#lit analysis is my passion and so is this book

[stroobae]

Okay so basically I got to do a presentation about chapter 30 from The Dream Thieves in my Creative Writing class and I got way to carried away writing a full analysis so I thought I'd post it here

I think this passage is so great because it's packed with symbols that completely encapsulate the character of Ronan Lynch. Firstly, we have Ronan’s tattoo, which holds a lot of significance in terms of its literal purpose and what it figuratively represents. We learn here that the literal purpose of the tattoo is to instill fear and intimidation among others. Ronan is a very damaged person, and uses his physical appearance as a warning sign for others to steer clear of him after his father dies. He has a shaved head, a permanent scowl, and most intimidating of all: a tattoo which stretches from the back of his neck all the way down to his waist. His tattoo has a lot of grotesque, frightening imagery in it, which is interesting considering its design is made up of “things from his head.” The fact that the dark imagery portrayed in his tattoo is from his head reveals the struggles and dark things that come out of his own mind. His tattoo is a literal manifestation of Ronan’s inner self portrayed in a scene on his back. He’s quite literally wearing his heart on his sleeve (or on his back rather). It’s also mentioned that Ronan has never been able to see the tattoo fully, because it’s on his back. It can only be seen by others standing behind him, and also, when he’s naked (which is something I’ll come back to later). I think that the placement of his tattoo specifically is a really important metaphor alongside the idea that Ronan’s tattoo represents his whole character and inner self. The fact that Ronan cannot see the whole picture of himself and only “bits and pieces” seems like a large indicator that Ronan doesn’t know fully who he is. In the prologue of The Dream Thieves, it’s stated that Ronan has three secrets, all of different natures; the nature of the second secret being one you keep even from yourself. So essentially, Ronan has a part of himself which he doesn't even truly understand, and I think that this is really accentuated by the fact that he can't see his whole tattoo (his inner self) because it's always behind him. However, others also can’t see the whole tattoo unless he takes his shirt off to show them. (BIG THING FOR LATER!)

In the epilogue of TDT you find out (along with Ronan himself) that he’s in love with one of his best friends, Adam. During this chapter, the reader hasn’t been told yet that Ronan is in love with Adam; mostly because the book follows his point of view, and he doesn’t actually know this about himself yet either. It’s made into a plot twist of sorts in the epilogue, and many readers said that they weren’t aware that it was coming at all. A lot of people felt that Ronan’s crush on Adam came out of nowhere. But if you’re me and love to look WAY too deep into every single line of a book, you’ll know that this isn’t the case at all. This dream is a dead giveaway of Ronan’s feelings. First of all, dreams–especially the way that they’re portrayed in this book–are a look into one’s inner conscience. Your dreams are able to display your deepest feelings and desires, even if you’re not consciously aware of them in real life. Ronan especially is a character who has walls built up, and doesn't verbally communicate how he feels to any other character. He doesn’t even allow himself to examine his own feelings/desires, and has a lack of self-vulnerability and personal emotional intelligence. So in his dreams, his most inner part of himself comes to the forefront of his mind and shows him things he didn’t even know he wanted. To validate this idea, we have the fact that Ronan can fully see his whole tattoo in this dream. His tattoo represents his inner self, and he is finally able to see this part of himself within his dream. The dream begins with Dream Adam tracing his tattoo, and in Latin (which I’ll unpack later) he says,“Scio quid hoc est” which roughly translates to “I know what this is.” Once again, returning to the idea that Ronan’s tattoo is a manifestation of himself, we have Adam physically touching it and telling Ronan he knows what the tattoo means. He understands its whole purpose; why Ronan got it, what it’s really depicting. Dream Adam isn’t intimidated by the tattoo like most people because of its gruesome imagery, but instead he knows that it’s really made up of things from Ronan’s conscience, that it’s a representation of who he is inside. What’s really being portrayed in this scene is Ronan’s desire to be truly known by someone, which is a common theme in the series. The fact that the person shown “knowing” Ronan in his dream is Adam specifically is really important as well. Up until this point, we know that Adam and Ronan are friends, their relationship is shown to be tense and is characterized by squabbles which are resolved by the end of the day. We don’t really know exactly how they feel about each other yet based on their surface level interactions. Therefore, this chapter is extremely important in developing their relationship. We now know partly about how Ronan truly feels about Adam. Not necessarily what their relationship currently is, but what he subconsciously wants it to be. Ronan wants to be known by Adam and believes that he has this capability, since it’s Adam who fills this role in his dream. 

In the dream, Dream Adam then transforms into Kavinsky, who’s the antagonist in this installment. Kavinsky is an adrenaline junky who’s presented to have an infatuation with Ronan. He gets him to do crazy things: dangerously drag race in the streets, take questionable dreamt-pills, and throw molotov cocktails at white Mitsubishis. He’s infatuated with Ronan mainly because of Ronan’s outward reputation and appearance, his mutual love for perilous activities, and the fact that they share the supernatural ability to take things out of their dreams. Kavinsky wants someone to enable him; who he can be an enabler to. Kavinsky thinks that they’re one in the same, and that Ronan is an exemplary candidate for a self-destructive partner. In Ronan’s dream, when Adam turns into Kavinsky, Ronan disappears entirely. He becomes only his tattoo, which gets smaller and smaller until it's simply a tiny Celtic knot. The notion that Ronan disappears and that his tattoo (all that’s left of him, a manifestation of his conscience) gets smaller when Kavinsky appears, shows that he literally feels small when he’s with him. Kavinsky belittles Ronan. He misunderstands who he is, and boils him down to his wildness and rash spontaneousness. He quite literally swallows Ronan whole in the dream; he destroys all that he is. Dream Kavinsky tells Ronan in Latin, “Scio quid estis vos'', which roughly translates to “I know what you are.” WOOOOOF. OH, IT'S SO GOOD. I GOT CHILLS. This could have SO many meanings. “I know what you are” could mean that Kavinsky knows that Ronan is a dreamer, just like himself, or it could also mean that he knows Ronan is gay (if we’re revisiting that idea of this dream bringing to the forefront parts of Ronan that he doesn’t know about himself yet). Adam and Kavinsky are complete opposites in Ronan’s dream, and furthermore, his life. The dream versions of the two represent what he wants, versus what he’s settled with. Currently, Ronan doesn’t think that he’s worthy of someone who truly knows and loves him. Instead, he’s resigned himself to a homoerotic unlabeled relationship with Kavinsky—who doesn't actually care about who he is, and only wants someone who he can destroy his life with. The exact phrasing of the things Dream Adam and Kavinsky separately say to Ronan are SO significant. Essentially they’re telling him the same thing: what they think they know about him. It's the words which they use to say this which makes these statements wildly different. Dream Adam says “I know what this is” about Ronan’s tattoo, meaning that he knows Ronan’s inner self. He knows this thing which he can’t normally see all of himself display of terrible things from his own mind. Dream Kavinsky says “I know what you are” which displays his assumption of Ronan’s outer character.  It’s a bold assumption and an incorrect one. The difference between Adam and Kavinsky to Ronan, is that Ronan wants Adam because he’s different from himself, and doesn’t want Kavinsky because he’s too similar to him. To an extent, I think Ronan fears Kavinsky because he’s who Ronan would be if he didn’t have Gansey or Adam in his life to keep him sane. Initially, Ronan does like to have someone to let off steam with, but he eventually realizes doesn't want an enabler to ruin his life with. He wants someone like Adam–his polar opposite–to know him, to ground him. He wants to feel alive, and awake. 

Another interesting element to this chapter is that Ronan’s dream seems to be erotic in nature; it’s a wet-dream. This is a little jarring for a YA novel, but I personally think eroticsm and sex used in literature as metaphors for conveying relationships and character vulnerability is really beautiful and clever. The significance of it being a sex dream is the fact that Ronan, as previously stated, isn’t someone who verbalizes his love for people. He shows it through physical intimacy and acts of service. Intercourse is literally as close as one can be with another person, and Ronan is completely vulnerable and laid bare in this moment. In it Ronan is naked, which we know because the dream begins with Adam tracing the tattoo all the way down his bare back. Remember, Ronan’s tattoo can only be seen fully when he’s naked, which adds another layer to this. Here it’s assumed that he had allowed Dream Adam to see his tattoo, because he had to have taken off his shirt to see it. Circling back Ronan’s tattoo placement, it’s something that not only can’t be fully seen by himself, but also can’t be fully seen by others unless he decides to strip naked for them. Here he allows Adam to see it and even trace the lines of it down his back. He felt comfortable enough to be vulnerable with Adam like that, and to inspect his whole being. The fact that Kavinsky then appears and the tattoo becomes smaller represents Ronan's uncomfortability with Kavinsky. He didn’t mean for him to see that part of himself and shrinks away in shame until Kavinsky devours the tattoo without permission. It really enforces the idea that Ronan wants and chooses Adam, but Kavinsky forces himself into his life and takes from Ronan without asking. Finally, Ronan awakes from his wet dream “euphoric and ashamed.” This could either be about the fact that it was a sex dream with not one, but other boys, or the confrontation of his true desires. He’s ashamed to admit what he really wants, and doesn’t allow himself to fully comprehend what this dream means. Ronan even thinks that he never wants to sleep again, which really means that he doesn't want his dreams to confront him with his true feelings again. This can tie into the metaphor about Ronan’s sexuality in terms of the fact that he got off to Adam and then Kavinsky, or that he doesn’t want to let his guard down and admit what he truly wants. 

It’s now finally time to unpack the use of Latin! Hooray! Throughout the series, we’re shown that Ronan is really flippant about school. He’s constantly on the brink of expulsion from Aglionby because he doesn’t go to any of his classes or do any of the work. However, the one class he has consistent attendance in as well as the highest overall grade is Latin—second to his proficiency in the language is Adam. They’re both in the same class, and are said to be able to almost fully understand and speak perfect Latin. The use of this dead language is a common theme in the series, and almost all of Ronan’s dreams are in latin. There’s an underlying meaning in that alone. A fun tidbit if we’re looking into the meaning of latin phrases we have the imagery of “claws and beak” described about the imagery of Ronan’s tattoo. The latin phrase “Unguibus et rostro” translates to “claws and beak” and is an expression about fighting with everything you have for something you want. It’s idiomatically comparable to phrases like “heart and soul” and “with all one’s strength” (thanks to ravenclawsandbeak on tumblr for sharing this finding with the fans).  In the final book in the series, there’s a short chapter which is essentially a call-back to this chapter, and follows the format in which it’s written pretty clearly. However, Ronan is awake this time rather than dreaming. 

This chapter is more or less a sex scene between Ronan and Adam, and is essentially the exact opposite to Ronan’s wet dream in TDT. Here, Ronan’s desires are no longer a fantasy that came to him in a dream, he finally has exactly what he’s wanted all along. in which they admit their feelings for each other, which is done indirectly and not through words. The fact that it's through a sex scene is significant because it's showing their intimacy. Intercourse between people is literally as close as two people can get. As a couple, Adam and Ronan rarely verbalize their feelings about each other, and so this intimate act is really them letting down their walls and allowing themselves to be completely vulnerable to each other. Here, we have Adam studying Ronan's tattoo in real life this time, just like in his dream (Something he’s only able to do because Ronan allowed him). He sees all the fine details in its design, and interestingly enough, speaks aloud this latin phrase “Unguibus et rostro” (This also begins a common theme of Ronan and Adam speaking in cryptic latin phrases rather than just actually telling the other of how they feel about each other, but that's a story for another time). This, as everything else does, has multiple meanings; it shows that not only Adam correctly interprets the imagery on tattoo, showing that now he does truly know and understand Ronan’s inner self. But also it reiterates the meaning of this phrase: that Ronan has appropriately fought with all he had for what he wants. He was able to reject Kavinsky and stay true to himself and his principles, and he realized his feelings for Adam, and was able to let his guard down enough to reach out to Adam and let him know how he actually felt about him. And similarly, he allowed Adam to love him back. 

So why did Maggie Stiefvater include the chapter in TDT? It completely breaks the flow of the main story, interrupts two other character’s POVs, and comes seemingly out of nowhere. It's not described where Ronan is, who he came to sleep, when it’s happening. It feels as if the placement of this chapter didn’t matter; it could appear anywhere and still have the same effect. My theory? I think that Stiefvater specifically placed this chapter here because she thought it was an appropriate time to learn more about Ronan, and she wanted the chapter to stick out due to shock value. Because it’s at such a seemingly random moment, and its content is brief and strange, it’s a stark outlier from the rest of the chapters. For me, this strategy totally worked. When I think back to this book, this chapter is by far the most memorable one. I remember it almost immediately when I think about any specific line/chapter from this book. Even though the dream seems random and complex, it has so much meaning packed into it about Ronan’s inner conscience and character. Stiefvater wants to reveal all of these things about Ronan previously analyzed without directly telling us. 

[melliae]

Refraction Railway Line #3 Abnormalities Part 2 (Analysis)

A False Prophet

“@$*@)$ ?@#$!!@#* !@*()!%&$(^!!!!@&(@)” - Abnormality Encounter.

Arguably, this one was a headache to analyze, and that may be the point of its existence: it doesn’t write for any necessity or greater purpose beyond its own twisted pleasure. It is so absorbed in its own writing, trying to reveal and write the future (wink), that it doesn’t notice that it burns everything around with its quill, returning all interactions with another being with pure, unaltered hatred due to them daring to interrupt its self-serving writing.

Obviously, understanding that much is the easy part; even the characters themselves do. However, now comes the actual question: what is the Skin Prophet exactly writing?

“Yearning for destruction and doom, it writes and writes and writes.” - Abnormality Encounter.

