#on the one hand between the media aimed at kids

[vashti-lives]

After vague blogging about fanfic and YA I will say that the issue of media for teens mixing poorly with all ages and adult media is not a problem exclusive to fanfic writers. 90% of the conflict in the star wars fandom stems from the fact that star wars’ YA and children’s media is to some degree canonically and philosophically incompatible with the mainline movies. In the movies the Jedi are unequivocally the heroes and we’re supposed to respect them even as they get backed into a terrible corner. They’re wise heroes doing their best.

In the media made for kids by necessity the adults of the Jedi order have to make absolutely wild and absurd decisions in order for the kid protagonists to get chances to do heroic stuff actual kids would find fun and exciting. This naturally puts their behavior at odds with the goals of the movies.

Add in that the movies don’t hold up to close reads because they’re intended to be fun summer blockbusters, and the fact that the Jedi are based on a fairly shallow understanding of a non-western collectivist lifestyle without nuclear families which is extremely foreign to western audiences and what do you get? Decades worth of discourse over whether the Jedi are actually good guys which can never be resolved because they're based on completely different ways of analyzing media. Worse, nobody can agree on what parts of star wars should be counted in the first place so even if you're analyzing things in the same style you might still be doomed.

[twistedwonderlandshenanigans]

"Gingerbread Houses" -HCs

Finals did not, in fact, kill me. Anyways, depending on how things go this may be my last real post of this year, so happy holidays and happy New Years if I don't see y'all til January ^^ --------------------------------------------------------

Heartslaybul

Riddle

He's never made a gingerbread house before OTL and his perfectionism will be his biggest pitfall. At least he's using Trey's cookies and icing so that it's not a matter of the quality of materials, but it's still something he's going to spend HOURS on, making sure every line is perfect and sharp. He's seen the sets before in stores, so he will pull up a reference photo on his phone to try and match the box as closely as possible. By the time he's finished, he's a mess. There is icing everywhere. He is ready to pass out. His hands hurt from piping. And he realizes too late he could have decorated the inside just for fun. He still enjoyed it, but he's going to aim for an easier design in coming years. He also only takes a few pieces of candy and a gingerbread man, before letting the first years eat it. (He got a picture before it was devoured though).

Trey

Oh he's so tired of baking. Are you kidding me. This time of year COULD be fun but he has finals on top of being resident big brother AND BAKER to a dorm just to go home and be Big Brother with his siblings. He's so tired. He will bake everything off for people after they submit what shapes they want/need for their creations and then while everyone is making their gingerbread creations he's going to his room and taking a fucking nap. Good for him. He'll munch on left overs if he feels like it, but he knows there's going to be mom and dad's baking at home so he'll just wait. Once he does go home though, it's a competition, half the family against the other half to make the largest, most impressive gingerbread creation. They may involve the community to vote on which one is better, and then they just let the elementary school kids in the area eat them both.

Cater

He buys one of the boxed ones just to put it together for the sake of social media. Makes it all cute and near perfect, it takes significantly less effort for him to do so than Riddle, mostly because he has some artistic background. He knows between that and Trey's baking, nobody is really going to want to eat it so he brings it to PMC for Lilia lmao. He already knows he's going to do the same thing again when he goes home, so his mom has something to post on social media.

Deuce

He's also never made a gingerbread house! His mom didn't have the means to buy all those ingredients or to buy a set she knew he wouldn't eat, so they always made stuff out of rice krispy treats. They're easier to mold into the shape you want anyways, especially when they're warm, so it prevented tantrums when he was younger too. He still does it, not just for traditions sake but because gingerbread just...isn't his favourite flavour.

Ace

Growing up, his mom was the only one really capable of cooking or baking, so when she passed (HC), his brother would just take him out to the dollarstore to buy a SHIT TON of different wafers and candies. They would make a candy wonderland of sorts before gorging themselves on their creations. Ace doesn't mind gingerbread all that much, but he likes how stable the wafers are in comparison when it comes to attaching them with icing. Sometimes he'll build a foundation with wafers and then attach the gingerbread to the wafers so it has something stable to lean against. It's really just an excuse to eat more candy. He also decorates the inside of his builds, usually using gummy bears as people. When he was a kid he used to bite off their heads and then scatter them around the build 💀

The rest are under the cut!!

Savannaclaw Leona

Could not give a flying rat's ass about gingerbread creations. The closest he gets is Cheka spamming his texts with pictures of his creation. Leona ends up paying Ruggie to make one so that he can send one pic back and the rugrat will stop bothering him 💀

Ruggie

They never really made anything like sculptures. Latino Ruggie is real in my heart, so Christmas time is when they would have saved up as much as they could to have a massive feast with the community. That being said, he can't exactly build with them but empanadas, you know the plantain ones with custard filling and a sugar coated outside??? Those ones? FUCK ton of those. Sometimes though, when Sam has leftovers in January of the kits, he'll take the kits back to the kiddos to enjoy.

Jack

Oh his family loooooves making gingerbread houses, the only rule is, no rectangles are allowed >:) (squares are technically a form of rectangle too) so every year his mom heads up the competition. Jack tries to help his younger siblings but he tends to break things by accident and they get mad at him lmao. He never makes a house himself, he just grazes on the candy, and eats his siblings houses after they've picked them clean of candy, leaving him with plenty of cookies to eat. His siblings also use a lot of coloured icing to decorate the "lawns" outside of their houses. (His mom always includes "ducks" on hers)

Octavinelle

Azul

Having been from under the sea, he hasn't made them before either, nor does he really want to. To me, he does not like the texture of icing. I think that would be gross to him. And why would he want to eat all that candy? He would rather go home and eat a dessert Nonna's whipped up, or even attempt to make cannoli's on his own. He may host a competition at the mostro lounge with a bring your own supplies event and whoever wins a competition gets free meal vouchers for a week.

Jade + Floyd

They also have not made gingerbread anything before, but wHEN they do. Jade meticulously puts his together, every detail, every drop of icing, everything is planned. He has a sketch he did in a planner next to him and he's GOING to replicate it. He's grumpy at Floyd because he's eating gingerbread over his shoulder and it's crumbling and falling onto his work space and into his shirt but if he acknowledges it he knows it's going to get worse. Floyd does not have the patience to put his together. He essentially makes it one giant cookie/poptart thing and layers candy on top. He does ask if he's allowed to break Jade's when he's done (they will brawl after when Jade says no and Azul has to rescue Jade's creation for the sake of keeping what little semblance of peace he has.)

Scarabia

Kalim

The concept is new to him but once he's introduced to it - he loves it. And not a surface is safe from flying icing. He wants icing in every single colour and all the candies from all over the world. He'll try dipping gingerbread in eggnog. These traditions aren't widely celebrated back home, so he's going to make the most of it while he's with friends! He ends up eating so much candy he throws up rainbows. Sorry.

Jamil

He has no interest. You thought Leona was disinterested? No, Jamil is. He'd rather be doing nearly anything else.

Pomefiore

Vil

When he was a kid, it was tradition for him and his dad to decorate lebkuchen together. He looks forward to it more than he'd care to admit, because it's the one constant date he knows both he and his dad work to ensure they have free. Neither of them are very GOOD at decorating, but it's more of an excuse to catch up with each other. The nostalgia also just generally helps Vil show a little more holiday spirit and loosen up a little bit.

Rook

:) He and his sister never really got those kinds of things, but they loved making paper snowflakes together.

Epel

He never had the patience for gingerbread houses when he was a kid, so his meemaw would only make gingerbread men for him while his parents built a house. He would squeeze icing bags so hard they popped, and layer on the subsequent icing in a thick, uneven swab to the point when he went to go eat it it made him sick. He loved it though. Nowadays he tries a lot harder to make them pretty just because he thinks it's a fun activity, like apple carving, where every little detail can make a huge difference on the overall composition. Meemaw's baking is peak, and not even Trey can beat it.

Ignihyde

Idia + Ortho

When they were kids, they loved the pomegranate smashing tradition their dad used to do. Their dad would also make kourabiedes - while not exactly ideal for building with, they were delicious. Instead of building things out of food, they would build a "karavaki" (wooden boat) out of scrap metal as a family instead and decorate it instead of a tree. It's been a long time since Mama and Papa Shroud have managed to convince Idia to celebrate...anything with them, but this year they started a new tradition with Ortho, with high hopes for years to come. This year, they designed and built a cat cafe gingerbread house, just for the fun of it, but there were still plenty of kourabiedes to go around. (Mama Shroud is NOT allowed in the kitchen but she would make little reindeer button cookies if she could. However, that is one field of chemistry she just can't seem to handle OTL)

Diasomnia

...uh

Diasomily

Because of Lilia's many travels, he picked up on different traditions and cultures over the years. As a result, every year (that they've all been together), they celebrate a different tradition from around the world. Yes they've made gingerbread houses before. Malleus has gargoyles on his. Lilia's is completely inedible. Silver has icing on half his face bc he passed out. Sebek essentially made a giant cookie-face of Malleus and got pissy when he ran out of black licorice to make his horns. They're so sillayyyy

------------- LMAO I lost the plot about half way through but we bring it back

anyways

@nemisisnemi @fluffle-writes @my-cursed-brain @distant-velleity @elenauaurs @lumdays @starry-night-rose @theleechyskrunkly

lmk if you want to be added/removed

happy holidays and please take a fat nap on my behalf at some point lmao

[countdown-if]

"Countdown" is a slice-of-life inspired by "Gilmore Girls," and is rated 18+.

