#also as much as i enjoy reading hard copies of books it's way easier to take a screenshot of a pdf sorry

[that-starlit-wanderer]

Liberty-loving revolutionary and advocate of equality Plato

[queer-ragnelle]

Hi! I really want to read the vulgate cycle but I have a hard time staying focused when reading it. Are there any sections of the vulgate that are not as important to the understanding or able to skip? Thank you so much for making all these stories accessible and thanks for your reply :))

Hello my friend! This is a great question and one I get a lot. The Vulgate Cycle is long and daunting, but I can help you navigate it!

Firstly, here is the full Vulgate Cycle PDF collection for everyone to read. Secondly, I'll summarize what you can do, and elaborate below a cut.

TL;DR

If reading a PDF, use CTRL+F to find your favorite character's name/stories.

If reading a physical copy, utilize the index (located at the very end of the Post Vulgate) to find them.

Discover chapters of interest from the summary page (also located at the very end of the Post Vulgate).

Skip The History of the Holy Grail and begin with The Story of Merlin or Lancelot I.

Now, let's break down the ways you can navigate the Vulgate Cycle step by step.

CTRL+F

This option will certainly be less effective if your favorite character is a prominent one such as Lancelot or Gawain as they appear a million times. However, if you want to learn more about someone else, say, the Lady of the Lake, you can search her up and find every instance of her appearance. Like so.

Index

In the very back of the final book of the Post Vulgate, there's an Index listing every named character [Ex: Gawain], location [Ex: Orkney Isles], entity [Ex: Holy Spirit], animal [Ex: Gringalet the horse], and language [Ex: Hebrew] mentioned in the entirety of the Vulgate Cycle. There you'll find a list of which book/chapter/page they appear in. Here are all the mentions of Gawain's horse in The Book of Merlin.

Chapter Summaries

Each book of the Vulgate Cycle has a Table of Contents with the chapter numbers and long, descriptive titles. That alone may give you an indication of what you want to read. However, at the back of the Post Vulgate, right before the Index, there's a list of every chapter in the Vulgate Cycle with a summary of events. That will give you more detail and may help you decide if you want to read in full.

Skip

If it sucks, hit da bricks. The beauty of the Vulgate Cycle is that you don't need The History of the Grail or The Book of Merlin to understand what comes later. I enjoy them because History gives a ton of background to the religious themes the Grail Quest will eventually explore and sets up all the motifs way in advance and Merlin has the Orkney Bros as well as Yvain and Sagramore as kids which is fun. But the fact is you can begin with Lancelot I and you won't be lost. Lancelot I was written first, Merlin is a prequel, so it's optional, and the motifs of the Grail Quest are going to be heavy handed when you get there anyway without the added stuff from History. That's hundreds of pages you can skip if you want to! Norris J. Lacy, the head editor, and his translation team did a phenomenal job with footnotes throughout, so if a character off-handedly refers back to something, you can rely on them to leave a little note at the bottom for you to refresh your memory with. It'll even give you a chapter/page number if you want to refer back yourself. Here's a footnote referring to Agravaine's unnamed amie [his ladylove] who helped wing woman her sister to romance Gawain. That was 4 chapters prior to this moment.

So there are plenty of ways to navigate the Vulgate Cycle and make it more digestible. That being said, it's translated so beautifully by Lacy and his team, that it reads like a modern novel. I have no doubt that once you get started, you'll become invested, and find it much easier to work through than you first thought. It's long-winded and character dense but it's fun. I do hope you're able to read it and understand why I love it so much! Thanks for this ask and I hope this helps. Have a great day!

[sergeantnarwhalwrites]

Writerly Questionare

Woah okay. Thanks for the tag @winglesswriter! I'm gonna have the questions below the cut to try to make the copy and pasting easier.

I tag @chayscribbles @winterandwords @vacantgodling @the-void-writes @aether-wasteland-s @nanashi23 @televisionjester (Only if y'all want. Open tag too!)

About Me

When did you first start writing?

With actual purpose middle school. Like 6th/7th grade.

Are the genres/themes you enjoy reading different from the ones you write?

Sorta. What's actually funny is I really ain't a fan of romance but I write that shit on the side XD.

Is there an author (or just a fellow writer!) you want to emulate, or one to whom you're often compared?

I'm not really sure about that emulate part. I could list a shit ton of awesome writers though (the people I taged and many many more) Lol, I'm definitely not compared to anyone though.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (Room, coffee shop, desk, etc.)

I'm usually writing in my room, on a crowded tv dinner table. But I write in a lot of places, including passenger seat of car. Or in the library if I'm settling on strictly typing stuff. (I usually handwrite)

What's your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Listening to music and being busy as hell.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

I think so. I have a shit ton of black characters for a reason. I'm black, it's easy.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

The power of friendship, violence, we were forced to together so now we working together, and "good guys" doing bad shit too. Those are usually pretty prevalent in my stories.

My Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character?

Uhhhh that's hard to decide but I guess I'll go Saz. Saz is my stud bear morpher dragged into a battle against the humans. She is stressed, bro is going through it, and she's a wrestler.

Which of your characters do you think you'd be friends with in real life?

Most of them honestly. I think I'd be more than willing to hear about Hollis's (Robots & Gardens) exploits.

Which of your characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

Cosma would get her shit rocked and I'd get mine rocked in return. And I think me and Green's anger problems would clash in really bad ways.

Tell me about the process of coming up with of one, all, or any of your characters.

They appear magically in my brain. And I obsess over them like I obsess over all of my interests. The Fucked at Five oc's were the one's that deviated the most because most of them are based on the movie Open Season.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

Tough exterior but actually really soft and big women go brr.

How do you picture them? (As real people you imagined, as models/actors who exist in real life, as imaginary artwork, as artwork you made or commissioned, anime style, etc)

As a combination of as real people I imagined, comic book characters, art I made, and cartoon characters (like a banger indie animation).

My Writing

What's your reason for writing?

Teehee it's how I process a lot of things and also I have to fill the world with content I want to see cause no one else is.

Is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

All of them for real. I love y'all. But any of them loving the characters as much as me honestly.

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work? (For example: as a literary genius, or as a writer who "gets" the human condition; as a talented worldbuilder, as a role model, etc.)

A cool dude who loves to write gay dorks gaying dorkily and fighting..

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Giving my character's a personality I guess.

What have you been frequently told your greatest writing strength is by others?

I've been told I can write really fluid fight scenes or I have decent descriptions.

How do you feel about your own writing? (Answer in whatever way you interpret this question.)

Lol I think it's great when it's great and ass when it's ass.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

Yep. My fanfic writing would probably be slowed even further but I'd still write whatever came to mind in general.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? If it's a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

Oh I definitely write what I know will amuse me. But I arguably think it's a mixture of both. Sometimes I'll see something or get a response that brings me to write. And it's bangers always.

When did you first start writing?

Are the genres/themes you enjoy reading different from the ones you write?

Is there an author (or just a fellow writer!) you want to emulate, or one to whom you're often compared?

Can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (Room, coffee shop, desk, etc.)

What's your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

Are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

My Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character?

Which of your characters do you think you'd be friends with in real life?

Which of your characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

Tell me about the process of coming up with of one, all, or any of your characters.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

How do you picture them? (As real people you imagined, as models/actors who exist in real life, as imaginary artwork, as artwork you made or commissioned, anime style, etc

My Writing

What's your reason for writing?

Is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work? (For example: as a literary genius, or as a writer who "gets" the human condition; as a talented worldbuilder, as a role model, etc.)

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

What have you been frequently told your greatest writing strength is by others?

How do you feel about your own writing? (Answer in whatever way you interpret this question.)

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? If it's a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

[pub-lius]

So I started This Fierce People by Alan P Crawford and so far I'm enjoying it, but I noticed he doesn't have your typical notes. So I went to the notes section and he does something totally different; he has the page number, start of the quote, and the source (eg. 10 "I am sorry": Beakes, De Kalb, 383.)

Need to know your opinion on this because right now I'm very mixed. I think it's super interesting (it was published this year for reference), but it's unique and I'm not used to seeing it (also wondering if you've seen this before) so I was little taken aback. It's not super hard to navigate but it definitely takes adjusting and honestly it kinda makes reading easier? Since the footnotes aren't right there in your face but again it sorta makes it harder because I'm not used to it.

hey girl

so yeah i have seen this before. i honestly don't mind this, it's the format chernow used and several others, and it is nice. i DO prefer footnotes at the bottom of the page, especially for large books because if you're going to take up that much real estate on the page, you might as well put the footnotes at the bottom, at LEAST the ones that have like a quote or commentary in them. it's probably the most realistic way to include information in the footnotes without including them at the bottom of the page.

even more rare, i've seen authors include footnotes at the end of chapters, and there's the typical play format where the footnotes are on the opposite page (my copy of othello is like this). it really just depends on the rest of the formatting of the book whether it works, and it's just one thing to take into consideration!

[solarishashernoseinabook]

Could you expand on what you said in a post about libraries about the big 5 publishers screwing over libraries in terms of digital lending rights?? I’ve not heard of that at *all* and im generally pretty caught up on publisher news, so I think theres a pretty big library-shaped hole in my sources lol

All righty, a couple disclaimers here. One, this is from a Canadian library perspective, so idk how well it applies to the US. Two, I don't work in the collections department at my library, so I'm basing this off what I remember from class years ago

(also clarifying that I'll be referring to ebooks and audiobooks collectively as digital books just to make it easier)

But in short, the Big Five publishers only very reluctantly put up with libraries having physical books, and one of the reasons they do that is because only one person can have a physical book at a time. Digital books, though? Why, if a library has a copy of one of those, hundreds of people could read it at a time! That's profits they're losing! How terrible!

But, well, selling to libraries is still a sale, so the companies sell to them but restrict it as much as possible. One, libraries pay much more for digital books than your average consumer. I don't have the exact number, but it's significantly higher. Two, unlike a physical book, which a library can have rebound if it's popular but hard to find, and which could conceivably last years if it's hardcover or paperback binding, digital books have severe limits on them. Maybe the library can only buy one "copy" of a digital book - i.e., only one patron can use it at a time. That digital copy artificially expires after 20 loans or 2 years, whichever comes first. Got a waitlist of 50 people waiting to read the latest Alexander McCall Smith book? Too bad! 30 of them are gonna have to go without! Do you have a moderately popular book by Danielle Steel, which gets borrowed every couple of months? Sorry! You've had it for two years, so it's gone now! Better buy a new copy!

Now, this is the case on digital platforms like Libby/Overdrive. Each digital book acts the same as a physical book, except that most of them go away after a certain amount of time. Certain public domain books might be a one-time buy for libraries, but for the most part, every loan, every week that goes by is chipping away at a digital book's life. Certain digital platforms - Hoopla, for example - have what's called "simultaneous use" policies - maybe you only have one ebook copy of a book by Agatha Christie, but every library patron can read it at once. The trade-off for this is that my library has to pay a certain amount for every person currently reading or listening to a book on Hoopla. We have a daily budget that can't be exceeded. Every week we field calls from people who, one afternoon, wanted to open up Hoopla, but were told they couldn't take out any books - because too many of my library's 40 000 active patrons had also decided to enjoy a book that day. And not every publisher even allows simultaneous use licenses, or they don't allow it on all of their titles

A final reminder to this very long post: please do not boycott Libby or Hoopla over this, I beg of you. Your libraries are pouring a lot of money into them because they're being used. Instead, put pressure on the big five publishers to make their digital books accessible, and vote in your municipal elections to get libraries more funding so we have more budget to put into those items. An easy way to increase your library's funding is just to spend a bit of time a week in there. Hang out with your friend for a few hours, just walk in and look at the shelves, or sit there and use their free wifi to play games on your phone. Digital books are here to stay, and libraries are important for getting those books into people's hands

[ofoceansandtombsanew]

i know you mentioned in the past on this blog you're multilingual and i was wondering if you had any tips and tricks for learning/picking a language to learn or resources as someone whose major surrounds linguistics?

Did someone mention languages? Oh hell yes. I

How to pick a language to learn

This is really about as subjective as it gets because there are plenty of reasons to learn a language. Job relocations, a romantic partner, fun, etc. I've literally picked up learning a language just because I enjoyed a song and thought the language was beautiful (Brazilian Portuguese) so really it just depends on you and you alone.

If you like anime and want to watch without subtitles, learn Japanese.

If you want to learn Turkish because you enjoy films from the country, learn Turkish.

If you're trying to learn Mandarin because of long-term work benefits, learn Mandarin.

And if you're really having that hard of a time picking, you can do a coin toss or a raffle generator to help you pick between the handful you're interested in. But you'll usually find it easier and more fun learning a language you're actually invested in. But should you ever run into the problem of being forced to learn a language, I do have tips on a separate blog on what to do then that you can read here.

What are your goals?

I would first decide what your goals are for learning a language.

Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking are all separate abilities. You can read Arabic perfectly but then the moment someone starts speaking to you, you're completely lost. You can be auditorily fluent but be unable to read and write.

Fluency is really a big word here in linguistics as what fluency looks like to one person, might not be fluency for someone else.

So I would figure out what your goals for learning a language are. If you want to learn Italian so you can an untranslated copy of Dante's Inferno, then you don't necessarily have to focus on listening and speaking skills. On the flip side, if you're just trying to learn Japanese because you want to watch anime without subtitles,

I personally wanted to watch Chinese films and dramas without worrying about subtitles, so I don't really focus on reading and writing skills and my speaking abilities are kind losin' their edge. But that's fine with me since I personally only want to watch stuff in Mandarin.

