#why is this getting multiple notes in one day unlike my other posts

[personnamedjamin]

Random thing I made for fun :)

Video version:

Ya'll can ask me on what else to do with the characters, pls😋 by that I mean give me your scenarios with them

Jamin from 17/04: WHY DOES THIS HAVE MULTIPLE NOTES?????

[kanmom51]

WHO JM

This is going to be a bit of a ramble of thoughts on my part. It took me around 24 hrs. to take it all in.

Before I start talking about everything, I do want to thank my good friends, you know who you are, with which we had these discussions and back and forth trying to figure it out. Said it once and will say it again: Love you guys!!!

And on that note, let's get to it.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything we got with Who, not to mention the whole Muse concept, the configuration of the album, the order of the songs.

Unlike Face this is less of a autobiographical album. This is more about a concept. We have the connecting thread from Face to Muse through Rebirth (Oh, I'm gonna talk about that song for sure). Then we go into Interlude: Showtime, leading into SGMB and then Slow dance, Be mine, Who and Closer than this in that order. Interlude showtime being the switch from personal (ME) to showtime/performance (US) perhaps. A show themed around love. And an interesting thing happens when you look at the placement of the songs. First of all, Who, the only song JM isn't credited for writing, is last. Then, and this to me is the interesting part of it, the songs go from SGMB having that love, being sure of it, wanting even to help others find it as the first song you hear all the way back to searching for that unattainable love (Who). Starting the story from the end, when love is found, rather than from the beginning when love is being searched for. Starting from the happy ending. And if you do want to link it to his own story (not sure it is, but for funsies) then it's basically going back chronologically. SGMB is the now JM, the happy one who found love, while Who is the JM who didn't even know what he was looking for, or more so Who he was looking for. And if we are already going in that direction than basically going full circle with Face in the sense of Face being in chronological order of things and Muse mirroring it in the sense of going present to past rather than past to present (yes, I definitley did not major in arts and it shows, lol).

Let's talk about Who now.

First thing first, once again, and thank you for that amazing post, I'm going to link to @andy-wm's post right here. Because basically it says most of what I wanted to convey, and as usual, written so so well.

You would think this is all about a guy looking for a girl, right?

NOT.

More so a guy looking for love, thinking that it's in a girl's image. "HER". @andy-wm explained it beautifully. I am going to emphasise a couple of points and/or add to them.

No. It's not just you. Although I do admit, it took me several reads and re-reads to have that eureka moment. When you take in the full picture. It's there.

JM is looking for someone. In his head he thinks it's meant to be a girl. That's what society has told him. That's what is expected of him. That's what makes sense to him. Again, in his head.

And yet, his heart, it's still searching.

And he continues to search but he isn't finding 'her'.

First the use of "think" again. The mind thinking versus the heart finding.

And pay attention to the lyrics: "If every day I think about her..."

Not "Every day I think about her..."

The way I see it, this is again about challenging society's expectations of him. If he's doing it right, if he's thinking about finding 'her' every day of his life, then why hasn't he found her? And the emphasis is on the question why, repeated multiple times.

He's asking why not how. And why do I think that means something?

Think about it for a second.

If he's looking for her every day, thinking about her all the time, wouldn't the question be "how is it that I haven't I found her?" But by asking "why haven't I found her", it feels more so like "am I doing something wrong here? Why isn't this working?" Perhaps because the Who he's looking for, the Who his heart is looking for, is not a "her"?

And this kind of disconnect between what his mind thinks he is looking for - "her", and what his heart is looking for "who", continues throughout the song.

Another thing I noticed, and I don't know if it means anything, is the repeat of the number five in the song.

That second one hit me the first time I heard the song. Why? Why count to five? So random. And yes, I know it could mean absolutely nothing, and yet, it is curious why we get these two fives.

So I went looking what the number five could mean, cause we know numbers do mean something to them.

On my search I found this:

And this is about this piece of art:

The name of that piece of that famous piece of art: "Sun, Moon and Five Peaks".

And this:

The sun and moon are incarnations of yin and yang and symbols of brightness. The five peaks represent the center of the Earth and correspond to the sky and the seat of the king, who is the Son of Heaven. The number five is significant, as it is the midpoint of the decimal system.

Another coincidence?

Then there is what the number 5 symbolises spiritually (not specific to Korean culture):

Was this on purpose? This is one of those things I really don't know. And yet...

But again, we have to remember that this is the only song on JM's album that he isn't credited for being part of the lyrics writing.

And yet, we know that he did sit with John Belian telling him what the story was he wanted him to tell.

We don't know just how much of it is JM and what he wanted to convey, at least with the lyrics. We don't know just how much say JM had in the direction the MV went in, but it does feel like at least some of these things we are seeing are not pure coincidence and are intentional, for example the next thing I want to talk about.

Let's talk about the falling billboard screen for a sec.

The timing of it falling, the WHO without the question mark, the why...

JM is singing, dancing, the storm is brewing, wind blowing, he sings about "her" and then asks: "who is my heart waiting for?"

The dancers split up, and he starts walking towards us and this falls from the sky:

"Who is my heart waiting for?"

It has a blue frame that breaks apart (perhaps symbolising how this love is framed differently or that the barrier that was there between them now broke - yes, pure drivel on my part, but let me have this, I'm really enjoying it, lol).

This is who, is what the screen is screaming out!!!

"keep going" it tells him, as he's walking in it's direction.

But the screen, it's facing us. We can see it, but he can't see it yet.

He is walking in it's direction but still oblivious to what it's showing him.

Another thing I noticed there is that the screen falls from the sky but doesn't collapse or break or topple over. It stands there, strong and stable. Just as strong and stable that love is. The Real love he talks about in Rebirth. And then we cut to the next scene. We don't see what happens when JM comes closer in. Does he see it? Does he see Who?

Thank you @theendiswherewestarted  for sending me the next couple of links I want to address.

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A post shared by 🌞La_93🌜 (@jikook_la93)

This one I noticed myself - the colours of that fire stood out to me, seeing as they were different from other fires on screen.

The Yellow purple that we also got in the poster question mark.

The way the signs are basically around him (the fire, the screen), but he passed them by unnoticed, perhaps because of how he perceives his love is meant to look like. It's a she, not a he, and even if it is on fire or on a neon sign, something he should be noticing, he just doesn't.

The second is this:

I have seen some that noticed this and I admit, it took me a very long time to see the face (some saw a face in smoke in the teaser as well), but I have to admit, it does look like a face. Could it be JK? Idk. Is this intentional? Well, it doesn't look like the actual smoke, it does look like a projection or add-on, so... I guess this one I'm going to leave as a question mark. A possibility.

But this one, I'm feeling the need to go back to this one because this is just WOW...

I am aware there are those that claim it to be another member. All I will say that they are wrong.

Also want to thank @lastride1981 for your ask.

And then the MV ends with this:

You know, if we didn't get the message just yet (which I can assure you many didn't), then let's end it with rainbows. Yes, that is who your heart is waiting for!!!

Nothing JM does is not thought about, is not intentional.

And that rainbow at the end is again one more of those things!!

As I said, not everything is intentional. But a. saying not everything is intentional inherently means some of it is. and b. this is JM we are talking of. The master of layering his art.

This is art. Intended for us to ponder about. It's up for interpretation. Even a song with rather simple lyrics like Who, especially with a MV attached to it and JM being the artist behind the two.

So this here is how I see it. My interpretations. Sharing them with you.

[skyward-current]

i'm a day late to posting this calendar check-in note but oh my god do they NOT let us forget about dawn arrives as usual (vila's story), never too long on bluepoch's watch. i can't believe they give me yapper x listener vilasong dynamic too, merry early christmas to me!!!!!

as for vila's eternal soul, i'm repeating multiple posts already on this site but it's never not worth reiterating the significance of this symbol... rusalki/mermaids themselves don't have an "eternal soul"... that's why unlike mankind, avgust believes upon their death they turn into sea foam, unless they exchange something for an eternal soul through union with a human. In hans christian andersen's "the little mermaid", the little mermaid who wanted a soul made a deal with the sea witch to gain a pair of legs in exchange for her voice, but she must make the prince fall in love with her before his wedding day, or else she will still turn into a seam foam. unfortunately, in the end the little mermaid does fail to convey her love to the prince and dissipates back into the ocean.

vila begins her story by comparing the rusalki eternal soul to paper airplanes, how "when it flies away... it disappears." but just because you can't catch them doesn't mean you cannot make your own. like avgust's frogs, sunflowers, and polar bears – the things you fold for yourself will be there for you. but she also believes to name it doesn't give her any special protection. they have to protect themselves.

yet one or two chapters later when samodiva wants to get on vila's nerves, he specifically targets WINDSONG instead of any other comrade or children under her care in rayashki she's spent literal years with. and she physically shields windsong from danger, letting out a guttural scream in an ancient language she barely knows she's capable of. alarms are going off in my head! by protecting windsong she IS protecting the version of her ETERNAL SOUL – because in the original version of the fairy tail, love is what gives mermaids theirs. she just hasn't known it yet!!!

also by reading "the little mermaid" are the kids trying to look for vila's eternal soul through out her story. towards the end of the story though, vila, like the little mermaid, gave up something of theirs to pursue a chance at peace (for the little mermaid it was her voice and for vila it was her root and the acceptance from her kins). ultimately, vila comes to the realization that the children of rayashki is hers, the people of rayashki her eternal soul as in them rayashki's spirit is kept alive for posterity...

THEN BLUEPOCH PUNCHES ME IN THE GUT when avgust goes but your eternal soul isn't simply symbolic or invisible – how can it be nothing if i can see it, which shines as golden as the sun. JUST FOR THE CAMERA ANGLE to pan to the edge of vila's shadow to WINDSONG.

back to the daily check in note – vila sharing with windsong this rusalki legend is basically the equivalence of her searching for true love in windsong. GAY PEOPLE WILL LITERALLY TELL EACH OTHER ANYTHING BUT "I LOVE YOU." i know this is to bypass censorship but this is somehow more disgustingly adorable than if vila were to just drop on her knee and propose to windsong right here right there. VILA WANTS THAT COOKIE SO EFFING BAD. i'm sick i'm sick in the head i'm sick to the stomach i'm SICK!!!

