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for autumn

@longstoryshortikilledhim / longstoryshortikilledhim.tumblr.com

I like characters who make bad decisions. ⚓

The most tender eyes I found in paintings

1. Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin, 1884, by Ilia Repin | 2. Megilla, 1921, by John William Godward | 3. Gabrielle Cot, 1890, by William Bougereau | 4. By @lingly

*record scratch* hold up, what was that?

a new Hammer horror film?? they’re doing Jekyll and Hyde??

and it’s starring *checks notes* it’s starring

Suzy Izzard as Dr. Nina Jekyll??

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[img 1: promo photo of Izzard as Dr Jekyll in a black suit jacket+skirt with walking cane, looking troubled in profile, in an eerie yellow room which also contains a marble bust]

[img 2: excerpt—

Details on the project have been scant, but today director Stephenson shares with Fangoria the first image of Izzard on set, and confirms that her character Nina Jekyll is a trans woman in the film’s narrative, lest anyone think we’re in for another helping of the gender-bending tomfoolery of past reimaginings like Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.

“There have been over 100 cinematic adaptations of Stevenson’s novella, but there has never been a trans Dr. Jekyll,” says Stephenson. “There seem to be some assumptions that because Nina is a trans character, we are somehow going to make it about gender. That is not the case; the themes of our film are true to the original work.”]

this is the kind of character trait you put in an adaptation to COMPLEMENT its existing themes oh my god. ohhhhh my god. my favorite thing, “an overblown metaphor for thing AND the thing itself actually being depicted by someone who knows what the thing is” seems about to happen in this production :-0

I really extremely disagree with this and in fact worry that we are conflating "making it accessible" with "dumbing it down" which does nobody any favors. Poetry doesn't have to be badly written and empty of all meaning to be "accessible," and if you want poetry that "doesn't require your brain" then frankly you don't want poetry.

The poet Hera Lindsay Bird recently did some light defacing of Rupi Kaur and I found the poems much improved