Various Notes & Letters

Found/Collected Between July 2022-August 2023

(Texas, Seattle, and New York)

idk who needs to hear this but when your english teacher asks you to explain why an author chose to use a specific metaphor or literary device, it’s not because you won’t be able to function in real-world society without the essential knowledge of gatsby’s green light or whatever, it’s because that process develops your abilities to parse a text for meaning and fill in gaps in information by yourself, and if you’re wondering what happens when you DON’T develop an adult level of reading comprehension, look no further than the dizzying array of examples right here on tumblr dot com

this post went from 600 to 2400 notes in the time it took me to write 3 emails. i’m already terrified for what’s going to happen in there

k but also, as an addendum, the reason we study literary analysis is because everything an author writes has meaning, whether it was intentional or not, and their biases and agendas are often reflected in their choice of language and literary devices and so forth! and that ties directly into being able to identify, for example, the racist and antisemitic dogwhistles often employed by the right wing, or the subconscious word choices that can unintentionally illustrate someone’s bias or blind spot. LANGUAGE HAS WEIGHT AND MEANING! the way we communicate is a reflection of our inner selves, and that’s true regardless of whether it’s a short story or a novel or a blog post or a tweet. instead of taking a piece of writing at face value and stopping there, assuming that there is no deeper meaning or thought behind the words on the page, ask yourself these two questions instead:

1. what is the author trying to say? 2. what does the author maybe not realize they’re saying?

because the most interesting reading of any piece of literature, imho, usually occupies the space in between those questions.

Also, sometimes it has hidden meaning relating to how art was funded.  For example, Dickens never met an adjective he didn’t like because he was paid by the word.  Dumas included long and pointless dialogue because he was paid by the line.  Even stuff that was purposely included for dumbass reasons can teach us about the world the author lived in.

I was reminded recently that Percy’s mask doubles as a respirator for Science Purposes and he just made it extra bc he could

Hey check it out! I found some (clearly unused) concept work from way before Campaign 3 even premiered. I don't think I even turned these in.

What do you think is going on in no. 2? Is it supposed to be a guillotine, maybe? Was that my thought process? If so, I like it. I demand credit for that idea, i think it's fun.

Oh my god I just had a thought- I legit did not know about Laudna's history before it came out in the game. The noose is... spooky, right? I think I was just going for horror stuff lol.

COUNTRY GNOMES

TAKE THEIR BONES

*a bunch of gnomes in overalls run toward you and take your bones out of you*

this is the correct version of the song now

Deliberately.

Daria and Jane and being gay in the 90s

— Unknown

If you can write Satan so perfectly with a knife and a jar of jam than maybe there is something to our dark lord

Here's a website where Palestine GoFundMes are vetted and shared that you can send out to people. The url is gazafunds.com

Easy to use and simple. Just share the site whenever someone asks for GFMs for Palestine.

All campaigns: https://gazafunds.com/all

"Character doesn't act traumatized"

The flaw with the criticism of "this character isn't acting traumatized, you need to show how this event changed them" is that a lot of people experience EXTREME traumatic events and think it's normal. Their behavior might change in subtle ways, but they mostly just continue with their life.

This is especially true in children/young characters. See example here:

When I write traumatized characters, I ask myself two things.

Let's use my experience as fodder for a moment. I was a responder to a car crash fatality. My answers:

This is an overt trauma response as an example, but imagine a response to something less prevalent than roads. How often would the above responses come up?

Now let's apply the questions to someone who views the event as "normal" (I was aware that I was having an abnormal experience). Either they were raised around it or the people around them at the time of the inciting event made them feel like they were overreacting.

This is very brief, but I hope my point comes across. Yes, trauma is always felt, but how it's felt, when it's felt, when it's seen differs from person to person.

When someone, especially young people, are taught to just "move on" the trauma is still there! But it will express itself differently initially. Not being able to control their emotional response to a traumatic event may become a more visible reaction than any other.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You look a little pale--"

"Aren't you hungry? I'll go grab us lunch. Burgers okay?"

"Uh, yes, but--"

"Text me when you're done here. I don't need to be here for this bullshit."

And when they come back, they don't mention being upset at all.

You will be nice

Or my blast

String identified: c at

Closest match:

his BLAST

image description: a cat (Ricky?) staring at the reader with laser eyes

end image description

crazy thing is, CAT codes for the amino acid histidine, which is abbreviated as “his”. So it really is his BLAST

I don't know what that person was interviewing for but I hope they got it, because bullseye.

You actually need HEALTH to "eat healthy". Ill or disabled people are not famously great at preparing three flawlessly nutritionally-curated meals a day. I haven't cooked anything more complicated than rice or an egg in...several years.

I like boobs!

ahhhhh shitt shit fuck. post cancelled y'all. i forgot to fill out my paperwork

Gotta love people responding with "Where's our form 3:<" as if this post isn't explicitly about transmisogyny.

@reading-comp-posting

Check for understanding:

[sic] is my favorite editorial notation because of its inherent bitchiness.

(via @batmantaking-hobbits2gallifrey )