Three months ago, life took a sharp turn. Your mother found herself entangled in a situation so bad, she couldn't dig her way out of it, like usual. This time, the hole was way too deep. She needed help, and the only people capable of aiding her were the same ones she had vowed never to allow back into her life, let alone introduce to you and your younger sibling.

Who were they?

Your grandparents—a powerful and well-established duo.

In short, they did manage to help your mother back on her feet, but not without strings attached—never without strings.

Now, you're facing a senior year in a private school, fully funded by none other than grandma and grandpa, dearest. The only task at hand: do what your mother couldn't—graduate.

Form relationships, pursue your passions, burn bridges etc.,—the decision is entirely up to you.

🍁 Customise your MC (gender, style, personality etc...).

🍁 Choose 1 out of 3 part-time jobs (p.s. 'if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen' and pursue another in your new school!)

🍁 Choose your path. Are you aiming for a top Uni like Harvard next? Or maybe you'll step foot into the world of music? Rumour has it 'Crimson Haze' is looking for a new addition. What will it be?

🍁 Romance 1 out of 6 love interests.

🍁 A lot more in store!

Casey Decker (m/f) 🍁 [profile page]

Your friendship goes way back to the nappy days. With both of your mothers on the younger end of the spectrum, it’s no surprise you grew to be close too—'best friends' type of close.

Casey is a ray of sunshine, full of life, and quite possibly the jelly to your peanut butter. They’re sweet like that—they can be, at least. But best friends should be just that: best friends. Besides, as of recently, Casey is taken.

Appearance: Medium-length, straight, golden blond hair covers the nape of their neck. They have slightly tanned skin, a sprinkle of freckles across their nose and cheeks, and grey eyes.

Lake Aydin (m/f) 🍁 [profile page]

Lake has just started working at the grocery store nearby your house. High-school dropout, you assume. They don’t talk much…to you. Kind of a mystery, that one. Their social media confirms just that—there's not much to go by. 

Also, your first meeting wasn't the greatest or smoothest. But one thing's for sure: you'll be around there a lot, so you might as well get talking in the meantime, right?

Appearance: Dark brown eyes, pale skin, and short, straight black hair for m!L. For f!L, it's medium-length black hair. They wear glasses whenever they remember.

Harry/Hallie Johnson (m/f) 🍁 [profile page]

H doesn't actually go to your school, but events are often organised as a collaboration between a handful of private schools, both of yours included. So yeah, you might see them around.

H is good at all of that—the networking, the galas, the fundraising, and public speaking part. They know what they want, and they have a resume to show for it. H is CC—charismatic and confident. They're who parents wish their kids would bring home, so needless to say, they've got your grandparents' stamp of approval.

Appearance: Deep brown skin, short tightly curled black hair for m!H, and a little longer than shoulder-length, tightly curled black hair for f!H. They have light brown eyes.

Santiago/Samara Garcia (m/f) 🍁 [profile page]

S is an academic with tunnel vision for success. They're consistently at the top of the class, leading the ranks, and on a mission to become valedictorian.

What sets S apart from the majority, you might ask? They're one of the only two people who got into the private school solely based on merit. No mommy's or daddy's money, none of that. It's all about brains and drive.

And what about you? Are you a high achiever? If yes, expect a somewhat healthy rivalry. Heads up, though—S doesn't fail. If no, they'll look down on you, and they won't make any effort to hide that. It's a double-edged sword.

Appearance: They have wavy brunette, borderline black, nearly shoulder-length hair, tan skin, and hazel eyes. They also have three beauty marks: one above their left eyebrow, one right below the left corner of their lip, and one on the tip of their nose.

Riven/Raven Rodrigo (m/f) 🍁 [profile page]

R is destined to be a superstar. Three years ago, R and 3 of their friends formed a band called 'Crimson Haze,' and it seems like all their hard work has finally paid off this summer. They've had a couple of gigs overseas, and they've done really well. They're on their way to major stardom, but first, they need to figure out a few things. Something's missing—perhaps a fifth and final member?

R is a passionate musician, a reckless friend, and a nonchalant lover. Music is their life. However, their love life is...unsteady. They don't do distractions, aka relationships; only fun.

Appearance: They have dyed jet-black hair, short messy waves for m!R, and long messy waves for f!R. They also have amber eyes and olive skin.

Nolan/Naya Brown (m/f) 🍁 [profile page]

N is the star athlete and the school's pride and joy. They have a lot of eyes on them, watching and expecting big things to come. On the court, they're a beast, but in class? Not so much. Their grades are below average, and if they want to keep competing for that full-ride scholarship, they need to bring their grades all the way up.

N is a typical cool and popular kid—playful, funny, and well-liked around the school. Whether they remember it or not, you share a history. You used to know N. FYI, they've been in a committed relationship for the past two and a half years.

Appearance: They have light brown skin in the winter and medium-brown skin in the summer. Their hair is dark brown, with short and loosely curled hair for m!N, and long and loosely curled dark hair for f!N.

DEMO TBA | FORUM

[dostoyevsky-official]

could you elaborate on your most recent comment on that post about college students struggling to read entire works? because you frame an excerpt from the article as "it's the phones" but the entire excerpt is about teaching-to-the-test pedagogy that prioritizes small sections of texts etc rather than giving students practice in the classroom with reading a whole book. clearly that's a different issue than phonics, but I'm just not sure why that was the excerpt you chose if your point is that it ISN'T about poor pedagogical choices.

the excerpt is about how phonics isn't the issue, responding to someone who was saying that phonics are the issue. i don't think it's phones in isolation, but it's the biggest root cause, by far. the piece spends quite some time on it.

we could approach the problem like good economists, asking if it's possible to isolate phones as a variable, ceteris paribus. and it is. out of curiosity, i read a few books related to the 1990s "closing of the american mind" phenomenon earlier this year, including hirsch's cultural literacy. he, like others, bemoans television and loosening standards for lower reading rates and poor retention of basic cultural information you learn in humanities classes that are necessary for a coherent society—if any information was retained to begin with. but kids were still reading.

i graduated an extremely intensive, extracurricular-focused, top college prep-aimed high school in 2014. i had an iphone since 2012, a facebook, twitter, instagram, and tumblr account each since ~2008, but this was before the psychological abuse of each was maximized through streamlined app design. a lot of classes in this high school were also geared "towards the test," in this case, APs, and a chunk of it was devoted to polishing SAT scores and college essays. some classes focused on excerpts, and by far not everyone was Doing the Reading (one skill you learn in college and certainly in grad school is how to gut a book, not reading the whole way through—nobody does the entire reading). yet enough students were still reading the whole of the book for enough books, even if sparknotes was ubiquitous. phones, by the way, were confiscated on sight.

many issues were already destroying students' ability to read, including poor pedagogy. but something happened between the early 2010s and now that made the problem much, much worse. what was it?

there's a lot of anecdotal evidence from professors and other articles on phones as the issue, including some academic research on psychological effects—i don't know why this particular article is gaining traction here and on twitter, maybe because it's well-written, in the atlantic, concise—and it seems pretty unambiguous that phones and social media are destroying attention spans, not matter whether child or adult.

an interesting, just-published study, " Library in the Palm of Your Hand? A Randomized Reading Intervention with Low-Income Children" looks at what happens when you direct children's attention towards reading, providing them with easy access to books, instead of phones:

...

...

this happened in germany, by the way. i don't know about german school pedagogy, but i'm not sure they abandoned phonics.

it's phones. it's 100% phones.

[shadysadie]

I’m still not over that final fight

I love children’s media, I always have and always will. Pretty much all I watch or read is aimed for children or young adults, I just think it’s more fun, more hopeful, and honestly more palatable for my neurodivergent brain. 

But now that I am coming up on 30, I so rarely see characters that represent me as main characters anymore.

I love the protagonists as the kid I used to be, but I have just had to accept any character that represents me will be the mentor that will at best stand aside to let the kid characters flourish, and at worst die to be the inspiration for the kids to keep fighting. Pre-Owl House the only show I could watch with my kids where the mentor remained an active character was The Sarah Jane Adventures, but that had to get canceled because the lead actress actually did die. (RIP Lis Sladen, you absolute champion)

Then we get Eda Motherfucking Clawthorne

The Owl Lady

Iconic chronically ill queen.

Con-artist

Garbage thief

Public enemy number 1

Drinking her morning alcohol from her Thirty and Flirty mug

Giving no fucks about what society thinks of her

She plays the role of a mentor. She sees this lost, lonely kid and takes her in; teaches her, protects her, grows to love her as her own, but that is not the only role she plays. Her life is shaped by Luz and King, but it doesn’t revolve around them. She still has her own stuff going on.

 From reconciling with her mom and sister to joining the BATTs and CATTs and her relationship with Raine, she is just as much of a main character as Luz and even when they are doing different things, Eda’s character growth is given just as much weight as Luz’s.