But because I do plan on working in Japan after I graduate, I try to maintain all my skills in all four of those categories. Same for Spanish as there are native Spanish speakers in my life I remain in contact with constantly.

Figure out what kind of learner you are and the type of instruction that suits you best

If you ever get the chance to take an elective surrounding Second Language Teaching or Second Language Learning, I recommend it. If not, I recommend the book Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching.

Once you take this class, you never really look at any language class you take the same way ever again. You'll be wondering if your class is one that centers around the Grammar Translation Method, the Audiolingual Method, Content-based Instruction, is this a class that involves Critical Pedagogy?

Because once you become aware of those methods and whether or not you are compatible with them, you'll see how your progress fluctates.

There's also whether or not you consider yourself a kinetic or visual learner, and so on and so forth. How one person learns might not be applicable for you, so their tips and tricks that help them learn a language faster might do nothing but inhibit you.

So I would experiment with any tips you come across and keep what does help you, toss out what doesn't.

Expect the plateau, don't be discouraged

When you are first learning a language, it goes pretty fast because everything is new and. But eventually you are going to notice that your progress is stagnating and you aren't learning nearly as much as you used to and you may begin to feel discouraged or begin slacking off because of it.

The plateau happens to all of us, so don't worry if it ever happens to you.

There are plenty of tips you can find online from various people how to overcome a language plateau, so I'll just list my personal methods of trying to shake things up:

Try learning your native tongue through your target language

Find more entertainment-based resources to encourage you to study like movies, youtubers, reality tv shows in your target language, try reading a book in it, etc.

Get out of your comfort zone. Complacency is the enemy here

Try finding new mini-goals to boost your learning

If you haven't already, try journaling in your target language

I'm assuming if you're following this blog, you're probably really interested in Japanese or Chinese since I mostly write content for Japanese anime and some Chinese games like Genshin but I do have some fun entertainment resources for the other languages I know/am learning. I don't wanna make this ask response too long though so if you're interested in that, let a girl know and I will get to channel reccing

[hongluboobs]

book reader i have a copy of dream of the red chamber (volume 1) that ive been trying to get through for over a year how do i motivate myself to finish it

I'm recently coming out of a half a year ish period of not reading very much so trust me when I say the lack of motivation comes for us all. I think I have some tips for how to motivate reading in general+ some for DOTRC specifically :)

(Real quick, I assume because you mentioned a volume 1 you're talking about the Hawkes-David translation published by Penguin in five volumes under the name 'The Story of The Stone'. This is the translation I read through, and it's the one I see recommended most to english speakers looking for an enjoyable reading experience, so to any other prospective readers of this novel I HIGHLY recommend reading this translation as opposed to any other ones. I don't know if I need to say this or if it's well-known to seek out that version, but because Hong Lu's canto is coming up I want to make sure anyone interested in reading through the source material can have the best experience possible with it👍)

It's important to remember that reading is a hobby, and the best way to keep going with it is to make it a habit. Unfortunately, this means forcing yourself to read sometimes, but it comes easier the more you do it. The trick is: it doesn't have to be a lot of reading.

The hard part for me is really just picking up the book and starting to read. Normally with books I like to set a goal of a chapter or so per day, but because this book has longer chapters that wasn't always feasible for me, especially if I had stuff to do. But once I had the book in my hands and started reading I would usually go above my goal I had set :)

Last year a lot of my DOTRC reading was done while I was waiting in line for things, getting/eating food, waiting on the bus, or killing time between classes/during boring lectures (I don't know if I'd advise that last one). This is moreso once you get in the rhythm of things, though.

Another tip is sometimes the format is the thing to stop me. I don't know if you're reading from a physical book or an ipad/kindle/etc or a computer or what, but sometimes I read better on my laptop than other things because it's Always Around. Sometimes I don't feel like grabbing a book or I don't have it with me, but my laptop's already open and I'm bored so maybe I'll do a little bit of reading instead of scrolling social medias. Lately, i've been jumping between my laptop and kindle for reading (laptop for convenience, kindle for portability and reading before bed at night) but I've gone between physical books and digital devices before. (If you want the epub versions of dotrc, I'd be willing to share them as well. The only difficulty is page numbers change between reading formats so I can only really switch at the start of chapters or if I skim to where I last was.

Something that saved me while reading DOTRC specifically (as well as other sinner books) was having a place I could discuss/"liveblog" the book. These books can get LONG and the reading experience varies from "really interesting and compelling" to "oh my godddd I do not need 20 pages of Outdated Whale Facts right now". (no offense to Moby Dick. I'm only slandering that one because I read the whole thing and in spite of enjoying it I understand why there are SO many abridged versions around.) It's kind of just the classic lit experience to deal with these types of things, but it's a lot more tolerable to me if you can talk to other people about it.

When I read DOTRC I didn't have anyone else reading with me, but just having a place to tell people about all the things that happen in this book helped me to keep track of events and characters. It also motivated me to keep reading so I could tell The People what happened next. Having someone else read with me would probably have helped as well, but it's hard to sell people on reading a 5-volume behemoth of a novel with so much stuff in it it has it's own field of study dedicated to it.

You can really yap anywhere. I have a channel in my Limbus Discord dedicated to the books so I don't drive everyone insane with my rambling and it seems to have helped some of my friends get through some of the other books as well so I think this method is a pretty solid success? You could also pretty easily do it just in someone's DMs if they're already familiar with the book (this has the bonus of them potentially being able to clarify things for you and help you get a deeper understanding of the book) or even yapping on a tumblr sideblog or empty notes doc or something.

So TL;DR:

Picking up the book is the hardest part. Reading a little is better than not reading at all.

Subjecting your friends to this book will make it easier to keep going :)

Also: for Dream of the Red Chamber specifically: the book starts slow. I don't know how far in you are, but so many people drop it early. I started reading it during a 12-ish hour car ride and that might've been the play because i can see people getting bored during the first few chapters. It definitely picks up though, so trust me when I say it gets a lot easier to read as you keep going. Chapter 5 is an incredibly interesting chapter, and from there I find things pick up and start going faster. (It helps that chapter 5 is pretty relevant for the direction I think Limbus is going to take canto 8 in!) The later volumes were able to go by a lot faster for me than the earlier ones as well.

This is a long ass book, but it's gonna be a while before Hong Lu's canto drops and we get to Witness that Surrender. Or Surrender that Witness. I'm not actually sure. But regardless, you've got plenty of time to get through it, even if you're a slower reader or don't have much time to dedicate to reading. Steady progress is the name of the game for stuff like this.

Worst case, you've killed a bunch of time during the wait for Hong Lu's canto (because oh boy, I have a feeling this one's gonna be a wait) and you are able to gain a better appreciation for canto 8 by understanding some of the nicher bits of how it adapts stuff from the source.

