#Intriguing Love Story

[shortstoryinenglish]

Short Stories in English-The Starlit Night

Join Monika and Rabin on a magical journey under the starlit night, where they discover the beauty of the universe and the power of imagination. 

On a clear, starlit night, Monika and Rabin decided to camp in their backyard. As they lay under the twinkling sky, they noticed a shooting star and made a wish. To their surprise, the shooting star magically transformed into a friendly star fairy named Stella.

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[egophiliac]

LEON

LEON YOUR EYEBALLS

[lotus-pear]

rewatched madoka magica again today bc i fucking hate myself and to absolutely no one’s surprise i went through all five stages of grief in a single evening

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

do you think alhaitham is a yearner for kaveh or the other way around

Anon thank you so much for this ask <3 it turns out that this is more complicated than I thought. since alhaitham is so embarrassingly obvious, I think kaveh’s own version of ‘yearning’ can be overlooked, so thank you for giving me an opportunity to explore both! I am using your ask as an excuse to show how embarrassing alhaitham is, he has no shame!! therefore i've had to split this answer into two posts!

alhaitham essentially building his life around kaveh being a part of it is ultimate down bad behaviour:

the house: alhaitham’s character stories give us very little about alhaitham’s life after his fallout with kaveh and his graduation. we’re told that he moves out of his grandmother’s house to move into the research facility gifted to him and kaveh? and it’s only after he moves in that he’s told by a third-party that kaveh has no need for the property, so only then does he convert the property into a house

So it seems he moved in with some expectation of encountering kaveh at some point, especially considering it was their joint property. There’s no reason given why he opted to move out of his grandmother’s house but I think it's interesting that kaveh’s character stories detail that a house is not a home without other occupants who understand him without words, which causes him to sell his parents’ house as he was the only occupant, which parallels with alhaitham moving out of a house in which he also is the sole occupant, into a property which ties him and kaveh together

The bulletin boards/academic journals: although it isn’t specified who made the first journal critique, if it falls in line with alhaitham incessantly responding to all of kaveh’s bulletin board points, I’d like to think that alhaitham reached out first here, just as he moved into their joint property without actually knowing that kaveh had no use for it – although they had separated at this point, regardless of who reached out first, alhaitham was still actively pursuing kaveh’s perspective here, as this was the only instance of kaveh being in his life… oh….

during the archon quest: alhaitham mentioning kaveh without any prompt whatsoever lives in my head, even more so that this seems to be a musing that he didn’t even mean to say out loud? Sick!!

And when kaveh eventually returns, alhaitham says that he doesn’t want to have to explain the whole thing to kaveh, so he should leave the house of daena before kaveh returns, but he doesn’t?

Special mention of the gathering in the grand bazaar where alhaitham equates his own happiness to that of the people of the gathering, and then immediately mentions how he must have taken both keys leaving the house, indicating that another reason for his happiness increased because kaveh has returned, and that his way of life has been maintained - meaning that kaveh is one of his priorities (i brainrot more about this here)

Alhaitham’s story quest: the motif of kaveh ensuring alhaitham’s content is returned to with force in alhaitham’s story quest with establishing kaveh as someone alhaitham chooses not to be objective about, with kaveh being framed as alhaitham’s priority

(additionally, this expression, absolutely criminal)

kaveh’s hangout and voice lines: kaveh is shown once again to be an exception to alhaitham’s objectivity, as alhaitham inserts himself into kaveh’s ‘fate’ to offer him a place to stay when kaveh’s choices led him to selling his house, having no place to go – this overturns alhaitham’s principle of being uninvolved with people’s fates, and pulling kaveh back to shore, as opposed to standing on the sidelines

kaveh’s hangout is really special to me as it showcases alhaitham’s whole understanding of kaveh, not only his inner psyche, but also how to secure kaveh’s happiness through an indirect action, as kaveh’s heart meter increases once seeing the response a student wrote to his annotations, it demonstrates that alhaitham’s care towards kaveh is most explicitly shown with actions

a parade of providence: alhaitham becomes the event's commentator solely to investigate Sachin to see if he influenced kaveh’s father, attempting to give kaveh closure and alleviate his self-destructive mindset. in the same vein, alhaitham leaves kaveh note that in a language the two learnt together for their thesis commenting on kaveh's ideologies and how it can lead to suffering.

