#e-didacte

[crabcrabcrabmeat]

God forbid women cheat and abandon their 5year old 🙄

[andreablog2]

The indie sleaze revival is so tacky it’s been going on for so damn long and even before that it was being pre meditated by very.. loud…very vocal.. creative hypothesizer types. Anyone making a think piece on how it’s a rejection of influencer culture and how brat changed everything needs to shut up!!!!

Idk I also genuinely have a always been in away of and in love with… the aesthetics of third wave feminism/the dawn of ultra glam social media and think there’s some overlap there…but im kind of getting sick of that as well bc I can see that coming back.

I actually think the unraveling energy of 2017-2021 is going to repeat itself vaguely again. But more powerful. Just with a sloppy eclectic anything goes ai aesthetic. There will be like a resurgence in ….stable, kind of boring/not as finger on the pulse…experts and authorities. W that being said, I’m not ready to be scolded at by NPR liberals from towns where diplomats live that went to colleges w 4,000 people than straight to an e-mail job. Jack Schlossberg lost his ability to communicate to people due to his appeals to transparency. I think to mitigate this, there’s just going to be more vague semantic discussions again…which is good for art and creativity as a whole but it also lends people to be too didactic and just not fun.

The only thing I can really turn to that feels new is sort of a realism of the present moment.. I love all characters and components of the greater cultural canon that aren’t ..too aware of themselves, but also aren’t afraid to be messy and contradictory…that’s the most honest in a weird way. And I don’t think it needs to be done in an “indie sleeze” way or a 2010s fast fashion Pinterest poster way, it can be done using a much broader frame of reference…which is what the 2010s always were. Idk I value intellectual curiosity and having fun and I don’t think the two should be this like revolving door.

[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 under the cut!

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.

penny drop - 5k words, rated E - Bucky gets a little soft. Gale realizes a few things.

bound to answer - 6.4k words, rated E - A long path to Bucky wearing lipstick for Gale.

odds are - 2.1k words, rated E - A follow-up in the thick Bucky verse where buckbucky enact a fantasy from Gale’s younger days.

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.

[silverwings22]

Starfall: Chapter 14: Trash and Treasure

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

The sand was damp, warm, and gritty against Star’s cheek when she managed to open her eyes. She was laying face down on a beach, soaking wet, in the dark and alone. “E-eggdoc?” She mumbled, clawing her way half upright despite the pounding in her skull and urge to vomit. “Sha-shadow?” 

There was only silence and fragmented thoughts, of Shadow behind the Chaos barrier and screaming metal of a structure collapse before the ocean filled her ears and all went muffled. She managed to roll over onto her back and look up at the broken moon, the faint glow somehow bright enough to hurt her eyes. Earth had always been overwhelming to the senses since Star had been here, but now it felt like her brain was trying to crawl out of her ears just looking at the sky. If the moon’s usually gentle light was causing her pain now, she’d absolutely explode in the sun. 

Explode… I almost… Her left hand scrabbled at her right wrist, touching the inhibitor ring. Shadow really had saved her. It wasn’t a dream, she could feel it solid and real despite the haziness of her thoughts. Her memories didn’t feel correctly moored, a rarity. She had a didactic memory, it shouldn’t-

Thinking was too hard right now. She needed to get away from the water before the tide came in, find somewhere to curl up and sleep until her head stopped hurting so much. Everything was fuzzy, but she’d done something bad. The airship collapsed, that was bad and if GUN found her now… cage. She couldn’t go back. 

Motivated by her own disjointed thoughts, she crawled towards the too-bright lights of a seaside city until wet sand became dry, then seaside grasses crunched under her knees, then the salt-stained boardwalk appeared. It had a railing, and she dragged herself to her feet and stumbled ahead with only an occasional break to retch over the side. She’d never felt so sick in her life, and her entire body hurt like she’d been beaten with a frying pan. 