Best case, you really enjoy reading it and end up like a bunch of the Hong Lu fans I know who were permanently changed by reading this book and started reading scholarly analysis of it for fun (or start seeking out every adaptation of it you can find, or read the book 5 times over... I am coming to realize this book does something to people.)

This book is legitimately incredibly good, even outside the context of me reading it because I was very invested in that beautiful cyan freak from a game I like. I might not have been able to get through it without Limbus providing me the push to keep going on days where I really didn't want to read, but it's a legitimate interest of mine now I will seek out information on regardless of its connection to Limbus! Trust me when I say it's worth getting through even if it feels hard or tedious.

(and if it helps- a solid amount of the stuff I feel is most likely to be Limbus relevant happens near the end of the book. There's so much in this book so things that could be relevant are scattered throughout almost all of it, but I've been picking up so many end of the book vibes from stuff we've seen lately. so you've got to get there!!)

[flatland-a-2024-translation]

About this translation

This story is Public Domain. This means you can read it for free, anywhere online, without having to pay for it, unless you’ve chosen to buy it from me as a thank you for making it. This also means that you can take this story, and do anything you want with it! You can make it into a movie, an audiobook, you can edit it to change all the characters’ names and pronouns or turn them into unicorns, you can translate it into different languages, and you can sell anything you make from it, or even just print it yourself and sell it that way.

Why have I chosen to do this after spending so much time and work making this, you ask? Because I’m poor, and I want other poor people to also be able to read books for free, and because I think the world is more fun when people are allowed to be creative without copyright law getting in the way.

You will be able to buy physical copies of this book from me if you want, on Lulu.com, as long as Lulu.com exists, and if you would like to send me money after reading the book for free, as long as Paypal exists and I’m still alive, you can send it to “TinyelFlatland” on Paypal, (and do me the favor of ignoring my deadname. I’m too poor to get a legal name change at the moment.)

If you would like to read the original version of this story, published in 1884, you can look up “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” online, and read it for free, because that’s also Public Domain, which is how I was able to make this for you to read! Isn’t it great?

If you are reading this online, congrats! If you’re reading it in a physical book and you didn’t know you could also read it for free online, then congrats! You can! It can be found on archive.org, otherwise known as the Internet Archive, unless you’re reading this in 2300 or something and they don’t exist anymore, along with other places too. Just search for the title, and it should show up!

This translation was started on September 15th, 2023, at 7:55PM.

It was rainy today.

I’m writing this so that in the future, when the original story of Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, published in 1884, has become so antiquated that it’s hard for students and other readers to understand the language, there will be at least one more recent stepping stone to aid in understanding.

I am also writing this so that schools who want to teach Flatland may do so with a bit more ease, since it might be hard to get most kids to read the old one.

I will try to keep my translation as accurate to the original Flatland as I can, while making it easier to understand. Sometimes, I may interject if I think extra information will be helpful, with my comments marked by double parenthesis and a note that I’m the one interrupting ((Note from the second editor / end of note from the second editor.))

Flatland: A Romance of Many Adventures was written as satire to criticize the systems of oppression that the author saw around him in Victorian London. Satire is a form of humor where the flaws of something are emphasized to make them more obvious and clear. Many people today, and back then, struggle to understand the satire that Edwin Abbott Abbot had crafted. So I’m making this note in the hopes that more people will understand it properly and look at this book from the right, well, angle. (hehe)

The narrator of this story calls himself A. Square to protect his identity, similar to the way people whose identity is not know will be called things like “J. Doe” or “M. Smith”.

His name is not actually A. Square, but many people enjoy calling him “Abbot Square”, after the author.

A. Square represents bigots of all kind, who are so wrapped up in their own biased world-view that they implicitly trust everything they are told by the people in power without ever taking the time to actually question anything enough torealize that what they’ve been told, and how the world actually works, do not match up at all.

This idea applies both to his ideas of the Dimensions, and systems of social hierarchy and oppression.

You will see many contradictions in A. Square’s testimony of how the world works that he doesn’t realize are contradictions at all. Because to him, actual logic and facts don’t really matter, he just goes along with whatever those higher up tell him.

You will see him thoughtlessly repeat propaganda that conflicts with everything else he has been told to believe, without a single trance of irony or awareness of these conflicts.

You are meant to be shocked and horrified and flabbergasted by A. Square’s ideas about society. That’s the whole point. The point is that he’s wrong, to get you to examine your thoughts about society to see if you are falling into any of the same pitfalls he is. The whole point is to show how absolutely ridiculous his ideas are. You’re supposed to laugh at him. It’s a comedy, and the joke is how ridiculous and absurd bigots are all the time without them even realizing it.

There’s a lot more I could say about this subject, but I’ll stop here and let you get onto the story.

For this version of this book which includes illustrations, I will also be including image descriptions for all of the illustrations so generously provided by the original Author, along with any additional illustrations I created myself, for all my fellow Irregulars out there reading this.

The original Flatland is around 33,000 words long. This version has come out to around 39,000.

This translation was, for this version of the document, completed on July 25th, 2024. This version is meant to be read digitally.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

If you are reading this a hundred years in the future, I hope the world is a better place than it is today. I hope global warming has been managed, I hope capitalism has ended, I hope that Irregulars of all kinds – Queer people, Black and brown people, disabled people, religious minorities – are treated as equals and that no one has to go without food or shelter. I hope that the word “homeless” seems antiquated and confusing, because everyone has a home. I hope sea turtles aren’t still eating plastic because of nonstop pollution and corruption. I hope the black-footed ferrets and bison recover from endangerment and are thriving in their natural environments again. I hope that white supremacy and colonization have been overthrown, and that the world looks back on the country that called itself “The United States of America” with all due horror, disgust and shame. I hope that slavery has been abolished permenantly, everywhere, with no loopholes saying “except as punishment for a crime”. I hope that slaves are not sent to fight wildfires or build bombs to send overseas to murder Palestinians or any other victims of colonization. I hope that the world has figured out a way to disarm all nuclear bombs, and has agreed to forever forget the knowledge of how to make more. I hope that physical books still exist, and that libraries still exist, and that corporate monopolies have all long since been destroyed. I hope everyone everywhere has access to free, quality healthcare, and that all of the stolen land in this world is given back to its rightful stewards.

If you are reading this in the future, I hope you live in a better world than what we have right now.

And if you are reading this right now, I hope you take every opportunity presented to you to learn more, to question more, and to make this world a better place.

Enjoy.

-signed, Tinyel (tin-yell), a physically disabled and autistic+ADHD nonbinary aroace lesbian who uses it/its/itself and skull/skulls/skullself pronouns. (I mention this because I know bigots in 2050+ will still probably try to pretend that Queer identities are brand new and only invented last year, and so Queer and Questioning people in 2024 can see that others are out there!)

PS. My cat says hi.

This is the end of the preface by the second editor.

