#boys will see one literary allusion and lose their minds

[smashalltheguitars]

the design absolutely fucks also. like. how dare you? with the scarlet letter? hello?? dunes what are you planning

#boys will see one literary allusion and lose their minds #im boys

[iwachans-beefyarms]

i know this is kinda really detailed and specific idea for a scenario so i hope that this is okay! it turns out tsuki is only really good at english because he kept his english penpal from primary school and they talk everyday and ft and she surprises him by turning up before the shiratorizawa match!! just some fluffy platonic feels please maybe she goes out with the team for dinner afterwards too? 💕💕💖

Omg, I really love this scenario! I’ve had my fair share of penpals so I was really excited to write this (: I remember having an Italian penpal 2 years ago and interacting with her inspired me to learn Italian on my own because she would often give me amazing Italian book recommendations hehe (I might have gone a bit overboard when writing about Tsukki training for the match lmao)

BTW for those interested, the quote from the beginning is from Donna Tartt’s ‘The Secret History’! It’s one of my favourite books of all time and it’s what made me start learning Latin, highly recommend it to all of you! Also, I love writing about platonic friendships soooo much so if any of you would like to request similar things in the future, please do!

Note*** Reader will be speaking to the team in Japanese, which will be indicated by bolded words

Okay, I’ll stop talking now, enjoy!

“I had said goodbye to her once before, but it took everything I had to say goodbye to her then, again, for the last time, like poor Orpheus turning for a last backwards glance at the ghost of his only love and in the same heartbeat losing her forever: hinc iliac lacrimae, hence those tears.”

Tsukishima sighed and put the book down. Pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, he leaned back and closed his eyes. It was a bittersweet feeling he often experienced when nearing the end of a compelling novel. This particular one, especially, had had him completely enamored. He almost felt wistful when he realised he was almost done with it.

He opened the book back up and carefully highlighted the phrase “Orpheus turning for a last backward glance”, making a mental note to look up the reference. It sounded like a literary allusion to a Greek myth of some sort, but he had to check to be sure. He glanced at his phone and opened his e-mail to type a quick message to you.

“I am almost done with this book… Honestly, what a ride! I can’t even bring myself to finish it because of how attached I am. I learnt so many new phrases and literary allusions too! I’m seriously considering reading all the pieces of work the author had referenced throughout the novel haha. But, it’s gonna have to wait until after my volleyball season ends because we have finals coming up soon… Anyway, talk to you later! BTW, how did you enjoy the poetry collection I sent you?”

He signed off as he usually did, packed his things up and left for after-school volleyball practice. He couldn’t help but feel that today was a particularly lovely day. When Yamaguchi approached him and draped his arm around his shoulder, he welcomed his friend’s affectionate gesture with a genuine smile of his own.

“Wow, that’s a big smile! Did something good happen?” Yamaguchi questioned curiously. He glanced down at Tsukkishima’s hands and noticed the book he was holding.

“Ah! Y/n’s book huh? Is it any good?” He asked, excitedly grabbing it from his friend and flipping through the pages. His eager expression morphed into one of complete confusion as he squinted his eyes at the flurry of words before him. “How do you even read this? It’s so hard…” He blurted out.

“Tsk, you just don’t have enough practice, dumbass,” Tsukkishima retorted jokingly. It was true, though, what he said. His regular emails to and from you since his primary school days had greatly improved his English linguistic skills. Even more so, it had made him more knowledgeable in the art of writing and analysis. Everytime he got a comment on his essays about his exceptional way with words, he would silently thank your influence in his head. It was quite ironic that Tsukishima, someone who found it immensely difficult to forge meaningful relationships with those around him, would have shared such a close friendship with a girl living on the other side of the world, but such was life.

As the highly anticipated match against Shiratorizawa loomed closer, Tsukishima’s mind drifted from you and the book he had yet to finish. His heart, soul and entire being was devoted to his team. While he greatly appreciated the daily messages of encouragement you graced him with every morning, he simply did not have the time to respond properly. For now, all that mattered was volleyball.

He trained everyday, much like his teammates. Where once he would have scoffed at the level of fervor he demonstrated in his journey towards becoming the best player he could be, he now relished in the passion that flooded him everytime he held the ball between his hands, or when he jumped in tandem with his teammates to form a block. He would be prepared for Shiratorizawa, for Ushijima Wakatoshi, and for whatever force that dared to reckon with him.

That was what he told himself before the match, repeating it in his heart like a mantra, with the hopes that the belief would materialise in the court. And, that was exactly what his teammates and he did. They won. They actually won. Tsukishima never viewed himself as a sadistic person, but dear God, the look of defeat in the faces of his opponents sent him to a high he had never experienced before. It wasn’t that he was glad they lost; they were decently nice people. It was that they had won; a game that, by all expectations, should have been lost. He was euphoric. In that moment, amidst the chaos surrounding him and the cheers resounding through the stadium, he felt an immense wave of love rush over him. Love for his sport, his opponents, and most importantly, his team; his family outside of his family.

After the match, as the team made their way out of the locker rooms, he let himself bask in the triumph of their victory as his friends cheered boisterously. Suddenly, he caught the eyes of a very familiar face approaching him with a slight jog. His eyes widened. Impossible.

“Tsukki!” You wrapped your arms around his neck. He didn’t hesitate to engulf you in a hug of equal intensity. It was either the excitement of winning, or the shock from seeing you in front of him that made him so easily reciprocate your affection, but at that moment he didn’t care.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, incredulously, ignoring the gawking stares of his team. “My parents wanted to go to Japan for the holidays, and of course I had to come see you at your big match! You were amazing! I mean, Amazing, with a capital A!” you rambled off excitedly. Tsukishima almost let you continue your enthusiastic rant but he was interrupted by Daichi’s hesitant tap to his back. He cleared his throat and announced, “Everyone, this is Y/n, my good friend from Y/c.”

“Hello everyone! It is so wonderful to meet all of you! Tsukki has said so much about you that I feel like I know all of you already,” you addressed them, bowing slightly. Your nervous blush made Tsukki smile softly to himself. Immediately, you were attacked with questions.

“How does Tsukishima know such a pretty girl?”

“Where are you from? Are you here on holiday? How do you know Japanese?”

“Do you play volleyball?”

You did your absolute best to answer all their questions, and in the process, gave the team a brief summary of your friendship with Tsukishima. Yamaguchi, in particular, was wonderfully excited to make your acquaintance. Eventually, the boys and their managers invited you to have dinner with them. You graciously took their offer and left the stadium with them.

The evening was filled with laughter and jubilation. Everybody was still riding the high from their win, and spent dinner reminiscing moments during the match, and of course, talking about Tsukishima and his pretty friend. Stories about his childhood self, his emo-phase and, for a brief tw months, k-pop phase, were shared by Yamaguchi and yourself. Usually, Tsukishima would have been incredibly annoyed at being the object of a joke, but tonight, he settled for a half-hearted shove to Yamaguchi’s shoulder and a teasing comment. “At least I pulled it off… Not like your cosplay phase, remember?” Cue another round of hearty laughter.

As he watched you and his team bond, he sat back and gently rubbed his chest. His heart felt so full at the moment, and although he knew it wouldn’t last, he cherished the feeling and took a mental picture of the scene in front of him. He leaned towards your ear and whispered, “Thank you so much for coming, it meant a lot.” You squeeze his arm gently and replied, “That’s what friends are for, Tsukki!”

#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #platonic #tsukki #tsukishima kei #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #scenarios #fluff

[theweakestthing]

An Undone Bird

Chapter: 2/32

Pairings: Castiel/Dean Winchester

Rating: Teen

Additional Tags: Post-Episode AU: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Fix-It, Amnesia, Road Trips, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Injury Recovery, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Dean Winchester Is Trying, Canon-Typical Violence, Non-Graphic Violence, Literary References & Allusions, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence

Summary:

What now?

This might be the last chance they have, so Dean's not gonna waste it.

Read it on Ao3 here

A crackling sensation broke like static through the air around them, as though a storm was just about to break, like lightning could strike right beside them at any moment. Dean found himself sat behind the wheel of the impala outside the bunker. Moments ago, they’d been stood at the edge of a lake watching as Chuck and Jack stared each other down, and now he was a couple hundred miles away and inside a his car. At least Sam was sitting shotgun beside him.

“What happened, what the fuck just happened?” Dean asked, voice rough, as he turned to his brother.

“I don’t know,” Sam returned, hazel eyes wildly skidding over their surroundings.

“Where’s Jack?” Dean asked, looking around too, he shifted in his seat but there was nothing there. There was nothing but grass, the dirt road and the entrance to the bunker out beyond the confines of the car.

“I don’t know,” Sam replied with growing distress, his hair fell over his face as he whipped his head around.

“What the fuck?”

“I don’t know.”

Dean pushed his hands through his hair, his fingernails dragged over his scalp, as despair stared to creep in around the edges. They had lost so much. They had lost damn near everything. Jack was all they had left. Regret and guilt swelled inside him, there was so much he wanted to take back and ever more that he should have said, should have done. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe through it.

There was a whole host of things he wanted to take back and an entire Mariana trench of things he should have said to a lot of people that weren’t there to hear it. He wondered, if he prayed to Cas, would he hear it? Dean smacked his fist against the steering wheel. There was never time. It had barely been more than a week since Cas had gone, since Cas had sacrificed everything for them again. And the weight of Cas’ last words sat heavy in chest like cinder blocks weighing him down.

The reality of those words had barely sunk in. Dean couldn’t think about it, not now, not when the world might still be ending. If he let it wash over him then he was damn sure that he’d drown and then what use would he be?

What use was he now?

