#how can anyone grade essays in an objective way

[6ebe]

Just got 5/7 of my final degree results which means I’m still unclassified but have the majority of my results. Anyway I’m mid as hell 🤣🤣

[yesimwriting]

hii 💗

so im currently obsessed with best friend!felix and wanted to request that perhaps their relationship evolves to a point where they’re practically dating but they’re both unaware of it

thank youu

a/n omg you understand them so well

----

There are certain expectations attached to Felix's name, weaved into each syllable like delicate stitches in a tapestry that depicts a family crest. You're not unaware of what the world associates with him, not oblivious enough to lack a general idea of what most assume when they think of being close to someone like him.

People would never guess that the best part of being best friends with Felix are the little things, the small gestures that show how careful he can be when he cares.

The girls you usually sit with in your last class changed so drastically when they saw him on the bench outside of your lecture hall. They whispered and giggled and twirled silky hair around their fingers. It made something in your stomach turn to stone... and you still can't figure out why. You'd be hypocritical to fault them for gossip.

They eventually started chatting about the type of girls someone like him must like. That only made things more awkward when Felix finally spotted you and waved you over. They gaped at you, and with Felix waiting, you weren't given the space needed to stumble through an explanation. The only thing you could manage was a shy 'it's not like that' and a sentence you barely remember that used the word 'friend' way too many times to be structurally sound. It didn't stop them from begging you for details next class before you finally walked away.

Now, in Felix's room, his hand on your shoulder, firm enough to be anchoring, you can't help but compare reality with what they must be imagining. The only details you can offer them are mundane. A fact that only makes you more protective of these moments. They wouldn't get it.

You're convinced no one can, so why take their comments to heart? Even Farleigh, who actually does know Felix tries to twist your friendship into something salacious, something worth gossiping about.

"You're tense." His voice comes out so low you're not sure if you're meant to respond. Felix's thumb traces circles against the top of your shoulder. "You said you had a good day today."

Felix reads your mood with a talent that'd make you uneasy if he was anyone else. "I did." The words feel flat, tired, even though your day was objectively good. You had time to stop for a coffee before class, a TA handed back graded exams and you did better than expected, and you finally finished your essay. "Just Tuesday and Thursday classes."

He nods once empathetically, thumb pressing into your skin. "Tired?"

"Yeah."

The two of you are quiet for a moment. Lulls in conversation have a tendency to make you feel the need to compensate. With Felix, the silence never asks to be rushed through. "Want to rest your eyes for a little?"

This wouldn't be the first time you took a nap in Felix's room. It's not exactly a habit--yet--but it's circling that territory. Sometimes he'll go to sleep with you, other times he'll stay up reading to you.

The offer is irritatingly perfect. You want to say yes, but you--ugh. This is what you get for talking to Farleigh. This is ridiculous. There isn't anything unusual or potentially romantic about your friendship with Felix. You're close, and when it comes to Felix, close is all consuming.

You briefly let your eyes shut. "Sounds nice, but I--I have a lot of homework."

In one movement, he lets his hand slip down your arm and his head fall against your shoulder. "C'mon," his breath is warm against your neck, "I'm tired, too."

The weakness in your resolve makes you like yourself a little less. You swallow, mentally preparing yourself to fight against your fondness. "Out late partying?"

He sighs against you, the sound more amused than it wants to be. "Oh, yeah, Oliver and I were out until the ungodly hour of 11:30." You move your arm, nails brushing a few strands of his hair back into place. "I sleep better when you're here."

Felix is always so warm, it's nearly impossible to not get caught up in it. You almost told him that he could have come over. That the movie you went to see with your roommate had ended around 10:30 and that the only reason you were dismissive when he called is because of what Farleigh had said in the library.

Instead, you settle for running your fingers through his hair. "I told you, Nadia and I went to the movies."

He sighs again, the sound a little sharper this time, almost a huff. A smile tugs at your lips. Felix looks up, half-glaring-half-pouting. "You think it's funny?"

"No," you try, extending the syllable in an attempt to prove your innocence.

Something shifts, you feel it before Felix moves. He straightens, taking his weight off you, likely in an attempt to lull you into a false sense of insecurity. You lean back, resting your weight on one hand. The bit of space you're quick enough to create isn't enough to save you.

Felix leans forward, hand finding the shoulder farthest from him. It's instinct to lean back further in an attempt to duck out from beneath his arm. The move paired with a laugh that makes you lose balance proves to be a mistake. Felix is too tall, too inescapable. His other hand finds your side and you have no choice but to let your back hit the mattress.

He's not pinning you down, but he is hovering in a way that makes you think twice about moving. "Felix." It's meant to come off as threatening, but you're still giggling and it only makes him grin.

"What?" You bravely lift an arm, placing your palm flat on his chest. You will yourself to push him away. He pulls a hand back, giving up trapping you in favor of covering the back of your palm with the front of his. "You started it."

"Doesn't sound like me."

His smile widens. "No?"

He pulls your hand away from him, and for a second, you think he might be ready to release you, but then he presses a kiss to the side of your hand. The warmth of the gesture would normally make you dizzy, but with Farleigh's words ringing in your ears...it's impossible to fully relax.

His eyebrows pinch together, "You okay?"

"Yeah," you hum, "Just tired. Like you said."

He gently sets your hand down. "Y'sure you don't want a nap?"

"No." You're only human. "A nap sounds nice. Just need to use the bathroom first."

Felix squeezes your hand once before shifting onto his back. His absence leaches all the heat from your body. Suddenly, it does feel like a damp autumn day.

You sit up, sock clad feet instinctually slipping into Felix's discarded slippers. They're too large, and you always have to remember to watch your step when you steal them, but they're so plush it's worth the caution.

There's a familiar bundle of fabric thrown over the back of the desk chair. You unzip your jacket. The cold air bites at you as you slip off the thin fabric. You grab Felix's jumper, instinctually pulling it over your head. The material engulfs you in his essence.

You shut the door behind you as you step into his bathroom. Why is something so small getting to you so much? And something that Farleigh, of all people, planted in your head. He likes to twist things until they resemble something entertaining or beneficial. We're just friends. Are you sure?

What kind of a question even is that? Obviously, you'd know if you were dating someone. Obviously, you'd know if you were dating Felix. So of course your answer was a little forced and awkward. Farleigh should have teased you about it. Instead, he looked at you oddly, eyebrows pulled together almost sympathetically, and told you he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen anyone be that close with their friends. Not even Felix.

Okay--don't think about it. What does Farleigh know about genuine, platonic friendships?

You turn on the sink. Splashing some water on your face will he--a bottle of moisturizer and face wash. Spares that you had picked up for Felix to try, go to's for you during impromptu sleepovers.

You force yourself to look up. Your reflection stares back at you, Felix's jumper sliding off your shoulder, exposing the sleeve of your shirt.

You dab water against your face before shutting off the sink. Maybe some sleep will help. You'll take your nap, and then you and Felix will wake up, and you'll see that everything's the same.

Felix is already beneath the sheets when you step out of the bathroom. You walk to the edge of the bed, sliding off his slippers before climbing into bed.

"Darling?" You hum in response before craning your neck to look at him. Felix's gaze is fixed on the ceiling. "Are y--Did something happen?" You freeze. Has Farleigh been telling other people what he told you? Did all of it circle back to Felix in some embarrassing way? "With us, I mean?"

The clarification is too small, too uncertain to fit him. You lift your head. "What?" His attention is still on what's above. "No." With a sigh, you lean forward until your chin's resting on his stomach. "Of course we're fine." He tilts his head slightly, eyes finally landing on yours. Felix is quiet for a moment, taking in your expression. Treating him differently isn't fair. "Do you think we're too close?"

His expression falters, the slight concern behind his eyes morphing into something more closed off. "You--you think we're too close?"

"No." You don't even have to think about it. Maybe that's what bothered you about what Farleigh said. You don't want to think about what should be different because you know you don't want to feel less close to him.

He doesn't ease, and you can't blame him. You place a hand on his side, smoothing your thumb up and down the fabric of his shirt. "I--just--the other day, Farleigh ran into me in the library, and we started talking and he made some comments...." Felix groans. "About how close we were, and at first, it just felt like Farleigh, and then he said a lot of people assume things and--I--"

"Who cares what other people think?" Felix shifts, his fingers tracing patterns against your back. "We're happy with how we are."

You smile, "Yeah." It's probably easy to dismiss opinions and rumors when you're someone like Felix. You decide that it's okay to borrow his worldview. "I am happy."

Felix grins, available hand moving to grab yours. He kisses your palm before placing your hand back on his side. He squeezes your hand against the space between his ribs and hip. "I'm happy, too."

You grin, angling your head downwards to press a kiss against his chest before laying down fully. Felix's knuckles run up and down your back. It's soothing, making everything else disappear long enough to let you fall asleep.

----

taglist; @vader-is-hot @spiritofbuddha @getosangie @freyafriggafrey @ilovehyperfixating @aryiannarae

i love how much you guys seem to like bestfriend!felix 😭 i have some more requests/fics for him coming,, someone in one of my asks said they weren't sure if i was still taking requests for him and i definitely am,, he's so fun to write for

[expiationist]

just a little stem vs humanities student story, since that seems so be a controversial topic in the academic world:

as a language and business double major, i absolutely think stem majors are another breed. hear me out. my best friend of 10 years is a biochem major, and she has always taken the hardest calc/physics/chem classes. she would get As on bio tests like it was first grade math. her knowledge eludes me. i have to try exponentially harder than her in every class we had together, and we barely even had the same classes! she took regular calc freshman year, got an A pretty easily. i took business calc, got an A because i was so close to an A and my professor saw how much effort i had put in and felt bad. i have always thought stem was much harder than anything i was pursuing.

until i heard her pov.

she is also pursuing a spanish minor, and has been taking spanish classes since 8th grade (we took our first spanish class together). i took spanish in 8th, 9th, and 10th grade, then stopped taking it through classes and started self studying japanese my junior year of highschool. she continued to pursue spanish and has taken in every year and every semester since 8th grade. shes studying abroad next semester, and we thought it would be a good idea for me to pick up spanish so she would have an opportunity to teach me and talk in spanish together. however, i picked it up pretty fast after not taking it for four years.

i noticed she felt ~some type of way~ about it, which prompted a conversation between the two of us.

to spare the mundane details, she thought it was insane that i caught up to where she was within weeks, after not having taken a class higher than high school spanish 2. i told her i thought it was insane that she got an A in every calc, physics, bio, and chem class, which i was never able to get a single A in (until business calc in college). she has a 4.0, taking what i thought were WAY harder classes than what i was taking. hell, i couldn’t even get an A in astronomy. astronomy.

she then talked about how i had rarely EVER gotten less than a 93 on essays, even if i had written them the night before, while she has to spend weeks on essays to get a good grade on them.

the moral of this story, is that everyone has their own talents. science comes natural to her. languages and humanities come natural to me. i find her talents way harder. she finds my talents way harder because humanities tend to be subjective, and business requires a certain personality and being good with people, which she doesn’t see those qualities in herself.

personally, i think anyone who pushes the “stem is objectively harder” agenda is probably just insecure in their own abilities to do arts/humanities/business. a real mature student can see that everyone has their own talents and a field that is suited to them! there is no need to invalidate peoples academic pursuits. college should be about finding what YOU love and want to pursue, not invalidating everyone and making them feel dumber because they chose a different path from you.

do what you love, and study hard if you love it! just because someone studies humanities subjects doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of succeeding in stem. and just because you study stem doesn’t make you smarter than someone who doesn’t choose to pursue that.

HOWEVER. from my pov, stem is like actually shit from Mars that i will never be able to wrap my head around, so to be humble ill admit i could NEVER study stem subjects beyond general education requirements. kudos to you guys! but that doesnt apply to every a&h kid out there!

