#also there was the boxcar children

[kazoosandfannypacks]

reblog and put in the tags what YOUR mystery series was as a kid, and if it was the same as your siblings had or a different one.

#for example mine was mary kate and ashley #my sister had nancy drew and my older brother had hardy boys #i also liked boxcar children!!! #i may have made a similar post before

[jeyneofpoole]

i’m a bookseller so let’s analyze the books that asoiaf characters would probably be into in my expert opinion

sansa: easy answer, mass-market bodice rippers. true answer, horror. she is a vc andrews girly but she hates stephen king. also she probably read a bunch of colleen hoover at a very formative age and it fucked up her idea of healthy relationships.

jon: manga. i do not know jack or shit about manga but i do know he’d probably like that berserk one or whatever the fuck it’s called. he’s emo. nobody understands him. you get it. so on and so forth.

theon: he doesn’t read but he does go back into the kids department and stick gum in the pages of the i survived books. sometimes if he’s feeling really bold he’ll put his number in between the pages of novels that he thinks are for smart people. his concept of high lit is not very developed so it’s sort of a toss-up as to the books he does this to. they’ve found his number in the brothers karamazov and a taylor jenkins reid novel on the same day.

dany: ya dystopia. you KNOW she would have been so into the maze runner and divergent. somebody let this child have a hunger games phase dear lord.

arya: her idol growing up was junie b jones. she was obsessed with the boxcar children and when she was 7 she tried to run away but to her extreme dismay she couldn’t find a boxcar so she settled for an underpass frequented by various delinquents, vagabonds, etc. they unionized to get her back home and cat didn’t let her outside for a year. immediately after she was ungrounded she ran away again to murder pigeons en masse because she had just read wringer by jerry spinelli and took away the wrong message. now she just reads fencing instructional books. also a warrior cats kid.

#asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf shitpost #theon greyjoy #sansa stark #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #arya stark #barnes and noble

[jingle-jangle-spurs]

Please reblog for sample size :)

Info:

Moriarty- keeps Hob enslaved and forces Nova to be a prostitute. Knows where the LW’s dad is and uses that to extort caps from them, also keeps blackmail info on Megaton residents.

Myron- proud inventor of Jet - that got a whole town in addicted and relies on New Reno crime families for supply - treats mutants & slaves as objects, unapologetic rapist who tries to roofie an low INT female CO.

Daniel- treats The Sorrow like children, forces himself into making decisions for them as he suffers from White Saviour Complex, hides Walking Cloud’s husband’s death from her.

Swanick- ex Powder Ganger who is gleeful about winning the lottery while everyone around him suffered fates worse than death, abandoned Boxcars with his broken legs (I’d do that too to be honest )

Jones- head slaver of Paradise Falls, wants to enslave the kids of Little Lamplight.

Lynette- doesn’t believe anything the CO tells her, enforces the racist, elitist policies of Vault City and its feudal class system, sees Gecko’s leaking power plant as an act of war and wants the ghoulies there killed.

Crawford- sold a pregnant Carla Boon into slavery because she didn’t like Novac.

Codman- elitist upperstands resident

#fallout new vegas #fallout #fallout 4 #fallout 3 #fallout 1 #classic fallout #polls #fallout polls #fallout poll #okay that’s enough choices #sorry #let me know who I should have added #no Joshua Graham this time #fallout 2

[maychorian]

Another family/found family anime rec!

I just watched The Yuzuki Family's Four Sons, a slice-of-life anime about four brothers whose parents died, so they are taking care of each other now. This kind of story, or anything with siblings taking care of and being protective of each other, is laser-aimed to destroy my heart. (Ask me how hard I cried over The Boxcar Children when I was a kid.) I especially relate to the oldest boy, who was a college student when his parents passed and immediately refused any suggestion that he let his three little brothers go to relatives, insisting that he would care for them himself. But all four really do their best to look out for each other, and the three younger boys are concerned about their oldest brother too and try to lift his burdens. Though the boys are very thoughtful and loving, there are also realistic conflicts and childish jealousies and parental mistakes. It's very sweet, though sad at times, and I teared up at like 75% of the episodes. There are also found family elements with the neighbors across the street who are very supportive of them. It's on Crunchyroll and is entirely worth your time if this kind of story appeals to you.

Cute gif to sell you even further on it:

#the yuzuki family's four sons #anime #anime recommendations

[copperbadge]

Was ruminating on your fascinating exploration of the fact that some people visualize descriptions and some don’t, when this turned up in my queue: The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry: The Case of the Blind Mind’s Eye. Have you listened to their science podcast? LOTS of people don’t visualize, and R&F investigate why. 😊Neurodiversity FTW! 😊

Thank you! @yee-jun recommended it as well, and I've just downloaded the episode and after a bit of listening subscribed -- always like to find new podcasts. I haven't finished listening to the episode yet but it is rather validating to know that a ton of people also have aphantasia and don't realize it. I mean, having it, I'm actually quite fine with that, although it's causing me to re-evaluate some things, but not having known that a lot of the world sees things very differently in their heads, that was throwing me for a bit of a loop.

