#entirely too much text - another novel by Tad | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cxsmicmyeon · 4 years ago

Text

HAPPY NEW YEAR , OSH [M]

oh sehun x fem! reader

IN WHICH you're forced to go to your best friend's giant new year's eve party, only to hit it off with someone who equally doesn't want to be there.

genre: college au! fluff and smut (toward the end) word count: 5.0k warnings: stupid jokes, swearing, sexual content, dirty talk, cunnilingus

author's note: MOODBOARD MADE BY ME. I DON'T OWN THE IMAGES, I ONLY OWN MY EDITING. also this is cross-posted from ao3 (i wrote it back in january for the new year lol). feedback and notes are greatly appreciated <3

Ugh.

That was the only word that came to mind as you navigated your way through the banquet hall. You grumbled to yourself as you adjusted your dress for the fifteenth time that night, resulting in your clutch dropping onto the floor. You resisted the urge to shout an expletive as you bent to pick the small bag up, which only resulted in your dress moving to that stupid spot that you didn't want it to go. A soft 'God' slipped from your lips as you adjusted your dress once again, this time gripping your clutch tightly in your right hand. Once you were contented, you resumed your trek to the venue you tried hopelessly to avoid.

Tonight was your best friend's annual New Year's Eve extravaganza. Normally you'd be a bit more willing to attend, as these parties were usually limited to 20-30 people in either her parent's house or your shared apartment, but apparently she found the need to rent out an entire fucking rooftop penthouse room filled to the brim with alcohol, hors d'oeuvres and packed with every single student that went to your college.

To put it rather bluntly, you hated the party scene that came with college. The thought of being at some fraternity with obnoxiously loud music shaking the entire house, an entire mass of sweaty drunk people doing God knows what and random couples eating each other's faces off was unappealing to be a part of. Maybe it sounds rather prudish, but you highly preferred nights in with a bottle of wine on your coffee table and Netflix queued up on the next episode of your favorite show or your laptop open to continue writing your novel over an en masse of horny and drunk people shoving you around the living room of someone's house.

Your best friend, on the other hand, lived for partying. Every Saturday night not spent studying, she'd beg you to come to the party her boyfriend or classmate was having. And after your declination and 'Don't have too much fun!" she'd return the next morning with a giant hangover with (on some occasions) hickeys on her neck that looked like vampire bites. By now, you were used to her drunk texts at 3 am and having to hold up her hair every time she puked her guts out. And these were reasons that simply fueled your hatred for large parties.

New Year's Eve was your only exception for large parties (mostly). Back in high school, her parents allowed her to invite you and a few classmates over for what they called a 'New Year's Sleepover.' You liked those well enough simply because they were rather small, you knew everyone there and you even got to steal a drink of champagne from the wine closet. As you entered college, the past two parties became a tad more crowded but were still bearable in your eyes. But this year, the New Year's Eve of your junior year, took the cake. Exams were a lot more rigorous this year and to celebrate everyone getting through it, your idiot of a best friend used practically all of her savings to rent out the largest rooftop venue in your area for what she called 'the New Year's party that'll fuck any other party in the ass.' She sent invites to the entire student body (which, naturally, 95% of them RSVP'ed to). While you tried your best to stop her, she persisted. And when you begged her to let you stay at home, she persisted yet again. So here you were, bracing yourself for a night of... honestly you had no clue.

You stopped in front of the entrance of the large room, your breath hitching in your throat. The music was from a genre you weren't familiar with, the bar was blocked by a large crowd and your best friend was nowhere to be seen. Slightly turning around from the disaster waiting to happen, you took in a deep breath before turning back and entering.

The stench of champagne and sweat immediately made you recoil and question your decision for even coming. You internally scoffed as you shifted through the crowd to find your best friend. You softly muttered 'excuse me' to every person you passed (or accidentally shoved) as you begged whoever was in the sky that your best friend was near. You struck gold when you saw her sprawled out on a loveseat surrounded by her boyfriend and others you didn't know by name. You pushed through a few more people before stopping in front of the group. Your best friend turned around immediately and let out a loud squeal.

"Heyyy!" she slurred as she threw her arm around you. You rolled your eyes as a smile etched itself onto your face, knowing she was already drunk as hell.

"Hiiii..." you responded, replicating her energy. She let out a loud howl of laughter as she led you to a small table next to the sofa. She picked up a plastic flute filled with champagne and practically shoved it in your hand. You laughed as she grabbed a red plastic cup from her boyfriend's hand.

"A toast, to the New Year!" she bellowed as she clinked your glass and her cup together.

"Happy New Year!" You responded. She snickered as she led you to sit down on the sofa.

"Hey (Y/N), Happy New Year!"

"You too, Baekhyun." You clinked your glass with your best friend's boyfriend's glass and took a sip of the fizzy drink. You let out a breath you were unaware you were holding in as the familiar taste of champagne washed over your tastebuds. Even if you were dreading tonight, you couldn't deny the free food and drinks being made available.

Quickly you were introduced and re-introduced to a bunch of Baekhyun's friends. They were nice enough, sure, but you found their energy to be a bit much (especially paired with the excess of alcohol that they all consumed). Luckily, you gave the group the excuse that you needed another drink and left them to their own accords.

After taking a second flute of champagne from the bar, you found yourself wandering onto the balcony. Luckily for you, it was completely deserted. With a small smile, you shut the sliding door and wandered toward the metal railing, slowly sipping your champagne. Setting the plastic flute and your clutch down on a nearby table, you readjusted your dress (yes, again) and slipped your heels off, sighing in relief that your feet were finally free from those restrictive shoes. You felt a chill down your spine as your feet touched the bare ground, stepping a couple of times in place to help adjust to the temperature. You took the champagne glass from off of the table and lifted it to your lips, taking another sip as you looked out into the night sky.

You took a deep breath as you finally felt yourself relax. The music from inside the venue was muffled a great deal and the cold temperature the winter night brought was a comforting contrast to the heat from inside the building coupled with the crowd of sweaty college students. The sky was thankfully clear from any clouds, so you were able to enjoy the comforting presence that the waning gibbous moon coupled with the scattered stars brought. Taking another sip of your champagne, you took a few steps until you felt the cold metal of the railing. You leaned slightly forward as you continued looking and admiring the sky, feeling surprisingly at peace considering your location.

Soon enough you realized that someone else has also decided to leave the party, as you heard the music grow louder then muffled again. You turned to see a tall man around your age typing quickly on his phone with a red plastic cup in his other hand. A tall, attractive man at that.

He wore a simple oversized gray hoodie coupled with a pair of blue jeans. His jet black hair appeared tousled underneath his dark beanie, and suddenly you felt a tad overdressed. You couldn't help but ogle at how his brows furrowed in concentration as he continued looking down at his phone, how eerily well-defined his jawline was- wait, scratch that- how his entire face was well-defined. You couldn't help but mutter 'damn...' to yourself as you looked away for a second to gather your thoughts. When you looked over at him again, he was staring in your direction. Immediately you felt a blush creep onto your cheeks as he walked a little closer to you.

"Hi, sorry. I hope I'm not interrupting your vibe or anything." he said softly.

"Oh, don't worry about it, you're good. 'S long as you're not loud or annoying." you joked in response. He let out a short laugh as he downed the rest of his drink, placing the empty cup next to your clutch. You took a small sip of your champagne and turned back to look at the sky. Absentmindedly, you placed the glass down onto the balcony, not realizing that the bars were too narrow to support the bottom of the glass. You looked down in utter shock as the glass made its descent down the building. You covered your mouth with your hands when the glass shattered before your eyes on the ground below. Turning around you saw the man pursing his lips together in an attempt to hold back a laugh. When he looked back at you, you couldn't help but let out a loud giggle. He doubled down with laughter at the event, which only made you laugh harder.

"Jesus fucking Christ, how tragic." you chuckled. The man covered his mouth to try and conceal his louder waves of laughter; the sound intensifying your own laughter. Eventually, you let out a loud sigh in an attempt to calm yourself down. The man coughed into his elbow and cleared his throat, effectively calming himself down.

"You want another one of those?" he asked, pointing to the mess of glass shards and wasted champagne well below them.

"Nah, I'm good. Thanks though," you responded with a smile. He nodded, looking around the area for a second. "Huh, it's clear you don't wanna be here either."

He let out a playful scoff as he stretched his arms. "How'd you know?"

"'Cause you're out here with some random ass girl you don't even know when you could be among that sweaty-ass crowd of other people you don't even know." you deadpanned. He chuckled at your joke, which made you smile a bit as a result.

"I'm Sehun, by the way." he said, holding his hand out in front of you.

"(Y/N), nice to meet you." You replied, shaking his hand. You felt your heart skip a beat at the contact; his hands were slightly calloused but surprisingly soft at the same time. You unconsciously squeezed his hand before pulling away, tucking a stray hair behind your ear as you blushed slightly.

"So... how'd you get invited to this? I think like every student was invited." Sehun inquired.

"Oh, my best friend actually was the one who invited everyone. Obviously I had to show up 'cause she is my best friend. Even if I loathe the idea of hundreds of loud, drunk college kids gathered in one giant venue with music I don't even like to listen to. But it's cool, though. 'Least there's a balcony out here for some peace and quiet," you explained. "How about you?"

"I came with my brother. One of his friends I believe is dating your best friend? So, obviously, he insisted I come with." he responded.

You let out a short laugh at his response. "Baekhyun is her boyfriend."

"Right... Yeah, they're pretty close."

"Oh sick, I may know him. What's his name?"

"Jongin."

"Oh, Jongin! Yeah, I know him. He's pretty nice." Sehun nodded, looking down at his feet.

"Yeah, a lot of people know him. Obviously. He's so popular. He's so handsome. Loads of girls and guys wanna get into his pants 'cause he's such a good dancer. Everyone loves Jongin. Meanwhile, when people find out we're related, they always ask 'Oh you're so quiet! You're so different from Jongin!' Well sorry I don't party 24/7 and actually study a lot so I can get my degree!" Sehun ranted. You were stunned at his sudden anger. A soft expression made its way onto your face as you wanted nothing but to quell his fury.

"I'm so sorry, I know that's a lot to unload on a complete stranger. I'll go back in now." Sehun began to make his way back inside before you grabbed his arm, stopping his movement. He turned around with a shocked expression present on his face.

"Shh. Don't worry about it at all. I get your frustration, honestly. I know what it's like to get those comments. It fucking sucks, I know. But can I say something? I've known Jongin for a few months and you for like a half-hour and wanna know something? I feel a lot more comfortable around you than him. Again, he's a good guy and all, but a little much at times. I vibe better with more reserved people honestly." you reassured, giving his arm a small squeeze before letting go. His face lit up at your comment. A grin etched itself on his face as he walked back to his previous spot.

"So. Who is Sehun 'I-Don't-Know-Your-Last-Name-So-Fuck-This-Bit-Isn't-Gonna-Work?' You do go to ISU, right?" you asked, grinning.

"It's Oh. And yes, I do go to ISU." Sehun responded.

"Okay, hi Sehun Oh. I'm (Y/N) (L/N). And holy shit we go to the same school! How come we've never run into each other?"

"Hi, (Y/N) (L/N). Also, I'm a chem major, is your major different?"

"Oh, no wonder! My major's secondary English education. Science is on the opposite side of campus, right?"

"Yeah. We should totally hang out sometime. Well, when we're not escaping a large ass party." You let out a giggle at his quip, which caused him to blush and rub the back of his neck.

"I'd like that a lot," You gave him a warm smile, resulting in a warm blush spreading across your face. Sehun smiled sheepishly in return, looking down at his feet again.

"So... uh... wait, shit. I'm not good with small talk, sorry." he rambled, folding his hands together while twiddling his thumbs.

"Don't worry, neither am I. Uh... I dunno... Wait, I got it. What do you do besides studying since you don't like to party 24/7 like the icon you are?" You and Sehun began giggling softly as he put his hands on his hips.

"Well, I actually dance. Jongin and I have been taking lessons since we were kids. And, uh... my friend Chanyeol and I composed a couple of songs together for his music class a while back. And I made up choreography for one of them."

You felt your jaw drop at Sehun's answer. "You dance and make music? That's so fucking sick! You literally became 10 times cooler than you already are. Uh, not that you weren't cool to begin with... but, uh, making music and dancing is hard! Honestly, kudos to you."

"Thanks," he said, grinning sheepishly. "How 'bout you?"

"Well... I read a lot, I write a lot, I'm finishing up my second novel, uh... that's it, I guess. Well, besides studying."

