#an essay by me

[epicthemusicalstuff]

Telemachus and Percy both love their moms so much-

They would have a lot to talk about (mostly their moms)

#epic the musical #Percy jackson #sally jackson #penelope #they just love their moms #An essay by me

[this-isajokerjoke]

hogwarts houses

i feel like in the fandom, there’s a lot of discord about the houses. slytherin is either the worst or better than everyone, and same goes with gryffindor. hufflepuff is a bunch of morons with hardly any magic, who don’t deserve the time of day, who deserve to be ridiculed. ravenclaws are too smart, too nerdy, and are hardly talked about at all.

that’s dumb. that’s immature. not everything is black and white, and it takes a lot away from the story when it’s viewed in that way. 

slytherin is the house of the cunning, the ambitious, where “you’ll make your real friends” (the sorting hats song). none of those things are bad. obviously, they can lead to being immoral or manipulative. i see a lot of fan fictions that play into that, maybe a bit too much, where the bullying is written off as “getting revenge” and spinning a narrative where slytherins are the oppressed, so much more so than muggleborns. a lot of these have the dangerous idea that blood purists are right about muggles and muggleborns, but that’s a separate argument. BUT, slytherins aren’t inherently evil; no one is. being in slytherin doesn’t make them evil. they’re not some sort of overpowered group, they’re all children. maybe they’re harder to read, but i highly doubt most of them can just push away emotions. i don’t think all of them are so cynical. i think they’re careful, they use what’s given to them, maybe they want to learn because knowledge is power. maybe they form connections, but i don’t think it’s them not having any real friends. i think the ambition they have isn’t always just used for their gain, but for the greater good too. they realize that losing a battle doesn’t mean losing the war, that sometimes, you have to surrender for survival.

gryffindor is the house of the “brave at heart” (the sorting hats song), chivalrous, the daring and people with a lot of nerve. that can lead to being brash, bullheaded, not knowing when to stop. but it’s also important to be able to face your fears. i don’t think they’re all dumb, or brash, or rude. i think they’re willing to stand up for people, even if they don’t like them. they might put others first. they aren’t fearless, but they can understand that overcoming fear is very powerful. sometimes, they can’t get over their fears. sometimes, their fears are hard to face, and maybe they don’t always face them. that is not shameful. i think that it’s a work in progress, and that’s brave too. maybe they’re rude sometimes, maybe they’re more of a small picture person. they aren’t exactly always loyal, but they stand up for what they personally believe in, whether it’s actually right or not. they want to protect not only the people they care about, but innocent people as well. 

hufflepuff is the house of the “just and loyal” (the sorting hats song), the patient and the “unafraid of toil” (the sorting hats song). they’re described as hard-working. they believe in fairness, even if it hurts them. they aren’t exactly rule followers, but they have strong moral codes. i don’t think that makes them weak. i don’t think they’re leftovers, or stupid. loyalty can be dangerous, and it might cause them to not question the person they’re loyal to, or to speak up against something that rubs them the wrong way. but i also think they’re fierce protectors of the people they’re loyal to. they have good work ethics, they understand why rules might be put in place. they’re kids, so they’re not going to be without their own biases and prejudices, but they’re going to try to be fair. they might not stand in front of someone they’re loyal to, or pull strings from the sidelines, but they sure as hell will be a shoulder to cry on. 

ravenclaw is the house of the wise, of the people who love to learn, the witty, “those with a ready mind” (the sorting hats song). this could lead to being snobbish, or believing they’re always right. however, i don’t think they always have their nose in a book. learning can be hands on, and i think they probably run a lot of experiments, whether social or scientific, or some sort of magical experiment. i think they’re less likely to buy into something that erases knowledge, not because knowledge is power, but because knowledge is valuable. i don’t think they’re always on top of their studies, i think they get sidetracked with their own interests. i think they stay up too late infodumping about one of their passions. i think some might be good at checking sources, and others not believing that something doesn’t have a bit of truth. they have friends, people who they care about and will stand by, but i think they also need to be able to talk about the things that keep them going, whether it be algebra or art, muggle or magical, addition or rocket science. they can be sarcastic, they have a weird amount of knowledge about obscure subjects. some of it is completely useless, like maybe they’re learning a dead language for no reason other than why not? maybe they’re mature for their age. maybe they’re hopeless at school, but have high emotional intelligence, or street smarts. learning and knowledge isn’t just limited to school or things you can learn through a book. sometimes knowledge is gained through experience, and i don’t think ravenclaws discredit that.

i think with well rounded characters, the world of harry potter is more interesting. i think motivations of each character is important. i think it would be dumb to ignore it, from a story telling perspective. i’m not sure how much this ramble made sense, but i would love to see a fic where these houses lived up to what they could be, where the people in those houses were diverse, who had flaws and tried their best to be the best person they could be, whether they go about it in the right way or not. it makes characters interesting and engaging, relatable, it makes them feel real. i’m so sick of hearing the same takes. give me people who contradict a part of what their house stands for, give me people who take their values too seriously and accidentally make it one of their faults. give me people who have traits of other houses too, because we are all spectrums. 

