So uh. I might’ve found a pattern here.

From The Fellowship of the Ring, “Three Is Company”:

From The Two Towers, “The Uruk-Hai”:

From The Return of the King, “The Houses of Healing”:

Now I know Tolkien hated allegory. And I know LotR is not a copy-and-paste parable about WWII (which he didn’t fight in) or even WWI (which he did). But the man did see war, and so did people he loved, and he had a non-zero amount of trauma, and some of that is gonna make its way into his writing somehow.

And I think his soul might’ve had something to say about soldiers being forced to walk until they dropped from exhaustion.

ALL OF US STRANGERS (2023) dir. ANDREW HAIGH

✨Surprise! ✨

I'm launching a new story for my dark cream ship kids and co ^^

I usually don't warn before the first part is done but I thought Mimosa's birthday was a good day to announce it!

A Tear's Soul!

I already showed that drawing (hehe it's the cover) but now I can talk about it ;3

The project is gonna a mix of comics and writings (because I'd burn myself out trying to do full comic when I'm not very experienced in those... They're hard, ok?)

Sooo it's gonna take me a while........................

Even if I try to shorten it as much as possible (10 parts unless problems)

I think the ones who'd be interested all know how my projects usually go, it's not gonna be a cute, fluffy story uwu. It'll have some fluff tho promise, but angst is part of the journey here! I'll give warnings each time I feel it's necessary :P

So!

If it interests you and you wish to be tagged on it, tell me now and you'll be tagged in each update :D

[I had to compress that gif, it was too big XD]

I’m flabbergasted by this one Donna Tartt statement I read last night.

So I was reading an interview with Donna Tartt because I love her takes on writing, and I saw this. And it’s WILD to me for a ton of reasons. Here she’s discussing how she almost didn’t publish The Secret History. 

First of all… The editor being blatantly wrong. I thought of an extremely famous novel with a male narrator written by a woman in no less than 0.5 seconds after reading this guy say it had never been done (Literally Frankenstein. The novel technically even has a male narrator narrating a male narrator narrating a male narrator at one point so TAKE THAT).

Secondly… Donna Tart almost not publishing it then sticking to her guns and trusting her work. A queen decision. It makes me feel good about all the writing projects I have that I question. 

Thirdly… The reason Richard had to be male. She says it’s so people wouldn’t perceive his decisions to be colored by romance and for the focus to be purely on the morality of his choices. Like if she’s saying she didn’t want there to be “any question” if Richard was in love with Julian, Henry, Francis, Charles, etc…. OH DEAR. MS. TARTT, I HAVE BAD NEWS. 

https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/3209/donna-tartt-on-the-secret-history

this is probably a really stupid idea but hear me out: what if lucy gray actually does make it out of Panem and finds the free people living in the north and she ends up falling in love with a boy who looks like this

Do we think Beth is nicer to Viv in private? Sometimes she seems like she's just barely tolerating her.

lol, she is a total softie? Are you really not seeing that?

They are just awkward about poetic exclamations on love because that's just not who they are. I am from the same region in the Netherlands as Viv and we just don't do 3 page letters about our beautiful souls, we tell our loved ones to shut up and get them a puppy. Beth is not much different in that sense other than that she doesn't truly show her awkward gay as much.

oh man ok i need to gush about moonlight chicken for a second lol

i adored how this show didnt shy away from the messiness of real life and relationships! like u hav a single gay working class man desperately trying to make ends meet and struggling with the guilt of his past lover having died tragically whilst bringing up his nephew who wants to be taken seriously and finally fly the nest to live his own life whilst at the same time navigating his crush on a lonely deaf boy who just wants to be understood and respected. and then you have a man stuck in relationship limbo where he's unable to let go of his past love but also yearning to move on and free them both from the pain they cause each other... and that's not even to mention the side characters who deal with the loss of parents, unfaithful partners, unplanned pregnancies, trying to be a better mother to your son, etc...

no one was a villain, instead you had a group of people who needed to grow and learn in a very natural way, and that's just so refreshing to see! honestly one of my fav parts of the story is that rather than inventing some arbitrary dramatic reason for wen and alan to break up, it just happened because their love had fizzled out, a thing that happens all the time in real relationships! and even though their love had died, it was still obvious that they cared deeply for one another which made both of them trying to move on so much more painful...

so much of this show was about the cycles of emotional abuse that can develop when you're stuck in the past... jim is unable to see a happy future for himself because he blames himself for beam's death, and he let's that anger and resentment inform how he treats li ming. wen is ignoring the messiness of his relationship with alan in favour of pursuing jim, but knows deep down that neither will be able to truly move on unless he deals with the situation. even heart's parents are stuck unable to relate to or be willing to understand their deaf son as they continue to isolate him from the outside world, thinking that it will protect him but all it does is make him even more lonely!

