#through her lens'

[leefi]

when you go through all of orv wondering what makes han sooyoung so important, why she's also on the main cover, why she's a part of the trio when she doesn't even show up that often. and then you finish the novel and realize that she is more present any other character in the entire story -- she's been here this whole time, speaking directly to you, on every single page.

[poorlydrawninstarsandtime]

i forgive you kitten

[id in alt]

[dykedvonte]

I think depictions of Anya being cruel to Curly or drawing out his suffering are artful and chilling but completely miss the point of the story and her character.

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve to have that "I told you so" moment with him but not in something callous or cold. Even if that is how it happened, she'd immediately feel guilty cause at that point she's not tormenting her tormenter or even the person truly at fault. She's doing something cathartic, similar to how Jimmy likely hits Curly to release rage he can't against the rest of the crew. She'd see herself as no different when she'd come back from the moment and see Curly cowering at her. She wants someone to take responsibility but how does being cruel to the defenseless help? Why would she want the power Jimmy has over her over Curly?

The idea of her extending someone else's pain is just so against the struggles she already faces and how she can't even bring herself to cause someone pain even to help them. Her very desire is to release herself from her own suffering and I doubt she'd even fine some sort of guilty release in being cruel to another.

[palamedeez-nuts]

god bless ppl reading htn/ntn for the first time lamenting "I only understand like half of what's going on." the literal viewpoint characters understand maybe 10% of what's going on at any given time, you're doing fine sweetie

[molinaesque]

"Go away. You're too late." "Oh, it's a hell of a place. It says something about the late Marcus that he found imprisoning your sister to be a greater mercy than killing her." "Killing isn't mercy." Silco chuckles. " A spark of rebellion still burns inside that husk, I see. No... killing is a cycle. One that started long before Vander and me. And it will continue long after the two of you." "I'm done running in circles." "We build our own prisons. Bars forged of oaths, codes, commitments. Walls of self-doubt and accepted limitation. We inhabit these cells, these identities, and call them "us." I thought I could break free by eliminating those I deemed my jailors. But... Jinx... I think the cycle only ends when you find the will to walk away."

[erin-gilberts]

I have a firm belief that the only way Yellowjackets can end is with the death of each of the remaining survivors and [redacted] was just the first (second, really) of what will be all of them in time. "The wilderness" will reclaim them one by one because they weren't supposed to leave. But also they will be swallowed up by their own darkness in their refusal to acknowledge it and that will be the great tragedy of it. All of their deaths will be preventable, but inevitable in light of the cycles they keep on repeating.

[rainhadaenerys]

Unpopular opinion, but I really do not see Dany as this "oh so tragic" and "oh so full of trauma" character. She has bad things happen to her like every other ASOIAF character, but she isn't really super traumatized or unable to deal with what happens in her life, and the tone of her story isn't really one of tragedy: on the contrary, her story is full of her overcoming hardships. It's full of triumphs. Even the low point she hits at the end of ADWD is just setting up her journey to finally crush the slavers and become the Stallion who Mounts the World. And then when she goes to Westeros, she will be one of the people to defeat the Others.

I find it a little bit annoying when I see people reading her character purely through the lens of "oh she suffered to much, she was raped by her husband, she was abused by her brother, she doesn't have a home, she is so tragic, etc" (I'm not saying people can't discuss these topics, by the way, I'm just saying that it annoys me when this is the ONLY thing people talk about when it comes to Dany). First, because this isn't the majority of her story, this is mostly part of her early story or backstory, and the main part of her story are the things she does after that, her triumphs and hardships trying to lead her people, fight a war, fight the status quo, and so on. It's a little annoying to see a character who has such a great complex political and magical storyline, a great adventure, all be reduced to "she is just an abused girl who suffered", with all other aspects of her story being ignored. But most importantly, I think this reading of Dany as this tragic character, by Dany stans and Dany haters alike, gives fuel to a bunch of other annoying readings of her character: the neutrals use the "oh so tragic" narrative to argue that her story has to end with her dying and she has nothing else to contribute to the main story other than sacrificing herself and be a tragic hero. Meanwhile, the antis use the "oh so tragic" narrative to claim that they sympathize with Dany, but her trauma is going to make her crazy, paranoid, a villain, etc. Or, when they don't say that her trauma is going to make her a villain, they claim that she was always a villain and use her "trauma" to claim that they sympathize with her and that her "trauma" makes her such a complex villain.

[youryurigoddess]

The classical proxemic theory (Hall, 1966) classifies interpersonal distance into four categories:

Public distance, maintained in impersonal settings (above 210 cm)

Social distance, maintained in interpersonal, but formal settings (122-210 cm)

Personal distance, maintained in interactions with friends and family members (about 46 to 122 cm)

Intimate distance, maintained only in closest relationships (from 0 to 46 cm)

No wonder that Aziraphale and Crowley had to be eventually separated by force — otherwise the speed with which they were closing their intimacy gap would render them useless against the Second Coming.

[flightfoot]

You know, I love seeing Alya in a lot of different fics, and I've seen her depicted in a few different ways.

I enjoy seeing her just being there, taking on a similar role to what she does in the show, helping out when needed, and overall being a kind person who enjoys helping others.

But while I like seeing her in that capacity, since it's a positive portrayal that is nice to her, it's not the sort of portrayal that really gets me excited. It's a kind of "background, supporting character" kind of portrayal, and while that's needed sometimes, it doesn't really develop her all that much.

The depictions of her that really get me excited, that make me gush about how well the fanfic's treating her, are the ones that don't just portray her positively, but instead treat her like a full person. Ones that delve into her emotions, her viewpoint, and even her biases, that let her make decisions based on what's best for her personally, and maybe even regret them later. But importantly, she's not treated as being bad or evil for this, but instead as a person who's muddling through life as best she can, who has things she wants and values in conflict.

