[frodo-of-the-nine-fingers]

immortality as theft (you have to steal life from something else) immortality as parasitism (there is something else inside You that is keeping you alive and you become less of yourself more and more the longer it stays in you) immortality as violence (everything is trying to kill you because everything is supposed to die and the universe will always try to find a way to right the wrong that is You) you understand

[ninewheels]

#at least once a month I think about that one post about laminating a paper towel#and how that makes it immortal but also forever prevents it from fulfilling its true purpose#yes you will live. but at the cost of everything that makes you You

(courtesy of noknowshame)

[nadiajustbe]

The canon fact about Bartimaeus wearing BOTH Kitty's and Nathaniel's guises after PG, as well as keeping Ptolemy's form as his favourite is so fitting and painful at the same time.

Your face is the face of people you loved. The people you hated. The people you cherished. The people you were ready to die for. The people you were ready to die with. The people you let to live and never return. The people who let you to live and never return. You are none but a mirror of the ones you weren't able to hold in your hands even at their last breath. You have no tears to pour and no smile to hide them. You are their echo that carries them through the hands of the clock as the Empires countine to turn to rubble. All of the malicious postures across the pentacle look inside your face and sees theirs. And you can switch between them like you switch between your appearances in hope it would ease your pain but it never does. You can anything and everything but each time you chose to engeave their features in your own guise. You are their pain and their memory and their only hope for their names — the real ones — to exist even after the universe itself allows them to vanish.

In the end you are none but your mistakes. None but your choices. None but your freedom and the luck of it. You are none but them in the face of their eternal absence.

In the end, you are none but grief.

[kosmogrl]

my humor might be broken cause I find this trend actually funny

[winter-wise]

Thinking about how the Bartimaeus sequence said 'djinn are slaves in this world, and this world hurts them, and there is a way to make the pain go away, but it means literally cloaking themselves in the skin of their oppressors, and the pain will go away and they have no masters now, but there is no going back and they will remain more trapped than ever before and their face will be the face of the one who tried to trap them, and they can never go home again'

[silverfeatheredserpent]

Bartimaeus & Nathaniel

I wanted to draw this picture on a tablet, but then I wanted to transfer it to canvas with paints. Now, from the outside, it seems to me a little religious, but in fact it's not at all.

I really like the image of Bartimaeus in the days when he lived under King Solomon and Ptolemy - despite all the evil that the magicians did to him, he still remained himself.

He also saved Nathaniel's soul.

After all, we all understand that if it hadn't been for Bartimaeus, Nathaniel would have died long ago and the callous and cold John Mandrake existed instead. I won't say that I'm 100% satisfied with the result, but I got creative pleasure painting these feathers, shadows on clothes, splashes of rain and emotions on their faces. Aloof, incredibly strong mentally, but at heart a very lonely Nathaniel, whose only friends were silent books - the last time he cried was when Mrs. Underwood died, the only person he loved.

And he was left alone.

Among the greedy, corrupt, vile wizards, there is only a boy who has been attacked by everything at once. This song symbolizes the British government in my head - "a flock of crazed birds." Vultures who pretend to be colleagues, but in fact are just waiting for you to make a mistake.

Bartimaeus, on the other hand, is calm. He understands all this. He's seen too much over thousands of years, so I think his help for Nathaniel wasn't entirely imposed by his endless Imprisonment. After all, despite everything that followed, he never revealed John Mandrake's true name to anyone and did no harm.

I'm sure such an inventive genie could have found a loophole.

But he didn't.

He stayed with him until the end. This peace with a hint of truth is what I wanted to show. The way the genie covers the real Nathaniel with his wings from the dank downpour on his soul, from the real demons longing for his death, and calms him down.

Bartimaeus was the last person Nathaniel showed his tears to. Nathaniel was still himself only because of Bartimaeus.

And while darkness, bad weather and demons are raging outside, there is silence, tranquility and a starry sky under the powerful wings.

[adreadfulidea-deactivated202402]

I think a surprising amount of writers don’t realize that tragedies are supposed to be cathartic. They’re intended to result in a purging of emotion, a luxurious cry; the sorrow caused by a great tragedy is akin to fear caused by a good horror movie – it’s a “safe” sorrow, one that is actually satisfying to the audience. It can still be beautiful! It’s isn’t supposed to just be salting the earth so nothing can grow.

But that’s how you get grimdark: writers who don’t realize that they’re supposed to be doing something with the audience instead of to the audience.

