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stardewvalleybut-i-draw · 3 months

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I wrote a giant description of all the characters based on what my friend and I were talking about can I have your opinion:

I am going to be starting with the first post where I mention the balectors of Stardew valley. This means the characters that you are able to date and eventually marry if you want to do that. In order to reach perfection, which is the end of the game, you need to have someone live in your house with 12 hearts in order to give you a stardrop. Hearts are friendship points you can get by giving points. That is one of the two ways to gain friendship. The other is through cut scenes you get by progressing in your relationship and by saying things that make them either like or hate you more.

Anyways, onto the characters, starting with Haley who is the first person you mention. I am married to her which is because I like how her character progresses. As you gain friendship with her, she gets more nice and is open to different things then she was before. For example, she used to throw away her clothes each year but says she donates it now. She is super cute and sweet when she is married to her and it seems as though she is in love. She is kind of like a disney princess as you mention because she likes makeup and is girly. The next you mentioned is Leah who actually lives in a cottage and lives to forage and build for you. Penny is actually the opposite of what you said as she is horrible at baking and teaches the two children in town (and eventually Leo) Jas and Vincent and she also likes to read. Her mother, Pam, is abusive. But I can talk about her in a little bit. Abigail is the most popular person to marry as people like her because she is adventurous and wants to fight in the caves and is in a band with Sam and Sebstain. There is a theory that she is actually the wizard’s daughter because her mom admits to going to his tower and her dad says they do not look similar and the wizard says he thinks he might have a daughter. Abigail is also kind of a meme because if you give her gems she will say, “How did you know that I was hungry?” Basically everyone considers her cool and a meme and she is probably the wizard’s daughter. Emily likes crystals and parrots and dances and all of her cut scenes are basically fever dreams. So she is kind of a psychopath and super excited all of the time. Her and Haley are sisters and do not get along. In earlier versions of Maru, she had really curly hair and a lot of the community, including me, thinks she looks better like that. I also consider her hair to be kind of cool. She likes robotics.

Anyways, the next up is the marriage candidates for the guys. You are totally right that it is so random. Elliot is a writer and he is very attention starved as he writes you poems and is obsessed with you when you date him and writes you a book based on what genre you say you like. Harvey IS a simple man. His favorite gift is coffee so you definitely got that done. He has anxiety and never talks to anyone and tries to be better about that if you date him. So he is chill and kind of a meme because your stuff gets taken if you get knocked out in battle and he charges a thousand gold for repairing you. You were exactly right with Sebastian as he is moody and does not like people and plays video games from 10am to 10pm. Alex is sexist to you if you are a girl and is kind of arrogant about wanting to be a professional football player. So you are completely right. You are wrong about Shane, though, he is actually really mean to you and wants you to not talk to him. Most of his events are about him being suicidal and depressed and an acholicoal. One is where he wants to roll off a cliff and is drunk. Not mafia material. I do agree about his jacket, though, it is kind of cool. Even though it has a J on it which stands for Joja which is a company he works for. Joja is basically the definition of capitalism in this game. Sam is actually friends with Sebastian and Abigail and he wants to be in a band which he is in. They like to play DND and it is a thing in the community that Sam and Sebastain should be dating.

Onto the villagers. Willy is a fisherman and kind of chill so you were sort of wrong but I would definitely want to go on an adventure with him as well so actually I agree, you win. Everyone loves Robin and a lot of people are sad you cannot date her because of Demetris. You were so wrong about Demetris but the way. Robin is actually Sebstain’s mom’s but he is it related to Demetrius. Demetris hates Sebastian but loves Maru and this makes Sebastian really angry. Demeteruis also does not care about Robin who we love. Sandy is my favorite as she is lonely in the desert and really wants to spend time with you and is super confident and sweet. You are right about Pam, also, by the way. She is super abusive and drinks too much beer every night and treats her daughter, Penny, unfairly. She also speaks like she is living in texas. The wizard is kind of weird but he is also cool because of his magic. Krobus is amazing and he is the opinion for the aromantics as you can have him move into your house and he gives you hugs instead of kisses and is amazing. The dwarf hates Krobus because of a war between the dwarfs and the shadow people so he kind of sucks. Krobus is adorable. Jas and Vincent are both kind of weird like no one cares about them. I mean Jas is more interesting because she is related to Shane and Marine and Vincent is interesting because his dad, Kent, has ptsd from fighting in the war. Kent is kind of weird and has a freakout because of popcorn because of his ptsd. Pierre is not like Harvey at all, he steals credit for your crops and only cares about money and nothing else. No one really likes him. Evelyn is the nicest person ever as she makes cookies for you and says you can call her Granny. Everyone likes her so much. Jodi is kind of boring and depressed because she has no freedom and spends her entire life taking care of her kids, Sam and Vincent. Demetris is awful. Linus and Leo go together because they both like nature and are kind of connected to it. Lewis is not. He steals money from the town and uses it to make gold statues of himself. He is dating Marine and refuses to make their relationship public even though no one would care and is toxic. Also, the others you did not mention are Caronline and Clint and George and Gus so I am just going to explain them. Caroline is Pierre’s husband and might be cheating on him so you know… kind of bad… whatever. She is fine I guess, it is weird, no one really cares about her. Clint has a crush on Emily and is super creepy about it and is kind of disgusting and tries to be like a sob story so not thank you. George is super grumpy and rude and is in a wheelchair because of a mining accident. Gus is amazing and kind of knows everything about everyone.

Onto the next section, okay? Grandpa looks blue because he is a ghost who visits you in your third year. I do not like him. It is weird. The governor is actually like you think he is, he has no clue about anything and just wants to visit once a year to literally just eat soup. (I am not kidding, look it up, promise you.) Marlon is actually like you say and he has a crush on Marnie and is a perfect opinion for her. Birdie is part of ginger island and is super sweet and gives you fairy dust and you find something for her to remind her of her husband who died in a tragic accident. It is amazing to do because you get an award and it is just wholesome and kind of sad. Gil does supply items and he is like a moment away from death basically so you are right. Gunther is awesome and yeah, kind of suspicious but great. Okay. That is all of the villagers summarized for you.

Woo boy, you gave me a whole novel!

well, here are some of my thoughts:

Penny isn't necessarily bad at cooking,(from what I know) she just shouldn't experiment. She's also shy and emotionally sensitive

Emily is what I believe people call a "Cristal girl" not necessarily a psychopath, she also seems to have her "head in the clouds" and yeah, positive most of the time.

Ermm... actually☝️🤓 Harvey takes 10% of however much gold you have.

Dang, you kept Alex one short! But yeah, same thing as Hayley but with the ego and the sexism if you're a girl. He also lives with Grany Eveiln and Granpa Jorge because his mother died and the father was presumably abusive

To be fair to ghost grandpa, he's stuck haunting the farm until you can get the perfection statue so he kinda can't move on lmao!

Marlon is also a cool adventurer who will go down in the dangerous mines to get your stuff if you pay him

I wouldn't say Demetrius hates Sebastian, he just has a huge favoritism problem. He's also a very logical thinker from what I can interpret in his dialog

And to be fair to Clint... the Farmer's also kinda a stalker...in more ways than one...

But I'm not here to argue anything, I'm just sharing some thoughts. You have a right to think whatever you want about whatever character

Overall pretty good! 👍

#stardew valley #sdv #stardew #ask

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quietbluejay · 30 days

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Flight of the Eisenstein

Me reading this: aw where’s my blorbo's purple prose description cmon Guilliman and Horus got fun descriptions where is Mortarion's aura shenanigans James Swallow: say no more

It's kind of hilarious that the Death Guard are like this about Mort, but the Thousand Sons are NOT about Magnus like, if it was the Death Guard doing magic ritual oil shenanigans perfectly rational numerology they'd be fighting each other to help out. Well. Okay, maybe not fighting each other, they seem better behaved than that. Despite Magnus being….Magnus, the Thousand Sons seem to not be affected in the same way by his primarch aura as the Luna Wolves and Death Guard are by their primarchs. They have other stuff going on but they don't see Magnus through a Gaussian filter. Maybe it's because they're psykers so they can perceive enough to see him as more of a person than an idol? but it's funnier to think of it as his fashion choices killing his charisma. Just imagine. Every time Phosis goes on the battlefield he starts thinking "man I wish I could fight dramatically right next to Magnus- wait. The nipple horns. Never mind."

While you studied the blade, I was a nerd

I'm also psyched i finally get to see the sisters of silence in action!!!

Hmmm I may be running into my first example of a writer going “imperium good” I may be harsh here I’ll give him enough rope. I’m. Not a huge fan of how killing alien children is being framed as correct because of how monstrous they look.

Maybe I’m not giving the writer enough benefit of the doubt here. Maybe it's just more subtle than Horus Rising and not spelling things out. This is early in the book after all. But I got spoiled on some elements and given that, this is not looking promising Like also I hate to be the one who drags on about framing but - framing!

