#the end of the novel

[bethanydelleman]

I'm listening to Emma as my falling-asleep audiobook right now and I'm thinking a lot about Harriet. The movie adaptations very often have her remaining friends with Emma after the end, but the book says their relationship sank into mere acquaintances after that. Is that a personality thing, do you think, or is it a class thing? And why the difference in the adaptations? I have my own thoughts but I'd like to hear yours.

It is definitely a class thing.

I think one of the reasons Emma can be unpalatable to modern audiences is because it ends with a restoration of a social order that we find repulsive today. How is it fair that Jane Fairfax, born as lower gentry, gets to marry into Enscombe but Harriet Smith, the natural daughter of a tradesman, 'deserves' only Robert Martin and is basically ejected from membership in Highbury's gentry class? And that's a good thing? The adaptations maintain the Emma and Harriet friendship because the way the book ends really appalls a lot of modern readers.

(Also, never really talking about the age difference between Emma and Knightley was a great choice in Emma 2020 because that is not people's favourite either.)

I think the most charitable way to look at it is that Harriet always wanted Robert Martin. She loved staying there over the summer, the family was extremely kind and loving towards her, and her status as a natural child would be largely ignored. Emma's interference gave her ideas above her station... ug, veering into territory I don't love again... but then again, could Harriet have ever succeeded at marrying into the gentry? Probably not on Emma's sponsorship.

There are only two characters that a member of the gentry tries to move from "middle class" (I know it's not really the middle class) to gentry, George Wickham and Harriet Smith. Both attempts are disasters. Captain Wentworth, Fanny/William Price, and Jane Fairfax are all born into the lower gentry and they climb higher, which seems to be fine. There are a bunch of characters who go from extremely wealthy trade to gentry, the Jennings (Mrs. Jennings, Lady Middleton, and Charlotte Palmer) and the Bingleys. They seem to be fine, Charles Bingley at least is portrayed positively.

I don't know what the message is there. The Gardiners are presented as gentleman-like but have no apparent intentions of jumping class. Does that make them good? As someone raised in Canada whose worldview is rooted in The American Dream Lite, it's hard for me to appreciate the upholding of a classist system. Jane Austen herself was clinging to gentry status by her fingernails, so why does she write a novel that glorifies almost everyone staying exactly where birth placed them? Jane Fairfax can improve herself and be worthy of a rich marriage but not Harriet? I guess Harriet never improves herself much though, but she hasn't had the same opportunities as Jane F...

But then the very next novel, Persuasion, seems very anti-classist!

Something about hubris...

I actually feel sorry for Emma at the end of the book. She got a husband, sure, but she loses a friend. She has Mrs. Weston still, but she'll be busy with her baby, she loses Harriet, Jane Fairfax is gone (again), and she's still stuck in Highbury, which has become worse because Mrs. Elton is there now. She just remains as much trapped and limited as she was before...

Anyway, that is my long and rambling answer. I'm not very happy with the ending of Emma. If someone who does like it wants to defend, you are more than welcome.

(I do think there might be something to like, this is how the class system could work well if everyone actually did their jobs. Knightley is the perfect, model landlord. Cares for the poor, lives at his estate, involved in running it etc. Emma does her duty to the poor, everyone seems to do well under their United management)

[riddlerosehearts]

can't stop brainrotting over trey and riddle's dynamic, now i'm thinking about the fact that in the manga riddle's mother physically recoils and pulls her hand away instead of comforting him when he's in distress but it's trey taking riddle's hand that's the key to pulling him out of his overblot state. and then in the novel's version of that same scene riddle hears someone calling out to him "so gently, so desperately, so indiscreetly" and wishes that it would be his mother but it's actually trey who's offering him that gentle, unconditional love and comfort.

[thewisestdino]

andriel w #7

I don’t believe in God

But I believe that you’re my savior

[r-aindr0p]

I- I might have doodled some more- Rollo can point anything deadly at Rook all he wants, it still won't make him back away or stop grinning. Rook's been knocking at the window randomly for weeks before finally getting (accidentally) invited in And he's probably awake during daytime too because why not, the trickier to move around the funnier ! It's like playng the floor is lava but actually deadly ! :)))

Previous

[xcchoco]

a recopilation of some drawings i did while i was reading heaven official’s blessing 👍🏻

[bunnybirds]

In Princess Aster's world, bunnybirds live in contented isolation, keeping themselves detached from the world in order to practice magic. Nothing is ever wrong, and no one is ever angry...even as Aster's people seem to be slowly disappearing. When her father is next to vanish, Aster resolves to find and rescue the missing bunnybirds—even if it means journeying over the rim of the world itself!

My middle grade graphic novel is officially available for preorder! Bunnybirds is a story about trauma, friendship, and my experience with autistic masking. It was drawn entirely with Prismacolor colored pencils and Pandafly markers, with Photoshop applied for color enhancement and text.