Its own selfish, biased predictions about how everything ends, naturally. It endlessly writes and delights in its own imagination about all kinds of dooms, ruins and falsehoods which, again, don’t serve any purpose beyond its own pleasure. If we take into consideration how its self-damaging skill, “6:5”, may be based on Isaiah 6:5, everything coincides:

“‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.’”

When actual darkness sets in, when Skin Prophet can finally see only itself instead of being distracted by anyone else or its own writing, “God”—the actual truth—appears… and “He” smites it down. This is telling because, in the Encounter itself and the Logs, is mentioned the candles are lit from the get go (or they constantly go on and off), meaning that it’s never surrounded by absolute darkness, going against the presumed meaning of “9:2”:

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” - Isaiah 9:2

Despite using its intense wrath to turn off all the candles, the surroundings never go fully dark thanks to its pen and eyes—it’s unable to confront the bitter, cold truth that lies in the abyssal depths. That’s both the reason why it is, above all, weak to Gloom, and why it disappears once you choose to “snuff out the candles”: you turn off all that distracts it from what’s true, thus making it confront the contradictory nature of its existence.

“The records, inscribed with that burning quill, are endless. Yet the prophet must write. Because the future is also endless.” - Mid-Combat Event.

How can it write about the endless future if the only thing it yearns for is ruin and doom? To see the worst of everything despite being incapable of confronting true darkness?

In regards to the other check options, they add more to it: choosing to “peek at the book” when encountering it in the MDs ends up with every Lustless ID losing 20 SP; in contrast, passing the check in the mid-combat Event—which requires Lust, by that matter—also leads to -20 SP in the selected ID, independent of affinity. That’s to say, reading Skin Prophet’s “gospel” is a bad idea for just about everyone. But those who are familiar with the violent sway of desire can appreciate its reprehensible contents, even if comprehending such garbage is impossible.

No matter with how much zealousness it writes all its prophecies, thinking they are some sort of divine revelation, because Skin Prophet is just that: a skin-deep, false prophet trying to justify its twisted perception of a half-baked evil, because in the moment it knows true desolation and darkness, it collapses. But at the same time, nobody can deny the obsessive passion engraved in the incomprehensible ramblings, enough for even the most “depraved” people to be shaken to their core.

“Because had they not done so, they could not have endured this world. Because they were weak! I was their lighthouse in this world of tempest… I gave them an unambiguous path to follow!” - Ahab, Inside the Whale (Sinew Bridge), Canto V.

Unreflective, contagious madness about knowing—wishing for—evil, spreading like a wildfire…Surely there are many people or organizations like that in the City, guiding others through self-serving fabrications.

Hatred for All

“You feel a cold wave crawl up your spine in an instant, but it may be the right choice. Even children know not to play with fire.” - Abnormality Encounter.

It hates you. It hates you so goddamn much. Even more than Spiral of Contempt. Though it may be more accurate to say that it hates the entire world, including itself, “hoping to burn all down” according to Ishmael’s corrosion line and as its capacity to turn every skill into a Wrath-based one shows. But at the same time, it's a homely presence, unable to guide anyone yet offering a warm embrace anyway.

“These flames… they do not burn; they only bring us warmth. Perhaps accepting them may be of benefit to us.” - Yi Sang, Abnormality’s Observation Log #1

However, the only way to endure that embrace is through understanding and already holding such devastating wrath. Those who don’t have it will be consumed by the embers and set ablaze by the Moth’s wings, who has accepted a long time ago that way of existing, as its Sloth skills, “Flame Strike” and “Ardor Blossom Pinions”, clearly show: it slowly, lazily—or maybe “mechanically”—strikes the embers within its wings.

The rest of its skills are similar in nature, slowly building up and fanning its fire through the battle until it reaches 5 Embers and its infamous “Ardor Blossom Star”, when there’s no more Sloth nor Pride regarding its existence, just pure hatred for everything that exists, even you, that has entered its territory.

“Something draws you into the haze. Countless flowers in the shape of a butterfly flutter and form a field of stars. A fiery heat assaults you from the haze as you lean over to pick a flower.” - Abnormality Encounter.

Though, if you are able to destroy its wings or remove its “core” during its mid-combat Event, its wrath stops suddenly, since you have taken away the fuel of its flames… but not forever. No matter what you do, Ardor Blossom Moth will keep on accumulating hate until it can burn down everything that surrounds it, even—or especially—itself.

The moth is no more than a lost soul that wishes to end everything. You can’t help it beyond just ignoring it and following your path. Or, if you want to take the risk, go and drown it in sorrows, cut its wings; it may not be 100% effective, but it sure is a better option than feeding its flames through a hug, lest you think you are able to withstand its unending hatred that created its own hell.

Maybe watching from a distance is safer, no matter how warm and comforting the fire—the hate—looks.

The Spiral of Contempt

“Blood pours from above; the land of gold lies beyond. The spiral ahead loudly screeches. It must have reached this depth after burrowing and burrowing. Although it has no eyes, it creaks to face you.” - Abnormality Encounter.

A land of gold and blood. Those are the defining traits of the Spiral’s world, and they are extremely easy to understand: a land of luxury, pleasure and loftiness built over the sacrifice of endless bloodshed. After all, the Spiral only reached it after burrowing so, so much, but in what it burrows if not in the human’s soul?

“You continue to stare at its peculiar movements with yearning eyes. It feels as though spirals of spikes are digging into your head.” - Abnormality Encounter.

It sacrifices those who look with awe at its golden shape, those who adore it with fervor. Yet, the Spiral can’t detest them more, wrapping its spines and branches around its “adorers” in order to make them worship it with their blood. That’s the reason behind both the unique death animation of the Sinners, and of its new EGO gift, “Awe”—as if it wanted people to be envious of its “magnanimity”, even in death.

However, its prideful nature isn’t anything new. Each of its descriptions never fails to mention its “faceless look” of contempt against everyone. But it would be too simple for its arrogance to be born out of economic difference, wouldn't it? All of its attacks point to an impersonality in things, maybe even some sort of “objectivity”, as if it was the good thing to do: the Spiral is so superior to you that it must hate you. I think the name of its theme puts the final nail in the coffin: Cur Dolorem Sentis—Why do you, wretched things, dare to feel pain?

But as in everything I’ve written, the Spiral’s pride isn’t absolute. Quite the contrary: it’s quite frail, because it forgives you once you choose to avert your eyes in its Encounter, be it thanks to your own (self-)hatred or despair, unable to think of yourself as worthy to look at it. That, paradoxically, leads it to show respect for “a being of no significance” in the form of its EGO gift, making it hate itself.

Such fragility is also shown in its passives, “Compounded Contempt” and “Penetrated Gaze”, that make it more vulnerable the more status the Sinners put on it, the more “filth” that penetrates it and makes it hate them even more. The status of “Gaze” and “Contempt” are important in this context too, which are explained by the Observation Log #3:

“We've been missing its logic and pattern this whole time. There’s a specific window where it grabs us if we attack its hands. At first, I thought it was just plucking us one by one, like plucking weeds from a garden… going for the most annoying one of us. You see the logic, right? If you could squash anything getting in your way into tomato paste, wouldn’t you?”

The “Gaze” status, thus, refers to the Spiral giving the Sinners more attention (than it thinks they deserve), until it has enough and intimidates the Sinners through sheer “Contempt” alone. However, if that ID with Contempt is “Grasped” by its only Pride skill, “It Shall Constrict”, then you can show it the truth: that no matter how much contempt it holds for others and tries to crush them to show how superior it is, the Spiral is just as small, pathetic and fallible as everyone else.

“A piercing gaze sizes us up. It feels as though the Gaze is seeing right through us. You feel its inquisitive, intense gaze.” - Mid-Combat Event.

What is that “Gaze” that sizes the Sinners up? I don’t really know. But I think it is may the Spiral’s very own gaze, with the Sinners finally returning the contempt and hatred, burrowing deep into its essence so it won’t ever forgive its humiliation

“It seemed dazed for a good while, too. And that’s when we managed to really hurt it. Mmm… still, we have to let it gaze at us with that weird look if we wanna pull off something like that again.” - Rodya, Abnormality’s Observation Log #3.

Though, as always, if the Sinner isn’t familiar with the sensations and power they want to transmit to the Spiral, it’ll return the favor with utter Contempt.

Now, it’s also important to keep in mind that its “Gaze” can be forgotten if it uses “And It Shall Contempt All”, drowned by its pleasure and satisfaction derived from seeing the Sinners bleed like the lowly maggots they are. Its other Lust skills follow a similar principle: the Spiral is ecstatic at seeing the Sinners bleed through “It Shall Penetrate”, and “It Shall Shun” becomes stronger once it sees the Sinners are unable to break its “Grasp”.

In regards to the other two skills, “It Shall Grip” is the less interesting: It “grips” the Sinners and other people because that is what it has been doing for a long time, and thus nothing special. But “It Shall Be Insidious”... That one is interesting, because it implies its hatred wasn’t abrupt; but that it slowly grew through its continuous burrowing until it reached the heights we see in the games. After all, it’s called “Spiral of Contempt” for a reason.

And maybe that “spiral” is within you too.

“From the excavated brain, geysers of hatred and contempt erupt.  It’s as if those feelings were inside you all along." - Abnormality Encounter.

Hatred for something from the get-go is not possible, or at least not for most cases. It’s something that piles up gradually, experience upon experience, until a trigger appears and your brain is blown into smithereens—burrowing so slowly until you reach the “land of gold”, the perfect utopia for you.

But alas, you shouldn’t construct a city upon the blood of those you hate or adore you, or you will one day confront that very same gaze that you imparted unto others. And no matter what you do, how much contempt you hold for them and expose every single one of their flaws with your “omniscient gaze”, they will drag you once and for all.

Everyone dreams of toppling the tyrant. You are no exception.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Hi, fellow English major here! Sorry if this is personal - are there any career paths you’d recommend? I’ve thought either journalism or academia (might do a masters for either!) though I’ve heard college teaching is now super precarious.

Well tumblr just ate everything I wrote. Grr.

This is a bit of a hard question to answer and it's really complicated, without knowing why you're into journalism or why you're considering teaching. I don't know a whole lot about these fields, but what I do know is that they both involve research, collaboration, writing, the day-to-day is different, and you have to be kinda peopley. If that sounds like you, then some other options to look into would be research, analysis, or librarianship.

Higher ed/college academia is...going through some things right now. (I've got friends in that world.) It's largely down to two things - one, culture wars and two, the demographic cliff. I don't want to discourage you from that if that's where your heart is, but it's going to be a difficult ride. Tenure isn't a guarantee anymore, you might have to move around more than you've expected, budgets are getting tighter and they're coming with a million more strings, and hiring is a bit stagnant. The message I hear from my higher ed friends is that if you want to go into higher ed or academia, you better make sure you're doing it for the passion, not the tenure or the paycheck.

And grad school. Only go if you're absolutely entirely 100% certain you need that master's to get the career you want. The economy being what it is, the interest rates being what they are, costs and fees being what they are, how fast and quickly certain fields are changing because of tech, I don't know that the value is there anymore if you're on the fence or you're doing it because it's what you're supposed to do. Grad school will still be there in a few years so you can always go back to school.

If you're open to a more broader perspective of the English major's postgrad experience and advice, then

In this essay I will give you a nonanswer answer in three parts:

What do you like about studying English? Why did you choose English in the first place?

It's not about the English lit. It's about the soft skills.

In the end, it doesn't actually even matter.

Colleges, universities, career offices, and departments really struggle with career advice and career planning. They only know what they know, right, so they have a tendency to promote the obvious career paths because that's what their experience is -- English majors go into academia, history majors go into museums, pre-med majors go into medicine, etc. However, that's just one option. I think it's harder for these folks to know what's really out there because they're just not familiar with it, and that's why they rely so much on their alumni to fill in the gaps but it still leaves students in the dark having to find their own way out. (I do think it's changing, though. My friends in higher ed said that there's a lot more focus "beyond the classroom" to prepare students for the real post-college life and more diverse careers.)

So let's get into it.

What do you like about studying English? What made you choose English in the first place?

Is it the reading? Do you like the debate and discussion? Is it the creative process? Do you like writing? Do you like the analysis? The research? If you narrow down why you like English, it can be super helpful finding "non-traditional" career paths.

For example:

If you like reading, then look at publishing or editing.

If it's the creativity or the creative process, then consider marketing or advertising.

If you like the discussions and debating plot points, maybe you're a lawyer.

If you like the community of book world, then maybe you're a bookseller or a librarian.

If you like writing and the writing process, definitely look into journalism, but there's also content editing, communications, technical writing, ghostwriting, food recipe writing, etc.

If you like analyzing literature, look into being an analyst.

If it's the research, go into research or research librarianship

And remember, these are just super broad and high-level career paths. Within each career field, there's a million different options to narrow it even further. Like librarians or writers or advertising.

It's not about the literature. It's about the soft skills.

Colleges and college students often think that the only career options they have are the ones that deal specifically in the hard skills their coursework studies - English majors become writers or teachers, history majors become historians, geography majors become geographers and mapmakers. But the reality is that the people who do exactly the work that their major studied are few and far between. Most of us end up with careers that have nothing to do with what we studied. For instance, in my friend group (there's about 9 of us) only one actually does the specialty he studied for - he has a physics degree and he does physicsy stuff for a lab. The rest of us are all over the place, like

the Chemistry major now does IT sales.

the Geography major is the International Studies director for a midsized university.

the French major is an accounts manager for a higher education consulting firm.

And it's all about the soft skills. Those are what set us up for success. Off the top of my head, these are the soft skills you're practicing in your English major coursework:

Reading and reading comprehension

Writing

Writing for different audiences (eg. you know Professor X is really into symbolism so your papers for his class will focus on symbolism, which is different from Professor Y who wants you to talk about literary theory, which is different from Professor Z who's obsessed with victorian panopticism so you know you need to include Foucault and -- shoot, that's my PTSD escaping.)