You know I’m glad I know more lore now cause if I didn’t, I'd think this meant cannibalism

the funny part being that they do do cannibalism! just not like this

also the death guard get described as gathering "like carrion birds around a corpse" and so they're all vulture-kin in my head now

Wow hello Mr. Obvious Bad Guy calls normal humans "it". I also see Swallow adheres to the nominative determinism school of thought when it comes to naming his characters. On the one side we have "Decius" and "Garro" on the other we have..."Grulgor".

Mortarion: your reward is drinking poison with me …that sure was a scene hashtag justdeathguardthings I bet death guard are big on l'appel du vide, and standing on cliff edges just to stare down.

Lmaoo I love the « it’s totes not a ritual guys that’s superstition and blah blah blah »

Also is anyone going to have an objection to the lodges that isn’t « imperial truth getting rid of gods ergo secrecy and ritual bad ».

The narrative is trying hard to get me to hate Grugnor so of course I’m starting to like him Garro also feels like a copy paste of Loken, but with less personality

That takes some guts to admit How do you know it’s not a trap?

JRRT would like to talk

Lmaoo Mort avoiding remembrancers Mort: ok I hear the order to take remembrancers but oops I am too far away from the ships with them what a pity what's that? you're breaking up I can't hear you byeee

Oh, Garro, like you wouldn’t be totally chill with a « Mortarion's Court » and figure out some way in your mind to justify that it totally wasn't the same thing.

Also our hero can feel based on vibes that something is off aboard the Vengeful Spirit They should have gone all the way and had him be a secret psyker he would have been interesting especially given Mortarion's psyker policy ...wait, IS he a secret psyker? That would add an interesting dimension.

Oh, huh, more Horus!

"I flexed and the armour sleeves came off"

Also this may actually make me like the Emperors Children out of spite, congrats I think Eidolon should get to stab Garro a little. As a treat. And Eidolon is such an asshole I wanted to get punched back in Horus Rising Garro: the emperors children are all dandies and they’re supposedly good at fighting but…are they really.. Saul, canonically his friend: am I a joke to you Oh Saul just showed up hashtag notallemperorschildren

More fuel for psyker!Garro:

to the point where I am legit wondering if it could be true update there's nothing on his wiki article man it would have been great…c'mon

come on man

like tbh it makes a lot of sense Grulgor who is from Barbarus doesn't like him - there's a bit where Grulgor says that Garro looks down on them for not being Terran/not being part of the Dusk Raiders before Mort was found, and that's not exactly unfounded, looking at this. also, pick one: "noble character" or "red right hand of the Emperor"

it. really sounds like he's talking about a WWI memorial. And then the next scene is a battle with WWI vibes including TRENCH WARFARE.

Once more over the top!

blargh it's just "the ones remaining loyal to the Imperium are the upright stalwart lantern jawed men full of virtue and also approved war crimes and all the traitors are evil and petty and smelly"

this is also, incidentally, one of the books where you can feel that it treats NPCs as NPCs instead of background people

I think I might actually drop this book and not finish it I'm going to go look up a plot summary and see if there's anything actually interesting that happens after this point yeah honestly there's nothing in here that seems appealing except maybe getting a look at Dorn

reading this book is like eating oatmeal made with water

I think I'm finally done with the Horus Heresy for now

Note from future Bluejay: you know, reading my notes on this, I think there might actually be something crunchy to dig into with Garro's cognitive dissonance, assuming the book goes anywhere with it. Could Garro have actual flavour? Maybe I'll give it a second chance.

#warhammer 40k #bluejay reads warhammer

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moonlightreal · 8 months

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Circle of Three and Sweep

2001 was a good year for books.

In fact I think I picked up the first few Circle of Three and the first few Sweep on the same bookstore visit. They have the same basic plot: “Girl is drawn into witchcraft” but they approach it in different ways. Both of the series have interesting backstories, they were written for different reasons but have a lot of similarities, including similar issues.

If you liked The Secret Circle, both series will be right up your alley.

Circle of Three was written by author Isobel Bird to present real Wicca to teenage readers who have plenty of more fantasy-based books but nothing to show them what they might experience if they start studying Wicca. The story follows sporty Kate, studious Annie and rebel Cooper as they become friends and follow a year-and-a-day Wiccan study program they find at a local metaphysical shop. Each book focuses on an aspect of Wicca: tarot cards, psychic dreams, healing, dealing with Wicca's dodgy public image, and celebrating the Wheel of the Year. The series also focuses a lot on the community aspect of Wicca as the girls make friends with adult Wiccans, ask for guidance, and help others.

Sweep was written by author Cate Tiernan to sell a book series. The story follows Morgan as she falls for the hot new boy at school, finds out he’s Wicca, then finds out there aren’t just Wiccans there are also Blood Witches and she’s one too. Morgan deals with warring covens each led by a hot boy who may or may not be Morgan’s soulmate, discovering that she’s adopted since Blood Witches can’t have children with humans, and facing the evil that destroyed her birth parents. Most of the characters are teens, but Morgan also deals with the Council of Witches and a Seeker, empowered to judge witches who misuse their powers.

So they are very different series. In only one of them does someone get stabbed by an athame and fall off a cliff.

But they are also very similar series. Both describe rituals and magical tools, both have spells, both have plenty of boy-crazy from the lead characters, Kate and Morgan. Both are good. Both also tend to wobble annoyingly between magical realism and fantasy.

Sweep starts out with quite reality-based information about Wicca but veers off into Blood Witches by the end of the first book. Circle of Three starts similarly and even has one character refer to another as a “Buffy witch, they think Wicca is all about making supernatural things happen”… and then in the next book Cooper uses her psychic visions to lead the police to the body of a murder victim.

Which is… interesting. Isobel Bird meant the series to reflect her experiences in Wicca so is this the kind of thing that happened in her coven? Psychics offering help to detectives certainly happens, but whether any case has been solved based purely on their input is still very he-said she-said. Psychics claim to have done it but they might lie for fame and money, police departments generally say not but they might lie to keep their dignity or for obscure legal reasons. But psychics helping cops is definitely not a normal thing that will happen to any teenage Wiccan. And that’s only Circle of Three’s first voyage away from normality. The girls meet real fae and ghosts. Did Isobel Bird have a truly wild Wiccan life? Did she think the series would be better if she stretched things a bit? Or did the editor pressure her to spice things up? Who can say, but it does make the series read a bit strange as it tries to pick a lane between fantasy and magical realism.

And both series were written under pen names. Looking at the authors behind the names explains why the two series went the way they did.

Sweep was written by Gabrielle Charbonnet, who has written quite a lot under her own name. according to wiki, Charbonnet “participated in the editing of” the Secret Circle trilogy, which explains a lot—or would, but Tiernan credits Ann Bradshares of Traveling Pants fame for coming up with the idea for Sweep. I get the impression that a publisher thought a witch series would do well and several people contributed to ‘Cate Tiernan.’

Circle of Three was written by Michael Thomas Ford, a gay Wiccan man who mostly writes about gay topics. That’s why the pen name; the publisher didn’t think an authors name that leads to a whole lotta gay stuff would be good for selling a series for teenage girls.

Both series are 15 books long, and both were meant to be longer but had their plugs pulled when sales sank. Both series suffer from “some parts are definitely better than other parts”, as we all might expect from such long series! They also both have a certain amount of boy drama and general silliness, but they’re both great fun. Highly recommended!

After enjoying these two so much I keep my eyes open for similar series. There have been a few. Blue is for Nightmares and sequels were all right. The Daughters of the Moon series is great. Nonfiction author Silver Ravenwolf wrote a series about teenage witches and it was terrrrrible. There’s also a very obscure series called “The Circle” by Melaina Faranda, which could have been really good but the writing never quite got there and the series vanished into the mist after three maybe four volumes. Nothing ever quite matched the glorious series of 2001.

#circle of three #sweep series

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mortallyclearwonderland · 1 year

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Epic 2013 - NAMES

In this post, I would like to talk about the meaning of the names of the characters from the movie Epic.

Either people think long and hard about how they are going to name their children (or anything for that matter), while others just pick a name that they like without looking any further.

Names are especially important in stories like books and movies.

While in the real world you can have 6 girls named Olivia in the classroom (something that really happened to me), writers can give every character in their story a different name to avoid confusion.

It can be as simple as ''This character is from Japan. Let's give him a Japanese name.'' or ''My movie takes place in the 80s in the US let's give characters names that were popular at the time.''

Sometimes names can give you an insight into what is character's personality, talent, etc. Some are more subtle than others. (Dr Evil or Dr Doom)

Let me start by saying this, names in Epic are all over the place. Let's get the simple ones out of the way.

