#present and accounted for

[shootingthe-stars]

chapter 34 and the first of third year is out!!

this year is super packed i’m really excited to finally start getting this out omg (new pov next chapter too)

chapter 34 or from the beginning!

[seagiri]

a redraw to lift myself up a bit

(og from 2020)

[wildernessfaery]

the fact that i can just lie all the time if i feel like it..

[midnightfrappe]

hey now, who's this kid????

[scribefindegil]

As much as I adore conlangs, I really like how the Imperial Radch books handle language. The book is entirely in English but you're constantly aware that you're reading a "translation," both of the Radchaai language Breq speaks as default, and also the various other languages she encounters. We don't hear the words but we hear her fretting about terms of address (the beloathed gendering on Nilt) and concepts that do or don't translate (Awn switching out of Radchaai when she needs a language where "citizen," "civilized," and "Radchaai person" aren't all the same word) and noting people's registers and accents. The snatches of lyrics we hear don't scan or rhyme--even, and this is what sells it to me, the real-world songs with English lyrics, which get the same "literal translation" style as everything else--because we aren't hearing the actual words, we're hearing Breq's understanding of what they mean. I think it's a cool way to acknowledge linguistic complexity and some of the difficulties of multilingual/multicultural communication, which of course becomes a larger theme when we get to the plot with the Presgar Translators.

[fanfiction-obsession]

Major Monogram from Phineas and Ferb is a fascinating accidental example of unjust biases stemming from ignorance and laziness instead of intentional harm in the ‘species-ism’ that is a root of injustice in the PnF universe. In this essay I will

[pepperangers]

in a quick panic for an excuse one day, a red ranger insists on the existence of a Red Ranger Council that every red is a part of. they use it to communicate and plan, according to the ranger

news travels fast between teams, and the reds - who don’t need any context but will always back up a fellow leader’s schemes - agree without hesitation when asked

*

taylor: no way this is true

cole, had no idea about this but always ready to lie out of his ass without breaking a sweat: i have the minutes from our last meeting

*

casey: i got my invitation when i was visited in a prophetic dream

rj: by WHO

casey, dead serious: recruitment’s been easier since the mystic force team

*

kendall: this all just seems a little far-fetched

tyler: i have a life outside of this cave

*

lucas: but this wasn’t on record anywhere in history

wes: why would it be? we all know about it

*

it’s in their dna, even the newest reds accept this as fact. reds will never ever lie to their rangers, but like HELL are they going down for this single moment of weakness. it’s beyond their control now, out of their hands. they might as well just create a council at this point. they’re in too deep to come clean.

[dontforgetukraine]

Kharkiv's Faktor-Druk printing house has resumed operation after being severely damaged by a Russian missile strike on May 23. The facility is only partially restored, and they have shifted focus to printing essential educational materials such as textbooks for the new school year.

According to Tatiana Hryniuk, the general director, damages from the Russian missile strike exceed €10 million, with losses still being calculated. The attack claimed seven lives and destroyed almost 100,000 books.

Source: Kharkiv’s Faktor-Druk printing house resumes operations after Russian missile strike

[shootingthe-stars]

chapter 38 of nowhere man is out!

chapter 38 or from the beginning

[almostgotforgotten]

Something weird about the petscop analysis videos ive seen is they dont really bring up how downright sinister rainer was to tiara. They tend to praise rainer for being the upstanding guy who put the evil child predator in his place. Except, he attempted rebirthing too, fucked it up, blamed it on ‘belle’ and then just abandoned her. for 17 years. 

I dont think people understand how badly tiara was abused by rainer because its rainer who made the game. he's the one who’s telling the story. he gets to downplay what he did to tiara. could you imagine getting the whole story about care from the perspective of marvin? People understand what happened to care because rainer literally spelled it out with the a, b, nlm, states that also affect how she looks. compare that to rainer giving tiara an unfinished, reused sprite, with a big happy smile that never leaves her face. a failure who’s so content with existing in a literal cage.

Between rainer drawing her smiling and insisting that she's belle, its like hes trying to pretend nothing happened. There’s no belle a, b, or nlm because he ‘didn't do anything’ to her. because hes nothing like evil marvin, it was her choice to be uncooperative! She’s a quitter! (He just victim blames her. theres no justifiable reason for anyone to design the literal quitters room and still be in the right.) 

