Brb thinking of repressed Tommy growing up with a misogynistic, racist, homophobic father who only makes Tommy hate who he is, until he’s hidden all the good parts, even from himself.
And then the Army, which obviously isn’t known for its progressive culture, but at least he’s away from his father, and he maybe has a chance to start to discover those parts of himself he had kept locked away for so long.
But then there’s Gerard at the 118. And suddenly he’s a kid again, burying all the beautiful parts of himself and locking it away to protect himself from his father, reshaping himself to fit the image of what he was taught a man should be, the man he had to be so he can survive at work, until he doesn’t even know who he is.
But then Chimney comes along, and then Hen. And he starts to question everything that has been so deeply ingrained in him until one day, after he’s left the 118, he allows himself to start peeling back the defenses he built around himself, and he finally sees a glimpse of hope
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guys I had this realization the other day that Redwall works really well for reading aloud, and kinda half-remembered something about the author reading to kids? So I looked it up to see if I had made a connection.
And it turns out, yes, actually, because he read aloud to kids at a school for the blind. But all the books they gave him to read were depressing. So he wrote Redwall, a story about heroism and courage and making it through struggles, and filled it with so many sensory, visual details so he could give them something better and I just-- that's so wholesome-- help
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