Susan comes from Persian and it means lily flower. In modern Hebrew this also means rose and a flower in general. It's a standard name for the setting and the time period, modern times (the 2010s) somewhere in North America.

Professor Radcliffe Bomba, his title is supposed to explain how he knows all this ‘’scientific’’ stuff. Bomba means bomb in most Slavic languages. It's supposed to showcase how wacky, clumsy and does things that are detrimental to his own safety. Radcliffe derives from the place-name Radcliffe meaning “red cliff.” I didn't even know he had a name but fandom has spoken and it won't kill me to include it.

Mary Katherine is named after the daughter of the author of the book the movie is based on. Mary means Star of the sea/Drop of the sea ; Bitterness; Beloved. Meanwhile, Katherine means pure. Mary Catherine is a name that signifies a freedom-loving and free-spirited individual.

Bufo is just an American bull frog. Bufo is a genus of true toads in the amphibian family Bufonidae. Bull + Frog = Bufo

Grub and Mub. I put them together because they're a comical duo and that's why their names rhyme. Common thing. Grub is the larva of an insect. To grub is to dig or poke about in the soil. I couldn't find what Mub means, just a bunch of acronyms to stuff. Their names are supposed to sound funny and disgusting.

Nim Galuu is weird. Nim is a game in which two players alternately take one or more objects from one of a number of heaps, each trying to take, or to compel the other to take, the last remaining object. Galuu means to enter and the main characters go into a tree to meet him and even deeper into the tree to see the scrolls. Also, Nim reminds me of The Secret of NIMH. It's probably just a coincidence.

Then there's a bunch of other characters that are just names of the species/plant they're based on. Dandelion, Pinecone, Stickman, Marigold Girl, etc.

Now we get to the interesting names!

Nod, in Biblical Names the meaning of the name Nod is: Vagabond, fugitive'. At first, I thought his name, Nod, is referring to the action of nodding, agreeing with someone. Because he's a rebel, his not doing what he's told, so he's not nodding. Irony! Him being a vagabond or fugitive shows in his concept art a lot more. In the movie, he deserts the army for like 5 minutes. I'm going to go into detail about it in another post.

Ronin, is a wandering samurai who had no lord or master. This goes with the samurai-inspired design of the Leafman. Tara is the master that he lost. Again, not executed to its fullest potential. Also, there's a huge difference between a ronin and a samurai. Many times when movies portray samurais or cowboys they're more like ronins.

Tara, in South Asia, such as India and Nepal, Tara is a word originating from Sanskrit, meaning star, and it symbolizes the light of the soul. Tara is the soul of the forest.

Mandrake, a Mediterranean plant of the nightshade family, with a forked fleshy root that supposedly resembles the human form and which was formerly used in herbal medicine and magic. It was alleged to shriek when pulled from the ground. Mandrake lets out a loud shriek to alarm his army.

Dagda, (Celtic: “Good God”) also called Eochaid Ollathair (“Eochaid the All-Father”), or In Ruad Ro-fhessa (“Red [or Mighty] One of Great Wisdom”), in Celtic religion, one of the leaders of a mythological Irish people, the Tuatha Dé Danann (“People of the Goddess Danu”). Highly skilled and wise beyond measure, he was not only the god of life and death, but of seasons, agriculture, fertility, magic, and druidry as well. There is so much lore behind this guy's name. He had so much potential! I'm going to rant about it in another post.

I think the naming system really shows the problems with this movie. It's all over the place and there's just too much.

Inspiration from the Bible, Slavic countries, Japan, India, Scotland, Ireland, and many more.

There are so many things that nothing gets enough focus. We got:

Romance

Tara and Ronin

MK and Nod

Mub has a crush on MK

Parent-child relationship

Ronin and Nod's father-son relationship

Mandrake and Dagda's father-son relationship

MK and her father's relationship

Deaths

Nod grieving over his dad

Mandrake grieving over his son

Ronin grieving Tara

Ronin grieving Nod's father, his friend

MK grieving over her mother

Magic

Plant manipulation

Shrinking and biggering people

The Rot

Anything involving this stupid bud

Resurrection?

Dark Prince?

Scrolls in the oldest tree

Other stuff

Nod not following orders and not being part of the team

Bird racing

Gambling? Some criminal stuff

Random song number

Shenanigans with the dog

MK's parents being divorced

MK running away from home

Believing in what you can't see

WAR!

Queen dying and finding her successor

Pointless fight with a mouse

Grub wants to become a Leafman

The people behind this project wanted to make this movie awesome, deep and mature but they wanted too much too fast.

Nothing gets properly set up. The creators had all those cool backstories for the characters but we don't get to see them. The movie throws us into the middle of the action. It feels like we missed a previous movie. This movie should've been a trilogy and it shows.

#Dagda #Mandrake #Tara #Ronin #Nod #Bufo #Nim Galuu #Mub #Grub #Professor Radcliffe Bomba #Susan Bomba #Mary Katherine #Epic 2013 #Epic #blue sky studios #blue sky

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 2 years

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reading update !

friends. lovers. clowns. I'm going to be real with you: I am going the fuck through it. the schoolyear has started at the shit tier midwestern university that I call home, and that means I am once again up to my eyes in students having problems. this is the best job I've ever had and I think it's going to kill me.

none of that is your problem, of course, but it does feel like a necessary preface to explain why the list is a little on the short side this month and also why it's just. really all over the place.

what have I been reading?

Thirsty Sword Lesbians (April Kit Walsh, 2021) - I swear to god and jesus it's a ttrpg guide and not Locked Tomb erotica. I was gifted this for my birthday by my boss and his spouse (mostly the spouse, who spotted this at a farmers market in Kansas City and thought of me, bless her), and I'm really looking forward to getting to run some sessions! Walsh has put together a fun-loving, emotion-heavy system that's RIPE for creating dyke drama in every imaginable genre. the playbooks manage to cover a lot of archetypes - the Spooky Witch is a standout for me, I'd love to play one! - while leaving lots of room for customization and making the characters your own, and I like the way the mechanics prioritize the characters' feelings and arcs while also leaving options to be more action-based. the book can get a little precious about The Magical Power of Love Against the Evil Forces Capitalism and Oppression, but it's a sweet system that's obviously been with a lot of love, and the art if absolutely killer. I can't wait to report back on my adventures with my own band of thirsty sword lesbians.

Paper Girls Vol. 5-6 (Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, 2019) - that's right, I finally finished it! and when I got to the end of the last volume I had to sit there very quietly staring at the wall and say "oh" to myself. I was delighted when all the twisty time travel bullshit was finally explained and the story still managed to feel very personal and intimate to the twelve year old girls at the story's heart - at the end of the day, this is a story about four friends doing their best to get home against all odds. I really appreciated that Vaughan could make the question of "will we still be friends?" feel so urgent when the question of apocalypse hangs so heavy in the series, and the ending was a bittersweet question mark on that front. it felt right - Paper Girls was never the kind of series that could be wrapped up too neatly. you should go read it yourself - and, I cannot emphasize enough, I do mean read it, not watch the amazon series.

Nona the Ninth (Tamysn Muir, 2022) - Nona the Ninth is a wildly jarring change of pace for the series that is, I think, wholly and hugely necessary to stop and provide better perspective on the world. I frequently see people commenting that previous protagonists Gideon Nav and Harrowhark Nonagesimus don't really "feel" like teenagers, and that there's no good reason they shouldn't be aged up except that Muir is trying to appeal to a YA audience. with all due respect, these people are very bad at reading comprehension and quite possibly piss on the poor. the personal tragedies of the Locked Tomb's characters are numerous, but one of the greatest injustices of the series takes place almost in the background, so deeply woven into the culture of the Houses that the characters hardly think to comment on it: the way the Empire feasts upon its youth, grinding them up in positions of leadership or shipping them off to the front lines when they're children and teens. and you see that so sharply in Nona! I'm not going to say anything spoilery but GOD, getting to see a main character who's just... a kid? just a really sweet kid with an extremely limited perspective who loves her family and kids from school and dogs and the beach and has no idea how truly, hideously awful the world around her is? it was so STRANGE to see a teenager being young and largely untroubled in this world, especially next to younger kids who are already concerned with selling drugs and killing necromancers. and that's so goddamn sad, and this whole world is a tragedy, and I love so much that some of the characters in this series are still trying to find ways to care for one another. I hope at least some of them manage to survive Alecto.

Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution [Revised Edition] (Susan Stryker, 2008) - a short and sweet read, and one that I like a lot for its ability to talk about the history of trans and gender-nonconformity without getting too hung up on, for lack of a better term, black and whiting. I understand the urge to project very contemporary ideas of gender and sexuality backwards to find commonality with the past, but it's so crucial to be able to understand how much ideas of gender and sexuality can change over very little time - even the relatively short span between Stonewall and now! Stryker, herself a trans woman, does a remarkably respectful job honoring the work of past pioneers for the trans community without attempting to tidy up or sanitize any individuals to make them more palatable for 21st century readers. a quick and informative read, with a solid place in my growing personal library of queer history.