[counsellormurdock]

have some matt murdock headcanons to share?

oh man, yeah, i got a few :joy:

re: matt's senses - i'm a firm believer that they can easily exhaust him when used at length or intensely (see dd. vol 5 issue 14 where matt develops a nosebleed by trying to listen so hard for the absence of sound in order to find blindspot / muse). extended use of his senses to navigate and fight leaves him thorougly exhausted if he doesn't moderate himself (and we know matt is aces at moderation). because of this, his skills & training in being able to expertly navigate in traditional ways as blind people do is incredibly important. following a few days stretch of constantly vigilantism, matt just wants to check out and in order to get around relies on the skills he learned in his O&M classes back in the day.

re: matt's cowl that only covers half his face - this was intentional. yeah, it might make it easier to recognize him, to put two and two together that matt murdock is daredevil, but being a disabled man, matt knows how inaccessibility can disparige and increase stigma and ableism. by only wearing half a cowl, matt's able to better assist the Deaf and HOH within his city. Hearing loss is not something that matt can easily detect with his own senses, and if he covered his mouth he'd be removing his help from this community of people.

@ live action: always expressed displeasure at nelson & murdock being on the second floor with no elevators. again, a roadblock being truly accessible.

firm believer that matt murdock is pansexual demiromantic (always pretty quick to sleep with people but takes that deeper emotional connection to form that last relationship).

two main reasons matt refuses to having a seeing eye dog: 1. the overall assault having a dog would have on his senses ie. loud, smelly and they shed. 2. obtaining a seeing eye dog is an unnecessarily difficult and usually expensive process and he wants those trained dogs to go to other blind individuals who need that mobility aid more than him.

off the previous point: matt also makes a yearly contribution to 'the seeing eye' a foundation that provides specially bred & trained dogs to the blind. a non-profit that relies on donations, matt keeps his anonymous, not needing the recognition. (the amount varies, but in the comics where matt & foggy have a pretty successful law firm it's a sizeable donation).

at his confirmation, matt chose joseph as his name. st. joseph was chosen by god to care for mary & jesus because of joseph's love for god. he was also a man of great compassion for others and his desire to protect people was honorable.

matt dislikes lent - not because of sacrificing a luxury to show his faith but because of the weekly fish fries that a large number of churches hold. it's the entire city smells like a fast food grease trap.

doesn't own a lot of books due to the size in which braille books are in respect to the printed versions. he has a couple, mostly his favorites that he keeps, as well as a lot of his law texts - which are unruly and massive, but they were a bitch to carry and remind him of how he became a lawyer. he doesn't really reference them much, since they are quickly outdated and obtaining more recent versions in braille is difficult. this is one area where matt depends on electronic copies/screen reader technology to stay up to date.

in dd vol 6 issue 8 matt mentions that reading in braille reminds him of work and enjoys audiobooks for pleasure. he's picky about the ones he listens too, wanting a good plot and a nice narrator to listen to. he only listens to them when there's true downtime, it's not something he plays on commutes or while on patrol. they're reserved for the pleasure of relaxation.

also, he enjoys being read to, especially from people he cares about and is close with. it doesn't matter what it is, listening to his loved ones voice will always calm him down even when anxiety and depression feel like they will tear him apart.

there are two separate issues of dd comics where matt doesn't say a word the entire issue. i cannot remember which ones, i know one is from the 80's when doctor fear has the entire city infested with demons and idr the other but i know it exists. BUT, there are days where everything is just so overwhelming that matt doesn't need to add his own voice to the mix and doesn't say a word - his quiet days.

his love language is words of affirmation - the boy just rly needs to hear that he's doing a good job at things.

it doesn't take a lot of alcohol or other drug to get matt drunk/high. what someone might consider tipsy, matt feels is closer to a stage of drunk. his blood alcohol content is still the same as another individual of his size drinking the same amount. so, matt can still go drink-for-drink but he seems like he can't hold his liquor as well as a "normal" person.

dislikes texting, especially with people who don't know proper etiquette when texting someone who uses a screenreader. strings of emojis become incomprehensible nonsense and he won't bother listening to the end if he has to listen to "winking face with tongue winking face with tongue winking face with tongue" over and over.

okay, i think that's where i'll call this, i could keep going forever, but thank u for the ask !!

[aesteasis]

do you have any brazilian literature recommendations :))?

ooohohoho yes i do, im glad you asked >:)) grab some snackies and a water bottle, this is gonna be a long post.

most of what i've read from brazilian literature are classics and like books that are at least decades old lol (uni life go brr), so my recommendations will probably rotate around that. so lets go!

first of all, of course, i recommend Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis (black author btw!), it wouldnt be a br lit rec if i didnt mention this one at some point. this is like the ultimate classic i'd say, but im not recommending just for that. i REALLY enjoy unreliable narrators and this book is all about it. its a novel about a guy who marries his childhood love, but suspects she's cheating on him, but yk, he's a white man from the 19th century, he thinks he's always right and is privileged af and it shows in the way he tells his story, so his opinions arent that trustworthy. and the author knew very much what he was doing, and he did it on purpose.

still about Machado, i must mention his short stories. i really really enjoy grotesque and gothic literature (think the vibes of poe, lovecraft, gogol, dostoevsky, etc) and Machado nails at it. he's also translated poe's works to portuguese back in the day, so we know for certain there's some influences in there. well, i recommend Machado in genereal, my guy really knew how to criticize society with some great witty and sarcastic comments if you know where to look.

if you want more grotesque but is tired of reading stuff written by men, i recommend Julia Lopes de Almeida (who isnt as known as she should be, she was done dirty and purposefully neglected by ABL - brazilian literary non-profit society) and Lygia Fagundes Telles. both of them have some reeeal creepy stories, just the way i like it.

now, if you're into authors who dissect the human mind and master the stream of consciousness and love to relate to the thoughts of the characters of your books, i highly recommend Clarice Linspector. no one does it like her, my girl knows how to transform thoughts into a narrative and its insane, her books are really endearing to read imo.

but if you want something that will thresh the brazilian society (or well, any third world country's society i'd say) and expose every flaw about the system, racism, misogyny, colonialism and class conflict, i recommend specifically the books Vidas Secas, by Graciliano Ramos (idk if theres a translation, but the title says Dry Lives), The Slum, by Aluísio Azevedo, and The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, by Guimarães Rosa (this one is sooo hard to read in portuguese bc it uses a lot of regionalisms from a region im not from, so hard that i actually got a copy in english to read for my finals lmao. but worry not, the english translation is much easier to understand. it also has some queer themes, both gender and sexuality wise, and its a literal masterpiece).

for poetry, i highly recommend Augusto dos Anjos, a personal favourite. im not that into poetry, but Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Cecilia Meireles are very good too.

there's so much more i could recommend, but these are the ones that come to my mind rn. idk if thats what you were thinking about, and sorry i coulnt bring anything contemporary, if thats more your vibes, but i really recommend all of these, for anyone, they're really enriching to read.

