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thelighthousestale · 5 months

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Peter Pettigrew Headcanons

He came from a working-class family. Raised by a single mum

He doesn’t know his father

While he did not grow up in a blood supremacist family he grew up with the same prejudices and assumptions that many wizarding families have about muggles. He finds them odd and different.

Peter was one of those kids who lit ants on fire and threw rocks at people while standing on bridges. Being mean = power = being important

Definitely heard his mum or grandparents say muggle-borns have it easy or get extra benefits from the government (which isn’t true) and that’s why Peter’s mum has to work so hard.

Very excited to befriend Sirius and James because of their families' positions in wizarding society. He’ll be cool and popular by association

Yes, Sirius family are dicks to him but he doesn’t understand why he’d give up such a cush life and run away. Thinks Sirius doesn’t know how lucky he has it

Has always enjoyed playing mind games with his friends and other people to make himself have better favor in group dynamics

Was always the best at getting out of detention and coming up with lies on the spot

Made the rudest jokes out of the marauders

He isn’t dumb. He just isn’t good at school. He became an animagus at 15. He is powerful, OK? Upset that no one sees it and he can’t really brag about being an illegal animagus.

Really likes that he’s the one that gets to push the knob on the whomping willow. Makes him feel indispensable.

James and Sirius mature in 6th and 7th year and their jokes aren’t so cruel anymore. Peter is caught off guard when they start (lightly) calling him out on some of his jokes. (I thought you’d find it funny? Why aren’t you laughing anymore? What, James you get a girlfriend and you can't be fun anymore?)

The slowdown in bullying is also combined with James, Remus, and Sirius's political awakening and further interest in fighting against Voldemort. Peter starts to feel alienated from their discussions. Peter is a-political at best

And like yes, James, dark magic is bad but isn’t it also cool? Like did you hear about the man who turned a bunch of dead bodies into snakes? Or did you hear about the spell that turns your guts inside out? Isn’t that impressive?? I bet you could learn that spell James, you’re powerful enough, right?

After Hogwarts Sirius and James live off their family money and devote themselves to the order full time. After Remus gets fired from a job James starts supporting him financially. Peter doesn’t have the luxury (looks like werewolves get benefits just like muggle-borns. Poor Pete is always left out)

Pete gets a job at the quidditch league offices which he thinks will be lots of fun and exciting, maybe he can swing tickets for him and his friends

But the job is really boring. He is tracking how much teams spend and data entry is the worst.

His order assignments are just as dull. He doesn’t go out on duels or covert operations. Dumbledore instructs him to get intell on Ministry offficals and Peter grows resentment, he wants to be more useful like his friends.

He gets further separate from his core group of friends as James marries Lily and eventually goes into hiding (peter thinks James is foolish for getting Lily pregant. way to mess up our fun, James!), Remus is doing super secret werewolf stuff, Sirius is off on his own order missions plus becoming increasingly protective of the potters.

Peter starts meeting up with people at work, not death eaters but just a few people with storng ideas, and he’s like yeah, these guys are right muggle-borns and half-breeds are ruining our society

And he doesn’t hate Lily and Remus, no they are seperate from the developing idelogy.

But then after a while his intell gathering and workmate meet-ups start to become his only social settings. And he is agreeing more and more with what they are saying

And he impresses the people he is gathering intell on with some of his knowledge on dark spells (not that he’s every performed them. He’s just interested in reading about them)

Its been a long time since Sirius and James found him impressive or amusing

He goes to a couple of meet ups, and then a couple more

He enjoys these meetings more than order meetings. He doens’t feel underappreciated.

He gets invited to a bigger meeting and oops its got full on known death eaters attending

James and Lily are fully in hiding. Voldemort is wining the war.

Peter thinks he might as well just do what he needs to do to survive, everyone else is doing the same. But he's not going to be like James and hide like a coward.

And if he is going to survive he is going to be useful, important. In a better position than he was in the order. And then he’ll use that new position to help his friends when the war is over. He is so clever!

He willingly becomes a spy for Voldemort. He enjoys it. Its the best he ever felt about himself. He has secrets and information. He’s important.

He gets tested on his loyalty and is told to kill order members.

He actually enjoys murdering people (he is a serial murder in the books!) Reminds him of the same feeling he got when he threw rocks off of bridges but bigger.

He continues to climb up the Death Eater power structure. He enjoys watching the chaos unfold in The Order as they can’t figure out who the spy is

James asks him to be his secret keeper. He has a choice to make and he shows who he really is. He chooses power and manipulation over protecting people he used to (supposedly) love

And while this was all going on its important to remember that James, Remus, and Sirius all would have died for Peter. He was their friend. The betrayal is painful. The radicalization went unnoticed

#harry potter #marauders era #the maruaders #mwpp #peter pettigrew #wormtail #harry potter meta #harry potter headcanon

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recklessfiction · 4 months

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Writing Inspiration - Horror Movies -

The Thing (1982)

The Thing kills it with creature design and captures the vibe of horrors beyond our own rational understanding. I love Kurt Russell also, he's very capable and attractive and has fabulous hair.

