#thoughts about being shy

[writersbeware]

Thoughts on a Monday

I’ve never been the attention-seeking kind of person. You’d find me in the back of a classroom or off to the side in a meeting. I dreaded having to stand up and deliver a speech. The night before, I wouldn’t sleep and the day of, I’d be so terrified I’d be sick to my stomach and shaking so hard my entire body trembled. Yet for some reason I dreamed of being a teacher. I knew that teachers…

[ruporas]

happiness today and tomorrow (ID in alt)

[whattheheckmidoriya]

Levi taking up beading after the war. He's still getting used to the technicalities of his injuries and the new limitations they pose in his life, so he starts looking for ways to keep his hands busy.

Pottery is too messy and strains his back. Knitting and crocheting test his patience just a bit more than he'd like. Baking bores him as he spends enough time in the kitchen as it is in his tea shop.

But beading seems to have hit a sweet spot for him. It's simple enough, keeps his mind at work, and you seem to enjoy it as well. That makes it all the more enticing to him.

He's meticulous about his work. Levi doesn't have a collection of beads; he simply buys what he needs— what he thinks you'll like. He was never one for bright colors, but they look so lovely on you.

The memory of you frowning because you didn't have nice earrings to match with your new dress lingers at the back of his mind. Just a week later, he'd gifted you a new pair of earrings that perfectly complemented the outfit.

He scoffs at himself lightly. Humanity's Strongest spending his new life making silly little trinkets and accessories? It sounded almost ridiculous.

But the twinkle of joy in your eyes, your soft gasps of surprise, and squeals of excitement makes it all so, so worth it.

[johanarchy]

Y'all ever think about the fact that when Donquixote Doflamingo, a man who has considered himself a god his entire life, got defeated, the sunglasses he had been wearing basically his entire life broke, and that for a moment, maybe just a fraction of a second, he saw the world without anything obscuring his vision, and what he saw was Monkey D Luffy, the sun, the avatar of Nika ?

Do you think that in this moment they made eye contact, and on some primal level Doflamingo understood that he was looking at a real god ?

Cause I certainly like to think so.

[iizuumi]

Enough general kn8 art, time to make everyone look at my weird little ship hello

[floorboardghost]

Ok but hear me out…older chuck with long majestic hair.

[fisheito]

rereading the nuca pink doujin and seeing yakumo tear himself apart re: his snake form vs his human form all this agony and self-doubt and silent suffering and fear of rejection like "if i looked less human would u hate me" , "if u saw me in my true form wouldn't that be horrible. terrifying. disgusting" , "if i admitted i want to swallow you whole would you think worse of me"

and i imagine him asking something like this to the crowd of clan members , who are , undeniably,, a group of Kinky Fuckers

they all smile with the serenity and carefully masked excitement of a horny olivine. masterful beautiful reassuring expressions (errr..... masked to different degrees depending on the clan member)

[thegreatyin]

ive officially entered the stage of OC brainrot where i start putting him in outfits for fun and (zero) profit

[anghraine]

I've been moving and navigating further departmental nonsense etc (my pseudo-dissertation got approved for defending, though! l o l). But it was interesting to see the Worst P&P Takes poll I reblogged accumulating more results and the general tenor of responses in the notes.

I mean, the results are definitely to be expected if you're familiar with the side of Austen fandom doing a lot of the reblogging etc. But still, interesting!

Many Tumblr polls specify that they're asking about personal preferences that may be irrational—favorite/least favorite, coolest/most annoying, or something like that. This one, though, asked for the worst interpretation of P&P, not the most annoying one—and the current leader is "Darcy is never really proud, he's just shy and probably has anxiety" against some very steep competition on the Bad Takes front.

I was thinking about why that seemed a kind of tediously predictable choice even though I agree that the take is wrong, and realized that while I do disagree with the shy Darcy interpretation and I particularly disagree with the specific formulation where he is never proud at all, it ultimately feels to me like a failure of nuance rather than just completely wrongheaded like some of the others. And this is probably my fundamental difference with a lot of Darcy takes I see!

In my opinion, a character who is introverted and who feels awkward in various social situations and who doesn't like common social activities and who has to work himself up to talking to his crush and who is repeatedly suggested to behave very differently in contexts where he's more comfortable being interpreted as shy and anxious is not that big of a leap.

