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reluctantfarburgblog · 1 year

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Life Giving Stories

A few months ago, I read The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. It was amazing, it blew my mind, and left me feeling philosophical. Or perhaps existential. And, if I’m honest, I couldn’t tell you a single thing I learned, even though I feel like I learned a lot.

There’s a line in American Gods by Neil Gaiman where a character says that his tales are “imaginative re-creations, truer than the truth.”

I tripped so hard when I first read that line. Tales truer than the truth? I was still deep in my days when the only truth I wanted to put any stock in was in things that could be measured and quantified with tools. It wasn’t until I read a line in a fiction book that I realized not everything I valued could be analyzed in a centrifuge.

“Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape…Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy.”

(That’s from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather. Yes, I recommend reading it if you haven’t. Go, go, go, go!)

It took me a while to realize that I had forgotten something from my old theology class; some things aren’t the truth in and of themselves. They point to the truth instead.

I’ve come to believe that that’s what we appreciate and enjoy in stories, it’s what makes them life-giving. It’s why we tell them over and over. They either hold up an example of something we should revile and conquer or something that is “truer than the truth.” We tell ourselves these stories about truth, friendship, justice, triumph, hope, love, redemption, renewal, and all the wonderful things we love to love because some days our lives do not look like that. Sometimes, those days stretch on for whole seasons, and we may find ourselves going, “I don’t feel like the hero now, I haven’t felt like the hero in so long I don’t remember what it feels like. But I know how good stories end, and I want a good ending for this story. I need a good ending for this story.”

Let me tell you another nerd story from life because I’ve already made a fool of myself, so why not go the whole way? This could sound odd, I know I feel odd admitting it, but the game Dark Souls had an enormous, positive influence on my life.

I’ll try to summarize the game real quick for those not in the know: your character must take a journey through many treacherous lands without ever really knowing why you’re doing it. There are towering monsters in you’re way, and rest assured, you’re going to die over and over again trying to beat them. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and some helpful, sunny fellows will come to your aid, but for the most part, this is a journey that you’ll have to take on your own. The journey will feel long, grinding even, but every step forward, every foe vanquished, and every victory won makes it worth it.

So, why was this dork game such a positive influence on me? It taught me to be resilient. No, seriously. I made it, one death at a time, through such horrible places as the Undead Burg, the Depths, aptly named Blighttown, the Catacombs, and all the way to the end at the Kiln. If I made it through all of that, well, maybe I should give it a go with whatever new challenge I was facing in life. I might get knocked flat on my face twenty times, but why not go for a twenty-first? I can honestly say that it’s what gave me the attitude to confront my depression head-on when I realized it was destroying my life. There was a time that I nearly gave up on my manuscript. I remember my finger hovering over that delete button, but I didn’t have the heart to do it, and I walked away. A couple of days later, that Dark Souls gremlin was prodding me like the heat of a determined sun-bro, encouraging me to “get up and give it one more go.”

Thank God for that Dark Souls gremlin. It took ten years, but my book being published made it worth it in the end.

If there’s anything I hope you take away from this post, it is this: whatever it is you’re facing, whatever it is that you feel hung up on, give it one more go. Be smart about it, find a different strategy to attack it with even, but give it one more go. Life-giving stories start out as myths, and they find their apotheosis when we recreate them in our lives. When we are inspired to overcome our difficulties, to see our dreams made true, to live compassionately, generously, and make the world a better place, we touch the magic of timeless stories and show how they can be truer than truth.

(The Dark Souls community is (in)famous for its terse motto of “Git gud.” There’s an argument to be made that could apply to anything in life that you’re passionate about. Writing included.)

\[T]/

#my writing #terry pratchett #neil gaiman #dark souls #praise the sun #stories #life giving stories

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clouvu · 3 days

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yknow what. *undooms your yuri again*

#genshin impact #arlecchino #peruere #clervie #arlevie #hi they still make me feel mentally ill #finished arle's story quest and like the brainrot has gotten worse actually #obsessed with the fact that Clervie is like the only girl to look at Peruere and say “I can fix her” and ACTUALLY fucking fix her #well like. for the most part.#shes still a little bit fucked up but in her defense clervie ended up giving up on life and the pursuit of freedom and died in arle's arms #WHICH YKNOW ADDED A HINT OF EXTRA TRAUMA but we dont talk about that

