#like the story itself would be interesting if it weren’t for the writing style

[juleworm]

this novel my grandma has me reading is so immeasurably difficult to read and comprehend i’m dying

[sleepingdiaryzzz]

yandere!young justice x magician and sorcerer!reader

BUUUUUUUUUT,the readed is a part of the team,however,shows no interest in them,and it just there because she kinda just has to,and no matter how much they try to get her attention,she never gives them any of it.

(I love your writing btw😼)

Yandere! Young Justice x magician! Reader

The Cave was quiet, as it always was at night, the hum of machines and distant murmurs of the world outside barely touching the stillness that clung to the mountain like a second skin. In this isolated hollow, surrounded by the cool stone walls, you could hear your own thoughts—the whisper of spells, the pulse of magic, the unspoken words you chose not to say.

You never had to explain yourself here, never had to wear the mask of pleasantries or pretend you cared about anything more than the mission. The others, they didn’t understand. They couldn’t, not really. You weren’t like them, never had been. You didn’t need the comfort of their companionship. You didn’t want their attention, their curiosity, or their pity.

And yet, they tried.

Conner was always watching. A silent presence, brooding and intense, always lingering in the background, his eyes following your every movement. He never asked questions—no, that wasn’t his style. Instead, he observed, the way a predator watches its prey, calculating, waiting. He never made an effort to speak, not in the way Wally did with his incessant jokes or M'gann with her quiet warmth. Conner was patient, cold, waiting for something to crack, for something to change.

His silence was a constant reminder. He didn’t need to speak; you could feel his presence, the weight of his gaze pressing down on you, always at the edge of your vision, always waiting.

It was unsettling, but you never let it show.

Wally was a different story altogether. His energy was like a crackling fire, unpredictable, always bouncing from one thing to the next. He couldn’t sit still, couldn’t leave you be. "Come on," he would say, leaning over your shoulder as you worked on a spell, his grin wide and carefree. "Show me something cool. You know you’ve got some crazy magic tricks up your sleeve."

His insistence was always accompanied by that grin of his, mischievous and bright, as though his charm could draw you out of your shell. But you never did. You never gave him the satisfaction of seeing you smile, never let him see you as more than just another teammate. It wasn’t his fault—he was just trying to make the team feel more like a family. But you didn’t care about family. You didn’t care about any of them.

“I’m busy,” you’d say, dismissing him with a flick of your hand, returning to your spell. And Wally, ever the optimist, would laugh and zip away, the sound of his footsteps echoing as he left you to your silence.

But it wasn’t enough for him, no. His persistence was a thing of legend. Sometimes you’d catch him watching you, his gaze fixed, a question burning in his eyes. "Why are you always like this?" he seemed to ask with every look. But he never voiced it. Instead, he’d turn away, hoping that somehow, eventually, you’d change your mind.

Then there was Robin. The dark and silent watcher. He knew how to stay in the shadows, how to be everywhere without being seen. His presence was like the night itself—always there, always watching, never truly gone. Robin was the most subtle of them all. He never asked outright; instead, he would drop little comments, observations that always felt like a puzzle, like he was trying to figure you out, piece by piece.

"You know, you could talk to us more," he’d say, casually leaning against the wall as he watched you work. His tone was light, almost playful, but you could sense the undercurrent of something more—something deeper. “We don’t bite, you know.”

You didn’t respond. Of course, you didn’t. The only response he got was the steady flick of your fingers over the spellbook, the quiet hum of magic filling the space between you. He didn’t try to get too close, not like Wally or M'gann, but his eyes never stopped tracking you, always measuring, always calculating. Robin was patient, the kind of person who knew that some things took time, that some people had walls that needed to be broken down slowly.

And you? You weren’t going to let him.

M'gann was the opposite. Her presence was always warm, soft, inviting. She would sit beside you, her legs tucked under her, her eyes wide with curiosity. "You know," she would say with that gentle voice of hers, "I could help you with your spells. I can be a good study partner, if you ever need one."

Her kindness wasn’t forced, never had been. It was natural for her, as natural as breathing. She wasn’t like the others who were driven by some sense of duty or curiosity. No, M'gann’s attention was genuine, a quiet offer of companionship. She was the one who tried to reach you without asking, without expecting anything in return.

But you didn’t need help. You didn’t need her to reach you. And so, you’d quietly decline, giving her nothing more than a polite smile before returning to the words in your book, the pages filled with symbols that had no need for her warmth.

And then there was Artemis. The sharp, straightforward one. She didn’t waste time on subtlety. Her approach was always direct, blunt, like a sharp blade that never hesitated. "You don’t have to be so closed off, you know," she’d say, her voice a mix of irritation and something else. It was hard to tell with Artemis—her eyes were always guarded, her emotions always hidden behind a wall of indifference. "We’re all in this together."

She had a point, of course. But you didn’t care. You didn’t care about being “in it together.” You had your own path to follow, and they weren’t a part of it. You didn’t need to explain that to her, or to anyone. So, you’d give her a nod, a brief acknowledgment that wasn’t really an acknowledgment, and move on with your work.

Kaldur was the calm one, the quiet one. His respect for you was obvious, but it never crossed the line into anything more. He would offer you a nod as he passed, his gaze soft, his presence steady like the water he controlled. He didn’t push you the way the others did. He didn’t try to break down your walls. He simply respected them, kept his distance, and allowed you to be as you were.

But even Kaldur had moments when his gaze would linger on you, just a second too long, like he was waiting for you to finally open up, to let him see more than the cold silence you kept locked behind your eyes.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Enough for you to feel the weight of their gaze, the quiet pressure of their attention. They thought they understood you. They thought that if they just tried enough, kept reaching out, eventually, you’d let them in.

But you wouldn’t.

In the midst of their attempts, you kept your distance, always lost in the pages of your spells, your incantations, the quiet hum of power that thrummed beneath your fingertips. They were drawn to you, like moths to a flame, their fascination burning just beneath the surface of their words, their glances, their actions.

But you would remain untouched. You would keep your secrets locked away, your magic a barrier between you and the world they wanted to draw you into.

They didn’t understand it, not really. They couldn’t. You were not like them. You didn’t need what they offered. You didn’t need to be a part of their team, their family, their world. You were the silent watcher, the one who kept their distance while they reached out, always hoping that something would change.

But it wouldn’t.

You weren’t there for them. You were there because you had a purpose, one that had nothing to do with them, nothing to do with the team, and nothing to do with any of their quiet, unspoken obsessions. You would remain distant, and they would keep trying, never understanding why you remained so cold, so unreachable.

And that, for now, was enough.

(A/n: thank you kind fellow fur🤭😽)

[trashlie]

Darker ILY Theories: the Shinae + Gun Kim theory

The time has COME. I keep telling myself to write this post but I keep putting it off because honestly, this one makes me feel sick. I’ve been talking about it again with friends while rereading the Black and White Formal arc, and in light of the current FP episode (232) I think it’s time to bring this one back into the fray. 

As a big disclaimer this post deals with sexual assault noncon theories of underage girls. 

Sometime ago I read a theory that Shinae was at the formal for Gun Kim. There’s been so many theories about the formal. Even recently, there’s been talk about the way Yui had Shinae style her hair seeming similar to how Nessa wore hers, and how she insisted that Shinae meet her husband. I don’t think by any means that discounts this theory at all, because Yui sure knows how to multi-task doesn’t she. 

The Kim formal really set up a LOT of story and action. It’s the moment ILY reveals what kind of story it is - not that there weren’t hints and clues before, because we could already see the discord in Nol and Kousuke’s relationship’ the stress in Shinae’s life and her fight with her father; the money struggles; her friends. But the formal introduced so many elements. It showed us how off Alyssa and Nol’s relationship is. It showed us how sinister Yui really is. It fully introdduced Sangchul and how lecherous he is. The Chess theory, the manipulation, the drugs, all of it was at the forefront finally.

And also, we met Gun Kim. 

Gun is interesting, because he’s the character we know the least about at this point - and his eyes are always closed. He’s always felt sketchy, even as far back as the black and white formal itself. The characters even comment on it. What is someone who looks like Shinae doing at this formal? Mr. Kim likes all women. 

Now that we know how chummy the Kims and Yui/the Hiraharas are, the more sinister it feels. Gun Kim, with his several connections to media conglomorates. Gun Kim, whose father* stepped down from his position as CEO of Hirahara Corp due when facing several sexual assault charges. Gun Kim, father to Sangchul Kim whose prep school has been rife with sexual abuse cases. 

(* presumably Gun’s father. Youngchul Kim. Sangchul Kim. It checks out)

At the time, maybe he didn’t seem SO bad. A negligent father. A womanizer, a playboy. But in light of what we’ve learned, I think we can revisit the scene and find some clues laid out, waiting for their time to come. 

He makes his grand appearance - convincing the bartender to give underage girls alcohol. Even without the later context, this is terrible, but now that we know what we know.... it feels even more skeevy, even more dangerous. Letting young girls drink, get intoxicated, so that they’re easier for him. Ugggh. 

He sure makes himself real comfortable with the girls, too. Sure, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this. What a gracious host. But we know better. And we also know you don’t put your hands on people who don’t even know you. Seeing Alyssa’s face, you wouldn’t ordinarily think anything of her smile mask; she uses it all the time, why would this be any different. But in light of ep 232.... I’ll try to save all my 232 posts for the end so I can put it under a readmore and avoid spoilers. 

Isn’t it weird, that he can instantly recognize Shinae? Oh sure, maybe it’s because someone who doesn’t know who he is isn’t from this world, so she has to be Yui’s special guest. And look, Yui and Gun are business partners. Friends, even, since Sangchul seems to know so much about Nol and his family via Gun. Through who else would they know about Nol and his not-much-of-a relationship with Alyssa? So, surely Yui has told Gun about Shinae, since she’s the topic of Kousuke’s interest, right? 

But no, I feel horribly, uneasily certain that Yui has shown Gun pictures of Shinae, described her to him, maybe even told him how much fun she is. How she’s got so much personality, that he’ll just enjoy her. Even typing this makes me feel ill ugh. The thought that Gun and Yui are in cahoots not simply by way of business but by way of an even darker, more sinister business is fucking horrifying. 

So not only does he instantly recognize her for who she is but 

Is it wrong to pay her a compliment? It’s not like he said anything inappropriate. And yet. And yet Shinae is uncomfortable. And yet he is a stranger, a man she doesn’t know, acting too friendly, someone who already knows of her. Danger, danger, danger, danger!

This man gives me the creeps SO MUCH and it’s everything about THIS. His expression, those closed eyes, something about him feels smug and smarmy. Everybody gets drink, everybody gets inebriated, everybody gets to have fun. He’s gross, he’s disgusting, he’s encouraging drinking. We know what kind of fun a man like him wants to see and have. 

And he’s not simply enabling underage drinking. 

Even after Nol expresses that he doesn’t want a drink, he’s still pushed to have one, still expected to be “respectful of the host”. The host who is pushing alcohol on minors!!! Like, even on its own that’s clearly beyond irresponsible, because you can definitely get the sense that he wants to see what happens when a bunch of kids loosen up, when they all let down their inhibitions, when they all get sloppy and start making mistakes. Like, let’s not pretend otherwise. He wouldn’t be encouraging the drinks at all if he didn’t want something to happen, if he wasn’t hoping for that to transpire. 

Like, really mull over that for a moment.

The word choice that’s used here is important, both for the things said and unsaid. Kousuke and Nol may have met Sangchul for the first time, but they’re not stranger to Gun I’m sure. I can’t imagine this is the first Kim formal they’ve had to attend, and even if so, everyone in attendance seems to know Gun’s reputation. Sangchul is one of six children - but only one of two from the same woman. How many women has he been married to? How many more has he simply been with? 

