#and very clearly does NOT in the books

[ravenpuffheadcanons]

Watching ROTK for Downfall of Sauron Day and once again I have chosen the Extended Edition. And, look. I know they couldn’t include everything and it’s nearly 4.5 hours long already. But the Scouring of the Shire is SO IMPORTANT to Tolkien’s themes and especially to Pippin’s and Merry’s character development. And I really don’t think the confrontation between Theoden and Saruman is adapted very well *anyway*, and to just… stick the deaths of Saruman and Wormtongue on at the end? So the hobbits don’t get the victory? No!

#I love the scouring of the shire #it’s up there with A Conspiracy Unmasked for me #and it goes along with the films pretty much jettisoning Merry and Pippin as anything but comic relief of course #but that’s probably my least favourite change the films made #justice for merry #oh and I don’t like Aragorn leading Éowyn on which i think he kind of does in the films #and very clearly does NOT in the books #there is a lot I love about the films #Gandalf is perfect #Frodo and Sam are very good #there are many things I love honestly #I like the films a lot! as long as I remember they are about different characters from the books #lotr

[thatswhatsushesaid]

psa that the day there are no jgy stans left on tumblr dot com is the day i am dead

but rest assured i'll go to my grave exactly as i lived: obnoxiously proclaiming to everyone within earshot how great lianfang-zun is. narratively, metaphorically, spiritually. sexually, too, like why limit myself. i like to keep my options open

#the spirit of su minshan possessed me for a minute there but like. i'm fine with it #jin guangyao #he did crimes??? good for him 😌 #editing this post to add that while the tone here is clearly joking #i really am fundamentally still engaged with this fandom #and with this book #almost exlcusively because of my enjoyment of jgy #even xiyao is secondary for me like i love it and i'm ride or die for it obvs #but jgy as a character is the main draw for me. and he would have me by the throat even if there was no zewu-jun #(tho i think jgy's life would be more depressing for his absence obviously) #but he is just. /clenches my fists!!! #THE most compelling character in the story and i cannot stop thinking about him!! cannot will not!! #who else in this book has his range? who else can be the doe-eyed idealist AND the spy with blood on his hands who ends a war? #who else is two different greek tragedies and at least two separate shakespearean tragedies rolled into one antagonist #an antagonist who but for the POV of the novel could very easily have been the protagonist #whose moral event horizon is so deeply entwined with his own trauma and abuse that there is no way to meaningfully separate #the violence he does to others from the systemic violence that was done to him for his whole life? #who else in this book manages to get five separate sect leaders utterly obsessed with him no matter how you choose #to interpret that obsession? #no one!!! that's who!! #ain't no one else in the jianghu doing it like lianfang-zun and that's just a goddamn fact

[ofswordsandpens]

"the Gabe and Sally dynamic in the show is abusive" and "the way they've portrayed Gabe in the show is distinctly different from his book counterpart and fans can criticize that" are two discussions that can coexist

#I understand that this is hard topic to navigate #but me saying that /they've changed Gabe and that's consequently altered the dynamic he has with Sally in way I don't like/ #is NOT me saying I don't think what they've portrayed onscreen is non-abusive #or that I WANT to see him abuse her??? #its just the guy in the show while clearly controlling and abusive (emotionally and financially so far) #...I don't believe he's the guy who's presence was so horrid and disgusting MONSTERS avoided him #I wouldn't call him /Smelly/ #in the book his abuse (all forms) is much more overt #(and just to be painstakingly clear: abuse doesn't have to be overt to be abuse) #but the guy in the show does not have the same presence as the guy in the book #book Gabe is menacing #he growls and he threatens and both Sally and Percy have developed very specific responses to deal with it #I've seen one take saying that people can't recognize the abuse in the show because its not physical (yet?) #but even disregarding the physical abuse entirely #if you compare the book scene and TV show scene of Percy arriving home and he and Sally readying for Montauk #there is a pretty stark difference in tone #and in how both Sally and Percy interact with Gabe #in the book Sally goes out of her way to avoid /provoking/ Gabe and asks Percy to do the same until they can leave for Montauk #and Gabe is just itching for any excuse to keep them home #and imo if Book Sally had said the things that show Sally did to Gabe #Gabe wouldn't have let them gone! #and again im not saying that the show's depiction is nonabusive #or unrealistic #im saying its simply /different/ than the book #and im upset that it doesn't feel like dynamic depicted the book #and no book sally is no simpering wilting flower #but she's also not what they depicted in the show either #pjo adaptation #sally jackson #pjo

