#college update

[abyssal-author-and-artist]

fuck today's a hard drafting day I can't fucking focus or make sense of this

[astrafiammante]

Your college reunion is coming up! Tell us what you've been up to!

Got a prompt that I had to tell my former classmates from college what I've """accomplished""" since graduation, so here it is.

Made my way to New York, Then on to Berlin. Spoke German, wore black did the whole drugs-n-rave thing. Saw the world, did TV, reported the news, Was told I was too big, (in weight and nose) to continue.

I’ve won no awards, Earned zero millions. Written some stuff for NYTimes and DW. I’m proud of this life some may call it “small,” but honestly fuck them. And fuck “giving it your all.”

What have I been up to?

“Failing,” and flailing, deferring my dreams, moving, losing, far too many memes, gaining gray hair, and wrinkles, arguing online, group chats, insta-reels, and becoming a punchline of “settling” when really I was falling in love with Less ambition, less grit Being less fast, less sweat; Learning to live life and abandon the pressure. Finding happiness is truly the simplest pleasure.

[teomuchtohandle]

School Update

The Grades Are In!

I finished Critical Approaches to Literature with an A-! It was a lot of fun, though I did three weeks of work in the last week since depression and the funeral made doing my work a non-starter.

I'm really excited for my new class! It's the first writing class I've taken so far for my degree. SUPER anxious though. I have to submit a piece of fiction or poem I've written every week to have my classmates critique.

Current grades: Mathematical Reasoning For Modern Problem Solving: B+ Diverse Historical Narratives: A Ethical Problem Solving: B+ Critical Approaches to Literature: A- Intro to Creative Writing: In Progress

[wanologic]

💅💅💅

[punkpsychologist]

i've been up to the uni twice in the last two days and i'm still a bit nervous. definitely better than last year but AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. had to go up today to help B because his dorm got TOTALLY fucked. we're not sure if he's going to be able to live in the dorm he wants but we're crossing out fingers hoping that a good spot opens up. likewise a spot thats not on my hall!!!!! because!!!!! us dating would then be against the rules of my job!!!!!!!!!!! im going to scream, maybe cry and throw up. idk man anxiety sucks. it was so fucking hot on campus today your girl got so fucking burned.

- my beloved B <3

LET HIM IN

[allieebobo]

CT:OS Halloween bonus

As promised, wrote like a fiend this month and banged out almost a full chapter's worth of content for spooky season!

The update is three-quarters of chapter 7 (about 40k words including code and variants), and picks up where Sam's visit left off.

Release dates:

It will be out to ko-fi supporters on 31 Oct, and a week after to the public :)

Features:

Deal with the aftermath of your decisions over the weekend (talk to G, Tobin or Rayyan) <True horror>

Attend a language fellow/exchange student dinner-gathering as G's plus one (and the only American in the group). <the G-only scene I promised! You don't have to be dating.>

Prep Halloween costumes with your hallmates (yes, chaotic), and go trick or treating! 🎃

Attend a party after with the team ... then stay for horror movie marathon + sleepover or head back to Haynes to end the night with G.

Yep, Halloween hookups (however ill-advised ;)) are possible.

You can end this chapter very much in a committed relationship with the RO of your choice.

More details on the rest of the chapter/plans for CT:OS for 2024 below the cut.

Note: The rest of chapter 7 will include midterms, a time-skip (with some training/a match) and some fall festival shenanigans (because I love fall festivals). It should add up to a pretty chunky chapter that pretty much seals Act 1 of CT:OS (the 'settling into Cargill' part - establishing most of MC's friendships, routines, and possibly romances, forming a solid base for Act 2.)

I'll start writing the rest of the chapter once I'm done with Merry Crisis, and hope to get it out by end-Dec. We'll see! :)

[collegetennisoriginstory]

Public release CT:OS Chapter 5 (Update No. 9)!

