#Support for Teachers

[ugly-bug-starscream]

design of deadlock made by @edd-drawsyo

me and edd have talked about the dynamic between deadlock and starscream and we had this idea.. when deadlock is converting from being deadlock, recovering from injuries, he wants to learn other ways of fighting because he cant bring himself to use guns anymore. so he turns to starscream who wields swords. and their dynamic is that they hate each other in the beginning but learn to trust one another and become friends!

[bisexualgoth]

all workers' strikes are good. yes even if they're inconvenient. even if they're making your life harder. even if you don't get to watch your favourite tv show. workers fighting for their rights is ALWAYS a good thing

[volaenii]

𝘞𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘒𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘔𝘦, 𝘑𝘦𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘮?

Thank you all for your support and happy new year!

[femboywizard]

A reminder that Glinda having either dyslexia/dysgraphia or a learning disability is canon in the Movieverse.

This is the same paper that we see her get back in this scene, in which we can see this was a large essay too.

There's nothing rushed to her handwriting, this was not an essay done at the last minute, and still, it shows several signs of a learning disability and/or dysgraphia.

Misspells her name in the second line

Wrong and inconsistent pronoun usage

Her margin spacing is consistent with someone who can't do proper syllable division

Immature transcription (see: writes her "um"s)

Limited vocabulary

Shows signs of: difficulty expressing ideas in writing, having a limited vocabulary, mispronouncing words or using a wrong word that sounds similar, and having trouble organizing what she wants to say. Those are all symptoms of a learning disability.

Less of a checklist sign, but her handwriting is very round and careful, while still not being consistently sized (see unfashionable). This and the margin sizes are very common in kids with bad dysgraphia who are made to take rigorous calligraphy courses to "fix the problem". Courses that work on the visual without remedying its underlying issues and causes. Form over content if you will.

Looking at this very blatant sign that she has a learning disability and immediately defaulting to calling her names (yes calling her stupid and saying Elphaba is a moronsexual for this counts), asking how she got into Shiz, or defending Dillamond in doing the very first thing teachers are told NOT to do with disabled students (re: calling attention to it in front of the entire class) is ableist!

[choccy-milky]

finally drew clora and seb's kids!!🙌🙌

Celeste Sallow: OK THIS IS THE NAME IM SUPER PROUD OF BAHAHA because not only does the name celeste relate to the stars (in typical ravenclaw fashion...clora picked the name) but celeste sallow is also an alliteration. BUT, its an alliteration that begins with a C, which means clora gets to match with celeste in the form of both of their names starting with a C, whereas sebastian gets to match with celeste because both of their names are an alliteration/they're alliteration allies🥹ITS THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!🥳

Lewis Sallow: as for lewis, if you've read my fic then you know that seb has a vendetta against names that start with an L bahaha, but 'lewis' was actually HIS idea. when celeste was born, seb wanted to find a muggle story to read to her, since clora's favourite story is ALSO a muggle one (sherlock), and he wanted to stick with tradition. so he ended up finding alice in wonderland, which he loved because of how adventurous and clever alice was and of how much she reminded him of clora and celeste (both personality and looks wise). it became his favourite for those reasons, to the point that when they had lewis, sebastian overcame his L-name hatred by naming their son after lewis carroll.

Houses: celeste could have been sorted into either gryffindor or slytherin, but ultimately ends up in slytherin because she wants to be like seb. kinda like how clora also probably could have been in gryffindor, tbh. as for lewis.....him being 10000% in ravenclaw doesnt need any explanation BAHA, just look at him.

Appearance: since clora has a tiny bit of veela blood in her, thats obvs passed down to their kids, too, and so they mostly take after her as a result of it. but there's still little bits of seb that shine through in each of the kids: for lewis its his brown curly hair, and for celeste its her complexion/freckles. and the fact that celeste looks so similar to clora only doubles up sebastian's stress/protective instincts when he watches her BAHAH. he's ofc still proud that she takes after him so closely, but seb also cant deny that he wishes it had been their SON that had taken after him instead, to keep her out of danger.

Celeste & Lewis: for celeste and lewis’ relationship, celeste is a super proud big sister, and treats lewis kinda like how seb treats clora. if there's anything that needs to be done, she offers to do it for him. and although she doesn’t have the patience to read stories herself, she loves playing outside and having lewis read to her in the background, and loves to act out/use his stories to fuel her imagination. and lewis makes sure to pick stories that he KNOWS she’ll like (which mostly involve heroic and daring feats of adventurers or pirates. he's tried to read more classic fairytales and romances to her a few times, but celeste always gets bored). she loves to draw though, so sometimes when lewis reads books that have no pictures, she'll draw them herself.

