#I remember reading a book about this

[anotherpapercut]

genuinely it will never stop baffling me how people will wear twilight shirts and talk about team Edward vs team Jacob and then the same people will be like "I'm not basing my personality off of a piece of media (harry potter) made by a transphobe 😌" like good that's great! so you can excuse racism but you draw the line at transphobia? good to know

[watchingwisteria]

listen there really was just something about how in the book, snow’s 3-page descent from hesitant lover boy to deluded mfer happens entirely in his mind. lucy gray gives him no indication whatsoever that she suspects him, that she’s going to leave or betray him. he’s just sitting quietly in the cabin waiting for her to return when that seed of calculated suspicion, which he has needed to survive the capitol, takes a hold of him and chokes the life out of any goodness left inside him. it really drives home your terror as a reader that “oh my god did he kill her? did she escape? what happened to her? why would he even think that?” in a way that when the movie had to adjust for visualization it lost some of that holy shit this guy has lost it emphasis.

[turndecassette2]

[may12324]

Sabran and the White Wyrm - from The Priory of the Orange Tree.

[keen-eye]

McGucket: i’ve abandoned my own professional aspirations and have been neglecting my wife and our young son to be with help you make yours come true, i’m utilizing my mechanical genius just for you, here’s a gourd and an axolotl that remind me of you, here’s a snow globe of our lab, here’s six-fingered gloves I knitted for you, i’ve stayed by your side despite being repeatedly traumatized by these terrifying monsters, i’ve put my mental and physical health in jeopardy for our project, i’ve built a memory erasing device so that I can fix my anxiety and continue helping you, *erases your memory* forget I said that, here’s a thesis paper I’ve written for you so you can publish your research and end this dangerous and isolating endeavor, i've sacrificed so much, did I mention I left my wife to be with you

Ford: *keeps truth about project a secret*, *throws gourd away*, *puts you in harms way*, *dismisses your fears*, *frustrated by your lack of commitment*, *takes you for granted*, *breaks snow globe*, *suspicious of your intentions*, *questions your loyalty*, *releases axolotl*, *prioritizes and trusts a triangle over you*, *accuses you of betrayal*, *calls you weak-willed*

(^ imagine the vine boom after each one)

[lazylittledragon]

hi i'm unw el l

[xxplastic-cubexx]

i didnt plan to spend my sunday this way

[secretmellowblog]

Another reason I dislike Les Mis adaptations that make Jean Valjean constantly openly angry/violent is because they miss that Jean Valjean is not allowed to be angry. The fact he is forbidden from expressing anger is, I argue, actually a very important part of his character in the novel!

One of the subtler political messages of the story is that some people are given freedom to express anger, while others are forced to be excessively meek and conciliatory in order to survive.

Wealthy conservatives like Monsieur Gillenormand can “fly into rages” every five minutes and have it treated as an endearing quirk. Poor characters like Fantine or Jean Valjean must be constantly polite and ingratiating to “their superiors” at all times, even in the face of mockery and violence, or else they will be subjected to punishment. If Gillenormand beats his child with a stick, it’s a silly quirk; if Fantine beats a man harassing her, she is sentenced to months in prison.

(Thenardier and Javert are interesting examples of this too. Thenardier acts superficially polite and ingratiating to his wealthy “superiors” while insulting them behind their backs. Javert, meanwhile, is completely earnest in his mindless bootlicking. But I could write an entire other post on this.)

The point is that….Jean Valjean has to be submissive and self-effacing, or he puts himself in danger. He can’t afford to be angry and make scenes, or he will be punished. The only barrier between himself and prison is his ability to be so “courteous” that no one bothers to pry into his past.

Jean Valjean is excessively polite to people, in the way that you’re excessively polite to an armed cop who pulls you over for speeding when you secretly have a few illegal grams of marijuana in the your car trunk. XD It’s politeness built on fear, is what I mean. It’s politeness built on a desperation to make a powerful person avoid looking too closely at you.

It’s politeness at gunpoint.

Jean Valjean has also spent nineteen years living in an environment where any expression of anger could be punished with severe violence. That trauma is reflected in the overly cautious reserved way he often speaks with people (even people who are kind and would never actually hurt him.)

So adaptations that have Jean Valjean boldly having shouting matches with people in public and beating cops half to death without worrying about the repercussions just make go like “???”

Because that’s part of what’s fascinating about Jean Valjean to me? On one hand, he is a genuinely kind compassionate person, who cares deeply about other people and behaves kindly out of altruism. But on the other hand, he was also “beaten into submission” by prison, and forced into adopting conciliatory bootlicking behaviors in order to survive. And it can sometimes be hard to tell when he is being kind vs. when he is being “polite” — when he is speaking and acting out of earnest compassion vs. when he is speaking and acting out of fear.

The TL;DR is that I think it’s important that even though Jean Valjean is very (justifiably) angry about the injustice that was inflicted on him, his anger is harshly policed at all times— by other people, and by himself. He has been told his anger is wrong/selfish so often that he believes it. His anger takes weirder more unhealthy forms because he has no safe outlet for it. His rage at society becomes a possessiveness towards Cosette and silent hatred of Marius, but primarily it becomes useless self-destructive constant hatred of himself. And while I might be phrasing this wrong, I think that’s what’s interesting about Jean Valjean’s relationship with anger— the way his justified fury at his own mistreatment gets warped into more and more unhealthy forms by the way he’s forced to constantly repress it.

[heirloommtomatoes]

the way kaladin is like. the only character who gets an arc relating to overcoming his prejudices but it’s…him overcoming his “prejudices” against lighteyes…like huh……?

[codgod]

something wicked this way comes

[this is a redraw, here’s the original :p]

[beannary]

So I named TLP after the book The Little Prince because I went to a French school so we read that book constantly so I thought it would be funny if I made little drawings of TLP Donnie if I had named au after different French books I read as a kid!

It was hard to think of some that were actually French and not just translations lol turns out a lot of the books that I thought were French were really just English books with French translations :P

[average-hua-cheng-fan]

another reason i think that xie lian felt an instant connection on the ox cart is because he and hua cheng both grew up in xianle.

there are maybe 4 people still alive that grew up in that culture. based on my own experience, you can pick up on things like accent, cadence, references, and humor that suggest a person is from the same place as you without consciously noticing it. that sense of comfort and similarity probably played into their instant chemistry.

[somegrumpynerd]

Dust's nightmare

Dust has nightmares about fighting and killing here and there, but the ones that really stick with him are the ones that are just... memories. Things he can never have again.

What he can have though, is a distraction when he wakes up to help him settle and make sure he's not alone with his thoughts for too long

[a2zillustration]

I feel like I didn't get to mess with her nearly enough.

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[puppppppppy]

Communication

[theorahsart]

"The drums rolled, and the crowds roared; and that, though no one knew it, was the end of the bright hope for a democratic Republic."

-R. R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled