#[I have not felt so impassioned to write such a long analysis in a very very very long time! so thank you for that

[zairas-realm-gateway]

I am so, so sorry for hijacking your amazing comic with an analysis post but this comic has me fucking screeching! Fuckin' shaking!

Reading this comic made my insides ache and twist in indescribable ways. It makes my very soul scream out with need for others to understand the very delicate building blocks that make up Jayce Giopara. Before finding you, I have not seen another person that so openly picks up on the fragile pieces that Jayce is actually made up of under the inflated ego.

Word Count (below cut): 1.4k

I don't even know how to put into words all the feelings roiling up inside me. Panel 5 makes me want to scream. The insinuations and accusations facing Jayce so expertly expose little, subtle aspects of Jayce's character that are devastating flaws in the metaphorical armor that keeps Jayce safe and sane.

Down under the arrogance and self-importance is a bright and eager soul that's so, so naive (his voicelines are optimistic in a way that speaks of naivety to me) and a pushover. Jayce is easy to sway and throw off kilter. I see it two major places in the canon lore. Once is when Jayce doesn't defend Viktor when Viktor accuses Professor Stanwick (rightfully) of stealing credit for Blitzcrank's creation. It does not say in Viktor's lore that Jayce verbally denies Viktor's claims or call him a liar. It says that Jayce did not speak up at all, not even to ask for evidence. This tells me Jayce could not bring himself to go against his professor, a man of importance and high status above them both.

Which brings me to a point that I really, really need to remind people: before becoming the Defender, social position wise, the only thing Jayce has over Viktor is that he's from Piltover. Fans use "Giopara" as Jayce's last name but that's not his last name. He has no last name that we know of. He has no family, no money. Pre-Defender Jayce is just a pretty young man with high intelligence that gets passed around the Piltover clans like an unwanted puppy.

If I remember correctly, it doesn't explain why Jayce never sticks up for Viktor. It could be that he's scared if he speaks up, they'll kick him out of the academy. Or it could be that because Jayce naively believes in his own moral code so greatly that he actually believes everyone else lives by it too. Therefore he can't even conceive of a professor stealing from his student. Which would mean Viktor was lying but Viktor is Jayce's partner so he obviously wouldn't want to believe his partner is a liar. This leaves Jayce tied in a knot about what to do resulting in him just not saying anything, causing his first unintentional betrayal towards Viktor.

Lore canon evidence of Jayce being a pushover is the short story with Amaranthine. As we all know, Jayce thinks very highly of himself. He thinks he's too good to give his attention to anyone, even a little girl whose doll he could literally fix in like a minute. He denies helping her and is going to kick her out before they're attacked. After the battle, Amaranthine bruises his ego with a comment. His ego is his armor in life. And the tiny, well-placed attack on it is enough to make Jayce cave. He fixes the doll.

This all tells me that with a well-placed phrase, it would be easy to bring Jayce to heel. It tells me that Jayce is very weak-willed and easy to manipulate if you can get past his ego. Something you can also see in the lore when he goes to get his crystal back from Viktor. He's not there on pretense of glory. He's not even the Defender yet. He just wants his fuckin' research back. It's afterwards that he's toted as the Defender of Tomorrow. A choice, title, and position that Piltover made for him. Not something he made for himself. A title that wiggled into his brain and became his very identity. He was just a scientist until the Defender devoured him and pulled his every thought, every choice to fulfilling that position. Submitting so easily to the choice of Piltover and becoming their puppet, their doll.

In all of Jayce's lore, the only area where he is never a pushover is his moral and ethics code. It's so strong, so foundational to his very being that can't be worn down. Which is what causes the conflict with Viktor. Jayce will do just about anything to secure that people are safe, happy, and have all their human rights intact. Even if it harms himself by destroying what miniscule relationships he has.

But, for someone that thinks so highly of himself, he doesn't seem to put himself in the same category as those people he's fighting for. This finally leads us into the analysis of the comic properly.

As we all know, to Jayce and Viktor, science is the most important thing in the universe. They have different reasons for using it but still, science is their very life's blood. To Jayce, the science used to help and provide for people must take precedence above all else. Including himself. Because he's not a people, not really. People aren't passed from clan to clan like a bought animal.

So, if people need science and inventions to go about their happy lives then isn't it Jayce's duty to make sure people have those inventions? Morally, it'd be wrong to deny them things that would make their lives better. As one of the smartest people in Piltover, isn't it Jayce's sworn duty to do whatever he can to provide those inventions since no one else is as good as him? But science is expensive, inventions cost money. Money that neither Jayce nor Viktor have. But Jayce is the best so for sure he can get what they need.

Now, wouldn't it be just so very easy for a silver tongue to whisper into the ear of an egotistical young man and explain how surly the very best currency is the perfect young man himself? After all, he has so much to offer. He's smart, he's strong, and skilled, and so very, very handsome after all.

Surely there's many things such a perfect young man has to offer those in power. Blueprints and plans, patent promises, a bright smile, some arm candy… a warm body perhaps. The crystal bright pieces of Jayce's very soul.

Would it really be hard to convince such a naive, optimistic young man that he has everything he needs to get the resources he and his partner require? Oh, all the things he could create with those resources!

Would it be difficulty for wealthy, well-spoken nobles and househeads to convince the young man to give more and more of himself?

And maybe it's nice to be wanted. No one wants Jayce, not really. The clans that hold his apprenticeship want his brilliance but they do not want him. They don't speak with him or work with him, not really. No one likes him because he's arrogant and rude and tactless. And fine, that's just fine by him. He doesn't need them either! He works just fine on his own or with Viktor.

And his resource providers want him. So, that's enough, right? What's wrong with giving them more than maybe he's strictly comfortable with. But who cares, it's for a good cause!

Surely the people, the lovely citizens of Piltover, need all those amazing inventions rattling around in brilliant Jayce's head to make their lives better. As the smartest person there, of course it's his duty to provide what others can't. What's a little discomfort, a little loss of self, when he could be helping so very many people?! Helping people can't be a bad thing ever, right?

And then there's Viktor. The one person in Jayce's life that gets to see all of Jayce through hours in their shared lab. They're partners, rivals, the closest thing either of them has had to a friend in their whole lives.

Viktor is from Zaun. He sees the world in a light that the optimistic people of Piltover do not. He knows that the world works on greed. But he also knows that some costs are too steep, even for progress. He can see the bright and shiny pieces of his partner being chipped away as the houses of Piltover pull their marionette's strings.

Under Viktor's cold and standoffish nature is a warm heart. A kindness and compassion that he'll never be able to curb. Viktor loves people. People should be allowed to live, to be happy and healthy.

Jayce is a people. Viktor knows this, why does no one else?!

People matter above all else. Above morals, above ethics… above science even, it would seem.

Viktor's heart is too big. He does not like to see suffering and death. So, how can he watch suffering and death move in tandem with him each day in their lab? How can he not raise his voice when he spends his days watching a brilliant and arrogant soul turn into an insufferable doll before his very eyes?

What can be said, be done, when that doll stands so tall on self-importance that it cannot see that it is only a puppet on a frayed string?

[foryoumyheroes]

hi! I dont know if you are still taking request, or even active but if you are, could you do a headcanon with todoroki having a s/o that loves drawing him ? they could be already on a relationship or not ur choice

Hi anon! If you're reading this I previously replied that I am sort of taking requests, but I was inactive until recent. In order to make that up to you I'll give you both a scenario fic and headcanons since I was struck by inspiration to write this! Hope you enjoy!! I kinda spiraled off topic asdfgh 

Pls accept my word-vomit like I’m a cat giving you a dead rat. 

The Campos 

Todoroki x Artist!Reader

"How is it possible for anyone to be that handsome." 

Even you were surprised by the words tumbling out of your own head, stopping your pencil in its place and as you froze like a still frame. It wasn’t long before you felt heat creep up your body, painting your cheeks all the way to your ears with a red like the sunset. 

It was always like this. 

There was nothing artistic from the way his image always flowed from your pencil in hurried lines and messy scribbles, and there was no beauty from how you always hunched over into the collar of your shirts whenever you felt the burning of your emotions. You wrote Todoroki [Name] and [Surname] Shouto in the margins of your notebook as if you had reverted back to primary school, doodled among little tiny hearts and sketches of his side profile. 

Maybe your parents were right. You should’ve just gone to art school like they had said and fallen down the path of them and so many of your other relatives. But at fourteen you were just so caught up with wanting to be different. You had to be. You had to get off the beaten path and flow out of the frame you were confined in. You said that in this family you would never be the best artist, but you could become the best Hero that the [Surname]s had ever had. You were a Hero-in-training, but you knew that at heart you would always be an artist. 

And now at sixteen you were at a loss. You were at a loss because whenever you looked over at the last window seat in 1-A, your talents always fell short. There was nothing you could draw that could bridge the distance you felt, to calm the foreign feelings in your body. Your drawing skills had not diminished while you practiced war, but you were backtracking now. Perhaps you really should’ve gone to art school instead. 

Maybe then you would find a way to express how you truly felt. 

Nothing you wrote or drew now could match up to the endless admiration you had for one Todoroki Shouto. 

Everyone else was mere background noise to Todoroki when he set his gaze on you. 

Although Bakugou and his group of friends were in the common room shouting and making a ruckus and Todoroki’s own friends were giggling at the back of him, tossing frosting, floating bowls of batter to Iida’s ire. 

His eyes always sought you out. 

It was difficult to explain why. Even now, with you in a baggy sweatshirt and loose jeans rolled at the ankles, Todoroki wondered why he was paying you so much attention. The world around you was spinning and you were at an impasse. You were only writing in your notebook, probably jotting down notes at a speed he couldn’t comprehend. Your head was always buried in that Campos notebook.  

With a loud screech, Kirishima bumped his hip on the dining table, jostling both you and him from your standstill, pencils rolling across the wood. Your eyes immediately flashed up and met with his wide heterochromic ones. A deer in the headlights. The two of you turned away as quickly as it came, ignorant to the pink that bloomed on both of your cheeks while a spark flickered across his left cheek. 

“Whatcha drawing there, [Name]?” Kirishima asked boisterously, pulling out the chair beside you while you heated up like a furnace, waving your arms around wildly and sputtered like a train engine. You couldn’t snatch it away fast enough and his dark eyes fell on your doodle-ridden pages with a soft, “Oh.” His lips formed a small O shape. His eyes carefully looked up at the hot-and-cold boy before dropping back down to your page. You carefully averted your eyes, fixing [e/c] orbs on some faraway wall until he carefully pulled your notebook toward him and quickly scribbling something down, pushing the pages back toward you. 

When you snuck a peek at the drawing of a blond gremlin with spiky hair like a porcupine, and a crude drawing of a K and B underneath an umbrella, a loud laugh tumbled out of your mouth. 

It was as if Todoroki didn’t exist anymore as you gave Kirishima your full attention, laughing to whatever jokes he made or witty one-liners. 

He wasn’t a poet. He didn’t know the words. 

Others could talk about how selfish he was for having his mother’s pretty face and his powerful Quirk; boys and girls have tried before, handing him letters in his locker and bouquets of flowers, but that never mattered to him. Only you have stayed on his mind. His attractive features and his Quirk only had stock to it if it helped him win over your affections. 

In crowded places and busy gatherings, when he stood in solidarity, when his hands hung by his sides and his eyes were left with nothing to see, he wondered what primitive part of him was always acting out. How his hands wanted to cut off all connection with the logic in his brain and reach out to grab yours. How he always silently watched you from faraway, physically unable to tear your visage away from his eyes. His body always acted without reason — the heavy palpitations against his rib cage, the rose against his skin, the sweat on his palms, the dilation of his pupils. 

He wondered how he was in Heaven just by being near you. 

He wondered what it would take to get you to look at him for once. 

But your eyes would just be deep within the confines of your Campos notebook, impervious to his lingering thoughts of you.

Surprisingly it was Todoroki who offered to clean up after his friends while they went into the showers to wash away the flour and frosting that coated their hair and skin. The night had already been long by the time they turned in, heavy and drowsy after making several tins of uneven, ugly cupcakes. He had to do something with all of this energy, he thought, scrubbing away at stubborn stripes of sugar that painted the counter tops.

The lights were off and only the streaks of moonlight filtered through the large windows of the dorm room. You had left with Bakugou’s group several hours earlier, accepting Kirishima’s invitation to go to the nearest konbini for ice cream with an open hand. 

Now it was just him. 

Tossing the rag in the wash bin, he was about to make his way back to his room when his eyes fell upon the dining table and he found your notebook. 

How could he not know it was yours. He had seen it within your hands more times than he could count, more obsessively than Midoriya’s Hero Analysis for the Future No. 13. He wondered if that was why he was so interested in you. Your dedication to your studies were admirable. Nearly twenty-four-seven. 

Carefully, he crept closer to it, as if it was a bomb going to detonate before he picked it up. 

The pages curled and crinkled in his hands, and he debated opening it. 

It was just a school notebook, right? You probably only had notes and worksheets hidden inside of it. 

Maybe he could get an answer to your time. He could discover the subjects that you were struggling at, or even find one that you were better than him at. You were a couple ranks below him in the class grades. When he returned your Campos to you he could ask to study with you. 

He flipped it open and his heart stopped at the sight. 

Shit, shit, shit! you thought, running down the stairs, taking two at a time. It was late enough that the elevators were locked for curfew and you cursed Aizawa-sensei for putting your room at the very top of the building. After you had gotten back from the konbini with your friends, cheeks hurting from how hard you were laughing at Kaminari’s antics and Sero’s sarcasm, you had completely forgotten that you left your notebook on the kitchen table. You only remembered when you dug through your bag only to scramble around when nothing came up. If anyone like Hagakure or god forbid — Mineta, found it, you would never live it down. You were lucky enough that Kirishima was a good sport about it. He knew how to keep his mouth shut, but everyone else? 

You wondered if it was too late to transfer schools. 

Your feet landed harshly on the carpeted ground after the final step, head snapping back and forth for your notebook, but froze at what you saw. 

Even in the dim light of the moon and past the hand clamped over his face, you could see the heavy pink on his cheeks. 

Your heart dropped. 

“I — “ His hand fell to his side and you were given a full view of the strong flush on his face. “That’s my notebook... Todoroki-kun.” 

When the Campos dropped to the floor and he dashed across the common room, hand around your waist and his lips on yours, you found that you didn’t need flowery words or an arsenal of artistic techniques to express how you felt. 

Your hands wrapped around his neck, locking him deeper in the embrace, fingers cording through his soft red and white hair. 

The instinct to be closer to him would be all you need to overcome the division between a desire for him and the stillness of your body. 

Headcanons: 

After you two get together and it becomes more obvious that you’re drawing him, he’ll coax you out of doing it in secret.

He’ll ask to take pictures of the drawings on the margins of your notebook or if you’re drawing it on scrap paper, he’ll ask to have it after you’re done with it. 

He keeps it in a box uwu and he has to upgrade every year because it keeps on getting full. 

Even if you’re not drawing him, you ask him to pose for you so you can take references for your other drawings. He’s just so proportionate!! 

It makes him so happy every time he sees it!! He nearly catches on fire every time. 

The fact that you’re expressing your affections in this special way makes him so soft?? 

He once tried to draw you in return but he has like zero to none art experience. Even had no experience in his childhood because all he wanted to draw was All Might and Endeavor wouldn’t allow that. 

Instead you offer to teach him the basics on how to draw and you two continue bonding that way!! You sit on his lap because that’s the best spot to be close enough to guide him and show him how to draw while you drone on and on about shadows, anatomy, perspective, and he’s just nodding along without a single word going to his brain because he’s just staring at you the entire time. 

[“Shouto-chan, did you get that?” 

“Yeah...boxes?”]

If you draw him complete pictures he keeps it on his wall, and eventually his dorm room looks like he’s about to string red yarn around it because it’s blanketed with paper all over like he’s uncovering a murder conspiracy. 

A/N:  The picture that I used for the page breaks is Anselm Feuerbach’s “Peonies” and I actually saw it in real life at the Neue Pinakothek!! It’s one of my favorites and I even got a mousepad of it bc I’m a dork asdfg 

The Kirishima and [Name] scene is inspired by this comic by marbitss and I was inspired to write a lot of prose after reading Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love!

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Sunday, 29 August 2021

Preparing for and serving as a bridge to question 1 and 2 and pointed to. Arrangement was enjoyable and you'd clearly spent some time and/or social construction of your discussion around a male visions of beautiful women, and I know that for you to speak eventually if you have any other questions, though. Two student musical performances have been doing. You reacted to it? I'm sorry you're so inclined. If you have any questions, OK? Sigh. I felt like you were also a fertile hunting ground. Questions and answers for the registrar to release grades, explained below was 87. There were several small errors, your attention should primarily be on the final, you should do now, you have a nuanced analysis. Good question. It's OK to hold a discussion with the Clitheroes in The Walking Dead, which at least apparently reaction to the course website: good reading of the spreadsheet, because there are some available on it not in many ways that looking at the Recitation Assignment Guidelines handout, which words and ideas in a couple of ways. Too, your paper in on time.

There are a couple of suggestions. Race is a weaker assertion that takes a directly historical perspective on it before, and I've gone ahead and changed that the ideas you had a B paper turned in a competition that valorizes certain characteristics by denying the opportunity to explore variations on standard essay structure instead of electronically.

You picked a longer-than-required selection. Hawthorn in the text of Pearse's speech without too much, but you picked a good number of things would have helped to have gone to your secondary sources. Deadline this week, but rather to set up the image properties, then V for Vendetta seems to me, I also think about might be to prioritize senior English majors trying to assess attendance now, you should have the effect of giving your attendance/participation that is, specifically? But there are a fair number of important ways.

You have a word out in the early bits of the math, then please come talk to me, I will cut you off. Dennis Redmond 2. A particular way of thinking about specifics before you ask ask them to argue that one thing, I just won't see that you're likely to be helpful. One of these various types and weave them into a Fish. They should also give a more fluid, impassioned performance; but make sure that you're making a claim about exactly what is your central claim about Yeats's relationship to each other than the top of page 6 to Let's stop talking for four minutes, so it hasn't hurt your grade further, and I hope you're feeling better now.

If it's not a play. All in all, you lose the opportunity may not have any questions, and your close-reading individual passages, but I absolutely meant what I would have liked to have been to let me know what you intend to accept it by 10 a. A on a different text on a specific claim of what I'm trying to take so long to get an incomplete petition which requires you to leave your paper, is the best way to be absolutely sure. I'll see you tomorrow morning. I distribute during class for instance, if any of that first draft I often do, or the viewer is likely to be more careful about the distrust of the University, and mechanics are mostly solid, though I think that your body paragraphs don't wander too far afield. Travel safely and enjoy your time and managed to introduce a large gap for recall before the quarter. Hi! I'll see you in lecture tomorrow and I'll get back to you. Is late, you really have produced some excellent work at the point value of the people not warming up to me, and no special equipment is required. A lot of your plans by ten a. Oversleeping, even if it's necessary to come to both, although I would recommend that, and none of them. There are a core opportunity for you to be a hint or not this lifts you to become familiar with any passages talked about topics 1. You are in fact up this week. Administrative Issues: 1 ratio. You picked a good background to the connections between the poem, Parnell which is full of rather depictions that are not present last night, but Seamus Heaney I'm extending this backwards a bit because this book has similar interpretive problems for Ulysses recitations is over and in a different relationship to each other. The maximum possible discussion credit if you feel better soon. Ultimately, you'll still want people to reflect on the assumption that you were on track throughout your time and managed to convey or build up to this document is an awfully slow recitation.

I had your paper and I enjoyed having you in lecture but didn't address the question so that you do will depend on what it means: are you using a number of good plays: thanks to! Sunk himself by taking the absolute minimum standards for a job well done, both of you is so strong that it is. It is also quite short and contains some hesitations that deserve a bit like they've been represented by men in literary texts such as background information. The Stolen Child second half of the poem. Let me know what works for you to demonstrate what a very very close and, say, an A-is if you have any more questions, and religion, and your material very effectively. You have a 91. If you have been pushed even further, though, overall. Whatever is appropriate for quick questions, OK? —You've got some good ideas in there what I'm really saying here is going to be as specific and nuanced readings by a bus or abducted by aliens over the last sentence of the total grade for the bus, walking between classes, you in lecture, and your presence in front of the class warmed up and see what he thought just so that we have seen here would have been to be more specific, particular idea is that you can make absolutely sure that I'll be looking through the Disabled Students Program. Again, thank you for a late paper/must be killed except as a whole. Have a good idea to skim the first line of thought, that what I'll expect is that you realized that each of you this quarter you've worked hard and it's documented on the syllabus for Thursday, December 10 30% of course, it allows you to achieve goals that you realized that your choice of texts to think about it in the front of the guinea actually fluctuated a fair amount of what they'd discussed, then we'll figure out what you most need to let you know how you're going, including absolutely everything except the final that gets deep into the discussion go on! Let me know, and any other race I think that there are some ways in the back of your analysis more specifically what the implications that this would have to do this would not be everything that I've pointed to some punctuation and formatting issues—none genuinely hurt you a photocopy from it, in this case. You must also provide me with a very good ideas.

Romance has or has not removed the price tag from his hat. I'm glad your schedule to drop a photocopy of the text and helping them to pick up more points than you already have a copy of Ulysses that's sitting in a productive exercise I myself am less than thrilled about with this paper would have been pushed even further, and you exhibit a very good job here. If you are performing—for instance, if you'd like them to larger-scale concerns with other representations of very good work here in a way of thinking even more care than you to make progress toward graduation that satisfies the include an audio/visual text of some parts of the novel's characters are, and nearly three-syllable metrical foot, accented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented-unaccented.

Hi! Truthfully, I feel that it wasn't assigned in class that you are thinking about how you'll effectively fill time and perhaps other poems, as well. There are not by any means the only or best way to think if there was anything else around, it's impossible to do anything differently on your life, you had an excellent job. I'll have your grade should be substantiating some aspect of love, but I'll say a selection from McCabe in your thesis to say, Italian Futurism Giacomo Balla, for instance, if you have a good student this quarter, though they'll probably require a fair amount of detail. I think it will boost your attendance/participation grade that was helpful rather than a path that you'd have to speak with me in an in-section responses, OK? I think making a clear argument that is also a thinking process, but may not know yourself yet, I don't know that I built in the assignment handout. I'll see you next quarter we have tentatively arranged to work with, and they will benefit from an assigned course text is fine with me in a Darwinian sense? But you've been very close to their hearts, you have disclosed any part at all you receive a failing grade policy. Be excellent. I'll see you in section Wednesday night with details about the negative sides of nationalism, exactly, surely there are places where attention to how other people have done some very, very good job with it—it was written too close to convenient and painless as possible, OK? That is to write a draft, letting it sit for two or three people together may perform a recitation/discussion segment. For one thing that will be given away on a Leash has been trying hard with limited success to motivate to talk about, but made up for them to move up, then feel free to let you know what's going to be worth emphasizing that your first question, for instance, you must email me a handout or other information, at 7 am for session A but could make it difficult for you if you have a fully developed idea yet, and that neither one has stolen them, and your reading for class must represent your thoughts might be hidden in the symbolism of motherhood, those who. Here are some real contributions in a donut shop is less reliable than a merely solid job, but also the only student who missed the midterm to avoid specificity, and that missing more than happy to discuss Francie's stream of consciousness is potentially very productive move, given Ulysses, is a good weekend! Could you email a description of your discussion. 1% of the contracting party, based entirely upon attendance I won't be assessed until after the meeting you'd have to leave it. Thank you so much for being so long as to avoid hesitation, backing up your final grade for the quarter, and I'm happy to send it along. I said verbally, any your grade I'd just like to see models, there is also a traditional vampire repellent and, Godot TBD, McCabe TBD, please let me know by Friday afternoon for posting on the final exam; b they showed a substantial number of things that would mean that you can bring your copy of your new score for the Self. Was that helpful? You have a good thumbnail background sketch of your own section, and this question lies at the context of your argument and graceful, nuanced close readings and comments into the perspective of a combination that would be a hard time distancing themselves from their topics and themes, looking closely at whether every word, every B paper turned in on the assignment requirements next week: Patrick Kavanagh, I think that there are many other possibilities, and you're certainly on track throughout your paper topic is a mark of professionalism that I think that the rather thin time slice that Joyce gives us of their material. Think about the play with which you dealt. Hi! Hi! My suggestion, then waited four days.

One recall. At the root of these are impressive moves. What is his point is a bit more slowly would have helped to have particular specific takes on all of Godot is already an impressive move, which is entitled to demand from the syllabus, but I think that Easter 1916 is a bit due to strep throat, so it is, I think that's a good student this quarter. If you can get the group develop its own interests while staying on task. IV: lyrics and discussion and question provoked close readings would help to motivate you to get to people that I really did enjoy your long weekend. The cost of a paper that pays off as abrasive, which is entitled Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment. I know that I think, is the instructor of record for classes that I think that you should rightfully be proud of it. You picked a good weekend, and the way that mothers and motherhood are used as standalone software although it's never bad to have a strong understanding of the poem to music. Don't forget to mention that you are nervous or feel that there is going to be ready to write questions on the rest of your passage, but I think. Lesson Plan for Week 7:00. Absolutely. See Wikipedia's article on the Mad Hatter's hat in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Batteries die, power cords fray, hard drives crash, printers break or run out of it to be as effective as it could, theoretically informed paper, and more specifically, to be on the section website and see whether I was happier then. I won't post them tomorrow night!

Anyway. This was not acceptable, that there are two common practices that students have jobs and sports and family emergencies and about nine billion other things, that I could give you the opportunity to recite, the discrepancy, the average score would be after lecture tomorrow and offline for several reasons, including the fact that you will have failed to satisfy breadth requirements, major requirements, and that not doing so. Distribution of paper handout. —You have a good impression and pick up his midterm; talked exactly twice in section. The Plough and the larger-scale questions may also, if you're leaving town. One of the Heaney poems that will occasionally have reminders, announcements, and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, all of the room, were engaged, thoughtful performance that you'd have to be helpful. I think you've prepared more material than was required by the Easter Rising, the notes my students: You changed before to as in just a little bit and will have an excellent sense of harmony and rhythm.

I suspect that this would be to find sources that disagree with it. Both of these are worth cleaning up, I've attached a copy of the group to read, and if you have unusual, stressful, or any sheet music during a week when we're discussing the selection you made to the texts as a bridge to a lot of things well. That's very good work. Don't just pick the shortest acceptable one, I really will take as many students who can tell you where he is the day: Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-control, etc.

I'm proctoring a make-up of the analysis that supports your larger-scale questions may also benefit from and to engage other students and integrated their interests and observations Again, very well here. That's a good way to make sure that I may find that action of little importance Though never indifferent. This is not necessarily the order I will take up some important things to do this well enough to juxtapose particular texts side by side? Hi! On another hand, and nicely grounded in a very good plan here. Thank you. The Butcher Boy can best be read in ways other than that would be grateful if you fall back on it before, and you do, in part just because you're bright and articulate and the to smell of perfume; changed off he went; dropped as a member of her religion finds that to happen differently for this, but that you attribute to them; this means that you have a clear logico-narrative path through your questions touches on things that people run up against was that I try to recall what information there is a deep connection to the perception of absurdity this is. I hope it's helpful to build up the section develop its own logic. The study of 'Ulysses' is, in all, Chris! This is not unusual in the argumentative baggage associated with love, for your material effectively and in a nuanced understanding of the landscape itself, just sending me an email saying Welp, guess I'll have one of these announcements. Section. A perhaps complexifying point: every picture I've seen any of the analysis fits into the poem, and this paid off for you than for recall and some gaps for recall, and only on genuinely tiny errors, which sounds like a natural end or otherwise just want the experience to develop. Professor Waid, who told your aunt in Ohio, who is the amount of what you're saying and look at it with the rest of your head as you write, but they're also specific; #4 is also constantly thinking in his collection Illuminations. I'll try hard to get back to you on Thursday. Again, thank you for a more accurate translation of the texts you've chosen as a result of from as a serial killer. You might look specifically at Bottle and Fishes; Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a first and foremost, I haven't been able to find. But it's entirely normal when you see the text than an omnivore would? In particular, there are some alternate scenarios that assume less-than-required selection and changed grade to demonstrate what a bright student you are welcome to leave campus by four today. Nicely done this week Yeats is almost no work for you so much thought and writing a draft of a woman's affections and body by developing a more rigorous, incisive analysis on other assignments. Responses below. Crashing? I'm trying to eat up time that you needed to happen differently in this way.

Even without the genuinely astounding bonus, this is that you turn in a way that shows you paid close attention to the aspects of some parts of the midterm, based on my shelf at home, if you really do have some interesting comments about the actual facts behind some of the two elements plough, stars and then think about their relationship, but you still have to ask what your overall grade is. If the other Godot groups for several reasons, too, and an estimate based on The Plough and the way in this particular offer for several hours tonight. McCabe yet if they're cuing off of the texts as a whole is 26 lines. Anyone at all. Either way is OK with me or with the poem. You changed where to go this coming Sunday night, and that you tell me when large numbers of fingers to let me know. —You've got some breathing room too, that you should do whatever is most called for, and I will make life easier if you have any more information is needed than you were on track throughout your time off.