[canageek]

Finished reading the print copy of Destroyer of Light. I think this is the first time I've reread that particular arc because I wasn't a fan of it originally, but I think I got a lot more out of it this time, it's more subtle than I remember and I really like the characterization of Persephone in it.

The book feels really nice and solid, and seeing the comic and print really brings out the artwork, there's something stronger about it when you see it on the white page with the black art, I think the contrast really helps make it pop in a way it doesn't on my computer screen. Like the art is always good, but there's just something special about seeing it in print.

My only complaint about the book is with that style of binding, I think the inner margin needs to be larger because I had to hold the pages really far apart to see the inner edge. That puts extra strain on the cover and binding, and you can tell that the cover is already beginning to warp. I hope future volumes this can be fixed, the outer margin is quite generous so it wouldn't be hard to sacrifice a little of that to make the inner margin larger.

Oh and there's a little wear around the edges of the cover but that's not something that bothers me at all, I get most of my books that used book stores so I'm used to battered covers.

Oh and I almost forgot, I really love the section of the back explaining the Greek myth inspirations and how the comic deviates from them, you have to love a comic with citations.

If you want to read the comic (and you definitely should) it's on Tumblr but I strongly recommend the reading experience of reading it on it's main website, it's much easier to navigate through though I'm not sure if that has all of the commentary about its inspiration. https://theiamania.thecomicseries.com/archive/

Otherwise it's all well tagged on the author's Tumblr: @a-gnosis

For this particular volume the main content warnings would be abortion and incest, and possibly if you have trauma about mother child relationships, it's not currently the healthiest one in this issue.

Let me know if you enjoy reading this, I'm thinking of writing up more book recommendations like this, I just read some really good books by Tanya Huff and Richard Baker that I'm tempted to share.

I should also remember to copy and paste this over to my blog, somewhere that's a bit more searchable.

[trickstercaptain]

@toodamnloyal sent a meme: 2, 5 , 9

2. how is their social media presence?

please don't let Jack anywhere near social media SO in all honesty, Jack's social media presence is minimal, if not non-existent. as much as Jack craves attention, I think he much prefers tangible attention that is physically in front of him rather than virtual attention, especially as he's not that technologically savvy or interested in technology in general. I think, even in a verse where he grew up during the technological revolution rather than being older when smartphones and social media come along, his entire ethos and aesthetic is old school rock n roll, anti-establishmentism and anti-the machine. I just can't see him getting super into social media considering that the man rarely even watches TV. the main appeal for him with social media would be to pick fights with strangers over the internet, he would find that so much fun and this is really the only reason he would set up a social media account. just to start arguments get people riled up online from the comfort of his living room. it satisfies his need to be annoying.

5. top five favourite things not available in their canon verse.

lmao okay so I could answer this in the sense of — better understanding of medical science, easier access to education and knowledge, abolition of public executions and the death penalty. all of that is a real bonus to not being in the 18th century. but if we're talking super specific and personal things to Jack: records/CDs/portable means of playing music. music obviously exists in the 18th century but there is no means of recording it and playing it back, or enjoying certain pieces of instrumental music without a full orchestra or band present lmao. Jack would love the opera and concert halls in his canon except that these are very much one-off experiences for him. in modern verse he can curate a really diverse appreciation for and taste in music across many different cultures and genres, and can physically own copies of certain songs or pieces of music. I joke a lot about how varied Jack's taste in music is, but it is really borne from the idea that it is something he enjoys so much but is restricted by in certain respects within the confines of his historical era. add to that too that he can learn to read and play sheet music, a language that is pretty much shut off to him within his lived experience in the 18th century.

going back to what I mentioned earlier but in a more specific way, education and access to knowledge. Jack didn't receive a formal education in his canon and, in teaching himself, books were often hard to come by. as much as he's not the biggest fan of the strict framework of school and university etc, he does love that easy access to knowledge, language and cultures different to his own. the modern world feels a lot smaller than the world Jack inhabits in the 18th century, but he is much more easily able to quence his insatiable need for knowledge. plus I'll talk about this below but it's much easier to get to places. it means he has fewer excuses for when he just up and vanishes from someone's life one day, but travelling is so much easier and more convenient.

9. how do they like to travel in the 21st century—both day to day life, and possible international travel?

okay so Jack's love of boats does not go away in this verse — he spends plenty of time out on Teague's boat growing up and eventually goes on to own a small clipper-style sailship in what is a really expensive hobby that he funds through his cons. this is also mostly the means by which he travels the world during his ten years after fleeing the UK. so by sea is still his preferred method of travel, however the modern world opens up his options too and the other real interest he has in this verse is the car lmao. he's a closet petrolhead and, while not a qualified mechanic by any means, spent a great deal of time at his grandfather's garage growing up and has a real enthusiasm for cars in general, as well as fixing up and driving them. this means that he loves a good road trip and would happily drive a car for miles at a time. by contrast, he can tolerate travelling by air but doesn't particularly like aeroplanes — if he wants to get somewhere in a hurry, he will fly there, but he would prefer to drive or sail if possible.

[meddling-in-horror]

page turners to screen dreams: adaptations from book to film

It’s hard to deny the power of a good adaptation. Growing up in a generation where there was a good ten years where I saw many of my favorite books adapted for the screen in varying degrees of ‘close enough to be enjoyed on its own’ to ‘single handedly killed the vhs industry’ (iykyk), I have an appreciation for adaptations done not-so-well. However, this also means that when a story I love is adapted well, I appreciate it all the more, two of my favorites being Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs and Henry Selick’s Coraline. 

Starting with Silence, the key to this adaptation lies in the screenwriting of Ted Tally. While Thomas Harris’s ability to write interesting and three dimensional female characters who exist without being defined by the men around them is questionable, the combination of Demme’s direction, Tally’s writing, and Jodie Foster’s performance as the iconic Clarice Starling make her a fully fleshed and believably interesting character. I was a fan of the film long before reading the book, and became even more of a fan afterward reading both book and Tally’s screenplay. Some of my favorite moments in the film are ones where Tally lifted dialogue directly from the text of Harris’s novel, often with little to no change. In particular, Jack Crawford’s line “You spook easily, Starling?” has always been a moment that I enjoy, particularly because of the silence surrounding the moment as Clarice takes in the scene of Crawford’s office and the crime scene photos of the Buffalo Bill murders. This is an incredibly strong book-to-film adaptation that’s strength lies in the moments that were taken directly from the source material, and were interpreted flawlessly by Tally, Demme, and the cast as a whole. Overall, Silence is something that I would consider a near perfect interpretation of Harris’s original text, a trend that Tally continued with the screenplay for the prequel Red Dragon.

