#reframing to adapt

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

This is a very good point and this has always been the case for some students and the main reason for drop out, only second to financial reasons and maybe now with the AI competition (that I don´t condone at all), the institutions will finally get the memo about how not even Ivy League Universities or even HSs are well equipped to adapt to modern learners (not students, learners), they still do it in the same way it was done in the past century and that only serves a few, the ones who can adapt to that system, when it should actually serve all students. Meritocracy is a wider concept than what HS/Uni rewards, but they still prefer to stick to the obsolete and very limited definition of "no pain, no gain". I have the pleasure of working with several non-profit organizations that help challenged students to get the education they need, and it´s amazing how it changes it all, and I´ve come to notice that the real change starts with the parents getting the right guidance to then be able to help their children achieve their academic goals, because truth be told, nowadays most are underprepared to make a successful transition to College, so they suffer the consequences of such lack of preparation and thus turn to ChaptGPT to cope with the curriculum. That´s the root cause, and it could easily be tackled by changing the system from the bottom up and from the top down, by just reframing the notion of what real meritocracy is and should be, based on a better, wider, healthier, yet not underachieving, new and -more accurate-meaning.

i completely understand & agree with the backlash against students using chatgpt to get degrees but some of you are out here saying "getting a degree in xyz means pulling multiple consecutive all-nighters and writing essays through debilitating migraines and having severe back pain from constantly studying at your desk and chugging energy drinks until you get a kidney stone and waking up wishing you were dead every day, and that's just part of the natural process of learning!!!" and like. umm. i don't think that any of us should have had to endure that either. like maybe the solution for stopping students from using anti-learning software depends on college institutions making the process of learning actually sustainable on the human body & mind rather than a grueling health-destroying soul-crushing endeavor

[sweetevoltrap]

Sylus reclaiming Little Bomb as a teasing nickname...

[siaradwast]

labour gain?? idc

conservative loss however....

[fairyethia]

Me: Kitty is an abused bot who gets taken advantage of by all the Vees in some way, shape or form 😢

Also me: Kitty is the Vees' sex toy during threesomes & is allowed to organize the work parties 😁

[jtwb768-babbles]

Reframing Disability: Lived Experience at the Center

Let me begin with a truth that rarely makes it into policy discussions or public conversations:I have a disability because I had my right arm amputated several years ago. That fact alone affects how I move through the world. It influences how people perceive me. It impacts how I’m treated in both obvious and subtle ways. But I’m not writing this as a professional advocate, a policy analyst, or…

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Coping Mechanisms

Researchers have identified over 400 different coping strategies and presented multiple classifications for healthy coping styles (Machado et al., 2020).

They can be viewed on the coping strategy wheel and have been divided into 5 broad styles.

Unhealthy coping, on the other hand, involves maladaptive responses and often leads to a cycle of increasing distress (Skinner et al., 2003).

Unhealthy coping mechanisms involve behaviors that provide short-term relief but may exacerbate distress in the long run.

Substance abuse, avoidance, self-harm, and negative self-talk are among the most common examples of unhelpful coping strategies (Klonsky, 2007; Skinner et al., 2003).

These strategies often impede emotional processing, worsen our stress, and hinder effective problem-solving. Unhealthy coping mechanisms can lead to a cycle of negative emotions, decreased self-esteem, ill health, and even physical harm (Suls & Fletcher, 1985; Zuckerman, 1999).

Coping is an essential psychological process for managing stress and our emotions (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004).

Coping consists of our “thoughts and behaviors mobilized to manage internal and external stressful situations” (Algorani & Gupta, 2021, p. 1).

Coping mechanisms are psychological strategies that can entail thoughts or behaviors designed to manage stress, adversity, and emotional challenges.

Healthy coping involves adaptive strategies that foster our long-term psychological well-being, while unhealthy coping encompasses maladaptive approaches that can lead to negative outcomes.

Healthy coping strategies, such as relaxation, seeking support from our loved ones, and positive reframing of unhelpful cognitions, are designed to foster resilience (Compas et al., 2001).

Such coping promotes emotional regulation, enhances problem-solving skills, and cultivates a sense of self-efficacy and learning. In that way, it contributes to our long-term wellbeing and thriving.

Source ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[firespirited]

Durani's work is collected on medium (including a 1st movie review)

the archived wapo article https://web.archive.org/web/20211028185525/https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/28/dune-muslim-influences-erased/

Dune discourse is uniquely annoying because there's a bunch of extremely obvious, in-your-face orientalism perpetuated by the main characters that's being discussed at nauseum and is very easy to dismiss and completely overshadows any actual issues with the movie, like the refusal to use recognisable arabic phrases or the hiring practices. I'll be charitable here and assume that people have a rightfully negative reaction to how those images of white people, particularly Jessica, are used as marketing material, instead of just not getting the point, and with how often concerns like this are overlooked, I can understand why they aren't receptive to "no this thing that media does uncritically all the time is meant to be bad THIS time actually trust me bro just read this 1000 page book".

