#like from a narrative stand-point??? are u kidding me???

[meloncalic]

god,, i love Darkiplier.. that’s it.. that’s the tweet

#markiplier #darkiplier #everything about them is fantastic i love it #i love the meta-ness of them #like from a narrative stand-point??? are u kidding me??? #i love their connection to us as the viewer #i love the actor mark rivalry #let ME GUSH ABOUT THIS ENTITY

[ultraviolet-cello]

Aw man. Today's the last day of @tristampparty and I am surprisingly sad about it. I'll be catching up the days I missed at some point, but I've chucked all that I've written, including today, into a google document and I apparently wrote 7.5k words over the course of episode 6 to today.

That's! A Lot!

I really wanna thank everyone who reblogged and gave me their additional thoughts/commentary, and special thanks to Revenantghost for organizing this whole thing! you do good work for this fandom i am giving u a gold star

With that, here we go into Episode 0 - High Noon at July. CWs for pregnancy discussion and a less detailed than last time but still present analysis of sexual assault and transphobia, marked with a [CW] Ofc, spoilers for Trimax and Tristamp

Cowboy kid Knives is something u can pry from my cold dead hands but it's also,,, I don't watch a lot of westerns, but the way Knives describes it seems like he likes the high action and justice. Which yea. yeah.

A lot of ppl interpret Vash then saying that he doesn't like that sorta stuff as him having always had pacifistic tendencies but I don't really read it that way? I just see him being rather similar to Trimax Vash - chill kid with his own interests and hobbies and Knives being the very oversensitive kid so outshines him initially.

Regardless of version of Trigun (except 98. 98 didn't know shit about knives lmao), Vash and Knives have always started off wanting to coexist and be peaceful; it's just how they reacted to it later that differs. In this case, Knives wants to stand up for his friends and make a peaceful world through that, and Vash is more passive in that he just wants to have faith in humanity.

Not to mention they are kids. Young, idealistic kids. This is pre-Tesla, they don't know the extent of how horrible the world is. The loss of innocence and subsequent breakdowns relating to The Horrors is yet to come.

[CW] Mmmmm they really don't make the pregnancy imagery subtle now do they dfgkjdfjk

I also think there's like - merit in also interpreting Knives as trans. Not Just because i think he's also very trans coded (A lot of his breakdowns and story arcs have reflections in how some trans men overcompensate masculinity in a Bad Way. That's a very small subsection of trans guys btw but I am speaking from experience. I got better tho). Anyway it makes the fact that Knives is disregarding Vash's bodily autonomy very much Worse if you take the male plants are trans analogy into it.

He's so far gone that he's willing to do to Vash what would be the worst thing to be done to him; Violating his body to rebuild and make him a perfect independent ("remind him of biological reality"), physically overpowering him ("taking the aggressor, commonly masculine role in sexual assault") to do what he wants. Disregarding the wants and needs of the Plants ("women +fem-presenting ppl that he originally set out to protect because he knew their experience and wanted to help and still has that trauma from witnessing that trauma")

Ofc that's just a reading of the scene, but I quite like it as a trans guy because that makes a really good villain with trans themes/motifs! I hate him so much (affectionate)

No, no she doesn't. Meryl is making a choice and she's gonna damn well stick to it! She's been given agency and she's gonna spend it in the most eldritch horrific scene that someone on that planet could spend it lmao. Well, no Knives takes most eldritch and horrific. Meryl's second tho

Okay this fucking scene drives me INSANE. This is a memory, clearly, but it's one that's being tampered with. Vash asks Knives if they can get along with humans, and then Knives immediately messes with the memory to make sure that he says that he'll protect Vash no matter what. But that is very clearly not what was originally said, so... What did he say? What was present day Knives so desperate to cut off?

I've talked about the narrative being biased against Knives a lot, but something I haven't talked about is that Knives kinda tries to contribute to that narrative a lot. He wants to seem like he never cared about humans, he wants to seem like he always planned this and was going for justice ever since he was a kid. He tells Vash the Tesla incident was just a small grain of sand, he uses Luida to tell everyone he wants to kill Rem, he's unbearably cruel to Vash to make his point. The only difference is that he wants to be right.

So he doesn't let us see what the kid version of him says, because that would contradict the narrative he's built for himself.

I really wanna give props to Studio Orange here for both the design and way they modelled the wing here, that's a really difficult task when the guy you're putting a wing on has a tight as hell bodysuit. But the anatomy holds up surprisingly well!

Also many people have pointed out that the plant mech looks a lot like Rem, and Knives staring into the face of a Plantish representation of his mother that is created and controlled subconsciously by his brother and saying he was rejected is. It sure is a scene!

ONCE AGAIN. INCREDIBLE EFFECTS. I also would like to once again point out the angelic motifs of Knives' design here.

Also Vash saying this is SO important because Meryl!!! is so important!!! I see a lot of people brush Meryl's space in the story off and it Enrages me because Meryl is one of the most important people to Vash. Aside from our frontline yaoi soldier Nicholas D. Wolfwood, Meryl has one of the most tangible impacts on Vash's character.

When Vash is in his breakdown in Trimax, Meryl is the one to kneel at his side and believe in him; When Vash is having his god awful horrible mindscape time in Tristamp, Meryl does the same. When Meryl is kidnapped in Trimax, Vash instantly jumps out of a window in the chance of getting her back. Vash trusted her enough to fire the ion cannon in the sand steamer episode. He immediately went to July the moment she and Roberto were kidnapped.

Meryl has so much faith in Vash and she's insane for that, but Vash recognizes her and that faith pays off in giving him the strength to carry on. He heard her voice, too :]

Also oh to be floating slowly down to the floor while you're a meter away from a cube with the power of an atom bomb while someone named Millions Knives is summoning millions of knives in front of u. Meryl has guts, man.

And now that Vash has gotten his gun back, he's back to using it as a tonfa! (check I think my analysis of episode 7 for more on that). Watching for the swing blocks, the forearm guard, and thwacking the knife tendrils out of the way

This fight scene has soooo much love and care and detail in it I love it so much actually. From seeing Vash's bullets to all the expressions and beautifully detailed firing, there's so much detail in a quick space that you really have to slow it down to see everything.

Seriously how strong is Knives to be able to have a feasible chance again Vash's prosthetic - and Vash matches him! Also the chomp

Now something that I have the shakiest of theories on is that after summoning The Cube, Vash starts moving in a far more controlled manner, he stands still when reloading, he has his movement flurries and then stands still to aim. Which uh. Studio Orange works in 3d, but those are 2d animation techniques. He's moving like 98 Vash.

There's a lot I admire about Studio Orange's use of 3d (I am a mid-tier 2d artist lmao) but I love love love that they're able to get all these really nice, creative camera shots that would be impractical in 2d (all those overhead shots, for example, have a chance of turning about bad/looking weird in 2d, and puts more strain on animators, but 3d you have the models from every angle already. 3d isn't easier by any means, but it does have its strengths)

Also. how Did Wolfwood get over here, dare I ask. mans climbed a tower in just a few minutes what is Wrong with him

Also a nice detail, Vash usually has perfect trigger discipline, but he falters here against Knives, probably because he's been already shooting, but hey, he's stressed. I'll give him a break.

I also appreciate exactly how superhuman Wolfwood is now. Tristamp Wolfwood is on a different level. Like 98 Wolfwood is just some (attractive) guy, Trimax Wolfwood has a lot of gory body horror going on and a subtle kind of endurance/strength, but Tristamp Wolfwood just jumped off a very tall building holding a grown woman and the Punisher and was fine.

Oh hey, same symbol on the tower as was on the sandsteamer and on Vash's wanted poster - symbol of July, probably

Very horribly, Knives probably did just save Vash's life here. But also the rest of July's life (though ofc he just extended the timer)....

I'm not quite sure When Vash started using plant bullets, but he's definitely using them now. Also the nails on his prosthetic are a nice touch!

THE FLYING SAUCER STRIKES AGAIN. I wonder if that's gonna be the basis of the Ark, if that's the route season 2 goes.

I also. Was that allI the Plants collected that escaped in this, or were there a bunch still running in July that get obliterated too? Did Knives inadvertently cause the death of more plants? I mean, when Knives gets revived in Trimax he definitely causes the death of at least 2 plants (there are a couple of bulbs in the background of the blast radius, plus the one that was used to revive him... she uh. Didn't look like she was doing so hot)

Vash's little speech is always so,,, intense. He has such a strong sense of character and it's admirable how well he sticks to his morals despite it all.

On a more body horror note, Knives can survive a long fucking time trying to grab The Cube. In Trimax he gets hit with the angel arm and practically disemboweled instantly, but Tristamp Knives can take over a minute of just like. being right in the direct path of fire. They're really gonna have to work to reconstruct him. Good luck, Legato!

UFO SPOTTED !!! LEAVING JULY AS IT IS DESTROYED !! NOT CLICKBAIT !!!

^ I made that long ago and needed to use it somewhere dfgkjdfg

[RAUCOUS CHEERING]

And ofc I have to bring up Eriks :] I don't actually have too much to say abt him. Studio Orange strip this man and make him bark like a dog next season or we will riot

CHRONICA MENTION!!!!! YAYYYYYY

And that's kinda. It.

Man I have had such fun over the last 12 days, I've really discovered a love for analyzing and theories and putting that out there and chatting with people about Trigun :] I should do this more often lmao but I do want to get back to drawing. I'll find a balance, then!

Thank you all for coming, and Wow if you made it this far I must be doing something right lmao.

#cli speaks #trigun #trigun stampede #tristampparty #cli analysis

[11queensupreme11]

One thing that I adore about Sukuna and Hime’s bond was that from the minute these two met, this relationship was bound to end horribly. They were never supposed to have a good ending no matter how many times you try to look at it through different angles.

At first, it tricks you into thinking that they COULD have a hopeful future together if they evade the obstacles coming their way (ex: Junichiro, Suiten, the villagers, jujutsu society, etc.) so that they could be alone and finally be truly happy, making their own happy ending together.

But it just never happens.

The hard part to swallow here, is that it wasn’t even because of Junichiro that the pair wasn’t able to stay together and be meant for each other. It was Sukuna.

Bear with me here, let me explain.

Ever since I read the full backstory on Shisui back in the first book of “A Fish Out of Water”, I suspected that the relationship between Shisui and Sukuna seemed to act like a mirage.

I don’t know why, but it just struck me as fake no matter how many times I tried to reread the Shisui arc over and over again (I kept rereading to make sure I wasn’t actually overthinking).