Yes, it's important that he is actually fundamentally confident and haughty, that he makes his personal feelings of discomfort other people's problem, and that he thinks he's such a unique and special butterfly that he doesn't need to even put in an effort outside his personal social circle. But it's a misreading that is easy to follow (and long predates the 2005 P&P, as I've mentioned before!).

The additional misreading that a shy and anxious Darcy is also never proud at all is a much more drastic leap, and in my experience, condemnations of shy Darcy interpretations rarely differentiate between "Darcy is shy as well as arrogant" and "Darcy is shy rather than arrogant" as interpretations (although their basic arguments are quite different). But even that as the worst possible misreading of P&P when Darcy is not even the main character is ?????????

I mean, for one alternative (not even the one I voted for!), the idea that Elizabeth is an author avatar Mary Sue seems a far worse misreading of P&P than basically anything to do with Darcy at all. The center piece of the entire novel is Elizabeth's epiphany of self-knowledge about her own shortcomings that do not particularly resemble Austen's at all, but were ethically a concern for her, and she's a complex, interesting character in general whom Austen correctly regarded as a major achievement. Inverting that into Elizabeth as an improbably perfect, reality-warping self-insert is deeply wrong and frankly pretty misogynistic as well.

(ngl though, it's a little funny to see such a blatantly terrible reading of Elizabeth rank so far behind the shy Darcy votes. I've gotten "does anyone actually think/say that?" so many times on my posts about Austen fandom's prioritization of Darcy's character development over Elizabeth's and yet...)

And even just going with the Darcy-centric misreadings, the idea of Darcy as a "bad boy" seems easily the most absolutely wrong take on him. His pride is at least complicated and the finer points can be fairly debated and it's a quality that actually changes somewhat throughout the novel, and you can have discussion over what happened when, whose testimonies should be weighted more, etc. But there is no point at which "bad boy" isn't utterly wrong for him. However, there's definitely a tendency in some wings of the fandom to find the idea of Darcy being misread too favorably more objectionable than him being read too unfavorably, regardless of the particulars, so it's not a surprise.

I suppose you could argue about what "worst" means in the context of variously bad interpretations. Like, is an interpretation that is about a fairly trivial aspect of the book but extremely wrong about it "worse" than an interpretation that is pretty bad but at least comprehensibly so about something very important?

[writersbeware]

A Reason Why Some People are Bashful

            Socially awkward individuals might have grown up in a home in which they are mistreated. Perhaps they’ve been scolded for speaking in the presence of strangers or maybe their classmates teased them mercilessly. They believed that no one cared about them, no one ever asked what they felt about a given subject. When you’re never asked which flavor of ice cream you prefer or what cereal…

[ruporas]

feast (ID in alt)

[poltergeist-coffee]

slimeriana yuri if you even care…

reblogs appreciated!!

boobs under the cut because idk if that’s something i need to warn people about,,, it’s suggestive??? aaah fem!qmariana is wearing an open button up shirt 👍

[vaguely-concerned]

lucanis reading romance novels out loud to spite in the seventh attempt to explain to him what sex is and spite bemusedly being like 'wow you people really get up to that shit I thought that was just a bit mortals did or something'

[katemagic]

we truly do need to talk more about how fucking insane achi is like okay yes karan is karan but achi literally moved in with the first person he ever dated after TWO (2) dates and was like wow 10/10 best life decision I ever made I'm so glad I did that I love my boyfriend

not to mention that he bought a ring and then presumably carried it around with him???? just waiting so that he could propose after karan did like. he literally bought a ring. after dating him for like a couple of months ????? maybe ????? absolutely fucking unhinged they're perfect for each other. who does this.

[itspileofgoodthings]

one of my favorite things about getting older is that I’m just more sure and more confident in taking control in social situations and making other people feel at ease. I really love it!

[thegreatyin]

you know how it is. you become roommates with a guy you hate, live with him for several months, slowly transform into a giant celestial alien monster while steadily losing your humanity and sense of identity to the point where you can barely stand your own skin much less your own name, get way too attached to him, propose to him as a scheme to get notability points, and then now all of a sudden you're Literally Legally Gay Married and you've kissed him and he's wearing the mark of your marriage on his hand at all times and all you can think about is how right it feels to own him. and also you want to bite his neck a lot. just normal platonic heterosexual activities to do with your worstie amiright