#i love this essay.

[throesofincreasingwonder]

"A story doesn't need a theme in order to be good" I'm only saying this once but a theme isn't some secret coded message an author weaves into a piece so that your English teacher can talk about Death or Family. A theme is a summary of an idea in the work. If the story is "Susan went grocery shopping and saw a weird bird" then it might have themes like 'birds don't belong in grocery stores' or 'nature is interesting and worth paying attention to' or 'small things can be worth hearing about.' Those could be the themes of the work. It doesn't matter if the author intended them or not, because reading is collaborative and the text gets its meaning from the reader (this is what "death of the author" means).

Every work has themes in it, and not just the ones your teachers made you read in high school. Stories that are bad or clearly not intended to have deep messages still have themes. It is inherent in being a story. All stories have themes, even if those themes are shallow, because stories are sentences connected together for the purpose of expressing ideas, and ideas are all that themes are.

#original post #text post #500 #1k #2k #btw i know my definition of death of the author is loosey goosey here #it wasn't the main point so i went informal with it! as ppl in the tags have pointed out it isn't exact #and i do recommend reading the wikipedia article or similar (possibly even the essay itself if you're narsty) if you want to learn more! #wasn't expecting this to take off so my apologies to my barthes-heads out there #love you mwah #5k #10k #15k #20k

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

#November 5th #november 5 2020 #the fifth of november #just a random ramble #November 5th 2020 is such an important day to me #it really is a holiday #but it does confuse me when I see people analyzing it primarily as a supernatural thing #instead of a ‘hysteria over an election reaches a breaking point when inane zero stakes fandom news comes out and we all latch onto it’thing #but yeah!! #this is my personal essay out of love for the holiday

[mydairpercabeth]

Im already seeing really bad takes that the show didnt make Gabe “abusive enough”. First and foremost, there are so many different forms of abuse, not just physical abuse. When we first see him, he is instantly belittling Percy. You can see how much of the space he takes up in the apartment. He has a single recliner, a jersey on the wall, and a side table all for him while he gambles with Sallys money. He is immediately financially abusive and verbally abusive.

Second, he answered Sally’s phone and spoke to the principal at Yancy. He is trying to control how Sally raises her son and is giddy at getting another person to bully again. Also, he controls the car. Sally has to negotiate with him and manage his reaction to her taking her son to Montauk. In this scene we see her sass him back and tell him to ask her nicely which I think is a great way to show that Sally still has some agency in the situation. She is able to say she doesnt want to be spoken to disrespectfully.

Lastly, in The Lightning Theif, Percy states “For the first time, I realized something. Gabe had hit my mother. I didn’t know when, or how much. But I was sure he’d done it. Maybe it had been going on for years, when I wasn’t around.” This was in the second to last chapter of the book. People are mad they didnt see him hit her in the first EPISODE??? Be so for real. Give the show time to flesh everything out.

ANYWAYS STAN SALLY JACKSON AND WATCH THE SHOW

#percy jackson #sally jackson #gabe ugliano #percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson the lightning thief #STOP WITH THE BAD TAKES PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GODS #in this essay i will #long post soz #walker scobell #virginia kull #tim sharpe

[dekariosclan]

#A short photo essay on why we’ve all lost our minds for this man part 2 #this one dedicated to all the tags that say ‘I love Gale but he wouldn’t find me interesting’ etc #(Spoiler alert: yes he would) #baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #gale x tav #gale x reader

[comradekatara]

the siblings ever

#id in alt text #avatar the last airbender #atla #katara #sokka #katara&sokka #art #mart #memery #i guess #(sokka is quoting a tweet) #i love them so much it’s unreal #words cannot describe how important they are. to me #so i just draw them in silly poses & write longass essays abt them #over & over & over & over & over again 👍🏼

[soracities]

—Maria Michela Sassi, "Can we hope to understand how the Greeks saw their world?" (pub. Aeon) [ID in ALT]

#love u for this anon ty #q #lit #quotes #essays #maria michela sassi #aeon #how the greeks saw colour #links #i dream in blue #m #x

[bakedbeanchan]

AU where Zuko doesn't practice helmet safety

#baked bean originals #avatar the last airbender #zuko #sokka #iroh #atla #what would even happen after this. aang's firebending teacher is dead #he'd have to learn from. jeong jeong. #on another note i love how violence is such a big deal to aang #but it's just a chore to sokka #he did not gaf about killing all those guys in air ships or combustion man #“YEAH BOOMERANG :D!!” sokka you just murdered a man. #he cheers after he murders combustion the exact same way i cheer when i finish writing a tedious essay

[chihirolovebot]

on a real note that bit near the end of the video was genuinely haunting. hearing somerton talk about how gay writers are erased from history was one thing (with all the irony being that he stepped on the backs of numerous underpaid, underprivileged and uncredited queer writers to build his youtube channel) but when h revealed it wasn't even somerton's quote in the first place? the worst, most crushing sort of irony. how do you lament about the erasure of gay people and gay writers in history... whilst erasing a gay writer and taking his words as your own?