Shisui was fine on her end. She acted like any good friend would do and was true to herself when she voluntarily stayed with Sukuna.

But that’s the problem. Unlike Shisui, Sukuna wasn’t acting like his true self.

And no, I’m not talking about the fact that he was being fake “sometimes” because he had his eating urges.

I’m talking about the fact that his humanity was never actually there to begin with.

We see his real self through some small glimpses LIKE the eating urges or when he had the sadistic idea to pour salt on his aunt’s soon-to-be lover when he was questioning him about the Uchiumi clan. Even the smallest things like stealing some snacks from some stands made him seem less sympathetic. His rude and uncaring demeanour wasn’t made up by the villagers’ cruel treatment to him. This guy just didn’t care from the start. Even when he was a kid, his aunt precisely stated that he wasn’t a normal kid. He learned quickly, he spoke correctly, he studied well and had control over his abilities which held a lot of potential for becoming a future jujutsu sorcerer. He did all of this when he was just a kid.

It always confused me how Shisui kept saying that Sukuna was kind-hearted and selfless, when he was none of those. None of his actions made him look like a possible good person but then again, this is Shisui we’re talking about. She speaks a lot with her heart and not with her head (like how she told him that she’ll still love him even if he was a curse).

So then, if Sukuna was never supposed to act like a real human despite being born as one, what made him act like one? Well that’s easy, it was because everyone around him was looking and acting like a human. (did u rly think I was gonna say Shisui??? omg that’s so cute-)

Shisui was the one who encouraged him to continue faking himself. That’s why his body was slightly physically different (ex: red hair, black claws, red eyes) but not too different to the point that he looked like a monster with four arms and eyes already. His body felt like it was stuck in the middle of his growth, not reaching his fullest potential but not being at his lowest either.

Ever since his birth, he was supposed to ascend and yet he didn’t because his growth got sidetracked by his aunt who tried showing him the rights and wrongs (basically taught him self-awareness and stuff that a parent should teach their child) of this world. Then, Shisui came and pushed that narrative of “showing sympathy and selflessness” in his agenda, slowing his growth process even more.

That’s why he still looked human enough back when he was a kid.

When he was older, that’s when things started to complicate for him. His body was sick of not receiving the food that he needed, so it began to retaliate and grow without his control (ex: the mouth that appeared on his stomach that one day). And after all that, Sukuna was still trying to keep it together. It was literally like dealing with a ticking time-bomb: you don’t know when it’ll set off but you just know that when it does, you better hide cuz that bitch will hurt.

That’s why Junichiro wasn’t the cause of Sukuna and Shisui’s downfall. He was only the one who discovered the bomb and underestimated it. Like a kid playing with a knife or a pair of scissors.

Sukuna secretly craves blood, fresh meat, and disorder. He doesn’t care about selflessness or caring. He only practises these two things with Shisui because “someone once said ‘If you love someone, you let them go.’”In the end, he was still pretending for the sake of pleasing Shisui, someone who has said she’ll love him unconditionally, someone who still wanted to be with him despite the fear and evil aura he emits around him, someone who has shown physical proof that he’ll still be loved without his human form when she started cooing at his stomach mouth, someone who he wants all for himself. He was acting like a selfless human because he thought that was what you were supposed to do.

Her death was the fire that set everything all up. Why keep pretending when the source of your pretending ceases to exist? Just let yourself go and grow up.

And that’s what Sukuna did. He literally grew up and reached his true form. There were no shackles or restraints anymore. He could do whatever he wanted without any restrictions or rules, HE was the one that ordered around.

He even said that he wished he would’ve ascended sooner in order to reach this form. (“WHO KNEW YOU WORTHLESS MEAT BAGS COULD TASTE SO GOOD?! I SHOULD’VE KILLED YOU ALL FROM THE START!”)

In the end, it didn’t even matter if Shisui had died on that day or not. He would have still eventually stopped himself from believing in his own crap and ascended. Because he secretly needed to AND wanted to.

When I finally read chapter 6 of Bloodflood and saw Hime distraught at the fact that she had truly lost Sukuna for good, I found it sad.

The old Sukuna would’ve understood her fears. He would’ve vowed to help set her free. He… he wouldn’t do this.

She finally got the message.

The Sukuna she loved was long gone.

When she died all those years ago, she had taken his heart with her.

Hime still does not understand that there was never even a sympathetic Sukuna to come back to. Sure, his human self is long gone, but it only grew to become an ascension. If Sukuna could do it all over again, he wouldn’t listen to her and try to set her free. Not at all. The thought wouldn’t even cross his mind.

Hime didn’t lose Sukuna. He’s right there still alive and breathing.

There never was a “selfless Sukuna”. It was all in Shisui’s head.

Her reaction felt like losing an imaginary friend.

there's so much i wanna say but i fear i run the risk of accidentally spilling something i shouldn't, so i'll just say this:

i REALLY love your asks, cocogum. they're always so deeply thought out and analytical.

i can tell just from this ask alone that you know my story well; you remind me a student prepping for a discussion for a book you're required to read for english class.

#👸🏻| asks #👸🏻| tsunami

[geoffrard]

please tell me more about this geoff/gerard proof 👀

anon how much time do u have

thought about being jokingly tinhatting with my response to this but i dont actually think they full fucked or whatever. so instead i'm just gonna dump several thousand words of an earnest attempt to outline why geoff and gerard deserve the same treatment received by other legendary canonical friendships like bert & gerard, mikey & pete, etc etc

also i caught the riot fest covid so idk how comprensible i will be. and idk how much sense some of this will make if you don't already have, like, rudimentary knowledge about geoff rickly's start in the hardcore scene in new brunswick, nj, so obligatory plug of the thursday primer that me and nic @raytorosaurus put out a while ago.

but tl;dr, geoff rickly and gerard way were drawn to each other literally from the beginning. since then, neither have left the other's orbit. they are legit cosmically connected narrative foils who could have been each other's closest confidant but never have been more than incredibly meaningful people to the other due to instance after instance of wrong place, wrong time.

i'll do my best to sum up some of the most poignant moments in their over twenty-year-long friendship, but nic and i are drafting several other posts that more diligently delineate the connections between thursday and mcr in their overlapping, mirrored careers and similarities/divergences in their goals/approaches as musicians.

so anyway despite what you might have assumed from the story that goes around where geoff heard gerard and mikey (badly) playing vampires at the eyeball house and wasn't impressed, i believe that at that point they'd already been friends for a while.

this is how gerard recalls the moment he met geoff:

Way: I remember it super vividly. Do you remember? I was walking out of the record shop that Alex [Saavedra, Eyeball Records] worked at on Kearny Avenue and you were standing against a wall wearing a black t-shirt. You were rail skinny and you looked like you were dying and you were so pale with this jet black hair. Rickly: My vegan lifestyle was not agreeing with me. Way: It looked like the sun was killing him. [long pause] And I thought he was super cool. (from their interview with vice in 2015)

long pause and i thought he was super cool.....like....

this is what geoff looked like back then btw. im guessing it was around 2000/early 2001 that they met since thats the outer limits of geoff's black hair goth days

(source)

gerard designed shirts for bands in the scene, including this one for thursday, probably done around 2001 when the dove became the main symbol associated with thursday. at this point mikey was a regular at the eyeball house but gerard was still hiding away in his house, but would always talk about his brother.

Geoff: "I knew Mikey from parties at the eyeball house. I liked Mikey a lot, and he was like, 'you're gonna love my brother Gee (he called him Gee all the time), Gerard, he's the best comic book artist, he's always at home, just working on comic books.' So I was like yeah, I wanna meet this kid, you know, I wanna make comic books with him, you know, that sounds awesome!" (source)

after that geoff kept asking mikey when his brother would come down to the eyeball house, because he'd loved comics since he was a kid, but he was too shy to verbalize that, and his love of comics wasn't something he'd ever actually shared with anyone other than his grandmother, who had just passed away, but he heard that this quiet guy who'd sometimes hang out with the scene's resident kid brother was this amazing comic book artist, and geoff decided that gerard was a person he wanted to know.

So like they were literally talking about writing a comic book together: geoff would write and gerard would draw. but they never were able to spend that much time together. thursday found massive and unanticipated success in late 2001 when understanding in a car crash started playing on mtv nonstop and gerard was still a hermit for the most part but had started to piece together the band that would become my chemical romance.

so then blah blah blah the story where gerard and mikey introduced the idea of their band to geoff we've all heard it. i linked it above but you can read the excerpt from dan ozzi's sellout here if you aren't familiar with the details already.

and that story ends with geoff listening to their demo and realizing that this little band actually had something. but i firmly believe that geoff loved the scene and was so compelled by gerard's art and wanted to collaborate creatively with him that he would have been willing to do it regardless of if he came around to their music or not.

geoff said this in a podcast in 2018:

"Gerard is sort of like... when he's not sort of hiding out in his house somewhere, he's actually so charming and personable. There's a reason why I was so drawn to him, and that he's, like, a superstar."

obviously we'll never know, because geoff was so compelled by the music that he played their demo to death in the tour van and then took the only two weeks that thursday had off in one of the busiest years of their career while in the midst of a super contentious legal affair with their record label to produce bullets.

okay now that i am looking at what i have written so far i look like an insane person and that is okay but i think that i will save the rest for another longer post about the fated careers of mcr and thursday. but i feel that i have done my job by just giving you this taste. more to come but their friendship literally so expansive and detailed (in ways that I don't usually see articulated here) that a single tumblr post is never going to do it justice. as i said, stay tuned, we're working on something more.

tl;dr (another one) gerard and geoff are perennially obsessed with each other & have been since literally the first time that they laid eyes on each other and it comes out the second that either of them have to be even a little reflective on the other's career thanks for reading my manifesto bye.

#mcr #gerard way #geoff rickly #thursday band #SORRY FOR RAMBLING SO LONG AND GETTING LITERALLY NOWHERE #its just that i cannot allow myself to forgo literally any single one of the small details #mine #geoffrard tag

[kustas]

For the silver eve arc in wha , what did you envision or think it would be like in comparison to other anime arcs , episodes or anime movies & manga? Or in other words could u share more on what energy/pacing/direction/visuals you wanted to see? Hope this makes sense !

Hi anon! Thank you for asking! Earlier arcs in WHA were super short, only a few chapters long, around an arc or two per volume when the transition was mid volume. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about arc structures in the first place because of stories like early WHA - "arcs" only feel like distinct, strong parts for specific long and often shonen type series. It seems like with the evolution of the story and stakes in WHA it's transforming into this. Because arcs are convenient I'll keep using them to answer though!

