Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!

Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It's me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here's the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.

got thoughtful about opinions on bad books so here’s an inverse: what’s a book you had to read for school that you actually enjoyed/have grown to like? mine is Lord of the Flies

I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped in the flags! In every cloud, in every tree - filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day - I am surrounded with her image!

Piper and Paul's Wuthering Heights from Worlds because:

it's Wuthering Heights and their performance is hauntingly beautiful

I am going to miss this program so so much next season

It's funny, when I say that Austen didn't advise marrying a rake or a Gothic hero, someone replies, "They've mistaken Austen for the Brontë sisters." (usually meaning Emily and Charlotte).

Except... Emily and Charlotte didn't advocate reforming a rake either. Jane Eyre famously GTFO when she learned that Rochester was trying to commit bigamy and she didn't return without divine intervention to a man who had been half-smitted by God for his sins. Isabella may have originally thought she could reform Heathcliff, but pretty quickly she fled from her marriage, never returned, and did everything she could to keep her son from him.

Maybe we could just stop blaming these literary women for things they didn't even do, not that we really need to blame anyone since I'm fairly certain that writing a love story where a heroine reforms a rake isn't the root cause of all evil.

Heathcliff the man you are

They created a strange tableau: rabid boy, trapped girl, bombed-out building. It suggested a tale that could only end in tragedy. Star-crossed lovers meeting their fate. A revenge story turned in on itself. A war saga that took no prisoners.

wuthering heights, emily brontë // persona (1966) // hannibal 3x06 dolce // 2010: the year we made contact (1984) // fight club (1999) // mulholland drive (2001) // dead ringers (1988) // carmilla, sheridan le fanu // ravenous (1999) // t2 trainspotting (2017) // alien: covenant, alan dean foster // possession (1981) // major grom: plague doctor (2021) // apocalypse now (1979)

will never get over the fact that mr. heathcliff and mr. arthur huntington are canonically more attractive than mr. rochester.

aside from the fact that they're both described as being handsome, and mr. rochester is described as being not handsome, we can see this play out in the text. while it's a point that mr. rochester's love interests only want him for his money/status, with arthur and heathcliff that's not entirely the case (you could argue that isabella is partly concerned with heathcliff's newfound wealth, but imo if he wasn't handsome as well, she probably wouldn't bother).

like helen I Love My Bible graham sees arthur and immediately starts drawing and painting him to sublimate her very very obvious attraction that everyone (including him) is aware of. even though she's told he's horrible, she says I CAN FIX HIM!!!! JUST LOOK AT HIM!!! and annabella just openly cheats on her husband with him for years. like helen, isabella linton is told that heathcliff is horrible but she's like BUT HOW CAN THAT BE TRUE WHEN HANDSOME? HAVE YOU SEEN HIM? and as soon as mr. lockwood meets heathcliff in the very beginning he becomes obsessed with him. even after heathcliff lets him be attacked by his vicious dogs, mr. lockwood refuses to leave him alone. not to mention that even the initially biased and usually critical nelly agrees that he's handsome, and cathy literally dying because she regrets not marrying him

— although cathy/heathcliff's bond is much more than skin deep / isn't about looks or regular forms of attraction (bc they have an almost twin-like, spiritual bond) i feel like seeing him healthy and handsome and "glowed up" really hurt cathy 10x more than she was hurt before his return, bc back then she could maybe try to delude herself out of missing him as much by remembering him when he was in his slovenly servant role & embarrassing her infront of the lintons — but seeing proof of his potential & that he always did have it in him to accrue & maintain wealth/education/fashion (and yes, good looks too), & that he could've/would've done so if he'd married her, is really what helped to kill her (aside from... y'know, the whole childbirth thing of course - but the narrative does heavily imply that the drama from heathcliff's return decreased her chances of surviving childbirth, so when i refer to her death, i'm looking at the more internal/emotional causes)

i’m serious about this being one of my favorite things ever. like he ate. look at his goofy ass. mr. duckcy.

Yea, Emily Brontë wrote: “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same” and “You say I killed you, haunt me then”. Which are amazing quotes, yes.

But let’s never forget about: “He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle, and dance in a glorious jubilee. ‘I said his heaven would only be half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine”

Quick Limbus Doodles

Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same...If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.

- WUTHERING HEIGHTS, Emily Brontë

I hope that it mattered, having someone beside you in the dark

I Am in Eskew, The Boy Who Saw the Cracks in the World / Fleabag, Episode 6 / Kate Bush, Wuthering Heights / Skip Liepke, Illustration for Wuthering Heights / Brendan Monroe, Two / Mikko Harvey, For M / Fall Out Boy, Love From the Other Side / Mitski, Old Friend / Langston Hughes, I Loved My Friend / Mel Gausden, One by One (Our Friends Will Move Away) / Ocean Vuong, Thanksgiving 2006 / Kaye Donachie / Ryan Ross / Louise Miller

JULIE ANN THILMANY, Draining Life Forces: Vampirism in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights

I love being a literary nerd who is obsessed with classic lit because even if I forget to bring a book I can always read texts with expired copyright legal and free