[vaultureculture]

Demo 2.0- Elvia run masterpost

I decided to collect all of his reactions, canon-divergences and dynamics with the characters in one big post rather than the several I made for Phlo.

This will contain spoilers below the cut so be warned!

Elvia's backstory is The Unnamed (a fallen oracle), so I will be reviewing how things go in this route. They are romancing Leander and Ais!

Elvia grew up in an isolated temple floating on a lake. Although they were fooled regarding the nature of their curse and groomed to believe they were something divine, they quickly managed to turn things around so that they'd be in an advantageous position within the temple, getting practically everything they wanted. They are a manipulator out of survival.

They are traveling to Eridia alongside Phlomis (The Hound/Exile). The main HC follows their joint perspective.

This is very true for Elvia. They are rather unsettling. Too pretty, too elegant. Something's off.

It is Phlomis that gets gotten by the soulless in any case, Elvia runs towards Eridia while she holds it back and runs into Kuras eventually, whom they beg for help. They're in the clinic with Kuras and Phlomis later on, listening to their conversation.

Not that much though, Elvia's 1'80, he's not that short. I do wish they'd allow us to have MCs that are not constantly described as dainty and short!! On another note, even with the Unnamed background, they seem to have removed the lines that imply we can sense Kuras is a supernatural entity?? Am I just blind? That's strange to me. It was a very nice addition!

When meeting Leander, Phlo wants to stay at the back of the tavern, while Elvia catches a glimpse of him immediately and wants to approach. Elvia is the one to grab Phlomis and make their way past the crowd just to get a better look at this man.

I think that the speech he's giving is particularly inspiring to Elvia. They have been roaming the world for a while, ultimately reaching the conclusion that humanity needs a savior to rescue it from its self-inflicted doom.

Leander's (alleged) kindness and generosity would entrance Elvia. They are so going to use this guy.

I genuinely don't think that Elvia is as ashamed of their curse as standard MC is. They often still use it as proof of their divinity, just something to convince others that they are special. They are rather accepting of the curse, even if they're still trying to get rid of it. Phlomis is more ashamed, but they use it as a defensive weapon. Adeline (my Alchemist) is the closest to default MC, I would say.

Another strange thing to not give us a choice in ngl. Elvia has indeed never been touched before lmao

Just two freaks avidly touching one another's arms in the light of day, in the middle of the street. Nothing to see. They are SO normal.

I think that Elvia sees Leander as their quick ticket to happiness from this very moment. We talk about Leander being really posessive of MC, but I can assure you that Elvia is just as possessive if not more. You're THEIRS now, little bro. Good luck.

Not really applicable to Elvia, considering their shrine is something similar to Hagia Sophia of Constantinople. Elvia is also a classist piece of shit and they'd be sooooo happy to see something as grand as the Senobium!

Let's get you to bed grandpa

Elvia would trust Iris though, unlike Phlomis. I don't think that she would follow her, but Elvia certainly would. They're a little naive. This is why they are the one meeting Ais in the end.

Ocudeus baby...

I love how Phlomis stays guarding the gates to the wasteland and waiting for Elvia, meanwhile Elvia is out here having an Unnamed-specific acid trip LMAOAO

Elvia often pacifies soulless with their curse as a 'divine feat' to shock people into obeying them lmfao. However, being surrounded by multiple of them with some bastard barking orders at them is bound to be a little unnerving.

ALSO

AGAIN WITH THE HEIGHT

ELVIA IS LITERALLY JUST 5 CMS SHORTER THAN AIS PLEASE I BEG

Now you'd love that, wouldn't you Elvia. I love the ''all lies'' thrown in there. Elvia is rather annoyed that their curse didn't work out this way. This little cult leader is still trying to figure out how to maximize people's usefulness.

Elvia being utterly puzzled by Mhin's nature is fascinating to me. It's such a direct contrast with how quickly them and Phlomis seem to understand one another. For the first time in forever, Elvia cannot understand, and that scares them. The lack of control is terrifying.

I think they don't like Mhin very much.

Leander and Ais feuding over buying Elvia a drink is extremely funny to me now, considering that both of them are their routes lmao

Talking about Elvia's dynamics with these guys, I don't think that Vere likes them too much either. They have no issue with him, but Vere does not trust them whatsoever. I think he can tell this one's a devious, slimey worm.

ROUTE TIME-

Leander's

Alright, this is not Elvia lore but rather ME lore, my father used to own a pub. It opened only at night and served mostly alcohol, and this is the most realistic thing I've seen in the entire demo. The barstools and the counters WERE sticky half the time, no matter how much they cleaned them. The alcohol that falls on these surfaces always turns everything into a nightmare lmao. This was so reminiscent of being in the pub helping my father. EW BROTHER

Oh they certainly do miss it a lot. Their assistants, the luxury, the safety, the holiness of it all. Elvia simply seeks to live a peaceful life, that is their deepest desire. I think that Leander can understand.

Well aren't you lovely and kind, Leander! I think that Elvia wouldn't be that unfamiliar with care, considering they've got Phlomis guarding their back at all times, but they would be pleased by Leander's charitative spirit...

Are you sure about that.

Elvia falls in love fast and hard but their idea of love mayyy just be to manipulate you back until you're fully dependent on them Leander. The clash of manipulators will be legendary.

No cause the way Leander keeps saying negative things about the others as soon as you express that you like them....this man's unsettling...

I'm leaning towards 'good' with Kuras. Elvia knows that he's something other than human, they know that he's suspicious inherently, but I don't think that would affect their opinion of him. They're grateful for having been saved.

Vere, Vere... Elvia woulnd't say that he deserved it. Maybe they would, if they knew more about him and considered him faulty, but they don't know enough to pass such harsh judgement.

Part of me also believes that they want to tell Leander they've liked the others because they've already clocked that he's uncomfortable with it lmao.

I puked hey so that's terrifying

Canon Elvia for sure. They're not helpless. They will manhandle him lmao

Still stands I see

No because the fact that he says he's got some information to get you ALONE WITH HIM in YOUR ROOM and then doesn't even give you the information.

I'm disgusted. Elvia won't let this slide either. They ARE having him do their bidding, whether he likes it or not.

Ais'

I think Elvia's dynamic with Ais is one of curiosity. They don't really start on the best of terms, but Elvia knows that Ais is connected to something ancient, something useful. They feel a sort of... envy, regarding Ais. They want a groupmind of their own. They want to be powerful, terrifying, unashamed. They want to be loved, and loathed, and everything in between. Which, by the way,

That's what's happening here. I seriously doubt that Elvia is talking about Princess.

Love the fact that his knuckles are bruised in the sprite as well.

Makes a great deal of sense that Vere is the only one actively calling out Elvia's bullshit then.

I cannot add more images anyway so I'll just leave the rest of my thoughts here.

Elvia's heart beats faster than ever when Ais brings up Ocudeus. That is precisely what they'd felt before. That is what they want. If only they could have that power for themselves, everything would correct itself. They'd fix the world, everybody's faulty sinning hands, everything.

The fact that they'd bite Ais is interesting, as well. I like that in all of their relationships, Elvia is always performing some gesture to let the other know that they are in control. They call the shots, lest you forget.

And that is all...

[hostess-of-horror]

I just had this AU idea all day today and I am so brainrotted right now that I need to put this down on a post. I haven't figured out a whole lot but at least it's enough to get the idea.

L'Opéra Numérique

(or The Amazing Digital Opera)

- A TADC AU that's heavily inspired by Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera but not verbatim

- Reeks of Showtime, as Pomni and Caine are the two main stars: Christine Daae and Erik the Phantom

- Takes place in L'Opéra Numérique where everyone is part of a massive opera house with Caine being the Host (Opera Ghost) that "haunts" it

- L'Opéra Numérique is a literal labyrinth (🎶where night is bliiiind~🎶) and has no exit that anyone knows of; every path circles back to the main theatre

- Pomni, like the show, is the most recent arrival and becomes a wildly popular soprano, replacing Jax as the main star

- This leads to Pomni being the Host's object of affection, tutoring her in the hopes of making her a national treasure within the digital world

- While everyone plays along, Pomni becomes an "agent" for the rest of the gang in the hopes of figuring out who this Host is and how to escape the Opera

- The Gang all plan to have Pomni visit the Host, which leads to the iconic Mirror Scene as well as the Phantom's Lair and Unmasking Scene (🎶Music of the Niiiiiight!🎶)

- Unlike the source material, there is no "Raoul" for Pomni; only her newfound friends

- The main romance is the tragic love story between Caine and Pomni, where Caine obsesses over her to the point of madness and Pomni pities him despite the circumstances

- Caine as the Phantom is deformed a la abstraction, with his glowing eyes and sharp teeth exposed like a dark eldritch horror

- The Gang's plan for Pomni are all written in multiple notes, passed around by each member of the Opera as to not let Caine figure out what they're doing (🎶far too many notes for my taste...🎶)

- Of course, Caine does in fact find those notes and things go south real fucking fast.

- Since no one can die in the digital world, Caine's Punjab Lasso (noose) paralyzes the victim rather than strangle them to death

- Caine still drops the chandelier though... a few times, actually!

- When Caine hosts a Masquerade party, he reveals himself to everyone in his "Blue Screen of Death" costume (🎶 Why so silent, good monsieurs? 🎶)

- Did I mention Bubble is the Daroga in this AU? Because Bubble is the Daroga in this AU.

- So, Bubble is basically a NPC controlled by an investigator who was trying to release the missing people (Pomni and the Gang)

- Turns out Bubble and Caine knew each other personally outside of the digital world, but Caine has been the Host of the Opera for God knows how long that he has completely forgotten who he was before

- Oh yeah, Caine is NOT an AI in this AU! He was actually a game developer who was rejected multiple times until he eventually got stuck inside his own creation (I haven't gotten the full story so bear with me here)

- So while that's being revealed, Caine does his Phantom thing and writes an opera where he and Pomni fall in love (🎶Past the Point of No Return 🎶) until Pomni reveals his face

- Final Lair ensues, which leads to Bubble and the Gang being trapped and tortured until Pomni agrees to marry Caine via turning the Scorpion (the Grasshopper would crash the whole Opera)

- The story ends with Caine releasing everyone, including Pomni, and telling Bubble/the investigator how having Pomni as his bride made him remember what he had lost ("I! I! ...I kissed her! And she did not die of horror!") and thus destroying L'Opéra Numérique and himself

[p-receh]

EPISODE 2

preview

ep 1

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I low-key forgot Adu Du stole the armor during Windara’s arc lol.