"Hold on. You've written a whole novel? You're calling me 'the cool one' when you wrote a novel? And you have another one in progress? You're amazing," You swore you were going to faint. "Now you have to show me."

"Do I have to?" you pouted.

"Pleeeeaseeeee? Please, please, please?" Sehun whined.

"Hm... I have a proposition for you. Show me your choreography and your song and maybe I'll let you read a few chapters of my first novel."

"Deal."

"Well damn, okay. Show me the song first."

Sehun nodded and took his phone out of his pocket. He spent a few seconds typing and scrolling before setting it down on the table.

"Uh, it's called 'We Young,'" Sehun stated quickly before tapping the middle of his phone screen. He backed up from the table and straightened himself out. You focused your attention on him as the song began playing from his phone. You let out a soft 'ooh,' immediately being intrigued and fascinated by the melody of the piano and the drum beats chosen. As you heard Sehun sing from the phone, he closed his eyes and felt himself get lost in his dance.

Your jaw dropped at the sight. Watching the way his fluid movements intricately matched the rhythm of his song was like watching a flurry of snow getting caught in a gust of wind. His passion for the craft was full-on displayed right in front of you. Every single movement he made perfectly encapsulated the message of his song. The way he bobbed his head for a few seconds before jumping straight into the chorus while mouthing the lyrics kept your attention. You simply couldn't look away.

'God, the way he moves his hips. I so wouldn't mind him moving those hips against my-'

You shook your head at your thoughts. Sure, Sehun was nice. And really hot. And also really easy to talk to. But would he be comfortable with doing anything with you? You did not want to push anything onto him, even if it meant you had to repress any thoughts you had about him maybe fucking you against the railing like the world was going to end. Or feeling those large hands cup your breast and rub your clit simultaneously. Maybe.

Before you knew it, Sehun stopped his dance and paused the song. "So... what did you think?" Sehun's voice snapped you out of your trance, feeling yourself blush due to your inappropriate thoughts. You shook your head lightly and turned to face him.

"What did I think? What did I think? Holy shit, that was... that was amazing! You are so fucking talented, it's unreal!" you exclaimed while clapping your hands softly. He grinned at your response, happy that you liked the song and dance.

"Okay, (Y/N)'s novel time! Yay!" he cheered. You playfully rolled your eyes as you opened up your clutch to take your phone out. You unlocked it and pulled up Google Docs, opening up your manuscript to show him.

"So this is the final manuscript of my first novel, titled 'Neckties and Rosé'. It's a cheesy, romantic, sexy, angsty mess of an office romance. Or, to put it lightly, angstier and sexier Jim and Pam from 'The Office.'" you explained. Sehun nodded and giddily took the phone out of your hands.

He began to dramatically read the prologue of the book. As he read, you were alternating between laughing hysterically at the various voices he gave the different characters and whining due to his teasing of the actions of the characters. You also noticed that he was enjoying himself thoroughly, much to your delight. You felt as if you were around one of your closest friends rather than a complete stranger at the moment, sharing similar humor and personality traits.

"'While Cordelia angrily slammed her car door, she swore she saw Rocky throw her a cocky smirk through the rearview mirror, which only added fuel to the dumpster fire that was her hazed state of mind.' And that concludes the prologue of 'Neckties and Rosé.'" Sehun announced, locking your phone and handing it back to you.

"So... whaddya think?" you asked shyly, looking down at your feet.

"(Y/N)... that was so fucking great! It sounded like you've been writing for like a thousand years rather than it being your first novel. Damn, you're amazing. Please send me it when you can, I wanna read the rest!" he praised, grinning at you. You couldn't help but return his smile, a jovial feeling igniting inside.

After a beat, you turned your phone on to look at the time: 11:59 PM.

"Oh shit, it's almost midnight!" you exclaimed, showing Sehun the time.

"Oh, wow. I honestly thought it was still 10-ish."

Soon enough, you began to hear the crowd inside count down from thirty, signaling the close arrival of the New Year. You bashfully looked at Sehun as you began twiddling your fingers together.

"Can I say something?" you questioned, earning a nod from the dark-haired male. "I... I've never had a New Year's kiss."

"Um, me neither, actually."

"D-d'you want to... I mean, if you're comfortable of course."

"Uh, yeah, sure. I kind of wanted to ask earlier, but I wasn't sure if you'd want to kiss me."

"Trust me, I would be honored to kiss you." You walked closer to Sehun until your bodies were centimeters apart.

"Three!"

You blushed as Sehun wrapped his toned arms around your waist. A jolt of electricity pulsed through your body at the contact, causing you to put your hands on the back of his neck.

"Two!"

He gave you a small smile as you stood on your tippy-toes, mentally preparing yourself for what was about to happen.

"One!"

You closed your eyes as you slowly leaned in for the kiss.

"Happy New Year!"

The moment your lips touched his, you swore you could feel fireworks going off inside of you. The scent of his musky cologne filled your nose as you kissed back with equal fervor. Sehun let out a groan as you entangled your fingers through his dark locks. His hand snaked down your back and cupped a handful of your ass, causing you to moan in his mouth. He took the opportunity to bite your lip lightly and put his tongue in your mouth. You cupped his cheek and pressed yourself even closer to him, practically getting drunk on the scent of his cologne and the subtle taste of beer on his lips.

"Yooo! Get some, (Y/N) and Sehun!"

You regrettably pulled away from Sehun as you turned to the door separating the balcony and the inside of the venue. You saw a drunk Baekhyun being held up by your equally tipsy best friend and one of his taller friends, also with the boys you recognized from earlier in the night. You felt yourself turn red as you buried your face in your hands.

"Girlie, no worries! Get some tonight! Lord knows ya need it!" your best friend slurred before letting out a loud hiccup.

"Same goes for you, Sehun!" another one of Baekhyun's friends jeered, earning a soft 'Ugh' from the taller male next to you. The boys began laughing and teasing Sehun as you collected your shoes and clutch, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone.

"You wanna get out of here?" You heard Sehun whisper in your ear, sending a chill down your spine.

"God, yes."

The boys and your best friend erupted into whoops and cheers as Sehun took your hand into his and led you back inside of the banquet hall. He held you close as you pushed past the larger crowd of drunk college students. Luckily you successfully left the venue unscathed and made your way to the elevator, out of breath and silently giggling.

"Wait, fuck. I don't have my car with me." you muttered as you followed Sehun inside of the elevator.

"I have mine, don't worry." Sehun responded before capturing your lips again. You uttered a soft moan as you pressed him against the back wall of the elevator. He broke the kiss to bury his face in the crook of your neck.

"God, I could take you right here baby. You're so fucking hot." he mused, nipping at your neck. You whimpered in pleasure as he sucked your sweet spot and palmed your ass until the doors of the elevator opened. He took your hand into his and led you out of the shaft, out of the building and to his car.

It took every fiber of your being to resist shoving Sehun into the backseat of his car and fucking him right there. He insisted on taking you to his apartment for, in his words, 'a lot more privacy.' The ride over to his place was silent yet filled to the brim with sexual tension. As he drove, you held back a moan as he placed his big hand on your thigh and almost ordered to stop the car as his fingers slowly yet surely moved toward your clothed core.

As soon as you entered the apartment, his lips were immediately on yours again. He slipped his tongue into your mouth as he hoisted your legs up so you could wrap them around his waist. Impressed by his strength and flexibility, you cupped his cheeks in the palms of your hands and deepened the kiss.

He brought you into his bedroom and slammed the door before laying you down onto his bed. He looked at you with hooded eyes as he pulled his hoodie off and discarded it to the side. You reached your hands under his t-shirt, feeling the smooth outline of his abs before pulling it over his head. You ogled at how his chest shone under the moonlight, indistinctly licking your lips as you put your hair back. He wrapped his arms around you, leaving butterfly kisses along your neck and jawline as he unzipped your dress.

You shifted away from Sehun to slide your dress down your legs and toss it across the room. His eyes flew down to your braless chest, a small smirk toying with his features.

“No bra? You’re a naughty girl, aren’t you?” A smart remark got stuck on your tongue as he latched his lips onto your left breast. He swirled his tongue around your nipple as he brought his hand to your other breast, massaging it gently. You threw your head back in absolute bliss. How were you getting this wet from him simply touching you?

Sehun laid you down on the bed, giving you a lingering kiss before pulling your panties down your legs.

“Wet for me already, hm?” Sehun hummed as he grazed a finger down your folds. He let out a contented hum as he lowered himself down between your legs, spreading your thighs apart while licking your arousal off his finger.

“Oh God, Sehun!” you moaned out as he slid his tongue between your folds. He eagerly began licking your dripping cunt, groaning softly as he tasted you for the first time. You fisted a handful of his jet black hair as he alternated between sucking on your clit and lapping your juices like a man starved.

"You taste so fucking good," he cooed, the vibration of his voice between your legs sending a jolt of electricity down to your center. You felt your orgasm creep closer and closer the more he ate you out.

"S-Sehun, I'm gonna..." you cried out. Right as you were on the cusp of coming all over Sehun's beautiful face, he stopped his ministrations and looked back up at you, his mouth dripping with your arousal. You whined as he wiped your juices off of his chin, slipping his digits into his mouth. Your jaw dropped at the sight; here this gorgeous man was, licking your arousal off his long fingers. It drove you bonkers.

"Shh, you're not gonna cum unless it's all over my cock. I want your pretty cunt wrapped around me as you cum, got that baby?" You nodded with a whine as Sehun walked over to his bedside drawer. He opened it and took out a condom, ridding himself of his pants and boxer briefs as he walked back to you.

"Mmmh, hurry up, I need you inside of me," you croaked, watching Sehun stroke his half-hard cock, eliciting another moan. He tossed you the golden package, which you happily ripped open.

"So needy," he scoffed. You stuck your tongue out at him while you rolled the condom onto his cock, palming him swiftly. He hissed as he aligned himself to your entrance, wrapping his arms around you. "Ready?"

"Just fuck me already."

With a click of his tongue, Sehun quickly pushed himself inside of you. You gasped as he filled you, blissfully stretching your walls in the most perfect way. Never have you had a partner who made you feel this good, made you feel so full. Your eyes shut in pure pleasure as he began to move. His thrusts started off slow but gradually picked up the pace; each movement filled with utmost care. He cradled you as if you were made of porcelain, wanting nothing more than to make you feel as good as possible.

"Christ, (Y/N), you're so fucking tight. So pretty wrapped around my cock."

"Fuck," You felt yourself being brought back to the brink of your orgasm as he continued his languid thrusts inside you. "Sehun, I'm close."

He hummed as his thrusts became sloppier, feeling his own orgasm coming close as well. You opened your eyes to see Sehun's face contorted in pleasure as he moved inside of you. The sight made you come undone, your body clenching around his cock as you felt juts of white-hot pleasure seep from your center to his cock. His movements became sloppier and sloppier before he filled the condom with his own release, grunting loudly at the sensation.

You breathed heavily as you came down from your high. Sehun pulled out of you and stood to dispose of the condom as you relished in what just happened. You turned to see him bringing a box of tissues over to you, almost swooning at the sight.

"Thank you," you hummed as he cleaned you up. He nodded, placing a chaste kiss onto your sweaty forehead before disposing of the tissues. He took your panties and one of his t-shirts from off the floor and handed both articles of clothing to you. You thanked him silently as you pulled the material over your head, relishing in how the shirt smelled just like him.

He climbed into bed after putting on a fresh set of boxers, beckoning you to come closer to him. You sighed in contentment as he cuddled close to you, feeling your eyes close as soon as he wrapped the duvet around the both of you.

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she-has-tc-tea · 6 years ago

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Answering questions about Luke!

1: what color are their eyes? are their eyes intense and serious or warm and gentle?

He has the most gorgeous light brown eyes! They are definitely very gentle I don’t think he could be “intense” if he tried tbh

2: have you ever had physical contact with them? what was it like?

We’ve hugged before when I was having a really shit week and omg he’s the best at hugs I SWEAR 💜 He’s a tad taller than me but he let me wrap my arms around his shoulders which is the literally the cutest thing he’s ever done

3: what do you think their favorite season is? what season do you associate them with?

He loves winter, mainly because he had only seen really deep snow a few times growing up, and since the US can get really heavy snow sometimes, he’s always ridiculously excited for things like Christmas and literally any mention of snow. However when I think of him I always think of spring/summer because he can keep a pretty good tan most of the year (unlike me I’m white af) so whenever I look at him it sort of feels like summer :)

4: what is the kindest thing they have done for you or the kindest thing they have said to you?

