Honestly? I never really thought about it… :P Probably not romantically, because frankly, Natasha doesn’t strike me as the flirty, relationshippy type except with Clint and maybe past Bucky (that Bruce thing, ugh). But friendship? Absolutely, particularly with other women. And any one of those can certainly be looked at as pre-relationship.
people on this website be like “it’s actually school’s fault that i don’t know how to read because i wanted to write my essay on the divergent trilogy and that BITCH mrs. clarkson made us study 1984 instead. anyway here’s a 10 tweet thread of easily disproven misinformation about a 3 year old news story and btw, who is toni morrison?”
i KNOW most of y’all are lying about being in the gifted program as children because none of you could pass the basic reading comprehension assessment they give third graders today
this post is mean and I never read divergent or whatever the fuck but 1984 sucks and is rape apologism so if somebody wanted to write about divergent or whatever good for them
this reply is like literally exactly what op is talking about lol. like firstly ops point isn’t “1984 is good”, ops point is that analysing complex stories teaches you how to form opinions and think for yourself. and like secondly in 1984 you’re supposed to think damn it’s fucked up that he’s thinking that way about her, i wonder if this ties in with the central theme of “a society like this will fuck you in the head”? (this is the thinking for yourself part). like do you think orwell just put that in for fun? do you think that just because winston is the protagonist you’re supposed to agree with everything he does?
You know I feel like this post just gave me an epiphany for what is wrong with how Tumblr Fandom/Internet Fandom responds to media-or not *wrong* but makes it very hard to respond to anything but a morally correct, and heroic protagonist.
When an English teacher, or reader, taught or picked up 1984, it wasn’t with the intention they were going to love the protagonist. They picked it up with the intention of reading a whole story and trying to grasp the theme or catharsis from the story. If the protagonist was a *shitty* person it played into the the themes or the story, because it wasn’t about morally judging the book or *liking* or feeling attachment to the protagonist. Sometimes and often times, books were just about gaining another perspective.
No one read Lolita expecting to endear, or like, or be inspired by Humbert. You are supposed to be upset by his behavior, you don’t read Lolita with the intention of being inspired. You read it to learn more about what the fuck is going on inside someone’s head when they behave like that. How children get sucked into abusive situations. Or read “The Great Gatsby” not because they want to fall in love with Gatsby or Nick, but to better understand and analyze the experience of the 1920s or destitution of the American Dream.
A lot of internet and fandom culture has changed that though. When we say something like “I love the Great Gatsby” it comes with the idea or association that means you must *love* or relate to one of the characters. And maybe you do, but the first assumption is not longer about the quality of the work or themes, or cathartic impact-it’s about character admiration. And with that character admiration, in tumblr stan culture, or kin culture, or exalting characters with fanart/romance/so on you don’t just ‘admire’ or find that character ‘compelling’ it now translates to ‘you LOVE that character’ or you ‘DIRECTLY relate to that character.’
You can’t say “I love how Humbert is written, it’s so fascinating and dark”, without it directly translating you somehow relate to a child abuser or condone his actions. Taking in media has become an act of worship and connection. We no longer watch meant to just see the story as a whole, we watch expecting to connect to a character and if we offer them our “worship” as it’s become, as opposed to just attention or interest study as it traditionally was, it means we are condoning the character or saying we directly empathize with all their actions.
I think that’s why there is often now so much fuss over *toxic* characters or not. Or whether that classical novel is showing good or bad things anymore. We’re treating the characters as people we should love or want to draw or write about. Sometimes a story is just about getting the the theme or catharsis or learning another perspective. We don’t NEED to like the character. Or we don’t HAVE to like a character to be impressed by how they’re written or intrigued by their behavior.
I think if internet culture could learn to view stories as small insights into other lives or single takes of one perspective instead of purposeful moral inspirations we’d be a lot less worried about how toxic or not toxic they are.
Seriously!
And this is where “unhealthy relationships” in fiction come in too. Well-written, complex stories of bad relationships aren’t supposed to be good and healthy examples. If it’s held up that way (Twilight), then the issue is the writing and the writer. Unhealthy relationships in, say, Anna Karenina are obviously unhealthy but they are, to misquote James Joyce “portals to discovery.” You can know that a fictional relationships is seriously bad and still find it interesting. Psychology! Complexity!
Also I want to add that some characters (Humbert Humbert is a good one) are written so that if and when you find yourself sympathizing or saying “Yeah, I know that feeling” you’re supposed to stop and consider that. Not in terms of “I am a sick individual and deserve to die.” but more like “is it possible to have compassion for terrible people?” and “what is it in our culture or my upbringing that makes me think like I do?”