Him saying “If you hadn’t given up halfway, you would be Tiara,” is so fucking crazy to me because he literally fucking says she wasnt the one playing the needles before that. (“I put you inside the machine, and played[...] the Needles.”). So then there wasn't anything for her to ‘give up’ on??? AND THEN he admits he fucked it up?? (“I played it wrong, but that would have been okay.”) Like, it just reads as rainer saying it was okay for him to fuck up an incredibly important part of the process. and somehow SHE’S the reason it didn’t work??? Its just, combined with the adoption metaphor (through its reference to the Newmaker case), where the parents dont like the way the child is. and they try this experimental ‘therapy,’ to change her. And it does change her, she gets so traumatized it breaks her off from who she was before, forever. They still get to call her belle, even when they were the ones who destroyed belle. How could she ever be ok with being someone so unwanted? She’s smart. She knows what they want. They wanted to hear her say she's tiara. Except, to them, shes exactly the way she was before. A disobedient, broken girl who cant just act the way they tell her to. So she spends the rest of her life copying someone else. Calling herself tiara. If she says what they want to hear (“I love you newmaker”) then she’ll stop hurting. If she acts just right, they'll accept tiara and she wont be a quitter anymore.

The way those video essayists (mr goon, et al.) will just fixate on marvin saying she's played the needles. and then jump to the conclusion that tiara was the one who gave up on playing the needles. Even when rainer himself literally said she wasnt the one playing!!! Also, they’ll see her call herself tiara and be like “hmm… what if the rebirthing actually worked 🧐” which is NOT the conclusion i would draw from the game about child abuse. I dont think the intent of petscop was to give the concept of rebirthing any functional credibility, failed or not! Like, it just reminds me of how in cases of abuse, people almost always take the word of the abusers over what the child has to say (which is also filtered through the abuse). its just devastating to see.

If you had to ask me, I think rebirthing in petscop's narrative isn't there for people to sincerely discuss if metaphysically reviving someone works. It's not a representation dedicated to the horrific, real life concept of rebirthing. Instead, 'rebirthing' is a shorthand designation for all of the moving parts in the type of abuse that happens in the story, along with how it affects everything afterwards. The ‘reality manipulation’ also works as a metaphor for how people take advantage of having control over the story.

I dont know if you can tell, but rainer’s whole explanation in petscop 12 just makes me feel violent. He literally says, 17 years? “That seems dubious to me. What do you think?”. I dont fucking know, she probably has no concept of time and is probably completely disassociated from reality by that point. Also, something i noticed from p12 is that tiara takes longer than paul to read the messages. The amount of time is roughly about how long it takes to read them aloud. Idk. something about that is heartbreaking to me. im 100% reading too much into it, but when was the last time she read something that wasn’t “quitter’s room?”

I could’ve written this better but UGHHHHH. I hope this makes sense. theres so many other details about this that i didnt write about (irl belle, tiara helping paul, tiara becoming tiara leskowitz, etc). This is definitely only a subsection of the story petscop was telling, but its still so detailed. Unless i got something wrong, then it presented a case of a child being abused, and the abusers getting to tell the story. Which resulted in the audience believing the abusers. Idk if that means petscop is so good it literally replicated that, but in the end, i do think people need to reevaluate how biased the story is and how it affects the events. TIARAAAA you deserved so much better.

disclaimer, im not trying to discredit the general reality warping theories in favor for hard realism and a “it’s all just a big metaphor” reading. Petscop is intentionally ambiguous, and it doesnt really care about straightforward reality. its premise is about a digital and real life world so connected that its hard to tell where the line is. Ignoring that completely neglects the structural mysteries of petscop. i just wanna say this essay comes from the way i interpret petscop. I tend to focus on the parallels between the fantastical elements and the mechanics of irl manipulation/grooming/abuse.

[slutforpringles]

via: Daniel Ricciardo, Fabio Quartararo and the selfie that sparked an unlikely friendship | Fox Sports Australia

[thepeacefulgarden]

Rejection sucks. But it's not a reflection on you. And, yeah, you might have stuff you need to work on, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with you at the core of who you are. You are plenty worthy and deserving of all the good that life has to offer. You are not a loser. You are not a failure. You are not "too much" or "too little." Even if someone told you differently.