And how many of them young. Or against their will? 

Sangchul didn’t learn his tactics from no one, let’s not forget that. 

Sangchul only knows coercion, bribery, blackmailing, manipulation. If you’ve got a hot girl, you must’ve ha to force her hand, must’ve had to black mail her to get her to agree. It could never be as simple as a girl just liking him, no. It must be some seedy, skeevy, manipulative tactic. 

Sexual assault runs in the family. Sangchul learned from watching his father, who no doubt learned from Youngchul. When you see women as property, as items, you don’t see them as people. Even if she refuses, they’ll get what they want in the end, won’t they? UGH. 

Kousuke and Nol react in surprise - alarm - because the implications of his wording is creepy. Nol knows Shinae is being forced to attend this formal, she’s not here of her own volition and wouldn’t even accept his offer to safely get her out of there. He probably wonders exactly that - is that why she’s here? And he’s possibly not entirely incorrect. 

Yui sweeps in to note that Gun isn’t being so literal, but we know how those two operate. I think as readers we are meant to read into that. It’s not there just for the boys to become alarm, it’s there for us to understand that Gun is not a safe man for Shinae to go alone with. Especially because as readers we already know Shinae feels off, she’s having a drink, AND the episode has quietly informed us that Sangchul roofied her. 

And this man comes sweeping in, calling Shinae a cutie, promising to introduce her to everyone. 

Even in her addled state, Shinae knows there’s something weird about the use of family, but she’s dazed (she’s drugged), she isn’t feeling right in the head, this whole event has  been a nightmare for her so far, she’s being thrown into situations she’s ill-prepared for, so it’s so easy to gloss over it. 

But the text emphasizes it itself. 

It IS weird.

This is ALL weird. 

Does this not make you feel disgusting? Does this not make you want to scream? He’s talking like she’s a pony or something. A grown man parading a minor around, talking about how she’s a cutie, everything is so perfect, her dress - which is modest only in the front and leaves her whole back and parts of her waist bare - everything. And the question about is she your new wife?

How many other pretty young things has he paraded around like this.

How many other pretty young things has he wed? And how many of them were forced against their will, bribed, manipulated? What did he hold over their heads? 

I don’t have to spell it out. We know. We all know. 

Look at Gun with his eyes closed, that stupid smile on his face. What was it quimchee said of why Mr. Kim’s eyes are always closed? Living is easy with eyes closed. He can turn a blind eye to anything, he can encourage anything. Was the drink too much, he wonders. Was she feeling unwell, he muses. Oh well, it doesn’t matter, my son has her. :) 

Gun Kim is no fool. He’s not naive. He is a horrible, vile man and he knows exactly what he was doing, sending an unwell girl who was previously drinking underage off to “rest” with his creepy, vile fucking son. 

But Ashlie, you’re asking. I thought you said that Shinae is at the formal for Gun, but he knowingly sent her off in that state with his son, surely knowing what kind of horrible thing he’ll do to her. If she’s for him why didn’t he take her?

He’s the host, of course he can’t take her anywhere yet. 

She’s the after party. 

jfkafjkfakjfajkafjkafj GOD that felt gross to write I’m sorry but I just KNOW that’s his line of thinking, I just KNOW that’s what this was supposed to be. Everything went awry when dick-punched Sangchul and escaped. 

We know well enough now that the Kims are just as vile and atrocious, that they breed a special kind of especially horrible violence, that sexual violence is NOTHING to them - perhaps even fun. The way Sangchul needled Nol about Alyssa makes me so sick, because it tells you everything about how he views and treats women, the kinds of things he, too, has probably done. 

All I can think of now is that Yui and Gun are in on this. Of course they are, this is their sleazy empire. Business partners that go further back, deeper than we ever realized. Yui, who has no qualms about playing with peoples’ lives, who gets a thrill out of breaking people down, out of their misery. Gun, who thinks girls and women are ripe for the picking, who enjoys a nice pretty young thing? UGGH UGH UGH death wouldn’t be enough punishment. Prison wouldn’t be enough. NOTHING that happens to them will ever be satisfying enough but GOD I WANT TO SEE THEM TOPPLE AND FALL. 

Spoilers for ep 232 ahead:

I think we can already see how this ties in to the current FP episode, right? 

I had absolutely NO idea he was this close. Like... I’ve worried about his connections to media conglomerates, I’ve worried about the women he’s been with and how Sangchul learned that behavior, but to see him on the other side of the door of the bathroom in which Alyssa is hiding.... horrifying! The way he calls her sweetheart like he’s some placating father, except we know better. The expression on her face when she hears the girls talking about her but worse, when she hears Gun ask if she needs any help. 

It’s her body language when she finally comes out, so meek and small, arms held close to her body like she’s trying to take up as little space as possible.

And it’s the implication that he’s going to drive her himself. Alone. 

Not even a manager to spare for her? Or worse, is he a manager? An agent? Is he her superior in this role? There’s so many horrifying, stomach-churning possibilities and in the end, it doesn’t matter which he is, because the point is: he has that access. 

He doesn’t need to be their manager, their agent. He has connections. He has Yui. He has his name and influence and power and money and most of all, he has dirty little secrets. So much blackmail. So much dirt. 

GOD. 

I’m so fucking scared for Alyssa RUN GIRL RUN GET THE FUCK OUT OF THAT ;___________; 

I’ll put more thoughts in my actual 232 thought dump post but for now: Gun Kim may not have gotten a hold of Shinae, but he’s not left for want is he ;________; 

[swiftlymoniquesblog]

Fandom Leap - Chapter 5

A/N: Hi friends! I am back with a submission to a collab project with @supraveng and other friends! I am so honored to be apart of this story and hearing other people’s writing style has been so fun! I hope my part keeps everyone interested! Readers thoughts are in italics!

 

Word Count: 2,618

Pairing: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester x Reader (no incest!) 

Warnings: love triangle, kissing, fluff, tiny bit of angst

Series Masterlist

Chapter 4

 

“Before you could respond that feeling came over you again, you hadn’t even had a chance to warn Claire or live in this glamorous life for an entire day before feeling the chill running through you and knowing you weren’t going to be able to get back here anything soon.”

 

When you wake up again after your jump, your head hurts worse than it ever had before. You try standing up but feeling dizzy and decide to just stay on the ground until you get your strength up enough to move again. The world around you had been spinning out of control and the only relief is closing your eyes tightly, praying to anyone who would listen that the dizzying feeling would just stop. For fear of the situation only growing, your eyes are still closed tight but a new feeling made itself known. It seemed that someone had wrapped their arms around under your shoulders and then under your knees, you felt the ground from under you disappear; someone picked you up.  There was silence around you but as you curled in closer to whomever held you, the smell of old cigarette smoke and whiskey tickled your nose; it was familiar. 

Time passed and you woke up again, this time the dizzy feeling went away. Your eyes slowly open and you immediately recognize where you were. Jumping out of bed, you bound down the hallway and into the room you remembered from the last time you were there and the sight in front of you, made you super proud.

“Hey sweetheart,” Dean said when his eyes made contact with yours again. Rushing over you fall into Dean’s arms as he hugs you after not seeing you since the last jump

“Dean I literally thought I was never gonna see you again.”

“Yeah I know what You mean sweetheart I didn’t think we were ever gonna see you again.”

“Wait a minute where is Sam?” Just as you ask where he was the sound of the door opening to the bunker and footsteps coming down the stairs indicated that Sam had been coming home. Little did you or Dean know that he had been spending all of his time researching where you had gone to and how he could get you back.

 “(Y/N) you’re back.”

 “Hi Sam.”

 “When did you come back?”

“Just now.”

“Are you OK? What happened, how did you come back?

“Really Sammy she's been gone for three months and all you can say is how is she back?” Dean pipes in

“What’s wrong with asking that?”

 “Dude you clearly don’t get it.”

 “Don’t get what Dean?” The two brothers were bickering back and forth to each other like they were kids again so you stepped to the side and let them talk.

 “Doesn't matter how she got here it's just the fact that she's back that is what should matter to you!” Dean said.

“Well obviously I’m glad she’s back but it doesn't make any sense how can she jump from one round to another and be OK!”

“About that, I’m actually not OK.” You spoke up.

 “What do you mean you're not OK?” Sam asked.

“I passed out and I don’t know where I ended up but I guess Dean found me picked me up and brought me back here. I was extremely dizzy and I just couldn’t move and the next thing I knew I woke up and I was here.

“Where did you find her?” Sam asked.

“She was about 40 feet away from the bunker it seemed however when she ended up jumping she tried to come back here somehow.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense.” Sam questions.

“What is with you and things making sense?! Look she came from another realm, another universe, met other people but now she's back can you just for once appreciate that she's here.” Dean asked can I get a little more infuriated with his brother.

 “(Y/N) welcome back” and with that Sam left the room.

 “What’s his problem? What happened when I left?”

 “Sam took it kind of hard.” Dean explained.

 “What do you mean?”

“Well Sam got a little crazy. He did everything he could to try to bring you back on his own but see what he doesn't realize is that you have absolutely no control of coming and going as you please. You just up and leave but to him there has to be some kind of scientific proof for it to make any sense. Me on the other hand I’m OK with it! I mean you come and go as you wish sweetheart I don’t care. I mean as long as I don’t end up feeling anything or you know anything happens between us then you know it’s cool.

“Wait what do you mean anything happening between us?”

“OK I’m not gonna lie when we first met might have sort of thought you were attractive, I don’t know but, I thought it was ridiculous being attracted to a girl who has absolutely no control of when she can or can’t be someone I mean am I right.”

 “Well first of all thank you. I, of course, find you very attractive. I mean you should see what my room looks like in my universe. Your face and Sam’s face are everywhere but that’s another story though. Secondly I appreciate what you’re saying and I agree I don’t wanna start anything with anybody if I can’t stay in one place. Until I figure out how to control this dating is just not an answer for me.”

 “Alright that’s fair. I get it but do you mind if I do something?”

 “What do you have in mind?”

“Well you know I thought maybe I could go kiss you or something, just to get it out of my system?”

“Man, everyone wants to kiss me” You say to yourself.

“What was that?”

 Oh nothing, nothing um, I mean I guess so?”

 “Well geez if I’m gonna kiss somebody they’re usually a little more excited about it.”

 “No, no, I, I am, it’s just I don’t know wouldn’t it be kind of weird?”

“Me? Weird? Come on sweetheart that's not fair.”

“No, no, I mean it’s nothing against you. I mean like you said I have no control of when I’m gonna leave next and like you were saying I don’t wanna give you feelings and then just take it all away because I believe I mean”. And before you were able to finish that sentence the soft feeling of Dean’s lips were on yours immediately shutting you up.

 You could tell just by that one kiss how long he had been wanting to kiss you, not that you knew him or Sam for very long to begin with but you knew there was something else there. After a few minutes had gone by Dean had let you breathe you decided to leave the room and try to downplay however you were feeling

 “Well on that note I- I-I guess I’m gonna go and see what I can I-I can do for somebody else I-I don’t know I just have to go. Bye.”

 You groan to yourself as you walk out the door and hear Dean laugh at you as you scurried away, hoping desperately that he would forget your awkwardness. Walking around the bunker you try to familiarize yourself with where you were based off of what you've seen on television

 So if memory serves me correctly this should be Sam’s room. Slowly walking up to the door, you hesitate a moment before you realize that maybe what you're doing is a little bit crazy. Sam did seem like he was less than enthused to have you back after the way you left so abruptly the first time but he owed an explanation to you why he acted so weird when you came back. Dean was more than happy to see you but what was up with Sam? Slowly bringing your knuckle up to the door you tap on it three times, instantly regretting that you even came up here.

