#or do i mean a novel

[diamond-vic]

I love Brackenpaw in the graphic novel so much oh my god. He’s so polite and he only speaks in normal (by normal, I mean not-all-caps lettering you’d see in day to day) lettering. It’s probably to contrast him with how excitable and loud Cinderpaw is, but since Every Single Other Character always talks in all caps it just makes him seem like such a polite quiet little guy.. I adore him so much

[blueinkjpeg]

Oh boy oh boy oh boy

[journey-to-the-attic]

the new nightmare is cool but i think not putting them in hanfu was an missed opportunity

(+ long hair version that i wasn't as sure about)

[strawbellyx3]

Some thoughts on JinMao in The Apothecary Diaries LN (spoilers)

I love how Maomao's love for Jinshi is written in the Light Novel. She's an unreliable narrator and can't put a name on what she feels for a long time and heck, for the most time she doesn't even want to. The beginning of volume 6 showing this perfectly when she didn't want to leave Jinshi's hair stick behind, carried it with her and when she slept, she kept it near her chest because she didn't want to have it anywhere where she could see it. The symbolism *chef kiss* (she doesn't want to face her feelings but also still carries them close to her chest)

She purposely chooses to avoid thinking about any potential feelings for Jinshi and at the end of the same volume it's also stated that she does have some kind of affection for him that she can't yet put into words.

For readers, it's easy to view Maomao's avoidant attitude as disinterest. Even more so paired with how she doesn't seem to ever be nervous around Jinshi. But really, we don't need blushy nervous Maomao to understand what she's feeling. Her feelings come to show everytime she worries about Jinshi's well being and goes out of her way to get him to eat and rest, takes time of her own day to make sure that he's well.

When at the beginning, she always considered him bringing all these tasks to her as bothersome. Maomao just wanted to experiment with poison and make medicine, she didn't want to spend time on anything else, really.

Then, in volume 9 she's even willing to give up her agency if it meant helping ease his burdens.

Maomao, miss "I don't want to have anything to do with this, this is bothersome" tells him to use all of her. Use her until she falls apart. (while kabedoning him, love Maomao being an absolute girlboss even when she tells him to use her)

She's worried by his selflessness. How he's unable to use other people to reach his goals and shoulders everything on his own, wanting to save everyone. Maomao gets upset by it and worries he'd never get anything in return and become as luckless in life as her adoptive father. Who carries the same selflessness and kindness.

I don't think we talk enough about how much it means for Maomao to get to a point where she would rather get used by Jinshi than to see him exhaust himself.

This whole scene afterwards is just..generally really heartwarming honestly.

(Volume 9 Chapter 20)

Her hands went to Jinshi’s cheek. “You’re only human, Master Jinshi. You’re not some mythical immortal who can save everyone.” She held his face in her hands, the fingers of her left hand brushing his scar. “You can be wounded, scarred, brought low. Only human.”

Who was she talking to? She knew Jinshi was standing in front of her, but for some reason she kept seeing Luomen’s face.

No wonder I’m so upset. The principle that drove Jinshi’s behavior seemed very similar to Luomen’s. She was afraid that if he went on like this, he would end up just as luckless in life as her old man. Just like Pops... He’d spent himself trying to rescue everyone and everything. Like a fool. He should have wanted more, been greedier, but instead he’d suffered his fate patiently. Suffered and suffered, and for what? To become an old man resigned to his empty hands. This was, it was fair to say, Maomao’s one criticism of her father. She’d felt it keenly in the affair with the Shaonese shrine maiden. She respected Luomen immensely. A man who never lost his kindness no matter what unhappiness he encountered was like a miracle. The price, though, was that his body and his heart were both battered. In time he became so that everything he did, he did in the expectation of defeat. Would Jinshi end up like him one day? Or— “Please, please don’t go doing anything else like burning a brand into your skin,” Maomao said. “I heard you...the first several times,” Jinshi replied. “Are you sure?” A smile flitted across Maomao’s face, and she slowly pulled her hands away.

[aslyran]

Yoohankim grocery shopping AU for @/constellaorv on twt⭐️

Thank you for donating to the @orv-gotcha-for-gaza !!

