#tell me ur thoughts

[uzi-x33]

im so scared for this election but i have no say in it bc I can’t vote yet.

[florusfriend]

i’m so sorry for all the asks. but also i’m not. i need to know every persons every thoughts on everything. ever.

[froms8nsashes]

percy jackson fic? percy jackson fic with son of aphrodite? son of aphrodite with a kiddo of hades? popular pretty boy with that emo in the corner? just imagine

[ofthecaravel]

The only thought in my head today is all of Big Gvf being massively busy except Jake, so he has to watch the tinies, but has to run errands. So naturally he takes the tinies along and backseat fights ensue over the ipad and Jake pulls a classic “Don’t you make me turn this car around!”

So what I'm hearing is we need the Jake sequel to this

is that what I'm hearing?

[toxycodone]

how do you tell what’s a monsterfuck opportunity and what’s lowkey bestiality 😭

THIS IS WHAT I NEED ANSWERED SO BAD.

Like in degrees of lewdity I have to have bestiality enabled so I can get the transformations + oviposition 💀 but it never bothered me personally (bc it’s like. Fiction.)

BUT IDK??? LIKE….in this fic context what is acceptable. What do you guys think.

[bondibee]

lines or no lines? 🤔

[mischiefmagpie]

New OC just dropped

Meet Wren, Knight Comander Bastard of the Fifth Crusade

[enjoybeeduo]

SEEING SO MANY WRONG TAKES on which Taylor Swift album are footballers,,, so in MY opinion im just saying That

gavi is very reputation coded (esp. in games) BUT he’s also Very lover . and i stand by it .

pedri is more like Red (ESP STARLIGHT!!!) and a Bit of Fearless .

[surferkie]

As much as I disliked Big John, it felt like a disservice to kill him off at the end of season 3. With Ward dying literally a minute before him, it just felt like the writers wanted to start off the next season with a clean slate and no fucked up dads. Also considering Big John survived extreme blood loss on an abandoned island, how tf did this injury lead to his death?? It all feels so messy and a bit unfinished

I also loved the complex relationship between Big John and John B and will definitely miss seeing JB contend with his father versus his friends

[angelyuji]

getting older is realizing i should not have been reading what i was reading as a minor…

i started this blog when i was 16/17 (anything i wrote that was suggestive/noncon was after i turned 18) so the rules i made abt my fanfics are from 16/17 yr old mind. im 20 now so now looking at my content im like…

[inkskinned]

we were sitting on the floor and i was cutting out tiny pictures to make a collage for a friend's birthday. you were on your phone and you laughed about something, and i was still in love with you then, so i asked what had you giggling.

"sorry. i was just..." you took a moment and went back to texting. "i was telling someone about how you're afraid of the dark."

i'm afraid of the dark because something bad happened. "oh." i felt a little slinky of shame crawl down my throat.

you glanced up, and maybe it showed on my face, because you rolled your eyes and held the phone to the side casually so i could see the group chat. "what? was it a secret?"

i looked down to the scissors in my hand. "i just..." no, it's not a secret. it just felt like something private, something serious. saying why would you tell someone that just feels like an accusation. it's unfair. i honestly am not even ashamed of it, it's just a fact about my person that i don't usually share.

what a strange experience. is this a human thing or a generational thing? for our grandparents: did they need to worry about how quickly someone can just... share your personal information? again, i didn't even really have a true objection. what could i say? i want any person in my life to feel they can be honest with their friends. it's not like i said don't tell anyone this.

i cut out another letter to complete the rainbow happy birthday, started hunting for the exclamation mark. i heard you sigh dramatically.

"don't make a big deal about this," you said.

this entire conversation was a pattern for us, and this was when we got to my least favorite part of the pattern. i would get my feelings hurt in some oblique not-technically-terrible way, and then it would be making a big deal about something. you'd get frustrated for me for being soft, but i was born soft. you knew i was soft when you pierced me. it's one of the things that made controlling me so easy.

