#english literature students will understand the pain

[softcarebears]

when you finished to revise all the 15 poems but now you revised only 3 short stories out of 10 and the exam is at 12h🥶 man i think im gonna revise only the notes of the rest of the short stories i'm tired AND THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE TO REVISE ALL 25 OF THESE FOR THEM TO ONLY GIVE YOU 2 IN THE FRIKIN EXAM....YOU FUCKERS THIS IS EXPLOITATION🤬🤡

[mostotherthings]

The On1y One's ending is pre-empting you for a reunion, there is hope for the future

Can you believe, I sat down with my father for his advice on this. I must disclaim, I am an English-language user, but I know enough Mandarin to get by. Together with my father and Baidu, and after thinking about this for a few nights, my thoughts on that… the ending is hopeful – but bittersweet

The literature teacher starts off Episode 11 with the reciting of the poem 江城子 (Melody of a River Town) by Su Shi (otherwise, Su Dongpo) translations for this poem is taken from this site

十年生死兩茫茫。Ten years of separation by the immeasurable distance between life and death

不思量， 自難忘。  Is not something I'd like to think about, yet unforgettable it is already.

千里孤墳, A thousands miles away is your lonely grave,

無處話淒涼, I've nowhere to visit and my grief express.

縱使相逢應不識，Even if we could meet, we probably wouldn't each other recognise,

塵滿面，鬢如霜。For my faces has aged and my sideburns greyed as I have life's hardship sustained.

The teacher continues:

這就傳達了一種經過時間的滄桑 This expresses the inevitable change in the circumstances of life

再見面時 When we meet again

卻已幽冥兩隔的哀戚 We have already mourned our separation because of life and death

At this point, the teacher asks if the students understand. At my first watch, I’m going what the ever loving HECK (we were taught Mandarin for usage, not literature interpretation). My Mandarin is not even Taiwanese high school level, so I had to go study. Anyway!

The second part of the poem they do not go through in the show, is following,

夜來幽夢忽還。Last night out of the blue I dreamt of homecoming,

小軒窗，正梳妝。And there you were, putting on make-up after combing your hair.

相顧無言，Our eyes meet yet reticent we remained,

惟有淚千行。Yet rolling down our cheeks are tears forming far too many trails.

料得年年腸斷處，Then I realise we are where I'd visit year after year when my heart aches

明月夜，短松。On a night with a bright moon, on the hillock, among the pine saplings I'd stay.

Director Liu has indicated- instead of a 6 year separation according to the book (which I am TRYING to read; emphasis, trying), they have changed it to a ten year period. Su Shi wrote this poem 10 years after the death of his first wife, who died at the age of 17, exactly the age that the boys are now. It means the boys' separation, according to the poem, is inevitable. This pain, will be inevitable too, as Su Shi was known to be very affected by the loss of his first wife

Notice that the poem also states the night with a bright moon- this probably leads to the next part of the  show, where Jiang Tian tells Sheng Wang that he chooses the moon.

But the teacher follows up with asking Jiang Tian to explain what the idiom 破鏡重圓 means. (Note: when I asked my Dad his interpretation of it, his first words, 'this idiom is not for just anybody getting back together, it is meant for husbands and wives, you know that, right?' and I swear I disassociated for a moment)

Jiang Tian notes well- it is the story of Le Chang, a princess from the dying Chen Dynasty. Seeing that the country is at war, her husband Xu Deyan tells her, as she is a great beauty, after the war is lost, they are bound to be separated as she will be given or taken as a spoil of war by the invaders. He tells her that if they both survive the war, there will be a chance that they can meet again. He breaks a bronze mirror and tells her on the fifth 元宵节 (fifteenth day of the first lunar month) after the loss of the war, to bring the mirror out and pretend to sell it- he will look for her amongst the vendors, so that they will have a chance to meet again.

After the war, Le Chang princess indeed is taken away and the lovers separated. Every year on the agreed date, Xu Deyan takes his half of the mirror and goes to sell it, and as he traverses the vendors, one year he finds a servant selling the other half, and it was then that he finds out that Le Chang is now a concubine of a ranking official of the new dynasty. In sadness, Xu Deyan writes a poem on it and gives his half to the servant.

Jiang Tian continues as the light gets brighter behind him, and his explanation is the content of the poem that Xu Deyan wrote to his wife in the half of his bronze mirror

可是這個美好故事的背後 But behind this beautiful story

卻有很深的意思 There is a deep meaning

在他們無法詳見的幾十年 In the decades that they were unable to meet

他們只能看著鏡子 They could only look at the mirror

思念當初美好的對方 And miss the other beautiful partner

團員後 Even after the reunion

在鏡中 In the Mirror

我再也看不到你當初嫦娥版的倩影 I can no longer see your Chang-Er like silhouette

只留下歲月映照後  Only leaving the impression left behind by the years

淒涼的月光 A desolate moonlight

GUYS, c’mon man I’m dying at this point. This mirrors the poem that Xu Deyan wrote to Le Chang on the mirror

鏡與人��去，鏡歸人未歸。無復嫦娥影，空留明月輝

The mirror goes away with the person, but the mirror returns without the person. Chang'er's shadow is gone, the bright moon remains in the sky (this is from Google translate, don't come at me LOL, but you get the gist)

And perhaps they are saying now, that even reunited 10 years later, it will not be the same- you and I, will not be the same, and we will have this pain of separation be an impression on our lives in the future.

The story is psyching us up for the 10-year separation coming up ahead in the nerd-iest way and I’m still dying here please

And it’s JIANG TIAN that says this, in his glasses, and wearing his vest, the curtains of the room drawn leaving only 1 source of light behind him. He takes off his glasses at the end- two lenses signifying 2 halves of the mirror, perhaps???

The ending of the story is- the mirror is returned to Le Chang princess by her servant, and after receiving it, she goes into a turmoil so deep she doesn't eat or sleep or even wash. Her new husband, after hearing the news, allows her to return to Xu Deyan. Her new husband summons Xu Deyan to the residence and the lovers are reunited, at which he says 破鏡重圓 (literally- the broken mirror, has become whole again) - could this be a hint that any opposition to their relationship will finally be relented after a forced separation?

Of course in the later ensuring conversation, Jiang Tian expresses that he chooses the moon (ie, Sheng Wang)

Perhaps like Xu Deyan, he has already made up his mind, or prepared for the inevitable separation. I will wait for you, and not only that, I will find a way that we will be back together again.

At the end of Episode 12, another Su Shi poem appears (translations from here

山頭斜照卻相迎 The setting sun (slanting) over the mountain offers greetings still

回首向來蕭瑟處 Looking back over the bleak passage survived

歸去The return in time

也無風雨也無晴 Shall not be affected by windswept rain or shine

THE RETURN IN TIME SHALL NOT BE AFFECTED BY WINDSWEPT RAIN OR SHINE and it’s RAINING OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM (lying on the ground in a puddle, POETRY)

I’m also going to link the Baidu article for this poem (if you wish to translate it for a read), but basically, the poem expresses the author returning after a drinking session when it starts to rain, and when everyone is rushing to return and to look for shelter, he takes his time going back. The teacher continues with the explanation of this -

這些日子他被流放到外地 In the days where he was in exile

寫下抒發自己內心的文字 he wrote down the feelings he had in his heart

他表示他不會害怕 He expressed that he would not be afraid

他會勇往直前 He will forge bravely ahead

且不會畏懼 and without fear

他也很期待 He also looks forward

回去的日子to the day he will return

And here, they focus on Jiang Tian tying the broken bracelet back and pronouncing that he will wait for Sheng Wang’s return.

The rain outside the window is the beginning of the separation! The bleak passage survived from the poem!

To match this poem, the POV changes to Sheng Wang

暗戀是一個人的兵荒馬亂 To be secretly in love with someone is a turmoil (the idiom 兵荒馬亂 literally translates to soldiers in a panic and horses in a mess – the war/fortress analogy is BACKKK)

因為太喜歡�� Because I like you so much

所以我如臨深淵 如履薄冰 I feel like I am facing a deep abyss, like walking on thin ice (the pure linguistic poetry of this line, it kills me)

以至於差點忘了 to the point I almost forgot

我17歲了I’m 17

這個年紀裡 整個世界都是我的 At this age, the world is my oyster

不需要猶豫 No need for hesitation

也用不著權衡 And I don’t have to compromise

我無堅不摧 I’m indestructible

也無所不能 And there’s nothing I can’t do

And the entire dialogue ends with Jiang Tian's voice asking Sheng Wang, Can you try to pass the test and return?

And Sheng Wang says Yes

Is it the test for returning to Class A, or is it the test of the NEXT TEN YEARS?

[tiktowafel]

Headcanons for Neito Monoma?

yup here you go! tagging @fabpops1 because she also asked for Monoma headcanons

no coloring today because the one i made two years ago sucks and i don't feel like remaking it :'D honestly i feel like Horikoshi and I both half-assed his casual clothing sketch lol

him and his parents were all born in Japan but he has some relatives in Belgium, whom he really enjoys visiting. it's the main reason why he seems so interested in european culture (his profile page states he likes french cuisine and franco-belgian comics)

he can also speak french very well thanks to that

he's also fluent in english (though he has trouble understanding Pony sometimes - he's much better at reading and writing than he is at listening) and has a basic knowledge of several other languages. he doesn't really expect it to come handy at any point in the future, he just learns them because he finds it fun

besides that he also likes history, classic literature, theatre... yeah this guy is a huge humanities-leaning nerd and i don't accept criticism

nor do i accept the fact that he's supposed to be a bad student in canon?? like, he's so smart and also competitive, no way he isn't top of the class... he may not be as good in science and math as he is in japanese and history, but nothing an all-nighter can't fix

in middle school he was part of the drama and debate clubs. and while hero course students aren't supposed to join clubs because they should focus on hero work, he managed to argue his way into the same clubs in UA by saying that his theatrics and speeches are an important part of his hero persona. Kuroiro joined the drama club alongside him (didn't contribute to the argument at all, just nodded wisely every time Monoma presented a point)

class 1-B's culture festival performance being a stage play was actually his idea! it didn't really go the way he intended (he did NOT expect it to turn into a four-way crossover more ambitious than infinity war) but he greatly enjoyed performing in it anyway! maybe even too much

his knowledge of quirks rivals Midoriya's. he researches them a lot mostly to help his copy quirk but also out of genuine curiosity

he often helps his classmates with training their quirks and comes up with new techniques to try out. he's particularly good at it because he can actually try other people's quirks himself, which gives him a better understanding of how they function and what their limitations are

^ which is why i believe he'd make an awesome hero course teacher!! (in all might's role - i don't think making him anyone's homeroom teacher would be a good idea, he'd be just as biased towards his class as he is now lmao) it's definitely one of my favorite "future" headcanons

he praises his classmates' quirks a lot and says he considers them all great, but he does have preferences when it comes to copying them

his favorites are Yanagi's poltergeist (somewhat boring, but easy to understand and very versatile both in battle and everyday life), Tokage's lizard tail splitter (he almost died when he copied it for the first time because he barely managed to put his body back together before his quirk's time limit ran out, but that didn't stop him - he always found Tokage's quirk very fun and useful, so he put a lot of work into fully figuring it out and now he uses it pretty often), Shoda's twin impact (Monoma's physical strength.... leaves a lot to be desired, and the second impact always being significantly stronger than the first helps make up for it) and Kuroiro's black (you can move around very fast and it's fun :) )

quirks he does not like copying Honenuki's softening (fun, but quite difficult to control and avoiding collateral damage with such a destructive quirk is a pain in the ass. Honenuki understands that perfectly) and Shishida's beast (just... really not his thing lol)

for some reason i see a lot of people headcanon that he has pet ferrets, and you know what? i agree. he does seem like a ferret person

prefers smart clothing, a polo shirt is the most casual he'll go. he only ever wears tshirts for exercise (which he hates doing lol) and probably doesn't own a single hoodie

in general i think he has a good eye for elegant design... his dorm room is very stylish and nicely coordinated too. i think one of the light novels also describes it as "vaguely french" and yeah that fits

while he tries to keep his room neat and tidy on the outside, all his drawers and cabinets are horribly messy

he's that one kid who has like 17 different allergies and is completely useless if he forgets his meds on a spring day (spring is his least favorite season due to this. i think winter would be his fave)

luckily he is not allergic to dairy so he can eat as much stinky french cheese as he wants 👍

speaking of food i think he's a pretty good cook actually

prefers listening to older (and mostly foreign) music and is a huge snob about it

honestly he probably acts the same about movies and books too

arguing with people on the internet is one of his favorite ways to spend his free time. if there are no 1-A students around, you can always show off your impressive vocabulary by bullying random internet strangers with bad taste in movies!