[diltonsstrangescience]

So there’s this one comic where Dilton is absolutely FLIPPING OUT over how much Jughead annoys him. It’s really crazy. I’ve never seen him that emotional about ANYTHING. He looks like he’s going to murder someone. It’s one of my favorite comics.

I had wondered, before reading this, what a direct interaction between my two favorite characters would be like. This comic reveals the obvious fact that the two are polar opposites. The overachiever and the slacker. Of course they’d be at odds.

I’m going to completely overthink this comic, and write entirely too many paragraphs about my headcanons for it. You have been warned.

The first thing I glean from this comic is that Dilton has a serious control-freak streak. “Some people just aren’t happy unless everyone else is just the way they want ‘em to be.” I will Remember This Detail. I must collect characters’ flaws for future reference. Dilton gets pushy with other people when he thinks they should be different. It’s not enough for him to follow a strict set of rules, everyone else should too, or it irritates him to the point of cartoonish fury. (If anyone thinks they’re above the desire to change others, try being the only person in a group project who does any work, and see if you’re still willing to live and let live. I can definitely relate to Dilt here, to some degree.)

The second takeaway is that I headcanon exactly what led to the ending panel where Dilton’s been converted to Jughead’s way of life, instead of the other way around. I want to make a comic about it. Dilton’s been harassing Jughead for days about how he should change every aspect of his lifestyle. Jug asks why his lifestyle is so bad, and Dilt again lists off the things Jug does that he thinks are wrong. Jug then sort of disproves these claims, not denying them, but denying that they’re problems.

Sure he sleeps in class a lot, but that’s because class can be boring (surely gifted student Dilton understands this?). Jughead still gets mostly good grades, so he must be doing something right. He pays attention when he needs to. And maybe Dilton thinks his clothes are stupid, but who cares what he chooses to wear? How is that Dilton’s problem? And as far as “cluttering the landscape” by sleeping at the park, and eating a ton at the Chocklit Shoppe—seriously? He’s just existing in public places, doing completely legitimate things to do in those places. He’s minding his own business. Gluttony and sloth aren’t crimes unless they actually affect someone else’s life. And these actions shouldn’t be. So why are they affecting Dilton so much?

There are plenty of other reckless teenagers to try to reform, ones with way worse actions and way worse grades. So why Jughead? What makes him specifically the object of Dilton’s fury? Is it because he gets away with it all? Is it because—look, I’m gonna skip to my point. Dilton’s so bothered by Jughead specifically because he’s jealous of him.

He’s jealous that Jughead sleeps through boring classes because he already understands the material—Dilt is also sick of sitting through repetitive or easy lessons, but he wants to keep up appearances as the “responsible smart kid,” so he has to look alert even when he feels his time is being wasted. Dilton is jealous that Jughead finds it so easy to relax, napping in plain view of any passerby—Dilton cares too much about how other people see him, and he’s terribly afraid of appearing lazy or wasting time, and anyway he’s always too anxious to relax properly. Dilton is even sort of jealous of Jughead’s unabashed gluttony, because it displays a lack of shame that Dilton finds unattainable. Jughead doesn’t worry if the things he likes are “good” or “bad”, he just does what he wants. And it almost always works out for him.

To put the situation simply, Jughead is like the kid who speed-writes his essay the class period before it’s due, and still somehow gets an A. To someone who spent a week researching and revising theirs, this is infuriating. It feels so unfair. Sure, Jughead’s metaphorical A doesn’t do anything to remove Dilton’s A. Whether or not Jug succeeds, it doesn’t affect Dilton. Except it does, because it doesn’t feel fair that Dilton spends so much time anxious and planning and monitoring his behavior in an attempt to be perfect, and Jughead can just skate on through life without worry and be doing basically just as well. Because if there aren’t serious consequences for laziness and indulgence and nonchalance, then that means Dilton’s been putting himself through all this stress for nothing. If Dilton’s way of life is equivalent but less efficient, then it’s wrong, and Dilton is not used to being wrong about anything. It’s not something he handles well.

So yes, he’s flipping out. Because he needs Jughead’s actions to be objectively wrong and in need of correction. Or else he’s got to reevaluate pretty much everything about himself.

Probably Dilton’s not even aware that all of this stems from jealousy. He won’t admit it to himself. He feels far too self-righteous to examine his motivations. But at some point while he’s chasing Jughead all over Riverdale, he’s going to slip up and yell something that reveals basically everything I just wrote up there (but more concisely). He’s going to reveal (and realize for the first time) that this whole thing is just a desperate attempt to justify his own anxieties. After two weeks of this “reform Jughead” nonsense, they say something like:

J: [at the end of his rope] “I just don’t get why you hate me so much!”

D: [also at the end of his rope] “Hate you? I WISH I could BE you! It’s not fair!”

Jughead is completely shocked by this, and Dilton starts rambling about how hard he tries to be perfect and how he wishes he didn’t care what people thought of him and how Jughead can relax but he just can’t and how Jug has to be doing something wrong because if he’s not than Dilton’s wrong and he’s failed at life and that’s literally the worst thing that can happen and—

And Jughead immediately responds by saying that’s waaaay too much to worry about. (Because it really is. That doesn’t make it easy to get rid of though.) Jughead says okay, if you’re so jealous of me, then let’s flip the script. You stop trying to turn me into a teacher’s pet, and I’ll start teaching you how to enjoy life a little more. How to care less about what people think of you. How to worry less, and know which things are actually worth worrying about. How to be a little lazy and waste a little time without feeling like you’re committing some sort of crime. I am going to teach you to be like me, for the sake of your sanity. Because if that stressed mess you just said is what the inside of your head looks like all the time, there’s no way you can keep going like that for long without imploding. (Boy, he thinks, I always thought the brainiac students had the least worries out of anyone. If being on top makes you this paranoid, then don’t sign me up.)

So that’s how you get from point A to Dilton wearing a matching sweater and whoopee cap and asking for burgers. He’s learning through imitation. (Probably too strictly exact of an imitation, but those instruction-following instincts get drilled in deep.) The original joke is that he just spent too long around Jug and sort of absorbed his vibes, I guess, instead of the other way around. But my explanation makes more sense to me. It’s not like Dilt’s being brainwashed, he’s making the choice to act like this. And why? Because he really needs to be less hard on himself, and he finally understands that. Look at him at the start of the comic: wound up and melting down over this tiny little issue that’s not even his problem. Look at him at the end: relaxed, hanging out with his friend, going to do something purely recreational. Sure it’s funny that he’s dressed like Jughead’s mirror image, but when you think about it, this is clearly a good change for him (in all ways but the twinning outfit).

I really do think Jughead needs to impart his wisdom onto Dilton. Needs to teach him to calm down and do things not for a grade or an award or a reputation, but just for his own well-being. To go out to restaurants. To take naps in the park. To worry less about school. To exist in the world outside of his strict framework of self-imposed rules. He needs to teach Dilton to choose imperfection, and to be proud of it.

Because I need him to teach me that.

As always, this entire thing is 100% completely projecting.

[tamelee]

I love the way you write, you're so articulate, I wish I could write like that 😭 I'm guessing you get good grades in school? Do you have advice on how to write articulately and clearly while also sounding professional? Like in essay writing?

Huuuu, that’s very kind of you 🥹;-; I’d never imagine anyone saying that to me… ever. 

Well, my grades are good, I have my last exams soon ^^

I do have a few tips! Or rather, there are things I’m still currently learning that may be helpful to you as well📝: 

(Sentence) Structure: I read a book called ‘elements of style’ by William Strunk (revised edition) recently and I learned that no matter how grammatically correct your sentences are, there are still ways to improve its structure. (I had to learn it all over again in English -.-) This is a big topic so I'll name a few specifics you can dive into.

Learn the difference between active and passive voice (passive isn’t bad and sometimes necessary, but active is almost always preferred). Don’t mind all this on your first draft though. It’ll only hinder you.

Study MRU (motivation-reaction units), often used in Fiction writing, but it helped me for essays as well. It is the logical pattern of cause and effect introduced by Dwight V. Swain and I read about it in 'techniques of the selling writer'. Here's an article on the topic as well.

Mind paragraphs. There are different rules for this depending on what you’re writing, but it helps its readability. For Essays especially it’s always good to keep topics separate and lead the reader to your conclusion in a way that makes sense. (It's sorta like holding their hand and going like "because of this... there is this... and therefore... and so.... that's why....") This may need some reorganizing of your premises/subjects at times. I especially need to organize my thoughts before I even start writing.  

Understand what it is that you need to write about and delete everything that isn’t relevant. If you’re like me and you get a ton of new ideas once you delve into a subject, then it’s good to keep a folder (or something similar) for these new ideas. Often these are entire topics on its own and including these into another will only make both unclear and your conclusion muddy. So, ask yourself whether it strengthens your point, or if it’ll make it more confusing. If it won’t make a difference then delete it anyway or save it in your folder for later.  

I always learned that objectivity is important in order to sound professional, though it depends on the kind of essay you’re writing. If you need to convince the reader of something then transparency about your own opinions can help your conclusion be more honest, but be careful of sounding preachy as well. I had to learn all these things when I still studied marketing/communication in entertainment, but it often makes me feel slimy because it’s all very manipulative. (Hence, I quit that path.) It's in fiction as well. Some authors let their own views bleed through their characters in such a way it becomes uncomfortable because it doesn’t argue for the story nor adds to the character— it attacks the reader’s personal morals which possibly gives them an ass-spanking while they’re at it which just really isn’t necessary. Emotional language is fine I think. Sometimes I got compliments from teachers especially because I didn't sound too professional, it requires a bit of knowledge when you can get away with it probably. Just make sure you can back up your arguments/statements and possibly add different views as well. In a way it's more about the confidence in which you present an idea than sounding professional and not being able to understand all the 'why's' I believe.

This one isn't that relevant for school-essays, but sometimes when writing one the question isn't clear. It helps both you and the reader to reformulate it in the beginning. Essays as well as stories are often nothing more than a problem you need to give an answer to. Even if there's no question, it helps to make one anyway so you don't wander off endlessly and drown in a sea of possible subjects you could write about.

Something that may help you as well— I created a roadmap for myself and the different types of things I have to write. That way I always know what to do first and it helps me structure both the essay and my process as I can get easily distracted otherwise. Making more decisions than necessary makes me freeze up, but with a roadmap I don’t have to do either.

Uuh, I've probably picked up on tons of helpful things lately, but I think these are great to start with. I hope they are helpful to you.

I always wanted to (story-)write, but gave up on it and decided to learn how to draw instead. Then, I sort of realized that I was being an idiot, because that desire never left and I had to write other things anyway— like this for example, and simply accepting the fact that no one can understand the load of incomprehensible rubbish I wrote, just wouldn’t do. You can check my older posts… it’s awful. If I ever intentionally want to give myself another headache, I’ll go and read those. 

It’s definitely not perfect now, but hopefully I improved though. I think so. Sometimes I still get scolded as I tend to ping-pong between thoughts suddenly and I can hardly tell the difference between BrE/AmE. (As I grew up I learned English mostly through a sort-of-aunt figure from Canada that always forced me to watch British tv with her.) But, the past few months I especially had to write many essays and (argumentative) case studies so I decided to learn and become better in writing. If that translated back to Tumblr then I'm happy and you’ve made my day >< 

[minetteskvareninova]

Anyway, in light of ContraPoints' essay, I promised to continue my slow, steady Chłopi brainrot, so here it is:

My thesis is that you can absolutely read The Peasants, specifically the central pairing of Jagna and Antek, in light of the DHSM, it's just that it comes out of the other end as a pretty brutal deconstruction, which I don't think Reymont had intended.