One day I hadn’t eaten anything other than an energy bar because I was so stressed about midterms and I didn’t have any time to eat so he offered me his ENTIRE lunch that he had bought from a take-out place, so we shared some soup and french fries together and it made me feel waaaayyyy better

5: have you ever seen them sad? what was it like? were they open with their emotions or were they quiet about it?

He’s extremely professional and never brings his emotions to work and you can’t tell when he’s teaching, but he’s been really emotional with me before and over time we’ve really opened up to each other, but I don’t think he’s ever been super close with anyone for a while (because of reasons I’ll probably go into sooner or later)

6: do they have a desk? if so, what do they have on it (ie; pictures, books, pencils, other trinkets, etc)?

He has an office in the same building he teaches in, and it’s super roomy and he has multiple bookcases with what is essentially multitudes of geology textbooks and Stephen King novels 😂

7: have you ever seen them dress up for halloween? what were they?

He showed me a picture on his phone where he was Luke Skywalker (hence his nickname, he’s obsessed with Star Wars) and his little niece was Darth Vader (she’s pretty badass for a 10 year old)

8: would you rather be the same age as your tc OR have your tc be the same age as you?

Wow this one is tough, I think I’d want to be his age, not sure why. I think I like the way he is now too much to want to meet younger Luke 😂

9: what kind of relationship do you have with them? do you guys joke around a lot or is it awkward or serious?

We joke around like 100% of the time, he’s a very sweet person all around but has a habit of being a hardass, which is why a lot of his students don’t care much for him :(

10: have you graduated or left your tc’s class yet? how long has it been? do you keep in touch? for those that are still in your tc’s class, what do you think it’ll be like when you leave their class or graduate? do you think you’ll keep in touch?

He’s been my professor over two classes in the last three years (since I started college) and now I help TA his introductory geology class! I’m not entirely sure what it’ll be like after I graduate… I don’t plan on moving away anytime soon so maybe we can continue to be close like we are now. We have each other’s numbers and text a lot as it is so I don’t think a whole lot should change between us after I graduate

11: how many tc’s do you currently have? how many have you had in the past?

Just one, and I’ve never had another TC (I’ve never even had that many crushes on people to begin with)

12: what kind of music do they listen to?

He literally won’t stop listening to rock (the good stuff, he calls it) Like War, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, etc. He’s actually seen Van Halen live and I am so freaking jealous because he went a few years ago after we had been close for a while and didn’t invite me 😂

13: what was the last conversation you had with them?

Just something small about grading midterms and how dumb some of the student responses are for the essay questions

14: do you think they know you’re interested in them? how do you think they’d feel about you crushing on them?

Honestly if he doesn’t have a clue that I like him he’s BLIND because like, i’m not super obvious but I totally prefer spending time with him over anyone else and he knows that.

15: have you ever seen them in a public place? what was it like?

Only once when he was getting a haircut at the same place I get mine, but neither of us go out a lot outside of work/school so we’ve never run into each other aside from the one time.

16: what was your tc like when they were your age? if you don’t know, what do you think they were like? nerdy type? bad boy type? artsy type?

He was a huge nerd when he was a kid and he had long hair until he was about 14 (lol) He loved and still loves fast muscle cars and sports and he’s played soccer practically forever.

17: what’s the first thing about them that pops into your head? it could be anything. a physical feature, a memory of them, etc?

His accent 😍 I’m sort of obsessed with it, because it’s a really thick Aussie accent.

18: do you have them on social media?

Yeah we’re Facebook friends except he rarely uses it.

19: do you take them as an optimist, pessimist, or realist? why do you feel that way?

He’s a bit of all of them at times, but mostly I would say he’s an optimist. He has a thing for seeing the good/potential in people and that’s a big part of why I like him so much!

20: if you had to describe them in one word, any word at all, what would it be?

💜 en·dear·ing: adjective - inspiring love or affection.

@my-tc-confessional made this list so here’s a shoutout ✌🏻

#teacher crush #teacher crush community #teacherxstudent #tcc

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pisica-de-scris-blog · 6 years ago

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Ok, so this is my first time posting any of my own work on Tumblr for other people to read. its just one scene from a current WIP novel. It’s still REALLY rough i am just trying to get the first draft of the entire novel done then i will go back and do massive editings for content, writing style ect ect but i wanted to be brave and put something out.

Walking in the front door of the two story house I share with my bestie, her mother and her little sister, ok share is a strong word… walking into the front door of my best friend’s house that I am currently squatting in, thats better, I starting calling out for Tori. “She isn't home” I hear from the living room, I drop my bag and my books by the front door and hop over the couch landing on the cushion next to Vivi, almost knocking the bowl of popcorn off her lap. This obnoxiously smart 12 year old, wears her blond hair in pig tails, to make her self look even younger, mostly to lure innocent bystanders into her web of deceitful cuteness in order gain sympathy or candy. I still haven't figured out if she is just working the angle she was born with, or if she is really an evil genius who brandishes her cuteness like a broadsword. Seriously it doesn't matter the situation, she can get whatever she likes from almost anyone, and if they wont give it to her right out, she will get it by any means necessary, she is ruthless and her petite frame and all around adorableness, makes people underestimate her intelligence. Which is something that I don’t know if that makes me admire her more, or if I am a little afraid of her. Probably both. Defiantly both. One time I saw her con a bunch of teenagers out of about $20 worth of pixie sticks. Do you know how many pixie sticks that is? Hundreds. Meh, mean at least she shared. She, Tori and I went on a 3 day non-stop sugar induced movie marathon. The eventual sugar crash was hard, but worth it. At least until we found out that she recorded Tori and I singing everysong in Grease, loudly and very badly while watching the movie. She hasnt put that video on social media yet, she says she wont. But I see her little evil mind saving it for it’s epic black mail potential. “Where is your wayward sister?” I question stealing a handful of popcorn. “She went for a run, something about overbearing life choices and blah blah blah, I don't know, I tune her out when she starts talking about college and responsibilities and adulting. I mean really I am 12 I don't want to hear about adulting, or choices that impact your whole life. That shit is scary.” “You have no idea kid, but watch the fucking language.” I smirked at her. “Ok so what are we doing until she gets home?” “Well, I finished all my homework for the next few days, really this stuff is too easy. So I was thinking about begging you to order a pizza,breaking out the big puppy dog eyes if I need to” She looked up at me starting to make her eyes really big. “Pizza sounds good, put the puppy dog eyes away” laughing at her antics I grabbed the computer to place the order. “ and then can we maybe binge watch some netflix. Since mom is away do you think we can watch that show with the one main character who has to be slutty or she starves… and has the awesome best friend with epic fashion sense?” “No, you are too young for that show” “But I am really old for my age, I mean you know I am already soo much smarter than anyone else my age, and most ages. So I should be able to handle more mature TV shows too.” Vivi started rambling, getting ready for a fight to watch this show. “Your humility is heart-warming really,but your mother would skin me alive. And then who would order you pizza with pineapple on it, which by the way is gross.” “It is not, but fine.. Hot hunter bros it is then.” As I finish ordering the pies Vivi queues up the show on netflix and hands me a brush, I start absent mindedly running it through her hair as we wait for our dinner. My mind doesn't focus on the tv it keeps running through the events at the parlor. I need to know who those guys where. What they know about my mother, I mean she died in childbirth, and left me alone with an alcoholic father. Or did she? Maybe there are things I don't know. My father never really talked about my mother while sober, but if he was drunk and feeling nostalgic, he would ramble about her. I could sometimes make out some of what he said in between sobs and hiccups before he passed out. He would call her his angel and how she radiated this beautiful light. I always thought that maybe her death is what drove my father mad and it was my fault she died. What if there is more to the story? Maybe she was also in whatever this mafia or gang thing is that Cole is tied up in. I should of questioned Cole before I left. I should of made her tell me what was going on, and how my mother was involved. Instead I ran. Why do I always run before thinking? About 20 minutes into the first episode I notice that it is starting to get dark out, and Tori still hasnt gotten home. I know she drives to well lite parks to run and she tries to stay safe, but I will always worry about her. She watches the news and knows what can happen, so I know she is practical. But she has never had to face any violence. She has never had to fend off an attacker, and she doesn't always realize that being practical and trying to be safe, doesn't really mean she is safe. And the pizza will be here in another 20 and I have seen that girl eat. It’s scary. Just as I am about to call her to check her ETA my phone starts to vibrate Tori’s name popping up on the screen. “Oh my god, why don't people just text, seriously who uses their phone to call anyone anymore. Don't they know they are interrupting my viewing pleasure. How rude!” Vivi grumbles, as she turn the volume on the TV up a few more notches. I can feel the annoyance radiating off of the small blond, so I grab my phone and take it into the kitchen to answer it. “Hey Tori, are you on your way home? I ordered pizza. The small blond and I have started the demon-hunting without you.” I say into the phone. “Really, one would think having the pizza first would help with the demon hunting. I mean you could use the pizza as a very effective bate to lure a poor unsuspecting demon into your trap before you spring and attack him with your no doubt alluring feminine wiles. Now is there a sign up list for demons to volunteer or do I just have to wait for you to find me?” A smooth deep and very male voice spoke over the line. “Who the fuck is this, and why do you have my friends phone.” I could feel the rage in my voice masking over the fear. “Whoa chicka calm down. My name is Murmur. Your friend was in a little car accident, she is fine, but she is staying here tonight with us” I could just hear the smug smile in this assholes voice. That just fueled my rage. Take a deep breath I try to keep my voice calm and quiet, I dont want to worry the small blond before I have to. “Oh, I am sorry, are you a medical professional calling from the hospital to inform me to come pick up my friend?” I ask, my tone dripping with sarcasm. “No? Well then maybe you should give the phone to my friend so she can tell me where to come pick her up. And I swear to god if a single hair on her head is even slightly out of place I will own your ass. Do I make myself clear you arrogant douche nozzel. Now hand her the phone!” Seriously I know life is a bitch, but today it is having puppies. This shit is ridiculous. “Douche nozzel, you know if I had feelings they might almost be hurt. I mean I am trying to do the stand up thing here. I helped rescue a damsel in distress, putting a smudge in my perfectly shiny white knight armor in the process I might add, and then I call her friend so no one worries about her. And this is the thanks I get? Harsh.” Under normal circumstances, I would find his banter amusing if not even a little charming. Today is not a normal circumstance. In fact today, all his witty banter has done is insure that any regret I may of felt about being a tad harsh is just gone. “Give Tori the phone” I growl. “No can do, cupcake. She is being seen by our Medic at the moment, and she is kinda out cold. But I am being assured she is fine and I will have her call you when she is awake. Tootles!” The line went dead, oh hell to the no. Om Sarah breath, inhale, exhale repeat as necessary. Once I am sure I am at least sort of in control of my rage, I calmly grab the phone, and call Tori’s cell. Ok I will be civil, collected, calm and I dare say courteous, so I can find out what happened, where my friend is and get her home. “Aw, sweetheart did you miss me already? Really its cute but its getting a little embarrassing.” The condescending male voice answers “WHO ARE YOU, AND WHERE IS TORI” Well, so much for calm and collected. “I told you, princess. My name is Murmur, and your friend is fine. I will personally make sure she calls you as soon as possible. And since you have no idea where I am, or she is for that matter, and I have disabled the GPS on her phone, you are just going to have to take my word for it. And although I am sure you do a very sexy impersonation of a fire breathing dragon and are so ready to storm the castle to retrieve your wayward friend here, you wouldn't know what castle to storm. So you are just SOL. Sorry Xena, no warrior princess impressions for you today, so put away the circle blade and have a seat, someone will contact you shortly.” Then the line went dead Calmly setting down my phone, so I dont throw it against a wall. I take a few deep breaths to try and get my anger under control. Breath in breath out Breath in, breath out. I start to repeat my mantra, “sun is warm grass is green, sun is warm grass is green…. Fuck this sun is hot grass is fucking dead.” Time to get some help and get shit taken care of, heading back into the living room, I wonder how ethical my favorite small blond is. “Hey, Vivi.. If someone where to turn off the GPS in a cell phone,say Tori’s for example, could you still tell me where it is, or where it was when it was last turned on?” Vivi turned towards me and raised an raising an eyebrow considered my question. “Could I? Yes, I am all knowing and my powers of intellect are indeed beyond measure, will I? Well, its unethical, an invasion of privacy and illegal, so it depends on why and what I get out of it.” “I’ll learn how to play D&D and I will play for at least 2 hours once a month.” I offer knowing how badly she wants to play on a table top and not just with her friends on line. “3 hours twice a week, Tori plays too AND I get to watch the that show with the slutty not a demon chick” she countered. “No, I would let you watch it but your mom would kill me. THen resurrect me just to off me again. But I will agree to 2 hours once a week with me and Tori, and I will take you to buy more figurines.” “Fine, no show. But 3 hours once a week and one weekend a month where we play a long mission, I mean an all nighter with junk food and a lot of caffeine.” “You mean you want to take one netflix binge night and turn it into a D&D night?” “Yes” She nods “Done” We shake on it and she grabs her laptop. “So how long will this take you and your mad hacking skills” “I will have a location before the pizza gets here, and the delivery guy just pulled up.” THe door bell rings and I go to answer the door. Once I am walking back to the living room with the boxes and a roll of paper towels to use as plates, Vivi already has the laptop open and sitting on the table. “She was at fountain head park running in circles, like a crazy person, seriously who runs around a park In Arizona in the summer. A small man made lake does not an oasis make. Still hot, still crazy. Anyway, then she left, or at least her cell phone did and the GPS was turned off in downtown phoenix. Right off central ave, in a really nice area. Looks like its right by those newish condos the ones that look like a massive castle. She probably met some hot rich guy and is off making poor life choices.” “You hacked into the GPS on Tori’s phone and got all of that in two minutes?” I am just stunned. “Ok first off its not like you asked me to hack the pentagon and get nuclear codes, honestly. But no, I didn’t hack anything, mom has us all on a family plan for our phones, and she has some parental control thingys, so I just logged in and looked at the GPS logs, then I used that with google maps and bam info. Common sense, really isn’t a super power ya know.” She grabbed the pizza boxes from me and grabbed her first slice of pineapple pizza and started picking all the pineapple off. “I also went ahead and checked her car’s GPS and emergency system thing. It was also at the park, but it logged a minor accident. The incident report says it was a minor accident no injuries, and only a little cosmetic damage to the car itself. It said owner verbally confirmed no injury and that they had someone who would take the car to get it repaired. It also noted police were not called, and that insurance would not be used because the other party was at fault and is paying for the damages out of pocket. Since the report said owner verbally confirmed I am not overly worried. Tori, isnt dumb and she is a big girl she can take care of herself.” I am not worried.” I hate to admit it, but I think she is right. I did get a call saying she was alright, and as long as I get another call in a few hours I shouldn't start panicking. She probably did find some hot guy and is making poor life choices. It isnt something she does often but it has been known to happen. Plus, she has been super stressed lately maybe it will do her some good. “Fine, if you are soo smart tell me why, for the love of god, you make me order pineapple pizza and then pick all the pineapple off?” “Because I don't like to eat the pineapple, I just want a little pineapple flavor, like pineapple essence pizza, now can we get back to supernatural? Or would you like me to get you the D&D guide, I play the 5th edition.” As we settle on the couch ready to watch a few more episodes and eat our cheesy greasy dinner of awesome, I cant help but to think about Tori and where she is and if she is ok. Most of what Vivi told me matches the story that guy with the weird name said, but its just not really clicking me for me. When I pick up my phone I see a text from a number I dont know. Unknown: Hey warrior princess, I figured you might be a little pissed off with our previous conversation, so I figured I would shoot you a message to assure you, again, that your friend is ok. I would really hate for you to tail spin into an evil plot to hunt me down and murder me. And if I am being completely honest, your cute little threats are pretty sexy, so I was hopeing for a few more of those to hold me over for the night. My god the nerve of this guy. Who the fuck talks like this? Sarah: OMG Douche nozzle, you are disgusting. But why would a text from an unknown number make me feel better about you kidnapping my friend? Unknown: Again the name is Murmur, not douche nozzle, but I will answer to mother fucker. And here, for your piece of mind and spank bank. I cant help a quick laugh as a picture comes through on my phone of a very attractive man who is doing the worse duck lips face I have ever seen in true selfie tradition. Sarah: And what exactly is that picture suppose to prove? How do I even know that is you. You probably googled selfie and just downloaded the pic of the first almost attractive person you saw. Unknown: that is a pic of me I just took #nofilter and what do you mean ALMOST attractive. I will have you know I am considered adorable by some, pretty by most and 100% fuck-able by all. But I sent the pic so if your friend isnt home by tomorrow morning, you know what to look for when you start hunting me down for the maiming. Sarah: I still dont believe its you, you could be starting me on a quest to go hurt some innocent little European model while you are at home, in your moms basement eating nachos and playing World of Warcraft after selling my friend into slavery. Unknown: Ok dollface, what will it take for you to believe that is me. And dont think for a second that I didn't notice you said I looked like a European model, seriously I am blushing over here. Sarah: send me a pic with a fork balancing on your nose. Unknown: … uh ok give me a min. I actually have to get up and find a fork. A few moments go by and my phone chimes with another message. Its a picture of the same man balancing a fork on his nose. I stifle the a laugh and the true ridiculousness of this pic, and I save it to my phone and create a contact for this guy. I need to save his number so I can make sure he gets Tori home. Kidnappy douche nozzle: Believe me now sweetness? Sarah: Well that could be anyone with a fork on their nose Kidnappy douche nozzle: Really, Really? Riddle me this batgirl why would anyone take that pic, except in this specific situation. Sarah: Fine, so the pic is you. But that doesnt mean you have my friend and she is safe or that you are bringing her home. Kidnappy douche nozzle: Well I would take a pic of your friend for you, but she is in my friends bed, and from what I have been told taking pictures of women in bed without their knowelege is frowned upon. Its just past the level of creepy I am willing to go to, even for a feisty thing like you. Now it only seems fair that since I sent you 2 pics you send me atleast one ;) Sarah: Life isnt fair, I am not sending you anything. But you will return my friend in the morning or all hell will break loose and I will kill not only you but everything you have ever even liked. Kidnappy douche nozzle: I will keep you updated on whats going on and when she is headed back home. Sarah: then you may yet survive this. Kidnappy douche nozzle: now kitten, dont make promises you arnt willing to keep.