The heel of one of her boots was broken off, the other dented so badly it would have been hard to walk even if she wasn’t nauseatingly dizzy. She was dimly aware of people on the streets and tried to stay away from the streetlights, though she didn’t have the energy to try to melt into the shadows. She tottered through gutters and alleyways, skinning the pads of her hands as she clung to the side of brick buildings to steady herself. She needed help, she knew it but had no idea how to get it. She didn’t know anyone nearby, and she wasn’t even sure where she was. Even if she had been, the only people she could confidently be sure would help her were Shadow and Eggdoc. She had no idea where they were, how to find them, or if she could walk that far if she did. 

When she tripped in an alleyway, she didn’t have it in her to get up. She was at least away from the tide, sandy and salt-crusted over her bruises. She scooted over towards a dumpster, leaning back against it with a groan. 

“Just… a nap. A little nap, and then…” She mumbled, slumping at an angle at the junction between dumpster and wall. Chaos, she was so tired, she’d been awake and running on fumes for so long in pursuit of… what had she been doing? Everything hurt and her brain felt like a desiccated sponge in her head. Her fur itched with salt, her mouth was so dry her lips were cracking, and her nose was a bloody and half-dried gummy mess. Her eyes burned when she closed them, and the world was spinning around her as she tried to hold onto more than one thought at a time. 

“Oh! Hey, are you okay?” A soft voice said from above her and the world behind her closed lids brightened to near unbearable intensity. 

“Bright…” She mumbled, trying to cover her face with a hand. 

Kindly, the person holding a flashlight moved it away. “Sorry. Are you okay? You look like you got beaten up. Should I call the police?” 

Star squinted, trying to focus on the voice when the ambient light was too bright to see through. “M-maria?” 

The flashlight turned off, and instead of a human girl in a blue dress she was facing a hedgehog girl with the biggest, wildest pigtails possible. She had a pair of goggles on top of her head and a second red-lensed pair around her neck, dressed in a blue hoodie and black pants tucked into knee high zippered boots. Her eyes were vibrant blue and her brows furrowed with kind concern. “No, my names Emory.” 

“You’re… purble. And green.” Star slurred, fixed on the lavender and neon green pigtails. 

“Hold on. Look at me.” Emory put her flashlight in the messenger bag on her hip and pulled out a small penlight. “Can you track this light?”

“Bright…” Star mumbled, but tried despite how much it made her eyes hurt. 

“Oof. You got uneven pupils, miss. Did you get hit on the head? This looks like a concussion.”

“I can’t remember…” Star frowned, reaching up to try to touch her head. Emory caught her hand gently, pulling it over her shoulder. 

“I can see the knot on your noggin from here. You definitely took a smack to the dome.” She helped Star to her feet. “Let’s get you up and to the hospital-”

“Nooo.” Star slurred. “No hoptal… ah’m gonna get in trooouble…” She couldn’t remember why she’d be in trouble, and the lack of recollection scared her. She never forgot… Tears welled up in her eyes. “Professor’s gonna be sooooo mad…” 

“Don’t cry, don’t cry.” Emory soothed her with a gentle pat to her hip when her arm settled around Star. “You’re okay. You can come to my house, then. My mom won’t mind.” 

Star’s head fell to Emory’s shoulder, beyond wobbly on her feet. “You smell nice…” She mumbled. She couldn’t identify the smell, but she liked it. 

“I probably smell like machine oil and disinfectant.” Emory smiled. “You musta got hit harder than you realized.”

Star smiled back, crosseyed and shaky. “That’s what my home smells like.” 

“Where’s your home?”

“In the sky.” Star tried to point, but Emory had her arm firmly held across her shoulders and her other one was dangling uselessly. 

“In the sky?” Emory was amused, talking to her like she was a kid. Star didn’t mind. It was nice to have someone be nice to her. 

“Yeeaaaaaaaah.” 

“What’s your name, Miss Home in the Sky?”

“I’m Star o’da ARK.” 

“Star O’Dark?”

“Yeee…” Star mumbled, knees buckling as Emory walked her out of the alleyway. There was a bike with a bike trailer attached to the back, and she set Star in it with her feet hanging off the back. Emory put her own helmet on Star’s head so she wouldn’t get rattled around. 

“It’s a short ride, so just hang on.” 