The Wicker Man (1973)

The original Wicker Man is very much a christianity vs the "old ways" story. A fish out of water story, a warning to the christian about getting in too deep. It's really good, the kind of religious clashing I personally love to see.

The Lighthouse (2019)

What can I even say about this movie? It's weird, it folkloric, its otherwordly. It does what I love which is show a dull staple in mythology, in this case the mermaid/sea god, and made it weird again, made it strange and unsettling. It's made the sea and what is in the sea something to fear. Its my vibe but certainly not everyone's.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

GDT doesn't miss. I love when people make fairy tales frightening, and the creatures in them are weird and strange. I love fairy tales that are horror because that's what they've always been, warnings and something to scare children, and Pan's Labyrinth kills it!

Curse of the Demon (1957)

This is really just a comfort movie for me but it's very good and you should watch it.

Mad God (2021)

Mad God is something else. Not everyone's cup of tea, gross, horribly violent, uncomfortable, and odd. But I think it's wonderful in its wild creativity and strangeness. I like that it's more of a dream, shooting in wild directions with no real story line. It's a journey that you're just a part of and can't escape from, a nightmare.

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)

Beautiful movie. Gorgeous. Love that the vampires are strange looking but still beautiful and dignified, it speaks to the level of artistry and creativity that Yoshitaka Amano has.

Suspiria (1977)

This movie something you need to watch to understand. It's not just images, its the soundtrack, the colours, the shots and cuts. Its an entire sensory experience with music by Goblin.

Hellraiser (1987)

A classic. Again, the designs rock and the atmosphere is wonderful. Sex and death and blood and meat, man. Lust and unfinished bodies but its still sexy even though your goddamn muscle juices are dripping onto the floor. It's great.

Evil Dead 2 (1987) & Army of Darkness (1992)

The king of horror comedy, I wish I had as much charisma and jokes as Ash Williams. A great time in general.

The Horror of Dracula (1958)

I enjoy the Hammer horror films over Universal simply because of the life that's in them. They're funny and have a lot of action and are seductive while the Universal versions, while wonderful in their own right, are more dramatic, and lowkey. I love the Horror of Dracula with all my heart, Peter Cushing is so dignified even as he's jumping onto tables and running around constantly, and it's just a lot more fun!

Annihilation (2018)

When I first saw this movie, my first thought was that the characters were entering a fairy ring. The otherworldlyness of The Shimmer, it's beauty even in the horrific parts of itself, in the alligator and the other body horror elements, is something I love. Making decay and and death and horror beautiful, so much so that you start to question whether or not you should be afraid (the answer is of course yes you should be.)

#This is all the pictures tumblr would allow me to post in this post #so i'll update more as I think of them #if ppl want to see this kind of thing let me know!!!#horror

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thealogie · 3 months

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donmar final update, signing off: in the matinee queue they didn't let anyone in and everyone was super super bummed and morale was very low and the line was the longest I've ever seen it. it had like 40 people at least. the earliest folks got there at 5 AM and they were so scared that they wouldn't get into the night shows since this is the very last chance. finally 630 rolls arounf and an employee comes down the line and was like asking a bunch of people you know like are you alone are you alone or you here as a group and pretty much everyone was there alone and everyone said so and he was like smiling and went back inside. very mysterious. and then over the next hour they just kept letting us in very very small portions and at one point remember I was first in line finally, and I felt like nauseous cause this was like 725 and the show was at 7:30 and I genuinely thought I was going to fall over I felt nauseous I felt sick and then they let me in and I about screamed. they let like 15 people in by the end, probably more! I'm not sure. I was eighth in line by the time the queue started getting tickets we all thought that they were like conspiring against us because they hated us but actually in hindsight after so fucking many of us got in we think that they were actually conspiring to get us in it was really really exciting. it was the Best show that I've seen out of the three that I went to they definitely were putting their all into it you could tell a lot of the people who had to yell didn't care about preserving their voices anymore and so they went ham, during bows cush leaned over and got some blood on her fingers and then wiped it on her cheeks like war paint was so cute and then she was hyping david up as well during the bows and he was like really bashful about it and all of them looked so happy and EVERYONE in the theater did a standing ovation for the first time that I've ever seen I was so so happy all of the cast looked so so so happy. everyone I met had a wonderful time and some of us went to Tesco afterwards for dinner and said our final good yes after being queue homies for several days. i have to be on a bus to a plane in like thirty min so goodbye and godspeed. goodnight to the donmar

I felt electricity through my body even reading this. I am SO happy they got their full house standing ovation. they all seemed so elated and giddy with their success even in the video! Thank you so much for sharing!! You all are so dedicated.

