#Recurring phrases imagery and such. And foreshadowing.

[novlr]

I'm currently writing a story where, in the beginning, I want to show something almost like a montage of my character doing the same thing day after day, longing for change.

I know in a cinematic format, I'd show that as a montage (as previously stated) where he's actively shown getting more tired and drained.

Do you have any advice on how to put that into a writing format?

Montages shine brightest during periods of character transformation, whether that’s showing a protagonist developing a new skill, learning hard lessons, or growing into a different person entirely. Other uses that aren’t character related might be showing world-changing events in your story’s world, or simply showing that time has passed between scenes. They are, however, particularly effective when establishing the growth of relationships, showing long journeys or transitions, or highlighting parallel events and themes that echo throughout your story.

Essential elements for an effective montage

Thematic consistency

Maintain a clear through-line that connects all scenes

Focus on a single character trait or story element

Use recurring symbols or motifs

Ensure each scene builds upon the previous one

Keep the emotional tone consistent

Choose scenes that reflect your story’s broader themes

Link scenes with transitional phrases or imagery

Structural Components

Have a strong opening scene that establishes the montage’s purpose

Give clear transitions between scenes

Create a natural progression from start to finish

Have varied scene lengths for rhythm and pacing

End on a powerful closing scene that shows clear progression

Sensory details

Include vivid imagery that engages multiple senses

Use specific details that anchor each scene

Create emotional connection through carefully chosen descriptions

Balance showing versus telling

Descriptively show the passage of time alongside changes in character and setting

Techniques for writing montages

Identify the primary purpose of your montage

Choose scenes that show significant change or progress

Include contrasting moments for dramatic effect

Focus on key emotional beats

Eliminate redundant or unnecessary scenes

Use active verbs to maintain momentum

Keep descriptions concise but impactful

Vary sentence structure for rhythm

Incorporate time markers naturally

Use time-based phrases to connect scenes

Create thematic links between sections

Tips for writing the passage of time

Time is a crucial element in writing a montage. From linear progression to flashbacks and foreshadowing, it gives you complete control of how it will unfold.

Here are some tips to write the passage of time:

Use the natural world

Describe the changing seasons

Show plant growth and death

Visualise the ebb and flow of tides

Describe the decomposition of flora and fauna

Describe how landscapes change on long journeys

Use the weather to illustrate time jumps

Illustrate the effect that shifting shadows have on a location

Use heavenly bodies like stars, the rise and set of the sun, and phases of the moon

Describe physical activities

Show family gatherings and how they change over the years

Describe the process of finishing a creative pursuit

Create repetitive activities and routines

Have a character engage in an activity, like gardening, that visually changes the landscape

Have your characters learn a new skill

Write a change in location that requires a journey to get from point A to point B

Use your setting’s seasonal celebrations to illustrate a time shift for individual characters and their world

Use sound

Describe the ticking of clocks

Have your characters’ voice change with their age

Illustrate changing musical styles

Have your characters improve an audible skill like singing, swordplay, or learning a musical instrument

Show a character’s conversational style changing as they grow

Use the sounds of nature, like leaves becoming brittle as they crunch underfoot, or rain turning into storms

Use silence to illustrate it getting late

Describe objects

Have food left out go mouldy

Illustrate buildings and settings being overtaken by nature

Show the lifecycle of a family heirloom

Describe textiles fading and degrading over time

Describe the freshness of paint; is it wet and glistening, or cracked and dry?

Illustrate technological change and advancement

Describe the repairs in a beloved object

Show a common object like a pencil to describe how it changes with use

Common pitfalls to avoid when writing a montage

Don’t make scenes too detailed or long

Don’t include unnecessary dialogue — most montages won’t include any dialogue at all, so if you do include it, make sure it serves a very clear purpose

Don’t lose focus on the main theme that your montage is serving

Avoid choppy or jarring transitions

Don’t include irrelevant scenes. It’s far too easy to over-describe, so with a montage, you need to do a lot of self-editing to keep it from being overlong

Always show progression. Whatever purpose your montage serves, there should be a clear difference from how it begins to how it ends

Don’t over-explain changes. Trust your readers to put things together on their own

Experimental approaches

Not all montages need to be written out as narrative scenes. There are lots of different techniques you can try to write an effective montage. Here are some that can work really well:

Diary or journal entries

Letters or emails

Social media posts

News headlines or articles

The passage of time seen from multiple points of view

Reversing the chronology

Parallel character developments

Some writing exercises

Write a short piece showing a character learning a new skill over time

Write a brief sequence showing seasonal changes

Develop a relationship from start to finish showing its most important moments

Try your hand a writing a montage using unconventional time markers. This is also a good exercise for non-linear storytelling!

The key to a successful montage lies in its ability to efficiently show change while keeping readers engaged. The best montages feel natural and seamless while effectively moving your story forward. All it takes is practice and attention to detail!

[focr]

"He lifted me up from the pit of despair, out of the miry clay; He set my feet upon a rock and made my footsteps firm." Psalm 40:2

The 'pit of despair' can be understood as a deep, dark place of hopelessness, akin to a cistern or dungeon, which were often used as prisons in ancient times (Gen. 37:24, Jer. 38:6). The imagery suggests a situation from which one can not escape without divine intervention. This deliverance is a recurring theme in the Psalms, where God is often depicted as a rescuer (103:4). This can be seen as a type of Christ's redemptive work, lifting humanity from the depths of sin and death.

'Miry clay' suggests slippery and unstable ground, and its use here emphasizes the difficulty of finding firm footing. Spiritually, it represents the entanglements of sin and the world's troubles, from which only God can deliver. This deliverance foreshadows the stability and security found in Christ, who is the solid foundation (1 Co. 3:11).

The 'rock' symbolizes strength, stability, and security. Spiritually, the rock is a metaphor for God's unchanging nature and faithfulness. In the New Testament, Christ is referred to as the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20), the foundation upon which believers stand firm. This phrase underscores the transformation from instability to security through divine intervention.

'And made my footsteps firm' indicates a transition to a secure and directed path. Walking often symbolizes one's life journey or conduct (Pro. 3:5-6). The firm footsteps suggest guidance and assurance in one's life path, provided by God. This assurance is echoed in other scriptures, such as Psalm 37:23, where the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. It points to the sanctifying work of God in a believer's life, ensuring that their journey is aligned with His will, much like the guidance provided by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament (Gal. 5:16).

~ Study Bible

[stridingseer]

🥺 ❌ 🛒🎯🧐 for the emoji ask (any or all)

Thank you so much for the ask!!

🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

So lately I've written a lot of Inception (2010) fic - do check out the movie, it's still fantastic. And one recurring moment that I always adore writing between Eames and Robert Fischer is their first interactions. It usually plays out with the same beats: they meet, mention something about the plot OR each other, Eames introduces himself before calling Robert by his surname, then Robert corrects him by saying that he prefers his first name. Really small moment but it's also key in a way where Robert begins his journey away from his father and establishing his identity over time. Love writing it every time and it's such a joy to write.

❌ What's a trope you will never write?

Cheating. It's one trope I draw the hard line for because I am just not a fan of writing it. I will read it though. Everything else is on the table and I can be persuaded to write it.

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

If I could count the amount of times I force characters to deal with grief, and their identity. I would have so many pennies. Similarly, one metaphor that I keep on using is the idea of a phrase being thrown at a person like a knife. As for imagery, red is blood. For the most part. All of my blorbos are traumatized so I guess it checks out lol

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

For my current spiderverse fic, sort of. A reader DID predict that the main couple was going to get together soon but I don't think anyone's quite seen the Big Twist coming at the end - it's been foreshadowed here and there. The main thing is that the tag: Pre-Canon should be enough of a heads up as well as 'Canon Compliant' to know how it ends. But hey! At least the characters ARE getting together after 10+ chapters of sheer pining, misery and comedy.

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

I have uh, notoriously gone on long hours of research... for a single line of dialogue or just a line in passing. So yeah I guess I do spend much time researching for my stories even if it means planning a hypothetical roadtrip even though I've never stayed in America for more than 2 weeks. Would rather do historical research than logistics if I'm being honest cuz at least then I have something to draw from while logistics have to also be IN character.

[perpetual-stories]

22 Essential Literary Devices and How to Use Them In Your Writing

hello, happy Monday. Hope you’re all having a wonderful day!

I will skip the pre-info and dive right into it.

What Is a Literary Device?

is a tool used by writers to hint at larger themes, ideas, and meaning in a story or piece of writing

The List of Literary Devices:

Allegory. Allegory is a literary device used to express large, complex ideas in an approachable manner. Allegory allows writers to create some distance between themselves and the issues they are discussing, especially when those issues are strong critiques of political or societal realities.

Allusion. An allusion is a popular literary device used to develop characters, frame storylines, and help create associations to well-known works. Allusions can reference anything from Victorian fairy tales and popular culture to the Bible and the Bard. Take the popular expression “Bah humbug”—an allusion that references Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol. The phrase, which is often used to express dissatisfaction, is associated with the tale’s curmudgeonly character, Ebenezer Scrooge.

Anachronism. Imagine reading a story about a caveman who microwaves his dinner, or watching a film adaptation of a Jane Austen novel in which the characters text each other instead of writing letters. These circumstances are examples of anachronisms, or an error in chronology—the kind that makes audiences raise their eyebrows or do a double-take. Sometimes anachronisms are true blunders; other times, they’re used intentionally to add humor or to comment on a specific time period in history.

Cliffhanger. It’s a familiar feeling: You’re on minute 59 of an hour-long television episode, and the protagonist is about to face the villain—and then episode cuts to black. Known as a cliffhanger, this plot device marks the end of a section of a narrative with the express purpose of keeping audiences engaged in the story.

Dramatic Irony. Remember the first time you read or watched Romeo and Juliet? The tragic ending of this iconic story exemplifies dramatic irony: The audience knows that the lovers are each alive, but neither of the lovers knows that the other is still alive. Each drinks their poison without knowing what the audience knows. Dramatic irony is used to great effect in literature, film, and television.

Extended Metaphor. Extended metaphors build evocative images into a piece of writing and make prose more emotionally resonant. Examples of extended metaphor can be found across all forms of poetry and prose. Learning to use extended metaphors in your own work will help you engage your readers and improve your writing.

Foreshadowing. At its core, storytelling has one ambition: to capture and sustain your reader’s attention and keep them reading your story. Foreshadowing, or slyly indicating a future event, is one technique a writer can use to create and build suspense.

Humor. Humor brings people together and has the power to transform how we think about the world. Of course, not everyone is adept at being funny—particularly in their writing. Making people laugh takes some skill and finesse, and, because so much relies on instinct, is harder to teach than other techniques. However, all writers can benefit from learning more about how humor functions in writing.

Imagery. If you’ve practiced or studied creative writing, chances are you’ve encountered the expression “paint a picture with words.” In poetry and literature, this is known as imagery: the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience in the reader. When a poet uses descriptive language well, they play to the reader’s senses, providing them with sights, tastes, smells, sounds, internal and external feelings, and even deep emotion. The sensory details in imagery bring works to life.

Irony. Irony is an oft-misunderstood literary device that hinges on opposites: what things are on the surface, and what they end up actually being. Many learn about dramatic irony through works of theater like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet or Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex. When deployed with skill, irony is a powerful tool that adds depth and substance to a piece of writing.

Metaphor, Simile, and Analogy. Metaphors, similes, and analogies are three techniques used in speech and writing to make comparisons. Each is used in a different way, and differentiating between the three can get a little tricky: For example, a simile is actually a subcategory of metaphor, which means all similes are metaphors, but not all metaphors are similes. Knowing the similarities and differences between metaphor, simile, and analogy can help you identify which is best to use in any scenario and help make your writing stronger.

Motif. A motif is a repeated element that has symbolic significance to a story. Sometimes a motif is a recurring image. Sometimes it’s a repeated word or phrase or topic. A motif can be a recurrent situation or action. It can be a sound or a smell or a temperature or a color. The defining aspect is that a motif repeats, and through this repetition, a motif helps to illuminate the central ideas, themes, and deeper meaning of the story in which it appears.

Motif vs. Symbol. Both motifs and symbols are used across artistic mediums: Painters, sculptors, playwrights, and musicians all use motifs and symbols in their respective art forms. And while they are similar literary terms, “motif” and “symbol” are not synonyms.

Oxymoron. An oxymoron is a figure of speech: a creative approach to language that plays with meaning and the use of words in a non-literal sense. This literary device combines words with contradictory definitions to coin a new word or phrase (think of the idiom “act naturally”—how can you be your natural self if you’re acting?). The incongruity of the resulting statement allows writers to play with language and meaning.

Paradox. “This sentence is a lie.” This self-referential statement is an example of a paradox—a contradiction that questions logic. In literature, paradoxes can elicit humor, illustrate themes, and provoke readers to think critically.

Personification. In writing, figurative language—using words to convey a different meaning outside the literal one—helps writers express themselves in more creative ways. One popular type of figurative language is personification: assigning human attributes to a non-human entity or inanimate object in an effort to express a point or idea in a more colorful, imaginative way.

Satire. Satire is so prevalent in pop culture that most of us are already very familiar with it, even if we don’t always realize it. Satire is an often-humorous way of poking fun at the powers that be. Sometimes, it is created with the goal to drive social change. Satire can be part of any work of culture, art, or entertainment—it has a long history, and it is as relevant today as it was in ancient Rome.

Situational Irony. Irony: it’s clear as mud. Theorists quibble about the margins of what constitutes irony, but situational irony is all around us—from humorous news headlines to the shock twists in a book or TV show. This type of irony is all about the gap between our expectations and reality, and it can make a memorable and powerful impression when we encounter it.

Suspense. No matter what type of story you’re telling, suspense is a valuable tool for keeping a reader’s attention and interest. Building suspense involves withholding information and raising key questions that pique readers’ curiosity. Character development plays a big role in generating suspense; for example, if a character’s desire is not fulfilled by the end of the book, the story will not feel complete for the reader.

Symbolism. An object, concept, or word does not have to be limited to a single meaning. When you see red roses growing in a garden, what comes to mind? Perhaps you think literally about the rose—about its petals, stem, and thorns, or even about its stamen and pistil as a botanist might. But perhaps your mind goes elsewhere and starts thinking about topics like romance, courtship, and Valentine’s Day. Why would you do this? The reason, of course, is that over the course of many generations, a rose’s symbolic meaning has evolved to include amorous concepts.

Verisimilitude. Verisimilitude (pronounced ve-ri-si-mi-li-tude) is a theoretical concept that determines the semblance of truth in an assertion or hypothesis. It is also an essential tenet of fiction writing. Verisimilitude helps to encourage a reader’s willing suspension of disbelief. When using verisimilitude in writing, the goal is to be credible and convincing.

Vignette. A writer’s job is to engage readers through words. Vignettes—poetic slices-of-life—are a literary device that brings us deeper into a story. Vignettes step away from the action momentarily to zoom in for a closer examination of a particular character, concept, or place. Writers use vignettes to shed light on something that wouldn’t be visible in the story’s main plot.