idk i just loved how the show focused so much on living in the moment. that the past is fixed and the future is uncertain, but there will always be now where you can always find some glimmer of joy and optimism.

and then there's ofc the queer element of the show where we get to see how internalised and external homophobia exist as perimeters to queer people being able to truly be themselves. one of the most heart wrenching scenes is at beam's funeral where his parents come up to jim and effectively tell him that because he and beam weren't married, he has no legal rights to any of the things they had worked so hard for together! and this is something you hear time and time again, both historically and now, where queer couples in countries that dont recognise gay marriage or even civil partnerships are denied so much (particularly when one of them dies) because their relationship is deemed illegitimate by law.

jim as a character has internalised this so much that when he finds out his nephew is gay, he lashes out (in one of the funniest scenes ever, mind you lol... literally the whole 'why are you gay, isn't being poor enough of a challenge!?' thing is gonna stick in my mind forever i love it sm lol) because he knows first hand how hard it is to be a queer man in a society that still doesnt fully accept you! (and it rly showed the disparity between him, a working class man, and wen, someone from a middle class/wealthy background when it comes to queerness that i don't think gets discussed as much... cos the fact of the matter is that for a long time queerness /was/ effectively reserved for wealthy people, as working class people wouldnt have had as much of a choice in how they could live their lives, so jim's reticence when it comes to accepting li ming's (and his own) queerness is directly tied to how being poor doesnt always allow you the luxury of simply 'being yourself'...)

and i think it was especially interesting that this show didnt present homophobia in individualistic terms. we don't get a character calling them slurs or saying that they're wrong for being gay, instead we get systemic and societal prejudices showing up in insidious ways, which feels so much more realistic! (like even jam, who is presented as having outdated and homophobic opinions, isnt presented as some evil villain. she's just a product of a homophobic society that teaches people being gay is a sad way of living, and she has to unlearn that as both her brother and son prove her wrong!)

i honestly could (and probably will) go on but yeh... this show man... this show

A message from Scar and Grian's season finales

Remember, there is always a great big beautiful tomorrow.

Everything you make contains a part of your beautiful soul.

Something I love about art is, often, you won't be able to tell who made the piece of art - no matter what, no matter one's background, gender, or anything - people want to surround themselves with beauty, creation, something which stirs ones emotions, warmth, fear, care, and love. There's something special about that.

TFW you shuck it to this guy, then break down crying because he's not real.

Oh, like I'm the only one?!

Anne Rice on transgender people

Writer, actor and activist Phaylen Fairchild wrote a Medium post calling Rice her friend and “first LGBTQ ally,” recalling when she reached out to Rice in the early 2000s via the email address listed on the author’s website. Not only did Rice respond, she encouraged Fairchild’s newfound writing aspirations. 

“At the time I was a navigating difficult territory of gender and sexuality, and she was the first person I came out to as gay,” Fairchild said in the piece. 

“Anne, although I never heard her voice, felt like a safe place. … She gave me confidence to live authentically, telling me ‘Your life is a story, every day is a new page. Live a story worthy of telling again and again.’”

In 2009, Fairchild came out to Rice again, this time as transgender.   

“In typical Anne fashion, she thought it was fabulous,” Fairchild remembered. 

“She told me at the time that she believed transgender people were sacred, that we possessed a unique gift of life experience that few ever would, which would allow us to see the world from ‘a view from the greatest height.’ She shared with me stories of trans figures in history that she had learned about in her own extensive studies. ‘The most fascinating figures in mythology were always transgender or genderless’ she once told me. ‘And in so many cultures reaching back thousands of years, transgender and intersex people were deified, perceived as wise and powerful.’”

“Anne Rice was the first person who made me feel that it was OK to be comfortable in my skin, and that my journey as a transgender woman was special — not because I was by any means odd, weird or different — but that I was worthy of celebrating because my very existence was ‘a remark on the magic of the complex human condition,’” she continued.

from this article.

It's 2023 and there are new Tennant/Tate Russell Davies Doctor who episodes to watch. Life is beautiful sometimes actually

appreciation post for Zatanna Zatara in her wedding dress in Zatanna Vol 2 #6 Married in Vegas (2010)

I’m telling you, nowadays every time I have an intrusive thought that’s mean or scary I think “Namjoon wouldn’t want me to think that way,” and my brain shuts the fuck up because god forbid we make kpop man who doesn’t even know I exist hypothetically disappointed…

“Imagine what he’d do in ALW Phantom,” I said when I saw this. I did and I will. Join me. Imagine it with me.