[jadewhisper]

#i once heard a lecture where someone said that the great appeal of tragedy is to see terrible things happen to people you’re supposed to#empathize with and see yourself in#and that the catharsis comes from seeing someone’s life go horribly wrong and still have the author hold your hand and tell you#‘this story mattered. even though it had a sad ending it still mattered. even if you don’t succeed your attempts matter’#grimdark tells you that the world sucks and nothing you do matters#well-written tragedy tells you that sometimes the world sucks but everything you do matters so so much#your story is still worth telling even if you never achieve that happy ending#or if you lose it along the way#people have inherent value and their stories deserve to be told no matter if they turn out okay or not#and in a reality that has no concept of ‘fair’ that shit just hits good man!!! feels good!!!!! it’s COMFORTING

[the-last-teabender]

This has really helped me realize something about myself.

So often I find myself saying “I don’t like tragedy.” When that’s not really true.

It would be truer to say “I love tragedy when it’s done well, but I don’t like what tragedy has become, but it is so tiring and unpleasant to sift through the graceless grimdark that it simply becomes easier and more productive to say I would not like any.”

[16tinyfrogs]

on watching a parent age

i saw somebody say “what if you’re gone and i haven’t become anything yet” and basically that broke me on a random thursday evening

[theriu]

OP, this is genuinely a masterpiece, three poems in one, moving and well crafted. Please tell me you have submitted it to at least some poetry contests, and if not, please do so.

[crunchcrunchteacakes]

[rosie-tyler]

Nathaniel: I am a very bad person. I am a very, very bad person. I am a horrible person.

Kitty:

Bartimaeus:

Nathaniel: “No you’re not, Nathaniel! We still love you, Nathaniel!”

[fuckindiva]

Aeschylus’ The Oresteia: Agamemnon (tr. Richmond Lattimore)

[hypokeimena]

#this line fucking floors me every time #idk the idea that 2500 years ago people were consoling the grieving in the SAME WAY #and the grieving hated it the same way. #because being called brave… what choice does she have but bravery? (via @finelythreadedsky)

[jabberwockypie]

[girlfictions]

Ella Risbridger, from In The Kitchen: Essays on Food and Life

[melrows]

glass onion was amazing and I wouldn’t change anything about it. BUT I do think it would have been hilarious if there was a post credit scene with all of them getting covid, because of course miles’ gun vax thing doesn’t work.

[teartra]

I love how Jonathan Stroud woke up one day and asked himself “hey, what if Harry Potter is evil” and started writing Bartimaeus Trilogy

[teartra]

It’s always “I love him” and never “It’s two thousand, one hundred and twenty-nine years since Ptolemy died, he was fourteen. Eight world empires have risen up and fallen away since that day, and I still carry his face.”

[ex0skeletal-undead]

Hands by DannyLaiLai

[cszhu]

The photos that NASAHubble & NASAWebb took of The Pillars of Creation inspired me deeply. I had to draw what I saw in the formation: A hand reaching into the universe. What an accomplishment for humankind and what a symbol for exploration and knowledge. Credit 2nd image: NASA

[filmgifs]

— If the meds were switched, then when I got them mixed up, I… I accidentally switched them back, so… I gave Harlan… — The correct doses, yes. But not accidentally.

KNIVES OUT (2019) dir. Rian Johnson

[connie-banana]

I love this moment, not just because of the twist, but also because Marta has been dying the whole movie with not only fear and grief, but guilt at having caused the death of her patient, her friend.

For Benoit to take the time to reassure that this was not her fault, in way that is so kind and so clear, was lovely.

“You are a good nurse.” You can tell when he says that the he truly understands what is paining her the most. Just beautiful.

[thelittleblackfox]

I have so much love for this film, and for the moment following this where Benoit tells her that, if Harlan had listened to her, he would still be alive. The blame is taken from her, in the kindest possible way, by someone she trusts. After all the goalpost moving and ‘ah, gotcha!’ and obsession with spoilers in cinema over the last decade, with characterisation abandoned and plotlines left unresolved, knives out is a kind film. It isn’t obsessed with tricking you or catching you out, just wants you along for the ride

[whitenoiseblackknight]

(Tags by @psqqa ) #but it’s also like.. someone tried to use the balance of risk and liability and trust that her job entails against her # and the precariousness of her reliance on that job as well as her overall situation) #specifically because they devalued her for doing that job #and the movie says no #that trust is earned #the job she does is valuable #and the knowledge and expertise it takes to do that job is valuable #and devaluing that knowledge and expertise is exactly what made your plan fail #because what she does does in fact require a true competence #which she has #a tangible skill with real consequences #you can’t tell the difference between a prop knife and a real knife #but she can tell the difference between the right medication and the wrong one