#the-literary-nerd

[weregreatatcrime]

Also, how well do you know the TMNT comics? Because I have a few ideas that tie into said comics.

BTW, given that she’ll want the Turtles to be able to defend Miwa if/when the Janus Order tries to come after her for deserting, Karai will tell the Hamatos about the horseshoe thing, right? I can just see Donnie freaking out at how little sense it makes, lol.

I do NOT have access to any of the comics nor have I read any of them lmfao

Nah. Karai has that settled pretty well. There's a chance they'll come looking for her, but likelihood is if she can avoid being outright Seen Taking Her Familiar out of the Darklands, nobody's going to know. Goblins aren't very verbose and don't like ANYONE coming near their territory. The majority of the trolls in the Darklands are thralls with little to no actual intelligence. Sometimes changelings die and their familiars just wink out. Sometimes it's the other way around.

Sometimes a troll or Darklands monster of some sort manages to successfully steal a baby, because young, tender, fresh meat is a very, very powerful lure for the vicious predators of the wastelands. It's not too uncommon for a familiar to randomly die. Hell, sometimes Gunmar just randomly demands a snack and goes and gets one.

The main leash Gunmar has on the changelings is that the access points between the Darklands and Earth are the size of a basketball and literally No Other Method of crossing dimensions is available

The best thing about the Gumm-Gumms and changelings having such a difficult time accessing each other is that communication comes through very limited means and thus make accurate record-keeping difficult. If a changeling disappears and their familiar isn't recorded as still being in the Darklands, nobody is going to think they deserted and somehow rescued them. They're gonna think one or the other died and their only priority will be finding the changeling's body if it's even still there. Changeling corpses explode into dust, there's nothing left.

The Order's main concern would be that if the changeling survived their familiar's death, they'll be in troll form and going absolutely Mad and need to be put down before they break cover. They'll investigate her disappearance but after seeing Oroku Saki dead and hearing about the number of exploded buildings in New York.............. eh. They'll assume she's dead and on the like 2% chance she's alive, as long as she isn't breaking cover, they'll all pretend she's dead.

Also, yes, Karai will tell the group how to detect changelings. A gaggletack itself isn't necessary - I don't know why it's a horseshoe, Donatello, ask the damn trolls, they're the ones misinterpreting human culture to create the damn things - any bit of magically pure iron will work. Along with some other tricks only another changeling will know.

[this-barbie-is-trying]

Everybody is talking about this new Roman Empire thing, but the real question is: how many times do you think about that cloudy day in 1816 when Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Polidori challenged eachother in creating the spookiest story ever and "The vampire" and "Frankenstein: the modern Prometheus" were born? Because for me, it happens on a daily basis.

[missallie93]

Small detail I appreciate in Twisters (one of many honestly) is how at first Kate and Tyler wear different styles of outfits/colors and then once they were on the same “team” they were always wearing similar styles and color clothes.

[ticklet0d]

Ponyboy: Hey, about that love letter you sent me-

Johnny, blushes: What are your thoughts?

Ponyboy: The fourth sentence-

Johnny: Yeah, that’s where I got kind of emotional, and I-

Ponyboy: It’s “you’re” not “your”...

[quirkycatsfatstacks]

WOTN: The Unkindest Tide by Seanan McGuire

The Unkindest Tide is the thirteenth novel in the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. And if you haven’t heard of or read this series before, you’re missing out. The series follows Toby Daye, a private investigator and Hero to the Fae. Toby has made a lot of bargains and promises in her past, specifically to a powerful woman known as the Luidaeg. And now it is time to pay up. And it doesn’t…

[whilereadingandwalking]

The Heroine with 1,001 Faces by Maria Tatar is a powerful book of literary analysis seeking to do for heroines what Joseph Campbell famously did with "the hero's journey" (in which he dismissed female characters as having much purpose at all).

I really enjoyed most of the literary analysis in this book! I particularly loved the monomyth of woman as weaver/truth-teller/spider/spinner. Charlotte and her web, Arachne punished by Athena, Philomena exposing her assault through tapestry. Women and girls are silenced, limited in their creativity, but they use it. Women use their supposed invisibility to find ways around silencing. Telling truth, exposing story, seemed to be women's fundamental purpose in myth and folklore, broadcasting injury and harm to change the world or impose justice, even when their good work is then punished.

