#Why is This Course Important?

[technically-human]

First meeting

[pianokantzart]

I try to make an effort not to debate people online about completely pointless nonsense like Switch 2 misinformation.

So imagine my absolute delight when my sister and brother in law tried to explain to me that “you won’t really own any of your switch 2 games because they’re all on keycards,” accidentally giving me permission to ascend into my true form: the most insufferable nerd you’ve ever met.

[gyaa-fish]

more ff7 stuff, try to guess who my faves are lol

[blanceyblance]

I have talked before about how frustrating i find thay the paladins and co. will act like Lance has rocks for brains one moment

And next moment listen to him in dangerous situations with no complains.

So my headcanon is that Lance has a "locked in" voice.

When you hear his normal voice you know its safe to play and joke around, the situation is not that dire, but the locked in voice is the kind of voice you hear telling you "you have ten seconds to stop this shit and you are already at seven" and your monkey brain tells you, you need to listen or else !!!

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

Occasionally I find it mildly annoying when Palpatine is posited as the one Anakin had always trusted the most, tbh. There's a noticeable shift in how he interacts with Obi Wan and Palpatine in between aotc and rots, and there's an obvious reason why: the events of aotc themselves. He and Obi Wan had plenty of friction, but they were still close, and Anakin did in fact confide in him in his grumpy teenager way. About his feelings for Padme, about his worries for his mother. It's after his trip to Tatooine that he turns to Palpatine instead.

[casscainmainly]

is cass closer to tim or duke as a sibling??

As much as I love Duke, it's 1000% Tim.

Cass and Duke is a relatively recent relationship, mostly contained in Batman & The Outsiders (2019). I think in certain instances Cass might like Duke more than Tim because they don't have as much history, but in terms of closeness, Cass and Duke have never had the depth of relationship Cass and Tim have.

We have their interactions in Batgirl (2000) #18:

This issue opens with Cass dreaming that the Batfam turn on her after finding out she's a killer. Tim in this issue serves as proof that they can accept her, which makes Tim pretty important to Cass' feelings of belonging in the family. Cass associating Tim with being in the family is something that continues for most of their relationship.

Then we have the iconic team-up in Robin/Batgirl: Fresh Blood:

There's a lot of tension between Cass + Tim in the wake of Stephanie's death, particularly in their attitudes to Bruce. But there's also a sense of shared grief - here, Cass opens up to Tim about David Cain shooting her, something she talked about with Steph before. She's not exactly secretive about her past, but I don't think she opens up like this to any of her other brothers, even Duke. I think it's important that Cass knows Tim loved Stephanie as much as she did (and possibly more). It's a source of tension, but also a source of connection.

Although he's a little out of place, it's why Tim is there during the adoption scene in Batgirl (2008) #6:

Following from #18, Tim kind of symbolises Cass' acceptance into the Batfam (which makes sense, since other people have talked about Tim essentially creating the idea of 'Batfam' in the first place). In Fresh Blood, Cass' break from Gotham + the Batfam is shown through her and Tim deciding to go separate ways, which is why her induction into the Batfam has Tim there and smiling. Tim also repeatedly defends her in this run, which could mean something if any writer ever referenced this series beyond the adoption.

Their most poignant moment for me though is Red Robin #17:

It's obviously editorial shenanigans that stopped other writers (particularly Bryan Q. Miller on Steph's Batgirl run) from using Cass, but as it stands Tim is the only one who kept in touch with Cass during her stint in HK. We have this really lovely scene where Tim hands her a Bat symbol and says they're still family, no matter what she's called. Black Bat is arguably a big homage to Red Robin, and certainly at this time she was closest to Tim out of literally everyone.

They have more moments Rebirth onwards, but basically Tim is a really really important part of Cass' journey into the Batfam, and sometimes was her strongest (and only) link. Though Cass' relationship to Duke is maybe the smoothest of her brotherly relationships, Tim is undeniably the brother she's closest to, the one who knows her best and who's seen her through the toughest times. So although Cass might say Duke is her favourite brother, her real favourite is probably always going to be Tim.