Even when we don’t see her throughout most of season 3, Luz’s love for her remains one of the driving forces of the story. And when we do see her she hasn’t been sitting idle, she’s still planning, she’s still moving forward, doing her best to save her home.

Then we get the final showdown which is traditionally just between the big bad and the young protagonist, occasionally a team of friends depending on the dynamics of the show, but this fight usually NEVER includes the mentor figure. But in the Owl House, you bet your ass Eda is going to be included. 

Not only is she in the final battle, but she continues to play the role of the mentor, covering Luz’s back, guiding her hand, giving advice and encouragement. And they are having a blast! Both of them have the biggest smiles on their faces because they are just so happy to be alive and together.

Even after they get to the Heart and Luz has to face Belos one-on-one to pull him off, Eda, Raine, and King are there protecting her. They are in this together through and through. Because Eda is just as much of the main character as Luz. This is their story. And as promised in episode one, they stuck together.

[al-the-remix]

WIP Wednesday

Buck finds the box when he’s helping Tommy pack up his stuff, slouched pathetically in the back corner of the closet in Tommy’s spare room, caked in dust and buried under a pair of old motocross boots. 

It took them less than a weekend to divide the contents of Buck’s loft into a neat truckload of tightly packed boxes. Tommy’s house is a whole different story. Junk collects in the bungalow the same way cobwebs shroud barn rafters; teetering stacks of brittle yellowed paperbacks cover low tables, rolling metal drawers filled with odd tools and bits of machinery are shoved into corners at a slant, and other assorted knick-knacks cake every other spare surface in the house. 

Actually, just about everything Tommy owns looks dated by at least a decade. Buck wouldn’t be surprised if he found something from the precambrian era fossilized beneath Tommy’s hoard of physical media. There are magazines and DVDs and–how do people even listen to CDs anymore? Buck thinks as he pushes another pile to the side to get at the box. 

Buck’s elbow deep in beige fabric before he realizes what he’s stumbled across. Pulling Tommy’s old fatigues into his lap, he runs his fingers over the shallow ridges of Kinard embroidered across the chest tape. The fabric is soft with wear but crisply pressed, Buck kneads it between his fingers, finding the inconsistencies where it has been patched and stitched. 

He digs a little deeper. There are two pairs of boots stuffed in there as well, a tan pair that looks like they have seen better days, and a black leather pair that might have been shiny with polish once but has since dulled from lack of attention. 

Buck rubs his thumb over the hard toe of one of the leather boots. It’s clear Tommy hasn’t touched this stuff in a while. He wonders just how much Tommy held onto over the years; if the rest of his house is any indication, most of it.

“What you got there?”

Tommy’s leaning against the doorway, a smile playing at the edges of his lips as he watches Buck poke through his personal belongings. He knows he’s just doing what he’s been asked, but he still feels like he’s been caught red handed digging through Tommy’s old military stuff. 

“Ah, you found the digies,” Tommy says, coming to hover at Buck’s elbow. Up close he looks pleasantly flushed and serene like he could spend all day moving around boxes and never get fed up with it. 

“Do you ever wear these?” Buck holds up the uniform he’s been swaddling in his lap. Aiming for curious but not too curious. 

Tommy frowns. “Not really. If there’s something ceremonial going on I’ve got my blues, but it’s been a long time since I got invited to something like that.” He reaches down and pulls one of the leather boots out of the box. “Oh, cool, my jump boots. I’d forgotten where I put these.”

No kidding, Buck thinks, eyeing the various sports equipment unceremoniously piled on the floor of the closet. If he'd ever been worried that digging through two decades worth of Tommy’s baggage–both emotionally and literally–would dull Buck’s interest in him, he shouldn’t have been. If anything, getting a chance to inspect Tommy's junk (ha) fanned the tinder of his curiosity till the point of ignition.

Tommy has both jump boots in his hands now, eyeing the dullness of them regretfully. “Twenty-five-year-old me would have been so embarrassed, I used to love these things.”

���How’d they end up in the closet then–so to speak?” 

Tommy snorts and drops them back into the box, causing a small eruption of dust to tickle Buck’s nose. He barely avoids sneezing.

“Sorry–I don’t know, I think I just packed all this stuff away when I got the job at the 118 and the house and forgot about it. Tried to make a clean break, you know?”

Not really. Buck had sort of bulldozed through his twenties with a brick on the gas. No stopping. No slowing down. Whatever snagged and held got dragged along in the turbulence of his life as long as it could cope: people, jobs, places, they all blurred into one and other in an unending train of flashes of light and color. 

“I see why you liked them,” Buck says, switching tangents. “They’re pretty cool. Very punk rock.”

He flashes Tommy a grin and the sign of the horns, pleased when Tommy rolls his eyes, amusement clear in every line and upwards curve of his face. Buck can smell the sweet powdery edge of his deodorant and see the sweat blotting at his temples right where he’s started to go gray. He weighs the pros and cons of yanking Tommy down by his belt and wasting fifteen minutes making out on the floor between islands of miscellanea.   

“Don’t even joke, the only punk rock going on in the Idaho panhandle was of the Boots & Braces variety.” Buck pulls a face and Tommy continues. “They’re more of an honorary thing anyway, you get ‘em after you pass your paratrooper training.”  Tommy nudges the box with his toe. “They’re not exactly practical.”

“They could use some buffing up,” Buck admits, taking a boot in hand, inspecting the scuffed heel. 

“Don’t start,” Tommy huffs. “You’re going to give me war flashbacks. Literally.” Buck stares shamelessly as he pulls the hem of his shirt up to wipe at his brow, making hot, implicit eye contact when Tommy drops it again.

“None of that, we’re on a tight schedule.” Tommy sticks a finger in his face like he’s warding off Buck and his nefarious intentions. 

“Fair enough, where do you want them, Sir?” He quips, all tongue and cheek.

Tommy shakes his head in defeat, grabbing a random collection of items from the floor before making his retreat. The nape of his neck is flush pink. “You can stick all that stuff in the keep pile.”

Buck salutes his back. He figured that would be the answer.

[lightlessons]

How to Read 108: A Chapter-by-Chapter Death Note Analysis

Hello everyone!! Welcome to my revived Death Note blog. I recently had the opportunity to rewatch the anime (twice) and fell back into my old obsession, so I thought I’d re-read the manga with a more critical eye and share some of my own thoughts as I go for anyone craving more meta and analysis from one of my favorite pieces of media ever.

Mainly I will concentrate myself on analyzing dialogue, narration techniques and characterization, since that’s what I mainly take note of when I consume anything, but I will also try my hand at doing some research on contextual information and artistic choices, dividing my analysis chapter by chapter.  Something to keep in mind is that this analysis is fully made for people who have completed the manga in its entirety and will be riddled with spoilers for further chapters. Sometimes I will break down a chapter analysis into two parts, like in the present case.

Without further ado, let’s go!

Chapter 1: Boredom. Lilith’s Breakdown. Part 1

Key takeaways:

Themes and Parallels: Ryuk and Light

The main antagonistic forces in the story.

Themes and Parallels: Ryuk and Light

We begin our story and the very first thing we are presented with is a parallel between two worlds: The Realm of the Shinigami and our own Human world. Through the juxtaposed dialogues of our initial characters, this exposition directly links their character motivation and narrative arcs. They have a common problem: Their worlds are rotting, and every day seems like and endless, tired routine for them both.

It’s interesting to note the artistic choices to depict this sense of forlornness. We have to keep in mind that Death Note is a Shonen and aimed at young boys from ages 12 to 18, so what better scenario to mirror a dour fictional realm than a packed middle of the day class where all kids wear the same uniform and very few, in any, seem to have any interest on what’s going on in front of them. If you look very closely to all the students in this picture, none of them are actually looking towards whoever is giving this lecture, in the same way that Shinigami are not interested in doing their task.

Light and Ryuk are both non-conformists in their respective realities. Creatures who stand out from the crowd and who, by their acute awareness of what’s wrong in their world, feel boredom more deeply and painfully than the rest. Ryuk is not a shining being of intelligence like Light is, but we will see throughout the story that he’s a pretty self-aware and insightful Shinigami, when compared to every other that we meet.

Ryuk as a choric narrator

In classical Japanese Noh Theater, there is a figure called the jiutai (地謡), sitting at the outskirts of the main plot happening on center stage, they serve as the chorus that helps narrate parts of the story, reveal inner thoughts and emotions of characters, and offer reflections of the unfolding events, much like the classical Chorus in a Greek Tragedy. They, however, do not affect the narrative and serve more as a mediating connection between play and audience.

Although Ryuk’s role is certainly not confined to a mere commentator, seeing as he is the one who instigates the main narrative (and eventually ends it), Ryuk’s status of not only a God, but an apathetic one who is barely physically or emotionally affected by the events of the story, gives him a role above and separate from any of the other characters’.

Clad in skin-tight dark bodysuit meant to highlight his monstruous, lifeless appearance, gothic accessories consisting on spikes, chains and skulls, black, tattered wings and feather accents, Ryuk immediately gives the appearance of a preternatural, terrible bird of death. However, the face paint-like make-up, unmovable grin and feathers reminiscent of a medieval suit also give the impression of a clown or a jester, which Obata, Death Note’s artist, will expertly use to his advantage depending on the role Ryuk will take on at each present moment.

