#e-didacte

[crabcrabcrabmeat]

God forbid women cheat and abandon their 5year old 🙄

[teacherstudiies]

April 24, 2023 | 🐇

What I worked on today:

visited two of my students at their internship (and got lost doing so)

studied for my pedagogy exam 

studied for my English didactic exam

wrote a couple of E-Mails 

Currently reading:

- Icebreaker Hannah Grace - You have a match  Emma Lord

[whencyclopedia]

The Frog Princess

The Frog Princess is a Slavic folktale focusing on the importance of recognizing someone’s inner beauty, regardless of their outward appearance, as well as the possibility of redemption after failure. The tale has many variants and appears in Czech, Hungarian, Italian, and Russian folk works as well as many others.

In the most popular version of the tale, from Russia, a prince who has married a frog discovers she is a beautiful and magical maiden but betrays her trust, forcing her to leave him. He must then embark on a quest to prove himself and win her back. The frog princess in this version is known as the fairy Vasilissa the Wise, but the heroine is not the same character as Vasilissa the Beautiful from the folktale of the same name featuring the witch Baba Yaga.

The Russian version is well-known for the dramatic twist it puts on the character of Baba Yaga who is seen here as a helpful entity, rather than as an evil, child-devouring hag, whose mystical powers are symbolized by the number three as there are three baba yagas, each of whom progress the plot. The tale is representative of the animal bride and offended supernatural wife motif, which appears in several legends from different cultures. The Slavic tale has nothing to do with the modern-day novel The Frog Princess by E. D. Baker which formed the basis for the 2009 Disney animated film of the same name.

Origin & Motif

The form of the story derives from one of the most ancient, the animal tale, made famous through Aesop’s Fables but first appearing in Mesopotamia. An animal tale uses animals as characters either to explain something (e.g. how the dog got its tail) or to impress some moral on an audience (as in the well-known Aesop tale, The Fox and the Grapes). Scholars Maria Leach and Jerome Fried comment:

The line between the literary and folk fable is not easy to determine, since tales from collections like that attributed to Aesop have had wide popular circulation and have been taken from and gone back into oral traditions of large groups of people. However, the area of contact between the didactic, moralizing fable and folklore is slight, for the animal tale proper is meant essentially to entertain. The hearer is required to suspend belief and see the animal speaking, thinking, and acting like a human being. (61-62)

In the tale of The Fox and the Grapes, for example, the fox behaves like a petulant child when he cannot reach the overhanging grapes and finally walks away saying they were probably sour anyway (inspiring the phrase "sour grapes" referring to someone who rationalizes a failure to get what they want). For the tale to be effective, an audience must accept the world of the tale in which foxes can speak, reason, and rationalize. In this same way, The Frog Princess relies on the suspension of disbelief at a talking frog who is able to perform transformational magic.

The tale is similar in many ways to the better-known The Frog Prince (also known as The Frog King) in which the youngest of three princesses drops her gold ball into a well by accident and it is retrieved by a frog after she promises she will be his companion. Once the frog returns her ball to her, however, she breaks her word and runs away. The frog then follows to force her to keep her promise. The princess only accepts the frog once she finds out he is actually a handsome prince and, according to different versions, she is either rewarded for her kindness or punished for being shallow and selfish.

The Frog Princess also has the main character show kindness to the creature but later betray its trust and also uses the device of the youngest of three as this was a popular motif in folktales. The youngest son would usually receive no inheritance, and the youngest daughter was married last and so might have the poorest dowry. Folktales balanced this perceived injustice by frequently featuring the youngest of the family as the hero or heroine.

Continue reading...

[drylite]

hi! i’m mikey (they/them). i like mota and when bucky egan does his whole loyal beaten dog shtick i’m normal about it

fic links:

your dreams, whatever they be - 6.3k words, rated E - Gale’s been having dreams he can’t quite remember the subject of. Until he does.

knuckleball - 2.7k words, rated M - John and Gale wash up post-fight.

futile devices - 7.6k words, rated M - Bucky comes down with something in the Stalag.

makes and mars him - 2.1k words, rated E - Bucky kisses and tells for a man who refuses to do either.

didactic - 1.2k words, rated E - The majors conduct a pep talk in private.

all other scraps are tagged “my writing”

thanks!!

