#but that's just a personal thing! i do think he's popular for a reason

[ultraericthered]

#i got to screen Wish before it released during a school trip and let me tell you something #even though we noticed the glaring problems with that movie immediately #i also noticed something i dont think many others did at that time #there was so much talent and potential being held back. if you read closely you can pick up on a cry for help from the creatives behind it #i want to elaborate but i think if you know. you know #and if you don't.. this post does a good job of shining a light on a small part of that cry for you #despite its many issues i think i still liked Wish. Not because i think it was a good movie but bc i think it could have been a great one had circumstances been different. #my heart goes out to those who put their souls and everything they had into that movie and others in similar situations #some of the creators had given a small talk before the screening and to me they seemed very emotional about it #i think what many people forget is that nobody can see a project's flaws better than the people who worked on it #but what they also see and you can't is everything more it was meant to be #please remember that the core of many issues in any project is that the people with the talent often do not have power to call the shots

Yes, all of that. And I find it ironic that the gifed scene is the one that got people saying "Hey, King Magnifico's not really much of a villain, he's got a good point! He's just upholding his part of a social contract with his citizenry and doing what he, as king, needs to do to protect their wishes but also protect Rosas by ruling out granting any wishes that might backfire and have dangerous repercussions for the kingdom and the lives of the people! Asha's just an ignorant spoiled brat for demanding anything more of him! Magnifico Did Nothing Wrong!" So when you take that position on what you're being shown by the story and not scratching the surface to look at what Magnifico is doing in-universe by not giving back the wishes he knows he will not grant and knows the people who gave them to him cannot remember and what the out-of-universe subtext of this is, you're siding with the Disney Corporate Executive Overlords. You're siding with Bob Iger's "they're not being realistic with their expectations" argument. You're siding with Chapek and Iger's practices done under excuses like "It doesn't fit the Disney brand", "mass appeal stories over personal ones", "people don't want to go and pay to see movies with girly princess titles", etc. You're siding with their practices of dumping content straight to streaming (or onto Disney+ not too long after they've hit theaters or TV) even when that actually limits profits that the actual creative teams can make from their own work, of tampering with the artists visions and how the finished product turns out and then punishing those artists if it doesn't turn out well, and of ignoring ideas for original creations in favor of contiunally milking their popular (and profitable) existing IPs. You're siding with people who make up an entire entity that say loudly to the faces of all those who put in the work, the skills, the talent, the passion and dedication to create art and content they feel people deserve to enjoy, in the forms they deserve to enjoy them "I decide what everyone deserves!"

Capitalism errodes into a force for human evil when the people at the top prove susceptible to three things in excess beyond mere greed and self-interest: unchecked power, irresponsibility, and indecency. King Magnifico is allegorical for that evil, with a bit of a communist dictator angle to him too since that's the end point of those exact same excesses and extremes for socialism. He's a major problematic fave for all kinds of reasons, but anyone who wants to tell me he's a good guy can kindly GTFO.

Wish (2023) dir. Fawn Veerasunthorn, Chris Buck

hey do you think the overworked creatives about to go on strike are trying to tell us something

article sources under the cut

Mattson, Kelcie. "How Disney Almost Killed 'Nimona.'" Collider, January 2 2024.

Earl, William. "Shelving Batgirl Was the Right Decision, Says New DC Studios Head Peter Safran: 'It Would Have Hurt DC.'" Variety, January 31 2023

Couch, Aaron. "Warner Bros. Reverses Course on 'Coyote vs. Acme' After Filmmakers Rebel." The Hollywood Reporter, November 13 2023.

Ridgely, Charlie. "Scoob! Sequel Director Revealed Film Was 'Very Close' to Completion Before HBO Max Cancellation." comicbook.com, August 2 2022.

Clark, Travis. "Staffers at the animation studio Blue Sky say it's 'heartbreaking' that Disney canceled its final movie, 'Nimona.'" Business Insider, February 18, 2021.

Harrison, Mark. "Why was the Batgirl movie cancelled?" Yahoo! Entertainment, January 31 2024.

Amidi, Amid. "Warner Bros. Shelves Fully-Completed 'Coyote Vs. Acme' For Tax Write-Off." Cartoon Brew, November 9 2023.