#ravenclaw #hufflepuff #slytherin #gryffindor #harry potter #hogwarts houses #hogwarts #an essay by me #storytelling #well rounded characters #y’all are dumb #harry potter fandom #harry potter fanfiction #slytherclaw #slytherdor #slytherpuff #gryffinpuff #gryffinclaw #gryfflerin #huffleclaw #huffledor #hufflerin #ravenpuff #ravendor #ravenin #sorting hat #sorting song #sorting hats song

[gifti3]

I still think obey me would have had an easier time writing better characters if they had actual routes (includes harem route) and better story segment to rhythm game ratios

#An essay by me #I want the story to rhythm game ratio to be closer to twisted wonderland so i can actually enjoy the story! #i like the rhythm aspect #its way more fun than in the original game #and the music is catchy! but every 2 minutes to progress is kinda urghhh #and yes we can have 1 on 1 routes and harem routes in the same game! #it doesnt have to be one or the other #now you've calmed down the people who are either sick of mammon and lucifer or love satan and asmo lol #people who like the side characters can get their juice too instead of crawling under the couch for crumbs #and people who like romancing everyone at once are still happy #AND ALL the characters will become more well rounded because everyones not limited to their 1-10 seconds of screentime #nb has been doing a good job with giving the characters depth but im scared what might happen in the future #is the game just gonna go on forever with no planned ending? #im sure this is a topic people are tired of but its my blog okay! #i pretty much treat this as a public journal #and i love latching onto stuff i think has potential but never fully reaches it #what im saying is be more like mystic messenger lol #obey me #obey me nb

[solrin]

If I see too many more of those posts about Yuuma's stylistic differences I'm going to lose my mind (up in here, up in here)

#touhou #yuuma toutetsu #the problem with visual media: changing a character's appearance doesn't have to mean anything #an essay by me #it's like reading comprehension but for pictures #visual comprehension #what did the author mean by not having the exact same artist draw the same character in the exact same way for all of their appearances? #nothing next question

[privateerstudies]

.

#Do I wanna be an English teacher or am I just mad at my English teacher #An essay by me

[bellamysgriffin]

rory re-embracing dean as a love interest in the second half of s4 is a definite response to the trauma of the instability in her relationship with jess

#dana rants #an essay by me

[cadaverkeys]

You guys rlly don't realise how much knowledge is still not committed to the internet. I find books all the time with stuff that is impossible to find through a search engine- most people do not put their magnum opus research online for free and the more niche a skill is the less likely you are to have people who will leak those books online. (Nevermind all the books written prior to the internet that have knowledge that is not considered "relevant" enough to digitise).

Whenever people say that we r growing up with all the world's knowledge at our fingertips...it's not necessarily true. Is the amount of knowledge online potentially infinite? Yes. Is it all knowledge? No. You will be surprised at the niche things you can discover at a local archive or library.

#rambles #if you are a person who is into delicate skills #like lacemaking or printing or sewing #you will know fair well just how non expansive the knowledge online is in comparison to written guides from like the 50s #there was a time where at least one person in the household had to know a constructive skill #but in the modern day there is just less ans less demands for comprehensive guides #library propaganda #im stuck doing an essay rn but bc i have covid i cant go to the library and its totally fucked me #i want to source a lot of the stuff i read irl but i just cant go and get it and theres no online ver

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

#November 5th #november 5 2020 #the fifth of november #just a random ramble #November 5th 2020 is such an important day to me #it really is a holiday #but it does confuse me when I see people analyzing it primarily as a supernatural thing #instead of a ‘hysteria over an election reaches a breaking point when inane zero stakes fandom news comes out and we all latch onto it’thing #but yeah!! #this is my personal essay out of love for the holiday

[spn2006]

the fact that eric kripke isn't even christian really adds something to the way christianity is depicted on supernatural. because its really not about being christian at all, but about living in america, a country dominated by christianity, and having to decide for yourself how to handle that. faith is huge in supernatural, and the mythology of the show is very bible-centric, but notably, christ is never there. even sam, who starts out revering the angels, who once said he prays every night, doesn't actually call himself a christian or imply that he believes in jesus--the show is steeped in christianity and biblical lore and yet neither sam nor dean are christians. in fact, over and over again the church itself is depicted as a haunted house that sam and dean will only ever enter as strangers, as outsiders. priests, preachers, faith healers, chapels, crypts, etc. are all just iconography that create an intense sense of unease that sam and dean respond to instantly. as a jew, its very relatable. an essential part of living in america when you're not christian is that exact sense of unease, of knowing that the culture of your country has ensured that you'll get knocked over by christianity no matter where you go, that you'll see hundreds of people truly believing they're good people while doing awful things in the name of their god, and you have no choice but to confront that. kripke gets it