[skill7spark04]

The Halo Bible Abridged:

Here's the entire halo bible abridged: "the precursors invent all life in the universe because "we bored lol" and thus life evolves and exists. from these lifeforms sprout the forerunners, who are big simps over the precursors, wanting to also become god. Then, while nothing interesting happens in the universe, humanity evolves into existence, expanding faster than their big forerunner brother. They are more chill and kind and less childish and fanboying than the forerunners. This will be important later. Eventually, the precursors want to retire from being gods, so they all hold a vote on whether humanity or forerunners get the mantle of responsibility (literally godhood). humanity wins unanimously, cause no one likes a kiss-ass, and the forerunners throw a tantrum about it, eventually murdering the Precursors. (meanwhile humanity: "OOH! SPACE DOG!") humanity eventually asks where god went and the forerunners said they left to get milk, and left them in charge of the godhood. humanity was distraught by this news, knowing what getting the milk means. Meanwhile the primordial, the last precursor, malds and seethes for so long that they catch fire and burn to death, creating what would be come to know as cocaine. Humans discover this strange substance and their dog IMMEDIATELY sniffed it.

 because it made their dogs virtually immortal, they proceed to administer this to all the space dogs. Then, a week later, all the dogs get sick at the same time, and turn into gross zombies that then start the walking dead in space. humanity successfully ALMOST contains the flood, but then they shoot an infected forerunner ship. This causes the Didact to blow a fuse and mald so hard he has no hairs left. The forerunners, being petty children, proceed to nuke humanity back to the stone age. literally. Then the Didact proceeds to turn most of them into e-boys, until his wife stops him with the master ball, and then locks him in the pc with her shiny gyarados and green mewtwo. The forerunners, completely lost without their general, get their shit rocked by space zombies, who also convinces their robots that murder is ok using a brand new tactic never seen before: GASLIGHTING! The forerunners start losing so bad, they decide if they can't live, no one can. so they put all living creatures in giant freezers, (including the flood, stupidly,) and set the microwave to defrost in 30 billion years, before creating giant rings to divorce the galaxy from life. this starves all the space zombies, (except the ones in their emergency meat locker) and save the galaxy. eventually, life thaws out and humanity evolves for the 3rd time ever, and then the events of the books and the games and terminals happen. that is the halo bible, abridged by yours truly."

[officialromaniantranslatiuni]

Asta e cu dedicatie pentru anon.

Regula mare si veche: PARINTII NU AU VOIE IN INCINTA SCOLII FARA SA FI FOST CHEMATI/PROGRAMATI LA O INTALNIRE CU UN CADRU DIDACTIC

Azi am iesit de la ore si mai sa ma lovesc de o gloata de mamici. Nu erau pe strada. Erau in curtea scolii si faceau cu randul la spionat pe geam.

[annlillyjose]

Green Room – WIP Intro

hiii cuties!

have you ever been overcome by an irresistible urge to write a memoir at the age of twenty, or are you normal? i'm definitely not, so here's a new project (again)

green room is an experimental memoir that delves into my teenage years as a writer. i started writing seriously at the age of thirteen and self-published my first book at fourteen, which is something that haunts me to date. but here's the thing – i feel like i've learned a lot in the last six to seven years and wanted to explore it with another writing project.

i don't really know what this book is going to be yet. i'm going to start drafting during nanowrimo as a side project and hopefully finish it by the end of the year, but i'm not in a rush. i want to enjoy the process of writing this so i might take my sweet time.

now because this is an intro post, let's get to some specifics.

disclaimer: this is my original work. plagiarism of any kind will not be tolerated.

genre: creative/literary non-fiction

pov: first person retrospective

structure: a combination of chapters, vignettes, and poetry maybe

projected word count: 50k

concept: literary memoir on a writer's journey through teenage as they navigate genre, form, tense, character, story, plot, theme, atmosphere, and setting.

aesthetics/vibes: abandoned art galleries, mountaintops, beaches at midnight, falling asleep on the terrace, coffee mugs, word documents, cute stationery that never gets used, rejection e-mails, daydreaming, moon phases, still rivers, birds flying in groups, rain, academic validation, morally gray people, the colour green

THE ORIGIN STORY

i had always wanted to write something in retrospect of my teenage and document my growth, but didn't want to be so didactic in doing so. the memoir seemed like a serious piece of writing so i didn't really know if i was qualified enough to start. but if i've learned anything about writing in the last few years, it is that you can write whatever you feel like writing. so here i am with a new wip.

a little bit about the title – i struggled with this the most. but the novel i wrote during my late teens (dairy whiskey) was an entirely green book and i found myself finding thousands of green things every single day. my life had turned a shade of green. i was very inspired by the books bluets by maggie nelson and the white book by kan hang. i decided to make the colour green an important aspect of the book.

i don't know how this is going to turn out or if i'm going to do updates for this one, but who knows, i just might. until then, i hope you enjoy my other writing and shitposting. until next time, goodbye.