By the way, I didn’t get with insects that resembled his armor. Judging from its eyes…

... A gecko?

Update: holy shit, I forgot this character exist!! Now it's pretty close! Thanks @nerialter !!😆😆

(hot take: I love the og design more than the reboot ver. It's one of my favorite monsters from og Ben 10 afterall)

Oh yeah, I must mention his armor here. It reminds me of some unit from Evangelion.

Alright!

After I watched the ep and read the comic back and forth. Gentar’s arc might be the first who is closely accurate on one another. No cramped multiple issues within one episode like Sori or drastic changes like Windara.

Sure there's still some differences here and there. But to me, both are equivalent to each other. As in the tv compliment what the book doesn't have and vice versa.

In this episode, the main star of the show is the return of the 'BuBaDiBaKo' team. Kinda didn't expect they would come back this early! The comic ver was only mentioned at the end of the arc!

For those of you who don't know, this team debuted in the original Boboiboy season 3. It consist of, you guessed it: Boboiboy, Gopal, and Adu Du.

English dub ver 👇

The name itself was an abbreviation for “Budi baik dibalas Koko” which translates to:

For context, this team was made because Adu Du felt a bit stressed to revive Probe who tragically died in the early season. He desperately needed cocoa for extra help. Therefore, he forcedly attempted to hijack Tok Aba's shop publicly (keyword: tried).

As always, he failed miserably. But unlike previous times in the good old villain trope—“I'll be back for revenge!”—Kinda thing, this time he got a chance to redeemed himself by Tok Aba and Boboiboy in exchange for cocoa. That's why he abruptly changed his appearance in order to succeed at that. He even went to school and blended with society to do good deeds. With the help of Gopal and Oboi, thus the operation 'BuBaDiBaKo' was born that day.

Of course, it's just a temporary tho where the team only lasted for two episodes. Once Probe was revived, Adu Du was back to his usual self and everything went to their normal shenanigans like nothing happened. :D

And same as the previous ep, the rest of the story followed the same pattern. Not directly toe to toe between the book and the screen ‘till the end, like there's an extra scene from tv ver where the enemy easily detected the gang due to…Gentar's high impudence with his 'Thor's Stormbreaker' hammer lmao.

(I don't know the name of the weapon so let's just assumed it's Thor's)

It's kinda debatable about his attitude within fandom. On one side people were annoyed by his unusual clumsiness, on the other side people were frantic about his wild trait and sometimes referring him to his dad aka Mechamato especially since season 3 came out before Gentar's.

Me? I'm at the fence. As I said before in the preview post, fusion characters aren't my favorites and I already tell my reason why. But I'm not gonna be so critical about them when I myself also like their designs and appearances(Supra my beloved 😍).

Regardless, the next ep gonna dive into Gentar's downed scene after Ochobot gets kidnapped. I'm interested in what Monsta does to tweak his redemption arc.

That's all for ep 2, onto ep 3!

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ALSO--

How the heck it got 8 notes??? Has this happened to you guys too or just me??

[anxiouslyfred]

Haunted

Summary: The Dead Boy Detectives get a letter asking if they can advise on a ghosts neighbour who seems to be haunted by people identical to him. Thomas wonders why his sides keep mentioning silent men coming into his house when he can see nobody.

Authors Note: I have no brain power after yesterdays writing so this is weirdness. For any fics not Sander sides I post them to @fandoms-in-law

My Idea for todays Fic: A ghost on Thomas's street seeks out the dead boy detectives over thomas being haunted. None of them, not even Crystal, know what to make of Thomas being unable to see Charles and Edwin be all his sides can. Edwin just wants an answer of some sort but nothing is in their books.

/\/\

"Dear Dead Boy Detectives, I understand you are based in England but I was wondering if you have any insight into my neighbour. He's alive but seems to be haunted by multiple identical ghosts. Identical to him and each other except in clothing that is and their appearance changes when his does usually. This has perterbed by afterlife multiple times and although these ghosts seem to see me while my neighbour cannot they refuse to interact with me except through making my neighbour do so. Please reply if this is anything you've encountered before that needs worrying over. Sincerely Liam."

Charles and Edwin shared a concerned look after the letter had been read out, before Edwin started going through their shelves.

"Perhaps, Crystal, you will be needed to solve this case with us, but I'll research here. Charles, can you pop into the house of this Thomas Sanders to see if you can meet these ghosts or indeed the man Liam is so concerned about?"

"On it, see you in a bit, Mate." Charles agreed, disappearing through the mirror as Crystal groaned a little. "Really hope I don't need to, those flights drag."

/\

"Yay, another home invasion via mirrors. Did the guy from three doors down send him?" Virgil grumbled from the staircase. He didn't think the kid was a threat, not just because he appeared young, but because he'd looked curious rather than scheming.

Thomas turned around, unable to see anyone other than Virgil. "What do you mean Virge? No one else is here."

"Just like there wasn't for that guy. Thomas, you're going to get yourself killed one of these days being so unobservant." He complained. "Okay, I guess walking through him works. What is with this house and intangible men?"

"I'm an intangible man, Virgil. Want to try?" Remus cooed, popping up beside him and trying to push Virgil's hand through his chest. "But if you're concerned over this guy, I can get my morningstar."

Thomas glanced warily at where he'd just walked through. "If he's just looking around I don't think that's neccessary. You made me replace my TV last time something like this happened."

"Oh, no, that was because Roman decided to fight him." Janus appeared, staring at the spot Thomas still couldn't see anyone in. "It would be much easier to know why these men appeared if we could hear them. Can Logan lip read?"

Thomas shook his head. "You only know the things I've learnt and my need to lip read has been limited. People usually have signals if I need to know things from a distance on stage."

"Then everything is fine as you say. Virgil's just being more vigilant for dangers than normal." Janus soothed, waving the stranger away.

/\

"These ghosts can't hear us and seem to be known to Thomas. One did seem violent and another was mentioned similarly. I don't think it's a worry for anyone but Thomas though." Charles said, coming back to the office.

"Unlikely to be multiple identical ghosts though if they couldn't hear you." Edwin replied, "I've been unable to find any similar occurrances so far however. Are you against going to learn more, Crystal?"

"Might as well find out what Thomas thinks is going on." Crystal sighed mock frustrated as she stood. "I'll get the plane ticket booked."

/\

Thomas peered out at the strange woman curiously, "Hello?"

"Hi, I'm Crystal Palace. I'm a psychic who works as part of the Dead Boy Detectives and recently a neighbouring ghost of yours has grown concerned over you. Would you prefer I leave as a mad woman or can I ask you a couple of questions to assuage the ghosts worries?" She'd debated how to approach Thomas on the entire flight and journey over, but after realising he lived in a private area she decided the truth was best, even if it sounded unlikely or impossible.

Thomas blinked at her and she saw multiple men near identical to him pop up just through the doorway, no mirrors in sight. None of them spoke however until Thomas nodded, "I guess I can entertain that idea for a while. Come in."

"Are you mad, Thomas? She could be a murderer? Or here to steal all your money? Or-" The copy of him in a hoodie and eyeshadow beneath his eyes started rambling about dangers until Crystal looked right at him.

"Or I'm a psychic with two ghost detectives very curious to know why Thomas can't see him, the men who seem to be ghosts can but can't hear them and all change appearance in some ways at the same time according to the correspondence we recieved asking us to check everything with Thomas is okay." She replied as succinctly as she could, noticing Edwin and Charles appearing out of the mirror on Thomas's counter. "Edwin and Charles are the ghosts who just arrived. Who are the rest of you?"

Thomas watched her curiously, looking around his living room. "They're my sides. They help me think through situations."

"I'm Virgil and I still don't trust you, or them." The hoodie version greeted.

"I'm Logan and the existence of ghosts is intriguing. Can you tell me more, about them and about your psychic powers?" One of the versions wearing glasses and a tie greeted.

"And what are Sides? Helpful spirits? Something the person generates? Does Thomas know other people with similar 'sides'?" Edwin chimed in, notebook in hand and mirroring Logan's curiousity.

Before Crystal could reply or anyone else could introduce themselves and more possible tangents Thomas cleared his throat. "I'm Thomas, as you apparently know, and the sides are parts of me; Creativity, Anxiety, Logic, Morality and Deceit. The labels are just what they most often help me with, and yes, there are two creativities in case everyone shows up now. The two that haven't spoken up are Patton, morality, and Janus, Deceit."

"Charles mentioned one of them seeming violent when he tried to check on you and them before." Crystal asked, wondering how long it would be before Logan or Edwin asked their questions again.

"Probably Remus if he was the last person I couldn't see to show up." Thomas decided after a moments thought. "He can be quite violent at times. Other times he's just gross or disturbing."

Crystal nodded, "Okay, so I'm probably fine to be here then. Do you know how your sides formed? It's not something Edwin's encountered before and he's been around a while."

"Not really. I used similar characters for Vine and youtube and sooner or later they actually showed up. I assumed I'd just grown so used to imagining them that I worked through everything in such a way automatically." Thomas explained, "Although Logan has made comments over them having been around for longer than that."

Logan nodded. "Indeed, although prior to his videos we remained generally internal. It's still essentially talking to himself whether he sees us or not." He explained. "I'm of the opinion it's just a quirk of Thomas as nobody else seems to have sides in a similar way."

Edwin seemed about to say something before Charles held a hand up. "We aren't here to psychoanalyse him, Edwin. Thomas seems fine to me."

Thomas and Virgil both snorted, eyes on Crystal. "You don't like the sound of an afternoon being the only person to hear everyone, do you?" Thomas asked.