[vela-pulsars]

not enough stonjourner art out there

[twirlymarimo]

one piece magazine vol. 18 ⚔️🍴

[phoenixkaptain]

Novel A New Hope Vader is my favourite Vader (so far) because he Is Anakin, he is everything Anakin is set up to be. He is intimidating, he is overwhelming, standing next to him feels like standing next to a black hole, he is-

The biggest little shit in the entire galaxy.

You canNOT convince me that he didn’t say half his lines with a shit-eating smirk. He is awful to be around, he is the worst person to ever exist, he is SO annoying.

And Novel Vader is so Anakin because the book can give us details the movie can’t. The book gives us the author’s choice of wording, the way the author intended the scenes to be, and Vader is such a little shit almost constantly but my FAVOURITE will always be when Tagge talks back to him about the Force, saying it isn’t as powerful or scary as he makes it out to be and Vader just-

“I find,” Vader ventured mildly, “this lack of faith to be disturbing.”

-the WORD CHOICE. The fucking WORDS chosen.

“Ventured”??? “Mildly”??? He is CHOKING this man!!! This man is DYING!! He is being such a little shit right now, this is it. This is the Him, this is Anakin Skywalker right here. He is using unnecessary force and being a bitch about it and there will never be anything that so perfectly encapsulates Anakin Skywalker than this fucking scene in this fucking novel.

On the topic and as a brief aside, the novel is what makes me think that Leia was planned to be Vader’s kid, or at least a narrative mirror to Vader, right from the start. She is also such an Anakin.

“Darth Vader… I should have known. Only you would be so bold— and so stupid.”

She just… also. Encapsulates Anakin. Like. Yeah. Yeah, this is what he could have been. He could have been a terrifying figure that people rallied behind. He is loyal to the death, as is Leia. She spits on Darth Vader while he’s having her dragged away. She mocks him to his face. This is the character that the Anakin Skywalker of future movies mimics. Her passion, her anger, her being a little shit and insisting throughout everything that it WAS a diplomatic vessel and they WERE on a diplomatic mission.

Leia is the first character to face down Vader in this novel and not show fear. She is the first character who refuses to submit in the face of the scariest guy in the galaxy. She continues to refuse to submit. She’s just. A great fucking liar.

Leia puts all her trust, her very life and the sake of the entire rebellion she’s fighting for, in a droid. An astromech droid. She begs for them to take the droid further, not for them to find her. She’s willing to die, and she trusts her death will not be in vain because she trusts a droid.

And that, if nothing else, is all the proof needed that Leia is what Anakin could have been.

[taradactyls]

Something I love about how Pride and Prejudice is told through an omnipresent narrator, aside from the witty remarks and insight into other characters it allows even though it's usually focused on Elizabeth, is how it plays on the audience's own prejudices and assumptions.

The narrator tells us very early on, chapter 4, that Darcy is "haughty, reserved, and fastidious, and his manners, though well-bred, were not inviting." We've already seen that when we meet him the previous chapter, and will see more of it in those following. But it's the readers, along with Elizabeth, who take that observation as not only a list of flaws (despite only the first actually being negative) but presumes even more damaging flaws must be attached to it. Darcy can be off-putting, especially so in the setting we meet him in: he dismissed Elizabeth within earshot of her, didn't engage with people attempting to converse with him, etc. It's easy to assume the worst of him in a world so driven by social niceties, and because we follow Elizabeth, who is so lively and playful amidst the rules which govern society. Elizabeth thinks he's bad tempered? It would make sense - he hasn't shown consideration for others much socially, why would he care when he's angry? He acted from resentment and jealousy and went against his father's will? That's not such a jump after the conclusion of a bad temper, his own acknowledgement of implacable resentment, and evidence of pride. The awareness of one offensive trait so naturally leads to prejudice against it, that we easily assume still worse qualities must exist. We are as mistaken as Elizabeth.

