#they get to just... exhale

[lovelydrusilla]

15 YEARS OF THE MENTALIST Day 7 — 23/9/2023: “we deserve a soft epilogue, my love.”

[caeslxys]

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere but it feels relevant again in light of the most recent episode. Something that’s really fascinating to me about Orym’s grief in comparison to the rest of the hells’ grief is that his is the youngest/most fresh and because of that tends to be the most volatile when it is triggered (aside from FCG, who was two and obviously The Most volatile when triggered.)

As in: prior to the attack on Zephrah, Orym was leading a normal, happy, casual life! with family who loved him and still do! Grief was something that was inflicted upon him via Ludinus’ machinations, whereas with characters like Imogen or Ashton, grief has been the background tapestry of their entire lives. And I think that shows in how the rest of them are largely able to, if not see past completely (Imogen/Laudna/Chetney) then at least temper/direct their vitriol or grief (Ashton/Fearne/Chetney again) to where it is most effective. (There is a glaring reason, for example, that Imogen scolded Orym for the way he reacted to Liliana and not Ashton. Because Ashton’s anger was directed in a way that was ultimately protective of Imogen—most effective—and Orym’s was founded solely in his personal grief.)

He wants Imogen to have her mom and he wants Lilliana to be salvageable for Imogen because he loves Imogen. But his love for the people in his present actively and consistently tend to conflict with the love he has for the people in his past. They are in a constant battle and Orym—he cannot fathom losing either of them.

(Or, to that point, recognize that allowing empathy to take root in him for the enemy isn't losing one of them.)

It is deeply poignant, then, that Orym’s grief is symbolized by both a sword and shield. It is something he wields as a blade when he feels his philosophy being threatened by certain conversational threads (as he believes it is one of the only things he has left of Will and Derrig, and is therefore desperately clinging onto with both bloody hands even if it makes him, occasionally, a hypocrite), but also something he can use in defense of the people he presently loves—if that provocative, blade-grief side of him does not push them—or himself—away first.

(it won’t—he is as loved by the hells as he loves them. he just needs to—as laudna so beautifully said—say and hear it more often.)

[firenati0n]

several sentence sunday <3 :)

hello friends :) thank you to @welcometololaland @anincompletelist @suseagull04 @bigassbowlingballhead @indestructibleheart

@thedramasummer @onthewaytosomewhere @cricketnationrise @ninzied @sophie1973

@cha-melodius @orchidscript @sparklepocalypse @kiwiana-writes @tailsbeth-writes

@theprinceandagcd @hgejfmw-hgejhsf for the tags :) :) i finally have some sentences. i have been struggling a lot with reading and writing recently. so, I'm writing something that makes me happy to bring the juice back.

here is a peep at angel!henry sequel. because honestly, writing him experiencing joy at small human things is helping me recalibrate myself and find my own tiny joys. i am doing this for me. it is a love letter to humanity from me to you, but also a reminder to myself

The Victoria & Albert museum is lively today. Henry hasn’t been back to the Cast Courts since he last visited in his time of need, the heaviest he had ever felt, his whole being sagging under the weight of the world’s pain he elected to shoulder. If he stares hard enough, he can almost see a shadow of his former self staring up at Trajan’s Column, can almost run his fingers across the desperation written all over his face as he seeks comfort in Civitali’s angels; his hands clasped and cold and pleading.   Now, his hands are warm, nestled in Alex’s palms, calloused fingertips absentmindedly running over Henry’s knuckles. It makes Henry feel grounded, tethered to a reality he never thought he deserved, but has manifested nonetheless.  He takes in the statues with a new perspective, a newfound respect. Yes, they endured. Yes, they were seen, and they were loved.  But now, Henry is too. Seen and loved, in the way that matters, with an end in sight. Henry’s never been happier to reject eternity. 

xoxo roop

+ tags under the cut and open tag as always <3

@priincebutt @rmd-writes @leaves-of-laurelin @eusuntgratie @blueeyedgrlwrites

@getmehighonmagic @violetbaudelaire-quagmire @captainjunglegym @duchessdepolignaca03 @porcelainmortal

@orchidscript @myheartalivewrites @dumbpeachjuice @anchoredarchangel @nocoastposts

@wordsofhoneydew @tintagel-or-cockleshells @sherryvalli @lizzie-bennetdarcy @heysweetheart-writes

@onward--upward @celeritas2997 @inexplicablymine @affectionatelyrs @happiness-of-the-pursuit

@14carrotghoul @cultofsappho @alasse9 @nontoxic-writes @piratefalls

@ships-to-sail @itsmaybitheway @adreamareads

[dilfbuck]

9-1-1 ‣ S03E1: Kids Today

[deadpanwalking]

Pale Fire poem is bad, right?

No, not exactly. The actual poetry is still enjoyable because John Shade's narrative voice is compelling, and the elegance of the poem's structure sets it apart from doggerel verse. It resembles Nabokov's own English language poetry, but the difference is that “Pale Fire” is (by design) inextricable from the context of the novel, Pale Fire. When you try to analyse it on its own, it becomes somewhat banal, an elevated iteration of Footprints in the Sand: a man reflects on his life and searches for meaning in the wake of a tragic loss, suspecting his dead daughter is trying to communicate with him, but ultimately concludes that even if the dead do speak to us from beyond, it would not be through visions and hauntings, but in ways that surpass human imagination by orders of magnitude.

