Eileen - Tumblr Posts

It Only Takes A Moment - Michael Crawford

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Supernatural 12x21 

leave me alone

State Of Mind: "'Smash': Its Rocky First Season And Its Bright Future"

"Fade in on a girl with a hunger for fame and a face and a name to remember." So begins one of the most thrilling show tunes in recent memory. Interestingly enough, it's not from a musical, at least not one on Broadway. It's from "Smash", one of the best shows to premiere in recent memory.

"Smash" is about "Marilyn: The Musical", a fictional Broadway musical about the life and hardships of legendary actress and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe. More specifically, the show details the production end of the musical, from its inception to its casting to rehearsals to its premiere in Boston. The two main characters are Ivy Lynn, a veteran Broadway actress who's ready to sink her teeth into a leading role, and Karen Cartwright, a newcomer who the production team believes may have the chops to star in the show despite her inexperience. Other leads include Julia Houston and Tom Levitt, the show's book writer and composer, Derek Wills, the show's director, and Eileen Rand, the show's producer. The show follows these characters and their hardships as they try to cobble together a show in a unusually short amount of time.

The show's pilot was one of the most critically-acclaimed premieres for a show that I've ever seen, but critical and fan opinion of the show turned sour unbelievably quickly. People thought that the show became too focused on the personal lives of the characters as opposed to on the show. They also thought that the show was too reliant on viewers feeling a certain way and attaching themselves to certain characters. Many people jumped ship as the show decreased in quality. Why do I still watch it then? Why did it get so "bad"? How can they fix it for the now guaranteed second season?

I love this show, even if the pilot was the best episode thus far. The critics are right, though, it is at its best when it's focusing on the musical and its production. Anyone who read my ramblings on "Glee" know that I thought the first thirteen episodes were near perfection, while the rest of the first season was very good, but not quite as good. For "Smash", the first two episodes were "Glee"'s first thirteen, while the first seasons of these two shows as a whole matched up pretty well. The first two episodes of "Smash" focused on the casting of Marilyn Monroe in the musical and made clear the show's focus before it got muddled in personal stories and unimportant side characters. Ivy's cover of "Crazy Dreams" was the perfect capstone to that perfect little arc, with Ivy' s years as a chorus girl paying off and Karen realizing that she still has a ways to go before she gets her chance to shine. It was a fitting end, so what happened?

I was hyped about the third episode. However, that was when the show started getting kinda soap opera-y. New love interests and affairs came rapidly into play. No couple was safe, no matter how stable they had been up to that point. As the season went on, I began to wonder if I had accidentally switched to "Desperate Housewives" with musical numbers. Ironically, plot lines like these are exactly the reason that I've never watched "Desperate Housewives" and shows like it. Therefore, there must have been something special there that kept me watching despite the increasingly ridiculous story lines. I think I can pinpoint, at least for me, the reasons why I kept watching.

The first is the premise. I love Broadway, particularly musicals. To see a show that was this knowledgeable and true to its Broadway roots was like a dream come true.  It was like "Glee" before it sold out and began doing hit songs almost exclusively. It was completely and unabashedly about Broadway, and it consistently contained show tunes (both original and well-known), Broadway actors, and theater references. I love the world that "Smash" puts a spotlight on.

The second is, interestingly enough, the characters. As much as people say that the characters are random and inconsistent, I've found the characters (or at least the performances of the actors portraying them) to be engaging. It's rare that shows elicit as much of a reaction from me as this show does, and I believe that the characters and their actions play a large part in that. Ivy Lynn, no matter what the writers make her do, will always be my favorite character on the show. I think she really does make the better Marilyn, and Megan Hilty deserves an Emmy nomination (at least) for her amazing performance. On the other hand, there's Karen, played by Katherine McPhee. I've liked her a lot more than I thought she would. Even if her character isn't as complex as Ivy, she's still talented and a surprisingly good Marilyn, even if her incorrect body type and pop voice kind of kill the image for me. I love Tom (Christian Borle), Julia (Debra Messing), and their relationship, even if I could do without the intense focus on Julia's love affairs and home life. I even love Derek and Eileen, despite their opposing personalities and apparent divisiveness among the fanbase.