almost everyone in 1-B considers him a friend despite his... anti-1a bullshit, because he's just really nice and helpful to people he likes + he's a great leader! however he's closest to Kuroiro (friendly drama king rivals! they're constantly arguing about dumb shit using the fanciest words they can think of and they're always trying to outperform each other in the drama club meetings they both attend, but they love each other trust me <3 also Monoma helps Kuroiro with studying because he sucks at school), Pony (when he's not trying to trick her into insulting 1-A he can be pretty helpful with japanese, he also likes listening to her talk about her home country), Honenuki (he's Pony's best friend, so you usually befriend them both at once, but Monoma thinks he's also interesting to talk to by himself) and Tetsutetsu (they don't share many interests but Monoma hates exercising so he has Tetsutetsu force him to do it. his positive energy certainly helps a lot)

ever since they got to know each other during their joint training fight, Monoma's been using 100% of his persuasion skills to convince Shinso to join 1-B instead of 1-A. Shinso is conflicted to say the least

aaand that's all i have for him! hope you enjoyed these!!

[v3nusxsky]

Just re-sending this ask/request! :D

Hello !! Just dropping in to say hi and maybe ask a request (I feel bad 'cause I might be swamping you or annoying you with requests TvT)

Hope you're feeling good today!

And I just wanted to share something that happened to me (might be a good idea for a fic tbh 🥲 especially a platonic Larissa x student! reader). So there's this competition that I joined, my english teacher mentored me. I was very confident with my skills, and she really believed in me a whole lot (She saw my entry for the competition and gave me a thumbs up, that's a really good thing). When the results came out, I lost. We were both confused, because we know I had a great chance in entering the top ranks but welp just have to deal with it.

When the results came out, I was busy answering some worksheets. She came up to me and asked if I was okay, and she told me that the results came out. I was laughing out my nervousness, and when she showed me I didn't know what to say. She then immediately hugged me and told me it was okay and she was still proud of me (she really brought up my mommy issues that day. All throughout the day, until the awarding program, she comforted me. Received tons of hugs from her and it makes the pain of losing a bit better really.

I'm sorry for rambling hajdbchd again I hope you're okay!!! Sending lots of love and hugs <33

- 🦝

Proud of you sweetheat| h&c

*Authors note~ I hope I do this some justice and I'm so proud of you for putting yourself out there*

Trigger warnings~ none?

Prompt~ see ask^^^^

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Larissa had been working with you recently to further the clear skill you had for literature. She knew you were fairly real rounded with English but your favourites were poetry and creative writing. She couldn't help but suggest you for the creative writing competition coming up, she knew you had a clear talented and wanted to help build your confidence in your abilities. She had every faith in your submission , after all she'd been reading over it to help with your thought process and brain storming.

Larissa watched how hard you worked, desperately trying to find the idea that felt best. The smile you wore the day you came to her office to inform her you knew what your submission was. Then she was able to watch you turn a rough plot into a beautiful story. Your proud but tired smile the night you finished your story and presented it to her. It was truly a joy to watch someone as talented as you work. You were practically beaming when Larissa gave you a thumbs up and a smile after reading your work.

Result day, you anxiously waited to be called to her office, but Larissa Weems was on phone call after phone call trying understand how on earth you'd lost to someone from Jericho high, she felt their entry was lacking compared to yours and truly she felt that this could be some sort of prejudice due to you having abilities. But even after all the phones calls she came up blank, they were adamant that it was all fair so she had to let you know despite how much she knew it would break your little heart.

You were called to her office around lunch time and immediately you sensed the mood due to your ability. "I didn't get it did I?" You whimpered and you received a sad nod. "Sweetheart, are you okay?" She knew it was a loaded question and attempted to keep her feelings neutral to help your ability. Your face feel which caused her to immediately come and hold you close. "Oh darling, I'm so sorry I don't understand why, I've been trying to figure it out all morning."  She murmured stroking threw hair as you accidentally projected your disappointment and sadness at the woman.

"You will always be my favourite palm tree and my favourite writer, when you get that book of your published I want a copy, and when you become all famous I hope you remember me and know I'll come to every signing to show you my support. I couldn't be prouder of you and I have so much faith in your ability darling, never give up." Her words rang around your head all day, anytime she could she would find ways to comfort you and reminded you of how much she enjoyed your stories.

Word count~ 761

Tag list ~ @enchantressb @fortheloveofaproditesblessings @medeaswifey @scream-queenlover @larrisalessopet @briennethebeautysstuff @xx-state-of-mind-xx @i-write-sometimes-maybe @farahtissaiamyloves @just-your-casual-nerd @pebbleswritessometimes

[anime97-99]

NARUTO COMPLEXITY

⚠️Sorry, this is going to be long and I may sound repetitive at times!! I have to say this is my point of view thought I tried to make it as objective as possible!! Hope you like it!! Also I apologize for a bad use of grammar and vocabulary since English is not my first language!!⚠️

This post is dedicated to exploring and analyzing Naruto’s characters through the whole series including Boruto. Starting with Naruto, he is supposed to be a pure and innocent boy, naive who doesn’t understand feelings and seeks acceptance from other people in search to experience those positive feelings such love, friendship and what feels like to have a family.

Since Naruto was young he tried to get attention from other people even if this attention resulted in disgust towards him, he acted out of fear of being alone, just imagine a child living alone in an old flat located on the outskirts of the village which is probably a dangerous area full of criminals arm with swords, shuriken…

Like this isn’t enough he is hated by the whole village without him knowing the reason and the only support came in money from Sarutobi, I suppose being the third hokage took a lot of time and he did what he could with Naruto but at the same time I think you shouldn’t just give money for the rent to only a child and that’s it. I think he wanted to secure his image at the same time protecting Naruto and the villagers from harm (if the villagers noticed that the hokage was supporting “the demon” they probably would have started to distrust Sarutobi and a fight between the higher ups and the villagers to get ride of Naruto would have taken place because of the fear of thinking that Sarutobi is allying with the enemy), so he chose to spend less time with him, which is not the best decision but it was made with good intentions.

Then Naruto has a goal and a dream, to be recognized and accepted by everyone becoming the hokage, that translates to turn the hate into love, the naive dream of being loved by everyone (falling in love with being in love, like Ada said, (fall in love with the love from others, when mother said “you just loved how much I loved you” in the movie Mother, which I recommend, they touched on this topic) Naruto is really idealistic and romantic (romantic not as love but as romanticism), themes that are presented in classic literature and offend end in tragedy, It almost looks like part of Naruto is heavily inspired by Romanticism literature, for example some similarities are that it is really idealistic, it has drama, love, tragedy, though the ending may not be the best it could be actually be considered a happy one.

The definition of Naruto’s personality as a selfless and self-sacrifice person. His worse fear is to be ignore and be alone, that is why he is loud and problematic, to attract eyes towards him. He is not self centered, he is the whole opposite, he cares a lot about what other people say that is why he is explosive since young, he is sad and shows that sadness with anger and a fleeing personality.

The first person that makes him not feel alone is Sasuke and this is really important, we have two kids with problems, they are obviously different from Naruto point of view but then one afternoon he sees Sasuke alone and they meet eyes, this is a really important scene they see themselves reflected in each other eyes that is why Naruto finally recognizes Sasuke and Sasuke sees Naruto who used to be only an annoying child, and with this it shows an union, two children who hates each other because of their differences have a lot in common and ends in them being the only ones to truly understand each other pain and loneliness. Thought this is more complicated since Sasuke knows about love, what is a family, what is friendship and he is popular and loved by teachers and students, but he also experienced since really a young age the pressure to be part of an important clan and to have a genius brother being constantly compare to you by everyone even his family, though his mother tried to calm him down by saying Itachi is different this is really bad to say to a child!! This comment will make him think that he is less that Itachi and will create distance between his brother and family, it will end in an inferiority complex.

Through Naruto’s series he will be so obsessed with revenge he will forget about himself and others, hurting the people that loves him in the process, he is so fixated in revenge that he forgets there’s more than just killing his brother but he is stuck in the past, showing obvious signs of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), OCD (obsessive compulsive syndrome). He could be compare with Coriolanus Snow from the Hunger Games who loved someone, looked like a good person and was loved by his family but his obsession with power made him a villain and someone to be feared. Like Niccolò Machiavelli said “the end justifies the means”, this is their ideology, thought Sasuke is still unable to kill Naruto, his feelings towards him are so big that killing him is worse than committing suicide.

Following Naruto, he is someone who only knows about negative feelings that is why he seeks acceptance an love, he is in love with the idea of love like Ada, he chooses Sakura as his crush because she is really intelligent and a very good student (I believe Sakura has the same fear as Naruto, she was bullied because of her forehead and she wants to be liked by everyone, so she studies hard to be the best student and if Sasuke who is the most popular and handsome boy sees her then those bullies who constantly hurt her about her appearance will shut their mouth, so just as Naruto she wants to be seen and recognized, though the way they act is different, Sakura is really insecure and has to prove herself through others praise this probably because of the bulling even if Ino is there they got separated at some point which made Sakura limit herself even more, she is like a white canvas that change not because of what she likes but what the others want to see on her. Sasuke likes long hair then she will have long her even though she obviously prefers a shortcut, that is why Ino was really important in her life, she was the first to tell her she is beautiful and she doesn’t need to listen to other bullies but Sakura necessity of being recognize through Sasuke and Ino liking Sasuke made them get separated and a healthier development for Sakura to explore herself with the help of someone to support and guide her as an equal was stopped). Sakura didn’t fall in love with Sasuke, she fell in love with the idea he represented.

Also Sakura’s inner voice is totally normal, it is not her having another personality it is just showing her subconscious and unconscious mind who everyone has. Just stop and analyze yourself then you will notice a tiny voice going on an on, it is just your brain thinking, it is completely normal. This reflects real Sakura, what she desires compare of how she acts to be liked by other people, or didn’t you notice for example a friend showing you a dress and you telling them is beautiful to not hurt their feelings but inside you are thinking it is horrible, it’s the same thing with Sakura is very human!!

You can’t analyze Naruto’s characters like Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke without taking account of their closest influence including each other, Kurama, Jiraya, Iruka, Ino, Tsunade, Sarutobi, Kakashi, Gaara, Rock Lee and maybe Sai with the other friends such as Shikamaru and Choji… So continuing with Naruto who works really hard the same as Sasuke and Sakura (even thought he doesn’t know and thinks of then just as genio is), but contrary of them he doesn’t obtain results ending in frustration, (thought he does gardening which is something psychologist recommend, is really good to maintain the mind relax focused and concentrate in just one thing and make yourself conscious of reality, this is to make the brain take a break from overthinking which saturates it, make it concentrate in just one thing at a time will help you to control yourself, it could be through meditation, but also through gardening, doing crafts, reading whatever you like always doing it without pressure just to enjoy, understand your feelings and let them pass being conscious of them but not avoid or succumb to them just taking notice of reality and that those negative thoughts and feelings exist and you can just let the past without judging yourself), (judging is negative while feedback is positive).