Even the idea that 'No, Darcy was never haughty or rude, he was just shy and misunderstood, the narrator is wrong' is just magnifying that prejudice. Yes, we do find out later that Darcy is not at ease among strangers, and was always intrinsically good; his morals and core values meant he was never as bad as Elizabeth believed. But that doesn't mean he was without flaws, and it's so fascinating that some analysis of his character seek to completely remove the negative traits which he eventually overcame after acknowledging them in himself. The logic seems to be that they feel if he had them in the start that he isn't actually such a good person. It's just another example of being so prejudiced against certain flaws that it's impossible for some people to reconcile that there doesn't have to be more serious failings attached, and someone can still be a good person despite being arrogant and not always nice. It's, ironically, being prejudiced in the exact same way that Elizabeth was at the start of the novel. It's amazing that Jane Austen was able to tap into that aspect of human nature so deftly, and invoke in both in her main character, and readers to this day.

Now, of course, the story is so well known it's rare for anyone to read it blind, so it's less likely anyone will be unaware of Darcy's good qualities despite first seeing his worst. Even if they do, Pride and Prejudice has become so genre defining that new readers who are the slightest bit genre savvy will be more aware than contemporary audiences were. But even if we know the story it's still so understandable why Elizabeth feels the way she does. We see what she sees and feel her conclusions make sense. Just as, even though the narrator tells us Darcy is starting to catch feelings for Elizabeth, we fully comprehend her not noticing and believing there's a mutual dislike. And though that is concrete evidence of Elizabeth not reading Darcy and his motives correctly, we are still so sympathetic of the basis of her prejudice that her continued belief in Darcy's lack of virtues makes sense from her point of view. We can see, as she later will, that she takes it too far, and should have noticed evidence to the contrary, but her prejudice against him based on his early behaviour and her pride at reading people correctly is so understandable.

Basically, in a story about the characters' pride and prejudices, I love, love, LOVE how the narrator's voice brings out those same traits in readers the exact same way we see it presenting in Elizabeth. We're all on that journey with her, and we can likewise learn the same lessons about ourselves as she does. Pride and Prejudice feels timeless, because even though society and thus the nuance changes, the book is about human nature, and that remains essentially the same.

[spindlewoed]

You have to understand. I don't "ship" Harry with the smoker on the balcony, I think whatever they have going on canonically is way funnier and touching than anything anyone could come up with.

There is so much within the dynamic itself. It’s a middle aged man and a younger man who are nothing alike and everything like each other. It’s the smoker being the person that kickstarts Harry’s sexuality journey anew, seeing Harry’s fascination with him and being amused by it because (aside from Harry being probably the first man in a while who’s managed to leave him dumbfounded in a positive way) the smoker *knows* what’s happening in Harry’s mind and as he puts it, it’s beautiful.

Don't get me wrong, the mutual attraction is there. The smoker flirts with Harry every other two lines (girl why the fuck are you flirting with a cop you're insane. I'm obsessed with you) yet makes fun of him in the same breath while Harry is absolutely clueless the whole time because he's too busy staring at his abs. Couldn't come up with anything funnier if I tried.

I love this high drama check, this is exaclty what it feels like to speak to clueless boomers who have no idea what they're talking about. Still, once Harry admits that he might be part of the "underground" as he puts it, the smoker is immediately excited and encourages him to think about it. It's very sweet.

(I know everyone has probably seen this dialogue 100 times by now but I love the phrasing here. literally twink_boutta_pounce.jpeg)

And as a side note I really like this emphaty check in response to Harry's little breakdown after the failed suggestion check the first time you meet him. The smoker like damn he just like me fr.

I don't think more smoker interactions were needed at all or that they would ever talk again post-game but it's interesting to think about what other converations they could have, even just so we could learn a bit more about him. They both have an interest in art. They're both stuck in a place they can't leave if they wanted to and yet find beauty in it, they both have regrets about past relationships. They both find talking with the other a charming experience in a way or another. If I want to be indulgent, they both could benefit from learning about what being gay means for a younger/older generation, especially since they both have such different life experiences with their identities.

It's all fanfic talk, and obviously no cops at pride and so on but their interactions did make me think about community and recognition through the other. A flirt for the sake of a flirt, a “maybe in another lifetime” but this lifetime is good too because they did meet and leave an impression on each other before parting ways. That's *beautiful* too.