[torchlitinthedesert]

There’s something very strange about Paul’s usual “how John and I started writing” narrative. Here’s how he likes to describe it:

Me and John knowing each other, the fact that both of us independently had already started to write little songs... I said to him, “What’s your hobby?” I said, “I like songwriting,” and he said, “Oh, so do I.” You know, no one I’d ever met had ever said that as a reply. And we said, “Well, why don’t you play me yours and I’ll play you mine.” GQ, 2020

It’s my impression that this is now in the rotation of Paul Stories - I think he says it in McCartney 3,2,1, and in other interviews. Is it true? The earliest accounts contradict it:

“Paul’s first public performance, as a member of the Quarrymen, was at a dance… later on, after the dance, he played a couple of tunes to John he had written himself. Since he’d started playing the guitar, he had tried to make up a few of his own little tunes. The first tune he played to John that evening was called ‘I Lost My Little Girl’. Not to be outdone, John immediately started making up his own tunes.”

Hunter Davies, The Beatles, 1968

“‘I learned a lot from Paul. He taught me quite a lot of guitar really. He knew more about how to play than I did and he showed me a lot of chords. I’d been playing the guitar like a banjo so I had to learn it again. I didn’t write much material early on, less than Paul, because he was quite competent on guitar. I started to write after Paul did a song he’d written.’”

John Lennon to Ray Connolly, unpublished interview, 1970*

"He used to write songs before I even started writing songs."

John Lennon, St Regis interview, 1971

*[The Connolly quote is weaker as a source, because was published after John’s death (and he quotes it slightly differently: “I started to write after Paul did a song he’d written” is in Connolly’s John biography, but not in the version in his collected Beatle journalism). But it fits with the other accounts.]

Still, Paul’s version might have some truth in it. Mark Lewisohn cites a couple of 1971 interviews where John remembers trying to write a calypso song, tapping into a brief craze of spring 1957. I don’t know if he finished it, or told anyone about it. None of the Quarrymen mention it, while Pete Shotton told Bob Spitz that John was “floored” when Paul first played him one of his own songs. But the calypso story does make “so do I” seem more possible.

It’s still surprising that Paul wants to frame it this way. He’d be justified in pointing out that songwriting was his innovation, something he brought to the band. By any measure, he’s the one who started it: when he met John, he’d already written the melody of When I'm 64, plus Suicide and I Lost My Little Girl. And he was always prolific. As John told David Sheff, talking about I’ll Follow The Sun, “he had a lot of stuff”, “written almost before the Beatles, I think.” He was the one pushing to do their own material, whether that’s talking it up to music promoters or suggesting In Spite of All The Danger at their first amateur recording session. (To me, that suggests that Lennon-McCartney was established later than they tended to admit. In Spite of All The Danger, recorded in 1958, has George as cowriter; if Paul had written anything with John, I bet that's what he'd have suggested they record. And if John on his own had written something that was ready to record, they’d definitely have picked that. )

In the 1950s, writing your own material was groundbreaking: it’s part of the huge cultural shift into the 1960s. There were hundreds of skiffle/rock’n’roll bands in Liverpool, but it’s genuinely possible that Paul was the only songwriter among them. Why isn’t that the story he wants to tell?

When Paul started defending his legacy in the late 1980s, he was fighting against specific distortions. First, that he was the middle-of-the-road conservative one - which is why he lays out his avant garde credentials. So you’d think he’d want to remind everybody that he wrote songs first. But second, he’s up against the idea that he and John didn’t love each other, that they didn’t write together, that Lennon-McCartney was a myth. Paul is a rock star, with an ego to match; he’s not given to downplaying himself. But he wants the partnership more than he wants precedence, even more than he wants credit for innovation.

And he always did. Remember the story about John sharing half his chocolate bar? Paul joined the band, and shared half his songs.

