Hello, I’m still alive ;-; my personal life has been hectic, but I promise you that I wasn’t purposely leaving you all on edge jfigowjfoiwefj I’ve been looking at the writing I still have to do, but I can assure you that I am working on it soon! Will keep you all posted!!!!

A man is so prone to systems and to abstract conclusions that he is prepared to distort the truth on purpose, prepared to deny the visible and the audible just so he can justify his own logic.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

eleven is fascinating to me because he came right off the back of tens horrible traumatic breakdown after he lost everything and he immediately tried to establish himself as the opposite of that. he is funny and goofy and almost childlike, and he bulldozes on in his adventures with amy like nothing happened at all. but then something happens and his masks slips and it's like oh! the core of this man is still anger. he is so so angry all of the time and this façade is the only thing stopping him from being consumed by it. he isn't over any of it and he hasn't moved on. he is wearing a fez and laughing but under that all that exists is age old anger and grief and it is going to consume him

There's a scene in the first episode of season 1 suggesting that as of the start of canon, the Serpentine have faded into nothing more than myth. Naturally, this has led a lot of the fandom to question how this could be possible since the Serpentine War only happened ~40-50 years ago. There are plenty of still-living people in Ninjago who were present for this war - hell, even Ed and Edna were probably alive during the war. How could the existence of the Serpentine, a race that has been around and at conflict with the humans for over a thousand years, suddenly blink out of public awareness in just 40 years?

After some consideration, I think I've come to a pretty simple answer, if you'll indulge me as I overanalyze the silly lego show once again.

In order to understand the situation, let's take a look at the scene in question one more time.

The key thing to note here is that out of the four, Kai is the only one who doubts the existence of the Serpentine. Jay, Cole, and Zane all treat the subject with a heavy amount of importance and trepidation (and a bit of fear). Zane even explicitly insists that they're real. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong but Kai is perhaps the only character in the entire show that we've seen expressing this kind of doubt about the Serpentine.

In my opinion, this means the Serpentine aren't just a myth and are instead a known part of Ninjago's history, and the belief that the Serpentine are a myth is a belief exclusive to Kai and Kai alone. Which...honestly feels pretty in-character for him, ngl.

(Why, then, are the Serpentine taught in schools but the ninja all somehow didn't know about the existence of other elemental masters? Great question! Unfortunately I cannot explain that without going on a long and rambling dissertation-length essay, and I don't have the brainpower to write all that. Long story short? Ninjago's education system is in fucking SHAMBLES and we shouldn't be surprised about any gaps in anyone's knowledge.)

katara’s fatal flaw when it comes to politics and also just general communication is that she cannot fathom why anyone would wish to act in a cruel manner and knowingly harm others, whereas sokka’s is that he does not understand how people can be willfully ignorant or even just plain dumb. it’s why sokka is always having to point out to katara that someone is a malicious actor who is taking advantage of her compassion and idealism (jet, hama, aunt wu, etc) because he knows that not everyone has pure, altruistic intentions, but he also doesn’t understand that king kuei isn’t just sheltered, he is also straight up an idiot (or that hahn isn’t just arrogant, he is also incompetent, etc etc) until it’s too late.

POV: You're a Vox simp

Yesterday my German coworker yelled at me because she firmly believes no world religion can know anything, for sure, about God, so there’s no way to call anyone “right” or “wrong.”

And it took all my strength not to say, “so you’re saying I’m wrong”

because truth in love, truth in love

But seriously. What actually is the deal with the discourse that goes: “you can’t know anything for sure about God.”

“Wait, yes you can, like I know you well enough to know for sure that you’re from ____ Place—“

“—no no, no, that’s different. This is about God.”

“How’s it different?”

“You can’t say someone’s wrong about God.”

“…Well, can I say anything that’s wrong about you? Like, if I say, ‘_____ Person likes to kick puppies,’ can’t you say I’m wrong about you?”

“Yes but I’m not God.”