Analyzing different kinds of information and knowing the methods/tools (for instance, analyzing poetry is very different from analyzing scientific research)

Doing research (knowing how and where to find information)

Vetting sources

Speaking about and defending your work

Taking, incorporating, and giving feedback

Working on deadlines

Collaborating with people

Attention to detail

Organizing information

And guess what? This is the day-to-day work that all of us do in our careers. These are the tools necessary for success in pretty much anything: project/program/product management, sales, consulting, contracting, IT, business, HR.

So if you're having trouble finding work in a classically English field like journalism or academia or you can't figure out if you're qualified for a position, use these soft skills. If they show up in the description of duties/responsibilities, you're qualified! Apply! Don't focus too much on the job title or the company.

Take Kate for an example. Her degree is in art history, but she's never worked in a classical art history field - i.e., she's never worked in an art museum and she isn't having conversations on Remembrandt vs Van Gogh. But she is using her degree anyway - her attention to detail and her research skills means she shows up prepared every day, her knowledge of color theory means the photos she gives us of her family and their appearances are pleasing to look at, she can communicate easily to different audiences (eg outdoorsy clothes and casual attitude for Scouts vs coatdresses and formality for Westminster Abbey).

In the end, it doesn't actually even matter.

It really doesn't. Particularly for a humanities major, the more you lean into your soft skills, the easier it'll be to find a career path that works for you. Some examples...

If you like working with people, you love organizing things, and your attention to detail is *chefs kiss*, you might be a project manager and project managers are everywhere.

If you like writing, talking to people, and you're a planner, maybe you're a communications specialist or a speechwriter.

Maybe you like writing and you like doing research, but you don't want to go to grad school, look at becoming an acquisitions specialist or a contracting officer.

If you're into language and linguistics, maybe you're a book translator or an interpreter. (Just don't work with Omid Scobie!)

This is where I think college advisors struggle. They tell students to be open to possibility, but they don't tell you what possibility is. I remember going in for career advising and the conversation went something like this:

Me: I don't want to teach but I like writing and research. What can I do? Dr. S: You can do anything you want! Me: What does that mean? Dr. S: You don't have to teach! You can do whatever you want! Me: BUT WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN.

(Dr. S was later fired for drunk driving with students in the car so...she probably wasn't the best person for the department to appoint as the career advisor. Or Department Chair.)

It took me until about two years ago to realize what Dr. S meant by "you can do anything you want." She (and a lot of the people at my university) just didn't know how to explain what they meant. I think part of that is because "soft skills" wasn't really a thing a lot of people were talking about 10, 15 years ago outside a corporate environment, and it does seem to be changing now, and universities have begun teaching and showing students how to connect coursework, sports, clubs and student activities, and volunteering to soft skills and "business"-minded concepts.

Just be open to considering career paths that aren't traditionally lit-focused, like business or IT. It'll be the soft skills that set you apart and help you be successful, not how well you can you can argue symbolism or read seventeenth-century poetry or recite Shakespeare. Leave it for your hobbies.

So here's an example of what I mean by being open to other career paths. As I mentioned before, I do have a B.A. in English and my focus was modern American fiction. I went into college thinking that I'd be a writer or do something in movies - I was going to be either the American JK Rowling, the millennial Meg Cabot, or the female Aaron Sorkin. (Reader, I was not and will never be.)

But in reality, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I looked into publishing, high school teaching, college professorship, creative writing, scriptwriting, but nothing was panning out. Eventually I signed up for a summer internship program with the federal government (my parents were feds) thinking "at least I'll get my internship credit and know what NOT to do". The internship ended up being with a research library, I absolutely loved it, decided "this is it, I'm going to get my MSLIS and be a librarian and do research and write research papers forever!" (MSLIS is Master of Science in Library and Information Science). They invited me to come back again the next summer, which I accepted, and my dear amazing supervisor (let's call her "Marian") somehow convinced the bosses to pull me on full-time when the internship ended and to support my grad school coursework.

Went directly from undergrad to grad and hated it. 15 years ago was an interesting time in the library world; it was right when the field transitioning from information to data so it was less about working with research and more about organizing and using data. In effect, it was moving away from the world of books/information ("Englishy" type stuff) and moving fully into the realms of data and computer science. Not what I expected and for someone who was on the research librarian track, having to take classes on data analysis, computer science, website management, and HTML coding, it was torture. But that was where the industry was going so get on board or drop out. Meanwhile, the research library I was working in was also changing. We were changing from being a library and doing research to being a repository of databases and facilitating access to research. The bosses got wind that I was looking to jump ship and said:

"She's got a really weird brain full of really random stuff but ask her a question about something she looked up 3 years ago and she can remember exactly what it was, where she found the information, how it applied to whatever you need, and the exact notebook she wrote it down in. She knows how to get information from people so let's make her a sub-project manager on this new database tool with Bob to see if she's as good as Marian says she is and maybe we can steal her from the librarians because they're all retiring soon anyway." (I'm paraphrasing here but yes, they specifically wanted me because I have a crazy attention to detail.)

So I abandoned the librarians (they were all retiring anyway and were like two resignations away from reorganizing the department), went over to the IT side to become a project manager and one month into the project with Bob, Bob was in a horrible car accident, had a severe TBI, and ended up taking medical retirement because his recovery was going to be years long. (Bob's okay now. I had dinner with him last month.)

I did not get a new PM to shadow or partner with. I was left to do the whole thing on my own with a senior devops team who didn't like that a no-nothing 24 year old kid was in charge of them. But it all worked out in the end. I earned devops' loyalty, we had fun, we impressed the client, the bosses were happy and I found that I really liked project management and even better, I was really good at it. I did that for ten years, until one of the bosses who'd left about four years prior (and with whom I still kept in touch, who knew I didn't like the techy database stuff they kept pushing me into) said "psst, hey, come work for me" and I said "can I start tomorrow."

So very long story short, being open to possibilities is how I ended up a) working for the federal government, b) falling into IT and project management, and c) now doing policy analysis and program evaluation. I didn't even know English majors could do this kind of stuff 15 years ago. I thought you had to have business degrees for all this.

What I mean is you don't need to abandon your interests in journalism and academia. If that's what you want to do, you go girl (or guy or they) - all the English majors are here rooting for you. But if you're not sure, don't close yourself off from the non-traditional English career paths.

And also don't worry too much about it. You'll find what you were meant to do, whether you figure it out right now or it takes you 4 years and grad school or it takes you 10 years.

Maybe you do go into journalism, and it's not for you. Dust off your list of soft skills and polish your resume and go find your next step. Or maybe you go into academia, realize you don't like teaching, but hey, that job in Student Affairs looks interesting -- go for it! What have you got to lose?

You probably weren't expecting another literal essay on this, so my apologies for that. But in my defense, I did say it was a complicated question to answer!

Please, feel free to ask more questions! I promise to try to be less long-winded. (No guarantees, though.)

Also a tip about resumes. I am horrible at writing resumes but I found this incredible tool called Jobscan.co. You upload your resume and the job listing you're applying to, and then it compares them and flags things in your resume based on the job listing and suggests tips to improve. It's based on the same ATS optimization technology that real hiring managers use to screen their applicants.

[freyjas-musings]

Elriels making a fuss about people using their degree is such hypocrisy when they have had psychologists and medical students giving unsolicited advice on fictional characters. There is nothing wrong if someone wants to use their degree, you have been in this fandom long what are your thoughts on it?

Hello Anon,

I hope this is a genuine question and not a bait.

Irrespective of how long I have been in this fandom my OPINION on the matter is this -

1. It's ridiculous for psychologists to provide their expertise based off of human psychology for a SA survivor who is Fae and fictional. Unless there is a university that's offering courses specialising in Fae and they graduated from there their expertise on the matter is unsolicited and null and void. Even if they said yes I specialise in Fae who are immortal, then the question of what sort of Fae comes through.... just within SJMs universe the Fae are anatomically different between TOG ACOTAR and CC.... so you see that clown 🤡 shouldn't be taken seriously. Same goes for medical advices .... The above two are not the same as someone wanting to use their Lit degree to analyse ACOTAR which does come under literature.

2. People can use any test subject to use their skill and knowledge. If someone is saying I want to use my degree to analyse ACOTAR books then that's their choice. There is nothing wrong with it.

Comprehension and Analysis are two different things .Comprehension is basically interpretation and conclusions you draw based on that .

Analysis goes deeper, you identify patterns based on X number of test subject anomalies and then come to set of conclusions.

So, if someone wants to deep dive and perform an analysis using the tools and knowledge they gained from their hard earned degree its fine I just don't see what's the need for people to spoil their fun. It's also anti intellectualism and prejudice to say because someone else doesn't have the means to go to a university no one should use their degree or speak of it. We can all empathise with the fact that not everyone can afford University educations, but disregarding or disrespecting those who have worked their asses off and trying to guilt them for having a degree is not necessary and fucking disgusting.

Does a Lit degree give a person an edge in comprehending and understanding ACOTAR which is written best at 10th grade English level.... The answer is No ... it doesn't. Before someone says I don't respect Lit degree holders I will have you know my mum has a Bachelors and Masters in literature ... she also has a degree in science but decided to pursue Literature because she was passionate. In our house we respect people with Lit degrees.

You don't need a Lit degree to understand SJM books or comprehend those books. I wouldn't tell you all I am an Electrical engineer so I simply have better understanding of how a coal powered generation plant works .... that i am simply better than most of you ( The working principal is 9th grade science )... its embarrassing for me to use my degree as a flex there ..... but ..... I do have a more in depth knowledge of how the plant works beyond the basics , I will be able to tell you exactly how much power will be generated based on the turbine speed and the surface area of the turbine blade , what sort of efficiency are we looking at , what sort of loses , protection curves and so forth. Is it something everyone should know? No.

So Analysis using a Lit degree does allow them to gain a visibility of the authors patterns and writing techniques better. But you don't need it to see she is going for Gwynriel or Elucien or Elriel.... it is definitely not a flex.

3. Elriels trying to shame people who have a degree is akin to the bitter old generationsal women who compensate their insecurity by degrading women today who both work and manage families by disregarding their effort or by finding faults.

As long as someone doesn't come to you and say what I say goes because I have degree .... there is no reason to get your panties in a twist.

These are fictional books most of us read to escape our shit lives just let us have fun.

[lifebetweenpages]

MY FAVOURITE WRITER-ISH MOVIES

You’ve read the title correctly, and I can hear you saying: “Lifebetweenpages, you’re still not giving us a recap of the books you have read over the past month (plus a few weeks, give or take)! Bad Bookblr creator!” However, instead, I am giving you my list of movies to watch when you are out of ideas for your books, can’t be bothered to read and still want to feel like an intelligent author. We’ve all been there.

I can also hear you saying “But Lifebetweenpages, how can you be a trustworthy authority on writer things? You’re our favourite bibliomane, not our favourite author!” To this, I raise two points:

I have been writing silly little books since I was virtually a toddler, and I have three main projects sitting dejectedly in my Google Docs currently, my novel which I work on most frequently sitting at an upsettingly ‘decent’ 23k words.

I do imagine you would have more faith in me, dear hypothetical followers, seeing as you only exist in my synapses, and I would hope I hold higher opinions about myself than that. However, I believe many of you (hypothetically) should have (hypothetically) guessed that I’m a writer as well as a reader, seeing as all writers read and many readers write.

Now with that out of the way, let’s jump into our list, and by list I mean my ramblings about two very specific movies.

1 - DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989)

I’ve decided to put the obvious up first, so you can skim through this if you have either watched this incredible movie or have already heard glowing reviews.

With its heavy focus on classic poetry and message of embracing the arts and following your passions, it’s not a surprise that Dead Poets Society has became the artist’s top pick movie and a cliche staple on this sort of snappy list.

When I say the movie focuses on poetry, I mean a much stronger term. Dead Poets Society promotes poetry in a way, showing the viewer the truth, joy and magic that comes with the form of art, inspiring them to go out and seize it. If that doesn’t help sell the movie to you, just note that my friends and I, who come out of every poetry analysis in English class with our eyes glazed over, were inspired to create our own Dead Poets Society, meeting every so often. In fact, we reconvene in two days time at the time of writing, and I still need to pick a poem (and it will be a Sylvia Plath.)

Another element that stands out in Dead Poets Society is the atmosphere of the film, somehow drawing in: a contagious teenage sense of wonder and mischief, world-destroying grief, and that Dark Academia aesthetic that people on the internet adore and my blog leans into all together.

So please, even if you aren’t a writer or reader and have stumbled onto this page confused and startled, give this movie a watch, for your own world to be changed if not just for me.

2 - TICK, TICK... BOOM! (2021)

You know the overwhelming sense of doom that comes with attempting to make your mark on the world? Do you recognise the sense of dread that drowns you whenever you remember the concept of time? Well so did Jonathan Larson, and he documented the experience expertly when writing Tick, Tick… BOOM!

Lately, I’ve been hearing this sound. Everywhere I go. Like a tick. Tick. Tick. Like a time bomb in some cheesy B-movie or Saturday morning cartoon. The fuse has been lit. The clock counts down the seconds as the flame gets closer, and closer, and closer, until all at once -

This was written years before he achieved fame with RENT, years before his genius was appreciated, and years before his untimely death from an aortic dissection. Tick, tick... BOOM! was written when Jonathan was relatively unknown, struggling with balancing work, social life and his art, and completely confused as how to tackle the final fragment that was needed to complete the musical he had been working on for the entirety of his youth, fighting against the tides of the ever-chasing deadline of Superbia's first showcase. Whatever your art is, I imagine you can relate to the desperation of Jonathan.

