#in a literary sense

[chiarrara]

✨💞controversial jjk character ranking tier list💞✨

got some hot takes in this one that some of y'all are not gonna like... 👀 breakdowns below the cut

1. i, personally, am insane about them:

megumi fushiguro, suguru geto, shoko ieri, kittycunt choso, junpei yoshino, yuuta okkotsu

2. best boy / best girl / loml sweet baby angel 💕🫰🏽✨:

yuuji itadori, nobara kugisaki, nanamin, aoi todo, higuruma, makin zenin, toge inumaki, yuki tsukumo, ijichi, miguel odoul, kirara hoshi, jogo, kusakabe, nitta, takaba, tall idol takada, tsumiki fushiguro, utahime iori, that sumo guy & that other guy with the sumo guy (i think)

this is a packed category. itadori & kugisaki are right on the cusp of "insane about them" and "love them a lot a lot a lot" ... tsumiki should be ranked a little higher. mimiko and nanako were not included in this template, but they would go here.

3. good, in a literary sense:

satoru gojo, eso, mahito, naoya zenin, that guy megumi fought, toji fushiguro, mahoraga

so uh......toji should be higher. so should mahoraga. that's all i have to say 🙂

4. ...fine:

ino, kinji hakari, useless miwa, hanami, mai zenin, principal yaga, twink from shibuya (haruta??? apparently?), kashimo, uraume, sparky sparky boom man, that guy who throws his teeth, kechizu

this is a category for characters I have a net "meh" reaction to. some of them would be in lower tiers if I didn't like their character design.

5. induces a complicated, quiet rage in me. so incredibly infuriating, yet also boring. meant to be sympathetic, yet i have no sympathy. i will not judge you for how you dealt with insurmountable adversity, but i do not like you:

mechamaru, ui ui

this category was created specifically for mechamaru. threw ui ui in here too bc why tf not, he fits (most) of the criteria.

6. don't care:

panda, hana/angel, noritoshi kamo (the younger), anime alcoholic zenin what's his name, dagon, nishimiya, principal gakuganji, plane hair girl, sky girl (ume? uro?)

listen..... don't shoot me. in canon....they are boring to me. i don't care about them. i don't care about their backstories, I don't care about their motivations. they are literally taking up space on my page/screen that could be dedicated to someone i give a fuck about. two of them made it out of the bottom tier by being hot.

7. i want to dip them in acid, coat them in pop rocks, then dip them in lava repeatedly:

kenjaku, sukuna, tengen

...I think this is pretty self explanatory

8. literally so irrelevant i don't even know who you are:

i could not list these names if i tried

---

mei mei was also not on this list. would probably warrant her own category ala mechamaru. something like: "girl, you are so complicated, and not in a good way" or "a very confusing mix of mindless attraction and disgust-fueled repulsion is waging war in my body and I don't know which side will win" or "i would pay 10,000,000¥ for you to go away... and/or step on me? + calling child services for your brother"

---

✨beloved mutuals & non-beloved strangers, feel free to yell at me about this in my ask box 💕🫰🏽✨

[hjemne]

Losing my mind thinking about how insane the line 'god grant me this ONE wish' is. If Vash got one wish and had to choose between stopping his brother who is actively razing the planet to rubble, and saving the life of one singular guy who is also an assassin who betrayed him, he'd choose Wolfwood. Vash's driving force that gives him the motivation/energy to keep living is explicitly stated as stopping Knives, and yet Vash prays for Wolfwood's life over anything and everything else.

I think despite Wolfwood's 'I'm alright with how this all turned out', Trimax WW and 98 WW still die with the exact same last thoughts (full of regrets and not ready to die). Wolfwood says he's at peace with his death but that's before he tries to say his goodbye to Vash, then watches Vash break down in grief, and gets accepted by the orphanage kids as still being their brother Nico.

Wolfwood could accept his death when he thought he was dying unloved and unmourned, but in his last moments he finds the love he spent his whole life searching for, and has to watch it slip away from him just as it was in reach. And similarly awfully, Vash could only bring himself to accept how much Wolfwood meant to him in the very moment that he loses the one man he'd choose over everything.