Celeste & Seb/Clora: celeste is a daddy's girl LOL and always tries to impress seb with the stuff she does, especially after hearing how HE was at her age, and so its half to impress and half because shes competitive that she wants to do the same/be just as good. and seb always gets a kick out of hearing her feats in the crossed wands club, or in defense against the dark arts class, and he also goads her on, telling her she'll have to do better than that if she wants to be as good as HE was. and whenever celeste gets detention, clora always stresses and asks why, whereas seb just tries to keep the smirk off his face. as for celeste and clora, clora also reads to celeste, and bakes and cooks with her, which is something celeste actually likes doing. not only because it keeps her busy and she likes to help and get messy in general, but also because she likes the fact that it results in good food afterwards LOL, and constantly asks when things can be taken out of the oven. also, for as tomboy-y as celeste is, she honestly doesn't mind/likes the clothing that clora puts her in and likes when clora dresses her up, bc it makes her look like one of the princesses from the storybooks, and it just amuses her more than anything else. once she enters hogwarts, though, its mostly trousers. but she still DOES like the occasional girly clothing.

Lewis & Seb/Clora: lewis is a momma's boy LOL and unlike celeste, doesnt care about duelling or of proving himself or anything like that, and is only concerned with stories and his future studies. so ofc clora had to show him sherlock, which he naturally loved. it even inspired lewis to want to write his own stories, so that he could challenge his own skill and see if he could, but also because he wants his mom to read them, and likes the idea of writing his own sherlock-esque story with equations and mysteries to be solved that he can offer her. lewis also wants to write a book for celeste as well, bc although he wont admit it, he basically wants to write a story tailor-made for her and her interests. one that he thinks will have everything she’d love in it. and part of it is genuinely because he WANTS to do it for her, but the other part of it is also for his ego, and to see if he CAN write a compelling story, and write something that would actually get THE hyperactive celeste to sit down and read it in its entirety (not to mention of her own volition). as for with seb, lewis looks up to him more than anyone else, due to how well-rounded he is and how hes so good at practical stuff AND studying, and he kinda sees seb as a main character/protagonist from one of his books, and uses sebastian as inspiration for his own stories. if hes stuck on what he thinks the dashing main character should do next, he'll ask his dad what HE would do, which results in seb getting very weird questions that he nonetheless is always happy to answer. also, when lewis is older and finally learns the full story of what happened with clora and seb and ranrok and rookwood, he writes their story in novel form, except he just changes their names/some of the details, and it becomes a best seller LOL. and i didnt know where to put this, but the four of them all read a story before bed every night, with lewis in the middle and seb and clora on either side of him. though celeste stands at the foot of the bed, basically doing a charade/mime show of what theyre reading, and putting on a little play to go along with it BAHHA.

OK thats all i can think of for now ive yapped enough😩 if youve read all of this ur a real one.... ive also considered giving them a 3rd (and last) child, which would be a boy that looks exactly like seb, and seb would just be praying like please.....let this son take after me🧎‍♂️🙏 BAHHA

[nights-are-better]

it shouldn’t be a joke that people are broke in certain careers. it shouldn’t be a joke that people are broke in certain careers. it shouldn’t be a joke that people are broke in certain careers. it shouldn’t be a joke that people are broke in certain careers.

PAY YOUR WRITERS LIVEABLE WAGES. PAY YOUR HEALTH CARE WORKERS LIVEABLE. PAY TEACHERS LIVEABLE WAGES.

PAY YOUR WORKERS LIVEABLE WAGES

PAY PEOPLE SO THEY CAN LIVE

[mannequinswithkillappeal]

some more scraps

[metanarrates]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[deadpoetsandlivinglegends]

Something something every time Charlie isn’t fighting to be the center of attention, he is always looking around to others to gauge their reactions and silently observing them all something something he is searching for connection, to fit in and be loved but he doesn’t know how to ask for love so instead he gains their attention by acting out in ways he knows they’ll notice and tries to pretend their attention and love are the same thing

[fanzines]

'WTF is the radical indoctrination EO? Supporting and affirming queer and trans students and their teachers' is an info zine by Courtnie Wolfgang. Download it (for free), print and distribute! More info here.

This zine explains what a U.S. presidential Executive Order (EO) is and what it can / cannot do.

It focuses on the early-2025 anti-trans “radical indoctrination” EO and its harmful impacts on students and teachers.

It also highlights steps you can take to support queer and trans students and teachers, including how to make your voice heard in pushing back against this violence using handy scripts for communicating with people in power.