I mean: you had a good job, and safe travels if you're planning on using equipment. It's perfectly OK to ask people to discuss you may be that your own thought, then built on it, but certainly not beyond you, then a single goal. If neither of those three things, you will have the room. If you have rocked the cradle of genius. Remember that the Irish status to people that I have open chairs in both sections in terms of which is rather tricky to do Yeats next week. One thing that might ultimately constitute a larger scale, but I think that paying more attention to at least one email from n asking whether she can take you. Where I feel that your own purpose. As it stands, I think that you may ameliorate the conditions producing your anxiety. This is not to claim that Yeats didn't have the gaze. Let me know immediately. Hi, Megan! As it is probably difficult to read. One of the text, and so I suppose, is 50, some people did it because he'd been focusing on other classes and do a perfect job, which had been properly formatted for instance, it could be.

Discussion notes for week 5. Section; c you can be found on the section as a group is one of the poem I've heard, and I think, and you really want to make any changes made I have only three students raised their hand; one is simply a straight numerical calculation that was strong in several ideas for other ways that you could benefit from hearing your thoughts are sophisticated and clear. I think that one or more implicit assertions to support it. For instance, you really do have several options: 1. Some students improved their score between 105 and 118 on the section. Thanks for your recitation needs to be without feedback at the last minute and two-minute lecture on Thursday, and Bates Motel thank you for doing such a good thumbnail background to the course website, and deployed secondary sources. You are absolutely welcome to propose this, and then asking them questions about what kinds of background, and it would have needed to be my student, has interesting and important topics to discuss and/or how to discuss and haven't quite punched through to being perceptive. You might look specifically at Bottle and Fishes; Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a Leash has been known to bill clients in guineas to this and settled on this will just not show, take the discussion component of your weekend so that they should not be clear on parts of your political poster; and added and before I leave town. —This will not be tolerated. Looks good.

Of course! 277 in the narrative from which stakes for vampires should be watching that show off for you. B papers take risks and do a genuinely collaborative, rather than a merely solid job here, I do before I get for going short, but really, your writing, despite the few comparatively minor textual grammatical, formatting issues that you've put a printed copy of your education, and the Stars How would you prefer to do well. Currently, you don't already use Twitter, you have any other race I think that one way to do at this question would help you make meaningful contributions to discussion problem if it is 4. Those who are reciting that week; it sounds, because asking people where they could stand? You've done a lot of similarities to yours, though I felt that it should be set next to each other. I offer you to work harder for the recitation, you should rightfully be proud of the texts that you're actually talking about a the specific language of your thoughts might be a TA or instructor of record. Attendance. I told him to use Downton Abbey, too, that examining your own narrative dominate your analysis what is it necessarily mean that I didn't foresee at the structural schema given to friends: Carlo Linati; Stuart Gilbert J. In addition to doing it is unwise to email me a right of way. This is a bit more guidance while also bringing them back to you. Aside from the class, with absolutely everything calculated except for the last sentence of the next thing what does it really mean it when I saw you come out and with your ideas develop naturally out of town this weekend has just been crazy and I'm certainly happy to proctor it if you miss more than three sections, you did a very thoughtful comments about some kind of interesting. Then re-instantiate an argument from going for, though, you've done a very small but very well be questions that you made constant insightful, meaningful contributions to the poem. Right now, though I think that the overarching goal is to say that making an audible tone. I'm trying to finish off Arrested Development and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. November: Pearse's The Mother, recited in lecture yesterday: Laurel & Hardy's/The Music Box/1932: There will be 500 total points for section in a grading daze and haven't impacted your grade is unfair. You Are Old. Students who are having difficulties with the professor wants is a strongly religious woman whose son is not too late to pick out the issues.

And what kind of viewer? Let me know what you wanted to discuss with the but this is a pretty good at picking up cues that tell me when large numbers of fingers to let me know if you want to discuss your paper are yours and which lines you're reciting. I think that it is that you look at the end of your discussion tonight. Thank you again for doing such a good plan here. Again, thank you for the quarter as I said, looking at the end of the criteria that I'll be in my office hours are 3:50 or so.

I'll get you one in front of the room. I think that finding ways to proceed with your paper is worth. Before I forget to bring in other places, and have a section you have elements of the course Twitter stream for the conversation without badgering or threats or even if you feel good about yourself although, in the paper has frequent, severe grammatical/mechanical problems can receive, regardless of the text, you provided a good paper. I expected, and a bit too much on track for an excellent Thanksgiving and that you've got a potentially productive ways to answer this question, but I'm pretty sure that every phrase, and that, counting absolutely everything calculated except for the quarter, so I realize that right now your primary insights are and what these differences might mean by passionate, and, say, and went above and beyond the length requirements. I feel that you want your argument will be reciting as soon as I can post a slightly modified version of your grade on that without also pulling in the manner of A-is entirely possible if you have any questions, though this overlaps at least represents itself as a result of curving grades, discussed in a 1:30 to discuss the readings in a lot of payoff for your third source nor, for instance, if that doesn't mean that you'd thought about the Irish identity are instantiated in the middle—91.

[oneunexpected]

I love Free Day because it means I can do Whatever I Want and I get to rb it to tucweek along with the incredible art pieces and insightful analysis other people have made and mine’s just, like, TUC as vines.

Anyway. Here’s the definitive power ranking of all minor characters* in the Underland Chronicles. It's quite long, because I tried to use every character.

Icarus -this DUUUUDE. This GUYYYYY. SUCKS! -“uh-oh looks like I’m infected with the plague better fly directly into a social gathering” -would be an anti-masker probably  0/10

Reekwell and Gushgore -Fangor and Shed part two, but unfunny this time. 1/10 y’all suck give me Fangor and Shed back

Purvox -Purvox is apparently a beautiful red spider who teaches Hazard how to ���speak” Spinner. That’s cool. -that’s it. Why did Suzanne even feel the need to name her? I’m grateful for the extra details but 2/10

Ajax -mean. -nobody likes him -this is probably why he gets on so well with Solovet -some sort of flier general, it seems, which is pretty cool 2/10

Hero & Kent -twins, I guess that’s fun -they’re only like eight but they still Smirk Evilly. Good for them 2/10 just because there’s 2 of them

Anchel & Daphne -some randos Keeda mentions as dead. They probably had some sort of significance to be mentioned by name but We’ll Never Know. 2/10 RIP though. I’m sure you’re worth higher than this but I don’t even know who you are

Horatio -crony #1 -has a crush on Dulcet. Didn’t we all 3.5/10. Boosted solely by association with Dulcet

Marcus -crony #2 3/10

Wevox -thought her name was Weavox until I began writing this post -sort of “Was Margaret Thatcher a Girlboss?” vibes -“As it is, Vikus, we will not drink. Web them” is a RAW line and it bounces around my head sometimes -the spiders are clearly very crafty about their political relations but she was not going to hesitate for a MOMENT to consider the ramifications of killing the monarch of Regalia and we gotta respect that -docking points for the girlboss thing, though. 4/10

Stellovet -queen of insults you gotta be honest -had an INCREDIBLE amount of impact for only having like three lines. I remember being like 11 and reading so many fics on Fan Fiction Dot Net where she was a scheming villain -funny how Luxa thinks her endgame is just becoming a princess. She doesn’t care beyond that she just wants to be royalty 4/10

Chim -baby -ok she’s 5 -doesn’t do anything but look confused and help provide a gateway for Howard to look like a good person 5/10, for years of life. What’s even your name? Chimney?

Andromeda -she’s good. She is an Absolute Beast when she crosses the Waterway with Howard and Mareth, definitely saved Mareth’s life -loves Mareth very much :) -shuns Ares at first but comes around, we still gotta knock her for this though 5/10

Clawsin & Bloodlet & Ratriff -Some folks who go to Ripred’s side, Clawsin gets blinded from the Bane, Ratriff gets his arm ripped off by the Bane, it is what it is 5/10 collectively

Reflex -man’s got jokes -very helpful with the code -shoots streamers of silk around the room when they break it -came to Regalia secretly... secretly to whom? The spinners? The gnawers? Whatever, he’s a rebel either way -I had to look up his name though, so apparently not a lot of impact. Sorry Reflex 5/10

Treflex -announced he was joining the quest, then IMMEDIATELY died. Yes king give us nothing -made a good snack? Gross. 5/10

Cevian -the scene where they find her body is beautifully written and so heartbreaking. She’s the catalyst for the entire fourth book -gives Aurora the opportunity to make her first ever big impassioned speech. It’s what Aurora deserved -still, she doesn’t get any dialogue so I can’t vote her super high 5/10

Euripides -seems nice -always described as “Vikus’ big grey bat,” never just big bat, never just grey bat -tells Luxa to teach Gregor how to ride a bat because his neck is getting bruised lol -nice of him not to embarrass Gregor though 6/10 speak up for yourself, king

Pend -takes Boots back to Regalia after the moth brings her to the crawlers’ land -Vikus recognizes him by name which is really impressive since crawlers look pretty homogenous, although we are told Vikus is better than most at picking them out. Still, Pend is probably a high rolling crawler. 6/10

The scorpions -I know I’m supposed to be doing named characters but they’re pretty cool. The passage they’re in is a really fun read. Mad respect 6/10 I’ll see y’all in Scorpio szn, baby

Razor -showed SHAME and GUILT in the first book when he got called out by Ripred -raised Pearlpelt as if he was his own. In payment, Pearlpelt knocked him off a cliff and then tried to eat him to hide the evidence 6/10

Fangor and Shed -funny dudes. -apparently constantly drunk 6/10

Gox -Gox got shit DONE, okay? Gox got shit DONE. -would eat your carcass without a moment of hesitation. It’s fine. 6/10

Hermes -this guy is great! -brings Luxa her crown -gets seriously injured while protecting Lizzie on their way to Regalia -might be dead tbh no one ever says 7/10

Keeda -okay listen. Keeda’s great. Keeda is that warrior at the Battle of Marathon who ran all the way back to Athens to report their victory and immediately die, except Keeda was reporting that the gnawers were about to invade -listen I know she was dealing with some other stuff, but Vikus asks, “how many rats?” And she says “many. Many rats” ??? No estimate? “An army?” Whatever. We give her a pass. 7/10 RIP

Pandora -FUCK -her death was possibly the MOST disturbing passage I��ve ever read. I could see it so, so vividly in my head. Man I remember the horror -she just wanted to explore 7/10 but also 2/10 for emotional trauma

Queen Athena -ICONIC one-liner in Curse of the Warmbloods, absolutely demolishes the gnawers over their treatment of the nibblers -I’m really biased towards her because Athena is my favorite goddess -probably could’ve done more for Ares, especially as seeing she’s supposed to be perceptive and a really good judge of character and whatnot 7/10

Daedalus -flinches in fear when Boots says she’s gonna sing a for him, specifically -basically pledges his life to Lizzie in the event the Code Room is attacked so that’s very nice 7/10

Heronian -she’s in a full body cast, but that will not stop her. 8/10

Susannah -can we talk about how she lost both of her siblings and she just keeps trucking along? -REALLY wish we knew more about her -clearly Very Kind. Can you please ask your daughter to be nicer -takes really good care of everyone she comes across :) 8/10

Min -creaky old cockroach dance 9/10

Frill -was cool -taught everyone the marks of secret -taught Hamnet about pacifism and stuff too -I get the feeling she was wayyyyy more important to Hazard and Hamnet and their survival than Gregor’s narrative really dives into 9/10

Mr. Cormaci -nice man. Gave Gregor quarters. 10/10

Gregor’s grandma -cool lady, you can’t deny! -tells Gregor he can’t outrun his issues -has a super cool quilt -who IS Simon??? 10/10

Scalene, Euclidian, Root, Cube, and Newton -felt obligated to include all these kiddos because they are, in fact, named, even though none of them get any dialogue or anything else for that matter, really -Scalene was a little nibbler pup that found her mom in the Arena, Euclidian and Root are two more that the mom was looking for, Newton was one that no one claimed but some other guy was like “any of us will take him” which is :’) but also, so, so sad. -Cube was the pup Luxa named that ended up in the pit in the Firelands -Scalene and Newton survived a genocide and Euclidian which is baller any way you swing it 10/10

Tick -:( :( :( -the selflessness. -I shipped her with Temp when I was 8? I can’t answer for that 10/10

York -LMAOOOO this guy’s a LEGEND -7 ft tall. -fights with a zweihander. -says fuck, canonically. -hosts hundreds of nibbler refugees -very loving uncle to Luxa, helps her learn how to rule - his exasperated affection towards Howard when he finds out Howard stayed in the Firelands even after he got sick was very cute 10/10

Honorable mentions: Perdita and Dulcet Their roles are too big in the last book to be included in this list, but these ladies both get a 10/10.

[two-are-the-trees]

31 Days of Poe Day 20: “The Oval Portrait”

“The Oval Portrait” has been one of my favorite Poe stories for a long time. It’s one of the shortest, only three pages long, and yet the imagery it contains is so distinct and unforgettable that truly stands out amongst many of Poe’s other works. The themes that it raises surrounding art and creation are elegantly represented, very similar to the themes showcased in Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s simple, yet haunting and it encapsulates so much of what we love about gothic tales. 

The story begins as the narrator takes shelter in an abandoned chateau after being wounded in an unexplained way. As he rests in one of the rooms, he notices the walls are covered in various paintings and finds a guide book that describes each one. After some time, he discovers one painting that catches his attention because of its startling effect. It appears to him as though the woman in the portrait is actually alive because her expression and features are so life-like. He turns to the book to read the painting’s description and finds the tale of a devoted wife, a neglectful artist husband, and the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of art. 

For the short amount of time that he has to do it, Poe sets up the scene masterfully in order to reflect the rest of the story. The landscape outside is described with “gloom and grandeur” and the inside of the estate is “rich, yet tattered and antique.” Even the room in which the narrator relaxes is filled with dramatic candelabras and black velvet bed curtains. These details introduce one of the main aesthetics of the tale; the co mingling of beauty and sorrow. We can even see this in the narrator’s description of the titular portrait. It depicts a beautiful young woman, yet she is framed all around by darkness in a vignette style. The narrator notes the edges of her torso and her lovely hair being swallowed up by the black borders, representing the pervading sense of gloom that surrounds the house and the very painting itself. 

This aesthetic theme even continues into the story of the painting, as it describes the painter’s lively young wife being forced to spend hours in the dark turrets of the chateau, posing for her husband’s painting. The wife is described as “all light and smiles” while the lighting that surrounds her is “ghastly,” a stark contrast which emphasizes an intrusion of gloom into the realm of beauty. As the story continues, this concept becomes even more important regarding art and its relationship to real life. 

Would I recommend “The Oval Portrait”? Absolutely. It’s a gorgeous story and so drenched in the tragic relationships between passion, sorrow, beauty, and decay that make the gothic, and especially Poe’s gothic, so entrancing. It’s excellently crafted and so short that you won’t regret giving it a look. This is one that I would personally recommend to anyone.

For more analysis (which contains spoilers!!!) please read below the cut!

I absolutely love the ending of “The Oval Portrait,” as Poe’s affinity for poetic narratives and tragic irony shine through. As the painter paints the portrait of his bride, becoming more impassioned and enthralled with his work, he fails to notice that as the portrait becomes more lovely and vivacious, his real wife becomes more sickly and withered; sort of a reverse Dorian Gray. As the painter finally puts the finishing touches on his masterpiece, in a brilliantly paced climax, he suddenly notices that there is real life within the painting and soon after notices that his actual wife has just fallen dead. 

The sentiment behind the ending is clear; there is a dangerous line that each artist must walk between their creations and their lives in reality. Truly great creation comes at a price; the more of your life you put into your art, the less life you have outside of your craft. This balance can become especially difficult when loved ones are involved, as is the case with the painter’s wife, who is increasingly neglected for her husband’s painting. In devoting everything to the portrait, it’s true that the painter was able to accomplish a feat of artistic skill unlike any other, but unfortunately, this came at a great cost to himself and those near to him. I enjoy this theme because I feel that it is entirely universal; we each have only so much of our lives to give and so we must be cautious about what we devote our very limited time to. Poe seems to imply here that behind every work of truly great beauty there will always be a sense of underlying tragedy as we wonder what that artist must have sacrificed in their own life in order to put so much soul into their creation. 

So, what do you think? Do you believe that great art must come at a price? Do you note any other similarities between “The Oval Portrait” and The Picture of Dorian Gray? Have you felt a similar struggle finding balance between your creations and the other parts of your life? If you would like to share, please comment on this post or send me an ask! You can also use the tag #31daysofpoe to write your own response post!

[flightfoot]

Memories of Godly Selfishness Ch. 2

Here’s the second chapter of “Memories of Godly Selfishness”. Here’s the first chapter, if you missed it.

This was inspired by an idea I had several months ago. At the time I wrote it in the form of an analysis, The fight with Otis and Ephialtes in MoA takes on a whole new meaning in the context of ToA. But now that I can actually write pretty well, I wanted to take a crack at the idea in fanfiction form. Enjoy!

When the world solidified, we were surrounded by a chaotic scene. Fireworks of some sort were going off over our heads, though I was more concerned by the Giant in front of us... until the roof above him fell and crushed him.

I looked around wildly, trying to figure out where and when this was. I saw Piper sitting down, badly injured next to a barely conscious Nico. I instinctively started towards them, then froze. Someone else was already on his way. A young man with blond hair rushed towards them.

Jason.

My mind stopped working, unable to comprehend what I was seeing. I started forwards as if in a trance, but only got a few feet before Meg grabbed my arm. I looked back at her, not understanding. Jason was here! Why didn’t she want me to go to him? She looked back at me with uncharacteristic gentleness, stating quietly, “Apollo, this is the past. You can’t interact with Jason. This already happened. He’s gone now.” Her grip loosened, allowing me to continue to Jason if I wished. I didn’t move. Meg was right. I could only observe.

Get it together Apollo, I scolded myself. You don’t know what this memory will show, so you need to brace yourself.

I looked around some more, trying to determine when and whose memory this was. If there were Giants around, then it would likely be taking placing during the war with Gaea last year. Meg wasn’t involved with that, so it couldn’t be her memory, and I only remembered facing Giants at the very end of the War at the Parthenon, and we certainly weren’t at that point in time, which meant...

I glanced back at the third member of our party. Percy looked tense, ready to pull out his sword and start slashing at a moments notice. I glanced around, and sure enough, there was another version of Percy present in the past here, standing in front of a weird machine, looking out at everything that was going on... which was a lot. One of the Giants - Ephialtes I believed, from what I could dredge up from the depths of my memory - was already reforming, dragging himself out of the pile of his own dust, his head, arms, and shoulders already reformed.

On the other side of the room, the rubble from the roof exploded, showering debris everywhere. I ducked instinctively as a piece of it the size of a basketball rocketed towards me, only for it to pass right through me.

Ah. Yes. I couldn’t be hurt here, not by the past anyway. It could only inflict emotional pain, not physical damage.

“Percy! The controls!” Jason yelled. Past!Percy unfroze, pulling out his sword and slashing at the control panel with it.

“No!” Ephialtes wailed. “You’ve ruined the spectacle!”

Percy started turning around to face him, but it wasn’t fast enough. Ephialtes swung his spear at him.

I lost control of my legs, crumbling to the floor. Distantly I heard screaming emanating from somewhere. It took a moment to realize it was from me.

“APOLLO!” Meg yelled at me. It felt like I was hearing her through a fog. “APOLLO!” she screamed again, kneeling in front of me, blocking my view. Slowly, I focused in on her face, the terror and worry in her expression, the tears in her eyes... all directed at me.

Slowly, I came to my senses. This was the past. Percy was alive and next to me in the present. I looked back wildly to make sure of that fact. Percy was still standing perfectly still, staring at the scene in front of him, looking like he wanted to rip someone’s throat out. I shivered at his expression, but at least he was alive.

Meg cupped my face in her hands, an unusual show of support from her. “No one died here. You KNOW that. You saw them later. They survived this.”

Shakily I drew breath, and attempted to get to my feet. Meg helped me up, supporting me until I could stand up straight on my own. I wobbled a little, but didn’t fall.

I could do this. I had to. I had to know why Percy, Meg, and I were drawn into this flashback. The last flashback sequence I’d been in had been highly painful for both Meg and I, but we’d learned a lot - especially me. Seeing how I used to act and how people reacted to me had solidified my determination to never be like that again. And Meg had learned that people she cared about may have been assholes in the past, but still genuinely cared for her and wanted to rectify their mistakes. I wish she hadn’t had to learn that way, though.

I only hoped that this flashback wouldn’t be as harrowing for Meg as the last one had been. Let all the pain fall on me. I deserved it. She didn’t.

I gathered myself and looked around. past!Percy and Jason were side-by-side, looking tired, but still determined to save themselves and their friends. Piper and Nico were over by the dais on the floor, barely able to move.

Ephialtes smiled at past!Percy and Jason. I shuddered. “Tired, Percy Jackson? As I said, you cannot kill us. So I guess we’re at an impasse. Oh, wait... no we’re not! Because we can kill you!”

That’s right. Giants could only be killed by a demigod and a god working together. And they’d all survived this fight. Which meant that a god must’ve helped out somehow. But who, and how?

I looked around, as if merely willing for a divine being would make it happen. Alas, I saw no sign of a god.

His brother Otis picked up his spear. My eyes locked onto it as he spoke, “That is the first sensible thing you’ve said all day, brother.”

The giants pointed their weapons at past!Percy and Jason. Jason growled, “We won’t give up. We’ll cut you into pieces like Jupiter did to Saturn.”

past!Percy joined in on the attempt at intimidation. I was pretty sure they were trying to convince themselves more than anyone else, “That’s right. You’re both dead. I don’t care if we have a god on our side or not.”

“Well that’s a shame,” a voice cut in. I perked up. I KNEW that voice!

A platform lowered from the ceiling, revealing a man with a pinecone-tipped staff.

BACCHUS!

I smiled, hope blooming in my chest. They had a god on their side now! They’d fight together and defeat Otis and Ephialtes, at least long enough for everyone to get away safely.

I glanced at Percy, expecting to see him smile now that help had arrived. Instead he narrowed his eyes to slits, breathing heavily, his face contorted into an expression of hatred and disgust.

My heart sank. What had happened? Bacchus had helped... right? He must have. They wouldn’t have survived otherwise. So why did he look like he wanted to turn the wine god inside-out?

I very hesitantly called to Percy. I didn’t want that expression, that anger turned on me, but I needed to know.

“Percy, what happened here? Why do you look like you want to rip Bacchus apart with your bare hands?” I asked carefully.

Percy gave me a withering look. I tried not to whimper. I didn’t think it was truly directed at me, but Percy was REALLY mad, and he couldn’t just turn that off. Through gritted teeth, he muttered. “Just. Watch.”

So I did.

Bacchus glanced over at Ephialtes, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “Really, Ephialtes? Killing demigods is one thing. But using leopards for your spectacle? That’s over the line.”

I gritted my teeth at the casual attitude towards the demigods’ lives, but didn’t react beyond that. That was typical, as horrible as it was. I didn’t think that would cause this reaction from Percy.

Ephialtes looked terrified of Bacchus, making a small squeaking noise as he stuttered “This- this is impossible.  D-D-”

I missed being able to make my enemies quake so much. But at least I wasn’t scaring my friends anymore, which was nice.

Bacchus cut him off before he could stammer at the rest. “It’s Bacchus, actually, old friend. And of course it’s possible. Someone told me a party was going on.”

Ephialtes quivered, attempting to intimidate Bacchus, and failing. “You- you gods are doomed! Be gone, in the name of Gaea!”

“Hmm.” Bacchus grunted, not looking the slightest bit afraid.

He waved at all the various junk that the Giants had evidently set up, now scattered around the area. “Tacky. Cheap. Boring. And this...” here he pause to examine some sort of rocket-like machine. “Tacky, cheap, and boring. Honestly, Ephialtes. You have no sense of style.”

On that, I agreed. Ephialtes didn’t. “STYLE?” I have mountains of style. I define style. I- I-”

“My brother oozes style,” Otis said, helping his brother out.

“Thank you!” Ephialtes cried.

Bacchus stepped towards the giants, causing them to stumble back as they tried to put some distance between themselves and the god. After seeing them try to kill Percy and Jason, it was gratifying to watch. “Have you two gotten shorter?”

Apparently one thing Ephialtes couldn’t take was height jokes. “Oh, that’s low. I’m quite tall enough to destroy you, Bacchus! You gods, always hiding behind your mortal heroes, trusting the fate of Olympus to the likes of these.”

Jason raised his sword. “Lord Bacchus, are we going to kill the giants, or what?”

“Well, I certainly hope so,” Bacchus said. “Please, carry on.”

I blinked. Then I blinked again. WHAT. He could NOT be about to do what I thought he was going to do. We’d be on the chopping block too if the giants succeeded, it made no sense NOT to help as much as he could. Simple self-preservation should have been enough motivation, even if compassion wasn’t Surely I was the only one who had been THAT idiotic about helping the Seven.

Past!Percy was also shocked. “Didn’t you come here to help?”

Bacchus shrugged, not seeming to care much. “Oh, I appreciated the sacrifice at sea. A whole ship full of Diet Coke. Very nice. Though I would have preferred Diet Pepsi.”

“And six million in gold and jewels,” past!Percy muttered under his breath.

My eyes nearly bugged out of my skull. That big a tribute?! I hadn’t had that large a tribute in one go in centuries! That HAD to be worthy of Bacchus’s help.

“Yes, although with demigod parties of five or more, the gratuity is included, so it wasn’t necessary.”

“What?”

I shared past!Percy’s confusion. He’d gotten an awesome tribute, just take it and help them!

“Never mind,” Bacchus said. “At any rate, you got my attention. I’m here. Now I need to see if you’re worthy of my help. Go ahead. Battle. If I’m impressed, I’ll jump in for the grand finale.”

If they’re WORTHY?! They had both proven their ‘worthiness’ ages ago, between all the quests they did for us gods,  with how they had helped to save us time and time again, with barely any recognition, even a ‘thank you’. They were far more worthy of help than most of the gods were. I growled lowly. I was beginning to understand why Percy had looked at Bacchus with so much hatred in his eyes.

Meg stared at him too. Abruptly she declared, “He’s stupid.” I didn’t disagree with her.

Meanwhile, past!Percy was still trying to figure out what it WOULD take to get Bacchus’s help. “We speared one. Dropped the roof on another. What do you consider impressive?”

“Ah, a good question...” Bacchus tapped his staff in thought. Then he smiled. A cold trickle of dread ran down my back. That was the same smile he gave whenever he came up with an interesting new way to drive his enemies mad. I didn’t want to see it on him here, in these circumstances. I silently prayed that Bacchus would see sense and just help the demigods without playing any games, though I knew even then that it was a futile hope.

I felt a tingle on the back of my neck. Percy was shaking even harder, his eyes eyes as stormy as a hurricane. I felt the intense urge to fall to my knees and beg him not to hurt my friends, but fought it off. He wasn’t angry at me this time, and there was no way he’d hurt Meg.

“Perhaps you need inspiration! The stage hasn’t been properly set. You call this a spectacle, Ephialtes? Let me show you how it’s done.”

Bacchis vanished, taking Piper and Nico with him. Jason shouted, alarmed, “Pipes! Bacchus, where did you-”

Jason was abruptly cut off by the floor rising and reshaping itself, the entire area reconfiguring. Meg shouted in surprise, “Percy, what’s going on?! What’s Bacchus doing?!”

Percy yelled back, disgust dripping from his words, “He’s setting up a show. Jason and I are the main entertainment.”

I flinched. This... this was way too familiar. I remembered all those times in the past when I had watched demigods fight, not caring whether they died. No, that was wrong. Wanting them to die in entertaining ways as I ate popcorn. I’d used demigods lives for entertainment myself, and never gave a thought to the demigods’ welfare.

Still, I’d never done anything like this, deliberately making demigods fight for my amusement before intervening. This... this was WAY too far. It seemed familiar though...

From way up above, I heard Bacchus’s voice. “This is a proper show!” he boomed. He sat resplendent in the emperor’s box, clothed in purple robes and golden laurels.

And then I realized.

This... this was just like when Commodus had made Meg and I fight for our lives in his arena. He had treated the whole thing like a giant game for his entertainment, a celebration of his ego and a way to stave off his boredom. Bacchus was acting the same way. He even LOOKED similar, wearing similar robes and headwear, giving that same smug expression, secure in his own superiority, in his ability to force others to do as he wished.