#wip #newnovel #excerpts from my writing #nanowrimo #nano 2018 #first novel

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bakechochin · 6 years ago

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The Book Ramblings of August

In place of book reviews, I will be writing these ‘book ramblings’. A lot of the texts I’ve been reading (or plan to read) in recent times are well-known classics, meaning I can’t really write book reviews as I’m used to. I’m reading books that either have already been read by everyone else (and so any attempt to give novel or insightful criticisms would be a tad pointless), or are so convoluted and odd that they defy being analysed as I would do a simpler text. These ramblings are pretty unorganised and hardly anything revolutionary, but I felt the need to write something review-related this year. I’ll upload a rambling compiling all my read books on a monthly basis.

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole An American friend recommended me this (or I mean technically he’s Russian but I’m not going to get into that because it’s not important to this ramble), citing it as a legitimately hilarious book, an idea that my cynical mind was fully willing to haughtily scoff at. I opted to read it not only because of the really nice Penguin Clothbound edition, but because, from what I’d heard, it was a picaresque narrative set in a colourful New Orleans setting with plenty of memorable characters, and if I’m going to read any American literature, this seemed like a safe bet. As it turns out, the fact that this story is a picaresque narrative isn’t what first stood out to me as this book’s main strength; this is very much a story defined by its characters, to the extent that the few short bits of secondary reading on this text write pretty much solely on Toole’s achievements in terms of the characters that he’s created. Ignatius J Reilly and Myrna Minkoff are honestly two of my favourite characters in any book, not because they’re necessarily likeable (because they really aren’t) but because they’re interesting and humorous and diametrically opposed in a fascinating way. These two are certainly the standout characters; the majority of the other characters are noteworthy, but perhaps only really as examples of stereotypical character moulds (niche and relevant only to the setting as said stereotypes may be). Much of the comedy in the text is based on evoking laughter at figures who you’d feel bad for laughing at, which is all good fun when such characters are such blustering caricatures that one cannot help but laugh at them, but in other cases it doesn’t really make for enjoyable reading. Ignatius’ mother, for instance, is such a pathetic and pitiful character in her own scenes that any intended comedy at her expense just seems a tad cruel. There is a recurrent theme in the text of characters who are seemingly only introduced for a very small scene in a very minor role are then roped into the overall grand story, and their exploits are narrated on for seemingly long after they have had any relevance to Ignatius, the book’s main driving force. This is perhaps ameliorated when said extra side stories follow characters who are interesting in their own rights; Jones, for instance, is a bloody hilarious character, even when absolutely bugger all is going on in his own story until Ignatius enters the fray again. The setting is very colourful, and made yet more absurd with its cast of caricatures and odd preponderance for utilising wacky costumes for comedic effect, and this absurdity perfectly reflects the story, a story that goes significantly more off the rails than I was anticipating. There are twists and turns and cases of mistaken identity and characters running into each other at hilariously inopportune moments, and whilst the plot takes a while to set all the pieces in motion, when it does it’s a fucking joy to read. I didn’t know how a picaresque narrative could properly end when it is comprised entirely of wacky self-enclosed encounters which all have their defined individual beginnings and endings, but this book’s ending is surprisingly satisfying, as well as being in keeping with the medieval wheel of fortune structure that is constantly brought up in Ignatius’ monologuing. This text is apparently now on some American school curriculums, which certainly adds up to me because, when reading it, I was put in mind of the texts that I looked at for GCSE, in that the text is defined by its few blatantly obvious central themes that don’t require much extrapolation, and subsequently result in there not being much in the way of innovative or novel secondary reading pieces on the text. Perhaps this tidbit of information can be extended to explain my rather petty and subjective complaints about the novel; I did this sort of shit with the texts I had to read for GCSE too. I’m glad that I read this out of choice as opposed to being forced to learn about, because it’s far better for enjoyment than for education in my opinion.

I didn’t actually read any more novels this month, so I made up for it by reading an absolute fuck tonne of short stories.

From Shadows of Carcosa: Tales of Cosmic Horror: ‘The Squaw’ (Bram Stoker) - a short and well-written little piece with an ending that was both satisfying and metal as fuck ‘Moxon’s Master’, ’That Damned Thing’ and ‘An Inhabitant of Carcosa’ (Ambrose Bierce) - very well-written and compelling pieces, though varying in how memorable they are (my favourite probably being ’That Damned Thing’, because it seems less like a snippet of a wider story and more like a full pieced-together narrative) ‘The White People’ (Arthur Machen) - astounding writing both in its mind-bending discourse on the meaning of evil and its ability to uniquely convey the terrifying unknowableness of the cosmic horror genre with the narrative voice of a child, though I fail to see the connection between the two ‘The Willows’ (Algernon Blackwood) - excellent at imbuing a novel location with a unique sense of dread, though the past tense narration perhaps jumps the gun somewhat when it comes to revealing the fates of our characters (and perhaps the grand villainous entities from another dimension seem a tad incongruous in this rather small setting) ‘Seaton’s Aunt’ (Walter de la Mare) - very compelling writing that turns out to not be about much at all; a fantastic depiction of childhood fear that doesn’t really translate as well when the story’s characters reach adulthood ‘The Colour Out Of Space’ (HP Lovecraft) - a slow build-up of imaginative and fucked-up strangeness in a cool rural setting, really capturing the essence of the cosmic horror with a truly unknowable and unique threat

Miscellaneous short stories: ‘The Dualists’ (Bram Stoker) - certainly well-written but any thoughts that I have on it are completely overshadowed by the fact that this is among the most fucked-up short stories I’ve ever read - it goes beyond cheery Grand Guignol fun times entertainment and is instead just really fucked and unsatisfying ‘A Dream of Red Hands’ (Bram Stoker) - well-written and possesses a pleasant enough ending, but it was more Christian-centric than I expected and less gratuitously bloody for a story with such an evocative title ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’ (Ambrose Bierce) - absolutely fantastic from its exciting action sequence to its phenomenal ending, with American history nonsense just vague enough so as to be accessible ‘The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether’ (Edgar Allan Poe) - a short and darkly funny story with an absolutely fantastic chaotic dinner scene ‘Axolotl’ (Julio Cortazar) - delicately written and weirdly thought-provoking even though it’s seemingly not really about anything at all ‘Mr Miao/The Tiger Guest’ (Pu Songling) - a striking and dramatic story about social decorum and crazy animal curses, which was basically what I expected from my limited frame of reference to Chinese fiction (and had more in common with The Tiger Who Came to Tea than I would have reasonably expected)

#book reviews #book ramblings #a confederacy of dunces #john kennedy toole #cosmic horror #lovecraft #poe #stoker #bierce #blackwood #machen #walter de la mare #cortazar #pu songling #that's a shit load of authors

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autoirishlitdiscourses · 4 years ago

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Discourse of Wednesday, 06 January 2021

That's OK! There are any ten-page paragraph should be the sign of a short section from one topic to another in ways that cultural definitions are deployed that are not a bad move, which would boost your attendance each time you have any other race I think is important is to think meta-critically about your other questions, though there are places where pauses in the way that you were not present in section and total how many minutes away you are an emergency responder, or bizarre things happen during the early twentieth century, particularly of some aspects of some kind of plans requirement fully. Hi! Hawthorn is also a good break!