Andrew Garfield, who plays Jonathan Larson, perfectly portrays the starving artist, ever frantic to please, ever submerged in just how much there is to balance, ever striving to make a difference, and it almost feels as if he has held a mirror up to the artist's soul, portraying all of the irrationality and the unintentional selfishness as well as the charisma and the creativity that I see in myself every time I look into my mind for more than one second.

All of these factors and more that I can't find the words to describe (which is a lot for me, because I always find some words, however shallow they may be) makes Tick, Tick... BOOM! one of my favourite movies. Plus, the songs are absolute magic (I have a very strange favourite - Play Game - how can a song parodying 90s hip hop reflect upon the commercialisation of theatre in such an eloquent way?)

So those are my recommendations for all your tired writer needs, and once you do watch these, my asks are open for you to wax poetic about their glory.

[hate-the-am-hate-the-pm]

previously: kaitogeijutsu

for myself:

-> #private: thing for myself i wanna remember

-> #personal: anything related to me or anything i want to keep for some reason

-> #stories: self explanatory

-> #e: miscellaneous stuff hfjwhdjd

-> #classic posts: classics lmao

-> #beatdown: when people are just getting absolutely beatdown in arguments its funny or just something/someone getting a beatdown

-> #life: just. yknow. stuff abt being alive and making life as good as you can and enjoying yourseld ans loving yourself and loving others and yknow living

-> #long post: looooong boy posts heh

-> #nsfw: anythin nsfw

-> #heritage posts: heritage posts fjjsjd

law and political stuff:

-> #law: stuff related to law

-> #court: stuff related to court

-> #politics(?): stuff i think??? is sorta related to politics maybe??

books/show/anything else literary:

-> #sherlock holmes: sherlock holmes stuff

-> #writing: stuff that's original work or something

-> #analysis: analysis stuff, jokey or otherwise

-> #poetry and quotes: self explanatory

-> #oda: anythin related to oda that isn't really like really really related to one piece

#op: ONE PIECE STUFF! i love one piece with such a burning passion but yes anything one piece related

#strawhats: the strawhats fjjdkfkqkq or anyone in the strawhats

#heart pirates: anythin heart pirates related

-> #honor among thieves, #dndhat, #hat, #dnd movie: the dnd honor among thieves movie stuff jdnakkdjs

#xenk yendar, #xenk: anything related to this hot ass paladin that i love with my whole entire being my gods

#edgin darvis, #edgin, #ed: edgin my beloved bard??? rogue??????? anyways he's somethin alright

#kira darvis, #kira: the child

#holga kilgore, #holga: gods ifbkadjskjdkfjwkjsjfjwjsj hot mommy

#doric: MY BELOVED TIEFLING DRUID JRJSKDJDKA

#simon aumar, #simon: simon hehe

-> #marvel: marvel stuff

#spiderman: anythin spiderman related

#atsv: across the spiderverse stuff

#hobie brown, #hobie, #spiderpunk: HOBIE BROWN MY BELOVED MY ANARCHIST MY EVERYTHINGJDKSKDD

#miguel o'hara, #miguel, #spiderman2099: the truamatized old latino man that i am absolutely feral for

#miles morales, #miles: miles sweetheart i love him hes so bby

#gwen stacy, #gwen: gwen the drummer my beloved also

#pavitr prabhakar, #pavitr, #pav: pav my bby boy i loooove him heheh

#miles 42, #prowler: MILES 42 HHDKSKDJE I LOVE LOVE LOVE

#peter b. parker, #peter: tired man whos' sexual appeal i get cause he be hot man😩

#mayday parker, #mayday: MAYDAY BBY SHES SO TEENSY SO CUTE MY BBY ARAÑA

#mj watson, #mj: my wife.

#spidernoir: my malewife.

#peni parker, peni: sweetest girl, she deserves the world

-> #cod: anythin call of duty

#price, #john price, #captain price: anythin price relateddd

#soap, #john mactavish, #johnny: johnnyyyyyy my bby

#ghost, #simon riley: ghost my mofo beloved gods id die for him

#gaz, #kyle garrick: the prettiest fuckin man i've done laid eyes on

-> #dc: dc stuff!!!

#batman: the batman stuff or batman comics stuff so also the robins and shit

#robin: robin stuff!

#superman: superman stuff!!

#wonder woman: the queen the absolute boss the best the man the myth the legend wonder womannnnn

-> #tolkien: anythin tolkien related that isn't really lotr or the hobbit (or i cant tell which is which jdkadfkak)

#lotr: lord of the rings

#aragon elessar, #aragorn -> aragorn

#gimli -> gimli

#legolas greenleaf, #legolas -> legolas

#thranduil oropherion, #thranduil -> thranduil

#the hobbit: the hobbit

#bard -> bard omg i love the man hes so fjqbkdndnd

#kili -> kili my sweetheart my beloved

#legolas greenleaf, #legolas -> legolas

#thorin oakenshield, #thorin -> thorin

#thranduil oropherion, #thranduil -> thranduil

-> #lok: legend of korra

#asami -> asami sato

-> #star wars: star wars duh

#anakins -> the anakins

-> #classic lit: literature considered classics ig

#shakespeare -> shakespeare?? obv??

-> #fanfics: fanfic stuff fjandj

-> #mythology: mythology

#greek myths -> greek mythology/stories

#aztec myths -> aztec mythology/stories

#mayan myths -> mayan mythology/stories

#egyptian myths -> egyptian mythology/stories

#norse myths -> norse mythology/stories

-> #movies: any movies, films, short films

-> #drama: anything drama related (think like live stage productions)

-> #musicals: musical related stuff!!

-> #anime: anything anime hfjajdj

-> #comics: anything comic related honestlt

-> #books: books! all kinds any kinds!

anthropology/archaeology/paleontology/other sciences and history:

-> #environment: stuff related to earth, the sun, positionings, nature, etc etc.

#ocean: anything ocean-related or ocean-based

#forest: anything forest-related or forest-based

#air; anything air-related or air-based

#earth: just everything nature in general

-> #animals: animals but like informative and like cool facts and stuff

-> #aminals: animals but like the dump posts not infortmative jdjahd

-> #plants: plants fkhajsja

-> #prehistoric creatures: self explanatory

#dinosaurs: DINOS!!!

-> #humans: self explanatory

-> #paleo: paleontology stuffsssss

-> #anthro: also human stuff but recent

-> #archaeo: human stuff but like looooong ago

-> #bio: biology stuff

-> #astronomy: planets! stars! more stars! galaxies!

-> #invasive species: invasive species!

-> #history: more modern history of science and so like archeo/paleo and others but... like... younger

-> #social issues: just stuff going on around the world and issues that've happened and also anything related to that

-> environmental issues: issues that involve the environment and stuff

-> #languages: languages! and posts that involve the use of languages!

-> #religion: anything about/on religion

-> #science: literally just anything science related jdksjf

arts:

-> #art: just art stuff

#modern art, #contemporary art -> modern art

#classic art -> art from like other periods in time like the renaissance and stuff

#my art -> my art if i ever post it

-> #music: anythin music related

-> #fashion: fashion stuff! includes dresses, suits, etc. but also jewelery!

games:

-> #ttrpg: tabletop rpg stuff!

#dm, #gm: dungeon/game master stuff (tips and tricks)

#campaigns: campaigns! all types!

#dnd: dnd related stuff

#pf: pathfinder related stuff

sports:

-> #sports: sports stuff

#vball: anythin volleyball related

#bball: anythin bball related

resources for stuff:

-> #resources: resources (art, history, etc.)

[taylorrama]

High school versions of Critical Theory courses should really exist because I’m not even joking when I say that Critical Theory made my own lit analyses a billion times easier; and yet it was an elective my senior year of college and I was writing major. You learn about names of different theories as lenses and the main questions they ask of a work and then boom. Analysis gets really fucking easy.

But in high school, you typically get the teacher telling you to analyze text in a particular way and if your analysis doesn’t match theirs, you get lower marks. I had this in my AP Lit class where my teacher had infectious passion for analyzing literature. I wanted to see everything he saw in the books we read, but they were difficult texts. I did fine in the class, but never scored super high on anything and always felt like I misinterpreted things.

But if I’d been taught something like “hey, the type of interpretation we’re doing of this text is called formalism so these are the questions we ask of the text and what we look for” and then later we were taught/allowed to do, say, death of the author, and taught that it was another lens with different questions/foci we could use to analyze the text? Would’ve been a game changer, but I never would’ve gotten that in my required curriculum. It was required for upper level Lit majors, but not Writing majors, which I think is kinda weird. I only took Critical Theory in college because another elective I’d signed up for got cancelled. And yet I’m convinced that it’s fundamental and should be taught much much sooner.

“The curtains were fucking blue” and “The curtains have deep symbolism” are just two different Critical Theory lenses. Pick one and write your paper. 🤣🤣🤣

[jkoo-njoo]

Love serenades

pairing : husband! Namjoon x wife! black fem reader

summary : Namjoon is being way too focused on this book right now, while you’re not being hugged. This needs to change.

genre : 100% fluff & domesticity

word count : 915

warning : none !

author’s note : Namjoon has short dirty blond hair. And he’s got his very big prescription glasses on lol it makes him look so so cute. Also, I’m mentioning sensuality in this fic ; and I mean the literal sense of the word : attraction to senses, here, the touch. My OCs are always asexuals, so no sex is implied hehe. Enjoy my loves ! <3

You just finished your self care routine in your shared bathroom with your husband, and you’re now heading to bed.

As you climb on it, you reach Namjoon’s level, hovering over him. He is reading a book. He looks so adorable when he’s focused with his eyebrows slightly furrowed and his big glasses sitting proudly at the top of his nose.

It was a book about feminism and philosophy named born in 1982, Kim Jiyoung if you recall well. He’s been deep into it for a few days now, and you can’t wait for his personal analysis of the book and his review.

It’s one of the many special habits you have between the two of you : whenever one reads a book, they must to make a review of it to the other. You absolutely love the moments when he makes his little presentation and reviews the book to you, because he is so eager to share his knowledge and his point of view he always prepares them with so much dedication, it’s very endearing to witness. That’s why when you see that he starts a book, you light up inside, impatient for when he finishes it.

Anyways, as of now he was no where near finished, and you, on the other hand, were in great need of some affection.

You’ve always been a touchy person and you’re really open and comfortable with displaying affection ; being very sensual with your partner was your love language. And while you’ve learnt to align your clingy nature as much as possible with namjoon’s more laid back and distant one ; you had your moments where u needed a bit more touch than usual.

And this was definitely one of those times !

You’ve been standing over Namjoon for a while now and he still hasn’t moved an inch. He must be really invested in his book. How cute. But, I need his cute ass to pay attention to me.

So, you bent a little, just enough to align with his forehead, and place a soft and delicate kiss. The kiss was very gentle, as if his skin was porcelaine and you did not want to chatter it. Then, you did the same on his cheek. One on the left. One on the right.

By now, he was smiling with that soft dimpled one he does whenever he feels shy and overwhelmed with attention. Again. How cute.

You couldn’t refrain yourself from grinning back.

Then, you spoke up.

— You seem really invested into that one book babe. I know you’re about to make a fire review of it, but could you please tell me about the passage you’re reading right now ?

His eyes lit up.

— Of course angel. Cmon, lay on my chest, I’ll tell you all about it. Then, you’ll tell to me about your day. Deal ?

It was your turn for your face to light up.

— Deal.

As you answer him, you shift yourself to come in between the sheets and lay on his sides, your head on his chest. You angle your head so that you’re facing the book so you can read while he makes his explanations.

You’re actively waiting for him to start, but he stays silent.

As you look up, you catch Namjoon looking at you with heart eyes. You’ve never seen this much passion and intensity in his stare.

It startles you a bit. You giggle.

— What ?

He smiles.

— Nothing.

— I’m waiting for the review siiiir ! if you don’t start soon, I’ll bite your nipples.

You were being absolutely silly and it was making him feel dizzy with love. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop feeling this way when he looks at you.

Finally he confesses.

— Have I ever told you about how beautiful you are ?

— Yes, everyday.

You already know where this is going : a serenade about how much he loves you. He’s so random sometimes, but that’s what you appreciate in him.

— How every time I see you, my heart skips a beat ? How lucky I am that you’re my wife ? And how thankful I am that I get to share my love for you everyday ?

You were about to make fun of him for being sappy, but it still affected you every time he did this. It does feel good to be constantly reminded by the person that you’re sharing your heart with that they’re actually happy and grateful to have you in their life.

It’s melting your heart, and you were already quite sensitive by your need of affection. Oh God.

He keeps going. His heart is beating faster.

— I hope you’re aware that I’m being completely honest every single time I say these things to you. And I’ll repeat it, over and over again, so that you never ever doubt the feelings I have.

— Oh my God shut up. I’m about to cry. When did we stray from you reviewing your book to you showering me with love paroles.

Your eyes start watering, and eventually, a tear falls. Then another. And another again.

— Even when you cry, you’re so pretty. My pretty little crybaby.

And that was the last straw for you, causing you to definitely shut him up with a kiss.

Needless to say, you finish the night kissing and cuddling your bestfriend and lover ; and you couldn’t be happier. He feels the same.

Masterlist <3

[mickey-henry]

𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐈 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝

pairing: bucky barnes (bookstore au) x reader

summary: eager to escape the heat, you find yourself in the presence of a mesmerizing bookstore and an irresistibly beautiful man.

word count: 2.3K

author’s note: hello! welcome to my third fic😊 I’m eager to share this with you all! I now have a taglist (the link is also in my bio) if you’re interested🥰 thank you to @certainaesthetic​ for helping me workshop this idea, @fuckandfluff​ for the grammar help, and @midnightf​ for hyping me up as I wrote it! likes, reblogs, messages, replies, and comments are cherished! the header images are from pinterest and the divider is from here. I hope you like it! 💖

You’re desperate to escape the smoldering heat. It’s too hot to rest in the car; it’s been baking all day beneath the sweltering summer sun, parked just outside your place of work. If you attempt to sit in it now, you’d only be greeted with a wave of torrid air, stung with the touch of your seatbelt, and burnt from the searing leather of your steering wheel.

