honestly the slow horror of Fantine’s Descent is so overwhelming every time I read it
Valjean Falls in a single moment of reckless desperation; he makes one bad call and is cast out of society before he can blink, and that’s one kind of horror; the awful fractured feeling of a life changed irrevocably before there’s time to even protest.
But Fantine has to choose, over and over and over and over, to carve herself up bit by bit. She gets the choice, she has to make the conscious effort to sacrifice first every piece of her happiness and comfort– and comfort sounds so superfluous but god it’s so essential, people need fire in the winter and warm clothes and clean living space and enough food and sleep to be comfortable and she gives it all up– and then literally cutting herself up, piece by piece–
and she could stop. She could always stop, right up until her arrest. She could live, herself , on what she gets for shirts, never mind the relatively larger income she gets from prostitution. Every time, even after she’s sold her teeth and hair and become a prostitute–she could just stop sending Thenardier money, and start climbing back out of debt. She has to choose, every single day, every minute, to keep destroying herself, for a daughter she doesn’t even know is still alive– all she has to go on is Thenardier’s word, and even Fantine realizes, in time, that he’s not at all to be trusted. It wouldn’t even be unfeeling for her to give, it would be a totally logical sort of despair if she came to believe Cosette had died, that Thenardier was just extorting her (he would. We all know he would. Even Fantine surely knows he would.).
But she walks clear-eyed into hell, for years, because the one thing she really can’t survive without is her hope for Cosette. And every day the escape hatch is right there, and every day she chooses to ignore it. She’s got more conviction than all Napoleon’s doomed army at Waterloo, because she has to step into that abyss on purpose and with no hope of glory, believing it makes her worth less.
If you would report an undocumented immigrant to ICE you would have reported me to the Nazis and I don’t fucking trust you
A note:
I live in a state where you “have to” report anyone you suspect of being undocumented (that wonderful hellhole of Arizona). Now in practice this law has fallen far short, thank goodness. But if you live in such a place and they start enforcing it, here is how you get around it:
Assume everyone who doesn’t speak English is visiting.
Never ask about their job, because if they tell you they work here then you know they’re not visiting. You see them a lot for several weeks or months? Hm. Someone in the family must be ill. That’s terribly tough. They always dress in old, ratty laborers’ clothes? I feel you, my dude, I can’t afford new clothes either, and my dad has the fashion sense of an aardvark, so sometimes it’s not even about “affording” them. They say they’ve been here for years? You must have misunderstood. Spanish isn’t your first language, after all. First and last name? It never came up, or you don’t recall–you meet a lot of people.
And then, if you’re asked: no, you haven’t seen anyone residing illegally in the United States. Just people visiting.
Journey East is a text adventure that tells the story of Scheherazade and Dunyazade before 1001 Arabian Nights. It is a choose your own adventure story set in 1400s Middle East, South Asia, East Asia and South-East Asia.
some highlights from my students’ romeo and juliet modern interpretation projects:
– someone made a username for friar laurence with 420 at the end – the same kid who put 69 in romeo’s username like i wouldn’t know what either of those things mean – the girl who added ‘clean’ at the end of all the songs on her juliet playlist like lmao girl i know spotify doesn’t have the clean version – the kid who said romeo and juliet killed each other – the weird dichotomy of kids who put love story on their playlist vs the kids who choose bad blood – the kid who wrote ‘get a room’ as tybalt’s comment on romeo’s couple pic – the kid who said ‘romeo is probably one of those douches who follows a ton of people so they follow him back and then he unfollows all of them’ – the one who legitimately used the word ‘alrighty’ do kids say this in their text messages???? i thought i was the one talking like an elderly person but okay – the one who made romeo’s username ‘montagoose’ – the only kid who acknowledged that posting about your secret relationship on instagram was a bad idea – the girl who wrote that romeo would unironically say ‘#blessed’. she’s right. – the one single solitary girl who wrote mercutio as gay as shakespeare did (she’s also the only one who used mercutio at all which is a tragedy but whatever) – the one who wrote romeo’s insta bio as ‘thus with a kiss i die… LOL RIP ME 😂💀’ – the one who made benvolio’s username benvoliYO
Roses are red, that much is true, but violets are purple, not fucking blue.
I have been waiting for this post all my life.
They are indeed purple, But one thing you’ve missed: The concept of “purple” Didn’t always exist.
Some cultures lack names For a color, you see. Hence good old Homer And his “wine-dark sea.”
A usage so quaint, A phrasing so old, For verses of romance Is sheer fucking gold.
So roses are red. Violets once were called blue. I’m hugely pedantic But what else is new?
My friend you’re not wrong
About Homer’s wine-ey sea!
Colours are a matter
Of cultural contingency;
Words are in flux
And meanings they drift
But the word purple
You’ve given short shrift.
The concept of purple,
My friends, is old
And refers to a pigment
once precious as gold.
By crushing up molluscs
From the wine-dark sea
You make a dye:
Imperial decree
Meant that in Rome,
to wear purpura
was a privilege reserved
For only the emperor!
The word ‘purple’,
for clothes so fancy,
Entered English
By the ninth century
.
Why then are voilets
Not purple in song?
The dye from this mollusc,
known for so long
Is almost magenta;
More red than blue.
The concept of purple
is old, and yet new.
The dye is red,
So this might be true:
Roses are purple
And violets are blue
.
While this song makes me merry, Tyrian purple dyes many a hue From magenta to berry And a true purple too.
But fun as it is to watch this poetic race The answer is staring you right in the face: Roses are red and violets are blue Because nothing fucking rhymes with purple.
backup from Tumblr 