#one piece episode 396

[mokneydloaf]

[justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms]

Hello again...Do you mind if I ask your top 5 (or top 10) favorite moments from any anime (can be series or movies) or manga or if you want, from any media that you love? Thanks if you want to answer. Sorry if I ask too much....

Hi! Thank you for the question! I love answering these things so no worry at all!

Levi vs Kenny fight - Attack on Titan, Season 3, Episode 2

Luffy punching the Celestial Dragon - One Piece, Episode 396

Reigen chases Mob - Mob Psycho 100, Season 3, Episode 12

Suzu performs as herself and the crowd joins in - Belle (movie)

Langa vs Adam, the final race - Sk8 the Infinity, Episode 12

No Pressure Tags: @therapy-ghost @icarus-fw @justsomerandomfanfic and anyone else that wants to join in (Let me know if you'd like to be added or removed from my taglist).

[missmickiescorner]

It's a bird, it's a plane—

It's—

One of the best pieces of pro-library propaganda ever put to animated children's television.

On tonight's episode of "What You Are Looking For Is In the Library," we'll be taking a look at Advocacy—what it is, what it isn't, and who it helps (hint: your local library was made possible by viewers like you 🫵🏽)

Thanks to some great marketing (like you see above) the library—as a global information organization—has been immensely successful in establishing itself as a neighborhood or community landmark...and much less fortunate in being able to convince the powers that be of its continued necessity in the twenty-first century.

From personal experience, I can say that I don't think I've ever not known what a library is. While at a young age, my ability to articulate why the library was useful would be limited to, "because that's where the books are," I can see as an adult that as we move towards a rapidly advancing technological society that has embraced an odd pursuit of anti-intellectualism; the outdated—but commonheld—ideas about what the library is and does unfortunately inform the public about its usefulness. 

Said another way, there is a prevalent misconception that the library is an old building, with old librarians, with old books that nobody reads because we all have cellphones and everything is moving online...that can—in part—be addressed with more advocacy by and on behalf of library professionals and organizations to remind the public of all libraries have been and all they can continue to be in the lives of twenty-first century patrons.

So if a playful bop about the fun of library cards was the pro-library advocacy of the early 2000s, what does advocacy look like over twenty years later? 

We have librarians like Mychal Threets who utilize social media to let people know about what services libraries currently offer; campaigns and protests to see that library's receive proper funding; online information organizations going to bat to fight for the right to provide free access to information and many, many, more—all done in hopes of supporting the center of information services in the community.

To summarize,

What Advocacy Is

Building relationships with the local community.

Showcasing library/information services.

Securing support (of both monetary and non-monetary value) that will enable the library/information organization to continue operating to the best of its ability. 

What Advocacy Isn't

Politically motivated.

Simply about money/funding.

Pointless.

Impossible.

Bibliography

Nemec-Loise, J. (2016). Top Ten Advocacy Myths–Busted!Links to an external site. Children & Libraries: The Journal of the  Association for Library Service to Children, 14(1), 34–35. https://journals.ala.org/index.php/cal/article/view/5924/7497Links to an external site.

PBS KIDS. (2023, August 22). Arthur | SING ALONG: Library Card Song | PBS KIDS [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRTdmmdEuRM

Sweeney, P. “PC.” (2022). Advocacy. In Information services today : an introduction (Third edition., pp. 388–396). essay, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated.

Staff, B. (2024, February 27). “mychal the librarian” set to collaborate with PBS Kids in Social Media Series. Because of Them We Can. https://www.becauseofthemwecan.com/blogs/the-feels/mychal-threets-pbs-kids-collaboration

NYC’s Public Libraries Call for Reversal of $58.3M in Proposed Budget Cuts  | The New York Public Library. (n.d.). The New York Public Library. https://www.nypl.org/press/nycs-public-libraries-call-reversal-583m-proposed-budget-cuts

Freeland, C. (2024, April 19). Internet Archive Stands Firm on Library Digital Rights in Final Brief of Hachette v. Internet Archive Lawsuit. Internet Archive Blogs. https://blog.archive.org/2024/04/19/internet-archive-stands-firm-on-library-digital-rights-in-final-brief-of-hachette-v-internet-archive-lawsuit/

[lilnasxvevo]

One piece episode 396 pressing thoughts:

1. I like that Kuma’s Bible is personalized to have his Jolly Roger embossed on the back. Generally speaking it’s not frowned upon to have a personalized Bible, like one with your name on it or whatever, but this particular choice seems a little sacrilegious.

1a. Actually, come to think of it, it’s really funny that the Warlords apparently are all still allowed to use their Jolly Rogers. You work for the World Government now, but sure you can keep using the symbol that marks you as an outlaw who answers to no one. What could possibly go wrong?

1b. The paw print motifs on Kuma’s outfit are unfairly adorable.

2. NICO ROBIN THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE!!!!!

[opshizt]

everybody hands down to the most satisfying moment from one piece

[melodiusicons]

Icon commissions available!

Hello, and good evening! I’m in a bit of a tough spot financially at the moment,

I specialize in making simple 100x100 RP icons. I do not make PSDs or borders, I enjoy making large quantities of RP icons, on some good days of upwards 50+ for a single episode or chapter. I like making enough expressions for threads. Basically, my goal when I make my RP icons is so less on things like borders or their edits as opposed to giving RPers enough expressions so that they can respond to most situations in their RPs.

For example: for my icons of Miku Okazaki from Gal Gohan, I have made over 1220 icons. For Ann Takamaki from Persona 5 I have made 966 icons from the anime (I still need to do the Dark Sun specials) and 137 icons from the manga. For Maggie Lacivi from Ava’s Demon (on request) I made 396 icons. For Cardia Beckford from Code:realize (only iconed episodes 1-6), I made 347 icons. For Milly Ashford from Code Geass I made 377 icons. For Doona Cheon of Sadistic Beauty I have made 945 icons. Basically, when I make icons, I make a lot, and that’s what I’m offering for you if you consider my services!

10 cents per icon, so $10 for 100 for example (I might consider adjusting this number if I make a ton of icons to be slightly lower, but this is unlikely) These icons will be published publicly; if you want this to be private (available only to you) I will up-charge you 5 cents per icon (so $15 for 100)

I am willing to icon virtually any source, including that of most “problematic” media or N/$/F/W things like an h-manga or films showing graphic scenes (I’m not stranger to iconing things most dislike just for a FC, so I understand what you want) and even full out dead dove content. I however have a personal right to icon something that does not make me feel comfortable. If you’re going to be ask me to do something extremely sketchy please understand for my own personal comfort and for the sake of reputation I might reject it entirely. We will discuss this on a case-by-case basis, I will likely accept most commissions but I have my personal right to reject business I feel will make me uncomfortable.

