trash-panda1987

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New Gakuen Bungo Stray Dogs illustration from AGF2024 by chief animation director Nobuhiro Arai

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The Flags

Guess who read Storm Bringer, and guess who needs therapy... 😃

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New Gakuen Bungo Stray Dogs illustration from AGF2024 by chief animation director Nobuhiro Arai

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the first thing I thought about after reading 118

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New chapter got me making Connections

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☆★ NON-ZERO-SUM GAME ★☆

A chip may weigh only a few grams, but it has the mighty power to upset the balance of the scale. In the gambler's hands, the chip leaps lightly and lands softly, like a key to destiny. It causes the heart to beat, as if a piece of gold is stricken with rocks. In that split second, the decision for heaven or hell is made.

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Freaking adorable

6 most efficient sleep positions

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They are so wholesome

afternoon nap 🍰☕

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// hsr 2.4 trailblazer quest spoilers

DANSTELLE NATION WE R GETTING FED SO WELL OMNOMNOM

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Thank youuuu

an avenpaz relationship analysis document i wrote ( with some help ) !

i hope you enjoy if you read 🪙🎲❤️

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This is so insanely valuable

avenpaz CN bank collab! 🎲🪙

they're so cute together... 🥹❤️

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I captured some of my favorite Dazai scenes from the BEAST movie DVD, in which I think Rui did pretty well.

There is much more to the movie besides Dazai. Still, you all know I'm a sucker for him lol. But I am thinking of making a review post later, as the behind the scenes are pretty interesting to watch.

You can read a spoiler post for the content of the movie that I made earlier HERE.

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST THESE SCREENSHOTS ANYWHERE ELSE (WITH OR WITHOUT CREDITS) AND PLEASE BUY THE DVD TO SUPPORT THE AUTHORS AND THE CAST IF YOU CAN.

"Odasaku!"

"Don't call me Odasaku."

"Do it, Chuuya."

"I can read the memories of the me that lives outside of the book."

"I can't let this world disappear."

"Goodbye, Odasaku."

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11 is out now! 12 is coming out today too, the grand finale of part one yayyyyyyy

My Main Story Out Now:

Lonely Girl

A Modern Love Story

Updated Every Monday!

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Um. I have no words. I'm broken.

And Rilla, I'm not afraid. When you hear the news, remember that.

Walter Blythe sits down to begin his last letter home.

From Rilla of Ingleside, by L.M. Montgomery.

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Violence and Walter

I've been reading LM Montgomery and Gender, and although I'm only a few essays in, there have been a couple on Walter that have blown my mind. Specifically, their commentary on Walter's relationship to violence has split my brain open. They've begun to answer a question I've had for a while: why did LM Montgomery have Walter so savagely beat Dan Reese?

Let's be real here, the general image of Walter is someone who is milk-soppish. In a way, he shares some similarities with Robin Stuart, although he decidedly has more backbone. However, he still has that delicate, sensitive imagery surrounding him that follows him throughout the books. We have all the passages that are probably familiar if you've been following me for a while: Gilbert describes him as being afraid to go upstairs in the dark, many people mock him for being sensitive, and the overall impression is that he's thought of is being shy, retiring, and girly.

This stands in stark contrast to the scene where he fights Dan Reese. Exhibit:

Walter reeled a little. The pain of the blow tingled through all his sensitive frame for a moment. Then he felt pain no longer. Something, such as he had never experienced before, seemed to roll over him like a flood. His face flushed crimson, his eyes burned like flame. The scholars of Glen St. Mary school had never dreamed that “Miss Walter” could look like that. He hurled himself forward and closed with Dan like a young wildcat. There were no particular rules in the fights of the Glen school boys. It was catch-as-catch can, and get your blows in anyhow. Walter fought with a savage fury and a joy in the struggle against which Dan could not hold his ground. It was all over very speedily. Walter had no clear consciousness of what he was doing until suddenly the red mist cleared from his sight and he found himself kneeling on the body of the prostrate Dan whose nose—oh, horror!—was spouting blood. [...] There was a loud clapping from the boys who were perched on the rail fence, but some of the girls were crying. They were frightened. They had seen schoolboy fights before, but nothing like Walter as he had grappled with Dan. There had been something terrifying about him. They thought he would kill Dan. Now that all was over they sobbed hysterically—except Faith, who still stood tense and crimson cheeked.

This isn't the skittish, highstrung Walter we know. This is deliberately emphasizing Walter's savagery. The language here is not one that speaks to justice being served. Walter isn't being presented as an avenging force for justice; Walter is being presented as an animal. He's fully carried away by a blunt brutality arising from base instinct. More that that: he's enjoying it.