The third, and possibly the most important, is the moments of sheer imagination and awesomeness that shine through the occasional murkiness. The original musical numbers are almost always bright spots, with songs like "Let Me Be Your Star", "Let's Be Bad", "The 20th Century Fox Mambo", "On Lexington and 52nd Street", "Second Hand White Baby Grand", and "Don't Forget Me" being constantly repeated on my iPod. There are also character moments and rehearsal and production scenes that prove that this show has the potential to be the most compelling thing on TV. The show is just too bogged down with the relationships and the personal lives of the characters.

I think the main problem with the show are these personal stories. I understand that personal stories are important and that most of the character dimension and development coming from these subplots, but it was getting kind of ridiculous. I also get some people may want to see what happens in the personal lives of these characters. That's fine, and I admit that I did find myself becoming invested in some of these subplots. It's just that the show got  bit carried away. As the side stories became more and more outlandish, I found myself caring less and less. The show's supposed to be a realistic backstage drama, so realism is key. I don't mind the personal stuff, but they just need to bring it back down to Earth a bit. There is a such thing as a stable relationship, and not everybody sleeps with everybody else.

The show was written and filmed before the first episode aired, so the writers couldn't change anything based on fan reactions and backlash. Therefore, the writers were writing based on assumptions about what viewers would want to see and which characters they would like or be interested in. Ellis was obviously written as the villain viewers would love to hate, but everyone just ended up loathing every second he was on the screen. The writers also assumed that the we would be more interested in Julia's home life than "Bombshell" itself.

Possibly the most egregious error they made, though, was assuming that everyone would be on Karen's side. While it is true that a large portion of viewers did side with Karen for various reasons, a huge part of the fanbase was immovably in Ivy's corner, myself included. This wouldn't have been so bad if the writers had been a bit more subtle, but it was clear from the very beginning that the writer's loved Karen and didn't care much for Ivy. This left viewers with scenes full of characters applauding Karen's unbelievable talent and perfection while Ivy became crazier and more cartoonishly evil with every passing episode. I think the writers actually ended up achieving that exact opposite of what they set out to do. By giving Ivy the short end of the stick in almost every situation, she quickly became a Woobie, and people began feeling sorry for her instead of hating her. Here's a woman who's struggled for her entire life to get where she is today. She's been overshadowed by other, and she has an overbearing mother. Here comes her one chance at the starring role she's waited her entire career for. She even gets the part at first, only to have it ripped away from her by the total newbie who hasn't paid her dues in the business yet. Now, don't get me wrong. I like Katherine McPhee. She has an amazing voice, and she's very pretty. However, I know that even some of her fans admit that she's just not right for Marilyn. She's too tall and thin, and her voice is too "pop". She'd do better in either a different musical or as a pop star. I want success for Karen; I just don't think this musical is a good fit for her.

The news recently came out that certain characters, including Ellis, Frank (Julia's husband), Dev (Karen's boyfriend), and Michael (Julia's lover), will not be returning next season. Personally, I think this is a good omen. Hopefully, this means that the writers are listening to the fans and that there will be more "Bombshell" and fewer personal stories next season. I know that I'll be watching this show until it gets cancelled, even if the second season still has its flaws.

"Smash", you already are my star.

me:  the stars are beautiful tonight

you: yeah

me:  you know what else is beautiful

you: (blushing) what?

me:  the moon.  the planets.  the rest of the galaxy.  i fucking love space

New items have been added to the store~!

I’ll be posting about them here in the next couple days.

This is the Starry Constellation Parasol~ this is dark navy, which is sort of a dark blue/violet purple sort of color depending on how you look at it. The lace detailing on the edge and bow fastener are super cute.