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America [Revised Edition] (Kiese Laymon, 2020) - it's fitting that Laymon is perhaps best known for his acclaimed memoir Heavy, because everything this man writes is heavy as hell in the most gripping way. I'd say Laymon passes being a challenging writer to be an outright confrontational one, by which I don't intend to perpetuate stereotypes about the "angry Black man" so much as applaud the way Laymon takes the reader firmly by the shoulder, sits them down, and says the quiet part out loud. Laymon is deeply interested in the uncomfortable truths that America runs on, and he demands that we all join in his examination. he's a relentlessly thorough thinker and writer, turning his gaze on a broad variety of topics: the disproportionate focus placed on "fixing" Black boys to make them more respectable, the way Black girls are seldom institutionally addressed at all, what it means for Black student athletes to labor for universities that still proudly sport imagery of the Confederacy, the overlooking of Black Southerners as a potential source of art and brilliance, the expectations placed on Black writers to pander to white audiences' limited ideas of Blackness. Kiese Laymon's nonfiction writing really is like nobody else's, tonally; he's so stubborn and ruminative and I love the way he talks about masculinity and love. there's a chapter that consists of five letters, written between Laymon and four other Black men, reflecting on all manner of things - Blackness, masculinity, queerness, incarceration, and more than anything else, the way Black men love each other. it's really something special.

Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service (Tajja Isen, 2022) - one early review that I saw of this book is that it's too topical for its own good, and that surely within a year everyone will have forgotten what Isen is even referencing in her essays. with all due respect this is absolutely bullshit and implies that the reviewer possibly only skimmed the book, or perhaps read a blurb and decided that Isen has only bothered collecting essays dissecting various flash in the pan subjects of Twitter discourse. in fact, what Isen as done is written brilliantly about various areas she knows well - voice acting and animation, university admissions and law school, personal essays and the publishing industry, the entirety of Canada - and neatly examines the ways in which those institutions overwhelmingly fail to engage in any meaningful way with the notion of racial equity, while putting on a show - the titular "lip service" - to give the illusion of doing otherwise. she's an excellent writer, and I particularly love the way she writes about literature. I'd strongly recommend this excerpt from a chapter on the publishing industry's new trend towards publishing stories that decry the stiflingly white nature of major publishers while doing absolutely not a damn thing to actually change their whiteness.

Run, Riddler, Run (Gerard Jones and Mark Badger, 1992) - before anyone feels the need to inform me of this, yes: I am aware that in 2018 Jones was convicted of possession of sexually explicit images of children and sentenced to six years in prison. I found out immediately after finishing this zany little comic, at which point I did an innocent little google search to see what the guys who made it have been up to in the 30 years since publication. turns out nothing good, in Gerard Jones' case. and I have no idea what to do with that information; it doesn't really change my opinion on this story but it does cast sort of a yucky shadow over what's otherwise a pretty alright story.

our boy Brucie learns that gentrification is pretty bad, actually, and that poor people have feelings that should be listened to rather than just bulldozing all their yucky old neighborhoods because you think you know what's best for them. like many of the best Batman comics, Bruce's isn't the most interesting part by a longshot; the real star here is Roberta "Bob" Cifuentes, a queer grassroots organizer who scares the everloving shit out of Gotham's wealthy with her militant efforts to save her neighborhood. comic books being comic books, things naturally get pretty zany - there's a team of robocops led by a guy still mad that the Berlin Wall came down who frame Batman for murder after he starts siding with the poors and that's like, probably because writer and noted sex criminal Jones didn't want to commit to just making straight up regular cops an unambiguous tool of oppression that Batman has to fight, which is some weenie-ass bullshit, but DC still probably couldn't publish this story today without getting screamed at for being pro-antifa. I'd say it's a solidly b-tier Very Special Episode if not for the almost entirely arbitrary inclusion of the Riddler, whose presence could be totally excised from the story really easily but also makes the story INFINITELY more fun. according to various DC sources that I won't be bothering to fact check this is the first miniseries to prominently feature the Riddler, which makes this a great idea from a truly reprehensible human being. he's in peak Riddler form - pissing off Batman, his boss, his own parole officer, and the Joker by being just absolutely fucking insufferable and frequently incomprehensible, contributing very little to the overall story, and visibly having a blast doing it. love that for him.

#bookblr #reading updates

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roman-mysteries · 1 year

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Ranking Roman Mysteries books from least favourite to favourite- Part 1

Obviously this is a completely subjective list based on my own experiences with the books, and I would love to hear if anyone thinks differently

17. The Scribes from Alexandria This is the last book from the series I read (I was twenty-one) because as a kid I would just read whatever I could get from the library/what I bought in London when we went overseas in 2012, and while I like to think maybe just being so much older means I didn’t experience it at the age I should have, I just couldn’t get behind this book. I hate the separation plot, and the two characters who accompany the children do nothing for me. I thought the thing between them was leading up to something interesting, but in the end it just fell flat on its face. The little chapter/paragraph cliff hangers feel all the more pronounced here and I started to get bored with them. I don’t think I’ll read this one again outside of a whole series re-read

16. The Enemies of Jupiter I do feel really mean about this one because it is a really good book and it has an amazing backdrop for the plot, but I have never been able to enjoy misunderstanding/liar reveal plots, and it’s just all over this story. Whenever I sit down to do a big read through of the series I always force myself to get through this and then burn out straight after. Sorry Jonathan, you sure are going through it in this book but unfortunately so am I. I keep reading it though in the hopes of changing my mind.

15. The Beggar of Volubilis I think the thing about this book for me is just how forgettable it is. It kickstarts the big final like, adventure for the kids but I really struggle even now to recollect anything. It just feels sort of convoluted, which I never thought would be something I could say about Roman Mysteries. It takes a while for the plot to get rolling, said plot is kind of silly, and then it just de-escalates in a very flat way. I also don’t really enjoy any of the final four, so this being the one that starts it all makes me feel meh. Another one I won’t re-read outside of when I do the whole series.

14. The Prophet from Ephesus There is a trend here, lol. Final four don’t do it for me. This one ranks slightly higher I think just because there is a higher sense of stakes that makes the book much more readable- until those stakes kinda fall on their face. Just gets really confusing every time the kids separate and go off to do weird things. I think that’s the biggest problem for me with the final four. The kids are never together and the strongest part of the books for me was always their bond. Also I do not vibe at all with the Lupus and everyone else becoming Christians part of the story. And how the baby isn’t the right baby? Another weird de-escalation. Wins points for some great Jonathan character development though.

13. The Man from Pomegranate Street We reach the end of the last four books on this list with the last book from the series. This is a tense, gripping read which I do enjoy a lot, but it just doesn’t have the legs to push itself higher on this list. A lot of awful things happen to the characters that I wish could be addressed just a little bit more, and I am a biased Lupus fan who wanted more for him to do. Absolutely hilarious though how historical fanfiction-y this book is and I love it for that. Really goes for the ‘we can never go home’ vibe.

12. The Twelve Tasks of Flavia Gemina This isn’t the halfway point of the list but it is a separation point because we are now into the books that I will re-read regardless of if I am doing a whole series recount or not. Love putting this in spot twelve, lol. I think as a kid I wasn’t inclined to like this story because I’d never read the book, and only seen the TV show episode which is fun, but doesn’t do the book justice. There is a great character arc for Flavia here, though I do wish it could have been retained a little more in later books. She does a lot of learning and reflecting that sometimes doesn’t feel like it sticks. That being said, she is a kid and one of the best parts of Roman Mysteries is how Lawrence lets the kids be kids. They bicker, they fight, they have character flaws that betray their age. In a time where people were supposed to grow up a lot faster, Flavia and the others get to be young and stupid sometimes, which especially shows in Flavia and Nubia’s relationship, and I appreciate that. The ending is tragically sad, and I do wish the TV show had gone for it.

11. The Fugitive from Corinth This is another one of Lawrence’s ‘actually the thing they were setting out to solve the whole time was not that thing after all’ but I think it’s done really well here, because some of the characters actually get to solve it as the mystery plays out, rather than it just being a big reveal at the end. This whole book feels like one large chase scene with dips and dives in the tension to give you time to catch your breath. Nubia shines here, and I really enjoy her and Jonathan talking some sense into Flavia at various parts. Getting to explore Ancient Greece is also a huge win. Is a little lower down the list because I actually do get exhausted reading this book- so much happens.