"Not one bit. I'm basically going to assume Edwin's taking notes and just chat with you unless one of them says something that seems important to know." she decided. "Besides, Charles and Edwin can hear everything. It's you who can't see them at all, and your sides apparently can't hear them, but I'm pretty used to ghosts so should be able to tell you enough about them without additional input."

"Sounds like a good plan." Thomas agreed.

The letter from Liam was right that this was an unusual situation, but just as Charles had thought, even with Remus and Roman popping up armed, it wasn't something anyone had to worry about, not even Virgil.

[crepes-suzette-373]

Oden = Oda Nobunaga???

This is not a theory or anything, more like just an observation of character inspiration. I probably should have posted this first, because this is the more sensible one instead of my wild theory.

Anyway.

I had wondered if young Oden's story is partly inspired by the younger days of Oda Nobunaga. I mean, I hate to keep harping on this fellow, but his name is kind of the homonym of Oda-sensei's name and he's a very famous samurai in Japan to boot.

I would not be surprised if this fellow was used as inspiration for multiple people in One Piece, but very cleverly hidden. Like how Law and Zoro both took inspiration from pirate François l'Olonnais, for example.

For one, the name. The -da kanji 田 from "Oda" 織田 can be read as "den", which means that technically speaking "Oda" can be read as "Oden". This is not usually done, but for the purpose of jokes and puns, it's not wrong.

Secondly, the character. Young Oda Nobunaga was a wild young lad, and it was to the point that the entire town called him a fool, and his tutor eventually killed himself out of despair for Nobunaga's chaotic behaviour. Much like how Oden was such a troublemaker that he got disowned.

All the quoted Nobunaga biography texts are from "The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga", which has free previews in Google Books (thank goodness, the actual book is expensive as hell).

There's no official biography quote for this, but there is a famous legend that at age 2 Nobunaga would bite all his nurses/babysitters that they can't stand it and all quit. As seen in the manga panel above, Oden has been causing problems since he was a baby.

Though, unlike Oden, Nobunaga was apparently never disowned. after his father died he still was the heir, and became the new head of the family. He cleaned up his act and became respectable.

And just like how Oden was still pretty sassy even after getting all "cleaned up", so was Nobunaga. It wasn't his father that he met though, as his father had died then, but his father-in-law.

Another thing is that, there is a trope in fiction that Nobunaga does not discriminate the outcasts, and would not mind picking up random people off the streets to be his vassals. The most famous case in point is Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who would go on to become the ruler of Japan in later years.

Oden took in fellow troublemakers like Kin'emon and the minks as his followers, not discriminating against them like the other citizenry.

The final thing that made me really go "hmmm" is the Akazaya (Red Scabbards/Sheaths). Young Nobunaga himself had a red scabbard and his group of rowdy vassals had been "outfitted in red". This term is a bit unclear, I checked the raw and it only means something to the effect of "army in red", and it doesn't say if that means their clothes, armour, or weapons.

Either way, I specify "Young" because the rest of Nobunaga's life has nothing to do with Oden in One Piece. If anything, Nobunaga's later vicious career reminds me more of Germa, but that is neither here nor there.

Plus, younger Koudzuki Sukiyaki happens to somewhat look like the ukiyoe of Oda Nobunaga, take that as you will:

Hey look, Sukiyaki even has the flowery patterns on his coat too.

As a bonus, the fan Wiki has noted that Oden and the Koudzuki family story seems to also take inspiration from the deity Susanoo. What with the whole saga being centred on the fight against "Orochi", like how Susanoo fought against and defeated Yamata no Orochi.

So, you see the flower patterns on the ukiyoe above? That's the Oda family's house crest. And guess what? It is also the divine crest of Susanoo:

Legends say the Oda family ancestors were shrine priests or strong believers of Susanoo, and a Susanoo shrine was declared "the ancestral Oda family shrine".

Maybe sensei knew of this and took inspiration from both Oda Nobunaga and Susanoo to create the Wano storyline.

To be honest, this is why I somewhat wondered if Germa specifically has connection to Wano, like maybe they had ancestors from Wano? Same historical inspiration, Sukiyaki weirdly looks like Judge, and so on.

But like I said, Law and Zoro had inspiration from the same person, but I don't really see any signs to suggest they're relatives thus far, so maybe this is just a big nothing.

(unless the bombshell is that Zoro and Law are related somehow)

[haveyoureadthisscifibook2]

about and FAQ

[plain text: about and FAQ]

who are you? do you have any association with the mod of the previous blogs?

just a guy who loves to read sci-fi and fantasy! I have no association with the previous blog's runner, other than having followed both poll blogs from when they started, but I loved the blogs and the format in which they were run so much that I volunteered to step up and carry on the torch, so to speak.

what happened to the old blogs?

see these posts [post 1; post 2] from the owner of the old blogs, which are no longer active.

i submitted to the old blog, but it got archived before my submission was ever posted! should I submit again to you?

no fear - the old blog's owner has compiled all submissions into a document for me so that I can pick up where they left off and work through the backlog!

are you going to change anything about the poll format/the way that the blog is run?

highly unlikely, other than perhaps some behind the scenes changes to how information is gathered and posts are queued. I am also starting off with submissions closed and a less frequent queue as I figure out my pace and get my bearings, but I hope to ramp it up to at least 4 posts/day (what the old blogs were running on) eventually.

FAQ carried over from the old blog:

[plain text: FAQ carried over from the old blog:]

a note re series: I am more than happy to queue up an entire series on request! if this is what you want, please indicate that explicitly in your submission, especially in cases where the first book in a series and the series as a whole have the same title. otherwise I need to ask for clarification, and it slows down the process of getting your submissions queued up.

where do I submit books?

submissions are currently open!

[plain text: submissions are currently open!]

here. before you submit books, though, please check the list of books that have already been posted or queued. (note: if you’re using the mobile app on an Android phone, you may have to copy the link into your browser in order to access it.) *yes, this link leads to a page on the old blog. I will add a page like it to this blog closer to when I'm ready to start posting polls! for now, you can see what has already been posted.

when submitting multiple books, please submit all of them in a single ask so it’s easier for me to keep track of, especially if you’re submitting them anonymously. also, please include the author’s name!

what counts as having “read” a book?

did you finish the book? then you’ve read it. if you did not finish the book, you have not read it.

do audiobooks / having a book read to you count as having “read” a book?

do you think you’ve “read” the book? then you’ve read it. I’m not here to police your experiences or your relationships with physical books / ebooks / audiobooks / whatever.

does [graphic novel / manga / manhua] count as a “book”?

for the purposes of this poll, a book is a prose narrative, so graphic novels and other visual media with text do not count as “books”.

does [“novella” / “novelette” / short story] count as a “book’?

if a short story was originally published in a single issue of a periodical, in a multi-author anthology, or as part of a single-author collection, I will most likely not accept it unless it has subsequently been published as a standalone volume of more than ~75 pages. if you submit a text where this applies and you think it should be accepted anyway, please elaborate on why with your submission.

however: if a short story was originally published in the form of a standalone volume (i.e., not as part of a collection of texts), then yes, under normal circumstances that counts! I don’t care if it was a 10-page pamphlet or a 1000-page behemoth: if it was first published on its own, including as an ebook, it’s a book.

you can see my more detailed guidelines for short fiction here.

the one exception is things like (e.g.) The Fellowship of the Ring, which is explicitly the first volume of a single, larger book — in a case like this you would submit The Lord of the Rings, rather than its component volumes.

I encourage you to submit short fiction to @have-you-read-this-short-fiction even if it’s not eligible here!

does [short story collection] count as a “book”?

for the purposes of this poll, no, unless the stories are linked into some kind of overarching whole. simply sharing a common setting does not qualify (so Yoon Ha Lee’s Hexarchate Stories would not count as a “book”).

what about [series] as a whole?

no. this blog is asking about single books. feel free to submit multiple books in a series if you’re so inclined, though!

what counts as “sci-fi”?

if you think something should count as sci-fi, feel free to submit it. I haven’t read every book, and I have a flexible definition of the genre. there are some limits to my flexibility, but as long as it is set in the future, has some kind of futuristic technology, is set an an alternate timeline, or includes other non-realist phenomena that are explained (pseudo)scientifically, I’ll probably consider it sci-fi.

I’m a bit more ambivalent about older texts — I tend to think that something like Lucian’s True History (for example) can’t really be meaningfully said to be science fiction, for all that it involves space travel. once we start getting into early modern philosophical novels like More’s Utopia we’re on somewhat firmer ground, but really only in the nineteenth century do we start getting things I would unequivocally consider to be science fiction.

note that I am definitely willing to include works of science fantasy like Tamsyn Muir’s The Locked Tomb books or Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality, as long as there’s clearly sci-fi stuff going on along with the magic.

what about fantasy?

there’s a blog for that. :-)

does it have to be in English?

no! I read a number of languages and would be more than happy to include books in any language. the demographics of tumblr mean that you’re probably unlikely to get an overall “yes” result for something not in English unless it has a very popular English translation, but I’m happy to post the poll anyway — and maybe get some book recommendations in the languages I read. :-)

you can see links to all the language tags on this blog here.

why don’t you include blurbs for the books in these polls?

there are both practical and ideological reasons for this. tl;dr, it’s a lot of work, presents logistical problems for books not originally published in English, and there are books and authors that I categorically don’t want to promote beyond showing people the cover.

————————

check the #faq tag [including the old blog's #faq tag here] for additional questions and answers.

previous blog here, if you would like to see polls from before october 2024: @haveyoureadthisscifibook

[sepublic]

Writers’ Post-Hoot!

            As the title suggests, we just had a Post-Hoot with multiple writers from the show! Those present included John Bailey Owen, Cissy Jones (Lilith), Sarah Nicole-Robles (Luz), Rebecca Bozza (ItsRebeccaRose), Mikki Crisostomo, Madeleine Hernandez, Zarch Marcus, Avi Roque (Raine), with Zelda Black as our cameraman! I took notes, including on some cancelled storylines involving characters such as Vee, Odalia, Edric, Eda, and Hooty!