I’ll make a post going into each of them individually in more detail later on!

Like, reblog and comment if you find this useful! If you share on Instagram tag me perpetualstories

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[threewaysdivided]

Some more things:

It's easy to miss stuff that you're not looking for. Start foreshadowing early - before the point where most of the audience would pick up on your story's trajectory or start asking the main question. Let incidental foreshadowing details become "a part of the background" that the audience is desensitized to, which they will only recognise as important when they look back with fresh eyes.

Keep the audience looking elsewhere. Hide foreshadowing for the long-term story beside information that is relevant to a more immediate problem, beside other things that are more visually interesting/ unusual, or in the background of an attention-grabbing interaction.

Bury the lede. Conceal important clues/ objects/ dialogue/ information inside lists of less-important information, observations, conversations or character/ setting descriptions. (This will be more effective if your style already has a precedent for using incidental description to flesh out your story/ scenery, otherwise the sudden appearance of description when you try to hide things might become a tell in and of itself).

Use repetition and/or consistent imagery to reinforce recurring details. Developing a "signature description" or set of descriptions for specific clues or characters can let you subtly identify them and/or establish an identifiable pattern without having to actively call attention to it. For example, if you set up association between a specific feature (e.g. hair colour/style, their profile, a signature piece of clothing) and a specific character, then mentioning that feature in a crowd scene can subtly signal to the audience that they are also present. Alternatively you might use a specific phrase/word as a unique identifier for a particular clue - a repetition that the audience may unconsciously feel before actively noticing.

Your cast isn't a hive-mind. Use rotating perspectives to give your audience a head start on finding patterns in recurring details that each perspective character only personally encounters once or twice.

Context and purpose can give things multiple meanings. Characters can come to a situation with different goals, priorities and/or background information, which can change how they (and through them, the audience) interpret events/ details or what they think a conversation is about. It's possible for characters to have a superficially coherent conversation where they each think they're talking about a different topic, or - in less extreme cases - for one character to be talking about two things at once/ using one topic metaphorically/ trying to leave hints that are missed by the other character being hyper-literal or focused on only one subject. This is one of the tricks you can use to hide and direct attention away from foreshadowing, or have have information pull double duty in being useful now and set-up for later.

Once people have a solution they don't look as hard for other ones. You can use context and red-herrings to feed the audience a partial answer or direct them towards a reasonable but incorrect inference, while continuing to hide other details that support a "true reveal" to come later.

Small things can echo later bigger things. Your protagonist(s) might solve (or witness the solving of) a small/ low-stakes problem in a way that goes on to mirror (or even inspire) the strategy they will use to solve a larger, higher-stakes problem later. Alternatively, they might run into unexpected problems by not noticing a flaw in their strategy, only to turn that flaw against an opponent in a later strategy.

Of course all of this only works if you...

Know what you're building your foreshadowing towards. This is especially important if you're actively using mystery elements. A lot of criticism has been leveled at the "mystery box" approach to writing and much of it is fair - if you start throwing out foreshadowing without knowing what you're pointing towards, you risk ending up with a collection of pieces that seem intriguing in isolation but fail to cohere into something that makes satisfying sense; indirectly punishing audience members who were trying to piece things together by basically wasting their time. No-one likes being made to feel like a chump for getting invested. For planner-writers this means planning at least as far as the resolution of the current arc and the broad strokes of your final endpoint if this is a multi-arc story. For panster-writers it means editing your draft so that the second version supports the ending and reveals you have found, and to remove excess foreshadowing for paths your story didn't end up taking.

(I've done a post series about outlining, "story bibles" and storybuilding/ structural editing/outlining tools if you're interested in learning more).

subtle ways to include foreshadowing

one character knowing something offhandedly that they shouldn't, isn't addressed until later

the crow rhyme

colours!! esp if like, blue is evil in your world and the mc's best friend is always noted to wear blue...betrayal?

write with the ending in mind

use patterns from tragic past events to warn of the future

keep the characters distracted! run it in the background until the grand reveal

WEATHER.

do some research into Chekhov's gun

mention something that the mc dismisses over and over

KEEP TRACK OF WHAT YOU PUT. don't leave things hanging.

unreliable characters giving information that turn out to be true

flowers and names with meanings

anything with meanings actually

metaphors. if one character describes another as "a real demon" and the other turns out to be the bad guy, you're kind of like...ohhh yeahhh

anyways add anything else in the tags

[orionsangel86]

12x20 - Holy Narrative Mirrors Batman!

In the middle of taking ages to write another hand meta (yes I’m back to that guys) this episode aired and therefore I am here to bring you my review of 12x20 and all the emotions that brought to the table.

Firstly, important things to address: I am PISSED that two POC women were killed this episode. I don’t really care that Alesha was brought back as a Twig puppet monster (my nickname for those creatures) because it was still two violent POC deaths shown on screen. Must we really keep seeing this on this show? After Billy? I know that SPN needs to keep its death count high and I would NOT want them to kill off Max when he is our only canon recurring queer character on the show atm either (not including Dean still hidden away in Narnia) but I’m still pissed off about it. I also didn’t like the fact that they showed the old witch’s immediate dislike of Tasha being a racist thing either. Yes I know she’s an evil witch but really spn? Racism and then have that same racist old hag KILL the poc lady? Nice going.

Anyway, that is my rant on that. So ya’ll know it pissed me off. This is a just fandom blog and I wanna keep it positive bearing in mind I actually loved this episode but it needed to be addressed.

I did love this episode, even if I am getting a meta headache over all the narrative mirrors they showed us and went to extensive lengths to portray. I feel I need to outline them all clearly so without further rambling here they are:

Max is Dean and Alesha is Sam

This one is pretty obvious. They went to great lengths to show this including adding a blast from the far past in the ‘THEN’ section by showing us the Pilot episodes baby dean (how high and young his voice was!) saying the classic phrase “Dad’s on a hunting trip and hasn’t been home in a few days”. To say that the Banes’ story then mirrors the first two seasons of the show would be highly accurate.

Max is shown to be the loud, flirtatious, overly confident sibling with his boisterous attitude and charisma. Unlike Dean however he is ‘out and proud’… Oh Dean… please find your way out of Narnia this season.

Alesha is the sibling who rolls her eyes over her brothers antics, and feels more like an outsider in the family, based on this conversation with Sam:

“He always thinks he knows mum better, because they’re both natural witches, it’s who they are”

“When I was growing up Dean and my dad had the same thing with hunting, that bond”.

This pretty much drums the mirror home, but later we are shown just how similar Dean and Max are by how Max takes the deal and brings his sister back (though perhaps not quite in the same way) and sells his soul for her, because like Dean, he is unable to go on without his sibling.

This is the main narrative mirror in place, with the siblings shown to be kinda co-dependent and willing to sacrifice for each other. It also really helps our bi!dean reading that he is yet again being mirrored with a queer man. Yay for Steve Yokey really pushing that parallel.

more under the cut...

Max is Sam and Alesha is Dean

However there is a less obvious mirror between the siblings the other way around, it isn’t as strong as above but it is still there in the way that Alesha was the one to first be worrying about their mother, she was the one who wanted to drag the Winchesters in it, and she was the one trying to find out what was going on whereas Max was more concerned about his date (aka Sam being more concerned about getting back to his exams and Jess). All this subtle narrative mirror shows is that it goes both way between the brothers, the mirrors are not so clear cut because like this season in general, things can always go either way, including down an unexpected path.

Sam has also sacrificed himself for Dean, and for the world. He is also willing to do terrible things to save his brother’s life. He is also like Max and totally capable of making terrible decisions (as season 10 showed us all too well).

Tasha as John Winchester

This one is obvious when you consider the original plot of SPN “Dad’s on a hunting trip…” “their mom is on a hunting trip and hasn’t been home in a week”. Tasha here though, is the John that the Winchesters never had. The Banes are how the Winchesters could have been had John not spiralled down in grief and drink and abuse. As Dean says “Watching them, this loving family, the kind we should have had” (it also brings up a point that if John had been there and been caring and considerate of his sons perhaps Dean would have ended up more like Max – as in completely unashamed of his sexuality and out and proud about it including in front of his parent : “We’re gonna have some… guy time” indeed.)

Tasha as Mary Winchester

Kinda obvious in that she is their mom, but also that she went off hunting alone and got herself turned into a twig monster. Now the twig monster symbolism works well for both Mary and Cas and I’ll get to him in a bit but first I need to talk about how this could be bad foreshadowing for Mary. We already know she ends this episode in a very sticky situation, just like Tasha was. Tasha was offered a deal and refused to take it, now that Mary is trapped and potentially gonna be tortured by the BMOL, what kind of deal are they likely to offer her? What will happen to her if she doesn’t take it? Will she also possibly loose her heart?

Tasha as Castiel

This one is probably less obvious, but I wanted to mention it because of the imagery at the start of the episode.

Brown Jacket, Blue shirt. Could be a coincidence but then with everything else I don’t think it is…. Also…

Look what rug turned up again…

Plus the difference in glowing eyes this episode just seems to me to be a big call back to last episode where there was so much emphasis on the eyes. Tasha’s natural magic makes her eyes glow purple (very similar to Cas’s blue)

Whereas the twig monsters eyes glow white when under control of the witch:

There isn’t much of a difference from blue to purple and yellow to white…

And her glowing pendant just reminds me of Cas’s grace in the vial that Metatron kept hidden

So why is Tasha a Cas mirror? Because she is trying to go it alone without her family to stop of the witch? Gets caught up in a power she can’t defeat and gets used by that power. That the witch saw something in her enough to try to deal with her, but Tasha fought, she said no, and it cost her her life. Both Mary and Cas took the metaphorical deal. Both lost their way, lost their souls AND their hearts when you consider what Cas is potentially losing in the Winchesters if he continues down this current path, and what Mary has lost by choosing the BMOL over her sons.

The Twig Puppet Monsters as mirrors for Cas

I mentioned this briefly in this post, but I need to go into further detail. We have all been speculating since 12x19 as to what is wrong with Cas, and I think this episode answered it quite clearly in the mirror given to us here. The witch steals the heart of her victims, puts it into her puppets of twine and twig and recreates them perfectly, but under her control when she needs them. She takes out their emotional core. I think that this is a good explanation for what the Nephilim child did to Cas. It manipulated him using his heart – his desire to find a path, faith, a mission… it all comes down to his desire for love and to accept love into his life (all thing we have meta’d about before). The Nephilim used this against him, it used his heart to gain control.

I wasn’t 100 per cent sure on this mirror, or what Yokey was trying to tell us until that last scene, when Max brought back Alesha in twig puppet monster form. Puppet Alesha seemed to show care and concern for her brother, she seemingly knew nothing about what had happened to her. Same with puppet Tasha, she showed care to her kids and had that heartfelt talk with Dean. Why would a monster put in such effort to give advice and care? Even if trying to keep under the radar. I genuinely felt like the Tasha puppet didn’t realise what she was until Max forced her via magic to reveal herself.

As I mentioned in the linked post, what really brought this point home for me was the “are you hurt?” worry that Puppet Alesha showed? It was a direct parallel of Cas’s “your hurt” to Dean at the end of last episode. The moment at the end of 12x19 that really brought confusion to the whole ‘is Cas brainwashed again?’ theory. Cas was so delicate in the way he reached out and touched Dean to heal him. A moment caught so intimately on camera like so many shots from last episode. It showed the audience that however Cas was being controlled it wasn’t in the same way as Naomi, or Rowena with the attack dog spell, or Cas after the angels resetting him in season 4. Bobo was right when he said that this was different, that it wasn’t brainwashing as such.

Like the twig puppet monsters, Cas doesn’t realise he is under control, or that his decisions are not his own, because his heart is what is being used against him, showing him things “the Future” that make him think he is on a righteous path.

All this makes me think is that if it is Cas’s heart that used against him by the Nephilim then I am suddenly very excited as to how we will break him free of this spell.

This of course brings us to…

Destiel

How can I NOT talk about destiel in this episode! Oh Dean. We talk a lot about who carries the torch for destiel in each season, and how usually, unless Dean is carrying that torch destiel feels like it gets shoved into the background (throughout seasons 9 and 10 we didn’t get destiel from Dean very much at all). Now the torch is firmly in Dean’s hands and I feel for him so strongly.

After such a glorious Destiel heavy episode in 12x19, we would usually expect a few no homo moments in the following episode, or at least the odd trend in earlier seasons of Dean seemingly completely forgetting Cas once he disappeared again, however what we got instead was wonderful.

Our first shot of Dean after the cold open was of his hands, clutched in worry and very telling of his emotional state (I will continue to go on about shots of hands this season and how they express emotion)

Dean is talking about his concern over Cas to what appears to be a long suffering Sam (forever long suffering Sam).

“It sock puppetted him” he says in an interesting choice of words that only further drums home the Cas as a Twig Puppet Monster mirror.

What I love most about this scene is not Dean’s worry, but Sam’s calm and logical thinking. It is YET ANOTHER moment where the relationship between Dean and Cas and Sam and Cas is shown to be so very different. We have been seeing this difference continuously in the show since 11x14 and I can’t believe that we haven’t had a moment yet of Dean turning to Sam and saying “Why the hell aren’t you freaking out like I am?” only for Sam to give him classic bitchface no.25 before walking away and muttering under his breath what a lovestruck idiot Dean is.

He clearly brings up the colt to change the subject. Since it’s not mentioned again all episode.

When Alesha calls Sam jumps at the chance to go on a hunt, but Dean protests, and this is AGAIN something we don’t tend to see, and if we do, it’s because something is wrong with Cas, Dean doesn’t wanna do a regular hunt and instead focus on Cas, but Sam logic talks him into going (usually because Sam is fed up of Dean moping about his husband being missing and wants a distraction). “What about Cas?” Dean asks and I punch the air because I have been asking that SAME question now for YEARS and THANK YOU SHOW for making it something that is really being drummed home again…

*sips Cas hater tears*

We get this brilliant long logic talk from Sam about how they have already done everything they can to look for Cas and there is really nothing else to do at this stage and how the Banes’s need their help all while Dean is just giving him this bitchface until Sam just gives up, realises none of that is working, so he plays the family card “Their mom’s on a hunting trip, and hasn’t been home in a week.” And that’s what makes Dean give in. He always was one for tradition…

The fact that they gave us all this glorious Dean worry and protesting the hunt and everything I honestly thought would be enough but nope! They give us MORE.

Dean’s call to Mary just broke my heart. Jensen’s acting is SO emotional god I love him. It’s EVERYTHING about the way they wanted to put across Dean’s feelings in this moment. Lets just take a minute to really analyse this scene:

Dean paces in his worry.

Dean calls his MOM because he wants to talk to her.

It goes to voicemail and Dean’s face is visibly upset

“Some stuff going down, kinda got me spun out” In case we weren’t aware that this was about CAS already.

THE MUSIC SWELLS AND IS ROMANTIC AND SAD.

