#adaptation analysis

So, the justice vs mercy take, right? That’s the musical and it’s a lot of Christian conservatives. You can see this most clearly where we have conservative Christians speaking about the musical and conflating the justice system (human, legal, historical) with Justice (in the context of the Hugolian moral framework, also human!, profoundly nonlegal and ahistorical, divine insofar as Man and the Infinite can be in bed with each other), seeing Javert as Justice, and arguing for his moral superiority, though you’ll find ’em reading the Brick and getting to the same point, somehow. People who hear but the tigers come at night—their voices soft as thunder— and respond “this is the problem with the welfare state” are clearly not existing in the same world of ethics as your average Les Misérables fan, but the musical creates that narrative, right? Javert is morally wrong, there, but here’s this really loving and smart adaptation of the Brick that still looks at his character and reads him as being at core about (flawed) justice. This is good narrative sense. Justice vs mercy is easy punchy. It’s not, I think, what the Brick is doing, because the Brick has room—a lot, lot of room—to be more than quick in its punches.

Thinking this through: if Javert represents (flawed) Justice that could be tempered by Mercy and become a moral man (this is Shoujo Cosette’s happy ending for him, and that of many a fanfic), we’re positing something that doesn’t exist in the Hugolian framework: the justice system as righteous. Whether or not you think there can be a righteous police, I don’t think Les Misérables does—arguably that’s the sum of Javert’s character,  making that point. We pile on these positive characteristics (honesty, self-abnegation, probity) so that we can get to “the evil of the good” or “the evil of goodness” (depending on whether you want the Hapgood or Donougher, 1.8.4): so long as you operate as an agent of this system, you cannot be anything but a part of that evil, an expression of it. 

Look at it this way: “one guy is bad at tempering justice with mercy” is an interesting story if you’re into the guy, but it’s not a sprawling moral point, eh? It’s the characters as symbols and people simultaneously deal. We get “this guy is the hands of the Justice System, applied scrupulously” instead. 

As an aside, a bit: we get a flash of how the justice system (you know, the legal thing, the societal thing) can’t be the solution to vice and violence & Marius’ speedrun of the same thought in 3.8.20, when he realizes by summoning the police he’s committing a person to suffering—and because Marius is a fuck, it took a personal connection and obligation with Thénardier to realize the point, but he still attempts a different solution (which is—still the threat of the cognes, and doesn’t work—certainly not to save Madame T from dying miserably). Note here that Marius doesn’t think, ah shit!, that guy Javert is Flawed Justice Incarnate; he goes, fuck!, it’s going to hurt the guy who saved my dad if the justice system gets its hands on him at all; whether or not the legalistic justice was the most or least tempered by mercy here don’t matter.

… Did I hear someone in back shout ‘get to the part with Fantine, asshole’? All right, all right.

This is the legalistic bit. You may have your autistic legal scholar Javert (genuinely a subtype I find entertaining in fanfic), your ’35, your “the book of regulations are my Bible [. . .] never would I fail in my duty to the law” and “I administer the law: good, bad, or indifferent, it’s no business of mine—but the law to the letter” (Laughton’s Javert is the closest movie representation of a certain stripe of fandom Javert, in this essay I will—), but in 1.5.13 it’s Valjean who quotes the regulations from memory and appeals to the concept of “properly conducted police”: Javert notably doesn’t try to engage with the question at all, but retorts that Fantine is a misérables—he thinks that Fantine’s insult of the mayor is in itself enough to justify her jailing for assaulting Bamatabois (?); when his attempt to remind Madeleine how this game goes (bourgeois-and-the-law as a unit against the misérables) is rejected, he essentially reiterates the same point: it’s his duty to punish insults to the bourgeois by a woman of Fantine’s class regardless of the context (see: Valjean hasn’t contested that Fantine attacked Bamatabois, but who was at fault—Javert is not interested in fault, only insult and class).

How different does 1.5.12 go if Fantine is a bourgeois woman who Bamatabois heckles, eh? And remember: while you could make the argument that Fantine could be doing unregulated sex work, I think it’s a fair bet she’s registered as a filles publique and not breaking the law, here, merely by being on the job.

