Watching The Moria Scene In The Fellowship

‘Where do you estimate we belong, Ms Keeler?’

‘You? At his side, as if you’ve always been there and always will.’

The Spares, Part 1

Based on this post. Thanks for the inspo @torchwood-99!

ya pero~...

You know what my actual favourite Andrew Minyard line in the whole series is? It's not his sentimental lines like, "...from now until May you are still Neil Josten...". It's not even the best love confession in all of literature line, "Doesn't mean I wouldn't blow you." It's when he says "I'm not as smart as I thought I was."

That one line tells you so much about Andrew's character. That's the line that spells out for the reader that Andrew is smarter than he chooses to let on. That's the line that shows you just highly Andrew thinks of his own intelligence and how much he's been relying on it to survive and to keep his promises.

Consider that up until that point Andrew has presented himself with nothing less than the domineering kind of toughness you'd expect to see in a prison scene in a movie. He openly talks about breaking Neil, threatens multiple people with knives and makes everyone work around him. His "tough guy around town" persona and his ability to inflict violence is clearly something he prizes. AND YET. The first time he admits to any kind of dissatisfaction with himself, it's about his intelligence.

That is the point where the reader realizes that Andrew, in his own mind, is an intellectual. He doesn't actually pride himself on being the toughest guy in the room. He's aware that he's all of 5-feet-nothing and he knows at any given moment there's likely to be someone bigger and stronger than he is. What he's counting on in any given situation is being the smartest guy in the room. Fix any issues before they worsen, anticipate and eliminate any threats before they surface, think his way out of any problem that comes up. His intelligence is what he relies on to keep his promises.

That's the moment Andrew realizes that he's been letting his feelings get the better of his logic. He clocks Neil as dangerous from day one. But he's been telling himself that he's letting Neil stay for Kevin's sake or at least just until he can definitively prove Neil is dangerous. But the real reason he let Neil stay and get away with all his sketchy behaviour is because he let the fact that he likes Neil as a person, overcome his logic.

It makes you think, OH, THAT'S WHY Andrew was so interested in Neil in the first place. For someone who prides himself on his intelligence and KNOWS that no one else can match his smarts, Neil figuring out his twin switcheroo trick is the same as Neil throwing down the gauntlet and challenging him to a battle of wits. Andrew keeps trying to trip Neil up and Neil keeps batting his attempts aside and Andrew ends up helplessly charmed by Neil. Because Andrew LIKES that Neil is able to outsmart him sometimes, that Neil is his intellectual equal. And somewhere along the way, he's let himself forget that he "knows better" than to get emotionally attached, than to let someone else best him at his best quality- than to act like every other idiot in love that he's ever met.

You then realize that Andrew hasn't once thought of himself as brawny jock. That off-putting delinquent/school-shooter vibe and psycho reputation is a carefully calculated form of self-defense. It's self-defense in the literal sense of scaring off people who might want to fuck with him, but perhaps also in the sense of protecting himself from being seen. It makes sense, right? If people were to actually try to get to know him with an open mind, they'd soon discover that he IS difficult to get along with in ways they thought they could handle, but can't. Better to act the volatile asshole than suffer the disappointment of people changing how they treat him. And in the unlikely case that people find out that he isn't as tough as he presents himself, they might pity him. And that would be even worse. Much better to be as un-fuck-with-able as possible.

First time reading the book, I was taken in by Andrew's jock-ish façade. But the moment he admitted maybe he ought to be disappointed in himself for not being as smart as he thought he was, I had to set the book down and rethink every assumption I had made about Andrew as a character. The timing of that revelation is so perfect, because it happens just before the Thanksgiving mess. And so as the reader, you're suddenly coming to terms with the fact that Andrew is so much more vulnerable than he's ever portrayed himself to be at the same time that Andrew is being hit with probably one of the worst moments in his life. Like, that absolutely TOOK ME OUT. Which is why, that's one of the best lines in the whole series to me.

i can't find the post now but i saw something about miriel being disabled pre giving birth and was inspired <3

More things that get left out of Dracula adaptations

Van Helsing pulls 29 year old Dr Seward's ear like he's still a schoolboy

There's a relationship-establishment flashback between Van Helsing and Seward

In it, Van Helsing accidentally gets cut with something unclean. His then-student Seward immediately drops everything to start sucking on the wound raw

At one point, Seward asks to become his "pet student again."

Dracula has a big, permanent scar on his forehead from Jonathan Harker's shovel

Arthur Holmwood saying "Tally ho!"

Transylvanians conclude that the delirious, amnesiac Jonathan Harker is English due to "his violent demeanour."

Despite attempts to keep low profile, Dracula gets into the news twice in two months (in one of them as a missing dog)

Dracula getting misreported as a dog because English people have never seen a wolf

London newspapers treat Lucy's vampire attacks on children as a meme among kids because they don't believe in vampires

Dracula gets sworn at by a British sailor solely because he thinks Dracula is French

Van Helsing is baffled why British sailors keep talking about blood and bloom (it's swearing)

Van Helsing is friends with real life turkologist traveller Arminius Vámbéry, who is his main source on the Dracula family

Van Helsing is friends with Hans Christian Andersen and references The Ugly Duckling

Van Helsing getting one-upped by Mina every single time he says something sexist about her intelligence

Dracula failing to destroy the evidence against him because Mina backs up her files

Mina and Jonathan kissing on the mouth in front of everybody

Quincey Morris spontaneously gifting Mina the Victorian equivalent of a MacBook Air

My favourite thing about The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is that CS Lewis very obviously knew that kids were going to go hunting in cupboards and wardrobes for Narnia because multiple times he very clearly states that the kids did not close the door behind them when they climbed in the wardrobe because that would be stupid and dangerous. He knew some kid was going to lock themselves in the closet and he obviously didn’t want to be responsible for that.

The effect Neil has on people should be studied by scientists

before I actually hopped on the dracula train I saw a lot of assertions around that seward is unstoppably horny, and this is true, but it did not prepare me for the way in which seward is unstoppably horny. it's not unbridled carnality, it's more a shade of the "I think I could survive truly horrific circumstances if I had a crush on someone there" phenomenon. jack is in the pits of despair and doing Real Bad and sees everyone else around him as effortlessly more charismatic and competent than he is, so his poor brain is trying to cope by falling terribly, embarrassingly in love with all of his friends to try and spark any kind of joie de vivre. it gets him there eventually but there's a real curve to it, so he spends a good month or two thinking "goddd lucy is so achingly beautiful. quincy has the most manhood of all of us. I want van helsing to treat me like his student again and put me in my place. I haven't slept in four days and I hope something tragicly preventable happens to me tomorrow."

I think Seward might be a bit distracted