I will give you periodic updates on what’s going on, the quality of your icons, etc.

I care greatly for the quality of my icons and your icons as well. When in the process of iconing JJ from YOI I was dissatisfied with the quality of my torrent and halfway through redid the process with a new torrent to ensure my customer had the best quality icons I could make. Even for my personal iconing projects I care about using the best quality possible so that the icons look good. If you want an anime (my specialty) or tv show quality I will look for the absolute best quality, 1080p or better to ensure you have the best quality icons you can have once I’m done cropping and resizing to 100x100.

In addition to the 100x100 icons I keep the original sized expressions as well. So once I take a screenshot and crop and resize, you will still have the original sized icons as well. This is not an upcharge or anything; I always do this. Good for expressions for personal use, I believe.

If your source is an exceptionally long-runner (like HxH, One Piece, or Yu Yu Hakusho) I will not icon the whole thing most likely; somehow I doubt most people are willing to pay for an icon commission that might be hundreds of dollars if you asked me to icon Gon or something. Most likely I will icon a specific arc of your choosing.

I do not icon fanart. If the character is very obscure and there is little official media, then I likely can’t make much. I am only willing to icon official media (such as anime and tv shows), official art, and perhaps doujins that were already being sold for money.

I can now make icons efficiently from youtube videos, so video games and the like provided there’s an LP of decent quality can now be iconed!

I do not do extensive editing, but with manga icons, I try to do very minor cleaning such as removing kanji from the background and and removing speech from speech bubbles. Basically, whatever I can do with Paint’s erase button, but that’s it.

If your source is a youtube series or the like, something I cannot easily torrent and convenient download in order to take screenshots and icons, there is a chance I might upcharge.

Below are examples of icons made from me from various sources, 100x100 and some full size icons! For the sake of length those (the full-sized ones) will go under the cut. I hope to hear from you soon! Please send me an ask or IM (IM preferred) to discuss business, and I will use the IM feature to keep in contact with you!

I hope you’ll consider me, and consider hiring me!

As a preview: 12 100x100 icons and 6 full sized icons!

[sonnyjohnson]

One Piece // Episode 396

[yahoo201027]

Preparing to liveblog Toonami, and spoilers are included. Blacklist the following tags…

Toonami

One Piece

One Piece 559

One Piece 560

Naruto Shippuden

Naruto Shippuden 395

Naruto Shippuden 396

Liveblogging starts at 11:59pm Central Time (12:59am Eastern Time) and come back once the episodes are done. Until then, viewer description is advised.

[due4amiracle]

Day 410

Listo:

Laundry/cleaning, Reading, Dailies, #TTRPGThings, Watching.

Laundry/cleaning - Picked up some bits here and there. 2 pieces of Laundry sorted.✔

Reading things - - No holds no holds NO HOLDS!. 129 for the year, 1 for month! OK SO? REMEMBER WHEN i SAID INSTA-BORROW BOOKS? Yea there were 3 more today. Shit. So now i’ve got four books checked out. - The Merciless Ones (The Gilded Ones, #2) by Namina Forna 100%! 3🌟Well dang, that was good. i sure do love me a “gasp you were the bad guy all along?!” - Her Majesty's Royal Coven by Juno Dawson 5%! Ooo! Interesting so far~ - Manhwa: Survive as the Hero’s Wife 2 chapters of this read Nope🚫! UwU♡ ✔✔✔🚫

Dailies - - Waifu Did mah dailies! Also, level 7/50 BP now~! AND! Tree lvl 28/50! Also! 24/40 max friendship namecards acquired! New MONTH! new weeklies! Chasm gem thingy is level 7/10! ♡ω♡✔

- Cozy Grove - Doot doot continuing to scout along! Scout rank 17/17! 18/21 besties! More stuff more things! ♡ω♡ ✔ New Season! It’s now Early Summer~

Shells - 99/254 - 39% Fish - 95/180 - 52.8% Bugs - 109/199 - 54.8% Flowers - 263/372 - 70.7% Cooking - 64/71 - 90.1% Raw Ingredients - 38/54 - 70.4% Materials - 51/63 - 81% Recipes - 396/3619 - 10.94% ♡ω♡✔

- Pokémon Legends: Arceus - Star 8/10 get! 174 caught, 104 max level research pages~.

|Alpha||Catch||MaxR/Total - Area |   49  ||   72  ||   70/85 - ObsiField |   47  ||   66  ||   64/75 - CrimMire |   52  ||   79  ||   78/96 - CobCoast |   49  ||   77  ||   75/90 - CoroHigh |   35  ||   71  ||   68/91 - AlabIce ♡ω♡ 🚫

- Coromon - ♡ω♡ 🚫

- Ooblets - 42/131 little frands, because why not track something. ♡ω♡ 🚫

- SWtOR - Up to 1d3h38m played time. ♡ω♡✔ UwU♡ ✔✔🚫🚫🚫✔

#TTRPGThings - Doot doot keep on workin’.✔

Watching things - - Think i narrowed it down to SAO Alicization. TBF i ain’t gonna start shit until steroids are done, so that could totally change. - Misfits and Magic episode 2!

Other things - Daily Diarrhea Diary - Good enough on this front. No shower, migraine made things miserable, and also Neuro’s office made things fucking miserable. All throughout the last couple years because Reasons You Know Them, i've been able to do Telehealth easily with my Neuro who is in the next town over, it's about an hour round trip. And with the price of gas lately? That's been lovely. Checked in today (as required) to make sure my Friday appointment was going to be Telehealth, and got this lovely gem in response: “We no longer get a list of the insurances that are still paying for the telemed. It is now the patient's responsibility to check with their insurance and make sure it is covered.” i have Medicare part A&B, i am dual eligible for Medicaid as well. There is no longer in a state of emergency (because everything is all gone! disregarding the new cases daily... anyways) and i have no idea whether or not i'm going to be covered. i'm not quite sure how often i have to see him for refills (i think it's every 6 months? But this appointment was 2 months later for... some reason i can't remember?). But regardless. Sir and i are squinting at it, and shrugging and... well. If i get charged i get charged. i need the appointment, and i am definitely not driving out there to it. So. Shrug. Other than that? Didn’t really get much done today. Very exhausted, very migrainey, very bleh.

Oh yea i forgot to mention i passed out yesterday. Or was that the day before? idk time is a flat circle.

But yea, tomorrow has to be shower, because Friday is appointment and start of Acthar. my appointment for my CPAP is the 9th! Yay. Or maybe it’ll be Monday? Maybe gonna reschedule. Unsure? But regardless of it all, gotta get the shower done tomorrow. Got red bull for it and everything!

