groovytigger-blog

[groovytigger-blog]

[groovytigger-blog]

do publishers realize that advertising books using fanfic tropes spoils the experience of reading an original story. stop telling me it’s enemies to lovers and there was only one bed and unrequited love hurt comfort golden retriever black cat timeloop major character death. why do i give a fuck if i don’t know any of the characters and now plus i already know the entire plot of the story. that’s what ao3 is supposed to be for

[groovytigger-blog]

[groovytigger-blog]

can anyone tell me the watch order for every movie ever so i can understand all references and homages

[groovytigger-blog]

Handmade Linocut patch - Crows // OldCatPress

[groovytigger-blog]

[groovytigger-blog]

anyways (I say this as someone who is deeply critical of the united states government, military, unchecked capitalism, police, etc) I am SICK of people treating america as if it has no cultural value or positives so….. I love u 85 million acres (bigger than italy) of national parks. I love u harlem renaissance. I love u groundhogs day. I love u sweet tea and fried chicken and jambalaya. I love u apple cider donuts and maizes on crisp autumn days. I love u 95k miles of coastlines and new england fisherman and hand knitted sweaters. I love u halloween where millions of people dress up and give candy to strangers and carve jack o’lanterns. I love u small talk and small towns and potlucks and bringing over casseroles to your struggling neighbors. I love u cowboys and ranch hands and arizonian cactus. I love u appalachian trail and dirtbikes and divebars. I love u sparklers and fireflies. I love u mark twain and toni morrison and emily dickinson and henry david thoreau. I love u rock n roll i love u bluegrass and hippies i love u jimi hendrix and nirvana and CCR and janis joplin. I love u victorian houses and jonny appleseed and john henry and mothman and bigfoot. I love u foggy days in the pacific northwest and neon signs and roadside attractions. I love u baseball and 1950s diners and soft serve. I love u native american art and pop art and poptarts. I love u blue jeans and barbecues and jazz musicians 

[groovytigger-blog]

Some rambling about "Pride and Prejudice" and Jane Bennet

I was just visiting the website Always Austen to reread one of @bethanydelleman's excellent articles there, and out of curiosity, I read another article that was just published, "Is There 'Comedy' in Jane Austen's Novels?" by Regina Jeffers. (Short answer: there is.)

When listing the many comical characters in Pride and Prejudice near the beginning of the article, Jeffers includes Jane Bennet. I was surprised, but at the same time glad to see this. While I wouldn't call Jane a "comic character," I do think there's a comic aspect to her role, which the fandom doesn't often seem to notice.

But to explain why Jane is "comic," Jeffers writes that it's because she's "too good to be true." I disagree with that.

To me, the comic aspect of Jane is how determined she is to believe the best of other people, even when they clearly don't deserve it. For example, her reluctance to think badly of either Darcy or Wickham and insisting that they must both be mistaken about each other. Or when she tries to believe that Charlotte must have real affection for Mr. Collins, or that Wickham must really love Lydia. Or her working herself into misery imagining the remorse Lydia must feel for nearly disgracing her family, when Lydia couldn't care less and is just gleeful that she's the first sister to be married.

But personally, I don't see that eagerness to believe the best of others as being a part of Jane's own goodness, per se. Yes, it does show her generous spirit, and it's arguably because she's so instinctively kind and unselfish that she has trouble grasping that others can be willfully unkind or coldly self-serving. But it's not "goodness," in and of itself.

I don't think it's unrealistic either, which the phrase "too good to be true" seems to imply.

Maybe it's because I'm autistic, but I can understand Jane's struggle to comprehend that someone who seems caring, friendly, and decent might not be a true friend. And I can relate to her efforts to think well of others because it hurts to think badly of them. Besides sometimes doing that myself, I know some people who do it more than I do: namely my own mother, who can look at the most hateful, self-serving politicians and still try to believe that they have good intentions and can change.