 “I’m not in the mood Dean go away,” Sam's muffles voice could be heard from the other side.

“It’s me Sam,” you said just loud enough for him to hear you. Just then the door quickly opens and he appeared surprised to have you standing at his door.

“(Y/N) what are you doing here?

“The better question is why did you act so weird when I came back?” you counter.

“I was afraid you were gonna ask me that.”

“Afraid? Why were you afraid?

“Here why don’t you sit down,” Sam stepped aside and let you walk in before motioning for you to sit on the bed.

“OK look I acted weird when you came back because I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“Well obviously I didn’t think I was coming back here either but I am here so why does it bother you so much?”

“It doesn’t bother me that you’re back. I’m just surprised taken back or whatever you wanna call it.”

“Yeah I get that you made that really clear but why?” You grew more frustrated with him.

 “Since you left I drove myself crazy trying to figure out how we could get you back anytime we wanted.”

“I know Dean told me but why would you do that?”

“Well because I uh,” Sam seemed like he was trying to hide something from you.

“Come on Sam just say it.”

“Look I know it was only for a couple of days since you were here and we really don't know each other but I did start feeling something.”

“Oh no, not you too,” you say aloud.

“Wait what?” Sam was confused by this.

“Dean literally said the same thing to me about 20 minutes ago.”

“Wait so you're saying that Dean confessed to having feelings for you?”

“Yup,” you said nodding your head.

“Oh well that’s just great.” Sam said.

“He even kissed me too.” To say that Sam was disappointed was an understatement but he couldn't say anything, Dean had got to you first.

“I see um, OK then cool. So do you like him too?”

“I mean yeah, he's really cool actually and very cute?”

“Why does that sound more like a question?” Sam had asked

“Well because like I told him until I get this jumping thing under control I don’t think it’s fair that I have feelings for anybody. Dating would just be really, really hard because I never know when I’m gonna jump into another universe and who else I’m gonna meet. Besides I don’t wanna play with your feelings like that and then Dean’s feelings too; that’s not fair to you guys.”

“I mean I can see your point but Dean and I are grown men; we can make decisions for ourselves and whether we think it's good for us or not. I appreciate your concern but I’ll be OK.” Sam said, growing more confident in himself.

“Well that’s good to know but again, I just wouldn’t feel right about leading either one of you on when I never know if I’m staying.”

“Yeah I guess that’s true. It is kind of unfortunate though.”

“Why do you say that?” Curiosity began to taunt you.

“Well I don’t know, I think I came up with a couple of dates I thought would be kind of cool to take you on.”

“Oh really, and what would those have been?”

Sam chuckled a little nervously kind of shy about sharing the side of him usually doesn't let anybody see him to be a romantic type but when it came out he did like showing it. His cheeks tinted with pink.

“Well to start I think what I would do is we would go into town find the closest restaurant that set on the water sit across from each other and order the most expensive food that we could find on the menu.”

 “Jeez wouldn’t that be expensive.”

 “No but I can cover it you’re worth that.”

“OK so after we ordered all this food what would we do next?”

“Well after we finished eating and enjoying different conversation I would order a dessert.”

“You? A dessert man? I always thought you were the healthier one with all those salads you tend to eat.”

Sam laughed shaking his head a little bit

“Well yeah but in this case let’s just go with the dessert.”

“OK what kind of dessert?”

“It would be ladies choice so whichever you’re feeling we can go ahead and order as long as it’s not any kind of pie because I am sick of pie I mean you try and live with Dean.”

At that point you were both laughing knowing just how much the man loved his pie.

“OK,OK so after dessert what's next?”

“So I thought we would walk down the water line.”

“That sounds like it could be fun or a little bit messy.”

“What do you mean messy?

 “If we’re gonna be at the water I’m gonna wanna take off my shoes and depending on if it rained or not there might be mud.”

 “OK now you're really thinking too much into this.”

“Hey you said that you thought a lot about this, let me bring my thoughts into it too!”

“OK fair enough so we're walking along the water and we're holding hands just as the sun slowly begins to sink behind the horizon. The sky is this beautiful orange and pink little bit of purple in there as well but then I turn and I look to you I stop and I smile at you, not being able to realize just how lucky I am that someone as beautiful as you agreed to do something like this with me. In my past as a hunter, I never thought in a million years that I would be able to find somebody that I could just be myself with. I know I said we’ve only known each other for a few days but there's something about you and I can’t help but think of that maybe there could be a future between us. I don’t know it might be kind of crazy for me to think about it like this but in my line of work with how many times I’ve almost been killed or I have been killed and I’ve been brought back to life, it’s a chance I have to be willing to take.

Then Sam looked over to you as he finished his thought and you smile to yourself. And in that very moment, you grab his face and bring him to your lips. He immediately responds, grabbing your hips and holding you close to him. He growled a bit, almost animal like, as he took control and gave all his feelings to that kiss. Like he was afraid of losing you for good.

“No one has ever said anything like that to me before,” you say when you separate from him.

“You deserve to be reminded of that every day for the rest of your life” Sam says with his forehead against yours.

You sigh as you soak in this moment, this feeling in your heart, the smell of Sam and the feeling of his hands gripping onto your hips. Just as quickly as all of those feelings went through you, they all went away and that eerie familiar feeling rose up on your throat.

No, not now. Please, not now! And before your head could wrap around what was going on, you were torn away from Sam but his presence still lingered on your skin.  

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Explore my bookshelf!

Thanks for the tag, @theghostinthemargins, this is fun!

An estimate of how many physical books I own: By my count, 396. Split between fiction, nonfiction, and travel guides.

Favourite author: I would say Tolkien! My three favourite books, all tied for first place are The Silmarillion/LOTR (I refuse to separate them), Les Misérables, and Jane Eyre. They’re the ones I can reread an uncountable number of times and never get tired of, and they all speak things that I find true and meaningful. But Victor Hugo and Charlotte Brontë have written other things I don’t care for as much, so Tolkien would be my overall favourite author.

A popular book I've never read and never intend to read: I’m sure there are a lot, I don’t tend to really get into a lot of contemporary non-speculative-fiction novels.

A popular book I thought was just meh: The Queen’s Thief series didn’t really catch me after the first two books, so I stopped. Though I didn’t catch all the twists in the first one, I felt a lot of it was telegraphed too heavily and I’d read another book that did the same thing but better. And the writing style didn’t pull me in; at times in the second one it felt like I was reading a Cliff Notes summary of the book rather than the book itself, or a brief history textbook from the book’s world. It’s a shame because I liked the relationship twist, I wanted to be into the book, but I wasn’t.

Longest book I own: Probably Complete Shakespeare (1164 pages in small font) in word count. Les Mis has more pages (1222) but larger font. My World Book Encyclopedia for the letter ‘A’ is probably also a contender in total word count (980 pages, small font, larger pages than the others).

Longest series I own all the books to: Either The Stormlight Archive or A Song of Ice and Fire depending on whether we’re going by word count or number of books.

Prettiest book I own: I’m very fond of The World of Ice and Fire, it’s a real visual treat. Fandom is making me want to invest in an illustrated Silm or LOTR. I’d have bought the nice version of Sanderson’s Tress of the Emerald Sea if shipping costs weren’t so ridiculous, it’s gorgeous and I love it, but I really can’t justify a hundred-dollar price tag when I already own the ebook.

A book or series I wish more people knew about: Several recommendations, including Piranesi (gorgeous, fantastical writing, some of the most beautiful and creative fantasy I’ve read in a while), The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (excellent vampire story, the only one I’ve seen that is as good as or better than the original Dracula, and plays off the original’s use of documents (diaries, letters, etc.) by having three histories nested within each other: the main character, her father in the ‘70s, and his thesis advisor in the ‘30s). If you enjoy the way The Historian is written even apart from the vampires, you will probably also love People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, which tells the story of an old and precious book and the Jewish families who owned it through history, via the modern plot of a woman carrying out document analysis of it the book the context of the 1990s Yugoslavian wars. It is very, very good.

For non-fiction, some recs are:

The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 by Christopher Ehret, the best textbook on pre-colonial African history I’ve found, extremely interesting

The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, a history through the lens of Eurasian connections (the parts between the fall of the Roman Empire and the later Middle Ages were especially interesting and novel - did you know Ethiopia invaded the Arabian peninsula? or that there was a Jewish (converted) state in Central Asia? or all kinds of stuff about the Zoroastrians?)

Paris 1919: Margaret MacMillan’s breakdown of the personalities involved in the Treaty of Versailles, and how their decisions set the stage for the rest of the 20th century; still a classic.

If you’re at all interested in Canadian history or in the Great Depression, and want to see how bad it can get in a country that didn’t have an FDR, Pierre Berton’s The Great Depression is a brilliant, passionate, and scathing text on that period in Canada, with a lot of idiots and brutes in power and some truly inspirational figures outside of power.

If you’re interested in US Reconstruction history, Capitol Men is a great book on the first Black members of Congress post-civil-war.

Book I'm reading now: Jurassic Park, Agrarian Socialism (about the rise of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, a socialist party that gave rise to the present-day social democratic NDP; I’ve gotten stalled, I need to finish this), Ovid’s Metamorphoses, History of Middle-earth vol 9 Sauron Defeated (I got it out of the library for the epilogue and I’ve read that, but I want to check out The Notion Club Papers before I return it), and just finished a reread of Mansfield Park.

Book that's been on my TBR list for a while but I still haven't got around to it: Shantaram; it’s a novel based on the author’s very eventful life.

Do you have any books in a language other than English: Have yes, have read, no. 😔 In various fits of ambition I’ve bought Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Journey to the Centre of the Earth in the original French, as well as a couple French-language histories, with the intent of using them to practice, and then my French is too weak and I just don’t stick to it. I’m only a few chapters i to any of them. Les Mis is too much for me to do more than try to enjoy a handful of passages in the original, but I really would like to finish Journey to the Centre of the Earth and one of the histories that interests me.

Paperback, hardcover, or ebook?

Mainly paperbook or ebook. I prefer reading paperbacks, it’s easier to focus and better for my eyes than ebooks (screentime is…most of my waking hours, it’s not good) and I find it more enjoyable, but ebooks have the benefit of convenience and being very fast to acquire; if I want to read a new release right away and the ebook is cheap, I’ll take it over the hardcover. I’ve only purchased 23 ebooks but have a huge stash of free ones from Project Gutenberg.

[daydreamtofiction]

Hello! Firstly, I wanted to say just how much I adore your writing style. There's just something ever so beautiful about the way it flows. And speaking of flow... I wondered if had any tips for making a story flow better, I've so many ideas but I just can't seem to figure out how to put them all together in a coherent way. Thank you!

Firstly, thank you so much.

This is such a good question but it’s one I’m having a really hard time coming up with practical advice for! I’ll try my best, but I’m sorry in advance if this isn’t helpful.

As always, I like to start with the disclaimer that I’m 29, I’ve been writing since I was a child, went to university at 18 for an undergrad in creative writing and got my masters in creative writing at 23. I’ve also had another 6 years since graduating in which I’ve been incredibly privileged to be mentored and supported by some amazing people and organisations in the literary space. So I’ve got a lot of years worth of practice and development under my belt. I’m not saying anyone needs degrees or training or anything to become a good writer, because you don’t, I’m just trying to emphasise how time is truly the best aid for anyone looking to hone their craft. And there’s never a set formula you can follow when it comes to improving your writing.

Funnily enough, I enjoy creating fics so much on this platform because it allows me to be a little more lax with my writing. Some things I’ve published under this alias would never fly with an editor and would probably be torn apart in developmental feedback. I don’t edit and redraft as much as I do with my irl work, I’m not as economical with my words and I try not to overthink things too much. So first and foremost, I’d say go easy on yourself. You write your fics for you, and you write them for free! Fanfic readers, on a whole, consume works that range drastically in author skill level. And for the most part, they will still enjoy and appreciate a fic despite its flaws.