– ann.

general taglist (ask to be added or removed)

@shaonsim @heartfullkings @vnsmiles @dallonwrites @wannabeauthorclive @sienna-writes @violetpeso @flip-phones @silassghost @ambidextrousarcher @zoe-louvre @writing-with-l @magic-is-something-we-create @femmeniism @frozenstillicide @wizardfromthesea @rose-bookblood @coffeeandcalligraphy @rodentwrites @saltwaterbells @snehithiye @at-thezenith

[monitorchakas]

How about this.

Primordial: *furiously rotates a banana* HAHA! Y ES! ROT AT E TH E B A N AN BA¡”

Librarian: What is he DOING?!

Didact: Aya….it is horrifying!

Librarian: Make it stop. Please! I beg you!

@lychbeast the giant crab monster is at it again

[victusinveritas]

From an American Literature Facebook group. of the modernist poets had mottoes or credos that pointed to their philosophy of poetry.

a. Robert Frost said a “poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom,” and a poem is “a momentary stay against confusion.”

b. Ezra Pound said, “Make it new” and “Go in fear of abstractions.”

c. T.S. Eliot wanted to “shore up the fragments against the ruins.”

d. William Carlos Williams said, “No ideas but in things” (meaning exists in the world).

e. Wallace Stevens said, “Poetry is the supreme fiction” and “Not ideas about the thing, but the thing itself” (there is no meaning in the world except that which is created by the poet’s imagination).

Marianne Moore’s most famous credos were:

a. “Imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” This combines Williams’ location of meaning in the external world with Stevens’ location of meaning in the poet’s imagination.

b. “Ecstasy affords the occasion and expediency determines the form.” This shows how we get from Frost’s “delight” to “wisdom.”

There are three major principles at work in Moore’s poetry:

1. Her poetry reads exactly like prose. She felt that prose was better written than poetry, that it contained precision, verbal economy, directness, and logic unimpeded by the demands of poetical devices. She wanted to write poetry that was cold, hard, exact, clear, and literal. She called herself a “literalist of the imagination.” She wanted to remove from poetry all fuzziness, convention, romance, self-indulgence, and beauty—everything that interferes with or distorts perfect communication with the reader.

2. Her poetry even tries completely to remove the meter and rhyme that Frost held onto. She avoided metrical feet—what she disparaged as the “tick-tock of the metronome,” and even any accented words or syllables (if you try to scan her poems, you cannot). Her line division, in the absence of meter and cadence, is purely arbitrary. She governs her line breaks only by her desire to highlight or play down certain naturally occurring rhymes that go unnoticed in ordinary speech and prose. Often, her stanzas are governed only by a syllable count.

3. Not only was her poetry like prose—with a didactic moral point to it—but she believed, like her close friend Williams, that anything was a fit subject for poetry, including business documents, baseball statistics, school reports, and scientific data (these are the “real toads” in her “imaginary garden”). Stevens believed that the imagination of the poet created order out of the chaos of things. Even Williams’ “no ideas but in things” at least left the poet free to discover ideas in those things. But Moore leaves the poet only the function of shifting around the “real toads” in some sort of pattern in her “imaginary garden.” Hers is the most astringent, self-effacing poetry ever to appear in America.

"Poetry" (1919) by Marianne Moore

I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.

Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in

it after all, a place for the genuine.

Hands that can grasp, eyes

that can dilate, hair that can rise

if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are

useful; when they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the

same thing may be said for all of us—that we

do not admire what

we cannot understand. The bat,

holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under

a tree, the immovable critic twinkling his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base—

ball fan, the statistician—case after case

could be cited did

one wish it; nor is it valid

to discriminate against “business documents and

school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction

however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry,

nor till the autocrats among us can be

“literalists of

the imagination”—above

insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them, shall we have

it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand, in defiance of their opinion—

the raw material of poetry in

all its rawness, and

that which is on the other hand,

genuine, then you are interested in poetry.