Now: don’t take this as me saying Javert doesn’t know how to be a properly-conducted police officer. He’s far more educated on that point than Valjean; he understands better than your average dog how to do that trick. And that’s the point.

So recently, The Boys has come to an end.

And the reception to it has.....not exactly been the best.

There's been a lot of criticism towards the final seasons for various reasons.

A rushed narrative, repetitive character arcs, and a finale that failed to live up to the massive stakes built up in previous seasons.

Along with neglecting any actual ties to the spin-off Gen V.

I can't say much for this final season since I haven't watched it yet.

But one major thing that has come from this was a lot of people starting to go back to the original Boys comic that started it all.

And this has lead to this major wave of people actually praising the comic and saying that it's actually a straight up masterpiece.

Not only that, but it's actually better than the show.

People can have their own opinions and what not, but I've recently reread the comic and I'm honestly wondering what the fuck are these people on.

Now The Boys comic isn't the worst comic ever.

There's definitely worse than it out there.

And there is a little more nuance than most people give it credit for, particularly with Butcher.

But with that said, this comic is not good.

The story is wack.

The art is an.......acquired taste.

Though mostly kinda ugly.

And with the exception of Butcher and Hughie, most of the characters are unlikable and unpleasant, with virtually little to no depth to them at all.

The most frustrating thing about the comics is the fact that is has a lot of interesting things to say and a lot of genuinely good ideas.

But they're almost always butchered (no pun attended) by their shotty execution.

Thanks in part to....

A) Garth Ennis' well-known hate boner for superheroes.

And B) The fact it's commentary is done with all the subtlety of a high-five from a polar bear.

But the funny thing I've been noticing is how whenever I see people praise The Boys, it's usually just for specific moments.

Not the overall story, the art, or even the characters.

Chances are most of your reading this have been seeing this GIF as of late.

And so, it's got me wondering if any of the recent praise of the comic is actually genuine, or just a massive joke.

It seems to be a mix of both.

As whenever people criticize the comics, I've seen comments saying how it's not only great, but how anyone who criticize it is a woke pussy who can't handle edgy stuff.

Their words, not mine's.

Additionally, they constantly treat PointlessHub like The Anti-Christ because of his video and Just Stop like The Messiah.

A lot of the praise for the comic from what I've seen is largely for the humor.

And I have no clue why because The Boys is genuinely unfunny.

Largely because it's just shock value.

I don't recall even so much as smiling at a joke.

The TV show isn't much better in this regard.

But at least they have Antony Starr's performance and this....

Plus the show at least has considerably most restraint.

In general, the recent praise for The Boys comic seems to come from either adults who never grew out of their edgy phases when they were teenagers, or.....genuinely some of the worst people out there.

Largely because of the comic's frankly gratitous use of slurs and frequent jokes about race and sexuality.

Especially the latter.

I swear, you will hear the use of the N-word with the hard R more from this comic than from an actual fucking minstrel show!

And given the Internet (especially on TikTok and Instagram) genuinely seem to love hateful content nowadays, this comic seems to be up their alley.

Plus this recent wave of praising and glazing reminded me of something I genuinely hate about the modern Internet (among many things).

How people will pull random ass revisionist history movements for things that were really not that good....and still aren't.

Good lord, any of you remember the revisionist history movement for Breadwinners?

Not only that, but actively hating and shitting on anything that's actually successful and popular.

Even if it's actually good or even great.

Often for very dumb and ludicrous reasons.

If you're a GLITCH fan, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

But anyway, it's genuinely funny how when people say the comic is actually better than the show, they never really utilize any of the actual substance.

Particularly with the characters.

One thing I will always give to the show is what they did with the characters.

Because with the exception of Butcher and Hughie, nearly all of them have literally NOTHING in the comics.

Hell, a decent chunk of them don't even have real NAMES!

The show really did a lot of very shallow waters.

And one of the best showcases of this is with the main villain of the series himself: Homelander.

One of the weirdest things about The Boys comic is how The Seven are depicted when compared to the TV show.

In the show, The Seven are all complex characters in their own right, and we get to see both how they each ended up the way are now and even some of the little bit of humanity they have.