You’re off from work earlier than usual—the blinding sun is usually long beneath the horizon before you head home for the day. The pathetically small sun visor does nothing to shade your eyes from the blazing sunlight. Rather than driving half-blind, you decide to wait out the setting sun.

As you ponder how to spend the rest of your afternoon, you realize that now is an opportune time to visit the new bookstore, The Book Haven, that opened last month. After changing out of your uniform and throwing your work stuff in the trunk, you walk across the plaza to the shop entrance.

The bookstore greets you with the chime of a bell and a rush of cool air as you step in, a blissful contrast to the scorching outdoors. The welcoming scent of coffee grounds and the tangy aroma of old books accompany the refreshing breeze. You take a deep breath, appreciating the convivial atmosphere. The bookstore is a sublime sight; words almost can’t describe its charm.

Shelves like skyscrapers—stuffed to the brim with books, magazines, and comics—graze the ceiling. An intimate reading nook lies next to the door; an inviting window seat dwells beside a floor-to-ceiling window. Clear mosaic window clings cover the glass, casting beautiful rainbows throughout the store. Stringed vintage light bulbs illuminate the shelves; candle-lit sconces adorn the top corners of each one. Oriental rugs lay between the shelves, covering a dark mocha floor. Tucked in the back of the store is a small coffee cranny, hidden at first glance. Frank Sinatra’s charming, rich vocals travel through the air, tickling your ears. The owner clearly put the utmost time, energy, and love into the creation of their shop. It is unequivocally perfect and already one of your favorite places.

You wander to the classics section, enthralled by the exquisite covers. Sensing someone nearby, your eyes glance at movement caught in the corner of your eye. Your stomach somersaults at the stunning stranger. The instant you lay your eyes on him, you forget to breathe for a moment—your breath engulfs your throat. You’re astounded by the Adonis of a man before you.

Bristles of scruff grace his defined jawline—his low man-bun neatly styles his dark chestnut hair. A grey short-sleeve button-up shirt hugs his toned arms; a white tank top clings to his lean, fit frame; cuffed slim-fit khaki pants, help up by a bronze braided belt, embrace his thick thighs; and weathered, chunky brown leather shoes don his feet.

Through the rose-colored glasses that surround your heart, your soul imagines a life with a perfect stranger. The hopeless romantic in you can’t help but steal glances, hoping to catch a better glimpse of him. The moment he turns to walk away, your heart sinks to your stomach. You hope this isn’t the last time you see this gorgeous man.

A few minutes later, you’re mulling over a collectible edition of The Catcher in the Rye, attempting to justify purchasing yet another copy of your favorite book. A melodic voice interrupts your pondering. “That’s a pretty edition of The Catcher in the Rye you’ve got there.”

You turn towards the charming voice. Lo-and-behold, it’s the love of your life: the handsome stranger you’ve mentally lived a lifetime with. His beauty is even more profound up close: now you can see that his eyes are a lovely shade of blue. His eyes, haunted by a subtle sadness, draw you in, unlike anything you’ve experienced before. You find yourself entranced in his sea-blue current; you could easily drown in his gaze. You attempt to hide your awestruck expression and converse with him like a normal human being. “I agree! I already own a copy though, do I really need a new one?”

“I think we both know the answer is always yes,” he assures.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me. I'll get it! Thank you for justifying my unnecessary purchase.”

Your words hang in the air, everything going quiet as you wait for the ravishing stranger to introduce himself. The two of you stare in silence at each other, the tension thickening as the seconds pass by. After a few moments, his face flashes in realization—you were waiting for his name.

“I’m Bucky,” he offers with an enchanting smile, extending his hand out to you. You share your name as the two of you shake hands. Your eyes stare down his veiny arm to his ring-studded fingers grasped around yours. You allow yourself to imagine for a few moments how amazing those fingers would feel tracing your arms, tangling your hair, and teasing your inner thigh. Your lustful reverie comes to an abrupt halt at the sight of the book nestled inside the crook of his elbow: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the bane of your existence. You scoff with furrowed brows; of course, Mr. Handsome Stranger would be interested in the one book you despise.

“Got something to say there, sweetheart?” he questions with an amused grin.

“Out of all the classic novels in this entire store, that’s the one you chose? The Metamorphosis?”

“What’s wrong with this one?” he jives.

You pause for a second, debating whether it’s worth it to argue with a stranger. The pondering lasts only a few seconds; the exhaustion from your day disintegrates your filter. Besides, you loathe The Metamorphosis.

“What isn’t wrong with it? The dude wakes up thinking he’s an insect? The reader has to sit there throughout the entire book, wondering whether he’s a man or a bug? What the actual fuck? I didn’t appreciate the existential crisis that book gave me at fifteen; if I can help someone else avoid the suffering caused by that monstrosity, I'm going to do my part,” you huff, unamused by the joy Bucky seems to gain from your zealous analysis.

“Wow, what a passionate review! Perez Hilton would be envious of your slander. Okay then, what classic would you recommend instead?”

You cross your arms, expecting him to challenge your response. “The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.”

“That’s a play,” he counters.

“It’s published as a book; it counts! It’s witty, playful, and has a happy ending, which is the most important point of all. It also doesn’t make you want to pull a Fahrenheit 451 and burn every copy in existence,” you attest.

He steps closer to you, tucking loose strands of his hair behind his ear. “Life doesn’t always have a happy ending, sweetheart.”

Great, there he goes again with that freaking pet name; it’s going to be the death of you. He knows your name, you just gave it to him, yet here he is, infuriatingly insisting on calling you sweetheart instead. Stupid pretty boy with his ocean blue eyes and amorous smile.

“That’s exactly the point,” you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. “So, why would I want to read something that doesn’t end well? If I’m going to escape this reality for a while, it better be for a happier one.”

“And if it's not?”

“Then I’ll throw the book across the room and make up my own happy ending!”

“Ooh, aggressive,” he tuts. “The owner of this place might not be too happy with you if you’re throwing books all over the place; it’ll scare away the customers.”

“Then it’s a good thing the owner isn’t here,” you interject confidently, knowing full well you have no idea who the owner is.

“Well, that just isn’t true, sweetheart. You’re looking right at him.”

He’s lying—he has to be. Why would a dreamboat like Bucky own a bookstore?

You scoff, “you’re not the owner of this place.”

“I’m not? What makes you say that?” he banters.

“People like you don’t own bookstores!” you exclaim.

“People like me?” he goads, cocking his head to the side. The action erupts butterflies in your stomach.

“Attractive people!” you groan.

“So you think I’m attractive?” he plays, stepping to close the gap between you.

“Psh, no, you wish,” you muster. The heat spreading across your cheeks betrays your bluff.

There are mere inches between the both of you now; you hope he can’t hear your racing heartbeat. You watch his eyes go down from yours to your mouth and back up again. He eyes you with a smirk, his teeth playfully tugging his bottom lip. It takes everything in your power not to give in to his spell.

“I’ve known you for what, five minutes? I don’t go around kissing strangers, Bucky,” you falter, taking a step back from his closeness.

“Then let’s not be strangers, sweetheart. Grab a coffee with me; I know a nice place, not far from here,” he flirts, gesturing to the counter at the back of the store.

“Let me learn more about what goes on in that pretty little head of yours,” he purrs, his breath tickling your cheek.

“Okay, fine. I’ll have a coffee with you,” you surrender.

A bright, honeyed smile dons his face.  

“It better be good, though. Not the stale crap you usually get in the middle of the afternoon.”

“I’d only give you the best, sweetheart,” he winks, extending his right hand. You take it; he gives you a soft squeeze before weaving you through the towering shelves.

Your discussion continues with another passionate book review as he prepares your drink. He’s a sucker for gritty dystopian novels while you gravitate towards sappy romances. He shares his passion for painting as he guides you to the reading nook. The artwork hung on the edges of the bookcases is crafted by him—a detail you hadn’t noticed at first glance. His stunning work features both landscapes and people. He loves to sit in a picturesque landscape and paint for endless hours. Occasionally, he takes his old polaroid as he explores the town, snapping moments between strangers, translating their intimacy to canvas when he gets home.

He gestures for you to take a seat in the reading nook before handing you our steaming cup of joe. You sit with your legs crossed, your hands hugging the mug in your lap. Bucky sits with his leg draped over the side of the bench, his left foot pressing into his right thigh. The conversation shifts topics; the two of you divulge your desires and unfulfilled ambitions. You aren’t sure if it’s the look in his eyes, the sweet cup of joe in your palms, or the aroma of coffee surrounding you, but in his presence, your senses feel wide awake.

Before you know it, the mesmeric moon replaces the sizzling sun, melting away the blistering heat, and the steaming cup of coffee in your hands has long chilled. Bucky’s employee interrupts the blissful rendezvous, informing him that all the closing duties are complete, and he’s headed home for the night.

You stare at your watch in shock—it's five past nine. Where did the time go? You apologize profusely to the poor kid who had to close up alone; he assures you it’s no problem.

A melancholic pit in your stomach forms as you turn back to Bucky. He’s nestled himself into your soul; you don’t want to say farewell to him so soon. He has a sad glint in his eyes; you hope it’s because he’s also dreading the end of this perfect night.

“Can I walk you to your car?” he asks timidly, his earlier suave demeanor gone from his voice. He stands up in front of you, offering his arm to escort you.

“I’d love that,” you reply with a shy grin, grabbing his arm and hugging it tightly.

In the blink of an eye, you’re in front of your car. You let go of his arm and lean against the trunk. You stare into his eyes, hoping that he can see without the use of words how much you don’t want this moment to end. There’s a few moments of painful silence before Bucky clears his throat.

“So, now that we’re not total strangers, how about that kiss?” he flirts with pleading eyes.

“Okay,” you reply with a bashful smile.

He slowly reaches his hand towards your cheek, softly stroking it with his thumb. He presses his forehead against yours. “Are you sure you want to do this? ‘Cause if we do, you might not be able to get rid of me, sweetheart.”

“Yes I do, Bucky,” you giggle.

He grins as he gently presses his pillowy pink lips on yours. The kiss steals all the air from your lungs—his touch sends tingles throughout your body, electrifying your veins. You’re breathless when your lips finally part.

“Let me get your number before I let you go,” Bucky insists. You nod and hand him your phone, unable to form a coherent thought.  The ghost of his lips and fingers trace your figure. You’re barely acquainted with his tender touch, yet you feel naked without it, yearning to once again be within his grasp.

You exchange phones—adding your number and name with a sparkling heart emoji and swiftly passing his phone back before you can change your mind. Bucky snaps a quick selfie for his contact, smirking for the camera. You grin when you see he also put emojis by his name: a beetle and a kissy-face.

He pecks your cheek before opening the car door for you. “Hope to see you around, lovebug.” The new pet name burns your cheeks and erupts butterflies in your stomach.

He doesn’t leave the parking lot until your car disappears completely from his view.

You drive home with thoughts of Bucky swirling in your mind. You send a silent thanks to the universe for bringing this beautiful man into your life. His voice, touch, and smile echo in your thoughts for the remainder of the evening—his presence paving its way through your dreams. You’re falling hard and fast; you only hope he’ll be there to catch you.

tagging a few mutuals who expressed interest in this story🥰please fill out the taglist form if you’d like to be tagged in the next story! 💖

@ritesofreverie @midnightf @certainaesthetic

[transmutationisms]

Would you be able to give some references or places to read more about the humour stuff? I looooovvveee purgation motifs

YES. so first of all, just for getting an overview on humouralism, my go-to would probably be "passions and tempers: a history of the humours" by noga arikha. this covers a pretty broad historical sweep.

looking at purgation more specifically, "the expressiveness of the body and the divergence of greek and chinese medicine" by shigehisa kuriyama is sooo good. it's a comparative history, but the parts on chinese medicine are really mostly to illustrate points about greek med. also, the focus is on bloodletting specifically, but very similar logic about purgation and cleansing motivated a lot of other humoural medical treatments, and kuriyama does draw some of that out. this book is just so cool.

ok fuck it i'm just gonna bullet point the rest of this lmao

"a reconstruction of the hippocratic humoural theory of health" (balzer & eleftheriadis, 1991, journal for general philosophy of science. doi 10.1007/BF01801207) -- another good overview. more digestible length than a whole book

"humoring the body: emotions and the shakespearian stage" by gail kern paster -- really good look at how much we're missing when we disembody early modern drama, and given the influence of shakespeare over succ... yes

"the rise and decline of character: humoral psychology in ancient and early modern medical theory" (jacques bos, 2009, history of the human sciences. doi 10.1177/0952695109104422) -- historical argument is problematique but it gets the noggin rotating

"diseased bodies, defiled souls: corporality and religious difference in the reformation" (charles h parker, 2014, renaissance quarterly. doi 10.1086/679783) -- on catholic views of humoural 'defilement' vs calvinist views of sinful sensuality. reminder that the roys are catholic lol

"you are what you eat: historical changes in ideas about food and identity" (steven shapin, 2014, historical research. doi 10.1111/1468-2281.12059) -- intro to food and temperaments, including humoural aspects. side note, literally love steven shapin. please read him.