Purely in matters of what I like, raising the stakes is a problem. It's entirely subjective but I personally care less and less about stories the higher the stakes are. I like narratives centered around a small group of individuals and if it involves worldbuilding I like the worldbuilding to be expressed through everyday interactions. This is something early WHA excelled at and who continues to be a strong point in the series. The author has crafted a believable, engaging fantasy world who's intricacies are shown through personal problems first, before reattaching them to societal problems second. Instead of showing you it's witch society through grand info dumps of historical moments, you learn about it alongsides a little girl who's fascinated by the world the same way the reader can be.

What I thought the Silver Eve would be was a step back from the currently established factions (the atelier, the knights, iguin's brimmed caps) to consider the greater picture of how witches interact with outsiders. The arc was introduced by Tartah's proposal for a stand and the arrival of the Three Wise at the King's castle. I was expecting those two POVs to cover the duration of the festival: on one side, the atelier girls selling their wares and on the other the politicians organizing it all. Both were to answer the question raised with the phantasmal flame chapter: how do you regulate how to use magic? Outsiders want magic which and it is up to the witches, who's faction chose to control it exclusively, to decide how to distribute it. And from this stems the questions of corruption (Engendil), control (king vs Wise), poverty (Custas), yadda yadda.

This hyped me up a lot because it's an amazing opportunity for more worldbuilding including a major city we hadn't seen yet, politicians we hadn't seen yet and their POVs and outsiders! Asides of the first chapter with Coco, Custas&Dagda were pretty much the only outsider characters and their life conditions were pretty extreme. This arc promised to me to show way more "normal" magicless people and their associated takes on the witches. Think the chapter where Oru and Hiehart go to work and help both the nobleman and the poor kid. It also immediately started with teasing the king had other bigger plans, as well as introducing a potential new faction or brimhats with Ininia and her master. This was around chapter 40-45.

A few chapters later none of this was resolved at all. We still don't know what the king wants, or Restys. The subplot with Custas is without a resolution. To this kept being added more backstory material fleshing out more characters (don't like that either but it's a whole other can of worms) which usually prepares you for their big time of relevance but uh. That did not happen. Instead we have: the leech.

That leech was, imo, entirely unnecessary. It dropped at a moment where the stakes were already at an all time high with all old and new factions involved in a single event, at the same time, something the story had thus far entirely avoided with smaller more separate arcs. And it ballooned all stakes to city ending mass massacre stuff without resolving any of the established issues. I...don't thing WHA needs giant monsters. It's a story about a little girl learning things in a society she's uniquely placed to see the unfairness of. I like how human it is and I don't think kaiju battling will contribute to that. The human scale is literally and figuratively gone with something like that.

Pacing wise, I'd have liked for all those little individual groups of characters to continue being individual and indirectly influence each other via their role in society. I'd have wanted for subplots to be closed off one by one or allowed to bait for next story beats like was done before. I'd have kept the blood eating monster a small one off incident way further that'd have to be solved by a crew of characters. While not all subplots need final closure the earlier arcs did a great job of addressing a situation and moving on from it in 3-10 chapters. The silver eve isn't over and it's length is approaching to be longer than the rest of the arcs combined.

Visually, while the outfit and world designs continue to go hard, I dislike how the character art has simplified away from a semi realistic take to smoother, more ... "moe" characters. It's more conventional and I don't like it. I like my characters to look distinct and this includes the little everyday traits that are dismissed by many authors for not being conventionally attractive. While WHA makes a visible effort to be inclusive it's the unfortunate reality that while the author can draw old people, fat people, people with all skin tones and all sorts of scars and stubble she...does not. I want to see it more. I would have liked to see it from day 1 actually, instead of having extras like the adult woman helping the leech victims sporting those one off designs, I'd have wanted Qifrey or Olruggio to have her look. It's too late for this and I hope it gets slowly changed with how the series continues and grows.

I don't really read a lot of long manga and nearly don't watch anime so I can't compare much to other media, I hope otherwise I've answered your question and don't hesitate to ask me again if I haven't or if you want further details!

#ask #witch hat atelier

[longeyelashedtragedy]

gimme a whole speech on the writing of visited upon the sons, pls

ok! i hope you mean this for real and aren't going to laugh at me for giving a whole long serious answer (omg sometimes the 'i was a weird kid' instinct kicks in) but i assume your kindness 💙🤍

random trivia: i almost never write with music on, cause my head is so wild about music that it's too distracting, but i wrote this with "money" by pink floyd on repeat and i'm honestly not sure why? (i also wrote "digestif" listening to motorhead...not sure why either but u gotta roll with it)

where to start...

i wrote a really big chunk of the beginning while standing under some scaffolding waiting for a freak summer downpour to end so i could go get iced coffee. that's my favorite way to write--in a weird place on my notes app full of autocorrect mistakes and other things like that because i'm so in the zone that my brain is going way too fast for my fingers to keep up.

i was sooooo Absorbed in fact that i didn't realize until a couple days later that i had written it really oddly without realizing? You know how in 3rd person pov even if you're writing one person's perspective and you're in their head so you know their emotions, thoughts etc, you still narrate with the character's name? Like...Mason chokes on the the sip of water he was trying to take.  “Uhhh…that’s kind of fucked up?” he manages to squeak out in between coughs.  This is making him think things he doesn’t want to think doesn’t want to think doesn’t want to—He coughs again and runs his fingers nervously through his fluffy hair. that kind of thing? what i realized is that i had written this POV really strangely and tho frank is the POV he never refers to himself by name? is that a thing? i was like "well that's weird" and tried to fix it but the fic refused...it made the POV feel too distant when the point of the fic is that he's increasingly lost in his own mind. the closer you as the reader are to that, the better. i trust my writing instincts like--if i instinctively wrote that way then it must have been for a reason! (note that the middle section is written in the "traditional" 3rd person way which again just--felt way better because that section is soooooort of a coherent narrative--which is also kinda done for a reason)

however this meant i had to repeat mason's name WAY more than sounds natural so it wasn't confusing, and if i just Did that with no explanation, that's the kind of thing i'd pick up on as a reader and would consider to be unforgivably bad writing. so, i called it out directly in the fic, and gave it an in-world reason, which then actually became the fic summary 😂 (Mason, his Mason—It’s the repetition that dulls the emotions (some people would call that repression, wouldn’t they, but that word implies something wrong with one’s mental state and there’s nothing wrong at all) My fic my rules!

this fic was written really in like, 2 or 3 days of writing. it was nearly impossible to just write little bits here and there. this pov was very demanding of my full attention because i also had to disappear into franko's mind to write it and it's hard to just like, do that when you have 10 spare minutes. because of this i almost gave up on it because it felt like i'd never be able to regain the momentum of the first writing day and also--also--i struggled with the structure SO HARD. my initial plan was to have the fic start out normally, and then intersperse frank's memories with the present, and each time he re-joins the present from a memory he gets more and more fucked up. (and of course, mason is clueless to it at first, and then he's all ?????) you can see lil remnants of this throughout--i think mostly in the beginning when he pours the rosé. (His fist clenches around the bottle as he pours and Mason catches that too. For fuck’s sake, he’s not supposed to.) Initially, the first section of the memories section--Dad getting too worked up about young!frank wanting to drink something pink--was going to come right before that, so there was a direct context--oh, he's remembering that while he pours. BUT--

that happened to work there, but i realized if i kept doing it like this i was going to be imposing something way too restrictive on the rest of the fic. i'd have to create each bad memory and then make the corresponding "present day" section relate to that memory and there'd be no way to make that happen naturally without seriously forcing some part of the story, and who wants that? this got me so stressed out especially as the (self-appointed) King of the Flashback that i wondered if i should just leave them out altogether. somehow i decided to write all of the flashbacks i would want to have in an entirely separate document, and then just write the "present" parts all at once, and then decide how i'd want to combine them.

2nd trivia point: because of this, this was one of the only fics in recent memory i've ever written relatively in order from start to finish. usually i write a beginning and an end and then fuck around in no order in the middle till it's done.

i can't quite remember what happened next, but i think i then did skip a bit to writing the end, and suddenly my mind wanted to develop something that came up earlier in the fic, at the beginning, where he refers to the feeling of something pursuing him. i think i meant that more in a vague sense at the time, and wasn't going to explore it, but (maybe something from @new-berry inspired me? possibly?) considering how fucked-up i wanted him to be at the end vs the beginning, and how coming out of a dissociative episode your relationship to yourself and to the world around you can be really wonky and fucked up--at least in my personal experience--i realized what if i could make that concept a lot more Real, and put in the imagery of a ghost in the room. but what kind of ghost? well, obviously not an uwu scary ghost, but you can come to your own conclusions as to what he thinks is "haunting" him.

this meant that i could write that last paragraph, which sincerely is one of my fav endings i've written in a long time, and as often happens when i write endings, the whole fic then made sense to me. and i realized instead of writing scattered memories and having frank's behavior in the present Escalated, i was going to drop the entire memories narrative into the fic in one big chunk, creating a story within a story, and have it be so all consuming that he completely loses track of what is happening. (which i feel like is an especially wild thing to do while you're having a Sexual Encounter and thus leaves mason rightfully disturbed--love me some Wretched Sex!!! sorry!)

i had a couple people tell me they completely forgot what was supposed to be happening while they were reading it, which made me so happy because that was what i wanted!

when i see this mf i see a dude who is so tormented and repressed and shaped by how he was treated as a kid. his dad made football his life so oppressively (in some ways) that he has, as he's said, no hobbies other than football and reading and now that football is no longer a good place for him there's just nothing left. add that to the fact that he clearly has never ever really healed from his mom's death in 2008 (and you can say a lot about his disingenuousness and lack of accountability as a coach, but the extended part about how he dealt with grief and loss on the diary of a ceo podcast was so fuckin real and it was a bit wild to see a famous person be so open) i feel like someone like this has a mind like a haunted house and can't quite go about things "normally." i wanted to create this feeling in the fic.

the best writing experiences turn into therapy sessions and when i was done writing i realized that i was expressing something about myself through it, which is how uncomfortable i feel in situations with a lot of very cishet expectations, as someone who is VERY not het and stealthily very not cis. i had already known this of course from conversations with coworkers, but this fic made me realize how much i fucking resent it--how much anger i feel toward it really--which was...interesting to learn about myself i guess.

anyway that's visited upon the sons for ya. i'm sure i left something out, but i feel sad that i'm no longer writing it, cause it was one of those experiences that make me think writing is fun. i always think writing is fun, but you know what i mean?

