#like they aren't stupid in the books

[soapywankenopy]

Hey Rick,

Hey Screenwriters,

Hey Showrunners,

GIVE ME OBLIVIOUS PERCY BACK!!!

[magiefish]

Something I've kind of noticed about a lot of the academic scholarship I've read about Frankenstein / Dracula / Jekyll & Hyde is that everyone just seems to completely dismiss/ignore the characters as actual characters most of the time unless they're the Main Guys. Like, they'll go really in depth about Victor or the Creature's motivations and backstory and spend ages talking about Jekyll's relationship to Hyde and stuff, but the second it comes to characters like Enfield and Elizabeth or Lanyon and Clerval or frankly the Entire Rest of the Cast of Dracula, they just immediately seem uninterested. They'll just sort of vaguely gesture in their direction and go 'Oh yeah X and X thing happens to this character and here's a one sentence summary of their personality which doesn't really matter because this entire cast is interchangeable, anyway, onto the next theme' and half the time their One Sentence is just textually incorrect (looking at the New Woman/Traditional Woman descriptions of Lucy and Mina). And the reason I find this so baffling is because with other analysis I've read (e.g. Great Gatsby stuff) people seem to actually slow down and consider the characterisation and motivations of the cast as a whole with like. Nuance. Like they sit down and treat the characters as multifaceted and complex and having actual relationships with one another, and then you get to these books specifically and no one seems to care? Like they'll go really in depth with various interpretations and historical context for the Big Guys, and then never apply the same sort of examination to anyone else, and if they do, very rarely and probably only for one other character e.g. (Utterson or Mina).

If I had to posit an explanation, I would say its a combination of the archetypal nature of the title characters and the admittedly patchy writing of these books (which arguably lends to their archetypal status). I think academics kind of assume that the primary draw of these books are The Big Guys and the expansive themes and ideas they cover and that everyone else is just a pawn there to enable the narrative around the Big Guys, and the propensity for film adaptations to scrap or rewrite characters probably compounded this impression. And while I think this is at least partly true, the thing is, these characters were not always archetypal Big Guys. They originated in stories alongside *these* other characters *specifically* and it is worth asking what it is about the rest of the cast that makes the story interesting as well. Because, let's be real, if there was approximately no interest in the fucking *narrators* of Dracula, the best friends of Henry Jekyll, or the victims of the Creature, the original readers would have been completely bored out of their minds for most of these novels and public interest in them would not have been as great as it was. All of these novels were stories before they were myths, and academics should not be letting pop culture eclipse them unless they're specifically talking about the relationship between the two.

Overall, I just feel like academics are not only shooting themselves in the foot, but also doing a disservice to these stories by not bothering to investigate the other characters because frankly. It's lazy. It's lazy to dismiss an entire cast and basically skim read any sections involving them just because it's easy to focus on The One Guy. If you people really cared about themes, you'd understand that characters are inextricable from them. Like shit dude I see more care given to characters in essays about Greek tragedies, you guys are waaaay fucking behind

[fromtheseventhhell]

Personally I think it's time for Arya stans to unionize and collectively start being meaner. I'm tired of being "nice" and "fair" to other characters when she gets routinely misinterpreted and turned into a background character. We already get called bullies for pointing out what's written in the books so we might as well embrace it.

[canary-prince]

Any post that contains the phrase "you" in a big, general, plural sense that automatically accuses the reader of being part of the "you" that op is rhetorically berating are deeply, deeply unhelpful in regard to compassion fatigue. It's also just manipulative; the clear intention is to pressure anyone reading it into reblogging it in order to prove they are not part of the "you" being accused.

These posts bother me and I understand that the authors of these posts are feeling powerless and have learned that screaming and yelling and shaming is an effective tactic because they weren't given enough attention to meet their needs through other methods. But again, it's going to increase compassion fatigue and increase the use of shame as a method of social control, which is not ideal.

[dabookgoblin]

I don't say this to start fights or anything, but I've been watching a lot of booktube videos lately by creators I'm new to and I've been hearing a lot of the same complaints-- and MAYBE this is bc I honestly haven't been on top of the latest releases (in my niche or outside) the past two-ish years-- but every time I hear people talking about how samey publishing is, in particular for the romantasy and romance genres... I feel like it's bc none of y'all complaining are actively reading as diversely as you pretend to be.

I read queer fiction/sci-fi/fantasy almost exclusively and there is a lot of diversity in that genre (tho it is a niche not without its own criticisms) I see people who read a lot of these 'book-tok darlings' that are all these cis-het allo-normative books by (predominantly) cis white women and then complain how everybody is "using the same tropes" "every romantasy is just a SJM clone" "romance books are just thinly veiled erotica anymore" and how even the online book community/creators all fall into the same ruts and like, BABES. YOU ARE LITERALLY READING ALL FROM THE SAME POT.

I'm in the community, I read a lot and often, I was even on (queer) booktok and my experience could not be any different. If you just went out of your way to follow people that promoted and read things that are different LO AND BEHOLD they often don't fall into a lot of these issues and complaints???? Like at all?

I'll be listening to these people vent and even tho they talking about books and the community I feel like I'm only allegedly in at this point, it always feels like finding one of those rant/gossip videos from some niche potting hobbyist community you've never even heard of.

IDK, I want to hear what other people think.

[personinthepalace]

If I had a nickel for every time a major streaming service cancelled a beloved book-to-tv show adaptation (of my favorite books!) after adapting just the first two books then I would have two nickels

I'm just really tired of this happening guys. I would like the less well-known books to win for once

[arseniccattails]

btw every time someone suggests a solution to a community problem is to 'read Whipping Girl' you should actually read something by bell hooks instead, or, failing that, any decent social theory by an actual sociologist or academic in another social science.