Photo: Moore with her close friend Muhammad Ali. Yes, she really was that cool.

[brunettecosette]

SLAM POETRY

An Analysis

S-l-a I AM poetry!

Stride to the mic,

Stride to the mic, it’s analog night

Stay off your device, no Facebook likes or Snapchat shrikes

Orate the nomenclature, you’re old hat, it’s second nature

What I’m getting at is you state your business and get them to bear witness

Scope the murky room for the lurking dames, take down that naysayers name

Scope the murky room for the lurking dames

take down that naysayers name

it’s always the same lame dame talking shit in the front row, just ignore her and put on a show

Keep the rest laughing and happy

Make it sharp, make it snappy, cloak the feelings of doom and gloom to boost the mood of the room

Step right up, it’s Open mic night

O p e n am I doing it right?

Standing up on the stage gives the illusion of power

The high and mighty might stand and glower but I’m not even here an hour-

All the while catching the hazy eyes of really quite fetching but crazy guys

Appeal to the front row cunt

That bitch has been on her phone the whole time

Meanwhile I’m performing this poem

Complete with bitchin’ rhyme

She’ll get subtracted from the practice with persuasive tactics such as the blacklist that are not particularly didactic

still, they are effective in their own right

I’m sayin if we got spite

She might see the light tonight

Spoken word

S p o CAN I BE heard?

Comedy in its purest form is tragedy wrapped up and warmed

And that’s what poetry’s about, Boy Scout

“Be prepared” that’s the motto but y’all ain’t ready for me

Ever seen a girl rip her own soul out to tickle your fancy?

And you eat that shit up, watching rapt as I spit my pain in verse

It’s meta, sardonic and completely unrehearsed

I’m just standing in front of you spilling my guts to the floor

Oh, now you want more?

S.M.C.W. 2020

[onewomancitadel]

Cannot stop thinking about the idea that women represent sites of cultural anxiety, Whore of Babylon to the 'welfware queen', it's misogyny as a communicative device within society - reassuring in some ways, symbolic othering in others, scapegoating in most. I often think about the utility of misogyny (that is, incentive to be misogynistic) because I don't think its existence is arbitrary, and in this case the idea I'm very specifically interested in is its use as a narrative device. Because in their own ways, these collective archetypes represent projected cultural anxiety, not just because women are responsible for everything, but because the signifier of woman is so significant. It's a related thesis to the role of women's testimony in the Bible (the Mary Magdalene finds Jesus after resurrection) or women's speech in ancient Near Eastern texts (Epic of Gilgamesh) and even the Homeric, in that because of the absence of women's speech within society, it is significant when they speak (and potentially carries magical qualities).

I was thinking about this for a few reasons - the role of women in storytelling generally, an emergent curiosity about feminine archetypes in fiction - and I suppose what I would call a dissatisfaction with the easy position that mostly when you're talking about female characters, you're talking about the presence, or lack thereof, of misogyny. It feels limiting in its own way I suppose, because then I think that leads to the current problems we've got, which is that writing women is a feminist responsibility, and not a work in the human condition, and in which case the didactic responsibility of that depiction - have you or have you not empowered women? - effectively stymies storytelling abilities at all. It's the natural answer to the idea that the work of storytelling for 4,000 years was specifically to disempower women through depiction, and to be entirely frank I think that gives too much power to narrative. This is actually an extremely common issue encountered in the disciplines of archaeology and anthropology, that is, relying on cultural depictions through mythology to draw conclusions about that extant culture, and in which case I would say is also an ongoing source of contention, so you'll not find a definitive answer from me - I think from the get-go, a 1:1 assumption about how women (and indeed goddesses) are depicted is some sort of representation of an 'ought' model in society is probably wrong, though.

The reason I made this post just now is I was thinking about Grimes, because she just released the music video for So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth, and it made me think about how she takes on the cultural otheredness of her erstwhile romantic companion and billionaire, E/lon M/usk, and how female artists (especially trans and/or Black female artists) represent the cultural decay of celebrity, and the complicated cultural responsibility celebrities are endowed with. Just look at the furore over Taylor Swift's ability to potentially sway the vote in the next USA election, or the failure of her to speak on the I/P conflict (because if she did, this speech would be powerful). She's a site of political discourse, and worry about the emerging picture of the American Democrat voter, who happens to be female (both politically irresponsible for not voting for a third party, or not joining the communist revolution, or caring too much about abortion/trans rights/racial justice, or being one of those feminist harpies responsible for the collapse of civilisation), as it's projected that men are swerving more conversative - which women are also responsible for - including the new topic of straight men's loneliness (read: sexual/romantic loneliness) which women are responsible for and which only women can fix. Woman as site of inevitable decay!