(footnote: my fic that i've been referring to as 'bitter mutual cheating' takes place around 2 months after this one, and it's from mason's POV and he reduces the whole upsetting experience to one line (Frank sounds panicked, and there’s only one other time that Mason can remember hearing him sound like this–that night with the West Ham jersey where Frank seemed to go kind of crazy and he had to tell the guys in the dressing room that it was his sister’s cat who had scratched the shit out of his back) which is just kind of a fun mindfuck for me. 7000+ words of agony but all mason even was aware of was...that, lol.)

(OH, i forgot! in the last line: Holding his Mason tight like it loves him, that word "like" is important. is he realizing--just for a moment--that his "love" for Mason is just kind of a placeholder for something else? someone else? we'll see...)

#anonymous #answered #thank you!!!! #this is one of the only fics i've written that i have this much to say about lol #i wanted this one to hit a little different #fic saga #visited upon the sons #long eyelashed tragedy

[isaksbestpillow]

Was too shaken to post my Eurovision top songs when it was still relevant but here they are days late haha.

1. Kärtsäri

I'm a Finnish speaker from a town even shittier than Vantaa, sue me 🟢🟢🇫🇮🟢🟢. The song is genuinely fun from a finnish perspective at least! The lyrics in particular. For real though Käärijä is such a breath of fresh air in the landscape of finnish toxic masculinity??? Here we have a guy from Vantaa who openly talks about his feelings, battles ibd, wears fake nails, says nice things about other people, got kicked out of junior hockey for being too short, got dumped by his gf and lost his job during the pandemic and then had a mental breakdown because he left an anonymous hate comment on the internet that made him realise how unhappy and not okay he was (and how he got better by sharing his feelings with family and friends, in my repressed homeland where we don't say I love you to our family members????). Finnish kids are obsessed with him atm which is so much better than whatever dangerous right wing influencers algorithms shove at their faces. I think losing the jury vote might work in his favour in the long run, though. Finland is entering a a period of austerity and conservatives want to cut the national broadcaster's funding so we wouldn't have money to host anyway, and Finnish people love a good robbed underdog narrative. Donald Duck is the most popular Disney character in Finland for a reason. I can't name Juha Mieto's medals (a former cross country skier) but I for sure can tell u he lost olympic gold to a Swede by a margin of 0.01 seconds. That's the story we love.

2. Australia

I can excuse the jury not giving points to us because we thrive in the hate us or love us realm but where are Australia's points???? Australia was robbed!! All in all this was the most effortless and relaxed performance with solid vocals so I'm surprised it didn't rank higher because these mates were clearly professional musicians and I thought that was what the jury wanted.

3. Moldova

A bop!! I genuinely like a lot of folk music (finnish folk metal and mongolian throat singing forever woohoo) so I was the target audience. Again sad they didn't place higher!!

4. Belgium

This felt outdated in a good way! It's 1999 and I am experiencing weird gay thoughts while watching Vh1. Again a really effortless vocal performance.

5. Lithuania

I disliked some aspects of this song (I am not really a fan of the dramatic Mariah Carey kind of singing so I could've done without some of the oooooooouououoouooooooos) but there was something in there that I liked! Would've liked this better in Lithuanian I feel like.

Least favourite entries:

1. Israel

I'm in my 30s. I don't have Tiktok. I'm pretty open to genres but this is the one genre that I cannot stand. :( I am a boomer.

[atopvisenyashill]

sidebar- listening to a podcast about this season of survivor w two former players (it was rob cesternino and cassidy clarke, if u watch survivor) and there’s a player on this season, venus, who’s been the outcast for a while, but last few weeks all her opps have walked out one by one and rob goes “i think she’s got kind of an arya stark arc going on” and before he could finish cassidy whispers into her mic “she’s no one” it was hilarious aksjd (he meant as in venus is going through her kill list and might get to the end alive) ANYWAYS-

some changes i’ve noticed

i feel like part of why the series stumbles is bc it doesn’t discuss lyanna as much as it should. having that added “we’ll talk about your mother when i return” scene right before robert & ned’s talk about jon snow’s mother And the targaryens was really good tho, narratively linking the two concepts.

HOWEVER i think like rhaegar & robert, d&d saw lyanna more as a puzzle than a person, but the whole point of lyanna is that she was a living breathing girl to ned and her death completely wrecks him in an irreparable way. so when they cut out his entire milk of the poppy dream sequence later on, it cuts out that she wasn’t just the answer to a riddle of “who was jon snow’s mother” but instead an integral part of the narrative whose absence defines the people ned and jon become. but i’m getting ahead of myself bc they haven’t actually changed anything here yet and the scene where ned and robert stop to talk is really good and more or less what happens in the book aksjdj.

i don't understand why they don't have catelyn thank summer for saving her and bran from the assassin. just another mind boggling decision and weird, unnecessary departure from cat's character

another unnecessary change is taking away ned’s fashionista tendencies smFh they don’t get nedcat at all

the way jaime is like oh ned is gonna be my bestie we’re gonna trade war stories we’re gonna flirt i’ll tell him about his brother’s gruesome death and he’ll be so grateful he’ll become MY best friend instead of robert’s and meanwhile ned is like, openly snarling the whole speech. the way ned’s mouth drops open at the GALL of jaime to say killing aerys felt like justice and jaime looks DEVASTATED and PERPLEXED that this man hates him so much when they’ve talked twice aksjdjd

okay first of all I DO IN FACT GET THE CHANGE of having bran say he had to have fallen whole robb insists he never falls, and we all know this scene lives forever in my mind but i also think it’s a) another weird departure from bran’s canon, very stubborn character and b) a PALE imitation of the talk in the dark between robb & bran where they say they’ll go on an adventure

that said, there’s something that Really fucks me up about the North having this culture wherein the sick and disabled are sent out in the winter to fight and die because they’re not like, worth feeding, but at the same time As A Disabled Person i guess finding it almost enticing to be given to the chance to like Die For A Reason ya know. you always have that out. And then here’s poor sweet Bran who it just never occurred to him that he would have to take that out and now it’s all he wants. anyways i’m crying ig

it’s the stubborn streak in him. he doesn’t want platitudes, he doesn’t want to be strong. his whole life has changed for the worse and he just needs to sit in it. it’s not fair and it all sucks and he’s just a kid!!!

the robert and barristan scene is another good one and it’s bc it plays into robert’s character, really elevates the elephant in the room of rhaenys & aegon, and the way barristan is just. disgusted. standing there consumed with loathing for everything he’s become, refusing to engage with being a driving force for why everything is this way. dragging jaime in to humiliate him in front of barristan, to humiliate barristan in front of jaime. the way barristan almost reaches out to jaime emotionally in a way he refuses to reach out to robert, but robert only gets angry and picks at them more.

“he said the same thing he’d been saying for hours. ‘burn them all.’” OH NOW ITS NOT SO FUN ANYMORE IS IT WISE GUY

gonna be honest i think the weapon talk between jorah and rakharo is one of the sexiest scenes in the show, listening to two dudes who are hit in REALLY different ways talk about their favorite ways of murdering people is really fun and hot to me also elyes gabel and amrita acharia were wasted on this show, they would have killed in later seasons smh

i don’t understand why they made the drogo storyline like a REAL TYPICAL sort of rape romance story. what was the point if they were just gonna be ~in love~ at the end anyway. such a weird choice.

do i love the change from “fear cuts deeper than swords” to “what do we say to the god of death”? like it’s fine. they should have kept both if they liked that line so much. the actor who plays syrio is so good tho he’s got such great chemistry with maisie, you really understand why syrio impacts her so much

that ending close up on ned’s trauma face is so good it’s such a shame they CUT THE DREAM SEQUENCE WHERE WE FINALLY UNDERSTAND WHY NED IS LOSING IT WATXGING ARYA GET FAKE STABBED IN THE GUT. ITS FINE. IM FINE.

general thoughts

“it’ll get easier” jorah is a useless binch just like aemon the dragonknight. what’s the point of your sword if you don’t kill your girl’s evil husband. go fall on it shithead.

i do love that jorah is like “ned is a little bitch for trying to behead me for slavery even tho it’s been illegal in westeros for like hundreds of years. but also maybe having a king that allows behavior like that is kinda crazy actually bc viserys is not right in the head. i’m not gonna reflect on that at all tho” iain glenn the actor that you are.

love the lannister breakfast scene. the way tyrion clearly knows but is pointedly talking around it. jaime thinks tyrion is the height of comedy and wants them to have a nice breakfast but cersei leaves haughtily halfway through even tho tommen & myrcella are having a good time. the Loaded Look jaime gives tyrion during the “life is full of possibilities” line, where he like,,,, Almost realizes Tyrion is saying something to him here emotionally about being disabled before he puts it aside to be self involved about the incest.

kit’s acting is always several degrees of magnitude better when he’s with other starklings. idk if he’s trying harder or if maisie sophie and isaac are so good they infect him with acting abilities.

there’s something fun about the cycles continuing bc joffrey gets drunk & belligerent like his father has a thousand times, but he doesn’t have half the skill or charm as his father and just gets his ass completely handed to him by a practical toddler with zero training. and he’s so embarrassed it helps snowball this situation into a war.

the kid who plays micah is real awkward. i'm not bullying i'm just saying.

“we all pray for prince joffrey’s full recovery” “pity you didn’t spare a prayer for the butcher’s boy” GET HIS ASS

have i mentioned how much i hate aiden’s acting. oh my god i’m not gonna get through this rewatch aksjsj

“war was easier than daughters” ned every emotion you’ve ever felt is harder to deal with than the war that’s why you’re so fucked in the head be so fucking fr with me rn lmao

septa mordane is a terrible guardian i think this can’t be understated

“she must take his side even when he is wrong” “but how could you let her marry someone like that?” GET HIS ASS

bran literally shivering with fear as nan talks my baby!!!!!!!!

“ah the starks. quick tempers. slow minds.” CAN WE SKIP THE EVIL VILLAIN MONOLOGUES TO THE CAMERA PLEASE

“i think we can outfox a ten year old” jaime you couldn’t even kill that ten year old correctly let’s walk before we run

nedcat giggling over ned throttling petyr and then making out in front of petyr’s establishment is amazing i’m literally so depressed right now i hope petyr cried into his pillow that night

the way both ned AND benjen just give the most ass goodbyes to jon for no good reason. are they TRYING to give him a complex oh my god

i think i’m on episode 4. once i get past season one i think it’ll be easier when the writing gets worse actually.