Food: A Liquid: A Pain: D Brain: D

Tomorrow: Laundry/cleaning, Reading, Dailies, #TTRPGThings, Watching.

Ever Onwards and Upwards!

[queen-susans-revenge]

Fic Writer Review (thanks to @gondalsqueen for tagging, this is a fun one!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

57

2. What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

176720

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Six, but the vast majority for Star Wars. I wrote one Batman story that was very dashed off, mostly a quick character sketch for a possible AU. One Sherlock Holmes story that still gets some love on AO3. Two Lord of the Rings stories. A couple of reworked fairy tales. And five for Dragon Age.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Well, the top two are my Star Wars Rebels smut epics, Fade to Black (514) and Fade to Black and Back (396), which are literally just about all the sex Kanan and Hera have in the offscreen moments in every episode. I have zero shame about this.

Then there's Talk About It (335), which is another smutty piece based on a bit of party banter in Dragon Age: Origins.

Wedding Dance (312 kudos, and back to Star Wars Rebels) is my most popular non-smutty fic, but Passion, Serenity (263) is big time smut about cartoon characters again. Listen, it's not all I write; it's just what I write best, apparently!

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do, although I'm behind in responding, because I get overwhelmed easily. I have all the comment notifications saved in my email though so I can stroke them over lovingly like a dragon admiring her gemstone hoard. Every now and then while I'm being dragonish over my comments I get a burst of virtuosity and think "I'll reply to some of these!" and then I do, so I am slowly working through my backlog, and I can only apologize to those of you who are getting your responses years and years later.

I always meant to answer. I always treasured your comment.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Scenes from Rivendell. By like, a lot. If you've never thought too much about Aragorn's mom Gilraen, please let me invite you to all the feels.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I don't think I ever have! I should do that, sometime, it sounds fun.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes, I had someone chide me for writing smut on a kid's show. But I try to be really careful about tagging so only the people who WANT to see the smut end up finding it.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

The dirty kind ;o

(Though there generally has to be at least one girl involved for me to be interested. I have written some m/m content, but not a whole lot.)

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, not that I know of.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes and it's the BEST thing!! I absolutely love it when anybody does translations, art, podfics or spin-offs of my stuff. It feels amazing to see my work out there in the world, living and traveling.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

None of my AO3 works are co-written. I had an original story that got picked up for a fiction podcast that was co-authored with a friend. Although the story behind that honestly was that I wrote the thing and insisted he accept the co-author credit because it was based on one of his characters in a roleplaying game.

Something similar will probably happen with a different friend and the space pirate novel that I'm working on now, if it ever gets published.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I don't know! Certainly Kanan and Hera is what I put the vast majority of my fic-writing energy into. But I was a huge X-Files shipper back in the day and Mulder and Scully still hold a special place in my heart.

14. What’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I'm super grateful to @gondalsqueen for doing Fade to Red so I can feel like that project actually got finished properly! I think I no longer have any outstanding wips?

15. What are your writing strengths?

Dialog, and sometimes cadence/rhythm, when I hit a good stride.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Self indulgence. In fanfic that's a tendency I don't even try to fight though, because it's what fic is for. In original fic though it's always a struggle to keep it tight and keep it flowing. And not try to show off Everything I Know About Mythology, or How Cool This One Idea I Had Is, or whatever.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Tricky! Relying on Google Translate is probably a bad idea.

I'll give an example from my current project. There's a scene set in a laboratory on Mars where Something Has Gone Terribly Wrong and I wanted automated warnings playing on a loop in various languages for maximum spook factor.

The English is "Warning! Please evacuate the building!" so I ran that through Google Translate for Russian... and then asked a Russian-born friend to verify that it was a good translation. He responded that it was not, because in fact that phrase needs some cultural translation before the literal one will make sense. As he put it: "The Russian would be a lot more direct. And they wouldn't say 'please.'" So instead, he gave me "Vnimaniye! Vyhodi zdaniye!" which is something more like "Attention! Exit building." And I absolutely love that.

So, I think before you can really write dialog well in another language you either need some direct knowledge/understanding, or a native speaker who doesn't mind looking it over for you.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I thiiiiiiink it was X-Files. All those fics were lost in time, like tears in rain (no it's fine they were terrible).

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

It's hard to pick, but it might be one of the Sabine stories. Heart's Blood, maybe.

I always stress about tagging people and being annoying or leaving someone out, so please consider yourself tagged if you want to be!

[beatrice-otter]

This started out as a reblog of this excellent reblog chain about racism and antisemitism in both Star Trek canon and fandom, but as a white gentile fan I didn’t want to intrude or take over.  And I firmly believe that if you really love something, you should love it with open eyes, seeing its faults as well as its strengths.

The thing is, Star Trek is progressive ... but it’s a very white type of progressive resting-on-our-laurels type progressivism.  Sure, TOS was very progressive for a TV show of its day, but ... that ain’t saying much, and the writers and directors and showrunners were all white men and it shows.  So yes, it pushed boundaries by having Sulu and Uhura, and the first scripted interracial kiss, but that was the 60s.  TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT ... uh.  Still very heavily white and male.  Still progressive, but nowhere near as progressive comparatively as TOS, nowhere near as groundbreaking. I mean, I’m glad they listened to Avery Brooks about how his character should be designed and written!  When they made a show with a female captain, they should have at least done the same, and preferably had women in creative leadership roles (as DS9 should have had black people in creative leadership roles).  (I mean, all media should have diverse creative leadership for a lot of reasons, but when you have a character of color or a white woman as lead, it’s even more important that the creative team not be a bastion of white cisheteropatriarchy.)  DS9 was less racist and sexist than TNG or Voyager (but made up for it by being hella antisemitic, hello Ferengi) but the thing is, these are not exactly the Shining Beacons Of Progressiveness we white fans like to think of them as.  Were they better than a lot of shows out there?  Sure!  Did they grapple with a lot of issues most other shows didn’t?  Yup.  But again, that ain’t saying much.  (I haven’t watched Disco or Picard, so I can’t speak to those.)

As to fandom, just liking Star Trek doesn’t automatically make you somehow less racist.  There’s this undercurrent among white Trekkers that “Star Trek is progressive, I am progressive, therefore all participation in the fandom is inherently progressive, therefore I don’t have to worry about racial issues in either my fanworks or my interactions with other fans.”  It’s not that Trek fandom is the only fandom where white people want to assume that not actively hating black people is all you need to qualify as “not racist,” it’s that in Trek fandom we can use the perceived progressiveness of the show as additional armor against acknowledging the actual issues.

