spoiler warning !!! i had the biggest realization today while reading/annotating east of eden, & i figured i would share my messy handwriting & eager notes as i broke apart the story.
Can you do some HC for Akutagawa, Chuuya, and Steinbeck (I know's he's kind of hard so don't feel like you have to do him if you don't want) with an often sick/ill s/o?? Thank you! (I love your blog ^.^)
John Steinback
As soon as he find out they’re sick he goes into mom mode
He knows a lot of really good home remedies that will get them feeling better in no time
Makes the best soup
He checks their temperature every hour is not more, he just worries
Makes sure there is always water or juice on the nightstand so they can stay hydrated
Nakahara Chuuya
Is basically their servant
He’ll try and take the day off work if he can so he can take care of them
He’ll make sure they have everything they need
Chuuya will cook them whatever they want and even feed them soup
Will definitely give them sick cuddles
Always has a box of tissues and an extra blanket handy in case they need it
He stays by them 24/7 and doesn’t care if he ends up getting sick
Akutagawa Ryunosuke
He doesn’t really know how to deal with it
He’s torn between leaving them alone to get their rest and constantly asking them if they need anything
Tbh he’d rather stay away from them because he doesn’t want to get sick, but he also doesn’t like to see them suffering so he’ll do pretty much anything they ask
Constantly asking if they need more medicine
He has a hard time sleeping if his s/o is sick because he wants to make they’re okay and nothing happens to them
If they want he’ll read to them or lay with them a watch a movie
while reading east of eden, i began writing down all of the quotes that stood out to me. now that i’m finished, i have this giant compilation! i hope you enjoy these quotes as much as i do, john steinback is one hell of a writer.
1. "adam thought how a man doing an ugly or brutal thing has hurt himself and must punish someone for the hurt," p. 57
2. "you must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous," p. 72
3. "there was real fear mixed up in his love, and the precipitate from the mixing of these two is cruelty," p. 97
4. "where did all the good stones go, and all simplicity?" p. 129
5. "a man's mind vagued up a little, for how can you remember the feel of pleasure or pain or choking emotion? you can remember only that you had them," p. 129
6. "nobody knows why you go to a picnic to be uncomfortable when it is so easy and pleasant to eat at home," p. 130
7. "and this i believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world," p. 132
8. "maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil & ugly things germinate & grow strong," p. 132-133
9. "'it'll be-- who knows? maybe in our lifetime,' they said. and people found happiness in the future according to their present lack," p. 157
10. "there wasn't any limit, no boundary at all, to the future. and it would be so a man wouldn't have room to store his happiness. contentment would flood raging down the valley like the salinas river in march of a thirty-inch year," p. 158
11. "'there's a capacity for appetite,' samuel said, 'that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy,'" p. 158
12. "it's hard to split a man down the middle and always to reach for the same half," p. 165
13. "if you ever saw death still breathing, there it was," p. 205
14. "you're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. some-thing will grow," p. 215
15. "the church and the whorehouse arrived in the far west simultaneously. and each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. but surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out if his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels," p. 217
16. "there was no interval from loveliness to horror, you see. i'm confused, confused," p. 260
17. "i guess i wouldnt have minded so much if she had wanted my death. that would have been a kind of love. but i was an annoyance, not an enemy," p. 262
18. "it's nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world," p. 264
19. "some people think it's an insult to the glory of their sickness to get well. but the time poultice is no respecter of glories. everyone gets well if he waits around," p. 265
20. "lord, how the day passes! it's like a life--so quickly when we don't watch it and so slowly when we do," p. 267
21. "no story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel it in ourselves that it is true and true of us," p. 268
22. "if a story is not about the hearer he will not listen. and i here make a rule--a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. the strange and foreign is not interesting--only the deeply personal and familiar," p. 270
23. "sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids," p. 287
24. "do you take pride in your hurt? ... does it make you seem large and tragic?" p. 295
25. "i have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. it is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. it is always attacked and never destroyed--because 'thou mayest,'" p. 304
26. "and again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy, and nothing in the thoughts to justify it or cause it," p. 327
27. "we're practical people and always a little hungry. but our devils aren't very bright. we can out-think them. that's some progress," p. 330
28. "i don't think i've ever known what you people call happiness. we think of contentment as the desirable thing, and maybe that’s negative," p. 332
29. "i don't think any man is contented when there are things undone he wishes to do," p. 332
30. "please try not to need me. that's the worst bait of all to a lonely man," p. 333
31. "there's more beauty in the truth even if it is dreadful beauty. the storytellers at the city gate twist life so that it looks sweet to the lazy and the stupid and the weak, and this only strengthens their infirmities and teaches nothing, cures nothing, nor does it let the heart soar," p. 360
32. "humans are caught--in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too--in a net of good and evil," p. 413
33. "in uncertainty i am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved," p. 414
34. "all novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. and it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is," p. 415
35. "the quick pain of the truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost. that's a running sore," p. 429
36. "perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk," p. 434
37. "you see, there's a responsibility in being a person. it's more than just taking up space where air would be," p. 455
38. "a miracle once it is familiar is no longer a miracle," p. 457
39. "nearly everyone has his box of secret pain, shared with no one," p. 479
40. "i guess this personal hide-and-seek is not unusual. and some people are 'it' all their lives--hopelessly 'it'," p. 488
41. "pretend it's true and maybe it will be," p. 493
42. "beauty must be somewhat like ourselves," p. 495
43. "laughter comes later, like wisdom teeth, and laughter at yourself comes last of all in a mad race with death, and sometimes it isn't in time," p. 497
44. "hate cannot live alone," p. 501
45. "i said that word carried a man's greatness if he wanted to take advantage of it," p. 522
46. "all great and precious things are lonely," p. 523
47. "one thing late or early can disrupt everything around it, and the disturbance runs outward in bands like the waves from a dropped stone in a quiet pool," p. 533
48. "the weight of knowledge is too great for one mind to absorb," p. 541
49. "maybe the knowledge is too great and maybe men are growing too small... maybe, kneeling down to atoms, they're becoming atom-sized in their souls. maybe a specialist is only a coward, afraid to look out of his little cage. and think what any specialist misses--the whole world over his fence," p. 541
50. "but with a few exceptions people don't want money. they want luxury and they want love and they want admiration," p. 541
51. "you had to crave something to be dishonest," p. 562
52. "riches seem to come to the poor in spirit, the poor in interest and joy. to put it straight--the very rich are a poor bunch of bastards," p. 583
53. "nobody has the right to remove any single experience from another. life and death are promised. we have a right to pain," p. 593