This is Ryuk’s dual nature in the narrative: he is there as an ironic chorus, laughing at every tragedy and obstacle the characters and the world faces, providing comic relief, and breaking the tension in a rather grim and suspenseful story, but he is also there as the Grim Reaper, a constant reminder of the destiny that looms over every character, and specially our main character, for as he first states it:

Ryuk may not have chosen Light, and Light is anything but a man without agency, and yet the series often makes you question how much of Light’s fate was set in stone since the start (We will analyze this tension between chance and destiny through the story) Ryuk, the dark figure literally hovering over Light during his whole time as Kira, emotionally detached from the human drama around him, will often be used to remind us of the irony of this whole story, as well as of the inevitability of death every human has to face.

Which brings me to my next point.

The Antagonistic Forces: L and Light.

There are few instances in Death Note where an extradiegetic narrator appears in the story, so let’s examine this first moment. Immediately after the opening scene in the Shinigami world, when Ryuk makes the first disruption that sets forward the story’s events, the following narrative is introduced as an all-out battle between two chosen people.

Now, with our understanding of what befalls one half of this pair, we will examine how well this premise holds as the story unfolds. For now, however, the narrative presents itself as a man-versus-man conflict between the 選ばれし者 (The Two Chosen Ones), and yet again we are compelled to question the role of fate's hand in shaping their paths.

We could interpret 選ばれし者 in two ways: one tells me that Light and L are two extraordinary individuals whose abilities led them through a certain path since the moment Ryuk dropped the Death Note. However, the use of the word “chosen” invites deeper questions. Chosen by whom? Was their all-out battle an inevitable consequence of their existence—fated from the start? Does a cosmic force guide the events of this world, or were they chosen specifically for this conflict? Alternatively, does the concept of a “Chosen One” imply that they would have remained special, even if the notebook had never entered their lives?

I did some research both online and with Japanese-speaking friends and the consensus seems to be that the phrase carries a dual interpretation to it, suggesting both fate and merit when used in literature. At the same time, the archaic grammar し in 選ばれし gives the phrase a poetic or elevated tone, which strongly suggests a higher, almost divine selection to a first-time reader.

That external narration, and this first panel are all the hints we have about the other half of the "two chosen people" in this first chapter. A man working from the shadows gathering information from the world’s largest international police organization, his identity hidden even from us as readers by obscuring his eyes, exhibiting a weird-ass floor computer set-up for some reason. He’s lean, he’s black-haired. He’s mysterious. As a first impression, you’d probably expect a cool Byronic type of anti-hero. Brooding yet charming, dark and isolated yet wretchedly attractive, with a troubled past, but good intentions at heart. Well! In the following chapters we will see how both L and Light continue to fulfill or challenge our expectations and examine how well L fits the shoes of our protagonist’s antagonist force.

Next up! Chapter 1: Boredom. Lilith’s Breakdown. Part 2

3. Establishing the protagonist:

Light and expectations

Light’s resignation

Light’s cognitive dissonance

Thanks for reading! I would love to hear your own thoughts.

[solaris-amethyst]

💫Just one more picture💫

✨Pairing: theater kid!Yeosang x theater kid!gn!reader ✨Prompt: You're not playing the romantic leads but everyone ships your characters together and they keep making you take pictures together in costumes. ✨Word count: 1.8k ✨Genre: fluff, slight romance ☀️Authors note: Let me know what you thought of this one shot❣️ The play I'm referencing in this one shot for anyone wondering is Shakespeares Twelfth Night🥰

Ever since the first read through of the play, everyone involved decided that your character and Yeosangs character were absolutely made for each other. You couldn't really wrap your head around why everyone was so adamantly shipping your two characters together, when there was barely any interactions between the two that indicated they were romantically interested in each other.

Sometimes during run throughs of scenes your fellow cast mates would be taking pictures and talking about how genuine the love between the two of your characters, Malvolio and Maria, are. Even if Malvolio spends a good time in the play talking about how he wants to marry Miss Olivia after your character Maria, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew trick him into thinking Miss Olivia is in love with him.

Despite that, your director decided that she wanted to go in a slightly different route for Maria and Malvolio stating that the two of them were in love but did not dare to confess and Malvolio especially tries to hide his love for Maria by acting as if hes actually in love with the misstress they both serve. With longing stares and some gentle hand holding here and there to a catch when your character trips as she's in a hurry.

All of this never failed to make you blush, Yeosang was a beautiful man who was kind and passionate in everything he did. Your favorite thing about him was when he smiled, especially if it was directed towards you. It made your heart flutter and your cheeks grow slightly hot.

"Okay everyone! Gather up please!! Today were gonna take some pictures of this run through which means that you'll be photographed, this is so we have some work in progress photos to post on social media and to find some really good moments we want to have pictures of when we do our dress rehearsal next week!" Your director, Annelise, shouted as everyone gathered closer. "I want you all to give it your all during this run as you would in the dress rehearsal and when we have an audience watching. Give me passion, comdey, betrayal and all of that."

You could already feel some of the eyes on you at the thought of having pictures taken. As you were wondering what Yeosang might think of it all you could suddenly feel his presence behind you, his hand landing on your shoulder gently turning you slightly towards him.

"Let's do our best so we get some nice photos okay?" His gentle smile aimed towards you made you nod.

"We should, but don't forget to have fun you know, that's when the magic happens on stage." Yeosang was about to respond to your comment when Annelise called for everyone in positions for the run through. As you had predicted there were a lot of pictures taken of you and Yeosang. And you had to admit, in some of them the two of you looked really good together.

"We look good together." Yeosang hummed as he looked at the photo of him holding you close so you did not trip in the scene. It made you look at him in surprise, you were going to ask him if he really meant that but he was already walking away to get his bottle of water and go home for the day.

-next week during dress rehearsal-

If people had gone wild about you and Yeosang during last week's rehearsal it was nothing compared to now when you both were in costume. Yeosang was in a nice costume, looking prim and proper and you were in an equally prim and proper costume. Yours were slightly more flowy than Yeosangs, the costume department wanted the distinction and said it would go nicely with when he catches you.

What you had not expected was everyone in the cast to come hounding you with their phones and cameras telling you two to pose as they took pictures. Yeosang for some reason seemed to really enjoy it as he posed with you, you thought it would be awkward and in a way it was awkward but the way Yeosang posed with you it helped ease your nerves.

"Come here, let's do one last pose to make them satisfied love." You looked at Yeosang in slight shock at his words as his arm came close around your waist bringing you in close as his other hand went up to caress your cheek as he leaned in closely. In surprise you had brought one hand up to his shoulder and the other gently gripping his bicep of the arm that were cradling your face oh so gently.

"Yeosang..."

"Yes?" He tilted his head slightly at your question as the rest of the cast fawned and squealed over Malvolio and Maria, talking about how they were such a great pair and the pose was just chefs kiss for those two characters. After a few more photos everyone were satisfied walking away leaving the two of you alone.

"You were going to ask me something weren't you y/n?" He asked you curiously.

"Well... It's just that... You know I can't help but wonder if it's just our characters they ship or if they're shipping us two as well. Especially with the way they're acting and taking pictures of us." You confessed feeling the heat return slightly to your face as you kept eye contact with Yeosang.

"Well I sure hope they do." He said it so casually you almost chocked on the water you were drinking to calm your nerves.

"W-what?!"

"Yeah I sure hope they ship us both together as well."

"Are you serious right now Yeosang?!" He let out a chuckle at the way your mouth was hanging open in slight shock at his confession.

"I am. I do really like you y/n." You couldn't believe your ears, here was the guy you had liked for a really long time confessing he liked you as well and hoped that the others shipped you two together as well.

"I really like you as well!" you blurted out before he could say anything else and the smile that blossomed even wider on his face was to die for.

"So would I be able to take you out for a date after our first show then?" He held your hand gently as he asked the question, his own cheeks flushing.

"I'd love that Yeosang."

-First show day-

"Y/n! Yeosang! Can you two come here for a second?" Annelise asked causing the two of you to break away from your conversation about where your first date should be at.

"Sure, what's up?" You asked looking at her curiously.

"I would like to add an extra scene in the end after everything where Malvolio and Maria confesses to each other and shares a kiss if that is okay with the two of you? I have an idea of how it would look if you are up for it? I know it's very last minute so it is totally okay if you say no." Annelise looked at you both with hopeful eyes and when you turned to look at Yeosang he was already looking at you.

"I am fine with it if y/n is comfortable with it." He nodded confirming he was okay with an additional scene and a kiss between the two of you.

"So am I."

"Great! So, I was thinking the two of you..." As the two of you quickly rehearsed what Annelise had envisioned to get the blocking down it was soon time for the premier. You could all hear the audience bustling behind the curtains and the nerves were starting to kick in. You could feel the butterflies in your stomach as the lights turned down and the audience went silent as the drapes opened up allowing the show to start.

The audience were amazing, they were laughing, making comments and going wild during certain scenes, you and Yeosang got quiet a few cheers and whoops and someone even calling for Yeosangs character to kiss yours when he caught you from tripping. It was nearing the end. Soon time for you and Yeosang to go up one last time.

