Who Lives , Who Dies , Who Tells Your Story

My sideblogs are @aestheticbookworm and @intermittentstitcher I Run a writing blog. The works I write are mainly in the horror genre , though I am open to requests and asks that are in other genres. Age 24.

[bastart13]

What I’d give for one of the Cinderella remakes to go into how when you’re in an isolated and abusive situation, sometimes you need to be saved and you’re not weak if you can’t escape by yourself

I’ve never been a fan of bad faith reinterpretations of fairy tales, especially ones which flatten the originals into “princesses is saved by a prince and nothing else”, to then go #girlboss. The princess can save herself because she’s a strong female character! (Implying if you’re in a bad situation, it’s because you’re not strong enough to get out)

[amozon28]

Also the concept of the Prince over the course of like… a couple hours hanging out with Cinderella  going from ‘Haha nice I really like you’ to ‘oh fuck i can tell from context clues alone that your home situation is FUCKED UP’   it’s good shit   ‘I have just met you but ON GOD I’m gonna get you out of there beautiful mystery woman’   cinderella  makes desperately yelling into the night ‘how can I find you again!??!’ when she’s taking off that much more poignant really

[scyllascriptor]

He’s been trained to read the room. To read the context clues. To read politics and scheming and planning and people. He’s a Prince, it’s either that or accidentally drink poison by age 15. And he reads her and …

She’s impossibly wealthy. The dress isn’t a fabric he can recognize, but it’s beaded with cut diamonds, faintly milky opals that shimmer with a rainbow, little pale aquamarines, and somewhere are little bells gently ringing with each step - he’s a Prince and he can’t afford to dress like that. The slippers ring too … there is nothing like that crafted by the hands of humans. That’s fairy stuff. She has an in with them that eclipses royal politics. She is powerful in the Old Ways.

All this wraps around the poorest woman he’s ever seen in his entire life, and he’s seen some very, very, poor people in his time.

Poor in money, but poor in “oh you poor thing!” as well. This is someone who has been robbed blind. This is someone who carried themselves waiting for the lash, for a browbeating, for harsh, cruel, abrupt, punishment.

He expects her to be haughty, or hard, or meek or… something else… but she’s just nice. She’s just … nice.

The rigid posture comes out of his back, his tongue unsticks. She’s like sitting by the embers of a low, calm, fire. He feels warmed and rested simply speaking to her. He wonders if it’s magic, and it might be, but if it is it is magic that is her own.

And that terrifies him, because he’s trained to see these things and he knows someone with a cruel hand is waiting to douse her, and snuff her, and beat the last glimmer out of her shining eyes - eyes that put that dress to shame and and and and… she’s gone.

Oh god, she’s gone. It will be all over her sweet, kind, warm face that she transgressed and … oh god they’ll kill her, whoever they are. This will embarrass them and if there’s anything he knows, it’s that you don’t humiliate someone who has power over you and walk away unscathed.

And all he has is a fairy slipper that will only ever fit her foot (it’s not merely shoe size, it’s a kind of spiritual fit as well), and the vain hope that he can keep such a bright light from burning out. It doesn’t even touch his heart that what he’s feeling is a kind of pure philia, not until it enraptures him soul to bones, all at once. Oh god, oh no, oh shit… he’s reached well above his station, but…he can try to be good and worthy.

The way he sees it, sometimes even the strongest people can be brought low and need just… a little help. She had enough in her to do whatever she had to do to free herself of those evil relations if she had to, but she shouldn’t have to. There’s no glory in blood. Sometimes it’s okay for the ending to be happily ever after.

[tshmarie]

But also, how good she’ll be for his kingdom. (That doesn’t come to him ‘til later, ‘til they’re riding through the market and she slips off her horse to help an old woman, ‘til she storms into his throne room ranting about the injustice of a recent decree, ‘til he catches her in the kitchens chatting with the cooks while peeling potatoes.) She sees the other side of every decision he makes and opens his eyes to how they effect his people. She makes him realize that his kingdom consists of much more than the nobility sitting on his council and eating at his feasts. She guides him into adjusting laws and policies to support widows and orphans and even the shop keepers who have enough but never have excess.

The people love her because she was one of them. They learn quickly that she sees them. There are rumors about her dressing her husband in rags and working for a day in the fields during harvest. There’s a couple that looks an awful like the Prince (and later King) and his wife who sit at the fountain in the market square and eat meat pies from the baker on the corner. There’s whispers from the palace of the new Queen pulling the King out of the room during trials and debating in urgent whispers before returning with a ruling that, somehow, most those involved are happy with.

Not everything is perfect, of course. There are still those who prefer the life of a criminal, and even the most fair and careful justice system has flaws. But generally speaking, people are happy and the kingdom is more united and happy than it’s been in anyone’s memory.

Cinderella takes the name Hope for herself. She can’t remember now the name her father gave her, and she refuses to be the little Ashgirl her step family tried to force her into. For the longest time, all she had was hope that things could be better. Now she can hope for so much more, and she wants to share that hope with everyone around her.