He didn’t need to: he was already writing alone. If he wanted help, George was more musically accomplished, and would have been a more logical choice for a songwriting partner. But it's John whose attention and praise Paul needed, John who had the authority to say they’d play Paul’s songs, John who needed to feel like the most important person in the band. Becoming Lennon-McCartney formalises all of that. And Paul is still true to it.

Across decades, Paul has been consistent about promoting their partnership as a partnership, regardless of who did what. (This isn’t true of John, who by the late 1960s was eager to break down who wrote which song, which lyric, which middle eight.) After working with George Martin on the string arrangement for Yesterday, Paul signed the score: “"Yesterday" by Paul McCartney John Lennon George Martin Esq and Mozart.” Even as a joke, you don’t separate Lennon and McCartney. Ken Mansfield asked Paul why songs were “Lennon-McCartney” when John hadn’t been there for the writing process:

And Paul said: “John and I are so close to each other, we’ve been through so much together, we understand each other so much, our relationship is so deep, that when we’re songwriting,” he said, “even if I’m 6,000 miles away, I can be working on something and I can hear John over my shoulder going, ‘No, no, no, that’s not gonna work; why don’t we do this?’ Or ‘Hey, I like this.’” He said, “So, in essence, to me, we’re songwriting together even if we’re not together.”

Ken was asking about Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, not realising that John was there for that one: they worked on it in India. But rather than giving a practical answer, Paul chooses to frame the partnership as a profound connection. (Of course there are other times Paul insists on or overstates his contribution, or gets petty about who did what. He’s human, and he’s an egomaniac. But always, always within the framework that this was a partnership.)

Fundamentally, he’s loyal to Lennon-McCartney. “So do I” matters more to him than going first. It might not be literally true, but it's the emotional truth that he needs.

[crow-caller]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[xxplastic-cubexx]

charles and erik h*lding h*nds before getting executed in that one comic :/

girl i CANNOT stand them THEY ARENT EVEN IN THIS RUN BESIDES THIS

(Secret Empire #10)

[livingincolorsagain]

buck and eddie are currently facetiming as they watch their favorite romcom together and eddie is starting to fall asleep on his new couch and now buck is watching the slow rise and fall of his chest instead of the movie and he can’t look away and it’s somehow the best way he has ever spent valentines day

[joyfulhottubfuntik]

I will never understand how and why people seriously hate on teenage Ford. I get not liking some of the things he would do later in life, sure, but was he really wrong for how he behaved before his and Stan's falling out?

If you ask me, then no, I don't think he was. Because what did he want? Why was there a rift between the brothers even before the science fair?

For all of his youth Ford had a very strong desire to be seen for something other than what he was born as. Because who was he, really? One of a set of twins? Specifically the weird one with six fingers? And of course, he loved his brother and wanted him to be a part of his life, but that's the thing, isn't it. He, Ford, wanted Stan, his twin who was very dear to him, in his life, but it would be Ford's own one, separate from Stan's. He didn't want to be just one half of a person anymore and he didn't want Stan to be that way either. Stan, however, who had throughout his life repeatedly been told that he is worth nothing without Ford, obviously clung to this "dynamic duo" hard. And actually I can't help but think that here Stan was the one whose emotions were unhealthy. Because how wrong is it to just want to be your own person and to follow your ambitions?

Actually this may or may not be a hot take, but I do believe that everyone would be so much better off if everything went well and Ford got into his dream university. Both Stan and Ford would be able to develop as people separately from each other, while still being on good terms. In canon so much of their lives was defined by attempts to fill the hole in their lives which was left in the absence of the other twin. And besides, Stan would not have that need to focus solely on earning as much money as possible as quickly as possible (which is what got him into all the legal trouble that he found himself in. I do think he could've settled down and done somewhat well, just didn't, because people don't become millionaires by getting a minimum wage job and settling down, do they?).

