#anyway the story continues

[naomistares]

mini comic about a kinda freaky terrible queen and the nonsensical takes she has about the times people have tried to kill her

(more thoughts in notes)

UP NEXT! ANOTHER short comic, (and then one more) this time taking place one month before the kings death, in which we will have: one annoying prince! one lousy fight scene! rejoice's dismissive nature! and row reveals a secret.... tune in next time for all that

[egophiliac]

CROWLEY SSR THOUGHTS

there is zero basis for this, but I can't get this thought of my head

I don't know why I decided to draw it this way

[secretmellowblog]

The thing is, Jean Valjean’s “nineteen year prison sentence for stealing a loaf of bread” from Les Mis isn’t actually unusual….not even today! I see people talking about it as if it’s strange or unimaginable when it happens every day.

In modern America — often as a result of pointlessly cruel (and racist) habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws— people are routinely sentenced to life in prison for minor crimes like shoplifting or possession of drugs.

The ACLU did a report in 2013 detailing the lives of various people who were sentenced to life in prison without parole for nonviolent property crimes like:

•attempting to cash a stolen check

•a junk-dealer’s possession of stolen junk

metal (10 valves and one elbow pipe)

•possession of stolen wrenches

•siphoning gasoline from a truck

•stealing tools from a tool shed and a welding machine from a yard

•shoplifting three belts from a department store

•shoplifting several digital cameras

•shoplifting two jerseys from an athletic store

• taking a television, circular saw, and a power converter from a vacant house

• breaking into a closed liquor store in the middle of the night

And of course, so so so many people sentenced to life without parole for the possession of a few grams of drugs.

And we could go on and on!

Gregory Taylor was a homeless man in Los Angeles who, in 1997, was sentenced to “25 years to life” for attempting to steal food from a food kitchen. He was released after 13 years. The lawyers helping to release him even cited Les Miserables in their appeal, comparing Taylor’s sentence to Jean Valjean’s.

And there’s another specific bit of social commentary Hugo was making about Valjean’s trial that’s still depressingly relevant. He writes that Valjean was sentenced for the theft of loaf of bread, but also that the court managed to make that sentence stick by bringing up some of his past misdemeanors. For example, Valjean owned a gun and was known to occasionally poach wildlife (presumably for his starving family to eat.) . So the court exaggerates how harmful the bread theft was—he had to smash a windowpane to get the bread, which is basically Violence— then insist the fact that he owns a gun and occasionally poaches is proof that he is habitually and innately violent. Then when Valjean obviously becomes distressed traumatized and furious as a result of his nakedly unjust sentence and begins making desperate (and very unsuccessful/impulsive/ poorly thought through) attempts to escape…. the government indifferently tacks more years onto his sentence, labels him a “dangerous” felon, and insists that its initial read of him as an innately violent person was correct.

And it’s sad how a lot of the real life stories linked earlier are similar to the commentary Hugo wrote in 1863? Someone will commit a nonviolent property crime, and then the court insists that a bunch of other miscellaneous things they’ve done in the past (whether it’s other minor thefts or being addicted to drugs or w/e) are Proof they’re inherently violent and incapable of being around other people.

A small very petty fandom side note: This is also why I dislike all those common jokes you see everywhere along the lines of “lol it’s so unrealistic for the police to want to arrest Valjean over a loaf of bread, there must have been some other reason the police were pursuing him. Because the state would never punish someone that harshly and irrationally for no reason. so maybe javert was just gay haha”. (Ex: this tiktok— please don’t harass the creator or poster though, I don’t think they were intending to mean anything like that and its just a silly common type of joke you see made about Les mis all the time so it’s not unique in any way.) because like.

As much as I don’t think Les Mis is a flawless book or that its political messaging is perfect….the only way that insanely long unjust sentences for minor crimes is “unrealistic” is if you’re operating on the assumption that prisons are here to Keep You Safe by always only punishing bad criminals who do serious crimes. And that’s just, not true at all. Like I get that these are just goofy silly shallow jokes, and I’m not angry or going to harass anyone who makes them. but it feels like there’s an assumption underlying all those goofy jokes that “this is just not how prison works!” “Prisons don’t routinely sentence people to absurd laughably unjust pointless sentences!” “Prisons give people fair sentences for logical reasons!” When like…no

Valjean being relentlessly hounded and tortured for a minor crime in a way that is utterly ridiculous and arbitrary in its cruelty is not actually a plot hole in Les mis. It’s a plot hole in …..society ajsjkdkdkf. And the only way to fix that is to fight for prison abolition or at least reform, and (in America) stand up against the vicious naked cruelty of habitual offender and mandatory minimum laws.

But yeah :(. I hate how Les Mis opens with a prologue saying the novel will be obsolete the moment the social issues it describes have been resolved— but two hundred years later, the book is still more relevant than ever because we’re dealing with so many of the exact same injustices.

[skunkes]

[codgod]

something wicked this way comes

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

[bixels]

I just saw one of your fave games is What remains of Edith Finch and I’m so happy! I feel like its a lesser known game but i loved playing through it. I’m so happy to know more than just my small friend group know about this game!

Sorry this isn’t a question. Also want to say that you’re art is amazing and the development of the designs is so interesting to see. Also the way you draw intimate scenes have so much emotion to them. I love the Aj and rarity kissing comic so much, you can just feel their love for each other ;w;

Thank you so much!

I highly, highly, highly recommend What Remains of Edith Finch to anyone interested in narrative game experiences/"walking simulators." It's one of those games that was handcrafted with nothing but love. Every room you explore is just... real. The way the light flows in and makes the colors of the living room, the kitchen, the bedrooms glow. Playing the game is like walking through your childhood home as an adult and seeing how the dust clings to everything you once touched. Also genius-level gameplay mechanics, ones that can make you completely empathetic with the character you're embodying or feel completely complacent in their tragedy. It's really not fair to call it a walking simulator because it's so much more and so much smarter than that.Everyone talks about the fish one.