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aalghul · 27 days

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once again thinking about jason as duke’s robin. he’s ~4 years younger than jason, and that’s puts him at 8-12 during Jason’s time as robin. that’s prime time to get attached to your local kid vigilante before your own life goes downhill.

and if we try to keep duke’s meeting with bruce in zero year + duke’s age (so he can remember the meeting and hold that conversation with bruce), he has to be around 8. if he starts following batman through the news at that time because of the mess that just happened, the robin he sees is probably jason. I’ve literally connected the dots

#we are not of course keeping zero year itself. what a mess.#maybe smth very similar so it’s still the riddler causing mass chaos!#the titans so we actually keep the no robin physically present in the story part the same #look. if we want zero year convo we need to give bruce a robin at the time. it could be 17-18yr old who’s not even in gotham bc he’s with #by time tim shows up he’s already attached to jason #and then steph’s robin suddenly for a bit but only for a bit. and then tim comes back but he’s in bludhaven for a while #i do think duke would think steph is really cool tho. and they reasonably couldve met as civilians #and then duke’s busy bouncing around foster homes the streets and looking for his parents #i wanted to talk about how much i love it and the tags are just be working out a timeline for post crisis events & post flashpoint ones (an #some of duke’s important events are related to things which are no longer canon. such is life. let’s do our best based on ages)#duke thomas #jason todd

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timothylawrence · 8 months

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"Wyll is boring" he is the personification of daddy issues. he hides away at a beach TWICE and leaving the tav to go find him because he's not used to having people around who care abt him. he's been running around the sword coast for seven years just killing things and saving people because he got EXILED and chose to prove himself to his father and just help others. he spends his time training kids how to defend themselves. you find out his dad is the ARCHDUKE of Baldur's Gate. he almost drowned once trying to find mermaids. he has a literal devil haunting him that watches his every move. He managed to stop an entire cult of Tiamat AT AGE 17!!!!!!! he loves clowns.

Wyll isn't boring, ppl just haven't taken the time to explore his story and it SHOWS

#ewbie.txt #bg3 #wyll ravengard #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #I’m not gonna state the obvious as to why individuals may not be giving him attention but. it is disheartening.#he has such a wonderful arc that really comes to life as you advance on the story #especially in act three. hes literally brooding the entirety of act 3 mourning his life and his father and everything around him #this is all CANON non determent stuff btw!!! this isnt choice based!!!#wyll enjoyers RISE!!!#(the answer is r@cism btw. like. hes not boring. ppl r just racist)

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foldingfittedsheets · 2 years

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Oh my god. I need to share another story of my new friend making today. So my friends husband says, very casually, as we’re about to leave for the ren faire, “Yeah, it’s like my story about fucking a chicken.”

And of the four people present I was the only one who was shocked. The others all nodded as if to say, yes yes, we know, the chicken fucking.

So he explained, when a progressive person is analyzing a behavior they will typically use the metric, Harm/No Harm. They may not like things in the No Harm category but they wouldn’t object.

Conversely, a more conservative mindset used something like eight metrics. Authority/No Authority Moral/Not Moral, things like that.

So, he posited if you want to sound out someone’s mindset (and you’re willing to live with the repercussions) you can ask: if a man buys a dead chicken from the store, cleans it thoroughly, then fucks it, and then eats it himself…?

I listened in dawning horror, both rapt and disgusted. But into the growing pause I whispered, “No harm…” because it really has no effect on me or anyone else if a man fucks a dead chicken. I don’t like it, I think he’s a weird dude, but like. That’s his dick. But a more conservative person will hear that and object on moral grounds despite not being harmed.

It’s been haunting me all day, so please enjoy.