         Firstly, Zach Marcus has been writing on the show since the developmental pilot. It was confirmed Barcus was not based on him (unlike Jerbo for JBO), but he did say Barcus was ‘his’ character. I believe it was confirmed that Kikimora’s alias Miki was a reference to writer Mikki Crisostomo, and we also learned that The First Day had to be rewritten within a day! Mikki revealed she got hired for the show because she wrote a violent sample script in which someone had their rib cage kicked out, which convinced Dana she had to be on TOH!

         The development pilot is very different from the show according to Zach; It had the classic blood smear moment (in which Luz draws herself and Amity together, gets a paper cut, and uses her blood to simulate a blush as improv), and alas will never be released. JBO also said there are three poems in the show that the fandom hasn’t found yet…?!

         Dana was watching and commented a few times, such as when Avi, Cissy, and Sarah were doing the classic “Then why were you so easy to curse?!” line, commenting “Legendary Cissy line”.

         In regards to cut Season 3 storylines, Zach mentioned that there are so many versions of Thanks to Them that they went through (Dana gave a comment giving approval for them to speak on concepts). He revealed there was a version where the kids would’ve piloted Abomaton mechs in the desert…?!

         (I wonder if this is related to Kikimora, who pilots an Abomaton herself and comes from the desert of Palm Stings. Would Amity have helped in the creation?)

         Mikki also revealed Hooty was a Big Bad at one point in the writing process?! He’d have had as many legs as rib bones, poking through, as well as smoke.

         Huntlow was acknowledged as a major goal by Mikki and Madeleine (who kept asking why can’t they be happy???), and Zach joked that Huntlow wasn’t canon but c’mon. We can thank Mikki for writing the haircut that Willow gave Hunter!!!

         Dana was glad to keep the Star Trek reference, since so many crew members are Trekkies. Emmy also alluded to a ‘bog setting’ where the kids fought ‘bog bodies’… Unfortunately, her internet connection wasn’t so great so she cut out a bit and I couldn’t make out everything. But does this mean Belos would’ve reanimated corpses in the graveyard for the kids to fight?! Or the Grimwalkers?!

         JBO liked doing Luz in the human realm, as it was a different vibe than usual; More melancholy but also creepy. He wanted to explore the idea of what if a kid DID go to Narnia, and how that would affect them afterwards, and he’s happy with how it turned out… Same JBO, same.

         Emmy revealed there was also going to be a storyline where Vee was uncomfortable with having Hunter in the house!!!

         Sarah mentioned a question in the chat about the other coven heads, which could’ve been my question actually… JBO says that there was a lot they wanted to do with them, he really likes Hettie in particular. He considered exploring what Darius did to achieve his Abomination transform, speculating it’d probably take a dark sacrifice to do that. In general they wanted to see the coven heads plot with and try to kill each other; Lots of intercoven drama according to Zach.

         Zach also praised those who designed the coven heads; He lamented how designers often visualize concepts submitted by writers as so much cooler than the writers think they can do justice when writing, once they receive them back.

         Zach Marcus was described as the pun man of the writers, and when asked about what Darius’ Penstagram, they all agreed upon Goo Daddy. He was torn between Darius being a luddite, or nonstop posting what he eats, with a reflection of him in something. The writers discussed stuff like a Darius skincare routine, and him getting up every morning like a Disney Princess with animals, except they’re Abominations (fanartists were encouraged to depict this).

         JBO said he would’ve liked to see more of young Terra, Zach wanted to see more of her and Faust! As a reminder, a previous Post-Hoot had him put forth the idea that they were exes until they messily broke up and Terra tore off Faust’s lips and kicked him out, hence him living at Hexside and being so strict as a means of regaining a sense of control in his life.

         Zach also joked about everyone dying in the original Season 3 plans, but they allegedly changed it to a happy ending because the pandemic meant people needed something uplifting! They were barely in the exploration for S3 when they received news of the shortening.

         They joked about Barcus episodes, and also made a point about limitations actually being pretty good for writing, as it encourages writers to cut out the fat and leave the most essential bits. They said it was fun seeing Dana write on spite, and she thinks about a lot of the stuff they do for the story as the mastermind.

         Zach revealed him and Dana disagree on Mattholomule’s name, with Zach insisting it’s Mattholomule; His only compromise is saying his last name is also Tholomule… So Mattholomule Tholomule canon??? Zach also wanted a character named Corvus.

         Eda was a ‘horn dog’ in OG scripts for TOH, breaking hearts and all that. There was an episode with a B-plot in which Eda went on a date with playboy merchant, just so she could get a deal on crow heads, but Disney didn’t want a ‘horny old lady’. Dana commented that it was jut Eda on a date, but Disney was being weird about it.

         The writers also mentioned that they considered ‘Mom Tholomule’ and ‘Dad Tholomule’ in what they called the racing episode (I presume Eda’s Requiem’s B-plot), and they planned Steve and Mattholomule being brothers from S1! Zach joked that if the Tholomule parents showed up, they’d have taken attention from everything, with fans losing interest for Lumity, Raeda, and Huntlow in favor of them.

         They brought up their weirdest failed episodes, such as a race (which might be what they meant regarding the Tholomule parents) as well as an episode where Eda and Odalia had beef. It’d have been based on the Rats! musical poster –the one that gave Raine stage fright- and would’ve had musical elements, but alas Dana doesn’t like musicals herself due to her own experiences with them (which might be the Doylist source for Raine’s own trauma as well now that I think of it).

         Odalia would’ve been one of those obsessive parents, entering an Abomination disguised as a child for the role. Edric would’ve been angry and formed a rivalry with this fake child, wanting to be Momma’s Boy, and it’d end with the fake child getting decapitated and their head sliding off as the big reveal.

         When asked about doing ‘Blaine’ (Belos-possessed Raine), Avi explained they didn’t need to watch Rhys to copy Belos’ inflections, having watched the show plenty. They were surprised about the Blaine development when they went in to voice Raine that day and were told about it!

         When asked about favorite characters to write, Zach said he loved Eda because he didn’t need to go into anyone’s headspace when writing her, it was basically just him talking. Madeleine brought up how Matthew Rhys would charm the entire zoom call with his recording, and Emmy mentioned how twice she wrote for a bloodcurdling scream only for a VA to give more of an Ahhhhh.

         Specifically, Edric would’ve had a more bloodcurdling scream when he broke through his body cast to hug Amity (Zach wrote that, Emmy did the art for it), with everyone agreeing he should be in pain. A ‘piercing scream’ was specified, though Sarah joked about how hard VAs worked, and said a bloodcurdling scream might be done for an Oscar nomination (doing such a scream is taxing due to multiple takes).

         Mikki loves writing Lilith, calling her a big dweeb; Madeline loves Hooty the most, as he’s a wild card and she loves writing those. One example she brought up was in Hollow Mind, when Hooty shut down the Owl House. Madeleine loves it when Hooty goes from zero to sixty in either direction, fully insane.

         JBO also liked Hooty best, as well as King! They referenced the B-plot from Adventures in the Elements, in which Hooty negotiates a drawn body for himself from King, which Emmy and JBO wrote. The actual sketch used in the episode was straight-up one of their drawings, I didn’t catch whose though. Hooty’s dialogue in Eda’s conversation with him (from Something Ventured, Someone Framed) was also written by JBO, with Emmy drawing the bit where his tongue reaches for a fly!

        In regards to writing advice, JBO said to just do stuff, it’s better than nothing; Emmy concurred, it’s still worth it to write it, even if nobody pays you for it. Zach added that for writers, one of their goals is to be more of a tool; Get what they’ve made into the hands of someone who can take it further, it’s collaborative storytelling and writers need to see it from that perspective. Likewise, they mentioned having people read what you’ve written, as they can notice stuff that’s missing that you hadn’t thought of/remembered. Zach hoped for a TOH art book, as he liked a lot of Emmy Cicierga’s visual jokes and hoped people could enjoy them! IIRC Emmy did that one meme of Ariel combining her fish tail with two legs as a solution, so that tracks.

         On a final note, there was a HUGE wave of people commenting about Gustholomule throughout the entire stream. It went unacknowledged alas, but the group also mentioned they couldn’t answer spoiler questions so...

[aemiron-main-backup]

how and when did the possum get into alice creel’s bed? and why was it in her bed?

I talked previously about the possum mentioned in the Creel newspaper pages in this post, but right now, I want to focus on how the possum got into Alice’s bed, when this may have happened, and why it happened.

The paper goes out of its way to note that there was no explanation for how the possum got into Alice’s bed, stating that the Creels had “no idea how it would have gotten there.”

“Night after night, a horrible stench would presage the discovery of a dead animal on the property. One evening, the daughter, alice, found a rotting possum in her duvet cover, with no idea of how it would have gotten there. Another such (-) event occurred when the bathtub began to spew nothing but insects. Their healthy home turned black overnight.”

The possum was rotting- decomposing. Not a fresh kill. And it seems like it was the same for the other animals (it talks about a rotten stench precluding the discovery of the animals), which is interesting considering that the rabbit alice saw was fairly decomposed even though Henry supposedly killed it recently (not to mention that he killed it in a completely different place than Alice found it in the show (near the slide), which is ALSO different from where it was found in the creel family trailer (in front of the house)).

As well, the same paper notes that the Creels were known to attend church on Sundays.

Why is the church thing relevant to the possum? Well, I’m still working on my analysis regarding the fact that I strongly believe that Brenner and the lab were monitoring and messing with the Creels and their house from day 1, and I think that includes dead animals. We’re going to come back to the church thing in a second. 

As mentioned previously, the possum was rotting. It wasn’t a fresh kill. Which means that it could’ve been brought from somewhere else, such as the lab. This also brings up another point- Victor’s list of animals that appeared near their home. He lists rabbits, squirrels, chickens, and dogs, and yet, never lists possums, and makes no mention of the possum despite mentioning it in the newspaper. It’s also interesting that the newspaper mentions the animals appearing “night after night,”/repeatedly, which tracks with Victor mentioning multiple animals. 

It’s also extremely strange that Victor never mentions the possum- and we have that scene of Alice seemingly awakening from a nightmare, and based on what I talked about in this post, it’s basically confirmed that Victor’s memory was messed with. So, I wonder if Alice’s “nightmare,” was actually her finding a dead possum in her bed/duvet cover and Victor’s memories have been warped. 