Jensen’s face is beautiful. I mean that we already know but just LOOK at him in this moment. He is so upset, so worried about Cas, so broken over what he must view as rejection. Urgh I can’t with these two.

Everything about this moment SCREAMS a heartbroken lover missing their partner/spouse and wanting to speak to their parent for consolation (where he wasn’t getting it from long suffering Sam). It is glorious.

*queue flashback to Dean telling Jody how Sam and him could have used some of that growing up after Jody mentions being there for the girls to talk about boyfriends etc*

Basically the amount of pining Dean we are getting this season is amazing and I love it.

Mary and Ketch

Moving on to the B Plot story of the episode, I liked the creep factor with Ketch and Mary, the way they bookended this part of the episode with Shifter!Mary and then Real Mary strapped to the chair, the fight when she punched him in the nuts with the knuckledusters (really Ketch you thought they WOULDN’T work on you just because they are meant for Angels?! Knuckledusters are STILL Knuckledusters dude) – Isn’t that a nice little point though about the BMOL’s narrow mindedness, they are completely unable to see beyond the black and white. Angel knuckledusters must ONLY be used for Angels, each item of equipment can only be used for its one single purpose and nothing else. This obvious differentiates Mary and the Winchesters because they are able to get creative with their weapons – just think back to 12x09 and Sam and Dean using that cabin in the woods to trick the army guys – they are able to adapt to their environment and it makes them far superior to the BMOL – I reckon this will come up again in the next two episodes as to how the Winchesters manage to beat the BMOL (because obviously they will beat them).

I don’t like how the other hunters the BMOL were focussed on were Claire, Garth and Eileen. It makes me nervous since next episode is bucklemming… someone is gonna die. The ‘old men’ in Britain were brought up again and I really do wonder if we will get to see them at all (I can’t help but imagine them as almost inhuman themselves – like the old doctor who harvested human part to gain unnatural longlife… either that or like something out of Mad Max Fury Road – the BMOL has GOT to have some super dark secret and I am really curious to find out what these ‘old men’ really are… though maybe just a bunch of old totally human Tory former public school boys in a secret society sipping Brandy and smoking cigars is actually far more horrifying than actual monsters because humans can be just as evil and nothing in Britain is as evil as old man Tory’s.)

At least Mary seems to finally realise that she needs to be there for Sam and Dean and be more of a mom to them. Perhaps we will see more of this in season 13 though the very fact that she has come to this realisation and left a hopeful voicemail to Dean says to me that something very bad is going to happen to her leaving it all too late. We shall just have to wait and see.

The Past and the Future

I know I have briefly mentioned this above, but I LOVE how this whole episode was basically a rewrite of the first two seasons. That obvious call back to the famous line, emphasised by the reminder in the “THEN” section. The Banes mom going missing, the kids looking for her only for her to die shortly before one sibling dies leaving the other to sell his soul to bring them back. The fact that in this very obvious rewrite Dean’s mirror is a queer man. The fact that this is a fantastic commentary on the Winchester co-dependency but with the Winchesters looking in from the outside and voicing their disapproval (though loved Dean’s honesty about that hypocrisy) making the audience AWARE of how bad it was, of how this is NOT something to be romanticised!

(Sometimes I feel like Dabb is waging war on the bibros and it makes me so happy I could kiss him)

The fact that we keep getting this nod to a ‘better way’ in the subtext, and okay, so Max didn’t take the better way (he actually got a worse deal than Dean did when he sold his soul for Sam) but the fact that this was portrayed as a TERRIBLE thing in this episode is proof that Dabb is moving away from this. However the season ends, I can’t see it ending with the toxic co-dependency still being in place, and it seems like we have finally broken this cycle of Winchester sacrifice for each other that seems to reach its climatic peak in the season 10 finale. Dabb is going out of his way to show how far the boys have come. The call backs to the earlier seasons only emphasise the difference, particularly in Dean, in this season. Dean is on a path of honesty and trust and communication, perhaps some of the other characters are still playing catch up to him, but as our POV character, this speaks volumes for the road the show is going down. I for one couldn’t be happier.

Finally

STOP GRENADE BAITING US!!

Seriously though, this chekovs grenade launcher is gonna go off by season end, and it will be Dean who fires it. Lets all cross our fingers that the resolution to this continuous grenade baiting will also come at the same time as a resolution to another kind of baiting that has been subtextually tied to the grenade launcher for a while now. We can but hope after all.

[hardtostudy]

lit4

Theory - Is interdisciplinary discourse (debate) with effects outside an original discipline - Is an analytical and speculative - Is a critique of common sense, of concepts taken as natural

Literature - Elusive term (always changing) - Modern sense of literature is 200 years old - Prior to 1800 literature was “memorized”, not interpreted - In fiction, the relation of what speakers say to what authors think is always a matter of interpretation 1. A body of writings in prose or verse 2. Imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value 3. The art of occupation of literary writer 4. The body of written work produced by scholars or researchers

Literariness of non-literary phenomena Qualities often thought to be literary turn out to be crucial to non-literary discourse and practise as well (history or historical narrative, everyday language???

Literature = Imaginative writing - The term literature seems best if we limit it to the art of literature, that is to imaginative literature - Non-imaginative writing employs logical abstraction Imaginative writing employs artistic images

Criteria for literature - Content - Considering aesthetic principles and semantic characteristics of language

Literature as the foregrounding of language - Literature is a speech act or textual event that elicits certain kinds of attention (rhyme, onomatopoeia sound, words we don’t use in normal conversation, …)

Functions: Mimetic Aesthetic Didactic Entertaining Social Ideological

Genre - Usually refers to one of the three classical literature forms of -- Fiction/prose/prose fiction/epic -- Poetry -- Drama

Text type Refers to highly conventional written document such as instruction manuals, sermons, obituaries, advertising text, catalogues and scientific or scholarly writing, …

Discourse - Usually learned discussion, spoken or written, on a philosophical, political, literary or religious topic. It´s closely related to a treatise and a dissertation - Is the broadest term, referring to a variety of written and oral manifestations which share common thematic or structural features. The boundaries of these terms are not fixed and vary depending on???

Literary scholarship DEVELOPMENT = literary history follows the historical development of literature from the earliest times to present INTERPRETATION = literary criticism analyses the content and form of creative literature, making use of the knowledge of literary theory and history. It addresses both, readers and writers. It employs aesthetic and formal criteria in the evaluation of literary works METHODS = literary theory studies the forms, categories, criteria, techniques, literary types, genre, language, composition, style and other relevant???

4 Major approaches to text TEXT – philology, rhetoric, formalism and structuralism, new criticism, semiotics and deconstruction AUTHOR – biographical criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, phenomenology READER – reception theory, reception history, reader-response criticism CONTEXT – literary history, Marxist literary theory, feminist literary history, new historicism and cultural studies

Literary canon - Term originally used for holy texts. Now it refers to the entirety of those literary texts which are considered to be the most important in literary history

Intertextuality - Literary text is not an isolated phenomenon, but is made up of a mosaic of quotations and that any text is the absorption and transformation of another

Connotation - The suggesting of a meaning by a word apart from the thing it explicitly names or describes (implied, associated meaning) Denotation - A direct specific meaning as distinct from an implied or associated idea

Style - Refers to the language conventions used to construct the story - A fiction writer can manipulate diction (choice of words), sentence structure, phrasing, and other aspects of language to create style - Might be formal, informal, minimalistic, richly detailed, descriptive, … - The communicative effect create by the author´s style can be referred as the story´s voice

Tone Refers to the attitude that the story creates toward its subject matter (dramatic, humorous, imperative…)