But also that Grimes in this case represents the worst of the feminine artist - makes her own music (this is called into question by gossipmongerers), acts strangely, dares to have children mid-career and therefore compromises her artistic identity - to listen to her music is as bad as supporting her. No, I'm working towards a point here - I think there is something specifically anxiety-inducing about people choosing to consume women's art, who represent those sites of cultural anxiety, because it's considered tantamount to having the same opinions as her - that women's speech is actually dangerous because of this potent cultural symbolism. (I worked in the women's testimony thesis). The same sort of anxiety is not applicable for male artists, not generally speaking (people wouldn't ordinarily harrass you for it, or performatively demonstrate their not listening to it - Chris Brown is still charting by the way), because it simply doesn't carry the same cultural symbolism - men's political beliefs, moral actions, injurious behaviour, etc. is considered distinct from their cultural output. I'm not saying one or the other is worse - or necessarily a discrete phenomenon - women in general are expected to be both conscious creators and conscious consumers. Just look at environmentalism - more women are environmentalists, and there's a perception (I am not citing the survey here but I'd say this is generally true) that eco-friendly products are girly. Women as sites of environmental/cultural anxiety. Birth rates dropping? Thesis evolving.

The reason I think it's interesting that women carry this cultural symbolism - that misogyny here is achieving something within society, in some way, that this type of anxiety comes with a function not arbitrary, or at the very least enjoys useful application if not origin - is effectively also to say that women are models within society. That they are models of beauty, moral sensibility, the general fertility of society, the political growth of society, the decay of society, the power of women as guides in every walk of life - is actually pretty significant, and I don't really see this idea discussed when deconstructing and trying to challenge misogyny. Nowhere am I trying to suppose that misogyny is good - what I am trying to say is that if you feel despair as to why it persists, it's a much more complicated issue as to why it does at all.

I also think that there is generally an exhaustion with misogyny - the discussion of feminism's purpose, its aims, what it can achieve (which seem to be always everything and nothing at the same time) - and within the frame of storytelling, I think that the didactic aim, whilst noble (attempting to empower women?), misses the point. To identify why it doesn't work - that is, to recognise what purpose misogyny served in storytelling before - is necessary to understand how to fix it. So what do you do with that cultural symbolism and weight? What do you use it for? I introduced the celebrity element - is that even a responsibility they ought to have at all? Now, if you were to turn the thesis on its head, that is, what do male characters enjoy in storytelling - is that better or worse?

Better or worse in what sense, one supposes - because the storytelling quality of women, women's speech as magical inducement of delusion, or corruption - is in itself pretty potent, here I'm thinking of Odysseus, it seems to me that if the essence of storytelling is its humanistic quality, then you would hope that all characters would be able to enjoy this range in their own way. You're going to laugh, but I can't help thinking of the fandom belief that in RW/BY, Cinder is responsible for I/ronwood's actions in V7/8 - that his actions are depersoned by attribution to a woman's actions. Isn't that dehumanising in its own way? I'm not saying this is tantamount to violence - what I am saying is that I think it's strange how this idea of moral responsibility or lack thereof goes unchallenged.

But that is the convenience and the utility of women's culpability - because it is lazy, and useful. Sometimes, I fear that the simplest answer to misogyny - transmisogyny, misogynoir - or racism, or ableism, or homophobia, is that it's lazy. Not always, of course, but let's say you have a best friend who sexually assaulted another woman at a party (he touched her without permission), a girl you don't know, do you do the hard thing and cut off that friend, get justice for a stranger, or support the person you know? Too many people spend their time considering these situations in thinkpieces and not looking at the reality around them. This isn't just misogyny - this is Jake deciding it's too hard to stand up to his friend. If you knew Jake, you might decide just to tell him to fuck off - that's your interpersonal decision - but what I am also thinking is that Jake is spineless. This is something a lot of us go through. It's very hard being alive and trying to make the right decisions, and to decide whose testimony to trust, and sometimes I think it does us all a disservice when we only read this through the lense of [MISOGYNY 1+ / -1] and not the world in which that misogyny functions.