I’m white, but I remember how terribly the AOS fandom has treated both the character of Uhura (who DARED to break up the Kirk/Spock white male slash juggernaut) and fans of color.  The argument was that it was homophobic to put Spock in a relationship with a woman.  And that it was a betrayal of feminism for Uhura to have a romantic relationship.  (A black woman getting to have a fulfilling romantic relationship is a step forward, not a step back.  Nyota Uhura is not a white girl.) That whole discussion--which included fans of color getting attacked even in dedicated Spock/Uhura spaces, and ended up with the main Spock/Uhura LJ community doing a lot of educational pieces about racism and misogynoir and privilege and how not to be a dick--was back in 2009.  Over a decade ago.  And we are still having the same damned discussions and treating fans of color the same damned way.  It’s exhausting for me as a white person; I can’t imagine what it’s like for fans of color.  And the thing is, the reason we are still having the same. discussions. over. and. over. is that the majority of white fans do not learn.  We don’t.  We need to.

None of these issues are new.

Star Trek has usually been at least a tiny bit more progressive than the society around it.  That doesn’t mean that the show is perfect, and it definitely doesn’t mean the fandom is.  We can and should do better.  If we are truly committed to the ideals of Star Trek, that shining world of the future where prejudice of all kinds is greatly reduced and people usually choose to do the right thing and act with justice and compassion for all ... that should be reflected both in how we treat one another, and in what stories we choose to write.  And it isn’t.

Listening to fans of color and educating ourselves on anti-racism is a good first step, and then putting what we learn into action and working to treat fans of color better is a good second step, but there are a lot of other posts about those sorts of resources.  I’d like to talk about fannish output, what we create.

You know how people say “oh, well, the reason fandom focuses on white men is because they’re a higher percentage of screentime, therefore they’re the ones most likely to be interesting.”  Let’s look at DS9, shall we?  A show with a black man in the leading role.  As of June 30, there are 6725 fics tagged DS9 on AO3.  Benjamin Sisko (you know, the LEADING MAN), is tagged in only 961 of them.  If you look at how many fics each character is tagged in, he is the sixth person on the list.

But wait! you say, that doesn’t tell the complete story, because sometimes people only tag the pairings, not the individual characters, and therefore they don’t show up in the character tags!  So let’s look at that.  The top relationship is Bashir/Garak, with 2797 fics (almost HALF of all the stories in the fandom).  You know what the second most popular relationship is?  Platonic Bashir&Garak, with 372 fics!   You know what the #7 relationship in DS9 is?  Garak/Parmak.  Parmak is a character from a book series who never appeared in the TV show.   Sisko, the leading man of the show, doesn’t even APPEAR in the list of top ten relationships in the fandom!  Julian Bashir is there four times, Garak three.  (Jadzia/Worf is #6)

But wait! you say, the canonical pairings for Sisko were mostly recurring roles not main characters, and he didn’t really flirt with anyone he wasn’t canonically linked with, so maybe he does better when you go with only fics tagged “gen” i.e. not focused on romantic and/or sexual relationships.  (I mean, I think it’s a stretch because Janeway gets paired with Tom Paris a lot, and she doesn’t flirt with him in canon, and she rarely gets paired with Tuvok despite how often they touch hands which for a Vulcan is ... wow.  But for the sake of argument we’ll say that Sisko not flirting much with anyone besides his canon partners is the reason he’s not shipped much.) And sure, when you limit it to fics tagged “gen” he appears in the top ten list of characters!  In fourth place, with 396 out of 1876 fics.   (#1 is Bashir, with 822 fics.  #2 is Garak, with 652 fics.)

And, like, I get that Bashir and Garak are certainly very slashtastic, the actors were going for that flirty vibe in earlier seasons until they were ordered not to.  But it’s still ... pretty obvious that popularity of both shipping and gen fics is heavily influenced by racism and colorism.

I’m not trying to police fandoms or shipping or anything like that.  I’m just saying that “but this is who resonates with me/this is who I like/this is who inspires me” doesn’t absolve us from looking at the reasons why some characters are more interesting to us than others.  (It’s racism.  We’ve all lived our entire lives in a world shaped by racism and colorism, and it’s shaped our gut reactions and our preferences even when we consciously believe racism is wrong.)

And you know what?  You can influence your feelings.  You can train your gut to be less racist.  When you watch a show, pay conscious attention to the black characters.  Take a few minutes after watching an episode to think up a piece of meta or a plot bunny or something for each character of color who appears in that episode.  If you do this consistently over a period of time you will train your brain and your gut to be more interested in characters of color.  Also, when you’re deciding what to write, actively choose to favor plot bunnies featuring characters of color.  It’s not that you shouldn’t write white/lightskinned characters and ships, but that we should all be making a conscious effort to up the percentage of characters of color we write about.  (And also, you know, do at least the bare minimum of work to not write racist or antisemitic tropes. @writingwithcolor​ has many useful resources.)  That’s not the only anti-racism work we need to do to make fandom less racist, not by a long shot.  But it is important work nonetheless.

And, above all, don’t be a dick to fans of color who point out what SHOULD BE obvious to everyone.

[myktchp]

Top 6 Episodes of One Piece

If there's a series that attempts to test the diminishing return hypothesis, it's One Piece. The monstrous epic of Eiichiro Oda is the highest selling manga of all time, but its ridiculous duration still prohibits many people from checking it out, and that hill will only get steeper as we barrel towards its end (eventually).

The One Piece anime, which is a much greater commitment to time and does not boast the brilliant artwork of Oda as a selling point, is even more of a conundrum. Yet, for the first time, so many fans perceive the story this way and fall in love regardless... Over the course of many long binges, there is something special about cuddling up in front of a screen and getting lost in a world, and the powerful spirit that burns just below the surface, even during the not-so-hot days of the anime, still keeps us building up to a new "best" chapter. Everyone has their favorite shows, the ones they feel emotionally attached to, and we would love to share yours in the forums with you. Here are my own 6 best One Piece episodes, in chronological order (but not superlative):

Episode 19 - The Three-Sword Style's Past! Zoro and Kuina's Vow!

In the modern age, where the manga is so informative and comprehensive, it's hard to believe that there was once a period when the anime really successfully expanded on the plot. The anime version of Zoro's flashback is so amazing that it is the "true" version of the story in my heart, which comes a little later than it did in the manga. What once was a fast and blunt page is turned into a wonderful piece of sound, letting us live for an episode in the Japanese countryside as we hear the story of a young Roronoa Zoro and his original opponent, Kuina.

In its obsession with gender, this episode also ends up being easily the most empathic the show has ever gotten. It portrays Kuina, the prodigal swordsman, dissatisfied with the awareness that the gap in intensity between her and Zoro will increase drastically as they become adults. This is a moment for a young Zoro to take seriously his female rival, and in the present day, Tashigi finally takes up whatever thematic baggage is left behind by her death. This is One Piece's tender side at its finest.