Seemingly the entire film crew having cold feet about including references to real world anti-colonial movements or just normal Arabic would always be concerning, but especially given the current situation in Palestine and it's all overshadowed by the colonisers in the book acting like colonisers because every other issue is more complicated. Dune, as a text, still believes in noble savages and "hard times create hard men" nonsense. I'm really not coming at this from a "don't criticise the thing I like" angle, but debates about Jessica's outfit have made me learn nothing besides occasionally seeing really cool pictures of real arabic clothing, while reading Haris A. Durrani's dissections of the books and the current adaptation has actually tought me a lot of stuff about both the book and the real world.

If you haven't seen his Dune essays, you can find a collection towards the bottom of this page: https://history.princeton.edu/people/haris-durrani

https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization < This blog post isn't specifically about Dune, but it uses the Fremen as an example to discuss the historic origins of the noble savage trope (Acoup is generally a cool history blog, mostly focused on greek and roman history)

I love Dune but it's so problematic, just not for the obvious reason and dissected Frank Herbert's actual politics and the strange intersection of conservatism and anti-colonialism is fascinating. You should criticise Dune, I would just like the criticism to be better, especially because focusing on the thing that is framed as bad in the story gives every chud an easy way to dismiss criticism of the text as bad media literacy

[jakeswifeyyy]

10:40𝒑𝒎

Part 1 here

✯Warning: Contains sexual content ahead(dry humping and making out only for now) ,use of pet names(cutie,sweetheart,baby)MDNI!

✯Pairings:Bsfjake!x virginreader!(fem bodied)

☞︎︎︎Part 2 here

☞︎︎︎Part 3 here

♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎

You were having a sleepover at your bestfriend's house as his parents were out of town that weekend .

You were currently seated at the sofa with Jake as you talked about random stuff ,when suddenly he brought up his previous date ,Jake was a really outgoing guy,and a major extrovert at that so sharing the details was not a big deal to him not at all in the slightest,"Yeah basicaly after the date she wanted to go for a drive to the beach,like late night beach drive I guess,then we ended up making out in my car ,she started feeling me up and i just gave in,but if I'd rate that fuck,honestly she's a plain 4,didn"t make me feel all that you know...."

You were just listening to him yapping keenly with your hand resting on the back of the sofa,supporting your head while you were facng him,you found it cute how he used little gestures while talking,staring into nothingness while he talked while once in a while looking over to confirm you were following along while you just nodded for him to be assured,smiling to assure him some more,before you realised it you were so preoccupied that you didn't realise all his attention was now on you,he was done talking,"What about you y/n ,anything interesting happened to you?- y/n,y/n!-" jolting awake realizing he was snapping his fingers in front of your face,blinking rapidly shaking your head to clear your thoughts,"Oh yes yes Jakey what were you saying,ventured off for a bit there..." chuckling awkwardly at the end and looking at your nails ,which was an immediately alerting to him,you only did that when you were nervous,holding your hand for you to stop looking at your nails,lifting your face up to look at him,"Hey it's ok please you can tell me,was i talking too much?" Your eyes widening immediately shaking your head,"No NO it's not you please I love when you tell me your stories trust me," He nodded at you smiling a bit,"I do trust you y/n never doubt that,but what is it?What's running through this mind of yours hm?" you sighed defeatedly before deciding to tell him the truth,"I was just noting some habits of yours which i find really adorable," He chuckled at your words and cooed,"If you find me adorable then your cuteness is indescribable y/nnie," he said pinching your cheek lightly as you turned red,hitting him playfully,being bestfriends with this man meant adapting to his flirty persona and oh did it leave you feeling butterflies but you had something that had been bugging you for a while now and you wanted his help,"Uhm Jakey i wanna as you something okay? Please dont think I'm weird," he turned around completely facing you showing that all his attention span was on you,"Go on y/nnie ,you know I'd never judge you,"Taking a deep breathe you finally let it out,"AmIweirdforbeinganinexperienced virginandI'malreadyincollege," You spoke out all of it quickly,looking away not wanting to see his reaction,"Uhm y/nnie you spoke too fast could you please repeat that," he said brows furrowed actually confused he hadn't caught on to what you said," taking a deep breathe you decided to just reframe your statement,"Uhm Jakey you know,since you're very experienced ,could you teach me some stuff,I know it's weird cause you're my best friend and-" he shushed you placing a finger on your lips as you looked up at him,"Hey calm down I'm right here and it's not weird I will help you if that's what you want ok?"You nodded meekly looking down,before he lifted your chin again,"If we're gonna do this no need to be shy with me sweetheart ,okay?" Heart jumping at the nickname you nodded,not thinking much of it ,he was a flirty guy,you knew that,he had the looks,he could charm any girl,smile that could make hearts do backflips,Jake was the epitome of perfection,"So tell me exactly what it is that you need me to teach you y/nnie,"you coudn't decide,"Just teach me what you can Jakey,"he though for a moment,"Have you ever kissed somone ?" thinking about it a bit you responded,"I have but like just a peck kind of kiss not really like makeout,"he though for a minute,"How about I teach you that first right now ok?" you nodded,"Alright I'm gonna need you to sit on my lap for this one ok?" he pulled you onto his lap ,hand on your lower back to support you as yours came around his neck,this felt so foreign to you,but his lap felt so good you didn't think you'd ever rather sit anywhere else,"You read books right? you have the idea?"Nodding slightly he mumed a 'good' before leaning in your foreheads touching,eyes flickering down to your lips as you did the same,his plump lips looking so kissable at the moment,"Follow my lead and do what i do ok?" nodding as he attached his lips to yours.