this really solidifies that alhaitham's care is demonstrated in actions, and that a shift in communication is needed to properly show this. It’s here that alhaitham’s actions are the most explicit, and this leads to the major improvement in their relationship (which i explore more in detail here)

cyno's second story quest: thank you for chronic book gripper alhaitham reading his book when kaveh is out of the living room, and immediately putting it down when kaveh enters and begins telling alhaitham about his day, for alhaitham to encourage.

the animation that was so essential for the devs to include of alhaitham watching kaveh sketch when kaveh’s back was turned is such a comic example of yearning, it’s actually ridiculous

also alhaitham smiling when being asked to stay in the house of daena to work with kaveh??

alhaitham is one big yearner, he is that guy and he has no interest in beating the allegations!

the second part of this answer will explore kaveh's version of yearning!

[myokk]

[lotusliasart]

I don't know what happened but I fell into the Evka/Antoine pit overnight after rereading parts of Tevinter Nights, and there's only a handful of things when I search for them so I'm adding to that pile myself!!

They've appeared multiple times in short stories and even the comics so I'm just waiting for DA4 stuff like "👀". Bioware pls give us the cute Wardens (preferably alive and well shjhfg but I'm expecting them to hurt me emotionally anyway bc this is DA after all, and there's been so much foreshadowing ;;v;;)

(Lineart below)

[rebouks]

Previous // Next

Levi: What the heck are you reading? Wren: A book. Levi: Hurr. Wren: It’s got loads of plants n’ trees in it, like their fancy names n’ stuff-.. mom gave me it. Levi: Nerd. Wren: Says the one who likes math. Levi: I don’t like it, it’s just easy. Wren: So is memorising names. Levi: Alright, what’re these then? Wren: Pinus’s… Levi: Funny-.. but really? [Wren cackled and slapped a subtitle in her book which indeed contained the word “Pinus”] Wren: I wasn’t joking! I think this is a Pinus contorta-.. it’s hard to tell ‘em apart though. [Levi leant back on his palm and gazed up into the treetops lazily, wondering how long it’d take to memorise every single plant and their appropriate names] Levi: What about those? Wren: I don’t know the proper name for that one, but it’s Cow Parsley-.. super similar to Hemlock but that’s poisonous, so… Levi: You really are a loser, aren’t you? Wren: If you were a plant, you’d be a Hyptis capitata. Levi: Gimmie that thing!

[antigonesghosts]

What I loved about Cinderella's Castle is it is so entirely about Ella. We know starkid can handle a show with tons and tons of characters but I found it quite refreshing for it to be so wholly her story? I think it was a lovely choice for this show and man Bryce did such a perfect job of it, she is truly such a star

[misakarose]

S H A D E ✧ F I E N D

"Uh... fight for justice? Sounds boring. Nah... See this pale girl, diggin' her heels in? I'm fighting for Tanpopo Ohanami."

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I think what particularly annoys me with the "zelda was always gameplay before story" is that... it's not true? At least I don't think it's true in the way people mean it.

Zelda games were always kind of integrating story based on the standards of the time. When game stories were in game pamphlets, Zelda's stories was in the pamphlets. ALTTP tried to tell a pretty complicated stories with the limitations of the time. OoT was actively trying to tell an epic, cinematic tale packed with ambiance and expand what 3D could offer that 2D games struggled with. Majora's Mask is deeply character-driven in many, many ways. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are both pretty concerned about their stories, down to the point that some people were bored by TP's cutscenes in particular. Skyward Sword, from what little I have played it, is very very invested in its characters and their journey (and 2D Zeldas have Link's Awakening, Minish Cap... None of them are visual novels, but they are concerned with emotional journeys, character arcs, mysteries about their own world...)