The new CT:OS chapter is available for everyone! :)

Added Wordcount: 98k words (we’v passed the milestone of 500k words for CT:OS total!)

Features:

Sam attends team dinner at Valentina's (a love song comes on. Of course.)

Team party on Friday night (participate in a drinking game known as the Devil's Dozen (party edition). Partner Sam, Tobin, or Rayyan. If you play your cards right... you might also get to kiss 'em at the party.

Share a bed with Sam… pt. 1

Go out to a fancy Italian restaurant with Sam, then head to a bar afterward. Dance to old jukebox music.

Share a bed with Sam… pt. 2 (This one allows for some... intimacy.)

Have a tough (?) or happy (?) conversation with Sam before they leave on Sunday.

Author's note:

Thank you so much for supporting this game, I really really appreciate all the comments, the support, the beta-testing (honestly you guys are soo clutch! <3)

I'm always so humbled and amazed by all the love and the actual, constructive/concrete help I get, it means so much to me!

P.S. More G scenes will be coming right up VERY soon, I might do a mid-update release of just the G-scene.

P.P.S. Note on saves: They should work, actually. With the exception of strange 'readings' stats and strange 'photography_club' stats, because I think I revamped those.

[intotheelliwoods]

You guys wanted to see some Raph, heres some Raph!

Masterpost

[lavender-rroses]

dude…let’s kill the horse

[metanarrates]

Hello. Sorry if this a stupid question u can ignore if u want.

How can someone get better at media analysis? Besides obviously reading a lot.

Im asking this bc im in a point where im aware of my own lack of tools to analyze stories, but i don't know where to get them or how to get better in general. How did you learn to analyze media? There's any specific book, essay, author, etc that you recommend? Somewhere to start?

I'm asking you because you are genuinely the person who has the best takes on this site. Thank you for you work!

it sounds like a cop-out answer but it's always felt like a skill I acquired mostly thru reading a ton, and by paying a lot of attention in high school literature classes. because of that I can't promise that I'm necessarily equipped to be a good teacher or that i know good resources. HOWEVER! let me run some potential advice to you based on the shit i get a lot of mileage out of

first off, a lot of literary analysis is about pattern recognition! not just pattern recognition in-text, but out-of-text as well. how does this work relate to its genre? real-world history? does it have parallels between real-life situations? that kind of thing.

which is a big concept to just describe off the bat, so let me break it down further!

in literature, there is the concept of something called literary devices - they are some of the basic building blocks in how a story is delivered mechanically and via subtext. have you ever heard of a motif? that is a literary device. it's a pattern established in the text in order to further the storytelling! and here is a list of a ton of common literary devices - I'd recommend reading the article. it breaks down a lot of commonly used ones in prose and poetry and explains their usage.

personally, I don't find all the literary devices I've learned about in school to be the most useful to my analytical hobbies online. motifs, themes, and metaphors are useful and dissecting them can bring a lot to the table, but a lot of other devices are mostly like fun bonus trivia for me to notice when reading. however, memorizing those terms and trying to notice them in the things you read does have a distinct benefit - it encourages you to start noticing patterns, and to start thinking of the mechanical way a story is built. sure, thinking about how the prose is constructed might not help you understand the story much more, but it does make you start thinking about how things like prose contribute to the greater feeling of a piece, or how the formatting of a piece contributes to its overall narrative. you'll start developing this habit of picking out little things about a text, which is useful.

other forms of in-text pattern recognition can be about things like characterization! how does a character react to a certain situation? is it consistent with how they usually behave? what might that tell you about how they think? do they have tells that show when they're not being trustworthy? does their viewpoint always match what is happening on screen? what ideas do they have about how the world works? how are they influenced by other people in their lives? by social contexts that might exist? by situations that have affected them? (on that note, how do situations affect other situations?)

another one is just straight-up noticing themes in a work. is there a certain idea that keeps getting brought up? what is the work trying to say about that idea? if it's being brought up often, it's probably worth paying attention to!

that goes for any pattern, actually. if you notice something, it's worth thinking about why it might be there. try considering things like potential subtext, or what a technique might be trying to convey to a reader. even if you can't explain why every element of a text is there, you'll often gain something by trying to think about why something exists in a story.