Star nodded dopily and closed her eyes as Emory got on the bike. The world was spinning around in circles under her, something rumbling near her ears, and she wanted to puke. Fortunately the ride was short, and Emory pulled her bike into a little two-car garage and walked around to help Star up as the overhead door closed. She more dragged than helped Star up the steps, into a cozy feeling kitchen with pink floral wallpaper. 

She set Star in a chair at a 4 person kitchen table. “Mom!”

Star winced, head ducking and ears pinning back. “Loud…” 

“Sorry.” Emory said sheepishly. 

Behind her, an auburn furred hedgehog woman walked in from another room. She had brown eyes, her quills swept away from her face with a headband, and wore a pink frilly apron over a floral dress. “Emory Nuberry, what happened to this young lady?” She demanded, with a casual authority to her voice. 

“I found her by my favorite dumpster, Mom. She didn’t want to go to the hospital, but she’s got a concussion.” 

Emory’s mother sighed and crouched by Star’s chair. “Let me take a look at you, sweetheart. Can you tell me your name?”

“Star…” 

“Star. Okay, honey. Do you remember how you got beat up?” 

Star frowned, trying to track her thought. “.... hurts to think.” She finally mumbled. 

“Poor thing. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get you cleaned up and bandage up those cuts, then you’re going to lay down on the couch so I can keep an eye on you for the next couple days. If you start getting worse, have a seizure, or any part of your extremities go numb, you’re going to the hospital. No option. Okay?”

“Okay.” Star mumbled.

“Atta girl. I’m Regina Nuberry, I’ll look after you. Emory, go run a warm bath for me. And grab some of your spare pjs for her to wear.”

Emory nodded and darted off, while her mother started getting Star’s boots and jacket off to inspect her for serious injuries. She was pretty bruised and cut up under her fur and her ribs didn’t seem like they were quite… solidly put together, but none of her bones seemed displaced and all her teeth were in her head. The lump on her head was accompanied by a nasty gash, but the skull was intact at least. She picked Star up once she’d assured herself the girl wouldn’t bleed out and carried her to the bathroom. 

Star was more than half dazed as she was stripped and slid into a tub of warm water, hardly able to even feel embarrassed. Regina scrubbed the salt and grit off her as gently as she could, frown intensifying as she spotted old, lighter colored scars under Star’s fur. Once she was clean, Star was wrapped in a towel and sat on the edge of the tub under Regina’s watchful eye to be blow dried. 

When her fur was fluffed up, Regina helped her into a pair of button-up pajamas that were slightly too big for her. She helped her back to the livingroom and installed her in a chair, where Emory had already made the couch up into a comfortable looking bed with spare pillows and clean sheets. While Regina bandaged her head, a sizable gash on her right shoulder, her skinned palms, and a swollen ankle, then treated her smaller cuts with antibiotic ointment, Emory set a bottle of water on the coffee table and shook out a couple pain reliever tablets. 

The mother daughter duo weren’t satisfied until Star took the medicine and laid down, Regina tucking her in with a soft smile. “You rest, sweetheart. I’ll be right over here in the rocking chair to keep an eye out, and if you need anything you just ask. Okay?”

“Thank you.” Star mumbled, the weight of her exhaustion and injury catching up to her. She curled up tightly, hugging a pillow to her and rubbing her face against it with what little strength she had before she didn’t so much fall asleep as collapse into it. 

“Poor thing.” Regina murmured, gently brushing Star’s quills back from her face. “This kid’s been through something, and she looks like she’s younger than you.”

Emory nodded. “She said she was scared she’d get in trouble… do you think she’s a runaway, Mom?”

“Probably. But somebody let her get this hurt… for now, she can stay. As long as it’s safe for you and Lizzie, we’ll help her.”

Emory nodded, smiling a little and sitting on the floor by the couch. Star’s hand hung beside her, and she gave into the monumental urge and slipped her own into it. “She’s safe, Mom. I just… feel it. There’s something special about her.”

“Are you just saying that because you like her blue highlights?” Regina smiled fondly. “Your quills have been six colors this semester alone.”

Emory wrinkled her nose. “It’s fun.”

“I know, baby. I know.” 

For a while, silence stretched between them with only the sound of Star’s raspy breathing to break it. “Mom, you have to work tomorrow. I’ll stay with her. I don’t have class this week.”