Reveling in the feeling of his plump lips against yours,slowly shutting you eyes as he pulled you closer on his lap ,hand on your lower back moving inside your shirt feeling your bare back,shuddering at the contact,as you instinctively felt yourself pull him closer,he twisted his head ,lips engulfing your lower ones,sucking on it making you let out a moan and you felt like you regretted it instantly,you thought he'd be weirded out but instead he groaned into the kiss,"Fuck baby,such pretty sounds wanna hear more,"Grabbing your hips slowly moving you ,to test the waters, back and forth on his hardened growing bulge which you soon realised after being lost in pleasure for a bit ,before feeling him attach his lips to your jawline kissing his way down to your neck before sucking on a particular spot that had you rocking your hips faster,"Anyone ever given you a hickey before baby?" he mumbled against your skin,"N-no fuck so good....."let me try giving you some Jakey," how could he say no to that,you lowered your head level with his neck,before reinacting his movements,kissing across his jaw and down his neck before sucking on his fair skin which had him groaning,bucking his his up into you and that's when you felt a sensation similar to that of a knot being untied in your core,"J-jake i feel something ngh-" he rub his hands on your sides,as you lay your head on his chest," What about you jakey did you manage to finish?" he shook his head,"No but I'll take care of it sweetheart,today is about you?This was just an overview of what is in store cutie,you let me know what more we can teach you okay?"you nodded and didn't even realise but you slowly fell asleep ,Jake chuckling at the effect an orgasm had on you,taking a wet cloth and cleaning you before kissing your crown and falling asleep beside you on the couch.

♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎ ♫︎

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just a drabble,comments and reposts highly appreciated:)

part 2?

[wearylaurels]

Not sure if this has already been said but I was going through the illustrations for the Illustrated hunger games and I can’t stop thinking of the depiction the artist took for Thresh.

In the original book, Katniss describes Thresh as powerful and intimidating—a build on par with the Careers, strong and silent, a mysterious threat lurking on the edges of the arena that is able to hold out until the very last days of the 74th games. And you can see how this interpretation informed the casting choices made for him in the live action adaptations. For years, the only image we’ve had of Thresh is of this strong, unstoppable guy who had to be taken out by either the physically strongest guy in the Games, or by monsters designed by the Capitol itself.

And then, you see Thresh as he’s illustrated.

The low angle. The backlight throwing almost his entire figure into shadow. The way he holds aloft the rock he just killed Clove with—the fact that you can *see* Clove’s corpse in the background. Everything about this image is designed to paint Thresh as this hulking berserker, moments away from beating in your skull.

But then you see his face. Those eyes, welling with tears. The look of disbelief. The way his mouth is opened—what is he saying? Is he asking Katniss if she’s the one who killed Rue? The little girl who would sing when it was time to go home from the fields? Or is he stunned into silence as Katniss recounts how she buried Rue in flowers, how she sang to her in her final moments? In the books it’s mentioned that he never talked to anyone—was he preparing, like Katniss, to see everyone in that arena as a threat? How shocked must he have been that this random girl he never even spoke to, whose name he’s probably forgotten, go to such lengths to show kindness to someone who wasn’t from her district?

More than anything, he looks so *young.* His eyes are large and expressive—his face is soft, still retaining a little baby fat. Throughout the book, Katniss categorizes her fellow tributes as potential threats first and foremost—she often describes Thresh as a stoic, unflinching powerhouse, but then you see this and you’re taken aback. Because this? This isn’t the calculating, powerful predator we’ve been expecting. This is very clearly a *child.* A *boy*, who’s been ripped from his home to fight to the death in an arena for the entertainment of the ruling class. Who probably got his strength from climbing trees, hauling sacks of grain, collecting food. Who was so deeply impacted by the death of his district partner that just the suggestion from another girl’s mouth that she had killed her sent him into a rage. Who, in the books, refused to interact with or fight any of his fellow tributes until he heard Clove talking at the feast.

You start wondering—did he ever want to kill anyone? Like Peeta, did the idea of the Capitol turning him into a killer make him sick? Like Reaper, was it a refusal to play into the hands of the Capitol? Like Katniss, did the fact alone that he had killed leave its own horrible mark? Did he spend his final nights jumping awake as he relived Clove’s skull caving under the rock? When the mutts finally came for him, do you think he hesitated when he saw the tributes’ eyes staring back?

This is a *kid.* They’re all just *kids.* And that’s what fucks me up so much about this picture of Thresh—that it’s not just a depiction of him, but of all the tributes who have ever competed in the Hunger games. That no matter how they are reframed as victors and monsters and killers and spectacles, at the end of the day they were all children. Boys and girls forced to fight each other to the death, while their true enemies watched on, laughing.