^ sometimes the answer to that question is not always "because it's intentional" or even "because it was a good choice for the storytelling." authors frequently make choices that suck shit (I am a known complainer about choices that suck shit.) that's also worth thinking about. english classes won't encourage this line of thinking, because they're trying to get you to approach texts with intentional thought instead of writing them off. I appreciate that goal, genuinely, but I do think it hampers people's enthusiasm for analysis if they're not also being encouraged to analyze why they think something doesn't work well in a story. sometimes something sucks and it makes new students mad if they're not allowed to talk about it sucking! I'll get into that later - knowing how and why something doesn't work is also a valuable skill. being an informed and analytical hater will get you far in life.

so that's in-work literary analysis. id also recommend annotating your pages/pdfs or keeping a notebook if you want to close-read a work. keeping track of your thoughts while reading even if they're not "clever" or whatever encourages you to pay attention to a text and to draw patterns. it's very useful!

now, for out-of-work literary analysis! it's worth synthesizing something within its context. what social settings did this work come from? was it commenting on something in real life? is it responding to some aspects of history or current events? how does it relate to its genre? does it deviate from genre trends, commentate on them, or overall conform to its genre? where did the literary techniques it's using come from - does it have any big stylistic influences? is it referencing any other texts?

and if you don't know the answer to a bunch of these questions and want to know, RESEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND! look up historical events and social movements if you're reading a work from a place or time you're not familiar with. if you don't know much about a genre, look into what are considered common genre elements! see if you can find anyone talking about artistic movements, or read the texts that a work might be referencing! all of these things will give you a far more holistic view of a work.

as for your own personal reaction to & understanding of a work... so I've given the advice before that it's good to think about your own personal reactions to a story, and what you enjoy or dislike about it. while this is true that a lot of this is a baseline jumping-off point on how I personally conduct analysis, it's incomplete advice. you should not just be thinking about what you enjoy or dislike - you should also be thinking about why it works or doesn't work for you. if you've gotten a better grasp on story mechanics by practicing the types of pattern recognition i recognized above, you can start digging into how those storytelling techniques have affected you. did you enjoy this part of a story? what made it work well? what techniques built tension, or delivered well on conflict? what about if you thought it sucked? what aspects of storytelling might have failed?

sometimes the answer to this is highly subjective and personal. I'm slightly romance-averse because I am aromantic, so a lot of romance plots will simply bore me or actively annoy me. I try not to let that personal taste factor too much into serious critiques, though of course I will talk about why I find something boring and lament it wasn't done better lol. we're only human. just be aware of those personal taste quirks and factor them into analysis because it will help you be a bit more objective lol

but if it's not fully influenced by personal taste, you should get in the habit of building little theses about why a story affected you in a certain way. for example, "I felt bored and tired at this point in a plot, which may be due to poor pacing & handling of conflict." or "I felt excited at this point in the plot, because established tensions continued to get more complex and captured my interest." or "I liked this plot point because it iterated on an established theme in a way that brought interesting angles to how the story handled the theme." again, it's just a good way to think about how and why storytelling functions.

uh let's see what else. analysis is a collaborative activity! you can learn a lot from seeing how other people analyze! if you enjoy something a lot, try looking into scholarly articles on it, or youtube videos, or essays online! develop opinions also about how THOSE articles and essays etc conduct analysis, and why you might think those analyses are correct or incorrect! sometimes analyses suck shit and developing a counterargument will help you think harder about the topic in question! think about audience reactions and how those are created by the text! talk to friends! send asks to meta blogs you really like maybe sometimes

find angles of analysis that interest and excite you! if you're interested in feminist lenses on a work, or racial lenses, or philosophical lenses, look into how people conduct those sort of analyses on other works. (eg. search feminist analysis of hamlet, or something similar so you can learn how that style of analysis generally functions) and then try applying those lenses to the story you're looking at. a lot of analysts have a toolkit of lenses they tend to cycle through when approaching a new text - it might not be a bad idea to acquire a few favored lenses of your own.

