Psa:

psa:

the hunchback of notre dame was not and never should have been intended for children. it’s a complex story about love, lust, power dynamics and racism, and by watering it down into a G-RATED kids’ cartoon (with cute singing gargoyles!) we lost out on all the richness of it. esmeralda is just a pretty dancing girl. phoebus is a nice soldier. against this backdrop, “hellfire” is startlingly frightening and creepy. (because it’s adult!) quasimodo sees esmeralda as an angel, frollo sees her as the Devil incarnate, and there’s little else to bring us to a correct conclusion of her character. victor hugo would’ve been mortified. (also, the hypersexualization of a woman of color…)

that doesn’t apply as much to the disney stage musical. here, disney actually meant this for adults. here, you get sweeping orchestral music, a plethora of lyrically complex songs, a richly textured frollo, and even an emotional glimpse of jehan. it’s not without its faults: despite a little more character development, esmeralda is still a very adult sex symbol (hey! she was supposed to be 16!), and phoebus is rewritten as a heroic little himbo. and gringoire is still Not in the picture. but at least you get a better representation of what victor hugo actually intended.

the thing is, two-hour adaptations of massive novels are probably always going to fall short. but victor hugo chose to write SO in depth about lust, sin, misogyny, hypocrisy, death, racism, unrequited love, etc etc etc! there is so much in this book! and the thing is that i believe children are capable of understanding complex themes, and i believe that they should be exposed to rich media. age-appropriate, of course, and i don’t think that this is a story appropriate for young children — but even if disney was planning to cut out the frollo lust plotline (which they didn’t), at least represent women? and romani people? and racism? and unrequited love? in a way that’s both palatable and well-written. we don’t need to water things down for children to understand them. take mr. roger’s neighborhood! take star trek! take bluey! these are all shows that tackle hard themes in a kid-friendly way. more of this please!!!

and if it comes to a story like hunchback, where the big storyline is that a catholic priest is lusting after a young girl? do us a favor and don’t make it into a kid’s cartoon.

this is the type of high quality fic i'm looking for

ai-less whumptober; day three

@ailesswhumptober 3 — shared trauma, survivor’s guilt, “It’s not your fault.” ↳ october, 1899 word count; 1.5k

cw; sibling death, implied alcohol abuse

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Jack thinks about Michael every day of his life. Maybe that's a good thing. He can't imagine the guilt if he didn't. But he also, really, can't imagine being able to…not. The thinking is one thing, but the nightmares are another.

And then there's the reminders.

Jack is all too aware his brother's death had had witnesses, all those boys watching out of the Refuge windows as they'd hopped the carriage, as Michael had slipped — and witnesses talk. Newsies talk, every shoeshine and street rat in New York talks; there ain't much else to do when they're working dawn 'til midnight or locked up behind those barred windows under Snyder's heel. Everyone knows. But it's one of those things most folk don't dare talk about — not when he's Cowboy, not when he's got the mask of being a leader to hide behind. Folk don't mess with him, though it's not the same way they don't mess with Spot Conlon. It's not fear.

They just…like him. Too much to bring up his dead little brother every time the urge might strike, whether they're pissed off with him — Jack thinks about his photograph, silently torn to shreds after he took the money — or they're just curious.

The Delanceys have no such reservations.

"Hey, Kelly," Oscar calls out from a little way down the alleyway Jack had just turned down. "Happy anniversary."

It's not. It's in a couple weeks. But Oscar's never been good with numbers.

"Fuck off, Delancey," he responds.

It's fucking cold. Too cold for October, too cold to be outside all day, but Jack doesn't have a whole lot of choice. He'd sold like shit, the way he always does in that lull between the cold weather starting and Christmas coming in — it's late and he's only just sold his last pape, he just wants to be done. But there Oscar is, leaned against the wall of the alleyway Jack's trying to cut through to get back to the lodging house, cigarette in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. He smells like the stuff, but it isn't the sharp, acrid smell of the cheap booze that can usually be found amongst the newsies. It smells good. It looks good.

Oscar grins at him, lopsided. Jack can guess that what's been drained from the bottle has all been drank by him tonight, and his suspicions are confirmed when Oscar brings the bottle to his lips and takes a long, easy drink.

"How long's it been now, eh?" he asks as he draws the bottle away, voice still a little tight as he swallows, utterly casual. "Since Michael. Ten years?"

His tone is lazy, something smug and amused and utterly infuriating in his face. Jack rolls his jaw.

"C'mon, Oscar, get your fingers up. Try an' count it out."

Of all the possible reactions, he isn't expecting Oscar to laugh.

Violence would be expected, normal, but Oscar laughs, the way he usually only does when he's beating someone into the pavement or ruining their day.

It makes something in Jack's gut curl, burning hot and angry.

"Y'know, I really don't get it," he says. "Why you're like this. Why you act like all that time in there was nothin' to you, jus' somethin' to crack jokes about now. I saw you. Every day. Saw you go through Hell with me. An' your little brother."

Oscar takes a slow drag from his cigarette, still sort of smiling around it. One side of his mouth curled up to bare a canine that gets covered when he exhales the smoke into the cold night air.

"Been through worse," he says with a shrug. Takes a swig of his whiskey. "An' clearly I did better in there 'n you did. Got my wee brother out alive an' all."

The noise he makes when Jack throws him into the wall is satisfying, at least. A grunt from deep in his chest as the air is knocked out of him, a dull crack of his head hitting the brick last. His cigarette tumbles to the floor, and Jack takes no small amount of satisfaction in catching it beneath his boot and scraping it hard, mangling it into a spread corpse of tobacco, though Oscar keeps a firm hold on his whiskey.

And then he smiles again, lazier this time.

"You always been jealous."

