#but this essay ain't about that

[comradesummers]

not enough discussion of how fundamentally jewish the princess bride is. the film makes this explicit with the grandfather saying "shalom" to the grandson as he's getting ready to leave. and of course there's billy crystal and carol kane's performances which speak for themselves.

but especially in the book, there's this extra layer of jewishness in the form of florin. the father is from florin, an old european country, he speaks in an accent, and the reading of the book to his son is his attempt to share with him the culture of the old country. and it works! the son (a fictionalized version of the novel's real life author, william goldman, who also wrote the screenplay for the film) loves the book, or that is to say, he loves the abridged version of the book without all the worldbuilding. but he doesn't quite succeed at passing the tradition on to his son. so he decides to abridge the book the way his father did for him so his son can enjoy it as much as he did. there's so much there about the immigrant experience, the attempt to keep the tradition of the old country alive through future generations, and how the process of keeping that tradition alive may necessitate losing parts of it. all of this is deeply tied to the jewish immigrant experience in both subtle and unsubtle ways.

most notably, there's this bit from the book (for those who haven't read it, as mentioned the frame narrative is that goldman is abridging the original book by a guy named s. morgenstern from the fictional country of florin, so this bit is a part of the book, even though it reads like paratext):

Hiram, my editor, felt the Miracle Max section was too Jewish in sound, too contemporary. I really let him have it on that one [...] And so here the point is, if Max and Valerie sound Jewish, why shouldn't they? You think a guy named Simon Morgenstern was Irish Catholic?

i just think there's a lot there and i've really only scratched the surface. both the film and the book are a lot more thematically rich than i think we give them credit for, and the jewishness of the story is a big part of that.

[frumentariae]

not sure how i feel about non-indigenous folks writing meta/essays about indigenous narratives in fiction. like you can read all the literature you want but you will never get it.

[pensbridge]

They morphed Colin to be like the book. I don't know what book you read, but book Colin is not that sensitive.

[lokisasylum]

Awwwwwwww, he tried to do 'damage control' by singing Jimin's "Letter"

[eggsnatcheskneecaps]

[04tenno]

i can't believe i got beaten to shishido teice for shame (sending the ask a clean six hours after you reblogged it from me)

i'll shake it up a little though: 6, 7, 12 and 23 for tsuruno and/or arakawa :]

IT'S OKAY HOMIE thank you very much for writing in and for introducing variety to my enclosure <3 I will answer for both because I cannot pick favorites even if you put a gun to my head <3

CHARACTER ASK GAME!!! 💫

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

Tsuruno: The way it doesn't come naturally to him to really make an effort to connect with with more than one person at a time to the detriment of his other relationships, no matter how he feels about the others or what his evaluation of his standing with them is. I struggle with that a lot...

Arakawa: Uhhhhh mommy issues <3 LMAO the scene with his mother in the dressing room had me Looking Away bro the depiction hit sooo close to home...

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

Tsuruno: I've really been enjoying the way Gaiden's introduced more people to Yamaguchi's work as an actor and how much fun everyone's been having with his other roles and incorporating stuff from them into their depictions of Tsuruno! I think Yamaguchi's super underrated (and unfortunately his talent doesn't fully come through as Tsuruno due to the motion capture being done by others), so it's been nice to see people come to appreciate him.

Arakawa: I feel like you kind of have to pay close attention to Arakawa and his journey to fully enjoy him as a character, so although he's not the most popular character out there, the stuff people do make for him is almost always on-point... delicious fucking food...

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Tsuruno: Complete and Utter Dog Person... I need one of Yamaguchi's dogs to make a cameo soooooo bad...

Arakawa: He's a Kaomoji User to me... probably doesn't use them as much as when he first discovered them but everyone's super thrown off getting texts or emails from him for the first time because of the gap moe...

23. Favorite picture of this character?

Tsuruno: You don't really get the full effect from this framing but I felt like SUCH a Victorian gentleman seeing an ankle during this scene it's not even funny... there's definitely other Tsuruno moments I love, but I think I'll love them more once I get to them in my sunglasses-less mod playthrough!

