#god i should read the novel

[mildewewe]

i hate his ass (i love him so much unfortunately)

[batfamhyperfixation]

I know we constantly talk about Jason being a classic lit person, but most people only use P&P and exclusively Jane Austin novels, like yeah my homie she is great but I wanna see more content where Jason’s niche is purely books that people think are related to his death but also not at all related to his death: Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Why people think Jason loves Frankenstein: he relates to the Creature, being born again after death but not quite right, rejected by father figure, causing a separation between him and all the humans, thus plunging him into isolation, highly literate but not taken seriously because he doesn’t have a degree from an accredited school (basically self taught)

Why Jason actually loves Frankenstein: it is written through letters!! There are like 4 stories going on at once all embedded in one another, like that’s so fuckin cool! He actually relates to Robert Walton, as he travels the world only to form the outlaws, taking these misfits with him, like how Walton traveled to the North Pole only to find and befriend Victor Frankenstein, taking him with

Why people think he likes the Metamorphosis: Jason relates to Gregor because he turns into something nonhuman overnight only gaining consciousness again after the transition period and although he still feels the same, everyone will forever fear him as something other, just like Jason after the pit which seemed like it changed him overnight as he woke up something othered

Why Jason actually liked the metamorphosis: Kafka didn’t like metaphor so he made the transformation something literal, and he subverted the expectations of transformation at the time as usually transformations were done to give the character some upgrade but in metamorphosis it was a downgrade, ruining Gregors life instead; not to mention for a story about a man being transformed into a bug, not a lot actually happens in the story nor does Gregor actually do a lot, it is less a narrative in the traditional sense and more a stream of consciousness kind of writing which helps it feel different, also I think he would relate to Grete, always trying to help adults around him who were self-destructing a lot of the time, probably especially his parents, I mean he died by trying to save his mother only for her to turn on him, he was fighting crime to help Bruce, etc. Grete was still a child who was helping her brother stay alive when no one else would, she tried to protect her parents from having to deal with Gregor in his transformed state, she even got a job to help the family (similar to Jason becoming Robin to help Bruce)

Why people think Jason liked the picture of Dorian gray: the theme of fleetingness unless intervened through supernatural means (aging painting keeping you young forever or being reborn again despite original life fleeting) only to eventually cause your untimely demise (likely how others view Jason’s perception of himself)

Why Jason actually liked Picture of Dorian Gray: it has so many takes on society that even if you don’t agree with all of them, it at least forces you to think about your own stances and understanding how you view the world around you, it puts a high value on the arts and takes them seriously, it has very well-developed and deeply flawed characters that are fun to read about, and the novel has an interesting history of it being used as evidence in Wilde’s criminal case for being queer

[immunetoneurotoxin]

“Not a soul assigned to their case at the Bureau could make sense of their existence. There wasn’t a single scientist, parapsychologist, doctor, or specialist with over a dozen PHD’s under the sun that could figure them out. Pyrokinesis in a human? They defy every law of nature, yet they exist amongst humanity regardless. How do you explain that?” “The truth is that there are a lot of unknown things out there in the world that mankind hasn't even begun to scratch the surface of. Everyone flocked to this case trying to find rational answers, but there aren’t any. Look at the files in your hands. By the eyes of science, Pyro should not exist. Don’t you know what happens to things mankind doesn’t understand? The Bureau has done sickening things to them in the name of research.” “That’s why I helped them escape, Conagher.”

Excerpt from the novel INCENDIARY; A TF2 Pyro origin story Read the latest chapter of 'Incendiary' on AO3 here! Artwork created by the incredible @narklos ♡ 

[thirdeyeblue]

“Nine would have treated Martha better than Ten did”

I need to talk about this argument that never seems to stop circulating.

Note: Not a venomous/anti post. There’s more than enough of that across fandom spaces as is, and this is supposed to be a place for ✨sweet, blissful escapism✨

When making this argument, people seem to envision a scenario in which Nine never met Rose.

While I can appreciate a good hypothetical, recognizing Rose's significance to the Doctor (Nine and Ten) is essential to understanding why things with Martha played out the way they did in the first place.

In the third series, the Doctor is grieving. This grief is deliberately threaded into nearly every script, whether spoken aloud or not (and these are just a few examples):

He's burning in Rose’s wake the entire time Martha travels with him, which is why it’s so frequently called upon: It’s 100% deliberate in framing his grief. He grieved as Nine too, of course— having been fresh on the heels of the Time War — but then he met Rose, which changed everything.

Back then, he was still a rude, traumatized pain in the ass, but we watch Rose soften more of those jagged edges with every episode as they grow closer; as he lets his guard down and forms a deep connection with her.

He falls in love (against his better judgment) and it's game over.

And yes: provided S1E1 had been titled 'Martha', one can realistically assume things might have unfolded similarly to how they did with Rose. However, it wouldn’t have been that way just because the Doctor was Nine and “Nine was different” — it would be because he wasn’t already in love with someone else. The same can't be said for the start of S3.

Think of it like this: if Rose AND Martha had been in that cellar — if Nine had taken both of them along with him in S1 — we’d eventually be looking at the most melodramatic love triangle ever, what with him living in close quarters with two brilliant, gorgeous, compassionate young women... But Doctor Who is plenty “soap opera” as is with just one woman in the TARDIS.

(I certainly wouldn’t object to reading that fic, though)

Now, regarding the unrequited elephant in the room…

His inability to be romantic with Martha isn’t because he thinks her lesser, nor is it for lack of compatibility. It isn't because Rose is any better than her. It certainly isn’t just because he’s Ten.

It’s really only for one reason, which can't be denied — and now I’m a broken record:

He is still in love with Rose.

(cut from a tenrosedaily gif)

Nine is Ten, and Ten is only such a mess in S3 because he’s just lost the love of his life. Martha merely got caught in the crosshairs of a volatile Time Lord in mourning, and yes — it sucks. Absolutely.

But it also feels dismissive to chalk Ten and Martha’s relationship up to little more than some sort of mindless dance of pining, jealousy, and toxicity.

Ten trusted Martha with his life over and over again — and hers, with him. He constantly praised her brilliance, happily carting her around time and space with no intention of letting her go. In the BBC’s extended universe of novels/comics/cartoons/etc, there’s so much depth to their relationship: love and trust and trauma and sacrifice. They had their own special bond as mates, their own complexities — so it’s a bummer that it's forever overshadowed by the other things.

I’m not denying that there was a lot of stuff that sucked/was for sure toxic about Ten's S3 behavior, but so many of the things I've seen him catching flak for can be directly attributed to being A Clueless Fucking Alien Idiot (not a trait that’s unique to Ten) — as well as his flat-out obliviousness to Martha’s feelings.

So yes, I agree: if Rose never existed, he would have treated Martha differently as Nine. He also would have treated her differently as Ten. Certainly.

But Rose did exist, and when discussing canon, it matters.

“He tells me that he absolutely, 100% loves Rose... He tells me how my daughter; my wonderful, beautiful, clever little girl saved him from himself before… And he says that’s all because of me! I made her into the Rose Tyler that saved him.”

-Jackie Tyler, Flight Into Hull!

Martha got the short end of the stick in S3. She came round at the wrong place and time, but that doesn't mean it was all bad. It doesn't mean the Doctor didn’t adore her. It certainly doesn't mean the time they spent together was wasted or worthless. They were brilliant!

Sure, he could be a twat, but let it be known that he was a twat with Rose as well, both as Nine and Ten. I’m sure Tentoo can be plenty infuriating, too. So while I'll defend Ten (and Tentoo) into the ground forever and ever and ever, I'll concede that he's fucked up.

The Doctor is a certified Pain In The Ass. It’s one of the things I love so much about this character — dynamics.

But never forget that Martha was goddamn tough as nails and overcame every bit of it. She moved on with her life, and the Doctor moved on with his. One can only pray that, when they inevitably drag her back onto the show (which feels inevitable if I'm honest), we see at once that she's been living her best life for all these years.

[onlyzhuyilong]

Only on twitter will I be told I’m being “unprofessional as a fan page” (pls I don’t get paid this isn’t my job it’s a hobby pls) for randomly posting Shen Wei photos or gifs now and then as a fun throwback: (re: the North Face Coat parallels post). And then being told “when will they let this role go.”

Shen Wei is the role that helped him breakout in the industry after a decade.

Shen Wei provided one of the stepping stones for where he is today in his career.

Shen Wei is a beloved character still celebrated on the Chinese socials with xlbs to this very day. heck Shen Wei randomly trended 1 again on Weibo hot search last February.

He has a lot of roles under his belt - ain’t nothing wrong with going back and celebrating them again.

[sad-emo-dip-dye]

the day I picked up dazai: side b

[marzipanandminutiae]

The fact that I will never read The Red House by Julián Carax is homophobic

[goosemixtapes]

max's september 2023 reads

i have always been faintly jealous of the people who post little lists of the articles/books they read at the end of the month. lo and behold, i have realized this is in my power to remedy. i've also assembled a list of my favorite short stories and articles of all time :)

fiction

Vergil's Aeneid, book 12 (aeneid daily reread) (review)

the latter half of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (review)

Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, books 1-3

selections from Edmund Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar (review)

Shakespeare's Macbeth (for the fourth time now)

the latter half of Us Against You by Frederick Backman (review)

Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins (review)

I Am Your Spaniel by Gislina Patterson (i have a[n author-sponsored] pdf of this if anyone should like it!)