[mindfulstudyquest]

❥﹒♡﹒☕﹒ 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗺 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁

you have a choice. you can stay in the room where you are the best, where people rely on you, turn to you to learn, to improve. you can satisfy your ego and bask in the awareness that no one is above you.

or you can step into the room where you are not the best — where, in fact, you might be the worst at what you do. you can finally realize that there will always be someone better than you, humble yourself, cry, and wallow in self-pity.

you can remain in the room where you are praised and admired, or you can surround yourself with people who are better and more experienced than you. you can accept that there’s still a long way to go, that your talent and effort are nowhere near enough, and struggle to keep up with those who are truly better than you. then — and only then — you can unlock your true potential.

it is only by believing you’re far behind others that you’ll improve more than you ever thought possible.

why discomfort breeds growth

studies show that we grow most when we step outside of our comfort zones. according to a study published in the « journal of experimental psychology », being exposed to challenging and unfamiliar tasks increases brain plasticity, the brain's ability to adapt and develop new neural pathways. when you’re the “worst” in the room, your brain is forced to engage, learn, and adapt — activating areas responsible for problem-solving and critical thinking.

the “zone of proximal development”

lev vygotsky, a developmental psychologist, introduced the concept of the "zone of proximal development" (zpd) — the sweet spot where tasks are just beyond your current abilities. learning happens most effectively within this zone, but only if you're willing to confront challenges head-on. surrounding yourself with people who are more skilled or experienced than you puts you directly into this zone.

embracing failure as a learning tool

a 2011 study by ayelet fishbach and lauren eskreis-winkler, published in the journal of experimental social psychology, highlighted that experiencing failure can actually improve motivation and learning. the researchers found that when individuals interpret failure as an opportunity to learn rather than a threat to their ego, they develop greater resilience and determination in achieving their goals. this approach transforms the initial discomfort of not being the best into a powerful driver for personal growth.

how to start stepping into the “hard” rooms

adopt a growth mindset: psychologist carol dweck's research highlights the power of a growth mindset — believing that skills and intelligence can improve with effort. view every setback as an opportunity to learn.

reframe comparisons: instead of feeling inadequate when others outperform you, see them as resources. ask questions, learn from their methods, and let their expertise challenge you.

set stretch goals: aim for targets that feel slightly out of reach. they should scare you just enough to make you uncomfortable — but also excited to try.

stepping into the room where you’re not the best is scary. it might hurt your pride. but science is clear: true growth comes from struggle, humility, and persistence. the next time you feel like you're the worst in the room, remember — you're in the perfect place to unlock your potential.

guys i really hope this makes sense because my english is broken this days. also it's exam season, so i'm taking my exams in spanish. my brain seems settled on my third language and i can't easily switch back to english. this days i can't even speak italian properly ush.

[missarchive]

What would late night heart to heart talks in Spencer’s bed be like?

goodmorning beautiful angels! thank you for your request, i very rarely get to write something like this <3

cw; comfort/fluff, spencer is a little insecure

The quiet of Spencer’s apartment feels sacred at this hour, the world beyond the walls of his modest space fading into insignificance. It’s just you and him, cocooned in the warmth of his bedroom. His bed is surprisingly inviting—layers of soft blankets in muted tones and a mountain of pillows that you’re certain he didn’t pick out himself. Still, it fits him, a blend of deliberate care and unintentional comfort.

Spencer is perched near the headboard, his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. His hair, slightly tousled, falls into his face, and he pushes it back absentmindedly, revealing those wide, earnest hazel eyes. He’s wearing a Star Trek t-shirt that’s seen better days, the print cracked and faded, and plaid pajama pants that don’t quite match but somehow suit him perfectly.

You’re sitting beside him, leaning against the headboard with one of his pillows hugged to your chest. The bedside lamp casts a soft, golden glow over the room, highlighting the faint flush on his cheeks as he speaks.

“You know,” he says, gesturing with his hands in that animated way of his, “if you’re feeling stuck, it might be a cognitive bias at play. There’s this concept called the ‘negativity bias.’ It’s a psychological tendency to focus more on negative events or feelings than positive ones. It’s evolutionarily adaptive because our ancestors needed to remember threats to survive, but it’s not exactly helpful when you’re trying to evaluate your own self-worth.”

You blink at him, momentarily stunned into silence by the sheer Spencer-ness of his response. Then you laugh, the sound breaking the quiet like a crackling fire.

“Only you, Spencer,” you tease, nudging his knee with your own, “could turn my self-doubt into a psychology lecture.”

His lips quirk into a shy smile, and he ducks his head, a strand of hair falling into his face again. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I just… I don’t like seeing you feel this way. And sometimes understanding the science behind it can help. At least, it helps me.”

Your heart squeezes at the vulnerability in his voice. “Don’t apologize,” you say softly. “I love it when you go full professor on me.”

Spencer’s cheeks flush deeper, and he clears his throat, trying to mask his embarrassment. “Well, um, another thing that might help is reframing your perspective. It’s like what Albert Einstein said: ‘Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.’” He pauses, glancing at you nervously. “Not that I’m suggesting you’re out of balance or anything—just that… even if you feel stuck now, you’re still moving forward. You just might not realize it yet.”

