#essay structure

[howtopublishabookin2024]

How to Publish a Book in 2024: Essential Tips for Beginners

Edit your manuscript, choose traditional or self-publishing, design a professional cover, get an ISBN, set up distribution, and create a strong marketing plan. Launch strategically, engage readers, and track sales to refine future efforts. Stay dedicated, and your book can reach a wide audience.

[overthinkinglotr]

The Two Towers film is actually really impressive for how it feels like a cohesive story despite being about three groups of characters whose plotlines almost never intersect during the film’s runtime (Frodo/sam, Merry/Pippin, and Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli.)

Because the Fellowship almost never interacts with each other during the main plot, the filmmakers instead had to connect the plotlines thematically. Frodo/Sam never actually talk to Aragorn, but their plotlines mirror each other.

The Two Towers film is structured so that each splinter group of the Fellowship ultimately struggles with the same goal: they need to convince a despairing grief-stricken ally to aid in the war against Sauron. Theoden, Treebeard, and Faramir are all people who have suffered some great loss in the past wars. As a result, they are all set in their ways out of grief, and refuse to listen to the Fellowship’s advice or agree with their plans. (Until the very end.)

This is also where the films depart a lot from the source material. The two towers was probably the biggest adaptational challenge of the entire series, because the original book is split into two parts that focus on the POV of two different groups of characters (A Three Hunters book, and a Sam/Frodo book) — and then ends on a horrible cliffhanger. This works in the books but would not have worked on film at all.

The filmmakers’ attempts to build a Structured Film Story led to them emphasizing the idea of the Fellowship recruiting reluctant allies, and emphasizing the thematic idea of people being trapped within grief and stasis. Elrond predicts that the worst fate for Arwen would be to “linger on, in darkness and in doubt,” permanently frozen in grief; and this is the state we find most of the new characters in. Film!Theoden is portrayed as far more hesitant and grief-stricken than he was in the book, film!Treebeard is more reluctant and afraid of what war means for the Forest, and film!Faramir is more overwhelmed by the pressure to be like Boromir… and all three of them are overall far more heavily swayed by the Fellowship’s presence. (Though I still have beef with the way Faramir’s plotline was handled—XD) Because they needed to build out a structure that could work on film, they found this thematic throughline and really emphasized it.

Theoden’s grief over the death of his son makes him refuse the Fellowship’s advice to reach out to his allies or ride out against Saruman’s forces; Treebeard’s grief over the waning of the forest makes him decide that “he is on nobody’s side because nobody is on his side,” and Faramir’s grief over the death of Boromir makes him unwilling to try a solution that isn’t “what he believes Boromir would have done.”

These characters all start the film in a state of hopelessness and stasis and avoidance; then they’re ultimately forced to confront the source of their grief, and end the film by aiding the Fellowship.

This is also connected to the journey that all the Fellowship members need to go on. Frodo and Sam are forced to confront the grief at the idea that Frodo is being consumed by the Ring; Merry and Pippin have to face that “there won’t be a Shire” after Sauron’s victory; and Aragorn’s relationship with the people of Rohan forces him to confront his own fears about becoming a king and leading people to their death.

The plotlines are also really well connected through the use of music— like the Last March of the Ents leitmotif being used for Theoden’s choice to ride out against the Uruk-Hai, emphasizing the parallel between the way both characters have hesitated to “ride out and meet” the source of their grief.

And then Sam’s final speech, where a variation on the Shire leitmotif — (a version of the same variation that played in the end of Fellowship of the Ring)— becomes the final moment that ties all the disparate plot threads together. The film is centered on characters being overwhelmed by grief, and entering a state of numbness or stasis where they cut themselves off from the world. When this happens to Frodo, Sam encourages him to believes that there is still goodness in the world that’s worth fighting for— a culmination of all the ideas that have been built up throughout the past three hours.