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timefadesaway · 5 months

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MY MACBETH REVIEW. except that makes it sound so formal this is just me saying things. and it’s long too so no one will read im sure except like three of you 🙏

spoilers for the production if ur seeing it i suppose but not really. and spoilers for macbeth but i mean it’s 400 years old so that’s your problem

okay so it was crazy good. really sort of…bare but in a sort of gothic and chilling way. it felt modern without being too full of itself. the sound design was great and i also really loved the celtic folk music they had going on. i ADORED the witches at the start as voices in vapours and also how they had the whole company play them in their later scene. i think it’s possibly the most successful demonstration of macbeth being tormented/haunted that i’ve seen. the choreography was wonderful both here and in the final battle. plus i adored the donmar it’s my first time going there and man. it being so small is wonderful! it really is the most intimate theatre in london

context wise i especially thought how they focused on the loss of a child was engaging. it’s something that i personally haven’t seen focused on much in a lot of productions and it was really interesting that they only had one child cast member to play the children. i know that’s common in productions like this with limited casts but it was really made to be read into. like it wasn’t subtext it was text. that they set him up as THEIR child at the start, and throughout macbeth would interact with tenderness before violence was so so interesting and well-done. that they were haunted by their lost child who they saw in everything and yet still murdered. and the fact that fleance and young siward were both CHILDREN was like. crazy. sickening even. when macbeth kills young siward it was mad too like i gasped as did half the theatre.

another thing is the fact that even though it was a ‘shorter’ production it didn’t feel idk. frantic or rushed. i think coming off the back of seeing lear with kenneth branagh i was unsure about it bc that DID feel rushed and lost a lot of emotion bc of it. this wasn’t the case at allll with macbeth it felt perfectly paced and remained thrilling and tense throughout.

i think some people think the headphone thing was gimmicky but personally i really enjoyed it. it leant itself to parts of the performance (eg. whispers, clinking daggers, the sort of things u wouldn’t typically hear) and i enjoyed how it built atmosphere and tension but my favourite bit of it is that it sort of added a level of separation between say, the ghost of banquo and the witches and the ‘reality’ of the scene. without the headphones they do not exist. it’s involving but also plays with what is real and what isn’t. i did actually remove them a couple of times and tbh i did enjoy some parts of the performances more without them but overall it was utilised well and was more than a gimmick to me.

performances ummm. they were brilliant. cush jumbo was awesome and has such a stage presence which is so important for lady macbeth. very understated charisma that rlly lends itself to all of her character…i LOVED the porter they were soooo fun and funny and did great audience work AND gave me my pantomime fix for the year. and of course david tennant was brilliant. the hype was real he is very good isn’t he. and i’m saying this as a frequent killjoy. and i did like to see him get thrown around and picked up by women

okay ummm yes. i hope they film it so u can all see it alternatively i wish you all well in getting no-shows/daily tix/standing

#macbeth

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quill-of-thoth · 2 months

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Letters from Watson: The Cardboard Box

Crimes in Context:

Trigger warning for the whole story, since it's pretty much just spousal abuse, and we're going to cover that (briefly) here.

We have previously covered the inability to divorce in Victorian England, where you could practically separate, and be legally divorced under very specific circumstances, but it took an act of parliament to be allowed to remarry, and it was therefore de-facto impossible for many women to leave abusive husbands or to support themselves at the same level after leaving one. Reasons for a divorce to be granted included adultery and extreme cruelty. Yes, extreme cruelty. The bar for proving that to ecclesiastical court and being alive at the same time would be a high and thin one. (Historically: not being able to leave abusive husbands is a factor in MANY historical poisonings. This is not confined to the 1800's or 1900's either - Giulia Tofana, whose wikipedia entry is weirdly short, was famous, posthumously, for providing poisons to women seeking to end their marriages.) Reading between the lines of Jim Benson's tale, we have a more unreliable than usual narrator. Everything he says is through the lens of "she made me do it" which is both a very common pattern of abusers telling their story and prevents his final letter from being the good-faith explanation of events that we often see in other dead, dying, or condemned criminals in this series. The events are also not reconstruct-able by anyone else besides Sarah, and we have no knowledge of whether or not she ever recovers. He never has proof of anything he says regarding Sarah's feelings or what she may have said to Mary, and the only proof he has of Alec and Mary's affair is the custom that a married woman would likely NOT be going on a day trip to New Brighton alone with a male platonic friend.