“Jack,” Sam yelled and clambered gangly out of the car.

Dean looked up and saw a swath of sandy hair splayed out against the dirt. That was all he needed to see before he was scrambling out of the car himself, almost eating dirt when he caught his foot between the seat and the floor, and all the while both he and Sam were calling for Jack. The boy groaned as he rose onto his hands and knees. That pristine white jacket was scuffed and smeared with dirt, his face was a little scratched up, and his hair was mussed and fell messily over his face.

Sam got there first. His long legs and head start working against Dean. He slipped his arms up under Jack’s armpit and hoisted him onto his feet. Jack’s feet dragged as Sam pulled him into a hug. The kid seemed pretty dazed. They held onto each other, fingers twisted in the fabric of their jackets, and Dean figured that none of them could afford to lose a single thing anymore.

“What happened?” Dean asked. He was sick of asking. And though he could have guessed some things, mostly there was no way that Jack would be there and in one piece if Chuck still had any power over them, but he needed to hear it.

“I – I did it,” Jack said, smiling up at Dean, still looking bewildered with Sam’s long fingers in his tussled hair.

“Did what?”

“It went just like we planned,” Jack said, and that innocent toothy childlike smile broke wide across his face, the sight of it made an odd sense of pride rise in Dean’s chest. “I absorbed his power, and now he’s just like everyone else.”

“Yeah, it’s what he deserves,” Dean spat. It was the least of it. To be just like the rest of them, powerless and insignificant, left to fight for his existence with the rest of the human race, the thought was vindictively satisfying.

“Wait, so you’ve got the power of God inside you, what about Amara?” Sam asked, alarm and concern barely restrained in the curled furrow of his brow.

“The balance of those powers now exists everywhere, I dispersed it evenly throughout the universe, and left enough in heaven to uphold it and left instruction for the remaining angels to turn it into what it was always meant to be,” Jack explained, looking between the brothers, as though he were simply talking about what he’d had for breakfast. “I also brought everyone back.”

Dean shared a look with Sam. It was over. It was finally over, the win to end all wins, and Dean wasn’t sure that he felt any kind of way about it. He was numb. Maybe the dam in his mind would break sometime soon and all those feelings he’d been holding back for all these years would finally pull him down into the undertow. He couldn’t afford that yet. Dean swallowed and turned his attention back to Jack.

“And you did all that in what, five minute?” he asked, one brow arched as he smiled in disbelief.

“I did most of it simultaneously, though I think I could have shaved several seconds off, but I’ve never done it before,” Jack said with a shrug, face slightly scrunched up, as though he were disappointed in himself.

“You’re really one of a kind kid,” Dean said through a short bark of laughter.

“So what now, you’ve got your grace back?” Sam asked, always the smarter and focused one, asking the important questions.

“No,” Jack replied, suddenly serious, “I expended nearly all my energy restoring everything and everyone,” he explained.

“You’re not dying again, are you?” Sam asked, stealing the words straight out of Dean’s mouth, his eyebrows reached toward his hairline.

“No, I’m not dying,” Jack shook his head and smiled softly, “I’m just mortal now, like you.”

“You could have been God,” Sam said, voice tinged with a strange sense of awe, as though that was something they might want to do given everything they’d been through.

“I’d rather be Jack Kline,” he said, “I’d rather be with you.”

The smile he shone at them was as bright as sunshine, blinding and warm, his eyes shimmered and Dean was pretty sure that if this went on any longer they’d all start tearing up. He felt the same. He’d rather have Jack right there with them, they didn’t need another God.

“We feel the same Jack,” Sam said, voice wavering as he held onto Jack’s shoulder.

“Yeah, we do,” Dean said.

And he finally put his hands on the boy. He hauled Jack toward him and held on tight. Dean enveloped Jack in his arms, and Jack gripped him too. Jack’s hands were caught in the back of Dean’s jacket, face buried in his shoulder, breaths harsh rapid across his collar bone. Dean pressed his face against the top of Jack head and closed his eyes. His family was back together and he was going to hold on to them this time.

As he stepped away from Jack, Dean ruffled his already unruly hair, and Jack ducked his head as he laughed. He had a lot to repair between them and that started here.

Sam went still for a moment, drawing their attention, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He stared at the screen and became still again, almost statuesque.

“It’s Eileen,” Sam said, voice quiet and brittle as his wide eyes began to shine, hands shaking. “She says she’s in Jasper, Arkansas,” he added, frowning slightly. “Dean, we have to go get her,” he looked up at Dean and Sam’s puppy soft expression so completely reminded him of the small boy he’d practically raised. That boundless hopeful smile took up his whole face, and who the hell was Dean to deny his younger brother?

“Of course we’re gonna get her Sammy,” Dean said, returning Sam’s smile. “C’mon kid, we’re going to Arkansas,” he added, herding Jack into the backseat of the car.

line break

The sun was just peaking over the horizon as they pulled around the corner. Eileen was sat on the bench at the bus stop, staring down the road, and the way her face lit up at the sight of Baby stole Dean’s breath. If Sam’s gasp was anything to go by, then he was feeling something similar, though probably more intense. It was good to see his brother so happy after everything.

Dean had barely pulled up to the curb when Sam barrelled out of the car like an overexcited Saint Bernard and wrapped his arms around Eileen. He lifted her clean off the sidewalk. And by the time Dean and Jack made their way over to the bus stop, Sam had set her back down, and they were staring at each other like a couple of lovesick teenagers. The sight of it filled Dean with such warmth that he might never feel the cold again. Yeah, it was fucking fantastic to see his brother happy again.

“Back from the dead, twice, you’re almost one of us,” Dean said, voice as clear as he could make it through his smile, hoping she could read his lips. He held his arms wide open.

Eileen punched his arm, smile taking up her pale oval face, and stepped into Dean’s embrace. Dean squeezed her tight for a few long seconds before letting her go.

“I’ve been dead three times,” Jack said and signed, like he was proud, and the sound of it twisted Dean’s gut into knots. Though, hopefully, he might have just been hungry. Eileen chuckled and hugged the kid.

“I don’t even wanna think about how many times we’ve died,” Sam muttered, brows furrowed as his eyes slid over to Dean.

“Hey, let’s not get all Eeyore suddenly,” Dean shot back, pointedly staring back at Sam as he tilted his head slightly toward Eileen. “It’s a good day, don’t wanna ruin it.”

Sam’s gaze returned to Eileen and his face broke into a smile again. And then they were back to staring at each other like there was no possible way for them to get enough, it didn’t even seem like they were aware of how they were leaning toward each other, but they were the only ones that seemed surprised when they finally kissed. Dean shook his head and looked over at Jack. The boy simply smiled back at him, pride written all over his face, and Dean couldn’t stop it from swelling inside him too.

They all owed Jack so much.

Dean was yanked from his rose-tinted thoughts by his phone vibrating against his thigh. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked the caller ID, he didn’t recognise the number but he answered anyway, you never knew who could be in trouble.

“Hey,” Dean breathed into the phone, unable to keep the smile from his face.

“Hello, sorry to bother you, but I work for the Willapa Harbor hospital in South Bend,” came the gentle voice of a woman, she sounded professional but empathetic.

“Which South Bend?” Dean asked, thoroughly confused.

“Washington,” she replied. They were about a whole twenty six to thirty hours from Washington depending on which part she was calling from. “We have a patient here by the name of James Novak, your number was in his phone.”

Dean’s heart stuttered in his chest, the force of it made him gasp, and he was blinking back tears before he knew it. It was Cas, it had to be. The woman on the phone was calling out to him.

“Yeah, yeah I know Jimmy, he’s family. What’s happened to him?” Dean’s heart was beating like a jackhammer against the back of his sternum, trying for a jail break.

“Alright sir, well he’s been in a car accident and he’s suffered a head trauma and has a concussion, and he has a broken collarbone, he also appears to have amnesia,” she explained, tone soft and clear.

“Amnesia?” Dean barked, his brows leaped up his forehead as he watched the traffic whizz by, the world really was alive again and Dean had no idea how to deal with it.

“Yes.”

“Okay, okay,” Dean muttered as he ran a hand through his hair, trying to think, “we’ll be there in a few days, we’re coming all the way from Arkansas ya see,” his vision was swimming, he sniffed and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“That’s alright sir, we just need some information and then I can let you go,” she said, and Dean could hear the clacking of a keyboard.

He nodded, despite himself, and reeled off some info both real and fake before eventually hanging up. The blank phone screen stared back at him. Dean continued to stand there, frozen to the spot. It was Cas.

“What’s up Dean?” Sam called. He was only a few feet away, but to Dean it sounded like he was at the other end of a long dark tunnel.

“It’s Cas,” Dean said, voice thick, he blinked at his phone screen. “He’s in a hospital in South Bend, Washington,” he added, brows pinched as he tried not to let the relief overwhelm him.

“He’s in a hospital,” Sam repeated, face scrunched in confusion, “how’s he in a hospital?”

They both turned to Jack.

“I brought him back graceless, mortal, I figured that way the Empty can’t get him again and really it was the only way I was able to pull it off. And I placed him in North Cove, not for any particular reason, I guess it was just the first place that came to mind and I was resurrecting nearly eight billion other people at the time too,” Jack explained, blinking in that lost and innocent way of his, like a concerned puppy. “Though it is concerning that he’s in a hospital,” he added, frowning.

“They said he’s got amnesia,” Dean muttered, turning back to Sam.

“Amnesia?” Jack asked, head tilted in that way that made Dean’s chest ache, like father like adopted son Dean supposed.

“He’s lost his memory?” Sam said, his brows raised in alarm.