"i'm not," i felt my voice crack. the question came without my wanting. "why are you guys talking about me?" and why are you saying that thing? why not like - i'm telling them how you're generous and kind and pretty.

you let out this low, tragic groan. "oh my god." you tossed the phone away from your body. "there, see? i just won't talk to them if you don't like it."

the rest of the hour went the way it always went, between us: i said i don't actually mind if you talk to your friends but -, you found a way to call my minor expression of discomfort "being dramatic." you got upset that i had been offended. i ended up apologizing, even though i hadn't actually done anything.

afterwards, you picked up the phone again. after texting for a little bit, you snorted. "okay," you said, "but it is kind of funny you're afraid of the dark. i mean, when you think about it."

[souryoong]

my hot take: I really don’t think yoongi will be naming his album “D-3”

[skunkes]

[afsosville]

You know what would've been nice? Shen Jiu ending up on a different peak that's actually good for him. Maybe Qian Cao, or the beast taming peak could've been hella therapeutic. Or the alcohol/brewery peak to drown away all his sorrows. But what if he stayed fucked up, in a way that's actually good and productive for society? Yeah, I wanna toss him over to Yin Hui and let him run wild! I've seen many iterations of Yin Hui, the fanon peak for espionage and poisons in fanfics. By extension, Yin Hui is also covertly the assassination peak, and I wish this peak got more attention around here tbh. Why do I think this peak is the most well suited for Shen Jiu? BECAUSE ASSASSINS. Duh.

So here comes a baby demonic cultivator Shen Jiu and the Yin Hui peak lord immediately wants him. Shen Jiu would be more readily accepted by his peak martial siblings, and no one would bat an eye at Shen Jiu, his standoffish personality or shady past. A lot of Yin Hui disciples are from questionable backgrounds since the Yin Hui peak lord naturally has to be very particular about selecting their disciples. Yin Hui was established to protect the sect and its people by any means necessary. Sure, the rest of the sect may fight against the supernatural, demons, and the undead, but Yin Hui fights an even greater monster: people.

The Yin Hui peak lord manipulated things so that the first impression the rest of the sect has about Shen Jiu is 'that new badass Yin Hui disciple that killed the criminal Wu Yanzi and saved the future sect leader!' (Seeing as Wu Yanzi would be the very sort of ppl they assassinate, he's already getting goated on Yin Hui too.) So Shen Jiu is known as that new prodigious disciple from Yin Hui and is getting some goddamn respect! And just because of his association with his peak, fewer people are inclined to question his background and whatnot since there's an understanding that the identity of the YH disciples needs to be heavily guarded. The Yin Hui peak lord finds out about the Qiu's soon enough, and they erase any and all traces leading back to Shen Jiu. Even framing it in a way that makes it look like WY did the massacre. Any credibility Qiu Haitang could've had for Shen Jiu's murder accusations is thrown out the window. (Ain’t no way in hell the Yin Hui peak lord is going to name SJ that stupid trauma inducing name like a certain Qing Jing peak lord, that's for sure.)

I'm pulling in elements from MDZS over here. In my version of Yin Hui, they have disciples who practice demonic cultivation, but they make sure it's in a safer way that won't hurt them. There's a surprising number of disciples who have damaged cultivation and chose to cultivate the ghost path. The previous generations of Yin Hui peak lords have created Wei Wuxian's inventions in this AU, and is used by the rest of the peak, like the compass of ill winds, paper metamorphosis, the spirit attraction flag, and empathy. I lowkey want a Wei Wuxian that's native to SV to be the Yin Hui peak lord, now that I think about it. He's good with his kiddos and would be an awesome shizun. And ofc, Shen Jiu is a reflection of his environment, so he's certainly making an example out of Wei Wuxian, one of the only positive influences in his life.

Shen Jiu still has his violent tendencies, so nothing has changed about that, but he learns to take that pent-up energy out on missions instead. And he does them well. It even gives him an edge. Everyone else thinks he's just reallyyy good at his job, as expected of the talented head disciple of Yin Hui!!