Image - Is a sensory impression used to create meaning in a story VISUAL IMAGERY = imagery of sight AURAL IMAGERY = imagery of sound OLFACTORY IMAGERY = imagery of smell TACTILE IMAGERY = imagery of touch GUSTATODY IMAGERY = imagery of taste

Symbolism - If an image in a story is used repeatedly and begins to carry multiple layers of meaning - Symbol indicates rather than explicates, it is indirect suggestion - Symbol is a term for “objects” in a literary text which transcend their material meaning - Symbol is one of the most characteristic means of artistic expression and is material for the construction of a myth. Symbol can be universal or culturally based - Symbol is a word (or a group of words) which stands for a meaning other than the literal or purely denotative - From Greek SYMBALLEIN = “to compare by throwing together” - Generally understood symbols are conventional/arbitrary/traditional

Allegory - A story, play or poem in which events and characters are used as symbols in order to express a moral, religious or political idea - Is a work of fiction in which the symbols, characters, and events come to represent, in a somewhat point-by-point fashion, a different metaphysical, political, or social situation - From Greek ALLÉGOREIN = “to talk differently, in images”

Fiction - Term to differentiate the literary prose genres of short story, novella, and novel from drama and poetry - In older secondary sources it is often used synonymously with “epic”

Fiction genres (development) EPIC – 7th century BC (Homer: Iliad, Odyssey) ROMANCE – 14th century (Sir Gawain and the Green knight) NOVEL – 17th century (Don Quixote)                18th century (Robinson Crusoe)

Novel Picaresque, bildungsroman, epistolary, historical, satirical, utopian, gothic, detective, …

Intermediate fiction Fablian (predecessor or a short story) Narrative in verse --Often comic --Implies criticism of the manners and morals --Based on folklore

Short story Simple plot, short time span, setting and numbers of characters are limited

Intermediate fiction Exemplum (moral anecdote) Idyll (epic poem with a pastoral theme – about nature) Legend (medieval epic genre with religious theme, in verse or prose, contains motifs of fantasy and miracle)

Minor fiction - Fable (short story typically with animals as characters, with moral lesson) - Parable (a simple story with a moral or religious purpose, especially one told by Jesus Christ) - Bestiary (compendium of animals) - Fairy tale (set in imaginary world, supernatural elements, fictional nature, stereotyped characters, with moral lesson) - Anecdote (short narrative depicting a real or imaginary event, humorous, witty, brief narration)

Between fiction and f ESSAY Emphasis on the individuality Subjective tone Highly individualized statements Primary concern is to report a fact however it employs devices of fiction, poetry or drama

PLOT = linear storytelling Exposition (introduction to the story, background of the story) Rising action/Complication Climax/Turning point Falling action Resolution/Denouement

Narrative voice/Point of view - 1st person point of view Singular (I) Plural (We) - 3rd person point of view Omniscient (present everywhere) Limited (without access to everywhere)

Plot - Is the logical interaction of the various thematic element of a text which lead to a change of the original situation as presented at the outset of the narrative - Logical combination of different elements of the action in a literary text - LINEAR – plot follows a chronological order of the events - UNLINEAR – plot follows a non-chronological order of events (drama of the absurd, experimental novel, modernist literature generally) - FLASHBACK – device in the structuring of plot which introduces events from the past in an otherwise linear narrative - FORESHADOWING - device in the structuring of plot which bring information from the future into the current action

Modest of presentation - Concerns the presentation of characters and events in a literary work - Explanatory characterization based on narrative (telling) - Dramatic characterization based on monologue or dialogue (showing) Characters - Figure presented in a literary text, including main or protagonist/antagonist and minor characters - Flat characters show only one dominant feature - Round characters are more complex, well-developed - Stock characters are recurring characters

Point of view (Narrative voice/Perspective) - the way in which characters, events and setting in a text are presented --- 1st person point of view --- OMNISCIENT – point of view describes the action from omniscient, god-like perspective by referring to the protagonist in the 3rd person ---- FIGURAL NARRATIVE SITUATION – point of view in which narrator moves into the background suggesting that the plot is revealed solely through the action of the characters

Stream of consciousness and interior monologue C. – is a narrative technique which is used to present the subconscious association of a fictitious person I.M. – is a narrative technique  in which a figure is exclusively characterized by his/her thoughts without any other comments

Setting - Dimension of literary texts including the time and place of the action. It´s usually carefully chosen by the author in order to support directly plot, characters and point of view - Denotes the location, historical period, and social surroundings in which the action of a text develops

Periods of English literature Old English (Anglo-Saxon period) – 5th -11th century Middle English period – 12th – 15th century Renaissance – 16th – 17th  century Neoclassical, Golden or Augustan age – 18th century Romantic period – 1st half of the 19th century Victorian age -2nd half of the 19th century Modernism – WWI - WWII Postmodernism – 1960´s -1970´s

Periods of English literature Colonial or Puritan age – 17th – 18th century Romantic period and transcendentalism – 1st half of the 19th century Realism and naturalism -2nd half of the 19th century Modernism – WWI - WWII Postmodernism – 1960´s -1970´s

Specification of poetry The oldest genre in literary history Origins in music (lyre/harp) From Greek Poieo (to make, to produce) Traditional attempts to define poetry juxtapose poetry with prose (limited) Verse, rhyme, meter Modern poetry / experimental poetry / free poetry / prose poems

Major categories Narrative poetry Lyric poetry

Poetic language Lexical-thematic dimension = DICTION, RHETORICAL FIGURES, THEME Visual dimension = FORM, STANZAS Rhythmic-acoustic dimension = RHYME, METER, ONOMATOPEIA

Traditional classification LYRIC POETRY - Plotlessness, subjectivity, reflexive, meditative - Ode (a song) - Ballad (a tragedy narrated in form of song) - Elegy (a funeral song) - Epitaph (life of a dead person) - Pastoral poem (bucolics) - Psalm - Romance (similar to ballad, love story)

EPIC POETRY - Composition of story in verse - Epic (long narrative poem) - Chronicle (historical event in verse) - Historical song - Ballad (both lyric and epic)

Meter - Is the rhythm established by a poem, and it´s usually dependent not only on the number of syllables in a line, but also on the way those syllables are accented - This rhythm is often described as a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables - The rhythmic unit is often describe as a foot; patterns of feet can be identified and labelled - A foot may be iambic, which follows a pattern of unstressed-stressed syllables - Stressed syllables are conventionally labelled with a “/“ mark Unstressed syllables are conventionally labelled with a “U“mark - 5 iambs or feet are called iambic pentameter

Basic feet (x stands for “/”) UX iamb (iambic) XU trochee (trochaic) XX spondee (spondaic) UU pyrrhic UUX anapaest (anapaestic) XUU dactyl (dactylic)

Line-Lengths Monometer (1 foot per line) Dimeter (2 feet per line) Trimeter (3 feet per line) Tetrameter (4 feet per line) Pentameter (5 feet per line) Hexameter (6 feet per line) Heptameter (7 feet per line) Octameter (8 feet per line)

Rhyme - The basic definition of rhyme is two words that sound alike - The most recognizable convention of poetry - Helps to unify a poem; it also repeats a sound that links one concept to another, thus helping to determine the structure of a poem - When 2 subsequent lines rhyme it is likely that they are thematically linked, or that the next set of rhymed lines signifies a slight departure - Rhyme works closely with meter in this regard - Especially in modern poetry, for which conventions aren’t as rigidly determined as they were during the English Renaissance or in the 18th century, rhyme can indicate a poetic theme or the willingness to structure a subject that seems otherwise chaotic