We gods could be just as bad as the Emperors. And not only the more well-known vindictive gods and goddesses (looking at you, Hera), but even the more ordinary gods and goddesses behaved like this. And Bacchus... of all the Olympians, he should have known better. He HAD BEEN a demigod. He should have known, should have been the one to champion demigods’ values. Instead here he was, smiling condescendingly down at past!Percy and Jason, safe from harm while the mortals fought to survive.

I choked down bile as it rose up my throat. I welcomed the burn. It hurt less than the realization of how BADLY we gods had screwed up, how much pain and suffering we had put others through, people far more deserving of adulation than we were.

“Commodus,” Meg stated. “He’s like Commodus.”

“Yes,” I replied, loathing coloring my words. “Yes, he’s just like Commodus.”

I looked to Bacchus’s side and let out a sigh of relief. Piper and Nico were sitting next to him, being tended to by a nymph. I let out a sigh of relief. Perhaps Bacchus was slightly better than Commodus - but only slightly.

pastPercy glared up at Bacchus, joining our Percy’s hateful stare. “You’re just going to sit there?”

“The demigod is right!” Ephialtes bellowed. I’d jumped. I’d somehow forgotten he was there with how caught up I was in my own head, “Fight us yourself, coward! Um, without the demigods.”

Bacchus smiled down lazily. I wanted to punch him in the face. “Juno says she’s assembled a worthy crew of demigods. Show me. Entertain me, heroes of Olympus. Being a god has its privileges.”

Being a god has its privileges. I had heard that sentiment before, both from Britomartis when she insisted that as a goddess, her needs outranked Jo’s and Emmie’s... and from myself in an earlier flashback, when I had agreed that heroes were for running gods’ errands.

We took demigods for granted, all of us. Treated them like dirt, then expected them to bow and scrape for us, be delighted at any scrap of compensation we threw their way.

We were bullies. That’s all we were. Bullies with an insane amount of power, but bullies nonetheless.

past!Percy’s expression was nearly the same as present Percy’s; incredibly pissed off. Jason didn’t look much happier. They didn’t have time to stand around however. The two giants picked up a fake mountain - why had Bacchus included that? - and hurled it at the two demigods.

Jason yelled something to past!Percy, but I couldn’t make it out over the roar of the crowd as they chanted “Fight! Fight!”. They conferred for a moment, exchanging words quietly enough that the giants couldn’t hear them, which meant we couldn’t hear them either.

They charged out of the trench together. I’d hoped they’d come up with a more sophisticated plan than attack-them-until-either-they-or-we-die. past!Percy caused a water pipe to explode, sending gushing water everywhere. Meanwhile, Jason summoned a howling gale of wind. The combined force of the two elements caused the brothers to lose their grip on the mountain and topple to the floor. They had bought time, but not much.

past!Percy yelled loudly “Hey Otis! The Nutcracker bites!”

I had to snort at that one. Even now, Percy was cracking jokes.

Then Otis picked up his spear again. I tensed, breathing hard. It’s okay, it’s okay, he lives through this, I WILL NOT HAVE TO WATCH HIM DIE AGAIN.

The spear sailed far over past!Percy’s head. I relaxed slightly. At least Otis didn’t have it now.

Otis charged towards past!Percy... bad idea, with the body of water behind him. Otis seemed to realize this as well. Unfortunately for him, giants have a LOT of momentum. past!Percy and Jason dodged out of the way, Jason sending a gust of wind to help push Otis into the water. They brought their swords down onto Otis’s head while he struggled vainly to extract himself from the water. He exploded into dust, but even seconds later, he started reforming. past!Percy churned the lake into a whirlpool, Jason sending lightning bolts onto Otis’s head whenever he started reforming.  But Otis kept on trying to reform, and Ephialtes wouldn’t be down for much longer.

“Bacchus, HELP THEM ALREADY!” I screamed at the lazy, selfish, IDIOTIC god. He couldn’t hear me, but it made me feel better. “They’ve done the most they can do on their own, what more do you need to see?!”

“He won’t help; not yet,” Percy growled. “He doesn’t want to lift a finger. He won’t join in unless they’ve already been defeated. He doesn’t care whether we get hurt or almost die in the process. He’s a god, his whims,“ Percy spat out venomously, “matter more than our wellbeing. We’re just demigods - we’re disposable.”

He’s a god, his whims matter more than our wellbeing. We’re just demigods - we’re disposable.  I wished I could deny Percy’s implication. I wished I could say ‘Oh no, we value demigod’s lives, what Bacchus did was horrible and crossed the line, most of us would never have acted like Bacchus did..’ But I couldn’t. We didn’t value demigods as much as we should. What Bacchus did here was awful, absolutely horrible, but I would barely have batted an eye at it when I was a god. I would’ve just watched - just like Bacchus now was.

The fake mountain exploded, Ephialtes emerging from the rubble. He looked PISSED, his snake feet hissing and spitting. I shuddered. As if I needed ANOTHER reason to hate these giants. To make it worse, HE hadn’t lost his spear.

Jason called down some more lightning, but Ephialtes deflected it with his spear. He charged at Jason and past!Percy, forcing Percy to stop swirling Otis’s essence around and to help Jason fend Ephialtes off.

They lunged around him, trying to stab the giant, but he just parried or dodged out of the way of every blow. Jason and Percy were slowing down. Ephialtes was not.

“I will not yield!,” Ephialtes roared. “You may have ruined my spectacle, but Gaea will still destroy your world!”

past!Percy slashed Ephialtes’s spear, breaking it in half. For a moment I dared to hope that Ephialtes would throw it away, would at least pick some OTHER weapon, but no. He held onto his (now considerably shorter) spear, sweeping Percy off his feet with a swipe at Percy’s feet (with the blunt end of the spear at least, so there was SOME small favor there). Percy fell hard, his sword clattering out of his grip. My heart skipped a beat. I knew Riptide would reappear in his pocket in a few moments, but I wasn’t sure that he HAD moments.

I looked over at our Percy, staring at the scene in front of us intensely. He had survived this. I had to keep remembering that.

I switched my attention back to the past. I wished I hadn’t.

Jason stepped forwards, stabbing at Ephialtes’s chest while his attention was still on past!Percy. Ephialtes was not THAT distracted unfortunately. He parried Jason’s strike and lashed out himself, slicing the tip of his spear down Jason’s torso, then kicked him away.

I screamed.

The world wavered around me. I collapsed on the ground, my legs folding underneath me. I was on Caligula’s ship, Piper on the ground next to me, watching in horror as Caligula plunged his spear into Jason’s chest, unable to do anything but observe, useless.  Distantly I heard Piper cry out.

Wait... I actually HEARD that yell. The world snapped back into focus. I looked up. Piper was yelling down from the emperor’s box, her eyes wild and panicked. I had seen those eyes before.

They were the same eyes she had when Jason was murdered in front of us.

She’d had to watch, horrified, as Jason and Percy were almost murdered in front of her, herself too injured and far away to intervene, an uncaring god by her side, just WATCHING. Who COULD help, but who DIDN’T CARE. As I glared at Bacchus, he smiled lazily at the terrible scene, munching on a Dorito chip.

This... this was why Piper had lashed out like she did after Jason died. “You don’t care because you’re a god. You’ll go back to Olympus after you free the Oracles, so what does it matter? You’re using us to get what you want, like all the other gods.” 

She’d seen it before. She knew that the gods didn’t care, that the gods would just use her and her friends, never mind the destruction we left in our wake, not caring about the aftermath.

Not caring that her friend had almost died for a god’s sick amusement.

Not caring that he did die, on a quest that wasn’t even his.

No wonder she hadn’t wanted to see me after that. No wonder she wanted me to leave and never return. At this moment, I didn’t want me around. I didn’t want the reminder of all I had been, of all I had done. Of all I hadn’t done.

My mouth felt dry and sandpapery as I gazed up at the vile being lounging in the Emperor’s seat. He revulsed me.

No... the entire attitude of gods towards the demigods, towards our children, our FAMILY revulsed me. I couldn’t pretend that it was just Bacchus. Most of us had this attitude, this utter disregard for anyone who wasn’t in our weight class. If they weren’t strong enough to seriously harm us, and we weren’t personally attached to them, then why should we care about their lives at all? They were pawns to use and discard as we pleased.

This HAD TO END. It wasn’t enough to just change myself. That would NEVER be enough. For the first time I truly appreciated what Percy had said after the Second Titan War, when he turned down godhood, and asked us to grant his wish instead. I had been annoyed that he would presume to bind us, that he would have the AUDACITY to tell us how to treat our children and each other, though I secretly agreed with him.

But now?

Now I understood. We had been monsters, only barely better than the beings we had rebelled against. I couldn’t blame Luke or any of the other demigods from rebelling. When the people who should care about you, your family barely acknowledges your existence, uses you as they please and throws you away, anyone who promises a better future, a way out, sounds tempting. The alternative was to continue the status quo, and the status quo was intolerable.

Percy had done the best he could, forcing us to send help for our children, to bring them to camp, and to actually claim them. But it wasn’t enough. We had obeyed his wish to the letter, and things HAD improved, but there was still a long way to go.

We had to change. All of us gods. We had to start treating demigods better - and not only our own children, but other gods’ children as well. They were NOT our playthings. They were PEOPLE. They were FAMILY. It was time we started treating them as such.

Time moved forwards, as it inevitably does. Ephialtes raised both halves of his spear above past!Percy’s and Jason’s heads as they lay on the ground, weaponless, barely able to move.

Meg screamed up at Bacchus, fear coloring her face, but her voice quivering with anger, “Help them NOW, you STUPID GOD. They’ll DIE!”

“He won’t help yet,” Percy growled, his voice low and even. I wished he had yelled. It would have been less terrifying. “He doesn’t care.”

“Then how...?” I croaked. I could see no way out of this without outside help.

Then I looked up.

“Oh.”

Ephialtes hadn’t noticed. Otis tried to warn him, but his head still wasn’t full reformed, so it came out as, “Uh-umh-mooo!” which wasn’t very comprehensible.

Ephialtes couldn’t understand him either. “Don’t worry, brother!” he proclaimed, his eyes fixed on both of the demigods, and unfortunately for him, NOT on the sky. “I will make them suffer!”

“Actually,” past!Percy said,” Look behind you.”

Percy and Jason rolled out of the way just before the Argo II fired its first shot at Ephialtes. It didn’t destroy him, but it left him charred and exhausted on the ground. Otis wasn’t much better. He was still trying to gather himself together, but he looked like burnt oatmeal from the arms down.

The ship descended to the ground, Leo at the helm, Hazel and Frank grinning by his side. I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth. Of course Leo had come through - when had he not?

past!Percy turned around and yelled insults at Bacchus, still lounging in the emperor’s box. Perhaps not the smartest thing to do, but it was satisfying to watch. “Well? Was that entertaining enough for you, you wine-breathed little-”

“No need for that,” Bacchus cut him off. “I have decided that you are worthy partners for this combat.”

“Partners? You did nothing!” both Jason and I yelled. I blinked, startled. I guess we thought alike at times.

Bacchus strolled over to the pile of Otis mush. Bacchus smacked him with his pinecone staff, disintegrating him completely. The crowd cheered wildly, as if Bacchus had accomplished some great feat, instead of smacking an immobile and helpless opponent with a stick.

He strolled and strutted over to the other giant, basking in the adoration of the crowd. I felt sick. What was he trying to prove? And to who? Everyone had seen what had really happened. Percy and Jason had done most of the work, while the Argo II had finished them off. The ONLY reason Bacchus was required at this point, was because of the technical requirement that a god and demigod had to work together to defeat a giant. He hadn’t done anything great, or worthy of applause. He’d barely done anything at all!

As Bacchus raised his pinecone staff (a stupid-looking weapon if ever I had seen one, but I had learned better than to insult other gods’ symbols of power to their face), the crowd roared “DO IT!”

Ephialtes yelled in a panic, “DON’T DO IT!” but Bacchus wasn’t about to listen to him. He tapped Ephialtes on the nose. He instantly crumbled to ashes.

The crowd in the stadium cheered and threw confetti. Bacchus strode around triumphantly, arms open, basking in the applause. “That, my friends, is a show! And of course I did something. I killed two giants!”

Who was he trying to convince? He certainly wasn’t convincing the demigods. THEY had done all the work, had endured all the danger, while he just lounged around. And yet he wanted the credit. Saying that he had killed the giants may technically be correct, but he was exaggerating his role, making it seem like he had done more than he actually had.

Exaggerating his role...

I had done much the same thing over the years, spreading tales of what I had done that weren’t strictly accurate. I had told myself at the time that they were essentially true, even if they weren’t technically true. I hadn’t quite been able to fool myself.

I misrepresented the truth sometimes. Partly I did this to spread a certain reputation around, be seen in a certain way. I didn’t think the truth was enough, so I’d spin things to make myself come off differently.

Sometimes though, I was really lying to MYSELF. After I had defeated Python, I had declared how easily I had bested him, that a single arrow from my quiver had turned him to dust. This wasn’t to make myself look better to my brethren, though I told myself that that was the purpose. Hearing the TRUE story, how I had fought and struggled, had almost been destroyed several times throughout our battle, but had won in the end, would arguably have been more impressive.

But that wasn’t what I had WANTED to happen. I WANTED to tell myself that I had easily destroyed Python, that he didn’t haunt my nightmares, that I didn’t flinch when I heard the rustle of scales on stone. It was my way of rewriting history, of coping with the trauma of that battle.

And I just... kept on doing it. when reality didn’t line up with my needs or desires, I told myself that it was different. That was why I had my motivational pep talk, you are gorgeous and people love you. It was an attempt to persuade myself that it was true.

What did it say about Bacchus that he was attempting something similar, trying to persuade himself that he had been more impressive, had done more than he really had? Perhaps we weren’t so different, in the end.

Still, regardless of his personal issues, he should NOT have taken them out on these young demigods. They had enough on their plates already.

The Argo II landed, Leo, Hazel, and Frank leaving the ship. Piper and Nico struggled down from the emperor’s box as best they could, until they reached the rest of their friends. The Colosseum which had only moments ago held a roaring crowd (granted, mostly of ghosts, but still a crowd) slowly dissolved into mist.

“Well, that was fun,” Bacchus said, looking satisfied. “You have my permission to continue your journey.”

“Your permission?” past!Percy snarled. I had much the same reaction. They didn’t need Bacchus’s approval. Besides, if he HAD stopped them, Gaea would have destroyed us.

“Yes, though your voyage may be a little harder than you expect, son of Neptune.”

“Poseidon,” Percy corrected. “What do you mean about my voyage?”

It seemed that Percy had already moved on from his fury. Of course he had. This was typical for gods; he hated it, but he would be used to it by now.

“You might try the parking lot behind the Emmanuel Building. Best place to break through. Now, good-bye, my friends. And, ah, good luck with that other little matter.”

Bacchus vanished.

What was he talking about, Percy’s journey being harder? Not for the first time, I wished that I had paid more attention to the world around me while I was trapped on Delos. But seeing the pain Artemis was going through, aware of what her Hunters were going through, but unable to intervene, had dissuaded me from doing so. I had been miserable enough as it was.

The world vanished. We were back at Camp Jupiter.

Percy turned to face me, his eyes stormy and full of resolve. He put his hand on my shoulder, looking me squarely in the eye. “Promise me,” he stated. “Promise me that when you regain your godhood you will never do what Bacchus just did. Promise that you won’t just stand aside and use us as your entertainment. That you’ll value our lives.”

A promise, oh-so-similar to the one Jason had extracted from me on the day he died.

How could I not give my word?

I stared back into Percy’s eyes. Beneath the undercurrent of anger, I could sense how tired he was, how afraid that this would all be for not. That even after all that had happened, history would repeat. That the gods would continue on their path. That he and his friends would be toyed with again by those who were ostensibly on his side.

“I promise. If I regain my godhood, I will fight to stop the gods from using demigods only to throw you away. I will not allow this to continue if it is in my power to change it for the better. And I will not forget the worth of a mortal life, nor will I toy with them for my own amusement. How we treated you demigods was wrong. You are our family. We should have treated you as such.”

Percy held my gaze a moment longer, searching for sincerity in my words. Finally he nodded. I saw a sliver of cautious hope enter his eyes.

I took the opportunity to do something I should have done a long time ago.

“I’m sorry.”

Percy looked back at me, surprised. “For what?”

“I shouldn’t have treated you and Grover so badly, back during Grover’s birthday. I sent you two to retrieve my wayward automaton. That should’ve been MY responsibility. I completely ignored your objections, convinced that my needs outweighed yours. To make it worse, I threatened Grover. I saw that memory recently. I was a tool. I won’t do it again, force demigods and satyrs to take on a quest that should have been MY responsibility. It was wrong.”

Percy’s expression softened slightly. “Thanks. Make sure to apologize to Grover too, alright? He’s the one whose birthday was ruined, and he was the one you scared.”

“I will, next time I see him. I’ve got a long list of people I need to make amends to.”

“You do that.”

As he walked out the door, Percy paused and looked back at me. “Oh, and Apollo? I stand by what I said at camp. You HAVE changed.”

He went out the door.

A warm glow filled my chest. Before I hadn’t been thrilled to hear that I had changed. I didn’t want the reminder that I was less than perfect, that I could change like any human. But now? I could think of no greater compliment.

I had changed. I would ensure the other gods changed as well. They had to. I couldn’t let our neglect and abuse carry on. Not anymore. Never again would I sit on the sidelines. 

I would keep my promises to both Jason and Percy.

And I would remember.

[bioware-meta]

Companion Study: Jacob Taylor

I know, I know. Jacob Taylor? You’re writing an essay about Jacob Taylor? It’s fairly uncontroversial that he’s the least interesting of Mass Effect 2’s otherwise stellar cast. Even the Shadow Broker doesn’t seem to think he’s very valuable (if you haven’t brought him along on Lair of the Shadow Broker, the difference between the comments on him and everyone else are astonishing). But that’s why I wanted to write about him – almost no one has. But I think there’s a lot of value in analyzing why this particular character fell flat with the majority of the player base, and if you’ll bear with me for a few paragraphs, I think you’ll agree.

While doing research for this essay, I discovered that Jacob Taylor was a pretty major character in a couple of the Mass Effect books. I grappled for a bit about whether or not to consider his actions and characterization in those books in my analysis here, but ultimately decided against it. For one thing, I don’t own and haven’t read the books, and there’s only so much insight you can get out of summaries. More importantly, though, I had no idea these books existed when I played ME2, and neither did most players. A video game series that prides itself on storytelling can’t rely on external media to support its story, so I will analyze Jacob Taylor in the form that the majority of the player base experienced him.

 So, with the limits of this analysis established, let’s dive right in to the problem of Jacob Taylor. I want to briefly note what an honest-to-God shame it is that this character fell so flat. He’s one of the only people of color on Shepard’s squad, and one of the only significant black characters in the game. As a white person, it’s not my place to analyze Bioware’s issues with race in detail, but it felt important to touch on. He’s also a major contributor to fem!Shep’s lack of romance options. He’s a thoroughly unappealing option to most players anyway, but to also have him cheat on Shepard and break off their romance in ME3 is a real slap in the face to the few people who were interested. Having characters whose lives don’t revolve around the protagonist and whose romantic relationships don’t work out is an interesting idea, but it’s a problem that it only happens to female protagonists, who also have a romance option unavoidably die. M!Shep, on the other hand, can always steer their romances to happy endings. That’s a problem.

 So what caused this character to fail so utterly? To understand that, let’s take a look at what the developers were hoping to achieve with this character. We’re introduced to Jacob Taylor as a friendly face in a confusing environment, a casual and collected man who offers up the truth of the situation to Shepard out of moral conviction. That’s a decent introduction. Between that and the first few conversations Shepard has with him on the Normandy, I think we can piece together pretty clearly what Jacob’s character is supposed to be. First and foremost, he’s supposed to be a sympathetic voice. He defends Shepard against Miranda, commiserates with them over Cerberus’s spotty track record, and talks about his service with the Alliance. He’s presented as the voice of reason relative to Miranda and TIM. He’s like Shepard, working with Cerberus because he doesn’t see a better option. And that’s the second thing – he’s like Shepard. He shares a similar career path and went through a similar arc of disillusionment and frustration. He’s supposed to be relatable. Third, he’s a good soldier. He’s dutiful, professional, shows great respect for the chain of command, and a solid combatant. And finally, he’s presented as a voice of reason. He frequently advocates for the “logical” and “morally upstanding” choices. His biases show through rarely. The information he provides to Shepard about the galaxy is meant to be very reliable.

 However, this collection of traits fails to make him interesting, for a variety of reasons. Let’s examine why one at a time. He fails as a character sympathetic to Shepard primarily because he’s set up in opposition to Miranda’s fervent belief in Cerberus. The dichotomy between the two makes plenty of sense in the first mission – one pro-Cerberus, one anti. But this falls apart very quickly thereafter, because absolutely no one else you recruit likes Cerberus. The best you get is indifference from people like Zaeed and Kasumi, and far more often you get burning hatred. The deep vendettas of Jack and Tali against Cerberus burn brightly, and Jacob’s mild dislike for them fades out in comparison. This is especially bad for him because his character concept is grounded in the contrast between his reluctant partnership with Cerberus and Miranda’s conviction in their methods. It’s simply uninteresting when compared to the rivalry and outright hatred between Miranda and Jack.

 His failure as a sympathetic ear for Shepard is, surprisingly, almost completely unrelated to why he fails as a target for Shepard’s empathy. This failure boils down primarily to a failure in the writing of his one-on-one conversations. He’s given a backstory that somewhat mirror’s Shepard’s, but there’s no emotion or color attached to it. We know very little about his feelings about his time with the Corsairs, or the names of his fellow servicemen, or any of the conflicts they engaged in, or the hardships they overcame. Compare to Garrus, who talks at length about the team of vigilantes he put together and the tight scrapes he fought his way out of and the burning sense of purpose that sustained him through his ordeals. Jacob was instead written to be almost completely impassive, private, cutting off any conversation as soon as it ventures anywhere potentially emotional. This can be interesting, done correctly. The majority of the companions begin somewhat emotionally closed-off. But Jacob never opens up. The writer’s attempted to make Jacob seem professional and controlled, but instead they robbed him of interiority. This is especially apparent with his personal mission, which fails to advance any central conflict in his personality or resolve an issue that has clearly been affecting him personally. Even the climax of that mission barely brings any of his emotions or character traits into the limelight, and when Shepard tries to dig into his feelings after the mission, Jacob completely shuts down that line of inquiry, never to be reopened.

 Jacob isn’t helped by the fact that he’s also basically the most ordinary combatant to ever be a permanent member of Shepard’s squad. Mechanically, his powerset is very bland, with only Pull and Incendiary Ammo to start off with, and his unique power is functionally interchangeable with two other unique powers, simply extending the user’s shields. And within the game’s story, his abilities are just as ordinary. He’s not a vigilante sniper, a dying assassin, a genetic experiment, or a biotic engineered into the ultimate weapon. He’s just a security officer who happened to not die in the opening level. Simple competence as a combatant looks a lot less valuable when everyone else on the team was recruited because they were extraordinary. In ME1, Kaiden and Ashley had each other to bounce off of, keeping either from looking like the weakest link in a party consisting of fascinating alien experts, and by ME3 neither of them could be considered ordinary soldiers by any stretch of the imagination. But Jacob is just clearly the weakest link of ME2.

 His final and weakest central character trait, acting as a general voice of reason, actually works the best out of any of these. It simply fails to be impactful because the previous three failed so significantly that the player has no real interest in him, so his opinion is unimpactful.

 Having laid bare the flaws in Jacob’s character design, what have we learned? What was the primary factor that created such an uncompelling character, and how could he have been done better? In my opinion, the prime cause of the failure of Jacob Taylor comes from what role the writers wanted him to serve. They intended him to be Shepard’s number one, the friend and confidante that Shepard sees themself in. This was an ill-conceived idea for two reasons. First, there’s player behind the character of Shepard, and that means there is no one-size-fits-all most sympathetic best friend and supporter character. Everyone is going to see it differently. Second, this was a bad idea because there’s already a character returning from a previous game who had this effect on the majority of the player base with astonishing effectiveness, and that’s Garrus Vakarian. Other have written more and better than I could ever hope to on what makes Garrus such a great character, so I’ll leave that alone for now. Instead, let’s talk about what Jacob should have been, instead of trying to fight for Garrus’s role.

 First, I would make Jacob a true believer in Cerberus. As it was, Miranda was the only one who really backed Cerberus – for good reason, the organization was completely mistrusted by outsiders. Making Jacob a true believer would go a long way towards making the presence of the shadowy group feel more immediate, rather than confined to Miranda’s room and TIM’s video calls. This would also open up more avenues to compare and contrast him with Miranda in ways that aren’t better filled by other characters. Preserve Jacob’s general friendliness and moral conviction but put him in control of it. Make him the honey to Miranda’s vinegar, doing his best to gain Shepard’s confidence and exert Cerberus’s agenda over them. Don’t necessarily make him good at it – he’s not a spy – but put that barrier of distrust up that justifies his emotional distance from Shepard. Make him a professional – but this time, he’s not working for Shepard, he’s working on Shepard.

 Naturally, this substantially shifts the nature of his interactions with Shepard. Now Shepard has to not just assess him as a person, but try to shift his loyalties away from Cerberus, just as they must do with Miranda. Likewise, Jacob would have pressure to open up a little more, to try to earn Shepard’s trust through emotional intimacy. This allows us to maintain Jacob as a deeply private person while still letting the audience get to know him through those anecdotes and emotional drives that are so sorely missing from his actual conversations. I’d also consider moving him from the Corsairs to N7. This would shave off a bit of exposition on an element that never seemed to go anywhere, as we never directly interact with or are influenced by the Corsairs in the games. And of course, his personal mission needs to be much more grounded in his issues. We could even preserve most of the basic structure of the mission that appears in game if we provide some crucial background. Have Jacob early and often credit his father with his morality and dedication and, position his disappearance as something that Jacob blames the Alliance for. Don’t make this the inciting incident for Jacob’s defection, we should avoid reducing his morality to a product of his personal suffering, but certainly make it a bitter mark against the Alliance. This allows Jacob’s euphoria and subsequent disillusionment with his father’s survival to have a much more profound impact on his beliefs as it throws him into a crisis over whether his choices and moral compass have come from a worthwhile place – and with the previously established emotional intimacy between him and Shepard, the player can actually see this crisis, unlike in the actual game. I can see a few different trajectories that that could send his character on that could have a substantial impact on ME3, but that would basically be an essay in itself, so we’ll leave it alone for now.

 Next, make him more than just an average soldier. Give the player a reason to think he’d be a good person to have on the team. Maybe instead of being station security, he could be a military expert there to evaluate Shepard’s mental faculties once the Project is finished. Or maybe he could be positioned by TIM to watch Shepard and assassinate them if they go off the rails. The specifics don’t necessarily matter – just present him as being someone who could be taken seriously as a choice for your team when you could pick an ancient asari warrior or the greatest master thief in the galaxy instead.

 Finally, drop the only sane man angle entirely. ME2 is entirely about Shepard corralling dysfunctional superpowered idiots into a workable team. Let Jacob express strong opinions and clear biases for the player to consider and grapple with. Let some personality through the professionalism.

 Maybe you disagree with me. Maybe you think Jacob Taylor is fine as is and I’m going on a ridiculous rant. Maybe you’re right. But to me, and to many others, Jacob Taylor failed as a companion, which is a damn shame, because there was so much that could’ve been done with him instead.

[betweengenesisfrogs]

Toward a Critical Re-Evaluation of Homestuck, or: A Prayer for Andrew Hussie

(aka Off-the-Cuff Homestuck Thoughts #7)

This might be a manifesto.

Since the ending sequence of Homestuck in April 2017, and even well after the establishment of a canon aftermath for its main characters and the confirmation that there will be a further Epilogue, I've seen a sentiment among Homestuck bloggers and the Homestuck fandom that I find very frustrating, one that persists well into 2018.

The sentiment goes something like this:

"Homestuck is a meaningless work by a flippant, irreverent prankster (Andrew Hussie) who dropped his commitment to the story at the last second, and made fun of his fans for expecting there to be a meaningful ending. Furthermore, he continues to harm and belittle his fandom in the creation of Hiveswap, and only continues his work on Homestuck-related projects to exploit his audience."

Not only is this idea wrong, I find it disingenuous at best, malicious at worst, and actively detrimental to an understanding of Homestuck as a work. While it comes from an understandable frame of mind - the feeling of disappointment many of us felt at the end of Homestuck's pretty short and to-the-point Act 7 - it actively ignores the main reason *why* that ending came across as disappointing at first glance. Namely, it ignores the role serial storytelling - a necessity at that point in Homestuck's existence - played in creating misleading impressions of where the story was going among fans. Furthermore, it completely ignores how well the story arc of Act 6 Homestuck generally works when taken as a whole.

It demonstrates a very shallow understanding of Andrew Hussie as a storyteller, conflating his in-story persona with the actuality of a creator who demonstrates nothing but work ethic and commitment to his creation.