At the beginning of Naruto, since the first episode, you see Iruka as a parental figure to Naruto who loves him and supports him, who scolds him and teaches him, who protects him and accepts him, and Naruto realizes he is not alone, but also discovering that he is seen as a monster because he has a “demon” inside him. This gives him a reason to prove himself as a separate entity from Kurama and confirms the possibility of being loved and accepted because of Iruka (a villager who feared and hated him from killing his parents, but Iruka realized that he didn’t hate Naruto but the demon inside him thanks to the guidance from Sarutobi), and that is enough for him to keep trying.

Naruto’s goal to be hokage is getting stronger, but he is too worry about it to stop and analyze himself the same happened with Sakura and Sasuke.

The boy wants to love and be loved but he didn’t even know the meaning of this feelings that is why Naruto, the series, is about self discovery, the most important part when people realized what they are or want to be is during their teen years that is why we see the characters going through a roller coaster of emotions!!

Kishimoto has called Naruto too idealistic and naive who didn’t understand Sasuke, Sasuke as a pure and self-centered and Sakura as more than just cuteness!!

If we analyze it I interpret that Naruto love for Sasuke is too pure and he is too naive, someone that doesn’t understand love and is experiencing it, he is supposed to realized that he loves Sasuke in a different way and there are different kinds of love but it is still too early to understand, Sasuke who understands love and experienced all kinds of love realized that what he feels for Naruto is romantic love, that is why he gets frustrated at him when called his brother or friend, but Naruto that at the end explains what means to be his friend, (which is the same Ada said in Boruto to Mitsuke when explaining her love to Kawaki) he realized that he was special and their feelings were the same even if Naruto didn’t notice the difference.

And both, Ada and Naruto called themselves fools because of love!!

Now Sakura is not cute, it was said by Kishimoto, but for real being cute or not is not that important that is why Kishimoto says she is more than just cuteness!! She is intelligent and determined and if she wanted she could be really powerful remember she is the best at understanding and controlling chakra a quick learner, and she is the smartest of the three but her fixation in Sasuke limited her.

Talking about Naruto’s development as a person, for me Naruto puts a lot of limits on himself because he wants to pleased everyone and is scare of what other people will think of him. Naruto’s world is closed minded, with traditional thoughts, the representation of Japan at that time. The same way Sakura chose Sasuke, Naruto chose Sakura. Though I think he realized that what he felt for Sakura is the same he felt for others like Shikamaru or Choji, still since he liked Sakura a lot as a friend he thought it was good to love her, he didn’t understand what romantic love is, he just wanted to experience it, to explore it and to not be lonely.

His self dicovery soon would be questioned in the form of Sai, a sexualize boy who will make Naruto question his sexaulity, Naruto has never show interest in any woman, (he actually show interest in one and that one looked like Sasuke and that’s it) even Jiraya thinks it is strange for a teenager full of hormones to not get interested in beautiful woman or describe porn as boring. But Naruto gets loud and nervous towards Sai, he gets shy and blush when bathing with naked men and protected himself hiding under the water (it reminds me of the bath scene from Mulan), to make it more obvious for the readers Kishimoto makes Yamato say that Naruto shouldn’t act strange between men, showing what Naruto felt and Yamato acting as their society that they categorize his behavior as strange and not normal.

Naruto starts to understand himself and the possibility of being sexually attract to men but is afraid of what other people would say and rejects himself, he is just a repressed boy. He doesn’t like Sai he is a person who doesn’t care about being labelled and shows interest in Naruto without embarrassment (because yes, Sai is someone who doesn’t understand himself not his feelings but being with Naruto and Sakura made him understand what friendship was, the way he act showing it made Naruto nervous overthinking things because he was attracted to him and being too close made him nervous at how careless Sai was). He also got nervous and overreacted with Kakashi when he praised him thinking he likes him, and when ask what he is thinking about, when he is thinking about Sasuke changes and says he is thinking of going on a date with Sakura, which could be also a way to make others don’t worry about him being so upset and depressed about Sasuke or it could be his repressed feelings towards him, which he unconsciously has but is not aware of them and their meaning.

In Naruto Shippuden we see a development of Sakura’s character, in the first part she cut her hair symbolizing breaking through her fixation in being and do everything to please Sasuke, now in Shippuden to me she started to see herself as a whole, with her own identity, separating herself from Sasuke.

The decision of Sasuke leaving was positive for her character, she found a new goal and her feelings for Sasuke became more dull. I would say that see started to see Naruto as a love interest, someone good for her, a good friend that respects her but since she is observant and intelligent realized Naruto’s real feelings at the end and decided to not confess or she didn’t realized her feelings towards Naruto because she was too fixated in Sasuke and was confused at her change of heart.

For Sasukeas I said before, he always knew about Naruto’s feelings that is why when Naruto says that for him Sasuke is a friend he looks angry an confuse, as Kishimoto said Naruto is just too naive to understand Sasuke frustration, he showed it pretty clear, and as a Chinese proverb says “A picture is worth a thousand words”

Naruto is idealistic and naive, in this picture he is oblivious and daydreams imagining his own world without realizing that his world is centered around Sasuke and him, and that makes Sasuke frustrated because Naruto doesn’t understand his feelings. Naruto is obviously drawn in a compromising way, he is wearing shorts and a shirt, or maybe he is not wearing a shirt with the angle we can’t tell for sure, that shows a lot of skin, Sasuke is supposed to be thirsty but he is lost looking at him that he forgot the water, then we have Sakura looking at Sasuke, and Kakashi who is in his own world Xd. The water could be a representation of arousal, sexual deviance and the repression of desire.

Even thought at the end Sasuke understands Naruto, the guilt overtakes him and he decides to leave the village for redemption hoping that when he returns Naruto will be there for him but he is not, Naruto moved on and is getting married and Sasuke distanced himself from him too hurt to attend the wedding, also sending a poor congratulating letter which feels more like a mocking than anything else, though we don’t know what happened for two years, from Sasuke leaving to Naruto marrying Hinata, so maybe many things could have happened, I say this because Naruto seems to have changed, he looked serious when marring Hinata and he sleeps in another room separate from her, he is a workalcoholic and spends little time with his kids, he is a bad father.

People will get mad saying it doesn’t make sense, Naruto doesn’t understand love in The Last and he is a bad father but they forget that he never had a father or mother and he doesn’t understand the different kinds of love so through his adulthood he realized his feelings for Sasuke, that is why when Kurama said that Sasuke and Naruto are like brothers he said that he never felt it that way, Sasuke has Itachi and Kurama is like a brother to him not labeling his relationship with Sasuke.

Remember I said that he didn’t fell in love with Sakura but since he liked her as a friend and wasn’t able to differentiate the different types of love he confused it as a crush probably because he liked her (as a friend) and she was a girl.

Sakura was confused because she knew about Naruto’s feelings for Sasuke but at the end decided not to comment on it showing her dislike and opinion as a reflection of Naruto’s closed minded society, which is a critic to Japan’s society at the time, maybe it was not that and she just thought that Sasuke could hurt him again as she saw Naruto suffered during Shippuden. So instead of making him realized his feelings she encouraged Hinata thinking that she would be better for him, I believe she did it with good intentions but the decision she made was made based on her values and that wasn’t the correct decision for Naruto.

This way of thinking also shows in Iruka, his parental figure, and Kakashi, they know but they don’t say anything, this is obvious when Iruka gets mad at Naruto deciding to marry Hinata but doesn’t encourage him to talk with Sasuke, Iruka suffers in secret and thinks he did wrong not talking with him but at the end he will just observe (we are talking about Iruka, he is extremely strict, diplomatic and a person who always follows rules and he didn’t prepared anything to say in the wedding day that should be enough in what he truly though of it), Kakashi also knows but he never served as an emotional support at that scale those were Jiraya, who died, and Iruka who is part of the same village, maybe he is just afraid of what they will think and how could affect Naruto’s reputation since his “dream” is to be hokage, which actually was to experience love and be loved (like Ada) and not feel lonely.

The last two pictures compare a Sasuke’s card vs a formal card to give in a wedding and if you notice the villagers card is like the formal one but Sasuke is different, like making fun of it!!

As this quotes says, “hell is paved with good intentions not with bad ones. All men mean well”. George Bernard Shaw

“For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.” Simon Wiesenthal

“Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.” James C. Collins

A little poem reflecting Sasuke losing Naruto;

what's it to me

if you love me or

miss me or need me

when you are doing

nothing to be with me

if you can't allow me to be

the love of your life I will be

the loss of your life instead By Rupi Kaur

Japan at the time practiced arranged marriage, a marriage without love is not hard to imagine happening in Naruto’s world, even more between people with high occupations to unite important families. Hinata also commented on it.

The people that loves us can hurt us even if they have the best intentions.

Actually there are a lot of things that I didn’t say but I decided to stop here because if not it would be too long and for being repetitive!! Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed it and feel free to comment!!

Also if you watched Shang-Chi and the legend of the ten rings you may notice why Kishimoto is so excited with Destin Daniel Cretton he really likes him because he is open minded, but actually the film when watching it reminded me a lot of Naruto!!

[rivercelt]

Not just a useless degree: the importance of the humanities and social sciences

I am Caitlin Sovana McGregor, a student of the Humanities. I am a third year Philosophy and History student at one of the best universities in Africa. In previous years, I have also taken English Literature, Politics, International Relations, and Sociology. As you have probably deduced by my subject choices, I am extremely passionate about the field of Humanities. I believe that it is the single most important, yet sadly overlooked sphere of academia, and even life in general. 

This is what I will be dedicating my entire page to. It pains me to see how neglected and mocked my field is, and I plan to educate as many people as possible on the importance and growing relevance of the social sciences and humanities.

For those of you who don’t know, the humanities is a field of study that, according to Encyclopædia Britannica, is concerned with humans, societies, cultures, and their thinking, values, knowledge, evolution, creations, and histories. To put it more simply, the field studies, well, humanity. Some disciplines within the humanities are: history, art, literature, philosophy, sociology, politics, anthropology, psychology, etc. Even disciplines such as law and economics fall within the scope of the humanities and social sciences. 

Unfortunately, with the rise of anti-intellectualism, and the capitalistic desire to do everything only in pursuit of profit, the humanities and social sciences have been very lowly regarded as a field of study. You might have heard STEM, finance, or business students say things like “what job can you even do with a degree in the humanities?”, or “what are you going to do with a Bachelor of Arts, work at McDonald’s?”, or my personal favourite, “can’t you just Google the things you learn in your degree?”. 

I strongly and fully believe that the humanities and social sciences are just as, if not more important than any other fields of study. Engineers design the physical aspects of the world for us to live in it more efficiently, medical doctors provide the solutions and preventions to injuries, diseases, and illnesses that would threaten our personal and collective development, lawmakers and lawyers design and maintain the structural aspects of society, scientists provide breakthroughs that could alter ways of life for the better, information technicians and technologists innovate and create methods for better communication and access to information. These are all important careers and aspects of life, but what do they all have in common? What is the golden thread tying all these very important spheres together? Humanity. Humans. Society. The very existence of people is both why and how these fields of study exist in the first place. Society is at the core of our human experience. So why wouldn’t the study thereof be important?