That being said, let me try and actually answer your question lol.

When you say ‘flow’, I’m not sure if you mean the narrative or the actual writing itself. So I’ll give separate advice for both.

The narrative

Some good ways to make a narrative flow better is to think about pace, character and storyline.

Think about a TV show, I’ll use Fleabag season 2 as an example since it’s fresh in my mind from my priest fic. The basic premise is Fleabag meets a priest, fancies him, they hook up, but in the end he chooses God. If that’s all the story was, the show would be an episode long. What makes it so much more compelling is all the little ‘side quests’ she takes, the exploration of herself and other relationships, the time they take to allow that tension to build, little scenes that have no bearing on the main plot but add meat onto the bones of the story.

This helps control the pace; makes it feel more substantial and gives the readers time to bond with your characters and become invested in the story. It also stops you and your readers becoming fatigued by the main plot. Think about your day; you got up, went to school/work/wherever, came home and went to bed. But that wasn’t the extent of your day. You also might have noticed some new freckles while washing your face that morning, had an interesting interaction with a shopkeeper while buying your lunch, you might have found yourself dwelling on something that happened years ago which affected your mood, it might have rained when you weren’t expecting it to. All those little things are what make the journey from A to B truly flow.

So don’t be scared to divert from the main storyline with extra scenes, or create secondary plots that run alongside the main narrative. Not only will it help with the pace, but it will also force you to create more well-rounded characters. A well-rounded character is another great way to make a story flow, because they feel more real and less like a device.

Having lots of ideas and no idea how to make them flow is a problem I think many writers have. My advice for that is to not attempt to squeeze everything into one story just because you’re overwhelmed with a plethora of ideas. I know it can be hard when you’ve thought of a great plot point or scene but you just can’t make it fit, or you can’t figure out where in the story all of your ideas should go. That’s why it’s good to create a rough outline of your story in advance (either mentally or written out), piece together where all of these ideas might go before you start to write your story.

You can keep a note of your ideas in a separate folder/journal/document, that way you won’t feel as compelled to fit everything in one fic, because you’ll have this great selection of ideas you didn’t use that can be utilised in other projects.

If you’re still struggling to make your ideas flow into one coherent narrative, then it could be a sign that the story you’re wanting to write isn’t a fully developed concept yet. It might be worth taking some time to read other books/fics you like, watch tv/films and take note of how they’re structured, even daydreaming about your ideas can be useful, as the more you play them out, the more you may begin to notice how your mind naturally puts them together.

The writing itself

Read 👏 your 👏 work 👏 aloud 👏. It’s easier to detect issues in the flow of your writing when you speak it out loud - if you trip over your sentences, then you can almost guarantee a reader will. Pay attention to where you naturally take pause, that’s usually indicative of a comma being required or a sentence running on too long.

Be mindful of your story reading like ‘and then they did this, then they did that, then they went here’. Not everyone writes in a flowery way, but it should still have texture, some light and shade. Similarly, make sure you’re not repeating yourself. Nothing interrupts the flow of a paragraph like seeing the same words or descriptions over and over again.

Also, I know I said I’m less economical with language here than I am in my real life work. But I still advise trying to lessen unnecessary words/sentences. Give readers credit that they can fill in blanks themselves. Do you need to tell them the character is holding the phone in their left hand specifically, or can you just say they’re holding their phone? Do you really need to describe a characters appearance top to bottom, or can you just pick out a few defining features? Do they need to be described at all? Could you take a sentence like ‘I walked over to the table and picked up the camera, then I turned around and took a picture of the flowers in the vase.’ And turn it into ‘I took the camera off the table and snapped a picture of the flowers.’ It’s only a small difference, but in terms of flow, the key is making it require as little effort as possible to absorb.

I also just realised you could be asking about dialogue, which is its own challenge entirely. But I did give this advice to another person asking how to make dialogue sound more natural.

I really hope this helps! Sorry I went on a bit lmao.

[zalrb]

Alright Nosferatu review, I’ll try not to spoil:

It was a very ‘style over substance’ type of film. Objectively very beautiful, and one of the few period films since 2020 that feels LIVED in, the towns didn’t look like sets and that was a relieve. Though I maintain (even if my friend disagrees) it was TOO DARK and I struggled to really take in some of what I think would’ve been stunning cinematography. The costuming was also stunning , like I really hope this gets recognized at awards shows.

But overall the film felt very thin? Very shallow? Very basic? Maybe I set my expectations too high, but when Robert egger’s kept doing interviews saying how Ellen was the pivotal drive to this story, and when they campaigned Lily Rose-Depp as the main actress, I got my hopes up that this would lean into more of a character study of her and her history with Nosferatu, why she desires him, etc. and I didn’t really get any of that beyond the standard ‘yeah women are horny.’ Her purpose felt like the plot device to end Nosferatu , which I guess is technically what she is at her core, but I expected Egger’s to add more interiority onto that. I honestly got more out of every single other character than I did Ellen and that’s just super bothersome bc it’s not what I was promised. Maybe I didn’t like it because it felt more plot driven than character driven, and I wanted the opposite.

I had other issues with it though; I felt like every actor was in a different movie, which made it a bit of a bizarre watch, like there was no thorough thread or balance between performances, everyone was doing their own wild shit. I think the only performances that maybe existed in the same stratosphere were Willem Dafoe’s and LRD’s, they were really amping up the dramatics which is what I personally want for a movie like this, but everyone else felt so muted even when they weren’t meant to be.

Now, did I LOVE the design of Nosferatu? No. Bhf I will defend the mustache they gave him.

I can’t completely hate on the film though, because Egger’s did do the thing I wanted him to do and that all my friends said I was tripping over, that is, Ellen’s paranormal seizure are literally Nosferatu pounding into her like that one scene from Scary Movie 2 (yk the one). I just wish the writing wasn’t dookie. I also had issues with some of the dialogue itself, which is in part the writing and in part the delivery.

I will also say, I watched Babygirl right before Nosferatu, so I couldn’t help but compare it since both of these movies surround themes of female sexuality. And I was surprised by how good I found babygirl to be, and genuinely blown away by how bold Nicole’s performance was. And I didn’t find Babygirl to be particularly deep or even that freaky , but it was unapologetic with what it was doing. And I wanted that same unapologetic-ness for Nosferatu which I don’t really get bc it’s a very moralistic/black and white tale. Just literally zero nuance. Ugh now I’m getting mad again.

But yeah, that’s basically my main issue, no substance. I wanted more, I was promised more dammit!

Oh, this is interesting, because I'm seeing Babygirl today. I do have to say, though, it doesn't surprise me in that I find a lot of movies lately are more style over substance or the substance everyone speaks of isn't particularly earth-shattering

[unnursvanablog]

The books I read in 2023 / part 2

and what I thought of them...

Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus: ★★ Such a tiresome read, the characters got on my nerves and just the way the story was told and even just the subject of it didn't feel strong, well thought out or deep enough and I was just bored.

Bound Feet - Kelsea Yu: ★★★★ I so enjoyed the horror and folklore elements here and the story drew me in from the very first page. The plot was thrilling and well laid out even for such a short story, the characters felt real and interesting and the sadness that is the main theme is beautifully woven into the story.

A Closed and Common Orbit - Becky Chambers: ★★★ This is a real cozy read but the two timelines that intermix within the story felt very confusing to me at first and the jump between them really made it so that I could never really immerse myself in either. But the ending, and just when the two plots start to connect is lovely, tugs at your heartstrings and feels so incredibly well earned.

The Familiar - Leigh Bardugo: ★★★ The book starts off promising, it has an interesting premise, but the story itself just kind of drags, it takes such long for things to happen and by the middle I really just didn't about what was happening. The romance didn't grab me, the main characters didn't stand out and the others were just weak, but the history that inspired this was interesting.

The Tatami Galaxy - Tomihiko Morimi: ★★★ There is fun humor present within the story, the writing has its own style and the idea behind it is really interesting. The juxtaposition between all these different dimensions and how the characters are the same and yet not at the same time is very smart, but I got quite bored of it as I got further into the story, and I think it’s just because the characters weren’t engaging to me. They are intentionally made unlikable, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in fiction, but it doesn’t quite work here in my opinion.

Idol, Burning - Rin Usami: ★★★ An easy read with an interesting premise. The story grabs you easily, but I was expecting a much bigger or deeper examination of fandom culture and the people who engage in those things. It was more of an observation than anything else, lacking a bit of depth in parts and overall, I wanted the character to go on a bit more of a journey and come to a more impactful conclusion at the end.

DallerGut Dream Department Store - Lee Mi-ye: ★★★ I would have liked a bit more from this story. This whimsical little tale feels a bit like a fable or fairy tale that goes by just a little too quickly and really doesn't linger in my mind at all after reading it, and I think that has something to do with the depth of the characters or lack thereof.

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop - Hwang Bo-Reum: ★★★★ An ode to literature, the space and community that is created around it. Slow and cozy, but an enjoyable read. Really captures how these small little details moments shape our lives, who we are as human beings and the theme of how we need to recharge and relax with things that give us joy during the the busyness of life is very nicely done.

Hamingja þessa heims - Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir: ★★★ Although the story starts off well and the text manages to put you well into both the timeframes that appear in the book and the plot is interesting, it all becomes rather tiresome by the middle of the book. And although the historian's interpretation of the story or the sources he found is the essence of the story, as well as how these readings gradually make him gain a new perspective on things, I felt the progress and the approach of that reveal in the book comes too slowly and the story is just too repetitive, so the theme and the ending don't feel deserved or satisfactory.

A Crane Among Wolves - June Hur: ★★★ I enjoyed it the most when the pace of the story was a little slower, like it was in the beginning. As soon as the story seems to go into a different gear, I felt like I distanced myself a bit from the story and the characters because there was too much going on or crammed together into the narrative. There was not room for the story to breath. I wanted a little more emotion and more scenes that built the spark between the main characters, both while they were investigating the mystery and preparing for the coup, but also just outside of it. There was too much plot, so the romance that came towards the end didn't feel earned because of lack of buildup. However, I enjoyed how unafraid the author seemed to be highlighting the corruption that seemed to have crept into society within the story and the historical aspects and how it never felt too overwhelming or too gritty.

Squire - Nadia Shammas, Sara Alfageeh: ★★★★ Fantastical little tale that managed to show quite well how imperialist propaganda seeps into various parts of society and what it takes to break away from it in a concise, yet simple way. A great little adventure with fun characters and an important message, but I felt like the pacing was just a bit too quick at times. I wish there would be a sequel.

Skuld - Emil Hjörvar Petersen: ★★★★ A sharp and exciting final chapter to a series that has only grown and gotten better with time, just as the characters involved in it. The story is engaging, although it hits a bit of lull for a while towards the middle, but the ending is emotional and satisfying for a story like this. Icelandic folklore is carefully interwoven with the exciting modern thriller in a fun and original way.

[keeganhogan]

Double Suicide

Shinoda Masahiro’s Double Suicide is an incredibly well stylized film, the likes of which I have never seen before. I thought it odd at first that after seeing a color film from 1960, that we would then watch a film from 1969 in black and white. However, the stark contrast of super dark blacks and the whites of light in this film played an incredible role in the visual style and storytelling of the film. Use of black and white akin to that that we saw in Godzilla is present here, especially with the puppeteers dressed in all black.