I do a lot of thinking, these days, about the ways in which I was different, as a kid, from most of the other kids around me. Not in a bad way really, just like "Oh...this is why that was the way it was." Like when I was ten or eleven our teacher would spend about an hour each day reading aloud to us (usually classic YA novels; I think we did a couple of Wizard of Oz books and maybe some Boxcar Children?) and I always needed something else to be doing because I found it so understimulating. Usually I was allowed to do a handcraft of some kind because otherwise I Caused Problems. I mean they were really imaginative problems, like inventing silent games to play that the teacher couldn't see while reading, but they were still Problems. Letting me make friendship bracelets while I listened was so much easier on everyone.

At the time I thought it was impatience because I could read so much faster than anyone reading aloud would be able to; I understood that other kids sometimes struggled with reading so I knew the purpose of the Reading Aloud Hour was to get kids who weren't interested in reading a bit of literary culture. But looking back, my impatience was almost definitely that all my friends were sitting there getting a little movie in their heads, and I was just there like "I am bored by the slow words and ADHD makes the boredom intolerable, fight me."

#sam has adhd #an aphantasia fantasia

[sophiebernadotte]

One of my goals for 2024 is to get more people involved in Fandom. I love the communities here on Tumblr & there are so many great & clever people on here who carry so much knowledge. However, that knowledge can & should be shared - at least in my opinion - & an easy way to do that is to get involved on Fandom & their wikis.

Now, I promise, it's not intimidating - if you can create & edit a Tumblr post, you can edit articles & pages on a wiki. Here, you can find an easy step-by-step guide on how to get started with contributing, but you can also message me & maybe I can help guide you through any question marks.

For this first post, I want to highlight some wikis dedicated to children's literature that need some help & love from their fans:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - the pages linked here need to be expanded, so if you know something, don't be shy :)

Amelia's Notebooks - the pages linked here need to be expanded

The Blackwell Pages - all pages need to be expanded on

Bone - the pages linked here need to be expanded

Boxcar Children - links need to be added to these pages

Children of the Lamp - the pages linked here need to be expanded

Charlie Bone/The Children of the Red King - all pages need to be expanded on

The Chrestomanci Series - links need to be added to these pages

Emily of New Moon - the pages linked here need to be expanded

Endling - links need to be added to these pages

----

The Green Ember - the pages linked here need to be expanded

Howl's Moving Castle - all pages need to be expanded on

Jumanji - links need to be added to these pages

Little House on the Prairie - add links from IMDb, TV.com & TV Guide to each episode's page, plus the complete cast & crew for each episode

The Magic Thief - all pages need to be expanded on

The Magic Tree House - links need to be added to these pages

The Magisterium - the pages linked here need to be expanded

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - the pages linked here need to be expanded

Night Speakers - the pages linked here need to be expanded

Ruby Redfort - the pages linked here need to be expanded

----

The School for Good and Evil - links need to be added to these pages

Septimus Heap - the pages linked here need to be expanded

The Sisters 8 - all pages need to be expanded on

The Three Investigators - links need to be added to these pages

Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn - all pages need to be expanded on

The Underland Cyclopedia - the pages linked here need to be expanded

The Unwanteds Series - links need to be added to these pages

Warhorse - all pages need to be expanded on

Wonder - pages for the cast and crew of the Wonder film need to be added

Zathura - all pages need to be expanded on

Now, this is quite an extensive list, but if your favourite book or series isn't mentioned here, I suggest checking out the literature page, the book club or go to this page & simply search for your favourite book/series/author.

To repeat what I said at the beginning of this post, there is a step-by-step guide on how to start contributing, but don't be shy to message me if you have any questions :)

#saga's fandom project #literature #childrens books #ya books #alice in wonderland #blackwell series #the boxcar children #charlie bone #chrestomanci #emily of new moon #endling #the green ember #howls moving castle #jumanji #little house on the prairie #the magic thief #the magic treehouse #magisterium #miss peregrines home for peculiar children #ruby redfort #the school for good and evil #septimus heap #three investigators #tom sawyer #huckleberry finn #underland chronicles #the unwanteds #war horse #zathura

[snowbellewells]

MY CSSNS23 MC: "Carolina Moon" {prologue}

**Thank you SO MUCH to my event artist @eastwesthomeisbest for the absolutely amazing cover art she created (in much less time than I should have afforded her). I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it, and am thrilled to be able to put it with each update of my story. Also, I'm so grateful to have @xarandomdreamx as my beta for this fic as well, though I did not give her this prologue, so any mistakes here are absolutely and unfortunately mine! And thank you too to the @cssns as a whole for once again providing such a great event of which to be a part!!***

Here is my second submission to the @cssns23 event!! This one is a modern au of the Nora Roberts novel and subsequent tv movie Carolina Moon. The main female character in the movie is psychic/clairvoyant (I’ll admit, I’m not too sure about the distinction between the two) and I thought her visions and what she goes through in connection to them made a nice real-world parallel to Emma’s magic. (There’s also a scene in here where the male lead says something that I could so perfectly see Killian saying to Emma… I just cannot wait to get to that point!)

Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this romantic thriller with some murder mystery elements.  There are some instances of abuse and violence in here though - which I feel like I should mention, since that’s a little darker than my typical style. Most of them are in flashbacks of Emma’s past, or in visions she has of victims, more than in the actual present day plot; still I wanted to make people aware before we got too far.

Please enjoy! (I’d love to hear what you think.)

Prologue

July 1993

The water at their hideaway always feels so good. She could sink into it until her head slips below the surface and never, ever want to come up for air. It’s cooler, more luxurious than even the rich, satiny sheets on the trundle bed those rare nights when she gets to sleep over at Rose’s. Emma Swan’s gangly, 13-year-old limbs slice through the murky water as if the constant humidity and sultry air of Storybrooke, South Carolina can’t penetrate here in their little forest haven. She knows, of course, logically, that the real world isn’t all that far away. The shaded pond she and Rose discovered two summers ago is just a short trek into the woods at the furthest edge of Rose’s family’s boundless acreage. Still, it feels removed enough to bring Emma a sense of peace and contentment she gains nowhere else.

Looking over her shoulder to the large, smooth boulder jutting out of the pond at the bank where they left their flip flops and cutoff denim shorts, she can see her best friend stretched out with her new book where they had spread their towels on the rock’s surface, just in the wash of warming sunlight that streams through the tree branches overhead. Rose’s flawlessly creamy pale skin is prone to burning, but at the moment her friend seems willing to take the risk for the benefit of lazing cozily to read as she dries in the sun after taking a quick dip. Shaking her head, Emma plunges back under, happy to stay in the chilly water a bit longer herself. She knew as soon as they’d met outside Rose’s house that afternoon, and she had seen that Rose held a new Boxcar Children book in her hand, that her friend would not be able to resist burrowing into those pages for long.

It’s funny, Emma supposes, but that’s exactly what bonded she and Rose Jones in the first place. They might seem different on the surface, but in the end, neither of them quite fit with everyone else, and so they gravitate to each other, and have ever since Emma first arrived in Storybrooke as an eight-year-old orphan. They are each willing to give the other at least one person who takes them as they are and with whom they won’t have to pretend. Emma doesn’t care if Rose wants to read quietly and tell her about the stories she’s already finished instead of picking out dresses for the next cotillion class or preening in front of the mirror, practicing batting her eyelashes to charm boys or bragging to Emma about which ones she intends to kiss. Her sister Ruby, who shares the same thickly shining, burnished mahogany hair and pretty pink lips but little of her fraternal twin’s calming, gentle personality, does enough of that for the both of them. Their mother, a former debutante and southern belle, delights in the one daughter’s traditional coquettishness, and despairs of the other’s shyness. Cora Jones is a true throwback to another time who wants nothing more than to see both her daughters marry well and retain their places atop the social ladder. Emma could not care any less about such details; she is already clinging to the very bottom rung of such a social structure - if she and the so-called guardians with whom she lives are on the ladder at all. In turn, Rose doesn’t mock Emma for her thick, dark-framed glasses or secondhand clothes, nor does she cringe away from the “fits” that sometimes take hold of her friend, making strange, disturbing scenes Emma can’t understand flash across her mind with such intensity they sometimes knock her off her feet. Emma knows Rose���s mother and sister find her an unsuitable and embarrassing companion for Rose, but she is eternally grateful her friend seems able to see the best in anyone - even a lost girl nobody else wants - and so blithely acts as though she has no idea about the rest of her family’s opinions.

Cringing even while still submerged in the pond’s depths and practically invisible, Emma tries not to think of her unwanted visions. Her strict, hypocritical, and more than a bit deranged, foster father claims she’s possessed - and more than once has taken her episodes out of her hide. The man swears he’s beating the devil out of her and putting the fear of God in Satan’s place when he takes the thick leather strap to her shoulders, back and legs until she bleeds, but Emma has already lived long enough in a cruel and unfair world to know that his violence and “discipline” have less to do with parenting and concern for her soul, and more to show for his own twisted mind and overindulgence in the bottle. She wants to hide her spells from him, but when they come on her so abruptly and with such power, they are impossible to miss. She can’t fathom how a person like him was deemed fit to take in and care for a child, but mistreatment and injustice seem to be her lot in life thus far, and so she simply grits her teeth and survives.

