#secondary source

[ahhvernin]

I would like to express my pure appreciation of this fine post for its content and the fact OP used, what I think is, Times New Roman and a sepia background with a classic caps font and single line break header to give that classic almost vintage academic publication feel. I feel like I just cracked open a brown hard cover bound book with gold foil lettering from the 60s to the page of: 1. SLOW THE FUCK DOWN

NOTE TO SELF-SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!

[sophiesballoonblog]

One of he weird things about early hot air balloon history is you have Benjamin Franklin popping up every now and then in his role as ambassador to the French court. He had signed the Declaration of Independence only 7 years before the invention of the balloon (1783).

Unfortunately, his confidence that balloons could be vastly improved upon was misplaced. The French Academy of Sciences used their considerable resources to explore improvements on the design, in four key areas: Finding the best balloon material, finding the best gas to fill it with, finding a way to control ascent and descent, and steering.

Here’s Lavoisier saying as much:

That last one ended up being the thing that prevented balloons from really taking off (if you’ll pardon the pun) in a big way. The French scientists were convinced that they could use the balloon for long-distance travel and military applications if they could figure out how to steer it, and loads of scientific organisations aside from the main Paris one tried to design a steerable balloon. There were a lot ideas as to how, some imitating ships (using oars, rudders, and/or sails to steer) and some imitating birds (using wing-like contraptions to steer), but none worked. The balloon was at the mercy of the air currents.

After a few years, interest and money dried up, and the balloon stuck around as a means of entertaining crowds, but not much more.

[socialworks-blog]

तथ्य संकलन के द्वितीयक स्रोत का महत्व और सीमाएं

द्वितीयक स्रोत क्या है? द्वितीयक स्रोत द्वारा एकत्रित सामग्री को द्वितीयक सामग्री कहा जाता है। यह अनुसंधानकर्ता द्वारा किसी अन्य के प्रयोग या शोध द्वारा प्राप्त किया जाता है, अर्थात इसे स्वयं शोधकर्ता द्वारा संकलित नहीं किया जाता है। इसमें अक्सर लिखित दस्तावेज शामिल होते हैं, इसलिए इसे कभी-कभी प्रलेखीय सामग्री या ऐतिहासिक सामग्री कहा जाता है और इसके स्रोतों को प्रलेखीय स्रोत या ऐतिहासिक स्रोत भी…

[corsairspade]

every time i interact with the silmarillion i get weirdly excited about the fact that the authorial intent is that it's a translation of historical accounts. it's a tertiary source! none of it is first hand. it makes it so much more interesting. was the legendarium a mannish tradition? what parts of these were written by pengolodh? by rumil? what loremaster has recorded this? would there be bias in the accounting? can i trust what i'm reading, from this viewpoint, this many years after it would have been written?

what has been mythologised, what has been sanitised, what is third-hand written on rumour? it's such an interesting thing to consider.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Hi, can you recommend any books that offer a thorough overview of the Holocaust? I haven't really dived into that area since college. A friend recommend Timothy Snyder's Black Earth, do you know others?

The Years of Extermination by Saul Friedlander by is the single best treatment of the Holocaust I've ever read. It is beautiful and eloquent and just, chef's kiss.

I generally refer to The Years of Extermination, Snyder's Bloodlands, and Mark Mazower's Hitler's Empire as the holy trinity of Holocaust and World War II histories.

Dwork & van Pelt's Holocaust is also good.

There are a variety of other, older, well-known, and highly respected general treatments of the Holocaust. While those are important and valuable, particularly to people studying the Holocaust on the graduate level, I would argue that they are no longer the best secondary treatments available to undergraduate-level learners.

[astral-herald]

Jayce Talis' Joycean Epiphany

Tracking the textual similarities between James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Jayce's character journey, specifically in Arcane season 2, episode 7.

As time goes on, my appreciation for Jayce's arc only grows, and I think episode 7 captures the best of the showrunners' narrative concision and cohesion. Within that perfect storm I noticed a lot of similarities between Jayce and James Joyce's main character, Stephen Dedalus, who spends the 1916 classic shedding attachments to the material world in pursuit of ultimate freedom, including monikers of creed and country and friendship, captured in his famous epiphany.

