📖 @classymassy - Tumblr Blog

the way ray thinks about jan is fascinating. like he drags her in as reassurance for something (rather than someone, because even by his own omission, jan isn't really a person to him) that will come by the end but she's both this saintlike figure, larger than life, and a sex object that gives him a finish line (haha), except he's in this hypermasculine environment and he keeps finding himself fixated on other boys, wondering about their experiences, about their sex lives. and it's a stephen king special for your protag to be so horny on main he can barely see straight, but ray repeatedly wrenches jan to the forefront of his mind whenever it starts to wander in a way that reads like jan is also symbolic of repression. which. obviously. she's the comforts of home away from war and all that jazz and she symbolizes the 2.5 kids and white picket fence and the american dream and all that. but ray having that same fixation on pete and stebbins adds a whole other element to it!!

pete is almost definitely mlm, both in the book and the movie, and he's ray's shield-brother and his partner and the thingperson helping hold him afloat, as well as representing dissatisfaction with the system. book!ray has a patriotism and level of faith in the government and the major that pete in either iteration doesn't. jan is this lofty far-off figurehead; pete is here. something something atheists in foxholes, insert holes gay joke, homosociality and hypermasculinity.

AND? JIMMY?

ray being also stuck on jimmy and how when they were young they had like. not really a sexual experience but it was also not-not a sexual experience, and they were threatened with public shaming and their fathers so bad it fucks ray up years later, and ray now has that twisted up with his concepts of sex and jan. the second his mind starts to stray to sex, it starts to stray to jimmy, and then he kind of half-desperately pulls the idea of jan back close like a shield. common stephen "we talk about women in objectifying and sexualizing manners because we are not allowed to smooch the homies in a way that we think makes us look excessively masculine and heterosexual and relatable to teenage boys but in actuality makes everyone look at us funny and wonder if we ever had an intimate relationship to musical theater" king L

in conclusion raymond davis garraty huge fruit thanks for coming to my ted talk

#the long walk

allthequeerquotes

““Uh. Was he attractive?” I asked. “Kind of,” Robby said. I smoked. “Do you think I’m queer, Rob?” I asked. “I don’t care if you’re queer,” Robby said. “Queer is just a word. Like orange. I know who you are. There’s no one word for that.” I believed him. “I know I’m not orange,” I said. “Kind of oatmealy,” Robby said. I always let Robby read the books. He was the only one allowed inside Austin Andrzej Szerba’s history department. “Sometimes I’m confused,” I said. “Actually, pretty much all the time I am. I wonder if I’m normal. I think I might ask my dad about it. You know, if he ever felt this way. Or if maybe he still does sometimes. Because I feel … Uh … I wonder if I am queer or shit.””

— Grasshopper Jungle, by Andrew Smith. That was a TRIP and a half, I read it in a day and I’m still reeling. There’s some weak points but overall VERY worth checking out–ultramodern narrator with a historical POV, bisexual boys, and an understanding of human psychology rarely seen in YA. WARNING: if giant praying mantises freak you out, seat this one out.

#grasshopper jungle

0ldp0laroid

"Boo! Did I Radley ya?"

Depiction of Boo Radley when he stabbed his father👀 (pls revive the tkam fandom I'm starving)

#to kill a mockingbird

the-lean-buddha

Altered ending idea for TLW. Very rough, very rough, just jotting it down.

Garraty and Stebbins walk alone after McVries’ death. They’re suffering from pain and fatigue. Garraty knows his friends are all dead now, and Stebbins knows that he can only win if the only friend he made on the Walk, maybe the only friend he ever made, dies.

Garraty has been looking for the answer of what death is like for the entire Walk, maybe his entire life, and this is his final opportunity to find out with the others. And he’s losing track of what he used to know about himself in a whirlpool of buried memories and chants from the crowd. Stebbins has lost his appetite for the ‘carrot’ and knows his victory wouldn’t be pleasant, knows his father’s soldiers will shoot him if he slows down because he’s on three warnings. They’re both on three warnings.

So when Garraty comes to the realization that it’s over because Stebbins can’t be beaten, he goes to walk with him. He’s decided that he’ll die, and he’s relieved now, relieved at the certainty he’s perhaps always wanted but definitely didn’t have on the Walk.

And he tells Stebbins that he’s going to give up. But Stebbins doesn’t want that to happen. Stebbins wants to die, and if he’s dying at the indirect hands of his father, that’s fitting, isn’t it? He’s lived all his life at the indirect hands of the Major, too, defined himself by it, and if he wins, there’s nothing left of him. He can have a hollow victory and some money and an empty life, or he can have a fulfilling death. Stebbins is nothing more than the side effect of a society-supported authoritarian dictator. He knows what he wants.

So they have a final conversation, the contestant who understood nothing and the contestant who understood everything, about which of them doesn’t get to cop out second. And at the end of it, they agree: Garraty should win. So Stebbins stops walking at last, smiles at Garraty, and he dies giving a bloody salute.

And Garraty is left, staring back down the road, at Stebbins and past him, to McVries, to Baker, Abraham, Parker, to Pearson, Scramm, Olson, to Curley, and back to lining up with the others at the starting post, and he slowly comes to a halt, he falls to his knees as the Major approaches him, and he cries into the road.

#the long walk

father-davidson

a veeeeeeeeeery rough davidson doodle

#the long walk

father-davidson

have a love/hate relationship with lineart rn

#the long walk

nocttle

My close personal friend Priscilla

Inspired by this sculpture of Joan of Arc somewhat

#the long walk

kneesocks-hq

Book Ray and Stebbins

#the long walk

bubblecollar

Pete being an absolute gay nuceance

Enjoy

#the long walk

trival-obsession

Doomed Toxic Yaoi implies the existence of Blessed Healthy Yuri

The prettiest princesses! They’re stupid in love and have a perfect life. They meet at Ray and Pete’s funeral, and Jan really needs a shoulder to cry on. They help each other heal after their exes and then get married obviously. Who knew the way to get out of art block is women!

Are we feeling blue Jan or red Jan?

#the long walk