Increasingly over the years, the stories that women used to pass on knowledge became vilified in our culture, dismissed as 'old wives' tales' as women became gossipers, storytellers but of stories with little to no value. Yet even as this disdain for women's speech grew, women authors wrote characters who used their curiosity, nosy-ness, gossip, to succeed. And then they wrote heroines who learned to fly under the radar to investigate and expose the truth, from Nancy Drew to Marple to Katniss Everdeen.

So much of the analysis by Tatar was fascinating and brilliant. I did sometimes struggle with the writing however. In academic fashion, she brings in many examples where she'll analyze without a concluding statement or point. Sometimes I was desperate for a sentence at the end of an analysis or even a chapter that summed up a bit, connected it back to the larger thesis. I could have used a more conclusive tone, in other words, throughout a lot of the book, to keep me as a reader on track with the heroine's journey she was showing us.

Still, I loved a lot of this, and will take a ton of it with me moving forward as a reader and writer. I especially loved her point that myth is still evolving, that the women retelling old fairytales and myths right now are doing the work that was always needed, because those stories were never meant to be written, cemented fixtures, but ever-changing stories that shift to fit their times and listeners. Altogether, an interesting if sometimes difficult read.

[nostalgicish]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron), Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt Characters: Lance (Voltron), Hunk (Voltron), Keith (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt, Romelle (Voltron) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Library, Keith (Voltron) has Resting Bitch Face, that's not already a tag???, POV Lance (Voltron), Slow Burn, kinda????, idk i'm new at this sorry, Fluff, Meet-Cute, rated t for one (1) swear word, classic literature references, literature nerd keith u will always be my favorite, an OBSCENE amount of italics and hyphens, drinking game idea: take a shot every time u see an "uh" or "um"

Summary:

Lance gulped. “Uh,” he started. Eloquent. “How can I help you...?”

A gruff voice replied, “I’m picking up a hold. Under Kogane.”

“Right, a hold. Okay. Let me, um, take a look.” Lance typed clumsily into the database. The results popped up quickly on the screen, and he felt his brows furrow in confusion.

“Is there a problem?”

“Uh, no! Must be the system acting up!” Maybe it was another Kogane? But that wasn’t a super common name, or was it? “Let me try a different way. What’s your name?”

“Keith."

  Maybe there were two Keith Koganes...? There was no way this guy had a hold for—

 “It’s um, for Pride and Prejudice?”

OR: Lance is a library assistant at his university's library. He likes to people-watch and guess what types of books his fellow students like to read. A punk-looking (with a guy killer resting bitch face) dressed in black and leather walks in and Lance is thrown for a loop when he checks out classic romance literature.

_______________________________________________

Hi guyssss, it would be so cool and awesome and crazy of u if u checked out my fic  :)) lmk what u think!!! again, a huge massive giant thank you to my mutuals for reading this while it was in the works ily guys sm

[anghraine]

One of the more peculiar things about my current academic existence is that it's like—

me (to my best friend): It feels kind of strange that I've always had so many ties to people who are much more literary than me. There are all these people I know who keep ending up at "I discovered True Art and now I'm too good for Star Wars" and I'm just thinking, "damn, couldn't be me."

best friend: ...you have a PhD in literature.

me: True, but not their kind of literature!

best friend: It's still a PhD in literature. Do these people have that?

me: Well, hmm, maybe not, technically. But I've never been all that interested in major experiments with form and style—doing that stuff myself or reading the kind of literature that focuses on pushing those boundaries. I've always cared more about popular literature that prioritizes immersion and world building and just getting people to care a lot about characters and plot and such, not the really prestigious stuff.

best friend: You literally teach Shakespeare.

me: Well, I decided not to study the things I love most so they didn't get tainted by academia. And anyway, I still focused on popular literature from my eras. The seventeenth-century stuff I was writing about made a lot of the late Victorians very angry because they thought it was crude and cravenly appealing to unrefined common tastes instead of True Art. The novel in Austen's lifetime was even more of a low-prestige popular form at the time, especially the female-dominated genres, which were most of them, and she took care to identify herself as a woman.