(Its possible that Mary was not having an affair with Alec or even considering it, but Mary would have been well aware that absolutely nobody would have taken her word that nothing was going on - so I tend to think that either she was having an affair with Alec or she was engineering a plausible reason, i.e. her adultery, to leave her husband. She had two elder sisters with the means to live independently, if she tired of Jim's drinking and jealousy, she had some options.) We especially don't have evidence that Sarah loved Jim - at best, we have an awkward exchange where Jim interpreted a lessening of formality as love (or lust) and Sarah awkwardly backing out of the situation. It's equally ambiguous whether Sarah was attempting to put more distance between the two of them or if she genuinely felt vindictive about unreciprocated feelings. Whether Mary's suspicion had more do do with Jim's violent words and history of drinking than anything Sarah said, or if Sarah took it upon herself to, belatedly, vet her baby sister's husband's character. Hell, she could have been nitpicking their financial arrangements and Jim's career progression. In effect, we don't know anything about this case, and that, more than the gruesome clues and the murder, may have been why it was left out of the story collections for so long.

Why else wasn't it included in collections?

It's not the only story that contains abuse, spousal and otherwise, and it's not the goriest one. When it comes to abuse and very probable murder of a wife, not to mention abuse of his stepdaughters, we have Dr Roylott of the Speckled Band. When it comes to gore, we've had Rucastle getting his throat torn mostly out by a dog in The Copper Beeches, and we're about to have The Engineer's Thumb, which starts with Hatherley missing a thumb. We've also had the prolonged torture via starvation of Kratides in The Greek Interpreter. It is, however, probably the most hopeless story in the entire canon that deals with abuse. Absolutely nobody is saved, and absolutely nobody is given any closure - in fact, Susan Cushing is probably having a much worse time overall now that Holmes has solved the case. Yes, she would eventually know that her baby sister has been murdered by her own husband and it's absolutely broken her middle sister, who she clearly cares about even if she wants to never live with her, ever. But I posit that it's measurably worse if she has any access to Jim Benson's account - because at one point she approved of him as a match for Mary, and his account will make it very clear how wrong she was, and how Sarah, whose concerns or pessimism have probably been dismissed more than once among the sisters, was Mary's only resource.

#Letters from Watson #crimes in context #abuse mentioned

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lydiablackblade · 3 months

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Such an amazing 3 days are behind me. I still can't believe it happened to me. Because I finally saw Macbeth at the Donmar not once but twice! Because I spotted David sneaking into the theater once. Because Cush Jumbo walked by 10 cm next to me. Because I took pictures with two members of the company. Because I got to know fantastic and kind people while queuing and hopefully got a friend in the end.

The play was such an intense experience, I am still shivering when I think of it. The intimacy, being so near to the stage, to really see every tiny expression on the actor' s face, the magical sound technique, the imaginary use of dark and light, the use of only the very few of colours, everything was black, white or grey, so when you saw the shiny, shimmering red of blood, BLOOD, blood was everywhere, on the hands, on the clothes, on the floor, it was so shocking, so intense, you couldn't get your eyes off of it, and the music, oh my good, the Music, I want that OST right now, and when Macbeth whispered into the ears of Lady Macbeth "Oh, full of scorpions is my mind" you really, you absolutely was able to look into that sick, cracked mind tortured by inner demons, David is really the man of delivering one-lines that makes you feel utterly devastated.

So I miraculously secured a ticket online for the Thursday matinee a week before. But because there's no flight back to home on Friday, I decided to extend until Sunday morning.

This is where I sat for the first time

I met a girl, who sat next to me, she was so excited and enthusiastic, after the play we chatted for a while about the play, David, Good Omens... Turned out we are in the same subred 😃 Actually it was a good thing I was already familiar with the play, because I could explain some things which she couldn't catch up with the plot, and as many of the actors played multiple roles, it was a bit confusing even for me.

On Friday I spent my time in museums and walks, and headed to Donmar to meet my new acquaintance in the queue before I was attending another play (Mirror with Jonny Lee Miller, very good!) because she really felt the vibe, and spent the day queuing, and while we were chatting we spotted David for 3 seconds before he entered the theater! We don't know how he manifested before the door, really. Magic. Also he wore a big coat, scarf, and baseball hat. We just had time to say "it's him" then he's gone. My acquaintance eventually got in for the second time because she managed to get a daily standing ticket - and still spent the day in queue. So crazy!

On Saturday morning I visited more filming locations then headed to Donmar. The queue was manageable, not too many people before me, and I had a really good gut feeling about it, so I stayed. When no one from the queue was let in to the last matinee, I was a bit worried, but actually I didn't have any other plans, so I stayed.

While we were waiting for the matinee, the actors started to arrive and I recognized two of them. So when they came out from the coffee I asked them if I could take pictures and they said yes! They seemed to be glad, actually.