This isn't a perfect mapping, but comparing Stephen's epiphany to Jayce's meeting with Mage Viktor is pretty enlightening/interesting! More below!

The Joycean Epiphany

Stephen Dedalus' epiphany occurs in the last third (ish) of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and happens as follows: Stephen, consumed with anxiety, loneliness, and confusion about his place in the world, finds himself wandering toward the ocean. He steps knee-deep inside and sees the figment of a woman out of reach, who he describes as a "strange and beautiful seabird" who awakens him to "the wild heart of life." The Bird Woman inspires Stephen to shake off material attachments to nationality and religion, as well as to break off personal relationships in order to arrive at his true self, which he must do in isolation. This is the most egregiously brief synopsis possible...

Jayce's journey in Arcane does, in fact, follow a very normal, non-epiphanic arc in general; I'm not merging Stephen and Jayce together here. Instead I want to call attention to the visual cues and specific plot points that truly give me pause and think/hope they were intentionally building this parallel.

The Irish Coastline, the Undercity Grey

In Portrait, there is great emphasis attached to the sea's physicality as Stephen enters the waters. He's permeated a barrier as the tide wrestles with him:

"In a few moments he was barefoot...and, picking a pointed salteaten stick out of the jetsam among the rock, he clambered down the slope of the breakwater."

Jayce also permeates, with a lot of struggle, pain, and anguish, a physical barrier/obstacles - the Grey, which we see as a thick green miasma throughout the Undercity in this timeline, and the Fissures he's fallen into. Interestingly enough, Jayce also has a pointed stick that's figuratively eaten by the Anomaly. Not salt, by any means, but each character takes up a damaged implement at the onset of their journey.

The Epiphanic Figures

In Portrait, Stephen is drawn into the water towards the woman who inspires his epiphany: "A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea."

Within the Grey, Jayce encounters Viktor as the mage, staring at him with his face obscured. When he turns and leaves, he prompts Jayce into action, thus spurring the epiphany, the necessary movement through the Grey.

Upon his approach, Stephen describes his epiphanic woman: Her long fair hair was girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face..."

"...and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness."

In Portrait, Stephen never reaches his Bird Woman; she remains out of reach, just like his ultimate freedom will remain until he commits to his quest for self-discovery. Similarly, Jayce and Mage Viktor never touch, despite Viktor and Jayce's established physical intimacy.

The Quest

Stephen spends the remainder of Portrait systematically shedding what he feels are restraints to his true self. If you haven't read Portrait, there is a lot, a lot, a LOT of syncretic philosophies wedged inside, Platonic, Aristotelean, Aurelian, etc., to showcase Stephen coming into his own intellectually and emotionally. But the way he describes this quest, when speaking to his best friend, Cranly, is key when comparing him to Jayce:

"You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too."

Jayce, inspired by his own Bird Woman, the Mage, sets out on his quest of ultimate solitude, wherein he traumatically relives his past mistakes.

But now, with Mage Viktor's wisdom and an understanding of what's to come, Jayce finally becomes a powerful and independent force. He doesn't rely on his betters or outside approval. He attacks Mel for her past treatment of himself and Viktor as tools/investments for her will. He will leave behind the comfort and privilege of his old life. In order to do what needs to be done to save Piltover, Jayce is willing to make those mistakes, to sustain on his own, etc., when he was never willing to do so before.

"Alone, Quite Alone"

Nobody asked, but my favorite scene in Portrait is the last dialogue between Stephen and Cranly, whom Stephen frequently describes as his closest friend, and whose opposition to Stephen's departure he considers the most. Try as he might to be sympathetic, Cranly struggles to understand why Stephen can't relent and warns him of what will happen to Stephen if he takes on his quest: "And to not have any one person...who would be more than a friend, more even than the noblest and truest friend a man ever had."

Cranly tells Stephen that "you need not look upon yourself as driven away...or as a heretic or an outlaw." He invites him to stay, to return.