[waitingforthecat]

Image description: fanart for Disney’s Cinderella 1950. The first image shows Cinderella 3 times. Once smiling saying: “I don’t think I remember the last time I went out.” Once gathering her skirt and looking distressed saying: “I-I must go. If I get home after midnight…” and once putting a streak of hair behind her ear, smiling and saying: “I’d been working on a dress for months in secret.” The second image shows Prince Charming holding the glass shoe, and a close up of his hand holding the shoe. He says:“ The woman I was dancing with… the one the shoe fits. I need to find her.” end Image description

[neutralspace]

[middlering]

My favorite genre of self-portrait is cartoonists being bothered by their characters while trying to draw

Bill Watterson – Calvin and Hobbes (1986)

Hergé – Tintin (1947, Tintin Magazine)

Jeff Smith – Bone (1993, Bone Holiday Special)

Walt Kelly – Pogo (1950, Maclean's Magazine)

And a bonus:

Berkeley Breathed – Bloom County

[polarcell]

for the reverse, take this image of Tove Jansson about to murder the moomin characters

[itseasytoremember]

(To the tune of Rasputin): BLEH BLEH DRACULA, KING OF TRANSYLVANIA, HE IS A BAT AND ALSO A MAN

[shymagnolia]

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

[shymagnolia]

okay so i just got my dream job??? a week after applying to it?? and now i’m thinking….maybe this is the good luck post

[flagellant]

…..not even six hours later i got an offer of a well paying full time long-term job with free room and board in queens in nyc, allowing me independence and a way to escape an abusive situation and an unhealthy environment

likes charge reblogs cast, folks, this is the good luck post

[coffee-or-hot-cocoa]

i need all the help i can get for finals

[finnglas]

Hey so

the last time I reblogged this post right before I got a great job, in a permanent work-from-home position, with benefits, retirement, and a salary literally 3x what I was making before, doing something I really like. 

So you know. 

This might be the real one, y’all.

[avhira]

I could use some luck

[banchie]

i've been phasing the phrase 'google it' out of my vocabulary and going back to 'look it up'. fuck you youve lost your generic trademark privileges

[gallusrostromegalus]

seconding these tags by @ragsy: #if the social consciousness has decided that duckduckgo is the Only Othet Search Engine#might i suggest 'go duck yourself'

[bobbole]

Carrie Liao, Alien visitor

[ruthyless-deactivated20140511]

when i was younger i had a really bad fear of danny devito when i was going to sleep so my older brother gave me a watch that he set to like 8 hours ahead so that it was always daytime on the watch when i was asleep and he told me it would confuse danny devito and he would think it was daytime and get scared of the sun and leave me alon

[tardis-mind-palace]

Your brother is the best

[elrondbaggins]

Who the fuck changed this from vampires to Danny devito

[aliceinpunderland-blog]

the real question is why I was completely ready to accept that this person had a debilitating childhood fear of Danny Devito

[worldheritagepostorganization]

World Heritage Post

[ruhaniya]

[esotericsnob3]

True story

[cleo-2345]

FYI if you own an IPhone that has Siri , you can ask it to take a screenshot for you.

[vexwerewolf]

As I get older, the entire moral arc of Return of the Jedi irks me more and more, even without getting to see Anakin's actual atrocities in the prequels or the fact that his act of defiance barely even mattered in the sequels.

I remember an Expanded Universe comic set immediately after RotJ where Leia tells Luke words to the effect of "Vader literally had me tortured and blew up my homeworld. What, am I supposed to feel kinship with him just because I discovered he's my dad yesterday?"

The important thing that happens in Return of the Jedi is that the Emperor dies and the planet-killing superweapon gets blown up. Vader spent the last two hours of his life doing something good after 25 years of genocide, mass murder and torture, and even then, it was partly out of vengeful hatred. Vader fucking hated Palpatine for a quarter century and never had the spine to do anything about it. It was only after his own son was being tortured to death in front of him that he chose to act - and he'd cut off the kid's hand like two years before that! That's not a fucking redemption arc.

Darth Vader the fucking child-killing planet-murderer gets to stand there with Yoda and Obi-Wan as a Force Ghost, give me a fucking break.

[vexwerewolf]

"My father's name was Bail Organa, actually."

[jukashi]

I have a whole other post I did about the original Star Wars trilogy that is relevant to this, but I'll try condense it:

So one, yes, absolutely it is entirely correct to take issue with Darth Vader's apparent forgiveness by the Force, there is no need for Leia to accept him as her father or to feel anything for him besides hate and contempt, redemption takes more than turning back for a couple of hours and then getting out of culpability by dying, all fair.

