#He talks to himself and narrates what he’s doing

[imnotditzy]

What if a Greek Chorus acted like Captain Marvel was the lead of their play?

What if a Greek Chorus chose Captain Marvel as the focus of their narration? This could be due to a magic mess up and now they’re stuck talking about The Champion for a while, but I’d like to think that they’re just extremely bored ghosts of prestigious Chorus members who have nothing better to do. Like all of a sudden they’re just haunting Billy and narrating whatever he’e doing in such a dramatized way.

Context for the post/Brief history lesson:

(Shortened version: A Greek Chorus is a group of people who act almost like narrators, speaking about the main elements or the takeaways throughout a play. They spoke in unison to carry their voices better. They had multiple ways to communicate the takeaways, this post focuses on speech and body movement.)

(Example)

*A media example are the muses from Disney’s Hercules. (Except the members of the Greek Choir don’t sing.)

—-

History lesson, done! Now onto the post.

—

Billy: sits down on his old mattress

Chorus: The young boy strew himself along as he perched upon his withered bed. The pesky jabs of fatigue and exhaustion’s claws bore at the young one as his body ceased to relent its constant shivers. 😔

(A few of the ghosts have their hands on their foreheads like they’re about to faint, the rest are shivering like they’re a moment away from hypothermia.) Billy: I’m not even that tired, and my bed is fine???

Chorus (puts hands on their unbeating hearts): To appreciate sanity at mind, the poor youngling deluded himself. Choosing to experience the world in a more gentle perception than what has been given to him. Billy: Oh knock it off!

—

(Captain Marvel/Billy saves a cat out of a tree.)

Billy: …Did I lose them?

(The Chorus pokes theirs heads out from behind the tree)

Billy (clutching his pearls): Gah!

Chorus: In a swift moment of honorable heart, The Champion draws the feeble cat, and all of its quivering self, out of the tall and winding Maple. The daint kitten’s form consumed by the engulfing man, forgoes its fear as it slows stills in warmth.

Billy: That was so NOT cool!

(Random citizens watching Captain Marvel get spooked at absolutely nothing and hearing the echo of a group of ominous voices): Hm. Seems like the Captain’s schizophrenia has gotten worse. It’s materializing now.

—

Imagine during this catastrophe there’s a meeting at the Watchtower. Billy begging his pantheon to do something and their just like…

Atlas: Sorry Billy, there’s nothing more we can do.

Zeus: Shut up Atlas, you know no more than a grapefruit. But also there’s nothing more we can do, Billy.

Heracles: Do not fret however, this is very typical for beloved heroes!

Achilles: Yes, besides the ghost ordeal and the obvious-continuous stalking, this is very common.

Billy (growing more distressed): Not very comforting…

[breadvidence]

" [. . .] il se sentait je ne sais quel fond de rigidité, de régularité et de probité, compliqué d'une inexprimable haine pour cette race de bohèmes dont il était." [LM I.V.V]

What did Hugo mean by this phrase? This is a question with a clear answer, in my opinion. Also in my opinion, this does and doesn't matter: it matters to understanding how Les Mis engages (or fails to) with the literary tradition of race and ethnicity in Europe through Javert, and it doesn't because most of my readers here are bent fannish in their style and do as much enriching of the text as reading of it. What I'm saying is: Javert is not a Romani man in the Brick, but there's no damage to making him one in your fanwork.

Hapgood translates this line as " [ . . . ] he was conscious of an indescribable foundation of rigidity, regularity, and probity, complicated with an inexpressible hatred for the race of bohemians whence he was sprung"; Donougher has it as " [ . . . ] he was conscious of some underlying inflexibility, steadiness and probity within him, compounded by an inexpressible hatred for that gypsy race to which he belonged."

So, bohème: at the time, you have this idea that the Romani people in France came from Bohemia, from which also bohémien, right? And because white Europeans had (and have) a complex, hateful relationship with the Romani people, caught up in exoticization and prejudice and xenophobia, unsure whether they were (or are) more enamored of the idea of free travel and "unconventional" lifeways (from which the entire "Bohemian" art movement) or repelled by stereotypes of criminality (for which see the modern American slur-derived phrase "to gyp"), by the 19th century the word is tied up in complex dual set of associations and is so frequently used in those two-steps-removed senses from the ethnic group it initially described that you can't in any specific case know which of those three meanings is intended without context cues. This is why we have Magloire relate the people of Digne calling Valjean a bohémien--in this case, this means "criminal, itinerant", not "Romani". In contrast, when in I.III.IV we are told "toute une bohème de papillons s'ébattait dans les achillées", these aren't Romani butterflies or imports from Bohemia, the intent is to evoke that positive (so to speak) set of associations.