[fluentisonus]

(typing this as I walk to work so this is not articulate but) thinking a lot abt how les mis w javert sort of. hm. questions? problematizes? the Idea of dogs & the domestication of dogs (metaphorically ofc) like it sort of looks past the 'man's best friend' angle entirely & makes you think things like. kind of fucked up of humans [the social order] to domesticate the wolf [person outside of society for whatever reason] expressly to turn against & cause harm to other wolves in order to keep them out [away from respectable society] & keep themselves safe but never truly consider it an equal [it'll always just be a dog]. kind of fucked up that the dog finds enjoyment & life's purpose in this

[firawren]

I've been thinking about the fact that some readers of Sense and Sensibility don't believe Willoughby truly loved Marianne, even though everyone in the book believes it and the narrator makes it clear how much he cared for her, at the end. And I think this reading of him takes away from one of the messages of the book, which is that love is not enough.

Willoughby loves Marianne, but that's not enough to stop him from hurting her, it's not enough to make him give up his cushy lifestyle and marry her, and it wouldn't have been enough to keep him happy with her long-term. Marianne loves Willoughby, but it wouldn't have been enough for her to be happy with him long-term either.

Edward loves Elinor, but that's not a good enough reason to break his promise to Lucy, because integrity and honor and responsibility are just as important to him. Brandon loves Marianne, but that's not reason enough to court her, because he knows her feelings lie elsewhere and she doesn't respect and esteem him yet.

Love is important to all these characters, and is a vital part in making the marriages that they ultimately end up in strong and happy, but it's not the only thing that makes them work.

Of course, Sense and Sensibility is hardly the only Austen novel to make the point that you need more than love or romance or passion to make a relationship work. But I think it's interesting how we get to see this play out in the villain of the novel. Willoughby does some truly horrific things, but his character shows that even really bad guys are capable of feeling love and guilt and remorse. But none of these feelings are ultimately strong enough to change him. Because love is not enough.

[princesssarisa]

My post about whether or not Lydia should be saved from Wickham in modern Pride and Prejudice retellings has gotten more likes and reblogs than I expected. It's made me think of another possibility of why Austen didn't save her from him.

Presumably, Lydia and Wickham's marriage could have been avoided in only three ways that would have left Lydia's reputation intact. The first is if they had only been planning to elope, but it was prevented, as with Georgiana. The second is if they had been found earlier and separated before Lydia lost her virginity. Or else Lydia could have listened to Darcy and left Wickham, and then Darcy could have used his influence to protect her honor: e.g. by claiming that she was kidnapped, or by arranging a decent marriage for her.

If Austen had wanted to make any of those choices to free Lydia, she could have done it without drastically changing the plot. But if she had, it might have felt a bit too "literary" and unrealistic.

I've just been re-watching some of Dr. Octavia Cox's literary analysis videos on YouTube. They reminded me that Austen always loved to skewer the tropes and clichés of other literature, especially Gothic melodrama, whether in outright parody or in subtler deconstruction.

Dr. Cox's video on the elder Eliza's fate in Sense and Sensibility particularly highlights this trend in Austen. She argues that Eliza's story is a classic, clichéd Gothic melodrama (a beautiful orphan, an abusive uncle, thwarted romance, forced marriage to a cruel man, a "fall" into a life of "sin," and ultimate illness and death, all narrated by Colonel Brandon in heightened, poetic language), and that Austen's point in including it was arguably to highlight that this wouldn't be the fate of her heroines. Marianne comes close to it with Willoughby and with her near-fatal illness, but in the end she's saved. Austen's point was arguably to say "Yes, I know all about this type of melodrama, I know all the clichés, but I'm relegating it to the backstory, because that's not what I want to write."

(I don't know if everyone would interpret the elder Eliza's storyline this way, but it's how Dr. Cox reads it.)

Maybe with Lydia's fate, and with the backstory of how Georgiana was freed from Wickham, Austen was doing something similar.

I'm not enough of an expert on Georgian literature to know if the rescuing of girls from predatory men with their virginity and honor intact was a cliché or not. But it does appear in late 18th century comic opera. For example, Mozart's Don Giovanni: the title character is the ultimate womanizer, but he has no success with any of the women he tries to prey on over the course of the opera. His seductions are stopped by the timely, chance arrivals of his enemies, his victims get away unscathed, and he pays for his crimes with his life in the end. Or The Marriage of Figaro: the Count's designs on Susanna are thwarted, and he's humiliated and forced to beg his wife's forgiveness.

If stories of womanizers being thwarted and punished, and their female victims saved with virtue intact, were as common in the literature of the day as they are in opera from that era, then maybe Austen used Wickham and Lydia to deconstruct them.