Jack had seen Morris go through Hell in the Refuge. As much as if not more than Jack himself and Oscar had faced. He'd been tiny when Jack first saw him. A tiny, malnourished little kid who'd clearly been brutalised all his life. For the first few years, Jack had believed Morris to be a lot younger than he is — Michael's age, maybe. Never could've guessed that he's only a few months younger than Jack himself. But Morris was always well looked after by Oscar, regardless of the circumstances in there, or the circumstances of wherever they'd come from. Morris was forever under the protection of his older brother. Oscar, who would start fights with the other boys to wrench their rations from them to give to Morris. Who'd stay awake all night and curl himself around his brother, vicious and protective like a dog, or sit vigil at his bedside to ensure nobody dared come close. Who'd walked out of the Refuge, freshly eighteen, with his hand clasped around his little brother's bony wrist when their uncle had arrived, looking for boys to put to work.

Maybe Jack thinks about them near as much as he thinks about Michael. It's a fact he fucking hates.

He'd compared himself to Oscar at every possible turn as they grew up, confined together, the only other older brother he'd ever known to compare himself to.

He'd wondered, in the wake of Michael's death, if he could've kept him alive, protected him better, if he was only more like Oscar. More vicious, more controlling, more willing to bide his time and take it for as long as he had to until it was over, instead of always having to try and run. Maybe he could've been stronger.

"'M'glad," he says, without. Really thinking about it. Means it, at least. "That you got your brother out."

He's still got Oscar pinned to the wall, leaning his weight against him with hands balled into the worn fabric of his jacket, but finally he forces himself to let go. Staggers a step backwards, skin feeling heavy on his body. Grief feeling heavy on his aching shoulders.

There's a brief stretch of silence. And then Oscar wordlessly holds out the bottle of whiskey between them.

Jack takes it without hesitation, and tips it back to draw a long swig from the bottle. It's good. Rich and warm, burns down his throat right to his empty stomach. Oscar's looking at him.

"You expectin' me to lie to you?" he says, but his voice is softer now. "Tell you it's not your fault?"

Jack shakes his head, and takes another swig, maybe half because he can and half because he's cold. Mostly because he needs it.

"Know it is," he says forcefully. "'Course it's my fault."

It had been October then too, and he knew then how utterly miserable winters in the Refuge were. He'd just wanted to get out before the cold set in, wanted to get him and Michael somewhere they could stay warm. Boys always died during the winter in the refuge. And isn't there a sick irony to that.

"I—" Oscar says suddenly, then stops himself. Swallows, and drops his head back against the brick again, pale eyes looking up at the sky. "Dunno how you kept goin'," he says. "Dunno that I could. 'f Mo…"

Jack swallows too. He can't help but look at Oscar, closer than he usually ever gets to be, something. Sickeningly intimate about the vulnerability in this moment. The older boy looks tired. He looks sad. And then seems to experience his own wave of grief, as if realising in an instant that he's said more than he wanted to — revealed too much, like Jack hasn't already seen everything. Hasn't seen Oscar holding Morris' limp body and screaming. It was just the fact that Morris woke up.

"Fuckin'. Whatever," Oscar mutters. "I gotta get home."

Jack imagines Morris is waiting for him.

It's how it always is, when the two of them are apart. They're just waiting to be reunited, two broken halves of a whole. Oscar goes suddenly, without another word, and Jack watches him walk away with his hands shoved in his pockets, boots crunching. He's still got his own hand around the neck of the bottle that Oscar had left with him. There's still a warmth to it where Oscar had held it.

Jack takes another swig, and starts heading his own way home, trying not to think about Michael waiting for him somewhere.

rachel zegler & kit connor after their debut performance of romeo + juliet on broadway

thank you SO much nox !!!!! i am so excited because i never knew about this!!

stupid question friday:

why did we as a fandom decide that the delancey boys grew up in the refuge until they were ‘rescued’ by wiesel? i’ve seen variations on this plotline in a lot of fics and i feel like i missed out on some source material. is this on their trading cards? or in a fandom wiki? please someone enlighten me

i was thinking about these paintings tonight and realized i hadn’t liked this post. spent about twenty minutes googling it.

These, for me, are the two most depressing paintings in western history. They were painted by post-impressionist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a man who, due to inbreeding, was born with a genetic disorder that prevented his legs from growing after they were broken. After being so thoroughly mocked for is appearance, he became an alcoholic, which is what eventually caused his institutionalization and death. His only known romantic relations were with prostitutes. And then he paints something like this which is so beautiful and tender and sentimental. It seems like the couple in bed really loves each other—cares about each other. Wakes up happy to look at each other. And I see that love and passion and I wonder how lonely he must have been. I wonder how he could paint something like this without it breaking his heart.  Maybe they say artists should create what they know, not because its unbelievable when they extend themselves beyond their experiences, but because when they pull it off with such elegance, it’s so damn unbearable to look at. I hate thinking of Lautrec, wondering about the lovers he created and knowing it was beyond his experience. Creating something that he knows is beautiful and knows he’ll never really understand. 

i just think that children are so intelligent and deserve much more sophisticated pieces of media than the modern mass-produced pbs animated shows and *cough* paw patrol type stuff they’re getting now.

mr. rogers tackled racism, death, divorce, suicide, war, and drugs.

magic school bus talked about sex, complex bacteria, the human anatomy.

the old sesame street episodes covered music, death, racism, all sorts of child-palatable topics.

make more shows like bluey, which shows gentle positive parenting (while acknowledging that parents face challenges in their own marriages), recognizes children’s complex emotions, and tackles topics like infertility, death, miscarriage, and disabilities. there’s a reason this show is popular.

i think we underestimate the types of things that children can handle, and while hard themes should always be done gently and in an age-appropriate way, i think they should be exposed to it. i do believe they can handle it.