Hi! I finished! I finally did one! Belle Revolte as vines!
sometimes i just rewatch this and “because god has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished” always kills me because yes, that is exactly correct
just realized every character in belle probably has a french accent... don’t know why i didn’t realize this before but it’s ruining my day
Anonymous
lololololol
If it helps, I subscribe to the concept that characters don’t speak in fantasy accents for the same reason there’s no need to use fantasy words for concepts that share an English word. If we’re reading a fantasy novel in English, we can assume they’re either speaking English or it was translated from their language. This is why I was against using actual French or a fantasy language in Belle.
In the end, we came to the agreement that Demeine’s ancestral language resembled Old French, which is why important aspects of the culture still used it (and why some of the names, titling conventions, and forms of address weren’t the same as modern French).
So they’re probably not speaking in French accents, they’re just speaking a language that maybe sounds a bit like French, not English.
they all tripped and scattered papers onto the ground and no one helps them and that’s how they became villains
To be fair, Selina Kyle and Pamela Isley were straight up murdered. For all we know, Selina is a Revenant and Pamela is in a resurrective mind altered state that results in homicidal tendencies. Maybe Barbra Minerva is also in an altered state of mind due to the plot thing, and Edward Nigma had his brain turned to gush through self experimentation, so I don’t think it’s entirely a case for “I’m a clumsy nerd who gets bullied by people for being Weird so now I’m going to be evil, now.”
You’re missing the point. Especially as a self-professed writing blog, you should recognize that tropes stem from the conscious decision-making of real-life writers, not the fiction characters they choose to write.
In each of the screenshots, the writers made the decision to write each villain as a weird-hair big-glasses nerd that nobody likes, then turn them into a villain, and that is the behavior we need to examine.
Is it a fantasy? Do the writers imagine themselves as the nerds (which, knowing several film writers, they probably did feel like at multiple points in their lives), and this is them fantasizing about getting revenge on people who bullied them?
Or is it apologism? Are they showing us the people they find weird or unlikable and showing that, aha! These people were only a step away from being evil anyway, so bullying them was justified!
just found out from my dad today that when n*xon died and they did the 21-gun salute at his funeral my grandma said “they should aim at the coffin to be sure”
A debut young adult rom-com about an African American ballerina who finds love on the road to an audition.
When Chloe Pierce’s mom forbids her to apply for a spot at the dance conservatory of her dreams, she devises a secret plan to drive two hundred miles to the nearest audition. But Chloe hits her first speed bump when her annoying neighbor Eli insists upon hitching a ride, threatening to tell Chloe’s mom if she leaves him and his smelly dog, Geezer, behind. So now Chloe’s chasing her ballet dreams down the east coast―two unwanted (but kinda cute) passengers in her car, butterflies in her stomach, and a really dope playlist on repeat.
Filled with roadside hijinks, heart-stirring romance, and a few broken rules, Kristina Forest’s I Wanna Be Where You Are is a YA debut perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Sandhya Menon.
Kristina Forest is the author of YA romance novels, including I Wanna Be Where You Are and Now That I’ve Found You. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Writing for Children at The New School. She lives in New York City with two huge bookshelves.
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I am absolutely not joking at all when I say that The Sixth Sense should be required as teaching material when you’re trying to get kids to learn about why color matters.
No, the red DOESN’T mean love or violence or passion, however the creators set it up so that in this particular work red means OH NO A SCARY GHOST IS HERE.
When I was in college (as a lit major) I ended up sitting down and talking to a returning student who was having trouble in one of our classes. He liked books, and he had GI bill money so he decided to be a lit major.
He was VERY confused about the “The Curtains Are Blue And It Means Something” approach to symbolism and I remember that he very seriously got out a notebook and a pen, sat down, and asked me “Okay so what to stars mean as a symbol?”
And I was at a loss because of course I was! Stars-as-a-symbol can mean a thousand things and are heavily dependent on context. Are you reading a book about sea travel? Stars mean a map. Are you reading Maus? Stars represent faith and community and the way that the Nazis dehumanized Jewish people. Are you reading something by a romantic author who has a thing for the classics? Stars probably have something to do with heroism and destiny. Are you reading science fiction? Stars are probably just stars but if you’re reading Whipping Star by Frank Herbert they are literally people and our entire conception of stars is reexamined.
So one one the things that I think a lot of people are missing in their high school English classes is that whether the curtains are blue matters or not depends on the work.
The fact that Hamlet is wearing black is an important part of the story and the antagonist commenting on it it is almost the first thing that happens in the play.
What color dress is Lizzy wearing at the first dance in Pride & Prejudice? It doesn’t matter, the curtains are just blue.
And that’s one of those things that it takes a lot of time and a lot of exposure to different kinds of stories to learn and when you’re in high school you just don’t have that experience and your teachers are just now telling you for the first time “sometimes it matters why the curtains are blue” and I know you’re going “okay, sounds fake” but the goal is to get you to look at blue curtains and ask if they do matter, which is why they hand you books with big obvious examples of the kind of shit they’re talking about. You read A Tale of Two Cities because it’s full of binaries and line motifs and it’s the perfect thing to teach a fifteen year old how to look for a motif because there are a shitload of them. You read The Scarlet Letter to look for color symbolism and to ferret out biblical allusions.
“The curtains are just blue” is just “yet another day has gone by and I haven’t needed algebra.” Most people aren’t going to need algebra in their day-to-day lives but it’s handy to know how to do a bit when you need it and it’s good to learn that the concept exists.
If you’re reading books just because they’re fun and you like them then that is cool and I’m glad you’re having a good time and you absolutely do not have to give a fuck about symbolism.
But I am going to laugh my ass off at you if you’re one of those folks who is like “the curtains are just blue it doesn’t matter” and then whines about why scifi and comics and cartoons and video games are all political these days. They were always political, you just couldn’t tell because the curtains were red.
(also because you were socialized to see certain things as apolitical and value neutral but if you’re going “WHY DO THEY PUT SERIOUS MORALS AND SHIT IN A KID’S SHOW, STEPHEN UNIVERSE IS FOR TEN YEAR OLDS IT’S NOT THAT DEEP, LOONEY TUNES WASN’T LIKE THIS” I’m afraid I’m going to have to refer you to all the actual war propaganda made by Disney and Warner Brothers.)
YA author of MASK OF SHADOWS (2017), RUIN OF STARS (2018), BELLE RÉVOLTE (2020), THE GAME (2020), & WHAT WE DEVOUR (June 2021)! Science enthusiast. MFA. Very Tired.
Anonymous
YA author of MASK OF SHADOWS (2017), RUIN OF STARS (2018), BELLE RÉVOLTE (2020), THE GAME (2020), & WHAT WE DEVOUR (June 2021)! Science enthusiast. MFA. Very Tired.