As for how to coordinate it…I could see it going great with AP’s cosmic series.

This can be bought in the sakurain store.

The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens.

Anaxagoras (via fyp-philosophy)

Mermaid Drinking Tea, by Claire Fletcher

PLEAAAASE!! 😭

Wishlist for Wayward Sisters

Jody Mills-check

Donna Handscom

Claire Novak

Alex

Representation for all women

Robbie Thompson to write at least a few episodes

Occasional visits by Castiel, Sam and Dean

Chuck to show up in the first episode of the season to resurrect Charlie, Eileen and Rowena to teach hacking, hunting and magic

Eileen the Crow

eileen crow

𝐆𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐲𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭.

He's a fairytale..

Sweet and shy.. Nice guy.

Owen Teague...

I've been dedicating videos and a lot of love to him for years now. (but only now can I show what I'm doing.)

He is an amazing and talented person who inspires me to develop in my work, as do some people from my environment.

I've known him and his projects for much longer than I've known Evan Peters.

come on, eileen!

wordgirl if it took place in nevada

🤩🤩

TwoBrains got stuck babysitting during a villain meeting and somehow Wordgirl got roped into it. Send help to out poor mouse man, he’s goin to need it

HERES ANOTHER ALBUM RECREATION! This time with the band KORN!

I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH AAAAAA

For Every Latest SPN Episode...

Reading Update

Hello everyone! I've come to update you all on my book journey!

Most recently finished book:

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, 10/10

Currently Reading:

Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut

Next in line:

Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

As always, I'm open for book recommendations!

Eileen Prince

I'm relentlessly curious about how a witch from Slytherin, a house that values cunning and ambition on paper, and bloodlines/nobility in its culture, ended up living in a muggle slum.

Unfortunately for me, she's a barely mentioned character written by an author who consistently fails to portray female characters with depth or dimension. The women in Harry Potter are portrayed as either maternal or villains, or, in Ginny Weasley's case, as redeemed by their masculine traits (because Rowling's Thatcher era feminism dictates that equality for women = emulating patriarchal ideas of manhood). About as much as you can expect from an author who's as unable to acknowledge the personhood of trans women as she is to write women as actual people. This leaves a lot of room for interpreting or delving into what Eileen Prince's life may have looked like, and how that would have affected her son's development.

There are three direct mentions of Eileen in the text :

“The picture showed a skinny girl of around fifteen. She was not pretty; she looked simultaneously cross and sullen, with heavy brows and a long, pallid face. Underneath the photograph was the caption: Eileen Prince, Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team.”

HBP Ch. 25

“I was going through the rest of the old Prophets and there was a tiny announcement about Eileen Prince marrying a man called Tobias Snape, and then later an announcement saying that she’d given birth to a" “ — murderer,” spat Harry.

HBP ch. 30

“Harry looked around: he was on platform nine and three-quarters, and Snape stood beside him, slightly hunched, next to a thin, sallow-faced, sour-looking woman who greatly resembled him.”

DH Ch. 33

(Shoutout to Harry James Potter, who didn't recognize Eileen's fifth year photo despite her resemblance to Snape, the teacher whose classroom he got his used Potions book from. Shoutout also to Harry James Potter who didn't connect the dots between the Prince's handwriting and Snape's, a teacher who regularly wrote instructions on the board. "I needed to make the plot work, ok?" - JK Rowling, probably.)

Other relevant excerpts:

“Snape staggered - his wand flew upwards, away from Harry - and suddenly Harry’s mind was teeming with memories that were not his: a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner ”

OoTP Ch. 26

“Harry delved into his trunk and pulled out his copy of Advanced Potion-Making before getting into bed. There he turned its pages, searching, until he finally found, at the front of the book, the date that it had been published. It was nearly fifty years old.”