"'you have no good blood in your body': oral communication in sixteenth-century physicians' medical practice" (michael stolberg, 2014, medical history. doi 10.1017/mdh.2014.71) -- patients' views of the body as unclean and in need of purification/evacuation/etc

"blood matters: studies in european literature and thought, 1400–1700" ed. bonnie lander johnson & eleanor decamp -- as the title suggests, mostly focussed on blood. but includes analysis of blood as a humour, and also shows how this kind of analysis can help us make sense of literature/media

"humoural wombs on the shakespearian stage" by amy kenny -- more shakespeare, lots of Gender. looks at performance history in conjunction with humoural theory

most of these books you should be able to find free on z lib etc, and with the articles access varies but if you hit a paywall, lmk and i might be able to float you a pdf. also if you read german or french there's a lot of lit on humouralism out there.

oh and also you can snowball the reference lists in any of these things and be pretty sure you're finding good stuff!

[marimopeace]

there's a limit on how much you can be an isekai intellectual...

a bunch of analyses have been popping up before me all day so i wanted to throw my hat into the ring. all love to ppl who are exercising their creative minds + ppl like geoff here who just talk about these things because of fan interest but i feel like there reaches a point where exploring the "types" of isekai is pointless? i've seen ppl list out the different types of villainess revenge isekai or fantasy mmorpg isekai but eh why fit them all into separate boxes like that?

i think it's easier to think of isekai as a "type" (genre) of itself with only two categories: 1) a focus on isekai (lit. another world) 2) tensei (lit. to be reborn). this allows for a variety of applications and thus tropes that ppl see so many trends of!

with isekai - in another world

you see everything from:

pure fantasy (inuyasha, digimon wait maybe not the best example but in my childhood mind i count digimon as pure fantasy, fushigi yugi)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (.hack//legend of twilight, sao ugh, log horizon, overlord (LOVE OVERLORD!)

otome game-esque worlds >>> this is where it gets complicated with "villainess routes" since i admit there are multiple villainess tropes but this is why it's nice to not think of this as a "sub-type/genre" bc it frees you from those complications! (the saint's magic power is omnipotent, the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap soso cute!, the savior's book cafe in another world, i'm a villainous daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss wait i can't remember if she's reborn in this one lmaooo see this is why rules make everything hard)

with tensei storylines - being reincarnated/reborn in another world as *insert character/role*

you see...

the same tropes!!

pure fantasy (a returner's magic should be special, reminiscence adonis, the lady and the beast, light and shadow, i can't think of a manga off the top of my head for this ah)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (so i'm a spider so what i stan kumoko so hard, her majesty's swarm, can't name another off the top of my head ah i hate lists shorter than two things...)

self-insert based games/novels (fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess, who made me a princess, death is the only ending for the villainess, the villainess wants to marry a commoner, honestly games vs novels are different applications but i'm not in the headspace to try to remember a bunch of both lol)

*insert line break to give random ppl a break from scrolling but tl; dr just enjoy things for what they are no need to micro analyze*

similar variations occur in both genres (if ppl want to be super technical i guess i'm arguing that isekai itself is a massive genre that has the "another world" subgenre and "reincarnation" subgenre tl; dr) so i think it's honestly a huge pain to try to separate all these trends into so many different types of stories. for me personally it's easier to not get overwhelmed by this gigantic umbrella of "isekai" that spans light novels, manhwa, manga, and mobile games by just stripping each story down into its trademark tropes (aka character archetypes, story structures) and slapping "oh this is a person going to a world that's not ours" and "this person gets reborn as blank in another world". none of this "omg this power fantasy is such a this kind of isekai moment" or "there are 14 different types of villainess revenge stories and this series fits into this" bc AH labels! limitations! circle-jerks via ppl trying to compartmentalize everything and sound smart for leaving a comment on story analysis instead of ooh-ahhing over a character's face! dividing things into light novel manga vs manga vs korean manhwa ft. female characters!

the last bit is mainly why i feel frustrated by ppl's insistence to group everything?

the video linked at the beginning of the post (honestly good video essay, i enjoyed it, i just kept thinking in my head the whole time "marimo these are tropes do not take the genre talk literally") has a baby comment thread talking about "korean isekai manhwas" as a genre featuring nothing but reincarnated villainess' and i can't.

like i cannot acknowledge that as a genre of any sort. the energy i felt reading through some of those insights takes me back to 2012 when all yt americans discovered k-pop and deemed all korean music k-pop from then on! (ppl still do this now, yes you are seen and don't talk to me pls i don't like you. k-pop is korean pop music and nothing less and nothing more. take a few seconds and try to parse apart aspects of korean culture instead of slamming everything into a monolithic label that has the letter k and a hyphen.) it feels so odd to see a bunch of young ppl on ig and tiktok acknowledge korean media that happens to be in the form of a webtoon as "oh stories all about young girls becoming villains in stories they made/played" bc it feels so reductive u.u

(positionality disclaimer that i'm praying isn't actually necessary: i am a 3rd-generation korean of japanese descent do not fite me i am exhausted irl of ppl asking for validation/verification bc massive shove off.)

breaking news! korean manhwa...is just as multifaceted as japanese manga...bc how can comics as an art-form not have multiple genres...huh such a shocker?!?! same likely applies to media in other parts of the world like chinese manhwa and french comics--not my place to explain either of those i just know those industries exist bc of wakfu and donghua shows by Tencent.

at the end of the day it's not like analyzing any kind of isekai is wrong--absolutely not!! i think it can be super fun to think about how isekai elements complicate a story (MCs trying to go back home, ppl from the og world, reincarnation plot-twists) or maybe even bash a series for including some kind of other world element when they could have just written a super fun fantasy.

insert marimo's brief ramble that hey you can get sick of truck-kun's hitting disillusioned guys who happen to be super duper smart or girls who happen to be master chefs/craftsmen but transporting a fully-grown being into a fantasy setting is the ultimate cheat code for making mundane modern technology seem cool and overpowered, and being reincarnated as a fully grown person in a world with a pre-made story/game set-up completely bypasses the need for an author to slowly flesh out world-building in a natural progression so isekai is actually a really smart writing tool it's just that there are some series where the author didn't use it well at all and it's cheesy or clearly isekai was misused as a vehicle for character/story development and it was pointless *DEEP BREATH OUT*

in this essay i will argue...lol i am such a culture studies major!! if i were an english major i would be talking all about writing but here i am having a side-tangent about world-building via someone being reborn wow i love this for me (don't get me started on when an author has someone reincarnate as a baby and the story is mostly them having warm fluffy moments with their family--typically father figures--and getting lots of powers i could and would and probably will rant about east asian toxicity)

but anyway am i crazy????? like yes for being passionate about the technical use of a word like genre (i am a scorpio rising let me be fussy pls) but i don't think it's a lot to ask for ppl to not unironically see "villainess revenge isekai" as the definition of korean manhwa.

idk as someone who resonates with why japanese isekai is so popular domestically + why a lot of korean manhwa feat. the same tropes (it's not for great reasons lads it's actually depressing tbh) i'm just starting to feel kind of pained by the generalization and need to separate "cute japanese girl in an otome game"/"japanese boy finds a harem in another world" from "korean girl dies and comes back as a villainess" bc they are just! applications to the same story device!!

recommendations for any who makes it this far down below <3

// also gladly recommend any of the examples i've listed in the above rant as i've read/watched all of them and adore them v much! //

save me princess

super refreshing fantasy manhwa ft. a princess and her ex-boyfriend having to save the world!

the beginning after the end

an AMERICAN web novel turned into a comic (but see it being not korean/japanese doesn't really matter when you just consider isekai as a genre...isn't it nice to not overthink it?) ft. a super-powerful wizard king reincarnated into another world and starting from scratch--gives mushoku tensei vibes but huge twists!

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion

love love LOVE this story--read the title and you'll learn how this girl reincarnated as the character raeliana in a book gets married to a duke!

trash of the count's family

such a good novel!! a guy gets reborn as a lazy oaf and he takes the hero of the story under his wing...plot twists come up later on!

this time i will definitely be happy!

v good and refreshing for a shorter series! she's been reborn 3 times and remembers every time the hero's stabbed her in the back, and now she just wants to break up with him!

silver diamond

older manga but v good adventure w intrigue! a boy who loves plants get sucked into a desert world with demonic lizards and a mysterious bodyguard by his side. shonen-ai not BL but wonderful vibes nonetheless + great side characters!

the princess imprints a traitor

adore everything in this from the world (not in that way this society makes me so angry) to the machinations at play and the dynamic between the fl and ml

[seeminglyseph]

one day I am going to have to write something to the lit 103 teacher who had us study the great gatsby, I don’t know what tone yet, because I’m not sure I ever disliked a book I am now passionate about so much. It was partially because she really obviously was extremely passionate about the book that made me want to write an essay of substance in the end, even though I fuckin’ just hated everyone in it. But she let me write about Fitzgerald’s female characters, and linked us to some of Zelda’s essays. Which gave me the ability to make a lot of the essay a statement about the representation of flapper culture and treatment of Zelda by Fitzgerald as aspects of intent, even if one of the major lessons at that time was death of the author in that.... ‘right now I want a raw analysis of the text without bringing judgment of the author into play, that’s next semester and a different sort of study’ So it was kind of ‘it is unknown if the authenticity of Fitzgerald’s female characters is an indication of his own insight, or if it is another example of the author’s habit of plagiarizing his wife’s writing. the exact amount of writing that should be attributed to Zelda Fitzgerald is unclear.’ Just as an analysis of how Zelda’s study of flapper culture from her experiences and opinions had an effect on the characters in the fiction.

A result of this has kind of been my transforming into a Zelda Fitzgerald spokesperson, like ‘hi actually Zelda was amazing and her husbanded locked her in an asylum to kill her career did you know that? She certainly had her issues she lived in the 1920s and I’ll excuse none of that but I might fight bungou stray dogs in her honour’

Also now I have to be That Guy who explains that cleavage was not something flappers would be showing off, they wore binding undergarments to make their breasts and hips appear flat as possible. The short hair and straight body type was a flamboyant show of androgyny and another one of those ‘popular with women more than men’ fashion choices everyone ends up assuming is about men in the end....

but even then, the email I would have to send was ‘sorry to the rest of my class who clearly wanted me to shut the fuck up, the process of discussing literature with you and the ‘yes, and...’ cycles I felt like we got into awoke a passion for literary analysis I did not know I was capable of and I do not know how to satisfy so a blessing and curse upon you for awaking this hunger within me. I’m applying it to Greek Classics instead of modern classics but like it’s the same concept and genuinely miss having an unhinged discussion about meanings you could extrapolate from a text even if you graded like you were trying to hurt me you explained that really well as ‘it’s a transition between high school expectation and university expectations. I grade at a higher level than you’re used to because this is about being able to write at a university level. You’re specializing now, the grades are harder. But on that scale 84% is extremely high.’ so like even when I bombed I was like ‘okay, points not made as intended, time to draft out new arguments”

like I don’t know how to explain that as a person with extreme RSD from ADHD and Trauma I like.... She made a disappointing grade a growth point rather than a failure and it was... exactly what I needed as a new but much older student. (starting uni in your late 20s surrounded by people 10 years your junior is scary as shit.)

[songbirdsingingthings]

Luminescence - Armin Arlert x Reader

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, they belong to Hajime Isayama

AOT Masterlist - Main Masterlist

WARNINGS: Season 3 & kinda 4 spoilers

Requested by Anonomys:

Hello,I hope you have a beautiful day! Could you please make an imagine of Armin and his s/o (either fem or g/n,whatever is more comfortable for you to write) about their night routine when they go to the sea and just relax in each other's presence?(everyone has already seen the sea for the first time) soft armin hours 24/7😭

I have been FEELING the Armin feels so much recently. This little blonde boy has just captured my heart. I hope you like it, I had so much fun writing it!

Word Count: 1.6K In and out the tide would go. All day, never ceasing, the ocean would move in and out in a steady rhythm. Sometimes the waves would be a little more rough or even shallow, but they would ebb and flow all the same. It became a comfort for you ever since the Scout Regiment had built the new headquarters by the ocean. There was always a buzz throughout the buildings; Eren doing this, the Marleyeans saying that. It all grew so effortlessly tiresome that by the end of the day you were fatigued, your shoulders were aching, and your head longed to be nestled into a soft feathered pillow. There was one thing, however, that you allowed to capture your attention rather than allow your brain to turn off and sleep. Armin Arlert. With his newly cut blonde hair and his mind brimming with knowledge, he had managed to weave his way into your heart and invade your senses, bringing with him all the things you never thought you could hold dear. 

“Y/N, you’re free to go. Just take that paperwork back with you and have that analysis done by tomorrow.” The recently appointed Commander Hange tells you, flashing a quick smile before sweeping up her own materials. Across from you Captain Levi had already stood up from his chair and was making his way out. Finally Jean, who was seated to your right, huffed a sigh.

“Preparations are never gonna end are they,” He laments, pinching his fingers to the bridge of his nose. You give him a pity smile and pat his shoulder.

“Not until Hange and Levi think that they’re good enough.” Jean rolls his eyes and stands from his chair, stretching his arms out.

“Alright, well, I’m outta here. See ya tomorrow.” He sighs. You wave your hand in farewell and gather the several papers and briefings into your arms and drag yourself out of the little conference room. You groaned as you felt your several aching limbs weighing you down and the pounding in your head. Making plans for the invasion of Marley were no joke and surely took a toll on your brain. In a decent amount of time, you make your way to the beach huts where you found Armin waiting your steps, his nose buried in a book. A light smile spreads across your face.

“How was your day?” You asked, causing the blonde to close his book and jog over to your side.

“About the same as yesterday. You?” He says softly, taking your hand in his and walking the both of you into the little hut. You simply hum and lean a bit more into Armin’s side, which told him basically everything he needed to know. You were tired, your brain was fried, and you wanted his company. With a content grin, he placed a kiss to the top of your head and had you sit on one of the chairs in the small living room. “How about I grab some dinner while you shower? I’m sure Niccolo won’t mind if I take a couple of plates from the dining hall so we can just eat here.” He suggests. His proposition practically makes your heart sing at the thought of having a quiet meal, just the two of you.