best friend: I know you did get into academia through Tolkien and then didn't study anything close to that.

me: I couldn't let them ruin him for me! And besides, I know that Shakespeare and Austen are about as prestigious as it gets now, but for me they've still got that pop culture media energy, you know? Though sometimes when people make sweeping pronouncements about artistry and literature that don't make sense for anything in English published before 1700, I have to fight the temptation to be ... that person.

best friend, laughing: You mean pulling a well akshually? At least you have the credentials. You could even do it like "well actually, *obnoxious cough* as someone with a PhD in this subject..." now. You spent years earning this! Tell a few people Well Actually as a treat and then go watch Star Wars.

[bedroominarless]

Without music, life would be a blank to me.

Jane Austen

[overstimulated-autism-creature]

[nerdby]

"Some people can't see softness without wanting to hurt it." -The Death Of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

[tippenfunkaport]

Bow's Character Arc

There was a discussion on Twitter from people who were confused about Bow’s character arc and whether he had one (he very much does, and it’s actually one of the clearest / most spelled out in the entire show!). To help anyone experiencing that confusion and because it’s never a bad idea to understand how character arcs work if you want to be a writer/storyteller, I might as well break Bow’s character arc down for anyone who might find it helpful.

Buckle in, it's nerd time!

At the most basic, a character arc is a change (usually growth) a character goes through over the course of a story. Usually good (positive change arc) but sometimes bad (negative change arc). It’s very often a reversal aka the character is often in the exact opposite state by the end of the story than how they start it out. It can be trickier to follow in an ensemble story like SPOP because there are a lot of characters with parallel story lines going on and multiple arcs colliding in different ways, but She-Ra does a really good job of giving each of the four leads arcs (with Catradora as the main leads, Glimbow as the secondary) near equal time.

Yes, including Bow.

What I think throws people about Bow’s arc is it’s based on hypocrisy.

Meaning…

He encourages his friends to talk it out and share their feelings… while hiding his own feelings from his dads and repressing his frustrations with having to be the middle man between Adora and Glimmer (Season 4)

He declares that average people (such as the kitchen staff at Dryl) don’t need the princesses and are just as capable of fighting the Horde themselves… while he believes himself and his abilities inferior to Princess Entrapta’s

He reminds the others (esp Adora) about the need to accept help… while refusing any help for himself (think about “Don't worry about me. I'm the one who worries about you. Can we go back to that? Please?” in Pulse through to that moment when he agrees to let Glimmer take him to check on his dads in Return to the Fright Zone and literally leans on her)

I think a funny way to sum up his character issue is: Not me, though.

This arc progresses across all five season as he gradually changes. He starts the series out repressing his feelings from both his family and friends while doubting his abilities and refusing to ask for help (he IS Adora’s mirror, after all!). Over the course of the series he learns to express his feelings instead of bottling them up (The Beacon > Reunion > really all of Season 4 but it comes to head starting with Boys Night Out through Beast Island > Stranded), gains more confidence in his tech skills (The Frozen Forest > Signals > Flutterina > Mer-Mysteries > Corridors), and starts to learn to ask for help (The Beacon > Pulse > Return to the Fright Zone).

Which of course all culminates in The Heart Parts 1 and 2 where he finally wraps up all threads at once by

a) asking Scorpia to trust him (putting faith in someone else to help)

b) completing Entrapta’s program to unchip everyone (proving he IS as good a scientist as she is)

c) giving the speech to everyone on Etheria rousing the common people to fight Prime (average people can make a difference… which he now fully believes that includes him).

And while you can make the argument that confessing to Glimmer is part of his arc to share his feelings, the fact is that he completes a full character arc without ever behind reduced to just someone’s love interest because none of his character growth is tied to his romantic relationship at all (which was what the original tweet claimed). It's all his inner journey to have faith in himself and his abilities and how they relate to his friends and loved ones.

And thus the guy who starts the series as “only one around here who’s not a princess” with doubt in his tech abilities ends the series as confident Tech Master and future King of the regular people he sought to inspire, which is about as textbook a reversal as you can get.

Does it come out of nowhere?

His character arc progresses and takes significant focus in the following episodes….