What is true is that the narrative wraps around the mechanics, and not the other way around. The mechanics drive themes, aesthetics, emotional beats and character journeys; and that's great. The world is a puzzle, and the world is delightfully absurd when it needs to be, full of heart when it calls for it, dark and oppressive when it suits the player experience.

That does not mean the games aren't invested in their stories. Even BotW has a pretty complicated story to tell about an entire world rather than one specific tale or legend --all of it at the service of the gameplay, which is exploration and mastery of your environment.

So. Yes, none of the Zelda games are million-words long visual novels that care deeply about consistency and nuance; but stories don't need consistency or deep lore to be meaningful and serve an emotional journey. Again: gameplay is story. The two cannot be so easily parsed from each other.

And Zelda as a franchise obviously care deeply about story, characters and setting (and still does right now --otherwise there wouldn't be a movie), even if it doesn't try to imitate prestige narrative-driven games, which is great and part of why I love this series so much. Doesn't mean it couldn't have done better in the past, it obviously could have, but I feel like pretending that nobody ever cared about story or character is just... false? It's a huge disservice to the devs too. Some of them obviously cared immensely.

The "gameplay above story", at least in the extent to which it is paraded today to defend TotK, mostly, is a really recent development. And I think it's one that deserves to receive some pushback.

[marlynnofmany]

February Fiction Fight

The easiest writing challenge, on the shortest month! The only goal is to write "a bit of something" each day.

Something. Anything. A cool scene that doesn't have a full story to fit into yet. A plot twist that would be great several books into a series. A description of the visuals in that one cool movie. A conversation between your favorite characters about an unlikely food combination.

A page, a paragraph, a sentence. What's that cool story you're going to write someday? Jot down what you know so far. Maybe you'll know more tomorrow. Or maybe you'll be off and running with some other fascinating concept.

No limits, no minimum wordcount! Just write a bit of something.

You play February Fiction Fight by writing each day (or as many days as you can; no shame in being busy).

You win by having more fun than everybody else.

I plan to have an absolute blast!

[shortstoryinenglish]

Short Story in English

The Magical Forest Adventure

Embark on a captivating journey with Monika and Rabin as they venture into a magical forest, where they learn the importance of kindness, empathy, and protecting the environment. Read more

[baura-bear]

Something that brings healing to my soul is imaging older baberoe. Like they go on walks down the street and all their neighbors know them because babe’s always out about talking to folks so of course they know Eugene by association even if he’s a bit more quiet and mysterious but he always has some bandaids in his pocket so the neighborhood kids know that if someone falls on their bike or scrapes a knee they can go to him and he’ll patch them up and he doesn’t know it but they all think he’s so cool because they know nothing about him and make up stories about what he’s really like and so of course all their parents like them because babe’s friendly and talkative and gene’s always taking care of everyone and anyway yeah idk I just like imagining them being happy old men together that everyone loves

[theygotlost]

YOU READ MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY???

yeah it came free with being a 4th grader and its Awesome. i think. i havent read it in 15 years

[theramblergal]

A random thought on accessibility in the Mahabharata fandom. I know a lot of us like to say that the BORI CE is the ultimate version against which all fanfiction/ideas/thoughts measure up to.

But then again, it's a 6000 page document. It's 1.8 million words.

If you can find the time and patience to read through such a long document, kudos to you.

But if you can't, it's okay. Sure, the BORI is the golden standard, but it's not the end-all, be-all. The Mahabharata is more than just itihaasa, it is the culture of us Indians. It is a tale from which we are meant to taken inspiration, interpret it and apply them in our lives.

It's okay if your interpretation doesn't match up with what the original characters are. (And it might be controversial for me to say it, but I feel like it has to be said.) So much time has passed that we are never truly going to know what these characters were originally like.

Besides, one of the main qualities of literature is critical reading. Everyone's viewpoint differs; the way you read one person's actions might not be the same as another's. That's what makes it so appealing.

It's okay if you haven't read the original texts. Just as it's okay if you have, and believe the original interpretations are true to you.

[yuseirra]

I read Macbeth today! It was so good~