I’ve heard way too many people say “I will never read Lolita because of what it encourages” and I just…you’re missing the point? Completely? Like, you’re so missing the point that it’s almost meta? You’re not supposed to like Humbert??? You’re supposed to either be like “wow, gross, dude” or “oh fuck, wait, why do I have even 1 thing in common with this guy?” Nabokov is not going to be straightforward with you!
It’s like the jokes about being mad at your teacher for asking why the sky is blue in a certain book. Maybe there really is a reason. Did you think of that? For a bunch of people who’ll write thesis-length defenses of your favorite ships and trace down one instance in one minute of one episode of the 15 season show to prove that you’re right, it concerns me that you’re not as willing to look at a lot of other things with any depth. To say nothing of multi-chapter fanfic.
If you surround yourself with only good and pure and wholesome media approved by the purity-culture police, then you just don’t get to do a lot of introspection and I think that’s kind of a shame. I feel like it really limits your view of the world.
I dunno. There’s a weird kind of anti-intellectualism disguised as protection and good intent sometimes. Or it feels like the kind of prudishness that labels some books “dirty” and the people who read them equally disgusting, but just relies on social ostracism to enforce the labels. You know, “Think of the children!!”
Anyway, I’m going to go read some dirty, dirty literature now. Like 1984.
saying the book came to you like that when clearly your dog chewed on it
trying to reshelve books on your own
yelling at us to get our attention
talking on your phone when we’re trying to assist you
yelling at non-management staff for policies they have no power over
asking for more time on the computer when the session has already logged you off, you needed to ask for that time 5 minutes ago
asking us to look something up for you by the call number. the call number tells you where it is. please just give me the title.
getting upset with us for anything COVID related
things librarians do NOT judge you for (unless they’re bad at librarianing):
reading erotica
using the copier incorrectly
not speaking english as a first language
being an adult and not reading grown up books
owing fines
liking romance novels
finding out your child’s card is blocked because they’ve been billed for books they’ve secretly been hiding behind their dresser
having books overdue
you liking graphic novels and comics
your CHILD liking graphic novels and comics. seriously. we just want them to read.
taking books off of a display
asking us to check and make sure we don’t have a book you returned (with COVID and quarantining books, more things are getting missed, so asking a librarian to do a shelf check is okay! but be nice. we are So Tired and Busy. if you say something like “if you’re busy feel free to check when you have time and get back to me” we will love you. we will probably be like “you’ve been nice so i’ll go right now”)
things librarians judge, but don’t judge YOU for:
James Patterson. Look. we all know everyone likes him. That’s great, we love that people read because of him! But we do judge James Patterson as an entity. He’s got so many goddamn books. they take up so much goddamn space. james. jimmy. jimsicle. just. stop putting your name on things, please, we are begging you. liking james patterson is Valid. BEING james patterson is not valid.
“So Eric, who is our writer, had written a joke about women being in bad moods because they have their period, Shortland recalls. And I remember Florence and Scarlett and I reading it and just being like, ‘Oh, my God, this is ridiculous.’
The director says she almost cut the joke entirely, but after discussing with her actors, ultimately decided to “answer it.” She didn’t clarify if that meant improvising on the day of or going back for traditional rewrites, but the outcome was the final digression on involuntary hysterectomies.
I love it, Shortland says. Because it’s like, if you’re gonna make that joke, I’m gonna unleash Florence Pugh on you. She’s gonna Yelena you. It’s one of myfavorite moments in the film.”
there is a tendency with history, i think, because we’re so far removed from it, to kind of forget that all of the people were people
a child 10,000 years ago left a handprint on a wall. they were fingerpainting. a viking climbs up a rock just to carve the words “this is very high” 10ft off the ground. somebody centuries… milennia… ago burned their dinner so thoroughly that they buried the ruined pot in the backyard rather than attempt to clean it. shakespeare got drunk and wrote dick jokes. tutankhamun was a little boy who liked ducks more than anything. a roman carves his name into a monument in another country saying “i was here”. a prisoner, centuries ago, in the tower of london scratches lines into the wall as a tally marking the days. a medieval monk scrawls in the margins bemoaning the boredom of his work.
every human being across history has said “i was here. i lived. i loved. i made something. i laughed. i cried. please do not forget me”
im sorry but writing enemies to lovers on ao3 is so fucking funny. one of them will go a whole paragraph saying how much they hate, absolutely despise, have genuine burning contempt for the other and we’re all here knowing damn well that enemies to lovers tag is just sat there. like we already know what’s coming bro you’re just embarrassing yourself
the appeal of enemies to lovers though is less “oh will they ever get together?” and more “at what exact point does he go from wanting to kill the bitch to the oh in italics?”