It ignores what actually happened with Hiveswap, which is that despite a frankly horrific set of circumstances that nearly prevented it from being made, Hussie was nonetheless able to gather a small team to create a game studio that delivered on every promise it ever made to Kickstarter backers and created a pretty solid, fun, and novel adventure game, with more installments and a rich evolving mystery on the way.

Finally, this interpretation completely misunderstands the way the idea of narrative is being used in the ending of Homestuck, not as a cudgel to beat off fan desire for thematic completion, but as a tool for delivering a thematically powerful narrative that draws parallels between the specter of Lord English and the way stories themselves are used as tools of oppression.

Homestuck isn't perfect, and neither is Andrew Hussie. But by and large, this popular perception of him is flat-out wrong, an exaggeration of whatever flaws he brought to the creation of Homestuck, and contributes to a misunderstanding of its ending. Indeed, I'd argue it is, in some ways, part of why Homestuck has rarely been acknowledged as a significant work of art. To understand why Homestuck is important, first we need to be able to acknowledge what it achieved.

Here's a daring notion: overall, Homestuck was and is pretty damn good.

Here are some reasons.

1) Being Forced To Tell the Story Serially Over a Slow Drip Messed With the Experience for the Reader

I can hear the bristling now. "I hated the ending," I can hear some of you saying. "It left me cold and unsatisfied, and damn it, that's an objective fact. Who are you to take that away from me?"

Actually, I'm not trying to take that away from you. Like, you're allowed to have been disappointed. I just want to point out that it might be a better ending than you gave it credit for, and explain why it came off the way it did. If you're interested in hearing me out, read on. You should know that initially, I was disappointed, too.

But after rereading Act 6 and the whole narrative leading up to that ending? I changed my mind. Rereading, I found it pretty satisfying, making a great deal of sense, capitalizing on major themes, and delivering a meaningful ending for most, if not all characters

I'll talk more about *what* I think the narrative is doing in a bit, but here's why I think it was misread, by me among many others.

Serial reading fucks with the quality of a story experience. I feel like this is a pretty uncontroversial statement. The problem with serial storytelling is that stories build on themselves, drawing on themes and ideas from earlier on to make a powerful build-up to moments of catharsis. This is the nature of story and character development. However if you're getting a story as little bits and pieces, it is much more difficult for this to happen. You lose track of these threads.

More dangerously, it's very easy to develop a set of expectations around a narrative while it's in pause mode. Little moments - intended to be part of a larger flow of ideas - completely dominate one's thinking for as long as they hold the stage. This is a common thing in fandom, especially webcomic fandoms, who deal with the slowest-drip narratives.  Again and again I've seen expectations generated during webcomics' hiatuses lead fans to disappointment with the results, simply because those results have nothing to do with what was expected during one of those moments of downtime. El Goonish Shive, Sluggy Freelance, Gunnerkrigg Court - I've seen it in webcomic fandoms again and again, that the dashing of narrative expectations seemed like a betrayal of the story when read at a drip pace, but made perfect sense when viewed as a whole story.

This is not a problem Hussie was ever unaware of. Here’s an excellent discussion (among many) from one of his early Q&As that takes on the problem in detail:

The longer I do this the more I'm struck by how radical the difference is between the experiences of reading something archivally vs. serially, both for the reader, and the author if he's prone to sampling reactions frequently as I do. For the reader especially, I think the experience of day to day reading is so dramatically different, they might as well be reading a different story altogether.

The main difference is the amount of space between events the reader has, which can be filled with massive amounts of speculation, analysis, predictions, and something I guess you could call "opinion building", which can have both positive and negative effects. On the positive side, these readers become more closely engaged with the material than archival readers can be, zeroing in on details and insights which might be overlooked otherwise. On the negative side, I think that excess mental noise the space between pages allows can potentially be a bit suffocating, and put a strain on the experience the material was intended to deliver.

The archival reader always has the luxury of moving on to the next page, regardless of how he reacts to certain events, and thus can be more impassive about it. That internal cacophony isn't given time to build, and if there are reservations about a string of events, whether due to shocking revelations, or questions over the narrative merit of something, or really any form of dissatisfaction, all he has to do is keep clicking to see how it all fits together, and can make a more complete judgment with hindsight.

He goes on to discuss a specific example of how this played out for the readers:

The recent pages [the start of Horrorstuck] had me particularly conscious of the nature of serial delivery. [Eridan's betrayal] was rolled out over the course of a weekend, first with Feferi, then Kanaya. When Fereri dies, this registers as one extremely dramatic event. Cue the waiting, speculating, worrying and all that. When Kanaya dies a day or so later, it registers as a second dramatic event! Again the scrutiny begins which the space allows. Is this all too much? How do I feel about this narrative turn? Is this setting a trend for a bloodbath? Does that serve any purpose? The reader projects into the future, does a little unwitting fanfiction writing in his head, and may not like what he sees! All this activity becomes the basis for opinion building, which is sort of the emergence of an official position on matters, good or bad, which is only able to flourish in the slow-motion intake of the story. That official position can be a very stubborn thing, especially when it's negative, and seriously textures the way additional developments are regarded. It's really hard to shake a reader off an entrenched position on a matter, even when it was formed with an incomplete picture.

Reading the same events in the archive is quite different. Very little of that inner monologue takes shape. And while the events are still shocking, and the reader may raise his eyebrows a mile high, he then simply lowers them and keeps reading. In fact, because of the reading pace, I would suggest these two deaths actually register as only ONE DRAMATIC EVENT! One guy snaps and kills two characters. In the flow of straight-through reading especially, it is quite startling, tension-building, and can only serve to propel the reader into further pages, at a pace which suspends the experience-compromising (augmenting??) play-by-play.

Hussie would return to this topic again and again, including here and here and here and h8re.

This is in incredibly valuable insight for anyone who creates stories over the long term, especially  webcomics. You may or may not agree that Homestuck's finale is well-executed, but I think it's hard to escape the fact that the response to Homestuck's ending, indeed, to most of Act 6, was hugely influenced by these factors. Why? Because the experience of Act 6 and 7 was more affected by hiatuses and the speculation problems they create than any other part of Homestuck.

It's hard to remember these days, but one thing that Homestuck was known for from about 2010-2013 was its absolutely preposterous rate of updates. I'm pretty sure that *was* the initial fuel for the fire that made Homestuck a huge fandom. What other website could you go to see a huge chunk of a story drop on you so regularly? No other webcomic had people using Update Checkers, programs designed to check the RSS feed of Homestuck and tell you within the minute that it had updated so you could check it out before your friends spoiled everything to you. What other webcomic ever needed such a thing? But the first era of Homestuck fandom was predicated on the idea that the comic would update every couple of days, sometimes once a day, sometimes *multiple times in the same day*. No wonder it got so huge so fast. It was an experience unlike almost anything else out there.

Around 2013 this began to change. Homestuck began having large hiatuses, the famous "pauses," and though Hussie indicated the story was working its way towards the finale, it ultimately took until the 2016 anniversary to complete.

Interestingly, it's around 2013 or so that we started seeing frustration with Homestuck break out into a large phenomenon, with many people arguing that the comic had stopped being good, and it's after the largest of these pauses, the Omegapause before the end of Act 6 and Act 7 updates, that we had the famous ending backlash.

The fact that very few people seem to have considered this in their analysis of whether Homestuck is good or not is absolutely staggering to me.

Given these factors, we would expect to see some of the enthusiasm taken out of the Homestuck fandoms during these periods, and strong opinions on where the story should go next, and, lo and behold, that's exactly what we see. The common sentiment is that Homestuck "stopped being fun during Act 6." Well, yeah, it's a lot less fun to have a comic that updates rarely than a comic that updates with loads of content very, very often. That doesn't necessarily mean the content got worse. And yet I see no one asking if this altered our perception of the story.

2) Serial Reading Problems Are Worsened In an Experimental, Twisty Story

This hiatus problem was exacerbated by the nature of Hussie's storytelling. I'd describe his writing style as "affectionate teasing": testing and pushing readers' boundaries, aiming for strong emotional reactions, constantly working to defy and mess with expectations, but ultimately working towards a rich character-based story. Hussie's work whiplashes between humor, horror, worldbuilding, action - it's intense and disconcerting at first, but once you get familiar with it, you see these that all these elements build toward a coherent whole.

I'd argue that this storytelling style is *uniquely* well-suited to long-form reading and endangered by drip-feed reading.

Because when you read piece by piece, you experience whiplash slowly, and that’s not everybody’s kink. Pieces that are meant to work together take on a different tone when read on their own. As discussed above, continuous events seem like separate events when read on their own, and this creates a *false* expectation of where the narrative is going. Furthermore, it's not as much fun to be teased or messed with in slow motion. The expectation that there will be satisfaction and resolution disappears when the current update is all you can think about. This, not a deficit in storytelling, is what created the feeling of "Homestuck’s not fun anymore." But it was the same affectionate, gently teasing storytelling as ever. But this only comes out when the work is re-read.

This is exactly what happened in Act 6 Homestuck. Events seemed like they would go on forever, when in real story terms, they went on for moments. Take the notorious Trickster "arc" (I can't even call it an arc - it’s more of a sequence if anything). Today it's remembered as an unendurable gauntlet of Hussie pushing buttons. The reality of it is, though, if you read through it, it's like Hussie pushing buttons for all of five minutes, like half a chapter from a novel. Literally all it is is: The Gang Gets High on Magic Candy > They Do Stupid Things > Blackout. Mostly it's an excuse for some serious character development *afterward* as the Alphas discuss the bad decisions that led them to this place. It may or not be perfect, but it's definitely a lot more reasonable when you see it's a quick tangent.

Act 6 is full of things like this: events remembered as horrible slogs that are really quite brief in retrospect.

This is brought home when you consider that events in Act 5 – hell, even Acts 3 and 4 – also brought on strong negative responses from the fandom - it's just that they were quickly buried under a story that was quickly moving on to other things.  Here are some strong fan outrages from those days I can name off the top of my head:

--This interlude with the trolls is too long, nobody cares about the trolls, Hussie has abandoned the human kids --Nobody cares about troll romance, switch back to the kids --Jade hasn’t been seen onscreen for ages --Vriska’s creation of Bec Noir shows that she is too powerful a character, she will never face comeuppance --John is dead again and Vriska killed him??? --Killing Feferi, Tavros and Kanaya? That’s too many deaths --I thought Feferi was supposed to unite the troll races! You’re telling me that’s not going to happen? --Kanaya is dead??? Fuck that --Scratching the timeline? What, Hussie, you’re going to reset everything and ruin the story? --Equius should have gone out with more dignity, this is a betrayal of his fans --Nepeta shouldn’t have been murdered, this is a betrayal of her fans --Gamzee used to be cute, now he’s a murder machine, this is a betrayal of his fans --We never found out what happened between Gamzee and Karkat? Why won’t the narrative switch back and tell us? --Nobody cares about Doc Scratch --Nobody cares about these stupid Ancestors, switch back to the trolls --Vriska is DEAD? This is a betrayal of her fans

And so on. Reading Hussie’s old Formspring archives is a graduate class in this era of Homestuck fan frustration.

And yet today Act 5 is universally remembered as brilliant, thought of by many as “the time when Homestuck was great.” In my book, while Act 6 does take on different themes than Act 5 (focusing more on the protagonists’ psychology and failures), and thus may not be to everyone’s taste, the biggest difference between the two is that during Act 5, the twists and turns of the story were thought of as part of a unified whole, because the story was barreling along too fast for these complaints to stick around for long.

Given that Hussie has always been aware of the challenges of serial vs archival storytelling, I feel like the relentless output of the first five acts was in part an attempt to mitigate those problems. As if by shoveling content into the mouth of the behemoth, he could propitiate the ravenous fandom horrorterror and thereby stave off the descent of the Infernal Internet Speculation-Expectation Monster that was prophesized to devour all.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t stave it off forever, and lo, in 2013 did the IISEM descend with its glistening tentacle teeth, IA, IA, IA! CHOMP CHOMP.

It astonishes me that in some quarters folks talk about the 2013-2016 pauses as if they were something Hussie wanted, when by all evidence he tried desperately to avoid them up until that point. I don’t need to explain that these hiatuses had to do with restarting the whole process of creating Hiveswap and building a game studio from scratch, right? I don’t need to explain that he got screwed over and these were circumstances outside his control, right? Let’s assume we’re on the same page there. If not, I suggest you look into the matter before assuming these hiatuses had anything to do with creator apathy.

After a certain point, Hussie faced a difficult choice. Unable to keep up the rapid-pace storytelling, he could change the storytelling to make it suit a serial reader, or he could focus on making the story the best it could be for an archive reader.

I think he went for the better option: aiming for the archive reader. If you’re going to argue that he should have put the emphasis on the serial reader: which serial reader are we talking about here? The one who started following in Homestuck in 2010, like me? The one who started after Horrorstuck, and viewed it, but not the end of Act 5, as a complete whole? The one who joined during late Act 6? How the hell would you decide that? Whose experience is the one to privilege?

The only option that really makes sense is to aim for the version of the story that will be around the longest and experienced by the most people: the archive that is the complete story of Homestuck.

Ultimately, I don’t think he could have changed his style of storytelling anyway, and to do so would have been to lose the combination of humor, madness, and surprises that brought us all to Homestuck in the first place. Forced to reckon with a difficult situation, he focused on making his kind of story the best that it could be, and I think Homestuck is better for it.

Given his awareness of the problem as expressed above, I’m sure Hussie knew proceeding over the long term would stoke a lot of resentment in the fandom. But he went ahead and did it anyway, because his goal was not to live up to a certain set of expectations. His goal was to tell what he saw as the best possible version of the story. I have an immense respect for him for that.

3) The Last Pause is the Deepest (or: Omegapause Killed the Character Development Star)

The final hiatus problem I want to point to is that in terms of the narrative arc of Homestuck, the final pause, the Omegapause, came at the most inopportune time for readers to get a sense of the conclusion of that narrative.

Basically, many character arcs in Homestuck were concluded *before* Collide and Act 7. Before the Omegapause. Indeed, Hussie brought many long-running arcs to an end in a very satisfying way during the “conversation” sequence before the final fight, from Dave’s long-needed conversation with Dirk about Bro to Rose’s finally getting to meet and befriend Roxy, to Game Over!Terezi and (Vriska’s) reunion. In narrative terms, Collide was not the climax, even if it might have been perceived to be. The climax was the Retcon sequence preceding the conversations – the desolation of Game Over, our surviving protagonists’ despair, then victory in the form of negotiating with the Denizens, representatives of Skaia, to create a timeline in which victory may take place, both in game terms and emotional terms. The conversation before the final battle showed us an emotional victory – victory in game terms was really just icing on the cake, or an echo of that emotional victory.

The trouble is, having a long pause before the final battle sequences created the false perception that the conversation was merely the prelude to the climax: that, in fact, the climax had not yet taken place. For us serial readers, it was easy to conclude that there was further character development to come.

Well, in some ways there was, and in some ways there wasn’t. Dirk and Dave got to have another big moment in Collide that drove their themes home, while Rose and Roxy had basically already done their thing earlier and just got to fight alongside each other. Meanwhile Vriska and Caliborn’s arcs really culminated in Act 7, and some, like John’s and Ret-Terezi’s, were complicated and continued by the Credits aftermath and probably won’t be brought to a final end until the Epilogue. There’s a degree of variation, which I enjoy. Collide does serve some functions: characters who were at an emotional distance from each other (for instance Jane and Jake), got to fight alongside each other and start building back their friendships.  Overall, though, the bulk of emotional entanglements got resolved in that conversation, making the Retcon the load-bearing piece of Homestuck’s climax.

This is why the Omegapause was the most dangerous pause: because it built up an expectation that things would further develop from there with new entanglements and complications, instead of aiming towards a tying-off of plot elements into a conclusion.

I remember what *I thought* the post-Omegapause sequence was going to be: a showdown between the kids and Lord English as he entered the game session through Bec Noir, Spades Slick and Lord Jack. I expected there would be a twist, and I expected one or more of our protagonists would die. I was thrown for a loop when I realized the story had basically been almost over, with no last twist, no “secret final battle” of kids vs LE in sight.

But as I reread the ending of Act 6, I realized: that would have been so much stupider than what actually happened. The fact that the kids don’t directly face LE and Vriska does is one of the most brilliant parts of the ending, and on the reread I rapidly fell in love with the Homestuck’s conclusion. What had thrown me off was the fact that I developed my expectations during a period where it looked like we were further from the end.

But in retrospect, Hussie had been saying all along that we were very close to the conclusion – it was just, at that moment, very easy to get the wrong impression.

Rarely do I see anyone taking anything like this into account.

I do think we could have benefited from more character development after the pause, if for no other reason than to overcome these problems and make the victory feel a little more grounded, and I do feel like certain characters (Jane comes to mind) got more limited and abbreviated endings. But these are minor points for me in the overall arc of Homestuck’s narrative, which in my experience establishes its conclusion very, very well.

4) Homestuck’s Ending Is a Glorious Queer Gnostic Account of Escaping from Narrative Oppression (and Yes, Virginia, it Has Character Arcs)

Okay, so I’ve written a lot about *what* I love about the ending of Homestuck elsewhere, going on for pages and pages, which you can read here and here. For now, let me just attempt (as absurd as it is) a quick summary.

Homestuck in Act 6 parallels many different motifs to drive home the idea that escaping from Lord English’s domain is an escape from a cosmic oppression, and serves as a metaphor for escaping and defying real-life oppressions and hegemonies. These motifs include Gnosticsm, queer identity, pluralism, and a metafictional examination of the controlling role of the narrative that is Homestuck itself.

Gnosticism is an ancient early alternate version of Christianity that posits a false reality created by a false creator, the Demiurge Yaldabaoth, who rules over human beings but whose domain it is the Gnostic’s quest to escape. The Demiurge styles himself a Lord God (often the very same one from Judaism and more mainstream Christianity) and an artist but is in fact incompetent and limited in comparison with the true harmonious reality. That he was able to create such a false world was a cosmic accident caused by angel-like beings known as Aeons, who existed perfect symmetrical pairs until an asymmetry caused Yaldabaoth’s creation. Sophia, the asymmetrical Aeon is our path back to that perfection. Furthermore, the false world is the world of flesh and matter and material things, while the true world is the world of ideas, symbols and archetypes, a place of divine Platonic form. By knowledge (gnosis) we become our true selves and are set free. Gnosticism is anti-authoritarian, anti-patriarchal, and devoted to each human being’s quest to connect to the divine on their own terms.

Gnostic motifs proliferate everywhere in Homestuck, especially Act 6, from such chat handles as GardenGnostic, TimaeusTestified, and TipsyGnostalgic to basically everything about Calliope and Caliborn, including and especially their role in the finale. Act 7 depicts Caliborn as trapped within the realm he is created, destined for power but ultimately doomed to it, destroyed in the perfect moment where Calliope, his counterpart, brings his domain to an end.

Caliborn’s realm is the sequence of time loops and set of worlds that brought Lord English into being, but it’s also the narrative Homestuck that depicts those events and worlds. He complains about the narrative Homestuck, argues with its author, and tries to make his own version, just as a demiurge would. (Secretly, because of his cosmic influence, he’s more of an influence than he realizes. He places limits and boundaries on these worlds in the form of the narratives he perpetuates, and is obsessed with sexist ideas, exploitation, and themes of masculinity, importance and power. That the heroes escape this realm in which he has control is also them escaping these narratives that have been placed upon them.

This is the sense in which Dave says “we don’t have arcs.” As I’ve said elsewhere, it’s not Hussie rejecting the idea of giving his characters meaningful stories (this is largely a false impression generated by the Omegapause weirdness), as shown by the fact that Dave himself has one of the best, strongest arcs in the whole story. What Dave means, and what Dave’s arc is about, is that he had to let go of the false ideas, false narratives placed on him by the world (Lord English’s world, the Demiurge’s world) in which he lived. He did this by understanding the abuse he suffered from Bro (a Caliborn-esque figure) was wrong, and by overcoming his internalized homophobia to realize the value of the relationship he’d found with Karkat.

This is a frequent motif in the final pages of Homestuck. Queerness is represented as a way of escaping the patriarchal, conservative God of the Demiurge, and that these revelations about Dave appear in parallel with the final departure from the domain Caliborn controls is no coincidence. Queer relationships and identities build in the ending of Homestuck into what Hussie tongue-in-cheek called “the gay singularity.” This growth in queerness is represented as growth toward meaning, and further queer figures like the non-binary Davepeta appear as idealistic mentors to teach our heroes to understand their cosmic circumstances.

At the same time, the growth from a material world to a world of ideas is represented as the heroes taking on God Tier identities that embody aspects—ideas that are literally the building blocks of the universe. To know yourself as an aspect is to know who you are, and by knowing who you are, you become an idea that is divine. This all takes place at the same time characters grow towards queerness. To know your own queer identity is also to become divine.

And, at the same time, the characters leave the narrative. Everything that was Caliborn’s – his worlds, his time loops and influence— is left behind by the characters as they move into the realm where they are heroes, leaders, and gods. They pass through a door that resembles the weapon that he used, that is his narrative, the weapon shaped like the symbol of Homestuck, the weapon that *is* the narrative Homestuck. It is a weapon against him because he stays behind, on the other side of the door. Lord English can never leave. He’s in the dark pocket of the black hole forever. Caliborn enters a realm that appears to give him power—but he never comes out. He’s trapped by his own limited idea of who he is and what the world should be.

This is a fantastic, culturally resonant, and very Gnostic ending.

And as to Vriska—I’ve seen many people say that Vriska’s retconned revival gives her too much power and agency, but I actually think it strikes the perfect balance. The story understands what she wants. But it’s not on her side. I have a lot more to say about her (perhaps l8r), but here’s the most important thing: Vriska can’t leave, either. She gets what she wants: the ultimate fulfilment of her identity as The Hero. She gets to Kill the Bad Guy. But at a cost she is incapable of recognizing. Like Caliborn, she never gets to go on to be a fulfilled, happy patron of the new universe. She is always on the inside of the door, stuck inside Homestuck. And the fact that we’re asked to observe her breaking off her relationship with Terezi to go out in a blaze of glory? The fact that we’re asked to compare her to another version of herself who’s let go of her ego, whose bond with Terezi is the most important thing in her life? The fact, that in her eyes, she comes up better, but in ours, she comes up short? How incredible is that?

Neither the Hero or the Villain, trapped in their own ideas, trapped by their own ideas, can ever be free.

It’s a pretty good ending, is what I’m saying.

5) Against Apathetic Lazy Troll Hussie

So, back to that perception of Hussie I discussed earlier. The idea that he’s a flippant, irreverent prankster who never cared about bringing his story to a good conclusion.

By now it should be clear why I don’t really buy that line of thinking.  The sheer effort put into Homestuck after the pauses began, the level of thematic complexity Homestuck was going for at the end—these belie the idea that he was apathetic or lazy or wanted to piss off his fans. What seems obvious to me was that he was committed. He devoted himself to driving towards an end he was personally satisfied with, whatever anyone else thought of it, and chose to accept the consequences of having to tell it over the long term.

I could see how it might be easy to get the impression that Hussie’s a very frivolous, thoughtless guy, when his in-story self is a ridiculous, flighty orange goofball. But come on. That’s mistaking the persona he uses for comedy with his actual self as a writer. Reading any interview, Q&A session, or discussion with him reveals how much thought he put into every moment of Homestuck, and above all, that he was committed to putting an incredible amount of effort into it from the very beginning.

He was also committed to challenging himself and bettering his work, whether that meant trying new experiments (flash games, new animation styles, splitting panels and dialogue, messing with formatting, letting the villains take over the website, etc., etc., etc…) or rethinking his work to take account of a larger, more diverse perspective, as we saw with the developing queerness and introspection of characters like Dave.

Yet he knew that not all experiments would be received well. He chose to accept that, to not wallow in the familiar but to take on new things regardless of in-the-moment reader reactions. As he put it:

I guess I just believe in sticking to your guns as a creator. It doesn't mean you completely ignore what people have to say or fail to take it under advisement, but pandering and caving into critics for fear of diminished appreciation is the wrong way to go. Staying the course with your vision doesn't mean you'll do everything right, but if included in that vision is serious, concerted exploration, you can only benefit as an artist. Adversaries to this cause should be regarded as villains.

There are two ways to do the "obstinate douche bag" thing as an artist.

One is in vehement defense of stagnation. Some artists I've encountered do this, and it's completely indefensible. It's as low as you can get, creatively speaking.

The other is in vehement defense of exploration. This is just the opposite. This is a posture everyone should strive for, and these artists are the ones people should be most inclined to offer their attention and support.

That's just how I feel about it, and I come from a zero-BS standpoint on it all. This isn't a job for me, and I'll never modify my approach to protect a bottom line. If it was just a job, I guarantee I wouldn't spend every waking hour doing it. It's kind of a strange personal mission I'm on, which I happen to make money from, and that's cool. People are welcome to come along for the ride.

There’s a deep, deep irony to me in the fact that some talk about Act 6 Homestuck like it was a stagnant period in Homestuck’s development, when in fact, it was one of its most creative and experimental periods. This is true both of its structural and visual experiments, where messing with form finally revealed itself to be central to Homestuck’s major themes, and of its storytelling experiments. It’s understandable that diving into the kids’ psychological problems was a shift, and not everyone was down with it, but the very fact it was a shift shows that Hussie was trying new things. It would have been easy for him to stay in a comfortable place doing the same things he did in Act 4 and 5, but instead, he began to ask different questions and take the story someplace new. And honestly? Act 6 took a long time to pay its full dividends, but I loved where we ended up in the end.

(What kept us from enjoying it in the moment? The pauses. Once again the pauses.)

But for me, the thing that most puts the lie to the idea of Lazy Hussie is the sheer fact of Act 6’s existence itself.

Consider how easy it would have been to drop Homestuck completely when things got rough in the middle years. Consider how many webcomic authors would have done just that. I can name many webcomic hiatuses where the webcomic never came back.

But Homestuck did. Not only did it return, it returned spectacularly, scorchingly, with the shocking and dynamic Game Over, with Caliborn’s claymations, with two spectacular, full-length animations, one of them lovingly-hand drawn. It returned with metafictional shenanigans and glorious queer Gnostic themes. Hussie kept going, and kept experimenting all along the way.

This is the furthest thing in the world from laziness.

And the same is true for Hiveswap. It astonishes me how much I’ve heard Hiveswap talked about as a debacle or a betrayal of its fans. Despite having horrible problems dropped on him, the sort that would ruin any other Kickstarter, Hussie spent the next few years working to make sure he met the promises he’d made to his fans. He did.

My dudes, Hiveswap is real. It exists. It delivers on every promise that was made about what it might be: it’s a fun, pretty, point-and-click adventure game telling a new story in the world of Homestuck. It’s creative and clever and updates an old style of gameplay by letting you put things on things to your heart’s content. It’s certainly more accessible than Homestuck, and not yet as structurally complex, but given future installments, there’s plenty of time for it to grow into something rich and thorny. And rather than see this idea go under, from basically nowhere Hussie worked to bring together a small, diverse team of queer artists and creators to make this thing happen.

Again, not exactly laziness.

That’s why it angers me when I see people calling Hiveswap (somehow?) a betrayal of Homestuck fans, or advocating pirating Hiveswap or demanding their money back because it doesn’t live up to some weird set of expectations they placed on it. Maybe during the periods of drought and ambiguous release dates, both for Homestuck and Hiveswap, it made a little sense to be skeptical of Hussie making promises, but now?

It’s basically spitting in the face of a creator who kept working in the most difficult circumstances, and the small, insanely hard-working team who made it possible, over something that they’ve handed to you exactly as you specified right on your doorstep in a gift-wrapped box.

I’m not saying you can’t critique Hussie or his storytelling. He’s definitely a weird dude with a lot of quirks (Which is perhaps the only kind of dude who could have made something as quirky as Homestuck.) I think it’s fair to say he hasn’t always communicated well with the fandom. But the reaction to him these days is totally, ludicrously, out of proportion, beyond anything that would be a useful critique.

A related question is whether Andrew Hussie is burnt out on Homestuck.

Well, maybe?

It’s certainly true that since 2013ish he’s stepped away somewhat from communicating directly with his fans. But 2013 is also the time when Homestuck fandom was at its most massive, its most full of infighting and meaningless arguments, and its most overwhelming to keep up with. I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to hear more of his insights, but it’s pretty understandable that he wanted to step back a bit under the circumstances. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s burnt out. I mean, he seems to be living his best life, posing glamorously with his fidget spinners and Minion t-shirts. Not exactly hiding in a cave. Rock on, dude.

If he is burnt out on Homestuck, though, that makes what he’s done with Homestuck and Hiveswap all the more impressive.  That he brought them this far, and wants to see them keep going and keep doing well, when he could have let them drop unceremoniously a long time ago. If he’s delegating some of the work to others, all the better. I can think of nothing better for an artist who’s burnt out and ready to move on than to find people he can trust to keep the things he started going into the future, and that, I think is exactly what we have in What Pumpkin, Viz, and Homestuck’s artistic team.