#it's genuinely unconscionable and its given me a lot to think about #i found somerton through his video essay on killing stalking #one of my favourite psychological horrors #i was overjoyed to find someone who seemed to recognise it for the dark character study of trauma and abuse that it was #and not a love story #now all i want to do is go back to that video and search up the phrases in google #to see who really wrote those words and phrases that got to me so deeply #fuck man . what a disappointment #james somerton #hbomberguy #veetxt

[akajustmerry]

She cried for other reasons too — that the “Succession” chapter of her life has ended. “I’ll never have an opportunity to speak those lines, or get given new lines, new jokes, new worlds for Shiv and Roman to exist in together,” Snook says. “Just sadness for never getting a moment to play with these brilliant actors again.” (When I tell her that Culkin had said to me that perhaps Shiv and Roman might make up at some point, Snook brightens. “I feel like Shiv and Roman would reconcile in a way where he would be the shitty but great weird uncle for her kid, and there might be some sort of strange little family unit that gets splintered off.”) - Sarah Snook, Variety.

Kieran Culkin as Roman Roy and Sarah Snook as Shiv Roy | Succession (2018-2023)

#successionedit #sarah snook #kieran culkin #roman roy #shiv roy #succession #tv #could write a dissertation on how i feel about roman and shiv but it would just be an essay on why i love my brother (and hate him lol) #/

[rebelcaptain4life]

Crowley believes the most romantic thing is love confessions in the rain. Aziraphale believes the most romantic thing is regency-style balls. Therefore their favourite movie to watch together is Pride and Prejudice (2005). In this essay I will

#good omens #good omens s2 #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #neil gaiman #pride and prejudice #pride and prejudice 2005 #p&p #jane austen #richard curtis #love actually #in this essay i will #keira knightley #matthew macfadyen #david tennant #michael sheen

[kagoutiss]

pelican town, ‘72

#stardew valley #stardew valley spoilers #sdv #sdv spoilers #grandpa #mister qi #mr. qi #idk how dates work in stardew universe im just bullshittin #i love qi’s huge fucking eyebrows you dont notice them at first but theyre there #(gives our collective grandpa a ponytail) i think he had one. whatever #’why isnt mister qi blue’ my hc is he is blue from long-term iridium supplementation #and was originally just a regular person #but also it’s nice to see ur fav be like a normal human color #if u read tag essays tho consider this: #qi discovers secret to immortality (consuming iridium in a specific manner) #wants to share discovery with his farmer (player’s grandpa) and in that way. they will have all the time in the world to build #a perfect farming/business empire whose legacy will last forever and ever and theyll be 2gether forever #but it turns out. like a lot of normal people would. his farmer does not want to live forever #and obv he doesn’t #in an attempt to try not to ever lose the thing that means more to him than anything else in the world. qi inadvertantly ensures he will #because his farmer is dead. and he’s going to live forever #but. it’s kind of ok. because he has infinite money and was able to figure out how to talk to his dead bf #and now YOU help them fulfill their joint goal of making the farm’s legacy last forever #smile. heart #sobbing

[astrolavas]

thinking about the... potential clawthorne woodcarving mentorship.

+ bonus cuz also thinking abt how if hunter ever met dell's palisman and got reminded of flapjack, he'd probably feel bad abt making that association cuz he knows what it's like to be seen only as someone's different version (even though the bird wouldn't mind much so lol)