It’s different though when the spells happen around Rose; the slight brunette merely rests a cool, steadying hand on Emma’s forehead or her arm until they pass, then she helps Emma stand until she feels in control again, listens as she attempts to make sense of whatever she’s seen, and most importantly… believes her. If only she could stay in the huge house Rose’s family calls home. She’d cook, clean, do chores, even stay in the servant’s quarters; Emma isn’t picky. It would still be a far sight safer than the situation she has in the rundown shack with the monster who’d been deemed her caretaker. Barring that, she would honestly rather live wild in these woods and survive off the land. She knew which plants and berries were safe to eat; Graham, her first friend, once a fellow orphan now happily adopted, had shown her ages ago, as well as taught her how to fish. It wouldn’t be easy, but she’d get by, and at least no one would lay a hand on her again.

This afternoon, those eerie images she sometimes has seem far away as she splashes up out of the water, trying to arc playfully like a mermaid as she breaks the surface. Drawing in a big gulp of air after staying underwater so long, Emma startles at the sound of teasing laughter, and whirls to see three figures on the bank where she and Rose left their shoes and shorts. 

“Well, look here,” calls out a taunting voice that never fails to set Emma’s nerves on edge. “It’s the baby beached librarian and her drowned rat friend!” None other than Emma’s nemesis, Killian Jones, crows from his vantage point on dry land.

Rose sits up ramrod straight, book still in hand and annoyed scowl on her face at Killian and his friends’ interruption to the quiet peace of their sanctuary. She isn’t genuinely angry, though; for all that she and her sister share little in common, she and her two-years-older brother are affectionately close. “Shut up, Killy!” she shoots back, throwing in the childhood nickname they all know he hates. “Who asked you to come looking anyway?”

The boy standing next to Killian speaks up next, making Emma scowl just as playfully as Rose had moments before. Graham Hunter might as well be her big brother; he’s the closest thing she’s had to family since her parents were lost in a car crash and she was thrown into the foster care system. Be that as it may, he and Killian Jones are thick as thieves, and he’ll give her a hard time for all he’s worth while in the presence of his buddy. “We just wanted to swim,” he calls across the water to the two girls, smirking at Emma, who now stands in the water with one hip jutting out and hands planted on her waist. “How were we supposed to know you two were infesting it?”

“Ha!” Emma jeers back, the affront plain in her voice; despite the fact that the entire routine is like a practiced girls-versus-boys exchange they’ve all engaged in countless times. There isn’t much else to do for entertainment in their sleepy little one-horse town. “You idiots know this is Rose’s and my hideaway, fair and square!”

“Well, Rose’s anyway,” a third voice cuts in snidely.

The cruel jab reminds Emma once more that to most folks she is just a charity case, quite possibly only included in anything at all because of her friend’s kind heart, and at the intentional slight, cuts her gaze to the third member of the boys’ little crew, skulking a step back in the shadows behind where Killian and Graham stand, as he always does. Her green eyes narrow to slits in genuine dislike and suspicion. Where before her animosity was largely for show, when they land on Walsh Ozman, it is all too real.

She has never understood why the other two boys - jokers and annoyances though they may be, but good guys when it comes right down to it - hang out with Walsh at all.  Where Graham and Killian are much more cut from the same cloth - athletic, outgoing, well-liked and pleasant - Walsh is a splindy, sniveling character, complaining and whining whatever their little trio gets up to. He lives not far from Emma’s foster father’s cabin with his single mother - a bushy-haired redhead who seems strangely overprotective and attached to her only child. Most people give the property a wide berth, except when high schoolers teepee it the whole month of October, and the general town consensus is that Zelena Ozman might be a witch and to steer clear. Still, beyond all of that, Emma might have been able to look past the boy’s circumstances and see him for himself - she of all people knew the gift it was not to be judged by where a person came from - if Walsh hadn’t simply given her “the willies”. Even standing too close to him made the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end - and not in the way that nearness to Killian sometimes did; an altogether much more pleasant tingle, even if she was just as unable to explain one as the other.

“We could take their things,” Walsh suggests, holding up the threadbare, faded jeans Emma had left on the bank. “Make them walk back in their skivvies.” The wicked smile on his face makes Emma’s stomach turn over sickly.

Something sharp flashes in Jones’ eyes, his nostrils flaring slightly and his head giving a subtle shake of dissent that Emma can see even at the distance she stands away from him. Protectiveness, chivalry, or maybe the honor of a southern gentleman passed down to him through generations of his impressive family line; whatever it is, it sparks to life in his eyes at that moment as he quashes Walsh’s mean-spirited suggestion in no uncertain terms. “That’s my little sister you’re talking about Oz,” he growls, smacking the worn material from the smaller’s boy’s hands, even if the article of clothing isn’t Rose’s at all.