Lee, Alex. "Why Netflix keeps cancelling your favourite shows after two seasons." Wired UK, September 28 2020.

Tyrrell, Gary. "We All Knew It Was Coming." fleen.com, February 10 2021.

"Warner Bros. Reverses Course on ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ After Filmmakers Rebel." see: 3.

Bergeson, Samantha. "Warner Bros. Will Let 'Coyote Vs. Acme' Filmmakers Shop Movie to Other Distributors." IndieWire, November 13 2023.

Strapagiel, Lauren. "Disney's First Feature Animated Movie With Queer Leads May Never Be Released." BuzzfeedNews, February 24 2021.

"We All Knew It Was Coming." see: 9

@/scottderrickson. "I think it’s absolute bullshit that a studio can and does shelve the creative work of hundreds of people for a fucking tax break." Twitter, 10 Nov. 2023, 4:52 p.m..

[cozymochi]

If you don't mind oc questions, how does Nyoka, Emilio and Cecil feel about the prefect?

Do they see MC as a nuisance? Or someone interesting for managing to deal with 4 overblots? Excluding Jamil, Vil, and Malleus since it wasn't public to the entire school and since book 7 isn't finished yet

I ACCEPT OC QUESTIONS!!! they keep me from dwelling on doom :’) 💖 I know I answered something similar to this before but I’m going to use this to do better since this is non-specific (my old answer sucked anyway since I was unprepared). For simplicities, sake I’m going to disregard all OBs since the general Prefects involvement with them is barely addressed in a diegetic way to begin with outside of Book 3. So that’s a non-factor going forward.

——

Across all three boys I think they probably find the Prefect/MC to be a nuisance. But mostly framed under that “NRC great-mages-in-training with huge egos” finding the fact that a human with NO magic gets to be a student there (with Grim) for #reasons to be kind of insulting. It’s just a territorial and pride thing common for majority of the students there. These three aren’t exempt from that. But, they do act out in different ways.

Since Emilio is so shameless, Emilio will take any potshot to undermine the Prefect’s status, accomplishments (if any) and their popularity, even is this popularity is more so “infamy” than anything else (which it is). They are in the same grade level, so encounters are more frequent. I think he probably sees a bit of himself in the Prefect, and ends up projecting onto them more than he should. He’ll probably warm up eventually though depending on how development goes, but it will not be an easy task, assuming this Prefect is a general good faith person. And yes, he would apologize and take every moment to atone for his behavior if they ever became friends.

Cecil, despite his own issues, would rather ignore the Prefect and generally wants nothing to do with them. I don’t think he’d be mean like Emilio, just a little snarky if they crossed paths. But he’s just naturally pretty snarky despite his bumbling nature. He wouldn’t do anything though. He doesn’t know it yet but it’s not really in him to be all that mean. He does know that Housewarden Malleus regards the Prefect highly, but can’t understand why. If the Prefect were to an extend a friendly hand first towards Cecil and remain persistent (persistence is key), then Cecil would eventually come around tenfold. I think a Prefect friendship would do Cecil some good. Maybe even improve his magical performance even— who knows 👍

Nyoka sees the Prefect as prey. A mouse, even. That is food. However, in general Nyoka doesn’t regard the Prefect at all and would rather ignore them. This is pretty easy to do since they wouldn’t be too likely to cross paths. If they did though, in a non-confrontational way provided they keep a respectful distance, he would be deferential and civil. On paper this sounds good, but this is not exactly a warm scenario. Rule of thumb is to just not engage. If they did somehow frequently cross paths and a Prefect were to remain respectful of his space (and perhaps engage with his interests) then maybe that civility would become genuine. He might find the idea of a predator becoming slightly chummy with prey a little amusing, in its own way.

lol like how I spun this into “BUT WHAT IF FRIENDS???” Scenario

THANKS BYE

(OH right. @servamp01 )

[whateversawesome]

Fandom Wrapped + Some SxF Fic Recs

The year is almost over so it's a good time to reflect on all the wonderful fics we read and all the fics we wrote as well. I'm sure you have your favorites 😃

Here's my fandom wrapped plus a few fic recs and reflections:

(Special thanks to @katty-king-elfans for creating these templates so we can all have a fun fandom wrapped)

It's always hard to choose a favorite but this year, there was a clear winner in my heart:

After Peace by @unhappy-sometimes : To me, this fic is a masterpiece. I could talk about its interesting premise, the development of the characters or even the use of beautiful metaphors, however, for me, the most important thing is how this story just reached the deepest part of my heart.