He really does try his best to not be an ass (bc he gets the love he deserves on Yin Hui) and ends up venting in a different way (coz he knows better than to take it out on people who don’t deserve it.) His shizun really gave him the free reign to kill sl@ve trad3rs, human tr@ffick3rs, r-ists, and other scum whenever he wanted, in the name of stress relief lol. If killing a particular person becomes politically complicated, like the Old Palace Bastard, then you best believe he's going to scheme like the little schemer he is. He's going to Nie Huaisang the OPM.

Since Shen Jiu is not salty about his fucked up cultivation, and his martial siblings respect him, they get along just fine. His cultivation is some parts similar to Wei Wuxian's: Shen Jiu is a ghost cultivator influenced by music. Sure, he may not be that great of a spiritual cultivator, so what? He's pulling up like the Yiling Patriarch with his demonic cultivation and a haunted guqin of his own.

And guess what? Shen Jiu enjoys teaching. He's training miniature assassins, spies, and the art of demonic cultivation, so forgive him if he's more than a little enthusiastic about it. I imagine that he's exactly like Shifu from kung fu panda when it comes to teaching. Still extremely harsh and strict when training, but outside of actually teaching, he's an attentive and caring shizun. And yes, he completely does act like a father figure who is proud of his murder babies, and ends up being called A-Ba so much that all of Cang Qiong thinks he's officially adopted every single one of his disciples. (After being saved by SJ on a mission, NYY persistently begs SJ to take her in even though he desperately thinks Yin Hui isn't a good fit for her. And then, after being under him for a while, she's completed her first mission successfully, has smn else's blood on her face, and is smiling brightly. 

Ning Yingying: "I completed my mission shizun! Are you proud of me?"

Shen Jiu: "..."

Some other peaklord: "Haha like father like daughter! She's definitely your girl alright!"

Shen Jiu: "...!?!" )

Yue Qingyuan is conerneth about his Xiao Jiu, but as long as he's happy, who cares. Shen Jiu has a better relationship with the other peak lords, so when asked about why he visits brothels, he straight up tells them that it's the best place to gather information in the dark. He doesn't have that mentality of "why explain myself when no ones finna believe me anyway" He actually trusts them and is more honest with time. Shen Jiu does come clean about killing the Qiu's at some point, and the peak lords are all like-

"I didn't hear shit"

"See, I'm blind in my left eye, and 75% blind in my right-"

"Completely understandable, Shen shidi!"

They don't even ask why he did it and just assume he had a valid reason, and he absolutely fucking did.

Oh, Shen Jiu gets accused of playing dirty? Liu Qingge, he literally kills ppl and makes poison as a daytime fucking job ofc he's gonna play dirty! Shen Jiu tried killing you that one time on the well mission? Bro you good? The fact that you think he tried to kill you and failed?? You just insulted an entire peak of disciples and their ancestors. You would've been dead before you could even think of sensing their killing intent if it were true. And there was a witness too, doofus. Be fucking for real. Nahh coz there definitely would be more people who are taking Shen Jiu's side whenever the two of them fight.

Shen Jiu uses a shit ton of versatile weapons because most of his fighting and cultivation prowess comes from his wits and adapting to fighting with different styles/methods. He is kinda similar to Xie Lian bc both of them lack spiritual energy/qi (damaged spirit roots in Shen Jiu's case), but that does not mean they are weaker. It just means they learned to train their body and minds instead of relying on cultivation/qi. He has a massive arsenal of weapons along with the demonic cultivation. (Airport security would hate him)

Yin Hui has got to be my favorite fanon peak, and Yin Hui! Shen Jiu plauges so many of my waking thoughts, I can't stop-

I can add elements from my other hyperfixation into this AU, the Avatar Chronicles. Which are the written books from ATLA. The criminal organization Kyoshi joined, the Daofei, for example, could be a good plot point. Or the Platinum Affair from the Yangchen books. If you don’t know what the Avatar Chronicles are, just ignore this last part lol.