What cues do we have here that point to the derogatory meaning rather than ethnic?

Within the chapter itself, Javert's hatred is elaborated on as "la haine de la rébellion", where rebellion is crime: this use of la haine, to my reading, is the same la haine as referred to in the earlier sentence, and the phrase "tout ce qui avait franchi une fois le seuil légal du mal" describes the same people as "race de bohèmes". In the header quote for this post, Hugo describes Javert's perception of himself; in this later section, the narrator elaborates and confirms the point. There's no ethnic specificity in the narrator's phrasing. Further, when we get to which class of criminals are particularly terrified by Javert, we're told it's the "gens sans aveu", rendered by Hapgood and Donougher as vagrants: an itinerant class associated with criminality; the point isn't re-iterated that he shows particular antipathy or suspicion of an ethnic group, but of a specific criminalized class.

Hugo never mentions it again. For how Hugo talks about Romani characters, we quite helpfully have Notre-Dame de Paris, and when I say that he cannot fucking stop talking about Esmeralda being la bohémienne, l'égyptienne, fille bohème: he cannot. A search for these word pulls up hundreds of hits for the novel. It's more than central to her character, it's central to how the narration refers to her, and it's key to how she's conceived of bodily and in temperament. Now: you could write Javert as so vigorously working against what it means to be a bohémien that none of these come into play in the narration, or that he wasn't raised in that culture and thus doesn't have any of those influences on his attitudes or habits, but (1) this is not present in the text (2) the reading "his mother is Romani, but this has so little impact on him outside racial hatred that it never comes up again" doesn't really do it for me (3) I would be surprised if Victor Hugo could parse the idea of being ethnically Romani and not temperamentally Romani.

While race and ethnicity are obviously an inextricable part of societal power structures, Les Misérables? It barely fuckin' cares about that (and to be quite honest I'm glad Hugo didn't try harder than his sort of confused gesturing with Thénardier's slave-trading in the end; he's not the man for the job). Javert's character is centrally about Law as an artificial, immoral tool that maintains a bourgeois power structure to the detriment of Society as a whole and the misérables in particular: introducing the question of race/ethnicity alters that one-note to the point of needing to be nested in a different novel. The topic of criminality and race is a whole fucking rodeo, and if it would be an interesting addition to the concept of "society does not include criminals; criminals are a class you can become by committing crime; criminality is an ambiguously heritable trait" that's going on here, it's not in the text. The fact that the idea of criminality as heritable has faded in our culture (it's certainly no longer considered scientific or acceptable to be explicit about, in any case) means that Javert's focus on the idea of being somehow constitutionally impacted by the crimes of his parents reads a bit through modern eyes as racial, but in my opinion that's crossing two streams that are related but not in fact identical.

A minor point, and one I'm less confident of, but: Donougher's use of the slur with a lowercase g feels sharp, precise, and deliberate in this context, particularly given she's European. In my experience, Americans tend to be far less sensitive to it--hell, I've got a friend of a friend who named her tortoise G****. Our racial hatreds focus elsewhere. The implication, here, feels the same as the blanket use of the n-word to refer to anyone dark-skinned. It's a matter of denigration, not a way to identify someone's ethnic/racial background.

Again: fanwork exploring what it would mean for Javert to be a person of color is both a fair place for the fandom to have hared off to based on the multiple meanings of the word bohème and a deeply intuitive step to take given how race and criminality are intertwined in the modern consciousness. What there isn't is textual support for the idea.

[trans-jon-rights]

Hm. New Idea. I'm putting this one out there because the Discord buddies said it was good.

Gravity Falls and TMA crossover, but Jon and Martin arrive at different times.

Martin arrives a few years before Jon and meets Ford, becoming buddies with him. He distrusts Bill a lot, being sometimes reminded of Jonah before he revealed what he was. But Ford is a grown ass adult, and Bill doesn't try to bother him much, so he lets him be.

