a long walk

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why?...

[gngerale]

HEATED RIVALRY, EPISODE 3 'HUNTER'

[danascullly]

Only Murders in the Building | Season 5 Episode 4 - Dirty Birds Written by Kristin Newman

[1hide]

bisexual, anti-education, gives up easy, cries easily, nagger, good cook…. cute but cranky….

whatta man.

[greenmantle]

OVERCOMPENSATING, S1E4

[sophsun1]

The Golden Girls – 5.26: The Presidents Coming! The Presidents Coming!

[deadpoets]

SEVERANCE 2.10 | Cold Harbor

[allsonargent]

Louisa Harland as Orla McCool in Derry Girls (2018—2022)

[niamhmccormack]

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (2022) dir. Rian Johnson

[chandlerbings]

F•R•I•E•N•D•S, The One Where Underdog Gets Away (S01E09)

[aaronstveit]

i don’t want to be rich i don’t want to be famous i don’t want a million tiktok followers or what the fuck ever i just want a one bedroom apartment in a walkable community with neighbors i could borrow sugar from or bring cookies to when i bake extra and a job that i enjoy and that helps someone and pays me enough to afford my silly little one bedroom and groceries and something fun too at the end of the day and enough free time to sing and dance and read and write and spend time with the people i love and maybe have a dog and some plants to water and a shelf of books to read and a thrift store where i can buy weird clothes and faded denim jackets like i am not asking for anything big or grand or exciting i just want peace i want contentment i want just a little love how the fuck is this too much to ask for

[marzipanandminutiae]

“you don’t like the proliferation of terms like Unalive outside of TikTok because you realize that you’re aging out of youth culture and it makes you uncomfortable!”

no I don’t like it because there’s something INCREDIBLY dystopian about being forced to soften terms for basic parts of the human experience like death and sex (and even more so terms for oppressed minorities- call me a “le-dollar sign-bian” and I will bite you) purely because advertisers and corporations demand it

[queerteakeyboard]

Ghibli films be like maybe the real hero was public transport

[kendallroy-deactivated20210425]

people on this website be like “it’s actually school’s fault that i don’t know how to read because i wanted to write my essay on the divergent trilogy and that BITCH mrs. clarkson made us study 1984 instead. anyway here’s a 10 tweet thread of easily disproven misinformation about a 3 year old news story and btw, who is toni morrison?”

[kendallroy-deactivated20210425]

i KNOW most of y’all are lying about being in the gifted program as children because none of you could pass the basic reading comprehension assessment they give third graders today

[themself]

this post is mean and I never read divergent or whatever the fuck but 1984 sucks and is rape apologism so if somebody wanted to write about divergent or whatever good for them

[westenra]

this reply is like literally exactly what op is talking about lol. like firstly ops point isn’t “1984 is good”, ops point is that analysing complex stories teaches you how to form opinions and think for yourself. and like secondly in 1984 you’re supposed to think damn it’s fucked up that he’s thinking that way about her, i wonder if this ties in with the central theme of “a society like this will fuck you in the head”? (this is the thinking for yourself part). like do you think orwell just put that in for fun? do you think that just because winston is the protagonist you’re supposed to agree with everything he does?

[lunaescribe]

You know I feel like this post just gave me an epiphany for what is wrong with how Tumblr Fandom/Internet Fandom responds to media-or not *wrong* but makes it very hard to respond to anything but a morally correct, and heroic protagonist. 

When an English teacher, or reader, taught or picked up 1984, it wasn’t with the intention they were going to love the protagonist. They picked it up with the intention of reading a whole story and trying to grasp the theme or catharsis from the story. If the protagonist was a *shitty* person it played into the the themes or the story, because it wasn’t about morally judging the book or *liking* or feeling attachment to the protagonist. Sometimes and often times, books were just about gaining another perspective. 

No one read Lolita expecting to endear, or like, or be inspired by Humbert. You are supposed to be upset by his behavior, you don’t read Lolita with the intention of being inspired. You read it to learn more about what the fuck is going on inside someone’s head when they behave like that. How children get sucked into abusive situations. Or read “The Great Gatsby” not because they want to fall in love with Gatsby or Nick, but to better understand and analyze the experience of the 1920s or destitution of the American Dream. 

A lot of internet and fandom culture has changed that though. When we say something like “I love the Great Gatsby” it comes with the idea or association that means you must *love* or relate to one of the characters. And maybe you do, but the first assumption is not longer about the quality of the work or themes, or cathartic impact-it’s about character admiration. And with that character admiration, in tumblr stan culture, or kin culture, or exalting characters with fanart/romance/so on you don’t just ‘admire’ or find that character ‘compelling’ it now translates to ‘you LOVE that character’ or you ‘DIRECTLY relate to that character.’ 