“Right, but you’re a real person who exists, so there are some things that I can know for sure about you—“

“THAT’S DIFFERENT”

No it’s not! It’s not ‘different.’ Quit acting like it’s different. Christians don’t believe in a set of ideals or the properties of rocks or some mystical vibe that nobody can be right or wrong about. We believe in a living and existing deity with an unchanging, eternally constant personality, and will, and DESIGN, outside of ourselves. So we can be wrong about Him. You can be wrong about Him. Everyone can be wrong—OR RIGHT—about Him, because He actually exists.

He’s not some imaginary friend who’s open to anybody’s interpretation. You get to claim an independent identity, character traits, and a personal history, but the God of the universe doesn’t? What is happening?

I’ll tell you what’s happening. You’re fine with me believing in an imaginary figment that’s only real to me, but as soon as He starts having an effect on the outer world, as if He actually exists and you have to start making some decisions based on that fact, THEN you’re not fine.

Me explaining in terms of strictly how I read canon I think Nahida not severely punishing the Sages is just meant to convey that Nahida, even when wronged, is not a very vengeful or harsh person and makes the choice to be kind instead, but in my mind I have this idea of a Nahida interpretation which elaborates on that where her self punishing tendencies extend to her being someone who internally downplays her own experiences constantly, and as a result has a hard time feeling she’s allowed or justified in placing a lot of blame on the Sages for what they did to her So while she is following her own philosophies regarding teaching lessons/wisdom/etc in how to handle the Sages and genuinely doesn’t want to be really angry or punishing because of who she is as a person, her decision is also influenced by the fact she’s basically blocked herself out of grappling with how to handle people who hurt her by blaming herself for said hurt instead as a coping mechanism. And like this is all just me being insane about Nahida Trauma and not something explicitly implied in canon but also I really do think this isn’t a far stretch from her canon characterization especially when my vision isn’t to conclude that Nahida needs to be angry and vengeful but she should extend the kindness she shows others to herself and also every day I get tormented thinking about she was the mental equivalent of an average human child when the Sages found her and how they basically specifically discarded her for being a child and the idea of how Nahida would pick up on + internalize that and eventually need time to unlearn it

one of my favorite things about pride and prejudice is that in the last third of the book Elizabeth’s internal monologue about Darcy is her admitting that she’s in love with him but also putting all sorts of qualifications around that statement that kind of ...tamp down the level of emotion (the “feelings, if not as tender as Jane’s for Bingley, at least as just” line, even the whole thing about her and Darcy being well-matched objectively speaking) and as soon as she’s engaged you get the unbridled joy in the narrative about her own joy, cc: “I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.” 

Dream of the Endless does dumb stuff in my fics. Sometimes people point out that he does dumb stuff in my fics. Sometimes I get a little self-conscious about it, because I worry that they think he's OOC or should have acted differently, which is ultimately on me as the writer.

Then I remember that Dream is canonically a moron. Literally. Stated in the text, he's an idiot.

Lucienne's body language is clear. Unity is right but she's too loyal/diplomatic to agree with her aloud.

I could turn this into an entire essay of images and quotes from the comic and show of Dream doing dumb shit, like calling on the Fates before seeking help literally anywhere else. Or how Destruction points out that Dream just deliberately forgets anything that doesn't hold his interest or (implied by extension) agree with his worldview.

Everyone with any brains in "The Sandman" agrees that Dream is very dramatic and very pretty (thanks, Hob) and not the least bit intelligent.

This fact gives me great delight.

And so I shall continue to adhere as close to canon as possible, and continue to make Dream the fucking moron that he truly is. Bless.

The universe itself — and the Mind behind it — is insane. Therefore someone in touch with reality is, by definition, in touch with the insane: infused by the irrational.

Philip K. Dick, VALIS

Gotta love how close we were to Jack realizing it was actually vampires the whole time only for him to take a nap and think it was all bullshit. King prioritizing mental health and a good sleep schedule really do be pushing the plot back 8 steps like a dance move. Love it.

When even the dictators of today appeal to reason, they mean that they possess the most tanks. They were rational enough to build them; others should be rational enough to yield to them.

Max Horkheimer, "The End of Reason"

hi hiii i wanted to say that your account is so refreshing to see, esp with the passion you have for the arts. as someone who's been meaning to read (and write) more poetry, do you have any recommendations? some classics that everyone and their mothers know? perhaps some underrated pieces that changed you? or even just authors you like, I'm very open to suggestions :]]

Hi! Thank you so much for this kind ask :) So exciting that you’re looking to delve deeper into reading and writing! I had to take a little time to answer this because my thoughts were all over the place lol.