“The bakery customers will be fine if I open late.” Regina smiled. “One of the perks of owning my own business is setting my own hours. But you can stay with her while I’m at work. Try to find out a little about her.” 

Emory nodded, leaning back against the arm of the couch still holding Star’s bandaged hand like they were lifelong friends instead of having just met when she’d pulled the latter from an alleyway dumpster. It didn’t take her long to doze off next to her new friend, and Regina sat and rocked while she kept watch over them both. It might be a long night vigil, but if Emory was choosing to trust Star… Regina would too. 

Emory had always been a great judge of character. 

Sometimes, when Maria’s sickness flared up she had days where she couldn’t see or hear. She often told Shadow and Star that, in those moments, she could still feel the warmth and weight of the two of them climbing into her sickbed. That was why the two of them always did, even if they had to sneak in through the vents to avoid the medical staff. 

Star was tucked against Maria’s right side, Shadow against her left, the youngest of the trio rubbing her cheek anxiously against Maria’s side. “I hate it when she’s like this.” She whispered.  “It scares me… to think she might ever wake up.” 

Shadow was quiet for a long time. Star wondered if he thought less of her for admitting she was afraid. He never seemed afraid of anything… lonely or anxious, sometimes even angry maybe. He was the bravest person she knew. 

“Me too.” He finally murmured, reaching over Maria’s middle to put his hand over Star’s. She peeked up, eyes wide as she met his red ones. “It scares me that I can’t fix this. That I can’t protect her, or you, from it.” 

“I didn’t think you got scared.” Star twisted her fingers into his. “You’re always the brave one.”

He huffed but didn’t let go of her hand. “For a while before you came along, I was scared of everything. I thought I was a coward.”

“Impossible.” She scrunched her nose. 

“It’s true.”  Shadow looked amused, and she found herself relaxing more into the thin medical bay mattress. When he let himself be honest, Shadow’s face softened. When he was vulnerable, it felt like she was seeing him for the first time. Star thought it might have been when he was the most beautiful, when he trusted her with the fragile parts of him.

“Then what changed?” She wanted him to keep talking. His trust in sharing things with her meant everything to her, and she wanted to be worthy of it. It was a whisper in the back of her mind, a silent plea for him to let her love him the way he actually needed. She wanted to be that missing piece. She’d been made for it.

“You.” He murmured. “I knew when I saw you that you’d understand, and experience everything I had. I didn’t want you to be afraid, so I tried to face things in a way that would put you at ease.” 

“It worked.” She smiled faintly. “I’m not scared whenever you’re there.” 

“Good. Go to sleep, and she’ll be back with us in the morning. These episodes never last long.” He squeezed her hand, and Star smiled and snuggled a little closer to Maria. With the two of them close enough to touch, she felt safe. Even if it scared her that Maria was sick, Shadow had said she’d be back soon. 

It was going to be okay. 

Star nuzzled her cheek against Maria’s, frowning when something seemed… off. This wasn’t the texture of her favorite blue dress, or the blankets from the ARK. It didn’t smell like robotics lubricant and sanitizer. As a matter of fact, the air smelled like something warm and sweet, unfamiliar but not unpleasant. She lifted her head, which still felt like it weighed a million pounds, and squinted around the room. 

This wasn’t the ARK. 

It was a homey looking living room, with green carpet and floral glass lamps on either side table framing the couch she was laying on. There was a coffee table pulled up close, with a half finished waterbottle and bottle of medicine on it and an empty trash can close enough she could have retched into it if need be. The throw blankets and frilly edged cushions sitting in the rocking chair across the room were all decidedly feminine, as was the crocheted lace doilies on the coffee table. 

Star sat up slowly, unwrapping herself from the several blankets she’d been tucked under. She was barefoot, in someone else’s pajamas, and wrapped in bandages. She rubbed her eyes, furrowing her brows as she tried to fill in the blanks for herself. Whose house was this, and why had they been caring for her…? 

The last clear thing she could recall was Shadow, attaching the inhibitor ring to her wrist before he pulled her to him. Whatever words there had been felt muddled, which worried her. She’d never forgotten anything, but judging by the bandages and every inch of her that ached, there was more after that. But for a second, she’d had her face buried in his chest just the way she’d used to. 