That said: the original trilogy is Luke Skywalker's story and the story of Luke Skywalker, on a meta level, is about being a young adult in the 60s and 70s who did not experience WWII or the depths of fascism personally, but who grew up with gaping familial wounds - family members who you never knew but who older people refer to or talk around, people they compare you to, figures who other children had in their lives but you didn't. Someone who as a child was given fantasies of heroes fighting daring battles, who was told it was all about nationhood and fighting for your people and the course of civilization, someone who internalized those principles as guiding lights for their own morality and who they want to be... and THEN finding out when you become an adult, and are permitted to know about the horrors, that it is not just honor and glory in your heritage, that you, 70s white boy, may have evil and darkness and the corruption of all your values as a potential to fall into just as your father did, the temptation to hate and cruelty and domination and atrocity. And the absences in your family are maybe not just because of death, of noble sacrifice, but perhaps instead because those people who shared your blood became monsters, severed from their family because of their terrible actions, and still live as awful hateful versions of themselves, enslaved to evil, and that could be you.

And what do you do with that? Will you strike your father down with all of your hatred, when the thing that corrupted him by his hate for its own ends is sitting there grinning and laughing, waiting to do the same to you? Is violence the answer against that creature, infinitely better at taking advantage from violence than you are? Or will you just die - and even just walking away here means death, sooner or later - and let the evil persist?

Or will you, privileged young person with ideals and hopes, with a family member who has done terrible unforgivable things but who still holds affection for you, make use of that affection to tempt them to just turn their back on that evil for a moment, the thing it will never expect from the person it made its slave for longer than you've been alive? Neither you nor he can pay back the crimes of those years, but perhaps you can stop the evil, here and now, from going on.

So you do that. And what is your reward? Is it appropriate for Luke, whose whole story has been about becoming the ideal he grew up admiring and defeating the evil that ideal had the potential to become, both halves of it embodied in the being of his father, to come back to his friends and then have the universe say to him 'your father was unredeemable, and had nothing good enough in him to deserve peace in death'? Or to say there was a darkness lifted from him, and a light restored?

The whole purpose of Darth Vader in the story of the original trilogy is to represent who Luke could be, and through Luke, the audience. He wasn't really supposed to have a character arc of his own, his redemption isn't for his own sake, the story isn't about him - or wasn't meant to be originally, in any case. How you depict the fate of Darth Vader is something that sends a very strong message, and there's a reason why it was chosen as the final message of the original movies, in the context of the world in which those movies were made and who they were intended to be speaking to. If you change that, you change the message. Which you can do! And you can take issue with the original message! But like, there was a message, that was chosen purposefully, and you have to lose the original message to add a new one.

[tallon-underworld]

This rebuttal is really good, but I actually think it also works as the culmination of Anakin/Vader’s arc… when you understand the message ISN’T “one good deed absolves years of atrocities”: It’s that it’s never too late to do the right thing, and be a better person.

It doesn’t mean people will forgive you - hell no. The things Vader did were unforgivable, and he knew that. But because of that, he believed the only path left was to keep committing atrocities, to wallow in self-hatred and anger for decades and take it out on the galaxy. He says it himself: “It’s too late for me, son”.

But what Luke shows Vader is that we ALWAYS have a choice: To be a better person, and to choose compassion. Anakin doesn’t kill the Emperor out of hatred, or even because he thinks it’ll make up for anything he did: He knows nothing ever will. He chooses to save Luke, and break the cycle of violence because it’s the right, kind thing to do.

Vader/Anakin isn’t fully redeemed by the end of Return of the Jedi: He simply takes his first step back into the light. Obi-Wan and Yoda chose to give him that second chance, but that was their decision to make. The people you hurt are by NO means obligated to forgive you - but you should still strive to be better regardless.

And I think that’s the message of Anakin’s sacrifice: No matter what we’ve done, we always have a choice to break the cycle and be better, with no expectation of forgiveness.

[the-most-sublime-fool]

beauty and the beast (1946) is kinda lit

jean cocteau was so real for this

women have always wanted to fuck the beast

[everythingfox]

He’s having a pedicure

[noxpressure]

I’m very ready to support woman’s wrongs (Cathy Ames doing whatever she wants)

[a-totally-reasonable-username]

@namelessennes

[avidreaderffn]

@sandstonesunspear

[polyamorousmisanthrope]

Jesus Tapdancing Christ... THIS is a good welt pocket and the people who designed Simplicity 2895 ought to be blasted well ASHAMED of themselves for the crap way THEY wanted a welt pocket made. *SNARLS*

[makereadgrow]

This is how I learned to do it and a good example of what you want to see in a short form tutorial: pinning, pressing, seam finishing, good fabric handling.

I would mention that you can make the pocket facing with a small panel of your matching fabric that is visible and the rest in a lighter fabric to reduce bulk. That's a lot of denim layers for comfort.

[teaboot]

HOT DAMN

[sanctuarytiktok]

Life with Pigs Farm Sanctuary

[boycritter]

one of my principles of social interaction is "dont be a dick to someone who's worst crime is being annoying and not understanding social cues" because i know firsthand how much that sucks. unfortunately this means that i'm not a dick to people who i just find kind of annoying when a lot of other people are and then they try to be friends with me (because im not a dick to them) (but i still dont really want to be friends)

[boycritter]

absolutely no hate to the person who left this tag but 😭 if only . unfortunately this post was entirely about people i know in real life