[metanarrates]

Hello. Sorry if this a stupid question u can ignore if u want.

How can someone get better at media analysis? Besides obviously reading a lot.

Im asking this bc im in a point where im aware of my own lack of tools to analyze stories, but i don't know where to get them or how to get better in general. How did you learn to analyze media? There's any specific book, essay, author, etc that you recommend? Somewhere to start?

I'm asking you because you are genuinely the person who has the best takes on this site. Thank you for you work!

it sounds like a cop-out answer but it's always felt like a skill I acquired mostly thru reading a ton, and by paying a lot of attention in high school literature classes. because of that I can't promise that I'm necessarily equipped to be a good teacher or that i know good resources. HOWEVER! let me run some potential advice to you based on the shit i get a lot of mileage out of

first off, a lot of literary analysis is about pattern recognition! not just pattern recognition in-text, but out-of-text as well. how does this work relate to its genre? real-world history? does it have parallels between real-life situations? that kind of thing.

which is a big concept to just describe off the bat, so let me break it down further!

in literature, there is the concept of something called literary devices - they are some of the basic building blocks in how a story is delivered mechanically and via subtext. have you ever heard of a motif? that is a literary device. it's a pattern established in the text in order to further the storytelling! and here is a list of a ton of common literary devices - I'd recommend reading the article. it breaks down a lot of commonly used ones in prose and poetry and explains their usage.

personally, I don't find all the literary devices I've learned about in school to be the most useful to my analytical hobbies online. motifs, themes, and metaphors are useful and dissecting them can bring a lot to the table, but a lot of other devices are mostly like fun bonus trivia for me to notice when reading. however, memorizing those terms and trying to notice them in the things you read does have a distinct benefit - it encourages you to start noticing patterns, and to start thinking of the mechanical way a story is built. sure, thinking about how the prose is constructed might not help you understand the story much more, but it does make you start thinking about how things like prose contribute to the greater feeling of a piece, or how the formatting of a piece contributes to its overall narrative. you'll start developing this habit of picking out little things about a text, which is useful.

other forms of in-text pattern recognition can be about things like characterization! how does a character react to a certain situation? is it consistent with how they usually behave? what might that tell you about how they think? do they have tells that show when they're not being trustworthy? does their viewpoint always match what is happening on screen? what ideas do they have about how the world works? how are they influenced by other people in their lives? by social contexts that might exist? by situations that have affected them? (on that note, how do situations affect other situations?)

another one is just straight-up noticing themes in a work. is there a certain idea that keeps getting brought up? what is the work trying to say about that idea? if it's being brought up often, it's probably worth paying attention to!

that goes for any pattern, actually. if you notice something, it's worth thinking about why it might be there. try considering things like potential subtext, or what a technique might be trying to convey to a reader. even if you can't explain why every element of a text is there, you'll often gain something by trying to think about why something exists in a story.

^ sometimes the answer to that question is not always "because it's intentional" or even "because it was a good choice for the storytelling." authors frequently make choices that suck shit (I am a known complainer about choices that suck shit.) that's also worth thinking about. english classes won't encourage this line of thinking, because they're trying to get you to approach texts with intentional thought instead of writing them off. I appreciate that goal, genuinely, but I do think it hampers people's enthusiasm for analysis if they're not also being encouraged to analyze why they think something doesn't work well in a story. sometimes something sucks and it makes new students mad if they're not allowed to talk about it sucking! I'll get into that later - knowing how and why something doesn't work is also a valuable skill. being an informed and analytical hater will get you far in life.

so that's in-work literary analysis. id also recommend annotating your pages/pdfs or keeping a notebook if you want to close-read a work. keeping track of your thoughts while reading even if they're not "clever" or whatever encourages you to pay attention to a text and to draw patterns. it's very useful!