Peerless by Jihae Park (review)

Twelfth Grade Night by Molly Horton Booth (review)

the first two episodes of What Happens Next comic

nonfiction

The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel (review)

Why Centrism Is Morally Indefensible by Nathan J. Robinson (↳ musings on Tim Urban's book about polarization)

The Promise of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others by Donna Haraway (↳ this was classwork and i understood maybe half. but the half was good!)

What Do We Owe Afghanistan? by Nathan J. Robinson and Noam Chomsky (↳ on the war in Afghanistan and the evils of the US military; cws for everything you'd expect)

What is a Woman? (A Response) by Julia Serano (↳ on the TERF's favorite question)

video essays

PragerU and the Politics of Pain by Zoe Bee (↳ do leftists centrally aim to avoid pain? and is that a bad thing?)

On the Ethics of Boinking Animal People by Patricia Taxxon (↳ ostensibly what the title says, but actually a detailed musing on the essential properties of furry media and the freedom of dehumanization; changed my life a bit)

[leenfiend]

one of my fav tropes in Star Trek fics is the “away mission went wrong and now we’re stranded on this planet and must learn to get along to survive” and i want more klance fics like that SO BAD!! It suits them so well. Give them to me. I want like a long one….a slow burn….is this gonna have to be a fine I’ll do it myself moment bc don’t tempt me. I’ll consider it.

[paperconsumption]

87 page history reading

[yvesdot]

I will say that I will always respect a "trashy" "poorly written" Romance novel for which the most the author has to say is that they offered their readers escapism in difficult times—

—over a literary fiction novel with a dozen accolades and book group stickers and blurbs praising it for being a "morally complex masterpiece" that "deconstructs the common narrative on consent in our fraught public discourse" "is sure to incite heated conversation" "offers a shrewd take on gender politics in the modern day" "teaches readers the nature of what it means to be human" or what the crap ever while actually doing Barbie movie politics for three hundred deathly boring pages.

[lloydfrontera]

i stand by my conviction that the best way to read tged is by stopping in ch 401 but i do have a rant concerning ch 402 that is locked and loaded for posting and i don't know if i should wait for today's chapter to drop so you guys have the full context or if i should pretend it isn't happening and i'm talking about a hypothetical ending that definitely didn't happen

[gaily-daily-musings]

MEN BEING SOFT MEN BEING SOFT MEN BEING SOFT

*SCREECHING*

[the---hermit]

Dimentica Il Mio Nome by Zerocalcare

Let's get out of the way right away that I have no idea if this is one of Zerocalcare's graphic novels that has been translated so I just used the original title. This graphic novel is the first book by him I ever read, and I can safely say it changed my life. This is the author that got me deep into graphic novels when I was a teen, and graphic novel had a huge part in making me a big reader. I had only read this book once, when I was gifted it, now 9 years ago, which is giving me a bit of an existential crisis. I cannot believe it's been so long. I remembered a few things about the plot of this book, but I'll be honest I had forgotten most of the story, and it was really fun to relive it.

This is by far one of the weirdest graphic novels by this author in my opinion. There's a pretty big magical realism element, which isn't really present in his other works, but it still feels 100% like his other works. This graphic novel in particular focuses on his relationship with his grandma and the grief of her passing, and then as I said there's this big magical realism element that comes into play. In my opinion what makes a true Zerocalcare graphic novel is the combination between deeper and heaviery topics that inveitably spark reflection through a lot of existential crisis and a perfect kind of humor that runs through the whole story. I love his humor, the pop culture references, the sarcasm and cynical tone of the armadillo that impersonates his conscience.

As I said his books have had a huge role in my life, and for reasons that I have mentioned in other book reviews of his works, I had a sort of emotional block that didn't let me pick up his books up anymore for quite a few years. I am so grateful for it to be over, because nothing compares to the warm feeling I get inside when I read one of his books. They are comforting in a way no other book is for me. The way he speaks of his emotional and existential crisis, how his character gets caught up in is own head on so many little things are just a few of the details that made me feel so much better about myself when I was younger, and that still bring me comfort to this day. I feel close to this author in an inexplicable way, and to finally reread the first book that introduced me to his works after so long was magical.

[giirlboyfriend]

we are not fucking winning the war against anti intellectualism holy shit

[isekyaaa]

Reading the spoilers of otome light novels always be like, "Wow, people really hate men."