Despite its flaws the film feels so cohesive, and the end of the film feels like such a satisfying resolution? Which is easy to take for granted because like, there were so many different moving pieces, and without a really clear thematic focus the film could’ve easily ended up falling apart.

[secretmellowblog]

Les Mis Hidden Name Meanings: "Fantine"

Every character's  name in Les Mis is either an elaborate pun or has some deeper symbolic thematic meaning — usually both at once. 

One example of this is “Fantine.” There’s a wealth of hidden meaning packed into to her name, and some of those meanings are explicitly discussed in the original novel. 

The name “Fantine” comes from the french word “enfantine,” meaning  “childike, infant-like.” Her name basically means “Baby.” And obviously this speaks to her innocence and naivety. But also “baby”  is kind of,.,, well, it sounds more like an informal term of endearment than an actual legal name?  

And that’s because– Plot twist– Fantine isn’t her legal name!

 What is her legal name? She doesn’t have one. 

And the reason she doesn’t have one is directly tied to political turmoil of the era she was born into. 

Fantine grew up an orphan living on the streets, without a family without parents. Hugo tells us the origin of her name: 

“She bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous and the unknown. (...)She was called Fantine. Why Fantine? She had never borne any other name. At the epoch of her birth the Directory still existed. She had no family name; she had no family; no baptismal name; the Church no longer existed. She bore the name which pleased the first random passer-by, who had encountered her, when a very small child, running bare-legged in the street. She received the name as she received the water from the clouds upon her brow when it rained. “

This moment is adapted beautifully in the Manga adaptation by Takahiro Arai: 

But now let’s talk about the Directory. 

To wildly oversimplifly a lot of complex history: Before the French Revolution, the Catholic Church’s records of baptismal ceremonies were often used as a  registry of people’s legal names. During the French Revolution, the Revolutionary government– including the Directory– put in place a series of policies we now call “dechristianization,” where they attempted to dismantle the power of the Catholic church. 

Fantine was born during the age of these dechristianization policies. So she was likely never baptised, her baptismal name was never recorded, and so she has no documented legal or family name. She’s slipped through the cracks of the legal system, and ended up completely anonymous.

This sets Fantine up as this anonymous child of the Revolution– a stand-in for everyone who was left behind when the Revolution was left behind, and kings were restored to the throne. 

Fantine’s namelessness is meant to show her isolation. She has NO support system. She has nothing to connect her to other people, nothing to connect her to a support system. 

Finally, the way Fantine tends to “slip through the cracks” is something that follows her throughout her life.  When she’s fired from her job at a factory, Mayor Madeleine never learns  of it– Fantine has this tendency to be overlooked and forgotten in official records.  At the end of the story, she is buried in an unmarked grave, with not even the name “Fantine” on her headstone. She is born anonymous and she dies anonymous.

It ties into the novel’s questions about  which people we consider worth remembering, whose lives are worth being recorded. 

[Thank you for reading! This essay was originally posted as a video here. For more Les Mis talk, you should subscribe to the 2025 @lesmisletters readalong on Substack here, and join the BrickClub Discord server here!]

[utilitycaster]

I think in media analysis and just like, engaging with art of any form, you can focus on being right all the time or you can focus on enjoying yourself, and people who do the latter often end up being pretty good at predicting things (and are often delighted by being wrong in an interesting way) and people who do the former usually end up being not just miserable, but also not very good at being right in the first place.

[a-subscription-box]

every hbomberguy video essay about a video game he likes: this game is overwhelming, obtuse, and difficult. it lies to you and will kill you out of the blue and the secret ending will actually poison your hometown's water supply. isn't that great!

me (unironically) : oh my god yeah, what incredible game design

[abyssalzones]

realized I've never made a comprehensive image to illustrate wtf I'm talking about irt ford pines and laura palmer because I keep bringing it up but like Okay bear with me I am the complit enjoyer

the main reason why it's crazy is because alex has cited twin peaks As inspiration and you could reason that it's mostly surface level/vibes-based but I don't know.... Idk.....

