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moonlitlex · 1 month ago

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a really strange side effect of this post has been every once in a while i get an anon or something where someone is explaining the way they annotate to me in grave detail. and it's exactly the kind of thing i'm criticizing in this post. and then they end it with "but does that make sense? :)" i'm not sure what exactly the objective is with these asks but i have two hypotheses

you think you can sell me on the merits of braindead annotation by explaining why you think it's a good idea to underline entire pages of text and have 0 insights. this is not going to happen. i'm a literature graduate and i don't see the value in annotating a book unless it's specifically helping you further analysis. i'm not going to change my mind on this just because you wrote an explanation for why YOU do it and sent it to me. because i disagree with you about the fundamental purpose of annotation.

you think you can get my approval on your annotations if you make your case well enough. i get it's kind of pompous of me to assume random internet weirdos want my approval on what they do with their books, but the tone of these messages is very much attempting to be persuasive and it would also not be the first time someone i've never spoken to before personally contacts me to take issue with something i said that doesn't have to affect them at all. if this is what your objective is, you are wasting your fucking time AND mine. i'm not stopping you from doing dumb shit to your own books. you can do whatever you want. if you have a spine, a complete stranger's opinion on annotation should not affect you at all. like not even a little bit.

and like. i made this post because i think this booktok annotation style is stupid and a waste of time and an attempt to posture as intellectual without actually engaging with the text deeper than surface level. and i still think that.

when i see these (don't find and go after any of these people obviously):

i see no attempt to actually engage with the book. the focus is on aesthetics, on colours, on tabbing, on putting little doodles in the book. this is not annotation. this is "drawing in a book". and that's fine, if you want to do that. but it's not actually forcing you to engage with the text and think about it if all you're doing is taking out your pen or assortment of highlighters and underlining every few lines.

i'm not going to go as far as to say this is anti-intellectualism, because there are at least some people who do this is who understand this is an aesthetic pursuit, not an intellectual one (and again, this is fine, i love when things look pretty too). the thing is, it's a lot of people who don't think that way as well. i got these examples off of google but every time i've had the misfortune of getting onto booktok or bookstagram or book-youtube shorts, i've seen dozens if not hundreds of people doing this and unironically thinking they've done some great analysis of a book. i have literally run into someone who annotated like this in my actual literature classes in my actual university before (and yes, having a discussion with her was as headache inducing as you imagine). i was personally friends with someone like this. there are people who think this bland aesthetic bullshit and first-reaction slop is real annotation.

and what bothers me so much about it is they are genuinely missing out on the benefits that proper annotation brings to your reading experience and overall development of critical thinking skills. there are several books i read for fun (99% of the time i don't annotate when i read recreationally) that i later read for class and had to annotate. that first read-through alone completely changed the way i saw those books. there are a few books i read for multiple classes, multiple years apart. and i have multiple copies of them that are annotated at different points in time. and both times i had very different understandings of the book. i could read my high school copy of the handmaid's tale and and see where my juvenile understanding of social issues was leading to a juvenile reading of the book. by using this aesthetic-based style of annotation, you are robbing yourself of the benefits of annotation. you could actually form a deeper understanding of the text. you could ACTUALLY come out of that book understanding tiny, innocuous word choices. you could actually come out of it with a better understanding of literature, of the author, of the genre as a whole, of the craft of writing. but you're too busy writing "wow!" in the margins to do any of the thinking annotation is designed to help you do.

also some of you just want to be scrapbookers just start a scrapbook you don't need to do this in a novel

i'm not like. an annotation style elitist. but genuinely the way some of these booktokers annotate their videos confounds me.

you'll see someone with extremely detailed annotations with like 500 sticky tabs in the whole book and it makes you think wow there's so much going on here. and then the annotations are just OMG! and they've highlighted 90% of the book and they've underlined everything. everything they write are just various reactions like omg! cute! wow! i gasped! hot! etc.

it just screams "i want my book to look like a serious reader owns it" but they straight up just don't understand the purpose of annotating. i don't even understand the use case for this type of annotation because like... are you really not going to know it was a cute scene on a reread unless you highlight the entire 5 pages? is this something you need to draw attention to?

it's just like. wild. to see these books with every single free space covered in annotations. the way someone writing a thesis about that book would do. but then you look at the content of the annotations and it is confusingly just someone's immediate reactions to what they've read.

which is like. it's good. that's definitely a part of annotating. but annotation is a tool to understand and analyze a text. and this is not what is going on.

and what is MORE confounding is when people who annotate like this SELL THEIR ANNOTATED BOOKS???? FOR MONEY??? THAT PEOPLE BUY ON PURPOSE????

GIRL LISTEN TO ME YOU DO NOT NEED SOME OTHER RANDOM BITCH SCRIBBLING HER FIRST REACTION ALL OVER A BOOK WHY DO PEOPLE BUY THESE WHAT THE FUCK

#alexis.exe #also.#just based on anecdotal experience #people who annotate like this are stupid and have 0 reading comprehension #and are genuinely incapable of thinking about things beyond the very very surface level #i had a friend who thought omg cute and whatever was actual annotation #and all i felt when we stopped talking was relief #because i didnt have to deal with her stupid fucking braindead takes on everything she read #one time i was paired up with that girl in lit class for a small groups/pairs discussion #and she opened her book #and i thought huh. thats kinda odd #but i didnt say anything #and we started talking about it #and she literally would have been better off with that book if she had read the sparknotes #because thats how fucking bizarre her understanding was #there were several times when she was like “and this is what happened and i hate that"#and i had to be like #no girl #that is very much. not what it says in the book #i felt like i was talking to a 12 year old #like literally not understanding how the basic words on the page are relating to each other #because she was too busy underlining everything going wow!!!!#and its the same with the numerous booktokers whod o this #you watch them talk about a book and it's like listening to a child speak #like 5th grade reading comprehension #obviously not everyone on booktok is like this but im not talking about those people

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thewertsearch · 2 months ago

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JOHN: now that you mention it, i'm pretty beat. JOHN: also… starving!!! JADE: woof! JADE: whoops

"i cant really control the woofs :/"

JOHN: [...] one of the last things rose saw before she died was me dying… JOHN: i wonder if she knows i'm ok? JADE: im pretty sure she knows a ton of things now JADE: considering she is a fully realized seer of light

Not that we've been told what that actually means.

Rose herself believes that Seers of Light are cognizant of 'the big picture', but can't see fine details. It sounds like a 'fuzzy' sort of clairvoyance - an ability which supplies her with some basic facts about a subject, but not the nuances.

Her God Tier self presumably has the same ability, but with greater scope. I'm imagining it as the ability to read a Sparknotes summary of any subject in existence, including the current status of her loved ones.

Our newly-minted goddess of Light probably knows the essentials of John and Jade's situation - that they're alive, unharmed, and travelling to the new session - but can't actually scry on their conversation.

JADE: if you go i dont think i can bring you back JADE: i cant bring anyone or anything to here from there!

Thought so. While it would be cool to unite all these long-distance-friends for good, keeping them apart will make for some nice drama. Besides, their reunion will be even sweeter after a three-year wait.

JADE: if theres a way i havent figured it out yet JADE: i am still kind of new to this omnipotence thing after all :\

Yeah, and there's one particular facet of First Guardianhood that's going to hit you like a train.

Intelligent first Guardians are near-omniscient.

Now, Jade doesn't appear to have unlocked this trait yet - but she's a smart cookie, and no one said it had to happen instantly. If I'm any judge, she's got a big storm coming.

JOHN: what is with all these rules! [...] JADE: maybe to somewhat limit the power and reach of omnipotent beings?

Hilarious sentence. No notes.

JOHN: if there are limits to your powers, you can't exactly be OMNIpotent, can you? JOHN: more like… JOHN: semipotent.

...and you'd better believe I'm stealing that one.

JOHN: so, the dog ears… JOHN: is that a permanent thing now, or what? JADE: i think so JOHN: i like them. JADE: i do too! JOHN: you are like a furry now, but not really the weird kind that people on the internet like to have sex with in their imagination.