[torybrennan]

swipe has some incredible moments but this has got to be one of the funniest. ben goes to run off and shelton fully launches himself and clings to him like a backpack. ben's not even mad or surprised about he's just like oh okay. like that's normal. which it probably is

[problemswithbooks]

So, after watching the anime and reading the manga after seeing the live action I have a few issues with how they did the Arlong Park section (though it's still a super good adaptation overall). Some of them are bigger then others so I'll start with the smallest addition that bugged me even the first time I watched--Nami's chain.

First of all it just doesn't make sense, especially since they changed it so it was Nami who approached him on making maps and getting money for her village. Why would he chain her in a room to do the thing she already promised him to do? Also if he's afraid of her running away, why does he ever let her leave to steal money to buy the village at all?

It doesn't even make sense in manga cannon where he made her make maps for him, because she genuinely has no where to go and Arlong knows that. Arlong is no genius, but I think him using a chain on Nami makes him look stupid. The village people have already kicked her out, and in the LA even her sister hates her. Arlong knows she cares about the village because she's willing to risk her life to get the money to buy it from him. She can't run away because she knows he'll kill the villages in retribution, while she can't even really go home because everyone hates her for 'joining' his crew.

She essentially only has Arlong as a life line no matter how awful he is. He doesn't need to put a chain on her to keep her there because she needs him, both because she needs to buy back the village to save everyone, but also because when she returns to the Island Arlong Park is the only place she can go (especially in the LA where her sister hates her and wouldn't let her sleep in their old house).

The second reason it bothers me is because I can almost guarantee it was added because they worried the audience wouldn't understand just how bad Arlong was to her without him being more physically abusive. That or think the audience would criticize Nami for not leaving as a child. Plus it adds more angst to Nami's character--that was most likely why they changed it to her sister hating her as well.

The thing is I really don't think it was needed. Arlong was bad enough to Nami as it is. She was under constant psychological abuse due to Arlong holding the lives of the villagers over her head. Every injury she got because she was stealing money is his fault. Later during the Fishman Island Arc she has a flashback of the crew not feeding her. We have Arlong shoving her face into her desk because she purposely (or maybe accidentally) misdrew a map. He only started to treat her better as she grew up, but even then it was always clear he saw her as lesser and enjoyed mentally torturing her when he was given the opportunity.

Nami didn't need to be chained for her pain to be 'bad' enough. Her life was already terrible. She was already a victim of abuse, both physical and mental. The chain adds nothing and doesn't make sense in either the LA or the Manga's story.

Third, it does leave a sort of bad taste in my mouth that given the fish-men were coded more as black in the LA, that they had essentially a black coded character (played by a black actor) chaining up a white girl. It feels even worse when they added Arlong constantly talking about fish-men slavery--making it clear from the get go that's why he hates humans. That entire thing is it's own can of worms, but at least to me it does come across as kind of off-putting. When it adds nothing, and easily didn't have to be included it just makes it feel worse.

[zimmbzonzon]

Babe is the real golden retriever of the show - an unneutered one, yeh, but still

*talking to a very good boy voice* who's a sweet little silly trusting stoopid little puppy dog? yes you are, yes you are.

I'm going to me so goddam mad when the designer dog your neighbour got who they didn't train because he's little and "he wouldn't hurt a fly" hurts the 2 braincell golden retriever's feelings when he refuses to sniff his butt. Or something.

[marklikely]

the results of that "is fanfic a book" poll have shown me one thing and its that this site never graduated past that absolutely insufferable phase in 2013 where everyone acted like every book is the single most sacred thing on earth

[helenofblackthorns]

thank god im finally done that book

[depresseddepot]

someone on here will say "I don't support censorship" and everyone in the notes will be like "I can't believe you're just admitting you like incest and pedophilia"

[wehavecometoanend--maybe]

love how my grandma found it necessary to remind me that "just a little pregnant isn't a thing" as I left to meet a friend for dinner. how do I tell this woman I'm a raging honosexual

[rosenecklaces]

now that i sit and think about elain mental state after the cauldron violation (because that's how it was described) then to her seer powers acting up...I really feel disgusted at how people made fun of her for it and even still find her weak by being quiet and crumble emotionally when things became too much in less than a year

She had depression you guys, just as feyre had it on the second book and just as nesta destructive habits growed on hers

To keep it short, i have my share of depression since i was 14, not only I didn't knew how to call it back then but also, when i realized what was happening to me, i just didn't tell my parents nor anyone for that matter (and we had no money for therapy anyway, so)

How did I handled it? acting like everything was normal, going on into my day and life as regular without really showing signs of someone being "sad", just being tired here and there, not sleeping and then releasing all my pent up despair at night, crying. And as more I think about it the more i realize Elain was probably handling her fragil mental state the same way

She was trying to talk normally to her closed ones, keeping up to herself to not call attention to how she really felt or tought and in some way distracting herself with chores and gardening while only letting be seen how her broken proposal affected her, and her prophetic dreams (since people saw it and actively kept an eye on her about that situation)

Like is so weird to me because in one hand they wanted her to stop crying about a very serious matter that literally changed her life and on the other they called her brain dead and too bland just because she didn't asked for help and wasn't being loud about it, is just‼️She can't fucking win with this people and is so sad and also makes me angry! like if this is their reaction to someone silent mental health declining in fiction i could only imagine how would they be with someone irl presenting this same signs of depression...

[torgawl]

zlibrary is down??? this is my villain origin story