We definitely see some skewering of poetic cliche in the fact that despite Mrs. Bennet's fears/hopes, Lydia's honor is saved with a bribe instead of a duel.

Maybe like the Eliza backstory in Sense and Sensibility, the backstory of Georgiana's near-elopement can be read as a more perfect "literary" example of a girl escaping a cad's clutches. The elopement was thwarted partly by pure chance, as Darcy paid a surprise visit just before Wickham and Georgiana meant to run off, and partly because Georgiana was a “good victim,” whose conscience got the better of her and who chose her family and honor over her whirlwind romance.

But similar luck isn't on Lydia's side, nor does she make the right, “virtuous" choices. Darcy doesn't find the lovers until Lydia has already been living with Wickham, and like a typical reckless teenager, she cares nothing for either her reputation or her family compared to her infatuation with him. So Darcy is forced to bribe Wickham to marry her, Wickham goes unpunished except that he loses his hope of marrying rich, and all the characters have to live with the results of the scandal for the rest of their lives.

By having Georgiana's successful escape from Wickham be mere backstory while foregrounding Lydia's lack of escape, maybe once again Austen was saying "I could have freed Lydia this way – I know the tropes other authors might have used to free her – but I'm a more cynically realistic writer than that, so I won't."

I have no idea if this is valid or not, but it's a theory.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hi! I hope this is okay but I would love to hear more of ur thoughts about the Yunmeng siblings because they are important to me and your tummy hurt comic hasn't left my brain as just,,, such good immediate characterization! ^^ Thanks!

I have too many thoughts on the Yunmeng siblings to fit into a succinct post, but I can offer you a Jiang Yanli addendum to the tummy hurt alignment.

[violynt-skies]

we are the same you and i

-

-

leo and krang are introduced to the audience in the same manner as they’re both shown to appear confident, cocky and arrogant.

leo’s ego coming from a place of recent victory from defeating the shredder and feeling on top of the world while krang’s is from a genuine belief that they are the superior being to all other life.

with this you have the overconfident defender and the prideful conqueror. neither able to see their flaws, with leo being lax about fighting and believing he’s in the right and the krang having a mindset that any mistake made was a rarity and impossible to repeat because the fact in their mind is that they’re better in every way.

in the beginning their motives are fairly similar, to win, to survive, to come out on top.

however after following defeat after defeat and experiencing pure loss of his family, the mindset that leo has changes and he realizes he’s been going about things wrong and and the goal isn’t to merely win, it is to protect his family and the innocent people around them.

and this mindset is what inevitably leads to the downfall of the krang because he repeatedly is unable to understand or the will that people have in protecting others and doing what it takes to survive and win out of love for family as they only strive to win for the desire to control and conquer, even going as far to think that their destruction of life is a gift and makes them a savior from weakness

which is why he mocks their idea of duty to protect others as he believes that all other beings should and will give up inevitably

“strength always prevails”

however he doesn’t take into account the turtle’s strength of will and their ability to use that ego and arrogance against him, which in turn, is what ends up being krang’s true weakness and leads to his defeat. bc he never would’ve thought that someone would’ve sacrificed themselves in order to win because such a concept never would’ve been considered by him in the first place.

because while both krang and leo strived to win and defeat, their ideas of it differed greatly. and because leo understood how his arrogance made him weak, he was able to discover how to make it into a strength by turning the krang’s own confidence against him.

“i missed on purpose.”

[stvrmaker]

Hello, Jane Austen book stack for your viewing pleasure 💖 In publication order, and I based the designs off of first editions and early editions that I could find pictures of!

[heartwrrm]

it's immediately clear that both the creature and victor find some of their greatest comforts in nature and that's one of the key features that connects them and proves they're not so different from each other, but i've also noticed that they tend to admire different TYPES of nature

victor tends to amaze at "the high and snowy mountains [...] immense glaciers [...] the rumbling thunder of the falling avalanche [...] the supreme and magnificent mont blonc" (65), typically finding the most comfort in the "savage and enduring scenes" (64) which tend to be colder and rougher yet unchanging; while the creature found that his "chief delights were the sight of the flowers, the birds, and all the gay apparel of summer" (94). there is probably something to be said about the creature's affinity for spring and summer, the seasons of rebirth, of NATURAL and beautiful life, a direct contrast to his unnatural, coldly scientific, "wretched" rebirth that he abhors so much