How the fuck do you know about those? You're like, the poster child of sheltered upbringings!

...it was Dave, wasn't it.

JOHN: hey, can i at least send a message through? JOHN: like a note or something?

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 6 #s199 #4338 #memes

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retiredteabag · 3 months ago

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Unknown Rivals

Pairing: Sukuna x Reader

Synopsis: There was only one thing worse than being paired with Sukuna for an important school project, and that was realizing the slacker somehow had a higher class standing than yourself.

Tags: Academic rivals, enemies to eventual lovers, type A reader, anxiety, college!au

pt. 1 - pt. 2 - pt. 3 - next part

One thing was for sure about the past weekend, and that was the fact that your advisor knew not to assign you any future classes with this monster of a man.

You had three finals coming up, one of which came in the form of a presentation. And you had yet to practice said presentation and your partner scheduled that particular event at the most inconvenient of times. The whole endeavor was drawing a lot of your current anxiety. Of course, you didn't ask to reschedule.

You had looked over the combination of slides in your PowerPoint, waiting by the day for Sukuna to finalize his speaker notes, and everyday your distress only grew.

It was not uncommon for the dunning kruger effect to take hold of the arrogant men in your lectures. He may have brought up concerns about your own public speaking ability, but you have yet to see the man speak in full sentences before anyone.

Over inflated head, self-important, Oscar Wilde level egomaniac-

The class's presentations were split into two groups; the first half of the class would present on Thursday, and the latter half, on Friday. You were one of the unfortunate teams that would go first.

The nerves were getting to the point of being sickening every time you passed the auditorium. The hollow heartbeat swelled in your chest and you felt nauseated. Too soon, you would be in there, on that stage, stood beside that arrogant prick.

Being one of the first groups to speak might be better than having to be last; just get it over with... still, it wasn't great for gauging the audience, competition, or topics.

You were to present before the faculty, classmates, and employers looking for interns.

Maybe Sukuna had been correct. Yes, you could be "anal about this stuff", sure, but you had put too much money into your education to not put in equal effort. Since when was it a crime to try?

For the fifth time that week, you looked over his slides...still, no speaker notes on the later half.

He did look like the type to wing it. Read the SparkNotes and assume he could sound intellectual with the insertion of pauses and emphasis on basic information. For a normal assignment, a professor might be non the wiser, but for something as important as this final? He needed to know his stuff.

And what then, if he was asked a question? What if he didn't prepare? What if he crashed and burned? The smoke would affect you too.

That's why you find yourself waiting inside a private study room in the library that Wednesday. You had arrived right on time to the room you had reserved and were unpacking the contents of your bag when a pack of giggling students retched the door open.

There was a moment of silence that passed between all before you cleared your throat, "Sorry...I reserved this room..." the group looked around at each other, making pouty faces.

Eventually one of them spoke up, "Do you really need it?" They all shared a pitiful look, "Theres a lot more of us, we really need the room..."

You stood there for a moment, expecting someone in their friend group to have a speck of sense. It quickly became clear that none of them did, "Right... well, I'm sorry but I need the room too."

"Every other room is reserved by a group, this room is just you." One of them pointed out, speaking far too loudly to have the door open to the library stacks.

"I'm here to work with my project partner." You huffed, as if that made a difference. The room was yours! There was no way you were going to back down. You would be presenting tomorrow and needed a space to practice. "That's why I reserved the space."

They make faces as if you have committed some kind of hate crime, throwing their arms in the air in offense. "Your partner isn't even here, can't we just use it? You could literally go anywhere else."

The group nods at the boy who spoke up, fully supporting his argument as if he just slam-dunked you with a killer 2AR. You sigh looking down to check the time on your phone. If Sukuna wasn't here, you might as well just leave. Who’s to say he’ll come anyway?

You weigh your options, he hadn’t responded to your email this time either.

"Pretty sure it's you who can go anywhere else."

He wasn't loud, but his voice rang with conviction. Speak of the devil. You look away from your watch and observe his effect on the group.

Sukuna pulled the door back wider, he stood at least a head taller than the largest among them, and while he was never found with a smile on his face anyway, he looked particularly harsh in this moment.

"Can't we just-" one of the girls leaned into Sukuna, grabbing his bicep, "take the room?" She smiled sweetly, tracing an index finger over his arm, "There's a lot of us, you know?"

Sukuna practically jolts off of her, tearing his arm out of her grasp, and making a twisted face in the group's direction. "Get offa me." He moves through the rest of the students, tossing his bag onto the table with a bang.

You make brief eye contact before he watches you turn to see the pack of freshmen resolutely standing in the doorway. He swings back, rolling his eyes, "Now get out."

There wasn't any room for argument in his tone. The lot of them huffed and griped but made no real fuss as they crossed their arms and whispered insults. The door slowly slid shut.

You plug your laptop into the adapter, muttering, "Good to see you've finally showed up."

"I didn't have an attitude when you were late to the library."

He just stands there. Unzipping his bag on the ovular table in front of the projector.

You look at him, recalling that day well, you want to snip at him again but you cant help the short, somewhat shocked, laugh you let out.

He walks to the other side of the room, pulls out his notebook and looks at the screen. "So are we practicing, or what?"

"Oh, we're practicing, all right." You mutter to yourself.

You bring out the sheet from the first week you met in the library. It outlined the topics that each of you would need to cover. You open up the PowerPoint and turn to look at him, comfortably sitting down.

"We should probably start with introductions."

"We roleplaying this?" He sat with his legs spread on the swivel chair, arms crossed.

"You were the one who asked to practice." You point out, motioning for him to get up. "At the presentation, the students will have nametags, but we should still open up with a greeting so they know who to call on for questions."

He sighs, lifting himself from his seat like it took a great effort, he stood beside you, looking to his mock audience, he points to himself,

"Sukuna, Ryomen." Then he turns to look at you, jutting out his thumb in your direction, and as if it is the most natural thing in the world, calls out your full name.

It was so strange, you got caught searching for words. You had no idea he knew your name. If there was one thing obvious about Sukuna, it was his blatant dislike of his peers. It wasn't uncommon to see him rolling his eyes, or avoiding the fellow students that followed him around all the time.

"Right, okay, we'll smooth out that part later, for now, lets focus on the first few slides." You lean down and point out the screen of your laptop, "I'll go first. I’ll give my thesis as a roadmap for my information, then you can do yours."

You turn your face to the side, expecting him to still be standing behind you, listening to your explanation, but pull back in alarm to find his face right beside yours, he was focused on what you were pointing out on the slide.

You jolt back, taking a moment to regain your thoughts, "…I’ll get into my half and allow for a segway into yours.” He follows your motion, standing straight. “We'll have clickers.” You continue, “Let's just say that whoever finishes explaining the slide will be responsible for clicking to the next one, okay?"

He was so watchful, it was unnerving. Had he always been like this? Seeming bored, he gives you a nod. "Sure."

The following two hours flew by. It was actually nice to not have to dance around issues, you could be confrontational and know he wouldn't get offended. He was well versed in his area of the presentation, easily paraphrasing what he wanted people to grasp from his slides. It wasn't until he sat down, asking you to present for him that you started having issues.

"What?" He leaned back in his chair, spinning slightly, "Give your speech, do it like I'm the audience."

"No." You huff, "not if you don't." You point at him.

"I'll do it, but you go first, you we're the one who wanted to start us off anyway." He’s brought this on you somewhat out of nowhere.

You look around the room, feeling suddenly anxious. You had practiced both you and Sukuna’s parts to the point of near memorization. You had recorded your speaker notes and listened to them before bed nightly. You knew what to say. But you were feeling suddenly…shy?

"Don't act like I've put you on the spot," He waves a hand, "We're here to practice."

"I know." You look at your shoes, feeling small, stupid. It was embarrassing to have him watch you. He just screamed judgment. You huff, "Fine. Turn around."

He looked almost insulted at the notion. "What? No."

"Would you just do it?"