Emma feels her breath rush back into her lungs, though she continues to watch the guys warily for whatever they might do or say next. Before long, they grow bored of standing around and move on, hollering out age old taunts of “Bye, losers” and “Hey, smell ya later” to Emma’s derisive snort and Rose completely ignoring them to flip open her book again.

However, even with the intruders gone, it seems as if the perfect comfort of their retreat has been shattered by the unsettling interruption.  Soon, Emma wades to the shore and Rose clambers down from her perch, to dress once more and return to the world outside. For a moment, as she refastens her jeans around her skinny waist, Emma feels a strange prickling along the fine hairs on her arms… like they’re being watched. She jerks around, searching the surrounding trees and brush, but can’t see or hear a thing.

Rose’s small hand takes hers, snapping Emma out of the moment. “What is it?” she whispers, only true caring in her voice. “Did you sense something?”

Emma nods, but can’t give her suspicions voice. Usually her visions are clearer than that - this had just been heavy breathing and like looking at herself and Rose through another person’s eyes, outside her own body.

Rose stooped to grab the little canvas bag she’d bought along with water bottles, towels, and a second book in it. “Hey, don’t worry, okay?” she offers, hopeful and kind as always. “You’ll figure it out. Wanna meet back out here tonight? Secret Sister bonfire?” she winks mischeivously. “I have to get to dinner now. You know how Mama hates it if I’m not washed up and properly attired for the evening meal - or a second late. But we can talk some more then, maybe you’ll remember more and it will be clearer.”

Emma nods gamely. “The stars’ll be beautiful by midnight,” she suggests. “And we’ll definitely have the place all to ourselves.”

“Since we were so rudely interrupted,” Rose chimes in with a giggle and roll of her eyes.

“Shake on it, pinkie swear,” they say together in practiced unison, executing a complex handshake that ends with their pinkies hooked together and wide, matching grins on both their faces.

“Thanks Rose,” Emma whispers sincerely, trying to speak around the lump in her throat as if it’s no big deal. “I’ll be out here as soon as I can sneak away.”

Rose, for her part, wraps her taller, golden-haired friend into a tight, momentary hug. “Hey, we’re Secret Sisters! You can count on me.  I’ll see you then!”

They part ways at the edge of the forest; Emma heading to the rundown cabin that serves as her nightmarish version of a home, and Rose to the pristine Jones family mansion standing tall over all the surrounding land. Rose looks back over her shoulder with a smile and wave that bolsters Emma, and the memory fades back into the haze of the past…

Eighteen years later….

September 2011

The blaring of the horn as a sports car whizzed by, barely missing the nose of Emma’s beat-up yellow VW where it had begun to edge out into the country intersection, jarred her back to the present with a gasp and painful jolt to her chest. Panting for a moment as she gripped the steering wheel, Emma tried to clear her head and calm the pounding of her heart at the near-miss.

‘Get it together,’ she berated herself. It might have seemed like only yesterday as she remembered that sunny afternoon at the swimming hole, but that day had been nearly two decades ago. She was a grown woman, had made a way for herself, fighting tooth and nail for every step forward, and she answered to no one. She had learned to stand up for her rights and her needs, to control her visions and use them for good, and had even served a special consultant for the Boston PD. But, more than all of that, she had come back to this place to find peace, to lay to rest the ghosts that had followed her everywhere else she’d gone in the years between, once and for all. If she expected others to leave the past in the past, she would first have to manage to do the same.

She’d had no way to know as she and Rose parted that afternoon with promises and plans for later that it would be the last time she would ever see her friend. Emma had harbored the pain and the guilt and the unanswered questions ever since. Finally, it was time to meet the gazes of all of those who had stared at her in suspicion before she’d been packed up and moved away once more, and it was time she found answers. She wasn’t the scared, whipped, mistreated adolescent she had been at 13. What she had lived through then was not her fault, nor was what had happened to Rose that muggy July midnight. 

And if she had to return to Storybrooke, South Carolina to lay that burden down… well, it was long past time she did.

Tagging a few who might enjoy: @cssns @searchingwardrobes @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @laschatzi @whimsicallyenchantedrose @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @stahlop @jrob64 @apiratewhopines @wefoundloveunderthelight @eastwesthomeisbest @xarandomdreamx @sotangledupinit @justanother-unluckysoul @booksteaandtoomuchtv @kazoosandfannypacks @anmylica @motherkatereloyshipper @jonesfandomfanatic @elizabeethan @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @xsajx @lfh1226-linda @winterbaby89 @hollyethecurious @darkcolinodonorgasm @resident-of-storybrooke @drowned-dreamer @optomisticgirl @tiganasummertree @spartanguard @therooksshiningknight @gingerchangeling @gingerpolyglot @blackwidownat2814 @blowmiakisscolin @let-it-raines

#cs ff #cs fanart #cssns23 #carolina mooon #prologue #nora roberts au #cs modern au mc

[hobbitsetal]

what books (clean and/or Christian) would you recommend for an 8 years old girl? I have a little friend who is recovering from an accident

Ooh, fun question! I've heard good things about The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson, though I haven't read it.