[lambfromfield]

i get it jayvik should've kissed this and that but this is a win specifically for me, aro, #1 believer in "so devoted that the lines blur"

[froschli96]

You know what, fuck it, I have to speak my truth! (this is gonna be a rant, so anyone who actually likes assassin's creed revelations and/or the secret crusade, be warned or maybe don't read this at all)

remember how altaïr talks to king richard at the end of ac1, and richard is like "[humans] come into the world kicking and screaming, violent and unstable. it is what we are. we cannot help ourselves."? and how altaïr answers "no. we are what we choose to be." and how that ACTUALLY has meaning bc he himself was "violent and unstable" at the beginning of the game but he has learned and is now CHOOSING to be a better person who cares about others and humanity at large? remember how his calmness and gentleness was something that he ACQUIRED over the course of the story?

and remember how in revelations they then suddenly had a PRE-AC1 altaïr say about the first of his targets "no man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness." and be all wise and calm and collected during a nice little chat with al mualim, who suddenly acts all fatherly? (like, this is suddenly supposed to be a positive relationship? what??)

also, during the confession the target says to altair: "you put too much faith in the hearts of men, altaïr. [...] humans are weak, base, and petty." and altaïr answers: "no. our creed is evidence to the contrary." KJASJFJDKL???? like, it’s almost insulting how close this exchange is to the one with richard. you know, the one that was actually earned after a whole game of character development. like WTF??? cool congrats now that development means nothing. like, apparently that was just altaïr reverting BACK to being the exemplary assassin who understands and believes in the creed that he was apparently just born as. (i also hate how having a young inexperienced altaïr saying this implies that altaïr's faith in humanity is a sign of naivete instead of a sign of the wisdom he has gained after being confronted with counter arguments for a whole game, and also something that distinguishes the assassins from the templars who use humanity's supposed wickedness to justify controlling them like in AC1, but whatever)

altaïr’s development in AC1 mattered BECAUSE he is not NATURALLY a good person, it actually said something about humanity's capacity for both bad AND good and how humans don't have to be forced to be good through mind control bc they can by their own free will choose to be better when taught how and when allowed the freedom to grow. but no. apparently altaïr has just always been calm, wise and gentle. and he just sort of forgot about that during AC1 bc…. ? bc of adha?? bc of abbas???

oh don’t get me started on the whole abbas thing. (it doesnt even make sense that abbas is so hung up about his father and "his family’s honor", like what about the whole point of al mualim not allowing parents to be close to their children bc it would make them weak? like, my dude, you’re not supposed to HAVE any family aside from the brotherhood)

they used the throwaway character that had like 5 lines and made him into altaïr’s main antagonist in revelations… like, abbas wasn’t supposed to be this ONE dude who had personal beef with altaïr, he was just supposed to show how while altaïr’s revered by many, a lot of his brothers also hate him, bc 1) altaïr is a shitty person at this point and 2) bc there’s no real feeling of community and family in this version of the brotherhood, but just a pervasive sense of competition and jealousy — these assassins don’t care about their goal of safeguarding humanity bc they’re too hung up on petty squabbles and divided by rivalries (you know, the things that made malik hate altaïr even before solomon’s temple and that he overcomes in the end which enables him to forgive and to reconcile with altaïr so they can work together and stop al mualim? (you ever just think about "we are one. as we share the glory of our victories, so too should we share the pain of our defeat. in this way we grow closer. we grow stronger." and cry? bc i do. all the time. malik, the man that you are))

and now abbas is altaïr’s childhood best friend turned lifelong enemy?? like, bowden bent over backwards to come up with an explanation for why altaïr is an arrogant ass at the beginning of AC1, when the explanation is right there: he was raised to kill without asking questions and was constantly praised for how good he is at murder, which resulted in him becoming arrogant and disregarding human life. like, it doesn’t have to be some shakespearean family feud type shit. and guess what, this "simple" explanation actually plays into the story’s themes, who’da thunk!

