#i could write books about this

[realitysurfing]

finding out who i am at 23 is like wow i guess i don't actually hate affection i just hate when men are near me. its like oh i guess the only thing about marriage and commitment that actually scared me was the prospect of a man being there. Ohh right like i guess if i didn't reject who i was at 14 i wouldn't be here but there's really no going back now. its like damn if i had known this 4 years ago i probably would've told that girl that i love/d her right right.. its like if i had let myself know this prior to like 6 months ago maybe the world would have always been this bright. OK cool

[somnimagus]

My page for @sheikahzine; about Impaz's duty to her village, empty of people and full of memories.

[id in alt text]

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[martyfive]

i forgive it all as it comes back to me

[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.

[hiyyihrts]

“For how long have you had feelings for him?”… Lord the way they keep making Eloise this non-observant clueless friend to everyone is crazy to me… especially continuously with Pen (and now Cressida also). She never fathomed that Pen could want to participate in ton events, want to be married, want to have even the bare minimum opportunity to be entertained by a man, and yet anytime Pen goes against anything Eloise always talked about she’s so surprised?? Maybe if you talked with your friends instead of at them we wouldn’t be running into this situation continuously El…

[intermundia]

today on "absolutely unhinged things for stover to put on paper and lucas to approve," the depiction of obi-wan's self-aware attachment to anakin here, how ready he'd be to kill yoda for the greater good, and how he'd let yoda kill him too, but anakin is the exception to their entire order and to obi-wan's moral judgment.

all three of them here, arguably the three most important jedi in the galaxy, they all know with wariness that anakin, the chosen one, has failed to grasp the central tenet of their code, and they don't know what to do about it. obi-wan thinks he failed him, failed to teach him; he knows anakin failed to learn, failed to accept it, how he'd would never let a friend go.

obi-wan here offers keen, intimate analysis of anakin's inner workings, shining a light on who darth vader really is in his heart, his loyalty beyond any moral or ethical bounds. obi-wan is painfully aware of how he is complicit in fostering this inappropriate attachment, only encouraging anakin's behavior. we see why he apologized in the kenobi show, how he was already sorry.

tbh this page changed me—my understanding of the characters, and my appreciation of the entire tragedy, like.. look how anakin has compromised obi-wan, and look at how much obi-wan loves him anyway. look at how the heart of this incipient monster is described with tender, ruthless clarity by the one who knows it best... on the next page obi-wan's literally crying about what they've done... i'm astrally projecting into the sun

[nobie]

The simple nod between Rex and Wolffe holds the weight of the galaxy in it. Loyalty means everything to the clones. We knew deep down Wolffe wouldn’t hurt his brothers but actually seeing it hits home.

[dragonsbluee]

I have a request for batfam/Jason Todd fanfic writers:

I love the "Jason Todd is a bookworm/theatre nerd" fics as much as the next person, don't get me wrong, but can we please diversify his interests?

90% of the time when I open a fic with that tag, we see Jason reading Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice or quoting Shakespeare. And not to say that there's anything wrong with any of those being his favourite but even if he loves to read "classical" books, come on!

You're telling me Jason raised-in-crime-alley-spent-his-formative-years-between-an-eccentric-billionaire-and-an-assassin-cult Todd only reads books by dead white people?!

I refuse! Give me a man who takes to books more than ever after his return to Gotham. Jason, who reads books like I am Woman, A Really Good Brown Girl and White Tears/Brown Scars, then recommends them to the working girls as he establishes his territory. Who reads in multiple languages, and who loves Arabic poetry.

Give me a little "Robin is Magic!" Jason scouring Bruce's library and picking up a copy of The Mahabharata after he's done The Iliad, and spends weeks obsessed with Journey to the West.

Give me a Jason who's read Things Fall Apart, and One Hundred Years of Solitude! The number of quotes and references he could pull that would further support his dramatic tendencies? It would make him so happy!

[ohnopeh]

i like to think this happened after ian confronted mickey, resulting in him agreeing to give west side a shot.

mickey feels anxious still, doesn’t sleep well and the moon is too fucking bright but this time ian is comforting and holding onto him. ‘cause ian knows they both need to feel one another in any way to relax— they’re in this together and can rely on each other.

i also like this little details of ian nervously moving his fingers when mickey keeps lying to ian about liking the place, sleeping nicely there etc. it means ian’s mind is working overtime so quickly trying to figure out how to fix things and fidgeting comes instinctively when overthinking etc.

which is also why ian tried to make mickey happy by telling him they can hit the gym together (as mickey started going to kev’s in previous episodes) or going to the pool mickey wanted to try so bad! but nothing worked as mickey refused to do any of that, so ian makes sure mickey won’t run away again trying to hint it being subtle ( which mickey catches on quickly with ‘i’m not going anywhere’ ) and then ian kisses him (psychical touch once again as a way to comfort one another) and reminds him he’s happy they’re trying to have a better life.

[mxliv-oftheendless]

Ok I know we all like to joke about how the Battle of the Five Armies is only a page long in The Hobbit but like. Sometimes I think about how what if Tolkien wrote it that way because he didn’t want his kids to hear about war.

[hamletthedane]

This play is truly the gift that keeps on giving

[bookshelf-in-progress]

The trick to writing a good story is to make sure it has at least one element that people like so much that they don't care if other elements are imperfect.

People are drawn to stories with stuff they like; they're going to like flawed stories that have those things more than they're going to like perfect stories that don't have those things. I personally love certain authors because of one thing they do well--I go to this one for character, and this one for intricate plot, and this one for immersive worldbuilding, etc.--and get confused when people complain about the other elements not being done well because that's not what I'm reading for. If one element is really well-done, I will forgive a million other storytelling sins that would make me tear apart a book I liked less. If I can give that grace to other authors, I can trust other readers to give me that same grace, if they like my stories well enough to keep reading them.

[deoidesign]

My comic is so pretty...

The hiatus is letting me take a little extra time on these episodes, and I'm definitely putting it to good use!!!

[johnslittlespoon]

i just finished the prologue of the mota book and i don't know how i haven't seen a single post talking about how after john and gale's stalag reunion, they were then separated for another four months.

my heart is aching so bad. imagine being reunited (after almost three weeks, oct 8–26th) and having that tiny feeling of 'everything is going to be okay' and then being ripped apart again for four fucking months. 120 more days of not being able to be at each other's sides.

[shepscapades]

shep. i finished xisuma's s8. i am plagued with so many thoughts /silly

Oh my gognfjgmgimfggfmgnmfdnffgh it’s. It’s so much. I have so much to say and so many thoughts they make me so crazy. They make me so crazy THEY MAKE ME SO CRAZY IS THIS THING ON CAN ANYONE HEAR ME