[softly-and-suddenly]

People are so boring about classic literature sometimes. Like I know it’s cool to be critical of men in books from the 19th century or whatever but it just leads to ripping out all of the nuance in favor of “Uh all of the Brontë men were evil and abusive and that’s all there is to those characters.” Say something interesting. I’m begging you

#yes this is about a class I’m in. what of it #There is a scene in Jane Eyre where Jane approached Rochester to ask him for leave for a few weeks to see her sick aunt #and he protests and makes a fuss out of it and he gives her a bunch of money and then takes it back and gives her less than he owes her #and if you read it in the strictest and least charitable fashion then you could say that Mr Rochester is an evil piece of shit who won’t #let Jane out of his sight and doesn’t give her what she’s due #but if you actually read it in the context of the book it’s so obvious that he’s joking around with her #and she’s ribbing him back in that same scene #because when you start out with the idea the Mr Rochester is an irredeemable monster and therefore everything he does is suspicious #you miss out on the very obvious fact that he and Jane are best friends! Their personalities gel perfectly #which is why they become so infatuated with each other #Saying ‘well Rochester didn’t give her all her money so he’s clearly manipulating and abusing Jane in this scene :(’ #is such an awful boring take that ignores what Charlotte spent hundreds of pages doing with these characters! #try having reading comprehension how about that #wuthering heights #jane eyre #the tenant of wildfell hall

[quixoticanarchy]

a petty complaint but still: to the various posts i’ve seen about how Aragorn disrespects Lúthien by summing up her entire life and legacy as “she died” - that’s movie Aragorn. book Aragorn sings his nine-stanza song about Beren and Lúthien, gives a quick history lesson of the First Age, credits Lúthien with rescuing Beren from Sauron, explains how they successfully stole a Silmaril together, and then how Beren dies and she follows him and gets him back, before they both die. and then he explains how her heritage lives on! like slander book Aragorn for the things he actually does, if you want, but not for giving Lúthien short shrift in his story. that’s on the movies

#tolkien loved this damn story he's going to make aragorn monologue about it. not write lúthien off with two words #the movies are playing up their 'aragorn fears arwen dying for his sake etc etc' thing so of course in that version #he'd focus on what mortality cost her #but in the book he's like naming all her descendants and telling tales of her + beren's feats like he *wants* to be part of this story #also he's literally her descendant himself - he mentions the kings of númenor even. and he's trying to rp beren in his own life #lúthien's story very much means more to him than her death #it doesn't end with 'she died' that misses the point so hard! which the movies did but aragorn in this instance does not #clearly i am critical of the movies. and the books lol whenever warranted but in this case noooo stop saying aragorn said this #aragorn #luthien #lord of the rings #tolkien #skravler #lotr

[sarucane]

Allow me to preface with: I love where OFMD ends up. Every time I see something that makes me fear for a renewal (Taika noooo), I remember that everyone was was okay where it ended, and dammit the ends justified the means

But:

Fuuuuck it's overstuffed, objectively. And my measurement of overstuffiness is: Big Musical Moments.

OFMD has these amazing sequences where the music and the action and the story all blend together in this glorious literal symphony. A normal episode has 1-2 of these sequences, and they're fucking glorious and eternal.

The finale of S2? The finale of S2 has FOUR Big Musical Moments! Five if you count Ed coming out of the water!

It's too many, it just is. There's missing links between character moments, missing plot details--it's a mess.