"Are you nervous?" You glanced as Yeosang who was next to you waiting for his own cue.

"A little bit. Are you?" He took your hand in his and squeezed it. If it were to calm you or him down you didn't know.

"I've been calm since after our first scene but now the nerves are kicking in again." You admitted and he nodded at your words.

"Let's just go in there and pretend it's just you and me. No one else."

You were about to respond but the moment you heard your cue you walked in on stage, looking around almost worried you had missed him. As you sat down dejectedly on a chair Yeosang ran in breathing heavily looking like he had ran around the entire palace in search for something, or someone.

"Maria."

You looked up in shock and stood up in surprise.

"Malvolio!"

Yeosang ran up to you bringing you in for a hug, hands trembling slightly and you hugged him as if he were going to disappear. You swore you could hear someone in the audience saying quietly "they better kiss now." as Yeosang brought his trembling hands up to hold your face oh so gently, caressing your cheeks as his once stoic character looked at you with love and kindness.

"I am so sorry for the way I've treated you my love. I was afraid you did not feel the same way. My heart beats only for you. I feel weak in the knees when you are not near me, I feel jealousy beating in my heart and clouding my mind when you laugh around Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. I was foolish to hide what I felt for you. I love you Maria, more than anything in this whole wide world." Yeosang was looking at you so intently and so loving you had to break eye contact with him.

"Oh I am so glad you found me my dear. I love you Malvolio, there is no one else I'd want to spend the rest of my life with than you." you confessed with a sweet smile and that's when Yeosang dove in kissing you passionately as the crowd erupted in cheers with someone shouting "finally!!" as the curtains closed on the two of you.

"I love you y/n." He whispered quietly into the kiss.

"I love you too Yeosang." You replied before giving him one last kiss as the rest of the cast joined up with you to take your bows as the curtains opened once again to the cheering audience.

[winchestergirl2]

March Reading Recs

To show some love and appreciation to all the amazing writers here on tumblr, here are all the fantastic fics I've read this month. 💖

Many of these fics and blogs are 18+ only, and NSFW please heed the author's individual fic warnings and requests regarding no minors. I am not responsible for your media consumption.

2023 Reading Recs | 2024 Reading Recs

Supernatural

Sam Winchester

You're On Your Own Kid Part 2 @my-proof-is-you

Authors Summary: You’re used to being on your own. You’d been on your own as long as you could remember. Could Sam show you that it isn’t the only way to live?

Don't Worry About Me @my-proof-is-you

Authors Summary: Anon Request: hi! could you do a sam imagine where he’s been really stressed with work/researching for a big hunt, y/n can’t sleep and sees him still awake and tries to make him feel better? maybe some hidden feelings for both of them?? just really fluffy cute stuff please!! thank you! i love your work!

Requited Love @uhohnotthisagain

Authors Summary: Sam discovers his love for you in a not so clean dream, he doesn't realise his actions following the realisation would effect you so much.

10 Inch Hero

Boaz Priestly

The Miracle Man @zepskies

Authors Summary: The first time you met Priestly was both the worst and best night of your life. He gave you a Miracle.

Centerfold Dance Party @just-a-touch-of-sass-and-fandoms

The Boys

Soldier Boy

The Bet @quin-ns

Authors Summary: butcher leaves you to keep an eye on soldier boy and things become interesting when a deck of cards gets involved

Let's Dance @impala-dreamer

Authors Summary ~If there's one thing she knows, it's that she fucking hates Soldier Boy. If there's one thing he knows, it's that he can change her mind.~

I'm A Ruin Part I | Part II | Part III | @anundyingfidelity

Authors Summary: After the events of the Seven Tower, you present Grace Mallory a new secret project you're working on already to develop a cure to Compound V. The only problem? You need Soldier Boy for that.

Billy Butcher

And So It Goes (Masterlist) @zepskies

Authors Summary: As Madelyn Stillwell’s personal assistant, Helena Flores finds herself caught between protecting her job — and more importantly her life — and helping Billy Butcher bring down the supe who killed her best friend, Becca.

Big Sky

Beau Arlen

Take Me Home Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | @zepskies

Authors Summary: You are another lost soul at Sunny Day Excursions. You’re aiming to settle in Helena, Montana, where Beau Arlen is the new sheriff in town. But you’ve both got a past you’re running from. 

Jurisdiction @waynes-multiverse

I need your hand but I don't want to burn it Part 1 @thebiggerbear

Authors Summary: You receive a phone call letting you know a family member has passed. The news rocks your world, especially when you find yourself flying back home for the services, returning to a place you'd rather forget. As your best friend, Beau is trying to be there for you but you're determined to go it alone. But since you've known him, when has Beau Arlen ever not had your back?

[msnihilist]

hii, we've never really interacted with each other and I hope this doesn't come across as weird or pushy, but I finally read one (1) too many asks from an anonymous anti and just couldn't keep my mouth shut anymore. WHY do they come to your ask box and act as if you are responsible for the education of every single person out there?? especially the last ask, where the anon just cannot wrap their head around the fact that you don't write about incest in an "educational way" that teaches people how it's "wrong and immoral". THAT'S NOT YOUR JOB??? they act like children who expect you to play the job of a parent, to take them by the hand and be like, "this is very, very bad and you should NEVER do this in real life." like, i'm sorry, but if "bad" topics can only ever be explored for the sake of teaching others that such things should never be acted upon in real life, then people like those anons should not be engaging with anything but media for very young children. how can one trust such people to consume anything that has a character doing something remotely bad without the character, in the end, turning to the camera and saying, "and remember kids, what i just did is very, very bad and should never be acted upon in real life" like some one-dimensional character fable written for people whose minds cannot yet distinguish between fiction and real life???

and to then come to YOU, who always offers content warnings and who certainly forces NO ONE to consume your content, who writes primarily for their own sake & pleasure, and who is not damaging a single fucking person over it, and complain about how you "never explore other relationships" and how you "never only write to teach your readers it's wrong and bad", i'm about to rip my hair out!!!

does hannibal ever turn to the camera and remind his audience that cannibalism is actually bad???? does any slasher ever turn to the camera and remind people they shouldn't kill???? do, idk, villains ever turn to the camera and remind others they shouldn't hurt anyone???? no??????? are topics of violence and death explored in media without serving the message of morality on a silver platter for its audience??? and do people complain to those content creators and accuse them of romanticizing killing & torturing, etc??? NO!! and yet 😫 and yet, the moment something sexual is involved, everyone and their mother clutches their pearls because to them, it's unfathomably disgusting and the idea to see it as fiction just as with other topics becomes impossible to actually understand, much less accept.

i wish i could reach through your screen, have access to those anons' computers, and install a program to only allows them access to websites that are friendly for children under 10 years old, because APPARENTLY, that's the only type of media they are mature enough to consume.

anyways. i respect and admire you for always staying so calm. i personally start having a high blood pressure for you whenever i read some of your anons, and i know in the end there's no point in engaging them bc i might as well try to have a complex, multi-layered discussion with my cold, unresponsive wall, and it would be less of a waste of time than arguing with antis. so, yeah. i hope you never let them take away your spark and ruin your fun. we live in sad times and writers who have not yet lost the courage to engage with creativity as it's SUPPOSED to (in an explorative way) are becoming much too seldom. have a lovely day!! 💕

(and P.S. sorry if i made you uncomfortable, that was not my intention)

You know, what's funny about that question aimed towards my own writing is that I actually do have fics where it's serious and awful.

Whisper Your Love is a Black Butler fic I wrote where Ciel (stubborn and prideful) attempts to force himself to overcome his sexual trauma (he was kidnapped and raped repeatedly and often) by forcing himself to have sex, and it doesn't work because trauma doesn't work that way. It's rated E, and I didn't write it to be erotic.

Playing Hard to Get is a Homestuck fic in which Dave is raped by his guardian, and it's blatant and victim-blame-y as hell. If you come away from this thinking that the rape was somehow a good thing for him, then that just shows you're going for the Olympic gold at stretching and reaching.

Mama's Boy is a Miraculous Ladybug fic where Adrien is clearly being groomed by his mother. It's so obvious that what she's doing is cruel.

Fly in a Web is an Astro Boy fic in which Tenma grooms and molests his son as a method of controlling him. Hell, even the title of this fic alludes to how "not okay" everything that happens here is.

That's just four of my older fics that I quickly combed through and picked. I have 15 pages of fics, and I only went through the last 5 to find those. (The reason it took five pages to find four fics? Because the vast majority of my fics are gen.)

62% of my fics are gen. 21% are teen. 9% are mature, and only 6% are explicit.

6%

It is honestly incredibly rude, entitled, and parasocial of antis to complain about what I spend my time writing, let alone 6% of my time.

Of course I have fetish fics. Taboo is hot! But the point of something being taboo is that it is wrong.

When I asked my ex to roleplay a rape scene with me, it wasn't a polite thing we had in mind. It was restraints and being held at knife-point and it was violent and rough because it's bad. Shocker!