(like, abbas might not have been a "fleshed out" character in AC1, but he had a specific function and now that function is gone. mr bowden, mr mcdevitt, you know characters are allowed to simply exist to tell us something about their worlds and the systems they live in and sometimes that’s more important and also more interesting than having every single character have a detailed backstory to explain all their behaviors, right?)

with all of this revelations loses all nuance in regards to the levantine brotherhood and also the creed in general. like, altaïr being a master assassin at the beginning despite being a terrible person and not actually understanding the creed is a criticism of the brotherhood and the creed itself. like, it said something about the order that someone like altaïr was able to get that high in rank, simply bc he's good at killing, which also tells us what is considered important in the al mualim era assassin order. when you make altaïr’s arrogance the result of his personal conflicts instead of how we was raised by a brotherhood that only valued one's ability to kill, you lose that characterization of the assassin order itself!

and by suddenly making al mualim a semi good "father figure" you also downplay his manipulation of not only altaïr but all those under his care. (altaïr says something about al mualim being "as a father" to him exactly twice in the codex, but he doesn’t mean by that that he WAS a father to him, what he means is that he was the CLOSEST THING he had bc HE DID NOT HAVE PARENTS, not because his mother died in childbirth and his father was executed when he was young btw, BUT BECAUSE IT WASN’T ALLOWED, like his parents actually lived but weren’t allowed to be close to him, he says he came to view al mualim’s "weak and dishonest" love as enough and even better BECAUSE HE HAD NOTHING ELSE, BECAUSE AL MUALIM ISOLATED HIS ASSASSINS FROM THEIR FAMILIES. al mualim "loved" him bc he was good at killing people for him! hm, i wonder if this could be trying to say anything about cults and indoctrination and the inherent contradiction in fighting for peace and free will by taking children away from their parents and raising them to become killers?? like, altaïr wasn't ~the special orphan boy~ taken in by al mualim bc his father died a hero's death, it was "the way of the order" to have al mualim be the closest thing to a parental figure for everyone to ensure absolute loyalty! altaïr saying al mualim was like his father is not supposed to make you go "oh, he must have actually been a good guy for altaïr to consider him a father", it should make you go "oh that's kinda fucked up that he considers the dude who made him into a killing machine and who manipulated him a sort of father figure"!)

and then in revelations they suddenly portray that relationship as positive and healthy??? like, it would be one thing to give it some nuance by delving into the psychology behind al mualim’s "love" and maybe showing how al mualim did care about altair in a complicated, fraught sort of way (like, you know, there’s a lot of interesting things you could say about al mualim at several points addressing altaïr as "my child" in AC1 and how that parallels Garnier referring to the people he drugged and abused as his "children", and what that says about how the templars view the people who they say they want to save and in whose best interests they supposedly act (in any case, al mualim doesn’t use that phrase because he has any real parental feelings but rather to patronize and to invalidate any objections, like in a "mother knows best" way))

but they even fucking DARE to parallel that relationship with that of altaïr and darim in revelations, by having the reflection in the puddle of darim hugging altaïr showing altaïr hugging al mualim…. like their relationship wasn’t inherently abusive but just tragically cut short because al mualim was just "corrupted by the apple"… like WHAT???? so it’s not the very real problems like grooming, manipulation and indoctrination and the hierarchical structure of the brotherhood itself (all of which are antithetical to the assassin ideology), it was just the evil apple all along. great. that’s DEFINITELY a lot more interesting.

god im sorry i really dont want to spread negativity but this is driving me INSANE. like, somebody please tell me im not crazy bc i feel like somehow most of the fandom is in agreement that revelations and the secret crusade have better storytelling and characterization than ac1.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, can we talk about how, even IF we completely ignore AC1 and treat revelations altaïr as his own character…. the narrative still doesn’t really work?