You've been punctual this quarter. I'm terribly sorry and embarrassed. But what you have any further absences besides Thanksgiving will definitely give you a five-digit code, but you added to the class to speak eventually if you have a close-reading exercise that digs out your own ideas and where and when will it be produced?

I think. The iconic X-ray of his job, but his personal experience it can feel like, because this is difficult selection to memorize because of its most precious illusions. I nominate her: she worked incredibly hard, made great strides, is to let that guide you to make progress on your grade, then you can connect larger-scale course concerns and did a very very very close to ten pages long; this counts everything including participation and your writing is so strong that it would be to sit down and write well.

Again, well done this week has been wonderful! So, with the Clitheroes are less-capable beings, involving their male partners patronizing them in some slice of Irish culture, although there are possibly many good ways to get me a copy of the flaneur and how that sympathy is constructed by identifying them the main character. Can't bring back time. They've been getting quieter and quieter in section that you're not rushing back from the book deals with the Easter Rising, the smart thing to do. All of these is of course; I'm normally much more quickly, now they vanish, The Song of the poem and its historical situation. You might look specifically at Bottle and Fishes; Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a form, and our general concepts about identity formation and the University for classes at UCSB, and incurs the no-show penalty for a TA than I had the answers to your address book or calr, online or offline. Absolutely. The Covey 6 p. I think, too in here, I think that having a similar measurement were performed on all sides, but looser ones that would then be reciting as soon as you can which specific part of your suggestions are potentially benefits to both, although it sounds to me and I'm sure you'll do well. 4, I suppose, would pay off in setting up your total score for the standard deviation for that extra credit, miss five sections, and only being able to download the document How Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail This document has not always been very punctual this quarter, any your grade.

4% of your argument to pay off in relation to your next email it sounded in section lately keep it up. Keep an eye on your paper is worth/five percent/for/excellent delivery, and I'll have them. I think that you would have been possible for you so much ground that argument in any case, that what you prefer to avoid discussing it in any way affect your analysis is and get 100% on the date for Spalpin Fanach. Wish me luck, and thanks again for a job well done. I think that anything will change as you write and revise it, I suppose, is important, cannot learn at all, this could conceivably push you down more if you'd like, I.

I hope you had a good student this quarter—you produce an excellent delivery and wait for an important passage and warmed the class, with this is a complex relationship to the actual state of food production involved in the directions specified that they relate to each other. Similar things could be as late as Thursday. It's not that you could meaningfully take this set of genuinely miniscule value. A range for you. Being really stressed out.

I'll get back to you. Hi! Questions and answers for the class, though it wasn't saved by the end of his wife's hand with their wedding rings on, and several historical speeches in here, and an argument based on the assignment write-up of the currency system in use in Britain after 31 December 1960. I hope you're feeling better now. I think, to everyone's participation over the break you deserve it. Any poem at all. As a Young Man, which is to have sympathy for Francie is like B and I feel that it's a strong connection to 1904 as well as in just a tad more emotion interjected into it as he reinscribes them and what the finals schedule says. Because I will have to speak if no one else in both sections.

That might give you some breathing room on other classes and that your midterm will be assessed during the Great Hunger. You are absolutely welcome to select from them, supplement them, but rather that you want to cover, but because it would be the subject in section, since you gave in section! In any case always a productive way to section I was able to participate effectively and provided a good job overall, you did quite a bit more, I think that there are a lot of ways in which I am much less true for several reasons. I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow! I'll see you next week!

Sent by e-mail me and say exactly what is Mary likely to be done, and that's perfectly OK to set up yours and demonstrated adaptability in terms of the less obvious but not catastrophically so. This all looks good to me. Some people have done some very perceptive comments in here, but will push you up into A-and carrot-related observations, and one days late unless you have a fever of 104 or a synthesis than an omnivore would? Just let me know!

The UCSB Library's advanced search.

You responded gracefully to questions and comments that you should/always/bring the week's readings with you about the Lestrygonians episode would have helped to motivate to talk about his own relationship to Celtic myth informs one or the different kinds of sympathies with Francie?

By extension from the book. I personally think that they found out is to provide the largest overall benefit to the point of view from the Butcher Boy: discussion of the assertions that you have some astute observations about personal responsibility by turning in a Reddit discussion earlier this year! Does anyone have a spot in the first place. I'm familiar with either play though I've read so far and to interrogate your own motivations and how we have tentatively arranged to work out another time to get there, and your material gracefully and in terms of which have particular places in the UK and Ireland prior to the class's actual level of. But I think that your score on the unnumbered page right after the fact, everyone! Mooney. Because each of you assignment.

For instance, or at any time without hurting their grade at least a short set of very important. Warning: I feel sometimes like you're writing two papers—one about food, one thing, and going above the length limitation work productively will just not show, take a look at the appropriate time if you want me to post-Victorian ideals demands that they have exactly 60 minutes to get back to you.

Do you have to take larger interpretive risks/and demonstrates that the stereotypes of Jewish people in section where so quiet. Again, I'm one of the early twentieth century. Remember that you're scheduled to do with your section has already signed up for a job well done. I'll give you advice as good as meeting an obligation. You have three options for other section for Thanksgiving have a good move. Finally, being honest when you sense that my 6 o'clock section in advance what you would appreciate having the bottom of a difficult task and trace some important things to talk about the horror experienced by the selections in which your overall goals are likely to be before then, will change by much. This is already an impressive move. 5% which would have helped, I will try to incorporate personal experience it can be a smart move for you than for recall. I think that there are no specific formatting or topical or length requirements. I may occasionally make general announcements in this matter and wanted to talk. You did a solid job tonight. I think that you don't have a proclivity for rather dark humor and deal thematically as a whole. Both are entirely unavailable for any reasons less severe than hospitalization will result in further disciplinary action, just as people who never ask naive questions never stop being naive.

Doubtless your intelligence and enthusiasm mean that you'd intended, while their children are constantly shown to be to ground that argument in a lot of ways that this isn't a bad thing, let it motivate other people react to Lecter and how does it play with and which texts have a backup plan in case you didn't hear his discussion of your paper to punch through to being told that not taking the no-show penalty. Again, I can say more specifically about your grade for the essay questions, OK? I think, too. I think that you'll get another email about that question. Of course, has interesting and important things to say that nationalism was lessened mid-century Marxist reading of the Telemachus episode 6 p. Sounds like a small change, but I don't want the experience to develop its own presuppositions in more depth. This includes your midterm, took four days to make any changes made I will also choose which lines you're reciting. To think about homelessness in Godot, or the novels there's no overlap in your final, but does perhaps suggest that you can draw in additional examples from Sartre and Camus to enrich your analysis and the title and copyright page from the syllabus. I'm deeply embarrassed that it occurs. Any poem at all by Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Wherever you are nervous or feel that it's often confused with one. It would have helped to have a good holiday! Your You responded gracefully to questions from other parts of the text, but they can fully reach their own self-expression, but more so that the textual selections won't be assessed until after I'd graded and was perennially in love with Rosalind, writes odes on hawthorns, having hung them on my way to find evidence on their own research project, to pay off for you, but you did: Perfect. British pound notably through much of the poem's narrative tension, and you related it effectively to larger-scale payoff … but as a group is not caught up on the Web: New document on section 3:30-4:30 works with your paper receives is based on my grading rubric. 5 p. My margin comments, in part because it's specific and detailed outlines I've gotten pretty good sense of the poem's sense of rhyme, too, OK? This document is an impressive move on. You have a connection between romance and the enormity of the division of a rather fine line about how you will need to be over. One of the two-minute writing. I am not going to be prepared. If you haven't found it on Slideshare and linking to the course's large-scale, but this wasn't on the final. That alone motivated most students the last minute to use Downton Abbey. Hi! I think that being ready to go about proving your points in this paper up to reciting in front of the poem and its background.

I'll see you next week. It is not one of two pairs reciting from Godot or McCabe's The Butcher Boy is Y, then revise your paper grade are the issues on which of them. One of the entire quarter. 5% of course welcome to provide a more fluid, impassioned delivery. You did a very sophisticated and deserve to be helpful. Section issues? In any case, the basic idea is sound and may serve a number of terms you're dealing with this particular assignment difficult. You picked an important passage and gave what was overall a strong connection to religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or if you really want to put it in that night. Too, I will call you in section once when he did on the final. Discussion sections are an intelligent, educated person and his weird foreshortened female figures, many of which parts of your introduction and conclusion bracket the body is less significant than the rules is generally so sensitive that I think. You showed that you have left, but in your section.

I really hope that they haven't started the reading or other opinions: I marked four small errors haven't hurt you, nor do I necessarily believe these things not because I got home to consider myself a representative and to exercise even more nuanced understanding of the text of Irish, or at any of these would be central to being more lecture-based than I had two or three days, and a talented scholar the handout linked above was prepared for the quarter, and because it will drag you down to recite this week, whether or not this lifts you to push your paper pay off. Thanks. Just a quick think-over, and I've read works by Pinter before, your points for that matter, my point is that asking yourself, then you/must/attend or reschedule, or the sentences in which this could conceivably have paid off here. You added then in line 22. One would be to say about students and give them something specific to look at it. A is still possible for you.

The Butcher Boy well? 6 p.

Thank you. The Butcher Boy, mentioned in your proposal, if you think are likely to run free because the offer, if you go back through my copy and redirect the link and an estimate of your material you emphasize I think that your thesis statement: what kinds of background, and your paper; still, it's not necessary for purposes of the following characters in The Butcher Boy, so it's unlikely that you'll want to go is also available. Even if someone does make that? 3%. This would just barely meets the absolute maximum amount of time that you do will help you to a variety of texts and apply for services with the fact that a lot of ways here.

Does that make it support that particular selection and delivered it in a midterm to send me an email saying that she frequently contemplates new discoveries in physics in her spare time, despite this fact, everyone, Having just checked my eGrades sheet I just checked my stack of midterms against my class list, I mean is that your ideas, not Oct 30. On McCabe's The Butcher Boy, and that I mark you down to structural issues with your own writing and studying so that it's difficult to find that thesis, because your writing, get an A-for the attendance/participation calculation. 551, p. No worries I'm not seeing at this stage, and I'll find a recording of your task that you've set yourself up to me. You've got a lot of things here, and it can be traced through your selection and gave what was an uncomfortable topic, and good luck on the time period and how you would most need to include these types of documents in addition to being a good move on its key points. I'll have her talk to me I'll post that on to and in a productive exercise I myself tend to read the two tendencies in Irish culture should probably at least one fundamental problem that keeps it from being a good student and I am not asking you to probe at what other people to talk about them; this counts everything including participation and attendance that is a mid-century American painter Willem de Kooning's Woman series is full of the bird as intermediary between this world, on p. If you have some interesting and sophisticated and your analytical structure sets you up to that; dropped again on 1. I think that they're integrated into it as an organic part of broad cultural changes, I'd suspect that she's not telling the truth is very promising … and then never quite come out and yell Gotcha!

But you're quite bright and can take a more complex argument be made about grammar and phrasing at all you receive a passing grade but make sure you know how many people are exhausted by the email me at the beginning of the sexual content of the landscape itself, you want to get past the I have one extensive monologue from someone who provides you with comments after the final metaphorically speaking, or contact you personally about important issues and weaves them gracefully into an effective relationship with his father, etc. A paper, and I fully appreciate this it's not as useful that way: every A-paper receives a letter grade. Grammar and mechanics are mostly solid, and I've just discovered that time passes differently when you're going to argue more strongly for the course syllabus: related to the course of the students have a thesis statement as a simple concept in many small ways, you've really done some very perceptive readings, I think that you wanted to be aware of these terms that differ are generally more consistent and sensible than the rules. However, if you let me know in my office hours, or Aristotelian virtue, or similar phenomena. This is a buffer that will help you to be over. It's a first and last week's presentations has taken longer than expected to use for us don't show that this is the only person in each section and are comfortable discussing with the points that will make someone else's test during an exam for you. Just at a coffee shop reading and an estimate based on Yeats's poetry may tie into developments in Irish culture is a strong job here, and that you took.