The sincerity in his words makes your chest ache. You reach over, resting your hand on his, and he stills under your touch, his long fingers twitching slightly before relaxing.

“Thanks, Spencer,” you say. “You always know how to make me feel better. Even if it involves quoting Einstein.”

He lets out a soft chuckle, the sound rare and precious. “I guess it’s my way of showing I care,” he admits, his voice barely above a whisper.

You shift closer, your knee brushing against his. “What about you?” you ask. “Who do you talk to when you feel like this?”

Spencer hesitates, his gaze dropping to your joined hands. “I… don’t, really,” he says finally. “I mean, I talk to the team sometimes, but it’s different. They’re like family, and I don’t want to burden them with… everything. So I guess I just… keep it to myself. I read, or I journal, or I lose myself in research.”

“Of course you do,” you say with a fond smile. “Let me guess—you have a journal filled with obscure facts and statistics?”

Spencer’s lips twitch. “Actually, I have several,” he admits. “One for general observations, one for case notes, and one for… personal thoughts.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Personal thoughts, huh? What kind of thoughts?”

He fidgets under your gaze, his ears turning pink. “Just… things I don’t feel comfortable saying out loud. Like how sometimes I feel like I don’t fit in, or how I worry that people only tolerate me because of what I can do, not because of who I am.”

The raw honesty in his voice makes your throat tighten. You shift closer, your hand sliding up to cup his cheek, gently forcing him to meet your eyes.

“Spencer,” you say firmly, “anyone who only values you for what you can do doesn’t deserve you. You’re brilliant, yes, but you’re also kind, and thoughtful, and funny in your own nerdy way. And anyone who doesn’t see that is missing out.”

His eyes glisten, and for a moment, you think he might cry. Instead, he leans into your touch, his hand coming up to rest over yours.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “I… I don’t know if I deserve that.”

“You do,” you say, your voice unwavering. “More than you know.”

The rest of the night unfolds like a story written just for the two of you. Spencer opens up in ways you never expected, sharing fragments of his childhood, his fears, his dreams. He talks about his love for science fiction and how it gave him hope as a kid, how he memorized whole books because it made him feel like he had control over something.

And you share too, your own stories and insecurities spilling out into the safe space of his bed.

By the time exhaustion pulls you both under, the room feels lighter, like you’ve carved out a small pocket of peace in an otherwise chaotic world. Spencer’s arm drapes hesitantly but securely over your waist, his body curling instinctively toward yours.

As you drift off, his breath warm against your shoulder, you can’t help but think that this—these late-night talks, this quiet intimacy—is everything you never knew you needed.

[neil-gaiman]

Hello Mr Neil,

I want to share how I feel about Sherryl the supermodel from Good Omens. You've answered a question previously when someone felt that her representation was lacking empathy (re the visual effects note in the script book, although the scene was cut), and I want to offer my thoughts to help people who felt that way about Sherryl.

The book (Good Omens, not the scripts, which I haven't read) plays with dark topics and makes them absurd and fun, aiming the jabs at the systems that (mis)guide or harm people (there are Beliefs, the People who Believe them, and the odd ways of living that make sense to them). Famine's D-Plan sums up the diet industry and a culture of starvation: of course we don't laugh /at/ Sherryl, we understand (because of everything the novel sets up) that like every other human she does her best with the frameworks she's got. It's empathetic, because that's what Good Omens is. Understanding that let me reframe the knee-jerk reaction I had on my first read of the scene in the book.

[For the TV show, though, as you've explained in the past, certain things had to be adapted to the time. I wonder sometimes - because I know that you do these things well - how you felt about approaching Sherryl nearly 30 years later.]

I think the trouble for me was that the scene in the book felt cruel at first. Now, I think 'A skeleton in a Dior dress' beautifully sums up the sacrifice of her humanity to become New York's top model. It's death dressed up - that's how such extremely-ill supermodels *should* appear to us if only we were unblinkered. One should see plainly the actual violence in an emaciated person's appearance. Maybe growing up with early 2000s aggressive body-shaming British TV shows and an overweight mother of Sherryl's generation as well as personal experience of anorexia made the 'skeleton' image feel cruel, now-overdone and recognisable to the nastiest unhealed bits in my psyche.

I think the frightened human animal in me initially recoiled from the dehumanisation. The pit of me jerked at the descriptions of Sherryl that felt like real insults, pulled straight from mainstream body-shaming media of my formative years. Of course, Good Omens predates this - thin was in, religiously, and the scene was subversive then - but that was my initial bodily feeling, not a thoughtful response. I describe it to illustrate where the challenge was, after we've gone from skinny worship in the 90s, to domestic skinny enforcement, to skinny shame, to wherever we are now in the popular orthorexic fitness culture and clean-eating minefield etc etc. Starvation dehumanises, and Sherryl was sick to the point of being inhuman - the scene under a microscope might feel complicit in dehumanisation to the sensibilities of teens and young adults today (for the same reason that people in Trafalgar Square can't see England), but within the book it humanises Sherryl by showing you plainly what awful thing has happened to her.