We need political and sociological thinkers to help us understand the complex powers and structures that shape society and our individual lives, the impacts of the relationships between individuals, groups, and institutions, and the extent to which change is possible on these levels. We need historians to analyse the structures, systems, individuals, and societies of the past in order to understand the social, political, and economic environments we are faced with today, and prevent the cycles of oppression from repeating themselves. This field is especially important in a country like mine, where cycles of oppression have repeated themselves over and over (colonisation and the brutality towards indigenous South Africans, followed by cruelty by the British towards Afrikaners, which later resulted in the oppression of non-Afrikaner South Africans by Afrikaner nationalists in the form of apartheid, followed by a long and complex continuation of oppression, even after the end of the regime). We need literary thinkers to explore the human pattern of storytelling, and how this practice can sometimes reveal more about humanity than a purely factual and explicit account of things. We need anthropologists to guide us through the evolution of societies and cultures, so that we may celebrate diversity and respect and understand our differences and similarities. We need philosophers to question literally everything, to relentlessly seek answers and knowledge, to study knowledge and the nature of reality itself, to teach us how to think critically, and to create a world of new minds that may begin to unravel and dismantle the rigidity of conservative thinking, one debate at a time.

Not surprisingly, most people who hold the humanities in disdain have fallen into the capitalist trap of seeking a return on investment after their studies. People like this fail to recognise that a return on investment doesn’t always have to come in monetary form. Personally, I do not plan to live a lavish life after becoming a teacher, professor, or researcher in my department. And the greatest return on investment for me, would be to know that my work, which I have dedicated my life to, has had an impact on society, no matter how great or small. A return on investment for me would be knowing that, at the end of the day, I have imparted my knowledge onto a younger generation of our country, and that I’ve helped mould them into citizens who understand the complexities of life, and who can think critically, and understand themselves and each other. A return on investment for me would be knowing that I have encouraged someone to speak up about the injustices they see, and that under my tutorship, they are able to view these issues on a level deeper than most. A return on investment for me would be to see more and more students fall in love with the pursuit of knowledge. After all, the pursuit of knowledge is the only thing worth living for.

[odetojupiter]

this is absolutely random but I got caught up on your tag saying "I'm way too good at reading things that maybe aren't there" and listen. I don't know what you study (I remember you mentioning you take creative writing classes so??? sorry if you literally know this just trying to encourage you) but I study literature and in literary theory there's a lot of discussions about whether what the author wanted/meant/intended actually matters in interpretation and understanding literary works and well, a lot of theorists actually agree it doesn't so if you say it's there it's probably there, no matter if intentionally by the author, so ig please keep going off unapologetically we love to hear it

(also just in general, your analysis of the number three pretty much resonates a lot with Jacques Derrida's formal idea of deconstruction (basically tearing texts apart to the minute detail, and collecting and inter-connecting these details/words with associations of the reader to form a structure of meaning and it's all very abstract (a pain to learn during studies but cool to see in action!) so I just had to think about that)) yeah that's it have a great day

ahhh this is my first ever ask so thank u anon <333

and yeah, i did a joint honours english and creative writing degree (graduating in three weeks :/) and there were literary theory modules each year that were compulsory for single honours english students BUT because i was also in creative writing, i couldn’t actually take them bc they ran at the same time as my cw classes soooo all this to say that even tho i did study literature i wasn’t really able to study that much literary theory - tho of course theory is relevant in all lit modules but i didn’t take a class specifically for that. (i wanted to, cause i love that shit, but i wasn’t allowed) ((annoyingly in first year there was a module that covered not only advanced lit theory but also academic writing that i wasn’t able to take so i never learned how to write university essays? like that’s not inconvenient at all))

that being said, i’m of course familiar with the concept of intention vs interpretation mainly through barthes’ death of the author theory (and it comes up a lot in cw classes because in workshops people share every thought they have about your work and ur not allowed to defend urself!! cause ur intention doesn’t matter if someone interprets what you wrote a certain way!!!) and the thing is i get it, i do - and i love to analyse whatever i can, i tear things to shreds with no mind for intent - but i also know people outside of literary studies love to say shit just isn’t that deep.

im always watching and rewatching shows with one or two of my sisters and one of them especially makes fun of me a lot for analysing everything from the dialogue to delivery to lighting and staging and camera work because she thinks i get way too into it. she either stares at me blankly or tells me to shut up (which happens a lot it’s very annoying let me talk ffs) so i guess i mainly added that in the tags to ensure everyone knows that i know that i analyse a lot so hopefully no one feels the need to tell me?? i don’t know, i just get slightly self conscious about analysing things when i know i could be saying something slightly unhinged lmao.

but, i will of course, keep going off on here about aftg bc that’s what im here for lol (i got sad about not being able to share my thoughts anywhere)

oops forgot to say THANK YOU for reassuring me about my jean number 3 analysis i’m always thinking someone’s gonna say wtf r u on about mate 😭😭

[nicklloydnow]

“I thought of Sam Bankman-Fried’s numbskull posturing recently when I finally read Nathan Heller’s article about the “The End of the English Major” in the New Yorker. The account of the collapse of undergraduate interest in the humanities touched off a lot of anguish, pained tweets, and op-eds this past month. For me, it clarified something about the trajectory of culture in the recent past, and made me think about the increasing widespread popularity of something I’ll call Quantitative Aesthetics—the way numbers function more and more as a proxy for artistic value.

(…)

The most-shared tidbit from Heller’s piece were the lines from professors lamenting that her Ivy League students who are social-media natives no longer have the attention for reading literature: “The last time I taught The Scarlet Letter, I discovered that my students were really struggling to understand the sentences as sentences—like, having trouble identifying the subject and the verb.”

We’re talking about the period since 2011, the first college class since the introduction of the iPhone, and it is logical that mass adoption of such seductive and pervasive consumer technology has changed people’s relationship to culture.

But 2011-12 is also the first full college class since the financial crisis of 2008, and the other obvious culprit is the greater ruthlessness of the economy post Great Recession, the flight away from the “softness” of the humanities in a time when studying anything not directly seen as useful is viewed more and more as an unsustainable luxury.

(…)

As one student says in the article, “Even if I’m in the humanities, and giving my impression of something, somebody might point out to me, ‘Well, who was your sample?’ I mean, statistics is everywhere. It’s part of any good critical analysis of things.�� This provokes Heller to reflect, “I knew at once what [the student] meant: on social media, and in the press that sends data visualizations skittering across it, statistics is now everywhere, our language for exchanging knowledge.”

(…)

Nevertheless, there’s something called the McNamara Fallacy, a.k.a. the Quantitative Fallacy. It is summarized as “if it cannot be measured, it is not important.” The Heller article made me reflect on how a version of it is now very present, and growing, at the grassroots of taste.

On one level, this is seen in a rise of a kind of wonky obsession with business stats in fandoms, invoked as a way to convey the rightness of artistic opinions—what I want to call Quantitative Aesthetics. (There are actually scientists who study aesthetic preference in labs and use the term “quantitative aesthetics.” I am using it in a more diffuse way.)

It manifests in music. As the New York Times wrote in 2020 of the new age of pop fandom, “devotees compare No. 1s and streaming statistics like sports fans do batting averages, championship, wins and shooting percentages.” Last year, another music writer talked about fans internalizing the number-as-proof-of-value mindset to extreme levels: “I see people forcing themselves to listen to certain songs or albums over and over and over just to raise those numbers, to the point they don’t even get enjoyment out of it anymore.”

The same goes for film lovers, who now seem to strangely know a lot about opening-day grosses and foreign box office, and use the stats to argue for the merits of their preferred product. There was an entire campaign by Marvel super-fans to get Avengers: Endgame to outgross Avatar, as if that would prove that comic-book movies really were the best thing in the world.

On the flip side, indie director James Gray (of Ad Astra fame) recently complained about ordinary cinema-goers using business stats as a proxy for artistic merit: “It tells you something of how indoctrinated we are with capitalism that somebody will say, like, ‘His movies haven’t made a dime!’ It’s like, well, do you own stock in Comcast? Or are you just such a lemming that you think that actually has value to anybody?”

It’s not just financial data though. Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have recently become go-to arbitrators of taste by boiling down a movie’s value to a single all-purpose statistic. They are influential enough to alarm studios, who say the practice is denying oxygen to potentially niche hits because it “quantifies the unquantifiable.” (How funny to hear Hollywood execs echo Theodor Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: “If an empirically oriented aesthetics uses quantitative averages as norms, it unconsciously sides with social conformity.”)

As for art, I don’t really feel like I even need to say too much about how the confusion of price data with merit infects the conversation. It’s so well known it is the subject of documentaries from The Mona Lisa Curse (2008) to The Price of Everything (2018). “Art and money have no intrinsic hookup at all,” painter Larry Poons laments in the latter, stating the film’s thesis. “It’s not like sports, where your batting average is your batting average… They’ve tried to make it much like that, like the best artist is the most expensive artist.”

But where Quantitative Aesthetics is really newly intense across society—in art and everywhere—is in how social-media numbers (clicks, likes, shares, retweets, etc.) seep into everything as a shorthand for understanding how important something is. That’s why artist-researcher Ben Grosser created his Demetricator suite of web-browsing tools, which let you view social media stripped of all those numbers and feel, by their absence, the effect they are having on your attention and values.

(…)

Again: Data analysis, done with care, can yield insights of great depth (Albert-László Barabási has even argued for “dataism,” a kind of sophisticated data analysis, as an artform). But as an instrument used to justify consumer preference within a landscape of complex values, a Quantitative Aesthetic often just becomes a way to deal with the problem of not wanting to spend much time thinking—the opposite of deep thought.

If you walk into a wine store, you could get descriptions of various wines, taste them, decide whether you want something more “foxy” or more “herbaceous,” match the subtleties to your palette. But most people will probably just pick the bottle that has the price point they think suggests about the level of quality they are shooting for.

The “McNamara Fallacy” is named after one-time defense secretary Robert McNamara—a Harvard grad, like the students Heller talks to. A numbers whiz, he was the architect of the U.S.’s murderous, ultimately catastrophic Vietnam policy, and known for his obsession with “body counts” as the key metric of success.

McNamara apparatchik Leslie H. Gelb later recalled in Time magazine the debacle fueled by this quantitative mindset:

McNamara didn’t know anything about Vietnam. Nor did the rest of us working with him. But Americans didn’t have to know the culture and history of a place. All we needed to do was apply our military superiority and resources in the right way. We needed to collect the right data, analyze the information properly and come up with a solution on how to win the war.

(…)

Daniel Yankelovich, the sociologist who coined the term “McNamara Fallacy,” actually outlined it as a process, one that could be broken out into four steps of escalating intellectual danger. Here they are, as it is commonly broken down, with his commentary on each:

Measure whatever can be easily measured. (This is OK as far as it goes.)

Disregard that which can’t be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. (This is artificial and misleading.)

Presume that what can’t be measured easily really isn’t important. (This is blindness.)

Say that what can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist. (This is suicide.)

Based on the data I have, I’d say that we as a culture are approaching somewhere between the third and fourth steps.”

[oceangirl24]

Find The Word Tag - Mega edition

So, @mikaharuka and @mrsmungus got me on this so I'm combining all the words.

Words I was given: hurt, sharp, box, promise, notice, sky, green, plate, ice, fly, mercy, wave, deny, tall, cage

Words for you to find: fuel, orthodox, particular, representative, release, overview, planet, finish

Tagging to play (I'm pretty much hitting everyone. lol No pressure and please jump in if I didn't tag you): @mikaharuka @mrsmungus @kayedium-writes @lena-hills @writingpotato07 @winterlovesong1@tsunderewatermelon @bleepbloopbotz @hylianjo @zkang288- tagging in case this might be of interest.

Here we go!

These are all from Autumn in Philadelphia: The Return in no particular order.

Hurt

Fifteen minutes passed and Julia was half-way through her Spanish homework when she picked up her phone again.

Shawn watched her expectantly. “Dad respond?”