“I’d love that,” you say earnestly, placing your paperwork on the low table in front of you. “And even if Niccolo won’t be happy about it, he’ll be too distracted by Sasha to notice.” You quip, earning a laugh from Armin.

“Alright, I’ll be right back.” 

The shower you took was heavenly. Since everyone was having dinner, you had first dibs on the hot water and you basked in it. Your body smelled of a light lavender, every bit of grime was wiped off of your body, and even your hair was washed. The change of your clothes also helped to brighten your mood. Gone was the white button up and cargo jacket - you were all comfy in the light and airy sleepwear. The soft fabric seemed to kiss your skin in such a sweet way that you felt you could fall asleep right then and there. But, the savory smell of freshly cooked seafood worked its way into your senses causing your eyes to snap open.

“Dinner!” Armin called. You rushed your way towards him, and more importantly the food, in excitement.

“Looks yummy.” You say, helping him set down the trays of food and laying out the utensils. Dinner was a little quiet, since both of you were super hungry and dinner tasted fantastic.

“I read something rather curious,” Armin says, instantly gaining your full attention. He was always finding something new every time he read a book. Whether it was the genetic property of a fig leaf or certain characteristics of different types of rocks, you always found it interesting to hear.

“Do tell,” you urge, using your fork to bring the last little morsel of food into your mouth.

“It’s a sort of natural phenomenon called bioluminescence. Unlike a shooting star, though, it’s actually caused by microorganisms that light up when agitated.” You pause a bit when you hear his explanation, confusion flickering across your face.

“They light up?” You wonder. Armin nods to you in response. “But whenever we’ve been outside and in the ocean, I’ve never noticed anything lighting up.” Armin takes your response into consideration and leans back in his chair a bit. It takes a minute for his brain to connect all of the dots, trying to think of why no one has ever seen anything that was somewhat supernatural in the water before. Then, like a lightbulb going off in your head, you stand up suddenly causing Armin to jump a bit. “Because it was daytime!” You conclude, grabbing hold of Armin’s hand and ushering him out of the door. Neither of you bothered to slip your shoes on beforehand, so your bare feet met the somewhat chilled sand.

“I don’t even know if these kinds of organisms are native to our area though,” He says warily, squeezing your hand.

“It doesn’t hurt to look!” You say cheerily, all of the former exhaustion leaking from your body as the cool ocean breeze swished your clothes and hair. Finally, the two of you made it to the shoreline. The waves were constant as ever and reached just before your toes before pulling back. “You said they lit up when they were agitated, right?” You ask, looking to Armin who was standing by your side.

“Yeah,” he says as he rolls up his pants so they don’t get wet, “so any touch from us should make them glow.” With a deep breath and a cautious expression, you extend one of your feet over the water and very slowly let it sink into the water.

It was as if your touch was magical. The second your foot met the water, a bright blue light surrounded it. A gasp left your lips, immediately followed by a smile as you let your other foot go into the water, causing the space surrounding it to glow even more. You looked back to Armin who was currently marveling at the discovery, and he quickly joined you in the water. The deeper you got the more the water lit up. The light blue reflected across your faces, shading them in an azure hue.

“Armin…” You murmur, breathless at the sight, “it’s beautiful.” Wrapping an arm around your waist, he pulls you into his side. In front of you, he lets his hand fall into the ocean and drags it along, the water behind it leaving a brightly-lit path. “What was this called again?” You ask, looking up to his awestruck expression.

“Bio, uh, Bioluminescence,” He says, hesitant as he’s taking everything in. Finally, he looks back up to you and smiles widely. “Think of everything else that the ocean can hold.” He gushes. As you look at him and his infectious grin, only one adjective comes to mind. Delectable. You move your lips closer to his as you tug his collar down, bringing with it his head. He gets the message quickly. He raises his hand, now wet with seawater, to your cheek, his thumb swiping across your lips. You had no idea where he had gotten so confident - Armin was a gentle lover. Usually he preferred to cuddle rather than to engage in a makeout session and favored forehead kisses. Maybe he had seen someone do that or read it in a book, but you didn’t care - it made your heart race. His lips met yours passionately, wrapping both of his arms around your waist tightly and pressing you as close as possible to his chest.

“When this is all over,” Armin says breathlessly, then going back for a second kiss. “When this war is done.” Another kiss. “Let’s live on the beach. We can discover everything this great blue abyss has to offer.” One final kiss. You lean into his body as he embraces you, situating his chin on top of your head.

“That sounds lovely,” you hum, nestling your head into where his arm and torso meet. The two of you stay like this for a moment, basking in each other's warmth and presence before the chill of the air got to be a bit too cold for your liking.

“Should we go inside? Burrow under some blankets?” Armin asks, both of you wading your way out of the water. His hand is in yours again, swinging them a little. You give him a grin and nod as he leads you back into your and his shared hut.

“Bioluminescence, huh.” You say, still marveling at the glowing sight. You made your own discovery too. The closer you looked at Armin’s eyes, the more you saw that glow of the blue water. Both brimming with energy and both inviting. Their presences are equally calming to most, but to you, it was all him.

[kxowledge]

Hey. I was wondering, since I relate so much with your love for books and languages, what do you do for a living?

I am very passionate about books and languages alike, that’s true. However, neither it’s something I’m interested in working with in a professional capacity.

I knew this pretty early on. In high school I did really well in all literature subjects and in English and some suggested I should pursue my further studies in that direction – but that wasn’t what I was interested in.

When it comes to jobs, well, I don’t see any strictly related to books/languages/lit that would satisfy me intellectually and professionally. I do want to (eventually) become a professor and that would be an option also for literature or language subjects, but I don’t have an abstract interest in the profession, I’m interested in the subject I want to teach (i.e. strategic management).

And yes, you can major in literature or languages and end up working in a different profession, but I really wasn’t interested in studying it either. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I don’t really have an interest in analysing academically texts*. I love reading, but it’s a personal endeavour that nourishes my personal life. I’m interested in books inasmuch they concern me. Furthermore, languages at school aren’t taught in a way I find valuable. There are specific topics I’m highly interested in – philology, linguistics, translation studies – but I can learn about these on my own.

So, after all this contextualisation – what do I do for a living? I’m a market researcher / insight analyst, with a focus on qualitative data rather than quantitative one. It’s actually I career I would suggest if you are interested in analysing books, because it’s very much pattern analysis, reading carefully (and v fast, because there’s lots of material to go through) and drawing connections between different data sources. I look for common themes, sound bites, main insights, etc. And then I apply it i.e. I make strategic recommendations to businesses. That’s not all there is to the job, because I spend lots of time facing clients, project managing, creating surveys, interviewing, dabbling with quant data, etc. But that’s the gist of it and the part I enjoy the most.

*This is a broad statement that actually doesn’t hold true for everything. I’m v much interested in analysing texts from the Bible (which is what I’m currently doing) and would love to do more close up readings from Ancient Greek tragedies (and literature in general). At this point in time, I would actually like to pursue further studies in Philology and/or Ancient Greek lit. But it’s very important to stress that this is now, after years of studying something different. And again, it would only be out of personal interest, not with the idea of pursuing a related career in mind.

[missanthropicprinciple]

A Tale of Elio and My Fixation with Lovable Androids

TL;DR Feel free to scroll past this unless you’re keen to read my ramblings about androids, Neoclassical art, children’s lit, and bad science fiction movies. 

Since the late 1990s one of my favourite books has been A Tale of Time City (1989) by Diana Wynne Jones. It’s a mildly confusing story but engaging, with memorable characters, including the android Elio, pictured above - my own fan art from a few years ago. Studio Ghibli really needs to make this film if no one does a live-action version, seeing as they brought Jones’ novel Howl’s Moving Castle to life. Here’s a scan of my favourite edition with mesmerizing cover art by Richard Bober.

This book inspired me so much I’ve done research on it. I wasn’t in a class in grad school that allowed me to write about it so I took it on as a casual independent project in 2019. Two days after my dad died of cancer I was scheduled to present my paper on Elio from ATOTC. Needless to say I was not able to finish writing the essay. I told the department coordinator I would likely not attend but I would let him know. He was seriously surprised that I showed up. I must have looked like a ghost - wearing a nice top, skirt, tights, and short heels. I was still in total shock but I thought I might as well press on. My paper’s working tile remains as it was: Elio: Android Autonomy and the Personification of the Sun God. I presented a long bullet point list of working ideas and research done up until that point. My work is still on the broad side because it’s an intersection of young adult fiction, Neoclassic art, and android autonomy; I have some narrowing to do. Here are my main arguments thus far: 

Firstly, the android character Elio’s physical characteristics and personality are inspired by Helios, the Hellenistic Greek god and personification of the sun. Apparently, Elio is a Spanish name meaning sun and also an Italian given name referring to the element helium, originally derived from the Greek name of the sun-god Helios. 

Secondly, Elio and Helios share more than an etymological connection and the comparison of Elio to Helios can be articulated in two distinct ways: the aesthetic comparison, and that Elio possesses some of the qualities Helios is known for. Jones’ work repeatedly associates Elio with sunlight and golden hues, aspects which are exemplified in the 1765 Neoclassical painting Helios as the Personification of Midday by Anton Raphael Mengs. (I vaguely remember translating a couple passages from a large art book written in German when I was studying Neoclassical art.) 

This work is considered an unusual depiction of Helios. Mengs uses a motif of the glowing arrow which is interpreted by François-Xavier Fabre as a symbol of the midday heat and the sun's rays which penetrate and give light to the earth. The representation of the sun in this way is considered unusual for the 18th century because it goes against Classical and Baroque iconography which portrays Helios riding a chariot. Ironically, Jones references this. Elio proclaims his fondness for films, particularly the chariot race from Ben Hur. Elio, like Mengs’ depiction of Helios, lacks a chariot but retains his beauty and powers.

As for Elio possessing some of the qualities of Helios, the god is often referred to as “all seeing” or “Zeus’s eye.” Similarly, Elio has the ability to anticipate problems and see what humans do not, but not because he’s a god, but because he’s a servant. However, this is where his self governing comes into play when he uses his observations to take action beyond any directives he has been given. His physical strength, like Helios, exceeds that of humans. Elio himself says, “my utmost is more than twice that of a born-human” (Jones, 211).

Thirdly, Elio’s self awareness allows him to use both his powers of observation and superior physical strength independent from humans. He does not always wait to be told how to use his power; he wields it. Not only does he play a part equal to that of humans in Jones’ plot, he specifically controls the fates of certain human characters. For example, he doesn’t always utilize his speed when he’s at the beck and call of his master, Sempitern. He makes choices not to fully comply with the demands made of him.

My fourth point, which I can’t quite articulate well, is that the most significant dynamic of this comparison is the body of Elio and how his physicality interacts with his autonomy. Elio acts as an individual who contributes to a wider mythology just as Helios does. Yet, while Elio is superior to humans in many ways, his quasi-humanity allows him to act in ways which align with Helios’ qualities.

For example, Elio makes personal choices and exhibits emotions not necessary for him, as an android, to function. He confesses a desire to harm another android out of annoyance where a passionate opinion would not be expected from an android. This human failing is indicative of the same autonomy which allows him to act as Helios does. Elio has been constructed as a superhuman body in terms of his abilities, however, the human qualities which contribute to his Helios-like powers undermine his intended purpose. 

Ultimately, Elio ascends the usefulness of his “owned” body by acting independently from the humans who utilize him. His human qualities make him vulnerable and therefore he loses some of his godlike powers. Elio, while only an assistant to his human owners, utilizes his own physical and mental powers to maintain his autonomy. Conversely, his god-like qualities make Elio more human rather than affirming his android identity.

This is a very complex subject and I don’t really know where I’m going with it and have possibly made some suppositional errors. TL;DR: What I do know is that Elio presents a paradox: being idealized for his abilities allows him to be autonomous while being autonomous disrupts the servitude of his body.

I am in the process of determining what lens I will use to analyze Elio’s experience and functionality of being an android. I’m thinking about using Alan Turning’s 1950 work Computing Machinery and Intelligence. I’m still navigating the literary theory aspect, or indeed philosophical aspect, of this area of study. 

This brings me to something I came across later that relates to Elio and ATOTC. 

SPOILERS AHEAD

The closest depiction of an android that I’ve seen to Elio other than Data is from a terrible and somewhat forgotten science fiction film from 1989. “Byron”, (played by pre-Jurassic Park-fame Bob Peck) the android in the painfully awful film Slipstream comes very close to Elio in terms of tone, attitude, and characterization. Despite the embarrassingly bad script and dialogue, Peck does a bang-up job, seemingly acting in a wonderful film running parallel to the absolute trash his co-stars were apparently “acting” in. Yes, I rewatched this film just to write this analysis. (The secondhand embarrassment is off the charts and I had it playing at a low volume most of the time Byron was not on the screen.)

When you first see Byron he’s acting out autonomy but you’re not aware he’s an android. The audience is told he’s an escaped fugitive, a murderer, and that’s all we know for over half the film. Yet there are several clues. When you first see him he’s running over rugged terrain in a suit which was kind of a big hint but nothing makes sense in this film so I just thought that it was a weird costume choice. Then he’s literally shot with a grappling hook. He doesn’t seem to be in pain even though he’s shocked by it, and then is pulled down by a bounty hunter named Tasker (Mark Hamill) and hits the ground from a great height and doesn’t die. He just quotes what I think is John Gillespie Magee, Jr.’s "High Flight”: “I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth….and touched the face of God.” Next time you see him, he’s in handcuffs, looking super depressed, and apparently not bleeding out from the now absent grapple hook that’s gone through his forearm. 