Jatinder Singh Randhawa and Noof Ousellam

As the time of the last performance came closer and closer and they didn't let in people, I started to give up. After a while slowly they let in 3-4 people, but the time was about to come up. What gave us hope is that one of the staff members started to walk by the queue, counting and asking people if they are alone or with a group. And just before 5 minutes to the play, they let 8-10 people in! It was unbelievable, never ever happened before! It was about 15 people who finally got in from the queue! I witnessed it happen to 5 people before, and according to the queue rumor it was 7 at max earlier. Now 15! And I got a much better seat than on Thursday, I sat next to the passage, the company members were so close to me! Cush Jumbo was so close to me I felt her fragrance!

And the final curtain call was so exciting, the audience went wild, the cast members were so freed and glad!

With the guy who stood behind me in the queue and we were seated together, we found out we are both Good Omens fans, so we ended up in a restaurant in Chinatown shouting for 2 hours about Good Omens, theater, Shakespeare and books and still in touch 😁

I didn't take pictures during the curtain call, but:

This video was taken almost from where I sat.

This video was taken opposite to me, I am on the recording 😉 Thanks to @his-porous-membrane

#macbeth #david tennant #cush jumbo #donmar warehouse

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afieldinengland · 2 years

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thinking about peter cushing’s obviously deep, meticulous, and enthusiastic interest in the character of victor frankenstein as a doctor

#it’s everything. i don’t think there’s ever been another actor as meticulous as peter cushing…. i don’t think there could be now #the job of actor itself has changed. but every interview where he discusses playing the baron— every move and handling of an instrument was #studied. he joked his gp used to love it when he rang because he knew he wasn’t ill he just wanted to know how to take a brain out #he said something about if there happened to be a doctor in the audience he didn’t want them to spot him handling his scalpel etc #incorrectly— and i mean rightly so the baron is meant to be a surgeon above all surgeons after all— but that level of study and seriousness #is unparalleled i think. his approach to van helsing and sherlock holmes was very similiar— i imagine it was the same to all characters #honestly. he used to learn everyone’s lines not just his #but it brings something so unique and fascinating to hammer’s depiction of victor frankenstein. as someone who’ll probably always be a #little obsessed with the man. adding things like the janus-faced nature of the ‘bedside manner’ and the reputation of ‘the good doctor’#where they never featured in shelley’s original novel— i’m saying nothing new here but hammer’s victor has always #struck me as an extrapolation of what would happen if victor was stripped of his human limiting factors.#remorse. love. a family. mortality. and my points here are probably linked most to #the revenge of frankenstein (1958) but i think it applies in general.#but yes. i wish there were more surviving interviews of cushing discussing his relationship to ‘old frankenstein’ as he called him.#especially since surgery etc was coming on leaps and bounds at the time the films were being made— 50s > 70s is a long time in medicine #and he spoke about things like organ transplants with such fascination…. there’s a brain transplant in so many of the films of course #it does make you wonder. some things now would’ve fascinated him i think.#perhaps this is an odd thing to say but i wonder what he’d have made of transgender surgeries? i like to think he’d be deeply interested

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companion-showdown · 4 months

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Who is your favourite companion?

ROUND 1 MASTERPOST

propaganda under the cut

Alan Turing

Travels with the amnesiac post war Eighth Doctor from Britain to German nearing the end of World War Two. During which they develop romantic feelings for each other. (anonymous)

Claudia Winkleman

Yes she to is a companion to the doctor and yes she to is also in Universe. (anonymous)

Jules Verne

no propaganda submitted

Mary Shelley

no propaganda submitted

Peter Cushing

Peter Cushing is mention having good friendship with both Ten and Eleven and they keep bring him to the future to star in movies after he died. This is one of the wackiest Doctor companion pairings. (anonymous)

John Lennon

A Time Traveler and member of the Beatles. Once went on a TARDIS trip to play tennis against Winston Churchill (anonymous)

#showdown 2k24: round 1

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nerdasaurus1200 · 6 months

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A little sneak peak of the first episode chapter of TOWL:

Victor: Steady now…just a little more..

Henry: Careful, Victor, careful…

Victor: And if I connect these two here…HAHA, YES!! IT’S ALIVE!! IT’S ALIIIIVE!!!

William: Well done, fa-ahem, Victor.

Victor: Thank you William, it was well done, wasn’t it?

Laura: Is the toaster finally fixed?

Victor: Good as new!

Dracula: Good, now don’t try to perform surgery on the toast again.

Carmilla: Oh come now father, let the men play with their little toys.

Victor: Keep that up and you won’t be getting your blood jam.

Lucy: *looking out the window* Uh oh, Poe alert.

Edgar: *coming into the kitchen* Do you lot want to explain to me why there’s dismembered limbs out on the lawn?

