#parents and teachers in mind

[openstorygames]

Time is running out! You've got just over 50 hours to grab my kids' games for 25% off!

Go for a backyard adventure with Whither & Whence, be a spy with Encode, or adopt a creature of mischief and chaos in Lil Gremlins. Or triple the fun and get all 3 at an extra discount!

[sebek-zigbolt]

this is my papabolt hc

[femboy-central]

… if you want to read my essay on how gay Nick Carraway is it’s under the cut

Until recent years, very few authors had the courage to express homosexuality in their work for fear of institutional punishment or negative social reaction. With stories like that of Oscar Wilde, writers were accurately terrified to explicitly explore the diversity of the sexual and romantic interests of their characters. Despite this, they were not stopped and authors chose to implement their gay characters with artistic subtlety. F. Scott Fitzgerald's most well known novel, The Great Gatsby, homes one example of this type of character. Although he does not live in a time period where he can be open about it, Nick Carraway is a homosexual man and this fact is crucial to truly understanding his self and his relationship with Jay Gatsby.

Perhaps the most damning evidence of Nick's sexuality is the fact that the only sexual encounter he is implied to have had is with Chester McKee after the party in New York (28), but it is not all. Nick's homosexuality is most casually clear in the descriptions he gives of the people in his life. Although he does acknowledge past romantic relations with women, he does not read as particularly interested in them. When questioned about a rumoured fiancée out West, Nick remarks that he is very opposed to "being rumored into marriage," (15) and in his first meeting with his supposed love interest, Jordan Baker, Nick compares her to a cadet (an exclusively male occupation at the time) and points out her most masculine features as ideal including her small breasts and erect carriage (8). In comparison, Nick's descriptions of the men around him are rich with intrigue; Nick notices how Tom Buchanan's eyes establish dominance in his face and the way his muscles move under his clothing (5). When Nick speaks about the train conductor on the hottest day of the summer, he critiques people who think of kissing flushed lips and laying with a partner in the heat despite no one else in that scene expressing those feelings (87). The suddenness of this flustered complaint implies that Nick is reacting to his own desires; desires he wishes he did not have.

While Nick is at least vaguely attracted to multiple men in his story, there is one he is consistently interested in throughout: Jay Gatsby. From their first meeting where Nick goes on about how pleasant a smile Gatsby has (36) onwards, Nick is very fond of Gatsby, going so far as to emphasise that he is the only rich person he did not end up disgusted by (2) and that all of the East was haunted for him after Gatsby's death (137). In Gatsby's life, Nick even expressed his affections to him in whatever ways he could. For example, when Nick agrees to reintroduce Gatsby and Daisy, he does not allow Gatsby to reimburse the favour (62). Also, after Myrtle's death, Nick only leaves Gatsby's side because he feels like he is intruding (112), returns to a bed he can not fall asleep in, and takes the first opportunity available to meet Gatsby again at dawn (113). Nick listens to Gatsby's story then (114), something nobody else would do in favour of spreading scandalous, borderline slanderous rumours.

Nick claims he is not a judgemental person, but proves himself wrong as the novel progresses in regards to every person he has met but one. Despite remarking that he disapproved of Gatsby "from beginning to end" (118), he was equally endeared to him. Nick also claims to be an honest person (44), which he proves not entirely true either. Realising Nick's true feelings for Gatsby reveals the intricacy of his character and calls into question the reliability of his narration. Although his intentions are always sympathetic, Gatsby is by trade a bootlegging criminal and yet even after meeting Meyer Wolfsheim and being told about his business (54), Nick plays ignorant about Gatsby's involvement. To Nick, the idea of Jay Gatsby is related only tertiarily to the idea of "Wolfsheim's men". Nick makes this clear every time he visits Gatsby after Wolfsheim's men begin working at his house by how suspicious he always is of them, even describing one's face as “villainous" (86). Nick does not judge Gatsby as the same as these people nor the Buchanans despite not being so different in truth because he is already in love with him and truly wants to believe he is a good person at heart. Even Tom Buchanan is aware of this on some level, showing his cognisance after Gatsby's death by telling Nick that "(Gatsby) threw dust into (Nick's) eyes just like he did in Daisy's" (138).

To ignore Nick's sexuality is to intentionally misunderstand his character and The Great Gatsby as a story. On his surface, Nick Carraway is a single objective voice in a world of desires and deceit, but as much of The Great Gatsby does, his character requires the reader to look below to his own human biases if they intend to comprehend him.

[al-luviec]

compiled whatever this is (and I run out of tag space)

meh HoT gifs (3/?)