#i could actually write an essay about this #kripke is jewish and so is sera gamble #and when i rly think about it i think the show is very jewish #in that its a rejection of the christian interpretation of god and free will #its all about questioning what's put in front of you and i think that's a big part being jewish to me #anyway! #rambles #spn #supernatural #spn analysis #spn meta #faith #christianity #theology #kripke era #eric kripke #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #zachariah spn #uriel spn #anna milton #american gothic #fav #🔪

[prideprejudce]

youtube drama is very downplayed when it comes to its impact on tumblr (discussion of it usually ends as rapidly as it begins) so the fact that hbomberguy has been the top trending tag for several days now shows how much of an impact his video essay has made on the writing and video community as a whole. his video has spread so much awareness over the rampant plagiarism issue that has been festering under people’s radar for years now while dozens of youtube “creators” make six figure salaries off other peoples words and research. he effectively took off so many people’s rose tinted glasses and made us all blatantly aware of what an absolute shitshow this problem is now in modern media and how manipulated content has become

#hbomberguy #james somerton #internet historian #iilluminaughtii #YouTube #plagiarism #because of that video ive been going back to my old favorite essays with new eyes #and let me tell you……it’s uncomfortably disturbing

[randomgooberness]

Whole-heartedly BEGGING writers to unlearn everything schools taught you about how long a paragraph is. If theres a new subject, INCLUDING ACTIONS, theres a new paragraph. A paragraph can be a single word too btw stop making things unreadable

EDIT: hey if youre here at the source of this post please read my webcomic, @killcount ! I post twice a week and I’ve been working on it for almost 5 years. Please check it out- as I want it to be my lifes work and I want to get away from my awful job and do my real passion for a living. Thank you

#CHECK OG POST #writing #shut up goober #the amount of times where ive rped or beta read and got hit with the worst block of text #just like the people say hahahah size isnt everything!!! stop trying to drown me #THIS ISNT FOR ESSAYS THIS IS FOR FICTION WRITERS JSYK #PR/SHIPPERS DNI

[ashleyloob]

this can't just be me but do you ever hear a YouTubers voice and immediately click off because you just can't stand how they sound and don't know why. even if the content itself is fine

#theres so many good video essays i absolutely can not watch bc their voice just drives me insane #idk why im like this omg #i think if any voice sounds 'fake' it makes me feel super unsettled #i am begging YouTubers to pls use their normal talking voice 😭

[dekariosclan]

#A short photo essay on why we’ve all lost our minds for this man part 2 #this one dedicated to all the tags that say ‘I love Gale but he wouldn’t find me interesting’ etc #(Spoiler alert: yes he would) #baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #gale x tav #gale x reader

[egophiliac]

I've had a beast of a cold for the last few days, but I wanted to get this out before the new year! while I've sort of made my peace with my first take on Lilia's UM poster, I really wanted to do a version with the new context that chapter 6 gave us. because. c'mon.

(don't worry, Lilia can carry ALL HIS KIDS AT ONCE)

#art #twisted wonderland #unique magic posters #twisted wonderland spoilers #twisted wonderland episode 7 part 6 spoilers #twisted wonderland book 7 spoilers #twisted wonderland book 7 part 6 spoilers #the dragon cradle does make me laugh #no look i understand it's a ~visual metaphor~ for malleus' isolation #(and also lets lilia run up a bunch of steps all dramatically later) #but the image of this enormous ten-story cradle with the teeny tiny little egg in the middle of it is pretty hilarious #the draconias are SO extra about everything #now if you'll excuse me i have to go fall over for what remains of the year #happy 2024! #(i apologize to the poor person who asked a cute question about meleanor and got a giant cold medicine-induced essay in response :') #(i have been incapable of coherent thought for...a while now)

[comradekatara]

the siblings ever

#id in alt text #avatar the last airbender #atla #katara #sokka #katara&sokka #art #mart #memery #i guess #(sokka is quoting a tweet) #i love them so much it’s unreal #words cannot describe how important they are. to me #so i just draw them in silly poses & write longass essays abt them #over & over & over & over & over again 👍🏼

[dearorpheus]

“But there are dark, untouched corners within all of us. Sex can be very exciting in one moment and barely tepid the next. It can feel like love but not be love. It can feel like possession and then the person walks away. You can’t possess another person. You can’t make another person not die. If nothing else, at least my vomit fetish is mine. It’s mine and it’s real.”

— Melissa Broder, So Sad Today: Personal Essays

#thoroughly enjoyed the pisces but these essays have cemented me as a melissa broder enjoyer #eroticism #my upload