#rani liveblogs got #gif warning

[sekai-no-koi]

to expand on your latest dc post (absolutely agree on what u said) do you think rather than shinichi not telling her bc ""shes a snitch"", woudlnt it have made more sense for the writting to specify he doenst want to tell her for selfish reasons? I mean definitely their relationship would be much different if she were aware of everything going on, it would make things weird. ik canon dc absolutely loves making it so that shinichi most of the time has no feelings or opinions on his own situation rahter than i wanna bring justice and go back to my real life but like. becomign a child and having to pretend to be a kid while in danger of putting everyone at risk and lying to all your loved ones, if he can at least be sure that whenever he fixes the issue he can pretend nothing happened and ran would be none the wiser...i think it would make more sense for him not to tell her if they made this the reason lol .

You can come off anon, I don't bite! I have to assume this is etude-in-citrine, because I never get asks 🤭 Either way, welcome! It's okay if you don't agree with me. And you don't have to change your mind, either! Just in case you wondered, though, I'll go ahead and explain my thoughts a bit more.

Putting aside what would be narratively satisfying for a second, canon is pretty clear about how Shinichi feels about lying to Ran. The moments that stand out most to me specify that he DOES actually want to tell her. In the anime and manga, he's actually promised her that he'll explain everything when it's all over. I find it difficult to see the intentions you've suggested for him. Shinichi values the truth. He's brash, direct, honest, and very loyal to the people close to him. It didn't even occur to him to lie until Agasa told him to, and since that was like RIGHT after the most humbling moment in his life. Then a LOT happened and, it's probably difficult to imagine tackling that topic. With so much still going on, I can sort of understand why he doesn't want to get into that with her right now. But, ultimately...?

I've just watched all the movies again so they're the freshest in my mind, but in Last Wizard of the Century, when she directly asks him if he's really a different person than Shinichi, his internal thought is, "I can't do this anymore."

Only very early on do we get him assuming that if he can go back to full size, he can go back to his regular high school detective life. As DC has gone on, his life has actually been enriched by the connections he's made as Conan. Even in the early seasons, we see that he's grown to care a lot for the Detective Boys in particular. There are parts of being Conan that I really don't think Shinichi will want to give up. He can still salvage some of those relationships (imo) if he tells them the truth when all's said and done.

But perhaps most importantly:

It's bullshit to assume that Ran will be none the wiser.

She's already suspicious of him, she has been suspicious of him, she's directly investigated the possibility that they're the same person more than once. At a certain point, they decided to leave it with her "waiting for Shinichi to tell her," which (again imo) is stupid.

Applying a little meta analysis for a second, if HAD to keep her functioning as if she's in the dark, it's not the worst way to do it. Not what I would've chosen, but whatever, right?

The point is, the ship of "fooling Ran and keeping this from her entirely" has LONG since sailed.

Let's entertain this suggestion for a moment. If he really did just pop back into her life and try to pretend like nothing happened, then I can't imagine she'd just let him off the hook. (reflecting on her mischaracterization in Black Iron Submarine: at least, I hope she won't.) Sonoko definitely won't. What I imagine Ran would actually do is confront him about it, and if he won't answer, investigate the truth for herself. I'm not sure what steps she'd take, but in reality if she could get Agasa alone and interrogate him about it, I think she'd get the truth. Because at that point, if she KNOWS she's being lied to and it's not her safety on the line anymore, there's no reason to keep it all from her. It won't save her relationship with Shinichi, because if she knows something's wrong and he's not telling her about it, how is Ran supposed to feel? And Shinichi's supposed to live with the guilt of lying to her indefinitely?

Narratively speaking, that ending would be a real flopping bummer, you know? Contrasting that with an ending where he confesses everything to her and lays everything at her feet... Well, maybe that's subjective, but personally I prefer the latter. It gives more respect to everything he's already put Ran through. It feels more like him. I actually hope he tells her before there's any kind of a big showdown, because I refuse to believe there's no part she could play in helping with that.

So, just to bring it all together here, I don't think Shinichi wants to lie to Ran any longer than he has to. He values the truth, and he values her. I don't think he'd feel right trying to keep it from her once all was said and done. I think he longs for the truth.

#as an aside #there's a headcanon I've seen where the Detective Boys totally know that Conan is Shinichi #and are just going along with his secret cover because they love having him around #and I think that's super sweet #anyway. don't discredit Ran!! or Shinichi for that matter #dcmk

[jonahh]

i loveeee jonah and i can’t rly think of a good question for u?? maybe like how did u feel abt the amy jonah breakup proposal scene in s6? i know it was sorta unpopular in the fandom as forced but i thought it was very sympathetic and understandable on both sides tbh

narratively speaking superstore actually hit the jackpot by getting canceled when it did, because if that had been the last we see of amy i don't think they could have salvaged it—or it would have been very difficult to, at least. i definitely had my doubts on a larger scale about superstore without america, and i still don't know that amy moving to california was the smartest plot move, but they weren't expecting to lose a lead and you work with what you have i guess

that being said! given that this was the in-universe route they chose, i do think that they pulled it off in a way that felt true to the characters. it's definitely brutal to watch, but it makes sense. of course amy is hesitant to make such a big, official step. even though it's jonah, and he's been around for a long time, and their relationship is great, she's been through this before and it completely derailed her from what she originally wanted in life. and so in her mind, there's always room for things to go wrong—whether that's in an immediate and catastrophic way or a slower, boiling-frog stagnation way. because of her circumstances, it's important to her that she have an easy escape route if that were to happen.

there's also the issue of the timing. i think that, if the circumstances were different and this didn't come up at the time of the move, it would feel less claustrophobic for her. but it's sort of an insane and tumultuous period, and adding yet another life-altering decision to the mix was definitely. not great.

jonah's view is completely different here. he pretty much sees them as already-married at this point, so it doesn't feel as daunting for him. this is where i do start to feel a little conflicted, so bear with me. on the one hand i do think he should have known better than to think this wouldn't be an added stressor for amy. like, obviously he's aware of her past, and the baggage/trauma she has regarding marriage. he's not adam, of course he's not adam, but who's to say he wouldn't fall into the same rut? he has a string of abandoned jobs behind him, and frankly not a whole lot of prospects. adam has a string of abandoned hobbies. amy's always been the one to take on the role of "adult" and frankly, as much as she (and i) love jonah, the relationship doesn't...look all that different. yes, true love, etc but she has kids and so she has to look at it from a practical as well as a romantic perspective.

the thing is, while he went about it in a way that was a little thoughtless and insane, jonah's also not in the wrong for wanting something more. i mean, the dude is moving across the country for her. they HAVE been together for several years, and they've known each other for several years before that. they are, functionally, a family, so it makes sense that he would want to make that official. and as solid as the relationship is, he just needs to know that she won't pull the rug out from under him suddenly—marriage seems like the most natural way to prove the stability of the relationship and soothe his neuroses. plus, in his mind, there's absolutely no chance he's going to be the one to leave. she's the reason he's stuck around for so many years, after all. but she has no way of fully understanding that without literally being in his head.

seeing him stand up for himself and set that boundary is cathartic. watching amy have to deal with the ultimatum is heartbreaking. marriage means two different things to these characters, and that's what makes the breakup so potent.

#fictionandmusic #also they both acted their ASSES off in this scene ben especially #however again. if they hadn't ended it after s6 it wouldn't have been a satisfying ending for them. the context is essential #.txt #nbc superstore #superstore #jonah x amy #jonah simms #amy sosa

[wenja45]

Why Edelgard is better written in non-CF and why she is the worst written lord in Three Houses

Its me once again and the CF Stan's paint Edelgard as having a character growth throughout the short route but that is far from the truth it's just copium levels of delusions. The truth is she is better written in non-CF routes in AM you can feel sympathetic to Edelgard and see what she is trying to do and how far she has fallen to achieve her goal as well as the in depth relationship she had with Dimitri when she was a kid and she is also more competent in AM and VW and SS. In both VW and SS you can also feel sorry and understand more about Edelgard and you can finish of TWSITD gameplay wise at the end which gives you the satisfaction of ending the threat of TWSITD.

Now let's look at CF Edelgard is reduced to be less competent and in fact becomes much more of a moe character towards the silent protagonist (hearing the distant reees of edeleth stan's) the Devs failed spectacularly in making Edelgard into a protagonist and Anti-hero you feel nothing towards Edelgard and in fact she is literally a flat character with her whole narrative is going to point A to point B to point C in conquering and also non stop whining that people are defending themselves.

Now let's go over why Edelgard is the worst written lord if not character in Three Houses. First of all is the horrible dialogue that Edelgard has "No U" ring any bells, the butchered writing in Crimson Flower reducing Edelgard's mental capacity and shows none of the Anti-hero promise, blames others for defending themselves, as a villain she barely shows up and is still incredibly vague on her end goal, lost to Dimitri in the AM debate despite how supposedly smart she is, in all the routes she loves Byleth for little to no reason (again hearing the distant reees of edeleth stan's) there most likely more that I can't remember but the point still stands that Edelgard is written so so badly it just comes across that CF was written as a joke or a parody that was never finished which it is not finished and has no ending. As a villain Edelgard is a bad one despite being better written than her protagonist self she gets outstaged by Serios in the villain role and she just became grrr me angry dragon evil.

This may come as a suprise to the Edelgard and CF cultists but guess what the majority of the people in the FE fanbase preferred and sees Edelgard as the villain/antagonist and the majority of people like her as a villain whilst her protagonist self is a mess of a flat character.

Also and interesting fact here is that the majority of the people who played AM and VW got to like Edelgard whilst in CF it only made people who once liked Edelgard into despising her what kind of bad writing does that to a character.

#edelgard von hresvelg #edelgard fe3h #edelgard critical #edelgard positive #hegemon edelgard #crimson flower #verdant wind #fe3h #azure moon #fire emblem three houses #silver snow

[moregraceful]

i would love to send u a prompt but i don't know enough about hockey narratives to give you a pairing :( if the word 'pavement' moves your hand in any particular way go for it!! and if not feel free to completely ignore this lol <3

i was like i will write a nice tony kemp/mikey yas story for my nice a's friend and then i was like i don't know anything about tony kemp except from your fanfic and then i wrote it anyway...alas

;;

Even thinking about buying a house on a one year contract is insane, no matter how much Mike wants to commit to San Francisco; Zaidi is not going to hand him a big contract when he’s a 35 year old UFA. But he’s got six-point-one million dollars burning a hole in his pocket, so he goes to San Francisco early in January, well before preseason, just to look for a good apartment.