S1:E6 System Failure

S1:E10 The Beacon

S2:E1 The Frozen Forest

S2:E3 Signals

S2:E7 Reunion

S4:E3 Flutterina

S4:E4 Pulse

S4:E7 Mer-Mysteries

S4:E8 Boys Night Out

S4:E10 Fractures

S4:E11 Beast Island

S5:E3 Corridors

S5:E4 Stranded

S5:E9 An Ill Wind

S5:E10 Return to the Fright Zone

S5:E12 Heart Part 1

S5:E13 Heart Part 2

That’s 17 episodes out of 52 which means his character development gets approximately 32% of the focus of the entire show… which for an ensemble cast like this where he’s one of four leads is just about dead on as it's over a quarter of the episodes.

That's a significant chunk of screentime with multiple episodes devoted specifically to his character journey.

Is his journey as flashy and action sequence-y as what Adora, Catra and Glimmer get? No, but it's a) a show marketed to girls so it makes sense they get the more cinematic scenes and b) his arc is more emotional and thus didn't need to hinge on big action like theirs did. Though considering the culmination of his arc is him as a 100 foot tall hologram speaking to the entire planet, I personally feel like that was pretty hard to miss.

If you look at all of this and still want to say that Bow did nothing or had no character arc, I think the thing to ask yourself is: why is it so important to you to discount the accomplishments and character growth of this character specifically?

In conclusion, this is the face Bow makes when he spent five season growing, changing and kicking butt as Tech Master and Voice of Reason and you say he did "literally nothing"...

[lavant-gartiste]

Devil's hands

I looked upon my reflection Wishing someone were behind me Who’d whisper with delectation The tempting words that would blind me. I wished their eye of detection Would spot the struggles within me As they’d pursue in inspection Of a keen mind: they would kin me. In easier ways could be excused The crippling dark inside me If I could plead I was seduced By evil hands that would guide me. But with the mirror face to face I’m standing there alone. All I can see is me as me I come to terms with this in grace: No devil to be shown. For that devil always was me.

Hi guys! I write a little poetry and since I'm new on tumblr, I decided I'd spice up my blog by posting some of my work. Here is something I just wrote, enjoy! Feedback and criticism are most appreciated (especially since English isn't my first language.)

[littlecrabbs]

One thing I love about the Black Sails fandom is y’all know how to write a damn textpost. I’ve read some meta commentary from you guys and every single one is thought provoking and makes me obsessed with the show all over again. And hearing everyone share their unique perspective and subtle themes they notice/obsess over brings me joy.

[valenteal]

One of the things I adore about Bungo Stray dogs is how it challenges our ideas about what a “main character” is. Atsushi is undeniably the protagonist, the story begins when his hero’s journey begins and follows it. It somehow manages to fit the hero’s journey perfectly and challenge it at the the same time by simply expanding the scope of the audience’s perspective. Atsushi is the protagonist and we watch every part of his hero’s journey unfold, but we also get immense insight into the mentor/shapeshifter’s backstory and plots.

It’s like if the Harry Potter books followed both Harry and Dumbledore from the beginning, with flashbacks to Dumbledore’s past. If that happened Harry would become, in the reader’s eyes, a piece on Dumbledore’s chessboard because we would see all his machinations from the beginning. That’s exactly what happens in BSD with Dazai. Instead of us seeing Atsushi as the main character who everything revolves around we see Dazai as the mastermind who shapes all the events of the story around Atsushi. Instead of seeing Dazai as a mysterious mentor figure with a dark past shrouded in mystery that gives Dazai wisdom of experience we see him as a flawed person with dubious morals who is trying to be good but doesn’t know how, someone who’s been hurt terribly and hurt others even worse. In turn, Atsushi’s character appears more naive and pathetic, his accomplishments and growth don’t seem like his so much as Dazai’s. He behaved exactly as Dazai anticipated because Dazai manipulated him and the situation for that to happen. It makes Atsushi a tool for Dazai, makes his accomplishments Dazai’s. But if the story was told to us omitting all of Dazai’s behind the scenes manipulations Atsushi would feel like any other protagonist. Dazai would feel like Dumbledore, helping from the shadows rather than pulling strings from them.

Anyway, I’m a lit nerd if you can’t tell and I think Asagiri is a genius.