Varieties of rhyme INTERNAL RHYME – functions within a line of poetry (like assonance or alliteration) END RHYME – occurs at the end of the line and at the end of some other line, usually within the same stanza if not in subsequent lines EYE RHYME

Rhyme how rigid it is  how closely it conforms to a predetermined rhyme scheme what function it serves

Basic elements of poetry What is the subject of the poem, what is it apparently about? What is the poem´s THEME, what is it about at a deeper level, important ideas? What mood do you think the poet was in when he wrote it? How is the poem STRUCTURED? Look at the examples of IMAGERY Is there anything else that strikes you about the poem? METAPHOR Rhetorical figure which “equates” one thing with another without actually “comparing” the two It is an implied comparison of 2 things

ALLITERATION Words starting with the same sound

ASSONANCE Repeated vowel sound

ONOMATOPEIA Words that sound like what they mean

SYNECDOCHE (substitution) is the rhetorical or metaphorical substitution of a part for whole, or vice versa

METONYMY (association) the rhetorical or metaphorical substitution of a one thing for another based on their association or proximity

OXYMORON The juxtaposition of 2 contradictory ideas us oxymoron in order to create striking effects

PERSONIFICATION When something other than human being (often an abstract quality) is treated as a human being It is said to be personified A type of metaphor, comparing something to human being

SIMILI / SIMILE An explicit comparison of 2 things, usually with the word “like”, “than” or “as” Rhetorical figure which “compares” 2 different things by connecting them with like, than or as

BLANK VERSE Is the technical name for unrhymed iambic pentameter, i.e., verse of 5 feet per line, with the stress on the 2nd beat of each foot One of the most common in English

FREE VERSE Most common in the 20th century, but by no means unique to it = has no fixed metrical foot, and often no fixed number of feet per verse. It is sometimes called by its French name Verse libre

ENJAMBMENT When the units of sense in a passage of poetry don’t coincide with verses, and the sense runs on from the verse to another The lines are said to be enjambed

SONNET A lyric poem of 14 lines. There are 2 common species of sonnet distinguished by their rhyme scheme: - The Italian (Petrarchan) = sonnet can be broken into 2 parts, the octave (8 lines) and the sestet (6 lines) - The Shakespearean (English) = sonnet consists of 3 quatrains and 1 couplet

IRONY - VERBAL IRONY (sometimes called rhetorical irony), probably the most straightforward kind of irony, the speaker says something different from what he/she really believes - In its crudes form it´s called SARCASM, where the speaker intentionally says the opposite of what he/she really believes - UNDERSTATEMENT – figure of speech employed by writers/speakers to intentionally make a situation seem less important than it really is - HYPERBOLE (exaggeration) - EUPHEMISM is used to express a mild, indirect, or vague term to substitute for a harsh, blunt, or offensive term

SATIRE - Is the ridicule of some vice or imperfection -  an attack on someone or something by making it look ridiculous or worthy of scorn

PARODY (not to be confused with satire) is the imitation of either formal or thematic elements of one work in another for humorous purposes

Critical approaches Reveal HOW and WHY a particular work is constructed and what its social and cultural implications are To see and appreciate a literary work as a multi-layered construct of meaning Reread, rethink and respond Recent theory can be seen as an attempt to sort out the paradoxes that often inform the treatment of identity in literature

Meaning of theory Theory offers not a set of solutions but the prospect of further thought Theory is a DISCURSIVE practise Linked with education and institutions

Russian formalism Focus on FORM and TECHNIQUE The Russian Formalists of the early years of the 20th century stressed the critics should concerns themselves with the literariness of literature: the verbal strategies that make it literary

New Criticism 30s, 40s in the United States The unity or integration of literary works Shift from understanding literature as a historical document towards aesthetic perception (from memorizing to interpretation) How each element in literature contributes to meaning

Feminist Literary Theory Simone de Beauvior, Second sex (1949) Emerged in the 70s Identity of woman Position of women in the society Opposition between man and woman Discussion of the patriarchal perception of history/literature

Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism Based on Freud´s psychoanalysis Explores the nature of the unconscious mind Analysis literary work through symbolism, myth, taboo, association, sexual relations Looks at the unconscious meaning of work

Marxist Literary Theory Based on German philosopher Karl Marx The role of class, ideology, social order Literature as a means of manipulation Literary works are seen as products of work (reflection of economy) New perception of the canon (middle class?)

Postcolonial Criticism Based on Edward Said´s work Orientalism (1978) Involves the analysis of literary texts produces in countries and cultures that have come under the control of European colonial powers at some point in their history Reevalution of the stereotypes, myths associated with marginalized groups

Reader-Response Criticism The reader is active “reading is … something you do” The intended reader vs. implied reader For the reader, the work is what is given to consciousness; the work is not something objective, existing independently of any experience of it, but is the experience of the reader Form of a description of the reader´s progressive movement through a text, analysing how readers produce meaning by making connections 
DRAMA - Draó (Greek) – to act, to perform - Drama as a genre: all works written for the theatre - A single play - A serious play - Any event charged with conflict and tension - A drama or play is a form of storytelling in which actors make the characters come alive through speech (dialogue) and action (stage directions)

DRAMA COMBINES ASPECTS OF ALL 3 LITERARY GENRES - Fictional or factual - Common literary elements like plot, setting, characterization, and dialog - FICTION - POETRY Many plays are written in verse (for example Othello or Oeidipus Rex) - DRAMA Its unique characteristic is that it is written to be performed

PLAY IS TO BE PERFORMED IN FRONT OF THE AUDIENCE Playwright Script Dialogue Staging: stage directions (Acts, Scenes, Set, Props)

GREEK THEATRE Ancient Greek theatre developed as part of the religious festivals A “choric hymn” called the dithyramb was composed in honour of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility The hymn was sung by a chorus of 50 men

THESPIS Added the first actor to interact with the dithyramb chorus Called the actor the “protagonist” Is said to have performed in Athens in 534 B.C. The term “thespian” (having to do with drama or theatre) comes from his name When the Dionysian festivals changed to drama competitions, Thespis was the first winner

ARISTOTLE´S RULES FOR ANCIENT DRAMA Classical unities Unity of time (action must occur within 24 hours) Unity of place (action takes place in one location) Unity of action (single plot) Catharsis Socially acceptable purging of emotions such as anger, fear, or grief

DRAMATIC STRUCTURE Plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement Character: Dialogue: conversations of characters onstage Monologue: long speech given by one character to others Soliloquy: speech by a character alone onstage to himself/herself or to the audience Asides: remarks made to the audience or to one character, the other characters onstage do not hear on aside Setting (realistic and detailed?) or (abstract and minimal?)

COMEDY Comedy of manners Satiric comedy (employs hyperbole and burlesque) Romantic comedy Picaresque comedy Comedy of situation (situational humour and comicality) Masque (allegoric play based on mythology)

DRAMA Serious but not necessarily tragic Genre between tragedy and comedy Lyric drama (reflexive mood, widely employed metaphors, psychological motivation) Realistic drama (serious moral and social issues) Drama of the absurd (anxiety, breaks the established requirements imposed on play, violates principles of communication disturbs the unified model of the world) Melodrama (sentimental, pathetic, emotional) Monodrama (one character play) Burlesque (high mixed with low) Farce (exaggeration and caricature of situation) Grotesque (hyperbolization of reality, fantastic elements are used, presence of disharmony) Variety show (purely in order to amuse) Cabaret (satirical performance accompanied by music) Vaudeville (theatrical genre of variety entertainment)

MUSICAL GENRES Opera Operetta Musical

[overtlyopinionated]

127 Hours (With Persona 5)

After spending as much time playing Persona as Aron Ralston did in that canyon, I have completed a single play through and feel ready to explain my assorted opinions. Fortunately, and unlike Mr Ralston, I have emerged with both arms. However, now that Persona 5 is (supposedly) out of my life, its absence does feel like a phantom limb.