But WHEN and HOW how the lab have the opportunity to place dead animals in the Creel house? Well, this is why the church is relevant. 

Sunday is the perfect opportunity. Nobody’s home. And they would know, reliably, that the Creels weren’t home, because, as mentioned in the paper, it was town knowledge that they not only attended church on Sundays, but a specific church- so the lab could’ve been surveying that church (just like how they use the Hawkins Power and Light vans to survey in s1) to make EXTRA sure that the Creels weren’t home. We saw Brenner and his men show up to the Byers house without notice in S1, so it’s definitely not out of the realm of possibility that they’d do the same with the Creels, especially since Brenner and Virginia already knew eachother somehow/Brenner would know what the Creels lived.

The lab is also no stranger to dead animals- they tried to force El to kill a cat as a child. They obviously have access to animals, and clearly have no qualms about harming them. As well, it’s unlikely that it was Henry killing the animals because a.) they were already rotting by the time they were on the property, and they were found night after night, so in order for them to have time to rot, Henry couldn’t have been killing them the same day as the night they were found and b.) i’m not even convinced he killed the rabbit/chose to kill the rabbit, and we get zero verbal mention from him of ANY dead animals during his 1979 speech voiceover and regarding what we *see* during that sequence, we see no dead animals other than the rabbit/don’t see him supposedly killing any other animals. 

But WHY put a dead animal in Alice’s bed? Well. I think that they were very, VERY likely messing with the Creels in general (the flickering lights, for example, and “Hawkins Power and Light” being run by the lab) in order to create tension between Virginia and Henry and try and push Virginia towards sending Henry away (as Virginia seems to believe that it was Henry doing many of these things), and also convincing Victor that the house was haunted in the process, which would later be a vital part of making him look insane and getting a guilty verdict during his trial, which, putting the blame on Victor for the murders keeps suspicion away from the lab. I think that the same applies with the dead animals- messing with the Creel family, making Henry seem like a threat in Virginia’s eyes (because now he’s seemingly doing more than messing with the lights), and pushing Victor into even more paranoia regarding a haunting.  Anyway! Much to think about. 

how and when did the possum get into alice creel’s bed? and why was it in her bed?

I talked previously about the possum mentioned in the Creel newspaper pages in this post, but right now, I want to focus on how the possum got into Alice’s bed, when this may have happened, and why it happened.

The paper goes out of its way to note that there was no explanation for how the possum got into Alice’s bed, stating that the Creels had “no idea how it would have gotten there.”

“Night after night, a horrible stench would presage the discovery of a dead animal on the property. One evening, the daughter, alice, found a rotting possum in her duvet cover, with no idea of how it would have gotten there. Another such (-) event occurred when the bathtub began to spew nothing but insects. Their healthy home turned black overnight.”

Keep reading

[justthatwackyfandomgrl]

This is going to be my very first post! A theory for The Dragon Prince on why Aaravos is evil. My first theory in fact! It may be a long stretch, but it's interesting! I've had this theory for at least two years

I have to split this into two parts, so there's going to be a second post

The big question: why is Aaravos evil?

Note; I didn't proofread this or anything... Also this kinda moves quickly

One major thing that The Dragon Prince fans have been trying to figure out is as to why Aaravos is evil. There are a lot of incredible theories out there on this topic, and they are all very intriguing. But in my theory we will be digging a little bit deeper beyond the surface. I also added some quotes from Aaron Ehasz, little things mentioned from numerous interviews.

"I think he's complicated. I mean it's, I think that there's a part of him that is kind, that is generous, that is giving. And I think that there's a part of him that is arrogant and desiring to be, you know, worshipped and revered..."

-Aaron

He never lies, I don't know if he's ever lied about anything, if you understand where he's coming from. He's not lying about anything. But you don't necessarily know where he's coming from. He never lies, he always tells the truth. You've heard us talk about Aaravos before. Is it Lucifer or Prometheus, who has a relationship with humanity and the gifts and sharing that he has historically have been, you know, you can interpret it differently."

PART 1: the kindness that went too far

The creators have often pointed out the fact that Aaravos likes humans, like really likes humans. They always mention his fondness for them and how Aaravos is an advocate for humanity. His liking of humanity goes too far when he bestows powerful gifts upon humans, rather than helping out his own kind; elves. Has Aaravos gone too far? Has his adoration for humans ruined his good name? And most importantly- does it have something to do with his imprisonment within a magical mirror?

"He takes a special interest in humans, so he would be very pleased that humans appreciate him "

-Aaron

"He thinks sometimes about the way humans count their years: one day every year marks a precious point in their short lifespans. They celebrate. They feast. He thinks that if he cared for the idea, he'd like to remember the taste of a smooth red fruit a human had plucked from a tree for him, once. It had been so crisp, and so sweet."

-Aaravos birthday post on The Dragon Prince website

It all started three hundred years ago. Strangely enough, right before Aaravos turns evil.

We get our first clue to the beginning of an unlikely friendship between human and elf in this one short poem put on Twitter on The Dragon Prince Official for Aaravos' birthday:

"I have eaten the red fruit that was offered by a human, and which you were probably saving for the one day a year you celebrate another meaningless milestone in your short life span. Forgive me. It was so crisp, and so sweet."

Just from this small poem, we can figure out multiple things about Aaravos:

-He does not know what an apple is despite being extremely knowledgeable

-He is not kind when expressing how he feels about humans celebrating

-He thinks humans have short life spans since he is a startouch elf and experience's things on a different time scale

"I feel like there are parallels to the biblical story of the serpent tempting Eve to eat the apple, and it's effect on humanity... And the comparisons are sort of fascinating."

-Aaron

It's clear that Aaravos receiving and eating the apple somewhat resembles a moment in the bible. And since it is so familiar, I would expect some other similarities as well.

But another big question is: who was the human that gave Aaravos the apple? We can figure that out by looking at some clues from the show itself and the timeline of Xadia. We will be mainly looking at two events that are side by side. These two major events consist of:

-He fallen star

-The orphan queen

First I think it's important to know who the Orphan queen is. She was first introduced at san Diego Comic Con 2019, and anyone who did not go to this panel or discover her through the internet, has no clue as to who she is. The Orphan queen is the Ancestor of Harrow and Ezran, and was the very first ruler of Katolis. She for some reason took a dangerous trip to Xadia and ended up saving the world. But from what? And was she alone on this journey?

It was once mentioned that The Orphan queen was the first person to receive The Key if Aaravos. Just from this we know she has some connection to Aaravos in one way or another. And this is where we return back to the mystery of who gave Aaravos the apple... In the first episode of The Dragon Prince, there is a scene where Claudia nearly walks into a tree, and when she notices, she asks if it is new. Callum replies saying it has been there for only three hundred years. This ties together well with The Orphan queen being alive around that exact time, and Aaravos talking about how a human plucked an apple off the tree just for him once.

He clearly enjoyed the apple just from how he describes it as "so crisp, and so sweet." So did The Orphan queen give him the apple? Or was it a different human? And could that have been the exact tree the apple was plucked from?

The journey:

We know that The Orphan queen went on a dangerous journey to Xadia. And what would any dangerous journey be without a companion along for the ride? It may sound crazy, but I believe Aaravos possibly helped The Orphan queen out, since he is so fond of humans. Wouldn't that be helpful for crossing the border into Xadia... Who better to help out than the one elf that knows Xadia in and out? The Orphan queen would have a better chance of finding her way through Xadia with a helpful companion. And hey, maybe they bonded a little bit and became friends? Why wouldn't they talk again after Aaravos received the apple? This event being brought up multiple times is a clear sign that this is an important moment.

The key of Aaravos

"we know! Actually, that was one of the first things we knew at the very beginning. We'll get to it."

Aaravos hand carved a cube with each primal source on each of the six sides. He made it a key to unlock something of great importance to Xadia, and he clearly knows what it is. But this cube of great importance somehow got into the hands of The Orphan queen herself. How did she end up with his key? The creators said they figured out what the key unlocks early on in production. It certainly has something to do with magic. What is interesting is that the idea for where the key of Aaravos comes from stems from The Orphan queens story. She was clearly in mind when thinking about where the key came from.

And what's funny is that it is supposed to be an item of great importance, but The Orphan queens descendants began to forget what it unlocked over time, as stated by Aaron in an interview with Cartoon Universe. Also, notice Harrow as he talks about Aaravos calmly and does not seem the least bit afraid of the archmage when bringing up his name. Whoever Aaravos is to Harrow, it doesn't sound like an enemy. Maybe his ancestors had a good connection with Aaravos?

Hmmm... I wonder...

I'll make a post for part 2

[pinkandgreenarepurpleandyellow]

Theatre LMK au (note: since my spellcheck keeps fucking me over, we'll be using MK and Mei instead of their actual names for this post):

Ok, so this is a three-part show, done like that one fucking 18 hour opera in the sense that you have to go see all the parts to get the full story.

It's also not unlike Come From Away in terms of how many cast and crew members there are and everyone playing multiple roles.

Each season is one show, with a brief transition screen (the animation shown at the end of the episode) flying in from segment to segment. The entire stage rotates, with a total of three relatively constant sets and one space that's used for whatever special thing is needed. The constants are the noodle shop, Monkey King's lair, and a generic forest area.

DBK is actually three different people all moving the suit around and one of them shouting all the lines (the other two are usually the guys who play Silver and Gold because they're on the least).

PIF's hair is a wig that she built herself. She also does WBD's makeup.

The possession moments are actually a really complicated transition sequence done one of two ways if it's onscreen. There's either a convincing body double and a well-timed fall-to-swap (onstage person falls, 'possessed' falls w/them, og rolls off as the 'possessed' one rises) with the original actor for that character now wearing special contact lenses, or creating a smokescreen and focusing attention away from that character for the five seconds they need to put the contacts in. It's part of why when Monkey King is possessed, there's a cut to MK's reaction.

The falling trick is also used for Macaque's appearances and disappearances. It's combined with trapdoors in the stage and hidden swinging/rotating panels in the sets.

Lots of little gadgets that shoot out fake fire. Red Son is responsible for their creation and testing.