Assuming he wouldn’t complain, you wait for him to turn. He just squints at you,"I knew you worried over nothing but do you have stage fright too or something?" Sukuna leans down, elbows on his knees.

You didn't really know what the issue was. Performing on stage, you could probably disassociate long enough to not feel so uncomfortable, but here, alone, with only his eyes to see you, it was different somehow. "No...maybe... I don't know."

"Well." He shrugs, "Now's a great time to shake off those nerves. Go on, I'm sure you have all your information down."

He motions your way, and you force yourself to go over your work, starting from the top. You try to focus on your cadence, intonation, and scripted pauses from your recording. You turn to look in the corner of the room, mimicking the intentional body language you had meticulously practiced in front of your bathroom mirror.

You spent the time expressing what you would say rather than pretending to teach him. Having already used the room for hours, you simply focused on the main points of contention, explaining your slides with practiced ease. Once you finished, you moved onto his starting slide and cantered passed him to one of the opposing chairs.

He did not take your cue, getting up to present, however, opting instead to open his body language, "I woulda thought you had a script in front of you."

"Like you said, I actually know my information." You snark, huffing out a breath you hadn’t known you’d been holding. Starting to become tired and stressed at the idea of the upcoming exams.

He simply rolled his eyes as the suggestion that he might not, "You can't make eye contact."

He was speaking as if stating a fact. Your brows furrow, having been doing exactly that what he said you apparently couldn’t do. "When you're presenting, you don’t look at me" He continues. "It's weird, you have no problem with watching people but when you know that someone is watching you, you can't seem to acknowledge it."

Your mouth twists into a mock smirk; he reminded you in that moment of your previous first-year psych student roommate, who genuinely believed themself a genius among feckless plebs.

"When we're on stage, we won't be making eye contact with anyone really-" You were about to defend yourself before being interrupted.

"See. You’re doing it again. You can't look at me." He narrows an accusing finger in your general direction. Moving to stand, he grabs the clicker off the table and shifts into a teasing tone. "Here's how it's done."

You were still somewhat reeling from him pointing out a habit you didn't even know you were taking part in. Wondering suddenly if others had noticed it and if so, why nobody had said anything.

You felt suddenly irked and wanted to prove to him that, no, you very well could make intentional eye contact with someone making a point to notice you.

It was a grueling task, and, as you would find out, your brain seemed to be sending every 'I am uncomfortable' signal to your body while attempting it. You couldn't seem to stop swallowing, voluntarily blinking, or forcefully making your hands stop moving.

All these small tasks took up some serious mental effort but despite that, you were still able to take in his oratory skills.

For a man so lacking in the interpersonal communication sphere, he presented with poise, confidence, and knowledge on his subject. He paced himself well and it almost seemed as though his speech was conducted in a way that made note-taking ideal. He seemed aware of his space and motioned accordingly.

When he wasn't gesturing or looking back at the slides, he was looking at you, as if he was lecturing you with the information you had tirelessly slaved over when studying his speaker notes.

And on the topic of speaker notes? He totally strayed from them! He didn't even follow the same roadmap that you had seen nights before. You hated it, but none could deny, he was still a compelling speaker. You couldn't make a sensible complaint because of how undeniably well he spoke.

Besides, what kind of anal, control-freak, dictator of a school partner memorized someone else's speaker notes?

The issue arose in you suddenly that Sukuna doesn't need to make an effort like you do. He doesn't care to, he simply has the confidence in himself. He seemed to hold no anxiety and no care for how he was perceived. The only issue was, these types often flunked out of school, and here he was thriving.

While he wrapped up his slides, he crossed his arms over his chest, pointedly looking your way.

You think back to your previous interactions, Sukuna must see himself as so terribly generous, allowing you the time of day to practice with him. He likely thought the concept stupid. And worse? His efforts didn't ease your nerves, and they did not qualm your worries.

Your thoughts are cut off by the brisk striking of his knuckles on the table. You look up at him, "Get out of your thoughts." He slides past you to his bookbag, putting away a notebook. "We're in good shape."

You aren't sure what to say. You don't feel like you're in good shape but you don't want to discourage him, not that you thought it possible for him.

Before he slips out of the door, you turn to him, "I'm going to send you a list of mock questions so you can prepare some answers." He wouldn’t look at the email, you were sure.

He snorted a laugh, "Good to know you were paying attention."

And he was gone.

Sukuna was not terribly fond of school, that is, in the typical sense. He did enjoy learning and was dedicated to his area of study, sure, but being around people? He found it exhausting.

You hadn't stuck out to him, but it was hard to not notice you. You sat in the front of every single lecture, pristinely on time. You were one of the students that the professor felt inclined to call on. And he saw you in the library, often.

It was not until he had been enlisted as your partner for the practicum that he started to see why you had taken his notice.

At first, he shook it off, thinking himself crazy, but after three sessions in the library, it was clear what it was. You reminded him of someone.

You were just like his nephew.

Wednesdays and Fridays in the library, you would be rambling on about something, going over the expectations for the project draft, explaining the sources you wanted him to utilize, and he would be listening, sure, but he would be seeing Yuuji.

The little boy was a little shit, and despite being wildly more extroverted that yourself, he too was nervous about everything.

Sukuna was like a second parent to the boy, and as much as he would complain, he wouldn't change it for a thing.

It was weird, to see the kid in you. At first he stocked you up as a try-hard, but in reality, he assumes you're just scared. You really are just like that little boy.

You did not sleep well last night. You got to bed early but you simply couldn't slip away. And when you finally did pass over into restless sleep, you were promptly woken up by your own hyperactive consciousness.

You checked the clock each time. Had you really set that alarm? You would go over your script and the more you did, the sicker you felt. You craved more time to practice, you craved for your body to stop jittering with nerves, you craved to just fall asleep damn it!

After a few more hours of waking only to have found rest in literal minute increments, you arose. Dressed yourself and began to get ready.

Everything around you spoke of a good day, the weather was perfect, you looked great, and you had all the rehearsed information at the ready.

Still, internally, you couldn't reach peace.

Once you arrived at the auditorium, you spotted your professor and retrieved your nametag from him. Sukuna was no where to be found which only added to your panic. You paced in the box, the private room for speakers, behind the theater, and repeatedly touched your hair.

Even with potential hours to go, you were feeling overwhelmed, you were at the point of wishing you could just go first and be done with it all.

You were squeezing water out of a thin paper towel and placing it on your neck when the door creaked open.

You flipped to him, "Where have you been?!" You hissed.

You had plenty of time before you would be introduced but you couldn't hide the frustration in your voice.

Sukuna was dressed in a Mandarin suit, he looked perfectly relaxed and the notion only fueled your anger. "I had a class..."

He comes forward and sets his (backup) flash drive on the circular table in the middle of the loge. "Well, why didn't you say that before?” You make an exasperated face and feel your heartbeat quicken, “And where is your nametage?"

Even you could hear the hysterical twinge in your voice, you took a deep breath and told yourself to relax. He didn't say anything, just raised his brows while reaching behind to retrieve the very thing from his back pocket.

Embarrassed, you tear the makeshift cloth from your neck and rush to sit on the couch. You scrap the towel to shreds before disposing of it.

"Everything's in order, we'll be alright." He didn't come to join you on the sofa but watched from the side of the box. He didn’t sound comfortable but he certainly seemed to believe his own words.

"It doesn't even really matter." You had been telling yourself this very thing for weeks when someone took notice of how concerned you were. Not a part of you believed it but you hoped the phrase would ease your mind anyway.

"Oh, it matters." Sukuna laughed.

You wanted to be mad, but in all reality, he was just saying what you knew, him lying would not have comforted you. He started to come over now.

"It just isn't so important that you need to kill yourself over it." You rolled your eyes, knowing what he was saying.

"If we bomb, then that's that, so what?" He tossed his hands up slightly.

You looked at him, and without even needed to study his face, you knew he meant it. He believed it. ‘So what?’ You roll the words around in your brain, shaking your head. You couldn't have stopped the words from escaping.

"I hate people like you." You mutter it, undertones of a laugh there, nothings amusing. "Seriously, I hate how you can just say that."