Arakawa: Literally my favorite picture period I don't caaaaaaare this is one of the sexiest shots in the franchise AND THE GAME AIN'T EVEN OUT YET

[troublewithvampires]

classic novelist aesthetics

JOHN KEATS.

the lavender in sunsets, flowers in the rain, sunlight slipping through clouds, lazy summer afternoons, the heavy scent of musk, flickering candlelight reflecting off the gold titles of books, fireflies on a cool summer night, being wrapped in fresh bed sheets, the ache of wanting what you can never have, dripping sunlight like gold, loving someone so exquisite, soft lips and soft whispers, fingers through hair, names of lovers carved in trees, broken glass, the insistence of being perpetually dreamy.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD.

crisp winter skies with cold bright stars, mahogany wood, the solitude of an early autumn morning wrapped in fog, empty bottles on stacks and stacks of books haphazardly placed in a messy room, bruised arms reaching out into the darkness, cigarette smoke just barely hiding the scent of alcohol, a wall of books all poetry and old and weathered, the way tragedy strikes in your heart but ends up stopping your breathing for a moment, your favorite sweater, parties spilling into four a.m. with the stars above spinning and dancing, the contrast of blood against snow, a purple split lip oozing blood, black eyes fading to blue to pale skin, the butterflies of falling in love for the first time, the statues falling apart over time in cemeteries, the romanticization of self-destruction.

FRANZ KAFKA.

the weight of dread that sits heavily in your stomach when thinking about the future, decrepit houses cloaked in mystery from children telling stories of people who died there, the way not even light can escape a black hole, the rich smell of old books, delicate veins in the wrist, ghosts filling lungs, shattered bones, raindrops on the tongue, rusting metal, a nostalgia that aches, the way hope feels like a plastic bag over your head.

H.P. LOVECRAFT.

the anxiety felt when staring into an unknown cave, pouring rain and mud, a child’s fear of the dark, thinking so many questions about your existence as you stare at the vast expanse of never-ending ocean, the silence of three a.m., ouija boards and urban legends.

JACK KEROUAC.

the brisk pine air of being on a mountain, travels without a destination, those nights where you’re missing three hours of memory, screaming to a lifeless desert about how you’re so alive, coffee shops late at night, car rides at night spent speeding and laughing in the dark, naps spent in the sun, novels highlighted and underlined with notes and epiphanies in the margins, the way uncertainty sits on the shoulders, ignoring flaws and loving life, wind through hair, depression as fog in the brain, impossible ideals, a quiet sunrise, walks alone, when you think about trying to discover all the secrets to the universe, dazzling people, open lands stretching out into infinity, falling in love with being alive.

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

the ocean’s horizon inseparable from fog, hollow bones, a preserved heart held in hands, twinkling stars above an old graveyard, the way everything turns to dust, silent black birds with eyes full of wisdom, self-inflicted flames, perfection depicted as a rotting corpse, death as bricks in the heart, lips barely brushing against each other, glassy glazed eyes, biting into a lemon, heart-shaped bruises, rotting flowers on a grave, dried blood and spilled liquor, the hush of dusk when it begins raining, the intimacy of a secret.

--

tagged by: @rejectshumanity

tagging, with no pressure to any of y'all (feel free to ignore this lol): @modestmuses (for silco or anyone else u want <3), @bornchaos, @swxpped, @sinshosted (for ava <3), @dollysdaggers, @nefariuus (for whoever you'd like!), aaaaaaaand @bxtsence (yes u were already tagged but uhh here's a pass to do this again with another muse if you want <3), and anyone else who wants to yoink this from me :3c

[keelanrosa]

terfs when a study shows literally anything positive about trans people/transitioning: 'hm i think this requires some fact-checking. Were those researchers REALLY unbiased? Because if they were biased this doesn't count and if they weren't knowingly biased they probably were unconsciously biased, woke media affects so much these days. Have there been any other studies on this? Because if there haven't been this could be an outlier and if there have been and they all agree that's a bit odd, why aren't there any outliers, and if there have been and any disagree we really won't know the truth until we very thoroughly analyze them all, will we? Were there enough subjects for a good sample size? Did every single subject involved stay involved through the whole study because if they didn't we should be sure nothing shady was going on resulting in people dropping out. Are we 110% sure all the subjects were fully honest and at no point were embarrassed or afraid to admit they didn't love transitioning to the people in charge of their transition? Are we 110% sure none of the subjects were manipulated into thinking they were happy with their transition? In fact we should double-check what they think with their parents, because if the subjects and their parents disagree it's probably because they've been manipulated but their cis parents have not and are very unbiased. How many autistic subjects were there because if there weren't enough then this doesn't really study the overlap between autistic and trans and if there were too many then we just don't know enough about what causes that overlap to be sure this study really explains being trans and isn't just about being autistic. How many AFAB subjects were there because if there weren't enough this is just another example of prioritizing AMAB people and ignoring the different struggles of girls and women and if there were too many how do we know sexism didn't affect the results. Was the study double-blinded? We all know double-blinded is the most reliable so if this one wasn't that's a point against it even if the thesis literally physically could not be double-blinded. Look i'm not being transphobic, i want what's best for trans people! Really! But as a person who is not trans and therefore objective in a way they cannot possibly be, i just think we should only take into account Good Science here. You want to be following science and not being manipulated or experimented upon by something unscientific, right?'

