(Source: ohpuppies)
Once upon a time, in a faraway land,
A young Prince lived in a shining castle
Although he had everything his heart desired,
The Prince was spoiled, selfish, and unkind.
But then, one winter’s night, an old beggar-woman came to the castle,
And offered him a single rose in return for shelter from the bitter cold.
Repulsed by her haggard appearance, the Prince sneered at the gift and turned the old woman away,
But she warned him not to be deceived by appearances,
For beauty is found within.
And when he dismissed her again, the old woman’s ugliness melted away
To reveal a beautiful Enchantress.
The Prince tried to apologize, but it was too late,
For she had seen that there was no love in his heart.
And as punishment, she transformed him into a hideous Beast, and placed a powerful spell on the castle, and all who lived there.
Ashamed of his monstrous form, the Beast concealed himself inside his castle, with a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world.
The rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose, which would bloom until his 21st year.
If he could learn to love another, and earn her love in return,
By the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken.
If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time.
As the years passed, he fell into despair, and lost all hope.
For who could ever learn to love a Beast?
(Source: gatsbees)
(Source: daeneryus)
Sylvia Plath (via piiss) —
(Source: luthienswolf)
Men still have trouble recognizing that a woman can be complex, can have ambition, good looks, sexuality, erudition, and common sense. A woman can have all those facets, and yet men, in literature and in drama, seem to need to simplify women, to polarize us as either the whore or the angel. That sensibility is prevalent, even to this day.
I had to reconcile the real person and the character of Anne Boleyn as created in the text. For the actor, the text is your bible. You can try to put a spin on the nuances, but in the end our job is to be the vehicle of the text. But I got tired of flying the flag of Showtime in interviews, [justifying the show’s sexuality and inaccuracies] when in the pit of my stomach, I agreed wholly with what the interviewer was saying to me. I lost many hours of sleep, and actually shed tears during my portrayal of her, trying to inject historical truth into the script, trying to do right by this woman that I had read so much about. It was a constant struggle, because the original script had that tendency to polarize women into saint and whore. It wasn’t deliberate, but it was there.
I begged Michael Hirst to do it right in the second [season]. He listened to me because he knew I knew my history. And I remember saying to him: `Throw everything you’ve got at me. Promise me you’ll do that. I can do it. The politics, the religion, the personal stuff, throw everything you’ve got at me. I can take it.’ I wanted to show that she was a human being, a young woman placed in a really difficult and awful situation, manipulated by her father, the king, and circumstances, but that she was also feisty and interesting and had a point of view and tried to use her powers to advance what she believed in. And I wanted people to live with her, to live through her. To see her.
Natalie Dormer, discussing the difficulty of giving an accurate portrayal of Anne Boleyn on The Tudors (x)
Our Irene Adler, elementapeeps!!!
(via andimprouvaire)
(Source: nicolebonnet)
—friendly reminder:
- female characters are allowed to cry
- female characters are allowed to be scared
- female characters are allowed to be stoic
- female characters are allowed to feel and express any emotions/lack of emotions that are textually relevant and in-line with their character.