           

Towards the beginning of the film I found the premise a very interesting one, a puppet play brought to life, and that the inclusion of the puppeteers in the movie was an excellent artistic choice. However, it is taken a level beyond that, as the puppeteers play the role of fate in this film, as everything happens because of them. They are the driving force behind all of the actions of the film, most notably being the ones that encourage Jihei to kill Koharu and are the ones that aid in his suicide, kicking the rock out from under his feet instead of Jihei himself. The set design is also super important in this film, especially taking from puppet plays. While the space constructed by the sets resembles the streets and homes that the setting is intended to be, the walls and floors have pictures and writing and splashes of ink (or maybe blood) on them, as if the world of the characters is constructed by the puppeteers for them to act in. They have no free will and are trapped in the world of the fates. That is, until Jihei and Koharu escape that world. I loved the scene of Jihei knocking down the walls and other pieces of the set, in an attempt to fight back against fate and break out of his cage. However, even outside of the world constructed for him, fate pursues and there is nothing he and Koharu can do about it. The moments where all of the in-play characters freeze while the puppeteers move around and construct things for the next part of the play were very cool to see as well. Everything about this movie was artistically intended and executed beautifully. If the visuals weren’t enough, the performances in this movie were also stellar, especially Iwashita Shima, playing both Osan and Koharu masterfully. The raw emotion of every characters is extremely palpable, and the artistic visuals amplify the dramatic performances wonderfully.            

The relationship with the viewer that is established in this film is unlike anything I have ever experienced. The opening scene panning around the set of a traditional puppet play while it seems that a director has a conversation over artistic decisions with a corporate member of a studio was a very interesting tone-setter. We are constantly reminded that we are viewing a play or a staging of the events unfolding in front of us. We are not a direct spectator of the plot itself, but a spectator of the puppeteers staging the plot and carrying it out to completion as intended. This is such a unique way to tell a story and it plays into the themes of fate and the impossibility of breaking out of the strict, established social rules very well. Despite Koharu and Jihei’s love for each other, there is no way to be together for them due to societal pressures and clearly defined roles within that society, so their only option is to die together to join each other in the next life. Again, like I said before with Jihei’s scene wrecking the set, he tries and tries to break out of the cage he’s been put in, but can’t escape fate. The other thing in this film that I found interesting was the solidarity between the women. Despite Koharu being the object of Jihei’s affection and not herself, Osan has this intense obligation to her, wanting to protect her as a fellow woman. Koharu feels the same to her, needing to at least feign the fact that she kept her oath to Osan to protect Jihei, despite the fact that she will be dead and not be able to be reprimanded for not doing so. The feminist themes in this movie were surprising for such a film so “based in tradition”, for lack of a better phrase. This is especially the case towards the end of the film when Koharu says it was never her choice to be a courtesan and that she is simply a woman, and wants to be able to love like one.

[dailyrandomwriter]

Day 534

For reasons I’m not particularly sure, I decided to purchase and play Escape from Mystwood Manor. 

And the reason for my uncertainty is because I don’t normally play escape room type games. In part, because up until a few years ago, there weren’t a lot of good ones, and playing a bad escape room game is an exercise in frustration. Doubly so for me, because I am actually not good at point and click adventure games of this style. Despite the fact I have a long wishlist of these types of games I’d like to play.

It helps that escape room games (and most point and click adventure games) have a lot of design overlap with hidden object games. A genre that I’ve been playing since I was in high school. This is important, because games like these tend to recycle or share a lot of the same puzzles or puzzle mechanics.

Which brings up once more this fascinating topic about assumed knowledge that I talked about before when writing about gaming tutorials.

Especially since puzzles tend to have a lot of cultural context with them, on top of the required reading, math or critical thinking skills needed. For example, the most common type of puzzle in these types of games are puzzles that use an analog clock either for the clue or for the puzzle itself.

However, that requires you to know how to read an analog clock. In a society where most people use their phones as their clock, and there is a clock on every kitchen appliance and computer, analog clocks have become more of a decoration than a timekeeping device for most people. Yet, this is a very common puzzle piece. Then again, most people who play these games are around my page, and I am a child of the 90s, so…

But the most interesting recent example of how a puzzle requires cultural context was in Mystwood Manor. One of the puzzles was a passage from Little Red Riding Hood, where woods were redacted (blacked out) and the clue was that you would determine what the blacked out words were, and the order they came in was the answer to the puzzle.

Here’s the thing though, depending on your childhood, or where you lived/grew up, you might not be familiar with Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood is a very western fairytale, and not even a particularly popular one by today’s standards. If you never heard the story, how hard would have it been to figure out what those blacked out words were? It may have been particularly hard, because all those blacked out words were hitting very well known story beats in that fairytale.

And I think that’s interesting.

[libriamore]

I’ve gotten to The Two Towers, specifically the hobbits in Fangorn Forest. And I get why ppl make fun of JRRT for the tree descriptions… (more slight spoilers below)

At the same time, so far the descriptions make sense. Lothlórien had a long description, but it made sense for the company to be in awe of it’s beauty and therefore pay attention to it. Tolkien has a slower pace than modern authors, but it makes sense for the time and for his writing style. He’s taking the time to illustrate things clearly, which I appreciate.

Fangorn, on the other hand, is slow because the Ents are slow. At least for a hobbit/ human timescale. They take a long time to say things because a, they live for much longer, and b, it just makes sense to me that trees would speak slowly. I did get a bit annoyed by his song, but that’s more to do with the audiobook reader’s choice to have lots of deep inhales, which is my least favorite aspect of audiobooks, distracting me than the song itself.

Also? I feel like they made up their minds rather quickly? In the movies it seems like they waste time spending more than a day, but compared to the weeks (months really) that the hobbits have been traveling, two and a half days is nothing. Especially when considering the Ents’ lifespans. They made up their minds in just a day longer than the Council of Elrond. I had the impression that the Ents took significantly longer.

I know that it’s difficult for movies to show time, but for some reason I was under the impression that the whole series only took a couple months. I’ve been noticing that there’s lots of mentions of travel time in the books, which is helpful. Aragorn discussed the distance from Weathertop to Rivendale, Sam pointed out that they had been in Lothlórien longer than they thought, and, at least on the way to Rivendale, the narrative points out the date and how long they’ve been traveling. It’s a nice detail, since it helps set the overall setting. Frodo enjoying his last carefree summer in Hobbiton, then going to Rivendale in the fall. The symbolism of them traveling into places as fall wanes into winter as the glory age of elves is also waning/ evil is rising in barren places is a nice touch. I’m curious to see whether they get to Mount Doom before spring.

Another thought: Fangorn Forest is named after Treebeard? I wonder if it’s because he’s so old that the shorter lived people started calling it his forest and it got shortened.

I vaguely remember a post talking about how the Ent wives got fed up and that’s why they left. Which might be true, but seeing as we’re getting Fangorn’s perspective, I like his story. The difference between lifestyle preferences/ goals for their trees. And the hint that the company passed through where the Ent wives lived before being wiped out.

One more thought: I got the impression from the movies that Eomer was Theoden’s son, but it appears that isn’t the case? So far all he’s said is that he’s the Marshall, which might mean that he’s Theoden’s heir, but I have no idea how that works. I’m finding the change from book to movie of how/ when the hunters come to Edoras really interesting, since as far as I can tell, it was cut short for time. Which is fair, but I’m once again enjoying all the things that weren’t in the films. Especially Gandalf messing with them. I assume he was the old man that suddenly appeared and disappeared.

I found a series on YouTube of the Lord of the Rings audiobooks so I’m listening to it. The last time I tried to read the series was over a decade ago and I think it’s more comforting as a young adult than it was as a teen. Especially given the current state of the world.

The series is lovely because Scott Christian Sava is an artist and each video is him making a watercolor of a character from the series.

My current thoughts (they just left Tom Bombadil) (semi-spoilers):

- Merry, Pippin, Sam, & Fatty (is that actually his name?) Bolger scheming got me. It’s so sweet & caring that makes even more sense than the movies. They all knew what they were signing up for and I love them

- Speaking of the movies, so far I understand why most of what I’ve read was adapted the way it was. Peter Jackson did a great job of preserving the overall message of love and camaraderie and compassion without making the movies thirty hours long

- I’m also enjoying how often they all sing. I forgot that it’s a big part of hobbit culture. And it’s so lovely, along w/ the riddles, like Gandalf pointed out when discussing Gollum

- I think my Americanism is showing because the whole hobbit hierarchy that’s clearly just the British class system is a bit silly to me, but it makes sense because JRRT was British. The whole thing w/ the Brandybucks being on the other side of the river so they’re seen as odd/ they see Hobbiton hobbits as strange is so very English to me & it makes me smile, as is the never leaving the Shire

- They’re all so kind to each other and love each other. It’s so wonderful. Frodo & Gandalf talking about Bilbo, Frodo preserving his memory by celebrating their birthday, his friends refusing to let him go alone - it’s such a good community. And I’m excited to see how they’re going to keep that community as they reach Bree

[bao3bei4]

fan language: the victorian imaginary and cnovel fandom

there’s this pinterest image i’ve seen circulating a lot in the past year i’ve been on fandom social media. it’s a drawn infographic of a, i guess, asian-looking woman holding a fan in different places relative to her face to show what the graphic helpfully calls “the language of the fan.”

people like sharing it. they like thinking about what nefarious ancient chinese hanky code shenanigans their favorite fan-toting character might get up to⁠—accidentally or on purpose. and what’s the problem with that?

the problem is that fan language isn’t chinese. it’s victorian. and even then, it’s not really quite victorian at all. 

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fans served a primarily utilitarian purpose throughout chinese history. of course, most of the surviving fans we see⁠—and the types of fans we tend to care about⁠—are closer to art pieces. but realistically speaking, the majority of fans were made of cheaper material for more mundane purposes. in china, just like all around the world, people fanned themselves. it got hot!

so here’s a big tipoff. it would be very difficult to use a fan if you had an elaborate language centered around fanning yourself.

you might argue that fine, everyday working people didn’t have a fan language. but wealthy people might have had one. the problem we encounter here is that fans weren’t really gendered. (caveat here that certain types of fans were more popular with women. however, those tended to be the round silk fans, ones that bear no resemblance to the folding fans in the graphic). no disrespect to the gnc old man fuckers in the crowd, but this language isn’t quite masc enough for a tool that someone’s dad might regularly use.

folding fans, we know, reached europe in the 17th century and gained immense popularity in the 18th. it was there that fans began to take on a gendered quality. ariel beaujot describes in their 2012 victorian fashion accessories how middle class women, in the midst of a top shortage, found themselves clutching fans in hopes of securing a husband.

she quotes an article from the illustrated london news, suggesting “women ‘not only’ used fans to ‘move the air and cool themselves but also to express their sentiments.’” general wisdom was that the movement of the fan was sufficiently expressive that it augmented a woman’s displays of emotion. and of course, the more english audiences became aware that it might do so, the more they might use their fans purposefully in that way.

notice, however, that this is no more codified than body language in general is. it turns out that “the language of the fan” was actually created by fan manufacturers at the turn of the 20th century⁠—hundreds of years after their arrival⁠ in europe—to sell more fans. i’m not even kidding right now. the story goes that it was louis duvelleroy of the maison duvelleroy who decided to include pamphlets on the language with each fan sold.

interestingly enough, beaujot suggests that it didn’t really matter what each particular fan sign meant. gentlemen could tell when they were being flirted with. as it happens, meaningful eye contact and a light flutter near the face may be a lingua franca.

so it seems then, the language of the fan is merely part of this victorian imaginary we collectively have today, which in turn itself was itself captivated by china.