Consider Jagna. She's your typical feminine protagonist, beautiful, virtuous and madly in love. The object of her desires? Goddamned Antoni Boryna. Antoni Boryna is, of course, very conventionally attractive, I daresay the most attractive man in the movie (although the competition is stiff, see Maciej and the organist's son, whatever the fuck his name is). He's also kind of unhinged. Antek is the kind of person who mostly acts on instinct with little regard to morality. He's nice to Jagna at the start, because he likes Jagna; he defends Hanka from his father's abuse, because nobody mistreats Hanka but him, and also fuck his dad; he leaves his dad's household and stubbornly refuses to submit to his authority despite the difficult situation it puts him in, because fuck his dad (sensing a pattern here?); he tries to kill his father, because fuck his dad, only to chicken out at the last second and realize, hey, maybe I don't hate my old man THAT much? These two are an Oedipal nightmare, is what I'm saying.

More than that, when I say that he acts on instinct, his instincts are... How would I put this... Stereotypically masculine in a very toxic way. He's very angry, bad-tempered, doesn't express tenderness that much - mostly because there isn't a whole lot of it things or people in this world that he genuinely likes. As far as I can tell, he kinda likes Hanka at the start (or at least the way old Boryna treats her is too much even for an A-grade asshole like Antek Boryna; there's also the fact that it's part of the ongoing power struggle between Antek and his old man, but that's neither here nor there) and really likes Jagna, and that's about it. His main motivation in life is to get one over his old man, which I almost sympathize with, since his old man is somehow even worse person than him. But don't get it twisted, Antek is a very, very bad dude. Some might even call him... A bad boy.

That's right, I am going there! Antek is in many ways very similar to the typical "bad boy" love interest found in romance novels. Toxic masculinity? Anger issues? Desperate need to dominate? Freaking daddy issues??? Yeah, baby, he's an alphahole all right. The only thing he's missing is, perhaps, an elevated social position, but even then - his dad is supposed to be the richest man in the village, and in the second half, his old man dies, presumably leaving Antek most of his property.

Anyway, Jagna starts out having feelings for Antek, which are in context kind of understandable. I mean, he is hot and she's one of the few people he treats with any tenderness; 18-year old girlies have fallen in love for less. The situation these two lovebirds find themselves in is of course very difficult. Jagna is coerced into becoming the trophy wife of Antek's shitty dad, while Antek is still married to Hanka and still mad at his dad for other reasons. But aside from being start-crossed lovers, there's another tiny problem with their relationship: Jagna, though young and in love, isn't stupid, and increasingly realizes that Antek, as mentioned above, is absolutely unhinged. Add to this the fact that Jagna kinda feels bad for poor Hanka, and it's kinda understandable why their relationship turns sour. So Jagna just... Dumps Antek. For which he rapes her and lets the villagers do the ending scene to her.

And here's where we get to the DHSM of it all. A lesser deconstruction might go for the "see, you can't in fact change him" angle, but like... Here? The thought of Antek ever changing never even crosses anyone's mind, least of all Jagna's. If she fell in love with Antek despite him being, as mentioned above, unhinged, it's because she clearly didn't know him that well and didn't recognize the full extent of his assholery. An understandable, if unfortunate mistake to make. Anyway, if the common DHSM dynamic is a woman elevating herself by worshipping or in some way (like morally) elevating an already exceptional man, it clearly doesn't work here. Jagna cannot adore Antek once she gets to know him, cannot abide by his assholery (she's too smart and proud for that), not can she change him into any kind of admirable person, and that thought doesn't even seem to cross her mind. Jagna cannot elevate Antek in any way.

But he can, and does, drag her to the mud.

That is the other side of the coin, the objectification and degradation of the woman, isn't it? And, well, since Antek cannot be elevated in Jagna's mind above her moral concerns, nor in real life by becoming a better person... Well then. To abide with the DHSM, Jagna has to be humiliated instead. First morally by sleeping with the married man, then, when she refuses to participate in this "sin" anymore, physically trough the rape and the ending scene.

And that's the unintentional genius of The Peasants - it reveals, in its full ugliness, the degradation side of DHSM by subtracting the elevation side completely. Antek was never worth the pain he put Jagna trough and that she was put trough for the relationship with him. But of course, is any man ever? There's a reason why Jagna never actually seems to consider a relationship with any other man, outside of maybe her ex Maciej, who, while not as terrible as Antek, still does some pretty shitty things, namely lying about sleeping with her (unwittingly contributing to her downfall). It's not that Jagna just happened to find a bad man. The whole system is clearly broken.

Of course, "the system" here clearly isn't meant to be just DHSM, as much as I focused on this aspect of it in this post, but patriarchy in general - for the writers of the movie if not Reymont (because I haven't read the book, so I can't speak on it, sorry). But to make a full feminist analysis of The Peasants is kind of outside of the scope of this tumblr essay, so.

[wizardnuke]

im talking about the essay grade again and i got off topic and started talking about the lit analysis potential inthe vast majority of fanfictionbjust. Ignore

i feel like it's such a humblebrag for me to be like "i don't understand how i continually get really good grades in english" because i understand objectively that 1) i am very good at analysis and/or. finding quotes to support whatever the fuck thesis i decided would be easy to support (see: "good at analysis") (i think i honestly just randomly hit the jackpot on "good thesis" but on god i just looked at macbeth and gawain respectively and was like Ah. Women's Wrongs. Easy Peasy) and 2) i know from looking at other people's essays that i am just kind of. marginally-to-a-lot better at grammar and phrasing/understand the very specific madlibs-style layout i have to use and what vocabulary that i need to be putting out. it's madlibs. there's a really technical and specific layout that needs to be followed and i just kind of follow it. it's not hard. it is boring. if i could write academic papers on the shit i'm actually interested in they'd be worthless because it's niche and/or wild tumblr user conjecture. anyone who seriously writes on. hold on i need to generate a thesis. "the cyclic nature of abuse and its direct correlation to homoeroticism in cn's supernatural" could u fucking imagine. that's hilarious. that's some hackjob shit no matter how well i could keep a straight face on the matter because all that people care about is Old Shit. i have no real vested interest in actual literary works beyond "they're important and better than people think". i have extremely strong feelings on a lot of modern works, generally movies and shows and niche dnd webshows, i cannot make a career in that shit, my english prof thinks fanfic is bullshit and i see where he's coming from! i don't think it's bullshit. but. the academic perspective on fanfiction is like "they're not making original work" because the setting/adjacent themes and characters r lifted from another work and there's no real originality in it except that the best fics i've read are like.. an alternate form of literary analysis that is so far from actual essay writing that it's unrecognizable. but people can see the themes and the motifs and rehash them in a way that is absolutely a kind of analysis of the original work, but with flourishes and new ideas and batshit choices that the og media either couldn't make/didn't feel like making/tentacle sex wasn't really thematically fitting but an author decided "hey what if i put themes into this consentacles fic" and like, i want to argue that that's legit. sometimes. but i am not going to do that bc i sound objectively insane and also sometimes it is just not that deep and that will be brought up as an argument and i just don't care enough to explain that it's still an art form even if it's not that deep. is "fun and funky fresh" not a common motivator. if "new interpretations" of works like shakespeare and shit where they plunk the characters into a modern setting and fuck with the phrasing is seen as a viable art form/type of analysis then fanfic is an art form/analysis adjacent to that. not all of it though. some of it is something else that is worse. not that i think that is in itself bad. fanfic is a hobby. can't make a career out of that. but people have made careers out of that by changing the names and setting and publishing books. and that's viable apparently. i just personally am insane and enjoy writing very serious and/or emotionally driven meta on dnd shows. i like themes and motifs and i think that while a quickly written meta post on the tragedy inherent in redemption arcs that hit 50k is absolutely not as academically sound as a cited paper on a similar subject, there's Something To It and there's got to be some kind of potential in it. i like stories. idk if i could make a living out of talking about stories especially from the insane angle that i tend to hit stories at. the possibility of making it a genuine career is driven down below ground after i take into consideration my insanity about modern stories vs my neutrality on older ones. what am i talking abt. bf is yelling for me bye

[staceymcgillicuddy]

Day 6: Sunrise, Sunset

One more day! Thanks again @amandaashplease--couldn't let this prompt go by without reflecting on all the "Eddie's a tech guy" headcanons out there.

As far as Friday night activities are concerned, Eddie doesn’t do school shit, and Hellfire doesn’t count. But he had to take an elective, and he’d already done art and music, so drama was what remained. Since he sure as shit wasn’t acting, he’d joined the crew for the musical and blah blah blah, sets were built, lighting rigs were hung, and sue him: he’d like to see the finished result with an audience. 

Plus, for a musical, Fiddler on the Roof isn’t half-bad. He’s not saying he wants to go see Cats or anything—God, does he fucking hate Cats, and the cast recording Tammy Thompson plays all the goddamn time backstage—but he can get down with some poor people hoping for, like, a better future, or whatever.

So, yeah. He has his spot in the auditorium, near the back, where he can put his feet on the seat in front of him and ignore his classmates.

Until, that is, five minutes before the show’s about to start when someone shuffles into the row next to him and says, “is anyone sitting here?” 

It’s Chrissy Cunningham, and Eddie nearly falls out of his hard wooden seat as he scrambles to sit upright. “Uh. Hey. No, it's cool.” 

“Thanks.” She sits, and Eddie has a million questions. Like, where’s her dumb boyfriend? Why’s she here alone? Does she know how good she smells? Why is her ponytail so high? 

He doesn’t dare to ask any of them, though, so he just tries to look like he’s not looking at her, except for how he is. Mercifully, the lights go down a few minutes later, putting him out of his misery.

The thing is, though, he can’t focus on the show with Chrissy sitting right next to him. Can’t, like, get annoyed with the chick playing Hodel when she misses her mark and sings a whole fucking line in complete darkness. Can’t even appreciate the fact that Samuel Schlesinger is a pretty good Tevye. Way better than Tammy Thompson as Golde. 

But then, during Sunrise, Sunset, he hears some sniffles beside him and realizes Chrissy’s all teary-eyed over what is, objectively, a pretty sad song. But also, what the fuck is he supposed to do about it? His hands are frozen to the armrests, and he wishes he was the kind of dude with a handkerchief in his pocket. 

“You okay?” he whispers in the few spare seconds of silence between the song ending and the wedding beginning. 

Chrissy nods. Compresses her lips into a tight line and wipes her eyes so fiercely that some mascara drags across her temple.

Intermission is soon after, and she turns to him with an apologetic smile when the house lights come on. “I’m sorry. It was just… pretty.” 

“No, uh. You’re fine. You’re uh… yeah. It’s a good song.”

“Mmm.” She twists her mouth into a bow, lower lip jutting into a pout. “Do you ever… it’s so stupid. I forgot about an English assignment, and I have to watch this and write an essay to make it up.” 

That’s surprising in that Chrissy has always struck him as perfect academically and socially, but it explains why she’s not here with friends. “Uh, sorry. I’m only here because I’m in drama, and like… yeah. I worked on it.” 

“Oh.” Another pause and she offers him a smile. “It’s really good.” 

“Thanks. Sorry about your English grade.” 

“At least she’s giving me a chance to make it up. This semester’s been… just. I don’t know.” She smooths down her skirt, then cuts her eyes at him. “Do you… do you ever feel like you’re losing your mind?” 

It’s a loaded question with a simple answer, and Eddie smiles.

Technically, Tammy already graduated, but given that the Duffers don't care, neither do I, so she's Golde. Suck it, nerds!

[edamba]

THE BRILLIANT WAY TO GAIN TEACHING EXPERIENCE DURING YOUR PHD

It is no secret that universities have produced plenty of PhDs in various fields in the last decade. This abundance has fundamentally changed how newly minted Ph.D. students perceive their careers to evolve in the future. Many Ph.D. researchers teach to earn money and gain valuable experience during their doctorate. Ph.D. teachers' primary responsibilities include conducting seminars, laboratory demonstrations, or supervision and marking assessments for undergraduates. This blog will describe what to expect from teaching as a Ph.D. researcher.