He’ll probably end up in some stupid too-expensive condo in Outer Sunset, like he did the last two years, but Tony’s over in Oakland househunting too, so he makes a trip of it. Go to see Tony; go to find a nice place to live.

Tony goes with him around Twin Peaks, then the Mission, then the Presidio, and then they end up back in Outer Sunset, eating breakfast at a bistro Mike used to frequent last year. It has good breakfast sandwiches. The skies are foggy, but Mike’s content with where they are. They saw a condo that he liked more than the other places he’s seen that week.

Tony agreed to spend three days house-hunting with Mike but since it only took Mike two days to end up down the street from where he was last year, Tony claims he has a free day and Mike has to treat him right. “You owe me,” he says, “for making me walk up that hill in Twin Peaks.”

“Oakland’s too flat,” says Mike. “You’re getting weak.” Tony laughs. “Yeah, yeah, keep talking,” he says.

Mike agreed to spend three days househunting with Tony too. Tony’s looking exclusively in Montclair and Upper Rockridge. They’re not talking about it, but Tony’s looking at school districts.

Tony’s out in a year, unless the A’s come to their senses and keep him around for a while. Mike thinks that’s as unlikely as Farhan ever handing him more than a one year contract. 

Tony doesn’t have kids, but Mike knows he likes Oakland, knows he’s been looking around. Maybe they’re both thinking about things they can’t have, but Tony’s actually doing something about it.

They walk down to the beach after breakfast. Sand dunes have covered over the road, making the street gritty under their shoes. Neither of them dressed up all that much, but Tony steps carefully to avoid getting sand in his shoes.

The sun is barely visible under the fog. Mike likes Outer Sunset because the Pacific Ocean seems endless but he’s still close to home.

They stand at the top of a path and look out at the ocean spreading before them. The pavement is cracked, as much a victim to coastal erosion as the Great Highway, and in January, the ocean is mostly just gray. Nothing like it is in the Spring or Summer.

“What’s it like at night?” Tony asks. “I know you come here after games sometimes.”

“Dark,” says Mike. Tony frowns at him. Mike laughs. “Light pollution’s too shit to really see any stars, but if it’s dark enough and there’s no one around, sometimes it feels like the ocean might swallow me up if I go too close to the surf.”

“Well,” says Tony. “Don’t do that then.” He laughs. “I don’t want to wake up one day and read that you went missing in the night.”

“Gone too soon,” Mike agrees.

They stare at the ocean for a while and then turn around when it starts to get too misty and damp. They end up back at a coffeeshop Mike always liked last season, warming up over cups of coffee. The barista remembers his order. She remembers Tony’s too.

“You want to see the houses I’ve been looking at?” Tony asks, almost shy about it. Mike grins. “Yeah.”

They’re small, comfortable cottages, one or two bedrooms at most, tucked in quiet corners of streets in neighborhoods Mike’s never been to. They look nice to live in, as welcoming as the apartment Mike signed a one year agreement for earlier that day, with the same potential to create a warm home. None of the houses are furnished, but Tony was smart and kept his furniture from his last two apartments.

He’ll need more though. Mike likes the one with a dining room. “Big enough for a lot of people,” he says.

Tony smiles. “Yeah, that’s the idea.” He takes his phone back from Mike. “Gotta have enough space for the boys.”

“Just the boys?” Mike asks, testing the topic like he’s prodding the sand on the beach to see how compacted it is, if he can walk on it without sinking.

“Well,” says Tony. “You know.”

He grins at Mike, bright and brilliant. “Gotta have enough space.”

Mike smiles back. Pressing a little harder. “Just save a space for me at the table when your family gets big.”

“Head of the table,” says Tony, rolling his eyes. He laughs when Mike opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out. “Come on, man, you know you always have a seat at my table.”

“Right,” says Mike. He sips his coffee. “I know.”

Tony picks up his cup and salutes him. “Wherever I go,” he says. “Wherever you go. You always have a place with me.”

He sips his coffee. Mike watches him drink and thinks about his next contract and the one after, what happens in his forties, his future.

#me 🤝 yas 🤝 unable to buy property in the bay area due to our job insecurity #unfortunate birdcage fanfictions #this was sooooo fun thank you!!!

[pinkseas]

[parasocial bestie] sorry i got passionate. it may or may not b them in ur post but thats my automatic thought.

anyway wanna hear that i had zhongli xiao went to fishing once it was crazy i was thinking abt them Finding Solace thrugh another personal brainrot i have where xiao gets thru pretty rouch repercussions from the chasm and now chasm crew AND zhongli gets involved in his recovery its sad it hurts like shit that xiao contemplates more abt his existence to Keep Living and the chasm crew emphasizes that thru different perspectives and zhongli pops in and out for narrative purposes thats got him even more Mixed and they had a Necessary talk for the story. a talk that xiao finally breaks. i think. yeahgh. they reconcile they find a Little peace esp for xiao who finally mourns properly abt bosacius' loss and zhongli is there to comfort him and i break everysay thinking abt that brainrot i thinj and like

Anyway zhongli gets stupidly giddy with the lil progress theyre having and then outta nowhere afrer xiao is Okay he invites him to go fishing. the dude does Not Get it. is that a lumine influence or is he actually succumbing into karmic insanity he doesnt know but he follows the Geo Archon Definitely Not Fisherman to the marsh thats got fishes and just waits. for an hour probably sitting with a fishing rod waiting in silence he feels stupider by the minute but doesnt wanna point that to zhongli. turns out they forgot the worm bait and the Scrutinization the Seriousness they both have to stick the worm onto the hook is a detail all details i have there makes me crazy. anwyay even with the bait it takes another hour. zhongli goes ok fuck it then Remember when bonanus used to do this (goes knee deep into the lake, sleeves up pants rolled) and guess what the very formal very elegant funeral consultant reverts into a feral uncle just catching fish witg his hands and XIAO DOESNT FUCKING GET ITTT like shishou my lord mr zhongli why are you doing that and hes like TRY THIS KIDDO ITS SO FUN as he gets slapped in the face with jumping fish. xiao gets in but a lot more soaked cus hwo cares abt his outfit in the water bro hes anemo. then hahahwhrshhehehehehe uh oh xiao gets fish slapped next and guess whst happens zhongli goes full on guizhong to splash more water at him xiao gets SO SUSPRISED BUT HESITANT SO ZL SPLASHES MORE and gets absolute destroyed when xiao made up his mind getting over respecting him as his lord to a mere friend of his level. they splish sploosh splash water wars it was fun it was hAPPY theyre both smiling squealing xiao has almost never done this before neither did zhongli but he's seen how parents get to be playful with their little kids and xiao is No Little Kid but he wants to take the chance to introduce a little fun to xiao anwyay even if it gets them Soaked as Hell and theyre dumping themselvws under the water kicking it to their faces coughing when their noses get filled too much of it THEY STILL CHASE THE JUMPING FISHES TOO that rlly spices up the whole scene bcno one forgets theyre Supposed to get fish but theyre doing it caveman style and THEN THERES A HUGEASS FISH JUMPING OUT AND XIAO IMPULSIVELT JUMPS FOR IT but gets carried down into the water zhongli was like XIAO NO and plucking him out bc xiao doesnt let the big fish go AND IS STILL HOLDING IT it keeps slapping his face getting them both even wetter when zhongli lifts them both above the surface xiao gets irritated likr STOP FUCKING MOVING HE KARATE CHOPS IT DEAD so anyway thats how verr goldet gets there absolutely horrified at zhongli xiao standing at the reception soaked to the core and the former was holding an abnormally big fish and the latter going "do u have any spare clothes and towels? also we'd like to give this to yanxiao as thanks" and the inn staff has a nice buffet of a big ass fish grill while zhongli xiao chills in their room drying and doing lil comfy dad son things (explodes into a million pieces)

crying shaking bawling sobbing i dont even know what to SAY i love every single little thing about this dear LORD. this is so fucking perfect the time spent waiting the Forgetting the concentration before zhongli finally says fuck it we ball. THE TWO OF THE GETTING SLAPPED... THE WATER FIGHT.......... im genuinely going to fucking explode oh my God. this is everythign to me. they are everything to me.

thinking so hard about xiao chasm repercussions now ive thought about it short term (obviously) but never really long term......... eyes Wide Fawking Open right now ESPECIALLY with both the full crew And zhongli being involved in his recovery mgngnfgmmnfnmgmnfnmfnm god. God.

#parasocial bestie tag #the post was because i cried a little over the end of nilou's story quest #and like its not reconciliation or anything but Something About It made me so. #vs the thought of literally any mother child relationship EVER making me so -_- let ALONE them fixing it #i am soooooooo sick of forgiveness and love you see it CONSTANTLY in broken mother child relationships #with the dad you at least SOMETIMES get him being deadbeat and awful and useless and he gets fucked up or dies or something #but you never see that same energy with mothers #its FUCKED UP!!!!!!!!!!! give moms the same energy let them be unforgivable let them be selfish and disgusting let them Fucking Die #too much inequality in the mommy issues & daddy issues circle im telling u #when does a mom get beat to death with a baseball bat. when does a mom get exposed as pure fucking evil. huh. when. #unrelated to anything I Should Write The Chasm Bit In This Fic Now Actually #maybe ill do that #hopefully ill do that #its been so long......... <- has literally been like a week or two tops

[tired-needs-sleep]

what's your favorite thing abt one (or some) of your oc's personalities? do they have any certain behaviour patterns/mannerisms that you love? choose whoever u wanna talk abt, I'd love to hear :]

drops everything runs over to you. some? how about all the main gals.

oh. ih god oh my sweet trauamtized ocs.

i talk so much here. like a lot more than normal. sillies,,

for rhea i think one of my favorite things is actually how i imagine a novelization of their save file. since i think it would be so cool if taka dies, (but technically speaking either taka route can work for them. the choices are both in character for her so it's basically a 50/50 chance she'll lean one way or the other) i want to show just how absolutely fed up and tired of team meteor rhea is, so instead of the usual tone of narrative showing the reader how rhea feels on the inside at the moment, rhea stands up while holding taka's scarf, and the tone changes. from something like, say:

rhea blinked at cain through the window they made in the blanket cocoon they were in. of course he was right. there were more important things than feeling sad over something in the past. that could wait until later.