terfs when they see a study of 45 subjects so old it predates modern criteria for gender dysphoria and basically uses 'idk her parents think she's too butch', run by a guy who practiced conversion therapy, 'confirmed' by a guy who treated the significant portion of subjects who didn't follow up as all desisting, definitely in the category of 'physically cannot double-blind this', completely contradicted by multiple other studies done on actual transgender subjects, but can be kinda cited as evidence against transitioning if you ignore everything else about it: 'oOOH SEE THIS IS WHAT WE'RE TALKIN BOUT. SCIENCE. Just good ol' unbiased thorough analysis. I see absolutely no reason to dig any deeper on this and if you think it's wrong you're the one being unscientific. It's really a shame you've been so thoroughly brainwashed by the trans agenda and can't even accept science when you see it. Maybe now that someone has finally uncovered this long-lost study from 1985, we can make some actual progress on the whole trans problem.'

[ninjadudettekira]

Do you think Charmcaster, Darkstar and Albedo would make a good team? It's pretty interesting that all of the have parallels to the Alien Force team: Ben, Gwen and Kevin. It might be disfunctional, but somewhat fascinating.

*looks at this in the morning on 10/31* Me: I'll check it and respond later. *almost midnight that same day.* Me: Crap. Dunno actually. We already saw how Darkstar and Charmcaster would work together and probably would've been hella OP overall had Michael not have been so fixated on Gwen. I honestly can't see Albedo working with any of them. Neither would really help him in the long run, and both are powerful with their own type of magic/mana/whatever it's being called. Both are fixated on Gwen in some way over Ben, which could help Albedo by getting rid of her. But I think all their personalities would clash too much with each other to really pull off an effective team up. If they were to have a decent team up in order to do their respectful skills and win their characters may need rewrites or they all team up long before Charmcaster and Darkstar did in UA since that said how those two would work together given those circumstances. But tbh I'm not really sure, I haven't been fixated on Charmcaster's or Darkstar's characters as much as I have with Albedo, so I can't really dive deep into how they'd all be on a team together unless I did a lot of research on Charmcaster and Darkstar and analyze them way more. It would be an interesting team up, and probably better than any of the other team ups Albedo did. (CoughVilgaxCough) Dunno if this was the answer you're looking for, but I didn't wanna do a whole essay on specifics of how potential team ups could work depending on where it was placed since that's where this was going originally till I shortened it lol.

[thedeadtravelfast]

Shoutout to @goblins-riddles-or-frocks for getting me to do a tag challenge for the first time in like two millennia. So I thusly present "me-coded characters":

@iceandbone because i DEF wanna see yours

[todayisafridaynight]

just saw a 6-hour-long video essay on why riku kingdom hearts is not only gay but also why it matters and yk. what kind of man am i if i dont make a 6-hour-long video essay on mine being gay

[music-thestrongestformofmagic]

[jaaankiey]

jankiey stop analyzing object characters with wildly different motives and attributes compared to the canon source material challenge

(failed)

[phoenixwrites]

Woof, y'all got MAD about your crackship, didn't you?

[troublewithvampires]

//new salvatore au idea?? maybe?? (some vague initial details in the tags)

[potassium-pilot]

Junelezen Day 28: Family

The old: Hector (axe wielder), Oliver (book wielder), and their love and their charge, Dia.They found her abandoned as an infant and kept her close, swearing to protect her from all harm.

The new: Aymeric and Dia, partners in everything they do, loyal to their people and to one another. One swore to protect his country, the other to protect her world.