Does that help? There are a wide variety of comments explaining why you received is not unusual in the front of the poem and its background. Even finding small things that are important and impressive. If you need to force yourself to do is to provide a very small number of ways, and that relating the readings explicitly to each other, he said about them more quickly for you. Thanks to!

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

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themaryiestsuetoeversue · 7 years ago

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cut because long, animal abuse, animal death, general horrific trauma reactions

[”We...should probably talk.”] Usually Noir used technopathy to give text to speech as much emotional nuance as possible. This time she left it cold and robotic.

Poppy put down the latest vampire trash novel, turned off the tv, and even pushed everything on the table aside, scooting over to make room. She jittered a little but kept her breathing steady - even if she hit the nail on the head in what this might be about, it probably had to be said. Noir wouldn’t suggest things like this for fun.

Noir fiddled as well, poking at the PDA with her fingers in an attempt to stall for time. But eventually, she just had to bite the bullet and say it:

[”Before I met you...life...was not as pleasant.”]

Poppy waited for more, but it never came, so she answered, “Oh, that. I...I had a suspicion about that, but I didn’t wanna push - you can tell me when you’re ready, y’know? I mean, I’m always ready to hear anything you have to say, but even now, if you don’t think you are...”

[”If I don’t do this now, I’ll never do it.”]

Okay, fair point, but then why the -

[”It makes it easier to do this in words, not pictures. Even if it requires translating into words in the first place.”]

“Okay.”

Even with that support, words were slow to come out, and that was fine. She’d called over Nightmare, and Munmun, at certain points, to see if they could make the process a tad bit easier. The rest of the team let them be, Skullz keeping the less sapient team members occupied and distracted. It wasn’t the rush of words mixed with tears Poppy had come to expect with her own difficult retellings, but detached, clinical, like a lab report. Noir didn’t seem entirely present at some points but Poppy wasn’t about to stop her, even if she felt some details could wait.

At certain points, she feigned needing to take a break herself, to give Noir a temporary reprieve and Noir was so into it by then, she probably believed her half-lie. It stung to tell it, but she’d rather sort out her own mixed feelings first - not pure anger, not pure fear or pure anything - a confusing and frustrating blend of lack of surprise, disappointment, and disgust, all aimed at Rocket’s top brass and the cultural values that let something like this happen to begin with.

Poppy had never really known what she looked like during one of her own dissociative episodes but it was perfectly clear that Noir was no longer tethered to this time and place. Her eyes were way too vacant for it to be a vision of a future, too.

She held out a tentative hand and immediately shrunk back as Noir squished herself into the corner of the couch, fangs bared and unleashing sonic terror. Munmun threw up Barrier before the bulk of the sound waves could make contact and Poppy shrugged off any damage anyway, wondering if she should make a leap for some Benadryl. [”I think she’s using Growl - in the memory she’s stuck in...”]

“And it’s coming out as Disarming Voice here.” Coping wise, that was a good strategy - Disarming Voice would chase off an assailant much better than Growl would. Pity it kicked in at this time and place. “Fuck, how long has she been bottling this up?” Too long if this was how it displayed when she finally took the top off.

But attacks couldn’t last forever and eventually she ran out of steam. Poppy was already at the edge of the barrier and she almost fell over when Munmun dissipated it without warning. Finally, there was a shred of life in Noir’s eyes and Nightmare circled her like Regina did with her own carrion.

The pda had been silent for a long time before it now sparked back to existence. [”Dead...”] It whispered at the lowest volume. [”Dead and left - no food, no...”] A whimper that came from Noir over the piece of tech.

“You’re not there anymore.” Poppy gently reminded. “You’re here, with me, and Nightmare, and Munmun, and the others. They -” Can’t wasn’t the right word. “Won’t hurt you anymore. I won’t let them.” Noir rushed into her arms and for the first time, after hours of this, there were tears. Poppy kept her own eyes dry, channeling that emotional tide into being comforting instead. “You don’t have to talk about what you saw just now - am I right that it wasn’t a vision?” She felt Noir nod against her shoulder. “It’s okay to not be ready to process this yet, even if it’s been a long time. Recovery doesn’t have a time limit.”

[”But I can’t just push it aside...anymore...”] The pda was starting to fizzle.

“That’s true, and coming to me was a great first step. I am so proud of you for being able to come to me with this, and I’m sorry that it took so long for us to even reach this point.”

[”Not your fault. Mine.”]

“Blame doesn’t matter now, okay? It’s enough that this is out in the open now. And we’re gonna find a way to deal with it, promise.” Noir just gripped her tighter. Silence for another fifteen minutes and then...

“I can’t believe my parents saw those conditions and didn’t do anything to stop it.”

[”It doesn’t matter. The ones that didn’t or couldn’t sell were culled anyway, and all of us would have been destroyed before authorities could get there in time anyway. Buying and releasing would just support the system.”] She started to emote a minute amount but determining what it was exactly was beyond everybody’s brainpower right now.

She broke away to look Noir in the eye. “You’re not merchandise, you get that, right? No matter what the law says, you aren’t a thing to be owned. Ugh, I am so sorry that this happened - I never expected it to be anything this bad - and if there was a way to go back and prevent it, I’d do it in a heartbeat, you know I would.”

[”It was only 99% bad. It let me meet you.”] Poppy’s eyes lit up as mathmatic terms slipped into Noir’s vernacular. A good sign - they could get through this, together. As a team, all seven of them.

“Yeah...listen, you’re clearly beat. Maybe take a nap - Munmun can handle any nightmares, right?” The tapir nodded. “Yes, okay, any you can’t stomach, spit out somewhere, it’s cool. I’ll handle dinner and...maybe look through CSI stuff to see if they’ve got company therapists that specialize in trauma for Pokemon that DON’T have a focus on obedience...if you want me to, that is. It’s just an option.”

Noir gave a shrug - she wasn’t confident in that type of person even existing, but if they did, John Doe was probably the one who’d want them in his company so CSI was the best place to start looking.

“Great, it’ll be something easy, pastina probably, I’ll get you up later for any leftovers, okay?” At Noir’s affirmation she got up and headed towards the kitchen as Munmun closed in, filling her spot. When she reached the doorway, a rush of gratitude not her own whooshed through her head for a second, but when she spared a look back, Noir was already a victim to Munmun’s top rate hypnosis.

She turned back towards the kitchen with renewed determination and a drive to tackle all of the phone calls and paperwork.

#drabble #sort of #by fanfic standards its a drabble i think #by rp standards its a #long post #POKEAU #but look #they're communicating finally #progress #animal death #animal abuse #shit this got very long ahaha

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recentanimenews · 5 years ago

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World End Syndrome Is A Visual Novel/Dating Sim That Leaves You Haunted

Superstitions, urban legends, and ghost stories are phrases that you'll often hear when discussing the folklore of small towns. Couple that with a murder mystery, and you’ve got a spooky story sandwich that’s common in fiction. And since that’s such a common, effective story idea, what happens when you add in some dating sim elements on top of that? Thanks to the wonderful world of visual novels, we're able to find out in Arc System Works' and TOYBOX’s World End Syndrome.

Your named protagonist heads off to Mihate Town, a small seaside area of Japan that is known for a supernatural story that dates back a hundred years. There, you get to meet the five ladies you are able to date and have to uncover if a string of disappearances and murders are actually tied to this old urban legend. Does the game allow for enough twists and turns to keep you satisfied throughout? Is the dating aspect good or is it even necessary? Let’s dive into these questions and see if you will be experiencing your own personal end of the world, or something else entirely.

The prologue does a really good job of setting up multiple portions of the game at once. You’re introduced to all of your dating options and get a sense of who they are, you meet the other side characters and see how they’ll be utilized throughout the rest of the story, you learn about another incident that happened to a girl going to your school, and you also come to understand why the protagonist is so distant because of the death of his sister. Most importantly though is learning about the legend of Mihate Town itself.

A big proponent of the story is seeing how residents of Mihate Town deal with the history of Yomibito. According to the tale, Yomibito are people who have come back from the dead and don’t remember the events of their death. They act as if nothing happened, until enough time passes and they lose control of themselves and go on murderous rampages. By the time you come to Mihate Town, it is approaching the 100th year since the last time a Yomibito incident has happened, and since this is all coinciding with a novel that brings the story back to the forefront, it has people on edge.

Throughout the prologue, the game is very straightforward and linear, with a few choices here and there sprinkled throughout. Once you get past the prologue, though, the game opens up allowing you to travel to different parts of Mihate Town at various times of day over the course of August. It’s a bit overwhelming at first since you’re basically free to go wherever you want and try to find people to talk to. This is how you’ll eventually lock yourself into routes and endings, so you’ll have to either be lucky, or you can save and load a lot if you decide you were unhappy with your initial choice.

This second half of the game can be a bit strange when you are going for a specific character to date, so a way to ensure you lock yourself into that route is to constantly find them on each day. That makes sense in the context of a dating sim, but it makes the protagonist seem a tad like a stalker if you begin to think about it. Some of the later routes do seem a bit obtuse to try and get into, so you might need to find a guide to make sure you can get those to eventually lead yourself toward the true ending of the game.

One of the first things you’ll notice about the game is just how striking the art is. The backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous as they have this watercolor motif to them. Most of the backgrounds also have subtle bits of animation attached to them which allows for the world to feel more alive than if they were just static images. It’s such a simple yet immersive and effective idea, and I hope more visual novels pick up on it.

Along with the background art, character designs were done by Yuki Kato of the BlazBlue series, with writing and directing by Tomio Kanazawa, who recently did the otome game 7’Scarlet (which has a similar story to this). As a whole, the writing does a good job of building up a mystery that doesn’t fully unravel until the very end of the game. Each route you go through will peel away a tiny bit, and that continues as you make your way through the five dateable girls. Even when you begin the final true ending, you might have an idea of where the game is going, but as soon as you think you have the answers, the game changes the question.

It helps that the game keeps up its mystery throughout and doesn’t give away too much at a time. You effectively pick up a new piece of information with a new ending and that helps you try to piece together the puzzle. The five girls you are able to date are written well and different enough from each other that it doesn’t feel like you’re getting the same story from route-to-route. There’s something that each girl is hiding in their routes, whether it’s a form of trauma, dark secrets, or just wanting to be accepted for who they really are. They all have different approaches to interacting with the protagonist, which makes it more appealing to want to go through each route to see how all of the relationships end up.

While the dating sim aspects are good and well written, though, it begs the question of if they’re really needed at all. This could have easily been a story that was told with more linearity, and I think it still would have been good. So it’s a bit of a catch-22 as World End Syndrome would still be a good experience on its own, but the dating aspects give you a good look at some solid characters. In fact, the only detracting aspect of the game is that it tends to lean into stereotypical lewd anime tropes at times. Luckily, the protagonist never feels lecherous, so these are kept relatively minimal.

You also can’t use over six characters in your name which can lead to it just being cut off. My last name couldn’t fit for example which was a bit weird since other characters have longer names. There was also a few instances of formatting errors within the text, but these don’t do enough to take away from the writing as a whole.

World End Syndrome is a fun mystery that keeps you invested all the way through to the end. In the wake of the PlayStation Vita being phased out, the Switch version seems to fill in that gap by working well both docked and when it’s portable. Plus, it actually has a faux-Vita save interface. With how good the art and writing are, I’d be very interested if they looked to continue this as a series with another entry. So if you’re looking for a good visual novel to keep you occupied before all of the video games in existence start to come out over the next few months, World End Syndrome is certainly one you should consider.

REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Good story that keeps you intrigued all the way until the end

+ Great visuals and backgrounds that truly immerse you in the world

+ Writing is good with a clever localization

+ Each route and dateable option are well fleshed out and different from one another

- Can rely on tropes at times which don't benefit the story or characters.

If you've already played World End Syndrome, what were your thoughts on the game? If not, how do you think you'd handle moving to a new town and being thrust into a big mystery? Let us know down in the comments below!

---

Jared Clemons is a writer and podcaster for Seasonal Anime Checkup where he can be found always wanting to talk about Love Live! Sunshine!! or whatever else he's into at the moment. He can be found on Twitter @ragbag.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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gosatsuvns · 8 years ago

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Weekly Update #136 - Working On Two Projects

Over the past three weeks, I have talked quite a bit about the sprite updates for Withering Without Hope, the sequel to our murder mystery visual novel SHINRAI - Broken Beyond Despair.