“Yeah,” Dean swallowed hard before continuing, “he was probably disorientated and confused or something. They said he got hit by a car.” He suddenly remembered that his phone was still in his hand and set his mind to sliding it back into his pocket, better that than to think about Cas, dazed and confused, being hit by car. “Why didn’t you say anything about Cas?” he rounded on Jack.

“I did,” Jack said, almost defensive, hands sliding into his jacket pockets as he turned to face Dean.

“When?” Dean bit back, brow furrowed and anger rising. If he’d have known then he could have called Cas and maybe they wouldn’t be about to spend a few days driving, maybe they could have met in the middle and Cas would be okay. Sam shot him a look, but Dean didn’t care, it was a pretty damn big thing to miss out.

“I told you I brought everyone back,” Jack said, expression twisted with confusion and frustration, “everyone I could anyway.”

Dean sighed, closing his eyes. He’d been so close to chewing the kid out, but he smothered the urge, and forced that anger all the way down into his gut. That wasn’t him anymore, he was trying to be better. He knew now and that was all that mattered.

Instead of saying anything, he just nodded.

“What’s going on?” Eileen asked, signing as she spoke, she looked between the three of them huddled on the sidewalk.

“Uh, Dean got a call, and Cas, he’s alive and he’s in a hospital in Washington, he was hit by a car,” Sam said, words stilted as he did his best to sign along.

“Then what are we doing, waiting for the bus? Let’s go already,” Eileen said and started to push them toward the car, Dean stumbled as Jack fell against his side, she was surprisingly strong.

#destiel #casdean #deancas #spn #spn fanfiction #mine #an undone bird

[shinyfaerielights]

Taylor Swift

Let’s talk Taylor Swift for a hot second here. 

I’ve been a HUGE Taylor fan since I was no older than 8 or 9. The first time I heard Taylor Swift’s music, I was in the back seat of my grandma’s car and we were listening to the radio and Love Story came on. Now, we didn’t have internet at my house, so I made my parents take me to the library so I could find out more about the girl who was singing about wearing BALLGOWNS to a PARTY. To me that was a huge deal because most parties I had had by that point were in like Justice or Claire’s at the mall. So anyways, I get to the library, log on to a computer and find out more about this Taylor Swift. I watch her Love Story video and her video for Fifteen, then Picture to Burn and and the whole shebang. 

So now I’m like eleven and have basically no friends. By this point I know about how Taylor was bullied in school and she is my number one idol. So its summer, probably been like sixth and seventh grade and I meet one of my friends at a summer camp who is also basically friends and LOVES Taylor as much as I do. We became fast friends and hang out a lot. I remember sitting in room with my slider phone (I was one of the last people to not have an iPhone yet) texting Taylor Swift lyrics back and forth to each other. And that was basically all we sent back and forth, we both had Taylor Swift fan accounts on Insta (my friend’s was much better than mine). 

I remember when Speak Now came out and we both we SUPER excited about it. We went to the library together to watch the music video for Mine together and it was a fantastic day.

So we keep jamming to Taylor and all of a sudden we’re in eighth grade and Taylor announces RED. So my friend and I are still at separate schools and whatnot, but we both still see each other and I tell her about the RED locker calendar at Walgreens and she tells me about the RED tee shirt at Target. In English class, my teacher is teaching about literary devices (alliteration, similes, metaphors, allusion, etc.) and decides to do a project about literary devices in everyday life. So he assigns this project sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas where we have to pick a song (ANY song) that shows five literary devices. Everyone had to have different songs and I had a rather large class. Now I am toward the end of the alphabet and almost all the girls in my class are obsessed with the RED album. So one by one songs from RED are taken and I’m sitting there anxious waiting to see if I can do a song off of RED. So FINALLY the teacher calls on me and I chose The Lucky One. Now mind you I go to a Catholic school and the song has the word hell in so I’m super worried I won’t get to do that song, but the teacher must not have seen it when he glanced over the lyrics. So the assignment was to find five literary devices in the whole song, but I think I found five in the first verse and I kept going and going and had WAY too many. So we have to present what we found and everyone is going along with five, so when it gets to me I have probably 20 or so written down and I’m just cruising through and I get probably halfway though when the teacher stops me. I get points deducted for presenting over the time limit and the other kids are making fun of me for putting so much effort into it, but I didn’t care because I felt like I actually learned something from it and to this day when I listen to that song, I can still pull literary devices out of it. 

So now I’m in high school and me and my friend finally go to school together only to find out we really don’t have THAT much in common besides texting each other Taylor Swift lyrics and we start to grow apart. However, I start to make new friends and grow as a person. When I turned fifteen, I listened to Taylor Swift’s Fifteen all day long. So I’m a sophomore when 1989 comes out, and I was a little apprehensive because I wasn’t a huge fan of pop music. But 1989 comes out and I LOVED it. By this point I’m questioning my sexuality as one does in high school and I heard Taylor Swift’s lyric, “you can want you want, boys and boys, girls and girls.” THIS lyric right here helped me come to terms with who I am, someone who is bisexual with a preference for my own gender. 

To me it seems that Taylor os living her best life, with her cats and all that and then the Kimye stuff goes down and people are calling Taylor a snake with NO reason expect that people lied about her and were bullying her. I watched her vanish from the spotlight and grew more and more concerned. The she had the sexual assault trial that I was so scared she was gonna lose because of how she was perceived in the media. Alas, she prevailed and won her dollar, showing the world that it is okay to tell people when someone hurts you. 

So by this point, I’m starting freshman year of college and Taylor is starting a new chapter of her life, reputation. She really does prove to us that she is doing better than she ever was, with her catchy songs about how even though people tried to tear her down, she’s still here and stronger because of it. That album proved to me that no matter how big the bully is, you are always better and sometimes people are just jealous of you. 

When people were critiquing Taylor for being apolitical before midterms, I knew she would talk if she wanted to. I knew that if she didn’t want to, she wouldn’t. However, I was SUPER excited to see her use her platform to encourage her fans in Tennessee and across the country to vote Democrat and encouraging her younger fans to register and get out to vote. 

When Taylor started the Lover era I was thrilled, hunting for Easter eggs instead of studying for exams was EXACTLY how I planned to spend my last couple weeks of the semester. Both songs so far have great messages, especially for her young fans and I love seeing the next generation fall in love with Taylor too. You Need to Calm Down is especially important, as Taylor is advocating for gay rights and using her platform appropriately. She is NOT queerbaiting as so many celebrities do and is using her HUGE fanbase to raise money for charity and to pass laws in Congress. 

Basically, my point is Scooter and Scott played Taylor, but she still has her fans and friends. We know how to avoid streaming services for her first six albums we know to buy Lover and its merch to support Taylor, and we know that Taylor will rise above this, doing better than she ever was. She might not own her music in the physical forms, but she does in the sense of community she created, in the lives she has touched, and how her music impacts everyone. Her fans own her music in the stories they tell about it, in our old CDs that we are currently dusting off so Scooter won’t profit from us using Spotify for her music and in how much we LOVE Taylor. We are going to make the LOVER era the best one yet and we are going to break ALL of Taylor’s old records to show Taylor that we love her no matter who plays her.

WE LOVE YOU TAYLOR!!!!!

#taylor swift #Taylor #swift #swifties #WE SUPPORT TAYLOR #we love taylor swift

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Epi: Meat p25 reaction

---

Though, we might jump to Roxy & Calliope again. It might be that, now her Reload self is... verschwunden, she's going to regain consciousness to a certain extent again. We'll just have to see if her condition is any better than Rose's, but I would hope so.

---

"ROSE: Customarily, we speak in favorable terms about “getting to know each other” as people." Uh, wut? Rose... is talking coherently? I thought post-victory Rose would mostly have stayed to short sentences, in that discourse Dirk referred to. Talk about "working through the pain".

Well then! I suppose their discussion is more related to the ultimate self than Dirk was letting on. Of course it would be, I mean, Dirk is trying to get Rose in a favorable state of mind, maybe to break down her resistence to the ascension by convincing her of the validity of his point of view.

"ROSE: The more we learn about each other, the more the barriers between us fall and the closer we become." So, is that part of the ultimate self ascension, too? The more you understand other people and vice versa, the more even the barriers between your distinct ultimate selves fall away? ... Are they all evolving into their own story's version of Godhead Pickle Inspector?

"And to question this in any way is to succumb to dysfunction, to pathological insularity, to sociological sin. ROSE: It is to renounce humanity itself, is it not? DIRK: Yo, hold on a sec. This shit is dynamite, I promise. DIRK: Gotta take care of something..." Pffff, Dirk is half distracted. And Rose was having her groove on, too! For a moment I thought he was grabbing for a pen to take notes. :P

"Rose’s phone is ringing, and I know I’m in for an encore of my last dead-end conversation with Kanaya, so I block her number. I’d like to be able to attend to Rose in peace. It’s only cordial for me to give the greater percentage of my attention to someone I actually invited over. The nagging wife can hold her horses." Oh Dirk. You garbage bag of a person, you. He's quite literally full of himself, lately.

"Rose isn’t speaking to me directly. She’s been relocated to somewhere in the workshop a little more comfortable than the fucking floor." Having her talk out loud, drowning in her own thoughts. It's almost as if he's inviting her to become like him.

"Her head is in her hands again, hair falling over her shoulders. Her face is entirely hidden from me." It's as if it always comes back to Rose biting through her issues while hiding her face. An allusion to the blindfolded Seer?