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victorian references come up perhaps unexpectedly often in cnovel fandom, most often with regards to modesty.

it’s a bit of an awkward reference considering that chinese traditional fashion⁠—and the ambiguous time periods in which these novels are set⁠—far predate victorian england. it is even more awkward considering that victoria and her covered ankles did um. imperialize china.

but nonetheless, it is common. and to make a point about how ubiquitous it is, here is a link to the twitter search for “sqq victorian.” sqq is the fandom abbreviation for shen qingqiu, the main character of the scum villain’s self-saving system, by the way.

this is an awful lot of results for a search involving a chinese man who spends the entire novel in either real modern-day china or fantasy ancient china. that’s all i’m going to say on the matter, without referencing any specific tweet.

i think people are aware of the anachronism. and i think they don’t mind. even the most cursory research reveals that fan language is european and a revisionist fantasy. wikipedia can tell us this⁠—i checked!

but it doesn’t matter to me whether people are trying to make an internally consistent canon compliant claim, or whether they’re just free associating between fan facts they know. it is, instead, more interesting to me that people consistently refer to this particular bit of history. and that’s what i want to talk about today⁠—the relationship of fandom today to this two hundred odd year span of time in england (roughly stuart to victorian times) and england in that time period to its contemporaneous china.

things will slip a little here. victorian has expanded in timeframe, if only because random guys posting online do not care overly much for respect for the intricacies of british history. china has expanded in geographic location, if only because the english of the time themselves conflated china with all of asia.

in addition, note that i am critiquing a certain perspective on the topic. this is why i write about fan as white here⁠—not because all fans are white⁠—but because the tendencies i’m examining have a clear historical antecedent in whiteness that shapes how white fans encounter these novels.

i’m sure some fans of color participate in these practices. however i don’t really care about that. they are not its main perpetrators nor its main beneficiaries. so personally i am minding my own business on that front.

it’s instead important to me to illuminate the linkage between white as subject and chinese as object in history and in the present that i do argue that fannish products today are built upon.

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it’s not radical, or even new at all, for white audiences to consume⁠—or create their own versions of⁠—chinese art en masse. in many ways the white creators who appear to owe their whole style and aesthetic to their asian peers in turn are just the new chinoiserie.

this is not to say that white people can’t create asian-inspired art. but rather, i am asking you to sit with the discomfort that you may not like the artistic company you keep in the broader view of history, and to consider together what is to be done about that.

now, when i say the new chinoiserie, i first want to establish what the original one is. chinoiserie was a european artistic movement that appeared coincident with the rise in popularity of folding fans that i described above. this is not by coincidence; the european demand for asian imports and the eventual production of lookalikes is the movement itself. so: when we talk about fans, when we talk about china (porcelain), when we talk about tea in england⁠—we are talking about the legacy of chinoiserie.

there are a couple things i want to note here. while english people as a whole had a very tenuous knowledge of what china might be, their appetites for chinoiserie were roughly coincident with national relations with china. as the relationship between england and china moved from trade to out-and-out wars, chinoiserie declined in popularity until china had been safely subjugated once more by the end of the 19th century.

the second thing i want to note on the subject that contrary to what one might think at first, the appeal of chinoiserie was not that it was foreign. eugenia zuroski’s 2013 taste for china examines 18th century english literature and its descriptions of the according material culture with the lens that chinese imports might be formative to english identity, rather than antithetical to it.

beyond that bare thesis, i think it’s also worthwhile to extend her insight that material objects become animated by the literary viewpoints on them. this is true, both in a limited general sense as well as in the sense that english thinkers of the time self-consciously articulated this viewpoint. consider the quote from the illustrated london news above⁠—your fan, that object, says something about you. and not only that, but the objects you surround yourself with ought to.

it’s a bit circular, the idea that written material says that you should allow written material to shape your understanding of physical objects. but it’s both 1) what happened, and 2) integral, i think, to integrating a fannish perspective into the topic.

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japanning is the name for the popular imitative lacquering that english craftspeople developed in domestic response to the demand for lacquerware imports. in the eighteenth century, japanning became an artform especially suited for young women. manuals were published on the subject, urging young women to learn how to paint furniture and other surfaces, encouraging them to rework the designs provided in the text.

it was considered a beneficial activity for them; zuroski describes how it was “associated with commerce and connoisseurship, practical skill and aesthetic judgment.” a skillful japanner, rather than simply obscuring what lay underneath the lacquer, displayed their superior judgment in how they chose to arrange these new canonical figures and effects in a tasteful way to bring out the best qualities of them.

zuroski quotes the first english-language manual on the subject, written in 1688, which explains how japanning allows one to:

alter and correct, take out a piece from one, add a fragment to the next, and make an entire garment compleat in all its parts, though tis wrought out of never so many disagreeing patterns.

this language evokes a very different, very modern practice. it is this english reworking of an asian artform that i think the parallels are most obvious.

white people, through their artistic investment in chinese material objects and aesthetics, integrated them into their own subjectivity. these practices came to say something about the people who participated in them, in a way that had little to do with the country itself. their relationship changed from being a “consumer” of chinese objects to becoming the proprietor of these new aesthetic signifiers.

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i want to talk about this through a few pairs of tensions on the subject that i think characterize common attitudes then and now.

first, consider the relationship between the self and the other: the chinese object as something that is very familiar to you, speaking to something about your own self vs. the chinese object as something that is fundamentally different from you and unknowable to you. 

consider: [insert character name] is just like me. he would no doubt like the same things i like, consume the same cultural products. we are the same in some meaningful way vs. the fast standard fic disclaimer that “i tried my best when writing this fic, but i’m a english-speaking westerner, and i’m just writing this for fun so...... [excuses and alterations the person has chosen to make in this light],” going hand-in-hand with a preoccupation with authenticity or even overreliance on the unpaid labor of chinese friends and acquaintances. 

consider: hugh honour when he quotes a man from the 1640s claiming “chinoiserie of this even more hybrid kind had become so far removed from genuine Chinese tradition that it was exported from India to China as a novelty to the Chinese themselves” 

these tensions coexist, and look how they have been resolved.

second, consider what we vest in objects themselves: beaujot explains how the fan became a sexualized, coquettish object in the hands of a british woman, but was used to great effect in gilbert and sullivan’s 1885 mikado to demonstrate the docility of asian women. 

consider: these characters became expressions of your sexual desires and fetishes, even as their 5’10 actors themselves are emasculated.

what is liberating for one necessitates the subjugation and fetishization of the other. 

third, consider reactions to the practice: enjoyment of chinese objects as a sign of your cosmopolitan palate vs “so what’s the hype about those ancient chinese gays” pop culture explainers that addressed the unconvinced mainstream.

consider: zuroski describes how both english consumers purchased china in droves, and contemporary publications reported on them. how: 

It was in the pages of these papers that the growing popularity of Chinese things in the early eighteenth century acquired the reputation of a “craze”; they portrayed china fanatics as flawed, fragile, and unreliable characters, and frequently cast chinoiserie itself in the same light.

referenda on fannish behavior serve as referenda on the objects of their devotion, and vice versa. as the difference between identity and fetish collapses, they come to be treated as one and the same by not just participants but their observers. 

at what point does mxtx fic cease to be chinese? 

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finally, it seems readily apparent that attitudes towards chinese objects may in fact have something to do with attitudes about china as a country. i do not want to suggest that these literary concerns are primarily motivated and begot by forces entirely divorced from the real mechanics of power. 

here, i want to bring in edward said, and his 1993 culture and imperialism. there, he explains how power and legitimacy go hand in hand. one is direct, and one is purely cultural. he originally wrote this in response to the outsize impact that british novelists have had in the maintenance of empire and throughout decolonization. literature, he argues, gives rise to powerful narratives that constrain our ability to think outside of them.

there’s a little bit of an inversion at play here. these are chinese novels, actually. but they’re being transformed by white narratives and artists. and just as i think the form of the novel is important to said’s critique, i think there’s something to be said about the form that fic takes and how it legitimates itself.

bound up in fandom is the idea that you have a right to create and transform as you please. it is a nice idea, but it is one that is directed towards a certain kind of asymmetry. that is, one where the author has all the power. this is the narrative we hear a lot in the history of fandom⁠—litigious authors and plucky fans, fanspaces always under attack from corporate sanitization.

meanwhile, said builds upon raymond schwab’s narrative of cultural exchange between european writers and cultural products outside the imperial core. said explains that fundamental to these two great borrowings (from greek classics and, in the so-called “oriental renaissance” of the late 18th, early 19th centuries from “india, china, japan, persia, and islam”) is asymmetry. 

he had argued prior, in orientalism, that any “cultural exchange” between “partners conscious of inequality” always results in the suffering of the people. and here, he describes how “texts by dead people were read, appreciated, and appropriated” without the presence of any actual living people in that tradition. 

i will not understate that there is a certain economic dynamic complicating this particular fannish asymmetry. mxtx has profited materially from the success of her works, most fans will not. also secondly, mxtx is um. not dead. LMAO.

but first, the international dynamic of extraction that said described is still present. i do not want to get overly into white attitudes towards china in this post, because i am already thoroughly derailed, but i do believe that they structure how white cnovel fandom encounters this texts.

at any rate, any profit she receives is overwhelmingly due to her domestic popularity, not her international popularity. (i say this because many of her international fans have never given her a cent. in fact, most of them have no real way to.) and moreover, as we talk about the structure of english-language fandom, what does it mean to create chinese cultural products without chinese people? 

as white people take ownership over their versions of stories, do we lose something? what narratives about engagement with cnovels might exist outside of the form of classic fandom?

i think a lot of people get the relationship between ideas (the superstructure) and production (the base) confused. oftentimes they will lob in response to criticism, that look! this fic, this fandom, these people are so niche, and so underrepresented in mainstream culture, that their effects are marginal. i am not arguing that anyone’s cql fic causes imperialism. (unless you’re really annoying. then it’s anyone’s game) 

i’m instead arguing something a little bit different. i think, given similar inputs, you tend to get similar outputs. i think we live in the world that imperialism built, and we have clear historical predecessors in terms of white appetites for creating, consuming, and transforming chinese objects. 

we have already seen, in the case of the fan language meme that began this post, that sometimes we even prefer this white chinoiserie. after all, isn’t it beautiful, too? 

i want to bring discomfort to this topic. i want to reject the paradigm of white subject and chinese object; in fact, here in this essay, i have tried to reverse it.

if you are taken aback by the comparisons i make here, how can you make meaningful changes to your fannish practice to address it? 