In the comics, they get none of them.

Yeah, despite being the main antagonists of the comic, they're essentially glorified background characters.

As the comic focuses more on the case by case missions of The Boys and the one-off supers that get killed off.

Every member is some variation of being incredibly shallow and one-note.

It's night and day when you compare them to how they are in the show.

Especially for characters like A-Train.

In the show, we see A-Train feel genuine guilt for his terrible actions and eventually go on to redeem himself by leaving Vought and helping The Boys.

He even shows remorse for his accidental killing of Robin and makes amends with Hughie.

And although he meets his demise at the hands of Homelander, he at least dies a true hero.

In the comic, A-Train is portrayed as an arrogant, hedonistic jerk.......and that's it.

There's nothing else to him.

No backstory.

No real motivations.

No struggles as an athlete with a drug addiction.

And no tenuous relationship with his family, particularly his brother.

And when it came to his death, comic A-Train met it at the hands of Butcher and Hughie.

But whereas TV A-Train died with his head held up high and getting to Homelander's core (which we'll talk about more later), comic A-Train died crying and actively begging for his life like a coward.

But in the case of Homelander himself.

In the comics, Homelander is the only member of The Seven to actually be something of a character.

Hell, he's literally the only member to even have a real name: John Gillman.

However, his character is very much flat.

For starters, just like all the other members, we get little to nothing on his actual past.

Homelander was created via the injection of Compound V into an embryo. His DNA was mixed with Stormfront's (who in the comics is a man), and the embryo was implanted into a mentally disabled woman. He was born in a Vought lab, immediately killing his mother by eviscerating her with his heat vision while still tethered to the umbilical cord, and even eviscerated the other doctors as well.

After his birth, Homelander spent the next 18 years in an underground Vought laboratory located in a silo in South Dakota.

And that's it.

Homelander's past is virtually glossed over.

But in the show, that past is far more focused on.

As a child, Homelander was constantly studied, prodded, and treated as a weapon and a corporate asset.

And most importantly, the show, well, shows how this upbringing affected him.

Which leads us to our next point: their personalities.

In the comics, Homelander is far more passive and shallow.

He's more of a "tool" of Vought than a self-starting political mastermind, acting mostly as a menace when his base urges aren't kept in check by corporate leadership.

Also, much like nearly every male member of The Seven, Homelander behaves essentially like a reckless, entitled college frat boy with superpowers. He enjoys indulging in drugs, reckless partying, constant sex with women and men alike (though often not consensual), and sadistic power trips simply because......he can.

Homelander has no real goals or motivations. He's just simply coasting off his global fame and fortune and doing whatever he wants.

The TV show, Homelander is a far more complex and layered character.

He's a deeply insecure, narcissistic, and mentally-unstable man-child with a major Oedipus complex.

All of this being the result of his upbringing.

Homelander's most consistent driving force is the desperate need to be loved and worshipped by the public. He constantly craves genuine affection due to how he was robbed of that during his childhood, but is ultimately incapable of forming real human connections because of it.

As you can see, the show actually gave Homelander some genuine humanity, while not shying away from how much of a horrible person he really is.

A major contrast to comic Homelander.

Additionally, despite being a narcissistic, show Homelander has also showcased the capability of being able care about others....in his own twisted way.

Probably the best showcase of this is with his own son Ryan.

Homelander genuinely wants to be a father to his son, largely because Ryan is a physical extension of his ego and a fellow superhuman. However, this care is highly conditional. The dynamic is toxic and possessive; when Ryan pushes back or expresses his own agency, Homelander's controlling and violent nature takes over.

This gets even worse when he's confronted by the terrifying realities of aging and mortality, Homelander becomes fixated on his legacy. And so, he starts trying to pour intense, often destructive effort into grooming and shaping Ryan to be a continuation of his power and ideology.

Contrast that to comic Homelander, who literally cares about no one other than himself.

God helps if this man actually had a son.

Anyway, both versions of Homelander eventually reach a climax/breaking point that leads them to decide to essentially take over the country.

But the way they get there are drastically different.

In the comics, Homelander receives photos from a mysterious source of him supposedly committing horrific atrocities.