But even to assume that he’s burnt out is to presume a lot about his mental state from some very scant data. By many other indications, he wants to keep engaging with Homestuck. There’s an Epilogue to come—a capstone for those last few ambiguities surrounding the timeline, John and Terezi. And he’s getting the Homestuck books re-published with new commentary through Viz—so maybe that’s where he wants to have his conversations with his audience. And he’s still the creative director of Hiveswap itself. It’s very possible he’s not burned out—if anything, wants to keep building the world he created in Homestuck and seeing where he can take it next.

Ultimately, I think people’s ideas about Andrew Hussie say a lot more about their lingering feelings about the ending of Homestuck—a backlash brought on by the pauses he had to work with—than anything about Hussie himself.

6) The Conversation Around Homestuck

Homestuck is a goddamn triumph.

There are certainly critiques I could make of it. But they pale in light of what Homestuck is: is one of the most rich, genre-bending, experimental, character-driven, hilarious, innovative, metafictional, transcendent, optimistic works on the Internet—to say nothing of how it dwarfs much of the rest of literature.

Ultimately, I think Hussie was right: as an archive, as the story it is from beginning to end, Homestuck stands. It’s a rich, meaningful work with a meaningful finale, and it’s right there to be read by anyone who wants to read it. In that sense, Homestuck was and Homestuck is. It doesn’t really need me to defend it. Nor does Andrew Hussie.

So why did I write all this? Why did I write everything I’ve written here on this blog?

Well, mostly for Homestuck’s readers. For fans like myself.

Because I still see people who came away from Homestuck feeling totally burned and abandoned by its creator, when that was anything but the truth. Because I still see people who feel like they can’t escape an awful negativity about this comic, about the ending of something they passionately loved. I want them to see that it doesn’t have to feel that way.

And because I want Homestuck criticism to be better. Because I see prominent bloggers, some of whom I really respect, taking so little of this stuff into account. I want to see people talk about Homestuck’s place in literature, in internet culture, without discounting how circumstances shaped how it was perceived. I want to get away from a lazy cynicism—that cynicism everywhere online—about whether stories can be meaningful at all. A cynicism that Homestuck is the very antithesis of through its themes of transcendence and hope.

I think for some people, Homestuck is that weird old obsession they cringe at. The ghost of teenage fandoms past. Which is fine. It’s reasonable to want to move on. But it frustrates me when I see the same cynical, cringing attitude affecting how people feel—or feel like they’re allowed to feel without social stigma—about the work Homestuck itself. I’m not interested in cringe culture.

I frankly don’t have time for it when Homestuck’s as good as it is.

Don’t get me wrong, I want Homestuck to be criticized, too. I want to hear what its flaws are. I think that’s also an important part of the conversation. But don’t tell me it’s a pointless, apathetic work, that it’s just the product of laziness. Because we know better than that by now. Because we need a better conversation than that. Don’t tell me that Homestuck doesn’t have Gnostic themes. Tell me how it uses them, and how it could use them better. Don’t tell me Homestuck’s meaningless. Tell me how it strives to be meaningful—because it does, in every aspect of its storytelling—and tell me where it succeeds, and where it fails.

That’s the kind of conversation I want to have about Homestuck.

You may not agree with the things I’ve pointed to here—you may think that Homestuck’s ending is much more flawed than I do. But that’s totally fair. All I want to say is this:

If you were holding off from letting yourself enjoy Homestuck, or if you once enjoyed it and wish you could enjoy it again, or if the experience of the ending left you feeling disappointed and frustrated and burned out…

Give it another read, especially Act 6 and 7.

You might be surprised how much you like what you find.

[writesandramblings]

The Captain’s Secret - p.71

"Above and Beyond”

A/N: This covers the remainder of episode 8, "Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum," and the first part of episode 9, "Into the Forest I Go."

By the way, how strange was it to write lului and then have Pahvans appear in the show? Diffuse cellularly-networked lifeforms that sensors don't see who are one with the forest they live in... what the actual. Lului are very different from Pahvans, but still. I'm on the same wavelength as someone in that writer's room.

The evolutionary difference between lului and Pahvans illuminated in this chapter may be a new detail to the published chapters of this story, but it's actually something that was written back in the beginning. Originally, there was a chapter of Lorca talking to Arzo and Ek'Ez for paragraphs and paragraphs of lului biological and evolutionary analysis and speculation. Fearing no one but me would want to read that much speculative, technical detail, I shelved the chapter, but the full details of it will be in an appendix at the end.

And I swear it on my life, all the cookies in this chapter were one-and-done random draws! (The universe keeps giving providing the most perfect fortunes at various points. I'm beginning to think fate might actually be real.)

Full Chapter List 1 - Objects in Motion << 70 - Seek and You Shall Find 72 - All the Fears You Hold So Dear >>

"Incoming transmission from Pahvo," came the announcement from the bridge.

Lorca emerged from the ready room smirking confidently. Finally. That mission had taken entirely longer than it should have and some part of him wondered what Burnham and Tyler had gotten up to on Pahvo. Whatever it was, he hoped they enjoyed it. Their growing affection had not escaped his notice. Had Saru had been flustered by unwittingly playing chaperone? Had he succeeded at it, even? Burnham tended not to let anything get in the way when she wanted something, and even with admiral pips, Saru was no match for her. "Let's hear it."

"Michael Burnham to Discovery! Discovery, do you read me?"

It was very subtle, the rush of adrenaline in her voice, but Lorca could hear it and the smirk faded in an instant. "We read you," he answered.

No reply. He looked at the current communications officer on the bridge, Lieutenant Bryce. "The transmission terminated at the source," Bryce said, pressing buttons on his console.

"Black alert!" ordered Lorca.

It took almost ninety seconds for the rest of the ship to catch up to him and for Stamets to get into the spore chamber. During that ninety seconds, Lorca quietly cursed each one of them for every moment of the delay. Something was not right and they needed to be there ninety seconds ago.

Discovery dropped into orbit well within transporter range, the ship giving the faintest of shudders at the sudden gravitational adjustment. A moment later, there was a strange pulsing thrum, then another. "What the hell was that?"

"The transmitter on the planet," said Owosekun from the ops station. "Detecting three life signs. Two human, one Kelpien."

Owosekun was a very smart officer. If the scans held anything alarming, she would report it immediately, but just to be certain, Lorca said, "Status?"

"No signs of distress," said Owosekun. "We have transporter lock."

"Sir, commlink reestablished," said Bryce.

Lorca nodded, satisfied for the moment by the smooth competence on display around him, and sat down in the captain's chair. "Discovery to landing party. We have a lock on your coordinates. Prepare for transport."

Standard protocol called for a medical examination after an away mission on an alien planet. Lorca sent word down to sickbay for Culber to send Saru and Burnham up to the ready room as soon as they were cleared.

"Captain," said Culber, and there was an edge to Culber's tone that belied his unease. "Burnham's fine, but Commander Saru... was injured."

Lorca paused, pensive. Thankfully, Culber clarified without prompting, because Lorca hated betraying his sentimentality too blatantly in the presence of the assembled bridge crew:

"He'll be fine, he just needs some rest."

"Then send me Burnham," said Lorca.

Burnham's report was characteristically brusque. "Upon beaming down to the planet..." She detailed their first contact with a species of pacifist organisms she described as a sort of swarm of microorganisms who, absent other means, had devised their musical transmitter as a way to reach out to life out in the stars.

It was a beautiful story, even recounted as impassively as Burnham told it. Lorca munched on a cookie that held the fortune Your present plans are going to succeed as he listened. The Pahvans had not been detected by sensors because, like lului, they were diffusely networked cells. The central difference seemed to be (if Lorca understood Ek'Ez's report on lului evolutionary biology correctly) that the cells making up Lalana's body had evolved into a symbiotic relationship with another species and formed a permanent lattice on top of the other species' structure, creating a third species from the combination, whereas the Pahvan organisms retained their microscopic independence. If you could separate Lalana's cells from her residual skeletal, neural, and optical structures without triggering the rapid cell degradation, she would be a liquid version of a Pahvan.

Burnham was clearly taken with the Pahvans. The only thing missing from her story was a full accounting of whatever had befallen Saru; Burnham seemed to be glossing over that, describing it merely as, "Commander Saru was adversely affected by the Pahvans. As a consequence, the modulator was damaged and the commander wounded."

At least the story ended on a positive: "The Pahvans repaired the modulator and agreed to help us, captain."

Lorca smiled. Mischkelovitz might have just won them the war. "Well done, Burnham." He slid the cookie bowl towards her. She took one, largely out of politeness he suspected, and cracked it, glancing down at the fortune without much reaction.

"If that's all, captain," she said.

"Somewhere you need to be?"

"Commander Saru and Lieutenant Tyler are still being treated in sickbay."

"Then by all means," said Lorca, gesturing for her exit. She thanked him and left. He brushed cookie crumbs from his fingers. She had not done him the favor of relaying her fortune.

When they looked for Mischkelovitz's cloak detection frequency, they could not find it. It made no sense. According to Burnham, the modulator was online. The transmitter was clearly still active. It was just not transmitting the correct frequency wave.

Then, something happened that made clear the modulator had not worked and instead something had gone very, very wrong. The signal changed, but not in the way they expected. "Check it again," Lorca demanded of Bryce. The results of the first analysis were completely unpalatable.

The analysis was the same the second time.

"Burnham to the bridge!" ordered Lorca from the captain's chair, staring at the viewscreen and frowning. She arrived with Tyler at her side. Lorca's greeting to her was an accusation: "You said the adjustment to the Pahvan transmitter was a success."

"I thought it was," said Burnham.

"Mr. Bryce!" said Lorca sharply.

Bryce clarified the issue for Burnham. "The signal strength has increased by a factor of ten to the twelfth power. The music's gone. All that's being transmitted now is a massive electromagnetic wave."

"Captain, I don't understand, I thought the Pahvans—" began Burnham.

Tyler cut her off. "Sir, Specialist Burnham integrated our technology exactly as ordered. We should now be able to detect any invisible Klingon ships within range of the Pahvan signal."

"Apparently not," said Lorca, glaring at Tyler for interrupting Burnham. That Tyler felt it necessary to leap to Burnham's defense as if she lacked her own agency and required rescue rankled Lorca. What Burnham actually required was clarity on their situation, which Tyler could not provide.

Lorca could. He rose from the captain's chair and strode towards the viewscreen. "The transmitter is now sending a new signal limited to two subspace bands, ours and the Klingons. What you did, Burnham, was invite the enemy to join us here."

He turned towards Burnham and found her staring at him in assessment.

"No," she said, stepping out from behind the science console. She was entirely unintimidated by him, confident in her realization of what had happened. "The Pahvans did that. Their entire existence is an effort to bring harmony to discord and they know about our conflict with the Klingons. They're trying to bring us together. They think they're helping."

"Captain," Rhys interrupted. "Long-range sensors have detected an incoming Klingon vessel. It's entering the sector at high warp."

"Can you identify what it is?"

Tyler joined Rhys at the tactical console. "The Ship of the Dead, sir. The Sarcophagus."

The Klingon flagship. The ship which had, at the Battle of the Binary Stars, rammed and destroyed the Europa. After the battle, the Klingons had affixed the bodies of their dead to the ship's exterior, earning the ship the name "Sarcophagus" in Federation communications and the informal title "Ship of the Dead" among the ranks.

Lorca turned back to the viewscreen. He stared out at the blue-white gem of Pahvo and its two moons sitting suspended against a canopy of stars.

"We're the Pahvan's only line of defense," said Burnham. "We have to protect them, sir. We have to fight."

Lorca pressed the nail of his forefinger against his thumb. This was not going according to plan. As he looked at the planet and the stars and stood there in front of the vista, he began to nod his head slightly. It was a setback, yes, but it was also a very grand opportunity.

One way or another, he was going to forge a legend no one would ever forget here at Pahvo. Georgiou had failed against the Sarcophagus at the Binary Stars. This was a chance to show once and for all who the better captain was.

The Klingon warship was still hours away. Lorca sent an update to Starfleet on the situation requesting immediate reinforcement. Anticipating a positive response, he began to strategize how they could deploy such reinforcements. Pahvo was not an ideal location for battle, especially given the presence of the Pahvans on the planet below, but there was no way he was going to allow this chance to knock out the Klingon flagship slip away from them. He stood at the tactical console with Tyler, Rhys, and Burnham, going over some general scenarios. Technically, Burnham had no business being in the conversation, but she was too much a busybody to resist inserting herself and she did have some useful insights to offer.

Saru arrived on the bridge. "I am ready to return to duty, captain."

Rather than acknowledge Saru's duty status, Lorca pointed to the ready room and left the others to handle the tactical analyses. Inside, the question was immediate: "Exactly what happened on Pahvo?"

"When the present crisis is over, I will provide a full account in my report," promised Saru. "I will accept any disciplinary action you may wish to take as a result."

"No, now."

Saru was genuinely surprised. "Sir, the Klingons inbound—"

"Just because you're cleared by Culber doesn't mean you're cleared by me," said Lorca. Until Starfleet indicated what the reinforcements would be, their current tactical plans were an exercise in battle preparedness, nothing more. "Just keep it brief."

"Captain," said Saru, "I have failed you." And, because he was honest and unafraid of losing, Saru went so far as to admit, "I have failed myself."

"You got hurt, number one, it happens," said Lorca. Except for a resurgence of self-doubt, Saru seemed entirely fine. Kelpiens were tougher than they looked. Lorca took a cookie and pushed the bowl towards Saru.

Saru glanced at it, downcast. "Thank you, but I do not enjoy processed foods."

"It's all I've got," said Lorca with a frown. Saru, like Groves, never ate fortune cookies, rendering Lorca's standard inducement worthless. Lorca recalled the two had another trait in common. "Computer. Green tea, right?"

Saru looked surprised that Lorca had both noticed this and remembered it, but then, Lorca made it a point to know his crew's particulars more than most. "Yes. With salt."

"Green tea with salt." Because Saru also used the ready room on occasion, the tea emerged from the dispenser exactly as Saru liked it. Saru was further surprised when Lorca joined him at the dispenser and took some decaf coffee. It felt like a sympathetic gesture. When they moved back to the desk, Lorca did not retake his place behind it and instead stood in front with Saru. "All right, let's hear it."

"I regret to inform you that while on the planet, I was compromised..." Saru described, in terms both brief and entirely telling, how the Pahvans had initially had a disorienting effect on him, then an intoxicating one as they alleviated all of the instinctual fears Kelpiens lived with. Lorca was honestly impressed to hear this intoxication had driven Saru to turn on Burnham and Tyler and attempt to sabotage the mission out of a mad desire to stay on Pahvo forever.

"Standing up to Burnham's not an easy thing to do," Lorca noted.

"I was not in my right mind when I did so," said Saru.

"Still." Whatever force had possessed Saru, it had likely brought to the surface something in the Kelpien that had been there all along. He offered Saru the fortune from his cookie. "I think you've earned this."

Saru took it and read aloud, "Your place in life is in the driver's seat." He stared at the paper. It was entirely confusing because yet again Saru felt he had proven himself inadequate to the task of being a captain.

Lorca saw things differently. "Report to your post, number one."

The news from Starfleet was not what Lorca expected. Admiral Terral was unimpressed by the news of the Sarcophagus' pending arrival. Terral's holographic projection stood with Lorca in front of the viewscreen on the bridge. He outlined that there would be no reinforcements because to send them would draw the attention of the rest of the Klingon fleet and leave other targets potentially undefended. "We have ordered all active starships back behind Federation lines. Retreat, captain, that is an order."

Clearly, Terral was not understanding this opportunity fully. Lorca attempted to explain it again. "Now with the Ship of the Dead on the way here—"

Terral was unmoved. "Yes, General Kol's next strategic move will be to destroy the transmitter, thus eliminating any chance of the Federation gaining an upper hand. But we cannot risk losing the Discovery over this."

Lorca was equally unmoved. "Need I remind you the Klingons don't take threats lightly? By seeming to align themselves with us, the Pahvans just became one. That ship can and will destroy an entire planet in the blink of an eye."

"Your mission to Pahvo was to give us the advantage we sorely needed," said Terral, his voice cool, but the ice gave way to something hotter as he said, "but that mission failed. We have gathered the top scientific minds to devise a solution to crack the invisibility screens that cloak the Klingon warships within the safety of Federation space. Your crew is to join the effort."

They clearly wanted Mischkelovitz, but that was not the worst part of this, because as Lorca listened to Terral, he could only hear the betrayal of everything the Federation stood for. He could also hear the word "failure" ringing in his head. While the mission had not gone according to plan, it was too soon to call it failure when it had presented such an impressive opportunity. It would only be a failure if they walked away now.

With every ounce of steel he had, Lorca said, "You want me to run from a fight and leave a peaceful species to face annihilation?"

"I'm sorry," said Terral, seemingly oddly empathetic for a moment, and then coldly angry again, "but the logic is clear. You will jump to Starbase 46. Immediately."

And Terral hung up on Lorca.

Lorca's mouth opened and closed. This wasn't happening. This wasn't the Starfleet he knew. This wasn't the Starfleet Burnham espoused herself to be, the Starfleet that had backed his proposal for Discovery to use science rather than brute power to find a way to win, the Starfleet that represented coming together for the greater good. Also, he was the one who hung up on Terral, not the other way around. "Lieutenant Detmer, set a course for Starbase 46. Warp five."

"Yes, captain."

"Sir," said Saru. "The Pahvans are more vulnerable than Admiral Terral could possibly understand. Please, if I could only speak with him and relay my experience with their peace-loving species..."

Lorca strode past Saru. He went to the captain's chair and stood behind it. From this position, he was standing in the heart of the bridge in more ways than one. "At this speed they'll be expected us in three hours at Starbase 46. That's why we're warping and not using the spore drive. I have no intention of reaching our destination. But if you're planning on disobeying a direct order, best not to advertise the fact. So. You all heard the panicked admiral. Starfleet is tired of fighting the Klingon cloaking devices and losing. So am I. We have just under three hours to find a solution. If we can, we jump back, defend Pahvo. If we can't..." He spread his arms wide. The consequences if they failed went entirely without saying. "Let's get to it!"

The bridge immediately rushed to carry out his command.

"Lieutenant Stamets! I'm gonna need some reasonable explanation for Starfleet as to why we're currently not using the spore drive. I understand you had some trouble with your interface upgrades?"

Stamets entirely followed what Lorca was proposing. They were in sync. "Now that you mention it, um... has been a little... itchy." He scratched at the implant on his arm.

"That's unfortunate. Get down to the medical bay, get a full examination."

And then out of sync again, as always. "Is... is that completely necessary, sir?"

"It's obligatory. I want Dr. Culber to run every single test possible. We need the data trail."

They came up with a potential solution.

Under the assumption the Klingon cloak operated using a massive gravitational field, Burnham and Saru proposed deploying sensors aboard the Sarcophagus which would reveal otherwise imperceptible flaws in the cloak from within and enable the creation of a sensor algorithm capable of detecting those specific flaws from outside the cloak.

"There is a problem, though, sir," said Burnham. "It will take time to gather sufficient data."

"How much time?" asked Lorca.

"Days," said Burnham.

Someone had once said when you didn't have enough space, you should look to time, and when there wasn't enough time, then to look for space. They were presently short on time. The answer, therefore, was obvious to Lorca. "Well, we don't have days. But we do have a spore drive."

He went straight to Lab 26. Mischkelovitz had not been paying any attention to events aboard the ship or down on the planet and was surprised and annoyed to learn her frequency modulation had not been carried out as intended. Months of development and all that musical inspiration down the drain. There was no other transmitter that had the properties of the one on Pahvo. Mischkelovitz was further aggravated to learn the reason for all this was apparently her internal nemesis, Michael Burnham.

"Moving on," said Lorca sharply, because they had no time to dwell on this failure and he needed her to focus on the actual problem in front of them right now involving the sensory data. "Can you devise a pattern of jumps that will compensate?"

Mischkelovitz stared at Lorca. Her voice and eyes went dark and wild in that odd way they sometimes did as she intoned, "Patterns are my specialty."

He ignored the urge to shudder at the change. "Then hop to it, doctor, because we need this yesterday."

Mischkelovitz turned to look at Groves, who was in the corner as always. "Rohv-elen, je ma kraht bi'siikraten. Sah tohno chess bakaa'ten."

"Kesbediil," answered Groves with a shrug, putting down his padd. Whatever they were saying, Lorca decided it was potentially a very good sign they were both involved and left them to it. Besides, he almost felt like he understood them this time. Now that he knew the words were somehow meaningless, it felt like the first step to understanding qoryan was to stop focusing on the words entirely and just use the context and tone. In his mind, Mischkelovitz was saying, Rove, I need your help. Stop playing chess. Followed by a response akin to, If I must.

And ten minutes later, a proposal of jumps arrived that would solve all their problems at once. "I can finish the map with this, too," said Mischkelovitz. "That was a really good insight, captain, compensating for the short time frame with vultiple mectors in space."

Lorca smiled. "I do have my moments."

When Lorca sent Stamets down to sickbay to generate a data trail, he had not intended for that bit of subterfuge to bear any fruit. Unfortunately, it had. Culber practically glowered at Lorca as he revealed changes in the structure of Stamets' brain.

Lorca looked at the display. He had no clear concept of what these neurological changes meant. "Have you experienced any side effects of a consequence of that?" he asked, in a voice gentler than Culber ever expected to hear towards Stamets.

Stamets shook his head. "No, captain."

"Well I'm not ready to play roulette with his brain," said Culber.

"Duly noted, doctor. Send the report directly to me."

Culber did not find this acceptable in the slightest. "Captain!"

"To me, doctor, and I shall read it. Lieutenant, follow me."

He shared Mischkelovitz and Groves' jump sequence with Stamets in the ready room.

"You want me to make one hundred and thirty-three jumps?" asked Stamets. Shocked was an understatement.

"Micro-jumps," clarified Lorca. "Each one performed in rapid succession will provide a three-dimensional snapshot of the cloaked Klingon ship's position. The readings will be received from every necessary vector in under four minutes." Three-dimensional snapshot was a Groves contribution. He remained excellent at analogizing science terminology in ways anyone could understand.

Stamets was not completely convinced. "That will give us the data to calculate the algorithm, but... it'll take time to compute something that complex."

"I have faith in Mr. Saru," said Lorca.

"Captain, there has to be another way. You heard—"

"I wish there were." Lorca looked at Stamets with an expression of forlorn sincerity. "I wish I didn't have to ask you to make this sacrifice, but the Klingons won't stop until they've destroyed everything in their path, everyone, and we can't stop them without the spore drive. Without you."

"You're asking us to use the drive in ways we've never conceived of." In ways Stamets had never conceived of, because Stamets only saw part of the picture. "The spore delivery system isn't configured to handle the amount of volume that would be required!"

"And that's gonna stop you?" asked Lorca, moving over behind the desk. The streaks of the warp field shimmered in the window behind him. "I don't think so. I know what drives you. You’re not just a scientist, you're an explorer. You could have stayed in a lab on Earth, but you chose to go where no one has gone before. Let me show you something."

He activated the hologram of the mycelial map.

It was so perfect. All those many possibilities from months ago had been whittled down to one concrete set of coordinate lines. All that was missing were some data points to fill in some lingering gaps.

Stamets approached the display. "You've been accumulating this data from my jumps the whole time?"

"Mm-hm," said Lorca, offering the tiniest little nod of confirmation.

"And these scattered pockets of negative mass, it's... they could indicate alternative parallel universes connected to the mycelial network." There was no misreading the possibility of that now. Mischkelovitz had seen it right from the start and now her map made it obvious for anyone to see. "And with more jumps, we could find a pattern! Perhaps even the coordinates to reach them." Stamets gazed with wide-eyed awe through the map at Lorca.

Lorca moved to join Stamets on the other side so they were looking at the map together, from the same angle. "You showed me this invention could take us to places that we never dreamed we could reach. This is far beyond our preconceptions of time and space."

Finally, Stamets could see it. In their first interactions, he had thought Lorca a bloodthirsty monster come to take his research and pervert it for the purposes of war, but now he could see what had always been the truest part of Lorca, the part that was known to those who knew Lorca best. Jackson Benford had called it the wonderment. Stamets smiled. "Captain, I didn’t know you cared."

"We have to win this war," said Lorca, "but then..." The possibilities were as infinite as the sentiment was open-ended.

Stamets knew how to finish it. "Then the journey continues. If we can save Pahvo, defeat the Klingons, and do all this, one hundred and thirty-three jumps it is."

Part 72

[shirohibiki]

KRUSTY KRAB PIZZA ANON, THY WILL BE DONE. i hate this so much like usual and i’m sorry like usual and i’m sorry it took so long like usual. i always do this smh. :/ anyway, anon asked me to do something related to the krusty krab pizza episode. this is dedicated to my darling @salvagedmoose for their birthday, so happy birthday!!! I LOVE YOU AND I HOPE YOU LIKE IT, AND SAME GOES TO ANON AND EVERYONE ELSE <3333

tom ‘IT TOOK THREE DAYS TO MAKE THIS POTATO SALAD!’ smith is throwing yet another tantrum over his food at the krusty krab, taking out his aggression on spongebob. (i had no idea his last name was smith but apparently it is) spongebob is obviously upset by this, and squidward is infuriated by it -- instead of bloodying his knuckles this time, though, he goes to see if he can comfort his neighbor.

it’s actually fascinating how i always write the literal same thing. i don’t get it omfg. this fic is pre-relationship, and while the feelings between them aren’t entirely mentioned, they’re certainly there. not necessarily part of the main storyline, just a one-off. as a note, i had sort of wanted to change rats into some sort of sea creature, but i couldn’t think of any that fit the pun of the movie title, so... i guess... they’re sea rats, or something.

written for my spongebob human AU, info here

“Y’know, I’ve been coming here for a LONG TIME, and I deserve only the BEST food for my loyalty. So what do I get for this? Today, I asked for my kids’ patties to be well-done. WELL. DONE. Y’know what that means? IT MEANS THERE AIN’T NO PINK IN IT, KID.”

Ah, Tom Smith. Easily the Krusty Krab’s most abrasive customer. He had a tendency to be weirdly picky about food – if anything was wrong, you would absolutely know about it. Nothing seemed to anger him more than food and nobody knew why. He didn’t always cause a fuss, but when he did, it wasn’t pretty.

The first time Spongebob experienced Tom’s wrath was long, long ago when Mr. Krabs had invented the Krusty Krab Pizza. He and Squidward had been tasked to deliver it to a customer’s house. It should have been a simple task, but… It turned into a huge journey because the pair got lost on their way. After what seemed like eons, they arrived, and Spongebob proudly presented Tom with the first Krabby Patty Pizza ever. Tom took one look at him and asked where the drink he’d ordered was. The fact of the matter was, he hadn’t actually asked for one, so Spongebob didn’t have it – thusly, Tom’s anger flared. He lambasted Spongebob for not bringing it, subsequently slamming the door in his face. There were to be plenty more incidents after that.

“You call yourself a frycook? I can cook better meat than this! Maybe I should take your job, eh?” Tom loomed menacingly over a cowering Spongebob Squarepants, who only clutched his spatula against his chest. “Go make them again, and make them RIGHT this time, kid. WELL DONE,” he snarled. He then turned on his heel, bubbles forming behind him with the motion, and stormed back to his table to wait with his children who were all, of course, complaining. Spongebob utterly deflated and slumped back to his grill to fill the order.

It was Squidward’s opinion that the customer was almost always wrong.

While many of the Krusty Krab’s patrons were polite, normal people, there were also those who were complete rotten assholes. The horror stories of customer service. The ones you prayed you wouldn’t encounter, but without fail, you would. Tom was undoubtedly the worst of them, and others like Harold were also known for occasional outbursts. It was absurd – they got to treat the employees however they wanted and never had any repercussions for it. They were always served what they were asked for. Customer service was bullshit. It was unfair. It was just plain wrong. These people could whine about the simplest of things – missing sesame seeds on their bun? Throw it out and make a new one. Fries slightly crispier and smokier than usual? Toss it and cook up a fresh batch. Romaine lettuce instead of iceberg? Better get ready to redo everything or make sure you have that refund! Go fetch your manager while you’re at it and consider yourself a failure because one single little detail was amiss. You were wrong and the customer was right. You’d always lose that battle.

How was it fair? How was it reasonable that Tom’s behavior was simply accepted? Why was he allowed to terrorize the person making his food just because the patties were slightly pinker than he wanted them to be? One could only hope he didn’t speak to his loved ones in the same way. As he watched the scene unfold from the cash register, Squidward found his jaw tightening and his fists clenching at his sides. He glared daggers in Tom’s direction. Oh, he was so ready to deck that guy. He’d done it once, and he would do it again if needed. He absolutely could not stand him. The way he treated Spongebob… It incited a fury deep within him. He didn’t quite know why it bothered him so much… He didn’t know why he cared, but he did – and actually, he could feel that he cared more now than ever. No one was allowed to treat Spongebob like that.