She scowled. “No.” And she texted him again. Again ten minutes after that. Again in another ten minutes. Julia was hurt and dumbfounded; he never ignored her. Ever.

Sharp

Shawn disagreed. “I don’t think too many teachers have given a student who hasn’t spoken to them in 17 years a lifelong home. I think what you did for me was unusual.”

“What I did was minimal, Shawn,” he argued. “I know some who have done much, much more.”

Shawn’s brow pinched together. He didn’t understand Jon’s reaction.

“How?”

Jon was quiet and a dark look settled in his eyes. He glanced as Shawn then quickly looked away as though it was too painful to look at him. “Some actually followed through and adopted their students.” Shawn didn’t know what to say. The words adopt, adoption, adopted always brought a sharp pain to his heart. Those were the words he had always wanted applied to him but they never had been. He inhaled deeply and tried to shrug it off. Jon was obviously struggling to let go of the past as much as he was. But he hadn’t come in here to make Jon feel bad.

Box

Jon nodded. “Jamie’s been asking me for the last three days how you get coffee from dirt. I guess I should have been paying more attention to why he was asking. Apparently, he thinks coffee grounds are dirt. Since I wasn’t giving him a satisfactory answer, he tried to test his theory himself.”

Shawn made a face. “Did he drink it?”

“Nah,” his father took a box of tea out of the cupboard. “Audrey chased him out of the kitchen last night and cleaned up a trail of dirt he left. He must have gotten as far as putting the dirt in the filter before she caught him.”

“How’d you’d find out?”

Jon scowled at him.

“Oh. Gross!”

Promise

All throughout junior high, her father promised her that he would be her English literature teacher and principal throughout high school.

This promise he repeated multiple times a year from sixth grade to eighth grade. At the beginning of eighth grade, the Abigail Adams High principal announced her retirement and it was a given that her father would take over. All that had to be done was for him to formally accept the offer which he said he planned to do just before the end of the year. But instead, he announced to the family the day before eighth grade graduation that he took the superintendent position for the next five years.

No one was expecting this, not even her mother.

Notice

She began with the easiest excuse for breaking the rules. “Shawn ignored me all day today. He was too busy with his friends to pay attention to me. When I tried to talk to him, he blew me off in favor of them. Grayson said he didn’t have time for him or Jamie either.”

“I noticed that, too. Sometimes when those three get together, they forget that anyone else exists,” Jon gave her a rueful smile. “Bothered you that much, huh?”

Sky

“Could the nail polish be Audrey’s?” Cory asked.

Topanga shook her head. “Audrey wears either Essie’s Ballet Slippers or Hard Candy in sky or mint. But mostly she wears Ballet Slippers.”

Green

“Look!” she breathed, nodding at the poster. “It wasn’t all green before!”

Shawn stared at the poster until Jon called for them to hurry up. It most certainly had not been all green before.

Plate

“I’m so glad that this worked out for you both,” she smiled, stacking pancakes on a plate. She took the eggs out of the refrigerator, handed them to him, and motioned for him to start cracking them.

“So am I. You know I was actually kind of jealous that Dad went out with Eli last week.” He frowned wondering where that came from.

Audrey gave him a curious look. “Why’s that?”

“I’ve been wantin’ to spend time to with him. Guess I felt he chose his best friend over me.”

Ice

But what about Topanga?

She had always been there with him but he could not recall her ever talking to him unless it was to make sarcastic remarks about his relationship with her husband. Essentially, they hadn’t really spoken in fifteen years. So he responded to her based on the way their friendship was when it had been put on ice and snapped back with fury, “Because I don’t want them to end up like your parents!”

Fly

Jon started to tap his fingers against the table again as he considered the question. Finally, he said, “I’d take Audrey and the kids somewhere away from everything and everyone, but not totally secluded. Somewhere with nice weather. Somewhere that we could fly in relatives, a few close friends occasionally. We’d need a rink with off-ice facilities nearby. But otherwise just us, no jobs, no interruptions. For about a year.”

Mercy

Suddenly, a wall appeared out of nowhere. Shawn slammed into it at Full speed and the Force of the impact sent him Flying backwards. He landed harshly on his back and skidded several Feet on trash and broken glass. Pain engulfed him and stole his breath.

As he lay there trying to catch his breath and judge whether he’d broken anything, the wall advanced on him. It walked right up to his Feet and stood over him breathing heavily.

Shawn inhaled a shaky, painful breath, knowing he was fully at the mercy of It. It cocked its head to the side as though studying him then it shot out a hand toward his head.

Wave

“I didn’t,” DeAndre answered, looking a little gray. He pointed over her shoulder, a gave a little wave, and said weakly, “Hi, Uncle J.”

Julia could feel her father standing behind her now. She looked up at him guiltily as he leaned over her.

Deny

Shawn pinched at the Afghan blanket hanging over the back of the couch. He didn’t understand why adults had to make everything so complicated. In his mind, the resolution to the current problem was simplistic— Jon told Audrey that he loved her, she returned his affection, and that was that. Though Shawn would fervently deny that he believed in happily-ever-after endings, in way, that was exactly the way he viewed the situation. He never considered outside influences that might stand in the way of such a fairy tale.

(Apparently, I have yet to use deny in Book II, this is from Book I)

Tall

An older man in his 50s hurried across the asphalt lot to greet them. He was a tall, broad shouldered man with impeccable taste in clothing. His close-cropped hair was jet black graying slightly around his temples. A bit more gray speckled his goatee. The sun caught in deep blue sunglasses reflecting various hues of blue and purple into his mahogany skin. When he reached Audrey, he embraced her with a gentle hug. Bella did not react to him at all and continued to moan for her father.

Cage

When he woke up on Saturday, Shawn had a strange sensation stuck between his stomach and his heart. It was fluttery, bubbly feeling that lodged itself in that space and tickled the sides of his rib cage every time he inhaled. He sat up wondering if heartburn was an early 30s thing. He contorted his upper body in every way he could to make that feeling go away. When it lessened some, he got up and headed to the bathroom.

[dcyliightt]

[ramin karimloo — 43 — he/him] Introducing ARMAN AHADI. Word on the street is they are a ENGLISH LITERATURE PROFESSOR, having been around for ONE MONTH. Though they are STUBBORN  and IDEALISTIC, they can also be KIND HEARTED and INTELLIGENT. In the chaos of New York City, they’re sure to fit right in. 

arman was born to a simple family in a nondescript town on a nondescript day in texas. there was nothing out of the ordinary about him, something his mother was grateful for (she didn't need to go through another long and extraordinary birth like she did with his sister), and something his father had preached moving forward (he was an odd man, his baba).

“there’s nothing wrong with being unremarkable.” that’s something his father used to tell him, eyes twinkling behind cracked spectacles held together by tape and wire. “be kind, be good, find home. that’s all you need to do in life.” it was something ingrained in his mind for as long as he could remember... and while people might call his father simple minded for having such a mentality... arman couldn’t help but feel like his baba had cracked the code. a long happy marriage, a comfortable life, both children sent off to college with grandbabies on the way from his sister. “show me a man happier than me. remarkable men usually aren’t.”

he passed through life trying his best not to make his ripples turn to waves... until he found greatness in the pages of the books he soon found himself entranced by. he lost himself in the worlds of other’s, he was unremarkable, yes, but his father did not warn him of the contact high one gets from stories about those who are.

that’s what started his love for literature, and the path for his life soon began to form. he excelled in school, worked towards an english lit major that his parents’ didn’t understand but didn’t question all that much

“does it make you happy?”

“yes, baba”

“will it make you less good”

“quite the opposite, baba”

“... you won’t starve to death will you?” arman had to laugh as his father grinned at him from behind the birdhouse he was building. “you’re lucky your mother enjoys to feed you”

He finds his footing teaching english literature in the University of Texas, settling down in Houston more than content with his life. He loved his job, his students adored him, and just as he did his whole life, he strayed away from the extraordinary... But then, the contact high.

If Arman was solid ground, Rahi was the stars that he dared not aspire for. He was everything his father had warned him about, special. And Arman found himself wanting... Wanting for the extraordinary so badly that it made him question his own mundanity... and yet they made it work.

And work it did... all the way until it didn't.

After Rahi, Arman realized the true danger of the remarkable. It was... dazzling, and intoxicating, and it made him dream and hope and desire fore more... and it was also fleeting... And he's never realized a greater pain than losing the stars only to wake up on earth.

Now, Arman's in New York, taking on a teaching gig he couldn't possibly refuse, and this city... It eats the mundane for breakfast... But maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. Maybe Arman needed a change... maybe he's seen the stars and he wants to go back.

"Remember son, there's nothing wrong with being unremarkable."

"... I know, baba, but there's nothing wrong with wanting it too."

[msareviews]

Review - Efrén Divided by Ernesto Cisneros

Efrén Divided is about a seventh grader who must help keep his house running after his mother is deported on her way to work. It’s recommended for grades three to six (NoveList, n.d.) and offers children a glimpse into the lives of children of illegal immigrants and the disruption deportation causes for families. Cisneros creates realistic characters, especially in our lead Efrén, and masterfully combines hope and heartbreak to create a sense of empathy for the injustice of deportation. I also appreciate the book’s focus on incorporating Spanish and Mexican American culture to give readers an authentic portrait of Mexican American communities.

I read this as an eBook through CloudLibrary, and while I don’t think it took away or added much to the impact of the content, the convenience of the eBook format was wonderful! I mostly read this book between patrons while working the desk at my library, however it also came in handy when I had a spare moment but was away from my iPad. In one instance, my cat had fallen asleep on my chest, and I was able to pull the book up on my phone and read without disturbing her (I highly recommend this reading experience, by the way). For readers who are frequently on the go, including students who may not want to weigh down their backpacks with print books as they go from class to class, the eBook format is wonderful. For readers who have certain disabilities like dyslexia or limited visibility, the ability to change text size and background makes reading far more accessible than what might be available in print.

The characters in Efrén Divided feel very real and are immensely lovable. Efrén is guided primarily by a sense of responsibility for the people he cares about. Having a central motivation for his character that guides all his actions gives his character a realistic and understandable psychology that allows us to better empathize with his journey. However, even though his central motivation is noble, he is not immune to making mistakes and even hurting his friends which allows him to be likable without being unrealistically perfect. The other characters in the book are equally humanized, which makes watching them struggle through Amá’s deportation truly heartbreaking.

This heartbreak is especially felt towards the end of the book, where Cisneros refuses to give readers a traditional happy ending. The whole book, we watch Efrén struggle without his mother, we see his father working himself to the bone and his younger siblings weep for their mother. After all this hardship, when the arrangements are finally made for Amá to come home, the reader experiences the same joy and hope that the family does, only for it to come crashing down when it’s revealed that Amá won’t be coming home after all. Mixing hope and heartbreak like this highlights the painful reality of deportation for readers. While some readers, particularly those in more conservative areas, might have only heard of deportation as justice for illegal immigration, seeing the cruel reality in this book might cause some to reconsider whether there is any justice in deportation.

Aside from the valuable look at deportation and the experiences of undocumented immigrants, the book also naturally incorporates Spanish as an everyday aspect of the majority Hispanic community. One of my close friends teaches English in a school with a large Spanish-speaking population, and one of the difficulties he’s faced is trying to teach writing and literature to students who often struggle to read in English. Reading this book made me think of his students and how they might enjoy reading this book because of the casual inclusion of Spanish and authentic portrayal of Mexican American culture. In fact, I plan on getting him the English and Spanish language copies of this book for his classroom so his students will know that their language is respected in his classroom, even as his job is to teach them English. It’s my hope that this book will act as a mirror for them and make them feel more welcome.