Erik: For once I had nothing to do with that, sir.

Hyde: He’s right, that was all me. 😈Lucy had a little trouble with a client so the gents and I decided to settle the dispute ourselves.

Lucy: Also you might not want to look in Erik’s room, it’s a bloody mess.

Carmilla: Ooh not a bad pun, Harris.

Dracula: Don’t worry, Edgar, it’ll be clean by the end of the week before the new tenant comes.

Edgar: ….Excuse me??

Henry: The new tenant comes on Saturday, doesn’t she? It’ll all be clean by then.

Edgar: Tomorrow is Saturday!

Dracula: …No it’s not.

Edgar: What is today?

Dracula: Friday. *beat* Oh bloody hell.

Laura: No wonder Dorian left to his blasted beach house yesterday!

Carmilla: That bastard…😑

Edgar: Miss Cushing will be here to move in in 18 hours. You had better have the entire building cleaned top to bottom by then.

#towl #tales of walpole lane #nerd talks #fanfiction #fanfic #victor frankenstein #henry jekyll #the creature #william #laura hollis #dracula #carmilla karnstein #edgar allen poe #phantom of the opera

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mariana-oconnor · 1 year

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The Cardboard Box pt 1

An uninspiring title, but apparently it's controversial? All my brain is thinking (I am still le tired) is 'Big fish, little fish, cardboard box' over and over again.

If you don't get that reference, that's probably for the best. the early noughties were weird.

Anyway. I hereby do swear that this time I shall read the text more carefully and all my claims, accusations and harebrained ideas will be based in textual evidence and not mere vibes alone. One cannot thrive on vibes alone!

I'm going to try anyway. I may still dislike characters on principle, though.

He did however take a particular fancy to some of the paragraphs at the beginning of the tale and urged me adapt them for later revisions of my story ‘The Resident Patient’, which I sent to you in January.

OK, so is this going to be an AU version of The Resident Patient? Because I feel like that gives me a head start on the guessing.

I did a side by side of the two and overall it seems pretty much the same, except we're now in August and it's blazing hot. I shudder to think how Watson would have described August in the UK last year. Then we have the discussion about Holmes reading Watson's mind body language. Until we get to the first significant difference:

"Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to Miss Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?” "No, I saw nothing."

Aha, the titular cardboard box, one wonders?

Watson is really falling behind in his paper reading duties. Holmes is doing all the legwork here. Honestly. You just can't get a good chronicler these days! But he's still making Watson read it aloud.

Holmes does like hearing things read aloud. He'd be all over audiobooks, but he's got Watson for that so it's all good.

I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the paragraph indicated. It was headed, “A Gruesome Packet.”

Ooooh, I think I might remember a bit of this one. I might remember what's in the box, anyway.

Sorry, that was my contractual obligation.

“Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical joke unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the incident."

If it's what I think it is then practical jokes were significantly more aggressive in the Victorian Era. I don't think even TikTok has graduated to this level. We're getting a pretty weird look at the 1800s English sense of humour: beating other children with sticks and... this.

"A cardboard box was inside, which was filled with coarse salt."

Everyone needs some seasoning on their... "two human ears [...] quite freshly severed".

Okay, poor taste, poor taste. I know it's there for preservation. Also weirdly I thought it was going to be fingers. Don't know why I thought that. But yes, this is quite the jape, my friend. I just cut off some human ears and sent them to you.

How is this a practical joke? These are genuine freshly cut ears. Even if they're from a cadaver, that's theft and criminal damage at the very least. Isn't it? And I thought they were particularly strict on stuff like that in the 1800s. We're a little late for the Resurrection Man and Burke and Hare, but they did not like people messing around with corpses.

Okay, research research: 'The Anatomy Act of 1832 made it legal for corpses from workhouses that remained unclaimed after forty-eight hours to be used to satisfy the demands of the anatomists.'

Welp, I guess it was okay to do anything to corpses if they were the corpses of poor people with no friends or family (or at least no friends/family who could afford to claim them).

I mean, on one hand it stopped people from being murdered and science needed bodies to learn how bodies work better (good lord did we need to learn how bodies work better) but on the other hand, this does make me uncomfortable. Workhouse in life, still put to work in death. Also, from a purely scientific viewpoint, your sample is biased. You need some rich people bodies in there, too.

"There is no indication as to the sender, and the matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of fifty, has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances or correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive anything through the post."

So, either she's secretly running an underground crime ring. Or the ears were meant for someone else with the name S. Cushing.

"...she let apartments in her house to three young medical students..."

Oh, yeah, fine. All makes sense now. Medical students are fucking feral. I have met literally one in my life who I would have been comfortable to have as a doctor, and I think he was just really good at hiding it. Guy once got 'kidnapped' by an entire female hockey team and ended up in an entirely different city. Another one I know just kept a dead squirrel in the shared freezer so he could do dissection practice on it.