#my life #story #funny #can you imagine the sheer alienation of even asking this though?#there’s some bridges I’d burn and maybe I will pose this to someone down the line if I really don’t give a shit about maintaining niceties

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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 5 months

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Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girl found dead in a hidden room.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #lan xichen #jin guangyao #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #qin su #EDIT: Tumblr published an earlier draft with only half the notes I wrote so: late entry on my JGY thoughts.#Unlike the mystic powers of the stockmarket (what the OG meme is referring to) I think this situation calls for more active investigation.#qin su is such a deeply tragic character to me and I really wish we got a bit more from her.#Love everyone who sent me messages about her after the last time she appeared.#I think she needs a spin off of her being a transmigrator SO badly.#MDZS has so many interesting characters - but it sometimes fails to give them the proper room to really develop past a role in the plot.#That's just the consequence of writing a story like MDZS. Not every character in a book *needs* to have a rich inner life and backstory!#To do so would bog down the story and obliterate any notion of pacing. It's just not possible.#Jin Guangyao (nee Meng Yao) is unfortunately not free from this leeway rule. He is the culprit of this murder mystery plot #and thus NEEDS to encapsulate the themes of the book. And personally he's a 7 out of 10 at best on this front (in the AD).#MDZS is about rumours twisting reality and working towards truth. And about how people & situations are rarely ever black & white #JGY has his motivations. He's well written in regards to his actions making sense for his character.#What started as good traits (drive to succeed & improve his image) became twisted over time (do anything to maintain his image)#and it's a good parallel to WWX! He has the same arc (with different traits)! Bonus points for IGY in that regard.#but man....by the time we confront this guy for murder there's not a lot of grey morality. He's just...deep in the hole *he* dug.#There's a beautiful tragedy to it! More on JGY in later comics - this is getting pretty long already!

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afreakingmilkshake · 18 days

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mk holding a stick cus why not ?

#its actually a little hard to explain but the stick a representation of my art journey and is a reoccurring thing in my sketchbooks #giving mk the stick shows his connection to all my art #my art is all connected one way or another- it is a story of my life #anyways. mk :333 #meta knight #kirby #traditional art #my art

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iwanderthroughthesenights · 17 days

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Something that stood out to me a lot from this album is the intentional de-personalization of extremely personal feelings and stories. She seems to have decided for this project that in order to be free to be completely honest in her art (which tbf she always has been but never as much as this album), she needs to visualize herself, and thus her stories, as a third party, an external entity on which she's conducting a post-mortem examination. Her 2016 self and the hate train she suffered after Snakegate is reimagined as Cassandra, a character from Greek mythology who had visions in her dreams but no one believed her and instead she was punished. Her anxiety of holding her lover's career back is instead described as The Albatross, this girl who everyone has been warned to stay away from bc she causes problems and is a liability. Her sweet, innocent childhood self is depicted as a robin, a feisty little bird full of life, dreams, and potential who has yet no clue of the cruelty of the world.

Consequently, the characters in her life are, too, bestowed upon fictional characters from stories that have been told before and/or are familiar in some way to the listener (aIMee the girl from this allegorical high school which is actually Kim Kardashian, Peter the boy who never grew up and stayed forever in Neverland who actually is her long-term ex partner, both her and her lover's separate romantic involvements imagined as Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus, her real life therapist referred to as The Professor etc). By using the representation of well-known characters from widely popular stories and myths with names and all, she creates an even deeper line of emotional connection with the listener. Then, the 4th wall is delightfully broken in Clara Bow, where she refers to Clara Bow and Stevie Nicks as the inherent precedents to Taylor Swift. But what's even more brilliant about this is that in this way, she is making Taylor Swift into a character in and of itself. She is actually attempting to externalize Taylor Swift from Taylor the real-life woman. By narrating her stories through tangible entities presented as completely external to herself, she is inhibited by the safety of this fictional/allegorical lense through which she's allowing her stories to be consumed, and as a result, she has unlimited freedom to be more personal than she has ever been in her art before.

#this gives protection to not only her privacy and her right to a personal life but also the privacy of the real ppl in her life #without her needing to restrain from telling stories that real life ppl are inevitably a part of #it's also just a genuis move as an artist and creator #ttpd #taylor swift #allegory #clara bow #peter pan #robin #The Albatross #thanK you aIMee

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axolotlclown · 2 months

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We need to remember that Shubble stated that Wilbur would manipulate and gaslight friends and family. With this, we must be patient with streamers that were close to Wilbur. This was likely surprising and shocking for them. They may need time to come to terms with what has happened.