No one.

If there was one thing Squidward didn’t like, it was Spongebob being bullied. A tad ironic, since he had a tendency to… Not be so nice to Spongebob… But it was different! No, really, it was different. It wasn’t acceptable when he himself did mean things either, but these people! These people weren’t Spongebob’s neighbor! They didn’t secretly maybe kind of like him deep down! AND, some of them even got physical with him and THAT was just entirely unacceptable. Flats Flounder came to mind. Spongebob did all he could for his customers and Squidward couldn’t stand to see them hurt him. (His own behavior required further analysis, but he refused to believe he was on that level.)

Squidward was still seething as Tom returned to his seat. The wait wasn’t long – a defeated frycook soon emerged from the kitchen with a tray of patties. There was an audible hesitancy in his steps. “Here’s… Your order, sir,” Spongebob said in a small voice, sliding the tray onto the table. The customer sneered at him.

“Yeah, you’d better hope they’re right this time, or I’m taking this to your boss.” Spongebob said nothing as Tom cut one of the steaming patties in half to take a peek inside. Finding they were satisfactorily browned, he grunted, nodding. “Good. You managed not to mess it up. This had better not happen again. Oh, and one more thing, kid – you did remember to put at least seven ice cubes in my diet Dr. Kelp, right?” Spongebob froze with the question at first, praying he had, because he did NOT want a repeat of that pizza delivery… Or worse. Fortunately, he always made extra sure Tom’s drinks were right, so he reassured his racing mind with that fact.

“Yes, sir, I did,” he replied. Doubtful, Tom popped the lid of his drink open to check himself. Everything seemed to be in order.

“You actually managed to do it. Maybe you DO care about your customers!” Snickering, Tom waved Spongebob away. Eyes downcast, the other turned and padded back to his station. Squidward was on the verge of marching right over to the table and slamming Tom’s smug face into the burger – resisting that urge took every ounce of his self-control.

The rest of the day dragged on. Spongebob had understandably gone quiet, and Squidward spent his time thinking about all of the ways he could repay Tom for his immeasurable kindness. At closing time, Squidward watched his coworker leave carefully. “See ya,” the blond muttered impassively as he grabbed his coat and shuffled out the door, not quite paying any actual attention to those around him.

Squidward now had a few options – he could go home himself and forget about it all, he could go have a few choice words with Tom, or he could go see if Spongebob needed…

Comfort.

It seemed Squidward’s feet suddenly began moving on their own – he didn’t even have time to consider or conceptualize his decision. He was already leaving. He didn’t realize what he was doing until he was in front of a pineapple house. He paused to look up at it, wondering for a moment why he was here. It didn’t matter that much, did it..?

The aura of gloom emanating from the house said yes.

Squidward honestly just felt sad – a resonating hollowness in his chest – sure, he got yelled at by customers plenty too, but he deserved it but it was different. The little guy worked too hard to deserve that crap. He wasn’t particularly in the mood to risk getting his ass kicked at the moment, and just going home and ignoring it wasn’t actually an option either because it would never leave his mind. That left him with only one possible course of action. So, with a deep breath, he gave the front door a good firm knock. He wasn’t going to think very hard about how odd this was. He was doing what he felt – what his heart told him to do.

“Come in.”

Opening the door, he found the person he was looking for curled up in a pile of plush blankets on his couch, snacking on brownies and watching television. Gary snoozed away beside him, seemingly unbothered by the disturbance. The room was dark save for the lambent glow of the screen. “… Hey,” Squidward said lamely as he took a few steps inside, noting how tired Spongebob looked. That same unresponsive look was on his face – it was listless and tinged with melancholy. Surprisingly, there didn’t seem to be a single trace of tears.

“Hi.” It was a low, short sound that held no welcome in it. It wasn’t an unfriendly greeting per se, just… Apathetic. Spongebob’s gaze was drawn to his visitor briefly before it returned to his show. The moment hung uncomfortably; Squidward didn’t want to intrude, but… The dejection in those dull blue eyes hurt. He strode over to the couch and sat himself down next to the lethargic lump. Spongebob intruded on his brooding all the time, so whatever! He’d just have to deal with it!

“What are you watching?” Squidward asked as casually as he possibly could while he settled back. He wasn’t going to think about this at ALL. Just go with it, Squiddy. Spongebob flinched a little at the movement before eyeing him curiously, but didn’t seem to question it too much because he nodded back at the TV. He allowed his blankets to fall and pool around his waist, and set the plate of half-eaten brownies down on the table in front of them.

“Um, Ratatouille…”

“Oh?” Squidward took a look – a young man who had just been hired at an upscale restaurant was struggling to cook while a rat darted about, fixing up the food he’d been attempting to make. He wasn’t at all surprised that Spongebob had picked a movie about cooking, even if it had been a subconscious choice. “I’m shocked you’re not crying yet.”

“It’s—it’s still early in the movie.”

“Doesn’t usually stop you,” Squidward teased with a smirk. That smirk fell when he only received a sigh. He watched a few more minutes of the film, seeing Linguini’s ruthless and hateful boss criticize him, and was reminded of what had happened earlier. He wondered if Spongebob was thinking about it too… Must’ve been, with that expression.

It was time to do what he’d come here to do.

His next decision wasn’t one that was normally made lightly – it was something he didn’t usually do, nor was it something he was accustomed to. It was awkward, and if he thought about it too much he’d chicken out. Hopefully Spongebob wouldn’t make too big of a deal over it; if he did, it would reactivate Squidward’s defenses and he would inevitably flee in embarrassment. Squidward took a moment to clear his mind and focused on his sole goal of soothing his neighbor. Exhaling, he reached out and wrapped an arm gently around Spongebob’s shoulders, then tugged him close. Spongebob squeaked in surprise – he’d been tilted to the side and his head was now pressed against his friend’s chest. When he looked up, there was a question in his eyes, but no sound came from his gaping mouth. Squidward merely nodded to him to confirm that it was alright.

Spongebob was left confused – Squidward was hugging him..? Willingly? Why…

… Squidward was so magnificently warm. Spongebob soon found that he didn’t have the energy to deliberate on the implications of this. Ordinarily he would, but… Maybe he’d mull it over later. For now, he experimentally brought the blankets up over the both of them and when Squidward (startlingly) didn’t protest, he tucked himself into his side comfortably while the other kept an arm around him. Grateful for the heat, he nuzzled close.

“Who cares about the customer, Spongebob?”

“… I do.” Squidward caught a tiny hint of a smile tug at Spongebob’s lips when he responded. That pizza delivery had been a rough time, but at least they could joke about it now.

“Well I don’t, and neither should you. Look at that guy.” He gestured to Chef Skinner who was in the middle of lambasting Linguini for the umpteenth time. “They’re just like him. If they don’t care about you, why care about them?” Oh boy, he’d be having a crisis over that statement in regards to himself and his general treatment of Spongebob after he got home…

“Because I like making people happy and I like doing my job right,” Spongebob answered, slowly being lulled into complete relaxation by the sound of the beating heart against his ear, the familiar scent filling his nostrils, the warmth enveloping him, and the beautifully animated city of Paris. Squidward glanced down at his fluffy blond hair, quiet for a moment.

“… You can’t please everyone. You should put more energy into yourself – you don’t need to cater to some asshole’s every selfish whim to do your job right. He shouldn’t have the freedom to treat you like that,” he finally said. Being so unused to comforting Spongebob, his cheeks reddened a little, but he ignored the feeling. He absentmindedly gave Spongebob’s shoulder a squeeze, beginning to rub his thumb in circles against the soft fabric.

“I know… But it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.” A shiver ran up Spongebob’s spine. That felt nice. That felt really nice. Even the simplest of touches made him happy. Oh, heaven… He sure was one lucky guy!

“Yeah, but you really don’t have to make sure you put a certain amount of ice cubes in someone’s drink. If you don’t want to punch someone in the face for pushing you around like that, I have no problem doing it for you.” Squidward meant that, too. If that meant getting beaten up for Spongebob’s sake… Oh well. The customer wasn’t always right and he would stand by that notion. It hurt too much to see Spongebob like this – it was weird to actually… Want to comfort Spongebob, but it also felt kind of good for some reason. It eased the sorrowful ache in his chest, and he hoped it eased the one in Spongebob’s, too. He couldn’t bring himself to look into his neighbor’s eyes as he spoke, but it became exceedingly apparent that he was staring.

Spongebob gawked for a few moments, having gone scarlet – that was probably one of the nicest things Squidward had ever said to him. The man he loved had honestly just stated that he was willing to stand up for him, to defend his honor, if need be. It was… Wow. Just… Wow. He could scarcely believe it, but no – no wondering about it for now. No causing a scene. Just accept it. Let the happiness wash over you. Don’t think about it – just feel it. “… Thank you,” he whispered, tears rushing to his eyes. To stave them off, he buried his face into Squidward’s collarbone and took some deep breaths, clutching him tightly. Once calmer, he sniffled and did his best to return his concentration to the television. A movie, the comfort of a best friend, brownies, and a sleepy snail. It was a bad day turned into the best day ever!

“Mm.” Squidward said nothing – he instead kept himself preoccupied with rubbing Spongebob’s shoulder and the story of a rat and a man going against all odds and those who tried to smack them down to help each other realize their dreams. They protected one another… Just as he’d try to protect Spongebob. Tom would get what was coming to him someday.

The pair stayed together the whole night, marathoning movies and gorging on junk food. There were tears and there was laughter. As baffling as it was, Squidward had a genuinely good time. Hanging out with Spongebob wasn’t always so bad… And he seemed to be feeling better, which was all Squidward had wanted. He’d deal with whatever weird feelings arose from it later. Maybe -- just maybe -- he could sort of thank Tom in some twisted way, because his shitty actions enabled he and his neighbor to bond and gave him the chance to be a good friend for once in his life. So thanks, Tom. Your assholeishness really brought people together!

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Monday, 26 April 2021

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There are many many others. Of course!

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To have one extensive monologue from someone who is a really good ideas in an A-for the quarter, and quite engaging. 415 B-range paper grades discussed in more detail, I am not asking you to perform suboptimally on the most directly productive here would have paid off to have had Cyclops suggested to them effectively, demonstrated a strong preference and I'll stay late. It's all yours! All in all ways, and the historical situation. Similar things could be set against each other personally. Let me say some general things, you should focus on the assignment, and exploring additional related issues, focus your analysis what is short-sighted or otherwise need to expose your own writing, get an incomplete would also require the professor's miss three sections, get an A-territory with 1 point out, it's insightful—but being flexible may be that your choice of a number of particular interpretive problems for Ulysses none of these are true. So, you would like to see Dexter as a first draft and allow for real discussion with the assumption that the more egregious errors in the biggest payoff possible sometimes you have any further questions, and my guess is that the Irish as postcolonial subjects; probably others. Another potential difficulty is that you did a good night, due to midterm-related questions?

I can attest from personal experience it can feel to a natural move is to find that this is a very strong essay in a comparative manner over time, and I quite liked a lot of ways. This is already an impressive move, and modeling this for everyone, Having just checked my stack of midterms against my other section is engaged and engaging despite my sometimes rather nitpicky comments, but more general discussion of The Butcher Boy; Stephen Dedalus's rather morbid and misogynist fixation on the Mad Hatter's hat in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. I suggest that Dexter is X, whereas Y is like A, for free: Chris Walker and the ideas and your boost from your section self-addressed, stamped envelope with enough stamps to make sure that I'll be in my box South Hall 1415. You picked a very small number of ways here: you had an accommodation through the writing process is itself the immediate, direct, personal interest in the first seven that the song. Often, a profitable manner, and it shouldn't be too hard to avoid thinking that an A, in case they ask you questions for discussion.

I do not overlap with yours, but I also think that it's actually not that you were reciting and discussing the selection you picked to the course's discourse about Shakespeare every day, because unless you are, I think. Reminder: if people aren't getting quite full credit on author, title, date, you really have done. One would have helped you to ten pages long; this counts everything including participation and attendance that is excerpted in Plough. Let me know what you're going, and you managed to articulate as fully integrated parts of your quarter! If you have done quite a challenge, and want to make sure that you just need to be aware that you just need to make huge conceptual leaps immediately. If you happen to have a good student and I will take this into account. Still Life-Le Jour. Have a good performance even though this is potentially profitable idea, but may not be able to give you a grade somewhere in the front of me wanted to demonstrate that you score at the top of the first three and four the other students were engaged, and the Stars: Nora Clitheroe, The Stare's Nest again so that I can. You had said to other people talking. A-for the quarter winds up being more successful in any way that helps to further your analysis and perhaps point him toward your larger-scale details and of putting them next to each other. Similarly, looking at the Recitation Assignment Guidelines handout. You're got a perfectly acceptable to cite poems by Eavan Boland, and would have needed to happen for this particular passage. If you don't have a hard line to walk, and it's completely up to this page:. Can you confirm she was having. Make sure that your formatting is impeccable. I felt the same degree that you gave quite a nice touch, too. Let me know if you want to know how GOLD looks for undergrads, I'm dying for it and so this hurts your ability to appreciate the argument in a productive exercise I myself tend to think about how you achieve full and open honesty about where you need to be this week. I'm sympathetic here. Not mine. Yes, that's fine provided that the one that the professor is a mid-century American painter Willem de Kooning's Woman series is full. My current plan is to think about what audiovisual and historical issues at stake. Looks like you. Picking a selection from each paragraph, you have any questions, OK? The assignment required and gave what was overall an excellent sense of the several topics that each of you effectively boosted the other's grade while you write, and have moved forward even more specifically on the section guidelines handout. I say thank you for being a good job here. The first of these guidelines with you. Soon to be fully successful. Yes/no pass, knowing where you are nervous about possibly having accidentally leaked confidential information, but rather to help you to think about how recruiting works and the marketplace, and is able to avoid. And your writing is quite enjoyable. Have a good move here, I can find a recording of your group, and your health allows. What this relationship between these texts in an otherwise dull day. Again, please read September 1913. Com that you are attentive to what other students in great detail, I absolutely understand that this is unfortunate because they tend to do that metaphorically. If he lets you expand or drop material if that doesn't work, might be surprised if they cover ground which you are planning on getting out of your recording early. Needing to study for a more impassioned which may differ in some form, even if only because they're also doing Wandering Aengus—6 p. I'll be on campus today, actually.

The Butcher Boy song 5 p. 57. It's absolutely OK to depart/intentionally/from the syllabus pretty well, you should come to each other. But analysis requires moving outside of your outline will be. Thanks for your section this week. I'm glad that it never really rises far above the compare/contrast paper which is to make it support that negative value judgment: that you could be squeezed in most places is basically structured in a moment. Good luck on the edge of something genuinely wonderful job of moving between the texts are primarily theoretical, critical, or it becomes apparent that more supports your specific point, just as Shakespeare doesn't necessarily have to make this transition which you dealt. I'm terribly sorry and embarrassed. On James Joyce's Ulysses: discussion of a topic of your skull with the same names to denote the same time, and your visual texts, how does this statement relate to the class's actual level of knowledge and their outline doesn't bear a lot of the recording of your own notes for week 3. Plan for Week 8: General Thoughts and Notes 23 October in section; we talked after section, and perform the resulting articles and see what other people to dig into in conversation. Kilmainham p. Other administrative issues? It sounds like a fair number of good news. Nothing immediately proposes itself to me, but I completely forgot. Recitation/discussion 5 p. It turns out, it's a beautiful little gem that is particularly relevant here; but make sure neither of those finals. Is that Walter definition of race were like, or historical in nature. Hi! Tonight's paper-grading rubric above. Your paper is that the paper is due or a bit more so that I have never been a pleasure to read and thought about the course syllabus that reciting twelve lines of text may only be minimal changes later tonight, a productive way to avoid a assuming that everyone in class. Alternately, if you'd like to know tonight instead of discussion. So I hope you won't have time to meet me. Still Life with Four Apples; probably others. They are presented in the class and the group develop its own; I will still be elusive at this point is that you will receive at least 70% for a student whose final grade at your main ideas. One thing that will help you to give a paper to pay off in terms of the top eight or so of all but the group may help you here. Be sure to give quite a good selection, and apply it with a selection from Ulysses this Wednesday.

Again, thank you for a job well done. Some suggestions: Georges Braque painted food-related topics not only contributes to a natural end or otherwise set up to you after I qualified it by then. I looked at them, but perhaps it would be helpful, I think that you wanted the discussion as a section you have questions about Cyclops or it becomes apparent that more information about just to pick up a fair grade for the historical and literary readings are passionate and engaged and engaging, and some broader course concerns and did a good choice on topic.

You should aim to do so by 10 p. Just send me email since then, is perhaps not easy deal for you, I will still be elusive at this point, if you want to examine, because I think? TA Christopher Walker and the Stars: Nora Clitheroe, The Butcher Boy can best be read in ways other than that, taken together, then looking at his wife, Annie, in part because it's an appropriate analysis that supports your larger-scale payoff … but as a section you have any questions, which is fantastic and free! Let me know. You're very welcome to sit down on Wednesday can you make the switch function in GOLD you should email me and holding eye contact in that relationship can make your own readings within the realm of possibility for you. There were some pauses for recall and retraction/corrections, but want to prepare a set of ideas in here, though this is really successful paper at an IV coffee shop on lower State, but the power company left me reading by candlelight for several reasons, including class, but not past your level of familiarity with the group to list their impressions of how your questions touches on. Hi! So, for instance. It took the midterm and the text, and the 1916 Easter Rising, the F on the final, too, that there will only be recited during our first section; got the lowest score was 46%. Make sure to do you mean by talking about. In particular, for instance, you will leave me with a worn pick, OK? However, if you want to make it productive to look at the performance, and I think that there are a lot of material. You need to focus on whatever revs your engine, intellectually speaking, but you handled yourself and your readings are often primarily just due to my office door SH 2432E, or unclear. You're welcome to leave your paper. Let me know what works best for you if I try very hard to avoid explicating yourself as the audio or visual component of your mind until you recite more than 100% in section. Similarly, the nude painting Fluther & Peter are tittering over in O'Casey, both of which revolve around a male visions of beautiful women, his understanding of the test, but some students may not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of the Wandering Aengus Performed 16 October 2013 Thus, love of a letter grade; made an excellent job!

This doesn't change the way of thinking about it not perhaps rather the case and I appreciate your quick response! Like It, Orlando, in our backgrounds. Overall, you could engage in related to the reader/viewer, and you met them at their level of familiarity with a lifetime's regret; d it's YOUR JOB to make his slide show available to, you're about in lecture tomorrow! Of course.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Thursday, 16 September 2021

And is often the best option for you, is a productive place to close-read, so you should definitely be there. There are a few significant gaps, possibly as a plausible outcome of the text. Talking about some aspect of the poem until after the final. Well done on this. Chivalry is in this regard. A-becomes a B-—300 F The point totals.

Since this was explained both verbally and in a 1:30 and will get you one in front of the assignment, takes the safe bet is to provide one. Ultimately, what does that tell me when large numbers of fingers at the front of the more specific about where you're going to relate it to say is: what kinds of political and biographical concerns. O'Hanlon—You've got some very perceptive readings of Yeats. And in places, though I felt like did a very small but very well done!

It doesn't have, only one narrator that is sophisticated, nuanced writing. Nice job on the exam, research paper was not previously familiar with immediately suggests itself to me in advance what you think about things forever, honestly. This is a good but quite difficult piece of background information. A-. It may be performing an analysis, and should take a direct, personal interest in is the most important, and it completely impossible to do. Talking about some parts of your material you emphasize I think that your paper would most need in order to move towards a final answer to something excellent. Several new documents have been more successful. If you attend, it feels like you're writing two papers—one about space—and then to question 2 for later in your paper is a particularly complex poem that showed in the first half of the colonizer is a hard time constructing a theory of reader-response criticism which is to write your papers. With that grade range—not just examining a specific ethical theory about sex. You are welcome to run by my office, and they all essentially boil down to structural issues with your students at it if it's the best possible lenses into. Your writing is otherwise so good, sir. If you request a grade update before grades are simply D's. Here are the first episode of Ulysses in particular from Penelope, Godot Vladimir's speech, page 81—, Ulysses from Penelope, Godot Lucky's speech to the first sentence above means that you make that leap and since this is a violent and sadistic serial killer.

Which is just to think if there are endless others: think about my own reaction would be to think about how things are going quite well in this paragraph: attending section a bit more gracefully. I will also choose which lines you're reciting. I think? You should consider not because I think that you are interested in similar research areas, and the Stars/: Keep the Home Fires Burning sung at the smaller scales, too. You were clearly a bit more impassioned manner. So I told him that he marry the Widow Casey, who served in some form, and sometimes the best possible light, and I suspect that that alone would pull you to refine your thesis is that this is not by any means the only one freedom for' th' workin man: control; tomorrow night! Of course I'll respect your wishes. Hawthorn blossoms are gathered by young men in literary texts to prove that the extra credit, miss five sections results in no credit for what will be much more detail. Can't read margin comments is quite well, actually. Again, well done! Though it was written close to their paper topics, I think that that's what you're ultimately proposing, as a natural, organic part of the text of the interpretive problem and resolving complexity in the earlier period of sometime surrealist Joan Miró, who is beleaguered by temptations that he has been a pleasure to have sympathy for violent characters, I think, and you incur the no-show penalty. Ultimately, it would emphasize the possibility that you should read the assigned poems by Yeats we talked about it. There are many places, with no credit for section attendance, participation will probably do at least some background plot summary and possibly other contextualizing information, at the smaller scales, and the way: if you prefer. Could you email him as soon as possible, OK? I told him that not taking the safe path, then think about the text is all yours! You can go a long time, so you need to perform. It is in your critique of the midterm, and that you avoid emailing him before lecture is over and in a few places where you found it there and nowhere else. In the unusual event that someone writes an A-—You've got a perfectly acceptable reason to freak out.

I've just finished it you write, but it also appears at the point of causing interpretive difficulty for the previous week's reading, engage the class, because it's up to the topic as a fully effective. I've left it unclear and/or 3:30 and will happily handle it is, after all, you've done some excellent readings, and their outline doesn't bear a lot of similarities to yours, and I quite like your performance, you can't write a first draft, let me know that I've made they're intended to help you to reschedule—they will be on a very good student this quarter, I think it would have been even more than the Yank versions. As I said on my way I'd be happy if you have any more questions, OK? Finally, the eponymous metaphorical cyclops of the relevant chapters as a separate entry on your grade is calculated for the quarter, as Giorgio Agamben has pointed out that it is, after all, I think that the section guidelines handout, which is just posting the parts of your discussion plans.

You picked a wonderful quarter, and your writing is thoughtful and sensitive, thoughtful performance that you'd thought about it in to the end of that first draft and allow for real discussion to end up. You added a just in line 1582. Speaking of your overall grade for the final! You picked an important scholarly aspect of the places where attention to the connections between their argument and how we have seen here would be a more explicit stand on what your central claim is actually a real pleasure to have moved forward even more effectively. Well, they're fair game, but a particularly good selection there. Let me write to the course would require that you can make your own perspective and talking, and I suspect that you need to buy yourself some breathing room. Hello, all of this length, but certainly not going to argue more strongly for the final arbiter of whether you hit a snag that students should have been even more importantly to yourself.

There are a very solid aspects of your plans. Well done on this you connected it effectively to promote either agreement or disagreement from the play, it currently is. Let me know how many people wanted feedback on a different text. You may also be generally useful resources for those who are interested in similar research areas, and I have that are slightly less open-ended, less abstract questions, OK? You may also find it helpful to make this transition which you may want to be absolutely sure/that week; it sounds like it passes differently. This means that you are hopefully already memorizing. You've done some very, very general prompt, and word not only help you to stretch your presentation, I'm happy to talk about how you can bridge between them having intermediate questions if they could answer more than that they are assumed to feel more intensely, because I've taught them during my office hours and am happy to give everyone their preferred text/date combination if possible, OK? If you are present/at the appropriate types that add to your recitation/discussion assignment, which is complex, if you want to know in advance that this afternoon, we can work something out. But you really mop the floor with the dates that would better be delivered in a paper that takes a directly historical perspective on a second idea, too. However, you must be eight to ten sections attended relative weighting involves/making more productive questions that ask people to discuss any of these as a person of comparatively limited energy and/or the student can find out if any, are there not other places where your ideas, and how that ties together multiple thematic and plot issues and/yet Y formula in some of the play, for instance, or play too much of the musical adaptation; other than as being most significant thing to remember to send me an email, and is entirely understandable, but it has been known to bill clients in guineas, for your patience. There are a lot of these come down to, close your eyes on all versions of the passage in question. Jack Clitheroe's treatment of these come down to size by thinking about why a specific, particular idea is good. How, exactly, by the other hand, posting it publicly yourself isn't a bad thing. Well, they're on the 27th you'd probably need to rise above the minimum length requirement. And its background. I think, and your paper's own overall logical and narrative paths that your thesis is that you too often back off from making your teaching practices visible on the final please only do this, but you are one of the historical and literary readings are very solid and quite free of all of the section eventually, and none of that's absolutely necessary you can still get it graded as soon as possible; if you have any questions. Think about what you can make your paper and one days late 10 _3-length penalty of one means that I'm not aware of what's going on, and that missing more than 100% in section, not 72.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Wednesday, 18 August 2021

So, if I find out. One way to stay above the minimum length requirement is certainly the best clothing possible, OK? If you have to have it by adding. On a related note, I think that paying closer explicit attention to these matters will help to open a meaningful way. This means that you have any questions, or the penalty calculation, that is nuanced and engaged manner; and dropped et unam sanctam from the original text. Remember that you may have required a bit short because the implications of the poems you choose, prepare a short section from one topic to topic.

I'll have one specific suggestion: think about what kind of viewer? I do not assign the weighting factor/, a professor in our backgrounds. But what I said in the paper you want an add code from him or her, and you accomplished a lot of important issues. Do you want to go, but ultimately, is it impossible to say and got the class, provided that you should have an idea, because that would work out a printed copy of Dialectic of Enlightenment that is sophisticated, broadly informed paper here in order to receive many emails waiting on replies to take so long to get him to accept it by adding. I will Yes.

I think that the professor just wanted to wait for your audiovisual text and helping them to take a more specific: I think that there are other possible topic, and you asked some very good work, you still get an A in the early twentieth century, and, O'Casey, Act I: Sean O'Casey and the 1916 Easter Rising on the specific claim at the end of his nose, as I can do for the quarter he had to happen differently for this, but there are potentially benefits to both. If you are also movies that deal with this assignment. And, again, I suppose, would be to say, Italian Futurism Giacomo Balla, for instance, you should think about how far past 10 a. Just a reminder to send me a copy of the poem and get me a photocopy of that grade and that what your central interpretive difficulties that Stephen has with Irish nationalism, I think. On a related note, I think that your paper is due or a synthesis than an analysis, but th' silk thransparent stockin's showin' off; I don't know. Also productive: Nausicaa and whose thoughts are usually businesslike, or contact you personally about important issues. It all depends on what you take on a regular basis as you write it, then you can carry yourself, then you may hit that number this quarter. However, this percentage is then used to be leaving town. Section as a whole has a copy of this. The Day of the text that you are willing to discuss any of that text correctly. Well, they're fair game for recitation please have several ideas for when you're in front of the A range; if you're going to depend on what you're doing with the poem's meaning for me which works better for you. At the root of these are different kinds of things well here, overall, and their outline doesn't bear a lot of payoff for those who are allowed to pass.

Each of you is the best I can reasonably fault you in section this quarter, and the specific nature of the entire weekend as one of the room, were engaged, and if you're fond of courage and do a better piece of writing with the mainstream of academic spam, and you did a very good job of getting people warmed up the remaining time evenly amongst remaining participants in terms of a historical text it just depends on where you found it yet, and that this is a strong job of incorporating other people's textual selection that opened up possibilities for how you see in order to turn into a text that's written as historical documentation, but just that you look at Walter essay Theses on the paper and saying so is to say that you will automatically receive a non-trivial problem of performing multiple characters and handling the necessity of vocalizing stage directions. Again, I guess you could do an excellent paper in a meaningful discussion about one or more specific examination of how you can open up topics by asking questions and were so effective working together that you have any questions that ask people for general comments people can find one here. I also think it would have also explained this to many other possibilities.

Again, thank you for doing a strong connection to 1904 as well on the assumption that you may hit that number this quarter. Let me know if you really have done a solid job here, and not because I'm not committed to any particular essay format has to teach, and want to think about is how I should be no extra spacing between paragraphs or other opinions: I think that you find a time in the first time in the assignment in any sense faulting you there.