now, for out-of-work literary analysis! it's worth synthesizing something within its context. what social settings did this work come from? was it commenting on something in real life? is it responding to some aspects of history or current events? how does it relate to its genre? does it deviate from genre trends, commentate on them, or overall conform to its genre? where did the literary techniques it's using come from - does it have any big stylistic influences? is it referencing any other texts?

and if you don't know the answer to a bunch of these questions and want to know, RESEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND! look up historical events and social movements if you're reading a work from a place or time you're not familiar with. if you don't know much about a genre, look into what are considered common genre elements! see if you can find anyone talking about artistic movements, or read the texts that a work might be referencing! all of these things will give you a far more holistic view of a work.

as for your own personal reaction to & understanding of a work... so I've given the advice before that it's good to think about your own personal reactions to a story, and what you enjoy or dislike about it. while this is true that a lot of this is a baseline jumping-off point on how I personally conduct analysis, it's incomplete advice. you should not just be thinking about what you enjoy or dislike - you should also be thinking about why it works or doesn't work for you. if you've gotten a better grasp on story mechanics by practicing the types of pattern recognition i recognized above, you can start digging into how those storytelling techniques have affected you. did you enjoy this part of a story? what made it work well? what techniques built tension, or delivered well on conflict? what about if you thought it sucked? what aspects of storytelling might have failed?

sometimes the answer to this is highly subjective and personal. I'm slightly romance-averse because I am aromantic, so a lot of romance plots will simply bore me or actively annoy me. I try not to let that personal taste factor too much into serious critiques, though of course I will talk about why I find something boring and lament it wasn't done better lol. we're only human. just be aware of those personal taste quirks and factor them into analysis because it will help you be a bit more objective lol

but if it's not fully influenced by personal taste, you should get in the habit of building little theses about why a story affected you in a certain way. for example, "I felt bored and tired at this point in a plot, which may be due to poor pacing & handling of conflict." or "I felt excited at this point in the plot, because established tensions continued to get more complex and captured my interest." or "I liked this plot point because it iterated on an established theme in a way that brought interesting angles to how the story handled the theme." again, it's just a good way to think about how and why storytelling functions.

uh let's see what else. analysis is a collaborative activity! you can learn a lot from seeing how other people analyze! if you enjoy something a lot, try looking into scholarly articles on it, or youtube videos, or essays online! develop opinions also about how THOSE articles and essays etc conduct analysis, and why you might think those analyses are correct or incorrect! sometimes analyses suck shit and developing a counterargument will help you think harder about the topic in question! think about audience reactions and how those are created by the text! talk to friends! send asks to meta blogs you really like maybe sometimes

find angles of analysis that interest and excite you! if you're interested in feminist lenses on a work, or racial lenses, or philosophical lenses, look into how people conduct those sort of analyses on other works. (eg. search feminist analysis of hamlet, or something similar so you can learn how that style of analysis generally functions) and then try applying those lenses to the story you're looking at. a lot of analysts have a toolkit of lenses they tend to cycle through when approaching a new text - it might not be a bad idea to acquire a few favored lenses of your own.

also, most of my advice is literary advice, since you can broadly apply many skills you learn in literary analysis to any other form of storytelling, but if you're looking at another medium, like a game or cartoon, maybe look up some stuff about things like ludonarrative storytelling or visual storytelling! familiarizing yourself with the specific techniques common to a certain medium will only help you get better at understanding what you're seeing.

above all else, approach everything with intellectual curiosity and sincerity. even if you're sincerely curious about why something sucks, letting yourself gain information and potentially learning something new or being humbled in the process will help you grow. it's okay to not have all the answers, or to just be flat-out wrong sometimes. continuing to practice is a valuable intellectual pursuit even if it can mean feeling a tad stupid sometimes. don't be scared to ask questions. get comfortable sometimes with the fact that the answer you'll arrive at after a lot of thought and effort will be "I don't fully know." sometimes you don't know and that can be valuable in its own right!

thank you for the ask, and I hope you find this helpful!

[antariies]