Related to that, his actual hair looks a lot like the character hair, but he wears a wig that has fake fire tech built in that allows it look like live flame with the flick of a button (usually hidden in his sleeves and handed off to PIF when that's not an option).

All of the demon characters have on a MASSIVE amount of body paint and complex makeup to make the horns and glowing eyes look 'natural'.

A lot of the comedy moments are improvised and change from show to show.

Holographic effects are used for the clones. Clones that interact with real objects are done via a similar-looking actor hiding in a hologram that's modded to work with their body instead of being pre-programmed in it's moments.

The light and soundboard have the ability to insert light and sound effects on the fly for improvised comedy bits.

WBD is actually played by three different people: The girl, her twin, and a woman who looks like the girls if they were older. They swap out off-screen or when the lights briefly go dim before revealing the creepy glow.

Scorpion Queen and Spider Queen are played by the same woman, in an almost identical costume. The body stays the same with the limbs being switched out. Silver and Gold (much like with DBK) control the body's motions so she can use her arms and say the lines without needing to worry about moving the bulky costume.

Macaque is a certified stage combat instructor, qualified for both weapons and bare-hand combat. He teaches MK and Sun how to fight with a staff and has the entire cast go through basic warmup exercises every day.

Tang is the group historian/researcher. He works with Sandy to make the sets more accurate and leaves notes for the costumers.

Mei and Red Son are the primary tech-geeks in the group and built a majority of the transforming mechs and cars out of scrap and old vehicles.

The purple demon that corrals Silver and Gold is the stage manager. She only has 3 appearances in the entire show because she's calling cues and herding everyone to where they need to be the rest of the time. The lever she pulls in season 3 is just about the only scripted bit that calls for special effects that she doesn't call and is triggered by her pulling the lever from one side to the other.

There are about seven extras in total, all of whom are constantly donning new wigs and accessories to look like different people. Whichever one of the WBD girls isn't currently onstage/about to go on helps with hair clips and checking for any quick-change mistakes. All of the other background people are just well-painted set-pieces and actors for named characters that aren't appearing in this episode or the next one.

Red Son not appearing in Season 2 and most of Season 3 was because of the larger amount of robots it was necessary to operate. He's controlling all of the little spiders and creating the creepy flickering lights during Macaque's mini-shows.

The shadow effect for Macaque is one of the most complicated things they work with. From hidden doors and panels, to brief blackouts, to wire harnesses that have to be disguised on the spot, the appearances and disappearances of a certain monkey are pure evil.

Nezha is the assistant stage manager. He was only persuaded to appear in the 3rd show when it was promised that he wouldn't have to be onstage for long. He's almost always standing in for straight-man characters whenever someone needs to practice lines and their partner isn't available.

The crew is surprisingly chill with each other. Unlike Phantom's orchestra, they mostly get along.

Pigsy is a great cook both on and offstage. He's in charge of catering and makes sure to set aside some extra snacks for younger actors and anyone doing an especially complex scene.

The jokes about Wukong having stage fright are based off of an actual conversation he and MK had during their very first tech week.

[woodchipp]

I actually have to thank you for taking your time to write out an intelligent and coherent response. I can see your points, but some of these I'd like to discuss.

The likely goal in Omocat’s decision to include this mechanic is for the player to have less and less of a reaction the more the mechanic is used, which the player hypothetically should realize and acknowledge that “hm, I’m getting desensitized to this terrible thing, that’s not good!”

My main issue with the main protagonist killing themselves as a gameplay mechanic is that this might potentially lead to the exact opposite effect - the more you desensitize the player to the idea and the act, the less of a reaction they're likely to have when the main protagonist actually kills themselves.

The player (and by extension, Sunny) is accustomed to utilizing a knife in the dream world, so during the fight scene with Aubrey, a lot of folks are conditioned to do the same thing without thinking much about it. The game immediately draws your attention to how messed up it is that Sunny just stabbed someone in real life

And yet, strangely enough, Aubrey doesn't seem to harbor any grudge towards Sunny for stabbing and pepperspraying her, as she would realistically do, nor does it seem to have any real impact on her eventual reunion with the friend group, as it would realistically do. The biggest consequence of your action here is Kel just lightly scolding you and confiscating the knife. She resented Basil for less, so what's the deal here?

But then, why was Sunny’s suicide scene all rainbows and pop music? Tonal contrast!! Remember, Sunny (or in this moment, Omori) is an unreliable narrator. We’re seeing things through his eyes, but his perception of the world, as we’re reminded time and time again, is very different from the objective reality. (The hallucinations you see on the first day in the real world, the ‘fight’ with the poster, Sunny daydreaming about the Recycultists, etc.)

I've seen this argument before. Multiple times, in fact. Personally, I believe that just because Sunny is an unreliable narrator and is prone to hallucinations doesn't mean that the scene of him taking his own life should be set to a banger pop song.

I have acknowledged that the tonal whiplash was probably meant to be intentional and that the choice of music was probably intended to be ironic. My issue is that the whiplash in this particular scene is way too strong for the player to take the scene seriously. A good example of tonal contrast that works can be found right in this very game at the ending of the Hikkikomori route, with the Neighbor's Bedroom segment - the whole tone of the scene is supposed to be sweet and cute, yet the notes of DUET sneaking into the track mockingly remind you that you Sunny has embraced his delusions and is unlikely to face his guilt in the foreseeable future. It's a good example of tonal contrast because it's subtle and isn't as jarring.

Additionally, the "Knife" ending seems to actually portray Sunny's suicide with all the horror a scene like that should have. It seems to frame his suicide from objective reality's point of view. So why does the game choose to frame suicide one way in one ending and then a completely different way in the other? it doesn't make sense to me.

I don’t think you’re really taking into consideration some of the most important parts of media criticism: the purpose of a given scene/story element, what it contributes to the story/themes, who is narrating the story, and how the audience is meant to react.

But trying to critique the story elements of any given media at face value without actually trying to consider *why* they might have been implemented isn’t an effective evaluation.

You... seem to be talking to me as if I didn't play the game in its entirety.

I did. I've been lurking in the fandom for quite a while, actually. And, as mentioned previously, I have already seen the exact same points you're bringing up in your post. Just because I didn't talk about the intentions in my post doesn't mean that I don't understand them.

I understand the intentions. I just think that the execution is awful.

A CRITIQUE OF OMORI, PART 4: DEPICTION OF MENTAL ILLNESS

NOTE: Reader discretion is advised. By clicking on “Keep reading”, you willingly choose to continue reading the post.

My remark about Omori being Sunny’s “Evil Mental Illness” at the end of the previous post, while meant to be tongue-in-cheek, isn’t even an exaggeration. The game actually designates him as “evil” on two separate occasions, thus presumably parallelling Sunny’s fight with Omori at the end of the game to Ness confronting Ness’ Nightmare, the evil within himself, in EarthBound. In addition to this, waking Sunny up (and getting out of certain areas in Black Space) requires Omori to kill himself by stabbing himself in the stomach, complete with the sound of his flesh being pierced by the knife. Because what better way is there to establish the protagonist’s suicidal tendencies than trivializing the very act of suicide into a gameplay mechanic a la Mario’s warp pipes, right? The game also doesn’t seem to have any problems with using an idea as tragic and horrifying as the suicide of a beloved family member as mere set-up for a very contrived plot twist.

Another issue about OMORI’s handling of mental illness is its usage of mental conditions as RPG status effects. The “Manic” status in particular depicts Omori flat-out drooling in his battle portrait. Because a tactful and respectful depiction of mental illness includes trivializing a real disorder into a gameplay mechanic and leaning into potentially harmful stereotypes while doing so, right? 

Sunny himself doesn’t fare much better in this aspect. His status as a silent protagonist being explained by his introversion comes off as less of an organic character trait and more of a flimsy excuse to not have him talk until the end of the game for maximum emotional impact. The game using his depression and trauma as a justification for his “personality” as a bland, stoic and nigh-emotionless husk creates an unfortunate implication that introverted/depressed/traumatized people can express no genuine, outward emotions whatsoever. Now remember that Sunny is treated as the “baby” of the group and is compared to Mari’s pet cat, and the implications become even more unfortunate.

Basil isn’t spared from such writing either. In a lecture about OMORI and its development that Omocat, the game’s director and lead writer, gave at Drawfest, she mentioned that Basil’s “loneliness and insecurity” make him dependent on others, “sometimes dangerously so.” Again, this reads like a very convenient way to shield Basil from any criticism regarding his morbid plan to cover up Mari’s death. 

Mari’s perfectionism also deserves a mention here for being a flaw so inconsequential it might as well be an informed one. When it’s not used as a convenient justification for Sunny lashing out at Mari, it’s presented as cute and endearing instead. Because it’s not like perfectionism is someone pretty much torturing themselves by holding themselves to a standard they could never realistically reach, right? 

The game’s final battle is especially notable for how it handles Sunny confronting the personification of his depression. Ironically, despite the game trying its hardest to frame the fight as Sunny’s irrational self-loathing thoughts telling him he’s unlovable, some of Omori's points are actually quite rational and supported by the game itself:

“You've caused so much suffering… yet you do nothing.” - indeed, Sunny doesn’t do anything substantial to help his friends over the course of the story other than just Being There; in fact, he walks out on Basil during the latter’s first breakdown and leaves Hero alone after seeing him crying in the piano room at the end of Two Days Left.

“When do you think about others? How long are you going to let people take care of you?/You say you care but you're a liar. You've never done anything for anyone else.” -  indeed, Sunny is never shown to have done anything substantial for his friends other than just Being There before Mari’s death either. 

“You let them believe in a lie to protect yourself.” - indeed, Sunny did let his friends (and his family) believe in Basil’s cover-up story.

The player is not supposed to agree with anything Omori says, though. As mentioned previously, Omori’s speech is framed as Sunny’s irrational self-loathing thoughts that the latter must stand his ground against. For a game apparently renowned for its nuanced storytelling, its final fight boils down to “Sunny GOOD, his depression EVIL” and very transparently uses Sunny’s suicidal ideation to browbeat the player into sympathizing with him. After all, you would never want a child to kill themselves, would you? 