More specifically, how it is that storytelling interacts with, and reflects human motivations interests me, but also that it is a deep mysterious pit of the human psyche. When it comes to the question of writing a 'good' female character, the position seems to be - well, before, the bad female character conveyed the figure of women to be oppressed, now she is endowed with the opposite power. I think that this is untrue in both senses. I think that this is limiting, and not interesting, and speaks to the belief that storytelling bears social responsibility, not just is a reflection of those attitudes (of everything), which ends up with characters who are dehumanised anyway. If the empowered female character must represent every woman, bearing that cultural weight of responsibility women are already endowed with, I suspect you've not achieved much.

[hamstermastersamster]

I really wish I knew what to feel about FFXVI! Have a bit of a jumbled mixed-feeling very wordy word salad about it.

I've finished it, including available DLC. I liked it, overall (excepting the ending, which was . . . egh). I can confidently say there were no times that I LOVED it. Most of the time it was just kinda all right?

It took about half the game to feel like I wasn't in the tutorial area anymore, which I think is a consequence of its very linear and didactic construction. A great deal of forward momentum is driven by people telling you to go and talk to so-and-so, go here, do that, running through connected areas in a short sequence and then back to the 'hub'.

Lots of games are like this, under the hood. But FFXVI does a bad job of hiding its bones, somehow. It feels linear and, unfortunately, sometimes tedious and repetitive as a result.

BUT . . . the game's simplicity, straightforwardness and forgiving nature make it such a stress-free gaming experience that I can kinda appreciate it for what it is. Unlike big overwhelming open worlds with a million parallel objectives and map icon vomit, I didn't have to think very hard about where to go and what quests to do in what order:

you always just do new sidequests and marks pretty much as soon as they appear, and before you progress the main plot; they get predictably spoonfed to you in small doses between big plot events and are basically unmissable because they get highlighted on the map (to the point that the Alliant Reports function for finding quests is basically redundant).

You can, in a limited fashion, explore the big areas that are currently open to you but the game won't let you off-path until it wants that. Fast travel is available and free.

You can't fuck up your character build because you can reset and rebuild at any time for free, ability-by-ability, as often as you like.

Gear choices are limited to no-brainer best-in-slot decisions and, while accessories can apply different effects, they make almost no noticeable difference to 99% of combat.

It's impressively accessible - even if you don't play on 'story' difficulty, there are accessories you can choose to equip that give you an easier time of e.g. dodging in combat

If you die (which, honestly, should be a really rare occurrence on normal difficulty), you can come back with all your potions and high potions refilled at no cost.

You get big warnings if you're about to advance the plot to the point that you will miss stuff.

Lots of people will hate this, I guess, but as someone who can find overwhelming busy complex games a bit ennervating at times, I have enjoyed completely switching off my brain after work to play this one. You don't have to make any decisions.

Still, it does lead to a game world that feels designed for the player and the game, instead of something that lives and breathes on its own. You can explore and find potentially-interesting locations but until the game says it's allowed to be interesting, you'll find nothing there. One of the worst examples is finding a memorial to a very important person to Clive in normal world exploration, but until the end of the game, you can't read it or interact with it at all so you (the player) don't know what it is. But it was there all the time! USE YOUR PRETTY BLUE EYES, CLIVE-

The combat, which at first I thought was fun (and at its best/toughest, still can be fun), rapidly becomes very repetitive. Once you've killed one type of enemy variant, you've basically killed them all. One giant guy with an axe/hammer is much the same as every other, strategically.

My mind boggles at the fact that you're given all this diverse elemental power and . . . none of the enemies even have elemental strengths/weaknesses? :\ You can kill a bomb with fire attacks! I mean . . . come ooooon xD There's also no concept of a status effect besides a brief stun, which completely neuters malboros/"morbol"s. Man, if they had let you switch between all your eikons and given enemies elemental attributes . . . feels like it would have been exciting.

Along with a half-baked, barely-there crafting system that really only upgrades your one basic sword and 2 armour slots in terms of Numbers Go Up, it means there isn't a lot of depth to, well, anything combat oriented. There's also no incentive to really swap and change your ability loadout for different fights since you can find 3 eikons and 9 abilities that work for you and just spam them for the whole game in the same rotation with plenty of success. Being limited to 3 equippable eikons makes it too much effort to experiment.