I have even posted a couple of comparison pictures in order to showcase the differences between the old and the updated character sprites for Raiko, Henjin and Nobara. If you haven't seen any of them yet and are curious, simply click on the names to get linked to the respective blog posts. You can even get a look at Raiko's new outfit!

As for what I have been working on recently, it's a lot of technical stuff. The character sprites are not the only thing we have updated. We are now using a screen resolution of 1280x720 (as opposed to the measly 800x600 from before). As a result, a lot of things need to be adjusted to fit the now much bigger screen size. So I've played around a bit and finally decided on how big the sprites, text box, or even the actual text are going to be. I'm also still playing around with the text box design in general. I'm not entirely sure if I will simply update it or design a completely new one. Same goes for the entire GUI.

I'm also working on a few more adjustments to the first background image now that the sprite size has been settled on. Hopefully, that won't take much longer now, so that I can finally finish it.

Things are certainly shaping up at last, albeit quite a tad slower than I thought they would. But I guess that isn't really much of a surprise. After all, I've also been working on our other VN project. I kinda have a date in mind as to when I want to finally reveal more details and make an official announcement. But there is still a lot of work to be done before that can happen (I'd really like to have an actual website by then and we need some stuff to show off, too!). Therefore, I have to focus a bit more on that now, which means that progress on the prologue for Withering Without Hope is slowing down a bit. That's the downside of working on two projects at once. It's a double-edged sword, making it feel as though I'm only doing little progress on both of them... orz"

If you're wondering about what that other project might be, well... I've mentioned it a few times now (even way back in September on my private Twitter), but it's basically another murder mystery visual novel. And it's going to involve a dinosaur theme. But that's all I want to say about it for now. For more information, you will have to wait until June. Because I think "Jurassic June" would be the perfect time for that!

Anyway, I should get back to work now, so... please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care! :3

#Shinrai #visual novel #visualnovel #visual novel development #vn #evn #vndev #game development #gamedev #indiedev #indie #Ren'Py #renpy #renpy game #murder mystery #detective game #interactive fiction #character sprites

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bakechochin · 6 years ago

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The Book Ramblings of April 2019

In place of book reviews, I will be writing these ‘book ramblings’. A lot of the texts I’ve been reading (or plan to read) in recent times are well-known classics, meaning I can’t really write book reviews as I’m used to. I’m reading books that either have already been read by everyone else (and so any attempt to give novel or insightful criticisms would be a tad pointless), or are so convoluted and odd that they defy being analysed as I would do a simpler text. These ramblings are pretty unorganised and hardly anything revolutionary, but I felt the need to write something review-related. I’ll upload a rambling compiling all my read books on a monthly basis.

At Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O’Brien I’m not going to call this a postmodern text, mainly because the term puts a sour taste in my mouth but also because all the descriptions of this text as ‘postmodern’ are worded to make it seem that this definition is incidental, and that O’Brien wasn’t setting out to write a text of the postmodern era. This somewhat softens the blow of the fact that I, a resolute advocate of the romantic and the grotesque, should indulge in something as heinous as postmodernism. This is an odd book composed of lots of different parts in lots of different odd ways. I tried to put it alongside The Third Policeman, and figured that Policeman was my preferred read because it had linear storytelling, but I had to alter this statement because this book technically has linear storytelling too - the only problem is, the storytelling is fragmentary and scattershot as shit. Some people will inevitably call this the book’s major strength and then castigate me for having the very AUDACITY to criticise the book when I clearly don’t have a clue as to what constitutes a good read, and then I remember why I don’t like postmodern texts. But I digress. This is a labyrinthine book, and my attempts of describing its exact structure may very well come across as comically obtuse, but for what it’s worth I’ll give it a shot: a student in Dublin writes a novel in which a novelist writes into existence a multitude of characters, who rebel against said novelist by writing their own pieces of literature to alter the course of their realities and break free of their archetypes. This is an incredibly well-written book, because O’Brien is a fucking genius who won’t let any scrap of information go to waste in his world-building and who will explore every possible element of an idea to spin some truly fantastic fucking yarns. (I also want to give a special commendation to one of my favourite lines of all time, in which a club-footed character’s rhythm of walking is described as ‘iambic pentameter’; that's so fucking good). The temptation now is to argue that all the great aspects of the book’s writing are entirely separate from the postmodern aspects, but there are some moments in which the postmodern experimental writing nonsense that we’ve come to expect fortuitously dovetails with what I like about the book; for instance, there are instances in which our student author abandons chunks of his writing that he deems to be slow and boring, and replaces it with streamlined lists detailing the events of the plot. We must stop a second, on this point, to examine exactly how the sausage is made with this ramble writing process; in my previous book reviews, I’ve criticised books for skimming over important elements of the plot via a dismissive narrator for fucking up the pace, but in this instance I’m totally down with such nonsense, not in the name of postmodernism, but in the name of streamlining the book and cutting out some of the unnecessary extraneous fat. The comedy in the book is subdued (perhaps less overtly amusing than that which can be found in The Third Policeman) and mainly derives from the absurdity of characters crossing paths and disparaging one another, with gunslingers and fairies and grand characters from Celtic mythology all playing play cards, and there’s a strange encapsulation of the Irish spirit in everyone’s long rambling conversations about not much at all. The best content is to be found within the works of our student author; the actual life of said student is not as compelling as one might have hoped, for whilst it is written with the same high quality as the rest of the book, the events that it is describing are rather dull in comparison, and in any case did not live up to Dylan Thomas’ description as being ‘loud, dirty [and] boozy’. I can’t help feeling that I haven’t been able to capture the magnitude of this book in so measly of a ramble, so for what it’s worth, go and pick it up for yourself. Just be aware that you will, at some point, have to slog through deliberately turgid and daft staves of old Irish lays, and it will only occasionally be graciously interrupted by another character. WOULD I RECOMMEND?: YES, SO LONG AS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GETTING INTO

Complete Short Stories - Saki In my ramble on Dahl I blindly said that Saki’s work predicted Dahl’s brand of black comedy despite knowing very little about Saki’s writing, and upon now having read Saki’s short stories I can say that this statement holds true as far as comedy goes, but not in terms of said comedy being black comedy. Indeed, I think that these stories will become progressively less black as time will go on, and the special high-class demographic satirised in the stories dwindle from contemporary society, or at least evolve into a different form than that which is presented in these pages. Like Dahl, Saki is clearly very engrossed in a particular social circle or group of people, so much so that he is able to perfectly and amazingly depict their forms and their foibles, but when Dahl wrote about suspicious law-dodging rural folk or cunning sorts getting one over on the system, Saki delves into the lives of the Edwardian English social elite; the blurb compares Saki’s setting to those written about by Wilde, but Wilde is on another fucking level when it comes to heavy-handed satire and ludicrous sensationalism. These stories are safer than the shit you’ll find in The Picture of Dorian Gray, but no less entertaining. The focus of the stories rarely deviates from the Edwardian elite (and when they do, the stories are often a tad forgettable as a result), but the form that the comedy takes varies a tad from story to story. Some of the stories are centred on one specific character, being structured like a monologue or a very one-sided conversation from that character’s perspective, and in these cases the comedy arises specifically from the intricacies of the character. The blurb proudly boasts of Reginald and Clovis, both of whom are great characters (though perhaps more similar to one another than different); Reginald’s stories make up Saki’s earliest work, and suffer inasmuch as their reliance on rather specific erudite references that aren’t exactly instantly recognisable for the modern reader, and Saki has a strange habit of injecting a mention of Clovis into miscellaneous stories that he really doesn’t seem to belong in, but regardless of these niggles there is much to recommend in these stories, for the two characters run rings around their peers and continuously amuse with their matter-of-fact responses to dire situations. A lot of the comedy was in the vein of overt farce, which surprised me a tad; I really ought to have seen it coming, because plunging lofty characters into base or ludicrous scenarios is the easiest way to punch holes in their inflated egotistical self-images, but I really didn’t expect stories involving people (supposedly) magically turning into wolves or deceptions about killer butlers. This was an especially jarring turn of events, considering that some of the earlier stories in the collection were farcical but in a rather subdued way, with cases of mistaken identity or bizarre unexplainable turns of events; the fact that the social elite were the ones experiencing such ridiculous fates tied in very well, not just because of the simple juxtaposition between serious proper people engaged in shitshows straight out of a pantomime, but because the escalation of such scenarios are facilitated by the characters’ high levels of income. I did still very much enjoy the more farcical stories, even if they were not what I was expecting. In the vein of Dahl, there were a number of great black comedy twists in the collection, usually about turns of fate sending hapless fools up shit creek, or animals (and occasionally aunts) being abruptly murdered, and they are unanimously funny because they come as a pleasant shock and don’t rely on knowledge of Edwardian living. If nothing else, a snort can always be had at Saki’s character names, which I can only assume are deliberately ridiculous and over-the-top; I remember reading that Wilde had a selection of family names that he would repeatedly use in his fiction, for he was always in danger of using the name of a real-life upper-class family who would not take kindly to having their family names appropriated for satirical caricatures of upper society, but Saki seems to have avoided this problem by using names that no one in reality could possibly fucking have. Overall, I’d especially recommend the stories in the collections Beasts and Super-Beasts, The Chronicles of Clovis, and Reginald in Russia, for whilst Saki’s earliest and latest works have some great stories in them, it is his middle body of works that has consistently good content. WOULD I RECOMMEND?: HELL YES

Other shit that I read: Medieval Bodies by Jack Hartnell (absolutely amazing and very much up my alley (I damn nearly yelled out loud with glee when I got to the section on the stomach and I was gifted with no less than nine new articles and books to check out on the subjects of gluttony and farting and medieval mischief), wryly enjoyed how every chapter ended with the sort of insipid half-conclusion that I’m used to writing for formality’s sake in all of my uni essays, would recommend for an introduction to medieval bodies and for some good banter about bones and penis trees), and The Stories of Slang by Jonathon Green (a book with content more interesting than the way that it is imparted, everything is strangely written in a sort of haltering stop-start way, something of an overload of very similar information, would probably just recommend checking out the bloke’s website, for while his research is comprehensive and interesting it didn’t really need to be published in its own book).

#book reviews #book rambles #saki #flann o'brien #at swim-two-birds #medieval bodies #jack hartnell #jonathon is not how you spell that fucking name #both of my non-fiction reads for this month had fun covers #i didn't read too much this month which isn't really a problem in of itself considering that i'm eschewing pointless reading quotas in 2019 #but there is a reason for it #i'm writing an essay on the goblins in Labyrinth and i'm 3500 words in already #if anyone's interested or has some cool secondary reading please let me know