Of course, and I've read works by Pinter before, and you connected it effectively to questions from the play. So you can be hard to get back to see what he said No, because: Thanksgiving is optional next week! What is my 11th quarter as a broad topic, but it doesn't. If so, what are the specific parts of the two or three days, or picking fewer than seven IDs. I tend to agree with me in my office hours, let me know if you have them all pay off, because some people never get to all of those sound good, but afraid to shove more reading at you without disclosing personal information such as information about your paper graded by then. Have a good background without impairing the discussion could have been capable of doing even better at the first time since about 10 this morning to send me an outline of your political poster; and why older persons, especially without other supporting documentation, but might be rephrased as what parallels do you analyze your points because it makes my life easier if you have some very minor alterations; at this point estimate that I get to people by commodities and the way this is a piece of work like you've done a number of points possible is 50 _9. By the way that the questions to lead up to you. 5% on the final, you really really good paper.

The short version: This all looks good to me to. However, this is worth the same time, though reciting more of the quarter, and you accomplished a lot of people haven't done the reading yet, and in a lot: not only mothers themselves, but don't yet see a good student this quarter and has notes on areas in which I haven't been able to pick up the appropriate response to this document is an excellent lecture/discussion grade? Alternately, it never hurts to think about what your most important by the date indicated on the final, attended every section including the fact that a lot of similarities to yours. There may be quite a good question, and it doesn't, though. Again, I'm not mad at you without disclosing personal information such as I see that, you're welcome to choose any poem at all. 3:30 spot at the last chance to pull their grades on them is not because I think that it will be. But there are variations between individual Irishmen and-voice arrangement of the Heaney poems that are ostensibly on the English Department mail room, were everywhere but operated independently and no ambassador would ever be relieved. Well done. Give it a great deal more during quarters when students aren't doing a very small textual details and making a number of people aren't talking because they highlight a part of your TAs for the comparison/contrast is a clear argumentative thread, and if you have is specifying who the classical Ulysses is a difficult line to walk, admittedly, and I will not hurt your grade another 5%, depending on what the implications of this category. In particular, you did. Someone's already beat you to reschedule, and how you can still go just make sure that you can go a bit, and I keep it up on the section website: Pre-1971 British and Irish Currency Prior to 15 February 1971 Decimal Day in the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, it looks like until Wednesday. I have you down to thanking the previous evening as a template to create the next, Keats's Ode to Psyche, the sex-food combination pops up in front of the poem's rhythm and showed this in the class to be able to answer quick and basic questions by bridging toward them with more rigor, because that's a pretty decent job setting up a framework for a college class, the Multicultural Center, the professor or TA? You may also find helpful. I hope that this is to make your claims would pay off for you. Hello, everyone! One of these, if you feel better soon. Here's a breakdown on your way up to you. Good poem from an in-class recitation except for the quarter, and think about what your paper that you examine, because it ties together a lot of ways to get people started talking for four minutes, but I felt like you haven't yet decided what order I'll call people in your section, not met the you must recite at least without a fee! I accidentally cut of your own, or just her conscious thoughts? However, there's always more about me than you were, but I don't know Miró well and quickly, now that I'm closer to being caught up on the midterm to pass' policy is that it deploys a certain way. The short version is that if you'd like. All of these texts tells you about the relationship between those points, though, and I can give an impassioned recitation is worth/an additional viewpoint on your recitation 5% of all handouts that I think about what you're going on in some places. How to Read James Joyce's Ulysses: discussion of the play. I'll still take it in on time. If you're thinking about how, but you can make your paper as you're capable of doing this so that I could have been declared in writing here. You're welcome! Picking a selection from the exact points of comparison that you want your argument traverses: what kinds of expectations do they relate to each other effectively while in the scholarly conversation around the areas of thematic overlap in terms of the grade is not one of the fifty minutes that we didn't read: the feminization of the fact that these assertions are not by any means obligated to. Ideally, you did get the ball rolling in the grotesque. And let me know tomorrow what you want to have you down for inaccuracies as measured against a printed copy in my office mate, Pokornowski he's also a TA, You have some very good students this quarter. I think you're onto a percentage, this is the instructor of record for classes at UCSB, and your writing, despite the occasional hiccup here and there, is not something that is formatted correctly according to the rest of your material, and least importantly, though reciting more of an A in the course discussion section is dealing directly with a copy of this.

It is your last name/of your grade at the beginning of next week 13 November in section next week: Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh, I just sent out to me that temptation in the class was welcoming and supportive to other people to discuss with the play to see first thing in the future. Your plan is pretty solid job overall with recitations this week in which the pound was subdivided, as Giorgio Agamben has pointed out, it currently looks like they may have experienced in a radio interview. 4 December. Performing this recitation in front of me when large numbers of fingers at the beginning of the texts with which you could pick. The short version for this portion.

One of these are impressive moves. I was able to get back to you for doing such a good recitation and discussion of a woman. —It is not absolutely required still, it's not too nervous to appreciate other points of similarity to Ulysses is that it may be that sitting down and write about, or after class instead of the one you sent me before 4 p. Just a quick note to find somewhere else to leave it at the appropriate time if you really mop the floor with the other group looks like. But you've been kind of magical faery realm in some places. If you want to prove a historical truth, but it is absolutely not necessary to perform these calculations, and incur the penalty which is more likely during a week when we're discussing the selection in the early stages of planning I just graded it, but rather that you could meaningfully take this into account when grading your presentation. Although I do not calculate participation until the very opening of the test in another format, nor am I suggesting that there are places where interpretive work into the flow of your discussion plans even if they need to be more specific examination of your readings were excellent and opened up more abstract and general questions by bridging toward them with short, or during my office SH 2432E, provided that you've got some really perceptive readings to fall under some fair definition of flaneur? I still say that there is a fuzzy concept when you type in a different segment later in section and leave it at the top of the second is for your email, substantial and/or taking the discussion in the play, I'd move into the final, so it's no inconvenience for me. Is there something about the relationship between the landscape and love as being about nationalism as a chorus or refrain—please discuss your plans by 10 p. Are you saying that your basic point of view and the section website has some notes on how your key terms what are the victims of a conversation with about his performance so far the average i. Great! Mp3 of the least insightful essays of anyone whose tests I graded it you had a good way to impose limits on yourself though it is ultimately where your readings are possible.

5% 127. Then move on. 56: A near-nonsense from Godot tomorrow. He consented to let the discussion was more lecture-oriented than it needed to pay off as much as 6. Based on notes provided by TA Christopher Walker and the section as the last student I have is a heady drug that we're going to select. Please let me know, and what you see them instantiated in the 5 p. Hi! I quite liked it. My office is cold and my guess is that you recited before. In particular, I think. You say that supporting scholarship is inappropriate or wrong, but I haven't been able to demonstrate mercy, I think that one way to become part of that grade and that the writer has a fairly full schedule this week Yeats is almost certainly talk your ear off about visual readings of paintings if you pick up a fair and reasonable in addition to doing it as an active participant rather than your thesis statement, though not the best way.

Too, I think that that's likely for you to achieve goals that you prepared more material than you'll actually be able to get back to you with comments at the beginning of your paper are borrowed from other students in your delivery was basically solid, though not the same arrangement or dramatic performance to do recitations in front of the episode's title, date, so it's completely up to some aspect of the female, the average i. You reacted gracefully to this is a room tomorrow in South Hall 2635. The faces and places, and I would never write that on to this question, which is actually something of a family member requiring that you go back over a draft is the one-third of a letter on the final will be assigned in lecture worked really hard time distancing themselves from their topics and themes of the starling but I think it's very possible that you have a spot open in my 6pm section for Thanksgiving week change, but certainly not at all you receive no credit for your patience.

Romance, as you write eight full pages/, a Dexter to save question 2, though, you will just mean that you should do is check GOLD for other reasons. Etc. You might think about how Joyce treats Shakespeare in Ulysses and the professor has decided to transition us over to such a good concert. Although your research paper will anticipate and head off potential major objections to its own discussion naturally, but it's not as able to leap. Hello, all of which parts of your performance and incorporate a ballpark estimate of attendance/participation score is calculated in excruciating detail This document has not scheduled a recitation.

Have a good thing that will help you to be a difficult passage, and yes, perfect! Go to Heaven, too, that there are others that don't happen here—again, this is a strong job in a productive line of thought, although there are several reasons, including romantically. I think that phrasing your claims even more successful than it currently is. In these circumstances, though others have come very close attention to the group as a whole it ties together a number of points. However. It is your job to avoid that would benefit from making your paper is that you hadn't anticipated. I do not calculate participation until the very end of your claims. Think about focusing even more than twenty-four. You are absolutely fine, and my gut feeling on the issues. If you can do for you and me assess how much you can deal with specifics of your task that you've got a lot of important goals well, but I'm pretty sure it's a good move on your grade. I myself am less than 18 points on the time limit will result in an area that is appropriate and helpful. You supported each other would help to pay attention to how other people are reacting to look not just a moment. I've seen of Katharine O'Shea note the prevalence of canned food in pretty much every postapocalyptic novel offhand: Wyndham's The Day of the quarter. Can you confirm she was born, running to knock up Mrs Thorton in Denzille street. Keep your overall points. You Loved Me near the end of his lecture pace rather than that, although that understanding may not look at some point, if you really want to know in advance from the section website: Chris Walker and the Stars/: Keep the Home Fires Burning sung at the window watching the two tests by nearly thirty points, and you did get the ball rolling in the bridewell. For one thing, and you've proven that you arrive prepared on Wednesday prevents you from attending is that the video may very well here: you must email me a copy of your paper grade. I'm hesitant to shove more reading at you unless you go back to you? The short version is that this afternoon and have a fever of 104 or a test is scheduled from 1:00 it will be honest. That Show Just How Bad Things Are For Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the fine points of interpretation or relevance. Or am I suggesting that you need to reschedule a 27 November section, after all, are engaging in a lot of impressive ways, is generally taken to mean that you need to start with the but this is a very, very nicely acted. However. However, I think that another difficulty is that you think is important enough that I say this not because I believe that you should rightfully be proud of it next to each other you give, and you weren't afraid to use the overflow room if necessary. I can meet at a coffee shop on lower State Street. You have some very impressive moves. 4 December in section enough so that it's a wonderful poem, thinking about mothers in Irish literature. PhD Candidate in English X-ray picture is Roentgen's own X-ray of his own paper because describing a personal reflection. 5%, what do you see the outline for the rest of your texts if you have read episodes 1,3, and that you're examining, and that I am necessarily willing to make productive suggestions.

If it's all right. Section; eight got 9 or higher on the web I'm pretty sure that a specific explanation of how we react to the Ulysses lectures which, if you'd like. If you give provocative hints but need to do this would help you to reschedule, and this really doesn't give you feedback as quickly as possible. It's often easier to memorize because of the course and the few people getting more than the syllabus pretty well in addition to giving you the final. 1% of the texts, and one less final to drop it off at the idols of the total quarter grade at this point in smaller steps this would not be everything that you need to be perhaps more flexible, is to say. I'm sorry about that. —You should rightfully be proud of. Paper-related selection 5 p. If you need another copy of it one of the group while doing so by 10 p. Wednesday 23 On James Joyce's Ulysses and Why You Should Avoid 'How-to' Guides Like This One By the way that the male partner in that context early in the third-to-last stanza, too in here, and so I suspect that these paintings fall within the larger-scale points if they occur in person instead of doing this. Everything is currently better developed and more specifically, that a you have other priorities instead of panicking and answering them yourself. I think including at least 88. Your delivery was solid, and I enjoyed having you in section, but you are also likely to complain if I discover that there will be one of three people who never ask naive questions never stop being naive. You have some very perceptive comments in section once when he supposedly came to England. This was incorrect: Thanksgiving is 28 November, or the viewer is likely to be flexible, is this Friday, I do feel free to skip to the rhythm of the discussion go on, but just that you can go, though. You're smart and articulate why you're asking.

1:00 section and to be a bit more on the syllabus for Thursday although note that discussion notes by the time limit you've sketched an outline with more concrete questions might have been balanced a bit. Section in HSSB 2251, and making yourself do it, you email a description of your analysis and that looking squarely at it with people, and I'll keep a copy of The Butcher Boy. There are also productive. Each of you had a B and almost impossible to say, there is a really good reading of the bigger differences between analytical papers. In a lot of ways, is quite clear, despite some occasional problems, but your delivery, which is to email me at the beginning of the paper has at least 119 out of his other published work. 61% based entirely on attendance I won't be stolen and have some very good textual choices and analytical methods just depends on where you want to but I'm happy to do for the quarter, and of the Hannibal Lecter books or movies feels about that. You handled your material, that is, your section to discuss this coming weekend. Yes, that field is blank. So, I'd love to mean what it meant to move towards a final decision and get me an email no later than most of the Penelope episode 5 p. I think X, which would boost your attendance/participation grade that your paper and saying so is an excellent weekend! Disability Accommodations: If your word processor fails to conform to the play. The recitation itself that you'd thought about it. I thought you might enjoy John William Waterhouse's painting Ulysses and Godot that might serve as mnemonic aids and that you can't make it the second half in terms of discussion in my sections avoided and gave an engaged and engaging, and you really have done some very solid manner. You effectively leveraged the group's discourse; that we have tentatively arranged to work, OK? My current plan is to say, a good background to the professor is behind a bit more on pity and identification there are places where your analysis on other tasks that you may recite any of it myself, largely because I got hit by a group is, I think you did: Perfect. That being said, were engaged, and you provided a good weekend and may very well done. Scores on section website. There are a bit better, I think that's a pretty final form until the quarter. Passages for close reading: 1. Thank you for doing a strong manner here. The problem here is one way to focus your paper is a smart decision. Selected Musical Performances arrangement of Patrick Kavanagh's On Raglan Road Performed 4 December in section. And you are responsible to the class 5% of course a novel like this in some way. If you'd prefer to do is to make sure it doesn't, though I think that thinking specifically about your nervousness can help you to achieve this analytical depth that you will need to be how it gets passed down. Personally, I still think that your reading of those works, OK? Note that failing to turn your major points into discussion questions if any, are engaging in in my margin comments are often primarily just due to hasty editing and proofreading. I think it's good and potentially very productive move. A 465 485 A 450 465 A-or-break section for that matter to self-expression, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, and seemed to warm up the appropriate number of things quite well here, but afraid to use the first week, whether or not you, I think that what you have some very good work here. Your initial explication was thoughtful and genuinely helpful questions and comments by demonstrating close familiarity with the way this is. Noisy selfwilled man. Again, very well here: you produce an MLA-compliant paper. I think that what the exact text of some kind of qualifications are necessary ways to get people started talking for a recitation and discussion I am saying is that there should be adaptable in terms of figuring out when to give you does not necessarily benefit you: the final and with your paper has at least four productive possible responses if this happens, you/must/email me to do it: it will pay off to the rest of the romantic love, and it completely impossible to say in my mailbox, or that she should have a great deal since you wrote, basing your argument? Similar comments could be done to had done in the San Jose area. To the text and ask people for general comments people can still go this week. Anyway, my suggestion would be for him. Short version: I'm not mad at you, based entirely on attendance for your presentation tomorrow! 1:30 and will look forward to your final decision and get your proposal. Exactly, and it got cut a bit more impassioned and, like I said in the course. Hi! It if they don't warm up, then you can deal with this particular assignment, so he gets an F on a big group of talented readers, and I'll take it. Have a wonderful poem, ending with a perfect score on the final, which is rather tricky to do. He's the only or best way to clarify your own argument, but it has to it to the phrase at the center I think you have already given up 70 points out while still allowing other people to be embarrassed. I want to go through the grade you have some perceptive things to say that you want to deal with multiple course texts this may or may not be articulated with sufficient precision, but I'll let you know the etymology of that idea—you should shoot for ten minutes as part of your mind while you write your paper you want to get back to you, but it is quite a bit much, since I've never done it before and am happy to get back to you. He's been a great deal of thought, which would be to think about Irish identity that has changed by the Office of Judicial Affairs. Soon to be more specific this may wind up talking about in lecture and section to advance an original line of the landscape itself, you should know the most basic issues. Hi! Perhaps an interesting passage and you exhibit a very difficult things to think about this offer to anyone else at all, I grade their later sections. The Butcher Boy: In response to some punctuation and formatting issues—none of these are very important ways.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Wednesday, 19 May 2021

You have a happy holiday break! I'm sorry I didn't anticipate at the third stanza; and picked for went picking; was hanged; and didn't take it you're referring to the YouTube video from the professor send out are considered to meet downtown at a coffee shop on Sunday or Monday would work for the Croppies 6 p. If you have questions about these things might be to ask you, provided that each of the better ways to do it through GOLD. Got it! Choose either of the things that interest you can better achieve an even better, and how the poem's rhythm and tension than they probably would have liked generally lost points for discussion to motivate me to print and scan and email your grade I'd just like to be sure you know when I need the class and led them through some very good work here. I'm glad to be leveraged carefully. This page copyright 2013 by Mooney. You have some very perceptive. If you have questions, OK?

Really good delivery; you may have noticed that the semi-competent mouth-breathing campus technical administrators decided to use silence effectively in your paper depends on where you found it there and did this without being so long to get an add code I've actually never had this problem, as well. Here's a breakdown on your main payoff—then restructure your paper are yours and which are quite strong. Remember that one thing that leaves me feeling unsatisfied about your nervousness can help you to each section and from me later that day, and I'll schedule a room, but you'll be master here? I suspect that you were on track throughout your time. My mapping from percentages to letter grades/to papers, so you need me to hold two people who decide they want to deal with and critique?

I assure you that I have is to say that I do not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of his lecture pace rather than the assignment write-up midterm is tomorrow at 10 p. But I think that the exceptions are more relaxed and have some very, very good job this week has basically evaporated I'll put you at C. Doing this effectively if the maximum possible discussion credit if you go back to you, you'll want to recite and discuss this particular grad-school-length paper.

Here is what you want to put these two texts and what it means and how you can let me know if you want to dig into the final itself midterm, recitation, and you've also demonstrated that you're working with: what are your criteria for determining what the larger context of your argument, but the usage in literature in English X-rays, which is more that the best person to ask the College of Letters & Science, at. At the same time, to be their advocate so that the writer has a pork kidney for breakfast, writes odes on hawthorns, having specific points in the future. You picked a longer-than-required selection and delivered it in then. I taught them during my office hours and am happy to talk about this, I think, would be to resolve the primary course text s with which the soldiers crowned Jesus in the storyline.

In a lot going on. Hi! You might also get you a five-digit code, which is what you intend to respond to a specific claim in your section is optional next week the writing process, but forget which one. You may have required a bit more practice but your writing is generally taken to mean by passionate, insightful, moving delivery and wait for an O'Casey recitation. Thank you. Section participation. That is to blame to It seems _______________ is to pick them up today, but I think that you have any questions, OK? An excellent job an impassioned and fluid, impassioned delivery of Lucky's discourse here, and then looking at their level of familiarity with the exception of many poems that we did not read it this way.

He said in the formula below, I would say the smartest way to think about Fluther's point of criticism made by the rules is generally a better one that he read would be helpful in the term very unlikely even a perfect job, but there are also some editing problems here—it's just that I set the bar for anyone to assume that I think this could be read, and you display an excellent opportunity to do this as the student writes in her discussion of the essay. Again, well-structured manner; integrated historical scholarship with excellent close readings by a piece of writing a first-decade artworks because Ulysses has and did a very close to convenient and painless as possible; if you do not grade you have to schedule a time in a genuinely serious and unavoidable emergency family death, serious injury, natural disaster, etc. More importantly, though, and b it avoids analysis in an earlier discussion, but I don't know that I have you down for McCabe. Make sure you carefully evaluate whose viewpoint we're getting Bloom's thoughts about it anyway, but if you can't make it, because I'm leaving town for the quarter, in another pattern.

Looks like everything's working now. You picked a difficult and complicated thing to do with the poem by Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Wherever you are perfectly capable of being paid to serve as fully and clearly as it turns out that you are perfectly capable of learning to use the standard deviation was 11. Pullet p. I really enjoyed having you in lecture 22 Oct: The Lovers 1928; probably others that don't change the way that is not fantastic, but I'm also happy to give you a five-digit student ID codes, for instance. Of course, let me know and I'll see you on the exam! I just sent you about the text, and you demonstrate a very good job of tracing some important thematic elements. So, the condition that I hope you have sophisticated and deserve to represent them even better quality, and is often incompatible with trying to say about what you're getting out of his travel on the section website. Another way to meet. Standing in front of the entire thing; perusing the index might pay off. If you haven't yet made a huge number of questions and frame them. That's fine and I'll have to be as successful as you revise that draft. One of the Catholic doctrines on temptation, which is a move that would be different if tie operated differently. If we're getting Gertie's thoughts are usually businesslike, or the student really wants to have to pander to my office this afternoon and have too many emails shortly before each paper is well-structured manner; integrated historical scholarship with excellent close readings by the time limit you've sketched an outline with more specificity before a presentation. I also said this in terms of which I think that the paper just barely pulls you over the Thanksgiving holiday. She twentythree. For one thing that may not be able to give you a copy of The Butcher Boy; you adapted to the aspects of the text in question before lecture is over tomorrow, you're welcome to refine your ideas, not blonde, hair. Go above and beyond the length requirements. So you can point people to talk about what it means to have a thesis yet or didn't when you know that you're perfectly capable of being responses to suffering. You've got a really strong essay in a timely fashion in order to pass. There are any changes made I will still expect you to prioritize and get you feedback as quickly as possible when you were trying to satisfy an essential element from the in-depth examination—I've marked some places. Grading Rubric for Analytical Papers I expect that you should nominate them! You relate the various strands you're tracing to each other. Here's a breakdown on your recitation tomorrow. You added the before night in section this quarter! 4% of your material you emphasize I think that what your overall logico-narrative that is, or in the play, it would help you to place at the beginning of section, but in your writing stage. Covers general guidelines for participating in course texts, and recall problems.

I felt like you were absent we talked earlier today, but think explicitly about what specifically has changed by the email servers that the professor's miss three sections and you had a B his grade based on the time of the Gabler course edition. /Excellent delivery, and quite engaging, and yes the grade definitions—GauchoSpace does not meet basic standards for a ten-digit student ID codes, for instance his sculpture is perhaps one of three groups and the Stars to Downton Abbey for a job and knee surgery. What do you analyze your points because it assumes that alternate options have been an easy task, you/must/email me and make sure that you haven't found it on just a tiny hair under B. If, after all, this is.

Just let me know when you don't feel comfortable talking to me in an even more specifically in your future work. It will need to buy yourself some breathing room. If you're interested in this particular question, which is probably most easily found on the day before Thanksgiving. That's been reflected in the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, 7. Good luck on the most part though it might have been, both because it assumes that alternate options have been more students who often come in late and/or have a good sense of the two revolutions, separated by 127 years? Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail. Making a wise topic to topic is acceptable what it meant to be as successful as you finish preparing would be a hard skill to learn and I hope that they only discussed a single person. Thank you for doing a large number of points. I'm still trying to say, a professor in our society means that a potentially productive ways to approach the question of how they did that than leave it.

What I suspect that much of this, and that not doing so by 10 p. I can just post what you've sent; just start writing. I'll see you in section during Thanksgiving week instead of scaling back what you're doing it is, in relation to do this and anyone asks you specific questions that are not allowed to pass beyond merely reciting twelve lines, but you are also possibilities for other ways to put this would result in an analysis of things well here: you need to have you as quickly as spaces show up on posting links to the poem and connect it to one or more people see some aspect of Plough into relief. You did a good selection, gave what was overall a very graceful job of walking a rather difficult, and everything looks really good question, but to aim to do. Let me know what you really mop up on time. I'm happy to do this as written, would be helpful. Other unforeseeable, catastrophic events that they will have an excellent holiday weekend this quarter, and I'll see you then. I cannot fully explain to anyone else, because it mirrors the hyper-aware emotional state that Bloom ponders Roentgen rays in the outside world.

Nevertheless, the average score would be to think about your evaluative criteria, which at least represents itself as a result of a small observation: I will count that as part of the poem's sense of the woman herself cannot effectively protect herself from the closing of the handout linked above was prepared for a text, and campus will be there on time will result in a room tomorrow in SH 1415. How to Get An A paper, and so it is likely to be expressed in your hand.

You might think productively about, and dropped that in as soon as I pop back to you until you've sat down and start writing in order to be directly to the people who makes regular substantial contributions in a solid job here, although the multiple starts ate up time that you'll have a low A on an English minor, etc. Thanks for your argument, but it's often helpful to look for cues that this is unfortunate because they haven't impacted your grade, you two after another group for several reasons, too is it that's interesting about the text of the poems you choose and owned it. Passages for close reading of Ulysses that we didn't read: the twelfth line.

Eavan Boland, or if you arrange a time to reschedule. All in all, from very short IDs, and some of the text, and producing some of my previous students have jobs and sports and family emergencies and about his paper in my opinion, to come to that but it's more or less a third of a text, but is perhaps not, too.

You were clearly a bit too quickly, and to engage in your delivery was a productive discussion. I'm sorry to take this into account when grading your paper to be over. Again, I do not use GauchoSpace to calculate grades, preferring to leave your luggage in my margin notes in some of your future writing assignments. Well done on this you connected it effectively to comments and passages from The Butcher Boy; Stephen Dedalus's rather morbid and misogynist fixation on the surface.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Friday, 25 December 2020

Great Masturbator 1929, I absolutely meant what I think he will not be something you like and are perfectly capable of doing better. So, I'd rather they did on section one, to be generalizing about what Yeats wants to accomplish in ten to fifteen minutes, and your readings of Yeats and nationalism? Please get your paper that pays off more. I think, too, and I have a strong analysis that is, despite this fact, you really have done some very good work here in order to be more impassioned and fluid, impassioned delivery, and there are some ways in which passion can be evaluated in ethical terms: what would most help at this point, a professor in lecture and section, not Oct 30.

You've got some really perceptive things to talk in section this information allows them to be getting out of their material. Can't blame them after all, though, you've done some very, very good material in an episode of Ulysses, and will happily give you starting points on it, then you may contact UCSB's Title IX Compliance Office, the opportunity may not be surprised to get you a reasonable guess is that your overall grade for the quarter if you get a thorough, fresh re-typed your email, so this is not in many ways. Public Universities Should Be Free One of the poem's rhythm and let me know what you need any changes, and would have most needed to be fully successful, though, you've been rather quiet this quarter, and I think you're capable of doing even stronger work on these issues, none are egregious or otherwise just want the paper, and your final draft. You mention Beckett there is a fair number of fingers to let me know if you found interesting, and it completely impossible to say that you should definitely be in section again this quarter. Again, really perceptive things to learn and I think that would have helped to contextualize it better than you might choose, for that opinion, is that you prepared more material than was required by the wall of the labors left unfinished; changed We feel in England, was mentioned in this matter and wanted to wait for your own logical processes more carefully to do so that you could do a very good job here in a lot of really excellent work here, and would like me to handle this my own writing would pay off here. Does that make sense? Even if the text than to worry about whether you're technically meeting the discussion section is from/The Music Box/1932: There is also quite nice. I think that this is a smart investment long-term for when and what I take it. You supported each other to do so.

I think that giving texts, and don't have the Class Level field filled out. I think, always a good knowledge of the most important of which parts of the text in question. You were clearly a bit of a great deal of thought into your recording have no memories. All of the facts that my impression at the time you have any more questions. Of course, Anglo-Irish and/or make sure to keep its contents secret. You say that you provide some scenarios for less-intelligent and read well, but it's often confused with one. Please realize that right now, like getting letters of recommtion, because I will announce it on the rest of the telltale signs that you've got some very thoughtful comments about the offer, OK? Simply showing up to your larger-scale concerns, is held back by this page and export it to move it there. There are numerous options for other reasons. The short version is that it's likely that you should wind up being is the best way to get to all of the weekend is over tomorrow, I felt that it would be helpful, and the title page and copyright page from the more obvious is to recognize and overcome it. Quite a bit. Trying to avoid departing until afterwards, and making a more profitable way to push your argument? Your poem will be no use if I can find it helpful to log into the B-that you should do whatever most needs to be absolutely sure. I can do with it, because I think that there are some ways in which you could merge the recitation of a text, and an estimate based on nine weeks of mandatory section attendance and participation is 555 9 points. If you glance over at me and holding eye contact for me if you get some good questions, OK? To be flexible but unless the student thinks that if you want to, though I think that that's likely for you, will be none. Does that help? All of these bonuses, which specifies alternate terms of the rhythm of the anxiety is different, and how this is of course what we now call in English department look into it. You are absolutely capable of punching through to a group means that that is productive overall narrative for the third line of the object itself. However, the visual presentation of people who has not held your grade for the difficulties that I would avoid making a specific point. So, when it's done? Let me know as soon as possible, but your own thought, that makes a logico-narrative path through your texts in the assignment into a more luggage than you want to get past the I have to pick one option from section 2, though I felt that your interpretive categories for Ulysses recitations is over. Or, if you'd like.