She spotted her clothes, which had been washed and folded, laying over the arm of the rocking chair. Her boots were nowhere to be found, but she didn’t think they could be very far. This seemed like a comfortable, modest sized home rather than some sprawling manor she’d have to check. When she tried to stand, however, her ankle refused to hold her. Down she went, onto her hand and knees with a hiss of pain at the jarring against her skinned palms. Her body wasn’t cooperating with her, despite her insistence that she needed to move. 

I’ve got to go. GUN could be looking for me. Ivo too, he was furious I took his ship and robots. I-

“Oh, Mom! She’s awake!” The voice, from the doorway that led to a staircase, sounded so much like Maria it made Star’s stomach turn a backflip. The hedgehog it came from, however, was purple head to toe with her quills dyed neon green and pulled into pigtails almost long enough to reach her knees. 

Star tried to backtrack, wobbling back on her tail  and scooting towards the couch again with her swollen ankle dragging behind her. The purple girl held her hands up with a sweet smile. “Easy, it’s okay. You might not remember, but I’m Emory. I found you beside my favorite dumpster.”

The sentence caught Star off guard and deflated her fight or flight response like a pin through a balloon. “You… have a favorite dumpster?”

“It’s the one by Radio Shack. I get parts out of it a lot.” Emory inched closer, being careful not to startle her. “Star, right? You told me your name the other day when I found you.” 

Star nodded shakily. “Y-yes… how long have I been here?”

“You’ve been asleep for three days. We were starting to worry about you.” Another voice, coming from the other doorway leading to a kitchen, introduced the auburn furred mother Emory had called. “I’m Regina, honey.” 

Star nodded again, looking so small and lost Emory’s heart immediately broke all over for her. She scooted over, getting on the floor beside the injured girl. “You’re safe here. I promise.” She said softly. “I don’t know what you’re running from, but they won’t hurt you here.” 

Stunned, Star could only nod again. She had no choice but to trust these people. She couldn’t stand, much less run. With only one inhibitor ring she couldn’t use her powers without the risk of explosion, and while she’d been set on having Shadow kill her before… well, she’d had a decent sleep and death no longer seemed quite so appealing. “Thank you, then.” She finally said, polite if shy. “I’m sorry to impose.”

“Not at all, sweetheart.” Regina walked over and helped her up onto the couch again. “Let me take a look at those bandages and see if you need new ones, and we’ll get you something to eat. You must be starving.”

Star’s ears twitched. She was pretty sure the last solid food she’d had was on the aircraft carrier before Abe let her leave. After that had been nothing but coffee and energy drinks for however many days it had taken her to gather the Emeralds. “That’s very kind of you, ma’am. But you don’t have to go to the trouble.”

“It’s no trouble, sweetheart. Tell me about yourself?” Regina sat down beside Star with her first aid kit and pulled her swollen ankle into her lap to check it over. When Star fell silent, she gave her a raised-eyebrow, no nonsense kind of look. “It may be none of my business, Star, but you strike me as a young lady who’s running from something. In my experience, no matter how fast you run, the past finds you eventually. You’re better off facing it with backup behind you.” 

“I don’t… really have any backup.” Star winced slightly when Regina pressed lightly at her foot. 

“No family or friends?” Regina eased off the sore spot. 

“My… my family died a long time ago. And I don’t really have any friends.” Star fiddled with her quills. “I had a boyfriend, but we had a big fight.” She thought they might have made up, but then how had she ended up so injured? Maybe Shadow had just decided to let her go, and she was on her own again.

“Where have you been living?” Emory sat on the arm of the couch curiously. 

“When my family died, I was taken away.” Star explained, careful how much she revealed. Regina seemed like she’d take a gamble rescuing a kid who was in trouble, but asking her to take on GUN was too tall an ask. She might think Star was some kind of dangerous criminal and turn her in, right back into a cage in a lab somewhere. “I got let go and I went to stay with my… older cousin. But we didn’t really get along, and I ran away.” That sort of summed up her weird relationship with Ivo. 