Killing innocent people, sexually assaulting multiple women, and even eating literal BABIES!

This genuinely shocks him to his core.

Not just because of how horrific these were (even to him), but because he has no memory of doing any of this at all.

Believing he had committed these depraved, unspeakable acts, Homelander experiences a total psychotic break. He starts conversing with his own reflection in a disturbing, two-way mirror, hallucinating another persona as his mental state completely unravels.

Convinced that he is an irredeemable, bloodthirsty monster, Homelander gives up entirely on trying to maintain his public image. His inhibitions completely fall away, and he begins to actively fulfill the dark, twisted persona he thinks he already embodies and realizes that thanks to his power, he can do anything he wants.

Completely detached from reality and convinced he has nothing left to lose, Homelander completely snaps. He leads his fellow superheroes in a full-scale, bloody uprising, slaughtering heroes who refuse to join them and violently overthrowing the US Government at The White House.

In the show, Homelander's breaking point becomes a gradual process.

Throughout the series, various events and people contribute to Homelander's mental deterioration.

The death of Madelyn Stillwell, who was the closest thing he ever had to a mother.

The vicious rejection of Soldier Boy, his own father.

The exposure of some of his terrible actions to the public, leading to opinions on him becoming splintered.

Stormfront installing a supremacist mindset into him, now believing that non-powered humans are beneath Supes and need to be dominated.

And physical confrontations that led him to getting hurt and almost dying, making him realize he isn't the invincible god he thought he was and that he is very much mortal.

As for his take over of the country, instead of being done with essentially a war, Homelander does so through a meticulously orchestrated political coup with the help of Sister Sage.

Sage orchestrates a plan to assassinate the incoming Vice President, Victoria Neuman, and frame President-elect Robert Singer for it.

After Singer is arrested, the Speaker of the House, Steven Calhoun, is sworn in as President. Calhoun pledges his loyalty to Homelander and gives him command of all Supes in the entire country.

The administration’s backing allows Homelander to openly hunt down, imprison, or silence all of his perceived enemies.

Made only worse now that he has backing of all law enforcement in the country and the entire US military.

And now, we come to their respective defeats.

And this leads us to finally talking about the elephant in the room.

In the comics, shortly after taking over The White House, he's confronted by Black Noir, who reveals himself to be a clone of Homelander.

Black Noir reveals that he was created by Vought years ago as a contingency plan to take out Homelander if he ever went rogue.

But since he never did, Black Noir's existence became pretty much meaningless.

And as a result, he would start to go insane and develop an immense hatred for Homelander.

This led him to start posing as Homelander and start committing horrific crimes.

Including the ones Homelander would find out about.

Additionally, it's revealed that he was the one responsible for raping Becky, Butcher's wife.

This was all done as a plan to make Homelander lose his mind and go ballistic, finally giving Black Noir a reason to commit the very thing he was made for.

As you would expect, Homelander is hit with the shocking realization that he basically threw his entire life away for nothing.

Soon enough, he flies into a violent rage and attacks Black Noir.

The entire fight is completely off screen.

And by the time we see both of them again, Homelander is already DEAD.

Yeah, let's talk about giant black elephant in the room.

Black Noir being a clone of Homelander.

Now the concept isn't inherently bad at all.

And his motivation is fairly solid.

But the problem comes in the execution.

To be frank, this twist is a full-on ass pull.

Because it literally misses the most obvious and basic rule of setting up a twist villain: SETTING UP THE TWIST!

There's no foreshadowing or hints at Black Noir's true identity whatsoever throughout the story.

And I don't even recall the comics ever really mentioning the concept of cloning in general.

I find it baffling how people genuinely praise this twist as being great, when it's literally on the level as the twist villains from 2010s Disney!

So yeah, that's the story of comic Homelander.

And to be honest, it's pretty disappointing.

Despite being the main villain of the comic, he really didn't have much going for him.

Definitely more so when compared to rest of The Seven, but still not a whole lot.

Overall, Homelander was a pretty flat and passive character.

There was nothing about him that stood out from....literally most of the other Supes.