Jon arrives the day Ford fell into the porta. He tumbles from that exact same portal right before shit hits the fans, and both Martin and Ford end up lost.

He has almost no Eye powers, no knowledge if this strange new place he ended up into and has to work with Stan to repair the portal and get both Ford and Martin back.

Talk about a Situation to end into.

(I need Martin to become a ruthless killer with Ford and Jon to have to make scams with Stan even though he hates it)

The timeline stats about the same. It takes thirty years for Jon and Stan's combined efforts to bring the other two back. In the meantime, neither Jon nor Martin are ageing due to the Entities still being present.

Just imagine.

The anxiety of Stan seeing himself age during those thirty, long years, unsure if he will manage to bring his brother back or not. Making Jon promise to do it for him if he couldn't go on because, despite himself, he'd learned to appreciate and trust this odd, prickly British guy.

Jon never certain if, when Martin will come back, he will be the same, or if he would have aged like every other person around him, being robbed of this opportunity to grow old together. Martin had never been an Avatar, right ? Jon didn't grow old because he was already dead, in a sense, but what about Martin ?

(Crossing between dimensions was a good metaphor for death and an excuse for Martin's Becoming, but Jon doesn't know that :3)

When twins arrive in Gravity Falls, Jon works at the shop (Stan used his "weird Britush narrator voice" to make him a tourist guide. For some reason, tourists like his voice).

Also this AU works well with my general idea of Jmart, both of them clinging to that ideal of the other and of what their relationship would be in a non apocalyptic context, making them confront the reality of things when they are reunited again.

Had it truly been their love for each other that had pushed them to work towards being reunited, or had it been the idea that once it would be over, being together would automatically mean they would be guaranteed happiness ?

Also, maybe give them each a period of time during which they were really happy and almost forgot their guilt for the other, and maybe give them some rough time when they're back together. Then, they look back at that and rethink their relationship and their quest, wondering if it really was worth it.

Happy ending for both is expected, of course, just lots of talking things through before. Making them healthy.

And as a bonus, I'm giving them a "Tim" and "Sasha". Not in the sense that they are actual alternate version of Tim or Sasha, in the sense that they are different characters who behave very similarly to Tim and Sasha. Sometimes, they mix up their names, and their face have the biggest grief for some reason.

Bonus point if "Tim" dies in an explosion caused by Martin and Ford and if "Sasha" dies to a shapeshifter. And after that, Jon just guiltily thinks, "At least it didn't take her face this time".

[meteors-lotr]

God I always forget how fucking autistic Bilbo is in the movies

[spitblaze]

when heterosexuals do literary analysis of works in which queerness and the persecution thereof are major themes which they just completely skip over or call 'confusing relationships'

[tinartss]

on moving out

[doodlejoltik]

my favourite writing device is having an un-Rei-liable narrator

[good-beanswrites]

Hear me out:

Kotoko adopted Es, and Fuuta went ballistic.

Rip Fuuta... he can never catch a break... Asdfsdf thank you for this, it was a blast thinking of all the ridiculous ways this could have played out! (One possibility I toyed with was Fuuta's competitive instincts take over, he fights her for Es, only to realize too late "*I* don't want to be responsible for a whole child WAIT") It's a similar format to the last one, with a knock-at-the-door reveal, but I still think it works 😂

“Don’t fuck with me, Es.”

“I would never.”

Lying brat. Fuuta knew they would every chance that they got. It was the reason he was so relieved that Es decided to find somewhere else to live after Milgram’s end. Fuuta had nothing left to fear from his former warden, but the others’ suggestions that Es become his new roommate still made him shudder. Three interrogations in a closed space with the rude kid were enough for him, thank you very much.

However, it wasn’t all a relief. He couldn’t help feeling concerned about who they’d gone to live with. Given how cryptic they were being, Fuuta would have been convinced they walked into the woods to find a furry family of Jackalopes or something to raise them –except, they showed up for this walk with clean clothing and internet access. 

“I don’t believe you. You’re fucking with me right now. Why can’t you just tell me who it is?” 

“It isn’t any of your concern. Hey, I thought you swore to stay out of others’ business. You turned over a new leaf and all that?”