I have been vocal about how important it is for men to be critical about abusive behaviors. However, Wilbur had many close friends—some would even consider him family—and now they may feel they hardly knew him at all.

There is a deep stress felt by viewers. It is difficult to think we have given any amount of time or money to an abuser. Could you imagine a close friend right now? The pain and betrayal must sear. They need time to understand what has happened and come to terms with it. Many of them may not be live in the coming days (weeks even).

That being said, as time passes, criticism may be necessary. Complacency is not an option. Men that are willing to ignore abuse to protect an abuser are just as pathetic as the abusers themselves.

Let's give this situation time to breathe. I ask that we give patience and courtesy to those close to Wilbur at this time. But please do not forget that this happened. There may be a few streamers hoping to lay low and then drop a collab in a few months. Do not let them. This is too important.

#for now #the best thing we can do is spread awareness about abuse and offer support to domestic violence victims #i also want to add #that any previous art made about him was made with pure intentions #obviously its up to each individual to decide where the line is #but maybe lets not support him monetarily moving forward #that seems to be the move #anyway #please be kind to each other and give each other space #especially domestic violence survivors that may be here with us #and those who may have realized they were/are abused from shubbles story #i want to offer her and everyone around as much support as i can #if any domestic violence survivers have any stories they want to share #my dms and askbox are open #if anyone suspects that someone in their life may be abusing someone #this offer is open to you too #we need to talk about this #thoughts of dante #wilbur soot #shubble #im tagging this under shubble even though the post isnt really about her but i want the tags of this post to reach #whoever needs to read them

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heymacy · 1 month

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IAN GALLAGHER + his journey with bipolar disorder

╰┈➤ “At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you’re living with this illness and functioning at all, it’s something to be proud of, not ashamed of." - Carrie Fisher

#happy world bipolar day to all my bp babies #(more thoughts at the end of the tags)#shameless #shamelessnet #shamelessedit #ian gallagher #cameron monaghan #*macygifs #bipolar disorder #hello pals how are we doin #i made this gif set in july of 2023 and never posted it because 1) i was terrified to share it and potentially see Bad Takes in the tags #and 2) because my hyperfixation was waning. and while both of those things are still mostly true (the fixation comes and goes)#i feel like it's really important to share as ian's bipolar storyline was not only so vital to his character it was a bit of representation #that isn't often given to the disorder and those (like myself) who live with it every single day #world bipolar day is a day where we can both celebrate ourselves and our resilience and also raise awareness of the reality of the disorder #which is both terrifying and beautiful at its core. this disease is not a death sentence or a sentence to an unfulfilled and miserable life #while there are challenges galore when it comes to balancing life with this disorder it IS possible to live a full and productive life #and i think it's really important to have representation of that in media - and while shameless dropped the ball on a LOT of storylines #over the years THIS is the one they really fucking nailed and i am incredibly grateful #i first started watching shameless while in the midst of a major depressive episode and i was later (finally) diagnosed during an extended #hypo/manic episode - this show and ian's storyline got me through so much and made me feel so seen and validated in my struggles #world bipolar day is also vincent van gogh's birthday (happy birthday buddy) who was posthumously diagnosed with bipolar disorder #and who experienced both depressive and hypo/manic episodes during his lifetime (and was regularly institutionalized)#it takes a lot of help and support to keep us going. it takes the support of our family and friends and *most* of all #it takes patience and kindness and understanding - which is so so so easy to give if you are willing to love and listen #so please. be willing. listen to our stories. be patient with us. show us love without conditions. support us in any way you can.#we are worth it #i promise #anyway. that's really all i wanted to say. happy world bipolar day to those who celebrate (me) and may all of us living with this disorder #go on to live happy fulfilling beautiful magical lives

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just-an-enby-lemon · 8 months

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"The Mechanisms were Jonathan Sims college band" and "Jon is the secret real past of Jonny D'ville" are both great takes but I present "Jon's descend into an unwilling antichirst figure is The Mecs new album and Jonny plays him in the songs because they just have very similar voices for some reason."