But I fucking love it and I'm so, so glad they rushed, because a TV season ender is a balance between the story as a whole and the investment of its watchers. Jenkins and co. decided that the investment of the watchers--and the wholeness of its charaters--was more important than the mechanics of story. And if that make you feel cheated, that's fair and that stinks. But fuck, so many stories are about the endless continuance of the characters and the ego of the creators--it's pretty damn amazing to feel like the fans (*cough* of the main arc *cough*) are valued and the creators are less important than getting to a place where it's ok to end.

The last line of this show might be "fuck that's strong!" "maybe we just air it out a bit..."

And that's actually okay. And it is, somehow, beautiful.

But goddamnit, JUST FIVE MORE MINUTES and that episode would have been PERFECT...

#this may not age well: there's now an interview with Taika where he says oh I think it's over that just came out which isn't scary at all #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd s2 #ofmd meta #random fandom crossover anyone else a Veronica Mars fan? #you wanna talk about rushed character deaths Izzy is NOTHING they clearly TRIED and CARED #Logan Echols of Veronica Mars tv show was grotesquely murdered offscreen and we immediately cut to ONE YEAR LATER #it was so underwritten that people very justifiably said "wait maybe he isn't dead because no body no funeral hey what #ofmd spoilers #ed teach #stede bonnet #blackbonnet #still legit the finale of s1 is 36 min and the finale of s2 is 29 and does MORE character work for more characters #well if wishes were horses and money grew on fucking trees #then we'd all be in hitchhiker's guide book 3

[rainybraindays]

I keep seeing things where people are like "it was so nice to see Colin's satisfied little smirk fall when he realized she wasn't going to fall over herself for him anymore" because they seem to think he really only sees Penelope as an ego boost, but like...my guy just found out he hurt one of his best friends feelings? And thats why shes been ignoring him for months? Hes not upset because his ego isn't getting stroked, he's upset because he hurt someone he cares about. Why is it so hard for y'all to grasp

#rainy talks #the way people look at him; nicest man alive; who has yet to be intentionally mean to anyone #and think he just sees Penelope as some ego boost #like he very clearly sees her as his *friend* and he's upset because shes upset #literally how are you people going to handle him getting upset at her for Whistledown #because like in the books where she does significantly less damage #he gets UPSET #y'all gonna get pissed about this?? #not to mention Penelope lashing put like this at him #is because hes the only person around her that'll take it #but thas just my opinion and its 3 am ad I am not writing an essay about that rn #and like even if he does see her as an ego boost;arguably so does she!!! #but again i am NOT getting into tjis #I'm just a massive colin defender #I'll also defend pen for alot of shit but man she doesn't need it shes got a whole fucking posse and hes got like 3 gays who love him

[ladyloveandjustice]

A lot of us are living in the New Woman future Bram Stoker was terrified of, and even as everything else sucks I can at least enjoy thinking about how much that would upset him.

#I definitely commend everyone analyzing this in the context of the characters #all i can think of is 'oh bram yes we do do all that oh you're so upset aren't you' #and it does fit in with the whole terror of modernity thing he and the book clearly have going #did you read an editorial today bram #i guess if you were being watsonian you could think mina read the editorial #but from a writer's perspective you'd usually say this is why that's on her mind today since she has no reason not to in her own journal #soo yeah this was the day bram read something in the newspaper and had a bone to pick #we all have those days as a writer it's just we usually edit those parts out when we realize it's very random #not bram #dracula daily

[grassbreads]

Tell me how I, the gal with terminal "can't stop thinking about Tai Sui" disease, read hundreds of thousands of words of Mo Du over the course of months, starting right after I finished Tai Sui, yet it took me until right now in this instant to put together the Fei Du->Zhou Ying parallel

Like. Here's the favored son of a man who is incredibly powerful and morally bankrupt. He hates his dad and would be quite happy to commit patricide, should he get the opportunity, but he doesn't directly do so because it wouldn't suit his schemes. He has spent his entire life since his teenage years painstakingly putting together the chess pieces necessary to both destroy his dad and unravel the truth of a grand unknowable conspiracy that has haunted his entire life. He's a genius and the way his mind works is utterly incomprehensible to everyone else in the world, even those who know and love him best. The right kind of placid smile from him can be the most terrifying thing anybody has ever seen. He is willing to use himself up and toss himself out completely if it is the means to the final end of his schemes.