But to circle back to your ask — if these antis actually do want something blatantly bad to read, I have plenty to choose from! But that's not what they actually want, because they see "rape" and "E" tagged and automatically assume that I wrote something to get off to, not that something sexually explicit might also have a greater story/point to it. (Although, don't get me wrong — writing something just to get off is super based, and I do that, as well.)

But they don't actually read my writing, and they won't, either. These complaints actually remind me of that PTA mom in Texas a few years back, who successfully complained and got books featuring sex pulled from the shelves — even though many of the books she complained about featured sexual assault/harassment.

The context doesn't matter, Christofascists— Sorry, I mean, fandom antis will always consider the content to be morally reprehensible. Sex is uniquely bad and not at all comparable to violence because the Church says so— Sorry, I mean... Because the Church says so, lol.

I appreciate you getting frustrated on my behalf! And don't worry, lol, this ask wasn't weird, haha. I actually think it's very kind of you. Yeah, that "unresponsive wall" bit is why I won't have a good faith conversation with random anon messages, anymore. If someone wants to talk to me like a normal person, my DMs are open!

Don't worry, I've been writing what I want for far too long to let randos online get me down. I get told to kill myself at least once a week, lol. They'll have to do better than that.

[the-martyrfication-of-the-matron]

Facts about America: The Dystopian and predatory nature of the American Military system Edition

- Almost all military and quite a bit of scifi video games and movies are funded by the U.S. military. Call of Duty is the biggest example because it is such an open secret. It is also why I find all of the Ghost thirst traps hilarious because the U.S. military never expected that. They endorse it, though, don't get me wrong. Publicity and idolization in any form is great, especially when it comes to the idea of women falling for military men.

- All school gym education was for really long time centered around military training. Literally, military training for kids. Similar drills and everything

- All high schools except some private schools in America are visited several times a year for military recruitment. They hand out many various goodies and treats, especially to those who win pull up bar competitions and any thing that requires good aim.

- Some people are given the option between "voluntary" military service and deportation

- It is incredibly hard to leave the military from medical injury. Took my uncle (who already showed signs of cancer, was mostly deaf, and a slew of other issues) to get a heart murmur from PTSD to be able to leave.

- Despite having anti-autism rules, the majority of people in the military are autistic and adhd given how it is structured. Audhd are incredible susceptible to the military structure as it specifically preys in them.

So the majority of people in the U.S. military were groomed into it or given little to no option. You also can't leave so yaaaaaay!

Yeah I’ve heard a lot of shit about American military.

I have family in the British military. I occasionally see my uncle who works in the RAF, and… it’s weird. The military in general has always made me uncomfortable because of him. He’s a nice enough guy, it’s just so callous. Like he’ll talk about things he’s done that have actually hurt people, and he’ll treat it like a joke. And I understand everyone copes differently, and wars and whatever, but… it’s always so off putting. Like he’s bragging.

And I just can’t imagine having this experience ontop of living with the constant glorification of war and military all around me.

In the UK, we actually have (anti-)war poems as part of the GCSE curriculum, and one of the most popular is Dulce Et Decorum Est, or, the full quote ‘dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’, which means ‘it is sweet and fitting to die for your country’.

The poem and the way we study it is so blatantly clear about how this idea of glorifying dying in war is… wrong. War is terrible and awful, and to encourage young men to die for it, for glory, is… shocking.

And the idea that this kind of study is not standard everywhere is really off putting. Because it means that people are going to die fruitlessly and aimlessly, all because they were never given the perspective that maybe dying isn’t all they’re good for. There is so much talk about mental health, and suicide prevention in the media, and yet no one thinks for one second to question the people signing up to be target practice?

I know a lot of people who don’t sign up to the military will ever see war, but it’s just… a really visceral sensation for me to think about this. I feel really strongly about this stuff, I don’t know if you can tell haha

[a-purely-objective-frog]

Everyone Sokka posting is is really starting to piss me off - y'all're so mad about hypothetical changes to a character when the show isn't even OUT YET. Acting like him not being daddy's little misogynist is a critical blow to the bones of the show when it's just. Not. Spoilers ahead

Sokka is a boy playing at warriorhood who becomes a leader and learns to trust his instincts and capabilities. Sokka is a non-bender in a group of the most terrifying bender motherfuckers on the planet who learns that his value lies in other places, but is not less than theirs. Sokka is a kid who lost his family to a war against an enemy presented as faceless and unambiguously evil, who learns that war is complicated on all sides, that no one side is perfect, who meets evil waterbenders and good firebenders and everyone in between and learns about the complexity of the human experience. Sokka is an abandoned child with responsibilities that weigh heavily on him, who learns that people really do come back, and he can lean on them, he can trust them to carry their own weight and to help him when he needs it. He is a southern water tribe member navigating his relationship with a world that forgets him, a brother navigating his complicated relationship with his sister, a boy navigating his journey to manhood. He is all of this way more than he is a misogynist.

Sokka's misogyny is so little of his character in my opinion, Suki beats it out of him early on and it's hard to maintain a "girls suck" attitude in a universe where the most terrifying motherfuckers you could ever make the mistake of crossing are girls younger than him (azula, toph, katara). I think it makes sense for him to be less misogynistic, in fact, I generally think the water tribe misogyny plots are tired and wouldn't be sad if they got cut.

Sokka's revelation that "I should respect women bc they can kick my ass" is so 2000s feminism for children. Very basic, reductive, good for children's media (which atla is, yay) but the new show is obviously aiming for people who enjoyed the show as children, and now we're older, we can understand complicated concepts like "you should respect women bc the are people, all of whom you should respect". And personally, I always hated the "misogynist makes a 180 after getting his ass handed to him" trope, I'm a physically very small girl, youngest of my family, with all brothers. To this day they could pick me up and throw me with ease. "Respect me or I'll kick your ass" doesn't work when the smallest of your brothers is twice your weight and 6" taller than you. I shouldn't have to beat you in a fight for you to treat me with basic human decency. Basic respect applies to everyone, regardless of martial arts skills.

Honestly, mild tangent here, the Pakku conclusion also bothers me. Katara loses and then he sees her necklace and... what? "I'm going to be nice to you bc I have a crush on your grandma" is uncomfortably adjacent to "I respect women only if I find them to be attractive and available". Are you serious? Anyways, back to Sokka, why does he need to be a misogynist? Is that really an essential character trait?

If you need an "in universe" explanation for why he wouldn't be, my man was raised in a village without men. I understand that women can be misogynistic and can pass those ideas on to their children (hi mom) but Sokka only noticing women are capable when one beats him up seems dumb even for him. They run his entire village. Women are in charge of everything bc all the men are away for basically his whole childhood. Either Sokka has literally never practiced warriorhood, or he has practiced with girls. Breaking news: local idiot notices the sky is blue

He doesn't have to be perfect or unproblematic. He can be inconsiderate and stubborn. His invasion plan fails, and he is manipulated by Azula. He parentifies his younger sister. He minimizes the importance of Katara and Aang' empathy as weakness. He blames himself for everything. He's an impatient complainer. He has plenty of other directions to grow.

My main worry is that the show is going to suck. They're gonna go full disney live action and make changes that they don't explore in any way just to have it be different so people watch it. I don't see the spark. I worry it's being made to capitalize on how beloved the show is and get those nostalgia dollars, not because they have anything interesting or important to say.

This has the potential to be a good change - in a well run show. I worry this is not gonna be a well run show. If you're one of the people mortally offended at the removal of your emotional support misogyny - consider why that specific aspect of that character is so important to you. I, too, have emotionally charged opinions about pieces of media that are important to me. I think it's good to self reflect on why. Is this about Sokka, or about change? Is this about the fear that something you love is going to be mistreated by corporations who don't love it, and that the things you love will be ruined by time?

Nostalgia is a helluva drug, and I think it's reasonable to be emotionally attached to your childhood media. I think disney has set a precedent of making really shitty remakes, which makes people understandably nervous for remakes. I love atla too. I worry about this show. I want it to be good. I fear it won't be. I understand seeing changes to the show as a threat to its integrity, if they change this, what else will they change?

Anyways, I'm always looking to broaden my horizons, if you have any in-depth opinions on this topic and are willing to discuss, hmu

[rosetheex-editor]

[Video transcript begin.]

[The video starts with the camera being obscured by a jean pocket, before being brought out and put in a shirt pocket, the things in view being some vines cracked bricks and a doorway without a door. Before a person identified as "Rose" begins talking.]

Rose: ok cassius, i'm here, let's fucking get this over with.

[A laugh can be heard from an unclear direction, seemingly encompassing the whole space.]

Cassius: Look up!

R: fuck you mean ‘look up’?

[The camera moves as Rose looks up at the ceiling, nothing is there except more vines and broken bricks.]

C: Gotcha.

[The camera jolts suddenly as Cassius kicks Rose from behind.]

R: FUCK! ok jackass, you really want to do this?

[Rose grabs a knife out of her bag, as the camera moves again in rose's attempts to calm down.]

R: you never answered my question… why do this to me? to edgar? what did we ever do?

[Cassius stares at Rose for a few seconds, before devolving into a fit of screechy laughter, after around 30 seconds, he wipes his eyes, and turns back to Rose.]

C: You really don’t know?

R: no, you asswipe, i don't know you in fucking general, and edgar never told me if he knew you, so like, fuck you want for real?