What the book did for me was let me delight in a sense of humour that makes difficult things totally absurd and therefore perfectly understandable. It told me, everyone is doing their best (to the best of their understanding), and when the fun-poking poked at my own pressure points, it said, lovingly, yes, you too. Many things about the book are like laughing with a friend or receiving a warm hug - it makes the big things so silly, and shared, and okay.

Thanks :) x <3

I am glad that is how you saw her. That is how we saw her. (I'm reminded of the only time I was ever at a high fashion event, where I found myself profoundly shocked by the incredible thinness of the models, and how sorry for them I felt, and how I wanted to feed them soup and stew and sandwiches. And of a high fashion model I knew a little, when she went out with a friend of mine, who told me that some girls she knew used heroin to stop the hunger pains, injecting themselves between their toes, and later I learned that my friend broke up with her when he learned she was a heroin addict.)

[marzipanandminutiae]

Also re: romanticizing Carmilla vs Dracula, it will never not be funny/sad to me that Dracula's evil is corroborated by multiple different independent sources all seeing either the same things or aspects that all corroborate and Carmilla's is....two old guys who are heavily "sources: dude trust me." Like yes. I have loved Carmilla since I was like 17. She's my classic lit girl right alongside Rosa Dartle and I know that yes she was evil. But MAN. It's very, very easy to go "actually Spielsdorf was a classic Creepy Old Man In Love With His Ward while Baron Vordenburg is about as credentialed as the vampire amulet guy who sold an anti-vampire amulet to a vampire" based on stuff like "god Spielsdorf we get it your niece was hot please stop saying that" and "oh cool Vordenburg's going on about vampire lore that every author after Le Fanu ignored, seems legit."

Basically one of these vampires is easy to reframe as actually not pure evil, and one of them is Dracula.

YES

One is MUCH more cut and dried than the other. I'm not asking for every adaptation to go that route- I just find it surprising (although not really) that there have been vastly more "Dracula as a positive character and a love interest for some female lead" adaptations, proportional to all adaptations of the story, than there have for Carmilla

like, for Carmilla there's...the web series, and a brief section in the Athena Club books? and that's it? I know there have been fewer adaptations thereof, but come on- there haven't been NONE

[abbotjack]

So here’s the thing, I haven’t watched Animal Kingdom and I am also insane. But Pope reminds me a lot of the Minotaur from the labyrinth. Like before he was shaped into a “monster” he was someone’s baby and there was love there once. And he’s always trying to find his way back to that. The Minotaur had a name too, but no one ever called him that. I often find myself wondering if, when Thesus dragged him out of the labyrinth, if he finally got to see the stars for which he was named again? Is Andrew hoping to see the stars again? He wasn’t always a weapon or a threat. But being down there in a dark all alone would make monsters of us all.

And to go on a different tangent, there’s a line by Ocean Vuong that I’ve been turning over in my head for years and I think might be applicable to Pope:

“What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.”

I didn’t have a point beyond needing to tell someone this. And also, your writing is incredible. I’m constantly looking to see what you’re up to while I’m rereading your work. Thank you!

God.

You don’t even know what you’ve done with this ask. I read it and just sat there. Staring. Because it didn’t just make sense—it shook something loose. Not because I hadn’t thought of Pope as a monster before—but because you reframed the word. You reminded me that the monster didn’t make the labyrinth. He was just left inside it.

And yeah. Pope is the Minotaur. Not the horror-movie version—blood-soaked and howling—but the tragedy. The cautionary tale no one ever finished reading. The part where the boy was born into a house that already saw him as wrong. Too much. Too dangerous. Too emotional. Too intense. Where people locked him away and then blamed him for what he became in the dark.

Because here’s what kills me—Andrew wasn’t always Pope.

He was a twin. He was somebody’s baby. He was Julia’s brother. And for a long time, he was just a kid trying to survive in a house where love came with strings attached and violence passed as loyalty. He was a boy who loved so deeply and so literally that when Smurf told him protecting the family meant hurting people, he didn’t even flinch. He just obeyed. Because what else do you do when the woman who gave you life also teaches you how to take it?

That’s the labyrinth.

It’s not some mythical stone maze—it’s Smurf’s house. It’s the way she shut the doors behind him. The way she turned him into a weapon and then acted like she had nothing to do with the blood on his hands. The way she gave him one job: Protect them. And how every time he tried to protect someone, he ended up hurting them instead.

And still—still—he wants out. Not out of the family, not really. But out of the story they wrote him into. The one where he’s the threat. The one where he’s always the one people warn each other about. “Pope’s crazy.” No—Pope is traumatized. Pope is exhausted. Pope is made of a love so feral and so misdirected it devours him from the inside out.

So your line—“I wonder if when Theseus dragged him out of the labyrinth, if he finally got to see the stars for which he was named”—it wrecked me. Because I don’t think anyone’s ever asked that. Not about the Minotaur. And definitely not about Andrew Cody. But yes. I think he’s still looking for them. I think every time he climbs onto that roof and stares out at Oceanside, he’s trying to find the stars again. Trying to remember that there was light before all this. That there was a boy before the monster. That he had a name before they took it from him and made it something to be feared.