basically, the whole point of his story in rev is that "he gave his whole life to the brotherhood", this obsession led to him not using his time with his family which has him ending up dying alone in a dark library and this in turn makes ezio reevaluate his life choices…. except. he doesn’t? neglect? his family? or whatever? like, his devotion to the assassins is sort of painted as this tragic flaw that leads to a lonely death bc it supposedly comes at the cost of his family, but… his wife has joined the assassins, (at least) one of his sons is in the brotherhood and even when he goes to protect the assassins against the mongols, he takes his family with him (except for the son who stays behind bc he has a family of his own and who, ironically, ends up dying bc of that)… like, you can’t describe altaïr as a good husband and father in the database and have his son tell him that "everything that is good in me began with you, father" when they say goodbye, and then want to make us believe that he put his family behind the brotherhood and that that is a character flaw that leads to his tragedy.

because you HAVE to have a character’s tragedy be the result of a character flaw. like. that is how tragedies work. otherwise it just becomes tragedy for the sake of tragedy which is… boring bc it has no purpose. and we know it is SUPPOSED to have purpose bc ezIO FUCKING QUITS BEING AN ASSASSIN AFTER WITNESSING IT!

it’s like they want to have their cake and eat it, too — they didn’t want to actually make altaïr a bad husband/father, but still wanted to make his life a tragedy where he loses his family which is why instead they outsource all responsibility to abbas who now has to be the reason for ALL the deaths.

like, they try to make at least maria’s death kind of sort of the result of altaïr’s rashness or whatever but like… these guys KILLED THEIR SON and TOLD HIM THAT ALTAÏR HAD ORDERED HIS DEATH. like, altaïr losing it in response to that is not rash, it’s fucking logical and justified! if anything the scene made me angry at maria for trying to stop him. like, GIRL, he was YOUR son too??? but god forbid we give female characters actual real emotions, she has to fill the role of "voice of reason who dies for altaïr’s man pain" i fucking guess.

like, it’s this weird mix where his tragedy is simultaneously painted as his own fault but also not really bc abbas is the one responsible for all the shit that happens. it just… it just doesn’t really go together.

the only way to make his story make sense narratively and to give it actual purpose is by looking at it in the context of ezio’s story, bc the things he sees in altaïr’s memories are supposed to be a revelation (ha!) to ezio specifically. and i guess that’s maybe the crux of it all — altaïr’s story in revelations was conceived of first and foremost to support ezio’s story and development. which is probably also why many people maybe don’t notice bc, having skipped ac1 and started with ac2, the majority of people mostly care only about ezio and only really appreciate altaïr’s story in as far as it serves to push ezio forward. (tho i’ve also seen a few people say that ezio is also written kind of weird in rev, but i’ve never really been an ezio girly myself so i can’t speak to the truth of that)

like, altaïr dying alone in the library doesn’t really have to make sense for his character, i guess, bc it’s only really supposed to be a cautionary tale for ezio.

so, i guess, for once, they actually had a MAN dying for another man’s character development, which is pretty woke actually. ubisoft, i take everything back jksdsfjhgdsahfhsdhfghfdsgjhsdgjh

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

I’m sure it’s just an oversight or some multiverse shenanigans, but uh…

If you’re preparing to ask “what do you mean Ultron killed the original Human Torch?” Yeah so fun fact Ultron stole Jim Hammond’s corpse and kidnapped his creator (Phineas Horton) to rebuild him into his own son, the Vision. Things kinda went sideways from there.