Actually the show touched on this sort of thing as well, it's one of the reasons I really liked Alya in Rocketear. We got to see her struggle with her conflicting loyalties to both Marinette and Nino, with wanting to follow Marinette's orders while also not wanting to lie to Nino and potentially damage their relationship. And I liked her eventually telling Nino that she's helping Ladybug, because she didn't want to continue lying to him after that particular lie had already caused damage in their relationship. And while Alya later was dismayed at how things went down in the finale, Marinette didn't blame her, understood where she was coming from, and wanted her to continue.

That's the sort of thing I want to see. For Alya to have her own viewpoint and to make decisions based not simply on eternal loyalty to one person, but as a result of weighing her different values and wanting things to work out in the best way she can make them. And for her to sometimes be wrong or for something to have negative consequences, and still have her treated with kindness and respect. For her desires to be treated as being a worthy reason to do things, because her desire to be happy matters.

Like... with Marinette, I'll see this represented in fanfiction frequently. Marinette can be snappy or irritated, or even lie and hide things because she thinks they'll lead to a better outcome, and even when she hurts others in the process, the narrative is often sympathetic to her and gives credence to her thoughts, emotions, and viewpoints, and depicts her trying to make things better for herself as an understandable thing.

While for Alya, it's a lot harder to find something like that. Most of the time she's in a supportive role where any personal issues she has aren't focused on and she's mostly there to help out Marinette with whatever she has going on. In a lot of fics where she DOES do something for her own personal benefit, when she prioritizes herself at all or simply weighs all her different relationships and balances them as best she can, but in a way that's detrimental to the person the author likes the most, she'll be portrayed as a horrible, cruel person deserving of punishment, or at the very least as needing to learn a harsh lesson to become a better person. Any desire to do something for herself or to help maintain relationships she values is looked at in the worst possible light.

Just... I love stories that allow Alya the same sort of grace and understanding as most main characters are afforded.

[amuwo]

Will defend Quess until I die tbh

At first I was really confused over what they were trying to do with her but then it hit me.

Imagine you're a 13yo girl in 2008 who really really likes uc gundam and you have a crush on the evil blond man. You draw him all the time and you post him to deviantart until one day u have a cool idea to make your own fanfiction where a self insert of YOU is in the gundam world.

And in this world you get to meet char and he immediately asks you to join him because he can detect your coolgirl aura, you're not like those stupid other preps you're cool and into revolutionary politics. You are a rly powerful newtype and rock at piloting because of course you are you're the main character and this is YOUR fantasy damn it

And also because you're the main character you get to have a cool hair colour that stands out and everyone in universe loves you and protects you and char is totally not using you!!! You are a valued member of his team you are not just a political pawn because of your father!!!!!

Char's counter attack is quess' world and everyone else was just living in it

[atissi]

okay very preliminary thoughts on mitski's new album BUT i think there's something with how "laurel hell" felt like a goodbye to the music industry (can't find the source but i remember reading that it was intended to be her last album under her contract) like i'm sorry anthony fantano but if you interpret the back half of "laurel hell" as being generic breakup songs you're missing like 80% of the context. to me TO ME it feels so clearly about her negotiating her relationship with fame, how she can't love her fans the way they love her, and how she feels like she sold her soul to her job, so the only thing to do is step away. but THEN "the land is inhospitable and so are we" was created after mitski decided to renegotiate her contract, specifically because she loved making music enough to deal with the negative aspects of the work. and then all the songs are about the ghost of love she can leave behind, despite the present pain or emptiness, and like. do you see it. do you see it.

[theoppositeofprofound]

my other dungeon meshi belief is that laios and falin get their propensity towards magic and seeing ghosts from their mom’s side of the family. amid all the superstitions she knows to chop falin’s hair off! unnamed toudenmom who had a cousin die young with hallucinations, who gets nauseous in forests and wild places, whose grandmother used to make charms with strands of her own hair. she blames herself for her babies needing to go away. neither of them ever learn that she’s right.

[the-star-rigel]

United States Junior Gymnastic Team of ‘88-‘89

Catherine Todd née Johnson & Mary Grayson née Lloyd: I hope we meet again (I’m letting you go)

@kindlespark / The Book Thief, Markus Zusak / ? / dc comics / Diary, Chuck Palahniuk / Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace / Always Gold, Radical Face / Us Against You, Fredrik Backman / @inanotherunivrse / I Wanted to Leave, SYML / ? / ? / Psychogeography, Chelsea Dingman / @leonardospoetry + me / On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong / Past Lives (2023) / A Letter to Love, Caitlyn Siehl / @archivegeo / In a Dream You Saw a Way to Survive, Clementine von Radics / Always Gold, Radical Face / Dorothea, Taylor Swift / Stand by Me (1986) / dc comics + On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong / Life After Death, Laura Gilpin / Lost Without You, Freya Ridings

[victorian-nymph]

also why in posts i see headcanoning the ages of characters is anya like a fresh faced baby at like 22-23 or something,,,, make that woman in her late twenties rn. she has managed to not get into medical school eight separate times thats eight times she's missed an enrollment cutoff date which is at least four years of trying to get it, and the fact that you need a bachelors as well usually to get into med school so at minIMUM she has to be twenty six-seven. make her the frustrated mid twenties bitch that she deserves to be goddammit.

[lollytea]

I need to watch Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure to reach my final conclusion on if she's even attracted to men

[stuck-in-jelly]

A mother mourns her absence in her hatchlings life