Epperly's book The Fragrance of Sweet Grass provided me with some preliminary answers. According to her, this entire passage is an allegory for WWI. And ah ha, that makes so much sense. Walter, fighting against forces of evil, losing himself in the brutality and bloodshed. As Epperly states:

However, even Epperly questions Montgomery's use of Walter's savagery. She attributes it to a brief commentary on vengeance within the framework of Walter as the gallant knight (it's cut off, but this paragraph begins with "Interestingly..." on the previous page of the book):

So we have some answers here - the allegory is obvious, especially in the context of WWI - but there's an essay in the gender book that has some really interesting explorations into Walter's frame of mind that I want to poke at (From "Uncanny Beauty" to "Uncanny Disease": Destabilizing Gender through the Deaths of Ruby Gillis and Walter Blythe and the Life of Anne Shirley by Lesley Clement).

Clement more fully leans into the savagery of Walter, to the point of claiming that the Jekyll and Hyde cat could be seen as a parallel for Walter's two sides. In their analysis of Walter's arc, they see possibilities for (1) Walter having a death wish, and (2) Walter suffering from shell shock, even as he writes that letter to Rilla.

LM Montgomery's portrayal of Walter's heroism takes on a very different light here. It's a sort of double-vision: Walter wasn't scared of realities, only of his imagination; Walter, in the end, was the bravest of them all; but also - Walter wanted to die on the front. This could even be seen as tacitly confirmed by his message to Rilla that he couldn't live after what he'd seen. His immunity to fear on the front can be seen as both a personal triumph that ends his arc, and a suicidal shell shock.

Walter's death wish could arguably also be seen in the aftermath, the last poem he ever wrote - and the last story every written in the AOGG series:

The Aftermath carries multiple possible meanings. Walter could be remembering killing a teen boy, he could be recalling what he'd seen, or, as stated here: he could be reflecting on his own death. Overall, in Clement's opinion, Walter "displays not only a death wish but also possible signs of shell shock" in that final letter to Rilla. And I have to say, I agree. I'm sure LM Montgomery meant it as a noble goodbye on the part of Walter, and that still stands; interpreting Walter's statements also gets particularly tricky when considering his second sight aspects. However, in the letter Walter both sensed his death on the horizon due to those aspects, and at the same time welcomed it. Although it doesn't quite get to an explicit death wish - more framed as an acceptance of his fate - I think that reading is fair.

Notably, though, to go back to the main subject of this--Clement also ties in Walter's savage side. That Jekyll and Hyde is very reminiscent to the two sides of Walter seen in Rainbow Valley. Clement only questions Walter's "Hyde-ness", and I can see why: I think that portraying Walter as a murderous psychopath is definitely a step too far. However...we've seen how Walter gets when fighting for justice. That's inarguable. At the least, we know that WWI would have required Walter to tap into that part of himself. Ultimately, despite the coolheaded words, Walter has held hands with the side of himself that savagely beat Dan Reese, and that has a grip which does not let go. The essay even argues that Walter would be unfit to marry Una if he had returned:

In addition to these passages, in Walter's case specifically, we have precedent for the effect that fighting has on him - his fight with Dan Reese definitely "unleashed an unfitness of soul." Clement goes so far as to describe Walter as tainted, which, when viewing Walter as an individual, I'm uncomfortable with, but when viewing Walter as a symbol, makes complete sense.

Although it might feel icky to say this in the context of PTSD, I think Clement's point isn't about Walter being quote-end quote "damaged goods;" it's about highlighting that a just war is still war. As the passage itself states, fighting "God's battles" doesn't mean you will be spared from the aftereffects (or, one might say, the aftermath). Still, I dislike the framing here, until I remembered a passage from an earlier essay and everything clicked (yes, this conclusion is supremely obvious, but bear with me and my two brain cells). The previous essay (the white feather one I shared passages from earlier) comments that LM Montgomery wrote Rilla as a tribute to "Canada's girlhood," then goes on to say:

And so we arrive, at last, at the reasoning for Walter's savagery for Dan Reese, and as always, Walter's symbolism. Walter Blythe is Canada. The death of Walter's innocence - his "tainting" - could represent the death of the old world and its perceived innocence. He fought to save family and homes - Faith, in her girlhood - against the enemy, but in doing so, lost himself. And based on what we have here, I think Walter realized it. He couldn't live in the world after what he'd seen, but also, he didn't want to live in the world after what he'd done.

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BSD School AU phone wallpapers [540 x 960]

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