[bizarrelittlemew]

ok but what if THIS

is the VERY first shot of season 2 episode 1 (and/or the first time we see Stede)

imagine it. the sound of waves crashing on the rocks. Stede looks at the bottle, music slowly fades in. he lifts his gaze, looks out over the ocean. wind blowing in his hair and his billowing shirt. he tosses the bottle as far as he can. we see it bob along on the waves. he nods to himself, has that same smile as when he rows out to find Ed at the end of season 1. perhaps he whispers something like "I'm coming back, Edward"

then he goes back to the crew and they ask him where he's been and he proceeds to get absolutely ROASTED for using bottle messaging like

"oh my god no one does that in real life"

"you threw trash in the ocean, congrats"

"that's it, we're doomed"

cue title card <3

[secretmellowblog]

Before writing Les Mis, Hugo’s beloved 19-year-old daughter Leopoldine tragically drowned. As a result Les Mis is full of drowning imagery— drowning as a a symbol of impossible grief and loss, drowning as a symbol of being left behind by a society that doesn’t care about protecting your life, drowning as a method of suicide.

The les mis letters chapter today is the first chapter where Hugo highlights the drowning imagery that becomes central to the rest of the novel. The horrible symbolic death Valjean suffers as a result of being entirely isolated and forgotten by a society that doesn’t value his life is also foreshadowing of Javert’s eventual death.

Throughout the novel, Eponine also frequently talks about her desire to drown herself in the Seine; Thenardier monologues about how “the river is the true grave” and when bodies fall in it “justice makes no inquiries;” later Valjean escapes prison by faking his death by drowning, and so on and so on. There’s this emphasis that drowning doesn’t just mean death, it means erasing yourself from existence. It means you’re forgotten.

One of the saddest references to the death of Leopoldine is the way Valjean and Javert learn about the other’s death (or “death.”)

Hugo learned about his daughter’s death not from a family member/friend, but by reading about it in a newspaper. He was on vacation away from his family at the time. He was reading the news in a cafe and happened to stumble on an article about Leopoldine’s horrible tragic drowning, which was how he first learned that she was dead.

When Javert learns about Valjean’s “death” in prison (when Valjean pretends to drown in order to escape), he learns about it by reading it in the newspaper. When Valjean learns about Javert’s death by drowning, he learns about it by reading it in the newspaper.

So…yeah :(. Les Mis is full of all these agonized metaphors around drowning (as a metaphor for death/grief/being entirely forgotten by the people around you) and part of that comes from Hugo’s own deep personal trauma around the death of death of his daughter.

[kayoi1234]

So the thing is I have an intent to read the scum villian novel or whatever because it sounds interesting but I keep never getting around to it because the second hand knowledge I get is so much funnier. From what I understand:

The protagonist is a redditor who said "I read porn for the plot" and then did actually proceed to do that. A type of hater never seen before. This guy also is apparently a fruit but like. He's never going to figure it out. He also dies and has the luck of becoming that shitty book he read for the plot's villian. He proceeds to try and not become a villain.

The actual protagonist of the book (Binghe???) is apparently in gay love with the protagonist. I respect the grind. Also apparently if he doesn't get with the protagonist he will tear the world asunder which. well. Is a way to deal with that.

The actual antagonist/god of the world/original shitty porn writer's name is Airplane. I do not think this is explained but he calls the protag cucumber? I don't know. People sometimes collectively call them cumplane which is funny.

I don't actually know what the plot of it is but I think someone goes to superhell or dies but they get better.

So from what I understand I should read this at some point.

[blindrapture]

In 2011, I started writing a thing, on a whim. In 2013, I finished it. A lot of people seemed to love it? Then over the next decade, I put a lot of work into expanding and editing it, with plans for a complete physical book release that didn't happen. Well, here it is again. As an internet novel. A finished novel, this time.

I will start posting the story on May 21st, 2024. May 22nd will be a day of rest. And then, from May 23rd until October 21st, every day will see a new chapter-- a new log. ("F-Five months?? How long is this novel?" Oh yeah, good point. That won't actually get us to the end. There may be another eight, ten days of chapters afterwards. It is important, however, to emphasize the May 21 - October 21 model.)

I will make sure to put the bulk of the contents under "Read More" breaks, so each log won't clutter your browsing experience.