I read this book as my Pura Belpre winner, and it was great! I can see this book being a valuable window for kids who don’t have a great understanding of how harmful deportation can be and a great mirror for children who might relate to Efrén and his family’s situation. Cisneros does a wonderful job making these issues more nuanced and accessible for younger audiences and I could easily see this being incorporated into a social studies class.

References

Cisneros, E. (2020). Efrén Divided. Quill Tree Books. NoveList. (n.d.).

Efrén Divided. https://web.p.ebscohost.com/novp/detail?vid=2&sid=5a5ad040-ca23-4db3-86d8-161890e6013c%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9bm92cC1saXZl#AN=10849555&db=neh.

[dancing-in-rot]

i miss russia, i hate that my father stole my ability to speak russian, refused to teach me - drilled english into my head

& then regretted it and resented me for never speaking his language like he could

AND I TRIED - i'm more well read than most russian literature students for fucks sake, i can recite half of yevtushenko and pushkin's works off by heart

& even my own poetry is english and tangled up, coming out wrong

& i can never go back to see my grandparent's graves or talk to the rest of my family because i'm a filthy tranny now & half of them want me dead because of that

westerners don't understand, can never understand the pain of being caught between, being neither one culture nor the other the russia my father came from no longer exists, he is trapped in memory and nostalgia - the england we all found ourselves in resigns us to factories and strips our culture and pride from us

i am in the permanent waiting room of purgatory, no end, no exit

[anxious-ace]

Trauma house: Heaven's wasteland info:

"The Judge/Headmaster"/Agasha Talanova- headmaster at Ravenwood (and previously Grand Ridge). Watching her explain the rules of the training and handling any, silly little outbursts from the subjects reminded me of why she was elected to lead us. It's a shame she'll have to deal with the survivors and their antics (especially the investigators) but she can handle it, I know she can. D.O.B. is still said to be July 2nd and her place of origin is somewhere in Russia (still not sure where).

Marje Paters- stenographer at Ravenwood (and previously Grand Ridge). I mentioned her skills 4 years ago and boy did she deliver, not a single word was missed the entire time. It's a shame she got stuck with Ghost’s “friend” but hey, he did what he was told to eventually (although he was a pain in the ass to deal with personally). Anyway, D.O.B. is August 5th and her place of origin is Breda, The Netherlands.

Åse Eliassen- I forgot to mention Ravenwood's (and previously Grand Ridge's) very own bailiff/school security guard, how silly of me. Just like with Marje, I wish she didn't have to deal with Ghost’s “friend”, but we did eventually get him to do his job so I can't be too disappointed with the situation. It is her job to take care of threats after all. D.O.B. is May 18th, and her place of origin is said to be Oslo, Norway.

Norman Hart- math professor at Ravenwood College. His math skills aren't really important in the game, but he can console the participating students after the fact with his experience as a teacher and dad. D.O.B. is September 13 and the place of origin is Seattle, Washington.

Agnes "Ivy" Murray- a detective in the EIPD (Ego Island Police Department), she sure as hell knows how to take control of a situation. Her investigative experience would have proved helpful to the participants if only the judge hadn't blocked them away from the rest of the campus. D.O.B.. is January 22nd and the place of origin is Sydney, Australia.

Blake Walsh- an English professor at Ravenwood. Like Norman, his literature skills aren't important for the game, but unlike Norman, he has a harder time consoling people as he is childless, but his experience with older kids makes up for it. D.O.B. is April 28th and the place of origin is Austin, Texas.

Jamie Mack- 18-year-old student with remarkable translating skills. If anyone needs help in any foreign language class, they're your person. These language skills are also useful in translating any multilingual plans written in an attempt to be discreet about them. D.O.B is February 15th and the place of origin is Chicago Illinois.

Elias Zenea- 19-year-old student and prophet. Although the idea of an actual prophet seems far-fetched, this student seems to be at least on the right track 50-60% of the time. This foresight can prove helpful as they can see the crime before it even happens and can predict any other attacks that may occur. D.O.B is September 6th and the place of origin is Patras, Greece.

Amina del Nero- 19-year-old student and florist. Even though the ability to grow flowers might be helpful, growing food sure is and her knowledge of what is edible or not is also very helpful in either making sure someone survives or getting rid of them herself. D.O.B is July 20th and the place of origin is Milan, Italy.

Rémy Poulin- 18-year-old student and abstract artist. His art skills can be useful if he wants to trick someone with a fake tunnel or corridor, he can paint it very convincingly. He can also paint things to take his mind off of the situation but I digress. D.O.B is September 2nd and the place of origin is Lyon, France.

Yvonne Poulin- 18-year-old student and animator. Unlike her brother, I don't think her animation skills would help as much, although if they work together and make a moving distraction then I see it. She does understand how the human body moves, just like that poor dollmaker back in Grand Ridge. Anyways, D.O.B is September 2nd and the place of origin is Lyon, France.

Lorena Menédez- 20-year-old student and inspector/investigator. One of the only ones with any sort of investigative prose, she is very helpful in determining the who, how, and why of any case, if only finding out who did it meant they see punishment (as this is more of a survival of the fittest situation rather than trial situation), she’s still helpful in discussions but it might not get anywhere. DOB is December 3rd and the place of origin is Cali, Columbia.

Esther Camarero- 21-year-old student and musician. Not really useful in itself, but she does carry around some heavy instruments, you need a strong arm and decent coordination. She can distract the group from the situation and help pass the time but that's about it really. DOB is October 12th and the place of origin is Barcelona, Spain.

Jurrijn Fixe- 20-year-old student and matchmaker. I don't really know how playing Cupid can be useful, maybe he's giving people alibis without realizing it, yeah that can be it. Anyway, the way he works is he gets a read on someone and finds someone that matches what they need, like the bookworm from Grand Ridge, but with people instead of books (yeah it's weird now that I put it like that). D.O.B is May 19th and the place of origin is Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Katenka Kashuba- 19-year-old student, fighter/soldier in training, and Grand Ridge massacre survivor. Not only did she survive the massacre (like I said she would), but she also seemed to have brought her younger sister into this (unknowingly of course). Given her connection to the other survivors, I won't be surprised if everyone survives this game like they did the last one. I also said she could get rid of evidence easily and boy, she did not disappoint. D.O.B. is July 4th and the place of origin is Moscow, Russia.

Veronika Kashuba- 18-year-old student and software architect. Like her sister, she too has a history of fighting for her life, unlike her sister that's not her only known trait. As a software architect, she helped a fellow student revive Mach’s programming (as his body got destroyed at some point at Grand Ridge four years prior), but instead of putting in a new body they just put him in his inventor’s computer. D.O.B is July 12th and the place of origin is Kazan, Russia.

Tobias Oien- 19-year-old student and medic. As a medic, they can patch anything up (within limitation) using what's available, thus keeping his peers alive just a bit longer. Though they may seem to be focusing on only his peers, he can also patch himself up (as expected) so he can better help their peers. D.O.B. is August 21st and the place of origin is Calgary, Canada.

Karly Emily Kamad Borres- 20-year-old student and guide. As a guide, she knows the school like the back of her hand and can use that knowledge to her advantage (leading people where they can't be found, hiding from any attacks, etc.). The downside to this of course is if she says anything about a place that only she knows, she's immediately suspect number 1. D.O.B. is August 21 and the place of origin is Manila, Philippines.

Asuka Kudo- 19-year-old student and mechanic. Given that she's a mechanic, I'm surprised Mach’s inventor didn't ask her to help him rebuild the body, I mean she is capable of achieving such a feat, just look at Ravenwood’s robotics club, but to each their own I guess. Preferences aside, she is very understanding and has decided to help fix the program for his computer with Veronika and Otto instead. D.O.B is March 18th and the place of origin is Kyoto, Japan.

Otto Weigle- 18-year-old student and programmer. Speaking of helping with Mach’s programming, he did the bulk of the work for their little project (alongside the inventor obviously). He is also responsible for programming the school's computer and security systems, little does he know that work will bite him in the ass eventually. D.O.B is January 21st and the place of origin is Munich Germany.

Camron Alejo- 21-year-old student and psychologist. Considering the situation at hand, having a psychologist by your side isn't a bad idea, especially one as sympathetic as her. Some would say her sympathy makes her weak, but you know what I see, I see someone that even the most closed off of people can trust with whatever they are going through. D.O.B is October 24 and the place of origin is Valencia, Spain.

Mirai Hamadate- 20-year-old student and filmmaker. Like the writers at Grand Ridge, although his filmmaking skills might not be useful, he'd have one hell of a movie on his hands if he survives. Wait, as a filmmaker, he could spot whether or not any footage shown is real or edited so he is useful, for that at least. DOB is June 28th and the place of origin is Sapporo, Japan.

Gavin Toast/Allencourt- 21-year-old student, gambler/identity thief, and another Grand Ridge massacre survivor. His talents he was so highly praised (or shunned) for, worked in his favor the last time, let's see where they get him now that his brother and their friend are “undercover” as former classmates of theirs. D.O.B. is August 8th and the place of origin is Glasgow, Britain.

“Edgar Kingsley”/Johnny Toast- 21-year-old student, writing prodigy and survivor. He is currently undercover as his deceased cousin, he might get away with it if the other survivors (who know the difference between the 2 writers) weren't here. Seeing how long this lasts does sound fun though. And I believe the judge, like last time, hasn't waved any exceptions for them so we hope to see a lot of shenanigans between everyone. Anyways, D.O.B. is August 8th and the place of origin is Glasgow, Britain.

“Joan Zanhuesa”/Johnny Ghost- 19-year-old student, inventor, and last survivor in our roster (Robin might be off somewhere else or maybe she'll be here later, who knows). As I mentioned before, as the inventor of Mach and the head of the restoration project, I thought he would have tried to fix the old body or make a new one but no. He opted to put him into his computer via a hard drive he picked up after he was destroyed. Moving on, like his partner in crime, he is also undercover as his deceased cousin (for some goddamn reason, guilt maybe?). I also thought his status as a gateway was going to have a bigger impact, (maybe his “friend" will show up at some point like he did last time). Anyways, D.O.B. is August 28th and the place of origin is Savannah, Georgia.

[v3nusxsky]

Could I please request a lady lesso X reader. R is hired as an English teacher cause after the merge they realised they should probably start teaching their students core subjects.

R is a complete nerd and will go on rants for hours about literature and their favourite books/poems however r has a very insecure side that nobody gets to see which has caused r to develop an eating disorder which has gone unchecked.

I'll let you have full creative freedom to figure out a romance plot for it so please feel free to absolutely destroy me emotionally with angst or make it as fluffy and soft to your hearts content :)

Hello my lovely anon. I hope this is okay for you and I apologise for the angst I broke my own heart writing this but it was a great release of a bad day <3

Words between the Pages

*Authors note~ I know I say this a lot here but I love this prompt, I feel like I really relate to R here. Also going to formally apologise here for what I'm about to do *

Trigger warnings ~ eating disorder relapsing not knowing what's happening to them angst angst character (hurt possible death ;)

Prompt~ see the ask^^^^

It had been a few years now, you had taken up the new English position at the school for good and evil. Since the merger they had decided it was time to introduce some core subjects that would benefit the students no matter what realm they entered. English was one of those. And you had a natural affinity for that.  Your favourite part of the subject was anything related to literature. Novels and poems were your source of comfort on those hard days. For you, they numbed the pain like alcohol or drugs for others. You even wrote some of your own work, to express anything that was chipping away at your fragile heart.

After a year at the school, you began to realise you had feelings for the fiery dean. Not something you had planned on, and you knew you'd have no hope. She alluded a sexy confidence in her every move. You, remained shy and introverted, preferring the company of books to other people. You weren't even sure she would've noticed you. But she had. She loved how you'd get flustered in her presence and forgot your train of thought. It wasn't an uncommon reaction in her presence but with you it was different. You were enticing and addicting without even trying.