“Would he come looking for you?” Regina frowned. 

“I don’t know. He’d probably be pretty mad if I took his ship.” Star’s ears drooped. “But he didn’t like me very much, so if he did it wouldn’t be to take me back.” 

Emory frowned, picking up Star’s hand to hold as Regina started re-wrapping her foot. “You were covered in sand and salt grime when I found you. You must have wrecked the boat.” 

“Maybe. I don’t remember how I got hurt.” Star shifted when Regina waved for her to, letting her shoulder get checked next while Emory unwrapped her hands to inspect them. 

“Well. Stealing a boat was wrong.” Regina said quietly.

“Mom, she was clearly being mistreated.” Emory frowned, not even sure herself why she was so defensive of Star. Something about the way her expression dropped when she said her cousin hadn’t liked her very much broke Emory’s heart. “What about second chances?” 

Regina sighed, looking at her daughter and back to Star. They both had blue eyes, in almost the same shade. And despite the rough story Star had given, there was a sort of wide eyed guilelessness in hers that almost felt out of place. “Alright, alright. But… some ground rules. You listening, Star?”

“Yes ma’am.” 

“One: no drugs or smoking. If you need help quitting either, you tell me now.”

Star shook her head. “I don’t like how sedatives make me feel in a medical situation, I have no interest recreationally.”

“Good. Rule two, no sneaking anyone into the house. I’ve got Emory and her little sister Lizzie to think of, so no strangers.” 

“Reasonable.” Star nodded, wincing again as Emory put antibiotic ointment on the pads of her hands. 

“And three: I’ll get you a phone, but you have to keep it on you and the location on at all times. If you get into any kind of trouble, I need to be able to find you immediately even if you can’t call me.”

Star nodded again. “I can do that.” 

Regina’s smile returned, soft and maternal again. “Good. Now, we can get you enrolled in school nearby.”

“That’s not needed. I was… homeschooled, by my grandfather. I finished secondary education requirements… he was a research scientist, so he was very particular about education.” This, at least, wasn’t a lie. Maria had been only thirteen but a Robotnik genius through and through. Gerald had been teaching her college level courses, and Star and Shadow were right alongside her before the ARK raid. 

Emory smiled. “Well, then there’s a whole world of opportunities for you.” There was a hopeful brightness in the way she said it that made Star feel like she was right. Earth was here for her to explore now, without the self-destructive anger that she’d been carrying around since she got out of GUN custody. Maybe she could try to follow Maria’s dream, to look for a way to be happy now. 

Shadow had friends he trusted. Maybe I could too… and if he is looking for me, I’d be easier to find if I stayed in one spot. If he isn’t… I’m tired of being alone.

Once Regina cleaned and rebandaged her head, she was tucked back into her couch bed. “Alright. I just made a coffee cake, let’s get you a slice while it’s still warm.”

“Coffee?” Star’s ears perked up.

“No caffeine until we’re sure your concussion is healed.” Regina shook her head. “But you can have decaf.” 

Star scrunched her nose unhappily, which made Emory laugh. “Oh, you’re a coffee addict, aren’t you?”

“The beans are a good snack if there's no hot water.” Star didn’t understand why Emory started laughing even harder, but a plate with a warm slice of cinnamon and brown sugar cake was set in her lap. 

“Try it. Mom’s a baker, it’s really good.” Emory encouraged. 

Star was definitely hungry, and took a bite obediently. Her eyes got huge, sparkling with delight as she looked up at Regina. “Good?” The woman chuckled. 

With her cheeks pudged out like a happy little hamster, Star nodded. “Dis’ delishus.” Star mumbled, quickly taking another bite. It was the best thing she’d ever had in her life. Food on the ARK had been mostly freeze-dried for preservation or something already with a long shelf life. Freshly baked goods weren’t on the menu. 

No wonder Maria had wanted to go back to Earth, if food tasted like this. 

Regina laughed. “I’m glad you like it, honey. You eat and rest some more. In a couple days, we’ll get a bed and you can share a room with Emory.” 

Star nodded gratefully, a little smile curving her lips. 

I think I understand now, Maria. This is the Earth you wanted us to see. She hoped, somewhere in the future, she got a chance to share it with Shadow like she’d promised. 