Is It A Compulsion To Teach During A Ph.D.?

Most universities in Europe offer opportunities for Ph.D. students to teach, but it is doubtful that this will include a compulsory part of your doctoral program. Instead, teaching is viewed more as a valuable extracurricular activity that gives doctoral candidates added weightage to their portfolios. Elsewhere globally, Ph.D. programs are more likely to include an obligatory teaching element, particularly in the USA. Ph.D. researchers usually entail some teaching responsibilities as they are treated as university employees in some places.

Teaching during a PhD

Teaching while pursuing a Ph.D. is an excellent way to grow your horizons as a doctoral candidate; it enables students to put their knowledge into practice in an unknown environment. Students definitely won't have to teach anyone until they are ready and will be provided with plenty of training and support before going ahead and teaching. For this reason, most Ph.D. teaching usually takes place from the second year onwards, so you'll already hold a year of doctoral experience by the time you take on additional responsibilities. As a Ph.D. researcher taking on the duties of a teacher, the responsibilities largely depend on your research specialism. So if your research specialism is in Art, Humanities or Social Sciences department, then you can anticipate to:

Assign tasks and reading materials for the following week's seminars

Lead undergraduate seminars and tutorials, allowing students to explore and discuss the assignment for a specific session

Provide grades and feedback for essays and other assignments.

Suppose you're working in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). In that case, your teaching responsibilities are more likely to be:

Laboratory-based

Demonstrate scientific methods and techniques for undergraduate and Master's students in a supervisory role.

Establishes clear objectives for all lessons, curricular units, and projects and communicates them to the students.

Regularly assess the accomplishments of students in a variety of ways.

It is unlikely you will be expected to give any lectures whatever your specialism.

Teaching opportunities for Ph.D. researchers

When you are trying to gain teaching experience, try and get some teaching in your department. If teaching isn't offered to PhDs, you can always request your supervisor if you can follow them for a few classes. Try to conduct one or two tutorials or give a lecture. If your university doesn't permit teaching, you could also ask neighboring universities if they seek someone to teach.

Attend training seminars hosted by your university as teaching opportunities usually are advertised within various doctorate departments. Universities may promote teaching opportunities in other departments you wish to be considered for, depending on your experience and research area. This process can differ across departments, so contacting your relevant teaching coordinator may be worth getting. There are prospects for Ph.D. researchers to participate in various teaching activities within the university, including leading seminars and tutorials and a laboratory demonstration.

Get in touch with EDAMBA to commit to creating and sharing initiatives and achieving excellence.

[blog-name-idk]

Everything Falls (Into Place) | 15

*Banner by the incredible @bangtansmauyeondan

Pairing: OT7 x Fem Reader

Genre: College!AU, Roommate!AU, Fluff, Humor, Smut

Summary: Your new roommates are unbearably nice and unbearably hot. Good thing you're an adult who is fully capable of platonic friendships with the opposite sex, right?

Word Count: 2581

~~~~~

Hobi

Can someone check my room for my literature essay?

Yoongi

again?

You

Is this like a monthly thing you do?

Hobi

:(

You

I found it. Where are you?

Hobi

We're at the Intramural Sports Building again, same studio as last time! 2B!

You

2B nice and bring you your homework again, or not 2B…

Hobi

[Y/n]!! 😭😭😭

You

Kidding! I'm already on my way.

You chuckled as you sent your last message, amused at how so much time later, you were bringing Hobi his homework once again. You weren't really bothered, the building was on the opposite side of your classes so you never had an actual excuse to see them practice.

You had already blocked out the entire day of the dance showcase in your phone calendar. Even though it wasn't that far off, you weren't about to pass up the opportunity to see your boys in action. You idly wondered if you were a masochist - watching Jimin and Hobi move was definitely not going to help the state of your heart. But they were so good that you couldn't resist.

You were walking through the halls of the sports building when someone called your name. You turned to see one of the members of the dance team jogging up to you.

"Dongmin, right?" you asked when he reached you, pleased to see a friendly face. "I'm impressed you remembered me."

"Can't forget a good handshake," he joked with a grin, and you smiled. "I was wondering if we'd ever see you around these parts again."

"I'm actually here to once again drop off our good Hoseok's literature paper," you explained as the two of you began walking to the studio.

"That's really nice of you. I thought we might have scared you away with the sweat and general stench of the studio after dance practice."

"Nothing can keep me away from saving my roommate's English grade, not even your horrible odor," you said with an impish grin, and he staggered and clutched his chest as if you'd wounded him.

"That hurts, [y/n]. I'll have you know that I was voted 'best smelling' in the second grade," he complained good-naturedly, and you had to laugh.

"Ah, so you were the first to start wearing Axe?" you retorted, and he winced.

"That's honestly more accurate than I care to admit."

You snorted, enjoying his sense of humor. He grinned at your reaction.

"Well, I know I shouldn't be hoping hyung forgets his homework again, but I kinda do if it means you'll be visiting again."

You realized he was hitting on you, and you took a split second to consider. He was cute, funny, and had the added bonus of not living with you. But you had literally just told Taehyung you weren't seeing anyone, and your reasons still hadn't changed - it wouldn't exactly be fair to the guy if you had seven gorgeous roommates and you had feelings for most of them.

Then again, maybe the reason you were so hung up on them lately was that they were the only ones you had been hanging out with. It was harder to be objective when they were constantly around you emitting their "I'm amazing and perfect and beautiful inside and out" beams. Well, a little flirting at least couldn't hurt. If it developed into anything more you'd have to do something about it, but for now maybe a distraction was just what you needed.

"Hm, I don't know, what else could there possibly be to interest me?" You teased, giving him a sidelong glance that he returned appreciatively. Yeah, you still had it.

"I guess I'll have to think of something," he responded with a warm grin as you entered the studio. You smiled back, then waved at Hobi and Jimin who had seen you come in and were walking towards you.

"Well, I'll actually be seeing the dance showcase," you told him teasingly. "I guess I could add you to my list of people to cheer for."

"I'll have to put on my best moves, then," he said with a wink, then went to join the rest of the group. You made a point to say goodbye, though to be honest it was hard to remember he existed when your roommates were right there, gorgeous and glistening with sweat.

"What was that all about?" asked Hoseok, looking between you and the other dancer's retreating back with an unreadable expression. A bead of perspiration dripped from his collarbone down below the loose collar of his shirt, and you tried your best not to picture it sliding down his torso.

"Oh, we were just joking around," you said distractedly, and Jimin gave you a cute pout.

"But [y/n], why would you talk to him when you could have me?" he whined, wrapping a damp arm around your shoulder.

"Hey! You're all sweaty and gross!" you protested, wriggling away. You had to stay strong. Yep, that mixture of sweat, deodorant, and Jimin was definitely gross and not in any way delicious. There was absolutely nothing about it that made you want to be a total creep and take a big whiff of his neck. You were chill.

"Oh! Here's your essay," you remembered, grabbing it from your bag. You held it out to your friend, but he still looked deep in thought. "Everything okay?"

Hobi gave himself a shake, then took his papers with an apologetic smile. You ignored the way it made his bangs sway attractively in his eyes. Man, you really needed to get laid.

"Yeah! Sorry about that, just an intense practice today," he explained. "Thanks for saving me… again."

"No problem! Don't overwork yourselves, okay?" you gave them an admonishing look, knowing full well that Jimin in particular had a tendency to overexert himself, before heading out the door. You had meant to watch them rehearse, but there was only so much sexy dancer testosterone you could take in one sitting. You completely missed the long look that your two roommates shared.

~~~~~

Hobi frowned uncharacteristically as he stood under his shower, the hot water doing little to soothe his mood. Dongmin hadn't stopped asking him and Jimin about you throughout the rest of practice, and it had been increasingly difficult not to snap at him. Even the younger boy had started getting testy with his responses.

He couldn't help but feel protective over their cute new roommate. After all, you had just had your heart broken! He was just looking out for you. Even if you seemed totally over it. And it had been several months ago. A lot of people bottled up their feelings and pretended to be okay!

Ugh, who was he kidding? You had planted seeds into his heart, watering them little by little, and he had only realized it when thorns had appeared upon seeing you with Dongmin. Now it was too late, and you had firmly rooted yourself into the depths of his being.

He sighed as he turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. He should be happy for you. Dongmin was a decent guy, and you deserved more than some dance-obsessed, overly energetic dork like Hobi anyway.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts that when the door slammed open, he didn't immediately react. You stared back at him with wide eyes, frozen, until he watched them travel to his shoulders, down his chest, and down…

His reflexes chose that moment to finally kick in, and he let out an embarrassingly high-pitched scream. You jumped and came to yourself with a jolt, leaping out of the bathroom and slamming the door behind you, yelling muffled apologies.

The dancer slowly slid down to the floor, still dripping water, and groaned.

~~~~~

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck, your brain screamed as you slammed the door to the bathroom, screeching incoherent sorries over your shoulder. Hobi had been one of the guys safe from your stupid feelings!

Why hadn't you knocked? Why was his body so perfect? He was lean and muscular in all the right places, slender but with an undeniable wiry strength to his form. And that was without mentioning his - nope. Stop it. You had to get out of here before your sleazy stalker brain made you go back to ogle him some more.

By the time you made it to the corner store, your mind had calmed down a bit, and you were now feeling decidedly guilty. The poor guy had just been minding his own business. Not only had you walked in on your friend in the shower, you had then proceeded to eye him like a piece of meat. All of him.

You had sent him a slew of apology texts, each one more frantic than the last, but he hadn't opened a single one. Was he that angry? He must be. You couldn't blame him - you had completely violated his privacy. You prayed this would become one of those funny roommate stories you two could laugh about in the future.

In the meantime, how could you get him to forgive you? All of the boys liked food, maybe that was the path forward. Perhaps you could wow him with a meal so delicious he completely forgot about what a total perv you were? It might be a stupid plan, but it was the only thing your currently frazzled brain could think of.

Spying the soda aisle, you made a beeline for his favorite drink. An additional bribe couldn't hurt, after all.

~~~~~

Hobi walked back into the house, feeling much refreshed after a long walk. So what if he had screamed like a little girl in front of you? So what if you had apparently been so horrified by his naked body that you were nowhere to be found after he finally gathered the courage to leave the bathroom? It was just a silly mishap that could happen to any set of roommates.

Well, it would've been nice if you'd looked mildly appreciative, or at least anything other than the blank look of shock that had been on your face. But it was fine. You didn't find him attractive. That was fine. He was fine.

As he closed the front door, the savory smell of cooking beef momentarily chased his brooding thoughts away. Jin must have tried a new recipe today, and it smelled divine. In all the, er, excitement, he had completely forgotten to eat anything after practice, and his stomach reminded him that he was starving. He followed the scent to the kitchen, only to find you in that cute little apron the eldest had gotten upon anointing you his "official sous chef". You jumped in surprise when he appeared.

"Hobi!" You said in surprise, clutching your chest. "Um, did you get my texts?"

He blinked and pulled out his phone, realizing he had set it to silent. He opened it to find a barrage of texts, all from the girl in front of him.

You

OH MY GOD I'M SO SORRY

You

I HAD TO PEE REALLY BAD AND DIDN'T EVEN THINK TO KNOCK

You

I WASN'T TRYING TO PEEP ON YOU I SWEAR

You

I'M SORRY I STARED FOR SO LONG YOU JUST HAVE A NICE BODY

You

Wait fuck that doesn't help my argument that I wasn't creeping

You

… Hobi?

You

Are you gonna be back for dinner?

You

I'm really sorry

Having reached the end of your texts, he looked up to see you watching him nervously.