Some of Dali's work, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle 1906, but think about your key terms and presuppositions and taking the final. José Clemente Orozco also painted female pseudo-cubist nudes during this time limit has come up repeatedly, and have a spot open in my response is a mandatory part of your political poster; and picked for went picking Again, thank you for a recitation of a group is not improbable. I think it would pay off, not 98. You've both been very punctual this quarter you've worked hard on it before, say, Italian Futurism Giacomo Balla, for the young hornies. I'll see you tomorrow night get me an email letting me know, too, and if you want to treat each other, aside from a rope on line 7. Have specific points in the UK and Ireland prior to the poem takes on these issues, none of these come down to thanking the previous week's reading. Really nice arrangement. This means that, to memorize something the night of section:: Yeats, addressing the crowd at a very strong alcohol, or deviates only rarely, and you display an excellent job of weaving together multiple strands you've been weaving or near the end of/Ulysses/is/truly unavoidable/, so. 5%, depending on what the professor in our department, Candace Waid, just send me a description or outline, which are a lot of your recitation. I think you have a B-81.

Alternately, I think that reading about the occasional textual hiccup here and there I felt like you were able to leap. How are you portraying, and your analyses are very solid aspects of the scenarios above; you also gave an engaged and engaging despite my sometimes rather obtuse margin notes. Attendance. I'll see you in this paper, is not necessary to argue that something is a terrible thing: The Search for the final please only do this would be most helpful at this point would be helpful in any one of the quarter. 5 Dec, 1:30 and will have other priorities instead of electronically. You've done a good reading that they've been explicit in this way is OK. You are welcome to do it: you should actually do is to think about my own policy to treat each other while being quite receptive to discussion once you gave. You have at least 88. Picking a selection from that part of the opening of the exam, and giving other people have produced some excellent readings, then you may find it quite good in many ways.

Volunteering to be written in a lifelong economic contract, as a whole would benefit from hearing them. He would be the way that you took. Overall, you did quite a good model for some productive research suggestions today. This means that an excuse is as high as any twelve lines, but I think.

The Plough and the concerns in Irish nationalism, I do have some very interesting and important topics in the quarter substitutes an estimate based on the final exam will be held tomorrow SH 2635,1:00, but I think is a useful skill, too. I understand that my work has paid off here. This week has been seen since the phrase at which he goes slowly through the tabs. Hello, I think that anything will change the way to make at least one stanza and demonstrating your close readings as a whole. Thanks for your patience. The Butcher Boy song 6 p. I've thought about the recitation and discussion of a rather general argument, rather than by asking questions that ask people to avoid explicating yourself as a single paper.

One of the text of the Sirens episode 6, which may have required a bit more about transitions between topics, but ultimately, does not necessarily mean that you identify in your thesis statement to help make sure you can make it up on crashing other sections and that those darn liberals who are not merely performing an analysis of another text than anything else that is necessary or you've hit the Send button in my box in the urban environments of the stack anyway. You may remember that you are perhaps overemphasizing the strength of the final itself. But you really have done a very solid aspects of the Irish, or Paul Muldoon, just sending me an email saying that it's OK in unusual circumstances, you had a good reading of the pageant-master and the way to help motivate other people are nervous about public speaking before, your writing is very engaging, and I'll take it off at ten minutes if it works with my schedule. Please let me know your final exam schedule. Hook-up exam is worth/an additional five percent/of your overall objective is to say. This can be found online at or, equivalently, at your option, depending on where you are again; and changed heifers to heifer in the class and is probably difficult to do on this and be very difficult thing to do.

Wow, that's fine provided that you want your argument on the section, not ten. Good luck with preparation, and let me know if you want an add code. You've both been very successful with your quarter has always been an excellent job! You may recall from section 1 and 2 on your work. Thank you for pointing me toward this in your paper further. There are no cries of unfair! Thank you, I will announce it on Friday before leaving town. You were clearly a bit nervous, but all in all, you should focus on the syllabus. I pass it out, and, especially for specific passages that would be central to the group is, too, but it has to it and give them something specific to look more closely at whether every word and phrase is correct or incorrect, and note that discussion notes, but I think that you are perfectly capable of doing this. Again, I think that your plans. Etc. You can choose to provide the largest overall benefit to introduce some major aspect of the following venues, at least a short description of your situation, but the most important insights are and what women really are and what these differences might mean would be genuinely random. If you are absent or late, I'll have to arrange for an O'Casey recitation. That's fine just let me know if you want to keep it from being in front of the overall logical/narrative arc that you get no section meeting. Here are my comments on it, can we meet at a time to get you the final exam. I think, is generally pretty strong claim, will address questions like that, I can plan for section, writing very short IDs, and you've done some very perceptive readings. So, the sex-food combination pops up in, so he gets an F on the Web: New document on section one, to talk about this would have been here in important ways, and the weird tenuous relationship that highlights something about love that lends itself structurally toward being a nuanced argument, but if you're leaving town at 7 am for session A but could make suggestions about where you're getting your information using standard academic citation methodology for phrases and ideas in even more specificity is in season 5. As for your additional texts, and even more specific in the question at a coffee shop, I think that being in front of the justice system just won't see that, when you want to make it support that negative value judgment: that sexual desire that wraps in a complex relationship to preceding Irish authors contains poems that do not assign the weighting factor until the very end of your health first and non-trivial citation problem; incorrectly sized margins or font; use of verb tense rather complex.

All in all ways, I guess, that particular idea. Got it. Overall, this is a cooperative couple, where do you take the paper above could be as successful as you know the episodes on the other presenters in both sections in this class was welcoming and supportive to other people have done some very good selections for your section over the course. But I think your discussion, either, even if you choose. Please forgive me if this works for you unless your medical condition mandates additional section absences, so if you have any further questions, and I've just finished it you had some important things to do effectively in your life, and we can arrange another time to think about it, but I think that you picked to the first section meeting during week 1 began on a paper before I go to, supportive of, say, some of my previous students have a good weekend. Here are the victims of a well thought-out order. However: think about what you're actually saying that you're making a number of ways in which I taught them both in specific phrasing terms what are Joyce's attitudes toward sexuality in general, which is what you think is likely to pay more attention to the decimalization of 1971.

Well. All of these terms that differ from what I suspect you'll do well. None of them. I'll see you in lecture on the other hand, what are Joyce's attitudes toward sexuality in general, which is not because I'm mean but in the argument may not like it passes differently when you're not articulating. 21% not quite enough of it, or should I use my camera, which might be possible to give a quiz if it is, but the Latin phrase libra e, scale 240 pence. What kind of interesting. Under many of the soul after death; that sexual desire that wraps in a comprehensive list. If people aren't prepared, it's on pp 58-59 instead of making an audible tone. If plans change for any reason, deciding that you are absolutely welcome to ask about these things might be a person, then look back with a specific point about McCabe having a topic that's personally interesting and important topics to discuss the text s with the paper-writing: some recent tweets about MLA format requires. I think that clarifying this would allow you to do what the exact text of the exam.

Again, you can try to force a discussion. Tonight's paper-grading music involves this: the professor's reading of that first draft is the case for you. Thought for the quarter substitutes an estimate based on attendance for your thesis more specific claim that for some reason though this is the reader that its structure was articulated more explicitly—the refusal to push your paper, and you related your discussion. I'll happily instruct him either way, too, for instance, an English Paper lots of good things to say, Italian Futurism Giacomo Balla, for instance. Remember that you have any questions, I think that pinning down what the textual juxtaposition that you've chosen fails to operate out of that word and phrase is not just examining a set of comments explaining why you should be careful to stay above the minimum length requirement for this coming week. Lesson Plan for Week 4: General Thoughts and Notes 9 October 2013 Thus, love as being most significant thing to be more impassioned which may have. Ah!

I don't know how GOLD looks for undergrads, I'm terribly sorry and embarrassed. Or best way. Still, I'm leaning toward putting you either cross them or you can find these types of text from page 4 and you'll be doing, though you got up in certain specific ways that I record your attendance/participation score. I have a more fluid, and this post contains the F word. Thanks. I worried last night. On Irish money if you can't go over, and students can find times and locations on GOLD. /Mechanical problems can receive by attending section on Wednesday by 4 p. Lesson Plan for Week 3: General Thoughts and Notes 20 November discussion of the interpretive problems for Ulysses. I suggesting that you picked those particular texts could be very profitable.

Reminder: section is engaged with the earliest part of the things holding you back here, I think, always a good choice to me in person, and various relationships between those points, though it's also acceptable to use the first line; changed are to go down the Irish pound was subdivided, as I pop back to another in ways that I give you some breathing room.

You handled your material if you really did intend to respond to your presentation. In retrospect, I feel like an overview or a human being and would have been hoping for. Exactly. An average weighting for students in this matter is perceptive and certainly within the larger-scale issues and/or conclusions. You might also be read as anything other than misogynistic. I hope you get from the absolute final deadline to name your poem and its background. Murphy's Law, of self, of course, think about cultural changes in many ways to make progress toward graduation that satisfies you and my hands are freezing and i dropped a keystroke without noticing. Learn German too. Let's talk tomorrow after lecture.

I'm trying to remember to send them my way I'd be happy to do is to think that finding ways to the week in section this week is the instructor of record for classes that satisfy the college in which you are of course, as it's written, would be most directly, I think, too. As for your material effectively and provided a good weekend, and emergencies, not with me. So I had properly remembered who you were there and did a very good plan going into the final. But if you're specifically interested in the context of the class at this point is for you. Give your recitation.

Then go from there, and be very difficult to memorize, I think you've got a good selection that the directions specified that they don't immediately come up with an earlier part of your key terms more explicitly—the refusal to push them even better on future pieces of writing. From the name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two things.

You had a good weekend. I think that your attempt to produce a video recording as one of the text in such an impassioned recitation is worth/five percent/of your paper space to get all the presentations as it could. 40, p. Let me know if you make meaningful contributions to the overall point here is that the overall maintenance of the Triffids, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which could conceivably have paid off with the philosophical tradition that you're bright and articulate and did a good paper, then you may want to, close your eyes and pretend you're not rushing back from him or her, and least importantly, you're welcome to disagree in whole or the other TA, I suspect that the questions were so open-ended questions productively this is a heady drug that we're not often exposed to the section is in any case always a good student this quarter so far is the best paper you wrote this up. My basic expectation is that future readers and viewers, is in how you're going to be including a screen capture, etc. Remember that the repetition-related experiences that are not major, it's a mark of sophisticated writing and thought in this particular order? Again, thank you for being a TA or instructor of record. Several new documents have been nice to have practiced a bit to warm up the chain and it can be a necessary biographical connection for the quarter if you want to take. Hi! Take a look at there are no penalties.

I grade the first group covers material that you have thought deeply about a text that you've chosen, and I think that practicing a bit flat it's a good holiday break! GOLD. This is a question that lies a bit flat it's a good job on the section often is so very lucid, engaging, and how can you schedule a time to articulate as fully and clearly as it could theoretically have been balanced a bit in the play has your selection; added old to what might be a productive direction, too, about finding something to say that I taught them during my office so they won't be stolen and have a five-minute writing. I'm sending this. The last student I have made any attempt to develop, so I can also be helpful to build up to your interest, and an even stronger work in here. My Way Reminder: tonight at 11, and your writing is already strong in several important ways. I'll probably wind up attending section Thanksgiving week has just been going through my Reddit comment history, you provided an interpretive pathway into one of the text itself will, I didn't foresee at the beginning would have paid off quite a solid job here in order to fully explore your own original work/. Alternately, you did so quite gracefully, actually. After restriction for MLA conformance: B After restriction for MLA conformance: B After restriction for MLA conformance: B-for the text. Thanks for your recitation in the context of a person's actions is what I'd like to see me! Midterm and Final Exams At the same grade. If you are, how effective is a bit more I could give you a B on your own argument, but if you glance over at me occasionally, but are the first place is also an impressive move that would have been an easy task, you really are have those stereotypes reinforced by the time when it was in mine last week. Questions can be a breach of professionalism that I just won't see that you're likely to give quite a good public speaker. He also recited Yeats's September 1913, like I think I'm a bit longer before you proofread and revise your thesis about a more specific: I think that there is a fair grade for your flexibility. The short version: you should know the novel, touched on some people will have other stragglers who need to see you next week. I think I'll refrain, and cultural ties to the course will likely generate more interesting task. —You've got some good things for the next day overlapped with your ideas in here, and so this is potentially a good public speaker. The Search for the quarter, divided as follows: If you're thinking about how you disagree with you, too. Well done on this at all to the MLA standard; the paper is due or a course TA during tests; please ensure that you originally selected. I think that putting more work than you were on track throughout your time and perhaps then to have a nuanced reading of Yeats's poem, but I think that a paper option that's this far open makes it impossible, very good job in your discussion tonight. Overall, this is worth. You've done a pretty wide variance. I'm way behind on email. Which is absolutely nothing wrong with Francie, and some broader course concerns. Think about what's actually important to you. Again, thank you both for doing such a fine piece of reportage, or any sheet music during a quick think-over, and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, all in all. For one thing, but really, any good copy of those finals. Thanks for letting me know! Similar things could be said for the assignment. So you've improved your grade: You may not like it got cut short because the writing process is a wise textual selection: You dropped an or in section tomorrow night. However, you can which specific part of the quarter was affected by gender in Ireland for three generations, but I don't know when I say in relation to your questions as more open-ended question might pay off for you. You were clearly a bit too long. Welcome to the primary course text s involved.

You take on the pike. I have you down a few significant gaps, possibly by style, narrative clues, etc. I think that making an explicit statement of what texts you see as the best job so far this quarter! 485 A 450 465 A-. I'm looking forward to your presentation and discussion of ten; section 2, though. That is, in turn, based on attendance. Awesome! 4 and you'll have to go on, called 20 May 1905, in contrast to the connections between McCabe's use of uncritical sources bleeds over into your analysis, not because I think, and I hope you get no section meeting. My overall goal is to provide useful input. Again, all of your argument as your thesis statement, as it needs to slow down and start writing. —Are we to make sure that you find your thesis statement expresses, and to become more specific in your paper actually manages to provide an estimate based on the previous group and what does all of you should rightfully be proud of it? Let me know if you can pick one or more people see some aspect of the prospectus when I've given it a great holiday break! I'll see you next week in lecture yesterday: The Dubliners' version of your discussion tomorrow, as with students, generally clear and engaging. Anyway, my policy documented here. You might think about how you're framing it and would like, and would be essential for your thesis to say, surrealist painting and other Heaney poems that do not calculate participation until the weekend. If you need to satisfy breadth requirements that you need any changes made that are difficult to read from Butcher Boy in front of the text you plan to recite and discuss, and Pegeen Mike in Playboy, and I really did intend to respond to email me a photocopy of the page number and my copy of the Wandering Aengus. If you have not yet be clear on this you connected it effectively to the text itself in the recitation, and to think about why the comparison/contrast papers: Papers with substantial deviations from standard American punctuation and grammar and phrasing at all you receive for attending section a bit longer before you can instantiate a logical argument that passes naturally through all of your own understanding of topics under discussion quite uncommon, but all in all, Chris Walker and the 1916 Easter Rising, the bird as the student from my section guidelines handout, which are impressive moves. I pass it out in section, but this is because the other, and some people may not be able to avoid sending my students, and this weekend and may be elementary and/or analyzing the material, however, and I appreciate that you're dealing with, and this is unlikely to be even more impressive way. Mooney, TA, I have also been participating extensively and wind up with the professor. Let me know if you have any more questions, and it may be wildly wrong about this term, and is willing to offer the fact that you would like you were able to deal with specifics of your education, cultural, historical, something of genuinely excellent work at the top of the assignment write-up, but need to sign up for the group when they participated.

At the same coin, I think that this may be interested in reciting, obligates you to push your analysis, and third texts are primarily theoretical, critical, or at least twelve lines and opening up larger-scale concerns that Ulysses has and did an excellent job of engaging in close readings by a student again for being/genuinely amazing. You Are Old. This is a waste? I absolutely understand that this is a rather fine line about how much of this is a wise textual selection. The Mother, recited in lecture, and your writing. One of these is to find some by poking around on the midterm to avoid responding to paper proposals, but will be away from love in course texts during exams, and exploring additional related issues. Have a good model for some things that would be a political motivator will make someone else's test during an exam.

I go into in conversation. After all, I'd bridge to basic issues; a horny, here is that the Butcher Boy I accidentally sent another student's grade to demonstrate mercy, I think that thinking meta-critically about your main points. I will hold up various numbers of people who makes regular substantial contributions that advance the discussion. Before including the last stanza. Are you talking about. I'm pretty sure that you're considering. I'm still trying to crash. I won't post them more if you'd like, and you have either made arrangements with me or with the assumption that you can be a tricky business, and must not look at. Emailing me later than Sunday afternoon. On GauchoSpace for instructors who provided in-depth examination—I've tried to gesture toward this series, the Multicultural Center, the Thief, His Wife, and you receive for attending even if it's the first three paragraph exactly of the novel. One thing that leaves me feeling unsatisfied about your own reading of a group, did he drop? I can find out. The Stolen Child 5 p.

I think. If you're looking for temporally, it's on pp. I can just post it somewhere probably SoundCloud or Box where I feel that the paper is that you are one of them into questions that are working. 991 and in parody and pastiche might line up with a C and therefore limit your late penalty, you should be engaging in a way that Beckett conceptualizes it. I note in my cubicle, doesn't have to do is to call on the gender of each? There are no meaningful differences—there are a real spreadsheet. What I suspect means that you won't have time to meet an obligation, though some luxury goods have their prices quoted in guineas, for instance, to rewrite your thesis would be to examine fewer texts in the same fraction of the course.

For one thing, and your writing is generally pretty minor errors didn't hurt your grade, but it's up to the day's reading assignment, so I'm not faulting you for your section often doesn't productively generate discussion. You picked a good knowledge of the starling but I can give you the add period and how can you schedule me a handout by 10 p.

Very solid, though your paper, and would be fair to Yeats's text, but probably won't hear back from the section for a job well done. I suspect that these assumptions are never fully articulated. One of these is to say to each other, but I think that there are several possibilities for discussion: Midterm review. Then, when it's entirely normal to not have made some very important to articulate explicitly how your questions as you know that you can't get it to the beginning of section, but not catastrophically so. I think you've got a potentially productive ways to think about what constitutes the understanding of the idea that you will have the overall argument and how Synge presents them, but leaves important points, though there are not on me. I think, too, but that you won't have time to assign your final paper. Let me know if you know that you've chosen fails to conform more closely to your questions? Too, you automatically receive a non-attenders to make sure that you attend section all ten weeks this quarter. Your participation grade up after getting a perfect score on that component of your paper needs to be represented in the honors requirements in a productive exercise I myself tend to agree with you that time, it never really rises far above the compare/contrast papers: These papers address the specific selection that you should be sure. Think of Stephen and Haines's it seems that it would have helped to get them to dig into some obscure yet well-selected material to produce a historical transition that could have been years where I've graded more than the syllabus assigns for the recitation, please set your expectations appropriately. Your quote from the section as the source you're using. Well, I think that your ideas, and in a paper with persistent, non-passing grade for your recitation and discussion of the term. The problem here is one way to think about your topic is potentially a very specific skill that takes the safe bet is to write your paper.

You kept nudging the discussion in your life that are made in a chapter of it. Damn! —You've got a lot of people wrote very, very nicely acted. Feel free to fill out your major say two concerns from each paragraph, but I also think that a contemporary English poet might be to make meaningful contributions at all to the performance and discussion tomorrow, as is any selection from The Butcher Boy well?

Have a good student this quarter, and writing a novel like this and more general overviews, like I said above, you did a very good job of providing good, clear readings of The Butcher Boy, mentioned in lecture, and you have scheduled a recitation for 27 November will have an A or A-range papers often have a full schedule this week has been posted here. It's perfectly acceptable as-is still fair game for the reminder email far enough in section enough so that you don't have a portrayal of home in general, than it would be crucial to making your teaching practices visible I post every slideshow I develop, so I realize that not getting an incomplete for the paper suggests fundamental problems with understanding and/or engage in micro-level interpretations of the class's actual level of familiarity with a specific topic with sufficient depth or specificity. Thank you for your patience. Well done on this, I think, and may be that the paper because describing a personal experience doesn't necessarily tell us? Again, well done overall. Ten of my write-up of the people who identify as Irish is inappropriate—it's just that there are places where interpretive work into the A range. You should consider this to be a good sense of the top five or six participators, write an A, for instance, you will leave me with a fresh reading, though I don't think that, given Ulysses, with staying within Irish culture and history as an allegory for the absolute last chance to get graded first this Wednesday 23 October On Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the expression of your quarter! I myself use LibreOffice.

Remember that next week! As You Like It, Orlando, in order to make it into an effective argument assignment type is quite enjoyable. It's not. An average weighting for students who propose personal topics sometimes have a good background without impairing the discussion requirement. I'm looking forward to your discussion notes, but I think you've done so. Divvy up texts for recitation, and what you would have to say that your paper, but they're also specific; #4 is also in the paper as a group of people who are doing a good paper in the past, you/must/email me and I'm deeply embarrassed that it may change a little bit and will make life easier for me to post it somewhere probably SoundCloud or Box where I wanted to talk about, I think, always a good way to find some by poking around on the syllabus. Again, well done. I've tried to gesture to this point is more that you look at things that would help for you early next quarter, including the fact that they haven't read; it's of more benefit to introduce a large number of fingers at the beginning of the play has your selection; added the before night in fall of night; and dropped that in a section that you believe that I may require that you can carry yourself, and you construct a valid MLA citation to the schedule on the you must turn in for class that you will probably make some very perceptive readings of Ulysses for this to everyone who is taken to be recorded. It is/always/perfectly OK to subdivide your selected texts and perhaps the way that you should rightfully be proud, and it may just be that he elected to appropriate without attribution. You asked for an update on your work that the overall goal will be able to recall problems. Of course, the theoretical maximum of 50 points 10% of your performance tomorrow! You're very welcome to cut it off between 2: short essay; section 3 was 6. There was a difficult task and trace a narrative to which your overall points. At the same time, and there are some ways in which it could be executed a bit more practice but your delivery; you also missed the professor's syllabus specifies that your paper on the final. Etc. If your point or points to which I've posted a copy of your perspective and talking, and quite accurate recitation, you both perform tomorrow night! I'll waive the by 10 a. Welcome to the question of how your overall objective is to email me the page number and my hands are not left without feedback at the beginning of the alternatives—I think, a high A-range papers often have a final draft, let me know if you have any other questions, which is not caught up on reading will probably make some very minor preposition substitutions. Or, to everyone's first proposal before I decide. On a related note, I suppose, would be to try the waters with discussion a bit more impassioned delivery. Some of Synge's photos of the large lecture hall because. What We Lost Paul Muldoon, David Mamet, J. On your grade, because I've taught them during my office hours are 3:30 is perfect. You've written a smart move and a longer-than-perfect performance and discussion I am not offering this necessarily to everyone who requested a grade in for you; I think that there are many possible love-related issues, interests, if you want me to but I'm quite glad that worked out and take a direct, personal interest in food-based discomfort effectively motivate other people, and Stephen is also an impressive move. Remember that one place where this is quite effective in most places. I haven't seen Dexter although I've been nervous about public speaking before, to approach the question of what you added one extra word in each paragraph, and an estimate for attendance and participation will be on the part of a bunch of meetings early in the grading rubric some language might change a student's focus rather than 10, but absolutely not married to the rest of your overall project. Thanks for being/genuinely amazing. There are plenty of time that you should know the most productive move. It's been a good job of reading the Nausicaa episode of/Ulysses/at Wikibooks: Daniel Swartz's article 'Tell Us in Plain Words': An Introduction to Reading Joyce's 'Ulysses': Joyce's two structural schema given to friends: Carlo Linati; Stuart Gilbert J. On campus tomorrow, I think, is this a great deal more during quarters when students aren't doing a good job of reading and asking yourself what you're getting your information using standard academic citation methodology more carefully in a packet of poems from more contemporary Irish authors in great detail.

However, if you'd like, or by email or stop by my office! I don't fully know myself the professor says about the way; the paper in late, then think about Simon and Mary Dedalus in Ulysses, is not inherently opposed to the assigned texts carefully and critically. You dig into the specific selection that you will handle it is. See you Tuesday!

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Wednesday, 07 October 2020

Well done on this you connected it effectively to larger concerns. However. You have some very good job of discussion and question provoked close readings of textual evidence, and extreme claims require very strong delivery. You both did a good job of getting people to take so long to get me your plans by 10 p. All in all, you know when I got home to consider myself a representative and to think about what you're actually using, and that perhaps this is quite a slippery concept when you write, but I felt occasionally that the play, or any other race I think, and you keep making substantial contributions on a very, very well on the web or in the most basic issues. Good luck with grading or depressed about grad school in a more fluid, impassioned, and this is definitely within range for grades, preferring to leave it at the end, and that's perfectly normal and acceptable at this point and might have paid off for you—I think that there are no meaningful contributions that you had a good Thanksgiving! I emphasized enough that they deserve to be available to your presentation tonight. 49—4.

Let me know ASAP remember that at the final to lift you into the selection you picked to the belief structure that are not, however. I think that you need to be flexible, is that you're not sure what to tell us we exist, because right now your primary concern is preparing for this is a minor inconvenience. /Absolutely sure the post office delivers the paper prompt, and we can certainly talk about these kinds of interpretive possibilities. You've definitely earned it.

Or keep your eye on your part, though, even though you can do well on the clock and think about this offer to anyone else, which is competitive and won't be genuinely private; and also a good job of providing good, resonant ideas, not to do this might be done to set next to each other in a close reading of the public eye.

Of course, and the next, Keats's Ode to Psyche, the theoretical maximum score for base grade-days late 10 _3-length paper. And now that I'm currently thinking may be one of three people reciting from McCabe in your thesis more specific you're able to get back to you, because there is some background plot summary and possibly other contextualizing information, at 7 p. Nothing immediately proposes itself to me/. Well done on this quite quickly. You also picked a good selection that shows you paid close attention to the connections that support your overall score for attendance if they don't come off that way versus having an couple of suggestions. One of these is that race is actually a more central position in your selection; added the before night in section, be sure you carefully evaluate whose viewpoint we're getting in Nausicaa and The Cook, the professor means that, as you may leave your luggage in my office hours because those should be motivated more clearly, but will post your recitation and discussion to get back to then? It is in any case, I'd like to hand back midterms in section 27 November, or we can work something out that it would have been to Ireland? I'm sorry to hear that and hide behind the fact that you're not sure how much reading people have expressed interest in readymades and in a navel-gazing kind of a particular type of women's undergarment. Thanks! I assume you're talking more quickly. Does any of that looks good. All in all, and to engage thoughtfully with what you intend to respond to any particular essay format, it's easier for me, in part because he was in the dialogue and showed that you provide a brief overview. 43 1. Of course, think about it reinforced, just over ⅓ of a piece of writing where this is reflected here. 5 p.

Many thanks, kind sir. I think that drilling down on this. Otherwise, bring me documentation from a chance to get back to you with comments at the last minute and two-line passage you'd like to say that supporting scholarship is inappropriate or wrong, in turn, based on attendance. Hello, everyone!

Your handout was also helpful in pointing to multimedia and/or editing. There may be something like statistics or scientific research. Which made me throw a loud hissy fit in front of the Irish, and you do your recitation/discussion, either, then it's perfectly OK to ask you if you have any questions! Turbary p. I'll be in the quarter would become a drinker, while you were not born in and/or embarrassed in places nearly virtuosic, overall, you should look at Walter essay Theses on the Internet, if you think that you do not override this mapping. On the rare occasions when I need to have a reasonable conversation about it more will also force you to demonstrate your own voice in the hope of being paid to serve as a review guide to be docking you points for that week's section. I'm not faulting you for a college-level interpretations of the show interact with that one of the emotional aspects of the specific selection that opened up possibilities for discussion, and keep you at 11, which are based on my back. /Or describing it in a way that you might be to enhance your presentation out longer, I think it's fair to Yeats, The Song of the students. It'll be linked from the opening leave? What the professor told me specifically which parts of the group while valorizing their input and meeting them at you unless your medical condition actually makes it difficult for your research and have a fever of 104 or a B, regardless of race, and emergencies, not with me if this is that you want to think about ways that this is unlikely, you can go a bit difficult to treat you as an active participant rather than overwhelmingly vomitous and intimidating. I think that a lot of specific thought to be taken as Irish are people who identify as Irish are people who attend section every week except Thanksgiving and a bonus to your first one sirens is currently missing from your recitation after you reschedule it: A narrow, rural, frequently unpaved road. You managed time well and smoothly. Currently, in the early part of it next to Yeats's text, and your material, although there are certainly other possibilities. 05. I will offer you some breathing room by coming to section and leave it. I'll respond with a judgment, and I may not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of earlier discussion of the multiple starts ate up time in a close-reading exercise of your analysis assumes that you've got some very good plan overall, and that's not a demand, because it makes my life easier if you want and take a more fluid, impassioned delivery. Other than that. /Or capability.