You began to write poems of your thoughts and feelings on the women, in a little black note pad that seemed to be glued to your hand. Where ever you went so did the book. It was your most prized possession and something you truly didn't want anyone else to read, personal thoughts and feelings lay bare in the book. So that's why you panicked when you couldn't find the book. All your secrets, littered through the pages hidden by words there. All it would take is a sharp mind to read between the lines and your heart would be exposed. You had to find that book.

Unfortunately for you, one of the Never students had found it and brought it to their Dean. The one mind you knew was more than capable of understanding the meanings. But one good thing came out of it, the first poem was based on your feelings for Leonora Lesso, which stunned the women and prevented her reading any further. Actually that one poem is what began your relationship.

You'd been together for two years now, most of your secrets were out in the open air, but one remained. The deepest and darkest locked away safely in your heart. Lesso knew you were extremely insecure about your body, it was obvious to everyone really, the way you dressed, the way you stood or sat and even the nervous flash in your eyes as food was mentioned. But Lesso knew more than others, it had taken so long for you to be comfortable showing her your body, and the night you did you broke down in tears. That hurt her heart truly, you seemed so small and broken and all she could do is wonder what caused such a reaction from you and how she'd kill them. No one would get away with making her girl feel like her own body wasn't anywhere near perfection. You were. True perfection, if only you could see yourself through her eyes then maybe this could've all been prevented.

It was one fatal accident that exposed you. During archery classes a arrow came hurling in your direction, seemingly from absolutely no where. You weren't able to react quick enough due to the weakened state of your body, not eating well the past few months was seriously affecting you, only now would you truly know just how much damage you'd done.  The arrow hit a centre meter away from your right lung. The pain causing you to collapse on the hard surface below your feet. The fall and blood spilling from your body causing you to lose consciousness.

The pain was constant, unlike something you'd never felt before. You were in and out of consciousness due to the weakened state of your body and now the blood you were losing, you knew this wouldn't be good. The students around you panicking not knowing what to do, not wanting to touch you and make it worse. The fear of touching the Deans girlfriend battling the fear of not helping you. One of them must have ran to grab your girlfriend, as you came back around once more you felt her hand in your hair and her words being whispered in your ear. She was here.

"Dove, what on earth were you doing out here? We have a medic coming hold on for me. Don't leave me love. Open those pretty eyes for me, that's it good girl" she whispered the tears soaking her words as much as they were staining her cheeks. The drops were falling from her face onto your sunken in cheeks. "N-ora I, I'm sorry. I love you" you whispered out in broken sobs as you bled out through her hands that were tightly pressed over the wound. When had they taken the arrow out? You could feel the life slowly leaving your exhausted body.

"Dove, hold on please, you have the strength I know you do. Please! You can do this." She pleaded with you watching as your eyelids were fluttering shut "keep those pretty eyes on me love. Please. I love you don't leave me!" Her cries were breaking your heart. But in that shattering heart you knew this was not going to get any better, you were dying. Lesso screaming for medics as she felt your heart rate decrease dramatically. The beats dangerously spread apart now. You were dying. She was losing you. You both knew it too. The students seemingly turned to shield you from prying eyes, out of respect or fear you weren't quite sure but it gave you the chance for one last wish.

"Kiss me" you spluttered gasping for air, and she complied instantly. Your lips met hers as she poured every ounce of love she had in the kiss, tears spilling onto your closed eyes as more tears leaked from your eyes. Lesso pulled back for air noticing you weren't kissing her back any more and let out a gut wrenching scream. Her love, her life and future wife was gone.

Word count 1227

[raincitygirl76]

I hadn't seen this excellent article from mid-November 2022, which discusses events that occur in S2 and Edvin and Omar's take on the events of S2, and the development that occurs in their characters.

Just in case Teen Vogue ends up paywalling or removing the article at some future point (as does sometimes happen), I've violated their copyright by copy-pasting the whole thing. It's below the cut.

Teen Vogue YR article Nov 2022:

Culture

Young Royals Stars Edvin Ryding, Omar Rudberg Talk Wilmon & Season 2 Ending

“I guess we’re both hopeful and realistic. Boring answer?”

BY K-CI WILLIAMS

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

ROBERT ELDRIM/NETFLIX

Spoilers ahead for Netflix’s Young Royals seasons 1 and 2.

Karin Boye’s poem “Of Course It Hurts,” considered one of her greatest contributions to Swedish literature, opens in contemplation. “Of course it hurts when buds burst / Otherwise why would spring hesitate?” Boye writes, translated into English. It’s the way of nature; buds burst, dewdrops succumb to gravity, and spring reigns anew. “The bud was the casing all winter / What is this new thing, which consumes and bursts?” Sure, there’s pain in relinquishing the familiar, but abandoning that comfort can be liberating, too. It’s a fitting metaphor for the love story at the heart of Netflix’s Swedish series Young Royals, which dropped its six-episode second season on November 1.

Young Royals follows Wilhelm (Edvin Ryding), the Crown Prince of Sweden’s royal family, as he attends Hillerska boarding school. There, he meets Simon Eriksson (Omar Rudberg), a fellow student with whom he falls in love — causing him to face the choice between love and duty. It’s a hard line to toe after having everything decided for him, living his life for the good of an entire country. Wilhelm has everything one could ever need, but has little agency to do what he wants. Simon on the other hand, who lives off-campus and is not blue-blooded, does not have everything he needs, but is free to do what he wants.

Teen Vogue connected with Edvin and Omar over Zoom, and later, the creator and head writer Lisa Ambjörn, to chat all things Young Royals, and the first thing to know about this show is that sexuality is not the conflict. “A message we’ve constantly been trying to prove [is] that Wilhelm’s problem isn’t that he’s in love with a boy. His problem is that he’s a Crown Prince,” Edvin tells Teen Vogue. “He’s not supposed to be falling in love that way.”

Heading into their sophomore season, conceptual director Rojda Sekersöz instructed the cast to write one sentence that encapsulates their characters’ journey so far. “For both of us, it’s been a lot about our characters gaining back control,” Edvin says. “They’re both in very different situations, but they’re both out of control.” The world has seen their (illegal) sex video online, Wilhelm was forced to deny it was him in that video, and Hillerska has become heartbreak city. “Wilhelm's all alone, everybody's left him. And that drives him to be a certain way,” Edvin says, tracking what he identifies as Wilhelm being “selfish” from episode to episode.

Edvin spent so many nights poring over the script, questioning, lamenting, attempting to justify Wilhelm's behavior. “Why is he like this? Why is he acting like a child? Why is he so selfish? Why isn't he seeing things from a bigger picture?” he asked himself. That’s when the apple fell for Edvin. “I realized, like, oh, I don’t have to defend him. I just have to understand him. And once you realize that he is all alone and he needs to take back control, it becomes very clear why he does what he does.” Viewers might be a little more lenient with some of his choices; it is, after all, immensely difficult to conform to parental expectations, least of all when you’re the heir apparent and trailing the footsteps of a brother you idolized.

It’s not lost on Omar that these characters are also teenagers, and with that comes a rawness and heightened emotional sensitivity. “You gotta understand that that’s what I really like about Young Royals, because we always try to show everything as true as possible,” Omar says. “There are teenagers, they look like this, they act like this. They are sometimes really good. Sometimes they make really bad decisions, and they get really anxious about it. And then they try to fix that. It's basically how life is.” Edvin feels the same way: “Everything feels so acute. Everything feels like it’s the biggest thing in the world,” he says, noting that while the audience might see their crises as miniscule, “to them, it’s so so important, because that’s what it is [like] growing up.”

Playing the secret love of a Swedish prince has in turn been a dream come true, something Omar admits would never happen in his own life. “It's something that means a lot to people, I would say, because it shows it doesn't matter what your sexuality is, it doesn't matter what class you are, it doesn't matter where you're from, it doesn't matter — nothing — love is love basically.”

Omar, who is Venezuelan-Swedish, thinks back to his 10-year-old self, attending school in Sweden as the only immigrant student. “Me as an immigrant here in Sweden hasn’t been the easiest,” he says. A slight laugh escapes the end of his sentence, the kind of mirth with which we reflect on life’s trials and tribulations, and the strange humor of having come out on the other side. “It’s not so easy for anybody that comes to another country from their home country not speaking their language, or not looking like a lot of the people in that country, and you know, me as a kid, it was hard being, how do you say…” Omar searches for the appropriate words and Edvin makes suggestions (“Alienated, like outcast, or not the same as the people around you”). Omar lands on the word “community,” admitting he found it hard to be accepted.

At the end of this season’s fourth episode, Omar performs Simon’s retooled version of Hillerska’s school song (with a soul-stirring voice, like hot chocolate), featuring lyrics inspired by his romance with Wilhelm. “What we were, no one can rewrite,” he sings, translated into English. “Afterwards, we go our separate ways. But I’ll remember you all my days. What we had and who we were.”

Omar is no stranger to singing; he spent several years in Swedish boy band FO&O before going solo in 2018. I ask him if Simon’s performance was a special moment for him, years on from being the only immigrant kid in the school, singing a love song in a language that he once didn’t know. Edvin pouts at this, clutching his heart. “Everything about this whole thing is a moment for me,” Omar says. “Doing the solo is something that I really appreciate because I love singing … and expressing the emotions and feelings through singing, through music in the series is also a dream come true.”

Shooting that scene was a powerful moment for Edvin, too, who was out of shot for the initial filming of the performance. He addresses Omar directly, “Once they did my shot, I walked down, and I heard it for the first time, and I got the biggest goosebumps I’ve ever had, like, the power of the moment. I could feel your passion. It was beautiful.” Series creator Lisa Ambjörn felt like they were writing the song to all the people responsible for bringing Young Royals to life. “We are going to remember having been part of this journey at some point,” she says. “In a film crew, people come and people go sometimes behind the camera, but it's like, we are going to remember this.” Those words will become emblematic of all the love poured into this show.

Fans will notice Simon’s fish tank as a callback to the first season, when he lists the names of his fish to Wilhelm. Ambjörn says this was an improvised line from Edvin and Omar as the result of location issues and having to restructure scenes. Season 2 love interest Marcus faces a similar introduction, only now Simon says the fish don’t have names. “We know the second Marcus goes into that room, he's gonna see the fishes,” Ambjörn says. “It may be a bit over the top that he asked ‘Oh, do they have names?’ but it’s also something you would say.” On Simon’s perspective in that scene, she asks: “Who makes him creative? Well, it’s Wilhelm.”

There’s a keen local Swedish feel to Young Royals, and that’s by design, according to Ambjörn. “I feel like people really do want to feel like they are being drawn into something very local,” she says. “As long as they universally understand it, like in the end, Lucia, in the Young Royals [world], it's just such a classic school tradition.” Lucia celebrations in Sweden bring hope and light in the darkest time of the year. One girl is selected to be the Lucia of the celebrations, though Ambjörn says one story route not taken involved the debacle of boys and non-binary people wanting to be the Lucia. Of course, there’s only so much you can do in six episodes.

Karin Boye, the aforementioned poet and novelist, serves a great purpose for Ambjörn this season. She shows me a screenshot from an old conversation in which she asked her friends which Swedish historical writers should be studied at Hillerska. Boye ascended to the top of the list. Boye’s book Crisis neatly parallels the romance of Young Royals; protagonist Malin navigates the clash between her religious faith and rising feelings for her female classmate, Siv. It’s that phenomenon when the text you study at school somehow aligns with whatever personal upheaval you’re facing, and it allows Wilhelm and Simon to vocalize their growing compromise and empathy of each other’s challenges as they grapple for control. Everything has come full circle, as fans are now reading Boye’s work thanks to this show, much to the delight of Ambjörn’s friends, the very people she wrote Young Royals for. It’s a manifestation of what they would have wanted to see as teenagers.