And Stephen is grieved by this: "A voice spoke softly to Stephen's lonely heart, bidding him go and telling him that his friendship was coming to an end..."

"...Yes; he would go. He could not strive against another. He knew his part."

In killing Viktor as the Herald, Jayce has fully accepted loneliness and the necessary suffering it incurs on others. Guided by Mage Viktor, his own Bird Woman epiphany, he plays his part in the fate set before him.

In this moment, the Herald Viktor is Jayce's Cranly: "Stephen watched [Cranly's] face for some moments in silence. A cold sadness was there..."

"...He had spoken of himself, of his own loneliness which he feared."

*To note, Stephen's epiphanic realization amounts to isolation for his own benefit, whereas Jayce endures isolation and commits these "mistakes" (killing Viktor) for the greater good - very important difference!

Regaining Cranly

This same idea comes across every time I post about Arcane season 2: subversive endings. And while my opinion of the season has been on the downturn, I will never cheapen the shock and awe of the Mage Viktor reveal, and I will always find new ways to break it down and appreciate it.

In Portrait, Stephen leaves Ireland, his religion, and his loved ones behind. Stephen asks Cranly to clarify what he means by his talk of loneliness: "'Of whom are you speaking?' Cranly did not answer." In the essential modernist way, Stephen seeks out the independent soul amidst the masses.

Jayce, meanwhile, uses his newfound autonomy and sense of self for the greater good. He followed his epiphanic figure as Stephen did, and abandoned his Cranly, for a higher goal than self actualization.

And that's where this comparison just about falls apart.

Because Jayce and Viktor are "inextricably bound," the fundamental crux of the epiphany - its independence - isn't possible. Jayce guides his Cranly away from "his own loneliness which he feared." He invites Viktor to partake in his epiphany and they complete the quest together.

the end <3

I'm excited about this comparison! And I know I'm offering a very cursory read of Portrait here. I actually wrote about it for my latest conference CFP so it's fresh on the mind. And a lot of these comparisons can be chalked up to Joyce's just General Narrative Influence, that he refined this exact mode of quest -> self discovery -> loneliness, but we're here to have fun, not to submit to a journal lol.

[nigrit]

[moon-buggg]

Professor was genuinely blown away by a paper I thought was mediocre at best and wants me to submit it to the English departments essay collection. I don't think I'm ever going to live down this high this is better than sex

[fairsweetlonging]

after reading book 1 of svsss i'm imagining some bits and pieces of it into tgcf, like xie lian having qi deviation because of the shackles in a similar way as the poison without a cure (i think it'd be really neat if they also disrupted his meridians and caused qi fluctuations instead of only blocking his powers), but also the specific detail of xie lian having to wear a veil like liu mingyan because he's just too beautiful, giving it extra significance that his mask fell off during the god-pleasing parade and hua cheng saw his face so up-close (besides that, it plays into xie lian not feeling seen).

also, xie lian trying to figure out whether hua cheng has a harem/getting jealous, because surely such a great and powerful ghost king must have a great and extraordinary collection of beauties at his beck and call? (he doesn't)

[wernerherzogs]

eddie diaz money laundering king you'll be famous forever

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

lol the reason I quit my dissertation reading to glue miniature books this afternoon is, it turns out, I'm done with the dissertation reading

[margridarnauds]

Why....do Tolkienists always sound like.....That™ when discussing Ireland? (And that I mean "they read exactly two medieval texts in their life and decided it let them talk about things beyond their pay grade".)

[cisthoughtcrime]

.

[freakinator]

me when i see swagdoons on tumblr: 🥰

me when i see swagdoons on twitter: 😡

[cowardlybean]

who needs a dad? [everyone raises their hand]

(DO NOT. TAG AS SHIP.)

[an-absolute-travesty]

Btw all the “guys” in kotlc are actually tgirls they’re just not out yet. Except Dex. He’s a tboy, he has been this whole time. So is Sophie but they’re not out yet. Shannon Messenger actually told me this herself, I heard it as the voice of God on an eastern wind.