John Shade is a fine poet—but Nabokov is a brilliant novelist, so both Shade and his poem became moving parts in a clockwork universe. Would you think twice about his poor Aunt Maude if you hadn't deciphered his verse about her aphasia and linked it to the transcription (pada ata lane pad not ogo old wart alan ther tale feur far rant lant tal told.¹) from Hazel's “failed” seance that Kinbote dismissively included in his footnotes?

¹ The bolding is mine, to show the three repetitions of “atalanta” (both forward and backward) that correspond with Pale Fire's motif of threes —Shade wrote the poem in three weeks, Kinbote wants you to read the commentary thrice for every time you read the poem, the Zemblan fairy tale that mentions three hundred camels and three fountains, etc.

The transcription itself is from the third night of Hazel's séance. It's a message from Maude's ghost, who remains afflicted by aphasia. Brian Boyd describes it more succinctly than I can:

But as we reread we can now see instead a message to Hazel to tell her "father (pada: pa, da, padre) he is not to go across the lane to old Goldsworth's, as an atalanta butterfly dances by, after he finishes 'Pale Fire' (tale feur), at the invitation of someone from a foreign land who has told and even ranted his tall tale to him.

So the ghost is not only real, but is—coming back to the clockwork universe metaphor—also unwittingly moved by the same metaphysical harmonic oscillator as the rest of the characters, a small part of a mechanism so complex that the paranormal is merely another component. You can't derive any of that from the verse, but when you reread it within the context of the book, you see all the intricate ways that this force operates within the poem—that's when it becomes good.

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

The walking dead managed to get me so invested in hetero couples it's not even funny. I love these freaks.

[zabiume]

What’s something about bleach that you could talk about for hours ?

ONE WAY SYMPATHIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

okay. let's backpedal.

chapter 24 of bleach, titled 'one way sympathies' or 'one-sided sympathies,' depending on your translation, is actually one of the greatest bleach chapters of all time. it's probably one of my favorite chapters, and i think it has some of the best, most excellently-executed writing in the series!

first of all, one-way sympathies happens in the memories in the rain volume, which is already a great volume for the way it sets up ichigo's motivations, ichigo and rukia's growing friendship, the kurosaki family dynamic, but also...it's just a good volume. the grand fisher fight is one of the most memorable early fights in bleach, and everything from the cemetery setting to the way the story cuts between past and present is perfectly balanced.

the reason i focus on one way sympathies, though, is orihime.

even though the volume is all about ichigo's relationship with his mother, and, ostensibly, his relationship with despair, the volume opens with orihime's poem, and orihime on the cover. and the reason for it is obvious: kubo spends this entire volume laying down the theme of "rain" for the first time. it's a visual metaphor that will show up several times in bleach, mostly as a way to denote ichigo's despair, but interestingly enough, it shows up again in everything but the rain, well before ichigo is even born.

the thing about the rain and the poem here is that its a clear reference to the tanabata legend, and in case it wasn't obvious, kubo makes it more obvious with a) the poem and b) orihime herself, who is named after the princess in the legend.

even though the grand fisher fight really only has two relevant characters (rukia and ichigo), kubo makes the interesting decision to have tatsuki be narrator as well, with orihime as her confidant in chapter 18.

if you look at the plot, two things are happening at the same time: 1) the kurosaki family, rukia, and kon are at the cemetery (ichigo will go on to fight grand fisher in the next few chapters) and 2) orihime and tatsuki are at tatsuki's house, talking about the event that changed ichigo forever—his mother's death. plot #1 is full of action and plot #2 is just two characters sitting on a bed, talking about the protagonist's past. we could have done without the orihime and tatsuki scene and still had a complete picture of what actually happened on june 17th (as ichigo later narrates it to us, the audience). but having orihime there changes so many things and actually highlights how integral she is to the storytelling in this volume!

orihime's poem always gets brought up because of how it mentions the rain, but it also mentions "earth" and "sky" which are again two visual metaphors kubo uses frequently.

in one-way sympathies, and especially in this page, orihime is on the earth, looking up at the sky. she specifically looks up at the sky as a way to talk to ichigo, who is somewhere else physically, but connected to her emotionally, because she's just heard the truth about his mother's death. she says, "what do i feel for you? kindness? one-sided sympathy? i feel like now i understand you a little better, ichigo." ironically, the rain, which kept the lovers apart in the tanabata legend, brings the characters together in bleach. orihime connects to ichigo's pain and the way kubo shows this is by having her walk home in the rain, an element that connects the earth and sky.

kubo actually uses rain, earth and sky again in everything but the rain, and he uses it in a very similar way to how he did it in MITR. i mean, look at the way both isshin and masaki look at the sky when they're thinking about each other:

it was raining the night isshin and masaki met. again, in this case, the rain has connected two realms that might have never otherwise connected (shinigami and quincy, isshin and masaki).