You can’t say “I love how Humbert is written, it’s so fascinating and dark”, without it directly translating you somehow relate to a child abuser or condone his actions. Taking in media has become an act of worship and connection. We no longer watch meant to just see the story as a whole, we watch expecting to connect to a character and if we offer them our “worship” as it’s become, as opposed to just attention or interest study as it traditionally was, it means we are condoning the character or saying we directly empathize with all their actions. 

I think that’s why there is often now so much fuss over *toxic* characters or not. Or whether that classical novel is showing good or bad things anymore. We’re treating the characters as people we should love or want to draw or write about. Sometimes a story is just about getting the the theme or catharsis or learning another perspective. We don’t NEED to like the character. Or we don’t HAVE to like a character to be impressed by how they’re written or intrigued by their behavior. 

I think if internet culture could learn to view stories as small insights into other lives or single takes of one perspective instead of purposeful moral inspirations we’d be a lot less worried about how toxic or not toxic they are. 

[icarus-suraki]

Seriously! 

And this is where “unhealthy relationships” in fiction come in too. Well-written, complex stories of bad relationships aren’t supposed to be good and healthy examples. If it’s held up that way (Twilight), then the issue is the writing and the writer. Unhealthy relationships in, say, Anna Karenina are obviously unhealthy but they are, to misquote James Joyce “portals to discovery.” You can know that a fictional relationships is seriously bad and still find it interesting. Psychology! Complexity! 

Also I want to add that some characters (Humbert Humbert is a good one) are written so that if and when you find yourself sympathizing or saying “Yeah, I know that feeling” you’re supposed to stop and consider that. Not in terms of “I am a sick individual and deserve to die.” but more like “is it possible to have compassion for terrible people?” and “what is it in our culture or my upbringing that makes me think like I do?”

I’ve heard way too many people say “I will never read Lolita because of what it encourages” and I just…you’re missing the point? Completely? Like, you’re so missing the point that it’s almost meta? You’re not supposed to like Humbert??? You’re supposed to either be like “wow, gross, dude” or “oh fuck, wait, why do I have even 1 thing in common with this guy?” Nabokov is not going to be straightforward with you! 

It’s like the jokes about being mad at your teacher for asking why the sky is blue in a certain book. Maybe there really is a reason. Did you think of that? For a bunch of people who’ll write thesis-length defenses of your favorite ships and trace down one instance in one minute of one episode of the 15 season show to prove that you’re right, it concerns me that you’re not as willing to look at a lot of other things with any depth. To say nothing of multi-chapter fanfic.

If you surround yourself with only good and pure and wholesome media approved by the purity-culture police, then you just don’t get to do a lot of introspection and I think that’s kind of a shame. I feel like it really limits your view of the world.

I dunno. There’s a weird kind of anti-intellectualism disguised as protection and good intent sometimes. Or it feels like the kind of prudishness that labels some books “dirty” and the people who read them equally disgusting, but just relies on social ostracism to enforce the labels. You know, “Think of the children!!” 

Anyway, I’m going to go read some dirty, dirty literature now. Like 1984.

[cookiedoughmeagain]

1984 is a good book because it is horrific, because it teaches us something about what horror looks like. Not because everyone in it is a wonderful human being.

There’s a quote that I can’t quite remember how it goes or who said it, but it’s something to the effect of; “The power of novels is to allow us to experience life as someone else. ” Or, “I read in order to understand what other people’s lives feel like” or something.

Point is, liking a work of fiction is not restricted to being interested in characters who are - in any way at all - similar to you as a reader. You can value characters you don’t identify with.

[author-a-holmes]

Gods, yes, all of the last four additions to this post, tbh

[beckywiththegoodhijab]

Dear kids: sometimes, self-care is ridiculously unsexy. It's cleaning your filthy bathroom after weeks of ignoring it. It's washing your bedsheets and vacuuming your floors. It's forcing yourself to take a shower and brush your teeth. When that temporary motivation strikes, RIDE THAT WAVE as far as you possibly can. It's the kindest thing you can do for yourself sometimes.

[midnineties]

900sqft loft in bushwick, brooklyn, NYC

[hymnsofheresy]

I think one of the most damaging ideologies towards children is the conviction that having children isn’t a calling but a moral obligation.

[hymnsofheresy]

Not to be a crazy radical or anything, but children deserve to be deeply wanted by their parents.

[hymnsofheresy]

Children shouldn’t be a “stage” in life that everyone is obligated to fulfill; childrearing is not for everyone. More importantly, children shouldn’t be state-enforced punishments for “irresponsible” sexual behavior.

Children are people with thoughts and feelings just like the rest of us. They are conscious of the way people treat them. And they can certainly tell when they are unwanted and/or resented.

[chrissiewatts]

DERRY GIRLS | 3.07 The Agreement