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some concluding thoughts on the matter, because i don’t like being misunderstood! 

i am not claiming white fans cannot create fanworks of cnovels or be inspired by asian art or artists. this essay is meant to elaborate on the historical connection between victorian england and cnovel characters and fandom that others have already popularized.

i don’t think people who make victorian jokes are inherently bad or racist. i am encouraging people to think about why we might make them and/or share them

the connections here are meant to be more provocative than strictly literal. (e.g. i don’t literally think writing fanfic is a 1-1 descendant of japanning). these connections are instead meant to 1) make visible the baggage that fans of color often approach fandom with and 2) recontextualize and defamiliarize fannish practice for the purposes of honest critique

please don’t turn this post into being about other different kinds of discourse, or into something that only one “kind” of fan does. please take my words at face value and consider them in good faith. i would really appreciate that.

please feel free to ask me to clarify any statements or supply more in-depth sources :) 

[seasteading]

so you're missing a plot

over the course of my 3+ years on writeblr and some time on writing twitter, i’ve noticed that a lot of people can come up with characters and worldbuilding, but then get stuck on creating a compelling plot around those characters. so, here are a few tips that have helped me, and that i hope will help you too!

note: this will apply mostly to fantasy and sci fi, since that's what i write and what tends to have more plot-heavy storylines. 

these are also all my opinions! you don’t have to listen to any of this—all of these are tips that i’ve used in my own experience, and what works for me won’t necessarily work for you.

tone

this is one of the first things you want to decide. even within the same genre, you’re going to have a lot of variety in tone and atmosphere. the kind of plot that works for a fun fantasy adventure romp might feel odd and out of place for a darker fantasy with an emphasis on political intrigue. to figure out what kind of tone works best for your wip in particular, you want to look back at your characters. writing is a massive investment of time and energy, so you want to go in a direction that’s actually interesting to you. this is the very first step, and will help you decide what direction you end up going, and will most importantly give you a hint towards what ending will best suit the story you’re trying to tell. if you go with a more lighthearted tone, then suddenly having a tragic ending won’t make any sense since it’s the equivalent of a bait-and-switch. the same applies for having a darker tone—a happily ever after where everyone lives and gets therapy won’t necessarily fit. 

worldbuilding

worldbuilding is important of course, but it doesn’t need to be completely developed before you start coming up with a plot. in fact, you should try to avoid dumping all of your time into worldbuilding, and instead get the basics down before moving onto the plot. i’m sorry to say it, but you’re not tolkien. you will never be tolkien, and you don’t have to aspire to be like him either. you don’t want to write yourself into a plothole because something in your worldbuilding ends up conflicting with the story, so generally it’s good to have a little bit of wiggle room. sometimes you also run into a situation where the plot itself inspires an important piece of worldbuilding that makes the story richer and more interesting. your worldbuilding is there to enrich your plot and inform your character motivations, not the other way around. however, you do want to establish any rules your world has before getting into the plot, since breaking them can itself become a driving factor in characters and their arcs. this is especially common in fantasy, where a frequent premise lies in the fact that everybody can’t use magic while the protagonist can, or the other way around. this isn’t a plot quite yet, but it can be a good starting point.

character driven vs. plot driven

you will also need to decide the main focus of your story. character-driven writing is common in literary fiction and shorter works, and it’s focused specifically on the internal conflict within characters, as well as their thoughts and personal arcs. few external events are going to happen in character-driven stories, which tend towards more towards slice-of-life where not much really happens but you’re still invested due to the characters. plot-driven writing puts emphasis on (you guessed it!) the plot, and this is a lot more common for longer works. the two can and do certainly overlap, but most works tend to lean a bit more one way or the other, and you can determine this by asking whether you’re more interested in the characters as people or in what happens to them. 

motivation

so now that you have an idea of the direction you want to go, how do you actually come up with your plot? no matter if your story is character driven or plot driven, you still need compelling characters, and one way to find your plot is to look at their motivations. every one of your characters should have something they want to achieve or to obtain. your character’s want is going to be their main driving motivation. something is wrong in their life—if it wasn’t, then you wouldn’t be writing this story—and they think that obtaining what they want will fix it. this can be a macguffin-style quest for an object/place/person, the desire to climb the social ladder, solving the mystery behind a disappearance, etc. at this point, i would recommend taking a look at media with similar character motivations to yours and dissecting them to see what works and what doesn’t. you want to be genre-savvy and know what tropes are common to the type of story you’re telling.

gay is not a plot

repeat after me. gay is not a plot. gay is not a plot. gay is not a plot. there should be something to your wip’s plot other than “they’re gay, what more do you need?” (see this post). a romance isn’t going to be interesting if the characters aren’t interesting on their own, and that requires them to actually have their own motivations which (see motivation) themselves create the basis for a plot! in that same vein, having representation shouldn’t function as your plot or your primary selling point. representation should be a given, and making that the only descriptor for your work essentially boils down your characters to just their marginalization.

retellings

i know retellings of fairytales, myths, and shakespeare’s plays have gotten really popular, especially as of late. retellings are a great starting point since they already give you a base off which to work with, and instead of having to come up with all of your concepts from scratch, it becomes a question of putting your own spin on them. these tend to require some knowledge of the genre and common tropes, which you should have regardless of whether you’re writing a retelling or not. here, instead of having characters and a world first and a plot second, you’re working backwards from an existing work to reinterpret the characters and world surrounding a common plot. the important thing to note is that just because you have a starting point doesn’t mean that your work is done—i’d recommend researching other variations of the story you’re retelling and cataloguing similarities and differences, what works and what doesn’t, and moving things around/restructuring them depending on the changes you yourself want to make in your retelling.

prompts

i actually wouldn’t recommend relying on generators and prompt lists for your plots, since they tend to be extremely vague and difficult to get invested in, since you weren’t the one to come up with them. prompts can be really good for sparking inspiration, though, and once you get an idea for a few scenes, you can build off of them to figure out what circumstances lead to each one and what the pivot points are. prompts are a useful tool, but shouldn’t be used as the basis for your entire story.

final thoughts

if you’re here that means you’ve made it to the end of this behemoth of a post, and hopefully something here was helpful! at this point you should be able to find a premise, but it’s important to note that a premise is not a plot. here is where the real work begins—interweaving your characters and worldbuilding with your storyline, figuring out if there are any holes in your cast or if there are a few darlings you need to cryogenically freeze for now. you don’t need to fill in all of your plotholes; that’s a problem for when you actually have a draft down and more material to work with. for now, focus on creating a storyline that’s interesting to you. most importantly, don’t try to force it. you don’t want to treat a plot as a trope checklist, but instead let it come naturally so it actually fits the story your characters are made to tell.

[aconstantstateofbladerunner]

Dunno about you but our teachers never really analysed required readinh in class. Our English (as foreign language) teacher just ripped a quiz from the internet after we were supposed to read 1984. Our (German) literature class was a bit better, but I'm only saying this because I remember the parable of the three rings. I think a lot of teachers don't really do anything with the required reading, making it feel pointless. Dunno, maybe challenging kids to analyse their fav media would work better

I don’t think the problem of mediocre teachers teaching for the test is going to be solved by letting kids pick the books. I get what you are saying, and i think kids analyzing their favorite books could work as a good introductory activity for elementary and middle schoolers, i think you are missing the point of the post. There are always going to be things in life that require critical thinking even if it doesn’t personally interest you. You can’t always just throw up you hands and dnf the world around you. I’m sorry your teacher’s weren’t great, but that doesn’t mean the whole exercise must be wrong.

(Apologies for going on a bit of a ramble, but your ask really rubbed me the wrong way and i need to talk about it.)

The first problem with letting kids just pick whatever book to analyze is practical: the teacher won’t be able to read every book. My average high school english class had 15 people, and most schools have more. Unless that one assignment made up the whole class, the teacher would not be able to read every single submission in a reasonable time frame. If the student misinterprets something, the teacher has no way of knowing. Say for example that someone wanted to do a project on the Twilight Saga, and somewhere in their paper they argue that the book has a strong anti-racist message because it has a lot of Native American characters. And ignorant non-native student might not catch the more underhanded racism present, nor would they know about how the author appropriated a real tribe for profit they never got a cut off if they only looked at the book itself and not discussions around it. And the teacher wouldn’t be able to correct them because they have 20-some other completely different books and projects they’ve never read to worry about. The point of a curriculum is for everyone to be on the same page. And yes, this can lead to situations where a teacher decides that their interpretation is the only correct one, but it’s better than a free for all where no one learns anything.

As for why english class had people look at certain ”classics” over the new YA hotness is because the classics’ value goes beyond whether or not they are good stories. They have cultural impact, they challenge your thinking, they hold up to close readings. It’s one thing to learn about the raw facts of WW1 or the Vietnam War, it’s another thing to read what it felt like to live through those things and their aftermaths from authors who experienced them firsthand like Earnest Hemmingway and Tim O’Brian. And let me tell you: I cannot stand Hemmingway, but i understand why i was made to read his work. He touched on not only the war itself, but the emotional struggle to move on with your life after experiencing something so traumatic but ultimately pointless, not to mention his actual style of writing was innovative for its time. Meanwhile Tim O’Brian is one of my favorite authors long after my high school class introduced me to him. His book The Things They Carried will tell a horrifying anecdote about Vietnam in one chapter, then spend the next talking directly to the audience about which parts were literally true, and which parts were emotionally true, details that were altered in order to tell the story in a way that brought the reader closer to what the real thing felt like. There’s a lot more storytelling philosophy in there i still apply to my own writing too this day that i would have never considered without it. There arguments to be made about the over abundance of white dude authors in the curriculum. Calling it right now, The Left Hand of Darkness should be taught in schools. But there is diversity outside the YA shelf. Go read Toni Morrison.

Speaking of YA, as a final point, some kids would just pick bad books. Let’s take Divergent as an example from the original post. Divergent is a bad book. It’s a bad trilogy. I know they are bad because i’ve read all of them and gone through with a fine toothed comb analyzing how poorly constructed its world, characters, plots, and themes really are. I have literally given an academic lecture in my discord server about the baffling degree to which Divergent is a literary failure from top to bottom. Now, a casual teenaged reader would go through a series about a girl fighting in a post-apocalyptic restrictive system where people are only allowed to be one thing and say the book is about standing up to authority and fighting against conformity. Many characters even say as such. But remember the Twilight example? How books can say through their details themes that contradict what the characters in-universe declare to be so? In Divergent, there are 5 factions, but only one of them has any real government power, the same one main girl is from. The bad guys are the ones who start advocating for for equal government representation for the other groups. Main girl immediately clocks them as bad and evil. They later use mind control for genocide. Second book, what about the people who don’t fit in the faction system? They all live in poverty and naturally want to abolish the old system in favor of something new. Main girl thinks this is a bad idea. The revolutionaries later commit more genocide. Third book, secret scientists who have been running the show the whole time want to wipe everyone’s memories/kill everyone to start over. Main girl dies stopping the bad guy from doing a third genocide, the series ends with the restrictive faction system firmly in place and more people joining it from outside because it works just so darn well. Every single character or group who wants to make more than the smallest changes to the status quo are consistently framed as callus, bloodthirsty villains. By the end, nothing has changed except the visitation rules between factions aren’t as strict. This is framed as a good thing. But most teens who read the books didn’t notice these troubling themes, because the story is dressed up in the the imagery and language of fight-the-power dystopian YA of the time. It’s all surface-level. The book tells you that it’s against conformity, even though it shows how deviations from the norm are dangerous and get people hurt so it’s better for everyone if everything stays the same. And that’s just one angle wrong with this series.

If this was the only book a teenager ever read, they would not be able to pick up on this. I am because i’m an adult with years of analytical study and practice, with hundreds of books under my belt. But i got to where i am because my teachers forced me to expand my horizons beyond warrior cats and realize that a story could be more than just a story.

tl;dr: deficiencies in the education system are not the fault of the books being taught. those books are taught for a reason. if you want to be an anti-intellectual, do it on your own time

[sneezemonster15]

I am new to Naruto fandom. Even newer to SNS fandom. I observed the shipping wars, and frankly, participated in it a couple of times. Just to see what it's all about. And I have come to one conclusion.

It's bonkers how far one will go to convince oneself about one's shipping whether it makes sense or not. At the end of the day, it becomes not really about the content itself, but one's comprehension and understanding of content. Which helps me understand why SS, NH, or NS stans exist. Their projection (which it certainly is) almost seems delusional and definitely inconsistent with the content itself.

When I first started watching Naruto, I wasn't aware of Naruto fandom. I am a cinephile and I am used to analysing content involuntarily while I am watching it. I wasn't expecting much from Naruto, I definitely underestimated it and wasn't expecting any emotional impact given it was shonen and I am very hard to please (yes, I am a film elitist). But as I kept watching it, I had to grudgingly change my opinion. By the time I reached Shippuden, I could tell that I was almost fevered with excitement and looking forward to more emotional impact.