C: You know what my job is? I’m in the PR department. I’m supposed to make sure Showfall has a positive public image.

R: and that has what to do with us? frankly i just want to move on from this showfall bullshit i'm getting real fucking tired of you dickheads.

C: They all say that, but they never move on. They never can. Which is why I have this job! Showfall needs you out of the picture to maintain their status. I’ve failed to destroy evidence before, but I sure as hell won’t now.

R: Yeah, blah blah blah. showfall can go shove it!

[Rose runs at Cassius attempting to hit him, but Cassius moves out of the way before Rose can connect on a punch.]

C: Not the brightest, are you?

[Cassius smiles as he pulls out a pair of small throwing knives, then fixes his shirt and cracks his neck.]

R: do you think i'm gonna stand here and let you hit me?

C: No! Where’s the fun in that?

[Rose runs back up to Cassius, missing on another punch, before running back.]

R: DAMNIT!

C: My turn!

[Cassius quickly aims and throws one of his knives at Rose, it can be heard connecting with concrete and clattering to the floor. Cassius grins at them, making it clear that he missed on purpose.]

C: Whoops!

R: fuck you… your job must really suck if you find it fun to attack random people.

C: You’re not random, Editor. We both know that.

R: oh yeah, what's so different? what's the difference between me and the other fucking people showfall has hurt!

C: There is no difference, you’re just the closest target. Wait– did you really think this would end with you? That’s selfish.

R: well… It can't be selfish if I'm here trying to protect people.

C: Honestly, you’re just as naive as your sister. A shame, what happened to her. A real fucking shame.

R: YOU FUCKER!

[Rose tries again to attack Cassius, this time with the knife, stabbing Cassius in the right arm before running back to reopen the gap.]

C: Rose, this is a throwing knife! You’re supposed to throw it at me, not just stab me! Here, I’ll show you.

[Cassius smiles and rips the knife out of his arm, before throwing it back in Rose’s direction. It hits the concrete again as Rose ducks out of the way, causing the camera to shake. When it can refocus, Cassius’ smile has faded slightly, his jaw clenched.]

R: fucking told you… i'm not just gonna stand there jackass! throwing shit is no good when the other person moves.

C: Hm, you’ve got me there! How about a little… Hand-to-hand combat?

[Cassius chuckles at his terrible joke as he drops the other knife, flexing his hands. There is a very muffled whirring noise as his fingers begin to contort, after a few seconds, the tips of his fingers have something reflective and shiny sticking out.]

R: knife fingers? you have to be fucking kidding me.

C: Mhm! Courtesy of Showfall Media!

[Cassius brings his right hand up and begins to sprint at Rose, preparing to stab her. But, at the last second, Rose sidesteps the attack, causing Cassius’ hand to be embedded in the wall behind her.]

R: who's the foolish one now, stupid!

[Rose roundhouse kicks Cassius in the head, knocking him out of the wall as she runs back, keeping her distance from Cassius.]

R: HA GOT YOUR ASS! what do you have to say now!

[Cassius stands back up, leaning against the wall for support, the claw-like knives have retracted back into his hands, leaving blood to trickle down the wall where his hand now rests. He stares at Rose, and grins. It looks unnatural on his face.]

C: Just this. If I did this right, he should be here in 3… 2… 1.

[Footsteps echo off the walls of the building as someone rushes to the room the two are in, as they approach, breathing can also be heard. It sounds panicked and heavy. Soon, another person enters. The camera turns slightly to reveal Edgar in the doorway, his hair full of leaves and twigs, eyes wide.]

R: EDGAR? WHAT THE FUCK!

Edgar: I saw the note, and you weren’t home, so I’ve been sprinting around the fucking forest for half an hour looking for you. Why the hell did you think going alone would be a good idea?

R: WELL YOU DO IT ALL THE FUCKING TIME, RIGHT? WHY CAN'T I?

E: Do as I say, not as I do! Also, it’s been established that whenever anyone does something alone it ends terribly.

R: AND THAT'S WHY YOU LEFT ME ALONE TO ALMOST DI…. NEVER FUCKING MIND I'M BASHING THIS FUCKER'S HEAD IN.

[Rose grabs a landline phone out of her bag, before sprinting at Cassius, smashing the landline phone into the side of his head.]

[Cassius falls back to the ground, and takes a sharp breath in, but doesn’t give her any other reaction.]

C: Good one, Editor! But if you really want me dead, you have to actually try to kill me.

R: SHUT THE FUCK UP!

[Rose hits Cassius 3 more times before speaking again.]

R: IS THAT WHAT YOU FUCKING WANT? IS THAT ME TRYING!

C: Still fucking breathing, bitch. Try again.

R: ROT IN HELL!

[Rose repeatedly smashes the phone into Cassius' face.]

E: ROSE. Jesus Christ! Stop!

[Rose stops, looking at her hands, now covered in blood, as she begins sobbing.]

R: i'm sorry… i'm sorry. i didn't want to do that again.

E: It’s fine, Rose, just– please. I know what it’s like afterwards. It’s not pleasant.

R: i didn't want to do that, i already hurt ruby i don't want to hurt anyone else.

[A raspy chuckle can be heard from Cassius.]

C: Are you really going to let this dumb mechanic tell you what to do? Kill me. You fucking won’t.

[Rose begins to pick up the phone but drops it, the camera shifts as Rose falls on the ground, Rose continues crying for a person identified as "Ruby" it seems this person is dead however.]

C: Yikes. Wrong choice.

[More whirring can be heard from Cassius’ direction. The camera turns to him as his spine seemingly expands outwards under his skin. Something pierces the skin in the direct center of his back. The camera remains fixated on the man as 4 large, sharp metal legs emerge, the appendages are covered in his blood, small bits of his flesh are also caught in small crevices. The legs lift him off the ground and begin to move him towards a nearby window.]

R: SHIT! HE'S GONNA GET AWAY!

[Rose pulls her gun out of her bag, but is already pulling the trigger as it faces Edgar, the camera still facing Cassius.]

R: go to hell!

[Loud noise detected. Confirmed sound: Gunshot.]

R: what….

[The camera turns around to face Edgar, there is now a gunshot wound in his left leg, Rose drops the gun in shock, before screaming.]

R: FUCK! EDGAR ARE YOU OK?

E: I– uh–

[He looks down at his wound, then back to Rose. He drops to one knee.]

R: DAMNIT!

[Rose begins crying again, in between trying to ask Edgar if he's ok.]

R: please just– just say you’re ok– i didn't want to hurt you.

E: I’m– I’m fine. N– nothing vital was hit, I think–

R: ok um fuck i'm calling 911! just hang in there.

[Rose grabs her phone, as she does the camera angle changes to Rose's blood stained shoes, her crying continuing.]

R: WHY THE FUCK IS THIS ON! TURN IT OFF TURN IT O–

[End transcript]

[halfelven]

Genuine question, what movies are you talking about in that post? Bc I can't think of any that fit that description but I'm also not a big movie person so I may just have been lucky with the ones I've seen dkjsfa

disclaimer! don’t @ me saying to watch better movies! i do! i just watch a LOT of movies! i like to see what’s going out there since i study media*

also i know this is badly written. i have not pulled myself together after a very long year and a half

this got rambly so i’m putting my tl;dr here: comedy feels stagnant to me, and that makes me feel weird when it comes to things (some of which are aimed at kids/teens)

okay so if you don’t watch a lot of movies you probably missed them! the kind of movies i was thinking about are mostly comedies that are aimed at teens but really just don’t feel right. just stupid forgettable movies that will have a random adult (maybe a teacher) make some comment about back in their day. and they just feel off in a very specific way where it’s like idk who is writing this but i don’t think they have a grasp of what is going on

probably due to being rich

i am terrible with titles and names and i’m currently in the wilderness so i’m not too confident matching scenes to titles

(also that post was slamming together a few themes i’ve seen repeated in different movies and shows and they are not all american. some are canadian/uk/australia but i use the ‘too movies’ or ‘too much (blank) on tv’ thing as a joke)

also some of the movies/shows are marketed to adults not teens. they also carry with some of those themes. um. working moms (show) is canadian and i’m not sure if they’re millennial or gen x but they have a lot of weird recurring issues with ‘ooh scary generation gap with my kids.’

and i think um. i’m trying to remember the name. idk it stars the australian woman who was in pitch perfect and she’s in a coma and wakes up 20 years later and goes back to school and they make the slur jokes. that is the one i watched most recently. i was having a hard time with trying to figure out who the target audience was… can’t remember the name and i watched it last week

another movie i can’t remember the name of that i think was marketed at teens also had the weird ‘oh the climate change protest kids just want attention’ gimmick that the movie with the pitch perfect woman had

is sarah jessica parker gen x? her new sec and the city show is Wild. one of the groups presentations in my media discourse class was about the representation of sexual minorities between the old sex and the city and the new sex and the city. i can try to find one of the articles they referenced in that because how the new one is almost more isolating is really interesting

which is kind of a trend? a ohh boo hoo don’t yell at me mean minorities!! i’m trying!! kind of vibe that runs through a lot of new movies/shows

like there is this distinct weirdness that is coming in with media created by white female comedians (i say female bc i tend to watch movies with female leads) amy palmer or pohler or whatever her name is. she has a movie out like 5 years ago? it had this teenage girl finding her mom’s old punk albums or something

but basically i had been watching a bunch of comedy things with female leads and so many are just weird. like it was leaving me wondering like what are the shows/movies teens are getting that feel somewhat authentic?