All of A Kind Family by Sydney Taylor

The classics: Heidi, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, The Princess and the Goblin

I grew up on The Boxcar Children, The Hardy Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew...

The Chronicles of Narnia, obviously

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer - some mild toilet humor, first book uses the word "damn" at one point, excellent series overall

Redwall, if she's cool with medieval violence

If you can find any "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, those are super cool

What Katy Did

Mary Poppins and sequels

Winnie The Pooh

The Borrowers and sequels

Pippi Longstocking

But let me also open the floor to others: any further suggestions, homies?

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

oh man that post you just reblogged (contrasting marco gaining his family back by series end vs jake losing his) perfectly sums up why i love jake. i like to call him boring (affectionate) because like, sure in comparison to everyone else he is definitely more of a straight man character, but that is also why hes the best well suited to take on the leadership role and why he has the most to lose by the end of the war. jakes ordinariness is what makes him just so compelling as a character

Yes! It's starting to change — we've got more untalented heroes in children's SF stories now — but when I was first reading Animorphs, I'd never seen a protagonist like Jake. I'd seen a whole bunch of smart nerdy book-loving kid heroes (I Capture the Castle, Eternally Alice, Dear Mr. Henshaw, The Landry News, A Wrinkle in Time, The Dark is Rising). I'd seen kid heroes already mature beyond their years due to stuff they'd dealt with at home (Homecoming, Bridge to Terabithia, What Jamie Saw, Summer of the Swans, Maniac Magee, Boxcar Children). But Jake was my first experience with a protagonist who has no talents, no relevant past experience, no corners knocked off him, and no skills. He's just this squishy blob of a kid who sucks at basketball (#1), sucks at math (#4), gets Ds in school (#10), sleeps through class (#13), has acne (#24), and doesn't do his own laundry (#21). Doesn't get much more useless than that, bless his heart.

And to be clear, I understand why it's handy to have So You Want to Be a Wizard's protagonists be already interested in math and science before they start hopping universes. I get that Percy Jackson's experience growing up tough introduces great character beats (his rivalry with Luke) and plot fuel (his ability to fight monsters) to The Lightning Thief. I recognize that if Animorphs didn't have Marco's street smarts and Cassie's animal expertise to balance out Jake's general uselessness, then we would never have a good story.

However, I love that Jake is so ordinary and so squishy-spoiled and so untalented when the series starts. We get to see his talents come out (insta-delegating in a crisis the first time they're chased by hork-bajir in #1) and also see him develop new skills (learning to take on the others' roles in #13, #16, #21, #30) but it does take the crisis of the war for him to start to learn. And we get to see him build up skill over time, rather than having him start with any useful talents.

#animorphs #jake berenson #animorphs meta #tiger mommy #we stan one (1) dumb jock playing at General Patton

[warrior-of-waistbands]

time for the Important Generationswap Questions (lighthearted): we all know ben’s interest in the in-universe captain underpants series, but what are the other kids’ picks if you let them loose in a book fair/let them pick things from a book order? a book? a kit? a novelty eraser?

- If I may be allowed to project onto Jasper for a bit: Jasper's the "reading nerd" kid. Anything that catches his interest, he takes it, even the stuff above his grade level that he doesn't fully understand but wants to read anyway just because he wants to. Children's lit classics, long fantasy adventure series, Goosebumps-esque kid horror, those really cool National Geographic Weird But True books.... he's not picky. He just *clenches fist* really loves books.

- Toilette and Lavatore have a lot of shared interests which means they both mainly go for those kids' science kits and junior encyclopedias. These bad boys, they look really cool but have like a 50-50 chance of actually working as intended:

They like to work on them together :)

- In terms of kid lit, Toilette likes the more action-packed stuff while Lavatore ironically prefers the more grounded, sillier series (Barbara Park-style stuff). Toilette's fond of the Dog Man series in particular.

- Edith also has a fondness for junior encyclopedias and educational content; she's very quiet about her curiosity but she's genuinely fascinated by the planet and likes learning as much about it as she can. Fiction-wise she also tends to lean more historical fiction—I'm mostly thinking something similar to the early American Girl books because I'm biased, lol.

- Actually, this thought just came to me: Edith reads the original Boxcar Children and loves it, immediately she wants to go live in a boxcar herself. Then she finds out there's a whole series of Boxcar Children books, so she excitedly goes to check them out and...... it's an adventure-of-the-week mystery series? What? Whose decision was this??

- In any case all of them are walking out of there with a funky shaped eraser.