He only really became interesting when he started to find out about the terrible things he supposedly did and not having any memory about doing so at all, and ultimately becoming the monster he thought he was.

But that unfortunately got thrown out the window with the Black Noir reveal.

In the end, he was nothing but a pawn and victim to a villain who literally had no presence whatsoever until the very end.

Hell, even his death in the comic is pretty anticlimactic.

As it literally happens off-screen!

But then there's TV Homelander.

One of the funniest things to think about is despite the show being considerably more tame than the comics, TV Homelander is ironically the more evil of the two Homelanders.

Now before going crazy, comic Homelander was just a douchebag and a degenerate.

But TV Homelander is a legitimate sociopath!

He's done infinitely worse and more evil things than comic Homelander has.

Including.....

-Murdering Stillwell while she was with her baby.

-Letting an entire plane full of innocent people crash to protect his reputation.

-Lasering down a private jet with the mayor and his prepubescent son on board to hide the secret of Compound V.

-Murdering Black Noir, his most loyal teammate, after finding out about his secrets, particularly keeping the fact that Soldier Boy was his real father.

-Crushing the ears of a blind hero candidate just to prove he wouldn't accept "disabled" supes.

-Repeatedly mentally and psychologically breaking Starlight, forcing her to choose between her dignity and the lives of innocent people.

-In fact, he constantly belittles, threatens, and gaslights The Seven for them to stay loyal to him and follow what he says.

-Murdered a shapeshifter who was only trying to please him.

-Purposely distributing Compound V globally to terrorists to spark a war just so he could be the "solution."

-In a mirror monologue, he promises to "wipe the map clean" aka commit GLOBAL GENOCIDE if the public dares to turns on him.

-Verbally, mentally and physically abused Ryan into following in his ways.

-Bullied a suicidal teen into jumping off a roof.

And most importantly (given this was the catalyst for the show).....

-Raping Becca.

As you can see, Homelander is a MONSTER.

And additionally, a far more effective and stronger villain.

Given he's such a major focus in the show, he's a much more proactive character than he was in the comics.

And what makes TV Homelander's villainy so much better than comic Homelander's villainy, besides the focus on him as an actual character, is the fact that everything he does is 100% his doing!

Yeah! There's no cop-out at the end to reveal that everything he did was the result of a clone.

Everything Homelander has done throughout the show is wholly HIS fault.

And this is makes his defeat much more satisfying.

Even though the finale may have not been the best, the way Homelander died was honestly perfect.

Thanks to a concentrated radiation blast from Kimiko, Homelander is stripped of his powers.

Which he gradually finds out when he attempts to fly, and laser and punch Butcher.

Soon enough, Butcher lies a no-holds barred beatdown on Homelander.

As Homelander lays on the ground, he starts to beg for his life, trying to offer Butcher anything in order to be spared.

From offering to give him Vought, to having a shapeshifter pose as Becca, to most famously, offering to suck his dick.

But Butcher ultimately refuses and ends Homelander once and for all by splitting his skull open with a crowbar, just like how he did to Black Noir in the comics.

There are three reasons as to why Homelander's defeat is so much better than in the comics.

1#) Given this Homelander has actually done many terrible things, it made his downfall much more satisfying and deserving.

2#) Butcher was the one to kill Homelander, which just fits much more thematically given he was the one kickstart his crusade against the Supers! Made much better since Homelander was the one to actually rape Becca and not a random clone.

and 3#) It perfectly encapsulates one of the main thematic pillars of the series. That being that without his powers, Homelander is truly NOTHING.

At his core, Homelander is a fragile, manufactured weapon raised in a sterile Vought laboratory with no genuine human connection or normal socialization. His god-like powers are the only thing protecting him from confronting his profound inner emptiness.

His arrogance, dominance, and fascist control over society are entirely dependent on his powers. 

You remember how I said A-Train got Homelander’s core just as he was about to die.

Well as Homelander is beating him, A-Train drops this hard-ass line.

"You're just an empty fucking suit. Take away these powers and what are you, huh?"

Along with calling him, as quoted…..