[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

[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

[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.

[majokko120]

On the Meaning of Success

When we talk the success of a novel, or art in general, it is immediately misguided to talk about money and fame as markers for success. For if money is the marker for success, then art is not necessary. If fame is the marker, then, again, art is not necessary. Money and fame can be a consequence of art, a byproduct; just like poverty, persecution, imprisonment, and sheer hatred.

If the purpose of art then is neither money, material profit, nor fame, admiration, and respect in the world, then we need to ask ourselves about the purpose of art.

If all art is a struggle for communication, then we found the first hint of its purpose: Communication. Art as great didactic medium bestowing perspective, transformation, transportation. Semantics (meaning): We know the facts, now tell us what they mean. To do that, we turn to art.

This is, of course, a gross oversimplification, and I'm guilty of that. But this should be enough for now to make clear that art is in no direct conditional relationship to money and fame, as well as not to poverty and infamy. Art is a medium, its purpose is communication. In the best case, it ennobles man, and lifts him to heaven; in the worst case, it destroys him.

There is more to say about it, obviously. For example, the power of art to invoke, evoke, and create archetypes who then work as dense symbols of meaning and identity. Art as great educator and illuminator. Art as seller of poisoned dreams, of desirable decay. Art as great explainer. Art as simulation of the future. Art as intuitive philosophy. Art as shifter of perception, perspective, and occurrence of reality. Art as power.

In other words, if the success of art can be felt or seen, it is in the affected lives, against the reference of authorial intent. (Tokien spent much time replying to letters of his readers; a wise man and author.) In Noh, the authors and actors intended peace, happiness, and a long life through Noh for their audience. Works of a traditional Christian background (e.g. Dostoyevsky), may have higher and more complex intentions. Works with a worldview presupposing materialism (fascist or marxist), will again seek different intentions.

Within each worldview and culture lie countless topics, scenarios, situations, and images; filtered through each unique (!) perspective, voice, and approach of each creator across all mediums of art. There is an epic story by Homer, but (perhaps) there's no epic story by You, and only one human can change that.

Some Comments on Potential Objections

The Issue of Authorial Intent

The text speaks not about art from the perspective of the audience (a crucial error many make) but from the perspective of the author. Many fall into the externalizing trap. This text is about art-author. Celebrated for an unintended effect? Perhaps a curse for the author. Perhaps he can accept and embrace it, perhaps not. Success not as a public event, but as a private, spiritual, or philosophical victory.

The Issue of Measuring Lives Changed

Not possible and not necessary. How many lives did the teachings of Christ change? Or the works of His Church? How many lives did Noh performers change? Perhaps the culture, fate, and development of a whole country, and thereby the world?

The intended impact is historical, cultural, and spiritual.

The obsession of quantifying, of measuring: Perhaps man should learn the limits of his 'reduction to something measurable' ideology.

On the Issue of All Art as Communication

I present a cohesive and classical definition of art where intention is the prerequisite. If your "art" did not carry a trace of intention, it fails to qualify as art.

Ironically, even inherently ugly modern art can qualify: In its desire to escape meaning, it often, not always, conveys (if anything) rejection of traditional standards—a low bar. At other times, the absence of intention forces perplexed onlookers to project their own meaning. This I would call anti-art. It abuses the medium for empty provocation. Even the sinister elements of our world know by now that genuine art can be far more effective in harming or enslaving man, relegating much of experimental/anti-art to a joke of society only pursued by hopeless students, academics, and delusional ideologues.

My text champions a vision of art rooted in purpose, responsibility, and the integrity of the creator's vision. It argues that genuine art, even at its most destructive, is more potent and meaningful than art that carries no intention.

On Art for Art’s Sake

I consider a certain aesthetic inseparable from meaning, which never exists in a vacuum: there is meaning attached or implied. If that implication was not intended, then throw the wannabe artist out of the window, as he's clearly not fit to educate or illuminate, but is just wasting our time (and there are so many of them).

The artist is not just responsible for their stated intention, but for the full semantic weight of their creation. The choice of form, color, sound, or word is never neutral; it comes loaded with cultural and psychological meaning. The artist is a master of communication, no matter his language.