“Tch. I meant other people’s business. You’re different.” 

If Es had vanished off the grid like some of the other prisoners, Fuuta wouldn’t have cared. But they were here, near enough to arrange some lame meetup, which meant they were going to remain in his life for a while longer. And that meant, as the model citizen that Fuuta was, he felt responsible for ensuring they didn’t get themselves kidnapped by some creep. 

He asked, “how much do you know about them, anyway? I mean, what kind of person can house a random weird kid on incredibly short notice? That’s definitely suspicious.”

Fuuta pulled the mask up on his face as they turned down a more crowded street. He knew people were going to gawk at his eye anyways, but it still helped him feel like he was blending in. With his thoughts on the injury for a moment, he was glad that bitch Kotoko was one of the prisoners who had gone off the grid. Good riddance.

“I promise, she’s fine. Not weird with children at all. In fact, she’s really good with them, which is why she could help me on such short notice.” They muttered, “but it’s not like I’m that young…”

“That’s still not normal. Is she some old housewife or something?”

“Ah, are you trying to do the interrogation this time? Actually, I’d say she’s around your age.”

“It’s just you two living alone? I’m still worried about Milgram coming looking for us again – can a girl like that really protect you?”

“Is everyone supposed to live with a big, strong man, like you?”

“Wha–!” Fuuta’s cheeks burned red. “That’s not what I –!”

“I’m only teasing. It’s cute that you care about me.”

That only agitated him more. “It’s not cute! I’m being realistic! One of us has to think about your safety while you’re just distracted by some pretty girl.”

“What makes you think she’s pretty?”

“Well, why else would you be so careless in deciding to live with her?”

All of the sudden, he saw it in Es’ eyes: that spark of mischief that Fuuta had come to loathe. He could never tell what they were plotting, but it was never a good sign.

Es held up their hands in mock surrender. They put on a ridiculous, overdramatic voice. “Ah, you caught me, Fuuta! I’m hiding her identity because she’s the most beautiful, capable woman in all of Japan, and I want to keep her all to myself!” 

He groaned, but they weren’t deterred. “She’s got everything, I couldn’t risk you falling for her! She’s quite capable of defending me. She’s very strong, with protective instincts much like your own. She understands our situation like no one else could. She’s got intense eyes, and you wouldn’t believe her singing voice. She enjoys deep conversations, she’s a dog person, she –”

“ – now you’re being the creep! Just shut up, I get it already...”

When they finally had the decency to pull it together, they reassured him. “It’s all true, though. So there’s no need to worry about me. I’m in good hands.”

Good hands, his ass. In only a brief conversation, the caretaker had gone from sounding a little suspicious to sounding way too good to be true… meaning she was extremely suspicious.

“Maybe someday I’ll introduce you, if you’re lucky...”

He turned his eyes away. “At least let me run some background checks on her first.” 

(He would just stalk her on social media, but that still counted.)

“You’re just going to stalk her on social media. That doesn’t count.”

“Eh? I have legit methods!” He hid deeper under his mask.

Even after the topic was dropped, after he and Es parted ways on an awkward goodbye, Fuuta was left thinking about this mystery woman. It took a bit of digging (and maybe a tiny bit of social media stalking) but at last he found where Es lived with this stranger. Contrary to what they may believe, he had turned over a new leaf. There would be no more hiding behind screens or letting others do the confrontation for him. Now that he was a changed person, he’d do the healthy and normal thing with this information: he’d march on down there himself and confront her like a man. 

He made it all the way to the front door with his chin high. He knocked with confidence. 

Then he began to shift nervously. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the woman’s description out of his head. Sure, he was here to check on Es, but if someone happened to check him out at the same time, it was only right to be prepared… He straightened his shirt collar. He ran his fingers through his hair. He wondered if he should have covered up his eye to look more presentable.

The door swung open. 

The surprise on Kotoko’s face was nowhere near the amount on Fuuta’s.

“Oh, for fucks sake –!”

From somewhere behind her, Es’ laughter rang out.