"Her shadow has faded to light behind her, assuming the shape of a Rose-like apparition. I nod to her, and she continues. When she speaks, it’s almost as if it’s the apparition that’s doing the talking." ... Is her shadow slowly detaching from her as a separate being?? That's some Peter Pan-type shenanigans. I'm not even surprised this came back to be referenced. So, what if that's what's happening, and it isn't just that her shadow is fading due to the light changing outside? If the ultimate self detaches from the body, doesn't that mean they're, like, closer to ghosts? Does Dirk have his old body stashed somewhere, if this has happened to him? I doubt it, since he was perfectly capable of fighting Jake, earlier.

"ROSE: If two people were to know each other in such a complete way, what remains of their individuality? DIRK: If you’re going there, we might as well start at the bottom and define what an “individual” even is. ROSE: Oh dear god." Rose might be afraid to let Kanaya in any more than she already is. But in the grand scheme of the ultimate self, it might also have a double meaning. Maybe Dirk is convinced they're all shards of the same self.

"I place my hand on my chin and broadcast the appearance of being deeply pensive about philosophy all of a sudden. She gulps hard, broadcasting her grim realization that I have indeed become serious as shit about this. Literally any kind of intellectual pablum could pour out of my mouth any second, and she’s not prepared. For all she knows, I’m about to start quoting Kierkegaard." Is Rose afraid her biological father is going to lay the philosophy aside and slamming psychology? ... No wait, Kierkegaard was a philosopher, I find. Then, she might not be prepared for philosophy as much as psychology, when I thought the former was taking place already, but apparently.

"DIRK: Hey, where I come from, Wikipedia is a venerated literary resource. So if I told you I boned the hell up on his pages, you gotta believe me. That’s not meant as like, a punchline or anything. DIRK: I’m a really, really well-read dude." His education came from Wikipedia. Well, it beats Uncyclopedia, I guess.

"ROSE: But there were only two human beings alive where you came from. ROSE: Who exactly were the academic cognoscenti of your era to determine which sources were deemed respectable? DIRK: That would be me, obviously." Rose already ruled out trolls at the beginning of this page to have a valid opinion in this matter, so )(IC was already out.

"DIRK: I suppose you’re going to tell me you haven’t read enough Wikipedia articles on loads of scholarly shit to fancy yourself an elite academic by 25th century standards as well? ROSE: No, I guess I have. ROSE: I’d be one of the top intellectuals by that measure. ROSE: A measure set by, I guess, literally one solitary self-absorbed teen boy for the express purpose of making himself feel clever." This. Such a good burn.

"apparently in any given era the standard for depth of intellectual mastery is inversely proportional to the depth of the ocean." Well, we don't know that it's true for ANY given era. I'm not sure the proportion of intellectici vs. plebs in ancient Greece was proportionally higher than in the 21st century. We just have a lot of philosophy of that age survive until today. Also, heh, ocean, makes me think of LOLAR and her denizen at the bottom of the sea.

"DIRK: Let’s have a totally amateur debate on philosophy. Hit me with the classics. ROSE: Um. DIRK: I’ll go first." Well, heh, okay, at least Dirk is aware his assessment of himself is full of crap. That continues to be one of his most endearing characteristics.

"ROSE: How about, ROSE: “Subjectivity is truth.” DIRK: Wrong, but valid. DIRK: Try this on for fucking size. DIRK: “Late 19th century existential phenomenology pre-supposes that free will is a thing.”" For all that these might apply to the ultimate self... They're just quoting/paraphrasing the Wikipedia page now, aren't they?

"ROSE: I don’t think I bookmarked that page. ROSE: Can’t back you up there. DIRK: But what if there’s no free will. ROSE: You didn’t put that in quotes." How does she even know? :P His tone of voice, presumably. And yeah, this starts coming back to the discussion about the alpha timeline and pre-destination in the existential framework of Paradox Space. I suppose it would make sense that the Ultimate Riddle comes back in the discussion of the ultimate self.

"DIRK: Haven’t we spent the entire day having a feelings jam on how none of us got here by accident? DIRK: Our lives were meticulously planned from clone-ception up through this very post-canon moment we find ourselves riffing in about the very free will we probably don’t even have. DIRK: Don’t you think it’s all a little too convenient?" He's acknowledging his state as a fictional character again, without stating it outright. Does he want Rose to come to the same conclusion as him by herself? Though it is ironic how, post-realization, he's had so much more agency in the nature of his own life. Unless he realizes he still doesn't. Wow, that's really getting meta.

"ROSE: This seriously is just a conversation between two stoned people now." ROSE: The bad kind, where neither one even gets to be high."PFfffffff. Yeah, actually, we need Gamzee's input up in here. 'have you ever, like, really LOOKED at your life?'

"DIRK: Seriously, Rose. Do you think that you have free will?" Is it in essence the question that leads to ultimate self realization? That Dirk is hammering so hard on it? Ironic though, that the question is twofold no: one outside of the story, and one inside of it.

"ROSE: I... DIRK: Stand up." WOOOOW. He's going to show off his powers now, isn't he? What's that even going to do to Rose, realizing he can do that without so much as breaking a sweat?

She might resist similar to John though, which is proof that his influence isn't total.

"She tries to stand up, but I haven’t narratively allowed it yet." That's another application of his powers, apparently - to offset, to negate action. He hasn't used it a lot yet, though.

"She attributes it to exhaustion, an all-encompassing sense of weakness due to her condition. Of course, she has been weakened by her condition, and thus she suspects nothing." I like Blaperile's theory, that what Dirk can allow them to do is limited to what they believe they're capable of OR which they can rationalize away. I hope it's only the former.

"It’s done deftly enough that she doesn’t notice how close I end up sitting to her. To be honest, I don’t even notice myself until I’ve done it. I continue speaking, and she remains rapt. But now even I can’t help but wonder where I’m going with this." Uh... Has he really started to lose track of his own motivations? More proof that he isn't omniscient and still being narrated instead of being his own narrator.

"DIRK: Logically speaking, individuality is a collection of processes and properties, interrelations of matter and experience all bundled together. DIRK: Your experience and processes don’t want to be bundled together anymore." So, is it only that her selves are trying to merge, or that even her own 'self' is trying to become something more, merging with others? And if so, is that Dirk confessing to what he's going through himself?

"A moment goes by, and she’s quiet, perhaps puzzling over what I said. Then I remember I haven’t narratively permitted a response. I’m forgetting myself, like a fool. Distracted by the surprise my own actions have caused me. I resolve to stay focused, remain in control. I let her speak." He's getting distracted again. You can't be both a character and an author, at the same time, for an extended amount of time.

"ROSE: I don’t understand. DIRK: You do, though. DIRK: We’ve been talking about it, but using different concepts." I wonder if Dirk is trying to retroactively tell Rose what they've been talking about, filling in the unshown conversation.

"DIRK: Your Ultimate Self, that which is revealed when the mind’s partitions are stripped away, and all potentiality of who you are and what you could have been flow together. DIRK: Those are the experiences and processes that are refusing to stay bundled, that’s what your body can’t endure." Ah, okay, so not like her self is trying to merge with his and other people's.

"The unbundling itself is your mind coming apart. DIRK: Because you’re not as strong as me. Not yet. DIRK: But you can be. DIRK: I’m working on that. DIRK: But for now, I’m focused on stabilizing you with my own expanding consciousness." Aka, with his narrative powers, he's stopping her body from breaking down further, because he doesn't allow it. Does she have to stay near him for that to keep working?

"DIRK: You can’t see it, what I’m talking about. But I can help you. DIRK: I can help you see what I see, if only for a little while. DIRK: All you have to do is open your eyes." I don't think her shadow is going to develop eyes. ... I like Blaperile's theory, that he'll give her limited control on the narration, guiding her to further understanding. It would allow her to develop her own idea about what her Ultimate Self should look like, with less influence from him.

"Rose opens her eyes. Not her physical eyes. She opens the others easily, internally, beholding a field of perception elsewhere entirely. They see what I want her to see. That which quietly desires to be seen." Rose's mind quest begins. 'That which quietly desires to be seen', is that the story, or at least the part of it that is narrated, aka relevant, true and essential?

"We’re not in my workshop anymore. Physically, yes, we’re still here. But on a higher textual plane, we’ve pulled back from that, from Earth C itself. Rose takes a shuddering breath and runs an invisible pair of hands afforded by her new sight over the narrative whole cloth, and begins smoothing out the wrinkles. ROSE: I see... John." Cooool! She's starting to gain the same understanding as Dirk, here's to hoping she does a better job with it than him. But hey, Dirk still acknowledges his physical form on Earth C, so he isn't a ghost, and he still thinks of the body as important, at least that's something and he hasn't started to think of himself as some immaterial conscience.

"DIRK: Doing exactly what you told him to do, like a good boy." Not sure if he's actually done everything John planned. Plus, yeah, Dirk's been influencing him along the way.

"ROSE: ..." She might notice that, too.

"DIRK: What’s there to be upset about? You knew this was how it was supposed to go down. ROSE: He could have made another choice." And he did, in the Candy path. I wonder how that influenced the rest of the story, and if Hussie really went and showed us that. Maybe Dirk 'knows' about the Candy path and the difference it would have made.

"DIRK: Then where would we be? ROSE: Who knows." Meanwhile, in another narrative context, at the same time... :P

"DIRK: If it can happen, then it’s been written. And if it’s been written, you can read it right now. ROSE: I... don’t know if I want to see." ... PFffff, that's directed to us. No, Dirk, not planning on viewing that path just yet.

"I’m not going to describe what she sees. First of all, that would be spoiling it. Unless you already know, in which case, I guess what’s taking place here qualifies as something closer to dramatic irony. But if you really want to see it for yourself, stop what you’re doing, flip the whole thing over, and begin again. I’ll be right here when you get back, waiting. Trust me, no one’s going anywhere." ... In the Candy path the people are also going to be thinking about what could have been, aren't they? :P I do hope this isn't implying we should read the Candy path now. I mean, it's a bit awkward, navigating back, plus I would rather think Andrew'd bring the two paths together or add a REAL indication, before making it relevant to have read both.