10. The Charioteer of Delphi This is one of my favourite actual mysteries in the whole series and I love how it takes up pretty much all of the book. The backdrop of chariot racing is fun and exhilarating and also incredibly sad as well. I love the Nubia story line going on here, and everyone else also gets a chance to show off their skills which is great. Nubia and Scopas/Scorpus have a great dynamic and I appreciate Lawrence writing him as Autistic, even if I personally think sometimes she doesn’t quite get it right. I love it when historical fiction includes things that didn’t have a name in their time, because things don’t just not exist because they couldn’t be explained. Also any story with Sisyphus is a win I love him. We’re really into the section of the list where it’s so hard to rank these books because I love them all.

9. The Assassins of Rome I consider this to be one of two big Jonathan plot heavy books, the other of course being Enemies of Jupiter, and this is obviously my favourite of the two. I really appreciate the time taken to flesh out Jonathan’s world and the pain he feels. Everything set up in the book lands here, from the main plot to the little moments we have going along as the kids set out to find Jonathan. Just a really, really good story. This is another one of the books that really hits home that these are just kids, who make mistakes and who fight but who ultimately have forged a strong relationship that allows them to go through almost anything together. That’s it for part one, I’ll do part two later today!

#roman mysteries #caroline lawrence #flavia gemina #jonathan ben mordecai #nubia #lupus roman mysteries #there is a distinct lack of lupus in this list bc i am biased so all his books are in the top eight #seriously if anyone has any thoughts over this id love to hear it #oh no the original version had such a huge mistake my bad

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rise-my-angel · 25 days

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The funniest thing about hating Rhaegar is his stans assuming we love Robert and then they begin arguing how he was an abuser and a pos as if we don't know lol. Hating Rhaegar and Robert is not mutually exclusive. It reminds me of takes like if you love Jon, how can you love Catelyn? 🤦🤦 People need to stop living through characters I beg. Liking/disliking certain characters based on who your favorite character likes/dislikes is NOT normal behaviour.

The amount of Rhaegar stans who jump on you like OH YOU LOVE ROBERT HUH like okay lets take it back friends and show me where we said that.

Now, I am a bit biased because I do rather like the Baratheons in general but I am the first to pick those grown ass men up by the scruff of their necks and hold them up over a cliffs edge telling them that they're asses are gonna get dropped into the sea unless they smarten up.

Like yes Rhaegar stans, Robert is a piece of shit. But the reasons Lyanna did not want to marry him was because he was a womanizer whom already had bastards and she knew he was not a man who would be faithful or respectful to her. (My personal headcanon is that Lyanna was not interested in marriage at all but thats only my personal speculation).

Robert didn't even mistreat her, because he did not know her. She didn't want to marry him because she knew, she as a wife, was in for a life of a husband prone to massive infidelity, something any reasonable 14-15 year old girl would object to. And we have no way of knowing if he would have mistreated her the way he does Cersei. How he treats Cersei is absoutely horrible and abusive, but the circumstances of their marriage DO play a part in the manner which they mutually mistreat each other in different ways. Theres no real evidence that Robert would treat Lyanna as horribly, we can only say for sure, he would have been insultingly unfaithful and Lyanna would have at the least still been miserable.

So their assumption that Lyannas life with Robert would've looked just like Cersei's is wrong. Cersei's life also is played due in part that most of her family do not care about her well being. She was mistreated and miserable and no one cared. Lyannas family all cared about her deeply. The Starks are all very close and protective, so the idea that Ned would stand by and allow Robert to treat his SISTER that way is to say Ned views Cersei exactly in the same level of respect he does his little sister, which is wrong.

In Lyanna vs Robert in Neds eyes, Lyanna wins. We know this. He keeps Lyannas secret from Robert half their lives which could be a secret considered treason. Ned chooses Lyanna, and would not actualy let her be treated by Robert the way he sees Robert treat Cersei. Also by the time Ned sees the extent of his marriage to Cersei it is far too late to intervene meaningfully and thus he does nothing because by this point there is nothing he can do.

In fact, Ned while still going to tell Robert the truth, extends mercy to Cersei and all but begs her to take her children and run as far away from Robert as they can. Ned defies Robert by telling Cersei to spare her and her childrens lives by running before it's too late. Something which again, could be considered treason once Robert knows the truth.

Robert has MANY problems, and ironically, the show is actually the version of the story that handles this better. Robert in the show is still not a good person, but he has so much more layers and nuance to make him less black and white unlikable. This version of Robert you can actually understand what about him does Ned like and why other people still care about him. Its a rare example of an adaptation improving something from the books.

But Book Robert just sucks. We all know that. He sucks. No one likes Book Robert not even Baratheon fans like me.

But because Rhaegar stans depend on Rhaeyla for their characterization of Lyanna, they can ONLY imagine an opposite where it is Robert and Lyanna because their views of her depend on her in a romance. They don't see her as an individual character who probably wanted nothing to do with either Robert or Rhaegar.

In my personal opinion, Lyanna did not want to marry any man, and probably hadn't even considered if she wanted children. Since the earliest we know anything substantial of her is the Knight of the Laughing Tree, which is a story that tells me shes still just an adventurous girl who wants to see what the more exciting parts of life can offer her. And while dreading one marriage, she was kidnapped and forced into an even worse scenario with an even worse man and died because of it.

Like, at the very least, Roberts side of the war was partially fighting to save her life. Rhaegar fought the side of the war that led her trapped on the other side of the country, almost dying alone in a bed of her own blood.

There no nuance here with these people. They don't see Lyanna outside of Rhaelya and thus they are obsessed with proving that Robert was worse then him even though most discussions about Lyanna have nothing to do with Robert in the first place.

But to be clear, Rhaegar is worse then Robert. They both suck, but Rhaegar is still worse because at least Robert never kidnapped and raped a 15 year old girl which started a war and ended in her death.

The only reason its easier to dunk on Robert is because he was still alive when we met him at the start of the series. A lot easier to shit on a character when we directly followed their actions before they died.

#the jon and catelyn thing is so funny like the brainrot #its either your with me or your my enemy but unironically #i can love and defend catelyn and still call her emotionally abusive towards jon #they can and do co exist #rhaegar can suck and so can robert #targ stans so badly want this fandom to act like fucking twilight #team rhaegar or team robert sort of nonsense #me not tagging it cus honestly im just scared of targ stans at this point like yall win im not tagging anymore #you wanna get mad at me come check my blog directly

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drew-mga2022mi6011 · 4 months

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Research | A Breakdown of the Possibilities

After looking at all the winning and other miscellaneous entries to the Silent Book Contest, I really wanted to understand what exactly it is that I could do for this module. As such, I decided to ask myself two key questions that could help enrich my final submission.

What are the key aspects of my brief? How can I explore them?

"The book project must not contain words, with exclusion of the title and possible subtitle. The narration must be realized exclusively through the illustrations and have narrative and stylistic coherence. There are no limits regarding age or reader group, and the subject matter is open. The illustrations featured in the book projects can be in colour or black and white, with unlimited traditional or digital techniques and media."

The entire premise of this project revolves around creating a story that is narratively and stylistically coherent. But what even is a narrative? Does it need to be linear? How abstract can I push the concept of a "story"?

My story would be based in the ideas of the extinction of the Atlas Lion and French Colonialism in the North African region, told through the journey of self acceptance in a desolate world. Do I make these ideas as clear as day to the average reader, or do I want to leave these things up to interpretation?

I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I wanted to create a story that speaks to the human condition, to existence and emotions. Does that story need to be explicitly coherent? For example, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a critically acclaimed anime focusing on the mental state of the main character, and is famously known for not being comprehensible on first watch. However, the themes of the story and its creators ideology come through magnificently through the visuals. I don't want to create a story that is necessarily confusing, as some form of narrative coherence is required, however I think leaning into this abstract idea of a narrative may be for the best going forward.

Additionally, the age group and subject matter being left open provides an interesting opportunity to create something that might not necessarily be just for children. The previous winners of the competition tended to create childrens' books, which is an idea I want to stray away from. I do not want to lock children out so much as expand my demography beyond children through the multi-layered storytelling approaches I intend to pursue.

As the illustrations could be in colour or black and white, one idea that I had was that the majority of the book project could be in black and white, but as the main character learns to accept themselves the palette would slowly become more vivid and bright, representing a paradigm shift in the main character. The option to use non traditional media also creates an interesting opportunity for mixing media for narrative purposes. The place in which the story takes place, the Atlas Mountain range, is topographically and texturally diverse, morphing from sands to cliffs to snowed areas, each of which the Barbary Lions were known to inhabit.

Overall, this brief offers a sense of freedom that others do not, which allows for ample creative expression down to the simplest of concepts such as narratives and media.

What can my chosen medium achieve that no other medium can?

As a book, the potential for creativity is far less than an animation for example, however the analogue nature of the medium does provide some interesting quirks. Certain restrictions have been placed on more apparent physical features such as the submission of pop-up books, however the perks of being a product that will eventually be printed creates interesting opportunities to experiment with capturing emotions with a single image. As the saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words.