There is also the matter of changes that must be made to make a book more suitable for the screen. For this, we can look to Henry Selick’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. While not my first Gaiman book (it was Stardust, and at 9 or 10 I was most assuredly too young to be reading it), this one remains my favorite (one day I hope to get my illustrated copy signed by both Neil himself and Chris Riddell). There would have been no way for Coraline to be on the big screen without making several changes. In the novella, most of the story is told through the titular Coraline’s inner monologue, as she spends much of the story wandering the grounds of her new home completely alone. Since spending nearly two hours watching a child talk to herself wouldn’t necessarily make for a very interesting movie - at least in this context, Selick introduced the character of Wybie. He also tied Wybie further into the story by changing one of the ghost children from - what I assume is - the child of a faerie to his grandmother’s identical twin sister. The film, while not an exact adaptation, retains every single element of Gaiman’s original story that makes the novel so intensely frightening. The changes made allow the film to be read easier on the screen, and for the audience to watch Coraline interact with the world around her in a way that feels more realistic, whether she’s in her own home or in the world of the Other Mother. Selick’s writing sells the image of a truly lonely girl, who - while surrounded by people - feels isolated in a new and unfamiliar environment across the country, and abandoned and neglected by her parents. 

Adaptations, good or bad, are created to be enjoyed. While some are good enough to be considered something separate from the source material, some are certainly not (LXG I’m looking directly into your eyes). Nevertheless, I feel like the adaptations I’ve mentioned here are among the best there are.

[tallmantall]

James Donaldson on Mental Health - Here Are Some Great Little Changes to Make You Instantly Feel Healthier and More Energetic

What does optimal performance feel like? How do you feel when you're performing 'at your best'? #James Donaldson notes:Welcome to the “next chapter” of my life… being a voice and an advocate for #mentalhealthawarenessandsuicideprevention, especially pertaining to our younger generation of students and student-athletes.Getting men to speak up and reach out for help and assistance is one of my passions. Us men need to not suffer in silence or drown our sorrows in alcohol, hang out at bars and strip joints, or get involved with drug use.Having gone through a recent bout of #depression and #suicidalthoughts myself, I realize now, that I can make a huge difference in the lives of so many by sharing my story, and by sharing various resources I come across as I work in this space.  #http://bit.ly/JamesMentalHealthArticleFind out more about the work I do on my 501c3 non-profit foundationwebsite www.yourgiftoflife.org Order your copy of James Donaldson's latest book,#CelebratingYourGiftofLife: From The Verge of Suicide to a Life of Purpose and Joy Link for 40 Habits Signupbit.ly/40HabitsofMentalHealth If you'd like to follow and receive my daily blog in to your inbox, just click on it with Follow It. Here's the link https://follow.it/james-donaldson-s-standing-above-the-crowd-s-blog-a-view-from-above-on-things-that-make-the-world-go-round?action=followPub www.celebratingyourgiftoflife.com For many of us the answer would be a combination of energy, focus and good mood. If you're interested in being healthier then you should focus on these things because not only will you feel healthier immediately, but you'll also then have more energy and drive to stick to whatever other health programs or objectives you're setting yourself. To achieve these kinds of small improvements, the best strategy to take is to focus on making small, cumulative changes that will build up over time. By gradually improving yourself with smaller goals you will find each change is easier to make and that you experience less resistance. These small changes then add up and provide you with more large scale success. So what are some little changes you can make to start enjoying more energy, drive and health right now? Here are just a few: - Swap your coffee for a health drink – Do you drink coffee every morning on the way to work? Not only is this likely to cause tolerance and dependence for caffeine (making you groggier in the mornings) but it also means you'll be missing out on the opportunity to get some health drinks in you. Try swapping this for a vegetable juice and see how much better you feel for all those vitamins and minerals. - Remove the sugar from your tea – This will not only reduce your calories and carbohydrate intake, it will also help you to get rid of your sweet tooth. - Set the alarm forward 10 minutes – Ten minutes more sleep makes all the difference in the world. It's hard to convince yourself to go to bed earlier, but giving yourself an extra ten minutes in the morning can make all the difference. - Sit at the table when you eat – Sit at the sofa when you eat and you'll feel lethargic and not want to get up. - Swap your socks – It sounds funny, but swap your socks for fresh ones halfway through the day and you feel energized! - Take calls outside – If you're on your mobile why not use this opportunity to pace around a little and get some fresh air? Just a little fresh air makes a huge difference. - Wear brighter colors – Bright colors make others see you as more energetic, which means they treat you as more energetic, which makes you more energetic. That's the law of attraction in process… Read the full article

[mondaysjournal]

6/10/2023 - One Hundred Billion Stars

Forever is one of those strange concepts that we have a word for but can't personally experience. In a technical sense it's "until the end of time;" that's something we won't be around for. So when we use it, it means something completely different based on the context. Forever is how long I had to wait until you came into my life the way you did. It's how long those three months you were here felt. It's how long the last full day I spent with you was. It's how long I have to wait to see you again. And it's how much time I want to spend with you. It's unfortunate that it can't be until the end of time, but I can settle for a little bit less than that.

Not much happened this week. On tuesday, I drove to albany for the symposium. Traffic on the way there as well as the brightness of the day made it kind of hard to drive, but on the way back since it was so late, the lack of traffic and darkness made it much easier. I gave Mr. Bott a focaccia, which he could not eat, but he said that his children and parents enjoyed it. The symposium itself was nice. I hope you can come to it next year. I want Mr. Bott to meet you, since you're so important to me. He's important in the sense that he's probably the closest thing to a father figure that I had in high school, while not quite getting there. I didn't disobey him enough for that to be the reality. You'd understand why some aspects of me are the way they are if you had a brief conversation with him.

I didn't go anywhere else this week, other than magic club. I lost two games and then won with rem karolus doing a heartless hidetsugu + furnace of rath combo. I like quick games. I also ordered the parts for shelob a few days ago, after I saw an article reporting huge price spikes on arachnogenesis. I think I was right to do so, because there were five copies of it on hareruya before and only one left when I placed my order. It's cheaper than the previous few decks I've made, I think. Not exactly a surprise since it's a tribal deck where most of the tribal cards are just random 2/3s for 3 with reach. The most expensive part is the landbase. It's definitely something I'm going to tinker with more over time. Other than that, I ended up finishing the latest randomized elden ring run with lint. And this morning I woke up early to go see one of the apartments you told me to email about, but I'll tell you about that more when we talk. We're running out of rice and chili powder so I might have to go get some tomorrow.

I don't really have anything else to look forward to doing at the moment, since the symposium was that one thing. I guess this is just how things were before you, but in your shadow it all seems more boring. I started reading the book you told me to read, but I'm only about 20 pages in since I get distracted easily. Once I'm actually further in, I'll start writing about it in earnest. I'll find something to do. I started cleaning around here more, since I feel guilty about not doing that enough. But I know there has to be more here than playing games and cleaning and making food. I might visit david at some point, but who knows if that will actually happen...really it's up to him to decide if he has the time. But yeah, I'll figure something out. I know you wouldn't want me to feel sad and bored here.