"DIRK: So, what do you think? ROSE: It’s difficult to say. ROSE: I suppose there are negatives and positives. I can’t say if that option would be any better or worse than what we’re experiencing now. ROSE: Whichever way our fate unravels there’s too much of... something. ROSE: Too much blood, too much sugar." I think there might be a bit of a 'sugar overload' in the Candy path, in that it might seem there's too much fluff? Maybe inertia is taking hold of them over there, and people are slowly coming to regret not taking control of their lives. Even though, in a meta sense, only John could and did.

"ROSE: I almost can’t see through it. ROSE: It’s as if our extra-canon reality, our surroundings, our actions and their consequences... ROSE: They’ve all lost the ability to blend the ingredients responsibly. ROSE: Do you know what I mean?" It's like their fate has split like a cherub: a violent and a passive path, no inbetweens. But then, like a cherub, will one path 'devour' the other?

"It’s growing dark around her again. The apparition she’s been projecting behind her fades, and she starts to bleed light and shadow in all directions. Her physical eyes are open now, and shining bright. It’s a striking sight. She’s beautiful, actually—diaphanous and disheveled and filled with the limitless light of metaspiritual curiosity." She's literally starting to project light. Cool! And if she overcomes her current issues, it would definitely be a useful tool, and something to bond over with Kanaya.

"She’s my daughter in every sense of the word. My equal, my mirror.

It used to be odd to consider it. A technical fact I’d accepted as a genetic reality, but nothing that could ever quite penetrate down to the soul. But in this moment it doesn’t feel strange at all. It feels right, suddenly. And I know she must feel the same way. There’s no way she doesn’t. All she needs is a nudge in the right direction." Is that Dirk knowing, or projecting? Still weird how Homestuck made it so parents and progeny can interact as equals in age and demeanor alike.

"We’re family. We belong together. And after years of micromanaging the inconsistent and confused desires of total imbeciles, wouldn’t it be a relief to have someone by my side who understood me?" ... He really wants to co-narrate with her.

"ROSE: But what if the person you catch... ROSE: Isn’t me anymore? DIRK: Who gives a fuck. She’ll be better." I hope and suspect Rose will be a better omniscient narrator than Dirk. But I understand her concerns. If your influence is so total, it can become totalitarian.

"Would it not be to renounce humanity itself?

And yet, ironically, renouncing our humanity is exactly what we have arguably just done. Good riddance, I say.

Her body should be dead now. But I’m holding it together until I can implement the more permanent solution I have in mind." Has he done that to himself as well? Made a connection between his ethereal ascended form and his corporeal body? If so, he at least had the good sense to want to remain grounded. Still, Paradox Space, what the fuck? Having people die at 23 is only marginally better than 13.

"She regards me with an almost unbearably bright adoration. The kind that’s difficult to look at directly, but you can’t manage to look away either. It’s like the first time you see the Green Sun. Of course it is, because that’s the way I’m describing it. The truth belongs to me. And as of now, so does she." ... Eeeesh. I hoped he'd say, the truth belongs to Rose, too, but this. It's as if by ascending, she gave away a part of her agency to him??? He planned that, the bastard. Dirk, I really don't know what to make of you and your intentions.

"ROSE: I see it now. ROSE: You’re right. DIRK: Have I ever not been? ROSE: You...

A wrinkle in her brow. It smoothes out quickly. She murmurs to herself, trailing off quietly." Him, okay, I hope that means she can still cut loose in due time.

"ROSE: What... time is it...?

I step forward and steady her, hand firm but gentle against her cheek. That’s all she needs: a stable anchor. DIRK: Rose, does time even exist?" Dave (and Aradia, and Damara) would disagree.

---

Wow. I mean. Damn. Nice way of keeping us on the fence on Dirk's motivations. At least it should be a good thing he's no longer alone on that plane of existence. I'd rather have seen Rose immediately take control of the narration, but I can only hope it's due for the next page. It'd feel like reading her draft of CotL all over, her narrating in her longwinded fashion. :P

#homestuck #upd8 #reaction #spoiler alert #homestuck epilogues #homestuck liveblog #rose lalonde #dirk strider

[feijuan]

Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis, Am I Right?

This review contains a lot of spoilers -- I do not know how much of the anime is congruent with the manga, and as such there may be manga spoilers in this review as well. 

Click here to read on Wordpress!

On one hand, as we all ought to know very well,  

But on the other hand, I think I liked season 2 of Fist of the North Star: Regenesis more than the first, somehow. I also hate to admit there were parts of season 2 I liked completely unironically, as ridiculous and contrived as most of it was. Such is often my experience with every Fist of the North Star anime, game, etc, that I watch -- though I expected it much less from this, on account of it being maligned by pretty much everyone I know who knows anything about Fist of the North Star, for

Being made entirely in CGI (though I still think it’s the designs that are awful, and not necessarily the fact that it’s CGI, but to each their own I suppose when it comes to visuals)

Apparently not following canon much at all, but that doesn’t matter to me because I don’t know anything about Fist of the Blue Sky canon anyway, which makes my viewing experience… interesting… because I just had to accept whatever nutso bonkers lunacy I saw on the screen as truth.

I berated the first season quite a lot, not just for issues in adaptation, but for issues that are almost certainly in the source material as well. I thought the setting was a ridiculously contrary backdrop for the kind of martial arts antics happening on screen, in a literary and in a visual sense. The martial arts themselves, while always ludicrous in the franchise as a whole, were especially so in Fist of the Blue Sky - and in Regenesis their visual presentation was frankly awful, managing to be both tacky beyond imagining and super underwhelming. The writing had serious problems that required -- I'm not kidding and wish I was -- a Magical Jewel That Showed The Antagonist The Truth to resolve the finale, and the backstory we saw through this Plot Orb was complete and utter nonsense, the likes of which I haven't quite seen in a very long time. This really doesn't even cover all of the issues in the first season of Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis alone, because the majority of the characters aren't great either, including the protagonist whose value largely seems reliant on being an allusion to the already beloved Kenshiro, and the abundance of small contrivances throughout to fuel completely unnecessary conflicts.

As objectively bad as Regenesis was though, there were some things I enjoyed about it, namely a few of the characters. I loved Fei Yan and Erika, and as much as I hated Yasaka at first, he grew on me – though that was born from the absurdity of his redemption that made it impossible for me to take any of his crimes seriously. On that line of thought though, what I often enjoyed about season 1 was the spectacle of it, and I think that’s pretty clearly evidenced by my liveblog where I was either losing my mind and frantically posting screencaps to try and even begin to understand what I was looking at and how it was possible, or posting about Fei Yan Being Great. And sometimes complaining when I had the energy to think about the awful writing, instead of laugh it off…

So that was season 1. But what did season 2 have to offer, and could it redeem the anime, even a little bit? Well, short answers: A bit more, and not particularly. So let's get to the list making:

Things I decidedly didn’t like at all about Season 2

Need I even say anything about how the CG model proportions are still awful... looking Yu Ling's model makes me ache all over. But not only are the models in general still grotesque, but there were a few too many instances of flashbacks where characters were supposed to be teens, but they either had a kid model, or an adult model. There's no inbetween.  It's extremely weird and jarring when in one flashback Simeon looks like a 12 year old with similarly young looking Himuka, and then "a few years later" Simeon still has the 12 year old boy model, while Himuka has evolved into a 30 year old buff martial artist.

Fei Yan is Still Dead and Yasaka is good but he's not that good. This is admittedly a petty complaint but try to understand... Fei Yan was really good. And I miss him. Thank you for listening.

Fei He was wildly under-utilized, under-developed, and usually just a woman for male characters to make fun of or infantalize -- which is a crying shame (and unfortunately par the course for the franchise, ahem) because she was a link back to Fei Yan and his legacy. Having been partially brought up by him and idolizing him in her youth, she arrives near the end of season 1 to track down Kasumi, who she is pointlessly misled into believing killed Fei Yan for a few episodes. Later in season 2 when she does discover it was Yasaka who killed Fei Yan, nothing… happens, because by that time she has already come to respect Kasumi, so it’s trivially easy for Kasumi to convince her to forgive Yasaka just like he did. Once her initial motivation is snuffed out, she just becomes a detached ally of our secondary protagonist group, which consists of Yu Ling, minor members of the Green Gang, and the worst characters of the entire show!

The comedy duo. Far and away the worst aspect of both seasons of the whole show. The CG? The ugly art style in general? The casual misogyny? The non-canon mismatched cult planning world domination with nuclear weapons? That all pales in comparison to the damage these freaks wreck on every episode they are in.

Their horrendous “bits” are where like 80% of the misogyny this show displays actually occurs. Their boorish fantasies are used as vehicles for the only fanservice scenes in the entire run, and they make up ridiculous plans for Fei He to carry out that degrade her and make her a joke.Their bits are tone-shatteringly out of place and usually shoehorned into every episode since their introduction in the middle of season 1 at the worst time possible. I’m still seething about their prolonged scene in the finale where Yu Ling inexplicably rubs the metal-haired one’s head while her fiancee fights for his doomed life, and he pretty much c*ms and his metal wig falls off to reveal a single disgusting hair on his head -- we literally cut away from the final fight in the whole series so we can see THAT. LIKE WHAT? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

This show is already so far-fetched and often unintentionally hilarious that it doesn’t benefit in any way from having gag characters in the first place. It’s a net loss in entertainment value, really, because all the gag characters did was ruin serious scenes and interrupt outrageous scenes that were actually funny.