It's just that with Fei Du, the whole point of him is that he's not nearly so terrible as he thinks he is. He's not a psychopath. He's not cruel, regardless of how much empathy he may or may not naturally have. He's just spectacularly traumatized by his childhood. And the presence of Luo Wenzhou in his life both saves him from spiraling down into his original epic self-destructive plot and allows him to access his buried human emotions.

Then, 5 years later, Priest came back to revisit some of the same ideas and turn absolutely all of them up to eleven. She wrote a man who doesn't just think differently from others, but who perceives the world so wildly differently from anyone else that his experience of existence is utterly incomprehensible to his peers. She wrote a patricidal prince who doesn't just want to destroy his father and his company, then tear out the truth of a criminal conspiracy, but rather wants to destroy his father and his entire country, then tear out the truth of the sky itself. She wrote a man who genuinely doesn't give a single damn about anyone other than himself and his tiny tiny selection of loved ones. Who would destroy the entire world in a fit of vengeance and who uses his own willingness to kill innocents as leverage against others. She wrote a man who plans to achieve his goals by way of epic self destruction and does exactly that, leaving the main character's loss of him as the central beating tragedy in the otherwise best possible ending.

She also wrote a story in which, when Zhou Ying's closest and most loved person realizes the dark and scheming truth of him, rather than saying "I can fix him; I don't think he's really so bad," he says "yeah, this is my cousin and he's a terrible menace who tries to destroy the world sometimes. I love him more than anything."

You can absolutely see how Priest's interest in similar ideas informed both characters. It's just that Fei Chengyu didn't succeed in raising his perfect little sociopath successor, but Emperor Taiming and the demons of the impassible sea absolutely succeeded in Jokerizing Prince Zhuang. They just couldn't possibly anticipate the kind of monster that the demon of the east sea would become.

#ok technically this is a bit of a called shot for me about Fei Du #I'm still in the middle of book 5 #but like. he's not gonna die or go full evil. he's the love interest in a danmei #and the story up until this point has VERY clearly been about lwz showing Fei Du how human he still is #and pulling him back from the brink of something dark #it's an I can fix him romance #so it'd make no sense for the story to make a sudden 180. and I think priest knows better #mo du is about a good man trying to force himself into darkness and being saved #and about how he never realized how much he wanted that salvation. but he did want it. it drew him to lwz I think #tai sui. as others have said. is about the tragedy of trying to save someone that GENUINELY does not want to be saved #that shakes off your attempts to help them whenever possible and is genuinely good at doing so #idk man I just love fucked up little guys #tai sui #mo du #silent reading #fei du #zhou ying #prince zhuang #andie reads silently #also side note. but it was SO hard to decide which blog to put this on lol #it's part of my mo du liveblog. which goes on main #but also tai sui meta. which goes on morethanwonderful #augh. #long post #tai sui spoilers

[inquisitor-apologist]

Man, breaking ranks was such a good episode. WHY did they never show Zare again, they were clearly setting up something with Ezra’s ‘I’ll be in touch’??? (so that was a fucking lie)

#i think he does show up very briefly once #but he’s never actually relevant they just shove him over into a book series #which is a shame he was such a good character and they were clearly planning on having him come back #so why’d they dump him? #my boy Zare you were an important character in my heart #star wars #rebels #star wars rebels #sw rebels #Zare Leonis

[worstloki]

at 2pm every Saturday Odin hosts an hour-long podcast on effective parenting where he gives out tips and anecdotes to assist the parents on Asgard in raising their young as well-established proper individuals and immediately after at 3pm every Saturday Loki’s podcast on dealing with trauma starts