Do you sometimes feel like you can't make any mistakes? Do you feel like if you do, you could derail your life forever? Well, this story shows us that's not true. It's a story about second chances about rebuilding life after huge mistakes, after being hurt, after thinking life is over.

And it's also a story about how unsettling "peace" can be after a lifetime of fighting. Here, Twilight is retired, he has "won" and there's finally peace between East and West, but his life is now meaningless. It takes place after the hero reaches the climax of his story and wonders 'now what?' Enter Anya and Yor to revive this man!

I won't say anything else to avoid spoiling it for you. If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and read it here!

Other amazing piece this year that I loved in the visual art field was:

Bad Omen by @buf309-art-binder , which is not a fic per se, but a fancomic that uses both visual art and written language to tell an amazing (and angsty) story about wanting to protect what we love the most by becoming "hunters".

Here, we see Yor's perspective through a memory. She protects Yuri's innocence from death and pain by hiding both from him. In the present, Yor reflects about how fragile life can be and we learn how she views herself: as someone who stole her time from others.

However, Twilight tells her otherwise. To him, she's more than someone who just fights and destroys. To him, he's the reason why he's been able to heal 💖

The fancomic wraps up in a spectacular way, right in the middle of an action scene, where we see Yuri as an adult but at the same time, relying on his sister's wisdom, just as when he was a child, because of a dire situation. In this scene, Buf warps up everything and tells us that Loid and Yor were right about referring to themselves as a canary and an owl.

And the story's cliffhanger at the very end is to die for!! 😱 If you haven't read it or if you want to read it for the 100th time like me, here it is.

I would also like to send a ton of love to Ari_Gateau @lpham2525 for her amazing stories that never fail to lift my heart; to @rachellysebrook but writing the most emotional fic I read this year: Pink Sakura (Rach, you owe me a box of tissues.) And to Puolain @loveroma whose fics are truly magical (and that kiss scene in Hide and Seek was hands down my favorite). Honorable mention to Talik_Sanis who is not on tumblr (not that I know) for writing some of the funniest sxf fics I've read.

I want to thank all the authors who kept writing and contributing to the fandom. Thank you!

Now, if you're also interested on my Writer Wrapped, here it is!

As you can see, My Enemy took almost all the categories in this wrapped. It has been very challenging but also very satisfying.

As some of you may know, I love reading and writing AUs but before writing this AU, I thought AUs were not very popular among readers. That's why I'm so grateful this fic has had such a positive answer. Thank you to all of those who have read, commented, and supported this story 💖 And for those who have no clue what I'm talking about 😆 you can read it here.

On a personal note, this fic has helped me understand a lot of things about life. My favorite scene this year (the blessing) felt so cathartic to me, because we're so conditioned to think that we must be useful for people to love us and that's not true. The people that love us do so because of our simple existence. Writing that, seeing those words on the screen, made me feel relieved. If you're interested, I explained it in detail a couple of weeks ago here.

Although My Enemy has taken most of my writing time, I've also had the opportunity to write other one-shots. My two favorites this year are:

Birthdays: A tooth-rotting fluff fic about all the Forgers' birthdays.

Deadly Encounters at the Department Store: A comedy in which Yor faces an embarrassing situation at the department store.

Also, I got to write a small one-shot sequel for Love Is... called I Choose You.

In addition, I also wrote for a couple of different ships besides Twiyor. Given my strong twiyor brainrot, I considered these two fics a fun challenge. Both fics were written as birthday gifts for two dear friends and I'm happy with the result:

Yuri and Chloe Big Daycare Ordeal (Yurikuro)

A New Dance Partner (Franky x Fiona)

AND to top it all, I did my first collaboration in the fandom with the amazing @unhappy-sometimes This collab was a gift for our friend @buf309 , who actually gave us the prompt for it. Unso was in charge of creating the art for this prompt and I was in charge of writing the fic. The result was fantastic!! You can see the fancomic here and read Sleeping Beauty: Twilight's Version here on ao3.