There was one fight against a notorious mark that I attempted underlevelled and was difficult because of the damage output, and I had to really learn the enemy moveset and dodge and parry at all the right times, and that was the closest to a Good Time in a late-stage fight that I got. Makes me think a playthrough on the harder difficulty might actually make the game more engaging.

(Also I'm really bored of stagger mechanics, there MUST be something else out there Dx Game Devs, please save us!)

Soundtrack has a few nice tunes (the 'dark' Prelude/crystal theme is poignant) but most of the ambient stuff was forgettable. I really loved some of the combat themes - On the Shoulders of Giants and No Risk, No Reward in particular! Unfortunately they got stuck in my head at the same time I came down with a virus that put me in a high fever and I spent one delirious night with them playing at max volume constantly in my addled brain which would not sleep. This has given me some uh, complex associated feelings about the tunes >_>; Not the game's fault though.

I liked a bunch of the ideas and vision for the world of Valisthea, but I'm not totally sure they pulled off the grimdark Game of Thrones vibes they wanted (just throwing blood spatter on everything makes you look like DA:O, not GoT xD). It was like they wanted to be soooo dark, but it only ever felt like they scratched the surface of all these horrible events they were trying to portray, and sometimes it was hard to take seriously.

The dedication to non-RP British accent VAs was a delightful treat, however! Hearing JRPG characters say 'ta ra' gave me warm fuzzies. (It is so weird hearing Cid when Salvage Hunters is on TV though, lmao - there is simply no mistaking that deep, rough Yorkshire accent xD).

I did really warm up to most of the main cast by the end, even if I think most of the characters in this game have the most boring designs I've ever seen. It took a long time, but the Hideaway folk became fond friends. I started to enjoy running around listening to all the updated conversations with people after major plot events - one of the few player-directed explorations you can really initiate.

I would die for Gav >:[ Every game protagonist should have a little geordie sidekick who primarily exists to be wide-eyed and say "fuck me" when shenanigans are afoot.

I enjoyed soft-spoken raspy-voiced himbo Clive a fair bit, too. I will keep him. He can be a blorbo, as a treat <3

[warningsine]

Watched "Elemental" with my cousin's kid and enjoyed it quite a bit.

It wasn't as strong or smart as "Inside Out," "Wall-E," "Up" and "Soul," but Pixar never really misses.

A touching romantic relationship develops between two elements of nature (water and fire), but of course it's doomed, because they can't touch each other.

The fictional city the elements live in was clearly inspired by New York, but has also touches of Venice and Amsterdam.

An old-fashioned myth about migration, the search for identity and social integration that will enchant you with its spectacular iconography and didactic allegories.

[faggotcitosis]

oh my fucking god.

1) every study talks about men. how is this relevant for all the trans men in the tags thinking they'll take T and it'll cure their depression. please explain to me. show me the research.

2 & 3) they're clearly saying if you take a small dose you can control what changes happen in your body. did you read the tags here? so many people saying they want a deep voice and no bottom growth?

not almost everyone, everybody has both T and E, men and women, period, because they're more than sex hormones - they're physiological. not having WILL cause medical issues. i described them as opposites didactically. they're all steroids, they all come from cholesterol. they will never be the same level, one pushes the other around. high E suppress T. high T turns into E (which is why gymbros get boobs). P is a precursor to both T & E. you will never have all of them as the same amount, one pushes the other around.

5) i agree that that plays a big part on the high control of it. but testosterone is factually more harmful if taken incorrectly than e or p. like, this is a fact. it will severely fuck up your liver. it's way easier to overdose than e or p. the doses cisgender men have, which is considered physiological, will have an increased risk due to the nature of the hormone, yes. what i was and am talking about is people injecting it willy nilly and having it way higher than a physiological dose. i am literally talking about people wanting to get it illegally (and not following a guide) or doing it like a recreative drug. also e and p are used in birth control, which you can get otc, which is why diy is easier for trans women. how are you going to tightly control a substance that is used for reproductive control?

did you read the tags? are we in the same post? i never said doctors prescribe testosterone like tictacs (btw some are! hello detrans wave!. but thats not the point here).

trans ppl who take a physiological dose of t are literally fine. and not what im talking about. i never talked about that. did you the screenshots???? they are literally talking about irresponsible use of a steroid. steroids are a specific class of drugs that r controlled because they will fuck you up in different ways (hello steroid induced cushings!).

of course conservatives think any use is irresponsible use. that's why i dont advocate for making access to t harder, i advocate for trans people being educated and fully aware of hormone physiology, benefits and risks.