also, most of my advice is literary advice, since you can broadly apply many skills you learn in literary analysis to any other form of storytelling, but if you're looking at another medium, like a game or cartoon, maybe look up some stuff about things like ludonarrative storytelling or visual storytelling! familiarizing yourself with the specific techniques common to a certain medium will only help you get better at understanding what you're seeing.

above all else, approach everything with intellectual curiosity and sincerity. even if you're sincerely curious about why something sucks, letting yourself gain information and potentially learning something new or being humbled in the process will help you grow. it's okay to not have all the answers, or to just be flat-out wrong sometimes. continuing to practice is a valuable intellectual pursuit even if it can mean feeling a tad stupid sometimes. don't be scared to ask questions. get comfortable sometimes with the fact that the answer you'll arrive at after a lot of thought and effort will be "I don't fully know." sometimes you don't know and that can be valuable in its own right!

thank you for the ask, and I hope you find this helpful!

[genshin-impact-updates]

Happy Birthday, Yaoyao!

"*whistle* Thanks, little finches~ Today is indeed my birthday!"

[favoure]

a lifetime of indentured servitude

used this frame from the mv of "femme fatale" by kedarui as ref for this piece ! just thought that it fit them perfectly orz

[triona-tribblescore]

Raph! :D

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[lilybug-02]

[sagefauna]

Hey everyone! Sorry I was gone for so long, I was busy with a project in another fandom. But I want to come back to drawing a mix of my interests again! Here's a watercolor Monomon :)

[punkpsychologist]

i am so full of anxiety

i'm an RA now

i move into the dorm in less than a week

i have not even scratched the surface of packing

the anxiety has been fucking insidious but i've been trying to talk myself down to understand and get it through my thick ass skull that everything is going to be ok

i might be stuck with a fucking roommate for a couple of weeks which completely negates the wanting of me taking that job

it is very late and i am very tired and stressed out, oh hwell

b and i are doing beautifully, we're talking about how we want to get married and its really nice making plans and stuff

i've spend many days staying over at his mother's house with him and his siblings to bond this summer and he's stayed over at mine a couple of times which was really cool

he and i have been helping each other so much i love him so fucking much

i need to get myself into the academia mindset again

learning for the sake of knowledge and doing my best to live up to my standard of "no hack doctors"

but i also need to relax and have fun, RA training scares the shit out of me. i have some baggage from a previous situation thats made me like scared of stuff like this so i'm really hoping that this job helps that part of my brain

its so late, and im feeling very frustrated with the situation i am expericing right now, and i am not going to talk about it here because it's petty. but i feel like playing totk and drinking a mudslide or something fun as a dionysian treat while i vibe in my own energies. i want to do my own thing

i've been making macrame necklaces to focus my energy onto something. i brought a couple to b's house today and i let him wear one when we went to the movies and it looked so perfect on him. he's so beautiful :)

he worse the necklace to his dnd session and apparently

ok it's the next morning now and i'm feeling much better lol. it's all fine. i'm going to try and start being a little more active on here just to get my mind back to the better habits i had from last august.

i hope all of you are doing well and i genuinely wish the best for all of you this year :)

a couple of actual school things

taking a course on human sexuality which will be interesting

taking another one on cognitive processes

i need to start getting closer to some of my professors so i can have more bonds and connections and be able to get letters of reference and actually feel good about it

additionally, two of my psych classes this semester are from the same professor i had last semester and i'm hoping to get a lot closer to her and show myself as a promising student