araeph

[araeph]

"If you use em dash in your works, it makes them look AI generated. No real human uses em dash."

Imaging thinking actual human writers are Not Real because they use... professional writing in their works.

Imagine thinking millions of people who have been using em dash way before AI becomes a thing are all robots.

REBLOG IF YOU'RE A HUMAN AND YOU USE EM DASH

[araeph]

This is a dangerous sentiment for me to express, as an editor who spends most of my working life telling writers to knock it off with the 45-word sentences and the adverbs and tortured metaphors, but I do think we're living through a period of weird pragmatic puritanism in mainstream literary taste.

e.g. I keep seeing people talk about 'purple prose' when they actually mean 'the writer uses vivid and/or metaphorical descriptive language'. I've seen people who present themselves as educators offer some of the best genre writing in western canon as examples of 'purple prose' because it engages strategically in prose-poetry to evoke mood and I guess that's sheer decadence when you could instead say "it was dark and scary outside". But that's not what purple prose means. Purple means the construction of the prose itself gets in the way of conveying meaning. mid-00s horse RPers know what I'm talking about. Cerulean orbs flash'd fire as they turn'd 'pon rollforth land, yonder horizonways. <= if I had to read this when I was 12, you don't get to call Ray Bradbury's prose 'purple'.

I griped on here recently about the prepossession with fictional characters in fictional narratives behaving 'rationally' and 'realistically' as if the sole purpose of a made-up story is to convince you it could have happened. No wonder the epistolary form is having a tumblr renaissance. One million billion arguments and thought experiments about The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas that almost all evade the point of the story: that you can't wriggle out of it. The narrator is telling you how it was, is and will be, and you must confront the dissonances it evokes and digest your discomfort. 'Realistic' begins on the author's terms, that's what gives them the power to reach into your brain and fiddle about until sparks happen. You kind of have to trust the process a little bit.

This ultra-orthodox attitude to writing shares a lot of common ground with the tight, tight commodification of art in online spaces. And I mean commodification in the truest sense - the reconstruction of the thing to maximise its capacity to interface with markets. Form and function are overwhelmingly privileged over cloudy ideas like meaning, intent and possibility, because you can apply a sliding value scale to the material aspects of a work. But you can't charge extra for 'more challenging conceptual response to the milieu' in a commission drive. So that shit becomes vestigial. It isn't valued, it isn't taught, so eventually it isn't sought out. At best it's mystified as part of a given writer/artist's 'talent', but either way it grows incumbent on the individual to care enough about that kind of skill to cultivate it.

And it's risky, because unmeasurables come with the possibility of rejection or failure. Drop in too many allegorical descriptions of the rose garden and someone will decide your prose is 'purple' and unserious. A lot of online audiences seem to be terrified of being considered pretentious in their tastes. That creates a real unwillingness to step out into discursive spaces where you 🫵 are expected to develop and explore a personal relationship with each element of a work. No guard rails, no right answers. Word of god is shit to us out here. But fear of getting that kind of analysis wrong makes people hove to work that slavishly explains itself on every page. And I'm left wondering, what's the point of art that leads every single participant to the same conclusion? See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Down the rollforth land, yonder horizonways. I just want to read more weird stuff.

[araeph]

"you can use ai to improve spelling and grammar"

[araeph]

SMALLVILLE | 4x03

[araeph]

The biggest misconception in public schools is that literary analysis is about proving you can be right or wrong about a book you read

Literary analysis isn’t about the book

It’s not even about being right

It’s about performing an investigation and presenting your case to the jury

It doesn’t matter if your defendant killed that guy or not. If you can convince the jury he didn’t, you’ve won

And the incredible life skill of spinning bulletproof bullshit out your ass with a handful of facts and a prayer is soooooooo much more valuable than anyone’s ever gonna tell you

[araeph]

[araeph]

the bi/pan alliance and the aro/ace alliance in my city did the funniest possible thing for pride today

[araeph]

Let America Be America Again

by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed– Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek– And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean– Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That’s made America the land it has become. O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home– For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore, And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we’ve dreamed And all the songs we’ve sung And all the hopes we’ve held And all the flags we’ve hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay– Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again– The land that never has been yet– And yet must be–the land where every man is free. The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME– Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose– The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives, We must take back our land again, America!

O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath– America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain– All, all the stretch of these great green states– And make America again!

[araeph]

Thinking about how wild it is that enshittification starts as a way for the rich to squeeze the populace for more money but ends up infecting everything so even luxury products decline in quality. They’ve got more money than fucking God now and for what? Literally they can’t even buy fun nice stuff for themselves because they killed craft.