He isn't mad. The bastard grins, "Oh, trust me, I know."

And then he’s leaving the room. You don't have much time to wonder about what exactly he was doing. You hadn’t thought he would be upset at your declaration. Then again, you hadn’t exactly been thinking when you said it.

What had he meant, that he knew? I guess a guy like him just assumes everyone who isn’t perfectly relaxed at all times is a suck up.

When he returned, he was carrying water bottles and complimentary fruit from outside the auditorium doors. This time around he does come sit, right next to you.

"Have some."

You don't feel thirst but you still accept it when he cracks open the bottle for you. He places the fruit on the table before you both and takes a drink himself.

"I didn't really mean that, I'm just jealous of how you live." He's leaned back and his suit pants clung to his legs.

He purses his lips and shifts his head from side to side, smirking, Mmm, I don't know, I think you actually meant it."

You both chuckle, the nerves are still getting to you. "I still hate you for what you did earlier this semester." You lighten your voice but glance his way to show you do mean it.

He turns his head now, brow raised but still comfortably leaning against the back of the couch. "What did I do earlier this semester?"

You laugh, rolling your eyes. It takes him a moment before he sees you’re not gonna reply, "No, what did I do?"

"The whole beginning of this project." You muse. He still isn't catching what you're saying so you motion with your hands. "Our meetings, in the library? You never told me you were top of the class."

“Should I go out and advertise it?" He clearly isn't getting what you mean.

"No, Sukuna, it sucks because you never told me that you were well versed in the class material.” He still doesn’t seem to grasp the issue, “I’m saying, it made me feel stupid to find out that the guy I thought I was tutoring was actually competing with me."

"It made you feel stupid?"

"In a way. Like you were mocking me."

Sukuna frowns, he leans onto his knees. "I wasn't mocking you."

"You say that." You poke his shoulder and he looks at you quizzically.

In all actuality, it was nice to be able to tell him these things, you didn't feel that anger anymore. As of it had rolled off, only shame lingered.

"I never minded our sessions in the library. I guess it made things easier, you're so..." he reaches for the word,

“Anal?” You recount when he had called you that very thing.

He rolls his eyes, "Organized."

"Thanks." Your voice is low, sarcastic.

He shrugs. Some of the nerves have left you, but suddenly you're hearing voices in the auditorium, one specifically telling people to file in through the doors, and you know you'll be speaking soon.

He turns to look at you again, legs parallel to your own, his palms flat on his thighs, "You care too much about what others think."

He's doing that thing, that I'm-going-to-make-intentional-eye-contact-with-you-and-it-will-be-an-unspoken-comeptition-to-prove-you-can't-do-it thing.

"Maybe you're too carefree." You offer silently.

Soon, someone will come through the doors before you with mic packs and you'll have tape on your face. Your heart pounds. "You should feel okay without having to prove that you’re worthy of validation from others."

He reaches forward for his water bottle, voices can be heard above you, to your sides. People are taking their seats. "You're a smart girl."

And for the second time this week, he says your name and it feels just as strange as it had that first time. "And you didn't have to prove it for me to see it."

And with everything else occurring in this moment, you feel the most upset about the fact that the obnoxious Sukuna Ryomen might just bring unshed tears to your eyes.

You’re silent as you stand, brushing unseen dust off your clothing. Sukuna is stood there by the door that leads to the area behind the stage, his hand is outstretched.

You look around frantically, turning to find his clicker that he must have left on the table, but before you can start searching, he scoffs.

He leans forward and grabs your arm, spinning you gently. He robotically shows you his hand again and places your own in it.

Oh.

He tightens his encompassing palm around your own and makes a tugging sensation to pull you ahead of him through the door he held open.

People in the tech crew were setting everything up and called you each over to get your mics on.

When he lets you go, your hand twitches involuntarily.

You hadn’t realized how cold you were until you felt the warmth of his hand. And for some reason, you couldn’t think of much else as you got mic’d up, despite the ever growing voiced in the audience.

〰・♡・〰〰・♡・〰〰・♡・〰〰・♡・〰〰・♡・〰

Tags: @blueyesuguru @monimonster57 @p1nkfl0wers @giasssslife @csolya @esmedelacroix @sukubusss @v1sque @clp-84 @snowsilver2000 @blueemochii @bitchyfestivalbouquet @rodeorun @chosolovrrr @minethy

(if your name is here but you didn’t get tagged. I think it’s either because your blog is new/blank/empty where you need to check your privacy settings.) :[

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on-leatheredwings · 1 year ago

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Meeting the Family

based off this! but can be read alone.

Yandere! Fem! Reader / Yandere! Bruce Wayne

> romantic with bruce, platonic with the boys. the boys could be read as pre-yandere if you wish. > tw/cw: reader is a yandere, yandere-typical thought patterns, implied drugging, mention of self-harm, implied drugging > request: thoughts on co-conspirator!reader meeting the boys? > a/n: Hmmmm, i feel it’d be a meeting of interrogation where they see you’re clearly unstable !! > word count: 1.4k

You walk towards the threshold of a Wayne Manor sitting room. You have this hallway nearly memorized. You’ve viewed it through your 24/7 surveillance cameras and glanced upon it during your visits, but never has this hallway seemed so daunting until now. Luckily, your lover is nearby to reassure you. Bruce slips his hand into yours, and you inwardly swoon. You share a warm glance with him.

“They’ll adore you,” he says. You let a smile peek through your anxious expression. “I know I do.” At such sweet words, you feel your cheeks heat. Ugh, this man, you think affectionately.

Your Sunday best is the armor you don to meet Bruce’s children. It seems like you won’t even be able to meet them all – only the ones in town. “They just want to interrogate me,” you whine, letting yourself be pulled towards the impeccably decorated room.

“They just want to get to know you,” Bruce returns, humming. You can’t retort because already, you are in full view of his brood. The three of them look up from their phones and books. You swallow, under the scrutiny of two pairs of blue eyes and one pair of green.

“... Hi,” you say, waving a stupid hand. One smiles in return, thank goodness.

“I’ll just let you all get acquainted,” Bruce says, retreating. You swerve to him, blinking dumbly. That was not the agreement. The agreement was that Bruce moderate the discussion– and he’s gone.

He leaves the sitting room, and leaves you in the lion’s den to fend for yourself. And boy, do the lions pounce.

The eldest, Dick – he’s positively godsent. He’s the first to shake your hand, immediately going into a friendly babble about how you’re all Bruce ever talks about and how he’s been excited to meet you. And thank God for that, because it manages to ease the tension you still have in your shoulders. He introduces himself and his brothers, melts the ice by teasing them as he does it. He offers you a seat across from them, offers you tea and cookies. He shares an anecdote of Bruce’s less polished moments to make you laugh.

You soon realize he was a sleeper agent. He was merely buttering you up, lowering your defenses with well-placed platitudes and good-natured jokes.

It’s Tim who begins the true assault.

“So,” Tim begins over a cup of tea, looking upon you owlishly. “Isolation for 10 long years… How was that?” You blink, startled, before smiling weakly. At least no one was treating you like glass. Sometimes, that made you feel even more like a freak.

You try to give him a Sparknotes recollection, but it doesn’t satisfy him. At his badgering, you do relent more details. You are slipping your innermost thoughts without much of a fight, to your surprise. Dick’s empathetic gaze and Tim’s enraptured attention have you spilling dark thoughts it took you months to even tell Bruce…

It was long. It was traumatic. Mind-altering. You have breakdown after breakdown. Self-harm after self-harm. There is a part of you you can never get back… So, 'how was it?' Why, just awful, thanks for asking!

Dick comforts you with “you’re so strong,” as Tim nods. He seems happy with his findings. It seems like you have piqued his academic interest – you can basically see the gears churning behind his mind, the factoids he’s storing for later. For what, you don’t know, but you’re glad to help. Throat dry, you down the rest of that blasted tea, but the boys aren’t quite finished.