I'd put the Dead Dove, Do Not Eat gif, but he didn't even label the fucker.

"...their noisy and irregular habits..."

Medical students... yeah.

"In the meantime, the matter is being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case.”

Oh hai, Lestrade!

At least the police are putting an actual detective on the case and not just saying 'oh it's a silly prank' and ignoring the transportation of human body parts. Was it illegal to send human remains by the royal mail at that time?

“I think that this case is very much in your line. We have every hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting anything to work upon."

'We're totally going to do this, we just don't have... any idea how. But we totally could!'

"The box is a half-pound box of honeydew tobacco and does not help us in any way."

Did somebody say... TOBACCO?

A specialist subject has entered the chat.

If Holmes doesn't use his extensive and very detailed knowledge of tobacco to help solve this case, I will be v. disappoint.

Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever...

Watson is contractually obliged to remind you that Lestrade looks like a ferret every time he appears. His publisher insists on it.

I'm informed that an antimacassar is an arm cover for an armchair or sofa. My Nana used to have them. They had tassels and I'd get told off for plaiting the threads in the tassels together. Good times.

“Why in my presence, sir?” “In case he wished to ask any questions.” “What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know nothing whatever about it?”

Miss Cushing has very strong Done With This energy and I am here for it. Those are not her ears. She has perfectly good ones thank you very much, and she does not need any more. Why are you still bothering her?

“Quite so, madam,” said Holmes in his soothing way. “I have no doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over this business.”

Holmes once again showing that he does have emotional intelligence no matter what people might think.

“The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and that this knot is of a peculiar character.”

Oh, not the tobacco knowledge, but the knot knowledge. I see 'peculiar' and 'knot' in the same sentence and I immediately think 'sailing'.

Address printed in rather straggling characters: ‘Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.’ Done with a broad-pointed pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink. The word ‘Croydon’ has been originally spelled with an ‘i’, which has been changed to ‘y’.

Our sender has poor handwriting and poor spelling, then. The 'wrong person' theory is growing stronger. The likelihood that Miss Cushing is a criminal mastermind diminshes. Shame.

He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his knee he examined them minutely.

Is he wearing gloves? Please tell me he's wearing gloves.

“Bodies in the dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a student had done it."

This feels like something the police should already have noticed. If the questions are 'Where did these ears come from? Has a crime been committed?' you would think someone would have considered whether they were from a preserved corpse or someone fresh. I know that policing has changed a lot since then and forensic medicine wasn't really a thing, but clearly they suspected foul play was a possibility, because Lestrade called for Holmes.

"We know that this woman has led a most quiet and respectable life at Penge and here for the last twenty years. She has hardly been away from her home for a day during that time."

Oh, Lestrade. The things you can do without leaving your home. She might have anyone buried under the floorboards. She might have been sending blackmail letters to her neighbours. She might have been doing any number of things. I still think the wrong person got the parcel, but saying that she's just too respectable for this is very optimistic of you.

I do agree that if she knew what the ears were about, she probably wouldn't have told anyone about them. Unless she's in such a secure position that she doesn't think anyone would ever trace anything back to her. In most situations, it wouldn't be the best move.

"One of these ears is a woman's, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring."

Did no men wear earrings in Victorian times? Admittedly, probably not 'respectable' men, but the knot's already pointing me at sailor (as is the tarring on the string, tbh) and it used to be a thing that tattoos were mostly a sailor thing over here, and piercing is a similar kind of body art. So a woman or a sailor with small ears.

omg. pirates.

"The other is a man's, sun-burned, discoloured, and also pierced for an earring."

Oh, okay, so the earring wasn't the thing. Doesn't prevent the first ear from belonging to a small pirate, though. Sunburned also makes me think sailors. They have to be outside a lot with no shade. Sunburn on your ears is the worst. They have my sincere sympathy.

Also, y'know, cause they got their ear cut off - with a blunt blade, which... eesh.

"These two people are presumably dead, or we should have heard their story before now."

I mean, they could have been kidnapped and this could be proof of life. These days if you get an unsolicited body part in the real life mail the mind does go to kidnapping. Maybe that originates here - but they have no way of knowing whether the ear was detached ante or post mortem at this point, do they? So it's more proof of having, rather than proof of life. And I don't think I'd recognise my friends or family by their ears, so it's not even really that. If the earrings had been attached then I might recognise them.

Yeah... s'weird. But it doesn't necessarily mean they're dead. Although... Victorian hygiene and understanding of germ theory.

...

Yeah, they've got sepsis. They're dead.

Question spiral! Holmes just asking himself question after question is very relatable. And bringing up all relevant points about how if Miss Cushing knows what's going on, taking the ears to the police but telling them nothing is the weirdest possible response.