while the rain itself is full of pain, sorrow, despair, it actually ends up connecting people because they can understand each others' loneliness, their grief, their despair. this is such a clever use of the tanabata legend, where the rain is seen as both agent of separation and agent of union. horrible things have happened in the rain, but connections have been made too! just like the rain connects earth and sky, can two hearts be joined when you let someone in? let them see you at your most vulnerable?

anyway, coming back. the thing about ichigo is that his despair is usually so thick, so heavy, that you could compare him to a cloud!

his despair makes it rain, and his resolve usually dries it back up. you'll often see characters remark how hot it was or how there wasn't a single cloud in the sky until ichigo's despair looms and looms and somehow brings all the clouds together. ichigo's connection with the rain is almost like magical realism in action, and it makes it hard for him to connect to the people in his life truly, even if he really loves them. in that sense, his view of rain is quite traditional to the legend. he can't connect back with anyone when it's raining, which is why i'm guessing the chapter was titled one-way sympathies in the first place.

the great thing about orihime is that she's not afraid of a little rain, and that in itself is such a great metaphor for how attuned she is to ichigo's suffering and how she doesn't mind weathering a few storms with him. it's probably not that deep, but kubo has repeatedly shown her embracing the stormy weather (i feel like walking [in the rain] tonight; even the rain is fun) with an umbrella and a sunny attitude, though i'm inclined to believe it's the latter and not the former that helps her survive the rain. despite ichigo's efforts to push people away, they have all managed to get closer, but it's interesting that kubo includes her here when she's not related to the fight at all. while rukia is an obvious choice, plot-wise, considering her status as ichigo's guide to all things shinigami, the inclusion of orihime seems more deliberate, more purposeful. we could have gone without her, so the choice is all the more blatant here.

to summarize: the way this chapter/volume...

1) uses apt visual metaphors that look striking and contribute to the storytelling

2) showcases ichigo's relationship with orihime, tatsuki, rukia, his dad and his mom all at once by having a tightly focused cast

3) sets up an important metaphor that is going to be used again and again in the future

4) uses myths and fables in an interesting way that doesn't need over-explaining because the imagery of orihime + rain does a good enough job on its own for the learned reader...

5) plants seeds within the ichihime dynamic that will go on to have many evolutions until the end of the manga

....is truly just peak bleach!

[abushelandablog]

I just realized that max could have gone to congratulate charles first but he went after the argument with george, charles calmed him down…. he left with a SMILE…

[yourlocalgrass]

Barbatos:

Solomon:

Diavolo:

THE BROTHERS MY-

No because what the actual hell did literally anyone do to deserve this? Discrimination I call!!

This is fine… (is what I said last time they done something so obviously stupid to exclude a dateable(s) I was only trying to calm myself)

No, actually this is not fine today.

[wiltking]

decided to try another werewolf mystery romance series (exhale by joel abernathy) and i already have tears in my eyes a few pages in because the MC has a trans daughter

[unproduciblesmackdown]

"...my one year anniversary being on testosterone!!! I had a vision of capturing my total gender euphoria [...] My trans and nonbinary body is divine I honor my body as it is now, and as it will be as I continue to become more and more myself..."

[abbey-abdominal]

Things I think chaggie would do if they were New Yorkers:

— Charlie really enjoys subway performances and only carries around cash to give tips. Vaggie didn’t really care for them until she saw how happy it made Charlie. She also has cash now and started to genuinely enjoy it.

— Vaggie explains to Charlie that not every corner store is a bodega, but every bodega is a corner store. Charlie pretends that she doesn’t understand because she likes how passionately Vaggie will re-explain. They do this a couple times every year.

— Keekee was a street cat that Charlie planned to only foster, but could not bring herself to get Keekee adopted. She doesn’t foster cats very often anymore. Vaggie fosters injured pigeons sometimes, or she brings them to the Wild Bird Fund (they know her there).

— Everyone thinks Charlie is a transplant because of how fascinated she is with everything. Everyone thinks Vaggie is a NYC native because of how exasperated she is with everything. Charlie was born and raised in Lower Manhattan and Vaggie was born and raised in California. They never correct anyone’s assumptions.

[footballshowrot]

they make me feel............ they make me......... this is.......

[dylanconrique]

NOW I'M IN HYSTERICS BECAUSE I THOUGHT LUCY WAS JUST AFFECTIONATELY TOUCHING TIM'S CHEEK BUT REALLY SHE'S REACHING UP TO TOUCH THE TIPS OF HER FINGERS TO THE ITTY BITTY CUT JUST ABOVE HIS EYEBROW WHILE THINKING TO HERSELF HOW GRATEFUL SHE IS THAT HE'S HERE DANCING WITH HER AT NOLAN AND BAILEY'S WEDDING. OH I'M A MESS, OOHOHOHOHOHO I'M A MESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thepersonalquotes]

“Kiss me like you don’t need air. Hold me like you can’t let go. Love me like you’d die without me.” - Sarah Doughty

[fearandhatred]

my friend and i were discussing That One Aziraphale Gif and how aziraphale is somehow not human, not gay in the sense of the word, and naturally sexless, but he's also simultaneously the horniest bastard on television