Well, that was a big wrapped but it was also a big writing/reading year. Thank you to all of those who read my stories, commented and left kudos. Thank you also to @twiyorbase for organizing so many wonderful events that kept us writing. And special thanks to my friends, who listened to me, encouraged me, and made me laugh. You make my life beautiful 💖Thank you!

[queenbelphegorofsloth]

What is your honest opinion on the sins plus Adam?

Bel: Alright I will give my honest opinion on each of them:

1. Adam: He is as sweet as can be, he is the most popular member of the royal court of Hell with only Mammon hating him. I feel like going to overprotective older sister mode when I see him. I am impressed by his maternal nature and I know he will be one of the best mothers.

2. Lucifer: He is a good King when he actually shows up, he basically went and became a shut in when Lilith up and left him. It is frustrating when he doesn’t show up to rule as King. But with Adam being a co ruler Lucifer is actually stepping up as King of Hell.

3. Satan: When he is off the job he is very much the gentleman to the ladies and Adam. On the job you will find out exactly why he is the Sin of Wrath. He is draconian when it comes to the law. He also has a rivalry with Lucifer that can get annoying, but the two usually get along.

4. Queen Bee: Very fun, energetic, and kind, she is basically the baby of the group if you don’t count Adam. She is the type who is easy to get along with. I just wish she would stop trying to sneak into where I store my medicines.

5. Ozzie: Like Satan, Ozzie is very much a gentleman. His club is a nice place to go to and have a nice meal with a glass of wine. He is also the perfect host as well, just very easy to get along with.

6. Leviathan: She is my best friend, we do everything together, she is quite generous with me since we are friends. She even admitted that if Lucifer hadn’t gotten with Adam when he did she would have tried to take Adam for herself.

7. Mammon: Everyone hates him for good reason, he is loud, rude, and like his sin that he represents, very greedy. He has done things to antagonize everyone like openly insulting Adam or turning into a giant and stepping on Lucifer. He is also so stupid that he didn’t realize that Ozzie’s boyfriend was saying fuck you in a song. I think the only person who likes Mammon is Mammon.

[rooooooossssssse]

hmmmm. i of course agree w u & w everyone in the tags saying the reason uccio does it is bc of the clear unconditional love they both have for each other. and i do definitely believe that as they’ve aged (and especially now since Valentino has retired) their dynamic has probably become a lot healthier. like uccio has rode w vale through every single up and down of his life and stuck through some very low lows with him. at this point in their lives i don’t have any reason to doubt their loyalty to one another.

BUT. I LOVE TOXICITY. so im most fascinated by their relationship in their 20s & early 30s when the power imbalance is probably at its most severe!!!

i know we all have our own ideas of Valentino in our heads, but I think one thing everyone can agree on is that he can be really fucking mean when he wants to be! it is one of the best and worst things about him & i fully believe he knows & is aware at 30 (the age he is in the Malaysian gp i referenced) that it is deeply embarrassing for his adult best friend to be acting like his sort of modern day squire on tv in front of the entire world. and i wonder if that’s maybe a large part of why he does it! if he sees uccio’s willingness to endure public embarrassment as a sort of test of his love and loyalty.

i do think Valentino can sometimes be deeply distrustful of other people’s intentions w him…for as popular as he got, he always seemed to kind of thumb his nose at the trappings of fame that weren’t directly related to motogp (see: the blow up doll). we of course saw the worst possible culmination of this in 2015 lol but i feel like that underlying current of mistrust is there in a lot of his other relationships. he’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop & for someone to reveal that they’re just using him (similar to how he spoke about Sete and ofc has said about Marc many a time…in spite of what Marc would tell u).

but there is one person who has never let that happen. one guy who has stuck it out through all of the wins and losses and ugly yellow merch and rivalries (including the ones he himself caused lol) and done everything asked of him and more.