[laurasimonsdaughter]

Guarding your name from the fae in folklore

The idea of fae stealing names is quite recent (I’m a big fan of new, modern folklore, x, y), but the idea that you have to guard your name so no one could (supernaturally) us it against you, is definitely a widespread folk belief. However, I’ve never encountered an actual folktale that says the fae or fairies in particular could have power over you if they knew your name. I’ve been looking for one for a long time (and if you know one please let me know!) but so far I’ve only come up with one example. So let's take a look:

The power of names

Like I said, the power of names is an old belief that shows up all over the world. Sometimes it’s linked with naming ceremonies like baptism. Sometimes hiding the name from others (witches, djinns, etc.) is what will protect you, sometimes the name itself will protect you (like being named after a saint or in reverence of a deity or spirit). Edward Clodd published a huge essay in 1898 investigating how widespread this name guarding practice is and how it links to folklore. Which, while obvioulsy dated, certainly gives an impression of how deep this belief goes (Tom Tit Tot; an essay on savage philosophy in folk-tale, Clodd, E., 1898).

Not all folk beliefs show up in folktales though and protagonists who refuse to tell their name are not a staple of European folklore, whether it concerns fae or other entities. In “The Soul Cages”, collected by T. Crofton Croker it’s even quite the opposite, as the protagonist and a firendly merrow deliberately call each other by their full names (Jack Dogherty and Coomara). And for ages I wasn't able to find a story that actually incorporated the belief of guarding your name against fae, until I read that huge essay.

Hiding your name from the fairies

In his book, Clodd mentions a single folktale in which it is mentioned that the fae are trying to learn someone’s real name. Sadly he does not tell it in full, but since it is the only real example of this concept I’ve able to find so far, I will give the full quote:

While these sheets are passing through the press, my friend Mr. W. B. Yeats hands me a letter from an Irish correspondent, who tells of a fairyhaunted old woman living in King's County. Her tormentors, whom she calls the "Fairy Band of Shinrone," come from Tipperary. They pelt her with invisible missiles, hurl abuse at her, and rail against her family, both the dead and the living, until she is driven well-nigh mad. And all this spite is manifested because they cannot find out her name, for if they could learn that, she would be in their power. Sometimes sarcasm or chaff is employed, and a nickname is given her to entrap her into telling her real name, — all which she freely talks about, often with fits of laughter. But the fairies trouble her most at night, coming in through the wall over her bed-head, which is no laughing matter; and then, being a good Protestant, she recites chapters and verses from the Bible to charm them away. And although she has been thus plagued for years, she still holds her own against the "band of Shinrone." (Clodd, 1889, p. 83-84).

This story fits the concept of keeping your name away from malicious fairies so you cannot truly fall under their power perfectly. Sadly I haven’t been able to find this story in Yeats’ own folklore collection, but it fulfills my criteria even so.

What I have been able to find many examples of, however, is the reverse trope. Namely that knowing a fairy’s name will give you power over them. I thought this only showed up in Rumplestiltskin-type stories, but it seems a little more widespread than that. Which is very exciting to me, and merits its own post. So stay tuned.

[noliaert]

so there was this template on twitter and I kinda really wanted to do it for loumand sooo-

[seagrass-obsessions]

Some sketches I did of the silly commentator guy(s)

[dykedvonte]

Of all the themes in Mouthwashing, I think the themes of punishment and virtue are the most subtle.

It’s so odd because it’s a subversion where all the characters are punished for their virtues more than their flaws except Jimmy. Curly sees the best and people and tries to do right by all parties whether deserving or not. He is then forced to see everyone fall to their worst states while he can’t do anything. Daisuke is optimistic and hopeful, playful to a fault and a big morale. He dies in agony the one time he is forced to act in a serious event. Anya is kind and capable, knowledgeable in her field. Yet, she is treated like a dunce and does being treated like a dead weight.

The only characters who aren’t punished per se are those without direct virtues. Swansea is ornery and rude the moment we meet him, Jimmy is self explanatory. Yet, Swansea is still punished with Daisuke’s death, while Jimmy escapes in a way. Not having to face the final aftermath or even acknowledging how he could never really fix it. He suffers and is tormented, but he doesn’t really care because in his mind he didn’t fail in his head of proving something to Curly.

This is rambling y really but it really is the theme of no good deed but to the extreme. Good people punished for their attempts at virtue while the bad person victimizes themself over their suffering.