For a review of notable/classic poems/poets, I honestly just recommend looking at lists online or, hell, just binging Wikipedia pages for different countries’ poetry if that’s something you’re into, just to get a sense of the chronology. I read one of those little Oxford Very Short Introductions on American Poetry and thought it was pretty good, but online is quicker if you’re just searching for poets or movements to hone in on. Poetry Foundation also has lots of resources, in addition to all the poems in their database. I guess my one big classic recommendation would have to be Emily Dickinson (<3), but really the best move is just to find a poet you already enjoy and then look around to see who their peers were/are, who they were inspired by, who they’ve maybe translated here and there, etc. and follow it down the line as far as you can.

For some personal recs, here are some collections I’ve really enjoyed over the past two years or so. Bolded favorites, and linking where select poems from the book have been published online. But also, if you want a preview of a couple poems from another of the books to see if they interest you, DM me and I can send them over! You can also feel free to pilfer through my poetry tag for more stuff lol

Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon trans. Don Mee Choi

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo

DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi

Hardly War by Don Mee Choi

Whereas by Layli Long Soldier

Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop

Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

Mouth: Eats Color—Sagawa Chika Translations, Anti-Translations, & Originals by Sawako Nakayasu

The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam trans. W.S. Merwin and Clarence Brown

The Branch Will Not Break by James Wright

This Journey by James Wright

God’s Silence by Franz Wright

Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke (the translation I read was by Alfred Corn—I thought it was great, but idk if there are better ones out there!)

DMZ Colony, Hardly War, Dictee, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, and partially Whereas are all book-length poems with some prose poetry and varying levels of weirdness/denseness/multilingualism—if you were to pick one to start with, I’d say do Don’t Let Me Be Lonely or Whereas. Mouth: Eats Color is some experimental translations of Japanese modernist poet Chika Sagawa, with other translations and some of Nakayasu’s original stuff mixed in—it's definitely a bit disorienting but ultimately I remember having such fun with it, as much fun as Nakayasu probably had making it. It’s a book that emphasizes co-creation and a spirit of play, and completely changed my attitude towards translation.

If you’re less interested in that kind of formal fuckery stuff though (I get it), can’t go wrong with the other books! Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings is the one I read most recently, and it’s great—Harjo also featured in Round 1! Franz Wright also featured, and God's Silence is the collection which "Night Walk" comes from. James Wright (father of Franz) is one of my favorite poets of all time, though his poetry isn’t perfect. Even so, I’m honestly surprised he’s not doing numbers on Tumblr—Mary Oliver was a big fan of his, even wrote her "Three Poems for James Wright" after his death.

I mentioned in another post that one of my favorite poets is Paul Celan, so I’ll also recommend him here. I read Memory Rose into Threshold Speech which is a translated collection of his earlier poems, but it’s quite long if you’re just getting to know him as a poet—fortunately, both Poetry Foundation and Poets.org have a ton of his poems in their collections. There’s also an article by Ilya Kaminsky about him titled “Of Strangeness That Wakes Us” (!!!!!) that’s a great place to start, and is honestly kind of my whole mission statement when I’m reading and writing poetry. Looking at the books I’ve recommended above, a lot of them share feelings of separateness or alienation—from others, from oneself, from one’s country, from language—that breed strange, private modes of expression. That tends to be what I’m drawn to personally, and that’s some of what Kaminsky talks about.

Sorry of the length of this—I hope it's useful as a jumping-off point! And if you or anyone ends up exploring any of these poets, let me know what you think! If folks wanna reply with recommendations themselves too that'd be great :)

 “You aren’t worried about your position?” “I like this position. It’s quite comfortable.”

aw man! i think our god tricked us into raising a cruel mockery of ourselves :(!!

trying to ease myself back into drawing w some glimmer n co tweaks ive been thinking about. trying to flesh them out more as ocs. theyre now three parts of a whole, heart, mind, body, instead of gift splitting into the other two. (he/him only for all 3 thanks)