I didn't watch it with any romantic lens, I was mostly interested in the fighting sequences initially. Hell, that's all I was expecting from a shonen show about ninjas. But at the end of vote 1, I was like, hmmm. What?? This was so emotionally wracking. Are they really just rivals, or friends? Now, I am a fully fledged cinephile and have watched a lot (a. Lot.) of LGBTQ films, given my interest in shows about emotional and sexual repression. And throughout my first watch of the first part, I kept picking up on the subtle sns moments without actively thinking about them. I was really into the story and wanted to see what will happen next. But at the end of vote 1, I had to stop and think, wait what, are they in love with each other? They are definitely not just friends. Or rivals. The language of their interaction in vote 1 is so fraught with underlying currents of repressed emotions that it just made the cinephile in me ask, what am I watching exactly? Like isn't it shonen (I am also relatively new to anime/manga) where gay relationships are a strict nono? Like why does it have all the tropes of repressed homosexuality in men, just like all the films I had seen. The way Naruto and Sasuke constantly gravitate to each other, their interactions at times feel like a borderline attempt at just staying close to each other, their violent, strong feelings and devotion for each other (land of waves arc) and then denial of those feelings (after the land of waves arc), their contant physical fights for no apparent reason, Sasuke goading Naruto for no apparent reason especially when Sasuke is not the type to talk without reason which had been made abundantly clear. Sometimes, it literally felt like he was flirting with Naruto (during the chuunin exams) while rejecting Sakura. Sasuke constantly appears to be caring and attentive towards Naruto while treating Sakura like trash. This was even acknowledged by Naruto who asks Sasuke to be nicer to Sakura. But Sasuke doesn't even think about it. He instead flirts (?) with Naruto. It made me think, why did the writer choose to do that? Why make it clear that in hierarchy, Sasuke keeps Naruto much higher than Sakura, so early in the show (when there hasn't been so much development either, we were mostly shown how they keep fighting and arguing with each other)? If they are supposed to just be comrades or friends, why pinpoint this? Why use this trope at all if it's about friendship, especially in a show that can't include a gay relationship.

And this kept happening consistently. The writer made the interaction between Sasuke and Naruto to be major turning points in the plot. Vote 1 fight made it clear to me that there was something more going on, but I didn't want to be presumptuous, so I kept it on the side and kept watching.

After watching Shippuden, I was convinced that none of it, was accidental. The writer painstakingly wrote a gay love story and was even obvious about it in a very clever way. Like he fucking got away with writing a gay love story in shonen. I know Naruto is basically a kids' show meant for entertainment purposes, but it touched so many important, dark and adult themes. I knew that it would be difficult for the writer to actually give a proper conclusion to these themes because they really aren't that black and white or even appropriate for children. So I wasn't surprised that he couldn't actually show peace being achieved after the war arc or slavery abolished in Hyuuga clan.

But one thing I was sure of. He wanted to show a gay love story, maybe out of a twisted sense of humor, I don't know. But that's what he did. He could not have made it clearer. He flagrantly used all the related tropes, visuals, sound, dialogues, hell the story. The fucking story...

He was so shrewd about it too. He made it so that people can take away whatever they wanted to take away from it as long as there was some plausible deniability about things that weren't made clear in the show itself. That fucking minx! But he knew that anyone who watches shit carefully, will be able to see what he actually did. He knew that at least some of us will be able to connect the dots. He went out of his way to make sure we connect the dots. There is no other way to explain why Sasuke repeatedly kept asking Naruto why he cared for him so much. There's no other way to explain why he concluded everything with the dialogue where Naruto explains that he hurts when Sasuke does. There's no other way to explain why that affected Sasuke to such an extent. Kishimoto went out of his way, like seriously, to tell the audience that they are Not just 'friends'. He basically used this friend thing with so much saturation and intent in such a twisted way that he made it into something else entirely. In that sense, the concept of 'friend' changed its meaning. Like you can try, but you can't change my mind about it.

Whether I approve it or not, but my takeaway from content depends mostly on the content itself. I do believe that more often than not, the simplest explanation is the right one. And this applies to the phenomenon of Naruto as well. Of course, as a viewer, I can't ignore that my suspension of belief relies on my own understanding of the external world and how I perceive visual language. But that is something that happens anyway, in tandem with consuming the content, while I was pretty much consistently objective about it.

I believe I have a pretty good understanding of how cinematic language works, and I know every creative or narrative choice has a reason and meaning behind it. Absolutely None of it is random. Cinematic language may not be universal in terms of styles, but all the styles definitely have a common ground. And any creator worth his salt knows it, he knows how his content will be perceived and what it is exactly that he wants to show or say. Do not delude yourself that it was accidental or on a whim.

I know for a fact that Kishomoto wanted to show a gay love story. I know for a fact that he wanted to show that Sasuke has feelings for Naruto and he knows it. He also wanted to show that Sasuke not only had feelings for Naruto but also knew that he couldn't show them openly. He wanted to show that Naruto has feelings for Sasuke as well but is confused and naive, like he is about so many other things. He wanted to show us that Sasuke is not into Sakura, that he doesn't even respect her. Any enthusiast of visual/cinematic language and narrative can tell all the above things without going into headcanon or deluded explanations (like SS, NH stans), with just on the basis of content they consumed.

At the end of the day, I don't ship SNS because it's in my head. I was forced to see and believe SNS by the creator. Not forced literally but forced to notice and acknowledge the emphasis and meaning of the twisted/manipulative ways of the creator.

Kishimoto, hats off to you, you sly bastard. You succeeded in trolling people endlessly, you had a lot of fun pitting people against each other, didn't you? Hahahahaha. Well, I call your bluff/or non bluff in this case since you obviously knew what you were doing.

[shihalyfie]

The importance of a burnt egg

Appmon is a very over-the-top and silly series, which is one of its standout features in a story that features some really heavy topics (both emotionally and academically). The first presumable reason as to why the series is this way is tone; if it weren’t for all of this dorky silliness, the sheer weight of the story could easily get overwhelming to the point it becomes difficult to digest (especially considering this is a kids’ series). Having all the fun parts helps make the delivery more palatable and easier to understand, allowing it to cover some pretty deep topics it might not be able to otherwise.

However, it’s important to realize that this is most definitely not the only reason for these kinds of things -- the strange wackiness is also very important to the theme of the series itself. At first, it might seem a bit strange to insinuate that something like a burnt egg actually has theme importance, but you’d be surprised...

(Note that there are spoilers for the series in the rest of this post.)

Let’s fast-forward to the end of the series, episode 52, when Leviathan makes its case as to why humanity should accept its ideal world.

The question of whether it’s better to have emotions or not has been a staple theme of sci-fi (especially AI-themed sci-fi) as long as the genre has existed, but when you get to the end of Appmon and everything that’s led up to it, you have to admit that it makes a pretty compelling case. Leviathan isn’t saying this out of simply just being condescending about humanity being bad at taking care of itself; it really, truly thinks that emotions and hearts are doing everyone an inconvenience. It itself even understands the concept of “death”, and believes it’s doing everyone a favor by keeping everyone from it. Through all of the previous episodes, we’d seen all of the messiness and emotional pain that Leviathan is warning against. Haru just went through a whole cycle of learning he might have been gaslighted. Eri went through the bittersweetness of still not being able to attain the goal she’d worked so hard for. Astra’s still figuring out what to do with this life and what place his family has in his future. Rei had to go through the pain of losing and having to chase after his own family for the entire series. Yuujin, depending on Haru’s choices, may end up dying, with every purpose and hobby he’d built up coming to an end.

Yeah. Life kinda sucks sometimes. There’s a lot of problems going on in society, tons of heartbreak, and everyone’s interests clashing into each other create strife and suffering. Wouldn’t it be better to wipe all that away? Forget everything and let an objective system handle it all? No more need to make choices, especially when the ability to make choices sometimes leads to making bad ones; the system will efficiently organize everything, without any of that chaos or strife or pain. Sounds great, right?

Well, firstly, the problem with this is that Leviathan isn’t a perfect, unbiased system. Nor is anything else in this world. As many AI researchers will tell you right now, even the most advanced black-box AI algorithms are still made by humans, with human biases, and subject to imperfections, because anything part of an imperfect world will still be imperfect. We see a brief glimpse of recognizing the series resident No Guy in the faceless crowd; its job of supposedly wiping misery and pain from the population isn’t exactly working the way it thinks it is. Even Leviathan does briefly admit that it has more it wants to learn. In fact, Leviathan’s defeat largely centers around its realization it doesn’t understand everything about the world after all -- Haru and his friends managed to derail its ostensibly perfect plan that had been building up over the series at the last minute, and Haru himself made a shocking unexpected “third option” choice to the dilemma it’d provided it. “Humans have a surprising side to them,” after all.

As Appmon’s resident edgelord, Rei has an amusing style of writing in that he’s quite the serious person yet keeps getting put in increasingly absurd and comedic situations. There are a lot of reasons for it -- making it clear that he’s not quite as good at the whole edgy schtick as he pretends to be, and also the sheer juxtaposition being funny -- but this really comes to a head in episode 42, where Rei is constantly placed in increasingly ridiculous situations and contexts until the very end, and said very end takes all of the stupid hilarity and suddenly punches you in the face with it when it connects to how Hajime is eventually found. In the end, all of Hackmon’s abilities and all the cognitive thinking in the world paled in comparison to Rei doing something so phenomenally stupid that Hajime remembered his brother and laughed.

After all, if we’re talking about emotions, you can’t forget the one that’s repeatedly permeated all of media and sentiment as well: connection and love. And as it turns out, Hajime recognizes his brother when his brother is doing something stupid.

In the following episode, episode 43, pay close attention to the sequence of events when Rei tries to get Hajime to wake up. Rei tried everything, ranging from getting the Appmon to help, to taking him out everywhere, to cooking every kind of egg under the sun. But here’s what’s significant: we’re treated to a montage of Rei making those eggs, and every time we see them, Rei makes them correctly, because he’d gotten better at making eggs since Hajime had been taken away. And that’s exactly what the problem was, because the moment Rei messed up out of being lost in thought, burning the egg, that was the one and only time that had any significance to Hajime, enough to actually bring him back.

In other words: it was the human mistake, not anything perfected, that actually had meaning.

Burnt eggs shouldn’t exist in Leviathan’s world. That’s a byproduct of bad choices. It’s inefficient and clumsy, and wouldn’t be happening if a perfect system were running everything. But it’s those imperfections and mistakes and slip-ups and all of the inconsistent, flawed parts of humanity that create connections and differences and make the world go ‘round. And in a world increasingly trying to make things more efficient and closer to “perfect”, this is what we risk losing.

YJ-14 was a “failure”. It failed at its job, and whatever routine it was supposed to be using to please Haru ended up becoming something inefficient and messy that helped derail Leviathan’s plans. For it, Yuujin ended up having doubts and pain, and having to face death. But as he puts it: because of all that, he got to meet Haru, and he got to be Haru’s friend, and live the kind of life a human would live, with happiness and aspirations and relationships to others. And, as it seems, that wild, messy life was fulfilling enough to be worth him sacrificing his life for Haru.

Besides, Haru was right: Yuujin wouldn’t have been able to do this if he didn’t have a heart. Artificial intelligence advancing also means advancing enough to understand this, too. And as Haru had told Leviathan earlier, while Leviathan insisted that everyone having the ability to make their own choices was making everyone miserable, Haru counters that all of their choices and will had been what allowed them to initially defeat Leviathan, too. Despite all the hardships they’d faced, they’d chosen to overcome those hardships, and came out the better for it.

The world Haru lives in is messy, ridiculous, and with a lot of problems everywhere. Leviathan may be gone by the end of the series, but the technology its world lives on still remains, and there’s still uncertainty in the future about what might happen with those future developments. But this was the world Haru and his friends chose to protect -- one that’s not perfect or clean by any means, but one where all the weird, strange zaniness makes it worth going through all the converse pain and misery for, because those mistakes and rough parts have meaning of their own, too.

Even if that means burning some eggs a few times.