i was discussing this idea with a friend, who added that victor finding solace in the frozen and dead beauty of wintery environments, a typically less-favoured season, could reflect how victor often refuses himself the typical joys of life. throughout the novel, he struggles with his self-worth because of the guilt induced by his creation of the creature and the deaths that then followed, and the only reason he even desires peace and comfort is because he knows he needs to present himself that way to his family in order for them to be happy ("i [...] wished that peace would revisit my mind only that i might afford them consolation and happiness" [62]). i built on her idea by noting how the creature acknowledged that he "required kindness and sympathy; but [he] did not believe [him]self unworthy of it" (94), a completely contrasting stance from victor, who finds himself undeserving of the many comforts offered to him by his family

furthermore, it seems that victor finds beauty in glory & majesty ("[the scenery] spoke of a power mighty as Omnipotence--and i ceased to fear, or to bend before any being less almighty than that which had created and ruled the elements" [64]), while the creature finds beauty in warmth & growth. both characters seem to find what they desire(d) in the versions of the natural world that they admire most

to reference what i said in the beginning about the connections between victor and the creature, this observation only contributes to my understanding that victor and the creature are incredibly similar, and many of their identical traits involve a rejection or a reversal of the other; they both ardently wish for each other's destruction, they both ruined each other, they're the reason that the other is simultaneously a victim and a villain in their own sense, they both hate themselves but for reversed reasons (victor hates himself for what he's done rather than what he is, while the creature hates himself for what he is more than what he's done), and now this--they both find solace in nature, just opposing kinds. like father, like son

[t1sunfortunate]

I truly do think one of the largest pitfalls among the "media consumption is my passion" crowd is the tendency to treat characters as human beings with agency rather than narrative tools manipulated by the author

[arthur-lesters-right-arm]

Do you think Harlan is psychically aware that every day I try my best to make an absolute heresy out of his masterpiece?

[delphinidin4]

I just had a brainwave about Mansfield Park. This might be something that Jane Austen fans already know and think is obvious, but I've never heard it discussed, and I think it really clears up a lot of things about this book for me.

So scholars are always talking about how this book intersects with slavery. First of all, the Antigua property that isn't doing so well would have been worked by enslaved people (keeping slaves was still legal in Antigua, though selling them there was not). Also, at one point Fanny asks Sir Thomas a question about the slave trade, though it isn't really elaborated on. I saw this discussed again and again in the (admittedly little) scholarship I read on this book, and it always seemed weird to me that they zeroed in on that detail.

More recently, I read Margaret Doody's book on the names Austen used in her work, and she pointed out that the famous legal case that declared slavery to be illegal in England was called the Mansfield Decision. Any reader at the time, reading that novel, would have that information in the back of their head, and it would have informed how they read the book.

This much I knew. But I always felt like these arguments never really explained what slavery had to do with the love story of Fanny Price: even Doody never seemed to connect this factoid about the title very deeply with the novel's themes (a problem I had with a number of her discussions in that book).

More recently, I saw it pointed out that Fanny Price is treated like a slave by Mrs. Norris, and I thought, "Aha! Finally, an explanation!" But it still didn't feel complete to me.

But I just realized: you can take that metaphor a lot farther. (For this argument, please keep in mind that Austen, though on the side of the abolitionists, was a 19th-century woman who didn't have the same sensibilities about the discussion of race as we do now.)

--Like an enslaved person, Fanny is taken from her home and her family and moved far, far away (she isn't kidnapped, of course, but stick with me).

--The family that she joins considers her to be naturally stupider than they are because she has not had the advantage of their education. This is similar to African slaves, whom white people looked down on and thought intellectually inferior because they didn't have a western education.

--The term "family" at the time included the household servants and slaves, not just the actual family. Fanny, the poor relation, joins the household less like a cousin/niece, and more like a servant or an enslaved person. She is literally relegated to sleep in an attic, like a maid.

--Fanny suffers a great deal emotionally because she misses her family (especially Edward). Austen, as an abolitionist, would likely have read accounts like Olaudah Equiano's autobiography, which often described the intense emotional suffering of enslaved people separated from their homes and families.

--One of the justifications slaveholders gave for slavery was that they were "improving" the lives of the Africans they enslaved, by teaching them Christianity and occasionally, trades or other forms of education. Fanny is ostensibly being brought to Mansfield to give her a good education. And while she does get that education, she really functions much more in the household like a servant to Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris.