HBP Ch. 16

Supplemental material re: Gobstones from JK Rowling:

"...it remains a minority sport within the wizarding world, and does not enjoy a very ‘cool’ reputation, something its devotees tend to resent. Gobstones is most popular among very young wizards and witches, but they generally ‘grow out’ of the game, becoming more interested in Quidditch as they grow older.  ... Gobstones enjoys limited popularity at Hogwarts, ranking low among recreational activities, way behind Quidditch and even Wizarding Chess." [There's an additional sentence on the Harry Potter wiki's Gobstones page: "...it is also known as 'the thinking wizard's Quidditch.'"]

A few conclusions can be drawn from what little information we're given about Eileen:

She's described as "cross and sullen" around the age of 15, and as "sallow-faced, sour-looking" when she's older.

She's captain of the Gobstones club around her fifth year, so she likely marched to the beat of her own drum - given that Gobstones isn't particularly popular - and owns it proudly enough to take, or even seek out, a leadership role.

The sport is described as "the thinking wizard's Quidditch" which would imply Eileen was more interested in intellectual challenges and was clever (and can be paralleled with a young Severus' comment about "if you'd rather be brawny than brainy" to James Potter when they first meet on the Hogwarts Express).

Her marriage and the birth of her son are both announced in the paper, which might mean the family she came from was of some importance or note, or perhaps something else... but we'll get to that.

If we assume that Severus' secondhand copy of Advanced Potion Making was originally Eileen's (reasonable, though there is no textual evidence) then its publication date is likely around the time she was a sixth year, given that this particular text was specific to students beginning to prep for N.E.W.T. exams. Harry begins his sixth year in 1996 when the book is "nearly fifty years old," so we can assume Eileen was 16 years old sometime not long after 1946. Severus was born in 1960, which would mean Eileen was in her mid-late 20s at the time.

Her marriage was dysfunctional at best, abusive at worst. As per a Pottermore post that is still up on WizardingWorld.com: "...the desperately lonely and unhappy childhood [Severus] had with a harsh father who didn’t hold back when it came to the whip." Based on this, we can assume Tobias was abusive, and given Eileen's cowering as he shouted at her, she presumably feared him.

From these bits of information emerges the image of a woman who either had a surly personality, or at the very least was guarded, though perhaps just formal. There isn't really any difference in how her face is set when she's in an everyday setting like King's Cross, or when she's having her picture taken for the Gobstones Club. It's possible she was a stern, unsmiling person, but it's also possible - given that her wedding and child were announced in the paper - that she came from a family of some standing and was raised to conduct herself with hallmarks of British class, such as dignity and unaffectedness. After all, there are several wizarding families - such as the Potters - who are wealthy purebloods with social standing but are not part of the Sacred 28. Additionally, the Gobstones Club portrait would have been taken around the mid-1940s, when portraits were formal and their subjects did not often smile, and given that we see only a snippet of Eileen, we don't have enough information that she was unhappy or sour. It's also important to remember that we see her portrait and Snape's memory of her through Harry's perspective and, like his perception of Snape himself, this may convey Harry's biases.

We also know from the text that Snape had a house in a deserted part of Cokeworth, a fictional Midlands town that presumably had a collapsed milling industry, at the end of a street called Spinner's End. There's a great thread that goes into details about the kind of 2 up 2 down house it would have been, and we can assume that this is Snape's family home given that we know he and Lily grew up in Cokeworth. For all intents and purposes, the conclusion we can draw from this being the Snape family's home in the 60s is that they were working class and cripplingly poor. Most estates like this had been cleared by the 60s, and no longer exist today.

This begs the question: how did a witch from a possibly well-off family end up in an abusive marriage in an irrelevant slum?

Buckle up kids, we're leaving the world of textual references and veering into deep meta territory now. I won't label any of this as head canon because I'm not set on these interpretations, and am just drawing conclusions from the text, but some of it may be a bit loose even for meta.

