#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.

[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.

[girderednerve]

can i be mean for a second. it's great that people care & are thinking seriously about literacy education but i think it's sort of embarrassing that everyone's main source is a podcast. also a podcast cannot possibly make you an expert in the complicated social, developmental, & pedagogical questions of reading education. i really think a lot of what's happened is that it's compelling to imagine that we can resolve a profound social problem with a skill that many of us learned as young children (phonics!). in my experience, this narrative has specifically conservative appeal. none of this to say that i think we should toss out every neuropsych paper about literacy acquisition or whatever, but i do insist that there's a difference between the 'science of reading' as an evolving body of knowledge & practice and the (contentious & also evolving, lol) popular idea of what literacy education at any level ought to look like. also, um, did they ever fix that replication crisis, or

[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-

[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:

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

finally watching channel zero and i immediately have so many thoughts in the first ten minutes

[nkogneatho]

As a certified Toji fucker, I see Megumi as my son ngl😭