"Please don't hate me." You looked so adorably miserable that Hobi found himself striding quickly over to you and engulfing you in a bear hug.

"Aww you're so cute, [y/n]" he cooed into the top of your head, patting the top of your head like you were a puppy. You felt just as perfect in his arms as he remembered, and you smelled like a weird mixture of shampoo and cooking meat that should've been off putting, but wasn't. "I'm not upset. I just went for a walk to clear my head because I was embarrassed. I didn't mean to worry you."

"But you have literally zero things to be embarrassed about," came the muffled protest from where your face was squished against his chest. He went a little pink at the implications of your statement, remembering exactly how far down your gaze had wandered. Huh. So maybe the look on your face hadn't been of horror after all. Deciding to mull over this discovery at a later time, he pulled away and gestured to the stove.

"So what are you making?"

"I uh, made Japanese-style hamburger steaks," you mumbled, looking sheepish. "I remembered you said you like hamburgers so I thought I'd try to bribe your forgiveness with food. I'm an idiot, I know."

"It smells amazing," Hobi said honestly, and clearly his stomach agreed because it suddenly rumbled loudly, making you giggle.

"Well sit down then," you urged, gesturing to the bar stools at the island. He watched in appreciation as you cracked an egg onto a smaller pan. While it sizzled, you plated his steak with rice, veggies, and some sauce that had been simmering on one of the back burners. You completed the dish with a perfectly runny fried egg. And if he hadn't been melting already, he was certainly a puddle by the time you grabbed a lone soda from the fridge.

"Sprite?" he asked delightedly as you set everything in front of him. You grinned at him again.

"I might have grabbed some at the store while I was panicking," you admitted, plopping down onto the bar stool next to him. His eyes widened. He was touched that you remembered his favorite foods, and you had gone out of your way to prepare them. All this just because you thought he was upset? He felt the roots you had planted in his chest sink a little deeper.

To distract himself from the sensation, he took a large bite of the food. Oh, it was delicious. He wiggled happily in his seat, making you laugh.

"You should walk in on me naked more often," he sighed without thinking, then froze when he realized exactly what he had just said. You stared back at him with wide eyes, face a little pink. Luckily, before either of you could react, a trio of gremlins burst into the kitchen.

"FOOD!" cried Jungkook. He made a beeline for the stove, Jimin and Taehyung in quick succession. They pouted when they realized there was nothing left and scurried over to make a ring around you like the scavengers they were. You snorted and vacated your seat.

"There are more in the fridge, you heathens, just let me fry them up," you scolded as you shooed the younger boys to sit next to Hobi. His eyes were riveted to you as you bustled around the kitchen. Of course you had made extra. It was just like you to think of everyone in the house.

"Wait, why did hyung get a fried egg?" Jimin whined, noting the distinct lack on their plates when you presented them their food.

"Because he's special," you retorted, and Hobi felt the fluttery warmth of flowers blooming in his chest. He took a long sip of his Sprite, pointedly ignoring the glares of his younger brothers. His heart clung to your words and he decided he would do anything to make you realize that you were special, too.

~~~~~

Next | Masterlist

Tags: @singukieee @persphonesorchid @xmochiloverx @taestefully-in-luv @meavie @silscintilla @forpunishers @jnghs

[deadboyfriendd]

𝖊𝖉𝖉𝖎𝖊 𝖒𝖚𝖓𝖘𝖔𝖓 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖈𝖆𝖓𝖔𝖓𝖘

A/N: Literally a braindump of my headcanons that I am not qualified to give. I made this entirely too long and I will probably make a second part if anyone could bear the sight of it.

C/W: Mentions of cigarettes and maybe other substances, rough family and upbringings, mental illness, self-hatred and some mentions of issues with food

He 100% has ADHD, except he would have been diagnosed (if he was diagnosed at all) with hyperkinetic reaction of childhood or adolescence. They didn't recognize the name as ADD until 1980 and they didn't formally recognize hyperactivity as a part of the diagnosis without distinction until 1987. They more than likely wrote him off as an unruly child with familial problems. If they did treat him, it most likely would have been with Ritalin, which more than likely would have made him feel lethargic or paranoid. Wayne would have much rather have seen him be Eddie than a shell of a human for the sake of obedience. (This is based on my own limited knowledge of ADHD, being someone who is diagnosed with it. I took a couple psych classes and tried to do some thorough research before writing this information out.)

This is not to say that Eddie isn't smart. He actually is SUPER intelligent. This I think is canon because he's very articulate and DnD is a VERY hard game to memorize and play, and I would assume is harder to DM. If he had access to proper resources and access to a CBT like we do now, he would probably have been a child prodigy. Instruments, especially guitar, also take a lot of time and dedication and are super hard to play. School didn't work for him, especially in the 80s, because he was expected to just sit down and shut up and learn the way he was told- when in reality he just needed a little bit of understanding.

Because of the ADHD, he also sucks at impulse control and task initiation, which did not contribute to his success in school. He cannot, for the life of him, force himself to sit and complete an assignment because the immediate consequence is not right in front of him, and it's not providing him with instant gratification.

His jacket and rings are comfort objects, the weight of the jacket make him feel secure and the rings provide something to fidget with. (I resonate so deeply with this one because my rings and fingers are also the thing that I fidget with)

I assume Wayne would have gotten custody of him in an emergency placement situation when Eddie was old enough to remember it, my brain says like between 4th and 6th grade. Wayne basically had to teach him how to be a human being first- hone him in and then smooth out the edges.

Wayne loves Eddie relentlessly and would do anything to see him succeed. Him not graduating high school hurts Wayne and he secretly blames himself for not trying harder with him, but he could never quite find the right line between being Eddie's dad and respecting Eddie's boundary to come to that conclusion himself.

While Eddie loves to challenge authority, him and Wayne have a mutual respect for each other. This really sets in during Eddie's junior year when he can take care of himself and be more independent. He tries to follow the rules Wayne has set out for him, and tries really hard to be respectful of Wayne's space by not smoking pot when he's home, keeping his volume to a minimum when he's resting, or trying to keep the house clean.

Contrary to popular belief and what a lot of other people think he is, I honestly think that Eddie is an ENFP and not and ENTP. (This could just be me projecting). The reason I think this is because he was willing to follow everyone into the upside-down no matter how terrified he was just to prove that he wasn't going to run away again. (I could make an entirely separate essay talking about his ENFP stance)

He is secretly a people-pleaser. The reason he is so dramatic and walks across tables and yells at people across the cafeteria is because it makes everyone in Hellfire laugh. He loves getting the reaction out of the people he likes and he likes the attention from the reputation he has as the freak of Hawkins High, however, when that social high goes away and he's alone in his room, he doesn't sleep because he replays his mental script of that particular performance over and over again seeing what he could have done better and where he slipped up and he thinks he's the most annoying person on planet earth.

On the more light-hearted end, he has to have some kind of background noise or he'll go insane. TV, music, the radio, SOMETHING.

He has comfort TV shows and they're usually cartoons.

He hates being alone physically, but can't always handle having constant interactions with someone. Him and Wayne get along so well because they can be alone together.

He would really have moments where he would heal his inner childhood, without realizing it. He hangs out with younger people because it helps him live out what he should have had and missed out on. I like to think that if Will was living in Hawkins and got that Atari for Christmas in the first season, he would have let Eddie play as much as he wanted. He would have gone absolutely feral over a Nintendo system. He probably still has his gross, cracking Stretch Armstrong or a Gumby and Pokey. In a modern setting, he would LOVE RC cars or Nerf guns.

The Breakfast Club makes him have a physically angry reaction, but he still cried watching it.

He has problems with eating, either not eating all day and then being absolutely ravenous and destroying a small township with his hunger, or eating like a rat and surviving off of scraps and seeds all day.

Has a GIANT crush on Heather Locklear, mostly because she was with Tommy Lee, but also because she is pretty.

He is really interested in space. He was born around/lived his formative years through the time that we landed on the moon and made a ton of strides in space exploration. He keeps up on it and is actually pretty well-versed.

Because of this, Wayne also had taken him to see every Star Wars movie that had been out at the time.

He has a sweet tooth, literally ALWAYS getting a sweet snack or a coke or something.

Smoke breaks are how him and Wayne bond in absolute silence. He remembers the first time Wayne gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. Now he does it when he needs to think, or when he needs to not think. He sits outside in a plastic lawn chair and has a smoke.

He's actually pretty fond of the little trailer he lives in. Its comforting to him and he likes the freedom of being on the outskirts of town.

[honey-coloured-passion]

dream smp high school au and what they'd teach:

i had to get it out of my system but i'm so happy with how these turned out

mr notfound: engineering (the engineering teacher never really teaches and kinda sits in his office but the entire school simps for him so there's always a teacher hanging with him. his curriculum is free form and an easy A but genuinely pretty damn fun)

mr. nap: gym (hes the nice gym teacher who says screw the pacer test and rope climbing and you guys just play basketball after running like 2 laps. he's super gullible and will let anyone sit out for any semblance of pain. that is until the film teacher comes into the gym, then he's a tryhard beating freshman up to make layups on lowered hoops)

mr. wastaken: physics (the coolest class that always does crazy expiriments with large falling objects and questionable usage of dry ice, people always think his experiments are fake but he'll be the first to give a class long lecture on why every single piece of his work is 100% accurate. there was this one incident when he used the engineering teacher to explain torque and it ended with mr. notfound being caught in his arms. there's pictures but he still denys it.)

mr. blade: advanced english lit (mr. blade has no time for freshmen and if he does like a frosh into his class they've gotta he the damn best. his class is based on old literature analysis and storytelling. his favorite unit being greek mythology. most of his assignments aren't just boring essays or stressful discussion. no one truly knows what mr. blades class is like until you've taken it, they're often heard chanting "blood for the blood god" before exams but the principal is yet to do anything about it.)

mr. awsamdude: comp sci/coding (sam is the teacher everyone adores, there's usually at least two people crying in his office before and after school but he always knows what will cheer them up! he tries to work closely with mr. notfound but he's busy with the physics prof so sam has gotten really close with his TA tubbo. they do all kinds of coding competitions and his class is known to be a safe haven for students of all kinds- "coding is for everyone!" he always chants)

ms. nihachu: art (known for the classroom with the best vibes niki insists on dropping the ms. and formalitys. she's the teacher with lofi playing and bean bags and couches in her beautifully decorated classroom. she has an open classroom meaning anyone can come in anytime and she is dedicated to making sure no one eats lunch alone. a couple times a year she goes on a huge rant about loving oneself and the value of not judging others, needless to say everyone adores her - especially the theatre kids as her class is constantly helping them with set design)

mr. soot: music/theatre (does he have a degree? unknown. does he teach anything besides music? couldnt tell ya. mr soot roams the halls during class hours that aren't his one choir period; popping into various classes to pretend to be a student or just all around goof off. his theatre program however, one of the best. he makes the most extravagant plays and musicals with barely any budget. after his show goes on he goes dark for like 2 weeks straight "recuperating" but no one questions because that kind of genius needs resting)

mr. frost: math (ant and red would TOTALLY teach math together and it would be so cute everyone would see them walk in and out of school together and ship them and their classroom would be a safe space for people to come out or even just hangout. ant would be a crazy good teacher who is understanding and not one of those asshole math teachers. he's the one everyone always wants to have haha)

mr. jacobs: film/freshman history (mr jacobs is the freshman heartthrob and senior best friend. he teaches film as history, film as lit, and frosh history - basically the easiest classes, but he makes them the most fun. in his lit classes they watch cartoons and search for literature similarities or historical evidence. in his history classes he goes on grand lectures often standing on tables to reenact his favorite history moments. occasionally he brings in his friends to re create a massive fight in front of all the history classes, it's scuffed but everyone always looks forward to them)

ms. puffy: head counselor (ms puffy is the sweetest soul and often is helping students with everything from their personal lives to college. she assigns the TA's and classrooms and works closely with mr minecraft to make the school as conducive of a learning environment as possible.)

mr. minecraft: the principal, the big man himself, mr fuckin minecraft. (he constantly looks sleep deprived and exhausted but he loves the students and teachers with his whole heart. he takes no shit from annoying parents or asshole students and is known to ban the entitled cruel students from all his favorite teachers classes, leaving them with the worst teachers. usually he can be found telling dream he can't have more money for explosives, begging wilbur to sleep and rest, and telling techno he's gonna have to teach a english 9 class eventually. that and dealing with his new TA's.)

our lovely teacher assistants:

ranboo: english TA (thought he was gonna get art with niki but puffy out him with the blade. originally he was terrified but he's growing on mr. blade with his deep analytical thoughts and similar dry humor. granted- he does have the most work of all the TA's because mr. blade makes him grade all the multiple choice tests, but he's really starting to love the english classroom.)

tubbo: comp sci TA (tubbo had been begging to be sam's TA since freshman year where he took almost all the coding classes in one year. plus, the computer science room is right next to the physics room in the science wing so he can pop over and see tommy all the time. tubbo and sam stay in the computer lab way later than philza should allow but they've made magnificent codes for the school. everytime tubbo points out he's graduating soon sam starts to tear up, but he knows tubbos gonna do big things, he's just gonna miss his goofy TA.)

tommy: physics TA (the pounding philza got on his office door when tommy didn't get wilbur was ground shaking. puffy and philza calmly explained that tommy has a knack for physics if he would just focus and genuinely learn from dream. "big D" as tommy calls him, wasnt jazzed either. their year as TA and teacher started rocky but dream would come to realize that tommy is more talented than he lets on and after speaking to wilbur and puffy he realized there was a damn good reason he was given tommy. he took it upon himself to turn tommy into the best student he could be. and tommy isn't one to back down from a fight. little did he know this year would be the best year yet.)

i'm so happy with this and i actually think i might expand it idkkkk :)))

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Hey slug, thanks for the hard work you and your team do for the fandom!! me and some friends were discussing this and i thought it would be nice to see ur answer to this (only if it doesn't bother u, of course!!): what characters do you think parents would give a big thumbs up if you introduced them as your partner (in terms of personality and traits)? I personally think Hifumi or Ichiro would be the best son-in-law...

What an entertaining question. Believe it or not, I’ve given the matter some thought before for reasons entirely unrelated to this, so presenting: Hypnosis Microphone Men and Whether or Not You Should Bring Them Home to Your Parents.

Since there’s a wide age range among the cast members, assume that the “you” in question is roughly each character’s age.

Ichirou: Absolutely. This man is objectively a dream boat. Runs his own successful business? Check. Respectful to people of all ages? Check. Cooks? Check. Cleans? Check. Good with kids? Check. Take Ichirou and marry him before your parents marry him themselves.

Jirou: As far as high school boyfriends go, Jirou’s not a bad choice. He’s a sweetheart, popular, plays music. Doesn’t do drugs in the school bathroom. Could have better grades, but hey, you can’t win them all. He seems like he’d have you home by 8 pm. You know what? Sure. Why not? You could do worse.

Saburou: Saburou is the kind of middle school boyfriend that your parents openly like and privately dislike. What I mean is that he’s very polite to most elders and super smart, so he’s the kind of kid who is entirely unobjectionable, but he’s also the kind of kid who would try to mansplain your parents’ jobs to them. Worst of all, he would be entirely correct in what he’s saying. Your parents probably want to punch him, but they don’t because assaulting children is illegal, not to mention immoral. They will breathe a collective sigh of relief when he finally breaks up with you so he can focus on studying for the Science Bowl nationals.

Samatoki: I am so torn on this one. On the one hand, he’s every parent’s worst nightmare. He smokes indoors, has an awful temper, and is a fucking gangster, for pete’s sake. Yet he can also be a sweetheart who cooks for you and does everything to treat you right. I’m really stumped. Probably the best solution, if you’re really wanting to get in on that Aohitsugi ass, is to cut out the middle man and date Nemu instead. She is perfect in every way, so your parents will love her.

Juuto: If your parents watch Antiques Roadshow, then he will have a lot to bond with them about. Otherwise I think he’d be that kind of person who tells stories about himself way too loudly at family dinners, and after he leaves, one of your parents pulls you aside to say, “Your boyfriend’s really kind of an asshole, don’t you think?” I guess date him if you’re okay with your parents thinking you have cruddy taste.

Riou: I feel like the hard part here is luring him out of the woods and into a family dinner, but from there, it should go great. He’s over 6 feet tall. He can cook well. He has a strong sense of purpose and knows what he wants to do in life. Most importantly, he has a wonderful heart AND every survival skill known to man. He will change the oil in your parents’ car, fix the leaky pipe you’ve been meaning to get around to for six months now, clean the hood above the stove, and then swap recipes and heartfelt compliments with whichever parent does the cooking. Who cares if he doesn’t have a stable income? You don’t need that with guns like those. (insert flexing Riou image here)

Ramuda: I’m trying to think about the concept of a) dating Ramuda and b) introducing him to a set of parents, and I’m drawing an utter blank. There is nothing but “???” in my mind. I’m going to hazard a guess that this one would be a terrible idea.

Gentarou: Wow, your parents had no idea you were dating a prince of a tiny little kingdom in the Mediterranean AND a Harvard law graduate AND the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize AND the man who discovered a cure for cancer in an expedition deep into the heart of the Amazon rain forest. Look at you! What a catch. Only attempt this if your parents are gullible.

Dice: As much as I love Dice to death, this one is a no. Your parents do not want you dating a homeless man with a gambling addiction and bad table manners. Plus, the MIL here seems hard to get along with. Nuh-uh.

Jakurai: Absolutely. You’re in your 30s, so your parents are at least middle-aged. Probably they have some joint problems or some back pain. Jakurai can let them kiss that pain goodbye, and in return, they can let him kiss you! A win-win. He also boasts a handsome salary, has a lovely house, and seems like he’d be super respectful in a relationship. Yes. Go. Marry him.

Hifumi: If you’re a girl, you’re probably going to have to sit this round out. If you’re a guy or nonbinary... yeah, you’re probably going to have to sit this round out too. See, if you have a mom, how is Hifumi supposed to meet her? I guess you could... idk... stick a lampshade on her head and expect him not to notice. That could potentially work, but it’d raise a few awkward questions. If you do happen to live in a female-free household, though, you’ve hit upon the golden opportunity to make this man yours. You can replace every instance of the word “wife” in Judy Brady Syfer’s famous essay “I Want a Wife” with the word “Hifumi” and still have it make perfect sense, and it shows.

Doppo: I can’t in good conscience recommend this one. Sure, he’s hardworking and certainly polite enough, but does he have the time to respond to your emotional needs? Hell, does he have the time to respond to his own? If you invited him to family dinner, there’s a good chance that he’d need to work overtime and miss it. He’d apologize and buy you flowers to make up for it, but you know he’d also be worrying about the cost of those flowers, so... is it really worth it?

Kuukou: For some reason, my parents actually like Kuukou (although I think he’s also the only character they know besides Ichijiku), but I don’t think this would hold true for most parents. He sounds good on paper, but he’d probably make a disparaging comment about someone’s ass in the first five minutes. Perhaps if you tape his mouth shut and tell your parents he’s doing a vow of silence, then yes.

Juushi: As far as high school (is he still in high school?) boyfriends go, Juushi’s not that bad either. He’s shy but sweet. Respectful. In a band, but the kind that makes money and doesn’t operate out of someone’s garage. Yeah, you know what? Go for it. You could do worse. Just scroll up on this list if you need proof of that.

Hitoya: Yeah, absolutely. Hitoya has a great career and a fantastic attitude. He doesn’t take shit from anyone but can still be polite in the correct contexts. He also seems like the type who would get into a serious relationship and treat his partner right. Fuck it up. I support your love.

Sasara: Yes. He has the exact type of humor favored by parents of the father variety. Plus, he’s a famous comedian. There is good money to be had right there.

Roshou: Absolutely. Rather shy but very talented, hardworking teacher who obviously puts his heart and soul into his job? Of course. As long as he doesn’t death glare your parents, it will work out fantastically. Plus, he can talk about sports! That’s a thing that parents like, right?

Rei: Absolutely not. You remember last May when your parents answered a call from the IRS telling them they were about to lose all their money unless they gave the nice man on the phone their bank account password right at that very instant? He was the nice man on the phone. Why the hell would you bring this threat into your parents’ home? Look, you’re in your mid-40s. Your parents are getting up in years, and they want to see you settle down and be happy with someone. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is not it. Why are you with Rei in the first place? Is it the fur coat? Listen, you are a grown-ass adult, and you can buy yourself as many fur coats as you want. I believe in you. It doesn’t have to be this way - you deserve better.

[mari-lair]

Norray halloween week Day 1: Ghosts!

If curious, below are some random info about this Teacher/ghost AU

Ray got a gun and he can use it. The ghost gun isn’t able to touch, much less physically hurt anyone, but it replicate the sound of a real gun, which contributed a lot to how low priced his haunted house rent has become. It nearly gave Norman a heart attack the first time he heard it.

After being dead for a while, Ray learned how to turn visible and invisible at will and play around small objects such as paper, shoes and butcher knives. He can control up to 4 small objects at a time or something relativaly heavy like a chair if he really concentrate. The more he got the hang of controling and moving small objects the lower his house rent become, rarely getting aggressive but still able to physically hurt people. On All Hallows Eve he can posses people’s bodies and get out of the house he haunts, but he always ends up back to his empty ‘home’ when the night is over.

Ray is an incredibly fast learner. Just by observing the people that visits his house, he learned a decent amount of modern english and understand the basics of how tecnology is a  thing now -he wished this advanced tecnology was invented when he was alive. It would make the of lack of food and nutrients less of a deadly nightmare in open sea.

As a pirate, Ray used to be the one in charge of doing most of the bloody work and take the night watch, protecting his captain’s back from both outside and inside forces. He was constantly alert, borderline paranoic. But as the years in death passed, he grew more calm, very patient. He usually don’t mind new people in his house, happy to learn more modern english and befriend the guests willing to tolerate him. If a new guest cross a line however,  Ray will do his best to scare them away. Hurt them or kill them by manipulating knives if he sees fit.

It’s very rare for adults to see Ray as anything other than a nonsense they have no energy to deal with or a warning sign for their crumbling lives, so he usually hang around kids. The childish company mellows him with time.

Ray is from a time where death was common and getting hurt was inevitable so what people consider pretty serious is something Ray considers mild “Why are you being so dramatic about seeing some bone? Be grateful your hand is still attached to your wrist after you slaped your daughter. If it wasn’t for her wishes you wouldn’t have legs to run away.”

Norman is considered a genius and have countless prizes under his belt. He wanted to go to the moon when he was a kid but because of his weak health, he knew he would not be acepted in the space program. He decided teaching was the next best thing later on, accepted as a teacher in a prestigious school while still young. He enjoys and understand all subjects but love history the most, unable to deny it was hard and frustrating to teach a whole class of teens at times but still liking his job. Having one student that was genuinaly interested in his class was more than enough to make his day.

When Norman first started teaching, he felt more responsable than he had his whole life. It wasn’t a bad feeling per see, but it made him anxious so he called his little sister Cherry once a week to ask her questions about her teachers and make sure he was doing a good job.

Norman may not be the funniest of teacher but he’s still a favorite for his palpable cares for his students. He does not make the subject easier than is requested but he put a lot of effort into making people enjoy their world history, teaching with passion and seriously answering any questions, no matter how silly or joking it sounds. He’s understanding and try his best to help those with dificulty with the subject, always giving people second chances, having lost countless nights of sleep correcting re-writen essays after deadlines and turning his test questions into podcasts for students with adhd, aware the big historical excerpts are fundamental for answering the test but too hard to focus, specially with limited time.

The lambda crew are problem children. Norman went the extra mile to save Barbara and Zazie from failing classes even outside history and left Vincent startruck with his wide knowladge about not only world history but a ton of subjects he could be teaching too if he wasn’t overworking himself. Norman is both happy to inspire the squad to study hard and also very awkward by their blind admiration.

The teacher had a firm “ghost don’t exist”  mentality, which is one of the reasons he brought the haunted house in the first place. He had chalked Ray up as an halucination from his sleep deprived brain, having the rotten luck of buying the house right after a bad guest owned. The ghost got more annoyed than usual from things as insignificant as Norman keeping the lights on for too long, putting music Ray doesn’t vibe with, or just acting unfairly cute, to more personal matters such as Norman studying about Ray and his family lives. They used to have a distant and bad relationship but once Ray noticed Norman had only admiration for history, being genuinaly kind when trying to talk instead of mocking his existence, Ray apologised. Norman was still wary at first but they quickly hit off, enjoying to learn what the other had to offer and matching in wits.

When Norman catch a fever or a bad cold Ray gets wary. He know, on some level, that medicine have evolved a lot, but he remenbers way too clearly how serious even the weakest of diseases could get if not imediatly treated.  He always stick by Norman’s side when the teacher sneezes, not taking his eyes off him. Usually Norman keep working when he catch a cold, so Ray learned to float Norman’s grading papers out of his reach when coughing joined his sneezes. Floating a paper is enough to get Norman to take a break most of the time, but if the get stubborn Ray will stop playing nice. Just lower his voice to comander mode and order “Rest. Now. Or I’ll make your life a living hell.” and Norman does what he’s told, it’s very unconfortable to have a gun in the face and he does feel very tired.

When Norman is seriously sick, not just coughing but stuck to his bed. Ray freak out and fear for his life. When it reached this level, most of his crewmates died or had to be thrown in the sea to not infect other. Yes Ray know it’s not as bad anymore, but even when he observed guests, they rarely got sick, and when it got bad they where taken to a doctor. Norman lives alone so he got no one to feed him and bring him blankets or take him to the doctor if he lies for hours in bed. Ray was all the help he would get and he is fucking dead, he can’t measure his temperature or take care of him properly. Ray does tries his best though. He concentrated a lot to float heavy blankets and pillows towards Norman. Imediatly fetching any pills asked of him and doing his best to make him tea. It isn’t tasty, but Norman still appreciates his care.

Ray is the first to fall in love, he think “If only I could  kiss this fool and hug him, I would do it on the daily. I wish he was alive back then... He would love meeting Emma...” at least once a week but a big part of him is just “Forget scurvy! Norman would die of cold or malnutricion before he reached 10. Thank god the helpless bastard took his sweet time to be born.”

Ray cannot touch any eletronics, he can’t even come close without phones, computers, and tvs turning to statics, so Norman buys an illustrated book about the Red Mane Pirates for Ray to see his crew again. He know is not perfect but is the best he can offer whenever Ray expresses missing his family.

They read together. Norman occasionally teaching a new word to his ghost and Ray correcting any historical inacuracy. It’s fun.

Norman finds an illustration of an alive Ray sleeping in the mast waaay too beautiful. Ray snort at the romantized draw, disolving into laughter by how Norman failed to hide his blush.

It became a habit to read history books together and tease each other. More often then not, it lead to a history class and way to much sass on both ends.

“Wait, so there really was a world war? I heard about it from old guests but I thought they were exagerating when they called world war! And what do you mean 2? There was a second one??”

“How did miss the second one? It was HUGE, quite horribl-”

“You were not even alive when it happened.”                                        

“Tecnically, you weren’t either Ray-” 

Ray is a bit scared of how attached he got to Norman, knowing eventually the man would die. He hopes it will take a long time, and that once he had a painless death, he will become a ghost too, but he doesn’t really believe Norman will ever turn into a ghost. Ray knows not everyone that dies became a ghost. Since someone as compassionable as Emma -even if she was forced to have blood and dirty choises on her hand to survive the merciless seas- was not cursed to became a ghost, he was confident someone as kind as Norman would dissapear from Ray’s afterlife once he died too.

More of this AU here

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And since you reached the end of this text wall. You can have this bonus Norman being awkward/excited about their growing friendship.

[lil-lycanthropy]

How to write an essay (especially when you struggle with writing essays)

[Image Description: A graphic titled “BASIC ESSAY STRUCTURE”. There are 3 sections. The first section is regarding the introduction, labelled “Agonize for an hour”. The second section is regarding the body, labelled “oh hell yes i can do this no problem i got stuff to say i’m on a roll”. The third section is regarding the conclusion, labelled “I am going to walk into the sea”. /End Image Description]

I saw this post about essay writing with this as the structure and I just. Screamed a bit. The outline above (imo) makes a very boring essay that is UNNECESSARILY DIFFICULT to write. I was gonna just add onto the post, but I thought I’d make my own because I have a LOT to say.

So, to start off, I have spent far too long making this handy-dandy graphic with an essay structure that I find to be a lot more helpful.

[Image Description: A graphic titled “ESSAY OUTLINE”. There are 7 sections. They include the outline for the Introduction, Body, and Conclusion, along with tips for all three, and then a section for General Tips. /End Image Description]

There’s some pretty lengthy explanations under the cut, and I spent way too long on this. However, I’m passionate about writing and hate seeing how much people struggle to write simply because they haven’t been given the right tools.

Without further ado, here we go!

Introduction (1 paragraph)

Opening Statement: This is your intro/hook. With an effective opening sentence, you want to introduce the main topic of the paper, and make it interesting for the reader to draw them in. The introductory sentence should be somewhat objective; your thesis will be your arguing point, but we need to know the general topic without the bias. As for the hook part—your prof/TA/teacher/whoever is grading your paper has read the same paper 600 times. Your paper probably won’t be entirely unique, BUT you can still make it stand out. This is where the “hook” comes in. An easy way to do this is to simply start with a verb. Reading papers that all start with “the” or “a” can get really repetitive and boring, so an action word can be a good way to grab the reader’s attention. You don’t want your opening statement to be too long; a sentence or two should be your goal.

Allude to Thesis: Right after the opening statement, use a sentence to briefly allude to your thesis (the stance you’ll be taking on the topic). This way, you can state your argument points without having to worry about wording your thesis correctly right away, or risk your thesis getting lost within the introduction. This is kinda a segue to your points rather than its own official “section”, so keep it brief. 

Outline Supporting Points: These are the points that help support your argument. Avoid using a list form for this by using things like semi-colons or commas; each supporting point should have its own sentence. Saying that, definitely use transition words to help the sentences flow together so it doesn’t just seem like a laundry list. Don’t limit yourself to three points unless that’s explicitly part of the assignment. At least two is good if you can expand on them enough to do the paper, but don’t be afraid to use four or five if you’re still able to stay within the limits and expand on them enough to be individual points. However, sometimes too many points can make it hard to expand, so see if you can group some together if you have too many. 

Thesis: Your thesis should be a statement, subjective, demonstrable, and specific. It therefore should not be a question, objective, hypothetical, or vague. This is because your thesis is a definitive stance on a specific issue or topic that you can prove with evidence. As for placement, I always put my thesis at the very end of the introduction. I would say it’s up to personal preference whether to put it at the beginning or the end, but please never put it in the middle. When it’s in the middle, it’s very likely that it won’t stand out as a thesis, and then you’d have to come up with both an opening and closing statement, which is hard. I like putting it at the end because I find that if I do it at the beginning, it can be REALLY hard to balance having a clear thesis while also introducing your paper and making it interesting. Plus, if it’s at the end of your first paragraph, it still stands out, you don’t have to do a concluding statement, you don’t have to balance any other aspect of writing (like an intro or hook) with it, AND it creates the perfect transition to your supporting points. Limit your thesis statement to one or two sentences—you want it to stand out to the reader as the thesis, and you don’t want to muddle the message by being too detailed. You’ll have the rest of the paper to expand.

Body (2-10+ paragraphs)

Introduce Evidence: For each piece of supporting evidence (your main points), make sure you introduce them clearly before actually explaining everything about them. Don’t be afraid to word it in an interesting way (although remember, you still want your message to be clear!). I also want to give you an incredibly important tip: the amount of supporting points you have DOES NOT have to correspond with the amount of body paragraphs you have. They drill the five-paragraph essay outline into you for years, and it’s BORING—for you and whoever’s grading your paper. It’s also bad writing, because then you get unnaturally long paragraphs that take up a page and a half. So, unless your assignment rubric says otherwise, don’t be afraid to get creative with the paragraph amount. Always start a new paragraph when introducing a new main point, but definitely consider splitting the main point into two or three paragraphs if needed. Disclaimer: sometimes if you have to split a point into multiple paragraphs, that means you might want to consider splitting the main point into multiple main points. On the other hand, sometimes combining two main points into one can help make a paragraph more substantial.