Episode 119 - Secret of Powerful Swordplay! Ability to Cut Steel and the Rhythm Things Have!

This is another fantastic episode of Zoro that places us in the middle of the Straw Hats and Baroque Works' climate war. The adversary of Zoro is Mr. 1, who really isn't a swordsman, but a man who can turn his entire body into a weapon. Not only does Dice-Dice Fruit from Mr. 1 allow for some of the anime's imagination, but this episode manages to offer one of the coolest battles in the entire series. It's bloody, it's raw, and Zoro throws a guy into a building.

Towards the end, the episode is at its best, when everything gets quiet and builds up to the final blow. It sells the show with so much conviction that I believe it's cool. I believe this is one of the series's most driven episodes, and a great example of the show's cinematic narrative eye.

Episode 278 - Say You Want to Live! We Are Your Friends!

If 151 was the episode that made me a fan, the episode that made me a lifetime fan is 278. This episode and the one before it are older examples of "one-hour specials" from the series, which are gradually split into two episodes until released on home video and streaming sites. This episode is jam-packed even as just the second half of a special, as we conclude the tragic backstory of Robin and transition into the present where the Straw Hats make their greatest gesture yet to save their friend from the greedy World Government.

One Piece can become astonishingly sad for being such a vibrant and enjoyable series, to the point that it almost competes with itself to see how unhappy it can get. If the highs were not so gosh darn consistent, these lows would become tiresome, and Straw Hats' assault on the government flag, followed by Robin's major "I want to live!" One of the most cathartic moments you'll ever find in literature is the scene. At this point in the plot, the Straw Hats are still underdogs, so their bold "never give up" attitude in the face of their greatest enemy hits particularly hard. This episode illustrates the chasms that One Piece can jump to be the saddest and happiest tale it can be, from baby Robin surviving the genocide of everyone she's ever loved to adult Robin pleading for another chance at life.

Episode 396 - The Fist Explodes! Destroy the Auction!

In One Piece, Luffy punches a Celestial Dragon so hard that he knocks the color off the screen, still one of the most frequently referenced and applauded moments. If there is one thing that One Piece is unbelievably good at, it's payoffs. It sets the pins up so that in the most bombastic way possible it can knock them down. To this day, the Celestial Dragons are the most heinous villains we've seen in One Piece, and the repercussions of (again) defying the World Government are obvious, but Luffy still has to do his thing with Luffy.

The emphasis that the show places on Luffy's pledge to Hatchan not to intervene, no matter what, is what really captures me about this moment. You get the feeling that Luffy is the kind to keep an earnest promise, but watching a hero get pushed beyond that stage is always fascinating.

Episode 574 - Back to the Present! Hordy Makes a Move!

The general opinion, as far as I can tell, is that Fishman Island is the series' worst arc. With this sentiment, I don't agree. I think it's one of the heaviest, most three-dimensional instances I've ever seen of fantasy-world-racism-as-metaphor-for-real-world-racism. Basically, the mid-arc flashback covering the plights of Fisher Tiger and Queen Otohime is a film-length drama, and it's one of the series' best flashbacks, for which there's fierce competition. It's very underestimated.

Aside from being an exceptionally pretty episode, both halves of it are extremely strong, one at the tail end of the flashback and one coming out of it. Neptune mourning the death of his wife, distraught that the difficulty of race relations implies that he can not convey his frustration, is a great scene, as is the forgiveness of Jimbei by Nami for his connection to the pirates of Arlong. The push and pull between hope, cynicism, remorse, rage, and love is what makes this arc perfect. You just ever feel like you're halfway through everything life's going to bring you through, even at its worst. As for its place in the big picture plot, this episode is a significant step in the relationship of Jimbei with the pirates of the Straw Hat, and it establishes the purpose of the Ryugu Kingdom to join the World Government and attend the Reverie, a heavily built-up political event that is due in the manga any day now.

Episode 616 - A Surprising Outcome! White Chase vs. Vergo!

This is a particular stand-out episode in the series for fighting animation, since it's so much more physical than normal. Even with the powers of Smoker and Vergo flying every way, the effect goes down to their good ole fists. The personal investment between two marines duking it out is already very intense, but it's put over the edge by the great choreography and style, and that alone would put such an episode on my radar.

That said, once Smoker vs. Vergo turns over to Vergo vs. Rule, there is a cherry on top, with the real villain of the arc, Doflamingo, listening in from a distance. The rest of the series gives too much consequence to the law defeating Vergo in such an over-the-top manner.

So those are the episodes I feel are worth revisiting the most! Obviously, I'm expected to have skipped a few or omitted incredibly significant episodes in this top six list, with a series that long. If you enjoyed this top list of mine don’t forget to leave a like and share it with your friends. If you have any suggestions for my next top list just mail it to me at ramos.rf.bsmt@gmail.com and i will feature you for my next article. Stay tuned and stay safe everyone!

[melodiusicons]

Icon commissions available!

Hello, and good evening! I’m in a bit of a tough spot financially at the moment, 

I specialize in making simple 100x100 RP icons. I do not make PSDs or borders, I enjoy making large quantities of RP icons, on some good days of upwards 50+ for a single episode or chapter. I like making enough expressions for threads. Basically, my goal when I make my RP icons is so less on things like borders or their edits as opposed to giving RPers enough expressions so that they can respond to most situations in their RPs.

For example: for my icons of Miku Okazaki from Gal Gohan, I have made over 1220 icons. For Ann Takamaki from Persona 5 I have made 966 icons from the anime (I still need to do the Dark Sun specials) and 137 icons from the manga. For Maggie Lacivi from Ava’s Demon (on request) I made 396 icons. For Cardia Beckford from Code:realize (only iconed episodes 1-6), I made 347 icons. For Milly Ashford from Code Geass I made 377 icons. For Doona Cheon of Sadistic Beauty I have made 945 icons. Basically, when I make icons, I make a lot, and that’s what I’m offering for you if you consider my services!

My commissions page can be found here. If you are on mobile and cannot view it, its basically this:

10 cents per icon, so $10 for 100 for example (I might consider adjusting this number if I make a ton of icons to be slightly lower, but this is unlikely) These icons will be published publicly; if you want this to be private (available only to you) I will up-charge you 5 cents per icon (so $15 for 100)

I am willing to icon virtually any source, including that of most “problematic” media or N/$/F/W things like an h-manga or films showing graphic scenes (I’m not stranger to iconing things most dislike just for a FC, so I understand what you want). I however have a personal right to icon something that does not make me feel comfortable. If you’re going to be ask me to do something extremely sketchy please understand for my own personal comfort and for the sake of reputation I might reject it entirely, or at the least ask to make this a private commission and thus upcharge you (if I feel that strongly about the material though, chances are I might just reject this business altogether). We will discuss this on a case-by-case basis, I will likely accept most commissions but I have my personal right to reject business I feel will make me uncomfortable.