"A pathetic, weak, snivelling fucking loser"

Not only is this a great scene because it perfectly showcases how much A-Train has truly grown, but also because (as far as I know) it’s very first time in the series that anyone has truly gotten down to what Homelander has always been.

Nothing.

Well that’s it for now.

And overall, it’s genuinely fascinating what they did with Homelander.

Admittedly that can be said for nearly everyone, but it’s especially apparent with him given he’s one of the most important characters.

(long post, strap in)

i wanna talk about colin's wet dream. that was the most demisexual shit i have EVER seen. there's not even any sex. its just a romanticized, elevated version of their first kiss. its colin's subconscious wanting to replay the moment he fell in love with his best friend in the Most way possible.

lets break it down:

we got the same location of their first kiss. Complete with mood lighting and a fog machine. It’s giving pride and prejudice 2005

Penelope comes out (looking gorgeous, of course) to their rendezvous spot, which has been previously agreed on.

colin thanks her for meeting him, she doesn't know why he's asked her to come

he confesses his feelings for her

she reciprocates (this is the important part of this to me. ) her wanting him, makes him want her more (do you see where the demisexual colin energy is coming from? do you understand?)

they make out

he kisses her neck as she pants his name over and over (see my point above re: her wanting him makes him want her more)

he wakes up, absolutely shook

this is an idealized reimagining for colin: during their first kiss he was basically in shock, his new personality chokes on the reality and vulnerability of the moment

in the book he talks about how he tries to think of something witty to say but finds that no words are necessary, and there's no combination of witty banter or suave bravado that could help in that moment. the rake persona that he has put on up to this point absolutely fails him. but here, in this dream, words are crucial, the declarations of love are why its sexy! (demi colin is canon idc idc)

and its so important that this wet dream, the idealized version of this scenario happens like this. because we've also seen colin having sex with sex workers (and luke newton has talked about this) but his energy in those scenes is very detached, very focused on him and his pleasure with zero connection to the women he's with. he has two different threesomes (if you can even call the second one that, he's barely even looking at them) with four different women and we know nothing about these girls. they don't even get names. they don't matter, and its simply not. as. good. as the feeling of kissing pen. there is no connection

which is, i think, why he taps out during the threesome in ep4. he tries to go back to the devil-may-care attitude toward sex and intimacy that he had before kissing pen, he tries to return to that mask he put on of "the rake" and it just doesn't work! he feels nothing! in fact he feels disdain for the position he's in and the choices he's made!

the threesome in ep4 mirrors the outburst he has later at the club really well. like he's so frustrated with this position he's put himself in, the men he's surrounded himself with. he literally says "none of you are gentlemen!" "you're actually gross and disrespectful!"

a line that i love is :

"... it is tiring, is it not? The necessity imposed on us to remain cavalier about the one thing in life that holds genuine meaning. Do you not find it lonely?"

and they laugh! in! his! face! because these are men that feel perfectly fine sleeping with strangers and bragging about their "conquests" to their buddies

but that is not who colin is! he's still very young. and his experience with marina (who tried to seduce him and it didn't work, imo bc he just didn't feel that passion, that love that makes his relationship with penelope so different) has left him jaded, but not nearly as jaded as he wants to believe. even if he wants to be casual about romance and sex, he just isn't. this man proposed to marina after knowing her for what? a couple weeks? He is an All or Nothing type of guy. He has that Bridgerton 'when i fall in love i will only ever talk about my spouse' Gene

Now: some costuming details that i love:

Her hair:

(i know this is a stretch but go with me here) her hair is in slightly tighter curls than we've seen this season, which to me seems like a nod to colin liking (or at least not minding) her hair the way it was in previous seasons and maybe not caring as much as we might think about her transformation. but its still down and flowy and in line with her new style

let's talk about this! dress! (it has genuinely been keeping me up at night)

the sleeves seem much more similar to the silhouettes of her costumes in previous seasons, not necessarily in shape but in style

the sleeves are bulkier, compared to this season's costumes, which while they might have been the same size and shape, they are made of much lighter material, giving the silhouette a softer, more mature feeling.

compare it to this dress from s3 ep2: it looks very similar with the sleeve shape and the floral appliqués, but in the dress in the image above, the appliqués are much more obvious, closer to penelope's style under her mother's tastes

the point i'm trying to make here will be made more clear in a sec. what I am NOT trying to say that colin prefers her in her little girl dresses with loud designs, bright colors, and silly hairdos. he just associates those bigger, brighter, louder style choices with penelope.