[longlistshort]

Chau Nguyen, “Bài Học Về Phong Cảnh / Landscape Didactics”, 2022, sand painting

Zalika Azim, “Blood Memories (or a going to ground)”, 2023, video

Azza El Siddique, “Vessels”, 2019, ceramic, rust

Suneil Sanzgiri, “Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken)”, 2023, video

Currently on view at The Delaware Contemporary is we are what we lose, an exhibition featuring artists Zalika Azim, Suneil Sanzgiri, Azza El Siddique, and Chau Nguyen. Through sculpture, dance, video and photography, these artists investigate issues of loss through what gets left behind.

From the museum-

“The real phenomenon of loss is both the inventory of what no longer exists and the impossible measure of what survives.” —Canisia Lubrin

What does the fugitive offer to sites of ruins? Is it a hum, a murmur, a cry, a shadow, a haunting, a poem, a memory, a scene, a loved one, a vessel, a movement, a gathering?

Fugitivity routes and unroutes our understanding of topographic terrains created through the unfolding of displacement, relocation, and exile. In the wake of migratory catastrophes, ruins are the aftermath of loss and devastation, leaving behind vestigial remnants and residuals. Reaching for traces, illegibility, and livability, the fugitive attempts to depict and texture multiple lifeworlds within ruins marked in loss and devastation. Gesturing towards the specter, how might placing what happens within sites of ruins —the permeable, usable, corporeal, and inhabitable—at the heart of our critiques and interventions enliven our imaginative possibilities?

Ruins present a set of spatial, material, visual, and psychic dimensions of un/being and becoming, as well as modes of fugitive resistance and expression. Tending to the juxtaposition of being unplaced, we are what we lose focuses on the provoking void that ruins leave behind and expresses spatial, narrative, and material practices actively and painstakingly situated in the hold of the catastrophes as means of reworlding and unworlding towards livable possibilities.

Partaking in worlding decomposition, Zalika Azim, Suneil Sanzgiri, Azza El Siddique, and Chau Nguyen present visual, narrative, and sonic performances that desire and action towards the otherly present meaning and aliveness by uncomposing time and working with the permeability of the artistic mediums. By engaging with the barely perceptible imaginations, unplaced yearnings, and tactile and vulnerable terrains, the artists orient toward spectral terrains that suture, resist, and refuse the knowability of the fugitive. Viewers will reflect on the histories of ruins haunting our contemporary sites and their capacity to mutate to make complicated ways of knowing, feeling, and seeing the world.

More information on Suneil Sanzgiri’s video installation, pictured above, from his website–

How do we live through and narrate moments of revolution and revolt, and how do we understand these experiences across time and distance? Using imaging technologies to meditate on what it means to witness from afar, Suneil Sanzgiri explores the complexities of anti-colonialism, nationalism, and diasporic identity. His work is inspired by his family’s legacy of resistance in Goa, India, an area under Portuguese occupation for over 450 years until its independence in 1961. Two Refusals (Would We Recognize Ourselves Unbroken?), the artist’s newest two-channel video installation, combines archival footage, animation, interviews, and a script written by poet Sham-e-Ali Nayeem. The film tells the stories of the mutual struggle in India and Africa against Portuguese colonialism, highlighting the solidarity that developed between the two continents during the 1960s and 1970s.

This exhibition closes 12/29/24.

[officialromaniantranslatiuni]

A postat un cadru didactic (sau cel putin cineva care lucreaza cu copiii) o chestia despre cum se vede clar in clasa cine a dezvoltat deja o mica dependenta de dispozitive si tot ce inseamna joculete/filmulete menite sa fie consumate la greu

si grupurile de mamici deja au luat foc

"Awww cum le știe ea pe toate mai , cum e ea perfectă ! Când o sa înțelegem ca fiecare copil este diferit ! Pun pariu ca doamnei o sa ii cam cad ochiul daca faci un experiment real de genul !"

alta a inceput sa vorbeasca de iu-chei si cum acolo se sta oricum de la scoala pe aplicatii si copiii sunt perfect normali (fiindca comparam tiktok cu aplicatii educative si mere cu pere)

alta s-a luat de faptul ca doamna in cauza a zis ca preda 10 ore si ca CE DRAGA? AI OBOSIT 10 ORE PE SAPTAMANA CU UN COPIL? (nu e doar un copil intr-o clasa dar whaevs)