#Asgard only has one radio channel #Thor hosts a thing at 5 where he retells valiant battle tales of victories for children #4-5 is bard hour #Odin speaks to the parents and Loki speaks to their kids #anonymous caller number 3 very clearly describing the same scenario Odin’s caller 6 did #everyone reasonable in the community is livid and that the kids are being treated badly #everyone else is trying to raise their children to be obedient little worker bees #if the community starts to shun parents and take in kids from each other don’t look at Loki all his callers are anonymous and confidential #Odin does not catch on to any patterns btw he’s too busy telling people to discipline their kids well with the harsh hand of books and belt

[dracula-enthusiast]

really trying not to post too much abt it bc it only came out days ago but man. saw x was such a love letter to the franchise. you can feel the care for the overarching story and for the characters that went into it and it really really pays off and its really healing to see a Good saw movie, especially after the three titles before it. i will def be seeing it a third time before it leaves theaters

#i say 3 titles before it bc like. jigsaw and spiral are obviously outliers in the series. #and while i like jigsaw and i liked spiral more watching it the second time they just fall flat compared to the main movies #and i included 3d bc i have such a love/hate relationship w that movie but ultimately i feel like it does a disservice to the franchise #i would watch another spiral and i hope we get more from the book of saw in Addition to wherever things are going post x #bc i think it was interesting bit its v much a requel or whatever and im just not as invested in that. personally #but anyway i loved x it was really good and it very much felt classic saw movie. #while being different and fresh at rhe same time #theres also some nods to the previous movies. a specific scene tht i wont spoil is v clearly a parallel to saw 2004 #and i loved that <3 #anywya. brick of text in the tags lol sorry #.txt #saw #saw posting #saw x

[coquelicoq]

crying laughing @ this edition of le fantôme de l'opéra that my dad got me for christmas it's just. i don't know how to describe it. every page is a scan of a page of the 1926 edition, with like 1-2 inches of margin around it??? and the letters are so small and the scan is not of very great quality so it's kind of hard to see the words?? interspersed with scans of pictures but some of them are upside down??? there's one page where the scan didn't really work in the upper left corner so it's just totally black???

the back of the book says

Le présent ouvrage s'inscrit dans une politique de conservation patrimoniale des ouvrages de la littérature Française mise en place avec la BNF. HACHETTE LIVRE et la BNF proposent ainsi un catalogue de titres indisponibles, la BNF ayant numérisé ces œuvres et HACHETTE LIVRE les imprimant à la demande.

(my rough translation: This publication is in line with a policy instituted in conjunction with the BNF (National Library of France) for the conservation of important works of French literature. In service of this goal, Hachette Livre and the BNF are offering a catalogue of unavailable titles digitized by the BNF which Hachette Livre will print upon request.)

so like this is on purpose but i have so many questions. first of all why the margins. okay i guess that is my most important question. why not just make the book correspond to the size of the pages in the original? or, if the size of the book is fixed, you could at least size up the images to use as much of that wasted space as possible, no?

i want to say how ridiculous this is and how there's no market for it but there clearly is one because i asked my dad to get it for me! i'm the market!! i told him to buy this edition because it was the only french-language print edition i could find to buy in the us for less than $50 (outside of amazon because fuck amazon). but like, why is that the case? the full text of this book, in plain text which could easily and legibly be printed, is available for free on the internet. why isn't there some publisher who's just printing that out and binding it? seems easier to do than printing scans. not to mention a lot easier to read!!

(to see what i'm talking about, go to the hachette BNF webpage for this book and click on feuilleter to download a sample of the pages in PDF)

#is there like. some copyright reason??? i'm really baffled by this #i get needing to scan the pictures but the text??? #even if you wanted to preserve the page numbers and so forth i'm sure you could make that happen... #just print it in the same font with the same page size as the original. right??? i feel like i'm losing my mind here #it's just. this is an extremely famous work of literature and a manipulable printable plain text version is available for free #on the internet. why is no one printing that??? or why is everyone charging so much money for it??? #books #french #my posts #oftentimes when i'm trying to order a work of classic french lit from my local bookstore #the hachette bnf version comes up in the search results. and sometimes it's the only version that does #i've always avoided buying one though because i could tell there was something off about them. the covers look very... #idk. unprofessional? not unprofessional but clearly they are not important. no one is trying to make them appealing #so i was like. not at all confident that they would be any good. but i finally decided to get one because there were no other options #and lo and behold i open it up. and it's this. i guess i was right to judge this book by its cover #gonna try to read this now because i certainly won't be able to read it when i'm old and my near eyesight is bad lol #my near eyesight is already getting worse so i better get cracking

[rawliverandgoronspice]

*crying as I break every single one of my weapons against ganondorf* you could have been great, you know.... you could have been so great.........