And he has always liked Penelope. Even when he didn’t take her seriously as a potential partner, he always saw her as an equal. He never made fun of her silly dresses and questionable hair choices.

This has nothing to do with Colin but i feel like i should point it out:

there is something to be said about how her muted pastel color palette along with the more demure style that she has adopted shows that she is trying to Show Up with this social season, but as a wallflower, she is shy. she's always hated those brightly colored dresses her mother put her in, because no matter how close to the wall she clung, she was always visible. she was always vulnerable to ridicule.

but i don't think colin knows or realizes this because why would he think critically about the specific style changes she's made. and he probably doesn't really make the connection of the influence her mother has on her clothing. and around him, pen has never seemed all that shy. she's been confident and witty. if you pair her personality that shines around colin with her louder outfits, it seems more congruous

(take the scene from season 2 where we get the line "My purpose shall set me free") this is a side of penelope that no one, not even eloise!, sees

what his subconscious knows is that he associates pen with vibrant, textured, and often 3-dimensional outfits, and his subconscious creates a dress that fits her new style, with a little more of that featherington flair thrown in.

the fucking tie in front: i feel like this is a very clear reference/ foreshadowing to the mirror scene

for those of you who haven't read the book, the mirror scene doesn't actually happen, but colin tells penelope about a fantasy he has about touching her in front of a mirror

this is a pretty small offhand comment made while they're having sex for the first time but amongst book fans the scene has become pretty fleshed out i think, with fanfics especially

because the idea that it touches on is colin fantasizing about penelope seeing herself the way he does, as sexy and desirable (he seriously cares about her pleasure so much its sickening, I'm actually sick)

and although Book Colin doesn't mention it, the idea of him undressing her in front of a mirror has become a popular story set-up

i think the tie in the front sort of plays on the time period sensibilities of propriety: this is a time where in "good" society an unmarried man and woman would never touch skin to skin, its why all the women wear gloves most of the time. its why the scenes in season 1 between daphne and simon play on the excitement of removing the gloves: its a taboo thing

this is unrelated to this post but i need an explanation as to why pen isn't wearing gloves in a lot of her scenes this season, like the scandal that that would cause??? I'm assuming its representative of her growing into her sexuality; and bridgerton is a fantasy, not a historical nonfiction, but like some consistency would be nice guys bc i was so confused abt all the skin-on-skin contact happening. even with Francesca and Lord Samadani WHEN HE KISSES HER BARE HAND I WAS SO UNCOMFORTABLE FOR HER. especially because of all the glove-related tension in s1. but i digress.

so the tie in front is sort of a dare. even though its clearly an addition, and untying wouldn't actually remove her dress, its her (colin's subconscious version of her anyway) way of saying: "you could untie this, you could undress me if you wanted to" "i love you" "i want you"

and i think that's beautiful. this season is great and i will die on this hill.

If you've made it this far, congrats! you're just as feral as me! come and gnaw on the drywall with me while i post fanfics inspired by this season: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55988977/chapters/142190584

chapters 1+2 of my new fic are up

Through the Walls: A Survivor’s Take on TharnType

Why Read or Watch TharnType

Because it’s not just a BL, it’s a messy, human drama with teeth.

If you want squeaky clean fluff, this is not your show. If you want something that forces you to sit with contradictions; attraction and revulsion, trauma and tenderness, hate and love crashing into each other in a tiny dorm room, then this one’s for you.

It’s uncomfortable. It’s problematic. And it’s also deeply relatable if you’ve ever had walls so high you didn’t think anyone could climb them, and then someone did.

You watch TharnType because:

It’s not afraid of showing the ugly side of healing. Type lashes out, Tharn screws up, Techno blurts out the truth at the worst possible times. It’s not tidy, and that’s the point.

It’s got humor where you least expect it. (Porn group chat? Legendary. Techno being the accidental truth-teller? Iconic.)