it would become this if it took place after taka dies:

they blinked at him. “right. there's more urgent things than this. what's the plan?”

i think i can explain a lot better with demonstration than describing it but i'm completely obsessed with this style choice. basically it shuts out about 90% of their inner monologue that is usually in what i write. most feelings and thoughts would be shown through actions and words, but i have not had too much luck with writing that style quickly since i'm so used to adding a “they sighed, irritation ..yadayadayada” to some part of an interaction. i still love it, just takes longer since i would need to go back and filter things out. also i get rid of things like the 'felt' in “she felt the wind on her face” to become “wind blew on her face.” makes it seem less casual and more tense. past me may be a little silly but that was one of the better ideas for them.

also after taka dies they go apeshit because they grew as close friends whole they got lost traveled through the desert. like team meteor killed kiki, someone i imagined rhea would be close to, kidnapped the kids, tried to kill them multiple times, and probably more i can't think off off the top of my head, but then taka? a good friend? nah i think i would be done too lol

that's just the narrative as well. rhea as a character i adore so much. like how they blush at the smallest complement or gravitates towards citrus fruit. or how koa (espeon) evolves to save them again, since they did that on the train too, so rhea returns the favor and ends up with a cool lightning scar as a result. and how they just squeeze their heirloom as a stress response. sometimes she bleeds. sometimes she does not notice. thank you twitter mutual that was an amazing idea

ALSO ALSO ALSO their relationship with amaria. i have a whole draft talking about this. what really sold me on the don't fight taka route was amaria attempting to drown the player. i don't know how the scene goes exactly but i was not about to let that opportunity go. rhea finds themselves looking up to amy and is like "wow. strong trainer. i wanna be like that sometime maybe." and i imagine they got along too. which makes it hurt more when they're both underwater and rhea can't get air. (i like to hc that the dive tm just enhances the trainer's ability to hold their breath underwater depending on how strong the pokemon using it is and at that point it's been a hot minute since resurfacing) so rhea, afterwards, goes from enjoying being underwater and surfing to being anxious when there's other people around. they're okay when alone but is usually on high alert anyway.

nia?!?! nia. so rotten over her. i love how she's just playing pretend basically. she's very hurt on the inside even before nancy dies but she just acts very extroverted and hyper to distract herself. she is still generally a friendly and generous person but it's like, she's pretending it isn't affecting her, when it is. little things like how she flinches when people begin to argue around her or how she has less faith and trust in authority figures, even being a little less obligated to do what they say. (see the time where i think it was crescent told her and ren not to go after melia and nia straight up told them, "nah we just didn't care what you said to us") i haven't thought of too many more but they will be there!!

the biggest thing i've been obsessed over with her is how she deals with the "death" of herself. at first her favorite color is red, since pink is a shade of red and nia and nancy were super close. but that shifts from red to orange and yellow after she comes back. ironically the same color as lava. hm. but it's not just the colors!! she likes wind. and rain to an extent, but not too much rain. her hair type and rain is not a good combination when she just got her hair done. but mostly wind. she can feel the wind. it reminds her she's still there. and that breaks me because she's learning to notice smaller things she didn't before. go girl go enjoy life as much as you can within the circumstance. the relationships with other characters too. it really made rejuvenation for me. playing fetch with aelita. i was dying of fun. nia smiled for the first time after mom died there. playing with her bestie and a cute doggo. goodest boy ever. hanging out with melia. nia found hapi and her meeting very sweet.

also erin saying that nia fidgets a lot in her sleep. makes sense, since nia has bad nightmares. twisted endings to things scare her to the point she dreads going to bed. i like to think melia catches her awake and they talk a little before nia thanks her for what she told tesla at terajuma.

nia may not have an "oh my god. i'm not straight" moment but she will have multiple instances of "wow. i am really gay. shameless even" just like me. should've seen my reaction to medalis' art smh

oh boy. emo girl. kisaragi. she's not nearly as developed as nia and rhea but i still adore her and her seriousness and parental issues

do you know how excited i was when valkyrie gave me the go ahead to make them. went feral. absol aura wielder beloved. i never figured out their hair color since red eyes go well with both white and black hair. they developed some trust issues a lot earlier than the other two ocs because they already experienced fake friends so many times. i was like, it would be cool if sara was from aevium, where most of that au is, and went on the desolation boat with the help of their friends because they were so done with their parents.

so sara tends to come off as sort of mean at first, because she defaults to “this person might just want something from me and leave afterwards, so why get attached in the first place anyway” so it takes a while for them to fully trust anyone, really. they're super soft on the inside though. mega soft. see when they interact with their absol, hasumi. i'm such a heckin sucker for mean/rough exterior but soft characters. they are so shaped. hug shaped. i like how they'd just melt if you say something like how you think they're so cool. they have some self worth issues thanks to their parents comparing them to their siblings often and disregarding what they might want to study at school for whatever they think is better. which is never better for sara.

i also really like what i have for their current dark type behavior (since soul bonded with absol, they can display characteristics similar to the type):

gets a headache that can turn to a migraine with too much exposure to artificial lights.

low sugar tolerance

feels connected to night/darkness as a whole, but in sara's case specifically the moon or a dark forest

can see better in the dark

unusual stealthiness. literally walks silently most of the time

hates bugs, would never admit to being scared of certain ones

practically nocturnal, does better at night but can handle the day fine.

i still don't know how the fighting type weakness can manifest? there's also the general effects an aura wielder has. like being resistant to illness, which i find funny because i hardly ever get sick. i woke up sick one day and was better in 2 hours. why is my immune system made of steel? i've been joked about because of it kashahhasja

also she likes ghosts since like absol, they think they're generally misunderstood. sort of like them. maybe people think they're stuck up or rude or something when that's not who they really are, like how people can think all ghost types are malicious when most aren't. also finds them fascinating how there's no scientific explanation for some of the cool things they can do!! and that's even cooler. how do you phase through the wall haunter do it again. again. again!

tldr i'm soo normal about them all.

#sleepy shut up you talk about them so much /j #sleepy rambles #oc: rhea🪐 #oc: kisaragi🌙 #this ask made my day thank you gon #i was gonna ask you something but the words didn't wanna articulate AAAGHHH #i love my ocs a healthy amount #this is one of the longer rambles #i just adore them all and think they deserve happiness... #..... #*hurts them again* #new desolation episode tomorrow so very excited to play with sara again #also i got this ask about 2 hours ago and i'm just now finishing it #very fun one though #when the ask makes me think and talk a lot>>> #oc: nia 🎆

[eliteprepsat]

I’ve always loved to read. I was the kid in high school who, when we watched the film adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 12th grade English, insisted that I read the book first. So, for those few days that the rest of the class watched the movie as a group, I literally scooted my desk out into the hallway with the paperback instead.

Major eye roll, I know.

Given my education, I’ve often wondered how my love of reading began. This is because the offerings in my middle school and high school English classes were pretty limited and far from interesting. And I gather that many people have had similar learning experiences. This is why, about 20 years and a few English degrees later, I’ve compiled a list of the 15 books I wish I had read in high school. I hope the list will come in handy for those young people who, like me in the 90’s, have an inkling that they love literature but lack sufficient guidance as to what to read next.

1. Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)

At some point during our school years, most of us are assigned either Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn, in particular, is thought by many to be the greatest American novel of all time for (among other reasons) its considerations of race, identity, and morality.

Yet, there is more to Mark Twain than these two novels. Twain was an incredibly prolific writer, penning not only novels, but also journalism and travelogues, essays, and memoirs. Twain stands out among the greats for his truly singular wit and insight into the human condition.

A lesser known (but no less incredible) novel of Twain’s is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, which tells the story of Hank Morgan who, after receiving a blow to the head, is transported back in time to Arthurian England. At its simplest, the novel is a fun tale of adventure set in a time and place of enduring interest. At its more complex, it challenges our assumptions of history. Are we really that much smarter or advanced, Twain asks, than people from centuries past?

2. Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979)

In a field historically dominated by white men, Octavia Butler, an African American woman, was a pioneer and a powerhouse of science fiction writing. Her most famous book, the haunting novel Kindred, combines elements of sci-fi (e.g. time travel) with elements from the tradition of the U.S. slave narrative, to tell the story of a young African American writer forced to shuffle between her present, 20th-century life in Los Angeles and that of a pre-Civil War Maryland plantation. A groundbreaking, genre-bending novel that explores serious issues of slavery and prejudice, Kindred remains as important today as ever, and it would be great for introducing such issues to high school students due to its exciting and thought-provoking approach.

3. Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)

Octavia Butler’s Kindred is a literary tour de force. Yet, it fits under the category of speculative fiction, or fiction that stands in some way outside of reality. For a real-life account of what it was like to live as a slave, nothing compares to Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Douglass’s Narrative tells the story of his being born into slavery in Maryland in the early 1800s, the many abuses he both witnessed and suffered within the institution of slavery, and his eventual escape from slavery to freedom. At turns starkly brutal and lyrically beautiful, Douglass’s memoir is a reflection on freedom, (in)humanity, literacy, and truth. Although the history of slavery in the U.S. is often taught in high school, such lessons are often limited and rarely told from the actual voices of the enslaved. While Douglass’s memoir is not the first slave narrative, it is certainly the most famous.

4. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952)

Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man follows an unnamed Black narrator who has chosen to live in an underground lair beneath a bustling city, a symbol for the social “invisibility” he has long experienced throughout his lifetime. Drawing from Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground and highly influenced by Ellison’s own mentor Richard Wright, Invisible Man is a lyrical and philosophical exploration of common issues faced by African Americans in the early 20th century. It is a wonderful read for high school students since it highlights the lasting oppressions experienced by African Americans post-slavery—most of which remain relevant still today.

5. James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

A classic of high school reading lists is J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. This novel is often a favorite of teens, too, since they can so easily relate to the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, as he questions many of society’s conventions. But there’s no doubt that Salinger was inspired by another book, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in which the reader similarly follows young, Irish college student Stephen Dedalus (Joyce’s literary alter ego) as he rebels against his upbringing. It’s a coming-of-age novel perfect for high school students, since it deals with many of the quintessential questions young people ask, including those involving their schooling, their religion, and their place within society at large.