[movedtodykedvonte]

So confused where fandom/fic writers got this interpretation that Miles does stupid shit that doesn’t make sense or barely works out in the end or puts his friends in unnecessary danger all the time. Like in both movies the others simply underestimate him and don’t understand what Miles is doing cause he thinks like Miles, not like your everyday Spiderman. He uses his Venom Strike to throw Kingpin in the ITSV movie and literally saves Gwen and Peter because they went into battle less than ready. Then had the entire plan to lure the Spiders in ATSV, yet I keep seeing him written like he doesn’t think or gets his friends in trouble even when he understands the danger. Most of the time his different thinking has helped or led people to fix personal issues.

The first movie alone pretty much sets in stone that the exact opposite of what he wants is others to get hurt by his actions, inactions or the actions of others and trying to live up to that belief and the expectations it carries. Across the Spider-verse hammers it home with how he constantly tries to save people because that’s what he should do, rather than listen to some theory that is clearly not absolute at best and outright wrong at worst. Every fic has him being the one to cause issues and not fix them when his planning and actions literally helped save Gayatri and her father.  (c’mon we know the glitching was the spot)

Yeah, I get making him stubborn or strong willed cause he doesn’t listen all the time but usually it’s for a good and valid reason, if he listened every time he was told not to, guess how many of our beloved characters would be dead?

[zeb-z]

Bad has so many reasons to be cautious, even paranoid, as anyone else on the island. From Federation nonsense to Dapper being kidnapped to the whole purgatory nonsense to whatever fuckass suit of armor “old friend” was setting up cameras in his house. But it compounds on his regular overly aware paranoid self to this state of hyper-paranoia. And as a demon who can and usually will lie, cheat, steal, and use sneaky underhanded tactics, he expects the craziest extent because he thinks of it, realizes it’s possible, and would use it himself. We saw this very obviously in purgatory - when he thought greens desperate last ditch effort to balance the scale was a super planned out tactic to tip the scale, so he did it first, all the hardcore base hunting, the spawn killing, there’s a reason every other tactic he used usually followed a main channel qsmp post with updated rules - all usually things he was surprised no one else thought of. But then this also piles onto the fact that he has to have things go his way, all the time, and that he’s argumentative as all get out, which led to the debate between him and Bagi yknow. Especially because he’s not just doing it for the sake of being right, he doesn’t think he’s paranoid, but that he’s exercising the right amount of caution.

So like. Listen dude. Yeah he’s got reasons to be paranoid. But his thought process around building vaults for separate cookie caches like they locked up the risus pills, only to scrap it because it’s not perfectly impenetrable, is extreme. His character has hardly been a leading example in someone who has reasonable reactions to things. And even when there isn’t his own children’s livelihoods potentially on the line, he has a need for control, and the most control he has is if he keeps the cookies in his inventory at all times. If he makes himself the sole point in which the others can get ones in a case of emergency, then he can control the variables. The problem is he’s unreliable about himself when he’s at his most rational and healthiest, and he’s far worse with the current memory and health issues he’s been mostly unaware of.

I dunno it’s like. There is never going to be a purely impenetrable base. And it’s not just a case of “Bagi just hasn’t lived through __ yet!”. Bad’s own logic about keeping the cookies on him at all times is flawed under his own logic, because Bagi is right - if someone has enough drive to break into separate secured cookie caches purely for the downfall of eggs, they more than certainly have enough drive to find a way to kill Bad and just take them from his inventory, or to just kill the eggs themselves. All it truly does is give Bad a sense of control, and soothe his paranoia.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

It's a good sign I'm recovering from my creative slump that I was able to brainstorm a story that makes me laugh.

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

I love Monkie kid and the way they tell stories but oh my GODS this unreliable narrator stuff starting to stress me out

(Note: i've only seen up to ses 4 ep 8 no spoilers in the tags please)

[hauntingblue]

Jinbe not even on the crew yet and already talking about sacrificing himself for his captain... insane

[sluckythewizard]

WITNESS THE ARTISTIC PROCESS. HOW DO I DRAW NIKLAUS GIRL HEEEEELP!!!! HELP MEE!!!!

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

The way TR focuses on how Koko is dealing with Akane's death but never shows how Inupi is dealing with it...

Poetic cinema

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

tfw you want to write up a proper post detailing What the Fuck about a particular thing about a character, but you're too exhausted and out of sorts to figure out the best way to format it and you'd rather make an actual concise, relatively coherent post instead of just reblogging it over and over with 'jesus fucking christ'