It’s about care; real, flawed, complicated care. Survivors will recognize that hunger for someone to see past the thorns and still choose you.

It’s about chemistry. The actors don’t just play enemies-to-lovers; they radiate it. That pull makes you want to scream and swoon in the same breath.

Anime, comics, and manga are more than just entertainment—they are gateways to imagination, storytelling, and culture. Each medium offers a unique way of experiencing narratives, building worlds, and connecting with characters. Whether it’s the sweeping epic of a long-running manga, the emotional depth of an anime series, or the intricate artistry of a comic book, these mediums have captivated…

While the Disney adaptation from 1991 is undoubtedly told through the eyes of Belle, the beauty, the main developments and focus of the film is on the Beast and his development. Even if his true name is never mentioned throughout the movie. But of the many adaptations of "La Belle et la Bête" very few are written or told through the perspective of the Beast, even if he, like in Disney's classic, is the one going through the character growth and transformation that drives the plot. There is one adaptation that I know of that does have the audience follow this tale through the eyes of the beast.

"Beastly" the film from 2011, adapted from Alex Flinn's 2007 novel adaptation of the classic fairy tale, changes quite a bit around, from both the novel it's based on and the fairy tale. Set in the then modern-day New York city, instead of a prince with a mysterious lack of parents given his age, he is a junior in high school and the son of a news anchor who cannot even keep even a five-minute conversation with his son.

The film opens with our beast, Kyle Kingson, going through a work out to a song praising vanity, and cutting from shots of Kyle maintaining his appearance and New York billboards with photo enhanced models. Throughout the film the Beast's horrible attitude is shown to be the result of abandonment and neglect from his parents, and that his obsession with his own appearance and treating others based on looks is all in the efforts of gaining approval and attention from his judgemental and vain father. And his horrible treatment of others when shown kindness a result of the neglect as well as he cannot accept kindness from others if he cannot get it from his father.

(Kyle working out, opening sequence ⤴️)

The film also uses a different "ugly" for the curse, instead of a huge furry beast (like in most iterations, including the book that the film is adapted from), Kyle's body gets covered in vein-like tattoos, raised shapes, cutouts in his skin, facial scarring, and bits of metal stuck in raw gashes in his skin. The film also shows his father reacting to his son's newfound ugliness by taking straight to a plastic surgeon and acting like the disfigurement is equivalent to his son dying. The father also moves Kyle out of his penthouse into a smaller house with small windows, isolated from most of the city, claiming that he'll move in later, which he keeps pushing off. Once Kyle understands that his father will not have anything to do with him anymore he starts to undergo his character transformation, showing patience and kindness to the few people who interact with him, the family maid, and his blind tutor. Even resulting in a realization that what his father taught him about how much a person likes you is "directly proportional to how you look" is false, that no one liked him even when he was attractive. To which he self-isolates, deleting his social media, with the realization that his past identity was only based on his looks, and therefore, he isn't that Kyle anymore.

(Photo from IMDB movie gallery).

Beauty through the eyes of the Beast

Beastly's beauty, Lindy, is not the most beautiful or strikingly beautiful like in most iterations of the fairy tale. She and Kyle vaguely interact and are intrigued by one another before Kyle becomes "the beast". Kyle starts to like her because she is the only one who is genuine with him, about who she truly is and is also one of the few people who treats him like a human being and not a popular rich kid or annoying brat. She introduces herself as "substance over style". Lindy is also one of the few people who treats the beast (who goes by a fake name, Hunter) as just a person, even if he introduces himself face to face while wearing a ski-mask. Also coming from a bad parental situation, with a poor, addict as a father, and also no mother, she is a relatable figure and also a role model to how to be a genuine person, less judgemental, more kind, and less self-centered. And her genuine nature leads Kyle to want her to like him and want her to not feel trapped with him. Culminating in a fear that she wont love him because of his appearance (leftover from the trauma of paternal abandonment) and the fear that she won't love him if she realizes that he, Hunter, is Kyle the self-centered "style over substance" jerk (stemmed from implied self-hatred, due to both his development as a person, and his neglect and maternal abandonment).