obviously movies are weird and there aren’t a lot of good ones that really stand out. and there have been constant jokes about how young people are portrayed in media for forever probably

but i think that movies are a good medium for comfort and hope, maybe especially for children and teens. you don’t have to have the energy to read to yourself. you can watch it when you’re doing something else with your hands. or are sick.

it’s the visuals. and the music. the way you can do something else while getting a story. they are very human.

and comedies are much harder to do than dramas. but they have a different sort of catharsis. i don’t know. people tend to downplay them as just stupid when there is a deep connection humans try to have through humour. i’m rambling but i just really love comedies and i love stories for children and stories for teens and i think they’re all downplayed as. being stupid. or easy. like you don’t have to try.

i’m sorry this just turned into rambling. maybe writers just went too far with the ‘set things in high school bc a.) kids will make emotional decisions that you wouldn’t see an adult character make b.) your characters are trapped in that environment c.) unlike college, they are trapped with other characters on mostly the same schedule and d.) they still see breakups etc as life and death situations’ advice that they give writers (this is paraphrased from several screenwriting guides i’ve read)

but idk i’m just bothered by the comedies i’ve been watching. and comedies do tend to show a lot about the current state of the world. comedies and horror are both downplayed genres that show a lot.

again sorry this is rambly. i don’t have energy to find my sources. there are interesting theories on comedy out there that just make me feel weird about what i’m seeing. like it’s so stagnant. that’s my tl;dr

most comedies i’ve seen lately seem stagnant

*i have a degree in this so i feel bad that i’m not pulling sources bc it feels like plagiarism at points

[zorilleerrant]

Hmm. I'm going to sort mine.

title is a literal description of the story (”5 times x did y”, “first kiss”, etc)

perfect formatting, title is evocative of the story’s main themes

song lyrics

3 feet long all lowercase (overlaps w/ song lyrics)

one word. only one.

title seemingly has nothing to do w/ the content of the story until it gets dropped during a high-tension dramatic scene 70k words in, making you feel like the world meant for you to be born in time to read it

really bad pun

“Song title (and the rest of the song title)”

A singular word that you don’t recognize, then the definition is the summary

Movie reference Non-musical media reference

Clever double-layer meaning

Help I’ve never titled anything in my life I don’t know what this is I just want it to be out of my hands and posted neither you nor I will ever be pleased with this

I currently have 115 fics on Ao3. Using the above criteria, I’ve determined by own naming predilections.

1: Fifteen. Named for what it says on the tin, because I couldn't think of anything else to do with it, or because naming it the obvious thing is just what makes sense.

(The Hogwarts Gender Union; A Cure For Ohan; Pineapple Pizza; Third Sister; Captain Marvel's Day at the Beach; Are You. You Know. Adopted?; 5 times Marcus hated superheroes and 1 time he didn't; A dog might have got blipped! NOT CLICKBAIT; Harry Potter in: The Batfam Goes To Therapy; Another Loki; Truth or Dare; Heir of Slytherin; Seventh Son; The Yule Ball; Conversations Between a Father and Son)

2: Twenty-two. This makes sense because this is what I think of as a 'normal' title and tend to aim for.

(Growth Like A Nurtured Vine; Providing for the Future; In Every Reading Room; Keep The Hearthfires Burning; The Platitude Against The Wall; A Place To Rest Your Head; To Honor A Debt; What We Learn In Chinese School; In The Mythic Tradition; Half Gay/Half Straight; Even A Broken Clock; On Loan from the Wayne Family Collection; This Changes Nothing; Just a Perfectly Normal Rabbit; Five Degrees West; Narcissus at the River's Edge; Educational Overnight; Everybody Makes Mistakes; Forever Home; Small Town Mentality; Best Hadron Collider; Father of the Year)

3: Seven. Way more than I thought, honestly. I use lyrics when I'm struggling to title because it's in the genre tradition.

(but my dreams they aren't as empty; They Call Me Her; I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon; it's a love story baby just say yes; Good Girls Stay Alive; You're gonna go far, kid; Love Will Tear Us Apart)

4: Zero. The longer a title gets the more antsy it makes me, so I tend to avoid long titles.

5: Seventeen. I used to use these a lot to get easy titles, but then I realized I had no idea what fic that was when it got a kudos, so now I only use a single word if it's unique enough that I can remember why I'd name something that.

(Faildeadly; Anabasis; Y-incision; Proprioception; Change!; Anathema; Terrible; Protest; Marathon; Frieda; Worry; Answers; Parabatai; Courage; Besties; Ferret; Babyproofing)

6: Zero. I've only got the one super long fic and it's got the more obvious song naming instead.

7: Ten. Bad puns... or really good puns? Hmm?

(Faire's Fare; Just Monkey Business; When Pigs Fly; Robin's Egg Blue; Ace Shot; The Magic Word; Gift of the Magpie; Attraction; Captain America's Gay Fling; Swearing a Red, White, and Blue Streak)

8: Zero. I just don't like the format.

9: Zero. It always feels condescending to me to assume people don't know a word, so I try not to define them.

10: Twenty-five. Referential titles are an easy go-to for me. I did notice several of them either took a quote directly from canon or used a titling/title card convention from canon, so I wonder if that should be a separate category, or two different ones. I'm also uncertain whether mythology/folklore references should be considered 'media references', or maybe grouped in with titles taken from aphorisms and sayings. Do enough people quote Shakespeare to give him his own category?

(One Face, One Voice, One Habit, and Two Persons; Tendi and T'Lyn at Their Table; Red Bean Buns of Destiny; Does Talia Have A Sister?; Who Gets To Decide Her Own Damn Fate; The Excellent Adventures of Keanu Rhesus; My Concealed Lady; Stabby the SecUnit; Rapidly Expanding Air; The Monkey or The Egg; Words, words, words; And the Mischief of Monkey; In the Museums of the Night; Auntie Yelena Saves Christmas; Dick Grayson, College Student; Meanwhile, At Gotham Grace; Animorty Cricksing: New Pants; Better Together; Don't Call Me Nymphadora; Brightest Witch of Her Age; Just Tonks; Not Always in the Same Way; No Flamz Prepz; A Fish Without A Bicycle; The Boy)

11: Eight. I'll be honest I assumed I'd have more of these because I do love multi-layered meanings. I try hard to achieve them but I'd say they're the most difficult sort of title.

(A Great Deal; Just a Moment of Peace; The Family You Build; Where There's Life There's Hope; Love Like A Sister's; Coffee or Tea?; Brain Freeze; Something that Starts with a P)

12: Eleven. Yeah. Sometimes I struggle with a title for so long I just give up and name it whatever pops into my head....

(Billy Batson in the Wrong Dimension; Incentive Structure; The Burden of the Sword; One Last Kryptonian; An Island Paradise; The Superhero Code; What Makes A Hero; Happy Year of the Tiger; The Smallest Details; Plot Armor; A Better Mousetrap)

types of fic titles

title is a literal description of the story (”5 times x did y”, “first kiss”, etc)

perfect formatting, title is evocative of the story’s main themes

song lyrics

3 feet long all lowercase (overlaps w/ song lyrics)

one word. only one.

title seemingly has nothing to do w/ the content of the story until it gets dropped during a high-tension dramatic scene 70k words in, making you feel like the world meant for you to be born in time to read it

[ao3feed-petermj]

free-fall

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/h3Sl1Ws by starbucksmenu "Dude, can you get some uniqueness with your aim?" Damon grumbled, holding his gut again. "Like Damon-" Armani shot Damon a glare before continuing, "-said, I'm Armani. Or if you want my full name, Armani Cronin." He held out his hand. "Wanted mercenary across the U.S. But you ain't allowed me to catch after we fight together, that's being a dick. And then we have, Damon Jade, Mr Stark's half brother." "Uh.. Peter Parker. Mr Stark's intern. I'm here.. 'cause.. I'm a spider?" "I'm sorry, kid, you're a fucking what? A spider like.. the ones I kill every night?" Armani comments, raising an eyebrow, which leads to Damon cackling, playfully punching Armani's shoulder. "Maybe that's not the best thing to say, Crow." Damon gets out in between laughs, holding Armani's shoulder for support. "Okay, so I assume you're the vigilante we saw when he had jobs in New York." Peter shrugged. "Yeah, maybe I am. meet my gremlin ocs this is marvel x pjo civil war-halfway thru infinity war Words: 3355, Chapters: 3/?, Language: English Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death Categories: F/M, M/M, Multi, Other Characters: Original Male Character(s), Original Male Human Character(s), Percy Jackson, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, Clint Barton, Annabeth Chase (Percy Jackson), Luke Castellan, Thanos (Marvel) Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Percy Jackson & Peter Parker, Annabeth Chase & Percy Jackson & Peter Parker, Annabeth Chase (Percy Jackson) & Peter Parker, Percy Jackson & Tony Stark read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/h3Sl1Ws