If Eileen was 16 years old not long after 1946, then she would have finished school in the late 40s, possibly even 1950. While some people (including past me) posit the theory that Tobias may have been injured in WWII and his injuries debilitated him, forcing him to go on the dole and affecting his mental health, I'm increasingly skeptical of this theory. It would make more sense if Eileen had known him before he was drafted/enlisted and had committed to a relationship with him, which would then have changed when he came back from the war and was altered. If we assume Eileen's age based on the idea that it was her own copy of Advanced Potion Making Severus used, then she would still have been at school during WWII (which makes an interesting parallel with Severus' own experience of spending the bulk of the first wizarding war against Voldemort as a student at school).

I do think, however, that there's merit in the theory that Tobias suffered some kind of altering injury and that he wasn't necessarily abusive before Eileen committed herself to him. It makes little sense for a Slytherin graduate who was confident and self-posessed enough to be the face of an unpopular club to be drawn to a partner so abusive his shouts caused her to cower and who whipped his child freely. If, however, he was a charming, happy man when they met who suffered a life-altering injury, the trauma of which left him a shell of his former self, then someone like Eileen might stick around for the sake of the parts of his old self she can still see in him.

It's interesting that she didn't seem to use her magic to protect herself or her son, or even to dress her son in clothing that fit, but we know from the text that depression can cause a wizard's powers to wane:

“...it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen”

HBP Ch. 13 (Dumbledore talking about Merope Gaunt)

The fact that the Snapes retained the house in Spinner's End seems to indicate that they continued to live there even when the local industry dried up and the slum was cleared as workers were moved to other parts of the country where they were needed (presumably what happened given *gestures at British history*). The most likely explanation for this would be that Tobias wasn't able to work, and perhaps did suffer an injury, only it was at work, and not during the war. This would mean the family lived on the dole (ie. welfare) and also that he would have spent a lot more time at home. It would also explain his anger and frustration that led to abusive behavior (which isn't to say that disabled people are abusive by any means, but it would have been emasculating for a man who considered himself the breadwinner in the 60s, and chronic pain coupled with limited abilities would give anyone a short fuse).

Moreover, this living situation seems to indicate that there is no additional support coming from anywhere. Where is Eileen's family? Why were they not helping? There's no indication in the text that there is any connection with them at all. We can infer from Snape's memories that, as a child, he learned what he knew about the magical world from his mother. This implies that she talked to him about it a fair amount, and his conviction that he and Lily were going to Hogwarts well before they got their letters also implies that Eileen expected him to go there and was set on her son having a magical education, despite how little she seemed to use her own powers.

Severus knows a lot about the wizarding world as a child, including that prisoners are sent to Azkaban and that it's guarded by Dementors, Hogwarts' house structure and what to expect when he and Lily get there, and about the Statute of Secrecy and the laws around it. When Lily asks him if it makes a difference being Muggleborn, Severus hesitates before replying no, presumably because he's aware of pureblood bias being a part of wizarding culture.

Perhaps that's the reason Eileen's family doesn't seem to be in the picture. My own theory is that Eileen hadn't planned to commit herself to Tobias long-term, and Severus was an accidental outcome of an innocent tryst in which a young Eileen, an educated witch from a well to do pureblood family, was having fun slumming it with a working class muggle and ended up pregnant. While we don't know the wizarding world's attitude around pregnancy and abortion, we do know it's a conservative and classist society that parallels muggle British culture fairly closely, and that the late 50s/early 60s were a time when an out of wedlock baby would have been considered a disgrace.

Add to that the anti-muggle bias of a pureblood family and it sounds like Eileen was disowned her for her mistake (and don't @ me, but even though I know that not all Slytherins are purebloods, it does seem to be a persistent cultural value of the house reaching back to Salazar Slytherin himself, so Eileen's being sorted into it can reasonably be taken as an indication of her blood status). Perhaps the marriage and birth announcements in the Daily Prophet were put in by Eileen herself, if she was a woman from a family where this was customary. It may have been her way of letting her family know of the events, or even of asserting herself and even deliberately defying them, announcing to the whole wizarding world that a Prince married and had a child with a muggle. It makes sense that the girl who wasn't just in the Gobstones club, but became captain, would also say to herself, why shouldn't I have my marriage announced in the paper like everyone else in the family?

