passed in the final weeks of the war. For the next two years, they spend a lot of time together when Sokka wasn’t traveling. Sokka sharing his stories of the world and love of creating with Kaseh. However, Kaseh’s mother suddenly falls ill and Kaseh is soon left an orphan. Sokka already caring deeply for Kaseh takes him under his wing and soon adopts him. During this time of adjustment Sokka stops traveling, instead sending letters to his friends to communicate with them, most of the letters now featuring stories of Kaseh and his fondness for the kid. Most of his friends do end up coming to visit, especially Aang because of Katara, all of them meeting Kaseh. Yet, for the first two years after adopting Kaseh Sokka doesn’t see Zuko, busy trying to obsolete the monarchy. However, his correspondence with Zuko is the richest and most consistent, sending and receiving a letter every week. Sokka and Zuko therefore growing closer and developing feeling they don’t understand even without seeing each other in person. With each letter he receives from Sokka, Zuko’s feelings for the man grows stronger, as well an unexpected fondness for Kaseh, a boy he’s never met. After two year Zuko get’s sent to the Southern Water tribe for work and finally gets to see Sokka again and meet Kaseh. 

This was supposed to be for @zukkaweek​ prompt zukka dads but it’s extremely late. It’s technically only sokka dad, but it’s pre-Zukka dads. There will probably be a part two (hopefully)

(click for better quality)

-id in alt text-

[dragonmuse]

Mayhap I left this too vague in last nights au of the au post, so if you don't want to know what Izzy was googling or you haven't had a chance to read 'I may be bad but I'm perfectly good at it' yet, I've also astriked past the read more so you can pass the spoiler/explanation on by.

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Izzy suspects that they've killed Eddy, likely because she would've figured out how deep they'd gotten.

[landunderthewave]

I have a pet spam bot that I keep around to see if the account actually vanishes at some point, but so far no progress has been made. If Tumblr doesn’t eventually delete these, no wonder everybody’s overrun.