I love you, princess. I hope we can talk soon. You bring so much joy into my life.

[ladyazulina]

It's hard to say. I would love to not use any social media, but how will I attract readers then?

It gave me so much stress that I finished closing my writer Instagram account (because the others I have don't give me that anxiety) only to find a way to post more often just after it closed definitely. Now I even have a design for my feed, but not really much desire to go there again, as a writer, but I feel like I should.

I have an account for book reviews, but I don't take photos (mostly because they're ARC and I don't have a physical copy), and I found it was easier to come up with designs with the digital cover. I suck at photos, not even in the account I use them I took them so seriously, nor that the photos are somehow related to the post, I just have them because the post needs a picture, so I use whatever I have that's nice in my gallery.

I think you should make content in the language you feel comfortable with. I'm a Spanish speaker, but you can see that I also know enough English. With my writer account, my posts were in Spanish (when I create it again, it will be in both for the same reason as yours, internationalism). With my book reviews account, I post in the language I read the book.

With my personal account, I don't really care; when it's not about job, I'm talking about my journey, and I just share whatever I feel up sharing, not really thinking it will be read or liked or disliked or anything. I just put it out there in case it's useful for someone. The You're not alone kind of useful.

And, well, I don't have go-to methods. I just think about why I wanted to use the account. If it isn't helping, then there's no reason for it to continue going, but unless that's the case, do what you like. Share what you enjoy. Don't make it a job (unless it's your job), so you don't feel tired of it. You're not making it to pressure yourself. If you don't know what to create, don't create. If you don't know how to create it, try not to give it too much thought, it can backfire (it surely backfires for me).

You just have to remember that you're not doing it for someone else, you're doing it for you, so it is what works for you, or what makes you feel better, whatever you like.

The orphic blog

Hey and welcome to another episode of the orphic blog, where I ramble about anything and everything that's on my mind. If you like what you see, consider subscribing to my tag list because I cannot tell you when the next post will happen. 🙂

As many of you may have noticed: my native language is not English. It is German.

And maybe you have noticed that I have an Instagram-Account, where I post stuff irregularly.

Yes, I know, most people on Tumblr don't care for Instagram (legit), but I do, especially with my current Account. And since Instagram isn't much of a text-based platform, I will post my blog about this here, simply hoping people will read and understand.

For a little background:

I started Instagram on a regular basis in March 2018, where I joined the German Bookstagram Community. Blogging about books was always a hobby of mine, but I never wanted to be a professional blogger for publishers. I never wanted to have the pressure of having a deadline reading a book and writing an article. Reading was just an hobby and I don't want to make it a job.

But as it is with any niche within any social media app: People are very passionate about creating fancy stuff. In Germany we have a saying: "Höher, schneller, weiter." Higher, faster, farer.

See, I don't have that neat white rug or that perfect floor or bed, to take fancy photographs of these perfectly created bookish scenes. My lighting is bad and my photos don't look very professional. The effort I put into creating photos like this

it never really found an audience and I quit Instagram for a very long time. I simply hadn't the energy to create stunning photos every weekend, where I had to take all I wanted to photograph either outside or in another room, just that the lighting was decent.

After a while, around Summer 2021, I wanted to start a new Account, where the focus was on me and my person, rather than books and the perfect light. I started posting in English (because I wanted to international), talking about self-care, my life and writing. But soon enough, things got difficult again:

I felt like I am only copying the style from other people, Influencers I look up to. Like trying to be a person I am not.

And again, my account got quiet, just posting the photos I really thought about, mostly without a caption, because I don't know what to say.

Since the start of my new semester at Uni, I've met many people with social media accounts, running either full Instagram or even a YouTube Channel. Posting Insta-Stories isn't anything unusual anymore, since everyone does that. I feel like it is accepted that you host an account somewhere on the internet (maybe that's just the Computer Science department's mentality).

Now, that I am back at a community where shooting videos and creating content is more "normal", I kinda feel the urge to create again. But not only am I kinda lost in this space, I also don’t know which language I should use. I read and write in German, my native language. But I feel more comfortable talking in English. So, for video content, I would say English is my go to, but maybe creating stuff again in German will attract the right people since my work is down in German…? What are your opinions on that? (desperate for your advice here! Not kidding!)

But, as already mentioned: I still don't have the best base to create photos at home and I am not that outgoing that I could take photos every weekend on some trip somewhere (even though I would love to do so!).

I already figured that creating a story is sometimes easier than creating a post, but still I don't know what to talk about on a regular basis. Like, my life isn't that interesting? I don't live in a fancy town. I don't go partying all weekend. I don't have friends to do funny stuff with.

I am just a normal girl, living a boring life in a town, where nothing happens. I write fantasy stories and work for uni all day. There isn't much to say about me. I am not interesting.

But maybe that's exactly what's interesting, I don't know.

Maybe, I just start and trust the process.

Done is better than perfect.

I always tell other people to just start and it'll work out in the end, but I never trust myself and the challenges that I have to face. I doubt myself, especially in the creative, outgoing part. I am great at doing stuff privately, but I cannot stay open and out-and-about with stuff. I tend to back away from yelling into the world, that I am here.

I reach for the stars, while pushing the sky further away.

Having an aesthetic eye is nice, but it can drag you down in stuff like that. Wishing for the perfect photo will not help me create a post. Wanting to photograph something does and sometimes, if you look closely enough, you will realise that even the 3.5 million subscriber accounts once started with crooked photos and wanky cameras.

I need to remind myself of that. And posting that one reel that is in my opinion absolutely horrible was one step in that direction.

We live in a world, where one cannot speak freely without having to be afraid of people getting wildly mad at them because they like something, they don't like or say something they don't like.

We live in a world, where the intelligent have to dumb themselves down, so that the dumb won't feel harassed.

And as someone, who is a people pleaser, I am deadly afraid of creating a mob out there, may it be on Instagram or Tumblr, because my world view might be a little different.

In the end, I don't know if I every gain many followers, many people who want to listen to my words. Normally, people don't do. And that's okay, even if it is a little discouraging for me to see people visit my blogs, have a look and then vanish again, never to be seen again.

I want to talk about what fuels me: writing, computer science, communities, coziness and slow living.

But I don't know how.

I don't know how on neither Instagram, nor Tumblr.

And that's also why I am on a semi-hiatus at the moment. Because I feel lost in this community, where I want to participate, want to create, but feel like in a glass box, able to look outside, but no one can come in.

If you have come this far, please leave a message in the comments or reblog this and let me know what you think about the bubble every person on the internet sits in.

What are your go to methods to drag you out of a slump on any social media app? When you don't know what to create? Even though you have a full list of ideas?