[mrmeepsmadmind]

i love when ppl draw bumblebee like the happy little creachure he is but also i love when people draw bumblebee like he's had 500 beers in the last 1 hour and still the pain won't even ebb

[crow-caller]

I really do think looking at bad writing is one of the best ways to learn about writing in general, especially for beginners.

the thing is, writing in general is highly subjective- a good sentence will be good in different ways to different people, or not impress someone at all.

a bad sentence? most people can spot bad sentences easy, especially if it is presented to them as 'here's an example of a bad sentence, let's unpack why.'

bad writing can also be very funny, which I think is again often more engaging than 'here's a work of literary genius go analyze it'. Like here's some bad writing from lightlark3:

The moment it was out of Horus’s grip, his body became bones. The flesh turned to ash. He became a corpse.

it's dumb as hell, but I think could foster a solid discussion when you ask 'why? what is the author intending to say? what about it makes it feel 'clunky'? How would you write the same idea?'

[princessofghosts-posts]

The way Nico is always relevant to the plot,no matter what,is something else to me.

In PJO he got introduced in the third book so kinda late since the serie is only about 5 books,and he didn't had much presence because we only had a couple of scene with him. And only during BotL his character is 100% present (even tho he and the others have a total different journey in the Labyrinth) but even with this little time,he was extremely relevant for the end. Without him and his help things could have gone horrible in Manhattan at the end.

HoO keeps this up. Nico presence is only felt in 3 of the 5 books (with a couple of scene in SoN),with one of those being MoA where he pratically show up only in the end. And even with that Nico is still 100% relevant.

I haven't be able to read all of ToA yet (dam my final exam-) but I think this is the only time where he isn't really relevant,which is fair because the story is about Apollo and his path,and the demigods are only there for support.

Then we have his own books where he is the protagonist of,so the plot is about him. And the other serie of the main timeline is the one with Percy,Annabeth and Grover trying to get the letters to get into Rew Rome University,but I see that more of a spin-off. They just want to have their happy ending after everything that happened and want to live a "normal" life in a good place. This also isn't about him so he isn't here.

But like,out of 5 series of the main timeline,Nico is relevant in 3 of them,we are talking about more than 10 books (Idk if in ToA he will have some kinda of role at the end,I will find out),and that is fucking amazing. Most side characters after a while aren't that much relevant and are put aside in favor of new characters. Nico didn't had this treatment. He isn't really a side character for se because I always saw him part of the main ones,but he just does his own things and appears when you least expect it. So he is in his own category. But for Riordan the difference between main and side characters doesn't matter since he killed off people that were part of those categories regardless.

Riordan could have choose to put Nico to the side after the end of PJO,he served his propose and got closure after all,but he still made him extremely relevant to the plot again–from the start. And I also really like how he did that because Nico had more of a guide role in HoO : in SoN he decided to go to the source of their problem and fix it alone; in MoA he was referred as the "key for the doors" and it got said multiple times how important he was for their quest; I loved how in HoH he took the role to call the shot about the place where they were going,because it highlighted his intelligence and how much capable he was; in BoO he had his own important side quest to do with the statue,hadn't he decided to help them everything would have be destroyed (like when he helped them during the first war).

And even in PJO he had a similar approach,starting with him in BotL when he helped Percy,to him pre-TLO telling Percy his plan,to him in TLO helping them even with his and Percy fallout because of Hades,and all of this while providing important informations all the times he appeared. He always had a sort of leading role but not like Percy,Thalia or Jason: Nico is more like an expert and intelligent teacher that help you figure things out and give you informations.

And I love this of him. I loved how in HoH Nico was basically mapping their path with his acknowledge,taking a bit of Annabeth's position while she and Percy were fighting in Tartarus. He isn't only a powerhouse and a skilled fighter,his intelligence is something else too. The difference of experience between the crew (minus Percy and Annabeth) and Nico was felt,and I loved that. I loved how he was like a guide for the crew during their travel to the temple,how he helped them even when he was in an horrible physical condition and his mental state was...yeah (and I hated how they treated him in exchange-).

I hate a lot of things that Riordan did with Nico's character,his relationships and his powers especially,but one of the few things he did right was making Nico having this type of supportive subtle leadership,acting like a guide/teacher for the crew and sometimes even Percy.

Idk why but it suite him a lot and while it give time and space for the other characters to shine,it also make him relevant in everything that happens,without the situation being always about him and without making him part of most of the important things that happens in the books (Riordan please take notes for Percy-).

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

Okay, I know I'm a fandom art blog, but would anyone be interested in seeing my welds?