Anyway this post is about Dhaka muslin but it’s also about everything.

[araeph]

[araeph]

Please forgive me for ranting, but...I am so tired of AI. Just so tired. I don't want Microsoft Copilot, or Google Gemini, or Meta AI, or whatever other energy-sucking, water-wasting, mediocrity-spewing LLM is currently being thrust upon me. I just want to be left alone to create in peace.

[araeph]

“Shall I always be left behind when the Riders depart, to mind the house while they win renown, and find food and beds when they return?”

“A time may come soon,” said he, “when none will return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defence of your homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.”

And she answered: “All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.”

[araeph]

i read an incredible essay about katara in lok. it showcased the lack of consistency in katara's development, from a writers perspective, from a:tla, through the current graphic novels, and lok.

it is compelling and well-written.

the argument is essentially katara in lok was not true to her character in canon for reasons regarding her status as a waterbending master, fighter, healer, politician and that she was reduced to a passive identity as solely a wife to aang and mother to their children who is always at home and never a critical player in the developing and changing world post-a:tla.

i cannot deny what the essay laid out. the facts are in the show, it is in the bryke created material.

my only defense is maybe katara has been misunderstood.

i have always understood katara's character to be solely focused on the well-being of the southern water tribe. and by traveling the world to gain knowledge of waterbending to help her people she can fulfill what she feels is her duty and purpose: supporting her tribe.

i know.

it is almost like eating too sweet of a treat when it comes to katara, the amount of self-sacrificing this girl does on a daily basis could practically canonize her as a saint.

i think what is confusing for the fandom is katara is that girl. she is fierce, bold and brave. she is loyal, loving and compassionate. she is an exceptional waterbender, pakku said he never had a student learn like she had and he is a top tier waterbending master of her time.

but i don't think we accept that katara, despite having all these abilities and so much potential for leadership, national or world leadership, just wanted the war to end so she can sleep safe in her home with her tribe, her people and do normal, mundane, everyday things that she never had because she was born into war and never knew a safe nights sleep.

it's hard to imagine katara, the one who fought against the oppressive anti-rights of women in the nwt, ultimately decides on a life of wife, mother, healer, helper.

we have to remember. we meet katara when she is an angry fourteen year old girl. time heals all wounds, so does wisdom. some people fight their entire lives and we need those people. some people heal.

and of course there is the reality that the swt was not free of misogyny. clearly not. we have sokka as proof of that. he's fifteen years old so i can only imagine what the older men in the tribe believe.

was there a chance katara went back to the swt after the end of the war and she faced ostracization until she fell back into a social role suitable for her sex according to swt tradition? yes. i believe that is likely.

but, it's not unrealistic that katara would fall back into it either.

it's like when a woman gets a phd and ends up becoming a housewife and stay-at-home mom. it can be hard to wrap our minds around someone accomplishing so much and choosing a traditional route. maybe part of katara's journey was going out into the world to realize home was where she always wanted to be, just free of war, so she did her part in that regard and returned.

and/or maybe, she fell back into gender roles not realizing right away that is what was happening.

we don't really know, i think much of that is up for discussion and speculation. the way the graphic novels are going and the katara we see in lok, i believe katara is going to be presented as embracing this choice of sliding in the background and focusing her time on being a wife, mother and healer as her post-a:tla story progresses.

[araeph]

Per @arinrowan's recommendation, I'm watching Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster.

And let me just say these Coast Guard guys at this hearing appear to be REALLY feeling this image:

[araeph]

It was cocky and overconfident to call the Titanic "unsinkable" but one thing that's overlooked is that she was genuinely really, unusually solid. She could float even with 4 compartments fully flooded, which even a lot of modern day ships can't do.

And it's not like they were wrong about her being solid! Olympic, her identical sister ship, survived being torpedoed and then running over the U-Boat that fired that torpedo. Those ships were solid.

It's very clear that absolutely no other ship in 1912 would have been able to survive that collision, and it's a testament to the quality of the ship that she didn't sink in a few minutes Empress of Ireland style. Part of what makes the Titanic such a tragic story is that it isn't a group of rich idiots locking themselves in a shoddy iron barrel to go 4km underwater. It was 2200 people, most of whom were poor immigrants, on a reliable ship on a commonly-made journey, and then something went horribly, unpredictably wrong.

[araeph]

Yeah, I’d watch Muppets Lord of the Rings

[araeph]

did you guys know i love piandao