[biblicalhorror]

Okayyyyy yeah also let's talk about Tammy. I didn't know how I felt about her for awhile because she did very much feel like the Disposable Black Girlfriend, but I'm seeing people saying she's an "abuser" or God forbid "just as bad as Kevin" and that's just. Not at all true.

Yes, Tammy is controlling. She doesn't seem to really like Patty for who she is, and kind of seems to want to change her into someone else instead. HOWEVER, I think we need to look at the whole character to understand WHY she's like that. I don't think she's controlling Patty for personal gain or for the sake of manipulating her. I think she's lonely and desperate for companionship, which leads to her ignoring/pushing past the obvious incompatibility in her relationship with Patty.

Here's what we know about Tammy:

1. She seems to be the only black person in the Worcester social circle. She also mentions frequently how she's surrounded entirely by white men at work.

2. She is also the only openly lgbt person in the area, other than Patty, who is still not exactly out and proud.

3. She describes her entire job as "making excuses for" and "cleaning up after" the men at her job, particularly her partner (whose name I am unfortunately forgetting, does anyone remember?), who even had her plant evidence for him on at least one occasion.

4. Despite being very competent and good at her job, the white men around her keep failing upwards (she mentions a few times that people beneath her keep getting promoted) while she remains stagnant in her career. There doesn't seem to be any explanation for this other than the fact that she is a black lesbian in an extremely white, conservative community.

Basically, Tammy seems like someone who has been taught (like many black women) that she will have to work much harder than everyone else to get ahead in any capacity. She is also likely very, very lonely. She doesn't seem to have any friends outside of work, which isn't surprising given the above. It seems like she doesn't exactly have a ton of prospects, dating-wise, other than Patty. In my opinion, it's really no wonder that she clung to Patty so desperately and immediately and tried to forcibly mold her into someone who could be compatible. She's tough, smart, organized, direct, manipulative, no-nonsense and controlling because, well, she had to be. And she ends up trying to "rein in" Patty because, in her mind, what's the other option? She ends up alone, surrounded by men who force her to cover for their antics and don't care if she lives or dies.

I'm not saying her behavior is healthy. But it comes from an entirely different place than Kevin's abuse, or Chuck's, or even Neil's. And it's also not uncommon. In real life, I know many queer women (specifically small-town lesbians) who end up in relationship dynamics just like that over and over again because they start dating someone who doesn't quite fit, and they compensate for it by trying to force a connection instead of accepting loneliness and isolation. I have a lot of sympathy for Tammy. And I wish the show had taken more care to establish the abuse she faced from her coworkers off-camera.

[starry-bi-sky]

I had. TWO (2) goals for chapter 5 of “late at night, when the nightingale sings” that i wanted to hit before the end of the chapter.

I have not hit either of them

I am. 6 thousand words deep into the chapter with no plans of stopping until i get both.

Bruce and Danny have circumvented at LEAST three Minor Important Conversations they were supposed to have with one another, in favor of talking about Less Important Shit.

You boys.

FOLLOW THE SCRIPT I GAVE YOU

[gods-and-accolades]

Something I really love about Apollon, both mythology wise and in my experiences with him, is the air of duality about him.

He’s the God of healing but also the bringer of plagues, he creates light but takes it away just as quickly, he carries his golden lyre and can play the most beautiful melodies but his silver bow and arrows are never too far away, he’s so full of love yet many of his romances end in tragedy, he’s fiercely loyal to those he cares for but ruthless and unforgiving to those who offend him. He’s an artist. He can be joyous and whimsical and see all the beauty in life, but he’s not unwilling to embrace the dark sides of it.

And he does embrace it, and he makes me feel like the more” undesirable” aspects of myself are things that I can embrace too. That I don’t have to be ashamed because I’m not perfect all the time. That my flaws are a part of life and life is beautiful and therefore I am beautiful.

You can have times where you’re angry, upset, miserable and bitter - you could even feel like that more times than not - but that doesn’t mean you’re unworthy of being loved and accepted.