[tennessoui]

also i passed literally all my midterms with flying colors (basically A+'s if grad school did A+'s) (or gold star stickers if grad school did gold star stickers)

(they should)

and all my midterms were just essays and all my professors who graded my essays said my essays were very well-written and well-structured and had high readability

and im like thank you thank you i've written like a million words of porn for the internet. i know my adjective noun verb placement very well

[the-hot-zone]

recommendations for @mail-me-a-snail & honestly everyone who follows me bc y'all know i give out recommendations like candy. i think especially you may like I think love is something that happens to other people and HOW TO BE A DOG (the latter is similar to Your Faithful Servant).

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

95% of the time when people cry queerbaiting online they actually mean I thought this character was queer because I assign specific character traits with certain sexualities and now I'm upset the creators didn't agree with me. However, there are some moments in MTV's Teen Wolf that give me pause.

[lordoflucky]

So I spent a lot of time analyzing Barok and Albert's dynamic, coming to the conclusion that they are in every way inversions of one another. However, there is exactly one point they agree on: They value their work over their own lives.

For Barok this is best showcased by his conversation with Ryunosuke on how his persona as The Reaper of the Bailey has led to multiple attempts on his life:

Van Zieks: I mean to say that if my pseudonym serves a useful purpose... I adopt it gladly, and with honour. Ryunosuke: But it's putting you in danger! You could be killed! Van Zieks: If that is my fate, let God decide.

Meanwhile for Albert, this is established during his trial. He very calmly asks Ryunosuke to stop defending him, launches into a confession, and promises to co-operate with whatever the prosecution wants all the while begging Barok is protect his creation. He later outright states that being declared a fraud "Would have been a fate worse than death for [him]."

From a broader perspective these seem the same. Barok calls it an honor to be labeled the Reaper- superseding the threat to his life; Albert's entire arc centers around his prioritization of his career over his own life. Except, the method that they use to reach that conclusion is inverted.

To Barok, because his work provides value, it does not matter if it kills him. Albert would rather die than for his work to lose its value.

My point here is both: Wow. These men desperately need therapy, but they're from ace attorney so we already knew that. And Also, I feel this exemplifies their entire dynamic. Even the one singular point that I found they overlapped on (aside from being equally weird about each other), they still reach that point in opposite directions.

[kaurwreck]

Akinari... was highly conscious of the extremely disparate nature of the materials he chose to use. This consciousness permitted him to assemble and adapt surprisingly eclectic sources to his own artistic ends....

──────

[In Tales of Moonlight and Rain,] Akinari has borrowed widely and self-consciously.... His art was one of transformation.

──────

Encounters, attitudes, atmospheres, outcomes experienced through the double memories of writer and reader create a newly suggestive poetic profundity.... Many of the stories involve historical personages who lend significance to the tales by their very presence there. Plots from earlier works of literature are cast in the same role; they add grandeur and depth to the narratives.

──────

Akinari [has] an ability to strengthen the evocative power of his own text by creating reverberations to earlier works he admires. Akinari's contemporary readers would be expected as well to take genuine pleasure in recognizing them. Scarcely a paragraph in any of these stories fails to echo some trace of another, earlier text.... The poetic reference attaches the story to that earlier work and connects both worlds together.

Ueda Akinari: The Past as Art, from Modern Japanese Fiction and Its Traditions: An Introduction by J. Thomas Rimer

I've said before that Bungou Stray Dogs is Asagiri's love letter to his literary antecedents, but Ueda Akinari's emergence as a character in the narrative affirms that from its conception to its execution, Bungou Stray Dogs is an homage to and Asagiri's reflections on modern Japanese literature — and that to take pleasure in the thoughtfulness with which he's reshaped his models, it's worth engaging with the sources of his art.

In the fourth dimension, anywhere and everywhere can be adjoined as long as you can see it.

[misiahasahardname]

it’s raining tacos????? idk man what do you want from me?

making up new awesome non-au related gijinkas… (was originally gonna digitalise all of them but i got lazy lol)

apple is definetly my favourite to draw right now lol

[cringengl]

Realistically speaking, in a Hunger Games Stranger Things au, Jonathan Byers would be Katniss Everdeen.