6. Short stories (especially by women)

The curriculum of many high school English classes tends to privilege the novel. Short stories (especially those often anthologized in textbooks) tend to be assigned, as well. Often-anthologized short stories are usually classics, and for good reason. But there’s so much more out there—especially by women writers—where the unique art form of the short story is concerned. Masters of the genre include Flannery O’Connor, Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, Alice Munro, and Ann Petry. In our current moment, a rich and diverse range of short story writers is also producing incredible work. The anthology Rotten English (2007), for instance, presents a collection of international short stories (as well as poetry, essays, and novel excerpts) written in “non-standard,” vernacular English, exposing readers to the myriad ways authors continue to re-think language itself.

7. Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (2020)

Another extraordinary book that reflects upon the nature of language is Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings. In this collection of autobiographical essays, Hong plumbs—with humor and unique insight—her complicated feelings of racial identity. A native of Los Angeles’s Koreatown, Hong describes her experiences growing up as a child who was seen as not speaking English “correctly,” yet relates how these same experiences of coming to own what she calls “bad English” led to her becoming the dynamic artist she is today. An intimate exploration of Asian American identity and one’s relationship to words, Minor Feelings is a powerful offering for high school students, whether they can relate to Hong’s experiences or engage with an experience other than their own.

8. Tommy Orange’s There There (2018)

Much of the U.S. history and accompanying American literature taught in high school gives young people a limited, often romanticized, and ultimately inaccurate way of thinking about indigenous cultures. A prime example is James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, which presents native peoples as inherently “one with nature” and essentially part of the past. Cheyenne and Arapaho author Tommy Orange’s debut novel, There There, provides an alternative, corrective view of indigenous cultures to the one typically taught in high school. The book follows a cast of 12 characters from Native communities living in 21st-century Oakland, California as they deal with issues including addiction, depression, and cultural dispossession. In its consideration of modern-day indigenous peoples and their relationships to urban life, Orange’s There There refuses the limiting designations often promulgated in high school, showing readers how indigenous cultures have survived and thrived into the present day.

9. Contemporary poetry

The poetry that is typically taught in high school often leaves students disliking—or, worse—feeling alienated from it. But this is because the poetry that is typically taught in high school tends to be older, with archaic-sounding language that students find un-relatable. When I was in high school, I didn’t really understand that people still wrote poetry. And I think that many young people still don’t know that there is a thriving contemporary poetry world with many interesting writers doing interesting things. A few popular poets writing today are Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Sam Sax, Kaveh Akhbar, Donika Kelly, Terrance Hayes, Tracy K. Smith, Natalie Diaz, Katie Ford, Jenny Xie, and Layli Long Soldier. Literary journals are a great way to keep up to date on the latest in the poetry world. A few of the most popular literary journals out there include The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry.

10. Quality horror

When I was in high school, I was drawn to horror as a genre. Unfortunately, though, I didn’t really know where to turn for good literary horror content. I only knew of Stephen King, whose work was admittedly too mature in its subject matter for a teen. In school, we read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the occasional Edgar Allan Poe short story. Yet, as with the poetry that is typically taught in high school, these authors felt remote and almost ancient.

High schoolers who are similarly drawn to this genre should know that there is no shortage of powerful, artful horror literature out there. Some iconic examples include Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, which is widely considered the quintessential haunted house story, and Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black which, although written in the 1980’s, reads like a classic of the genre akin to Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. For more contemporary horror offerings, check out this list of 100 Favorite Horror Stories from NPR.

11. More nonfiction

Many high school students tend to associate nonfiction with academic textbook writing. I know I did. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized the category of nonfiction encapsulates everything from journalism, to memoir, to travel writing, to lyrical essays, to self-help guides, and more. There is quite literally a type of nonfiction writing for anyone and everyone’s interests. And, I think, if students were exposed to a wider range of nonfiction early on, they might find their own personal niche within it. To begin exploring this vast, diverse literary genre, high school teachers and students should look to what’s published in popular literary magazines such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Another great source for quality nonfiction is The Best American Essays. Part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin (which also includes titles such as The Best American Mystery Stories and The Best American Food Writing), The Best American Essays is a yearly anthology of magazine articles published in the United States.

12. Graphic novels

We’ve discussed how poetry can be alienating for high school students. The truth is, for many young people, just about any kind of literature can feel alienating, regardless of the genre. In a world that is currently so dominated by visual media, a solid introduction to literature often needs to come with the help of visual media. Graphic novels are a wonderful option in this case since, by definition, they blend visuals with literary narrative.

Though similar in ways, graphic novels are not to be confused with comic books. Graphic novels tend to be longer, non-serialized (i.e. standalone) books that combine text and illustrations in a comic-strip format to tell a story. And although there is incredible variety among graphic novels, some truly tend toward high art.

Examples of highly lauded graphic novels include Maus (1980), which relates the experiences of author Art Spiegelman’s father as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor, and Watchmen (1986), a genre-defining (and interrogating) graphic novel about a disgraced group of former super heroes. There is also a 2017 graphic novel adaptation of Kindred, which adds striking visuals to Octavia Butler’s already stunning story of history, race, and the treatment of women.

13. Magical realism

Much of the literature taught in high school is either from, or inspired by, the British realist tradition. This means that such literature attempts to detail real people, places, and things in as truthful a manner as possible. Yet, there are many other styles of writing out there—writing styles that, in many cases, appeal more to teenagers’ naturally imaginative natures than does British realism. One such style is magical realism.

In magical realism, writers don’t attempt to detail real people, places, and things in as truthful a manner as possible. Rather, they create compelling worlds that combine reality with fantasy. Gabriel García Márquez, a Nobel Prize-winning Columbian author, is widely considered the “father” of magical realism. His stories give one the feeling that anything can happen at any moment. In his short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” for example, an odd, angel-like figure falls from the sky one day in the middle of an otherwise normal village.

The events of magical realist stories are often as interesting as anything seen on television or film. And in a world with so much compelling content competing for our attention, it would behoove high school teachers to capture their students’ interests with literature from rich, exciting traditions such as magical realism. Contemporary writers who write within this tradition of magical realism include Aimee Bender and Kelly Link.

14. The Very Short Introductions series

By the time I reached graduate school, I had the feeling that my education had been lamentably pointy rather than well-rounded. I had been lucky enough to craft an education that was catered to my specific interests. However, I felt like I had missed out on the opportunity to think through other, essential subjects and ideas. This is where Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introductions series comes in. With over 700 titles covering an incredibly wide range of topics—everything from Accounting and Alexander the Great to Volcanoes and Zionism—the Very Short Introductions series is a great way to fill in any gaps that might exist in your knowledge. Was The Spanish Civil War not covered in your high school history class? Want to know more about Black Holes or Behavioral Economics? The Very Short Introductions series has informative, literally pocket-sized books on just about any topic about which you’re itching to know more.

15. A grammar book or two

Words come somewhat naturally to me. And by the time I graduated from high school, I had intuited many of the rules of English grammar. Yet, I didn’t understand why I made the choices I did when speaking or drafting a sentence. For better or worse, I had made it through school without a proper course (or even a proper lesson) in grammar. Years later, I now understand that knowing these rules is beneficial to communicating effectively. Perhaps more importantly, though, I understand that knowing these rules can help one to more effectively break the rules.

If, like me, your education in grammar is lacking, you’re in luck. There is a whole field of authors who write books to teach grammar skills in easily-digestible and even (if you can believe it) fun ways.

Two such examples are Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation and the oeuvre of Mignon Fogarty (a.k.a. “Grammar Girl”). A former BBC radio host, Truss mixes humor and practical instruction in Eats, Shoots & Leaves to highlight the importance of proper punctuation. A former professor of journalism, Fogarty has published three essential books on grammar. Her first print book, Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, made The New York Times bestseller list in 2008, and the audiobook version was named one of Oprah Magazine’s “must-hear audiobooks” in 2009.

Still looking for reading ideas? Check out The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Part of The Best American Series and edited by Dave Eggers and others, this is a yearly anthology of fiction and nonfiction selected by high school students.

#reading #literature #poetry #high school #English class #learning English #writing #books

[hardestgrove]

I think he'd be reluctant if it was just him but... if he got any good parenting to compare his situation to... and if you can think of a reason Neil would become a direct danger to Max... another alternative is he snaps bc after surviving the upside down bullshit he's not going to let NEIL win? But that'd be killing him during a meltdown not premeditated murder so much I think

yeah i'm working thru various ways of playing it.

i'm thinking after the conclusion of s2 emily just utterly loses her shit. her rage issues are just not in check and a productive use of that (narratively and from her pov) would be to instigate a Destory Neil campaign at that point literally any altercation/negative interaction would be enough to set her off. at best she uses her family connections and friendship with hopper to screw him over and get susan to divorce him, worst(?) case would be that she kills him via like psychic aneurysm bc her powers are even less controlled than el's at that point but that's only an option if things get somehow physical.

then there's also the like stacy/max option of them being like "hey, we're friends w/ the chief of police! let's get hopper to book him!" bc they're children (and lbr in all cases there's a king kid involved there's a level at which it's living vicariously thru the hargroves)

when i try to, you know, not have my ocs in involved in everything there's also these

it could also be instigated by hopper himself being more involved in all the kids lives since he's now publically el's dad and thus more aware of what goes on with them. also u know billy has been picked up once or twice for at least speeding.

joyce knows the signs of a troubled home life so that's another one where she might pick up shit between max and billy and decide to Do Something About It.

it's all post s2 things tho bc lbr if he'd survived s3 like fuck would he take a single iota of neil's shit for a moment longer than he had to. s2-pre s3 tho is more nebulous i think it could go a few ways, especially since in this fic he is also included on the upside down shit at the very end (enough to help burn the tunnels). i think if someone said "i will personally merc ur dad just tell me how bad you want it to be" tho i think he'd at least heavily think about it.

i think i'm also like "what do people want to see?" obvs we all want neil outta here but like???? dead???? in jail???? do we wanna see hopper out dad him???? joyce Be Joyce????? see billy himself stand up to his abuser?????? because it all helps to navigate to finding a path in getting there lol i'm fairly open to how we get there honestly i just know that america needs less neil

#answered #sometimes i worry i make ocs too like involved in every aspect of the plot but like....they're in the world #they are inherently part of the plot and it's frankly WEIRDER when they're so contained they don't effect anything #like i know that if neil and emily ever meet the likelihood of that going VERY badly is high bc she can't touch her dad #but she can touch neil and the idea that he hits billy would've had her blacking out in rage even when she WAS in control #out of it she's genuinely just as much of a threat to everyone billy was in s2e8 #i do really love the idea of joyce getting involved tho bc i can see her talking to susan which is omph [chefs kiss]