The theme of death and memory and storytelling and the burden of invisible trauma and self-fulfilling prophecies is so affecting too. The ending made me cry.

[fictionadventurer]

Maybe Jane Austen's real genius was that, unlike other authors at the time, she didn't have long sections where characters share their backstory. Or rather, when she did it, she set it up like a mystery so we'd want to know the backstory.

Instead of having a character be like, "Here's three chapters about my life," soon after showing up in the novel, she'd sprinkle little clues through the story that make us wonder, "What's Colonel Brandon's deal?" and then closer to the end of the story, Colonel Brandon would tell us what his deal was. We'd wonder "Why does Mr. Darcy do all those horrible things?" and then he'd give an explanation that includes a lot of backstory.

And these infodumps always come in response to significant moments of the story. She'd engage our minds and our emotions and then give us the infodump at a point when we care about the information it contains. Compared to some other authors (even some that came long after) it seems like a significant innovation.

[dykealloy]

ripple effect legacy // my tears are becoming a sea, M83

[mooreaux]

I really am enjoying -parts- of Veilguard, I am. However the overwhelming urge to replay both inquisition and origins is getting really annoying whenever Veilguard sails right past a cool lore/banter/dialogue/interaction/ quest opportunity ..

[squea]

ah yes. the _reads hand_ divorced would have been partners in crime.

[unlimitedhearts]

RIP Tumblr you would have loved Psych 😭

[itsmyfandomandilikeit]

Dawn of the final week. 6 days remain.

[obstinaterixatrix]

here are all the recs I posted for femslash february 2024...! each individual rec post can be found in my femslash feb recs tag. I actually thought I wasn't going to be able to do this because work got super chaotic, but in the end I couldn't bear to skip out on a leap year. that's a whole extra day for yuri.

last year I focused on official releases, so this year I wanted to focus on series that aren't technically officially available (plus a french-japanese film). fan translations are always a dicey for artists/translators/publishers/etc because obviously they need to get paid... but yuri's already such an overlooked genre that—in an official capacity—we end up with a couple drops from what's already a pretty small pool. I read hana to hoshi about a decade ago, and I keep submitting it to the seven seas survey for licensure! and yet!! no dice. and even when there are official releases, sometimes they just... disappear!? wish you were gone was licensed and then taken down, so for a while the only way to read it (if you missed out on buying it) was the fan translation. I think it's important to support artists and official releases, and also, to appreciate the thankless endeavor(/crime) of scanlation.

hope yall find something you like!

[ratgirlexe]

It feels almost weird to me that I really struggle to compute HDG as a horror-adjacent setting like so many others do. I know that there is an inherent power imbalance in the vast majority of relationships within the setting, and that can easily lend itself to a feeling of dawning horror when the protagonist realizes that they are inherently powerless against whatever is about to happen to them, but ultimately the setting just... isn't very scary to me in the way that it seems to be for so many others.

Maybe it's because I haven't read as many of the more extreme horror-adjacent entries, or maybe its because the other settings in which I write are so much more bleak, but its just not why I come to HDG to write. Ultimately when I'm writing in HDG, there's an inherent positive slant to what I'm writing, because there's this idea that ultimately by the end of the story the characters will be in a better place than where they started. It might take forced drugging or brainwashing or any number of potentially horrific things to get them there, but at least in my estimation its ultimately going to be for their own benefit?

And again, maybe I just need to read some of the darker things folks have written, I know there's a handful of works by certain writers that are apparently much more extreme in how the dynamics between characters work, but ultimately HDG as a setting is one of wish fulfillment, both for submissives, dominants, and those in between. I can't see it as anything but hopeful, even if sometimes the big plants are quite scary.

[jeeliebeeliegoomiebear]

On Isolde and Many Doors (and One Key)

Thinking about Isolde and how she feels like she is constantly trapped in a small cramped room full of 1 million doors. Each door represents a presence that haunts her, an identity that lives inside her that calls to her from beyond the grave, a new mask to dawn.

If every person in the world were to have a room, most would have just one door, their own. But not Isolde.

Isolde feels like an empty vessel who is only there to serve as a point of entry for other people and their spirits. She has been forced to become so repressed by her environment, upbringing, and her nature as a medium that she finds it easy to forget herself. Her “self” is not someone she has ever been allowed to know.

The room grows increasingly smaller, claustrophobic and strangling her with pressure as the amount of doorways in it only increase, every new person she meets a new doorway she is plagued with, a new voyeur who has granted themselves full access to her life and her body. Something she is now willing to let them do. It is easier that way. Easier to let someone else command her vessel, something that never solely belonged to her to begin with. An escape from all the pressure, the expectations, the perfection demanded from her. It is something she should do. The duty of someone like her. Something to hide her wretched face from view, to give the people what they want, to uphold her family’s legacy. A performance that was never allowed to end. Each new door lead right back to that.

The only exception is Kakania. The only person Isolde believes has ever really seen her as more than a host for other identities or something to mold into shape, prop up as a set piece. A perfect lady. The star of Vienna. A tragic heroine. A dangerous hysteric witch. A curse manifested. The only one who was ever interested in finding Isolde’s door and that door alone. When she is with Kakania, a new door does not appear in that ever shrinking empty room, although at first she expects it to. For the first time she meets someone and is not greeted with a new ghost to haunt her. Not a door. But a key. A key that Isolde knows can unlock her own door, even when she herself cannot find it.

[deiaiko]

#23 - Kiss

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