The logs will have art in them. Not as much as in the original draft, but there will still be some. As of May 1st, I expect art by Rappu, RealaChao, Wiratomkinder, and Vis.

I plan on supplementing the logs with the occasional post talking about the making and intention of the story. I dunno, it's gonna be a five-month distribution period, I'm gonna get antsy during that and am gonna want to ramble. That'll be separate content, though.

And when the story is fully and completely posted on tumblr, I will release the full novel on my Website, where I like to keep the rest of my creations. Both the tumblr novel and the Website novel will be free reading, forever. I reserve the right to try again at a paid physical edition afterwards.

So! That's it. Rapture is coming. OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING is coming.

Trigger Warnings: Sex, Gods, and Rock & Roll. (violence. some swear words. teenage angst, cringe. death. insects. surrealism. symbolism. unpredictability of what will be explained and what won't. sexual acts with dubious consent-- you will be able to skip that part. religious iconography. and so much prog rock.)

Get ready for it.

[fisheito]

I want to be in the room when this massage happens

[anghraine]

It's interesting (if often frustrating) to see the renewed Orc Discourse after the last few episodes of ROP. I've seen arguments that orcs have to be personifications of evil rather than people as such or else the ethics of our heroes' approach to them becomes much more fraught. Tolkien's work, as written, seems an odd choice to me for not wrangling with difficult questions, and of course, more diehard fans are going to immediately bring up Shagrat and Gorbag.

If you haven't read LOTR recently, Shagrat and Gorbag are two orcs who briefly have a conversation about how they're being screwed over by Sauron but have no other real options, about their opinions of mistakes that have been made, that they think Sauron himself has made one, but it's not safe to discuss because Sauron has spies in their own ranks. They reminisce about better times when they had more freedom and fantasize about a future when they can go elsewhere and set up a small-scale banditry operation rather than being involved in this huge-scale war. Eventually, however, they end up turning on each other.

Basically any time that someone brings up the "humanity" of this conversation, someone else will point out that they're still bad people. They're not at all guilty about what they're part of. They just resent the dangers to themselves, the pressure from above, failures of competence, the surveillance they're under, and their lack of realistic alternative options. The dream of another life mentioned in the conversation is still one of preying on innocent people, just on a much smaller and more immediate scale, etc.

I think this misses the reason it keeps getting brought up, though. The point is not that Shagrat and Gorbag are good people. The point is that they are people.

There's something very normal and recognizable about their resentment of their superiors, their fears of reprisal and betrayal that ultimately are realized, their dislike of this kind of industrial war machine that erases their individual work and contributions, the tinge of wistfulness in their hope of escape into a different kind of life. Their dialect is deliberately "common"—and there's a lot more to say about that and the fact that it's another commoner, Sam, who outwits them—but one of the main effects is to make them sound familiar and ordinary. And it's interesting that one of the points they specifically raise is that they're not going to get better treatment from "the good guys" so they can't defect, either.

This is self-interested, yes, but it's not the self-interest of some mystical being or spirit or whatnot, but of people.

Tolkien's later remarks tend to back this up. He said that female orcs do exist, but are rarely seen in the story because the characters only interact with the all-male warrior class of orcs. Whatever female orcs "do," it isn't going to war. Maybe they do a lot of the agricultural work that is apparently happening in distant parts of Mordor, maybe they are chiefly responsible for young orcs, maybe both and/or something else, we don't know. But we know they're out there and we know that they reproduce sexually and we know that they're not part of the orcish warrior class.

Regardless of all the problems with this, the idea that orcs have a gender-restricted warrior class at all and we're just not seeing any of their other classes because of where the story is set doesn't sound like automatons of evil. It sounds like an actual culture of people that we only see along the fringes.

And this whole matter of "but if they're people, we have to think about ethics, so they can't be people" is a weird circular argument that cannot account for what's in LOTR or for much of what Tolkien said afterwards. Yes, he struggled with The Problem of Orcs and how to reconcile it with his world building and his ethical system, but "maybe they're not people" is ultimately not a workable solution as far as LOTR goes and can't even account for much of the later evolution of his ideas, including explicit statements in his letters.

And in the end, the real response that comes to mind to that circular argument is "maybe you should think about ethics more."