Expand: For each point, expand. Explain any extra details. Relate the explanations back to your main point so you can stay on target and not go on tangents that take up half the page. 

Connect to Thesis: After you expand each point, as a concluding statement, relate the main point back to the thesis (the whole point of the paper!). Anyone can list evidence—show that you understand why this evidence is connected and how it proves your stance. If you can’t connect the point to your thesis, it’s probably not relevant or you need to do more research. By making the connection between the evidence and your thesis, 1. This is how you get bonus marks, and 2. It makes for an excellent concluding statement/transition to the next main point.

Repeat: For each main point, follow the structure of introduce-expand-connect.

Conclusion (1 paragraph)

Restate Thesis/Main Points: Rather than coming up with another introductory statement, restate your thesis and the main points that helped to prove your thesis. Please try to reword it so it’s not repetitive, and it’s best to keep the restating brief. You’ve already established all of this in your paper, so you don’t need too much detail. A sentence or two is fine. Another tip is to avoid basic concluding words. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but definitely avoid the ones that involve the word “conclude” or its derivatives (e.g. “in conclusion”; to conclude”, etc.). Keep this part to one or two sentences to avoid the dreaded repetition.

Explain Relevance/Make Connections: Here is something I NEVER see in the common essay templates, and honestly, I feel like it’s one of the most important things with essay writing. It’s the difference between just another essay in a pile of 200, and one that stands out as exemplary. SO. We know your thesis. We know your evidence. You’ve even briefly restated it in case we forgot. Now, WHY is your thesis (and by extension, the paper you just spent a few hours on) actually important? Why is it relevant? Who cares? You don’t want to give too much “new” information, but you really should be able to find some connection as to why your paper matters. Because if you don’t see the point in it, how are you gonna convince the reader that your paper is worth reading? Essays are about arguments, yes, and convincing people that You’re Correct and You Know Things, but you need to be able to connect with other things to see the true relevance. Make connections, folks!

Concluding Statement: Truly the bane of anyone’s existence. A good tip is to look at it as your Mic Drop moment—your time to wrap it up, drop the mic, and walk offstage. Tie your thesis, evidence, and connections together into a sentence or two with a little pizzazz and sense of finality, leaving no room to argue. 

General Tips

Know your audience: This can sometimes help with finding the balance between over- and under-explaining things. With essays, the person grading (the audience) is probably a bit above your current level, unless it’s being marked by another student or something. So write at your level—or the average level of your class/group. For example, if you’re in a second-year university biology class, you probably don’t need to explain what photosynthesis means. But if your essay is on a little known technique to measure chlorophyll levels in plants, you might need to explain some things that you already know, but others might not. Remember, your goal is neither to dumb yourself down nor put yourself on an academic pedestal—your goal is to communicate a message in an effective way that can be understood by the appropriate audience.

Pick a relevant topic: Sometimes this doesn’t apply, as you have limited choices. But, whenever possible, choose a topic that you actually know something about and/or are willing to write about. Sometimes even asking your teacher/prof if you can choose your own topic is worth it. The main point: picking something you find interesting makes you more willing to put in the work to write a good essay. Pick you favourite topic out of the options (or, at a minimum, the one yo hate the least).

Experiment with the writing process: Some people swear it’s easier to write the conclusion first, while others absolutely have to write the essay in chronological order. Some people need to finish what they start, some people need to flit around and add things as they think of them. Ultimately, the order you write things is very much a personal preference, and something worth experimenting with if you’re struggling!

Cater to your writing needs: Writers will tell you that they need to set up a space to write. Some people like writing on their bed or in a cafe. Some people need absolute quiet while others can’t focus without background noise. Some people need frequent breaks for the best results, others need to sit through until they’re done. The time of day can affect your writing—writing in the morning might be really difficult if you’re most alert at midnight. Lastly, experiment with different media. Maybe writing on a laptop just doesn’t work for you, and pen and paper is the way to go. Typewriters are fun. Microsoft Word might work better for you than Google Docs. Find out what works for you and gets you into a writing headspace.

Repetition and word choice: To avoid sounding like a broken record, make sure you use a different first (and even last) word for each paragraph. I always notice when an essay writer only starts paragraphs with the word “the”. Another helpful way to vary your word choice at the beginning of paragraphs is to use different types of word, preferably words that aren’t articles (a, an, or the). Using a noun, verb, or transition word can keep things interesting and help your writing flow.

Write with an active voice: Writing with an active, positive, and resolute voice fortifies your writing. An active voice is when the subject is the focus rather than the object, whereas a passive voice is the opposite. Example: “Sally ate a grape” is active because Sally (subject) ate a grape (object). “A grape was eaten by Sally” is passive because the grape (object) was eaten by Sally (subject). Essentially, if the sentence includes (or could include) “by [Subject]”, it’s passive. Even if you wrote “A grape was eaten,” that’s still passive. An active voice includes the subject doing the action, whereas a passive voice includes the object having something done to it. It’s a wishy-washy way of writing, though it’s sometimes inevitable in formal writing because you can’t use subjective pronouns. As for a positive voice, it doesn’t mean your essay has to be happy or perky—it means your writing, when possible, should focus on the positive part (what did happen or was added) rather than the negative part (what didn’t happen or was taken away). Example: “Sally didn’t eat an apple” is negative, because it just says what Sally didn’t do. “Sally ate a grape” is positive because it said what she did do. Lastly, use a resolute voice. Be concise and to the point without muddling the message with unnecessary words. Example: “Sally just a grape” is tentative. “Sally ate a grape” is resolute. Word like “just”, “maybe”, “really”, “perhaps”, “necessarily” are not resolute and can weaken your argument. Definitely take this advice for your thesis. 

Communicate clearly: Using long or complicated words can improve your writing—but if they’re overused or used unnecessarily, it can actually weaken your argument because no one understands what you’re trying to say under all that academic jargon. If you can’t explain your argument in an understandable way, you probably don’t have a good grasp of your argument. This isn’t to discredit people who have a hard time articulating while writing or people who need to use complicated words—but the whole point of a paper is to communicate a message in an effective way. If you’re too caught up in using big words, it’s very easy to lose the actual focus of the paper.

Fortify your opening/closing statements: If the person grading your paper has a lot of other papers to go through, they’re not gonna read every word you write. Focus on strengthening your first and last sentences of each paragraph to perhaps improve your mark with the graders who skim.

Proofread: PLEASE read through and edit your work. You don’t have to completely rewrite your paper (who has the time???), but definitely proofread it when you’re done. If possible (I know it isn’t always, but it really helps), give yourself as much time as possible, then do another read through. Even waiting an hour or two and then going through it again can help you catch some last-minute mistakes. When you’ve been staring at the same paper for three hours, you kinda just ignore the mistakes because they’re burned into your brain. Going back can help you catch them and fix them before handing it in. Double check the assignment requirements, including formatting, sources, grammar, etc.

Kudos to you if you made it to the end! This took me 4 hours? 5? I hope it helps some of you in school. Essays can be a really fun thing to write if you’re passionate about the topic, and they shouldn’t be nearly as hard as school makes them. Even if you didn’t read this whole thing, I hope my graphic can be helpful! The original essay structure from the other post made me mad because no wonder some of you guys struggle! When you don’t have the tools, it makes life difficult.

Here’s a pic of my cat and dog for making it this far!

End note: I’ve never done an image description so I apologize if it’s not perfect!

[sub-hoshi-enthusiast]

I spent more time on this than I thought I would :/ (I had to add a little visual to this but the amount of hentai I had to scroll past to find that pic-)

⚠️Warnings⚠️: fem!dom!reader, sub!Hongseok, roleplay (teacher/student), use of toys (strap-on), public sex (kinda???), oral (f recieving on strap), hands free orgasm, crossdressing

Extra Credit

An exhausted groan left your lips as you finally finished grading the last essay on your desk, throwing your head back as you massaged the back of it. You had been hunched over your desk for the past 30 minutes, grading your students essays they were told to turn in that day. Sometimes you truly wondered why you decided to teach high school literature when literally no one cared about it. The upcoming exams only seemed to make matters worse, leaving students too tired from hours of studying the night before to comprehend the information you were giving them.

     You jumped when you heard a knock on the back door of your classroom, almost making you fall out of your chair. You furrowed your eyebrows, trying to think of reasons anyone would be at your door at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. You cautiously crept towards the door, only slightly pulling back the curtain you had put over the window to see who was outside. A sigh of relief escaped you as you saw your boyfriend on the other side of the glass, though you couldn't tell what he was wearing under his large black coat. Hongseok spun around when he heard you open the door, a bright smile lighting up his face. 

     "What are you doing here? I was just about to start heading home." You asked, letting him step into the classroom.

     "What, I'm not allowed to visit the love of my life every once and awhile?" You raised your eyebrow at the pout on his face when he turned to you. You looked him up and down, trying to spot anything that would indicate an actual reason he was here. He simply giggled at your stare, walking over to you and resting his arms over your shoulders. "I just missed you." The slight whine in his voice made you chuckle and lightly push him away.

     "You couldn't wait fifteen minutes for me to get home?" He whined as you turned around to move back to your desk, starting to pack up a few of your things. 

     "I could've waited, but I wanted to try something." Intrigued, you turned to him. A wide smirk settled on his face as you eyed the bag he had set down on one of the desks. "Close your eyes." You huffed as you leaned back against your desk, half sitting on it as you closed your eyes. You only heard his excited giggles and the unzipping of his coat, increasing your curiosity. After a few more seconds of clothes ruffling he finally told you to open your eyes. The sight in front of you made your breath hitch in your throat.

     Hongseok stood in front of you wearing a skimpy schoolgirl outfit. The top cut off a little less than halfway down his torso, showing off his chiseled stomach. The high waisted skirt he wore cut off halfway down his thighs, showing off a little bit of his thigh since he was wearing thigh highs. The socks were all white except for two stripes of navy blue at the top that matched the skirt. He gave a little twirl as you eyed him, almost making you drool as the skirt lifted up just enough to reveal the white cotton panties he was wearing to complete the "innocent" schoolgirl look. 

     "Soooo, what do you think?" He asked, looked up at you hopefully, the silence slightly scaring him. 

     "Fuck baby." Was all you managed to get out as you walked toward him, letting your hands rest on his waist as you continued to ogle over his outfit. "When did you get this?"

     "Yesterday. I was gonna bring it up when it got here but I thought it'd be better if we did it here." He said, gesturing to the classroom you were in. You hummed in response, your hands trailing up and down his sides.

    "I like the way you think." Hongseok whimpered when your hands landed on his hips again, squeezing harshly. "If I had my strap-on with me I'd bend you over my desk and pound you as hard as I could." He shivered at your words before reaching in the plastic bag he had brought with him, keeping his eyes locked with yours as he let said object hang from his fingers by the harness. You didn't have time to react before he pulled the toy between both of you, fingers loosely wrapped around it as he slowly pumped it.

     "Y'know, sir, the finals are coming up next week but I don't think I'm gonna be able to pass." He said, faking a pout while he ran his index finger up the vein on the underside of the silicone cock in his hands. "Is there anything I could do for some extra credit maybe," your breath hitched in your throat when he looked at you through his eyelashes, slowly bringing the tip of the toy up to his lips to lightly kiss it, "anything at all?"

     A light gasp flew past his lips when you pressed your lips to his in a rough kiss. He immediately melted into you, his knees almost giving out from under him had he not been leaning against a desk. You grabbed the toy from his hand, leaving a few love bites up his neck before growling in his ear.

     "On your knees, in front of my chair, now." He whimpered at your tone, nodding with a quiet "yes sir" as he stumbled over to your desk. You quickly removed your pants, tossing them to your desk and adjusting the silicone toy around your hips. Hongseok hungrily looked up at you as you sat down, eyes practically dripping with lust. He let out a quiet grunt when you tangled your fingers in his hair, pulling him closer so the tip of the strap entered his mouth. "Alright baby, show me how badly you need to pass this test."

     Hongseok's hands flew up to your thighs, using them to steady himself as he started taking more of the toy into his mouth. He took as much as he could into his mouth, using his hand to pump what he couldn't fit. He let out a moan around the fake cock everytime he went back down, his eyes closed in bliss. His eyes suddenly snapped open when you grabbed his hair, pulling him a little closer to you.

     "C'mon baby boy, you can take more than that." He whimpered quietly around the toy, trying to push himself down farther and making him whine. His small noises were cut off with a gag when you snapped your hips forward, making his nose touch your pelvis. "Guess I have to do everything myself, don't I." 

     He wasn't given a chance to react before you started fucking his throat. A gag was heard every time his lips reached the base, tears slowly collecting in his eyes. You looked down at him and noticed his hips rutting forward into nothing, desperate for any sort of friction. You scoffed.

     "Is my little slut getting off on this? You enjoy being roughed up and used?" His loud moan was cut off by another gag as his eyes rolled back in his head, nodding as best he could. You smirked down at him, pulling his head almost all the way off the dildo before harshly thrusting forward again. His eyes rolled back in his head as you kept him there, the tip of your cock resting against the back of his throat. You could hear his rapid breathing through his nose as he continued to rut into nothing, drool spilling out the side of his mouth. 

     You started thrusting again, using shallow thrusts that would always hit the back of his throat. Not long after, his breathing started to become more like high pitched whimpers before he let out one last muffled cry, his eyes rolling back and his arms going limp. You furrowed your eyebrows and looked down, a smirk settling on your features when you saw the dark patch over the front of his skirt. You lovingly combed your fingers through his hair as you pulled the toy out, biting your lip at the sight of his red, puffy lips that are slick with drool.

     "Aw, did my baby enjoy himself?" He answered with a hum as he nuzzled his cheek into your thigh, pressing a quick kiss to the exposed skin as he closed his eyes. You lightly pat his head, motioning for him to get off of you as you stood up. He let out a whine as you started to put on your pants and pack up your things. You chuckled as he pouted on the floor. "Get up babyboy, we're going home."

     "But I wanted to make you cum." He whined, reluctantly getting up from his place on the floor. You gave him a quick kiss on the nose.

     "And while I would love that, the janitor should be here in about 5 minutes to clean out the classroom and I don't really wanna be fired." He let out a quiet huff but grabbed his coat to cover himself up from wandering eyes. You chuckled as you both headed for the back door, grabbing his waist to stop him for a second. "Don't worry baby, I'm going to absolutely wreck you when we get home." A shiver went down his spine before he jolted in his spot when you landed a harsh slap to his ass.

     "Hmmm. Maybe I should come visit you at work more often."