It's worth noting that mid-late 20s is pretty young to have a baby in the wizarding world, where the life expectancy and child bearing years are much longer than they are for a muggle. According to the Harry Potter wiki:

"Wizard life expectancy in Britain reached an average 137¾ years in the mid-1990s, according to the Ministry of Divine Health ... Wizards in general have a much longer life expectancy than Muggles, usually living two or three times as long as their non magical counterparts, some living even longer than that depending on circumstances. In addition, seeing as James Potter's parents had him "late in life,” witches likely have significantly longer childbearing years than Muggle women."

Although we see several characters in Severus' generation getting married and having kids not long after leaving school, there's a mention in the text that a lot of people were doing this during Voldemort's reign, as the fear he inspired made people more eager to get a move on with life since they thought they might die any day (I think Mrs. Weasley says this but I can't find the quote, @ me if you do). It's clear this wasn't the norm in the wizarding world. Eileen was a Slytherin, a house that values cunning, ambition, and strong wizarding heritage. Something must have gone very wrong in Eileen's life for her to end up having a child so young and living in a muggle slum.

And so it's possible Eileen Prince found herself pregnant and alone, having been disowned by her family to save face in light of her disgrace, and dependent on the only person she was still close to, the father of her child. It's the kind of storyline that Rowling would write, and it would parallel fairly closely the story of Voldemort's mother, thus adding another to the long list of similarities between Voldemort and Snape.

Lorrie Kim makes an interesting point when she talks about how Snape has a strong reaction to other people having a love life or romantic experiences (the context being Rowling's intention of his love for Lily being romantic and unrequited), but doesn't react particularly strongly to mothers sacrificing themselves for their children, whereas Voldemort does. Her insight, and I think it's a reasonable one, is that Severus accepts the idea of mothers making sacrifices for their children, whether it's Lily giving her life for Harry or Narcissa risking all she did to ask for his help in protecting Draco, because his own mother protected him from his father as much as she could.

There's a lot of room for interpretation on what Eileen's relationship with her son looked like, and what it says about her own state. She may have prioritized not angering Tobias to protect Severus, who as a child might have perceived her actions as a form of rejection. At the same time, she seems to have prepared him thoroughly for life in the magical world, perhaps in the hope that he would find his place in it and escape home. Perhaps she missed it and told him so much about it so she could live through her own memories.

The only time we see her argue with Tobias, in Severus' memory, she's cowering as he shouts. We know from JK Rowling that Tobias used corporal punishment liberally, which implies Eileen didn't stop him despite her magical abilities. We also see in the text, however, that while at school Severus stood up for himself against bullies and fought back, and that he was an exceptionally clever and powerful wizard. As an adult he was brave enough to face Dumbledore when he betrayed Voldemort, and later fought against Voldemort right under his nose (or lack thereof). So it stands to reason that at some point Severus began to stand up against Tobias too.

How much of that was Eileen's influence, or the result of Severus seeing her acceptance of her fate and rejecting it for himself, is hard to say. As for what happened to Tobias and Eileen that their house was Severus' by the mid-90s and they were nowhere in sight, I don't think there's enough information in the text to infer.

Eileen Prince is very interesting to me, I wish we knew more about her and her relationship with Severus, but also her past. I would like to think they had a good relationship but realistically it was most likely strained because of the abuse she/both of them faced at home, she was probably for the most part emotionally absent. And maybe in a way there's a parallel between her and Severus. What if she resented her son because she couldn't help but see her abuser in him (and she hated herself for feeling this way)? The same way Severus would later feel about Harry? What if he inherited his mother's anger