Since the art that I am producing also does not need to be animated, that means I can add much more detail than I would if I was making an animation within the same time frame. Finally, it also allows me to be more abstract, as not every illustration needs to necessarily lead into the next, as long as the idea of narrative coherence is preserved.

This exercise in exploration has really helped me narrow down what exactly I want to do in terms of the medium of my project. Now I can move on to previsualisation and developing the ideas that I already have.

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one-hell-of-otaku-is-here · 2 years

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My Arcana OC/MC

(got bored and remembered one of my fav games the Arcana so I decided to make my own oc info. She is basically based on me, the player in that universe)

General information

AKA

Shopkeep

AKA

Bianka Bal (birth full name)

AKA

The Fool (Major Arcana's body)

Bia (by her parents and some friends)

Bika (mostly used by everyone especially her close friends and all characters in game)

Affiliation

Asra

Love interest/End game

Lucio

Occupation

Shop keeper

Magician

Fortune-teller (present)

Vendor trinket seller (past, before meeting Asra)

Apprentice at Julian’s Clinic (Former)

Relatives

Leon

(pet dog, familiar, received after events of game)

Daniela (mother)

Peter (father)

Martin (maternal uncle)

Hannah (fraternal aunt from whom she inherited shop)

Franz (fraternal uncle, married to Hannah)

Dagmar and Martin (her cousins; Aunt’s children)

Unnamed fraternal and maternal grandparents

Favorites

Favorite meal

Spaghetti bolognese

Favorite drink

Cappuccino

Favorite flower

Red rose

Personality traits

Birthday

November 17

Zodiac sign

Scorpio

MBTI

INFJ

Physical description

Gender

Female

Sexuality

Bisexual (for the sake of the story, I am actually straight irl but I based my “oc” on myself except for this little change)

Height

5'1 (155.5 cm)

Eye color

Silver blue

Hair color

Black

Trivia

The apprentice's favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla and her favorite fruits are strawberries.

According le me, she is a kind, perceptive and helpful but also bit secretive and quiet person. She secretly has romantic soul and adventurous spirit and is very passionate about her hobbies and can hold grudges if you hurt or betray her.

His favorite season is winter.

Similarly, to Julian and Lucio, she is also prone to sunburn which she inherited from her father. Unlike them thou she is fine as long as she applies sunscreen with which her skin tans beautifully.

She loves animals (especially dogs like Lucio) but often struggles disciplining her new puppy, Leon.

Her favorite past time include reading books (she loves detective novels like Portia), singing (she sounds better at duets) and practicing magic.

She speaks two languages (English and her native language).

She has soft feminine voice.

She managed to develop her own personal gate after the events of game (regardless of route). Her gate looks very similar to the Fool Arcana card from Asra’s deck but it also has a big tree in middle of wheat field which stretches into the edge of a cliff- the rest is the same as in the Fool card.

She often makes typos and likes using cute stickers in chatroom (she is probably only one who enjoys Lucio's emoticons).

Bika has Central European accent.

#the arcana #the arcana oc #my arcana mc #the arcana mc #general info

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customessaypapers · 2 years

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Sula alternative to reading

Part 1 Essay Directions: Write a 4-to-5 page creative writing story. Fiction. At least 1000 words.. Proper MLA style format in the heading, in the in-text citations, and in the Works Cited page Use the characters from the novel Sula (Caracter List: https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/sula/char..., ) and write a story (this is called Fan Fiction). You may choose a theme from the novel Sula: Friendship, Loyalty, Betrayal, Suffering, Pride, Forgiveness, Sex, Choices, Gender or Race. You still need to read Sula or the Cliffnotes. Sula alternative to reading To read a 190-page book quite honestly is kind of 1995 for a general 1102 class. I am totally okay if you use a Study-Guide / Cliff-Notes for this project. SOOOOO, I found two free study-guides. This should help you get through the material A LOT faster if you choose. https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sula https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/sula/summary/ About the actual book Sula I found a book online in an easier to read format. https://www.bookscool.com/en/Sula-992348/1 Maybe it helps.. Part 2 Discussion # 1 Choose only ONE of the following options and write a post that agrees OR disagrees with the assertion. Cite specific scenes and/or use specific quotes from the novel to support your position. Your answer should be written in no fewer than 200 words. - Although the novel is titled Sula, the real protagonist is Nel because she is the one who is transformed by the end. OR - While the community ostracizes Sula, it is subconsciously grateful for her presence. When you are done posting your response, reply to at least one classmate in no fewer than 75 words. (Classmate to replay) Sula is a books about good and evil, and how some choices we make can simply affect the rest of our lives without ever realizing the impact of our decisions. Althought the book is called Sula, the real protagonist is Nel because she is the one who changed at the end. Growing up in a small town create the possibility for challenges, let alone growing up in an african american community in the 1900's. In the town known as "The Bottom" Nel comes from a family where social conventions are deeply worship and practiced, as for Sula who lives with her grandmother and mother who were seen as lose throughout the town. The girls would eventually bond and form a friendship as children, then soon after a tramatic experince would change the girls lives forever. After playing one day with the boy who lived in the neighborhood also know as chicken little, the girls would swing him around and he then fell in the river and drowned. Both girls would feel responsible for the accident, and here we begin to see how different people are affected by truma at a young age. The girl would eventually grown apart Nel living a life based on social conventions like getting married and becoming a house wife, while over the next 10 years Sula would go on and live her life fun and ecentric. Sula becomes bored and return to her hometown and reconnect with Nel who we learned felt the most guilt for what happen to the little boy choose to live her life based on social conventions becuase she felt like it would help her redeem herself from what happen. Soon Sula return she ends up sleeping with Nels husband. Nel then realizes she bames her friend for what happen to the little boy and had to question her decisions she made in life and weather or not why she did what she did. We end with Nel visiting Sula grave as she mourns her friend in saddness crying out her name, we can clearly see how Nel has come a long way. Discussion # 2 Post your tentative thesis statement for your literary analysis essay on Sula. Remember that a thesis takes a position about your topic. You are making a kind of argument, an argument that supports a particular analysis of the novel. When you are done posting your thesis, reply to at least one classmate’s post. In your response, provide constructive feedback to your classmate about what id one well and what can be improved. One good strategy involves summarizing the thesis by saying, "The idea you want to prove is . . . ." By doing this, you will be able to provide useful feedback about your classmate's thesis, and, in the process, think about how well your own thesis conveys your position. (Classmate to replay) I chose my creative writing assignment about James Smith and his younger brother Gordon. In Los Angeles California, James recently discharged from The Navy training due to his injury, returns home to reconnect with his family and discover that the fight is not truly over. As James battle for his fathers approval he will debate, and make decisions he not sure about throughout his adventure. While his brother Gordon must find out what it is his brother is up to and for what purpose. Carl, James father quesions how far will he push his boys to become the men he wants them to be.The boys struggle to ajust due to their time apart but eventually must learn to reconnect and become a family again. Gordon goes on to learn of his role in life due to the inspiration of his brother and James must lear how to live in his new reality and overcome its many challenges. This story shows just some of the difficulties that some people have due to their disability, Tramatic experiences, and the outcome of growing up in a enviroment where parent that may not have been supportive to the child. Title: The train ride that would have been Read the full article

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researchpapers4me · 2 years

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Sula alternative to reading

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sakura-83 · 3 years

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Things from Anne with an e that I feel like writing down

Season 2 Episode 1: Youth Is The Season of Hope

1. Anne looking over her collection of treasures

2. Her walk through the forests and fields, talking to trees and watching butterflies and being free from worldly concerns such as dirtying her clothes or going home before dark

3. The general way that Anne loves nature

4. Anne falling into a creek. I’ve done that so many times

5. Anne coming hone covered in twigs and mud and Matthew just smiling

6. It does make me sad how Mr. Dunlop is genuinely happy at Green Gables but the plan still crumbles. He was a bad person but I still wish he could’ve had his house, a calm life, maybe then he could’ve changed forever.

7. The fact that when school isn’t in session, there’s no paper to be had for students

8. Anne critiquing the way Nate prays

9. “And bless those who are here, and those who are in our hearts” CUTTING INTO A SHOT OF THE BOAT GILBERT IS ON

10. Gilbert singing while he works

11. Bash being exasperated with Gilbert

12. Gilbert could’ve had a comfortable steady life but willingly chose to work in the name of adventure and experience

13. Nate trying to convince Anne of all people that geology is boring

14. Nate frequently says things that will trigger a flashback in Anne and yet she still continues to spring back up enthusiastically

15. The whole flirting thing between Nate and Marilla never fails to make me very uncomfortable

16. Yknow. It’s probably the money they stole from Jerry that’s paying the rent

17. Jerry having a mini heart attack when Anne is in the barn

18. Jerry knowing there’s something off about Nate but being unable to place it

19. Anne’s fond talk of reading seeking very surface level while the scene is interrupted by flashbacks of how it was the only hope, the only shred of happiness she was able to keep in her youth

20. “Reading can save your life.”