Uccio Salucci u are truly so bizarre to me but never change!!!!

i’m watching Malaysia 2009 and was struck by the bizarre psychological trap / nightmare existence that must be living as Uccio Salucci……..like. your best friend is not only insanely charming and funny and objectively better looking than you. but he’s also one of the greatest and most famous athletes in the world. already a fucking nightmare dynamic to navigate on its own. it’s giving that one insane article in The Cut written by that girl who self-id’d as “the ugly friend” but times a thousand…

THEN ON TOP OF THAT…you’re also employed by him. at the start of the Malaysian GP Uccio is like…holding Valentino’s water bottle for him & putting an ice pack on his neck to keep him cold until Valentino tells him to stop. like how is that not deeply humiliating??

THEN ON TOP OF THAT. at the end of the race Valentino’s fan club is in parc ferme to celebrate with him. and you know who’s the president of his fan club at this time? Uccio’s fucking DAD. LIKE ???

how do you live like that??? constantly and firmly in second place to this guy who you grew up with, and who undeniably loves you, but also…probably doesn’t respect you. CANT respect you, tbh, given how quickly & easily you’re willing to contort yourself in whichever way he demands. we’re honestly soooo lucky Uccio’s psychological hang-ups have thus far only manifested in him going absolutely Sicko Mode on the 22 yr old rookie who was trying to swoop his man. in 9/10 alternate universes he probably turns into like. a serial killer instead.

[auriidae]

treebark! (for ask game :D)

THESE GUYS!!!!!!

i watched martyn's third life a whiiile ago and it wasn't my thing but i DO see how people are insane about them one hundred percent. their dynamic is insane holy crap

[no1ryomafan]

The urge to do a breakdown of arma and new ryoma specifically to try to understand why new ryoma is not at all acknowledged compared to arma despite new having far more screen time and being explored as a character then arma is so strong even though the answer boils down to two things: “art style preference” and “no one cares about ryoma as a actual nuance character” but both of those points makes me so mad💀

[breadvidence]

@ineffable-gallimaufry asked in the tags "#okay but quick question. i thought that in... well hapgood titled it vague flashes on the horizon i don't have the number exactly#i thought it was specified that his mother had gone to jail for fortune telling?? which was what i was basing the assumption off of#maybe i misread it or it was a weird translation i'm just wondering how that fits in"

Good question! You're right and you're wrong and you've been misled by some stereotypes. The line you are thinking of is in 1.5.5 and opens the paragraph which contains the quote I wrote this post around, and goes: "Javert était né dans une prison d'une tireuse de cartes dont le mari était aux galères". Tireuse de cartes is translated as "fortune-teller" by both Hapgood and Donougher, which is not a weird translation at all, it's sensible. The term more literally is "drawer/puller of cards" or more naturally in English "card reader", and refers to the practice of telling fortunes based on variously laying out or picking cards from a deck (Javert's mother wouldn't have been using Tarot cards in the occult sense you might be imagining--what the pagan girlies are doing now wouldn't be popularized until around the time Javert was born, when the European occultist fancy weirdo movement got rolling; his mother's deck you could probably turn around and use for a quick hand of the 18th c French version of Texas Hold 'Em). This is also called cartomancy.

While fortune-telling is part of the mystical, magical, satanic prejudicial associations with Romani people in Europe, there's two things to know: humans really fuckin love telling fortunes and have been doing so globally pretty far back in the record of our species crafting special objects, and also telling fortunes can be really really profitable. This combination means that Europeans of all ethnic origins were paying for their fortunes to be told and getting paid to do so. So, historically, there's not a meaningful racial/ethnic implication in this being Javert's mother's profession. The reason it seems like there could be can be laid, to some degree, at the feet of those occultists: in order to pump up the prestige and mystery of Tarot and fortune-telling, they whole-cloth fashioned histories having to do with origins in Egypt (and recall the Romani were also called l'égyptien) and other various ancient places "abroad", when in reality Tarot is from 15th c. Italy and fortunes are made everywhere. From a business perspective, you also get fortune-tellers making up personal histories having to do with foreign or exotic origins as a way to bolster their cred, further distancing the modern popular perception of this as a thing that white Europeans do. Hugo himself would've been very familiar with Parisian street fortune-tellers and is unlikely to have had a specifically Romani woman in mind when making this Javert's mother's profession, though we do have to acknowledge that he was influenced by that popularization of the falsified occultist history and stereotypes about Romani, too, rather than having a 100% accurate knowledge of French profession demographics.