Fei Yan died, Yasaka died, Kasumi died, but THESE CHUCKLEFUCKS LIVED? #JUSTICEFORFEIYAN #GOTHRIGHTS

The whole thing with the vampire cyborg mad scientist soldier making pseudo-zombies. That was a lot even for Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis.

Oh, and another quick note about Fei He being poorly utilized: I also didn't like at all how she is revealed to have fallen in love with Kasumi in the finale... like c'mon. Was that necessary? They barely ever spoke! A woman can care about a man dying without being A Thing, Fist of the North Star...

Things I unexpectedly didn’t hate and even sort of liked to varying degrees about Season 2

Speaking of Kasumi, he was a lot more likable in this season and I don't know if it's because we naturally got to know him better as we spent more time with him, or if it's because he just Did More Good Stuff than before, but I'm leaning towards the latter. I really liked his tender moments with Erika going up to the finale and his fight with Himuka was leagues above any of his fights previously in terms of giving us some actual meaningful insight into his personality and beliefs. It's a shame these moments happened in the last two episodes of the series... But I am willing to concede that they were fairly successful in making me like him just in time for him to honourably wander off into the desert and die. Thanks.

As much as I heckled the literally religious cult composed of men in black, mysterious worshippers with pointed hoods sitting around a table plotting world domination, mad scientist soldiers, and assorted martial artists, I ended up kind of liking where the story went with it and the themes that were developed in the last stretch. The second arc had a very on the nose stance on war and weapons of mass destruction as the worst of humanity's creations, and we see it in a lot of places in the story. The narrative unfolding at a time when World War II was on the horizon, the nuclear bomb schematics that had been causing all of the strife in the story being erased from Erika's (a little Jewish girl, as well) mind in the end, and how Himuka was driven to villainy by war and became convinced the only way to create a future without it, was to hit the Hard Reset Button on the earth's population. For all its shortcomings with dealing with the -isms, Fist of the North Star has at least always had anti-war themes, but I especially liked how they were more focused and rooted in history in this season of Regenesis.

I actually... liked?! The villains?!

Simeon had a motivation that was irrational and pathetic, but made sense because of his background. Instead of the story trying to redeem or sympathize with him, he is simply pitied by Himuka who usurps him and puts him out of his misery, which is very rare for Fist of the North Star as a whole. It shouldn't be as rare as it is.

While I liked the anti-war themes, Himuka's motivation felt a lot less organic than Simeon's in my opinion and required a whole episode to be dedicated to explaining it to us, which I'm not a huge fan of unless it's really compelling -- and I don't think it was. Nevertheless I did enjoy his final fight with Kasumi and the philosophy of it, which made it harder than usual not to bend to the narrative's will and mourn him.

They weren’t glorified misogynists or cartoonishly evil goons! 👍

Himuka betraying Simeon and becoming The Real Big Bad was also rather fresh for Fist of the North Star, and it's a shame that it was spoiled in the opening, because if it wasn't I think I might have been surprised. Regardless, shifting gears like that was a good move in my opinion -- even though, yeah, The Villain Is Your Brother, Again.

When Kasumi wins his final battle against Himuka, and Himuka says "I have always been a vessel of nothingness. There is nothing to spill from inside of me" and he like, turns to stone in the rising sun, instead of dying from his wounds? Did it make any sense? No. Was it was raw as fuck and did I love it? Yes.

Erika... her arc in season 2 is very bittersweet, but it is undeniable that I was relieved when Kasumi erased her memories. It's probably not kosher, but when I was watching it I agreed with the narrative's claim that her only way to be free of her immense suffering and live like a little girl should was to clean the slate, and months later when I think back to it, I'm still okay with it. A little girl watching her parents die and being burdened with knowledge that can destroy the world, and everything that happens to her and her guardians because of wicked men trying to get that knowledge from her... I can't really fault the idea of taking that away from her and letting her finally rest. Go play in a sandbox dearest Erika... run along...

Every episode felt like 5 minutes long!

So that's the final impressions of Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis -- I ended up having more to say about it than I thought I would, considering how I was speechless most of the time I was watching it... with a list of Positive Points that long, you might be tricked into thinking it's unexpectedly good; but despite everything I liked about it, I can say with confidence that Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis is not good. All of the issues from the first season do carry over into this one -- the contrived story-telling and egregious tonal dissonance, lackluster characterization and poor handling of character drama, and just plain absurdity of most things happening on the screen remain intact. Had it not been for a small hand full of likable characters and some good themes trying to pierce through the hideous hide of this story, it would be thoroughly unremarkable, perhaps not even worth touting as a hilarious spectacle of out of context screenshots.

I can't be too sour though, because then I would be dishonest. It's clear as day that while understanding why it is so maligned, I enjoyed many parts of it far more than expected, and the experience of watching it with my partner was fun and at times even emotional. And as much as I can say with confidence that Fist of the Blue Sky: Regensis isn't a good anime, I can also say with confidence, that Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis was not even remotely the Worst Anime Of 2018. I think it's very telling that in the anime community, being completely mediocre with bad aesthetics and bad story adaptation are worse sins than that of, say, The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar and Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody which are both "escapism" series that aired in 2018 and were rampant with pedophilia and slave fetishization that were popular on Crunchyroll when they were airing. Front Page Popular.

Needless to say, watching lots of airing anime every season gives me a sense of perspective and I use it, and so I am content with admitting that I happily watched Fist of the Blue Sky: Regenesis every Monday that it aired and often had a great time, oftentimes because it was an absolute riot to see, and sometimes because despite everything, it could be... decent!

[Happy very belated New Years everyone! I finally finished writing something, so hopefully this bodes well for my productivity in 2019! Enjoy and thanks for sticking with the blog!]

#fotns #fotbs #fist of the north star #fist of the blue sky #Someone Had To Watch It And That Someone Was Me.

[teacherintransition]

Sometimes, the phone call is to be dreaded...

Last week, I wrote a piece on a “dreaded call” to my wife and myself being a piece of cake on the drama meter. Irony made an appearance this Sunday

“The problem is you think you have time.”

Buddha

I was very pleased with my article written last week which dealt with chasing dreams and sometimes conflicting with family obligations. The piece felt like it was balanced and didn’t advocate one choice over another; putting the reader in a comfortable frame of mind to allow ample time to consider all possibilities. The author felt that sufficient time would be there to consider all options. ... then Sunday morning came and the literary allusion of a phone call I used to encourage readers to weigh choices carefully took on a more tragic literal impact. My brother called me at 9:15 Sunday in a state of emotional despair that I have never associated with him. Through sobs of deep anguish, I learned his son, my nephew, my son’s cousin, the father of his grandkids had been tragically, stolen from them and the device used to tell of the tragedy had been the phone. My title of last weeks blog was, “The Phone Call no Parent wants to Receive....Spoiler Alert: Everything was ok.” This time, in that moment ... irony spread like a shadow ... this time it was not ok.

My nephew, Matthew Paul Rich, was a 24 year old electrician married to a lovely woman with two angelic children. He was his brother’s best friend, his father’s pride and joy and his uncle’s ego builder because he laughed at ever joke I made. His children were so aware of his presence as they could feel the love and devotion he exuded toward them from every ounce of his being... how could children not be drawn like a magnet to such a charismatic man whose heart beat was his children. He was his younger sister’s “big bro” as she, like her uncle, thinks and acts like an artist and Matt got her. Matthew got everyone because he’d rather have friends than a heartache... why not, more to enjoy. He was about joy. Matthew is gone now and the joy has been absent many days. He left us early Sunday morning while all those who loved him slept peacefully...confident that he would be there in the morning, we would have all the time in the world to share with him ... until we didn’t.

An opportunity would be lost if the focus of this piece was just about tragic circumstances and details and the river of tears, though it’s been five days later, still unrelentingly flows. This story is all of those things on a scale beyond imagining. “Life will go on,’ “people will adapt,’ “remember when” will be an all to often a conversation starter; but the loss of Matthew raises us to a much higher plane of thought and realization. The plane is not uncommon, for sadly such tragedies happen daily thousands of times, but it offers an exchange to make us better by losing such a person. It’s a forced introspection... a forced lesson, a dreadful exchange, one that we are reluctant to take at such a high price. I often refer to this concept in my writings, but beware, fate will bring to our doorsteps events that will give the lesson an immediacy that we ignore to our peril. What is this lesson that carries such grave importance? It is this: everything, every love, every object, every person ... will pass. There is nothing that will last, you will lose everyone you love either by their passing or yours. The power, the magic, the love, the bond exists only now. Now...

We all know this intellectually, but it’s too unpleasant to contemplate; so we put consideration of this truth for later.... and we grasp not a life line but a thread of hope, based on cliche : “I got time, life is long, life is short, l have plenty of time” .... all perilous mindsets that will rob our emotional treasure like a thief in the night. During this week, for whatever reason, I was reading bits from “The Tibetan Book on Living and Dying,” to try to enlighten my oft times dense self. I came across a quote from Siddhārtha Gautama, the enlightened one, the Buddha. The Buddha said while trying to grasp the causes of man’s suffering simply said, “the problem is we think we have time.” It’s such a simple but thorough, all encompassing statement on why we suffer so often. We have no time....we have now... only this instant and it too is fleeting. The great teacher also wisely tells us (I paraphrase): focusing on the past brings regret focusing on the future brings worry, focusing on the now brings contentment. Remember, this is a lesson born of tragedy... the tragedy happened, Matthew is gone, there is only learning from it now. Matthew wants us to learn to love his loved ones and each other with an intensity of heart that he possessed . You must be thinking, “hey man, you said that Matthew was gone, how can he want us to do anything?” You can step up to the buffet line and select the theology of your choice that speaks of an eternal energy, or soul or spirit where our loved one exists. Matt exists as certainly as the breeze blows and birds sing, and if he sees we learn from this, he will smile with his toothy grin and say at a slightly elevated decibel level, “hell yeah bro!” I will reluctantly accept the exchange and make sure that the passion and energy that Matthew gave to all of us will be present in my every now....but I wouldn’t mind just one more time letting him give me a thumbs up followed by his, “my man ... my uncle Brent!”