[worstloki]

very carefully explaining to the princes of asgard how recessive genes work and skirting around details because eye colour is the textbook example and one of them has green eyes when neither parent does. hair colour is the other example in the textbook but well one of them has black hair when neither parent did.

[fanofcarson]

Fucked up how an adult can make a simple benign poor choice of words one time and give a child a complex forever

[uncanny-tranny]

By implying that children are too stupid and rude to learn about the world and learn how the world works and how to interact with others, you are casting responsibility away from the people who are responsible for that child's upbringing and placing the blame on the children (who don't have the autonomy given to them to be allowed to decide what they want) who can't help what they do and do not learn, often.

If the children aren't okay, then investigate why before turning to thought-terminating clichés of, "Well, the kids are just stupid and dumb and aren't even worth the effort because they're lazy!"

[awesomecooperlove]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[anaalnathrakhs]

i feel it's so fucking stupid and ungrateful but it still hurts a little when someone gifts me something i just don't like. i don't know. i know it's dumb and inaccurate to astrain that much meaning to a simple gift, but it feels kinda like they don't know me. i guess it feels like people don't see me, like a reminder that the person i reflect and the person i feel like are incredibly different.

[firendgold]

Hi do you see Albus as morally grey character who's also pretty cold and distant from other people? There are many interesting posts about him that describe him as such and it does make sense. He was probably someone who wouldn't let people get close to him and it would be a challenge to manage that. I can see Harry doing that but his case is special. What do you think? Was Albus a good man?

I do think Albus was a good man. Plenty of good men have to make decisions that do not weigh easily on the moral scale. A protagonist or supporting character whose methods and motives are purely good, unchallenged and uncomplicated by other players is an unrealistic protagonist or supporting character. Albus is as far from that as it's possible to be. His scheming made us uncomfortable, it made him uncomfortable, and it kept Harry alive. More importantly, he wanted to keep Harry alive, even against all the overwhelming evidence that he'd have to die.

I don't think he's cold. He is an expert at emotionally distancing himself from people, yes. But he does it in a very warm way, with little self-deprecating jokes and first-name terms and remembering your birthday and the pet you mentioned having. Albus Dumbledore knows you very well and you know Albus Dumbledore without knowing him (unless you're Harry). The average HP character would argue to the death that Dumbledore cares about people! without necessarily saying OR needing to believe that Dumbledore adored them, specifically. Albus knows how to connect to people and he uses that knowledge to appear approachable, trustworthy... when he needs to be approachable and trustworthy. Otherwise, he is holding people at arm's length so they do not hurt him.

I agree that Harry is very special. As much as Harry laments not knowing every detail about Dumbledore's early life, or why Dumbledore made the decisions he made re: the Deathly Hallows and Harry's life and upbringing, he is (and some readers are) also very blind to how close he is to his mentor despite all that.

If this is a racing track, nearly every other HP character is at the starting line, Dumbledore is at the finish line, Grindelwald might be a few inches away from him, and Harry is perhaps three strides behind Gellert with Snape breathing down his neck.

The two of them crack jokes with each other; they spend private time together without the awkward silences you get from lingering with a stranger; they trust each other deeply and speak very highly of one another. Harry got past defenses that Dumbledore had by that point spent a century building, without even trying.

I think Albus is one of very few intellectual characters who can make horrid decisions but is still very warm and kind instead of being the Cool Stoic Academic type through and through, and some people don't know how to reconcile that with the trope.

[lale-txt]

thinking about middle aged single dad Kiyoomi with fine silver streaks in his black curls and dark circles under his eyes and his shirt crumpled, dirty glasses pushed up into his hair as he rubs the bridge of his nose because his daughter ate glitter glue at 11pm and got a tummy ache now and he's tempted to just eat some glitter glue as well

[britneyshakespeare]

you know someday i'm gonna feel so good when i have my student loans paid off

that ain't gonna be soon, trust me, but i think about it

[s1eepy-0]

ibjist remembered that one time it took my parents a week to take me to a doctor for an allergic reaction (to deodorant,,)

[unmerrymagdalene]

Hmmm

I’d like to think after Sydney left the asylum, Sirris reflexively hid most (if not all) photos with Sydney’s other parent in them. They keep one in their wallet, but the rest are boxed up and hidden far away

It’s also the same place where Sirris hides their old Temple robes but that’s a discussion for another post-

[atashinokaishaku]

Almost all my fav cats... if only Dabi wasn't ashes..... (again)

[varpusvaras]

Had a talk with wife last night about the fact that neither of us really wants to be called "mom" in the future, and instead we wish for our kids to call us by our first names. I'm curious now: