#REFT

[regancastlelion]

i just started palia a few days ago, took one look at Reft and decided I would marry him.

and now, days later, I am screaming at everything he says to me.

[a2zsportsnews]

What a ride the past year has been for first-year UCLA coach Alfee Reft

No matter how this season turns out, as UCLA heads into the home stretch and vies for an NCAA Tournament bid, what a whirlwind of a year it’s been for Alfee Reft. And in the middle of it all there was this one five-week stretch where he alternated between his UCLA program and the USA women’s national team as it prepared for and then qualifiied for the Olympcs. “It was the most challening thing…

[thatmintleaf]

Owowow bardiche Ryris digital redraw

[skaald-of-the-hearth-fires]

not writing Logan as a retired hero coming out of retirement to help save the day and finding his reputation is dying asd;lkfjadsf;lkj

(seriously this guy is stuffed so full of tropes it's a shame he isn't written about more often. simp narrative doing him injustices left and right smh)

(Anet don't make stupid retcons challenge 2024)

[skaald-of-the-hearth-fires]

Why, I'm touched!!

I just posted a re-write of a chapter yesterday! Clearly this is not enough for the beloved mutual.

-bows with a flourish- I have taken thy feedback and will crown it like a jewel on my mantelpiece, to be gazed upon and admired. I have enshrined it in my heart as a burning passion, a desire of my soul; I will act upon it as quickly as I may.

I just have an itching to read something in particular right now....

@skaald-of-the-hearth-fires I'm bored. Where's the next chapter?

[aedesluminis]

"The Fifth of May"

The Fifth of May is a poem written by the Italian poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni in 1821, in honour of Napoléon's death.

It's one of the most famous poems as far as Italian literature is concerned: it usually gets studied and analyzed at least once during compulsory education! Since it doesn't seem that many people outside of Italy know of it, I will share below an English translation made by Lorna de Lucchi (source + original in Italian here)

" He is no more. As reft of breath The heedless body lay at last On whom such boundless hopes were cast, Immobile in the calm of death. So, by the tidings, in amaze The earth is held, and with her gaze The parting hour doth mutely scan Of this great spirit ; if again Upon the dust of her wide plain, All blood-besprinkled, ever can The footfall of a mortal show Like unto his, she doth not know.

My muse, seeing him most gloriously Ensconced upon a royal throne, Was still, nor in the clam'rous tone Of myriad voices joined as he Fell, then triumphantly did soar To fall again and rise no more : Free from all taint of servile praise And cowardly insult, let me rise, Now this bright star falls from the skies, As one who piteous homage pays ; A garland on his urn, let lie This song which haply will not die !

From Alp to hoary Pyramid, From Manzanare to the Rhine, From Scylla to the Don, sure sign His vivid lightnings were that did Foreshow the tempest that would be, His winged bolt from sea to sea.

Is his true fame ? Posterity The arduous verdict will declare ; We can but bow in reverence where The Eternal Craftsman mightily Conceived this soul that it might stand To show the marvels of His hand.

The tremulous, impassioned joy Of schemes conveyed with master-art, The strife of a subjected heart Which dreamed a sceptre for a toy, Nor was denied the godly prize Before a world's incredulous eyes ;

All these he knew ; untold renown More glorious for the peril passed, Flight, then the victory at last, The pains of exile doffed the crown ; Twice humbled to the very dust, Twice gifted with an empire's trust.

He spoke : and lo, two centuries, Ranged face to face upon the field, Submissive to his voice did yield, As if to destiny's decrees : He called for silence, and then grave Judgment between them both he gave.

He vanished : idly passed the days Imprisoned in a narrow round, By bitter envy and profound Compassion, by the constant gaze Of hate unconquerable pursued, With love indomitable endued.

A wave o'er shipwrecked mortal's head Closeth, then heavily down doth bear, The very wave that in despair He scanned before, straining ahead After some merciful trace of ground In a vain hope before he drowned :

Even so this soul was crushed below The burden that is memory ! How often to posterity On deathless page he sought to show Himself revealed, how often then From his tired fingers dropped the pen !

How often, drawing to the end Of a day spent in listless wise, Arms crossed on breast and downcast eyes Aflame, he stood while thought did tend Towards the past, in yearning vain For that which could not be again,

Calling to mind the mobile tents, The glint of passing infantry The flood-wave of the cavalry, The storming of the battlements, The sharply framed, imperious word, The swift consent of those who heard !

Maybe in such deep misery His spirit might have known despair, Had not a hand divine been there To raise him up in charity And carry him to mansions where Breathes a more consecrated air ;

To lead him by hope's flowery ways To everlasting pastures sweet, Where perfect happiness doth meet And soar above poor mortal praise, Where in hushed twilight doth abide The earthly glory that hath died.

Immortal Faith, O gentle maid, Full many a triumph hast thou seen ! Write this thing down in joy serene ; Never on Golgotha was laid Sublimer fame as low as this, Never proud spirit bowed like his.

O Faith, from his sad ashes move All words of bitterness away ! The God who doth create and slay, Who doth chastise then heal in love, Will surely come to him and keep Vigil beside his lonely sleep. "

[petaltexturedskies]

His feet will turn to desert places Shadowless, reft of rain and dew, where stars stare down with sharpened faces from heavens pitilessly blue.

Sara Teasdale, from "Desert Pools"

[suzannahnatters]

You've heard of Dorothy Sayers' poem Desdichado but have you read the Hades and Persephone-themed poem from that same collection because this thing goes way harder than anything should:

REX DOLORIS

* Signed with the sign of His Cross and salted with His salt. S. AUGUSTINE.

"WHEREFORE wilt thou linger, Lady Persephone? The sheaves are gathered, the vintage is done, Bacchus through the ivy leaves laughing with his satyrs Calls us to the feasting, and the ripe, red sun Drops like an apple, tumbling to the westward, The shout of the Maenads is merry on the hill, Why do the wheat-ears fall from thy fingers? Whom does thou look for, lingering still?

"Whom dost thou look for? Here is one to woo thee, Brown-cheeked, beautiful, lissom as the larch, Lightsome, slender, blossomy with kisses, Merrier-footed than the winds in March; Loose thy hair to dream along his shoulder, Drowse in thy whiteness warm upon his breast, He shall feed thee with wheaten cakes and honey And all fair fruits that are rich and daintiest."

"I weary of the feast, I weary of the harvesting, I weary of your music, children of the earth-- Your feet dance over the roofs of my palaces, The halls of Hades ring hollow to your mirth; The great King of Grief hath reft me, ravished me, Broken me with kisses, conquered me with pain, I have drunk his bitter wine, I have eaten of His pomegranates, Can find no savour in the honeycomb again."

"Wherefore wilt thou linger, Lady Persephone? When sheaves are gathered and the vintage is done, And Bacchus through the ivy leaves laughing with his satyrs Calls us to the feasting, and the ripe, red sun Drops like an apple, tumbling to the westward, While the shout of the Maenads echoes from the hill?" "Ere the round moon rise ruddy on the corn-shocks The Lord of Hades shall have me at His will."

[usafphantom2]

SrA Peter Reft

@kadonkey via X

[oh-shtars]

Since ya feel bad about not drawing lately, I have one suggestion:

RFTS!Flazino giving WG!Flazino therapy.

Or even this exchange:

RFTS!Flazino: Hey, where's your tour guide hat? Its custom to where it during the song.

WG!Flazino: Burned it. I've lost my sanity, not my dignity.

REFTS!Flazino: *Looks horrified*

(Just spitballing ideas off the top of my head 😂)

Hehe, to be honest, I saw their little therapy session to be more like this:

RFTS!Flazi’s response to coping with burdensome emotions is usually with humour. In reality, he’s losing it under that charismatic smirk of his :)

Flazi doodle cuz idk… Y’all seem to be in a craze for this guy lately for some reason 😂

[the-sauce-engine]

scooby doo playing l4d2: "rime ro ray reft rour read ro"

[inioranackatori]

Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale

Alternatively, writers for children’s cartoons have no sense of scale.

(look GaoGaiGar is amazing but I have no illusions what it’s target demographic was supposed to be, and I am not it)

Instead of putting art in-between commercial segments, GaoGaiGar puts tech specs. For everything. Everything. Up to and including Leo Shishioh’s gag inventions that show up for five minutes in a single episode and never appear again.

This is a wonderful gift to fic writers, because we can go look up exactly how tall the dreamboat BFF Guy Shishioh is. You can even look up if his name’s spelled Guy or Gai (the answer is yes).

Let’s take a look at one of those tech specs, hum?

Soldato-J 002. The man who’s face gracefully adorns this blog as a profile picture.

Now, there’s a lot of stuff here, so let’s take it piece by piece.

I know nothing about electricity, so let’s hop over that for the moment. Instead, let’s look at this man’s max speed: 2 X 10 to the 7th power meters per second.

That’s 20,000,000 meters per second. Or for those of us not on the metric system, that’s about 12,427 miles per second. For comparison’s sake, the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. To pile on the comparisons, the speed of sound is 750 mps. Soldato-J is going sixteen times the speed of sound. Sonic booms should be going off all over the freaking place.

Switching gears, now. Let’s dive into this bit of tech spec:

The first thing to catch my eye is the - er… “Reft” hand? I’m just going to hand wave that as an Engrish mistranslation - Japanese has no hard “r” sound, and so substitute in the letter “l”, leading to all the shenanigans.

Let’s focus instead on Soldato-J’s dimensions.

2.1 meters works out to 6 feet 11 inches. Da man would be snapped up by every basketball league in the US by that metric alone. Which is to say, extremely tall, but not too far outside the norm.

His weight, though, is 0.2t. The “t” stands for “tons”. The man is 400 pounds. He weights as much as a freaking sports motorcycle! (And looks better than one, too.)

But now… Now we’re at the part that breaks my brain.

Span: 3.0 meters. That’s 9 feet. As tall as an ostrich and arguably just as dumb sometimes. It’s also three times the width of the average door.

If the span is measured from the tip of one of his shoulder armor bits to the other shoulder armor bit’s tip, that means -

Soldato-J cannot walk through doors.

[themiscyreian]

The Morrow Song

Deep in the darksome days of winter Climbeth the crescent to the crest; Shinen the stars in sovereign stillness; Reft are the red rays of the west.

Over the sea-spray’s silvern splendour Falleth a foot unfailing fast, Fearing none fall nor seeking substance, Faltering noght from first to last.

Moveth a maiden in the moonlight, Drapëd in darkness deep and drear, Over the waters white and wellowing In the gaunt aging of the year.

Over the shores of silent silver Unto the fearful forest deep, Seeking the Cavern’s secret centre Setteth She still as She would sleep.

Out of the depths of drear and darkness And the cruel cold of winter’s night Cometh a Child all cloth’d in candour Bearing God’s Love and Life and Light.

[skaald-of-the-hearth-fires]

Different professions process different branches of magic. Some use magic to control energy, others lifeforce, others the fabric of mind and reality, others the atomic makeup of natural elements, others are granted direct control over magic itself.

All of these, of course, take different resources. Necromancers hoard lifeforce while guardians and warriors are masters of discipline and managing their own energy. And all, of course, must keep an eye on their reservoir of magic particles.

This delicate balancing act means that no two professions channel power at the same cost; some professions take a heavier toll in magic particles but a lighter one in their secondary resource. Others rely more heavily on their secondary resource and channel a relatively small amount of magic particles to do so. In addition, different individuals have trained more extensively in particle regeneration, and the cost of individual particles may register as lesser to them than to another, or to a novice.

'Spells' are a cross-professional shorthand for measuring power-at-the-moment, referring to a standard rate of conversion based on profession and particle regeneration. If a given caster says they has 'three spells' left, a bystander might see them cast four separate times; but added together, the power used was equal to three standard spells each equal to a certain degree of power (measured by the obscure power of Standard and Tradition).

This is of course a simplistic definition of the highly technical term 'spell,' but this is a Novice class and we'll get to that later. Perhaps I'll call in a Synergetics graduate to co-teach it...

One last thing! Of course 'spell' can also refer to any specific instance of channeling magic. But that's nonstandard use and unacceptable in academic writing.

[xserpx]

He was no hero, and never would be. He was made to chop logs, not to fight. And that made him lucky. Luckier’n Reft, or Stodder, or Brait. Luckier’n Drofd or Whirrun of Bligh. Luckier’n Black Dow, even. He worked the axe clear of the block and stood back. They don’t sing many songs about log-splitters, maybe, but the lambs were bleating, up on the fells out of sight, and that sounded like music. Sounded a sweeter song to him then than all the hero’s lays he knew.

— The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

[violettesiren]

I Each of us like you has died once, each of us like you has passed through drift of wood-leaves, cracked and bent and tortured and unbent in the winter frost, then burnt into gold points, lighted afresh, crisp amber, scales of gold-leaf, gold turned and re-welded in the sun-heat;

each of us like you has died once, each of us has crossed an old wood-path and found the winter leaves so golden in the sun-fire that even the live wood-flowers were dark.

II

Not the gold on the temple-front where you stand, is as gold as this, not the gold that fastens your sandal, nor the gold reft through your chiselled locks is as gold as this last year’s leaf, not all the gold hammered and wrought and beaten on your lover’s face, brow and bare breast is as golden as this:

each of us like you has died once, each of us like you stands apart, like you fit to be worshipped.

Adonis by H.D.