Damian, however, is brutal in his questioning, sparing any of the pleasantries or dithering his brothers employed. He asks rapid fire about your past outside of your years in isolation. What was your childhood like? Your relationship with your parents? Did you ever graduate high school? College? What was your major? Do you like animals? His father houses two dogs, a cat, and a cow – you do know that don’t you?

“What are your intentions with my father?” At that, you flinch.

“Nothing… nefarious, to be sure,” you say, sweat beginning to bead on your temple. It’s true! Aside from all the dastardly actions you wanted to inflict upon Bruce in the bedroom, nothing nefarious!

“And his other suitors? They don’t bother you?”

At that, your smile wilts. Not from any offense… you simply don’t enjoy the reminder that others do seek Bruce’s affection.

“They… don’t worry me,” you say succinctly. Dick doesn’t think you realize how your smile has grown sharp. Damian doesn’t let on whether he approves or disapproves of the answer. And Tim simply watches.

“And my father’s controlling and possessive tendencies? You’re fine with that? What would you do if you caught him in a lie? Or if a woman he was involved with confronted you?”

You gape like a fish. Man, what a character this one was. Damian blinks slow and catlike, before he sniffs. “I’m asking for one of the siblings who couldn’t be here today.”

“Um…” you return, discombobulated. You shoot off your answers as rapid-fire as he posed them. “I haven’t noticed any tendencies. And I can handle myself! If he lied… I’d hear him out. He probably had a good reason, of course.”

“What if it was infidelity?”

You glare at them. “I’d get rid of her.” Why do they keep bringing up other women?

At the boys’ silence, you realize your mistake. You wave your hands and bluster, “Not like– not like get rid of her– I would just tell her to… Leave. And I’d be… angry… at Bruce.” God, you don’t feel like you’re doing too well in this interview. You hiccup, filling your cup some more. What is in this tea? Man, it’s delicious.

“... Interesting.”

“What if Bruce left you out of his own volition?” Tim points out, drawing your attention.

Your head snaps to him and you stare… That possibility had never even crossed your mind.

“He wouldn’t,” you say, confused. At raised eyebrows, you say, “I mean. I-I don’t think he would.” You have faith in Bruce. It’s been five months now, and your relationship has gone swimmingly. You had your insecurities… but Bruce had kissed all your worries away by now. Your fingers dig into the cushion of the couch.

He wouldn’t leave. He couldn’t. He had already reassured you, and been so kind, and wonderful, and shown you what love was like– he couldn’t just leave you now–

“But what if he did?” and this time, the question comes from Dick, who, if you recall, hadn’t asked a single question yet. He looks serious, unlike his casual air from before.

You keep the desperation out your voice by keeping it chillingly level. “Then I’d convince him otherwise.” Good answer, good answer, you applaud yourself. All the boys nod, looking upon you with varying degrees of interest, curiosity, and understanding.

“Then… I suppose we have just one more question,” Tim says, plucking the kettle of tea out your hands. You pout.

“Thoughts on having children?”

At the question, your brows shoot into your hairline.

“... Are there not enough of you already?” you blurt.

To your relief, they all relax.

After that strange encounter, Bruce shows himself and sees you out. The walk outside is quiet. Comfortably quiet on your end. You hope you did good… no, you reassure yourself. Fuck it, you did great.

“So… how were they?”

You glance at his face, and are surprised to see thinly veiled concern behind his smile. “Did any of them say anything… strange? And… did you like them?” You laugh, before floating up to kiss Bruce between the brows. Flight powers came in handy for stuff like that.

“They were wonderful,” you say cheekily. “Something they clearly get from their father.”

bonus!

Bruce re-enters the foyer. He shoots off a text, lamenting. If you hadn’t had him bug his own home, he could’ve spoken to the boys freely. He could’ve had Jason hide nearby, instead of having to listen in on Damian’s phone.

Bruce: Did that satisfy your curiosities?

Several ellipses in bubbles pop up, before his phone rattles with their responses.

Damian: Frankly, she comes off as airheaded and naive, but at least she seems to have some semblance of spine.

Jason: She’s crazy. Didn’t we tell you to stop sticking your dick in crazy

Dick: Well, I think that makes you guys a perfect match!

Tim: bruce i’m sorry, you cannot fix her. however, i would like to study her. and possibly, make her worse

Bruce sighs, albeit smiling. By all accounts, you seem have gotten their general approval.

#yandere batfam #yandere bruce wayne #yandere bruce wayne x yandere reader #yandere reader #mine #platonic batfam for once lol crazyyy #tim drake #jason todd #dick grayson

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corviiids · 2 months ago

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sparknotes for my souyo fic 'going on and on and on'

happy year of the souyo in 2025. it's souyo year everyone! (as always don't read the post if you haven't read the fic it won't make sense)

i feel like this is even less of a sparknotes and more of a stream of consciousness than usual but whatever. it's word vomit about interalised homophobia now

first of all the timeline, which fucked with me initially because p4 came out in 2008 and in my head i was like oh, it's set in 2008. it's NOT. it's set in 2011-2. anyway, i did some hurried bad math about it. basically yu and yosuke are a year or so post-college and are roughly 23-24 years old in this fic. nanako is 14-15. the title comes from signs of love because after i outlined the fic i checked out the lyrics to the song and was like hey. i think i just wrote that.

He said, "I'm the one who's got to leave", I said "Nobody's really got to leave 'cause I don't hear enough explanation All I need is admiration" Big frustration, bro, he goes "Life is short, we gave a shot But didn't work, honey, 'cause we had A whole lot going on and on and on"

so this idea of a post-canon souyo has been plaguing me for about a month, then i got sick and at the peak of the sick i rewatched p4a in its entirety so that was that. i think yosuke with internalised homophobia is rightfully a cornerstone of p4 fandom but lately ive been yearning for a quieter and slightly more insidious form, beyond the old standby of 'yosuke overcomes his visible bigotry, one of them confesses, and the relationship starts'. i was like, what if yosuke IS over his bigotry insofar as it applies to other people, and yu's already confessed, and that's still not enough for the relationship to start because yosuke hasn't overcome the mental block it's created for himself without his knowledge? it's harder to overcome that, because yosuke's not aware that he has any qualms left about liking guys, so he doesn't even notice he's in denial. but yu notices, and it hurts him. and go from there.

i really like yosuke a lot. i think he's the most nuanced take on the best friend character out of 3/4/5 even though i obviously have a lot of love for ryuji as well as junpei - it's not necessarily that yosuke is a better or more complex character, but that he plays more with the trope. it's sort of novel because as well as being the fun and fresh bestie (with baggage!) he is also kind of the brains of the outfit and incredibly shrewd, which is rare for the best friend trope. also, all the best friend types are insensitive at times by way of being happy-go-lucky and sort of indelicate, but yosuke also says fucked up insensitive shit in a more blase and less clumsy way, at least as compared to characters who are openly crass - it reads less as rudeness from being unthinking and more as the consequence of an undercurrent of unconscious social biases, which again is more subtle and insidious. pair that with the fact that he's a legitimately reliable, kind, and clever guy, and that makes him a really fun character to write because he never says the obvious thing. pair HIM with yu, arguably the most good-natured and patient of the three protags, and you get a super fun dynamic with the potential for a lot of heartbreak. i know im not saying anything everyone doesnt already know because souyo has been around since the stone age, but listen. souyo is one of those things that's so obviously good and popular it becomes underrated again. it's like shakespeare. yeah souyo is like shakespeare i stand by that. justice and goodness demands that every now and then you sit down and re-realise how good souyo really is.

anyway! that led me to think about, like... if yu confessed before yosuke was ready, yosuke wouldn't shun him but definitely would make it extremely obvious that this was something he wasn't ready to confront. and those socially learned biases would come out in a way that yosuke means totally innocently and even kindly, but which would nevertheless hurt as much or even more as if yosuke had openly shunned yu. the events in my head are that yu confesses to yosuke a couple of years into living together and yosuke promptly compartmentalises that shit and refuses to reflect on it any further and represses anything relevant to thinking more deeply about it. yu, my best friend, is into me. [that's something i can't think about too much.] when i waved him off, he accepted it, so it can't be that serious. [yu is the type of person to shutter his own feelings away instead of bringing them up if he thinks he won't be well-received or might upset someone else, because he's an independent person who cares about others and fears being alone, which means i can't trust him to tell me honestly if he's upset.] i'm safe to assume this is behind us and move on. [i won't think about this again unless it's brought up again. i know yu won't bring it up again.]