And Ocean Vuong—don’t even get me started. That line has lived in the back of my brain for years like it was waiting for a name to attach itself to. “A hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.” That’s it. That’s Pope. That’s the way he stands in front of J with a gun in one hand and grief in the other. That’s the way he holds Lena like she’s breakable, even after everything he’s done. That’s how he stands over Julia’s grave like a ghost. That’s what it means to be him. That’s the tension I’m always writing toward—the impossibility of being both danger and protection. Of being the knife and the hands that pull it out.

And maybe this is where I get too personal, but I don’t care. Writing Pope feels like standing in a house you built out of barbed wire and trying to convince yourself it’s safe. It’s exhausting. It’s cathartic. It’s holy. Because I’ve never written anyone who makes me ache the way he does. Who feels like a myth I want to rewrite from the inside out. He’s not clean. He’s not neat. He’s not the hero. But he never stopped trying to be something more than what they made of him. And that—that’s the part that kills me.

So no, your message wasn’t pointless. You gave me a whole new frame to write from. You reminded me that monsters didn’t name themselves. And more importantly, you reminded me that the Minotaur—like Andrew—was always trying to get home.

Thank you for that. And thank you for reading. For seeing the shape of the man beneath the myth. For tracing the outline of the boy in the dark. I promise, he’s still in there.

[sorcave]

Let me start plainly: Hades is one of the most successful modern engagements with Greek mythology in recent memory. It is not perfect, but it is a rare case of adaptation that respects the source material enough not to strip it of its teeth, while still translating it into something emotionally rich, narratively satisfying, and artistically alive.

At its core, Hades is a roguelike video game centered on Zagreus, a relatively obscure figure in the ancient Greek canon—son of Hades in Orphic tradition, though even that is debated. The game follows his repeated attempts to escape the Underworld and reach the surface, all while uncovering layers of family history and divine politics. It’s a bold narrative move, not least because Zagreus barely appears in classical myth. That Supergiant chose him at all is telling: it freed them from the burden of expectations while allowing them to root their story in less mainstream corners of myth.

But where Hades excels is in how it understands the structure and tone of Greek mythology. The game is cyclical, repetitive, and ever-unfolding, just like the myths. You die, and die again, and die again, but every time you return, the story continues. The Underworld is not merely a backdrop; it’s a mechanism. You’re meant to fail, because failure in myth is often how knowledge is gained. Orpheus fails. Sisyphus fails. Theseus fails. The tragedy is baked into the form. Hades gets this. It plays with it.

The game’s cast of characters is also remarkable. The Olympians are charming, vain, powerful, and inconsistent. Their dialogue is often contradictory, their favors fickle, their personalities theatrical but pointed. Dionysus is both kind and careless. Aphrodite is sultry but casually cruel. Zeus is authoritative and aloof, charming until the moment he isn't. These are not modern humans in togas. They feel like gods—larger than life, emotionally opaque, and delightfully unreliable. Even Hades himself is written with a gravitas that mirrors his mythic portrayal: stern, cold, not unkind, but certainly not approachable.

Hades does not fall into the trap of moralizing every story beat. It doesn't feel the need to make its gods into metaphors for trauma or bad parenting, though it edges close. Hades and Persephone’s relationship, for instance, is reimagined in a way that moves away from the abduction narrative, presenting them instead as estranged lovers separated by mutual regret. It’s a softened interpretation, but not an unreasonable one. It doesn’t erase the violence of the myth; it reframes it into a question of agency, which is a welcome nuance in a landscape where most retellings sanitize entirely or vilify without care.

There is real strength in how Hades handles its characters' dignity. Achilles is allowed to be a mentor and not a tragic object. Patroclus is written with reserve and quiet depth. Their story is not The Song of Achilles, and it’s better for it. It’s less about grief, more about the slow work of healing over eternity. Even characters like Thanatos, often miscast in modern media as a villain or shadowy death-dealer, are given room to exist with complexity and restraint. The game doesn’t try to flatten mythic figures into tropes. It lets them be, and that, in itself, is a form of respect.

However, it is not without flaws. The game's tone can sometimes slide into quippy modernity. Zagreus’ voice acting often leans into a sarcastic, overly casual register that undercuts the weight of the world he's in. His interactions with characters like Megaera or Theseus occasionally veer into the territory of sitcom banter, which feels out of place in an otherwise richly atmospheric narrative.

And though Hades draws on deep cuts of myth, it rarely engages directly with the ritual or religious dimensions of those stories. The gods are characters, not forces. There's very little engagement with fate, miasma, or the sacred. For a game that deals with death and the afterlife, it is surprisingly secular. This is understandable—it is, after all, a game designed to be played and replayed—but it limits the scope of what Greek myth can be. What we are left with is a pantheon of personalities, but not quite a pantheon of powers.

Still, what Hades accomplishes is significant. It is a modern myth that feels alive, not in the sense of being relatable, but in the sense of being dynamic. It understands that mythology is not about neat arcs or moral lessons. It is about repetition, inheritance, contradiction, and resistance. It is about descent, and what it costs to ascend.

For that alone, Hades deserves its place among the rare few retellings that do not diminish their source material in the name of accessibility. It offers myth as a world to inhabit, not a story to consume.