I will give you periodic updates on what’s going on, the quality of your icons, etc.

I care greatly for the quality of my icons and your icons as well. When in the process of iconing JJ from YOI I was dissatisfied with the quality of my torrent and halfway through redid the process with a new torrent to ensure my customer had the best quality icons I could make. Even for my personal iconing projects I care about using the best quality possible so that the icons look good. If you want an anime (my specialty) or tv show quality I will look for the absolute best quality, 1080p or better to ensure you have the best quality icons you can have once I’m done cropping and resizing to 100x100.

In addition to the 100x100 icons I keep the original sized expressions as well. So once I take a screenshot and crop and resize, you will still have the original sized icons as well. This is not an upcharge or anything; I always do this. Good for expressions for personal use, I believe.

If your source is an exceptionally long-runner (like HxH, One Piece, or Yu Yu Hakusho) I will not icon the whole thing most likely; somehow I doubt most people are willing to pay for an icon commission that might be hundreds of dollars if you asked me to icon Gon or something. Most likely I will icon a specific arc of your choosing.

I do not icon fanart. If the character is very obscure and there is little official media, then I likely can’t make much. I am only willing to icon official media (such as anime and tv shows), official art, and perhaps doujins that were already being sold for money.

I do not do extensive editing, but with manga icons, I try to do very minor cleaning such as removing kanji from the background and and removing speech from speech bubbles. Basically, whatever I can do with Paint’s erase button, but that’s it.

If your source is a youtube series or the like, something I cannot easily torrent and convenient download in order to take screenshots and icons, there is a chance I might upcharge.

Below are examples of icons made from me from various sources, 100x100 and some full size icons! For the sake of length those (the full-sized ones) will go under the cut. I hope to hear from you soon! Please send me an ask or IM (IM preferred) to discuss business, and I will use the IM feature to keep in contact with you!

I hope you’ll consider me, and consider hiring me!

[justforbooks]

Anne Sexton (November 9, 1928 – October 4, 1974) was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book Live or Die. Themes of her poetry include her long battle against depression and mania, suicidal tendencies, and various intimate details from her private life, including her relationships with her husband and children.

Anne Sexton was born Anne Gray Harvey in Newton, Massachusetts to Mary Gray Staples and Ralph Churchill Harvey. She had two older sisters, Jane Elizabeth Harvey (born 1923) and Blanche Dingley Harvey (born 1925). She spent most of her childhood in Boston. In 1945 she enrolled at Rogers Hall boarding school, Lowell, Massachusetts, later spending a year at Garland School. For a time she modeled for Boston’s Hart Agency. On August 16, 1948, she married Alfred Muller Sexton II and they remained together until 1973. She had two children named Linda Gray and Joyce Ladd.

Sexton suffered from severe mental illness for much of her life, her first manic episode taking place in 1954. After a second episode in 1955 she met Dr. Martin Orne, who became her long-term therapist at the Glenside Hospital. It was Dr. Orne who encouraged her to take up poetry.

The first poetry workshop she attended was led by John Holmes. Sexton felt great trepidation about registering for the class, asking a friend to make the phone call and accompany her to the first session. She found early acclaim with her poetry; a number were accepted by The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine and the Saturday Review. Sexton later studied with Robert Lowell at Boston University alongside distinguished poets Sylvia Plath and George Starbuck.

Sexton’s poetic career was encouraged by her mentor W.D. Snodgrass, whom she met at the Antioch Writer’s Conference in 1957. His poem “Heart’s Needle” proved inspirational for her in its theme of separation from his three-year-old daughter. Sexton first read the poem at a time when her own young daughter was living with her mother-in-law. She, in turn, wrote “The Double Image”, a poem which explores the multi-generational relationship between mother and daughter. Sexton began writing letters to Snodgrass and they became friends.

While working with John Holmes, Sexton encountered Maxine Kumin. They became good friends and remained so for the rest of Sexton’s life. Kumin and Sexton rigorously critiqued each other’s work and wrote four children’s books together. In the late 1960s, the manic elements of Sexton’s illness began to affect her career, though she still wrote and published work and gave readings of her poetry. She collaborated with musicians, forming a jazz-rock group called “Her Kind” that added music to her poetry. Her play Mercy Street, starring Marian Seldes, was produced in 1969, after several years of revisions. Sexton also collaborated with the artist Barbara Swan, who illustrated several of her books.

Within twelve years of writing her first sonnet, she was one of the most honored poets in America: a Pulitzer Prize winner, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the first female member of the Harvard chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

On October 4, 1974, Sexton had lunch with Kumin to revise galleys for Sexton’s manuscript of The Awful Rowing Toward God, scheduled for publication in March 1975 (Middlebrook 396). On returning home she put on her mother’s old fur coat, removed all her rings, poured herself a glass of vodka, locked herself in her garage, and started the engine of her car, committing suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.

In an interview over a year before her death, she explained she had written the first drafts of The Awful Rowing Toward God in twenty days with “two days out for despair and three days out in a mental hospital.” She went on to say that she would not allow the poems to be published before her death. She is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery & Crematory in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts.

Sexton is seen as the modern model of the confessional poet. Maxine Kumin described Sexton’s work: “"She wrote openly about menstruation, abortion, masturbation, incest, adultery, and drug addiction at a time when the proprieties embraced none of these as proper topics for poetry.” Sexton’s work towards the end of the sixties has been criticized as “preening, lazy and flip” by otherwise respectful critics. Some critics regard her dependence on alcohol as compromising her last work. However, other critics see Sexton as a poet whose writing matured over time. “Starting as a relatively conventional writer, she learned to roughen up her line… . to use as an instrument against the ‘politesse’ of language, politics, religion [and] sex.”

Her eighth collection of poetry is entitled The Awful Rowing Toward God. The title came from her meeting with a Roman Catholic priest who, although unwilling to administer last rites, told her “God is in your typewriter.” This gave the poet the desire and willpower to continue living and writing. The Awful Rowing Toward God and The Death Notebooks are among her final works, and both center on the theme of dying.

Her work started out as being about herself, however as her career progressed she made periodic attempts to reach outside the realm of her own life for poetic themes. Transformations (1971), which is a revisionary re-telling of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, is one such book. (Transformations was used as the libretto for the 1973 opera of the same name by American composer Conrad Susa.) Later she used Christopher Smart’s Jubilate Agno and the Bible as the basis for some of her work.

Much has been made of the tangled threads of her writing, her life and her depression, much in the same way as with Sylvia Plath’s suicide in 1963. Robert Lowell, Adrienne Rich and Denise Levertov commented in separate obituaries on the role of creativity in Sexton’s death. Levertov says, “We who are alive must make clear, as she could not, the distinction between creativity and self-destruction.”