21. Anne finding Jane eyre when she had to hold the books as punishment

22. “Look at this sentence, isn’t it glorious!” “Sometimes you’re not very nice.” “What do you mean? Why are you- Jerry!” “No school for me, remember?” “I can teach you to read!”

23. Jerry telling her not to bother and her proceeding to relay the entire alphabet anyways

24. They don’t have any paper so Anne has to teach him by writing in the hay and dirt on the ground

25. Nate just starting to scream and throw things so people thing he’s having a breakdown

26. Stupid mr Barry falling for it

27. The cuthberts singing the same song as Gilbert while they work

28. Bash explaining to Gilbert that he’s a young white boy and he can do whatever he wants in life, but bash is stuck with his lot in life and needs to keep his job

29. Bash telling him he’s also bad at singing

30. “I’m so glad I get to live in a world where there are Octobers, aren’t you?”

31. Anne being baffled that they haven’t been to the beach since they were children

32. Anne going to the beach for the first time

33. The way she absolutely has to stand on the cliff edge over the ocean

34. Matthew waving back to her

35. Anne impulsively stripping down and jumping into the ocean during a Canadian October

36. Matthew doing the same

37. Anne can’t swim

38. Anne laughing at her near death experience

39. Matthew teaching her to swim

40. Anne asking to buy back Birdie with the harvest money

41. Even Marilla coming to enjoy the beach

42. Anne looking off into the sea from land and Gilbert looking out to the horizon from the ship deck

43. Only Anne would realize how well loved the gold chapter is

44. Anne’s impulsive and nosy nature is what ultimately revealed Nate’s lie

45. Nate manipulating a child and taking advantage of their trust

46. “How about a dashing hero, named Albert, Herbert, Rupert, Pilbert-“ “Pilbert!? That’s ridiculous! I would never write a story about a boy named Pilbert!” “It’s not like we can’t tell-“ “Well YOU always murder everyone because you can’t figure out what to do with your characters-“

47. Aunt Josephine wanting to read their stories

48. Anne using an entire framed embroidery piece to teach Jerry to read

49. Jerry trying to refuse learning to read but being convinced by the way Anne talks about it so fondly

50. “Reading can save your life.” “Alright, I’ll try it.” “YES!”

51. “Let’s kill the cat.” The cat being Anne. I wouldn’t put actually killing her past Nate

52. Them decorating a pie

53. Jerry carving the alphabet into the barn wall

54. Poor Jerry, not only did Nate beat him terrible but the comments about “a little French pig” are also. Ouch.

55. Anne coming out of a flashback and still acting brave, plus her starting to catch on to Nate based on his outbursts and Jerry’s behavior

56. Not Nate half stripping in front of Marilla >:(

57. Yayyyyy more marriage drama from the Barry household

58. “I just want to do something that matters for once.”

59. Mr Dunlop really isn’t so bad to me? A crook, sure, but one with basic empathy and way less full of malice towards children

60. Anne making him an apron

61. One specific tell of the lie being the specific repeated use of the phrase “moral quandary”. Most people in a genuinely situation wouldnt repeatedly use that phrase and Nate’s liberal use of it makes him feel scripted which is perfect because he’s a liar using a script

62. Marilla giving Jerry an entire BASKET of pastries for his family

63. Never tell Rachel Lynde a secret

64. $150 PER GOLD TEST????

65. Fun facts from Matthew, most folks in Avonlea make about $300-$400 a year

66. Nate isn’t a great actor but mr Dunlop certainly is, mostly because he’s half genuinely

67. “You are a moral man.” :/ well

68. Anne immediately thinking of writing to Gilbert and being determined to find where he is

69. Anne almost cracking the code with the stamp and then getting distracted

70. “Does that sound romantical?” The- the manifest, not the letter to Gilbert-“

71. “Please let there be gold in Avonlea, so that there’s no more hardship for anyone. And please, please help me get my letter to Gilbert. And please be sure I don’t misspell any words! Amen.”

#anne with an e #renew awae #awae #anne shirley cuthbert #marilla cuthbert #mathew cuthbert #jerry baynard #gilbert blythe #diana barry #cole mackenzie #sebastian lacroix #bash lacroix

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botwstoriesandsuch · 4 years

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DEAR FISH FUCKERS, YOU’RE WELCOME

I’ve done what no other has done before (to my knowledge) and found the aging system for the Zora!

Ok so this started as simple research for this ask

See, I misread the phrasing of “best educated guess” to “research for 2 hours and come to a conclusive answer” so anyhow before I indulge you into the answers of the universe allow me to explain the research I’ve come across

[TL;DR at the bottom]

So firstly, we have to look at our conclusive evidence, from which we’ll base our theory/headcanon on, which can mainly be found in the Creating a Champion book, and some dialogue in game. I’ve compiled them all in these bullets here

Zora children are around 20ish years old [as said by dialogue with Finley in her love letter sidequest, I don’t have a screenshot but please just take my word for it]

150ish is considered middle-aged for Zora

Muzu is around 4 centuries old

Curved claws, weathered fins, and worn noses are signs of an older Zora that is more than 3 centuries(ish) old

Zora that were friends with Link must be around 150ish (not just 100), since you need to also account for the 20+ years of growing from a child stage, to the more normal sized form that you see them in the game, ergo, it’s that age plus the 100 years stasis that we determine the “middle age” of around 150

150 is the middle age, double that for the average old age of 300 years, but I say it could go to 400 too for additional reasons I’ll explain later with examples with my final age system. Anyhow, Muzu is around 400 if you take the 100 years for actually growing up from childhood, additional 100+ years of holding a different job as I doubt you just straight out hire a councilman without experience, and then another century for where he first started working in in the council, training Mipha, which would overlap with the period of the pre and post Great Calamity and Link’s return, meaning that’s 3 centuries plus 50ish years if we’re being generous with the overlap. This would help line up with the “for over a century” line as that doesn’t quite mean 2 centuries of working in the council, but Muzu is definitely getting up there to 4 centuries for his age alone

Now, I thought, this was gonna be my breakthrough, this screenshot here, depicting the traits of the older Zora. The elderly Zora are probably around 3 centuries old (since King Dorephan said they were young men around Mipha’s time, 150ish+100 gives us the range of 250-300), so I was like “Oh l can look at the size of their fins and noses and head/tail things and find a more efficient way to find their age” but nOPE. There is very little variation in that ballpark, the Zora either have exaggerated weathered noses or nice and shiny fins and no in between. The size of their head fins are roughly the same, with again, the only exaggerated differences being with the King and Sidon which doesn’t help at all because the Royal Zora already have a bunch of other difference such as their SIZE to name one.

I even went to the part about their curved toes, which initially would line up with some other Zora like Muzu

And let me tell you

I’ve looked at their toes

This is them from a child, a middle-aged, and an elderly. Color doesn’t matter and the curve? Well there’s

BARELY A DIFFERENCE

At least not nearly enough to find an efficient way to find age. Even Muzu’s final model didn’t have the exaggerated curvature as seen in the book.

I looked at their tail tail fins, (not the tail on their head, but their actual small rounded tail fin by their butts) because the book also mentioned how the grown Zora have more pronounced tail fins compared to the kids, but it was the same for the 150s and the 300s sooo not that helpful

So I kept digging. In the book I found that King Dorephan was crowned around 100 years before the game started. In addition I reread the 10 Zora stone monuments and found that he had killed a Guardian with his bare hands and thrown it off a cliff, which he still had a scar from.

[and yes I attempted to find his definitive age by seeing how long it takes for a scar to fade but I gave up cause Zora anatomy is too different to find a conclusive answer]

So I was like, “ok Dorephan had to have been around 150 when he came to the throne, then 50 years later the guardians are excavated giving way to the story about the guardian...” blah blah blahbla I even went to the supposed site where that guardian was, but it all didn’t really give me that much more info than what I already knew. I was researching ways to age the rock monuments from visuals alone which needless to say is pretty impossible, so I gave up on finding Dorephan’s age and I kept digging.

All I wanted was something physical that could properly give way to identifying a Zora’s age was that too much to ask???

Now this is where I had all but given up, it seems that my only answer was this vague note about how their fins move up when they grow

Which, to be fair, held true when I looked at the in-game character models myself, but I can’t exactly pixel measure these things for each Zora.