"If you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it, for I love you so

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,

If thinking on me then should make you woe."*

*William Shakespeare: “Sonnet 71;” Collected Works of Shakespeare

For you dearest Rachel:

I know I have but few claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me, perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, nor that, when my last breath escapes me on the battle-field, it will whisper your name.

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears, every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot, I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.

But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth, and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you in the garish day, and the darkest night amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours always, always, and, if the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air cools your throbbing temples, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dear; think I am gone, and wait for me, for we shall meet again.

As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care, and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers, I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.

- Sullivan**

**"My Very Dear Wife;” - The Last Letter of Major Sullivan Ballou;

Manassas Battlefield State Park; U.S. National Park Service

#lifeisbeautiful #lifelessons #life goes on #tragedy #tragic #self actualization #self improvement #self discovery #writing #education #young wife #immortal husbands #health #spirited away #soulmate #loss #social media #children #unexpected #understanding #cannot understand #change is constant #change is inevitable #change #love #i love her #loss of a parent #loss of a loved one

[popcultureliterarytutor]

Symbolism Over the Garden Wall

It’s hard to make it through an English class without talking about symbolism at least once. In my own high school experience, we studied this literary device in-depth using Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. I remember hating the unit because I didn’t care about the general plot of the book at all. As a result, I also didn’t care about exploring the symbolism within.

One of the fastest ways to kill someone’s interest in a tough topic like symbolism is to set them up with a novel they end up hating. So instead, let’s explore this element through pop culture in order to get a better understanding of it and how authors use it to enhance the stories they craft.

Many literary techniques (including this one) lend themselves well to mediums outside of text-based mediums like novels. You can find them in comics, cartoons, movies, video games and even in paintings. For simplicity, I’m mostly going to use the words “author” and “creator” interchangeably to speak about the brilliant minds behind these works, but keep in mind that this applies to any storyteller in virtually any medium.

In order to gain a deeper understanding of this literary device, let’s focus on the 2014 Cartoon Network miniseries Over the Garden Wall. This delightful miniseries contains a lot of great examples of symbolism in its 10-episode run.

Spoiler Alert: If you have not experienced the pleasure of watching Over the Garden Wall in its entirety yet and plan to, I recommend that you stop reading this exploration and go watch it right now! Serious spoilers ahead! Watching Patrick McHale’s imaginative work for the first time is a fun ride, and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.

Having said that, let’s begin.

What is Symbolism?

Before we can delve into an analysis of Over the Garden Wall using symbolism, we need to define it. In it’s most condensed form, let’s call it “the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense.” That definition comes from Literarydevices.net, a handy website for all of your literary device needs.

In other words, authors take an idea or feeling and represent it with a person, place, or thing. It’s a way to liven up your writing, and offers creators fun ways to give a wink to the discerning reader by giving them additional insight to better enjoy the work with.

Movies use this device frequently. Ever notice that rainy scenes in movies such as Mulan or The Hunchback of Notre Dame often pop up during sad moments? Likewise, if you see a picture of a dove at a rally, you can recognize it as a peace rally. Nobody told you. You just knew somehow. We know things like this without being told because these are common symbols. Rain popularly symbolizes sorrow, and doves symbolize peace.

Symbolism Vs. Metaphor

Make sure that you don’t confuse symbolism and metaphor. Symbols are specific objects, seasons, animals, or characters (pretty much any noun) that represents something else, often throughout a work (but not always). Metaphors tend to be a lot more short-term, comparing two unlike things for the sake of making a point. An example might be “your eyes are the deep blue sea,” which makes the point that someone’s eyes are extremely blue and seemingly endless, but doesn’t cause their eyes to represent a concept or idea. Some metaphors do run a bit longer.

Common Symbols

In order to easily convey ideas without directly stating it in their writing, many creators use common symbols that already have a widely recognized meaning attached to them. The appearance of a dog often symbolizes friendship and loyalty, a flood of light might signify understanding or goodness, and winter represents death (remember this one for later!). These symbols are easily recognizable to a wide range of readers.

Take a look at this example: you’re enjoying your favorite novel or comic, when you come across a character “with a fire always blazing in their eyes.” You know that they do not literally have fire burning in their eyes every time you see them (that would hurt!). Instead, you search your stored knowledge of symbolic meaning (either the knowledge already in your brain, or what you found in a dictionary of common symbols and realize that the fire in this person’s eyes may represent ferocity, determination, anger, or evil. Which one does it represent? Well, you just need to keep reading and find out! The character’s actions will show you more about what that fire means.

These common symbols make it easier for writers to get meanings and concepts across without the need to develop a new symbol that their reader needs to figure out. Unfortunately, that does mean that when you first start exploring this device, you may find yourself frequently looking up the common meanings.

A few popular ones include:

Dogs: loyalty, friendship, obedience

Wind and storms: turbulent or violent (negative) emotion, adversity

Water: cleansing, origin of life, regeneration

Purple: royalty, wealth

Oak trees: strength, wisdom

Rose: budding youth, romance, potential, fragility, beauty

Specialized Symbols

What often makes this literary device complicated for beginners is that authors create new symbols in their works that hold meaning only within that work. Additionally, that symbol might have a deep life lesson attached to it, or it might just symbolize something important to fully understanding the characters or story. These symbols don’t retain that meaning when the same object appears in another story. (Love Rise of the Guardians? Keep an eye out for a post on a specialized symbol from the film, coming soon!)

Sometimes, creators directly state the meaning of a specialized symbol. You will see examples of this shortly. Other times, they only imply what it stands for. You can figure out the meaning by analyzing the scenes in which it appears and how characters interact with it.

You Know What They Say About Beauty and the Eye of the Beholder

Many times, audience interpretation of a symbol differs widely. A person’s own personal experiences might change how they view a symbol. Cultural background also changes the meaning of symbols.

In a similar way, applying different literary lenses can change the meaning of symbols as well. We aren’t going to delve into that labyrinth right now, though! That’s an easy place to get lost, and we don’t have nearly enough time to explore symbolism AND literary theory.

Is symbolism always intentional? I don’t believe so. I think that sometimes, authors include items in their stories that have specific meaning to themselves, or serve a specific purpose in the story, and the audience finds their own meaning in it.

Let’s Try It!

Got all that? Awesome! Let’s further explore this literary device by taking a look at Over the Garden Wall.

If you want to try your hand at figuring out a few of the symbols in the miniseries yourself first, go watch it again and analyze these symbols as they appear: seasons, the price of a ferry ride, the Dark Lantern, Edelwood trees, and the Beast. Come back and see how you did!

Seasons

Let’s start with a common one. If you’re somewhat familiar with this literary device, you might have picked up on the symbolism of the seasons (which hint at what’s happening to the brothers long before the 9th episode reveal). We meet our heroes wandering the woods in fall. In fact, most of the show takes place in the fall, only turning to winter in the last few episodes as everything quickly goes from bad to worse. (Here is your final spoiler warning. There is no turning back after this.)

Fall, the waning of warm growing seasons, commonly represents the waning of life. It comes into play when a character nears the end of their days. This winds up being true for the brothers, who are unknowingly drowning as they wander the Unknown.

In Babes in the Wood, fall gives way to winter when Greg strikes out on his own to face the Beast after Wirt runs out of hope. At this moment, the boys find themselves locked in a losing battle with death. Winter commonly represents death, the closing of life. If you made it to the end of the last episode and wondered what would have happened if they did not defeat the Beast, wonder no longer.

The Price of a Ferry Ride

There’s another symbol that hints at what is happening to the boys long before the audience becomes privy to the events of that Halloween. Remember when Beatrice convinces them to visit their dear old Unkie Endicott? They need money to ride the ferry so that they can get to Adelaide’s house.

Needing money to ride a boat isn’t particularly enlightening, until you examine the amount of money they need. A ferry ride costs two cents. Two coins, which they earn from Mr. Endicott.

Fans of Greek mythology might notice an ominous connection between this and the price of riding across the River Styx. In Greek mythology, the dead require two coins in order to cross the River Styx and enter the land of the dead. People laid coins on the eyes of the deceased so that they could pay the boatman.

In the end of this comedic adventure, Greg throws their coins into a deep fountain, and they sneak onto the ferry instead. It makes you wonder, did Greg’s poorly planned act of defiance save their lives?

BONUS: This is also an example of an allusion, which is a reference to people, places, events, and even other works and ideas.

The Dark Lantern

Now, let’s take a look at a symbol specific to Over the Garden Wall: the Dark Lantern. The lantern represents blind belief driven by hope. We don’t discover this meaning until the fourth episode, but looking back, we can see evidence of this from the beginning.

We first see the lantern in the possession of the Woodsman. He calls it his “lot in life, [his] burden to bear,” explaining to the brothers that he walks the woods finding Edelwood trees to keep it lit. He sounds like he hates this task, which makes it easy to wonder why on earth he keeps doing it every day if it’s such a burden. We get the sense that something drives him to do so, but we don’t know what.