But back to the claim of "too good to be true." This is actually a remark I've read about Jane more than once. I don't know how much of a consensus it is in the bigger Pride and Prejudice fandom, but I've seen people say that they never cared for Jane as a character because she was "too perfect to be real." Or joke about Jane Austen creating a flawless Mary Sue and naming her after herself.

But personally? I disagree. Jane's willfully naïve rose-colored glasses count as a flaw to me. (Although I do like that she's not portrayed as stupid, but that in one key way, her efforts to defend Darcy to Elizabeth, her idealism is proven right.) Then there's her shyness and reserve, which might be the most proper ladylike behavior, but which make others doubt her love for Bingley, including Bingley himself.

Now I'll grant that maybe Austen did make Jane and Bingley almost perfect on purpose. Since she clearly loved to deconstruct the melodramatic or sentimental literary tropes of her day, maybe in Jane and Bingley, she did mean to say "Here are the characters you'd expect to be the heroine and the hero. They're a classic idealized sentimental couple. She's the most beautiful of all her sisters. He's the most charming eligible bachelor. They're both impeccably kind, friendly, well-behaved, and virtuous, and they fall in love sweetly and tenderly, more-or-less at first sight. Their only flaws are that they're both too modest and too trusting. In a sentimental novel, theirs would be the central love story, and from their friends' and families' perspective, theirs is the central love story. But guess what? They're not the focus of this novel. They're the secondary couple. Their blandly sweet romance holds so little interest to me that I never even show them conversing. Instead, her sister and his best friend are my protagonists: two clever, sharp-witted, prickly, flawed, dynamic, unsentimental characters, who don't like each other at first, whose love only grows gradually after extensive bickering and battles of wits, and who force each other to face their own flaws and become better people. Conventionally, these two would be the secondary, comic relief couple who serve as sidekicks to the hero and heroine. From an in-universe perspective, that's just what they are. But of the two couples, they're by far the more interesting and deeply human, so my focus is on them."

But that doesn't mean Jane is too perfect to be real.

[groovytigger-blog]

"You could get up early and do it before work" I could also wait for a magic beanstalk to start growing in my living room LMAO. Let's focus on things that happen in the real world

[groovytigger-blog]

[groovytigger-blog]

Rhythm and Reverie Striped Cardigan, a free crochet pattern designed by Amy Gunderson on Ravelry.

[groovytigger-blog]

I'm sorry. David Corenswet brought his dog to set in her own Superman costume?

[groovytigger-blog]

Anastasia Trusova — “Snowfall Near a Birch Grove”

Acrylic on canvas (50 x 50 cm)

[groovytigger-blog]

Hey i’m a fashion design student so i have tons and tons of pdfs and docs with basic sewing techniques, pattern how-tos, and resources for fabric and trims. I’ve compiled it all into a shareable folder for anyone who wants to look into sewing and making their own clothing. I’ll be adding to this folder whenever i come across new resources

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16uhmMb8kE4P_vOSycr6XSa9zpmDijZSd?usp=sharing

[groovytigger-blog]

I love taking a little stroll through my garden on my breaks from work- from- home, so I totally get it

Fresh air, stretching, butterflies, bees, flowers, sunlight. And no computer or telephone for a few minutes

I always thought Miss Bingley's turn about the room thing was weird, until I started a 40 hour office job, cause yeah, right now I would love to take a turn about the room and not sit in front of the computer for 10 minutes...

[groovytigger-blog]

This has probably already been said, but they should do Dracula Daily but with Lord of the Rings. Email me on the day Frodo & Co go into the forest. Email me on the day Gandalf falls. Email me when the ring is dropped into Mt Doom. I just want a real time experience of how long this journey takes.

[groovytigger-blog]

I hate when people ask me how long it took me to crochet something I’ve made. Frankly, that’s none of my business. I put the yarn on the hook and worked on it whenever the spirit happened to take me to and then one day it was done. How long that process took is between the yarn and god; I want no part of it.