One thing Ambjörn is certain of is the cyclical nature of storytelling. The building blocks of story are present in every new interpretation of theme and concept; love stories, the tragedies of the Greek, and Romeo and Juliet come to her mind, but the good stuff comes when you reinvent those tropes. “Use the tension, use the setup, but then just twist it,” she says. She spoke with Julie Andem, the creator of Norway’s SKAM, who told Ambjörn that SKAM has some of the most typical stories ever. What people identify with is the universality of stories, not necessarily the specifics. “We’ve told stories for like 10,000 years,” Ambjörn says, “We’re not going to come up with something that no one has ever thought about.”

What Edvin’s most grateful for about working with Omar is that they have so much fun working together. “We laugh a lot and we still challenge each other which is good. It’s a good combo.” No matter where they are, Omar enjoys the good vibes of the cast, whether they’re “on set at the little castle,” or at lunch where they all hang out and eat together. Halfway through production on this season, the cast and crew celebrated the midway point with a big party. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people dance in such different ways. That was a lot of fun,” Edvin says. Omar wracks his brain, “Was I there?” (Edvin: “You were definitely there.”) “Was I?” (Edvin: “Yeah.”) They volley for a moment until Omar admits, “Oh my gosh, I’m— It’s blocked out.” Edvin has the last laugh: “Like I said, we had a lot of fun.”

The final words on everyone’s lips will likely be “Wilmon Endgame” — will things work out between the characters or will the show take a more real world scenario approach, eschewing the happy ending? “One doesn’t exclude the other,” Edvin says. “There's got to be a middle way, there always is, like it's all about compromise. And I think that's what the end of season two is describing, because for the first time for Wilhelm's part, he sees things from a different perspective. He takes in both Simon's perspective, his own perspective and the whole world because he's the first royal to ever come out as queer, but also his family's perspective … that opens up for a middle way. It doesn't mean that it's certain that it will work. But you know…”

Omar weighs in: “Simon gets Wilhelm's side of everything, like right at the end, he says, ‘I love you,’ because he knows what's going to happen if he doesn’t compromise and accept Wilhelm's side of the whole thing. Because if he does what only he wants, then his family is going to get in trouble. Wilhelm's family is going to get in trouble. August is going to get some really spicy things to say about everything, you know what I mean? So he understood the whole situation, and then they kind of matched at the end.” Edvin deliberates: “I guess we’re both hopeful and realistic. Boring answer?” He laughs.

The future is bright and the vibes are good for the two leads of Young Royals. Edvin just wrapped a feature film, is looking forward to some future projects in the coming months, and has one tease: “In the meantime, I’ll see if I can develop some of my own ideas that I have. So we’ll see what happens.” For Omar, more music is on the way, as well as “the first movie ever,” he pauses before completing his sentence, “that I’ve been a part of.” Edvin chimes in: “Just the first movie ever,” he laughs. “We're looking for that self-growth vibe, you know, explore different things.”

In the end, Wilhelm makes good on his duty as Crown Prince, and gives his speech at the Jubilee, with some amendments, admitting that he was in fact the person in the sex video with Simon. “It’s such a powerful moment where Wilhelm for the first time this season is completely honest, in contrast to Simon who is better at being honest,” Edvin says. Omar thinks that Simon’s heart dropped to the floor when Wilhelm made his speech. “He didn’t see that coming, and he realizes that ‘damn, he loves me,’ you know what I mean?” Omar says.

Wilhelm doesn’t say too much. It’s understated; he stares down the lens, the faintest curl of a smile forming. “We were so scared of making that seem like too much and too obvious, because it's truly about him,” Edvin says. “It symbolizes him following protocols saying what he's supposed to be saying and then him just going into a different direction and being completely honest.” Edvin then turns the tables on me. “What did you think, that final look, what do you think it means?” Wilhelm thrives at the point of no return. Throw the consequences at him, he’s ready.

These two characters are so tuned in, alert to everything, and achingly so. What Karin Boye’s “Of Course It Hurts” poem says about the closing moments is just how much of a turning point this is. “Of course it hurts when buds burst, pain for that which grows, and for that which envelops,” Boye writes. With the world watching, the monarchy on the brink, there’s an assuredness between them. Something must be broken for it to be rebuilt stronger. The bud breaks and then it blooms. This is a season where they exist in that pain. It hurts to let in the “new.” It hurts to be open to change, to other perspectives. It’s taken them time. But it’s in a flower’s nature to bloom.

Wilhelm’s confession will have repercussions. But Boye closes out her poem at “the point of agony,” where all seems hopeless. Beauty emanates from the buds, now open, “forgetting that they were afraid of the new, forgetting that they were fearful of the journey.” As The Irrepressibles's "The Most Beautiful Boy" scores the final scene, the pair exchange a smile, “feeling for a second their greatest security, resting in the trust that creates the world.” Or, for Wilhelm and Simon, the trust in each other. Edvin summarizes the intent behind the closing shot: “Bring it on.”

Maybe someone has already posted this but here's an article with Omar and Edvin.

[softersinned-arc]

some notes on vampire astoria (condensed from several older posts & edited for consistency and clarity)—

ON EDUCATION & CAREER

she spends a lot of time as a student. a lot of time. she was brought up with a humanist education, raised by humanists, raised to be a humanist. she is at her happiest listening to lectures and taking notes, or debating in a classroom. she studies informally pretty much from day one, but she becomes a university student as soon as she’s legally allowed: 1869 in cambridge, though she doesn’t get a formal degree; 1920 in oxford; back to cambridge when women are granted degrees; over and over again, traveling wherever she can.

she ends up with several degrees, as a result. the bachelor’s degrees are too many to count. in order, her postgraduate work is in: history (phd, twice, first in medieval europe, and second in ancient rome); political science (phd, three times, first in england, and second in the united states, and then again in england); english literature (phd, focusing on victorian literature); art history (master’s, focusing on renaissance italian art); italian literature (phd, focusing on medieval literature); and folklore (phd, focusing on the vampire). she’s a student as often and as many times as she can be.

she keeps an extensive library. on the side, she publishes novels, one or two per generation, under different pen names and aliases.

her public persona in the modern era is as astoria montclair, art collector and gallerist. it’s a good way to be seen making money, and she has pretty significant control over how she’s perceived in a public setting. she usually stays in one place, and one identity, for twenty to thirty years; she can pass from anywhere from twenty to fifty, depending on how she styles her hair and does her makeup. her public persona always involves her marriage to baldwin.

her human covers tend to involve the arts—currently it’s owning and curating art galleries in several major cities (new york, venice, london, and tokyo, probably among others). previously, she worked with museums. before that, she managed theaters. for a brief period in the 80s she was a studio drummer for a number of punk bands. she doesn’t sing publicly, ever, but she has a nice voice. she keeps up to date on pop culture when she can. she has strong opinions on most television shows. for the record, she was a margaery girl, and was heartbroken when she died. she was pretty firmly team sansa after that.

ON PERSONALITY

she is utterly ruthless. it’s not that she’s cruel—and, in fact, she has little interest in cruelty for cruelty’s sake—it’s simply that she sees herself and the world around her with an unwavering pragmatism. it doesn’t matter if she kills humans unless it brings suspicion to her; she has no qualms about feeding on humans; she is a vampire, and vampires are a different, and objectively stronger and hardier, species. she’s not looking to kill or rule all humans, and she understands that, practically speaking, vampires are at a disadvantage if only because of the numbers, but she’s not about to pretend like she feels guilt over hunting as an apex predator would. she enjoys the hunt.

ON PHYSICALITY & ABILITY

when astoria is newly turned she has to relearn her own strength and it takes her weeks. she is small and she is not very physically strong before she’s turned; she has a high pain tolerance and she’s very quick, but she’s not particularly strong. the strength she develops is disturbing and it’s difficult. how many things does she break because she underestimates that new strength? how many doors does she tear off their hinges? how many railings does she bend? how much does she crush in her hands? worse than that, how many times does she break her own bones, forgetting that she has this new power she really cannot control? when she tries to break free from her chains, how many times does she break her arms? her wrists? and with her new awareness of sensations, the new intensity of what she feels both emotionally and physically, how horrible is that pain? she has to learn to walk again, to stand again, because every time she tries for those first weeks, she does damage to herself somehow. her rebirth is agonizing and this second infancy is just as bad.

because she has to get her tattoos redone with some regularity, usually every few years, she usually schedules a couple of days where she books two artists to tattoo her at the same time. this started in the 60s and has continued since. the baldwin tattoos are touched up every year so she’s never without them.

before being turned, she’s 5′3″. after, she’s 5′5″. she doesn’t grow much otherwise, though her hips and shoulders do widen a bit. she’s best described as having a dancer’s build: lean, long legs and arms, a long neck. throughout the centuries she tends to put this to use by learning to dance. it doesn’t lend itself as well to combat—she relies on speed and size for that, and while it helps her in hunting, it doesn’t help her much in a fight with another vampire, if she doesn’t have a weapon. she always does, though, and prefers to have a blade in each hand. 

SCARS

a small scar on her right palm from a childhood habit of digging her fingernails into her skin when she was nervous.

little bitty wear n tear scars on her hands from working magic as a teenager. nothing too exciting—a little burn scar here, a scar from a broken bottle there.

scarring around her wrists where she was shackled. two on each wrist, probably about a quarter of an inch thick, one closer to her hand and one farther, where the manacles would rub her skin raw over the nine years she was tortured (eight as a vampire).

similar scarring around her ankles, though not quite so thick.

a decently-sized scar on her back, just below her right kidney, from where she was stabbed, more than once, during the same period, as part of evander’s experimentation;a very thin scar across her throat, also from evander during that period; several long and deep scars in her right calf, caused by evander’s daughter tearing at her leg during a fight.

one more spectacular stab wound, through her left shoulder, from elyssa in the moments before astoria subdued and killed her.

and a few smaller stab wounds, obtained throughout the years, none of them particularly noteworthy in her eyes or really all that visible unless you’re studying her.

two bite scars from baldwin: one over her heart vein, and the other on the left side of her neck.

ON GOD & MAGIC

she is just trying to heal this open bleeding wound in her psyche after being torn away from her magic. and i love the implications of that when she doesn’t know how to get water to the right temperature without magic and so she takes either scalding or cold baths for the longest time because she can’t manage the right combination of hot and cold. in a d&d setting, if she can’t cross holy ground, would divine healing cause damage rather than fix it? who is she when she no longer has a weapon to rely on (her magic) and instead has to rely on herself (when she has, kind of by accident, become a weapon)?

ON NAMES

astoria grim, first and foremost. this is the name she’s born to, and this is the name that means the most to her, for a long, long time. it’s the name she used as a witch, before being turned.

cassandra carminati. after leo finds her, astoria agrees that she needs to take on a new identity, and she becomes cassandra carminati—leonardo's wife, as far as human society is concerned. this is the name by which she’s recorded in bath’s marriage records in the mid-late sixteenth century. 

after this, she goes by astoria grim again, for quite some time. she figures that she’s well-hidden enough that it’s not likely that anyone will find her if they’re looking, and besides, who’d look for a thirty-year-old woman when the astoria grim who should be alive would be in her seventies?

then, briefly, she becomes ileana blackwood. she’s been found, and by her cousins’ direct descendants, and this poses a threat to her survival, so she fakes her death and takes her grandmother’s name, and the surname of a young man she knew and had a brief affair with during her time in the english court.

when she and baldwin are reunited and mate, she takes the name astoria de clermont. any name or variation she uses after that features his surname. in modern settings, she is known as astoria montclair.