"... Back in second year uni—yeah, he told me he was, I dunno, interested, or whatever. I told him I'd never thought about him like that. He said that was okay. And I guess I just—I mean, I never thought about it again.” Rise considers this. “That’s kinda a weird thing to never think about again,” she says. “Your best friend confesses his love to you and you’re just like, OKAY! Really?” When she says it like that, it is kind of weird.

the comment attached to this section in the working doc: "yosuke: am i really a chill guy or is it repression"

in the fic yu mentions he kissed yosuke at least once while drunk. yu being drunk means yosuke has a perfectly good excuse to dismiss that event as a one-off and ignore it too. this is brought up in like one sentence in the fic and neither character addresses it directly or goes back to it to discuss it, and that was very important to me. i think in a lot of pining fic the focus is on the knowledge of whether or not feelings are requited. once it's clear that both parties have feelings for each other, or even that one party has feelings for the other, the major roadblock is cleared and they're able to pursue a relationship, which is why in a lot of 'getting together' fics the climactic event is, understandably, the confession! in reality things can be a lot more complicated than that :( yosuke doesn't know how he feels about yu, but is aware he feels strongly. but yu confessing and even kissing him or doing other things that make his feelings undeniable isn't enough to overcome the difficulty that yosuke is facing internally - it's not enough to make him sit down and go, yu has feelings for me, so should i think about how i feel about him?

on that note, another thing i really wanted to avoid is the idea that yu just moves out because yosuke doesn't reciprocate:

"... And if you really never felt that way about me… if we were only ever going to be friends, I would’ve been fine with that. But if you refuse to face yourself, it’s different. It hurt too much. ..." -- "... You don't want to be ready. You don’t want to confront this about yourself, the idea that you might feel that way about a guy. You want to keep living this way forever, just having fun and hiding away. And I just—I can't do it anymore, okay, Yosuke? I can't keep helping you hide. I can't keep sleeping in the next room, making you breakfast, helping you pretend away the fact that I—” He stops and sighs. “If I'm wrong, and you never felt the same, then I'm wrong. I can live with that. I just need to know you're not running away. I can't keep being your accomplice in that.”

yu's pain doesn't come from his feelings being unrequited, it's that yosuke doesn't respect himself or yu enough to be honest with himself. if yosuke had done his reflection and come to the genuine conclusion that he either doesn't like guys or does but doesn't feel that way about yu, then yu would have accepted that. in another universe i would've written a fic about genuine unrequited love where yosuke just does not feel that way about yu and yu is okay with it because he loves yosuke as his best friend and partner and would be completely fine living with him as his roommate and standing by him as his friend, content to spend time together. the only reason i can't write this fic is just because i personally think yosuke DOES reciprocate... lol. anyway as naoto brings up:

“No… Well, not really,” says Yosuke. “I mean, I guess it does, but it's not him, exactly. I just don't know how to react to this. It's a lot of pressure, you know? Him saying he's serious about me, and that he can't live with me unless I feel the same, or whatever. It's kind of too much. I know Yu likes guys, but I never even thought about that sort of thing, so it's… kind of a blindside.” Naoto seems to pick his next words carefully. “I don't believe it was ever Yu’s intention to present you with an ultimatum,” he says. “I can't imagine he would want to make your friendship contingent on reciprocating his feelings. It's none of my business, but I would encourage you to reevaluate his meaning.”

this maybe feels like a fine distinction, but it's really important for me to make!! yu's never going to hold his friendship hostage because yosuke doesn't reciprocate. this fic has almost nothing to do with how yosuke feels about yu and everything to do with how honest yosuke is with himself, and how THAT affects yu. yu is aware that every moment he spends with yosuke in this state is more time that he's enabling yosuke not to be honest with his own feelings, which forces yu not only to live in a hurtful lie but to be actively complicit in doing so. this is p4 after all! the entire theme is facing yourself and the strength of heart required to face oneself being made manifest. yu endures it for like five years and then eventually realises he can't do it anymore, either from a values perspective or from a self-care perspective. this distinction matters so much to me because of course it's a ship fic and romance tends to be at the heart of ship fic, but yosuke's romantic feelings for yu really aren't at the heart of this conflict at all. i don't want the message to be that yosuke has fixed himself via being gay for his partner. rather, his love for yu in whatever form, and the idea that yu represents the truth for him, forced yosuke to accept the truth about himself and finally enables him and yu to live in an honest way.

ok let's like briefly talk about the other ships and characters. sorry to yukiko who got almost no screentime it just happened that way.

this fic kinda has... every ship?? in it?? which was sort of intentional. i was really trying to push hard with that 'small town' thing of everyone knowing everyone, because this was what yosuke ended up using as his shield against what he was actually avoiding. he thinks it's just that inaba's world is too small and that he doesn't want to be like his friends just dating within their circles, but as yu points out, it's really not a problem to date within your friend group if that's what's working for you. i wanted yosuke to have this easy excuse to start with before eventually realising his problem isn't inaba and the solution isn't tokyo - the problem is inaba when yu isn't there, because it lost its appeal once yu left, and the solution is only tokyo when yu is with him, because tokyo loses its shine when yu leaves there too. the point is that yosuke is looking in completely the wrong direction for what's actually making him happy. his problem wasn't inaba at all, and there's nothing wrong with dating your best friend. ok i said i was gonna talk about other characters but it's yosuke again. let's talk about other characters. my point was that it's kind of a 'and they all lived happily ever after' stereotype to pair all the main characters off, but that was a Literary Decision. ok it was a Choice. i Meant to do that. probably

chie and yukiko to me are just an obvious pair. i actually initially thought about dating yukiko when i did my first p4 run but after doing her dungeon i abandoned that idea entirely because her and chie go through an entire romance arc in about four seconds flat. i dont need to sell anyone on those two. ive always had a real soft spot for kanji and naoto, but i also really like naoto and rise together, so i thought, this would be a fun way to complicate things even further for yosuke by instead of just pairing them off having them all be involved with each other in this web of casual relationships. i didn't tag any of the other ships because to be frank it's just not really about them since yosuke's mostly just focused on himself, so there's not a lot of detail in the fic about what's going on there, so here's like... a chart... btw seven months pass from the beginning of the fic until the end. at the three month mark chie and kanji go to visit yosuke. ok we go

at the start of the fic kanji and naoto are in an on-again-off-again situationship. when kanji visits yosuke at the three-month mark they're still in this state. sometime between this and the point where yosuke visits inaba, kanji and naoto settle and solidify, so by the end of the fic they are in a serious committed relationship.

naoto is bigender because all detective princes are bigender. yosuke didn't ask her pronouns but they're he/she interchangeably. she can be referred to as kanji (and rise)'s boyfriend or girlfriend but usually prefers partner. the others sometimes fumble around with this so sometimes (most often with chie and yosuke) he will just be referred to as kanji and rise's... (confusion) naoto???

rise and naoto get involved while kanji and naoto are still figuring their shit out and aren't exclusive. they are strictly casual and are not looking to be in a long-term relationship.

kanji and naoto are technically open but neither of them is seeing anyone else except for naoto seeing rise. kanji is okay with this but as naoto says in the fic he is still getting used to it. naoto and rise are prepared to end their involvement if at any point kanji decides he's not okay with it anymore. kanji is a little insecure because he isn't sure how much naoto really likes him, but once he realises how serious naoto actually is about him, he will settle down and i think he'll be fine.

rise is not interested in a long-term committed relationship right now at all. she is exceptionally chill about the interconnected relationships and is jealous of nobody. after yu and yosuke get together she and yu will shake hands and go back to being normal friends.