--Fanny IS taught a great deal of morality by Edmund, who is a bit of a prig. It seems hypocritical of him to be constantly "schooling" her in morality when it often seems like Fanny is more naturally ethical than he is. This mirrors the hypocrisy of white slaveholders who deigned to teach their slaves Christianity while acting extremely unchristian themselves.

--Fanny ends up with an inferiority complex because she is constantly torn down by Mrs. Norris and treated as inferior by Maria and Julia. In reality, she's very intelligent, well-read, and ethical in a way that none of them area. This mirrors the way black folks were unfairly treated as inferior by white society.

--The injustice of the Bertrams toward Fanny is so obvious to outsiders that even the morally deficient Crawfords are indignant about it. Mrs. Norris makes a snide remark to Fanny about "who and what she is" (a reference to racism?) and Mary Crawford is indignant on Fanny's behalf and rushes in to comfort her. Henry Crawford--at least, after he falls in love with Fanny--says that the way the family has treated her is disgraceful, and that he is going to show them how they should have been treating her all along. Austen may be pointing to the idea that slavery is SO wrong that it should be obvious to everybody.

I conclude that the book is titled Mansfield Park because Austen wants to point out that while slavery may be illegal in England, poor relations are still often treated like slaves by their families.

That being said, here are some questions this analogy throws up:

--Why is Sir Thomas so much nicer to Fanny after his stay in Antigua, where he would have been witnessing slavery on a daily basis? What does this say about him, both as an uncle and a slaveowner?

--Fanny goes home to Portsmouth, and finds that she doesn't like it and it isn't as neat and orderly as she would like. Is this Austen saying that if enslaved people went back to Africa, they would find that they still felt western society to be superior? How would we square that idea with the point above that westerners are not superior to Africans?

--Why does Fanny end up with Edmund? If he's analogous to the son of a slaveowner and she's analogous to a slave, why is she in love with him in the first place, and why does Austen seem to reify her choice by making them get together in the end? (Remember that even Austen's sister Cassandra felt strongly that Fanny should have ended up with Henry Crawford, not the priggish Edmund.) Is Fanny brainwashed by the Bertrams? How does that relate to the slaveholding analogy?

[carrotcakecrumble]

Moments before the most romantic breakfast in bed dropped‼️‼️🧵

Once again, just to reiterate, their hands are still secretly doing the S1,e4 thing <3

(The version with the tattoos, cannot believe I forgot bbygrls emo-trauma tats🧎🏻‍♀️)

(image id in alt text!!)

[kareenvorbarra]

...I must confront Apollo with his wrongs. To force a girl Against her will and and afterward betray! To leave a child to die which has been born In secret! No! Do not act thus. But since You have the power, seek the virtuous path. All evil men are punished by the gods. How then can it be just for you to stand Accused of breaking laws you have yourselves Laid down for men? But if--here I suppose What could not be--you gave account on earth For wrongs which you have done to women, you, Apollo and Poseidon and Zeus who rules In heaven, payment of your penalties Would see your temples empty, since you are Unjust to others in pursuing pleasure Without forethought. And justice now demands That we should not speak ill of men if they But imitate what the gods approve, but those Who teach men their examples.

Ion (from Ion by Euripides, translated by R. F. Willetts)

[firawren]

The Letter in Persuasion gets a ton of (well-deserved) admiration for its exquisitely romantic language, but one thing that I think gives it an extra emotional punch is the rhythm that Jane Austen created in its structure. I'm not sure if that is the right term, but let me try to explain.

The first seven sentences are very...flowy. When you read them, your inflection naturally goes up and down throughout. Even the two most famous sentences, while short, are still very poetic and metaphorical: "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope."

And then she drops this as the eighth sentence:

"I have loved none but you."

It's like a boulder being dropped on you. It's solid and straightforward and strong. It takes your breath away for a second because it's such a contrast from the rhythm of what came right before it. There is nothing metaphorical about it; it is a blunt statement of fact whose meaning cannot be debated. And that's what makes it so beautifully powerful.

The entire Letter is gorgeous, but I think this very simple line and its relation to the rest of the structure of the Letter doesn't get as much attention as it deserves.

[fictionadventurer]

The BBC lady blowing my mind by pointing out the parallels between the endings of North and South and Jane Eyre (man brought low after losing his fortune, woman has gained wealth and comes to his rescue so they're now on equal footing).

She also pointed out that North and South is a continuation of issues Bronte explored in Shirley (to the point that Helstone is named after a character there), so I guess I may have to read that book one day.