Following one of many suicide attempts and manic or depressive episodes, Sexton worked with therapist Dr. Martin Orne. He diagnosed her with what is now described as bipolar disorder, but his competence to do so is called into question by his early use of allegedly unsound psychotherapeutic techniques. During sessions with Anne Sexton he used hypnosis and sodium pentothal to recover supposedly repressed memories. During this process, he allegedly used suggestion to uncover memories of having been abused by her father. This abuse was disputed in interviews with her mother and other relatives. Dr. Orne wrote that hypnosis in an adult frequently does not present accurate memories of childhood; instead, “adults under hypnosis are not literally reliving their early childhoods but presenting them through the prisms of adulthood.” According to Dr. Orne, Anne Sexton was extremely suggestible and would mimic the symptoms of the patients around her in the mental hospitals to which she was committed. The Diane Middlebrook biography states that a separate personality named Elizabeth emerged in Sexton while under hypnosis. Dr. Orne did not encourage this development and subsequently this “alternate personality” disappeared. Dr. Orne eventually concluded that Anne Sexton was suffering from hysteria. During the writing of the Middlebrook biography, Linda Gray Sexton stated that she had been sexually assaulted by her mother. In 1994, Linda Gray Sexton published her autobiography, Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton, which includes her own accounts of the abuse.

Middlebrook published her controversial biography of Anne Sexton with the approval of Linda Gray Sexton, Anne’s literary executor. For use in the biography, Dr. Orne had given Diane Middlebrook most of the tapes recording the therapy sessions between Orne and Anne Sexton. The use of these tapes was met with, as The New York Times put it, “thunderous condemnation.” Middlebrook received the tapes after she had written a substantial amount of the first draft of Sexton’s biography, and decided to start over. Although Linda Gray Sexton collaborated with the Middlebrook biography, other members of the Sexton family were divided over the book, publishing several editorials and op-ed pieces, in The New York Times and The New York Times Book Review.

Controversy continued with the posthumous public release of the tapes (which had been subject to doctor-patient confidentiality). They are said to reveal Sexton’s inappropriate behavior with her daughter Linda, her physically violent behavior toward both her daughters, and her physical altercations with her husband.

Yet more controversy surrounded allegations that Anne Sexton had an affair with the therapist who replaced Dr. Orne in the 1960s. No action was taken to censure or discipline the second therapist. Dr. Orne considered the affair with the second therapist (given the pseudonym “Ollie Zweizung” by Middlebrook and Linda Sexton) to be the catalyst that eventually resulted in her suicide.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[thetechmedia1]

Twitter acquires podcast streaming platform Breaker

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Twitter has announced today that it has acquired the podcast streaming platform Breaker, for an undisclosed amount. In a blog post,  Breaker CEO Erik Berlin said, “the Breaker team is joining Twitter!”. The company would help to improve the quality of “public conversation” on the social media platform and would also help Twitter’s new audio-based networking project, Twitter Spaces.

The CEO also informed that the Breaker application will be shut down on the 15th of January. Breaker, founded in 2016, started as a productivity platform, as Erik Berlin claims, and quickly became one of the best in the class listening platform for podcasts. With features like liking and commenting on episodes, the application attracted a wide array of audience and now the CEO says that they are inspired to go further in “re-imagining how we communicate with each other, beyond the scope of traditional podcasts.”

The CEO also shared his thoughts on why Twitter is a good fit for the company, going forward. He wrote, “Here at Breaker, we’re truly passionate about audio communication and we’re inspired by the ways Twitter is facilitating public conversations for people around the world. We’re impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit at Twitter and enthusiastic about the new experiences that the team is creating.”

Leach Culver, CTO of Breaker tweeted that she would join Twitter to help with Twitter Spaces, which is a new feature that lets users chat in real-time using voice instead of texts. The feature entered the beta stage last month, and is expected to launch pretty soon.

In work news, I’m joining Twitter to help build @TwitterSpaces!

While I’ll very much miss @breaker, I’m so excited to help create the future of audio conversations. https://t.co/0Y8fkbCIFm

— Leah Culver (@leahculver) January 4, 2021

Breaker also informed that the current subscription holders of the platform will only need to export in an OPML file from Breaker and open that file in another podcast listening app to transfer their subscription. People who host a podcast on the platform can also transfer their podcast to another hosting service by using the RSS feed, whose link can be found on the Distribution tab.

Recently podcast streaming services have seen a hike in activity and thus, it comes as no surprise that Twitter want a piece of the action. Companies like Amazon and Sirius also made moves recently to acquire services like Wondery and Stitcher respectively.

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[kaitlyndai]

On writer’s block and anime.

At age thirteen, I finished my first novel: poorly written beyond description but chock-full of an ambitious storyline and Harry-Potter-esque elements; in other words, 396 pages of pure, unadulterated imagination. I typed the last word of the story’s epilogue with irreplicable oomph, relished in its completion for about two weeks, and settled back in front of our bulky iMac to begin round two. This, I thought to myself, was the beginning of the writing career I’d dreamed of for so long. The rest of my life would be clockwork: book after book cranked out one after another, with nothing to go off of (and nothing else needed) but my work ethic and momentum.

I was in for a rude awakening, however, when I experienced it for the first time. A terrible, completely unfamiliar barricade between the part of my brain that strung words together and my fingertips, positioned at the ready over the ridges on the F and J keys. The tiny black cursor blinking against a stark white document didn’t look so much like an exciting new beginning anymore, just a sign of how much of nothing I had. I was told to have a conceptual skeleton in mind when beginning a new piece of writing, but I didn’t even have a conceptual femur, a rib, a stirrup (the smallest bone in the human body, thank you WebMD). The arsenal of ideas I thought I had at my disposal (things I liked about my first book that I wanted to expand on, to revamp, things I hadn’t written about that I wanted to experiment with, and everything in between) had sealed itself up. Something had put a damper on my creativity like molasses poured over the cogs of my brain, and I would soon come to realize this something had a name.

All of us have experienced writer’s block before. To different extents, surely, since writer’s block is far more dire for a freelance author struggling to pay rent than for a high schooler struggling to turn in UC applications on time (not like I speak from experience, or anything), but it’s a universal experience to not have the first clue what to write, and to not know what the hell to do about it. 