He eventually quotes Lord Byron to cryptically indicate his name which is lost on Bill Paxton’s character, Matt. “Byron” essentially means cowshed. It’s ironic because Byron the android is in many ways a receptacle of knowledge. Matt even says sarcastically, “Well aren’t you a walking storeroom of information,” and Byron responds cheerfully, “Yes.” 

Byron breaks out of his handcuffs saying they’d “become rather superfluous.” You think he’s just showing off but once you know he’s an android you know he’s just honest all the time. He then heals a blind child and paraphrases Psalm 127:3. Matt says, “I didn’t know you were a healer.” Apparently Byron can perform cataract surgery in less than five minutes. Along their journey together (Bill is set on collecting the bounty on Byron’s head before Tasker can catch up) they camp out. Byron sleeps with his eyes open. (Even if he is an android wouldn’t his eyes need to be “cleaned” in the same way humans need to close our eyes and blink?) Matt wakes up to find Byron seemingly strangling him. “I was feeling your carotid pulse,” he explains. “I was just checking for arrhythmia and episodes of ventricular tachycardia.” At this point you realize he’s not so much a spiritual healer as a doctor who philosophizes a lot. 

Byron’s miraculous behavior and pontificating is called into question by a nomadic spiritual community which has been torn apart by an attack on their village. As he lays dying, Ben Kingsley’s character calls Byron a “false prophet” but his faith in this stranger is somewhat restored when he says, “all that will be left of me is bits of gold in the sand. You have a soul, do not abandon it in death.” 

Another character says, “The stranger is no mortal man.” Therefore it is clear that Byron likely isn’t human. We don’t find out he’s an android until 46 minutes into the film. Once that’s cleared up, other concepts arise in the script. While not well executed, they are really interesting; emotion both positive and negative, free will, perfection, A.I. slavery, and murder are all addressed throughout the second half of the film. Byron says he doesn’t understand “hate” in context of his “master” to whom he was nurse, brother, father, mentor, and friend, but he admits he was more of a slave than anything else. 

The character Ariel takes an interest in him for a variety of reasons, especially romantically. In one very evocative moment we see Byron in a museum exhibit, a false garden of Eden, full of fake vegetation and taxidermies, full body mounts. So we’ve got an android having an Adam experience. Whether or not he experiences “original sin” with Ariel or if he’s “fully functional” is never acknowledged. Although one woman says, “Amanda slept with a robot?!” (who the f**k is Amanda?!) and a man says to another sitting next to him, “I hear they’re rather mechanical in the saddle.” 

Byron is less concerned with consummation and more excited about love, sleep, and dreaming. When he is with Ariel he doesn’t quite know how to act in terms of sexual play and then apologizes: “I’m not accustomed to being loved.” We see him closing his eyes when he’s cuddled up with Ariel; the next day he is certainly very pleased that he fell asleep with his eyes closed and had a dream. 

In terms of his servitude and autonomy they did not spend an adequate portion of the exposition on it. Matt has a change of heart and says instead of collecting the bounty, he’ll set him free as it’s briefly revealed that Byron killed his “master” upon the man’s request. Naturally, this brings up a lot of confusing feelings for Byron. “Is this what it’s like to be human? I don’t think I’m up to it,” he says. “Can I be trusted with human feelings?” And in a way he cannot. Ariel is brutally shot by Tasker.

Byron is angered over Ariel’s death and follows the bounty hunter to his ship. Instead of taking him in to collect a reward, Tasker tries to run him down with the glider plane. Byron manages to get himself caught in the engine and starts to strangle his assailant. Tasker quotes “touched the face of god” which brings Byron to his senses and he stops killing Luke Skywalker Tasker and tries to save the plane. It looks like he’s going to hot-wire it but then uses the wires like reins (chariot imagery???). They crash into the side of a mountain slope. Tasker dies but Byron survives. Apparently he’s basically indestructible and somewhat godlike. “I’m too dangerous to be human,” Byron tells Matt. In the end, he goes off in search of the place he’d been dreaming about. 

Although in terms of physical appearance the two androids are vastly different, they have so much in common. Here are some basic concepts. 

Character: Both are stoic, formal, intelligent, honest

Indestructible: Byron is injured with a grappling hook, takes a major fall of about 20 or 30 feet without a scratch: he is somewhat godlike or slave-like, meant to withstand destruction and pain. Elio is less indestructible but easily repaired.

Healer: Byron has the skills to heal people with basic surgery. Elio doesn’t take his own injuries seriously and experiences pain for the first time (Jones, 218-9).

Both think they deserve to be punished: Elio states this quite clearly (Jones, 276) and Byron says the same thing about himself with resigned passivity.

Complex relationship with “human emotions”: Both come to terms with violence, anger, and love.

Autonomy: At the end of the film Byron goes off on his own to look for a promised land. Elio decides his own fate by deciding to accompany the children of the story, stating that Vivian is a “particular favorite” of his (278). 

Dreaming and stories: Byron is searching for a place, “where I think I belong,” he says, which is a place he often thinks and dreams about. Dreaming is considered to be a human attribute, a non-essential bi-product to consciousness. Elio enjoys stories and old films (Jones, 180), similarly “human” in nature. 

(Peck, seen here waiting for Bill Paxton to learn how to act. Sorry, I’m salty.)

Disclaimer: This is a work in progress! This project is an intersection of niche subjects that interest no one but myself. 

Anyway, my point is (yes, I did have a point...or rather several) was that if anyone should adapt A Tale of Time City, Byron from Slipstream is the best example of how Elio should be portrayed in terms of characterization. I feel that Slipstream should have been centered around Byron. The film was kind of like, just about the “we’re both fighting over the bounty of this fugitive” sorta thing. It would have made more sense to focus on Byron as he is arguably the most interesting character and represents many of the conflicts within the story. I would like to combine my research on ATOTC and Slipstream one day. In any case, this is a good start. 

Works Cited (WIP) 

Jones, Diana W. A Tale of Time City: Knopf, 1987. Print. Perkowitz, Sidney. Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids. Washington, D.C: Joseph Henry Press, 2004. Print.

Roettgen, Steffi, and Anton R. Mengs. Anton Raphael Mengs: 1728-1779 Part 2. München: Hirmer, 1999. Print.

Turing, A. M. “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Mind, vol. 59, no. 236, 1950, pp. 433–460. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2251299. Wilson, Eric. The Melancholy Android: On the Psychology of Sacred Machines. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Print

[purplebass]

James Herondale and Cordelia Carstairs: 1001 Nights and Layla and Majnun

Yet another essay/analysis about James Herondale and Cordelia Carstairs and the references of their story with classic Middle East literature books such as “1001 Nights” and “Layla and Majnun” and how those books might have inspired some TLH storylines.

Similarities between “1001 Nights” characters and James and Cordelia

The Layla references by James and Alastair

The Scheherezade storyteller

The metaphor of James and Cordelia’s relationship

Cordelia as James’s link to this world

In the Classic Reimagined with Shadowhunters characters book, Cordelia and James are pictured as Scheherazade and sultan Shahryar from “1001 Nights”, and she is probably telling him a story in that art. This book is a collection of folk tales and it is often referred to as “Arabian Nights” and has elements of different Middle East cultures. In short, the sultan Shahryar marries virgin women and then he kills them after the night they spend together. After some time, there aren’t virgins anymore, so the vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, offers herself as the next wife/queen and survives because for 1000 nights she tells the sultan a story, which she never finishes, to keep him curious. The sultan spares her life because he wants to know how the stories end, and after 3 years (1,001 days) she finishes the stories but the sultan has fallen in love with her and he doesn’t kill her. 

Like Scheherazade, Cordelia likes books and likes to tell stories. Cordelia is Persian and this collection of tales also contains Persian elements, and the name Scheherazade means “of noble lineage” from Middle Persian. Cordelia also offered herself to marry James to save him from facing judgement from the Clave.

The name of the Sultan, Shaharyar, means “holder of the realm” as king/prince, because the “shah” was the crown king/prince/emperor in Persia/Iran. James loves to read as well and he has expressed several times in CoG2 that he wants to hear Cordelia’s stories. 

“Night” in Arabic is “Layla”, which is not only the title of “1001 Nights” in Arabic (“Alf Laylah wa-Laylah”), but it also refers to “Layla and Majnun”. The only time James calls Cordelia “Layla” is when he has the scalding fever and is in and out of consciousness. Alastair also calls Cordelia “Layla”, which is not just super cute but also a reference to their Persian heritage and it also refers to the aesthetic behind Cordelia and James. Cordelia is the night and James the day, but Cordelia is also the fire and James is the shadow. Cordelia is also a heroine like Scheherazade, of course. In literature, the Scheherazade storyteller is also someone who tells a story and is fighting with death, which means that they are telling their story to the reader but they know that they don’t have much time because death is around the corner. If you consider the trouble happening in CoG2, every character of TLH risks to die, especially since we have different POVs and each character tells their own story from their perspective. The only character writer in TLH is Lucie, who also notices how life is terrible and unpredictable, while she only wanted to put joy into her stories:

She felt somewhere in the core of her heart the truth of what her mother had just said. And one should put truth in books, she thought, but this would never be the sort of thing she put in the pages of The Beautiful Cordelia. Books were about experiencing joy. This was the raw and awful stuff of life.

It was much too terrible.

When James has the scalding fever, Cordelia reads him poems and tells him about “Layla and Majnun” by Nizami. From Days Past: Cirenworth Hall, 1900:

She read him the poems of Nizami, and especially the story of Layla and Majnun, one she clearly loved and had known since she was very small. Her cheeks grew unexpectedly red at the more romantic parts: the poor boy falling in love with the beautiful Layla on first sight, wandering mad in the desert when they were separated.

If we were to analyze this, we could say that it reflects James and Cordelia’s story to some degree. James didn’t fall for Cordelia at first sight because he had the gracelet in most of the times they met through the years, but when the gracelet is off and especially after this moment with Cordelia tending to him while he was sick, James is not able to keep her out of his mind even when he later meets Grace again in Idris. Now I don’t know what will happen, but until the gracelet is off, James will act as doesn’t love Cordelia unless their bond breaks the spell of the gracelet. Or Cortana could destroy the gracelet? The last part of this section I reported above “wandering mad in the desert when they were separated” made me think about the shadow’s realm. The realm is like a desert because there is nobody around, and when James goes there before he finally meets Belial, it’s deserted as there is no one there (even if I guess there are demons, but it’s mostly a lonely place). Cordelia is the only one who went to the shadow realm with James and seems to be a threat to Belial in that dimension, because of Cortana. Will James go back to the shadow realm and will Cordelia have to look for him again like at the end of CoG2? That could have been a foreshadowing for the ending and of James and Cordelia finally meeting Belial, but who knows if that won’t come into play again in the future. James could be unable to go back to the normal world and he could be stuck in the realm. Just a thought.

Even when James has the scalding fever and travels to the shadow realm, Cordelia is the only one who is able to bring him back and to their world, which means that there is a link between them, something in Cordelia and James both, a pull. Perhaps it’s the affection they feel for each other, the fiery passion that they could unleash after the gracelet is finally off. Like we saw in the whispering room. That was raw and unrelenting passion, the metaphor of Cordelia and James as a couple: fire and shadow. Cordelia is the fire/match that lit James on fire. Here’s more quotes from Chapter 3, Days Past: Cirenworth Hall, 1900 to support this idea:

He reached for her, and the shadow that was his hand caught hers, darkness against flesh. He wondered how his touch felt to her. His whole body was tensed, like a horse shying from thunder. The room smelled of lightning.

“James, you must hold on. You must. Don’t go anywhere,” Cordelia said. “Stay with me.”

“ ‘ I sought not fire, yet is my heart all flame. Layla, this love is not of earth.’   ”

He shuddered and felt himself come back to this world fully, felt his body return to the space he occupied. 

Note: There is also a parallel scene where it’s Alastair who tells Cordelia to stay with him, which could be a hint that Alastair might be the link for Cordelia to stay in this world if she ever falls into the shadow realm with James, perhaps (like Lucie could also be another link for James as his sister). In the flashback from Chapter 20, Days Past: Cirenworth Hall, 1898:

When he looked suspicious, she said, “I could use some help, Alastair. You see how careless my form is.” Alastair came and took the knife from her. “Very careless,” he agreed. “I know swordplay comes naturally to you, but not everything will. You must slow down. Pay attention to your feet. Now, follow my gestures. That’s it, Layla. Stay with me.” And she would.

To reinforce the parallelism between famous Middle East literature and English literature, we also have “The Beautiful Cordelia”, which is not a real book but a story in the making, since Lucie started writing it when she was 12 and she still hasn’t finished it. It’s also a story-within-the-story like the narrative in “1001 Nights”. Lucie is also telling her own story to the readers, and in CoG2 she is writing about Cordelia who is a beautiful red haired woman. Cruel Prince James, inspired by her brother James, is one of the characters of her book even though we don’t know if he is the Lord Hawke who adored Cordelia and supposedly is her main love interest.

One thing that differs in “1001 Nights” and “Layla and Majnun” is the ending. The first has a happy ending because Scheherazade and Shahryar fall in love and she doesn’t die because she becomes queen. In the other book, however, which is sort of a “Romeo and Juliet” love story, the ending is not happy. Layla’s father doesn’t want her to be with Majnun, because he considers the man mentally unstable (Majnun means “crazy”). In the end Layla marries someone else and Majnun roams in the desert because he can’t accept to live in a world without her. They die without seeing each other again, both heartbroken because they can’t be with the other person. 

Now don’t take the books word for word. They are inspirations for the main story for sure, but the good thing of inspirations is that they never have the same ending of the original.

Thanks for reading! I know it’s quite long, but I don’t have the gift of brevity, I’m sorry. 🤣