#asks #generation swap au #oh scholastic book orders how i miss you #i just remembered there's a character in boxcar children named Benny. this is hilarious to me.

[stellaluna33]

Am I alone in feeling like Mia wasn't a "saint" for letting a 17 year old and her 1 year old baby live in an uninsulated potting shed for free? I just feel like that wasn't the selfless gesture it was painted as

Hmm, well... I mean, I'm sure you're not completely alone, haha. But for me, I don't know... I feel like, when dealing with a fictional TV show, some things have to be taken on faith, as part of the premise. This isn't real life, just a story, and also different people just... react to different things differently. So. In the show, it was made fairly clear that Lorelai and Rory were happy there. They have fond memories of the place. Rory is eager to show her grandmother the place she sees as her first "home," and doesn't anticipate Emily's negative reaction to it. They made it cozy and homey. And, I mean, yeah, an uninsulated potting shed is not an ideal living situation in real life, especially for a very young child, but... humans throughout most of history have lived in largely uninsulated structures. As the characters were presented on the show (which is really all that they ARE, given that they're fictional constructs), Mia was a kind woman, so I can't see her letting them freeze to death or whatever. I'm sure she would have made arrangements for their safety if needed. The Inn, with plenty of heat and a fully-staffed kitchen, was just a few meters away if they ever needed to have "sleepovers" there on especially cold nights. I don't think there's a "hidden dark side" to Mia, who, as a fictional character, does not exist outside of what was written for her.

Should Mia have offered to let them live with her, in her actual home? I don't know. Maybe she didn't have room. Or maybe... Lorelai wouldn't have accepted that. She ran away because she wanted to make her own decisions for herself and for her daughter. Having her own "place" was important to her. Should Mia have paid for an additional actual apartment for them? I don't know if she would have been able to afford to pay rent for a second apartment in addition to her own housing expenses for ten years. There's no indication that Mia was a wealthy woman, and that's a substantial expense for most people. Lorelai and Rory living anywhere else would require them to pay rent. That's just how the world works, unfortunately. So, Mia let them live in a building that was already on her property, made it as comfortable as possible, and yeah, let them stay there for free. I don't know, I think that's still pretty nice. Lorelai not having to pay rent (which she would have had to do anywhere else) for ten years is the thing that allowed her to save enough money to BUY A HOUSE as a single mother in her twenties. I'm pretty sure Lorelai and Rory would have still been stuck in a crappy apartment otherwise (maybe upgrade to a slightly nicer apartment? But still an apartment nonetheless).

Or maybe I just read too many Boxcar Children books as a child. 😆

#Gilmore Girls

[popculturelib]

Interesting Find of the Week: Hobo Camp Fire Tales (1911) and Mother Delcassee of the Hobos: And Other Stories (1918) by A-No. 1

Hobos are a kind of migrant worker who travel around the country looking for work. They particularly make use of freight trains to move between cities and towns, an act known as "trainhopping" or "freighthopping." The peak hobo years in the United States were between the American Civil War and World War II, when trains were easier to board and itinerant labor more in demand.

Leon Ray Livingston (1872-1944), also known by his moniker "A-No. 1," was a hobo author who wrote around a dozen books about hobos and hobo life. As "America's Most Celebrated Tramp" -- as he called himself in the title of his first book -- A-No. 1 created an important record, albeit an embellished one, of a people and culture that was often excluded from written histories.

Here, we show the covers of the 2nd and 9th books in A-No. 1's writings on hobos, as well as the back cover and back endpaper of book 9. Note how the endpaper claims that hobo life is a "horrible existence;" towards the end of his life, A-No. 1 spoke against going on "the Road" after his negative experiences. This is perhaps why the back of Mother Delcassee features William Tyler Page's "The American Creed." Transcripts are below the read more.

If you're interested in reading more about hobos and hobo life, check out these other books in our collection:

Around the Jungle Fire I: A Collection of Original Hobo Poetry (1994) by Oats

Beggars of Life (1924) by Jim Tully

Boxcar Bertha: An Autobiography (1988) as told to Ben L. Reitman

Hard Travellin': The Hobo and His History (1967) by Kenneth Allsop

The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless Man: A Study Prepared for the Chicago Council of Social Agencies (1961) by Nels Anderson

Tales of an American Hobo (1989) by Charles Elmer Fox

The Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.  Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use. Visit our website at https://www.bgsu.edu/library/pcl.html.