It's unfortunately focused a bit later than the period we're most interested in if we're talking when Javert's mother would've been jailed (around 1780), but this article provides good context for Hugo's personal milieu, since I doubt he did research into the legal and cultural minutiae of cartomancy prior to his birth, and also it popped up near the top of Google when I looked for a reference to offer + is free: https://academic.oup.com/fh/article/37/4/379/7310795

As an aside: note that Javert's father is only said to be in the galleys--we don't get a specific crime or whether he was a lifer. While my fondness for writing and reading about Javert having a homoerotic dalliance with Jean Valjean means I like to think of his father being some kind of thief or other peasant-style criminal for maximum daddy issues, there's no textual evidence in any direction, and you could hare off on a fun alternative thought process about whether he was some kind of clerk doing labor because of fraud or another bourgeois crime.

Hope that helps!

[ETA] To be clear, this is still very much a socially questionable—and specifically legally liminal—profession, and I would personally infer from the itinerant/vagabondage implications of race de bohème that mama is fortune-telling because she doesn’t have the means or domicile for a more respectable profession (like Fantine’s sewing). Also? The fact that we’re told “breaking her ban” (not reporting appropriately to the authorities while on parole) is a specific crime Javert would not flinch from persecuting her for makes me realize I’m sleeping on his relationship with Valjean being centered on mommy issues.

" [. . .] 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.

[jrueships]

Do u not ship tatum and brown 💔

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[rimouskis]

I'm going to preface this story by saying: I don't necessarily believe in karma, but

I may have been walking through today with a vague sense of disbelief tainted with unkind smugness after my tiktok fyp was flooded with poor fans who tried to get presale ticket to one mr n. kahan's new tour only to find that demand was through the roof and GA pit tickets were seriously going for $300, in presale, and even the "worst" tickets in the lawn were going for $70

and while I undoubtedly think it's deeply unethical for both platforms (thanks ticketmaster) and artists to allow such dramatic ticket cost inflation, I also generally don't relate...

I (VERY LUCKILY) gravitate towards smaller acts, and the most I've paid for a ticket all year has been, like... $90 for a ticket to beyonce, which got cancelled and I was refunded lol. if I look back at all my receipts from shows this year, most have been around $50/ticket after fees, and several have been closer to $20. my favorite show I've seen all year was a $15 ticket.

it's mostly luck—I tend to like smaller acts, and I've been seeing mainly rock acts this year, and those tickets simply don't run as high as pop acts. and part of me is honestly very grateful that I haven't been swept into any of the really recent huge acts.

I think of all the people scrabbling for boygenius or taylor swift tickets and how much money they've had to shell out... how a lot of them don't even GET to see the acts they want to see because they've been priced out or tickets sold out. I can't remember the last time a show I wanted to go to sold out lol. maybe bastille in london?

and again, it's just a matter of luck that I'm not really into any of these megastars and therefore don't have to compete in the gladiator arena to try to see shows I want to see, but sometimes luck manifests as a feeling of self-satisfaction, you know? who among us hasn't experienced a little self-superiority from time to time.

look, if YOUR tiktok was flooded with people saying concerts have been awful since 2021 (including rock and metal shows), but every concert YOU'VE been to since 2021 was amazing and the crowds were really good and you always got tickets and it never broke the bank, you'd feel pretty validated in your choice of musicians and the crowds they attract too, alright?? sue me! I felt frugal AND undeservedly clever!

anyways back to karma. guess who got invited and subsequently agreed to shell out $70 to sit in a lawn and listen to mr. n. kahan sing. I'll give you a hint, her tumblr username starts with an r and ends with an s

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

HIIII MACKINTOSH goob morning,,, pd episode 11 update ASHE MOMENT hi. hi oh my god. everyone HAS to be obsessed with him right?? he has to be like a fandom favorite guy HES GOT A CURSED GRIMOIRE!!! awsome. awesome sick i love him.