The answer doesn’t appear until the end of episode 4, Tales of the Dark Lantern, when the Beast reveals that it contains the soul of the Woodsman’s daughter. At this point, we can determine that the Woodsman burns Edelwood to keep the lantern lit in order to preserve his daughter’s soul. But the details surrounding this are a little unclear. Will preserving her soul eventually lead to something, or does he just try to keep her soul going without any hope beyond that? Viewers might also wonder how the Woodsman knows that it contains her soul at all. Anyone who has read the comics released after the original airing know the answer to this one. He believes simply because the Beast told him so. He has no other evidence.

At this point, the lantern develops its symbolic meaning of blind belief driven by hope. The Woodsman blindly follows the belief that keeping it lit will protect his daughter’s soul, and he doesn’t appear to have a plan beyond simply keeping it lit.

Fast-forward to the ending of the tenth episode, The Unknown. Here, we see Wirt faced with a choice: let his brother die, or take on the job of lantern bearer and keep Greg’s soul safe in the same way that the Woodsman tried to preserve his daughter’s soul.

At first, it seems like Wirt will accept this task to save his brother. But he isn’t the kind of person to blindly follow hope. He’s proven himself to be the kind of person who either gives up entirely, or presses on and succeeds through pure muster. Given this, taking the blind hope offered by the lantern isn’t even a real option for him. He immediately questions this salvation offered by the Beast, and realizes what is really happening with that lantern in a way that the Woodsman could not.

After declining to follow hope blindly, Wirt finds the strength to free his brother and leave the forest. He also returns the lantern to the Woodsman, giving the man the option to continue following blindly or to move his life forward. The Woodsman, having seen someone else do the same, finally finds the strength to surrender his burden. Leaving behind the futility of preserving the lantern’s flame frees the Woodsman and allows him to return to life, where he finds an unexpected surprise waiting for him.

Sometimes, symbols hold more than one meaning within a work. In the fourth episode, before we learn about the trapped soul, we find out that the people at the inn all associate the Dark Lantern with the Beast. They say that whoever holds this item becomes the Beast. This shows that to the characters, the lantern symbolizes the Beast, a dark entity that they may not fully understand, but everyone knows to fear.

BONUS: Symbols can also show a parallel between two elements of a story in order to give the audience a deeper understanding of what’s really going on. There’s a great example of this in the first episode. The Woodsman calls the lantern his lot in life, his burden to bear. At the end of the episode, he tells Wirt that while the lantern is his burden, finding a way out of the woods is Wirt’s.

Knowing that the lantern represents blind belief driven by hope, we can conclude that Wirt’s search for a way to get out of the woods is equally futile and blind. Wirt possesses no knowledge of what will happen when he gets out of the woods; he simply wants to get out. As long as he focuses solely on this task, he can’t find the exit and runs into one deadly obstacle after another.

Edelwood Trees

The Edelwood trees are a more straightforward symbol, once we learn that they are the souls of people (specifically children, but we can presume that they can be anyone given how nervous the Beast makes the people at the inn) who have lost all hope and taken root in the woods. Thus the Edelwood trees represent lost hope.

These trees serve as fuel for the Dark Lantern. Looking at the symbolic meaning, lost hope can fuel blind belief driven by futile hope. The Woodsman lost his hope of reclaiming his daughter from the Dark Lantern long ago. As a result, he feeds it lost hope in order to perpetuate his scrap of hope that he can sustain her soul forever.

The Beast

As mentioned earlier, symbols go beyond objects, seasons, or animals. They can also be characters. The Beast symbolizes surrender after losing hope, which I’ll call despair for simplicity. His one objective throughout is to cause people to lose hope in order to keep his flame lit. He subsists on lost hope.

At the end of The Old Grist Mill, the Woodsman tells the brothers more about the Beast. He says “the Beast cannot be mollified like some farmer’s pet. He stalks, like the night. He sings like the four winds. He is the death of hope. He steels the children. And he’ll rule…”

The man’s despondent description pretty accurately depicts despair in real life. People can’t just magic away such a deep, painful emotion, despite popular belief to the contrary. It sticks with a person, often crushing any other positive emotions that try to worm their way in, effectively snuffing out any other hopes that that person carries. Additionally, despair seems to lurk everywhere, just waiting for someone to come along for it to cling to. For some, this happens as a result of a painful event in their lives, and for others, it comes alongside things like depression or PTSD.

Pulling it All Together

Figuring out the symbols is just half of the work. Next comes the critical thinking part, or the analysis. The audience can combine what they learn about the symbols with events in the work to pull together a lesson, or just a deeper part of the story that gives them more details.

Analyzing Over the Garden Wall, it can be said that the show demonstrates the cost of blindly believing in something you desperately want to be true. People need hope, but that hope often needs to be realistic to some degree. When people blindly follow something that they want to be true like the Woodsman, they block out parts of their lives and risk falling into an unending rut. Similarly, not having any hope can lead people to sad existences, and often times sad endings as well. A person might not literally turn into an Edelwood tree, but the real life consequences are pretty similar.

Ultimately, Wirt and Greg find their way out of the woods because they manage to break away from blindly following a path because they hope something good will come of it, and manage not to lose their own hope in the process. If they did not overcome these obstacles, they likely would have drowned.

But Wait, There’s More!

One of my favorite things about literary analysis (and perhaps what can make it difficult to figure out at first) is that there are usually multiple ways to interpret symbols and meanings within a work. As long as a person has sufficient evidence for their claims without outright ignoring other elements of the work, they could argue a completely different point than the person before them.

Let’s do just that!

I have one more symbol for you, and looking at this symbol could change our analysis of the story.

The Garden Wall

The title of the show gives us a great example of symbolism as well. The 10 episodes don’t really make it clear where the title of the show comes from. Sure, Greg and Wirt jump over a wall on their way to Potsfield, but it isn’t a garden wall. Similarly, they dive over a high wall to escape the police officer, a move that ends up starting their journey into the Unknown, but this isn’t really a garden wall either (though an argument for this being the garden wall can be made, which I do address later). So where does this garden wall come in?

The comics can help provide an answer to this. If you have not read these yet, I highly recommend them. In these playful comics, we learn more about the Woodsman’s story, and find out just why he believes the Beast’s lantern contains his daughter’s soul. But I’m not here to spoil that for you. Instead, I want to take a look at the life he shares with his daughter before tragic events lead into the situation we see in the animated miniseries.

They live in a comfortable little cabin in the woods which they work hard to maintain. A garden wall rings the cabin to mark the boundary of their property. The wall also becomes a boundary for the Woodsman’s daughter when she is told not to go beyond it, showing her the limits of her explorable space outside of the cabin in order to protect her from the dangers that lurk beyond.

Many families create similar boundaries with their children in real life. Parents often set limits on where their kids can go in order to protect them from dangerous unknowns. For children growing up with walls around their family gardens, the garden wall often becomes that boundary. Everything on the other side of that wall is mystery, wonder, fear, unknown. Sound familiar?

Given this, the title turns the series into an exploration of this childhood unknown beyond that safe home boundary and all of the perils that may lie therein.

Adding this symbol changes our analysis a bit. Now, we could say that in Over the Garden Wall, we see what could happen when someone journeys beyond the boundaries of their world. That person may encounter hardships that they have no reference for handling, and need to respond accordingly.

If they start blindly following a path with the hope that things will get better with no proof that they will, nothing will change for that person and they may be ruled by despair. Similarly, if they let themselves lose hope completely, they will be consumed by despair. Only by finding a balance between recognizing false hope and maintaining hope can that person ultimately overcome the hardship and continue forward.

Both analyses are pretty similar, but ultimately have different meanings depending on what the viewer picked up on and felt most strongly about.

BONUS: The title of the show can also be seen in this way: In Into the Unknown, we see Wirt and Greg enter a cemetery called the Eternal Garden. From there, they jump over a wall to escape the police officer that drives in to investigate the “witches gathering” and accidentally frightens off all of the kids. The other side of the Garden’s wall ultimately leads them to falling into the water and nearly drowning. This does not diminish the symbolic meaning of the wall as a representation for the barrier between known and unknown, but it does create an object within the show to pin the symbol to.

I Challenge You (But Not to a Duel)!

Enjoyed learning about symbolism? Ready to try it yourself? Good!

I highly recommend checking out one of these great stories and trying your hand at analyzing symbols. I’ve highlighted a few symbols in each example to focus on, but didn’t list them all. Keep your eye out for others within the story if you want to up the challenge level!

Good luck, and no cheating! Share your experience in the comments below.

Ender’s Game: Games

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Wands (and no, I don’t mean…), the Sorting Hat, the Sorcerer’s Stone

Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief: Games

Hunger Games: The 13 districts, tracker jackers, sunflowers

Starwars: Clothing (specifically, Luke’s and Vader’s)

Halflife: Freeman’s crowbar

Tangled: Color symbolism (look at their clothing colors), the mobile above her crib (especially the bluebird)

Wall-E: The plant, the Lido Deck, and the Hello, Dolly VHS

Mass Effect 3: The little boy (you know the one)

Portal games: Cake (this symbol transforms throughout the story!)

The Scarlet Letter: Light and darkness, the scarlet ‘A’ (this symbol transforms too)

Lord of the Flies: The conch shell, the Beast

Gathering Blue: The color blue

Their Eyes Were Watching God: Janie’s hair, plants, seasons

Have a favorite game, comic, show, movie, or book you’ve found symbolism in? Share it in the comments! You can also connect with me on Twitter at @Popliterature, or send me a note!

And as always, if you have a literary device you want to know more about, or a game, comic, show, or movie that you want to see make an appearance on the blog, leave a shout-out in the comments!

#over the garden wall #literature #literary study #pop culture #pop culture literary tutor #symbolism #what is symbolism #literary device #english class help #english class #language arts class #language arts #i love books