[comicaurora]

Nick Bostrom's "Fable of the Dragon Tyrant," which CGP Grey adapted into a video, left me feeling unsatisfied, and I got a certain unsettling vibe about the entire story.

I don't think it was the dragon's lack of agency, that just makes it an unusually traditional Western dragon.

You're a master at picking narratives apart to figure out why they don't satisfy. Do you have any insight, opinions, or cracktheories about why this story might be unsatisfying to some folks?

Probably because it's a very unsubtle metaphor casting the dragon as death, and death itself as a cruel, malevolent beast devouring and subjugating humanity for its own whims. This is very much intentional on the part of the writer. The paradigm of the story is that the dragon is huge, terrifying and incalculably cruel, and everyone lives their lives in the shadow of its terror or are just too deluded to recognize that it's COMING TO EAT THEM OH GOD

Intrinsic in this metaphorical structure is the idea that the dragon, aka death, is an artificial imposition on the natural order, and if we just got rid of the big ol' mean dragon, everybody would live forever and be fine. Accepting that the dragon exists is framed as a sign of desperation or even cowardice. This is an understandable read when facing a monster that only SEEMS timeless and inevitable (like LeGuin's thoughts comparing the current state of capitalism to the historical acceptance of the divine right of kings) but becomes bizarre when applied to something as legitimately factual as biological death. It's not even framed as unnatural death - the dragon specifically gets sent mostly old people. The metaphor is very explicitly about trying to frame death from old age as a big horrible dragon that everyone only thinks is unstoppable.

I get what they're going for here. The purpose of this story is to make the audience question if death is a true inevitability or if it can be fought, staved off, even defeated. But in the process, the story frames the systems of the world that have formed around death - doctors, pallative caregivers, will executors - as macabre gears in the machine dedicated to the genocidal cruelty of feeding the dragon.

In the dragon tyrant framing, these people only exist to make the rest of the world more okay with flinging themselves down the gullet of the dragon and to streamline the process by which everybody dies. By casting death as the enemy, everybody whose jobs are based on the compassionate act of comforting and aiding people suffering from loss become reframed as collaborators with the incalculably evil enemy, and everyone who's ever accepted their own death becomes a loser. This is a deeply cruel way to frame people who dedicate their lives to helping people through one of the hardest and most tragic aspects of life.

Damn, that's fucked up. Look at this eloquent idiot, explaining why we should be okay with letting a big dragon eat us because it's the natural order. Clearly he is wrong and it's not debasing at all to want to stay alive and not get eaten by a big dragon. This is a fallacy of false analogy: death is like being eaten by a big mean dragon. All his arguments look ridiculous when applied to getting eaten by a big mean dragon, therefore they must be ridiculous when applied to dying when your organs start failing because they've been running nonstop for nine decades and biological systems accumulate wear and tear like literally everything else in the universe.

Entropy increases; systems break down, from DNA to planetary orbits. Successfully shoot down the dragon and you'll end up outliving everything you thought was eternal, even the stars. The goal of immortality isn't really to personally witness the sun exploding, it's to have more good time. It's to make your twenties last into your sixties. It's to keep your back painless and your vision good for longer. We want to postpone the story's end as long as we can, and so we extrapolate "more time" into "I never want to die, I want to be young and healthy and hot forever" even though "forever" doesn't exist. To look to "forever" is to understand that your culture and language will drift, your home will eventually crumble out from under you, your shoreline will erode and change, your climate will transform, your tectonic plate will subduct or shatter, your moon's orbit will slow and tidally lock, and eventually your sun will start burning helium and cook your planet. You don't want "forever" to look like that, you want it to look like your twenties felt. But at that point you aren't fighting the Big Mean Dragon That Eats People, you're fighting the ocean and the biosphere and the earth and the stars, trying to hold them in place against entropy so your immortality can have an equally immortal world to enjoy it in. No, this argument doesn't want true immortality, it wants their twenties to last longer. But it can't admit that.

Back to the story. There's a condescending and spiteful tone in the narration. Death (being eaten by a big mean dragon) is OBVIOUSLY awful and we should all be fighting as hard as we can to make it stop happening. Even a child can see it.

The story even helpfully adds a lengthy moral explanation at the end, in case you didn't understand that the dragon was the inevitability of death and we should dedicate all our resources to figuring out how to make a big rocket and shoot it.

"Nobody should ever die" is generally understood to be a childish dream with extremely obvious and unpleasant consequences that would turn its realization into an unending and waking nightmare, and once out of the confines of easy metaphor, the story tries to act like that wasn't what it was just saying. But its more realistic proposed substitute, "It would be great if people could live longer and have more healthy, youthful years in them," is probably the world's most uncontroversial statement. This story frames it like a bold revelation that the world will attempt to beat down and crush out of a misguided acceptance that Big Mean Dragon comes for us all. It's a morality fable whose conclusion is "I hope science improves the length and quality of our lives, potentially even to the point where we never have to die at all," which has been the number one goal of huge swaths of science since the invention of agriculture. This is not a bold or controversial take. It's just being written as though we're all looking at the naked emperor and pretending he's wearing pants.