Check it out maybe! :D

That last panel with Carlin (the brown bunnybird) facing the corner was directly inspired by this wonderful TMA comic by @nubs-mbee!

[divorcedwife]

scandalous

[purplepenguintime]

Thank you for finally giving them a happy ending 

[coveredinsun]

i’ve seen gimleaf fics where they each try to find out how to court by the other’s traditions. and i love those, so i think they ought to be taken a step further. and i think the way to do that would be, naturally, to make bagginshield real. allow me to explain why. ahem. after the ring is destroyed, girlfailure legolas spends two weeks poring over The Ancient Texts and stressing because his one (1) friend who WOULD help him (that’s aragorn) knows jack shit about dwarves beyond the surface (no pun intended) (well gandalf knows things but gandalf is a bitch) (he would just smile at legolas knowingly and wish him good luck instead of giving him answers).

so alas, girlfailure “shit tier ass elf” legolas is left to like, idk, sulk or something in the garden he starts at the Bestie Residence in minas tirith. and after like 2 days sam’s had enough he’s like “dude your vibes are upsetting the plants.” and legolas is like “my bad bro. it just seems i know nothing about dwarves which i probably should’ve thought about before, by elf standards, getting hitched in vegas.” and sam is like “oh dwarves? just ask mister frodo ^_^ he knows tons about dwarves!” and legolas is like “what the shit? him in particular? why does he anything about dwarves?” and sam leans in reaaaalllllll close and whispers behind his hand, “well you see mister elf, mister legolas, sir, there’s always been a very healthy amount of rumors that go around in the shire about mister frodo’s uncle, mister bilbo, and the letters he used to exchange with a certain king under the mountain.” and legolas, who was THERE, is like

[zuzu-draws]

Long-Haired Obito Art Request for @lucynda ! Your ask was a bit too long for me to post so i'm answering it in this way ;D This version of Obito is like...one of the most vicious and brutal renditions of him ._.

[indiegamesoutofcontext]

[cursed-nyxan]

This mortal took a break from their work requirements. And what are they gonna do? FINALLY FINISH A DATE WITH DEATH

[apotheosisgames]

↳ YOU ARE A SCAVENGER; a lone wanderer of the galaxies barely scraping by on your derelict secondhand ship. You hunt down abandoned ships and settlements, stripping them of what useful parts you can find and selling those to whoever will pay your prices. It's a dangerous, solitary life, but you don't have much choice in the matter. You have too much of a past to trust a crew or to settle down planetside.

But everything will change when you discover the salvage of a lifetime. Among the ruins of a planet older than you thought possible, you discover an ancient prison, containing something that you thought existed only in myth.

You don't remember what happens next; but when you wake, you're a prisoner on a Consortium ship — and you are no longer alone in your own mind.

↳ YOU ARE NOW A VESSEL; the last vessel of the lost god.

Or is is the lost vessel of the last god? Either way, life as you know it is over. The Consortium — the conglomeration of various companies and governments that rule known space — want your head. The rebels want your power. But what do you want?

Escaped the Consortium with the aid of a fellow prisoner and a disgraced officer. Find a new ship, gather a crew of your own, and forge your place in a universe in which you are now something other than human.

And don't forget.

Gods may rise, but they also fall.

↳ Play as The Last Vessel of the Lost God, a human who's mind and body has been invaded by a symbiotic (or parasitic?) deity.

↳ Customize your character — choose your gender (female, male, non-binary), pronouns (he/him, she/her, they/them), appearance (height, weight, skin color, hair color, scars, tattoos, & piercings), cybernetic enhancements, and backstory.

↳ Six potential romance options and three optional encounters.

HOLLIS GALLOWAY ↳ the grifter (they/them)

DAISUKE SAITŌ ↳ the traitor (he/him)

AMANI HAMMOUD ↳ the captain (she/her)

SEBASTIAN JĖZ ↳ the mechanic (he/him)

MARÍSOL ESPINOZA ↳ the psychiatrist (she/her)

SALEM SMITH ↳ the adherent (they/them)

& ENCOUNTERS; ↳ Felix Whitaker; the commodore (he/him) ↳ Renata Zhukova; the rebel (she/her) ↳ Esmé Delacroix; the data broker (they/them)

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

forever obsessed with dynamics between vampires, specifically that of a maker and fledgling, as a way to explore abuse. the creation of a vampire itself can so easily be a literalization of the lasting impacts of trauma and also much more simply the ways a perpetrator might shape their victim’s very identity. the extremes of isolation in the way that the new vampire, in most narratives, must cut all ties to their mortal life, or else go through an elaborate charade to maintain the facade of humanity, while forever still being removed from it. and the sheer dependence and vulnerability of being in an entirely new state of being, wholly uncertain of what it entails, and relying on another person to define… everything.

[tamayula-hl]

Selfish and manipulative Sebastian🤭