jello-paws

[jello-paws]

It's a sign of the times

alternately titled: an extremely self indulgent web weave with no clear theme other than my current (very jumbled) feelings

@ryebreadgf/twin size mattress, the front bottoms/I am the architect of my own destruction, juansen dizon/sylvia plath/ @jaggedjawjosh/unknown/my spotify playlist/waiting room, phoebe bridgers/ @body-to-flame/nothings new, rio romeo/last words of a shooting star, mitski/unknown/sylvia plath/god must hate me, catie turner/sign of the times, harry styles

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just like our parents

or: about growing up and becoming your parents

the story of a new name - elena ferrante // in case you don’t live forever - ben platt // cat's in the cradle - harry chapin // those who leave and those who stay - elena ferrante // my mother & I - lucy dacus // the story of the lost child - elena ferrante // como nossos pais - elis regina (translated)

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i love you and so i weave you into my art

knitting song; paris paloma // learn how to knit; hawksley workman // knit and crochet heart sweater pattern image by MissMurphy Studio // not a lot, just forever; adrienne lenker // sister; sufjan stevens // Loose Ends project website

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"The Dance", Siamanto (translated by Peter Balakian)

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@rbhvleo // roberto ferri // mothering by ainslie hogarth // rainer maria rilke // ? // planet of love by richard siken // a self portrait in letters by anne sexton // indian summer by ron hicks

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i was so fucking sad when i was 14 and now when i fold my laundry or see a pool of moonlight on the floor of my bedroom i know that miracles exist. i see love in everything. love sees everything in me too

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As if you were on fire from within. The moon lives in the lining of your skin.

Pablo Neruda

[jello-paws]

Language itself is a revenant – that is, a ghost that walks again by repeating and being repeatable. It is older than the speaker, and it will live long after the speaker has died, thus indicating a future to come that is a repetition of the past and the present but still different. Language speaks the speaker, as if ghosts of past generations possesses them in order for them to express themselves to ghosts of the present as well as those of the future.

— Line Henriksen, “Spread the Word”: Creepypasta, Hauntology, and an Ethics of the Curse, 2018.

[jello-paws]

On Love and Community

@princes-heels // ? // @inkskinned // mitski, my love mine all mine//@littlespoonsokka // @boymiffy // @2aminhouston // ? // @theviralwitch // @noodle // @criterioncollectiongirl // @fatsoupy // ? // @mjalti // george saunders, congratulations, by the way// @jb-blunk // @ponchopeligroso // @headspace-hotel // everything, everywhere, all at once(2022) //@cheruib // ? // ? // @tordenvejr

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I realised to be authentic in your 20s means to include elements that made you happy when you were really small, mix them with the new interests you got as a teenager, and everything decorated with your current perspective about the world

[jello-paws]

felix catton and oliver quick as diana and actaeon inverted

paul manship, actaeon | fred b. tromly, playing with desire: christopher marlowe and the art of tantalization | saltburn (2023), dir. emerald fennell | leonard barkan, diana and actaeon: the myth as synthesis | edith wharton, artemis to actaeon

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Tess of the d’Urbervilles is one of my favorite classic books, so as a huge Ice Nine Kills fan I have to talk about Tess-timony at least once a month or else I melt. Spoilers for Tess of the d’Urbervilles ahead! Also mentions of fictional murder.

I always found it so strange that after spending an entire book following Tess and her experience, her perspective suddenly drops out of the narrative near the end. In the final moments of her story - Alec’s murder, her escape, her death - we completely lose access to her thoughts and emotions about the events. It places her as a passive receiver of the narrative.

This is why I find it so interesting that Tess-timony focuses on that exact period of the book. Intentional or not, INK chooses to tell her story during the moments in the novel when she is silenced. The song gives her a voice when she was denied one by the narrative.

Another part I love is the surprisingly nuanced understanding of Tess’s power over the story. I’ve read and heard two different interpretations that I disagree with. One reading assumes that she is totally powerless over her life, unable to change her circumstances. This assumption, coupled with her absence from the narrative at the end, implies that Tess doesn’t even form reactions to her experiences. This analysis reduces her from a character to a symbol: instead of being an agent within her own story, she’s merely an embodied metaphor for innocence and naïvety. She’s an instructive device.

The other reading that I dislike is the one that assigns her too much power - the “Tess is a girlboss” reading. This assumes that Tess’s revenge on Alec means she somehow wins in the end. As empowering as her revenge is for her as a character, she still suffered for years, and Alec’s murder doesn’t erase that for her. It only leads to her death, a fate that was always coming for her.

Tess is an active participant in her story, but she doesn’t have the power to change her fate. That’s what I think Tess-timony captures really elegantly. Tess has power, but she is still doomed. Even as she finally gains the voice that was denied to her by the novel, the impending tragedy still looms over her. This is captured so well by the end of the song:

“So officer please, that's the man who's destroyed my existence / Yeah, he begged and he screamed just like I did / And for this I was willing to die / It was all I could do to survive.”

The version of Tess we hear in the song has fought tooth and nail for every scrap of agency she could get, but it still wasn’t enough. (And she never should’ve had to fight like that in the first place.)

I don’t even know if any of this was an intentional choice by INK when writing the song. Regardless, I think Tess-timony is a deeply meaningful reception of the novel.

[jello-paws]

denji + receiving selfless love in domesticity

waitress / while the child sleeps, sonya undresses, ilya kaminsky / i will, mitski / eden robinson

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"wishbone", richard siken // coloring by @kisslatr // "hikaru ga shinda natsu", mokumokuren

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went on a field trip to a local diocesan museum as part of my Chaucer class & learned a lot about relics, the Middle Ages, and Catholicism.