REALLY chewing on all the dakota & william stuff this episode... what will said about his wisp form being kind of terrifying because he never knows if he'll really be able to return to his body... ohh man thats so good. kid who's soul is just kind of held in by a thread rattlin around in there... + also this ep was great re: the trivia point u mentioned last night ab dakota & will clashing morality!! bc yeah!!! wild that wiwi's hesitance to Torture People wasn't because of the Torturing People part but just bc he's afraid of himself... dakota just having to Leave partway through... aughh. vyncent also holy shit!! all of these guys are having such a bad time.

I LOVE ASHE oh my godd. such a specific type of alt kid i love him. type of guy i would befriend like a shy stray cat at orchestra camp after complimenting his red jumpsuit apparatus hoodie. also there HAS to be insane amounts of discourse re: wavelength (holy shit. mark. mark. shrieked at that. i feel like i cant call him that its too weirddddd) parenting methods?? there HAS to be people who r like well i can excuse the murders but i draw the line at homeschooling ur bound-to-a-demonic-book kid. yeah youre right he & tide r so divorced 2 me. single dad & single mom. why is he so intent on getting tide back hmm??!!

anyway... hghghbk. good episode i won't make this even longer & start talking ab the spirit world stuff (!!!???!!!?!!?!!) BUT i hope u r having a good dayyyyy <3333

FUCK YEAAAAAH IM SO EXCITED YOUVE FINALLY MET ASHE I LOVE HIM SOOOOO MUCH. I LOVE HIM SO VERYMUCH . AUAGHGHHH. ashe winters my boy forever... i KNEW u would like him i could feel it in my BONES. hell yes. love love love a grimoire guy :]

I CANT WAIT 2 SEND U THE TRIVIA FOR THIS EP i started writing it out at the beginning of my shift this morning and then had to go to like a billion meetings so you dont get it until i get home. but theres some TASTY behind the scenes characterization discussion. ohhh thays my favorite. esp irt dakota this ep :] i love him so much . i love all of them so much

ANYWAY. william ashamed of his powers mkment!!!! my boy he is made of catholic guilt. anyway. i fucking loved how he ghost shaped his spirit form for intimidation instead of actually using it. hes so smart hes so cool hes everything to me if i start thinking about william wisp for too long ill go fucking bonkers crazy.

MARK. MAAAAAAARK. DUDE IM SO FUCKING GLAD YOUVE FINALLY LEARNED HIS NAME BC IVE ALMOST CALLED HIM MARK IN UR NOTES SO MANY TIMES AND IVE HAD TO CORRECT MYSELF. wavelength who. this is my deadbeat dad best friend mark winters. HES NOT A DEADBEAT DAD. IM SORRY. ok ok ok. i cannot say much irt him rn but there IS a reason hes like this hes not just shitty for the sake of it. he does care very much hes just bad at it. uhhhhhhghdgdgdgggdgdrrrghg i love him. a lot . #1 mark winters apologist blog right here. im not even sorry. luckily..luckily i have not seen the discorse about him yet but i know its out there somewhwre. sigh.

u know whats funny. youll hear this a little bit but its mostly in the bts stuff. grizzly fucking HATES mark. and that bleeds into how he plays dakota which makes sense but its SO FUNNY in the rolleds just how much he gets mad at mark. which !!! understandable he sucks hes terrible. but im built different i love him.

AND TIIIIIIIIDE. hey. hey remember when william was interrogating mark the first time. in the holding cell. and he tried to use a ghost shaped tide at first but mark called bullshit right away because "tide's never spoken to me like that before" hey . fellas.

[starlit-mansion]

Occasionally now i will see a sentiment about how it's groundbreaking and meaningful for fnaf to be an indie game that got a huge movie deal but i think it's actually a bit more meaningful that it had a huge movie deal years ago and scott held onto it for long enough to at least genuinely make sure there were good effects and casting rather than it being farted out at the height of popularity

[radiotorn]

i need to draw o/ff characters again and post hcs abt them to my blog. oogoog

[laesas]

Seeing someone's awful, self-righteous, bad faith, rage bait take and realising that you already have them blocked for their other dogshit opinions 👌👌👌

[windupaidoneus]

i mean i dont think i ship elidibus w erichthonios either if im really honest. thinking abt pairs that get paraded as givens. to me the dynamic is more an older person caring for someone younger than them like a mentor figure perhaps. not really into that kinda stuff