On Defending Anti-Art

Perhaps it is the intention of such “art” to expose the audience's incessant demand for meaning? Then, the "perplexed onlookers projecting their own meaning" is not a failure of the art but the entire point?

In that case, it proves my point and accusation: trolling, provoking, griefing the audience. An audience that especially now, in an inherently nihilistic age, seeks for meaning and then even art slaps them in the face. We are dealing with Evil hidden behind masks of intellectualism.

[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)

[phacotraining12]

Mastering the Art of Cataract Surgery: A Comprehensive Guide to Phaco Training in India

Cataract surgery has undergone a revolutionary transformation over the past few decades, with phacoemulsification becoming the gold standard procedure worldwide. As the demand for safer, faster, and more effective eye surgeries continues to rise, phaco training in India has emerged as a sought-after program for ophthalmologists looking to sharpen their surgical skills and provide top-tier care to their patients.

Why Phaco Training in India is Gaining Global Recognition

India is a global hub for eye care, known for its high surgical volume, experienced faculty, and state-of-the-art eye hospitals. These factors make phaco training in India a prime choice for both domestic and international ophthalmologists. Many of India’s premier eye institutes offer structured and hands-on phaco training courses designed to help surgeons gain confidence and proficiency in phacoemulsification techniques.

India’s unique patient demographics and high cataract burden offer unmatched exposure, enabling trainees to experience a wide variety of cases. This makes phaco training in India not only a learning opportunity but also a real-world clinical immersion.

What to Expect from Phaco Training in India

The structure of phaco training in India typically includes didactic lectures, wet lab simulations, supervised surgeries, and post-operative care. Trainees are taught the core principles of phacodynamics, incision techniques, capsulorhexis, hydrodissection, and the use of phaco probes.

One of the main benefits of phaco training in India is access to high-volume surgery environments. Trainees often have the chance to assist in, and later perform, multiple surgeries under the supervision of seasoned mentors. This hands-on experience is critical for developing the tactile and decision-making skills required in phacoemulsification.

Eligibility and Duration

Most phaco training in India programs require applicants to have a postgraduate degree in ophthalmology (MD/MS/DNB) and some prior surgical experience. The duration of these programs can vary from a few weeks to several months, depending on the level of training and the individual’s experience.

Short-term courses focus on refining specific skills, while long-term fellowships offer a deep dive into comprehensive cataract management, including complications and advanced techniques.

Cost-Effectiveness of Phaco Training in India

One of the significant advantages of phaco training in India is its cost-effectiveness. Compared to similar programs in Western countries, Indian courses are more affordable while still maintaining high standards of education and clinical exposure. This affordability makes it an attractive option for surgeons from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and even Europe and the Americas.

Benefits Beyond Technical Skills

Besides learning the technical nuances of phacoemulsification, phaco training in India also enhances soft skills such as patient communication, case selection, intraoperative decision-making, and post-operative care. Trainees also gain exposure to the use of cutting-edge surgical equipment and technologies such as femtosecond lasers and advanced intraocular lenses (IOLs).

Real Stories of Transformation

Many ophthalmologists who have undergone phaco training in India speak highly of their experiences. The structured approach, mentoring, and opportunity to deal with complex cases have helped them grow professionally. Surgeons who once hesitated to perform phaco surgeries independently often return home with the confidence to start their own phaco-based cataract services.

Future of Phaco Training in India

The future of phaco training in India looks promising. With ongoing technological advancements and increasing demand for skilled cataract surgeons, the scope of training programs is likely to expand. E-learning modules, AI-based surgical simulators, and virtual mentorships are being integrated into traditional training models, making learning even more accessible and effective.

Conclusion

If you're an aspiring cataract surgeon looking to upgrade your skills, phaco training in India should be at the top of your list. The combination of high surgical volume, expert mentorship, modern infrastructure, and affordability makes India one of the best places in the world for phacoemulsification training.

With the global burden of cataract blindness still high, skilled surgeons are more in demand than ever. By choosing phaco training in India, you are not just investing in your career—you are contributing to a larger mission of restoring sight and improving lives across the globe.