Transcript to the back page of Mother Delcassee:

The American Creed "I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign nation of many sovereign states; a perfect union, one and inseparable, established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag and to defend it against all enemies." -- William Tyler Page

Transcript of the endpaper of Mother Delcassee:

A List of the Books On Tramp Life Written by ->A-No 1<- The Tramp Author The First Book Life and Adventures of A-No. 1 The Second Book Hobo-Camp-Fire-Tales The Third Book The Curse of Tramp Life The Fourth Book The Trail of the Tramp The Fifth Book The Adventures of a Female Tramp The Sixth Book The Ways of the Hobo The Seventh Book The Snare of the Road The Eighth Book From Coast to Coast with Jack London The Ninth Book Mother Delcassee of the Hoboes Each title deals with a different phase of the horrible existence that is nowadays voluntarily led by more than three hundred thousand chronic hoboes, so that everybody, especially restless youths will find the contents of each volume an everlasting warning against the road. The Author has carefully avoided the least mention of anything that would be unfit reading for ladies or children. A complete set of these moral and entertaining Books should be in every home.

#bgsu #interesting find of the week #hobo #hobo life #hobo camp fire tales #mother delcassee #a-no. 1 #leon ray livingston

[bread--quest]

yo im realizing i don't actually know- what even ends up happening through out the boxcar children series? (abandoned post book one)

trying to clear out my inbox and good gourd. i abandoned YOU like the boxcar children. thats nothing. i dont even remember the context of this. anyway. so after they get out of the boxcar and get adopted the series takes a really wild plot twist and they become amateur detectives. they go around solving mysteries and shit. there's like over 100 of them now and if you picked up a random one you would have no idea what the boxcar had to do with absolutely anything. they don't even give a recap of everyone's character trait and backstory at the beginning like babysitters' club. also they keep updating it to take place in the time the books are published so the kids are aging weirdly and its a whole thing. tbh it kind of bothers me for no real reason. i read a book where they solved a mystery via geocaching

#chattin #buck my friend buck #having answered this contextless ask from last year with a bizarre ramble #i will now go to bed and leave everything else in my inbox for tomorrow #✌️

[storybook-souls]

"Book Worm" asks: 43 & 44?

thanks patch :D

43. Title of a book you own that's in the worst physical condition you have. Explain what happened to it. Post a picture if you want.

aslkdf i think it's this one, Freddy Plays Football by Walter R. Brooks. the Freddy books are a series about talking animals from like the 1920s-1950s that i was obsessed with as a kid mostly bc my library happened to have a ton of them. i don't own very many but one is this paperback that must have gotten SOAKED at some point--I don't remember how, but the entire thing is waterlogged. but it's dry now! and readable! and these books are a little hard to find and i'm sentimental about it so i'm not getting rid of it

44. The book(s) whose stories have become part of your very makeup.

man there's so many. the aforementioned Freddy series. Warrior Cats. The Boxcar Children, especially the first three books. Lord of the Rings and Narnia are both deeply in there. when i re-read Percy Jackson recently i was startled by how many times i was like "oh so THAT'S where i first encountered this trope." The Hunger Games series. The Mysterious Benedict Society. Ella Enchanted. A Little Princess. the Rowan Hood series. The Enchanted Forest Chronicles. The Penderwicks. From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler. The Westing Game. a lot of Eva Ibbotson's books, but especially The Island of the Aunts and The Star of Kazan. a lot of Andrew Clements' books, but especially No Talking and The School Story. i could keep going and i'm also sure there's some important ones i'm forgetting bc they're not on my shelves.

send me book asks to answer!!

#the thing is that not having a ton of time to read for fun in late high school and in college and then being out of the habit for a couple #years after college makes it feel weird to include anything i read SINCE then in question 44 #like. i JUST read those #but i think the raven cycle and the locked tomb maybe do both deserve to be in that category #it's also interesting that much of the way i define that category is like 'what influenced my current tastes in fiction #and my writing style' #mostly just bc i think that's much easier to define and come up with than 'your very makeup'. man i dunno all those books i listed and #also none of them #ask game

[characterswithcolorsnamesfight]

Propaganda for Prelim Poll 23

(Vote here)

Ruby Moon (Cardcaptor Sakura) :

No propaganda yet

Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way ( My Immortal) :

"her name is a color and she is amazing "

Gold Ship (Uma Musume Pretty Derby) :

No propaganda yet

Sergent Wade Grey (The Rookie) :

"He is a great boss! He is strict, but fair and he cares for the ones under his command, he appreciates and values them. He knows how hard they are working everyday."

Red Savarin (Solatorobo) :

No propaganda yet

Violet Alden (The Boxcar Children series) :

"I liked that she got to solve mysteries and be interested in art "

Indigo (Gloomverse) :

"He definitely fits the colour-name requirement, and also is literally different shades of indigo. He’s also kind of a jerk, but in a likeable way? It’s…hard to explain, but he’s an interesting character."

Yellow Guy (Don't Hug Me I'm Scared) :

No propaganda yet

The White Rabbit (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) :

"Tbh i read about someone submitting the pink panther and i thought how i could possibly match that. Anyways gotta go its late its late i shall be too lateee"

#propaganda #not polls #spoilers #general prelim #prelim 23