she gets involved with yu after yu moves back to inaba. they refer to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend but it's not that serious. yu is earnestly trying to move on from yosuke (hasn't yet) but is not attempting to do so with rise, they are just having fun. (rise calls herself yu's rebound but this is a joke)

chie and yukiko are each other's girlfriends but might come out of their holiday as fiancees. unclear

teddie is single

so that's the soap opera part of all this

i was personally really fond of the naoto and rise scenes in this, i just liked writing them a lot. naoto really suffers from being the last character added to the party and so just doesn't get the same amount of time to develop her relationship with the group or with any individual party members, which is such a shame, because she is SUCH a fun character. she and yosuke are really interesting because i would argue that (maybe outside of yu) they're the smartest characters in the party and until naoto joins the group it's yosuke filling the niche of the detective, so it's sort of a shame that they never really get to bond. this section also has one of my favourite lines in the fic which i keep expecting someone to call me out on

Whoa. Naoto’s getting more than him? Pint-sized, gender-ambiguous, awkward turtle Naoto Shirogane?

remember when everyone was saying awkward turtle? i just wanted to be true to this being a game from 2008.

anyway, there are two bits of advice to come out of the naoto and rise sections that i thought were most important to yosuke's development in this fic:

Naoto leans forward. “Yosuke,” he says gently. “I know we don't know each other particularly well, but for my part, I’ve always considered you a good friend. Would you accept a bit of well-intentioned advice?” He waits for Yosuke to jerk his head. “It's not a failure of self to admit that you want something. Just remember that, okay?”

and

Yosuke furrows his brow. “You realise it sucks, right?” he asks her. “It sucks people keep talking to me like they know me better than I know me.” Rise shrugs. “Isn’t that what friends are?” she says. “S’not like not knowing yourself makes you a dummy. That’s life. We haven’t got the TV anymore, so you gotta have friends you can count on to… to switch on the Yosuke show and spot your Shadow self when you can’t see it. Persona!”

the latter to me is about the mortifying ordeal of being known or whatever. it's about being vulnerable to others in a way you yourself aren't aware of and accepting that that isn't a bad thing all the time. i kinda want to offer yosuke some grace here as well - as irritatingly oblivious as he is, it IS kind of disconcerting and upsetting to be constantly told things about yourself like everyone thinks they know better, and it can be really uncomfortable to have a relationship with a friend reframed by finding out they feel a way about you that you weren't aware of. the stuff he has to overcome in this fic is more complex than just 'accept he likes guys' - there's a lot of introspection and acceptance required in looking inward and finding out you don't know yourself as well as you thought you did, especially if there's external pressure.

"hey rook, why didn't anybody kiss in this fic?" i personally really enjoy making you read twelve thousand words of pre-relationship and not rewarding you at all. that's the reason.

when i was first outlining the fic, i got to the confrontation that yu and yosuke have at samegawa and thought, okay, this is the part of yosuke's social link where yosuke (atlus?) fumbles his shit hard, because that entire rank reads as leading towards a love confession until yosuke is like "YOU HAVE TO PUNCH ME IN THE FACE."

so in my head i was like, this fic COULD be a fix-it for that. it could be. a different man would end the fic there and have yosuke realise his shit after yu chews him out, and it resolves by yosuke going "this time im going to ask him to kiss me instead of punch me" and then it resolves with a kiss and they live happily ever after. obviously i couldn't do that. it had to be a lot messier than that because of who i am as a person. so i dragged the outline on for another 1.5k or something after that point and the fic itself runs for another 6k.

LIKE THIS POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I THOUGHT I WOULDN'T HAVE THAT MUCH TO SAY AND THEN IT JUST GOES ON AND ON AND ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#THIS POST IS 3.4K #rookfic #long post #my god dont read this i just had to exorcise this. im in the p4 mines

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theredqueenandthebloodwyrm · 2 months ago

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Studying for my exam tonight, so y'all are subject to my ramblings about the Roman Empire (and the later units covered by my study guide).

1) First Triumvirate crumbles after Crassus dies, Julius Caesar and Pompey fight it out, Caesar wins. Gaius Marius was the blueprint for Julius Caesar.

2) Octavian/Augustus Rome's first emperor, second Triumvirate ends after the Battle of Actium (well okay the end date is debatable --point is that after Mark Anthony kicks the bucket, Augustus is the one left to run things)

3) "oh wow I wonder why Caligula turned out the way he did" -> "...yeah okay I think we can blame Tiberius for this one"

#redwyrm gives you sparknotes about Rome basically #wait no cliffnotes #eh one of those

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bloodyhellharry · 1 year ago

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Welcome to the awkward dying remains of bloodyhellharry

I started this blog in 2014 to dump fanart and have fun with other fans. At the time, I had no one else to talk to about my embarrassing obsession with the Harry Potter series and I was finally able to find people online who felt the same. Back then, life was easy.

Today things are different. As well as proudly holding vile values against the lgbtqia+ community, J.K. Rowling openly and proudly finances anti-trans organisations and seems to sadistically enjoy stripping a marginalised and vulnerable community of their basic rights and dignity.

Today, buying Harry Potter products, physical or digital (merch, books, games or streaming), directly shows your financial and political support of JKR's hateful agenda. It allows her to believe that she is ultimately untouchable.

But the reader is sacred, not the author. The author does not get to control your personal connection with the work or what you do with it - as much as she likes to think she does.

However, be realistic with how you’re engaging with the media. Are you making wild excuses to expiate your own guilt for buying a new illustrated edition of the books while pretending that writing Sirius Black as a minority in your fanfic counts as activism? Is a trans minor character in a videogame, and half-hearted statements that "JKR had nothing to do with the game" enough for you to forget the active damage this woman has done to the lgbtqia+ community, bankrolled by her IP? Are you being relentlessly targeted with Harry Potter products, news, and trends, and happily engaging with it, offering Warner Bros your data and your time of day?

I appreciate the freedom that fandom spaces offer - freedom to explore complex themes and our own identities through this shared connection with a story. Just pay attention to whether you’re really exercising that freedom, or if you’re inflating the pockets and egos of millionaires and big corporations by engaging with their versions of these stories.

In conclusion, read outrageous smut for free on AO3, donate to Action for Trans Health or your local charity that supports the trans community. In São Paulo, I recommend Casa 1. And don’t buy or watch Harry Potter products, get out of twitter.

If you’re not willing to do that, please unfollow.

Also, don’t repost my work, I don’t want it leaving this bin-fire of a website.

You might be looking for this

Harry Potter + The Office Comics | you can tell my age from these.

The Order of the Phoenix Portraits | (I actually doubt anyone is looking for this but I want to put it forward because I was really into drawing characters with no visual descriptions based only on the sound of their names).

Under the Whomping Willow (comic) | this is my baby.

Past Commissions

Sparknotes projects | these were all done commercially when I was an illustrator for @sparkitors. I think they changed their website layout radically and a lot of my work was relinked, you won't be able to see the series in full. Sorry about that.

Underrated Harry Potter Characters | this was also done for @sparkitors, but it got fairly big so I'm picking it out for your viewing convenience.

Werewolves sketches | potentially a nefarious contribution to the fandom?

This will be pinned here permanently, but I'll be coming back here to add or edit links as I organise them.

I don't do much of Harry Potter fanart anymore, but hopefully, the other stuff I make won't put you off completely.

Hello guys,

I am doing a flash opening for commissions because I am going through an emergency.

A few weeks ago my dad passed away very suddenly. I rushed back to Brazil and dropped everything in the UK - I had just moved to Scotland and taken a lease in a new flat.

I am not sure when I'll be able to go back to Scotland - the grieving process has been intense, and there's a mountain of depressing bureaucratic tasks to go through, and everything has been keeping me away from work.

I'm opening 15 commission slots ranging from £30-£60 (depending on complexity) to raise enough money to cover rent so I don't lose my flat in Glasgow.

To commission a piece, please reach out via email or discord - [email protected] | vitoriabas_73286

I am very grateful for any interest and appreciate your attention if you read this far.