I'm assuming that the subject of this email is wrong, because if this is part 1 of 1, there is no conclusion to this story and so without further evidence, I am forced to believe that one large pirate and one small pirate, genders unknown, are currently dead/dying of sepsis and the true recipient of these ears, M. S Cushing (any or all letters interchangeable) has heard nothing of their fate. Although, given it was in the newspaper, they probably have heard about it by now. So maybe they don't need the ears.

No idea why the ears were sent though. Proof of a hit? Proof of life? Just a creepy serial killer who likes to send the ears of their past victim to their next victim? Probably not that one, seems a bit Criminal Minds for a Sherlock Holmes story, but you never know.

#Letters from Watson #Sherlock Holmes #The Cardboard Box #Modern Sherlock this is a live unboxing video gone wrong #long post

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susandsnell · 11 months

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Movies with Scarecrow vibes?

Ahhh, thank you so much for sending this! This might be long-winded, as I tend to be, but such is the way of Cranerot!

Naturally, Brian de Palma's Carrie. Aside from the plot and thematic matches almost eerily to Scarecrow: Year One to the point I'd be shocked if it wasn't a direct inspiration, de Palma's camp balanced with heartrending drama and tragedy and a horror where nearly everyone involved is a monster has Crane written all over it. I actually have several tracks from the score on my inspiration playlist for when I'm writing him!

Hellraiser (1987)! Jonathan Crane is so, so, so Cenobite-coded (highly recommend @acapelladitty's Cenobite!Crane AU, incidentally)! An old house filled with secrets, a plucky heroine whose sanity is doubted but who wins the day (at a great cost), and creatures that want to bring you to the height of sensation until the joy is inextricable from the anguish...it very much suits his more sensual reverent speeches/quotes about fear. "We have such sights to show you" could so easily be a Scarecrow quote, and likewise, "Eventually, the victim desires the horror" could very believably be a Pinhead line!

Since you mentioned it in The Most Poetical Topic, Night of the Hunter (1955) as a Southern noir quasi-folktale thriller absolutely suits the more charming, insidious iterations of Crane, in atmosphere, setting, antagonist, and in the themes of corrupted religion. The themes of childhood fears and defeating your demons while also struggling with their humanity both suit different phases of Jonathan Crane in his life, and the responses to and from the people he knows and terrorizes.

On the note of the South, O Brother Where Art Thou provides heavy atmosphere that give off Crane vibes, bringing a mythic epic to the setting of his backstory, with the music and monsters therein giving a good feel of everything that built the man and the monster.

Also naturally, many a mad scientist movie! The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari gives us a corrupt asylum director who torments his patients until he eventually becomes one of them, and Re-Animator gives us an actual former Scarecrow actor, Jeffrey Combs, in a very Crane-like role when it comes to being penalized in academica for horrific and unethical experiments. (It's even set in the original Arkham for which Gotham's is named!!) The Fly isn't quite as on point, but it does still give those vibes as well. And although the degree of 'madness' when he plays him is debatable, any of Cushing's roles as any member of the Frankenstein family come to mind since he's very much an old school!Crane figure.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): yes, yes, 'look out for Mr. Pricky-Fingers', in the words of Codotverse!Scarecrow, but fear gauntlets/needles gloves aside, Freddy is the boogeyman who is literally fed on fears, and he much better gives the feel of a distinctly Scarecrowish tormentor than, say, your average Pennywise or other. Nancy's speech to him at the end is highly reminiscent of those who've managed to successfully stand up to Crane over the years, too.

Halloween (1978): On the note of boogeymen, and other than the "one good scare" quote you yourself have mentioned, I imagine Scarecrow to move and function a lot like Michael Meyers; slow, creeping, inevitable. Every kid in Gotham City thinks this place is haunted. They might be right!

For the pure fanservice of it/JonBecky vibes, let's say both the Lon Chaney and Charles Dance Phantom of the Operas, Death Takes a Holiday (1934), The Shape of Water, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir inspire how I conceive of the more romantic side of our beloved Scarecrow. I'll throw in Silence of the Lambs as well, since that gives us an incarcerated evil psychiatrist meeting his match in an intrepid young woman involved with the law who he forces to face her formative traumas, but who manages to come out on top despite his machinations.

A few Hitchcocks, honestly! The Birds is outright referenced in Year One and definitely gives life to the visceral horrors he underwent in the old Keeny chapel, whereas Vertigo more in atmosphere and obsession captures a lot of torment he experiences. I also do see shades of crane even in Norman Bates' "private traps" speech!

Thanks so much for sending this along!

#scarecrow #jonathan crane #batman #bat-tag #cranerot #ask night #<3

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