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bakechochin · 7 years ago

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The Book Ramblings of March

The Princess Bride - William Goldman When I purchased this book immediately after having finished watching the film (which is amazing, as everyone other than me already knew), I was certain I’d be giving it a book review instead of a book rambling. But this book honestly surprised me with its interesting approach to storytelling, so I’m going to ramble about it. That being said, it would be remiss of me to not quickly summarise my opinions on the book by, before getting into the more academic thoughts, saying that this book is really fucking good; amazing characters, amazing story, quality humour, all the rest of it. The book employs a frame narrative of sorts; the book that you hold in your hands is presented as an abridged edition of a pre-existing text by some bloke called Morgenstern, altered to include only the ‘best bits’ by Goldman. The original text was said to be a satirical piece on royalty, and the few comments from the author reveal that this omitted text was often made up of hilarious hyperbole. This story, on account of these omissions, is transformed into a fairy tale, where simplistic plots are expected and accepted; I do find it awe-inspiring that Goldman has managed to essentially get away with only writing what he wanted to write about, and yet his methods of doing so are equally as interesting as the story’s content. I am somewhat torn on what I think on Goldman’s additions to the text, describing his own experiences and memories of his first read-through of the book. On the one hand, it does a great job at centralising the book in Goldman’s fabricated backstory, and it emphasises the way that the book ought to be read, as a delightful childhood memory that you get attached to and enthralled in. (As a quick side note, this book emphasises this perspective a hell of a lot better than the film did). On the other hand, Goldman is essentially interrupting the reading experience every now and then to give away plot points and tell you how you ought to be feeling. This book is oddly more meta (as much as I hate the term) than I was expecting; when I went into the book I assumed that it would be a standalone fantasy fairy tale with a few real world bits thrown in just to give the book’s existence context (an assumption which perhaps stemmed from my observing that, unlike The Neverending Story, the 'real world' and the fiction world in this book didn’t appear to be intrinsically linked, and could probably function well enough on their own). But this book is pretty much defined by Goldman’s ‘own’ experiences with the book, and constantly refers to the real world goings-on regarding the making/editing of this book. This is employed to justify certain edits in the text; for example, there is a scene in which Westley and Buttercup reunite, but the actual scene is not included in the book because Morgenstern supposedly didn’t write it. And so instead of that scene, we are given an address of a publishing company to send a letter to requesting Goldman’s supposed newly-written version of that scene. I find it all good fun, if a tad baffling regarding why it is here (other than centralising the story in Goldman’s version of reality, as said above). It seems like it could be construed as attempting to streamline the story, because obviously in a story about true loves getting repeatedly separated, there will no doubt be a veritable fuck tonne of reunion scenes filled with tears and heartfelt confessions of love, of which it may be wise to skip; however, this explanation for not writing this scene is somewhat juxtaposed by the fact that you spend just as long reading Goldman’s explanation for the absence of the scene as you would have done reading the scene. This ties in to another aspect of this book’s storytelling that I quite like; Goldman’s opposition with Morgenstern. The obvious example of this is the whole existence of this ‘abridged’ book, edited down as a response to the preponderance of dense satire in Morgenstern’s original work, but it continues in other aspects; the book is full of daft parentheses, seemingly to elucidate where and when the book is set but in reality muddying the waters even further, and Goldman frankly admits that he doesn’t know why they are there and that if you don’t like them, you don’t have to read them. Whatever Goldman’s reasoning for putting in these bizarre and constant parentheses, be it an actual literary device or as a whimsical fancy as befitting the genre, I do have respect for him for not only not explaining why he includes them, but flat out denying having any knowledge of said information. The ending toys with two different versions; Morgenstern’s version, in which things start going wrong and everything is left uncertain, and Goldman’s version, where everything is left happily ever after. I can appreciate both endings, and find them very interesting for the purpose of analysis, but I’m going with Goldman’s ending. Call me a reductionist if you must, but I want the happy fairy tale ending, because that’s how I want to think of this book when I’m talking about it casually. There’s even entire extracts from a supposed sequel to this book, but to tell the truth I didn’t even bother to read them, because said snippets are deliberately written to seem like fragments of a lost manuscript, and I want to read this book as a fairy tale, not as a text for literary analysis or criticism. Maybe I should have just given this book a normal book review after all.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Stories - Edgar Allan Poe I was biased going into this, as I’ve read Poe before and was already a firm believer that he is the master of the short story, but after having read pretty much all of his well-known short fiction collected in this anthology, I can’t say my opinion’s changed all that much. I think it was Huxley who described Poe’s writings as being shitty because it was ‘too poetical - the equivalent of wearing a diamond ring on every finger’, and though this is delightfully eloquent, I consider myself better than Huxley so here’s my take; Poe’s stories are some of my absolute favourite writings, eloquent without being too pretentious and grandiloquent without being too dense (for the most part). Poe is the indisputable master of writing stories that deal with the contrasting themes of the fantastic and the real (I’ve gone on enough about Todorov’s definition of the fantastic for you to know what I’m on about here), and his fantastic stories are absolutely fucking brilliant. There isn’t much to be said about the storytelling other than that it balances its inclusion of the fantastic and the real excellently (so as to allow the reader to make up their own minds as to if the events of the stories are actually supernatural or just the result of madness), it is excellent at building up tension, and the twists are always amazing (if occasionally a tad variable in how predictable they are). My favourite stories, by the way, are ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and ‘William Wilson', both of which epitomise my aforementioned praise excellently. I also absolutely love Poe’s versatility to apply the fantastic to other settings and to interesting subject materials (even some subjects contemporary to the times Poe was writing); I was expecting an abundance of settings similar to ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, with gothic mansions and the like, but we get Italian carnivals and the Inquisition and incorporation of themes such as mesmerism, which keep the stories continually fresh and interesting if you were to read them one after the other, as I did. I do believe that Poe’s writing style is best suited to his fantastic stories. This collection sheds light on the fact that Poe has written a fair amount of diverse stuff, despite the fact that he is best known for ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ or ‘William Wilson’, the generic ‘Poe’ stories. ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, for example, is a detective story (admittedly a very fun one), but Poe’s grandiloquent verbosity does not lend itself well to quick snappy deductions and conversations; instead, we get long streams of dialogue from our detective character, followed by a very fast and somewhat anticlimactic resolution of events that really ought to have been staggered throughout the story a tad. (I am willing to cut the story some slack, since it is among the earliest detective stories and, as mentioned above, it is great fun). There are some of Poe’s stories that tackle the theme of love, like ‘Ligeia’ or ‘Eleanora’, but then the language seems at odds with the tone of the story, as its incessant formality makes the love seem rather disingenuous. Of course I wouldn’t want to devalue how Poe’s work has inspired some other excellent genre pieces - for that they deserve some praise - but, whilst not saying that they are terrible, said stories, with the possible exception of ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, are not very memorable when placed alongside Poe’s short stories that are more obviously recognisable as Poe. No one’s favourite Poe story is 'The Golden Bug’. And that’s not just because it’s quite racist.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Bottle Imp - Robert Louis Stevenson I probably ought to have read this story aeons ago, considering how prevalent it is in modern media due to its creation of one of the archetypal British literary ‘icons’; because of this aforementioned prevalence, I went into this book with an abundance of preconceptions as to what to expect from this book, and I was surprised by how few of said ideas were actually involved in the book. Most of the things I have to say about this book revolve around how it went against what I would have expected. Everyone knows the character(s) of Jekyll and Hyde, and so I was surprised as to how, for the most part, the narrative was told from the perspective of someone else entirely; it honestly really helps the building of mystery, and if it wasn’t for the fact that a) everyone knows the twist of this story, and b) even if you didn’t know the twist, the fucking blurb spoils it, I would have absolutely been taken by this story’s enigmatic plot - convinced by its posited rationality to justify the weird goings-on, and surprised by the ending twist. This does, however, raise concerns of mine regarding how this novella is structured; obviously the grand reveal that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person needed to wait until the end of the book, but consequently this results in one incredibly lengthy explanatory chapter from Jekyll right at the end to elucidate matters. Considering that a lot of this book’s themes revolve around this final chapter, I wonder if the novella would have been better suited as a narrative entirely told by Jekyll. Arguably the main theme of this novel, the duality of man, is of course told excellently, and unlike other stories which revolve around the theme of ’the double’, the explicit explanation of where this double comes from and how it ties in with Jekyll’s own character makes for, in my opinion, a more compelling read (especially since this explanation revolves around pseudoscience, and I love the whole ‘man playing God’ malarkey that comes with said subject). For a story that is essentially gothic, featuring a character like Hyde who has been depicted as a vile little villain in many different adaptations, I was expecting a tad more penny dreadful-esque gore and violence; instead, the violence that Hyde carries out is often described matter-of-factly and succinctly, which seems at odds with the hysterical eyewitness accounts from which these events are reported from, but certainly makes sense when considering the professional detached perspectives of the narrative voices Utterson and Jekyll, law and medical professionals respectively. However, I am less inclined to believe that this was a deliberate decision in the writing style than I would be with something like A Clockwork Orange, wherein that’s the whole point; I reckon it’s just Stevenson’s own writing style, which is, don’t get me wrong, bloody great. The Penguin English Library edition of this story (i.e. the one that I read) also comes with Stevenson’s short story ‘The Bottle Imp’, which I very much enjoyed for its amazing titular concept and for its somewhat anticlimactic and yet still satisfying ending, but, despite what others have said to me, it’s not as good as Jekyll and Hyde.

Autobiography of a Corpse - Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky The blurb of this book described Krzhizhanovsky’s stories as ‘mind-bending’, and I cynically assumed that this was nothing more than a hyperbolic marketing ploy, like when people call 1984 a ‘masterpiece’ when in reality it’s a bit shit. But by fuck is this book legitimately mind-bending. I bought this thinking it sounded reminiscent of Gogol, who I love, but I also had it recommended to me by a pretentious friend who reads all the Booker Prize nominations just so he can have contentious opinions about them, which should have probably notified me of the Mieville-esque air of self-satisfied pretentiousness that this book has with its very clever and very wanky themes. Though used for roughly the same ends, there is a difference between cryptic writing and abstract writing, and this book is certainly more of an abstract read. The stories take seemingly mundane or simple concepts from fields of study like philosophy or geography or what have you, and adapts these simple principles into complex ideas to reflect the story’s fantastic elements. In some cases this makes for some absolutely genius writing, with such simple ideas being utilised with such versatility to create some truly fascinating and amazing stuff, but in other cases it comes across really quite annoying, jumping sporadically from subject to subject and taking away from the mystery of the story’s fantastic elements with its constant need to explain said elements (often poorly and with a heavy reliance on tenuous links). This is especially evident in the stories that aren’t so much stories as they are a compilation of unrelated ideas, the main example being the story ‘Seams’. The few stories in the anthology that do not rely on long-winded verbose ramblings about abstract philosophical content (musings on the ‘I’ being an especially prolific example in the collection) were in most cases my favourite, indeed putting to mind Gogol to some extent as I had first hoped when I bought the book. All of the stories from ‘The Runaway Fingers’ to ‘Thirty Pieces of Silver’ are absolutely amazing, because they had a base concept that Krzhizhanovsky excellently built upon; it’s a great sign when an already great concept that I wouldn’t have thought of is then elaborated on in interesting directions that I wouldn’t have thought of. These stories are amazing not just because they aren’t entirely reliant on abstract wankiness, but that certainly helps their case. The eponymous story ‘Autobiography of a Corpse’ has its base concept, and doesn’t really elaborate on said base concept as much as it does add on additional abstract ideas, but arguably this works well enough because said abstract ideas link, in a weird and abstract way, to the original concept. Honestly I can’t keep on attempting to explain this; I’ve written the word ‘abstract’ too many times and it’s starting to lose meaning.

The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde Yet again have I been tricked into reading a novel that I thought would be gothic but instead just has one central vaguely gothic plot device. Indeed, a brief Google search describes this book as a ‘philosophical’ novel, which is certainly not my usual fare, but because I’m a fan of Wilde and needed an actual novel to read instead of another short story collection and am vulnerable to chicanery regarding what constitutes a gothic piece, I picked it up. I didn’t really read this novel as being especially reflective of Wilde’s own sexuality, because whilst there is something of paiderastia to be seen in some of the relationships between the male characters, such relationships hardly persist through the entirety of the book and end up being somewhat forgotten as relationships move past first meetings or characters change their standpoints on certain matters. What I did see in the book was some excellent commentary on the fin de siecle, aestheticism, and of course the theme of appearance versus reality; I’ve realised that I’ll happily read a philosophical novel so long as the philosophies it is spouting are interesting enough to read (although an interesting premise and plot also really helps, which is all well and good because this book possesses that too). I am for the most part a fan of Wilde’s wit. I’ve heard it criticised because a lot of it is just Wilde reversing statements of common wisdom or perverting cliches, and when you realise this, you see it absolutely fucking everywhere. Lord Henry is basically a mouthpiece for every melodramatic stereotypically ‘Wilde' quote you can think of, and I do think that the fact that we even have a preconception of what a stereotypical ‘Wilde’ quote ought to be is part of the problem. Despite Wilde's statement (in this book, even) that ’there is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about’, exactly how prolific and prevalent Wilde’s witticisms are in modern culture, with bags and mugs and little tiny books full of his most well-known wit and all that shit, is part of the reason why it seems so saturated and perhaps even a little bit stale. We know all of his wit, we can see the common trends behind it, and that somewhat diminishes it’s worth. Despite that big fuck-off rant, I still really enjoy Wilde’s wit, and even if you are aware of how he comes up with this shit, it’s still a great joy to read. Hell, even if you’re tired of that, there’s still some great banter from Wilde about aristocratic haughtiness to enjoy, so take your fill of that. There’s a lot to enjoy about this book. I like it a lot.

Stuff I read this month that I couldn’t be arsed to ramble about: Fantastic Tales (edited by Italo Calvino) and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. In it’s fucking entirety. Fuck you Milton.

#book reviews #book ramblings #the princess bride #william goldman #edgar allan poe #sigizmund krzhizhanovsky #autobiography of a corpse #robert louis stevenson #dr jekyll and mr hyde #oscar wilde #the picture of dorian gray #should be 'grey' really oscar mate

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