But THAT’S where the revelation came. I was so focused on finding inconsistencies within the elderly Zora, when I should have been looking at the young baby ones. See, this pictures, literally right next to the page about elderly Zora that I was analyzing for ages, is the key to it all

Now, I was thinking about the rings on a tree, and certain species of banded fish that grow and discard different markings as they grow older, I even counted the neck rings on certain Zora to see if they did that thing where they add a ring for each birthday like some African and Asian cultures do (look it up, that stuff’s pretty interesting!) and that is where it struck me.

Count how many luminescent markings are on their head

The males have 11, the females have 8 (on the one side, the other side has the same number of dots but for simplicity purposes I’m doing one side)

Now let’s count for these Zoras, who are middle aged-ish

The male has 10, the female has 7.

Now let’s look at the oldest Zora that we know of

3 dots above the eye, four on the tail. Muzu that motherfucker has 7 damn dots and I couldn’t be happier.

MY DUDES, GALS, AND PALS THIS IS IT, I’VE CHECKED AND DOUBLE CHECKED WITH NEARLY EVERY ZORA I COULD AND THE NUMBER OF LUMINESCENT MARKINGS ON THEIR HEAD CORRESPONDS WITH THE AMOUNT OF CENTURIES THEY’VE LIVED, LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY DOWN TO THE DOT

First we have Muzu, who as I’ve preciously stated is around 4 centuries old. 11-4? Oh, it’s seven, and that’s the amount of markings he has? OOoo??

How about this Zora Lady who recognized Link from 100 years ago?

Seven dots? 8-7 is 1 so shes just over one century which lines up timeline wise. You can even see how the third dot is slowing shrinking on her head so she’s coming up on 2 centuries

Ok how about the elders?

NINE. 11-9 is 2 centuries, with again, the dot by their head shrinking significantly showing how they’re getting up on 3 centuries.

The part I circled in green there is jewelry, not a marking, however this only goes further to prove my point. What better way to appear youthful than to have jewelry that makes it look like you have more markings than you have, made with luminous stone, no less.

This guy? Seggin? Super close to 4 centuries, those dots are fading away fast. Count your days old timer

Random dude that doesn’t recognize Link but is an new apprentice for sculpture making? 10 dots, a fresh 1 century pal, lookin young

I was a feral child running across the Domain screaming people’s ages in their face like a rude, naive, brat, I was elated to say the least. Especially since this system even works on the King himself

[plus one dot slightly behind the fin here...]

King Dorephan has 7 dots, he’s 400 years old. Which still lines up timeline wise, especially since he’s similar age with Muzu who he has stated is one of his most trusted advisors, beecaaaaaaaause of the years they’ve spent working together the timelines match uppppppp

This system works for almost all Zora, with 2 exceptions. Guards have helmets that cover their markings, so it’s impossible to tell. In addition, Prince Sidon, has sixteen lights on this hammerhead because he’s fancy like that (we already know he’s canonically 2ish centuries old anyhow from the DLC)

EDIT: I WAS WRONG THIS WORKS FOR SIDON TOO. The sixteen markings I was referring to was actually the amount of marking on each side of the head total, however if we look at the markings for only one side, like intended

Ten dots, Sidon’s over 100 years old. I’d say he’s closer to 150 given the timeline

Essentially, the most surefire way to find almost any Zora’s age is to identify a male or female Zora, count the number of lights on the side of their head/tail thing, then subtract from 11 if they’re a male, and from 8 for a female. The number left is how many centuries they’ve lived. You can check to see if their markings are shrinking and fading to get a sense if they’re coming up on the next century anytime soon. Comparing this with the oldest Zora we see in game, we can conclusively say that the Zora lifespan is around 3 to 4 centuries since no Zora has been seen with less than seven markings

Now go and make your Zora ocs with your appropriate number of lights. I’m gonna have a cookie

#botw #breath of the wild #legend of zelda botw #loz botw #zora #zora botw #botw theory #botw headcanon #no fuck that this IS canon

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hypnote · 2 years

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List of weirdest deaths I've seen in media

Number 13 will surprise you!! (Also spoiler warning!!)

1. Incredibles - Syndrome is pulled into a turbine by his !cape! and his airplane explodes

3. Raiders of the Lost Ark - The Nazis' faces melt from staring at the Ark of the Covenant

4. Mission Impossible Fallout - Superman actor plays a guy who gets corrosive aircraft hydraulic fluid on his face and then a cable hook attached to a falling helicopter impales his face and drags him down a cliff

5. Star Wars - Palpatine's Deaths 2, Electric Boogaloo

6. The Kingdom (Book - it's pretty cool it's like Westworld in Disneyland) - A scientist's throat gets the slicey slice from a princess tiara

7. Lupin III - Rich guy dies from getting crushed by two giant clock hands as the clock strikes midnight

8. Pacific Rim: The Black (TV) - Walkie-talkie explosion

9. Coco - Homicidal dead musician gets smushed by the bell

10. Pacific Rim - Dead baby monster comes back to life and snacks on cocky organ harvester (he doesn't really die but still)

11. FNAF (video games) - Several children are shoved into death trap animatronic suits by disturbed pizzeria owner 12. Jurassic Park - Business guy hiding in toilet stall gets chomped in half by a T-Rex

13. Who's Lila (video game) - In an effort to create memes that can help the world, a scientist and his test group [read: cult] accidentally unleash a primordial character archetype goddess [read: sentient meme worshipped by cult] that takes over their beings and warps their sense of self [read: gets jealous of the teenager she's based on and murders her]

14. Annihilation (film): Ripped to shreds by bear-wolf that then imitates voice of deceased to lure more friends; Turned into plant sculpture; Consumed by metallic alien rainbow

#list #weird list #weird deaths #weird #film #books #animated film #miscellaneous #disney #pacific rim #star wars #video games #mission impossible #the kingdom #fridge horror #theyre not weird until you think about them like dang

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seatownpublishing · 3 years

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Annotated bibliography...a writing and researching tool

Starting off annotating some sources I’ve already read. An annotated bib entry consists of citation and annotation. Obviously I’m gonna do a toned down, informal version of it because there’s a considerable criteria (100-300 words, summary, source’s strengths and weaknesses, conclusions, relevance, relationship to other studies in the field, evaluation of the research methodology, author’s background, personal conclusions). Yes, I am using MLA. Don’t hate me LOL.

Allison, R. J. The Coastal Landforms of West Dorset. London: Geologists' Association, 1992. Print.

What it says on the tin. This slim volume is a comprehensive survey of the geomorphology of the Dorset coast of England. While it is a scientific work, there is no conclusion; it’s basically just reference. As my novel is centered around landscape it’s important that I know what every part of the beach and cliffs are called. Robert Allison has his own wiki page. Earned a Ph.D. in Geography from King's College London and a CBE this year, list of creds as long as your arm, so he’s legit. Generally, this is a must-have volume for understanding how the landscape was formed and how it’s changed.

Muriel A. Arber, The Coastal Landslips of West Dorset, Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, Volume 52, Issue 3, 1941, Pages 273-IN10, ISSN 0016-7878, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7878(41)80010-8.

This is a gem of a pamphlet. The geologist I’m in contact with sent me a PDF and it’s so useful. Arber (1913-2004) was a well-loved geologist who drew from her education and traditional sources as well. It’s the same kind of source as Dr. Allison’s but with a more relevant historical placement, as she wrote this in the 1940s and my book is set in the 1920s. One of the best things I found in here is the etymology of a particular cliff name.

Darton, F. J. H. The Soul of Dorset. Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1922.

I’ve gotten a lot of good out of this one. It’s written around the period I’m writing in, so it gives me some great context. Darton was an author, publisher, and historian of children's literature. He wrote with great passion about Dorset and the places I know which is something to aspire to. I’m not sure about his methodology, but I’m certain it he was an intrepid and determined researcher whose travels likely contributed to his death. While not a technical or scientific guide, his work captures what it’s like to actually be at one with the landscape.

Myers, Charles S. “A Contribution to the Study of Shell Shock.” The Lancet, vol. 185, no. 4772, 1915, pp. 316–320., doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(00)52916-x.

This is tough to read. Renowned English physician Charles Myers did not invent the term “shell shock” but he was the first to write an academic paper on the condition in The Lancet in 1915. He was instrumental in advocating for the traumatized soldier and fought against much opposition within the medical field. My main character has PTSD so understanding it in the context of war, and more importantly in the context of war-time and immediately post-war scholarship is vital as the characters would not have a modern understanding of PTSD. Also important is historically accurate word usage and attitudes.

These are my main sources so far but I also have others I need to read and a whole pile of what is referred to as “works consulted.” Many professors are against the use of works consulted as they find it superfluous and go by the logic that if you don’t cite something in an academic work it need not be included in the bibliography. While that’s a fair point, in the context of a novel as opposed to an academic paper I feel that a works consulted is somewhat useful and necessary to "covering all my bases” when it comes to understanding an historical era.

#research #my writing #historical fiction #annotated bibliography

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