#eda having that palistrom seed.. hunter saying he wants to learn how to carve palisman... his relation to clawthornes. it HAS to mean STH js #the owl house #toh #hunter toh #toh hunter #hahaa always thinking abt hunter growing a soft spot for palismen and loving creating and bringing them to life #but never being able to replace flapjack no matter how many palismen for other ppl he carves. I'M GONNA- #:((((( :/// #like he's not going to want to replace flapjack just like that rn. cuz he LOVES that bird. it's gonna be so hard for him to just.. Move On #and flapjack's a PART of him.. so very curious where they'll go with this because..... HM. HM like he serves as his disability aid almost #and he can't just REMAKE him. but he cannot also just.... ignore what happened straight away. but it's also important to heal #but whatever he decides to do i feel like he'd love to just............ create. whether it be for himself or others #BUT GAH. ANYWAY XKJSJSK wrote an essay abt this already don't need to write one in the tags TOO. so uh .. yea #little guy.. pls find happiness #my art #fanart #hunter #hunter noceda #hunter wittebane #eda #eda clawthorne #dell #dell clawthorne #dell's palisman #toh art #edalyn clawthorne #also like...... if flapjack and dell's palisman were caleb's and evelyn's palismen...... and knew each other........ #and while flapjack was waiting for his new person at the bat queen's cave dell's palisman was being passed down clawthorne generations #OUUHGHHHHGHHHH they were probably friends..... they Knew each other #what's up with you you mysterious yellow bird with eyebrows...... what's your story

[tsururoach]

you ship ryomina because ryoji is a disaster of a bisexual. I ship ryomina because of the beauty of a suicidal boy that can love life enough that death can agree.

#I didn't have the strength to properly draw this out #maybe another day #but I really wanted to post it. #Ryomina #ryoji mochizuki #minato arisato #persona 3 spoilers #persona 3 reload #I have a whole essay I've written in my head since like #high school about how much persona 3 is a game about loving life first and foremost #alas no one would listen to me if i wrote it out so here we go #oomfs who are still leeching off my reload look away

[dramadramallama]

i really like how unhinged they made jeong su-min in marry my husband. it goes beyond the classic "villain of the story" role.

it adds a lot of depth to her character, because her motivations are difficult to fathom, and the way she reacts to rejection/failure is fascinating. it's that contradiction between not being able to exist without ji-won (she follows her anywhere, like a shadow), and at the same time, trying to dim her light to extinction (which she ends up doing, when ji-won dies in the original timeline.)

honestly, hard to pull off, but the actress is killing it. she plays it like su-min is clinically unwell. if she could swallow ji-won whole to make sure she'll stay hers/stay with her forever, she 100% would.

#marry my husband #kdrama #like i could write a whole essay on her love for ji-won lol #idk it's more interesting than just pure hatred

[gummi-ships]

#kingdom hearts dream drop distance #khddd #sora #riku #nightmare's end #mirage split #my gif #i was going to write up a whole thing in the tags about my thoughts on this keyblade #but i just know it'll be an incoherent essay because i can't properly articulate my thoughts #the x-blade must be forged through a clash of light and darkness #but i find it so highly significant that sora and riku can create their own keyblade which is so unheard of #this keyblade isn't created with a clash but rather through harmony and balance #not with conflict but with understanding and connection and love #and i always felt as though that's how the x-blade SHOULD be forged. that master xehanort went about it all wrong #because balance and connections are such important themes in these games #it has two handles and looks so regal when combined. all of the shapes feel reminiscent of the x-blade too #it shines so brilliantly with both sora and riku's symbols. the heart and crown which is the iconic logo for the entire series #also the way stained glass is always used to represent hearts. it's so significant! #and yeah the paupu fruit keychain is its own thing to unpack #okay so i ended up writing something anyway but there's still so much more #i just really hope we get to see more of this in future games because it would be shocking if it was nothing more than a cool combo attack

[warlenys]

we talk about wilson being awful and evil deep down and he is but importantly that doesn’t erase the sincerity of his kindness. he is truly kind. he needed to help that old woman in post mortem because he does care about people. what makes him interesting is that he doesn’t want to. he gets mad at himself for being kind and nice and selfless and enabling. he wants to be selfish and mean. he would be happier that way. meanwhile house hates himself for being selfish and mean. house wants to be kind. house would be happier if he was wilson and wilson would be happier if he was house. and both of them are only able to be those versions of themselves when they’re together. they not only want to be with each other, they want to be each other. but the fucking tragedy of it is that they actually need to be the versions of themselves that they don’t like to be together. because if wilson was mean he would’ve dumped house ages ago and if house was kind wilson wouldn’t find him interesting. house loves that wilson is secretly evil but needs him to be kind, and wilson loves that house is secretly kind but needs him to be evil. they can’t change. they have to suffer themselves to enjoy each other. they’re plagued with an inability to be who they want to be in anyone’s arms but each other’s, but they both have to be who they don’t want to be to be in each other’s arms. the immutable tragedy of the hilson paradox

#rip schrödinger you would’ve loved house md #this started as just a wilson post but it ran away from me #i cannot stop thinking about them #1 thought about hilson leads to an essay lmao #every time #sick of them #house md #hilson #+