#totk #totk spoilers #ganondorf #the fight itself is very well done #the mood the ambiance the energy the creshendo!!! #(I mean it's clearly CLEARLY calibrated to make it easier on you) #(but that's not a flaw at all!! sometimes the mood matters more than the difficulty and that's super duper fine in my book) #and we get half a second of ganondorf motivations #which are... what they are #(I have a soft spot for him getting excited about meeting actual resistance he does that every time and I find it... endearing???) #it's not that craving disorder and violence is a bad motivation #it's just that it's not enough on its own imo #I don't mind it IF we get any sense of why he thinks it's better #also is the camera man of that one cutscene VERY into rehydration fanart or is it just me??? #did not expect the mood of the rehydration to be so... linger-y???? #very femme fatale of him happy pride month something idk

[llycaons]

xl went through so much insane suffering, things like being stabbed until he barely resembles a human form and being locked in a coffin for literally a hundred years, but I think making him immortal and ever-healing and showing how much he learned from his experiences AND ending his story with so much closure and close relationships makes his tragedies a lot easier to bear than wwx's. like, emotionally

#when I see xl I go marlon brando voice *look how they massacred my boy* #reading books 2 and 4 going wow this is really sad im glad that's behind xl and he's at such peace #reading the flashbacks in mdzs and going WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK #wwx does have a nice little recovery arc in the book but he's still clearly really messed up from a lot that had happened to him #and compartmentalizing and avoiding his past and desperately trying to survive another day #in a way xl really wasn't. he was just chilling #this is why I never read tgcf fic unless it's very goofy or pokes fun at canon #it feels like such a more complete story with no loose ends or lingering issues #tho tbf I don't really search for novel fic I search for cql fic and happen to run into novel stuff that I like sometimes #which is usually modern with magic or dealing with various things I thought weren't handled well like the sex scenes #also he was by all accounts a very stable and happy child and young adult. the shit didn't even start until he was 17 #by that point wwx had lost two sets of parents been hunted on the street by feral dogs as a starving child been tortured multiple times #has lost his home to a violent invasion had given up his core in a painful procedure that he knew would eventually kill him #and been in a war #hm. anyway. #tgcf txp

[wraithsoutlaws]

feeling insane bc i was actually considering making 'no coincidence' karla in game fdsklafjkalfjkafa

#boy this aint my oc....i can't do that but. but. like. what if. i did anyway. #I JUST THINK SHES COOL????? #i dont recall her having very much description in the book far as ive read i'll have to go back and check maybe #scarred face and mantis blades is all that i remember off the top of my head #idek what her eyes/optics are like ............hm idk. #maybe i'll just make my own oc based on her dklasjfkdsal that seems shitty tho fr. because obviously this established writer #will know i made a character based off his character and he'll hate me and take legal action against me obviously!!!!! /sarcasm #i know that wouldn't happen and it doesn't matter at all thats just my anxiety telling me i'll go to hell #fsakfljakl ANYWAYS IM JUST???? maelstrom lady butcher....sexy.......idk idk #i just wanna be like 'gangs all here :)' and have a silly lil pic of everybody idsa fjkadlfjaklfa #shes just!! interesting to me!! i love that she's so violent and clearly takes joy/pride in what she does but she has this softness #for dixie and thats really cute?????? hello??????? #dagger n dum dum going on double dates with her and dixie UwU #lots of murder and chaos UwU #bro i just like mealstrom fdkslafjdksalfjdksal this isn't news #im having a lot of thoughts for a Minor character of a supplementary/unconnected story that nobody knows. because of course i am. #a minor character connected to a minor character whom im obsessed with. #my life is a joke.