The moment that exemplifies the game’s atrocious approach to mental illness is the game’s bad ending. If you choose not to continue during the fight with Omori, Omori takes control of Sunny and leads him to the hospital’s balcony, which has a very convenient hole in the railing. After yet another choice prompt (which is weird since the player has already made the important choice), Sunny throws himself off the hospital's roof… and endlessly falls to his death as a ridiculously cheery and banging pop song (that wasn’t even written for the game in the first place, by the way) plays in the background.  

The tonal whiplash the juxtaposition creates is probably intentional, with the game playing ironically cheery music during such a disturbing moment, but the sheer dissonance between the seriousness of Sunny taking his life and the fact that it’s set to a song with MLG airhorns in it makes it impossible to take the moment seriously. What is the player even supposed to be feeling during this scene? Additionally, why is Sunny’s suicide the only one the game frames in such a distasteful way? It doesn’t play pop music when Sunny sees Basil’s disemboweled corpse in the Neutral ending, does it? To my mind, this cutscene serves as the perfect demonstration that mental illness in OMORI isn’t approached with the necessary tact one needs when examining such a complex and complicated topic, but is instead used as more of an “aesthetic” to spice up the plot of an otherwise completely unremarkable game.

Of course, the bad ending isn't the only one that has significant problems. The game's true ending also has something for me to address.

[the-lincyclopedia]

High school English doesn’t look just one way

I’d like to stab the next person who responds to someone’s failure to understand theme/symbolism/metaphor/etc. with “clearly you didn’t pass high school English,” but a.) we’re not in the same physical space, and b.) even if we were, I don’t want to get arrested, so I’m writing this post instead.

This site is abounding in assumptions about high school English, and I want to burst the bubble of everyone who holds those assumptions, because high school English looks a whole lot of different ways. Different schools and districts use different curricula, different teachers have different quirks, AP differs from IB, etc. For better and for worse (quite possibly mostly for worse), there is no uniform knowledge base held by people who did, in fact, pass high school English.

I did the International Baccalaureate program in high school, but I did that program in the Midwestern US, and this is very much a post about my experience in the US school system. Here’s what my high school English experience looked like:

FRESHMAN YEAR

My freshman English teacher was funny and personable but not very good at teaching English, and I have no idea what was up with the curriculum. We only read two books (The Scarlet Letter and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass) as a group all year. We read poetry (Emily Dickinson), short stories (Edgar Allan Poe), and excerpts from a variety of things (Thoreau sticks out in my mind), and toward the end of the year we had to pick an American author (I think from a list?), read one of their books, read a biography of the author, and then do a project, but overall it wasn’t a very reading-heavy year.

Nor was it a writing-heavy year! Most of our assignments were art projects. One of my least-favorite days was the day we came to class with the first of our “creative journal” entries (i.e. mixed-media projects that connected our personal lives to the topic we were studying) and my teacher said, “I can already tell, without looking at any of your assignments, that none of them are creative enough.” I have no idea why we spent so much time on collages and whatnot in my English class, but we did.

Point being, this was emphatically not a time when I learned a lot about metaphor, symbolism, plot structure, etc.

SOPHOMORE YEAR

My sophomore English teacher was new to teaching after having been a professional dancer for over a decade. She was really cool! She was both humble enough and secure enough in herself to admit when she didn’t know things, which is not a universal trait for teachers. She was also great at fostering community, and the class got close and grew to respect one another.

Unlike freshman year, this was an incredibly reading-heavy year. We started out with creation myths and excerpts from the Iliad and the Odyssey, and what followed was a barrage:

Antigone (the Greek play)

Canterbury Tales

Dante’s Inferno

Macbeth

Much Ado about Nothing

Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus

The Importance of Being Earnest

And then at the end of the year we had to pick a novel written by a non-Western author and write a report on it. (I’m not complaining about that assignment in particular; the whole lot of it taken together was just a lot for one year!)

So, okay, we read a fuckton that year. And we did write some papers. But, as with freshman year, many of our assignments were creative projects. This worked better with this particular teacher and this particular class both because of the community we had built and because we had several very creative people in the class: there was this girl who was a mixed-media artist who made sculptures just about every time, and this boy who was an aspiring filmmaker who would make little movies every time, and this other boy who was an amazing composer who wrote an original song for every creative assignment (and also wrote a 40-minute-long musical with a bunch of original songs at the end of the year to express his appreciation to our teacher).

In the multiple-page thank-you note I wrote to this teacher at the end of the year, I told her I learned more in sophomore English about respecting and admiring my classmates than I did about English. Once again, not really a time when I learned about metaphor, symbolism, plot structure, etc.

JUNIOR YEAR

This is the point when I entered actual IB classes (the Diploma Programme--yes, it’s British and is spelled that way--only covers the last two years of high school, and my school wasn’t officially part of the Middle Years Programme when I was a freshman or sophomore). My junior year English teacher was a hardass who denied my accommodations request and treated us all pretty badly, but she understood more about teaching English than my previous two English teachers had.

It was another reading-heavy year, with our reading list looking like this:

Poetry by Mahmoud Darwish

Short stories by Lu Xun

Agamemnon

The House of Bernarda Alba

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Othello

Junior year, finally, we were actually writing. However, none of our writing assignments were called “papers.” They were either journals, which basically meant we were answering a set of questions and didn’t need to be super formal about it (punctuation, grammar, and citations were still expected, but paragraph structure could be looser), or commentaries, which were usually about some very specific aspect or section of what we read (say, a single monologue from Othello, or an argument for why a specific character was the protagonist of One Hundred Years of Solitude).

The thing about the IB style of commentaries, at least as they were taught at my high school, is that they were very concerned about how language means--how individual words combine to create a very specific meaning. You were never allowed to summarize anything, because phrasing and word choice were the entire point. Any paragraph would have to introduce a point, cite a quote that illustrated that point, and then dissect the quote to prove how it illustrated that point. You were never allowed to assume the quote proved the point on its own, nor were you generally allowed to point to several connected instances in one paragraph and reference them without direct quotes (say, with just page numbers).

So this was a year when I learned some things about things like metaphor and symbolism. However, plot structure basically got lost because it’s a harder thing to talk about when you have to pull a quote every single time you want to make a point. Moreover, the definition that all the teachers and professors from throughout my education used for metaphors was very different than the definition most people on Tumblr seem to use (which I’ve rage-posted about before).

SENIOR YEAR

Still IB, still writing commentaries that required direct quotes for everything and more often than not focused on a single paragraph or monologue. My senior year English teacher was much nicer than the junior year one, at least.

Our reading list:

Margaret Atwood’s poetry

Dust Tracks on a Road

Hamlet

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

The Lion and the Jewel

The Glass Menagerie

At this point, we learned about allegories, particularly when analyzing The Lion and the Jewel, a Nigerian play with a lot to say about colonialism. Once again, I’ll point out that the divide between allegory and metaphor in my high school English class was incredibly different than people on Tumblr claim it to be.

IN CONCLUSION

I spent the first half of my high school English career making art projects and the second half writing commentaries based on a single paragraph or monologue from the source material. When we spent time on the plot, it was usually for comprehension purposes, not analysis purposes; when we did analysis, it was usually at the word and sentence level, not at the story level. This means we learned a wildly different set of skills than a lot of Tumblrites assume are universal to high school English.

TL;DR: Shut up about “you clearly never passed high school English.” You have no idea how different high school English looks from one school to another.

[panterasnarl]

hi, i'm jasper (born in '96) and this is an 18+ only blog for a post-series grimmjow jaegerjaquez from tite kubo's bleach - the manga version specifically.

perma starter call

general rules apply, set below the cut for mobile users (please check these out! updated dec 10, 2024!):

ic =/= ooc, keep it that way

keep drama off my doorstep. this is a hobby. it's for fun

if you can't reach me here, you can likely find me on Xion, Vanitas (sideblog to the first), Bill Cipher, or Choso! mutuals can also ask for my discord! ☆

this blog will have both para style and in-character blog-style postings, because it gives me something to do when i don't have replies to get to. plus, having silly conversations over the internet is what we all do anyway - why not let him?

i am very gingerly dipping my toes into verses (i've never done this before in my 15-ish years on this site/rping). i'll gradually add more, maybe, but feel free to ask for specific versions of him as they come along. post-series is the main canon, and in the main canon, he can travel the multiverse, and does frequently. please specify if you want the new verse, however, as i will default to the main in most cases

shipping can happen! it's just unlikely, as grimmjow has little to no interest in such things. it could change! but he is not monogamous (unless, as per the previous rule, you ask for a little mini-verse of your own, although i will likely limit these.)

pre-established relationships are not likely, though he may recognize your muse if they are from the bleach (manga) canon. if you wish to write as a character from his canon (whether a whole muse or a verse for them), i'd love that! we could absolutely discuss such things! said character would have to fall within the canon of the manga's post-series, though, and that drastically lowers the options. ocs will not be considered eligible for his canon, as his canon is established and follows the original story. sorry, ocs ):

that being said, i'll interact with multiples of any muse! i'll interact with ocs if you have enough information to give me! multimuses, unfortunately, i will be a bit picky on. if you have too many muses, i may not follow you/follow back because it just becomes confusing to me, and multimuses i do follow, i will likely prioritize muses i recognize over others.

i probably wont follow your hub blogs or personals because i won't be interacting directly with them.

i'm pretty mutuals-exclusive, to an extent? if you don't follow back after a few days, i'll assume you aren't interested and will typically unfollow. if i don't follow you back within a day, honestly, then i likely took a look at your blog and decided that i couldn't see myself interacting well

personals, please don't reblog in-character posts! i don't care if they're text conversations or para-style writings. it's not for you! i will ask you to delete what you reblogged, and then block you. thanks

on that note, please dont reblog stuff if it's tagged "don't reblog", ongoing interactions that don't involve your muse, or asks! (if you'd like to continue off an ask, please make it a new post!)

you don't have to match my length, or formatting, or have icons of you own to write with me! as long as you're not writing one-sentence responses while i'm writing paragraphs, we're good!

also i have a horrendous memory, please be nice ):

re-est. feb 5, 2023

revamped dec 8, 2024