Will draw personal commissions (portraits, pet portraits, ocs!), non-fandom stuff, or stuff from any fandom or media (make sure you send references if it's something I'm not familiar with). Would rather not draw pornography, but I am fine with nudity.

#for archival reasons #harry potter #fanart #housekeeping

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dostoyevsky-official · 9 months ago

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could you elaborate on your most recent comment on that post about college students struggling to read entire works? because you frame an excerpt from the article as "it's the phones" but the entire excerpt is about teaching-to-the-test pedagogy that prioritizes small sections of texts etc rather than giving students practice in the classroom with reading a whole book. clearly that's a different issue than phonics, but I'm just not sure why that was the excerpt you chose if your point is that it ISN'T about poor pedagogical choices.

the excerpt is about how phonics isn't the issue, responding to someone who was saying that phonics are the issue. i don't think it's phones in isolation, but it's the biggest root cause, by far. the piece spends quite some time on it.

we could approach the problem like good economists, asking if it's possible to isolate phones as a variable, ceteris paribus. and it is. out of curiosity, i read a few books related to the 1990s "closing of the american mind" phenomenon earlier this year, including hirsch's cultural literacy. he, like others, bemoans television and loosening standards for lower reading rates and poor retention of basic cultural information you learn in humanities classes that are necessary for a coherent society—if any information was retained to begin with. but kids were still reading.

i graduated an extremely intensive, extracurricular-focused, top college prep-aimed high school in 2014. i had an iphone since 2012, a facebook, twitter, instagram, and tumblr account each since ~2008, but this was before the psychological abuse of each was maximized through streamlined app design. a lot of classes in this high school were also geared "towards the test," in this case, APs, and a chunk of it was devoted to polishing SAT scores and college essays. some classes focused on excerpts, and by far not everyone was Doing the Reading (one skill you learn in college and certainly in grad school is how to gut a book, not reading the whole way through—nobody does the entire reading). yet enough students were still reading the whole of the book for enough books, even if sparknotes was ubiquitous. phones, by the way, were confiscated on sight.

many issues were already destroying students' ability to read, including poor pedagogy. but something happened between the early 2010s and now that made the problem much, much worse. what was it?

there's a lot of anecdotal evidence from professors and other articles on phones as the issue, including some academic research on psychological effects—i don't know why this particular article is gaining traction here and on twitter, maybe because it's well-written, in the atlantic, concise—and it seems pretty unambiguous that phones and social media are destroying attention spans, not matter whether child or adult.

an interesting, just-published study, " Library in the Palm of Your Hand? A Randomized Reading Intervention with Low-Income Children" looks at what happens when you direct children's attention towards reading, providing them with easy access to books, instead of phones:

...

this happened in germany, by the way. i don't know about german school pedagogy, but i'm not sure they abandoned phonics.

it's phones. it's 100% phones.

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jingerpi · 2 months ago

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guide to making a good video essay - find sources other than wikipedia - do more than summarize, sparknotes is free nobody cares - introduce your own thoughts!!! thats why you're making an essay - don't be proud of your own ignorance, if you don't know something figure it out. you clearly have internet access - relatedly, don't pretend you know more than you do - make sure the audio quality is good, the video is basically entirely superficial - site. yours. sources. thats it! if you can follow these simple steps you'll be better than 95% of creators on youtube. Hope this helps!

#talking

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theraprism · 11 months ago

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Class subtext thoughts on Gatsby, Flatland, and Bill.

So broadly speaking, we've had some idea of what Bill's home dimension was like since the 2015 in-character AMA, when the idea that it was nearly (if not fully) identical to the world of Flatland was first introduced. During the Weirdmaggedon 4-parter, we finally learned that Bill had obliterated his home dimension and called it liberation. (From what I recall the fan concensus on this information was that it was a malicious act of evil on Bill's part -- up until the Book's release, I don't think the idea that it was a tragedy or accident ever had much ground to stand on.) Journal 3 picked up on this again when it established the existence of Exwhylia, which (importantly!) also reinforced the hierarchical nature of existence that Flatland presents.

I'll own up to the fact I've never read Flatland myself (it is on the neverending list of classics that I still haven't gotten to yet) and will be instead be relying mainly on Wikipedia and Sparknotes clones for this analysis, but the good news is that canon Gravity Falls materials have given us the basics of how Bill's home dimension operated at this point, and so knowledge of the work seems less required and moreso recommended. Similarly to Gatsby (the book as well as the character). More on that later.

To be more specific, the important info that Hirsch has given us about Euclydia is that it was repressive in the extreme. The exact ways that it maintained this are left up to the imagination, to an extent (e.g. there is no evidence of the upper echelons of Euclydia carrying out public executions against the lower classes, as there are in Flatland), but the Book does directly pull an image from Flatland that illustrates the class hierarchy there.

Since Flatland was written originally as a satire of the stratification in Victorian society, the work goes to great lengths to specify and elaborate on the different social roles of each shape (for example, women as lines, though the gender stratification isn't relevant in Bill's case). More relevant is the way that the work considers upward mobility through generations, and the fact that isoceles triangles (working class) are considered among the lowest beings in existence, just above irregular shapes. Bill has been referred to and drawn inconsistently as both isoceles and equilateral, but based on what we learn from Exwhylia in Journal 3, it's possible that this distinction is not relevant in the GF multiverse's reinterpretation of Flatland. See:

I'm sure a part of this reduction of the hierarchy in the original Flatland has to do with the work needing to be at least somewhat accessible to younger readers, but it does textually ensure that, regardless of the specific details of Bill's geometry, he comes from a background where, in spite of his exceptional ability to see the third dimension, he saw those around him receive resources more freely. His singling out of irregular quadrilaterals reads to me as a form of internalized classism; he needs someone to punch down to.

And earlier:

He describes his regular shape as an out-and-out "power". Bill explicitly carries with him the classist ideals and values of his home dimension despite its destruction. The way he internalizes different ideas about himself and who he is is probably a subject for another post, but the point is that these qualities Bill is emphasizing aren't simply a matter of arrogance. Bill is trying to sell himself as a gentleman, a respectable individual from an upper-middle class position.

This is where Gatsby becomes relevant, because The Great Gatsby is all about a man who wants more than anything to cross the threshold of inborn greatness and become a true upperclassman. Bill appealing to his innate biological qualities as evidence for his own greatness relates back to the notion that such greatness is an ontological trait which cannot be given, but can also not be taken away. Note what he explicitly says here about the themes of class in Gatsby:

If you walk up to any college English professor and ask them what Gatsby has to say about the American Dream, I really do not think you are going to hear them say the word "bittersweet". The American Dream is a false idol and illusion; Gatsby himself is utterly miserable and meets a miserable end. There is nothing "sweet" about it.

At the same time, it makes sense that Bill would describe it as bittersweet, because for all his powers of sight, Bill cannot imagine a future where he is happy. Throwing crazy parties every night (for Gatsby at his home, for Bill on the Earth's remains), staring at an unreachable desire far out in the distance -- that's his end goal. He emerged from a position where he was repressed and since then his life has been a steady climb/crawl in the direction of power and control. Both Gatsby and Bill seek to reclaim a lost sense of fulfillment and purpose through this ascent, and both seek to become untouchable as gods are, but both are brought down in the end due to the consequences of their own actions, stemming directly from the violence they bring into their worlds of their own volition. In case you've forgotten, or if you've never read it, Gatsby's money is not clean. We may not see Bill use money, but his social currency is not clean either.

I think it's telling that Flatland can be understood as it relates to Bill's character through summary, but with Gatsby, there is so much subtle incentive to actually read the thing. From the GIF originally posted by Hirsch that I included at the top of the post to the PDF link on ThisIsNotAWebsiteDotCom.com to the fact that the gag in the Book itself goes on for multiple pages when it could have ended after one or two, the intertextuality is paramount. I think that's really cool. It's rare to see intertextuality this well-considered in genre fiction, and I think it makes the whole analytical process more fun.

#i was going to bring up the eye medication re: the repression point but decided to save it for a dedicated post abt his medical trauma #bill cipher #the book of bill #gravity falls #my meta

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