As someone who’s been writing her whole life in some form or another, I’ve searched high and low for appropriate ways to combat writer’s block, and the methods I’ve discovered have always varied depending on the type of writing in question: skimming important textbook chapters for AP U.S. History essays, rewatching eventful episodes for Criminal Minds fanfiction, watching (and seething with jealousy at) YouTube tutorials for bullet journal spreads, et cetera. Scholar David Bartholomae’s work builds off this idea; he offers his impression of writer’s block only from an academic standpoint, drawing from his experiences as a professor to define writer’s block for college students and college students only. He acknowledges that student-specific difficulties with writing exist, just as blogger-specific or novelist-specific difficulties are just as prominent for writers in those respective fields. Academic writing, which is unique in that it’s being graded, must also cater to the reader in order to reflect well on one’s transcript; students don’t only need to tailor their writing to the subject matter at hand, but also to the professor grading their work. Instructors tend to have certain preferences when it comes to various components of writing, such as sentence structure or word choice, all factors that students try to take into account — all factors that make writing harder.

I remember an earlier writing mentor referring to her writer’s block as an “inspiration deficiency”, a description that made sense for years of my life, but I now know that writer’s block isn’t quite as straightforward as she made it out to be. Calling it a deficiency of something assumes that we know exactly what’s missing, so it should, theoretically, be easy to fight off. Deficient in inspiration? Easy: get inspired. Watch motivational Ted Talks. Listen to MarioKart music on two-times speed. Leaf through your favorite books until you remember what aspects of the authors’ writing you hope to emulate. It’s never enough, because writer’s block is the result of a lack of a lot of things: time to write, motivation to write, emotional, mental, or physical wellness, or anything that helps our brains digest information. 

It’s not just a lack of these intangible factors, however. Scholar Jan Corbett, building upon Bartholomae’s interpretation of writer’s block among students, postulates that the cause of writer’s block is actually too many ideas and muddled thought processes. This leads to a state of mind that isn’t so much an “inspiration deficiency” as it is an “inspiration death”, inspiration being completely absent and seemingly unattainable. On top of that, students tend to have botched understandings of the rhetorical conventions of expository essays, so misconceptions about writing only exacerbate the existing problem of being confused as hell. TL;DR: writer’s block, like most things, is incredibly multi-dimensional, and it’s hard to know where to begin remedying it. I believe the answer to that question is to first define what it means to each of us.

Professor Jill Aeschbacher defines her writer’s block as a tall brick wall, of which the dimensions symbolize various factors that hinder her writing. Its width is proportional to the image that she gives herself as a writer, its length is her ego’s desires to express herself through writing, and its height is her fear of expecting too much, only to let herself down. Putting an image to the thing keeping her from producing prose has helped her assert her goal: to reach a headspace where she can appreciate the mechanics of the craft rather than the quality, therefore lowering her expectations to a manageable level (not to be lazy, but to be reasonable. We’ve all had standards for ourselves that were more damaging than anything). After reading her work, I’ve taken a page out of her book (literally) to procure my own wall-related personification of writer’s block.

I watched an anime called Attack on Titan this summer. It’s a fantastically written, apocalyptic tale where man-eating, massive monsters called Titans roam free; the small population of surviving humans erect three colossal, concentric walls to protect themselves, the show following their attempts to stay alive among these deadly circumstances. The reason why I bring this up isn’t just to gush about high-quality television (season 4 coming out on December 7th, be there or be square), but to draw an analogy: I am a Titan, and my writer’s block is represented by these three walls. 

The outermost wall, Wall Maria, is destroyed first in the show due to its lack of tight security and proximity to Titan territory; this is inspiration, the wall that is metaphorically broken down first when that je nais se quois happens, things fall into place, and I figure out what to write about. The second wall is named Wall Rose, which is much further inland, populated with richer individuals and more capable protectors, thus harder to break down: this is expression. With the destruction of this wall, I am able to translate my ideas from arbitrary shower thoughts to coherent, usable sentences. The third and final wall, which contains the untouchable home to the royal Reiss family, is Wall Sina. When my hulking, bloodthirsty Titan self takes this wall down, I achieve application: the integration, connection, and expansion of my ideas until they hatch into beautiful butterflies of prose. (I now realize that Wall Sina is virtually impossible to breach in the canon of the show, but I assure you that application is much more realistic of a goal. Maybe this wasn’t the best metaphor.)

So I’ve made it into Wall Sina and successfully eaten the queen, but one question lingers. What prompted the building of the walls in the first place? Translated back from far-fetched anime metaphor to English, what are the mental processes behind writer’s block, and is it possible to put its origins into words? Cue Michael Anthony Rose, an expert on writer’s block (probably because of repeated exposure. I feel for him), and his six basic reasons for why writer’s block exists among students.

Overly-rigid writing rules. Like Jill Aeschbacher, whose high expectations were subconsciously restraining her from writing, students who place too many restrictions on themselves will find words nearly impossible to mold to their liking.

Misleading assumptions about composing. This ties into Jan Corbett’s notion that a student must be thoroughly familiar with the conventions of academic writing in order to write at their best ability. Clarity breeds efficiency. Someone put that on a pillow.

Premature editing. Write first, revise later. It’s nearly impossible to know how an idea, no matter how out of place it seems at first, contributes to a paper after it’s completed. Writing and editing at the same time is something I’d done for years before realizing how detrimental to my writing process it was. Every thought counts.

Poor planning. Another thing I’ve been doing for years, except this one I have yet to correct. Leave ample time for assignment completion, obviously, and leave ample possibilities for writing completion. If only I ever took my own advice.

Conflicting strategies. Jan Corbett also warns us about this: “creative death”, as she calls it, by an overload of ideas. Hone in on what writing approach would best suit the assignment right away and act accordingly; taking on too much at once is sure to cause confusion.

Misunderstanding evaluation criteria. David Bartholomae emphasizes that understanding a professor’s rubric is a two-way street; students must take the time to digest their instructor’s expectations, but instructors are also expected to delineate their expectations clearly.

I was skeptical after reading these for the first time. Rose had taken the shroud of mystery that is writer’s block and given it such understandable, straightforward explanations that they seemed too good to be true. But I was able to utilize the teachings of fellow writer’s block experts Jan Corbett, Jill Aeschbacher, and David Bartholomae to explain his findings, which I think is a testament to their integrity. As aforementioned, writer’s block is hard to generalize because of how nuanced it can be, so no stress if not all of Rose’s reasons apply to you; his work serves as a mere framework for what is ultimately much more complex and varied.

Is envisioning my writer’s block in the Attack on Titan universe an excuse for me to further indulge in its incredible universe? Possibly. Do I think that the imagery helps me to better understand and therefore manage my writer’s block? Definitely. By no means am I capable of avoiding writer’s block entirely, nor do I think I ever will be, but I’m certainly learning to accept writer’s block as a completely natural, expected part of the writing process. We’re not learning unless we’re doing something wrong; similarly, we’re not writing as best we can if we’re not struggling to do so. What’s the point of having a Titan around if there are no walls for it to break, after all?