At this point, before espousing my opinions on the latest instalment, I should establish my Persona credentials. I haven’t touched the first, the second or the second second but am a lover of Personas 3 and 4 (having played both on my Vita). The Vita port of Persona 4 (Golden) is legitimately one of my favourite games due to its eclectic characters and focus on time management. I love a game where I have to forge my own path and make actual decisions: not binary dialogue choices that change the colour of a light in an ending cutscene but day to day decision making that opens up opportunities while closing off others.

I will preface the following with admitting that I love (yes, love) Persona 5. It didn’t have the impact that Persona 4 did – you never forget your first – and I do have far more criticisms of it than I do with any other Persona game, but the strengths are outstanding.

Because Persona 5 is so large (and daunting) you end up saying some pretty bizarre things about it. One of my go to phrases has become: ‘the last 75 hours are incredible.’ This is, truly, an insane thing to say. But it’s true! Some stuff happens and it’s at that point where all the wonderful systems start to interlink and you are in a place where you have so much to do and only limited time to do it in.

Another seemingly bizarre statement: the first 8 hours aren’t very good. In most games, this would be intolerable – and it is an issue here. But when there are still about 120 left, you can almost forgive a period of relative low quality that is the length of your average video game. Actually, when I put it that way, maybe you can’t forgive it. The introduction is poor and that is a problem. The major caveat is that it is only poor ‘by Persona standards’ but this is still disappointing.

The main issue is how constricting the opening is. Persona 5 is clearly made as an entry point to the series for new fans. There’s a perfect storm of reasons to finally play Persona: the PS4 is hugely popular and owners want a hot new exclusive (even if it is on PS3 also); Persona 4 was a sleeper hit that now has huge cult acclaim (which will lead people to check out the new one) and – somewhat linked to the first point – a Persona game is finally running on current hardware (not many wanted to pull their PS2 out for 100+ hours to play Persona 3 or 4 in 2007/2008 when they were busy with 360s and PS3s). The knock on effect of this predicted influx of Persona fans: hella tutorials. My God are there tutorials and my God is it limiting. I just wanted to be let loose to enjoy the aspect of Persona that I love: freedom of choice and time management. For so long it is forced activities and early nights. In fact, that’s an overall complaint with the game: too many early nights. Far too often you are forced to end a day in which you have been given no choice. It has to happen for plot reasons occasionally but it’s a real pain due to the frequency of this. Luckily, the mandatory content in the first 8 hours is really compelling, if a bit slow. There’s an interesting framing device and the first dungeon has a really neat narrative. Unfortunately, early introductions to characters are not wholly positive but, later on, these loveable scamps will win you over.

The framing device, in general, is worth mentioning. It’s cool: you are being interrogated and explaining all that led to your capture. It enables the game to start with a flashy abilitease and gives some overall structure. It’s not used that well though. It’s frequently unclear as to whether your interrogator is hearing everything you are ‘playing’ as they respond in ways that imply they don’t see the whole picture but sometimes in ways that imply they do. Getting a new confidant (the new name for social links) flashes you forward to weird questions about this person in a way that doesn’t always make sense. You meet the person and it is established who they are – a hacker, per se – and then the interrogator asks how you did something – for example, did you have access to a hacker. You as the player raise an eyebrow and think… Wait, are you actually listening to me? We just established that. It’s hokey and even in the central narrative it’s genuinely unclear how much you are getting across to your conversational partner and this ambiguity impacts the success of the narrative. This links to a grander issue of some poor writing - some due to obvious bad translation and some due to straight up shitty writing. There’s a bit towards the end where two villains stand for ten minutes and explain each other, just doling out pointless exposition. Genuinely, one of them just breaks down the career history of this guy to the guy himself, in a way that is only at all relevant because you need to know this information as a player. This conversation would never actually happen and things like that happen too often.

On the positive side, gameplay is so much better than ever before – and I love Persona gameplay. There are some really clever wrinkles added to the battle system and I adore the dungeons. Many have been put off by the central puzzles that each have but, for me, these aspects were overwhelmingly positive. I liked how tailor made these experience were and that I still had classic randomly generated dungeons to go through if I wanted. Confidant bonuses are also really well thought out and bring some mechanics which are genuine game changers. Elements feed into each other better than ever before and it makes everything feel so worthwhile – even when some of the confidant storylines are formulaic to a fault. One niggle: traversal options and a cover system are cool but the controls are not up to it (and neither is the camera).

So, the holistic view of Persona: the first 8 hours are confining and somewhat infuriating; the first 50 hours are very good but left me in a state of like rather than love; the last 75 hours are wonderful! That’s not a bad ratio of quality and it makes the game really rewarding. So, time to justify my adoration of the back two thirds (roughly). Here be spoilers… massive spoilers:

Persona 5 goes places.

 It goes to fascinating places that I didn’t think it would go to and it makes good on some things I never thought it would. The overall thematic statements really struck a chord with me. It’s a game about challenging the status-quo, standing up for what you believe in and about not letting the apathy of society get in the way of progress. It is a game about moral superiority and, for want of another phrase, being a warrior for social justice, and…. Actually, I really like that stuff. It’s punk rock; it’s youthful rebellion; it’s saying that things don’t have to be a certain way. It’s also quite damming to the older generation in a way that I think is justified. It chimes with zeitgeist movements, like the current Labour party or the partial rise of Bernie Sanders. It’s about (LITERALLY) breaking your chains and working for the greater good.

The game starts with imagery of you being chained and locked down, these chains permeate the overall presentation in a way that I thought was purely stylistic. It’s an incredibly stylish game full of visual motifs but this overwhelming sense of style means you read everything as aesthetic rather than symbolic. However, very late in the game – I’m talking final boss late – this imagery comes full circle. It comes after you have attacked something which is basically the opiate of the people; you have fought against bourgeoisie controlling figures and have pushed an ideology of waking up the passive populace in order to overthrow the current system. You’re fighting a god. It’s awesome. That god is a literal god of control that has been used, in other ways, as a controlling force throughout the game. You realise that the entire game has been set up as a ‘game’ in fiction (not a video game but a manufactured scenario in which you are being set up) and you’re into MGS2 style meta-narrative shit. And it’s wonderful. You spend the game breaking people form the control of their base desires whilst also taking down controlling figures in society and BAM, it turns out that a familiar character (who seemed strange at the start, in a way that seemed like a critique but was actually foreshadowing) is not who he says he is. You have been controlled by the God of Control and it’s symbolic of the place of the disaffected youth in society. Your pseudo-young offender background makes for even better commentary on how the youth are demonised by adults who claim they know better but actually enforce negative aspects of society. Then, back to the boss fight, you literally break out of these chain – the same chains that recur as a visual motif. It goes from having Marxist undertones to basically saying: ‘Persona users have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Persona users of all countries unite.’ Characters are even referencing you TAKING THE WORLD. There’s a revolution in the streets; the camera zooms in on a youth giving a revolutionary fist pump. It’s fucking glorious. It actually goes there and it goes there well.

It’s these thematic elements, and the political thrust, that make Persona 5 soar for me. The gameplay is still fantastic but, to be honest, when Persona returns, they need to shake things up. There are already elements that seem limited by the overall structure and another game of that exact structure will just provide diminishing returns. This one last time though, it works and it works really well. I’ve given a lot of my life to Persona 5 and I plan on giving it even more. What a game!